Cala Domus | PCKO

Britain | 2000 (ca.) | hard form

Description

PCKO's housing scheme for Newhall, Harlow is an example of the architects’ “Living Wall” concept, which is designed to allow flexibility in the provision and adaptation of services. The project consists of 74 private residential apartments and houses, ranging from around 100 m2 for a two-bedroom maisonette to 213 m2 for a townhouse with live / work area.

Most of these buildings incorporate a “Living Wall”, a dedicated zone of space running from the front to the rear of each house, which provides for all horizontal and vertical service distribution such as piping and electric wiring as well as storage spaces for refuse and recycling. All wet rooms are also attached to or extend into this wall. This zone has excess capacity, and is accessible both internally and externally so as to allow adaptation and renewal of existing services, or the exchange of entire existing items with pieces of new servicing technology. In effect the “Living Wall” acts as pacemaker for the house as a whole; most of the complex technological change will occur in this area, leaving the rest of spaces open for physical adaptation over time.

References

Smit, J., 'Home chic home', Building, 267, 2002, pp. 48-49.
Swengley, N., and H. Hartman, 'Building homes for every age', Financial Times 2005, pp. 1-2.
Till, J., 'The future is flexible', Evening Standard, 4 May 2004, p. 10.