Pac Rim Studio | DESIGN A FARM COMMUNITY: To navigate back to island food security, a locale with a history of agriculture needs efficient housing for local, beyond-organic farmers.

University of Hawaii Studio Brief with Prof. Kris Palagi

We will design a mixed-use environment (housing and community facilities) at a “North Shore” Kauai site that is in dire need of efficient housing for farm workers, teachers and other key community participants. Focusing on the coastal communities between Hanalei and Anahola our project will respond to the Garden Island’s rich Hawaiian history, modern beach culture, and the challenges faced today as traditional cultures and agricultural lands coexist with long-term residents and an increasing tourist population. We will approach this project with an aggressive “passive design” strategy, so that it may act as a replicable model for sustainable growth around the Pac Rim. The project will emphasize appropriate systems and programs such as: multi-unit co-housing (homes for transient workers and local farm families), small business incubators and community spaces, water-collection systems, ecological waste treatment, collective farming , aquaponics, public transportation linkages and natural lighting and ventilation. [time: approx. 8 weeks, primary studio module]

Unitec, New Zealand Studio Brief with Prof. Gary Lawson:

‘AGGRESSIVE PASSIVE’; DESIGN A FARM COMMUNITY: To navigate back to island food security, a locale with a history of agriculture needs efficient housing and community facilities for local, beyond-organic farmers.
“Everybody wants the same thing, rich or poor… not only a warm, dry room, but a shelter for the soul.”
-Samuel Mockbee, architect
You are to design a mixed-use environment (housing and community facilities) on Ngati Whatua o Kiapara land at Reweti Marae Village, Woodhill, North-West of Auckland. This site is in need of efficient housing for land workers, teachers and other key community participants. Focusing on the in-land coastal community of Ngati Whatua at Reweti, our project will respond to the regions history, contemporary culture, and the challenges faced today as traditional cultures and agricultural lands coexist with long-term residents and an increasing tourist population.
We will approach this project with an aggressive ‘passive design’ strategy, so that it may act as a replicable model for sustainable growth around the Pacific Rim. The project will emphasize appropriate systems and programs such as: multi-unit co-housing (homes for transient workers and local families, including a small group of homeless), small business incubators and community spaces, water-collection systems, ecological waste treatment, collective farming and produce gardening, aquaponics, public transportation linkages and natural lighting and ventilation.
Tied into the challenge of addressing these issues, the students are asked to consider and develop a position in relation to the architectural theory of ‘Critical Regionalism’ and to try to create architectural solutions that somehow represent New Zealand’s unique and individual qualities and identity in defiance of the pressures ‘universal civilisation’ and ‘globalisation’. These issues should be considered from the macro scale to the micro.
Research and focus should be also given to material selections that are innovative and sustainable and expressive of the ‘aggressive passive’ philosophy. Suitability to local skill bases and available resources should be given important consideration. Materials development and selections should also express your developed position with regard to critical regionalist theory.
CONSIDERATIONS: Brief requirements to include:
- Typical inter-generational housing (up to four generations under one roof):
- accommodation for a community of approximately 40-50 people resolving:
- communal living spaces
- private living spaces
- kitchen, bathrooms etc
- sleeping spaces
- work/study spaces
- storage
- Typical accommodation for transient workers up to 12.
- Accommodation for a small group of homeless (6-8).
- Community facilities (to include but not limited to):
- communal spaces; cooking, eating etc
- recreation areas
- office and admin space
- small business incubators
- farm / produce garden facilities
- storage
- waste and recycling systems
These spaces and numbers are provided as a guide only. It is more than appropriate for you to examine the requirements and needs that your research and perceptions uncover and propose solutions to the project as you determine best meets the needs identified.
A special field-trip/site visit will be arranged to meet some of the people who currently live at Reweti Village and to help determine an understanding of who you will be designing for and what to specifically base your program on.
Special attention should be given to innovative solutions to the inter-generational, sustainable housing and community facilities program. Innovation could come from, for example, particular spatial planning arrangements that are welded to ‘aggressive passive’ design systems. Ideally such solutions are expressed in a manner reflecting something meaningful of the community it serves.

The Design a Farm Community brief is being run concurrently with students of architecture working with Prof. Kris Palagi at the University of Hawaii and Prof. Gary Lawson at Unitec, New Zealand.

The Eden Project (Cornwall, United Kingdom)