Tag Archives: Flow Model

A reimagining of slums, QED, Alexandr Valakh

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concept 1

6th year Alexandr Valakh has been researching the anatomy of slum functionality in Rio De Janeiro. Slum areas typically develop due to inadequate employment opportunities and the necessity to live resulting in the irregular and somewhat chaotic appearance of the constructions.

Alex module study (1)Alex module study (2)Alex module study (6)

To reinvent this Alex is proposing a loose set of structural rules that bring some much needed order the the slum idea. By implementing this theory Alex’s idea will allow a basic industry infastructure to help support formal employment opportunities as well as making efficient use of the same geographical footprint.

concept 2

Alex’s bold ‘plug-in-city’ concept involved units that can be adapted and extended to suit their purpose in the community. Units can be extended in any direction thus allowing the construction to climb and create a towering peak. Alex has called the project the ‘Stacked City Prototype’.

Alex module study (8)

Alex produced this 1:100 scale structural flow model to study variable layouts and in turn the conditions it would create for the people using the site. The model was extensively designed in CAD and made using laser cut acrylic and ply wood components to represent different material elements.

Alex (17) IMG_2850 PS IMG_2878 PS IMG_2841 PS IMG_2851ps

Warrington Town Centre Flow Model, Baljit Panesar

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Baljit is using a slide system to convey the different mapping she has looked at in her study of Warrington High Street.

The key question for this project was ‘What is the future of the High Street?’.

The project has looked at empty shop spaces and their potential for non retail use as a reinvention of the traditional high street. Baljit mapped the variety of creative industries in the Warrington area and is looking at the potential to place them within the empty high street store spaces.

Contested Peripheries Baljit Panesar (5)

Her main site focus is the Garnetts Cabinet Works which is due to be demolished. By using this site as an ‘incubator’ or hub for creative services, Baljit proposes a ‘launch site’ for services that would normally be based outside of the high street with the Garnetts site acting as the gateway for those services.

This working model is constructed as a grid allowing pins to be placed in the board to indicate changes in site flow at specific locations across the high street and bigger city site.Points of intervention can easily be updated by simply relocating the relevant pin.  Each mapped industry or feature has been screen printed onto acrylic slides which are stored in the base of the model and slotted in above the engraved map and below the grid. This model will continue to change and inform as this project is refined and understood, partly due to the creation of the model itself.

Urban Food Flow Model, Sophie Smith

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To demonstrate her ideas for rebalancing food slow or supplies in the city Sophie used an unorthodox approach to demonstrate her proposal. Using wire to convey possible food output areas of the site are highlighted using coloured acrylic and linked. The main focus is around an existing supermarket with the intention being to show how redistribution of suppliers could be increased locally.Living water cress troff’s are used in places of significant produce making this a living model – fairly unusual but interesting approach!