Building a Community Rooftop Network: Design Prototypes for Taipei

Abstract

This thesis is an exploration of residential area rooftop space in Taipei, Taiwan. The rooftops now are mostly occupied by private owners or left vacant. There are possibilities to connect the rooftops for people live in the apartment buildings and potentially bring a new social, open space network in the neighborhood. My intention for the use of thesis is to be an outline of manual which people could adapt this thesis to their neighborhood occasion. My literature review covers three parts: first, the rooftop related literature such as the benefits of using rooftops and general challenges of rooftop; secondly, the design principle for residential area and lastly, the community process. My design framework uses questionnaire and observation to layout a general way to document the rooftop space, to have a list of potential programming and to develop network design strategies. Next, I propose three prototypes according to different percetage of gardening use and the needs from the communities: 60% gardening use, 40% gardening use with needs from families and kids, and 20% gardening use with primarily leisure and social events. Finally, in terms of building a network, phasing is necessary: starting from node rooftop and connect to the ground and adjacent rooftops.