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Reinterpreting the Grid
Project:
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Research on Generating Organic Living Community Layout with Grasshopper WASP plugin
2020.8- 2022.9
George L. Legendre
Discrete architecture, Grasshopper
This project aims at challenging the conventional senior living community layout by building a system constructed with reinterpreted traditional courtyard houses to sustain a closely-knit multi-family community.
As one of the oldest dwelling typologies, the courtyard house typology occurred in distinctive forms in many parts of the world. This project would reinterpret this traditional housing typology while maintaining its strength in flexibility and variations. The hierarchy and dynamics of courtyards would be explored to create a flexible system that could foster interaction within the community. The formal and symmetrical layouts are usually applied in construction for higher classes, which the area and cost are not limited. However, in most common cases, the courtyard layouts shows a more flexible combination, in which the symmetry and repetition compromise to site constraints and limited floor plan. While this self-growing typology has more resilience and dynamic, it could offer more inspirations for us to extract the basic typologies for housing aggregations.
Research
Layout of the Basic Courtyard House
The courtyard house is one of the oldest housing typologies throughout history, occurring in various layout and forms. In China, there is also a distinctive variety of traditional houses due to wide-ranging climates, ethnic groups, and regional diversity. Among them, the Beijing courtyard house is considered as the most outstanding example of the traditional Chinese courtyard houses, especially in the northern part of China. The Beijing courtyard house is also called “Siheyuan”, which means “one courtyard enclosed by quadrangular walls”. Those brick walls could provide seclusion and security while providing a central public space for family activities.
Elements of the Courtyard House
The overall layout of a courtyard house is aligned with the grid formed by the spatial unit. This housing form has several characteristics which make it very flexible to build. The number of courtyards that a family owns, depending on its size, usually ranges from one to five.
Minimal building elements could achieve the scaling of the units. For example, the four-sided courtyard house could be seen as a three-sided one-courtyard house adding one outdoor veranda. And a two-courtyard house could be seen as a one-courtyard house adding one building block.
Combination layouts in the site
Research Site: Dongzhimen Street Block, Dongcheng District, Beijing, China
Computation
Combination Possibilities of Every Two Element
S, M, L Scales
Grasshopper Component with WASP Plug-in
Generation of the discrete architecture
Design
Unit Combinations Selected for Further Development
By combining each of the two basic units, six medium scale units could provide more possibilities for duplication and arrangement. Also it provides options for senior who would like to live with neighbors.
These nine unit types could meet the needs of households in various sizes and preferences, whether they prefer to live with neighbors and how many courtyards and roof terraces they want. And these larger modules made up of units could be duplicated within the site. With these combined modules, there are infinite possibilities for the overall layout.
This project seeks to organize the buildings in the vernacular style of a courtyard typology that is not uniform.
Result
Final Aggregation Generated by Algorithm
For the building type “courtyard house,” the courtyard is the core of living fun and actively. In this project, there are courtyards from small to large and from private to public. This project tries to pursue a specific spatial order to integrate each household’s internal demands and external environment, creating a dynamic community space with both cohesion and openness.
Detailed Axon of the Community
Perspectives
Contents