the third skin

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london, united kingdom

individual design project

2019

The project is a response to the low affordability of living in Central London. The new hyperdense urban clusters in Central London have created a market for gyms, restaurants, bars, art galleries and shops. With closeness to amenities as well as social connections, this in turn has made the city centre living more appealing to young generations, which might outweigh downsides like smaller spaces, noise and pollution. Compared to other cities in UK, in which a rapid return of ‘city-centre living’ could be observed, the high property prices make such trend impossible in Central London. Therefore, learnt from the advancements of aviation industry and ergonomic aspect of the airplane design, architecture here is treated as an extension of human body which creates spaces with anisotropic surfaces defined by human activities. As a ‘third skin’, the architecture is wrapped around the body then floor, wall, windows and other architectural components which used to be orthogonal and disparate, are now fused into one and continuous object. This architectural object will no longer be made of parts, but be baked with a numbers of other things like matrix and binder. Therefore, a new structural logic would be created here with no hierarchy: everything is load-bearing, everything is structural.