sábado, 30 de enero de 2010
PLAN ESTRATEGICO_SANTURCE
Process % ViewsPublic Space, Residential & Commercial Area of Santurce
by: David & Jonathan Vázquez
miércoles, 27 de enero de 2010
martes, 26 de enero de 2010
ARCHITECTURE OF A DECADE PAST
[Image: Fresh Kills landscape masterplan by Field Operations, via Mammoth; "With 2,200 acres filled with 150 million tons of trash to contend with," Metropolis writes, "the challenge is making Fresh Kills public and safe, which means covering the garbage mounds with some four feet of fresh soil. The park would grow itself with cost-effective soil farms that aren’t eyesores." Read more at the Freshkills Park Blog].
Mammoth has posted a great list of the best architecture of the decade. It runs the gamut from groundwater replenishing infrastructure and Chinese high-speed rail to the Svalbard Global Seed Vault and the iPhone, by way of the Large Hadron Collider, Rome's Pontine marshes, and a library in Medellín (among others).
Read more...
lunes, 25 de enero de 2010
The Modern Castle / DEVE Architects Copenhagen
Copenhagen-based DEVE Architectswere one of the winners of theEuropan 10 Architecture competition. Their project was a revitalization of an industrial harbor area in Augustenborg, Denmark.
Their proposal primarily addresses the historical and spatial implications of building in the small city, but there are significant environmental considerations as well. The encompassing municipality of Sønderborg envisions a carbon neutral ‘Kommune’ by the year 2030, and they hope they’ll get the opportunity to contribute to that goal.
Architect’s description and more images after the break.
How can Augustenborg revitalize the local connection to its unique natural environment while asserting itself as a significant cultural node within the region?
With its rich history and beautiful natural landscape, Augustenborg has the potential to play an important role in the further growth and development of Als.
The city lies at an important point along the main traffic artery connecting the ferry terminal at Fynshavn across the island, and benefits from a close proximity to thriving Sønderborg. This relationship to Sønderborg, as well as its location compared to other Als cities puts Augustenborg in a unique position to be a significant node within the middle of the island. The existing natural landscape, which includes dense forests and the scenic Augustenborg fjord, also contributes to the city’s unique character.
The predominant social characteristic of modern Augustenborg, is the yacht culture which has developed due to the ideal sailing environment in the fjord. Historically, Augustenborg Palace was the driving force behind the growth and development of the city of Augustenborg, and it remains a prominent building and even place of employment in the region. The industrial facilities which currently define the harbor once played a more important role in the economy of Augustenborg, however the scale and use of those structures are now the primary barrier between the residents and the water that has such a profound influence on the culture in the city. While the large structures are particularly imposing, that physical presence has left an indelible mark on the city that is an important aspect of Augustenborg.
By preserving some of the existing industrial structures, and infusing them with some of the cultural relevance of a castle, it is possible to create a vibrant new extension of the city. Historic Augustenborg Palace initially dictated the shape and growth of Augustenborg, but now a Modern Castle is required to establish a true city center in Augustenborg that can serve the entire region’s cultural and technological needs. The new city center will seize the waterfront from industry and provide more intimate moments of interaction for all people within the natural environment.
Cultural Epoch
Augustenborg Palace shaped the growth of the city with its symmetry and axes. The industrial facilities currently define the city’s relationship to the fjord. By concentrating new and upgraded cultural institutions within the existing industrial infrastructure, the repurposed buildings can assume the gravity of a medieval castle in order to influence Augustenborg’s morphology. The new cultural node then serves as a physical city center that also establishes a strong relationship with the water.
Medieval city in the Landscape
Construction on the marina side is to be kept low and green in order to preserve the continuity of the distant landscape. The city side of the harbor is built into a dense urban core, inspired by medieval walled cities. The buildings create a perimeter around a variety of connected public spaces with the exposed grid structure acting as the gate.
Promenade as a Social Spine
The public plazas of the medieval city maintain a link to Augustenborg Palace and connect the path across the embankment to the different utility spaces and a nature path on the marina side. The two different uses are defined individually by wood and concrete and collide at a harbor bath located on the embankment.
Connecting views
The views of the adjacent housing is kept undisturbed by the new structure. Lines from the southern piers penetrate the cityplan and establishe a strong visual connection between the two sides, ‘knitting’ them togerher.
Infrastructure
The new area is built as a pedestrian-oriented environment, with cars kept in the background. Parking is located in the dark areas of the plan which are otherwise unused. Pedestrians and bikers can thereby roam free, establishing a vibrant and friendly city.
Environmental Plans
The two sides of the fjord utilize their contrasting natures to harvest energy in complimentary ways, and the embankment acts as a conduit for the transfer of energy between them. On the marina side, the open landscape is farmed for energy using ground source heat pumps, windmills, and biogas. The urban side uses the roofscapes to harvest solar energy and kinetic plates in the parking area to generate energy.
sábado, 23 de enero de 2010
[RE-pensar] la superficie...
Re-thinking the traditional aproach to producing a mixed-use buildings, the project has just won the Vancouver’s FormShift Competition in the Vancouver Primary Category, a category that required the "design for a mixed use primary (arterial) site along a major Vancouver street that includes a rapid transit station."
The project is designed as a variety of productive surfaces. Walls harness energy, roofs grow food and floors connect the public and private spaces.
By providing a variety of uses within each structure, the community is presented with a walkable, sustainable building. By ensuring the design of all new buildings respect the surrounding context and understand the local environmental conditions, surfaces can be sculpted to provide a vibrant urban environment for people to work, live and play.
According to the architects, future buildings must produce rather than consume. The ecological buildings of the future will provide people with various new ways to live, work, play and grow. We must RE-THINK the traditional form and current guidelines of mixed-use buildings, commanding more from the public and open spaces these structures provide.
Mixed-use buildings must provide the city and its people with more than just shelter and a place to work. By requiring more spaces for people to work and play, buildings will develop as sustainable places. New ‘built form’ ideas will emerge by dictating density and more public and commercial spaces. A more ecologically-friendly built form will evolve by demanding buildings understand and respond to local environmental conditions. THINK of a south facing wall as a passive solar collector or living wall. THINK of a roof as a place for wind turbines, the collection of rainwater or a public community garden. THINK about a ramp that connects these SURFACES as a place for people to do yoga or read a book. We must THINK about buildings as systems which produce and contribute rather than consume.
The resulting architecture is a building with a variety of productive SURFACES. WALLS harness energy, ROOFS grow food and FLOORS connect the public and private spaces. By providing a variety of uses within each structure, the community is presented with a walkable, sustainable building. By ensuring the design of all new buildings respect the surrounding context and understand the local environmental conditions, SURFACES can be sculpted to provide a vibrant urban environment for people to work, live and play.
viernes, 22 de enero de 2010
Buy to Last
EVERYONE LOVES A BARGAIN, as long as we believe it’s in good taste. And nobody does low-price, high-style better than IKEA, the world’s largest furniture retailer.IKEA passes as the anti-Wal-Mart: a company where value and good values coexist. It uses design as a proxy for quality, and its brand—embodied by all those smiling, white-teethed Scandinavians standing next to smooth, shiny modular furniture with unpronounceable names—as a passport to a guilt-free world of low prices.
But put down your 59-cent Färgrik coffee mug and ask yourself: Can we afford to keep shopping at places where an item’s price reflects only a fraction of its societal costs?
IKEA designs to price, challenging its talented European team to create ever-cheaper objects, and its suppliers—most of them in low-wage countries in Asia and eastern Europe—to squeeze out the lowest possible price. By some measures the world’s third-largest wood consumer,IKEA proudly employs 15 “forestry monitors.” Eight of them work in China and Russia, but illegal logging is widespread in those vast countries, making it impossible to guarantee that all wood is legally harvested. (The company declines to pay a premium to ensure that all timber is legally harvested, citing costs that would be passed along to the consumer.) IKEA furniture made of particleboard and pine is not meant to last a lifetime; indeed, some professional movers decline to guarantee its safe transport. But to be fair, creating heirlooms is not IKEA’s goal. Nor, despite a lot of self-serving hoopla, is energy conservation: the company boasts of illuminating its stores with low-wattage lightbulbs but positions outlets far from city centers, where taxes are low and commuting costs high—the average IKEA customer drives 50 miles round-trip. Cleverly, IKEA transfers transport and energy costs onto consumers, who are then handed the additional burden of assembling their purchases. Designed but not crafted,IKEA bookcases and chairs, like most cheap objects, resist involvement: when they break or malfunction, we tend not to fix them. Rather, we buy new ones. Wig Zamore, a Massachusetts environmental activist who was recently recognized for his work by the Environmental Protection Agency, is working with IKEA and supports some of the company’s regional green initiatives. But as he put it, “IKEA is the least sustainable retailer on the planet.” And in real costs—the kind that will burden our grandchildren—that also makes it among the most expensive.
Ellen Ruppel Shell is an Atlantic contributing editor and the author of Cheap: The High Cost of Discount Culture.
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