Source: cc0.store
Let's start with the difficult part...
Our cities are getting crowded, and it's expected to get worse in the near future with the rise of the world's population and the tendency to move to the ever growing metropolitan areas. The future megalopolis.
The main issue resides here. How can we develop residential zones, buildings, apartments, to solve the population density of our cities.
One obvious solution is to reduce the space reserved for each person.
But reduce!? Wheres the limit?
Reducing space is a very viable and most of the times the only solution available. But we have the risk of making spaces not suitable for living. The worst case that I know in recent history was the Kowloon Walled City in Hong Kong. The now demolished group of buildings din't had the necessary infrastructure to sustain a healthy living environment.
So we must develop smaller spaces, but retain all the necessary conditions that define a healthy, functional and pleasant space.
The way houses are made represent a very rigid concept, the bedroom is for sleeping and that is it's function... By giving specific roles to each part of a house, we are creating a procedure to use that space. It results in spaces being under used. We read, sleep, and get up, the rest of the time the bedroom stays empty. If we start to multiply the empty spaces in a building throughout the day it stars to add up. Now imagine that number in a city?!...
The prevailing argument is that a good house is a big house with lots of space. I don't disagree, but I thing that a better way is to have a very big space that is optimise for the way we need to use it.
I'll give you an example:
Here in Portugal, a small apartment is a 1 room with 50 sq. m (538 sq. f), with a living room with 20 sq. m (215 sq. f), a bed room with 15 sq. m (161 sq. f), 10 sq. m (107 sq. f) for the kitchen and the rest for a small bathroom and circulation.
In this rigid example we have a group small rooms with specific roles that stay empty for long times during the day.
And finally one solution!...
Not one, but several. But all of the have one thing in common. Flexibility of space.
With flexible spaces that have moving walls and smart ways of using the furniture, the same area of my example can be used in a totally different way. I can have a very big bedroom when I needed, but also a big living room just by altering the room geometry.
And if I could have a 40 sq. m (430 sq. f), living room, a 40 sq. m (430 sq. f) kitchen and a 40 sq. m (430 sq. f) bed room all in a 50 sq. m (538 sq. f) apartment, it would be fantastic.
(note: what represents a good room size differs a lot from country to country. This is my idea for a good size room)
In the following examples we are going to see just that.
The space is optimised for it's real function. The flexibility given by the moving walls and smart furniture ( smart in design, in electronics and robotics), makes the sense of space feel a lot bigger than it realy is.
Source: youtube - Kirsten Dirksen
Source: youtube - Kirsten Dirksen
Source: youtube - Kirsten Dirksen
Source: youtube - Dezeen
All those solutions represent a shift in a way we think about living in densely populated areas and the need to give this issues the attention they need. It will be a problem to solve in the near future, because today we are seeing the development of a need to change what living in the city means, and since the majority of the human population resides or will reside in cities, the way they live must be a pleasant, prosperous and fulfilling experience.
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