Jodie Macpherson
Urban Housing: Multigenerational Growth
"Streets in the sky"
This project aims to reinstate a richness in Glasgow’s city centre demographic - currently dominated by students and young professionals - through the provision of a multigenerational housing co-op.
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Glasgow’s Merchant City : rich in cultural diversity, yet majorly lacking in age diversity. The continuous movement of families and the elderly to the suburbs has left a shallow population dominated by students and young professionals. It is clear that the current urban planning process gives major lack of consideration to these groups, forcing a search for basic housing needs much further afield.
By applying village typologies, it is hoped that the demographic richness of a village community can be manifested on site. Through integration of fundamental community spaces, it is hoped that the site will act as a whole and inclusive community, scaling the city down into a more tangible environment.
The project focuses on providing multi-generational homes for vulnerable individuals, and pushes for close-knit relationships between families, the elderly and young singles. By redefining the classic western model of “your home and your two neighbours” it hopes to establish the growth of organic neighbourly connections, which are often lacking in urban environments, while attempting to tackle financial issue’s faced by such individuals, when trying to buy property in the city, by providing small cellular homes which are part of a greater and more inclusive unit. Additionally, this cell model stimulates a “family like” dynamic and supports a shared domestic labour: daily tasks are designed to be split amongst inhabitants, forcing strong relations to form and thus a co-op to exist.