IAAC Blog » suburbs

Research Studio I – Emergent Territories Final presentations

iaac — Fri, 14 May 2010 13:17:55 +0000

With the model of the projects they have worked upon, students presented their proposal for Mumbai to invited guests Trilochan Chhaya( Dean of BSSA, Mumbai) , Ethel Baraona Pohl (Editor), Marc García Duran ( Working with Ferrer Foundation, India & Housing Projects in Barcelona), François Guisan (Environment Engineer for Sustainability), Faculty Luis Falcon and Hemant Purohit and to their fellow students.
There were discussions on how adaptable a city could be, and what it should look like, its Sustainability, economics, social and cultural aspects were all discussed about. Students have also published a book on their research and have also provided a scaled 3d milled project proposal on the city of mumbai.

The Future of Suburbs – analysis (2)

Tue, 13 Apr 2010 13:54:38 +0000

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.

The Future of Suburbs – analysis (1)

Sat, 10 Apr 2010 14:43:46 +0000

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)

The Future of Suburbs – partI

Tue, 06 Apr 2010 20:21:47 +0000

Far removed from the original concept of the “Garden City”, suburban sprawl has expanded at an exponential speed surrounding the core of modern cities. Garden Cities were, in theory, largely self-contained, yet present-day suburbs are essentially dormitory, being mainly residential. The richness that was longed for in the Garden City, combining the best of the town and the country, lost the natural beauty of the country and the high density benefits of the town when it was monotonously mass-produced at an unthinkable scale.
This project aims to reconsider the present state of modern suburbs, understanding the history behind their current general typology, in order to completely rethink their built form, by extracting the original design goals and interconnecting them to present-day design questions in order to generate the future self-sufficient habitat, which looks into the future and responds to the needs of today.
One of my main concerns is that a design for the system of the future city should not assume an empty, unbuilt site. Most of the energy wasted today comes from buildings and cities not performing properly. This project is an opportunity to re-invent the way we live in, in a way that learns from our mistakes and aims to fix them.