The Sublime City: Living with Water in the Anthropocene

The Sublime City

Living with Water in the Anthropocene Will Allen

Wentworth Institute of Technology Master of Architecture 2022

Abstract The interweaving of social and ecological systems creates the potential to accommodate the increasing threats posed by climate change and create spaces of social confluence that challenge one’s perception of place through the intersection of social spaces and the sublime.

The post industrial urban space of the 21st century are the ruins of globalized systems of trade that once connected the site with the rest of the world yet are disconnected from the social fabric of the surrounding communities. Brooklyn’s Gowanus Canal serves as an example of such a space in which the canal has generated an anti-spatial condition in which planners disregarded the rich historical forces of the site and created an unrelational and undefined space in which is difficult for the user to occupy. The polluted water of the canal and the increasing threat of destruction posed by rising sea levels and superstorms threatens those who live in these neighborhoods yet designing to prioritize and accommodate the water can utilize it as a vital resource to re-stitch this disconnected landscape and establish the user’s sense of agency to reclaim the urban water’s edge.

Keywords Sublime, Anthropocene, Fractals, New York City, Gowanus Canal

Acknowledgements Thank you to all my professors and classmates that have shaped me in my architectural journey but a special thank you to the following: Robert Cowherd, for serving as my primary thesis advisor this semester and a professor that has always motivated me and pushed me to challenge the role architecture and urban design has in producing change in the world.

Anne Catrin-Schultz and Ann Borst, for serving as my Methods and Design as Research professors that helped guide the development of the early stages of the thesis research when I was extremely lost and had no idea of what I was doing.

Mark Klopfer, for serving as my travel studio professor and introducing me to landscape design in New York City. This thesis took a major turn in focus after having so much fun developing that studio project and for that I am very grateful.

All of my coaches and teammates on the cross country and track team, that pushed me outside the classroom and cheered me on.

My studio friends, Pedro, Aidan, and Zac, for always making me laugh and having fun even through the late nights.

And my family for always supporting me on this journey.

Table of Contents

1

Introduction

1

2

Literature Review

13

3

Testing Architectural Healing of Infrastructural Spatial Degredation

29

4

Testing Palimpsestic Spatial Connections

69

5

Outcomes

139

6

Critical Reflections

161

Introduction

1 1

Architecture and urban design will be defined in the 21st century through its ability to heal the global damages that the past centuries of wasteful architectural design have perpetuated. In the past, architecture has been a high concept discipline promoting pure architectural forms.

The discipline has become disconnected from those it is meant to serve, creating disconnective social systems and increasing the threat of climate change for the most disadvantaged members of society.

Beauty can exist as more than just a physical spatial composition. It can be defined by its ability to heal contemporary anxieties and create just social landscapes that promote inclusion and public activation of previously exclusive spaces.

The spatial planning of the contemporary American city promotes individualism and disconnects the user from their context. The post World War II building boom redesigned the city around the automobile leading to an urban infrastructure catered to free individual movement at the expense of existing diverse communities. With 80% of buildings ever built in the United States having been constructed post World War II, the American architectural landscape has effectively been separated from its past. 1 The process of building an auto oriented landscape that favors suburbanization and big box retail has created a landscape devoid of cultural meaning and significance at a scale in which the pedestrian is unable to connect with these spaces. Urban renewal practices of the sixties targeted the destruction of diverse and culturally significant spaces in favor of a machine designed city. Through this process, an anti-spatial city was created that was unrelational to its historical context and the scale of its occupants.

Growing rates of placelessness and an increasing lost sense of identity exist because of disconnect of both the spatial and historical context the occupant finds themselves in. People struggle to find connections to space when it has no relationality or scale to their experience.

Traditionally, urban space was created through the design of “outdoor rooms” which contained a sense of scale and relationship between the occupant and the architecture. The modernist city characterized by “towers in the park” lacked scale and relationality between user and space and prioritized unbounded space to maximize freedom. As a consequence, an anti-spatial city generated that pure architectural vision of undifferentiated space but in turn lacked any cultural connection users could relate to. The universality of modern design lacked a scale users within a cultural context felt comfortable creating underutilized and placeless public spaces.

Humans exist within multiple scaled relationships to their context yet the individualistic planning of the American city prioritizes their immediate context and ignores these larger relationships. The user exists within various communities; their home, their city, their region, and the world, but the design of an urban fabric that minimizes interaction and enforces the speed of movement disconnects the

2

Introduction

Figure 1.1 Boston City Hall Plaza acts as an urban void lacking usage as the space lacks scale, program, and relationality to the user and city

Figure 1.2 I-93 dividing Boston. The degradation of space is visible on either side as these become wasted spaces of the city

Figure 1.3 Scales of connection one has to their surrounding environment

user from an understanding that they belong within larger systems.

The boom of architectural and infrastructural projects within the last century has prioritized the comfort of the individual over the collective good of public space and the ecosystems that cities are situated in. The contemporary city offers little connection to the ecological systems they are built over, disconnecting the user with a sense of understanding to their environment around them.

Auto-oriented landscapes and energy-consumptive buildings have caused atmospheric carbon emissions to rise rapidly over the past century endangering the future of human-kind. The building sector contributes an estimated 31% of carbon emissions between construction, demolition, heating, and electric production to make these spaces comfortable. The transportation sector contributes to 14% of carbon emissions in which the everyday movement of people in automobiles are significantly contributing to these rising carbon emissions. 2 These global emissions put large populations across the globe at danger as the heating of the atmosphere and the melting of polar ice caps are causing sea levels to rise at alarming rates. With many major global cities being located on coasts, a few feet above sea level, there is great risk

Figure 1.4 Annual amount of carbon emissions in billion metric tons from 1940-2020

Introduction

3

of the potential damages that can be unleashed. The very ecosystems that have been ignored through consumptive planning practices are the same systems that pose the greatest destruction. Over the past 100 years, sea levels have already increased over a foot in New York City with sea levels projected to rise as much as 6 feet by 2100. 3 With this projected rise, populations living in low lying coastal areas are threatened and many people will be forced to upend their lives to move to higher ground.

While these ecological threats can potentially endanger large numbers of people, they offer the potential to provide a space back to the public and restore a communal sense of empowerment that has been lost by individualistic planning practices. While this thesis will not focus directly on the architectural or infrastructural systems themselves that would make buildings more efficient and produce less carbon, it focuses on larger spatial ideas that have positive social repercussions. In the spaces that have been historically disconnected from the city, multifunctional landscapes generate connection through the promotion of agency and a communal sense of ownership of space. This method of changing perceptions of how space can be occupied generates a social awareness to these issues of carbon emissions and make people aware of their agency to reduce their carbon footprint.

In order to address the sociological issues present within the city, the relationship between users, space, and the ecological systems that

Figure 1.5 Large sections of coastal neighborhoods in New York City are at risk of flooding

4

Introduction

Figure 1.6 Mapping major global cities at risk of being flooded if all polar ice caps melted

urban systems exist within needs to be examined. By challenging and redefining the spatial composition of the city, these meaningless spaces can become the site of new potential spaces of empowerment and engagement that create physical connections while also connecting the user across scales of time. The city is a reflexive system and there must be constant communication between users and form in order to continually evolve and respond to the needs of users in space and time.

Figure 1.7 Anti-Space grows in the liminal spaces defined by movement between single use zoning

Introduction

5

Key Terms Definitions as they will be used throughout the thesis

Anthropocene the current geological epoch in which humans have a dominant impact on changing climate and environmental forces Anti-Space an undefined and undifferentiated space that has no positive relationship between users and its context Fractal a mathematical geometric shape that contains self-similar patterns across different scales.

Modernism an ideological movement characterized by the notion of a rebirth of society from the ashes of war by designing a utopian vision for the new age Non-Place a space that is prescriptive, prohibitive, or informative that lack the connection of meaningful relationships between user and space Palimpsest something that is altered from the original to become a new thing yet still bearing traces to the original Place spaces that are relational, historical, or foster identity through their ontological state and activation by users Space a defined volume bounded by form that has a positive relationship between its users and context Sublime a state of greatness, in particular to the expression of great forces of nature ​​Urban Renewal a tactic used by American urban designers and policy makers to clear and redevelop large sections of the urban environment considered “blighted” in order to remove and relocate unwanted populations and replace them with modern urban projects

6

Introduction

Figure 1.8 The 1938 HOLC Redlining Map my hometown of West Hartford and neighboring Hartford studying the role of the interstate as a tool of segregation and imposed decline on minority communities

My exploration into the topics within this thesis feel synonymous to my development and curiosity to understand and question the spatial order of my experiences. At that point I was unaware of the term but from my suburban hometown of West Hartford, CT to the nearby urban downtown of Hartford, I couldn’t help but notice the amount of (anti) space that didn’t feel as if it was designed for people, but rather empty or left-over which in turn created divided and isolated people and communities. Growing up it was confusing to understand why there was such a massive wealth disparity between city and suburb despite them only being a few miles apart or why the lines between neighborhoods or towns were so apparent just by crossing a highway or the railroad tracks. These conditions have been ingrained into our understanding of urban space as normal or natural despite these conditions being planned and manufactured. This separation was planned and in turn created spaces not only of physical disconnection but also a perceptual disconnection between a user and their understanding of space.

Following my hometown, my understanding and curiosity of space and anti-space has been shaped and challenged by three other cities: Madrid, Boston, and Las Vegas. While they all came at various points of my architectural career and understanding of space, I think they all shaped this journey of my thesis.

In high school I was fortunate to participate in an exchange program in Madrid in which I spent a summer living with a family and being able to explore a city that challenged the spatial conventions of the

Introduction

7

American environment. The streets and plazas of Madrid’s historic center created spaces of interaction and engagement at the scale of the pedestrian which starkly contrasted my previous experiences in American downtowns which often felt unutilized and empty. While these spaces did not have high rise towers, the continuity of the urban fabric created density which in turn created exterior spaces that were constantly frequented by residents which created urban spaces that are appropriately scaled for their use. It is easy to look at these european cities and accept that their design is a product of a time before the automobile and therefore American cities lack these qualities because they are newer and designed for the age of the car, yet most American cities were originally designed that way but rather created in the process of urban renewal of the twentieth century.

Going to school in Boston was a big shift from suburban living but it became a city that I explored and created a strong connection with because of its strong sense of character and identity. Boston did not feel dependent on one system of transportation over another and I felt instantly comfortable because of its walkability. At the time I couldn’t necessarily define what made Boston great but rather these spatial definitions of the city created these intrinsic sentiments of comfortability. Boston as a city in which I studied to become an architect has greatly impacted my own philosophy of “good” spaces while being a city, through its composition, has introduced me to many urban problems and challenges in which I have become passionate about.

I wasn’t fully aware of the vast spatial differences of American cities until I took a road trip out west and stopped in Las Vegas for a few days. In that environment, the pedestrian felt massively out of scale and unprioritized which created unpleasant walking conditions. Just to cross the street, we had to take an escalator up to an elevated crosswalk and then back down another escalator. With the Strip being a crowded place, it felt like we had to wait in line just to walk down the street.

We planned a trip to an exhibition space and while geographically our destination was less than a mile away, the only accessible route was by car which was an eye opening experience as I was used to walking everywhere in Boston. The sprawl created a landscape of automobile dependency and it felt impossible to maneuver the city without one.

Comparing my experiences in Las Vegas in contrast to places such as Boston or Madrid made me realize how important concepts of walkability and scale were to me and my ability to feel comfortable in a space. I have felt that these experiences have culminated into this thesis and explore my own philosophy of the importance of design as a tool to create happy places which challenges the norms American society has accepted and continues to push for a better world.

Through the research process, a relationship between these types of spaces and the historical geological conditions of the site began to arise.

8

Introduction

Typically, these voids ignored the geological systems that historically existed and attempted to overpower these environmental forces through human intervention. With the impending threats of climate change recently represented by Hurricane Sandy in New York City, there is an emerging need to understand the geological conditions that existed to repair the damages of the 21st century. We can not attempt to overpower these environmental forces but rather work with them to mitigate their threats. Not only do these anti-spatial sites need to be socially healed, they need to be reconnected to their historical systems to unite the urban and ecological systems that have been broken.

This thesis hopefully inspires and challenges the following to reevaluate their role in producing change in the world: For Architects, we must be continually challenging and seeking to improve the spatial problems responsible for creating the social problems of the 21st century city. Anti-space is a source of disconnection and placelessness observable at various scales from the urban to the individual and there is a need to establish a sense of place and identity for large numbers of people across the country. Architects must not accept that the space we have inherited is in its final or most idealized form and must in turn use their imagination to reinvent and reprogram these lost spaces that will best serve existing communities rather than for those that will replace them. As this thesis is attempting to make anti-space recognizable and seen, it must also make the communities that reside around and within these spaces visible. These spaces must be reconnected to the ecological systems they have been disconnected from to address the climate issues in our future. These environmental forces must be accommodated rather than resisted and through architecture beauty can be created from destruction.

For Urban Planners and Policy Makers, examining these types of spatial conditions can reveal important socio, economic, and political issues that can be resolved through both design and policy change.

There must be a shift to reprioritize the citizen as they are the one that experiences the city over economic gain. These sites are vital to an environmentally sustainable city and its fostering of social and cultural connection. Putting the user first will in turn create long term benefits as they are invested in the city.

For the Unseen Communities that inhabit these spaces, this thesis is an attempt to understand and serve these groups to empower those that have been continually marginalized and unseen through the evolution of the formal city. While these communities have been pushed to the edge, to inhabit the margin of anti-space, the design process focuses around recentering and reframing the city around anti-space rather than the traditional urban center in order to create space that doesn’t cater to existing institutions of power but rather centered around a bottom-up movement of reclaiming power.

Introduction

9

The evolution of ideas and process of researching conducted within this thesis is organized into the following chapters: Chapter 2 is a review of architectural literature about existing spatial theories to compare and establish a historical narrative to inform and base the thesis proposal. Through the historical evaluation of how these anti-spatial urban conditions were created, various types of interventions were researched ranging in scale and temporality to investigate various potential methods for design testing.

Chapter 3 is the first chapter of a sequence of design testing investigating interventions to existing infrastructural voids that historically divided communities. This testing emerged from the literature review and attempted to express representational techniques and design interventions that ranged in scale and temporality with these types of anti-spatial conditions. While some tests are grounded in a site, the tests are less focused on the site conditions but rather general considerations that could be applied to multiple sites.

Chapter 4 is the second sequence of design testing that looks at antispatial waterfronts and industrial spaces. Design interventions are based on two sites in Brooklyn and emerged from historical site research to connect these spaces through a layering of historical, current, and future site forces.

Chapter 5 is a set of outcomes that emerged from the process of testing in chapter 4. The work from the final review showcases the drawing method and final ideas that connect spaces through a process of layering sociological and ecological forces.

Chapter 6 is a critical reflection on the thesis process, criticism from the final review, ideas as to how the project could be developed further, and personal reflections about my role as a designer.

10

Introduction

The topics addressed in the thesis demonstrate the power architects have to create either empowerment or destruction to the stakeholders of their work. Architecture is not a neutral discipline and in a period of global turmoil, architecture has the power to bring people together and unite them through common goals. The impending issues raised by carbon emissions such as rising sea levels pose great threats to large populations globally. Architecture plays a large role in these rising emissions and therefore architects must take a stance not only to repair, but to prevent. While flooding mitigation strategies need to be addressed to protect people in coastal areas from these catastrophic forces, these spaces can become spaces of social change. Inventive adaptive strategies must be taken that not only mitigate these threats but establish a sense of agency and empowerment to reduce the threat humans have on the planet. While the topics addressed may seem dooming, architects must be optimistic, and design for the benefit of the common good.

Endnotes 1

Ingolf Voegler, “Auto and Postmodern Landscapes,” in Critical Cultural Landscapes of North America (University of Wisconsin Eau Claire, 2010) 1.

2

“Global Greenhouse Gas Emissions Data,” United States Environmental Protection Agency, February 25, 2022, https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/global-greenhousegas-emissions-data.

3

“Flood Risk in NYC,” New York City Planning, November 2016, https://www1.nyc.gov/ assets/planning/download/pdf/plans-studies/climate-resiliency/flood-risk-nycinfo-brief.pdf

Introduction

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12

Literature Review

2 13

Introducing Anti-Space The Rise of a New Spatial Order Space and anti-space operate as two spatial configurations representative of opposing ideologies symbolic of how society interprets its own existence. Space prevailed as the dominant order of the city through the once dominant cartesian order in which space was relational and geometrically scaled and composed. Modernism and romanticism introduced new ideologies that fostered the establishment of a new anti-spatial order prioritizing the concept of a free space where infinity dominates at the expense of the finite.1 While the ideology of anti-space represented democratic notions of continuity and openness, the spatial realities of anti-space established placeless sites through the rejection of the past and have created a landscape of stagnation and homogeneity.

By understanding these spatial properties and their ability to degrade the other, spatial planning of the 21st century becomes focused on the mitigation of anti-space and the establishment of a balance that reprioritizes the user rather than the composition of the city. Reactivating and reintegrating anti-space back into the urban fabric can reconnect the disconnected, while serving as multi-functional spaces that promote agency and engage with community groups that continue to suffer from the repercussions of modernist practices of urban renewal.

This literature review establishes a historical narrative of space and anti-space and examines the spatial and ideological properties for their conception and existence. Through research these spatial ideologies are examined through their repercussions on both the urban fabric of the American city and the social, cultural, economic, and political structures which affect the daily lives of its residents. By establishing and analyzing these spaces the research leads to various strategies to work within these formalized spatial structures and recenter the city around the user to create an adaptable city responsive to human needs.

Figure 2.1 Kepler’s model of the solar system depicting the spatial order of the universe as bound and finite in a fixed space

Figure 2.2 Modern interpretations of the atom characterized by empty space and movement of particles

Defining Space vs Anti-Space Urban theorists Steven Peterson and Barbara Littenburg introduce space and anti-space as two oppositely charged spatial conceptions which operate as spatial opposites. While space is formed, discontinuous, particular, and finite, anti-space operates as its opposite and is unformed, continuous, universal, and infinite. Through this differentiation, antispace is “natural” in the sense that is untamed and regulated by the architect and therefore is a non-architectural space.2 Peterson and Littenberg compare space and anti-space to matter and anti-matter in which these particles are “composed of equal, but oppositely charged particles so that any coincident meeting or collision of the two will cause their mutual annihilation.”3 This analogy conveys that the conception of anti-space annihilates space through its formless or continuous state which penetrates and disconnects space as a formed or discontinuous

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Literature Review

Figure 2.3 Classifying the universal spatial orders

composition. Through this understanding, the repercussion of the concept of the tabula rasa in modernist urban planning can be analyzed as the primary method of annihilating space.

The Modernist Movement Modernism as the Birth of Anti-Space

Figure 2.4 Figure ground of Le Corbusier’s unrealized Plan Voisin representing the stark contrst between modernism’s ideals of open and unbound space in the urban realm compared to the historical urban fabric of Paris

Modernism as an architectural movement represented a social notion of the 20th century to create a disconnect from the historical past and create a new visionary society rising from the destruction of the old world. Colin Rowe and Fred Koetter describe this shift in design ideology in Collage City through an examination of Le Corbusier’s Plan Voisin in Paris. The masterplan had no intention of relating to the historical context of the urban environment but rather centralized around the idea of a manifesto, to symbolize urban development as a phoenix, the old destroyed and the new rising from the ashes.4 This new conception of anti-space arises from the growing social ideology to break from the old and define the new century through a totilized shift in perceiving the world. Charles Jencks cites this larger cultural shift as responding to the end of the world war which conceptualized the tabula rasa embodied by a desire for a cultural shift from pre-war society.5 In this instance the tabula rasa is representative of a physical manifestation of a social ideology that leads to the creation of antispace. Peterson and Littenberg state that anti-space is modern space and the totalized rejection and destruction of the past that modernism represents, embodies anti-space’s fundamental characteristics of a rejection and destruction of space.6 While anti-space is not a problem found uniquely in the American city, all American cities have been impacted and bear the scars of urban renewal which qualify the American city as an anti-spatial city.

Literature Review

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Defining Modernism vs Urban Renewal While modernism was representative of new ideologies following the first World War, 1960s Urban Renewal in the United States is a more directive approach to redefine the configuration of the city based on the classification of people and places as blighted. Whereas modernity rejects the past for the sake of creating a new utopian vision, urban renewal is politically and economically charged and targets marginalized communities as the site for potential renewal. Urban renewal utilizes concepts popularized by modernism such as the tabula rasa as the fundamental component to target and destroy “blighted” spaces within the urban fabric to create new spaces that serve the larger structure of the city. The designation of areas as blighted incentivized urban renewal through the racist practices of segregation. Areas adjacent to neighborhoods considered as blight were perceived to be in decline and therefore by raising and relocating marginalized communities, the city perpetuated whiteness and the institutional powers that developed it.7 Modernity proposed the utopian vision for the city not necessarily as a negative space which the term anti-space implies, yet through the practice of urban renewal as a practice of imposed degradation of space, urban renewal exemplifies the notion originally proposed by Peterson and Littenberg in which anti-space rises at the destruction of space.

Through interventions and investigations into the nature of anti-space of the American city, the history of the site can offer an opportunity to rediscover a history of space that has purposefully been covered and provides an opportunity to reconfigure anti-space as an opportunity for empowerment and agency.

Dominance and Degradation of Space Domination of Movement and Speed The interpretation of this annihilation of space is characterized by Robert Trancik through an increased dependence on the car and rise of the modern movement. These new technologies and ideological movements transformed the urban environment and the ways in which it is perceived by dominating urban space with movement that created spatial voids that lack a historical and scalar relationship to the existing spatial composition of the city.8 While the design of cities in the preceding centuries was characterized as a total composition, the modernist movement of the twentieth century embraced the antispatial notion of undifferentiated and obliterated space to prioritize the architectural vision of objects within a void that pulled away and became independent from its context. The idealization of modernity through the verticality introduced by the tower as a separation from the notion of the medieval horizontal city, there followed a degradation of the streetscape as a habitable space because of this newfound lack of scale and connection between the building and exterior public space.9 The abstraction of form through functionalism drove the modernist

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Literature Review

Figure 2.5 The traditional city of formed paths and bounded public spaces by urban form

Figure 2.6 The modern city of flowing movement and unbounded public space

movement and the realization of the tabula rasa became symbolic of an unbound, democratic, and flowing society. The nature of such a space represents an anti-spatial concept that glorifies the separation from its historical and contextual relationship to replace it with designs that are universal and unbound that characterize the utopian visions of the age.

The isolation of buildings as objects in turn prioritizes a movement between two objects through the fastest possible means and therefore the void space becomes characterized by highways and parking lots which support such function.10 While they promote movement for the automobile, they create barriers for those attempting to transverse these voids on foot by creating a hostile environment for the pedestrian and in turn contradicting the notion of democratic or free space by prescribing an ideal lifestyle upon the user rather than allowing the potential for the user to have options and make decisions based on what is truly best for them. Political scientist Margaret Farrar introduces the idea that when entire cities are designed around the concept of movement rather than emplacement, large populations are affected by the inability to orient themselves within space. Without the ability to imagine and orient the city, movement becomes chaotic, inefficient, and hazardous.11 While modernists introduced anti-space as a free-flowing and liberating space through the lack of confinement of movement, Farrar argues this concept by claiming “disorientation produces chaos and terror.”12 A certain degree of stability is required within the spatial configuration of the city to make cities livable. Complete liberation is ultimately counterintuitive. While conceptually it may seem liberating, complete freedom leads to spatial destruction.

Domination of Communication The new vast scale created through the speed of the automobile affects the perception of the city by prioritizing an architecture of communication over the plan of space itself. Robert Venturi, Denise

Figure 2.7 Positive correlation between the relationship of speed and the scale of signage and space in an increasinly expanisive and anti-spatial city

Literature Review

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Scott Brown and Steven Izenour explore this concept in Learning from Las Vegas by explaining this relationship as communication dominating space and defining itself in this new scale of the landscape.

An anti-spatial landscape is unable to define itself and therefore relies on communicative strategies in order to make the space navigable.

The anti-spatial landscape lacks a clearly defined plan and therefore movement through these spaces are not regulated or defined but rather through the unbound nature of space, its navigation becomes independent of spatial order. This comparison of navigability in space versus anti-space is explored by Venturi, Scott Brown, and Izenour as:

Figure 2.8 Las Vegas. A city of signage and movement with little focus on spatial composition and placemaking

A driver 30 years ago could maintain a sense of orientation in space. At the simple crossroad a little sign with an arrow confirmed what was obvious. One knew where one was. When the crossroads become a cloverleaf, one must turn right to turn left . . . but the driver has no time to ponder the paradoxical subtleties within a dangerous, sinuous maze. He or she relies on signs for guidanceenormous signs in vast spaces at high speeds.13

Whereas a traditional city utilizes architectural form to guide movement and create spaces, the signage of an anti-spatial city is what is used to connect and direct the user over this vast scale. Space no longer becomes expressive and the plan of space becomes disorganized as it is not relied upon to orient the user.14 Geofferey Boradbent analyzes such relationships between signage and spatial understanding in Emerging Concepts in Urban Space Design as the plan may go against the user’s sense of direction and perceptual understanding of space.

While the driver may know their destination is on the left, they are forced to go right as that is the direction prescribed by the signage so that in order to go left, they must first go right.15 This prescriptive use of space creates a degree of separation between the user and space in which they become contractually bound to the sign as an indication of how to operate, rather than relying upon their own understanding of navigating space. Anthropologist Marc Augé characterizes these antispaces as non-places, in which words instruct their use either through being prescriptive, prohibitive, or informative and create a world of silent interactions in which the user communicates with the signage rather than other users or space itself.16 Through these qualities of nonplaces, the user is not allowed to explore space through the quality of space itself but rather become contractually bound to the social, political and economic forces that shape and define these non-places.17 The structuring of space through signage enforces social conformity to the power structures that have built and defined the space. Anti-space may not be defined by form, but it substitutes form for signage in order to define and regulate usage as a form of social conformity.

In a landscape of signage as the primary element, the architecture itself becomes increasingly nonrelational as it no longer has to express its

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Literature Review

Figure 2.9 Every word visible from the strip

purpose through its form. Communication’s domination of architecture is manifested in what Venturi, Scott Brown, and Izenour define as the “decorated shed” in which the prescriptive sign is expensive and extravagant to draw the attention of the passerby whereas the building itself is cheap and modest. The “decorated shed” is insignificant without its ornamentation and lacks the spatial clarity to define itself through space alone whereas the “duck” is expressed through the space itself and does not need to rely upon added ornamentation to convey its programmatic function. In this instance, the sign itself replaces space and therefore creates an anti-spatial urban condition as the user operates independently from spatial form while prescribing and conforming to that conveyed by signage. Kenneth Frampton critiques the decorated shed as a commodification of culture in which its prevalence and rise in conjunction with anti-space act as a degradation to cultural expression through space.18 Space in the way Peterson and Littenburg define it as formed, differentiated, and relational would be characterized by Frampton as ontological as the essence of its being defines its identity rather than depending upon the anti-spatial notion of reduction to representation and symbolism of cultural commodification. In such spaces, economics is prioritized over space and user by designing not for its experiential quality but rather as a system of generating capital.

The dominance of anti-space as a prioritization of communication over space introduces the new urbanistic tendency for cities to “talk” but the city before the dominance of anti-space has been able to be read through space itself.19 Signage is such an example where cities “talk” as they are not able to be understood ontologically and need added description in order for the user to be able operate within these spaces.

Literature Review

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The User’s Understanding of the City “Reading” the City Kevin Lynch’s analysis of spatial understanding through the process of cognitive mapping, found people were drawn to the voids within the urban fabric and that these spaces were vital spaces for urban enjoyment. While people found anti-spatial voids within the city striking and remarkable, these spaces lacked the pleasant experiences that spatially formed voids contained in order to produce a memorable experience. Users of these various spaces reported that urban renewal projects such as the clearance of Dewey Square in Boston (part of the Central Artery) as a “striking sight” yet in spaces that had a greater sense of form such as along the Charles River or Commonwealth Avenue, they are remembered as fundamental spaces of the city. Lynch reports that people noted landscape features in which people were able to interact with vegetation or water as particularly fundamental and users reported detouring from the fastest route to incorporate these spaces into their path of movement.20 Sites such as the Charles River have an important geological function and have a deep historical connection to the establishment and growth of the city. The city is dependent upon these spaces, yet these spaces are often isolated and separated from the city. Landscape voids such as the Charles River are fundamental within

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Literature Review

Figure 2.10 Understanding the city through cognitive mapping that diagrams percieved space

the urban fabric as they orient the city and establish a sense of place and time through a site that is geologically rooted and in constant flux.

Figure 2.11 The Charles River as an example of a landscape that provides an escape from the urban through spaces of social connection and recreation

The analysis of culturally rooted spaces is further explored through a series of more recent surveys and analytical studies of various zones throughout the sprawling metropolitan region of Phoenix.

Several observations were made between the relationship of resident’s geographic location within the city and their relationship to sentiments of place and ownership. Those residing in the connected cultural downtown zone felt increased sentiments of place and connection to other residents as those residents had common cultural spaces in which they were able to identify with and create connections with other occupants. Those residing on the periphery also felt an increased sense of place as they were closely connected to the rich landscape of the desert and felt a strong relationship to their environment. Those in the middle, confined by the seemingly endless sprawl felt the greatest disconnection from a sense of place and ownership compared to the other zones as these residents were representative of a highly mobile population that were not rooted in their communities but rather had increased sentiments of individualization.21 These sprawling zones composed of architectural monotony lack the spatial qualities capable of creating defined spaces of gathering and cultural remembrance.

These zones built on previously unoccupied land lack historical and

Literature Review

21

relational qualities to particular cultural values and are rather a product of consumerism and are therefore an anti-space serving a temporary and mobile population as these residents have no relation or connection to the place that incentivises them to remain.

Through both these studies it remained consistent that spatially formed and differentiated sites were critical in establishing a sense of identity and place for the user. These spaces could either be found within the urban fabric through the creation of a culturally connective space or as integrated within the landscape, but both spaces remain significant in users ability to understand a spatial composition and take ownership and agency over the space in which they inhabit. While Peterson and Littenberg hypothesize that landscape features are anti-spatial as they are characterized by a rejection of the urban context and an uncontrolled landscape, they recognize that these spaces represent a notion to romanticize “nature” as a refuge from the city.22 In such instances it is critical to understand that the relationship of space versus anti-space can not be characterized simply as good versus bad or right versus wrong, but rather these two spatial forces require balance within the city.

In spaces that are not characterized as culturally connective or provide the opportunity for refuge from the city in culturally diverse landscapes, an increasing sense of placelessness can be noted which inhibits the user’s ability to identify and remember space. The narratives of such anti-spaces are defined by the system responsible for the creation and their nature limits the ability of the user to envision or implement a progressive and imaginative reconfiguration of the space. Farrar introduces the idea that by creating culturally connective spaces that establish identity are the sites of political activism against the formal structures. In this instance there is a clear political dimension to the creation of anti-space as by creating unrelational spaces that establish neutrality and withdrawal from a homogenous and stagnant space.23 The prevalence of anti-space has created anti-human cities as these spaces have been designed for the political and economic systems that control them rather than the people which occupy them. These spaces have become designed around the automobile and the sign, as a system of boosting consumerism in a capitalist society. These spaces have become unnavigable to the point where the user does not have agency over their use of space but rather must prescribe to their usage in order to be able to function daily. This spatial condition does not promote the concept of a free market in which consumers are able to make free choices but rather has created a system in which by not prescribing, they will fail. By addressing the method in which the city is perceived as a domination of movement, speed, and communication, the citizen becomes the priority as these spaces create hostility in anti-space.

22

Literature Review

Human Centered Interventions Second Nature as an Anti-Urban Escape

Figure 2.12 The High Line serves as an example of adapting wasted infrastructure to create new perceptions of the city

Various scaled approaches can be taken to create inhabitation of the void and establish different scaled spatial and temporal responses.

Landscape remains a vital way in how users interpret and navigate the city yet these spaces lack in quantity throughout the urban fabric to create meaningful contributions. The natural ecosystems that existed prior to urban settlement have often been ignored and buried under top-down planning practices. Bringing the landscapes and ecosystems back into the site invites a reconnection to these lost systems. Landscape urbanist, Adriaan Geuze proposes the concept of second nature to recreate a wilderness within the city in which a new sense of exploration and understanding of the city is unlocked. Geuze criticizes the typical landscape interventions that lack the scale and programmatic capability to reshape the city. Instead Geuze proposes examining landscape urbanism similarly to modernists that utilized the concept of the tabula rasa.24 As the American city is already defined by anti-space, the tabula rasa would not have the same devastating impact as seen in the 20th century in which space was destroyed, but rather the expansive and continuous voids that divide and disconnect the city are spatial opportunities for intervention. The occupant of anti-space

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is accustomed to the prescriptive, prohibitive, and predetermined use of space and craves the ability to explore an untamed space.25 While voids have existed as wasted spaces, the integration of a second nature allows the user to reperceive the city through the concept of temporality through the lens of sustainability and ecology which challenges recent tendencies of stagnation and permanence created by homogeneity’s dulling of the imagination. The creation of these spaces have ignored the historical geological systems that initially created them. Layering historical maps and uncovering these systems offers new perceptions and opportunities to explore urban histories. The exploration spans various scales of space and time, reconnecting the user to geological histories, projected environmental threats, and the scaled levels of connection these systems have from the immediate context to the entire world.

Anti-Space as a Site for Improvisation Reconnecting historical systems breaks the perception of the contemporary city as a fixed concept in time and space and invites new opportunities of stewardship through improvisation. Kristian Kloeckl introduces the concept of improvisation not in the way it is traditionally thought of as a method of acting in the absence of a script or plan but rather as a method to shift from the existing course and proposes a constant evaluation and evolution of space within the moment.26 As anti-space represents the notion of an unplanned and orderless environment, the introduction of improvisation and tacticality can transform the void and introduce a capacity for change and evolution to a stagnant space. Improvisation is less focused on a moment of creation, but rather a process of ongoing creation and initiative which challenges both the spatial composition of the site but also challenges cultural attitudes of temporality and agency which become closely related to the composition of space itself.27 As Farrar had explored the idea that the sense of placelessness created by anti-space weakens the ability for users to create shared connections of social obligations while dulling the imagination for users to invision better spaces,28 such concepts of improvisation can directly challenge these sentiments created by stagnation and placelessness. The creation of a site of constant change in which the user is constantly reacting to and modifying space, strengthens their sense of connection to a place and establishes a sense of agency and ownership of space.

Voids remain a critical space within the composition of a city and the intrinsic notion to divide and fill anti-space takes away the potential to create places of gathering and engagement while ultimately fueling the institutional power of the formal city. Kloeckl introduces the idea that rather than filling in empty spaces, architects throughout history have engaged the void as backdrop in which through the direction and composition of space, design acts as a form of crowd choreography which fills a void as an unpredictable entity rather than as a highly

24

Literature Review

Figure 2.13 Reclaiming part of the street to challenge the conventions of places of movement versus places of rest through human scale interventions

planned spatial intervention.29 As the sign represents a form of the prescriptive use of space, designing space for improvisation requires user engagement and agency to define the use of space and therefore must be accommodating rather than prescribing.

Reclaiming Power through Tactical Urbanism Tactics of guerilla urbanism creates the possibility for citizens to take direct action against the formal practices of the city and reclaim a sense of agency over space through community organized action. While the formal process of changing the built environment can be lengthy and bureaucratic, tactics of guerilla urbanism can create a rapid impact embodied by community values. The tacticality of the strategy allows ideas to be tested rapidly within communities within the process of creating more permanent change.30 As the homogeneity of space has decreased users ability to imagine and envisions new ways to perceive the city, the rapid testing tactical urbanism introduces allows anti-space to be conceived in new ways in which their successes can be built upon while their failures can be studied at relatively little consequence.

While historically marginalized communities often lack the financial resources and the political will to change the formal structure of the city, tactical urbanism allows these groups to implement change at a lower cost and reclaim a sense of agency over space. Tactical urbanism offers the opportunity for civil disobedience, by protesting the formal structures of the city and creating bottom-up change.31 Through the improvisational methods of tactical urbanism not only is the spatial composition of the site challenged but the formal political and economic bureaucratic systems will also be challenged. Antispace as an undefinable and unplanned space which historically took away and destroyed the benefits created by space, essentially becomes its own tabula rasa which can be reclaimed by those historically and marginalized and reincorporated into the urban fabric.

Concluding Anti-Space The analysis of anti-space is an important step in recognizing the negative impact these spatial configurations have on the population of those residing and occupying these spaces. By examining the positive and negative attributes of both space and anti-space, a balance can be established which mitigates the disconnection created by these opposing spatial theories and reprioritzing the human within the city.

The prevalence of anti-space in the American landscape has created a mentality in which people no longer question space and accept it as the only spatial composition of cities. Space itself needs to be continually challenged and analyzed through its positive and negative repercussions on the user to continually improve these spaces.

While the reshaping of anti-space and the intention to create spaces developed around the connection of disconnected urban fabrics, there

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is the ever present threat that by developing and beautifying these spaces, the communities that are meant to be connected and benefited will be pushed out through the process of gentrification and increasing real estate prices surrounding these spaces. The larger scale contextual and temporal effects of projects are important considerations that must be taken in by the designer, and while the exact repercussions are independent of their control, they must be wary of the potential risks in order to design projects that create the least negative impact on the residing communities. The intention of the designer is not always representative as the design evolves through time and therefore unintended consequences may arise that cause further damage to historically marginalized communities.

The decisions in which to design and occupy the urban voids of the American city is highly dependent on site context and community needs. Anti-space is not resolved by simply filling these spaces with development because the role of the architect is not the same as the developer. The spaces should not be designed to be turned for profit but rather must be designed around an invented language that embodies a sense of place shaped by individual and collective responsibility that will continue to be enhanced by time. The concept in which space is dominated by movement, speed, and communication must be addressed within urban projects as these disconnect people from place. The reprogramming and reframing of anti-space poses a unique challenge in which it must deal with various scales of space and time to create space that is representative of current community needs, while also allowing space for flexibility and growth to ensure that the space is able to continually develop with that community rather than dictate and prescribe a certain lifestyle upon them.

Endnotes

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1

Steven Peterson and Barbara Littenberg, Space & Anti-Space: The Fabric of Place, City, and Architecture (San Francisco: ORO Editions, 2020), 53-55.

2

Peterson and Littenberg, Space & Anti-Space, 84.

3

Peterson and Littenberg, 52-53.

4

Colin Rowe and Fred Koetter, Collage City (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1978), 72.

5

Charles Jencks, The New Moderns from Late to Neo-Modernism (New York, Rizzoli, 1990), 13-14.

6

Peterson and Littenberg, 52.

7

Andrew Herscher, “Black and Blight,” in Race and Modern Architecture: A Critical History from the Enlightenment to the Present, ed. Irene Cheng, Charles L. Davis,

Literature Review

and Mabel O. Wilson (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2020), 302.

8

Robert Trancik. Finding Lost Space: Theories of Urban Design (New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1986), 4-9.

9

Trancik, Finding Lost Space, 10.

10 Trancik, 21.

11

Margaret E Farrar, “Amnesia, Nostalgia, and the Politics of Place Memory,” Political Research Quarterly 64, no. 4 (2011): 726.

12

Farrar, “Amnesia, Nostalgia, and the Politics of Place Memory,” 726.

13

Robert Venturi, Denise Scott Brown, and Steven Izenour, Learning from Las Vegas (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1977), 9.

14

Venturi, Scott Brown, and Izenour, Learning from Las Vegas, 9.

15

Geoffrey Broadbent, Emerging Concepts in Urban Space Design (London; New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1989), 248.

16

Marc Augé. Non-Places: An Introduction to Supermodernity (London: Verso, 1995), 77-78.

17

Augé, Non-Places, 82.

18

Kenneth Frampton, “Rappel a L’ordre: The Case of the Tectonic,” Architectural Digest 60, no. 3–4 (April 1990): 20-21.

19

Kristian Kloeckl, The Urban Improvise: Improvisational-Based Design for Hybrid Cities (Yale University Press: New Haven, 2020), 22.

20 Kevin Lynch, The Image of the City (The MIT Press: Cambridge, 1960), 44.

21

Matthew Salenger, “The Personal Decisions That Govern Sprawl,” in Retrofitting Sprawl: Addressing Seventy Years of Failed Urban Form, ed. Emily Talen (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2015), 91-94.

22 Peterson and Littenberg, 92-93.

23 Farrar, 727.

24 Adriaan Geuze, “Second Nature,” Topos 71, (2010): 42.

25 Geuze, “Second Nature,” 42.

26 Kristian Kloeckl, The Urban Improvise: Improvisational-Based Design for Hybrid Cities (Yale University Press: New Haven, 2020), 83.

27 Kloeckl, The Urban Improvise, 88.

28 Farrar, 727.

29 Kloeckl, 103.

30 Mike Lyndon and Anthony Garcia, Tactical Urbanism: Short-term Action for Longterm Change (Washington DC: Island Press, 2015), 2-3.

31

Lyndon and Garcia, Tactical Urbanism, 15.

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28

Testing Architectural Healing of Infrastructural Spatial Degredation

3 29

Infrastructural Adaptions Analytical Study Context Through the analysis of anti-space, one of the most important causes are pieces of infrastructure such as the highway. These pieces dominate the urban environment through their large-scale transformations of space through the increased scale and speed of movement. These sites become a tangled mess of roadways in which the driver becomes disconnected from a sense of place and must rely upon signage or navigational tools to direct them to their destination. For those not in a vehicle, the highway in the urban context is a divisive and invasive element which penetrates through communities and creates disruptive urban environments. Through this focus, studies will be conducted upon precedents in urban sites that create the following conditions: Infrastructure that act as a wall or barrier Infrastructure that initiates a degradation of surrounding space Infrastructure that creates unsafe or uninviting spaces While each precedent may not be able to solve all of the conditions listed above, they will be grouped into three categories in their attempt to solve these problems and analyzed in their effectiveness.

Investigative Conditions Re-Surfacing Infrastructure Changing the surface identity of these infrastructural sites can bring about rapid social and cultural change within a site by introducing various new programmatic and ecological spaces. These changes can manifest themselves through various scales of intervention from more tactile implementations such as changing the lighting quality, introducing art to larger and more permanent interventions that change the ground plane and introduce ecological remediations that change the narrative and use of the site. These types of interventions do not change the overall infrastructural system, but can act as interventions that are easier to implement and allow users to perceive the site through more tactile interventions. The following precedents will be examined: Underground at InkBlock Boston The Charlesgate Boston Adapting Infrastructural Shells Infrastructure that remains in a functional condition but no longer serves the original programmatic element it was built to serve can be repurposed and transformed from wasted spaces into meaningful places that connect users with a historical sense of place and allow

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Testing Architectural Healing of Infrastructural Spatial Degredation

them to reperceive the city. The projects work within the framework that was initially built but add upon it to create new urban spaces that create connection across a multitude of scales by engaging with the site’s qualities. The following precedents will be examined: Viaduc des Arts Paris The High Line New York City IM Viadukt Zurich Removing Infrastructure Infrastructure that is removed creates the largest impact on urban space as there are large shifts in how people move through space and it creates new opportunities to occupy and perceive the city. These types of interventions are the hardest to implement and are the most costly but can have long term benefits for the city. This tactic is most used when infrastructure has reached the end of its lifespan or has been destroyed and there are more benefits to take it down then restore it and often occur in urban centers that are attempting to reconnect back to the city after being isolated. These interventions are not common on sections of highway which are frequented as an in between of two places such as on the outskirts of cities as people are moving between urban centers and suburbs. The following precedents will be examined: The Rose Kennedy Greenway Boston The Embarcadero San Francisco

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Re-Surfacing Infrastructure Underground at InkBlock Location Boston, MA Architect Landing Studio Underground at InkBlock serves as a project of cultural connection as well as ecological remediation by intervening within the liminal space between Boston’s South End and South Boston, that is occupied by the highway. The intervention becomes a space of social gathering and cultural connection by allowing the user to interact and become immersed in social spaces that combine public art and ecological remediation to establish a connection between the user and the place.

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Testing Architectural Healing of Infrastructural Spatial Degredation

Figure 3.2 Site conditions prior to the intervention. The space is wasted as it has no programmatic function

Figure 3.3 Transformations to the ground plane creates a site that remediates run-off pollution from the ramps above

Figure 3.4 Painting walls and sidewalks creates a more inviting space for pedestrians despite the close proximity to the highway

Figure 3.1 Ink Block Site Analysis

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Re-Surfacing Infrastructure The Charlesgate Location Boston, MA Architect Landing Studio The Charlesgate which once served as a connective landscape within the city has disconnected the city from its landscape through the construction of the Massachusetts Turnpike and Storrow Drive. Such infrastructural projects divided the Emerald Necklace, a series of connective parks through the city, and disconnected the city from the Charles River.

The underside of these roadways are undesigned

34

and represent a void in the urban fabric which is unpleasant to move across. Landing Studio’s proposal transforms this void into an occupiable parkscape through transformations to the ground plane and the undersides of the roadways to make the space more pedestrian friendly. Through such transformations, urban and geological systems are reconnected while also remediating the pollution created by automobile infrastructure.

Testing Architectural Healing of Infrastructural Spatial Degredation

Figure 3.6 Existing conditions of the Charlesgate. The site is uninviting and offers little to the surrounding context

Figure 3.7 The removal of stone walls to create programmatic space and modifications to the ground plane to create a more permeable surface create incentives for users to occupy the space while creating ecological benefits to the site

Figure 3.8 The adaptation of empty greenspace into occupiable parkspace creates new connections and new opportunities of discovery within the city

Figure 3.5 Charlesgate Site Analysis

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Adapting Infrastructural Shells Viaduc des Arts Location Paris, FR Architect Patrick Berger The Viaduc des Arts creates a larger urban scale connection along the route of the former railway tracks that has been adapted as a parkway which transforms the street edge by adapting the vaults of the structure to be cafes and artist workshops.

The use of the vaults as the framework of the new intervention allows the viaduct to be transformed

36

as a wall to a place of cultural connection by allowing users to occupy the depth of the negative space of the vaults. These vaults serve as a connective tissue within the urban fabric by creating an occupiable street edge that is activated by users rather than limiting the connective properties of the project to the elevated greenway.

Testing Architectural Healing of Infrastructural Spatial Degredation

Figure 3.10 Viaduct arches prior to the intervention. The street edge is uninviting to the pedestrian and becomes a space for vehicle parking

Figure 3.11 The street edge is transformed as the arches become occupiable shops, cafes, and workshops. A sense of scale is reintroduced to the street and becomes an inhabitable zone for the pedestrian

Figure 3.12 The transformation of the top of the viaduct into a green walkway creates new pedestrian connections across the city and transforms the users perception of the city by offering a new opportunity for urban exploration

Figure 3.9 Viaduc des Arts Site Analysis

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37

Adapting Infrastructural Shells The High Line Location Manhattan, NY Architect Diller Scofidio + Renfro The High Line is an example of an adaptation to a railroad viaduct that creates large urban connections but doesn’t fully engage the street.

While it creates a north-south connection through Manhattan from Hudson Yards to the Meatpacking District, there is little treatment to the underside of the viaduct and less consideration to the streetscape. The High Line attracts the user to elevate themselves and explore the city through a new perception, the anti-space beneath this structure remains which prohibits the project from completely transforming the space.

38

The High Line is a project centered around development and its connection to Hudson Yards exemplifies the rapid changes the project has brought to the area. While the project creates spatial connections along the elevated greenway, it is also a project of disconnection through the social and economic divisions that have developed in response to the High Line. The popularity of such a space has created a rapid demand for development which quickly priced out the residents that had occupied these former industrial neighborhoods.

Testing Architectural Healing of Infrastructural Spatial Degredation

Figure 3.14 Historic image of the High Line as a train line cutting across the grid to connect the factories and warehouses on the west side of Manhattan to the rest of the state

Figure 3.15 The underside of the High Line has not recieved the same treatment as the top and represents a form of lost space which becomes occupied by parking instead of a positive contribution to the streetscape

Figure 3.16 The elevated walkway creates a new sense of exploration and ability to percieve the city through the establishment of a second nature on the elevated line

Figure 3.13 High Line Site Analysis

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Adapting Infrastructural Shells IM Viadukt Location Zurich, CH Architect EM2N IM Viadukt transforms the ground plane of these viaducts from a spatial barrier that divides the city into a space of social and cultural connection that improves the ground plane of the city. The project works with the existing infrastructure as an important component of the city and allows the trains to continue to run at an elevated level, while creating pedestrian paths and an improved street scape at various levels that create various scales of connection.

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Testing Architectural Healing of Infrastructural Spatial Degredation

Figure 3.18 Viaduct prior to intervention.

The site is an example of wasted space that divides the center of the city by not being inviting to the pedestrian

Figure 3.19 Completed intervention with new pedestrian connections layered with functional infrastructure. Shopping and recreational spaces make the site accessible and inviting to surrounding communities

Figure 3.20 A sense of scale is restored to the site by creating pedestrian scaled interventions within the arches

Figure 3.17 IM Viadukt Site Analysis

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Removing Infrastructure The Rose Kennedy Greenway Location Boston, MA The Big Dig removed the Central Artery from downtown Boston and buried it below grade to create the Rose Kennedy Greenway to link downtown through a series of parks. Each of these parks became gardens, recreational spaces, art exhibits, and places of rest within the city.

While the parks themselves are well designed, their connection to the rest of the city remains

42

separated as they sit on islands surrounded by busy roads and parking lots created by the irregularity of the street grid. This creates a void between the city and the parks which has to be crossed. The Greenway radically transformed downtown and is a space often frequented by tourists and those occupying downtown Boston.

Testing Architectural Healing of Infrastructural Spatial Degredation

Figure 3.22 The Central Artery prior to its removal

Figure 3.23 The Rose Kennedy Greenway as a series of parks through downtown Boston

Figure 3.24 An example of an unresolved triangle in which neither park or building are in cohesion

Figure 3.21 Rose Kennedy Greenway Site Analysis

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43

Removing Infrastructure The Embarcadero Location San Francisco, CA The removal of the multi-level Embarcadero from downtown San Francisco removed a wall that bounded the city and denied connection to its waterfront. The transformation of the highway into a street and a streetcar line gives more prioritization to pedestrians and those using public transportation rather than relying upon a car dependent city. By removing the highway, more space could be allocated to public plazas and parks between downtown and the water which creates a more active public realm.

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Testing Architectural Healing of Infrastructural Spatial Degredation

Figure 3.26 The Embarcadero prior to its removal seperating the city from the water

Figure 3.27 After the removal of the highway, a large public space is created across across from the ferry building

Figure 3.28 The inculsion of a streetcar line increases access to various options of mobility and decreases the dependency on the automobile

Figure 3.25 Embarcadero Site Analysis

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Analytical Conclusions Each of these three types of projects produce varying results and different effects on both their intended and unintended user groups. Projects that resurface these spaces bring about quick results at relatively lower costs compared to the complete removal of infrastructure which can be costly and time consuming yet completely removing the highway brings about the biggest change to urban space and its users. One solution is not applicable to every site yet there are several conditions which are important to note for the successes and failures of each category in order to produce results that have positive impacts.

In projects that resurface the underside of infrastructure, there becomes a balance between functionality for existing usage and the intervention to create new space. In Landing Studio’s Underground at InkBlock they acknowledge the contextual demand for parking in which the site was previously utilized for but combine this demand with occupiable and ecological spaces. As they are not removing the highway, they recognized the constraint the automobile still had on the site but worked around the parking lot to create spaces for public art. In this instance the parking lot makes a space for events to occur and does not interfere with the site’s landscape. Functionality is also addressed to create meaningful spaces by incorporating light as an element to invite people into the space. As these overpasses create dark spaces, lights are projected upon the columns and undersides of the freeway which illuminate the space to invite the user in. In these instances the highway is an important element to bring people into the city and can’t necessarily be removed but by transforming their undersides, the cars overhead become background noise and the space below is inhabitable.

The projects that adapt upon infrastructural shells range in completely reprogramming the space for the pedestrian to combine both infrastructure and pedestrian. While either is possible with the demands of the site, the most important difference between these projects is their treatment of what is happening on the ground plane in relation to what is happening above. The Viaduc des Arts and IM Viaduct are more successful in creating this relationship as they create a connective ground plane by occupying the void created by the viaduct itself while also creating larger urban connections above. In these projects it becomes less about movement and more about creating a place to stop and inhabit with a historically and culturally connective space. The High Line differs from these projects because it offers very little to the streetscape and focuses on pulling the user off of the street into a new environment. Such characteristics makes the High Line feel more like a tourist attraction than a space for the existing community to occupy by offering little programmatic incentives to neighboring occupants.

Connection occurs across various scales and therefore the larger urban scale is just as important as a project’s ability to connect with the local social and economic classes of its inhabitants.

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The complete removal of infrastructure becomes the most expensive and most controversial method of dealing with infrastructure. It is important to analyze within these projects how the greenspace is programmed and how it reconnects to its context. In instances such as the Big Dig which buried the highway to replace it with the Rose Kennedy Greenway at grade, there remained the need for a series of on and offramps and high volume roads to serve downtown Boston.

While the parkway is nice to inhabit, it continues to feel somewhat disconnected as crossing the road is not as fluid as maybe intended.

As the city was carved away in order to create the initial highway, the scars of such a process remain and a series of odd triangles remain unresolved. Such spaces are not pleasant to cross and represent a larger lack of contextual connection even if the park itself is nice. The removal of the embarcadero for a street at grade creates visible connections to the waterfront from the city and while the street may still be needed to move people around downtown San Francisco, the inclusion of a streetcar line offers various transportation options to occupants. As the road is on the perimeter of the city rather than cutting through it, it does not face as many of the same issues as the Rose Kennedy Greenway.

While these projects can be critiqued they both offer positive public spaces but they are both located in downtown which has a different primary user group as compared to a project within a residential community. While these projects can generate great change, they also are the most difficult to implement and therefore for the purposes of this thesis, testing will be explored through the first two methods.

Site Investigations and Tests Site Parameters The urban conditions and issues being analyzed here are observable in any American city as they have all been impacted by urban renewal and highway construction throughout the 20th century. To test design ideas and criteria, Widett Circle in Boston has been chosen as a sample site as it is an urban site, has a highway that divides two vastly different neighborhoods, and creates an unfriendly pedestrian experience through the degradation of surrounding space. While this site may not be the one used for a final design proposal, it is a sample of one of many sites across the country that can be intervened upon to have a greater impact on surrounding communities.

Testing Architectural Healing of Infrastructural Spatial Degredation

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Figure 3.29 Figure Ground

Figure 3.30 Void as Figure

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Testing Architectural Healing of Infrastructural Spatial Degredation

Representing Anti-Space While the traditional form of representation of urban fabric is the figure ground which highlights patterns of urban form represented by what is built, the reversal of the figure ground highlights the voids as a continuous object. The figure ground is representational of the traditional city which prioritizes the continuity of form to create bounded voids that become occupiable urban spaces, its reversal is representational of the anti-spatial city in which the void is unbounded and free flowing and becomes increasingly occupiable as this space becomes dominated by the automobile.

By exploring such forms of representation it becomes apparent the amount of urban space which is underutilized and taken away from the public realm through the vast shift in scale in which these urban voids divide the city. While these forms of representation do not depict the true nature of these spaces as they don’t detail the ground condition, their ability to depict space as bound or unbound and the scale in which they operate can begin to construct a narrative into who can occupy such spaces.

Applying such methods to the Widett Circle site highlights the amount of empty space that separates the South End from South Boston.

While the highway is the predominant figure in this space, when the highway is taken away it reveals that the void is a much larger space and begins to invade and break apart the grids of each neighborhood. Through this diagram anti-space is represented as a destructive and eroding force on space in which these neighborhoods continue to be further separated from one another.

Figure 3.31 Layering various representations of the infrastructural void

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Urban Connections The initial instinct to intervene upon an urban void is to attempt to create connections across a site that knit the two opposing grids together.

Such a proposal would take the notion of an anti-space as an unbound entity and bind it by creating a series of spaces and urban forms that mimic the design of a “traditional” city. As the anti-spatial city prioritizes the void over the composition, this attempt creates density within the void to reprioritize urban form and reconnect the two neighborhoods through architectural interventions.

The interventions on the site can be multi-use and add retail, offices, and living spaces to the city. As programs such as housing are in great demand and housing prices are at all time highs, by supplying spaces that meet the demand, ideally a balance could be restored to the city.

Through the composition of buildings across the

50

void, a defined and cohesive streetscape can be established which will be activated by pedestrians and create a more inviting and safer street.

This approach can greatly transform the void into multi-use development, there are questions that are raised as to who benefits from such urban transformations and what are the resulting impacts not only on the site but on the surrounding communities. When these types of developments are implemented, they are typically constructed for the purpose of generating capital and offer retail, offices, and living spaces not for those who occupy the site, but for a new class of people that will move in and displace the current inhabitants.

While some of these unintended consequences are out of the hands of the designer, that is not the intended outcome of this proposal and therefore alternative methods can be analyzed.

Testing Architectural Healing of Infrastructural Spatial Degredation

Figure 3.33 Widett Circle reconnection model bridging barriers of the highway and rail tracks

Figure 3.32 Reconnection of grid across widett circle with infill development

Figure 3.34 Sequence of block conditions testing ability to activate the street edge

Testing Architectural Healing of Infrastructural Spatial Degredation

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Figure 3.35

Figure 3.36

Mapping signage and movement along a strip mall

Mapping signage and movement in a downtown

Figure 3.37 Comparative matrix of the three consumer spaces versus the method and speed of movement

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Testing Architectural Healing of Infrastructural Spatial Degredation

Figure 3.38

Figure 3.39

Mapping signage and movement in a shopping mall

Method of diagramming scale and signage devloped in Learning from Las Vegas

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Programming Negative Space The successes of projects such as the Viaduc des Arts and IM Viaduct is that they work within the negative space created by the vaults to create programmatic spaces. While the highway does not have the same architectural frame as these projects had, the same concept can be applied in which the space under the highway is imagined as a solid in which spaces are carved out from it.

Using the thickness of the wall can transform an open space once designed for the automobile into a space designed around the scale of the human.

Through this method there is an establishment of space and creation of thresholds which transform an unbound space into a sequence of movement through a defined space.

Within the carved out space program can be derived from contextual needs. While people would probably not want to live underneath a highway, such spaces can be retail, cafes, workshops, or recreational spaces that bring the community together to interact and create

connections. While filling in this zone underneath the highway may appear as if the highway is being further defined as a wall, the wall is occupiable and a point of gathering and therefore while it physically defines a space, it is not as divisive and obtrusive as the highway.

These types of interventions can greatly transform the street edge but the successes under a highway may differ from those studied in the analysis as it does not have the defined structure which makes those projects remarkable. Both Viaduc des Arts and IM VIaduct have a strong sense of place because of the historical relationality the viaduct has yet the structure of the American highway system lacks such remarkability as they are constructed with different materials and through a completely different process making them all but remarkable. An intervention under the highway wouldn’t celebrate the structure but rather would be seen as simply infill.

Figure 3.40 Sequence of study model breaking down the walls created by highways to increase levels of transparency and interaction between the two divided sides

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Figure 3.41 Study model breaking down the solid walls of big box retail and increasing levels of transparency and interaction between inside and outside

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Scales of Temporality Rather than envisioning a design proposal as a completed project, the design can be conceptualized through the evolution of time in which the design is never fully complete but rather continuously in a state of change. The initial proposal would establish a framework in which the occupants and users of the site had the agency to design and build for themselves according to their own programmatic needs.

The first stage takes a more tactical approach in which occupants modify surfaces through various degrees of permanence that creates a space representative of their cultural values. The space then evolves from a surface into a state of semi-permanence through the construction of ad-hoc structures that define space and program into more permanent uses. Through such a definition, permanent buildings are designed and constructed which solidify these values as legitimate and fully integrate them into the “formal” city. Rather than speculating from the top-down as to how these spaces should be dictated, the process is completely bottom up and dedicated by the people themselves as to how they would want to see the space utilized. As the space is not defined, it becomes a truly democratic space in which everyone is able to make an impact and as these spaces evolve, their voices are continually heard until they are solidified into permanent space.

This proposal would span an undefinable time period and would not bring about a rapid change as compared to the examples previously studied. As this proposal is focused around community engagement, as time progresses, communities are in constant shift and therefore those that began the process may not be there to witness its completion.

While every development has the risks of increasing the speed of gentrification, this proposal is meant to ideally slow this process by establishing power within existing communities and allowing them to maintain their ownership of space through interventions in which they are a part of.

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Figure 3.42 Re-surfacing space initiated by a communal reclamation of space representative of local culture and values

Figure 3.43 Further adaptions to space through semi-permanent interventions that create more defined programmatic function

Figure 3.44 Eventually architectural interventions built that represent and assist existing use of site

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Paths and Nodes While the first two design tests attempted to establish interventions across the void or underneath the highway as defined spaces of gathering, this test attempted to establish a series of nodes which foster community gathering but the liminal space between these nodes act as an undefined space of exploration within the void

in which the occupant has the opportunity to perceive junkspace as not just waste but as the opportunity to create. Using similar tactics as the previous design test, this method expanded the scale at which it operated by replicating the process and creating a field in which there are multiple points all evolving separately.

Figure 3.45 Model of degrative spaces around the highway with nodes of new potential sites of interaction

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This process is not standardized and therefore there is an incentive to explore each one through time for the possibility to discover what is new. As these nodes shrink or expand according to usage, the paths and liminal space are also in flux and therefore movement is never constant. Unlike the current process of movement through anti-space

which is regulated and prescribed by signage or dictation, such a process of exploration contradicts the essence of anti-space and it is fully centered around user perception. While anti-space tends to expand and consume space, the process of nodes within the void is meant to reverse that process by defining the void and gradually reclaiming space

Figure 3.46 Sequence of how nodes evolve through time with community participation

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through these nodes which foster engagement and empowerment.

Through such a space, the void becomes a remedial space between two different communities and blurs the hard boundaries that have been created by barriers such as highways.Through the process of manipulating the model to create a series of spaces representative of an evolving site through time, frames were analyzed for their successes and failures in their ability to create connective spaces within the void itself as well as to its context.

In the early stages of the test (Figure 3.1), successes were deemed by their ability to create spaces at the edge of the void that created new ways to occupy the edge and create movement through the site. The top-down and formalized representational method of this test created failures as the model acted too diagrammatic and the spaces create on the edge did not fully connect to the site’s existing grid and therefore the new spaces created did not feel truly integrated into the communities they were meant to connect to.

The next stage of the test (Figure 3.2) served as the initial connection of the two communities within the void. Succusses were considered in their ability to create paths of connection and enclosed spaces within the void that would act as places of gathering and occupation by residents of both communities. The failures of this stage resulted from unresolved edge conditions in which paths sometimes had to transverse through unbounded void space that lacked a sense of scale to the occupant.

The final stage of the test (Figure 3.3) represented a condition in which the site has evolved through time and not only represents a space of connection, but a space that has been reclaimed by the people and has become representative of their communal needs. Succusses were found in the creation of multiple nodes that fostered movement not only on one path through the void, but encouraged a sense of exploration and discovery through the site through the manipulation of various spaces. Since the intervention did not occupy the entire void, this was considered a failure as there were unresolved edge conditions which remained as a barrier to movement across.

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Figure 3.47 Early stages of tactical deployment. Each community is constructing new space yet they remain disconnected

Figure 3.48 Connecton across the void is made and each communities respective values are exchange through spatial manipulaton

Figure 3.49 The evolution of the space through time results in an everchanging site of communal gathering and sharing of ideas

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Figure 3.50 Evolution of nodes to heal urban infrastructural scars

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Bridging Over the Void While the previous design test was conducted through a top-down approach in which the consideration of space was further removed by the scale and diagrammatic method in which it was conducted, this design test attempted to greater understand these spaces that were created

at a more zoomed in scale. While initially the test was supposed to manipulate the space under the highway, these spaces would be incredibly dark and unwelcoming and therefore the decision was made to attempt to bridge over the barrier.

Figure 3.51 Bridging over the highway and creating new potential public space in the infrastructural void

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Inspired by the idea that many of these spaces by the side of highway become junk spaces in which scrap is left, this design test served as a representation of users manipulating the barrier with found material.

Figure 3.52 Sequence of how the filling of the frame evolves through time with community participation

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Through the process of manipulating the model to create a series of spaces representative of an evolving site through time, frames were analyzed for their successes and failures in their ability to create connective spaces within the void itself as well as to its context.

The first stage of the test (Figure 3.4), served as an analysis of the existing conditions of the site in which movement and speed dominated the site creating an unfriendly pedestrian condition for those attempting to pass under the highway. The existing tunnel has a low ceiling and is not properly lit creating a dark and uninviting zone between the two sides.

The next stage (Figure 3.5) represents the initial manipulation and occupation of the barrier across both the horizontal and vertical planes as new spaces are constructed and repurposed. The ability to create these new types of spaces that could serve as spaces of community engagement were considered successes, but they do not have a large effect on manipulating the movement of the automobile through the site and therefore are still unpleasant spaces to occupy because of the vast difference in scale and speed.

The final stage of the test (Figure 3.6) represents a more complete occupation of the structure in which spaces have been created to bridge across, but also create new spaces to occupy that are removed from the highway through vertical disconnection. This ability to create new perceptions of the barrier through the development of new community spaces was considered a success, but it also introduces complexities in its structural composition and raises concerns of user safety to occupy a self-constructed space above a highway.

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Figure 3.53 Existing conditions in which movement and speed across the barrier are prioritized and space to stop is unwelcomed

Figure 3.54 Initial manipulation and occupation of the barrier where spaces are created on both the horizontal and vertical planes

Figure 3.55 The evolution of the structure through time as it becomes increasingly occupied and responsive to community needs

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Red Hook Waterfront During the fall semester, our design studio was focused on the study of public spaces while traveling in New York City with Professor Mark Klopfer. While traveling, the site along Red Hook’s waterfront was chosen as a site of investigation because the scattered industrial buildings represented ruins of the neighborhood’s

Figure 4.1 Project site plan

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historic globalized past in which goods were produced and shipped connecting Red Hook with these globalized markets, but since their abandonment have created a physical separation and disconnection between the neighboring residents and the waterfront. With the increasing risk of floods and sea level rise posed by climate

change, these types of anti-spaces contribute to the destruction of the livelihoods of these people, yet they have the potential to be transformed to respond and mitigate the projected threat of water.

This test was an important shift in the thesis as prior to this test, the thesis was primarily focused

on highways as the degenerative form of antispace but this test opened the possibility to examine these types of post-industrial sites by relinking them back to their surrounding context through the framing of water as a source of life rather than a source of destruction.

Figure 4.2 Reconnecting the waterfront to the urban grid with a green network of public space

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The project focused on connecting the isolated industrial ruins along the shoreline with a network of berms that acted as a water retention system while also containing social spaces that brought the neighboring residences onto the site and promoted interaction between people and water.

The method of site analysis that documented the evolving coastline as a sequence of layers became influential in the development of the project. Embracing the history of the shifting coastline through time influenced how the design may ask broader questions about the communities relationship with water. The industrial history of the site erased the ecological history and therefore the design process emerged from the need to reconnect the waterfront and industrial ruins back to the community through the revealing of the historical ecological layers.

Figure 4.3 Layering historical water patterns projected 100 & 500 year floodplains

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Figure 4.4 Layering various moments of the evolution of the coastline through time

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Figure 4.5 High tide

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Figure 4.6 10 year floodplain

Figure 4.7 100 year floodplain

Figure 4.8 500 year floodplain

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Figure 4.10 Outdoor rooms that act as spaces of social gathering established within the berm and activate the site as a place of connection between people and water

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Figure 4.9 Positioning public buildings within the berm creates spaces of social confluence at the intersection moments of high water levels while also framing the Red Hook Grain Terminal in the background

Figure 4.11 Buildings become part of the berm and act as flood walls protecting the space behind from flooding

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The Gowanus Canal Brooklyn’s Gowanus Canal was the final study area chosen to implement design tests as it was a site with a rich industrial history that has created contemporary social, spatial, and ecological harm. Prior to the settlement and development of what is now the area surrounding the Gowanus Canal, the area was wetlands and an estuary that gathered sea water and runoff from the Terminal Moraine in a single connected ecosystem. As the neighborhood of Park Slope was developed in response to the design of Prospect Park in the 1880’s a grid was overlaid over the area, ignoring these ecological systems and straightening Gowanus Creek into a canal. This top-down planning method created a tabula rasa condition in which the historical network was ignored and

paved over for a new urban system. Previous testing sites analyzed the tabula rasa as the destruction of an existing urban space in favor of a new infrastructural system that also served as political or economic generator. The grid and parcelization of Park Slope and the Gowanus Canal is characterized as an extraction value from the land to build industrial and residential properties without consideration to the harm they perpetuated on these ecological systems.

In the canal’s prime, the industrial shipping port connected the canal to globalized economic centers making the canal itself more connected to other cities than to its immediate context. Large footprint industrial buildings were constructed to serve these industrial functions, breaking apart

Figure 4.12 Canal’s history of globalized connectivity yet localized disconnectivity

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Figure 4.13 Layering the historical coastline and wetlands under the imposed grid

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Figure 4.14 Park Slope Grid scaled to the pedestrian and establishes a rythem to the street through the Brownstones

Figure 4.15 Large scale industrial footprint buildings break the grid and are scaled to globalized systems of industry which disconnect the surrounding neighborhoods to the waterfront

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the grid that once characterized the development of the space and further disconnecting the access to the canal from the surrounding neighborhoods.

Through this history there are various stages of disconnection being constructed and therefore layered mapping was an important method of discovery to understand spatial changes through time.

A Figure Ground and Void as Figure analysis investigated the degradative condition the postindustrial canal has created. The grid is broken apart as it nears the canal by large footprint industrial buildings and undifferentiated empty spaces left as a result of the industrial ruins which makes this space uninhabitable at the human scale.

Figure 4.16 Figure Ground

Figure 4.17 Void as Figure

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The canal is within the space inbetween the neighborhoods of Park Slope, Carroll Gardens, Boerum Hill, Cobble Hill, Red Hook, and Sunset Park, yet offers no connective spatial elements to bring people from these different neighborhoods together. The once unified historical ecosystem has been repeatedly fractured and disconnected to create inharmonious urban and geological

Figure 4.18 Neighborhoods Surrounding Gowanus

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systems. The undefined space around the canal that has been historically disconnected from its historical ecological system, are the sites at most risk of damage from the impending threat of rising sea levels and more frequent superstorms that will flood these low lands. The historical estuary was able to absorb the increased amount of water and could handle these dynamic water

changes but because that system has been ignored and has been paved over, new interventions must be put in place that accommodate these threats while creating spaces of social connection to the various surrounding neighborhoods.

Figure 4.19 Historical Coastline and Wetlands

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Figure 4.20 Projected 2100 Coastline

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Figure 4.21 Superstorm Sandy Floodline

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After the EPA named the Gowanus Canal as a Superfund site, the Gowanus Canal is in the process of being dredged to reduce pollution in the site. Developers have taken advantage of this and are trying to redevelop the area subsequently increasing rents and privatizing the space with new luxury condo buildings. In these developments small sponge parks and pedestrian walkways that cantilever over the canal have been

built but these spaces act as singular moments and have little connection to the surrounding communities. These methods of interaction with water can serve as an example if they are magnified and replicated across the watershed to create a sequence of moments that interact and inform each other so that users feel connected to a larger system.

Figure 4.22 Current Site Conditions (March 2022) overlayed on site diagram with historical water condition

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Understanding the historical systems of water that existed prior to settlement became a method of attempting to understand the conditions surrounding the canal. While these systems had been buried, they continued to flow underneath the surface. Buildings that were not properly waterproofed, reveal these streams in their basements as the streams cut through and erode the concrete foundations. These moments demonstrated the power that these historical water routes had and the need to reveal them as a method of reconnecting the urban fabric.

Figure 4.23 A moment in which these historic waterways are revealed as water continues to flow in the same paths it has histroically flowed in

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Mapping Urban Proposals The initial testing methods on the canal developed from the analysis of these disconnected urban and ecological systems and proposed large scale radical urban proposals to create a greater sense of cohesion to the greater site.

Figure 4.24 Three existing grids

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The analysis of the existing grids revealed that three different grids eist around the canal that are slightly rotated and vary slightly in shape. The collaging of these three grids across the canal was a method to maximize the social connectivity of the urban fabric by removing the canal which

acted as a barrier. The extension of the existing grids maintained the walkability and pedestrian scale that currently exists in neighborhoods like Park Slope but degrades around the canal. Since the canal has historically been polluted, paving over it and burying the pollution seemed like a potential alternative to cleaning it.

While this method maximized connection and potential program in the void, ignoring the historical conditions only seems to perpetuate the current issues with water and therefore further analysis of the historic flow of water was needed as a method of forming social spaces that reconnect to these buried systems.

Figure 4.25 Extending grids across to establish a unified urban system

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The layering of the existing grids with the historic waterways revealed that the degradation of the grid corresponded closely with spaces where water would historically gather. Through this process of layering, historical and contemporary ecological and urban forces, a process of subtraction was applied to the grid and the space that was once water would be restored as a constructed wetland to mitigate the impending threats of flooding.

Figure 4.26 Imposing historical water system on the three existing grids

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This method was important to discover the importance of layering urban and ecological spaces to create spaces of social connectivity where the occupants are aware of the historical past of the site through its designation as a park space. The occupation of the site would connect the user to a pre-colonial ecosystem mitigating the threats of future flooding.

These mapping tests offered interesting insights in layering as a method to organize the site, but a more detailed scale was needed to develop ways in which the occupant would interact with the site.

Figure 4.27 Cutting historical coastline from grid to create a green space

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Fractal Geometry Testing A study in fractal geometries became a method to develop a site strategy that could be replicated across various scales and promote different levels of interaction at the urban and human scale.

Three patterns were explored to understand the different types of spaces that could be created and the different ways water could be held. The orthogonal, diagonal, and branching structures

Figure 4.28 Orthagonal fractal diagram

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each were produced from a basic diagram where each subsequent line drawn corresponded to a raise in topography. Rather than water rising parallel to the canal, it would be pulled away as a method to maximize the horizontal distance it would have to travel within a short vertical distance. This would act as a flood management strategy to reduce the impact flooding would have on the site by minimizing its velocity.

Figure 4.29 Orthagonal fractal topography

Figure 4.30 Animation of water rising through the orthagonal topography

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Figure 4.31 Diagonal fractal diagram

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Figure 4.32 Diagonal fractal topography

Figure 4.33 Animation of water rising through the diagonal topography

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Figure 4.34 Branching fractal diagram

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Figure 4.35 Branching fractal topography

Figure 4.36 Animation of water rising through the branching topography

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The orthogonal geometry was considered the most successful because it had the most connection to the grid and could be scaled according to these existing site scales. The geometries were then attempted to be configured to the constraints of the site and work around existing buildings to tie these isolated structures together into a cohesive grid system. The successes of this test came from its ability to connect to the existing grid and create a sequence of movement from street grid to canal grid in which the user could interact with the two systems. The scale in which it was drawn in became its failure because the details of how these spaces couldn’t be drawn and therefore they appeared as undefined and empty spaces.

Overall this testing method was very rigid and determined by the formal geometries of the orthogonal, diagonal, and branching patterns as a system of water management without a focus on how the spaces could be used for social activity. At this scale and through the translation from diagram to space, the activity was not apparent and replicated the top-down planning practices that negatively ignored the original ecological systems.

Figure 4.37 Orthagonal fractal sections

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Figure 4.38 Orthagonal fractal applied to the site to create connections to the grid

Figure 4.39 Successful connections to the grid

Figure 4.40 Failed indeterminate spaces

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Human Scale Fractal Testing Understanding fractals at a human scale became essential to understand a small scale moment of connection to the water as most of the previous tests were at a larger scale. The urban grid was scaled down to the size of a paver in which water flowed through the seams. As previous tests attempted to maximize the horizontal length the water had to travel within a short vertical distance, these tests attempted to study different paver patterns that maximized the horizontal movement of water to slow it down. Within these plazas spaces, water would be weaving under the users feet, tying the space together and creating a peaceful connection to the water. While they would be able to look into the distance and see the dramatic force of water, there would be a gentle interaction a few inches below their feet.

The plan-section drawing method and this scale of moment drawing was very helpful in understanding how this very gentle connection to the water could be established within the larger urban proposal.

Jumping between this small scale and the large planning scale became an effective method of generating tests.

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Figure 4.41 Animation of water rising through the first iteration pavers

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Figure 4.42 Animation of water rising through the second iteration of pavers

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Figure 4.43 Animation of water rising through the third iteration of pavers

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Urban Watershed Scale Fractal Testing Considering the successes of the previous tests, a process of generating an urban strategy evolved from the layering of the historical water systems with the existing grid as a method to find overlapping moments and maximize a connection between the two systems. Cutting into

Figure 4.44 Creating connections to water across the grid

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the grid to reveal these historical water patterns would create a spatial and temporal reconnection across the watershed. This connection through the revealing of water would promote circulation that exists with the water rather than burying it underground.

Figure 4.46 Third street sectional axonometric. Interactions with water connect the canal to Prospect Park

Figure 4.47 Layering new paths of water over the historical system of water

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Park Slope Grid Testing The movement of people and water was examined at a smaller scale within the Park Slope grid to understand how water could be drained from the street and enter these historic streams rather than the sewer system. During heavy rainfalls, the sewer system floods causing contaminated water to flow through the streets. To prevent this, it is essential to ensure the area of absorptive surfaces is maximized to allow water to percolate into the soil rather than runoff into the sewers.

With water draining into these streams, it will eventually flow into the canal providing oxygenated water back to the canal which will help bring life back into the body of water.

Figure 4.48 Existing conditions of a typical Park Slope street.

Heavy rain floods the sewer system causing stormwater and sewer water to flood the streets

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Figure 4.49 Runoff is collected in the sewer system and redirected to sewage treatment plants away from the site. Fresh water running downhill is disconnected from the canal

Figure 4.50 Small-scale interventions along the street to absorb water and help prevent water from flooding into the sewer system

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Figure 4.51 Comparing the Historical vs Current Conditions of a Section of Third Street Between 5th and 6th Avenues

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Figure 4.52 Sketch tests to “reveal” the historic streams and incorporate them into an infrastructural system that absorbs water that also creates a series of small scaled green spaces that link the neighborhood together

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Gowanus “Batcave” Testing The Gowanus Batcave, the ruin of the former Central Power Station of the Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company became a site of testing along the canal because it was an isolated ruin, a remnant of the canal’s industrial historical past yet disconnected from its current urban context. Recently a site occupied by graffiti artists, the ruin offers the potential to be a site of discovery that brings people together for a shared passion for art while reconnecting with the site’s historic geological systems.

Figure 4.53 Existing conditions sketch

Figure 4.54 Breaking the walls of the Batcave to bring social interaction inside focused around these hidden streams

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Figure 4.55 Animation of water floeing into the ruin and creating various programmatic uses

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The site has been walled off from its context but a process of landscape interventions that bring water in, and architectural interventions that bring people in, can activate the site and make it a site of social and ecological confluence.

Figure 4.56 Walls create barriers to access the site

Figure 4.57 Breaking the walls brings people and water into the space

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Figure 4.58 Sequence of water flowing into abandoned industrial buildings and establishing spaces of occupation within the ruin

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The ruins of the Sutro Baths in San Francisco is a precedent that allows the user to occupy the threshold between two states of water and be witness to the spectacular forces at play. By standing on the wall of the ruin between the calm and reflective water captured within contrasted against the crashing waves of the pacific, the occupant is drawn into connection with the water in two distinct states while connected across time to what the baths once were versus their state of erosion by the water. Such rare opportunities to occupy this space creates unique relationships between the occupant and the place and creates a space of reflection on the power

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of these sublime forces in their relationship to man-made architectural interventions. The experiences of occupying the site were applied to how the ruins of the industrial fabric around the Gowanus Canal could be inhabited. While those industrial ruins were much more intact then the Sutro Baths, applying ideas of erosion to break down the industrial walls dividing the surrounding neighborhoods to the canal could through layering historical, geological, and social networks could promote new opportunities of interaction and occupation with the ruins and the canal.

Figure 4.59 Ruins of the Sutro Baths in which the ruins hold overflow tidal water seperaterated by a small wall from the crashing waves of the Pacific Ocean

Figure 4.60 & 4.61 WAC occupying the threshold between the ruin of the Sutro Baths and the sublime forces of the Pacific Ocean (Emily Chowdhury CC BY)

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Figure 4.62 Cross Section of the Central Power Station of the Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company Figure 4.63 Collaged Axonometric of Elevation and Section Construction Drawings overlayed on Present Condtitions of the “Ruin”

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Figure 4.64 Unhinged axonometric comparing historic to current conditions

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Figure 4.65 Top floor of Gowanus Batcave revealing the current state of the ruin

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Figure 4.66 South elevation of the Gowanus Batcave

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Different cuts were tested in the site that revealed different histories that the occupants would be connected to. The original boiler house of the power station burned down, but cutting into its historic foundation and bringing water in could create a space of collective memory, bringing back this history and layering it with new contemporary uses.

Figure 4.67 Cutting into the site once occupied by the boiler house to uncover layers of history on the site

Figure 4.68 Interaction with the water and the uncovered piles creates new experiences on the site that respond to shifting water levels

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Figure 4.69 Process sketches of different ways to bring water into the site

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Figure 4.70 Sectional axonometric sketch of vertical water connections through the storage building

Figure 4.71 Section of Water Fracturing Existing Structures to Link Spaces Horizontally and Vertically with Water

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Figure 4.72 Sectional axonometric sketch of vertical water connections through the Gowanus Batcave

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The connection between the Batcave and the storage facility was made through subtractive techniques. Spaces were connected as the solid walls of the site were eroded through the movement of water. Horizontal connections were created through different potential ways canal and collected rainwater interacted on the site, while vertical connections were made through the cutting of the floorplates to allow rainwater to cascade into the pools below. These techniques would establish social spaces in connection to the movement of water and create safe spaces to witness the spectacle of the sublime forces shaping the site.

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Figure 4.73 Perspective moments across the site capturing different interactions with water at various planes

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The process of developing the sequence of spaces between the batcave and the storage facility was based on linear connections due to the drawing method of sections and sectional axonometrics. A process of site planning was utilized to understand the larger site strategy and explore other potential site uses beyond these spaces.

While most of the earlier tests were attempting to align with the grid, a strategy was implemented that broke from the grid and connected the ruins of the Batcave to other historically significant buildings at the corner of Third Street and Third Avenue. This diagonal path was then connected with a new building that would act as a public space that frames the ruin and the storage facility.

Figure 4.74 Existing Site Conditions

Figure 4.75 Site Forces to Guide an Organization to Site Design

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Figure 4.76 Intervention Sectional Axonometric

Figure 4.77 Early Site Plan Iteration

Figure 4.78 Early Site Plan Diagram

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While the process of designing the intervention in the Batcave and storage facility were based on erosion and subtractive methods, this test was an additive method and did not complement the other site strategies being developed. This was removed in order to develop a site strategy that better aligned with the grid and connected urban and ecological systems on these axes.

Figure 4.79 Approach to the site, breaking from the grid and framing the ruin with a proposed building

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Figure 4.80 Cantilever frames the ruin and creates a public space that connects user, ruin, and water

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Figure 5.1

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Urban Strategy The neighborhood is reconnected at an urban scale through a design process derived from fractal logic to layer the social and ecological systems of the site to reconnect across the void of the canal. Through the analysis of historical water systems and sites at the most risk of potential

future threats, a green network is extended from the canal through the grid to provide increased absorptive surface area for water and creating a sequence of green spaces that pull people to the canal through different scaled interactions with water.

Figure 5.2 Urban Masterplan establishing different scaled relationships to water

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Figure 5.3 Organization of the masterplan guided by the layering of historical and projected forces

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Park Slope Strategy To create a cohesive green network through the grid, small scaled collectors along the street edges are designed to collect and hold large amounts of rain from impending superstorms. The collectors reduce the strain on the sewer system and help water absorb into the ground rather than flowing downhill and flooding the areas around the canal.

The collection of water in a new and unexpected place challenges the occupant’s expectations, inviting them to explore and understand the system’s innerworkings.

Figure 5.4 Scability of the grid to the paver to create connection across the surban fabric

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Figure 5.5 Park Slope Street Intervention

The fractal logic is applied to the scaling of water in the design to create different scaled interactions. The urban grid is scaled down in size and applied over the entire grid to create a scalable unit that ensures every part of the flow of water and movement of people is continuously aligned to the grid. With this fractal logic, the occupant is always aware of the larger ecological and urban systems in which they are a part of.

The grid is applied to the scale of the pedestrian through the paver in which the water flows through the seams to create small moments of contact with slow moving water. This movement contrasts the larger moments of connection near the canal where water is moving faster and has a more powerful impact.

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Figure 5.6

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The fractal logic of the grid is applied to the site surrounding the ruins of the Central Power Station of the Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company through a series of terraces that fracture the ground plane of the site and create various levels of inhabitation. These levels respond to projected sea level rise and future flooding planes to allow different parts of the site to be occupied even during times of flooding.

At the daily scale, water follows the grid and creates perpendicular cuts from the canal into the site. While water traditionally floods parallel to the canal, this perpendicular movement becomes aligned to the grid and invites the water to safely penetrate deeper into the site in spaces where water is not typically expected to occupy. Throughout the day, the movement across the site is dynamic in response to this tidal change in occupancy and invites exploration of the site through these shifts.

As the water rises and reaches the subsequent level, there is a method of breaking the movement by pulling the water perpendicularly from its original course. This method maximizes the horizontal movement of the water within a small vertical rise to increase the area of absorption and protect the site from flooding rapidly. As the water moves vertically more space is allocated for water retention and the occupiable space decreases into small moments surrounded by water. The water and the user circulate around each other by elongating their horizontal movement and wrapping themselves upon each other.

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Figure 5.7 Animation of various states of water within the site through time

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Figure 5.8 Site section from Third Avenue to the Gowanus Canal

Figure 5.9 Sectional axonometric with potential program

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The two buildings on the site have been walled off and disconnected from the surrounding context, creating a wasted space in the dense urban environment. Through a vertical and horizontal fracturing of these barriers, spaces from the canal to the existing grid are reconnected through moments of connection with water.

Through a process of erosion, the concrete walls of the storage facility are cut through and create a sequence of waterfalls that gather the water into collection pools on the ground floor. The storage facility, which offers little programmatic benefits to the community, is reprogrammed with studio, fabrication, assembly, and gallery space for the local artist community. All of these programmatic spaces are stacked vertically and have a connection to these cuts created by the water. When it rains, all of these spaces are connected with the spectacle of the water.

The Gowanus Batcave, which has a history of being occupied by squatters and graffiti artists claiming the space, has been boarded up and disconnected from the neighborhood. This history of public reclamation of the ruin informs the programming of the space as a monument of public art. The ruin remains exterior and the vertical cuts made by the water connect these different levels of public space for a communal ownership of local culture. The ruin becomes a site where rainwater is collected as well as water from the canal enters and reconnects the disconnected water systems of the site.

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Figure 5.10 Plan-section of the former storage facility and landscape connecting to the Batcave

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Figure 5.12 Axonometric of the water cutting through the storage facility and landscape connecting to the Batcave

Figure 5.11 Warped perspective connecting the urban grid to the Batcave through the former storage facility

Social spaces are designed around moments that come into contact with the water. Either through collection systems that gather rainwater, or channels that bring canal water into the site, the social spaces are in constant fluctuation in response to the dynamism of the water. As the water flowing into the site increases in height, it follows the fractal logic of moving from simple to complex by increasing the surface area to break up the speed of the water. While it initially is channelized and moves quickly, as it rises to the height of the occupant it is broken apart and slowly flows in the seams between the pavers. This allows the occupant to gauge their safety in relation to the water and have time to leave a particular space in time through this peaceful interaction with the water. Through these moments of connection to the water, the user is engaged with larger urban and ecological systems as the two are intertwined within the public space of the site. Connected to both the grid and the canal, moments far away in space are pulled close together creating a dynamic perception of space that is in constant flux.

The movement of water in both the vertical and horizontal dimensions invites exploration and creates connections to spaces that may not be visible, but are made aware through the movement of water.

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Figure 5.12 Plan-section of the various terraces between the Batcave and the Gowanus Canal

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Figure 5.12 Axonometric of the water cutting through the Batcave and landscape connecting to the canal

Figure 5.13 Warped perspective connecting the urban grid to the canal with different layers of potential activity as water levels change

Sports courts are embedded into these bermed terraces to primarily serve as social spaces within flood mitigation defenses, but in the event of these impending superstorms and future projected sea level rise, these spaces are allowed to flood and hold water as pools. By retaining water in these pools, occupants can swim in these moments and have a safe connection to the water despite being separated by a wall from the threats posed by the canal water. The pools that hold the water provide space for the water to be absorbed and filter into the groundwater supply.

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Final Panel of Critics April 19, 2022

Dan Anderson

Principal, Anderson Porter Design M.Arch II, Harvard Graduate School of Design M.DesS, Architecture History and Theory, Harvard Graduate School of Design B.Arch, Rhode Island School of Design

Robert Cowherd, PhD

Professor, Wentworth Institute of Technology PhD, History, Theory, and Criticism, and Certificate in Urban Design, MIT B.Arch, The Cooper Union

Steven Defuria

Associate Architect, Phoenix Architects M.Arch, Wentworth Institute of Technology B.S. Architecture, Wentworth Institute of Technology

Jennifer Lee Michaliszyn

Professor, Wentworth Institute of Technology M.Arch, Harvard Graduate School of Design A.B. Architecture, Princeton University

Schendy Kernizan

CEO, Rapid Liquid Print Director, Self-Assembly Lab, MIT Adjunct Faculty, Wentworth Institute of Technology B.Arch, Philadelphia University

David Rabkin

Architectural Designer, Kallmann McKinnell & Wood Adjunct Professor, Wentworth Institute of Technology M.Arch, Wentworth Institute of Technology B.S. Architecture, Wentworth Institute of Technology

NJ Unaka

Senior Project Manager, Pencil Box Architects Adjunct Faculty, Wentworth Institute of Technology PhD, Architecture, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee M.Arch, Boston Architectural College B.S. Civil Engineering, University of Massachusetts Lowell

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Thoughts on Methods, Criticism, and Next Steps Overall, while this thesis process has been very exciting and I moved through a long process testing various architectural explorations to contemporary issues of urban voids and disconnective spaces, I wish there was more time to develop my latest testing phases. Throughout the fall semester and part of the spring semester, I did not feel as if I had a clear path and while I tried a lot of different things, I didn’t feel joy in the work I was doing until there was only a few months left. Personally, it was important to maintain an open mind and try as many things as possible even if it did not follow exactly the earlier research, to gain a large background of testing in which to base my outcomes off of. I think this worked well because while the final outcomes may not have been developed to its full extent, by not committing to an earlier idea and continually testing, I found a process that I became very excited about that didn’t exist in the early months of the thesis.

Representational Methods The development of the method of drawing that layered water at different moments in time was an effective tool in developing the architectural and landscape intervention by using the movement of water to guide design decisions. The lineweight and opacity of these water lines were drawing techniques to display the relevancy in which water would be in each area, which corresponded to data collected of the evolution of sea-level and flood level changes through time.

Applying these lines to sections was more successful because the sectional change in water is clearer compared to in plan where the overlapping of lines made the drawing difficult to read when all layers were compressed in one drawing. The use of animations in digital presentations were effective throughout the process to demonstrate these changes to the site throughout time and demonstrate the amount of potential uses that could be created by simple variations in the water level on the site. Animations allowed the change in water levels to be more clear compared to drawings as these layers which spanned large amounts of time were compressed into one image. Additional annotations could have been applied to more clearly differentiate the fluvial nature in which the project was meant to convey, and assist critics in understanding the different levels of occupancy of the site.

This method could have been expanded further by differentiating between what water came flooded from the canal rather than what was being collected from rainwater runoff. The critics commented that it was hard to distinguish where the water was originating. While the project is meant to convey there is not a clear line dividing the two systems that have been historically separated, a graphic representation of this movement would have been helpful in demonstrating the fluvial movements of canal and rain water.

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Sketching throughout the process and hand-drawing my final work leaves me feeling as if the work is representationally incomplete.

Since all plans, sections, axons, and perspectives were hand drawn, I felt a lot of time was wasted re-drawing the same ideas in different drawing views rather than having a digital model that could help to produce these views quicker. I spent a lot of time over spring break building an initial conditions rhino model yet I never implemented my design within it, making all that time wasted as I could have been working on more testing options. While I stuck with the same form of representation I had been working with through the testing process, would ideas have been conveyed clearer or translated effectively with the use of digital modeling? Hand drawing allowed me to be inventive and have more agency over the representation that may not be possible within the limitations of the software but it can also be a more timely process.

The hand drawn representational methods depicting the water’s erosion of the site’s barriers allowing occupation of the ruin were only being developed within the last month of the thesis process and if these methods were found earlier, the project would have developed further.

Criticism One critique that was brought up was that there were not solidified plans of the project and while I had resolved plan-section moments and a sketched site plan, it was difficult to understand how these different scaled plans worked together. I think in general I worked in two scales, a close-up detailed scale trying to investigate the moments of close contact between user and water, and a larger master planning/mapping scale that attempted to understand the workings of a larger system.

I would agree with that criticism that there is a missing connection between the two and with more time, that would have been resolved.

Understanding the connection between the site around the Gowanus Batcave and the larger fractal master plan is important and something that still feels unresolved. The approach to the site from the surrounding communities is important to ensure it truly does become a space of social confluence and therefore understanding the journey the occupant moves through is important. I generalized this movement through a section perspective of a typical Park Slope street and larger watershed section axonometric drawings saying there was a connection between urban and ecological systems by these various scaled interactions with water, but a big watershed section along the major artery of Third Street that runs into the site could have explored this idea depper. This could have been enhanced with a larger water gesture that connected to Prospect Park or the revealing of the flushing tunnel as was suggested in the review, and that scale of sectional drawing could have launched another path of testing investigating deeper connections between the site and its context.

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The critics advised me to further analyze the work of Scarpa and learn from his design thinking in understanding how erosion and temporality of water could define the design. Thinking about materiality is important and while I considered a lot of the architectural intervention to be concrete, the design would age or erode very differently if it was clad in a material like copper that oxidizes. I thought this was a very interesting way of thinking about the temporality of the design and could potentially launch another iteration of material testing given more time. I felt through the process I was focusing on larger spatial ideas and didn’t spend too much time on details as it might distract from the larger ideas, but examining materiality would definitely add more complexity to the design and could promote user exploration through time as the materiality itself is changing in response to site forces.

Next Steps While the work here feels unfinished and there are a lot of ideas as to how it could be further developed, these problems that this thesis investigated are important issues that face the discipline and the future of these communities. This thesis feels like a foundation in which I would like to continue to grow from and enter professional practice with a focus on these types of projects. While these issues can be intimidating and anxiety driving for those affected by these environmental issues, I hope architecture can have a positive impact and create optimistic paths into the future. This project reframes the destructive force of water in a positive way which translates to the power architecture has to help solve the issues of the 21st century.

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Bibliography Augé, Marc. Non-Places: An Introduction to Supermodernity. London: Verso, 1995.

Berger, Allen. Drosscape: Wasting Land in Urban America. New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2006.

Broadbent, Geoffrey. Emerging Concepts in Urban Space Design.

London; New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1989.

Cuthbert, Alexander R. “Urban Design: Requiem for an Era – Review and Critique of the Last 50 Years,” Urban Design International 12, no. 4. 2007.

Farrar, Margaret E. “Amnesia, Nostalgia, and the Politics of Place Memory.” Political Research Quarterly 64, no. 4 (2011): 723–35.

Freidrich, Micheal. “How ‘Landscape Urbanism’ is Making Gentrification Look Fun.” The Washington Post. November 19, 2019.

Geuze, Adriaan. “Second Nature,” Topos 71, (2010): 40-42.

“Global Greenhouse Gas Emissions Data.” United States Environmental Protection Agency. February 25, 2022. https://www.epa.gov/ ghgemissions/global-greenhouse-gas-emissions-data.

Jacobs, Jane. The Death and Life of Great American Cities. New York: Vintage Books, 1992.

Jencks, Charles. The New Moderns from Late to Neo-Modernism. New York, Rizzoli, 1990.

Kloeckl, Kristian. The Urban Improvise: Improvisational-Based Design for Hybrid Cities. Yale University Press: New Haven, 2020.

Koolhaas, Rem. “Junkspace.” October 100 (2002): 175–90.

McLeman, Robert. “Migration and Displacement Risks Due to Mean Sea Level Rise.” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 74, no. 3 (2018): 148-154.

Lyndon, Mike, and Anthony Garcia. Tactical Urbanism: Short-term Action for Long-term Change. Washington DC: Island Press, 2015.

Lynch, Kevin. The Image of the City. The MIT Press: Cambridge, 1960.

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Peterson, Steven, and Barbara Littenberg. Space & Anti-Space: The Fabric of Place, City, and Architecture. San Francisco: ORO Editions, 2020.

Rowe, Collin, and Fred Koetter. Collage City. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1978.

Salenger, Matthew, “The Personal Decisions That Govern Sprawl.” In Retrofitting Sprawl: Addressing Seventy Years of Failed Urban Form, ed. Emily Talen, 81-99. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2015 Sbacci, Michelle. “Landscape Urbanism and Architecture of the Voids” Procedia Environmental Sciences 37 (2017) 667-675. https:// doi.org/10.1016/j.proenv.2017.03.053 Trancik, Robert. Finding Lost Space: Theories of Urban Design. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1986.

Venturi, Robert, Denise Scott Brown, and Steven Izenour. Learning From Las Vegas. Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1977.

Voegler, Ingolf. “Auto and Postmodern Landscapes.” In Critical Cultural Landscapes of North America (University of Wisconsin Eau Claire, 2010).

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Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2016.

Wilson, Ben. Metropolis: A History of the City, Humankind’s Greatest Invention. New York: Doubleday, 2020.

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Image Sources All figures are (Will Allen CC BY) unless otherwise noted

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1.1

Boston City Hall Plaza acts as an urban void lacking usage as the space lacks scale, program, and relationality to the user and city. View of 1968 Boston City Hall (Will Allen CC BY) Adapted from “The People’s Plaza: Boston City Hall Renovation,” Sasaki, accessed 12 December, 2021, https://www.sasaki.com/ voices/the-peoples-plaza-boston-city-hall-renovation/

1.2

I-93 dividing Boston. The degredation of space is visible on either side as these become wasted spaces of the city. View of I-93 Boston (Will Allen CC BY) Adapted from “Developer set to buy Widett Circle for potential mega-project,” The Boston Globe, accessed 12 December, 2021, https://www.bostonglobe. com/2020/06/17/business/developer-set-buy-widett-circle-potential-megaproject/

1.3

Scales of connection one has to their surrounding environment (Ignacio Cardona CC BY) “Restorative Justice,” Wentworth Institute of Technology, 25 January 2022.

1.4

Increasing amounts of carbon emissions are being released into the Earth’s atmosphere. Chart of Global Carbon Emissions (Will Allen CC BY) Adapted from “Annual CO2 emissions worldwide from 1940 to 2020” Statista, accessed 25 April 2022, https://www.statista.com/statistics/276629/global-co2-emissions/

1.5

Large sections of coastal neighborhoods in New York City are at risk of flooding.

Map of New York City (Will Allen CC BY) Adapted from “Flood Risk in New York City,” NYC Planning, accessed 26 April 2022, https://www1.nyc.gov/assets/ planning/download/pdf/plans-studies/climate-resiliency/flood-risk-nyc-infobrief.pdf

1.6

Mapping major global cities at risk of being flooded if all polar ice caps melted.

Map of the World (© 2017 Richard J. Weller, Claire Hoch & Chieh Huang) “Sea Level Rise,” Atlas for the End of the World, accessed 25 April 2022, https://atlasfor-the-end-of-the-world.com/world_maps/world_maps_sea_level_rise.html

2.1

Kepler’s model of the solar system depicting the spatial order of the universe as bound and finite in a fixed space. Diagram of 1596 model of the solar system

by Johannes Kepler. http://petersonlittenberg.com/Architecture-UrbanDesign/ Space_Anti-Space_TOC_files/Space%20and%20Anti-Space.pdf

2.2

Modern interpretations of the atom characterized by empty space and movement of particles. Diagram of 1911 structure of the atom by Ernest Rutherford. http://petersonlittenberg.com/Architecture-UrbanDesign/Space_ Anti-Space_TOC_files/Space%20and%20Anti-Space.pdf

2.3

Classifying the universal spatial orders. Chart of 1980 classification of characteristics of space and antispace by Steven Peterson and Barbara Littenberg. http://petersonlittenberg.com/Architecture-UrbanDesign/Space_ Anti-Space_TOC_files/Space%20and%20Anti-Space.pdf

2.4

Figure ground of Le Corbusier’s unrealized Plan Voisin representing the stark contrst between modernism’s ideals of open and unbound space in the urban realm compared to the historical urban fabric of Paris.

2.5

The traditional city of formed paths and bounded public spaces by urban form.

Diagram of 1986 urban forms by Roger Trancik. Robert Trancik. Finding Lost Space: Theories of Urban Design (New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1986), 19.

2.6

The modern city of flowing movement and unbounded public space. Diagram of 1986 urban forms by Roger Trancik. Robert Trancik. Finding Lost Space: Theories of Urban Design (New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1986), 19.

2.7

Positive correlation between the relationship of speed and the scale of signage and space in an increasinly expanisive and anti-spatial city. Diagram of 1977 Space, Scale, Speed, Symbol by Glen Hodges. Robert Venturi, Denise Scott Brown, and Steven Izenour, Learning from Las Vegas (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1977), 11.

2.8

A city of signage and movement with little focus on spatial composition and placemaking. View of 1977 Las Vegas Strip. (Will Allen CC BY) Adapted from https://vintagelasvegas.com/post/110675188059/las-vegas-strip-1968-fromsahara-ave-to-st-louis

2.9

Every word visible from the strip. Diagram of 1977 Words of the Strip by Ron Filson and Martha Wagner. https://laotracatedra.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/ robert-venturi-aprendiendo-de-las-vegas.pdf

2.10 Understanding the city through cognitive mapping that diagrams percieved space. 1960 Cognitive Map by Kevin Lynch. Kevin Lynch, The Image of the City (The MIT Press: Cambridge, 1960), 19.

2.11

The Charles River as an example of a landscape that provides an escape from the urban through spaces of social connection and recreation. Drawing of Charles River Esplanade, Boston. https://www.digitalcommonwealth.org/search/ commonwealth:0p096w74t

2.12

The High Line serves as an example of adapting wasted infrastructure to create new perceptions of the city. View of 2012 Highline by Diller Scofidio + Renfro, New York City (Will Allen CC BY) Adapted from “The High Line,” Wikipedia, https:// en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Line#/media/File:AHigh_Line_Park,_Section_1a.jpg

2.13

Reclaiming part of the street to challenge the conventions of places of movement versus places of rest through human scale interventions. View of Parklet, San Francisco. https://i2.wp.com/dirt.asla.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/parklet. jpg?ssl=1 Viaduct des Arts prior to Intervention. View of 1859 Viaduc Daumesnil, Paris by Émile Vuigner and Albert Bassompierre-Sewrin (Will Allen CC BY) Adapted from “The rehabilitation of the Viaduct des Arts” ZigZag, accessed November 23, 2021, https://www.pariszigzag.fr/balades-excursions/balade-paris/ rehabilitation-viaduc-des-arts

3.2

Conditions prior to the proposal. View existing conditions of 2017 Underground at Ink Block, Boston by Landing Studio (Will Allen CC BY) Adapted from “InfraSpace1: Underground At Ink Block” Landing Studio, accessed 4 Decmber 2021, http://www.landing-studio.com/projects#/infra-space-1/

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Image Sources All figures are (Will Allen CC BY) unless otherwise noted 3.3

Transformations to the ground plane creates a site that remediates run-off pollution from the ramps above. View of pedestrian bridge in 2017 Underground at Ink Block, Boston by Landing Studio (Will Allen CC BY) Adapted from “InfraSpace1: Underground At Ink Block” Landing Studio, accessed 4 Decmber 2021, http://www.landing-studio.com/projects#/infra-space-1/

3.4

Painting walls and sidewalks creates a more inviting space for pedestrians despite the close proximity to the highway. View of murals on pedestrian path in 2017 Underground at Ink Block, Boston by Landing Studio (Will Allen CC BY) Adapted from “Infra-Space1: Underground At Ink Block” Landing Studio, accessed 4 Decmber 2021, http://www.landing-studio.com/projects#/infraspace-1/

3.6

View of Current conditions. View of the Charlesgate, Boston by Landing Studio (Will Allen CC BY) Adapted from “Charlesgate” Landing Studio, accessed 5 December 2021, http://www.landing-studio.com/projects#/charlesgate/

3.7

Removing barriers on the site to create permeable surfaces and new programmatic opportunities. Rendering of Charlesgate, Boston by Landing Studio (Will Allen CC BY) Adapted from “Charlesgate” Landing Studio, accessed 5 December 2021, http://www.landing-studio.com/projects#/charlesgate/

3.8

Adapting empty space into occupiable greenspace that connects the site to its geological systems Rendering of Charlesgate, Boston by Landing Studio (Will Allen CC BY) Adapted from “Charlesgate” Landing Studio, accessed 5 December 2021, http://www.landing-studio.com/projects#/charlesgate/

3.10 Condition of the Viaduc des Arts prior to the intervention. View of 1994 Viaduc des Arts, Paris by Patrick Berger (Will Allen CC BY) Adapted from “La Réhabilitation du Viaduc des Arts” Zig Zag Paris, accessed 4 December 2021, https://www.pariszigzag.fr/balades-excursions/balade-paris/rehabilitationviaduc-des-arts

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3.11

Relationship between the vaults underneath the Viaduc des Arts to the street to create a connected and hospitable streetscape. View of 1994 Viaduc des Arts, Paris by Patrick Berger (Will Allen CC BY) Adapted from “Viaduc des Arts,” Interior Furniture Design Magazine, accessed November 22, 2021, https://ifdm. design/2020/09/03/paris-design-week-physical-and-digital/

3.12

Pedestrian walkways in an elevated garden create new perceptions of experiencing the city. View of 1994 Viaduc des Arts, Paris by Patrick Berger (Will Allen CC BY) Adapted from “Viaduc des Arts” Structurae, accessed 4 December 2021, https://structurae.net/en/media/39942-viaduc-des-arts

3.14

Historic image of the High Line as a train line cutting across the grid to connect the factories and warehouses on the west side of Manhattan to the rest of the state. View of 2019 High Line, New York City by Diller Scofidio + Renfro (Will Allen CC BY) Adapted from “History” High Line, accessed 6 December 20 2021, https://www.thehighline.org/history/

3.15

Underside of the Highline as an unresponsive and anti-space within the urban fabric. View of 2009 High Line by Diller Scofidio + Renfro (Will Allen CC BY) Adapted from “What Remains of the Other End of the High Line” Ephemeral New York, accessed November 21, 2021, https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress. com/2017/04/24/what-remains-of-the-other-end-of-the-high-line/

3.16

The High Line serves as an example of adapting wasted infrastructure to create new perceptions of the city. View of 2012 Highline by Diller Scofidio + Renfro, New York City (Will Allen CC BY) Adapted from “The High Line,” Wikipedia, https:// en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Line#/media/File:AHigh_Line_Park,_Section_1a.jpg

3.18

Viaduct prior to intervention. View of 2011 IM Viadukt, Zurich by EM2N (Will Allen CC BY) Adapted from “Im Viadukt with its former and the new state,” Research Gate, accessed 6 December 2021, https://www.researchgate.net/figure/ImViadukt-with-its-former-and-the-new-state-Url-2_fig2_334397923

3.19

New pedestrian connections are created layered at various levels under the existing train lines to create new connections to the site. View of 2011 IM Viadukt, Zurich by EM2N (Will Allen CC BY) Adapted from “Historic Viaduct Arches Transformed into Trendy Shopping District in Zurich,” InHabitat, accessed 6 December 2021, https://www.im-viadukt.ch/en/information/history/

3.20 Activation of the street with cafes and shops occupying the vaults. View of 2011 IM Viadukt, Zurich by EM2N (Will Allen CC BY) Adapted from “Notre top 15 des meilleures visites à Zurich + itinéraire 1,2,3 jours,” Voyageurs Intrépides, accessed 6 December, 2021, https://voyageursintrepides.com/faire-visiter-zurich-voir 3.22 Condition of the Central Artery prior to the Big Dig, View of 1959 Central Artery, Boston (Will Allen CC BY) Adapted from “The Big Dig,” Congress for the New Urbanism, accessed 6 December 2021, https://www.cnu.org/what-we-do/buildgreat-places/big-dig 3.23 Network of parks constructed over the buried highway. View of 2008 Rose Kennedy Greenway, Boston (Will Allen CC BY) Adapted from “Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Greenway,” Wikipedia, accessed 6 December 2021, https://en.wikipedia. org/wiki/Rose_Fitzgerald_Kennedy_Greenway 3.26 Embarcadero prior to destruction. View of Embarcadero, San Francisco (Will Allen CC BY) Adapted from “Loma Prieta Earthquake before and after: San Francisco waterfront,” Bizjournals, accessed 6 December 2021, https://www. bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/blog/2014/10/loma-prieta-quake-san-franciscowaterfront-photo.html 3.27 Public plazas reconnect downtown San Francisco to the Ferry Building. View of 1991 Embarcadero, San Francisco (Will Allen CC BY) Adapted from “Your Guide to a Perfect Summer Day on San Francisco’s Embarcadero,” Exploratorium, accessed 6 December 2021, https://www.exploratorium.edu/visit/sf-travel-guideto-embarcadero-summer-edition 3.28 Trolley on the Embarcadero promoting public transit in a previously car dominated route. View of 1991 Embarcadero, San Francisco (Will Allen CC BY) Adapted from “E Embarcadero,” Wikipedia, accessed 6 December 2021, https:// en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E_Embarcadero 4.12

A moment in which these historic waterways are revealed as water continues to flow in the same paths it has histroically flowed in. View of hidden stream, Park Slope, Brooklyn (Will Allen CC BY) Adapted from “The Hidden Rivers of Brooklyn,” Harper’s Magazine, accessed 7 April, 2022, https://harpers.org/ archive/2016/03/the-hidden-rivers-of-brooklyn/

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Image Sources All figures are (Will Allen CC BY) unless otherwise noted 4.22 Ruins of the Sutro Baths in which the ruins hold overflow tidal water seperaterated by a small wall from the crashing waves of the Pacific Ocean. View of 1894 Sutro Baths Ruins, San Francisco (Will Allen CC BY) Adapted from “Sutro Baths, Golden Gate National Recreation Area,” National Park Service, accessed 22 April, 2022, https://www.nps.gov/places/000/sutro-baths.htm 4.23 Occupying the threshold between the ruin of the Sutro Baths and the sublime forces of the Pacific Ocean (Will Allen CC BY) Adapted from Chowdhury, Emily 10 March 2020.

4.24 Occupying the threshold between the ruin of the Sutro Baths and the sublime forces of the Pacific Ocean (Will Allen CC BY) Adapted from Chowdhury, Emily 10 March 2020.

4.25 Construction drawing of Gowanus Batcave. Section of 1904 Central Power Station of the Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company, Brooklyn, New York (Thomas Edward Murray CC BY) Adapted from “Gowanus Batcave,” Wikipedia, accessed 25 March, 2022, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gowanus_Batcave#/media/ File:Central_Power_Station_diagram_(Murray,_fig._47).png 4.26 Collaged Axonometric of Elevation and Section Construction Drawings overlayed on Present Condtitions of the “Ruin”. Collage of section and elevation drawings of 1904 Central Power Station of the Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company, Brooklyn, New York (Thomas Edward Murray CC BY) “Gowanus Batcave,” Wikipedia, accessed 25 March, 2022, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gowanus_ Batcave#/media/File:Central_Power_Station_diagram_(Murray,_fig._47).png 4.28 Top floor of the Gowanus Batcave showcasing the graffiti that defines the landmark. Interior view of 1904 Central Power Station of the Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company, Brooklyn, New York (Will Allen CC BY) Adapted from “The Batcave, a Graffiti Landmark in Brooklyn, Grows Up,” The New York Times, accessed 7 April, 2022, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/07/arts/design/thebatcave-a-graffiti-landmark-in-brooklyn-grows-up.html 4.29 Exterior elevation of the Gowanus Batcave, South Elevation of 1904 Central Power Station of the Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company, Brooklyn, New York (Will Allen CC BY) Adapted from “Powerhouse Arts,” Silman, accessed 7 April, 2022, https://www.silman.com/work/projects/view/powerhouse-arts/

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