M o d u l a r , S u s t a i n a b l e a n d C u s t o m i z e d
729
MODULAR, SUSTAINABLE AND CUSTOMIZED:
PROJECTS FOR CONTEMPORARY HOME
Domizia Mandolesi
1
& Alessandra De Cesaris
1
1
Housing Lab, Dipartimento di Architettura e Progetto (DiAP) “Sapienza” University of Rome, Italy,
Abstract
The home is the place where the intimacy of living is manifested but it is also the
fundamental place in which relationships with the outside world are built.
The truest sense of domestic space is expressed in the opposition between the interior
dimension and collective aspirations. A society’s needs and aspirations are reflected in
the transformations of the home, the city’s basic unit and constituent element.
The history of the dwelling can be read as the history of the relationship between the
desire for self-representation of an inner world and the desire for identification and
recognition within a community.
Based on these considerations, one of the themes of the research carried out by
HousingLab - Sapienza of Rome - is to develop low-cost projects for houses with formal
and environmental qualities that can be customized and tailored to individual needs. To
meet the demands of a large and heterogeneous public, these projects must refer to
processes regulating the production of goods for mass consumption.
But how to reconcile industrialization and mass production with the need for individual
expression or with the desire to freely give form to a home, modify it, and define its
character according to individual taste and the characteristics of its environmental and
urban context?
The goal is to create a catalogue of dwellings based on a system of a limited number of
easy-to-assemble standardized and prefabricated components that can generate
controlled, but extremely varied and flexible, configurations of domestic space in order to
accommodate different needs both in relationship to individual taste as well as to
different locations. The paper will present some of the design hypotheses developed by
HousingLab - Sapien, highlighting the relationship between architectural quality, energy,
environmental and economic sustainability and the innovation of the proposed solutions.
Keywords:
customisation, housing, quality production, user participation, sustainable
development, prefabrication
.
Introduction
The accelerated growth process of urban peripheries occurred in last few years calls for
a comprehensive analysis of the methods and strategies to be implemented in these
areas. In this process, it is necessary to take into account several issues, such as the
characterization of the new urban landscape and its sustainability, the relationships
between the new city areas and the existing city and the influence of urban
transformations and changes in lifestyle on the design of the dwelling. In this scenario
the subject of dwellings design in suburban areas of the contemporary city represents a
crucial aspect of architectural research. Contemporary life changes in effect require
substantial changes in the way of designing residences both at urban and building scale,
starting from the research which was suspended for a long time, of dwellings and
building type. In Italy, as in other countries, the transformation of the family, the
immigration of new inhabitants and the increasing age of the population, together with
new dynamics in the world of employment such as job insecurity and nomadism of youth,
are changing
