This is probably a 100 yr plan.
Seven varying sized towers are to grow on six currently empty lots and one occupied lots. The first tower is to be at the west end of the site. This tower will be built and as a rule 3 years after it is built a structural mesh will start growing off one side that will devour the tallest building in its immediate vicinity, leaving only the floor plates behind. Within 5 years the next tower will have started construction and Tower 1 will take over the next tallest building in its immediate vicinity in the direction of the new tower and Tower 2 will have started the process that Tower 1 just completed.
These reappropriated buildings will house mainly new programs. The residential aspect will be housed on the upper floors of the new towers, freeing up the structurally liberated floor plates of the old buildings to house retail, light manufacturing, livestock, parking, and social functions.
When the new population grows to fill the Tower 1 and 2 and the expropriated buildings the structural meshes will grow towards each other until they bridge over the street, opening up large quantities of previously unavailable real estate. Of this new real estate 60% will be raised park space, leaving the other square footage for large open space activities such as light manufacturing, public meeting spaces, vineyards, etc. The mesh in these new bridging areas will develop a photovoltaic skin that will be the economic engine of the development.
This program will continue during times of economic prosperity until all of the seven sites are connected. During times of economic slowing maintenance will be done on the photovoltaic skin ensuring an income stream for the residents by selling power back to the grid.
2 comments:
Love the fact that your 100 plan includes green. Vineyard green, public meeting space green (parks, yes!), renews the soul, softens the hardness of cities, and shows growth.
Stockholmgal
Why does your description sound like some of the proposed schemes for Ground Zero? A series of connected towers, elevated park space...
This is a description of a project but not its raison d'etre. Can you describe the program and community without describing the buildings? What motivates this takeover of other buildings? You refer to solar panels as being the economic engine...can they really supply enough energy to exceed that needed by the complex itself? What about the economies of real estate? There is a provocative metaphor about the hungry real estate market in williamsburg, and its takeover of buildings. Maybe this could be developed more.
Another question - what do you mean by livestock? And why towers? You are describing an architecture, but not the social and urban conditions that create it.
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