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Sumit Singhal
Sumit Singhal loves modern architecture. He comes from a family of builders who have built more than 20 projects in the last ten years near Delhi in India. He has recently started writing about the architectural projects that catch his imagination. URBAN EROSION – Mixed Use Building by DFG ArchitettiApril 14th, 2016 by Sumit Singhal
Article source: DFG Architetti CONCEPT The city and the environment erodes and pervades the building volume crossed by people flows, nature, wind and rain, creating a fluid and dynamic space in an enchanting sculptural concrete surface. The city and the environment carves a large urban \”cave\” and a vertical chimney that makes its way to the roof, real architectural cavities through which the anthropic and the natural setting establishes deep vital relationships with the building, creating an organic, symbiotic system. People, wind and trees become the lifeblood of the architecture, which is inextricably linked to the setting.  Image Courtesy © DFG Architetti
 Image Courtesy © DFG Architetti ARCHITECTURAL ELEMENTS The joining of the building to the ground has been planned so that it will open up the setting to the greatest extent possible, with fluid and dynamic spaces, as if they were eroded over time by trajectories, paths, views. This results in a single, soft, bright space, with an ongoing relationship with the city. Urban and architectural dimensions integrate in a green and vital space, whose inner courtyard creates a hole in the middle through which the overlying square in the midway can be admired. Even the front’s skin appears like the result of a slow erosion process, as if a fluid slowly carved the vertical splits in between the brise soleil plates and the deep matt bands, splayed and open towards the city. The alternation of plate bands with the vertical splayed splits add a slender and elegant, almost musical pattern to the architectural skin. The volume seems to expand to the surrounding space, it seems to breathe, opening and dematerializing in the setting, in which it seems to blend in at the same time.  Image Courtesy © DFG Architetti FUNCTIONS The big basement cave lifts up the building from the street floor creating the URBAN SQUARE, a big, whole, seamless space where visitors can pause and relax in the meeting areas. It can also be crossed and walked through freely from any direction. The big support pylons are the structure, architectural skin and ACCESS to the overlying functions at the same time. Between the urban square and these functions a MIDWAY SQUARE can be found, that hosts some local neighbourhood services, a kindergarten, a library, a bar, all integrated in a big open space characterized by a double-height in the urban square and flight steps for meetings and musical-theatrical events.  Image Courtesy © DFG Architetti The RESIDENTIAL area is situated over the midway square, organised according to the \”in line\” distribution scheme, which involves stairwells and elevators serving two / three residential units. The apartment sizes are diversified depending on surface and type, in order to satisfy different demands, according to Durban needs. A portion of the upper part of the building is intended to be used as COMMERCIAL OFFICES, mainly double-height open spaces, characterised by big flexible tables for teamwork and spaces of interpersonal relationships, close to the big windows looking out at the courtyard rooftop gardens. At the lofted floor the actual offices can be found. Conference rooms and administrative / management offices are located at the terminals.  Image Courtesy © DFG Architetti BIO-CLIMATE The urban square, constantly shaded and surrounded by perimetral vegetation, is decorated by a meticulous plantation and elegant waterfalls, charming and playful elements of high architectural quality. At the same time, the presence of all these factors contributes to create a \”fresh\” air volume in the square, big enough to trigger NATURAL VENTILATION mechanisms, facilitating the thermo-hygrometric parameters control and heat loss from residential and commercial units. The EXTERNAL SKIN of the building is composed by a split and matte panels play, directed according to the front’s exposure, in order to keep the casing constantly shaded regardless of the time of day or year, without penalizing the view from the residential apartments and the offices. The design of the panels is not only the decorative pattern of the building, it also generates SOLAR ENERGY for the entire day and turns it into electricity to produce domestic hot water. The RAINWATER recovery system involves directing rain from the roof, through integrated pipes in the rooftop gardens of the inner courtyard, to a system of storage tanks, from which water can be transferred to the green irrigation circuits and to the waste pipes.  Image Courtesy © DFG Architetti STRUCTURE The building consists in a large reinforced concrete basement and steel three-dimensional structures that allow the creation of the sculptural space of the urban square and the horizontal \”buffer\” zone of the midway square. On such basement, with a perfect superimposition created by vertical distribution channels of stairwells / elevators, a traditional steel frame construction stands out, in which the living units snake throughout.  Image Courtesy © DFG Architetti  Image Courtesy © DFG Architetti  Image Courtesy © DFG Architetti
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Category: Mixed use |
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