Creative Commons_1.0 by cameron northrop

CREATIVE COMMONS Thesis Version_ 1.0

CREATIVE COMMONS Thesis Version_ 0.5

Cameron_Northrop B. Arch - California Polytechnic State University

CAM ERO N _N O RT H RO P

Doug Jackson Design Studio: 2011-2012 CALIFORNIA POLYTECHNIC STATE UNIVERSITY B. Arch, California Polytechnic State University - Thesis Documentation

2012, Cameron Northrop. contact: northrop.cameron@gmail.com CC

CONTENTS_

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00 01 26 28 30 32 32 36 46 54 60 70 _

Abstract Written Manifesto Design Study 1 Design Study 2 Design Study 3 Project >Program >Site >theFACTORY >Systems >Occupy >Model References

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â&#x20AC;&#x153;That constant flickering of images fascinates us...â&#x20AC;?

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Bernard Tschumi. _Architecture and Disjunction

Instability here refers to a state within a system where radical and unforeseen outcomes are produced, creating new, highly ordered structures and systems. In a sense, it represents the order found in what is often seen or declared as chaos with the notion of instability and change identified as a pre-condition for creativity. A new potential is becoming apparent with individuals no longer considering themselves mere spectators or observers, but active creators of content in an emerging productive culture. CREATIVE COMMONS is a collection of physical and written work in reference to the current state of contemporary architecture and architectural practice, the compartmentalization of space, and the re-affirmation of control spaces in a passive society of spectacle. Focus is placed on the latent potentials of digital culture through the de-compartmentalization of space and the re-establishment of a cultural dialogue through participatory and discursive action. Mass media and digital culture will be used as a window to highlight and amplify issues within architecture and to create a platform for questions. These are not questions that necessarily demand answers. They do, however, aim to agitate established norms, to insight reactions, and to provoke thought.

1. BLDG BLOG, Architectural Weaponry: An Interview with Mark Wigley, Volume 10. 2. Hardt, M., Negri, A., Multitude: War and Democracy in the Age of Empire.

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Nothing ever stands still. Nothing ever stops. Everything is always in motion or moving somewhere. Technology is in a constant state of evolution with contemporary culture barreling close behind it. We move, connect, and communicate and an increasingly more rapid pace and are finding new ways to interact with those around us. Conversely, architecture in the traditional sense has been a profession of permanence, stability, and stature, built upon established disciplines and pedagogies. Enrique Walker identified architecture as an “act of restraint— we don’t build freedoms, we build reductions of freedom—with every decision narrowing options or possibilities”.1 In an ever more increasingly complex world, a more networked and global culture, an architecture of limits fails to encompass the notion multiplicity, or the emergence of multiple, simultaneous identities, and fails to accommodate anything other than the monumentality of a singular image, function, or notion of relevance. In a world that is constantly changing, the static and autonomous ideologies of traditional design practices no longer hold relevance and no longer apply. Digital culture has reinvented the ways in which we live, work, and interact within a contemporary, global society. Conversely, technology has manifested itself as a doubleedged sword, redefining notions of control, freedom, and authorship that have never before been encountered as having been manifested through digital mass media and mediums. As we become seemingly more connected, our perceptions of the real become more striated and divided. A dis-connect has emerged between developing latent cultures and imposed controls and safe-guards which limit their potentials. “Empire spreads globally its network of hierarchies and divisions that maintain order through new mechanisms of control and constant conflict”. 2

Architecture is also a mass medium and has the ability to become the interface through which we construct our understandings of the world around us; a means of communication and a platform for interaction. However, what may have once been seen as a productive practice and a purveyor of culture, has seemingly lost its vigor, its potential, and has become increasingly stagnant. Architecture is fast becoming consumed by its own shadow. Entropy (n) - The instability of a stationary state gives place to spontaneous events and organizational phenomenons.

CREATIVE COMMONS_

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to contemporary culture dominated by fluidity and change, reinforcing and monumentalizing existing patterns and infrastructures instead of encouraging the creation of new ones. In a world where nothing ever stands still and nothing ever stops, the static and autonomous ideologies of traditional design practices no longer hold relevance and no longer apply.

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The icon and the image that ruled the frame of architecture no longer relate to dreams and aspirations of an inspired future. Fixed and compartmentalized functions of space fail to adapt to the new ways people now create, connect, and interact. Architectureâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s obsession with timelessness and fixity holds little relevance

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MONUMENTALITY_

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consume and create aspects of the virtual, the virtual being a process of imagination, unlimited potential and creative thought, situating itself between the past present and the contingency of what is to come. As stated by Elizabeth Grosz, it is the fundamental in-between, lacking form and any notion of a given nature or identity, yet that which ”facilitates, allows into being, all identities, all matter, all substance”. 4 In defining the term, it is important not to confuse this notion of virtuality with that which is defined by virtual reality - a mere simulation, representation, or reproduction of a given pre-existing entity or reality. Rather, virtuality embodies the idea of an indeterminate, unspecifiable future”. 5 It is the the constellation of objects, ideas, forces, and vectors; the field of relations or positioning of possibilities within the process of becoming. The philosophies of Deleuze would suggest that realities or realizations of the virtual exist as realities of change, or of events. This theme is also recurrent in the work of Guy Debord and the Situationists, advocating indeterminacy as a social construct, a result of pre-determined situations or of infrastructural frameworks. On the other hand, aspects of the digital have introduced the notion of continuous design, introducing indeterminate methods and models directly to the process of design, but to what determined end? This question brings to mind what Massumi refers to as ”potentialization” or a ”situating of the virtual”, pin pointing the role of the designer in intuitively activating, extracting, or manipulating potential possibilities. At the same time, it is also here where Massumi notes that the potential of a given situation will always exceed its actuality. The second the virtual is captured, it crosses the threshold of ambiguity, leaving all other dynamic potentials behind.

3. Massumi, Brian, Parables for the Virtual, p. 133.

4. Grosz, Elizabeth, Architecture From the Outside, MIT Press, 2001, p. 90. 5. Ibid., p. 92.

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Given the nature of architecture as an actualized, physical medium, one must acknowledge the limits of architecture in its relation to the sensory analog, or what we know or perceive to be the constructed, tangible, and real. Architecture is conceived through a process, as an instance within a field of relations, a ”halted” procession of events, processes, or constructed situations. Simply put, it is the role of the architect to analyze and explore potentials and possibilities through the process of design, but in the end, the architect must deliver architecture and at some point the process of design has to stop, but where? It is in analyzing the process of design, or conversely the intent or objective of the designer, that discussions of the determinate and indeterminacy hold relevance. In the traditional sense, architecture has turned back to established, determinate, processes and mediums of representation in order to define and deliver a given project, with each project becoming increasingly more specified, categorized, and concrete, resulting in defined solutions where the actualized results fall short of potential possibilities. It is here, in analyzing design tools and processes in regards to theoretical discussions on virtuality and indeterminacy that we begin to explore new alternatives. ”Imagination is felt thought, thought onlyfelt, felt as only thought can be: insensibly still. Outside any given thing, outside any given sense, outside actuality. Outside coming in. The mutual envelopment of thought and sensation, as they arrive together, pre-what they will have become, just to unfold from the unfelt and unthinkable outside: of process, transformation in itself.”3 Here, Massumi describes the way in which we simultaneously

Indeterminacy In Architecture_

DETERMINED INDETERMINACY_ 6. Wigley, Mark. Towards Turbulence

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7. The Active Voice of Architecture, Field Publication, vol. 1, p. 68.

In the process of actualizing architecture, the architect places highly idealized visions of design into highly unpredictable situations. In a sense, architecture is entered into a field of forces in regards to space and time, subject to negotiate relevance within a highly complex, fluctuating network of political, social, and economic complexities, events, and situations. It is the architect and the process of design which determine architecture’s response to the indeterminate. What opportunities are found in exploring an architecture that embraces or encourages indeterminacy or an architecture of indeterminacy in itself, an architecture that provokes, but constructively so, an active subjectobject relationship between the building and the user; an architecture of friction. Throughout the 1950’s and 1960’s a series of movements began to manifest themselves as a response to the projected, sterile image of Modernist society. Le Corbusier had advocated a new order, a structure of efficiency, fluidity, and speed at the scale of the city and a dematerialized, minimal architecture, reduced to the bare minimums of structure, enclosure, function, and use. Envisioned as the “calm after the storm”, the Modernist movement of the 1920’s projected the image of the city as the efficient social machine, reducing the unpredictable and often chaotic extremes of the city to an overriding, optimized smoothness. Le Corbusier had declared that it was the torrent of the old city, the “disturbing, twisted, and mis-shapen” that had agitated and brutalized city life. Conversely, it was these destabilizing qualities of the city that the Situationist collective

sought to preserve and create. “The architect’s tight-lipped control gave way to a kind of openmouthed, wide-eyed architectural delirium, unleashing and intensifying the uncontrollable flows—an architecture of agitation itself”. 6 Guy Debord and the Situationist International sought to explore the constructs of event through the experience of la dérive, identifying event as the unforeseen result of an unforeseen situation or encounter. Conversely, and perhaps more interestingly, unforeseen or indeterminate outcomes were also identified as the result of constructed, or pre-determined situations.7 In short, determinate systems or situations are also capable of producing indeterminate outcomes or results when exposed to realities outside of idealized social or architectural utopias. How then can the architect begin to influence or manipulate these social factors? How can this be applied to the concept of architectural systems and infrastructures? Formed in the 1960’s, Archigram envisioned an architecture capable of actively provoking and responding to indeterminacy, individual choice, and desire, turning away from conventional architecture in favor of the exploring constructed, technology and interface-based environments through hypothetical design projects and publications. Finding parallels to work set out by the Situationists, these provocations also took a stab at modernism. “Archigram’s philosophy of ‘indeterminacy’ brought to a head a long-running, rarely mentioned conundrum of modernism. Modernism is a contradictory idea, inasmuch as the word ‘modern’ implies something that is up to date

8. Sadler, Simon, Archigram: Architecture without Architecture, Cambridge MA/London: MIT Press, 2005, p. 91. 9. Herron, Ron, Walking City, p. 50. 10. Ibid. 11. Sadler, Simon, Archigram: Architecture without Architecture.

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architectural program, everything was frozen— the architectural solution (the building) and the social desire, that had brought it into being, might be nothing more than a passing fad”.11 The framework of contemporary architecture failed to hold relevance to the ebb and flow of society. Conversely, Archigram proposed an architectural infrastructure which enabled an open-ended architecture that evolved and adapted, synonymous with the ambiguities of human life and the desire for change. If our everyday perception of space is vulnerable, but constructively so, to change, what is the role of indeterminacy, as a socially engaging process, in the process of design? Can architecture be thought of as a process of mediation between control and circumstance, as a practice of enabling, but also counterbalancing indeterminacy? Where is the dividing line between control and indeterminacy?

and still in formation, whereas the suffix ‘ism’ implies the opposite, a doctrine, a codified method a style. Archigram would ensure that the ‘ism’ would instead stand for a continual state of becoming, the design of the ever new”.8 With work initially emphasizing the development of flexible and adaptable architectural systems and ‘pod’-like infrastructures, provocations focused on concepts like ‘expandability’ and a ‘kit of parts’, seeking to develop systems or infrastructures meant to be discarded, replaced and upgraded in a continual process of design that reach beyond the scope of the architect. Projects like “the Living Pod, the Auto-Environment and various dwelling cases [were] very much a half-step between the mechanical (problem-solving) assembly and the really free-ranging set of parts that respond to personal needs. The gesture of translating events from a formal limitation to a mechanized liberation...”9 By the time Archigram 7 - Beyond Architecture, had been published, however, work had become increasingly more radical, almost borderline architecture, with Peter cook exclaiming, “there may not be any buildings at all by Archigram 8”.10 As Archigram ventured further down the rabbit hole, questions arose in reference to who played the role of the designer and to what the foundations were of architecture itself in a society increasingly more immersed in the networked digital and cybernetic. The work of Archigram was unique in that it questioned and relied heavily on the social factors that influence architecture and built infrastructure. The work acknowledged the notion that, “the moment one made a commitment to an

Preliminary Explorations: shifting program infrastructures

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INFRASTRUCTURES_ In discussing the roles of indeterminacy in architecture, a number of questions may begin to create a platform of discourse. First and foremost, what is the desired effect of indeterminacy? Is it in producing indeterminate outcomes or numerous design options along the way? Or is it more a question of where indeterminacy is applied and where it enters the equation within the evolution of a project, even post-architect or post-actualization. How do you pre-determine indeterminacy or, similarly, multiple, simultaneous instances of determinacy?

As stated by Stan Allen, â&#x20AC;&#x153;the aim of the architect is no longer to propose an alternative, and allegedly better, world but to take the world as it is, to contribute to the further actualization of its potential rather than bring about the advent of a remote utopiaâ&#x20AC;?.i There is no doubt that technology has evolved and has brought contemporary culture with it. It is not, however, technology itself, rather the social parameters intertwined within it it that have created the element of change within contemporary society. In re-connecting architecture to culture and to incorporate this notion of change, one would argue that the

12. Stan Allen, Terminal Velocities, p. 307.

13. Tschumi, Bernard, Architecture and Disjunction, p.259.

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infrastructure, not merely as a supporting platform or kit of parts but a methodology that utilizes the strengths of both arguments. There is no doubt that form is an essential aspect to design, however, there is a stark distinction between that which would be considered sculpture or an architecture of novelty, the object of passing fads or generations, and an architecture that makes a statement through its interaction within a society that is continually redefined. There is potential for the architect that contributes to an infrastructure which encourages exploration, or a simultaneous action-reaction creation of content. This is an architecture that embodies the process of exploration in itself, utilizing the strengths of the digital, parametric ,and non-linear to explore and challenge the boundaries of architectural practice and to inform design directions, yet centered on the creation of infrastructures, frameworks and systems, a continual process of re-creation.

architect is called upon not to design the object, but rather the principles by which the object is generated and how it interacts and evolves over time. By nature, architecture cannot become synonymous with culture, nor does it intend to. Conversely, architecture does have the ability to create, connect, and communicate in regards to creating the conditions necessary to trigger an event or to accommodate a specific (or unintended) use, to connect and interact with society, and to communicate ideas; to initiate a dialogue between culture and the built environment. As stated by Bernard Tschumi, “architecture is not about the conditions of design but about the design of conditions that will dislocate the most traditional and regressive aspects of our society and simultaneously reorganize these elements in the most liberating way, so that our experience becomes the experience of events organized and strategized through architecture.”ii It is here that the architect takes a different role in creating the conditions or the infrastructure necessary to facilitate a new type of consciousness, a new approach to the fabrication of what we may consider a given reality or series of events, and a new approach to architecture itself. Architecture would then become the catalyst, or “trigger”, for social and political change; the object or interface pivotally placed between user and action/inter-action. The concept of interface provides a means of communication, a platform for interaction. Taking digital technology for example, digital interfaces provide the means necessary to communicate, produce, and possibly interact within a given program framework or medium which is almost always a pre-determined, designed software that processes given inputs based on a series of set parameters. As a result, different results vary depending on the sources of input and the design of the process itself. This example ambiguously eludes to both notions of the determinate and indeterminate as discussed previously, however, a possible cross-over can be identified in exploring the concept of architectural

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Exploring Perspective: In viewing reality in respect to relativity, the notion that one cannot see something does not mean that it does not exist. This can be expressed through the idea of multiple perspectives or layers, the conscious and subconscious, multiple realities or simultaneous realities; a given reality is multifaceted and open to interpretation or unexpected relations.

EVENT_prehensive unification

A and B are parts of a given volume C. A and B may be understood as contributing aspects of A and B to volume C. At the same time, a relation AB also must exist between A and B. This relation must also be understood as having an impression or effect on volume C. In effect, aspects of A, B, and AB from the standpoint of C all contribute to, or partake in, the essence of C. These relations can be seen as a series of modes. If modes A, B, AB, and C can be further reduced, it can be argued that all aspects of a given mode do not have to be present at a given time, thus offering variations of an end result _The Fallacy of Misplaced Concreteness C. The creation of, or the process of creating a Stanford Kwinter, Ibid. given notion of C is an active and selective action, actualized in respect to a specific notion in space and time, an event relying on the relationships identified to a collection of given elements.

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”Prehension consists in the very act of forming actual unities from all of the possible perspectives distributed within the world’s prehensive manifold. Unification should be understood in terms of connectedness, the type of connectedness that may be said to hold between the elements that come together to form a single event... the emergence into actuality of something. The unity of the prehensive event is a seizing together of aspects or relations between things; everything is determined—by deformation and limitation or selection—by everything else.”

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“far and wide”, shifting away from traditional social norms in light of a new global multitude. “It is not a matter of everyone in the world becoming the same; rather it provides the possibility that, while remaining different, we discover the commonality that enables us to communicate and act together... a network in which all differences can be expressed freely and equally, a network in which all differences can be expressed freely and equally, a network that provides the means of encounter so that we can work and live in common.”

14. Hardt, M., Negri, A., Multitude: War and Democracy in the Age of Empire.

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We inhabit a fractured reality. We are no longer a culture of singularity. We exist in multiple or simultaneous realities, or at least projections of a simulated real. We select multiple simultaneous identifications of identity, fluctuating and dependent on a given locale or medium. We seek commonality through mediums of communication. Communication and social media have begun to blur both physical limitations and cultural boundaries. The traditional notions of association, history, and identity are beginning to erode as new freedoms and forms of social mobility are beginning to change how we connect and interact with each other. Our constructions of knowledge are no longer confined to the physical “here and now”, but expand tenfold in the virtual

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DIGITAL CULTURE_

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the BLOG NETWORK

HYPER_CONNECTIVITY A new POTENTIAL is apparent in a new emerging digital culture. Society is trending towards a new digital transparency, expositionism of the 21st century. Individuals no longer consider themselves spectators or observers, but active creators of content. We have the ability to create, converge, re-hash, re-mix, and disseminate media while having unprecedented access to information. We are connected to a new global community network structured and supported from the bottom-up rather than being controlled from the top-down and no longer confined or limited by social norms and the status quo. BLOG_ posting as a means of sharing content, identity, and community. > How can blog content, culture, and methods of connection be physically activated?

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> How can this be utilized as a model for architecture?

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Société du Spectacle - a passive consumer society, captivated by the spectacle of mass media, where relations between commodities replace relations between people and the fetishism of a new digital age hinders the production of critical thought and active interactions. _Guy Debord > Technology has made us more vulnerable to mass media as an ever-present social control mechanism. It is met unchallenged, effectively manipulating perception and popular thought.

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With the decentralizing nature of a networked culture and a shift towards a more global consciousness, notions of place have given way to virtual spaces and interfaces as the loss of traditional notions of identity and the immediacy of a physical locale have begun to dissolve. Our definitions of place have slowly dissipated into an increasingly more generic framework, compartmentalized and rationalized into an architectural banality, a backdrop for connections and interactions elsewhere. As we become increasingly connected, our mediums of connection become more intertwined and ingrained in our lives. Coincidentally, as we are given the ‘freedom’ to choose what content we access, digital media [organizations] are beginning to choose what content we are given access to, as well as influence how we engage with it. Following Marshal McLuhan, the medium is the message and whether printed, broadcast, or uploaded via the Internet, mass media has the ability to shape and manipulate the information by which people form their base of understanding of the world around them.1 Given the complexity of contemporary society, what we know or think we know is often shaped exclusively through these channels of information and taken at face value to be ‘true’. The limitations of this is that even if the information presented is true, “it still is only one perspective of the ‘truth’, which is that of the media organization presenting it”.2 The information projected through these mediums offers only limited and narrow constructions of the ‘truth’ which are broadcast at a massive scale, consequently constraining opportunities for competing perspectives. Mass media is therefore able to restrict, cultivate, and control a very singular, passive audience and is able to speculate the reactions of its users; the society of spectacle. We inhabit a fractured space, a space of half truths and fragments, disassociated and ambiguous, passively accepting the agendas of even more ambiguous control organizations.

Much like the prisoners of chained to the wall of Plato’s Cave, mere shadows begin to aspire form and mere projections begin to replace reality. The ADD of society is held in a captive state of hyper-stimulation by a constant barrage of mass media, a “constant flickering of images”, and as media culture becomes more and more prevalent, society has begun to experience and question these messages less and less.3 We have become desensitized by false normalcy under the pretenses of security and the image of stability in a seemingly chaotic world. It is the fabricated real, the constant conflict, the flash of lights that keeps us captivated and divided. The machine thinks for us. This is media culture, the machine that we created.

CONSEQUENCES of MASS MEDIA_

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ARCHITECTURE IS A

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ALSO A MASS MEDIA.

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CRITICAL MASS_

The notion of Critical Mass refers to the physical force or multitude needed in order to initiate a given action or to enforce change on a given state of equilibrium. Utilizing unconventional tactics, these types of movements often operate outside of the confines of established political action and capitalize on thier appeal to lower

and middle-class activists. In challenging the boundaries of the law, these minor acts of civil disobedience also attract media headlines and become hot spots for larger forms of mass media, which in turn allow movements to reach a much broader audience. #OccupyMovement

15. Marwellta, Gerald , The Critical Mass in Collective Action.

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Social factors: size, diversity, social stigma, level of communication, ability to broadcast content.

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// Manifesto

Architecture has the ability to:

CREATE, CONNECT, COMMUNICATE, and <<TRIGGER>>.

DESIGN STUDY 1_ Re-mix

// Design Study 1

A mechanism designed to allow the user to overlay and re-organize a given composition of images made up of a number of individual transparencies. Each given instance would allow for complete user creativity in constructing how a series of events [depicted through images] is perceived and understood in relation to others.

[1.] Slides

[2.] Re-mix_Machine

[3.] Composite Image

// Design Study 1

DESIGN STUDY 2_ #urbanprojections Projected content would allow for a temporal appropriation of public space, creating a platform for unmitigated creativity, encouraging public interaction and facilitating a reactionresponse. Communication between users and real-time community building would be simplified through the use of #tags and @ notfications.

// Design Study 2

> city as interface. > projected content aims to encourage the production of â&#x20AC;&#x153;thought-eventsâ&#x20AC;?. >p rojector apps for cell phones will create an intelligent and easily accessible creative platform. LIMITATIONS_ > the interface between content and observer remains digital. > digital provocations are limited in their ability to create or encourage physical interaction.

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30 // Design Study 3

A non-static system of bridge connections that use sliding platform nodes to adjust to individual need and desire [non/performative]. The mechanics of the system would allow the user to choose their destination, but would also allows others to choose for them. Moving one platform may also cause other sections of the system to shift. As a result, the temporary connections made become instances of social interaction or conflict, encouraging users to negotiate a given path.

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DESIGN STUDY 3_ Negotiated Space

PROGRAM TYPOLOGIES_

Thinktank_ a group organized for intensive research and problem solving

> bottom-up organization supports a non-hierarchical structure model. > everyone is a potential ‘expert’. > reliant on flexible/expandable networks facilitates and encourages the sharing of content. > the thinktank space acts as a filter and amplifier of knowledge—an aggregator of people and content

Stage_ platform or designated space of performance; a focal point. Public Space_ social space open and accessible to the general public; a place of gathering,

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occupation, and appropriation.

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TRANSLATION to architecture >>>

00 34 // //Contents Program

THINKtank FACTORY_

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A platform for ideas, critical thought, and action. The THINKtank FACTORY is the institution of non-institutions, aimed at challenging existing infrastructures while providing the means necessary to create new ones. The project embraces on a bottom-up organizational model, relying on transformable and expandable spaces to encourage user interaction and the sharing of content. The constant fluctuation of spaces and influx of people acknowledges the notion of instability and change as a pre-condition for creativity, allowing the building to facilitate and catalyze temporal aggregations of people and appropriations of space.

Port Authority Bus Terminal

// Site

New York, NY

// Site

38 // Site

PABT

the FACTORY

// Site

New York Times Building

SITE_ The project site is located within the existing Port Authority Bus Terminal, one of the largest mass transit infrastructures of New York City. The existing 1.5 million square foot facility accommodates hundreds of thousands of commuters, over seven thousand buses, and thousands of automobiles daily, providing vital links both to the Lincoln Tunnel via massive connection ramps above and to the subway systems below. At such a massive scale, the PABT positions itself ambiguously where building meets infrastructure and where infrastructure meets the city.

// Site

Positioned above the PABTâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s North Terminal and plugging-in to its existing structural core, the project injects itself directly in to the mass transit network in order to maximize exposure, traffic flow, and ease of access in the attempt to open itself to a wider audience.

// Site

Existing Structural Core [North Terminal]

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Connection Points: The project utilizes the existing structural core to directly plug-in to the PABT facility and to other adjacent mass transit connections in order to maximize traffic flow and and ease of access. Other connections are made to the street and to additional car parking located on the South Terminal.

[1.] [2.] Street Acess

PABT + Subway

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[3.] Parking

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Context Model_

// Site

// the FACTORY

the Billboard:

// the FACTORY

Located directly accross from the New York Times Building, the THINKtank FACTORY positions itself in a stance of opposition, challenging established media outlets while utilizing its adjacency to give voice to the masses and to allow them to reach a wider audience.

theFACTORY_Billboard Utilizing an array of LED panel systems, the building is able to dissiminate information and to facilitate communication links both between users and between users and their audience. These systems are used as a primary marketing tool, which in turn are rolled-back on a series of tracks in order to reveal appropriated spaces as they become occupied and the facade is no longer needed. As functions are always changing, the facade acts both as a lens into the building and as a projector of it use.

// the FACTORY

Group Locator

Live Thread

// the FACTORY

Open Content // User Interaction

fixed circulation core

the BILLBOARD // LED panel facade

auditorium

fixed program

// the FACTORY

attrium // existing BLDG core

access from street + mass transit

activated space roll-over panels

// the FACTORY

non-programmed appropriation // wwpublic open space

52 // the FACTORY

top floor:

social club / music venue

typical floor:

non-fixed program [negotiated space]

amphitheatre level:

// the FACTORY

large event space/seating

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EXT. Lift / LED Panel Track System

[1.]

[2.] Sliding Gantry -Type Connection

LED media panel

connection rails

program module

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shell space enclosure

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LED Panel and Track System

Program Module: Enables users to create hybrid program functions, choosing from a bank of module types.

Detail Model_

Program Shell: Allows users to create transformable space, accomodating varying program functions.

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Gantry Bridge Connection: Allows circulation to change over time according to space appropriation and function.

58 // Systems

// Systems

Interactive LED Facade: Through the use of arrayed LED

// Occupy

panels and roll-over track systems, the facade acts as a broadcasting tool while also providing real-time updates as hub for social communication and user interaction.

// Occupy

62 // Occupy

Main Amphitheater: Combining both assembly and performance

// Occupy

spaces with user access and circulation, the Main Amphitheater welcomes occupants into the heart of the establishmentâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;a stage for self-expression, learning, and collective enterprise.

Gantry Bridge Connections: Moving bridge connections would

// Occupy

allow users to alter or change circulation routes or access to program spaces, enabling the building to accomodate numerous different appropriations of space at once and to change over time.

// Occupy

Non-Fixed Program Modules: Modules would be open to indi-

// Occupy

vidule self-expression and group creativity. In allowing an unstructured appropriation of space, the building would actively explore new ways of combining spaces, functions, and program adjacencies.

// Occupy

68 // Occupy

Entrance and Assembly Area: As users enter theFACTORY,

// Occupy

the exterior of the building opens up into the forum and assembly quad which also accomodates fixed program and workshop spaces. Doubling as a staging area, this space would become â&#x20AC;&#x153;home baseâ&#x20AC;? for new projects, social movements, and group enterprise.

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Physical Model_

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www.creativecommonsthesis.tumblr.com

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www.creativecommonsthesis.tumblr.com

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