Reburia Finalists Announced

VOTE HERE: http://www.re-burbia.com/finalists/

You may remember, or may not, which is OK too, me posting the submission link for the Re:Burbia design competition. They have picked now their 20 finalists and are asking us to vote on the best solution. I am going to feature a couple a day, so that the whole blog isn't this competition. But the idea's are so awesome, I just have to share.

Here was a breif description of the competition put on by DWELL Magazine, and Inhabitant.com a web magazine.

Reburbia competition: a design competition dedicated to re-envisioning the suburbs. With the current housing crisis, the sub-prime mortgage meltdown, and rising energy costs, the future of suburbia looks bleak. Suburban communities in central California, Arizona and Florida are desolate and decaying, with for sale and foreclosure signs dotting many lawns. In a future where limited natural resources will force us to find better solutions for density and efficiency, what will become of the cul-de-sacs, cookie-cutter tract houses and generic strip malls that have long upheld the diffuse infrastructure of suburbia? How can we redirect these existing spaces to promote sustainability, walkability, and community? It’s a problem that demands a visionary design solution!

So they asked all future-forward architects, urban designers, renegade planners and imaginative engineers to show how they would re-invent the suburbs! What would a McMansion become if it weren’t a single-family dwelling? the wilder the better!

This is the first submission:

AIRBIA: A SUBURBAN AIRSHIP

Designed By: Alexandros Tsolakis / Irene Shammam

Airbia proposes a new eco-friendly and efficient transportation system linking the suburbs and city centre. Corresponding to the lack of coherent public transportation in the majority of the sprawling cities, a set of airships is designed to form an additional network over the urban tissue.

The proposed network bases its flexibility on the limited required infrastructure (just overground platforms) and facilities, easy hovering, landing and passenger access. The target is to develop a set of routes covering nodal points of the suburbia, travelling all the way to the borders of the city centre creating a ring around it. This network would potentially replace the use of cars and trains as transportation between the suburbs and the city centers.

Being inspired by the zeppelin technologies, the proposed airship engages the idea using helium to hover, which is proven to be a sustainable and economical approach. The proposed airship has a capacity to carry 400 people and travel with an avarage of 150 km/h speed on a hight between 30 – 500 meters. Instead of having a major airship station, Airbia proposes a more dispersed network of station-platforms, that constist of staircases, lifts and ticket spaces. This way the system becomes much more flexible, since these drop off – pick up platforms can be placed almost anywhere in the city.