Andromeda

urban planning and architectural competition of a high-rise residential complex located in the radical postwar prefabricated residential area
SK, Košice — 2019
residential
investor, client
ANDROMEDA INVEST s.r.o.
architect
Boris Redčenkov, Prokop Tomášek, Jaroslav Wertig
team, collaboration
Martin Fornůsek, Jiří Neuvirt, Lukáš Komín
visualization
obrazek.org - Michal Nohejl

It's like a battle is brewing. On opposite sides of the valley, two camps, each from a different urban world, are facing each other. On the west side stands a pedantically arrayed army of what remains of the functionalist holy war. On the eastern side, from the shelter of small gardens, an army of postmodern trolls sneers and sneers. Each of these two armies swears by its truth. But in reality, each of the two irreconcilable sides is contradicting its truth. The self-conscious, overweening estate is a far cry from the nobility and elegance of Le Corbusier's Plan Voisin. The sprawling colony of typified houses, on the other hand, is a far cry from the picturesqueness of an authentic village or a villa west end. And between them, like a demarcation line, a shallow green valley where, under the code name of Operation Andromeda, a decisive battle is about to take place. For which of the truths will dominate this valley. If the cards are dealt in such a way that the expected density of use is certainly not a victory for low-rise individual development, we feel it is our duty as urban planners and architects to protect the fragile tranquillity of the green valley from an even greater escalation of tensions between the opposing sides. We have therefore attempted to reconcile, if not to reconcile, at least to pacify the irreconcilable parties. We have tried to borrow from the strengths of the two rival camps and combine them. Functionalist architecture and urbanism broke the traditional link between man and land. In the name of liberating public space from its compartmentalisation into individual plots, this philosophy ripped people out of their gardens and placed them in rationalist concrete matrices. This has created a surplus of free space that belongs to everyone and, in fact, to no one. A space whose bleakness and unsustainability is hidden only by the merciful green. Prefabricated buildings without parterres are not city-forming, so they do not create an attractive living urban space, as the functionalist visionaries dreamed of. The paradox of "liberation" and the opening up of free-flowing public space is the emergence of nearby gardening colonies where people condemned to live in prefabs can realise their archetypal need for contact with the earth. The gardening colonies tend to be as large as the desired liberated space. Without a doubt, functionalist urbanism is more efficient in terms of construction and density of space use. By contrast, the camp on the other side of the valley appeals to the age-old need to root in the earth and define its own territory. But it invokes it so vehemently that it does not even acknowledge the question: at what cost? Does it no longer go against its meaning? The plots of individual houses are so small that rather than defining individual territory, they create conflict, neighbourly control and paranoia. There is no space to spare, and the public space is reduced to a service road with no possibility of defining a roadway, sidewalks, much less a public green space. The paradox of such an environment is its confinement, its uncomfortableness, its impenetrability, its loss of privacy in the use of one's own land. It is difficult to judge whose side the truth is on. Where is it better to live, healthier, in a more pleasant atmosphere. Where do healthier social ties, a sense of community, belonging, neighbourhood and home emerge? We have tried to combine the benefits and reduce the negatives of both systems in our proposal. From the functionalist concept we borrowed the idea of free-flowing space, permeability of the area, open horizon, interpenetration of landscape and architecture. From the traditional model of individual housing we borrowed a closer relationship to the terrain, to the land. The ability to individualize, the ability to create environments with different social status; private, semi-public, community space. And a nice scale. Our composition consists essentially of two architectural elements; the cylindrical towers and the low-rise base. The cylindrical forms of the towers have a number of advantages. They allow light to reach and illuminate the effectively used layout, they are directionally neutral so they do not create planes of facades that confront each other or favour a particular direction. They do not have aggressive corners, they do not create boring and endless slabs. The space between them flows freely, without acceleration. And of course the old familiar optical trick, we perceive them as far more subtle than orthogonal forms with the same capacity. We have pumped the eight cylindrical towers up in height into a dynamic composition that belies the austerity, dullness and ponderousness of the neighbouring housing estate urbanism. We have left them as an intrusion scattered freely into the green valley hillside. At the level of the terrain break we connected the towers with a low plinth. Its organic shape reinforces and dramatises the natural morphology of the valley. And it is no coincidence that the organic routing of the streets also recalls the growing urbanism of the village. The cylindrical towers are effectively filled with the desired mix of dwellings. But there is something that makes them more than apartments. Between the rational orthogonal floor plans of the flats and the cylindrical cladding, loggias are created which, in their shape and size, allow for a much more variable and varied use than traditional prefabricated loggias. You can dine with several people, garden, inflate the children's pool, stretch hammocks. One can walk around the outside of the loggia, as if one were walking around one's own backyard. Moreover, the loggia can be shaded by external blinds around the perimeter of the cylinder, thus protecting it from the sun and defining privacy more strongly. This gives the apartments a sense of autonomy that is typical of individual construction. The towers thus represent a kind of typological hybrid, a kind of vertical village. Similarly, the flats in the low-rise plinth are conceived in a similar way, which is close in scale to classic terraced houses. The flats on the lowest floors are then extended with front gardens, which also define the interface between private and public space and prevent its anonymisation. Sokl is only visually asserted from the valley, through which it stretches as a kind of visible contour. From the adjacent street it is hidden in the descent of the terrain, so that it does not obstruct views into the green valley. De facto, the plinth is the used edge of the underground garages where the garages rise above the sloping terrain. The third component of our composition is greenery and landscape. Mass functionalist construction was characterized by its inability to respond to the morphology, the soft shaping of the terrain. In contrast, we seek to exploit the potential of the picturesque valley by settling the towers and plinth into its soft undulations. We further dynamise this by routing paths, front garden fences and cross passages connecting Wuppertal to the valley. Leisure activities are casually located in the valley as well as community spaces with the urban parterre are oriented to the existing street. The concept of greenery, with its liveliness and randomness, only seeks to reinforce the picturesque image of the intermingling of landscape and architecture. The structural and technical design assumes the use of traditional technology of reinforced concrete monolithic frame based on footings with ceramic block lining. Traffic circulation is addressed by connecting the ramp entrances at the southern and northern ends of the site to the adjacent Wuppertal Street. Parking is in two/three-storey underground garages with perpendicular parking on both sides. The course of the garages follows the shape of the adjacent street augmented with guest parking spaces. The legend of Andromeda tells of the punishment of pride by the sacrifice of beauty. We believe that a sensible and sensitive approach without arrogance can achieve the expected results without sacrificing beauty.

 

Andromeda

urban planning and architectural competition of a high-rise residential complex located in the radical postwar prefabricated residential area
SK, Košice — 2019
residential
investor, client
ANDROMEDA INVEST s.r.o.
architect
Boris Redčenkov, Prokop Tomášek, Jaroslav Wertig
team, collaboration
Martin Fornůsek, Jiří Neuvirt, Lukáš Komín
visualization
obrazek.org - Michal Nohejl

It's like a battle is brewing. On opposite sides of the valley, two camps, each from a different urban world, are facing each other. On the west side stands a pedantically arrayed army of what remains of the functionalist holy war. On the eastern side, from the shelter of small gardens, an army of postmodern trolls sneers and sneers. Each of these two armies swears by its truth. But in reality, each of the two irreconcilable sides is contradicting its truth. The self-conscious, overweening estate is a far cry from the nobility and elegance of Le Corbusier's Plan Voisin. The sprawling colony of typified houses, on the other hand, is a far cry from the picturesqueness of an authentic village or a villa west end. And between them, like a demarcation line, a shallow green valley where, under the code name of Operation Andromeda, a decisive battle is about to take place. For which of the truths will dominate this valley. If the cards are dealt in such a way that the expected density of use is certainly not a victory for low-rise individual development, we feel it is our duty as urban planners and architects to protect the fragile tranquillity of the green valley from an even greater escalation of tensions between the opposing sides. We have therefore attempted to reconcile, if not to reconcile, at least to pacify the irreconcilable parties. We have tried to borrow from the strengths of the two rival camps and combine them. Functionalist architecture and urbanism broke the traditional link between man and land. In the name of liberating public space from its compartmentalisation into individual plots, this philosophy ripped people out of their gardens and placed them in rationalist concrete matrices. This has created a surplus of free space that belongs to everyone and, in fact, to no one. A space whose bleakness and unsustainability is hidden only by the merciful green. Prefabricated buildings without parterres are not city-forming, so they do not create an attractive living urban space, as the functionalist visionaries dreamed of. The paradox of "liberation" and the opening up of free-flowing public space is the emergence of nearby gardening colonies where people condemned to live in prefabs can realise their archetypal need for contact with the earth. The gardening colonies tend to be as large as the desired liberated space. Without a doubt, functionalist urbanism is more efficient in terms of construction and density of space use. By contrast, the camp on the other side of the valley appeals to the age-old need to root in the earth and define its own territory. But it invokes it so vehemently that it does not even acknowledge the question: at what cost? Does it no longer go against its meaning? The plots of individual houses are so small that rather than defining individual territory, they create conflict, neighbourly control and paranoia. There is no space to spare, and the public space is reduced to a service road with no possibility of defining a roadway, sidewalks, much less a public green space. The paradox of such an environment is its confinement, its uncomfortableness, its impenetrability, its loss of privacy in the use of one's own land. It is difficult to judge whose side the truth is on. Where is it better to live, healthier, in a more pleasant atmosphere. Where do healthier social ties, a sense of community, belonging, neighbourhood and home emerge? We have tried to combine the benefits and reduce the negatives of both systems in our proposal. From the functionalist concept we borrowed the idea of free-flowing space, permeability of the area, open horizon, interpenetration of landscape and architecture. From the traditional model of individual housing we borrowed a closer relationship to the terrain, to the land. The ability to individualize, the ability to create environments with different social status; private, semi-public, community space. And a nice scale. Our composition consists essentially of two architectural elements; the cylindrical towers and the low-rise base. The cylindrical forms of the towers have a number of advantages. They allow light to reach and illuminate the effectively used layout, they are directionally neutral so they do not create planes of facades that confront each other or favour a particular direction. They do not have aggressive corners, they do not create boring and endless slabs. The space between them flows freely, without acceleration. And of course the old familiar optical trick, we perceive them as far more subtle than orthogonal forms with the same capacity. We have pumped the eight cylindrical towers up in height into a dynamic composition that belies the austerity, dullness and ponderousness of the neighbouring housing estate urbanism. We have left them as an intrusion scattered freely into the green valley hillside. At the level of the terrain break we connected the towers with a low plinth. Its organic shape reinforces and dramatises the natural morphology of the valley. And it is no coincidence that the organic routing of the streets also recalls the growing urbanism of the village. The cylindrical towers are effectively filled with the desired mix of dwellings. But there is something that makes them more than apartments. Between the rational orthogonal floor plans of the flats and the cylindrical cladding, loggias are created which, in their shape and size, allow for a much more variable and varied use than traditional prefabricated loggias. You can dine with several people, garden, inflate the children's pool, stretch hammocks. One can walk around the outside of the loggia, as if one were walking around one's own backyard. Moreover, the loggia can be shaded by external blinds around the perimeter of the cylinder, thus protecting it from the sun and defining privacy more strongly. This gives the apartments a sense of autonomy that is typical of individual construction. The towers thus represent a kind of typological hybrid, a kind of vertical village. Similarly, the flats in the low-rise plinth are conceived in a similar way, which is close in scale to classic terraced houses. The flats on the lowest floors are then extended with front gardens, which also define the interface between private and public space and prevent its anonymisation. Sokl is only visually asserted from the valley, through which it stretches as a kind of visible contour. From the adjacent street it is hidden in the descent of the terrain, so that it does not obstruct views into the green valley. De facto, the plinth is the used edge of the underground garages where the garages rise above the sloping terrain. The third component of our composition is greenery and landscape. Mass functionalist construction was characterized by its inability to respond to the morphology, the soft shaping of the terrain. In contrast, we seek to exploit the potential of the picturesque valley by settling the towers and plinth into its soft undulations. We further dynamise this by routing paths, front garden fences and cross passages connecting Wuppertal to the valley. Leisure activities are casually located in the valley as well as community spaces with the urban parterre are oriented to the existing street. The concept of greenery, with its liveliness and randomness, only seeks to reinforce the picturesque image of the intermingling of landscape and architecture. The structural and technical design assumes the use of traditional technology of reinforced concrete monolithic frame based on footings with ceramic block lining. Traffic circulation is addressed by connecting the ramp entrances at the southern and northern ends of the site to the adjacent Wuppertal Street. Parking is in two/three-storey underground garages with perpendicular parking on both sides. The course of the garages follows the shape of the adjacent street augmented with guest parking spaces. The legend of Andromeda tells of the punishment of pride by the sacrifice of beauty. We believe that a sensible and sensitive approach without arrogance can achieve the expected results without sacrificing beauty.