Visiondivison shared their entry for the Koivusaari Idea Competition to create a new city district on an island just outside Helsinki, Finland. The competition asked participants to organize a master plan for the island that would provide the framework for further planning. Visiondivison’s proposal, Urban Fade, is comprised of a highly efficient city grid that allows users the option of moving around the district to interact with the different areas.
More about the proposal after the break.
“In Koivusaari, you will experience a great urban diversity on a relatively small island; a dense city core that gradually fades to smaller premises and that eventually becomes archipelago. The island becomes a distillation of the best qualities that each one of the urban typologies has to offer,” explained the architects.
The proposal divides the city into separate areas: a city center, medium sized town, small town and then the archipelago. These areas create a densely programmed layout where “the distances between the new districts is kept short …to get a lively city area. This is good for both the environment and from an economical point of view.”
The “intense city center” is filled with office, retail and service spaces in close vicinity to transportation lines; green areas surround the “medium sized town” that houses restaurants and residential units; the “small town” area is situated in a park condition; and the archipelago is dominated with public spaces such as piers and pavilions.
Credits: Visiondivision through Ulf Mejergren & Anders Berensson. All images courtesy of the studio.
