20 The Modern Tulou Project name: The Urban Tulou Architect: Urbanus Architects Location: Guangzhou, China Date of completion: 2008 Building footprint: 9141 m2 Project name: Tietgenkollegiet Architect: Lundgaard & Tranberg Architects Location: Copenhagen, Denmark Date of costruction: 2001
Total site area: 13,711 m2 Living Units: 278 Storeys: 6.
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Ground Floor Plan Figure 10
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Third Floor Plan
Total site area: 26,515 m2 Living Units: 360 Storeys: 7.
TULOU TYPOLOGY IN THE MODERN WORLD The Tulou has been used as inspiration for two modern housing projects: the Urban Tulou, affordable housing in Guangzhou, China and Tietgenkollegiet student housing in Copenhagen, Denmark. The tulou in Guangzhou designed by Urbanus was built to provide large scale, affordable housing to migrant workers. Similarly to the historic Tulou it has a grand circular structure with dwellings on the outer circle and shared facilities on the lower levels. The living quarters are very dense with a typical apartment being “32 sq m, it is divided into one sitting room, two bedrooms and a small bathroom neatly tucked behind the kitchen.”9 Although, by western standards this is considered to be a very dense space, in China it is not uncommon for multiple migrant workers to live with six other people in a 30 square meter room, where couples separate spaces using curtains.10 The architects describe their inspiration from the original Tulou’s when they state, “At the center of the enclosure was a shrine, an ancestral hall where all residents met to worship, and to discuss matters of common interest. This idea of public life at the core of a building’s functionality is essential to any sociallyconscious design.”11 As result Urban Tulou has a central courtyard and the building faces inwards around this central courtyard. The courtyard is used to act as a point of connection between residents.
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Figure 10, 11 URBANUS Architecture & Design, Inc. (2009). Aga Khan Award for Architecture Architects Record 2010 Award Cycle. Aga Khan Award for Architecture. Guangzhou City,: URBANUS Architecture & Design, Inc. 9, 10, 11 Xu, Z. (2009, March 5). Urbanus’s modern tulou in filling urban low cost housing needs. Retrieved October 1, 2014, from What’s On Xiamen: http://www.whatsonxiamen.com/news4834.html
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