Parkourchitecture by Nicholas.Voell.White

Parkourchitecture

Boston City Performance Hall

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS For all of the faculty at Wentworth who pushed me through the years, the guys at the concrete lab who helped me create my final exhibition, my friends and classmates in studio who constantly let me know someone else was having just as hard a time as I was, and my family for all the support and love along the way.

WARNING!! The stunts that you are about to see are dangerous and have the ability to create change. There are no guarantees for acceptance by others and if replicated may cause serious rethinking of priorities. Please do not attempt this at home and in your office.

CONTENTS Cover Page 1 Acknowledgments 3 Contents 7 Thesis Abstract 9 Research Essay 11 Site 19 Historical Background 23 Parkour 27 Poster 33 Design Proposal 35 Conclusion 53 Bibliography 55

THESIS ABSTRACT Boundaries are the building blocks for planned space, determining the way in which people move within a space. Consistently these boundaries become obstacles in the way of human interaction or collaboration. Additionally these boundaries arenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t always physical, some lie in the consciousness of society. Out of the many ways to deal with boundaries, Parkour, has found a way to interact, play, deconstruct and even critique the way that space is planned. This free flowing movement of the body through space finds a way to do all of these while simultaneously remaining respectful of the past. Boston City Hall, as the centerpiece of this project, acts as the creator of boundary. The Government Center Project involved a major renovation of Boston which included a large area of planned space. Through the use of Parkour as an analogy to the design process this thesis reinterprets the planned space of City Hall along with its adjacent plaza.

RESEARCH ESSAY

The founder and active participant of Parkour/ Free-running Sebastian Foucan, argues, “the world is older than all of us, so learn from it and respect it. Your environment is your equipment, and unless you use it properly you will harm it and yourself. The earth is precious to your own development: Treat it with care.”1 Through this philosophy, parkour artists have an understanding of the connection between the human body and the space it inhabits. This allows them to act in ways that have the capability to transform and take control of their surroundings. Leading researchers of architecture and organizational behavior, Maria Daskalaki, Alexandra Stara, and Miguel Imas, contend that moving through the public spaces of the city has become monotonous and dull, but through more extreme art forms, including free-running and parkour, these spaces can be given life along with a better comprehension. These performances have the capability to transform this space into a place that has an identity. Beginning in Paris in 1988 this art form and philosophy emerged as a dialectic conversation between body and space. It expresses the relationships between “environment and the human body… architecture and movement, organizational structures and possibility, freedom and control.”2 These conversations between building and person become the mode of exploration through which new discoveries are made about the site and its 1 2

Foucan, Sebastien. Free Running. (Berkeley: Ulysses Press, 2008), 34. Daskalaki, Maria et al. “The Parkour Organisation” (Kingston: Routledge, 2008), 56.

surroundings. The act of parkour affects the way in which the traceur sees and understands the space they perform in while at the same time changes the way that the space itself is seen. Daskalaki, Stara, and Imas argue “It invites practitioners to release themselves from rhetorical representations of organizational life and engage with the realities of diverse and multi-dimensional communities and spaces.”3 Simultaneously “parkour is a tactic that the disempowered employ in order to misappropriate and corrupt these consumerist and dehumanizing spaces. This is similar to the Situationists’ ‘detournement.’”4 Releasing oneself from organized life and misappropriating consumerist spaces reveals boundaries by creating a tension between the intended purpose, viewing of capitalist buildings, and actual use, parkour. Through this new perspective we can understand the world around us in a way that returns us to something more in touch with our natural existence. Parkour creates a dialogue with the urban landscape in a way that differentiates between place and non-place. “The quality of experience in any spatial context is largely defined by the play between intelligibility and recognition, on one hand, and the richness of possibility and surprise, on the other. That is also where the possibility of identity and meaning resides, and the fundamental distinction between place 3 4

Daskalaki, Maria et al. “The Parkour Organisation” (Kingston: Routledge, 2008), 62. Ibid., 58.

and non-place.”5 In alignment with this distinction parkour becomes a tool for these artists to give identity and meaning to a place because of parkour’s richness of possibility and surprise. Daskalaki, Stara and Imas, contrast the public housing estates of the banlieu to the National Theatre in London; “The banlieu is the non-place which is made inhabitable and given a sense of identity, through its appropriation by the traceurs and the intense interaction of their bodies with its harsh boundaries. On the other hand, the National Theatre’s complex, fluid and situated spatiality explodes with the potential for further discovery, through the expansive engagement of parkour.”6 This engagement is effective through its connective power and reimagining of these urban spaces. Through the intense interaction the traceurs become connected to the space which gives them the ability and opportunity to transform this space. Then, you see parkour, and I don’t really mean just the first time you see PK, but the first time you catch a glimpse of what lies beneath the videos, beneath the moves. It’s like a force of nature, something that at first seems disconnected from humanity in a way, because it’s inherently human. It goes against all of the preset notions of what mankind is, a separate entity, man against nature, against the world… To me, that’s what strikes me as important, not so much some ’new’ art or sport, but more 5 6

Ibid., 60. Ibid.

a return to something that over the centuries we’ve lost. Something that fills the void.7 Due to the strength and power of capitalism, much of the non-places remain empty and devoid of life. This is where parkour occurs, allowing the transformation of the space. The philosophy of these traceurs contrasts the ideas ingrained in capitalism. Competition is seen as a limitation and illusion, which prevents one from selfreflection as well as preventing self-expression, which is directly related to the way that people enjoy the here and now. The lack of enjoyment is due to an inherent obsession with public perception.8 “Destination is an illusion: you never know what is coming next, so try to live in the present moment – it really is all that matters.” 9 This philosophy puts the present moment and self-expression above the typical mindset of people that is obsessed with competition, reinforced by capitalist ideals. Social experimentation as early as the nineteen twenties, organizational psychology in the nineteen sixties along with the civil rights movement has found that the relationship between people and their surroundings is symbiotic, Daskalaki, Stara, and Imas postulate. This relationship between people and their surroundings is natural and needs development for the creation of communities. “Richness of 7 8 9

Daskalaki, Maria et al. “The Parkour Organisation” (Kingston: Routledge, 2008), 62. Foucan, Sebastien. Free Running. (Berkeley: Ulysses Press, 2008), 19. Ibid., 23.

experience, strengthening of community, variety of activity, openness and possibility are irrelevant (actually, inimical) to the corporate forces that shape our cities today.” The spaces that are created from these corporate forces strengthen productivity and their image while neglecting the opportunity for a connection to the people they serve. The functionalist viewpoint, similar to the corporate philosophy, is in direct conflict with constructionist ideas. Functionalism is more focused on the direct productivity of the building, while constructivism incorporates the urban fabric. Urban public spaces have become the leftover of functionalist buildings, which are zones that are directly associated with consumption.10 These consumption driven spaces lose their richness due to the lack of variable activity and possibility, something that traceurs bring back to the space. Franco Cecla then sets the tone for the architecture industry in saying, “Is it not really in this sense that one can read Rem Koolhaas’s declaration that the only space reserved for the citizenry today, the only way to express democratic participation, is shopping?” The values that we seem to hold dear in the twentieth century are closely tied to materialism and this attachment to “things.” Attachment to architecture as object influences the way architects are designing and in turn reinforces the idea that the only influence people have on their surrounding 10

Daskalaki, Maria et al. “The Parkour Organisation” (Kingston: Routledge, 2008), 49-52.

is through their wallet. 11 The architecture industry has much the same problem that the citizenry has, where competition is reinforced and the richness of possibility and surprise are undermined. Ada Louise Huxtable, a renowned architectural critique, argues in her book “Kicked a Building Lately?” that tax code and economic viability was responsible for creating spatial leftovers. In New York City the structure of tax code reinforced demolition and made buildings owned by not-for-profits especially vulnerable. This led to the destruction of buildings that were not economically sustaining themselves, and in most cases these lots were converted to parking lots despite their historical background.12 The influence of capitalism through this tax code allowed for the clearing of historical buildings in order to create space that primarily serves buildings that are economically viable. This form of capitalism and competition may create efficient communities for consumption but lose the connection between its inhabitants and the built environment. Franco Cecla titles his book, “’Against Architecture,’ because one can no longer put up with the formalism, the tiredness, and the fear that pervade even both architectural studies and productions.”13(ix) 11 12 13

Cecla, Franco La. Against Architecture. (Oakland: PM Press, 2012), 7. Huxtable, Ada Louise, Kicked a Building Lately? (New York City: Quadrangle/The New York Times Book Co., 1976), 139-142. Cecla, Franco La. Against Architecture. (Oakland: PM Press, 2012), xi.

This is not to say that we should stop building, stop construction, stop progress, but instead architects need to have a stronger position on the issues that plague the cities and be aware of the influence they have on their context. The creation of non-places has become an architectural standard in the capitalist mindset and needs to be addressed throughout the design process. Living in New York City, one would not need to walk far in order to find these non-places created by functionalist obstructions. The destruction of neighborhoods by expressways in New York City is an example where large organizational forces overrun public need. “The expressway landscape offers its soulless and scaleless limbo with a trompe l’oeil efficiency.”14 Huxtable suggests that expressways appear to be efficient and help their community by creating an easier way to get to work in the city, but are actually creating bottlenecks in these communities, while at the same time displacing people whose homes were demolished. Bureaucracy, in many cases, makes decisions based on the economic value of the decision instead of prioritizing community identity or historic significance.14 Alongside the downfalls of expressways, they leave scars of public space that in many cases eliminate crucial parts of existing communities. “I have the impression that what gives me so much trouble in this climate is the same thing on which… [some architects] agree in the end: that all 14

Huxtable, Ada Louise, Kicked a Building Lately? (New York City: Quadrangle/The New York Times Book Co., 1976), xi.

this has very little to do with the question in play, with the real ‘global issues.’”15 With serious global issues becoming more and more pressing, Franco La Cecla is suggesting that another form of architecture that deals with these issues should be implemented without a focus on architectural branding. “Architects are completely taken in by their own alibi, and while the ship sinks, they who once had the competency of carpenters are nowadays occupying themselves with paper-hanging: the ship is going down, but the important thing is to seize the last hand in the Casino Capitalism Party Room.” 16 The preoccupation with corporate power has created these functionalist non-places by focusing attention towards efficiency, production and image while ignoring the opportunities to connect people with the place. Cecla also references Micheal Sorkin, an American architectural critic, as well as, a distinguished professor at multiple schools in New York, who strongly argues for architectural intervention of these critical issues: But where Empire proposes a politics of resistance, Rem is simply acquiescent, as if nothing were at stake. The advocacy of branding is a sell-out in architecture, reducing its meanings to mere advertising, a fine obliviousness to the larger social implications of architectural practice. No amount of bilious insistence that brand is simply the equivalent 15 16

Cecla, Franco La. Against Architecture. (Oakland: PM Press, 2012), 31. Ibid.

of culture and its style of inventing identity can obliterate the transformation. But why rebrand the idea of identity in the first place? Why replace the psychical, cultural, and physical constructs compounded in “identity:” with the language of commercial speech? To control it, of course. Branding is just another excuse for power’s concentration at the top. The pathetic spectacle of Rem consulting with a number of “leading European intellectuals” to formulate a strategy for the EU flag is precisely as authoritative as the nine out of ten doctors who recommend Preparation H. 17 It would be easy enough to continue the corporatization of public space, and in fact most cities have public spaces that are dominated by buildings whose soul purpose is to project a brand, but this rebranding of identity for control leaves its inhabitants empty. Through the research of Daskalaki, Stara, and Imas, examples of controlled public space are revealed. The “GLA building and Swiss RE Tower (the “Gherkin”)… [as] objectified buildings are designed for maximum visual impact, standing out in defiance of their surrounding space rather than in any kind of relationship.” 18 The way in which these buildings ignore the connection to place and people while positioning corporate values ahead of the public 17 18

Cecla, Franco La. Against Architecture. (Oakland: PM Press, 2012), 50-51. Daskalaki, Maria et al. “The Parkour Organisation” (Kingston: Routledge, 2008), 59.

provide a precedent for future projects. “While they invest in conceptual one-liners to make themselves ‘meaningful’ – one of the most remarkable being the GLA’s ‘glass equals transparency equals democracy,’ also, incidentally, the key one-liner of the same architect’s Reichstag extension in Berlin.” 19 Although this conceptual speak may be effective in selling brands to prospective clients it often neglects the more pressing global or even local issues. Despite the devastating power of capitalism, there are some architects who still see the richness and elegance of identity building in communities. “What happens when a highly talented architect, a powerful client, and a popular neighborhood come together?” In the case of Renzo Piano, Harlem and Columbia University, there was a lot of tension. Columbia was looking to develop land in Harlem for new classrooms and labs. Renzo was attempting to bridge the gap between this highly gentrified community and Harlem. Renzo’s proposal allowed the first two floors to become a part of the community with shops and public spaces, while the labs and classrooms would move underground. The responsibility of Renzo, in the eyes of Franco Cecla, was to facilitate a dialogue between the two communities. Renzo also seemed to see this project as a way to create this conversation, but was eventually overrun by Columbia’s shear force.20 Despite Piano’s loss in this

situation, the explanation of this project suggests that some architects are attempting to address the issue of structuralized environments and their affect on the lives of the public.

19 Daskalaki, Maria et al. “The Parkour Organisation” (Kingston: Routledge, 2008), 59. 20 Cecla, Franco La. Against Architecture. (Oakland: PM Press, 2012), 95-105.

Boston from satellite with Boston City Hall highlighted.

GOVERNMENT CENTER Located within the business district directly between the North and West ends, this site is very much in the center of the city. Multiple transportation channels feed in or around the area, including the Green and Orange subway lines, the John F. Kennedy Expressway, and various bus lines. Originally intended as a project oriented towards the public, thousands of people interact with these almost every day, whether it be entering and using their various program or simply driving by. Additionally, the government buildings that were constructed here reshaped the city and were said to have stemmed the subsequent growth of the city.

BOSTON CITY HALL Completed in 1964, this building has become a big name in the architectural discourse in Boston. Envisioned with brutalist architectural language including a focus on image and rough concrete, city hall is very much an object floating in a field. The vast brick plaza on which people move into and though city hall continues into the building and is referenced throughout the building. The great concrete forms above project out onto the plaza and hint at important program within. Despite its significant place within architectural history the building has lost its appeal for many reasons small and big.

Scollay Square 1935

SCOLLAY SQUARE Within the boundaries of the Government Center project, this historically significant square was demolished, along with thousands of buildings and more than 20,000 people who lived in the area. The area was seen as a slum and therefore in need of gentrification. As seen from the strength and vibrancy of the North End a few blocks away this type of neighborhood can easily become a culturally significant area of the city. Not only does it provide relevant services to its community, it has a spatial texture more conducive to human interaction.

Comparison of Scollay Square 1934 to Government Center 2002

SCOLLAY SQUARE Along with the square itself there were various significant buildings in the area that were torn down. A short list of relevant buildings include, The Old Howard Athenaeum (theater), Olympia, and PM Scotch (the famous Half Dollar Bar). Despite the significance of these buildings, and others, the Government Center project continued and the people of Boston are left to wonder if this new planned space will serve them better.

Demolition of The Old Howard Theater

PARKOUR

Used as an investigation of the art of movement, parkour and free-running are analyzed through abstract means then through literal analysis of body movements. Abstracting the movements of traceurs deal with issues of scale, texture, orientation, balance and negative space. These early attempts at abstracting the potential of this movement incorporate ideas about the context and the way that people interact with it. This direct analysis of the movements of Parkour reveals specific actions that are common in this field and the way that the body moves to accomplish these moves. The drawings also show a series of movements that flow through the landscape.

DESIGN PROBE Reinterpretation, misrepresentation and reorganizing are the key factors in this design probe. The context of a site and the organizations involved in creating architecture are investigated in this series of drawings. Included in these drawings, as a research of design methods, are references to the ideologies set forth by parkour artists.

3â&#x20AC;&#x2122;x8â&#x20AC;&#x2122; Drawing 20# paper, graphite, copper spray paint

M. Arch POSTER

BOSTON CITY PERFORMANCE HALL Nicholas Voell-White

2013

MArch

DESIGN PROPOSAL

T/P Existing circulation from the Government Center train station presents the same image to anyone who exits the station. Due to the way that this project was planned, relying on the image of the large organization of government separates people from the architecture. The reinterpretation of the train station and plaza above circumvent this image and allow people to filter into and out of City Hall. The creation of this underground station and circulation also reinvent the plaza above. Introducing multiple performance stages and seating, which allows light to filter to lower levels, to the plaza will create a human scale space that does not exist now. Subsequently, this added texture will break up the overbearing open space while at the same time allowing for large scale events at the same time.

M&M BURLESQUE HALL As an existing meeting room for the city council, mayor and public, the design for this space is similar to a theater. Interestingly enough this design reflects the function of the government that inhabits the space. Reinterpretation of this space into a burlesque hall required leveling the floor plain in order to bring the people closer to the performance. Also included, was a redesign of the seating that brings the people closer together and unifies them on a single bench. Projectors were integrated to enhance the performance allowing for a variety of information to be displayed at once. Stemming from Scollay Square, this program was selected as a reference to the once vibrant square and its importance to the people who lived there.

THE WOODEN LEG Reinterpreting the main public space and lobby, this three story bar and stage blend social interaction with artist performance. The first floor consists of a small bar and seating area that is open to the lobby and allows for open interaction with politicians passing by. Floor two and three fill the once open lobby and create seating that overlooks a small stage and further Quincy Market. Again, the program was selected for its reference to the once thriving Scollay Square. Although this space was designed as the public zone of the building, it clearly does not fulfill the intentions and therefore redesigning the space for social gathering and performance space is a logical step forward.

DARK WELL Past the pub and through the Corbusian stair, up into the light well exists a dance hall. The stair, which exists currently, is typically reserved for Mayor Menino and friends. Due to its lack of use, the stair is extended into the dance hall and used by the public. Placing the floor at the bottom of this well eliminates the image that would typically be seen there and only allows for the image to be experienced while in the space allowing for a deeper connection to the architecture. The floor is made of wooden planks that resemble the form-work used in the construction of the poured in place concrete.

CONCLUSION The use of this design method requires the designer to hold back from creating for the sake of creating. Despite its personal difficulties, there are some significant qualities of the spaces that are created. The use of this methodology has the capability to influencing factors outside of the field of architecture and giving the architect more power and responsibility.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Cercla, Franco La. Against Architecture. Oakland, California: PM Press, 2012. Daskalaki, Maria, Alexandra Stara, and Miguel Imas. “The Parkour Organisation: Inhabitation of Corporate Spaces.” Culture and Organisation 14, no. 1 (March 2008). Foucan, Sebastien. Free Running: The Urban Landscape Is Your Playground. Berkeley, California: Ulysses Press, 2008. Huxtable, Ada Louise. Kicked a Building Lately? New York, New York: Quadrangle/The New York Times Book Co., 1976. My Playground. Directed by Kaspar Astrup. Produced by Kaspar Astrup. Performed by Bjarke Ingels and Team Jiyo. 2010. Mcdonough, Tom. The Situationists and the City. Brooklyn, New York: Verso, 2009.