City of Making Duy Hai Do
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What is the City?
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A city is a concentration or a collection of seeable and unseeable things and forces that are all distinct but exist together for the same purpose, solely for the benefit of human life. It can similarly be described as a warehouse filled with various objects and people with different back-ground, who do not know each other but join forces for the greater good. A city would not exist without the people. The interaction between people, driven or influenced by political or economic motives, created a chain re-action in generating infrastructures that revolve around them and benefiting their living conditions. However complex a city is, it cannot produce its own food and consume a large number of goods and products made outside the city. A city usually practices non-agricultural tasks. Each individual is specialized in one job and relies on another individual specialized task to survive. For that reason, the city resembles the disconnection between humanity and nature as urban citizens are more distant from nature but are more dependent on it.
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What is time?
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Humanity, as any life form, tends to expand in a suitable condition. A village became a town and a town became a city. As a result, urbanization, globalization, and migration, even though recent, had defined the characteristics of our city. In 1800, only 2.5% of the world’s population lived in urban areas. In 2019, this number increased dramatically to 54%. This number represents the migra-tion or flows of people moving from rural to urban areas, which is happening in space and time. Time plays a huge role in everything. Anything that par-ticipates in motion is affected by time. Time in the city is the only factor human cannot modify or change, at least to our understanding. The city has to accept time’s occurrence in many ways. We are aware of time, so we anticipate what will occur in the future and prepare for it. We are present-oriented, so we often make moves that are most beneficial to us. We appreciate the past, so artifacts are conserved in museums. A city cannot affect time and compre-hend what will happen in the future, but it can predict, expect and change.
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Mining the City
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Fragments of information A series of data visualizations about various aspects of the city, including geographic data, vegetation coverage, infrastructures, population projection, and energy consumption. The population projection and employment rate per block showcase a pattern or trend that every city is developing: city citizens usually practice non-agricultural tasks, so tasks like agriculture, mining, and manufacturing supply the city is located outside the grid. In contrast, the city exhibits many people working in other industries related to business, finance, recreation, and hospitality. The concentration of the employment rate for these tasks is much denser in the CBD. Questions: Will the city keep constructing residential high-rise buildings to satisfy the demand while keeping other services and supply sources further away from the center? Can we balance the employment percentage so city blocks can supply their demand without depending on outside sources?
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Urbanization played a big part in the formation of any city, and Melbourne is no exception. Urbanization has transformed our way of life and elevated our living standards for decades. However, there are also consequences, for example, loss of water bodies and vegetation coverage.
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The building footprints always cover a larger area in comparison to the vegetation coverage. 77% of the total floor area is buildings, while only 23% are green spaces. Recognizing the lack of green space, the city constantly tries to increase green coverage. From 2011 to 2019, 29120 new trees have been planted. However, that was not a significant number. The Temporal City
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The city of Melbourne’s population is growing steadily, with the household size remaining the same. By 2041, almost 500,000 people will be living in the CBD.
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A high-density population and concentration of businesses in the CBD and eastern side create high demand for energy supply in these areas. The west side contains more unused and undeveloped space, so energy consumption rate is not as high. The city has a complex network of roads and corridors, while only 23% of this floor area has greening potential.
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The amount of unused and outdoor space is primarily located outside the CBD, especially on the west.
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Conflation, Interpretati
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Conflation, Interpretation & A mplification By exploring the city’s dataset and the existing program DNA of the three chosen city blocks, this exercise became an abstract or experimentation of the future city where projected data are distributed evenly across all city blocks. Each city block is a city in itself, containing agriculture and manufacturing programs to facilitate its own population. Once again, how do we give the city a new purpose? How do we address the disconnection between humanity and nature?
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Programs like offices and retail dominate the city while agriculture and manufacturing and nowhere to be. However important they are. These programs were not in use practically dead spaces
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The COVID pandemic has shown that the city had difficulty getting people to visit the CBD. So almost all of these spaces became voids in a sense, the city is ineffective and serves nearly no functions.
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By examining the pedestrian data, we can see the decline in the number of pedestrians in main streets of the CBD. Even after Christmas Eve, 20, 23 months of no COVID cases, the pedestrians counts still had not recovered to exaggerate the unbalanced space usage in the city. The Temporal City
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I continued to examine three individual city blocks in the CBD. Each block has a predominant program that uses much more floor space than others. These programs are retail, residential and office, and the three blocks are 55, 78 and 84.
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Block 55 has 59% of the floor area dedicated to retail since it is located on Burke street. The remaining floor area is commercial and common areas. Block 78 is an office block with 59% of its floor space used for offices. Block 84 has 58% of its floor area given to residential apartments.
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My idea is to create a scenario in 2041 where the city is a self-sustained body. It brings programs that are us producing and supplying instead of only distributing, monetizing, and consuming. It also limits the outward e city in itself, a warehouse containing multiple objects and interactions to sustain it. This is a visualization show The Temporal City
sually placed outside into the city. Through agriculture and manufacturing. The city now participates in expansion of urbanization and restraints the ecological footprint on the environment. Each city block is a wing the situation where the existing programs in the CBD are distributed uniformly onto every single block. (ΔT)3
Green spaces and vegetation coverage are nine times less than the built floor area and most are located on the ground plane.
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The scenario in 2041 imagines if we can convert all the unused space for manufacturing and production, while green areas are increased five times to occupy agricultural programs and food production offices are reduced to increase residential and medical space. In this new format, green spaces are utilized for communal usage, farming, harvesting sports, and outdoor recreation activities. The Temporal City
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Change over Time
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The block I choose to investigate further is block number 76; occupying the block is the QV complex. This block was chosen because of its diversity in programs as a mix-used complex rather than other blocks that only have a predominant program like retail or office. By generating the actual built floor area, we can see the parking space is the largest out of all programs, including commercial and private, and the second-largest was the office floor space.
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The scenario in the future imagines a CBD without cars or any private-owned vehicles, completing the transition to fully optimizing public transport. The city transportation grid contains main roads for public transportation and smaller ones used for goods and product delivery. This means most manufacturing, food production, and agriculture activities will primarily operate on the ground level, where it is easier to distribute products across the grid.
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Variations Regenerating the CBD
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Variations regenerating the CBD This was tested through the existing QV complex by increasing, reducing, and replacing the current format with a new set of programs to assist the investigation, generating eight variations of the city block.
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Diurnal or the 24-Hou
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Diurnal or the 24-Hour peak This task is performed in parallel with generating eight new different iterations of the city block. Speculating how proposed spaces and volumes would operate under the new condition provided a new thorough understanding of the city and interaction between blocks.
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The first iteration converts car parking space into manufacturing space. Office floor area is reduced by 50% for residential apartments. Green space is added for vertical farming and recreational activities along the facades as well as the rooftop. The Temporal City
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The second iteration converts car parking space into agricultural space and food production. Offices, apartments, and entertainment spaces are closely connected.
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The third iteration doubles the existing car parking space for both food production and manufacturing purposes. At the same time, retail space has to transform 40% of its floor area into green space accessible to the public. The Temporal City
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The fourth iteration includes an additional program for medical facilities and lab research directly accessible on the ground floor and located close to other blocks.
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The fifth iteration is quite similar to the second one. However, 30% of residential apartments and office space floor areas are integrated with agricultural and green space, making it accessible to every individual floor. The Temporal City
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Offices are completely removed to make place for rooftop agricultural space in the sixth iteration. Residential and entertainment areas are doubled, while apartments are now home offices.
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The seventh iteration completely removes offices and retails. Residential apartments are now closely connected with agricultural and green space. The block is speculated to be filled with outdoor recreational activities and community farming. The Temporal City
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The final iteration focuses on giving a flexible communal space for the city combined with educational and retail programs in consultation with the food and goods production facility below.
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With the eight iterations produced from the existing QV block, I imagine a new CBD prioritizing public transports and remove private vehicles. The city will add a distribution system for products and food within the CBD. Furthermore, a series of elevated walkways for pedestrians and cyclers will connect individual blocks and form a highly accessible CBD. The city would be a body that values urban agriculture. The Temporal City
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Urban Rules
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Urban rules The following proposed rules are primarily based on the previous idea of introducing production activities into the city grid and how to increase density in a self-sufficient city without losing the livable quality that Melbourne possesses. Moreover, these rules set up a scenario of a city that values urban agriculture by shrinking the gap between urban space and nature.
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Instead of forcing every block to include agriculture and manufacturing, only three variations will this time. T harvesting larger crops. While the third will be dedicated to more straightforward methods of food harvestin raise awareness over time to optimize faster the introduction of agriculture and manufacturing in an urban e lab research. The Temporal City
The first and second will focus on more complex tasks like heavyweight manufacturing, electronics, and ng and food production. All three variations will have accompanied educational programs to educate and environment. Other notable blocks contain communal space for public use as well as medical facilities and (ΔT)3
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Applying these rules to the eight proposed iterations makes the buildings less industrial in a city trying to close the gap between production and consumption. Each block contributed to the city in its own way while having mutual characteristics like communal rooftop space and green walls. The Temporal City
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In a larger context, the city has now transformed from a static environment to one that will be self-sustaining. Residential blocks are now distributed around the centralized production blocks, making it easier to distribute and participate in food production over time. Rooftops are now as important as the ground plane, where they are occupied by different relationships and programs. The Temporal City
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Elasticity - 10, 20, 20 y
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In terms of elasticity over time, my speculation involves the temporal relationship between education and production as well as the increase in population.
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In 10 years, the city block will increase in residential apartments and offices.
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In 20 years, the population doubles, so various programs, especially goods production will increase in size.
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In 30 years, when the general public and a generation are familiarized and educated in urban agriculture, each block can start to expand or employed existing unused spaces for agricultural programs. In consequence, the residential blocks will not have to rely on production blocks to produce goods. They can start contributing to a more extensive and more complex network of food production. The Temporal City
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Dotted Lines
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City block facades become an expressive component in the city, showcasing the movement and circulation of people inside each building. The ground plane, without the presence of cars and motorbikes, transform into congregation spaces instead of being only recognized as infrastructure The Temporal City
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Growth of the city visualized as dotted lines
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Proposition
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The accelerated progression of urbanization has played the most crucial role in our modern society, and cities are products of that evolution. We have become so attached to urban life that a city can be regarded as a living warehouse containing multiple interactions, both seen or unseen. A developed city keeps the society running and sustains our value and way of life, improving living standards and giving opportunities to create a better future. However, by getting extremely attached to urban life, city citizens slowly lose their connection with nature and production. The most notable pattern is urban inhabitants practices non-agricultural tasks so the city cannot produce its own food and consume a large number of goods and products made outside the city. Living in a city makes nature relatively hard to access daily. The closest accessible green spaces are parks, communal space, and green rooftops, which are relatively rare in highly dense areas. The proposed rules and reinvention of city blocks are introduced to address the disconnection between consumption and production or between built forms and nature. By applying the proposed rules to each city block, the proposal seeks to achieve a city that values production and, most importantly, urban agriculture. By weaving suitable programs into production, the city slowly, through time, set up a foundation for agriculture and rebuild the connection once lost between humans and nature. Moreover, the notion of expansion and getting dense will not be at the cost of losing green space and vice versa.
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In contrast, the city exhibits many people working in other industries related to business, finance, recreation, and hospitality. The concentration of the employment rate for these tasks is much denser \ in the CBD. The Temporal City
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The percentage of employment per block showcasing a pattern or trend that every city is developing. City citizens usually practice non-agricultural tasks, so tasks like agriculture, mining, and manufacturing that supply the city is located outside the grid. The Temporal City
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The building footprints always cover a larger area in comparison to the vegetation coverage. 77% of the total floor area is buildings, while only 23% are green spaces. Recognizing the lack of green space, the city constantly tries to increase green coverage. From 2011 to 2019, 29120 new trees have been planted. However, that was not a significant number. The Temporal City
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The COVID pandemic has shown that the city had difficulty getting people to visit the CBD. So almost all of these spaces became voids in a sense, the city is ineffective and serves nearly no functions.
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By examining the pedestrian data, we can see the decline in the number of pedestrians in main streets of the CBD. Even after Christmas Eve, 20, 23 months of no COVID cases, the pedestrians counts still had not recovered to exaggerate the unbalanced space usage in the city. The Temporal City
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Return Brief
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‘City of making’ Cities are products of urbanization, and urban inhabitants practice non-agricultural tasks so the city cannot produce its own food and consume many goods and products made outside the city. Therefore, the CBD exhibits many people working in other industries related to business, finance, recreation, and hospitality, while agriculture and manufacturing supply the city are outside the grid. My idea of a city of making challenges the current and future relationship between production and consumption. The new model of the city explores and introduces urban agriculture and food manufacturing into the existing city grid with the help of new patterns and solutions that supports urban growing and making. Most importantly, the city of making optimizes visibility as a solution to increase exposure to food production for the average citizens by making ‘making’ visible. Visibility is achieved by integrating programs that consume the most, like retail with designated production spaces. The project is explored through three scales large, medium, and small. Large-scale exploration is on the city grid. Data of existing retail spaces in the city is layered with the pedestrian count data at different times to formalize the project’s scale. In this case, blocks with retail spaces along Swanston street will be integrated with food production to maximize interaction between pedestrians and the notion of making. Medium-scale exploration will operate on city block number 76, which occupies the QV complex. Since the new CBD’s ground plane is dedicated to public transports and pedestrians, parking space data will be converted into food production and packaging space. Spaces for making must be placed between other consumption spaces to increase physical and visual interaction with production. Programs that attracts pedestrians such as retail, restaurants and cafes are integrated with production. This hybrid mix of programs are placed along a designated pathway generates a continuous journey through various programs to showcase the relationship between production and consumption. The pathway actively activates the site, drawing people to explore the making process similar to an exhibition. Small-scale exploration utilizes spaceframe systems (permanent and temporary) to explore the temporality and chances for vertical expansion of the city block. While, devices such as movable production spaces are combined with retractable windows and mesh screens, transforming the production process into exhibited objects and activities. This creates a dynamic relationship and interaction between the producers and consumers. Overall, the city of making addresses the disconnection between consumption and production by revealing the making process to urban citizens. Production spaces are exhibited and are visible to the human eye from anywhere close to spaces that consume the most. (ΔT)3
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Spatial Exploration
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Production tower is located in between residential apartments and offices in accordance with Rule 1. Vertical circulation and goods transportation tubes are visible along the facade of buildings, showcasing the constant movement of products and inhabitants. The Temporal City
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The laneway culture is retained in the new retail block intervention. Circulation paths connecting buildings are visible from anywhere on site.
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Temporary spaceframe structures are constructed to organizes and hosts night markets and produce markets occasionally, selling products produced and planted on site, increase interaction between consumers and producers. The Temporal City
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Circulation pathway connects buildings are exposed to the process of making. Visitors circulating the site will notice the process of making while experiencing retail and entertainment. Goods and products transportation can be seen moving constantly above the pathways. The Temporal City
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An example of a cafe and bookstore that are located inside a vertical farming space. The production process is transformed into a productive landscape, decorating commercial areas.
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Example of a dynamic consumption and production space 8AM The Temporal City
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Example of a dynamic consumption and production space 9AM (Opening hour) The Temporal City
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Example of a dynamic consumption and production space 10AM (Breakfast) The Temporal City
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Example of a dynamic consumption and production space 2PM (Lunchtime) - Vertical farming racks are moved outside, becoming a productive landscape The Temporal City
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Example of a dynamic consumption and production space 6PM (Dinner) - Vertical farming racks are moved back in for closing The Temporal City
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Example of a dynamic consumption and production space 6PM (Dinner) - Production space is closed The Temporal City
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Example of a dynamic consumption and production space Weekdays The Temporal City
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Example of a dynamic consumption and production space Weekend preparing process - Temporary spaceframes are being constructed to host an art exhibition The Temporal City
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Example of a dynamic consumption and production space Weekend operation - Temporary spaceframes are utilized to divide and curate the art exhibition The Temporal City
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The Temporal City Ian Nazareth | David Schwarzman RMIT Architecture Semester 2 2021 https://www.temporal.city/