hybridized urban infrastructures (london uk)

With ~9.8M residents, London UK is Europe’s largest city.

This volume of London-based urban dwellers introduces loads of use upon existing infrastructure systems currently in service. Beyond increased use, London’s urban infrastructure systems face other numerous acute and chronic challenges including natural hazards, disproportionate maintenance, hacking / sabotage, and unscheduled changes in either the quality or quantity of yielded resource units.

Corporations headquartered in London have made significant, long-term investments in their respective real estate assets and affiliated infrastructure. As these corporations assess risk to their privately-owned portfolios, the inherent risk found in an exclusive dependence upon municipal infrastructure can be mitigated through the private development of hybridized infrastructural assets. Just as urban dwellers are dependent upon urban infrastructure systems for urban sustenance, urban-based corporations can mobilize today to future-proof the demonstrated resource needs of their employee base.

Students were prompted to design a site-specific Hybridized Urban Infrastructure (HUI) that would:

1.) generate (or evacuate) resource unit yields within the infrastructure categories of Agriculture, Communication, Energy, Waste, and Water.  The conveyance of required inflows and associated outflows should be addressed by the HUI design, as required.

2.) be sited on private property either currently owned by or to be acquired by a specific corporation.  Any use of public land shall be consistent with prevailing land use zoning and public right-of-way.

3.) be privately owned and operated to serve the interest of the corporation, its shareholders, and its employees.  The final design shall consider the security of both the hybridized infrastructure asset and its outflowing yields.