Huaxi City Centre

Experimental Urban Vision
Huaxi City Centre
Guiyang, South Western China

Eleven young architects collaborate to design high-density urban nature in China.

Atelier Manferdini (USA), BIG (Denmark), Dieguez Fridman (Argentina), Emergent/Tom Wiscombe (USA), Hou Liang Architecture (China), JDS (Denmark/Belgium), MAD (China), Mass Studies (Korea), Rojkind Arquitectos (Mexico), Serie (UK/India), Sou Fujimoto Architects (Japan). In 2008, MAD organized and invited 11 young international architects to carry out an urban experiment to design the Huaxi city center of Guiyang, in South Western China.The Masterplan was developed by Shanghai Tongji Urban Planning and Design Institute, Studio 6, together with MAD.

In the past 15 years, around 10 billion square meters of built space has been created in the urban areas of China. In 20 years time, another 200 to 400 new cities will be built. Until now, the results of this overwhelming urbanization have been defined by high-density, high-speed and low-quality duplication making the urban space meaningless, crowded and soulless.Is there an alternative future for our cities that lies in the current social condition, where new technologies leavethe machine age behind, and where the city increasingly invades the natural space?

Passage from: http://www.arcspace.com/architects/11/11.html

Images from: http://www.arcspace.com/architects/11/11.html

Images Courtesy by MAD

Lilypad - A Floating Ecopolis Architecture

The climate is changing and not in the good way as the global warming will affect large areas on Earth. One of the repercussions is that the ocean level will increase very much because the ice caps of Antarctic and Greenland, and the glaciers in the mainland will melt. Also, you should know that under warm temperatures the water expands therefore the oceans will rise a lot.

Scientists made some research about how the global warming interacts with the increase of ocean levels and they got to the conclusion that with every 1°C the ocean level will rise with 1 meter and according to their estimations, Netherlands, Bangladesh and the atoll Majuro in Oceania (Marshall and Kiribati islands, and the Maldives islands) will be the most affected. The former with 6% of ground loss, the second with 17.5% and the latter with almost an unbelievable rate of 80%. Also, many other countries like Vietnam and Egypt will be devastated by floods and the crops will be ruined by the salt water.

According to a climatological study of the OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development), if we won’t take any measures there will be 250 million of climatic refugees and 9% of the GDP will be threatened. Although most of the governments of developing countries aren’t taking any measures, there are some interesting projects that could be a solution for the rising of the ocean levels.

One of these is the Lilypad which is a prototype of auto-sufficient amphibious city and it was designed by architect Vincent Callebaut. The Lilypad project is actually a floating ecopolis that will provide housing for a large crowd of climate refugees therefore will be the solution in case of worldwide ecological crisis.

Lilypad consists of a new biotechnological prototype and was designed for nomadism as it will travel on the water line of the oceans, all the way from the equator to the poles thanks to two marine streams: warm ascending of the Gulf Stream and the cold descending of the Labrador.

The Lilypad is an amphibian (half aquatic and half terrestrial) city which will house about 50,000 inhabitants and will enable life in the heart of the subaquatic depths. This ecopolis will be “covered by a stratum of planted housing in suspended gardens and crossed by a network of streets and alleyways with organic outline” that will “create a harmonious coexistence of the couple Human / Nature”.

Inspired by the lilypad of Amazonia Victoria Regia, this floating ecopolis will be made of polyester fibres and covered by a layer of titanium dioxide (TiO2). The Lilypad City will made use of all renewable energies - solar, thermal and photovoltaic energies, wind energy, hydraulic, tidal power station, osmotic energies, phytopurification, biomass will produce much more energy than it consumes and also, the floating structure will “reach” zero carbon emissions as all the carbon-dioxide and the waste will be recycled.

Lilypad is a visionary structure and it’s one of the major challenges of the 21st century. This self-sustainable floating ecopolis will prove to be very important as the Earth is warming and the ocean level is rising so much. Hopefully, Lilypad will become a living dream because there will be many ecological refugees that will need it.

Passage : www.madarchitect.org.super-structures/lilypad-a-floating-ecopolis-for-climate-refugees/

Images : www.madarchitect.org.super-structures/lilypad-a-floating-ecopolis-for-climate-refugees/