PRO UTOPIA
March 2nd, 2010 by
Nicolette Escobar
UTOPIA has been a concept that many architects and literaries have fussed over for centuries, much attributed to the ideas of the Enlightenment and the socialist movements of the 19th century. Resembling the likes of Archigram, and Buckminster Fuller, Michael Sorkin, principal of Michael Sorkin Studio, New York, and distinguished Professor of Architecture and Director of the Graduate Program in Urban Design at CCNY discusses a new notion of utopia, one that meets the socio-economic needs of tomorrow’s planet.
In his lecture at the Southern California Institute of Architecture (Sci-Arc) last Wednesday, introduced by the director of Sci-Arc, Eric Owen Moss, Sorkin underscored the concept “autonomy of design”, an interdisciplinary approach to architecture, integrating environmental economics, urban logic and community to form sustainable cities. Cities, being the epicenter of development, are invariably connected to nations, and by structuring each to maximize energy and resources efficiently, without outsourcing the most basic resources, the transition of sustainability from local to global scale is feasible. Reintroducing new methods of organizing urban populations to minimize our ecological footprint, Sorkin proposed a number of master plans for cities from around the world. Fundamentally sustainable and with an emphasis on self-sufficiency he devised several imagined and actualized projects that retain the functionalism required for modernity, by integrating political, social and environmental spheres.
Riva Ring Masterplan, Instanbul, 2008: A series of seven villages, each at the scale of an urban neighborhood, each with its own center, each with a sufficiency of cultural, commercial, educational, recreational and other facilities, and each designed to allow daily activity to be conducted on foot and in easy relationship to public transportation.
Shanghai Main Station District Masterplan,China 2007: Featuring a thick layer of green and sustainable interventions with a rich texture of public spaces.
Louisada 2056 Masterplan, New York 2006: Utilizing street space through the reversal of figure and ground, and public and private property.
Images courtesy of Michael Sorkin Studio.
Visit www.sorkinstudio.com for more information.
