imaginecity

urban sprawl

2008-04-24T12:11:00.000-07:00

We look into history, and we realise more often than not the face of cities are placed into our minds as mental maps, a graphic representation vide iconic structures, at the simplest level, or at the level of reading visible physical aspects of our urban fabric. On the ground plane however, we quietly engage in the parks, the hotel lobbies offered to us, as pedestrians, and then ofcourse we reach and enter our homes, the fruits of labour of our interior designers, or not, and sometimes, our hotel lobbies, and our shopping malls. These spaces begin to prime itself [responding and being shaped] to become specific to our needs. They attain global smilarities in design and at once become both regional or indigenous, yet they self-adjust, and are re-examined by their inhabitants, person by person, community upon community, until one fine day they meet all the same criteria, as they become more and more accepted as global standards and solutions, all over the world, non specific as it were to region or culture, even geographical features. The city could in fact become extremely uniform, homogeneous, and is only differentiated at the level of artistic preference, chanced upon by designs, of its more visible structures, namely larger buildings, or more easily, its taller iconic architectural exploits. At the ground plane, surprisingly they cannot be so well defined as being unique to any one region or place.

www.zlgdesign.com

aquacity

2005-11-20T07:20:00.000-08:00

This image of an water-centric development, a concept to develop new communities over large bodies of water covered areas, in this case a major coastline along the North bounds of East Malaysian waters. The Project calls for a prototype container, structurally a circular rig with pneumatic features and aquarium-specifications glass sides permitting views into the ocean. Over a long stretch, we might see more of these connecting to each other, forming a network of floating "air bubbles", some serving to provide communication devices and facilities, public reception, and others shall merely provide food and storage items.

Technically a project using water as technology for support and structure, a concept to push modern developments forward using the potential of water environments and generating more awareness in our very limited appreciation of the vastly neglected resources that we have around our congested and polluted cities.

Aquacity is one project whereby the support structure and foundations of a building is provided through the application and understanding of fluid mechanics, the water itself assisting with reducing the cooling loads on the enclosed space with careful mechanical ventilation and design. The site is immediately constructible, devoid of any need to invest in high energy foundation systems commonly required for land bound development. Communication network is again free of charge, the water body permitting simple low-tech transportation systems which can be energy-saving and completely free of fixed, pre-defined or often limited permanent routes offered by traditional road networks.

www.zlgdesign.com

Reversing Architecture

2005-11-12T10:17:00.000-08:00

By using found objects from the site, the Boh Visitor Centre facade is able to reconnect more effectively, at least in the visual sense, to the surrounding landscape; the wooden logs having been made out from trunks of fallen trees found in the immediate areas. The logs are later inserted carefully into the rust protected slender metal frames, and rearranged in random fashion, to control and soften daylight penetration into this naturally ventilated TEA Visitor and Showroom Facility and Building. Project is located in Cameron Highlands, Malaysia and owned by the Russell family.

Boh has enjoyed many awards and the latest being the Barbara Cappochin Award for its sustinable architecture and also for the efforts put in towards collaboration between the Contractor and the Consulting Experts and the Client. Last week the Cityscape Asia Awards for Corporate Building picked this as a winner for Responsibility towards conservation of the Environment.

www.zlgdesign.com

Design: Susanne ZEIDLER, Huat LIM [ZLG Design]

linearCity

2005-10-29T12:20:00.000-07:00

Not too many years ago, zlgdesign was commissioned to create a new concept for innercity living, and behold today we have the LRT system and the new KL Light Monorail Transit System, running along the once dilapidated KL "longkang", this being not so long ago, the single largest sewer, connecting all but the back of major run-down,still kicking, older buildings that make up what is still the original center of the city of Kuala Lumpur.

Brought out from the good days of the AA walking city idea, inspired by the legendary Professor Peter Cook, and his late colleague Ron Herron, both having met with huatlim and having contributed a vast amount of resources to this Project, Susanne ZEIDLER included, in their office and at home, the Project team members are back. The Project after some eight years, actually materialised, after many economic sanctions and painful financial diaspora and take-over attempts failed to meet the challenges of this extraordinary concept, the dream development is now slowly taking shape in the form of simple white, modernist structures dotted along the riverside of Sungei [river] Klang.

This has to be the one single high-octane high-concept ultra project deserving of good and fair publicity, but it never did any, and no one really got anywhere, let alone Professor Peter Cook and the late Ron Herron or indeed the original designers who now wors at ZLG Design Studio. KL-LinearCity went through two major presentations to the ex Prime Minister, and one major paradigm shift for Malaysian Architecture.

For more intellectual and design information visit zlgdesign or contact us via email.

www.zlgdesign.com

saigon pearl

2005-10-29T11:58:00.000-07:00

Project located in Saigon, themed after a forest, with 30-40 storey towers sharing a common ground with elevated walkways and link bridges on L2 and L5. This is a retail project themed after a residential neighbourhood that is both sophisticated and affluent.

Car park ventilation systems are represented as scultural lanterns of light that beckons pedestrian to walk through, promoting much needed traffic for retailers on the ground floor and above.

www.zlgdesign.com

Instant Cities

2005-09-18T08:17:00.000-07:00

20 years ago, many a town took 1,000 years of building to evolve into a livable place. Today, in China it takes less than 4 years too build any city, complete with spanking new infrastructure, systems and all. instant cities are everywhere, Dubai, PutraJaya, mainly in the East. Is it really to satisfy and meet population growths, and demands for more labour and resources, or are we merely adding unnecessary strain to our own economy. Five of the world's most polluted cities today are in China. Would building new cities solve the imbalance in the quality of life we find today? Shoddy construction add to the pains of a city, maintenance problems abound, and traffic jams are a daily experience to work. Yes, the cities are there for us, but do we lead a quality life as we do a hundred years ago?

Protecting Our Water Environments

2005-09-15T11:11:00.000-07:00

There are many associations and bodies governing the acts protecting our water environment. In Australia, the The Environment Protection Act [1993] sets down policies and objectives through well stated aims and obligations. It is said in order to protect our water environment one has to look into enhancing and allowing suitable development and addressing social obligations and awareness. Communities must be encouraged and supported, in their management of pollution emanating from their businesses and enterprise. Waste water treatment and recycling becomes a policy, and that standards are followed with regards to limits of producing waste water or allowing it to pollute the environment.

China's GDP is Green

2005-09-15T10:42:00.000-07:00

Until recently, Chinese had been proud of the explosive economic growth, an averaged 8-plus percentincrease in GDP over the past 25 years, regardless of heavy costs in biological and environmental fields as well as resources.

Now the central leadership is turning to a scientific concept of development which calls for an overall, coordinate and sustainable development.

Premier Wen Jiabao, in his government work report to the current parliament session, pledged to well handle the issues of population, resources and environment and to meet the requirementsof achieving a harmonious development by coordinating human being and the nature.

In related developments, the State Statistical Bureau (SSB) and the State Environmental Protection Administration are jointly working on the criteria for the so-called green GDP, which will include the costs in environmental, biological and resources fields into account when governments of all levels calculate economic development.

Balancing Bio-Systems against Technology

2005-09-02T12:57:00.000-07:00

In the new city, a wireless society exists: it sustains itself by interacting and ENGAGING the environment. One process is through returning all by-products of both human and mechanical systems back into the existing immediate present eco-system. Architecture simply consists of bio-climatic and electronic control systems and models that modulate the environment for optimum comfort level and continuous assessment and re-balancing and finite adjustments of these systems to reflect and accommodate exacting human needs.

There are currently interests to use bio-degradable building poroducts some of which come from using hemp, as in the States, or from using re-cycled waste and by-products from Palm Oil Industry, old palm trunks some several millions are available each year for this purpose. The "bio-mesh" has been studied and exhbiit lightweieght characteristics and strneght as a binder in making boards and floor panels. This study is avialble in Malaysia and ZLG Design has access to this work.