Europan07 by draftworks*architects

P1a

COMMERCIAL ZONE

CREATING A CHARACTER: SAVING THE AMBIGUE CHARACTER OF THE AREA

The aim of this project is the maintenance of this differential state, and the plurality of uses. The intention is to avoid the exclusion of uses commonly considered as ‘alien’ and ‘unfamiliar’ to the suburban environment and the usual creation of a ‘residential paradise’. Puntigam needs the whole of this differential plurality: it needs a new vivid city centre, with public services, but as well the integration of cultural uses that favor the infiltration of users from different lifestyle backgrounds (artists, young families, professionals etc) and different ethnic backgrounds (an attraction for users from neighbor countries). It also needs the work-space that will challenge the traditional idea of working as an isolated activity, and combine this activity with others, such as residence and public services. It also needs residence, considered as something more than a gated use, but providing original relationship with nature, infrastructure, public uses, free space, shopping. It also needs clusters of crafts and small industries that will articulate a common place with other uses.

To gain that we propose a two-fold intervention: Firstly, as already mentioned, the installation of a ‘pattern of indefinition’, a pattern that will contain the entire principal infrastructure (roads, movements, bikeways, free space etc) and will indicate the spaces where the different uses may be developed. On that pattern all the various elements of the suburban will attach: movements, bicycle ways, corridors, free, public and green spaces. That will be possible not by specifying an exact plan, neither the exact implementation of a defined array of spaces. On the contrary, the pattern that we propose is that of the free spaces. It is a pattern of the ‘negative’ space, the space left over, the public space. The pattern has a clear direction: On this pattern various elements of the wider area are adapted: Elements from the North (centre of Graz) and the South (Puntigam) are articulated on the infrastructure that goes along an east-west corridor. The whole pattern functions as a corridor of free spaces and natural elements that runs through the city along the east-west axis. The whole intervention acts as a binding element that connects by use all the different elements of the area and the infrastructure that in Graz traditionally is laid along the North-South axis. The elements that this corridor connects are (from east to west): the area of the east Graz, the Mur river and the main bikeway along the river, the east part of the study area, the project area, the Puntigam, the Triester strasse, the transportation knot, the shopping centre west, the Weblinger Knoten and the slopes of the west massif. A corridor that runs from east to west connecting different uses. Facilitating the free movement of pedestrians and light means of transportation (bicycles).

This pattern emphasizes the role of the free space and its elements (nature, public space, public infrastructure). It provides a flexible pattern and the potential of gradual inhabitation of this pattern. Also it provides the appropriate environment for the coexistence of different rhythms. The idea is the creation of prototype that facilitates this coexistence and combination of rhythms is an objective of our proposition.

DIFFERENCES IN A BOX: PROTOTYPING The second part of the project consists of the prototypes: An index of types of the spaces that are going to occupy randomly the space on the pattern and according to the needs of the users. These prototypes are not aiming at the creation of a definite typology of uses. Each of them is more likely to be conceived as a box that will contain different uses and combine them according to the ideals of its individual users or groups of users. P1,P2: Prototypes of public spaces, that may-or may not be of specific use from the start. For example, in the study area these buildings host the uses that were asked by the Europan program: cultural centre (with the potential for artists’ workshops and residences, studios and exhibition rooms), service centre (for the use of local companies, administration and a business meeting centre), daycare centre and some small trade centers. P3,P5,P6: spaces that infiltrate into the residential areas and provide ‘containers’ for various community uses: education, meeting spaces, but also spaces to be rent by individuals or groups for other specific reasons: workspace, small workshops, studios, experimental uses, glass-houses. P7,P8: prototypes of residence that incorporate other potential uses as well, such as working, small crafts, studios for artists. Creating in this way a potential for the inhabitation of people from different backgrounds.

PROTOTYPES OF BUILDINGS TO BE INSTALLED ON THE ‘PATTERN OF INDEFINITION’. THE PROTOTYPES ARE ‘USE UNSPECIFIED’, AND PROVIDE A ‘CHARACTER’ OF MIXED USE: BETWEEN RESIDENTIAL, PUBLIC SPACE, WORK, EDUCATION, EXPERIMENTATION, RECREATION, PLAY.

PATTERNS OF INDEFINITION: DIFFERENCES THAT COEXIST IN A PATTERN To attain this strategy we propose the creation of Patterns of ambiguity. Patterns on which different factors of the suburban context are attached and the relationship between these factors is developed. These patterns will maintain a degree of ambiguity. This will favor an ambiguity of relationships, but at the same time will provide a specificity of infrastructure on which the activities are attached and the relationships are helped to develop. The project proposes an investigation into new prototypes of suburbanization that Incorporate different aspects of the suburban identity: residence, de-industrialization, pseudo-rural, commercial, shopping (regional and inter-local). These prototypes elaborate in a range between the specific and the ambiguous: Specificity of infrastructure, but ambiguity that favors a freedom of visions.

PUBLIC SPACES: Meetings Events Trading points Inter-local links Culture Exhibitions

CRAFTS, WORKSHOPS, SMALL INDUSTRIAL SPACES: RESIDENTIAL CUBES: The proximity and coexistence of different uses: Residence Working Shopping, trading Social relations

CONTAINERS: Education Work space Nature, sustainability, experimentation in sources Studios, creative spaces

HOUSING: 50-200 ‘CUBES’: 20-100 FAMILY HOUSES (200-250M2) =4000-20000 M2 15-65 APARTMENTS (200-300M2,3-5APARTMENTS)= 3000-13000 M2 (45-325 APARTMENTS) 15-35 MULTIPURPOSE (PROTMANTEAU) ‘CUBES’ (200400M2)=4500-10500 M2 SUBTOTAL: 11500-43500 M2 OF HOUSING SURFACE AREA | ECONOMIC FEASIBILITY STUDY | PROCESS

RESIDENTIAL PUBLIC BUILDINGS: 3-8 BUILDINGS (200 M2)= 600-1600 M2

CRAFT AND SMALL INDUSTRIAL BUILDINGS: 3-8 BUILDINGS (300-2000 M2)= 900-1600 M2

PROJECT AREA AND CLOSE STUDY AREA: DAY CARE CENTRE: 1050 M2 CULTURAL CENTRE + SERVICE CENTRE: 1740 M2 SMALL TRADE CENTRE: (TWO BUILDINGS) 160+160= 320 M2 SERVICE CENTRE: 330 M2 SMALL TRADE CENTRE: 200 M2 SERVICE CENTRE: 200 M2 OFFICE CENTRE: (TOWER) 2000 M2 SUBTOTAL: 5840 M2

The largest part of the program belongs to the housing. The residences are divided in single family houses and apartment houses that facilitate the flexibility and infiltration of other uses, such as home-working, small crafts and workshops etc. This housing character is likely to attract young families and young people of alternative lifestyles, people who want to try a different lifestyle, with attitude to test ideas, such as home-working, the relationship with nature, with culture, art production, education. The multipurpose ‘cubes’ that are installed into the residential areas, will become a factor of sustainability for the community and the self-financing of the maintenance and the development of the infrastructure. These spaces will also adapt forms of sources of renewable energy, and will host such technology for the fuelling of the community needs for energy. The new uses of cultural activities, services and trade in the project area (the new centre of Puntigam) will attract investments from local agents and local community. Finally the work space (towers) installed in the site south of the Cineplex will add value to the developing retail, entertainment and working area of the Shopping Centre West and will attract investment in working space from companies interlocally. The concept of the proposition is incorporating an idea of a gradual development of the area. In such a way any mode of development of the area will not be imposed, but tested in its application.

TECHNICAL | CONSTRUCTION DETAILS The structures must be flexible. For that reason we adopt the form of a ‘cube’ that provides a skin and a flexible interior. This skin may be of concrete panels, in the case of a residential building, or transparent in the case of public or multipurpose ‘cubes’. In order to facilitate its flexibility the structure consists of metallic elements that may be easily erected and demounted and provide open interior space. For the free spaces, natural materials are used. Pavements with concrete blocks, loose stones and different kinds of green elements.

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