A101 Urban Block Competition Proposal / b4 Architects

Courtesy of b4 Architects

With the design challenge of housing 150,000 people for a new city near Moscow, b4 Architects shared with us their proposal for the A101 Urban Block Competition where they have focused on a thoughtful making of spaces while being sensitive to the context conditions of the city. More images and architect’s description after the break.

Courtesy of b4 Architects

‘Be in sunshine’

The city, the part of the landscape in which each individual identifies himself, is a mobile world, free of known limitations, which is based mainly on the relationship between the homes from which their inhabitants can have an idea of the world. The input of the isotropic space of the board of the masterplan is accepted with the resulting a regular grid on plan and elevation on which some little ‘perturbations’ are introduced: they can generate a place where people understands and appreciates the complexity of contemporary life as intentional and aesthetic experience.

Courtesy of b4 Architects

On this watermark, 17 variations are designed for the 4 housing typologies from 1 to 4 rooms. These apartments are assembled with theoretically infinite number of combinations of starting. The result is a residential block formed by architectural elements that can be different with the variation of the context conditions and exposure to the sunlight.

Courtesy of b4 Architects

Common areas and distribution are designed as real public spaces where the rituals of the meeting need to be considered. The courtyard is a wide semi-public residential garden, with controlled accessibility, that, with all the green areas on the terrace, becomes an integrated system that involves every apartment. The project is a thoughtful making of spaces around the original archetype of fence, ‘temenos’ (τέμενος), an enclosing a space where can be possible to implement yet that innate sense of living of every human being.

Project team: Gianluca Evels & Stefania Papitto – b4 Architects with Sebastiano Maccarrone
Location: Moscow, Russia
Year: 2010
Type: Competition
Object: A101 Urban Block
Client: Masshtab Company
Area: 14000 sqm Programme: housing, services, commercial, open spaces

Courtesy of b4 Architects

Courtesy of b4 Architects

Courtesy of b4 Architects

Courtesy of b4 Architects

typical floor plan

groundfloor scheme

longitudinal section

Courtesy of b4 Architects

Courtesy of b4 Architects

sunlight diagram

energy diagram

Courtesy of b4 Architects

Courtesy of b4 Architects

Courtesy of b4 Architects

Courtesy of b4 Architects

model 01

model 02

model 03

model 04

model 05

model 06