Welcome to Sandy James as guest editor to Price Tags for this week.
And further to her post below, where she references Brent Toderian’s crticism of Bjarke Ingels’s work: “Bjarke needs to learn how to work on the ground plane to mesh his buildings into active streetscapes.”
Here’s an example from one his most famous buildings in Orestad, Copenhagen:
And further to her post below, where she references Brent Toderian’s crticism of Bjarke Ingels’s work: “Bjarke needs to learn how to work on the ground plane to mesh his buildings into active streetscapes.”
Here’s an example from one his most famous buildings in Orestad, Copenhagen:
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One of my favourite definitions of “great architecture”: 50% of the problem solved, brilliantly.
Is that a flood plain perhaps? Sometimes the first floor has to be “sacrificial”.
That was my first thought, too.
Is that a flood plain perhaps? Sometimes the first floor has to be “sacrificial”.
What could be more active on the ground plane than public space under a building?
I can’t find anything specifically about a sacrificial ground floor, but there is plenty of information about the 2011 flood that flooded much of low-lying land in Copenhagen (and from being by the VM house, I know it is on low land, next to 2 canals) … so it is entirely reasonable to suggest that this would be a sacrificial first floor. Maybe if someone reads danish they can find more than my quick google does: http://www.ramboll.com/projects/germany/copenhagen-cloudburst
So, if this is, indeed, the reason for a mostly vacant first floor, is Brent’s critique warranted? What is the balance between social and safety in this regard? Venice deals with this by keeping shops on the ground floor, but making living space on the mezzanine level or higher, but many buildings in the netherlands are on stilts … I would suggest that it is a cultural question to some extent. Pure pragmatism would suggest less active street, more safety, but this is a good discussion to have (especially for everything which might be built here in say False Creek Flats).
The Globe article was very interesting and the designs are exciting but the results seem disappointing when implemented. That 8 building for example, what a great idea to have a ramp all the way up and the promotional info makes it all look exciting and neighborly but if you look online for the video you find a dull mostly empty building. Is it the building or the location? Brent Toderian’s comment that he “was a fan of this hot young architect, Mr. Ingels, from the second floor up, but he didn’t know how to land a building” seems very prescient. Will be interesting to see how Vancouver house and the public space planned for under the bridge lands.
According to that article Brent also introduced Ingles to Ian Gillespie, essentially bringing them together to design and build one of the most unusual building s around. I would hope the young Ingles learned from Brent’s comments, and from what I can tell from the drawings and the push for designed public space under the adjacent bridge deck, he may have succeeded.
I just hope the bridge concrete is intact and 20 kg chunks don’t spall off like they did on the other side of the Creek, missing me by about 5 seconds.
Looking around on street view, it also seems that the covered area seems to be entirely full of bikes now. That seems like a pretty pragmatic use of space. But what do I know, I’m an engineer, we make things functional without much window dressing.