About Elias Haddad
For buildings to be more resilient in an ever changing world, I believe that buildings should be designed to satisfy three main criteria.
(1) Embrace the trending "Sharing Economy" and design buildings to be co-living and/ or co-working spaces. Given that these spaces are cheaper to rent and operate, they will encourage younger professionals to move back into city centers to either live or establish startups at cheaper costs. This will encourage people to reduce car dependency and as a result lead healthier lifestyles and reduce CO2 emissions. Socially, these shared spaces would support more social interactions that would foster better knit communities that are often lacking in our urban areas.
(2) Experiment with new 3D technologies to try and develop projects using lightweight and movable partitions. This added flexibility will make it easier for buildings to be allocated different functions based on future market needs.
(3) Involve communities living around development sites in the design process from an early stage making it an inclusive communal effort. This will not only reduce the tensions that are usually present between established communities and developers but also help transform these new projects into places that the community feels attached to.
Needless to say, architects should also be less concerned with designing signature buildings and more concerned with creating contextual buildings that incorporate passive design strategies to make the buildings more environmentally friendly and more respectful to the surrounding fabric.
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