HOUSES FOR CHANGE

The site where the project finds location is the slum Sangkat chbar ampov pit in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. The goal is to handle the wild urban areas in the slum and solve the lack of urban planning, maintaining slum dwellers behaviors, making feel them comfortable in new dwellings and to prevent residents by experiencing a change in their lifestyles, but rather creating an improvement in their way of life.
The work has started from specific studies of the human difficulties, the social context, the traditional Khmer culture, the climate and the sources available in the site. The idea is to create a dwelling system, raised up off the ground, where each house is reachable through a narrow pedestrian bridge. The typical house, within this row-houses system, is designed with a bamboo structure and other natural materials as palm leaves and sand and recycled elements as tires and metal sheets. The concept shows a flexible house with a rational composition of repeated modules, where each contains its own domestic use. This simplicity allows to move in other locations and rebuild it easily. A key role is played by the panels, which compose the architecture, used as rigid resistant envelope, as interior partitions and also as furniture. The tenant feels the responsibility to arrange the domestic flexible space, indeed he can change the interior throughout the day just stacking up the panels.
The whole design brings to an almost free -cost solution, since every household could build his own house with the aid of the local materials.
The indoor comfort is provided by a series of sustainable solutions without any systems. This allows to build a low-cost basic dwelling, reaching a good quality of life.