Vertical Village: A Sustainable Way of Village-Style Living / Yushang Zhang, Rajiv Sewtahal, Riemer Postma & Qianqian Cai

Feb 2011

By Alison Furuto — Filed under: Residential ,Sustainability , Qianqian Cai, Rajiv Sewtahal, Riemer Postma, Yushang Zhang

▼

Add this to My Bookmarks:

share by email

share by email

Courtesy of Yushang Zhang, Rajiv Sewtahal, Riemer Postma & Qianqian Cai

Yushang Zhang, Rajiv Sewtahal, Riemer Postma and Qianqian Cai (with studio tutor Alexander Sverdlov, at The Why Factory of professor Winy Maas (MVRDV) at the TU Delft) shared with us their project, “Vertical Village: A Sustainable Way of Village-style Living”, which was awarded the first prize in the d3 Housing Tomorrow 2011 Competition. The competition called for transformative solutions that advanced sustainable thought, building performance, and social interaction through the study of intrinsic environmental geometries, social behaviors, urban implications, and programmatic flows.

The d3 Housing Tomorrow competition assumes that architecture does not simply form, but rather perform various functions beyond those conventionally associated with residential buildings. More images and architects’ description after the break.

Courtesy of Yushang Zhang, Rajiv Sewtahal, Riemer Postma & Qianqian Cai

What we strive to explore in this medium‐density housing project is a new way to obtain the joy of village living without occupying as much land resources as traditional villages do.

park and playground

A traditional village provides its habitants with various plots to build their unique house which shapes or reflects different lifestyles. However, a village occupies too many land resources which should belong to nature. A high-rise residence provides efficiency and capacity, but personal domains lose the uniqueness they should have. Therefore, we came up with the idea of the “3D plot” to provide a third choice called “Vertical Village”.

small park on the way upwards

The division of the 3D plot is based on the 3D Voronoi algorithmic system, which can translate the relation of points into interfaces to divide a certain volume into individual cells. If every cell is owned by one family, by changing the positions of points, we can create various 3D individual domains.

the interior of a family

A special rule controlling the generation of points is that every point should be relatively orthogonal to its nearest point, so that every cell will have its largest surface being perpendicular or parallel to the horizon. Some activities, like cooking or studying, can rely on those orthogonal surfaces, while others, like gardening or having a party, can happen in those irregular parts. Therefore, both practical and dramatic spaces have been defined by this system.

watching stars in the garden

Like the embryo living in its egg, each family can decide where and how to put their house inside their 3D plot. A series of cells are designed as circulation and public facilities to provide habitants with conveniences and places to have collective activities.

a garden with various altitudes

In the end, collective dwelling is not a simple stacking of layers anymore, but becomes a more complicated and organized coexistence of unique individual domains in a vertical village.

: Courtesy of Yushang Zhang, Rajiv Sewtahal, Riemer Postma & Qianqian Cai

: Courtesy of Yushang Zhang, Rajiv Sewtahal, Riemer Postma & Qianqian Cai

: park and playground

: small park on the way upwards

: the interior of a family

: watching stars in the garden

: a garden with various altitudes

: a guy looking at the swimming pool from his garden

: a long cell with basketball field

: a man coming home

: physical model 1:100 © Photo by Frans Parthesius

: routes and public facilities

: construction process and lighting and cooling saving strategies

: sustainable density with high diversity

: example of function distribution inside cell

: diagram 01

: diagram 02

Cite:
Furuto , Alison . "Vertical Village: A Sustainable Way of Village-Style Living / Yushang Zhang, Rajiv Sewtahal, Riemer Postma & Qianqian Cai" 09 Feb 2011. ArchDaily. Accessed 21 May 2012. <http://www.archdaily.com/109772>

Comments (12)
Tweets (15)
Links to this entry (2)

Bhujon Kang says:

http://www.archdaily.com/37318/un-memorial-acme/

Just me feeling something with this?

# February 9, 2011 at 17:44

Xin says:

http://www.creativecrash.com/maya/downloads/scripts-plugins/modeling/c/as_polyfracture

I think its even more relative to this. The structure could be created within minutes with this Maya script.

# February 10, 2011 at 02:34

Andrew says:

I don’t understand how voronoi-derived 3d spaces is more “sustainable” than rectilinear ones. Not only will it take more material to construct, it is volume wasted (ie uninhabitable spaces that must be heated and cooled).

# February 9, 2011 at 18:57

gaga lala says:

it sustains steel industry, architecture firm, facade consultant and structure engineers… hahahhahahaahahahaah

# February 9, 2011 at 20:29

TC Lai says:

Interesting idea. But is this more a vertical shanty town than a village? By definition, villagers live and work in a shared space. They may be near or far. But each have their own space. Is this too intrusive? I believe communication is key, how each is interacting/communicating with the whole commune. A building that allows each to walk through shared space (“inter-spacing”, not door to door) would be more effective. Each commune also should have a communal hall where the majority can do something together (e.g. celebrations, projects, etc).

# February 9, 2011 at 21:26

altego says:

Refreshing to see a voronoi scheme utilized as 3D complex rather than just another trendy 2D facade. The renderings and model are great. The project, however, seems a bit manneristic, obsessed with forcing a 3D voronoi solution on a housing scheme. This geometry, especially as a structural solution, is not very convincing for plug-in city archigram tribute. The sun and wind studies are far from being persuasive and circulation possesses some Escher drawing qualities. Very very nice try though. Applause.

# February 10, 2011 at 06:20

Anne says:

My very personal perception of a village is: a place where you have a lot of place, nature and possibly you partialy (or fully) sustain yourself by producing food. Plus you know your neighbours very closely. All in one: you live there, work, get your food, watter and social interactions at one place.

And this is just another apartment block, where people come home to sleep after working elsewere, shopping elswhere, socialising elswhere. And what can you grow on steel?- apple trees or patatoes?

# February 10, 2011 at 07:22

up_today_arch says:

But still no one building with this kind of structure exists… I would like to see same space done…

# February 10, 2011 at 08:59

rupert says:

Again, voronoi is just an overabused algorithm. While it’s a pattern recurring at many scales in nature, it has nothing to do with the architectural scale.
http://improved.ro/blog/2010/10/f-voronoi/ if you wanna read an essay on the topic.

# February 10, 2011 at 17:31

shetu says:

It can be anything but a village. Village is not about the space occupation, its all about their lifestyle and freedom to create their own teritory (not furnish their own house only).
Once again its been proved that, architect can not design a village.

# February 10, 2011 at 23:01

building a high-tech high rise in a village is being called sustainability now!

# February 10, 2011 at 23:04

Laszlo Kiss says:

This is the logical conclusion to James Wines’s Stacked Suburbia of the ’70′s. This would actually work and be a livable place with a little more thought given to the integration of hydroponic farming.

# February 22, 2011 at 16:00

10:38 PM Feb 9th

Barry Maguire

Vertical Village: A Sustainable Way of Village-Style Living / Yushang Zhang, Rajiv Sewtahal, Riemer Postma & … http://tinyurl.com/4neow8v

10:41 PM Feb 9th

daqb design

RT @ArchDaily: Vertical Village: A Sustainable Way of Village-Style Living / Yushang Zhang, Rajiv Sewtahal,… http://archdai.ly/ha56i0 …

10:42 PM Feb 9th

arqvhlopezt

10:45 PM Feb 9th

Not Funny

10:56 PM Feb 9th