Informality

In 1972, Robert Venturi, Denise Scott Brown, and Steven Izenou wrote one of the most important books on modern urbanism Learning from Las Vegas.

Today, the world actually needs to learn from the some of the poorest communities in global south. The eye-opening creations and interventions came out of these informal dwellings gave form to the cities that can vessel the abstract ideology of open source urbanism. The informality of these formal objects might open the door for endless possibilities.

Architects often regard themselves as creators, somewhat like a god; they create buildings out of their imagination, and shape the way how people live and work within the objects they designed. Architects and designers have been told to focus on making every single small decisions in order to make architecture work. However, the statement is usually not true when they are dealing with projects in urban scales. With no exception, past utopians and urban manifestos have been focused on ideology of creators. The spaces are created for people who live the way imagined and decided by the creators. It is romantic indeed, and there may have been some societal subversions, and innovative social ecologies. However, the entire design is based on the collectivism of a common ideology. The greatest utopia in the history was described in Karl Marx’s Manifest der Kommunistischen Partei, and have been put into practice in several countries for tens of years. It approves a singular value system, and it is the creators’ value system. They think their imaginary state of perfect life is what everyone wants. Eventually, this idea magnified the collectivism in the communist nations which give a very small group of people infinite power over others, and contradicts the relationship between production and consumption in the economic systems. Marx thinks that liberating people from evil capitals and having everyone being equal is giving them the ultimate freedom. The truth is that money, Marx thinks is the root of evil, is the greatest instrument of freedom.

Until now, the freedom can be expressed and reflected in an architectural form. The informality of the modular system contains the transformation from an ideology of open source urbanism to a real community with infinite possibilities.

Cities have the capability of providing something for everybody, only because, and only when, they are created by everybody. Borrowing ideas form cyber world, the concept of open source urbanism brings both formality and informality. Formal in its simple structure, the modular system with embedded infrastructure sets the basic unit and parameter for urban growth; informal in its open source nature, this system could transform urban spaces by using modular building components to form larger societal hub and multiple city layers. Even though each separate module is simple, they form a new, highly rational urban system well-suited to the complexities of modern individuals and societies when they are grouped in a high density algorithmic pattern. The module design possesses amazing customizability and is able to adapt to multiple urban environments, geographic cultures, individual lifestyles, and technological advancements. Its adoption will lead to new discoveries that helps us solve existing problems and possibly influence future trends in architectural and urban design.

New Urban Typology

Traditional urban typology traps people indoors: a report pointed out that average Americans spend 90% of time indoors. Some designers think this could be an opportunity to promote better indoor environment since so much time is spent there. On the contrary, the reason why people spend so much time indoors is the outdoor space is not ideal, sometimes disastrous. With the liberation of ground level, many layers could be gradually added on top of each other’s and create more outdoor space and indoor space. Constructing more and better designed outdoor space could draw people out from their offices and homes, and giving the urban space more livelihood. The self-growing communities would form a new urban typology that drastically differs from any traditional urban typology. The city texture is not designed by any planner or designer, instead, it is the expression of millions individuals, and it is constantly changing. The new urban typology would increase the outdoor space, the land use efficiency, and the sense identity of both the city and individuals.

City in Layers

It is well known that cities with greater density are far more efficient than the ones with lower density. One of the best ways to increase density of an urban area without adding traffic to the existing city streets is to create new layers of cities. Traditional cities has only one or two layers of public space for activities, and a large part of each layer used by transportation. Multi-layered cities would be able to increase the public spaces and gain more access to all the buildings. Similar to the skywalk system in Hong Kong, separating traffic and pedestrian could increase the efficiency as well. Unlike Hong Kong’s only layer above the streets, these new layers crated can add multiple pedestrian and even traffic levels to the city. The newly added layers will punch through the buildings, creating new sky lobby spaces for public use, also connecting multiple buildings together just like the street level. These new layers will create a new city fabric that is far more complex with much more possibilities.

Structure

With the modules being the structure of the system, constructing a community is similar to building a Lego model: simply stacking the modules on top of others and connect the power and water systems with standardized hook-ups. Similar to the Lego models, the more the single modular units are, the more stable the system is. The lateral load resistance is often transferred to the adjacent buildings.

Elevated City

By elevating the layers of cities, the government would save enormous amount of budget from building large dam or draining system. Plus, most of units in the structure are owned by civilians or private corporations. When the sea level eventually raised over the ground level of these cities, people could just continue to move up on the existing structure. Since the aluminum alloy hake strong resistance against eroding in water, they could stand sturdy in the water. The new waterways throughout the cities would be the new opportunity to develop new water transportation systems. As a whole, these flooded cities would be the permanent monuments to warn the world of the climate change.

Space Management

Although the spaces created by individual modules are highly informal, there is still micromanagement within the community. Owners of these modules have the absolute power to veto the development happing directly connecting the modules unless it’s pre-existing; and they have right to vote what could happen in their community, as well as the power to bring investment or development. The modules provide the perfect flexibility for the constant changing programs and use of spaces. With smaller chunks of spaces divided informally by people who occupy them, the people become a part of the security system, watching and taking care of their surroundings. In this case, less government funded law enforcement is needed, instead, the community becomes the law enforcement to lower the crime.

Transit Systems

It is not hard to find out that cities nowadays are mainly designed for automobile since it largely increased efficiency of urban activities. A large drawback from this mind set is that the more people use cars, the more often traffic jam appears. Luckily, recent technology could help people solve this paradox. Autonomous automobile allows the total separation between traffic and pedestrian. Since self-driving cars operates on sensors, there will be no sufficient natural light or traffic signal needed. With highly efficient master algorithm for self driving cars, the ground level and even some upper levels could entirely become a massive transportation system without human interference.

City Texture

City texture is the combination of countless tectonic forms and their facade. Traditionally speaking, the regulation of city development are mostly two dimensional, which give architects endless opportunities to design and build iconic structures. By dividing the city texture into smaller chunks and restricting the vertical dimension as well as the horizontal ones, the city texture would be more diversified vertically. On one hand, the city looks more unified as a whole standing from far away. On the other hand, there are more layers of detail in terms of what to see and experience at pedestrian level.

The New Horizon

The new layers of cities creates enormous amount of public space away from the ground, these spaces are interconnected by different programs such as running trails, bike lanes, parks, gardens, and even shops. These spaces then connects to the dead spaces like roofs of buildings, creating many new horizons in the urban fabric, making the cities truly multi-layered urban areas. For many buidlings, adding elevation means creating a better view for activities. This urban system will constantly give people great excitement of constantly changing and elevated views into the city.

Individualism

Since the modules are the private properties of each individual, and they would take advantage to display themselves. Similar to the Olympic students housing in Munich, where students could take advantage of the large surface of facade on their individual student housing unit to display their thoughts on politics, interests, and personalities. The module gives people even more freedom on ways of expressing themselves. The modules somehow can be treated as the platforms conveying their manifestation of avant-garde.

Basic Systems

The modules have built in space for the basic life supporting systems like water, power, and sewage system to run through. The simple hook-ups allows residence to use these systems in their own modules, however, connecting to these hook-ups require to install an electric sensor for monitoring the usage. These basic systems are connected to the central distribution system underneath each geographic section. Roof top gardens are able to collect rain water and clean it using built-in bio-filters; and roof top solar power stations have the ability to capture the solar energy and store it in the power storage. Sometimes when there is a roof top garden or a solar power station nearby, cheaper filtered water or electricity could apply to the module in order to encourage renewable resources.

Sustainability

There are so many existing “green buildings” in the world, and yes they do have very limited negative impact on global environment. However, even though the green buildings themselves might do not consume as much energy as other old buildings, the carbon footprint on transportation, construction is still very significant. Also, without constructing the building, the land of which sits on could potentially be a piece of forest that absorbs greenhouse emission. On the contrary, even living and working in a less green building in densely populated area would possibly be more environmentally friendly. With convenient public transportation and walkable city streets, the carbon footprint per person could be greatly reduced in a very large scale. Increasing the density of urban space is equivalent to increasing efficiency of energy. Instead of expanding the cities horizontally, the cities could grow vertically to eliminate the impact on land and deforestation. The less land humans take over by constructing parking lots and short buildings, the more land could be used as real green vegetation. Plus, ever growing number of electric cars and environmental friendly urban landscapes would really enhance the sustainability of architecture. In another words, it means that, in terms of sustainability point of view, the location of the buildings may be more important than the green technology itself. True sustainable building is the result of reducing every single element that has carbon footprint. The new intervention of informal urbanism with its own structural support would allow cities growing vertically without too much central planning and over-complicated process from the state’s governance. To attract people to live in the cities, private owned partnership will apply to the new construction and ownership to the new urban system. Also the real-estate market will be more affordable due to the new influx of massive amount of urban space for housing, office, and public uses.

Even though living in cities are much more sustainable, the current city models are based on extremely high consumption of fossil fuel, which directly leads to the ongoing climate change.

Firstly, the main source of electricity in most countries comes from conventional coal/gas burning power plants which are extremely inefficient in terms of energy transfer, and create massive amount of greenhouse emission and air pollution. Luckily, the climate change has been recognized by public, many countries have started to shift its power grid to more sustainable sources, and solar panels stated to appear on single family house roofs in order to generate power for residential daily

use as well. With similar concept, new informal communities in the cities will be able to serve large amount of power by using solar panel on top of existing buildings and new structures. The solar panels will be installed by power companies, and the owner of each rooftop will be paid by a portion of electricity production each month. The electricity will go into the local power grid and provide a significant amount of city’s daily electricity usage. The power generated will be a part of their electricity bill collected by power companies; and then a part of it will go back to those who provided rooftop space for solar panels. With rough calculating, a 20’x20’ roof will be able to generate 7200 kWh per month using PV panels with 30% efficiency, which serves about 8 families completely off-grid with average electricity usage. Along with the advancement of technology, the number will only go up. Plus, having people to accept this idea is less challenging nowadays, thanks to successful companies such as Airbnb, WeWork, and Uber, that the concept of sharing economy has being practiced and accepted by large amount of populations in recent years.

Secondly, modern urban lifestyle relies so much on automobile that consumes fossil fuel and emits greenhouse gas. With new structure built in between buildings, many layers of traffic will be created. This new traffic system rejects traditional cars running in its lane since the space for traffic is enclosed within the structure without large ventilation for large amount of exhaust gas. The enclosure protects pedestrian, and makes sure that people are completely separated from the traffic. Also, it increase the efficiency of autonomous traffic by eliminating uncertain human influence and increase average speed. The traffic “tunnel” is divided into four sections, two for each direction. The sections on the exterior are drop-off lanes that have openings for people to enter and exit the cars, meanwhile the center sections are lanes for fast traffic. Cars just took off will have to accelerate in the far part of drop-off zone to reach the synced speed in center lanes to join the fast traffic. All the cars in this new urban traffic fabric will be autonomous automobiles linked together under the one network so they will interact with other cars in the network calculated by algorithms after processing collected big data from the system. Most of these cars running on the streets are shared rides driven by artificial intelligence, thus people would not have to buy private cars to feel like first-class citizens. Also, this means the entire traffic system is running efficiently by computer, even though there is no traffic light, traffic jam will almost never happen. Because of the exclusiveness of conventional automobile in the cities and extremely high taxes on motor engine cars in the near future, petro powered cars will become toys for the rich living in the suburbs considered as classic cars.

Thirdly, efficient connections between cities in the world are often run by airplanes that has great environmental impact. There are over one hundred thousand fights are scheduled every day consuming 5% of fossil product, and emitting about 3% of world’s greenhouse gas goes directly into ozone. On the other hand, this shocking fact incubated the new generation of long distance transportation - Hyperloop. The Hyperloop operating tunnels will be able to be imbedded in the city fabric with newly constructed modular structure system blending in with the city traffic. The new pre-fabricated modules also provide low cost and fast constructing structure and infrastructure for Hyperloop tunnels outside of the cities.

Fourthly, many developing industrial countries have existing air pollution problems, and some of them are getting more and more serious. In China, smog has become a part of people’s life that they hardly see clear sky. The bigger problem is the health crisis caused by air pollution that over 3 million people in the world die from inhaling polluted air. Global governments have various solutions, and planting trees on the sidewalks is the most effective solution of all. The leaves on the tree act as filters that cleans the air within the sphere about 100 feet radius meanwhile they generate large amount of oxygen from carbon dioxide absorbed. The air tend to be fresher when plenty of trees are planted on the sidewalks. However, they are not close enough to filter the air for the entire city. By inserting layers between buildings will greatly enlarge public spaces in vertical axis, and give the city much more space to plant trees as air purifier. Also, these “filters” will stretch out on both the horizontal and vertical dimensions in city streets covering much more volume of polluted air.

Regionalism

The critical regionalism and world culture are not paradoxical, on the contrary, they both are a part of human civilization. Modern technologies can be used as a expression of regional culture. The most important element in regional or traditional culture is human, and it is the very basic element of cities. Many modern cities took away the traditional cultures by settling people in homes and offices isolated from the public, which resulted in the lack of acknowledging these parts of culture brought by past generations. In this case, the modules are vessels containing the cultures, as well as the windows displaying them.

Large Developments

The modular system is not only suitable for smaller units, larger developers and contractors are also able to purchase large space for multiple units and substitute them with their own projects, as long as these projects fits in the perimeter of the grid system. Most importantly, they have to follow the structural order, that their transfer of load need to match the existing system. For these larger projects to take place, they have to follow the same rule that they have to gain the approval by the communities. This allows larger projects’ existence become more flexible: a stadium could be on top of many residential communities, a concert hall could be on the bottom of a large park, or a farm could be on top of a bunch of office areas. These larger developments would fit right in the three denominational city fabric.

Succession

The architectural elements would act like cells splitting, almost like a chain reaction: at first, there would be only limited amount of modules being installed in the city street; later on, more and more people would discover the advantage of owning one of the units, and they would then generate more and more modules as part of the structure; eventually, the structure would stop growing upwards since the communities simply would not allow more residence or commercial space, it would then expand horizontally in radius that takes over the entire city fabric.

Portability

One big advantage of using ultra light weight aluminum alloy structural tubing as a modular building material is that anyone could pick it up and start to assembly the whole module by setting up the proper corner joint. This largely increases the portability and appliance of the modular.

Social Justice

Not only could the module be a part of the city fabric, it is also capable of serving as humanitarian equipment. For many under-developed countries that do not have basic living infrastructure, these modules would provide them a stable platform to develop their urban system. As basic urban structure, the replacement of simple sheds made of garbage and waste building material, people are able to infill different functionality into it based on their lifestyles and economic capability, giving them a better and healthier standard of life. More than just housing units, these modules are able to provide structure for public transportation to link different cities and villages together as a whole urban system. The skeleton of each module gives them flexibility to fulfill many necessities, their duty could range from health center to military base.

Global Application

The internet of thing had connected the world together very thoroughly, making the efficiency of pre-fabrication to shipping industry inLargely creased. As a strong and lightweight skeleton structure, the module could be shipped all over the world with very little damage. Since these parts are pre-fabricated, they would have the same high standard in manufacturing process, which means there would be no need for worrying about the qualities of building structure or pollution in terms of local factories. With simple installation of corner joints, the modules can be put together even by very little educated people. In this case, it is hard not to consider the modules as either building material or infrastructure for global appliance.

Makoko, Nigeria

Known as the Venice of Africa, Makoko’s transportation system is entirely based on water. This community dates back to 18th century as a fishing village, and the waterways and houses are relatively informal in terms of planning and regulation. The entire community is highly based on water, but the water brings many issues as well. Lagos as Nigeria’s commercial capital, more than 70% of the urban population lives in slums, which lack infrastructure and health care. When it floods, foul water containing sewage runs into slum homes, sometimes reaching waist height. Slum dwellers say they repeatedly visit health centers because of sickness after floods, spending scant money on healthcare. A huge proportion say floods deny them job opportunities or affect their livelihoods.

Along with the urban growth, the population in the city is exploding as well. In last theirty years, there is an over 15-million population increase. It is projected that the city is going to have around 28 million people, as one of the most populous cities in the world.

Lagos is located in the south-west coast of Nigeria, which is really close to the equator. With more than 14 houses of sunlight in the tropical zone, the average temperature throughout the year is more than 90 degrees. The heat generates serious hygiene problems in the community, causing large amount of diseases and deaths.

The image on the left illustrates the essential elements of a single family house in Makoko, as well as the basic belongings of local families. The data is mostly captured from watch documentaries and video footages of Lagos feature scenes that film makers walk into typical Makoko houses. In fact, most of these families do not even have things western world take for granted such as electricity and sewer system. The only televisions at community centers are shared by thousands of people, and their showing schedules are usually written on the blackboard outside.

Fishing is the largest domestic industry in Makoko, and most of people under poverty feed on catch of the day. Early in the morning, male or children will fish in the inner harbor of Lagos with very limited tools such as wooden boat and simple nests. Later in the day, the females of families will start to sale grilled fish on a traveling boat steering up and down the waterways. Another part of the catch will go strait of the fish market located all over the city, but mostly the Makoko fish market and Makoko farmers’ market where fishermen are able to sale their fish by themselves.

As one of the most populous cities in Africa, Lagos has hundreds of NGOs (NonGovernmental Organization). NGOs and other charities are mostly concerned about the education and health issues of the community since it does not have any formal schools or sewer system. A charity funded elementary school known as “Floating School” was established recently that serves more than 300 students.

Because this community had existed fro over a hundred years, the community ties a very close relation with the water. New additions on top of the existing community will not only increase the public space and provide more housing units, but also bring in infrastructure such as fresh water, sewer system, and electricity. Another layer of transportation system can be constructed within this new addition to ease the rush hour traffic on the major waterways. Gradually, the houses will be replaced by these additions, and improve the local life quality. This addition can possibly be achieved through the cooperation of local NGOs and local residents.

Dharavi, India

Dharavi is a locality in Mumbai, Maharashtra, India.Its slum is one of the largest in the world; home to roughly 700,000 to about 1 million people,Dharavi is the second-largest slum in the continent of Asiaand the third-largest slum in the world.With an area of just over 0.81 square miles and a population density of over 717,780/sq mile, Dharavi is also one of the most densely populated areas on Earth.

When examined closely, the informal community of Dharavi appears to be in a grid order. It is very much suitable for the open source city and the modular system to grow.

Dharavi is routinely called “the largest slum in Asia,” a dubious attribution sometimes conflated into “the largest slum in the world.” This is not true. Mexico City’s NezaChalco-Itza barrio has four times as many people. In Asia, Karachi’s Orangi Township has surpassed Dharavi. Even in Mumbai, where about half of the city’s swelling 12 million population lives in what is euphemistically referred to as “informal” housing, other slum pockets rival Dharavi in size and squalor.

For a slum like this, the infrastructure is the most important and should be he first thing to be constructed. With multiple urban centers and openings as infrastructure hubs, the sewer system and electricity line will be built along the lines. These will be the very major lines of the infrastructure system. These systems will have express transportation a well, for a more efficient transportation for both people and lifedepending resources.

After the major lines of infrastructure was built, the minor lines will be connect to the hook-ups for further development. During this time, more and more modules will be placed in the community as an alternative of housing. Firstly along the major infrastructure lines, and then gradually starts to spread.

Eventually, the modular system will take over the old slum, and form a brand new community with fresh water, sewer system, and electricity. These new standard housing units will accommodate those who are living in a very poor condition, and possibly help with the health and hunger problems.

Homs, Syria

Before the Syrian civil war, Homs was a major industrial center, and with a population of at least 652,609 people in 2004, it was the third largest city in Syria after Aleppo to the north and the capital Damascus to the south. Its population reflects Syria’s general religious diversity, composed of Sunni and Alawite and Christian. There are a number of historic mosques and churches in the city, and it is close to the Krak des Chevaliers castle, a world heritage site.

In the ongoing Syrian civil war, Homs became an opposition stronghold and the Syrian government launched a military assault against the city in May 2011. The following Siege of Homs left much of the city completely destroyed and thousands dead. The war in the city ended in 2015 when rebels evacuated the city, resulting in a government victory.

It was dubbed the “capital of the revolution” after residents embraced the call to overthrow the president in early 2011 and much of the city fell under the control of the opposition. But government forces launched a campaign to retake the opposition strongholds, laying siege to districts once home to tens of thousands of people. In late 2015, rebels began evacuating the last district they held, returning the city to government hands.

By the end of January 2014, the Old City was still being held by the opposition. Up to 3,000 civilians were believed to have been trapped there, without access to food and medical supplies and under repeated bombardment by artillery and aircraft, since June 2012.

“There is no food. The last week we lost two innocent people,” an Syrian said. “We have many casualties, many people who are diseased because of the lack of food.” We are on the edge of death, and there is no way to get the injured or sick out. And anyone who tries to escape the siege, we know that he will be killed for sure.”

The refugee problem and the starvation became very urgent after 2015 since hundreds dies week due to poor conditions of living situation.

City Destruction Map

With the new modular system, each module can be transformed into living units hosting 40 people in each one. These pods requires very little effort to build and very little mantainace during its use. In some case, they can be stacked up to increase the density as well. This will be the perfect living units for refugee camps outtside of the city of Homs. Infrastructure such as electricity and water can be hooked up if possible. To get through the hot summer days, air conditioning can be optional in the units as well.

Instead of just using these modules for refugee camps, they can be used as military base as well. For its great mobility and durability, these modules can be extremely efficient in the war zones. Extra armor panels can be added for preventing heavy impact and explosion.

Chengdu, China

The Dujiangyan Irrigation System, the project that defined the Chengdu plains and its later developments.

Chengdu is the center of western China and an international hub with a GDP of 1005.7 billion. It ranks No. 1 on Forbs’ The World’s Fastest- Growing Megacities in the next decade. It holds sub-provincial administrative status. As of 2014 the administrative area houses 14,427,500 inhabitants with an urban population of 10,152,632, and it is the fifth-most populous agglomeration in China.

The Ambitious Urban Development: Tianfu New Area

The establishment of Chengdu Tianfu New Area aims at reconstructing a modern international urban area suitable for residence, industry and commerce. It focuses on modern manufacturing industry and high-end service clusters. Adhering to the sustainable development concept of the city with intensive, connotative and green growth, the Tianfu New Area will be made into another “industrial Chengdu” by developing the high-end industries through internationalization and world-class orientation and planning the city with scenery of mountains and water. It endeavors to construct a new internationalized modern city suitable for work, business and living,

Current Development Pattern

City with Higher Density and a Set Boundary

where modern manufacturing industry dominates and clusters of high-end services boom, and to shape a demonstration zone integrating coordinated development of “modern industry, modern life and modern city landscape.” The priority of the area is to develop the headquarter-based economy and circular economy, and to speed up the advancement of strategic new industries such as energy resources, new materials, energy conservation, biotechnology, and the new generation information technology and high-end equipment manufacturing. The total area for this project is planned to cover 1,578 km (981 mi ).

It is understood that the first 84 projects of Chengdu Tianfu New Area include 51 industry projects with the investment of 169.5 billion RMB (including 27 industrial projects with investment of 82.35 billion RMB and 24 service projects with investment of 87.15 billion RMB), 29 infrastructure projects with investment of 43.4 billion RMB, and 4 ecology projects with investment of 1.5 billion RMB. Further investment on developing the New Area will be put in this project later on.

An Alternative Way: Informal Formality

The developments in the city can be seen as the economical rationalism. The new developments took over vast amount of free land that used to be natural habitat for animals. In this case, increasing the city density instead of expanding the city outward seems to be a much better way. It is much sustainable to transport vertically than it is horizontally.

The modules will attach to the old building, and even become their structure to lean on. This would increase the lifespan of the old building preventing them from falling apart. Also, new layers of modules will be built on top of the streets, adding much more capacity to the streets and public spaces. In this way, the urban space will be able to accommodate much more citizens, and the vast amount of land outside of the city will most become a safari park fill with nature.

Tokyo, Japan

Global Climate Change

The system also perfectly adapts the recent trend of climate change. Climate change, also called global warming, refers to the rise in average surface temperatures on Earth. An overwhelming scientific consensus maintains that climate change is due primarily to the human use of fossil fuels, which releases carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases into the air. As measured, the sea level is rising at vital speed that many coastal cities are predicted to suffer from flooding, effecting billions of lives. The infrastructure for preventing flooding from happening is usually extremely expensive, and sometimes not quite effective.

Threat to the Tokyo Bay

As a coastal city, Tokyo has one of the most advanced sewer system and the storm water collecting system. This system had worked extremely well for the past few decades. However, this system was not designed for the emerging issue of climate change and sea level rising. Also, this system cannot protect the city from tsunami or hurricane such as Sandy or Katrina. Also, it is predicted that the climate change is going to bring much more superstorms in the near future. That means Tokyo, and other coastal cities, need to take action to face this serious issue.

The proposed system is using the modular structure forming a new dam. The dam it self does not have to be very strong since it is backed up by the entire city fabric. The massive water force of the ocean will be absorbed by thousands of other modules connected. These modules will serve their own functions when there is no threat, and they will only used as a defense mechanism when there is a potential flood.

These modules will form new layers of the city, accommodating more population in the city, also creates a buffer zone for refugees of those who lost their homes in the hurricanes. These new layers are interchangeable in programs, that can operate as a new ground for the city.

SHINJUKU

SHIBUYA

GINZA

SHINJUKU

SHIBUYA GINZA

New York City, USA

Looking into NYC’s Problem Through Traffic

City officials have intentionally ground Midtown to a halt with the hidden purpose of making drivers so miserable that they leave their cars at home and turn to mass transit or bicycles, high-level sources told The Post. Today’s gridlock is the result of an effort by the Bloomberg and de Blasio administrations over more than a decade of redesigning streets and ramping up police efforts, the sources said.

“The traffic is being engineered,” a former top NYPD official told The Post, explaining a long-term plan that began under Mayor Mike Bloomberg and hasn’t slowed with Mayor de Blasio.

“The city streets are being engineered to create traffic congestion, to slow traffic down, to favor bikers and pedestrians,” the former official said.

“There’s a reduction in capacity through the introduction of bike lanes and streets and lanes being closed down.”

The traffic in the New York city revealed its problems. A densely populated area with not so efficient traffic system. Hong Kong is almost twice as dense and New York City, but its multi layered public transportation systems made the city much more efficient. Also, its skywalks made the city a very walkable city even though there are expressways across the city. Something could have been done in New York City to improve its traffic, as well as the city experience.

This system builds in between buildings to increase the large the density of the urban area, especially in Manhattan. With many different transportation systems embedded within, the traffic on the ground level can be eased. Also, this system separates the pedestrian and traffic on the ground level, making the traffic more efficient. The pedestrians will also have a better experience of the city by non interrupting walkways and shopping streets.

Elevated walkways and gardens not just increased the land space in the city, they increased the amount of green spaces. This made the city a much better place to work, and live. Trees and lawns are added on the elevated platforms as parks in the air. Programs such as shops, restaurants, and parking spaces are also added for people’s convenience.

Triptych

The Garden of Informal Formality

The Exterior Panels

The Garden of Informal Formality is a Tantric wood transferred triptych, that is, a digital fabricated large drawing being transferred on the triptych board. Together, this format is an efficient story telling presentation for both the open source urbanism and the form of informal urban typology.

On the exterior of the triptych, when both panels are at closed position, one large painting appears. The blue-gray grisaille graphic illustrates the formation of the new garden of informal formality.

The center object is a literal representation of the earth, standing for the environment humans are currently inhabiting. Since the center is earth, the dark background would be the outer space. The reason there is no stars is to draw attention of the center, also imply the mysterious nature of the universe. The plane within the sphere can be easily read as the ground level, which contains a story telling graphic about the making process of these frames. Framing outside of this sphere, a white frame stands in a isometric view, which creates a great visual impact composition wise.

The entire composition of this drawing encompasses a paradox, that these frames in the graph are manufactured at a location somewhere on earth. It is also made happen by consuming the resources from the earth. However, these frames will later populate the cities, and become a part of earth. In this process, these frames are actually preventing human from consuming more fossil energy and natural resources. Human will inhabit these frames, and turn them into different programs. At the same time, these frames are inhabiting this planet as well. In the end, these frames will contain life within, which is why the entire earth figure is framed within the larger frame.

The painting contains strong geometric order for a strong visual hierarchy. The actual wooden frame of the painting is a square divided into two half. Then, the dark background brings out the main element, which is a frame in a isometric view, forming a hexagon. Then the earth like sphere perfectly mounts in the hexagon frame. Looking into the sphere, a section of shows the ground. Even though people read this plane as a round flat ground, the shape in the larger composition appears to be an oval within the sphere.

On the top left corner of the painting, a satellite overwatches, meaning the entire process is managed through the internet. This is the symbol for the thousands of satellites in the orbit that is contributing the reformation of this new urban environment, and this entire ideology is based on the existence of the internet. Its low opacity of appearance of the satellite represents the free nature of the internet, that it is always serving the society in the background. It resembles the almost unnoticeable existence of the internet in our modern society.

Far away from the focus of this panel, a city is located across the water. The city represents the global cities, responding to Saskia Sassen’s global city theory, that global cities are tied into a greater fabric of global economy system instead of just the geographically surrounding resources. The water stands for oceans between counties, to be specific, manufacturing countries and counties undergoing urban development. Also, wind turbines are placed in the water to demonstrate the environmental stainability of this urban development.

Left to the center, a massive factory is placed in the foreground. This factory is a traditional industrial building constructed with brick, mostly for visual recognition. It also has very distinct features such as the chimney and loading docks. The manufactured products in front of the factory are also ones to add visual recognition so people could visually link the factory with these frames. It is obvious that there are many rows of solar panels on top of the factory representing the sustainability of this facility. The environmental friendly process is also expressed by the lush vegetations and trees around the factory.

To the right of the factory, there are many means of transportation and shipping. First, two warehouses can be identified, and they are the storage for the frame parts before they are shipped all over the world. Then, in the foreground, a crane is moving parts into different transportation systems. Railway system on the right, is mainly transporting these parts to a remote locations or countries that can only be transported by land. The trucks are transporting them to a relatively close location, or a specific location where only trucks can get to. The large container ship takes massive amount of parts to an offshore land.

The Left Panel

When the panels are opened from the center between two exterior panels like a typical window opening from outside, tree panels will be presented. These tree panels are the continuation of the exterior panel, as a part of the story telling.

Since the exterior panel features the process of making each module, as well as shipping, in a remote location, the interior panels continues the story in a different location. The left panel illustrates the making of open source cities and the parameters of them. The center panel vividly presents the infinite possibilities of the new urban typology and various activities of people who inhabit it. The right panel proposes an alternative reality where the open source cities were not constructed, and the issues of current world were not realized. Presentation wise, these panels tell a very comprehensive story by themselves.

As said, the left panel is a illustration of a new city in making. The picture is taken at the parameter of the city, showing the exciting moments of parts that come together, as well as the city undergoing its density expansion.

Due to the size of this painting, it is divided into three parts: the foreground, the middleground, and the background. The foreground is showing how the parts coming together as a individual module. The middleground illustrates the possibility of lush life on the parameter of cities. The the background is the newly built city it self, the city of promise in making.

The overall landscape of this panel is heavily vegetated. Lots of natural elements are presented in it. Except for two main characters in the foreground, this panel does not contain another human figure. Instead, hundreds of animals are placed everywhere. In this way, the painting gives the least amount of human environmental impact on the parameter of the cities.

Also, the morning mist through out the painting, as well as the dawn in the background, represents for the promise and hope for the bright future soon follows.

In the background, a city is behind the mists. The city is undergoing large amount of refreshing. Infrastructure, programs, and even city fabric are gradually updating for the new open source urbanism. In some way, this respond to the metabolism theory of city that city programs are constantly replaced by new ones.

Behind the city skyline, the rising sun and the light of dawn sets the mood for this entire panel, referring to the promise of this ideology.

In the middleground of this panel, massive amount of animals appears in the grass area. The illustration came from the Prairie in Africa, which has millions of different animals living together harmoniously, and it is one of the least polluted areas in the world. The nature is returned to what it should look like because the new city is much more efficient and sustainable. With a higher density and capacity in the cities, the massive footprint of suburban sprawl will eventually turn into the natural states.

On the back of the foreground, a couple of modules sit on the ground. One fully assembled, and one half assembled. These two modules have great details showing the capabilities of these modules.

The one on the left shows the joint detail, and how the hollow structural tubing looks like. The one on the right gives audiences a gist of how two modules would come together with the joint. The crane in the back shows how these modules are lifted to higher ground.

In the foreground, two characters in the process of assembly these parts into a module. This proposes the possibility of hand assembly because the material of these parts are extremely lightweight and durable.

Aside from the main characters, many other parts are lying on the ground. In the back, a bunch of parts are at its shipping state. At the bottom left corner, a light weight waffle slab lies on the ground waiting to be assembled.

The Center Panel

The center panel is the focus of the triptych, and entirely illustrates the activities inside of the city. This panel also is divided into the foreground, the middleground, and the background as a story telling representation.

The foreground can be viewed as an architecture section, which examines the technical aspect of this modular system. With water, electricity, air circulation systems , and structural members shown in the section, the proposal appears to be more convincing.

The foreground also illustrates individual lives within a very close range, as well as very different building programs and various lifestyles. The multi-layer nature of this new intervention can be seen in the foreground as well.

The middleground shows a collective picture of how people could interact with this system. Hundreds of individuals doing very different activities in this graphic represents for the rising of the new individualism.

Also, it proposes the separation of traffic and pedestrian, which enables people to inhabit any place they want instead of being constantly terrified by the city traffic. With many layers of traffic, the city operates much more efficient and more convenient for average citizens.

The background is more of a impression, which show what cities could look like. With the old buildings almost looking like monuments, new modules could grow on them, and even become a part of them.

Although these renderings are convincing, the fantastical style of this drawing still informs people that this is an imagination of a city. It is more of a polemic project than it is a problem solving architectural or urban planning proposal.

On the right of the foreground, there is a snapshot of an individual housing unit with great amount of detail. The owner appears to be an women living in a relatively classic style instead of modern ways. But as seen, despite the decoration, the infrastructure and housing unit are modernly standard.

On top of her apartment, a large solar panel is attached to the roof. This responds to the power grid under the framework of sharing economy, that every individual can use, and provide self produced resources through the infrastructure built for share.

On story below last unit, lies a more modern unit. It seems to be a living room for a modern family with modern furniture, which show another possibility that each units could be, as well as the diversity between just to neighboring units.

In this detailed part of painting, the placement of infrastructure is clearly shown in the section. On the left, both power line from the solar panel and the water/sewer system going underneath the floor are presented within the structural tubing. Additionally, the waffle structure of slab supporting floor is visible.

On the bottom left corner of the panel, a rooftop garden is presented, which shows another possibility of what the roofs of these modules could create. The roof is fully planted with grass since green roofs are highly sustainable.

It appears that the rooftop is the terrace of the adjacent office on the left. Glass panels are places as windows and doors. In the painting, people are having an office party which gives the livelihood to the painting.

In the midground of this panel, right behind the rooftops in the foreground, a densely populated area is on the lower level. It seems to be the ground level, however, it another level of rooftop space.

In this section of the panel, all the individuals are conducting drastically different activities, such as swim jug, photography, fish, chat, read, sunbath, and play. This shows the diversity and individuality within the urban space.

In the back of the midground, there are layers of ground transportation systems. A traffic circle lies in the center of the panel. Human activities and the traffic is completely separated for both safety and efficiency. In the painting, one lane dedicated only to automobile operates smoothly. Also, there are totally three years of traffic illustrated on the panel to indicated the multi layer city’s traffic. Also, the traffic system is intertwined with the city fabric and programs, making the city more efficient in terms of transportation.

In the background of this panel, a larger scope of what cities could look like is fantasized. The constantly growing modules would stand taller and taller to increase the urban density and diversity. The existing buildings almost become monuments that new structures could attach on. The illustration also indicates that not only ground transportation, but also water and air transportation can be integrated with the new urban fabric. The satellites in the air represents that the entire city operation is so much based on the internet, and even the master algorithm.

The Right Panel

Since the traditional triptych usually gives meaning to the divine of holy trinity, which is western art that represents the intersection of divine energy with earthly life. In the painting The Garden of Earthly Delights, dutch painter Hieronymus Bosch painted three scenes of the inner triptych not necessarily intended to be read chronologically from left to right.

The left panel of The Garden of Earthly Delights depicts God presenting Eve to Adam, the central panel is a broad panorama of socially engaged nude figures, fantastical animals, oversized fruit and hybrid stone formations. The right panel is a hellscape and portrays the torments of damnation.

Responding to Hieronymus Bosch’s painting, the right panel of The Garden of Informal Formality is an illustration of destruction.

This panel is an imaginary future of humanity where the issues of current society are not realized and paid attention. With the speed of urban growth, many forests and natural habitat for various species will no long exist. The ever growing fossil burning will warm up the atmosphere and cause more serious problem instead of just air pollution. Plus, the increasing population will consume more and more natural resources, bring the planet to a doom.

On this panel, there is the same mist through out the entire painting. Contradicting to the morning mist on the left panel, this represents the pollution brought by fossil burning and resource digging, which are more of a toxic air.

This is obviously an exaggeration of what could happen. However, this also seems to be the better way to draw attention of the existing serious problems. In this way, the right panel successfully creates a better contrast with the left panel and the center panel.

In the background, a city is behind the mists. Different from the left panel, this city is almost been covered under a large thunder storm. Deadly atmosphere is spread though out entire endless landscape full of super tall building and mind numbing facade.

The river flowing through is fill with toxic industrial waste and poisonous water from all the building. No human activity in the city could be seen, and no one is enjoying the environment.

In front of the toxic river, a large construction site sits on an empty land with no vegetation. The site is on the edge of the city, meaning the city is still growing in size.

Although its capacity and size is increasing, its density remains the same. This will never accommodate the ever growing population without sacrificing the nature.

The center of this panel is a massive mine digger. As one of the biggest machineries on the planet, the digger’s sole task is extracting resources from the earth, which makes it the perfect representation of the industrialization.

Around the mine digger, the oil drills are extracting resources as well. Connected to the endless power lines, extract energy as the same time. The farms are abandoned as a potential land of construction and urbanization.

In the foreground, there finally are some human activity in a smaller scale can be seen. It is a deforestation operation with heavy machinery such as the digger and loader. The trees in the back seems already dead, and these worker are trying to get rid of them in order to expand the urban parameter to house more population. Also, it is interesting that these workers are watched by the military, suggesting the centralization of the state government.

The Garden of Informal Formality

Runyu Ma

The Garden of Earthly Delights

Hieronymus Bosch