Breeze House
We are in the process of developing a fiber-based, affordable, co-housing prototype that will both celebrate and re-envision traditional Jamaican spaces. Jamaica has a population of 3 million, with approximately 60 percent of Jamaica’s urban population living in substandard housing. Prime Minister Andrew Holness recently stated that every year, Jamaica has a deficit of 15,000 new housing units.
People choose their neighbors, and look after them. Low turnover.
A kit of parts, BREEZE HOUSE is designed to be flexible to suit: a Bauhaus and IKEA-inspired solution.
Multiple Uses:
Single Family House: it can grow with an individual family’s needs, adding bedrooms as necessary.
Co-Housing and Boarding: the Breeze House creates a community, individuals connected by architecture.
Dormitory Housing: ideal for student housing, conducive to both group activities and individual student needs. Also suitable for senior housing, the private rooms easily supervised by a central caregiver.
Commercial Hospitality: placed together, the private enclosures are hotel rooms, wellness spas. The options are limitless.
QUALITY OF LIFE:
Privacy versus Alone: The breezy and open communal interior courtyards contrast with the secure, private interior spaces designed as individual sanctuaries, allowing for focus, reflection, and study at will.
loneliness is a function of how socially connected we feel to the people around us -- and it's often the result of the homes we live in.
Crowd versus Community: “"Eyes on the Street" are the best security system you can have. Living in a community where everyone is a familiar face provides enhanced safety. Children can run and play freely and knock on their playmates doors. Emergency calls to co-housing communities are dramatically lower than calls to conventional homes.”
GREEN - ENVIRONMENTAL: We are minimizing the air-conditioned square footage. A protected outdoor great room is an affordable option for households, in a majority of temperate locations around the world.
What is a GREEN house?
It’s practical, not cutting edge.
Jamaica does not need to pay the world’s carbon debt! For Jamaica, using local materials, local labor, sensitive to area.
Brick, and a combination of steel, concrete, could be green
Sweat Equity is green: the house can be assembled by a small team of people. The house can be enlarged over time by the owner.
Beat the Building Code: this is safer and better. This is not bottom line or minimum standards.
You can always withdraw to a cool place. The entire BREEZE HOUSE atrium is a cool, semi-enclosed secure area with flow-through ventilation and each individual can always withdraw to their own private air-conditioned, buffered sanctuary.
“A core value of co-housing communities is environmental sustainability. This is reflected in how the land is graded and open space preserved, in using high quality green building materials and techniques, minimizing the intrusion of cars, and more. The sense of community created in these neighborhoods is the secret ingredient of sustainability, enabling people to teach each other to be good stewards of the land.”
Using local materials, the BREEZE HOUSE is flexible for fiber based materials, rammed earth, steel frame, and concrete. The construction method is tied to the capabilities of local labor using minimal equipment. Prefabrication is also applicable.
“Green, Local and Affordable” go hand in hand.
AFFORDABLE: Drawing from common resources, members of the community will use less and have access to more.
Sharing utilities and resources: security, water and open space.
“Giving a man a key to a cubicle is not enough.”
Drawings by Rod Knox, Architect
