Michael Budig (PI)
Oliver Heckmann (PI)
Lynnette Cheah (Collaborator)
Researchers: Clement Lork (Post-Doc Research Fellow), Ray Cheng, Jun Wen Loo, Amanda Ng (Qi Boon)
Advisor: Richard De Neufville (MIT)
Industry collaborators: Colin Yip, Xavier Zhou, Shiu Chern Ong, Abhishek Ghoshwani (Arup Singapore)
The project was supported by Arup; the team was awarded the 2019 Arup Global Research Challenge
Publication with Devni Acharya (1), Emma Boucher (2), Richard Boyd (2), Elisa Magnini (2), Neil Walmsley (1)
(1) Arup Singapore, (2) Arup London, UK
Past researchers: Zackary Xuereb Conti, Markus Hudert (Post-Doc Research Fellows), Zhi Tian Tee (Researcher)
Student assistants: Rachel Lau (Ruiqi), Chloe Liang, Grace Sim (I-En)Benedict Tan (Jee Khang), Joshua Tan, Dionne Teo (Yu En), Naung Oo Thet, Shan Quan Thia
Future Hybrid Highrise Commune is based on research funded by the SUTD-MIT International Design Centre at Singapore University of Technology and Design, additionally funded by Arup under the Global Research Challenge 2019. It investigated flexibility in buildings as a means to decarbonise the built environment and respond to changing societies. Several computational tools integrate demographic changes, participatory occupation, and the resilience to changes into a holistic approach to reduce embodied carbon.
Michael Budig is Assistant Professor in Architecture and SustainableDesign (ASD) at the Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD),director of the REAL Lab for Research in Renewable and Regenerative Architecture. His research focuses on renewable materials and regenerative architecture driven by computational design and digital fabrication. He seeks for innovations for the decarbonisation, digitalisation and changing demographics in the built environment. As a chair to the Board of Graduate studies, he is coordinating the PhD programme in Architecture and Sustainable Design, and he teaches Design for first year students (Introduction to Design), Design Studios for undergraduate and graduate students, and building technology in the undergraduate course (Architecture Science and Technology). He was an affiliate faculty at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a senior researcher with ETH Zurich at the Future Cities Laboratory in Singapore, where he led a research team on the design of robotic fabricated high-rises and was responsible for the installation of a robotic fabrication laboratory. Prior to the activities in Singapore, he taught and researched with Zaha Hadid and Patrik Schumacher, and practised as an architect as principal of Moll Budig Architecture, a multi-disciplinary office on architecture, urbanism and design strategies. Built projects include industrial buildings such as a metal recycling company, soap production and ceramics manufacturing facilities and residential projects.
michael_budig@sutd.edu.sg
Oliver Heckmann’s practice, research and education focuses on urban housing typology and design research for future urban habitation, sustainable design and urban revitalization. He is the editor and author of the ‘Floor Plan Manual Housing’ with F. Schneider, a globally established seminal work on innovative housing typology and is also editor-in-chief of the typological web-database ‘Building Types Online’, both published by Birkhäuser.
The research of his Urban Housing Lab concentrates on socially and environmentally sustainable urban housing, with concepts for vertical communality and flexibility for shifting demographics and new diverse and inclusive forms of co-habitation.
Their recent design study ‘Future Hybrid High-Rise Commune’ has been selected for the Singapore Pavilion at the 17th Venice Biennale International Architecture Exhibition 2021 ‘How Will We Live Together?’. The research has also informed the cross-disciplinary, international ‘Future Urban Habitation Symposium’ he has curated at the National Design Centre Singapore in 2019, discussing the themes ‘High-Dense Typologies for Building Community’, ‘Inclusive Urbanism’, ‘Adaptable & Responsive Habitation’ and ‘New Tools, New Approaches’.
Oliver’s projects also cover sustainable design on aspects like climate-responsive layouts and environmentally-conscious materiality and construction systems, that also include developing tools for informed decision-making. These fields have been awarded with the Singapore-Good-Design Award in 2017 and 2019 and the Arup-Global-Research Challenge 2019.
Oliver graduated from the University of the Arts Berlin, Germany, and the Bartlett School, University College London, and is a registered architect at the Chamber of Architects Berlin. His design practice focuses, next to revitalization and adaptive-reuse projects, predominantly on innovative residential architecture, including participatory and flexible design and multi-generational dwellings. Oliver has been Assistant Professor at Technical University Berlin and Singapore University of Technology and Design.
oliver_heckmann@urbanhousinglab.net
