Case Study 2: HDB Apartments

Our Objective: According to the Housing and Development Board of Singapore, 82% of Singaporeans live in HDB flats, which is approximately 4.3 Million individuals. These HDB flats are generally situated near public facilities such as hawker centers, recreational centers and grocery stores it also costs lesser than privately built homes. With Singapore experiencing land constraints, the sizes of HDB flats has gone downwards over the years. A case study will be conducted to understand how drastically the size of HDBs has changed overs the past three decades.

Execution: A 30 year-old HDB will be compared to a newer HDB apartment and the differences will be closely studied.

Firstly, there are significant differences between the two living rooms particularly in terms of their sizes. This clearly shows that the sizes of old HDB flats when compared to a new one has gone down. This theory can be further backed up by with a statistical study on the flats. 

Conclusion: Over time, urbanization and development of the country to be more commericalize took up a huge amount of land in Singapore. By studying the change in HDB size over past decades, it is clear that factors such as overpopulation , land shortage have their impacts on living spaces that the people of  Singapore are experiencing. 

Case Study 1: Student Hostels.

Our Objective: According to Ministry of Education, Singapore, 18% of the total undergraduate students currently in Singapore are from abroad. This means nearly 180,000 undergraduate students from abroad are studying in Singapore currently. Taking this into account, accommodation for students is a huge factor. When students start university life they begin to be independent and experience a totally new lifestyle. A thorough study on the conditions of Singaporean hostels will be conducted so as to understand what differences the student faces when living in a house as compared to a single room in a hostel. In other words what students feel from living in a bigger space to a smaller space.

Execution: The case study will be conducted at two student hostels namely "Nanyang Hostel" at Prinsep st. and "Palm and Oak hostel" at Short St. A comparison between the different types of rooms available (i.e single-room, double-sharing, 4-sharing etc.) with respect to their size, facilities and storage space. 

Analysis: A thorough investigation on the facilities of Nanyang Hostel were conducted along with a brief interview of the students currently staying. The individuals living belonged to a wide range of backgrounds. There were students from China, Korea, India, Indonesia and Vietnam. Conditions were scanned and documented. Space per head was calculated after investigation. The hostel covers 2 floors.

Conclusion: Hostels are social places for students. They require space to work and basic amenities for recreational purposes. Ideally lockers and additional storage places would help students and young adults to live more generously.

How High Can We Build?

Facing with land shortage, the most straightforward method to solve this is to build super skyscrapers to expand living spaces.From the Pyramids of Gizato the Burj Khalifa , mankind has come a long way in building tall structures and developed technologies that enable us to build higher up the sky. But how high can we build exactly? According to the information video above, scientists and astronomist came up with a theory that building a structure from a Earth, right up to the very far out of space may be possible. This is because when anything that goes beyond Geostationary level, the gravity is actually pulling away from the Earth. Thus the tension of the Earth's gravity pull and the one that is above Geostationary level may hold the structure in place.

List of tallest buildings in the World.

Interview

For one of our case study, I interviewed my friend, who is born Hong Kong but studying here in Singapore about his house there and the conditions that he is living in compared to his house in Singapore.

Q: How big is your house in Hong Kong?
A: 2 bedrooms , 1 master and a smaller bedroom , a living room and a kitchen. 1 commonly shared toilet and no balcony.

Q: How many people are you living with in HK?
A: 6 people.

Q: How do you feel living in such a small space?
A: Very unhappy, there are insufficient space to move about as up to 6 people share a small area, difficult to put things, especially large items like luggage. Have to share a common toilet which is troublesome if you are in need to use it. Noisy environment, everybody is speaking at the same time in a confined space. Going to the toilet at night can be hazardous as it is difficult to find the switch to the lights, knocking yourself against random items such as buckets is common.

Q: Do you like your house here in Singapore more or in HK?
A: Singapore, as it is significantly bigger, more pleasant to the eye and it is a newer flat compared to the one in HK.

Q: How big is your house in SG?
A: A liviing room, 3 bedrooms, 1 kitchen, 2 toilets and a storeroom. It is also 1.5 times bigger than that to the one in HK.

Q: Does living in a small space has any form of benefits??
A: It can train your patience as most of the things as well as amenities are commonly shared. You will have have to wait for others to finish using it before it is your turn (eg, Toilets , TV)

From this interview , we can roughly find out how is the living conditions like , and also the benefits of living in a small space. My friend is kind enough to take pictures of his house in Hong Kong and send it to us. Here is his small apartment in Hong Kong.

Bedroom

Kitchen

Living Room 

Design Process 4. Lifestyle

So far, my Design process research has covered 3 main aspects, Overpopulation, Land Shortage and Money, now its the last research aspect that our group had done, Lifestyle. So what is lifestyle?? Its the things that we do and go through on a daily routine such as education for the younger ones and working or business for the adults. It can also be tourism or matters that involves a family. 
First , education , more students are going out of their native country to pursue further education. With that , a country needs to build more student hostels. For a country like Singapore where we are facing land constraints , the government may be building more hostels in a small land, thus , more students have to share a hostel when compared to the past. This results in a shrink in living spaces even more international students studying abroad. 
Secondly , the family factor , obviously having a big family of more than 4-5 people will definitely reduce one's personal space. For example, a married couple with 4 children (that is also my stakeholder) living in a standard 1000 square foot home when compared to a married couple with just 2 children living in a house with the same size will undeniably experience more cramped up living. 
Lastly we have Tourism. This factor is more indirect than others but our group felt that it is necessary to include some research about it too. Who doesn't like travelling overseas with your loved ones and enjoy life right?? The tourism industry is booming right now across the world and Singapore in particular , generate income and keeps our economy growing by relying heavily on tourism. With more tourism , more hotels have to be built, this may limit the spaces for residential buildings like HDBs or private condominiums. With that plus Singapore's small land , living spaces will be reduced as more land is being used for the construction of new hotels and commercial infrastructure  such as shopping malls.   

How are Living Spaces getting smaller?

If you compare the government flats (or HDBs) built in the past and the new ones , you will find a significant decrease in size. I had previously visited some of the new government flats and new condominiums in Singapore and they were all much smaller than my current old government flat which is built in the late 1980s located in Pasir Ris. From the kitchen to the living room and to the bedroom, all of which are smaller than mine. My old flat is able to fit a 5-seater dinning table in the dinning room, whereas some new condominiums that i visited could hardly even fit a dinning table. All these were the result of land shortage and population growth, more people, lesser land, results in a shrink in size of the flat as governments and developers needs to fill in more people in a lesser area of land. With that, prices of land and apartments have also gone up significantly over the decades making it more difficult for young couples who wants to settle down and they are also on a really tight budget.  

Places where living spaces are getting smaller.

Map of Hong Kong.

Mumbai's overpopulation problem.

For most of us , the first place that pops up in our minds will be the cramped up city of Hong Kong. Hong Kong sits on a relatively small area and with natural factors such as mountains and rivers, that small space is reduced further. With a population of 7.15 million living in a small area, it is one of the most dense cities in the world. I just read an article about how families can live in a 40 square-foot space, which is not much bigger than your typical king sized bed. Another place with serious problems is Mumbai, it has a small land area and a poor transport system., thus many people who are working in the city lives near the city, the result? Living spaces of 4.5 square meters per person and property prices sky-rocketed , mid-town flats can costs up to $1m-$3m.