Wellington's Housing Crisis

Each year housing in Wellington becomes more and more difficult to acquire, especially a dwelling that is safe, secure, and dry. From a personal experience of applying for sixteen different apartments before attaining one, it is undeniably becoming an ever-growing issue. This project aims solve the housing crisis in Wellington through the design of 'miniature' self-sustaining pre-fabricated dwellings able to cope with Wellington's difficult environment. I developed a range of concepts for this project, included below are renders of alternative concepts which I considered during early stages of the project. However, I have selected one concept critical during development and the final concept to display in further detail.

Early ideas trialled utilising empty city spaces to set up self-sufficient communities, from rooftops, to miniature dwellings that could be attached to existing structures within the city, however, I settled on a free-standing structure that could interlock with other dwellings of the same type. This meant I needed to develop a set number of components for the construction of each dwelling.

Here are two renders of the 'interlocking' bracket piece that allows the pre-fab dwellings to be connected to each other vertically. It functions as an exterior skeleton that bolts large timber slats that span the length of the overall stack of dwellings. Because of Wellington's unforgiving terrain creating many shady areas, I utilised large clear facades that allow sufficient amounts of natural light into the dwellings.

Here are the final concept renders and working drawing set, to further build upon the previous concept I not only needed to alter the dimensions of the pre-fab dwellings but needed to rework the original bracket system to allow for dwellings to be securely fastened to each-other horizontally and vertically. This meant I needed to expand upon the catalogue of components available for the dwellings. Integrating a 'conceptual' augmented reality application that scans and best configures the stackable dwelling system based on space that is presented to it through the camera on the device means that space is used effectively.

Final Concept - Renders of augmented reality application scanning exisiting site and configuring dwellings appropriately.