reViewing the Parkway

REVIEWING THE BE N J AM I N FR ANKLIN PA R KWAY

Connectivity of Past, Present and Place BONNIE NETEL_THESIS 2011/12 1

E H T G N I W E I V E R YA W K R A P N I L K N A R F N I M A J N E B

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REVIEWING THE BE N J AM I N FR ANKLIN PA R KWAY BONNIE NETEL Thesis presented to the Faculty of the Department of Architecture College of Architecture and the Built Environment Philadelphia University In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of BACHELOR OF ARCHITECTURE Thesis Research Faculty Thesis Studio Instructor Susan I. FrostĂŠn Academic Advisor Carol Hermann Professional Advisor Jessica Henson Special thanks to Henry Moll Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 3

May 2012

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ABSTRACT Time is a crucial factor in the transformation of a city, equal to that of the economic and cultural behaviors of its people. As the needs of its people change due to the insertion of additional factors such as technology, the city reflects these shifts in the population’s needs through gradual, progressive change. However, the adaptation of the urban environment cannot occur as rapidly as the user demands.

At its simplest, the term “city” characterizes the human collective consisting of a set of user groups: residents, tourists, passerby, pedestrians, drivers, and bicyclists. However, due to the relative condition of time, each user group experiences the city differently.

While the city naturally evolves due to the inevitable push of time, technology increases the velocity in which the user travels through and interprets his or her environment. Due to the incessant demand of time and technology, attention has been directed to vehicular patterns, inevitably weakening public space for the pedestrian in regards to architecture and the urban realm. As a result, the city’s architecture has become static, lacking a malleability that allows the urban environment to respond directly to any user group.

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A symbiotic relationship between the urban environment and the user must be strengthened in order to accelerate the urban response to the user defined need. Architecture must then become the vehicle for urban transformation based on the individual input on the human collective.

THESIS 6

The development of the vehicle has altered the speed in which one experiences the city, prioritizing the construction of transportation corridors over the creation of urban place.

By repairing the intersections of the Benjamin Franklin Parkway and the original street grid with active and passive programs, points of destination are created to redefine paths of movement for the pedestrian, bicyclist, and driver as well as to reactivate path as place for people and event.

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TA BLE O F 010/POSITION PAPER 020/REVIEWING THE PARKWAY 024/SITE DOCUMENTATION 036/PROGRAM 040/THESIS DOCUMENTATION 064/PAST WORK 118/REFLECTION 120/APPENDIX

experimental modeling top-down/bottom-up? contemporary perspectives: mass transit

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CO NTEN TS

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OUTLINE nolli map of rome activate architecture!

the need for a continuum between architecture and the urban realm buildings do not contribute to city collective

“sign has turned architecture into a contemplative passive object not a place that confronts spaces and actions.”

precedent: San Pietro; Rome Party on the Parkway; container Philadelphia Marathon; path Parkway Museum District; daily activity

buildings do not border the Parkway

passive architecture: architecture that no longer contributes to the urban realm

event space amount of parking lots to be utilized

bernard tschumi analysis Duomo; Florence La Sagrada Famiglia; Barcelona

not to abandon technologies, embrace it

as building

evolution of site residential neighborhood demolished to pave way for the Parkway

Piazza San Marco; Venice Times Square; New York City directional

curb cuts

as rule

as separation

Benjamin Franklin Parkway selected as site

creation of bike paths

as container collection of traffic volume data

generative

pedestrian as catalyst

the locations sandwiched between parkway & residential neighborhood to the north are disjointed from the city as “infill” projects precedent: Mission Grande Axe; OMA

sign

traffic studies

Diagonal axis in the city connecting iconic buildings; City Hall and the Philadelphia Museum of Art

case study: Benjamon Franklin Parkway Louis Kahn- Traffic Studies of Philadelphia

technology & evolution

Buchanon Report- Segregation of the Car

INITIAL THESIS PROPOSAL

THESIS INTENT

“I propose to mend the gap between the experience of the vehicle and the pedestrian to respect the origins of the city while still furthering the development of the urban plan in terms of an evolving, technological society.”

“Shared space between the pedestrian and the car in the urban environment requires not only physical interventions but modification of one’s perception of space. Street graphics directly influence cultural behaviors and responses that inform city systems and architecture.”

what is the proper life span of a building? erasure of the urban context

City Beautiful Movement in Philadelphia

creating a diagonal axis that pulls Fairmount Park into the city

Baron Haussmann’s Plan for Paris

creation of a boulevards for programmatic need

development of a rule: institution of the urban grid allowing the grid to repopulate based on the established rule

boulevards connecting iconic buildings

SITE EXPLORATION {SPACE}

functions due to the consistent height of the buildings that border the boulevard

evolutionary process

parametric modeling variations with evaluative process

precedent: Parc de la Villette

code & classification

units become code transformed by user MIDREVIEW REMARKS resident

tourist

PROGRAMMATIC SEARCH {EVENT}

who is the user?

driver

cyclist

pedestrian

the car is a technological advance that we need to embrace

THESIS STATEMENT precedent: deconstruction/construction the cheonggyecheon restoration project in seoul

The presence of architecture in the urban realm has become static, requiring a methodology to increase interactions between the person and the built environment.

In contrast to the method of creating a code and evaluating the output for its “best results,” the architecture itself becomes the code for the pedestrian, driver, and cyclist to manipulate in order to provoke a dialogue between the user and the change in the urban realm he or she wishes to see.

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POSITION PAPER A symbiotic relationship characterizes the dependence between the city and the economic and cultural behaviors of its people.1 As the needs of its people change due to the insertion of factors such as technology, the city reflects these shifts in need through gradual, progressive change. Specifically, the vehicle has dominated the focus of city planning and design in the twentieth century.2 Simultaneous to the overpopulation of the vehicle, architecture has receded from its active role in engaging the urban participant. The presence of architecture in the public realm has become static, requiring a methodology to increase interaction between the person and the built environment. Once this relationship is strengthened, the imbalance of space shared by various modes of transportation will inherently be repaired.

The technological introduction of the vehicle has instigated an evolution of the city, progressing the city into a condition vastly different from its pedestrian origins. Various user groups such as residents, tourists, passerby, pedestrians, driver and bicyclists now need to share the same space--the street. The street is a crucial component of the public realm controlled by government regulation to moderate the competing users. The impulsive reaction to settle competing methods of transport is to segregate vehicular traffic from pedestrians, cyclists and social activities.3 For instance, The Ministry of Transport documented the concept of segregation in the Buchanan Report, Traffic in Towns, in 1963, becoming the archetypical policy for street governance still in place today.

01. Herman Knoflacher “How Roads Kill Cities,�

11 The Urban Age Project, 340.

If space (singular, indefinite) is collective and permanent, are spaces (plural, definite) individual and transformable?

Bernard Tschumi, Archiecture and Disjunction, 59

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Architects have also studied traffic patterns in the city. Following the concept of segregation, Louis Kahn removes the vehicle from the city by placing parking towers at the perimeter of the city in his study of Philadelphia. While segregation has been the model for politicians, architects, and urban designers for the past four decades, the separation of the vehicular path from the pedestrian shuns the technological advancement of the city rather than embracing it. Brian Tabolt in his article “Trafficking Urbanism” states that “the solution to this problem (the essentially private nature of our most vast area of public owned land) is not to abandon technologies that have created the current condition, but to reassess their potential for generating new types of interaction and space.” 4 The gap between the experience of the vehicle and the pedestrian needs to be mended to respect the origins of the city while still furthering the development of the urban plan in terms of an evolving technological society. However, at present, “new approaches to reconciling the relationship between traffic and the public realm represent a significant challenge to longstanding assumptions underpinning the conventional segregation of traffic from civic space associated with policy and practice.”5 Deterioration of these common practices and regulations allow for a new method of developing urban space emanant of human need.

As described in Recombinant Urbanism, “the city as a whole is constructed by local networks of citizens cooperating in a semiautonomous system of interactive relationships.”6 The author, David Grahame Shane, explains a condition in which the containment of space is assembled by the movement and attraction of people as part of the collective whole. In contrast, Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities illustrates the city based on topics such as memory, desire, sign, name and continuity to describe the city from the perspective of one urban participant, representing the city as the creator of the human experience. For instance, the city of Tamara simulates the relationship of city and sign. In Marco Polo’s discussion of his experience in Tamara with Kublai Kahn,

Polo says “your gaze scans the streets as if they were written pages: the city says everything you must think, makes you repeat her discourse, and while you believe you are visiting Tamara, you are only recording the name with which she defines herself and all of her parts.” 7 While one supposedly experiences the city, all that one remembers are the face values of the people and buildings that masks the stories and the lives of the people and buildings that inhabit the place.

The theory of sign, or semiotics, gets broken into the theory of code and the theory of sign production. Umberto Eco states on page seven of “Theory of Semiotics”, “semiotics is concerned with everything that can be taken as a sign. A sign is everything which can be taken as significantly substitution for something else.”8 Semiotics is the study of communication through systems and codes to describe something determined by observer or culture.

Eco evolves Charles Pierces notion of sign that determines influences to be a collaboration of the sign, the object and the interpretant. In Calvino’s depiction of the city, Polo’s experience in Tamara is directed by the signs portrayed by the building facades of the city.

02. Herman Knoflacher “How Roads Kill Cities,” The Urban Age Project, 342.

03. Ben Hamilton-Baillie, Shared Space, 132.

04. Brian Tabolt, “Trafficking Urbanism,” 6.

05. Ben Hamilton-Baillie, Shared Space, Abstract.

06. David Grahame Shane, Recombinant Urbanism, 32.

07. Italo Calvino, Invisible Cities, 13.

08. Umberto Eco, Theory of Semiotics, 20.

09. Umberto Eco, Theory of Semiotics, 20.

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Eco’s example of sign is the Pavlov’s dog experiment in which the sign is a conditioned stimulus. The ringing of the bell is a “sign” in which the dog makes the connection to being fed, becoming habit. Therefore, “the production and employment of objects are used for transforming the relationship between man and nature.”9 Eco’s writing does not speak of architecture and space specifically but of the user and its environment, culture and habit.

Architecturally, New York City’s Time Square is enclosed by surfaces masked by advisement. Tourists visit Times Square in particular for its iconic reputation, recognizing the urban landscape through branding and sign. However, the space is only read for its surface value, and the public space

is not balanced from inside to out. Bernard Tschumi describes in Architecture and Disjunction, “sign has turned architecture into a contemplative passive object not a place that confronts spaces and actions.” 10 Architecture no longer contributes to the urban realm due to the lack of time and restriction of space in which the user can linger between public space and the adjacent architecture.

10. Bernard Tschumi, Architecture and Disjunction, 141.

11. Stephen Grabow, Christopher Alexander: the search for a new paradigm in architecture, 21.

12. Charles McClenden, “The History of the Site of St. Peter’s Basilica, Rome.” Perspecta 13. Charles McClenden, “The History of the Site of St. Peter’s Basilica, Rome.” Perspecta 14. Bernard Tschumi, Architecture and Disjunction, 149.

15. Rem Koolhaas, SMLXL, 1103.

16. Michael Hensel, Techniques and Technolo gies in Morphogenetic Design, 58.

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In order to address the passive condition of architecture and its departure from the urban landscape, one must reference historical notions of urban organization that provide precedent for balanced urban spaces. Describing “A Pattern Language” Shane describes “this is the climate in which today, the question of what makes a building or town beautiful has to be asked.

If such “rules” or “conditions” existed in the past, what were they, how had they become lost, under what circumstances might they be recreated, and how could such circumstances be made practical and feasible?”11 The Nolli Plan of Rome best describes the continuum of public space fluid between architecture and the urban landscape lacking today. Supplementing the public space continuum of the Nolli Plan, the evolution of the Piazza of St. Peter’s exhibits the focus on public space in a changing society. In an effort to modernize Rome, Mussolini planned for the Via della Concilliazione as one of many boulevards aiming to achieve grandeur representative of the fascist regime.12 Because the construction of the Via della Concilliazione spanned from 1936 to 1950, the Via della Concilliazione responded to the politics of World War II and the new impending need for vehicular accessibility.13

Mussolini’s destruction of the city fabric to push the city forward parallels Tschumi’s investigative methods to begin the transformative process, stating that one must first deconstruct the city to “explore new codes of assemblage.”14 The competition entered by the OMA for the Grand Mission Axe in Paris, France describes a similar process in analyzing the evolution of a site.

The proposal questions the life span of existing buildings on site, demolishing buildings that exceed twenty-five years old. Following the concept of tabula rasa, or “blank slate,” the erasure of the city fabric provides opportunities to establish rules for future new development.15 In the case of the OMA proposal, the implementation of the Manhattan grid provides flexibility for growth.

The transformation of site demonstrates an evolutionary process in which time and scale are generative components for change. At current, the decision for large scale urban transformation is governed by politics.

However, “cities are complex systems. The flow of vehicles and people within a city represents the emergent behavior of such a system, produced by larger numbers of decisions of the individuals and their interaction with each other and with the transport infrastructure of the city. Complex systems are by definition, non-linear and sensitive to initial conditions that may produce turbulent behavior at the global scale.”16 While the city consists of decisions made by individuals, decisions are executed by individuals representing the collective. The conflict for who becomes the urban creator therefore stems from the inflexibility of the political stature.

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Architectural solutions such a Tschumi’s Parc de la Villette exist to instigate human attraction. Red follies placed in an even rid over a plot of 120 acres outside of Paris suggests that a variety of events and programs can be hosted upon the need of the user. Though, the follies do not delineate any one particular program, becoming static when not in use. A generative process is required to mutate and maintain a dynamic public space before, during and after an event. Christopher Alexander best describes in “A Pattern Language,” “ In the realm of design, the comparable question is: “Given a set of needs, how can we generate a form which meets those needs? If one could replace the concept of “need” by the concept of an active “force,” it might be possible to study to the interaction of human needs in space as a generative process

comparable to and with the same precision as the form-generating processes in nature.�17 A methodology consists of a list of parameters that react to the given circumstances, or forces.

The photosynthetic process of the singular leaf undergoes a process utilizing carbon dioxide, water and light, converting these parameters into chlorophyll. However, if the climate changes to manipulate these elements to become imbalanced, the leaf will no longer be green from the chlorophyll originally produced. As each individual leaf changes, the tree is reflective of the individual through its collective form. The description of a leaf also is depictive of a temporal-permanent state in which the form remains consistent while its properties adapt to the evolving conditions.

In this regard, the urban participant--driver, pedestrian, or cyclist--has the power to evolve the collective form of the city through interaction with its architecture. An architecture that blurs the threshold between temporary and permanent is required to become immediately responsive to both the user and the urban landscape. The notion of mutable architecture provides a driver for which the issues of passive architecture and shared space can be addressed. A new dynamic architectural methodology is required to mitigate the individual need of the driver, pedestrian, and cyclist with the political control of the city.

17. Stephen Grabow, Christopher Alexander: the search for a new paradigm in architecture, 52.

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URBAN CONTINUUM AS PORTRAYED BY NOLLI

CURRENT CONDITIONS: “THE CONTAINER”

THE USER CREATED CITY TOMORROW

THE USER CREATED CITY A MONTH FROM NOW

Diagram depicts a study of a parasitic strategy to infiltrate architecture with public space over a span of time.

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THE USER CREATED CITY A YEAR FROM NOW

B I B L I O G R A P H Y Burdett, Ricky. The Endless City: [the urban age project by the London School

of Economics and Deutsche Bank’s Alfred Herrhausen Society. London

[u.a.: Phaidon, 2007. Print.

Calvino, Italo. Invisible Cities . [1st ed. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1974.

Eco, Umberto. A Theory of Semiotics. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1976.

Frazer, John. An Evolutionary Architecture. London: Architectural Association, 1995.

Grabow, Stephen. Christopher Alexander: the Search for a New Paradigm in Architecture. Stocksfield: Oriel Press, 1983.

Hamilton-Baillie, Ben. “Towards shared space.” Urban Design International 13,

no. 2 (2008): 131-138.

Hensel, Michael, Achim Menges, and Michael Weinstock. Techniques and

Technologies in Morphogenetic Design. London: Wiley-Academy, 2006.

Koolhaas, Rem, Bruce Mau, Jennifer Sigler, and Hans Werlemann. Small, Me

dium, Large, Extra-Large: Office for Metropolitan Architecture, Rem

Koolhaas, and Bruce Mau. 2d ed. New York, N.Y.: Monacelli Press, 1998.

McClendon, Charles. “The History of the Site of St. Peter’s Basilica, Rome.”

Perspecta 25 (1989): 34-36.

Shane, David Grahame. Recombinant Urbanism: Conceptual Modeling in Ar

chitecture, Urban Design, and City Theory. Chichester: Wiley-Acade

my, 2005 18

Trafficking Urbanism.â&#x20AC;? Brian Tabolt. N.p., n.d. Web. 14 Mar. 2011. <http://briantabolt.info/writing/trafficking-in-urbanism/>.

Tschumi, Bernard. Architecture and Disjunction . Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1994.

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R E V IE WI NG T H E PARKW

The development of the vehicle has altered the speed in which one experiences Philadelphia, prioritizing the construction of transportation corridors such as the Benjamin Franklin Parkway over urban pedestrian space. By repairing the intersections of the Benjamin Franklin Parkway and the original street grid with active and passive programs, points of destination are created to redefine paths of movement for the pedestrian, bicyclist, and driver as well as to reactivate the space as a place for people and event.

The Benjamin Franklin Parkway was instigated by the City Beautiful Movement to improve the urban fabric due to the monotonous densification of the grid. The City Beautiful Movement in Philadelphia provoked city planners to bring attention to environmentalism, social control, beauty and utility, solutions to current urban problems, spirit and image for Philadelphia, using the Parkway as its vehicle.1 The plan called for a green, diagonal boulevard connecting Fairmount Park in the Northwest quadrant of the city to City Hall in Philadelphia’s center and inducing the demolition of a great deal of residences. The original plan called for the boulevard to be bordered by buildings. However, the Parkway was never realized due to the political controversy and economic impact. Instead, the open space acts more as a gap in the city fabric as opposed to be intentionally programmed. Buildings recede from the Parkway due to its high emphasis on transportation. The streetscape is dedicated to the vehicle, symmetrically organizing traffic lanes with pedestrian walkways immersed within that system.

While the Parkway does not serve as a public space as it had intended, existing programs provide support for an emerging place in Philadelphia. Currently, The Parkway serves as Philadelphia’s Museum Mile, including museums classified by the Parkway District: the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Franklin Institute, Rodin Museum, Barnes Foundation, Free Library of Philadelphia, Academy of Natural Sciences, Cathedral Basilica SS. Peter and Paul, Moore College of Art and Design, and Friends Select School2. In addition, the Museum without Walls encompasses a multitude of exterior sculptures that can be accessed visually and through audio phone applications free to the user. Over the course of the year, the Parkway transforms from a transportation corridor into a public space for events such as the Party on the Parkway and the Philadelphia Marathon.

In order to capitalize on these resources, access should be provided that allows residents and tourists to reach the Parkway either by foot or only having to park their vehicle once. The Center City District and the Center Philadelphia Development Corporation have proposed various options for connectivity from the Parkway. First, as means of increasing bicycle usage in Philadelphia, the CPDC has suggested using the Benjamin Franklin Parkway and Market Street as the link between the Schuylkill River Trail and the East Coast Greenway. Second, the CPDC recognized the need for a subway line from Center City, along the Benjamin Franklin Parkway and extending to the Philadelphia Zoo. This project offers to revitalize the underutilized Reading Viaduct to create a subway line that travels beneath Pennsylvania Avenue and joins with the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority Broad Street Line. The benefit to optimizing the existing rail reduces commute 20 traffic by serving northern Philadelphia neighborhoods and increases foot traffic to the

William H. Wilson, The City Beautiful Movement. pgs. 80-84 “Fairmount Park | Parkway Museums District Philadelphia.” Home | Parkway Museums District 1 2

WAY Philadelphia Museum of Art from Center City.3

Defining the challenges, the Benjamin Franklin Parkway is an urban incision slicing through Philadelphia neighborhoods and generating broken paths of movement for the streets intersecting the Parkway. By developing an edge to Parkway through the expansion of pedestrian space and the contraction of vehicular movement, the Parkway will become balanced as a public space as well as a place for movement. Mitigating the formation of complex intersections, the creation of underground tunnels will provide a continuous path of movement on 21st and 22nd Streets.

In further detail, this project identifies the users of the project to be residents, tourists, bicyclists, pedestrians, and drivers. Such larger infrastructural moves require components that relate to the scale of the user. Programmatically, the insertion of commercial structures such as cafes, book stands, and so forth will promote Jane Jacob’s argument of keeping the “Eyes on the Street.” Adding activity to the Parkway during a nonevent will induce further use of the space. Such commercial structures will provide support for pedestrian bridges to span from one side of the Parkway to the other. Creating vast pedestrian space in the city, however, is the careful balance between path, points of attraction, and materiality.

The Benjamin Franklin Parkway is composed by multiple layers of materials, vegetation, and culture. Trees, cobblestone and brick, asphalt, benches, paint, and street flags create layers of separation between the pedestrian and the driver. Recently, the Center City District has instituted bicycle greenways by painting a lane of asphalt green.

Subtle material shifts on the Parkway create divisions for the various users. 4

This project proposes integrating with current site materials by understanding the different needs for the Parkway between the Philadelphia Museum of Art where it is less dense and City Hall where it is denser. Prescribed interventions include larger scale improvements such as pedestrian bridging and vehicular tunneling to create greater impact in the less dense portion of the Parkway. Material interventions, such as using permeable pavers and implementing trees relate to the scale of the user in the dense perimeter of City Hall while addressing needs for stormwater management.

Drexel University Resources, “IRT: Cross Town Trail Line.”

“Greater Philadelphia Bicycle News: Philly’s First Green Bike Lane Appears on the Scene.”

5 21 Malcolm Reading Consultants, Aberdeen City Garden Project 6 Malcolm Reading Consultants, Aberdeen City Garden Project 3 4

Projects that target the creation of place exist in multiple facets. For instance, the OLIN studio is working on the Aberdeen City Garden project in London. Initially a competition, the client called teams to a project proposal that encompassed place-making, culture, arts, connectivity and inclusion, landscape, historic environment and sustainability.5 Some if the specific items required by the client included: “street level access to green gardens designed and landscaped with trees, grass and plants for all seasons, animated with water and light features, a natural ampitheatre to provide a civic space for major outdoor events, gatherings, festivals, and concerts, and a covered all-weather concourse level providing access through the bus and railway stations, the Green and Union Square.”6 Diller Scofidio and Renfro responded by proposing the “Granite Web” to emphasize the

reformation of neighborhood relationships through path, garden, and civic and cultural events.7 The Granite Web expresses a solution that is conducive to “Eyes on the Street” on multi-levels through garden spaces above and through cultural orchestral spaces beneath. The project breeds activity on my depths.

The Benjamin Franklin Parkway serves as a location in Philadelphia that offers a multitude of cultural events to create identity for the user regardless of origination. By establishing a space conducive for multiple user types through the creation of pedestrian bridges and vehicular tunnels, the Benjamin Franklin Parkway can serve as an economic and cultural generator for the City of Philadelphia.

WORKS CITED “Brief — Aberdeen City Garden Project.” Malcolm Reading Consultants. N.p., n.d.

<http://www.malcolmreading.co.uk/architecturalcompetitions/citygarden/

brief>.

“Fairmount Park | Parkway Museums District Philadelphia.” Home |

Parkway Museums District Philadelphia. N.p., n.d. <http://www.

parkwaymuseumsdistrictphiladelphia..org/Museums-More/Members/31/

memberId__81/>.

“Greater Philadelphia Bicycle News: Philly’s First Green Bike Lane Appears on the Scene.”

Greater Philadelphia Bicycle News. N.p., n.d. <http://blog.bicyclecoalition.

org/2011/08/phillys-first- green-bike-lane-appears.html>.

“IRT: Cross Town Trail Line.” IRT: Cross Town Trail Line. N.p., n.d. Web. <dspace.library.

drexel.edu/bitstream/1860/116/4/Appendix%20C.pdf>.

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Malcolm Reading Consultants, Aberdeen City Garden Project

T H ESIS O BJ E C T I V E S At present, the driver solely experiences the visual corridor. This thesis aims to provide equal recognition to the pedestrian and bicyclist, understanding that the city accommodates a variety of user need.

1 2

REPAIR original street grid to its original fluid movement CONNECT /strengthen connection between Fairmount Park and Center City Philadelphia /create connection between the Schuylkill River Trail and the East Coast Greenway

3

CREATE PLACE

4

CREATE VARIED SYSTEMS OF PATH to serve a broad user group

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/embrace large scale event and stimulate event on a more consisten basis /insert commercial activity to attract users and radiate activity along edge /support museum mile and enhance the Museum without Walls

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S I T E DO CU ME N TAT IO N 25

PRODUCED BY AN AUTODESK EDUCATIONAL PRODUCT

The intent of the Benjamin Franklin Parkway was to implement the socially focused ideals of the City Beautiful Movement; however, the construction of the Parkway erased portions of a residential neighborhood in order to create the diagonal axis connecting Fairmount Park with Center City Philadelphia. Slicing through Philadelphia, the Parkway invites a large flux of vehicular traffic on daily basis and an overpowering amount of people during large events such as the Party on the Parkway. With twenty-four percent of land use currently allocated for transportation and five percent for categories such civic and recreational use, opportunity exists to reconfigure land use allocations to maintain space for the vehicle while absorbing its function into various other urban practices. Due to the inflammation of traffic along the Benjamin Franklin Parkway, the Parkway no longer functions as an urban solution but as a problem of speed and density that needs to be reevaluated in a means of projecting the future beyond the current inherent needs.

Philadelphia developed during colonization prior to the American Revolution when residents under the rule of the British Empire fled England to find reform in the Americas.1 William Penn sought to create a meeting place for a Quaker society in which residents had a decent amount of land, dissimilar from that of the situation in London.2 As a result, the grid plan was established as a foundation for Philadelphia to evolve with the progression of time and with the city population growth. The City Beautiful Movement altered the Philadelphia City plan in the early twentieth century for the purpose of adjusting to meet the interests of the people.

Overall, the City Beautiful Movement consisted of several intentions to refresh one’s experience of the city, not specifically Philadelphia alone. The City Beautiful Movement is in response to the rapid pace of urbanization in the United States. Because of the extensive growth of the city, people needed to revamp their image of the city as opposed to the suburban environment citizens were accustomed to. Several factors were considered: environmentalism, social control, beauty and utility, solutions to current urban problems, spirit and image.3 Baron Haussmann’s city for Paris is a prototype upon which the City Beautiful Movement is modeled.4 Haussmann’s plan consists of large boulevards to people to dwell, aiming to create a hub of activity for the modern life of the urban tenant. Then, at the focus of these boulevards, Charles Garnier’s Opera was a monumental architecture to serve the interests of the people.5 Baron Haussmann’s plan for Paris sought to create function for the government by creating large boulevards for 26 the passage of military.6 In addition, social control in Paris contributed to the

PRODUCED BY AN AUTODESK EDUCATIONAL PRODUCT

B E N J AM I N F R AN KLI N P

Top: General scope of the Parkway Bottom:Parkway as part of larger green and vehicular systems

1 Randolphe El-Khoury, and Edward Robbins. Shaping the City: Studies in History, Theory and Urban Design.

2 Adrienne Siegel. Philadelphia: A Chronological and Documentary History 1615-1970, pg. 2 3 William H. Wilson, The City Beautiful Movement. pgs. 80-84 4 Wilson, pg. 85 5 Howard Saalman. Haussmann: Paris Transformed 6 Saalman.

PARK WAY

Top: Philadelphia 1875 showing residential housing prior to the institution of the Parkway Bottom: Haussmanization of Paris showing the boulevards leading to the Arc di Triomphe

7 Center City District. “CENTER CITY: PLANNING FOR GROWTH BENJAMIN FRANKLIN PARKWAY.” 8 Center City District. “CENTER CITY: PLANNING FOR GROWTH BENJAMIN FRANKLIN PARKWAY.” 9 Center City District. “CENTER CITY: PLANNING FOR GROWTH BENJAMIN FRANKLIN PARKWAY.” 10 27 “History - External Website - Logan Square Neighborhood Association.”

11 “History - External Website - Logan Square Neighborhood Association.”

plan to keep citizens from rebelling by creating a spirit and liveliness in the urban environment. Similarly, in America, the City Beautiful Movement dealt with the focus of keeping the urban tenant content by creating a harmony architecturally and socially.

This movement in Philadelphia sparked the introduction of the diagonal to extend from city hall, located as the central focus point of inner city, to the northwest quadrant of Philadelphia, commonly known as the Benjamin Franklin Parkway. Borrowing principles still from the City Beautiful Movement, the Parkway carves the urban fabric to connect visually and pragmatically to iconic Philadelphia monuments—City Hall and the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Moreover, the Benjamin Franklin Parkway terminates at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the focal point of the parkway, designed by Horace Traumbauer, Julian Abele, C. Clark Zantzinger, Charles L. Borie Jr. in the early twentieth century. The development of the Philadelphia Museum of Art is driven by the revolution of the Philadelphia City plan to create a public interest and relief from the grid, creating a processional movement from Center City to the new art museum. The Philadelphia Museum of Art represents one of few existing monuments developed to support the City Beautiful Movement.

The vision for the Benjamin Franklin Parkway was never realized due to the Great Depression, halting the development of half of the monuments planned for the Parkway.7 In replace, the rise of the vehicle instigated the attention to be redirected to accommodating its needs. First, traffic lights were installed in 1933 in addition to curtailing street intersections to allow for optimal traffic flow. In response to traffic adjustments, projects developed in the 1950s such as the Park Towne Place were set back from the Parkway shunning public engagement.8 The overwhelming need to increase vehicular flow also introduced the institution of the Vine Street Expressway that sliced through Philadelphia to provide a faster means of travelling through the city at the expense of the its public spaces.9 Logan Square represents a location along that Parkway that functions well as both public and traffic space. Originally, Logan Square existed merely as one of the five allocated plots allotted for green space by William Penn. Prior to the intervention of the vehicle, a small fountain stood in the center of the tree filled square.10 With the dedication to Dr. Wilson Cary Swann, the founder of the Philadelphia Fountain Society, the Swann Fountain was placed in the center of Logan Square, forcing the Parkway to bend to circle the fountain.11 Because the vision for the Benjamin Franklin Parkway was conceived prior to the rise of the vehicle, the Parkway has adjusted over time in order to compensate for its high demands.

Since the projects in the 1950s, the Center City District & Central Philadelphia Development Corporation has focused on developing projects Philadelphia’s art cultural corridor. Recently, the Barnes Foundation Philadelphia campus, designed by Tod Williams and Billie Tsien Architects, has been added to the Parkway Museums District; though, the public expressed concern for its physical design and contribution to the Parkway with its back-door approach. As discussed in the Philadelphia Inquirer and posted on the Barnes Foundation website “ The architects placed an enchanting outdoor cafe along Pennsylvania Avenue, as well as a landscaped, 80-car parking lot.... [But,] What makes aesthetic sense doesn’t always make urban sense. The fundamental rationale for moving the Barnes to the parkway is to create visible activity in the empty zones between cultural activities.”12 While the Barnes presents physical gestures to the Rodin Museum and other architectural elements, the Barnes Foundation on the grander scheme acts as an isolated item further emphasizing the fragmented urban experience of the Parkway’s current state.

The Philadelphia based landscape architecture, urban design and planning, OLIN worked collaboratively to design the plaza for the Barnes Foundation, driven by the programmatic requirements set by the Barnes Foundation. However, spite the processional segregation encouraged by the Barnes project, OLIN returns to the ideals fabricated by Jacques Greber and Phillipe Paul Cret in the original design of the Benjamin Franklin Parkway. Rehabilitating the Parkway in portions, OLIN studio has designed projects for the Barnes Foundation, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Logan Circle and the Rodin Museum. Each project recognizes the formal geometric attitude originally prescribed. For instance, the revitalization of the public plaza of the Rodin Museum maintains the strong symmetry but focuses on material choices and pedestrian access in relation to the Parkway.13 In addition, the project to revitalize Logan Circle was a collaborative project between OLIN, the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society, the Pew Charitable Trusts, Center City District and the Fairmount Park Commission, focused on screening the pedestrian from traffic once enclosed in the space.14 The Swann Fountain in Logan Square has been previously restored by George Patton in 1990.15 However, the restoration of the Swann Fountain had not addressed that traffic affected by its placement. Each project developed by OLIN works in conjunction with a larger master plan for the Parkway.

As a whole, the recent projects rejuvenate the Benjamin Franklin Parkway by realizing the original vision for the Parkway in spite of the Parkway’s pre-vehicle 28 considerations.

Architecture needs to confront urban space with the presence of

Olin Studio proposals for the Benjamin Franklin Parkway

The Barnes Foundation. “Barnes in the News.”

OLIN. “Benjamin Franklin Parkway.”

14 OLIN. “Benjamin Franklin Parkway.”

15 Hank Klibanoff. “A New View In Logan Square Restoration Of The Landmark Fountain Is Under Way - Philly.com.”

12 13

the vehicle to find a mediation between a pure pedestrian and a pure vehicular space. With the Benjamin Franklin Parkway spanning one mile of the city, the Benjamin Franklin Parkway has the potential to hold a greater capacity of programs beyond the current vehicular corridor. Because the Parkway developed as a result of the City Beautiful Movement, the use of the Parkway needs to shift from a systematic focus to that of a socially responsible infrastructural asset.

WORKS CITED “Barnes In the News.” The Barnes Foundation. www.barnesfoundation.org/about/

press/coverage/inquirer-100609.

Brownlee, David B.Building the City Beautiful: The Benjamin Franklin Parkway and

the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Philadelphia: Philadelphia Museum of

Art, 2000.

“CENTER CI TY: PLANNING FOR GROWTH BENJAMIN F RANKL IN PARKWAY.”

Center City District. www.centercityphila.org/docs/SOCC-Plan07-BFP2. pdf El-Khoury, Rodolphe and Edward Robbins, Shaping the City: Studies in History,

Theory and Urban Design. New York: Routledge, 2004.

“History - External Website - Logan Square Neighborhood Association.” Home -

External Website - Logan Square Neighborhood Association. http://www.

lsnaphilly.org/display/EXT/History

Top: Pedestrian island facing City Hall.

Bottom: Pedestrian Island facing the Philadelphia Museum of Art

Klibanoff, Hank. “A New View In Logan Square Restoration Of The Landmark

Fountain Is Under Way - Philly.com.” Featured Articles from Philly.com.

http://articles.philly.com/1989-03-17/news/26128394_1_sculptures-

landmark-fountain-alexander-stirling-calder “OLIN.” OLIN: blog . http://www.theolinstudio.com/flash#/projects/type/

benjamin-franklin-parkway Saalman, Howard. Haussman: Paris Transformed. new York: G. Braziller, 1971.

29

02

01

03

04 05

Visibility Plan Studies

30

06

Correlation Visibility Perspectives

31

View Towards the Philadelphia Museum of Art

32

View Towards City Hall and Center City Philadelphia

33

34 Broken Paths of Movement

Philadelphia Residential Neighborhoods 1875

Building Mass/Void Diagram

SCHUY LK IL L

EA S

RIV

T AS O TC

G

Y WA N REE

T ER

RA IL

Parkway as Connector between Fairmount Park and Center City 35

Parkway as Connector between Schuylkill River Train & East Coast Greenway

EXISTS

OVERLAYING SYSTEMS Program Components

COMPROMISED MATRIX infrastructure overwhelmed by the pressures of people and vehicle

SIMULTANEOUS ADAPTATION

HEAL active program [responds to rapid influx of users]

MERGE

connecting paths & systems

SUPPORT

passive program/consistent [provides structure to space]

parking spots segregated bike, pedestrian, & vehicular paths “Museum Without Walls”

Organization

Lacks places to sit

parking spots

pop-up cafes

“places to sit” commerical vendors/stimulation

Controller

Bike Paths Vehicular Pedestrian

Directional Movement

Bike Facilities and Sharing Center Visititation Centers Public Meeting places “Museum WIthout Walls” Reference Point

REINTERPRET

water management & storage systems graphic/wayfinding initiatives

sensorial/ aid movement

PROGRESS

Adaptation/deformation/ reconfiguration

EMERGENT URBANISM

Emergent Urbanism is the evolving conditions produced from similtaneous transformations to sense and to react to the needs of the user.

reinterpreted space based on the transient need of the user

Creation of Program Agents based on the Scar Tissue Process

36

Parkway as Container for People. Party on the Parkway 500,000

Parkway as Path for People. Philadelphia Marathon 80,000

37

P R O GR AM

Van Volln

Rodin Museum

Barnes Foundation Park Town Place Apartments

Franklin Institute

38 Existing Program

Free Library

Museum Without Walls Left: Identifiers of programs affiliated with the Parkway Museum District Above: An underlying program is the Museum without Walls, or outdoor sculptures free to the public and accessible via phone applications 39

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12 t h esi s d o cu me nta t i o n

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reVIEWING CONNECTIVITY VISIBILITY

CONNECT

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TUNNEL

BRIDGE

VISIBILITY

VISIBILITY

PATH

PLACE

PRODUCED BY AN AUTODESK EDUCATIONAL PRODUCT

PRODUCED BY AN AUTODESK EDUCATIONAL PRODUCT

Visitor Center

Subway Station

Bike Facility

Proposed Calder Site

Connecting Paths PRODUCED BY AN AUTODESK EDUCATIONAL PRODUCT

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Vehicular Traffic Flow

Passive Programming PRODUCED BY AN AUTODESK EDUCATIONAL PRODUCT

Shifting On-Grade Parking

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Master Plan

Current relationship between two paths of movement and grade

A

B

C

D

Fragmenting grade to allow for uninterrupted paths of movement

Commercial support programs mend disconnect at edges to merge inhabitable and circulatory space

Tunneling and Overlapping Paths Diagram

46 Section through 22nd Street

Site Study of Pedestrian Path Use in One Hour Intervals

CITY HALL

LOGAN CIRCLE

21st STREET

22nd STREET

PHILADELPHIA MUSEUM OF ART

Visiblitiy Obstruction Diagram. The View Corridor Will Be Blocked within Red Square by the 22nd Street Bridge

Bike Path

Section of On-Grade Reorganization

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Parking & Traffic Lanes

Two Lanes of Traffic Either Direction

Stormwater Pedestrian/Bike Greenway Management Track

BRIDGE FORM INFLUENCE

PREC Left: Umberto Boccioni “Unique Forms of Continuity in Space” Above: Umberto Boccioni “Dynamism of a Cyclist”

Umberto Boccioni was a leader of the futurist movement, focusing on ideas of dynamism and the embrace of technology such as the automobile. His sculpture “Unique Forms of Continuity in Space” for example is an expression of dynamism through art and scultpure-in-the-round--the goal for the form of the proposed bridge.

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BRIDGE AS PLACE

CEEDENT Olin Studio and Diller Scofidio + Renfro “Aberdeen City Garden”

This project proposes a successful transition form grade plan to above and below the project seamlessly without disrupting Jane Jacobs’ ideas of “Eyes on the Street.” Above and below the “Granite Web” are places for people to gather.

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BRIDGE DEVELOPMENT

LIN

GE

RIN

GR

OU

TE

CONNECTION TO SUBWAY IMPLEMENTATION

DIRECT PASSAGE

CREATING PLACE BETWEEN

BIKE PEDESTRIAN PATH FROM SCHUYLKILL RIVER TRAIL

ACCESS

Diagramming the Form and Function of Bridge

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MOVEMENT

PLACE BETWEEN

STRUCTURAL SPINE

51 Grade Level Plan

Bridge Level Plan

BRIDGE AS STRUCTURE + PATH

Liberty Bridge Greenville, South Carolina | Jorg Schlaich The Liberty Bridge uses structural masts to support the pedestrian path with minimal touchdown points, allowing the bridge to hover over the landscape. This methodology is desireable to the Parkway as to not interupt traffic flows and visibility

PRECEDENT 52

MUSEUM STEPS

Structural Steel Tube

Mast with tension cables

SCALE OF USER

Retaining Walls to Redirect Load from Bridge to Ground

Bridge Height Diagram

Basic Form of Bridge

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Bridge Structural Strategy

APPROACHING THE BRIDGE

View from Logan Square

54

View from 21st Street

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ACCESSING THE BRIDGE

Entering Bridge from Schuylkill River Trail Extension

56

First Moments on Bridge

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SECTIONS THROUGH BRIDGE

The “Overlook” for Personal Space to Read a Book and View Cars

58

Crossing Paths of Movement

59

SECTION THROUGH BRIDGE

22nd Street Stage

60

AERIAL VIEW OF STAGE

61

62 Viewing an Event from Bridge

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PAST 64

WORK 65

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THREE QUARTER REVIEW

67 Master Plan

68 Tunnel Formation

Early Ideas for Schuylkill River Trail Extension Path

Left: Early Concept Model for Pedestrian Path 69

Above:Layers of Material Separating Pedestrian from Vehicle

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path as spectacle

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overlaying user paths & systems

MIDTERM REVIEW

art creating transformable space

land becomes path : seat : space

water collection through permeable surfaces

Earliest Image Studying the Merging of Various Systems

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72 Master Plan

Prescribed

Interven tio

n

Temporal Intervention

LESS DENSE

Philadelphia Museum of Art

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User Pace/Speed Diagram

MORE DENSE City Hall

Overlayed Systems Diagram

Proposal to Use Permeable Pavers for Stormwater Management

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Current relationship between two paths of movement and grade

Fragmenting grade to allow for uninterrupted paths of movement

Commercial support programs mend disconnect at edges to merge inhabitable and circulatory space

75

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INITIAL PROPOSAL:

Using the Scar Tissue Process as the Informant for a Master Plan

Phase I: Heal

Phase 2: Support

Phase 3: Merge

Phase 4: Reinterpret

become reference points for reaction

Connects healing points with support

77

provides structure to the matrix

Senses a change initiated by user, alters matrix

Green Parks

78 Overlaying Speed

Movement

79

Vehicular Capacity

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SCRIPT:

ACT//REACT_ Accelerating Urban Response to User Defined Need

Time is a crucial factor in the transformation of a city, equal to that of the economic and cultural behaviors of its people. As the needs of its people change due to the insertion of additional factors such as technology, the city reflects these shifts in the population’s needs through gradual, progressive change. However, the adaptation of the urban environment cannot occur as rapidly as the user demands.

For instance, the technological introduction of the vehicle has instigated an evolution of the city. Initially, the plan of the city was osmotic in nature due to the fluid public space between the urban realm and architecture. The Nolli map of Rome visually describes the integral relationship from interior to exterior that contemporary cities have lost due to the incorporation of the vehicle. The architecture therefore no longer plays an active role in the urban environment. When looking at Times Square, for example, advertisements plaster every surface of the building, but there is no real connection to what is happening on the interior of the building. After reading through Bernard Tschumi’s Architecture and Disjunction, it resonated with me that “sign has turned architecture into a contemplative passive object not a place that confronts spaces and actions.”

The changeover from a pedestrian focused city to a technology driven city illustrates an evolution of the city over a larger period of time. The OMA competition got the Mission Grand Axe proposed and evolution of the city in a period of twenty-five years by the act of erasure and repopulation given the Manhattan grid. These topics of urban continuum and evolutionary design are ones that I have identified as characteristics that the city today currently lacks.

Specifically, I have chosen the Benjamin Franklin Parkway as to follow the narrative of a large scale urban transformation. As part of the City Beautiful Movement, it draws from Baron Haussmann’s plan in Paris. Though, it does not mirror its successes. Rather than creating a street front along the Parkway as executed along the Champs Elysees, the buildings shy away from it. The implementation of this massive urban element has created an erasure of the fabric and a disjuncture where the people have filled in as needed.

Using Christopher Alexander’s “A Pattern Language” as structure, this sets up an if-then clause. Therefore, if this isn’t the appropriate condition [show images of Parkway], what is? The tents facilitate immediate, temporal need but do not necessarily progress the city forward. It maintains the segregation of public interior and exterior spaces. Such spaces formed because the city cannot evolve at a rate rapid enough.

The city’s architecture has become static, and it needs to become malleable to provide the user with a more immediate, impactful response. The user needs to converse with the urban environment to become the creator of change. I propose to determine a design methodology that responds immediately to user need, using architecture as the vehicle for urban transformation.

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OBJECTIVES & REFERENCE POINTS FROM ORIGINAL THESIS PROPOSAL •

•

•

The separation of the vehicular path from the pedestrian shuns the techno logical advancement of the city rather than embracing it. Brian Tabolt in his article, “Trafficking Urbanism” states, “The solution to this problem (the es sentially private nature of our most vast area of publicly owned land) is not to abandon technologies that have created the current condition, but to reassess their potential for generating new types of interaction and space.”

Tabolt’s “Trafficking Urbanism” suggests that the pedestrian is the catalyst and the creator of the urban infrastructure, the car being only one phase in the progression along the path. Furthermore, the pedestrian possesses control and occupation of the path, subjected to a different time, speed and experience in comparison to the driver.

The purpose of this thesis is to investigate and to reconsider the regulated, linear and systematic nature of the car in comparison to the organic route of the pedestrian. I propose to mend the gap between the experience of the vehicle and the pedestrian to respect the origins of the city while still furthering the development of the urban plan in terms of an evolving, technological society.

BROAD OBJECTIVES • Question what classifies an event.

• Study traffic patterns in relation to pedestrian movement.

• Extract the temporal and permanent conditions of event that linger in space

before, during and after the event has occurred to create the parameters for

an urban-architectural methodology • Maintain the goal to mend the gap between the experience of the vehicle

and the pedestrian to respect the origins of the city while furthering the

development of the urban plan in terms of an evolving, technological society.

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ANTICIPATED RESULTS SITE & PROGRAM OBJECTIVES •

•

•

• •

Resolve the disjointed results from the erasure process of implementing the Benjamin Franklin Parkway.

Better utilize green space infiltrated from the Fairmount Park System to closer fulfill the goals of the City Beautiful Movement plan in Philadelphia.

Accommodate for the different needs: o container for events o path for the movement of events in and out of center city o organizer for the daily activities of the museum district The program is intrinsically integrated with site.

The architecture becomes the conversational mediator between the person and the urban environment.

PERSONAL OBJECTIVES • • •

Challenge ability to allow technology to inform the design process.

Continue to develop graphic representational methods.

Push beyond experiential knowledge of what the city was and is to study the evolutionary possibilities of the city of tomorrow.

ANTICIPATED RESULTS •

83

If goals are successfully implemented and fulfilled, there will be a continuum between architecture and urban design in which the user will be able to morph the urban environment through the architecture.

S P A C E

84

Furthermore, in search of site and case studies, the Benjamin Franklin Parkway in Philadelphia surfaced in conversation due to its grand urban gesture as well as its high speed traffic and pedestrian levels. The Benjamin Franklin Parkway was instigated by the City Beautiful Movement to improve the urban fabric due to the monotonous densification of the grid. Initially, the Benjamin Franklin Parkway was confronted with much opposition. The plan called for a diagonal boulevard connecting Fairmount Park in the Northwest quadrant of the city to City Hall in Philadelphiaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s center, implying the demolition of a great deal of residences that stood in its path. After much debate, the Parkway was built in the early twentieth century, but one must ask if this urban gesture was worth the effort and destruction.

The Benjamin Franklin Parkway is modeled after Baron Haussmannâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s plan for Paris. Haussmann instituted grand boulevards, such as the Champs Elysees, carved into the urban fabric to provide a network between significant buildings during the reign of Napoleon. The boulevards provided for the framework for iconic elements such as the Arc de Triomphe and Garnierâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Opera House. In addition, the roads themselves became programmatic to provide circulation for the Parisian troops as well as to implement a sewer system for Paris. However, when transplanting such methodologies to Philadelphia, the Parkway does not exemplify a lively location in the city as Haussmann had executed successfully for Paris.

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86

Progressing the city forward through methods of erasure allows for new urban paradigms to emerge; however, when one component of the city departs from the old conditions, elements become disjointed from the city image. The image to the left describes the site scope while recognized the lack of cohesive identity in the region outlined in black.

The following documentation outlines the evolution of the Benjamin Franklin Parkway as the product of the City Beautiful Movement in Philadelphia. Also, the Cheonggyecheon Restoration Project in Seoul offers a precedent to evolving the city conditions that are pre-existing. The evolution of space does not always progress at a rate equal to the events that take place; however, and it is the mission of this thesis to create method for an urban responsive system created by the urban participant.

Conflict: sequences of events and spaces occasionally clash and contradict each other. One then observes a strategy of conflict in which sequence constantly transgresses the otherâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s internal logic.

Bernard Tschumi, Architecture and Disjunction, 160.

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Carving boulevards through city in Paris to allow for Napoleanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s troops to access the city easier.

Consistent elevation of buildings focus the attention to Garnierâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Opera House 88

Erasure of the city fabric to pave the way for the Parkway during the City Beautiful Movement 89

1901 1926 City Hall and the Philadelphia Museum of Art as iconic endcaps to the Parkway today.

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Deactivation of Street Front from Buildings Shying Away from the Parkway 91

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Left: Deconstruction/Construction: The Cheonggyecheon Restoration Project in Seoul Deconstruction/Construction is representative of an evolution of a city infrastructure pre-existing to become public space.

Right & Pages to Follow: Images depicting the results of the evolutionary results of the Benjamin Franklin Parkway. Due to the erasure of the city fabric, instances of space arise that lack and identity cohesive with the urban context.

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E V E N T

94

An event is classified by the occurence of an action, catalytic and parasitic of people in space. However, the parameters for which create event depend on the site condition.

The Benjamin Franklin Parkway forms both a container and path for events such as the Party on the Parkway and the Philadelphia Marathon to occur. Over the Fourth of July weekend alone, the Parkway hosts an upwards of 500,000 people because the space allows for vehicular movement to removed temporarily from the space. Moreover, the Philadelphia Marathon also redirects traffic but creates a new path of movement in the city that coexists in part with the vehicle.

On a daily basis, the Parkway Museum District is home to landmarks such as the Franklin Institute and the Free Library, but the Parkway is not designed to accommodate daily, less quantifiable event.

Due to the temporal nature of event, one must understand what makes successful space for the large quantities to be applied to an individual, tangible scale. Architectural elements such as the folies of Parc de la Vilette provide permanet structure with temporal purpose to populate space as needed.

A methodology for temporal purpose with permanent structure, therefore, lends itself to the application of the Benjamin Franklin Parkway as a direction for serving the everyday user.

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â&#x20AC;&#x153;...no architecture without event, no architecture without action, without activities, without functionâ&#x20AC;?

Bernard Tschumi, Archiecture and Disjunction, 188

zoning

96

traffic documentation

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philadelphia marathon: 80,000 people

party on the parkway: 500,000 people

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99

100

Parc de la Villette Strategy for Abstract Mediation: 1. Design a Master Plan 2. “Take what exists, fill in the gaps” 3.”Deconstruct what exists by critically analyzing historical layers that preceded it.”

4.”Search for an intermediary” Bernard Tschumi, Architecture and Disjunction, 192.

Tschumi’s Parc de la Villette tests notions of temporary and permanent through architectural mediation, as thesis questions. However, the use of the folie is only useful during an event. The folie attracts larger groups of people much more succesfully than engaging the passerby on a daily basis. In this regard, designing a master plan for the folies implies too permanent of a solution.

Left: Occupy Philly. The use of the tent to create “tent city” utilizes a temporary solution to organize individual participants into a greater movement.

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METHODOLOGY Studying the pattern of people as Christopher Alexander has done forms the basis for a generative to emerge.

Architecturally, computer generative programs such as Galapagos use a code in which the designer plugs in a set of parameter. The infinite variations of output produced allows the designer to visualize the building form in a quick fashion.

However, computer generative processes do not react to a given paremeter at a particular time. The output suggests instead a finite outcome to â&#x20AC;&#x153;resolveâ&#x20AC;? those specific parameters, neglecting the parameters not yet established by future need.

Instead, natural processes introduce a temporal evolution through permanent form. The changing of the leaves with the season describes a reactive solution over time through one unit in a composition.

While the human already reacts on a smaller scale to the elements (ie. the use of an umbrella during a rainstorm), it is now important to focus on the individual responsibility and capability for transforming the greater urban landscape.

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Thesis Intent There is a need to activate architecture in the urban context to inform public permeability through architecture and the urban realm.

What is the lifes and purpose of

As the role of architecture is reconsidered, the life span and purpose of an architecture must reflect events in the urban landscape.

Inherently, space for the pedestrian and the vehicle will be better informed.

Bonnie Netel

the act of erasure

OMA Competition: Mission Grand Axe; La Defense, Paris France 1991

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1

8

7

5

experiential osmosis

Appendix

precedence mapping as modelled from â&#x20AC;&#x153;cities for peopleâ&#x20AC;? jan gehl

life

zoning

embrace

dinner gatherings

studio

concert venues

carnival, brazil

art as space melbourne

technology as space times square, ny

activity as space eurochocolate festival, perugia

shared space copenhagen

pedestrian space venice

stoop, philadelphia

auditorium, rome

pompidou center

opera house, oslo

san pietro, rome

space

traffic volumes

building

Site Comprehension

span one

micro

macro

possible direction to mending the rift? leisure

s t r e e t s a r e program

mobility

buildings become m o r e p u b l i c

osmosis

event

haussmannâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s plan

paris as urban instigator

benjamin franklin parkway

philadelphia as urban instigator

successful

Party on the Parkway: 500,000

not as successful

connection between two emblematic elements underutilized space in between

architecture not as public?

ARCHITECTURE

power

URBAN DESIGN

public life

paris as urban instigator

pompidou center

philadelphia as urban instigator

comcast center

rome nolli maps

car changing experience space

time media

Philadelphia Marathon: 80,000

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functions as an urban band-aid

not as successful

attempts to mend relationship still underutilized why?

historical notions of inseparability

successful

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life

precedence mapping as modelled from â&#x20AC;&#x153;cities for peopleâ&#x20AC;? jan gehl

dinner gatherings

studio

concert venues

carnival, brazil

art as space melbourne

technology as space times square, ny

activity as space eurochocolate festival, perugia

shared space copenhagen

pedestrian space venice

stoop, philadelphia

auditorium, rome

pompidou center

opera house, oslo

san pietro, rome

building

space

embrace

micro 109

macro

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READING #01: Italo Calvino Invisible Cities

Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities portrays the travels of Marco Polo through his discussions with the Kublai Kahn, reporting the varied cities that Kublai Khan’s empire has engulfed. However, as Polo describes the cities to Kublai Khan, Polo uses objects to compensate the difference in language between the two speakers. Calvino designates each chapter to a specific heading, illustrating each city as a topic of: memory, desire, sign, “thin,” trade, eyes, name, the dead, the sky, continuity, and hidden.

After reading through the novel in its entirety, the parallels between each topic lead the reader to believe that Polo describes merely one city as opposed to many.

Essentially, the city is defined by the people through their subjection to space and time.

For instance, one of the first cities that Polo portrays to the Great Khan is Tamara, the relationship of cities and signs. Polo says, “Your gaze scans the streets as if they were written pages: the city says everything you must think, makes you repeat her discourse, and while you believe you are visiting Tamara you are only recording the name with which she defines herself and all of her parts” (Calvino 13). Calvino alludes to the misconception of the experience of the in relation to sign and memory. While one “experiences” the city, all that one naturally remembers are the face values of the people and buildings that mask the stories and the lives of the people and building that lay within.

Progression through the novel strengthens the relationship of the cities that Polo entails. Towards the end of the conversation between the Great Khan and Polo, Polo says “travelling, you realize that differences are lost: each city takes to resembling all cities, places exchange their form, order, distances, a shapeless dust cloud invades the continents.

Your atlas preserves the differences intact: that assortment or qualities which are like the letters in a name” (Calvino 137). All cities borrow from one another the basic elements of another. The physical elements of the city do not vary from one to the next. Rather, the people that inhabit the space and alter the imagery of the city to self-identify one space from the rest. Polo passes through each city, noticing the identifiers that create the image space and recognizing that each space is founded from the same physical elements.

Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities helps to understand the city in another light. While Polo may be talking about one city, there are various perspectives that reveal the different characteristics that compose the city. In particular, Cities and Signs draws my attention to think about the impact of graphics and imagery on the experience of one simply passing through the city. While the novel helps to give a general analysis of the city, reading this novel in particular narrowed my focus to the understanding of face value of the city in its streetscape. A façade merely masks the content of the physical bodies behind. In future research, I am interested to understand the different perspectives on this topic.

Without having done further research, I conclude that manipulation of graphics and street fronts drastically alter the experience of the pedestrian and driver.

Understanding of the relationship between the street front to the physicality of the street provides direction to mediating the power struggle between the pedestrian and the car.

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READING #02: Kevin Lynch Image of the City

Having read Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities, I began to question how it was possible for Polo to describe to the Great Khan one city in a multitude of ways. I decided to read two novels, Image of the City by Kevin Lynch as well as A Theory of Semiotics by Umberto Eco. Invisible Cities provoked me to research further the physical structure and psychological perceptions of the city.

Beginning with the Image of the City, Kevin Lynch deciphers the city structure of Los Angeles, Boston and Jersey City. Before dissecting each city into its parts, states that the novel’s purpose was to question the city’s structure and identity in the perceptual world (Lynch). The early discussion revolves around the interpretation of a scene and what stimulates attention. Lynch described the city in terms of the parts to whole relationship.

Before diving into terminology that breaks the generic city into its parts, Lynch describes Boston, Jersey City and Los Angeles. For example, the paths and roads in Boston are laid out in a confusing manner that the easiest way to navigate through the city is my larger monuments that he dubs landmarks. Whereas, Jersey City has no recognizable features. The buildings are “drab” in the fashion that there is no clear distinction between streets; therefore, the street sign becomes pertinent. Los Angeles seems to be plagued by the car more so than the two other cities. Because of traffic and a loss of direction, people depend on street signs heavily. Based off of the different observations from these three cities, Lynch develops a language to understand the city has a function of parts, breaking the city into its: paths, edges, districts, nodes, and landmarks. Each distinction serves its own purpose while directly influencing the other.

Initially published in 1960, the question that persists is: are Lynch’s ideas still relevant? After reading the novel, I was still able to relate this his concepts simply based off of my perception of the city. The city’s parts branch from the path. The path provides scale and direction to the landscape, a place for mobility. Intersections of these paths become the nodes for transport while landmarks become destination. The logic holds true for many cities today. Philadelphia is composed of many one way streets. While Philadelphia is designed as a grid with Broad Street and Market Street as its axes, street signs provide direction at each node, or intersection. City Hall is the clearest landmark and point of reference at the intersection of Market and Broad.

The Image of the City broke the city into its parts, into a vocabulary that is transferable amongst all cities. Being that I am interested in pursuing solutions for the urban environment, it is important to understand the city at its basics. Specifically, the description of the path pertained well to the direction of my thesis in terms of finding solutions for motorists and pedestrians in the city. The path provides structure, direction and continuity to the city. Because Lynch based his writing off of research analysis and conversations with locals, it is helpful to understand not only what constructs a path--but to see what works and what is less than adequate. For instance, on page 57, motorists claimed that erecting directional signs on the freeway disassociated drivers from their surrounding, leaving motorists less prepared and aware.

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READING #03: Umberto Eco “Theory of Semiotics”

Aside from providing a generic vocabulary of the city, the topic of how one views the city and how one is distracted from the city surfaces frequently. The Image of the City strengthened my desire to learn more about the psychology of someone in the urban environment. In order to do so, it is necessary to remove architecture and the city from the conversation to understand the psychology one one’s perception and understanding of space.

Therefore, Umberto Eco’s Theory of Semiotics, provides a wealth of information on how one views objects, space and people in general. Semiotics is the theory of signs, broken into the theory of code and the theory of sign production. Eco states on page seven, “semiotics is concerned with everything that can be taken as a sign. A sign is everything which can be taken as significantly substitution for something else.” Semiotics is the study of communication through systems and codes to describe something determined by observer or culture. Eco evolves Pierces notion of sign that determined influences to be a collaboration of the sign, the object and interpretant. However, Eco believes that the sign does not necessarily have to be associated logically to the object of which it is assigned.

Eco’s example of sign is the Pavlov’s dog experiment in which the sign is a conditioned stimulus. The ringing of the bell is a “sign” in which the dog makes the connection to being fed, becoming habit. Therefore, “the production and employment of objects are used for transforming the relationship between man and nature” (20).

Eco’s writing does not speak of architecture and space specifically but of the user and its environment, culture and habit. While there are different sub-sects of semiotics, communication is the basic root for understanding. However useful this information is, the novel tends to be repetitive in content, so I am not sure what I gained beyond this information. Enough information is provided to spark further conversation how one view’s space. How can visual communication manipulate the urban environment? If a recognizable sign such as a stop sign were removed from the norm, what would happen?

Would chaos occur, or would motorists respect pedestrian passage? By testing the current directional signage and cultural queues, how can the streetscape begin to shift to better accommodate the motorist and the pedestrian?

Moving forward, the next step is to study the theories and concepts initiated by Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown. Their novel “Learning from Las Vegas” investigates the relationship between sign and symbolism with architectural form. I am interested in understanding how sign affects the perception of architecture in terms of building form as well as the use of sign as possible “edge” separating building from public space. While Eco’s concepts seemed repetitive and did not provide much content, the essential concepts influenced research that needs to occur next in my process.

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READING #04: Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown Architecture as Signs and Systems

Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown’s Architecture as Signs and Systems is an analysis of architecture as it has evolved over time under the influence of multiculturalism, iconography, technology, and so on. Throughout the book, Venturi and Scott Brown capitalized on existing work as well as their own to demonstrate the transformation of architecture to serve its purpose and function. Ventruri and Scott Brown developed a new language to define the movement of architecture. In reference to an architecture for the industrial age, “iconographic surface” is NOT the same as an articulate surface. Before diving into describing building as icon during ancient architectural history, Venturi first describes building as form of communication most recently. For instance, the Pompidou Center in France by Richard Rogers and Renzo Piano is a prime example of the industrial age. Because the functions are brought to the surface of the building, the facade “communicates” the basic functions of the building. Referencing earlier architecture, Venturi then discusses art as communication. Typologies that he includes in his text are the hieroglyphics of ancient Egypytian architecture, Roman and Greek gods and goddesses as symbols of society, and Mosaics as narrative content found in Ravenna in Italy.

Furthermore, Venturi then begins to question function and form through a glove and mitten comparison. A mitten suits its purpose, while the form of a glove follows its function. Venturi uses this comparison as one example toward defining a resurgence to a Mannerist architecture. On page 75, Venturi describes “convention, system, order, genericness, manners must be there in the first place before they can be broken” before providing a list of elements that imply mannerist architecture. The second half of the book, written by Denise Scott Brown, focuses on the building as a system. Denise Scott Brown references, for example, the traffic studies of Louis Kahn. By understanding such systems, similar aspects can be translated into the systems of the building. On page 133, Princeton University is cited for its implementation of the street through the building.

I did not enjoy this reading. Based off of the text, the text seemed to pay homage to the work of Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown rather than objectively studying the matter at hand. However, I did appreciate the comparisons drawn between ancient architectural history and contemporary. These comparisons proved helpful to hypothesize an architecture to come. Venturi and Scott Brown provided examples to believe that the movement of architecture is heading toward a mannerist style once again. In reference to a previous book, two words that described this book and its concepts well are: complex and contradictory. Architecture, in every context, is confronted by paradox, but how do we deal with it? Drawing on previous studio research, the nature of a prison is to defer people from it, but with limited space, how can one begin to redefine the nature of a prison to be built in a city where it is needed most and it is most exposed.

Reading Architecture as Signs and Systems helped to connect the book I read previously, A Theory of Semiotics by Umberto Eco, to architectural notion. I am still interested in understanding the influence of the building facade on public space. While architecture has the power to communicate, and through its facade, how can that begin to influence how one interacts with one another in that space. What would happen if stop signs were completely removed, aside from social uncertainty, how would the streetscape in terms of the facade of the buildings change? Do they change to reflect traffic flow? If not, and the facade is truly an expression of the architecture behind it, how can the urban space inversely affect the facade. Does graffiti begin to provide the answer? How does technology affect this? One of the most interesting comparisons that the 114 book includes is between Times Square in New York City and Piazza San Marco in Venice. If nothing else, this book inspired me to ask questions and look for answers in places I may not have considered previously.

READING #05: Ben Hamilton-Baillie “Towards Shared Space” “Shared space, and the creation of the public realm free of barriers to simple day-to-day movement and interaction requires a change in the ‘mental map’ of every person as they step outside their front door.”

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Ben Hamilton-Baillie’s “Towards Shared Space” is an article taken from the Urban Design International Journal. Baillie’s article is a synopsis of the failures of public space currently, providing thought as to what needs to occur to improve such conditions. First, Baillie identifies the problem. Street signs and regulations govern public space. Specifically, white and yellow lines on asphalt define the horizontal plane while traffic signals, road signs and steel pedestrian guardrails define the vertical. With the rise of the vehicle, both technology and accessibility have advanced greatly, provoking actors such as government officials to control the growth. For instance, the 1963 Buchanan Report segregated traffic from pedestrian space for movement and interaction. However, Baillie then proposes that “in the absence of rules and predictability, drivers have to rely on cultural signals and informal protocols.” When traffic is successfully integrated into public space, Baillie coins the term “shared space,” discarding segregation and separation from the vocabulary. For instance, the fountains and round-abouts instituted in Drachten, Friesland, reduce traffic speed while providing an attractive space for pedestrians.

Baillie’s article was published during the summer of 2008, reflecting principles still relevant in urban design currently. The article provides a solid introduction to the idea of “shared space” but barely begins to skim the surface. Principles of traffic segregation instilled in the past in documentation such as the Buchanan Report have further lessened the appeal of pedestrians sharing space with the car. The Buchanan Report is one example of segregation on the institutional level. Ideas of segregation have also been explored by architects such a Le Corbusier in his development of the Athens Charter. Seeing as that segregation of the car from the pedestrian has severely diminished usable pedestrian space, the question is then, how does urban space then transform to accommodate both modes of transport? Most interesting, Baillie suggests a “change in the ‘mental map’ over every person.” Therefore, urban design requires a psychological understanding of the physical environment at present to provide insight for shared space in the future.

My initial thesis proposal recognized the issues of segregation of traffic and pedestrian space and the need to reconcile the issue. This article provides a foundation in terms of knowing that others have researched the issue previously. However, I find it interesting that I found this article towards the end of my research for the summer months.

In previous readings, I have stumbled upon the influence of signs and graphics on the urban environment. While this article merely introduced the subject, the content reinforces the connection between graphics, psychology and the urban environment. How does the visual and mental perception affect the physical environment? Inversely, how does the physical environment affect the person psychologically through visual impression? The terminology of “mental mapping” is provocative to me, providing a possible methodology of connecting the three realms of architecture, psychology and graphic.

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apply for thesis_very first thesis proposal

bonnie netel | the role of the vehicle in the city Throughout my four years at Philadelphia University thus far, sites located in the city of Philadelphia have motivated me to research the historical and existing contexts of the city because of the city’s rich foundation in pedestrian movement. While Philadelphia has provided me with much inspiration, I am interested in researching the city in different contexts in terms of the relationship of the vehicle and the car.

The city originated from a densely populated area in which the pedestrian created the infrastructure for the city. As cities expanded and technology advanced, the development of the car governed the city. Articles provided by the Urban Age Project The Endless City describe the notion that the road is killing the city, impeding on the pedestrian space that the city was initially founded.

“In a sense the problem of the car and the city is war…,” mentions Louis Kahn in his book Louis Kahn: The Essential Texts. According to Kahn, the motor vehicle facilitates the decentralization of the city and the destruction of pedestrian space. Prompted by the institution of the car, architects such as Louis Kahn and Le Corbusier have composed several studies to identify the future of the car in the city. Both architects have theorized that pedestrian and vehicular movement should be separated. Such ideas have been instituted recently, for example, in the revolution of Broadway in New York City into strictly a pedestrian space. However, the separation of the vehicular path from the pedestrian shuns the technological advancement of the city rather than embracing it. Brian Tabolt in his article, “Trafficking Urbanism” states, “The solution to this problem (the essentially private nature of our most vast area of publicly owned land) is not to abandon technologies that have created the current condition, but to reassess their potential for generating new types of interaction and space.”

Though, what is the space that the pedestrian and the vehicle share? Kevin Lynch’s, The Image of the City, outlines several elements that construct the city: paths, edges, districts, nodes, and landmarks. Specifically the path provides a means to experiencing the city, as a transitory place from one location to the next, and a direct influence on the edges, districts, nodes and landmarks that define the city network. Tabolt’s “Trafficking Urbanism” suggests that the pedestrian is the catalyst and the creator of the urban infrastructure, the car being only one phase in the progression along the path. Furthermore, the pedestrian possesses control and occupation of the path, subjected to a different time, speed and experience in comparison to the driver.

The purpose of this thesis is to investigate and to reconsider the regulated, linear and systematic nature of the car in comparison to the organic route of the pedestrian. I propose to mend the gap between the experience of the vehicle and the pedestrian to respect the origins of the city while still furthering the development of the urban plan in terms of an evolving, technological society.

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The thesis process was not quite what I imagined when I applied to the program in February 2011. When I was applying, I chose this particular topic to be vehicle for exploration in the realm of urban design. Being that I have been in the process of applying to graduate schools for a specialization in urban design, the thesis program deemed appropriate to be the test for whether or not I truly enjoyed urban design. The yearlong progression unveiled many excitements, challenges, aggravations that shaped my overall attitude toward urban design.

REFLE Up until thesis, I was trained to understand the scale of architecture--how the building functions for the user and contributes to its general context. The building was a familiar, comfortable, and tangible scale, so when moving toward urban design, it was hard to understand what an appropriate proposal was, how that proposal affected other urban systems, and what scale drawing would be legible to represent that strand of that.

I began on a scale of looking at my site, the Benjamin Franklin Parkway, spanning the Philadelphia Museum of Art and City Hall. Over time, as I learned to be less timid, I uncovered information that allowed me to dive deeper into scales closer to my familiarity. Unfortunately, it was not until the “end” of the process that I learned that I needed to oscillate between scales since the variety of scales is symbiotic in terms of cause-effect relationships.

I didn’t foresee myself designing a bridge when I began the process. I began the process thinking that I would design a master plan and just leave it at that, assuming that such alterations would follow suit on the scale of the user. However, unless you show what is happening at the scale of the user, no one will believe in the master plan. It’s a twofold process that requires simultaneous consideration.

Thesis is critical. There were times when I was told that I could not possibly propose a solution to a problem as challenging at the Benjamin Franklin Parkway. For some time, I did feel defeated. Why bother? However, in my opinion, that’s what a thesis is--finding a challenging, thought provoking subject that is arguable. It is on the student to provide a convincing argument to prove that his or her idea is viable spite contradictory responses. I wish it didn’t take me that long to learn that.

At the completion of my thesis process, I am left with a ton of shoulda-couldawouldas. What if I arrived at these conclusions sooner? I think it was well put at 118

my final review when a juror said that â&#x20AC;&#x153;this is a great first step.â&#x20AC;? I agree. What I have proposed is merely the beginnings to a powerful solution. This thesis isnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t finished, nor do I think that it ever will be. That is something that I need to feel comfortable with.

If thesis review was on June 5th instead of May 5th, my short terms goals would be to tackle the bridge in its entirety. I would want to be certain that this would be a structurally sound proposal. I have the beginnings for a structural argument, just not convincing. I would then take a closer look at the materiality of the bridge and how that shapes the user contact and experience.

CTION

If had another year, I would declare the project as a series of phases. The project that I had for final review would be phase I. During the course of the semester, I had read articles on and conducted studies on the nature of emergence. How does individual creation decision through the collective whole not for it? I began this process by discussing that the evolution for the city is a necessity for the growth of the city. As population alters, the city must waiver to accommodate those needs based directly from the user. I would want to explore how that can become part of later phases. Public support is essential to any urban design project.

And of course, as with any other project, I would like to bring clarity to my argument and presentation materials.

I have accomplished a great deal within the past year. I am able to say that I drove a project in a field I have little knowledge of, and that is something I need to remind myself not to glance over. At times, thesis could be considered blood, sweat and tears but those ingredients manifest into a much richer project. I feel comfortable moving forward toward graduate school (should they have me-Parsons still pending.) Thesis sculpted my fifth year experience, and I will never forget it.

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At its root, a city is defined by the dense population settlement of people over a plot of land; however, the city and how it functions incessantly evolves to accommodate the needs of its people as the urban collective is subjected to economic, political, social, and technological influences. Strategies such as the top-down approach of master planning and the bottom-up method of urban interventions have conflicted to service such intricate systems. “For Lynch the central problem or paradox of urban modeling is that although individual actors seek freedom in the city, urban patterns emerge as a by-product of group behavior.”1 While the term master plan describes an attitude implemented in majority of city design, urban interventionism engages individuals of the community to address needs and desires more attentively in comparison to a larger government funded master plan that imposes vast, dramatic change on the urban participant.

Before the introduction of the vehicle to the city, master plans imposed by city governments had manipulated the city fabric to evolve around social, public spaces. However, as the vehicle dominated urban focus, city master plans shifted from creating public spaces to crafting a network of paths to accommodate the vehicle. The evolution of large scale city spaces describes “this is the climate in which today, the question of what makes a building or town beautiful has to be asked. If such “rules” or “conditions” existed in the past, what were they, how had they become lost, under what circumstances might they be recreated, and how could such circumstances be made practical and feasible?”2 The Nolli Plan of Rome best describes the continuum of public space fluid between architecture and the urban landscape lacking today. Supplementing the public space continuum of the Nolli Plan, the evolution of the Piazza of St. Peter’s exhibits the focus on public space in a changing society. In an effort to modernize Rome, Mussolini planned for the Via della Concilliazione as one of many boulevards aiming to achieve grandeur representative of the fascist regime.3 Because the construction of the Via della Concilliazione spanned from 1936 to 1950, the Via della Concilliazione responded to the politics of World War II and the new impending need for vehicular accessibility.

Currently, the decision for large scale urban transformation is governed by politics. However, this political hierarchy does not encourage efficiency. Thom Mayne in Combinatory Urbanism mentions that “our time suffers from an inability to organize, much less exploit, the possibilities it has produced.”4 Therefore, Thom Mayne’s Combinatory Urbanism discusses a scenario in which the individual designer is taken out of the equation to be replaced by the input of computer generative processes. The architect must now, as a systems architect, must 126 the impact of the layered individual systems on the larger master plan. In mitigate

David Grahame Shane, Recombinant Urbanism, 33.

Stephen Grabow, Christopher Alexander: the search for a new paradigm in architecture, 21.

3 Charles McClenden, “The History of the Site of St. Peter’s Basilica, Rome.”

4 Thom Mayne. Combinatory Urbanism: the Complex Behavior of Collective Form, 28.

1 2

Michael Hensel, Techniques and Technologies in Morphogenetic Design, 58.

6 Thom Mayne. Combinatory Urbanism: the Complex Behavior of Collective Form, 31.

7 Sanford Ikeda. Urban Interventionism and Local Knowledge.. Review of Austrian Economics; Jun 2004; 17, 2-3; ProQuest, 254.

8 Michael Larice, Elizabeth Macdonald. The Urban Design Reader, 83.

9 Sanford Ikeda. Urban Interventionism and Local Knowledge.. Review of Austrian Economics; Jun 2004; 17, 2-3; ProQuest, 248.

10 “The Occupy Movement and the New Public Space - Politics - The Atlantic Cities.” The Atlantic Cities. http://www.theatlanticcities.com/ politics/2011/11/occupy-and-new-public-space/554/ 11 “The Occupy Movement and the New Public Space - Politics - The 127 Atlantic Cities.” The Atlantic Cities. http://www.theatlanticcities.com/ politics/2011/11/occupy-and-new-public-space/554/ 5

Techniques and Technologies in Morphogenetic Design, Hensel stated, “cities are complex systems. The flow of vehicles and people within a city represents the emergent behavior of such a system, produced by larger numbers of decisions of individuals and their interaction with each other and with the transport infrastructure of the city. Complex systems are by definition, non-linear and sensitive to initial conditions that may produce turbulent behavior at the global scale.”5

Inherently, trust in the political system needs to exist to maintain a sense of ownership of space. 6 Jane Jacobs describes that “trust depends to a surprisingly high degree on the structure and location of public space, and that the relations emerge spontaneously from a secure foundation of discovery and economic growth.”7 Jacobs touches upon this communal structure in her discussion of “The Uses of Sidewalks: Contact” in the Death and Life of Great American cities.

Jacob accuses urban planners of inappropriately diverting their attention toward to automobile when economic and social concerns go overlooked.8 Overarching issues such as the need for security, interaction and a feeling of “togetherness” implies a redirection of design focus toward individual personal connections and experience. Furthermore, urban interventionism introduces a bottom-up political strategy in which “the use of political power to intervene into the market process generates a dynamic that ultimately causes the actual outcome of that intervention to diverge significantly from the intended outcome.”9 Urban interventionism insinuates the revival of individual voice to influence the direction of the urban dynamic politically, socially, economically, and physically.

The Occupy Movement exemplifies a guerrilla, grassroots movement that promotes participatory democracy, using social movement as the vehicle.

Diverging from the notion of the master plan, the Occupy Movement highlights that the user maintains no control over this space but merely its accessibility.10 In congruence with the utopian ideal, analysis suggests that public space owned by the government is inadequately designed and that the public requires a “blank slate autonomous public space” 11 ungoverned and populated by the needs of its people. While the Occupy Movement has challenge the public’s perception and use of space, the Occupy Movement stresses an extreme bottom-up strategy devoid of any political and economic structure necessary to maintain public space when no longer in use.

Small urban interventions such as the Street Urchin, designed by Scott Shall and a team of designers at the International Design Clinic, address homelessness through material exploration to affect a population one individual at a time. As a

point of reflection, the Street Urchin provokes on to think “if you could change the world. Dreamers and doers influence and confluence. Together, they’ve transformed the built environment—and even the way we think.” Although this statement verges on inspirational diction, the statement emphasizes the potential of an emergent system in which the individual can dictate the construction and placement of his or her home.

Mediating between the individual and the larger collective population, the project Flex-City characterizes an appropriate balance between individual public contribution and the political voice for the collective whole. Flex-City as a generative project to promote integration and interaction “is an interactive environment where construction proposals are chosen, influenced and ultimately created by the visitor.”12 The project proposed by the firm Archi-Tectonics for Lower Manhattan and A New World Trade Center,” marks the instability of site by composing data for 1990-2000. The data then generates eighty-one scenarios to accommodate Economic data, or “Econ Flex,” “Social Flex,” and “Green Flex” as new infrastructures for the visitors to choose from.13 Flex-City, while only conceptual, merges the strategies of master planning, ownership of public space and urban interventionism. When ownership of the city is balanced between the political stature and its individuals, a hybrid of large scale change and small scale evolution can occur simultaneously to impact the future of the urban dynamic.

Max Protetch. A New World Trade Center, 21.2Stephen Grabow, Christopher Alexander: the search for a new paradigm in architecture, 21.

13 Max Protetch. A New World Trade Center, 21.2Stephen Grabow, Christopher Alexander: the search for a new paradigm in architecture, 21.

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Wo rks Cite d Hensel, Michael, Achim Menges, and Michael Weinstock. Techniques and

Technologies in Morphogenetic Design. London: Wiley-Academy, 2006.

“How To Occupy .” How To Occupy . http://www.howtooccupy.org/ Larice, M. and E. MacDonald. The Urban Design Reader. Taylor and Francis, Inc.,

New York, NY, 2006 Mayne, Thom. Combinatory Urbanism: the Complex Behavior of Collective Form.

Culver City, CA: Stray Dog Café, 2011.

“The Occupy Movement and the New Public Space - Politics - The Atlantic Cities.”

The Atlantic Cities. http://www.theatlanticcities.com/politics/2011/11/

occupy-and-new-public-space/554/ Protetch, Max. A New World Trade Center. New York: HarperCollins World ;, 2003.

Shane, David Grahame. Recombinant urbanism: conceptual modeling in

architecture, urban design, and city theory. Chichester: Wiley-Academy,

2005.

Urban Interventionism and Local Knowledge. Ikeda, Sanford. Review of Austrian

Economics; Jun 2004; 17, 2-3; ProQuestpg.

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CON T E M PO R A RY PE R S P E C T I V E S Public Transit as Solution to the Global Spread of the Automobile

Since the termination of World War II in 1945, the use of the automobile has expanded to countries across the globe. With the opportunity to travel longer distances, the increase in population of cards on the road induced environmental issues, social exclusion and traffic congestion. Prosperity of economies in terms of income and employment rate contribute to the decentralization of the city. Due to increases in income, residents possess the ability to access an automobile moving beyond the limits of the city. Specifically, the governments of Istanbul, London and Singapore develop mass transit initiatives to counteract the social, economic and environmental challenges caused by the car.

A direct relationship exists between land-use, transport, and the environment as vehicle ownership reflects the growth of Istanbul. According to the State Statistical Institute, the population of Istanbul in 1980 was approximately 4.7 million, growing to ten million in two decades. Directly related, motorization in 1980 was 281,200 as opposed to 2,680,000 by 200. By 2006, â&#x20AC;&#x153;every fifth citizen of Istanbul owns a vehicleâ&#x20AC;? without an infrastructure capable of accommodating the growth (281).

After localized studies of the spatial area and fuel emissions, the levels of carbon dioxide increased 3.85 times between 1990 and 2000. However, the governmentâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s role in providing a solution to a rapidly expanding metropolis is minimal. Studies for the master plan for Transportation in Turkey neglects the relationship between transportation, air and water quality, and traffic congestion. Because transportation is the movement of people and goods, the solution model proposes a rail system for the movement of goods. Without consideration for environmental conditions, the Master Plan for the Transportation System does not properly allocate funds in the budget to improve the infrastructure and quality of life in Istanbul.

On the other hand, the government of Jakarta correlates between transport, land use and social change to address the infrastructure in terms of movement of goods and people. The problem, according to the referenced authors Graham and Marvin, is defined by a glocal bypass of the infrastructural system to fracture space.

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Spatial logic in Jakarta breaks into basic conditions addressing the road and its tributary space. The road functions as a space for the pedestrian. Suburban towns act as private sectors of the city while a mass transit system serves as a public space in motion. Such conditions of public interaction reflect Jakarta’s history of mercantilism along Dutch canals in the 18th Century (535). After a famine in the 1880s, a public transportation system evolved to provide mobility to citizens of Jakarta without means of accessing a car. In theory, as population growth rises, the transportation system becomes more cost effective. However, at thirty-seven American cents per ride, the majority of Jakarta’s population cannot participate in the proposed public oriented transit system. Instead, traffic congestion remains an issue amongst the wealthy while non-motorized transit exists amongst the poor (546).

Cities such as Singapore and London develop regulations to deter public from using the car as a method of travel. Specifically, London’s government instituted the London Congestion Charge, in which depending on the zone of the city, the city charges the driver a toll for trafficking that zone (Santos 179). After instituting this toll, the London government lowered the prices of the bus system to persuade commuters to travel by mass transit. By convincing commuters to travel through public transportation, traffic congestion and fuel emissions are simultaneously reduced.

London’s government modeled its congestion charge legislature after Singapore’s method of handling urban traffic conditions. Singapore’s government relentlessly attacks the issue of traffic congestion on the Malaysian Peninsula, creating extreme policies as experiments that search for a solution. According to Toh and Phang, 340 motor vehicles per mile exist in Singapore in comparison to one hundred in the United Kingdom, sixty-nine in Japan, and forty-four in the United States (25). Ninety-five percent of 350,000 cars that are privately owned in Singapore represent the economic growth of Singapore (Toh 24). Unlike other cities, Singapore encompasses a small island with little room to expand similarly to others during economic prosperity, reflected in the price of cars as seen with the Honda Civic which costs approximately 106,000 US Dollars, five times the worth of the car in America 131 24).

(Toh

In order to control the overwhelming economic growth, Singapore launched numerous policies to deter residents from not only driving in the city but from purchasing vehicles. As with London, a system of tolls and Restricted Zones (RZs) regulate traffic within the Central Business District, referred to as the Area Licensing Scheme (ALS) of June 1975 (Toh 25). An evolving system, the ALS went as far as restricting the hours of travel to times such as 7:30 am to 7:00 pm on weekdays.

The ALS system proved to be too successful, however, resulting in the underutilization of roads (Toh 27). Because of Singapore’s adamant approach to the limitation of usage and ownership of vehicles, fifty-one percent of travel operates on public transit. Cities such as London have borrowed from these ideals; however, the extremist approach taken by the Singapore government instituted a quota unique to Singapore (Toh 28). The Quota System states “anyone who wants to buy a new motor vehicle must bid at an auction (held once month) for a Certificate of Entitlement (COE) to own a car for ten years” (Toh 28). Rather than dissuading residents from purchasing an automobile, the Quota System placed more economic value onto the car. In the discussion of traffic congestion in Singapore, the authors identify the solution to be within the argument of owning versus using a vehicle.

As a general consensus, the expenses of transportation via one’s individual car adds to fuel emission and compromises social stability. Istanbul focuses on solving the issues of the car and infrastructure by first examining the environmental impact of the car without imposing governmental action. Jakarta’s scenario references colonial transportation methods of goods as means of evaluating the system as public space without consideration for the difference income classes.

London and Singapore successfully control traffic congestion as main priority to resolve other problems such as fuel emission and social exclusion. Spite the varied approaches and outcomes, the transportation systems of Istanbul, Jakarta, London and Singapore each are controlled by the government to allude to tactics of solving the imposition of the car on each city’s economy and social sphere.

Controlling Transportation Infrastructure with Architecture and Urban Design

Governments commission studies to alleviate issues of traffic congestion, fuel emission and social exclusion caused by the global spread of the vehicle in modern living. Because the individual use of the vehicle clutters infrastructural systems, the government hires urban designers to execute solutions to the imposition of the 132

vehicle in England, Spain, and Taiwan. Mass public transit systems have been proven successful in London and Singapore to reduce vehicle dependence while providing the poorer classes accessibility to motorized transport.

At first architects recognized the vehicle as a threat to the city in any context.

Architectural theory provides the foundation to the political, economic and social actions executed by architects and urban designers currently. As part of this non-contextual architectural theory, one approach searched for “car free urbanism” during the CIAM Movement and the rise of modernism. Architects contracted the Athens Charter to propose an environment that kept the functions separate from traffic to redefine the city without the existence of the car (Stubbs 218). Rather than dedicating integral space for the vehicle, modernist architects proposed streets strictly dedicated to the pedestrian (Stubbs 218). However, eliminating the motor vehicle entirely from society function has yet to be instituted by governments, provoking the government to hire architects and urban designers to provide immediate solutions to the mass expansion of the car.

The United Kingdom focuses on revitalization of neighborhoods in the UK Planning System of 1990, coined as “environment sustainability” and “sustainable development” because of its aim to create compact living (Stubbs 218). As the automobile allows for growth beyond the city center, suburbanization and sprawl begin to fragment the infrastructural system, requiring means of confinement. In this sense, the UK government explores the city and suburban developments as modules; each module should be self-sustained with walking proximity to both residential and commercial programs within four hundred meters. In this scheme, the UK government hires the urban designer to concentrate on the built environment to influence the void between buildings, without eliminating the consideration for travel entirely (Stubbs 215). In addition to the research of the module for the urban center, the UK lists a series of Guidances to achieve a better public realm by adjusting the terms of ownership of the car in regards to parking. One guidance states that the car should be stored at the rear of the building to retain street frontage as space for the pedestrian (Stubbs 221). Another Guidance institutes a series of zones known as the “location matrix,” listing: zone one as the urban center, zone two as the inner ring, zone three as the suburban neighborhood and zone four as the fringe of the city (Stubbs 221). Overall, the cooperates with urban designers and architects in the United Kingdom to manipulate the current condition to work efficiently.

Besides examining the city in terms of its module, mass transit systems provide a solution to the motor vehicle in the city. Urban designers formulated a mass transit system to reduce the amount of traffic congestion.

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By the 1940s, the use of the electronic trolley bus in Bilbao was introduced to the rest of Spain (Siemiatycki 27). In the 1980s, the government of Bilbao incorporated the electrified tramway into its public transit system as the first in all of Spain in order to create faster mode of travel as well as to provide a level of interest to tourists. Traffic congestion plagues its streets in higher densities due to its geographic location positioned between a valley and a river; with such site restrictions, transit via bus or care proved insufficient. Architect and urban designers focused primarily on developing a sufficient metro system. Initially, 500,000 peoples travelled by public transit while 650,000 still travelled by public car. An investment in the city to improve urban conditions, the statistic reduced to 250,000 people that travelled by car (Siemiatycki 28). With the expansions of public transit, urban development and gentrification occur due to the east of connecting the city fringe to the city center. While urban designers and architects worked directly with the government to develop the metro systems since the 1940s, the government hired Norman Forster, renowned British architect, to create an attractive station for the Bilbao transit system as means of developing public transit as a symbol of Bilbao in addition to the Guggeheim Museum designed by Frank Gehry (Siemitatycki 30). In his approach, Foster referenced Bilbao’s industrial economy by using materials such as steel, glass and concrete to design a station that would create a comfortable space while visitors and residents wait for the metro to arrive. While it appears that the government commissioned Foster to design the metro stations to please the public firsthand, the government made design decisions without input from its citizens. The system inaccurately portrays an image of consideration for the pedestrian voice.

The political history of Taipei influences the structure of the Mass Rapid Transportation system today. Specifically, the name of the Taiwanese transportation system in Taipei is Jie-yun or, “rapid transit.” In the 1930s, the Jie-yun represented the political and social control developed while Chiang Kai-shek National party commanded over Taiwan. Kai-shek led the New Life Movement to “extend the government control in the micropractices of daily life” (Lee 33). The New Life Movement aimed to mold society into the ideal city envisioned by the government, providing precedence for the New Line Movement of it passengers, forcing passengers to wait in an order line as an image of civility (Lee 33). In addition, regulation set by the Mass Rapid Transit Act prohibited eating, drinking, and so on to maintain a clean public shared space (Lee 43). The Nationalist party utilized government regulation to dictate the ideal public moral in order to maintain an efficient transit system while drawing on the transit system to improve the surrounding urban condition.

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Unlike the individualized process of the vehicle, the MRT promotes social interaction amongst residents. Because of its efficiency, people that frequent the metro are referred to as Jieyunzu, or the “MRT Tribe.” The MRT services 900,000 passengers every day, 300,000 more people than anticipated from a population of 6.5 million people (Lee 46). Because the transportation system in Taipei has strong ties to it authoritarian political past, urban designers and architect respond differently as to respect tradition and standards seen as etiquette in Taipei. Architects in Taiwan explore mass transit founded on political regulation to encourage social interaction that the individualized car eliminates.

Overall, architects and urban designers in the United Kingdom, Spain and Taiwan initially develop solutions to the problems of traffic congestion, fuel emission control and lack of social interaction. However, the approaches vary to accommodate cultural differences based on political and economic past and the future vision for the city. On a global scale, the question of place of the automobile challenges the government and its role in the contemporary city. The government acts by commissioning architects and urban designers for appropriating the car in the identity of the city, providing solutions such as mass transit or traffic zoning.

Transportation Economics Impact on Architecture: Case Study on South Africa

Colonial divisions of South Africa define the geographic and social boundaries that exist in contemporary South African life. In the 1960s, segregation of people based on wealth and race resulted from the apartheid, pushing the poor black citizens of South Africa to the outskirts of major cities. Alternatively, the government policy coined the term “separated development” in order to create ethnic nations dissecting South Africa socially, economically and physically. Majority of people living in the outskirts cannot afford motorized transit and resort to travelling on foot. Revamping South African infrastructure with the Gautrain transportation system masks the remaining social rifts from the apartheid but shows an improvement in the architects and urban designer’s ability to alter the system.

Previous social and physical segregation deter commuter into the city from establishing permanence. During the apartheid, the wealthy white South Africans lived in the central industrial neighborhood of cities such as Johannesburg or Cape Town while the black South African working class lived in neighborhoods distanced from the city center. Commonly, citizens commute from rural 135

neighborhoods to urban in order to sustain daily life necessities. However, maintaining social, ethnic and political relationships to rural neighborhoods prevents full social integration and acceptance of the city (Landau 320). As a result, a mobile class emerges further emphasizing a lack of settlement and permanence in the city.

The mobile class utilizes the city to gain tactical cosmopolitanism that offers rights and global membership to a community without establishing roots (Landau 324).

Migrants self-alienate from the city to exhibit individualism, a separation from groups developed during the apartheid.

Initially, the architect and urban designer’s role in society was limited based on government regulations. Because the government commissions architects and urban designers for infrastructural work, laws upholding the apartheid restricted the urban designer from addressing issues with the infrastructural system. Initially, separate institutions, structures and transportation systems were designated for blacks and whites. Race organized buildings and zoning in South Africa during the 1950s, employing laws such as the Reservation of Separate Amenities Act of 1953, extending segregation to transportation, railway stations and other public gathering spaces (Peters 538). In 1986, architects developed a voice in response to the repressive nature of the apartheid on architecture and systems, creating a “Special General Meeting to discuss a resolution to make it unethical for architects to develop buildings the use of which was restricted on the grounds of race; designing homeland buildings which promoted the policy of Separate Development” (Peters 545). The repeal of the Separate Amenities Act in the early 1990s relieved architects and urban designers from enforcing the issues of the apartheid, allowing for the opportunity to respond to spatial segregation architecturally.

The current infrastructural system cannot support the movement of people from suburb to city; commuting from the fringe of the city often implies a need for a car to span the distance. Specifically, the Gauteng province of South Africa population increases rapidly every year, expecting growth to reach more than 14.6 million by 2015 (Van Der Westhuizen 336). In addition, car usage surpasses population growth. 30,000 cars a day travel on the Ben Schoeman Highway, connecting Johannesburg and Pretoria as this rate annually increases by seven percent (Van Der Westhuizen 336). While usage of the privately owned car exponentially rises, spatial integration requires other modes of travel. Ninety percent of cars are owned by the white population. Vast amounts of population in cities such as Johannesburg, Cape Town, Pretoria and Durban do not have access to a car (Behrens 169). Forty-six percent of households “spend more than 10% of their poverty level incomes on transport (Cronin). In 2006, half of the households in 136

Johannesburg using public transportation revealed violence and crime in the mini taxi system. By 2010, twenty percent of people travelling to the city used 12,500 privately owned mini taxis (Vanderschuren 807). Due to instability of the South African infrastructure, “40% of all journeys to work are done by foot” (Cronin).

In efforts to address the issue, the hosting of the FIFA World Cup influenced the South African government to provide public transportation and infrastructure systems with funding. The Public Transport and System Grant allocated funds for inner city mobility, bus systems, and intelligent transport systems. Rather than transforming the existent transportation system, the South African government needs to suggest new methods to sustain the traffic flow (Kane 600). Announced in February 2000, urban designers proposed the Gautrain as one of ten Spatial Development Initiatives (Van Der Westhuizen 334). Initially, the Gautrain served to alleviate traffic congestion as well as “to demonstrate the government’s commitment to promote black economic empowerment and the advancement of small and medium sized enterprise” (Van Der Westhuizen 337). The Gautrain represents transformation of South Africa into a modern African state, as the first high speed metropolitan transportation network (Van Der Westhuizen 334).

Application of the Gautrain into South African culture as a Mega Project failed to meet the needs of its residents. Due to the lack of rigor in the existing public infrastructure, the expectation of passengers for the train was 20,000 (Van Der Westhuizen 339). Though the initial pitch for the project was to lessen traffic congestion and focus on developing poor existent systems, the focus shifted to the wealthier classes (Van Der Westhuizen 338). According to international research, proposed metropolitan rail systems temporarily provide work for the poor without servicing their needs once complete (Van Der Westhuizen 336). Though the Gautrain is a symbol for South African culture moving toward speed, connectivity, and modernity in the global market, the Gautrain fails as an approach to resolving social issues that are predominant beyond the end of the apartheid.

Aside from urban designers and architects involvement on the Gautrain, train stations such as the Cape Town Train Station serve as emblems that recognize African social history. The Cape Town Train Station is a renovation of an old modernist building of the apartheid in the 1960s. (“Cape Town Train Station” ). After renovation, the space consisted of fluid movement and light. Architects and urban designers have responded to the social and historical issues of the apartheid as commissioned by the government on several scales. While the large scale infrastructural system of the Gautrain has yet to be successful in merging social classes and reducing traffic congestion, small scale projects such as Cape Town Train Station begin to address the 137

issues overlooked. Urban designers commissioned by the government no longer need to instill apartheid regulation, provided the opportunity to respond to the conditions of the South African infrastructural system after the end of the apartheid.

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“shared space, and the creation of the public realm free of barriers to simple day-to-day movement and interaction requires a change in the “mental map” of every person as they step outside their front door.”

Ben Hamilton-Baillie, Shared Space

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