Neighborhood Sufficiency: an Environmental Model of a Self-Sufficient Urban Community

Abstract

This project explores ideas of self-sufficiency through the design of a neighborhood-campus. This neighborhood is composed with easily accessible structures that are connected to multiple public urban mobility forms. This allows for the support of the construction of smaller groupings that connect to other network enclaves. The buildings themselves aspire and are proposed to engage with renewable natural resources, energy efficiency practices, and easily maintainable buildings and landscaping. According to Vicente Guallart, self-sufficient communities are composed of connections including six vectors or cycles that connect everything with everything. This includes information networks, the water cycle, materials cycles, energy, human transportation, and green systems. The community provides a connection with solar energy and allows for the ability for buildings to produce energy. Greywater systems are placed on the east and west sides of the site to allow for optimal ,sustainable irrigation of the urban park. Finally, the community needs a connection with human transportation. The roads have designated space for motor vehicles and bicycles. The sidewalks are designed with space for pedestrians on foot or bicycle travel. The neighborhood has immediate access to the metro rail. Guallart states that the "city streets and squares represent the spaces for human mobility; in traditional cities, they are the meeting places where paths cross, and spaces for social interaction."�