Urban population explosion, both due to rural-urban migration and growth, will demand 3000 new cities in the next 20-30 years. A major concern for these will be their ability to incorporate high density without compromising the spatial quality and cope with global climatic and ecological changes.
The studio investigated designing in high density neighborhoods. What are the challenges of accommodating large number of people within cities? How do we combat increasing FAR and also address the demands of climate, access to open space, building use mix? Can such neighborhoods address walkability to basic amenities?
Such a design process involves establishing relationships between built -open as well as working with per capita ratios and capacities. It demands embedding analysis within the design process as well as testing multiple design iterations. In order to address this complexity, the studio used computational power (Rhinoceros + Grasshopper and spatial analysis) to establish simple rules of relationships and gradually build in the complexities within the computational model. Students coded to develop evolutionary algorithms in order to use its generative capacity to define simple inter-relationships and design strategies, and checked multiple permutations in order to search for a fit design solution.
