Competition project: The ARC - UK 2017

Status on project: co-author

2017.

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The project seeks to determine the long-term infrastructural and urban development of the region whose main urban epicenters are the cities of Oxford, Cambridge, Milton-Keynes. An Urban Strategy for Thirty years makes demands on both the built and natural environment, the cycles of which have been traditionally estranged to one another. The former is tempered by economic conditions of market demand and provision whilst the latter encompasses many different cycles, nature being the dominate factor.

In this proposal we sort to provide a framework which accommodates both elements of these cycles and secondly encourages a fusion which can be sustainable for longer than the thirty year period. The framework results from series of land forms or mounds and undulations and water elements which sets up a topography to fuse with the proposed metropolitan infrastructure. This fusion is the framework around which the “organs “of the built bodies can assemble.

We believe Oxford and Cambridge should remain intact as places and not grow into metropolitan Cities whilst Milton Keynes would benefit from a high-density of metropolitan life to kick-start this dry and grey environment.

The ARC(K) is a vision of creating places which will fit the social  and mobile communities that are now part of our contemporary society. With the efficiency (we hope) of transport systems we can be closer to places without actually being there.