Likewise envisioned as a living laboratory to test and advance mobility, autonomy, connectivity, hydrogen-powered infrastructure and industry collaboration, Toyota Woven City aims to bring people and communities together in a future enabled by technology yet grounded in history and nature. Mr. Akio Toyoda, CEO of Toyota and BIG Founder Bjarke Ingels presented the vision at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas.

A new kind of smart city

“In Higashi-Fuji, Japan, we have decided to build a prototype town of the future where people live, work, play and participate in a living laboratory. Imagine a smart city that would allow researchers, engineers and scientists the opportunity to freely test technology such as autonomy, mobility as a service, personal mobility, robotics, smart home connected technology, AI and more, in a real-world environment. This is a truly unique opportunity to create an entire community, or ‘city’ from the ground up and allow us to build an infrastructure of the future that is connected, digital and sustainable, powered by Toyota’s hydrogen fuel cell technology.” Mr. Akio Toyoda, CEO, Toyota Motor Corporation.

While located at a 175-acre former factory site in the city of Susono in Shizuoka, Toyota Woven City creates a new equality among vehicles, alternate forms of movement, people and nature, streamlined by the promise of a connected, clean and shared mobility. The city will utilize solar energy, geothermal energy, and hydrogen fuel cell technology to strive towards a carbon neutral society, with plans to break ground in phases beginning in 2021.

A flexible network of streets

The Woven City is conceived as a flexible network of streets. It is dedicated to various speeds of mobility for safer, pedestrian-friendly connections. The typical road is split into three, beginning with the primary street optimized for faster autonomous vehicles with logistical traffic underneath. The Toyota e-Palette will be used for shared transportation and delivery services. As well as for mobile retail, food, medical clinics, hotels and workspaces.

“Today the typical is mess, with everything and nothing happening everywhere. With the Woven City we peel apart and then weave back together. The three components of a typical road into a new urban fabric: a street optimized for automated vehicles, a promenade for micro-mobility, and a linear park for pedestrians. The resulting pattern of porous 3×3 city blocks creates a multitude of different econiches for social life, culture and commerce. In an age when technology – social media and online retail – is replacing and eliminating our traditional physical meeting places, we are increasingly more isolated than ever. The Woven City is designed to allow technology to strengthen the public realm as a meeting place and to use connectivity to power human connectivity.” Bjarke Ingels, Founder & Creative Director, BIG.

The recreational promenade is occupied by micro-mobility types such as bicycles, scooters and other modes of personal transport, including Toyota’s i-Walk. The shared street allows residents to freely meander at a reduced speed with increasing amounts of nature and space.

The third type of street is the linear park, a path dedicated to pedestrians, flora and fauna. So, an intimate trail provides a safe and pleasant environment for leisurely strolls and nature. It breaks through the ecological corridor connecting Mount Fuji to the Susono Valley.

Blocks and Courtyard

The three street types are structuring into 3×3 city blocks. Each is framing a courtyard accessible via the promenade or linear park. The urban fabric of the woven grid expands and contracts to accommodate a variety of scales, programs and outdoor areas. In one instance, a courtyard balloons to the scale of a large plaza. And in another, to become a central park providing a city-wide amenity. Hidden from view in an underground network lies the infrastructure of the city. This includes hydrogen power, stormwater filtration and a goods delivery network dubbed the ‘matternet’.

“The Woven City bridges the gap that exists today between vehicles and accessibility. It is looking at mobility and public space as a symbiosis. Furthermore, it is designing desirability as an element of accessibility. Through nature, space and safety – we can ensure an active public realm in the city, especially for an aging Japanese population.

As it happens Toyota was born in the 1920’s as a loom company, helping people weave fabric. Now in 2020, the Woven City is a tribute to those origins while looking to the future of an urban fabric which technology and mobility is enabling.” Leon Rost, Partner, BIG.

Mass timber construction

The buildings at the Woven City will advance mass timber construction. By combining the legacy of Japanese craftmanship and the tatami module with robotic fabrication technology. Hence, Japan’s construction heritage lives on while building sustainably and efficiently into the future.

Vibrant and active neighborhoods

A mix of housing, retail and business. First of all, consisting primarily of carbon-sequestering wood with photovoltaic panels installed on the roofs. It characterize each city block, ensuring vibrant and active neighborhoods at all times of the day. Finally, Toyota’s R&D spaces house robotic construction, 3D printing and mobility labs, while typical offices flexibly accommodate workstations, lounges and indoor gardens.

Residences in the Woven City will test new technology such as in-home robotics to assist with daily living. In addition, these smart homes are taking advantage of full connectivity using sensor-based AI technology to perform functions. Furthermore, this includes automatic grocery deliveries, laundry pick-ups or trash disposal, all while enjoying spectacular views of Mt. Fuji.

“The Woven City can serve both as a prototype for future cities and as a retrofit to current cities. By simply ‘reprogramming’ existing streets, we can begin to reset the balance between people, mobility, and nature. For example in cities as diverse as Tokyo or New York, Copenhagen or Barcelona.” Bjarke Ingels.

Toyota Woven City has the potential to lead as an example. It should show how advances in mobility and technology will shape the physical world we live in. The Woven City is BIG’s first project in Japan and the latest masterplan unveiling following Oceanix City at the United Nations last year.

The post Urban Incubator: BIG Designs Toyota Woven City in Japan appeared first on Archipreneur.

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ShareCuse accommodates 25 members, and is set within a 3,200-square-foot room on the second floor of an existing concrete and steel building. Architecture Office’s design for the space is defined by an arrangement of freestanding black cubicles and a kitchen island within the interior of the space, that define a series of interstitial lounge spaces throughout the open office. Ringing the open workspace are seven private offices, a conference room and a telephone booth.

Unlike the traditional enclosed cubicle, separated by opaque half-walls from its neighboring workspace, the ShareCuse cubicles are crafted from black mesh screens that filter the appearance of the spaces behind. From a distance the office cubicles appear monolithic as single black forms. As one approaches the screens, the surfaces shift character into layers of translucent scrim that exhibit the offices and personnel within.

“Our aim was to design a flexible office organization that does not kill the work environment”, says Architecture Office co-principal Nicole McIntosh. “By grouping the cubicle structures into quadrants, we imagine workers moving around the objects and interacting within the shared office landscape.” The arrangement of geometrically strict structures in the open workspace also serve to define unique “lounge” spaces that promote simultaneously interactive and private work environments. “[Cubicles] act as a series of minimal objects that occupy, frame, and define regions by inhabiting a larger room”, says Architecture Office co-principal Jonathan Louie. Whereas the cubicles act as a structure for working within, the long island acts as a conduit for congregation and interaction.

Built into the cubicles are a series of 3’ wide x 7’ high openings that allow for moments of engagement between spaces and invite people to share across workspaces. Some openings are thresholds for entry, while others act as opportunities for members working in teams to pass information or share desks. Although the cubicles and their openings are all of uniform size, the placement of the openings are different, generating variety and different interaction with their surrounding spaces. The modular cubicle can appear simultaneously open and closed, efficient and playful.

Inspired by their collection of image references including the films of Jacque Tati, as well of the work of Robert Irwin, Louie and McIntosh note that the playful variations and scrim are meant to encourage a sense of visual connection. “We were interested in understanding how we could interrupt the traditional repetition of the cubicles without subdividing them, as well as encourage connection and the relationship between singular and shared office spaces. The traditional cubicle and its half-wall fosters a semi-private working space, yet visually disconnects you from the rest of the office. We found the visual properties of the scrim interesting as a semi-private wall that appears differently from different viewpoints.”

The color palette further facilitates visual connection and the modulation of flow and lounge spaces. Black cubicles, a long island, and tables sit as contrasting, minimal objects within the exposed concrete ceiling, white walls, and washed-out concrete floors of the existing building. The only accent colors are the desaturated pink, grey and blue velvet chairs with brass legs, that help to subtly articulate the different lounge areas, while not completely separating one from the other. The dark grey dot rugs mark seating areas.

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The primary volume is clad in white oak panels that are shaped to create a vertical raked pattern, enclosing an entry foyer, a powder room, and a guest bath, along with other utility spaces, including a wet bar concealed by a custom door assembly. Spaces within this central volume feature dark materials and minimal, taut details, in contrast to the volume’s exterior, such as the black stained white oak panels and marble interior utilized in the entry foyer. The second volume, long and horizontal, contains the kitchen finished in white materials and marble. While it is clad in paneling made from the same white oak species as the central volume, it is detailed with solid oak battens that create a different texture and rhythm.

While the two volumes contain material similarities, the subtle differentiation in the oak paneling, and the unique materials used for disparate programmatic elements, divide them according to distinct identities. Says co-principal Max Worrell, “This apartment is so much about the views, so we clustered the program elements into two separate volumes to free up the perimeter. The two wood volumes that define the space are essentially fraternal twins made from the same material yet different in scale and texture.”

The volumes also provide contrast to the open, view-soaked perimeter. “We wanted the entry foyer to be very dark and intimate, so that it would create a moment of pause before the burst of daylight and stunning views of Manhattan,” says Worrell. The perimeter walls throughout the loft are white, intentionally stark against the dark window frames that help reduce glare, while framing the spectacular views. Oversized pocket doors conceal two private bedroom suites and provide more intimate spaces through the use of wood floors and stone.

Stone in particular strikes a cool, grounding counterpoint to the oak and sunlight, such as in the form of the concrete terrazzo floor and monolithic terrazzo kitchen island in front of the second volume. “We found opportunities to carve or sculpt with stone”, says co-principal Jejon Yeung, alluding to its tactile qualities, “[including] the red marble powder sink, the stepped black Nero Marquina bench in the foyer, and the large kitchen island that is of the same gray terrazzo as the floor, adding moments of rich contrast.”

The concrete ceiling and structure of the historical warehouse are exposed and expressed throughout to highlight the rawness and texture of the building, juxtaposed against the warmer materials, and pure minimal lines of the new elements. Says Yeung, “This building is one of the first reinforced concrete buildings, and was even the tallest of its kind at the time, so we wanted to expose and highlight the concrete texture of the beams and columns, and complement and contrast with finer and richer materials.”

Project Information:

Architect : Worrell Yeung
MEP : Engineering Solutions
Lighting Designer : Lighting Workshop
Contractor : Metropolitan Innovations
Size : 3,200 square feet
Completed : October 2018
Photography : Alan Tansey, Naho Kubota

Material/Product Information:

• White Oak Paneling
• 8” Wide White Oak Engineering Flooring
• Tectura Terrazzo Cement Tile/Slabs
• Nero Marquina Bench/Countertop
• White Lilac Marble Backsplash / Wainscotting
• Blue de Savoie Marble
• Rosso Lepanto Marble Sink
• Waterworks Flyte Fixtures
• Ex-T Stand Bath Tub
• Rich Brilliant Willing Queue Light Fixture
• Rich Brilliant Willing Hoist Sconce Light Fixture
• Rich Brilliant Willing Brim Sconce Light Fixture
• Allied Maker Mini-Orb Pendant and Sconce

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CopenHill, also known as Amager Bakke, is a 41,000m² waste-to-energy plant with an urban recreation center and environmental education hub, turning social infrastructure into an architectural landmark. BIG’s year-round ski plant won the international competition in 2011 and broke ground in 2013. As Denmark’s single largest waste initiative to date, Copenhagen Lord Mayor Frank Jensen officiated the first run of the slopes, commencing opening festivities from sports competitions to charity walks supporting the UN Sustainable Development Goals. CopenHill is inaugurated ahead of the C40 Mayors Summit hosted in Copenhagen this year, a landmark gathering of 96 member cities committed to bold action on climate change.

“We are very proud to have built the most energy efficient waste-to-energy plant in the world. At the same time the plant delivers the best environmental performance with hardly any environmental emissions, enabling us to have neighbors only 200 meters away and to be located less than 2km from the Queen’s Residence. Last but not least, we have succeeded in building the safest waste-to-energy plant so local citizens and guests from all over the world can ski on the roof.” Jacob Simonsen, Managing Director, ARC.

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CopenHill is conceived as a public infrastructure with intended social side-effects from day one. Replacing the adjacent 50-year old waste-to-energy plant with Amager Ressourcecenter (ARC), CopenHill’s new waste-to-energy facilities integrate the latest technologies in waste treatment and energy production. Due to its location on the industrial waterfront of Amager, where raw industrial facilities have become the site for extreme sports from wakeboarding to go-kart racing, the new power plant adds skiing, hiking and rock climbing to thrill seekers’ wish lists.

“CopenHill is a blatant architectural expression of something that would otherwise have remained invisible: that it is the cleanest waste-to-energy power plant in the world. As a power plant, CopenHill is so clean that we have been able to turn its building mass into the bedrock of the social life of the city – its façade is climbable, its roof is hikeable and its slopes are skiable. A crystal clear example of Hedonistic Sustainability – that a sustainable city is not only better for the environment – it is also more enjoyable for the lives of its citizens.” Bjarke Ingels, Founder & Creative Director, BIG.

The internal volumes of the power plant are determined by the precise positioning and organization of its machinery in height order, creating an efficient, sloping rooftop fit for a 9,000m² ski terrain. At the top, experts can glide down the artificial ski slope with the same length as an Olympic half-pipe, test the freestyle park or try the timed slalom course, while beginners and kids practice on the lower slopes. Skiers ascend the park from the platter lift, carpet lifts or glass elevator for a glimpse inside the 24-hour operations of a waste-to-plant.

“We wanted to do more than just create a beautiful skin around the factory. We wanted to add functionality! Instead of considering the Amager Ressourcecenter (ARC) as an isolated object, we mobilize the architecture and intensify the relationship between the building and the city – expanding the existing activities in the area by turning the roof of the new ARC into a ski slope for the citizens of Copenhagen. By proposing a new breed of waste-to-energy plant, one that is economically, environmentally and socially sustainable, the facility becomes part of the city and redefines the relationship between production and recreation, between energy infrastructure and social infrastructure, between factory and city.” David Zahle, Partner, BIG.

Recreation buffs and visitors reaching the summit of CopenHill will feel the novelty of a mountain in an otherwise-flat country. Non-skiers can enjoy the rooftop bar, cross-fit area, climbing wall or highest viewing plateau in the city before descending the 490m tree-lined hiking and running trail within a lush, mountainous terrain designed by Danish Landscape Architects SLA. Meanwhile, the 10,000m² green roof addresses the challenging micro-climate of an 85m high park, rewilding a biodiverse landscape while absorbing heat, removing air particulates and minimizing stormwater runoff.

“CopenHill’s nature roof park and hiking trail invites locals and visitors to traverse a mountainous landscape of plants, rockscapes, 7,000 bushes and 300 pine and willow trees atop the world’s cleanest waste-to-energy plant. It also acts as a generous ‘green gift’ that will radically green-up the adjacent industrial area. CopenHill becomes the home for birds, bees, butterflies and flowers, creating a vibrant green pocket and forming a completely new urban ecosystem for the city of Copenhagen.” Rasmus Astrup, Partner & Design Principal, SLA.

Beneath the slopes, whirring furnaces, steam, and turbines convert 440,000 tons of waste annually into enough clean energy to deliver electricity and district heating for 150,000 homes. The necessities of the power plant to complete this task, from ventilation shafts to air-intakes, help create the varied topography of a mountain; a man-made landscape created in the encounter between the needs from below and the desires from above. Ten floors of administrative space are occupied by the ARC team, including a 600m² education center for academic tours, workshops and sustainability conferences.

Rather than consider ARC as an isolated architectural object, the building envelope is conceived as an opportunity for the local context while forming a destination and a reflection on the progressive vision of the company. CopenHill’s continuous façade comprises 1.2m tall and 3.3m wide aluminum bricks stacked like gigantic bricks overlapping with each other. In-between, glazed windows allow daylight to reach deep inside the facility, while larger openings on the southwest façade illuminate workstations on the administrative floors. On the longest vertical façade, an 85m climbing wall is installed to be the tallest artificial climbing wall in the world for new world records to be broken with views inside the factory.

“To me CopenHill is a perfect example of the world changing power of architecture. That we have the power to give form to the future that we want to live in. My son turns one next month – he won’t ever remember that there was a time when you couldn’t ski on the roof of the power plant – or climb its facades. He will take that for granted – and so will his entire generation. Clean energy and skiable power plants is going be the baseline of their imagination –the platform from which they will leap and propose new and wild ideas for their future. Standing at the peak of this humanmade mountain that we have spent the last decade creating – makes me curious and excited to see what ideas this summit may spark in the minds of future generations.” Bjarke Ingels.

At the bottom of the ski slope, a 600m² après-ski bar welcomes locals and visitors to wind down once the boots are off. Formerly a piece of infrastructure in an industrial zone, CopenHill becomes the new destination for families, friends and celebration, one that is economically, environmentally and socially profitable.

COPENHILL / AMAGER BAKKE FACT

Name: CopenHill / Amager Bakke
Type: International Competition
Size: 41,000 m² / 441,300 ft²
Location: Copenhagen, Denmark
Client: Amager Ressourcecenter
Collaborators: Detailed Design: SLA, Lüchinger+Meyer, MOE, Rambøll, Jesper Kongshaug and BIG Ideas; Competition: AKT, Topotek 1, Man Made Land, Realities:United
Thanks to: A.P. Møller Fonden, Lokale og Anlægsfonden, Nordea Fonden, Fonden R98, Københavns Kommune, Frederiksberg Kommune, Tårnby Kommune, Dragør Kommune og Hvidovre Kommune

BIG – BJARKE INGELS GROUP

Partners-in-Charge: Bjarke Ingels, David Zahle, Jakob Lange, Brian Yang
Project Leader: Jesper Boye Andersen, Nanna Gyldholm Møller, Claus Hermansen
Team: Alberto Cumerlato, Aleksander Wadas, Alexander Codda, Alexander Ejsing, Alexandra Gustafsson, Alina Tamosiunaite, Armor Gutierrez, Anders Hjortnæs, Andreas Klok Pedersen, Annette Jensen, Ariel Wallner, Ask Andersen, Balaj IIulian, Blake Smith, Borko Nikolic, Brygida Zawadzka, Buster Christensen, Chris Falla, Chris Zhongtian Yuan, Daniel Selensky, Dennis Rasmussen, Espen Vik, Finn Nørkjær, Franck Fdida, Gonzalo Castro, Gül Ertekin, George Abraham, Helen Chen, Henrick Poulsen, Henrik Rømer Kania, Horia Spirescu, Jakob Ohm Laursen, Jelena Vucic, Jeppe Ecklon, Ji-young Yoon, Jing Xu, Joanna Jakubowska, Johanna Nenander, Kamilla Heskje, Katarzyna Siedlecka, Krzysztof Marciszewski, Laura Wätte, Liang Wang, Lise Jessen, Long Zuo, Maciej Zawadzki, Mads Enggaard Stidsen, Marcelina Kolasinska, Marcos Bano, Maren Allen, Mathias Bank, Matti Nørgaard, Michael Andersen, Narisara Ladawal Schröder, Niklas A. Rasch, Nynne Madsen, Øssur Nolsø, Pero Vukovic, Richard Howis, Ryohei Koike, Se Hyeon Kim, Simon Masson, Sunming Lee, Toni Mateu, Xing Xiong, Zoltan David Kalaszi, Tore Banke, Yehezkiel Wiliardy

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The historical First Municipal Brewery in Prague-Holešovice – a place where beer fermented and beer buckets were stored gave stimulus to an original design of an open, and, at the same time, introspective space for creative and modern housing in an industrial spirit. The converted building accommodates a total of forty loft-type flats; half of them are real industrial lofts in original storage cubicles, six were built during the conversion of the building’s front section and fourteen are in the new addition towards the square.

The award-winning brewery campus was refurbished in 2008 by CMC architects. We returned to the same place after ten years, due to the new interior design of one of the lofts in the old brewery storage units. A perfect client, perfect job – just an exposed-brick wall surface, a steel staircase, a steel bookcase, a concrete floor and a black ceiling.

The goal was to preserve the spirit of the building and its industrial character, and to create a highly comfortable space for modern living. We kept the materials palette as rough and raw, leaving their structure exposed. There are no calculated expansion joints in the concrete floor, which is left to crack naturally. Electric wires run exposed on the brick wall surfaces ended with black fixtures. The living space is 6 meters high fitted with digital cinema technology. There are two bathrooms for two bedrooms in the loft. The loft is entered via an atrium allowing outdoor sitting, and there is another outdoor terrace next to the living room.

Principal Architect: CMC architects

Architects: Vít Máslo, David R. Chisholm

Design team: Evžen Dub, Gabriela Sekyrová, Nela Niederle

Project location: Prague, Czech Republic

Area: 120 m²

Photos: BoysPlayNice

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