Showing posts with label Exemplar. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Exemplar. Show all posts

Tuesday, August 30, 2011

VIDEO: NETWORK_LA transit

NETWORK_LA transit from tam thien tran on Vimeo.


Network_LA Transit is a conceptual design response by Gensler Los Angeles to an open invitation by Sci-Arc, The Architect’s Newspaper and LA Metro to shift people from their cars to public transit.

Increasing the movement of people, not cars should be the goal of any public transit initiative. For this ambitious project, Gensler Los Angeles proposes an integrated set of ideas to adapt the current system to improve its performance at the various scales based on user needs. The belief is that a more responsive system and an improved user experience ultimately leads to the means to meet that challenge.

Increasing the movement of people, not cars should be the goal of any public transit initiative. For this ambitious project, Los Angeles proposes an integrated set of ideas to adapt the current system to improve its performance at the various scales based on user needs. The belief is that a more responsive system and an improved user experience ultimately leads to the means to meet that challenge.

This design proposal is based on four ideas:
• Increase vehicle choices in the LA Metro system to include alternative modes of transportation, which provide various scales of public transport efficiency.
• Increase flexibility of public transport by keeping existing transit stops but liberating the routes that connect them so that it may respond more immediately to user demand. Also provide it an efficiency advantage with dedicated lanes and pull-in stops to allow for bypassing, as well strategically located underpasses.
• Leverage existing data to increase flexibility and optimize choices by overlapping the location of all ground transport, stops and users through GPS to coordinate their relative positions, needs and capacity in real time. To complete this triangulation, a GPS enabled app – tripFinder – automatically scans the network to sort and provide the user with the optimum trip itinerary while also optimizing the current status of the public transit fleet.
• Expand the network and fill in the transport voids by granting access to this real time information through the selling of licenses to more and other alternative ground transport entities. This business could also be a potential profit center for LA Metro.

The result is user-driven, on-demand system that responds to the needs of each individual rider, allowing the network to organically adapt to the shifting needs of its ridership to improve overall service. Los Angeles, as a city of multiple centers whose relationships are constantly changing, can now have transit routes that adapt to the needs of its passengers rather than forcing passengers to use multiple fixed routes.

Thus a software solution that manages the users needs in real time, and assisted by a series of relatively small and achievable infrastructure improvements could form the solution to Los Angeles Public Transportation inefficiencies; thereby avoiding the type of large grand scale infrastructure work that is very disruptive of daily city life while risking being obsolete before it is complete. This type of solution also speaks to the Los Angeles culture: in proposing a public transport system with personalized service, it reasserts the individualist mentality that has powered Los Angeles’s mythology for generations.

NETWORK_LA transit Gensler Los Angeles


References:
Commute Cost
Based off of research by commuter transportation services and
www.commutesolutions.org

Friday, August 26, 2011

Exemplar - The Answer is not Mass(ive) Transit

Instead of the massive, resource-intensive, and inflexible infrastructure that results from top-down approaches to planning, this proposal argues, why not consider a flexible, pragmatic, small-scale, bottom-up approach?

The Elov, a small, pod-like vehicle that fits into less space than a smart car and reduces the volume of traffic by serving the same number of occupants in only one quarter of the space. Because of its light weight and micromotor efficiency, the Elov can be charged overnight using home outlets, further reducing the required infrastructure.

Monday, August 22, 2011

Mobile Exemplar - ESCLISE Mobile Design Home




© Arhitektu Birojs Arhiidea

The idea behind the ESCLISE Mobile Design Home was to deliver a complete house with complete outer and inner finishing, installations and furniture. Thus volume and configuration of the structure results from transportation possibilities. The house is delivierd in two parts: upper and bottom part. Complete finishing of the two parts and carefully designed junction details allows a quick and easy installation in abput two hours by two workers + crane operation.

Further information and photos after the break.

© Arhitektu Birojs Arhiidea

The concept of ESCLICE house was inspired by traditional Latvian bread – a good slice of rye bread with fresh butter is enough to gain feeling of satisfaction without eating up the whole loaf.

site plan

Our every-day life need are often overestimated leading towards excessive consumption of material goods, including the space. The idea was to create a spatial structure that satisfies desire for high quality living and working environment yet reducing its costs, unnecessary space and ecological footprint to minimun; to create space, that is easy to use, adopt and shrink or extend; space that embodies fundamental feelings of home, warmth and safety. Home that can be easily taken with you to your favorite place, adapted to the context and your personal needs, a simple home with no stress.




Exemplar - Tempe Transportation Center / Architekton

© Bill Timmerman, Architekton, A.F. Payne Photography, Otak, Skip

Architect: Architekton
Location: Tempe, Arizona
Project Year: 2008
Project Cost: $18.9M
Client: City of Tempe
Photography: Bill Timmerman, A.F. Payne Photographic, Architekton, Otak, Skip Neeley


Architekton’s Tempe Transportation Center is a place designed for interaction and community. The architectural form reflects the special nature of gathering spaces juxtaposed against the efficient, rational organization of uses that serve city residents and the Phoenix metropolitan region. The Tempe Transportation Center is the centerpiece of Tempe’s award-winning transportation program, geared to becoming the social and transportation hub. The complexities of this triangular urban site include a busy light rail platform, Hayden Butte, ASU Sun Devil Stadium and the Tempe Police/Courts/Jail complex. The historic downtown and expansive ASU campus (69,000 students) are served by the amenities and transportation options of the Transportation Center, a strategic hub for the new 20-mile METRO light rail system, local and regional bus, Zipcar, and Arizona’s first bike station.

The high-performance building envelope and integrated systems were developed and tested with computer modeling, resulting in a 52% reduction of energy use. This is accomplished in part with a solar veil that protects the east facing steel and glazing from dawn to noon to prevent morning heat gain. The loose weave fabric screens are deployed at daybreak and retracted at noon and can be manually adjusted from the interior by remote control. The shades automatically retract during high winds, responding to roof mounted sensors. Solar panels provide hot water to the building, and conduit is in place for future installation of photovoltaic panels on the roof.

Building Performance Diagram

Quality materials were used to develop a building with a useful life of 80-100 years. The floor plans place support uses (exit stairs, mechanical, copy and storage rooms, lunch room) along the west wall, protecting the daily-occupied office area and creating a flexible space that can change over time. The 2’x2’ concrete panels in the raised floor can be removed and rearranged to accommodate changes in office layouts and the DIRTT interior glass and steel office wall system can be removed, stored and reconfigured as functions change, eliminating demolition waste and reducing time of construction.

© Bill Timmerman, Architekton, A.F. Payne Photography, Otak, Skip

The building includes a number of innovations, including the first desert green roof on an urban office/commercial building. The roof is a visual extension of the mountain and the plaza, visible from Hayden Butte and nearby urban buildings. The 12” soil mix and low maintenance plants stabilize the temperature of the structure in the severe summer heat, buffer noise from overhead air traffic, preserve the roof membrane and filter rain water.


* Location to be used only as a reference. It could indicate city/country but not exact address.