MSA Stage 5 School of Architecture

Youngeun Cho

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yecho1121@gmail.com
y.cho1@student.gsa.ac.uk
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Works
The Wall & The Bridge

The Wall & The Bridge

Live Bridge over the M8

“Walls turned sideways are bridges.”  by Angela Davis

As urbanisation reaches its peak today, the gap between the rich and the poor, racial discrimination, and urban crime have become common in daily life. Modern society has entered a tightly woven, super-connected society like a spider web. However, architecture shows a non-local urban structure that connects only some strongholds like threads. Glasgow is one of the representative post-industrialisation cities and faces many urban issues. In particular, the M8 handles and connects a lot of transportation, but it has a side of the destruction of existing contexts and cultures. This interferes with people’s exchange and destroys the community. M8 will have to exist in our lives for a while, but the form and proportion in our life can be changed.

Not only the M8, but Clydeside Expressway is also a huge barrier for pedestrians. Moreover, the river acts as a barrier in many places, dividing communities and limiting access. Wider regional connections are provided by the Kingston Bridge and the Clyde Tunnel. But, these routes do not fully contribute to the complex, urban scale network of walking, cycling and public transportation routes that link communities and help support activity concentrations. Anderston+Kingston Bridge is a meeting point of all the transportation networks having huge potential. Both river corridor and M8 have the potential to be one of the most important movement spines within Glasgow when we repairing and creating continuous, human-centred movement networks along river and M8. It can be the integrated places with good links to public transport and the services provided by town centres. In turn, this enhanced connectivity can support and attract clusters of cultural attractions and knowledge-based organisations which thrive in physical proximity. It would be the first example of a master plan bringing people back to lost space.

 

 

 

 

Bird Eye View at Night

RE-JOINING; GESELLSCHAFT TO GEMEINSCHAFT

The poster of the 2000 Venice Architecture Biennale shows “Less Aesthetics, More Ethics.” Until now, it was an aesthetic only for one's own existence, so the spectacular urban landscape and the landmark that emerged ignoring the surroundings used to be recorded as a victory for the spirit of the 20th century, but now it is not anymore. Architecture is no longer focused on aesthetics, but on the relationship between nature and humans, between me and others. There are many architectural reactions to climate crisis such as, re-use, zero energy etc. but the critical point of this problem is lack of awareness and attention from rest of population. Joanna Macy says we need to get out of the current individualism and reconnect ourselves with a sense of community. And she saids, this is the way to overcome the current environmental problems in city. The first thing that is needed for this is a new space of harmony and communication. It is now called a hyperconnected society, but as urbanization accelerates, people are selfish and their sense of community in the past fades. We need to have Gemeinschaft from the Gesellschaft now we are.

URBANIZATION

As urbanization reaches its peak today, the gap between the rich and the poor, racial discrimination, and urban crime have become common in daily life. Modern society has entered a tightly woven super-connected society like a spider web. Among the ubiquitous activities such as working inresidential areas, shopping in offices by online, architecture is showing a non-local urban structure that connects only some strongholds like threads. The push toward verticality has destroyed the integrity of street space, while raised or sunken plazas and internalized malls have further undermined the traditional social function of the street. We tend to adapt easily to new environments and at some point we have changed from forming cities to the city that forms us. It is necessary to break and scatter the framework and reconnect it beyond the uniform and vertical architecture that we first created and now trapped. Positive dissolution brings evolution. So what form and logic should the facilities that will be broken and reconnected be constructed to maintain sustainable placeability?

Idea Flow Map

“Areas between districts are usually major lost space in the urban fabric.”

Mobility and communication have increasingly influenced land use, which has consequently lost lots of its cultural meaning and human purpose. 1960s M8, an inner ring road, was built to enable a car friendly future of Glasgow. But, lots of buildings are demolished, separated, encompassed by vast open areas without social purpose due to its’ construction. And communities in areas around Townhead, Cowcaddens, St George’s Cross and Anderston were cast to the fringes of the city. They shows major gaps disrupt the overall continuity of the city form in Glasgow. Pedestrian links between important destinations are often broken and walkings is frequently a disjointed, disorienting experience. And it leads the space to become a dead and lost space in the city. Mobility, motorway, and the automobile became a tools for isolation. Until the middle of the 20th century, buildings were increasing, filling empty spaces, but existing buildings were demolished as motorways were built and parking spaces were created due to increased car use. The cultural and architectural flow that connected the entire city was cut off, and abandoned spaces with unknown uses gradually increased.

The Physical Impact of De-industrialization

Starting as a weaver's village in the 1720s, Anderson started to grow together with the city of Glasgow began to develop along the banks of the Clyde River in the 18th century. Throughout the first half of the 20th century, Anderson was a well-served and self-sufficient local area with respect to shops, cinemas, and employment locations. However, in May 1941, the Several buildings in Anderston on Finnieston Street, Hill Street, Hydepark Street and Lancefield Street were destroyed by air raids. Later, with the construction of a new transportation network(M8), the streets filled with high-density houses and apartments were destroyed, and most residents moved to areas such as Knightswood, Easterhouse, Cumbernauld, Drumchapel and East Kilbride. As Clyde lost its role as an industrial center, the shipbuilding industry collapsed. Along with this, there were many abandoned spaces along the river and decades of lack of activity on the river front. Due to the deindustrialization of the river and the construction of the new road network due to urbanization, Anderston remains a large hole in the city center, despite the fact that two main stream(River Clyde, M8) in Glasgow penestrate.
The programme will work by making a cluster through th River Clyde and M8, reconnecting the isolated neighbourhoods around the Kingston bridge, using the place to revive the local area. The community driven space will be the stepping stone between disconnected existing programmes around the River and increase people’s engagement and participation to help the area’s regeneration. This is how the Live Bridge works for the people who lives in and visit Glasgow.

The Solution

Enhancing River Corridor