One of the great ironies of modern urban life is the underlying disconnect that exists amongst us global citizens, despite living and functioning within such dense and close proximities. In order to address this issue in the context of China’s urban landscape, New York firm NO ARCHITECTURE has proposed two alternatives to the typical high-rise – two vertical residential typologies that feature a combination of courtyards, terraces, and gardens, and could be located in a wide variety of cities.
“Conceived around a series of cascading shared walls, ventilated courtyards, stepped terraces, and wind towers, these new vertical organizations re-connect urban living to nature, suggesting how we can live in close proximity today and can continue to do so sustainably for generations to come,” explained the architects.
The project bases its strategies on various sustainable practices found within a number of cultures, climates, and contexts, which give rise to the aforementioned typologies and respond to specific sites and conditions. A hot-humid climate, for example, would be addressed by the open courtyards and wind towers that give the tower its form, while the stepped terraces and shared walls are designed for hot-arid conditions.
Each apartment’s floor plate is increased 30% to also include its own garden, providing natural ventilation, passive heating, and cooling that also function at the scale of the tower, when treating the gardens as a collective whole.
On the interior, spaces lack separation and compartmentalisation, thus increasing available space by an additional 30% and creating constantly occupied areas during the days, which are used for sleeping at night. Centered around service cores with bathrooms and storage, the inside of the towers can be experienced as a flexible continuous flow or individual rooms based on the dispersed cores.
News via: NO ARCHITECTURE.
Architects
Design Team
Dana AlMathkoor, Andrew Heid, Li Jin, Naifei Liu, Gaby San Roman Bustinza, Trendelina SalihuArea
9000.0 m2Project Year
2017Photographs
NO ARCHITECTUREArchitects
