THE LATTICE
SANDRO ARMANDA ADWAIT JADHAV JIRAWAT SRIBOONRUEANG
The Lattice A project by Sandro Armanda Adwait Jadhav Jirawat Sriboonrueang
Studio maib34 Cecilia Chiappini Buenos Aires High Density Tiro Federal: Unlocked II Faculty of Architecture Campus Sint-Lucas Brussels KU Leuven 2020-2021
Index Introduction I. Reading the City II. The Open System III. The Distortions IV. The New Park V. The In-between Spaces Reflection: The Lattice
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Courtesy of Al Jazeera, 2020
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Introduction From our reading of the city of Buenos Aires, we see the grid as a homogenous apparatus that enable heterogeneity to emerge from it in the form of the blocks, and the interconnections that happen between them in this grid system are manifested in the blocks’ corners.
are important because they are the ones that bind the city together. As a consequence, we think it’s not enough to propose an alternative master plan only for the Tiro Federal site, we then propose a framework for the surrounding areas where the same logic and rules can be applied.
In our research we concluded that the ladder system that is used in the current Innovation Park master plan is not the right answer for the fragmentation problem that it tries to solve. We dismissed the current Innovation Park masterplan and propose a new alternative that focuses on the open system that allows intersections to happen.
The aims of this proposal are: 1) to integrate the inactive Tiro Federal lot with the city; 2) to connect the west and the east side of the highways in NuĂąez district that is currently disconnected; 3) to generate density and diversity in the area where these two things are lacking.
Unlike the grid that is an open system by design and allows a lot of intersections to happen, the ladder is a closed system in which intersections are limited. In our argument, intersections
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I Reading the City
The Grid The city always finds ways to escape its expectations. The grid and the blocks symbolise how the city was envisioned. However, all of this has been betrayed by the processes embedded in society, allowing life to take over and create their own narratives leaving the grid as some sort of an urban remnant but at the same time, the medium where new lives superimpose and grow. The complex and contradictory character of the grid is that, as a homogenous apparatus it allows heterogeneity to emerge from it.
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I. Reading the City
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The Blocks We looked into the density map of Buenos Aires and realised that there are at least five different density levels that which manifest in the characteristics of their blocks. We then picked a typical block out of this five different zones with different density levels. Each of these blocks, not only act as an island with its own logic, but it has also its own language.
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I. Reading the City
Zone 1: The regular block
Zone 2: The hybrid block
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Zone 4: The real estate block
Zone 3: The commercial block
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Zone 5: The Tiro Federal block
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The Corners Departing from those findings, we proposed a few hypotheses on the explanation of Buenos Aires street corners:
corner is like its port. 8. It’s the only place where these adjacent blocks connect. Zooming out, it’s actually what makes the city, a city.
1. We can learn a lot about the block’s relations with the streets and with its adjacent blocks just by observing its corners. 2. The corner is the place where all of the human and vehicular flows intersect. 3. The corner is also the place where the blocks connect. 4. The corner is the place where the static and the dynamic of the city intermingled. 5. Their interrelations are expressed in the architectural attributes of the corners. 6. These intersections exist as by-products of the grid. 7. If each block is an island, the
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I. Reading the City
Zone 1: The regular block corner
Zone 4: The real estate block corner
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Zone 2: The hybrid block corner
Zone 5: The Tiro Federal corner
R E S T A U R A N T
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Zone 3: The commercial block corner
Zone 5: The other corner
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The Ladder In our research we concluded that the ladder system that is used in the current Innovation Park master plan is not the right answer for the fragmentation problem that it tries to solve. The grid system signifies openness and active urban process that is able to generate multiplication of intersections, while the ladder system signifies closure and static urban plan that eliminates options. On the open grid, the number of available options multiplies. While at its most fundamental level, the ladder is an exclusive system.1 In our argument, intersections are important because they are the ones that bind the city together.
1 1996.
See ‘Ladders’ by Albert Pope,
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I. Reading the City
The Innovation Park master plan
The ladder system of the Innovation Park
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II The Open System
The Archipelago The grid that is used here is the extension of both the residential grid next to the stadium and the city grid that is intersected and bent to make it perpendicular to the highway that we see as a dominant axis in this area.
a means of projecting the possibility of getting a better integration of this fragmented areas along the highway in the future. On the right page is a map that is inspired by Oswald Mathias Ungers’ map of Berlin as the green archipelago where the city blocks act like islands and the grid is an apparatus that is able to expand and connect these islands.1
This way, the orthogonality corresponds well with the residential area on the right, the stadium, the city grid on the left and below, and more importantly to the UBA campus which is the area that is aimed to be connected.
To do that, we divided our proposal into four phases.
Once the system is there, the blocks can act like plugins that we can configure as a means to achieve density, diversity, and interconnections that we have addressed in our research’s conclusion. As an open system, the nature of the grid is expanding, therefore we extend the grid to the surroundings of Tiro Federal as
1 See ‘Berlin: A Green Archipelago. A Manifesto’ by Oswald Mathias Ungers, 1977.
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II. The Open System
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Phase 1: The Connection The first phase focuses on the connection between Tiro Federal site and UBA campus. The connection is the first priority here, because without it the system will not going to work. By installing the bridge and the temporary grid, to some extent it already activates the site and enables intersections to happen.
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II. The Open System
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Phase 2: The Occupation The second phase will be the occupation of Tiro Federal site. This phase is started by the construction of the first nine blocks where the basement will be located near the bridge. The construction of more permanent gridiron pathways have started, and more programmed activities can start to take place on the open blocks in between the streets.
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II. The Open System
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Phase 3: The Expansion I (UBA) Once the system works completely on the first nine blocks shown in the previous phase, we can finally then move into the third phase, where construction of the blocks in proximity with the bridge on both sides of the highway can take place. This way, the expansion to UBA campus can be initiated where the same logic can be applied. The construction of the blocks in front of the Tiro Federal building can be initiated as well in order to build a stronger connection with the city.
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II. The Open System
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Phase 4: The Expansion II (Green Zone) Lastly, we can possibly expand to the green zone area, again with the same logic applied, as long as the blocks in proximity to green zone area are built, thus finally the integration of these surrounding areas can be fully achieved.
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II. The Open System
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III The Distortions
The Distorted Grid and Blocks The previous chapter explains how the grid system will disperse to the surroundings, and this chapter will delve more into the modifications of the grid system.
about the intersections as the things that bind the city together.
In order to synchronise these distortions, we tweak the regular blocks so that they react to the Although the grid system does distortions of the grid. We did indeed generate intersections, this by cutting larger sections off the challenge of using it in a site of the corners of some blocks that is relatively small (compared so they have more spillover to Buenos Aires city grid itself) is space or can accommodate the that the regularity and repetition grid distortion. would result in monotony. Certain rules are used to keep However, for this reason, within the functionality and create subthese limitations we propose tle irregularities so that the fabric adding distortions as a means of the block doesn’t become to add more spatial dynamics, unreadable. flexibility, and variety. Each block may have one or two We then specifically apply these large corner cuts and the cuts distortions at the intersections. are preferably on opposite sides This way, not only will it create of the block. unique spaces for every intersection, but it will also amplify The next chapter will illustrate the importance of the intersecthe maximum occupancy of the tions themselves, highlighting Tiro Federal site according to our argument mentioned earlier our system.
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III. The Distortions
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IV The New Park
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IV. The New Park
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Residential Floor The residential floor consists of 24 apartments for Type 1 block, 22 apartments for Type 2 block, and 20 apartments for Type 3 block. However, all of them use the same residential unit modules that we have designed to optimally use the size of the block, but at the same time still maintain the level of comfort and privacy of a home.
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IV. The New Park
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Residential Units The residential units come in six different types, with sizes that vary from a 65 m2 single bedroom unit to 100 m2 three-bedroom unit. These units are designed to fit all the block types along with the previously suggested configurations for the optimal use.
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IV. The New Park
Type A (100 m2)
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IV. The New Park
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Office Floor The office floor is designed to be flexible, with one common space next to each vertical circulation unit. The dashed lines here show one possible configuration following the grid line of the residential floor, which means that tenants can have more than just one single unit.
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IV. The New Park
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IV. The New Park
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Retail Floor The retail floor is designed with an inner courtyard and two thoroughfares that connect the interior of the block with the streets surrounding it. The inner courtyard serves as both the main entrance for the residential and office floors and the main transitional space between the public and the private spaces, where the inhabitants and the users of the above floors can park their bikes, have a more quiet open space while maintaining their privacy from the commercial activities of the building and the streets.
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IV. The New Park
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IV. The New Park
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V The In-between Spaces
The Bridge The bridge is important to initiate the connection between the two sides of the highway that’s currently disconnected. The bridge acts like an extension of the grid system in order to make the connection as seamless as possible, and therefore we have designed three lanes instead of one unlike the current Innovation Park proposal. The bridge will be a mix of pedestrian and bike lanes and ‘green pockets’ every several meters.
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V. The In-between Spaces
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The Intersection The streets will be horizontally layered, where the hierarchy will be easily readable. The middle lane will be a mix of micro transportation and also pedestrian pathways. On both its sides, there will be green patches that act as a soft buffer zone. The outermost layer, adjacent to them, will be the layer of pavement where it can be used as both pedestrian pathways and spillover areas for the retail establishments on the ground floor.
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The Layers There will be extra layers at some intersections that overlap each other. This will create spatial configurations that allow multiple activities to take place and intermingle.
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The Enclosed and Open Blocks We intertwine activities with the distorted streets. In this example, the under-level retail street is merged with the amphitheater that connects with open space on the ground level. This defines the relationship and the seamless connection between the enclosed and open blocks.
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Reflection: The Lattice The Tiro Federal site is situated in a vacuum area of Nuñez District, something that Albert Pope called as an ‘entropy’. A leftover space just outside of the grid system where ladder systems— such as the one proposed in the Innovation Park master plan tend to grow, something that he would later compare to the undefined spaces between the grid and the frame in Mondrian paintings.1
As we progressed, we started naming our project The Lattice as it reminds us of how strips of two different axes on a latticework criss-cross and create voids in between them. This teaches at least us three important things: Firstly, that these voids are the designed ‘nothingness’ that offer possibilities (of uses, of occupation, of appropriation). Secondly, these voids would never come into existence without the criss-crossing of the strips where things are tied together, and lastly, these interconnections are the only means to making a solid working system, a growing apparatus, a framework of possibilities.
The spatial fragmentation problem between the site, UBA Campus, and the city mentioned in the master plan competition brief has always been in our mind when we started this project, and thus, solving it has always been our main aim. This leads us to proposing an alternative framework that is based on a completely different approach to the one proposed by the winning Innovation Park proposal. 1
The built fabric is never our main and only focus, although it plays a very important role in defining the relationships of the spaces more clearly and optimally in a more tangible way—hence the suggestions of the new block typologies, the distortions at
Pope, 1996.
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the intersections, the possibility of expansion, et cetera—what we’re trying to illustrate here is not how the built blocks should exactly look like, or what particular activity should take place in an open block, but instead to show the complexity and the diversity of lives that The Lattice could potentially and possibly generate.
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