lectors: Zaha Hadid, Patrik Schumacher
topic: SIMULTANEITY & LATENCY: PERCEPION, INSIGHT, ORIENTATION
year: 2006
The increase of iconic effects in Dubai`s architecture leads to a city departed in mono-atmospheric "islands". The last logical consequence is the real development of artificial islands on the coast front of Dubai. A strategy, which aspires a holistic perception for Dubai, has to deal with the fact of separated urban developments, perceived as mono-meaning-islands. The overreaching themes of the individual development areas and the missing of an ambiguous perception, conduct to a perception of mono-programmatic use.
To tackle the patchwork-city Dubai, we propose an additional structural element. Flexible enough, to work on all architectural scales, as an implement inside of the islands for compensation of programmatic needs. As supplemental structural systems (e.g. public building complexes or infrastructure) for gradual transitions in the perception of the city. As a complement, densifications on the rest areas between the existing urban developments, for an integrated image of Dubai.
An element, what should be able to interfere with all scales and needs of a city, has to be rooted in the basic principles of urbanism. We started our investigation for a flexible element out of the understanding of a city as an infrastructural network. Thought like a plug-in for programmatic or orientational support, we focused on infrastructural cross-sections and knots. The merging of different knot-typologies leads to our 3lement, which is able through morphological shifts to blend between a wide range of knot-types.
