CONTEMPORARY ENCOUNTERS
wandering the connected city
Laura Dillon
Parsons the New School for Design
Spring 2015
“What is to come? I ask, brushing the crumbs from my waistcoat, what is outside? We have proved, sitting eating, sitting talking, that we can add to the treasury of moments. We are not slaves bound to suffer incessantly unrecorded petty blows on our bent backs. We are not sheep either, following a master.We are creators.We too have made something that will join the innumerable congregations of past time.We too, as we put on our hats and push open the door, stride not into chaos, but into a world that our own force can subjugate and make part of the illumined and everlasting road.� -Virginia Woolf, The Waves
table of contents 01 / short abstract
4
02 / acknowledgements
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03 / abstract
7
04 / introduction
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05 / case studies + background research psychogeography tower viewers solar alignment Claude mirrors
13 13 17 19 21
06 / site analysis program island grid avenue tunnel
23 25 26 30 35 39
07 / thesis as a technical challenge
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08 / contemporary encounters
56
09 / conclusion
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10 / bibliography
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01 / short abstract
The city is an accumulated multiplicity of experiences, a continually evolving collage of our
individual encounters, interruptions, and diversions. New York City is aggregated from the particular urban conditions that comprise it: the island of Manhattan, the grid of streets, the rows of tall buildings lining the avenues, and the network of underground subway tunnels afford us a unique and spectacular physicality that cannot be substituted or reduced.
Today, we encounter the city’s ineffable rhythms simultaneously through digital and physical
means. Our digital devices enable a prolific capturing and disseminating of views, their steady glow reveals the energy that sustains them, and their darkened screens reflect the surrounding environment. The rhythm and choreography of our experience are enmeshed in the convergence of our digital and physical urban behaviors.
This thesis addresses our changing relationship with the space of the city as we grow
increasingly more captivated by the digital world. The four sites I have chosen collectively embody an experience of New York City. I propose a network of moments interspersed throughout the city–– incidents of orchestrated view, light, and reflection that might preserve the irreducible nuances that enrich our urban experience, while engaging the duality with which we encounter the city today.
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02 / acknowledgements
There are a number of people who have been part of this humbling and revelatory process
with me, both who have helped to restrain the final project as well as to expand the conversation. The scope of this project is both broader and deeper than I could have imagined, and it is only through the guidance and support of those around me that I was able to maintain any sense of direction, however vague.
Peter Wheelwright: Thank you for seeing me through these last few months, and for all your
patience, brilliance, and conversation.You are entitled to much of the credit for this project––your persistent encouragement that I not be so quick to discard certain scattered ideas motivated me to pursue them more rigorously than I otherwise would have (although I know I have still only barely scratched the surface.) Thank you for believing, even when I didn’t, that there was something coherent to be teased out of this jumble of research and thoughts.Your advice and recommendations have been invaluable.
Brooke Carter and Nathalie Rozot: Thank you for encouraging me to think both more broadly
and more specifically about how we might expand the agency and scope of lighting design. The technical workshops you led were very engaging, and I left each one with a new perspective to my consideration of conventional lighting design practices.
To everyone in the second floor studio who shared passing thoughts, short discussions, knives,
tape, hugs, coffee, or drawing advice: thank you for all of those things, and for listening to me and challenging me. It has been inspiring to work alongside all of you.
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To my parents, Drew and Debbie Dillon: Among countless other qualities, you have instilled in
me a profound desire never to stop learning, digging, investigating, and exploring––even if this desire may have taken twenty-six years or so to really materialize. (And it continues to take shape still.) Also, I have only recently become truly aware of the value of your insistence that I learn how to write, so thank you for that––I continue to try.
James McAlistair Wilson:You were a tireless backboard for every idea, every discussion, every
disappointment, and every dead end. This topic and its extensions and implications have occupied many of our conversations for over a year, and they will probably continue to do so. I hope that this project will be one of many more, that we continue forever to scratch and tear away at the boundaries of what it means to inhabit. (And thank you, of course, for the extra modeling hands and ongoing Rhino advice.)
And finally, I would like to thank the man I came across at a coffee shop on 27th Street one day
in March, as I sat and wrote about the city, smart devices, and their place in our lives. He dexterously juggled his collection of screens at a neighboring seat for several minutes before he leaned over and asked me if he could please borrow a piece of paper, because, regrettably, he’d left his notebook at home.
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03 / abstract “The ordinary practitioners of the city live “down below,” below the thresholds at which visibility begins.They walk––an elementary form of this experience of the city; they are walkers, Wändersmänner, whose bodies follow the thicks and thins of an urban “text” they write without being able to read it...The paths that correspond in this intertwining, unrecognized poems in which each body is an element signed by many others, elude legibility. It is as though the practices organizing a bustling city were characterized by their blindness.The networks of these moving, intersecting writings compose a manifold story that has neither author nor spectator, shaped out of fragments of trajectories and alterations of spaces: in relation to representations, it remains daily and indefinitely other.” 1 – Michel De Certeau, The Practice of Everyday Life
The city is an accumulated multiplicity of experiences, a continually evolving collage of
our individual encounters, interruptions, and diversions. The space of the city is formed out of the myriad ways in which we use it. New York City is aggregated from the particular urban conditions that comprise it, and the character of our interactions with those conditions. The island of Manhattan, the grid of streets, the rows of tall buildings lining the avenues, and the network of underground subway tunnels afford us a unique and spectacular physicality that cannot be adequately substituted or reduced.
Today, we encounter the city’s ineffable rhythms simultaneously through digital and physical
means. Our digital devices enable a prolific capturing and disseminating of views, their steady glow reveals the energy that sustains them, and their darkened screens reflect the surrounding environment. The rhythm and choreography of our experience are enmeshed in the convergence of our digital and physical urban behaviors: from the shores of the island we look out across the water, toward the horizon, framing views of it in our smartphone cameras; at busy intersections, we consult maps on our devices, matching their representations of the street with the three-dimensional reality of our surroundings; walking the avenues, our gaze is drawn upward by the building tops and the narrow view of sky 1
DeCerteau, Michel and Steven Rendall. The Practice of Everyday Life. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984.
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between them; and we ride the subway, occupied with digital devices to pass the time as we ascend and descend above and below the city.
urban device/body choreography
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These objects emit light of their own, enabling us to access the digital world in the dark, freeing
us from the need for external light to perform tasks within its realm. We carry this light around with us, gazing into glowing rectangles as they illuminate our faces, or employing them as flashlights to reveal our surroundings in the dark.
smartphone glow + reflection
The reflective quality of our ubiquitous digital screens finds an analogue in the 19th century
use of the Claude mirror: small, dark, often convex mirrors used by landscape painters to observe, reduce, and frame their subjects. Through the altered reflection of such a surface, the world attains a beauty, a sublimity that provokes contemplation of an ostensibly ordinary scene. Dark, specular surfaces are omnipresent in our urban environment. In addition to digital screens, windows, glass facades, still water, and photovoltaic surfaces all present opportunities for the composition of moments of observation and reflection embedded within the pedestrian space of the city.
claude glass, smartphone, and photovoltaic panel reflections
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This thesis addresses our changing relationship with the space of the city as we grow
increasingly more captivated by the digital world. The four sites I have chosen collectively embody an experience of New York City. Drawing on the spatial qualities specific to each site, and informed by the use of the Claude mirror and the urban potential of dark reflective surfaces, I propose a network of moments interspersed throughout the city––incidents of orchestrated view, light, and reflection that might preserve the irreducible nuances that enrich our urban experience, while engaging the duality with which we encounter the city today.
conceptual images
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04 / introduction “As we spend more and more of our lives gazing at screens, tuning our senses to the fabricated distances that we see there, the instinctive participation of our eyes in the near and far of the world is suspended for longer and longer periods.The ability to actively engage the manifold and shifting depth of the land—altering one’s focus from a close clump of grass to the faroff cliffs, then abruptly back to fix on a woodpecker thwacking a dead snag in the intermediate distance—disarticulates and dissolves in the face of this new entrancement with a world displayed at an exact remove from one’s face.” 2 – David Abram, Becoming Animal
In seeking to understand the environment around us, we employ various representations of it.
We study maps in order to form ideas in our minds of unfamiliar places; we photograph scenes we wish to reminisce about later; we read stories written by other people who have also encountered the world, each in his own way, to try to access understanding for ourselves. We each come to conclusions that reflect our worldview and experiences, and also tell of the representations that helped us get there.
The physical experience of the city is inherently overwhelming, its scale of space and movement
far surpassing our own. Engagement with representational tools mediates our experience of the vast city, transcending the difference in scale and granting us access to a visceral understanding. Each of these tools contributes a particular quality to our observation. Every method we use to shrink, frame, and enclose parts of the city has an effect on the way we then understand it.
Today, the digital world offers us new platforms for experiencing space that are quite different
in character from the analog world we simultaneously inhabit. Physical experience is increasingly accompanied by an underlying, invisible structure––a virtual presence with its own rules, its own time, and its own space. Our encounters are augmented by abundant layers of information, readily available with a click, tap, or swipe of the hand. 2
Abram, David. Becoming animal: an earthly cosmology. New York: Pantheon Books, 2010.
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The emerging double nature of our engagement with the world is changing the quality of our
presence. It is crucial that as designers, we consider the impacts of this dual experience of space. The internet and its various manifestations exert intangible forces on our spatial experience through the representations they promote and the modes of activity they encourage. In engaging increasingly with digital representations, are we growing more distant from the physical nuances that shape and enrich our urban experience?
This secondary structure of digital experience is often set at odds with our experience of the
‘real.’ We inhabit two divided realms that vie for our attention and seem to exist as two halves of an irreconcilable dichotomy. We might think of the digital and physical worlds as mutual escapes from one another, but our experience today is ultimately formed through both. At the same time, though, there is an enduring immediacy and urgency to physical presence that cannot be enhanced by digital layers.
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05 / case studies + background research PSYCHOGEOGRAPHY
The Situationist International was a group of avant-garde thinkers in the mid-twentieth
century who sought the critique and subversion of modern capitalist society, particularly with regard to the social and spatial consequences of consumerism. Among their chief concerns was the effect on architecture and urbanism brought on by the increasing commodification of city life. In The Society of the Spectacle, Guy Debord speaks to the economic demands of a burgeoning capitalist society, and the increasing loss of nuance and specificity that afflicted the city’s atmosphere as a result: “The capitalist production system has unified space, breaking down the boundaries between one society and the next.This unification is also a process, at once extensive and intensive, of trivialization. Just as the accumulation of commodities mass-produced for the abstract space of the market inevitably shattered all regional and legal barriers, as well as all those corporative restrictions that served in the Middle Ages to preserve the quality of craft production, so too it was bound to dissipate the independence and quality of places.” 3
Subject to the homogenizing influence of new technologies and growth of capitalist demands,
experience of the city had grown flattened, driven more by quantitative pursuits of planning and calculation than by the agency of individual experience. The Situationists advanced the notion of psychogeography as a response. Debord expresses psychogeography as “the study of the precise laws and specific effects of the geographical environment, whether consciously organized or not, on the emotions and behavior of individuals.” 4 It proposed a way of walking around the city prompted by wandering, impulse, and a visceral awareness of contextual geography. Psychogeography combined subjective and objective ways of understanding the city by suggesting a way of moving about it that merged the unpredictability of individual whims with a methodical awareness of geographical context. Debord, Guy. The Society of the Spectacle. New York: Zone Books, 1994. Debord, Guy. “Introduction to a Critique of Urban Geography.” In Situationist International Anthology, edited by Ken Knabb. Berkeley, California: Bureau of Public Secrets, 1981.
3 4
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A psychogeographical excursion in the city is known as a dérive: a drifting pathway in pursuit of
a more organic and sensorially derived urban experience than that delineated by the logical arrangement of streets and sidewalks. Independence of movement is asserted as a response to increasing automation and mechanization of both the environment and the individual. Experience comes to be defined more through processes of encounter and less through pre-conceived agenda.
Debord suggests that the unique qualities of a city are to be discovered through the unfolding
space of these dérives. The capitalist production and organization systems were prone to disregarding the spatial nuances and experiential particularities that defined a place: “The sudden change of ambience in a street within the space of a few meters; the evident division of a city into zones of distinct psychic atmospheres; the path of least resistance that is automatically followed in aimless strolls (and which has no relation to the physical contour of the terrain); the appealing or repelling character of certain places––these phenomena all seem to be neglected.” 5
Along with the development of this approach to urban experience came the need for a
new sort of representation. The Situationists began to create maps and ways of drawing the city that were not based solely on its externally determined organization or overarching plan. The new forms of representation encourage a way of thinking about architecture and urban space as a system of movements and actions rather than the static organization of carefully laid out buildings and streets and intersections. They sought to take into account the serendipitous possibilities of agenda-less wanderings: “Rather than float above the city as some sort of omnipotent, instantaneous, disembodied, all-possessing eye, situationist cartography admitted that its overview of the city was reconstructed in the imagination, piecing together an experience of space that was actually terrestrial, fragmented, subjective, temporal, and cultural.” 6
These images were often created from fragments of pre-existing maps, or collages of people
and the city juxtaposed to communicate a particular atmosphere or character of journey. In The Naked City, Guy Debord and Asger Jorn selected parts of the city of Paris that they deemed worth exploring, and composed those on a map with arrows to emphasize choice and movement among them. They suggested a narrative for moving about the city, as well as indicated possible experiential juxtapositions of different areas of Paris regardless of their geographical distance. Debord, Guy. “Introduction to a Critique of Urban Geography.” In Situationist International Anthology, edited by Ken Knabb. Berkeley, California: Bureau of Public Secrets, 1981. 6 Sadler, Simon. The Situationist City. Cambridge Mass.: MIT Press, 1998. 5
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Guy Debord + Asger Jorn, The Naked City (from The Situationist City, Simon Sadler)
Several decades later, echoing ideas put forth by the Situationists, Michel de Certeau writes of
everyday life in the urban environment, and its subjection to forces of organization and quantification. In The Practice of Everyday Life, de Certeau puts forth the assertion that our experiences are compositions of the minute, mundane actions we participate in daily, and it is these actions, these movements and thoughts that determine the character of our lives in the city, not the overarching, all-inclusive images of the city advanced by maps and postcards of birds’ eye views. De Certeau defines tactics as those practices that are not pre-orchestrated, but responsive to opportunities, resolvable on a temporal basis according to the considerations of the moment. In wandering about the city, the use of tactics is comparable to the dérive, remaining open to the pushes and pulls of the urban environment and behaving accordingly. The “manifold story”7 composed through these tactics is what characterizes our unique experience of a place.
The physical space of the modern city, writes de Certeau, is strategic, organized and built by
exterior forces, and often hinders the expression of the individual actions and movements that make up its distinctive character. Even as inhabitants of the city, we are surrounded by images of its abstraction, 7
DeCerteau, Michel and Steven Rendall. The Practice of Everyday Life. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984.
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enchanted with postcards, maps and panoramic views that allow us to grasp the entirety of the city through our eyes, hold it in our hands. The magnitude of the city’s scale is made manageable through the production and distribution of these representations. They encourage us to take a view of ourselves as part of the city as a determined, unified whole; as cogs in a machine, not as malleable individuals constantly determining and re-determining its ever-changing structure.
Both de Certeau and Debord suggest methods of subversion, ways of operating in a tactical
manner within an imposed framework in order to undermine the rigidity of governing strategies: “In fact, nothing really new can be expected until the masses in action awaken to the conditions that are imposed on them in all domains of life, and to the practical means of changing them.” 8 A dérive is conducted within the constraints of the urban environment, and uncovers the possibilities and choice that exist within those constraints as a way of pursuing a more subjective, drifting encounter with the city. De Certeau’s discussion of the production of consumption proposes that one’s particular methodology of behaving as a consumer gives the individual a choice in how to participate in the governing structure.9 It is not by default that one must resign oneself to the imposed framework of regulation and subsequent formulaic modes of being. By performing tactical maneuvers within the limits imposed by the system, one can establish new modes of behavior, new ways of being in space.
Debord, Guy. “Introduction to a Critique of Urban Geography.” In Situationist International Anthology, edited by Ken Knabb. Berkeley, California: Bureau of Public Secrets, 1981. 9 DeCerteau, Michel and Steven Rendall. The Practice of Everyday Life. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984. 8
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TOWER VIEWERS
Known by several names, tower viewers, or coin-operated binoculars, are iconic accessories
in the tourism industry, installed near landmarks and geographically significant locations to encourage viewing of the surroundings. By providing established viewpoints from which to observe the landscape, these ubiquitous structures contribute to contextual understanding of specific places. With particular features of the landscape emphasized and brought closer to us through the binoculars, a panoramic view is fragmented and presented to us at a more manageable scale.
A network of these viewers distributed across a landscape contributes a sense of connection
between points of interest. Their uncomplicated, self-explanatory design provides a uniform language through which to promote ideas of place. They can be perceived as nodes stitched together by the landscape, as a group contributing their own unique level of understanding to spatial experience. It is worth considering the behavior of those who visit these sites and operate these machines. Are people more likely to contemplate the place where they have arrived, or look into a portal to the place they’ve just come from––or are going to? In The Practice of Everyday Life, Michel de Certeau writes of the desire to see from above, the phenomenon of grasping the city all at once from an isolated viewpoint. He notes the displacement of ourselves from the messiness of everyday life that is necessary in order to attain this all-seeing view: “Is the immense texturology spread out before one’s eyes anything more than a representation, an optical artifact? It is the analogue of the facsimile produced, through a projection that is a way of keeping aloof, by the space planner urbanist, city planner or cartographer.The panorama-city is a “theoretical” (that is, visual) simulacrum, in short a picture, whose condition of possibility is an oblivion and a misunderstanding of practices.The voyeur-god created by this fiction, who, like Schreber’s God, knows only cadavers, must disentangle himself from the murky intertwining daily behaviors and make himself alien to them.” 10
10
DeCerteau, Michel and Steven Rendall. The Practice of Everyday Life. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984.
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In contrast to the panoramic views afforded by viewing towers and lookout points, coin-
operated binoculars allow for understanding of the landscape on multiple scales. Rather than simply encouraging us to go up to the highest point and look down to grasp the entirety of the landscape at once, looking through a fixed set of binoculars out to a vast landscape or seascape allows us simultaneous access to the panoramic view and the details in it. The function and use of these apparatuses demonstrates a means of reconciling the vast scale of nature and the city with that of our bodies.
Tower Optical Co. Tower Viewer, collage by author
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SOLAR ALIGNMENT
Solar alignment as an architectural intention has long been part of the history of the built
environment. The practice of designing structures to illuminate pathways or apertures at specific times of the year compels us to contemplate the relationship between our built spaces and the larger order of the universe. The framing of the sun provides a direct reference to our position on the earth, whether or not it is intentionally built into the architecture. The event might be something one plans for, an occasion that draws people together for deliberate contemplation of our place in the world—or it might be interwoven through our lives, something we happen upon unexpectedly that jolts us into awareness of the context and specificity of time and place.
Structures that align with the movement of the sun are numerous and of varied intention: some
orchestrate the movement and position with respect to sunlight for religious or spiritual intentions; others as a way of measuring our relationship with the sun in pursuit of deeper scientific understanding. Other instances of solar alignment are accidents of architecture that bring surprise and delight after the structure has been built.
In Ireland’s Boyne Valley, around 3200 BC, a local farming community constructed a large,
mound-shaped structure that covers over one acre of land and is elevated from its surrounding landscape by a stone retaining wall. The inside of the structure is lined with stone passageways and chambers. The main passageway leads to a cruciform chamber deep in the interior of the mound. The structure is of uncertain purpose––it is classified as a tomb, but there remain questions about its possible religious and ceremonial significance as well, due to the presence of the cruciform chamber and to the lighting effects that occur there on the winter solstice of every year. On this day, for several minutes right around sunrise, sunlight illuminates the entrance of the mound and extends all the way through the inner passageway, flooding the cruciform chamber with light.
In the nineteenth century, seeking to further understand the relationship between the sun and
the earth, Sawai Jai Singh built a solar observatory in west central India known as Jantar Mantar. This collection of architectural devices for measuring the sun’s behavior includes the world’s largest sundial, Samrat Yantra (‘The Supreme Instrument’) Jai Singh had a passion for architecture and astronomy and
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wished to gather the most accurate astronomical data possible. The large, building-sized instruments allowed for some of the most accurate readings of the time, and today Jantar Mantar remains a site where visitors can sense the sun’s movement throughout the day on a scale that conveys the vastness of the solar system while remaining accessible by the body.
To return to a modern, urban context: the phenomenon known as Manhattanhenge describes
the sun’s setting in line with the tilt of Manhattan’s grid, twice each year, a few weeks on either side of the summer solstice. The tall buildings create a visual pathway that frames the sun’s movement, implying intention in the alignment even where it is coincidental. This event draws crowds to observe the aligned sunsets, inspiring contemplation of the confluence of the sun, the earth, the city, and ourselves.
Manhattanhenge (Andrew Wasserman) (collage by author)
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CLAUDE MIRRORS
The Claude mirror is an optical device that was employed by painters in the eighteenth century
as a tool for reducing and framing an observed landscape in preparation for painting it. The mirrors varied slightly in size, shape, and color, but were often black, slightly convex, and small enough to hold in one’s hand. The Claude mirror reduced the complexity of images reflected in it by simplifying the tonal range of colors in a landscape, coating everything with a grey hue, reducing the contrasts in tone and color to better match a painter’s palette. The tonal effects and the elimination of fine details allowed the image reflected in the mirror to attain a more “painterly” appearance, making it easier to translate onto a canvas. The outward curvature of the convex mirrors enabled painters to select and frame a portion of the scene, aiding in composition.
Claude Glass image alteration (diagram by author)
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Use of the Claude mirror was widespread among artists and painters during a time of great
interest in the picturesque and the sublime. As a means to observe, frame, and reduce one’s physical surroundings, the Claude mirror supported the quest of capturing the essences of a landscape. By enabling the framing of individual parts of a landscape, it helped painters to cobble together fragments of various scenes in creating picturesque compositions.11 By darkening the scene reflected in it, reducing contrast and smoothing out details, the mirror enabled painters to simulate the golden hours of dawn and dusk, those times of day when the sublime was said to appear.
Claude Glass image alteration (diagram by author)
11
Maillet, Arnaud. The Claude Glass: Use and Meaning of the Black Mirror in Western Art. Brooklyn, New York: Zone Books, 2004.
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06 / site analysis “Beneath the haze stirred up by the winds, the urban island, a sea in the middle of the sea, lifts up the skyscrapers over Wall Street, sinks down at Greenwich, then rises again to the crests of Midtown, quietly passes over Central Park and finally undulates off into the distance beyond Harlem. A wave of verticals. Its agitation is momentarily arrested by vision.The gigantic mass is immobilized before the eyes. It is transformed into a texturology in which extremes coincide.” 12 – Michel de Certeau, The Practice of Everyday Life
The site of these interventions is New York City and the ongoing accumulation of moments that
comprise it. A dense network of these interventions might theoretically be scattered throughout the city. This thesis explores four specific urban conditions that, taken together, constitute an experience of New York City––an experience that might shift and vary depending on time, location, and people, but that is nevertheless replete, composed of a multiplicity of discrete urban practices.
island
12
subway
grid
avenue
tunnel
DeCerteau, Michel., and Steven Rendall. “Walking In The City.” In The Practice of Everyday Life. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984.
verticality parks
verticality gridisland
verticality grid subway neighborhoods
grid subway parks
subway parks island
parks neighborhoods island
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avenue
grid
island tunnel
island
20 Battery Place / 40.704661, -74.017978
island
grid
867 Broadway / 40.737666, -73.990107
grid
avenue
286 Madison Avenue / 40.751773, -73.980143
avenue
tunnel
Manhattan Bridge Plaza / 40.699735, -73.986667
tunnel
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PROGRAM
The rush of the city is punctuated by countless minute pauses: pauses in movement, pauses in
thought, interruptions, and welcome diversions. These breaks might be purposeful: when we stop for a moment to re-lace untied shoes, respond to a text, light a cigarette, talk with an acquaintance, or look at a map. They might come in the form of distractions, both desired and unwelcome: pings from a cell phone, construction detours, unexpected meetings, or sudden memories of tasks we were supposed to have completed. In the whirlwind of our lives we might also seek out small moments of contemplation, taking impromptu detours from our usual routes and ways of thought––or we might come upon them by accident.
Our digital experience, too, is rife with interruptions. We might consider the addition of digital
services as a way to streamline our lives, to make every moment more efficient and productive. But no matter how new, fast, shiny, and smooth, their physical manifestations remain objects of the world, and our interactions with them are interspersed with small delays, bursts of imperfection. The digital realm is not without moments of slowness, but it often seems resistant to them.
Some of the pauses that punctuate our days are granted to us by the imperfection of these
devices. They interrupt each other, the digital and the physical, an unavoidable consequence of our attempt to engage with them both simultaneously. We are constantly dividing our attention, directing it toward one at the expense of the other. When the world slows, we look to our devices for distraction; likewise, when our devices hesitate in their processing, we look up from them to see what quick entertainment our immediate environment can provide. It is during these interruptions when the immateriality of the digital merges with the material world.
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ISLAND
The aerial view of Manhattan is an island spliced onto the southern tip of the state of New
York, held on by a few threadlike bridges reaching tentatively over from the surrounding land. Water surrounds on all sides; the island is encircled by viewpoints from which ubiquitous skyline views emphasize Manhattan’s secluded position in its geographical context.
The expansive, panoramic view from at the southern tip of Manhattan imparts an openness that
unsettles even as it inspires awe. Along the Battery Park Esplanade, one glimpses attempts to encapsulate this feeling through tools that frame, zoom in, and objectify experience as a means to rein it in. More so than some other places in the city, this is a place for cameras, binoculars––seeing for the sake of seeing, but also as a way to reach for a comprehensive understanding.
In moments interspersed among all the looking––when camera batteries fail, when binoculars
are lowered––the vastness must be taken in by our bodies alone. The shape of the island’s border flattens, and seems to stretch endlessly in every direction. To the north, the skyscrapers of the financial district loom overhead like de Certeau’s “wave of verticals,” turning the esplanade into a cliff, perched at the edge of city, sea, and sky.
Near the southeastern tip of the island, the Hudson River branches off into a small inlet
bounded to the south by the Pier A Harbor House, and to the north by Wagner Park. Here the expansiveness of nearby skyline views is interrupted with a moment of rest; a shelter to contrast the endless sea and sky. Sunlight sparkles off the waves, telling of the water’s calm or turbulence. Their rhythm collides with a bed of rocks leading down into the water from the walkway above.
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B at tery Pla summe
r
ce
Pier A Ha
rbor House
wint
er
Hudson River
island / site map + solar context
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island / site images (photographs by author)
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island / experiential collage + drawing
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GRID
Two centuries ago, the Commissioners’ Grid annihilated most of what remained of Manhattan’s
organic topography. The lattice of numbered streets and avenues that took its place has since been alternately praised and criticized by both the general public as well as experts in urban design. And it has become an essential underpinning of our experience of the city today.
Broadway was an exception to the externally planned grid. Originally known as the
Wickquasgeck Trail, Broadway began as a trading route created by the Native Americans who inhabited Manhattan before the Europeans’ arrival.13 The path extended beyond the fifteen miles up the length of the island, winding around swamps, rocks, and other geographical obstacles that would have inhibited travel. The Commissioners’ Grid did not include this road at the outset, but it remained while the ordered layout of streets and avenues was established around it. Geography was subordinate to the grid: the city’s topography was leveled wherever the planned streets were to be placed, whereas Broadway’s original path was determined by the geographical feasibility of carving a passage out of the features of the surrounding landscape. The result of this overlay of streets is a series of interruptions in the grid that occur throughout the length of Manhattan. Blocks are divided at oblique angles, breaking up sidewalk travel and generating unusual architectural forms to accommodate the oddly shaped corners.
The area of Manhattan between Union Square and Madison Square Park is a bustling stretch of
activity, with restaurants, shops, and businesses maintaining the sidewalk’s livelihood throughout the day and into the evening. It might be speculated that Broadway’s dividing of these six blocks into twelve smaller ones facilitates such an animated street environment. The smaller blocks and consequent shorter streets afford more opportunities for turning, and more freedom of movement for the pedestrian. The added intersections enable more businesses to occupy corner real estate, perhaps encouraging visits by casual wanderers. Broadway here serves as a direct connection between the parks, linking Union Square to the Flatiron District and enabling a more fluid transition between neighborhoods.
Just north of Union Square, Broadway cuts diagonally through the orthogonal streets, extending
northwest up the island. At its intersection with 18th Street, the buildings align with the skewed grid, maintaining a perception of order even where that order is being disrupted. The grid as a static, 13
“First Peoples Worldwide: Wickquasgeck Trail.” First Peoples Worldwide. Accessed April 3, 2015.
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abstract system begins to break down here. These moments of exception to the gridded order invite an understanding of the city street as an organic assembly of its inhabitants’ activities. This intersection expresses the confluence of an imposed logical order and a spontaneously determined functional order. In The Death and Life of Great American Cities, Jane Jacobs writes of the distinction between logical, applied order, and the ‘functional order’ inherent in the everyday affairs of city life. Elements of both, she says, are essential: external schemes of rational order provide ways for us to understand the greater context of city space and thus live and navigate thoughtfully within it. And functional order, especially when clarified in an elegant way, allows us to understand the mutual shaping of our behaviors and the space of the city. She cautions against the over-rational design of cities as though they were to be pristine works of art: “When we deal with cities we are dealing with life at its most complex and intense. Because this is so, there is a basic esthetic limitation on what can be done with cities: A city cannot be a work of art...To approach a city, or even a city neighborhood, as if it were a larger architectural problem, capable of being given order by converting it into a disciplined work of art, is to make the mistake of attempting to substitute art for life.... city designers should return to a strategy ennobling both to art and to life: a strategy of illuminating and clarifying life and helping to explain to us its meanings and order––in this case, helping to illuminate, clarify and explain the order of cities...The tactics needed are suggestions that help people make, for themselves, order and sense, instead of chaos, from what they see.” 14
She goes on to commend the dual role played by intersections where calculated order meets the situational conditions of a site, and the advantages to be found in the simultaneous expression of both rational systems and clarifications of functional order: “The combination of a basic, easily understandable grid system, together with purposely irregular streets dropped in where the grid is too large for good city functioning, could be, I think, a distinctive and most valuable American contribution to the tactics of city design.” 15
At the intersection of Broadway and 18th Street, then, there exist two conditions: indicators of
the imposed logical system, and a secondary level of functional order that arises from the way people in the city actually use its space. The shape of the intersection is a testament to both layers of the city. Its oblique facades align with the sidewalks, their incongruity evoking the organic origins of the original street, while their adherence to its borders suggests conformity to an organizational system as well. The pedestrian plaza that buffers the street from the sidewalk allows for the inevitable imprecision of human activities to take place, while still defined within the external organization of the grid. Jacobs, Jane. “Visual Order: Its Limitations and Possibilities.” In The Death and Life of Great American Cities. New York, New York: Random House, Vintage Books, 1961. 15 IBID. 14
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t 18
th S
t re e
t summe
r
Eas
er
Broadway
wint
grid / site map + solar context
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grid / site images (photographs by author)
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grid / experiential collage + drawing
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AVENUE
The grid fixed Manhattan’s horizontal organization. Expansion of the city could occur within its
framework, but the geographical limits of the island prevent the city from expanding further outward–– so we began to build toward the sky. The elevator’s invention spurred the proliferation of skyscrapers that began to rise from the streets and dot the city’s skyline,16 at the same time creating deep, shadowed canyons lined with sidewalks below.
Walking north towards 40th Street on Madison Avenue, one feels an increasing resistance in
movement, a gradual incline to the street. The skyscrapers grow higher and there is a pull upward, intensified by glimpses of the sky from the depths between the shadowed buildings. A strip of sky narrowing to a point on the horizon is all that can be seen beyond the rooftops. To the west there is one building standing stories shorter than the others surrounding it, still far above our heads, but a momentary visual relief from the vertical enclosure. The gap extends down to the sidewalk in a narrow strip, a two-foot square extruded void carved out between the buildings, accentuating the distinct shapes that build up the canyon wall.
The city’s geography is striking in its proportions––thirteen miles long while only around two
miles wide. The avenues elongate our passage through the city; the sidewalks appear endless here, and the buildings seem to reach infinitely upward toward the sky.
16
Koolhaas, Rem. Delirious New York: A Retroactive Manifesto for Manhattan. New ed. New York: Monacelli Press, 1994.
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r summe
Eas
t 40
th S
tree
t
er
Ma
diso
nA ven u
e
wint
avenue / site map + solar context
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avenue / site images (photographs by author)
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avenue / experiential collage + drawing
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TUNNEL
Below the city lies the winding structure traveled by subways that transport us from station to
station across the city. The ubiquitous map that we use to navigate this network of tunnels does not tell of its byzantine geographical reality. In order to communicate understanding, the map necessarily bends, shrinks, and simplifies this vast, multilayered network of tunnels. Down here the space is composed of starting points and destinations; there is little aimless wandering. We move primarily in accordance with the system, stopping at the designated stations, and zooming through the pre-carved tunnels of the underground. It is a grid of a different order. We occupy its circuitous form only from within, never perceiving its true organization from the outside; we are intrinsic to the system. But by fixing our paths of travel and restricting our points of departure and arrival, the tunnels are even more prescriptive of our movement than the gridded streets above.
But how do we move in and out, above and below, back and forth between the two? The
connection between the city streets above and the subway tunnels below is formally almost nonexistent, yet intimately familiar to all those who inhabit the city.
Layers of experience converge at the entrance to the Manhattan Bridge in Dumbo, Brooklyn.
The bridge rises from the street while the subway emerges from the ground to cross the river. A pedestrian plaza marks the start and end of the walking path over the East River. A wall of slatted steel, plastered with graffiti, defines in light this moment of transition, filtering exterior light for those looking out from the subway, and suggesting views of the underground for the pedestrian. The train’s approach is felt viscerally, in a loud roar and vibrations throughout the ground. For the subway rider, the experience is rapid, fleeting, elusive. The flashing light only lasts three, four, five seconds at most, glaring intensely and then suddenly obstructed, filtered by the metal slats and then obscured abruptly by the rising ground.
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Man h at t an B
Sands Street
summe
r
e r idg wint
er
Jay Street
High Street
tunnel / site map + solar context
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tunnel / site images (photographs by author)
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tunnel / experiential collage + drawing
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07 / thesis as a technical challenge SOURCE
The primary source of illumination for these interventions is the sun, with no electric
components to contribute during the day. The spaces are designed as ephemeral orchestrations of materials, light, and shadow, taking into consideration their specific locations with regard to the sun, as well as other factors affecting our urban experience.
I propose a strategy that is derived from the concept of a thermal mass: a material body that
absorbs the energy of the sun, then dissipates it gradually over a period of time. This ‘luminous mass’ consists of embedded photovoltaic panels and a solar battery. The mass will store light over the course of a day, then dissipate that power throughout the night at a rate that is highly controllable, so that the glow appears and fades in tune with the setting and rising sun.
thermal mass / luminous mass diagram
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(Many basic solar garden lights work this way: solar panels embedded in the fixtures collect
sunlight throughout the day, then sense when night falls and switch on, remaining on until dawn. These represent smaller-scale, simpler precedents for the proposed technology.)
The luminous masses glow softly and subtly, to contrast both with the glittering city lights, and
the cool, technological light of our back-lit smartphone screens. Photovoltaic panels incorporated into the design of each intervention absorb energy from the sun during the day. Each day’s accumulated solar power will then power the integrated LED back-lit surface lighting throughout the subsequent evening and night. Because the night lighting will be powered exclusively by the previous day’s sunlight, intensity and brightness will be determined by that amount of available light, thereby changing with the time of year and weather conditions. The amount of light output each night thus becomes an intrinsic indication of climate and time.
To contrast with the blueness of technological light in the city environment, these fixtures
will operate at very low color temperatures, likened to coals glowing long after the fire has been extinguished. Color rendering will tend toward the warm end of the color spectrum–objects in the immediate vicinity will appear with a tinted warmth, with objects on the red and orange spectrum being revealed more brightly.
Again in contrast with the sparkling lights of the city and the glowing blue rectangles we walk
around with, these areas of light will be large and subtle, appearing to emanate from the environments and structures themselves.
applied (urban) light / intrinsic light (collage by author)
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LUMINAIRE
Early on, this thesis involved an observation and analysis of the particular spatial light quality at
each site, and an examination of how architectural elements of the urban environment might function as solar luminaires to amplify the existing effects. Although the design came to be more about the observation, framing, and reflecting of the qualities of the site, amplifying existing light effects would have been another way this thesis could have explored its objectives. The diagrams on the following pages illustrate this exploration.
SITE + ELEMENTS
IMAGE
island
DIAGRAM
EFFECT
reflection, sparkle disintegration of shadow + light
Water flows into a narrow inlet. Sunlight sparkles off the waves, telling of the water’s calm or turbulence. Their rhythm collides with a bed of rocks leading down into the water, solid and immobile, fixity against dynamism, chaos against stillness.
grid
avenue
tunnel Glimpsed through metal slats, the train disappears rapidly into the darkness. Layers of experience converge; from the subway the experience is fleeting, elusive, the light glaring and then suddenly obstructed, like pulling closed the blinds in a darkened room.
LUMINAIRE / OPTICAL CONSIDERATIONS
mirror, single or fragmented reflecting image, or creating sparkle
{entering light either produces sparkle or even reflection off variable horizontal surface, effects are visible from mass}
(or sparkle created from light source itself: agglomeration of small, narrow distribution point sources)
specular material, unified reflections
multi-directional specular surface, fragmented reflections/sparkle
DAYLIGHT APERTURE
direction-specific aperture sized for light to enter inlet only at specific times and reflected off horizontal surface (or many discrete, small apertures for continuously changing sparkle)
solid mass, dark matte
{entering light gets diffused to wash each particular plane evenly, accentuating different sides of the mass at different times}
shading, forms defined by light illuminated/shaded surfaces
There is an imbalance to be felt in the city’s movement, a twisting, a tension, a torque. Building masses on each corner align with the twisted grid, maintaining an impression of regularity, of alignment, the subtle shading of their facades reveals the city’s shape.
There is a pull upward, intensified by views of the sky from the depths between the shadowed buildings. A strip of blue, narrowing to a point on the horizon, is all that can be glimpsed beyond the rooftops. The avenues elongate our passage; the sidewalks seem endless here.
DISTRIBUTION + MATERIAL CONSIDERATIONS
surfaces of uniform material placed at different angles to illuminate entire surface evenly at different times depending on angle of placement, diffusing filter between source and surface
large apertures, allowing even wash of surfaces
long narrow passage with bright light or sky view at one end, gradual transition from light to shadow visible across material surface (grazing)
small aperture located high up
diffusing material, filter matte materials of varying shades, uniform within each plane
sky view grazing, light fall-off along surface transition from open sky, brightness to enclosed shadow
textured surface, accentuate grazed light
dark matte surface, accentuate depth of interior
projection reflection filter varying obstruction of view
aperture
{light enters aperture from above, creating gradient of light to shadow from sky to ground}
dark, specular, transparent
louver shades, scrim, dark glass layers of varying transparency, view obstruction, light passage (alternate silhouetting with view, reflection with transmission, obstruction with opening)
{light enters aperture, passes through layered materials, creating varied effects throughout day/year}
(with narrow view extending downward toward ground?)
(material could be of varying texture to emphasize this effect)
large aperture obstructed by layers of light and view filters (double as framed view?)
scrim or filter
site light effects / chart
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ISLAND
Site light effect: reflection, sparkle, disintegration of shadow + light
{entering light either produces sparkle or even reflections of variable horizontal surface, effects are visible from mass}
specular material, unified reflections
multi-directional specular surface,, fragmented reflections/sparkle
LUMINAIRE / OPTICAL CONSIDERATIONS mirror, single or fragmented reflecting image, or creating sparkle (or sparkle created from light source itself: agglomeration of small, narrow distribution point sources)
solid mass, dark matte
DAYLIGHT APERTURE direction-specific aperture sized for light to enter inlet only at specific times and reflected off horizontal surface (or many discrete, small apertures for continuously changing sparkle)
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GRID
Site light effect: shading, forms defined by light illuminated/shaded surfaces
{entering light each {entering lightgets getsdiffused diffusedto towash wash each particular plane particular planeevenly, evenly,accentuating accentuating different sides times} different sidesofofthe themass massatatdifferent different times}
diffusing material, diffusing material,filter filter matte materials of varying shades, matte materials of varying uniform within eachuniform plane within shades, each plane
LUMINAIRE / OPTICAL CONSIDERATIONS surfaces of uniform material placed at different angles to illuminate entire surface evenly at different times depending on angle of placement, diffusing filter between source and surface
DAYLIGHT APERTURE large apertures, allowing even wash of surfaces
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AVENUE
Site light effect: grazing, light fall-off along surface, transition from open sky, brightness to enclosed shadow
textured surface, accentuate grazed light
dark matte surface, accentuate depth of interior {light enters aperture from above, creating gradient of light to shadow from sky to ground}
LUMINAIRE / OPTICAL CONSIDERATIONS long narrow passage with bright light or sky view at one end, gradual transition from light to shadow visible across material surface (grazing)
DAYLIGHT APERTURE small aperture located high up, with narrow view extending downward toward ground
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TUNNEL
Site light effect: projection, reflection, filter, varying obstruction of view
aperture
dark, specular, transparent
{light enters aperture, passes through layered materials, creating varied effects throughout the day/year}
scrim or filter
LUMINAIRE / OPTICAL CONSIDERATIONS louver shades, scrim, dark glass layers of varying transparency, view obstruction, light passage (alternate silhouetting with view, reflection with transmission, obstruction with opening)
DAYLIGHT APERTURE large aperture obstructed by layers of light and view filters (double as framed view)
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CONTROL
During the day, the light environment at each site exists passively, generated by the sun’s
interaction with particular architectural elements and spatial configurations. During the night, elements of the designed constructions serve as luminaires, emitting solar energy stored by embedded photovoltaic cells as described above. The intensity of the light remains constant over the course of each night, varying night by night depending on the amount of solar energy collected at the end of the previous day.
The daytime interventions have no external control system. Their effects are determined solely
based on the sun’s availability and position, and the position and movement of the observer interacting with it. Control is therefore not applied through technological means, but through the movement of one’s body. The decision to walk a certain path, or stand in one place as opposed to another, will produce different experienced light environments. In this way the participant of each intervention authors his own experience of light and spatial choreography.
{changing light level by moving behind obstruction}
{framing view by changing position}
{dimming by walking past an increasingly more opaque filter}
{shielding glare by covering eyes or turning away}
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ISLAND
frame view by changing position (open blinds) move under shade of trees (lower light level)
move to avoid glare from setting sun (shade)
move into building shadow (lower light level)
December 11, 16:00 This path through the site begins with a shift in light level with movement from open sunlight into the shade of the Pier A Harbor House. Emerging from the shade, the light level surrounding us increases again, and quickly turns into glare shimmering off the water from the setting sun. We move quickly away, or shield our faces with our hands to protect our eyes from the glare. Continuing on this path, we move in and out of the shadows of trees in the park, the intensity of the light around us shifting accordingly. We continue out toward the water, our view of the horizon changing as we walk.
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GRID
move into building shadow (lower light level)
frame view by changing position (open blinds)
September 1st, 12:30 Walking north on Broadway, views of the streetscape shift continuously with our changing position. The street is illuminated by the midday sun, but when we turn west and cross the street, we step into the shadow of a building, lowering the light level around us.
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AVENUE
retreat to space between buildings (lower light level)
enter intersection (raise light level)
frame sky view (open shade)
June 21st, 10:00 Walking north on Madison Avenue, we inhabit the deep well of shadows created by the skyscrapers. At 40th Street, we cross the street and look north to see the sky framed symmetrically by the buildings on either side of the street as it disappears to a point on the horizon. As we enter the intersection, the light increases, the summer morning sun penetrating the rows of skyscrapers. We walk along the sunny side of the street and take refuge for a moment in the shadow between two buildings.
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TUNNEL
move through passageway under bridge (dimming)
move to shield from glare of setting sun (shade)
move into building shadow (lower light level)
February 21st, 16:20 Walking through the park at the entrance to the Manhattan Bridge, a tall building to the west shades our path. Emerging from the shadow into the glare of the late afternoon sun, we shield our eyes. We retreat beside an opening under the bridge, walking by the train tracks, the light dimming as we move gradually into shadow.
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The nighttime interventions are activated by photosensors within each system. During the
day, no light will be emitted; embedded photovoltaic cells will collect solar power throughout the daylight hours. When daylight begins to fade each evening, the photosensors will prompt the stored solar power to begin emitting light. Since the amount of light given off by these luminaires will stay constant throughout the night depending on the amount of stored power, it will be necessary for the system to incorporate time scheduling so that the power can be divided up each night. The photosensors will prompt the system to turn on, while the scheduling system, by keeping track of the length of each night, will determine the time rate of light dispensed.
The interventions incorporate charging stations for mobile devices, which share each day’s
reserve of solar power with the integrated luminaires. When a device is plugged in, part of the associated luminaire will dim, demonstrating the exchange of stored energy that is necessary to power the device. This gives the participant some agency in his nighttime lit environment beyond the previously discussed choreography of the body in space. Instead of enabling the participant to turn lights on, however, these interventions initiate exchanges of power, which communicate awareness of its limited availability. The power exchange is visible through the position of light: as the associated LED surface dims, the plugged-in screen lights up.
solar power collected through photocells in site
light
power released at a steady rate throughout the night sunset
connected device
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08 / contemporary encounters: wandering the connected city METHODOLOGY
In considering the existing qualities of each site as they emerge under particular solar
conditions, I designed the interventions with the following elements: photovoltaic panels (dark, specular, energy absorbing surfaces), dark transparent glass (simultaneous dark, specular reflections and transparency), framed apertures for views, and LED back-lit surfaces. Each site also includes smartphone and tablet charging stations, which serve as ways to engage the body, digital device, and space directly, while allowing for the experience of a direct energy transfer at night when a device is plugged in.
claude glass, smartphone, and photovoltaic panel reflections
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ISLAND
The intervention here is a curved structure composed of photovoltaic panels that collect solar
energy during the day to power smartphone and tablet charging stations, as well as LED surface lighting on the reverse side of the structure. The charging stations are perforations in the structure’s walls, and are positioned to frame views of the horizon for observers within the structure. The outer walls are curved photovoltaic panels that reflect and shrink the horizon view in their convex surfaces.
elevation + elevation detail
section + section detail
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island / intervention perspective view
58
island / drawings
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GRID
The intervention here is an orchestrated placement of photovoltaic panels on the building
facades. From a single viewpoint on the pedestrian plaza/sidewalk, the panels reflect adjacent buildings and sky, further twisting and disrupting the grid’s logical organization. One of the panels is an LCD screen with smartphone and tablet charging stations that provides access to an enlarged, interactive map of the city.
plan
isometric reflection diagram
section + section detail
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grid / intervention perspective view
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grid / drawings
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AVENUE
The intervention here consists of photovoltaic panels that line the north facade of one
skyscraper and extend down to the street, reflecting the diminishing sky for an observer on the adjacent sidewalk. The base of the photovoltaic strip is a smartphone and tablet charging station, where devices are placed at angles that allow their darkened screens to reflect the sky. Carved out of the space between the buildings is an alcove with a back-lit LED surface, whose intensity at night varies depending on the volume of use of the charging station.
elevation, isometric view + isometric detail
plan + section
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avenue / intervention perspective view
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avenue / drawings
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TUNNEL
The intervention here is inserted in the space between the metal screen and the subway tracks.
The metal slats are replaced with photovoltaic panels of the same shape and size on the upper portion of the screen, and dark transparent glass along the lower portion. A smartphone charging station lines the back of a bench just inside the structure. Placement of a device in the station activates its screen glow, aimed out of the transparent slats and spilling onto the sidewalk. A sequence of windows within the structure opposite the bench allows for views of the passing subway cars.
plan
elevation
section + section detail
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tunnel / intervention perspective view
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tunnel / drawings
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09 / conclusion
This project is meant as the starting point of an inquiry––a means of addressing the broader
question of how designers might more explicitly engage the qualitative impact of rapidly changing technology on our spatial experiences.
There are many ways this inquiry could be carried further. Closer consideration of the contact
points between digital and physical space is one. The way we access the digital world today is primarily through the dark, reflective screens of laptops, smartphones, or tablets. Collectively, the presence of these devices exerts an influence on the way we perceive our environment. The more screens, the more connected a place or person is said to be––and often more distracted. A lack or sparseness of these points of connection is understood to mean escape, meditation, or extreme focus. Physically, our gaze is directed much more often downward, and narrowed into our screens. We are transfixed rather than observant, absorbed in details at the expense of our environments.
Our use of these devices is still somewhat clumsy, and perhaps transient––we seem to be
aiming towards smoother, more seamless interactions in many respects, including our means of digital access. Screens have already moved from our desktops into our hands, and they are still moving–– more recently, strapped onto our wrists, or built into eyeglasses. Although the physical geometries of smartphones and tablets served as the basis for the designed interventions of this project, it is worth considering what the spatial implications of changes in physical/digital interfaces might be in the coming years. There are surely more subtle ways to consider how our interactions with the digital impact our experience of urban space, and those subtleties will become increasingly more important for designers to consider as our interfaces grow more and more embedded.
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