New Songdo International City

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Green Motion City
This urban design project was an entry for the Incheon Urban Design Completition. It was designed by me and my friends Ryan Felix, Jiffy Lee, and Meaghan Mendonca, over a few months in early summer 2009. Below the fold is a series of images from the display panel, formatted to fit your screen. Enjoy!

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Alliance Tower

Alliance Tower is a premier office tower design conceived in 2006 when I sketched the concept on a peice of paper in one of my high school classes. I even made a quick model then, but this summer, I decided to test my 3d Studio skills and turn it into a real architectural visualization.

The tower is 42 stories and 144m high. It features a three storey, circular lift hall sheathed in glass, with a radiant pattern of light wells to fully naturally illuminate the interior of the space. The spire tapers geometrically, inspired by the layers and petals of a flower. Most of the usable floor space is within a few metres of a window, with great views from any spot in the tower.

I learned a couple cool things while doing this project. Number 1, glass curtain walls look great in the model when all the hardware (support lattice, etc) is included. Number 2, it is hard to get a good feel for the services (elevators/stairs) needed for the tower; I think I may have overdone the number of elevators.

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A Digital City 3.0

Welcome to A Digital City version 3! My goal for the new layout was to permit a more visually immersive experience, especially with the custom background feature. In the coming months, I will be updating my portfolio to include all the goodies I’ve been working on recently, so look forward to it!

If you have any feedback (especially negatives!), let me know in the comments section. Otherwise, enjoy!

My Visit to Hong Kong: Part 3

Busy with their daily life on chaotic streets, the residents of Hong Kong do not seem to care very much about the buildings above their heads. To a visitor, however, they are absolutely awe inspiring, if not mind boggling. According to Wikipedia, Hong Kong is the most vertical city in the world with 7,650 skyscrapers. In some areas, this level of density is enough to cause real overcrowding at street level, especially in key shopping districts.

Built Form :: Architecture is the first thing people notice in a city, even if they don’t realize it.

  • A large part of Hong Kong is made up of rather nondescript, 10-20 storey tall tenement blocks that are often dirty and discoloured.
  • Besides that, there are many examples of excellent planning in the city. Every space is used to the fullest, and places that would be ignored in North America are often turned into gardens or sculptural features.
  • There is almost no historically significant buildings left, having been taken over by new development. Luckily, most new development of high quality; though to have real character, it is beneficial for a city to have some historic elements.
  • The bottom line is, Hong Kong is the capital of glittering towers of glass and steel!

Since a picture is worth a thousand words when it comes to architecture, we will take a look at the different styles of building in Hong Kong through a gallery. If you would like to know where a picture was taken from, feel free to ask in the comments. Enjoy!

Modern :: Much attention is paid to the lower levels of important buildings to create lively public spaces.
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Belmont Village: This City Has Curves

TWO TEN 6 and A DIGITAL CITY present in association with the UNIVERSITY OF WATERLOO a PLAN 210 production a JEREMY KRYGSMAN film ‘BELMONT VILLAGE’ LAINE WATSON, ANDREA HORAN, JOYCE CHONG, KATJA SOSTARIC, SCOTT HINDLE, and JEREMY KRYGSMAN with thanks to LUNA KHIRFAN

Belmont Village: The Movie may not be coming to theatres near you soon, but it is a story that will touch your heart (if you like city planning, that is). It is a story about the agonizing decline of a well-known commercial strip near downtown Kitchener, now transformed into a glittering urban district. Experience the soaring, eco-industrial space of the Atrium, and the unique shapes of the Convex and Concave parks… you can see it all here in the A Digital City presentation of Belmont Village: This City has Curves.

Belmont Village Urban Design