ISAAC CHEW
WEEK 1
Students are required to do investigation on ancient cities, present cities and future cities. Collect data that will help you to understand about the components and elements of a city. From these case studies, you will have a better insight on how to plan your new city.
ANCIENT CITY - PETRA, JORDAN
Petra, a city that the Nabataeans literally carved by hand from the rose-red cliffs of what is now southern Jordan. A river, now extinct, helped carve out the foundation of Petra. The Nabataeans dammed this river and changed its flow, then proceeded to carve the sandtone walls into architectural marvels. Marble slabs were used as veneer for walls and in paving the cellas of the temples, but its foundation was all carved from the natural sandstone. In an area that averages six inches of rainfall per year the Nabataeans were able to harness the rainfall and the desert springs to the extent that Petra had a daily supply of fresh water historians estimate was big enough for 100,000 people (even though the city population was only 20,000 people). They accomplished this engineering marvel through an intricate system of cisterns, pools and waterways that captured and then transported water to the city. Since Petra was built upon the remains of a river, it had only a few gateways and naturally high walls which made it easy to defend.
PRESENT CITY - VENICE, ITALY
Venice, capital of northern Italy’s Veneto region, is built on more than 100 small islands in a marshy lagoon in the Adriatic Sea. Its stone palaces seemingly rise out of the water. There are no cars or roadways, just canals and boats. Venetian Gothic is a term given to an architectural style combining use of the Gothic lancet arch with Byzantine and Moorish architecture influences. Unique to the Venetian Gothic architectural style is the desire for lightness and grace in structure. While other European cities often favored heavy buildings, Venice had always held the concern that every inch of land is valuable, because of the canals running through the city.
Venice was not built directly on the surface of the islets, but instead supported by wooden platforms kept together by wooden piles entrenched in the sea bed. Why? Because those emerging flat lands were not sturdy enough to support a building on them. For this reason, under the Venice lagoon, there are millions of wooden piles. 1,106,657 wooden piles were dug underwater, each of them measuring on average about 4 mt/11,2 ft long.
FUTURE CITY - OCEAN SPIRAL, JAPAN
The Ocean Spiral is a large underwater city that will hold 5,000 people. The design was proposed by Japan's Shimizu Corp. According to literature released by the company, expertise is being sought from Tokyo University, Japanese government ministries as well as energy firms to bring the project to life. It's design consists of a giant sphere with a diameter of 500 meters located just below the surface of the sea called the Blue Sphere. It will house businesses, hotels, and residential areas. The Sphere will be connected to a 9 mile long spiral that makes its way to the ocean floor. The spiral will be used by scientists to create the energy required to power the sphere by using micro-organisms that turn carbon dioxide into methane. Additionally, power generators situated along the spiral will use differences in seawater temperature to create energy by applying thermal conversion technologies. The company says the Ocean Spiral would take five years to build and the technology required will be ready in 15 years.
WEEK 2
Investigate and collect data and understand the type of current issue assigned to you. You will then design a city for that particular environment and type of location therefore you need to understand the situation of your site. Look into documents, article, guideline and issues regarding planning a better future city.
DISASTER RESILIENCE CITY - EARTHQUAKE
Earthquakes result from the underground movement of rocks, which is usually caused by faults. The energy released from the seismic movements results in a range of devastating earthquakes to barely felt ones. Many cities have been destroyed by earhtquakes. Today, many cities have come up with construction designs and urban planning to minimize earthquake damage. All buildings were designed to carry their own weight vertically, it may have additional weight for snow and a few other floor loads (up-and-down-loads). However, a buildings are not necessarily resistant to side-to-side loads, which may occur during an earthquake.
EARTHQUAKE RESISTANT CITY - AGADIR, MOROCCO
On February 29, 1960, a violent 14-second earthquake destroyed 80 percent of Agadir, killing over half its inhabitants. To make the new Agadir safe for its planned 50,000 inhabitants, the Moroccans consulted Swiss and French town planners and other foreign architects and builders. No building permission is given if even the smallest construction does not conform to the “Normes Agadir 1960.” These norms define all construction requirements and stress the importance of avoiding unsafe building sites such as steep slopes, water- impregnated ground, sandy soil or rubble filled soil. Rocky ground is considered best.
The specifications call for horizontal foundations but if the foundation is built on two levels, the joints should be reinforced. There must be steel wire fabric reinforcement at ground level. Joints must also be provided between the two sections of a building for they will react differently to seismic vibrations. Even the type and quality of building materials such as sand, bricks, steel, cement and water used in mixing concrete are defined. Concrete penetration must be thorough. Walls and beams must never be hollow, so pipes, drains and chimneys must be exterior and firmly fixed. Anything that juts out, such as mantelpieces, balconies or porches must be constructed as part of the walls and well reinforced . Superfluous extrusions are avoided . No corbel staircases are allowed and stairways and ele vator shafts must be reinforced and have direct exits to the roof. There must also be exterior exits from cellars and basements. Brick or concrete walls and partitions
should not exceed 16 1/2 feet without being framed in reinforced concrete. Wall thickness should never be less than 15 1/2 inches. There must be vertical framing at all corners of a building. The exact dimensions for this and all other parts of a building are fully listed. To avoid fissuration at the corners of bays, lintels must be reinforced. Minimum width of masonry piers should be 3 feet 3 inches except when specially reinforced . Floors must be solid with a minimum thickness of 4 inches. If prefabricated floors are used, they must be firmly fixed into the building’s walls. False ceilings may only be used if made of lightweight materials and firmly fixed for maximum security. There is no imposed limit to the height of any building, but because the center of gravity must be as low as possible, with the ground and first floors of more solid construction than the higher floors and the roof, few buildings will exceed three floors. The Normes Agadir 1960 insure that the new town will withstand an earthquake force of 8.5 on the Richter scale.
WEEK 3
Finally after doing a comprehensive investigation on the items above, you are required to produce a brief proposal for the “X” city through diagrams, existing images, some sketches and illustration. As an exercise the propose city is a small size city. The size of the proposed new city should be smaller than Subang Jaya (70 km 2). Therefore the new propose city should be between 30 - 50 km 2. The population is between 100,000 – 250,000. (The population of Subang Jaya is about 710, 000).
When planning for the city, whether it is for the individual or group component, students are required to consider and include the followings;
i. The geometric shape, form, pattern, hierarchy, system and structure of the city.
ii. The aim of the city, the green approach, new waste management, new technology, business plan, new initiatives etc.
iii. The main focus of the city; such as the square, garden, monuments, town hall, pavilion, civic building, axis and vistas.
iv. The zoning of the city. (government buildings, business area, commercial areas, recreational areas, education areas, religious and cultures areas, hospitals, services area, industrial area, residential, community area, port and shipping area, forest and green areas, agriculture area, hospitality and tourism etc)
v. The people, population, social issues, activities, food distribution, crime, security, education, culture and religion.
PROPOSED CITY - THE WEB
The Web is an earthquake resilient city with a size of 35km 2 and can hold up to 100,000 people. it consists of 8 large piles that reach 10 meters underground, one central pile that acts as a a green house for farming, raising farm animals, and crops. The 8 arms each hold 4 districts which are suspended above the ground and serve as the residential areas, offices, indistry, schools, etc.
In the ceter of the city is a large dome shaped greenhouse used for cultivating, farming, and animal grazing. Greeneries will be used for producing enough air for the whole city. It is called the Greendome and is one of the main attractions fro tourists.
Airports and landing pads can be found on the top of each pile and can access neighbouring cities or local pile districts by plane or helicopters. Other means of transport is by magnetic lifted trains which can only travel from district to district.
The material used for the districts have characteristics of flexibility, and strength - making it an ideal building material against earthquakes. There are 32 districts and each will hold up to 3,000 or more people. Each district has three levels. The top level will be the industrial level so smoke and other airborne waste can be quickly ventilated. The second level will hold residential areas, businesses, malls, schools, and hospitals. The lowest level will be where the sewage and waste materials get processed and recycled into either fertilizer or recycled water(if needed). The cables holding the structure will also act as a mean of transporting water, air, and electricity.
The city will run on solar powered energy collected throughout the day and water will be collected through aqueducts when it rains. Its government, court of law, prison and other governmental facilities will be placed in the central pile, below the Greendome.
