MSc3 Hybrid Buildings

MSc3 Graduation Lab

Transportation hubs and interventions in complex urban environments

The studio focuses on the main themes of the master track Hybrid Buildings: territorial and urban infrastructures, urban analysis and scenarios, programmatic and typological hybrids and the transformation of the built environment as the inputs of architectural thinking and design. Transportation hubs in Europe - particularly the one related with High Speed Trains (HST) - are embracing greater areas than the building itself. Some of these areas are inadequate for mobility, marginal to urban fabric and unattractive, (in)directly showing social, economical and environmental burdens at several scales. New design approaches are required! This is an opportunity to rethink the urban surrounding of transportation hubs, balancing their roles as infrastructural nodes and places in the city. To understand how architecture can improve the performances of these spaces in different cultural and physical contexts, two cities in Europe are offered as case studies: Amsterdam in the North and Istanbul in the South. The aim of the MSc3 project is to develop design guidelines for the transportation hub and its surrounding area wherein a building proposal can be formulated and worked out. The activities will be organized as follow: firstly, researching in groups, in order to define theoretical and operative frameworks. And secondly, in groups or individually, by testing and improving these frameworks developing a design proposal for one of the sites. To support it, lectures by experts on the field will be given, and both locations will be visited. 

Location Amsterdam
Amsterdam’s Zuidas (South Axis) is a hyper-urban hub currently under development in Amsterdam, close to Schiphol International Airport. The multifunctional programme includes offices, dwellings, retail, restaurants, schools, recreation facilities and last but not least infrastructures. Mobility will be the driving force of this urban area. An impressive transportation hub, with the concentration of different modes of public transport, will be channelled underground. (above all High Speed Train and Noordzuidlijn - the new North/South metropolitan railway line -). One of the main issues is how to integrate the mix of functions with a 24-hour urban dynamic where the multiple use of space is a must. The studio will focus on these problems and work on the development of urban scenarios wherein specific building assignments will be formulated. 

Location Istanbul
Istanbul is a hybrid place in many aspects. But the clichés about east-meets-west, or the familiar wisdoms on the cultural melting pot only form the background in this studio, which focuses on the very material problem: the hybrid condition constituted by a former port site at the edge of the historical centre of Istanbul going under transformation to form an ambitious hub of infrastructure and transportation. The
Yenikapı waterfront has to facilitate the connection between the heavy pedestrian and vehicle traffic, with the subway, tram networks and high-speed ferry lines. It recently gained further importance as the designated connection point to Marmaray: an underground/underwater train line that runs 76 kilometres along southern waterfront of Istanbul connecting Asian and European sides with a tube under the Bosporus.
The studio will tackle with this urban landscape of intense infrastructure presenting a complex situation. In a parallel studio with Bilgi University in Istanbul and Harvard University, students are expected to carry out analysis, develop urban scenarios, propose and study a building as a part of this urban scenario.

Coordinator: Roberto Cavallo

Staff: Roberto Cavallo, Emre Alturk, Willemijn Wilms Floet, Olindo Caso, Ana Luisa Martins da Conceiçao, Lara Schrijver, Stefan van der Spek.

Code design exercise: AR3Auh20 (MSc3) AR4Au110 (MSc4)