Judge's comments:

This design captivated us with its playful and imaginative concept. The use of jam-making as a tool and metaphor for connection within the site turns this simple act into a meaningful experience. The storytelling is integrated into the design through every detail.

Description:

JAM House is Breakfast and jam making space for a proposed tiny house community in Coyle Park, Point Chevalier. The project explores how a shared amenity could serve both the co-housing community and wider neighborhood as an initiator of social activity. Jam house was designed to be a meaningful, gentle and inviting addition to Coyle Park fostering social interaction and cohesion through the process of jam-making, inviting both residents and the wider neighborhood to participate. The tiny house community consists of each of our individually designed tiny homes which were intended for transitional residents.

Jam Making is a systematic process, requiring patience and observation. As the residents settle into a Co-housing community, their experience is reflected in the stages of jam making. Moments of rotation between dark and light, cold and hot, solid and liquid, loose and set, closely speak to the rotation of occupants within the Co-housing community.

The amenity is divided into two main spaces, the preservation space and the breakfast space. The preservation space includes bespoke jam-making stations for washing, crushing and boiling the fruit as well as spaces to store the sugar and pectin, to hang tools and an oven to sanitize jars. The materiality reflects the color richness in jam making and encourages staining and marks. Jam House invites the wider neighborhood to exchange fruits for jams made by the residents through engagement with silos: one silo has been designed for the preservation of jams and the other for the collection of fruit.

The Silos are designed to reflect the periods of change, settling and rotation expected to occur in the tiny house community, where not all inhabitants are permanent. Shelves in one silo rotate on tracks shifting in between dark and light spaces for jam preservation. A large preserving pot holding boiling Jam sits next to the sliding window so the sweet, sticky scent wafts through the air, inviting conversation with local passers by about the preserving processes being undertaken. Overall, JAM House serves as a catalyst for social activity and community integration within the cohousing environment.