Planning

Tram at the station

The city of Strasbourg has been developing a new tram-line service to combat increasing congestion and pollution in the city center. The first part of this initiative was the development of Line ‘A’ that ran east to west across Strasbourg. A parallel initiative to the design of the transport system was the inclusion of a number of artists, such as Barbara Kruger and Mario Mertz, to make specific installations at key points of the line. Currently, Strasbourg is planning the second line, ‘B’, that will run north to south. Zaha Hadid has been invited, as part of the new artist’s interventions, to design the tram-station and a car park for 700 cars at the northern apex of the line.

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A diagram showing the distribution of program within the building

The concept behind the City Tower in Incheon, South Korea was to develop a communal space by reconsidering the manner in which tall structures are designed.

In contemporary architecture, skyscrapers have been appreciated for their engineering exploits, but rarely for the dialogue they create in the civic space around them.

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Master planning

China has taken the necessary step into a new era of urban development: Building Sustainable Cities. The Shanghai Industrial Investment Corporation hired Arup to design and plan a city. The goal was to make it as close to carbon neutral and zero waste as possible. When Dongtan Eco-City is built on an island near Shanghai, this development could bring increased sustainability to a region rife with crowding and pollution. The city is planned for Chongming Island(third largest island in china), situated in the mouth of the Yangtze River, The urban area will occupy just one third of the site with the remaining land retained for agriculture and used to create a buffer zone of ‘managed’ wetland between the city and the ‘natural’ wetland.

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Pavement development as part of the kala ghoda project

The master plan prepared by the firm focuses on combining the existing components and functions in the area to create a unique function of an Art District for the city, to animate and make possible the use of interstitial spaces in the area such as pavements, the parking lot and an amphitheatre to bring art into the public realm.

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