A Conversation Between Projects by Aaron Plewke

A CONVERSATION BETWEEN PROJECTS

POT T E R I E S T H I N K B E LT ( C E D R IC PRICE) AND PLUG-IN CITY (ARCHIGRAM)

Electronic Tomato (1969) Warren Chalk and David Greene

I ran across this advertisement in the subway the other day... I was struck by how this project takes advantage of the existing conditions—bored passengers waiting for the train accessorized with ubiquitous white headphones—integrating media distribution to a particular place and time in the form of an ad. What else can we leave out in the city? -Kazys Varnelis via “plug-in city” published at varnelis.net

iPod advertisement via lunchoverip.com

A CONVERSATION BETWEEN PROJECTS: POTTERIES THINKBELT (CEDRIC PRICE) AND PLUG-IN CITY (ARCHIGRAM)

The following text attempts to address the similar and divergent attributes of two unrealized projects—Cedric Price’s Potteries Thinkbelt and Archigram’s Plug-in City—by placing them in a literal conversation with each other. Each project describes aspects of itself, and responds to descriptions provided by its counterpart. A moderator opens the discussion, and interjects only as needed to direct the course of the conversation toward a predetermined set of topics. Woven into the conversation are several quotes by architects, theoreticians and historians. The words put in the mouths of the projects have been generated from a combination of inputs: statements made by their designers, scholarly analysis by others, and my own interpretations. By blending primary and secondary sources with my own readings of the projects, I am inevitably creating an editorial work that privileges my own position, but is informed by the ongoing discourse about these projects and their designers.

Discussion part 1: Site and Framework

A CONTEMPORARY EXAMPLE: STAN ALLEN ARCHITECT Taichung Central PARKway

Discussion part 2: Networks and Nodes

PLUG-IN CITY, INDEX OF ELEMENTS: MAX PRESSURE AREA SECTION

A CONTEMPORARY EXAMPLE: OMA / REM KOOLHAAS Parc de la Villette

Discussion part 3: Adaptability and Flexibility

A CONTEMPORARY EXAMPLE: POPULOUS / HOK WITH PETER COOK London Olympic Stadium

Works Cited

Terminology

Moderator: Welcome. The first part of our discussion will revolve around the issues of Site and Framework. With this in mind, please introduce yourselves, and share a bit about your context.

PTb: I am the Potteries Thinkbelt, a revitalization plan for the North Staffordshire Potteries. The architect responsible for my creation—an Englishman named Cedric Price—grew up in the Potteries, and is the great, great grandson of one Enoch Wood. Mr. Wood was one of the founders of the Potteries and, along with his partner and other pioneers, was responsible for making North Staffordshire the center of the English ceramics industry.1 Mr. Price was intimately aware of my site's history and physical character, and in turn, he designed me in a way that is highly site-specific. Therefore, I consider myself a regionally distinct project—created by a British architect for a British place, and based on a deep understanding of the physical and social conditions of my site. PiC: I am Plug-in City, a conceptual project that investigates a specific type of mega-structural framework with various types of units that can be plugged in to accommodate all of the demands and desires of urban life. Unlike a typical plan or proposal with clearly defined parameters, I am the combination of a series of related ideas and studies. These studies—conducted by a group of young British architects collectively known as Archigram—coordinate in spirit, but not always in detail.2

Site and Framework

Cedric Price image credit: unknown via “The Enclosure Business” published at frieze.com

Archigram image credit: Archigram via “Archigram: Biography” published at medienkunstnetz.de

Regarding context, I’m not sure that I have a site in the sense that you do, PTb. Sections or segments or particular sub-projects of me have been tested in locations such as Nottingham and Paddington, but as a tactical system, I am adaptable to any site. Indeed, one of my creators—Peter Cook—describes my relationship to context as follows: “The Plug-in City is set up by applying a large scale network-structure...to any terrain.”3

Peter Cook image credit: Orhan Ayyuce via “Conversation with Peter Cook on the State of Things” published at archinect.com

Yes, I was created by a group of British designers that went to architecture school in London, and yes, I was developed through studies that were sited for the most part in the context of England.

“...we have our studio here in London by a market that, at lunchtime, sprouts mobile vehicles all selling hot food. It’s an instant village of eating. It’s a phenomenon...But then it all then just trundles off on wheels. It just sort of moseys into the city, which is amazing.” -Peter Cook “Equipment for Living: Nevertheless, I was conceived as a system that could spread and be interconnected across An Interview with Peter Cook” Greater London, and indeed across the whole by Geoff Manaugh of Great Britain. Most importantly, my kit of BLDGBLOG Book parts can be applied to any terrain. Therefore, I think it’s fair to say that I am as British as I am Continental, or perhaps even Universal. I am a project for the city, generally speaking, and not as regionally specific as you are, PTb.

Site and Framework

Plug-in City, UK Planning Study Dennis Crompton, 1963-65 image source: Exit Utopia, p. 83

Plug-in City at Paddington Peter Cook, 1965-1966 image source: Exit Utopia, p. 87

Site and Framework

Plug-in City, network over London image source: Exit Utopia, p. 83

PTb: While I am a detailed proposal for a regionally specific problem, I am also considered by many as a project for the city—perhaps even as an early example of what is today known as Landscape Urbanism.4 I fuse together a site that stretches between 3 towns, covering over 174 square kilometers5, creating a vast and architecturally contiguous experience that avoids singularity and monumentality.

“Increasingly, landscape is emerging as a model for urbanism. Landscape has traditionally been defined as the art of organizing horizontal surfaces...By paying close attention to these surface conditions—not only configuration, but also materiality and performance— By utilizing site, or landscape, as my primary medium, I am capable of responding to temporal designers can activate space and produce change, transformation, adaptation, and urban effects without the weighty apparatus succession, and am uniquely suited to the openof traditional space making.” endedness, indeterminacy, and change demanded by contemporary urban conditions.6 -Stan Allen “Mat Urbanism: The Thick 2-D” Prior to the war, the Potteries was a thriving CASE: Le Corbusier’s Venice Hospital industrial region, and a network of railways

Site and Framework

stretched between its various production centers. These rail lines—specifically the ones that connect Madeley, Meir, and Pitts Hill—are the primary component of my framework. A perimeter road that connects these 3 towns plays a supporting role, as do secondary rail lines and roadways. Furthermore, the rail lines and roadways of the Potteries are directly connected with national transportation lines.7 By utilizing these existing infrastructural elements, and by interfacing with more broad systems of movement, regional connectivity and mobility are critical aspects of my make-up.

Plan for Potteries Thinkbelt Staffordshire, England Cedric Price, 1965 image source: thepotteries.org

PiC: It’s an interesting distinction that you utilize a site condition—the existing rail lines and roadways—as your framework, while I employ a purpose-built network-structure that serves many of the functions that the existing infrastructure serves for you. It is remarkable that you manage to seamlessly capitalize on the obsolete detritus of a bygone epoch.8 PTb: In this way we are fundamentally divergent. While I efficiently re-use the conditions of my site as my framework, your framework is a wholly new construct. This dissimilarity has several physical and social implications. North Staffordshire image credit: Walnut Rede published at flickr.com

First, the realization of your basic framework requires extensive material resources, while mine is a found object—already tied to its site, yet capable of accomodating a dynamic spatial experience.

“Although static in and of themselves, infrastructures organize and manage complex systems of flow, movement and exchange. Infrastructures are flexible and anticipatory. Additionally, the fact that you supplant yourself over a given place, while I weave myself into By specifying what must be fixed and what is my site’s conditions, suggests a vastly different subject to change, infrastructural design can approach to designing the city of the future. Your urbanism is one of superimposition. be architecturally precise My urbanism is archaeological. I see latent yet programmatically open.” architectural promise in the conditions as I find them, and take measures toward excavating -Stan Allen the patterns of the past.9 I re-direct the existing stanallenarchitect.com/v1/infrastructure

Site and Framework

physical situation, guiding it toward the spatial and social conditions that I aim to provoke. You overlay a newly constructed order above the existing city.

Page from Archigram 5 (â&#x20AC;&#x153;Metropolisâ&#x20AC;?): New Babylon and P.I.C. image source: Exit Utopia, p. 58

PiC: It is my aim to agitate the physical and social orders of the existing city; therefore, I take a more aggressive approach, wholly reshaping patterns of use. By deploying a mega-structural framework, I accommodate continual, unrestricted circulation. Functions can be located, dislocated and relocated without constraint. Boundaries are rendered fuzzy. The urban condition that I engender is without apparent limits, but is nevertheless unified by continuous architecture.10

Living Pod David Greene, 1965 image source: archigram.net

PTb: I would contend that I achieve many of the same results. Indeed, my infrastructure allows programmatic elements to be relocated across my region, but there are certainly some notable limits to my mobility. Foremost, by relying on a 2-dimensional framework of rail lines and roadways, my primary circulation is restricted to a vast yet relatively flat ground plane.

“...unlike the improbable and impractical (but intriguing) schemes that Archigram or Nieuwenhuys were proposing for walking cities or cities in the air, Price’s large-scale proposals were eminently practicable and well within the range of the possible.” -Stanley Mathews From Agit-Prop to Free Space: The Architecture of Cedric Price”

Site and Framework

Madelay transfer area Cedric Price, 1966 image source: audacity.org

PiC: I aim to lift the city from the street to the sky—to entirely alter the spatial experience of the city, freeing it from constraints.

“Plug-in City was less a city than a way of taking rooms with you as you abandoned the city...” -Peggy Deamer PTb: But instead of altering the spatial experience “The Everyday and the Utopian” of the city—which is what I do—you create a new The Architecture of the Everyday spatial experience, and a new city entirely. Actually, you do alter the existing city (or in your case, the old city), but the alteration seems resultant, not primary. In fact, while in some cases you are drawn in relation to an actual context, one could argue that the context is not of fundamental consequence, and is merely used as an initial point of reference. The existing city seems to be something for your usurping kit of parts to respond to, but more as a springboard than as an equal dialogue partner.

“Archigram celebrated London’s natural mess in its 1963 exhibition, Living City...then immediately proposed mega-structural developments that would supplant it, like Plug-in City...Archigram [was] more interested in outlining the future than in excavating the patterns of the past. They saw their projects as the means to upset the old orders of community and social difference, not to reinstate them.” -Simon Sadler “New Babylon versus Plug-in City” Exit Utopia

Site and Framework

scan from Archigram 7 “Living Pods” David Greene image source: flickr.com/iqbalaalam

SITE AND FRAMEWORK, A CONTEMPORARY EXAMPLE: STAN ALLEN ARCHITECT LANDSCAPE

INFRASTRUCTURE

Much more than a formal model, landscape is important to architecture and urbanism as a model of process. Landscapes cannot be designed and controlled to the degree that architecture is; instead, landscapes, like cities, are loosely structured frameworks that grow and change over time. Landscapes are immersive environments, diagrams subject to partial control. Time is a fundamental variable in landscape work. Today, landscape architects are embracing change and designing landscapes that anticipate a succession of states: a choreography of changing plant regimes, shifting spatial characters and new uses over time. Working with a precise spatial framework, the designer creates the conditions under which distinct and perhaps unanticipated spatial characteristics may emerge from the interplay between designed elements and the indeterminate unfolding life of the site.

Infrastructure works not so much to propose specific buildings on given sites, but to construct the site itself. Although static in and of themselves, infrastructures organize and manage complex systems of flow, movement and exchange. Infrastructures are flexible and anticipatory. By specifying what must be fixed and what is subject to change, infrastructural design can be architecturally precise yet programmatically open. Instead of progressing toward a predetermined state (as with master planning strategies), infrastructure provides a framework for evolution within a loose envelope of constraints. An infrastructural approach establishes a directed field, where different architects and designers can contribute, but it sets technical and instrumental limits to their work. Lastly, infrastructures allow detailed design of typical elements or repetitive structures, facilitating an architectural approach to urbanism. via stanallenarchitect.com

Site and Framework

Taichung Central PARKway SAA received the mandate to transform Taichungâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s decommissioned Municipal Airport into the cityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s new cultural district. The current site is a virtual Tabula Rasa measuring 250 hectares and located at one of the cityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s main growth corridors. What to do with such an immense opportunity for urbanism? Our proposal creates a single unifying element that incorporates as many program elements as possible: circulation, green space and natural ecologies, new cultural institutions research facilities, as well as major public attractors such as the convention hall and the new dome. The new parkway infrastructure defines a zone of intense design investment while strategically opening up edges of the site to existing urban development pressures. via stanallenarchitect.com

Moderator: At this point, I’d like to transition into a discussion about Networks and Nodes, or, the part-to-whole relationships in each of your respective kit[s] of parts.

PTb: As I have mentioned, my primary framework is an existing set of rail lines and roadways that connect 3 towns—Madeley, Meir, and Pitts Hill. At each of these towns (which function as primary nodes within my network) there are large Transfer Areas. The rail lines, roadways, and Transfer Areas are my only permanently fixed elements. “At these transfer areas, modular and mobile housing and teaching units could be assembled and connected by giant overhead cranes typically used in the container-based shipping industries.”11 Plan of Desire Lines-Physical and Mental Exchange Cedric Price, 1964-1966 image source: moma.org

“Just as the machine made modern industrialization possible and also acted as a model for a rationalized, compartmentalized modern society, [and] while the programmable computer served the same role for the flexible socioeconomic milieu of postmodernism, today the network not only connects the world, it reconfigures our relationship to it.” -Kazys Varnelis Network Culture varnelis.net/network_culture

Networks and Nodes

Perspective of Madeley Transfer Area Cedric Price, 1964-1966 image source: moma.org

“Nodes are the strategic foci into which the observer can enter, typically either junctions of paths, or concentrations of some characteristic. But although conceptually they are small points in the city image, they may in reality Operating as a secondary system of nodes along be large squares, or somewhat extended my rail lines are my various scales of educational linear shapes, or even entire central sites: districts when the city is being considered The primary nodes in this system are four Faculty at a large enough level. Indeed, when Areas, also referred to as teaching nodes. The conceiving the environment at a national components that comprise the teaching nodes or international level, then the whole city (rail-based teaching units) are mobile and modular, but the physical locations themselves itself may become a node.” would likely be in use over an extended period -Kevin Lynch of time. In this way, the geographical addresses The Image of the City of the Faculty Areas could operate like semi-fixed nodes, while their spatial and programmatic configurations would adjust with changing needs.

“The concept of disjunction is incompatible with a static, autonomous, structural view of architecture. But it is not anti-autonomy or anti-structure; it simply implies constant, mechanical operations that systematically produce dissociation in space and time, where an architectural element only functions by Within the system of education sites, but one scale colliding with a programmatic element.” smaller than the Faculty Areas, would be Faculty -Bernard Tschumi Sidings—places where mobile teaching units could temporarily site themselves adjacent to “Disjunctions” existing factory buildings and industrial facilities, Architecture and Disjunction in order to enable coordination between research, education, and practice.

Networks and Nodes

The final, and smallest, type of node within the system of education sites would be several MiniSidings. The Mini-Sidings would serve as parking areas for teaching units and their attendant computerized information storage units.12

Diagrams of typical faculty sidings Cedric Price, 1966 image source: The Architecture of Cedric Price, pg. 220

Diagrammatic plans of rail based units Cedric Price, 1966 image source: The Architecture of Cedric Price, pg. 220

Price designed six types of mobile, rail-based units to roam the rail lines of the Thinkbelt:

1. â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Railbusâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; coaches designed to shuttle students to and from various points within the Thinkbelt. 2. Seminar units, used either in conjunction with normal Railbus services, or in separate services with long stops of scheduled duration at PTb stations, or parked at small Faculty Sidings, providing random discussion opportunities or scheduled televised lectures to student areas. 3. Self-teach carrel units used in conjunction with closed or open circuit TV transmission or linked information and program storage units. 4. Information, computerised data and equipment storage units. 5. Fold-out, inflatable units. Once in place, the sides would flip down, extending the unit to a width of 24 feet, over which a alarge dome would inflate. Hydraulic levelling jacks would then be deployed to level and stabilise the entire unit. These units provided either two orthodox 30 person lecture areas or one demonstration or television studio area, linked by cable and wireless transmission to information and equipment stores.

Networks and Nodes

6. Fold-out decking units. Up to three of these units could be parked side-by-side onparallel tracks, and connected into a single 24 foot wide deck or platform. Like the fold-out inflatable units, theses also used hydraulic levelling devices for stability. They could be used either for access to other units, or as support for specialised or fine-control [controlled environment] rigid enclosures positioned on units by mobile crane.13

Mobile Teaching Machines Cedric Price, 1966 image source: moma.org

Also operating as a secondary system of nodes along my rail lines are 19 different housing areas. Like the teaching nodes, the housing areas would be comprised of mobile and modular units, which would come together to form neighborhoods, or residential districts. Perspective of Battery, Sprawl, and Capsule Housing Cedric Price, 1964-1966 image source: moma.org

Perspective of Battery, Crate, and Capsule Housing Cedric Price, 1964-1966 image source: moma.org

Four types of housing units would be deployed across various sites: Capsule Small units, stacked and staggered along steeply sloping sites. Each Capsule unit would be contained within a rectilinear framework that received a system of panels. A single bay of the framework would be infilled with panels to create a one bedroom unit, or multiple bays would be combined to create larger units. Sprawl Clusters of small units with hydraulically controlled adjustable legs, useful for any ground condition. Sprawl units would be combined in large circular or Y-shaped layouts. Crate Modular units plugged into a large, high-rise framework, suitable for flat, stable ground conditions. The overall Crate framework would house shared services.

Capsule housing Cedric Price, 1966 image source: The Architecture of Cedric Price, pg. 221

Networks and Nodes

Battery Similar framework concept to Crate housing, but low-rise and suitable for poor, unstable ground conditions. Similar to Sprawl housing in that it would be equipped with hydraulically controlled adjustable legs.

Diagrammatic elevations and plans of battery housing Cedric Price, 1966 image source: The Architecture of Cedric Price, pg. 223

PiC: As I stated previously, my primary framework is a large scale network-structure (also referred to as a mega-structure), typically depicted as a grid rotated 45 degrees in both plan and section. Building services and civil services would be bundled within my shared network-structure. Various modes and speeds of circulation connect different areas of the structure. Some of the modes of circulation also connect adjacent portions, or outcroppings, of the networkstructure as it spreads across existing cities or metropolitan regions. The myriad programmatic elements, or units, that comprise my total project are then plugged-in to the network-structure by large cranes positioned along the monorail at the top of framework. As a proposal for a whole and complete city, my framework and elements combine to represent the full range of programs and services offered by the metropolis. Individual residential units plugin to vertical extensions of the network-structure. Shop units, office units and cultural programs plug-in to the middle and lower portions of the network-structure, and so forth.14

“Plug-in City trusted that qualities of social space would be generated mainly through the collisions of flows around its network and competing uses of latticed space.” -Simon Sadler “New Babylon versus Plug-in City” Exit Utopia Networks and Nodes

Plug-in City, typical section Peter Cook, 1964 image source: arch.wustl.edu/MetabolicCity

INDEX OF ELEMENTS: PLUG-IN CITY, MAX. PRESSURE AREA SECTION 1. Along bottom and right edges of the section drawing is a grid reference, like those typically found on maps. The bottom edge’s reference ranges from “X69” through “X94” perhaps suggesting that this particular section is a mere instance in a vast field. The right edge’s reference ranges from “A” through “K,” beginning at ground level. 2. The ground poche is blue, topped by a black line nearly 1/2” thick. When the ground is engaged by large vertical elements (Routes A and B) it depresses. It is otherwise flat/horizontal.

space. There are cranes atop these residential towers. 6. Red infill office units fill in portions of the mega-structural framework. Adjacent information silos serve the infill office units. 7. Yellow infill shop units fill in portions of the mega-structural framework. In some cases, shop units combine to form compound shop units. 8. Pink shop supply tubes and silos service the infill shop units.

3. A green mega-structural framework spans nearly the entire width of the drawing, pausing only to frame primary vertical routes. There are 40 whole bays of this framework. Route A and Route B are braced by half-bays of the framework (making 4 total half-bays, 2 per Route). Each route is topped by a crane.

9. Royal blue escalator tubes run throughout the mega-structural framework, connecting the various programmatic elements and transportation types.

4. There are 3 vertical red cylindrical Car Silos in the foreground of the section, and another 2 implied in the background.

11. Light blue Environmental Seal Balloons run primarily across the top of the mega-structural framework. Circulation decks span horizontally through the framework at various levels.

5. In some cases, the mega-structural framework (3) expands into an inverted cone shape at the top of the Car Silos (4), creating receptacles for individual housing units to plug-in to. At the midst of this inverted cone is a shared exterior

10. A cluster of yellow Stopover Apartments on the left side of the drawing are serviced by large twopropeller helicopters.

12. Fast/Express monorail tracks run at the top of the mega-structural framework. 13. Local monorail tracks run within the middle

section of the mega-structural framework. 14. Heavy duty freight tracks run at the ground level. 15. Fast roadway clusters are hung near the top of the mega-structural structure.

17. Local parking garages are sited on the ground level. 18. Larger programmatic elements (Theatre, Plaza, Music Theatre, Exhibition, etc.) are located at various sites within the mega-structural framework.

16. Local feeder roads sit within the middle section of the mega-structural framework.

PTb: The housing towers you describe are not unlike my Crate housing type.

Crate housing Cedric Price, 1966 image source: designmuseum.org

PiC: Indeed. The Capsule Tower concept—at once a part of my total project and an investigation of its own—is clearly related to your Crate housing proposal. That said, my housing is immediately tied to my framework, and thereby to all of my other programmatic elements. Your housing units are transported on your framework, but they are installed adjacent to it, not within it. In this we are divergent. As a wholly new construct, I am able to accommodate entirely continuous circulation, and engender entirely fluid relationships between my components. You, on the other hand, are limited by the existing infrastructure that you re-purpose as your framework. I am truly networked and fully interconnected. Your network has gaps, broken synapses. It is interrupted.

“A paradox of Bigness is that in spite of the calculation that goes into its planning—in fact, through its very rigidities—it is the one architecture that engineers the unpredictable.” -Rem Koolhaas “Bigness: The Problem of the Large” S, M, L, XL

Networks and Nodes

Plug-in Capsule Homes, Stack-up process Warren Chalk, 1964 image source: Exit Utopia, pg. 72

Plug-in City, section Peter Cook, 1966 image source: Exit Utopia, pg. 91

Plug-in Capsule Homes, Tower Warren Chalk, 1964 image source: Exit Utopia, pg. 75

PTb: I would argue that your network is overly determined, and therefore limiting. My network, on the other hand, is full of calculated uncertainty.15 I provide my users with the freedom to make decisions on their feet—to move in non-prescribed ways from one point to another. Yes, the existing rail lines and roadways are fixed, but the rest is not strictly determined. In this way, I accommodate change and transformation. By leaving gaps (as you call them) in my network’s structure, I support endless invention and reconfiguration. Your mega-structural framework creates a network that is constrained. I expect it would ultimately feel overpowering and would depress the same freedom it aims to promote. It is overbearing.

“During the life of the park, the programme will undergo constant change and adjustment. The more the park works, the more it will be in a perpetual state of revision. Its ‘design’ should therefore be the proposal of a method that combines architectural specificity with programmatic indeterminacy. In other words, we see this scheme not simply as a design but mostly as a tactical proposal to derive maximum benefit from the implantation on the site of a number of activities... The underlying principle of programmatic indeterminacy as a basis of the formal concept allows any shift, modification, replacement, or substitution to occur without damaging the initial hypothesis.” -Rem Koolhaas “Congestion without Matter: Parc de la Villette, Paris, France, 1982” S, M, L, XL Networks and Nodes

scan from Archigram 5 â&#x20AC;&#x153;Universal Structureâ&#x20AC;? image source: flickr.com/iqbalaalam

NETWORKS AND NODES, A CONTEMPORARY EXAMPLE: OFFICE FOR METROPOLITAN ARCHITECTURE Described by Alex Wall as “a field of social instruments,” OMA’s design for Parc de la Villette moved landscape design--as the installation of various infrastructures for an array of programmatic potential rather than a completed aesthetic composition replete with symbolic narratives and mimetic elements--to the center of debate over the last twenty years. Unconcerned by Koolhaas’s poor ecological credentials in 1999, James Corner stretched OMA’s Parc de la Villette to the breaking point, suggesting that it might represent “a truly ecological landscape architecture,” that such a landscape “might be less about the construction of finished and complete works, and more about the design of ‘processes,’ ‘strategies,’ ‘agencies,’ and ‘scaffoldings’--catalytic frameworks that might enable a diversity of relationships to create, emerge, network, interconnect, and differentiate.” -Richard Weller “An Art of Instrumentality: Thinking Through Landscape Urbanism,” in The Landscape Urbanism Reader, p. 77

Networks and Nodes

Parc de la Villette The program by the city of Paris was too large for the site, leaving no space for a park. The proposed project is not for a definitive park, but for a method that - combining programmatic instability with architectural specificity - will eventually generate a park. The idea comprises 5 steps: 1. The major programmatic components are distributed in horizontal bands across the site, creating a continuous atmosphere in its length and perpendicular, rapid change in experience. 2. Some facilities - kiosks, playgrounds, barbecue spots are distributed mathematically according to different point grids. 3. The addition of a â&#x20AC;&#x153;round forestâ&#x20AC;? as architectural elements. 4. Connections 5. Superimpositions via oma.nl

Moderator: Since the conversation is naturally moving toward our third and final topic, I will interject here and explicitly state the theme—Adaptability and Flexibility. Please continue.

PiC: Your reading of my network-structure fails to account for the fundamentally open-ended nature of the plug-in system. My framework is a well equipped stage—a stage that is structured for change.16

“...being a self-destroying, self-building system [Plug-in City] is easily pushed into the shape people want it to be--rather than its pushing people into shape.” -Priscilla Chapman PTb: While your structure certainly “Design for Living” accommodates change, I would argue that it The Sunday Times, 25 September 1964 directs change too heavily, forcing it into the rigid grid of your constructed city-scape. I, on the other hand, am made up of units that can break free from their framework and be deployed across the landscape as it exists. The rail lines are only an armature, entirely different from your omnipresent kit of parts. Your framework determines patterns of movement and use, and defines exactly how individual programmatic entities relate to the whole.

The Plug-in City The Sunday Times Colour Magazine, September 1964 image source: kristiangoddard.com

Adaptability and Flexibility

Plug-in City (axonometric) Peter Cook, 1964 image source: megastructure-reloaded.org

“Landscape today is unbounded, flexible, and mobile, composed of forms, connections, and spaces that can neither be contained within conventional frames nor pictured according to the scopic conventions of a distanced, authoring eye.” -Denis Cosgrove PiC: The primary issue you seem to be taking with “Aiport/Landscape” my kit of parts is its flexibility. At the metropolitan Recovering Landscape scale, my mega-structural framework is extremely flexible—it is capable of myriad different physical arrangements.17 My framework can extend directly or circuitously from one existing city to another. Spurs can dart off of from its primary trajectory, creating additional density or spatial variation at a given site. At the scale of a city district, my framework can accommodate varying densities, it can receive any combination of programmatic entities, and it can seamlessly connect all spaces and uses in both the vertical and horizontal directions. The arrangements of urban space and the patterns of use I promote are, therefore, quite open-ended. A typical segment of my framework is likely to contain an extensive, diverse cross-section of urban conditions.

“...the grid has historically proven to be a particularly effective field operation, extending a framework across a vast surface for flexible and changing development over time... This organization lends legibility and order to the surface while allowing for the autonomy and individuality of each part, and remaining open to permutations over time.” -James Corner “Terra Fluxus” The Landscape Urbanism Reader Adaptability and Flexibility

Plug-in City, application to Central London Peter Cook, 1966 image source: Exit Utopia, pg. 86

PTb: But there is no escape from your framework! As a physical construct, it is relentless! If one were to follow your direct or circuitous extension between two existing places, what would their experience be? Would they be constantly within the confines of your repetitive grid? While there is certainly merit in aspiring for such a high degree of infrastructural continuity, your framework seems like a heavyhanded and ultimately simplistic way of achieving such a goal.

Plug-in City & Computer City, Bournemouth Peter Cook & Dennis Crompton, 1965 image source: Exit Utopia, pg. 80

Adaptability and Flexibility

Furthermore, while your framework may enable a certain degree of flexibility at the metropolitan scale, once we move down to the scale of the housing block or shopping centre, the notion that you offer the individual true flexibility is a bit of a ruse. As I’ve said, your kit of parts dictates a specific spatial character—fraught with catwalks, exposed stairways, escalators, and balconies. While these elements are not intrinsically undesirable, I imagine (in lieu of imagery suggesting otherwise) that within your framework, they will come together to create an environmental consistency, or sameness, which is in direct conflict with the concept of flexibility. There are only so many possibilities for creating variety within a strictly ordered structural system. On the other hand, I believe the “plug-in” concept clearly allows for adaptability—that is, the ability for a given site on your framework to accommodate different and changing social uses.18 My primary criticism is that your ability to adapt to changing uses is undermined by the inflexible pattern within which the adaptation would be forced to take place.

scan from Archigram 7 cutout puzzle image source: flickr.com/iqbalaalam

PiC: Regarding adaptability, it is critical to point out that the units that plug in to my framework are highly customizable, and perhaps more importantly, planned for obsolescence. Different components would have different life spans, or permanence ratings. Larger infrastructural elements, such as my main mega-structure, or the car silos and roadways that connect my outcroppings, would have relatively long life spans (40 years and 20 years, respectively). As the scale shifts nearer to the individual housing unit, life spans would become shorter--the housing unit itself may last a decade or so, while the domestic modules within it (such as the bedrooms, living room, or kitchen) may survive for only 5 years.19 Chart of life span and use cycle Cedric Price, 1966 image source: The Architecture of Cedric Price, pg. 224

Flexibility at the metropolitan scale, adaptability at the scale of the individual. PTb: Exactly.

“The strategic aspects of Archigram’s work derive from the inherent flexibility of the designed system; parts can be added, removed, or rearranged at will, accommodating a range of uses at different times, from mass exhibitions and festivals one day to individual mobile homes and gardens the next. These radical speculations demonstrated tangible, urbanistic techniques for making urban environments that used emerging technology to achieve individual freedom within new collective structures.” -Alex Wall “Programming the Urban Surface” Recovering Landscape Adaptability and Flexibility

Plug-in University Node Peter Cook, 1965 image source: Exit Utopia, pg. 87

“The University Node was an exercise to discover what happened to the various notions of gradual infill, replacement and regeneration of parts on to a Plug-in City megastructure, but with a specific kind of activity.” -Peter Cook “Plug-in City” Archigram

ADAPTABILITY VS. FLEXIBILITY, A CONTEMPORARY EXAMPLE: HOK / POPULOUS WITH PETER COOK

London Olympic Stadium image source: archdaily.com

The challenge in building a stadium for a speciﬁc event lies in creating a structure that is both temporary and permanent. This is the essence of our stadium. By embracing the temporary, we have been able to explore materials, structure and operational systems in a completely different way. Each component takes a sustainable approach that uses only what is needed for the event and then transforms to a long term future use; the whole process uses a minimum of services. The articulate, elegant and lightweight structure frames the building ‘wrap ‘. This porous, translucent printed fabric allows the building to breathe naturally, using a minimum of ﬁxed mechanical systems. Through modern printing techniques, we can use the ‘wrap ‘ to communicate to the rest of the Olympic Park and beyond--to the city of London that surrounds it on all sides and the UK.

"The tactic of recycling the Olympic stadium has been billed as the first step in a new approach to the games, which could become The design makes full use of the site’s island more like a traveling circus..." situation, exploiting it to promote the carnival nature of the event. The water course acts as a -Robert Booth, guardian.co.uk

natural boundary, with spectator facilities – toilets, bars and food concessions--laid out along the soft water edge. The play of light and water and its ebb and ﬂow will form a vibrant, exciting setting, enhanced by a series of spectator concession pods grouped into colourful clusters.

Adaptability and Flexibility

via populous.com

London Olympic Stadium [T]here are plans in place to dismantle around 70% of the proposed London Olympic Stadium, pack up the components, and send them to the host of the 2016 Olympics! Rather than building everything new every four years, the â&#x20AC;&#x153;prefabâ&#x20AC;? stadium idea allows facilities to be built in one city, moved as efficiently as possible and be adapted to existing arenas in the new host city... The London Olympic Stadium is effectively designed as a 25,000 seat concrete bowl that has an additional 55,000 seats placed on top of it in a temporary structure. It is this entire upper structure which can be moved and installed somewhere else.

London Olympic Stadium image source: dailymail.co.uk

Currently, talks are underway with Chicago, but London organizers hope that their offer is taken up by whoever wins the games. If the plan goes forward, this would be the largest amount of seats ever moved from one place to the next, and the first time in history that a stadium of this size has been moved.

via inhabitat.com

Archigram 4 1964 image source: clipstampfold.com

Works Cited

Quote 1: Kazys Varnelis, “plug-in city,” http:// varnelis.net/blog/plugin_city. 1. Simeon Shaw, History of the Staffordshire Potteries (New York: London, Scott, Greenwood, & son, 1900). 2. Peter Cook, Archigram (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1999). 3. Archigram, A Guide to Archigram 1961-74 (London: Academy Editions, 1994). Quote 2: Peter Cook, “Equipment for Living: An Interview with Peter Cook,” in Geoff Manaugh, ed., BLDGBLOG Book (California: Chronicle Books, 2009). 4. Graham Shane, “The Emergence of Landscape Urbanism,” in Charles Waldheim, ed., The Landscape Urbanism Reader (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2006). 5. Stanley Mathews, From Agit-Prop to Free Space: The Architecture of Cedric Price (London: Black Dog Publishing, 2007). Quote 3: Stan Allen, “Mat Urbanism: The Thick 2-D,” in Hashim Sarkis, ed., CASE: Le Corbusier’s Venice Hospital (Munich: Prestel, 2001). 6. Charles Waldheim, “Landscape as Urbanism,” in Charles Waldheim, ed., The Landscape Urbanism Reader (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2006). 7. Ibid., Stanley Mathews. 8. Ibid. Quote 4: Stan Allen, “Infrastructure,” http:// stanallenarchitect.com/v1/infrastructure. 9. Simon Sadler, “New Babylon versus Plug-in City,” in Martin van Schaik and Otakar Máčel, ed.,

Exit Utopia: Architectural Provocations 1956-76 (Munich: Prestel, 2005). 10. Ibid. Quote 5: Ibid., Stanley Mathews. Quote 6: Peggy Deamer, “The Everyday and the Utopian,” in Deborah Berke and Steven Harris, eds., The Architecture of the Everyday (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1997). Quote 7: Ibid., Simon Sadler. 11. Ibid., Stanley Mathews. Quote 8: Kazys Varnelis, “Network Culture,” http://varnelis.net/network_culture. Quote 9: Kevin Lynch, The Image of the City (Cambridge, MA, MIT Press, 1960). Quote 10: Bernard Tschumi, “Disjunctions,” in Architecture and Disjunction (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1994). 12. Ibid. 13. Ibid. 14. Ibid., Peter Cook. Quote 11: Ibid., Simon Sadler. Quote 12: Rem Koolhaas, “Bigness: The Problem of the Large,” S, M, L, XL (New York: Monacelli Press, 1995). 15. Ibid., Stanley Mathews. Quote 13: Rem Koolhaas, “Congestion without Matter: Parc de la Villette, Paris, France, 1982” S, M, L, XL. 16. Ibid., Peter Cook. Quote 14: Priscilla Chapman, “Design for Living: The Plug-in City,” in Martin van Schaik and Otakar Máčel, ed., Exit Utopia: Architectural Provocations 1956-76.

Quote 15: Denis Cosgrove, “Airport/Landscape,” in James Corner, ed., Recovering Landscape (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1999). 17. Steven Groák defines ADAPTABILITY (or polyvalency) as “capable of different social uses,” and defines FLEXIBILITY as “capable of different physical arrangements”. Issues of use vs. issues of technique. Buildings as unstable systems in dynamic environments: “It is a well-meaning act to conceive of buildings as essentially unchanging, stable, permanent, invariant, an historical record, but we must acknowledge that in reality buildings have to be understood in terms of several different timescales over which they change, in terms of moving images and ideas in flux.” Steven Groák, The Idea of Building: Thought and action in the design and production of buildings (London: E & FN Spon, 1992). via Tatjana Schneider and Jeremy Till, eds., Flexible Housing (Burlington, MA: Elsevier Architectural Press, 2007). Quote 16: James Corner, “Terra Fluxus,” in Charles Waldheim, ed., The Landscape Urbanism Reader. 18. Ibid., Steven Groák 19. Ibid., Peter Cook. Quote 17: Alex Wall, “Programming the Urban Surface,” in James Corner, ed., Recovering Landscape. Quote 18: Ibid., Peter Cook. 50

INDETERMINATE S: (adj) indeterminate, undetermined (not precisely determined or established; not fixed or known in advance) S: (adj) indeterminate (having a capacity for continuing to grow at the apex) S: (adj) indeterminate (of uncertain or ambiguous nature) S: (adj) indeterminate (not capable of being determined) S: (adj) indeterminate (not leading to a definite ending or result) INDETERMINACY S: (n) indefiniteness, indeterminateness, indefinity, indetermination, indeterminacy (the quality of being vague and poorly defined) FLUX S: (n) flux (the rate of flow of energy or particles across a given surface) S: (n) flux, fluxion (a flow or discharge) S: (n) flux, state of flux (a state of uncertainty about what should be done (usually following some important event) preceding the establishment of a new direction of action) S: (n) magnetic field, magnetic flux, flux (the lines of force surrounding a permanent magnet or a moving charged particle) S: (n) flux density, flux ((physics) the number of changes in energy flow across a given surface per unit area) S: (n) flux (in constant change) S: (v) flow, flux (move or progress freely as if in a stream) S: (v) liquefy, flux, liquify (become liquid or fluid when heated) S: (v) blend, flux, mix, conflate, commingle, immix, fuse, coalesce, meld, combine, merge (mix together different elements)

Terminology

CHANGE S: (n) change, alteration, modification (an event that occurs when something passes from one state or phase to another) S: (n) change (a relational difference between states; especially between states before and after some event) S: (n) change (the action of changing something) S: (n) change (the result of alteration or modification) S: (n) change (a thing that is different) S: (n) variety, change (a difference that is usually pleasant) S: (v) change, alter, modify (cause to change; make different; cause a transformation) S: (v) change (undergo a change; become different in essence; losing oneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s or its original nature) S: (v) change, alter, vary (become different in some particular way, without permanently losing oneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s or its former characteristics or essence) S: (v) switch, shift, change (lay aside, abandon, or leave for another) S: (v) change (change clothes; put on different clothes) S: (v) change, exchange, commute, convert (exchange or replace with another, usually of the same kind or category) S: (v) exchange, change, interchange (give to, and receive from, one another) S: (v) transfer, change (change from one vehicle or transportation line to another) S: (v) deepen, change (become deeper in tone) S: (v) change (remove or replace the coverings of) UNPREDICTABILITY S: (n) capriciousness, unpredictability (the quality of being guided by sudden unpredictable impulses) S: (n) volatility, unpredictability (the trait of being unpredictably irresolute) S: (n) unpredictability (lacking predictability)

FLEXIBILITY S: (n) flexibility, flexibleness (the property of being flexible; easily bent or shaped) S: (n) flexibility, flexibleness (the quality of being adaptable or variable) S: (n) tractability, tractableness, flexibility (the trait of being easily persuaded) ADAPTABILITY S: (n) adaptability (the ability to change (or be changed) to fit changed circumstances) VARIABILITY S: (n) variability, variableness, variance (the quality of being subject to variation) S: (n) unevenness, variability (the quality of being uneven and lacking uniformity) RESPONSIVE S: (adj) responsive, antiphonal (containing or using responses; alternating) S: (adj) responsive (readily reacting or replying to people or events or stimuli; showing emotion) S: (adj) reactive, responsive (reacting to a stimulus) ANTICIPATORY S: (adj) anticipatory, prevenient (in anticipation) ELASTICITY S: (n) elasticity, snap (the tendency of a body to return to its original shape after it has been stretched or compressed) SLACK S: (n) slack, slackness (the quality of being loose (not taut)) S: (v) slack (release tension on) MOBILITY S: (n) mobility (the quality of moving freely) All terminology defined via Princeton WordNet.

Terminology

Author / Editor: Aaron Plewke Metabolic City: Drawing and Urbanism Professor: Heather Woofter Term: Fall 2009

Data

Washington University in St. Louis Sam Fox School of Design and Visual Arts Graduate School of Architecture and Urban Design