Green Shift

By Sky Morales / Dec 2019 / Housing / No Comments

Green Shift is a flexible, modular, shared micro-apartment. It is designed to integrate agriculture in an urban setting that produces both locally grown food and a sense of community. With moveable components, the users have the ability to switch between public and private space.

Green Shift aims to embrace the merge between architecture and agriculture. When planning the different programs, it was important to establish an area for growing. Incorporating a food growing system within the building can help support the practice of locally grown food. This will increase access to healthy food and reduce carbon emissions that result from transportation.

One of the biggest programs for the micro-apartment was cooking and eating. To emphasize its importance, the kitchen was placed in a central area. It acts as a space for interaction and encourages communication between residents to strengthen relationships. Shown below are the different states of the micro-apartment. The moveable parts allow the space to open up, creating a bigger social state when needed.

The use of flexible and modular parts makes it possible to create public or private space when needed. Each person has a moveable wardrobe/work space with wall panels attached that when pulled out, creates the walls of a bedroom. With these moving parts, sleeping and waking can easily be pushed out of the way to make room for daily activities. It was important that Green Shift was transformable in order to give enough space to celebrate the harvest of all the food being grown. The dining table expands to seat 12 so that residents can have meals together with the food they grew for the floor.

As Green Shift is a corner unit, there is a limited number of walls. To make use of the space efficiently, only programs that are categorized under the private state take advantage of the walls (sleep/wake, get ready, and personal care). All public programs are held in the center of the space, taking advantage of the windows.

The goal was to give Green Shift a warm feel by using wood and neutral colors. To give each resident a sense of personalization, each modular unit can be painted with the color of their choice.