It's an Eco-Planning World

Time to re-engage with the amazing eco-planning happening around the globe. We took a tongue-in-cheek look with the Suburb Eating Robots, as well as a more in depth and serious look at Auroville, a visionary community in southern India. For a great follow-up to this project, read Brice Maryman's first-person account of a design-build trip to Auroville, complete with video documentary that gives a great visual and personal account of the process. Looks like fun.

:: image via Something About Maryman

Taking mass-customization to a greater extend is the very unique ORDOS 100 collaborative project happening in Inner Mongolia. Led my Herzog & de Meuron, the project involved a unique platting of 100 parcels (by FAKE Design), and the subsequent selection by HdM of 100 architects from around the globe to design the individual villas.

:: image via Archidose

An overview from the website: "The scope of the project is to Develop 100 hundred villas in Ordos, Inner Mongolia, China, for the Client, Jiang Yuan Water Engineering Ltd. FAKE Design, Ai Wei Wei studio in Beijing, has developed the masterplan for the 100 parcels of land and will curate the project, while Herzog and de Meuron have selected the 100 architects to participate. The collection of 100 Architects hail from 27 countries around the globe. The project has been divided into 2 phases. The first phase is the development of 28 parcels while the second phase will develop the remaining 72. Each architect is responsible for a 1000 square meter Villa."

:: Zone B Site Plan - image via ORDOS 100

The most poignant comment about the layout comes via Archidose: "Looks like suburbia in Mongolia to me. Looks like it was designed by the client, not by the artist who collaborated with Herzog & de Meuron on the Bird's Nest, among other projects. It's apparently surrounded by more of the same, but it's disappointing nevertheless. The green space (in grey, running from the body of water on the left to the cluster of darker-grey cultural buildings on the right) attempts to salvage things, though its scale is a bit paltry."

It will be interesting to see how the build-out happens with the forced eclecticism. Also interesting is the concept of exporting the very western idea of suburbia, which is permeating China, Pakistan, Argentina, Europe, and Latin America. As mentioned in the USA Today article: "The suburbs represent, almost like a cliché, the American dream," says New York architect Kevin Kennon, who has worked in China and Pakistan and is the executive director of the Institute for Architecture and Urban Study. "I can own a piece of land, I can have my house on that land. … It allows people to point to something that they own and distinguish it from other houses, even if they look the same."

:: Brownsville or Beijing? - image via USA Today

One project that may offer a glimpse of both what ORDOS 100 will turn up architecturally - and a way of combating the homogenization that seems typical of suburban development is the Next-Gene20 project for the island of Taiwan. Via Archinect: "MVRDV, Kengo Kuma and Julien De Smedt are among the 20 architects designing 20 villas on the island of Taiwan. The Spaniard Fernando Menis, Berlin and LA based Graft, as well as 10 Taiwanese practices are among the other architects taking part."

Some project images via BDonline provide a glimpse of the diversity of this multi-designer approach.

:: Villa by Kengo Kuma - image via BDonline

:: Villa by Halim Suh - image via BDonline

:: Villa by Toshiko Mori - image via BDonline

:: Villa by Julien De Smedt - image via BDonline

:: Villa by Irving Hung-Hui Huang - image via BDonline

This may be the antidote to suburbia that is synonymous with row's of 'ticky-tacky little boxes', but in the economic sphere of development - does this make sense, or is it mere utopian thinking to imagine singular custom designs on a mass scale. It may not be affordable for the masses, whom are relegated to the cookie cutter subdivision and same variety of 3 houses. Perhaps the root of the issue is the pattern of development, so let's take a look at an idea of reinventing the suburban pattern.

:: Tessellated tile pattern - image via Treehugger

Treehugger offers one glimpse of this alternative through the work of Malaysian architect Mazlin Ghazali, who "...notes that "In developing countries only the very rich can afford to live in quarter-acre single-family houses located in a cul-de-sac. How can the cul-de-sac be made affordable for more people and for the environment? Can we have cul-de-sacs without sprawl?" He then builds on traditional Muslim tessilated designs to turn them into honeycombs with duplex, triplex, quadruplex or sextuplex units."

:: images via Treehugger

Or there are those not happy with the status quo who set out to create and live a different lifestyle. This lineage of utopian design and planning has a long and somewhat sordid past. Forbes magazine undertook a study of some of the successes and failures in the 'Utopia' special report. This requires some further posting, but a glimpse of the coverage, starting with successes, see a photo essay of 'Eight Modern Utopias' and the failures 'American Utopias'. Look for more on this report at a later date.

:: Findhorn Community - image via Forbes

:: Drop City Colorado - image via Forbes

When it comes down to it, the success or failure of eco-planning is not a singular question. It does rely on one silver bullet of planning, pattern, policy or design. Nor is it merely a question of lifestyle and utopian visionary thinking. All of these things succeed and fail in equal doses. And as we work to cure this and experiment - we also export our suburban ideaology and illness to other cultures. What makes one or the other concept work is the collective interweaving of good planning, flexible policy, appropriate design, and most importantly - people whom are open to and willing to make this work. I'd posit that our current suburban blight is less a design or planning issue than one of misguided and misunderstood social policy. That's where we will find these solutions... and these will continue to guide the myriad schemes and new ideas flooding our eco-planning world.

Arcology

A recent helpful commenter to a previous post corrected my erroneous assuption as to the roots of the word 'Arcology'. Alas, it was not from Sim City as I was previously led to believe. The concept is most commonly associated with Arcosanti builder Paolo Soleri, but has some interesting heritage and implications for some of the grand planning and design schemes being proposed recently.


:: Arcosanti, Sky Suite - image via NY Times

Not being one to back down from parsing some new (or old) component of the lexicon, I felt as if some further definition and investigation were in order. To start, via Wikipedia: "Arcology, from the words "ecology" and "architecture," is a set of architectural design principles aimed toward the design of enormous habitats (hyperstructures) of extremely high human population density. These largely hypothetical structures, which are themselves commonly referred to as "arcologies," would be self-contained, contain a variety of residential and commercial facilities, minimize individual human environmental impact, and possibly be economically self-sufficient."

Soleri is definitely the most vocal proponent of Arcology and still active in preparing visions, such as a World Trade Center ideas for NY City, as well as the Nudging Space Arcology, both of which provide visions of Arcology in action (or at least paper).


:: WTC NYC Proposal - image via Arcosanti


:: Nudging Space Arcology - image via Arcosanti

This portmanteau of architecture and ecology (really, how can resist a phrase such as that) definitely strikes a chord with my investigations of my concurrent conconcotion of vegitecture and it's all of it's related ilk. These arcologies definitely have a good amount of relation to some of the recent works of mega-towers and city-scale ecoplanning... and I guess time will tell how much is hypothesis and how much turns into reality. Some precedents recently include Foster's Masdar City and the Crystal Island in Moscow, the recent Ultima Tower and even the 1 Billion Dollar Tishman Speyer NYC development recently announced which all have elements of ecology woven into the architecture on a grand scale.


:: Tishman Speyer NYC - image via WAN

More from Soleri, via the Arcosanti website: "In nature, as an organism evolves it increases in complexity and it also becomes a more compact or miniaturized system. Similarly a city should function as a living system. Arcology, architecture and ecology as one integral process, is capable of demonstrating positive response to the many problems of urban civilization, population, pollution, energy and natural resource depletion, food scarcity and quality of life. Arcology recognizes the necessity of the radical reorganization of the sprawling urban landscape into dense, integrated, three-dimensional cities in order to support the complex activities that sustain human culture. The city is the necessary instrument for the evolution of humankind."


:: images via Arcosanti

Some further explanation via Arcosanti site:
"The Hyper Building is an Arcology. In an Arcology, architecture and ecology come together in the design of the city. Arcology is the implosion of the flat megalopolis, the modern city of today, into a dense, complex, urban environment which rises vertically. ... The concept of a one-structure system is not incidental to the organization of the city, but central to it. Such an urban structure hosts life, work, education, culture, leisure, and health in a dense, compact system which also puts the untouched open countryside at the fingertips of the residents. The compactness of an Arcology gives 90 percent more land to farming and conservation than today's urban and suburban sprawl. This compactness makes an Arcology a more workable system. ...The automobile divides a city by scattering it across the landscape. Greater attention is given to human scale in an Arcology. In it the pedestrian reigns. Distances are measured by walks and minutes. Within it the automobile is nonsensical. ...In an Arcology energy is used more efficiently than in a conventional modern city. Pollution is a direct function of wastefulness, not efficiency. The increase in efficiency and reduction of wastefulness means a reduction of pollution. ...One role of the three dimensional city is to stop the spreading out of suburbia and its pernicious effects: hyper-consumption, segregation, waste, pollution, and ecological catastrophe. Therefore we must consider not only this initial Hyper-Building: future developments in the area must be considered. All developments surrounding the Hyper-Building must be Arcological. ...For reasons of economy, to do more with less, life is always framed three-dimensionally. This imperative can be referred to as the Urban Effect. Since the Hyper-Building is emblematic of the Urban Effect, it is not just an expedient though indispensible proposition: its stands for the ontological dynamics of life itself."


:: image via Arcosanti

An interesting theoretical idea is the section on the Arcosanti site 'Arcology Theory' which journeys Soleri's theoretical expositions and the Arcological Hyper Building Design Parameters... which provides additional information from concept to execution.

:: Concept of Hyper Building - image via Arcosanti

And while I slowly dig through the literature on this site, I come back to another burning question - what is the elusive Sim-City/Arcology connection? A post in Unsought Input from 2007 'Sim City Arcologies are Becoming a Reality' mentions this same question, and also mentions the utopic and perhaps impossible Shimzu TRY 2004 Mega-City Pyramid as an example of modern hyperstructure development, at least making me feel less crazy about thinking of the prophecy of video games. Another example, more real and perhaps big but less arcologic is Burj Dubai - which in my opinion is just big phallic oneupsmanship.

:: Try2004 Hyperstructure - image via Wikipedia

I definitely buy the concept - but there are a number of Ecotopia viewpoints that sound great on paper. I wonder how (1) this is not just another utopian vision, and 2) is this an applicable and viable theoretical framework for some of the building that is going up, either in theory, paper, or in reality? One issue is that big does not nessarily equal arcological. It must include some integration between systems and buildings, back to our previous base definition, these must be: "self-contained, contain a variety of residential and commercial facilities, minimize individual human environmental impact, and possibly be economically self-sufficient."

In this case Masdar, Dongtan, Ras Al Khaimah and other eco-cities are attempting to do this by aiming at high goals for sustainable communities on a grand scale. In another case Yeang's bioclimatic skyscrapers are attempting to take these concepts to new heights and make them more integrated, thus minimizing inputs and impacts. With an addition of vertical farming, wind generation, solar, and voila, were' getting somewhere in the vicinity of tall, self-sufficient, low-impact structures.

The real question as always: Is this a utopia that people would want to live in?

Design for Good

Ok, this is two posts from CNN in the span of a couple of weeks. And I don't actual watch CNN, except for when trapped in an airport with the constant 10 minute new cycle. But this one is pretty impressive for major media outlet... Principal Voices is a ongoing series of discussion and dialogue bringing together top minds in a range of fields... this year fittingly including a part of the series entitled: 'Design for Good':

In short, it's a celebration of the role of building on changing the face of the world. "Whether it's designing efficient skyscrapers, creating whole cities which aim to be carbon neutral or re-building out of the rubble created by natural disasters, architects are changing the way we experience the built environment, finding solutions to the ecological challenges -- big and small -- of the 21st century."


:: Dongtan Eco City - image via Greenline

The title story spans some history, which gives a nice primer on 'green architecture' through phases of history. "Although the term "green architecture" was only coined about 20 years ago, architects have been embracing environmental or sustainable design for decades. ...Today, architects are transforming our urban landscapes in ways which were previous unimaginable. Aided by cutting edge design and construction techniques, the bold new structures of today owe much to the techniques used by pre and early industrial pioneers."

Some interesting precedents of ecological design were mentioned in the article.

The Crystal Palace (1851) is one of: "...the earliest examples of more complex climate control were designed by Joseph Paxton -- who used ventilators in the cavernous vaulted roofs..." The microclimatic shift with a glass interior allowed for significant plantings of the interior atria as well, blurring the interior-exterior shift of architectural form.


:: image via BBC


:: image via Brittanica

The article goes on to cite numerous examples including Giuseppe Mengoni's Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II in Milan (1877) and the iconic Flatiron Building in NYC (1902). There was definitely a lag in the environmental movement in the early 20th century, driven by taller building forms and technological advances in air conditioning and heating which disconnected buildings from their microclimate, and thus generated forms that no longer were required to work with the local environment.

This trend dissolved in the 1960s, with a backlash against modernism and the birth of the modern environmental movement shifting the focus back to ecology and environmental issues. While missing in the article from this historical cast is (surprise) Ian McHarg, and his influential mid-sixties planning, this ethic did shape the early and future work of eco-pioneers such as William Mcdonough and Sim van der Ryn as well as birthing such projects as Arcosanti by Paolo Soleri (1970)...

:: Arcosanti - image via Wikipedia

...and notable mid-1970s version of Veg.itecture in the form of Norman Foster's Willis Faber & Dumas Headquarters in Ipswich, UK (1975), which is known for an expansive and usable 'grass' roof. (link to BBC for an interactive 360 panorama as well)


:: image via Archinform

We evolve into the 90s with a lot of momentum, and this bred scores of 'ecological' buildings, as well as the market and industry to support them such as LEED and the UK analog BREEAM. From this came a lot of scorecard-motivated 'eco-architecture' that lacked anything resembling a sustainable ethic, but also some pioneering projects and ideas, such as the Bioclimatic Architecture work of Ken Yeang. His Menara Mesiniaga in Kuala Lumpur (1992) is the seminal work and much has followed.

:: image via Business Week

And the article mentions Foster's Commerzbank Headquarters in Frankfurt (1997) dubbed the world's first "ecological tower". I love this building, but fail to see how it get's the distinction of first, when Yeang's building pre-dated it by a half-decade? From Foster's site, they describe it as the world's first 'ecological office tower'... so maybe that's the distinction? Whatever, they both are amazing precedents.

:: images via Nature in Buildings (MIT)

As the article ends, the concept is here to stay and thriving, based on these historical precedents: "Taking nature's most enduring designs and using them to reshape our own environment is now a thriving branch of environmental architecture. Modern eco-buildings now combine to form communities, like BedZED in the UK. And eco-communities are set to form new eco-cities, like Dongtan in China."

More Design for Good
Back to the general Design for Good thrust and digging a bit deeper, we find the 'thinkers' in which we get our revelatory information. Ok, so it's a little suspect that they include Daniel Libeskind as a 'Big Thinker' (?), but the do redeem themselves with overviews of both Cameron Sinclair ('Frontline Pioneer') of Architecture for Humanity and Open Architecture Network thought experiments as well as Peter Head ('Future Player'), who has some major eco-cred as director of urban design and development at Arup and is a major player in the afforementioned Dongtan Eco-City project.

And I probably would have skipped the entire DFG link if not for an interesting article that caught my attention on the site. 'Borrowing from nature' investigates the role of Biomimicry or Biomimetics in design and ties it briefly into architecture and building. From the article: "In the 21st century, architects and designers are increasingly turning their attentions to Mother Nature as a source of inspiration for their creations. ...The art of copying nature's biological principles of design is now known as biomimetics."


:: Abalone as potential ceramics - image via CNN

We've covered it here prior in brief, and the article focuses on a number of product related design analogs in the Biomimicry literature. There are also some great ideas that are relevant to architecture, landscape urbanism, ecological planning and urban agriculture, worthy of exploration. These will show up periodically in future posts as they have much relevance to the discussion and I guess thanks to CNN for informative and thought provoking journalism. Kudos for bringing good design and 'Design for Good' to the mainstream.

Coda
As an endnote... one notable missing element of the equation is the role of the other non-architecture team members - with this reliance on the power and singularity of the architect's role as master of all. A good thought-piece on this in Slate by Witold Rybczynski entitled 'Architecture is a Team Sport' discusses this thought in relation to the Pritzker Prize and it's award to a single person.


"The Pritzker Prize promotes the fiction that buildings spring from the imagination of an individual architect—the master builder. This wasn't true in the Middle Ages, when there were real master builders, and it isn't true today. The modern architect works with scores of specialists, first and foremost structural engineers, without whom most architects today would be lost. Armies of consultants are responsible for everything from acoustics and lighting to energy conservation and security." Hey wait a second, you forgot... oh whatever.

I guess the acknowledgement of 'team' aspect of project is slowly creeping into architectural consciousness. I actually disagree with Rybczynski when he mentions the singularity of say, the Nobel prize - as any endeavor involves more than a single person to ensure success. If the concept is to celebrate 'ideas' that is one thing - but specifically projects involve a team much greater than the architect, and even the design-team... it does take a cast of thousands...

Parks: With Los Angeles Style

A couple of recent announcements in World Architecture News has definitely aimed the spotlight at Los Angeles for cutting edge parks and open space implementation. And this doesn't even include the local media-saturated Orange County Great Park (subject of some upcoming coverage of our own here at L+U).

The first project is by one of the OC Great Park team members, LA-based Mia Lehrer + Associates (along with Denver-based team members Wenk Associates and Civitas). It's exciting to see collaboration between not just multi-disciplinary teams, but also amongst Landscape Architecture and planning firms to provide specific aspects of experience to a project, such as urban planning, water design focus, or environmental specialization. I expect for large-scale projects this makes more sense, but can be a model for other projects as well.

WAN profiled their work for a 'River Renovation at the Heart of LA' with a goal: "...to plan a comprehensive open space network in and around the Los Angeles River corridor." The summary continues to include the goals of the project: "Revitalizing the river includes four major goals: (1) enhanced flood storage, to slow flow velocities to enable reintroduction of vegetation; (2) enhanced water quality, through regional scale storm water treatment at river confluences, and localized “treatment terraces” at storm drain outfalls; (3) enhanced public access within the channel via terraces and ramps, small pocket parks and ponded areas; and (4) a restored riparian ecosystem."


:: image via WAN

This involves an expansive vision that included not only the river itself but extends into the surrounding urban fabric: Via WAN: "Greening the neighborhoods extends the River’s influence into adjacent neighborhoods, encompassing five goals: (1) creation of a continuous River Greenway that serves as the City’s “green spine;” (2) reconnecting neighborhoods to the River through a system of “green streets;” (3) recapturing underutilized or brownfield sites in park-poor areas as neighborhood parkland, and incorporating stormwater management practices into all public landscapes; (4) enhancement of River identity through signature bridges and gateways, and through programmed events; and (5) incorporating public art along the River."


:: image via WAN

A recent summary involves a historic reinterpretation of Los Angeles State Historical Park and have connections to the overall LA River corridor as well. The winner of a recent design competition (via WAN): "...the Hargreaves Associates proposal restores the lost connection of the people of Los Angeles to their history, their River, and to nature. The 32-acre park expresses the site's interwoven histories and cultural significance through the Nueva Zanja, tracing the route of an historic water channel and re-interpreting it as an historical walk that recalls the multiple histories and meaning of the site."




:: images via WAN

Again via WAN: "The design provides a plaza for gatherings and events, gardens and recreational spaces, pedestrian and fauna bridges, wetlands and interpretive centers. The project also provides a key link between the mountainous Elysian Park, and the channelized LA River. The project proposes a flexible edge to the LA River, adaptive to different possibilities for the future of the river that free it from its current channelized state."


The connections to the river in this case are both accomodating of pedestrians, as well as habitat - including two 'fauna bridges' as shown in the diagram below. This acknowledgement of the overall habitat connectivity and accomodating types of urban fauna is an important trend of park development and aids in not just the physical restoration of the park and riparian corridor, but the liveliness of the social and ecological systems.


:: image via WAN

And representationally, the graphics for this competition mimick many of the recent submittals including the illustrative collage technique that focusses not just on spatial form but is evocative of the use of materials and forms. In this case, structures are more abstracted, rendered in a generic translucent white, which really accentuates the vegetative and site qualities such as the overhead structure (top), and the death-defying section cut stairway and water play feature (below) all populated with an appropriate multi-cultural cast of characters that is indicative of a LA user group for urban parks.




:: images via WAN

And we finish with a landscape art as semi-orgasmic experience, via the LA Times coverage of Patrick Dougherty's installation at the Los Angeles County Arboretum & Botanic Garden, and author Debra Prinzing's poetic summary: "Titled "Catawampus," the installation ... beckons from the main path at the in Arcadia, sunlight slipping between the warp and weft of twigs. The tactile quality of each thread-like branch appeals to me: the in-and-out, the over-and-under. I run my hand along the twisted surface, marveling at the density of 4-inch-thick walls. My fingers stroke the soft tips, velvet against the rough bark."


:: image via LA Times

May everthing we ever design illicit such a response...

Veg.itecture #17

There seems to be a significant backlog of Vegetated Architecture examples I will catch up on in the upcoming week. For this version, we will focus on a typology that we featured previously, some abstracted and representational vegetation forms in buildings and artwork. These span incorporation into building structure and form - as well as encompass some stand-along installations that provide poignant symbols of the connection with culture and nature.

A recent couple of building examples range from subtle - mimicking natural forms for building structure. The most strking example is for the Education City Convention Center designed by Arata Isozaki, which abstracts the form of Sidra Trees for this building in Doha, Qatar. The representation is not just aesthetic, but a cultural representation of scholarship, quoted via The Designblog: "Two massive 250-meter-long doubly curved steel trees support the giant structure and greet the visitors. And these are no ordinary trees, but the ones mentioned in the Quran as a symbol of the knowledge of the divine: the Sidra Trees."

:: images via The Design Blog

A more modest example, less structural and more aesthetic, comes via Coolboom. The Lilja Chapel by Vesa Oiva is a portable chapel that again evokes natural forms that have strong cultural resonance: "The chapel’s glass wall acts as background for outdoor events. As light flows through the pattern, it brings to mind a forest, the pace where Finns traditionally go to be in peace."




:: images via Coolboom

Another great abstract example from Coolboom is the The Leaf Chapel, in Kobuchizawa, Japan. On the grounds of the Risonare Resort, this building designed by Klein Dytham Architecture. Taking the form of two overlapping leaves, it creates a stunning form (especially at night) and a enveloping gateway to the adjacent views of nature:

Via Coolboom: "The chapel is formed by two leaves. The glass leaf with its delicate lace pattern motif emulates a pergola. The white steel leaf perforated with 4700 holes, each of which hold an acrylic lens, is similar to bride’s veil made of delicate lace. Light filters through the lenses and projects a lace pattern onto the white fabric inside... At the end of the ceremony when the groom lifts the bride’s veil for the kiss the “steel veil” magically opens too, revealing the pond and the enchanting nature beyond. Then the wedding party carefully walks on the stepping stones across the pond where the lawn surrounded by trees welcomes them for the champagne toast."




:: images via Coolboom

On the fully artistic side, a few examples from literal to representational. gardenhistorygirl is a great blog that spans garden history as well as connecting the dots between history and current practice (something we should all do more often) - check it out (and thanks to Pruned for the link). This example 'Stacking' is by artist Alastair Heseltine redefines the phases of material into a representation of the organic tree form.


:: image via gardenhistorygirl

A more literal interpretation of trees is an installation by Roxy Paine in NY City's Madison Park. I was welcomed by the ghg's comment that: "... tree forms from unusual materials are not in themselves terribly unique, I think these are brilliantly sited. I love the way they seem to reach for each other." My first reaction was, oh, more metal trees... but I do agree that the 'gateway' was an inventive formal interpretation.


:: image via gardenhistorygirl

We end with some whimsical examples from Tokyo Train Stations, via PingMag, offering a range of art installations that evoke a multiple media to create obvious and subtle forms: "Often, these representations of nature are not that obvious: Some stations find a connection by selecting colours, abstractly reflecting the tone of the environment in that neighbourhood."






:: images via PingMag

These examples have a duality that is important. One is picking up on the organic nature, via elements of Biomimicry, both technical and aesethetic, in the development and implementation of building forms. The other is capturing the beneficial qualities of views of nature in places where it is not readily accessible. Both of these accentuate and provide additional depth to the continual blurring of architecture and nature that is making the experience of built form more rich and complex.