Archimedes Negotiation

The Design solution is more a methodology or a strategy in a framework. Cities like Venice and Amsterdam teach us that the balance between the ecologic and the anthropomorphic environmental building is done within a frame and a negotiation between different types of pressures. Archimedes explains that any “pressure” in the water will cause a shift equal to the volume of this “pressure”. So the development in this area it is not unlimited, it should be flexible, pro-active and resilient.
We have identified tree main “pressures” generated by living with water in the end of this century:

Ecology
– The flood areas are easy to identify and predict and more than just building barriers we have to accept the flood and the water and turn it into a design. Living and designing with water is designing public spaces with water-dependent uses, uses that serve public purposes only, such as such as parks, plazas, and observation areas . Uses that can allow this pressure.

Private Ownership
– The development of the 100 Acres has to go beyond the plot and the actual propriety. In a framework of exchange, it is possible to increase the construction area but in exchange the ground floor has to be free for the flood area, public areas and parks, etc. The area/volume that each of the four owners would have to give away in this negotiation would be compensated with an equal volume/area at another level and outside or inside the plot.

Program and Social Engagement
– The mixed use is very important but not by itself, there is a limit of pressure for this land. The engagement with local communities and a program structurally designed to clearly meeting the public, the commerce, the culture and the local communities can avoid the failure of mixed uses programs that normally do not work because of the lack of social intervention.

Archimedes negotiation is a framework that will be used as a template for a negotiation. The design is a result of the need to respond to all those three pressures: ecological, private development and social engagement

Company Name
Campos Costa Arquitectos

Team Member(s)
Pedro Campos Costa, Architect
Eduardo Costa Pinto, Landscape architect
Katarzyna Augustyniak, architect
Daniela Figueredo, architect
Miguel Lorenzo, engineering