Adrian Judt
METHOD TOOLS THEORY
We have to admit that the common economics-driven approaches of architecture, urban design and urban planning have failed. To work in and with the deep complexity of the urban, it is necessary to understand the highly heterogeneous processes in and of the city. We therefore, must rethink our disciplines and open an interdisciplinary discussion about the future of our professions. Adrian Judt
LEAVING THE CONTAINER First of all, it is important to understand that space is not a physical container but a social relation. Based on the ontology of material-semiotic networks in Bruno Latour’s Actor-Network-Theory, human and non-human actors are treated as similar entities within a network of relations they perform. Social relations are thus always in flux and must be continuously performed in order to develop stability. It is this process that can be interpreted as the production of space. Martina Löw describes this process as one involving both ‘spacing and synthesis’ (Löw 2001). While ‘spacing’ is the placing of social goods and living beings in places that are thereby produced, the ‘synthesis’ of perception, imagination and memory of individual humans connects the elements within the respective ordering [Ger.: (An)Ordnung] of social goods and living beings. Taken together, ‘spacing’ and ‘synthesis’ are the two processes by which relational space is produced.
The creative process is not just iterative; it’s also recursive. It plays out “in the large” and “in the small”—in defining the broadest goals and concepts and refining the smallest details. It branches like a tree, and each choice has ramifications, which may not be known in advance. Recursion also suggests a procedure that “calls” or includes itself. A model of the creative process created - Jack Chung, Shelley Evenson e Paul Pangaro
RD 30
Counting Cut-Outs Cut-up
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1:1 Studies 24 hour screening
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De-Contextualising Dérive
Action Research Appropriation Audio
The dérive is certainly a technique, almost a therapeutic one. But just as analysis unaccompanied with anything else is almost always contraindicated, so continual dériving is dangerous to the extent that the individual, having gone too far (not without bases, but...) without defenses, is threatened with explosion, dissolution, dissociation, disintegration. And thence the relapse into what is termed ‘ordinary life,’ that is to say, in reality, into ‘petrified life.’ Ivan Chtcheglov
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Cadavre Exquis Case Study Catalogue
PROCESS
Creative Quarter Oberhafen
Categorize Coding Collage Copy & Paste
Entre Ponts et Berges
Détournement Diagram
Dialog Discussion
Life Projekt Portland Works
Documentation
Drawing
Habiter la Petite Ceintrue
Game
Depending on what you are after, choose an area, a more or less populous city, a more or less lively street. Build a house. Furnish it. Make the most of its decoration and surroundings. Choose the season and the time. Gather together the right people, the best records and drinks. Lighting and conversation must, of course, be appropriate, along with the weather and your memories. If your calculations are correct, you should find the outcome satisfying. Psychogeographical Game of the Week’ in Potlach #1
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Exhibition
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Holistic approach
Cross-section of a city
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Field trip Film Flyer
G real and virtual spaces
Profitable housing is not about the claimed aesthetics, but about the design possibilities which are open for the user. Building as a process - Lucius Burckhardt, Walter Fรถrderer
RD 30
DESIGN IS A PROCESS Taking the rhizome-like structure of relational space into consideration, solution-oriented approaches neglect a number of important factors. This requires an understanding of design as a structural open process evolving within specific contexts. Research question or interest and design outcome need to be flexible for a project; conversely, we need to be able to go off into unexpected directions and to respond to unforeseen changes of setting and circumstances. Importantly, the participating actors need to be aware of being part of a self-determined design process in which the continuing steps are defined by each decision, new insights and circumstances. According to Christopher Dell, the design process has to be understood as a ‘practice of improvisation’. A design project should follow a strategy that Dell describes as ‘improvisation of the second order’ (Dell 2011), a concept that anticipates the use of acquired knowledge in the form of methods and tools. This requires the knowledge of a variety of tools and how to apply them in specific situations. In a different context, these patterns can be modified to respond to the different situation, so that the context generates a new variation of a tool or form of application. This continuous crea-
tion of new patterns extends the catalogue of strategies for action. This process forces the designer to self-reflect on and to formulate a position regarding any situation at hand. Designers, therefore, need to make informed decisions when implementing a chosen tool. Hence, improvisation as a practice is setting-specific, but subjective and generates a maximum of variation in planning. This understanding reveals a highly complex process, which nevertheless creates possibilities that allow working in/with the existing and ever-changing heterogeneity of the urban.
The resident does not finish the aesthetic given by the architect, but transforms it into an anti-aesthetic which evolves out of a new aesthetic form. Building as a process - Lucius Burckhardt, Walter Fรถrderer
building your own university
Isometry
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Info graphic Installation Interdisciplinary Internet research Intervention »» vimeo.com/44571345
RD30
Iteration
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Knowledge transfer
Change of Perspective
Interview Improvisation
In improvisation you must be able to dissect the materials of a (…) situation in such a way that you are capable of reassembling them differently. This then liberates you from the pressure to be creative, because it is really only about re-designing. So that is the technique; composition in real-time, which always results in one questioning situations. Everything is questioned – that is the nature of improvisation. And that also constitutes its political nature. There is no lack of alternatives, no facts not worth discussing, there is no classification system that is presented as natural. Christopher Dell
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Language Literature research Loop
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Mapping
Cairo Transformations
Matrix Memoing Model building Movie »» vimeo.com/44651762
Process diagrams Psychogeography Publication
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Negotiation
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Open interview Open process
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Celebration
Participatory observation Personal experience Photography Performance »» vimeo.com/100282236
La Ville Surealist
Pictos Plan graphic Poster Presentation
Minimise design activities to enable programmatic interventions Ifau & Jesko Fezer
Urban Living
GETTING IN TOUCH One of the first steps of a research and design practice is to understand the given local situation. Entering the field, for instance by means of a first derive, as well as making contact with the people present is crucial for initiating a project. Being able to meet at eye-level and ensuring to keep this relation as open as possible is fundamental to this approach. Direct contact often prevents future misunderstandings. It may sometimes generate controversy but overall more diverse information. This openness should not only regard the social level but also include an impartial position towards the physical environment. To create a continuing relationship with an extended discussion in the field, it is always useful to establish a presence in the area and to become part of the everyday life in the local situation.
IDENTIFYING EVERYDAY PRACTICES AND RELATIONS The first experiences with and contacts in the field can help to develop a detailed focus on the everyday life of the local actors and existing networks. An under-
standing of these patterns of daily practices is needed in order to identify the relations between actors, activities and build environment. Analysing the inherent logic of a situation reveals historical and economic structures or highlights local peculiarities as well as social codes and rituals.
... it is necessary to provide and create minimal structures that do not treat situations in such a way to close them, but to open or make them possible. Derived from this is the demand that design treats relational space topologically, thus producing an approach that might be described as diagrammatic, as catalog-like work in a series. The focus is on creating (meta-)forms as open frames that cause structures to function, thus opening new connections for using urban space and creating structural bases for urban opportunities Structuralism Reloaded - Christopher Dell
RD 30
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Quantitative analysis Quotation
All the project tools are already in place; all that’s needed is to reorganise, modify and complete them. Frédéric Druot, Anne Lacaton & Jean-Philippe Vassal
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Reading Relation Research question
Sketch Social Sculpture Sorting Spatial observation Statistic Story Telling »» vimeo.com/38170428 Strategy Survey
exhibition of research project
cooking for a restaurant coffee break for construction workshop
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residents hanging out meeting with professor
Take Teambuilding Timeline
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Sampling Scenario
4,300
1890
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opening of the port
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8,800
22,000
Alt on a
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bu rg
flows of migration
bu rg
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start of embankment RD 30
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Research diary Reference
Niche +
population landuse
RD 30
Theory Trace
W Walk Wall
Workshop
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Zoning
Transcript
RD 30
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Unitary urbanism
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Video »» vimeo.com/44651762
View
Landungsbrücken
It is the performative aspect and diagrammatic nature of their pliable structures that makes them relevant in current architectural and urban discourses, where emphasis is placed not on the predefinition of a static and resolved configuration, but on the adjustable accommodation of constantly mutating situations and social dynamics. Reversable City - Teresa Stoppani Foto: Benjamin Becker
Treehauses 2012
DEVELOPING LINKS Even though some of the collected material may not seem do be of interest, in the beginning, keeping all data is substantially important, as the design is an iterative and recursive process. It always consists of continuous loops following the method of trial and error. ‘Failing again. Failing better’ (S. Beckett). An open process demonstrates that the collected information needs to be transformed into knowledge in order to generate a maximum variety of links and contingencies for the project. If a project does not arrive at the expected result or needs to be cancelled, it does not mean that the project as a whole is a failure. It can provide valuable feedback about the reasons for a particular outcome. The knowledge about the multitude of options and possibilities, which allows reflecting on the design process, strengthens the ties between research and its translation into praxis.
USING EVERY RESOURCE Each place of action always has qualities and locally embedded knowledge. How a setting is defined depends on the point of view. Sometimes, it needs a shift in perspective, away from physical form towards an under-
standing of the local networks and characteristics. Rather than implementing an architectural vision, the concept should reveal and convey the locally embedded knowledge. Out of this understanding of local resources and everyday practices, a strategy of enabling architecture can be drawn up and given back to the place into which we intervene.
IMPRESSUM Adrian Judt 2014 ajdt.mail@gmail.com
Build your own University. Creative Quarter Oberhafen: Pascual Pelzeter + AJ Celebration. Collectivisation of Urban Practices: Urban Design Class 2011 + AJ Cross-section of a city. Change of perspective: Melanie Giza, Paul Krüger, Benjamin Schimmer + AJ Cross-section of a city. Exhibition: Mario Abel, Michael Baltzer, Hendrik Wenzel + AJ Intervention in the city. Habiter La Petite Ceinture: Grace Pelletier + AJ Le Fait Urbain. Entre Ponts et Berges: Alessandro Benetti, Emilie Cognard, Ayami Goto, Kim Nam Yung, Oda Moen Most, Paul Perot + AJ Life Project. Portland Works: Chen Guo, Benjamin Balti, Jonathan Orlek, Christopher Carthy, Caroline Goore-Booth, Guy Moulson, Mersedeh Ghyravifard, Bryony Spottiswoode, Scaria Njavally, Ewan Tavendale, Qi Mingyu + AJ Master Thesis. RD 30: Maja Momic + AJ Real and virtual spaces: Orange Edge + AJ Transformations Urbanity. Niche+: Andrea Behnke, Sanaz Arefi Fard + AJ Transformations Workshop. Cairo: Mohamed Abotera, Sally Ashour, E. Imam, Katalin Gennburg + AJ Treehauses 2012: Lisa Blümel, Lisa Brunnert, Jenny Ohlenschlager, Stefanie Graze, workshop participants, local children + AJ Urban Living. Housing project „Am Mühlenberg“: Ifau & Jesko Fezer + AJ Waterfront City. Landungsbrücken: Philipp Wetzel, Vanessa Weber, Siri Löffelmann + AJ
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www.adrianjudt.com