architecture = work
DESCRIPTION
Ben Street Architecture portfolio 2016 Kent University & 3 years in practiceTRANSCRIPT
Archial Architects, Ipswich KLH Architects, Suffolk
GXM Architekten, Zurich
Mia Architectura, St. Moritz
PLP Architecture, LondonAllsop Sparch Architects, London
University of Kent, Canterbury
Places worked
Project locations
Archial Architects, Ipswich KLH Architects, Suffolk
CV
EDUCATION2010-20132003-2010
20162014
University of Kent: BA (Hons) Architecture. Ipswich School: A-level History, Geography, Biology & AS Art
Online course, Harvard University: Computer ScienceOnline Course, Bocconi University: Infrastructure finance
EXPERIENCE2014-2016
2013-2014
2013
2010-2012
2012
2010
2009
PLP Architecture, London: Design of mixed use towers in the City of London and China, design and construction of central London office spaces
Mia Architectura, St. Moritz: Design and construction of high end residential, night life and commercial spaces
GXM Architekten, Zurich: Design of cultural buildings
KLH Architects, Suffolk: Residential and medical design
Humanitarian Construction, Uganda: Design and con-struction of improvements to two schools, a clinic and an orphanage in rural communities
Allsop Sparch Architects, London: BSF Primary school
Archial Architects, Ipswich: Residential design
CONTACT
Microstation
Rhino
Grasshopper
3D Studio Max
Archicad
Vectorworks
Autocad
Sketchup
Adobe Suite
Revit
Ben’s Mission:Use design and computation to make life at extreme density more fun, friendly & resource efficient
Professional Reference:Kevin Flanagan,Partner,PLP Architecture(+44) 20 3006 [email protected]
Academic Reference:Dr Timothy Britain-Catlin,Senior Tutor,Kent School of Architecture(+44) 1227 824 [email protected]
(+44) 7962018858
7 Brimsdown House,E3 3LW,London
Ben.Street
SHAPING THE TOURIST
WORLD VIEW
PERSONAL PROJECT
The flâneur wanders every destination with the same detachment, feels the same everywhere they go and therefore feels that everywhere they go is the same.
This creates apathy, the subconscious perception that no matter what changes we could make to our lives or the world, one would always end up feeling the same.
Some places still shake our assumptions of what is inev-itable but globalization is making it easier and easier to act and feel identically in more and more cities. The per-ception of fundamental sameness is reinforced by archi-tecture which looks dramatically different, which still house identical uses and experiences, malls, galleries, gift shops and things to boredly take your photo in front of.
This pavilion causes people to interact, first casually, as they play with the lighting effects, then more di-rectly as climbing the inside requires help from others.
One experiences a feeling different to the typical museum, res-taurant, routine and together with a million other methods of creating different feelings in different places we can combat the ennui that travelling in the 21st century tends to engender.
It’s goal is to help make us aware of the incredible diversity of lives we could choose to lead or worlds we could choose to create.
VENICE, ITALY
1. 2. 3. 4.
Form Follows FunModel Experiments:
Left: Matchsticks
Centre: Thread and glue cast over a balloon
Right: Double curved paper
Beams of light shoot up the building’s ribs when touched
Everyone prefers interactive to passive things; down with inert architecture!
MODEL CITY FOR MEGA DENSITY
PERSONAL PROJECT
Hong Kong, China
We live in a time when mankind is founding many new cities.Once established, cities can rarely afford to change.
We are building according to outdated models which we know do not meet all of our needs.
Due to the population peak in 2050, it is likely that whatever this generation builds will continue to structure many human
lives far into the future.
This project shows a better way to deal with conditions which demand super-density.
It is a geometric answers the question:
“How do we fit the absolute maximum amount of people into a city while also making it nicer to live in?”
Hong Kong is used as an example because it already has far greater demand for space than high rise can provide for, but this model can be adapted to any high density context.
A BRIEF HISTORY OF PLOT SIZES
Plot sizes have consistently grown over time.Today’s high rise towers and shopping malls occupy the plan area of hundreds of buildings in a medieval city.
Plot sizes grow when a larger model is demonstrat-ed to provide more benefit as a whole than many small parts could from the site collectively.
The high rise building is currently our civilization’s largest building unit, when drawing up master plans today, sites are broken down to plots of this size, and developed as many separate buildings.
This project shows the advantages of holistic plan-ning on a larger scale.
Once the performance advantages are quantified, capitol will consolidate sites and out-compete bids for smaller developments. There will be no more separate buildings, only continuous urban fabric.
EXTRA NOTES
1. In present day Hong Kong, many people still have to pay out most of their income to live in horrendously overcrowded accommodation.
4. And the voids are totally arbitrary, most are just extrusions of the circulation grid, which no-one cares about above ground level
7. Circulation is a caricature of inefficiency. To get from one tower to the next one must go down to ground level, across and then all the way back up.It operates as a series of cul-de sacs, rather than a network
2. The entire island is developed is at maximum capaci-ty under the high rise model.
3. But there is still so much wasted space! Most of the city is unusable void between buildings.
5. Or the gaps left between the towers which again is completely arbitrary.
6. Everything overshadows everything else, views are truncated, airflow is sub-optimal, people even have to pay a premium to get a day-lit apartment.
8. This also means everything is duplicated; structure, lifts, risers, everything. Because the Petronas towers where connected with a single bridge both towers could lose an entire fire core. We could create >5% more city just by reducing service core duplication.
9. Ground level only circulation also means uses that need pedestrian flows can only occupy a frac-tion of total building volume. = Boring, inflexible, congested, over commercialised city life.
EXTRA NOTES
* The taller the slab, the larger the light-well diameters. The slab is extruded vertically until light-wells become so large that adding an extra floor could only create a net loss of day-lit internal volume.
** Infrastructural systems are compared according to which uses the least annual cubic millimetres; The volume a system would occupy (including addi-tional structure necessitated by it’s weight) multi-plied by the number of seconds a year that it would require that space.
*** Development today seeks to maximise the value extracted from atomised plots of land. This is creat-ing cities with high quality buildings but inadequate connective tissue. City scale development necessi-tates consideration of the whole.
I propose cross-referencing all digitally recorded sale and rental values to isolate which properties of each unit of the built environment are creating differences in value.
At the city scale sale and rental values alone cannot provide enough information because of the differing opportunity cost of money to different citizens. This data is correlated against other resources such as social media shares and tracking of user behaviour and physiological responses to prototypical spaces.
This allows us to compare the value of alternative ways of housing a particular use and the value it would be able to create at any location in the slab, as well as the positive or negative impact it would have on the value potential of the spaces around. The slab is analysed as a 3d grid, each point of which possesses different numerical values; connec-tivity, quantities and qualities of light, proximity to exterior space and so on.
Together this data is used to digitally generate the highest value design, use mix and zoning for the entire city and to dynamically update the form and use of space to remain optimized in real time.
An evolutionary algorithm introduces and meas-ures the relative performance of random variety to ensure the occupation pattern of the slab does not become trapped at a local optimum.
10. My scheme starts with a slab cast across the entire site, the red line shows the volume of the existing high rise city if arranged in the same way*
13. A fractal circulation network, mimicking natural capillaries uses the minimum volume to provide access across the entire city**
16. No human activity occupies a full cuboid, we break from flat floor plates and design voids according to the space actually used. The example on the right uses 25% less volume while providing the same number of work spaces. Huge spatial gains can be made this way.
10 km10 km
11. We then remove the minimum volume that allows it all to be naturally lit
12. The light wells are then deformed to allow passive heating and cooling of the entire city.
14. We reduce the spatial cost of circulation even further by laying it out as a enfilade of occupiable, programmed public spaces, like museums, galleries or souks. This will also make walking more entertaining
17. Values extracted from global market data are as-signed to 3d grid locations for each use type. We then generate the highest total value distribution of uses***
18. Smart geometry = better lives****Not just more space but better space!
15. The slab is a connected 3d network = a higher per-centage of the city can be used by types which require pedestrian flows = more exciting, and more valuable.The roof can also become a continuous park.
Collapsible uses:
Automatic movement of partitions attached to sensors allow for example bedroom space to become office space in the daytime
High connectivityMedium light: OfficesSchoolsUniversities
Super high connectivityMedium light: Indoor public streets & Enfilade of public spacesConvenience retail
Medium connectivityLow light: Vehicular Transit & LogisticsTheatres & NightclubsShopping malls & Sports venues
Lightwell base: Civic functions
****WHY IS THIS GEOMETRY BETTER AGAIN?
It provides a lot more space, which would either al-low homes to increase in size, price of land to drop or more people to live and work in the city.
Quality of life will also be higher because:
A higher percentage of space is naturally lit
Connecting the roofs allows more outdoor green space per person than present day Hong Kong
Connecting the slab into a 3d network will allow as much diversity of use to occur in the section as happens in plan.
A lower percentage of the city is service core as ris-ers ducts and circulation are linked into a network
Perspective Section:
Speculative layout based on typical use categories and climate condi-tions
Optical glass fibre fur: -Collects daylight for redistribution-Prevents ultra violet degradation of layers behind-Acoustically softens exterior-Moves aesthetically with wind
Carbon fibre and Kevlar composite: -Rigid shell structure-Vapour proof
Aerogel:-Super insulates interior-Prevents fire damage to structure
Internal finish:-Impact protection for aerogel-Aesthetically pleasing for user
Bundled optical fibres: -Conducts daylight into building interior-Basket structure reinforcement
Roofscape: Recreational gardensLeisure activities
Medium - Low connectivityHigh light: Residences & private outdoor spaceRestaurants & destination leisure
Cladding detail:Maximum performance, minimum weight and volume
Lightwell base: Civic functions
Low ConnectivityLow Light:Industry & WarehousingWaste & Water treatment
Integrated logistics:
Robotic networks throughout structure reduce the volume of traffic required to service the city.
This and other services occupy only the interstices between non-tesselating use voids (see figure 16) Where today risers occupy what would otherwise be useable space.
THE MOST SPACE EFFICIENT
ELEVATOR IN THE WORLD
PERSONAL PROJECT
ALL TALL BUILDINGS ON EARTH
This technology is the foundation of a start up I have co-founded with several friends and colleagues.
We have also developed designs for other systems based on the same concept
For updates please visit ELEMAX.co.uk
Even in the most efficient buildings service cores
still take up an average 20% of floor area
Most of this cores area is elevator shafts
and elevator shafts are mostly empty space if we allow cars to move between shafts we
can fit exponentially more cars in each shaft
For 3 shafts a circular plan is used so all cars can move to any position without passing through any other
The large external edge also increases speed of Passenger loading and unloading
More cars in each shaft = fewer shafts & higher capacity=
More rentable area + shorter lift waiting times=
Happier landlords, happier tenants
20%
LIFESTYLE URBANISM
UNIVERSITY PROJECT
Every city changes your lifestyle as soon as you move in.
What if we start by defining the lifestyle we want, then design the city in order to create that?
This building is a public living room, stocked with ways to pursue your own interests and make friends with people
who you share interests with.
It is about giving the local people the things they really want, more than just another shiny building.
LILLE, FRANCE
MODULAR HOUSING
UNIVERSITY PROJECT
These contemporary terraced houses are laid out to form a possitive pedestrian environment for people passing
through.
They are laid out as a landscape and have a wind turbine/chapel which drives water through cleaning pools as an
elegant focal point for views.
MARGATE, KENT
1
设计思路 Design Concept
汉口 Hangkou
汉阳 Hangyang
武昌 Wuchang
地块 Site
中北
路金
融带
Zho
ngbe
i Roa
d Fina
ncial
Belt
黄鹂路 文化带 Huangli Road Culture Belt
湖北省博物馆Hubei Provincial Museum
地块 Site
沙湖Sha Lake
东湖East Lake
地块 Site
commercial road- cultural road
most suitable place for the shop-ping mall
resi+clubhousea�ordable housing
conncetion corner
location of the shopping mall
tube connection with the shop-ping mall
green park environment Wuhan
existing building structure
1st location of the landmark tower
tower location _error
conncection 1f-b1 shopping mall
tower location _solution
USES DISTRIBUTION
贯通而整一的地上地下立体商业空间Integrated above grade and below grade shopping space
方案 1Option 1
方案 2Option 2
方案 3Option 3
文化与金融轴的交会点Intersection point of city cultural axis and finianl axis
项目地理位置Project Location
优越的地理位置Advanced location
最大化沿街商业界面Maximise streetfront
宜居的住宅环境Livable residential environment
重要的交点位置Important junction
购物中心的最优位置Optimised shopping mall location
城市的梯地公园A terrace green park for the Wuhan city
主塔楼不适宜布置在场地西北角North-west corner not good for main tower
便利的城市地铁连接Convenient underground connection
保留地块内的现有工业遗产Preserved industrial heritage
最佳的塔楼位置Optimised tower location
业态分布Uses distribution
作为沙湖与东湖的景观轴带的重要组成部分Important part of the Shahu and Donghu Landscape axis
主要商业道路
Commercial Road 文化道路
Cultural Road
地块Site
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1. Landmark tower master plan: Wuhan, China
2. Office fit out: London, UK
3. Office building: London, UK
4. Office complex: Beijing, China
5. Retail district: Nanjing, China
6. Office complex: Ras Bufontas Economic zone, Qatar
7: Kindertagesschule: St. Moritz, Switzerland
8: Retail fit out: St. Moritz, Switzerland
9: Hotel Interior: Celerina, Switzerland
SELECTEDPROFESSIONAL
PROJECTS
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