Vertical Village Future Evolutionary Urbanism Exhibition
The Village Maker is a systematic attempt to explore abundant possibilities of exciting, vigorous, community-base urban villages that are structurally safe, economically feasible and sustainable. This Master class/ MSc2 Workshop was staged at the Berlage Institute Rotterdam between 3 and 12 June 2010. It resulted in 36x 1:100 models and a study on the software ‘Village Maker’. Multiple experts and tutors worked together with the participants to set the parameters: from structure, climate, energy, access, collectivity, and cost-efficiency.
The program started with an opening conference, mid- and final reviews, and ended in a post-production that will result in an exhibition at the Museum of Tomorrow in Taipei and coming T?F publications. From 7 October to 20 December, the Village Maker is exhibited in the Oostserre, BK City, TU Delft.
25,200 cubes
12,240 elements
48 participants
36 models
10 days
8 groups
6 parameters
5 masters
3 instructors
2 reviews
1 genetic map
1 mini software
1 end drinks
Urban village, especially in Asian metropolises and in many developing countries, is seen today as the last resource of communities in the city. Apart from social issues, urban village reserves highly interesting spatial characteristics: compactness, density, intermingled infrastructure, semi-public zones, and other qualities that a generic city does not have. On the other hand, an urban village may generally lack proper sanitation, lighting, energy, safety and structural stability.
In the past decade, in response to the pressure caused by the growing population, many large buildings have emerged in numerous Asian cities, and they have gradually replaced those traditional, independent, and organic urban landscapes.
With this master class, we would like to explore the possibilities of extending the notion of a village to a city construction, by experimenting what can happen if we take into account structure, light and air, energy, access, cost efficiency, and community separately and altogether. Would this be able to help the village’s status to exist and to flourish?
We experimented on the reactionary element of village building:
How is a new layer of development responding to an existing one? How can an existing layer adapt to the new layer? What kinds of negotiations are possible?
The Village Maker aims to serve as a tool for government, planners and communities to retain a certain characteristic of the villages yet with the ability to position them within the globalized city.
The Village Maker started with exploring six basic parameters:
1. structure (construction, material)
2. climate (light, air, humidity)
3. energy (electricity, water, waste pipes)
4. access (lifts, stairs, ramps)
5. collectivity (private, semi-private, shared spaces)
6. economy/ cost-efficiency (value-height ratio)
All experts in coordination with the tutors worked together with the participants in determining the six starting points.
Six groups worked on the models in line with the process of establishing the parameters by the software group. Each group specialized in one parameter, but continued to add parameters with a focus on the main parameter. Every day, each group produced new models, which are based on the previous models, by reacting on the previous group’s intervention. Which parameters are synchronizable? Which parameters contradict, yet when there is a possible solution may produce exciting results?
Software
The software serves as a tool to organize the line of thoughts. The parameters start from simple to complex. The software does not stand alone; it is in direct relationship with the models. They facilitate the argumentation behind the models. They feed the models and vice versa (the models feedback the logic).
Models
The 36 models show the evolution of parameters with 6 different colours representing each group. We worked with 25,200 cubes in total, with 12,240 multiple parts.
The models are building up. Each model (starting with 200 cubes) was transferred to another group and added a layer of 200 cubes until it reached 1200 cubes.
For a set of 6 models:
day 1 200 200 200 200 200 200
day 2 200 200 200 200 200
day 3 200 200 200 200
day 4 200 200 200
day 5 200 200
day 6 200
Credits
Tutors:
Winy Maas (The Why Factory, MVRDV)
Daliana Suryawinata (The Why Factory)
Ulf Hackauf (The Why Factory)
Jeroen Zuidgeest (MVRDV)
Experts:
Peter Bart and Tineke Groenewegen (Blauwhoed) – economy
Lieven de Cauter (Katholieke Universiteit Leuven) – community
Jaap Wiedenhof (ARUP)– climate, energy, accessibility
Rob Nijsse (ABT, TU Delft) – structure
Daniel Dekkers (cThrough) – software
Juries/ Critics:
Vedran Mimica (Berlage Institute)
Annette Gigon (Gigon Guyer)
Roemer van Toorn (Berlage Institute)
JUT Foundation for Arts & Architecture
Alfredo Brillembourg (Urban Think Tank)
Hubert Klumpner (Urban Think Tank)
Hui Hsin Liao (MVRDV)
Alexander Sverdlov (The Why Factory)
Participants: Alfred Ho, Eduard Lepp, Zhiwei Lu, Chao Yue, Lingxiao Zhang, Ulrich Gradenegger, Magnus Jørgenson, Timur Karimullin, Hyun Soo Kim, Riemer Postma, Yushang Zhang, Juan Carlos Aristizabal, Maria Iglesias Martinez, Sangbo Park, Giorgio Ponzo, Yuichi Watanabe, Maarten Filius, Karel van der Kaaij, Gretha Kuurstra, Pei-Lin Hsieh, Chu Liu, Neslihan Parmaksizoglu, Sijme van Jaarsveld, Vesna Jovanovic, Wannes Peeters, Rajiv Sewtahal, Ji Hyun Woo, Tzu-Hua Wu, Chien-Ting Chen, Barbara Costantino, Chun-Yu Hsu, Ivan Kurniawan Nasution, Christy Sze, Zhouer Wang, Na An, Raquel Drummond, Andreas Faoro, Sebastian Haufe, Samia Henni, Taiwan Kim, Sarah Nichols, Stefano Pendini, Eliot Rosenberg, Kuba Skalimowski, Jung Hyun Woo
Exhibition Team:
Ulf Hackauf, Daliana Suryawinata, Jeronimo Mejia, Annaik Deceuninck, Ting Yan Mok, Garyfalia Pitsaki, Jonathan Telkamp, Dante Borgo, Anders Sletbak, Alexandra Vlasova, Igor de Vetyemy, Seung-min Ko, Zhou Bo, Alfred Ho, Eduard Lepp, Timur Karimullin, Yushang Zhang, Rajiv Sewtahal, Christy Sze, Neslihan Parmaksizoglu, Alberto Minero, Riemer Postma
Photography:
Frans Parthesius, Mick Morssink, Winy Maas, Ulf Hackauf, Daliana Suryawinata