This project is my first at the Architectural Association, London, and was done during my 4th year as a student in Diploma 2 The New Domestic Landscape, lead by Didier Faustino and Kostas Grigoriadis. It presents a proposal on how we could avoid a future generic megacity development of Havana, by introducing a new type of flexible housing redefining group and collective living by using autonomous user defined spaces, recognizing the individuals’ needs and wills, based on Cubans' stories about the physical and social gaps throughout the city of Havana.

 

The main idea is to allow for a range of different ownership methods and territorial divisions, creating fluid and flexible boundaries able to adapt to social- and need-based changes. This would then contribute with a diversity to the Cuban housing stock but also allow for the additions to become independent of a site's footprint, thus, allow it to merge with the existing urban fabric.

 

Below is most of my portfolio of the year, but please view the very crusial case study of the Shikumen, which I conducted at the beginning of the year and highly influenced and formed the course of the project.