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09/2010-02/2011
Study project at TU Delft.
A comparison of two different streets near Brussels Midi station - Avenue Clemenceau and Avenue Fonsny. The colour grey marks publicly accessible space, whether it be street or rooms inside buildings. This corresponds to how Maarten Hajer and Arnold Reijndorp explain the notion of public domain: “places where an exchange between different social groups is possible and also actually occurs.” This definition is not limited to a particular spatial layout or ownership type; public domain manifests itself by the social interaction that takes place in it.
Once it is translated into a drawing, the friction that Maarten Hajer talks about becomes visible - the different forms and distribution of shops, bars and cafés create an outline with many spatial pockets that slow people down and change the patterns of movement. Knowing the use and atmosphere of Avenue Clemenceau and Avenue Fonsny, the conclusion is simple:
Good streets have friction. Bad streets are flat. -
09-10/2009
Study project at TU Delft. Model with Jurrian Arnold, Rolf van der Leeuw, Isabela Ledo, Alan Pinheiro
The city of Haarlem is bound together by a network of boulevards, where the north-south connections follow a particular landscape or its edge, and the west-east connections run across multiple sceneries. Form of the city can be improved by reinforcing the longitudinal connections, and the lateral ones bring the key spaces of the city together in one system. The most important potential connector is river Spaarne.
Waarderpolder
- strengthen longitudinal connections to the south
- introduce residential function by multiplying houseboat harbours enclosed by miniature parks and connect them by a route leading north toward marina and the green wedge
- create spatial pockets on waterfront by placement of buildings
- industrial function can be gradually replaced by office and residential use
Schalkwijkerweg
- condense the vague park by creating a new urban front that faces the river
- use water system and evenly distributed sports fields as framework for building typologies
- introduce a new east-west connection for better integration of Schalkwijk within city
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07/2007-01/2009
MADE arhitekti - Linda Krūmiņa, Miķelis Putrāms, Evelīna Ozola, Uldis Sedlovs
The site for the new school is located in a green belt within Saldus city that stretches by river Ciecere. In a different way from city’s central urban fabric and periphery’s residential districts, important public buildings - sports school, bus station, church, Saldus district council, market - are placed here with notable free space around them. The volume of music and arts school keeps distance from surrounding buildings and forms a common entrance square together with the council building.
Music and arts schools operate independently, but they share the lobby, cloakroom and concert hall. Communication between students of different schools is ensured by courtyards on the second floor. This link is essential for broadening the limits of each discipline. They also provide natural daylight for rooms in the middle of the volume - libraries and rehearsal rooms. Classrooms are planned around the perimeter of the building, rehearsal halls have higher ceilings and are placed in the middle of the school.
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09-12/2006
Graduation project at Riga Technical University, mentor - Marc Ryan.
Riga’s Northern Passage deals with areas adjacent to the planned river Daugava’s Northern crossing that would complete city’s highway ring. Project considers the possibility of expanding Riga’s central part whilst keeping city’s compact nature intact. It defines a northern border beyond which dense urban fabric is replaced by natural territories and smaller groups of buildings. The potential of an international transport corridor and the areas it crosses is explored. If properly studied and taken advantage of, it could provoke a transition into a new stage of development for the city. Riga’s Northern Passage proposes to add extra importance to the Northern corridor by combining it with Rail Baltica international railway with stations on both riverbanks and in Riga airport. From these points all other districts of city are easily accessible.
The concept for Daugava’s left bank consists of three dominant factors: determination to preserve Spilve meadows as a unique natural area, presence of river and impact of international level road infrastructure. These factors are turned into functional programmes that connect the key objects: a hippodrome, Kremeri nature reserve, a science museum in a former factory, an exhibition venue, Spilve railway station - the old airport building transformed into an entrance pavillion to station, continuing the building's life as an international traffic hub. Triangle, formed by main roads around the station with a concentration of international traffic flows underground, becomes Business triangle with the highest building density in the area.
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02-05/2006
Study project at Riga Technical University, groupwork - Mārcis Dejus, Michal Matejicek, Evelīna Ozola, Andris Rubenis
The project site lies in the southeastern part of Riga by one of city’s main roads - Maskavas street. It consists of three large areas: Kengarags, Rumbula and Darzini. Kengarags is one of the first large scale soviet era housing districts of Riga; Rumbula hosts warehouses, factories and vast fields of outdoor car sales; Darzini used to be one of the allotment garden areas in Riga, today most of the little garden lodges have been rebuilt into single family homes and the area has obtained a suburban character.
The existing distribution of functions was analysed. They were divided into strip-like functions (residential, office, industrial, commercial, green land use), line-like functions (roads) and point-like functions (educational, cultural and health care institutions, sports fields etc). Then new functions were introduced and new land use proportions calculated.
Project proposes to redirect transit movement from Maskavas street to Lokomotives street that lies next to the southeastern railway and has a better link to other city highways. By doing so, Maskavas street would become a more humane boulevard of local importance.
The compositional principle - strips, perpendicular to Maskavas street, - has been used in both functional zoning and in distribution of the built volume. This structure breaks up the monotone straight line of Maskavas street. Building heights and densities decrease when approaching the riverbank where green areas take over.
