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Futurist megastructure as a city in movie “Total Recall� (2012).Retrieved from https://apokalyptisk. wordpress.com/2013/02/05/total-remake/total-recall-2012-city/
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We are living in an age distinguished by the loss of faith toward future: the belief in progress and amelioration fails to ring true in the light of repetitive economic crisis, environmental calamity, increasing lawlessness, terrorism and global pandemics. Taking into account that architectural design, in its conventional sense, is always about the future,
how architecture as a discipline can response to such global crisis of the future?
In many regards, megastructure, by its inherent expandable and changeable nature, is regarded as a remedy that could bring an end to the devil of the city where “the huge, uncontrolled sprawling chaos that we now call City is choking out civilization‌â€? (Banham, 1976).
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Tracing back to the 60s – 70s, the global upheaval caused by the Second World War potrayed the future with increasingly ingenious gadgets, technologies and a better social form. Architecture at that time was, by its very nature, utopian. The concept of “Megastructure” arose vividly because it inspired people freedom and new ways of living the city. Among those utopian architects, Archigram group was the most notable because of their vision of a contemporary society of mass-consumption and glamorous future machine age. Their “Walking City”, “Plug-in City”, “Living Pod” and “Instant City” are among the most popular typologies of megastructure in 60s. Through those projects, they questioned the discipline of architecture as well as its relationship with society. As their approach mainly focused on modular technology and mobility, they considered the people and city as a collective, and thereby establishing a satisfactory uniform lifestyle with the same form for everyone.
Archigram’s projects. From top to bottom: Walking City (1964), Instant City (1964) and Plug-in City (1964). Retrieved from http://archdaily.com/786504/future-visionary-designs-by-future-systems-and-archigram
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Panel created by Archigram, (1970). In its vision, technology has the power to emancipate society and give us more time to enjoy ourselves. Retrieved from http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/a/archigram-walking-city-living-pod-instant-city/
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While Archigram’s main subjects were based on the notion of material impermanence, Metabolist, on the other hand, drew its ideas from organic shape, where the megastructure was capable to constantly change and evolve on its own. In 1964, Fumihiko Maki, in his “Investigations in Collective Form”, defined the concept of megastructure in the relation with urban: “a large frame in which all the functions of a city or part of a city are housed”. However, though maintaining consistently the idea of social interchanges, he also accepts the different social conditions and encourages spontaneity in terms of “grouping forms”. Kenzo Tange, Kikutate, Kisho Kurokawa and Arata Isozaki were the ones who followed this idea: some of their concepts relate social conditions with megastructures and “grouping forms”, whereas allowing efficiency and flexibility with the less structural organization.
Illustration includes: City in the air, Arata Isozaki, 1961, Kiyonori Kikutake, Tower-shaped Community, 1959 and Nakagin Capsule Tower, Kisho Kurokawa, 1972 . Retrieved from http://waiarchitecture. blogspot.com/2010_06_01_archive.html
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City Farm. Kurokawa, 1960. Retrieved from http://architecturalmoleskine.blogspot.com/2011/10/metabolist-movement.html Tokyo master plan proposal, Kenzo Tange, 1960. Retrieved from http://architecturalmoleskine. blogspot.com/2011/10/metabolist-movement.html
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The failure of the “dinosaurs of the Modern Movement”, as Banham named the early-age megastructures, was due to the alienating design theories and the neglect of other issues that matter. Some sci-fi writers have sounded an alarm bell for the dark side of a future where the glamorous utopian delusion would be dragged down into dystopia. In the prescience of Phillip K. Dick’s writings, a true society is, no matter how civilized, always imperfect and contains flaws. Len Wiseman’s “Total Recall” (2012) is a fantastic representation of Phillip’s dystopian vision. What we can see there is a society in 2084 where the global crisis is pushed to its extremes: horrifically overcrowded with food shortages, unhealthy community and lack of freedom… so lawlessness is the norm. When there is no land to build, we have no choice but to stack properties vertically. That random arrangement of the cellular residential units reminds us the concept of Moshe Safdie’s Habitat ‘67 in a poignant way. A chaotic Australia (the colony) as seen in Len Wiseman’s “Total Recall” (2012). Retrieved from Total Recall (2012)
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The colony portrays an oriental soul, which flows around a “deconstructivist� architecture, very similar to the concept of Habitat 67 in Montreal. Retrieved from Total Recall (2012)
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While the movie is set in a distant future, such place is no longer site of anticipation. IT IS HAPPENING, RIGHT HERE, RIGHT NOW. Indeed, the city in “Total Recall” echoes, in many ways, the pure self-organization and adaptive organism of Kowloon Walled City in Hong Kong.
This slum was a microcosm of a society where too many people are living in too little space. Such a spontaneous architecture-without-architects ironically has become the typical case for many architectural studies as “the first flexible megastructure”, “the closest thing to a truly self-regulating, self-sufficient, self-determining modern city that has ever been built” (Lambot, 1993). In their impressively detailed section, Kani Hiroaki team has described the architectural anarchy of the City (Terasawa & Kani, 1997). Compared to Archigram’s hierarchical yet monotonous design, this depiction illustrates a much more chaotic yet self-organized community. Despite its reputation as an unlivable slum, the City was viable because it was actually formed solely by the needs of its own inhabitants and provided the freedom for them to create the own spaces.
Kowloon Walled City in Hong Kong (Girard & Lambot, 1993). With 1,255,000 inhabitants per square kilometer, Kowloon Walled City was the densest slum of the world.
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Detailed cross-section view illustrates a series of activities being hold inside the City. (Terasawa & Kani, 1997)
“What fascinates about the Walled City is that, for all its horrible shortcomings, its builders and residents succeeded in creating what modern architects, with all their resources of money and expertise, have failed to: the city as ‘ORGANIC MEGASTRUCTURE’, not set rigidly for a lifetime but continually responsive to the changing requirements of its user, fulfilling every need from water supply to religion, yet providing also the warmth and intimacy of a single huge household.” - Leung Ping Kwan, as cited in “The City of Darkness” (Girard & Lambot, 1993)
Info-graphic of Kowloon Walled City. Retrieved from http://www. scmp.com/news/hong-kong/article/1191748/kowloon-walled-city-lifecity-darkness
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General view of the “Morro da Providencia� favela, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, August 20, 2008. (Vanderlei Almeida/Afp/Getty Images)
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“Like it or not, the megacity is coming. Will it be urban dystopia, or ordered, smart, green and secure? As a billion rural dwellers vote with their feet, will numbers overwhelm us?� - James Canton (2011). The scary and oppressive cities like Kowloon Walled City or Favela in Rio de Janeiro give us an uneasy feeling toward future because there is an undeniable future fact: the emergence of megacities. In 2008, more than half of global population was living in cities. And by 2040, most of us will be living in megacities (Canton, 2011). The bigness has become inevitable. Along with the big opportunities they bring, megacities are also sites of global risk. This raises a question: IF THIS IS BOUND TO HAPPEN, WHAT WOULD ARCHITECTS BECOME?
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Megastructure, as a microcosm of city, is born to be big: big in scale, big in budget and big in its social or political consequences. When a project becomes bigger, other issues such as engineering, infrastructural, social or even political factors overwhelm architecture. So overall, “the architect is no longer condemned to stardom” (Rem Koolhaas, 1995). Though architects could step back, it is a great chance to reconsider who is the one has authority and what is actually left for the architect.
IT IS THE INHABITANTS WHO HOLD THE POWER TO DESIGN THEIR OWN BUILDING. PERHAPS A SUCCESSFUL MEGASTRUCTURE SHOULD NOT BE DESIGNED BY ARCHITECTS AT ALL?
Referring to the failure of Plug-In City and the achievement of Walled City, both indeed are due to the liberty and capacity for decisions of the citizen as Banham mentioned: “the logical solution to the problem was to leave so much liberty for the self-housing and self-determining intentions of the inhabitants that they had liberty also to destroy the megastructure itself.” To megastructure, the role of freedom is so vital that it even allows the inhabitants themselves destroy their own buildings. As Koolhaas pointed out one of Bigness’s problems is the ambiguousness between the internal and external elements, the architects, in the sense of nature, should focus on the “seed” issues and leave the inside for others to be grown and evolved in its own manner. When centralizing the form and growth, future megastructures can be seen as a fusion between two cellular forms: Archigram’s mechanical and Metabolist’s biological. The organic geometry, such as cubes or hexagons, would become the expression of the modularity where individual identities can be achieved by visual variability.
London Farm Tower, Xome Arquitectos, 2011. Retrieved from http://inhabitat.com/london-tower-farm-xome-arquitectos-9/
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From my point of view, the freedom in modularity cannot be realized without the changeability. Unless the project has the adaptability, it is nothing more than a massive-scale building. The example of Moshe Safdie’s Expo ‘67 shows us a project that, although establish the individual’s identity, are incapable to completely adaptable to the future. Such concepts requiring the changeability and new open possibilities like Archi-
Habitat’ 67, Moshe Safdie, 1967 in Montreal. Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia. org/wiki/Habitat_67
Vertical Campus, OMA, 2004. Retrieved from http:// oma.eu/projects/idea-vertical-campus
gram’s Plug-In City or OMA’s Vertical Campus also need a system that could span a vast distance effectively and grow organically in multiple directions. Future megastructures would inherited from the elastic characteristic of natural structure and triangulated systems. Using algorithm, a structural shape that permits flexibility such as diagrid or voronoi system can be easily traced and realized in a near future.
Precedents for the structure of megastructure. From left to right: Porifera Skyscraper in Paris , Nicolas Jomain and Boriana Tchonkova, 2011. Retrieved from http://evolo.us/architecture/porifera-skyscraper-in-paris/ Toshiba Pavilion, Kisho Kurokawa, 1970. Retrieved from http://archdaily.com/616907/spotlight-kisho-kurokawa
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Mies van der Rohe’s “Infinite Grid” (Sadler, 2005). When architecture becomes modular and structure allows us completely freedom for any possible change, the relationship with the ground - an inherent universal constructional constant - would be blurred. The megastructural concepts have not just stopped at super-human size, there is a dream where infrastructural networks extended in the city will be in harmony with surroundings; a network opened to new events. Therefore, Sadler (2005) proposed “Infinite extension” capabilities like Mies van der Rohe’s “infinite grids”. The city would have the capabilities to readily expand and add on and interchange limitless architectural entities. As being illustrated apparently in Total Recall (2012), it gives us the imagination of endlessness. The city seems to float above the waterfront buildings and propagates throughout the environs of the Colony. These architectural entities stretches along the grids in all directions, creating a greater connectivity, community wise, living, working, entertainment. In that case, the megastructure would be no longer conceived as a building. It becomes an infinite infrastructure, supporting all events and relations in a proposition that includes all conditions in every moment.
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Oasis Urban (Sadler, 2005).
proposal,
Archigram,
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The city in the movie Total Recall (2012). Architectural entities as house infrastructure, transportation nodes are all interchangeable, connectable and moveable. Retrieved from Total Recall (2012)
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Why such radical change for cities should be proposed? Because the inherent city itself has bound the urban architects with the capitalist ownership of the nature and its resource. Coupled with the uncontrollable population growth, the coming future of pervasive climate change and resource depletion has urged us to rethink for a new agenda in more humane approach. Among those radical ones, a term “Arcology” was introduced as a kind of self-sustainable architecture and a house for large population. For instance, Paolo Soleri’s “Babelnoah Arcology” project (1964) condensed people in a vertical formalization, conceived as multi-level landscapes of a super scale. If Rem Koolhaas says “Bigness=Urbanism vs. Architecture”, we could say “Babelnoah Arcology =Urbanism vs. Architecture vs. Ecology”, a challenging dialogue between multiple constraints which could conflict if they are not integrated properly. In both cases, the commonplace in visions of megastructure can be seen: the striving for “nature within structure”, or like Koolhaas’s subtext: “fuck context”. This ideal makes the building independently to the surroundings, and therefore gives sense to the entire city.
Babelnoah Arcology Project, Paolo Soleri, 1964. Retrieved from http://www.tomorrowsthoughtstoday.com/?medium=?p=253
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As architecture is unbound from the nature, every kind of ecosystem, from desert, sky, ocean or even outer space would offer a great potential for habitation, hence expanding the density of population. Taking OMA’s RAK project as an instance, the building is the right answer to climatic change. It deals with the harsh climate in the desert by shielding itself from outside environment while providing a tropical microclimate in center with fresh air and generating power. The green also makes it thermally self-sustainable and thereby become an urban infrastructure.
Ras Al Khaimah Convention Centre, OMA, 2009. Retrieved from https:// www.dezeen.com/2007/05/11/rak-convention-and-exhibition-centre-by-oma/
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In any case, let us not despair; though the future may be uncertain, uncertainty does not mean dead-end. As true technological revolution is taking place below the surface, it is blithely modifying the consciousness of society. At the pinnacle of its progress, the perfect megastructures would be built like Stanford Torus in the movie “Elysium” (2014). When it joins society and technology in a complete and pure relation between people and machines, megastructure would then become the embodiment of utopian city. Could mankind reach that perfection? It is still a mystery, but the unreachable condition of megastructures offers us an infinite resource of architectural inspiration. Megastructures become not only a goal of architect, but also undoubtedly the most desirable relation between technology, architecture and society of all mankind as a whole.
REFERENCE Banham, R. (1976). Megastructure: Urban Futures of the Recent Past. New York: Harper and Row. Canton, J. (2011). The extreme future of megacities. Significance, 8(2), p. 53-56. http://dx.doi. org/10.1111/j.1740-9713.2011.00485.x Cook, P. (1999). Archigram. New York: Princeton Architectural Press. Girard, G. & Lambot, I. (1993). City of darkness. [Chiddingfold]: Watermark. Maki, F. (1964). Investigations in collective form. St. Louis: School of Architecture, Washington University. Rem Koolhaas, “Bigness, or the Problem of Large” in Rem Koolhaas and Bruce Mau, S, M, L, XL (New York: The Monacelli Press, 1995), p. 494-516 Sadler, S., (2005). “Beyond Architecture”. In Archigram: Architecture Without Architecture, Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press. p. 90-138. Terasawa, H. & Kani, H. (1997). Daizukai Kyuryujo. Tōkyō: Iwanami Shoten.
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Torus - a super megastructure, or a wheel-shaped orbital space habitat, that’s above Earth in the movie Elysium (2014). Retrieved from http://io9.gizmodo.com/10-theoretical-megastructures-from-big-to-massive-1776749017
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