Project Description:
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Developing a 100 Year City proposal begins with an optimistic recognition of any single solution’s futility over that span. Disruptive advances will occur across research sectors of energy, transportation, materials, manufacturing, and computation among others. In this context, our approach was less about individual buildings or parcels and more about systemic issues of urbanization and its responsibilities to a planet in crisis.
Cities are where we will confront our planets greatest challenges, intensified by global migration and the emergence of mega-cities, constructed at astonishing speed. Initial studio research contrasted urban design precedents, architecture as urbanism, and lifestyle marketing to provide a framework through which to explore potentials and to highlight a variety of research agendas. It was clear that to make the maximum, transformative impact, we would need to reconsider the initial premise of our given site and intrinsic assumptions about land, its value, and the impact on context across scales. The design attempts to negate the dialectic of man vs. nature to a more symbiotic and holistic ecosystem of relationships through flexible, adaptable strategies – within the design process and the projects systemic interactions.
Performative urban form combined with maximized density attempts to restore the sites micro-ecologies from decades of prior, degrading practices. The specific context drives the solution across multiple scales and the design evolves within local, regional, and global systems to which we are all connected. While the project is specific to Medini, it points toward
synergistic hybrids as a restorative design exercise.
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