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UPM POLYTECHNIC UNIVERSITY OF MADRID Escuela Técnica Superior de Arquitectura
UC BERKELEY UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA Environmental College of Design
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H C R EA CT S E R OJE PR
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* Natalia matesanz ventura
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Women March in 1968
The Digers The Death of money
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affection and dissent
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* General framework 6
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This research project is an important part of the PhD dissertation entitled: AFFECT AND DISSENT IN THE RE-CONFIGURATION OF URBAN SPACE (ARCHITECTURAL ALTERNATIVES PARAMETERS IN THE CONSTRUCTION OF HETHERODOX ENVIRONMENTS). The PhD aims to prove how some non-physical and socially-based parameters such as affection and dissent are keystones in the production of contemporary urban space. This is, how some alternative, ilegal, informal constructions and community practices leads to specific innovations and urban improvements that traditional planned city is not able to provide.
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* Case of study 9
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In order to understand these forms of innovation, the PhD presents some cases of study mostly linked to what the research understand as the cradle of the post-modern western society: the subversive movements of the 60’s and 70’s. May 68’ revolts, gender, LGBT and civil rights fights but above all, the influence of the American counterculture and the environmental movement. The role of dissident organized communities and events such as the Drop city, the Whiz Bank Festival, XXX in San Francisco and New York are the core of the dissertation.
* Context In 2000, the Harvard Project on the City, directed by Rem Koolhaas, presented Shopping, a research that highlighted the unstoppable transfer to the private of the public activity. Globalization, commercial strategies and the media were already contributing to “colonize” squares, streets, museums, churches and hospitals, benefiting consumerism. Today the disciplinary and control society is being surpassed by a performance society, as Byung-Chul Han puts. Architecture is no longer a tool for controlling bodies and reproduction. Emotional capitalism goes beyond Guy Debord’s worst expectations. Today, people are are controlled by social networks and personal data, supervising our ways of living and relating to the Polis. Public space seems to disappear.
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However, understanding the public as a relational and political space of the common, we could state like Stefano Boeri did, that public space is not disappearing but just mutating its shape, into a diffuse net of emergent “molecular� capitalism of small actors who are taking the lead . Certain citizen dynamics demonstrate that public space remains alive, although restructured and in a diffuse form. It no longer has to do with the traditional representation or monumentality, but with relational qualities framed by the affective spatial and critical turn of the 1990s.
New spatial categories in the city means new architectural tools
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Following the epistemics changes of the second half of the twentieth century that links emotions to the configuration of social space, several new spatial categories have appeared. Some of them comes from the transformation of the day to day living, in today’s society.
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For example, a lot of self-managed or provided by the government spaces can be seen in the city of Madrid , as well as orchard groups, productive spaces for citizen initiatives, space for self-expression and collaboration, co-workings, etc. These projects entail the active participation of the citizens in the construction of their own city.
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Likewise, phenomena such as Facebook, Rbnb, Surf packers, or even Tinder alter traditional characteristics (perimeter, volume, measure) of urban and domestic spaces. A space can have no perimeter anymore, being spread in a lot of different locations at the same time like for example a space for an ephemeral love encounter.
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New meanings and parameters are being created and they are especially linked to spatial parameters of affection and dissidence, different from the classic disciplines. These parameters need a better understanding, management and application as architectural design tools. 9
Affects and dissidence are leading to the transformation of what we understand today by urban space and even more, public space. Streets can be perceived from our rooms and a private bathroom can be public and seen from a pub. 10
Social needs and changing desires of the inhabitants of the current city are generated around those affective-dissident spaces, which diverge from those generated in the planned and unmovable city derived from modern zoning and Corbusier urban planning model. 11
This spontaneous and diffuse net of actor attacks from civil entrepreneurial against the lack of equipment, green areas or other kinds of common spaces in the city. 12
Therefore, ses located se plots or private, but
this study will be directed towards those relational procesin the contextual framework of urban centres. Specifically, in thoterrain-vague, in which property is confusing, being neither public nor partial or shared, assigned, or co-managed between different users.
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These new situations reveal the impossibility to apply traditional definitions of space. At this moment it can be considered that the architectural theories and practices need to establish new tools, concepts and methods to understand what urban space exactly is. 14
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Precedents A different city
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As it has been demonstrated, current urban dynamics need a more expert approach in alternative spatial design. A more adaptable, evolutionary city that facilitates urban growth or de-growth freely and indeterminacy. The ineffectiveness or inadequacy of urban parameters and methodologies established from the modern movement, within the framework of Spanish urban planning, oblige to rethink most of the urban processes of the 20th century, but also to retake into account some of the countercultural events and practices that originally opposed to this methods in order to outline a new concept of city. May 68 revolts and the statements of the countercultural movement must be rethinked in architectural terms. The reason that these phenomena embraced the flexible and indeterminate, almost improvised practices. They allowed the incorporation of contingent thinking and collective learning in the construction of space, basing their design tools in people / bodies, communication and a critic attitude. The Drop city, the XXXX are physical results of this affective-dissident based spaces, the from now on so called Affecdent spaces.
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* 1. AFFECDENT SPACE
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This PHD research aims to define and understand Affectdence as an architectural concept resulting from the combination of two specific and usually independent conditions: affect and dissidence within a spatial contemporary framework. The concept, as if it were the result of an alloy, does not represent the addition of the characteristics of both affect and dissidence separately, but acquires new special properties which don’t exist in either affective or in dissident spaces.
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Naturally, in the PhD we clarify first the meaning of affective space, which evolution and transformations depends on users interactions, and secondly what is meant by dissident space, a delocalised, unplanned and normally hided space. However, the specific parameters and potential of Affectdent spaces is what the PHD mostly develops. Affectdent spaces are inter-connected in a net, generate their own technical and technological innovations and tools. The origin of these affective-dissident spaces lies in empathic informal processes and relational social-based dynamics starting in parallel, illegal, anti-hegemonic, and even private territories .
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The main point of ty to canalise innovation 12
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Affectdent transforming
spaces is their capacithe concept of public space.
Its parameters no longer have to do with European representativeness or traditional monumentality; instead, they are relational, they are based on conditions of affection and dissent. These, framed in the affective and spatial turn of the 90s make up what we call affecdent spaces. WHAT As already stated, some ordinary, organised informal spatial practices, based on affects and dissidence, are already generating a parallel architecture that creates a neo-public space, “where UC BERKELEY ENVIRONMENTAL DESIGN 20
Many bars kept extra liquor in a secret panel behind the bar, or in a car down the block, to facilitate resuming business as quickly as possible if alcohol was seized.
the only bar for gay men in New York City where dancing was allowed
The Snake Pit Greenwich
Bar Restaurant Hotel Shop Disco Sauna Cinema
The Stonewall Inn Greenwich 1968 police Raids
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rules are set according to its users” and that contributes to practical innovation from a displaced, virtual or physical space through a connected interdependent communication network. The communal gardens of New York
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La construcción del tejido alternativo de jardines comunitarios de Nueva york en el bajo Manhattan, promocionado por la contracultura americana de los 70, en los que además diferentes arquitectos como Matta-Clark o Fuller contribuyeron con aportaciones arquitectónicas, 4
the distribution and sale system of the top manta in Barcelona, the networks of self-organized urban orchards in Madrid or the new cybernetic forms of relation, production and learning, are examples that redraw public space by relocating it, reconnecting it, reframing it. 5
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Architecture is not disappearing but public space, at least as we know it traditionally, may be. ¿How architectural thinking and practice should change to adapt to those new circumstances? This research presents a series of examples that are permanently adapting to the fluxes of a liquid society, and that can contribute to prove that Affectdent spaces are the ones that nowadays are regenerating the public and leading architectural innovation.
*2. WHY CALIFORNIA CASE OF STUDY Two cases are related to Berkeley college:
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o los canales de relación alternativos LGTB como saunas, cuartos oscuros, y bares en el barrio del Castro, San Francisco, uno de los primeros tejidos residenciales a acoger dinámicas espaciales afectivo disidentes, son ejemplos de espacios afecdentes que han permitido desarrollar nuevas espacialidades y referencias resignificando el espacio público. - the alternative LGTB community and spaces like saunas, dark rooms, bars in San Francisco, once oppressed movements,
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before expanding into the rest of the world.
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The “out of the land” movement, orginated in Califfornia in the 70’s and the hippie comunes Those
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the initiatives and practices of communities and collectives such as Usco collectiv, Hibiscus, the Diggers, are considered a fundamental engines of these settlements based on the DIY and generators of innovation and critical thinking. * The study of these two study cases is the reason why visiting the College of Environmental Design will be so enriching. The visit is the perfect opprotuniy to deep into the details, and UC BERKELEY ENVIRONMENTAL DESIGN 22
The Drop-city site in Southern Colorado
The Drop-city
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the …. Of the investigation . And remain far from the prejudices. lack of accuracy and rigor. WHY
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The importance of counterculture and its spatial consecuences in the research, from the antecedent of the 70’s hippie communes and alternatives movements in San Francisco and New York, to the current punk, DIY and queer struggles, demands a more detailed study and deep bibliographic development from an architectural perspective in American universities such as UC Berkeley and specially the Environmental Design. What can be learned about the Stonewall revolts, hence what can be learned about the LGTB community in El Castro, San Francisco or Greenwich in New York city? Ironically it seems that what has been repressed is now what architecture should learn from, instead of keeping ignoring it, as all the others queer, transgender and creep movements. The research aims to define different forms of application and alternative spatial tools that allows the architect to take part in the generation and design of these spaces. Finding out how this kind of space works and how to apply it within an academic or professional framework represents an important goal to achieve.
*Estado de desarrollo de la tesis: The dissertation has a defined state of the question an theoretical framework, introducing and describing the concepts of affective space and dissident space. The study of 68’s revolts in Paris has led to deepening in the events and mobilizations of the 60s with those related to the American counterculture, the struggle for sexual equality, gender, against racism and violence of these years focused on the cities of New York and San Francisco.
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Four work scenarios are being developed and mapped to illustrate the phenomenon of affected affective spaces. The case studies produce cross-references and address transversal lines of reflection and thought such as gender, queer, urban regeneration or the body. 10
*Pertinencia y objetivo de la estancia: 11
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La estancia en Berkeley California permitirá desarrollar correctamente el caso de estudio que relaciona las comunas hippppies con la innovación urbana. The purpose of the stay is on the one hand, to deepen the study of the relationships between the hippie community of the movement originated in Berkeley with the ways of understanding the freedom of bodies and the incorporation of queer identities, and their consequences nowadays. In order to do this, it is necessary to generate a fieldwork, which will allows identifying and mapping the network of affective-dissident spaces of both San Francisco and New York if possible.
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The goal is to catalogue the different devices and spatial technologies generated from the population. Therefore, it is essential to go to the archives of the University of Berkeley and in particular, the Environmental College of Design where this movement mainly originates, as well as to the city of San Francisco to carry out that in situ UC BERKELEY ENVIRONMENTAL DESIGN 24
The strobo
Whiz Bang Quick City 1971
Kaliflower commune San Francisco
Exploding Plastic Inevitable
USCO Colllectif
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monitoring of the affective-dissident space and environmental ideology and committed to the LGBT community that today drinks architecture and its contemporary cultural diversity.
*Relación del proyecto con el trabajo del Host Professor Gerg Castillo endorses this stay. He is actually one of the leading specialists in “hippie modernity”. His works and research on the counterculture in the area of San Francisco Bay and his papers on the hippie communes of the 70s are very noteworthy. His work is of inspiration for part of the thesis. The interest of defining, drawing, mapping these affective-dissident processes is contributing to the operative evolution in the current project processes, favoring a construction more committed to the user, what is located, and the unforeseen in the public space. *
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para qué me serviría ir allí Relacionar la capacidad innovadora y el empuje emprendedor del ambiente californiano de Silicon Valley con esta capacidad de innovación instrumental y de espíritu crítico o pensamiento independiente con estas primeras comunidades hippies de la contracultura. Estas creaban herramientas propias y nuevas formas de convicencia que hoy en día vuelven a ser necesarias en la sociedad española. Como se viene demostrando e la cantidad de espacios colectivos que están surgiendo en la ciudad desde el fenómeno del 11 M. Espacios colectivos como el Campo de Cebada, o la red de huertos urbanos al entrar en contacto con la redes americanas puede generar colaboraciones importantísimas entre sí.
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*Impacto ESperado en la UPM como institución 10
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Es imprescindible realizar desde un enfoque espacial el desarrollo de esta contracultura y su reflejo y correspondiente reverberación en la cultura europea a través de los medios de comunicación, la música y también la expansión de las drogas. Dando lugar a nuevos modelos de convivencia y nuevas formas de comunicación y de innovación tecnológica que hoy en día aún sirven de referencia en las ciudades Europeas como Berlín, París, Madrid o Barcelona. En el caso de los jardines comunitarios las herramientas institucionales desarrolladas en Nueva York así como la ley de matrimonio homosexual y la ya muy asentada cultura gay y transexual en California desde los años XX muestran el avance respecto a España.
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No obstante no solo España ha de aprender de los EE UU sino que también desde allí puede ser útil crear una relación en estos temas, ya que España es uno de los países donde la cultura de los colectivo se ha desarrollado más especialmente por parte de la efervescente generación post-crisis está generando sistemas de innovación social y nuevos modelos urbanos de entender los espacio urbanos colectivos.
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Autogerated gardens in New York
TOP MANTA Nomad sellers
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Natalia, acompaña sus casos de estudio de una producción práctica: basada en el dibujo y la construcción de unos prototipos o modelos que permiten entender los paisajes alternativos e invisibles normalmente en la ciudad. La potencial aplicación de estos modelos es de innegable valor para un gran número de colectivos que viven la ciudad, pero cuya expresión puede recogerse a través de estos modelos de captación de subjetividades, que, adecuadamente financiados y orientados, dotarían de unos diagnósticos fiables y de gran calidad para empezar a pensar la ciudad desde la percepción de sus usuarios. Ofrecer los medios necesarios a este tipo de producción es indudablemente necesario y enriquecedor para el desarrollo tecnológico y cultural de la sociedad española. Esta beca sería un marco más que idóneo para que Natalia pueda desarrollar y consolidar su trayectoria y una vía para demostrar sus teorías construyendo estos prototipos. Es el apoyo de este tipo de proyectos por lo que el comité podrá sin duda sentirse orgulloso en el futuro cuando compruebe los resultados alcanzados. ****
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La academia ha de absorber y dar testimonio, canalizando las dinámicas relacionales que se están produciendo hoy en día fuera de la Escuela ( eco de los muchos años de progresiva evolución del espacio tradicional heredado de la modernidad.) Dinámicas heterodoxas, pero que sin embargo inciden directamente en la vivencia, configuración, carácter de estos espacios afectivodisidentes y por tanto a cuya influencia no podemos seguir dando la espalda ni desde la generación del proyecto de arquitectura y de urbanismo, ni desde las propias prácticas espaciales contemporáneas. ....
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Si la universidad adopta un papel activo en esa toma de conciencia del cambio epistémico global, acogiendo y financiando una investigación desde sus instalaciones, contribuyendo a la realización, prototipado y configuración de herramientas para abordar estos nuevos modelos espaciales entre los que se sitúa el objeto de estudio de este proyecto, adoptaría un rol puntero en un campo de estudio que se empieza a abordar ya en universidades europeas como Columbia, la AA o escuelas como Barlett School a través de sus clases y grupos de investigación. citar Posibilitando la realización de buir en la construcción de las mitirán tejer lazos comunes de
esta estancia la UPM podría contrinecesarias nuevas herramientas que perinvestigación entre las dos Universidades.
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uno de los organismos punteros de la investigación nacional como es la UPM, favoreciendo así que su escuela de arquitectura, desde la disciplina arquitectónica en general (en consonancia con otras como la antropología, la sociología o la economía, la geografía humana)
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*Duración de la estancia: Se propone una estancia de cinco meses, dado la doble combinación de objetivos, por un lado, explorar el archivo bibliográfico de Berkeley, por otro lado, realizar el mapeo de la red afecdente mencionada.
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En último lugar, sólo cabe añadir que los resultados finales de la estancia dependerán también de las consideraciones y orientación del profesor que allí dirigirá el trabajo de la doctoranda, lo cual no hará más que enriquecer sin duda la investigación.
*Resultado e impacto esperados: Vislumbrar, a través del desarrollo de una herramienta-modelo, los campos relacionales complejos y a priori “ajenos” a la disciplina y a la praxis ortodoxa de la arquitectura. El objetivo último es contribuir a reducir la brecha existente entre la sociedad, entendida como los usuarios del espacio habitado o vivido, al que ya Lefebvre hacía referencia, a los que se destina la obra de arquitectura, y el diseño arquitectónico ortodoxo que, desde los ámbitos supuestamente más expertos en la materia, se reconoce incapaz de asimilar los nuevos parámetros espaciales contemporáneos. Esto se debe por una lado a la falta de medios para realizar la necesaria y intensa investigación en el ámbito expuesto que permita la integración de los resultados en el ámbito profesional.
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Por tanto, se trata de componer una herramienta que visibilice procesos afectivo-disidentes que se considerarán y justificarán como paradigmáticos en la Tesis.Se trata de generar un conjunto de mecanismos de proyecto que a través de la creación de un modelo operativo permitan atrapar lo intangible.
*Plan de trabajo: METODO
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El modelo como herramienta y método de investigación Se pretende generar un cuerpo de pensamiento útil a partir de la producción de herramienta operativa que, a través de los tanteos y marcos experimentales que genere, permita entender el comportamiento espacial derivado de la aparición de relaciones subversivas establecidas entre el afecto y el espacio, así como las consecuencias o consideraciones que deben establecer para trabajar con ellas desde el proyecto arquitectónico. Para y por ello, y dado el marco investigador en el que se enmarca el trabajo, se procederá casi científicamente (es decir siguiendo un protocolo experimental de actuación). Por ello, no sólo se tratará de profundizar teóricamente en un proceso de documentación bibliográfica inductivo sino que, como se haría en un experimento científico, se generarán distintos marcos o medios experimentales mediante la cartografía de distintos escenarios u acontecimientos. 1._ Contextualizar
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Contextualizar en distintos escenarios o casos de estudio el espacio afectivo-disidente significa en una tesis doctoral de proyectos aprehender el medio desde una perspectiva productiva-especulativa, y no meramente descriptiva, producir para comprender. Investigar actuando. Ejemplificar y contextualizar la complejidad del espacio afectivo-disidente a través de la investigación de acontecimientos o situaciones concretas donde este se ha puesto en juego. 29
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d._ Cruzar Se observará el objeto de estudio desde una multitud de miradas relacionadas con este a través situaciones tangenciales a la arquitectura tradicional. Como el científico que estudia el comportamiento de la muestra del mismo elemento a través de diferentes lentes y en distintos medios (o escenarios) para comprender cómo este se comporta en cada uno de ellos.
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