mixed-use, urban regeneration

Eco Bridge

dimitris — Tue, 12 Sep 2017 16:06:14 +0000

Eco Bridge dimitris Tue, 09/12/2017 - 19:06

Featured Image

Keywords

mixed-use, urban regeneration

Type

Competition

Location

Seoul, S.Korea

Client

Seoul Municipality

Status

Submitted

Size

2000 m²

Team

D.Zoupas, D.Christovasilis, E.Lazou, K.Zouridaki

Description

Α. GENERAL

The particular challenge of designing the YANGJAEGOGAE Eco-Bridge lies in its setting within the urban environment of Seoul. Fully aligned with the Municipality's greater vision for a green Metropolis, the Bridge ,once installed, should fulfill to its maximum its premise as a safe corridor for both human and animal life, but also present itself as a strong symbolic gesture.

B. CONCEPT

The positioning of the bridge along the Gyeongbu Expressway is of critical importance for the long-term efficiency of the project. A number of parameters need to be assessed, starting with a thorough understanding of the history of the site and its present conditions. Identifying larger areas of potential animal habitats on a macro-scale and taking into consideration matters of noise and light pollution from the highway, that affect the ease of animal crossing, is of paramount importance. The seamless continuity of both the animal and human paths is the ultimate goal.

The project in the end becomes a sort of restoration undertaking - the restoration of the former mountain ridge that existed before the construction works for the Gyeongbu Expressway. But contrary to an iconic recovery of a natural scenic landscape, the archetypical expression of an Eco-bridge, the YANGJAEGOGAE Eco-Bridge must be a structure of design innovation and technical achievement, a landmark architecture for a 21st century Metropolis where Urban and Natural Landscape blend into each other.

concept diagrams

site plan

street view

aerial view

bridge view

construction diagram

section drawing

elevation

Terra Nova

dimitris — Mon, 05 Dec 2016 21:08:42 +0000

Terra Nova dimitris Mon, 12/05/2016 - 23:08

Featured Image

Year

2014

Keywords

mixed-use, urban regeneration

Type

Competition

Location

Groningen, Nethrlands

Client

Europan Organization

Status

Submitted - Shortlisted

Size

82 (he)

Team

D.Zoupas, A.Evripioti, M.Petrongonas

Description

Terra Nova ( New Land ) has been the working title for our Europan 12 Competition submission on the Resilient City

Our site is a former industrial enclave in Groningen, Netherlands

We consider the ‘brittle’ nature of the Dutch landscape. A landscape inhabited under the premise of technological ingenuity, owing its longevity to the capacity of the human intellect. Being Dutch means growing up under this fine line between the natural and the man made, the natural and the artificial, between what would naturally exist and what exists only as the desire of man.

The Hoendiep canal is physically connected to - part of this vast technical undertaking of man. A barrier and a splendid opportunity to quote the competition organizers. To work with the canal means to take into account this vast network and consider its importance. The first act of our architectural intervention is one of hydrological nature.
Through the opening up of a new canal however we do a lot more than to reorganize slightly the stream of the water. We create a new artificial boundary, a new entity we choose to call the island (despite the fact that all of the country is more or less islands of some sort). By treating it as an island we automatically introduce the potential of a new identity. Once the technological infrastructure proves stable and the threat of a natural disaster is diminished man starts to explore further this potential marriage of nature and technology. Artificiality becomes then an axiom and a modus operandi - the natural can never again exist without the technique. The engineers set new frontiers in the manipulation of nature to fulfil man’s desire. Yet only the outline of the island does not suffice to grant it a new identity.

We decide to build on the idea of nature as artifice, of land as a sort of malleable piece of paper. We introduce imaginary geological forces. Mountains are built, some made to look ‘natural’, others made to look artificial.The program is buried underneath. Now we have the straight and the curved, the horizontal and the oblique in one. We have plateaus, valleys and canyons, a beach and a small biotope, swimming tanks and open air theatres. And in the interior a powerhouse of knowledge, research facilities, innovation.

Map

axonometric drawing

Urban Islands

site plan

Metaplasis

dimitris — Mon, 05 Dec 2016 18:58:04 +0000

Metaplasis dimitris Mon, 12/05/2016 - 20:58

Featured Image

Year

2016

Keywords

mixed-use, urban regeneration

Type

Competition

Location

Barreiro, Portugal

Client

Europan Organization

Status

Submitted

Size

27,71 (he)

Team

D.Zoupas, I.Giannakopoulou

Description

Metaplasis has been the working title for our Europan 13 Competition submission on the Adaptable City

( Metaplasia : the transformation of one kind of tissue into a different kind )

To start questioning the site’s potential future one needs first to come to a full understanding of the extensive map of connections and strategic relations in the wider basin of the Tagus Estuary as they have culminated through the years. Seen as part of the wider urban agglomeration around the Estuary, Barreiro and consecutively the Europan 13 strategic site cannot be treated in isolation but only in connection to its neighbouring urban clusters and as a dynamic node of an extensive infrastructural network.

Through the lens of such macroscopic analysis our proposal puts forward the suggestion that the strategic site, instead of a complete face-lift that would render it’s current character obsolete, should continue to function primarily as an infrastructural node, acknowledging that the most probable and most desirable epicentre of any future development in Barreiro can be none other but the area occupied by the former CUF Industrial Complex.

The objective becomes to move away from the banal, preconceived notion of a mono-functional transit hub to a multi-layered programmatic organization that involves a wide range of actors and social groups and addresses the call for a new centrality. Metaplasis is introduced in the title to underscore our strong belief that every design proposal should be understood primarily as a phase transition between the old and the new. In our case as part of the long process in which Barreiro’s old industrial cells are being gradually replaced by cells of a more urban and cosmopolitan character.

Map

site plan

Our strategy is the redesign of the transportation hub in such a way that it will continue to serve its users in the most efficient way, while providing enough space for the allocation of new functions. Existing buildings on-site are renovated and re-programmed, while few new buildings are introduced mostly as extensions to the existing ones, to serve for infrastructure purposes and as substitutes for ones that are being demolished. The overall effort has been to overcome the problem of isolation zones, common to all infrastructure hubs, and allowfor a full connectivity among the different areas on the site. For that matter, the two remaining rail lines and the new proposed light rail line, instead of running in parallel, creating a clear zoning situation, are bundled together along a new diagonal spine. Moving away from a model of rigid, rectilinear, function-oriented design, all elements of our proposal start to flow around the diagonal.

cultural coast