JN1823 student housing as a new “social condenser” for the VIII. district The concept of the “social condenser” is popular with the professional imaginary of architecture and urban planning since the beginning of modernity, meaning a dense concentration and superimposition of different urban programs and activities in a single, flexible structure.

We based our proposal on that concept, re-imagining the infrastructural skeleton of the telecomcenter as a prime living-working hub for the local and especially the growing international population of the VIII. district and central Budapest.

The mixed-use building would contain a compressed and exciting variety of programs, integrating student and youth housing with spaces for work, leisure activities, entertainment, food and drink. Some of these functions would be reserved for the inhabitants of the housing quarters, while most of them are arranged to be open for the general public, thus enabling the complex to merge with the flows of the city. Considering its excellent location and flexible structure, it could be easily transformed into a meeting space for the neighborhood with a provision of largely lacking services and amenities for its diverse community.

Considering the future of the plot, we conceived our proposal based on our support for the long term conservation and total refurbishment of the large concrete building and its u-shaped auxiliary, while keeping the rest of the existing structures only for the short or mid-term development plans (depending on market conditions). The  latter would be demolished to make space for the construction of a large building on the perimeter of the corner plot. We propose to build it rather as a flexible skeleton structure with much-desired and much lacking loft space than a structurally rigid monofunctional apartment block. With the completion of the new building, the housing program in the silo would be shrinked or completely eliminated, while rentable work and leisure spaces could be expanded, transforming it into a public core with services and amenities in the middle of the peculiar block.