MVRDV teaching how to build cities

Vertical Village, The Why Factory

by MVRDV

Computer software generates endless possible architectural configurations from standardised components. MVRV are talking again about new ways of creating architecture that no longer responds to extenernal inputns or the environment of a particular place or culture. It standarizes the living towards a more effective and systematized solution in the living building construction and structure. Analytical research, models, animations, installations, a documentary and two software packages demonstrate the possibility to develop dense, vertical urban villages.he concept was developed in collaboration with The Why Factory, a global think tank and research institute run by MVRDV and the Delft University of Technology.

The pressure on the East Asian cities has lead to an increasing urbanization and densification during the last decades. It has made way for the construction of giant buildings, mostly towers, blocks and slabs. A ‘Block Attack’ that gradually replaces and scrapes away the more traditional low rise, small scale, often ‘lighter’ types of architecture and urbanism: the Hutong in Beijing, the small wooden houses in Tokyo, the villages in Singapore, the individual houses in Taipei and other East Asian cities. These urban villages form mostly intense and socially highly connected communities, with enormous individual identities and differentiations. One can speak of urban ecologies, communities that have evolved over the course of centuries. Their faceless replacements packed with identical apartment units offer a Western standard of living at an affordable price, but at the expense of differentiation, flexibility and individual expression. (by The Why Factory)

Rødovre Skyscraper in Copenhagen, Denmark by MVRDV

all the images from this post were found via dezeen