Historical Precedents for Hillside Housing Projects
By John Taylor; 2009 Aug 08, Kamal 08, 166 BE
In 1972 an architect by the name of Kisho Kurokawa, a follower of the Japanese Metabolism movement, constructed the Nakagin Capsule Tower. This extraordinary apartment complex has some of the features of the hillside structures that I envision in a Universal Civic Society. Like the proverbial Greek ship which attains immortality by having its planks and entire structure replaced periodically, the living capsules within this apartment complex can be replaced with new ones at intervals, allowing the building to last for many centuries.
Unfortunately, cooperative, shared ownership was not among its features. The result is that forty years later the heirs of the original proprietors of this historic building are apathetic in the face of its imminent demolition. I have blogged a video put out by an architectural periodical featuring the architect, who has since died, explaining his building in some detail at:
http://badiblog.blogspot.com/2009/08/kurokawas-capsule-tower.html
Kurokawa's Tower has replaceable units that, like the cells "metabolizing" in a larger body, renew themselves over time. Unlike in consultative architecture, though, the capsules in this tower are not easily movable, either within the building or to other locations by a containerized transport system.
East-west orientation for solar independence
In consultative architecture a planetary building code stipulates a standard superstructure designed to maximize exposure to sun and wind, for both renewable energy and local agriculture. The inside support structures of what looks from the outside like a giant mound are hidden away and designed exclusively for hosting outer, moveable, standard-sized building units. Like giant furrows in a newly ploughed farmer's field, streets and long block rows run in an east-west direction to catch the maximum sunlight on the southern face (or, in the Southern Hemisphere, the northern face). This gradual sunny slope is covered with ornamental gardens, parkland, agriculture and solar collectors.
The shady northern side is steeper and consists of high density housing and mixed-use building units running down its much steeper incline. Many stories high, the overall superstructure has fit into it many multi-layered compartments in niches down its side. There are factories, commercial structures, schools and apartments, all in close proximity. Only the noisiest industrial activity is carried on inside where the sound is contained and dampered.
There are many forgotten advantages to building an entire city block at once according to a single, shared plan. For example, in Turkey archaeologists discovered an entire ancient city covered over by a single, shared roof. Another example is the three thousand year old but still-inhabited city of Yazd in Iran. This city has a public air conditioning system that uses renewable energy to alleviate a desert climate of extreme summer heat combined with only 2.4 inches of rainfall a year. A cleverly designed system of wind towers combined with underground canals or water tunnels called qanats, blows air over cool water and into the buildings.
"The wind gets sucked in (by the wind towers) and pushed down over water below, and the cooled air is circulated through the house. In the ancient homes I saw, the room at the bottom of the wind shaft had a little pool of water and the sides of the room were often built-in brick benches covered with carpet, where the dwellers would spend the hottest part of the day." (Heirloom technology: Yazd's windcatchers, http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2009/08/heirloom_technology_yazds_windcatch.html)
In some respects, this is more efficient and uses fewer resources than the most advanced heat pumps. Combine this with the custom, common throughout the Middle East, of sleeping outside in summer in the cool night air on a flat roof, and you have zero-energy air conditioning built directly into the infrastructure.
John Taylor
email: badijet@gmail.com
blog: http://badiblog.blogspot.com/
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