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Havana Moments

Part 1 Project 2003
Sakiko Kohashi
Nicholas Skepper
University of East London London | UK
Havana, explored through a process of film making is seen as a composition of moments. Amongst these moments, 300 buildings are collapsing each year.
My proposal is for a housing unit cluster; a living organism sited in the remains of a colonial edifice. A seeding program for the city's ruins.

Observations of habanero culture inform both structure and arrangement within and between housing units and the street. The dynamic needs of residents to expand their territory is accommodated through 'weak' flexible architecture, framed within 'fixed' air space. Here the promise of perpetual wind flow and the place for new moments.

Sakiko Kohashi
Nicholas Skepper


Sakiko's project was exceptional in its precision of intention and resonance with its context. The unit spent the year working within the density of Havana Cuba's back streets, searching for poignant and provocative urban insertions. Sakiko's understanding of the problem associated with intensities inherent in such cramped living conditions led her to a proposition high in ambition and poetic in resolution. Working with ordinary materials and simple means of construction, she developed a new housing typology for the city. A typology that reveals sensibility towards the local culture, invites occupation, encourages accretions and offers optimism for a city in transition.

Tutor(s)

2003
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