Project:
Singapore Management University
Phase:
Unbuilt
Description:
This proposal was submitted to an international competition for the design of a new university campus, located in Singapore’s city center. Frederic Levrat’s team considered the challenge of the program, interpreting the notion of the campus as a new typology based on maximum connectivity and synergy. The design of the campus master plan, including the seven different plots of land for faculty and administrative buildings, was based on this idea of interconnectivity. The buildings were arranged in a linear fashion within a generous circulation of space. Informal meeting points along the pedestrian promenade were reinforced by the numerous intersections of different volumes of the building, as well as the surrounding parks and streets.
Project:
Transformation of an abandoned industrial site into a new residential and hotel complex at the edge of Zurich City.
Phase:
Unbuilt
Description:
The site is conveniently located next to the main ring highway and has access to a tram stop at the back of the site. The old graphite industrial hall is to be preserved as an important artifact of the industrial era, and its enormous dimension and structure becomes the backbone and the rhythm of the new intervention. The Old industrial hall becomes the lobby for the new group of towers inserted within its structure, delivering a number of semi-private programs such as the reception, conference rooms, lobby and restaurant.
The new project proposal takes the old industrial structure rhythm to grow vertically and horizontally. A new residential linear aggregation continues the existing massing, while the large open-space located in front of the new residential bar becomes a sculpted and striated garden, sometime staying as a garden, sometime emerging as a community space- such as a library, kindergarten, community hall.
The continuing technological progress have allowed us to extend our control over the dimensions of time and space. The “mechanical machine” made progress in compressing the space with the acceleration of speed, but the step proposed by the “electro paradigm” is even stronger in its influence of compressing the spatial and temporal understanding of our environment. The “non-immediacy” condition in which we are more and more involved have forced us to re-think our spatial relations. The possibilities offered by such a mediated condition is not fundamentally unpleasant: we can actually listen to the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra “live” from our bath tub, as well as watching the american landing in Somalia “live” from our living room. The electronic transportation of information has
allowed us to have a partial view of just everything, all the time. It seems that the present desire for an ideal urbanism would be to include this paradoxical “everything, all the time” notion, which need to be addressed in the real physical world, but not at the level of the remote controlled media environment. A continuous mode of “zapping” seems to shape some of our urban landscape and our shopping malls to respond to a clear desire of ideal urbanity of “Everything all the time with a remote control.” The desire of trying to devise strategies for an actual physical construction that would respond to these virtual conditions is the impossibility to resolve the problem. but rather to propose new scenarios and relations of habitation. The strategy to offer an urban density with a spark as well as a totally private set of space, combined with historical traces and new buildings seems to be a constant state of paradoxical conditions or a striation and compression of events.
Project:
Spreebogen Masterplan
Phase:
Unbuilt
Description:
Following the re-unification of Germany, a single administrative center had to be created instead of the two political capitals, Bonn and east Berlin of the divided Germany. The program of the competition was to recreate a new political center for the united Germany in West Berlin. The new Parliament, Senate, Prime minister Residences, all the administrative offices of the different Ministries, the press offices as well as a new high speed train station and a highway had to be planned for the now void center of Berlin. This project of 35 buildings, including monumental representation of power for the State, was also to be understood as the new center of Berlin, Germany and potentially Europe.
ARX theory, developed around the possibility to communicate through a multiplicity of different culture - with the help of fax machines and computer internet - felt that such a program had respond to heterogeneity of inputs. The competition scheme responds to that multiplicity of decision maker, as well as including the multiple relatives center s already present on the site - with the spree curve and the Sbahn. The configuration of a void center accepting a multiplicity of periphery, address the necessity to construct a new representation of power while refusing to give it a static formalism. It was one of the largest competitions ever organized with 835 teams from 44 different countries. ARX was a finalist and was awarded the 8th place. It received international publication and was exhibited in New York, Lisbon, Bonn and Berlin.
Project:
Bagrami Industrial Park in Jalalabad Highway, Kabul, Afghanistan.
Phase:
Unbuilt
Description:
To develop Afghanistan economical infrastructure, an Industrial Park has been proposed at the periphery of the capital by USAID. Two hundred lots were offered to investors with the common amenities such as the main access road, guard house, parking, electricity, waste and water provided by the Park management. ArX Kabul involvement with the project was the design and the illustration of the future development.
The design included the definition of the lot partition strategy, the relation between the private spaces and the public spaces, the design of the shared spaces such as the front wall, the entrance gate, the guard house, the sidewalk and main access road. Three dimensional rendering and architectural plans, sections, elevations and details were provided by ArX Kabul.
Project:
A proposed design submitted to the Far Roc competition in 2013.
Phase:
Unbuilt
Description:
In 2013, the Far Roc competition called for the planning, design and construction of resilient and sustainable developments in waterfront areas, following the extensive damage caused by Hurricane Sandy in 2012. While development thus far has generally maintained a distinction between the natural and built environment, the context of this competition begs us to rethink that boundary. With climate change, severe storm events and rising sea levels, our logic of, and capacity for, stable development has been thrown into question.
Our proposed design is centered around two strategic arcs which, at different elevations, blur the distinction between the natural landscape and the constructed environment. The first arc involves the development of a dense community infrastructure attached to the existing elevated A-train. Connected to the train datum by a series of bridges and elevated pathways along a concrete viaduct, the spine contains two rows of mixed-use apartment buildings. These three-to-ten-story buildings are aggregated sectionally at the train datum, as well as at the lower datum of the street grid. At street level, all structures are elevated a minimum of 11 feet above sea level by the use of compacted earth and pilotis; here, a new commercial strip is proposed to revitalize Edgemere Avenue. Above this at 36 feet, public facilities including a school, daycare and nursing home are transformed into potential refuge centers in the case of extreme weather conditions.
With open land comprising 64% of the proposal, the second arc contains zones of permanent dune preserve, low-lying parkland suitable for temporary structures, as well as elevated green spaces which serve as potential sites for future development. Directly engaging with the logic of the boardwalk, the section of protective dunescape responds and connects to the development of the first arc, thereby establishing a cooperative condition that necessarily unites the built environment with the surrounding natural landscape.
Project:
Las Vegas Europe
Phase:
Unbuilt
Description:
With the Industrial Revolution, the human species were able to produce machines to take care of its survival need. At the end of the XX century two elements came to shape the organization of our society. 1. Leisure Time For the first time the majority of the society was not obliged to continuously work for its survival, and we had time to look for "something else". 2. Constitution of a virtual desire/reality: The new media started to constitute an entire fictional set of value, accessible only through mediated means.
A new city, accepting its fictional reality and basing its development on it has every chance to become highly successful. Examples such as the Disney World/Epcot Center in Orlando Florida, The Las Vegas Strip, or Eurodisneyland are highly successful examples, not only as theme parks but also for the development of the "real reality" city surrounding it. Currently, Las Vegas is the fastest growing town is the United States, and Orlando is following from not so far.
Located at the border between the former Eastern and western blocks it can certainly capitalize on the exoticism and projected desire of each former block on the other side.
Multiple Fictional Centers - Visual/virtual attractor
Project:
Barcelona Logistical Zone
Phase:
Unbuilt
Description:
The project takes into consideration the geographic characteristic of the delta as well as the programmatic of the future build environment. Both systems on the notion of Flow and Aggregation. The configuration of the delta and its multiple position of the river traces as well as the constant flow of merchandises, people and material that would transit the logistic zone of the harbor are factors of transformation and movement. The Flow - of the river - of the delta - of land, The flow - of material and people, The Flow - of merchandises, This multiple and unstable situation based on movement and transformation refer to a transient or nomadic type of organization rather than a sedentary one.
Our project proposes a dynamic system flow based on the pre-existing - as well as the future - river position in the delta. It also proposes a new set of datum artificial ground planes. Minimal divergent slopes provide major displacement of the newly defined “nature,” and the multiple artificial datum start to overlap in some major three dimensional connecting interfaces. The old river bed is converted into a transportation trench comprising the merchandise train and the highway and the new artificial datum becomes a multifunctional interface.
Project:
Al Bustan masterplan in Al Bustan, Muscat Province, Oman.
Phase:
Unbuilt
Description:
On the Indian Ocean off the coast of Oman, a small hillside was to be developed into a residential vacation village. The gently slopped hill is only a few hundred meters from the ocean and the combination of the dry mountains with the immense ocean is inspiring. The project proposes three row of houses parallel to the slope, arranging fourty six houses, grouped in cluster of three or four.
At the center of the development, a small clubhouse, a restaurant and a swimming pool provide for collective amenities. The architecture is inspired by a modernist design as well as a respect for the traditional Oman architecture. The simple white geometry of Masquat are quite sculptural under the brutal sun of Oman. The project proposes a number of traditional attributes – such as the accessible rooftop, the white façade, the small openings – while adding an internal courtyard which brings natural light without the direct sunlight and the heat resulting from it. A strong geometrical frame defines the perimeter of the house, from which a number of opening are allowed to exist. The development is composed of four different variations, combining within the diversity of the site and the slope.
Project:
Airport road masterplan in Kabul, Afghanistan.
Phase:
Unbuilt
Description:
The Great Massoud Road Land Development Proposal is projected for a portion of the main road axis connecting Kabul International Airport to Kabul City center. The zone concerned by the project described in this proposal extends from Charai Masoud to the new “Gate of Afghanistan”, stretching itself on 2,480 meters. It is an important project, on the symbolic level as well as the infrastructural level. 1. New gate to Kabul and to Afghanistan, 2. Spine for the urbanization of the land behind Bibimaroo, 3. Improved Road connection to the Airport, 4. Proposing a new image for Kabul and Afghanistan for the XXI century.
The 2.5 kilometers of the Great Massoud Road urban development is strategically located, and should be considered very carefully as it will represent the first impression visitors will receive entering the Country, when travelling by air. Its location between the Airport and the City Center is obviously essential. Nevertheless, it is reinforced by the actual programs along the axis, attesting of the prestigious neighbors currently lining it, such as: the Royal Palace, the Presidential Palace, the Supreme Court, the American Embassy etc. The portion of the land for which this study proposes a Land Use Development is currently mostly empty, or occupied by informal structures. It represents a formidable opportunity to concentrate high quality programs along this unique Urban Corridor.
Project:
Darulaman new neighborhood masterplan.
Phase:
Unbuilt
Description:
After decades of war there is a major necessity for rebuilding large number of residential houses. Nevertheless, designing a new neighborhood is more than just designing a place to be sheltered. It is designing a place for families and a community to live and thrive. Constructing a new part of town is constructing a new place, a place with an identity shared among its resident. A place proposing a better future, a new, constructed modern society, anchored in a local culture and tradition. The quality of the private houses is important, but the semi-public shared spaces - such as the park, the Mosque and the recreational activities - are just as essential in the quality of life. A well planned infrastructure, consisting of well build roads, efficient electricity distribution and water are just as essential.
The project is based on the new technology of Interlocking Bricks, allowing modular high quality houses to be constructed for a modest price. The quality of the houses are complemented by the quality of the urbanism, where the quality of life of the resident is enhanced by the generous design of the shared green spaces, the recreational space as well as a clear security system, providing a peace of mind in a complex context.
Project:
New Housing Project for the Underprivileged in South Africa
Phase:
Completed
Description:
72 housing units have been built in one of the most dangerous and underprivileged shantytown of the planet. Over a period of ten years, involving the participating community, Frederic Levrat and Urban Think Tank have developed a model of incremental improvement for the local residents.
Housing becomes much more than just a roof over one’s head. Housing is the generative fabric of the city and the starting point of the urban community. The constitution of a community is a complex multi-parameter process, and it builds up slowly and incrementally. The “Community Fabric” is typically not included into the financial equation of a housing development, accepting that it will emerge somehow spontaneously. Urban_Think_Tank values and respects the immaterial but essential human cultural fabric of the urban citizens and wants to empower these existing human communities. Even if these communities are not sanctioned by the city’s authorities and invisible to the conventional real estate business calculations.
