Critical thinking in the urban living habitat: Attributes criteria and typo-morphological exploration of modularity design

Abstract

The urban living habitat is one of the most important measures of socio-economic well-being in each country. Addressing the urban habitat's lifestyle change and pandemic pressure, the Asian cities, particularly, have found the abrupt transmutes altering local landscape and lifestyle. Cities filled with desires to modernize undertook actions that strained the local culture, perception, and ways of life. Urbanization ultimately mutated the local veins and people. The health crisis brought more changes and demanding a new thinking in provision of building for the built environment. The practice of modularity in architecture provides a fast-track solution to the demand imposed. However, the system must engage the local context, and efforts to interface people, place, and the process.This research aims to formulate the concept of design process based on modular design criteria that subverts the traditional engineering and design thinking and actively adapts to the local people and place to the process. A design consideration framework is combined to develop a preliminary understanding on probable variability and flexibility requirements. By taking the particularity of the place-based people (user), place (environment) and process (technology), the design evaluation could holistically integrate modularity in design. The degree of integration level within the systemic component units developed through “process” evaluation could adequately respond to the user and place need toward well-being state. Findings highlight how the prototype attains typo-morphological units while in keeping with development demand in urban areas. The adaptable common, unique, and variant components can be incorporated into a finite typology that may attain morphological flexibility. Aside from responding to emergency architecture, the modularity in design framework emphasizes the importance of innovations in modular thinking as a direct disruption of the customary building and design practice.