Special Mention – 2007 Housing Competition
Project by: Laurent Saint-Val, Alexandre Sarazin, Shahyar Shakiba

This project explores ‘Mikado’, a pick-up sticks game, as a way to establish design rules and physical/spatial connections for housing organization. The challenge is to create a mediating structure between physically adjacent conditions and public/private programs. This structure is formed by series of architectural ‘sticks’ which have different functions. The first type consists of connectors or bridges, which are used to link different programs. The knots are the areas where different activities are mixed-up and generate a new type of architecture that is physically and theoretically different from traditional dwellings. Finally, the third group is made of flexible voids that provide balance and stability to the system. It is an investigation about fullness and emptiness and its relation to program and circulation.

The project acts as a bridge between two pieces of land and could be located anywhere in the world. It could adapt to different landscapes and climatic conditions and could grow exponentially to accommodate anything from a single family unit to a large community. Another important aspect of our proposal is its attempt to keep the surrounding landscape virtually untouched in an effort to create environmentally responsible architecture.

Mikado Housing is an organism composed of residences, streets, public and recreational areas. It is a network of spatial and physical patterns and protocols of organization that create new types of hybrid entities.