What is INCREMENTAL HOUSE?

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With the Cambodian Sustainable Housing’s competition launched by the NGO Building Trust International in 2012, we sought design that provided a sustainable future for housing in the South-east Asian country and in particular in Phnom Penh, Cambodia.

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Classic location on the outskirts of large cities.

The proposal had to keep below a budget of $2000 and deal with the yearly flooding that affects most residential areas. We presented our project “Incremental House”, awarded but not constructed.

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Incremental Up House!

The concept of the house is based on several elements:

1/ the involvement of the local residents in the construction process, from the beginning;

2/ a response to a need of safe and affordable housing on the outskirts of Phnom Penh;

3/ a research for architectural design quality, based on the study of the evolution of traditional Cambodian housing;

4/ the improvement of living standards, but also its social, economic, environmental impact at a bigger scale;

5/ the development of a process rather than a predetermined project, in order to create a useful exchange for all stakeholders.

Question of modernity.

Find financings to make this project comes true.

Today, we would like to build our awarded prototype in the outskirts of Phnom Penh. This would be also an opportunity for a broader reflection on the living condition of migrant workers in Siem Reap. (Rural residents migrate to city for work. Seasonal migrants in particular end up living in shantytown)

More than just the construction of the prototype, we wish to put in place methods which would develop, for the inhabitants, a sense of ownership in the process. As they already know the construction process of traditional Cambodian housing, they also need to appropriate the construction process of contemporary housings.

With the construction of this 2000$ prototype with the inhabitants, we also intend to elaborate a self-building manual.

Who are we ?

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Tuk-Tuk ! (Arnaud, Jordan and Marine)

Since 2010, while we were still students, we participate to an urban planning specialization on South East Asia at school. We made a lot of researches and works on this territory undergoing redevelopment with the tourism boom. We have spent time in Thailand and Cambodia, in the touristic cities but also in their outskirts to see and meet the inhabitants. We made surveys of traditional houses and we developed territorial projects.

In 2011, as students, we were part of a workshop in Cambodia with Cambodians architecture students (Royal University of Fine Arts of Phnom Penh). We worked on the potential developments for Kep Province.

This project, after 3 years of studies will be part of an exhibition in Phnom Penh in 2014, KepExpo. Its ambition is to present an urban thinking taking into account the inhabitants and their habits as the main elements for the constitution of the territory.

http://www.kepexpo.com

In 2012, the NGO Building Trust International launched a competition for a house for 2000$. By using our experience, we decided to participate. Ten projects were awarded and three houses were chosen to be built by the NGO.

http://www.buildingtrustinternational.org

We presented our project « Incremental House » (awarded but not constructed). It is based on the essentials principles of vernacular construction that we observed in situ. We spent a lot of time in the Cambodians countryside to make surveys, to meet the inhabitants, to observe their constructive and social habits.

Incremental Up House in campaign.

This prototype is based on the traditional Cambodian house and has the particularity to be extendable in time following the extension of the family. Incremental House is an evolving and upgradable house for little money.

Traditional House, Chi Pat

In 2013, after our graduation, we founded a nonprofit association, the 4D° // Laboratoire d'Expérimentation Pluridisciplinaire.

http://4eme-degre.tumblr.com

The 4D° is an experimental laboratory created after our studies of architecture, design and engineering. Multidisciplinary, we try to propose responsible projects that contradict the idea of short term profitability by integrating as many stakeholders as we can, the inhabitants in the first place.

We assume that exchange and observation are the necessary components of the constitution of sustainable territories.

Today, if we really want to build this prototype, it is because we truly believe on the capacity of the project to be a good way of generating a constructive dialogue.

Discussion with a village chief, Kep.

Entirely based on studies of traditional housing and discussions with people, we think that this project could be a good base for the constitution of a methodology of territory production that could be reused and useful for other peripheral situations like Siem Reap.

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Discussion with a inhabitant, Kep.

Incremental House may be a prototype that allows the examination of Cambodian contemporary housing taking into account today’s needs.

Incremental Up House !

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