Urban Threshold

The project calls for an experimental housing scheme for low income groups in Community 1 in Tema, Ghana.

With the demographic growth followed the urban transformation, densifying the city and blurring the once clear housing layout developed by Maxwell Fry and Jane Drew. Nevertheless, some aspects endured this transformation and have been treasured by its inhabitants; community living, flexible spaces, urban structure.

Hence the project focuses on a very clear premise: architecture transforms over time but the urban structure remains. Reason why the housing scheme developed in this project provides the basic infrastructure which adapts to the existing urban mesh, and allows the inhabitants to develop it over time. Thus, the housing units work as a plinth for the further developments and expansions; translating the existing self-construction phenomena to the project and providing the basic structural means for it.

At the same time, the project works as an Urban Threshold, as this provided infrastructure works as a filter from the intimacy of the community living within the neighborhood towards the very urban border of the site; Harbour Road. Consequently, the project becomes a multi – scalar hybrid between a consolidated middle income front toward the urban road, and the flexible and ephemeral housing schemes that merge with the existing intimate character of the site. Therefore, this urban threshold addresses the different conditions of the site and its inhabitants, promotes a more inclusive environment between different income groups and enhances the existing way of living.