2024 China Fellowship
Vertical Deconstruction, Housing Equity, and Humanistic Care

High-rise apartments are a resource-saving example of urban housing. The decline in marriage rates and the increase in housing costs have led to an increasing number of hardworking young people in China’s big cities preferring to live in single apartments. The economic downturn has led to office buildings with high vacancy rates, which have become a new model for young people to live in. Tongzi buildings can be seen everywhere in the city, but most of them lack enough space. In the pursuit of high density and economic gain, too many people are squeezed into square boxes. However, the resources and economy saved are all lost in excessive construction. Struggling young people are given very little space, and exploited layer by layer, often confined to bedrooms of 30 to 40 square meters.

The transformation of the apartment building construction model could provide low-cost and unified housing while ensuring the living space of residents to the greatest extent. Under the premise of existing technologies, moving more urban functions into buildings can not only solve the problem of vacancy rates in office buildings, but also better solve housing equity. Adapting to current social changes and directly addressing young people's new housing needs is the best way to control housing costs.

Based on current apartment models, changing attitudes about the housing market in China, and the “functions provided by real estate,” my research focuses on the following five aspects of the building itself:

• Apartment Vertical Structure. Based on existing technology, many changes to the shape can be made, and tube structures can be changed through cantilevers, extensions, etc., so that vertical stress is evenly distributed in the vertical traffic box, which is specifically distributed according to the structure of the apartment building.
• Spatial Functional Form. The internal spatial form of a building is a means of effectively distinguishing functions. Appropriate reformation helps to arrange service facilities. Certain morphological changes at regional nodes can help improve the urban skyline landscape and beautify the vertical effect of the city.
• Housing Grade Gradient. As young people yearn for unified single apartments, from a vertical perspective, efforts should be made to control hierarchical fairness, maintain residents' living concepts, and turn young people's ideal stage into a reality.
• Socioeconomic Effects. The rise of single apartments is undoubtedly the best solution to the current phenomenon of vacant property, ensuring living standards, promoting better economic development, and making up for the losses caused by vacancy.
• Building Materials Classification. The use of green building materials can efficiently and sustainably construct apartment buildings; bringing intelligent models into the interior of buildings is a future development trend.

Research Significance

• Explore the relationship between the vacancy rate of office buildings in Fujian and the housing supply, and explore the living conditions and availability of public services in urban centers where people gather.
• Pay attention to the housing situation of young people and the impact of mobile facilities such as takeout and express delivery on the housing environment and safety. We call on society and the government to show humanistic care for young people who struggle, strengthen social harmony, and integrate housing exchanges and openness.
• Provide new construction and design directions for real estate developers, invest more funds in the types of housing that people need, reduce the obstruction of social development caused by unnecessary economic losses, gather more people in the city, and share the best resource.

China and Japan