The Growing Houses

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The Growing Houses

Cian Doughan & Margareta Luzia Pilot

The Growing Houses was a project that took place during the module urban patterns in Fachhochschule in Freising, Germany, during the erasmus summer semester 2015. The brief of the project was titled 'designing with a slope' and the site was located in Dettingen, near lake Konstanz in southern Germany. The finished design was not only to work on the slope located on site but was to work on more extreme and more gentle slopes in different locations and situations.

Site plan, Dettingen

The slope located on site in Dettingen had a drop of 20 meters from its highest point to lowest. There was a very thin roadway from the south-east end of the site connecting to the north-west area of the site. At the southern end of the site was the main school of the town as well as bus connections to the centre of Konstanz. The main street of the town was also a two minute walk south from the site.

Sheet one showing the concept and daytime conditions of the growing houses.

The basic principal behind the houses are that they are made up of a 5 meter by 8 meter modules which can be placed along side each other, as well as on top of each other to create different size dwellings. This helps to intergrate various types of users in to the housing complex. Therefore the complex is aimed at a diverse group of users so as you could have a student living in a single module while a family could live in a house made of three modules. This is where the idea of the 'growing houses' came from as the house itself can grow with the family and their needs.

Sheet two showing night time conditions as well as sections on slope varients.

The central spine of the scheme creates a link through the complex from the northern end of the site to the south end with a market space created at the base. The branches coming out from the central spine of the scheme give easy access to all of the housing units located on site. The cantilevered building at the south-east end of the site is to be used as a nursing home for the elderly with communal spaces and private rooms with private balconies as well as communal balconies facing over the central stairway.