IaaC Blog

The starting point is having a pedestrian movement, which is the most obvious decision about a 10 000 people city/neighborhood. That means I had to set up some distance rules between the different component and programs. Based on that distances, I had the plot for my city (how big it should be according my rules) and the next question was how to keep only good orientation for all of the buildings. For that reason, I had to thing for some structure which will give me only south and no north orientation, which is the worst possible orientation in my country and in whole Europe as well.

I decided working with the specific conditions in my hometown (Varna, Bulgaria), having a sea south of my plot, same temperatures and climate conditions, etc. I was thinking how to create buildings, which can be used as a landscape inside the city, and also which can remain private as they usually are, and at the same time public spaces. The decision I made was to use the roof of the buildings as a public green spaces, which will also add more area for farming and the city will be more self sufficient in terms of food. At the same time, the roofs can be reached by a slope which can be also used as a public spaces, farming, recreation zones, playgrounds etc. The slope itself can be a shield from the cold north winds during the winter, could have no shadows during big part of the day and also they can be used as recourse for heating or cooling the building by using the constant temperature of the soil. The only question was how many degrees the slope should be? So, I decided to try with slopes between 1 and 24 degrees (the minimum angle of the sun during the winter in Varna, Bulgaria) and see what happens with the density. I know how big the city should be as a maximum to keep it pedestrian, I know how many people I need to live in that city, so now I had to find what is the angle which will form buildings big enough for 3000 apartments. The slope I finally choose is 20 degrees and it gives me a little more than 3000 apartments.

Reasons to call the city self-sufficient:

Food and goods:

1-By these slopes I`m maximizing the area for farming.

2-Having less shadows between the buildings is making the land more productive by giving plants more light.

3-Producing goods out of recycled materials

Waste and Energy:

1-The buildings have less temperature losses because of the good orientation and for the same reason, they can produce electricity from PV panels installed on top of the handrails (see the detail).

2-Gaining energy for heating/cooling from the ground behind the building

3-PV panels can be installed on all of the slopes covering the industry (facing south slopes with area of 135625m2 can produce energy from PV panels enough for 4271 apartments). This is besides of the energy given by the home installed PV panels.

4-The organic waste tanks inside each block can give the inhabitants as a result water and natural gas-methane, which can be used for boilers.

5-Non-organic waste can be taken for recycling by the old fashion way

Water:

1-Using sea water by desalination plant (reverse osmosis process) and distribution system

2-grey water will be reused for farming

Transportation:

1-pedestrian city, which means healthy people and fresh air everywhere. The streets are not more borders.

2-Optimized underground transportation systems on 2 levels-public (ULTRA RTM) and private transport (also electrical) for long distance run. Private transport can reach every building but underground.

3-Separation between trucks and private transport inside the city.

Variety of functions, programs, components inside.

Uncontrolled urban growth has caused social deterioraton and environmental desequilibrium, specially in emergent global economies. Resource scarcity has set an urgent agenda to switch to renewable energetic resources and more efficient ways to distribute them.

Current models of urban planning have the limitation of extending the cities sideways, whereas in this research we explore the possibility of releasing the city from the ground condition, creating an infrastructural framework that can be adapted to different built environments.

Resources are prioritized in the morphology of this neighbourhood, setting up cyclic loops of energy, water and waste.

Based on the geometry of a hyperbolic paraboloid, the neighbourhood is arranged as a compact and integrated urban system whitin itself.

The geometric surface is based on  Barcelona´s Eixample grid to set up the first logics of this system, since the urban fabric is ordered and repetitive. Eventually, the urban system will attempt to adapt to more complex (uncontrolled) urban landscapes.

Based on solar analysis and program distribution, the masterplan is setup according to proximity relationships.

Focusing on the residential section, where the basic unit is defined as a module of section 5 x 3 meters, varying in depth to adapt to different building configurations. Each building will change height and depth according to light penetration and visibility studies.

Residential circulations become another possibility for human interaction. A system of staircases and pathways that connect each residential unit to the whole. Different levels of permeability are achieved through the use of screens and voids, allowing for light acces and intimacy.

Geometry

As the city is located in an arid climate, conditions in the surface can be really strong. In order to avoit that, the city is created underground, so that a fresh microclimate can be created. Desalinating sea water and filtrating solar exposure, food production can be guaranteed.

The geometry of the city is created from a rectangle. There is a public attraction point in each one of the vertices:
V1: Industry / Water purification / Waste management
V2: Primary + secundary education / Leisure
V3: Administration / University / Cultural
V4: Market / Sports centre / Hospital

There is an external conection that reaches the exterior from each vertice, working as public space as well as conection.
C1: Sea: Desalinization plat / Auditorium
C2: Car parking / Solar-eolic tower
C3: Train station / Solar eolic tower
C4: Pedestrian access

Housing and tertiary working (offices & shops) are located near and in between these nodes. Meanwhile, fields for food production are located around the city, creating a green ring that also works as a big park.

By general law, housing and offices will be always profit two opposite orientations (north-south, east-west) in order to have good ventilation. In addition, facades work as shadow devices and the fact of being underground avoids direct sun exposure and high temperatures.

Energy production

Sun radiation heatens the air below the glass-skin, which acts as a big hot air colector. Hot air is lighter than cold air, so it goes up the chimney. After reaching the turbines, kinetic energy is created, which will be transformed into electric energy thanks to an alternator. After this use, clean air is expelled again to the atmosphere.

These two towers also act like transport conections, because they work as a train station and a car-parking. People will change scale in this nodes, to get down and enter in the city scale.

Secondary energy will be produced using waves energy, biomass energy and from burning the waste that canot be neither reused or recycled.

Transport

The aim of the transportation system is to have some external conections in the edges of the city, that will act as main scale-changing nodes. This avoids private transportation issues, as the compacity allows easy movement walking or by bicycle. However, a radial transportation ring is conceived to make goods, food or people transportation easier.

This project asks to design a system for a city for 10,000 people in 30 hectares. Even though we are not dealing with a specific site, there is a relationship that is established between the proposed site, the existing Downtown and the country. The goal of 10,000 people will be met within the specified area, but the project will unequivocally address questions that deal with relationships that happen outside of the specified area of the site.

Horizontal relationships:

Vertical relationships:

- All buildings will be on pilotis in order to lift the new construction above the existing houses so that they can become stores, museums, offices and government buildings.

- Public gardens will be sandwiched between the new residences and will be of two kids: open and closed to the environment (depending on the specific climate conditions). In both cases they will act as interior courtyards, letting in Sun light throughout the year. They will extend vertically becoming green walls.

- The new residences will be located on top of the pilotis. Each apartment will have a view to an interior garden.

Next Round…

using these initial sketch diagrams and rules – we have taken a more precise subject to drive the project design. Maintaining the programmatic relationships in our initial investigations, we have decided to use use 3 key factors to drive the layout/ design. Hydrology (collection, filtration, retention, and re-use) Mobility, Programmatic Diversity. Together they are moulded together with a inverted topography where citizens can easily move through the neighbourhood, and building typologies incorporating multiple ground planes.

Hydrological System: Using artificial wetlands, solar aquatic biofiltration greenhouses, rainwater harvesting, green roofs, and reed beds to create an ”ecosystem” that embodies the idea of  collection, filtration, retention, and re-use.

Guidelines: 2nd round for the outline of the design guidelines. Emphasis in optimizing the hydrological system and integrating it with the urban morphology

Density/ Zoning: Percentages of site to be used for the various functions (cultivated, built, natural)

Plans: Using the guidelines, a series of plans were generated to understand the diverse schemes possible for the site

Plan: General layout of the plan we are planning to use to for the site. Taken from the series of options outlined above

Early sketch perspective: Adding all the ecological systems and basic geometry, we generated a perspective viewed from a wetland park

Early sketch perspective: After generating the sketch image – is this what we want? is this our goal? Image used a basis to critique and reconsider our own objectives for the urban scheme

Having too much people in a limited territory becomes a problem of density. In this case, however, the opposite happens:  a vast and generic field, no topographic constrains; 10,000 people in 300 ha. How to occupy the territory? How to give value to every part of the land? And, most importantly, how to generate human interaction?

As guiding principles, we believe all energy in the neighborhood should come from renewable resources. Also, people interaction is a key issue, insisting on the possibility of human interaction as a justice and responsability detonators: THE POSSIBILTY OF DEMOCRATIC SPACE; through occupying the public space, people will feel commited to their neighbourhood and among themselves.

Given all the activities that happen in a city/neighborhood according to the Hyperhabitat research, our aim is to accommodate those that have a closer relationship (space, time) in an inner belt, generating a more concentrated and dense center. Such strategy would allow more open space for food production and green areas in general.

Since the pedestrian is the main subject of this neighborhood, each activity is accommodated in a walking distance (400-800 m).  Different walking patterns are studied to establish the most efficient one.

Studying the daily, weekly and monthly typical schedules, there appear to be gaps and time losses that could be better used for leisure/personal time. Technology has brought a new time distribution, where flexibility and simultaneity set up new figures: Working possibility while riding public transport, sending/receiving data in a portable device releases the limitations of an office space/schedule.

As a first and schematic approach, we set up a geometry around which some of the program could start to develop, offering always the most amount of green space and a low scale, horizontal configuration. Buildings would be from 4 to 8 stories, with commercial spaces on the ground floor to have activity all day long.

By proposing closed loop cycles for energy, water and waste, we attempt to create a self sufficient community, as well as an efficient and low carbon emission masterplan.

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 Going back to the first Garden-City theorists (Ebenezer Howard, Le Corbusier, Buckminster Fuller, Jane Jacobs, Lewis Mumford…), how much of the ideas and abstactions could now be applied? Technology and social behaviours have shifted, environmental values are now a key issue in any political agenda. What can we recover from those first pioneers? Where to take it even further?

A place designed FOR the people. Avoid car circulation and parking. The texture of the neighborhood, elevated pathways that create multilayered connectivity… interaction.

People going to the park VS. The patk giong to the people.

 Underground possibilities for vehicular circulation, releasing the ground space for pedestrian use. Overlay of networks.

What if a water body (river, channel…) could connect visually and phisically all the neighborhood, serving as a transportation network, energy resource, weather improving device and irrigation system? Water is a primal source of life, why not celebrate it?

Setting up urban programs, looking for the appropiate relationships in terms of proximities, orientation, interconnectivity. Land use is not limited to one activity. One program dissolves into the other, creating a more flexible and dynamic environment.

Suburbs can be divided into three distinct areas: Green Pockets, Roads/Infrastructure, and Built Residential.

Ideas to pursue:

- Green pockets currently divided up into small private backyards will be joined and converted into communal green pockets that will serve as public recreational parks and, where possible, local farm land where some of the food for the community will be grown.

- Roads/infrastructure area currently takes up too much space of the site. Bike paths will be created in some of the smaller roads, contributing to the overall green area. Public transit (trains) systems will be implemented on the major roads, operating mostly to and from the Downtown and the areas of suburbs that are even further away

- Built residential area will highly densified, with the idea of keeping as much as possible of the existing structure, from an environmental point of view (construction uses up a lot of energy), an economical perspective ( demolishing costs money already), and a historical mind set (it will stimulate a local identity and remind the population of their past, while at the same time creating a new, unique typology)

We took the initial diagrams and looked into the processes of turning that information to guide our design process. We decided that no “one” plan should be designed, yet the concentration should be at setting up a series of guidelines (bylaws) that would incorporate all the data information, programmatic relationships, zoning, densities, ecological functions, and systems to optimize energy efficiency.

A few sketch diagrams to improvise on the ideas…very quickly we realized that they needed to be reviewed and refined…

guideline table – one column concentrating on site coverage, the other on programmatic relationships (maximum distances between programs, densities, mobility)

Plan with the layers of the city.

The plan was divided into four sections (one area for harvesting, orchards, recreation and a forested area) with a building density varying in each. A spinal circulation path connection the various sections and central nodal point for the neighbourhood activity centre.

Site Section

We chose to use slopped site where we can explore how the topography can further enhance how programs, functions, and systems are connected.

This section shows the layering of functions/ programs.

Next Round…

using these initial sketch diagrams and rules – we have taken a more precise subject to drive the project design. Maintaining the programmatic relationships in our initial investigations, we have decided to use use 3 key factors to drive the layout/ design. Hydrology (collection, filtration, retention, and re-use) Mobility, Programmatic Diversity. Together they are moulded together with a inverted topography where citizens can easily move through the neighbourhood, and building typologies incorporating multiple ground planes.

initial investigations for a 3oha site

step I

The first issue we looked at was the “type” of people in the city and their general daily schedule to outline which parts of the city are being used at certain times of the day.

From the initial analysis of daily schedules, two diagrams were created to combine all the schedules and functions are being used on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis. The layers of the city (where people are going) is based on the hyperhabitat framework.

Using the hyperhabitat framework, an table was created to view how the various layers and scales of the city are interconnected. This table was converted to a spot diagram outlining the programmatic relatoinships within the city. Each layer corresponds to a scale of the city (1:10 to 1:10,000) reflecting how the individual programs/ functions inform each other. The result is a system showcasing that no item is autonomous – each program, layer, scale is interconnected.

some questions we are posing during our research

what are the affects of integrating ecological systems into our building typologies?

what are the smart infrastructures that connect the various scales of the city?

what typologies can stand alone? which ones need a neighbour?

can the typical “mixed-use” building be more than vertically stacked programs?

what promotes diversity and interaction?

can a digital information infrastructure be more than a “virtual” environment?

some key issues that we wish to explore to further guide our project

Integrated ecological functions

Smart infrastructures/ Energy Recycling

o Energy (solar, geothermal, wind)

o Food (vertical gardens)

o Water (bio-filtration)

o Waste (compost)

Inverted Topography & Flexible Typologies

Full pdf Files _ CLICK HERE