Shi Hui Ennabel Cheong

YOUR TREE(HOUSE), OUR FOREST

Housing is no longer just about catering for home ownership and nuclear families. Now in the post-pandemic era, we’ve seen the value of community and are feeling the strain of the housing shortage and affordability crisis more than ever.

What if we broke free from the conventional towards something more in tune with our instincts to connect with nature and one another? To increase accessibility to construction and to the housing market as well as minimise our environmental impact through design? To stray from the suburban white-picket-fence home and high-rise dense apartment block typologies that determine our lifestyles rather than vice versa? Towards something adaptable, efficient, easily replicable, and able to be repurposed. Simple enough for residents to DIY.

The project revolves around a prefabricated demountable and expandable base module that can be reconfigured according to resident needs. To grow, to downgrade or to repurpose on or off site. Mounted on concrete footings, allowing nature to reclaim the space beneath and through. Units scattered throughout the site to maximise contact with the exterior thereby maximising ventilation, light and views, minimising building footprint and eliminating corridors. Micro-communities to be fostered via the arrangement of ground level communal areas, using pavers to hint at access and connection. Unprogrammed pockets of open space adjacent to these units, lending opportunity for appropriation. Pathless circulation through the site that encourages exploration, facilitating chance encounters.

A treehouse: playful, almost primitive; self-built. Trees within a forest: an ode to growth and belonging, an allusion to the reconnection to nature, the uniqueness of each unit and intimacy of the single building amongst the village-like housing block.

A social housing scheme for Preston and perhaps, elsewhere.