#θέμα: ParaCity | A new model of city is built over the current city
#κατηγορία: e-Volo Competition 2014
#συμμετέχοντες: Μεγαρίτου Μ., Παπασπύρου Σ.,Τασιούλα Ί
#σχολή φοίτησης: Αρχιτεκτόνων μηχανικών ΕΜΠ
#χρονολογία: 01/2014
Contemporary city as we know it is facing several
problems which are mainly associated with the increase of urban population and
the high levels of pollution.
Pollution is a big issue of our days. Big
cities are mainly threatened by air pollution caused by heavy industry, cars’
emissions, etc. As there are not enough green spaces, air isn’t being filtered
and as a result many people suffer from diseases associated with bad air quality.
Moreover, heavy industries from the city suburbs pollute the soil and water
which is making farming quite impossible in or near big cities.
Overpopulation
is a problem concerning all over the world. Specifically, “by 2050, 70% of the
population will be urban”[1]. As a result of the
continuous population growth, it is expected that more and more people will end
up living in cities. Big cities or megacities will be even bigger as the years
go by. Cities’ expansion will continue so that they can welcome the increased
amount of people who are moving there. This leads to either the need of taller
buildings (even skyscrapers) or a phenomenon called the urban sprawl. Urban
sprawl makes the city expand disorderly and therefore occupy a bigger surface than
it used to. And yet as opposed to megacities, there are some cities that tend
to be deserted. Diverse factors either caused by nature such as climate change
or earthquakes, or caused by man such as decline of industry or a constant
movement towards the suburbs result in shrinking cities. (Detroit, Venice etc.)
We can’t help but notice that the cities’ future seems ominous as by 2100 there
are bound to be either overpopulated megacities or deserted cities threatened
by extinction.
CURRENT SCENARIO:
2100: failure of city model as we know it. Expanded megacities facing overpopulation. At the same time more and more cities tend to be abandoned therefore leaving us with empty building shells.
2100: failure of city model as we know it. Expanded megacities facing overpopulation. At the same time more and more cities tend to be abandoned therefore leaving us with empty building shells.
WHAT IF:
A new model of "city" was built over the
current city.
SCENARIO:
Our
concept is to design a city over the remnants of the old city, a system that
takes advantage of the existing building stock, grows geometrically on it and
might replace it in the future. The occasion of this idea is the history that surrounds
Athens which, since ancient Greece, has been developing in layers and in its
underground someone could discover every period of its history. (diagram)
Thus,
aboveground this time, we add another
layer in the stratification, the ParaCity
with the ambition to restrain urban sprawl, cities' abandonment and
overpopulation.
ParaCity "climbs" on the
constructive grid of the ruins and expands horizontally above the ground. It
consists of rectangular boxes that multiply depending the need and designate
residential, public and farming places. The container boxes are colored so they
differentiate from the deserted grey city. On one hand, the boxes create a
complex formation, the residential typologies (growth in height) and on the
other hand, extensive surfaces for free spaces which include parks, long walks,
water tanks and farms (growth in length).
A
very important factor of the design is the environmental behavior of the
construction. Therefore, using existing building stock save us material expenditure,
while placing free spaces in the heart of the system give us back the lost, due
to the urban sprawl, free space and bring users closer to nature, providing
them the opportunity to derive a series of basic products. Secondly, as it is
shown in the diagrams, the boxes are used as collectors of water and solar
energy which is distributed equally for residential, public and farming
purposes.
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