Grown out of an ambition to create a modern town, Carl Axel Setterberg’s 1860’s plan utilized a simple grid to achieve connectivity, hierarchy & diversity. The power of Setterberg’s grid has eroded as the city has expanded. Today, modern infrastructure and large complexes have cutoff the city center’s grid from the surrounding neighborhoods.
The field of coastal defence and waterworks is the epitome of Dutch expertise. Where the famous Delta Works consist of movable dams and locks, the majority of the Dutch coastline is protected by dunes against water. ‘Rijkswaterstaat’, the department responsible for all water related infrastructure within the ministry of infrastructure and environment, is constantly working to improve the coastal defence in the Netherlands. In recent decades it works to strengthen some of the ‘weak links’ along the coast. In many places, dunes and dikes are being strengthened to ensure safety inland for the next 50 years.
In 2007 Concrete was asked by hospitality entrepreneur Nick van Loon to come up with an idea for the REM-island located in the river IJ in Amsterdam. Together with the housing corporation ‘De Principaal’ Nick van Loon developed the project in 2008. Concrete made the design for the renovation and expansion of the REM-island, Nick van Loon designed the interior.
The REM-island is located in the Houthavens in Amsterdam at the end of the Haparandadam and plays an active role promoting the harbour and the new adjacent residential area.
Tunnels are “wounds” inflicted on geology to facilitate human movements. Their history is ancient, glorious and gory, but today techniques have been refined to the point of making the excavation similar to endoscopic surgery.
“Fast track” is a integral part of park infrastructure, it is a road and an installation at the same time. It challenges the concept of infrastructure that only focuses on technical and functional aspects and tends to be ignorant to its surroundings. “Fast track” is an attempt to create intelligent infrastructure that is emotional and corresponds to the local context. It gives the user a different experience of moving and percieving the environment.
BREAD studio’s proposal “Forest Corridor” has won one of the 2nd prizes (Professional Category) in the Open International Competition for Noise Barrier/ Enclosure organized by the Hong Kong Government. The proposal gives an alternative insight to the noise mitigation structure design in the dense urban environment of the city.
The planting pots underneath the highway provide proper soil depth for heavy and low maintenance plantings.
The initial approach was to single out and magnify the experience of walking from the roadside down to the seaside at this very special place. Therefore a main concern was to slow down this movement and make the path itself a means of refocusing the experiential mode: a measured, restrained approach that creates awareness.
The Self-Assembly Line is a large-scale version of a self-assembly virus capsid, demonstrated as an interactive and performative structure. A discrete set of modules are activated by stochastic rotation from a larger container/structure that forces the interaction between units. The unit geometry and attraction mechanisms (magnetics) ensure the units will come into contact with one another and auto-align into locally-correct configurations. Overtime as more units come into contact, break away, and reconnect, larger, furniture scale elements, emerge. Given different sets of unit geometries and attraction polarities various structures could be achieved. By changing the external conditions, the geometry of the unit, the attraction of the units and the number of units supplied, the desired global configuration can be programmed.
“A wind driven sculptural sea monster in the heart of Geelong.”
Drawing inspiration from Geelong’s history; a bay orientated port city with a history of both farming and industry connections. Along with inspiration from a future with strong visions of sustainability and independence.
“This industrial machine like creature will guard the Geelong harbour like nothing in this proud city’s history while remaining fearlessly independent drawing energy from the harbours natural environment”.
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