A cultural, customizable and prefabricated housing grammar for Casablanca

Abstract

Proposing an innovative design grammar linking prefabrication, customization and cultural adaptability, this thesis addresses the present day housing deficit and lack of architectural identity in Casablanca, Morocco. The grammar incorporates customization that creates housing units specific to a family's needs, incorporating cultural aspects such as courtyards into the design, and simultaneously allows for the creation of a diverse urban fabric. I first reviewed the existing housing need in Casablanca to date, which includes 400 informal settlements and 98,128 households living in sub-standard conditions. This led to my exploration of prefabrication as a construction method, to my review of historical mass housing precedents in Casablanca, and to my identification of significant cultural typologies of the traditional Moroccan house. With the realization that the current housing market cannot support the current housing deficit, I decided to make a contribution to the system by designing a set of rules or a housing grammar that not only integrates prefabrication for fast construction but also customization to promote user participation and cultural adaptability to respond to local lifestyles. This prefabrication system I designed using light weight factory built modules allows for a fast and efficient way to deliver housing units at affordable prices for Casablanca. Drawing on the existing Moroccan financial housing models, this system will reduce the construction phase by 60%, allows for cost savings of 20%, while offering users the ability to customize in order to address their particular priorities and bringing dignity and practicality to the design of affordable housing. Furthermore, by investigating the courtyard as stacked units, I am exploring a new type of urban typology for low-rise high-density urban courtyard housing for Casablanca.