Dreamscape by Juan Trejo

dreamscape Perceiving boundaries in architecture

Juan A. Trejo Masters Thesis Hammons School of Architecture Drury University Karen Cordes Spence Fall 2014

Table of Contents

00-01

Prologue The maze

02-07

Introduction Urbanization

08-31

Backgound part I The nature of reality

Perceptions of boundaries The urbanizing world Face of urbanization Elements of the city The limits of the city 32-足49

Background part II Newly realized identity The political equator Along the border Industrializing Ciudad Juarez The informal community

Continued

50-63

Case studies

Grotao community center The floating school Mind the gap pavilion

64-71

Summary

Research summary Case studies

72-85

Framework Context

Design objectives Activities Combinations Tactical approach 86-93

Credits

End notes Image credits

His journey begins at the mouth of the maze that lays before him. He is faced with a series of walls, constructions standing far taller than what he had left behind. They seemed ordered from a distance, yet at this new parallax, everything loses focus and becomes disorienting. Once inside, the mental mapping of the maze is taxing. Everything within the field appears to be without character and grossly unwelcoming. The elements that construct the place are indistinguishable from one another, only divided into three basic perceivable elements: the first is the extensive floor underfoot stretching out of sight in all directions, the second consists of static walls and a moving plane, and the third is the sky looming overhead and reaching out from behind the walls. The maze analogy has been used throughout history due to its formal and puzzling nature. In the 21st century city, the mazes are shifting and evolving. Imagined walls are taking precedence over physical ones. The rearranging maze of the contemporary city provides little guidance to individuals new to the city. The maze leaves the newcomer on the outskirts, alienated and at a distance.

01 Introduction

Introduction 02

Introduction Urbanization:

Living in the in-between

03 Introduction

Introduction 04

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Urbanization is living in the in-between, in the space that is at once physical and imagined, understandable and incomprehensible. The image of the urbanizing city in the 21st century is a maze with shifting walls, where the perpetual flux of both the imagined and the physical boundaries are disorienting. The impermanence and ever-changing nature of the image of the city creates a dissonance in its identity. The blurring of the imagined and the physical realms creates uncertainty among its boundaries and rules. The state of being and becoming is magnified in the informal spaces at the outskirts, where the individuals that make up its population are immigrants to the city. What lays victim to living in the in-between is identity. The crisis of urbanization is the crisis of identity.

05 Introduction

Eugenia Victoria Ellis describes the relationship between the maze and the city as having a prescriptive relationship, where the comprehension of the city, just like the maze, depends heavily on the perceptions held by the individual, “The primordial idea of the city is contained within the labyrinth: A dialectic of steamily opposing characteristics that reveals order out of apparent chaos. The Labyrinth itself is a splendidly ordered complexity that confuses us only when we cannot comprehend its underlying system.” 1 A newcomer to the city sees the city as it reveals itself, not only by its physical makeup but as the individual mentally constructs the image in his mind. The maze of urbanization in the 21st century is a worldwide phenomenon that is characterized by an unprecedented number of people departing from small towns and settling in cities. Victoria Ellis says, “The maze itself has characteristic dualities that are all held in balance and are all perspective-dependent: blindness and insight, chaos and order, confusion and clarity, path and plan, unicusality and multicusality, vision from within time and from beyond eternity.” 2 These two conflicting qualities characteristic to the city are not entirely realized by the newcomers. Mobility within the city is essential to begin to unravel the mysteries of the chaos, yet the people who are moving to the city are left anchored outside of it. The physical representation of cities becoming more urban, seen in expanding infrastructure, is only part of the picture. The virtual world and cyberspace are greatly attributing to the shift in how people map their environment and how they see themselves within the space of the city. The morphing boundaries and extensions of urbanism, instead of blurring social boundaries, fostering new relationships and creating a larger web of interconnections among its inhabitants, is seeing the opposite effect. The urbanizing city of the 21st century is radically reinforcing barriers, erecting walls of separation, and imposing unclear boundaries that nevertheless cause isolation, dissonance and confusion among the new populations arriving to the city. The greatest issue of urbanization is that this ejection and alienation of the individual is occurring most rapidly in the pockets of informal communities. Border cities magnify the problems endued by the ambiguous definitions and bounds especially if it is a situation where there is an international divide between a superpower and a developing nation. The ultimate question about the critical implications that the city has on the individual is regarding the perception of self: What is identity of the self-created community at the periphery of the urbanizing city, and more importantly, can an individual living in the periphery of the city draw his identity from that city, “the periphery city” or is there a need for the individual to develop a distinctive identity that is separate from the two cities?

07 Introduction

Background I 08

Background part I The nature of reality Perceptions of boundaries The urbanizing world Face of urbanization Elements of the city The limits of the city 09 Background I

The nature of reality Ontological and epistemological assumptions

The word reality in architecture is rarely used. It seems to lay within an entirely different field of study. In philosophy and psychology there are many quandaries of the nature of reality and consciousness and the ties between the two realms. Reality is defined as the world or the state of things as they actually exist, as opposed to an idealistic or notional idea of them. 3 The image to the right presents a blurring of reality via technology of the urban infrastructure as it is mirrored and distorted to the point that it no longer captures it as it actually exists. There are two main assumptions describing reality: The ontological assumption A theory suggesting that reality is objective and singular, and that it is apart from the individual or observer. The epistemological assumption A theory describing reality as subjective and multiple, and that it cannot exist without the individual or observer.

Background I 10

Background I 12

”… America is neither dream nor reality. It is hyperreality. It is a hyperreality because it is a utopia which has behaved from the beginning as though it were already achieved. Everything here is real and pragmatic, and yet it is all the stuff of dreams too.” —Jean Baudrillard, America (1988)

As we progress into the 21st century, the advances in technologies are expanding space within the physical and the imagined realm. To this extent the definition of reality has shifted to incorporate both, and as we progress the digital or cyberspace will continue to grow in significance. Within architecture, the shift in the definition of reality raises many issues concerning how we view the extent of our environment and how we identify within it.

vii In the United states, the Protecting Cyberspace as a National Asset Act was introduced in 2010, yet it did not become law due to controversy from critics that perceived the law as authorizing the U.S. President the ability to “seize control of or even shut down portions of the Internet.” 4 As boundaries continue to blur between physical and cyber realities, as the picture to the left suggests, we fall into the problem of disassociating our identity with the physical and attributing our identity to a new surface. To a cyber surface that contributes to a new way of perceiving. Social networking platforms such as Facebook and Twitter are constructing an extension of reality. In China, as Michael Anti explains, their equivalents are creating the first national public space in the country’s history. He is among the three hundred million microbloggers in China that are transgressing the notorious, Great Firewall of China. A governmental firewall that fully blocks the Internet within the nation. The “China-net” is the Internet that is fully censored and is supposed to restrict Chinese public opinion, yet Anti expresses the growing power of the microbloggers within Internet. Anti describes its growing its superseding scope of coverage and popularity, he says, “The microbloggers are surpassing even the most popular national news station.” 5

13 Background I

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Perceptions of boundaries The boundaries of perception

Perception is defined as the way of regarding, understanding, or interpreting something; a mental impression. It is a physiological as well as a personal process of mapping. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a neuro-physiological processes, including memory, by which an organism becomes aware of and interprets external stimuli. 6 The perception of the world is dependent on the limits or boundaries that delineate the extent of a particular thing. A boundary can stand for a line that marks the limits of an area; a dividing line. 7 Our perception of boundaries are being contested and expanded in the 21st century as technologies provide new avenues of seeing which far transgress the limits of our human perception.

Background I 14

Background I 16

“There is more work in interpreting interpretations than in interpreting things; and more books about books than on any other subject; we do nothing but write glosses on one another.” — Michel Foucault

The Space Age saw the advent of new technologies which lead to a shift in perception. As pictured to the left, satellites now were pushing the threshold of what was deemed possible and were giving new glimpses of the earth from above. The perceptions of boundaries was ultimately being redrawn.

The 21st century is witness to similar transgressions in term of the boundaries of perception. Writing Urbanism says that, in 1991 Mark Weiser foretold of the age of ubiquitous computing, arguing that the embodied virtuality has implications that would hold the potential to drastically change our ideas about space and spatial practices. “[The 21st century] environment is enacted and given life, not in the sense that robots are actuated, but that the entirety of the physical environment is recreated as a potential source of coordinated, interdependent actions and reactions. Whether the enacted environment is actual or imagined.” 8 Weiser argued that the presence of technologies everywhere would greatly affect the way that we perceive the 21st century environment, highlighting the equitable importance of the virtual. He adds that the once opaque and hidden processes would someday be translucent and unveiled. Such as in today’s security cameras, which can be equipped with heat sensing technology. The cameras are able to capture what was once invisible. In this case the heat that is given off by an individual can be visualized, allowing for a view in the dark that was once impossible. And what’s more they can reveal things that are elusive such as in this case, they can record the past. Such as when the residual heat imprint of a person upon a wall is captured even after a person leaves.

17 Background I

The urbanizing world The move back to cities

At the outset of the twentieth century, only 10% of the population lived in cities, however in 2008 the world reached an invisible but momentous milestone. “For the first time in history, more than half its human population, 3.3 billion people, will be living in urban area.” 9 The Urbanizing world involves both concentration and extension and as Neil Brenner and Christian Schmid say, “…we now live in an ‘urban age’ because, for the first time in human history, more than half the world’s population today purportedly lives within cities.” 10 Urbanization is a worldwide phenomenon that is especially evident within developing countries that are undergoing industrialization. Neil Brenner and Christian Schmid add that the urbanizing world is having many implications concerning shifts in perceptions of the urban. “Urbanization is a process of continual socio-spatial transformation, a relentless ‘churning’ of settlement types and morphologies that encompasses entire territories and not only isolated ‘points’ or ‘zones’ within them.” 11

Background I 18

Background I 20

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”Space is meaningless without scale, containment, boundaries, and direction.” — Huxtable

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The space of urbanization is separate from the space of the city. Urbanization of the 21st century is the abstract term that describes the boundless nature of the growing city. It is the idea that implies the endless space that incorporates the formal: economic growth, housing and infrastructure as well as the informal: the pocket communities known as indie-communities. The response to the increase in population and the demand for housing and resources such as energy, and land resources is questionable and perhaps haphazard. Leon Krier argues that cities describe us directly. Krier says, “Cities and landscapes are illustration of our spiritual and material worth. They not only express our values but give them a tangible reality. They determine the way in which we use or squander our energy, time, and land resources.” 12

The re-figuring urbanization of the 21st century is a phenomenon that is accompanied with a devalued need for identity, as is evident in the large stretches of development within cities. Today the explosive growth has rendered quick and temporary solutions to the flood of populations. The images to the left illustrate the drastic changes to cities in the form of monolithic constructions for housing. The disconnections, lack of identity, and alienation is most detrimental within these areas as they share very little public space. This form of construction hints at less need for the physical identity of a place, perhaps because the imagined or virtual realm is playing a much larger role. The housing project such as these are providing an oversimplified home environment that is faceless within the larger city.

21 Background I

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Face of urbanization Living in a state of dreaming

Ortega y Gasset, in the Revolt of the Masses, describes urbanity, “The urbs or polis,” he says, “Starts by being an empty space, the forum, the agora, and all the rest is just a means of fixing that empty space, of limiting its outlines.” 13 Following from these terms, the face of urbanization consists of the things that construct it, that which fills the “empty space”. The face of urbanization exists largely along its boundaries, whether on the immediate facades of the buildings themselves or at the edges of the city where screens or waves broadcast what lays within. The face of the city is then largely the result of the imagined, the formed images in the minds of the individuals who view them. The actual infrastructures falls to the background and is given less importance. As the image to the right illustrates, the screen makes up the wall of the building; it serves to humanize the city and preludes to a faux identity of the individuals within the futuristic city.

Background I 22

Background I 24

“Vogue always did stand for people’s lives. I mean, a new dress doesn’t get you anywhere; it’s the life you’re living in the dress, and the sort of life you had lived before, and what you will do in it later.” — Diana Vrecland

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In the 21st century the predominance of the virtual realm is the result of instantaneous communication technologies. Now the shift is on the dual nature of spatial identity, with an emphasis on what is mentally perceived or imagined. The image in the bottom left speaks of the connection to the Internet as being an in-between space that joins the physical and the imagined. In Discipline and Punishment, Michel Foucault presents his theory of the panopticon. He describes it as an embodied result that allows for the need of surveillance and control. It’s the idea that everyone is being observed and analyzed. In this regard the Internet is the panopticon or face of urbanization, where the individual is confronted with an entirely constructed face to the world. That serves as a form of surveillance and further contributes to the dreamscape where the blur in the two realms negatively strips the individual of his identity. The dismissal of identity creates sameness, yet instead of bringing the individuals together, they become isolated. The face of urbanization thus cannot accurately describe the identities of the individuals; it can only project the desired result. Diana Vrecland would agree that just as Vogue magazine, the elusive and imagined realm of urbanization can be positive. It can stand for the lives that people desire, which is powerful as it can serve as the myth of the next reality. The idealized reality in the near future that is ultimately shaped by the individuals. Lifestyle and everyday routines closely tie to the psychology of how people see themselves within their environment. It’s this human scale that emphasizes the blurring of boundaries. Once there was a separation between work, leisure, and rest. However, now the three realities are allowed to mesh together. The boundaries that limited the functions of the space no longer exist, so anything can be achieved anywhere as long as there is a connection to the larger network.

25 Background I

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Elements of the city Delineations and definitions of the city

Filip de boeck describes the human as being the most fundamental element to describe the city, â&#x20AC;&#x153;The main infrastructural unit or building block is the human body, and thus, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s the body itself that creates the city.â&#x20AC;? 14 The city is the entity that is the direct product of the human, so lacking the human element the place misses the vitality and essence of what a city is. In more physical terms, the city is understood as a delineated area that acts as a place that concentrates many things and provides for its inhabitants. The city is made up of different areas, or parts, which contribute to its character. The city is the physical manifestation constructed from its architectures, infrastructures, and its many landscapes. It is an entity that is the result of the cultural, political, social, and aesthetic of its inhabitants. A city is a place that reflects the values of its inhabitants and just the same serves as a place that will project their future aspirations and visions.

Background I 26

tunenni-

Background I 28

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” A city is like a stacking of translucent quilts, with layers of social, architectural and geographical strata sometimes carefully, sometimes imperfectly registered.”

— Alex Krieger

In the Image of the city Kevin Lynch presents a concept of how people perceive cities. He says that people mentally construct an image of the city as a way to understand its fabric. The perceived city via the mental mapping consisting of five underlying city forms. He describes the path, edges, districts, nodes, and the landmark as the basic pieces or elements which constitute the city. Paths are the movement and flows within the city.

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Edges differentiate one part of the urban fabric from another. Districts are the medium to large sections within a city with consistent characteristics. Lynch says, “[Districts are] conceived of as having twodimensional extent, which the observer mentally enters inside of.” 15 Nodes are points or spots that are primarily junctions, the crossing or convergence of paths, or the moments where there is a shift from one thing to another. Landmarks are the reference points within the city that are external and my lay outside of the city. Lynch says, “They are usually rather simply defined physical object; building, sign, store, or mountain.” 16

29 Background I

The limits of the city Not where we thought they were.

Shane describes the notion of the city-element triad. He argues that all major cities are built around three specific elements; the enclave, armature, and heterotopia. Enclaves are the nodes within a network, the centers that are both natural and man-made which serve as pockets of collection. Armature are the links that connect node to node in a network, they are the distribution lines and routes that serve as vital connectors. Heterotopia are the rapidly changing areas, the areas in flux that incorporate a mixture of enclave and armature. The city of the 21st century has many heterotopias that due to their morphing nature and the implications that they have on the surroundings, the boundaries or limits to the city are no longer where we thought they were.

Background I 30

Background II 32

Background part II Newly realized identity The political equator Along the border Industrializing Ciudad Juarez The informal community

33 Background II

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Newly realized identity Perceptions of self within the 21st century city

Identity is the fact of being who or what a person or thing is.The physical qualities and character of the environment, as well as the imagined conditions and elements are fundamental in shaping a personâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s identity. Identity is defined as the sense of self, providing sameness and continuity in personality over time.17 The individual and the city work to form each otherâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s image, identity, and their values. The identity of the individual and the city in the urbanizing world of the 21st century is contested and in a perpetual crisis because of the blurring of boundaries within the globalizing and rapidly urbanizing world. The flux of boundaries accompanied by the uncertainties of the extent of the physical and cyber environment is undermining the traditional sense of identity. The 21st century city in transition is altering the perceptions of self within the city and leaving the individual to find a new identity.

Background II 34

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The political equator Barricading off the 3rd world

Teddy Cruz describes the political equator as the harsh separation line that exists globaly between the first and the third world countries. He says, “We are witnessing how societies of overproduction and excess are barricading themselves in an unprecedented way against the sectors of scarcity they have produced out of political and economic indifference.” 18 He observes the flow of migration of people across the border northward in search of new opportunities while on the other hand manufacturing and industry move in the opposite direction. Cruz says that at the border the conflict is intensified, he specifies the U.S.-Mexico border cities as being the most inflicted. Cruz says, “Geographies of conflict such as the San Diego-Tijuana border become anticipatory scenarios of the twenty-first-century global metropolis, where the city will increasingly become the battleground where strategies of control and tactics of transgression, formal and informal economies, legal and illegal occupations meet.” 19 The political equator can also be observed at the city scale, where the poor immigrants as pictured to the right, are left isolated at a distance from the city.

Background II 36

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Along the border The U.S.-Mexico International Border

Fernardo Romero describes the U.S.-Mexico border as being one of the most complex and dynamic areas on the planet today. “The border between the United States and Mexico is the world’s longest contiguous international divide between a superpower and a developing nation. “ 20 The border hosts a complexity of issues, ranging from migration to trade to international relations to national sovereignty. Romero goes beyond the traditional definition of the term border as a line separating geographic and political boundaries, by expanding the term to include the many other just as significant forms of barriers that exist between the U.S. and Mexico. He scrutinizes the economic, environmental and cultural divisions of the shared border. Alfonso Medina describes the urban scene at the international border, “Tijuana is the border, the land of nobody—you’re not in Mexico, not in the United States.” 21 This is a typical description of the urban regions that lay along the U.S.-Mexico border due to the unsettling sense of culture caused by the harsh dividing wall.

Background II 38

Background II 40

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” What I seek to convey is the historic truth that the United States as a nation has at all times maintained opposition—clear, defined opposition—to any attempt to lock us in behind an ancient Chinese wall.””

— Franklin D. Roosevelt. Jan 6,1941

The U.S.-Mexico International border today is legally defined by the mid-point of the Rio Grande starting at the Gulf of Mexico until its arrival at the bi-national conurbation of El Paso-Ciudad Juarez. The border from here is defined by more artificial means. The International border follows an alignment westward overland and is marked by various natural monuments within the landscape including the Great Continental Divide.

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The Border has evolved throughout its history. First the land at the border was seen as a frontier, later the land was surveyed by both countries and became a political line marked by constructed landmarks, and after 9/11 this long shared political line came under sharp criticism. Soon the Secure Fence Act in 2006 was passed, calling for a border wall to be constructed along urban areas. In more desolate areas a virtual fence was put in place that was meant to detect illegal movement via motion sensors and unmanned aerial vehicles. The virtual fence project ultimately failed and in 2010, the Department of Homeland Security froze all funding. The Secure Fence act called for the fortification of a border wall to act as a barrier to stop terrorism, drug smuggling and illegal immigration. But because it was immediately observed to cause tremendous harm to the environment and provide little security, it was immediately criticized. Today the act is still disputed and it is seen as an endeavor that does not live up to its goals. The construction of the fence disrupts many natural flows. Pictured to the left is the border wall blocking the natural migration patterns of deer. It is estimated that along the border the environmental damage that the construction of the border wall runs in the Millions. The film The Fence says, “… the government spent 30 years creating the Rio Grande Valley National Wildlife refuge, preserving one of the nation’s richest wetlands. Then they built the fence right through the middle of it.” 22

41 Background II

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Industrializing Ciudad Juarez Assembly factories on the line

“Located along the U.S. Mexican border, lays the largest bi-national urban area in the world that consist of El Paso-Ciudad Juarez.” 23 On the Mexico side, is Ciudad Juarez, a city that is both addicted to and the product of the assembly factories called maquiladoras. Ciudad Juarez is the epicenter of the maquiladora industry that includes large international companies such as “General Electric, Alcoa, and DuPont.” The drastic transformation and industrialization can be traces to the 1990’s when Mexico’s policy changed, allowed foreign investors to move industry to Mexico. Ciudad Juarez became a catchment center for the foreign investors, as “eighty percent of the companies are U.S. Based.” The location of the factories along the border was ideal. Today Ciudad Juarez continues to plays a vital role in the assemblage of American based products says Lisa Chamberlain. The city is an ideal place for industry as it has a virtually limitless workforce. Chamberlain says, “The city is absorbing more new industrial real estate space than any other North American city.” 24

Background II 42

Background II 44

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”Juarez is most notorious as a place that draws tens of thousands of young women from small, poor towns to take $55-a-week jobs in assembly plants, known as maquiladoras, operated by some of the wealthiest corporations in the world”

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— Evelyn Nieves

Over the last few decades, the city of Ciudad Juarez has received migrants from Mexico’s interior as well as illegal immigrants from Central America. It is estimated that thirty-two percent of the city’s population have come from outside of the state of Chihuahua. Due to the large portion of young immigrants to the city, Ciudad Juarez accounts for a large portion of under the age children working within the factories. According to UNICEF, “[within Mexico] 4 million of the 37 million Mexican children under the age of fourteen (the country’s minimum working age) are working.” 25 To be competitive, industry never sleeps in Ciudad Juarez. The factories understand one reality where economy is the only driver and the factory is the vehicle of nonstop production. The identity of the factory and the mentality towards work creeps into the lives of the factory workers. Their greatest preoccupation is the factory, they have in fact immigrated for the opportunity to work and will do anything to keep their position. The factory owners understand this and take it as an opportunity to offer meager wages. The factories are built upon the cheapest land, usually at the isolated outskirts of the city. The homes have similar characteristics; they lay isolated and closed off behind walls and fences. Ciudad Juarez is a territory of spatial urban conflict, and it is being redefined by waves of industrialization that are followed by countless immigrants. A city once defined by its centers, it is now characterized by a flood of assembly factories at its periphery, which are balanced by an ever sprawling growth of informal communities at another edge of the city.

45 Background II

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The informal community â&#x20AC;&#x153;Periphery-cityâ&#x20AC;?

The informal settlements at the periphery of Ciudad Juarez highlight the significance of boundaries amongst urbanization, how they are perceived by the individuals who live at a distance from the limits of the city in flux, and also how boundaries are informally designated within the pocket communities. The image to the right depicts The port of Anapra, the poorest of the informal communities which is called home to the immigrants who work in the maquiladoras. The homes are constructed within the amiss of the desert, sprawling outward even further from the city as Ciudad Juarez draws more factories. The in-formal communities lack essential infrastructures including water, sewage, paved roads, and offer little public space. The disconnectedness from the city and its amenities reinforces the mentality of an outsider to the industrializing city as just that, and outsider.

Background II 46

Background II 48

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“Fiction is equally important, there must be speculations, a serious fiction about responding to an architecture brief with a landscape operation”

— Lateral Office

The repercussions of the individuals living within the informal communities at the periphery and working in the factories leave them with little understanding and mobility throughout the city. The maze of Ciudad Juarez remains distant and unmapped by the immigrants as they are either anchored to the factory or left immobile at home.

xxxi Fernando Romero describes the informal sector, saying that it is extensive within Mexico. He says, “Fifty percent or more of all new homes are self-built by low-income households and large shares of these are built on land without clear title and often without basic infrastructure and services.” 26 The surprise is that regardless of the misconception of the home being temporary due to its illegal construction, the informal settlements are rather resilient and very rooted communities on the hillside. The rapid development of the informal community has created a “periphery city” that is only marginally connected to the city. Its distance is reinforced as the majority of the individuals do not own vehicles. They make their way to the factory usually by a factory provided bus, which again limits the journey of the individual into the city. As pictured in the top left, high school students living in the periphery city perhaps have a greater opportunity to venture into the city as they take the bus to their school within the city.

49 Background II

Case studies 50

Case studies Grotao community center The floating school Mind the gap pavilion

51 Case studies

The grotão community center In the heart of Sao Paulo.

Laying within one of the most conflicted areas of Sao Paulo is the paraisópolis favelas. At the heart of these informal and rapidly sprawling community is grotão. An area within the center of the city yet disconnected and isolated from the city’s amenities entirely. Without infrastructures such as water, lighting and sewage networks the favelas nevertheless, are spread thickly on the steep topography. The informal community severely lacks space and perhaps more importantly, a formal public realm. Nate Berge writes about the nature of this community, the conception of space among the locals and the rift, “Where there’s space to use, it’s used for housing, even in unsafe places. But when landslides wipe these homes out, or floods destroy them, an opportunity arises.”2

“…we can also start to think about a 21st century city that’s layered and that the boundaries between public and private are blurred.”

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— Brillembourg

Laying within one of the most conflicted areas of Sao Paulo is the paraisópolis favelas. At the heart of these informal and rapidly sprawling community is grotão. It is a vast area within the center of the Sao Paulo, but it is disconnected and isolated from the city’s amenities entirely. Without infrastructures such as water, lighting and sewage networks the favela nevertheless, spreads thickly on the steep topography. The informal community severely lacks space, infrastructural networks and just as importantly it is without a formal public realm. Nate Berge writes about the nature of the community and the conception of space among the locals and the rift. He says that where there’s space to use, it’s used for housing, even in unsafe places. That when landslides wipe these homes out an opportunity arises. The paraisópolis favelas consist of a neighborhood with an estimated fortythousand inhabitants. The informal community is connected to the city of Sao Paulo by one road that leads to the larger circulation systems of the city. The limited residents’ access to the city and its amenities reiterate the disconnectedness of the informal community. Urban-Think Tank’s design of the Grotao Community Center tackles many issues of the dangerous built upon topography. The project’s main intent was to bring the needed physical infrastructure systems to the area by creating a project that acts as an urban remediation and civic infrastructural hub.

53 Case studies

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Urban-Think Tank looked at the challenges of the site and worked to transform them as a catalyst within the project. The difficult to traverse slope was retrofitted with a series of ramps that work in two ways; they ease the circulation across the site, they provide varies formal public terraces. Similarly the dangerous grade was a danger zone especially prone to flooding and landslides during heavy storms, so Urban-Think Tankâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s design reinforces the land and includes an ingenious storm water system that works to catch and filter the rainwater. The location of the community center is central to the favela, so the question that we are left with is: Where can a similar Grotao Community Center model be successful, so what is the next location for a similar intervention?

Case studies 54

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The floating school Re-defining the Makoko Lagoon.

“Now that nations, cities and political parties are losing their validity, we should be focusing our attentions in the field of social production on the many and varied types of communities, the very nature of which is based on dialogue and interaction.” — Andres Jaque

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In the periphery of the Sub-Saharan metropolis of Lagos, Nigeria, is a large informal community encroaching the Makoko Lagoon. The informal community is not defined by the water’s edge, but much of it looms over the water. Homes are constructed on wooden stilts elevating the residence a few feet over the water. The community is self-constructed and acts much like an island on the water in the political sense, as it isolated and at a great distance from the ever-growing megacity region. Makoko has an estimated population of around 80,000 inhabitants. However, because of its sporadic and agglomerative nature, measuring the population of Makoko is difficult. The projects by NLÉ had the main intentions of construct a permanent infrastructure that would withstand the unpredictable changes in water levels and regular flooding that occurs on an annual basis.

57 Case studies

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NLĂ&#x2030; created a half-building-half-boat, a floating structure that would simultaneously tackle the need for new teaching facilities and a much needed space for the community. The project takes to the water, unlike many of the houses on land and also the ones on stilts that flood during the rainy season, the structure floats in response to the changing water levels. The floating A-frame structure is named the floating school because it primarily serves the role of a school, but it can also function as an events space, a clinic or a market. It is responsive to the communityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s needs. The school provides the largest formal public space anywhere within the informal community and being the tallest structure around, it serves as a symbolic focus and identity for Makoko. The Floating School is resilient in the sense that it overcomes the seasonal flooding, yet the question that remains concerns its mobility; Can there be floating structures of public space, schools, etc that can be easily maneuvered throughout the day and throughout the Makoko Lagoon?

Case studies 58

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Mind the gap Re-imagining public space.

““Borders within a city do not necessarily mean the end of a district, nor do they signal its fracturing. They often act as a transition to something new or different, or as a link between two elements.” — Jane

Jacobs

Trafalgar Square, the heart of London, England is the location for the proposed temporary pavilion, “Mind the Gap”. The intervention was the vision of having an information pavilion for the 2012 Olympic Games. The challenge was to create a buildup of excitement for the Summer Olympic among the locals and visitors within the host city. DCPP architects recreate the fleeting momentous experience of excitement that athletes share at the onset of an event that is marked by the first gun shot, or the anticipation of a winning goal. DCPP says that they sought to capture that fleeting moment that only lasts a fraction of a second. The Pavilion captures the complex emotions of uncertainty, anticipation, heightened emotion, and excitement in the five walls of water that rain down from five red rings. As the individual voluntarily crosses through the threshold of the walls of water he enters a new reality created by the projections of key events on the walls.

61 Case studies

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The transgression is only the first step into the unknown. Once inside, there is a distorted sense of the outside accompanied by a change in the perception of time. The focus is now on the experience as it can only be realized and complete if the individual participates in a heightened sense of collectivity and connection within its interior. The most successful Pavilions not only re-image a space through the transformation of its boundaries, but re-shape the way people perceive themselves within that new space. Small scale interventions are temporary in nature, and itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s this transitory nature that reveal their beauty. Where every time that one remembers the experience, the richer the experience gets. One question the pavilions raises concerns over-simulation; can the overuse of small scale interventions dilute the inherent power?

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Case studies 62

Summary 64

Summary Research summary Case studies Key discoveries

65 Summary

Research summary Clarifying the exploration

The situation The 21st century is presented with people moving back to cities. The greatest issue is that urbanization is occurring most rapidly in the informal spaces, in the outskirts of large cities and metropolitan areas within developing nations. Border cities highlight the problems endued by the ambiguous definitions and bounds, especially in the informal communities. The new boundaries raise many questions regarding identity and the perception of these boundaries.

The issues xLiii

What is the nature of boundaries in the 21st century? What does urbanization mean at the cities edges, at its periphery? How can architecture alter the perception of the city? How can socialization optimize interactions among a diverse range of people? Why is a sense of community necessary, especially at the periphery of the city? What are the amenities that ought to be introduced within the informal community settlements at the fringe of the urbanizing city?

67 Summary

Summary

The 21st century is dubbed the “urban age”, because there is a large influx of populations driving urbanization at a global scale. Urbanization is defined as the process of becoming more like a city. The greatest issue of urbanization is occurring most rapidly in the informal spaces, in the outskirts of large cities and metropolitan areas in developing countries. it is estimated that between a quarter and a half of urban inhabitants in developing countries live in slums and squatter settlements with extremely limited services. Border cities raise many questions regarding identity and highlight the problems endued by the ambiguous definitions and bounds of the squatter communities within the informal spaces of the city. The crisis of urbanization is the crisis of identity and thus the question that ultimately arise is: Where should an individual, living in the periphery, draw his identity from? The ever-morphing urbanizing border city, the “periphery city” or is there a need for him to develop a distinctive identity that is separate from the two cities? The strategy to undertake an issue concerning the crisis of identity within urbanization began with the research of reality, urbanization, and the discourse of city theory. The research then concerns identity, which immediately leads to the inevitable relationship of the city to an individual’s sense of identity. The investigation next looks at the nature of the physical realty, and the more important imagined reality. At this point boundaries took prominence, an analysis aimed at the way that individuals define limits and assign ownership through the designation of boundaries. Once the flexibility and flux of boundaries, often ambiguous, was observed within the rapidly urbanizing city, there was then the pressing issue to look more closely at the U.S.-Mexico border as it is one of the most contested international borders in the world. At the city scale Ciudad Juarez investigates the isolation and boundaries that it creates due to the maquiladora. From here there was a look at the periphery, looking further at the boundaries and isolation of the factory workers. The research is now finally concerned with the best means to evoking curiosity, exploration, and discovery among individuals so to foster a much needed identity and further blur boundaries. In conclusion there was a series of tactics gathered from the case studies that address possible ways to achieve new perspectives, channel personal discovery, and arrive at a newly found identity.

Summary 68

The exploration of urbanization and the elements that make up a city resulted in the description of the urbanizing city as a fluid entity that is ever-morphing, and existing in an in-between state. The interrelationship of the individual and the city did not come as a surprise, as expected the dependence and response of one mirrored the definition of the other. The research revealed that the nature of reality is entirely described in terms of boundaries, whether physical, imagined, or virtual. The importance of the imagination, or the mental mapping of a city is the basis for the understanding of boundaries and thus the physical reality was challenged as being ultimate and concrete. Similarly the investigation showed the significance of virtual boundaries in the upcoming digital world, and again there was a re-thinking and re-interpretation of the physical barriers. Matters concerning ownership and accessibility were also raised as a result of investigating the Great Fire Wall of China. The attention of finding a site resulted in many border conditions, yet the most compelling was the U.S. Mexico International Border as it divides a super power and a developing nation. The investigation gave insight on how international borders shift and change through time as well as how they are defined, designated, and enforced at each instance. Ultimately, the investigation narrowed to Ciudad Juarez, the research revealed that the city is plagued with the crisis of identity, in 2010 it was named the worldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s most dangerous city, and in more recent times it has also been titled the city of the future alluding to the amount of industry and foreign investors that it has recently secured. The most striking aspect of the city is that it is the second most industrialized city on the border. The city employs over onehundred thousand assembly workers. The crisis of identity runs deep, as can be seen in the employee dynamic. The research finds that the assembly workers are predominantly immigrants who have moved to the border city looking for work, the majority of which live at the periphery of the city. In conclusion the investigation finds that the poorest community containing a numerous primarily factory workers is The Port of Anapra, an informal community self-constructed in the amiss of the desert, isolated and distant from Ciudad Juarez and without any formal sense of a public realm.

69 Summary

Case studies Key discoveries

Grotao Community Center 1.

Provides infrastructures such as water, lighting and sewage networks while leveraging the topography to create a social realm.

Gives the individuals a new center that optimizes socialization and gives them a new identity.

The Floating school

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Provides a floating platform that is responsive to the flooding conditions and to the needs of the community.

Achieves new vantage points and creates an icon for the community.

Mind the Gap Pavilion 1.

Encourages exploration among a public space through an intervention.

Allow for curiosity which leads to discovery

71 Summary

Framework 72

Framework Context Design objectives Activities Combinations Tactical approach

73 Framework

The context The context: Port of Anapra

United States Mexico Port of Anapra

Time-frame The perpetual influx of indie-communities, the self-created neighborhoods at the periphery of cities, presents an issue of false temporariness and a devastating lack of identity. The notion is that the communities will disappear just as quickly as they appeared. However, within the near future industry within Ciudad Juarez is only projected to increase. The ideal time-frame of the project is within the short future between ten to thirty years from the present. The assumption is that it will be at this point when industry will reach its climax, this will thus providing the greatest insight to the growing problem regarding identity, boundaries, perceptions, and the perception of boundaries.

Individuals Predominantly the individuals who call Anapra home are immigrants from Central Mexico and Southern Mexico as well as illegal migrants from Central America.

xLv There are three groups of Individuals that make up the dynamic: 1.

Largest pocket of Ninis dubbed the lost generation of Mexico. The phrase comes from ‘ni estudian, ni trabajan’—meaning those who neither work nor study.

Single mothers with young children who work at the maquiladoras

“Familias Anqliadas”—meaning the anchored families. Mothers living with children in Mexico while the fathers have departed to the U.S.

75 Framework

Design objectives Laying the foundation

The intent 1.

Explore the transgressive, temporary, and flexibility of boundaries

Seek new perspectives, vantage points, and mindsets.

Meld social interactions, ideas, and visions.

Infrastructure xLvi

An infrastructure that is temporary, flexible, and that extends beyond its boundaries give the essence of exploration and discovery. Infrastructure can take two forms: 1. Infrastructure that encourage movement and the transgression of boundaries. 2. Infrastructure that serves as a center. A pedestrian walkway and a civic center as infrastructure are the fundamental pieces to explore.

77 Framework

Activities

Creating an identity

Program A program that is a heterotopia, a place that is simultaneously physical and mental is necessary, it can be a single space that bring people together from different social, economic backgrounds, or it can be act more as an armature that interconnects two once distant things. Storytelling and a rooftop party are both spaces that are the re-interpretations, re-imagined places that were once out of the norm. The rooftop acts as a heterotopia that is simultaneous a place for gathering and a place for social exchange. Whereas storytelling is an activity that is a personal experience retold through time.

Activities xLvii Activities can be small, medium, or large: 1. Small scale activities are confined to small radius, they are personal and usually solitary. 2. Medium scale activities have a larger boundary, they are the interactions shared with people who are familiar. 3. Large scale activities include the largest and most ambiguous definition, this is the momentous and elusive connections, such as the informal encounters with strangers.

79 Framework

Scale of activities Measuring the impact

Scale of activities.

Small scale

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Creating art or sculpture.

Reading to gain knowledge about natural phenomenon.

Sharing a story on a rooftop overlooking the city.

Flying a kite on a windy day.

Walking or riding a bike to a park.

High diving into a river.

Medium scale

Playing tennis with a friend.

Creating art in a Studio/Maker space with friends.

Swimming or relaxing in thermal baths.

Celebrating a graduation with friends and family.

Large scale

Hiking up a mountain.

Observing public art and sculpture on an outdoor sculpture-walk.

Going on an expedition or excursion with a large group.

Working in a community garden.

Watching an open-air movie.

81 Framework

Combinations New relationships

Activitie combinations.

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Kite flying, hiking up a mountain, and library.

Bike riding, playing tennis, and a community garden.

Watching a movie, high diving, and walking.

Excursion, creating art, and thermal baths.

Mashup 1. Mountain-library. A library on a mountain. A library about mountains. A library for the telling of stories about new lands and natural phenomenon. Flyingmountain-library. A library in the air for new perspectives. A library for flying kites on a mountain. 2. Bike-garden. A garden carried on bikes. A mobile garden. A garden for the bike races. A garden for playing tennis. A garden for the cultivation of new skills. Garden-court. A garden for competitions. 3. High diving-movie. High diving in an outdoor movie theater. Watching a movie in a new way. Walking-movie. A traveling movie screen. Watching a movie in the sky. 4. Excursion-Art, Discovery of art along a journey. View of art in a new way with the aid of technology. Thermal baths-Art. Creating art by temperature. Being part of live-art. Expressing a journey through visual art at night.

83 Framework

Tactical approach Channeling new discoveries

Exploration 1.

Create a multiplicity at the periphery. A multiplicity is an entity that originates from a folding or twisting of simple elements. Like a sand dune, a multiplicity is in constant flux, though it attains some consistency for a short or long duration. A multiplicity has porous boundaries and is defined provisionally by its variations and dimensions.

Provide an indoor place for exchange. A space that is a layering of elements with varying degrees of enclosure, and boundaries that can give a new sense of public space within the city. A space that blurs the harsh division of public and private, accessible, and off-limits will prove to be the most powerful.

Provide an infrastructure that offers various links. A conceptual space that encourages interconnections to new realties and offers new perspectives and vantage points. The space should be mobile offering the greatest sense of journey so that it escapes its own confining dimensions.

85 Framework

End notes 86

Credits End notes Image credits

87 End notes

Victoria Ellis, AIA, Eugenia. “City of Dreams: Virtual Space/Public Space.” 2008, 8. Accessed November 15, 2014. http://www.bauarchitecture.com/docs/City Of Dreams.pdf.

Ibid. 2

The noun “reality” explained in Oxford Dictionary of English and in Oxford Thesaurus of English: “Oxford Dictionary of English”, <http://www.ordnett.no>, accessed 11/22/2014. reality

Bosker, Bianca. “Internet ‘Kill Switch’ Would Give President Power To Shut Down The Web.” The Huffington Post. June 17, 2010. Accessed November 20, 2014. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/06/17/internet-kill-switch-woul_n_615923. html.

Michael Anti (2012, July,30) “Behind the Great Firewall of China” TED talks https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yrcaHGqTqHk

The noun “perception” explained in Oxford Dictionary of English and in Oxford Thesaurus of English: “Oxford Dictionary of English”, <http://www.ordnett.no>, accessed 11/22/2014. perception

The noun “boundary” explained in Oxford Dictionary of English and in Oxford Thesaurus of English: “Oxford Dictionary of English”, <http://www.ordnett.no>, accessed 8/12/2014. boundary

Kelbaugh, Doug. “Immanent Domain Pervasive Computing and the Public Realm.” In Writing Urbanism: A Design Reader, 360. London: Routledge, 2008.

Brenner, N. and Schmid, C. (2014), The ‘Urban Age’ in Question. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 38: 731–755. doi: 10.1111/14682427.12115

Ibid.

Krier, Le, and Dhiru A. Thadani. The Architecture of Community. Washington, DC: Island Press, 2009. 99.

Lange, Alexandra, and Jeremy M. Lange. Writing about Architecture Mastering the Language of Buildings and Cities. New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2012. 94.

End notes 88

De Boeck Filip, Plissard Marie-Françoise (2004) Kinshasa: tales of the Invisible city, Ghent –Amsterdam, Ludion, pages 236

Larice, Michael. The Urban Design Reader. London: Routledge, 2007. 134.

Ibid.

The noun “identity” explained in Oxford Dictionary of English and in Oxford Thesaurus of English: “Oxford Dictionary of English”, <http://www.ordnett.no>, accessed 11/22/2014. identity

Kelbaugh, Doug. “Levittown retrofitted An urbanism beyon the property line.” In Writing Urbanism: A Design Reader, 75. London: Routledge, 2008.

Ibid.

Romero, Fernando. Hyperborder: The Contemporary U.S.-Mexico Border and Its Future. New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2008. 42.

Alex Hoyt “Beyond the boundary,” in Architect, The Magazine of the American Institute of Architects. Accessed November 12, 2014. http://www. architectmagazine.com/architects/t38-studio-beyond-the-boundary_o.aspx

The fence [Motion picture]. (2010). HBO Video.

Romero, Fernando. Hyperborder: The Contemporary U.S.-Mexico Border and Its Future. New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2008. 23.

Lisa Chamberlain, “2 Cities and 4 Bridges Where Commerce Flows,” in The New York Times. Accessed November 16, 2014 http://www. nytimes.com/2007/03/28/realestate/commercial/28juarez.html?_ r=2&scp=1&sq=Where+commerce+flows&st=nyt&

Romero, Fernando. Hyperborder: The Contemporary U.S.-Mexico Border and Its Future. New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2008. 154.

Ibid.

89 End notes

cover

http://www.stone-circles.org.uk/stone/images/wingmaze.jpg

http://www.stanza.co.uk/

iii

http://www.stone-circles.org.uk/stone/images/wingmaze.jpg

file:///F:/Fall%202014/Juan/tumblr_myj0czCNjX1rk85zfo1_500-1201.jpg

http://www.yatzer.com/mirrors-iphone-hellopanos

http://www.positivity.gr/en/blog/papers3/#.VHCyqovF98E

vii

http://www.yatzer.com/mirrors-iphone-hellopanos

viii

http://dariacasciani.net/2012/02/26/urban-darkness-micro-macro-new-elementsof-lighting-the-night/

http://www.joquz.com/2215/mirrors-by-dan-holdsworth

http://article.yeeyan.org/view/301045/290774

http://tonyhurst.deviantart.com/art/Urbanization-Overload-302819945V

xii

http://www.bialobrzeski.de/

xiii

http://www.kosmosjournal.

xiv

movies-Blade-Runner--1574135-1920x1200.jpg

tumblr_mtjitry2T81rc4zf9o1_500-5501.jpg

xvi

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/2603712259007844/

xvii

artworks-000053245818-klovty-original.jpg

xviii

http://www.ibtimes.com/stunning-street-art-havana-biennial-wrinkles-city-710001

xix

http://funstuffcafe.com/img/cool-amazing/amsterdam/amsterdam05.jpg

http://33.media.tumblr.com/5d8588d82a5efa9ec9507d0f61ee9cb8/tumblr_ nec4whc6zX1ql65wlo3_500.jpg

xxi

https://forwearemany.wordpress.com/2010/07/03/these-crying-eyes/

xxii

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Image credits 90

xxiv

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xxv

http://www.hbo.com/documentaries/the-fence

xxvi

https://setebc.wordpress.com/2008/09/15/las-maquiladoras-en-mexico-por-queno-pagan-igual-que-eu-los-problemas-del-pueblo-de-mxico-se-acabaran/

xxvii

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c9/Maquiladora.JPG

xxviii

http://33.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lx43yjm8Xg1qaskyao1_400.jpg

xxix

http://www.vice.com/read/driving-a-bus-in-ciudad-juarez-is-dangerous-business

xxx

Ibid.

xxxi

Ibid.

xxxii

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parais%C3%B3polis_%28S%C3%A3o_Paulo%29

xxxiii

http://www.u-tt.com/

xxxiv

Ibid.

xxxv

Ibid.

xxxvi

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2608506/Slum-stilts-A-mother-babypaddles-dirty-oily-water-Nigerias-Makoko-slum-250-000-residents-huddlehomes-lagoon.html

xxxvii

http://www.nleworks.com/case/makoko-floating-school/

xxxviii

Ibid.

xxxix

Ibid.

http://www.aviewoncities.com/london/trafalgarsquare.htm

xLi

http://www.dcpparquitectos.com/

xLii

Ibid.

xLiii

Ibid.

xLiv

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2115931/The-Predator-project-Artistcreates-disturbing-mirror-sculptures-make-human-forms-blend-surroundings.html

91 Image credits

xLv

http://www.redefiningthesacred.com/images/shipsfalloffworld.jpg

xLvi

Google maps

xLvii

http://www.arkansawtraveler.com/2012/01/mississippi-river-meander-map/

xLviii

http://vk.com/freshcrepes

xLix

http://www.tumblr.com/tagged/balon

http://sichtexot.bandcamp.com/album/a-beautiful-fragile-balance

Image credits 92

93 Image credits