ZIG and ZAG
Our position is that the best urban environment is one in which all sorts of differing elements come in contact with each other. The synergistic product is a wealth of possible experience that makes urban life exciting, stimulating, and full of potential. The form, techniques, and programmatic arrangement of this design proposal are all made in the attempt to capitalize on this potential. What happens when people work adjacent to nesting birds or garden next to shoppers? We have pursued such juxtapositions because we believe they achieve the true potential of increased density.
Typical mixed-use buildings don't really mix use. Commercial uses are at street level and residential is raised above it, with virtually no interaction between them. This design is different. The stepping ziggurat form is used because it allows us to achieve a new porosity and really mix things up both horizontally and vertically. We have attempted to fuse programmatic considerations with ecological concerns. The public pushes up into the building with the same architectural form that allows heightened air circulation, day lighting, and rainwater collection.
To further our belief that better environments include varying types of people we have sought to include a range of unit types: from SRO social housing units to the laneway courtyard houses. The heightened density of this project is made possible, in our opinion, because of our intent to make pragmatic ‘sustainability' techniques of broad experiential benefit. All such techniques are not merely add-on components but deeply influence the holistic arrangement of the building and other multiple benefits.
(From competitor's text)
18 scanned / 6 viewable
- Presentation Panel
- Presentation Panel
- Perspective
- Perspective
- Perspective
- Perspective
