Architects place third in future spaces competition

Four architects - Anna Gallo, Clyde Abela, Dirk Psaila and Sarah Calleja - took part in an architectural design competition in Istanbul last month and placed third with their project 'Eco Shell'. The team's name was '2x2'.

'House spaces towards the 22nd century' was organised by the Turkish Chamber of Architects (Antalya branch) and was part of a conference on the future of housing.

Anna Maria Gallo graduated from the University of Florence and did her Master's degree in Bioclimatic Architecture and Technological Innovation for the Environment. Sarah Calleja graduated from the University of Malta and furthered her studies in Entertainment Design at the Milan Polytechnic. Dirk Psaila and Clyde Abela both graduated from the University of Malta.

The young architects were asked to look to the future with the possibility of climate change and a migrant society. Instead of looking to the future, they tried to identify what managed to withstand the passage of time irrelevant to climate.

This is the first international architectural competition for the team. Experts forsee that 200 million people will have to emigrate in 50 years' time due to changes in climate and drought. The biggest changes in the architectural field are a result of ever-improving technologies. This also brings about new materials, new needs and new spaces.

"Countless examples can be found in nature, in particular the human body. Man has survived the test by adapting to the challenges of an ever-changing climate through a variety of mechanisms, but our main interest fell upon the skin. Hence, our goal was to create an adaptive house," one of the young architects said.

Their initial aim was to create an adaptive envelope, a skin which reacts to environmental changes to allow comfort for the users within. A skin similar to the human skin reacts to the sun's heat by sweating while soaking up vitamins. Similarly, the proposed skin would react to different thermal conditions and enable the future house to be placed in various climates.

Eco Shell is a container that houses life. The form was abstracted from the shape of the human ribcage, which houses the most important organs of the human body. Similarly, this protects the core of our residential space the way ribs do. The skin needed to achieve five goals - sustainability, comfort, technology, flexibility and prefabrication.

The skin, composed of a double layer system, works on the basis of intelligent sensors, and is able to control the internal environment with regards to ventilation, temperature, and light. The double skin has a double action - an external protective layer and an internal thermo-regulating skin. Automated vents allow the removal of excess heat through the chimney effect, referred to as passive cooling.

Slits both laterally and along the main curvature are automatically controlled to give the right amount of natural light internally while avoiding excessive heat and glare. The plan is arranged in such a way that the living area has the largest glazing area, whereas the bedrooms have a smaller glazing area.

The living area faces south and is the spatial connection between exterior and interior. A slit in the central node and entrance area combines external and internal spaces by offering the possibility of having an open section of the roof cover. The interior spills onto the exterior area as the skin opens up, turning part of the living area into an external garden in the hot summer months, and a greenhouse in winter.

An external protective-adaptive skin was provided and this contains life within. It is a container that protects, breathes, controls and adapts as it reacts to internal and external environment stimuli, guaranteeing a constant comfort level. This area fusion of active and passive systems makes the project alive - a regulating organism.