Academic Portfolio - Masters Degree

PORTFOLIO

CONTENTS Projects & Research Wind Valley - Hong Kong, CHINA

4

Keystone - Krakow, POLAND

20

CAD, CAM & Algorithmics - Edinburgh, UNITED KINGDOM

30

Workshops VideoScape - Edinburgh, UNITED KINGDOM

40

Figures In Space - Edinburgh, UNITED KINGDOM

44

Competitions Twin Quarries - Latrobe, AUSTRALIA

48

HKCG - Hong Kong, CHINA

54

S.Bridge - St. Petersburg, RUSSIA

62

4

HONG KONG PROJECT

W I N D VALLEY How do you make space where there is none ?

This proposal takes place in the district of Kowloon, Hong Kong. It constitutes a reflection on issues and opportunities in Asian Cities.

Its core design parameters are gentrification, urban regeneration and air quality and aims at linking these topics together to benefit each other.

5

Kowloon under CONSTRUCTION Since Hong Kong Island is close to built saturation, the next logical step seems to be Kowloon’s urban regeneration.

This is confirmed by the simultaneous presence of 3 large scale projects within a mile’s radius. They are largely responsible for tripling the area’s real estate prices in less than a decade and could very well be triggering a “Bilbao effect”.

As much as a well conducted urban regeneration is beneficial to the local population and economy, its collateral effects, notably gentrification, also need careful consideration during the planning process.

6

Hong Kong PROJECT I Central Kowloon Route This project proposes to link Kowloon’s west with the south east through an underground 4.7 km dual 3-lane trunk road. It is commissioned by HKSAR Government’s Highways department. Expected to start in 2015 and reach completion as early as 2020/2021, the project’s design and planning are roughly estimated at HKD 200 million.

II West Kowloon Terminus The west Kowloon terminus would link Beijing to Hong Kong with a direct High speed train line. It is commissioned by MTR Corporation, started in 2008 and is expected to be completed in 2015. Its costs are estimated at HKD 23 Billion.

III West Kowloon Cultural District WKCD is the largest of the 3 projects. It is a multi-use development with priority on cultural spaces such as museums, theaters, and concert halls. Started in 2006, its second stage is expected to reach completion in 2026. It has benefited from an up-front endowment of HKD 21.6 Billion from the HKSAR Government.

7

Dealing with URBAN CANYONS It affects cities where polluted atmosphere is stuck between tightly packed buildings. This problem may seem economically unsolvable as Hong Kong’s real estate prices keep on rising. However, progress in computer assisted design and engineering might open new opportunities in sustainable design. For instance, Computational Fluid Dynamics enabled the simulation and visualization of wind patterns hitting the urban mass.

As impermeable as the city may appear at first glance, a detailed study revealed that some large scale turbulences and irregularities within the city’s edges may be harvested and channeled into town.

This would allow to re-instigate lost air channels through the streets, purging toxicity and also countering the “Heat Island” effect.

High

de ltitu

A

te

edia

rm Inte

nds

l Wi

ve d Le

on

owlo

tK Wes 8

inds

eW

ud Altit

un

Gro

ds

Win

Hong Kong PROJECT

Western winds diverted by the International Commerce Center

Turbulence Funneling

Prospect Site

9

CONCEPT

I

Mapping Airflow and the Physical environment

The first step was to assess the terrain in terms of potential for regeneration. This is done visually by rating the state and size of the buildings within the site. Small and damaged ones (darker on the map) are deemed in greater need of attention and more financially accessible to investors.

Tall buildings in a good state are disregarded from the regeneration process.

II

Selecting the Area of intervention

After evaluation, the site is refined to a smaller area of intervention. The wind corridor restoration is done by carving out a path starting from potential air entry points, through the smallest and most decrepit buildings, and towards the city center.

10

Hong Kong PROJECT

III

Differentiating Buildings

Within the carved “valley�, a distinction is made between the buildings. The one in the center of the corridor are marked to be extracted completely, whereas some of the border ones are chosen for greater architectural redevelopment, bringing a potential source of private revenue to the project.

IV

Recovered Air Corridor

At completion, the project is expected to greatly increase the quality of air and life within the site and its neighborhood, by restoring and enhancing wind corridors while generating rare open spaces.

11

Hong Kong PROJECT

3D CFD Vector Graphic

12

Air flowing above and against Kowloon

Air wrapping around the ICC, into Yau Ma Tei

13

Recreating TYPOLOGY Once a wind corridor has been carved out through Yau Ma Tei, a re-organization of what’s left is necessary. The redeveloped buildings will serve as foundation to develop the district’s core vertically. This enables a reasonable rise in the urban density while still creating more open spaces. Furthermore, it will increase the size of the buildings to match the district’s edges.

The footprints of the removed buildings are kept as a reminder of the urban fabric and grid. Three building layers are stacked upon each other.

Gaps are left between them to further increase airflow regeneration while creating desperately needed open spaces.

14

Hong Kong PROJECT 3RD BUILDING LAYER Residential Penthouses

Gentrification is accepted into the development, as a design constant to be built upon. Penthouse development will welcome higher social classes into the district and increase financial over all viability.

2ND BUILDING LAYER Semi-Private Gardens Standard Residential development Office Spaces

The 2nd garden layer will be exclusively accessible to the people living in the 3rd and 2nd building layers, as a quiet retreat from the buzzing market life underneath.

The 2nd building layer will offer a mixeduse development of office and residential spaces. The resulting building blocks are designed to match the pre-existing height (6-8 stories) of the Yau Ma Tei district.

1ST BUILDING LAYER Public Gardens Affordable Housing Shopping centers Boutiques and Restaurants

The 1st garden layer will be publicly accessible, affording pedestrians to circulate higher above ground pollutants in open spaces of better quality.

Although the building chosen for regeneration will be rebuild from scratch, the 1st building layer will be greatly inspired by Yau Ma Tei’s market-place-character and mixed use typology. Indeed a similar arrangement of residential spaces, shopping centers, boutiques and restaurants will be specified to help blend into the district.

15

Hong Kong PROJECT

16

The gardens are networked together by suspended bridges. This follows Hong Kong’s habit of forming pedestrian connection above ground to facilitate transit in a high density environment.

17

Hong Kong PROJECT

18

19

20

KRAKOW PROJECT

KEYSTONE How large can we see ?

The focus of this work is on large scale strategy and long term thinking. A central piece of land has been left untouched due to its sensitive historical background.

It now longs to be reintegrated into the city which has grown fragmented. This is how opportunities to help both the site and Krakow emerged from a brief initially about park intervention.

21

DISJOINTEDNESS Wandering in and around the site, we were soon struck by a sense of unease.

Partly because of its historical background of Nazi concentration camp, but also, in no small part, because of a spatial and functional disjointedness ranging from the site scale to the urban one.

Indeed, within a mile radius of the camp, we found a large array of typologies ranging from touristy historical center to derelict industrial land from the past century. The site was also located within yet another disorganized mixed used sprawl of suburban retail, service and housing.

22

Krakow PROJECT

Typology

Industrial area High density housing Green spaces Low density housing

2050 Vision

Historical core 1 of the 6 Strategic townships

Planning: Redevelopment

Urban tissue

Soft urban tissue Medium urban tissue Solid urban tissue

Solving through abstraction The fragmentation of the city was confirmed in our research: the top left map shows how little coherence and cohesion was to be found around the site. The next logical step was to check if it had occurred to local authorities, and if so, what measures were taken to resolve the issue.

Indeed the city was well aware of the situation and planned to remediate through urban regeneration. This was an ongoing strategy that, sadly, proved to have little success in binding and enhancing the

south of Krakow, presumably because of the prioritization of economical ties. In 2013, though, Krakow’s council commissioned a strategic rethinking of the planning policies. Its aim was to help Krakow incorporate 6 of its townships showing the most potential, to help guide forthcoming changes in the urban fabric over the next half-century.

Too much information at a time leads to a proportional if not exponential increase in difficulty of the decision making process.

The last map (bottom right) aims to compromise between the amount of information and its clarity. It represent something that matters to a strategic thinker: the city’s capacity to change.

Urban areas likely to change for the good of the city as a whole are marked as “soft urban tissue”.On the other hand, the places that seem less likely to change and already work well, are marked as “hard”.

23

s, m, l,

[XL]

After the analysis stage, it appeared that the strategic importance of the site was greater than its’ spatial attribute alone.

This led to the restructuring of the project’s brief towards and urban scale approach.

The site is used as a Keystone to connect 3 major elements identified by the 2050 vision plan: The historical core and the 2

24

selected southern Townships.

The paths have been easily drafted through the abstract urban tissue, which could then in turn, easily be decompressed into the different layers it was build upon. That way, the path could then logically be refined at need, to relate to the existing and future urban features.

The detailing of the 3 connections created on the next page, established the south western one as having the most potential.

With these foundations, the site’s masterplan could now be developed in coherence with it’s large scale and proximity to the city

Krakow PROJECT

North

S. East

S. West

Connection Focus

Residential Areas

Commercial spaces

Ecological value

Industrial Estates

Urban Permeability 25

Krakow PROJECT

26

Masterplan built upon the 3 connections

27

A Quarry, a Path and a Death Camp Eventually, the site’s very large scale forces a more focalized approach to enable design work. 3 Elements stood out and could be combined in a more consistent design: • An abandoned quarry, which has already become a very valuable Eco-sys-

Residential

Road

Suburban Agriculture

Sport Walkway Pitches

Ecological Corridor section 1

The camp is an ethical issue. How to intervene on grounds which may very well still contain human ashes ? The answer was already answered by the site: Natural succession seemed the most appropriate answers of all, even though it implies a paradoxical non-interventionist design. A solution was found through the alteration of the chemical properties of the soil, directly affecting nature’s processes.

Succession Camp

28

tem with its own micro climate, favoring a strong myco-activity.

• A protected patch of land that bleeds out of the site, showing strategical potential.

• An abandoned Nazi camp, which has been whipped clear of any trace by the Nazi’s themselves, upon the arrival of the Russian forces.

The whole site’s charm came from the beauty of nature slowly covering human artifacts.

The quarry was already slowly starting to

Meadows

Walkway

Grove Walkway

accumulate gravitational water at a lesser pace. The main design for this part was to increase it’s hydrology through alteration of its edge topography. A funnel effect is generated this way, bringing more water in and thus increasing mycological activity further more.

The protected patch was to be stretched out into an ecological corridor extending the site’s boundaries to reach another ecological reserve to the west. This enables the reshaping of its edges and the integration of residential developments.

Wetland / Suds Reservoir

Walkway Grove

Krakow PROJECT

3 types of soft intervention

Mycological Quarry

Managed Grassland

Grove

Walkway Managed Grassland Altered soil/ Wetland

Submerged Historical Micro-topography

Altered soil/ Walkway Wetland

Grove

Managed Grassland

Ecological Corridor section 2

29

30

ACADEMIC RESEARCH

CAD, CAM & ALGORITHMICS Are we just using computers, or progressively becoming ones ?

Research within landscape architecture tends to be site specific. Every new project brings a new set of challenges, each needing investigation.

However, in most contemporary practices, the need for computer aided design and digital workflows, remains a constant. The following examples explore opportunities opened by new sets of tools.

31

Virtual Environments The field of simulations is an interesting aspect of applied computer sciences.

Once a virtual model is generated it can be subjected to factors such as sunpath, irradiation , wind analysis, etc...

These tools find an ever-growing place into Architecture where they help determine certain degrees of efficiency before the building stage.

32

Environmental effects are also of utmost importance to landscape architecture, especially when using vegetation in a design. A study of the projected shadows as seen below, will help determine whether a planting scheme is likely to be successful or not.

Less obvious factors such as atmospheric pollution are more difficult to simulate, wind-flow however is fairly accessible under the denomination of Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD).

The picture to the right shows the result of running such simulation through the

Mong Kok area of Hong Kong. Since the level of aerial contaminants is directly linked to the air stagnation in the streets, a clearer picture of air quality is established to inform the design process.

Not only do these methods help generate and visualize complex data invisible to the naked eye, but it can also be fed into unique codes where it may meet and merge with design precepts. Pushed to its full extend, these processes might someday help us design “living and breathing� environments born from the current generation of smart technologies.

Cad, Cam & Algo RESEARCH

33

A lgorithmic DESIGN Algorithmic design and parametrics have carved themselves a polarizing reputation of futuristic organic structures with gradients of shapes in the panels that compose them. Ironically, their high customization degree making every piece unique sometimes does not prevent the design from pro-

34

ducing a deja-vu effect. The field however still remains in its infancy and yet already shows much promise. For instance, when a few design ideas are stretched over the urban scale, its detailing becomes partly highly specific and partly highly repetitive.

These CAD tasks become increasingly automatable through the creation of custom algorithms that do not necessary need to bear the stigmata of parametric design.

Recurring tasks can be identified on the

spot and coded in an way similar to IFTTT coding (If This Then That). This process quickly generates base geometries and the role of the designer then becomes the one of guiding the algorithms through the design and debugging it.

Cad, Cam & Algo RESEARCH

35

Cad, Cam & Algo RESEARCH

36

D igital WORKFLOW Certain architectural processes can be coded for different purposes and benefits.

One of the most significant advantages is to become able to get direct quantified feedback from decisions made.

The looping of perpetual self-evaluations into real-time accelerates the development of a “sense for design� by removing

any doubts about the impact of a decision.

Furthermore, it is an invaluable asset when working on quantified design brief where outcomes need to be accurate and are guided by specific targets.

In this instance, a succession of water features is to be constructed on a fixed budget. The parametric customization of the GUI* allowed to generate the display of crucial information hovering above the said water features, such as depth, volume, necessary foundations and estimated construction costs (*Graphical User Interface).

Furthermore, the information may be channeled along with the rest of the building information, into written specification readily available at any given moment during the design process.

These new digital methods also open the way towards self-optimizing processes where the computer itself generates design iterations until an optimal solution is discovered.

37

F rom V irtual T o PHYSICAL In a fast paced industry, quest for productivity is often a core value. Successive dead-lines may sometimes lead to a tunnel vision effect, however when one takes the time to reflect upon the fashion in which tasks are completed, one can notice a certain degree of repetition in the architectural tasks. Such recurrences have been the object of sudden dramatic enhancements in the past, such as the industrial revolution and the development of mass production. Today, the digital revolution is affecting the tertiary sector as much as the industrial one affected the secondary.

Physical model making remains a key medium to help architects understand,design and represent spatial components. It is, however, a very time-consuming activity. The recent increased accessibility of Computer assisted manufacturing (CAM) possesses has quickly been adopted by architects as a mean of rapid prototyping physical models, from their virtual equivalents, already generated for visualization purposes.

The figures on the right, represent a topographical model going through a section producing algorithm, which goal is to produce and nest referenced pieces, ready to be lasercut. This process together with its assembly into a lattice, is not only generally done in a day’s work, it also saves material through the production of a mostly hallow model, after cladding.

38

Cad, Cam & Algo RESEARCH

39

EDINBURGH WORKSHOP

VIDEOSCAPE How can we overcome the limitations of static images in a dynamic world ?

Video has become a growing medium within Architectural practices. It easily succeeds where still graphics sometimes struggle. For example, passing of time, depth of space and story telling are areas greatly benefiting from animation. The following work focuses on these 2 last aspects, while making use of photographic material harvested during a site visit in Hong Kong. The aim was to underline and link certain elements that would later become grounding points for the architectural design process.

41

S tatic DYNAMIC Videoscape was a week long open workshop which aimed to explore the use of video as a medium in architecture and landscape architecture. During this time, a video clip was developed exploring the potential of immersion enhancement and story lining.

This experiment occurred between the site analysis and the design work, and aimed to connect the two. The challenge was to relate site pictures and material with an architectural proposal that had still yet to be developed. To do so, it focuses on elements of defining character and the contrast between them. Depth and immersion is refined through parallax effect, moving a virtual camera in 3D between deconstructed layers of an image (as seen on the diagram to the right).

42

VideoScape WORKSHOP

43

44

EDINBURGH WORKSHOP

FIGURES IN SPACE What can we learn from total creative freedom ?

Art has an important role in architecture, but how can architecture also be a source of inspiration for art? This workshop pushed abstraction of selected architectural features to the boundaries of the rational. Reconstructed in an art gallery, these elements then started a playful exploration of the relationship between the human figures and the space surrounding them.

PUBLISHED

45

G roup W ork ...

The process started by contemplatively drifting through the city, searching for something that had yet to be identified: A focus point, a feature connecting people to space. At the end of the day, such a feature was ironically found in an awkward corner of residual space. A strange alcove with surprising proportions, somehow wakening a certain playfulness, hidden away from all the people roaming the streets.

As an experimental art project, there was no bounds to our design. We extracted the corner’s proportion and rebuilt it rotated into a horizontal position. It was not intended to be quietly reflected upon, but rather and object to experience, and play with.

Abstraction is often used in architecture, yet it is always practiced within the bounds of a rational workflow. Here architectural abstraction is liberated from its’ constraints, to produce whatever it may. At the end of the project, the realization was made that the most interesting part of this exercise was not in its end result but in its process of detachment and “outside-ofthe-box” thinking.

46

Figures In Space WORKSHOP

...I ndividual P erspective In design practices, the progress of group work ideally leads to enhanced results. A common goal is established and intermediary assessment and critics help everyone synchronize. This is an aspect where the art process may differ completely. In a same group, individuals with vastly different ideas and opinions, come together in a sort of social experiment. Sometimes, individuality has then to step aside for the benefits of the project.

The work on this page shows the difference between the group project (left page) and what was its individual reinterpretation (right page). Realized after the exhibition was over, it aims to reflect upon dynamic spaces and the feeling of scatteredness left by the contemporary urban experience. Its’ production and aesthetics are the diametric opposite of the group work. If nothing else, this is proof that in art as in design, however distant from a common goal individual ideals might be, there is way to compromise and connect them to be found.

47

AUSTRALIA COMPETITION

T W I N

QUARRIES How can we pragmatically bring positive change to fossil fuel dependent places?

The competition’s theme was about regenerative strategies for communities tied to open-pit coal mining, in southern Australia. The following entry made use of both derelict quarries and active ones to sculpt giant, re-usable landscapes over time. This could be achieved through the rethinking of the mining methods themselves, and the use of local hydrology to accelerate top soil regeneration.

48

TEAM LEADER

HONOURABLE MENTION

PUBLISHED

49

Transiting Cities COMPETITION MO

E TRA RA

ON LG

M ELL RW O

Eco-corridors Network MO

E

TRA RA

ON LG

M ELL RW O

MO

MO

E

E

TRA RA

TRA RA

TRA RA

ON LG

ON LG

ON LG

M

M

M

ELL RW O

ELL RW O

ELL RW O

MO

MO

MO

M

ELL RW O

ELL RW O

M

ELL RW O

M

E

Coal reserve mapping and specification

E

E

The strategy tackled issues on different fronts. Open pit mining leaves vast grounds completely scrapped and hard to regenerate. Therefor, in combination of top soil recreation methods, an overall framework of ecological corridor networking has been developed to link northern, western and southern reserves.

Another aspect is the transitioning from a coal based energy towards renewables. This can be done through careful assessment of the remaining resources and the establishment

MO E

Rethinking INDUSTRY

Energy transition

Overburden soil management for quarry terracing

50

of a flexible schedule of their tion needs while leaving behind accessible agricultural sized use. parcels of land. This implies that To be left with usable grounds in an initial stage, the mining after the mining is completed, methods meet the pre-existing the land would greatly benefit agricultural grid (light blue). To from an efficiency compro- then realize an energetic tranmise. It would aim at providing sition, the strategy schedules enough coal for the Hazelwood a progressive switch from deep power-plant to meet its produc- mining to shallow. This will also

ensure that the regular ground tions, since green efforts are level incrementally meets the notorious for having potential deep ends of the mines. inhibiting effects on local economies.

Projections show that an exemplary energetic changeover would be more manageable 2012 from over 50 years up to a century. This range depends mostly on financial fluctua-

CO

G

EN EQ

RE

STAGE I STAGE II STAGE III 2030

2060

2012 COAL GAS ENERGY EFFICIENCY EQUIVALENCE RENEWABLE

Location of the transitive programs

51 2030

Soil REGENERATION Synthetic wetlands will help speed up the post-mining soil formation. Rivers and streams will be diverted through the artificial terraces to create biomass on sterile grounds. Through encouraged hydrosere succession, soil regeneration for agricultural purposes should greatly be accelerated, while potentially generating biomass and food through temporary algae based cultures.

Ecosystem building

Wetland’s typologies

Terrace submersion concept 52

Transiting Cities COMPETITION

Ecological corridor’s atmosphere

Regenerated mining grounds 53

HONG KONG COMPETITION

HK.COGEN Should passive architecture grow to adapt to active environments ?

The following entry was created for the 2013 Advanced Architecture Competition organized by the Institute of Advanced Architecture of Catalonia. Themed on Self-sufficient habitats, the brief remained fairly opened to maximize the creativity of proposals. The scene takes place in the tight urban spaces of Hong Kong. The design agglomerates different ways to harvest atmospheric pollution to create usable resources.

INDIVIDUAL PROJECT

54

PUBLICATION PENDING

55

Big PICTURES An Idea-competition is the occasion to set free Utopian dreams. The difficulty may then lie in finding the correct proportions of pragmatic “grounding” and visionary concepts.

In this case, the ambition was to help remediate the toxic effects of urban air pollution. A completely free brief implied the possibility to reverse parts of the process. Indeed, a specific issue was found first and a site was chosen afterwards, instead of the usual opposite.

The place of intervention was picked to best stage a very robust design intervention, for its potential replication elsewhere. To make this decision, a few parameter were taken into account. The key factors however, were a country’s general affliction to airborne pollutants as well as its potential financial resources to intervene. Further research showed that other characteristics are closely linked to aerosols concentration, such as urban density and climatic specificities.

Chinese cities stood out in these areas, knowing fast growth and high level of toxicity throughout the countries. Furthermore, Hong Kong proved even more appropriate because of it’s high GDP, expensive square meter price and air trapping urban density.

Looking into the city’s infamous air quality issues, 2 important elements surfaced. First its pollution related losses are counted in the thousands of deaths and billions of dollars, every year. Secondly, pollutant levels go through complex intertwined cycles depending on the climate and human activities. This last characteristic was to spring the concept of a dynamic “smart” design, capable of adapting to a variety of situations.

56

5th Advanced Architecture Contest COMPETITION Quantifiable health impact in Hong Kong, for 2013 Premature deaths

Hospital bed days

3279

Doctor visits

210,024

5,538,817

Economic loss to the community in Hong Kong $4,489 million

$3,982 million

$4,320 million

Tangible losses

$42,458 million

$38,143 million

$41,131 million

Untangible losses

2012

60

2013 microgram/m3

microgram/m3

PM 2.5

2011

40 20

100 75 50 25 0

0 Jan 00 Jan 02 Jan 04 Jan 06 Jan 08 Jan 10 Jan 12 Jan 14

Jul 12

Sep 12

Nov 12

Jan 13

Mar 13

May 13

Jul 12

Sep 12

Nov 12

Jan 13

Mar 13

May 13

microgram/m3

microgram/m3

PM 10

125 60 40 20

100 75 50 25 0

0 Jan 00 Jan 02 Jan 04 Jan 06 Jan 08 Jan 10 Jan 12 Jan 14

Yearly

Monthly 57

5th Advanced Architecture Contest COMPETITION

Cycle of toxic elements 58

Urban SYMBIOTE

The creative process began with the referencing of the most toxic airborne substances. These where subject to research for chemical protocols for atmospheric extraction, concentration and transformation into usable resources.

The aim was to create a structure that would both protect the locals and harvest the chemicals. Due to its very high density, Hong Kong has one of the highest development of pedestrian infrastructure, which know an important flow of people. Located above the traffic, they are a place of high exposure to pollutants. This is why the concept was to generate a new kind of pedestrian infrastructure harboring equipment to deal with pollution’s hazard locally.

The structure features a cladding of robotic arms holding different standard sized panels designed to deal with different chemicals. The robotic arms can then change position to allow different actions on the structure, such as to protect locals, ventilate or self-cleanse.

59

5th Advanced Architecture Contest COMPETITION

60

61

62

RUSSIA COMPETITION

S.BRIDGE Can up-cycling be done on a landscape impacting scale ?

In 2014, a daring design brief had for objective to architecturally recycle one of the largest nuclear submarines in history.

Here, its length and steel are used in the construction of a massive motorway bridge.

TEAM LEADER

SHORTLIST

E-PUBLICATION

The Submarine COMPETITION

64

Identify OPPORTUNITY Recycling a 200m long Russian submarine comes with a certain set of physical constraints. For instance, the brief specified ways to deal with the nuclear chambers, and that the site would be locate within a certain distance from the seashore to accommodate somewhat realistic transport methods.

The shape and materiality of the ship naturally led the team towards the design of a bridge, for which a site remained to be found.

In the center of St Petersburg is a large span of the River Neva between the Liteynyy Bridge and the Bolsheokhtinskiy Bridge which lacks any connection across the water. This area has been highlighted in the 2025 masterplan for road infrastructure improvements for the city as a possible link to develop. There is a road in place on the Northern side of the River which creates an opportunity to extend into a bridge linking the Highways on either bank.

65

Interdisciplinary MIMICRY The colossal scale of this nautical behemoth deserved to be featured and exaggerated. The design splits the submarine in its length. It then separates the shell from the internal organs. Afterwards we matched each side of the shell with its opposite side organs. In doing so, the submarine’s volume is almost double, creating the illusion of a duplicate.

Finally, the highway is channeled through the structure.

By letting the structure sit just above water level, it creates a sense of weightlessness, not unlike what it used to look like in deep sea.

Designing a bridge for the first time, some research had to be conducted. An on-line 3D model of a nearby bridge of similar dimension provided basic proportions for structural needs.

66

The Submarine COMPETITION

67

The Submarine COMPETITION SUBMARINE CUTTING PRINCIPLES

+

+

+

TOP VIEW

ELEVATION

68

Supporting STRUCTURE Every bridge needs engineered support, for which many different solutions exist. A lattice truss was the most appropriate to generate stability in the most horizontal fashion possible, without being suspended. This allows for the submarines to face each other on an axis, offering views of dramatic dark shells to the city center, and complex primer red internal organs to the residential districts.

69

The Submarine COMPETITION

70

71

CONTACT

SITE

David A. Rohr 1 0 6 ru e d e c h a u s s a s 3 1 2 0 0 To u l o u s e , F R AN C E p h o n e : (+ 3 3 ) 0 2 5 3 0 0 7 9 e ma i l : d a v id @ e th 3 r.c o m

L an d scap e A r c h ite c tu r e In te r n s h ip (2011) G RO S S M AX .

I n t ern sh i p s in th e C o n s tr u c tio n In dustr y, Mater ial S upply and Tr ee S ur ger y (2005-2008) B lanc he t S.A .R .L . / Amo u ro u x S.A .R .L. / Gamm’ Vert S .A . - France

S u b mari ne C o m p e titio n (2 0 1 4 ) ( S hor t li s t) I AAC Ad v a n c e d A r c h ite c tu r e C o m petition (2013) ( P ublica ti o n Pe n d i n g ) Tran si t i n g C itie s (2 0 1 2 ) ( Honou ra b l e Me n ti o n )

A lgoshop (2014) (organi ser) WORKSHOPS

COMPETITIONS

WORK EXPERIENCE

Assi st an t Te a c h e r in 3 D A r c h ite c tur al D esign (2014) Univ er s i ty o f E d i n b u rg h

COMPUTER SKILLS

BA( Ho n s. ) L a n d s c a p e A r c h ite c tu r e (2008-2012) Univ er s i ty o f Ed i n b u rg h , S c o tl a n d .

BT E C L ev e l 1 ,2 a n d 3 - B u ilt E n v ir onm ent (2004-2008) L. E . G . T.A . d ’ On d e s , F ra n c e .

CO M P O S I T IN G & ED IT IN G P hot os h o p I llus t r ato r I nDes ig n A f t er E ff e c ts Light r o o m

M ODE LIN G & R E N D E R IN G R hi no Vr ay Gr asshopper AutoC A D Sketchup

Figur es In S pace ( 2012) (parti ci pant)

Fl uent i n LANGUAGES & INTERESTS

EDUCATION

M S c. L an ds c a p e A r c h ite c tu r e (2 0 1 2-2014) Univ er s i ty o f Ed i n b u rg h , S c o tl a n d .

VideoS capes (201 4) (parti ci pant)

Fr ench E nglish Ger m an

E mergi ng Technologi es D i gi tal and Inter-media Art Interdi sci pl i nary D esi gn