HASSELL was a finalist in a recent competition for the design of social housing organised by the Shenzhen Centre for Design.

The competition to design social housing for Shenzhen was part of the 2011 Shenzhen-Hong Kong Bi-City Biennale of Urbanism/Architecture and the brief called for ideas that relate to three scales of thinking – 1 unit, 100 families, 10,000 people – encompassing urban design and planning, architecture and interior design.

The HASSELL scheme adopts the concept of 'reciprocal living', whereby people are able to interact with each other, share experiences as well as spaces and develop a stronger sense of community. This idea is applied at each of the three scales of the project – on a master planning level, building level and single unit scale.

As the country faces rapid urbanisation, the government of China addressed this problem by including a target to deliver 36 million new social housing units by 2015 in its 5-Year Plan, released in 2011.

Shenzhen is a city that would be targeted with social housing as it is one of the fastest growing cities in the world. It aims to deliver 240,000 new units to provide housing for approximately 800,000 people. This city has grown 400 times its original size in the last 40 years following investment and mass migration from all over China. The city's population is mostly transient and comprises a large number of young people, particularly single women. There is only limited land left to house future population growth and the demand on natural resources, such as water, is a key issue for its sustainable growth.

David Tickle from the HASSELL Shanghai studio, project leader for the competition design, was recently interviewed by regional news broadcaster Channel News Asia about the concept developed by HASSELL for affordable housing in China. Click here to see the interview on Channel News Asia.

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Pierre Greenway from the HASSELL Perth studio recently travelled to the Philippines to work with the MyShelter Foundation on the Litre of Light project. He met with the Executive Director of MyShelter Foundation and social entrepreneur, Illac Diaz, to learn more about this sustainability initiative which is helping to improve the standard of living in his country. A Litre of Light is a sustainable lighting solution that uses an extremely simple technology to light up the inside of homes without using electricity or fuel.

The solution consists of solar lights which are made with empty plastic bottles that are filled with a mixture of water and bleach. The bottles are then set half-way into a section of corrugated tin roofing. The water refracts light, the salt slows down evaporation and the bleach prevents mould from growing in the bottle, allowing the mixture and bottle to last for several years. Once installed, the bottle can provide light equivalent to a 50 watt light bulb on a bright day. The project has been successful in lighting up thousands of homes in the poorer villages across the Philippines and the MyShelter Foundation plans to light up a million residences by the end of 2012.

During his time in the Philippines, Pierre also had the opportunity to visit two other MyShelter projects: the Bottle School and the Bamboo School. The Bottle School is constructed from plastic PET bottles in lieu of bricks. This is a creative way to up-cycle used plastic and glass bottles, however, the building still faces challenges – for example, the rain water collecting in the bottles is a breeding ground for mosquitoes. The Bamboo School was constructed using bamboo, a concrete slab and a few concrete sections of wall. The school was designed to allow air to flow through the building so that in the event of a typhoon, the winds can move easily through the porous building and minimise stress on the structure.

Pierre's trip was sponsored by the Knowledge and Sustainability group at HASSELL. As a result of his involvement in the Litre of Light initiative, HASSELL has been invited by the Diaz family to design a community centre for the elderly in San Pablo in the Philippines. By combining HASSELL design expertise with local materials, process and knowledge, we hope to design a structure that will withstand the elements and demonstrate good sustainable design.

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