MAT-Fabric Urbansim
Hangzhou, China
Negotiating between scales of architecture, infrastructure, and urban landscape, this MAT-organization urban housing complex constructs an alternate mode of housing as an architectural and urban strategy, countering the unvarying modernist residential towers arrayed in contemporary Chinese urbanized cityscapes.
Steep topographical changes on the site inform a 3-dimensional bifurcating system of paths that both navigate the site and link a network of modular spaces, informed in size and scale by both the bifurcating system itself and the construction and material characteristics of the mass-customized glulam structural system.
Extensive use of public space in traditional Chinese housing systems acts as a motivator for the mat fabric: the bifurcation system creates network of activated community spaces. In plan the bifurcation system splits the path in two, creating a void (public space); in section, the system splits the path creating vertical density (high FAR). The system blurs path, roof, and inhabitable space, forcing a multi-ground condition throughout the site and allowing for a wide array of public and private spaces at a variety of scales.
The system accommodates public functions on the ground level with a bias toward the main road on the east of the site. These programs include an archaeological museum for the ruins on the east end of the site, a boutique hotel, and commercial functions that serve both the residents and the surrounding community.
Site program filters from public to housing directionally from east to west, low to high. FAR density increases proportionally.
The linearity of the circulation promotes opportunities of interaction within the neighborhoods of the fabric.
