Adrian Lo, a budding architect, shared with us his first prize winning proposal for the Tropical Architecture Design Competition for Institutes of Higher Learning. His concept, “Architoptoe,” is defined as any architecture that is designed to fit a specific “social-urban-environmental biotope”. i.e. a design through understanding a city or a macro-area as a ecological system (a natural system evolved through a set of cultural, social, economical, historical and environmental rules.) Each archi-biotope is a small-scale zone with unique events and programs that are mixed and hybridized. More images and project description after the break.
Having a unpleasant concrete-covered retaining slope next to a Park with existing trees as the site, I designed architecture to blend into to the banyan trees instead of cutting them down and it is important that the architecture increase, not decrease, the overall ‘green content’ of the park with the multi-level green platform design. Also, these platforms with the urban landscape create a hybrid, loosely-defined and flexible architecture that enhances the community, benefit the neighborhood and for variety of social interactions.
