February 21, 2023
Undergraduate architecture students Kaiqing Tan and Shuyang Li from Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University, both in Year 3, respectively won the 1st prize and an honourable mention in the international student competition Re-housing the Cave Dwellers of Bamiyan organized by the Society of Afghan Engineers.
The competition invited participants to design viable and affordable housing for the low-income cave dweller families who were displaced in Bamiyan, Afghanistan. It was announced worldwide in 2022 and saw entries from East Asia, Australia, Canada, Europe, the Middle East, and the USA.
XJTLU Year 3 architecture students participated in the competition as their core studio project in the module ARC205 Design and Building Typology of the past fall semester.
The first prize winner, “Developable Community” by Kaiqing Tan, designs a Bamiyan residential community with the courtyard shared by several households in order to ensure the quality of life of residents and to encourage mutual help between families.
Developable Community
In this project, residents’ living space is generated according to their usage habits. Its area is the minimum area to meet the basic living needs, nevertheless, each family has a space for expansion. The courtyard can be turned into a building to meet the increasing demand if needed.
Developable Community
All families in a communal courtyard would share a kitchen, where women from different families could socialize under traditional living habits.
Developable Community
The other project that wins an honorable mention, “Reunion at Higher Place” by Shuyang Li, proposes to enhance the connection between families on higher levels between the courtyards that are separated on the ground floor for increased privacy.
Reunion at Higher Place
Thus, without undermining local traditions, the idea is to enhance their connection on higher levels. Corridors on the first floor connects two or three family units in one grouping of clusters, and a roof garden and platforms on the second floor connects all the groupings of clusters to "reunite" people on higher level.
Reunion at Higher Place
“The great success of winning first prize and having two XJTLU students among the winners puts them and the Department of Architecture in a spotlight for their capacity to stand out in the area of socially sensitive sustainable housing development,” says Gergely Csikvari, associate professor at XJTLU’s Department of Architecture who’s module leader of ARC205.
“It also stresses the importance of integration of international design contests in the curricular work for their outreach potential,” he says.
Story provided by Department of Architecture
Edited by Yi Qian
Images courtesy of Department of Architecture
February 21, 2023