CASE STUDY Unite d`habitation - ARCH523

CASE STUDY
Unite d’habitation
Project name: Unite d’habitation
Architect:Le Corbusier
City / Location:Marseille, France
Year Designed / Built:1947 /1952
ington Park, the role of the block becomes
more evident. Further, zooming into diagrams of the details of s
Area: 386,130sq ft
Floors: 12
Units: 366
DESCRIPTION
After World War II, the need for housing was at an unprecedented high. The
Unite d’ Habitation in Marseille, France
was the first large scale project for the
famed architect, Le Corbusier. In 1947,
Europe was still feeling the effects of the
Second World War, when Le Corbusier
was commissioned to design a multifamily residential housing project for the
people of Marseille that were dislocated
after the bombings on France. Completed in 1952, the Unite d’ Habitation was
the first of a new housing project series
for Le Corbusier that focused on communal living for all the inhabitants to shop,
play, live, and come together in a “vertical
garden city.”
CASE STATEMENT
The Unite d’ Habitation was a first, both
for Le Corbusier and the ways in which
to approach such a large complex to
accommodate roughly 1,600 residents.
Especially since Le Corbusier did not
have many buildings of such a substantial scale when compared to the villas.
When designing for such a significant
number of inhabitants natural instinct
is to design horizontally spreading out
over the landscape, rather Le Corbusier designed the community that one
would encounter in a neighborhood
within a mixed use, modernist, residential high rise. Le Corbusier’s idea
of the “vertical garden city” was based
on bringing the villa within a larger volume that allowed for the inhabitants to
have their own private spaces, but outside of that private sector they would
shop, eat, exercise, and gather together.
With nearly 1,600 residents divided
among eighteen floors, the design requires an innovative approach toward
spatial organization to accommodate the
living spaces, as well as the public, communal spaces.
Interestingly enough, the majority of the
communal aspects do not occur within
the building; rather they are placed on
the roof. The roof becomes a garden terrace that has a running track, a club, a
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, a kindergarten, a gym, and a shallow
pool. Beside the roof, there are shops,
medical facilities, and even a small hotel
distributed throughout the interior of the
building. The Unite d’ Habitation is essentially a “city within a city” that is spatially, as well as, functionally optimized
for the residents.
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Unite d’ Habitation has since been the
example for public housing across the
world; however, no venture has been
as successful as the Unite d’ Habitation simply because the Modular
proportions that Corbusier established
during the project. Nonetheless, Le
Corbusier’s first large scale project
has proved to be one of his most significant and inspiring.
CASE STUDY
Simmons Hall
MIT Campus
Project Name: Simmons Hall
DESCRIPTION
CASE STATEMENT
Architects: Steven Holl Architects
Simmons Hall, designed by Steven
Holl and architects, is an undergraduate dorm that holds 350 students. In
addition, it also contains a night cafe,
street level dining, and an 125-seat
theater. The building is 382 feet long
and ten stories tall. Each single room
or the dorm contains a grided pattern
of nine operable windows. The depth
of these windows 18” into the wall
provides shade from the hot summer’s
sun and allows ample heat gain in
the winter.5 One explanation for the
different colors coated on the head
and jamb of the windows is to denote
the different houses within the building.7 Another deals with stress which
will be discussed along with structure.
The colors are very visible from some
angles and not as visible from others.
Holl’s design solution was that the
building would metaphorically work as
a sponge. It would be a porous structure that would soak up light through a
series of large openings that would cut
into the building so that light would filter
through in section. These breaks in section would then become main interactive spaces for the students, providing
views onto different levels. In his original
drawings, Holl referred to these breaks
as the building’s “lungs” as they would
bring natural light down while circulating
air up.
Location: Cambridge, Massachusetts
Local Architect: Perry Dean Rogers &
Partners
Project Year: 1999-2002
Structural Engineer: Simpson Gumpertz
& Heger
The model at the bottom was an early
model depicting the sponge or porous
concept idea behind Simmons Hall’s
design. The porous parts of the building
serve as atria to allow ventilation to flow
up through the building and to serve as
a common area for students to gather.
Shown here are two atria within the
building.
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Much of Holl’s idea for Simmons Hall can be traced to
a single word - “porosity”. The idea was supposedly
inspired by the sponge he was bathing with one morning. The Sponge concept allows for the transformation
of the building into a series of programmatic and biotechnical functions. Sculptural fluid spaces within the
building connect residential houses vertically and promote student interaction. These large porous sections
also serve as “lungs” for the building by allowing light
to enter and serving as a means of vertical ventilation.
You can see through the floor plans that similar holes
begin to link floors together vertically within the different houses in the building. You can also begin to see
how systems work together as a whole.
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CASE STUDY
WEST 57
Project Name: W 57
Architects: BIG
Size:80.000 m2
Location:Manhattan, New York, USA
Project Area: 870,000 sqf
Hight:467ft Peak
Landscape Architects: Starr Whitehouse
Structural: Thornton Tomasetti
Status:Ongoing
DESCRIPTION
BIG’s inaugural project in NY is a hybrid
between the European perimeter block
and a traditional Manhattan high-rise,
West 57th has a unique shape which
combines the advantages of both:
the compactness and effi ciency of a
courtyard building providing density, a
sense of intimacy and security, with the
airiness and the expansive views of a
skyscraper. By keeping three corners
of the block low and lifting the northeast corner up towards its 467 ft peak,
the courtyard opens views towards the
Hudson River, bringing low western sun
deep into the block and graciously preserving the adjacent Helena Tower’s
views of the river.
CASE STATEMENT
The form of the building shifts depending on the viewer’s vantage point.
While appearing like a pyramid from
the West-Side-Highway, it turns into a
dramatic glass spire from West 58th
Street. The courtyard which is inspired
by the classic Copenhagen urban
oasis can be seen from the street and
serves to extend the adjacent greenery of the Hudson River Park into the
West 57th development. The slope of
the building allows for a transition in
scale between the low-rise structures
to the south and the high-rise residential
towers to the north and west of the site.
The highly visible sloping roof consists
of a simple ruled surface
perforated by terraces—each one
unique and south-facing. The fi shbone
pattern of the walls are also refl ected
in its elevations. Every apartment gets
a bay window to amplify the benefi ts of
the generous view and balconies which
encourage interaction between residents
and passers-by.
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CASE STUDY
Taipei City Wall
Project Name:Taipei City Wall
Client:Taiwan Land Development Corporation
Collaborators: CPP Wind ARUP
Size:82.000 M2
Location:Taipei, TW
DESCRIPTION
Simply by stacking small communities on top of each
other you maintain the proximity to green free space and
get the benefit from living in a tower such as view, light
and urban density. The result is a threedimensional checkerboard where each 15x15x15meter box overlaps enough
for an elevator to reach the highest floors.
CASE STATEMENT
Throughout the thirty floors, five large gardens allow the
residents to play, swim and relax. The five gardens each
have a unique appearance to accommodate all the needs
of a modern community; a green forest where you can
enjoy the spectacular view of the city, a Japanese stone
garden for relaxation and immersion, a wooden pool
garden where you can go for a swim, a playground for the
kids and finally a rooftop terrace on the 25th floor.
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CASE STUDY
Elephant & Castle
Eco-Towers
Project Name: Elephant & Castle Eco-Towers (Residential)
Architects: Ken Yeang
Areas of Tower #1:
Total gross area: 276,304 sq.ft.
Total nett area: 232,095 sq.ft.
Total area of plantation & circulation:44,209 sq.ft.
Areas of Towers #2&3:
Total gross area: 95,765 sq.ft.
Total nett area: 79,485 sq.ft.
Total area of plantation & circulation:16,280 sq.ft.
Location: Elephant & Castle, London
Nos. of Storeys:
Tower #1 - 35 storeys
Tower #2&3 - 12 storeys
Date Start: 2000 (Design)
The project ecological features :
Over 1 million sq.ft. shopping and lesure
3,500 new homes for sale
Over 1,100 new social homes
New public transport intechange
500,000 sq.ft. of offices
One hotel
800,000 sq.ft. worker accommodation
New community facilities
Three major parks (one of 15 acres)
DESCRIPTION
The Elephant and Castle regeneration project was jointly designed
by a number of consultants. A new railway interchange divides the
site into two. The left hand side of the railway track was developed
by Foster & Partners and the right hand side by TR Hamzah &
Yeang, HTA Architects and Benoy Limited. The design takes the
model of a general geographical area of a city, with its inherent systems, zoning and social infrastructure and inverts it into skyscraper
buildings.
The skyscraper and its retail and commercial base is seen as a
microcosm of the city, containing within itself the inherent elements
of a city block, i.e. parks, shops, entertainment centers, community
facilities and housing etc. The “City-in-the Sky” concept provides
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for:•
opportunities for local employment through mixture of use,
both on ground and upper levels
•
A healthy mix of residents
within the same building. Through
“vertical zoning”, resident types
are grouped according to accommodation preferences (single units,
family units, luxury apartments),
yet common facilities (e.g. parks,
shopping streets etc.) are shared.
•
close proximity to basic
amenities, such as the local grocery store, postal boxes, chemist
etc. These are all located within
the ground development and/or
within the tower.
•
a healthy landscaped environment, with spatial progressions
of public open spaces (parks in
the sky) to semi-private (entrance
courts) to private open spaces
(balconies).
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CASE STATEMENT
The design seeks to re-create
conditions on the ground up-inthe-sky, with features such as
an entrance lobby, light wells
and balconies for every unit and
shared secondary and tertiary
landscaped open spaces and sky
pods within groups of housing in
the form of sky courts and communal pods.