Future Cities Laboratory

“Dense and Green Building Typologies: Architecture as Urban Ecosystem”

Time Space Existence – Venice Architecture Biennale 2018
 
Venice: European Cultural Centre / GAA Foundation, 2018
 
From the publication:
 
Contemporary architecture and urban design practice in Singapore and beyond is increasingly exploring the integration of green spaces in buildings, producing new typologies for high-density contexts that include public spaces, extensive sky terraces, sky bridges, vertical parks, roof gardens, and other ‘green’ components. Combinations of all these, often applied to mixes of residential, civic and commercial programmes, conjoin at times to produce ‘vertical cities’ in which the building section becomes part of larger urban ecosystems such as parks, gardens and river networks. Density and sustainability here are not seen as contradictory but rather as mutually dependent and synergistic.
 
Dense and Green Building Typologies is a five-year research project of the Future Cities Laboratory (FCL), established by the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (ETHZ) and the National Research Foundation Singapore in collaboration with key academic partners including the Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD). FCL studies sustainable future cities through science, by design and in place, with its High Density Mixed-Use CitiesScenario developing new integrated planning paradigms, research methodologies and implementation processes to support higher population densities, higher standards of environmental sustainability and enhanced liveability. As part of that scenario, Dense and Green Building Typologies investigates systematically the environmental, social, urban, architectural, and economic benefits of large buildings with integrated green spaces in high-density contexts through a series of international in-depth case studies, including in Asia, Europe and the Americas. The research is organised in five work packages that address its various dimensions:
 
Environmental benefits studies the performance of dense and green building typologies in terms of thermal comfort, heat gain, urban heat island effects, air quality and noise pollution.

Social benefits investigates dense and green building typologies in terms of use and appropriation as well as psychological comfort.

Urban design and architectural benefits explores typological strategies that mitigate negative effects of high density.

Economic benefits examines the role of dense and green building typologies in land value appreciation.

Design strategies integrates all work packages to develop innovative approaches to high-density architecture and urban design.

The research as a whole explores how dense and green building typologies can play an important role in the development of compact yet highly liveable future cities in Asia and around the world.

Research Team: Prof. Dr. Thomas Schröpfer (Principal Investigator), Prof. Sacha Menz (Co-Principal Investigator), Dr. Michelle Yingying Jiang (Project Coordinator), Richard Belcher, Emek Erdolu, Mayank Kaushal, Thibault Pilsudski, Prashanth Raju, Ester Suen, Jonathan Tan Koon Ngee.