PolyRoom
Additional Info
Award Winner : DMD Modular, Sp. z o.o.
Architectural Excellence : This project aims to address today’s key urban challenges: How can design address our increasing need to do more in less space? How can we leverage emerging construction methods to address the critical demand for housing? What is home today, after the traditional family?
In Japan, a washitsu ????? is an ‘anything’ room, open to reinvention and continuous adaptation. It has no predefined, single dedicated purpose (unlike rooms in most European homes). It is a space that can take any shape to meet inhabitants’ changing everyday needs.
The design integrates a lift-bed that disappears into the ceiling, opening the space to other usages, a modular sofa, compact storage, and balcony planters, carefully designed to reactivate local biodiversity. The interior design language stands on simplicity, elegance and genuine materials. Microcement floor finishes and birch plywood furniture were chosen to combine long-lasting, easy to maintain qualities with unordinary yet timeless aesthetics.
Cost Energy Effectiveness : The PolyRoom module will be primarily used for marketing purposes and to secure investment in the project; being able to relocate and showroom the module across various locations greatly broadens its reach, thus increasing its cost-effectiveness. The philosophy of ‘no compromise’ in the product's quality, standing behind the project from the very beginning, simultaneously prolongs its projected durability and lifespan. The use of high quality, easy to maintain materials as interior and exterior finishes also contributes to potential future expense reduction. Presenting these values through the PolyRoom was crucial for The Client and will pose as a starting point for mass production and expansion of coliving developments.
Design Firm Name : Cutwork S.A.S.
Green Building Description : One key challenge this project focuses on is: How can we build for the next urban era where we share our territories with other types of living beings?
The unit not only nurtures the wellbeing of residents with excellent thermal control, air ventilation, and floor to ceiling windows to let light pour in; it is carefully designed to support and activate local biodiversity. Terrace and balcony planter boxes support dense vegetation. Specific species are selected and planted for the local ecosystem, helping to establish a niche for select insect species to support birds and biodiversity at each stage of the food chain.
With deep belief in conscious design choices and controlled manufacturing process, enabled by off-site development, the project aims to set an example on how to approach the challenge of carbon footprint reduction, as well as ‘ecological services’.
Occupied Date : 10/28/2021
Production Start Date : 5/10/2021
Project Location City : PARIS, ILE-DE-FRANCE
Technical Innovation : This project introduces modular off-site construction into the emerging new residential category of coliving. The modularity and mobility of the unit give coliving developers key advantages to scale development and improve quality control across distinct locations. The modularity will allow the brand to easily adapt and develop in different urban contexts and locations (ie. slab blocks, narrow blocks, rural, etc).
The unit structure consists of a three-dimensional, welded steel frame, insulated and cladded, with an exterior staircase frame. Atop the unit is a social terrace, immersed with dense lush planters along the perimeter.
Enabling this modular unit to activate local biodiversity and support ecology presented key challenges (as opposed to solutions with traditional building technologies). This was accomplished through careful selection of materials, applying innovative building techniques, such as the facade cladding and unique metalwork, and automated irrigation and draining.
Total Square Feet : 589