Google has invited M3 to consult on some of their visionary district-scale urban initiatives.
M3PROJECT was invited to lead the urban design strategy and open space planning and design for Greenwood Hills, a truly innovative new ‘lifestyle offering’ located in the heart of Panama City’s ‘University District’. Envisioned as a thriving expression of the regions blossoming urban life, Greenwood Hills is a spectacular model of ecologically driven development and sustainable living. The project at Greenwood Hills has made tremendous efforts in re-framing the potential of eco-centric development while crafting a living and lifestyle solution that is progressive, forward-thinking, and expressive of the pulse and values of today’s emerging academic community, young families, and bourgeoning professionals. At the heart of Greenwood Hills is an expansive central park that has been thoughtfully crafted and purposefully designed to provide a vast range of community oriented recreational and open space opportunities.
Project Team
Mallol & Mallol Arquitectos: Lead Project Architect
M3PROJECT: Lead Open Space Planning and Design Strategy
Digital Animation: Graff3D
M3PROJECT AWARDED FOR THE DESIGN OF QUITO’S NEW CENTRAL URBAN PARK
EMERGING LANDSCAPE MOSAIC
As part of the Parque del Lago International Design Competition, the M3PROJECT proposal was awarded as a finalist for the design of Quito’s new central urban park. The proposal sets out to transform what is now Quito’s International Airport into a new type of urban-nature. By crafting the park’s terrain and hydrological networks, an array of interconnected waterways set the framework for the growth of the park over time. The hydrological foundation establishes key ecological links between the terrestrial and aquatic habitats encouraging an emergence of an eco-urban mosaic within the center of Quito’s vibrant culture.
M3PROJECT led a multi-disciplinary project team in the execution, development, and production of the schematic design, project implementation phasing strategy, and EIP document production for Lincolnshire Lakes, a nearly 5,000 acre mixed-use and residential urban-expansion project. The work led by M3 was critical in establishing a clear design and phasing strategy demonstrating viability and feasibility of the Lincolnshire Lakes scheme. M3’s Schematic Masterplan for Lincolnshire Lakes creates an innovative mixed-use urban extension in North Lincolnshire that sets out to create a sustainable living environment within vast expanses of carefully designed ecological settings. At the forefront of the proposed Lincolnshire Lakes Schematic Master Plan is a productive landscape infrastructural framework that acts as the leading medium of spatial, functional, ecological and programmatic organization. With ‘landscape’ as the predominant structuring element the proposed Lincolnshire Lakes framework overlays dynamic evolving and productive areas for habitat creation, ecological biodiversity, urban networks, circulation networks, renewable management applications, sustainability strategies, public open space amenities, and recreation resources. M3 has teamed with SOM London for the proposed design development for Phase 2 of the project.
Urban Climate Change Research Network
Earth Institute | Columbia University
M3PROJECT’s awarded design proposal for Parque Del Lago was selected as a highlighted Case Study in the upcoming release of UCCERN’s ARC3-2
FRAMEWORK FOR CULTURAL ACTIVATION: A MERGING OF BEACH, URBAN AND ECOLOGICAL LIFE
M3PROJECT led in the project vision, urban design, and land use planning strategy proposal for Jaco Crossings, a new mixed-use development which aims to merge beach, urban, and ecological life into a thriving cultural center. The M3/RA design proposal was selected as the winning first place entry in the shortlisted international design competition. The M3/RA design team was awarded the commission for continued design development for the anticipated $25 million phase one construction project.
PROJECT TEAM
ROBLES ARCH | architecture, architectural sustainability
M3PROJECT | project vision, planning, urban design, ecology
VALUE FRAMEWORKS FOR RESILIENT URBAN GROWTH
M3PROJECT led a multi-disciplinary project team in the design, capital placement, and proposed development strategy of a $150 million, 1,200 hectare, mixed-use sustainable living environment in Alajuela, Costa Rica. M3’s vision and project orchestration produced essential value framework and capital placement channels for sustained resilient urban growth capabilities generating significant long-term high-yield financial returns for the project investors and capital partners.
Project Team
Mallol & Mallol Arquitectos: Lead Project Architect
M3PROJECT: Lead Open Space Planning and Design Strategy
HARVARD CLUB OF NEW YORK CITY
URBAN GREENROOF ECOLOGY
M3PROJECT was invited to design the new roof terrace gardens for the prestigious Harvard Club of New York City. The design of the roof terrace embraces the intimacy and sophistication of the Club’s cultural and social expression by synthesizing the design vernacular and functionality into clearly articulated volumes of space, presence, material and texture. A major milestone for the Clubhouse, the Rooftop project, led by Marvel Architects, is the most significant capital project realized in over a decade. The interior combines contemporary elements with classic finishes; the outdoor terrace provides members “al fresco” dining to enjoy during the warmer months with views of the Chrysler Building and Times Square.
INTERNATIONAL IDEAS COMPETITION
A recalibrated CUERNAVACA RAILWAY PARK (CRP) has a profound opportunity in becoming a significant contributor in reshaping the future of Mexico City and establishing its presence on the global stage as a leader in environmental innovation. Despite the rapid urban sprawl realized by Mexico City and the environmental challenges that have followed, the City continues to prioritize a re-thinking towards the role of urban systems to combat excessive pollution, rising carbon monoxide and ozone levels, depleting aquifer levels, and strained urban infrastructural networks.
At present, the CRP is characterized as a homogenous composition of disrupted pathways, fragmented public use areas, and a declining ecological diversity. To create a more diverse, integrated and healthy network of program, activity and ecosystems and redefine the CRP as a truly ecologically rich and bio-diverse urban system, a new process of urban re-calibration needs to be realized. We propose a matrix of NESTS, LINES, and FIELDS to maximize opportunities for establishing a thriving urban, social, cultural, and ecological agenda:
NESTS Provoked by the striking street markets of Mexico City bustling under red canopies, urban “Nests” are proposed as incubators for social, cultural, recreational, and ecological activation. Purposefully positioned, “Nests” are woven along the corridor to enhance existing local program, activities, and environments while provide a robust framework for establishing a thriving bio-diverse matrix of indigenous species and local ecologies (i.e. vertical display gardens, sport venues, cultural arenas, concert pavilions, cultural exhibitions, art galleries, kiosks, pergolas, markets, and bodegas).
LINES The CRP is envisioned as a contiguous line of social, cultural, and ecological program that is threaded together by a unifying pre-cast concrete paving system established to promote mobility and movement along the entirety of the Park. Parallel to the circulation lines, a series of linear gardens, bio-swales, grass-lined channels, and wooded promenades establish an extensive hydrologic network to enhance stormwater mitigation, habitat, air quality, and carbon sequestration. The network of hydrological “Lines” function as a buffer against potential increases in storm severity by absorbing runoff from the surrounding urban environment and increasing groundwater recharge rates to the city’s strained aquifer while providing a range of bio-diverse habitats for local flora and fauna.
FIELDS A matrix of programmatic and ecological “Fields” are envisioned as a series of urban “Stages” for gathering, lounging, play, sport, exposition and performance. Ecological “Fields” are orchestrated along the corridor as patches of habitat (e.g., woodland, grassland, wetland) emblematic of the subtropical highland climate of the Valley of Mexico located in the Trans-Mexican Volcanic Belt providing refuge for many species of bird, butterfly, and others threatened by urban sprawl and climate change while ensure established ecosystem services are maintained over time.
Collectively, the three systems of “Nests”, “Lines”, and “Fields” highlight CLP’s potential of repositioning the singular and homogeneous utility of the existing railway corridor into a multi-productive, multi-layered, adaptive landscape-driven ecological network that both provides essential cultural, social, and recreational outlets while assisting in enhancing climate adaptation, mitigation, and environmental health potentials of Mexico City’s metro-region.
Project Team
M3PROJECT: Urban Strategy
Mallol & Mallol Arquitectos: Architectural Strategy
YALE SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE
GUEST CRITIC: SEMINAR ARCH 2230B EXPLORING NEW VALUE IN DESIGN PRACTICE
SEMINAR ARCH 2230B EXPLORING NEW VALUE IN DESIGN PRACTICE
Instructors: Phil Bernstein ’79 ’83 MArch (Yale School of Architecture) and Brian Kenet (Harvard Graduate School of Design)
This seminar reimagines and re-designs the value proposition of architecture practices, exploring strategies used by better compensated adjacent professions and markets, and investigates methods by which architects can deliver the value they bring to the building industry.
As part of an ambitious conceptual government development initiative, M3PROJECT was invited to lead the strategic urban design framework and land use planning for Panama City’s envisioned Government Center, the greatly anticipated creation of Panama’s new Government headquarters for its respective Ministries, Agencies, and Political Offices.
In part of a significant beachfront integrated living destination development in Salinas, Ecuador, M3PROJECT was invited to lead the strategic urban and open space planning, landscape framework vision and coastal resilience planning for the project. The proposal sets out to provide a series of interconnected landscapes for leisure, recreation, and habitat creation that function collectively in establishing an architectural framework for the development. The landscape framework is envisioned to comprise four connected landscape systems; the Beach, the Bluffs, the Lakes, and the Gardens. Together, the four unified landscapes provide the development a fundamental source of value creation, urban life, environmental health, ecological richness, and recreational activity.
HARVARD GRADUATE SCHOOL OF DESIGN
VISITING FACULTY
Department of Landscape Architecture, Harvard University
Landscape Representation III: Landform and Ecological Process
LA2241 FALL 2010
LA2142 SPRING 2011
LA2241 FALL 2011
Instructors: Michael Flynn, Andrea Hansen
Course Description: LA2241/2 seeks to expand the fundamental relationships between dynamic landscape processes and the methods in which they are understood, conveyed, and graphically communicated. As a continuation of Landscape Representation I and II, the course is positioned to examine leading models in digital representation techniques as they relate to ‘time‐based’ successional landscape and urban design operations, processes, and systems analytics. The course provides a foundation into the exploration of digital media and the subsequent modes of conceptual, organizational, and formal expression.
HARVARD GRADUATE SCHOOL OF DESIGN
SEMINAR: INNOVATIVE APPROACHES TO BUSINESS PERFORMANCE
HARVARD GRADUATE SCHOOL OF DESIGN
Departments of Architecture and Landscape Architecture
PRO‐07440‐00 Leading the Design Firm
Instructors: Brian Kenet and Richard Jennings
Contemporary urban projects demand a new kind of synthetic imagination – a new form of practice in which landscape, architecture, planning, ecology, engineering, social policy, political processes, financial modeling, investment platforms, and legal frameworks are understood and coordinated as an interrelated field. Creative strategy, process, and visioning are crucial for generating new forms of practice, new measures of relevance, and new models of operation.
CELA urban nature conference
SELECTED AS GUEST LECTURER: REPOSITIONING INFRASTRUCTURE
REPOSITIONING INFRASTRUCTURE: Productive Landscape Systems: This study looks closer at the effects of new measures of landscape application and questions the relevance and importance of landscape driven performance-based infrastructures as a leading method in directing our expanding urbanization. The presentation will seek to provide a platform for discussion and critique regarding the potential of repositioning the singular and homogeneous utility of traditional infrastructural systems towards a multi-productive, multi-layered, adaptive landscape-driven infrastructural network.
PARQUE DEL LAGO KEYSTONE MOSAIC, QUITO, ECUADOR
PROPOSAL FEATURED IN FUTURE ARCHITECTURES JOURNAL V9
PARQUE DEL LAGO PROPOSAL FEATURED IN 'FUTURE ARCHITECTURES' JOURNAL V9
The M3 proposal sets out to transform what is now Quito’s Mariscal Sucre International Airport into a new central urban park. By crafting the park’s terrain and hydrological networks an array of interconnected channels, streams, pools, lagoons, and lakes set the framework for the growth of the park over time. The hydrological foundation establishes key ecological links between the terrestrial and aquatic habitats encouraging an emergence of an eco-urban mosaic within the center of Quito’s vibrant culture.
RE-ENVISIONING CAMPUS OPEN SPACE
New York City, New York
M3 was invited by New York based architecture group, Marner Architecture, to re-envision the central gardens of the revered Andrew W. Mellon Foundation located in Manhattan’s Upper East Side. “One unified surface, 3 connected landscapes”; creating a sense of ‘garden campus’ that unifies and organizes the outdoor gardens and meeting areas. In establishing a unified garden ‘campus’ we can envision a space which is more usable, more flexible, more adaptable, and more responsive to the activities, functions, and needs of the Foundation. The ground plane is the foundation of unifying the space, from which creates a series of emphatic and tactile garden environments, or “garden rooms”; the Birch, Cherry, and Fern Gardens. With now a singular expression and experience of surface, the distinct garden rooms become the prominent organizational structure, volumetrically.
Project: Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Central Campus Gardens
Location: New York City, New York
Client: Andrew W. Mellon Foundation
Project Team: Marner Architecture; M3PROJECT