This is the Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG), winning design for the 80 hectare EuropaCity Project. EuropaC
This is the Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG), winning design for the 80 hectare EuropaCity Project. EuropaCity is located between Paris and Roissy in France’s most populated region. According to Bjarke Ingels, Founding Partner of BIG:“EuropaCity will be an experimental hybrid between urbanism and landscape design; centre and periphery overlapped in the simultaneous coexistence of a recreational open landscape of rolling hills superimposed on an urban neighbourhood of walkable streets, plazas and parks. We find that Paris these years is taking on a holistic effort to ensure that the urban periphery is given equal opportunity to be as lively and inhabitable as its historic center. EuropaCity will be an important step in this agenda.” One of the key features of the design is the green roof which serves as a public park, provides insulation and acts as a means to turn grey water and rain water into a usable byproduct for the city. Though the renderings are fantastic, my first thoughts on seeing the design is that it looks isolated. The round design introduces a completely new urban fabric to the area, with no transition between the existing fabric. Also, that’s a lot of open space. How many people are going to be living here? I wonder if this is this the sort of urban environment French people want to live/work in, as the development appears to be one you could build in any city or country, with no part of its built form identity being taken from France or even Europe. Regardless, it will be an interesting to see the project’s development. -- source link
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