Search results

(1 - 2 of 2)
HOUSING CHINESE DREAMS
Title
HOUSING CHINESE DREAMS
Creator
Wong, Jing Jie
Date
2017, 2017-07
Description
The Chinese Dream is President Xi Jinping's integrative and transformative vision for China, with the goals to achieve "a great rejuvenation...
Show moreThe Chinese Dream is President Xi Jinping's integrative and transformative vision for China, with the goals to achieve "a great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation". However, the realities in China seem to be far from the conditions of a dream. The emerging Chinese middle class are eager to join the army of slaves to their impossible mortgages for their bedroom town homes, in fulfillment of what the modern Chinese psychodynamics have collectively decided to be a necessity in pursuance of a good life. So, where are the capacities of the Chinese Dream for the individuals in this modern times? The dream has to address the deteriorating sense of belonging and home of the millions of working middle class, before it can even consider itself a collective effort. The individuals should be encouraged to dream and strive, in order for this to happen, the fundamentals of a good living environment must be collectively accessible. Studies on the collective forms of housing in China's recent history had shed light onto the importance of urban elements such as the hutong network and socialist work unit in social control. However, a case study on China's gated housing models had also opened up discussions on what a complete razing of culture, history and forced resettlements had done in the name of providing quantities of housing within China's neoliberal shift. This thesis explores the elements of providing quality living environments for this group of people that have been called upward-mobile, tech-savvy and entrepreneurial. With the idea of owning a house becoming increasingly important to the Chinese middle class, architecture attempts to bridge gaps between the realities of the sub-par housing towers in gated peripheral areas and the dying traditions of collectivism. By looking at the success of the hutong and danwei dormitories as spaces for social order as well as spaces for commercial and social interaction, a translation of this is deemed to be emulated in modern housing. A super-hybrid of dwellings and designed "programmatic infection" is bound to happen by studying the development of "dream-like" housing prototypes in history.
M.S. in Architecture, July 2017
Show less
ENERGY INNOVATIONS IN BUILDINGS AND URBAN FABRICS
Title
ENERGY INNOVATIONS IN BUILDINGS AND URBAN FABRICS
Creator
Hirematt, Chandrasekharaiah Ashish
Date
2021
Description
In his keynote speech on the "Infrastructures of Integration" at the 5th International LafargeHolcim Forum for Sustainable Construction, Ricky...
Show moreIn his keynote speech on the "Infrastructures of Integration" at the 5th International LafargeHolcim Forum for Sustainable Construction, Ricky Burdett, Professor of Urban Studies at the London School of Economics & Political Science (LSE), said “…you can actually invest in better infrastructure to do things better.” However, the population grows at the rate of almost one billion per decade. With about four fifths of it happening in urban areas, the challenge for sustainability is huge and the key for the future.Urban fabrics are expanding both vertically as well as horizontally to accommodate the population growth. With the scale of expansion happening, challenges such deforestation, resource depletion, habitat destruction, energy production and consumption are some of the major challenges that need to be focused on ecologically. It is also important to note that ecological solutions are very highly dependent on social and economic progress of the society. Energy efficient design is one which does zero or minimal damage to the environment while meeting the energy needs of the society. This thesis will discuss the concept of developing energy efficient designs as well as net zero designs in urban settings. With the help of three projects, this thesis aims to discover the challenges along with the obvious advantages of such designs. The first experiment is to look at the reduction of energy consumption in the city of Chicago with multiple neighborhoods set up in an iron grid. It was observed that taller buildings are much more energy efficient due to the reduction of surface area exposed to the external environment. This observation was used to develop a climate specific energy efficient urban fabric design in the city of Shenzhen. The design of the off-shore tower involves tackling larger issues such as the pandemic while having energy production as a bi-product of the same. Thus, the thesis argues that investment in infrastructure to build a better infrastructure should be done to solve social and economic challenges which will, in turn make it easier to produce energy efficient designs.
Show less