E-merging Design Research: Rio@Rio MSc Spatial Design: Architecture & Cities

Page 1

E-merging Design Research: Rio@Rio MSc Spatial Design: Architecture & Cities The Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL 2014 –2015



E-merging Design Research: Rio@Rio MSc Spatial Design: Architecture & Cities The Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL 2014  –2015

Tutors: Sophia Psarra Course Director MSc Spatial Design: Architecture & Cities with Fani Kostourou Kimon Krenz Cauê Capillé Edited by Sophia Psarra Fani Kostourou Kimon Krenz



preface

The Bartlett School of Architecture, one of the most renowned international schools, based in a truly global city is a fitting place from which to interrogate the wider challenges of architecture and cities in a rapidly transforming world. It is from this perspective that we undertook our investigation of informal settlements in Rio in 2015. Given both the prominence and the permanence of this particular urban form in that city our hypothesis might easily be stated as ‘the favela IS the city’. The contributions which follow provide a glimpse into a ‘self-organising’ urban system accompanied by speculations about the potential for intervention and what forms those interventions might take.

Since its inception in the mid 70s, the educational programme of MSc Spatial Design Architecture & Cities (formerly Advanced Architectural Studies) has looked at architectural research through the prism of space, combining analytical theories and methods known as space syntax. Since 2014-15, the MSc course has integrated design-research in the form of a studio (E-merging Design Research), with the view to provoke thinking about the intersection between generative and analytical approaches. The wider purpose is to overcome the fragmentation of architectural research into an analytical (science-based) and a speculative (artsbased) practice. This publication presents the studio work produced in this context, currently focused on the city of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

International seminar RIO@RIO organised by Sophia Psarra, Kimon Krenz, Fani Kostourou and Cauê Capillé, at GSAPP Columbia University’s Studio-X in Rio de Janeiro. Photo by Raul Corrêa-Smith.

3 Preface


Discussion session at the international seminar RIO@RIO with Pedro Rivera, Vinicius Netto and Guilherme Lassance at GSAPP Columbia University’s Studio X in Rio de Janeiro. Photo by Raul Corrêa-Smith.



Rio@Rio

TRANSP

Design and Informality Dr Sophia Psarra

Since the mid twentieth century where modernist utopia reached Latin America the continent has been the testing ground for new conceptions of society. Few of the grand plans were fully realised; cities tended, instead, to grow informally with people from the countryside. In both the failures and the successes alike there are lessons we can learn from Latin America. The problems it is facing are key problems of many cities in the 21st century. As convenient shorthand, architects, planners and organisations tend to rely on metaphors as a way of communicating these pressing problems about the city. By using metaphors there is the risk of converting fuzzy problems into simple definitions, which fail to capture complexity. For example, by comparing urban space to the human body, certain elements of the city have been considered as pathological. As a result, they were either ignored or considered to be in need of replacement. In investigating

Global Between-movement

Income level

6 Rio@Rio

high

high

low

low

Favela with cable car without cable car


PORTATION INFRASTRUCTURE / FAVELA / INCOME / OLYMPIC Rio de Janeiro @ 1:150,000

Complexo do Alemão

oro od De mpic Oly rk Pa

to niterói

d cte xpe il (e t ra ligh

6) 201

Morro da Providência

tram

e ag

ly O

O

ly

m

pi

c

Vi ll

m

pi

c

Pa

rk

lar icu fun

ei

th

er

on

e

lo

ca

tio

n

Rocihna

Transportation metro / station train / station cable car / station planned metro / station (expected 2016) planned bus rapid transit (expected 2016)

0

5

10km

1

7 Rio@Rio


The legacy of informality

any urban condition more important than slavishly relying on metaphors is to understand conditions on the ground. The E-merging Design Research studio travelled to Rio de Janeiro to explore these issues in the context of a design project focusing on Rocinha, one of the informal settlements in the city. Pejoratively referred to as ‘slums’, these so called favelas were initially considered as a temporary irregularity, but were soon seen as continuing evidence of institutional failure. More recently, favelas are considered as examples of the ways in which communities have in an autonomous and resourceful way created their own settlements. The main purpose of the studio was to explore alternative approaches to improve life in the favelas through spatial, social, economic and ecological innovation.

It was the architect John Turner, who first changed the official mind in unofficial development absorbing ‘in Latin America the important lesson of illegal informal settlements: that far from being threatening symptoms of social malaise, they were a triumph of popular self-help, which overcoming the culture of poverty, evolved over time into fully serviced suburbs, giving their occupants a foothold in the urban economy. When he moved from South to North America he found that the ideas he formulated in Peru were also true of the richest nation in the world’…. on his return after seventeen years abroad, ‘he discovered that the housing situation in Britain also fitted his formulation. Yet, in Britain architects and planners, both employed by local authorities and involved in vast programmes of comprehensive redevelopment were failing to notice the gulf between their pre-occupations and the concerns of the citizens who saw themselves as victims’.1 In the 1960s, experience was demonstrating the shortcomings of accepted ideologies of housing design and planning, and journals were propagating alternatives. Architectural Design featured not only the radical fantasies of Archigram, but also the self-build in Britain, including the plotlands of the first 40 years of the 20th century’2, …’the global message of the bricoleur…’. Other alternative approaches to Modernist wholesale proposals were Venturi, Scott-Brown and Izenour’s Learning from Las Vegas, Alison Smithson’s Mat Building Typology, Archizoom’s No-Stop City, organic designs analogous to biological patterns of growth, such as Le Corbusier’s

Formulation

Today, a third of the world’s population has shifted from rural agricultural life to urban spaces at the edges of cities. Between 2007 and 2050, the world’s cities will absorb an additional 3.1 billion of people in the slums, the suburbs and immigrant quarters of both the Western and the developing worlds (Saunders, 2010). As a result, there has been an intensification of interest in understanding the spatial, economic and social models by which formal and informal settlements are produced for a resilient and sustainable future. Increasingly official agencies of city administration and design practice regard informal places not as static sites of poverty and conflict, but as dynamic areas of human ingenuity and social capital.

8 Rio@Rio


2

Venice Hospital, Cedric Price’s Fun Palace and Pop-up Parliament, John Week and Llewelyn Davies’ notion of indeterminacy at Northwick Park Hospital building, and pop notions of transience and expendability. Paul Barker, the former editor of New Society, claimed that the Journal ‘tried to see the world as it was rather than as it ought to be’2, that is, away from grand manifestos and utopian blueprints of modernism imposed from above. He wrote together with Reyner Banham, Peter Hall and Cedric Price ‘Non-Plan: an experiment in freedom’,3 an extraordinary article, in which by taking a segment of the English countryside each they hypothesized what might happen if there was no planning at all.

America continuing Turner’s debate and rebooting architecture’s social and political capital. Tatjana Schneider and Jeremy Till’s Spatial Agency project replaces the architecthero with the architect-agent, ‘acting and collaborating with, and on behalf of others’4. This proposition is a contemporary version of the barefoot architects, a model of informal design education and practice that appeared in developing countries in 1980s, to deal with slums and other underdeveloped settlements. The term does not refer to a person with a formal architectural training but an emergent role assimilated in various instances by different people in the community. Educational and design approaches in the United States have shifted focus from the architect and the bespoke design to an organizational-systemic perspective, resurging Alison Smithson’s mat building typology (1974) as mat urbanism (1997) and infrastructure as architecture. Most notably, Stan Allen (1997) turns away from

Multiple Participatory Agency, Infr astructur al Urbanism AND Str ategies of Aggregation

The goal of informality is far from new but seems newly relevant today. In Radical Cities, Justin McGuirk (2010) travels across Latin

9 Rio@Rio


the architectural object with its figural, typological and iconic variations towards aggregative strategies that demonstrate spatial possibilities, and are open to accidents, change and improvisation. At the same time he looks at the systemic logics of assemblages and organisational systems that are non-hierarchical and open-ended.5 Avoiding questions of style and appearance, Keller Easteling explores in Extrastatecraft the information that resides in infrastructural space, such as road networks, mass-produced suburban houses, free trade zones, optic fibres, credit cards, mobile phones, economic and financial regulations, all of which have the power, the agency and currency of ‘an operating system for shaping the city’ (2015, p.13). She promulgates the politics of the hacker/entrepreneur who uses space as an underexploited operating system. Space and spatial variables are seen as active forms, a fresh territory for political action generating resilient evolutionary

activism, breaking the barriers of the divided city, decreasing travel times for workers, and maximising access to information. Finally recent exhibitions, such as MoMA’s Small Scale, Big Change reinforce socially engaged architecture, promoting a renewed sense of commitment to the social responsibilities of the discipline. The works published and exhibited reveal a radical shift in the dialogue between architecture and society in which architecture’s social and political agency is re-evaluated. Architects once again realise they can be agents of social and political change. The Social Commons

In tandem with these changes, there are two major transformations affecting architecture and cities: If capitalism has become the dominant economic model, new economic and sociotechnical paradigms are rising from the

3

10 Rio@Rio


4

Internet of Things (IoT). The IoT is a 21st century infrastructure that connects ‘people, machines, natural resources, production lines, logistics networks, consumption habits, recycling flows, and virtually every other aspect of social life’ (Rifkin 2014, p. 18). These new paradigms operate side-by-side with the organising models of government and global market economies, comprising democratically run institutions, non-profit sectors, cooperatives and trade unions, charitable bodies, educational foundations, advocacy groups, and other formal and informal institutions that generate the social capital of society. For example, people produce and share their own information, entertainment, green energy, 3D-printed goods. They share cars and homes via social media and redistribution sites. They collaborate in patient-driven health-care networks, establish ecologically sensitive businesses, crowd-fund new enterprises and even create alternative social currencies (ibid.). Named the ‘social commons’,

this new organisational model advances networks, open access, do-it-yourself infrastructure, open-source innovation, transparency, community and sustainable life. As a result, consumer and job markets have begun to fragment with smaller niche business evolving, each with their own needs and requirements, the effects of which are spreading throughout the city. The IoT and the ‘social commons’ result in new participatory forms of architectural design, interactive decision-making and create new models of architectural practice. These models relinquish authorship and control over certain tasks or products for new forms of social responsibility, hybrid forms of agency, multiple intersecting types of authorship and collaboration. These changes affect architecture and the role of the architect from the creator of forms to the creator of actions. Design is not only about designing forms, but also about designing networks, re-designing institutions, self-initiating, enabling, working in the

11 Rio@Rio


5

community’s interests, and planting the hope that architecture and space can have political agency. In the favelas there has been an analogous development of such collaborative and resilient activities, which further enabled through the digital may point the way to new models of engagement with architecture and the city.

argues that ‘neoliberalism’s historical relationship with architecture has made the discipline justify its economic relevance, undergirding the field’s current emphasis on entrepreneurship, innovation, collaboration, pragmatism, and process as the bases for socially engaged practices’. Koolhaas’ 2014 Biennale made a similar proposition through a systemic view of architecture based on standardised production. The underlying proposition was that architecture is multi-authored or mindlessly produced by the interaction of building components, technology and services, communication, informatics, financial and political structures and self-organising speculation over and above architectural intention (Psarra et al, 2015). This view means that architecture’s political agency is subsumed by the economic motivations of clients or the distributed interactions of regulatory codes, markets and infrastructures. On the other hand, socially engaged projects are about localized interventions threatening

Between social engagement and self-organisation

It is crucial though not to lose sight of the forces within which these architects and these paradigms operate. Socially engaged architecture may ultimately be generated and appropriated by parallel discourses of optimisation – the attainment of an efficient outcome – be it via adaptive social ecologies, or innovation networks at the service of the knowledge economy, or an implicit approval of the market’s ability to adapt continually to satisfy consumer needs. In his paper in Production Sites – a conference hosted by Sophia Psarra and Sandra Löschke at UCL in 2015 – Sean Weiss

12 Rio@Rio


to sidestep more systemic problems, social, political, and economic situations. At the same time, a number of disciplines are brought upon to bear on cities and architecture. Cities and buildings are no longer the subject of only planners, architects or urban designers, but also of artists, engineers, social scientists, and in many cases journalists. Qualitative research, theories and analytical models, such as space syntax, are often employed based on various kinds of data that can inform evidence-based design. Today many professionals talk about the built environment as a complex system, and bring evidence from analytical studies to justify design decisions. Yet, when we have to think about the city or architecture innovatively, we should not only be informed by evidence, but also radically re-think them and come with new propositions.

authorless settlements, between the acres of new infrastructures and the thousands of relocations to make way for Olympic projects fundamental questions need to be kept in mind: – Can architecture reclaim its social and political role as a discipline? – Can spatial dimensions alone assure the success of social programmes? – Can theoretical and analytical approaches such as space syntax enable architects to be agents of social and political change? What aspects should these approaches address so as to strengthen architecture’s social and political agency? – How does the designer step back from dictating the form of a building or a city over time? – How does science as the epistemological model with its assumed detached objectivity relate to social and political values and the need to service ethical imperatives? – How do we navigate between the modernist model of architecture and widely spread processes of informal settlements and urbanisation? – Can architecture have the tools to propose an alternative idea about the city (at a time where cities are being shaped by global economics at a speed beyond municipal control)? – How do we overcome the gap between the iconic architectural project and the city as a by-product of urban policy and development? – If one third of the world’s populations have shifted from the country to the periphery of the city, what can we learn from their resilience and resourcefulness?

Rio@Rio: E-merging Design Research

As Justin McGuirk recently asked, ‘if architecture is just speculation then could there be a more fitting legacy of that period than Spain’s 3.5 million empty homes?’ (ibid. p. 15). If 1.5 million citizens of Rio live in the 1,000 favelas, and if squatters around the world build more square miles of city than architects, developers and the government, how can we take the World Cup projects, the Olympic ‘legacy’ seriously? Between the competing agendas of iconic mega architecture and the efforts to combat poverty, between the hunters of land profit and the slums, between the authored creations of architects and the multiple

13 Rio@Rio


Aims

S3: Civic Space

– Acknowledging the informal as a vital part of the city’s social capital and ecosystem. – Reversing the tide of segregation and rebuilding cohesion. – Addressing challenges and developing alternative approaches to favela upgrading that foster spatial, social, economic and ecological innovation.

The emphasis in this case is on urban space, in order to establish a network of other civic spaces such as plazas, urban walkways, pedestrian channels, etc. S4: Infrastructural nodes

The primary concern in this category was nodal points between different types of infrastructure, when systems interdepend and collide (transportation, markets, educational, social infrastructure, etc.) The emphasis was on shared access to resources and modes of production that ensure that urban networks can be established, evolve and maintained over time.

Configuration: Sites

Students selected ‘sites’ in Rocinha so as to address a variety of spatial conditions. The term ‘sites’ has broader meaning that is not confined to a single geographical location, social category, clear boundaries, morphological or economic definition. Sites were chosen either by virtue of being certain types of spaces (such as public spaces) or places that might be at different locations but are linked together by sharing network-like properties.

Performance: Thematic threads T1: Social and economical practices – sociality employment and micro-economies of the collective. T2: Modes of citizenship, identity and sharing (social programmes, spatial and social connectors).

Examples of sites included: S1: Pervasive centrality

T3: Ecology and infrastructural systems – modes of co-habitation, equal access to resources, sustainable urban eco-systems.

The purpose was to construct self-sustaining urban nuclei interconnected with other urban nuclei, with multiple uses and common collective spaces.

While the thematic threads address programmatic and socio-economic considerations, the four ‘sites’ concern the physical manifestations of these considerations. Together, sites and thematic threads provided opportunities for a crossover matrix along form-space making and various types of performance. This allowed a distribution of students

S2: Urban Edge

Engaging areas situated between the informal settlements and the official urban fabric. For spatial and social integration to be addressed, it first needs to be defined. The design had to take into account physical characteristics and socio-economic models of exchange from both sides.

14 Rio@Rio


Configuration: Performance Matrix

S1

S2

S3

S4

T1

T2

T3

1 Colin Ward, ‘Anarchy and architecture: A personal record’, in eds. Jonathan Hughes and Simon Sadler, Non-Plan, Abington and NewYork: Architectural Press, 2000. 2 ibid. 3 R. Banham, P. Barker, P. Hall, C. Price, ‘Non-Plan: An experiment in freedom’, New Society. 13, no. 338,. 20 March 1969, pp, 435-443. 4 Where agricultural depression has enabled low income city-dwellers to build their own shack, chalet, chicken-farm holiday home or retirement idyll, the lessons of the squatters campaign. 5 http://www.spatialagency.net 6 http://bombmagazine.org/article/7096/stan-allen accessed 11 July 2015.

and groups according to sites and crossover themes. The design projects were set within the context of theories and methods that are explored in the MSc SDAC programme. Students used analytic techniques to interrogate and develop their design ideas. Technical terms used in their project descriptions are defined in the glossary section at the end of this volume.

Map 1 (page 3), shows the transportation infrastructure, the location of favelas and the Olympic sites superimposed with income data for the metropolitan region of Rio de Janeiro. Credits: Chun Wing Fok. Photos 1-5 (pages 5-8, 11) show the favela of Rocinha in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil during students’ fieldtrip in February 2015. Credits and editing: Xiao Hu.

15 Rio@Rio


Hacking the cable car: The synergy between people and infrastructure Chun Wing Fok


Network Acupuncture Space syntax analysis shows that the proposed cable car stations are currently not well connected to the future street system, which leads to a possibility of a separation between the top-down infrastructure (cable car) and the street infrastructure supported by the street network. A rigorous design research process is used to identify and transform five street segments, in order to achieve a better integration between these two infrastructural systems.

by the segment angular analysis will be widened contributing to the intensification of these flows. An even more integrated network of the combined system will emerge in this way. Cable Car Station There are six cable car stations to be built. The project proposes that each should have its strong topographical character and different unique identity. The areas under the elevated stations will become the civic spaces that cohere the transpatial solidarity (see glossary) of Rocinha’s community. The cable station is the ‘switch’ between two street networks and the imposed infrastructure. It is necessary to redesign the stations so that a faster transit can be achieved. Double helix ramps are introduced so as to provide a faster way to leave the station. The centre of the helix structure can be turned into a performance space, which further enhances the function of the public space. The original cable car network cannot cover the area with altitude higher than 175m. To strengthen the network coverage, urban surgery is applied by proposing one more cable car station and a new escalator. Under the proposed condition, cyclists and delivery boys can ride down to anywhere after they reach the stations in higher altitude.

Cable Car Cabin The next step is to be imaginative about the way in which people can appropriate the cable car cabin. The design proposes different structures to be added to the cabin to support everyday practice. New functions of the cable car are set according to the chemistry between the two systems. For example, the gas delivery boy will reach the locations of higher altitude by the cable car and then travel to specific areas by bike. At the same time, two types of access to the cabin are redesigned. The passengers will use the traditional way to get to the cabin, while the cyclists and those who need to transport goods will get into the cabin in a way that is similar to the use of the chairlift. Activists and other potential users can choose their desirable type of transportation to hack and appropriate. Emergence The new network will be changing continuously because of the ‘movement economy’ (see glossary of terms). The street with high pedestrian flows as predicted

17 Chun Wing Fok


18 Chun Wing Fok


Hacking the Ideology To divert the flow of public money, and persuade the government to redesign the stations and cabin, the ideology of the cable car and the way in which the cable car is marketed have to be hacked. Through the design the cable car is now promoted as a sustainable means of transportation because it can reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The design not only hacks the ideology but also greens the favela as more people can use bicycles to commute.

Opposite top:

Opposite below:

Proposal of a new cable car station and appropriation of public space

Proposal of how to hack one of the proposed cable car stations

Notes: The idea of hacking infrastructure is inspired by Keller Easterling’s Extrastatecraft: The power of infrastructural space (London, Brooklyn, New York: Verso, 2015). ‘Switch’ is one of the active forms identified by Easterling, the other two being the ‘multiplier’ and ‘topology’.

Different ways of hacking the cable car infrastructure

19 Chun Wing Fok


The effect of the cable car and Pac 2 on co-presence and movement patterns



Active Tourism: A tool for economic improvement and social inclusion Irem Kurtulus


Unemployment and low income are among the most important problems of favelas. Tourism can be efficient in addressing these issues since Rocinha has tourism potential due to its proximity to the popular beaches of Copacabana, Ipanema, and to ecological parks. Moreover, it is the largest favela in Rio, which preserves its strong community life. People work together to build their buildings and have fun in street parties and various festivities. Favela tourism is very controversial because the daily tours in favelas are mostly run by outside companies. These tours are highly voyeuristic and do not provide a strong economic advantage to the favela residents, or sufficient interaction between locals and tourists. The project proposes a different kind of ‘favela tourism’, which can be used as a tool for social inclusion while also boosting the local economy. This model of tourism creates opportunities for locals and visitors to interact in four different centres, which are located in Rocinha according to the social programme they provide. Each centre offers accommodation for visitors, and gives them a chance to volunteer for a particular social programme that can facilitate cultural exchange between locals and visitors, such as teaching languages, music, learning the local food culture, or practicing traditional dance with the help of locals. Inhabitants can find employment in these centres and join free courses so as to improve their skills by the help of visitors’ volunteering projects. In this way, the centres contribute to both social groups – tourists and locals – and involve collaboration from other actors

in the proposed model, such as Rio+ Social, SESC and the local government. The sites of the four centres are chosen with the help of space syntax tools and are located in areas that are relevant to their programme. Site A is found in a cultural hub of Rocinha. The programme for this centre offers culture-oriented courses, serving inhabitants and visitors. For instance, visitors can take Brazilian culinary lectures, learn Brazilian dances or teach dances from the countries they come from. The programme for site B is knowledgebased, such as learning languages or hosting seminars about entrepreneurship courses, and is located in the background network (see glossary) found in a quieter and more local area. The programme for site C is based on craftwork and the site is found between the foreground and background networks, interfacing commercial with residential functions. Finally, the programme for site D is accommodation. The proposed building has space to host visitors, cultural events, barbeque or street parties, and an openair cinema. Sites A and D are in busy and lively parts of Rocinha, while sites C and B are located in more secluded parts. All these sites together create a synergy that can instigate change for the settlement as a whole. Another issue to consider refers to what makes the favela morphologically different from the other parts of the city, which is related to its urban morphology. Its urban form comes from the visible structural elements, the smallscale buildings and streets and piecemeal manner by which it has grown, the forms of its blocks, the construction materials,

23 Irem Kurtulus


Tourism potential of Rocinha

Tourism infrastructure of Rocinha 24 Irem Kurtulus


Network

Spatial analysis

25 Irem Kurtulus


Analysis of the built forms

26 Irem Kurtulus


the orientation of buildings and the irregularity of the solids and voids that compose their elevations. Roofs and terraces are among the most important components of this informal settlement. Terraces between blocks can work like public spaces, as the dense pattern of land use has not allowed the development of public space in the favela. Roofs therefore, offer potential for public areas to grow. These features are used in the project. The design of the tourist centres is informed by the local morphology, while roof terraces are formed so as to

enhance spontaneous social interactions between inhabitants and visitors. The project’s aim is to provide a sustainable and systemic programme of education that works as an alternative to the existing voyeuristic tourism. This programme does not only provide economical gain, but also cultural exchange improving or cultivating opportunities for new skills for inhabitants and visitors.

Aggregation of houses in Rocinha

27 Irem Kurtulus


Small Green: Small spaces, green paradox Katerina Anagnostopoulou-Politou


The urban density of Rocinha creates a very interesting paradox. Rocinha is surrounded by green areas, but in the interior it is made of hard materials, such as brick and concrete, lacking green spaces. The intention of the project was to work with open spaces in order to create small-scale green spots. More specifically, it aimed to design a prototypical system for a green strategy, which can be multiplied and used in different areas in the favela. To this purpose the project had to identify the ideal area to locate these prototypes, and the essential urban spots for the interventions. The area chosen is near the entrance to Rocinha, for the reason that this is the busiest and most developed part of the favela, near the retail zone and the hubs of transportation, and very much in need of green spaces. The spots for the interventions were identified using space syntax tools (normalized choice, radius 1200 metres, see glossary). The foreground (retail) and background (residential) networks (see glossary) were combined with the map of urban blocks in order to find the available voids. An inventory of urban voids was produced by measuring their areas and cataloguing their shapes. These open spaces have diverse shapes and are very small,

with an average area of 3.94 sq. m. An oneby-one analysis of these spaces helped to organise them into clusters according to shape, area, relation with the surroundings and their choice value (see glossary). In this way it was possible to establish a systemic approach to their design. The project proposes that the cluster of open spaces situated in the foreground network should function as active public spaces. They will be planted with Brazilian plants which are of low maintenance and do not need special care in order to grow. The cluster of spaces in the background network on the other hand, will be used for growing food, providing a network of spaces for locally based urban agriculture. Considering the existing urban equipment of Rocinha (such as benches and chess tables,) the spaces near the retail zone as well as those in residential areas can host urban furniture with adaptable shapes and sizes. Green walls, waste bins, and stands can offer the necessary conditions for multiple types of services and uses gradually creating a network that can expand to the whole favela. Small interventions in a systemic approach will create larger scale effects and a self-ordered process of well-being of people in Rocinha.

29 Katerina Anagnostopoulou-Politou


The spaces: The Spaces

Area: 4.10 m²

Area: 3.78 m²

Area: 2.20 m²

Area: 12.19 m²

Area: 2.07 m²

Area: 3.75 m²

Area: 2.87 m²

Area: 3.70 m²

Area: 3.50 m²

Area: 1.76 m²

Area: 3.58 m²

Area: 2.92 m²

Area: 4.35 m²

Area: 9.61 m²

Area: 1.91 m²

Area: 7.41 m²

Area: 1.80 m²

Area: 1.32 m²

Area: 1.29 m²

Area: 2.38 m²

30 Katerina Anagnostopoulou-Politou


empty spaces 31 Katerina Anagnostopoulou-Politou


32 Katerina Anagnostopoulou-Politou


33 Katerina Anagnostopoulou-Politou


Favelas are the City Leonardo Alings


Even though Rio’s favelas are fully integrated into the city’s geography and economy, plans to evict the residents are presented on a regular basis. This project considers the favelas and Rocinha in particular as an essential part of the city. To consolidate it in the long term, the housing conditions in many parts of the settlement must be improved, as sanitation and ventilation issues still lead to a series of diseases considerably lowering life expectancy. In many parts, the density of the existing urban fabric does not allow a long-term improvement of houses and their hygienic conditions. Therefore, new housing must be considered, which is the focus of this design project.

roof terraces in Rocinha, on every level of the housing project allows the residents to establish different kinds of micro-economic activities. Inspiration for this idea comes from the existing roof terraces of Rocinha, which are often rented generating alternative and informal sources of income. Top-down meets bottom-up The belief that public authorities and local communities can learn from each other is the base for the implementation approach of the project that brings together the strengths of different stakeholders. While the public intervention provides the basic structure and services, the residents lease a part of this structure and take over the construction of their living space. At the same time, collaboration with private enterprises can help finance the project. In this way, multiple stakeholders help to develop a long-term model for favela housing, which goes beyond an individual project, an architectural object, an architect designer or a specific user. As top-down meets bottom-up, the state meets the community, and architectural authorship meets the self-ordered city.

Housing is a process, not an object Rather than providing the favelados with ready-to-occupy houses, which was the aim of the PAC project, this project aims at an incremental approach of housing development that allows the residents to occupy space in the most efficient way. The proposed housing will be able to grow further in height according to demand in the favela. An open space, like the existing

35 Leonardo Alings


IN-SITU SLUM UPGRADING

IMPROVING THE EXISTING

INDIVIDUAL

PUBLIC

PRIVATE

ADD TO EXISTING

INDIVIDUAL

PUBLIC

PRIVATE

100 % SELF-CONSTRUCTION

INDIVIDUAL

PUBLIC

PRIVATE

MONETARY INVESTMENT

MONETARY INVESTMENT

MONETARY INVESTMENT

TIME INVESTMENT

TIME INVESTMENT

TIME INVESTMENT

MANPOWER

MANPOWER

MANPOWER

36 Leonardo Alings


GRADING

PRIVATE

TMENT

ENT

STRUCTURE & SERVICE + SELF-CONSTRUCTION

READY-TO-OCCUPY

INDIVIDUAL

PUBLIC

PRIVATE

MONETARY INVESTMENT

ALTERNATIVE

RUCTION

TIME INVESTMENT

INDIVIDUAL

PUBLIC

PRIVATE

MONETARY INVESTMENT

TIME INVESTMENT

MANPOWER

MANPOWER

37 Leonardo Alings

Analysis of different ways of space creation. Categorised by monetary investment, time investment and manpower.


URBAN STRATEGY II

The ‘Social Anchor‘ Neighbours engage in micro-library on roof terrace. The harvested fruit and vegs are partly distributed to the other cooperative houses.

IR IAL A ANC FIN

AN

PO

WE

R

ER OW P AN M

KNOWL EDG E

VOLUNTEERS

M

CIAL ACTIVITIES FOR SO

The Tourist Attractor The exposed location of the building its roof terrace. The cooperative has thus decided to build three temporary hostel-tents for tourists on the roof terrace to generate income.

CAP ITAL FOR SECU RING THE

SITE


The ‘Cash Cow‘ tion at the main street (foreground network) make a commercial use very helps to fund and support other cooperative houses.

DC SEE

L APITA SEL LIN GO FS PA RE CO NS TR UC TI O

N IAL ER AT M

CA PIT AL &K NO WLE DGE

The ‘Newcomer‘ A group of people has approached the cooperative to initiate a new project. of the other houses help the newcoway.

‘On Hold‘

The ‘Pioneer‘ initiated in Rocinha. The experience of the members help to realise other projects all over Rocinha. Constructi-

This construction site is on hold as a some of the participating members have unexpectedly left the project. The other cooperative houses help the remaining families to re-structure their plans and to secure the site.


Shading Rocinha Zhiqiang Gao


As a very dense and hot place, Rocinha lacks properly shaded public areas. Without sufficient and necessary shaded places, public space may not be used very well during hot sunny days. In general, places with shading tend to be more interactive, providing not only comfort and protection from the sun and heat but also socioeconomic opportunities that boost local economies. Introducing a system of shading devices could therefore provide relief from hot climatic conditions, encourage / enhance / facilitate communication, and have positive social and economic effects. After identifying the shortage of shading, the questions the project raised were: 1. Where and who are actually in need of shading? 2. Which places benefit the most from human interaction? 3. Is there an existing relationship between shading and human activity? 4. How to understand and narrow down the selections for adding shading? Two distinct places were chosen in Rocinha for testing. The first one is the main entrance to the settlement; the second one consists of two main public spaces with

transportation stops along the main street. By overlapping observations of human activity and shading analysis (Ecotect) in the chosen places, it became clear that people tend to gather under shaded areas and these are the places where they perform most of the outdoor activities in Rocinha. For fully testing and completing the selection procedure, an interface map of the whole main street in Rocinha was developed and combined with GIS data of commercial points, transportation stops, and public spaces. Six locations were eventually selected on the basis of this mapping. The basic design principles were multifunctional, symbolic, flexible, sociable, and cultural. The design choices concerned simple local materials consisting of a common yet durable synthetic membrane. Made from Polypropylene (PP), it is a lightweight, permeable and refractive material that is easy to install, fold, store and keep clean. Due to its affordability and availability, the membrane has already been a rather popular shading device over stands in open markets and shop extensions/ porches in Brazil.

41 Zhiqiang Gao


02 OBSERVATION

What are the findings? Local businesses need shading, especially for vendors.

Observing the existing shading practices in Rocinha

Observation_10

Observation_11

Informal shading space along the main road

Observation_12

Vendors need shading during the day

Shading is necessary for vendors

05 SHADING LOCATIONS

Location 01

Location 02

Location 03

Location 04

Location 05

Location 06

Location 05

Location 04 Location 03

Location 02

Location 01

42 Zhiqiang Gao

Location 06


Investigation of the relationship between building entrances and the main street

43 Zhiqiang Gao


Visualisation of the shading device

44 Zhiqiang Gao


45 Zhiqiang Gao


Football field-housing Pablo Juica YantĂŠn


Considering football fields as socio-spatial networks While almost all public life in Rocinha is developed through the main streets based on Via Apia and Estrada da Gavea (which are in the foreground network), the opportunities for interaction and leisure in the public domain tend to decrease in the hills, where most of the background street elements, are situated. This means that leisure activities such as football takes place in spaces that have wider spatial and social relevance for the people of Rocinha (beyond the football activity itself) since they are the main ‘voids’ located inside the dense housing areas. These voids also represent a unique architectonic typology, a theatrical arrangement of space, which in some cases has been destroyed by being converted into generic synthetic football fields (2014 Football World Cup field refurbishments), which are alien to the identity of favelas in Rio de Janeiro. In many cases, the narrow alleys and streets allow drug dealers to take control of such spaces, exposing children to drug trafficking and crime. This is a social problem which is mainly based on spatial configuration: there are no alternative spaces for children to play apart from these voids, and there are no alternative routes to reach them as they are found in the background network. The project responds to these risks proposing the relocation of these football fields, which are very vulnerable for children. The new proposal considers two main spatial factors that can decrease social risks: a. new locations that have low step depth (see glossary) distance from the foreground

network, using thus the ability of the street network for natural surveillance. b. A hybrid building/urban typology that mixes football space with housing, generating a new type: the ‘football field-housing’. These conditions allow a direct connection between the proposed spaces, the main thoroughfares of movement, the schools and the residential areas. The project uses the theatrical characteristics of urban voids and the supervisory role of the houses over the play fields. Three flat typologies are proposed: studio, two bedroom, and threebedroom flats. The ground level is occupied by the football field and provides access to the flats on the first and second levels above, with the possibility for further expansion according to family needs. The flats are connected with the street level through a bridge that works as a filter between the privacy of the home and the public space of the street. The relation of the football field with the foreground network is enhanced by taking advantage of the topographical conditions of Rocinha, providing seating areas that use the level differences of the terrain. The connection with the background street network is enhanced by the provision of a building that works as an ‘attractor’, strengthening the hybrid programme of the proposal. Four attractors-typologies are proposed: church, school, commercial and community buildings. Each of them has a different ‘permeability’ configuration to facilitate its integration with the housing and the football field, generating a complete hybrid system.

47 Pablo Juica Yantén


Street network: Foreground Street network: Background Step Depth: 2 Public schools 2 min. walking area Other buildings 0

200

Public schools and street network superimposed with spatial analysis

Enclosed football field within Rocinha

48 Pablo Juica YantĂŠn

400 m


The existing football fields located in the background network are changed to green areas. These areas can be used by a wide range of age groups, reducing the exposure of children to crime. The proposed spatial relations between schools, the ‘football field-housing’ and the new green places will strengthen the use levels of the background system and the sense of community over space and time.

Axonometric diagram of proposed housing solutions (above) and perspectival elevation (below)

49 Pablo Juica Yantén


Visualisation of design proposal Figure-ground diagram with new spatial connection

studio

studio

50 Pablo Juica YantĂŠn


Exploded axonometric PUBLIC SCHOOL

CHURCH

LOCAL COMMERCE

COMMUNITY BUILDING

GENERIC SPACE

51 Pablo Juica Yantén


‘Do-it-Yourself’ Infrastructure Weijie Zong


The Issue of Water The project focuses on water as a resource. Residents in Rocinha have been fighting for water for 15 years. Although the government has set a water pumping station and guaranteed that the majority of people get access to basic water facilities, a large part of people still lack indoor running water.

in Rocinha. The commercial units can get access to water, while the residential ones use water tanks which store water that is pumped once every week. It is very hard for residents to access water in the most segregated areas of the settlement. An interlocking pipe system is proposed that allows residents to participate in building the water distribution network. In the first phase of the project the pipes can link to the water tanks so as to cause minimum disturbance to the existing way of life.

Fieldwork – ‘Do-it-Yourself’ Infrastructure During the field-work in Rocinha, it was understood that it is more realistic and efficient to engage the residents in ‘do-ityourself’ infrastructure. Electricity wires, internet cables and water pipes are installed and modified by the local inhabitants themselves.

Space Syntax Methodology – Building a Systematic Strategy The water pipes extend from the water pumping station and follow the foreground street network. As the commercial area needs continuous water resource, the foreground parts of the pipes can be made more fixed and used as a frame to work with in the future. In a later phase the residents can develop and connect to the primary pipes by themselves helping the residential areas gain indoor water. Moreover, the project uses metric step depth (see glossary) to find several areas, which are suitable for setting water points. These points are intended to serve as large areas as possible.

Capability Approach and Archigram Therefore, a successful water distribution should make use of the inhabitants existing experience in developing their own infrastructure. The project is inspired by the design thinking of Archigram, according to which a design project should be flexible and changeable allowing every one to access it and participate in its transformation. The project explores the possibilities inherent in this thinking in an informal community, such as Rocinha. Although Archigram may represent a Western understanding of space and society, their ideas might prove to be more useful in a different context.

Technical aspects – How to Transport Water In the topography study the street segments were first split into shorter segments. Next, the steepness of each street segment was calculated and mapped by using the GIS tool ‘spatial join’. The general purpose was to create a network in which the water is distributed by gravity. For areas that have higher steepness value than others, specific

The Interlocking Pipe System – Changes It Will Bring There is a difference between the commercial and residential areas with regards to the existing water system

53 Weijie Zong


Water distribution systems in Rocinha: the existing situation and the proposed design solution

54 Weijie Zong


Rocinha hydrology study. Normalised Choice Radius 1600 overlaid with Stream Order.

Possible appropriation of design proposal

55 Weijie Zong


locations were identified to locate water pressure boosters.

to be concentrated – residents can create neighbourhood gardens making use of the sewage and rainwater to create compost for food production. On the other hand, in the foreground network (see glossary), they can have public green spaces or parks, which are generally lacking in Rocinha. Controlled and maintained by the inhabitants, both neighbourhood gardens and public parks can address the flood problem, while also enhancing mutual support and the sense of social cohesion.

Hydrology Analysis - Public Green Spaces By using GIS we can simulate the ways in rainwater and sewage are distributed in Rocinha. Combined with the space syntax approach, GIS tools can enable us to better understand the use of rainwater and sewage for vegetation in certain public spaces. Specifically, in the background network (see glossary) – in which rainwater tends

Sketch of the relation between water system and Rocinha (and following page)

56 Weijie Zong


Explore the possibilities of Pipes The pipe frames can also have a number of integrated functions. For example, a pipe can become the frame for a bus stop. The bus stop can be movable according to the event, or the type of day. The existing bus stops in Rocinha are not flexible enough, and people are not using them. Balloons attached to the bus stops can communicate information about the bus routes and be used as signposts for various reasons. The pipes can also facilitate seating in the areas of restaurants and bars, or sports in the case

of public space or schools. At the private level, the pipes can also allow residents to carry out everyday tasks, such as hanging their clothes, linking with a rain collector and using the water to water their plants.

57 Weijie Zong


Celebrate Rocinha: A networkbased approach to place-making Mengyang Liu


Creating Networks Combined with the existing cultural networks, the Celebrate Rocinha project will enhance the cultural life and influence peoples’ identity and daily life, creating forms of transpatial solidarity (see glossary). The project proposes a network of spaces that enables various new cultural activities to emerge, and existing ones to grow more lively and stronger. The selected sites are close to the small cultural centre at the entrance of Rocinha, the Biblioteca Parque da Rocinha at the centre of the settlement, and to the existing schools and surrounding residential areas.

Booming Public Space Rocinha doesn’t have many public spaces. This means that most people meet inside each other’s homes and with their families. While the proposed cultural programmes serve transpatial solidarity, the project’s spaces create spatial solidarity (see glossary). The Celebrate Rocinha project provides open public space and improved connections with the existing street network, for everybody passing by or having spare time to enjoy live concerts, performances, food and parties. Spatial solidarities are the outcomes of spatial proximity, enhanced spatial connections, and integrated spatial networks that enable social encounters over and above the initial reason for which people are present in a particular space.

Enabling and Generating Activities Initial research in Rocinha shows that a large variety of local cultural activities exist but are usually hidden behind the main streets. These should be enhanced and become visible. The Celebrate Rocinha project works as a culture boomer to generate different kinds of practices and events (music, art, studio, languages). It provides a large open space for people to gather, entertain, communicate and cooperate. It works less through the provision of social programmes, and more through the street network and the natural movement patterns. The expectation is that by offering a basic infrastructure strategically located where people are, activities will develop spontaneously and informally in similar ways to the local culture.

Rooted deeply in Rocinha The Celebrate Rocinha project emerges from the needs of people and adapts in their local sites. It is not intended to be a fixed building, but an enabling ‘platform’ offered to the community, which can naturally continue developing and flourishing over time.

59 Mengyang Liu




‘Platform’ & ‘Culture Subsets’ Easy, affordable and flexible

‘Platform’

Culture Subsets

Isometric drawing of the minimum structure without infill

Circulation Tower

Networks, public spaces and activities of Rocinha

3

2

Vehicle Route Pedestrian Route Public Space Institution Existing Culture Activities Planned Culture Centres Collection Connection

1

62 Mengyang Liu


Network plan Enhance the connectionModerate ‘Aggregation’

A2

A1

Institutional network of local DJ School (A1), Casa de Arte da Rocinha (A2) and local Samba School (A3)

A2

A1

A1 A2

A1

A2

A1

A1

C3

A2 A2

A3

A3 A2 A2

A2

A2

A3

A2 A2

A1 A2 A3

C3

C2 A3

A3 A2

A1

A2 A3

A1 A2 A3

A3

C1

C2

A1

A3 A1 A1

A1 A2 A3

C*

C1

Culture Organisation from other Favelas

63 Mengyang Liu


Flexible Public Space Xiao Hu


During the field trip it became apparent that Rocinha has almost no public space. There is no area where people can gather and benefit from access to diverse public amenities. Therefore, the design work focused on improving the capacity of space to serve diverse activities and social gatherings. The emphasis is on increasing the possibilities for social encounters, necessary for strengthening the spatial and social ecology in the favela. Looking for potential sites for the development of public space, a number of places were selected, principally falling into two main categories. First, sites in the foreground street network (see glossary), which attracts a great deal of movement and circulation; second, sites in the background network (see glossary), which covers quieter residential areas. The former are chosen so as to be next to existing bus stops and transportation hubs, since they could enliven the new public spaces by being destinations that attract large numbers of people. The latter were found in residential areas where neighbourhood activities could take place, providing quiet places for play and social gatherings.

Some of the chosen sites were observed during fieldwork in order to build a detailed picture of human activity and the different kinds of users. These observation data were employed together with the results of the spatial analysis, in order to better understand what people in Rocinha do when they are in the streets and how they use the outdoor areas. The proposed system consists of a flexible wooden primary structure that is squeezed into left over urban spaces similar to the logic of ‘pet architecture’ developed by Atelier Bow Wow (2001). This modular system is based on a standardised grid of 4x4 metres that allows for a seamless horizontal and vertical development according to the needs of users and the availability of space. While some modules can accommodate functional elements and popular social practices that were previously exposed to harsh weather conditions – rubbish storage, play grounds, staircase, simple signs or green areas –, other modules can be appropriated by the inhabitants of the favela themselves: shading, hanging clothes, billboards and shop extensions.

65 Xiao Hu




Modularity of the design concept.

Gradual appropriation of the modules by the inhabitants over time.

68 Xiao Hu


Conceptual collage

69 Xiao Hu


Don’t waste it! Miriam Fernández Ruiz


DON’T WASTE IT! is a waste management system that involves a social and physical strategy. The project draws from various maps that help expose environmental risks and contribute to the development of a design strategy. It begins by demographic analysis of Rio, which shows that informal settlements have a high number of children and low numbers of senior citizens. The objective of the project thus became addressing the environmental and social risks that prevent senior citizens and children from participating in the community life in a synergetic way, and playing a leading role in the pacification and regularisation process of Rocinha. Producing maps of social and environmental risks in relation to these vulnerable populations, I saw that the poverty concentration areas overlap with schools and playgrounds. This meant that children are exposed to violence and police presence. The facilities used by senior citizens, such as churches, are exposed to environmental problems, such as lack of sewage, electricity, etc. Additionally, one of the greatest challenges for this sector of the population is the extreme topography. I have calculated the slope of each street segment in order to detect the steepest streets that cannot be easily accessed by older people or vehicles. Looking at other environmental risks in Rocinha, it is noticeable that primary services such as the waste collection system are seriously deficient. 36,000 tones of garbage are produced each year in these settlements. The existing few open-air official collection points and the only

collection path are situated on the main road. As a result, garbage spreads over the surrounding areas, putting public health at risk. This lack of infrastructure and services seems to be one of the most crucial challenges in improving the living conditions of this otherwise socially and economically dynamic community. A new waste management system is proposed based on a mixed strategy, which is top-down and bottom-up, private and public. This strategy can improve not only the health and urban conditions of the area, but also boost the socio-economic structures and the cultural identity of the community, by involving in this case vulnerable populations as ambassadors of the new system. The proposal creates a network of recycling centres and infrastructure linked to existing facilities, which are specially frequented by children and senior citizens. For creating these recycling centres, identifiable forms and walls coming from Niemeyer’s school prototype and traditional cobogo patterns are used. People identify this pattern with educative initiatives, and are likely to respond positively to the message it conveys about the community being selfeducated and self-motivated to recycle and reduce environmental hazards. The spatial and social strategy has used space syntax theory and method so as to define transpatial (conceptual) and spatial (based of physical proximity) solidarities (see glossary) between the inhabitants. These depend on the careful choice of sites for the garbage collection points:

71 Miriam FernĂĄndez Ruiz


SENIOR POPULATION & ENVIRONMENTAL RISKS in Rocinha

Senior population & environmental risk in Rocinha

FACILITIES Bus Stops Community Centres Churches Health Centres Commerce

PROBLEMS FACILITIES Areas where less than Bus Stops 50% of households Community Centres have adequate sewage. Churches Reported problems on Health Centres UNICEF map. Commerce

Steeppest Streets

PROBLEMS

> 100% ( > 45ª) Areas where less than 34-100% (19-45º) 50% of households have adequate sewage. Reported problems on UNICEF map.

Steeppest Streets > 100% ( > 45ª) 34-100% (19-45º)

EXISTING WASTE COLLECTION POINTS in Rocinha

Existing waste collection points in Rocinha EXISTING WASTE COLLECTION POINTS in Rocinha

Main waste collection points Street segments within 200m distance from collecting points Rest of street segments 0

65

260m MSc SDAC_E-merging Design Research _Miriam Fernández Ruiz

Sources: CIESPI, dos Territorios Rocinha 2014, Instituto Pereira Passos, Main Panorama waste collection points

Street segments within 200m distance from collecting points Rest of street segments 0

65

260m

Sources: CIESPI, Panorama dos Territorios Rocinha 2014, Instituto Pereira Passos,

72 Miriam Fernández Ruiz

MSc SDAC_E-merging Design Research _Miriam Fernández Ruiz


RECYCLING CENTRES DON’T WASTE IT! WASTE MANAGEMENT SYSTEM: PLACE BALLETS

Proposed waste management system: place ballets within existing context

MSc SDAC_E-merging Design Research _Miriam Fernández Ruiz

73 Miriam Fernández Ruiz

MSc SDAC_E-merging Design Research _Miriam Fernández Ruiz


74 Miriam Fernรกndez Ruiz


1. The foreground network (identified by normalised angular choice radius 800 metres, see glossary) is overlapped with the slope map in order to select the paths that optimise the collection system for the whole community. Recycling centres are placed on the foreground network and next to existing facilities so as to take advantage of the existing movement patterns and to be reached within a 200 metres walk from all households. For each location, the project identifies types of garbage, the facilities the recycling centres are related to, and the location within the network to determine the scale of intervention and the specific programme. The recycling centres are intentionally related to existing facilities, in order to take advantage of the existing spatial and movement routines.

According to Hillier (2015), the creation of spatially dispersed networks should be a priority in the city building process. By choosing strategic points of the foreground network, recycling centres open up possibilities for virtual community, co-presence and encounters between people living in the surrounding area, creating and strengthening new spatial solidarities. The everyday use of recycling centres is intended to become a new ‘place ballet’ (Jacobs 1961). Daily social choreographies though individual space-time routines can contribute to the liveliness and safety of public space by means of ‘natural surveillance’, and enhance mutual trust. The fact that the community actively participates in the waste management system can foster their attachment to the project and the place. The waste management system as a whole intends to promote the human development of the inhabitants of Rocinha. Human development depends on ‘beings and doings’ and ‘wellbeing’ is defined in terms of what people are able to do (Sen 1999). The project aims at contributing to the existing economic and cultural richness and to the improvement of health and environmental conditions by promoting activities and events related to a new waste management system that allows people, especially vulnerable populations, to become actively involved.

2. The project also proposes a calendar of

events related to the recycling system so as to enhance transpatial solidarities. This calendar is based on a range of activities for different social groups. From training workshops to street markets, these events – sometimes promoted by public or private entities and sometimes by the community itself - bring people with the same interests, age or condition together. This strategy expands the social networks of the inhabitants over the whole of Rocinha and beyond, making the settlement a more diverse and socially rich environment.

75 Miriam Fernández Ruiz


Glossary of terms As Object: Or, how spatial laws mediate the social construction of urban space” , In: Proceedings of 3rd International Space Syntax Symposium, Atlanta, USA, pp. 02.21; Hillier, B. (1996) Space is the Machine: A configurational Theory of Architecture, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. vi.

Sources Glossary, Online Training Platform, Space Syntax, UCL (2015) http://otp.spacesyntax.net/ glossary/

Background network The background network is part of a theoretical conception of a generic city as being comprised of a foreground network of linked centres at all scales set into a background network of residential space. The background network is said to vary across residential of spatial areas whole spatial cultures, depending on the way in which that culture seeks to restrain and structure co-presence between, say, inhabitants and strangers or men and women. Sources Hillier, B. (2001) “A Theory of the City As Object: Or, how spatial laws...space”, In Proceedings of 3rd International Space Syntax Symposium, Atlanta, USA, pp. 02.21; Hillier, B. & Netto, V (2002) “Society Seen Through the Prism of Space: Outline of a theory of society and space”, Urban Design International 7, 181-203. pp. 182; Hillier, B. (1996) Space is the Machine: A configurational Theory of Architecture, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. vi.

Movement economy The theory of the movement economy , built on the notion of natural movement, proposes that evolving space organisation in settlements first generates the distribution pattern of busier and quieter movement pattern flows, which then influence land use choices, and these in turn generate multiplier effects on movement with further feedback on land use choices and the local grid as it adapts itself to more intensive development. Sources Hillier, B. (1996) Space is the Machine: A configurational Theory of Architecture, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 125-127. Normalised angular choice Normalised choice aims to solve the paradox that segregated designs add more total (and average) choice to the system than integrated ones. It divides total choice by total depth for each segment in the system. This adjusts choice values according to the depth of each segment in the system, since the more segregated is, the more its choice value will be reduced by being divided by a higher total depth number. This would seem to have the effect of measuring choice in a cost-benefit way. Sources Hillier, B., Yang, T. & Turner, A. (2012) “Normalising Least Angle Choice in DepthMap - and how it opens new perspectives on the global and local analysis of city space”, The Journal of Space Syntax, Vol 3, No 2, pp. 105-193.

Choice Choice measures how likely an axial line or a street segment it is to be passed through on all shortest routes from all spaces to all other spaces in the entire system or within a predetermined distance (radius) from each segment. Sources Hillier, B., Burdett, R., Peponis, J. & Penn, A. (1987) “Creating Life: Or, Does Architecture Determine Anything?”, In: Architecture et Comportement/Architecture and Behaviour, 3 (3), 233-250. pp.237. Foreground network The foreground network is constituted by the spaces maximising natural co-presence and linking centres at all scales. Sources Hillier, B. (2001) “A Theory of the City

Radius Radius is the set of spaces selected from the whole system to be analysed round a root space. For

76 Glossary of Terms


example, it is used to select all spaces within 1000m from a root space. Sources Turner, A. (2008) “Getting Serious with DepthMap: Segment Analysis and Scripting”. [PowerPoint slides]. Presented at Lecture at University College London. Segment analysis Segment analysis is any analysis of a segment map, including topological, angular and metric analyses. It is normally undertaken in DepthMap software. Sources Turner, A. (2004) Depthmap 4: a researcher’s handbook. London: Bartlett School of Graduate Studies, UCL. pp. 26. Spatial-transpatial solidarity Studying the social logic of space, Hillier and Hanson suggest that every society has spatial groups of people that live and move in greater proximity to each other than to others, and conceptual (transpatial) groups based on socially or professionally similar people. The groups of the second kind are conceptual because they do not depend on spatial proximity, although they could coincide with spatial groupings. The former are spatial because they rely on spatial proximity for their social relations. Sources Hillier, B. & Hanson, J. (1984) The Social Logic of Space, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Step depth Step depth, also called point depth in the previous version of DepthMap, follows the shortest path from the selected root line (or segment) to all other lines (or segments) within the system, and the path length is recorded on the line (or segment). Sources Turner, A. (2004) Depthmap 4: a researcher’s handbook. London: Bartlett School of Graduate Studies, UCL. pp. 28. Note: The definition of Spatial-transpatial solidarity has been provided by the editors.

77 Glossary of Terms


references Hillier, B. (2015) Space is the Machine: A configurational Theory of Architecture, available from: http://spaceisthemachine.com, [Accessed: 19 October 2015].

Allen, S. (1997) “From Object To Field”, In: Architecture After Geometry, Architectural Design Profile No.127. May-June, 24-32. Reprinted as: Allen, S. (1999) “Field Conditions”, In: Points+Lines: Diagrams and Projects for the City, New York: Princeton Architectural Press.

Hillier, B., Burdett, R., Peponis, J. & Penn, A. (1987) “Creating Life: Or, Does Architecture Determine Anything?”, In: Architecture et Comportement/ Architecture and Behaviour, 3 (3), 233-250. pp.237.

Allen, S. (1999) Infrastructural Urbanism, In: Points+Lines: Diagrams and Projects for the City, New York: Princeton Architectural Press.

Hillier, B. (2001) “A Theory of the City as Object: Or, how spatial laws mediate the social construction of urban space”, In: Proceedings of 3rd International Space Syntax Symposium Atlanta 2001, 02.1-02.28, pp. 02.21.

Atelier Bow Wow (2001) Pet Architecture Guide Book, Japan: World Photo Press. Easterling, K. (2015) Extrastatecraft – The power of infrastructural space, London, New York: Verso. Hillier, B. (2001) “A Theory of the City As Object: Or, how spatial laws mediate the social construction of urban space”, In: Proceedings of 3rd International Space Syntax Symposium, Atlanta, USA, pp. 02.21.

Hillier, B., Yang, T. & Turner, A. (2012) “Normalising Least Angle Choice in DepthMap - and how it opens new perspectives on the global and local analysis of city space”, The Journal of Space Syntax, Vol 3, No 2, 105-193.

Hillier, B. & Hanson, J. (1984) The Social Logic of Space, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Jacobs, J. (1961) The Death and Life of Great American Cities, New York: Random House.

Hillier, B. & Netto, V. (2002) “Society Seen Through the Prism of Space: Outline of a theory of society and space”, Urban Design International 7, 181-203. pp. 182.

Krenz, K., Kostourou, F., Psarra, S. and Capille, C. (forthcoming, 2015) “Understanding the City as a Whole: An Integrative Analysis of Rio de Janeiro and its Informal Settlements”, In: Proceedings of 22nd ISUF International Conference, City as Organism: New Visions For Urban Life, Faculty of Architecture, ‘Sapienza’ University of Rome, Italy.

Hillier, B. (1996) Space is the Machine: A configurational Theory of Architecture, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

78 References


McGuirk, J. (2014) Radical Cities: Across Latin America in search of a new architecture, London, New York: Verso. Psarra, S., Kostourou, F., Krenz, K. (forthcoming 2015) “Designed and Emergent Tectonics: Resituating Architectural Knowledge”, In: Proceedings of ACSA Fall Conference, eds. Hubeli, R. and Larsen, J., Syracuse School of Architecture, USA. Rifkin, J. (2014) The Zero Marginal Cost Society: The internet of things, the collaborative commons, and the eclipse of capitalism, New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Saunders, D. (2010) Arrival City: How the largest migration is reshaping out world, London: William Heinenmann. Sen, A. (1999) Commodities and Capabilities, In: OUP Catalogue. Smithson, A. (1974) “How to recognize and read Mat-Building: Mainstream architecture as it has developed towards mat-building”, Architectural Design, (Sept.), 573-590. Turner, A. (2004) Depthmap 4: a researcher’s handbook. London: Bartlett School of Graduate Studies, UCL. pp. 26. Turner, A. (2008) “Getting Serious with DepthMap: Segment Analysis and Scripting”. [PowerPoint slides]. Presented at Lecture at University College London.

79 References


Acknowledgements Professor Alan Penn, The Dean of the Bartlett Faculty of the Built Environment, UCL All teaching staff of Spatial Design Architecture Cities MSc, The Bartlett, UCL MPhil/PhD Students, The Bartlett, UCL Alejandro de Castro Mazarro, GSAPP Columbia University, New York Pedro Évora, RUA Arquitetos and CAU PUC Rio de Janeiro Guilherme Lassance, UFRJ Rio de Janeiro Vinicius Netto, UFF Rio de Janeiro Pedro Rivera, RUA Arquitetos, Rio de Janeiro and GSAPP Columbia University, New York Leonard Streich, Something Fantastic, Berlin and ETH Zürich Studio-X Rio de Janeiro, Columbia GSAPP For data provision: Leandro Gomes, PCRJ – IPP Instituto Pereira Passos, Rio de Janeiro Kyle Beneventi, Pickard Chilton Architects, USA

Edited by: Sophia Psarra, Fani Kostourou and Kimon Krenz Designed by: Avni Patel | www.avnipatel.com Printed by: SLS Print

Copyright © 2015 The Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. ISBN: 9-780992-948573 For more information in the MSc Spatial Design: Architecture & Cities programme and the E-merging Design Research module at the Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL, visit http://www.bartlett.ucl.ac.uk/ space-syntax/programmes/mres-msc/msc-spatialdesign.

80 Acknowledgements



Chun Wing Fok Irem Kurtulus Katerina Anagnostopoulou-Politou Leonardo Alings Zhiqiang Gao

Pablo Juica Yantén Weijie Zong Mengyang Liu Xiao Hu Miriam Fernández Ruiz


Turn static files into dynamic content formats.

Create a flipbook
Issuu converts static files into: digital portfolios, online yearbooks, online catalogs, digital photo albums and more. Sign up and create your flipbook.