Browsing: Urban Design

© BIG

BIG, in collaboration with AKT, Tyréns and Transsolar, just won the competition for the World Village of Women Sports in Malmo, Sweden, a 100.000sqm complex for research, education and training of women’s sports.

Rather than a program organized around a sports arena disconnected from the city, the project becomes a town inside a town, offering rich public spaces as you can see on the renderings.

© BIG

The central space of the village offers a large area for public gathering, which can host professional football matches, concerts, conferences, exhibitions and flea markets. Around this space we find a series of sloped buildings, which reduce the visual impact of the complex to the adjacent neighborhood.

Between these buildings we find a pedestrian network around the main sports hall which plugs into the surrounding street networks as well as the interior galleries of Kronprinsen, turning it into a complete ecosystem of urban life.

More images and drawings after the break.

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City as Living Factory of Ecology, winning entry by ARUP, Sauerbruch Hutton, Experientia and Galley Eco Capital.

In my opinion, the best sustainable projects have been in small scales. Urban scale projects have been more difficult to get going, due to the their inherent complexity.
But I am confident that recent initiatives are about to make the step forward, specially the ones that are being produced on countries that have the have their governments focused on this.

On of this examples is the recently awarded Low2No design competition, organized by Sitra (Finnish Innovation Fund) and the City of Helsinki, to find a on design a large building complex on a reclaimed harbour at the western edge of Helsinki’s central business district.

Given that the repertoire of sustainable urban development models is still in its infancy, the question of “who & how” is our question of first order. WHO: We believe that identifying the best team and approach is the key factor impacting the robustness of the final solution. HOW: Our competition is designed to seek approaches for four central objectives applied at the scale of a city block:

1. low- and one day no- carbon emissions
2. energy efficiency
3. high architectural, spatial and social value
4. sustainable materials and methods

The finalists included top practices and consultants such as ARUP, Sauerbrunch  Hutton, Space Syntax, Transsolar, ARO, REX, Front, BIG, among others.  The award went to C_Life by ARUP, Sauerbruch Hutton, Experientia and Galley Eco Capital.

Videos and boards for the winning and finalists entries  after the break.

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Designed by Matsys Designs, Sietch Nevada is a response to the idea of a water-poor world becoming a reality, especially in the American Southwest.  With so much of the press focused on wars over oil, the world is often unaware of the slowly depleting water sources, which are indeed exponentially more valuable than oil.  This futuristic urban prototype addresses the water situation as a complex underground network of tunnels and canals offers protection and the “storage, use, and collection of water essential to the form and performance of urban life.”

More about Sietch Nevada after the break.
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EXP Architects and teammates Studiomustard Architecture, Sempervirens Landscape Designers and Even Conseil have won the design for the Ecodistrict “Heudelet 26” in Dijon, France.  Located in proximity to the city center, the new urban design will be the first of Dijon’s Ecodistricts and serve as a model for later developments.  The district  will enhance “the neighborhood’s identity and density by favouring mixed income and mixed generational housing, thus testifying to a new way of conceiving urban development.”

More about the Ecodistrict after the break. read more »

The winners of Australia’s most prestigious award for excellence and innovation in urban design were announced at the Hyatt Hotel in Canberra on Tuesday, August 11.

The Australia Award for Urban Design highlights the best of design in the built environment and acknowledges the critical role of good urban design in the development of Australia’s towns and cities.

This year, there were two major winners and a commendation. Description of the winners after the break.

Seen at Bustler. read more »

The future well being of cities around the globe depends on mankind’s ability to develop and integrate sustainable technology.

LAVA designed the Masdar City as the city of the future; positioned at the forefront of integrating sustainable technology into modern architectural design. Rome, Athens, Florence; most great historical cities have had the plaza, forum, or square at their epicentre – where the life, values, ideals, and vision of the population evolved. Equally, the centre of Masdar must be an iconic beacon that attracts global attention to sustainable technology.

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© Espen Grønlie

Architects: Kristin Jarmund Architects
Location: Tjuvholmen, Oslo, Norway
Building Type: Office building
Project Scope: Full Contract
Client: Tjuvholmen KS, Eitzen Group
Size: 5000m2
Schedule: Completed 2007
Project Team: Kristin Jarmund, Ola Helle, Nils Herland, Patrik Larsson, Leif D.Houck,
Marlene F. Andersen, Geir Messel, Line Strand, Aud Randi Astad, Arild Eriksen

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As if it was a mix in between Huxley | Orwell story, Atelier Van Lieshout from Rotterdam is developing this project since 2005. Just like in Brave New World, future society is an embodiment of the ideals that goes beyond ethics and liberty, and the artwork it’s obviously influenced in the scripts of fiction books from the early XX century, like mentioned Huxley’s Brave New World, Orwell’s Men Like God or maybe some D. H. Lawrence novels.

Let’s hear what they have to tell us after the break

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With the current housing crisis, the sub-prime mortgage meltdown, increasing carbon emissions and rising energy costs, the future of suburbia looks bleak. It is obvious that a change in the American landscape is necessary, which is why Inhabitat has teamed up with Dwell Magazine to launch the REBURBIA design contest.

We know our readers are a smart and innovative bunch, and this is why we are turning to YOU to come up with YOUR vision for a brighter, more sustainable future for the American suburban landscape. Show us how you would re-invent the suburbs. What would a McMansion become if it weren’t a single-family dwelling? How could a vacant big box store be retrofitted for agriculture?

Winners will be showcased in Dwell Magazine, Dwell.com & Inhabitat.com, and will receive $1000 cash prize. For more information on submission, click here.

The 24 architecture teams with the client, Almere city officials and the project teams of MVRDV on site, photo by © Xander Remkes

We all know that the Dutch are experts on reclaiming land from the sea. And with all this new land, come new cities. One of these is Almere, a city founded in 1984, which is growing fast into becoming the fifth largest city in the Netherlands. This growing city is now into the process of consolidating a new center, Olympiakwartier, envisioned on a larger master plan for a sustainable city by Mecanoo.

By 2030, Almere expects to grow into a city with a stronger identity and a total of 350,000 inhabitants, which involves the building of 60,000 new homes and the creation of 100,000 new jobs for the expected 150,000 new inhabitants. For this, Amsterdam based housing association Housing Stadgenoot commissioned MVRDV to be planner for 60,000m2 work space, 120,000m2 housing (1,000 homes), 15,000m2 education, 2,000m2 commercial space, 2,640 parking spaces and various public spaces. This total has been split into 93 volumes of which MVRDV will design 45. The plan demands individual development of the buildings: a dense mix of living and working leading to a complex urban condition. Retail, a public square and communal gardens are also part of the comprehensive plan which introduces inner city life to the mostly suburban typology of Almere. Flexibility is a key objective: All ground floors and part of the office and apartment buildings are designed to facilitate future change of use. In this way the owner, Stadgenoot, can adjust the district more and more to the needs of the growing new town and its inhabitants.

The remaining 48 buildings (500m2 to 5,000m2) are going to be designed by a selected group of 24 international practices, including established and emerging offices (see list after the break).

This project is very ambitious, with the potential of becoming a milestone on urban planning, apart from recent mega projects by groups of architects we have seen lately, which can be very innovative in terms of form or solving individual housing problems, but lack of a clear master plan that make all the individual architect’s efforts act as a whole. It sort of reminds me of the Weissenhof Estate, lets hope this one becomes an example for future architects.

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Shenzhen Crystal Island @ OMA / Ole Scheeren

Shenzhen is one of the most active cities in China, and was recently appointed “City of Design” by the UNESCO (2008).  A recent competition for Crystal Island, located in the center of the city, envisions the envisions the Shenzhen Creative Center, an iconic project in front of the city hall.

The project, won by OMA in collaboration with chinese firm Urbanus, includes  a major new cultural center, transport hub, and public landmark. The Shenzhen Creative Center takes advantage of such a central location, and disaggregate the program over a 20-hectare landscape of parks and gardens, on which clusters of pavilions and small buildings form “Design Villages” creating a micro urban system which includes buildings for Design Administration, Tourism Center, buildings for design retail and expo and a design campus. It also includes a big open space, the Ceremonial Plaza.

All these buildings and open spaces are connected by an elevated pedestrian system, the “Ring Connector”, which also connects to existing and future train and subway stations.

At the center of this circular project, a spherical void becomes a landmark for the city: the Shenzhen Eye.

The disaggregation of the program on such an active area has the potential to mix the creative industry with the rest of the city’s activities, potentiating  multiplicity, permeability, and openness towards creative activity.

The project collaboration between OMA and Urbanus includes the young Ole Scheeren and Rem Koolhaas, and Urbanus partner Meng Yan, with a team lead by OMA Associates Dongmei Yao and Anu Leinonen.

After the break, a schematic model of the program relations and another rendering.

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Our green friends from Inhabitat had the chance to visit the recently opened High Line project in New York, and interviewed the lead design architect James Corner from Field Operations and Ricardo Scofidio from DS+R at the new elevated park.

This project is a remarkable example of infrastructure renovation, and in my opinion will be a case study for future urbanists and architects, not only in terms of design but also on how the community got involved in the process.

Also, props to Jill for making this video.

Under the direction of architect Dario Cottone, the young Italian firm recently won an international competition in the historical center of Caltanissetta, Sicily.  Cottone’s project focuses on a red ribbon that aims to link the older historic parts of the 16,000 square meter site with the emerging contemporary areas.

Further project description and more images after the break.

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Amidst financial buildings and high-rise apartments, Belgian architect Vincent Callebaut has redefined the conventional skyscraper. His 132 story complex for the south edge of Roosevelt Island addresses the pressing need for environmental and ecological sustainability. This conceptual design focuses on creating a completely self-sustaining organism that not only utilizes solar, wind, and water energies, but also addresses the pending food shortage problem.

More after the break.
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Our friends from L.E.FT (previously featured on AD Futures) just shared with us an interesting vertical landscape project, a joint work with norwegian architects STUDIO hp AS.

The project is located in Holmestrand, Norway, and consists on a public elevator that connects the old lower part of the town across and 85m high cliff to the newer part of it. The infrastructure acts as an articulator of multiple activities/programs that make this intervention a unique urban piece.

It is being presented to the city next month.

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Los Angeles is often portrayed as the example of the car-friendly city. The traditional image of the town is an endless pattern of single family dwellings, interconnected by traffic-clogged freeways, where transit is undeveloped and the air is choked with smog.

However, Los Angeles is changing. The city’s Transport Authority has planned in the last years a series of measures aiming to improve quality of life through improving transit and walking and providing alternative to car commuting.

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The model #1: Napoli, quartieri Spagnoli (image: flickr)

If the mainstream view on the slums describes them as places to escape from and as to destroy as soon as possible, more and more people look at slums in a different way.

The first glances at slums were from some of the architects involved in urban renewal projects, who started to integrate in their projects some elements of the slums. Some of the recurrent features are:

• narrow courtyards and alleys
• division of the building into small blocks
• use of different colors and materials within the same building.

(part 1/2)

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In June 2008, Transportation Alternatives launched the competition 21st Century Street. Partecipants to the competition should redesign the intersection between 9th Street and 4th Avenue in Brooklyn, in order to allow more space for pedestrians, cyclists and public transports.

On December 9, 2008, the results of the competition have been announced, and you can see the winners after the break.

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Peak oil is approaching. In the next future, most of the oil-dependent suburbs in which we live now will be abandoned and decay, turning into ruins, inhabited only by the few ones who where too fat and too car-dependent to escape back to the city. Little by little, nature will take over suburbs, but this process will be extremely slowly.

In order to give Mother Nature a hand, Andrew Maynard Architects have designed CV08, the suburb-eating robot.

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“Slumdog Millionaire” is the movie of the year. Its story of a young guy from Mumbai’s slum of Dharavi, who manages to change its destiny through the “Who wants to be a Millionaire” game has charmed many people, including the Oscars’ jury, who awarded the movie with 8 prizes.

At the same time, the movie has created a debate around slums and how the movie portrays them. “Slumdog Millionaire” follows the mainstream vision of slums, described in the XIX century by writers like Daniel Defoe or Charles Dickens: dark, dirty places, with people packed in small rooms with no water facilities. In slums, riots are frequents, and police can hardly enter: the perfect place for criminals to hide and plan their threats to the society, and the perfect incubator for all sort of diseases.

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