CU1803

CASE study
Futurescapes
Going 'off-grid' with the winning designs of the Yilong Futuristic City Competition from Japanese
architects TAKENAKA Corporation in collaboration with Hong Kong-based Enzyme
concentrate lines of flow (much like the
Linear City) and form them into loops to
make it easy for people to circulate. This
would also reduce waiting times and save
energy consumption due to speed
reductions. In addition, agile coordination
between electric vehicles, medical care
and distribution using the city's big data,
and delivery of various public services
optimises mobility for people and their
different needs. This allows urban
conurbations to avoid unnecessary
construction and controls the city's
expansion and contraction in the future in
a flexible and delicate manner amid a
balanced urban network.
If we are going to cater for increasing
urbanisation throughout the world, we
can no longer rely on traditional city
forms to handle increased populations.
Radical thinking is needed to plan highdensity
environments that relate to
changing work patterns, transport needs
and social requirements. Organised by
Yilong District Management Committee,
Guizhou Louna Architects Commune
Cultural Development and the UED
Magazine (Urban Environment Design
Magazine), the Yilong Futuristic City
Competition was won by architects
TAKENAKA Corporation, whose entry
"Yilong, Loop Linear City" provides
solutions that we can all learn from.
Loop Linear City was developed by
ARCHICAD-based TAKENAKA
Corporation's Computational Design
Team from their main office in Osaka, in
collaboration with the team from Hong
Kong-based architects Enzyme, and is in
a lively, fluid and tremendously
contemporary form. It is not just some
banal gesture of the type that
occasionally surfaces in such
competitions, but rather is developed
from a deep analysis of the urbanistic
concepts that have taken foothold in the
last 200 years. The team studied the
fundamental differences of 'Grid City'
and 'Linear City' models, the latter based
on those proposed by Arturo Soria in
Spain and Nikolay Alexandrovich
Milyutin in Russia.
GRID AND LINEAR CITIES
In a Grid City, for instance, delays for
people and vehicles create an enormous
amount of 'waiting time' in places where
lines of flow intersect. In comparison, the
Linear City was designed as an urban
plan with an elongated urban formation,
consisting of a series of functionally
specialised parallel sectors, eliminating
blockages and easing the flow of people
and transport. Generally, as well, the city
would run parallel to a river and be built
so that the dominant wind would blow
from the residential areas to the industrial
strip. (Ever wondered why major UK
towns have affluent suburbs to the South
West and industrialised areas to the
North East - something to do with the
prevailing winds?).
Extending the philosophy further, the
Loop City concept proposes to
THE ORIENTAL LANDSCAPE
A strong aesthetic ethos enabled the
design team to combine the ideas of the
Linear City with the concept of "The
Oriental landscape". The East Asian
landscape and its harmony with a
modern city, they say, is not simply made
up of forms and colours. Like the Yilong
District, it consists of multiple layers with
mountains in the distance, the pastoral
scenery in front of them, and the
production activities and everyday lives
that take place there.
As the next step after city plans of the
past such as the Linear and Loop City,
therefore, they proposed the Loop Linear
City, based on traffic and infrastructure
using urban big data. The Loop Linear
City Project proposes three archetypes
that are combined into the loop system
creating the different activity areas. They
are as follows:
(1) High-rise district
High-rise buildings are still an effective
way to address city efficiency and cater
for future increases in population and
functional burden. Public facilities such
as schools, hospitals, and gathering
16
March/April 2018