7 Groundbreaking Designs From Around the World That Can Help Us Build the Perfect City
Presented in "The Ideal City," a new book by IKEA’s design lab, these ideas by leading architects give us the blueprint for better living.
Presented in "The Ideal City," a new book by IKEA’s design lab, these ideas by leading architects give us the blueprint for better living.
The perfect city doesn’t exist. The hypothetical apex is even hard to imagine. But The Ideal City, a new book by IKEA’s design and research lab, SPACE10, and published by Gestalten, scours the world to outline its core attributes: a city that is resourceful, accessible, shared, safe, and desirable. By providing examples ranging from affordable and sustainable starter homes in New Orleans, to a community library built of responsibly sourced in Indonesia, to a waste-to-energy power plant in Denmark, The Ideal City shows us how small-scale solutions can have universal effects. Read on for a look at just a few of the projects from the book, available to preorder and to be released March 10.
A Park That Acts as a Sponge in Northern China
When architecture firm Turenscape was approached to help revive a failing wetland at the center of Qunli, a new urban district in northern China, the firm’s response was to use the project to solve another of the city’s problems—namely, its inability to cope with the stormwater that frequently caused flooding and waterlogging in the summer months. The urban development surrounding the area had cut off the wetland from its water sources, causing the ecosystems to disappear. Turenscape devised a solution to both problems by surrounding the wetland area with an outer ring of mounds and ponds, which act as a filtration and cleansing zone for stormwater collected from the urban area. The water can then be stored and released into the wetland as necessary. Taking the Qunli Stormwater Park one step further, the architects introduced new ways to bring local residents closer to nature, including building a network of paths that wind around the ring of ponds and a skywalk that provides stunning views across the open landscape.
Kongjian Yu
An Active Landscape in Copenhagen’s Harbor District
This playful design explores the ways in which the parking garage—a staple of every urban environment—can take on additional characteristics and functions in order to make it an attractive and beneficial place to spend time. For this parking garage in Nordhaven—a port area in Copenhagen earmarked for rejuvenation—JAJA Architects devise a scheme that hinged almost entirely on a handrail dubbed the "red thread." This guiding rail starts at street level, continues along a staircase of the building, and leads to the most fantastic playground on the roof. Here, the red thread loops into spirals and twirls across the roof, framing swing sets, monkey bards, and jungle gyms in its path, before descending back to street level via a second staircase on the opposite side of the building. The plant boxes, situated in a grid-like rhythm, enliven the facade with greenery. Although the design is unconventional, the structure is red in recognition of the historic red brick harbor buildings in the area. Also dubbed the Park 'n' Play, this project proves that even the most mundane infrastructure can add practical whimsy to our cities.
Rasmus Hjortshoj
A Regional Market Built of Recycled Materials in Niger
While much of rural African life revolves around weekly trading gatherings, the economy of individual villages can barely survive. Atelier Masomi hopes to change this with a design that could, if emulated across the region, give communities in an arid landscape short on natural resources a much-needed economic boost and a sense of pride. The architecture firm built a permanent regional market in the village of Dandji with canopies made of cheap and recycled materials that now operates daily instead of weekly. Adapting the regions’s traditional market typology of adobe posts and reed roofs, the design uses compressed earth bricks and metal in a durable, quirky, and visually striking manner. It is also incredibly practical. Colorful, recycled metal disks provide shade usually cast by trees in less severe climates, while arranging them at different levels ensures good ventilation. The compressed earth bricks used for the stalls have similar cooling advantages of the more traditional adobe, but at a fraction of the cost. Bringing this dramatic upgrade to the village infrastructure full circle, the site is centered around an ancestral tree with landscaping that encourages newcomers to gather and sit with the local villagers, increasing interaction socially as well as economically.
Maurice Ascani
See the full story on Dwell.com: 7 Groundbreaking Designs From Around the World That Can Help Us Build the Perfect City
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