INTO THE WILD

Year: 2016

Location: Hong Kong, Tung Lung Chau

Rethinking Domesticity – Into The Wild.
Populating nature with contemporary structures.
Cliff And Mountain Dwellings For New Communities In Hong Kong.

The aim is to provide people living in Hong-Kong with more living space, which is carried out by using the nature which is not inhabited yet.

Nature + Building
The point is to use a light structure on the cliff or mountain, which would be adjustable for any environment or scale involving mountains or cliffs and would be hanged on it. The aim is to blend nature and architecture completely. To do so the house must repeat the shape of the cliff. So I designed the structure which copies the nature. The structure and the design of the house is always the same, but at the same time every house is different as the slabs move and adjust to the cliff as the surface of the cliff is “wild” every house changes its shape, but structure and idea remain the same. The building has its own garden to bring

more nature to the nature. Therefore house blends completely with nature with its exterior and interior.

Singular Unit
One of the most important part of the project is that the whole structure could be multiplied or reduced in quantity and therefore can be attached to any environment, country, seaside, mountain, city, as it has very clear structure made from four slabs and one middle structure. The house will be fully resistant to any climate or weather conditions.

Materials
The material of the housing is light, transparent and luminous, the idea is to use glass, refective and at the same time transparent, not to cover the beauty of the nature with heavy architectural structures.

The aim is to make people appreciate nature more, to create such an attractive space for them that they would move from crowded polluted cities “into the wild.”

Location

After a long lasting research about cities, lightweight structures, nature & architecture, cliff dwellings, land art and so. on. I have decided to fulfill my projects in Tung Lung Chau, Hong Kong.

Tung Lung Chau (Chinese; literally: “eastern dragon island”), also known as Nam Tong Island is an island located off the tip of the Clear Water Bay

Peninsula in the New Territories of Hong Kong. It is also referred by Hong Kong people as Tung Lung To or Tung Lung Island. The island is largely uninhabited. Administratively, it belongs to Sai Kung District.

Development

To figure out possible options of combination of nature and architecture I made some Diagram/ Sketches to see how cliff and house could be combined and be balanced together.

For example, architecture inside the nature, architecture outside the nature and lastly combination of both, architecture inside and outside the nature.

Shape

After developing different options of the concept of combination I started thinking about the shapes, after long research concerning natural shapes, I stopped on

natural crystals. The crystals are pure copies of the nature because they are part of it. For me the shape is very interesting and inspiring.

The crystals have multiple or several angles, inclinations, different thicknesses, sizes and so on. I decided to outline the structure of the crystals, create shaped abstraction and see how can they be seen from different perspective and angle and then transform the crystals into existing geometrical forms.

Transformation of forms

One of the forms that I have chosen is rectangle. I took two slabs and started to explore all the different options of using them together, by rotating

or moving them. While working on rectangular form I realised that this simple

static form hardly repeats the nature, so I cut some edges of rectangle and came up with Trapeziod form, which is more diverse and interesting form to use with nature.

Final concept

While combining all the different options of forms with cliff I have decided to go experimental, remove all the walls and outlines from the shape and leave simple slabs that are left from the shapes, randomly place them on the cliff and therefore I reached the final outcome.

Crawling House

Dwelling through the cliff

The final idea is to use the slabs that follow the cliff , therefore they repeat the shape of it as the house has outer line. In this case architecture and nature com- pletely blend together, because firstly slabs move around depending on the

shape of the cliff and secondly the exterior of the house is made out of glass, so it is completely transparent and cliff itself is perfectly visible from any spot.

Sketches

Elements to fulfill the idea:

-- Slabs

-- Middle structure

-- Minimum walls

-- Space separators

Options of the shapes

Interior Development

Space division

Diagrams

As several options of exterior is explored, depending on that I decided to analyze interior solutions by several options. To see how the inside space would react as outside is constantly chainging. How would interior blend in exterior and then both together into nature. By colors it is shown how organization of inside space works.

Choice of the shape for development

In conclusion depending on diagrams, I combined some of the choices explored together and chose the final example of the shape to develop, as all the houses would be different because of cliffs diversity, this particular shape is a prefect example to develop as it has inclinattions (which would be unavoidable while building on the cliff) and also 90 degree walls, which could also be a possible option while building in the nature.

Structure

As the houses are hanging on the mountain or cliff it is crusial for them to be lightweight and to use as simple and as light materials as possible. I refused to

use the concrete, because it is one of the heaviest materilas, to replace it I instead decided to use metal structure.

Steel

Middle structure

In metallurgy, steel, also known as inox steel or inox from French inoxydable, is a steel alloy with a minimum of 10.5% chromium content by mass.

Steel

Floor Structure

Slab system with decking plate, excellent structural properties. Allows savings in labor, time and rent formwork, due to its rapid installa- tion. slabs for use in construction of large buildings, commercial build- ings, housing is recommended, among others.

Stainless Steal Tubes

Attachment to the cliff

Metal tubes from one side are connected to the house (welded), and from another side they are at- tached to the cliff, digged in deep inside the mountain.

Steel

Floor structure

The Hambro D500 composite for system is the economical solution to meet the challenges associated with foor construction. This system is ideal on load-bearing walls made of light gauge steel, wood, concrete block, masonry and structural steel. It combines the exibility of the D500 steel joists with a transversely reinforced concrete compression slab.

Outer Glass

Exterior structure

Metal Pieces are used to hold sheets of glasses together, create a frame for each sheet and make them more stable.

Technical Drawings / Visualisations

As the slabs are repeating nature, therefore each house is different and also each inclanation of the outer walls is different I chose to use maximum two walls in each house to separate bathroom from other rooms, bathroom is always behind or in front of the structure/staircase wall because the inclination of the outer walls never reaches the staircase, also because front and back side of the staircase

wall is facing either view or cliff, not the sides of the house, so that it maintains its privacy. Instead of the walls, there are room separators so that the owner can decide by her/himself where to put the bedroom, living room or kitchen. As for the staircase/wall, it always remains on the same spot to hold the slabs, so that other parts of interior could be movable.