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Void Capital: The City of Perpetual Modernity
No full textVoid Capital provides a template, an open source architectural blueprint for urban densification. The city naturally demolishes and preserves its built forms, to achieve a dense dynamic city. However, in the name of ‘history’, or ‘quality’, this natural re-actualisation process is discontinued. Void Capital reintroduces the historic centre of the European metropolis as City of Perpetual Modernity. Its tools are typologies of the city’s periphery, combined to create ever-new architectural arrangements. Implemented in Paris, the project renegotiates the typologies of the Grand Ensemble (the Housing District) and the Quartier d’Affaires (the Business District), both once positive icons of modernity, now fallen into despair. 
Indiscernibility and form: The design of Unit C as a critical inquiry into the guidelines for historical preservation
Full text linkThis article explores the intersection between the indiscernible forces of urbanisation and the materialisation of architectural form. Taking the design of architectural concept for an Accessory Dwelling Unit (ADU) at Råå in Sweden as an applied research project, the article argues that new techniques are needed to analyse interactions between artistic intentionality and indiscernible forces, and to critically evaluate their impact on the form of buildings and places. The ADU is an emergent building type. Dubbed Unit C at Råå, the ADU was designed to be attached to a neo-classical villa. Unit C did not comply with the single-family residential codes in the zoning plan, thus a zoning amendment was necessary. As Råå has been designated a heritage site, this article takes the guidelines for historical preservation of buildings implicit in the zoning plan as an agent of the indiscernible forces of urbanisation. Adhering to critical practice, the article proposes architectural theory to be utilised as a pragmatic tool in innovative design processes. When designing the architectural concept of Unit C, the architects encountered a space for experimentation and negotiation in the guidelines for historical preservation. By critically analysing this space through architectural theory, the architects clarified relationships between the visual characteristics and the cultural heritage at Råå, which served to usher the architectural concept through the zoning amendment
Park Politics in Oslo 1920 – 1940: Implementation and Reception
Full text linkPark politics is the subject of critique by the landscape architecture profession. This article explores the politics surrounding the parks realised in Oslo in the 1920s and 30s, which was critiqued in a book by some of the most prominent landscape architects in Norway at the time: Vår tids hage [The Garden of Our Time] (Aspesæter et al., 1939). The book reads as a commentary on the development in Oslo during that period. This study uses contemporary books by the key policy makers as resources for the ideology of these parks and aims to show how the actual park politics in Oslo were acknowledged and critiqued by contemporary landscape architects working in the first decades of the 20th century. This is then used as a backdrop for the study of today’s park politics, which has been strongly influenced by the densification policy that was introduced in the 1990s and that puts additional strain on green spaces inside town and city boundaries. Up until then, urban development had, for the most part, come about as a result of urban expansion, and the urban growth that has taken place since the Second World War has been extensive in terms of land space use. One result of this study is an attempt to establish a periodisation of the park politics in Oslo in order to shed light on the consequences of recent developments in park politics
What the ‘green city’ is up to: Two lenses of criticism for the green facades of Oluf Bager Plaza in Odense, Denmark
Full text linkIncreasingly celebrated, often without questioning, “green architecture” calls for a substantiated discussion. This article explores how design critique can contribute to the thinking and practice around green architecture, particularly green facades, which are growing in number and significance. How can green facades be critically discussed, beyond the dominating glossy project presentations and quantitative measurements of technological and ecological aspects? This article studies the green facades in the architectural competition, Oluf Bager’s Plaza, 2016, in Odense, Denmark, using two traditions of critique: Noël Carroll’s art criticism, in which green facades are seen as part of a designed work that follows certain intentions, and Mary McLeod’s concept of architecture as public domain that requires critical attention towards broader cultural, social, and economic processes. The study shows that the projects for the new Oluf Bager’s Plaza strike a balance between different ambitions, mainly adjusting to the historical context, while also answering the paradoxical double aim of Odense to become a densely built yet green city. The assumption that green facades can bridge the gap between density and green-ness became an important premise for the project. Green architecture should therefore be critiqued from multiple angles, including the ideas, plans, politics, and economics that shape future cities
Park Politics
Full text linkIn June 2018, professionals and scholars, from various fields dealing with public open spaces, put politics up for discussion. In the conference series x–LArch at the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, BOKU/Vienna, issues are raised that are relevant for the profession of landscape architecture and have a direct impact on our environment, be it urban or rural. In the 2018 conference entitled ‘Park Politics’, practitioners and academics were invited to present findings and projects in order to gain a range of perspectives from which to consider and discuss the topic of politics behind the built environment. 
Cast Formwork System: customised self-construction for local informal conditions
Full text linkCAST Formwork Systems (CFS) is a concrete formwork system based on CNC milling technology. It enables self-construction in informal areas to build up safe, incremental housing up to four storeys high. Ordinary formwork systems are complex to use, often too expensive for the low- to mid-low income group and only suited to one shape of building plot. The CFS-system is not only cheaper, it can be customized to all shapes of building-plots and is both safe and easier in use
Industrial symbiosis software: software and method to facilitate industrial symbiosis
Full text linkBedrijven gaan tegenwoordig vooral lineair om met hun materialen. Grondstoffen komen binnen, worden verwerkt tot producten en hun afval wordt afgevoerd. Binnen één bedrijf ziet dit er logisch uit, maar in een systeem van meerdere bedrijven is te zien dat dit efficiënter kan. Als het afval van een bedrijf gebruikt zou worden als grondstof door een ander bedrijf, ontstaat er industriële symbiose. Daardoor worden er minder grondstoffen verbruikt en worden bruikbare restmaterialen niet verspild.
Om bedrijven te helpen bij het zoeken naar partners voor zulke uitwisselingen, is de software InduSym ontwikkeld. Met de software kunnen bedrijven hun grondstoffen en restmateriaal invoeren in een database. Een algoritme doorzoekt deze database en presenteert in een rapport de kansen om te komen tot een symbiotische uitwisseling van reststromen
Solar bikes: user acceptance understanding user experience, preference and acceptance
Full text linkCar traffic causes carbon emissions and air pollution and has negative effects on public health and quality of life in cities. Solar bikes are an innovative, sustainable transport option that can offer a substitute for car travel. Solar bikes are electric bikes with solar cells that are powered by the sun. This expands their range compared to regular e-bikes as the bikes are charged during the trip and at the destination without electricity. The aim of this project is to understand people’s preferences, conditions for acceptance and experiences with the solar bike. Insight in preferences and experiences will assist urban policy makers in identifying which interventions in the built environment can stimulate the acceptance and use of solar bikes
De Reus van Schimmert: from water tower to data center
Full text linkThe water tower of Schimmert was built in 1926 to cover the needs of water of Schimmert and the surrounding areas as well. This imposing 38 meters high tower dwarfs any nearby buildings, providing a 360° view of the surrounding area and deserves its pseudonym de Reus van Schimmert (the Giant of Schimmert). In the attempt to find a sustainable business model for the iconic building the concept of installing a data center in its core is investigated. The waste heat from the servers will be transferred to the reservoir on the top and from there used to power a district heating system in Schimmert
Design-to-Robotic-Operation Principles and Strategies as Drivers of Interior Environmental Quality
Full text linkThis paper presents a high-resolution intelligence implementation based on Design-to-Robotic-Operation (D2RO) principles and strategies specifically employed to attain and to sustain Interior Environmental Quality (IEQ) within a dynamic built-environment. This implementation focuses on two IEQ-parameters, namely illumination and ventilation; and is developed in three main steps. In the first step, a formal design-criteria based on D2RO principles is developed in order to imbue considerations of intelligence into the early stages of the design process. In the second step, illumination and ventilation systems are developed as IEQ-regulating mechanisms whose behavior is determined by machine-learning models that continuously learn from the occupants and their preferences with respect to interior environmental comfort. In the third and final step, the resulting implementation is tested with probands in order to demonstrate continuous intelligent adaptation with respect to illumination and ventilation, which in turn demonstrates that a D2RO approach to IEQ yields a more intelligent adaptive mechanism that promotes occupant well-being in an invisible, unobtrusive, intuitive manner