CONTAINER: TRANSFORMING TO REUSE
The elementary particle of the project is the standard container, in either 20'-0" or 40'-0" nominal lengths, which is dismantled, transformed and then reassembled.
The skeleton is transformed by adding two new modular structural spans, so to offer new assembly possibilities, generating new complex functional and formal settlements, both for the raising buildings and for the covered parking and the overhanging park.
The corrugated metal skin is adjusted to create two distinct wrappings: one sliding “brise soleil” system and one circular windowed wall, each to be used for different exposures.
The container “doors” are bent to form a three-dimensional portal to sign each unit entrance.
USES: MINGLING FUNCTIONS
Each of the seven container buildings hosts different-sized residential units besides commercial and services units, that work altogether as a complex socio-economic system in which the mingling of different uses create variable relationships. So we can envision services that traditionally serve residence but also, on the contrary, temporary residences that give supply to workshop laboratories, galleries, conventions. The green hills and the covered parking form the path to join this new social incubator to the existing urban tissue and, through the station, to the metropolitan area.
SITE: MULTIPLE GATEWAY
So the project site becomes a catalyst both for new social living experiences and for cultural, economic events, leading Newark at the forefront of the new complexity. The towers act as visual signal of innovation, but they cling to historical heritage by using traditional plan typologies. |
