TAINAN INTENSIVE WORKSHOP_JULY 2012
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Tutors: Anna Shapiro Lawrence Barth Betty Hsiu-Tzu CHANG AA Students: Emilie Bechet Mariana Cardenal John Nathan Foust Konstantin Seufert Goto Katsushi Miqdad Mahadwala Anke Wetzel MarĂa Pia Lambeth
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NCKU Students: Fu-Min LIU (Angie) Wan-Lin Lee (Liv) Jia-Jun DU (Jenny) Chien-Hsuan Mei-Huan CHEN (Sunny) Hui YU (Joy) Tzu-Wen Chen
TABLE OF CONTENT A. AMBITION AND OPPORTUNITY
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1. Revealing the potential of Tainan to operate as a Knowledge Corridor, through spatial strategies 2. Models currently shaping the urban growth of Tainan
B. STRATEGIC BIGNESS
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1. Bigness as an adaptable programmatic container 2. Bigness as an idea of interior urbanity 3. Bigness as a critical mass for phase one intervention 4. Bigness as a layered system
C. REPETITION, QUANTITY AND ACCU34 MULATION 1. Repetition as architecture of accumulation
D. URBAN CHALLENGES IN AREAS OF INTERVENTION 1. Research & Production Compound, JingZhong 3rd Military Dependents’ Village Site 2. Tainan Student Living Project, TzuChiang Military Dependents’ Village Site
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AMBITION AND OPPORTUNITY
A. AMBITION AND OPPORTUNITY 1. Revealing the potential of Tainan to operate as a Knowledge Corridor, through spatial strategies The city can be looked at and thought of as an architectural project but not just as the context for it. Such a perspective would suggest acting not just as a material framework, eventually leading to site-specific architectural proposals, but as a set of conditions and rules, on which the basis of the strategic thinking on the city’s potentials will be constructed. The ambition of the following proposal is to develop strategic projects for two sites performing differently in terms of their relation to the Knowledge Corridor of Tainan, as two spatial models, initially allowing for a change in the city’s productiveness to occur and later capable of accommodating this change.
REPETITION
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The Knowledge Corridor of Tainan
TzuChiang Military Dependents’ Village Site
JingZhong 3rd Military Dependents’ Village Site
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AMBITION AND OPPORTUNITY 6
The well-established mobility system - high speed train, light railway and motorway- along the north-south axis and the economic potential of Taiwan creates an innovative corridor throughout the country. Connecting these innovative areas from Taipei to Kaoushuing supports the ambition of a polycentric growth. However, this infrastructure is not using all its potential. Placing the rail stop in no man’s land rather than connecting the city of Tainan to the existing Science Park, which is one of the economic drivers of the area, the innovative business and residential developments in the city are not benefiting from the ambition of growth and recognition.
Infrastructure and Polycentric development
TzuChiang Military Dependents’ Village Site JingZhong 3rd Military Dependents’ Village Site
TzuChiang Military Dependents’ Village Site JingZhong 3rd Military Dependents’ Village Site
Urban areas and the Knowledge Corridor
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CIVIC RESEARCH
HOUSING
HOUSING
RESEARCH
AMBITION AND OPPORTUNITY
CIVIC
COMMERCIAL
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Spatial models can act strategically at multiCOMMERCIAL ple scales when they are characterized by the ability to engage an immediate context as well as to rethink a larger logic of a city-region. In this sense, Tainan’s ambition to operate as a office Knowledge corridor does not simply mean self office reorganization through mobility systems, nor HOUSING office office does it imply the physical regeneration of the existing city fabric. None of these should be JingZhong 3rd Military Dependents’ Village Site: Func+ HOUSING overlooked or ignored, however there is a need tional affinities within the Knowledge Corridor and opportunity in Tainan to challenge the existing morphologies with the new, constructive scenarios of productivity, with the knowledge economy related functions and programmes. One scenario could operate within the corridor as an umbrella, bringing together the university with the multinational research and development corporations of different sizes, supporting them with an attractive living environment. Another one might look into providing an academic staff and students with a new form of housing as well as to operate as a civic resource, effectively supporting the existing communities.
BUBBLE T E A
HAIR
FLEXIBLESALON COMMUNITY FACILITESGYM
HOUSING
The architectural elaboration on the emerging scenarios leads instantly to two different organizational and structural logics for the new developments. The first can be materialized as a system composed from large scale entities, performing like containers for various programmes and mixes. As a spatial model, this organization would imply flexibility, adaptability and interior diversity in each project, in order to provide private developers with the financially attractive structure. The materialization of the second model relies on a considerably smaller scale than the first one, with accumulative development logic, capable of integration and exchange with the existing morphology. Consequently, the implementation of these scenarios on specific sites draws attention to their fundamental difference in several aspects: effective size of the first intervention, phasing logic for the construction aiming to minimize the development risk and patterns of spatial permeability of the project’s perimeter.
Gallery book
BAR
scooterstore retail
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TzuChiang Military Dependents’ Village Site: Functional affinities as support of the Knowledge Corridor
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AMBITION AND OPPORTUNITY
Looking closer to our sites, the 2 mobility systems frame a kind of innovative urban area. On one side, the railway brings human capital from the new connected science park that in addition to the growing ambition of the university raises the question of how to build an attractive environment for high-skills workers/talent migration.
TzuChiang Military Dependents’ Village Site
On the other side, the motorway, used for logistic goods and where we can easily imagine a kind of incubator space, will work as a linkage to the existing university, hospital and industry. This first step could be the catalyst for further developments on the north-south axis next to the motorway and the other current empty plots. Looking at the urban section, it is a question of programme to trigger innovation growth. Therefore, we are aiming for a more morphological approach, rather than a zoning plan which can bring the different component together.
JingZhong 3rd Military Dependents’ Village Site
Juxtaposition of large institutions and developments
TzuChiang Military Dependents’ Village Site
Local facilities
JingZhong 3rd Military Dependents’ Village Site
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AMBITION AND OPPORTUNITY 12
2. Models currently shaping the urban growth of Tainan If we were to name the dominant spatial models shaping the urban growth of Tainan in the present, we would undoubtedly begin by pointing towards the mono-functional mega complexes: podium-tower hybrids fully orchestrated by commercial forces and alongside almost identical residential towers occupying every next available plot of land, by reproduction of their footprint in a mechanical manner. Being mainly concerned with maximising the immediate profit, both logics fail to generate long term viability for Tainan as well as lacking of any strategic ambition that would head in the direction of a sustainable city growth. Interestingly, even being extensively implemented, these ‘capital driven projects’ have scarcely evolved architecturally from their initial generic definition.
SHIN KONG MITSUKOSHI NATIONAL CHENG KUNG UNIVERSITY HOSPITAL
BIGNESS
TAYIH LANDIS HOTEL CARREFOUR
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AMBITION AND OPPORTUNITY
REPETITION
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HSR TAOYUAN
HSINCHU
RAI
L
TAICHUNG
AL
MIGRATIONNCK
TALENT
LOC
AMBITION AND OPPORTUNITY
TAIPEI
Nevertheless, one could argue in favour of the underestimated potential of some of their spatial aspects that could develop into a winwin scenario for Tainan’s urbanisation process. Looking into detail and questioning some architectural and programmatic characteristics of these models, or in other words, a new interpretation of these commercial realities would ideally suggest an evolution of an urban form capable of acknowledging area, fostering dynamic urban processes and generating the urban environments of productiveness for Tainan’s City Knowledge Corridor.
TAINAN
KAOSIUNG
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Functional synergies within the Knowledge Corridor
ENGINEE
>
INDUSTRIAL CORRIDOR
COMMERCIAL
office RESEARCHCOMMERCIAL
HIGHWAY 1
office
BIO-TECHNOLOGIES
KU
ERING
HOUSING HOUSING HOUSING HOUSING CIVIC
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STRATEGIC BIGNESS
B. STRATEGIC BIGNESS
It is not accidental that the most common elaborations on ‘Bigness’ as a spatial model are more descriptive rather than critical. Extracting the dominant formal characteristics, we discover that Bigness as an architectural category is even more elusive than Bigness as a programmatic one. If we were to try and illustrate the category with some precedents we would most likely relate to a wide range of projects surprisingly dissimilar in their spatial logic. So what are we referring to when we talk about Bigness? How big should big be in order to perform as Bigness? And finally, why would we argue for its strategic potentials?
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Congrexpo, Lille_OMA (1994)
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STRATEGIC BIGNESS 20
1. Bigness as an adaptable programmatic container Described as a dull container, Bigness often lends itself to a structural envelope, holding within it a complex interior. In this sense, similar to a box or container, there wouldn’t be any critical relationship between the functional organisation of the content and envelope, defining and limiting its expansion. Performing as such, we can begin to imagine how different programmes and functions of various sizes come together under the same roof in this kind of Research-Production compound. We can easily envision this model as structurally supporting the programmatic diversity and multifunctionality. It is important to remember that big interiors united by a single envelope do not necessarily lead to reduction of the architectural control and formal expression or introverted organisational diagram, but they do tend to provide the area they occupy with a high level of social intensiveness which would be difficult to find in a different spatial model.
“Only Bigness instigates the regime of complexity that mobilizes the full intelligence of architecture and its related fields.” (Rem Koolhaas)
An interesting project we could look at in this context would be the University of Arts London Campus for Central Saint Martin’s by Stanton Williams Architects .The project unites the College’s activities and functions under one roof. This strategy opens up the potential of a dialog and student collaboration across the united within one envelope campus. It is a practical and an efficient solution to the College’s needs that maximises the connections between departments within it, allowing a 3-dimensional movement. The new compact campus not only provides the mixed-use quarter of King’s Cross with the flexible dynamic spaces within one piece of development, but gives the critical mass and cultural hub energy for further regeneration of the whole area. 21
STRATEGIC BIGNESS 22
2. Bigness as an idea of interior urbanity Perhaps, ‘City within a City’ would be the most popular metaphor claiming to express the key notion of Bigness. It literally refers to the attempt of Bigness to formally imitate urban situations of different architectural characters: streets, plazas, courtyard, squares and arenas. These mimics enabled by the high programmatic and functional intensity within an inward looking organization, dimensionally defined by an impermeable envelope, tend to have a monumental impact on their immediate context. The idea of interior urbanity reveals itself as a very effective and popular in difficult climates and areas where a certain degree of ‘concentrated functionality’ is required: shopping malls, health care centres, municipal services.
National Cheng Kung University Hospital could be a useful case study that begins to generate similar notion of interior urbanity or city within a city. A deep plan of the building, allows for the ground floor to compose a series of functions, commercial and hospital related, along a central spine, or in these terms – internal street, which links them to the central atrium and extends vertically. Programmatically the hospital bridges between the university and the city centre, and in this sense performs as a strategic tool for the functional integration of the health services into the everyday life of urban Tainan. Interestingly, it is successful in attracting some global and national commercial brands such as Starbucks and Seveneleven, engaging them with the idea of interior urbanity. 23
STRATEGIC BIGNESS 24
3. Bigness as a critical mass for phase one intervention It is often argued the generative implications of Bigness as an immediate critical mass. Above all, Bigness becomes strategic in this sense for ‘siteless’ territories - territories that do not carry in their materiality any particular pattern of growth, or any kind of formal logic that would signify every next development as being a part of a previously established urban field. The monumentality introduced by Bigness in areas where street based organization is less likely to structure the city growth, operates as a driver for the complete rethinking of a larger territory, as well as its future transformation.
Looking at Westfield – Stratford City, in east London, we can learn how a new retail landmark of a significant scale introduces the critical mass, capable of holding together a masterplan for regeneration of the whole district in the future. Architecturally it suggests the permeable perimeter logic at the ground floor – where traditionally inward looking shopping mall organization starts to engage with the surrounding. Establishing the logic of an urban block, it is occupied with pedestrian movements and public space related activities and at the same time as its 3dimensional architectural organization brings together a large transport infrastructure: two underground lines, two DLR stations, London overground and National Rail.
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STRATEGIC BIGNESS 26
4. Bigness as a layered system But beyond the development of a shopping mall, the project by OMA for the city of Almere in The Netherlands might also help us to clarify our understanding of Bigness. The project consists in a huge layered complex which hosts commercial, residential and office facilities as well as different services like parking garage. “Stacked one above the other like the layers of a cake, the different functions form a single megastructure in which all the uses are efficiently linked to one another by means of short, vertical connections while visual linkage is provided by openings and voids.” (OMA) This ‘multiplied ground’ endows the city with a high-degree absorption environment, a large ‘to-be-congested’ urban equipment.
A “The road structure continues on the parking level.” B “The curved ground plane between the town hall and the lake with roads running underneath.” C “The curved ground plane is punctuated with blocks of shops.” D “The layout of the housing level with streets.”
A
C
B
D
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STRATEGIC BIGNESS
With these references in mind we come back to the context of Tainan and start to test the application of different diagrams of Bigness. These diagrams represent distinct options in terms of the orientation, the degree of porosity and the absorption that Bigness can take.
Project for Almere_OMA: Ground floor footprint studies
Option A: Assuming the strong perimeter of the envelope and proposing an inner organization in relation to the external conditions. Option B: (following page) Lifting the hybrid and suggesting a campus-based insertion within the fabric.
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Option C: (following page) Prolonging the fabric while superimposing the hybrid.
A
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STRATEGIC BIGNESS
B
C
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STRATEGIC BIGNESS 32
Also we can think how several large elements can start to relate to each other. Indeed, it is more than the insertion of one big element having difficulties to match with its neighbouring fabric. In fact, the considerable size of the JingZhong 3rd Military Dependents’ Village site suggests the coexistence of different large elements.
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REPETITION, QUANTITY AND ACCUMULATION 34
C. REPETITION, QUANTITY AND ACCUMULATION
Relationships between the original design of a building and its massive reproduction, in many ways signify the constant tension between an architectural design and city planning. In dealing with a certain quantity of a similar architectural design demanded by the market, a reproduction and consequently the repetition of a singular-original object could come across as unavoidable. A good example of this notion is a highly reproduced generic residential tower defining the new skyline of Tainan. However, it should be argued, that the generic design widely implemented as a direct self reproduction, is not the only possible outcome of repetition in city planning. In fact, it is possible to make an argument, that some of the most successful urban developments have been created on the logic of typological repetition as a generator of a new sustainable urban field.
Plan Voisin, Paris_Le Corbusier (1925)
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REPETITION, QUANTITY AND ACCUMULATION 36
1. Repetition as architecture of accumulation The notion of accumulation in architectural planning can be looked at as opposed to the notion of composition. The repetition of an architectural object or a group of objects in this sense becomes strategic through the idea of a phased formation of an area. The definition and phasing of the repeated portions, or in planning terms - parcels, play a fundamental role in risk reduction of the development. This gradual development logic as opposed to a project of single phase development, leads to another critical question of what should be the first, strategic intervention that would lead to the condition of accumulation. The argument of the following proposal lays in relevance of repetition together with consideration of urban actors as an effective instrument within planning. The idea of typological repetition is fundamental to planning with an ambition to create a new urban area via phasing, as opposed to the large single development logic. In this sense, strategic distribution of urban actors would inform differentiations within the types.
Slabs and Repetition Shinonome, Tokyo_Riken Yamamoto (2003)
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REPETITION, QUANTITY AND ACCUMULATION 38
Therefore, in order to introduce some formal characteristics and spatial qualities to a larger area of development, such as orientation, spacing, hierarchy and completeness, we may use the design method of clustering for the repeated architectural objects. It would be reasonable to argue that this is what eventually allows for the formal differentiation of types. And in this sense, as a design approach, we should look into the idea of repetition of differences rather than repetition of similarities.
Individual Housing and Repetition Borneo-Sporenburg, Amsterdam_Masterplan by West 8 (1996)
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URBAN CHALLENGES IN AREAS OF INTERVENTION
1. Research & Production Compound, JingZhong 3rd Military Dependents’ Village Site
COMMERCIAL
CIVIC
CIVIC RESEARCH
office office office office
HOUSINHOUSING G HOUSING
RESEARCH
The new development of Research & Production Compound for JingZhong site addresses the challenge of rethinking the campus logic through a model of a single phase, large scale development, functionally integrated in the every day life of Tainan and spatially performing as an urban system. The project suggests looking at the site as a playground for rethinking the campus logic, often turning its back to a city, and being formally organised within its own boundaries as a composition of buildings – different departments and student housing. Understood as a single form, the suggested container-tower hybrid is the evolving idea of an urban campus, capable of encouraging the intensive mix of uses, programmes and functions within it. Internally, this organizational logic maximizes the connections across the research and production departments, as well as providing the city with the new space for interaction, as a reflection of the interior urbanity concept.
COMMERCIAL
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D. URBAN CHALLENGES IN AREAS OF INTERVENTION
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URBAN CHALLENGES IN AREAS OF INTERVENTION 42
Through a set of spatial guidelines, and not with a fixed masterplan for the site, the project defines potential actors and stakeholders for the future development, acknowledging the challenge of the rapidly changing nature of an urban process and allowing for adaptability and rethinking of the particular content. The flexible interior can potentially unite various sizes of programmes and operate as a compound, by suggesting shared facilities and common uses. The ground floor level based on the internal street and internal plaza spatial logics operates as a major public space for social exchange and collaboration, and at the same time it invites the extension of the civic life into the building.
Further explorations on option B
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URBAN CHALLENGES IN AREAS OF INTERVENTION 44
Developing a number of alternatives for the potential footprint on site, the project raises the question of the maximum size for most effective intervention. How big should be strategic Bigness in order to remain sustainable and yet capable of introducing the critical productiveness for the area in a single phase of constructions? Speculating on the existing grid patterns and major infrastructure in the area takes a position of a footprint incorporating the building size in a relation to the larger mobility systems of Tainan’s Knowledge Corridor, as well as integrating its scale in the relation to the existing physical edges and the expected pedestrian movements through the site.
Further explorations on option C
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URBAN CHALLENGES IN AREAS OF INTERVENTION 46
2. Tainan Student Living Project, TzuChiang Military Dependents’ Village Site The perpetuation of alternate grid systems that manifest this gridness without relying upon the already intensified streets starts to create many kinds of ecologies and synergies that are relatively self-contained and in time will start to be connected to other such environments as the development progresses, eventually forming a technology and knowledge core for the city. The gridness offers the opportunity to begin to think about a kind of repetitive structure that will enable accumulation of housing developments to avoid the problems of the street grid on the periphery of the site while creating the possibility of integrating this ecology into an intensified pattern of urban development.
Fabric and textures in the area
Contrast between the structure of the University Campus and the fabric agglomerated along the old water line
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URBAN CHALLENGES IN AREAS OF INTERVENTION 48
Introducing the idea of a new Student Living development to the TzuChiang site, we face the challenge of the spatial integration of new typologies in their material context. As an alternative to the route of literal extension of the surrounding morphologies into the site, the proposed fabric begins to mediate between the existing road-based grid and the openness of the consistently used ground, characterizing the NCKU campus, which enables its intensification over time. As a result it takes the position of being architecturally differentiated from the existing fabric, allowing for the emerging urban field to visually preserve the original boundary as a historical definition of the site and as a cultural heritage of Tainan. Slab Housing Project Kitagata Apartments, Gifu Prefecture_Sanaa (2001)
BUBBLE T E A
HAIR
FLEXIBLESALON COMMUNITY FACILITESGYM
HOUSING Gallery book
BAR
scooterstore retail
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URBAN CHALLENGES IN AREAS OF INTERVENTION 50
The street grid cannot individually transform the quality of the site. The actual street grid must be evaluated according to principle of the underlying gridness to capacitate, alter and extend the characteristics of the physical grid, together with the problems of the circulation system. The big challenge is to try to discover and create a kind of circulation system that is going to support the urban processes to a degree of increased intensification to the site. The nature of these developments and their transformation, it is very difficult to grow on the basis of a street based system as it fails to offer critical mass to enable this activity and instead can be attained by characterizing the relationship between street grid and the underlying gridness. The re-thinking of the area started with two perspectives which when put together illustrated the strategy for the site. One starts with grasping imbedded urban systems around (two different kind of system of open space, one is university campus, the other is open space along the river) and then conceptualizing the strategy towards the distribution of the open space within the large site. Strategy of distribution is reasoned by detail analysis of relatively small scale urban systems which exist within surrounding neighbourhoods.
Patterns of Gridness
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URBAN CHALLENGES IN AREAS OF INTERVENTION 52
At the same time, the project elaborates on the ability of architecture to support social integration through a new development. Programmatically speaking, it introduces a series of destinations within the project’s boundaries making possible the multy-functional character of the main residential programme and perform as a social infrastructure for the existing neighborhood. As such, the project operates as a tool for regeneration of the area beyond the site’s boundaries. The other way is the object (in this case housing block) that repeatedly occupies ground while at same time the identification of generic type is employed in the site. Gallery-access slab housing is the appropriate type to begin as a versatile model for both developing complex type and application to various socio-economic circumstances. Type evolves from generic slab housing into programmatically absorbable housing types, while deliberating upon a kind of housing and the relationship towards the concept of knowledge corridor with a large ambition for the city plus direct influence from NCKU campus.
Local Integration in the area
The new morphology is based on the repetition of a gallery-access slab typology, which is formally differentiated by its figure-ground organization. The notion of repetition of differences is being used here as an opportunity to rethink the existing land-use plan of Tainan suggesting a higher density along the roads and impermeable blocks’ perimeter. Understood as architecture of accumulation, the proposal implies its gradual development, introducing a sense of completeness at each stage of the constructions. 53
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BIBLIOGRAPHY
New housing concepts by Broto, Carles Barcelona : Carles Broto i Comerma ; Leading International Pub. Group, c2001. New urban housing by French, Hilary London : Laurence King, 2006. S, M, L, XL by Koolhaas, Rem New York: Monacelli Press, 1998. Housing design : a manual by Leupen, Bernard Rotterdam : NAi Publishers, 2011. Dutchtown A city Centre deisgn by OMA by Provoost, Michelle Rotterdam: NAi Publishers, 1999. Collage city by Rowe, Colin London MIT Press 1978.
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