Urban Fabric(ations) & Urban Surface by hyun ji Kim

URBAN FABRIC(ATIONS) &URBAN SURFACE

CAL POLY PO POMONA / FALL 2017 / HYUNJI KIM / LA463 SENIOR SEMI SEMINAR NAR (ITALY) / SANTA CHIARA / PROFESSOR RENNIE TANG

The words fabric, fabricate and (see definitions below), and the subtle differences but underlying relationships between them arising from their shared root word, provides us with an interesting point of departure for how we might consider the Italian landscape. Urban fabric refers to the interweaving of conditions : physical, cultural, historical, environmental, economic, political while suggests something that is ‘made-up’ or a story that is ‘concocted’ for specific, sometimes deceptive, purposes; whereas the verb to fabricate refers to a material process involving the production of artifacts. As strangers and curious travelers, you must physically and mentally immerse yourselves within the fabric and of the cities you will be visiting. As designers, you are expected to take a rigorous yet open-ended heuristic approach to urban research that forces you to see and experience that which the typical tourist does not.

MUNICH

PARIS

CFno

CONTENT 5-6

DRIFT I WORK CITED

7-12

MAPPING I DIAGRAM I NARRATIVE I CASTIGLION FIORENTINO

13-18

MAPPING I DIAGRAM I NARRATIVE I PARIS

19-24

MAPPING I DIAGRAM I NARRATIVE I MUNICH

25-28

PHOTOGRAPHIC ESSAY I CONSTELLATION NARRATIVE

DRIFT Wandering operates tangentially. It detours, dallies, takes its time. To wander is to drift. It is a tactic for getting lost. Navigational aids and maps might be misused for wilful disorientation. Guidebooks used as tools for de-familiarisation and misdirection as much as for finding oneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s way. Drifting is a mode of attention that lags behind the trajectory of more purposeful thought, yet other knowledge(s) become revealed in the slipstream of intention, in its shadows and asides. To catch the drift is to gauge th tenor of the subtext, to become attuned to what is left out or unspoken, to what is said in what remains unsaid. Become practised in the art of wandering and of drifting thought. Follow in the footsteps of others who have wandered from the beaten track. Yet.remember too, that wandering necessarily wanders; it restlessness wills against the delimitation of any single genealogy or definitive theory of tis derive. To wander wills towards remaining unfixed, towards the condition of unbelonging.

Emma Cocker

WORK CITED COCKER, EMMA. YES OF THE NO. SITE GALLERY, 2016. LEATHERBARROW, DAVID. UNCOMMON GROUND: ARCHITECTURE,TECHONOLOGY,AND TOPOGRAPHY. MIT. 2002

DRIFT II WORK CITED

WALKING ALGORITHM inizi chiedersi da unâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;area residenziale (Start wondering from a residential area) Your eyes are downward instead of looking straight Follow paving pattern and crack taking photos at the same scale If you confront to a track that led to nowhere, start observe surrounding Drift to the most beaten track by people Keep wondering until you find a public place

CASTIGLION C A S T I G L I O N FIORENTINO FIORENTINO 43.3447° N, 11.9188° E

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Via S

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Via Trento

WALKING NARRATIVE “To catch the drift is… to become attuned to what is said in what remains unsaid” (Cocker,2016) I am really interested in various paving pattern in Castiglion Florentino. I think it is aesthetically unique and functionally performs well. For example, the paving on the hill side is permeable square pattern that help to infiltrate rain water and to prevent pavement slipping at the same time. During my first walking algorithm, I ended up going up to the public parking lot called Piazza Garibaldi. I found so many cracks on asphalt and they all looked different. Some cracks are circular or triangular. I questioned myself why there are various marks on this Plaza. The Piazza usually functions as public parking lot. However, during specific time of the year, the Piazza Garibaldi becomes a public space, where cultural and social events take place such as The Patio del Rionni hourse race, motorcycle competition, Friday farmer market. Even myself, i hadn’t carefully thought about what can be revealed from the cracks on the asphalt. I think it is a critical issue now. The perfectly paved asphalt is an ideal condition people made. Castiglion Fiorentino in Italy is a small town but they are keeping their identity. It is okay not to repair the cracks. It is ecologically help pavement infiltration. However, cracks on urban surface are part of the evolution of a city and reveal its culture and history. Via d e

lla Fo

Via d

ella

Cro ci

na MAPPING II WALKING NARRATIVE

STAN

AL DI

VERTICAL DISTANCE

OGIC GEOL

ELEVATION CHANGE

READING NARRATIVE The author, Leatherbarrow, talks about four distances: horizon, vertical, geological. In Castiglion Florentino, the most of houses in the town are two or three stories. They do not have enough space to have their own garden. However, interestingly, every house has hanging garden in their window or stairway. Ivy or grape is growing from ground to wall, extending to neighbourhood. The vertical distance in this town is raised to window level and the horizon for this case becomes the sky and cloud. In the diagram, the map of Tuscany overlap with the current map; it highlights the past and present evolution of the city. To be specific, Castiglion Fiorentino used to be a marsh in the past. Because of ﬂooding, people started to move up and build their town on the hillside and reclaimed the marshland. It becomes agriculture field now. This walled city overlocks the Val di Chio through olive field and agricultural field. There are drainages in the agricultural land. Vertical distance and horizontal distance can be applied to drainage. If we overlook the field, the liner drainage pattern becomes revealed. However, if we see the land at the eye level; we don’t recognize the drainage and see it as a continuous landscape. VIE W OF VAL DI CHIO (RUDERI DEL CASTEL D’ERNIA AND RUDERI DEL CASTELLO DELLA MOUNTANINA)

OLIVE FIELD

HORIZO

NTAL D

AGRICULTURE FIELD

ISTANC

SUBURBAN

DIAGRAM II READING NARRATIVE

CASTIGLION FIORENTINO PARIS 48.8566° N, 2.3522° E

WALKING NARRATIVE “Drifting is a mode of attention that lags behind the trajectory of more purposeful thought, yet other knowledges become revealed in the slipstream of intention” (Cocker,2016). After walking algorithm in Paris, I realized that their drain system is not working properly based on what I saw on the street. Before we arrived in Paris, there was a rain. Thus, I could see trace of rain. The rain water was backing up from street drains and there were pools of water on the street. Also, some of driveway and sidewalk are overlapped with new paving to repair cracked pavement by weather condition. I could see different color and texture of the mix of old and new paving layers. During the walk, i often saw the same marks on the street while walking. I couldn’t figure out what the marks were made by until I carefully looked at a motorcycle parked in front of Université Paris-Dauphine. I realized that the marks were created by motorcycle kickstands. From that, I assume that there is no exact motorcycle parking space in Paris so that motorcycle users tend to park on the sidewalk. Drifting is a not just wandering around. It is about finding unrevealed knowledge while walking. In my case, my focus is on the ground. As i walk, i started to analysis the rule of paving pattern. I started to realize that there is certain type of paving that used on driveway and even the mark made by motorcycle kickstands. If I would just wander around the city and not pay attention to paving, i wouldn’t notice this mark. I think drifting is a new way of understanding the culture of the city.

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Boulevard Flan

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m vard E

MAPPING II WALKING NARRATIVE

RT VE AL DI CE

AN ST

GEOLOGICAL DISTANCE

HORIZONTAL DISTANCE

AL NT O RIZ

AN IST

ELEVATION CHANGE

VIEW TO THE SEINE RIVER

READING NARRATIVE In case of Paris, the city geologically built around river Seine. In terms of large scale, vertical distance can be measured by architecture building near the river. However, the horizontal distance can be measured by the existing landscape.

VERTICAL DISTANCE

The diagram illustrates how urban space or park near river is designed and how the horizontal and vertical distances help to create different special experience. In terms of vertical distance, there is a raised terrace like structure near the Seine. This structure helps people provide different views of urban landscape. At the different elevation, horizon of vision changes from sky to river. In Paris, there are a lot of activities going on near the river such as art installation, international food festival, and sports and so on. These cultural aspects in public realm help to expand the boundaries of landscape.

DIAGRAM II READING NARRATIVE

CASTIGLION FIORENTINO MUNICH 48.1351° N, 11.5820° E

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straße

Pfeufer

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Lindwu

WALKING NARRATIVE From my third walking algorithm experience in Munich, Germany, Munich’s cycling networks is well established as compared to other cities: Castiglion Fiorentino and Paris. The bicycle lanes are not really segregated form pedestrian paths but different paving materials or mark on the paving help people to distinguish between pedestrian paths and bicycle road. However, there were not many variation of paving pattern. I started to refer back to Cocker text:

“to catch the drift is … to become attuned to what is said in what remains unsaid...focus on what is revealed from a beaten track”(Cocker,2016). The paving patterns in Munich are pretty similar to Italy. I saw the grey cobble stone paving pattern that can be found in Italy as well. However, one thing I realized that grass or mosses are growing between paving stones and fallen deciduous leaves are filling the gap between pavings on the street. These are underlying that most of street tresses in Munich are deciduous trees, showing transition of season. For example, street tresses in Castiglion Fiorentino such as Italian cypress and umbrella pine are more likely to be evergreen. In their culture, Italians tend to use Italian cypress to welcome visitors. In order to do that, they prefer to have evergreen tress than deciduous trees. Moreover, from my observation in Munich, brick walls, stone foundations of buildings, even color of buildings and roof create the warmth feeling and it harmonizes well with fall colors in terms of visual impact.

Ka e

raß

t ers zin

pu MAPPING II WALKING NARRATIVE

AN IST

IC A

OG OL GE

ELEVATION CHANGE/DEPTH OF RIVER AND INTERACTION

VERTICAL DISTANCE

VIE W TO THE ISAR RIVER & CITY

HORIZONTAL DISTANCE

ORIZONTAL DISTANCE

READING NARRATIVE English garden in Munich is a public park along the Isar River. It has very subtle change of vertical distance. The vertical distance changes as the depth of water increase. However, It still provides different experience and interaction between people and landscape. At the low body of water, the water level is shallow enough for people to play in the water. However, as water depth increase, people tend to occupy space surrounding of the river and start to look at the horizontal view of the riverscape. In other words, as vertical distance increase, horizontal distance increases. Also, there is a temple like rotunda building on the hillside of the park. From there, people can sit down and enjoy the extensive ground view of the river and panoramic view of the city. According to Leatherbarrow,

“Gardens have limits; the landscape extends toward the horizon... The reach of the landscape is as far as the eye can see...the gardens that are culturally signiﬁcant establish meaningful connections to the larger landscape. .”(Leatherbarrow,2002). This extensive green area represents pure Munich lifestyle for 225 years. It is a public realm where equally rich in culture and history. I think Munich citizens and visitors established this cultural public space. They extended their landscape from their yard to English garden. Usually we see park as a contained landscape and a boundary within city. However, the notion of horizontal distance and vertical distance offers an expanded view of landscape and even atmospheric condition such as sky.

DIAGRAM II READING NARRATIVE

PHOTOGRAPHIC ESSAY MEDIAN STRIP

CASTIGLION FIORENTINO CONSTELLATION NARRATIVE

CASTIGLION FIORENTINO

PARIS

MUNICH

CONSTELLATION NARRATIVE Wandering has different meanings depending on what motivates the action. In routine life, walking is a simple act of lifting one foot and putting it on the other. While walking, we see so many things but overlook trivial moments. For example, we walk and step on the same paths everyday; however, not everyone really pay attention to the pattern on the paving. My approach for walking algorithm focused on what is revealed from a beaten track. I think that different paving patterns and cracks on urban surface are part of the evolution of a city and reveal its culture and history. For example, Garibaldi square in Castiglion Fiorentino has various marks on the asphalt. It is because there are a lot of activities at the place such as Friday Market and Bike competition etc. Also, in Pairs, i could find the specific mark by motorcycle kickstands. From that, I assume that there is no exact motorcycle parking space in Paris and motorcycle users tend to park on the sidewalk. Furthermore, each city uses median in different ways. I found that median strips in Munich function as bicycle parking lot. It was interesting to compare to other cities like Paris. The median in Paris is utilized as parking space. However, there is no median in Castiglion Fiorentino; however, i noticed that there is circular space at every intersection of the main road in Italy. There is a sculpture within the circular space in Castiglion Fiorentino. Through this walking algorithm, I could understand each city better and analysis different ways. To b specific, people have their own ways of learning. Sometimes it is good to research about a place before you visit. There is a quote by Lao Tzu, â&#x20AC;&#x153;A smart traveller has no fixed plans, and is not intent on arrivingâ&#x20AC;?. I strongly agree with this quote. When I visit each country; I did not really research about a place because I like to discover something unexpected. I expose myself into the city and have my eyes wide open and pay attention to everything because you can get to know a city by its people, its building, its food, and so on. And if I want to learn more about the place, then I start doing research. Walking algorithm exercise provides me different perspective to see the city.

PHOTOGRAPHIC ESSAY II CONSTELLATION NARRATIVE