For the first term of second year at the Welsh School of Architecture, we were asked to work on a housing project. Our head of year decided to focus our efforts on trying to design housing solutions for the important and growing homeless crisis in Cardiff.
Many existing shelters across the city have anti-drug policies, leading to a large part of the homeless community not having access to a bed for a night. I therefore aimed at designing a homeless shelter that can better accommodate the homeless drug users of Cardiff.
The project site is located in Adamsdown, one of Cardiff's poorest areas, a 20 minutes walk south of the city centre. The overall concept behind the design is a response to both the needs of the homeless people and the local community’s fears and prejudice. On one hand, I aimed to provide different layers of privacy to the homeless people, from private houses to private views and front gardens. All dwellings have access to a private outdoor space, which also permits to emphasize the importance of giving every housed homeless person their own front door. On the other hand, I tried to offer a degree of transparency to the different parts of the site, in order to fulfil Jane Jacobs’s idea of security by having “eyes on the streets”. The delimitation between the public and the private garden is constituted of three layers of plants, from tall and robust to small and fragile, to impede people from crossing this ‘vegetal barrier’ without having to create a physically coarse fence. Similarly, on the re-landscaped street which extends to become a garden, the grain of the slate pieces evolves to become cobbles and then gravels as one approaches the planted ‘puddles’, so the pedestrians can have their attention drawn to the plants, without providing clear rectilinear planters. This green street that separates locals and the new community also becomes an integration tool, where together, the two social groups can meet and take part in gardening sessions. Communal gardening, therefore, becomes a strong social glue, being a democratic activity in which all participating groups can find civic pride.
Site studies
Massing trials
Interviews with the local community, local urban textures study and strategic application of the program on the site
Ground floor plan - First-floor plan - Second-floor plan
Hand-drawn elevation of the communal building
Hand-drawn section through shared and individual housing
Hand-drawn elevation drawing of the shared houses
Hand-drawn technical section through the communal building
Conceptual technical details
