C3 no.408_20 #4/6
New Projects
Defending Density
Defending Density in the Year of Social Distancing _ Richard Ingersoll
The four projects featured in this section of C3 show a variety of ways of achieving density while maintaining the social life of the city. When a city is too dense it become alienating, and civic life declines; when the density is low, people tend not to share aspects of their lives.
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In two cases the projects contain intriguing work spaces that enlivens the social spaces. If sustainability requires not only technical reduction of energy use, perhaps more importantly sustainability is a social prospect, one that in these projects has been successfully implemented.
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Kindergarten; Being Flexible, Being Safe
Being Flexible, Being Safe _ Paula Melâneo
In contemporary life, kindergartens and schools are spaces where toddlers and young children stay for an important amount of their daily life. The time they spend there, together with daycare staff, should be quality time; where they are protected but also have freedom in their movements and where parents trust they can safely leave their kids.
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In fast-changing times, flexibility is a key characteristic in the design response. The designed structure should be able to answer directly to local communities’ different contexts and needs, and to follow transformations or modifications required by new education standards.
Only then, will the built infrastructure be qualified to act as a community subsidiary.
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“Be Water, my friend”
“Be Water, my friend” _ Diego Terna
The element water is a typical “partner” of architecture: it amplifies its meanings, as in a game of reflections, but it is also capable of dampening its formalisms, of making the built space more joyful.
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Water, as game, brute force, surprise, allows us to build shimmering works, renewed continuously, precisely by exploiting the water itself: they become frozen waterfalls, luminous caves, rhythmic accompaniments of flows; they fulfill one of Bruce Lee’s most famous suggestions: Be water, my friend.
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