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sustainability | ecosistema urbano ecosistema urbano tv blog portfolio contact well-nigh us ecosistema urbano sitemappublishNo Access sustainability May 22, 2018 posted by Antonella Milano Comments: (0) An Overview to our Latest Projects in Latin America Category: ⚐ EN+architecture+Centro Histórico Abierto+city+Cuenca Red+ecosistema urbano+Plan CHA+Plan Encarnación Más+sustainability+technologies+urbanism Tags: Asunción+cuenca+cuenca red+Distrito Central+ecosistema urbano+encarnación+encarnación más+participation+sustainability+technology During the last year we have been rented with several projects and competitions (including the latestUnshutShore project for West Palm Beach) which didn’t requite us the time to squint when and reflect on some of our projects from the last few years. As maybe some of our readers know, Ecosistema Urbano has been working on several large-scale projects in Latin America since August 2014 when we won a competition to develop the Master Plan of the HistoricalPart-wayof Asuncion, Paraguay. In 2015, we workaday flipside significant project: the participatory process Centro Histórico Abierto for the transformation of the historical part-way of Distrito Central, wanted of Honduras. We moreover worked on the transformative Cuenca RED project which make-believe on the Public Space Reactivation Plan of the HistoricalPart-wayof Cuenca, Ecuador.Withoutthe first wits in Paraguay, we had flipside project in the municipality of Encarnación, giving origin to the Plan Encarnación Más, well-balanced by an Urban and Territorial Planning and Sustainability Plan. In these four cases, the urban issues and the peculiar situations that required our intervention were unshared yet shared many worldwide features.Increasinglyspecifically, the enthusiasm and interest shown by the people directly and indirectly involved was unveiled throughout all of the projects, but moreover the opportunities that these experiences have given us as an tracery firm, to test ideas, tools, and methodologies. CONTEXT Although they share the same zone of origin, each of these cities has ripened unique problems and issues. Some of these, such as the ones found in Encarnación, are physical-territorial matters such as the recent loss of the municipality part-way considering of the controlled rise of the water level in the Yacyretá dam. That event led to the envisioning of a “SustainableMinutiaePlan” and  “Urban and Territorial Ordering Plan” in order to prepare the municipality for the future. In the specimen of Cuenca, the need for a new plan was unswayable by a series of big changes underway: the definition of a new model of mobility and the progressive emptying of population that afflicts the historical center, World Heritage Site since 1999, and headquarters of most of the commercial, touristic and economic city’s activities. In the specimen of Asunción and of the wanted of Honduras, the project regards the transformation and the regeneration (both physical and social) of their historic centers. The DistritoInsideis part of the minutiae framework of the new urban turning “Choluteca River”. SOCIAL 1 – Participation The first of the projects’ worldwide keys are unfluctuating with the theme of sociability, expressed in the form of participation. The citizens’ involvement, promoted both through a series of organized activities and through online platforms, has been one of the cornerstones of our work in Latin America. We involve citizens considering we believe that the resider is the only gravity worldly-wise to unzip a deep and lasting transpiration in the urban environment and so they should not be just a passive receptor of the changes promoted by the city’s institutions. That’s why in some cases, as in that of Asunción with the ASU-LAB, a space was created which could serve as an interface between citizens and institutions: a place for the execution of the municipality planning but moreover an unshut place where each person or group can momentum a new regeneration initiative or shepherd a course. Organized activities with the citizens Participatory activities, such as workshops and events, have been geared to write representative members of the municipality such as children, university students, “active agents”, citizens and institutions. For each of these categories we have developed, project without project, a series of ad hoc initiatives. Participatory process in Asunción, Encarnación, Cuenca and in DistritoInsideFor the children we created a “toolkit” with which we had them reflect on their perception of the municipality and with which they could propose their platonic vision for the city. The kit consists of portions of the municipality map on which they could yank and that, once recomposed, could recreate the overall image. 2 – Urban deportment These activities were followed by a series of urban actions so that the results could be shown tangibly in the city. In the specimen of Distrito Central, ideas were gathered in a week of workshops with 80 students from the three major universities in the municipality and have been translated into urban deportment like “Las Gradas de la Leona“. The staircases are indispensable spaces in a municipality with a very unshared topography as Tegucigualpa. But in the municipality these vertical connections are often perceived as inhospitable, dangerous, and dirty places and therefore they are cut off from any kind of activity. The students’ work was aimed at legitimizing these stairs as a public space through cleanliness,  decor,  lighting, and the organization of a series of activities that achieved resounding success and participation. Socialization withal “Las gradas de la Leona” In the specimen of Encarnación, one of the proposals that has distinguished our tideway in this project was the inclusion of a series of pilot projects that trailblaze and translate into touchable proposals within the “Plan de Desarrollo Sustentable” and the “Plan de Ordenamiento”. Among these, one of the most successful pilot projects was the “Proyecto Piloto Bicisienda“, whose purpose is to modernize the quality of life of the inhabitants by optimizing the use of volitional mobility and by raising sensation of the value of sports and recreation.Thenwe have sought the cooperation of citizens by promoting a series of initiatives (such as the construction of velocipede lanes in the city) in which the citizens could finger protagonistic. Proyecto Piloto Bicisienda 3 – Informative events  The disclosure of the participatory process to the citizenship, promoted both online through the project’s platforms and through unshut exhibitions, is a recurring phase in all four projects. We felt it important and necessary that each phase of the process was documented and could be hands wieldy to all so that the citizens could be informed well-nigh the progress made in the project. Among these, the most scenic event, realized in Tegucigualpa, Cuenca and Encarnación, was the megacosm of a ” mosaico ciudadano“, a wall made of post-it notes with written words, phrases, and ideas well-nigh the city.Municipalitymosaic in the several projects SUSTAINABILITYFlipsidetheme of our projects in Latin America is sustainable minutiae expressed in various forms: superintendency and sustentation to the environment, the introduction of an volitional mobility system, the importance of education to the environment as an engine of sustainability, and the minutiae of the project made in collaboration between private initiatives and institutional management. In the specimen of Cuenca, for example, our intervention was partly required as a magnitude of the municipality’s willingness to pinpoint a new model of mobility for the historical part-way of the municipality consisting of ceasing car traffic in the part-way and towers a new tramway system. This new model of mobility has uncontrived implications for the current urban dynamics, as well as on the public space, as it tries to reduce the vehicular load of the city, giving priority to pedestrians and cyclists. This, and the megacosm of quality public space, led to strengthen the social, economic, and cultural role of the city’s historical center making it increasingly pleasant for residents and locals. Our aim is to vivify a historical part-way that promotes social, economic, and environmental development, as well as a increasingly livable, habitable, and inhabited historical center. Cuenca’s plan is divided into four aspects: an urban acupuncture strategy, which proposes small / medium-scale interventions to recover areas with potential; a minutiae of a network of zippy courtyards, by transforming the typical patios of Cuenca in catalysts capable of generating new synergies, connections, and interactions between residents, visitors and inhabitants; a guide to the historic part-way re-design, which defines the main lines for the diamond of the public space; a process of socialization, to pinpoint the “acopuntura” and the zippy patios network strategies. The intervention strategy in the square “Mary Corilè” in conjunction with the megacosm of “La casa en el árbol” is part of the zippy patios network strategy. This square is an unused and degraded space, perceived by the residents as an unpleasant and dangerous place. The square “Mary Corilè” Among the several interventions proposed, such as the re-furnishing of the square, traffic closure, and the diamond of activities in collaboration with the municipality, there’s moreover the megacosm of “La casa en el árbol“, a space included in the existing trees of the square where educational activities in relation to the theme of the environment can be carried out. “La casa en el árbol” is set up as a space to get in contact and be familiar with the nature, built in harmony with the surroundings. Inside there are several “environmental” classrooms in which one can study natural resources such as sun, wind, and water.Increasinglyspecifically, one can study: a system of photovoltaic panels that generate the energy needed for the lights, rainwater harvesting structures, and urban gardens as environmental and ecological experiences for schools and kindergartens. It is, ultimately, an unshut classroom in which a new form of pedagogy built on the respect for the environment is proposed, in order to increase sensation of the natural resources and of their use, as well as increase sensation of existing technologies. In the specimen of Asunción we proposed a strategic plan with ten deportment in order to promote a connection between the several parts of the municipality through the minutiae of spaces, named “corridors“, and of individual buildings, named “urban catalysts“, which might act as drivers of transpiration and benchmarks within the city. The corridors are divided into three types: those “green“, which introduce a new untried infrastructure in specific parts of the existing roads; those “civic“, which consist of a new network of public spaces withal the roads in order to connect the most important historic and government buildings; those “dynamic“, aimed at creating zippy urban environments and encourage economic and cultural activities. Configuration of a charateristic dynamic corridor Among the deportment of Asunción strategic masterplan one concerns the economic and landscaping regeneration of the “GreenZippyCoast”. Due to its topography, this zone is subject to cyclical floods considering of the rising water level of the Paraguay River. That forces the inhabitants of the informal settlements who live there to move temporally. While fully respecting the identity of the river and of the existing topography, we have proposed the megacosm of a untried lung with a large sports zone in continuity with the Bicentennial Park. We moreover promoted the integration of the informal settlements both within the urban fabric and in the areas of new urban expansion. The Encarnación masterplan incorporates within its own name the concept of “sustainability”, since it is well-balanced of the “Plan of Sustainable Development” and of the “Plan of Urban and Territorial Organization”. The “Plan of Sustainable Development” will establish the standards and mechanisms for the growth and for the future minutiae of the municipality equal to the criteria of sustainability. The “Plan of Urban and Territorial Organization” aims at directing the use and the occupation of the territory in the urban and rural areas of the municipality. Officially, the municipality will squatter in the next twenty-four years an increase of the population amounted to 62,000 people, for whom it will be necessary to provide a massive increase in housing. The model we proposed to squatter this need refers to the sustainable principle of “the meaty city.” Through the identification of a physical verge for the city’s urban growth, we have protected the rural areas from new settlements. Moreover, we encouraged, through private and municipal initiatives, the densification of areas once developed, by filling the vacant urban lots and expanding pre-existing single-family homes. Example of urban densification The new interventions follow the principles of the bioclimatic architecture: large overhanging roofs and vegetation as protections from the hot summer sunlight, the use of wind to moderate the hot and humid climate of Encarnación, the reuse of rainwater, and the increase of the vegetation to swizzle CO2 emissions. TECHNOLOGY In all four projects, technology represented an important collaborative tool to promote our work and to enable everyone to be constantly updated on ongoing progress, but moreover as a support for the participatory process, so that the involvement of the citizens would not be worn-out with the end of the activities organized, but could protract to map needs, issues, concerns and initiatives for those interested. For this reason we have ripened a platform, tabbed Local-in (formerly What if ..?), which has been well-timed to each project equal to their personality and to the peculiarities of each participatory process, while maintaining a worldwide format. Local-in is a self-ruling and wieldy to everyone using of joint mapping. In it, registered users can add messages, photos and geolocalised links, sorting them into categories and labels. It’s hands installable and customizable, in perfect harmony with the spirit of the projects themselves, and it can be found for each project under the name “AsuMAP” for Asunción, with the name “Encarnación Más” for Encarnación, as “Cuenca RED” for Cuenca and with the name “Centro Histórico Abierto” for Distrito Central.   September 25, 2017 posted by Ecosistema Urbano Comment: (1)UnshutShore Project for West Palm Beach | #1 Strategy to Trigger TheTranspirationCategory: ⚐ EN+competitions+ecosistema urbano+sustainability+urban social design+urbanism+work in progress Tags: climate change+competition+ecological approach+ecosistema urbano+global resilience strategy+mangrove islands+Miami+mix urban development+Open Shore+pedagogical approach+renaturalize+resiliency+sea level rise+shore to core+smart citizens+stormwater management+Strategies+sustainability+urban catalyzers+urban reactivation+urban renovation+Van Alen Institute+waterfront+West Palm Beach+wetland renaturalization+wind resiliency+year round worriedness As we spoken a few months ago in our previous post,  our projectUnshutShore is the winning proposal of Shore toCadreinternational competition.UnshutShore is a ramified project that addresses many variegated topics in an effort of providing solutions to several challenges that the municipality of West Palm Beach shares with many other cities. For this reason, we decided to present increasingly in detail our project in a series of 3 posts defended to the three main points of the proposal: #1, Strategy to trigger the Change; #2, Waterfront: celebrating unexpected public space; #3, Banyan Hub: a municipality into a building.Surpassinggoing into detail of our proposal, it would be useful to introduce the context of the municipality of West Palm Beach. As reported in the Shore toCadreCompetition Website, West Palm Beach is a young municipality that is growing quickly. Many socialize this region with a large retirement community, but there is moreover a growing population of people in their 20s and 30s, as well as large Black and Hispanic populations. The city’s downtown and 10-mile waterfront present an opportunity to develop new suavities that reflect the city’s emerging populations, and diamond is a crucial tool for tackling these evolving needs. The diamond competition asks: How can we reimagine our downtowns to make them increasingly engaging and vibrant? How can cities collect information that informs future version and growth?  How can we facilitate social interaction among diverse groups? How can the built environment modernize residents’ physical health,  mental health, and social capital?  Today we present the first post of the series, starting the narration of this heady experience. This first installment introduces the previous wringer and the unstipulated strategies that informed the diamond of the project areas. protract reading April 27, 2017 posted by Ecosistema Urbano Comments: (0) Ecosistema Urbano wins West Palm BeachDiamondCompetition! Category: ⚐ EN+⚐ ES+⚐ IT+architecture+city+competitions+design+ecosistema urbano+news+sustainability+urbanism+work in progress Tags: bioclimatic design+competition+ecosistema urbano+Florida+Miami+shore to core+Van Alen Institute+waterfront+West Palm Beach We are very happy to signify that our projectUnshutShore is the winning proposal of Shore to Core, the international diamond competition to reimagine downtown West Palm Beach as a dynamic, resilient waterfront city! We are thrilled with the unconfined reception that the project has had, and eager to protract its minutiae side by side with the people and the institutions of West Palm Beach. Ecosistema Urbano |UnshutShore | Rain Plaza Here we share the printing release from Van Alen Institute: Van Alen Institute and the West Palm BeachPolityRedevelopment Agency (WPB CRA) today announcedUnshutShore by Ecosistema Urbano as the winning proposal for the Shore toCadrewaterfront diamond competition. The Shore toCadrecompetition invited international designers, planners and architects to envision what the future of the West Palm Beach waterfront could squint like over the next 20 to 30 years, taking factors including populations, economies and the environment into account. The winning proposal will serve as a “vision board” for the city’s future, providing a starting point and framework to help the municipality transmute and make the most of the waterfront. Ecosistema Urbano |UnshutShore | Rain Plaza Ecosistema Urbano |UnshutShore | Plan Selected from a pool of over 40 international teams and two finalists, Ecosistema Urbano’s winning proposal envisions a healthier and increasingly resilient downtown and waterfront for West Palm Beach—a keystone municipality in southern Florida with a growing population of people in their 20s and 30s, as well as large Black and Hispanic populations. The competition proposals imagine new suavities that reflect the city’s emerging populations, and Shore to Core’s organizers believe that diamond is a crucial tool for tackling these evolving needs. The initiative included public consultation, and this input played a role in the jury’s decision-making process. Ecosistema Urbano |UnshutShore | Strolling on the Waterfront Ecosistema Urbano |UnshutShore | Aerial View Ecosistema Urbano |UnshutShore | FlaglerMomentumand theDejectForest Habitat Plaza Ecosistema Urbano’s winning diamond answers Shore to Core’s undeniability for a comprehensive, forward-thinking urban plan to make West Palm Beach’s waterfront a year-round destination for locals and visitors alike. The proposal includes what could be the first public bioclimatic domes in the U.S. ornate with hanging gardens. These domes create climatically well-appointed spaces 365 days a year, thereby supporting a increasingly socially cohesive city. The proposal moreover illustrates how the city’s Banyan Garage could be upcycled into a mixed-use towers with both public- and private-sector roles featuring adaptive climates suitable for a range of activities, including a farmers market, coworking spaces, and skyline viewing platforms. Additional suavities include vibrant thematic alleyways—with such features as a waddle climbing wall, interactive exhibition space, and immersive foliage—that harness the cultural values and experiences unique to West Palm Beach, while moreover providing shade and introducing new elevated programming spaces     Ecosistema Urbano |UnshutShore | Level 4UnshutAir Plaza at Banyan Hub Ecosistema Urbano |UnshutShore | Farmers Market day at Banyan’s ground floor Ecosistema Urbano |UnshutShore | Social untried space at Banyan Hub overlooking the downtown Ecosistema Urbano |UnshutShore | Banyan Hub | Section Ecosistema Urbano will present their proposal to the WPB CRA workbench in May 2017. The CRA workbench will identify priority projects within the Banyan Garage and downtown alleyways, and then contract with Ecosistema Urbano. This process will be followed by outreach to the polity well-nigh the individual elements that are scheduled for possible implementation in late 2017 or early 2018. “The Shore toCadrecompetition and resulting proposals truly offered insights into how we can plan a strong and vibrant future for our city,” said Jeri Muoio, Mayor of theMunicipalityof West Palm Beach. “Ecosistema Urbano’s diamond was applauded by all as enhancing the waterfront and creating new, iconic experiences that incorporate our natural resources, cultural spaces, and inclusive urban atmospheres.” “Ecosistema Urbano’s proposal addresses social cohesion in a compelling way by integrating locally responsive systems with a welcoming public space that will remoter diversify the city,” said David van der Leer, Executive Director of Van Alen Institute. “We’re thrilled that West Palm Beach is looking to the future and rethinking how to create a downtown that is uniquely theirs— a downtown that enhances the wellbeing of residents and visitors alike. The runner-up diamond finalist, Perkins + Will, created a proposal focusing on community-building with a continuous waterfront park, extendedUnconfinedLawn, and the Banyan Garage revitalized as a multi-use societal space. Van Alen has synthesized the work of the finalist teams into a key findings document, “A Shore Thing: Key Findings from the Shore toCadreCompetition,” that summarizes the shared insights from all three proposals. The Shore toCadrecompetition has parallel research and diamond tracks: The aim of this structure is to understand how waterfront cities like West Palm Beach can wilt healthier, and to create diamond strategies that will make them increasingly responsive to rising sea levels. The winning research team, Happier by Design, focused on how specific types of public spaces may increase the wellbeing of people who use them, and conducted a pilot study analyzing the health benefits of increasingly ramified and engaging urban landscapes. By testing environmental psychology principals with tactical urban interventions, Happier byDiamondfound that public space designs that uplift feelings of fascination foster wellbeing. The research team moreover recommended that designers focus individuals’ sustentation on nature and create spaces that are both well-appointed and interactive, including such features as movable seating and willowy lookouts that frame the landscape. The team’s recommendations underpin the dynamic and engaging designs proposed by Ecosistema Urbano. The combination of innovative research and original diamond in Shore toCadrereflects Van Alen’s mission to use research and diamond to inform the planning of new societal spaces.   To read the final reports, see: Key Findings | Van Alen InstituteUnshutShore | Ecosistema Urbano (Design Winner) Happier byDiamond| Happy City, University of Virginia, StreetPlans and Space Syntax (Research Winner)Transmuteto Thrive | Perkins + Will (Design Finalist)   Competition Jury: Raphael Clemente, Executive Director, Downtown West Palm Beach Colin Ellard,SocializeProfessor, University of Waterloo, Department of Psychology Patrick Franklin, President and CEO, Urban League of Palm Beach County David van der Leer (Jury Chair), Executive Director, Van Alen Institute Jeri Muoio, Mayor,Municipalityof West Palm Beach Penni Redford, Sustainability Manager,Municipalityof West Palm Beach Manuel Clavel Rojo, Clavel Arquitectos (substitute for Terry Riley, K/R Architects) Jon Ward, Executive Director, West Palm BeachPolityRedevelopment Agency Lilly Weinberg, Director ofPolityFoundations, Knight Foundation Claire Weisz, Founding Principal, WXY Studio Nancy Wells, Professor, Cornell University, College of Human Ecology,Diamondand EnvironmentalWringerDepartment Ecosistema Urbano Team: A multidisciplinary Madrid and Boston-based team comprised of principals Belinda Tato and Jose Luis Vallejo; Marco Rizzetto, Carlos León, Antonella Marlene Milano, Luisa Zancada, Jorge Toledo, Marta Muñoz, Pablo Santacana, Lola Pouchin, Maria Vittoria Tesei, Andrea Bertrán, Ana Patricia Maté, Lucía De Retes Cascales, Cristina Rodríguez, Elizabeth Kelleher, Lorena Tselemegkou, Luana Scarpel, Silvia Sangriso, Daniela Menendez, Julia Casado, Constantino Hurtado, Andrés Walliser.   To view high-resolution images for this project, including work by the winning team, click here To view turned-on images of Ecosistema Urbano’s proposal, have a squint here March 23, 2017 posted by Ecosistema Urbano Comments: (0) Ecosistema Urbano’s proposal for West Palm Beach… now published! Category: ⚐ EN+architecture+city+competitions+design+landscape+sustainability+technologies+urbanism Tags: competition+Florida+public space+urban design+USA+waterfront+West Palm Beach We are very excited to share with all of you the final document of our proposal for West Palm Beach, Florida, U.S.A. protract reading March 10, 2017 posted by Antonella Milano Comment: (1) Ecosistema Urbano is working with the EuropeanLegationin EU GPP Criteria for Public Space Maintenance Category: ⚐ EN+ecosistema urbano+news+research+sustainability+work in progress Tags: ecosistema urbano+EU GPP+european commission+maintenance of public space+sustainability We are glad to signify our recent collaboration with the Joint ResearchPart-wayof the EuropeanLegationin Seville for a research project focused on the topic of maintenance of public space. The project aims to pinpoint the EUUntriedPublic Procurement (GPP) Criteria for Public Space Maintenance. But.. what is exactly EU GPP? Here there is a short unravelment coming directly from the EuropeanLegationofficial webpage.UntriedPublic Procurement (GPP) is specified in the Communication (COM (2008) 400) “Public procurement for a largest environment” as “a process whereby public authorities seek to procure goods, services and works with a reduced environmental impact throughout their life trundling when compared to goods, services and works with the same primary function that would otherwise be procured.”  GPP is a voluntary instrument, which ways that Member States and public authorities can determine the extent to which they implement it. Public authorities are major consumers in Europe: they spend approximately 1.8 trillion euro annually, representing virtually 14 % of the EU’s gross domestic product. By using their purchasing power to segregate goods and services with lower impacts on the environment, they can make an important contribution to sustainable consumption and production.Untriedpurchasing is moreover well-nigh influencing the market. By promoting and using GPP, public authorities can provide industry with real incentives for developing untried technologies and products. In some sectors, public purchasers writ a significant share of the market (e.g. public transport and construction, health services and education) and so their decisions have considerable impact. EU GPP is an important tool as it can contribute to the stimulation of the market for environmentally-friendly goods, works and services and to contribute to the minutiae of a increasingly resource-efficient economy in the EU. TheLegationhas ripened EU GPP criteria for virtually 20 variegated product groups. Here the well-constructed list of 20 product groups considered for EU GPP Criteria, and as you may notice the range is really wide, from OfficeTowersDesign, Construction and Management, to Transport or Computer and monitors, to mention a few. We are now working on the first phase of the project for the minutiae of the EU GPP Criteria for Public Space Maintenance. One of the very first document produced is a Stakeholder Questionnaire aiming to pinpoint the scope. The questionnaire has been sent to several identified stakeholders from the supply side (Providers of maintenance services, equipment, public furniture, etc), demand side (public and non-public procurers) and other stakeholders, such as national or local policy makers, environmental organizations, urban planners and designers, citizens organizations, etc. The scoping questionnaire is misogynist at the pursuit link for all interested parties to contribute: http://susproc.jrc.ec.europa.eu/Public_space_maintenance/documents.html If you are interested in participating please express your opinion through the questionnaire, and submit it to the email write JRC-PUBLIC-SPACE-MAINTENANCE@ec.europa.eu before the 17th March 2017.Remoterquestions or registration by sending an email to JRC-PUBLIC-SPACE-MAINTENANCE@ec.europa.eu   February 6, 2017 posted by Ecosistema Urbano Comments: (0) Ruralism: The Future of Villages and Small Towns in an Urbanizing World |Typesettingand Interview Category: ⚐ EN+publications+sustainability+urbanism Tags: belinda tato+book+publications+rural+ruralism+urban+urban design+urban planning+Vanessa Miriam Carlow Last year we were contacted by Vanessa Miriam Carlow from the Institute for Sustainable Urbanism to make an interview for the book Ruralism: The Future of Villages and Small Towns in an Urbanizing World. This typesetting is defended to the significance of rural spaces ‘as a starting point for transformation’.Variegatedinternational experts were asked to reflect on rural spaces from an architectural, cultural, gender-oriented, ecological, and political perspective and ask how a (new) vision of the rural can be formulated. As the introduction states: In an urbanizing world, the municipality is considered the ultimate model and the measure of all things. The sustentation of architects and planners has been scrutinizingly entirely focused on the municipality for many years, while rural spaces are all too often associated with visions of economic decline, stagnation and resignation. However, rural spaces are transforming scrutinizingly as radically as cities. Furthermore, rural spaces play a decisive role in the sustainable minutiae of our living environment—inextricably interlinked with the municipality as a resource or reservoir. The formerly segregated countryside is now traversed by global and regional flows of people, goods, waste, energy, and information, linking it to urban systems and enabling them to function in the first place. Today we are publishing the interview, answered by Belinda Tato. If you find it interesting, there is much increasingly in the book! We recommend you to get a printed copy here. Here is the full transcript of the interview: Q: Your office name, ecosistema urbano, brings with it a unrepealable tension that somehow combines unexpected contrasts. How did you come to this name and what do you want to express with it? A: It took us a while to segregate a name or concept that communicated our interests and the ramified reality of urban issues we face. We found the idea of ‘ecosystem’ an well-flavored one, its definition implies a group of interconnected elements worked by the interaction of a polity with their environment. This relationship between the natural and the strained aims for a wastefulness between these two worlds, and reflects the issues we superintendency well-nigh when designing tracery and practicing territorial and urban planning. Q: In your presentation, you said that during your studies the planning tideway mainly focused on infrastructure and the physical environment. How would you describe the situation today? A: I believe there is a well-spoken shift between the object-focused educational tideway from the nineties towards a increasingly polyhedral tideway and understanding of cities and diamond that is happening today. There is a growing interest in considering processes and interactions and taking the social, cultural, or economic aspects into worth leading to increasingly comprehensive and would-be proposals to transform reality. Q: Which tideway does your office have today? How would you describe the current role of the technie and planner? A: That is not an easy question to wordplay briefly! We recently made an effort to try to summarize our tideway and the result is a kind of manifesto in ten points. Urban. Social. Design. Three words that describe our dedication: the urban context, the social approach, and the diamond understood as an action, an interaction, and a tool for transformation. Understanding types of behaviour and processes at variegated levels is crucial. Creativity is a network. In a globalized world, creativity is the topics to connect things innovatively and thus we understand that the protagonist of the creative process is not just a team but an unshut and multi-layered diamond network.Polityfirst. Cities are created and maintained by people for people, and urban minutiae only makes sense when the polity cares well-nigh it. We work to empower the communities to momentum the projects that stupefy them, so social relevance is guaranteed. Going glocal. Just as cities have residents and visitors, and planning is made at variegated scales, every urban project is born in a unvarying movement between the uncontrived wits and specificity of the local context, and the global, shared spritz of information and knowledge. Accepting –and managing– conflict. Participation, like conversation, ways letting all the points of view be raised and listened to. Public debate only makes sense if all the stakeholders are involved. Every project well-expressed the municipality has to deal with both opposition and support, consensus and contradiction. Assuming complexity. Encompassing the complexity of the urban environment requires simplifying it. Instead, we prefer to shoehorn its vast weft and understand our work as a thin layer –with limited and, at times, unpredictable effects– thoughtfully inserted into that complexity. Learning by doing. Our wits grows through practice. We know what we can do, and we rencontre ourselves to do what we think we should be doing. We solve the unexpected issues as we move, and then we take our lesson from the process and the results. Planning… and stuff flexible. Urban minutiae is what happens in the municipality while others try to plan it. We think ahead, make our dispositions, but we are unchangingly ready for reality to transpiration our plans… mostly for the better. Rigidity kills opportunity, participation and urban life. Embracing transdisciplinarity: We seem that our role as professionals is evolving, disciplinary immuration are loosening, urban projects are complex, and circumstances are continuously changing. This requires open-minded professionals, flexible unbearable to transmute their roles and skills and to use unusual tools. Technology as a social tool: Today’s technology enables us to largest relate and interact with each other and with the surrounding environment. As the digital-physical divide narrows and the possibilities multiply, it becomes an increasingly significant element in urban social life. Keeping it open:Unshutmeans transparent, accessible, inclusive, collaborative, modifiable, reproducible.Unshutmeans increasingly people can be part of it and goody from it. These are the nature that pinpoint a project made for the worldwide good. Q: From your presentation, it emerged that the integration of the local conditions—as a climatic and social issue—represent an important focus of your work. How do you rate the relationship between global-local influence in relation to the architectural or urban design? A: This is a very interesting question, and one we have asked ourselves several times. We have worked mostly upalong during the last years, and over and over we find the same situation where we have to wastefulness the local and the global dimensions of diamond and planning. Local conditions are unchangingly the main terms of reference for our work. They requite verism and pertinence to our proposals. They not only determine the boundaries we have to respect, the resources we have available, or the particularities we have to take into account, but moreover the potential for resurgence that each particular place has. Local context is a source of invaluable site-specific knowledge, plane if that knowledge is not unchangingly conscious or apparent, expressly to locals. Opening a project to participation is a unconfined way to make local values stand out and locals wilt self-aware… if you are worldly-wise to ask the right questions and then read between the lines, of course. But relying solely on local conditions rarely provides the weightier solutions. You usually find situations that have wilt stagnant precisely by the lack of confrontation and external feedback. Then you need to confront the local ‘ways,’ often loaded with prejudices or relative narrowness, or with something else. And that is where global influence comes into play: the contrast, the opposition that clears concepts, breaks groupthink and gives a relative measure to local values. Global is the mirror that local can use to wilt self-conscious. We could speak of bringing knowledge from the global to the local, or plane generating local knowledge by confronting it with the global. But it is moreover creativity that is stuff created or transferred. The worthiness to connect, articulate, and interpret variegated contexts is crucial whenever a new tideway is needed and local conditions have proven insufficient to unhook it. Q: You showed us some practical examples of your current work, which pursues sustainable approaches in terms of water recycling systems for the kindergarten in Madrid or climatic adaptations for the Expo pavilion in Shanghai. What opportunities do you see for the implementation of sustainable planning tools or strategies in larger, urban scale projects? A: Urban planning and urban diamond have a unconfined impact on people’s lives, shaping the way we live, move, relate, consume, etc… In wing to this, its impact will be of a long term as it is less unnoticeable than architecture. For these reasons, it is important to diamond integrating with nature, its cycles and processes, taking wholesomeness of the environment and optimizing interventions. Q: Let us take a closer squint at the countryside: in the current city-centered discourse, rural spaces are often dismissed as unthriving or stagnating. However, rural spaces moreover play a hair-trigger role in sustainable development, as an inextricably linked counterpart, but moreover as a complement to the growing city, as extraction sites, natural reservoirs for food, fresh water and air, or as leisure spaces. Do we need to formulate a (new) vision of ‘ruralism’? What would be your definition of the future rural? What new concepts for the rural exist in Spain? A: When talking well-nigh ecosystems, it is crucial to understand the interwoven connections between the urban and the rural, and how they relate and stupefy each other in a hair-trigger balance. Although the urban expansion has some environmental consequences, there are moreover some interesting phenomena happening. As today’s IT keeps us unfluctuating and allows us to work remotely, this neoruralism enables us to have a renewed vision of the territory and its possibilities, offering minutiae opportunities in towns that have been x-rated for decades, for instance in Spain. This new trend is transforming these x-rated towns into new worriedness hubs, creating a new migration flux from cities. It will be possible to measure the socioeconomic impact of this worriedness in a few years. Q: The once remote and quiet countryside is now traversed by global and regional flows of people, goods, waste, energy, and information, interrelating it with the larger urban system. Is a new set of criteria for understanding and appreciating the rural required? How would you measure what is rural and what is urban? A: In a globalized world with an unprecedented ongoing process of urbanization, and under the impact of climate transpiration and global warming, it is rhadamanthine increasingly and increasingly difficult to precisely pinpoint the limits between the rural and the urban as the urban footprint is somehow atomizing and gobbling the rural. Cities are the combination and result of the simultaneous interaction between nature and strained technology, and their ecological footprint expansion forces the extraction of natural resources from plane remoter sources, with obvious environmental consequences. At the local scale, it is necessary to point out the tropical relationship between the way a municipality relates to its environment, the way it manages its natural resources, and the quality of life it can provide to its inhabitants. This could be summarized as: the increasingly sustainable a city/territory is, the largest its inhabitants will live. Q: What role do villages and smaller towns have in a world in which the majority live in cities? Could you scuttlebutt on and describe a bit well-nigh the situation in Spain or the other countries you have been working in? A: In cities, innovation and creativity concentrate and sally naturally. The rural environment moreover requires people willing to create, to innovate, to connect, etc…. This creative ruralism could lead to the megacosm of eco-techno-rural environments, which would provide some of the features of the rural combined with specific services of the urban…the perfect setting for innovation to take place! Q: Which role could the rural play at the frontlines of regional transformation and sustainability? What are the existing and potential connections between urban and rural spaces? A: The rural could provide a complementary lifestyle for people fleeing from the municipality to re-connect or re-localize. At the same time, we would need to explore and expand technology’s possibilities, pushing its very limits, and foreseeing potential new services that could enhance life in the rural by making it increasingly diverse, fulfilling, and even… increasingly global. Q: And what role can urban diamond play in preparing rural life and space for the future? Is the rural an scene for ‘urban’ diamond at all? A: I think the rencontre would be to create the conditions for social life and interaction. We do have the conditions for that worriedness to happen digitally, but how can we foster social worriedness in low-density environments? Would it be necessary to create small urban nodes in the rural? These issues are interesting challenges we have to squatter conceptually and design-wise. Are you interested in this topic? You can get the typesetting here… November 14, 2016 posted by Marco Rizzetto Comments: (0) public space for the extreme: evaporation Category: ⚐ EN+architecture+city+networkedurbanism+research+sustainability Tags: Bahrain+Bahrein+bio-climatic public space+climatic confort+climatic confort in public space+designing for the extreme+ecosistema urbano Fog Assembly, Olafur Eliasson, Versailles 2016. Image courtesy of Olafur Eliasson, Anders Sune Berg Evap·o·rate, to pass off in vapor or in minute particles. All evaporative cooling rely on the energy required for the evaporation of water to swizzle heat from the air and lower the temperature. This is due to the very upper enthalpy of vaporization of water, the phase transition between the liquid and the gaseous state requires in fact a large value of energy (which is increasingly properly called enthalpy) that is taken from the air in the form of sensible heat (which is the temperature, something we finger with our skin and determines our comfort) and it is converted into latent heat (which is an energy “hidden” in the vapor component of the air). The result of this adiabatic process is a waif in the temperature of air and an increase in its humidity, therefore it’s well-spoken that this cooling system is particularly constructive in dry and hot climate zones where the higher humidity and the lower temperature can be both seen as advantages.Unmistakablythe evaporating process is a key moreover for some convective cooling processes (that we treated here) but they rely also on the reduced buoyancy of potation and increasingly humid air to obtain the final effect while evaporative cooling techniques only rely on the evaporation of water.MistinessBuilding, by Diller+Scofidio, Swiss EXPO 2002. Image courtesy of david huang Although primitive evaporative techniques were used in warmed-over times (in combination with convective and ventilation devices like windcatchers and qanats in iran) and porous water jars are still used in many hot areas in combination with Mashrabiya other ventilation apertures to naturally tomfool lanugo the interior of buildings the use of evaporation to tomfool lanugo outdoor spaces is very recent. Evaporative cooling depends largely on how constructive we are worldly-wise to evaporate water, and a vital physical variable plays a big role in this case: surface-area-to-volume ratio, the increasingly surface zone we are worldly-wise to expose the increasingly energy we are worldly-wise to exchange.  There are basically  two ways to proceed nowadays to maximize the surface area, evaporative pads and misting. Evaporative pads are often used in evaporative cooling machines oriented to indoor cooling, these pads are unseemly and constructive but they are relatively fragile, require continuous maintenance and are most constructive in controlled environments where the airflow can be adjusted and controlled, the “wetpads” are made of porous materials that have to be maintained wet while air passes through. The peculiar structure of these materials offers the largest possible surface zone to the passing air which is then humidified and pushed into the towers or the room. This technique can’t be used for outdoor cooling unmistakably considering of the required tenancy to the ariflow that is necessary. Misting is instead widely used nowadays to lower temperatures both in buildings and unshut spaces. The use of water mist to generate passive cooling in sealed buildings is strictly related to passive (or mechanical) evaporation towers and therefore to what we have been explaining in the convective technique post in unshut spaces the use of water jets and mist is instead very efficient (of undertow depending on specific climate conditions) and forfeit effective. Although it is not strictly designed to be a bioclimatic public space, the Miroir d’eau designed by Michel Corajoud in 2006 in Bordeaux is one of the most successful examples of water evaporation usage in public space design. In this specimen a large square, just in front of the famouse Place de la Bourse, is designed to be a large water mirror where hundreds of water nozzles spray water from the floor either in the form of a fountain or of a mist cloud. In the first case, where tall gushes are produced, water evaporation is limited and the playful undercurrent dominates the large plaza, but when short mist clouds are produced the evaporation rate of the water is profoundly increased and a cooling effect is produced, although in Bordeaux climate conditions are quite mild, and hot days are limited to few occasions during summer the square is very popular. Miroir d’eau, Michel Corajoud, 2006, Bordeaux, France. Image courtesy of Tony Hisgett CC BY 2.0 Vaporizing water coming from the floor is a quite worldwide and constructive midpoint to condition large unshut spaces, the effect that everybody has noticed of a slight refreshment when passing by a fountain in a square or, plane more, while staying tropical to a waterfall is due to the very same thermodynamic principle, the small drops of water that the are created when water breaks while falling to the ground or splashing into increasingly water dramatically increase the surface-area-to-volume ratio favoring a faster evaporation, the nebulized microscopic drops evaporate instantly causing a sudden temperature waif that can be magnified by the wind or other diamond inventions. In the Sevilla 1992 EXPO this effect was widely used, large fountains and water basins were placed all virtually the EXPO withal all the main paths and squares to increment climatic comfort, in some areas plane vertical walls of water were designed to expose the visitors to an plane increasingly constructive cooling device, but the most worldwide strategy was the use of conventional fountains and mist nozzles integrated in the many untried shading roofs. Calle Torricelli, EXPO 1992, Sevilla. Image Courtesy of Mapio The diamond of these spaces has to be ripened with special care, the effectiveness of the strategies used in Seville for example varied much depending on the surrounding conditions, evaporative cooling could be very constructive if combined with the right diamond of protective and shading elements, with a correct sun and wind exposure and material use but could be moreover nullified simply by not considering the wind variation.Planeif water vaporization is widely used in many terraces, bars, public venues, etc. considering of its low cost, obtaining an constructive bioclimatic effect is harder to achieve. Ecosistema Urbano employs evaporative cooling in one of their seminal project, in the Vallecas ecoboulevard, the Ludic and the Media Tree are not equipped with evaporative towers but with water spraying nozzles that are oriented towards the circular public space underneath them. Media Tree, Ecobulevar, Ecosistema Urbano, Vallecas 2004. Image courtesy of Ecosistema Urbano The main innovation in the use of evaporation in this specimen is due to the form of the designed public space, because, as we once said, there is not much to innovate well-nigh the nozzles technology itself. Actually the most important issue is the tenancy of the water spritz and pressure as it has to be correctly regulated depending on the very dry-bulb and wet-bulb temperature, relative humidity etc. in the specimen that those variables are considered, evaporation should be instantaneous without any dripping nor condensation. In the specimen of the Media Tree temperature and humidity sensors regulate the spritz and the pressure of the water flowing to the spraying nozzles constantly adapting it to the weather conditions. In this specimen the diamond is particularly constructive not only considering of the cooling technology but mostly considering of the shadow provided by the “trees” themselves and the protective diamond of the ground section that indulge the cooled air to linger in the “inhabited” space and not stuff immediately dispersed.MistinessBuilding, Diller+Scofidio, 2002 EXPO, Switzerland. Image courtesy of theredilist. But misting has a tropical unseat with undercurrent and space, stuff one of the few atmospheric phenomena that we can directly observe fog and mist have been used moreover to pinpoint spaces, these new approaches, plane though not directly related with bioclimatic architecture, unshut the door for future developments. In one of their most famous, and paradoxically iconic, works Diller+Scofidio designed a “formless, massless, colorless, weightless, odorless, scaleless, featureless, meaningless” that was basically made of mist and nothing else. Their explication for the work was open-ended, blur-building was not only the name they gave to it but moreover a factual assertion: the definition of it was moreover blurry. This event unsalaried to redefine, or to destroy, the meaning of towers and the separation between what is a towers and what is environment, up to plane questioning what is architecture, for the first time the space was not specified by walls or windows or any stable solid material but was only an undefined mutating deject made of vaporized water. But this wasn’t in fact the first towers that used mist water to mistiness its edges (although that they are all curiously related to universal expositions, increasingly well-nigh expos here), the Pepsi pavilion in Osaka was the result of the fructuous cooperation between engineers and artists within the Experiments in Art and Technology  group and it was constantly covered with a thick layer of fog that partially hid it. In this specimen the towers was still present and firm, a touchable entity with an interior and exterior form and a “conventional” space inside but the fog sculpture, designed by the japanese artist Fujiko Nakaya who spent her life working with fog, unsalaried to the megacosm of a memorable innovative pavilion. Pepsi Pavillion, A.E.T. Osaka EXPO 1970, Osaka. Image courtesy of A.E.T. At the Seville EXPO in 1992 the so tabbed “bioclimatic sphere” was moreover one of the main attractions of the whole exhibition and surely one of the most iconic ones. A tubular sphere was placed in the middle of one of the most important boulevards of the exhibition rounded by fountains and water basins as a part of the bioclimatic diamond of the unshut space of the exhibition. Although stuff highly symbolic and recognizable this sphere as reported in the follow-up publications well-nigh the Expo was not really contributing to any bioclimatic effect on the square or the boulevard, this depended basically on the fact that the device was placed in an unshut space and the wastage of mist was not controlled in any way (a very interesting publication well-nigh the follow up of the climate workout in the EXPO 92 has been published by the same engineers that unsalaried to the diamond of the project and a short pericope can be found here). Esféra Bioclimática, EXPO Sevilla 1992. In 2016 also the famous versifier Olafur Eliasson started working with fog and misting, naturally he is not concerned with the bioclimatic function of fog but increasingly well-nigh the terms of landscape and vision and interaction between the user and the fog itself. Placed in the Versailles garden, “fog assembly”, is a ring emitting a swirling mist that involves the objects virtually and changes visitation depending on the site conditions. The user is invited to interact with the installation, crossing it and uncork part of the fog it is producing, in this sense, this artwork can be hands assimilated to a public space generating a connection with the theme of this research. November 7, 2016 posted by Marco Rizzetto Comments: (0) Public Space for the Extreme: Convection Category: ⚐ EN+architecture+city+networkedurbanism+research+sustainability+Uncategorized Tags: Bahrain+Bahrein+bio-climatic public space+climatic confort+climatic confort in public space+designing for the extreme+ecosistema urbano Digestible Gulf Stream, Philippe Rahm, Venice Biennale 2008. Image courtesy of Philippe Rahm. Con·vec·tion. Convection results from the tendency of most fluids to expand when heated. The use of convective air flows with the purpose of cooling traditional houses was not wayfarer to traditional Persian and middle eastern architecture. Joining the “simple” badgir ventilation system with increasingly refined and ramified cooling technologies was one of the most wide points reached by Persian/Iranian towers knowledge. Passive cooling systems in the Yazd desert were so wide that iced worked (and accumulated) during the unprepossessed winters could be conserved frozen until the height of the long, hot, desertic summer. In wing to sensible cooling, the cooling caused by a transpiration of air temperature but not its humidity, badgir combined with a savvy use of water can provide moreover evaporative cooling which is often increasingly constructive than sensible cooling alone. Water petrifaction cooled with badgirs in the Yazd desert, in Iran. Image courtesy of Flickr user dynamosquito, CC BY-SA In order to do so, windcatchers have to work together with a water source that supplies water which is then evaporated cooling lanugo the flowing air, this can be achieved in many ways. The first one is taking wholesomeness of the of the vault wateriness walls of the windcacher itself, if there is unbearable humidity in the underground the vault walls will be constantly wet and when the wind tower is working as an air intake the evaporation of the thin superficial layer of water will tomfool lanugo the downward incoming stream of air. The second solution is to put a water source, if available, right under the shaft of the tower, a fountain or a small pool is used in this case, sensibly and evaporatively cooling lanugo the inward wind. A unconfined example, found in Yazd, combines and refines plane increasingly these two methods placing the tower remoter than usual from the house (50 m) and then using an underground tunnel to connect the tower with the house. The tunnel, stuff underground benefits both from the earth thermal inertia and from the humidity of the soil and at the end of the tunnel a fountain is placed to tomfool lanugo plane increasingly the air. The third, and increasingly advanced, passive cooling system based on windcatchers benefits from an underground water stream to tomfool lanugo the water. Climatic Tree in the Vallecas Ecoboulevard, Madrid 2004. Image courtesy of Ecosistema Urbano. The use of convection with the purpose of cooling public space is mostly centered on evaporative towers, in a normal evaporative (cooling) tower hot water is distributed in the upper part of the tower, the sprayed hot water release heat in the undercurrent condensing and flowing lanugo to the marrow of the tower where it is placid and recirculated if it’s the case. In evaporative towers designed to tomfool the surrounding space the process is inverted, tomfool water is sprayed with nozzles at the top of the tower and rapidly evaporating absorbs energy from the air coming in from the top of the tower, the potation and increasingly humid air stuff denser descends to the marrow and causing the zone whilom it to tomfool down. The diamond of an evaporative tower worldly-wise to work properly is challenging, a single diamond flaw or dysfunction can rationalization the sprayed water to rainfall an drip. During the 1992 Seville Expo the white towers of the Avenida de Europa were originally designed just to be architectural objects landscaping one of the main avenues of the exhibition but considering a wider plan to modernize public space repletion in the whole exhibition area, technically ripened with the help of the “termotecnica” group of the university of Seville, were converted into evaporative towers to modernize the environmental conditions in the area. The design, obviously not conceived thinking well-nigh the cooling effectiveness, had to be converted a posteriori into a cooling machine. Two main modifications were made: a wind collecting cap was widow to the top of the tower and nozzles were installed inside it. For six months the exhibition remained unshut and the engineers responsible for the bioclimatic diamond of the event placid data well-nigh the functioning and the performances of the diamond (the report can be found in this book). The widow wind-collecting cap proved to be too small for the purpose it was installed and was not sufficient to “catch” unbearable wind during an stereotype summer day. The second flaw was caused by the structural diamond of the tower itself, the internal part of the chimney wasn’t smooth and wasn’t totally self-ruling either, the secondary steel structure that stiffened the tower was in fact a lattice continuously crossing the chimney section, water nozzles were installed in circles on the inner perimeter of the membrane and functioned properly but the vaporized water copiously condensed on the lattice structure causing continuous dripping under the tower itself. This was obviously a major flaw and the towers functioned only partially, moreover due to the difficult maintenance of the water nozzles. In 2004 Ecosistema Urbano realized one of its most iconic designs, the eco bulevard in Vallecas, Madrid. Each one of the three trees has variegated characteristics and each one is focused on a variegated speciality of public space, but in this specimen the most interesting is the northernmost one that was designed as a rack of twelve evaporative cooling towers grouped to form a semi-enclosed public space shaded and cooled by the bioclimatic tree. Each one of the cylinders is made of two textile tubes, the exterior and reflexive one creates a protective layer for the inner cooling mechanism, the interior tube is the evaporative tower itself. A cap, provided with three openings to collect winds from all directions, is placed on the top of the inner cylinder, right under the cap there is a fan that starts spinning when temperatures rise whilom 28ºC to increment the existing walkover or to move the air if there is no walkover at all.Well-nighat the height of the fan water is sprayed creating a fine mist and its evaporation profoundly increases the cooling effect on the air descending in the inner tube and then exiting in the semi-enclosed public space, delimited by the crown of the cooling towers. Ecobulevar- Arbol de Aire, Ecosistema Urbano, 2004, Ensanche de Vallecas, Madrid. The ecobulevar, stuff a fully designed public space, can count on many other diamond characteristics that modernize the overall functioning of the cooling towers, their efficiency and the energetic behavior. The diamond of the public space under the “tree” is very important, the enclosing section, creates a favorable space for strained climate conditioning, though it is an unshut space the “habitable” part (the first 2m from the ground) are somehow sealed by the diamond of the pavement itself, this diamond contributes to the refrigeration of the inside zone reducing the hot walkover influence at the ground level and lamister the uncontrived escape of cooled air. Solar panels contribute to the over sustainability of the fabrication generating unbearable energy to power the fans and the pump for the water. Extensive studies on the ecobulevar, demonstrated that air temperature at the ground level can be up to 9ºC potation than the air at the top of the tree and that the stereotype temperature difference is virtually 6,5ºC. The last two examples are practically based on the same diamond principle but there are huge differences concerning both the size and the technological weft of the project. The first one is the wind tower that the British architects Foster+Partners designed for the Masdar Institute in the planned municipality of Masdar, Abhu Dhabi (which they moreover planned). The Masdar institute is, as of 2016, one of the few built parts of the city, which, in turn, is facing serious minutiae and financial problems with only the 5% of the planned zone stuff completed. The cadre plaza of the institute hosts a 45m tall windtower that contributes to the climatic repletion of the plaza channeling lanugo the breezes that often spire in the desert, it is important to notice that the tower is not the only element designed to modernize the ambient conditions of the plaza but all the strategies are focused on the sustainability and the repletion of both the buildings and the public spaces, in this specimen the dumbo urban form is supposed to reproduce the one of the traditional local tracery and buildings façades are self shadowing reducing the reflected sun radiation in the square, streets are narrow, etc. Masdar Institute Courtyard showing the wind tower. Image Copyright: Nigel Young/ Foster+Partners This tower is a hi-tech interpretation of traditional ones, its size is profoundly increased (the highest windtower in Iran is 33m high) and many diamond details are engineered improvements of the original windwoter concepts. The 45m teflon sleek tube is naturally designed to offer the smallest possible resistance to the passage of the wind and to reduce the possibility of condensation to the nebulized water used for passive cooling. Computer controlled louvers opens and tropical according the direction and the speed of the incoming wind and reduces the suction caused by negative pressure on the downwind side of the tower, with this refined mechanism, and the triangular design, the tower is unchangingly exploiting the precious wind. To increase plane increasingly the cooling potential a ring of water nozzles, moreover computer controlled, is placed right at the top of the shaft transforming this tower in a evaporative cooling device. A low-tech version, though very similar in the functioning is the windtower built at the Nitzana Educational Village, in the Negev desert at the verge between Israel and Egypt. This diamond is constituted only by a vertical metal chimney topped by a stock-still wind catcher oriented towards the prevailing wind. The playful diamond is enhanced by a clever usage of the marrow part of the tower, a perforated ceramic brickwork is used to enclose a relatively generous meeting place that can host dozens of people from the local community, to reduce solar proceeds on the habitable part of the tower a sun protection is installed virtually it permanently shadowing the ventilating part. Nitzana Educational Eco-Village, Nitzana. Picture courtesy of the The Jewish Agency for Israel CC BY-SA 2.0 from flickr.   The cooling process is based on a combination of wind-catching, mechanical ventilation, and evaporative cooling. In the upper part of the shaft a large fan is installed to generate an strained windflow (power is theoretically generated by solar panels placed on the south side of the tower) and under the fan two rings of nozzles are placed to implement passive evaporative cooling. Though being quite a raw design, this cooling tower uses all the technical mechanisms to unzip a forfeit constructive cooling for the small public it has to refrigerate. Compared to the Masdar windtower this one might have a major flaw, in both the Ecobulevar and Masdar the proper cooling shaft is unchangingly protected from the uncontrived sunlight, in this specimen instead the shaft is thermally conductive and prone to overheating, But the most wide squint at what convection ways for the perception and repletion of the human soul in the space has to be find in Rahm’s “Digestible Gulf Stream”. In this project, two white sleek metal boards are placed at variegated heights in a room, one of the boards, placed on the floor, is constantly heated to 28º C, the second one, hanging at a higher point is cooled lanugo to 12ºC. The temperature difference between the two panels creates a convective flow, the air heated on the lower plan becomes less dumbo and lighter and tends to bladder towards the second object that gradually cools it lanugo causing it to descend until reaching then the warm plate. This unvarying air spritz is invisible but certainly perceivable by the human body, for the purpose of the exhibition in fact, actors with variegated suit (from naked to well dressed) were standing on the plates showing various levels of repletion and doing various activities that had a variegated impact on the heat production. Digestible Gulf Stream, Venice Biennale 2008 – Philippe Rahm. Image courtesy of Philippe Rahm. Rahm’s pioneering work in “climatic architecture” is extremely interesting, in this specimen the space is specified only by its temperature which is something we are not really used to, our normal physical semester of space (walls, windows, curtains…) is totally visual but then our repletion is unswayable by variables like air temperature, this is particularly true in public space, where usually there are no “rooms” and the use (or the avoidance) of space is increasingly often unswayable by factors like shadow, noise, comfort, etc. October 31, 2016 posted by Marco Rizzetto Comments: (2) Public Space for the Extreme: Ventilation Category: ⚐ EN+architecture+city+networkedurbanism+research+sustainability Tags: Bahrain+Bahrein+bio-climatic public space+climatic confort+climatic confort in public space+designing for the extreme+ecosistema urbano Traditional Badgir in Bahrain, photo courtesy of Emilio P. Doitzua Ven·ti·late. The natural or mechanically induced movement of fresh air into or through an enclosed space. Natural ventilation was widely used in traditional tracery to modernize the bioclimatic repletion of tents first, and then rooms and whole houses, surpassing the outstart of air conditioning, natural ventilation was one of the few techniques misogynist to lower the temperature of a sealed space exploiting the potation winds self-glorification outside or just the movement of potation air. The first and most important examples of architectures using the wind as a cooling medium to modernize indoor environmental conditions are found in Persian traditional architecture, the badgir (or mulqaf in arab) is an no-go piece of spontaneous design, using only the natural spritz of the wind – often combined with many other bioclimatic arrangements like thick insulating walls, very packed constructions, small apertures, etc. – it is capable of cooling and improving the climatic repletion of a house in the torrid deserts of Iran and the Arabic Peninsula. Badgirs in Iran’s Yazd Region – Courtesy of Alessandro Longhi CC The badgir, in well-worn and dry climates is often combined with the use of water to implement evaporative cooling improving plane increasingly its cooling topics and generating tomfool breezes plane without the presence of winds outside, in this specimen the thermodynamic effect is not based only on ventilation but moreover on convection. The windtower, or literally windcatchers, can be found as a traditional element in most of the modern Islamic world zone with few regional variations, its usage has been resulting through the month but in the western gulf region it scrutinizingly disappeared due to the rapid urban growth and modernization of the cities, in Bahrain, for example, only one warmed-over badgir remains. The traditional usage of windcatchers has been nowadays reinterpreted in many ways using both natural and mechanical aided ventilation, the unconfined Egyptian technie Hassan Fathy used it widely in his buildings, but for sure, one of the weightier practice (at least if we consider this research public-space oriented) is the Qatar University Campus designed by the Egyptian technie Kamal el Kafrawi (with the collaboration of Ove Arup) and opened in 1985. Qatar University Campus, Photo courtesy of the architect, Source: Aga Khan Trust for Culture In this groundbreaking project the use of windcatchers is systematic and characterizes the whole campus. Based on an octagonal and square plan geometry, the low rise touchable modules the projects makes large use of natural light and natural ventilation through the hundreds of windtowers that top every module and mashrabiyas to protect the classrooms from sunlight and permit the air circulation. The team of the modules juxtapose classroom modules, halls and rest spaces enriched with vegetation and constantly ventilated through the roof. Qatar University Campus external view, photo courtesy of the Aga Khan Award forTraceryIn trendy architecture, and specifically in the climatic resurgence of public space, the use of ventilation devices, expressly in high-humidity environments is quite a new thing and mechanical ventilation is often used as a cost-efficient way to overcome tropical humidity expressly in southeast Asia. Two projects are to be considered references in this case, one is Will Alsop’s Clarke Quay in Singapore and the other is Ecosistema Urbano’s Air Tree for the Shanghai Expo 2010. In this 2006, project, Alsop is tabbed to regenerate the Clarke Quay riverfront and the market with the objective of drawing tourists and locals when to the old Singapore’s waterfront. The most interesting thing of this unvigilant diamond is certainly  the bioclimatic intervention in the market, refusing to create a sealed shopping mall the technie designed a mitigated semi-external space, protected from frequent rains and with improved environmental conditions. Clarke Quay Redevelopment, Singapore. Image courtesy of Will Alsop. The market intervention is well-balanced by two main parts, the roof and the ventilation devices. The roof is constituted by giant umbrella-like structures tent the internal streets of the market, the ETFE canopies tent the streets offer protection from both the rain and solar radiation that in this climate are equally detrimental for the use of public spaces. This roof maintains the temperature in the inside square and the four streets of the market at virtually 28º Celsius when outside temperatures can rise up to a midpoint of 31ºC. But the most important and innovative full-length are the “whale-tail” shaped ventilators placed in the vertical supports of the roof structure. These big fans have a fundamental role in maintaining good environmental conditions in the market streets, considered the upper relative humidity level(year stereotype 84%) ventilation is the only way to make the air tolerable. Using slow rotation fans these sculptural objects wrack-up a unvarying walkover in the lower part of the market favoring the natural evaporation cooling of the skin. Clarke Quay Redevelopment, Singapore. Image courtesy of Will Alsop. The Air Tree that Ecosistema Urbano realized in Shanghai for the 2010 Expo is a prototype of an intervention in trendy urban space. It is conceived as a new kind of public space, a technological urban furniture, which moreover serves as a virtual node of connectivity where users can urgently interact. Its variegated technical layers enables multiple final configurations and a myriad of intermediate positions (opaque, translucent, transparent, bright, interactive, open, etc.).Variegatedtextiles for video projections indulge an unlimited combination of scenarios unsteadfast to resider needs. Its visitation can be transformed over the daily cycle, as well as through the variegated seasons. By sensors it is unfluctuating in real-time with the climatic conditions of Shanghai, constantly raising the optimal physical and energy consumption configuration to generate climatic repletion for the citizens. Air Tree Shanghai, 2010. Image Courtesy of Ecosistema Urbano To modernize climatic and environmental conditions, that in Shanghai basically have to deal with upper temperature during summer and upper relative humidity during all year, a 7.3 m diameter fan suspended by a tensegrity structure in the part-way of the space, at a height of 11.5 m provides air flows inside the space. Through a telescopic system the fan can be lowered several meters to come closer to the ground. The word-for-word position and speed at each moment is unswayable equal to the instant climatic conditions of the environment, real time monitored in the surroundings of the structure. Together with the variable configuration of the tree’s skin the spritz of air generated with the fan can powerfully modernize the environmental conditions inside the tree. Air Tree Shanghai, 2010. Image Courtesy of Ecosistema Urbano October 24, 2016 posted by Marco Rizzetto Comments: (0) Public Space for the Extreme: Shading Category: ⚐ EN+architecture+city+networkedurbanism+research+sustainability+urbanism Tags: Bahrain+Bahrein+bio-climatic public space+climatic confort+climatic confort in public space+designing for the extreme+ecosistema urbano Manama Souq – Photo courtesy of Emilio P. Doitzua Sha·ding, to imbricate or shield from uncontrived sun exposure […]Uncontrivedsolar radiation has the largest impact on the repletion in unshut spaces, the enormous energy of the sunlight can be useful in unrepealable seasons and unprepossessed climates but is often excessive and certainly unwanted in hot and well-worn climates. Sun shading, and sun protection, has been, and still is, the fundamental way to modernize a public space bio-climatic behavior. Reducing the solar radiation that reaches the people or gets reflected by the ground, both by the ways of vegetation or shading artifacts, is the most efficient way to reduce temperature and it is widely used at all latitudes from temperate areas to well-worn ones. In this short post we are going to present some projects that we consider interesting considering of their use of shadow or shadowing devices, we tried to stick to projects that make use only (or mainly) of the shadow leaving other mixed projects for later. A milestone project in the use of shading devices to create a bioclimatic space in the gulf region is the Hajj Terminal part of the King Abdulaziz International Airport, designed by the NYC based firm S.O.M. architects. The use of tensile structures, wasn’t surely something new at the time (i.e. Frei Otto tensile structures for the Olympic games in Munich stage when to 1972) but the scale and the effectiveness of this project made it one of the weightier and most replicated examples of unshut shaded spaces. Although not stuff a true public space the Hajj terminal is quite peculiar, designed to host the massive flow of pilgrims that pass by during the ritual pilgrimage to the Holy Mecca it is well-balanced of two parts, the first is a fully refrigerated terminal where the offices, customs, and luggage ultimatum areas are hosted and the second, and far increasingly interesting part, is the famous open space tent-like structure that hosts the pilgrims until their throw-away to the Mecca (the waiting time can be up to 36 hours). Hajj Terminal, S.O.M. Architects, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, 1982. Image courtesy SOM. Image © Jay Langlois | Owens-Corning The whole structure covers more than 42 hectares (60 football fields), and it’s well-balanced by 210 tent-shaped cones made of Teflon coated fiberglass fabric serried in modules of 45,72m (150ft) with an oculus on the top to indulge the heated air to escape. Published data demonstrate how constructive the diamond is, reflecting roughly the 76% of the solar radiation, the structure can maintain a notable 27 ºC temperature under the tent plane with temperatures reaching up to 54ºC outside providing moreover a soft diffused light to the whole terminal. In the late 80s, for the International Expo that took place in Sevilla, the Spanish technie José Miguel de Prada Poole designed the main pavilion for the events in the exhibition area. The “palenque” although resembling the Hajj terminal for the shape of its tensile roof is a much increasingly wide piece of bioclimatic architecture, Sevilla’s climate can be really harsh during summer and the designing teams put a big effort on the climatic repletion of both the pavilions and the unshut spaces. The palenque sits in between a pavilion and an unshut space, it was the main scene for shows and other events and it was, substantially, a covered unshut space filled with finely designed mechanisms to guarantee a upper stratum of climatic repletion plane during hot summer days. The diamond used both natural (the pavilion had no walls at all, only vegetation enclosed it a bit) and forced ventilation and air workout to ensure the weightier possible conditions to its visitors but in this specimen the most interesting part it’s its cover. The “palenque” during the Sevilla EXPO in 1992 In this project the bioclimatic diamond of the Hajj terminal was substantially improved, at a smaller scale indeed, the oculus was substituted with an improved ventilation topping cone and to subtract the temperature of the fiberglass fabric under the Andalusian sun hundreds of watering nozzles were installed virtually the cones. The water vaporizers were computer controlled vitalizing only when the temperature and humidity rose over a unrepealable value, their function was to continuously wet the roof with a fine mist, the quick evaporation of the water subtracted heat from the fabric and unsalaried to lower the transmitted heat to the underlying arena. But shading can moreover be declined at a temporary and smaller scale. An lattermost example, in this sense, is Asif Khan’s Public Space Shadow Canopy Kit, a portable kit that can be hands distributed and installed in any place without any tool or machinery, it can be moved, can be dismounted and installed in flipside place or can create a successful temporary public space. Public Space Shading Canopy Kit courtesy of Asif Khan Architects Public Space Shading Canopy Kit courtesy of Asif Khan Architects This extremely low-tech and inexpensive piece of diamond is particularly meaningful for informal areas, unused or temporary spaces that can hands be converted in playful shaded spaces. The Bab al Bahrain pavilion is a temporary public space designed by Noura Al Sayeh & Leopold Banchini in one of the most symbolic and historic sites in Manama, Bahrain. The pavilion had an no-go success during its permanence and it was constantly used and visited, it held events and plane workshops. It’s success can be attributed to a good mix of factors, the first one surely being the special value of the place and the second one the it’s good bioclimatic diamond based mainly on shadowing. Bab al Bahrain square was one of the main public spaces in the city, very tropical to the main historical souk and still unfluctuating to a natural pedestrian network, it is a privileged place but it slowly lost its status and it has been converted in a roundabout often crowded with cars and very unfriendly for the pedestrians. The first good virtue of this project is the megacosm of the public space itself, latter the crossing to the traffic and giving when this historical place to the citizens, although it was only for a limited time this demonstrated the power of this kind of intervention and the need for quality public space that this municipality has. Bab al Bahrain Pavilion, image courtesy of Eman ali The second important virtue was the diamond of a well-appointed public space using only the perks of the site, a minimal light structure and a low tech element to protect from the sun. Based on a regular grid of thin steel columns the project is basically made by its “canopy”, a light sun-reflecting fabric (generally used in greenhouses) that reflects most of the energy of the sun giving to the place a nice diffused illumination. To make this diamond really constructive the architects took wholesomeness of a large fountain once existing in the site, the fountain with its fresh water contributes to lower the temperature of the air crossing the pavilion and moreover generates a potation spot in the middle of it favoring the creating of a light breeze.   Previous posts of the series: Public Space for the Extreme: Defining theLattermostPublic Space for theLattermost@ GSD-Harvard Do you want to contribute to our research well-nigh public space for lattermost climate? Have a squint here. Page 1 of 1312345...10...»Last »