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Seoul Skygarden: Elevated Park on an Abandoned Highway Officially Opens

23 May

[ By SA Rogers in Drawing & Digital. ]

A formerly abandoned 1970s highway in South Korea’s capital city now hosts 24,000 plants as the Seoullo Skygarden, an elevated public park open to all citizens 24 hours a day. That’s a big deal in a city where so much architecture and infrastructure tends to be corporate-sponsored, with special perks for paying customers of companies like Hyundai. Mayor Park Won-soon, a former human rights and anti-corruption activist, wanted to balance all those logos with public spaces that are more accessible to all.

Dutch architecture firm MVRDV was tasked with designing the park back in 2015, and in just two years, they’ve created a successful public space revitalizing and connecting public spaces near the main railway station that were previously fragmented by roads and rail tracks. Its base, a 1970 motorway flyover, sat empty for a long time after being deemed unsafe for its original purpose.

The Skygarden is packed with 645 potted trees and around 228 species and sub-species of plants, adding a significant amount of greenery to a highly paved area of the city – not to mention encouraging foot traffic, recreation, interaction and physical activity. The route is set up to create a network of hotels, shops, gardens and other attractions, enlivening the center of the city. It’s not just a walkway – it’s an educational experience.

“The linear park was designed as a collection of small gardens, each one with its very own composition, perfume, color and identity,” says MVRDV. “The landscape will change according to the seasons: the bright colors of leaves in autumn of the Aceraceae family (maples), the blossom of cherry trees and rhododendron in spring, the evergreen conifer trees ink inter and shrubs and trees bearing fruit in summer.”

“In the future, the overpass will evolve with new plants and new activators so as to become an ‘urban nursery,’ rearing trees for the surrounding districts. Additional structures of stairs, lifts and escalators as well as new ‘satellite’ gardens can connect to the Skygarden, sprouting like branches from the existing structural piers. These extensions can inspire further additions to the area’s greenery and public spaces, and will connect the Skygarden to its surroundings both physicallyl and visually through plant species related to each of the neighborhoods.”

[ By SA Rogers in Drawing & Digital. ]

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Diverging Diamond: Novel Highway Design Eliminates Hazardous Left Turns

02 Jun

[ By WebUrbanist in Architecture & Cities & Urbanism. ]

diverging diamond interchange design

The diverging diamond interchange has been heralded as the new cloverleaf and condemned as pedestrian unfriendly, but it does do at least one thing remarkably well: it eliminates dangerous left-hand turns that tend to cause the worst kinds of accidents.

As confusing as they look, studies so far suggest they reduce crashes by up to a third and fatal crashes by more than half. At first look, these interchanges appear incredibly complex to navigate, but, on the ground, drivers find it easy to follow their directions.

diamond interchange diagram

Drivers never have to turn to get left, which is the most dangerous part of a typical interchange, merging their way into position instead. To accomplish this the roads cross and uncross gradually.

no left turn interchange

While these diamonds date back decades in France, they were only recently imported to the United States. A graduate student named Gilbert Chlewicki thought he had designed the system, only to discover it existed in Europe. There are now dozens of diverging diamonds in over 20 states across the US.

All of their benefits aside, diverging diamonds still have critics. Charles Marohn, an engineer and writer about bad road designs, maintains these interchanges are terrible for bikers and pedestrians. Of course, so are classic clover leafs.

swindon roundabout

Like the infamous Magic Roundabout in England (with five smaller roundabouts circling a larger one), it may just take time for people to get used to the idea, too.

[ By WebUrbanist in Architecture & Cities & Urbanism. ]

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Bike Autobahn: Germany’s 60-Mile Highway for Cyclists Only

07 Jan

[ By Steph in Destinations & Sights & Travel. ]

germany bike highway 1

Germany is already home to the world’s best-known superhighway, the Autobahn, and now cyclists have 60 miles of breathtaking scenery reclaimed from disused railroad tracks all to themselves. Informally dubbed the ‘Bicycle Autobahn,’ the highway is currently under construction, with five kilometers freshly opened for public usage. Ultimately, it’ll connect 10 Western cities including Duisburg, Bochum and Hamm, as well as four universities.

germany bicycle highway 2

Up to 10 percent of Germany’s commuting is already done via bike, but until now, there hasn’t been an easy way for cyclists to get from one city to the next. Many of Germany’s biggest cities have bike paths on the roads, but they tend to be narrow, and don’t generally connect into longer routes. When cyclists want to ride around without worrying about cars, they have to go to parks like Münster’s popular Promenade or Munich’s Englischer Garten (pictured above and below.)

germany bike highway 5

Locally accessible to nearly two million people, this new protected roadway is closed to motor vehicles, making it a safe and pleasant ride for the entire stretch. Development group RVR, which funded the highway with assistance from the European Union and the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, estimates that the bike highway could take 50,000 cars off the road every day. RVR is currently working on getting the federal government to fund the rest of the route, instead of leaving the project languishing in the underfunded hands of regional governments.

germany bike highway 3

The city of Frankfurt is planning its own 18-mile bike roadway to Darmstadt, and Munich is extending its to a 9-mile stretch making the city easy to access from the northern suburbs. London has also declared its intention to convert its abandoned subway tunnels into a highway for cyclists and pedestrians.

Photos via: Darren Johnson, Marcio Cabral de Moura, Anne Guegan, ptwo

[ By Steph in Destinations & Sights & Travel. ]

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Lookout Below: 1-Mile Toronto Park to Run Under Elevated Highway

29 Nov

[ By WebUrbanist in Architecture & Cities & Urbanism. ]

under park at night

A new urban park in Ontario will take sheltered but unused space below a raised roadway and turn it into a place for walking, cycling and outdoor performances.

toronto under highway park

A project of urban designer Ken Greenberg as well as Marc Ryan and Adam Nicklin of Public Work, the Under Gardiner design approach treats the area as a covered streetscape, taking advantage of rain and sun shade provided by the vehicular thoroughfare above.

under park skating

Its surface programming also bridges institutional uses on either side, including aquariums, museums and other cultural buildings.

under highway elevated park

From architectural thesis research into reusing spaces under viaducts, this article’s author can attest to the advantages of using these sub-street spaces – noise and air pollution levels are actually lower directly below than they are adjacent to raised roads.

elevated highway underneath park

The biggest concerns are seismic, which in turn are tied to regional risk factors, and still problematic for any kind of enclosed or sheltered space, architectural or otherwise.

under park construction

Existing columns and beams of the surrounding infrastructure will naturally divide the spaces into sections that act as exterior rooms while also providing ways to hang signage, wayfinding mechanisms and announcement billboards.

under park visual language

The project is being launched with the help of a sizable $ 25,000,000 donation from Toronto philanthropists Judy and Wil Matthews.

street park project

park

“The passion and financial assistance of a major donor is joining with the City and Waterfront Toronto to plan and build new infrastructure, and to showcase a new model of city building for Toronto,” said Waterfront Toronto.

[ By WebUrbanist in Architecture & Cities & Urbanism. ]

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Abandoned Highway to Seoul Sky Garden: New Elevated Park

16 May

[ By Steph in Architecture & Cities & Urbanism. ]

seoul skygarden 1

Deemed unsafe and left to rot, a stretch of highway in a prime location beside a train station in Seoul, South Korea will soon get a new life as an elevated park. Built in the ’70s, the structure provided access to and from a local market that served as a crucial point of trade in the region for decades, but vehicles were banned after failed inspections in 2006. For years it has sat unused while pedestrians are forced to take a long route around it to get to the station.

seoul skygarden 2

seoul skygarden 3

It was supposed to be demolished, but officials consulted residents and experts to see if there was another option. Pedestrian walkways can be hard to come by in any city, and the dozens of elevated parks that are popping up around the world prove that reclaiming and rehabilitating abandoned infrastructure can be an economic boon as they bring new green space to urban settings and create new connections between neighborhoods.

seoul skygarden 4

Dutch architecture firm MVRDV won a contest to design the park, filling it with massive circular plant pots filled with 254 different species of flowers, shrubs and trees to create a “living dictionary of the natural heritage of Korea.” A greenhouse will grow new plants to populate the pots, and pedestrians can stop at a number of cafes, street markets, flower shops and other vendors.

seoul skygarden 5

Once completed, the 55-foot-high structure will cut the walk around the railway station from 25 minutes to 11, and is expected to generate 1.83 times its cost in economic benefits.

[ By Steph in Architecture & Cities & Urbanism. ]

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Mufflers: 10 Artistic Acoustic Highway Noise Barriers

22 Mar

[ By Steve in Architecture & Public & Institutional. ]

Highway Acoustic Walls 1a
These artistic acoustic highway noise barriers combine form with function, neatly blocking the sound of road traffic while looking darned good in the process.

Highway Acoustic Walls 1b

This proposal for an environmentally-friendly acoustic barrier (“Forest Corridor”) in Hong Kong was designed by Bread Studio to meet three strict conditions: masking the sight of the highway from nearby residential buildings, improving the view of the highway’s underside for people in the park below, and relieving drivers from any claustrophobic impressions as they cruise through the de facto tunnel.

Leapin’ Lizards!

Highway Acoustic Walls 2a

Highway Acoustic Walls 2b

Stretching for six miles along both sides of the Pima Freeway’s sound barrier wall in Scottsdale, AZ, “The Path Most Traveled” by artist Carolyn Braaksma evokes the essential nature of the region’s desert ecosystem.

Highway Acoustic Walls 2c

Interspersed among a mix of abstract and Native American-style motifs are prickly pear cacti standing up to 40 feet tall and enormous lizards almost 70 feet long.

Clearly Beautiful

Highway Acoustic Walls 3a

Highway Acoustic Walls 3b

Melbourne’s freeway network is the largest of any Australian city, and without sound barriers the aural impact on residential neighborhoods would be substantial. Cheap and unimaginative acoustic walls would also have a detrimental effect on drivers so a pleasing compromise was achieved that satisfied both.

Highway Acoustic Walls 3c

Tinted acrylic plastic panels set into sound walls along the EastLink Freeway maintain audio insulation while adding visual interest at a reasonable cost. Want to see the world through rose-colored sound barriers? Get your eyes to Australia!

“Sixty Seconds of Architecture”

Highway Acoustic Walls 4a

Highway Acoustic Walls 4b

Louwman Exclusive Cars is a high-end exotic automobile dealer located in Utrecht, the Netherlands, just off the A2 highway between Amsterdam and Maastricht. Instead of making do with a bland and boring sound wall, the dealership opted instead for an acoustic barrier “designed from the perspective of a flow of cars passing by with the speed of 120 km/h.” Fast company indeed.

Highway Acoustic Walls 4e

Highway Acoustic Walls 4d

Highway Acoustic Walls 4f

Highway Acoustic Walls 4c

Stretching 1.5 kilometers in length, the 5,500,000-euro barrier designed by Kas Oosterhuis widens to a 30m “cockpit” that accommodates the auto dealer’s showroom and service bays. No doubt it’s quite quiet inside as well.

Next Page – Click Below to Read More:
Mufflers 10 Artistic Acoustic Highway Noise Barriers

[ By Steve in Architecture & Public & Institutional. ]

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Nail House: Holdout Building Had Highway Built Around It

21 Jun

[ By WebUrbanist in Abandoned Places & Architecture. ]

nail house highway

China is full of strange stories of so-called ‘nail houses’ – homes of people who refuse to move to make way for a large development project. Still, this one was particularly unique: its owners held out while a whole major motorway was constructed on all sides.

nail house demolition ruins

Situated in Wenling, its owner Luo Baogen refused the compensation deal offered to him and the owners of over 400 nearby properties. After a full year of waiting with his wife as they were hemmed in by highway, they finally accepted an improved offer from the government and moved.

nail house china mall

In another similar situation, owner and occupant Wu Ping refused an offer (one out of nearly 250 in that case) to move, and found herself surrounded by a sunken pit as shopping mall developers began excavating prior to constructing a new shopping center. Structures in this situation are dubbed ‘nail houses’ because, like a nail wedged deep into a board, they can be stubborn and difficult to remove.

[ By WebUrbanist in Abandoned Places & Architecture. ]

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Intelligent Interstates: 5 High-Tech ‘Smart Highway’ Systems

19 Feb

[ By WebUrbanist in Technology & Vehicles & Mods. ]

With prototypes set to hit the pavement in the Netherlands next year, these interactive interventions take innovation back from a focus on the car and put it right on the road.

Examples include: glow-in-the-dark paints that recharge by day and illuminate by night, wind-driven roadside lamps, energy-saving motion-sensor lights, temperature- and moisture-sensitive weather- and road-condition displays with color-changing paint to warn of icing, and even dedicated induction-priority lanes to magnetically recharge electric cars.

The Dutch Design Award-winning team behind these designs comes from Studio Roosegaarde and Heijmans Infrastructure. Their work spans green technologies and safety measures that will merge with real-life lanes, providing useful feedback and assistance to drivers.

“It’s about safety, creating awareness but also making roads energy-neutral in terms of lighting … and most of all: creating the experience of an icon, the Route 66 of the future.” While we may eventually see a future where cars drive themselves, for now we live in a world where high speeds bring real dangers, and invention has not matched the acceleration of actual drivers. Time and experiments will tell how well these ideas actually work when applied to asphalt.

[ By WebUrbanist in Technology & Vehicles & Mods. ]

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Intelligent Interstates: 5 High-Tech ‘Smart Highway’ Systems

07 Feb

[ By WebUrbanist in Technology & Vehicles & Mods. ]

With prototypes set to hit the pavement in the Netherlands next year, these interactive interventions take innovation back from a focus on the car and put it right on the road.

[ By WebUrbanist in Technology & Vehicles & Mods. ]

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Brothers in Arms Hells Highway 3D Game Clip in Stereoscopic 3D 1080p TRU3D

28 May

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Posted in 3D Videos

360Photography

Posts Tagged ‘Highway’

Seoul Skygarden: Elevated Park on an Abandoned Highway Officially Opens

Diverging Diamond: Novel Highway Design Eliminates Hazardous Left Turns

Bike Autobahn: Germany’s 60-Mile Highway for Cyclists Only

Lookout Below: 1-Mile Toronto Park to Run Under Elevated Highway

Abandoned Highway to Seoul Sky Garden: New Elevated Park