amorphica design research office / / html projects

One example: The gymnasium house is a space where a family lives, they invest in mechanical excercise machines which are being worked on throughout the day by community members. These excercise machines are producing energy for the house. The house becomes an asset to the community members, and the house self-sustains itself with the energy the community members produce. It is a simple idea. An idea of producing in-house in order to self sustain. At the same time the house becomes a generating mechanism for its community.

Energy is never created nor destroyed, only transformed... And tapping into this transformation cycle, not letting energy go to waste, returning to the enviroment what was taken from it, only transformed for the better is the key to a sustainable way of life.
The living space needs to be OPEN in EVERY sense of the word:
OPEN towards the community: Let the community get back what we take.
OPEN towards the user: Allow him to create and modify his own space.
OPEN towards materials: Create a diverse set of multifunctional panels to go in the house, they can be reconfigured into the windows, doors, etc. and be given various uses such as insulation, energy storage, doorways, photovoltaics and so on.

A SHARED COMMUNITY
Self-sufficient collective housing
Today and in the globalized world, it becomes impossible to think of any house as a single isolated dwelling apart from everything else. Instead, homes need to take an approach of intersufficiency between each other and the enviroment. Cross-programming and hybridity are our best options.

We chose a generic prototypical shape of a house because in this case we are NOT speaking about form but about the regeneration of mankind to adopt a GIVING LIFESTYLE, a sharing way of life to be able to afford a self-sufficient introspection. By opening your house, you welcome a community that will help you be self-sufficient. Give to be able to receive. There is no better idea for sustainability.

All houses in the community relate to each other but some of the spaces may form tighter relations amongst them, creating symbiotic realtionships where two or more houses are directly and mutually beneficial. Although all the houses may be similar, each house will be unique in it’s own way from two sources:
The use of the community space
User defined adjustments to the default layout

What we are trying to do is not to dictate lifestyle, but rather inspire it, by proposing some prototypes and designing a system with endless possibilities and mutations.

01_ PHOTOSYNTHETIC/GREEN HOUSE: Can act as a lung for the community while suppliyng it with varied plants and giving it’s users clean energy
02_ HARVEST HOUSE: Can create source of nourishment/satisfaction for the community/house
03_ WATER HOUSE: Can recycle water for the community while using the water movements from the recycling process to generate energy for itself.
04_ SOLAR/PHOTOVOLTAIC HOUSE: Can create a series of areas with solar panels for receiving and converting solar energy, which can mix use as community sun-energy-gathering zones.
05_ AERO HOUSE: Can use windmills for energy production and use those windmills for energy production, and for the community.
06_ GYM HOUSE: Gym open to all members of the community where the excercise machines are connected to a generator and a battery that turns the energy from the excercise into usable electricity for the house.
07_ RECYCLE HOUSE: Can store and take care of various recycling needs through it’s different versions:
08_ ORGANIC VERSION: Can gather organic waste ando use it to generate a community compost supply
09_ PLASTIC VERSION: Can gather and recycle plastic waste materials
10_ PAPER VERSION: Can take care of gathering and recycling paper waste and supplying the community with paper products.
11_ GLASS VERSION: It will take care of gathering and recycling glass waste materials.
12_ SOCIALLY SELF-SUFFICIENT HOUSES: Unlike the previosly described prototypes, these houses are not self sufficient in the pre-conceived sense of the word, but rather by filling out a social void in the community and providing a needed service:
LIBRARY VERSION
CLINIC VERSION
CAFÉ/RESTAURANT VERSION