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Architects Zaha Hadid & Patrik Schumacher have chosen the Thames Gateway as a testing ground in which to evolve new ways of approaching large-scale urban developments. The Thames Gateway is an area stretching eastwards from East London on both banks of the river Thames; it has been hailed as Europe’s largest urban regeneration project. Driven by architectural rather than town-planning concerns, Hadid and Schumacher have used a series of new and powerful digital design techniques to develop an approach to urban regeneration which they call ‘Parametric Urbanism’.

Hadid and Schumacher’s project is underpinned by research into the historic permutations of different building types in London and internationally. This information is presented in illustrated bands along the panels in their installation. They examine four main building types: individual villas, high-rise towers, slab-shaped buildings and city-blocks. These can be thought of as points, lines, planes, and volumes. Four rapid prototype models give examples of how each type might be dispersed in a landscape.

Hadid & Schumacher use advanced computer modelling software to project these four building types over a base map of the Thames Gateway. They have adjusted this model to reflect the area’s current conditions, and used it to speculate on possible forms of future development. They have tested multiple combinations of the different building types, often fusing them to create hybrid structures. The outcome of these experiments is documented in a large-scale image with a range of striking new forms, and an animated sequence which shows the evolution of an intensely urban pattern across the area.

Form Informing Urbanism - Parametric Urbanism is an animated film created by Zaha Hadid Architects for the Global Cities exhibition at Tate Modern, which opened in London on Wednesday. Above is a screen-grab from the movie; the actual move is below…

The film presents a range of experimental design solutions for the Thames Gateway regeneration corridor to the east of London, based on “parametric” techniques pioneered by Hadid.Patrik Schumacher talks about this architectural approach in the interview we did with him a couple of weeks ago.The Global Cities exhibition examines urban conditions in ten cities around the world, and is based on the 2006 Venice architecture biennale exhibition, City: Architecture and Society.

The following description of the movie comes from the Commissions section of the Global Cities website:

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Form Informing Urbansim - Parametric Urbanism

Zaha Hadid 1950
Born Iraq, works Britain
Patrik Schumacher 1961
Born Germany, works Britain

Form Informing Urbanism - Parametric Urbanism

Mixed media

Architects Zaha Hadid & Patrik Schumacher have chosen the as a testing ground in which to evolve new ways of approaching large-scale urban developments. The Thames Gateway is an area stretching eastwards from East London on both banks of the river Thames; it has been hailed as Europe’s largest urban regeneration project. Driven by architectural rather than town-planning concerns, Hadid and Schumacher have used a series of new and powerful digital design techniques to develop an approach to urban regeneration which they call ‘Parametric Urbanism’.

Hadid and Schumacher’s project is underpinned by research into the historic permutations of different building types in London and internationally. This information is presented in illustrated bands along the panels in their installation. They examine four main building types: individual villas, high-rise towers, slab-shaped buildings and city-blocks. These can be thought of as points, lines, planes, and volumes. Four rapid prototype models give examples of how each type might be dispersed in a landscape.

Hadid & Schumacher use advanced computer modelling software to project these four building types over a base map of the Thames Gateway. They have adjusted this model to reflect the area’s current conditions, and used it to speculate on possible forms of future development. They have tested multiple combinations of the different building types, often fusing them to create hybrid structures. The outcome of these experiments is documented in a large-scale image with a range of striking new forms, and an animated sequence which shows the evolution of an intensely urban pattern across the area.

ARCHITECTS: ZAHA HADID & PATRIK SCHUMACHER, PROJECT TEAM: DIMITRIS AKRITOPOULOS,
NICK ARMITAGE, DANILO ARSIC, LAUREN BARCLAY, EMILY CHANG, KRISTOF CROLLA, BRIAN DALE, DOMINIKI DADATSI, EIRINI FOUNTOULAKI, KYUNGEUN KELLY LEE, SHIQI LI, LILLIE LIU, THEODORA NTATSOPOULOU, ELENI PAVLIDOU, SARA SHEIKH AKBARI, HALA SHEIKH, CLAUS VOIGTMANN, HARRIET WARDEN, LEO WU

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