Thursday 31 December 2009

Ordos 100 Villa - MOS Architects

http://www.archdaily.com/11162/ordos-100-7-mos/

ORDOS 100 #7: MOS Architects

By Nico Saieh — Filed under: Houses , , , ,

This villa is located in plot #06 of the ORDOS project.

Architects: MOSMichael Meredith, Hilary Sample
Location: Ordos, Inner Mongolia, China
Design team: Lasha Brown, James Tate, Lorenzo Marasso, Heather Bizon,
Shu- Chang, Vivian Chin (translation)

Structural Engineering: Simpson Gumpertz & Heger- Paul Kassabian
Design year: 2008
Construction year: 2009
Curator: Ai Weiwei, Beijing, China
Client: Jiang Yuan Water Engineering Ltd, Inner Mongolia, China
Constructed Area: 1,000 sqm aprox
Images: MOS


We based our proposal upon a traditional Chinese courtyard house typology. Each room and function is housed within an individual building volume, which are connected at the corners to remove the need for hallways and excessive circulation space.

solar chimney diagram

The relationship of the house to the sun is critical. In a climate such as Ordos’ which experiences hot summers and cold winters, it is the architectural form which integrates the effects of the sun’s light and heat with the comfort of the occupied spaces. The house controls heat and light through two primary aspects: window placement and the solar chimney.

In the wintertime when the sun is lower and the need for internal heat greater, the windows and skylights, oriented towards the south, west and east, allow sunlight to enter. Passive heating is achieved as the masonry walls and floors absorb the accompanying solar radiation which then is released to heat the spaces.

In the summer, when the sun is higher and thetemperatures greater, it is more important to keep the occupied spaces cool. The deep window sills help to shade the interior spaces from the higher summer sun while still allowing in ambient light. Because heat rises, the solar chimney acts to draw hot air up and away from the occupied spaces, and the hot air is further removed through the operable skylights. Lower, cooler air is then drawn into the space at the occupancy level, further helping to cool the rooms. Furthermore, the masonry walls and floors slow and decrease the transmission of solar radiation into the interior spaces.

Ordos 100 Villa - Luca Selva Architects

http://www.dezeen.com/2008/09/30/ordos-project-by-luca-selva-architects/


September 30th, 2008

model.jpg
Here’s another building for the Ordos 100 project in Inner Mongolia in China, this time designed by Luca Selva Architects of Switzerland.

roofview.jpg

The house is one of 100 private residences, all designed by different architects selected by Herzog & de Meuron for the project, which is masterplanned by artist Ai Wei Wei. See the home design by Estudio Barozzi Veiga for Ordos 100 in our earlier story.

section1.jpg

The following text is by Luca Selva Architects:

ORDOS 100 / Luca Selva Architects, Basle, Switzerland
Phase1 / Plot 5 / ID 082
Short Text

How to build in China?
To build like in Europe or is there to look after specific topics?
And how is to develop a specific architecture?

section2.jpg

Referring to these questions the issue for Luca Selva Architects was to work on a strategy for a specific building for China, for Inner Mongolia, for Ordos and for precisely this specific place on the plot of the Master-Plan.

section3.jpg

The design-operation was to transform specific landscape beneath the plot in architecture, little lakes and ponds will be transformed into courtyards, dunes into spaces, topography into stores.

section4.jpg

This design-strategy points out a specific building closely related to the site. A specific villa with a specific shape, specific spaces and a specific shell in bricks. The villa is landscape transformed into architecture.

roofplan.jpg

On the ground floor are located the ‚enfilade’ of representative spaces and the pool, structured by different transparencies of the courtyards, which bring a soft daylight into the interior spaces.

groundfloor.jpg

On the upper floor are situated the master bedroom, five further bedrooms included bathrooms and a library on the gallery, which relates again by a double-high space the entrance with the upper floor.

upperfloor.jpg

The construction is made of a specific skin with grey bricks and an inner concrete frame-structure with red bricks as fillings.
lowerbasement.jpg

concept1.jpg

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Posted by Matylda Krzykowski

Saturday 19 December 2009

Masterplan Gold Coast, AUS - Super Colossal

http://www.archdaily.com/44110/master-plan-ideas-competition-for-gold-coast-won-by-super-colossal/

Master Plan Ideas Competition for Gold Coast won by Super Colossal

By Sebastian J — Filed under: Awarded Competitions , , ,

GoldCoast4

The Gold Coast is Australia’s sixth largest city and one of the fastest growing regions. 

It’s also home for one of the most popular spots in Australia’s East Coast. The Gold Coast’s population is around 500,000 and, if as forecast, it continues to grow by 13,000 to 16,000 annually, it will be home to 900,000 residents by 2030.

Gold Coast City Council, with endorsement of the Australian Institute of Architects, organized an open Master plan Ideas Competition for a proposed Gold Coast Cultural and Civic Precinct. The 16.5 hectare site is bordered on three sides by rivers and canals. 
Formerly a simple rural cane farm, the site is now at the heart of a growing city with views across the skyline of Surfers Paradise, Main Beach and Broadbeach.

The purpose of the Master plan Ideas Competition was to generate creative new visions and ideas for the future of this key site and its facilities stimulate community discussion about the future of the Gold Coast Cultural and Civic Precinct. The competition was won by Sydney-based office Super Colossal. You can see more images of the winning project and architect’s description after the break.

GoldCoast6

The form of the Gold Coast Cultural and Civic Precinct provides an aerodynamic solution to climate protection providing wind and solar protection which is of great importance in this region. The civic square will be a shady, sheltered space, with a large undercover area. The large area of public parkland on the western edge of the site will act like a densely vegetated green lung for the city.

The roof areas may be used to house photovoltaic cells to contribute to power generation for the precinct. The large roof area will provide ample surface area for the collection of rainwater to be reused for flushing and for watering and maintaining the large area of parkland on the site.

GoldCoast5

The perimeter skin will provide opportunities for natural ventilation to the public areas around the performance spaces and galleries. The skin may act as an open screen where appropriate and be fully enclosed where required. Workspaces will incorporate best practice for sustainable design in commercial spaces utilising innovative techniques such as chilled beams, labyrinth cooling and reusing grey water for fl ushing.

Bridges connecting residential, commercial, light industrial and tourist districts will encourage widespread bicycle use in the city, reducing the dependancy on motor-vehicles and opening new opportunities for individual transport networks around the Gold Coast region.

GoldCoast1

GoldCoast2

GoldCoast3

Tuesday 8 December 2009

Eco-Docks Designed to Float in NYC’s Nasty Rivers

http://cleantechnica.com/2009/07/30/eco-docks-designed-to-float-in-nycs-nasty-rivers/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+GreenOptions+%28Green+Options%29

or http://cleantechnica.com/2009/07/30/eco-docks-designed-to-float-in-nycs-nasty-rivers/

Eco-docks

A professor and student team have designed a network of modular floating docks to harness clean energy for New York City.

The eco-docks would generate the energy by harnessing tidal power from the city’s rivers; they should also help to add much needed green space above the dirty waters.

The docking stations would plug into the piers already along New York’s riverside, though they would eventually be extended to help maximize energy generation. The expansion would also make room for more public green space and tidal pools for wildlife. Once completed, the docks’ designers hope that they will serve as an educational tool to encourage energy awareness, as well as remind the public of the connection between the water’s edge and the city’s interior.

In fact, the designers believe that the energy generated from the docks would be enough to light the streets of New York. Three vertical turbines would be fastened underneath each dock, which should generate up to 24 kilowatts of constant energy created by the bi-directional four mph current, supporting 350 LED streetlamps. And that’s just the energy generated for each dock module. Of course, the designers hope there would be plenty of room for more than just one.

The docks would also serve the functional purpose of expanding the public’s access to the rivers and create more recreational opportunities. And let’s face it, they’d also add some much needed aesthetic to a river system that’s awfully murky.

Source: ScienceDaily

Image Credit: Sarah Parsons, via ScienceDaily

Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

Sunday 6 December 2009

Rising currents - New York


MoMA and PS 1 seek solutions to sea level changes predicted for Manhattan shores








SPONGEcity - Niall Kirkwood

SPONGEcity - Niall Kirkwood (Harvard Graduate School of Design) - SAP Polymers

Last month in the journal Nature Materials, Japanese scientists reported that they had developed a type of gel that can swell up to 500 times its dry size when it comes into contact with solvents.

Originally, we thought what great news this must be to mothers (and fathers), to the aged and to the simply incontinent, because this new material is classed in the same group of super absorbent polymers that also includes gels found in diapers. It turns out, however, that the substance was designed not for consumers but rather primarily for industrial applications, for instance, to suck up leftover waste chemicals in brownfields and absorb oil spills about to wipe out an entire ecosystem.

SpongeCity


Having now brought up the subject of super absorbent polymers (SAP), we would now like to quote a rather generous portion of Deena DeNaro's report for Core77 on the 2nd Rotterdam International Architecture Biennale, curated by Adriaan Geuze ofWest 8.

It concerns a radical reconsideration of SAPs as a landscape application. Presently, they are used mostly to increase the water reserve of soils and to mitigate erosion.

In SPONGEcity, sponsored by the Dutch Ministry of Transportation, Public Works and Water Management, and designed by Niall Kirkwood [and 15 landscape architecture graduate students from] the Harvard Graduate School of Design, floodwaters are captured by a dual sponge system both soft and structural. Elbows, or man-made oxbows, are built along the river Waal expanding the floodplain. Within each floodplain, canals are dug out to hold some of the floodwater. Cellular networks of Super Absorbent Polymers (SAP's) are placed in these elbows and when the dikes close to the river are breached a new absorbent sponge landscape is created along the entire river. The sponges create a dramatic new terrain as they swell to a height of up to 20 meters. This sponge matrix radically re-imagines the traditional Dutch city by proposing a hybrid structure that contains water and constructs space for urbanization. Capable of holding 100 times its own weight in water, the structural sponge is realized by adding a hardening agent to the SAP, which creates a shell on the surface for development. The soft sponge is a fluctuating system of undulating hills that rise and fall according to seasonal floods. As mean water levels rise, soft sponge is converted to structural sponge and a new band of soft sponge is established on the periphery. The overall sponge matrix allows development to exist within a floodplain. The urban conditions benefit from the framework of sponge elbows by structuring newfound ground within the floodplain.


This one paragraph seems to be the most extensive description of the project found online, with the possible exception of this terragram. In that Niall Kirkwood interview, we hear more about the project and learn that he was tasked to challenge the mentality of defense — of instinctively spending billions and billions of euros to build sea walls and dykes, to raise an entire country, and then subjecting the population to equally costly mass migration when the concrete crumbles — by speculating on ways to open up the landscape to disaster but not to catastrophe.

Did New Orleans and the Army Corps of Engineers receive this terragram? The relevant part starts at 46:12 and ends roughly around 54:30.




SPONGEcity (Niall Kirkwood)

In SPONGEcity, sponsored by the Dutch Ministry of Transportation, Public Works and Water Management, and designed by Niall Kirkwood of the Harvard Graduate School of Design, floodwaters are captured by a dual sponge system both soft and structural. Elbows, or man-made oxbows, are built along the river Waal expanding the floodplain. Within each floodplain, canals are dug out to hold some of the floodwater. Cellular networks of Super Absorbent Polymers (SAP's) are placed in these elbows and when the dikes close to the river are breached a new absorbent sponge landscape is created along the entire river. The sponges create a dramatic new terrain as they swell to a height of up to 20 meters. This sponge matrix radically re-imagines the traditional Dutch city by proposing a hybrid structure that contains water and constructs space for urbanization. Capable of holding 100 times its own weight in water, the structural sponge is realized by adding a hardening agent to the SAP, which creates a shell on the surface for development. The soft sponge is a fluctuating system of undulating hills that rise and fall according to seasonal floods. As mean water levels rise, soft sponge is converted to structural sponge and a new band of soft sponge is established on the periphery. The overall sponge matrix allows development to exist within a floodplain. The urban conditions benefit from the framework of sponge elbows by structuring newfound ground within the floodplain.