[HN Gopher] Corviale, a one-kilometer residential complex in Rome
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Corviale, a one-kilometer residential complex in Rome
Author : thunderbong
Score : 63 points
Date : 2022-12-17 17:15 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.archdaily.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.archdaily.com)
| sushimako wrote:
| Similarly, there is the "Karl Marx Hof"; a social housing complex
| in Vienna that was completed in 1930 and spans 1.1km, with a huge
| park in its midst.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl-Marx-Hof
|
| https://goo.gl/maps/E1PvcZahSPVjk4RY9
| patricktlo wrote:
| Great video on it: https://youtu.be/vzGnyqpvwG8
| squarefoot wrote:
| Being myself from Rome, I know that complex and have been several
| times there in the past, also in the late 90s knew a girl who
| lived there. That's a place you definitely don't want to roam
| alone in the night.
| stevenwoo wrote:
| How much bigger is this than the Haussmann style buildings in
| Paris and Barcelona?
| cavanhorn wrote:
| This already reminded me of Pruitt-Igoe BEFORE I read this.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pruitt%E2%80%93Igoe
| reillyse wrote:
| I think this is amazing. Not every attempt to solve housing
| problems will be a hit but we have to try or else we'll never
| succeed. Hopefully the next round of solutions will learn from
| these attempts.
|
| I will say that it might seem contradictory but really high
| density housing with adequate services (grocery,medical,school)
| is actually lower impact than huge sprawl. Sure the impact on
| that one kilometer is dramatic but in a suburban sprawl situation
| the land use for the same number of residences/units is going to
| be orders of magnitude higher. Even the transport links might use
| more land than the the land used. I'm thinking large city streets
| and freeways, that's a lot of real estate.
| thriftwy wrote:
| Compared to the Soviet approach to housing this is not entirely
| impressive.
|
| Take, for example, more than one "round houses" with around 200m
| diameter of one building.
|
| https://yandex.ru/maps/org/krugly_dom_na_nezhinskoy/70861302...
| RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote:
| Reminds me of the Apple Spaceship campus.
| thriftwy wrote:
| Only several decades earlier. This one is surrounded by six
| school buildings and three kindergardens (of course there are
| some other apartment buildings there as well).
|
| Like a CPU that is surrounded by a troop of supporting chips.
|
| I wonder which schools do kids of Corviale attend. Around it
| I can see all kind of stuff but only one school. Do they all
| fit?
|
| Despite being a huge apartment complex, it seems very car-
| centric.
| baq wrote:
| See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falowiec in Poland.
| kgeist wrote:
| The building on the photo reminds me of the "lying skyscraper" in
| Moscow (0.7 km): https://9gag.com/gag/a8MQwNp
| mertd wrote:
| Reminds me of The Line, the city Saudis claim to be building.
| epolanski wrote:
| They don't claim it, they started building it.
|
| Anyway looking Arab countries is like looking at everything
| that's wrong with modern world.
|
| Imagine being so rich you can build any kind of city and you
| choose to build Dubais, Dohas and this line.
|
| You could literally build fascinating Arabian-style fascinating
| cities that would make a Disney movie look bad...and they
| decide to create such non sense monsters like palm islands (not
| practical, doomed to be sunk by raising oceans moreover) or
| lines in the desert, pointless skyscrapers in places where
| there's no lack of horizontal space, this ain't Manhattan ffs.
| jsnell wrote:
| One more in the same theme: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prora
|
| What I've never understood with these projects is, what's the
| supposed benefit of a single stupidly large building over a large
| number of reasonably sized ones? It doesn't feel like this would
| bring any meaningful economies of scale to the building process.
| It seems unlikely to actually use land more efficiently.
|
| Like, is it really just some kind of an authoritarian fetish for
| giant projects, or was there at least some attempt at justifying
| it?
| marci wrote:
| What do you mean by efficiency of land usage?
|
| The only thing I could think of is surface area and, compared
| to "a large number of reasonably sized ones", this obviously
| would be more efficient.
|
| I see them as skyscrappers in landscape mode.
| retube wrote:
| "The Line" has entered the chat
| IshKebab wrote:
| Yeah I can't see much point either. I think it's just one of
| those things architects and urban planners do sometimes because
| it's interesting and unusual, not because it's good.
|
| Another example is guided busways. Inferior to a road in every
| respect but that isn't enough to stop them.
|
| I guess I shouldn't single out architects and urban planners -
| probably every field has projects that a back of the envelope
| calculation shows are obviously a terrible idea but they go
| ahead anyway. Solar roadways. Space based power.
|
| The issue with architects doing it is that buildings stick
| around for a long time and people have to actually live in
| them, so I feel justified in reserving special resentment for
| modern architects.
| hutzlibu wrote:
| "probably every field has projects that a back of the
| envelope calculation shows are obviously a terrible idea but
| they go ahead anyway. Solar roadways"
|
| Solar roadways for example are only a terrible idea, as long
| as sturdy solar panels remains expensive, and there is lots
| of other unused area to be covered much more cheaply. That
| might change one day, but yes, until then it is an idea from
| people who are too lazy to do the basic math.
| IshKebab wrote:
| It won't change one day. If we exhaust all better locations
| for solar panels than roads then we will already have
| enough solar energy to power the world many times over.
| Almost anywhere is better than a road.
| codewiz wrote:
| In Japan, clusters of identical buildings were constructed
| around the same period of Corviale:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danchi
|
| These communities also didn't age too well, becoming associated
| with aging population, urban degradation and poor architecture.
| jasonwatkinspdx wrote:
| This was one of the big failures of modernism and related
| architectural schools.
|
| Being charitable, the thinking at the time was somewhat
| mechanistic: that you could build utopic urban environments
| from first principles as massive campuses vs individual
| buildings.
|
| Inevitable these projects underestimated the organic and
| evolutionary complexity of urban environments. No single design
| team organized by some maestro can come close to anticipating
| and designing around all the needs of an urban neighborhood.
|
| But on the other hand, these mega projects were a simple story
| to sell politically. Look, we're being bold and thinking big,
| we're going to actually address problems in housing supply vs
| kicking the can down the road, etc. Someone else saying they
| needed to think in terms of flexible zoning and a variety of
| tax incentives looks not nearly so compelling.
|
| Today we look back on these projects differently, because the
| failure of "housing projects" in the US, UK, and elsewhere are
| a familiar meme almost, so people are much more skeptical about
| mega projects working out.
| ghaff wrote:
| One interesting aspect of how many people view urban planning
| is that a lot of urbanists like to point to the like of Jane
| Jacobs who (correctly IMO) opposed a lot of centralized
| planning, especially with respect to roads. At the same time,
| she favored organic and community-oriented development which
| I suspect a lot of people today would consider NIMBY and
| would mostly be opposed to large-scale housing developments.
| She did live in the West Village after all.
| Barrin92 wrote:
| I don't buy the failure narrative at all. In a lot of Eastern
| European and also to an extent Western European cities large
| housing projects work reasonably well especially for lower
| income households, they've kept rents affordable, they're
| energy efficient and they aided in rapid urbanisation.
|
| Many of them don't look great but they pretty much did their
| job given the limited resources that a lot of cities had
| available.
|
| If you look at modernist cities around the world, in India
| for example as well, cities that took inspiration from this
| kind of planning have generally good standards of living,
| costs, little homelessness and decent environmental
| footprints.
| forgotusername6 wrote:
| In less hospitable climates this kind of giant building has its
| place. No need to go outside in the freezing cold or scorching
| heat.
| ksherlock wrote:
| In Whittier Alaska, (pop: 275-300 or so), most folks live in
| the Begich Towers which was a former Army building.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whittier,_Alaska
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Begich_Towers
| wardedVibe wrote:
| If you haven't read "Seeing like a State" I think you would
| find it quite interesting. There was a period where urban
| planners thought that they could, starting from first
| principles, design the perfect urban environment. It wasn't
| just authoritarians doing it, but those were the places most
| able to continue to execute on a vision and disregard the
| pushback.
| rob74 wrote:
| Well, if you are going to try to build affordable housing
| quickly, such large projects are the way to go. At least in the
| sixties and seventies city planners in the "western world"
| tried to do it (with more or less success), today they're not
| even trying anymore.
|
| A more successful example is the former Munich Olympic Village
| (https://goo.gl/maps/1HTQWvGcRcoXAWvH6). It's composed of 3
| streets which are completely built over, so the cars at ground
| level are hidden from view and the pedestrians are walking in a
| completely pedestrian area at level 2 (I think). The buildings
| are also very linear and all look the same, but all apartments
| have huge south-facing terraces with lots of greenery
| (including shrubs or even trees). Public transport connection
| is also very good with a subway station nearby. Today the
| apartments are very sought after - wish they had built more
| projects like this. But if you look at more recent projects,
| like the "Messestadt Riem"
| (https://goo.gl/maps/tVrahc4uDFkijGCC9), they are much more
| cramped and spread out over a larger surface, with squat
| buildings that look very interchangeable - not really better,
| I'm afraid.
| bombcar wrote:
| If you're a politician or other approver you want something big
| and bold to put your name on. Authorizing building a bunch of
| normal buildings is boring - anyone could do that!
| pmontra wrote:
| Nobody lost an election because they were inspired by Le
| Corbusier. But they should.
| nwatson wrote:
| Also here, last photo
| https://www.google.com/amp/s/bernadetealves.com/2020/06/12/u...
| , the 700-meter Minhocao (Big Worm) at UnB (Universidade
| Nacional de Brasilia). I started EE program there in 1984
| before deciding to move to the USA (student/teacher strikes
| were gonna lead to lost semesters). Going between classes was
| real inconvenient.
| hankman86 wrote:
| These buildings are basically an anti-individualism ideology,
| cast in concrete. Which is why far left and far right regimes
| alike like to erect such structures.
|
| And it's not even a thing of the past. In its most recent
| incarnation, the German Greens have declared war on single
| family homes. The fashionable justification being their carbon
| footprint. Instead, they are for policies to house people in
| apartment blocks that are densely spaced within cities instead
| of suburbs. Often while mixing different demographics that
| would not normally like to live within the same neighbourhood.
| Suffice it to say that people continue to pursue the dream of
| owning houses on their own plot of land.
| ohyoutravel wrote:
| This sounds like a speech you rehearsed for a San Francisco
| HOA meeting to keep more housing out of your neighborhood to
| keep your property values up.
| ajsnigrutin wrote:
| If you live in (or near) a city center, you'll live in a
| large apartment building. If you want a single family house,
| you move outside the city center. You cannot have an urban
| city environment, with restaurants, bars, stores and walkable
| streets if you only have single family buildings with yards
| there.
|
| There is a place for everything, houses and large buildings.
|
| Otherwise, I agree with the comment above, that such
| buildings seem impractical, and can be replaced with separate
| buildings, even higher, with open space in between them (and
| greens and parks and benches,...), eg:
| https://goo.gl/maps/TneCupaRNq3SgQYL7 (imagine this, but with
| undeground parking instead of cars parked on the steet).
| groestl wrote:
| Also here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl-Marx-Hof
| flandish wrote:
| As a firefighter, I can't imagine trying to get ladders or an
| aerial into those middle sections, should it be needed.
|
| I hope a diff angle would show easier access.
| worik wrote:
| Can you not just park a truck in the road? How is it different
| from a normal ten (?) story building?
|
| Do you need 360 degree access?
| newaccount2021 wrote:
| the building is literally right beside a road, just park your
| truck where you need to put up the ladder...
|
| not that anyone in Rome would want you to put out a fire there,
| I'm sure they are all praying an earthquake will relieve them
| of this brutalist masterpiece
| jasonwatkinspdx wrote:
| I'd hazard a guess that a professional fire fighter is better
| at judging the challenges here than rando hnews posters... so
| perhaps you could ask for what you're missing instead of
| being so dismissive?
| skybrian wrote:
| Odd that it's so euphemistic about the people living there. Seems
| like there should be interviews?
| WilTimSon wrote:
| First thing I thought of was how much of a nightmare this would
| be for food delivery and general navigation for anyone, who isn't
| familiar with the building. Otherwise, kind of a curious idea,
| though I don't think I'd want to live in one. Always preferred
| more compact buildings.
| agilob wrote:
| Can't imagine being there in lockdown for months
| logifail wrote:
| > Can't imagine being there in lockdown for months
|
| We are friends with two separate Italian families who
| struggled with Covid lockdowns.
|
| The first family live in Florence and were stuck in a tiny
| apartment with two young girls and weren't even allowed to
| use their building's communal (but private) garden. Fresh air
| was to be found only on their balcony.
|
| The second family live in central Milan, and on the
| announcement of the first lockdown, fled to an extended
| family member's house in the countryside, far from the city.
| The parents described it to the (young) kids as "the
| unexpected holiday". They ended up ordering toys and bicycles
| online once it turned out the lockdown wasn't just going to
| be a couple of weeks.
|
| My primary concern about our overall response to Covid is
| that next time around - and there will definitely be a next
| time - there will be substantially more suspicion (and hence
| less compliance), and that doesn't end well.
| goodpoint wrote:
| If anything it's much easier.
| newaccount2021 wrote:
| [deleted]
| cm2187 wrote:
| Don't do to other what you don't want done to you. I wonder how
| many architects actually live in those monstruosities.
| omnibrain wrote:
| Reminds me of the "Unite d'habitation"
|
| A few years ago, we visited (the fields of) Verdun and stayed in
| Briey. A medium size (~5000p) village in the middle between Metz
| and Verdun. While driving we overlooked the fields and saw this
| huge out of place futuristic building. That's how I learned of
| the "Unite d'habitation".
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit%C3%A9_d%27habitation
| cgeier wrote:
| You can find it here on google maps:
| https://www.google.com/maps/place/00148+Corviale+Metropolita...
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