NAME: FAISAL U-K

OCCUPATION: STUDENT (4TH YEAR B.ARCH)

PROJECT: URBANITY RESEARCH CENTER

SITE: EXPO 2020 SITE, DUBAI, UAE

DATE: FALL 2016

Further Link - http://faisaluk.com

This project explores new possibilities of urbanity and the morphology of future cities. It aims to formulate a city-like composition on a 'building scale' as a manifesto project to show the potential off what a city could be. The conceptual form is generated using parametric semiology (specifically agent based crowd modeling) and takes the challenges of the site as parameters. By inputting swarming agents into Rhino (Grasshopper) forms and voids are carved out of space and earth based on network paths and crowd density, the same way anthills are built through stigmergy. Then the algorithms are further enriched by adding functional parameters, the main 3 being; accommodation, public space, and offices. To represent this (while addressing the needs of the post-fordist network society) the 'modernist segregated zones' could not be implemented, so although the forms generated were 3 distinct buildings, they are amalgamated at certain levels to create a symbiotic relationship between the spaces. For example, on the 2nd floor there are shared office spaces that can be accessed from each of the buildings and on the 3rd floor a sky garden as public space for tenants to socialize; since the accommodation is spread out through 2 buildings above the 3rd floor, with a variegation of typologies for a heterogeneous society.

This all results in a building that can be extrapolated on an urban scale to give new life to cities. To create a free market urban order, where social functionality is more important than technical functionality and unfolds the complexities of the post-fordist network society into a 360-degree interface of communication. To redefine and redesign the modernist axiom of urbanism, to think of demarcated spaces as dynamic fields and segregated functional zones as inter-articulated symbiotic subsystems. To create order and complexity (without chaos) through the "lawful inscription of information" like braille.

Thank you!

Faisal U-K,
4th Year, B.Arch