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What is "Creating an identity for cities" about?

This article covers topics related to Urban Design, Urban Planning, Concept Architecture. Break the generic

Creating an identity for cities

Break the generic

5 min read·29 reads

UNI published Results under Urban Design, Urban Planning, Concept Architecture on Dec 9, 2019

Overview

The 21st century is known for the age of globalization. The process of urbanization in cities, the interaction between people and integration among businesses & society are no longer driven just by local forces. It’s a well-known fact that data-driven technologies are playing a major role in shaping us and the kind of cities we live in today.

These forces of technology, for all the good they are doing well to us on one hand and are powerfully speeding up the homogenization of culture in the other.

Cities have been seen as an incubator for creative ideas and human evolution in the past. However, with our technological evolution, the question one must seek is retaining this distinct identity of a city as an incubator of creative ideas in the next century. If skylines around the world are looking too much the same, is this because the new and important buildings are done by the big names (designers) from far away and not by the locals or the opposite is true? Not only skyscrapers but, museums, civic centres, concert halls, bridges, libraries, opera houses all give cities part of their identity. This makes us ponder, how do we reclaim our cities to stand out from each other in the next centuries. What are the urban programs that can be useful to the inhabitants and can architecture be an icon instead of an object?

Competition

X-Plor by Uni launched one of a kind Tri Competition Series based in Tokyo, Los Angeles, and Shanghai to challenge designers and architects in discovering the potential of making cities di-generic for the coming century.

The jury for the competition consisted of esteemed designers, professionals and academicians from around the world. The Lead Jurors for the competitions were as follows:

Tetsuya Matsumoto, Head Architect Designer, KTX Archi LAB, Japan

Dirk U. Moench, Architect, INUCE • Dirk U. Moench, China

Waleed Arafa, Founder & Principal, Dar Arafa Architecture, United Kingdom

Walid Ghantous, Architect, BLANKPAGE Architects, Lebanon

Juanjo López De La Cruz, Founding Partner, Estudio Sol89, Spain

Tim Rowley, Associate Director, Walters & Cohen Architects, United Kingdom

Rafael Alejandro Plascencia Garcia, Director General, 3Arquitectura y Asociados, Mexico

Zoltan Tima, Deputy CEO, KOZTI, Hungary

Ales Znidarsic, Principal Architect, Multiplan arhitekti, Slovenia

Chris Baribeau, Principal Architect, modus studio, United States

Team212019 12 4T18 01 000000

Some of the best projects from the competition are as follows:

Joint Winning Project: Bank of Shanghainese

Linguatheque, Shanghai

By: Ruijun Li and Jishi pan

Description: This project proposes a bank of Shanghainese language, a bank of Shanghai memory. The philosophy of this design is to create an urban strategy that reacts to the ever-losing local vitality and identity under the background of highly developed communication technology and restores Shanghai's generic trends. We are interested in exploring how to learn from the past, and reform the existing urban condition, rather than draw a total imaginary new project on a blank paper. The Shanghai slums inspire us by their great variety of typologies and the thriving vitality of street lives. In there, streets can be a kitchen, parking, a shop, a playground, and actually, it can be anything but a street. The purpose of this project is to bring the street back to the community and re-active its vitality.

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Winning Project: SPHERE

Celebration of faith, Tokyo

By: Kutlu Bal & Hakan Evkaya

Description: The sphere is like the sacred and divine form of space. It is the final stage in the transformation of energy that follows a divine purpose. The sphere is the most efficient form to store and spread energy. All planets and stars follow the same as if they have a shared code of consciousness. This transformation is a manifestation of common destiny. Concept: Originating from one same root, all religions state the same messages just like everything else- connected and synchronised. The sphere is a primary cosmic form that can watch and witness.

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Winning Project: Millieu

Global Entertainment Nucleus, Los Angeles

By: Antonio Carbajal, Michel Horan & Joey Ali

Description: Atmospheric membranes are articulated above the sunken island forming an enclosure that protects, purifies and heals the environment. The milieu is a GLOBAL ENTERTAINMENT NUCLEUS and is the epitome of entertainment, a cultural icon, a sports hub, an attraction, a celebration of cinema, an interminable show.

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People’s Choice: MOUNTAIN

Linguatheque, Shanghai

By: Suoao Wang

Description: Only when the buildings are integrated with cultural consensus will they be resonant and touching. Therefore, temperature occurs only when the soul of the building touches the soul of the people. Shanghai, a young city, serving as the centre of China's economy, bears the impact of many cultures. Modern and contemporary western culture can be seen everywhere. You will find that if you walk on the street, you will not know that this is a Chinese city. As China's gate facing the world, Shanghai should carry the important task of publicizing Chinese culture. Mountains carry too much of ancient Chinese culture, while poems and paintings are the most inseparable elements of the mountain cultural carriers. Therefore, mountains, especially magnificent mountains, have become a universal cultural consensus. Therefore, I think the future architecture of Shanghai should return to history and culture, making it become a carrier of people's feelings and culture, instead of the culture itself. Culture is invisible, only some kinds of carriers can foil the culture. So from big cities to small buildings, they all should become the carrier of culture rather than culture itself.

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People’s Choice: Spiritual Journey to Oneness

Celebration of faith, Tokyo

By: Yoshie Takeo

Description: The building is a sacred place for people of all faiths, religions or backgrounds to connect with the Divine and their higher self (the real self, awakened aspects of oneself, assessing deeper truths and knowledge). It is designed beyond experience with a series of spaces that allows visitors to experience the process of spirituality. The concept behind the design is based on spirituality. We are all spiritual beings, where everything in existence is connected and we are one. There is no prejudice, judgment or duality. We incarnated to planet Earth in our physical form to express our divine self (union of masculine and feminine energies) through human experience. When we activate the channel from within, known as Christ or Unity consciousness (state of awareness of our own Divine power and enlightenment) we open up a direct connection and become a conduit to the Divine, where we experience the Oneness of the Universe. Through this spiritual link, we learn to tap into our own power to co-create our own reality and attain unconditional love, peace, support and guidance from the Divine. The design is to celebrate this understanding and to help everyone raise their vibration and consciousness in the process of experiencing the space.

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People’s Choice: Trinity

Global Entertainment Nucleus, Tokyo

By: Hsiao Chiao Peng

Description: The TRINITY utilizes hydro-bionic and magnetic power, self-generating a free-form G.E.N. (Global Entertainment Nucleus) in the ocean. With this future stadium, we focus on how to use architecture to fuse the worlds and experiences of both the physical and the virtual.

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Editorial Choice: Ctrl+Scroll

Global Entertainment Nucleus, Tokyo

By: Boon Hau, Ke Zhou, and Hao Li

Description: The project challenges the concepts of generic and iconic but imagining one in the realm of the other. It understands how external factors such as culture, nature, etc. helps in creating iconic architecture out of generic forms.

We delve into the process of 'Japanization' here, and position it where its inherent definition changes in the face of immigration.

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Editorial Choice: Transcendence

Global Entertainment Nucleus, Tokyo

By: Ahd El Din

Description: Transcendence... It is an attempt to capture the city from an alternative perspective, or a set of perspectives. following the narrative of three characters, moving from the perception of the city to the transformative experience of the building reaching for the final conclusion of each of the three characters in their search for transcendence.

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Editorial Choice: hashtag#trash#ShanghaiCarnival

Linguatheque, Shanghai

By: Wanting Dong and Shi Chen

Description: In this future of Industry4.0, we experimentally explore how Shanghai can respond to our needs for the awareness of trash sorting and recycling, which is a recent local policy that is contextualized by the global trend of eco-cities. We create a complex infrastructure that incorporates the function of a trash facility and the culture of a local amusement park.