Thursday, July 27, 2006

The Vatnsmyrí challenge - Áskorunin i Vatnsmyrí

A new city within the city is about to be planned in the Vatnsmyrí area, around the site of the existing domestic airport. The competition brief states: “Here the citizens of Reykjavik have the opportunity to add a new dimension to their city and its social and cultural life, meet the challenge and adventure of the twenty-first century, and strengthen Reykjavík’s position as capital city.”

So, now we must take this opportunity and ask the question of what this new city should be like. What should be the driving force of this new development? What is your vision for Vatnsmyrí?

The increasing competition between metropolitan cities in attracting people, business’ and tourists makes the future developments of cities ever so more important; to stand out, to have a clear identity, a distinct vision, to provide the necessary city functions modern city-life is in demand. In some ways there even seems to be a recipe for this, having a city of some historic value adding interesting modern architectural cultural monuments and some recreational public spaces. The reproduction or recycling of the same architects and large architectural monuments seems though somehow to diminish the difference between modern cities today. Therefore developing the city identity regarding place and context, avoiding the ‘MacDonaldism’ of cities is of most importance.

The size of the new Vatnsmyrí development is XLarge. This means that it is most likely to be a foreign architect or city planner, who will be executing the future development. I would like to refer to one of the earlier discussions on the blog, concerning the special situation in Iceland – Climate!
And would therefore like to raise the question once again; how is the climate factor being introduced into planning?
How can we make a new city quarter work with climate conditions such as wind, water and sun?
How can we make it relate to its context, the place and not end up creating an imported city-model from somewhere else?

Building on this land gives a rare opportunity to involve environmental aspects in town planning and by an intelligent integration with the remaining city, create a city model to stand out from the ordinary.

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