Plan to ease housing crisis wins top engineering award

STUDENTS at Shanghai Jiao Tong University have teamed up with Dutch peers to devise a renovation scheme to turn old factory houses into migrant worker dormitories.

They hope to help the city ease the housing shortage brought about by a growing number of non-local workers.

The plan, "Redeveloping Old Workshops to Provide Housing for Workers in Shanghai," won an award at the Second Mondialog Engineering Awards held by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization this month.

The joint student team called "Youchao," which means "having a house" in Chinese, received a prize of 5,000 euros (US$7,188) from the contest organizer, Jiao Tong officials said.

The six architectural majors at Jiao Tong said they came up with the idea by working together with their peers at Delft University of Technology, the Netherlands, since November, 2006.

"The Netherlands is a country with rich experience in renovating and redeveloping factory plants deserted by past generations," said Zhang Yinglong, the team leader. "That happens to match with the situation of Shanghai."

Students started the project by dividing an entire factory into single bedrooms of about 10 square meters or small apartments of about 20 to 30 square meters.

A couple of single bedrooms will share a kitchen and a living room.

"With dormitory-like structure, spare factory plants could be used to accommodate many migrant workers with a relatively low rent," said Zhang, the third-year postgraduate student at Jiao Tong's architectural engineering college.

Meanwhile, a couple of energy-saving methods are also incorporated into the design such as arranging all bedrooms on the south.

While the young designers said they were seeking real estate developers to turn the scheme into reality, the Weifang community in Pudong New Area is implementing a similar pilot plan to accommodate migrant workers.

Community administrators leased restructured factory houses to non-local employees working nearby with a monthly rent ranging from 100 yuan (US$13.58) to 1,500 yuan.

"With low rent and proper management, migrant workers no longer need to crowd into collective rented apartments that pose many security concerns," said a Weifang official.