We are very pleased to announce that 5th year students Vasilis Panayides and Giorgos Kyriakides’ project “XY Laxamentum House” was shortlisted among the top 50 finalists (out of 2500 entries) at the international architecture competition “Tiny House 2020”, hosted by volume Zero. (https://competition.volzero.com/competitions/result/13).
The project was developed under Unit 2 ‘Living Where the Immaterial Matters_ Towards the Commons’ of the Department of Architecture [tutors Maria Hadjisoteriou and Yiorgos Hadjichristou + Christos Papastergiou (in Spring 2021)].
The Unit’s core investigation is to provoke a debate on the issue of immaterial matter, and its creative response in redefining a new hybrid urban environment. Architecture and the city are seen as one unified evolving organism which keeps incessantly defining and being defined by multiple agents. In a need of rethinking and redefining our cities due to the increasing global environmental, social and economic crises, Unit 2 aims to enrich our architectural understanding of Commons and explore their potential role in articulating architectural ideas.
“XY Laxamentum house”
XY Laxamentum house is an exploration of an adaptable typology of a tiny house for the elderly. The structure aimed to respond to the user by addressing issues of limited mobility, assisted living and problems arising from social isolation of the elderly from their families. The idea of the accordion mechanism was tested in order to provide adaptability in two different scales, in a micro scale in relation to the domestic space and in a macro scale of the relation of the unit as an insert in the urban context. Primary architectural elements as floors, walls, whole spaces can move, slide, open in order to alter the small house to meet the physical needs of its users, and at the same time interact and get engaged with its immediate surroundings or other tiny houses units addressing isolation by creating opportunities of socializing and sustainable living.
