Marseille Mix
diploma project 2011


















“Marseille Mix - synchronization of infrastructural, environmental and cultural flows”
diploma thesis summerterm 2011

The diploma thesis addresses the potential of regenerating former industrial zones of harbour cities into new dynamic cultural and commercial hubs. The idea is to amplify the complex movement and interchange between visitors and inhabitants, and thus to create an intense interrelation between both urban and aquatic landscapes. These dynamic flows should accentuate away from the traditional function of port gateways, which act as borders and not as parts of a coherent urban fabric. The proposal suggests a new urban intervention at the city’s waterfront that should bridge the level difference between the waterfront area and the existing city fabric: This implements a combination of both cultural and commercial aspects with the port terminal functions, a multi-directional space instead of a fix-oriented gateway, and multiple opportunities to intermingle both visitors and citizens. In terms of relating those issues to a designated city, Marseille, as one of the most dynamic and diverse ports on the Mediterranean Sea and as a composite of historical and emerging city typologies defines an ideal city to implement these design strategies.

gil greis
studio zaha hadid

LA Koreatown

LA Koreatown

Among the many ethnic enclaves which enrich California,
perhaps the most vitally linked to the existing fabric of the
city is the city-within-a-city known as Koreatown.
It is unique not only for the economic vitality which
pervades its more than X square miles, but for the
incremental manner in which shops..etc have established
roots in neighborhoods which had previously been in
decline or simply incoherent. Yet, in spite of the rapid
upgrading of the community, there have been few if any
institutional developments to complement the burgeoning
urban activity. Korean culture is famously diverse, reflecting
both the historical origins of the nation itself, its spectular
adoption of modern methods and customs, and an
aesthetically limber mind set which seizes upon and exploits
what might seem contradictory, processes its constituent parts,
and establishes an often startling new paradigm.It is time, then,
for Koreatown to seize the moment and create a regional cultural
destination which can serve not only as a centerpiece for the
community, but as a new urban focus for Los Angeles.

w/ Raffael Petrovic
UCLA Winterterm 09

4 (x+y) = world

biot(r)opics

Our primary interest is to blend our building with its surrounding in terms of atmospheres and climates. The aim is to create a transition between different climatic conditions, in which the villa's inhabitants would choose their zones of comfort for their daily activities. To achieve this we analysed tropical vernacular architecture and their “architects” strategies to deal with their habitats extreme climate, such as decreasing humidity, shading, increasing ventilation, etc.. Their two main ways to regulate comfort is blocking, the sun, by constructing extended roofs, and increase ventilation by raising the floor above ground, walls are only necessary for privacy. So our desired differentiation of climatic conditions can be achieved by modulating roofscape and landscape.

w /Niran Büyükköz & Raffael Petrovic

studio zaha hadid

Interiorities ² 09

Urban Club - New York

Compo.ment.ics²

Inspired by the historical richness of the diaphanous tectonics of gothic cathedrals, the subversive spaces of the baroque, and the ornamental twirls and convolutions of rococo; Compo.ment.ics² translates these formal capacities into an overall correlated systematic:

*Operating on multiple scales and programmatic concerns, the component setup shifts from a-tectonic connections, to performance-related attributes such as apertures for light and louvers conditions, up to the painterly and dynamic affects of ornaments.

*This entire variation of applications gets amplified by the differentiated line distributions, which are shifting from serene, open scenes (compositional lines) to sensuous, intimate pockets (serpertine lines).

*Additionally, the haptic vision of coloration (local, pure and broken tones) activates different surfaces and is highlighting or disguising optical deepness and nuanced affects.

*All this multi-layered systems are gathered into one urban club, located in New York City. Dictated by the tight urban integration, the building composition unfolds its complexity inwards and keeping the outer envelope responsive to the manhattian grid.

On the inside, a canyon-like opening flows through the building and divides the volume into different spatial reconfigurations.

w/ Nikolay Ivanov

Studio Zaha Hadid / Guest Professors: Patrik Schumacher & Ali Rahim

Digital Modelling

Circavior²
Circavior
Erotech Skins

Parametric Urbanism 08

Thames Gateway - Urban Laboratory

Circavior ²

Proceeding from the inherent unity and stability of circular constraints, Circavior² deploys the skeleton genotype into larger, intricate assemblies. Using spiraling pattern as a dynamical self-organizing process, the internal differentiation of urban components generates a close-knit integration of all parts and subsystems.

The open and ductile structural system negotiates on multiple scales, and shifts a vast range of differentiation into the structural field logics. Within this urban field conditions, Circavior² generates not one single symmetrical configuration, but a multiplicity of collineations among the urban components.

w/ Rasa Navasaityte

Studio Zaha Hadid

Parametric Urbanism 07/08

Thames Gateway - Urban Laboratory


Circavior

Nearly five hundred years ago, Leonardo da Vinci found latency in his investigations on turbulence, relating clouds with cities in his sketches (1). When others drawed figures as their materialistic outlines, his figures emerged out of the turbulent behaviour in a coherent system.

But in opposite to a sketch, architecture has to become materialized.

In Circavior the material conditions are generic definitions of spaces, at first on an architectural scale.
Using the multiplying effect of scripting techniques, our approach multiplies space-behaviours to an urbanistic scale. The connection to a coherent system, (like a topography of events or a map of subjectional relations), not only produces a range of spatial differentiation, but also produces unexpected readings through the merging of behaviours.

Circavior shifts the understanding of a city as an arrangement of dichotomous tectonic divisions and typologies, to the focus on environmental gradient thresholds.

Leonardo da Vinci: Investigations on turbulence in water; 1519

w/ Oskar v. Hanstein, Daniel Köhler, Rasa Navasaityte

studio Zaha Hadid