Cayley Chan

Stack + Scaffold: A. model for modular housing

In response to today’s housing affordability crisis, Stack and Scaffold, a model for modular housing, utilises prefabricated modules and a permanent, skeletal superstructure as a method of forming a site that adapts to its users and grows over time to the density of the site.

It creates an affordance of flexibility and adaptability that allows growth and change over a single family’s occupation as well as long term development. As the project is situated in the middle ring suburb of Brunswick West, the model supports affordability for homeowners and renters alike through the addition and subtraction of unit modules that supports changes to households while encouraging sustainability through recycling and refurbishment of modules across the site.

Its mass production process further facilitates affordability. By developing a permanent superstructure in which modules can be slotted in, and removed, the creation of micro-communities becomes more adaptable and allows for a flexible arrangement of communal spaces on the ground plane and enhances programme and community within the core of each residence. The configuration of dwellings creates different typologies that facilitate different lifestyles: singles, young couples, families, co-living and share houses alike. Each micro-community is linked in a connected system of green overpasses that allows residences to travel between micro-community cores above the public open plaza.