The Ideal Block by BudCud

THE IDEAL BLOCK AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE MODERN HOUSING BASED URBAN PLANNING

AGATA WOŹNICZKA

EXERCISING MODERNITY SCHOLARSHIP 2020

WORK METHODOLOGY from research map to a speculative project

GARDEN CITY scheme exploring new ways of living and working paradigm shift in planning, where the emphasis is put on the quality of urban living and working

YESTERDAY

TODAY

TOMORROW

living and working in the smoke

living in the suburbs - working in the smoke

living and working in the sun

GARDEN CITY as a social vision turned into an urban plan SATELLITE LAYOUT designer: Ebenezer Howard year: 1898

SATELLITE QUARTER

2 3

4 3

6 1. central park 2. public buildings 3. housing 4. greenery 5. factory 6. greenery

structure appropriate for smaller scale of a district

JERUSALEM: ACTUAL & POSSIBLE as an ideal image of ‘appropriate’ history and the future NEW UNIVERSITY CAMPUS

designer: Patrick Geddes year: 1918

5 1 OLD CITY + VICINITY

1. The Old City as an urban asset of great aesthetic value and archaeological importance 2. new road to Hebrew University 3. forbidden construction in order to preserve the topographically dramatic & archaeologically valuable area (Mount of Olives) 4. new Jewish garden suburb TALPIOTH as a 15-minute city 5. surrounding the Old City with a protective green belt “the Great Sacred Park of Jerusalem” = isolation of the Old City 6. new roads

PLAN FOR TEL AVIV designer: Patrick Geddes year: 1925 GEDDES SUPER-BLOCK

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WHITE CITY SUPER-BLOCK 3 four street types (based on width of sidewalks, pavement, plantations & lines of buildings) 1. main arteries: orientation: north - south 2. secondary roads to channel the cooling sea breeze into the city. orientation: west - east 3. green boulevards 4. narrow residential traffic roads to access the interior of super-blocks 5. the super-block of P. Geddes with two rows of low, 2-storey housing and public space in the center 6. modern block of higher density but still maintaining the image of enclosed entity

PLAN FOR TEL AVIV housing block evolution GEDDES SUPER-BLOCK

WHITE CITY SUPER-BLOCK

NEUES FRANKFURT as a ring of housing estates within a city structure designer: Ernst May year: 1925 the masterplan evolved into the Frankfurt Housing Program (1927) and the Niddatal Project with 24 settlements within the city, by the Nidda river

NEUES FRANKFURT SIEDLUNG RÖMERSTADT as a topographic & green housing estate designer: Ernst May (urban planner) & Carl-Hermann Rudloff (architect) year: 1929

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5 3 5

6 1

1. main communication arteries 2. secondary access roads 3. high-intensity buildings 4. lower-intensity detached houses 5. allotment gardens where the inhabitants cultivate crops 6. Nidda river valley

NEUES FRANKFURT SIEDLUNG RÖMERSTADT as a topographic & green housing estate designer: Ernst May (urban planner) & Carl-Hermann Rudloff (architect) year: 1929

OUTSIDE PUBLIC ZONE AS A ‘SMOOTH’ & UNIFORM URBAN DOMAIN

LUSH AND PRAGMATIC GREEN INTERIOR

NEUES FRANKFURT SIEDLUNG BRUCHFELDSTRASSE as a heliotrope housing estate designer: Ernst May year: 1928

FORM FOLLOWS THE SUN. THE ZIG ZAG DIVERSIFIES AN URBAN PERSPECTIVE (OUTSIDE) & FORMS A GRADIENT OF SEMI-PUBLIC GREEN INTERIORS (INSIDE)

COMPREHENSIVE GREEN SPACE PLAN FOR BERLIN, that links parks, playgrounds and gardens with the vast stretches of lakes and forests designer: Martin Wagner year: 1929 a plan calling for gradual creation of a series of radial green strips that begin in the central city and extend to the Berlin suburbs

1 1. general open spaces 2. agriculture 3. wetlands / fields & meadows 4. Spree river 5. ring connections of green spaces 6. green corridors (with variety of public green spaces within) that penetrate the city

COMPREHENSIVE GREEN SPACE PLAN FOR BERLIN HUFEISENSIEDLUNG as a green, self-supportive housing estate designer: Martin Wagner (urban planner) & Bruno Taut (architect) & Leberecht Migge (landscape architect) year: 1933

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7 3 1. main communication arteries 2. secondary access roads 3. high-intensity buildings 4. lower-intensity houses 5. allotment gardens where the inhabitants cultivate crops 6. green public spaces of various formats 7. water feature 8. green boulevards

6 3

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COMPREHENSIVE GREEN SPACE PLAN FOR BERLIN SIEMENSSTADT and the neighborliness idea designer: Martin Wagner, Hans Scharoun (urban planners) & Der Ring: Walter Gropius, Hans Scharoun, Otto Bartning and Hugo Häring (architects) year: 1931

1 1. high intensity buildings 2. greenery 3. central park 4. main communication arteries

PLAN OF GDYNIA URBAN DEVELOPMENT as a resultant urbanism designer: Roman Feliński & Adam Kuncewicz year: 1926

4 1. harbor 2. railway 3. housing tissue 4. urban beach 5. green areas 6. public squares of various typologies

GDYNIA’S EXPRESSIVE BLOCK CORNERS that articulate the urban narrative

EDGE FILLET

STACKED VOLUMES

INTERSECTING VOLUMES

SUBTRACTED VOLUMES

MARINE ADDITIONS HELIOTROPE CASCADING BALCONIES

GDYNIA’S HELIOTROPE DETAILS

COMMON SPACE - GLAZED STAIRCASE

WINTER GARDEN - GLAZED STAIRCASE

FRAMED FLOWER (GARDEN) WINDOW

GDYNIA’S PUBLIC SPACE LEXICON SCULPTUROUS GROUNDFLOOR NICHE

MARINE MONUMENTS

GROUND FLOOR PUBLIC FUNCTIONS

AXIS FOLLY - A FOUNTAIN

URBAN BEACH AND FOREST

THE IDEAL BLOCK RESEARCH MAP

GARDEN CITY MOVEMENT

through city creating a new national identity and environmental ethos

E. Howard’s

P. Geddes’s JERUSALEM: ACTUAL & POSSIBLE 1918

P. Geddes’s

GARDEN CITY SCHEME

E. Howard, R. Parker & R. Unwin’s

PLAN FOR TEL AVIV

1925

R. Felinski & A. Kuncewicz’s GDYNIA URBAN DEVELOPMENT PLAN 1926

C H O R E O G R A P H Y

creating a cultural environment as an encyclopedia of images

I C

Ebenezer Howard’s

F U N C T I O N A L

F E L I

1898

LETCHWORTH

WELWYN GARDEN CITY

1909

1920

guaranteeing good industrial labor relations

G. Metzendorf’s

maintaining neighborliness in the expanding city

E. May’

MARGARETHENHOEHE

NEUES FRANKFURT

1906

1925

creating new national identity & equipping the harbor with civic context

exercising new modernist paradigm of healthy body & human strength

THE IDEAL BLOCK inspired by the aforementioned ideas that helped developing HOUSING-BASED URBANISM

M. Wagner’s FOR BERLIN

COMPREHENSIVE GREEN PLAN 1929

THE IDEAL BLOCK MOTIVATIONS

corners

visionary planning most important elements

windows

public groundfloor

modernist ethos

human-centered design

GDYNIA THE ATLAS OF LOCAL DETAIL TEL AVIV AN EXTREME VARIATION OF MODERN ICON

BERLIN & FRANKFURT A VOLUME OF MODERN ASPIRATION (TOWARDS THE SUN & THE AIR)

THE IDEAL BLOCK SITE PLAN

A. GDYNIA – THE ATLAS OF LOCAL DETAIL Architectural characteristic features of Gdynia’s housing blocks are abundantly inscribed into a façade, creating a bricolage catalogue of vernacular modernism. The idea of creating a building from local detailing influenced a whole volume that reinterprets locality with its layout, form and finishing. Since Gdynia’s modern appearance is in the articulation of buildings’ corners and a lexicon of site-specific elements, the city’s zone of THE IDEAL BLOCK is exploring those notions. B. BERLIN – A VOLUME OF MODERN ASPIRATION (TOWARDS THE SUN & THE AIR) A heliotrope block ascending above the ground to provide both optimal lighting conditions and a right direction.

C. TEL AVIV – AN EXTREME VARIATION OF MODERN ICON Just like the Tel Avivian modern architecture translated the language of modern forms into local conditions, the Israeli zone within THE IDEAL BLOCK reinterprets pillars of modern architecture – the pilotis – and translates them into full-fledged architectural volumes, not components of it.

THE IDEAL BLOCK GROUND FLOOR PLAN 3

A 3

8 1

A. GDYNIA – THE ATLAS OF LOCAL DETAIL A

1. The ground floor is made public by introducing commercial functions along the whole outline of the volume, fostering an intense urban life. 2. The green courtyard with an expressive staircase functions as a sun-lit winter garden 3. Overhanging volumes creating urban niches 4. Street furniture accompanying public functions

B. BERLIN – A VOLUME OF MODERN ASPIRATION (TOWARDS THE SUN & THE AIR) 5. Heliotrope housing units with modern layout, arrangement of the façade and a flat roof serving as a sun deck. 6. A public green ramp that serves as an entrance zone to the housing units and a viewing point at its peak. 7. A playful environment under the ramp which lengthens the life-cycle of local public domain.

C. TEL AVIV – AN EXTREME VARIATION OF MODERN ICON 8. Most pilotis / columns host vertical apartments, but those of smaller footprint serve as public space follies: vertical playgrounds, viewing towers and hydraulic waterfalls that create a relief micro-climate around them. The columns of diverse diameters are distributed on a grid, what emphasizes their urban character. 9. As in Geddes plan the volumes’ arrangement is submerged in lush landscape of trees, bush and edible plants. The greenery creates a pleasant micro-climate and a perfect context for outdoor life, reminding about the original aspirations of the city.

8 B

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THE IDEAL BLOCK ISOMETRIC VIEW

A. Gdynia’s block – the atlas of local detail B. Berlin – a volume of modern aspiration (towards the sun & the air) C. Tel Aviv – an extreme variation of the modern icon

THE IDEAL BLOCK ISOMETRIC VIEW

A. Gdynia’s block – the atlas of local detail B. Berlin – a volume of modern aspiration (towards the sun & the air) C. Tel Aviv – an extreme variation of the modern icon

THE IDEAL BLOCK ISOMETRIC VIEW

C A. Gdynia’s block – the atlas of local detail B. Berlin – a volume of modern aspiration (towards the sun & the air) C. Tel Aviv – an extreme variation of the modern icon

THE IDEAL BLOCK MULTI-PLAN PANORAMA

AGATA WOŹNICZKA

AGATA@BUDCUD.ORG

EXERCISING MODERNITY SCHOLARSHIP 2020