RECLAIMED INFRASTRUCTURERethinking“Urban Grids”Hangzhou, China
Hangzhou has been the ground for recent urban developments that are occurring at unprecedented rate. However, the recent urban explosion, and the superimposition of super block grid of streets and motorways had a disruptive effect on the existing fabric that has more intimate block scale and consists of street and canal grid. Hence the project is speculating about how these disruptive infrastructure can be reversed and a generative drive to restitch the context andintroduce a grid that coexists in harmony with the existing pattern. Particularly the project re-imagines the interstitial spaces that has been generated due to the introduction of the continuous elevated highway corridors in Hangzhou that stretch for several kilometres across the city. Since the selected site is located at the edge between the historic center and the new CBD center this triggered speculations about new paradigms considering the functional aspect as well as the nature of public space that acts as the catalyst for the new developments.