A prototype affordable housing scheme for post-Daesh Mosul by Weston Williamson + Partners has received an honourable mention in the Rifat Chadirji Prize.
The prototype focuses on housing some of the city’s 900,000 internally displaced people who will be returning to their homes following its liberation. It addresses the long term housing crisis as well as the situation immediate post-occupation and suggests a predominantly autonomous, self-build housing process.
Opportunities for choice and adaptation over time are incorporated, ingraining sustainability through a sense of ownership. People can build what they need as they need it; funding is used more efficiently and more directly.
In the short term, data about the current condition of the city can be gathered through crowd-sourcing mechanisms. Waste material from the city centre can be cleared to the city periphery, to be processed into basic building materials, for a range of simple and fast self-build construction techniques.
Water collection tanks act as shaded community pavilions where consultation, education and social gatherings take place.
Individual plots are marked by wired caged, modular, rubble filled gabion walls, creating a flexible private space within. The public space between can make use of existing local skills and be home to shared subsistence agriculture, or commercial and communal projects.
A system of shared skills and communal building allows people to share their knowledge and time in return for subsidised building materials or grants.
Over time, each plot and neighbourhood will develop a texture and atmosphere of its own that reflects the life of its inhabitants and becomes home.
The competition was organised by Tamayouz, an excellence award scheme dedicated to supporting aspirational and transformative projects tackling local and global challenges. 223 entries were submitted by architecture practices and students from 42 countries.
The judging panel said: “The gabion walls with reuse of rubble materials is a good idea. The designer paid attention to the process of building with small details of construction and the use of traditional materials. There’s a good level of detail to the construction process and sanitary. However, there is space for vertical development. It shows low technology with high impact with regards to the sanitation.”
The winning entries will be presented to the Ministry of Housing and Reconstruction in Iraq, in addition to other governmental organisations responsible for the rebuilding of Iraq's liberated areas. Exhibitions showcasing the judge’s top 20 entries will be held in Amman, Baghdad, Boston, Beirut, Milan and London.
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