The Housing Finance and Development Centre of Finland (ARA) hosted the ARA-Home 2049 Student Housing Competition to design a social housing development in the year 2049. The industrial town of Lahti, Finland, has suffered from the diminishing need for their manufacturing facilities. This proposal brings life back to the heart of the city, while benefiting the community on a variety of levels. 

 

To create architecture with a heightened sense of community, we sought inspiration from the most fundamentally natural concept possible: an ecosystem.  Defined as the relationship between organisms and their environment, an ecosystem serves as an ideal abstraction for this project. 

 

By rethinking typical housing configurations, we developed a scheme that creates mutually beneficial relationships among users in the facility.  Businesses who indirectly fund amenity spaces, such as health and wellness centers, through their rental costs provide an enhanced quality of space. This attracts residents and other members of the community to stimulate their businesses.  As a result, residents receive more improved amenities, creating a strong sense of identity and pride in place. 

 

Similar to the idea of a social ecosystem, we also created a relationship between the residents and the building on a ecological level.  The building’s vital greenhouse and water recycling system creates a symbiotic relationship between the residents, the building and their environment.