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Design Process: Crashing Together Little Utopias

Posted by Kate McMahon at 11:14 am

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At last I’ve starting to put together specific sustainability proposals for my neighbourhood.

At this stage I’m focusing on the ‘spatial’ elements of the design, that is, those things which require specific spatial configurations (so, for example, at this point bike paths are spatial, but a food buying co-op isn’t).

The approach I’m taking is borrowed in part from the design process used by Bernard Tschumi for Parc de la Villette in Paris (shown on the right), by thinking about the design in discrete layers.

I've broken down the design proposals into the following layers:
  • Road Energy System®
  • Rainwater Tanks
  • Bike Network
  • Earth (or Labyrinth) Cooling
  • Planting
  • Program
  • Solar Hot water heating and PV Array
  • Worm Farm & Black Water

Then I've gone ahead and designed each one of these layers in a utopian way, without reference to the other layers. So, for example, I’ve put solar panels in every possible location without considering where I might want to plant trees whose shadows would compromise the panels effectiveness, I’ve laid down the ideal bike path without considering traffic or other uses.

The next step is to ‘crash’ all these layers together. Once I've done that I can decide to either remove conflicts, or else use the conflicts created to generate interesting design solutions. So for example – if I want a PV array in the same location as an area of open space – I could chose one instead of the other – or perhaps I could make them co-exist - a PVA as a sculptural element within a park perhaps, or as part of the roof of a picnic shelter.

I'll follow this up with a post for each layer - giving more details.

 

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