HOUSING FLEXIBILITY: Adapting the Mongolian Ger to Urban Settings
Through the adaptation of the traditional Mongolian ger, Housing Flexibility proposes expandability, portability, and densification. The thesis focuses on the redesign of the traditional Mongolian ger, creating a flexible structure that can be easily erected up to three stories.
Due to climate change, extreme cold periods in winter and droughts in summer, overgrazing, and other environmental impacts, increasing numbers of Mongolians are giving up nomadic living to move to the city in search of new jobs and modern lifestyles. Over the past twenty years, Mongolia’s capital city, Ulaanbaatar, has undergone extreme growth and transformation. The previously small urban center has become a sprawling, densely packed city of over a million people. Two thirds of the population lives in substandard conditions.
With Ulaanbaatar as the geographic focus, the thesis offers a solution to the critical need for better housing as well as the issue of urban sprawl. The redesigned ger provides additional space in a vertical fashion, thus minimizing the physical footprint on each lot and freeing up the rest of the lot for alternate uses such as gardening and animal husbandry. The potential for vertical expansion also allows the GerUPs to be clustered in ways appropriate to the requirements of urban density while continuing to respect the southern orientation of the traditional Mongolian ger. The double skin curtain wall of the expandable GerUP not only provides greater insulation but also potential space for future services. Housing Flexibility responds to the increasing densification of Ulaanbaatar while maintaining cultural and spatial continuity.
