Jorge Ayala, Landscape Urbanism
Jorge Ayala is a graduate of the Landscape Urbanism course at the Architectural Association School [AA] in London, who now works with Plasma Studio.
In his current research around rapidly developing urban landscapes like the Gulf of Mexico and the coast of Guangdong Province, China, he produces mappings of climatic influences, vegetation and infrastructure, wind and flood simulations – with fantastic graphical results.
All following text and images by Jorge Ayala
found via Territoire des Sens
Ecotransitional Urbanism, Pearl River Delta, China
The project, located on a 27 square kilometer island called Qi Ao located in the Pearl River Delta, has the potential to become a gateway for Hong Kong/Shenzhen due to its strategic location and the increasing passenger flows through it. The site is threatened to become another generic Chinese urbanization that spread across farmlands and rural life. Thus the signs of scarcity of water resources, deforestation, fish farming and industrial pollution are already present.
The city proposal seeks to establish an eco-tourism strategy that embraces the existing site and its natural energies such as tidal variations, local mangroves and seasonal rainfall to assure the viability and sustainability of the island.
Networked Territories, Gulf of Mexico
The project proposes a network of landscapes, tropical trees and plantations preventing excessive erosion and polluted water infiltration. Diverse plants and species were assigned to respond to different watershed conditions, creating the infrastructure for agriculture, leisure and controlled tourism development.
The goal is to create a strategic attractive destination in the Gulf of Mexico, controlling its environmental impact, so that the project does not take on the character of an irregular urban corridor.
Existing vegetation survey shows the site dominated mainly by local plants and some abandoned paddy fields. This landscape mapping seeks to highlight fragmented green pockets with varied plantation levels.
Drawings: Jorge Ayala
Partner Architects: Minche Mena/ Priscila Lozano Cusi
Based on a process of landscape indexing and mapping, the project seeks to tackle the real estate sameness, always related to the development of the so called family-resorts that have proliferated along the Mexican Coasts. The site is hemmed in by shallow water bodies coming from the river and the Gulf of Mexico. Topography is flat with gradients generally between 1-2%.
The hexagonal prototypes made from paper seek to produce an assemblage between two elements of the project: The water edges and the nature, as a speculation on how two natural processes may be able to generate new forms of mutual enhancement. Physical model helped control the territory and to measure the circulation between each of these prototypes.