Unit 2
Newtopia Damjan Iliev, Julian Krueger
Utopian places are a contradiction in terms: ‘ou’ is the Greek word for ‘not’ and ‘topos’ means ‘place’. The utopian place is a place which does not exist. These non-existent places have always inspired and fuelled the imagination of philosophers, writers and architects to create models of ideal communities, technical perfection and formal purity.
The Bartlett School of Architecture 2013
By 2050 over two thirds of the world population will live in cities. How will the natural environment cope with this new growth? What does this mean for human life in the new urban millennium? How will cities have to change to accommodate this phenomenon? What new utopia will emerge in this time of crisis? This year Unit 2 explored the ideas of utopia by learning from New York, a city which has always been a backdrop and inspiration for visionary thinking. We invited the students to contemplate on the future of a city like New York: to imagine, design and explore their own utopia for a metropolitan living. Warm Up The Unit responded to the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) P.S.1 pavilion competition in Queens, New York. The brief involved proposing a site-specific, inhabitable pavilion, which extended the museum’s internal programme and provides facilities for the annual ‘Warm Up’ music and performance festival. The challenge was how to create a temporary outdoor structure that can generate comfortable micro-climatic conditions for large public gatherings. The structure had to address environmental issues including sustainability, recycling and responsiveness to atmospheric characteristics such as light, temperature, humidity, airflow and sound. The spatial and functional implications of the project were key requirements for both the museum and music festival and had to be explored through various tectonic analyses relating to mass, volume, form and surface. 62
The Term 1 project was considered a warm up experimental exercise with an underlining ecological agenda where students were expected to develop a unique architectural aesthetic through the use of various formal and conceptual tools derived from both digital and analogue methods of working. Field Trip: New York City In early December the unit travelled to New York, a city which seduces visitors with its pulsating and vibrant energy. We explored new architecture, climbed the classic skyscrapers, strolled along the linear gardens on the High Line, and took part in the New York City life. A visit to MoMA P.S.1 helped the students to contextualise and fine tune their Term 1 pavilion projects. The field trip main goal was to explore and record the Brooklyn/Queens waterfront edge. Bound between the East River and Brooklyn/Queens Expressway, this is the place where the relentless city grid begins to dissolve. It was once the heartbeat of a thriving urban metropolis before its occupants relocated to cheaper and readily available lands on the periphery of the city. At present the waterfront is a large de-industrialised zone: a terrain vague full of unused ship building factories and cargo storage complexes. This urban void characterised by public vacuum and ecological disbalance is most evident in areas such as Brooklyn Navy Yard, Red Hook, Hunters Point, and Bushwick Inlet. And yet this area is one of New York’s most extraordinary physical assets. Newtopia Emerging New York City waterfront is the longest and most diverse of any American city. Recognising its untapped potential, the city planning authorities have issued a set of urban and architectural initiatives such as Vision 2020, New York Waterfront Action Agenda, and NYC-2030. All these initiatives share a common ground to promote a sustainable symbiotic relationship between man-made structures and nature to benefit the environment and achieve higher quality of life.