via Graven Hill Village Development Company
現代自建社區對於建築師的挑戰
How Could Modern Self-Build Communities Challenge the Role of the Architect?
“自建房”，顧名思義，就是沒有建築師，也沒有其他任何人，這個概念源於史前的人類需求，人類的祖先需要建造他們的棲身之所，以滿足他們的日常生活所需，同時也表達房主的地位和性格特徵，因此“自建房”這一概念將人們與其住所聯繫起來。
然而，“自建房”這一概念卻很少能夠與我們的現代生活相提並論。例如徵地困難、不符合相關部門的各項要求、建築施工難度增加，這讓自建房的建造愈發困難。這個想法非常純粹，因此也有許多小策略能夠幫助人們達到類似的效果。所以，為了鼓勵人們自我建造，建築師便扮演了相對重要的角色。
“Self-build”: no mention of an architect, or anyone else for that matter. Maybe it’s a prehistoric urge that makes this idea so enticing; our earliest ancestors constructed their primitive huts to suit their unique needs and reflect their status or style. “Self-build” promises to physically re-connect people to the homes they live in.
However, the romantic notion of "self-build" housing is rarely compatible with the modern reality we live in. Building has become increasingly clouded by the difficulty of procuring land, excessive governmental red-tape, and an increase in building complexity. While self-build remains the purest form of this dream, there are now a series of nuanced processes that can help us achieve similar results. As a new generation of communities that encourage this dream emerges, we must look at the role the architect plays within them.
via Graven Hill Village Development Company
回想起自建社區的源頭，我們會發現，自建者一直屬於自治的狀態。在1979年，Walter Segal的“Walter’s Way”將建築的設計限定於一些簡單的策略，譬如“減少設計，讓建築迴歸本源”，亦或是“為自己而建造”。這些房屋可以用當地木材場找到的標準尺寸材料組裝起來。這樣的話建築的佈局能夠按照需求減少或擴建，從而滿足不同家庭的不同需求，另外也讓建築保持個人特徵。換句話說，這樣的建造方式也削弱了自我需求。“Walter’s Way”是一種實驗性方式，讓你能夠更好地瞭解自己的住宅，因為這一過程並沒有建築師或施工方。
然而，這種自建住宅的一個因素是建築師，換句話說，就是設計專業人員。建築師能夠有效地減少理想與現實之間的差距，能夠更好地實現內心想法。
Looking back on the origins of the modern self-build community, we can see that self-builders retained almost complete autonomy. In 1979, Walter Segal’s "Walter’s Way" limited the designs of the houses to strict but simple principles, “reducing design and architecture to its essentials” and enabling “ordinary people to build for themselves.” The houses could be assembled with standard sizes of material found at the local lumber yard, while the layout could be expanded and altered to suit the growing family’s needs, with each house maintaining the unique characteristics of its owner. In one sense, this is architecture working to erase the need for itself. "Walter’s Way" was an experiment in being intimately hands-on with your home, without the need for an architect or builder of any kind.
One of the main issues with this kind of self-build community is that architects, by definition, are specialists in design. An architect should be able to reduce the gap between a person’s ideal living space and the living space that they eventually create for themselves, and should be a desirable asset to the realization of one's dream.
via Graven Hill Village Development Company
Graven Hill是英國最大的小鎮，也是對Walter’s Way最為理想的詮釋。項目位於牛津外部地區，人們可以“通過自己的設想和預算”在1.88平方公里的範圍內自建社區，社區內大約包含1900座家庭住宅，其中30%是經濟適用房，以及2000個工作崗位。
設計方案結合了多種不同大小的地塊，形成多樣化的社區形式，鄉間小道、城市道路、鄉村中心、林蔭大道、環形鐵路、窪地公園，以及社區街道等將居民區分割成多種類型。
Graven Hill—the largest town of its kind in the UK—is a modern interpretation of the Walter’s Way ideal. Located just outside Oxford, it allows individuals the ability to design a home “limited only by their imagination and their budget” within its 1.88-square-kilometer "self-build community," and has the capacity to create 1,900 homes (30% of which are planned to be affordable housing) and 2,000 jobs.
The scheme’s design code mixes different plot sizes together to create a diverse, engaged community and splits the residential areas into multiple typologies: rural lanes, urban lanes, village center, tree-lined boulevard, circular railway, swale parks and community streets.
via Graven Hill Village Development Company
鄉間小道形成村落的邊界，並且與周邊的環境相匹配，另外，在村落的中央位置有一些極具創新思維的設計作品。不同類型的建築都與場地的社區和周邊環境保持獨特的聯繫，讓村民們不僅能夠擁有自己所渴望的住宅，同時也能過上心中的理想生活。
The rural lanes give the village a controlled, conservative border to match the surrounding vernacular, allowing the more adventurous designs to be partially hidden closer to the village core. Each typology offers a unique relationship with the community and surrounding environment, giving the hopeful resident full control over not only the house, but also the life, that they wish to create.
via Graven Hill Village Development Company
via Graven Hill Village Development Company
然而在Graven Hill，自建住宅成為了一系列設計方案的保護措施，挑戰了住房市場的不公平現象，因為這些現象在過去半個世紀中曾普遍存在。這些方案大致能夠分為三個主要類型，每個類型都有建築師的參與，其中有定製建造、設計建造，以及模塊化住宅。
定製建造方式是這些社區中的常見手法，該方式主要的使用對象是建築師的客戶們。因此建築師在這種方式中有著很高的參與度，而此類建築也常常能夠直接反應客戶的性格，也能表達建築師的創新性思維。荷蘭自建住宅社區Almere便是一個經典的例子。個性化設計使得項目業主和周邊居民都能獲益，這也表達了在過去幾十年中，郊區化住房的又一適應性選擇。
However, at Graven Hill, self-build has become an umbrella term for a variety of procurement and design options which seek to challenge the injustices of the housing market as it has existed for the last half-century. These options can be separated into three main categories, each with a different level of involvement from the architect: custom-build, design-and-build, and kit houses.
Custom-build is a common practice in these communities, and the term is used to describe when the homeowner is the architect’s client. The architect maintains a high level of involvement in this scenario, usually leading to unique moments of architecture that reflect the personality of the homeowner, as well as the experience and flair of the designer. Almere—the Dutch self-build town upon which Graven Hill was based—is a great example of a custom-build mentality. The individual designs have made the neighborhood a huge success with both residents and onlookers, highlighting an alternative to the cut-and-paste estates that have defined suburbanization in previous decades.
© Wikimedia user Leuk2 licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0
雖然諸如Almere的自建社區逐漸流行，但是建築業在設計建造方面仍然有一些轉變。這些事務所建造和概念設計方式提供了一站式服務，其中的邏輯在於，一些業主能夠保留自己的想法，同時，建造的時間和預算都便於掌控。雖然不可否認的是，住宅的設計與建築師息息相關，但是有時也有特例，建築師對項目來說非常重要，但是也並非不可或缺。
模塊化住宅則將這一策略發揮到了極致，完全將建築師和客戶分隔開，從而降低了施工時間和成本花費。這種方式於20世紀流行於美國，類似於Walter’s Way的自建房起源策略雖然這樣的設計方式便於控制，但是在這種情況下，業主的創造性思維卻被抑制。有的建築事務所已經意識到這種方式所存在的問題，因為人們就是希望能夠設計出屬於自己的住宅，滿足自己的專屬生活，因此，這種更為單純的建造方式並非業主們所期待。
However, despite the popularity of custom-build neighborhoods like Almere, the construction industry is seeing a shift toward design-and-build as a method of realizing homeowners' dreams. These companies create a one-stop shop for construction and concept design, the logic being that some sense of the dream home can be retained on the part of the homeowner, but with the benefit of a seamless construction timeline and reduced economic strain. While the best design-and-build homes still maintain a relationship with the architect, this is not always the case. The architect is seen as an additional extra, and not a necessity.
Kit houses take this approach further, completely distancing the architect from the client with prefabricated designs, that reduce cost and construction time, delivered directly to site. Popularized in the US throughout the 20th century, the modular components of these kit houses still offer a certain sense of design control—similar to the self-build origins of Walter’s Way—but in this case they ultimately restrict the homeowner’s creative autonomy. These businesses have noted how the main anxiety of a self-build project centers around the very core of the concept—the building process itself—and that project managing their own build is not what most self-builders want at Graven Hill.
Image via Flickr user internetarchivebookimages (Public Domain)
那麼，建築師該如何與這些模塊化的方式進行抗爭呢？建築師在自建社區中是否能夠繼續持有一席之地？他們的所作所為是否更能為這個行業所接受？Opinder Liddar是位於牛津的lapd 建築事務所的主要負責人，在Graven Hill項目的設計建造過程中，他與客戶進行密切的合作，同時強調，設計是自建項目的核心。
“我們所合作的客戶會來找我們，就是因為他們對設計十分重視。甚至連D+B [design and build]公司都與我們進行過合作。”
So how do architects compete with quicker, cheaper alternatives that bypass the architect? Is there a continued role for the architect within "self-build communities," or will the profession have to adapt what they offer? Opinder Liddar, a director of Oxfordshire-based lapd Architects, is working with self-build clients at Graven Hill and highlights design as the irreplaceable core of any self-build project:
“The clients we work with come to us because they value design. Even D+B [design and build] companies come to us because they value design.”
Courtesy of lapd Architects
建築師的成長過程需要經過長時間的專業訓練，這並非沒有理由，同時傳統的設計方式會更加滿足客戶的需求。聰明的自建者都能理解，對於客戶來說，如果想要達到預期的目標，那麼建築師這一角色不可或缺，但是也許也能夠在專業策略和模塊化成本效益之間找到一個平衡點，從而更好地解決建築設計的專業問題。在接下來的幾年，會有更多諸如Graven Hill這樣的項目逐步完成，它也將成為此類建築的先例，從而在未來的住宅設計中，提升建築師的參與性。
There’s a reason architects train for such an extended period of time, and a reason designs by traditional practices are usually more fulfilling. Smart self-builders understand that there is no replacement for design professionals working with their client to achieve their aspirations, but perhaps a new alliance could be forged between the practicality and cost-effectiveness of modular build solutions and the professionalism of architectural design. In the next few years, as more projects reach completion, Graven Hill will provide an insightful precedent for housing schemes of the future, and could be a case study for a new era of architects having increased involvement in the residential housing sector.
由專築網李韌，王帥編譯
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