the aim of my design is to re-connect the people of my chosen block by dissolving the physical borders between them and to de-densify the living within the block while densifying the construction.

Vedado

during our trip to Havana the parts of the city that caught my attention were Vieja: the first settlement in the city and Vedado: a part of the city that was developed much later and started out as a neighbourhood for the bourgeoisie. these two areas are quite different to each other; Vieja is much more dense and there are no private villas in the area whereas in Vedado there are mostly private houses unless they have been subdivided to accommodate a larger number of people. the prominent housing typology in Vieja are courtyard houses where during the special period people have been pushed to come together and help each other which established the close neighbourly relations that they rely on up until today. the close neighbourly relations can be summed up by the saying; “the neighbour is the closest family”. whereas in Vedado, the fences between individual house plots have caused an alienation between the people. this feeling of close neighbourly relations is what my proposal aims to achieve.

initial model making using plaster and photographs to see the lighting conditions on the ground floor.

the diagrams above show the sequence of the construction, whereby the site will be cleared out first to allow fora free flow of circulation, the structural elements are added and finally the light wooden construction units are added on top.

the design features three different sizes of units that slightly differ from each other; they come with certain walls that make up the different floor plans that ensure flexible inhabitation of spaces, depending on the needs of their inhabitants.

all units are connected to each other through a series of corridors. the openings on the upper floors create gardens and socialising spaces on the ground floor.