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Thursday, 7 July 2005 | Levent OZLER
Living Box Design Contest
Prefabricated Living Units
Living Box - Prefabricated Living Units
A competition addressed to architects, engineers, designers, professionals and students for designing the "Living Box", a prefabricated living unit
Edilportale S.p.A. -in collaboration with Rockwool SpA, Ursa Italia (Gruppo Uralita), Sebach, Aermec SpA, Europa Metalli SpA e ACCA Software Spa, and with and supported by Italian Ministry of Infrastructures and Transportations, by Italian National Council of Engineers and by BEST (Polytechnic of Milan) - organises the International design competition "LIVING BOX - Prefabricated Living Unit" for planning a prefabricated living unit that has to be transportable by road or air and has to face the challenge of complying with contemporary lifestyle both in terms of living comfort and architectural language.
Fast transformations and incessant social-cultural flows of contemporary ages let, then, formulation of a new concept of "living" being necessary: a new thought on man and "spaces" he wants to live in. Concept of "House" itself is no more connectable to traditional model synonymous of permanence and stability. Contemporary house can easily result into a "temporary" home, emblem of mobility that characterise our age. Consequently the design of living spaces often turns into the design of its temporary aspect.
The aim of the competition is to investigate design proposals that comply with such new needs. It is about designing a living "Box" completely equipped for a daily life. The "Living Box" shall overcome the contrast between "stable" and "temporary" that, as underlined by Le Corbusier -great master of Modern Movement - necessarily emerges from temporary living. It will, then, answer to the need for an easy and fast change, being able, at same time, to state the presence of a man in a context.
It is attended that answers to design subject will consist in one of two following typologies of prefabricated units:
- Living unit as preassembled block/blocks - Unit made by preassembled block/blocks whose dimensions allow transport on roads, rails or by air. Dimensions can be related (but it's not compulsory) to standard dimensions of containers for commercial transportations that automatically comply with transportability problems and don't need special vehicles. Final unit might be obtained by a single block or by assembling and connecting more than one block..
- Living unit as assemblage of light prefabricated small elements - Unit made by technological systems relying on small prefabricated elements that can be assembled on site according to the need for special dimensions of living units (when such dimensions don't allow transportation with common vehicles) or when structural conception of technological system doesn't allow handling of preassembled blocks (usually when system doesn't provide for a self-foundation basement)
Competition is mainly directed to architects, engineers and designers. It's also encouraged participation of students from Architecture and Engineer Faculties and from Schools of Industrial design and Interior design.
Jury committee -made up of designers, suppliers and technicians that have already experienced housing prefabrication throughout Europe- will assign three prizes according to final ranking:
1st Prize: € 3.000,00 + Complete Software Suite by ACCA Software: Autorapidus (CAD), EDILUS (Structural Analysis), PRIMUS SYSTEM (Quantity Surveying) for a total value amount of € 4.820,00
2nd Prize: € 1.000,00
3rd Prize: € 500,00
Registration to competition shall be done no later than 30/11/2005. Registration is free.
Competition web page: http://www.edilportale.com/livingbox/eng/livingbox.htm
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