Kosta Stojanović
https://doi.org/10.60152/g4nw7f65
Abstract: In contemporary architectural discourse, multifamily housing requires a fundamental redefinition. Traditional divisions between dwelling, work, and public life no longer reflect the complexity of modern living. This paper explores hybridity in residential architecture, not as a simple blend of typologies, but as the spatial ability to adapt through transformability, ambiguity, and ambivalence. A hybrid apartment, in this defined context, is a spatial entity that does not have a firmly defined program, but enables different usage scenarios – an apartment as a workspace, a public microspace, a place of collectivity, but also of individuality. The research relies on a theoretical framework that includes concepts of flexibility, typological mutations, as well as philosophical approaches to space as an unfixed field of potential. In this context, the apartment is seen as a space of possibilities, where it is important how the space is used, not how it was initially designed. The paper analyzes examples from different urban environments, from experimental housing models to adapted spaces within the existing housing market, in which the boundaries between private and public, work and housing, fixed and variable are almost erased. Through a critical analysis of spatial models that support multifunctionality, the paper asks the question: is it possible to redefine housing typology not as a final form, but as a processual platform for everyday life? In this framework, the hybrid apartment becomes a paradigm of modern housing, an apartment that not only has the ability to adapt, but also the potential to actively participate in shaping a new culture of life, work and community. In the end, this paper aims to map new criteria for designing apartments that go beyond functionalist patterns, introducing the dimension of spatial indeterminacy as a basis for generating long-term relevance and social sustainability in housing architecture.
Keywords: hybridity, housing, spatial flexibility, typological mutation, architectural design
How to cite this Paper (Harvard referencing style):
Stojanović, K. (2025) ‘Concepts of Hybridity in Residential Architecture‘, in R. Bogdanović (ed.) On Architecture — Crosscutting and Fusion of Disciplines, Proceedings. Belgrade, Serbia: STRAND, pp. 287–295.
See publication On Architecture (2025) Conference Proceedings