Aerotopia come from the greek works aero (aeris: air), topia (topos: place) and we are concerned with the skeptical human attitude about flying where the airport becomes a place of connection between sky and ground. We attempt to create a collaborative environment using a design system derived from organic growth, thus transforming the precinct at different stages of its development.
The node is the social heart of Aerotopia. It involves collaborative works zones such as the auditorium, exhibition zones, and the central atrium which evoke synergic relationship between various workers and visitors. It is designed to accommodate offices above ground level where people have to go through these zones. These spaces are frames of ‘work-play’ environments previously explored in our initial researches.
The height difference is blurred in the Node, the atrium accessed from ground level, café roof inclined towards the sky, shared meeting rooms in the sky bridge as well as the running track penetrating through the building mass. These apprehend the notion of the project’s connection from ground to the sky.
The masterplan highlights the concept of aerotopia shown in this long section. It challenges the psychological association people have with flying. It plays on our subconscious expectations in the landscape as we move about the airport. We expect a rise in level as we close in towards the airport, and a descend as we proceed near waterfronts. The fabricated place in aerotopia – Node – performs as a collaborative catalyst that promotes meaningful exchange for the business district.
For the masterplan, we were critiquing the original proposal and applied a series of visceral and analytical system that derived from super organic growth. We considered the site conditions and applied them into the Galapagos evolutionary solver to create optimized undulating landscape maximizing work and play zones. This was then combined with the wind data analysis from Realflow to define the position and orientation of the node. The design of the node acts as the context for the latter stages of the development and influences the rest as a whole.
The decision making process in the genetic production, is like the stem system in a leaf. The primary set of axiss our determined by the site restriction and the notion of connection requiring the link from ground to the sky. The analytical data then gives us a set of results which in overlaying let us view the best fit solution. We believe that this is a selective breeding process of architecture, where the best matched pairs proceed on to the next set of stages with added parameters to the system. They are much like apples, where the farmer would pick the best coloured, and tasted apples from a wide variety of apples, which are in the parameters of his farm. When the genetically processed good quality apples breed their variation could be modified in terms of aspects like increased size and perhaps being stronger against diseases. Hence the masterplan sits at a flexible position within the continuous carving and polishing process as the development proceeds.
ZIYI BILL LIU 