Urban Social Potentials by Justin Skoda

Urban Social Potentials

Published by Lulu Press Copyright 2013, Justin Skoda. California Polytechnic University, San Luis Obispo, California All rights reserved. Distributed under Creative Commons Attribution+No Derivatives 2.0 License Work must be attributed to author and no part of the work may be altered, transformed, or built upon without the explicit written consent of the author. All images and content created by the author is believed to be either in the public domain or used appropriately according to the standards of â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;fair useâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; and attribution. Inaccuracies may be directed to the attention of the author and will be corrected in subsequent editions of the text.

Contact: Justin Skoda justin.skoda@gmail.com Book submitted as requirement for the degree of Bachelor of Architecture 2008-2013 Studio Jackson 2012-2013 ISBN: 978-1-304-08028-8

Urban Social Potentials

C O N T EN TS

Abstract

Manifesto

Site

Design

Vellum : Play

122

PROBE Thesis Show

132

A b st r act Architecture today is failing to address viable urban spaces in our contemporary city contexts. The urban milieu that was once the medium of civic life and culture has been dismantled and dispersed across great distances diluting its potential to allow for socialization and spontaneity. The form of the contemporary city does not allow for the rich intermixing of society or provide spaces that allow for the very urbanity that defined and created urban life. Viable urban spaces have been dismantled and erased through the extreme overemphasis on single use zoning and car cultures. What spaces that do exist with urban-like experiences are tightly controlled and exclusionary planned urban spaces that do not allow for the diversity and random encounter that older urban forms allowed. Instead, architecture must provide the physical urban spaces that catalyze and allow for unplanned and novel experiences, are inclusive of all segments of the society, and that will support a more vibrant culture and fulfilling social interconnectedness. Cities have changed dramatically over the past century and now bear little resemblance to our pre-modern or even early industrial cities. The march of technological advancement has enabled us to relate to cities in new ways, never possible before in older cities. Cities today are not constrained by the same issues of distance and time that older cities were. In the last century, the inception and massive proliferation of the suburb has had a monumental effect on the way humanity lives and relates to urban space and itself. The contemporary urban fabric is fundamentally different than of pre-industrial cities where walking was the only form of transportation for the masses and distances between locations were confined to a human scale. Suburbs of today were precipitated by changes in transportation and communication technology, and subsequently wealth and consumption that no longer paid heed to any notion of distance or time as limiting the form of cities. These developments dramatically changed our social relations in a substantially negative way. Spaces and cities are now overtly ordered and discrete. The organic overlap of people and functions that were associated with the pre-modern city were discarded in favor of prescriptive zoning and city planning regiments that sought to filter out non-conforming uses to achieve maximum perceived efficiency and safety. Indeed at the time, dirty factories and unsanitary urban centers were the impetus for this way of thinking,

Abstract | 7

however this Modernist notion of planning failed to value the inherent function of social cohesion that mixing and overlap of urban functions provided. Under the Modernist and Garden City planning movement, functions and spaces are separated and simplified, and a massive infrastructure network is necessary in order to connect locations and spaces, which was done almost exclusively through roads and freeways. As articulated by Jane Jacobs in her book The Death and Life of Great American Cities, these tightly controlled and over prescriptive urban spaces beget isolation and social separation.1 The fine grained urban and intricate street life that were necessary for safe and functioning urban neighborhoods were cleared. The need for diversity and multiplicity in the city was unrecognized and instead large swathes of single use and spatially remote urban areas became the norm. The urban plazas that were once lively and vital to urban socialization were replaced in favor of the road, the parking lot, and the highway median. Urban city fabrics that once made this socialization possible and imbued a shared sense of community have been erased in favor of anonymous virtual social encounter and a lost sense of place that has served to alienate people from one another and prevent the formation of functioning social communities within the context of the larger city. The very form of older cities allowed for the spontaneous connection and social interaction, today these necessary functions have been ignored in the development and construction of contemporary cities. As such the city is no longer able to function as a social catalyst and provide a true urban environment.

Jacobs, Jane. The Death and Life of Great American Cities. New York: Vintage Books, 1992.

M a n i festo â&#x20AC;&#x153;By its nature, the metropolis provides what otherwise could be given only by traveling; namely, the strange. Since the strange leads to questions and undermines familiar tradition, it serves to elevate reason to ultimate significance... There is no better proof of this fact than the attempts of all totalitarian authorities to keep the strange from their subjects... The big city is sliced into pieces, each of which is observed, purged and equalized. The mystery of the strange and the critical rationality of men are both removed from the city.â&#x20AC;?

Paul J. Tillich Jacobs, Jane. The Death and Life of Great American Cities

Manifesto | 9

Avenue in Albuquerque, New Mexico

Social Dispersal and Technological Mediation The proliferation of instantaneous connections has made obsolete distance in contemporary cities and driven a de-emphasis of the city’s physical spaces, which throughout human history served as the spontaneous meeting point and location of social encounter in our cities. In many ways technology has usurped this function, and the suburban condition only serves to aggravate a lack of personal interaction or shared public experience that was so important to cities throughout human history. Technology has constantly upset the expectation and connections between space, time and distance. Each leap forward destabilizes expectations and further distorts this field of relations, and has direct implications in how we access and use our urban space. The web allows us to see where we are going before we even get there. The entire urban world is practically contained within any Internet connected device with access to a digital map. Tele-presence and conference calling as well as video chatting enables people in disparate locations to interact with an immediacy not possible in prior times. Once people used a phone solely for voice communication, today the smart phone is not only a phone, but collapses the map, web, and even a weather reporter inside the same (or smaller) sized device space. Thus our urban relations established through the model of the suburb have become outdated in relation to technology’s continuing march forward and continual shift in timespace-distance relations. Virilio describes the collapsing of space and time and how it has altered both our social norms and personal perceptions as we are now able to communicate instantaneously. The world has contracted down so that even the global is local or “glocal”.2 The physical spaces of the city then follow to be re-prioritized in favor or rapid circulation instead of being the civic rooms of the masses and the virtual becomes an incomplete public sphere. Despite the constraining and separating nature of suburban style single use development, technology has responded to the need of human interaction. Technology has been able to replace, to a degree, the loss of connectivity that was once present in cities. In response to the loss of the urban realm as a medium for social 2

Virilio, Paul and Sylvere Lotringer, trans. Michael Taormina, “After Architecture: A Conversation,” Grey Room, No. 3 (Spring 2001).

Manifesto | 1 1

Google Street View: Eiffel Tower, Paris, France Technological advances have enabled us to â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;visitâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; places without actually leaving our homes. Vast arrays of content are available online, as well as instantaneous communication with the increasing proliferation of contemporary technology. Image: Google

exchange, technology has usurped the role that these public spaces once played and helped to hide the degree of depravity to which the urban social sphere has been eroded. The modern city has been developed on the assumption that the formal and physical relations of the city are not needed to contribute to its social vitality. Instead the in-between of the city that once served as the critical and spontaneous meeting places of the urban population have been reduced to mere circulation, explicitly for the automobile. As such, time has now become perhaps the most important metric in how we relate to our surroundings

and city through the Modernist tradition of separation of uses and overwhelming adoption of car culture. This mentality allowed the city to become bloated and grow without the moderating influence of the need for human based social encounter. Our culture of immediate communication, satisfaction, and consumption has enabled a new reality where one no longer must be physically present to carry out an action or facilitate an interaction; instead much of this can be conducted through virtual means made possible by these technological advances. In response to the ever-expanding distances, technology has replaced the need for face-to-face communication in many forms. From the advent of technologies that transferred information and facilitated increasingly faster communication, the interconnections and relations between time, distance and space have become muddled and counterintuitive. It takes less time to call across the planet and talk to someone thousands of miles away as opposed to walking into an adjacent room and ask a question in person. In this reality, distances without technological access are multiplied almost infinitely in relation to the seemingly instant capabilities modern communication affords in areas with access to these technologies. Thus the concept of ‘place’ has been eroded in our modern city. Sociologist Anthony Giddens argues that space and place have become disassociated from one another and that place has become “phantasmagoric” and is shaped by social interactions that may take place even great distances away.3 The result is a fundamental de-emphasis on the physical realm of space. Franco Berardi argues that “virtualization of social communication has eroded the empathy between bodies” and that this is weakening our social bonds since “solidarity is based on the territorial proximity of social bodies” and one cannot “build solidarity between fragments of time.”4 The critical function of the city as the physicality of social relations is lost and erased in an age which no longer values the physical city as the medium for social encounter. To a large extent technology has eliminated the need for physical space for simple communication, leaving any remaining space as characterless non-space such as the highway median or parking lot. This in-between space as a medium of multi-functional interaction (circulation, communication, social interaction, commerce, cultural and political exchange) in the pre-industrial city has instead been weakened by alternative media that allows these functions to occur in virtual space, but not with the same richness and dynamism of urban life. Technology allows some of the random networking that is possible through contemporary communication methods, but the same degree of immersion and spontaneity is lost in the digital realm. Therefore a 3 4

Giddens, Anthony. The Consequences of Modernity. Stanford University Press, 1990. Berardi, Franco. The Uprising: On Poetry and Finance. Los Angeles: Semiotext(e), 2012.

Manifesto | 1 3

Virtual Space

Social Space Physical Space

Time

Social space, once integral to the physical space that hosted it, has become increasingly more discrete between a virtual environment independent of time and space and the physical realm of the city. The physical space has been neglected in favor of efficient circulation for the car or simply outright neglected as a viable location of urban life. Instead social spaces are relegated to virtual means or tightly controlled pseudo public environments. The spontaneity and valuable intermixing that is possible only through the overlaying of both physical and virtual social spaces is nonexistant or at best repressed from its maximum social potential. The function of the city as space for social encounter has been forgotten and ignored. The virtual social space is not robust, spontaneous or rich enough to replace the catalyzing potentials that the physical city can provide.

Suburban Sprawl in the Los Angeles Metro region. Freeway network and individualized car dependent developments apparent in bottom right of image. The city is considered in a patchwork of private spheres, developed piecemeal with little relation to one another or to a cohesive urbanity.

new formal strategy is needed to reconnect and reinvigorate our urban spaces to once again allow for the social connectivity and vitality that was so important in historical cities and is of continued importance and necessity today.

Manifesto | 1 5

Commodification of Social Space Congruently, the intrusion of the commodification of space has eroded any sense of heterogeneity or spontaneity in our cities. Technological advances have further supported an ever-increasing demand for more and more consumer products that both serve to better connect us across the space-time field but also serve to separate us ever more in terms of the physicality of our cities. Continual increases in the demand and proliferation of commodification in all spheres of our social relations has destabilized the once independent realms of the domestic home and the democratic urban space. Guy Debord argues that the intense commodification of every aspect of our daily life has established a new “artificial peasantry” where citizens are beholden to a continual positive feedback loop of consumption and where social relations of historical cities are now systematically destroyed in the drive toward a new “planned environment.” Interactions between individuals are instead replaced by a hierarchical methodology of consumption in favor of the ad hoc interaction and sharing between individuals that can occur in a de-commoditized urban setting. Instead urban spaces are more often tightly controlled in search of profit motives that discourage or forbid spontaneous actions and discriminate against certain segments of the population. The interpersonal spontaneous relations once an essential part of the urban city have been replaced and subverted through a consumptive stand in and desire to continually procure more material wealth. Instead of individuals receiving information or socializing in an ad hoc manner, this situation is now tightly controlled and drives a social isolation, which in turn fuels a consumption to replace the lost interconnectivity. This in turn reinforces a narrow mindedness as disparate social groups no longer come into contact with one another in favor of a ‘safe’ and unsurprising environment, as well as entrenching a social separation that prevents individuals from “undertaking independent action.”5 One need only look at any mall to see this in action. Arguably one of the last public realms left in the city (where people come to informally socialize, and take part in a social setting), is instead a tightly controlled location, replete with cameras, security guards, closing hours and climate control to maximize the degree of control and minimize the amount of spontaneity or surprise that would occur in a truly public setting. Social 5

Debord, Guy. The Society of the Spectacle. Detriot: Black and Red, 1983.

Top Row: Highway interchange and median transformed into a plaza Middle Row: Shopping mall parking lot transformed into market square Bottom Row: Enormous avenue transformed into transit corridor Left column images: Google

Manifesto | 1 7

groups and activities are secluded in favor of a known, and controlled environment that can serve to support the commodification of urban space. Additionally, the large distances between meaningful locations in the urban milieu, enabled by the proliferation of technological advances has become a successful method in limiting and isolating societies in order to exert control and further entrench the goal of increased commodification and consumption into society. The advent of the suburb brought about similarly large social changes in the perception of the city. The focus and dominance of an individualistic consumer society eroded social connections as people moved into homogeneous tract home developments far afield from the crowded city centers. The heterogeneous space between buildings and urban fabrics deteriorated, as the automobile became the singular occupant of our streets. Individuals were removed from the experiences of those in-between spaces, and instead these depleted spaces were replaced with the physical infrastructure necessary to support the automobile. The car as the de facto choice of transportation, enabled people to live large distances away from city centers, which was never before possible with prior technology. Despite the continuing dispersal and homogenization of living conditions brought about by the car, continued technological advancement has enabled us to continue to be able to communicate and interact, even in additional ways not possible even a few years ago. The changing technology, fetishism of consumer culture and proliferation of suburban form, while enabling new communication possibilities has dramatically changed our day to day experiences in cities, and has also enabled a radical individualization and isolation in our contemporary culture that no longer serves the functions of urbanity as it once did; enabling people of all types to interact in an equal and interpersonal way. However this focus of individualization and compartmentalization has caused further negative social change. There is now a precipitous loss of almost any notion of civic life or a shared public experience in the nation’s suburbs. As people disperse across the wide urban fabric, and continually move further apart, technology allows us to maintain disparate virtual connections further and further away. As political science professor William Hudson points out, people have become increasingly isolated in our greater society, which puts in peril our sense of community and responsibility to our fellow citizens. He argues the radical individualism of the present day is even potentially toxic to our American democracy.6 Berardi also exclaims that “society is in fact dissolving, reducing public space to a jungle wherein everyone is fighting against one another.”7 The manifestation of this focus on individuals as opposed 6 7

Hudson, William E. American Democracy in Peril: Eight Challenges to America’s Future 7th ed. Los Angeles: Sage Publications, 2013. Berardi, Franco. The Uprising: On Poetry and Finance. Los Angeles: Semiotext(e), 2012.

Typical new 1950â&#x20AC;&#x2122;s suburban tract development. Intense privatization of space and erosion of a shared public sphere.

Manifesto | 1 9

individualized homogenization

to any sort of shared commonalities has led to an erosion of public space, other than those that serve the proliferation of the system such as consumerism or a massive infrastructure to support the use of the automobile. Public space in the US has become increasingly controlled and designed to minimize unplanned social encounters and in some cases substitute consumer experiences for socialization. As stated previously, malls in many ways serve a similar function as the plazas and piazzas of historical cities. Malls allow for a sense of public life while at the same time being tightly controlled and with an ulterior profit motive. Who can come and go, when the mall is open, and how one is required to arrive at the mall are all predefined in contrast to the fluidity, openness, spontaneity and democracy of a true public space. Even spaces under the umbrella of public ownership are often controlled and patrolled to prohibit certain actions (street performers, beggars, and many ‘staying’ activities that serve to actually enliven the vary spaces that are supposed to function as the outdoor living space of the greater public). Between the commercialization and control of pseudo public locations and implementation of transportation infrastructures that deteriorate vibrant urban spaces, the public realm has been eroded and become devalued as well as simply turned into non-spaces in between real destinations. Consequently, our cities today suffer from an unfortunate underutilization of space. Instead of being used actively, much space is relegated to ‘support space’ in our desire for additional infrastructures and parking and other underutilized mono-use spaces. In most American cities, space is seen and translated into a commodity to be monetized, instead of serving as a location for more meaningful interaction. This focus on a spatial idea wherein society thinks of space solely through the narrow focus of an economic argument is hardly applicable to a changing world and indeed is in dramatic need of a reformulation if cities are to ever reclaim a place as functioning scenes of social encounter. Mono-function zoning are antithetical to this need and ensure an isolation and insulation between different uses and divides the city into discrete separate parts. The shopping center is distinctly different from the neighborhood cul-de-sac due to the assumption of its need to be separated. This physical separation is readily apparent, yet paradoxically, today more than ever we are interconnected across the globe as communication has become instant in contrast to the disconnect and present dispersal of our contemporary cities.

Manifesto | 2 1

Shopping Mall

Urban P

VS !

VS Urban Proposal

VS !

Amagertorv, Copenhagen. Rich intermingling between diverse social groups and uses. Public space providing for spontaneous social actions and encounters.

Manifesto | 2 3

Car Culture and Urban Space Spaces today are still subservient to the implementation and support of car infrastructures in relation to our temporal access of the physical city. Massive amounts of space are allocated to the support and infrastructure of vehicle use, yet individuals can now make many of these trips by technological means through the advent of communication. The implementation of the car brought about an exclusionary policy of mono-function in between spaces, in order to maximize â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;efficiencyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; of movement. A road only reluctantly provides space for the pedestrian. Once the domain of the pedestrian, older established cites converted to the use of the car. Uses are separated for the safety and efficiency of each respective user. However this system establishes a redundancy in support infrastructures and instead actually increases distances, which in turn precludes any other transit form or urban use. The scales of roads and streets have become bloated in relation to historical precedent and the human body. The grocery store is now a few miles down the road in the local shopping center instead of around the corner because of the assumption that all trips will be made by car. Our cities today are structured for the automobile much to the detriment of human face-toface interaction in urban centers, as articulated by urban theorist Jan Gehl.8 Urban spaces in this way are devoid of much of the life that is possessed by pedestrian-focused spaces in older cities. Social life is instead relegated to a private sphere either in the home or on a personal level or otherwise mediated through technological consumables, strengthening a sense of isolation despite our interconnectivity and immediate communication possibilities. The expansion of distances, or distance at all, across the urban field were deemed benign in relation to the increases in speed of autos that larger freeways, larger roads, and faster engines provided in the development of contemporary cities. Each sphere of use was pigeonholed into its respective space so as not to interfere with any other forms. When these infrastructures invariably came into conflict with one another due to being in the same spatial plane, the car was almost universally given priority, despite its comfort, speed and safety advantages over the pedestrian or cyclist. A positive feedback loop 8

Gehl, Jan. Cities for People. Washington DC: Island Press, 2012.

Parkour takes advantage of the accidental conditions in urban environments and subverts the intended uses to spaces to create new uses and social potentials. Spaces become playful and able to support a level of socialization through freeing the constraints placed upon urban spaces through unintended latent conditions and events. Image: Patrick Dep, Wikimedia Commons

was thus established ushering in a monopoly on transportation by the automobile. Spaces once prime for pedestrians became more and more hostile to people while roads and cites became the domain of the auto.8 The city built for the car is in conflict with a society that now has surpassed the car in a historical perspective as technology continues to progress. Through new formal relations, the city can once again serve as the medium for random, unplanned and fulfilling social encounter and weaken the hegemony of the automobile. The physical realm provides the only medium where truly spontaneous meeting can occur. Solely virtual space is susceptible to faux diversity and spontaneity as exhibited through cyber balkanization. Only in physical spaces of the city, can disparate groups can meet in a spontaneous setting that allows for the latent social potential of the city to manifest itself in opposition to the modernist tradition of separation and insulation of uses. Through the reclamation of underutilized auto-centric spaces, the city can once again be host to a rich urbanity.

Manifesto | 3 1

Right to the City Despite an increasing virtual interconnectedness there is nevertheless an absence of contact that pervades everyday life. A lack of functioning physical space that can support necessary physical interaction is missing. Space is often used in an exclusionary fashion in tightly controlled systems whether in private or public spheres. The system excludes entire social groups from participation and fosters isolation paradoxically in an ever more interconnected world. As articulated by Lefebvre in The Production of Space, the physical realm is a manifestation of society’s social conditions and interrelations. As such the city must be able to represent a heterogeneous and vibrant society adequately by allowing for a multiplicity of voices, options and actions in a much more fluid system of interaction.9 Such existing spaces are overly prescriptive and controlled which minimizes the social potentials of the city. Parkour is an example of a reaction to this prescriptive usage in which people jump, climb and scale buildings and urban spaces in novel ways not originally intended or allowed in their inception. Freeing up the restrictions and controls of what urban spaces already do exist will enable the latent social potentials of the city to manifest themselves once again. The public realm in the United States is large and expansive, yet intensely private. Our urban public spaces consist of roads, parking lots, shopping malls, parks, sidewalks and similar features in the urban milieu. However large this area is spatially, it tends to function singularly or in a mediocre fashion at best. Little attempt is made to foster a civic life or even to interconnect these spaces into the larger urban context to leverage their combined effects. It is not the democratic meeting point of the citizenry; it is instead a space devoid of a rich urban life and more often than not intensely regulated and exclusive. These spaces— whether in form, code or regulation—are exclusionary and incapable of responding to changing demographics or a more satisfying life for all segments of the populace. Access to ‘centrality’ and the availability of urban life to the masses is largely ignored in contemporary society as described by Christian Schmidt.10 Instead certain social groups are excluded from the urban participation that they are entitled to as equal members of society. The form of our cities are almost wholly dependent on the car for transportation and access and so exclude other transit types and require a certain financial income and investment to fully access the city’s resources and spaces. Only those with a car have access to the full capacity of the city. Lower income individuals are thus 9 10

Lefebvre, Henri. The Production of Space. Carlton: Blackwell Publishing, 1991. Schmid, Christian. “Henri Lefebvre, The Right to the City, and the New Metropolitan Mainstream”. Cities for People, Not for Profit. New York: Routledge, 2012.

Harbor front development in Bergen, Norway

a shared public experience

Manifesto | 3 3

excluded from many areas of the city through a version of economic segregation. Again due to the over emphasis on auto infrastructures, this leaves what successful urban public space society has as islands in a sea of anonymous and hostile space that severs linkages and prevents a coherent urban whole. Instead, in a sea of transitory space, islands of urban social definition appear few and far between. Thus there is a need for a new space, not one that simply incorporates a diversity of users and uses, but one where this diversity of users and uses can actually synthesize new interactions and atmospheres through the agency of a potent and heterogeneous urban fabric. To remain culturally relevant, spaces must be built and responsive to change or at a minimum, be able to speak to various uses. Christopher Hight, et. al. describe a ‘heterogeneous’ space that is capable of being used in a multiplicity of contexts and uses and is responsive to the inputs of a multitude of users. The openness and unregulated nature of the spaces allows for a spontaneity and call for the fostering of latent potentials inherent in the already built urban form.11 These types of spaces will enable the emergent possibilities of the city to coagulate and begin to establish functioning urban social space that are inclusive of all elements of society.

Hight, Christopher, Michael Hensel, and Achim Menges, “En Route: Towards a Discourse on Heterogeneous Space Beyond Modernist Space-Time and Post-Modernist Social Geography” in Michael Hensel, Christopher Hight, and Achim Menges, eds., Space Reader: Heterogeneous Space in Architecture (Wiley, 2009), pp. 9-37.

Tightly controlled pseudo public spaces have become the de facto urban centers within cities. However they more often simply function as locations to further ulterior social goals such as profit instead of cohesive urban environments.

Manifesto | 3 5

The in between urban spaces were once the great social meeting areas of the city where diverse groups of citizens could coalesce and intermingle. Now these sorts of spaces rarely exist and instead are largely devoted to circulation infrastructures.

Existing Precedents Some spaces already imbue some of these urban characteristics that can be looked to as precedent. A generosity to the public realm is evident at the Oslo Opera House in Norway, designed by SnĂ¸hetta. Instead of simply creating an exclusive enclave to the fine arts for special occasions, the surrounding public space is augmented by the form that envelops the building. In stark contrast to the typical modernist regulated separation between building and street, the roof form of the opera house becomes an expression of the potential for a more systemic urban fabric. A continuation of the streetscape enveloping the building offers a possibility between the mundane and the unique and eventful. The connection between the city street and a reinvigorated connection with the harbor front allow for a more interesting and responsive public space. The continuation of the streetscape up and around the building, enveloping it in publicly accessible space invites the citizens into a previously off limits area. By utilizing the roof scape, the opera house is able to offer an experience a conventional opera house could not. A new public plaza emerges on the edge of the Oslo Fjord, reconnecting the city with its waterfront, and at the same time allowing the public to access and experience the city in a completely new and novel way. This plaza merges with the city skyline. It offers views of the cityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s towers and vistas and puts the city in its larger context between the surrounding mountains and sea. It truly becomes part of the city. Residents walk their dogs, lay out on the stone surfaces and take in the view of their city. It is humanized through its spatial gesture and generosity to a greater public use, and indeed has a much more profound use and utility because of these gestures. Despite this, the building does not necessarily encourage social encounter. The spaces do allow for socialization and to experience the city in new ways, but in doing so, does not necessarily encourage new interaction other than bringing diverse groups of people to the same urban space. Additionally, the Parasol in the Plaza Mayor in Sevilla, Spain, is a notable example of functioning urban space. The unique form serves as an attractor for both locals and tourists alike offering a potential for diverse groups of individuals to interact. A myriad of intermixed uses, both temporal and fixed, cohabitate to create an intricate social structure. A diversity of social groups intermix both at street level and up into the structure. A museum, market, playground, plaza, park, restaurant and cafĂŠ and viewing deck all interact to create a rich addition to the urban fabric that enlivens the surrounding urban periphery.

Manifesto | 3 7

Oslo Opera House, Norway SnĂ¸hetta Architects Roof becomes landscape tying the building into its context and allowing users to experience the city in a novel way. Surfaces are activated through their open ended uses.

Parasol, Sevilla, Spain JĂźrgen Mayer-Hermann Architects Public plaza and accessible roof scape intermingle locals and vistors alike. Multiplicity of activities draw diverse user groups into close proximity with one another throughout the day.

Under Utilized Spaces Perhaps most striking today about our current spatial relations is the duplicate nature of spaces and infrastructure. The sheer amount of land occupied by roads, highways, and parking is staggering. (Compare the two figure ground drawings of Copenhagen and Tustin; all white space is more or less paved and in Tustin almost entirely devoted to auto infrastructures) When one considers that much of the time, these spaces sit ‘unused’, in that no vehicles are physically occupying the space, the ridiculousness of the situation becomes even more apparent. Instead of massive redundancies, a new system where space acts in multiple ways and can be reused at varying times will allow for the fulfilling of latent potential in the city and urban society. These non-spaces can redouble, or be re-purposed as the locations of social and cultural connectivity instead of separation, and catalyze a new urban social condition. As the world population continues to increase, the amount of land available to each person becomes increasingly smaller. Urban centers will continue to expand and become denser and larger, yet they still foster disconnect between citizens. Urban spaces that support socialization are needed. Instead of continuing to expand outward, existing locations within the city are prime locations for reinvigorating a social life and being able to adequately integrate new urban spaces into the city fabric. Duplicability of spaces can translate into duplicative uses in the same space. Instead of a modernist zoning routine of single function spaces spread over a field of urban area, is it possible to recombine or re-access spaces throughout the day, seasons, week or years. Spaces can become more adaptable and serve multiple functions, increasing their use, longevity and relevancy to the greater population and society. These multiplicities of functions, and activity imbue a new spontaneity and infuse the city with an unpredictability that has the potential to generate a coherent urban life. On Copenhagen’s Dronning Louise’s Bridge an impromptu social gathering space has been established. The bridge is at a critical junction connecting the historic inner city to the dense Nørrebro neighborhood outside of a ring of lakes surrounding the inner city. Incidentally, the bridge is one of the busiest biking routes in the world and offers a generous bike lane as well as a wide sidewalk. Serving as a connection for auto, bus and bike traffic, the bridge also doubles on sunny afternoons as one of the most popular squares in the city. Citizens gather with friends and enjoy the spectacle of people moving

Manifesto | 3 9

across the bridge and bask in the sunshine. Most notable is that this bridge, although intended as simply a physical connection, has evolved through spontaneous input into a new social sphere and destination in of itself. The bridge acts as a spatial system, which is then supplemented, read and reinterpreted by casual users. People go where others are. Groups of friends or acquaintances re-purpose the structure though unforeseen uses and create ‘micro social rooms’ along the length of the bridge. Benches form a rhythm and provide a natural distance to insulate groups from one another and create micro spaces within the context of the large bridge area. Instead of simply a

Queen Louise’s Bridge Copenhagen, Denmark People come to enjoy the weather and people watch along the length of the bridge. Spontaneous activity and socialization is encouraged through its popularity and unique site characteristics.

transit infrastructure, the bridge doubles as social infrastructure rivaling many of the city’s conventional squares in popularity and utilization. Instead of a simple single use space—a bridge to connect transit types across a body of water—the newly created space capitalizes on these very same amenities. A high degree of dynamism and movement, nearness to water and views and easy access as well as a flexible and open spatial system allow the bridge to take on multiple characteristics and uses. These same principles of spatial multiplicity and spontaneity can be applied elsewhere to further enrich already formed or underperforming spaces in existing urban fabrics and provide a more robust urban space to accommodate culture’s changing tastes and to establish a more robust cultural use in the face of inevitable shifts in culture and technology. Presently, there is a trend toward the re-urbanization and densification of areas in many cities around the world. As the now disbanded architecture firm PLOT points out in their proposal for a Superharbor to serve the Baltic Sea region, areas that were once utilized for industrialization, infrastructure, transportation, et al have become increasingly outdated. They argue that all the harbors in Denmark could be combined into a Superhabor, a piece of super infrastructure connecting Denmark and Germany with a new bridge and a large port that would serve all of the Baltic countries, thus freeing up the harbor fronts to more lucrative and urban goals. The harbors often occupy the most valuable land in the city yet serve to separate the city from its waterfront. Therefore the land could be reutilized in a different way to better serve the desires of the citizens. “Superharbor will liberate 20 billion Euros worth of prime real estate in Denmark’s 12 biggest cities for new forms of urban life, allowing the cities to consolidate their growth where people want to live, rather than scattering ever more suburban developments on the urban peripheries.”12 Similarly in the US, industrial cities and contemporary suburban cities have the opportunity to redevelop old manufacturing bases, and underutilized vacant land which often have prime locations near downtowns or scenic natural features.

PLOT & Bruce Mau Design. Too Perfect, Seven New Denmarks. Copenhagen: Dansk Arkitektur Center, 2004.

Manifesto | 4 1

White space corresponds to paved areas and both drawings are to the same scale. In the Tustin figure ground, all paved areas are essentially devoted to auto infrastructures (highways, parking, avenues, etc). In the Copenhagen drawing the white spaces are both streets and walkable pedestrian friendly areas. Almost the entire old city center fits within the confines of the drawing, while in the Tustin example, only a portion of a shopping center and some scattered office park buildings and apartments fit within the confines of the drawing. The spatial definition in Copenhagen creates squares and urban spaces that allow for urban life to be played out in a public way. Tustinâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s urban physicality prevents it from having the same rich street life. Instead commercial functions or private entertainment and communication supplant the rich urban experience that older cities were able to provide and create.

Tustin, CA

Copenhagen, DK

Manifesto | 4 3

Site

Garden Grove, CA Population: 170,833 (2010) Area: 17,941 mi2 33.7739째 N, 117.9406째 W

Site | 4 5

Proposed Train Site

Site | 4 7

Santa Ana River

Freeway System

Pacific Electric Right of Way

Site | 4 9

Pacific Electric Right of Way

Site | 5 1

Pacific Electric Right of Way

Site | 5 3

Gated Community on Century Blvd

Site | 5 5

Big Box Retailer along Century Blvd.

Site | 5 7

Century Blvd. and Garden Grove Blvd.

Site | 5 9

Garden Grove Blvd. and Euclid Blvd.

Site | 6 1

Main Street

Site | 6 3

Southern side of Pacific Electric Right of Way

Site Opportunities As a poster child for sprawling cities, Los Angeles is well known for its large and expansive suburban areas. However, an emergent pattern is the continual densification of suburbs notably in places such as Southern California and specifically the Los Angeles metro region encompassing parts of five separate counties, and comprising the second largest population center in the nation. As the Los Angeles metro region has expanded, so have the suburbs, encroaching on farmland and open space, as seen in Orange County and the Inland Empire regions. Today, these once agrarian areas are largely gone and the most recent trend has been the densification and reconfiguring of the suburban areas. As articulated by Edward Soja, recentralization in new suburban cities has been replacing the rampant mass suburbanization of the last half-century. Instead of the perceived dichotomy between the dense, lively, dirty and crime ridden city and the open, boring and leafy suburbs, there is now an inter-mixture between the two, where many suburban areas are actually gaining many of the regional jobs and cultural institutions, creating a hybrid urban-suburban life, thus challenging traditional definitions of the city versus suburbia. Further described by Soja is the unexpected urbanization of suburbia where suburbs now command significant populations and job centers yet lack any sort of nucleus. Instead the central city and its suburbs must be considered as a region.13 These areas have developed without a formal overarching master plan. Instead these areas are created piecemeal and the combined agglomeration of urban fabric creates the metro region. Latent within this constructed fabric are new potentials for an emergent urbanism that can capitalize on the proliferate amount of underutilized sites. Forgotten lots, former industrial sites, massive parking lots and former defense sites are ripe for rejuvenation, now completely surrounded by the greater metro region. As articulated by Dana Cuff, these micro tabula rasa sites can allow for architectural experimentation that heightens and amplifies already present qualities while creating urban 13

Soja, Edward W. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Designing the Postmetropolis.â&#x20AC;? in Urban Design. Minneapolis: Univ of Minnesota Press, 2009.

Site | 6 5

Los Angles Metro 13 Million

London 13 Million

In terms of density Los Angeles as a region is relatively dispersed. However there are pockets within the metro area with substantial densities that act as centers of urban activity. The region covers a large area and is comparable to even some small countries.

New York Metro 18 Million

Copenhagen-Malmรถ 2.5 Million

Netherlands 17 Million

Historical system map of Los Angeles Red Car, and streetcar lines. Routes tied the entire region together at a time when far fewer people lived in the metro area. Images: Metro.net

conditions that catalyze new urban life.14 Indeed many of these areas now contain densities associated with more ‘traditional’ older cities that were established before the advent of the automobile enabled mass dispersal. Yet, the newest suburbs in areas such as Orange County have a high proportion of non-space and are bloated in scale compared to the older inner city suburbs around Los Angeles. Large avenues and auto infrastructures, along with large distances between locations and mono-function zoning give Orange County a distinctly non-city character despite having 3 million inhabitants. These areas have few of the characteristics of ‘county living’ and therefore are in limbo between a real cohesive urban environment and a pseudo-suburban condition. It is an area bereft of the ‘urban-ness’ of a cohesive city and lacking the promised bucolic openness of suburbia. Because of the newness of development in the areas further afield from downtown Los Angeles, there are still some of these areas that have resisted development that now find themselves in prime urban locations as the suburbs around them have continued to expand and develop outward. Similar to former industrial sites in other cities in the rust belt, these areas are prime real estate and have massive potential to allow for a new urban strategy. Metro 30/10 Initiative

oo d

Vin

Ho ll

Ho lly w

Ctr al

Fir Pacific Av

5th

Transit Mall

TORRANCE

1s t

HARBOR GATEWAY

An Pa W Ar Co W De ar illo te c m ah dlo l Am sia pto eim ific w w Co o St n St as tH w y

ns ra ec Ro s

Ctr it ns Tr a te sia Ar

SOUTH BAY

on El M

lS ta Ca

So to

av illa Civ ic Ctr Atl an tic

dia

ar M

LA st

St d ok

10 3r

br o

w illo W

y w rF rb o

alo n Av

Ha s en th /A

m on t Ve r

th o Le rne nn / ox

Ha w Douglas Redondo Beach

LONG BEACH

Bl alk

es Lin

El Segundo

Cre

ed ic M C

tio n

Sta

C+

io so o/ Ali

M ar ia

Pe d Sa n

n gto

W as hin

er To w s

r te es ch an

Riverside Line

Alternative

Mariposa

h ns

Alternative

WHITTIER

ty un Co

Aviation /Century

Aviation / LAX

SOUTH EL MONTE

ge an Or

LAX

PACIFIC OCEAN

EAST LOS ANGELES

att

on us Sla

Crenshaw/Slauson

Gra

Ve Sla Flo rn es us re on to nc on ne e

US 37 C th

V Ex po erm po / Pa on rk t /U SC Ex

Crenshaw/ MLK

Jefferson/ USC

Pic

7th St/Metro Ctr

Pico

23rd St

Florence/West Florence/La Brea

Little Tokyo/ Arts Dist

air hir fa x e/L W a ils Br hir ea W e/ ils W hir es te e/ rn No rm W an ils die hir e/ Ve M rm ac on Ar W t th es ur tla Pa ke rk / Ex Cr po / en Ex sha W po / w es te rn

Cit y

Cie

e/R

Ex po Ex /B po un /S d Ex epu y po lv /W ed a es N tw ati oo on d al/ Pa La lm Cie Cu s ne lve rC ga ity /J e Ex ffe po rso /L n a B Fa re a rm da le

Colorado/17th St Colorado/4th St

San Bernardino Line

EL MONTE

e/F

hir

e/L

W ils

hir

W ils

Olympic/26th St

Civic Ctr

Pershing Sq

W ils

ita l

CL A

d/U

ntu

tw oo

d/V oo

W es

es tw W

CULVER CITY

Chinatown

DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES

Vermont/Beverly

KOREATOWN

SANTA MONICA

AZUSA

Heritage Sq Lincoln/Cypress

Vermont /Santa Monica

WEST LA

PASADENA

Southwest Museum

Vermont/Sunset

oo d/

es te rn

Ho ll

South Pasadena Highland Park

iv Un

Fil lm o De re lM ar M em o La ria ke l P ar k All en Sie rr a Ar Ma ca d dia re Vil M on la ro Du via ar te Ir w in d Az ale us a Az /Ala us m e a/ Cit da ru s

d oo

ity

hla

lC sa

ats

ne rC tr Ca no ga

W ar

HOLLYWOOD

oo d

n yo an

ure La

Co lle g

Nu ys

an dm oo W

No rth

a ed lv pu Se

Va lle y

Ho ll

lle ge Co e

Re se da

m Ta

Pie rc

W oo dle y

Va n

W ay

er Sh

SAN FERNANDO VALLEY

off

Antelope Valley Line

Ventura County Line

orw

NORWALK

30/10 Projects Final alignments to be determined. 30/10 Projects Completed 30/10 Projects Under Construction Existing Metro Lines and Stations Metrolink & Amtrak Map image courtesy of Metro Los Angeles ©2012 LACMTA

Cuff, Dana. “Tabula Futura Imperfecta: The Architecture of Disaster.” in Fast-Forward Urbanism: Rethinking Architecture’s Engagement with the City. New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2011.

Site | 6 7

Defunct Tustin Marine Corps Air Station, Tustin, CA in foreground open for redevelopment. El Toro Marine Station in background, similar plans for redevelopment.

Facing increased densification pressure as the region continues to grow, these areas are the next frontier to be developed. Defunct military bases, infill lots, and massive redundant parking lots and roads are the primary areas available, and these sites have the potential to reintegrate true urban spaces that support spontaneity, play and democratic uses that were ignored in the development of the suburbs and massive auto infrastructures. Going into the future, areas such as these can function as new urban centers that focus urban energy and allow for new urban opportunities. New rapid transit projects can utilize these spaces to be able to integrate themselves within the existing urban fabric and create new functioning urban social spaces and provide real alternatives to the hegemony of automobile transportation. Already Los Angeles as a county-region has adopted a mass transit strategy that allows for an aggressive expansion of new rapid transit alternatives. Mayor Villaraigosaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s proposed 30/10 Initiative, and the passing of Measure R show the political will behind a reinvigorated effort to expand urban transit options to alleviate grid lock and provide meaningful alternatives to the automobile. Not since the Red Cars and trolleys that once crisscrossed the area, has Los Angeles had such a vision for a comprehensive transit alternative. However due to the political

Proposed Urban Centers e

e Gl

s Pa

a ic s on le M ty ge ta Ci An n Sa tury Los n n Ce tow n w o D h

t ou

g on

A series of new urban centers across the metro region can receive the increases in projected population growth and provide new site opportunities for urban life to thrive. Redeveloping old industrial, military, and massive parking lots will allow densification and intensification of existing urban fabrics in order to better utilize and connect what urbanity is currently present within the metro region.

a Be

m nu

i at

ia Tr

d ar

ov Gr

a nt

a es M t a por t s ir Co A a

Irv

and demographic differences between counties in the region, these solutions are largely kept within the confines of Los Angeles county proper. Few transit connections connect the already sinuous and continuous urban fabric that defies political boundaries between Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside and San Bernadino Counties. Moving forward a holistic regional transit solution is needed to provide a comprehensive planning alternative that integrates the entire urban region. As part of the 30/10 transit plan, and general expanding rail infrastructures, a new line following the old Pacific Electric Right of Way connecting downtown Los Angeles and Santa Ana is being planned. This route is a historical transit corridor that served to connect the towns of Orange County to Los Angeles. Today this region is fully built out, and is replete with 1950â&#x20AC;&#x2122;s and 60â&#x20AC;&#x2122;s suburban fabrics. The line passes through the city fabric bounded by the I-5 and I-405 freeways and through an area that already has a higher proportion of transit ridership and need for additional transit service. A new station is proposed at Garden Grove. This site provides a unique position and condition. There is surplus parking and older lots, ready for greater densities. A small historic downtown corridor and civic center border the site to north and west, and the high school also is near the site to

Existing Freeway Network

The freeway network is a coherent whole across the region, able to cross county boundaries as it is state and federally managed.

Existing Rail and Proposed New Rail System

Transit networks are ineffective as they are limited to a single county and do not serve the region as a whole even though the entire area is a continuous urban entity.

Site | 6 9

the north. Additionally a career college also borders the site and the area already has some examples densification. Therefore this site is ripe for demonstrating the potentials for the greater region to develop into a more coherent urban space that allows for the social interactions of urban life to become manifest through additional development interventions. A series of densification urban interventions can be established throughout the metro region to catalyze on the social potentials already present within the city. Creating new centers in concert with new transit alternatives will capitalize on increased density, walkability and public space potentials to allow for the greatest possibility to establish a liberated public space within the context of the greater metro region, augmenting what public spaces already exist and providing many more site opportunities throughout the region. The Garden Grove site is unique in its urban conditions and offers a compelling paradigm for how these new centers of public urbanity will integrate into the city and what they will enable through their construction and catalyzing social effects. The site has the potential to enliven and reinvigorate Garden Grove and provide a discernible urban nucleus to the otherwise flat social structures of the city. As a place for social spontaneity and integration, the site can also be receptive to the diverse population groups of the area. Orange County has a large immigrant population and a strong cultural background in Vietnamese, Hispanic, Korean, and Filipino cultures and any new developments should incorporate the rich demographic diversity of the cities and region.

Site | 7 1

Los Angeles North Orange County

Westminster Huntington Beach

Garden Grove Local

SIT

Anaheim Fullerton

Santa Ana JW Airport Irvine

The Garden Grove site offers the opportunity for a robust intermodal transit center, connecting destinations throughout the country and metro region. A rapid line following the historic PE Right of Way, will connect Downtown Los Angeles to central Orange County, Santa Ana, John Wayne Airport and Irvine. A proposed street car connects Santa Ana, Garden Grove, Disneyland, Anaheim, Stadiums and Fullerton together. Local and rapid bus lines augment the train lines.

Low Density Housing Higher Density Housing

Institutional (Civic & Religious)

Industrial

Commercial

D es i g n Formal Strategies New formal strategies that combine non-hierarchical and spontaneous space in opposition to the ultra-planned and controlled suburban spaces, will allow for the realization of latent urban potential and provide an outlet for these desires. Spaces for play and authorship will enable all citizens to have access to urban life as a right as described by Lefebvre in Le Droit a la Ville (The Right to the City).15 Citizens, regardless of socio-economic status must be incorporated into the city and any intervention has the potential to include disparate groups of people that may otherwise not interact. Traditional cities offered this possibility and made the city squares and public spaces the great mixing places of the society. Indeed the public spaces were a physical representation of the society at large, thus a strict inclusion of all types of people will ensure a maximum cross pollination of different social groups and provide maximum friction between disparate social enclaves within the greater city region. Spontaneity and play will be enabled through duplicative and overlapping functions and circulation. The ability to exercise creative control over environments will enable people to establish authorship and create spaces conducive to temporal desires. Chance interactions and social collisions through the â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;messinessâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; of a dynamic and non-organizational space will promote spontaneity. Changing spaces, functions and locations will require a conscious negotiation in order to navigate a changing landscape and encourage unexpected situations and experiences. Technology can be employed to imbue physical space with added cultural meaning and assist in the establishing of socialization and culture in urban space, instead of atomizing individuals and supporting disconnect. Urban spaces must not serve to isolate individuals, but allow for latent potentials to bubble up through the refusal of the routine and the promotion of the novel and unplanned encounter. Through the recombination and purposeful un-specificity of programmatic functions and subsequent social collisions of spontaneous encounter, the suburban may yet be able to foster and gain a true urban character. 15

Lefebvre, Henri. Hubert, Christian trans. Le Droit a la Ville. Paris: Editions Athropos, 1968.

Design | 7 3

Complicating the simple urban relations of destination-circulation dichotomies, the urban in between will become imbued with meaning as new events and program occupy the cityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s voids.

Paul Virilioâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Oblique Function, meant to create new social connectivity through the occupation of all surfaces can be used as a precedent for a continuous flexible programmatic surface that can be used in a multiplicity of ways and encourage urban spontaneity.

Site Area

The site area has the potential to become a new urban center within Garden Grove. Tying together the adjacent neighborhood functions and amplifying them through their incorporation into the new development, the site will intensify the local area and create the prerequisite conditions necessary for a vibrant urbanity.

New Transit

Capitalizing on the new transit line connecting Los Angeles and central Orange County, a new station within the site will provide increased mobility and allow access to a wider diversity of social groups.

Roofscape Parkscape

Incorporating new green spaces into the urban fabric will dramatically increase the quantity of open space and provide new opportunities for recreation and social interaction throughout the day between disparate user groups.

Design | 7 5

Typical Condition

Proposed Condition Performance

Parking

Open Space

Residential Recreation

Civic Residential

Sports Area

Transit

Studios Outdoor Cafe

Demonstration Public Art

Commercial

Street Fair

Cultural

Housing

Commercial

Park Civic Education

Intermixed Temporal Program

Parking Civic

Design | 7 7

Programmatic Strategies In opposition to current separate zoning strategies, the project proposal will seek to create maximum overlap and friction between disparate program elements. Instead of discrete single use-time spaces, the project would act as the connective in between tissue of the urban fabric, allowing functions and events to spill out and change throughout the site as new events and functions take place and allow for new interconnectivity between disparate social elements. Program boundaries will be blurred and promote a friction and negotiation between the ephemeral and temporal program elements and the more fixed stationary program components. As in the city, a high degree of diversity of program, use and time are necessary to ensure a maximum level of interaction and potential social incubation. The spontaneous and chance encounter can be encouraged and maximized as even routine circulation and daily activities are constantly upset and reconfigured by a highly dynamic programmatic urbanity that allows for significantly increased connectivity and exposure to a diverse range of events, happenings and occurrences. Given the site abuts a historic main street, with small independent businesses, big box stores, multiple kinds of housing, civic functions from the civic center and a range of educational types, these programmatic functions will be incorporated and dispersed throughout the site to encourage cross pollination between the disparate elements. Doing so gives these programmatic types more mass and volume within the urban fabric supporting density that can allow for a richer urban condition to occur. The career college can expand and gain a larger student audience with additional educational spaces that can also double as community meeting rooms. Civic functions and offices can be dispersed through the site to ground the civic center more closely within the urban fabric. Housing will add density, diversity and intensity throughout the day bringing more people to the site, and a variety of shops, commercial types and events will entice people from across the

Play Recreation

Market

Performance Sports

Park

Hou

Office

Offic

Picnic Restaurant

Housing

Beach

Classroom

Office Lounge

Recreation Parking

Classroom Office

Mark

Parking

using

Design | 7 9

Picnic

Classroom

Big Box

Cafe Shop

Station Shop

Shop

ket

Park

Housing

Play Parking

Forest

Insertion and collision of activities in a dynamic urban environment. Enabling play and spontaneity and creating a more engaging and interesting urban public space that establishes an inherent value of the former non-spaces.

Facilitation of new interactions has the potential to establish functioning public space.

Design | 8 1

region and support a diverse population base. Additionally the overlap between these basic elements can be transposed and mutated to create novel and ephemeral cross programmatic hybrids that can further take advantage of highly continuous urban form. The in between will once again become the meeting place of the citizenry, supporting dialogue and the missing urbanity not currently supported by existing cities. Pop up stores, impromptu play spaces, food truck markets, parkingskate parks, performance spaces and other spontaneous programmatic hybrids will further enrich the new urban fabrics they occupy and support an renewed urbanity in the former underutilized in between spaces of the city.

Floor surfaces allow continuous circulation and connectivity throughout the site. Parking is integrated on the lower levels and basement levels with the potential to be used in conjunction with different programmatic capacities at varying times.

Dynamic and Temporal Experiences Throughout The Day

9am

1pm

Design | 8 3

3pm

8pm

Waffle slab system with deep floor depths allows cantilevered edges and long distance spans.

Open flexible floors allow glazing systems to be integrated to delineate separate program elements.

Design | 9 3

Bifurcated columns and slanted columns contain egress stairs, vertical circulation, mechanical systems and allow for lateral bracing of the structure.

Design | 9 5

Exhaust Stack Effect Passive Ventilation

Thermal Mass Concrete Waffle Slab

Interior courtyards and openings allow natural ventilation to condition the interior spaces and provide indoor/outdoor hybrid spaces within the structure. Planted areas are integrated along the surfaces to create a diversity of surface conditions.

Third Level - Indoor Lounge Park Students take a break between classes and have a quick lunch. Local residents return home from a work and relax out on the lawn before meeting some friends for dinner at the local restaurant bordering the park space. The close proximity of disparate program elements encourages new behaviors and allows residents and visitors alike to better utilize the urban space.

Design | 9 7

Design | 9 9

Ground Level - Parking Area-plaza-Skate Park A karate class practices while a group of kids skates around. The cars are gone from the dayâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s office employees and the space becomes an impromptu place space as students get home from school. Shoppers become enamored with the karate demonstration and decide to do a free introduction class. Temporal changes through the day give the space a distinct dynamism and ephemeral character.

Second Level - Transit Center Morning rush hour and shoppers and employees arrive via train and bus. Tourists change between the light rail and long distance train to take a day trip between Los Angeles and nearby Disneyland. High schoolers arrive ready to walk the short distance to school for their morning classes. The transit center and improved walkability allow increased public transit mobility and create a pleasant journey between destinations.

Design | 1 0 1

Aerial A gallery opening is happening in the northern parking courtyard. A ‘movie in the pool’ night is gearing up to begin at the pool-parkbeach area. Cafes and shops extend their hours in anticipation as an expanded audience from across the region pours in. Passing through the project people experience a high degree of diverse and different spaces and programmatic types.

Level 2 - Interior Courtyard A family enjoys brunch in the courtyard off their living area. The local market opens for business with fresh fruit from local farmer’s while the cafe is prepping for the lunch rush of office workers. Close proximity and loose boundary conditions allow overlap between disparate programs throughout the day.

Design | 1 0 3

Third Level - Intermediate space A conference on start up businesses is occurring in the adjacent room. A local day care comes by with children to play before taking a lunch time break on the roof. Children from the local apartment come down to play with the other children and make some new friends and join them to play for the remainder of the afternoon. The spontaneous intermixing encourages these new social connections to be possible.

top Level - Roofscape A gorgeous weekend morning. Families take a stroll along the roofpark enjoying the weather. A man is blowing bubbles and passersby stop to enjoy the spectacle and an impromptu game of Bocce starts up on the lawn. Adjacent apartments look out to a dynamic social scene, and decide to join in on the game. Loose programmatic boundaries and a variety of spaces throughout the project allow these social connections to occur.

Design | 1 0 5

Ground Level - pool-park-beach The local theatre company stages a multimedia production. A gallery exhibit with pop up stores occurs inside and spills outside while passersby enjoy the show and have an evening swim. Random chance experiences make a highly temporal and ever changing enironment that keeps the urban spaces lively and unexpected even for residents and locals who frequent the same spaces.

Ground Level - pool-park-beach A hot afternoon and the pool and beach are packed with people from the local neighborhood and farther away areas along the train line. Everyone is out enjoying the weather while a protester uses the popularity of the area to express their message out to the public. Diverse groups of people are able to meet catalyzing frictions between user groups that challenge their respective perspectives about society and themselves.

Design | 1 0 7

Ground Level - Interior Market Plaza The supermarket is open and food trucks deploy up through the plaza across multiple levels, enticing people as they head to the cinema and to shop. Sloped ground planes allow mobile program elements to deploy throughout the spaces and structure inbuing new intensity to variated and random locations throughout the project.

Roofscape - Roof Plaza A social media coordinated demonstration blows up when passersby get interested and join in before an important community meeting at the civic center in a few hours. Office employees, city workers and students process through the project along the way gathering more spontaneous support and inciting discussion with spectators. The continuous form interconnects a diverse degree of disparate programs allowing the protest to flow around the site freely.

Fourth Level - Patio / Pool-Beach-Park A street performer entertains some residents and visitors while they watch the activities happening below. A swimming class takes place at the pool while groups of people run and have picnics on the grass. The programmatic adjacencies allow for this richness to occur that would otherwise not be possible in a conventional suburb.

Design | 1 0 9

Design | 1 1 1

Design | 1 1 3

Design | 1 1 5

Design | 1 1 7

Design | 1 1 9

Design | 1 2 1

V ellu m: P lay Spontaneity and play are largely absent from the urban city. Indeed, the city is constrained and does not provide places where spontaneous social encounter can occur. In older cities, the public plaza or square served this purpose, but with the advent of digital communication and deemphasis on public space, this role has been relegated to more personal and individualized experience. Now people communicate virtually in an ad hoc way, draining to a great extent the urban life that was once such an important part of urban cities and societies. Additionally the move toward privatization and radical individualization has further eroded this sense of civic â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;publicnessâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;. Places once the democratic dominion of the many are now co-opted into serving profit driven factors, which exclude any event or action that does not fit into its self serving goals. Malls are open to only those who are there to shop, corporate plazas subvert the role of the once democratic and open public space, and auto transportation atomizes individuals into separate and discrete bubbles, making difficult any spontaneous interaction between disparate social groups. Thus a new urban space is needed to counteract these trends, or at a minimum provide a space once again in the city that can be a canvas where latent urban social potential can resurface or become recognized. As described by Henri Lefebvre in The Right to the City, there must be a renewed emphasis on play and spontaneity, and in fact these attributes are a right for any city dweller to be able to access urban life.16 Lefebvre argues that the city has always consisted of dichotomies, but today there is an 16

Lefebvre, Henri. Hubert, Christian trans. Le Droit a la Ville. Paris: Editions Athropos, 1968.

Vellum: Play | 1 2 3

overwhelming focus on one side of the urban characteristic continuum, atrophying the city’s latent potentials. Spontaneity and the planned, unity and individualism, organization and disorder; the pendulum has swung too far within these various urban qualities and a new space where the latent social potentials can be realized must be created in order to reinvigorate our urban centers. The overemphasis on bureaucratic organization and profit driven exclusivity in urban space has banished the notion of spontaneity and random play almost entirely from the city. Spaces in which people can exercise control, authorship and creativity will enrich the city and provide outlets for possibilities inherently discarded and suppressed in ultra-planned compartmentalized cities. As seen in William Whyte’s film “The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces”, people feel more comfortable and can express themselves to a much higher degree when they feel or are given an explicit option of choice.17 In the film, many urban spaces are studied. How and why people use particular spaces, and what qualities make or preclude certain possibilities is the focus of the film. Of particular note is how movable chairs, a seemingly banal gesture, allows people to take a direct control over their surroundings and be able to shape their environment to the given social, environmental and climatic conditions. People can move the chairs into groups, into the shade, or anywhere they like. People will even move a chair a few inches when they sit down just to assert their authorship over their decision to place the chair and use it in the precise way they wish. Thus there is an inherent value in this sort of small gesture, because it shows that people if given the option to do so, will more often than not, exert an authorship over their immediate environment to their given desires. By having a movable piece of urban furniture, this allows for whatever desire the person has to be played out and to allow for a 17

Whyte, William. The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces.1980.

Vellum: Play | 1 2 5

reaction to a dynamic social environment. Similarly, play allows for a spontaneous and constructive outlet while simultaneously fostering a sense of socialization between potential groups. Random individuals come together to witness fleeting spectacles and happenings in the city, and novelty is enticing. Play in cities allows for the spontaneous release of latent potentials as described by Lefebvre, and creates a socialization factor in the immediate surrounding. Simply put, people want to be where other people are, as articulated by Jan Gehl in Cities for People.18 Therefore, the freedom and possibility to play has the power to catalyze spontaneous spectacle and socialization. Chairs is public settings are often monolithic, immobile and inflexible. As such, most public benches are stationary and relegated to being in a fixed location indefinitely. Despite any changing condition, they are an accessory to the architecture and often do not propagate an effective use. Changing weather conditions leaves some benches unused. Solar changes throughout the day may make certain locations pleasant and others hostile to use, comfort or desire. Changing groups and users make linear configurations inadequate and inappropriate, other forms too rigid and unresponsive. In the face of these issues, a chair that is capable to respond to dynamic changing conditions and allow for user control would be beneficial and novel. The Roulette chair seeks to introduce a metric of play and changeability into the public chair. The form of the chair allows the piece to be manipulated and explored. The chairâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s form is a ring, similar to a tread, which allows the chair to be mobile. Users can lift and roll the piece to new locations and settings. The piece can be both utilized individually and in a group. The amorphous form of the chair suggests a use, but invites and necessitates the input of the user to discover a viable 18

Gehl, Jan. Cities for People. Washington DC: Island Press, 2012.

Vellum: Play | 1 2 7

Plywood Seat Surfaces Interior Structural Keels Sliding Rod Channels Key Notches for Keels

30”

CNC Cut Plywood Sheathing Panels 3/4” D

19”

CNC Cut Plywood Sheathing Keels 3/4” D

16”

30”

18”

20”

9”

X 18

Steel Rod 8” L, 3/8” dia.

X 18

Steel Spring 7.75” L, .875” dia.

X 36

Rubber Grommet 3/8” ID, 7/8” OD

X 72

X 18

Hex Locknut 9/16” W

Mortise Mount Hinge, Round Corners 3 1/2” H&W

X 36

No 9 Wood Screw 5/8” L

X 108

Vellum: Play | 1 2 9

chair siting position possibility. Multiple chair varieties are designed into the chair framework, but the individual is free to manipulate the chair to discover to what degree and how many different configurations there are within the chair and ultimately which position best serves their desires and function. The spectacle of the chair provides an impetus for social interaction and socialization. Strangers may vocalize and converse with each other or stare as users manipulate the piece. A double seat configuration is also embedded within the framework of the chair, but requires two people to collaborate in order to access it. Thus some configurations of the chair become inaccessible unless there is a direct interaction between two or more people to realize certain aspects of the chair; it demands some sort of interaction. Here the chair can become a mechanism to activate playful behavior and allow for customization and authorship by different users. Interactions and collaboration between users are necessary and create socialization in the pursuit of common goals. As such the Roulette chair could be deployed in order to catalyze latent urban social potential and act as a catalyst for creativity and interaction in a variety of urban spaces, and in doing so, allow for a more spontaneous and fulfilling city.

Vellum: Play | 1 3 1

P ro b e T h es i s S h ow Doug Jackson Studioâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s final thesis show PROBE featuring work of the collective studio. The concept was to entice users to uncover and explore layers of content within each individual personâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s presentation and thesis. iPads, lights and augmented reality software (Aurasma) were used to overlay additional content that would be activated by users manipulating the iPad to actively view a particular image, which would then trigger displaying additional overlaid content. Augmented information was embedded by each student into the course of their presentation, and within their physical models to further explain the theses and add a sense of discovery and play to the show. Hanging presentation boards allowed projected content to be displayed while Ubi software interfaced with a Kinnect connected to a laptop and projector to turn the board space into a touch interface, allowing multi-touch interaction. Presentations were designed to entice the user to explore further and decipher and explore the content at their leisure and allow for deeper and fuller engagement with the work of each student. Hyperlinked and cross referenced material allowed users to understand and explore the project at their own pace and through a unique personal perspective, following the thesis in a sequence that they determined.

PROBE Thesis Show | 1 3 3

Promotional printed postcard sent out to announce the show to friends, family and colleagues.

Augmented reality content overlay triggered by the PROBE sign on the projector board. A looped video introducing each students project and profile would display on the hand held iPad screen when the camera and software were triggered by the physical PROBE image.

PROBE Thesis Show | 1 3 5

PROBE Thesis Show | 1 3 7

PROBE Thesis Show | 1 3 9

PROBE Thesis Show | 1 4 1

PROBE Thesis Show | 1 4 3