TOPIC: Urban Co-living: Customizing Modules for Community

Premises and ambitions:
China’s economy is shifting from the primacy of manufacturing to the primacy of a knowledge- and research-based service sector. This shift aligns with a global trend, namely the global socio-economic transformation from a society based on mechanical mass production to a society based on digital customization. This implies a city based on R&D, marketing and finance, requiring continuous networking and face to face communication. The city becomes the social super-brain.
This also implies the congregation of knowledge hungry, entrepreneurial young professionals in central locations. Everybody comes with an insatiable need to network, to learn continuously, and potentially to team up in various entrepreneurial ventures. The idea of co-living caters for this new social need and desire. Co-living offers a real opportunity to make good on all the talk about residential community which must remain a dead letter in housing projects where a random collection of residents live parallel lives. Co-living can create community, which depends on curated compatibility of the residents together with real spatial sharing.
Design Task:
The task is to identify a central urban site in one of China’s 1st or 2nd tier cities and propose a co-living cluster with about 1000 small units. The units can be minimal, i.e. about 12 sqm for singles and about 16 sqm for couples. These units should be designed as prefabricated modules. However, these modules should be designed as parametric system that allows for customization. Endless repetition of identical units is to be avoided. Various species of units need to be invented, varied, and perhaps hybridized. The next aspect to be considered are the aggregation patterns that these modules allow for. The varied patters of voids and inbetween spaces should make space for social communication.
The small individual units are to be augmented with a lot of shared facilities that more than compensate for the spatial constraints of the individual units: kitchens, eating areas, lounging/living areas, café/bar areas, co-working areas etc. Together with the voids these shared spaces deliver the communicative tissue that motivates the residents to choose this development in the first place.

Architecture in Transformation should respond to contemporary challenges and changes. What concerns us primarily is the relationship between architecture and environment, so as to the image of city. The competition aims at searching and constructing human space with a Spirit of Place in the increasingly fragmented cities and unordered villages, exploring environment-friendly and sustainable ideas in the information age, and integrating creative concepts with solid basic skills in architectural design. The competition requires the participants to make detailed insights and reflections on architectural history, explore complicated coordinated demands of architecture and environment, pay attention to events in specific sites, and configure viable urban and architectural spaces.

2018 marks the seventh edition of UIA-HYP Cup International Student Competition in Architectural Design, the sole annual international architecture competition for students in Mainland China that receives the international support of Union International des Architects (UIA) and exclusive naming sponsored by the Shanghai HYP-ARCH Architectural Design Consultant Co. Ltd. It’s that hosted by the School of Architecture, Tianjin University and Urban Environment Design (UED) Magazine and the School of Architecture, Southeast University will be the co-hosting organization of the 2018 competition. It is a platform for global architecture students to approach the theme “Architecture in Transformation”, and for the rest of the world to check out the latest trend of Chinese architectural education. The jury members include the leading architects, deans and directors from top architecture schools. With its challenging topics, prestigious jury panel as well as professional operation, UIA-HYP Cup competition has grown to become a major student competition in China and its global profile continues to rise.

1.This is a fair competition open to all architecture and relevant major students around the globe. Full-time on-campus architecture students from accredited institutions (including master and PhD candidates and graduate students of 2018) can participate alone or as a team with team members of no more than four people and advisors of no more than two.
2. Only the team leader will be contacted when necessary if students participate as a team.
3. Log on http://hypcup.uedmagazine.net/?r=site&en=1,click “Online Registration” to fill out the registration form and submit online.
4. After filled in the registration form, participants will get a serial number (please take care to preserve it as each participant/participating team has only one serial number).
5. Please submit the digital version of drawings and related documents to uedcompetition@163.com before the submission deadline, 24:00(GMT+8) September 20th, 2018. The organizing committee accepts no printed version. Entries will be printed and exhibited together in due time.
6. With the assistance of the committee, juries will meet and decide the winners.
7. Inquiries related to the competition will be responded to via e-mail: uedcompetition@163.com.

1.Individual participants and groups must agree with and follow the competition requirements and regulations. The organizing committee reserves its right of final interpretation.
2. Entries with words or pictures relating to the name or department of participants in the digital drawings will be disqualified from the competition.
3. All entries are accepted (while including author’s name) with the explicit free right of publication, reproduction, and promotional use by competition organizers and sponsors without need for further approvals.
4. Entries that have been submitted to other competitions, published on other public occasions or found to be similar to other works in terms of design ideas will be disqualified from the competition.
5. Any participant that contacts jurors about the competition during the entirety of the competition process will be disqualified from the competition.