reSITE’s 2018 Conference was titled as “ACCOMMODATE” this year. And, the conference brought inspirations from all around the world including Mexico, Japan, Hong Kong, Israel, and the UK, among many others, to Prague on June 14-15 at Forum Karlin. More than 50 international speakers discussed the most recent topics and the pressing issues related to design, investment & real estate development and innovations for the next generation of housing. 

Ricky Burdett, Director of LSE Cities, gave a keynote lecture at reSITE 2018 ACCOMMODATE Conference. Image © Tomáš Princ, reSITE

“Define and design the future of housing and the housing of the future.” reSITE   

 reSITE 2018 Conference initiated the discussion on how to "define and design the future of housing and the housing of the future." Globally renown experts included Ricky Burdett (Director, LSE Cities), Michel Rojkind (Founding Partner, Rojkind Arquitectos), Reinier de Graaf (Partner, OMA), Jeanne Gang (Founding Principal, Studio Gang), Rafi Segal (Prof. of Architecture & Urbanism, MIT), and James Law (Chairman & CEO, James Law Cybertecture), among many others. 

OPod Tube Housing, Hong Kong © James Law Cybertecture

reSITE 2018 Conference offered a platform to shed light on many case studies and to grasp a contextual understanding of housing projects all around the world. This year, the speakers specifically focused on innovative approaches that help gain deeper insights into designing, developing and financing models of context-specific housing projects. And, OPod Tube Housing by James Law Cybertecture was among one of these projects showcasing the ways in which low-rise, affordable and modular are being implemented in order to pragmatically attract attention to the affordable housing and scarcity of low-cost urban land in the Asian cities.

case Study 1: OPod Tube Housing, Hong Kong by james Law Cybertecture

James Law, Chairman & CEO of James Law Cybertecture, gave a special lecture at reSITE 2018 Conference and presented his experimental, low-cost micro-living housing project "OPod Tube Housing" in Hong Kong. He explained at the conference that Hong Kong is known for being one of the densest and most expensive cities in terms of residential buildings in the world. The scarcity of land for housing in the city has also become one of the reasons which sparked off the housing crisis, especially for lower-middle-class families migrating to cities. Therefore, the urgent need for affordable housing in the city and practical ideas to lower the costs of residential units were pointed out by architect and entrepreneur James Law at the reSITE conference this year. 

James Law at reSITE 2018 ACCOMMODATE Conference © Elis Mutlu, Country Reporter of the Czech Republic @ World Architecture Community 

James Law explained that an average cost for renting a 150 sq ft (approximately 14 m²) flat in Hong Kong is $3000/month. And, many families are not able to afford that cost. Therefore OPod Tube Housing aims to call attention to the Hong Kong's unaffordability problem. The project consists of 2.5m diameter concrete water pipes that can be easily stacked to become either a micro-living apartment for one/two persons or a low rise building for a modular community in a short time. These concrete structures can also be quickly (re)located to different sites and/or be patched into empty plots in the city. 

James Law's OPod Tube Housing. Image © James Law Cybertecture

On the other hand, James Law highlighted the fact that the small-scale projects like OPod Tube Housing can not alone solve the housing crisis in big cities, and there is no such a thing as one-size-fits-all approach to the complex housing & affordability problems of cities today. Therefore, each city should find its own ways of consensus building strategies, and come up with ideas for new financing, ownership, regeneration and alternative models to achieve the best solutions. 

This series on "reSITE 2018 ACCOMMODATE Case Studies" will continue to put more housing projects under the scope this month in order to grasp a diverse understanding of how to design the innovative and affordable housing projects of the future. 

World Architecture Community is the Main Media Partner for this year's event and has reported some keynotes and discussions from the two-day event. Two exclusive interviews will be online soon.

Top image © Tomáš Princ, courtesy of reSITE

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