CONFLUENCE OF SOCIETY - Under bridge - affordable housing challenge

FAST VUT - Faculty of Civil Engineering, Brno University of Technology, Department of Architecture

Project idea

Confluence as the most important characteristic of the location. Confluence as the main aspect of the design. Confluence of society.

The chosen bridge - Radotínský bridge - is located on the outskirts of Prague near the confluence of the Berounka and Vltava rivers - two of the most important rivers in Czech Republic, which have provided life for thousands of years. Radotínský bridge is a relatively new structure, built in 2010, and is still used as a city ring road. Although the bridge spans over two kilometers in length, for the purposes of this competition, I have chosen only its western section, approximately 400 meters long. More precisely - space between nine pairs of pillars between Berounka on one side and tunnel on the other (western) side. The bridge itself is quite minimalistic, constructed of concrete with curved pillars.

This area has excellent traffic connections with Prague: train station, bus station and also bike path are all located nearby the construction site. Consequently, I didn‘t focused a lot on residental parking lots, just kept
in mind, that they can be easily placed under bridge next to Confluence of society colony.

Although the current condition of the construction site and its surroundings is very poor, the city plans to create a huge suburban park here. Last year, the first plans were revealed, and now adjustments and additions are being made.I have kept this planned park in my mind while designing and aimed to maximize the coexistence and relationship between humanity, nature and bridge.

As it‘s written above, I paid attention to the connection of the construction site with the rivers and the planned park and designed the concept in a way that it does not detract attention from the surroundings (including both the countryside and the bridge).

Project description

Firstly, I had to elevate the housing blocks because we are located in a flood-prone area. Secondly, the entire concept is based on the principle of the street, or rather, two streets. The first serves as a public park connection at the ground level, while the second is exclusively for residents on the second floor . The mass of each block is divided into smaller parts to provide human scale and to get there more sunlight.

To elevate each block, I used three concrete „legs“ with staircases and elevators. To highlight this fact, I left them in raw colored concrete from both exterior and interior. In contrast, everything else is made from timber (CLT panels with wooden facade).

And the last major idea was to capture the spirit of both rivers in my design, achieved by curving the streets. How exactly did I come up with their design? With the public one (1st floor), I was strongly inspired (I al
most copied their curves) by current shape of Vltava in southern half of Prague and also by its confluences with Sázava, Berounka and Čertovka. And the story behind second street is very similar, but instead of the current shape of Vltava, I worked with an 18th-century map of the Berounka river and used the curves of its former islands.

To support this interaction between rational and organic architecture, I also played with greenery. I got the park element inside by two openings in the second floor for trees from ground floor and also by making a lot of curved raised flower beds.

The four story prototype block consists of 21 flats primarily meant for families, with most units featuring 2-3 bedrooms. Additionally, smaller flats for singles or couples are also available. Nearly every flat has its own loggia, except for a few with extremely easy access to community terraces.

I didn‘t just focus on the private spaces of the flats but also on community spaces. So in every block, you can find at least three bicycle storage rooms, two community teracces, coworking space, community room... and of course community street, which is by the way mostly sheltered by the bridge against rain. That‘s not of course only covered semi public or public space. I also incorporated features at ground level to make each block unique. As a result, you can discover playgrounds for kids, a streetball court, a small skatepark, an outdoor gym, etc.

Finally, I want to mention the way I created an eight blocks colony from one single block. My main focus was to design a four-story prototype that can easily adapt to another gap between pillars under my bridge. While all blocks are very similar, they are not identical. They differ in several aspects: the color of the wooden facade varies slightly in every second block, the public space on the first floor is altered, every second block is axis mirrored, and the number of floors is based on the height of the bridge. To illustrate this in my chosen area, I had to lower some blocks to just three floors on one side but was able to make them five floors
on the other side.

Technical information

The structure is based on two different construction systems. The entire building is elevated above the ground using three reinforced concrete cores, which are the only parts of the structure in contact with the surface. Reinforced concrete beams are laid on these cores, and a reinforced concrete slab rests on top of them, serving as a foundation for the second construction system.

This second system is composed of CLT panels, which are used to assemble the apartments. Thus, the entire structure is partially a timber building. This solution proved to be very effective in addressing the construction process in a location with limited clear height, as defined by the bridge deck.

CLT panels are not the only wooden elements used. Apart from the reinforced concrete structure, the building is completely clad with a wooden facade made of Siberian larch slats, achieving maximum harmony between the building and the surrounding park.

The second color introduced into the design is colored concrete. The color is hard to describe in words, but it is somewhat like pastel orange. All the concrete used, except for that in the foundations, would be colored in this way.

Documentation

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