Uniquely Shaped Concrete Dwellings Connected Via A Concrete Ring Showcase Community Living In South Korea

Seoul-based studio AOA architects designed ‘Hoji Gangneung’ – a series of distinctive and unique-looking concrete dwellings that are connected via a raised and circular path. Nestled in the South Korean countryside, in Gangwon-do, the Hoji Gangneung is made up of a family house for the owner, as well as three guesthouses, and a communal building. The property highlights how innovatively community living can be elevated and planned.

Designer: AOA Architects

One of the four homes is called the Round House, and it has quite an interesting semi-circular end. Another one of the houses has an octagonal shape and a central courtyard. The other two homes and the communal building feature rectangular floor plans, and have different roof shapes. The communal building is equipped with a mono-pitch roof, and one of the rectangular houses has an adorable but ordinary gable roof. The last home on the site is called the Long House, and it features a gable roof with a raised central section and a lovely skylight, which forms an elongated light well. “Every building has its own shape, size, and character, allowing guests to enjoy each space distinctly through shadow play,” said AOA Architects principal Jaewon Suh.

While designing the various buildings, AOA Architects were inspired by countryside structures like warehouses and cabins. They wanted to create a space that is influenced by its surroundings, while also creating something new and innovative “The main concept and goal of the design is to build something familiar and also unfamiliar in a rural area,” said Suh. “For some, the Octagonal House looks like a nomadic tent and feels like an octagonal pavilion, the Long House looks like a milk carton or a grain warehouse, and the Round House looks like a slender piece of wood or a face with a hat, but these associations do not matter.”

All the buildings have been built from textured concrete, and are topped by corrugated metal roofs. The communal building has an exposed concrete structure, and massive glass doors that occupy one wall, which lead to the concrete walkway and offer expansive views of the various houses.

The post Uniquely Shaped Concrete Dwellings Connected Via A Concrete Ring Showcase Community Living In South Korea first appeared on Yanko Design.

This circular community hub in Mexico is inspired by the ‘cenotes’ of the Yucatan rainforests

The ‘cenotes’ of Tulum, Mexico are quite iconic and proclaimed by now. These timeless wells are natural pits or sinkholes that are created when limestone bedrock collapse, in turn exposing groundwater. Considered mystical and magical, these wells populate the depths of the Yucatan rainforest, and were considered sacred to the ancient Maya civilization. And these mysterious water bodies have inspired ‘ZENOTE’ – a Work-Play-Live concept designed by DNA Barcelona.

Designer: DNA Barcelona

With ZENOTE, DNA Barcelona attempts to embrace the Mexican jungle by drawing inspiration from the ‘cenotes’. ZENOTE is meant to be a circular building defined with vegetation and greenery, with a central open space functioning as the focal point of the site. “Based on these mythical elements, we developed a project that emerges from the forest, a circular building crowned with vegetation that embraces a central open space full of vegetation that houses the common areas and a large central pool. The façade emulates the colors of the geological cuts that appear in the cenotes, creating a concept of Biophilic Architecture, one of the pillars for DNA Barcelona,” said the studio.

ZENOTE is meant to be a 21,942.45 sqm complex that consists of eight residential buildings, each including four floors. The first floor will house a shopping area, bar-restaurant, beach club, community pools, a swim-ups on the rooftop. The other three storeys will hold 129 apartments with two, three, or four rooms, as well as a huge terrace, private jacuzzi, and loads of vegetation. All the entrances are secured and provided with a 24-hour concierge service. ZENOTE functions as a circular community hub with a ‘cenote’ placed in the center, which allows a harmonious connection with Yucatan nature.

ZENOTE can be considered a cocoon, since it has a rather unique micro-climate of its own, which reduces hot temperatures, and allows cross-ventilation without using any kind of air conditioning system. “DNA presents its relevance in the concept of sustainability, respecting the ecosystem and the biodiversity of the fauna, contributing to the use of natural materials specifically from the Yucatan region, which minimizes the impact of construction and waste generation. The concept of water harvesting is also respected and represents a recovery of river water. DNA’s goal is to find the balance between mind-body-soul to provide a true escape from everyday life, leaving you to enjoy the Mexican lifestyle,” DNA concluded.

The post This circular community hub in Mexico is inspired by the ‘cenotes’ of the Yucatan rainforests first appeared on Yanko Design.

Affordable solar homes – a solution for homeowner poverty & net-zero housing!




Net-zero architecture is what will reduce emissions from the construction industry on a large scale. But make it inclusive as well as scalable and you also get a solution that can lift homeowners out of poverty while building a community! Created for that very purpose, these solar homes are aiming to help solve both the global housing and climate crises with one design. The houses produce their energy, harvest 100% of the rainwater, clean their sewage, and also have the potential to grow their own food!

It is called the PowerHYDE housing model and was created by Prasoon Kumar and Robert Verrijt of Billion Bricks from India and Singapore. The model explores sustainable solutions to empower and facilitate growth opportunities for people without homes around Southeast Asia which has a lot of rural and low-income populations. These homes not only provide shelter but are also a power module to scale sustainable communities that lift homeowners out of poverty!




“A BillionBricks Community is the world’s first carbon-negative solar home community to bring families out of poverty within one generation. PowerHYDE homes are plug-and-play modular structures that do not need any connection to services and could be made functional from the day of completion of construction,” says the design team. The cost-effective solution even won a Holcim Award for Sustainable Construction!

affordable-solar-home

The PowerHYDE homes are built via an indigenous prefabricated technique that makes them easy to assemble in remote locations. The home has a solar array installed on the roof and the homeowner can sell excess power generated back to power companies, generating a profit that helps to pay off the cost of the home. Sample homes have been built in Mathjalgaon Village in India and in the Philippines. BillionBricks now plans to build a community of 500 homes near Manila, Philippines that will generate 10 megawatts of power.

Not only does it reduce the emissions from the construction industry (which is the leading contributor in the world for CO2 emissions) but it also helps more people become homeowners while equipping them with means to create renewable energy thus reducing individual carbon footprint as well. It is a radical concept in housing designed for energy sufficiency, extreme affordability, and education for future generations to adapt to a sustainable lifestyle even in rural areas.

Designers: BillionBricks and Architecture BRIO

The post Affordable solar homes – a solution for homeowner poverty & net-zero housing! first appeared on Yanko Design.

This public horticultural pod cultivates plants and multi-generational relationships through the act of gardening!

The act of gardening provides many proven physical and mental health benefits that alone make cultivating your own garden worth it. Taking it one step further, community gardens carry the same benefits and then some. Interacting with members of your own community while growing plant life, crops, and flowers not only makes fresh food available for all of those who help cultivate it but also brings people closer together in the process. Enrich Group, a team of designers with Virginia Tech University, created their own community greenhouse to help forge human connections and bridge generational gaps within the community.

Gardening promotes many physical and mental health benefits, including an increase in physical activity, relaxation, and access to fresh food. Enrich Group aimed to combine physical activity and mental relaxation with an environment that cultivates multi-generational relationships with their community greenhouse. Following a year of social isolation, Enrich Group built their own community greenhouse because they believe age is nothing but a number and doesn’t change each aging individual’s desire to connect and build meaningful relationships within their own community. Cultivating genuine relationships between people from different generations through the act of gardening is the “embodiment of purposeful living,” notes Enrich Group, ensuring that “we all have the chance to grow, together.”

The greenhouse’s interior is designed to feel similar to traditional meeting spaces, with an island or table in its center that contains the garden’s main communal herb garden. The main island is also multi-tiered to optimize the greenhouse’s interior space. Hanging plant fixtures form an outer ring above the island’s main communal herb plot. In addition to the plants’ tub, gardening spaces around the pod’s perimeter feature health monitors for each plant, sliding storage bins with open handles for easy accessibility, as well as a general working space. The greenhouse appears as an approachable, modern, and public hub with glass-coated acrylic panels, aluminum ribbing, and a wooden entryway.

Designer: Enrich Group

Enrich Group’s community garden, called Enrich features an exterior design close enough to traditional greenhouses to fit any outdoor space.

Inside, community members can develop interpersonal relationships as well as grow crops.

Enrich wears an approachable design, inviting community members to come inside and tend to the garden.

Around the perimeter of the gardening hub, plant pots and tubs can be found alongside workspaces and sliding drawers.

In the center of each pod, a communal herb plot creates more space for gardening.

Before tending to your own plot, Enrich provides a preliminary survey that reveals what type of gardener you are.

The location of your garden can be chosen according to your community of residence.

Gardeners can also select what types of crops they’d prefer to grow.

At its core, Enrich operates as a social hub for multi-generational relationships to thrive.

This $65 million dollar campus in Toronto is a community space with a green roof & solar panels!

Downtown Toronto and the city’s students just got a green upgrade in the form of a $65 million dollar project called Canoe Landing Campus! This structure is now a social nexus that acts as a community recreation center as well as an educational institute divided into public and Catholic elementary schools plus a childcare center – all of that under one gigantic green roof! ZAS Architects designed the campus to provide a much-needed social infrastructure to CityPlace which is one of the city’s most populated residential developments with over 20,000 residents. So a facility the size of Canoe Landing Campus was needed to cater to everyone while also being functional. Given the scale of the campus, it was important to make it energy-efficient and therefore the team added solar panels that generate 10% of the building’s total energy needs – a small start with the potential to grow a lot more!

The 58,000-square-foot facility was completed last year and maximizes open space while seamlessly blending with the existing Canoe Landing Park. It is a place for people of all ages and includes sports facilities, a community kitchen, gardening plots, and more amenities to foster a strong community. The two-story common center is separated from the three-story schools on the ground level by a pedestrian corridor and an overhead east-west bridge connects the buildings above. The schools are organized with the younger students on the lower level and the older students on the upper two floors. They also share common areas, imaginative indoor play spaces, a climbing wall zone, and a roller coaster track to encourage intermingling.

“The building’s design welcomes neighbors to take part in community activities allowing for a synergistic sharing of spaces between the community center, schools, and childcare. Ultimately, the way the world approaches community space is forever changed. Now, more than ever, physical space must foster meaningful human connection while also remaining flexible to support communities with evolving hybrid and virtual needs for years to come,” said Peter Duckworth-Pilkington, Principal, ZAS Architects.

Canoe Landing Campus’s main attraction is its active rooftop that has a running track, sheltered outdoor space for yoga, and a full-sized basketball court. A series of passive zones and gardening plots surround the “active roof” to make most of the outdoor space without expanding the campus horizontally further into the city. The project also commissioned Anishinaabe artist Que Rock and artist Alexander Bacon to create a 90-meter-long mural on the south walls of the schools to celebrate the land’s Indigenous culture. This campus is truly a place that will build a stronger community in this bustling city by giving people from all walks of life a place to bond, stay stimulated via activities, learn and relax.

Designer: Zas Architects

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This futuristic vehicle design facilitates irrigation, agriculture and education

Well, 2020 is getting really annoying by the day so I am going to look towards the future. Since I am always told to focus the bright side and be hopeful about the future when the present isn’t great, let’s do it through the design lens. Project Outreach is a modular transport vehicle that was designed to support and develop rural infrastructure in 2045 (of course, this is a concept design so don’t send me an email after 25 years). The conceptual vehicle has a very Tesla-esque aesthetic, it is futuristic without being aggressive like the Cybertruck.

Developing nations need a tech boost to uplift themselves. If the land is mostly flat, the infrastructure is not that hard to create but there are many nations like Africa that have a variety of massive landscapes that will need powerful machines like Project Outreach to do it efficiently. The vehicle’s main aim is reaching out as the name suggests. The goal is to reach the communities in need and provide supplies to facilitate rural development by being a one-stop-shop through its multifunctional modules – Water Mod, Plant Mod, Work Mod are just a few examples. This is meant for micro-communities and the staff will deliver the module to them and change it out when needed.

The Water Mod is equipped with irrigation and sanitation technology to help areas where there is a draught or generally improve water crisis. The Plant Mod comes with agricultural tools to help seed crops in a controlled environment and provide relief for food shortage. The Work Mod is more for research, study, educational needs, and providing a small living quarter. The concept design is something that will be a blessing to refugee communities. Imagine how one vehicle can be a school for a small group of children who have nothing else to hold on to, provide food and water in a crisis with capabilities to expand into a medical space if needed.

Project Outreach makes me hopeful about a future where can empower those who communities who were hard to reach out to. It may be a design but it radiates values and morals that are rooted deeply in kindness and making a positive change – after all, isn’t that what humanity is all about? We don’t have a wand but we have imagination, design thinking and equipment to make it happen so I’ll say that is close enough.

Designer: Alexander Edgington

These pyramid-shaped Yacht communities are a millionaire’s social-distancing paradise

As society faces unforeseen struggles, and with climate-change just around the corner, these floating communities give insight into a new sort of habitat that’s up to the challenge of rising sea levels and of social distancing. Meet the Waya, a set of pyramid-shaped floating buildings that become a community on water. Designed by Lazzarini Design Studio, the Waya mimics the structures of the Mayan civilization, with a heavy reliance on pyramid-shaped forms. This shape allows structures to have a lower center of gravity and be very stable, while giving you slanted walls that are perfect for mounting solar panels to harness energy.

The Waya aren’t homes or individual yachts, they’re societies with all the elements needed for sustenance. Smaller floating structures act as personal houses, while larger ones serve the purpose of hotels and community centers. The Wayaland floating community even has entertainment and recreational zones spanning gyms, cinemas, shops, floating beach clubs, as well as greenhouses for growing produce that helps feed the people on-board. The floating architectural units are made from fiberglass, carbon fiber, and steel, and even have large underwater spaces that help extend living/storage capabilities while allowing the Wayas to easily float upright on water. Smaller Wayas come with two floors (including an underwater floor) while larger ones can go up to 10 floors in height, accommodating a host of people. Commuting between individual Waya units and to-and-from land can be done via boats, which then dock into dedicated boat-garages, while larger Waya buildings even have the capacity for a helipad or two. Deliveries between land and the Waya communities can be fulfilled using drones. The communities have the ability to slowly migrate too, allowing them to detach from a coastline whenever needed and float to an isolated location. Solar panels on each Waya building help supply the community with enough power to sustain them for long periods of time.

Shifting to a water-based society may feel like a bit of a cop-out at tackling real-world problems like climate change or pandemics, but they definitely do something interesting. By making humans migrate to water, the Waya frees up land for nature to take over, while ensuring that humans are much more mindful of their habit of pumping garbage into oceans… after all, you wouldn’t want your luxurious yacht to be trapped in sludge, garbage, and floating plastic, would you? Moreover, they even help strictly isolate communities, and more importantly take humans off the electricity grid, making them much more reliant on renewable sources of energy. The Wayaland floating community exists as a concept, but Lazzarini Design is trying to crowdfund €350,000 ($382,000) to build the smallest, basic unit to prove the entire project’s overall feasibility. In return as perks, the studio is offering backers Wayaland passports and short stays at the community’s floating hotels once the project gets successfully executed by 2022.

Designer: Lazzarini Design

Facebook’s new Messenger hub shares tips for staying connected virtually

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