UNStudio in collaboration with Heerim have won the competition to design the 32 tower masterplan for the Eunma Housing Development in Daechi-Dong, Seoul. The approach of the residents, which involves the complete redevelopment of their current homes into a new and future orientated eco design, is seen as a blueprint for resident-driven development projects.
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Ben van Berkel explained: “Designing a scheme for a resident-driven development is particularly interesting because you are responding directly to the needs of an established community. They know the strengths and requirements of the area and how they want to see their community develop. This local knowledge is invaluable to the design.”
In UNStudio and Heerim’s design, the 32 tower masterplan becomes a unique and inspiring residential area. The entire transformation of over a million square meters includes the addition of more than 1.500 apartments to the 4.400 currently on the site. To enable this, the existing 35 story residential towers will be replaced with 50 story towers. This will enable the home owners to create state of the art apartments and amenity design and to locate all parking underground, facilitating a new eco landscape throughout the development.
Live, Work and Play
The Eunma Housing Development is situated in Daechi-Dong, the main residential area of Gangnam in Seoul, South Korea. Daechi-dong is referred to as the ‘Mecca of private education’, due to the high concentration of private schools in the area. Within the Seoul area this is the district that sends the highest number of students to Korea’s ‘SKY’ universities.
The „Live, Work and Play“ philosophy begins with a study of choreographed movement on the site which takes place around six themed gardens that help to define each neighborhood block and inspire education: Curiosity Forest, Excitement Garden, Alluring Urban-ground, Contemplation Cloud, Playfulness Park and Longevity Fields. A multi-leveled ground floor forms the base of all addresses of this integrated development.
Maximum daylight and community spaces
The Eunma development follows an urban model that includes maximizing daylight and reducing direct views into neighboring apartments. The model is divided into four circular themed zones and six landscape quadrants that pick up the characteristics of the site boundary. This organisation results in 24 bespoke neighbourhoods that provide a series of enriched experiences and visual attractions. Lively streets are located on two sides of the site boundary, with two main underground connections to nearby metro stations. The site is accessible for the surrounding neighborhood, with sightlines designed from the surrounding streets to the heart of the site. The programme complementing the urban connectors includes retail, food, beverage and leisure and as such strengthens the urban life of the development.
Adjacent to this, educational centers and libraries are positioned around the family and community blocks, while sports and recreation facilities are clustered around the ‘professional towers’, designed to house young professionals. Six ‘iconic towers’ at the center of the site cater to luxury urban living, art, culture and healthy lifestyles.
In addition to the site’s educational benefits, great emphasis is placed on creating a uniform south orientated and cross-ventilated tower typology, allowing all residents to enjoy full natural light, ventilation and a healthy living environment. To increase the feeling of safety on the site all car traffic and parking will take place under the landscape, the landscaping will be fully established from the start, entrances are spacious and welcoming and elevators service chiefly two apartments per floor. To strengthen the neighborhood feeling all apartment towers have elevated semi-public spaces which house community based programmes, such as sky-gardens and club areas.
Dallas CityDesign has announced the results of the Connected City Design Challenge. Stoss + SHoP’s proposal, Hyper Density Hyper Landscape, has been uniquely recognised as the preferred proposal for new Dallas city design – among the Professional Stream that included finalists Ricardo Bofill and OMA+AMO. Stoss, design and planning studio, + SHoP Architect’s proposal connects the city and its river through an alternating pattern of “grid-green” development. The proposal identifies 176 acres to be developed as three distinct neighbourhoods, deployed across 489 acres in a pattern of alternating bands of lush landscape and high-density urban development. Each of the three new neighbourhoods offers a unique identity.
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In the north, DeCCo (Design Crosses Commerce) is a -vibrant mixed-use neighbourhood that connects downtown with the emerging design district. Residential development is paired with commercial and light industry, drawing the city’s emerging technology and arts sectors. Along the Houston and Jefferson viaducts, The Viaduct extends the central business district towards the river and links Union Square to a new high-speed rail station, a signature office tower, a commercial retail centre, a central plaza, a new technology campus, Reunion Tower, and the convention centre. Riverfront South bridges the rail corridor to connect Dallas’s South Side neighborhood to the Trinity, creating a southern anchor for Riverfront Boulevard with -attractive housing, water and music gardens, and two signature institutions.
The Connected City jury has recognised Hyper Landscape as an innovative approach to activating public land as entrepreneurial urban forests and farms. The proposal extends the natural systems of the Trinity River towards Dallas’s downtown, providing forests for people. Ecologically diverse and programmatically rich, these playful, active forests weave between the highways and interchanges with a new walk that connects Dealey Plaza with the waterfront, offering lush gardens, cafes, and trails along the way. The forests clean the air and water and provide a new habitat.
The heart of these new neighbourhoods and landscapes is a revived and revitalised Old River, transformed from flood -basins into a chain of parks and water gardens that reconnect people with the river that has been so important to Dallas’s history. The proposal is organised around a productive water system that reimagines life along the Old River, improving its quality and creating new -urban amenities, including wetlands, gardens, and an urban beach. It re-works the water systems that move through the current sumps, holding more water in place and reducing overall volumes that enter the levee at the flood stage. Stormwater runoff serves as irrigation for the new urban forests.
In the city of Wuxi, located about 200 kilometres northwest of Shanghai on the shores of the Lake Tai, a national high-tech development, covering an area of over 100 square kilometres, was established in 1995. Part of this zone between the Channel of the Emperor and the Lake Tai, forms the new City of Science and Technology, with approximately 100,000 residents and 250,000 new jobs in an area of 16.88 square kilometres.
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The focus of this part of the development is characterised by aquatic nature. Many Channels run through the countryside. An important main channel runs at a tangent to the site on the outskirts, in a North South axis towards the Tai Lake. A Central Business District will be developed in the middle of this new City of Science and Technology. This new sizable open space, spanning between two towers containing the city hall and a hotel as well as a large convention and culture centre, is considered to be the new nucleus. Based on the fundaments of urban structure of the master plan, the new city centre is separated into three different urban spaces: The cultural space south of the convention and culture centre, the central space of the town centre and the countryside, the park to the north with its adjacent residential building development. The two skyscrapers, which each have 28 stories, together with the convention and culture centre opposite, ensure that this central area is accentuated. The building areas to the east and west of the site include conference and office buildings that are 5 to 14 stories tall. The challenge for Valentien + Valentien Landscape Architects and Town Planner together with Molenaar Architects and Town Planner and Yiju Ding was to create an attractive urban space out of the 6 hectar, centrally located open area. Critical was the -integration of the spaces surrounding the two skyscrapers and the convention and culture centre, as was the design of the entrances and exits. A classic park didn’t seem to be a suitable solution between these important public buildings. The space’s large scale was considered to be too large for use as a plaza. The space would heat up too much and also feel uncomfortable. The concept was to encompass numerous streams and channels and in doing so, to create an urban landscape characterised by water, offering both diverse, small-scale spaces to rest as well as possibilities for large scale events.
The image of the plaza is created through an overlay of several geometric patterns and structures. Paving materials, an expanse of water, green chambers, the groves, the hedges, and the meadows create a vivid and varied layout. The water plaza reflects the connection to the historic structure of water cities. A central viewing axis connects the convention and culture centre with the two towers. Surrounding channels mark the central, lower-lying water plaza, which spans approximately 3 hectares. They are connected to the main channel, the so-called Jade Channel that runs along the eastern side. The channel, with its wide esplanade, forms a spine which connects it with Lake Tai. The streets in front of the hotel, the city hall and the convention centre have been transformed into traffic-free zones. Wide stairs and pedestrian bridges connect the immediate surroundings of the public buildings with the sunken garden of the water plaza. The water plaza is built approximately two metres lower than it’s surroundings, creating direct contact to the channel’s water flow. North of the culture centre is an amphitheatre, orientated towards the conference centre with its lakeside stage. On the opposite side of the water plaza, in front of the towers, leading to the channel is a water/stair area offering seating options.
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A pergola structure spans the so-called water feature, east of the water plaza, as a part of the big esplanade. Below the pergola, one can find small elements that can be used to rest on, but which also function as mobile vending stations, kiosks and sanitary modules. The water plaza itself contains a wide range of infrastructure for recreation and leisure activities. A café, including a visitor information point and a terrace is located close by the small boat harbour. Green chambers invite you to enjoy reading or meditation within them. A tower at the south-eastern corner provides a 360° view of the water plaza and the adjacent areas. On the ground floor, one can rent a boat, and use the kitchenette and rest rooms. A city museum was built under the café building, connected to an underground parking. The largest building hosts various events, with a lakeside stage and a restaurant for more than 150 guests. It is integrated in a large and shady grove, which frames the plaza. A collection of unique gardens and a green house enhance the existing activities and attraction on offer.
Images: Planungsgruppe Valentien
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Two Rotterdam based offices jvantspijker and Felixx will design the new redevelopment plan of an industrial seaside area in Reykjavic, Iceland. The firms have won the first prize through an invited two-stage competition. The plan consists of 110.000 square meters of mixed use program, including four hundred new dwellings.
The location is tightly embedded within a port and transshipment area, a residential area and a large nature reserve. The competition is one of the first focus areas of a large long-term masterplan set up by the municipality of Reykjavic. The overarching plan commits to redevelopment, densification and sustainability.
The firms jvantspijker (planning and architecture) and Felixx (landscape architecture) used the ambition of densification to reconnect the urban area of Reykjavic to the surrounding Icelandic landscape.
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The design presents itself as a community by the sea, where community making and local identity is the central theme. The plan is therefore approached from the urban vision of “Making City”, with clear key themes as good connectivity, streets, integrated parking solutions, diversity and ecology. The existing buildings are carefully deployed as identity carriers, the existing infrastructure is transformed into an urban fabric that makes room for the central square along the water as new “place to be”.
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The municipality of Reykjavik and developer Hömlur, the initiators of the project, will proceed as soon as possible in collaboration with the winners, with the commitment to start as early as 2015 with the implementation of the plan. The coming period will be used by the designers and clients to discuss the next steps in the development process.
The winning design team is led by origin Icelandic urban designer Orri Steinarsson. Renderings and plans by felixx and jvantspijker.
