STEPHANIE BRACONNIER | STUD4532
theory
micro-scale urban planning
‘PLANNED’: like a circuit board
‘UNPLANNED’: like the internet
‘planned’ ‘unplanned’
complicated EVERY SINGLE ELEMENT is DELIBERATELY POSITIONED with respect to EACH OTHER and THE WHOLE.
complex Something with MANY PARTS that are NOT PRE-SPECIFIED and MAY BE UNKNOWN TO ANY ONE PERSON, even if every part was placed there by someone.
‘unplanned’ DOES NOT MEAN disordered OR disfunctional... ...IT IS SAID TO BE emergent.
THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN ‘planned’ AND ‘unplanned’ IS THE SCALE AT WHICH THEY ARE DESIGNED; or THE SCALE AT WHICH systematic order PRESIDES.
systematic order at any given scale is a HALLMARK OF DESIGN at that scale.
planned complicated contrived order
la ville radieuse, 1930
unplanned complex natural order
paris ca. 1400
order without a plan. the INTERACTIONS of INDIVIDUAL ELEMENTS may themselves be UNCOORDINATED or CHAOTIC, but the OVERALL PATTERNS are RECURRING and FAMILIAR.
functional order disorder
direct design
emergence
macro scale (design of whole)
micro scale (local, incremental)
purposive intervention
no purposive intervention
new paths to order
‘natural order’ complex Something with MANY PARTS that are NOT PRE-SPECIFIED and MAY BE UNKNOWN TO ANY ONE PERSON, even if every part was placed there by someone.
emergent micro scale planning
patterns in complexity The COMPLEXITY found in cities comes from the INTERACTION AND RELATIONSHIPS between the DIFFERENT PARTS at DIFFERENT SCALES, OVER TIME.
nature is interconnected: Nature is composed of COMPLEX, INTER-RELATED WEBS of relationships called ‘ecosystems’.
ecosystem THE ORDER OF THE WHOLE arises from INTERACTIONS BETWEEN THE PARTS.
eco + “oikos” + “house” +
system “systema” “interacting components”
city as ecosystem The city is a complex, collective, dynamic entity. The built environment is no less an environment to the creatures it accomodates than any ‘natural’ environment. The city accomodates both biological and non-biological growth.
‘second nature’ In the urban context, greenery attempts to fill an intuitive void --the absense of nature. It is possible to reintroduce a performative ‘second nature’ in which ecological relations, water management, and microclimate become part of the engineering of the city. ‘Second Nature’ refers to a designed nature in adjacency to existing urbanization, capable of absorbing future growth while maintaining ecological systems.
city as ecosystem
‘second nature’
The text content of this booklet are direct quotes or paraphrases from:
Geuze, Adriaan, and Matthew Skjonsberg. “Second Nature: New Territories for the Exiled.� Landscape Infrastructure: Case Studies by SWA. Ed. Ying Yu Hung et al. Basel: Birkhauser, 2011. 24-29. Marshall, Stephen. Cities, Design & Evolution. New York: Routledge, 2009.