Green areas, film screenings, joint programs and parks and piazzas that facilitate meetings mark the direction towards the residential parks of the future from London to Amsterdam to Budapest.

Greenwich Millennium Village (GMV), London

GALLERY GREENWICH MILLENNIUM VILLAGE

Due to the use of renewable energy sources, a British residential area with 80 percent lower energy consumption than average residential buildings has appeared in an area that used to be home to gas reservoirs. The project, which started in 2008 and is still under development, will add 3,600 apartments to the British capital.

Fifty hectares of green space has been created around the buildings, which can be divided into several styles, of different heights - and obviously designed by different offices - and which also includes a four-hectare ecological park, greatly increasing the residents' sense of comfort. And if all that weren't enough: the project, also referred to as GMV, pampers different age groups with different thematic park areas, but also improves the living standards of the people living in the district with different events and community spaces.

In 2017, the residents also held their first own festival (Village Fayre), and the following year they started their own newspaper, so the project became a city within the city in twenty years.

Mirador, Madrid

GALLERY MVRDV

Mirador, which at first glance looks like a row of separate buildings glued together, increases the number of social rental apartments in the Spanish capital. The most important feature of the 165-home building, designed by the Dutch MVRDV and handed over in 2012, is the simultaneously open and closed common space, which is not a barren smoking area stretching forty meters above the cars, but a modern rest area and even a wonderful view of the Guadarrama mountain range. it also functions as a community space, where the people who live here can put aside their daily worries for a few moments and organize programs together.

Watervijk / GWL-terrein, Amsterdam

ALAIN ROUILLER

600 homes were created in the Dutch project between 1994-1998, including more than six hundred apartments, on the site of the buildings of the capital's water management center - with the retention of some previous buildings.

The developers permanently banished cars from the streets between the buildings, which also utilize rainwater, thus creating an exceptionally safe part of the city. The residents' sense of comfort is not only enhanced by this step, but also by the green roof terraces, the green roofs covered with succulents, moss and grass, the eighty-five community gardens and the park areas that are open to the public. The people who live here maintain the gardens together and enjoy the fruits of more than sixty fruit trees.

The developers built using the best possible raw materials: instead of plastic insulation, for example, they stayed with raw bricks, but they were not satisfied with cheaper types of wood either, and in the name of environmental protection, they also reused a good part of the debris from the demolition of buildings in the area.

Community functions are also strong at GWL: the annual soccer tournaments, the Christmas choir, joint fruit picking, and small and large gardening groups formed by residents all strengthen the community spirit.

Buda Beach, Budapest

BALÁZS IVÁNDI-SZABÓ / 24.HU

And then we arrived in Budapest: the Kopaszi dam is an integral part of the fifty-four-hectare area of ​​the capital city district, which has been born since 2017 and is in some ways being reborn, and by the end of the investment, almost half of the area, 26 hectares, will remain green space. BudaPart is implemented according to the idea of ​​a compact city, which is an ecologically much more positive solution than a sprawling city. Among other things, urban sociologists and the Danish architectural firm ADEPT were involved in the planning, so for example there is no surface parking on the Western European model - the parking lots were placed in the underground garages - so they can plant trees significantly more densely and support reduced car traffic.

The newest district of the capital is being born next to the Danube

Few parts of the city have changed as much as the Kopaszi dam, which has become a popular park in recent years. The former Hungarian Las Vegas has become today's modern-day Budapest: a new city district is being built as part of the BudaPart project.

GALLERY BALÁZS IVÁNDI-SZABÓ / 24.HU

Similar to the international examples above, large-scale greening is an important element in the landscape architecture of BudaPart. Since, according to the developer's vision, the streets will not be occupied by parked cars, trees can be planted significantly more densely than in a similar-sized district. On the one hand, tree-lined inner streets are created, the most important element of which is the rows of trees, thus ensuring the prevention of global warming in the future.

Another unique initiative is the on-site precipitation retention, thanks to which the rainwater running off the street actively participates in the irrigation of the rows of trees, and in addition, the rainwater goes purified into the Danube.

Recognizing the importance of culture and its community-building effect, BudaPart shapes community and outlook despite the pandemic: our well-known actors bring the unique atmosphere of the neighborhood closer through the poems of Hungarian poets.

Many shops have already opened on BudaPart - including a flower shop, lottery, greengrocer, bakery and restaurant - and in 2021 even more service providers and retail units will move to the area, but exhibitions, concerts, open-air film screenings, yoga classes, a farmers' market and outdoor programs are also planned. , and will also open its own kindergarten. In the landscaped areas between residential and office buildings designed by various architectural firms, there is even more space for community-building activities.

Source: 24.hu