Cambodia's Urban Village

The project represents an affordable housing design competition, located on the main river bank of the city of Phnom Penh, Cambodia. The design elaborated not only seeks to provide sustainable, safe, and affordable housing schemes that specifically target the needs of low income workers, but also to celebrate tradition, architecturally, socially and culturally. The concept emerged following the site's configuration and project's needs. It follows a main central axis, expanding from the riverside and cutting through the project. This green public axis forms a vital and interactive space embedding bus lines, shelters, a nursery, a bamboo garden, markets, a watch-tower and more. From the axis, the project's circulation sews clusters to one another and roads to exterior exits. Instead of constructing clone buildings, the project defies standardization and engenders individualism, using the same prototype units to create a diverse architectural field with interior public courtyards and animated house circulations following the local cultural way of living. Materials were chosen to be locally available and easy to construct on site by the workers themselves.