Solar City
Design Team: Michael Frederick, Patrick Ifurung, Dhira Pardi, Nathan Vanderlaan | Advisors: Neil Denari
Los Angeles, California : 2011
Over half the world’s population lives in just over twenty mega-scale urban conglomerates. These mega cities come in all shapes, densities, and emotive qualities, however one thing they all have in common is growth. Compact dense urban centers have long been seen as the benchmark of sustainability in cities because of their inherent mass transit networks. However as all cities grow this benchmark of inherent sustainability through transit must be expanded into the realms of solar energy production, high density urban farming and integrated water purification systems. This project seeks to develop an urban typology that is functionally sustainable using both new and old technologies while still maintaining culturally and economically vitality. Thus while this project is “green” in its metrics its visual language is much more akin to modern Asian cities also blending the scale of the European boulevard with mid evil Barcelona.
