Kond Clouds
master planning concept, Armenia
Year 2020 | a winning entry for the Concept competitionINFO
Kond, an old Yerevan district, embodies a unique psychogeography characterized by a centripetal force producing a sense of belonging. Here, structures are gentle to the topography, while they weave together an almost outsideness, but not really. The "middle village" serves as the settlement's hearth, exteriorizing the old sense of being inside but contemporary demands have fragmented Kond, disrupting its continuity.
Despite existing for centuries, Kond faces challenges from a modernist paradigm that oversimplifies and thematizes urban spaces. This paradigm, seen in past propositions, promotes a homogenous, commercially driven urbanization. In contrast, this preservation approach, with revitalization, maintains Kond's interiority, focusing on preserving its narrow street structure, old tactile elements, and natural organizational complexity.
POINT-1
POINT-2
The proposal features a low-rise added system, separating publics in transit from the citizens of the site. It also avoids overlooking existing communal spaces, preventing a change in their status with a panoptic presence.
Here, all walls are removed (except those representing the distant past's tactility), fostering social openness and reverting to the original, less-walled organizational rationale. This will allow a planned informality to reemerge.
POINT-3
This particular sectional relationship to the topography was selected by the careful study of the terrain geometry, landscape, to highlight, frame and work with it rather be a forced superimposition on it.
The two red lines represent the two main levels of the
proposed system, emphasizing horizontality (contrasting itself with the more granulated scattering of the
existing buildings).
* The proposal included a detailed economic feasibility study.
With an average floor number of 7, the overall expected profits from all phases of new construction are estimated to be 80.2 billion AMD, excluding land costs and sales from the rentable areas.The monthly rentable area profit is projected to be 91.1 million AMD.
These preliminary numbers prove that proposing an experimental, costlier construction plan, while rejecting conventional modernist high-rise developments, is viable. Additionally, public realm commercialization can be minimized.
* Government acts as the guarantor of the
social contract and invests no funds, allowing a successful completion.
** This proposition is a form of an interplay, an equation, with which the essential interiority of Kond is preserved while opening it up economically and spatially to the future.
** This proposition is a form of an interplay, an equation, with which the essential interiority of Kond is preserved while opening it up economically and spatially to the future.