Italian architect and illustrator Fabio Barilari thinks that falling in love with a place is like falling in love with a person, it happens in the same way and can take the same time: it’s irrational, intimate and intangible. Fabio is well known for his illustrations of architecture, streets, squares, designed objects, spontaneous objects, details; all those things which define the character and personality of a place and shape the mood of people passing by, even briefly.

Courtesy of Fabio Barilari

“The word “Sense”, used in the title, stands for “meaning” but also as “the ability to perceive” and therefore to “be alive”. Il Senso delle Cose (The Sense of Things) is therefore a way to describe with illustrations, the soul of places, of locations, the objects found there and the memories cherished; it’s a a photograph of what the Latin people called genius loci.”

Courtesy of Fabio Barilari

Courtesy of Xiaofeng Mei

By applying flexible material and intelligent surfaces to new volumes affecting form and color of buildings, I intend to activate the building’s envelope. The rock morphology building bodies metaphor precipitated history; intelligent biological spheres metaphor the new life, which can transform after absorbing the energy of nature, such as wind, tides, barometric pressure, humidify and crustal movement, etc. Trigger system behinds the soft skins will heighten indicators of measurements to accept the natural energy. The movement will be stretch in tempo and small in scale, and to the viewer/user, appear random. It will, definitely, be indexed via external forces with uncertainty energy trigger point and inaccuracy trigger time, creating an unpredictable dream like a catalyst to speed up the Symbiotic.

Courtesy of Xiaofeng Mei

Courtesy of ta (david) YU

In the initial forming of a city, people gather according to their habitual behaviors, which are collective ideas. The multiple and collective ideas often made singular. However, in the development of urbanism, master plans are always rigid and lack tolerance and changeability, like a machine. However, when a mechanical system is broken, it forms another context, in which the city can release and breath. Therefore, I would argue that an ideal urban design should be like a coordinating machine that retains flexibility for its users to adapt the city for themselves.

In the past, cities like Rome and Paris were driven by politics and symbolic development. Nowadays cities like New York and Los Angeles are driven by economics, like fields of shopping. I think the presentation of the practical urban layout can be derived from fields of shopping. A well function shopping field must contains coordination and flexibility at once, which is the exact ideal, a city should have. Moreover, a shopping field directly represents local habitual behaviors.

Courtesy of ta (david) YU

In order to attend this goal, I will use aggregation as a driving technique to form buildings. In this technique, each social space is seen as a unit for aggregating the city. This technique will be combined with transformation to accommodate and articulate difference.
In summary, I’m going to develop a new urban fabric like an organic tissue by proposing certain rules but still keeping tolerance and changeability. An urban context that keeps growing is a field in which any particular locate can be modified to fit the new activities.

Credits:
ta (david) YU
SCI-Arc, MArch 2 Thesis

Courtesy of ta (david) YU

Superkilen is a half a mile long urban space wedging through one of the most ethnically diverse and socially challenged neighborhoods in Denmark. It has one overarching idea that it is conceived as a giant exhibition of urban best practice – a sort of collection of global found objects that come from 60 different nationalities of the people inhabiting the area surrounding it. Ranging from exercise gear from muscle beach LA to sewage drains from Israel, palm trees from China and neon signs from Qatar and Russia. Each object is accompanied by a small stainless plate inlaid in the ground describing the object, what it is and where it is from – in Danish and in the language(s) of its origin. A sort of surrealist collection of global urban diversity that in fact reflects the true nature of the local neighborhood – rather than perpetuating a petrified image of homogenous Denmark.

Courtesy of BIG Architects

A world exhibition at nørrebro
Superkilen is a park that supports diversity. It is a world exhibition of furniture and everyday objects from all over the world, including benches, lampposts, trash cans and plants – requisites that every contemporary park should include and that the future visitors of the park have helped to select. Superkilen reattributes motifs from garden history.  In the garden, the translocation of an ideal, the reproduction of another place, such as a far off landscape, is a common theme through time. As the Chinese reference the mountain ranges with the miniature rocks, the Japanese the ocean with their rippled gravel, or how the Greek ruins are showcased as replicas in the English gardens. Superkilen is a contemporary, urban version of a universal garden.

Courtesy of BIG Architects

Three zones, three colors – one neighborhood
The conceptual starting point is a division of Superkilen into three zones and colors – green, black and red. The different surfaces and colors are integrated to form new, dynamic surroundings for the everyday objects. The desire for more nature is met through a significant increase of vegetation and plants throughout the whole neighborhood arranged as small islands of diverse tree sorts, blossom periods, colors – and origin matching the one of surrounding everyday objects.

Traffic connections
To create better and more transparent infrastructure throughout the neighborhood, the current bike paths will be reorganized, new connections linking to the surrounding neighborhoods are created, with emphasis on the connection to Mimersgade, where citizens have expressed desire for a bus passage. This transition concerns the whole traffic in the area at outer Norrebro and is a part of a greater infrastructure plan. Alternatives to the bus passage include signals, an extended middle lane or speed bumps.

Courtesy of BIG Architects

Market/culture/sport – the red square
As an extension of the sports and cultural activities at the Norrebrohall, the Red Square is conceived as an urban extension of the internal life of the hall. A range of recreational offers and the large central square allows the local residents to meet each other through physical activity and games. The colored surface is integrated both in terms of colors and material with the Nørrebrohall and its new main entrance, where the surface merges inside and outside in the new foyer.

Facades are incorporated visually in the project by following the color of the surface conceptually folding upwards and hereby creating a three-dimensional experience. By the large facade towards Norrebrogade is an elevated open space, which almost like a tribune enables the visitors to enjoy the afternoon sun with a view. In addition to the cultural and sportsfacilities, the Red Square creates the setting for an urban marketplace which attracts visitors every weekend from Copenhagen and the suburbs.

Courtesy of BIG Architects

Courtesy of Matias del Campo, Sandra Manninger and their team

The Convoluted Corrosion project is the future city concept for Maribor, Slovenia. The main idea of the project is to simulate the future city growth and expansion in the span of 100years. Based on the “Urban Millennium” fact that majority of people worldwide will be living in towns or cities, which is caused by increasing factor of rural-urban migration.

Courtesy of Vidhi Patel

“A state of constant change that is the site, has variousdistinct conditions of state transition that can be observed through programshifts and their spatial equations. The idea of this project is to understandthis transitional nature of the site and its users and allow it to inform thesite development.

Shifting grids and linear volumes of space allow for changein spatial quality of the voids. The voids get charged with function withpossibility of change to allow for more deflection. The process is ongoing andconditions of change occur everywhere. Level modulation, landscapemanipulation, edge breakdown, user variability, access control and severalother factors form the basis for this project that are tied together or interconnected.

The naked site adjacent to pier 29 is filled with a variationof spatial needs and functional requirements waiting to be visually tiedtogether. The second skin – in this case the carbon reinforced sail cloth – notonly visually binds the project but is also functionally relevant as it is avisual, light and wind filter. The site is set to host the AC 34 and thelaminate skin pays homage to the event. This building skin envelope the designas it emerges for the landscape, deflecting in its path as it covers partiallythe walkable roof to meet another intricate junction.

The design process and the resultant project is an instigatornot just to harness the state of constant change but understand it as variousmoments of pause. The strength of architecture may lie in its ability to offermomentary pause. “In a world predicted on movement and flows, the power ofarchitecture may be in its ability to give pause” – Bernard Tshumi. Digitallygenerated renderings offer some of the conditions of constant movement andmoments of pause.

The architecture of the project is a result of my constant inquiryand this project one captured moment of pause.”

Courtesy of Vidhi Patel

Courtesy of  Panasonic

Inspired by the fireflies that no longer occupy the Sumida River and the Japanese tradition of floating candles on the water to honor ancestors, Panasonic released 100,000 LED lights to start the Tokyo Hotaru (firefly) festival. This festival is part of Tokyo’s “Sumida River Renaissance” initiative and by making the LED lights ride the current of the river it reminds the audience of what they have lost due to the conditions of the river today. In this instance the lights were dubbed “prayer stars” and as they floated appeared to reflect a simplified version of the Milky Way that people could reach out and touch.

Courtesy of  Panasonic

The LED’s themselves were designed as balls that would light up once they contacted the water. They were also 100% powered by solar energy and after illuminating a large stretch of the river were caught in a large net. This display shows that simple acts, with multiple levels of meaningful symbology can be just as beautiful and impactful as large explosive gestures. Each floating LED light represented something different to the people watching them float down the river, bringing back magic into the city.

By: Matt Davis

Courtesy of  Panasonic

© NL Architects

The meshing of city and port creates an amalgam of building typologies, from living and education, working, cultural and leisure. Here the arts have a swath of inspirations to draw from, making it a perfect location for a performance venue. The question NL Studio posed to itself is ‘how can one construct host the multitude of functions which might locate in such a place?’

© NL Architects

NL Architects’ solution is to combine three iconic typologies as individual elements, into a seamless unifying whole. A central platform with arms of fashion walk, theatre seating, and cinema backdrop. The whole thing revolves to provide for performances with different backdrops- to port, water or city. This creates the possibility for an almost infinite set of conditions between the venue and the square off of which it sits.

By: Matt Davis

© NL Architects