The British Pavilion was a fascinating bit of work; with both innovative and tangible dimensions.

The overarching message was that we should stop designing static homes for transient lives - we have become so obsessed with the traditional role of the home and the regulations built up around them (family structure, ownership, use), that they now impose on our contemporary lifestyles. 

Instead, the pavilions suggests that we should begin designing spaces / homes based on the duration of use, as opposed to the (now out-dated) spatial functions taking place within them. After all, how often is a single bed apartment being used to live, eat, sleep + work simultaneously? 

As part of this, the pavilion presents 5 new models for domestic life, each focusing on a different timescale; Hours, Days, Months, Years + Decades.

Most interestingly, each model is presented as a 1:1 scale interior - allowing visitors to fully interact and experience the proposed solutions. Whatsmore, each model has been developed in an “intensely pragmatic way, working with architects, developers, artists, photographer,s writers, fashion designers, and financial institutions”

As the curators state:

Life is changing; we must design for it.

While each model will be analysed separately, the following provides a brief overview of the proposed solutions.

Hours: Own nothing, share everything.

This focuses on the importance of co-sharing of resources across occupants, thus making homes more affordable, space-efficient and multi-functional. After all, sharing can be a luxury, not a compromise.

Below: a shared wardrobe accessible by all residents to remove the need for multiple items (tools, cleaning furniture, exercise equipment etc).

Days: Home is where the Wi-Fi is.

This focuses on the importance of personalisation and home comforts in a society where people are constantly moving between places, thus making the physical home less isolated. After all, your personalised space feels familiar anywhere, but generic space everywhere feels uncanny.

Below: customisable spheres provide a safe haven for occupants, ensuring a familiar cocoon in all locations.

Months: A house without housework.

This focuses on the importance of co-habitation between occupants, providing each with a private core for sleeping, washing and preparing food while leaving the remaining spaces open and public for a more connected life. Afterall, a well-organised communal household allows the ideal balance of private enclosure and social contact.

Below: inside the private core, providing space for sleeping, washing and preparing food.

Years: Space for living, not speculation.

This focuses on the importance of “shell construction” of homes, rather than full fit-outs. In doing so, the home becomes much more affordable and allows occupants to customise from the outset, Afterall, a majority home buyers replace a majority of fixtures and fittings upon first moving in.

Below: example of a bathroom designed for “shell construction” in the home.

Decades: A room without functions.

This focuses on the importance of functionless spaces, whereby instead of cramming specific programmes into the smallest area possible, the home becomes a series of generous, adaptable, useful spaces. Thus, the home has no predetermined rooms, but a diverse range of spatial conditions that suggest different activities. After all, when cultural norms change (as they have), predetermined spaces can quickly become impractical or redundant.

Below: an autonomous structure with both internal and external zones.

Graduate students as part of their final year project engage with their local community to identify spatial programmes that could invigorate their environment through the creation of a usable facility, such as a shelter/play area etc.

Using locally sourced materials and working with their communities, these students have then helped create some very these structures using various techniques as part of their design project.

Some of these have the potential to be reproduced in adaptable, modular formats allowing for quick construction by the local communities as required.

The Korean urban architect works under the constant pressure of two opposing forces. One comes from Seoul’s hyper-density; the greater Seoul metropolitan area, representing 12% of South Korea’s land mass, is home to nearly half of the citizens of the entire country. Hence plot prices are at a premium, and the architect is always under strict orders to augment useable floor area in order to maximize a developer’s and land owner’s profits. The other is an urban building regulatory system where strict and unyielding rules give public officials little discretion for negotiation.

Korean architects must therefore always be prepared to perform a high-wire balancing act with this constant battle referred to as ‘playing the FAR (Floor Area Ratio) Game. Korea’s hyper-dense urban centres have long maintained strict limits on FAR for each zoning area, as part of the urban rules that all buildings are designed to. It is this interplay between land, rules and building that make the floor area ratio so important.

Above: The red highlighted areas mark building elements exempt from the FAR calculations

The main target is medium-scale multi-family houses or mixed-use buildings, which in earlier times would not have been on the radar of most architects. Traditionally, these structures were designed on purely pragmatic grounds by local builders and developers without any professional design training. However, in the years since the financial crash of 2008 when signs of economic uncertainty in large-scale development began to arise, landowners have seen the potential to turn to architects for their design ingenuity. Whilst FAR maximisation is important for revenue, the landowners came to realise that exclusive focus on FAR might result in spaces offering a poor quality of life. By turning to creative small developers and atelier design companies, the landowners found they could increase the useable floor area, attract better tenants and ultimately demand higher rent. 

How is the FAR game played? The set of 4 diagrams below demonstrates how:

A: a hypothetical building envelope regulated by the limits of urban and building regulations

B: a hypothetical building mass accommodating the specific functions required by clients without losing floor area or volume within the envelope

C: extended volumes or surfaces with formal and configurational innovations

D: the realized building

Facing this tug-of- war between private profit and public regulation, how is the Korean architect truly to ply his trade, and infuse his work with some form of aesthetic or socio-cultural considerations? The answer from today’s Korean architects, evidenced by the 36 buildings showcased in this exhibit, is to use the constraints brought on by the FAR game to spark their creativity rather than allowing those constraints to stifle it. These projects are now providing fertile grounds for creative responses to the intense high-stakes pressures of the FAR game.

Above: Models demonstrating the leap from a building mass depicting the various regulatory and site constraints (Diagram A) to end product resulting from the architect’s process (Diagram D).

The Spanish Pavilion demonstrates the direct effects of the economic crisis had on the construction industry in Spain through a selection of unfinished projects as the focal point of the exhibition. 

Above: 8 photo essays focusing on the meaning and impact of the projects unfinished as a result of the economic crisis.

Above: ”Landscapes under 30″ -  each image freezes an instant of the process revealing an invisible reality; together, they reflect the work of this generation: refurbishments and renovations. In tune with the theme of the Biennale, the series implicitly defends destruction over construction, or refurbishing instead of building from scratch.

Above: “Spanish Dream” - The series proposes a critical approach to the economic crisis and its consequences, referring to the American Dream as a symbol of identity of a country through its collective desire: to have home ownership in the Spanish case.  Spanish Dream refers specially to the emotional, creating family scenes in unfinished buildings. The aspect is far from a domestic place and contrasts with the normally of the daily scenes, looking for a reflection about a society that, following the desire of becoming owners, forgot the real sense of inhabiting.

As a counterpoint, surrounding these are exemplar projects showing 55 recent buildings that demonstrate a range of radical approaches to working under economic constraints and rebuilding Spain.

Above: Exemplar projects from the “adaptable” series.

The pavilion is particularly successful in demonstrating how more can be achieved with less through careful design.

The Auzo Factory Irazábal-Matiko project in Bilbao by Suárez Santas Arquitectos required a facade solution that maximised daylight and revealed the activity within the new innovation hub, whilst offering sufficient solar shading - all for 10,000€ (28.4€/sqm).

This was achieved through the use of galvanised steel cable trays to create a uniform skin across the entire facade. The result is aesthetically quite striking, whilst impressive in its simplicity.

The UAE Pavilion focuses on Sha’abi housing; a social housing program that gives local residents access to a basic housing model, which they then transform over time to adapt to their own life (one such adaptation being the addition of armchairs along the street frontage, to act as external community lounges).

Below: a photograph survey of the varied Sha’abi homes around across the UAE

The basic model begins its life as a 2/3 bedroom unit with views towards an external courtyard. As the family grows, the plot size, building structure and internal arrangement are regularly adapted to provide additional bedrooms, bathrooms, kitchens and living areas. In many cases, the family will extend into adjacent buildings, where additional spaces are rented from neighbouring families.

Below: sketch highlighting the main transformations of a Sha’abi house

Where most UK houses are occupied by a single family, the culture within the UAE is such that family is everything. Because of this, you will often find 3 or more families living together (connected through marriage); thus the house becomes a family portrait.

Below: diagram analysing the home transformations of a small community in Al Ain, compared with the original model supplied to them (highlighted in blue)

In fact, the only reason a family would break away from the main house is due to practicalities and the need to expand further. In this case, the family will often move next door, therefore staying part of the family community.