“Have a Nice Day” / We Are You

A multi-functional student accommodation, but too high.. It might be high - cost although it has quite a lot of functional spaces. 

For universities in China, they prefer cheaper price in buildings, but also contain the basic functions it must have. Therefore, it is boring for student to use, and students always like more comfortable spaces to live after the tired one day study.

Swedish architects We Are You were recently awarded 1st price in a competition for their proposal “Have a Nice Day” for a new student residential house in Toronto, Canada. You can see more images, a video, and the architect’s description after the break.

The Have a Nice Day building consists of mainly two parts. A public part with access for everyone and a student housing part for the students. Rather than making a conventional student housing project with the floors isolated from each other we have chosen to create a single space flowing from floor to floor throughout the student housing part, the “vertical living room”. This creates a diversity in the spaces provided and emphasizes the connections between floors. The private sleeping units are minimized in order to give space to the large vertical living room. The public ground floors holds computers, rooms for group activities, gym, and a swimming pool. These are public spaces free for everyone to use and will serve as an important part of the neighborhoods street life.

We provided an organizing principle of using ‘animals’ and made the correlation of ‘house as jungle’. The architecture provides a full integration of the vertical living room, while bringing guests up the tower with a rooftop terrace and restaurant. Units are built for singles, friends, couples and families. We also proposed various activities in the building such as ‘a clothing swap space’ with sewing machines and mannequins. Special additions include a fun recycling arcade that rewards residents with musical notes and recycling points. The auditorium, with a transparent ‘swimming pool ceiling’ is a focal point of the building and can be used for lectures, concerts, studies and parties. The public living room is open 24/7 and is a place for music, theatre, reading, lectures, coffee and workshops.