Rio de Janeiro (March 8, 2010) - The advance of
technology and science continues to redefine our lives with
exciting and mesmerizing results. However, the rushing growth we
have witnessed over the past century has left us with a global
ecosystem struggling to survive. Increasing levels of pollution and
rapidly expanding urban borders are eating up vital agricultural
lands and forests - placing the world's ecosystems under enormous
strain.
This is a proposal for an archetype that aims to help restore
the harmony of human existence on Earth. Now more than ever
humanity must learn to live in balance with our natural world
before we do more irreparable damage. This goes beyond building
smarter and more efficient buildings. It will touch how we
structure our lives and how we organize our cities.
The site of this proposal is located on the dense urban
waterfront of Rio de Janeiro and is to be completed in time for the
2016 Olympics. With a worldwide spotlight held on Rio, it is a
perfect opportunity to draw attention to innovations in
sustainable architecture.
The structure, named Cidade Suspensa (Suspended City in
Brazilian Portuguese), utilizes a massive suspension system to lift
an intricate and dense city-like infrastructure off the Earth's
surface. Two structural pylons anchored on the ground support a web
of tendons and framework that reaches into the adjacent ocean.
Eco Factor -Sustainable
architecture designed to have minimal impact on the environment.
Designed by Coolie Calihan and Charles Johnson, the Cidade Suspensa
(Suspended City in Brazilian Portuguese), aims to refine urban
architecture and bring it in harmony with nature and the
environment. The site of this proposal is located on the dense
urban waterfront of Rio de Janeiro and is to be completed in time
for the 2016 Olympics.
This levitation system minimizes the footprint of structure on
the ground, expanding opportunities for Rio's future developments
without expanding its borders. More over, this solution, with
proper policy, opens up urban planning possibilities to relocate
favelas (Rio's squatter settlements) into these structures to
reclaim some of the city's urban land for reforestation.
The aerodynamic sweeping form of the skin takes advantage of the
tropical climate and ocean breezes of Rio de Janeiro. During the
day, the land mass heats up considerably faster than the ocean
waters, causing the air above the land to rise while the cooler
ocean air rushes in to take its place. The sculpted aerodynamic
form is determined by a passive strategy to scoop naturally
occurring breezes into the interior portions of the structure,
drastically reducing energy costs for air-conditioning.
The structural pylons support all of the mechanical and
transportation systems as well as the "biomass generators". Located
on the north side, biomass generators take advantage of emerging
technologies in hydroponics, grey and black water recycling, waste
composting, fish farming and other agricultural sciences.
They are conceived as public infrastructure not only for this
structure, but to the immediate surrounding urban population. They
create a sustainable and flexible food source that can be directly
distributed to the city inhabitants within hours of harvesting,
saving energy from minimal food transportation and processing.
The forms within the suspended city infrastructure
are divided into three adjacent layers, increasing in complexity as
they build up and outward. Voids left from the structural web
create a variety of open spaces for apartments, green spaces,
markets, and other urban environments to take shape. The largest
program elements will fill the bottom layer with intermediate
projects occupying the middle layer, leaving the smallest projects
to the upper layer.
Private, public, and government program elements will fill these
suspended layers over time with immediate consideration for the
2016 Olympics. Just as a city block never stays the same forever,
sectors of the Cidade Suspensa will grow, morph, and evolve
organically over time.
This month the
Fifth Session of the World Urban Forum (Rio 2010) will meet in Rio de Janeiro under
the theme banner of "The right to the City - bridging the urban
divide." The Forum, established by the United Nations to
examine rapid urbanization and its impact on communities, cities,
economies, climate change and policies, was hosted in Vancouver in
2006, the city that played host to the first Human Settlements
Conference (1976) that gave rise to the UN HABITAT Programme and
the World Urban Forum.