This project is based on a thesis that skyscrapers and superstructures in many accounts render the notion of coherence, neighbourhoods, identity, community and the sense of place or a place you belong.
My approach to this assignment is based on the thought that skyscrapers and superstructures in many accounts render the notion of coherence, neighbourhoods, identity, community and the sense of place or a place you belong. Elevator made it possible to build taller buildings, and is one of the K-factor behind superstructures. But when we moved from the low rise buildings to high rises we lost something. When entering an elevator, you move outside time and space, and have virtually no point of orientation. Just the flashing lights of the panel in the elevator. It feels like you can end up anywhere. And you’ll be lucky if you meet your neighbours on the way to your apartment, so it becomes hard to communicate with the people that live in your immediate sphere. We lose our connections, our “un espace vècu”, our neighbourhoods. The social connections and relations are sacrificed and dissolved for efficiency and economy.
Another issue is the vertical separation of different functions, where programs are separated on different levels. This distances the habitants of the structure even more from each other, as well as alienating ourself from the idea of social sustainability. Most people would like to live in social clusters and neighbourhoods whit bustling crowds in public spaces and a good mix of commerce, residents and arts. Where you can visit the the tiny cosy local shops and buy specialities and form a relation to the person on the other side of the counter. The vertical separation and zoning feels more like a step backward to the modernists and Corbusier`s city plan principles were you live in one place, work in an other, do your purchasing a third place and then go a fourth place for leisure. It might be efficient, but its neither exciting nor social.
The idea for this project is to try to create the sense of neighbourhoods in the skyscraper. To create a vertical neighbourhood or multiple vertical neighbourhoods, and form a sense of place like Jane Jacobs sidewalk ballet or John Friedmann's thoughts about neighbourhoods. The same way a skyscraper is a point of orientation in a city and creates identity to the area where it’s located, there’s a possibility to do the same within the building itself.
If we think of the elevators as local infrastructure like the tram that stops at different locations around the city, and you get off and walk the tree or four blocks to where you are going. In this project the streets, streetlife and plazas are happening in atriums placed in the skyscraper. All of the elevators are serving the building from top to bottom, but they stop only every seventh to eleventh floor. This is the part that "public " transport network is covering. These floors are programmed with larger social programs, that are meant to be free of charge, paid by the revenue of the cars using the garage that’s covering the whole site. The stops of the elevator are intended as orientation points within the skyscraper. To move from these floors to the floors that are not serviced by a lift system, you move through atriums where each floor represents a street in the neighbourhood, by using escalators to move to the various floors between the elevator stops.
Atrias become the street levels in the neighbourhoods, with its social life where you build relationships and meet other people. The intention is that you should feel a greater local habitation, meet and get to know people in the community and, create a "street life" inside the skyscraper. Atrias will also act as passive ventilation shafts for the building. Atrias are programmed with small local shops like the corner baker, the shoemaker, the grocery store, butcher, pub, cafe, etc. This for further linking up to the idea of a neighbourhood. The atrias and the entrance are intended as a continuation of the street outside the system of the city. The shape of the atrias waries in shape for a number of reasons. Their shapes are not fixed but can be continuously changed as a city is in constant flux. The different shapes of atrias comes from the building's facade and that it`s based on the water's reflection, where reflection of the water is constantly changing. The water is changing and atrias reflect this change. Furthermore, the atria also symbolise variation within neighbourhoods, were each atrium symbolise different neighbourhoods and their character. The atria overlap each other as neighbourhoods naturally overlap.