Reconstruction of Mechanism
- 2024 Winter Competition Project
- Individual Academic Project
- Site: Daya Bay, Huizhou, China
In developing countries, housing is often built endlessly for economic reasons. High-density sprawl further points to the adverse impact on people's mental health, and the atomized society has deepened the gap between people. Huizhou, a small city in southern China, has built many high-density high-rise houses in the past decade. Due to its proximity to Shenzhen and Guangzhou, many middle-class people choose to buy houses in Huizhou. However, the real estate boom has faded, and the housing vacancy rate is alarming. What means should we use to solve the inevitable problems in urban renewal? Huizhou is an important node for bird migration. Bird watching attracts tourists from all over the country, but birds are often ignored by us. Can our design juxtapose humans and birds as equal subjects and use bird watching, a universal activity, to stimulate urban vitality?
The high-density sprawl of the city encroaches on the natural environment and destroys the habitat of birds. Huizhou Daya Bay is located on an important path for bird migration, and bird watching, as a universal activity, can be used as a clue for urban renewal.
Dense infrastructure exacerbates people's repeated one-dimensional movement in the city. Take bridges as an example, capitalist culture shapes them into a link between transportation and shopping centers. This project takes bird habitats into consideration through composite infrastructure, expanding the connotation of infrastructure. This method is replicable and provides new clues for urban renewal.
Infrastructure Urbanism
Infrastructure, often the exclusive domain of technocratic, political and fiscal directives, has received critical and creative attention over the past decade. We should fully realize that infrastructure is inherently entangled with urbanization patterns and living conditions, as well as with socio-cultural mechanisms and semantics. Infrastructure is often inaccessible and becomes a forbidden area for human activities or bird habitats. How to transform them is a possible direction for urban renewal.
The space under the bridge is divided into tow parts by a curved grid. The upper floor serves as a habitat for birds. Plants climb up the vertical tubes to form a forest for birds. The lower level serves as a space for human activities, and the rolling 'hills' serve as a space for bicycle parking, activating the entire city. Birds and humans interact under the bridge, creating a vivid picture of the future.
High-voltage electricity towers are gradually being abandoned, and the towers standing in the fields are like monuments, indicating the decline of urban infrastructure. Electricity towers in nature can serve as temporary habitats on bird migration routes, like green hills, providing shelter for birds.
As an important node in the transportation system, gas stations provide energy for vehicles. In recent years, new energy vehicles have emerged. How to transform the original type to cater to the new energy market while providing additional space for nature and birds?