Designing residential projects has become nothing short of a challenge. Whether it being for the housing crisis and its repercussions, the heightened environmental awareness, or the fact that people are spending more time inside their dwellings, architects are now focused on building projects that look beyond the typical house and that provide answers to questions like: how can architects offer residents privacy and comfort while maintaining a connection with the outdoors? And how can these spaces cater to the spatial and functional needs of all family members, especially when the lines between work, play, and rest are blurred?
From a Matrix-inspired housing compound in Saudi Arabia to the world's first steel 3D printed structure of modular houses in Sardinia, this round up of unbuilt apartments showcases how architects have reimagined the traditional residential typology, and looked into how these structures can cater to their users, the site, and the environment. This round up also includes projects from the Netherlands, Siberia, Sweden, and Italy.
Read on to discover eight large-scale housing projects, along with their descriptions from the architects.
Brf Leanderklockan
Brf Leanderklockan is a development of 18 apartments in Ystad, southern Sweden, designed by Jonas Lindvall. The project-currently under construction. consists of three separate blocks containing six apartments. Apartments range from 79 sqm to 143.5 sqm, each with unique layouts and features such as double ceiling height volumes and mezzanine floors. Ground floor apartments have sliding window sections measuring up to 5.2 m high, that open out to northwest facing patios, while the rest have their own terrace / balcony.
Ranco Luxury Apartments
The project is based on a matrix in which the iteration of apartments acquires the same essential ingredients that embrace privacy and create a superior protected living experience (Protection from the intense hot climate of the district); hence, each unit acts as an organic cell that can change its morphology according to the tenant’s needs, synchronizing with real-time environments. Consequently, a perforated sliding shield skin depicted by a modern Arabic pattern resides in each outer corner.
Floating Architecture for Everybody
The main goal is to create a sustainable and affordable community on the water. Whereas there are many social housing projects along the Netherlands it has never been designed a social floating village before. Since the community is located on the water this provides multiple benefits. On one hand it allows dealing with possible flooding(s)taking into account the rising sea level. In the other hand it promotes a more sustainable solution than standard social housings solutions considering there is no necessity of land.
Open House
Open House is a design research project that seeks to challenge prevailing urban housing models and investigate the capacity of residential environments to alleviate loneliness and social isolation. The project approaches urban housing design through the lens of environmental psychology and cognitive neuroscience, exploring parameters of geometry, ecology, and modularity as means to forge connection and build trust among residents. Open House aspires to serve as a prototype for a new typology of housing that foregrounds social inclusion, connection, and wellbeing.
LAM Residential Complex
Conjunction and syncretism as starting points, these became the main concept and project's guiding lines: synthesis. With a clear definition of these ideas, we proceed to the design phase. A solid concept made design decisions easier.
House by the Lake
House by the Lake is a residential area project designed by the development company Brusnika in Tyumen, Siberia. The plot is located in the vicinity of residential clusters dating from the 1980-90s, random low-rise houses and modern housing estates. It is a promising area with well-developed social, commercial and recreational amenities.
Exosteel Mother Nature
MASK Architects has designed the world's first steel 3D printed structure of modular houses for Nivola Museum’s visitors, tourists and artists in Orani, city of Sardinia. Öznur Pınar Çer has Inspired from the work of "Costantino Nivola", they have designed “Exosteel Mother Nature” modular houses which they have taken inspiration from him sculpture called the “La Madre”. The house is composed firstly by a hollow central column inserted for one / third of its length into the ground and by various organic branches that support the three floors of the building. On each floor a perimeter frame divides and supports the facades made up of panels modelled to follow the organic shape of the house.
Robin Wood
Marc Koehler Architects, ANA Architects
Centrumeiland in the IJburg district of Amsterdam will soon be home to Robin Wood, the most sustainable and affordable wooden urban block in the Netherlands in the mid-market rental sector. Robin Wood is revolutionary in terms of modular, prefab solid wood construction and the creation of residential communities with social cohesion. With Robin Wood we aim to employ modular wooden elements built on an industrial scale as a solution to the crisis in the housing market and climate change.
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