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RE_EDGE

A KIDNEY FOR TOKYO

2018
studio hani rashid
university of applied arts vienna

with barbara schickermueller & jan kováříček

Over the past several years there has been significant discourse across a broad spectrum of stakeholders addressing the significance of climate change and the associated risks relative to human inhabitation especially in dense population centers. Sea level rise, flooding and storms will impact our coastline cities in unfathomable ways. We will see dramatic changes taking place over the next half century as vast populations shift from coast cities inland or elsewhere. There once advantageous location on the ‘edge’ between land and sea that provides infrastructure, trade routes, natural ressources and recreational values is turning more and more into an uncalculable threat. Due to this shift the realtionship between the cities and their connection to the water have to be reinvented. At the very same time Re_Edge Cities, like all large urban areas, are faced with the pressures of rapid urbanization and have to absorb an ever growing influx of population over the next decades. Re_Edge Cities have unique yet intertwined histories and identites being linked and independent urban entities with diverse but evolving demographics and economies that provide a backdrop for speculative exploration. How can cities face these realties through a speculative investigation of new architectural prototypes based on a resilient approach to rising sea levels and urban growth, based on a coupling of new types of technologies with new programs?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

a deployable urbanism 

CONCEPT
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The concept is based on the idea of adding an extensional organism to Tokyo’s skyline, that is one selfsustainable and closed system, in symbiosis with the city though. The 300-meter high tower is a hybrid building in the middle of Tokyo Bay that is providing ressources to the city, recreational as well as industrial. It could be seen as a vertical smartcity masterplan, taking in consideration the high density of the city of Tokyo, its lack of recreational spaces and its future problems concerning sea level rise and climate change.

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the LIVING SPACE

Deployable Urbanism adopts many fundamental ideas of the Japanese post war Metabolists and reinterpretates them within the current social and environmental context, specifically the Plan of Tokyo by Kenzo Tange. In contrast Deployable Urbanism takes a much more vertical approach, in order to guarantee the possibility of expansion for many decades to come. The upper “Living Space” of the tower is made out of living units and typifies the principles of prefabrication, possibility of expansion and adaptation as well as reconfiguration depending on the structures orientation. This allows creating a diverse space, big and small, introverted and extroverted, depending on the need and so enabling a perfect stay four Tourists, families and workers.

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living cluster
 

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infrastructure
 

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living units
 

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sanitary spaces
 

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balconies
 

7 single clusters that develop from a very rigid grid at the top and merge more and more into the cylindrical, more machinical components, by dissolving to the bottom
 
the MARKET SPACE

Since the 1980, the capture fishery production has been quite stagnant. The aquaculture production increased dramatically since then. Even if the capture fishery production hasn’t increased for 30 years, the amount of captured seafood is still too high and the percentage of overfished species of fully exhausted fish stocks on the ocean is increasing. Japan is one of the biggest importers of seafood in the world since it has one of the highest per capita seafood consumption in the world. In order to reduce the impact on the global fish stock worldwide, it is crucial to push sustainable and efficient methods for fish farming. The offshore fish farms allow an increase of sustainable fish farm production in a radical way, by using the vast areas of the ocean. Once adult, the fish will then be brought to the tower, processed at the fish factories, and then distributed directly at the fish market. This “Marked Space” would play a major role in attracting fish passionate from around the world, becoming the new beacon of sustainable fish production.

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market cluster
 
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horizontal circulation
vertical circulation
 
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storage spaces
 
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5 different components are arranged in a composition, building the essential transition between the machine space and the human space
the MACHINE SPACE

In order to be a self-sufficient system, the tower requires an industrial part. This “Machine Space” is made out of a power plant, a desalination plant, two fish factories, several clusters of mobile fish farms and the infrastructure needed to interconnect it all. The power plant consists partially of an array of piston-like buoys. They are not directly connected to a generator and therefore they are not straightly producing electric energy. They are working like pumps. With the help of the motion of the waves, the buoys pump water upwards into the higher situated water tanks, giving it a lot of potential energy in order to run the turbines below them. The adaptive facades of the tower redirect the strong winds into air pressure thanks which unleash the air into air turbines in order to produce energy. The TVAWT turbines allow converting the kinetic tidal forces into additional energy. The fish factories provide fresh seafood for the recreational spaces of the tower as well as jobs for the city of Tokyo and its surroundings. This seafood is provided by the mobile sustainable offshore fish farms. Due to the desalination plant the tower has a huge amount of freshwater available, which with the help of undersea pipelines can be transported onshore.

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power plant
 
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desalination
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fish factory
 
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machine space circulation
 
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the average energy output of the energy production cluster is arround 90MW MW/h. 44 MW/h are provided by the tidal energy cluster, 14 MW/h by the wave energy Power Buoys and the rest by DIY wind turbines and hydraulic-electric hybrid wind turbines.
the onsen SPACE

Japan is well–known for its overworking culture, which consequences in high suicide rates (“karoshi”). The government is aware of this pathogen in its society and fights it with a plethora of regulations besides limiting the number of overtime workhours per month. This comes to fruition recently; the number of suicides of overworking is decreasing, which brings a new problem to solve. While demands for worktime decreases, demand for leisure time increases, leading to increased demand for recreational spaces.
Tokyo’s officials are failing to address this ongoing situation. There were urbanistic plans on developing large greenbelt areas, which were never realized because of unprecedented growth of the city, creating a vast concrete urban jungle. Consequently, this concrete jungle increased flooding rate in magnitudes of 10s. In the 21st century, we ended up dealing with highly congested overpopulated city, with not enough recreational spaces. The “Onsen Space” of the tower will give the inhabitants of Tokyo’s metropolitan area a space where they can recover and relax as well as breathe fresh air.

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component
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structure
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shells
 
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pools
 
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a composition of different pools that is held by a structural system that is opening and closing in order to protect the whole structure, which is cantelivering 40m above the sea

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