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Team #523 New Port City Brazil
Assignment 6: Visualize the City
by Bianca, Martina, Esteban, Javier, Eric
The Genesis of New Port City - A Story for the 21. Century
1. Intro
This is the introduction to a Brazilian fairy-tale, like the
story of New York at the beginning of the
20. century to wipe away the historic problems of weak
infrastructure, housing shortage and
economic dependency.
Beyond this, New Port is a call on green revolution to take
place where no one expects it.
Our future city is named New Port City, because the harbor area
and the industries connected to
it, are the economic engine and therefore build the heartbeat of
the entire region.
By saying with the remark of Baykan Gnay:
Heart of the city is an analogy used instead of the spiritless
concept of the centre.
This is a statement of our hope to create a multi-cored city
from sketch which serves the
purpose to have manageable sized cities within this Megatropolis
accommodating 15 million
inhabitants. And it is a promise to make an approach to achieve
real change for a sustainable,
livable future.
In New Port the slogans intelligent growth, renewable energy,
electric mobility, change of habits
and technological innovation become visible in an unexplored
dimension and get a new meaning
through implementation of already available inventions.
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Networks of natural space are essential to a sustainable city.
(Metropolitan Toronto from Hough, p.263)
Our vision of a Port City in Brazil is informed by understanding
sustainable residential densities.
By modeling the single family home parcel as the basic unit of
land use in a prototypical city
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block we can estimate a sustainable density for a metropolitan
region.
Global warming can only be brought under control if we
dramatically reduce our per-capita GHG
emissions.
Cities offer many efficiencies but we can do much better. We
must make dense cities that are
livable and affordable. Tall buildings are better suited to
offices than housing. The real bulk of the
city is housing throughout the metropolitan region. Very good
density is possible without
excessive height. For this reason connection by rapid public
transportation on every level of the
city from downtown to periphery is a basic condition to
grow.
The citiescharacter is influenced by pure movement of the
millions of people who live, work and
travel there. - Helping to make it grow and prosper every minute
since its foundation.
This is only possible because of one person and the enormous
investment of 2 billion U.S.
Dollars.
Eike Batista is one of the most prosperous sons of Brazil. His
company EBX has planned, built
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and owns the container port with 3 kilometers offshore mooring
for oil production at the coast of
South Brazil.
Megaport Au is supposed to be the biggest deal of his life,
despite the fact that Batista yet has
about 10 billion Dollars private, financial reserve.
Au - we have simply renamed into New Port - will become the
working place of 50.000 people
throughout the next decade, another big subject is to build a
shipyard there to cover the
increasing demand of modern, fast ships for transportation.
In the former assignments we also concealed the circumstance
that 85 percent of Brazilian oil
deposits are at the coast of Paranagua as well as iron ore in
the local mountain range.
In our imagination we - as local municipal authority - have
convinced Batista to support the local
urban surrounding to become a pioneering project of sustainable
urban and environmental
development.
Scheme 1: Batistas Au and urban cookbook plan of a striped city
pattern.
The work ing port is located upstream and protected from storms.
It is important to maintain a natural buffer
between the city and the ocean. Industrial activity can be
integrated with landscape and recreation.
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Scheme 2: New Port grows with replaced deep water port and
airport.
Batista is known for being a generous businessman and he is
prepared to take a financial risk
which he often has done before e.g. by funding the Police of Rio
de Janeiro and various social
and ecological projects in Brazil.
Thus, we could imagine to negotiate with him about making
another investment of the symbolic
amount of 2 billion Dollars.
To make constant and rapid exchange of business people and
visitors possible at all we decided
to build a progressive offshore airport. The sea port will serve
primarily to ship raw material and
food worldwide.
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Port area with office buildings in background
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2. The approach
Patrick Condon proposes a set of guidelines for city design that
is more responsive to people
and the environment. The familiar auto-centric patterns of urban
development have become a
global phenomenon. We need to focus on human needs to create a
liveable walkable city.
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City squares and plaza creating public space and make a city
breath.
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Urban river connects promenade and valuable addresses in the
city center.
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Parks and natural space in the city play important role in
management of water runoff.
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By modeling the single family home parcel as the basic unit of
land use in a prototypical city
block we can estimate a sustainable density for a metropolitan
region. Starting with a basic unit,
great variety is possible.
Condon (page 51) turns to the typical 660 x 330 block. Almost
all development parcels in the
city from 40 story tower to single family home can fit into the
same block size. A 33 x 110 lot
at 3600 squarefeet will yield 32 lots per acre. The resulting
residential gross density including
streets may comfortably accommodate over 10units per acre.
Considering the range of possible
densities it is reasonable to assume a metro region average of
20 units per acre. A city for 15
million would require about 470 square miles. Imagine an area 10
x 50 miles with major nodes
connected by a network of high speed rail.
People like living together. The rising cost of auto-centric
commuting lifestyle create a demand
for well designed livable high density. The per capita
Greenhouse gas GHG emissions can be
brought below 4 tons.
New Port City will have an efficient infrastructure network for
services (like education, health and
public administration) and trade. Furthermore, vertical
greenhouses within the city ensure
enough food and short transportation. Public spaces, promenades
and markets offer the
opportunity to connect, relax and interact within the
neighborhood and making the city breathing.
Sources:
Barnett, Jonathan (2003) Redesigning Cities, APA Planners
Press.
Baykan, Gnay (2007): GESTALT THEORY AND CITY PLANNING EDUCATION,
in METU JFA, 93-113.
"Fix-this/City-planning (2012/Oct.12): Bloomberg Businessweek,
60-66.
Condon, Patrick M. (2010): Seven Rules for Sustainable
Development, Island Press.
Friedman, Avi (2007): Sustainable Residential Development,
McGraw Hill.
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Hilger, Christina (2012): Vernetzte Rume, Transcript,
Bielefeld.
Hough, Michael (1984): City Form and Natural Process, Van
Nostrand.
Jacobs, Allan B.(1993) Great Streets, MIT Press.
Jacobs, Jane (1961) The life and Death of Great American Cities,
Random House.
Sennett, Richard (1998): The Corrosion of Character,
Berlin-Verlag, Berlin.
Sonnabend, Regina HG (2003): SERVE CITY, Interactive Urbanism,
Jovis Verlag, Berlin.
Tahara, Keiichi (2000): Art Nouveau Architecture, Thames &
Hudson, London.
Online Sources:
Eike Batista:
http://uk.reuters.com/article/2013/04/03/brazil-batista-strike-idUKL2N0CQ0VX20130403
http://www.forbes.com/sites/ricardogeromel/2013/03/04/biggest-loser-of-the-year-eike-batista/
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/21/world/americas/a-brazilian-magnate-points-to-himself-for-inspiration.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VbwVfS4Frb4
Urban trends:
http://www.bmwguggenheimlab.org/
https://www.facebook.com/BMWGuggenheimLab?fref=ts
http://landarchs.com/
http://www.plantagon.com/
http://www.voxnow.de/die-samstags-dokumentation/wie-leben-wir-in-zukunft.php?container_id=117957&productdetail=1&season=0&s0=1,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_house_movement
http://www.tumbleweedhouses.com/
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Visit us on prezi.com for further aspects of New Port
City:http://prezi.com/wccg0enftqkv/untitled-prezi/?kw=view-wccg0enftqkv&rc=ref-38702233