Water in Historic City Centres’ has Mechelen as its proving ground
The first project for the ‘Water in Historic City Centres’ (WIHCC) project has been completed in Mechelen, Belgium. The Melaan, a tributary of the Dijle river, has been excavated and newly landscaped in the old city centre of Mechelen.
WIHCC is a European collaborative project between the cities of Breda (NL), ‘s-Hertogenbosch (NL), Gent (B), Mechelen (B) Chester (UK) and Limerick (IE). The project was set up within the framework of the European Interreg (Interregional Cooperation Programme) for North-West Europe (NWE). The project has roughly reached its halfway stage: the opening conference took place in November 2003, and the closing event is planned for November 2007 in Breda.
The Campus is a sequence of intertwining open spaces. Buildings on the different zones qualify these spaces from an architectural point of view. The Master Plan model determined the design of these open areas; a fabric of interior and exterior spaces, defined by the location of the buildings’ entrances in relation to the plazas, brings life to the intended environment.
This proposal for the Fresh Kills landscape in Staten Island, New York engages visitors and the environment into generating energy using piezoelectricity, which is the conversion of mechanical movement into electricity. Energy from wind, sound vibration, and human movement can collectively be harvested from the movement of natural piezoelectric materials embedded in walkable surfaces and bendable wind-capturing stalks and streamers.
Fragment à miracle’ project proposes the construction of an architectural landscape on old foundations, a simultaneous source of wonder and contemplation. The project is related to the context of the landscape’s coastline because of its differentiated permeability and its connection with the environment’s point of strength. Walks, south and north, are connected to the Old Street of Italy which, abandoning its original mission, becomes a witness of Veytaux Villeneuve pedestrian link.
Tags: Château de Chillon, Switzerland, Veytaux Comments Off on Fragment à Miracle in Château de Chillon, Veytaux, Switzerland by Lapo Ruffi / LRA, Vanessa Giandonati
Eggum is a community which lies on the seaward side of Vestvågøy in Lofoten. The former fishing village faces directly out to sea, on a small, level strip of land between steep cliffs and the sea. There are not many fishermen left at Eggum, but a good many people still live there. During the summer season Eggum is a very popular place to come to see the midnight sun. Apart from North Cape, Eggum is claimed to be the best place for such observations. The tourists gather in the area round Kvalhausen, which lies a little way past Eggum itself. Kvalhausen is a hill which was used as a radar station by the occupying German forces during the second world war. The foundation wall around the old radar station still stands. ”The Fort” as the locals call it, is a local landmark.
The city of Petra, one of the seven wonders of the word, is the foremost historical and archeological city in the region, carved out of the red-rose rocks, as the capital of the Nabataeans. ‘Wadi Musa’ town situated at the entrance of the old city has unfortunately gone through periods of terrible urbanism and witnessed uncontrolled development sprawl for years. Within this context the brief was to design a gate that streamlines the movement of visitors in and out of Petra.The challenge was in designing at a location that is chaotic in its setting; due to the lack of planning, The haphazardly placed kiosks and the scattered buildings which consist of a hotel, a visitor’s center and a proposed museum, components that are rich however, not connected visually nor physically on site, All positioned Next to a neglected Wadi (valley) that lost its character.
The veins and arteries of London’s infrastructure networks are exposed across the industrial wastelands of the Lea Valley in East London, dividing and fragmenting the landscape, creating splinters of dislocated, inaccessible gap space.
As part of a Danish design team, schmidt hammer lassen architects has won the competition to design the correctional facility Ny Anstalt in Nuuk, the capital of Greenland. The winning design for the 8,000 square metre facility was submitted by a team including Rambøll as full service contractor, architects Friis & Moltke and landscape architects Møller & Grønborg. Ny Anstalt is the first such facility in Greenland.
The archaeological site of Can Tacó in Turó d’en Roina, in the natural setting of Turons de les Tres Creus. In a highly fragmented metropolitan area, arises the need to project some places previous an area with a great natural and archaeological interests.
Built by successive terracing and partly with site stone licorella, what had been an important settlement prior to construction of the Via Augusta, is today a natural viewpoint to the counties of Vallès. It intervenes in the backfill of Roman traces, improving the content (the space) and highlighting the container (the walls).
The project \”Square de l’Accueil\” (Welcoming Square) includes a public square of 10,000 m2, 53 flats, a school, commercial spaces and an underground parking. The project itself includes all the components of the city at a smaller scale. The site is a neighborhood at a strategic entry point towards one of Brussels communes, Evere. The project is the missing « puzzle piece » to the realisation of the current site as an animated liveable space.
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