25 Hours City

BACKGROUND
In 2040, we are still living in a world where the Globalization is still hot and the information technology industry is still very popular. This is the world that people still strongly relying on the Internet and Information so those big Global Information Technology companies keep controlling the world economy. Google, Apple, Intel, Yahoo…etc., no matter they are hardware or software developers, they all attempted to get as many as resources to lead the global economic market. The most crucial resources are the information technology talents, such as computer programmers and engineers. In order to keep those incredible/intellectual talents to work for them, these companies HAVE to give them good salaries, and comfortable both working and living environments. Our site, El Toro, which locates in Irvine, is well known of a good living environment and has lots of new Information Technology industry companies coming out. For the reasons above, this is the perfect place where can provide good working and living qualities to keep the talents working in those Information Technology companies. Obviously, the majority of the citizens living in our city works for those BIG Information Technology Companies. Global office people in this city need to keep contacting people constantly outside of the US to conduct their tasks, so the working timeline of these people are all different to one another depending on the global area they serve. Some people come to this city only for a few weeks or months for certain business purposes and stay temporarily in this city. These dynamic factors radically break the regular living timeline of this specific global city and make the city more exotic. Because of the high-development of the entertainment industry and the high-population-density in the city, it provides lots of job opportunities and become attractive for people eager to come and desire to work here. By breaking the timeline and having high-population-density, the whole city becomes a 25 Hours city.

CONCEPT
The real estate in the future will definitely become one of the luxury items as a private property. In order to keep as much as open space for the leisure uses, the city should go vertical instead of horizontal. High-Population-Density will inevitably be one of the main goals to achieve in the coming future. To reduce the building footprint for the increment of the people capacity in the city, “Go VERTICAL” is a must. Not the kind of traditional office or residential tower building, it aims to provide a new type of living, which is a Mixed-Used Tower City focusing on the various lifestyles and diverse culture. The challenge of the design is to transferring the regular zoning and programs arrangements from horizontal to vertical. This new type of vertical city will give people unknown experiences they’ve never have. No, it’s not only a regular tower, and Yes, it is a city instead. It is a Vertical City which satisfies all your requirements.

Mix-SHARE
In this Vertical City, every space is mixed-use and about the concept of sharing. Sharing spaces could make the city more dense but efficient and sufficient. There might have many definitions about sharing and we keep it open to define. It might means the idea of sharing time, space, objects and pleasure. We intend to phrase the word “Sharing” with various definitions not only in terms of architectural design but also ways of living in this Vertical City.

1. Descend the space need; Expand the public space; Redefine the sharing space. People who live here only need space for sleeping, working and maintaining hygiene in the private space. The rest of the physical needs should be solved out of the private spaces.
2. Infill the programs in a certain module space; Re-arrange the programs randomly. Infilling the program randomly out of the regular order to create different spatial experiences based on the only restrict rule of “convenience” and the concept of “everything, everywhere, anytime.”
3. Blur the boundary of the program and space to create the innovative type of space usages. The programs should not be limited to the definition of the terminology associated with the spatial usage in the building. The building types are not rigid anymore and can be modified through time according to its current usage. And that is how the “Mixed Used” should work.

DESIGN APPROACHING:
Instead of using the formal zoning strategy, the vertical city was categorized into 3 major parts: Permanent, Temporary and Entertainment. Permanent part is the space mostly used by the people who lived permanently here. Temporary part is the space mostly provided for the people who come for certain reasons, such as, business, travel, and temporarily living. Entertainment part is the connector between the Permanent and the Temporary parts. Entertainment part is mostly the public facilities, entertainment space, and sports facilities. This Entertainment space merges/binds the whole Vertical City into one. The interesting/intriguing part is the place where three different zones meet. Due to the reason that all programs are mixed and have no clear definition, you are not able to find out the boundary of each zone in each floor. However, you will not get lost within the complexity of the orientation because of the well-designed circulation. The Permanent and the Temporary parts are more related to the space where needs solar. Hence, they are basically facing the South. Each floor is designed like an urban block, so it is why the whole vertical tower can combine as a city. From the bottom to top, the proportion of the programs is transferring gradually from Highly-mixed use to the neighborhood, to the Highly-entertainment. When you are walking through the floors/levels, you can experience the same as walking through the urban block by block likely on the ground. The circulation system is continuous and easy to get where you want to go. It is quite convenient for you to get anything you want. In this Vertical City, there are 6 cores, each of the cores has 8 superfast-elevators: 2 of them are going all the way to the top, 2 of them stop each 5 floors, 2 of them stop each 2 floors, and 2 of them stop each floor. The size of each floor is based on the geometry of the space dimensions to get the spline line wrapping the programs. We use sponge structure system to support the whole Vertical City. The porosity sufficiently manages the material use according to the structural needs. Besides, it provides significant openings for the building to breath. Most of The skin surface would be transparent for people to see the activities inside this 25 hours tower.