Habitat ‘67
Drawings
Montreal, Quebec, Canada, 1967
Scale@1:1000
300m
Program
200m
Moshe Safdie Canada, expo 1967 25.150 m2 7.750 m2 22.160 m2 44 m 12 oors $21,000,000.-100m
3 Realized for expo 1967
Dwelling
Section
Floor Plans
N
Concept Assembly
Habitat ’67 was the major theme exhibition of the 1967 World Exposition in Montreal. It pioneered the design and implementation of threedimensional prefabricated units of habitation. 354 construction modules connect to create 158 residences ranging in size from 180 m2 one-bedroom dwellings to 360 m2 four-bedroom dwellings, exhibiting fteen housing types in all. All these different modules where stacked on top of each other. Stepped back in their modular placement, each residence has its own roof garden which was provide by an underlying box. Children’s play areas are provided throughout the project. Three cores with elevators direct vertical circulation throughout the complex, with elevators stopping at every fourth oor to serve pedestrian streets. Every part of the building, including the units, the pedestrian streets, and the elevator cores, participate as load-bearing members, units are connected to each other by post-tensioning, high-tension rods, cables, and welding, forming a continuous suspension system.
Construction
The building system is rather unusual for a high-rise building. The only way for this complex to realize the building method of stacking boxes on top of each other is to build, not that high and to use heavy cranes. With a height of 42 meters the building height wasn’t a problem and for the place where it was build the complex is really standing out. Integral to the sense of community the architect M. Safdie sought to create at Habitat are its external walkways, called ‘pedestrian streets,’ which interconnect the multi-levelled residential modules on ve storeys. Habitat’s ground oor, plaza, and its fth, sixth, and tenth oors, while providing direct access to each residence. It is precisely these walkways which both expose the building to the natural elements and open into communal spaces for Habitat residents.
The concept of Moshe Safdie for the Expo of 1967 was the theme “Man and His Environment”. Habitat 67 is a wonderful kind of apartment building that helps to solve the problem of space for people to live in cities. For his building Safdie wanted to put a lot of people in a small space to take up less room in the environment, yet he still wanted the people to be happy. To do this he planned to make a garden for each house/apartment. He also wanted to have a playground for the children and stores and schools in the building. Also the concept of accumlate all different elemants on top of easother is for high rise a new type of construction method.
From the top down. 1. Assembly 2. Exploded view of the different components 3. All kinds of different appartments (15 in total)
Components
After three major design revisions between 1961 and 1964, Habitat emerged in built form in 1967 as a series of precast, concrete modules, called “boxes,” clustered along a spine of three, hill-shaped structures, and held together by post tensioning, high tension steel rods, cables, and welding. While the original designs for Habitat conceived of 950 modular units to be plugged into a vertical “super-frame” structure standing just over twenty storeys high, Habitat’s nished size was much more modest in scale, numbering 354 modular units (or 158 separate dwellings, although recent ‘fusions’ have reduced the number of residences today to 150) at a cost of approximately $21 million. It is precisely these walkways which both expose the building to the natural elements and open into communal spaces for Habitat residents.
- www.space1999.net/~sorellarium13/habitat-67.htm - www.habitat67.com/
The commercial and institutional facilities that Safdie had originally envisioned for the project, its schools, shops, ofces and cultural spaces, never materialized. A convenience store beneath Habitat in the complex’s 200-car under ground parking lot is its only retail operation. As the commercial dimension of Habitat was never fully developed, in theory only did Safdie’s original Habitat project represent the rst of the architect’s many designs for mixed-use buildings.
