Cloud. The Internet research center

The present work, made with Politecnico di Milano, is the design and the development of the Internet Research Center and surrounding territory in North Woolwich, London. The project is based on the international competition, arranged by Bee Breeders competition organizers. It is the good opportunity to develop the area, which will influence many aspects of life in North Woolwich, as well as to organize the center of attraction for the local community, creating the new identity and sense of the place of the district. Basing on the context analysis the project proposes the masterplan with the Internet Research Center, public square, green path and waterfront, which forms the new center of North Woolwich district. The proposal is based on the Water Sensitive Urban Design concept and designed with flood preventive measures. The Cloud project is the conceptual combination of material and immaterial - buiding and virtual reality - Internet. The competition brief requirements for the internal spaces organization allowed to create the multifunctional building, which will attract different categories of people - local community, students, visitors, researches and professionals, including international specialists. Whole concept of the building - volumetric composition, organization of the spaces, circulation, aesthetics, choice of the materials - reflects the functionality of the building and it’s connection with Internet. The design of the building integrates the principles of sustainability, using the renewable energy sources. An overall approach for the design process, applied for the project, was based on the cross-disciplinary and cross-scale principles - development of the context analysis from big scale to small scale, urban design proposal, architectural and technological design with detailed drawings and preliminary structural calculations of the main elements.