Department design 3. Small Complex Design - BMEEPUIT711


  • ABOVE / hidden opportunities of the urban roofscape

    Above_hidden opportunities of roofscape

    teachers: BENKŐ Melinda habil PhD, HORY Gergely PhD 
    person in charge: BENKŐ Melinda habil PhD
    8 credits
    grading: semester mark 

    As a consequence of the recent pandemic period, health issues of the urban habitat are needed to be rethought. The global lockdown has drawn attention to the importance of accessible open-air areas for citizens. Balconies, terraces, and other open-air additions of the private apartment should not be regarded as luxurious features anymore, but necessary elements to preserve physical and mental wellbeing. The aim of this course is to find ways to improve the quality of human life in densely populated residential areas by activating untapped opportunities of the existing physical infrastructure. We focus on the flat roofscape of multistorey buildings as such an element. We will make research and develop design proposals about the possible utilization of the currently unused roof surfaces and look for interventions that add significant use value to these abandoned areas with simple means. The scene under investigation is the 13th district of Budapest that has a great variety of realized mass housing projects from different eras.

    In the first weeks of the semester, we are going to learn about the spatial, social, and environmental issues of the state of being in a vertically high physical position in an urban context. Then we focus on Budapest's 13th district and following common local discovery, students will make their own design proposals that deal with issues of “living above”.


    The DD3 course of the BME Department of Urban Planning and Design focuses on middle-class mass housing areas, and the site of the design is in Budapest: Csepel in 2019, Óbuda in 2020, and Angyalföld in 2021.

    Several ongoing academic and professional activities shape the topics of this course on mass housing. For more information click the links below: 

    http://www.urb.bme.hu/urbanhousing/

    http://doconf.architect.bme.hu/

    Elective seminar related to the design course in 2021/22 fall is the
    Urban Housing / BMEEPUI0901

    dd3 promo poster