2009 MArchThesis Lynch

Cite Sited—alternate site perception Patrick Lynch

Master of Architecture Thesis 2009 Taubman College of Architecture + Urban Planning University of Michigan

Cite Sited—alternate site perception Patrick Lynch

submitted on June 12, 2009

Tom Buresh­, faculty advisor Danelle Guthrie, faculty advisor Jason Young, thesis committee Will Glover, thesis committee

Cite Sited—alternate site perception

introduction

Always in search of equilibrium, a city thrives on instability. Rewriting itself, seeking balance, the modern landscape is never complete. This dynamic landscape is not clean. It is neither static nor certain but rather a conglomerate of contention.

An embedded alley way and radioactive park stake their claim within the modern landscape. Confronted with the hyper flows of the contemporary city, these sites must remain swift. No longer can an architecture of omnipotence declare to be an anchor for urban stability. For the city has passed it by.

To keep pace, cite sited implements a new lens to empower an alternate site perception. This lens exists in opposition to the panoptic view of the figure/ground and Google Earth. Explorations instead have focused on the city as one of compositional fragments, fleeting moments, adjacent engagements and inflated realities.

Structuring of the two sites began with through factual, fictional and fabricated stories with a greater interest engaging in heuristic fictions— an act by which allowing certain fictions a level of truth, I was able to mediate and interpret the city’s and site’s complexities. It is through the convergence of perception that I hope to dissolve an architecture in stasis.

The installation, my third site, further describes my read of the original two sites rather than proposes a formal response to it. It does not provide the panoptic view but rather demands a fractured aggregation towards understanding. The original reads of the alley and radioactive park are embedded into this new site through obstructions, detached views and incomplete wholes.

Since the mid 19th century urban European parks, through Le Corbusier’s Radiant City, and until the death of modernism with the demolition of Pruitt-Igoe, a formalist mentality objectified architecture.

Pruitt-Igoe, unfortunately was not the end to this formal agenda. From Beijing’s CCTV and Steven Holl’s linked hybrid to Dubai in its entirety, from the computer rendering to the global city in search of its icon, form and architecture as object still remains deeply rooted to the urban landscape.

Work of the deconstructionists and today’s post critical architects seek out to define a new urban identity rather than understanding existing localized conditions. They seek a blank palette to the evolving landscape. Their work, plunged into an urban fabric, seeks architectural totality rather than harmonious entanglement. Their work strives for an encompassing plane rather than linking adjacent facets. It is somewhat contradictory that I quote Koolhaas, but his observations on the city in the mid nineties are seemingly more in tune with the urban landscape than the work he is currently producing. He writes— “If there is to be a ‘new urbanism’ it will not be based on the twin fantasies of order and omnipotence; it will be the staging of uncertainty; it will no longer be concerned with the arrangement of more or less permanent objects but with the irrigation of territories with potential; it will no longer aim for stable configurations but for the creation of enabling fields that accommodate processes that refuse to be crystallized into definitive form … it will no longer be obsessed with the city but with the manipulation of infrastructure for endless intensifications and diversifications, shortcuts and redistributions—the reinvention of psychological space.”

early inspiration

My early work begins with Gillian Rose’s critique of the all-enveloping plane. To accept a singular plane is to acknowledge stasis—that through the layering of understanding, a comprehensive yet motionless stratum exists. Like her, I question, ‘What is on the move?

How? Why? And with what effects?’ The dynamics of place exist on many planes through points of tension and conflict. Existing in three dimensional space in perpetual mutation, I will begin at points of intersecting nodes. Like a figure on the radar, these intersections are moments of focus in a more homogonous field.

Henri Lefebvre in his work Rhythmanalysis describes urban rhythm as, ‘…fast or slow only in relation to other rhythms to which is associated with a greater or lesser unity.’ Understanding these rhythms and their arching relationships seems integral to understanding place.

Conventional site analysis enables autonomy through a shallow read of a site and misunderstanding of individual flows. Conventional site analysis uncovers shallow context rarely engaging in the dynamics of a site.

As important to the work of Lefebvre is Michel DeCerteau. 25 years ago, DeCerteau initiated a scholarly distinction between the strategic and tactical characteristics of the city. He argued, the strategic derive from institutors working towards a unified whole, versus the singular tactical movements that swiftly navigate the cracks of the whole. My work asks how architecture can act as a tactical agent within the city.

Along with contemporary cultural theorists,the contemporary work of Smout Allen, CHORA, and Bernard Tschumi are direct influences for my work. Smout Allen’s deep analysis and resultant depth of representation towards sites is worth further examination. Along with Smout Allen is CHORA’s explorations for the ‘…training of local participants and continuous adaptation of methods used in order to continue to see what is usually unseen, unknown, to detect ongoing change’ (Urban Floatsam.) Finally Tschumi’s work in event-cities builds momentum towards architecture that is capable of adaptation built around events.

My explorations, using site, are initially about understanding place.

Place carries meaning—meaning to the individual as well as the collective. The work seeks to explore new ways of understanding a site through both ‘representations of space’ and ‘spaces of representation’ (Unknown City, 7.) While Lefebvre first wrote about spatial representations, Iain Borden, Joe Ker and Jane Rendell go into further detail defining them as follows—

Representations of Space—‘…the conscious codification of space typified by abstract understandings…’ In addition, ‘They display a tendency towards intellectually constructed systems of verbal signs. This is space as conceived, as ‘the concept without life’’ (pg. 7.)

Spaces of Representation—‘…spaces of representation function…in conditioning possibilities for action. But they are also liberatory, for at this level resistance to, and criticism of, dominant social orders can take place.’

Furthermore, ‘They are both the spaces of the experienced and the space of the imagination, as lived. Spaces of representation tend toward systems of nonverbal symbols and signs; they are ‘life without concepts’’ (pg. 7.)

Finally, Gordon Matta Clark’s Fake Estates provided great inspiration to my work through the veiled connections the series creates. As randomly purchased sites throughout New York City, only those alerted to the series are able to reveal their associations. It continually made me question the visibility of the urban fabric and how architecture can be attentive to that which is both seen and unseen.

Gordon Matta Clark’s Fake Estates sites

site

The work employs sites of contention—sites walking the line of perceived stasis, sites tethered firmly to urban flows, sites below, in between, above, and sites at moments of vertical shifts. These sites deal with the broader urban fabric yet are small in scale to allow a detailed and rigorous level of engagement. I chose to work within Chicago due to its ability to perform as the prototypical American city.

Working with multiple sites in Chicago allows me to comparatively evaluate the broader urban influences on place. The influences pressuring each are similar allowing the formal differences of the sites to be more deeply understood. The sites are physically separate but become united through the relationships drawn out from them.

site 1—chicago, illinois

site 2—chicago, illinois

alleyway betwween Michigan Ave., Wacker Ave., and Wabash Ave

DuSable Park

The site, a fractured alleyway, is bound by buildings of heights of 3 stories to those over forty. It exists in moments of compression and moments of exposure submerged down between the three surrounding elevated roads. It maintains connections to the Chicago River as well as supplementary vertical routes to the constructed urban ground plane.

Just east of Lake Shore Drive, the historical 3.24 acre park sits directly adjacent to the epitome of an architectural object—Calatrava’s Chicago Spire. A radioactive brownfield, construction staging area, entrance to the Chicago River, DuSable Park exists as a counterpart to the alleyway.

Alleys are incisions in the urban fabric—existing detached from various urban flows. Alleys are not the residual spaces of urban compositions.

Meticulously placed, they exist in formal balance with the buildings that surround them initiating contention for which defines which. My work does not perceive alleys as romanticized spaces within the city.

They are not what constitute realness in a city.

Bound by rigid form alleys are only capable of tapping into the ephemeral flows through defined apertures. Within the alley one is only able to observe the flows of the adjacent city through these finite moments.

Between 1904 and 1936 the Lindsay Light Company manufactured thorium impregnated gas mantles. After the plant shut down, contaminated radioactive soil was transported and dumped at DuSable Park. A radioactive site instigates tangential questions in regards to site analysis. How does site analysis occur in a place that must be evaluated at a distance? What is an architecture that cannot be readily occupied?

visualization

The structuring of the two sites in Chicago required the development of a representational technique that was able to build off of the visual precision of a photograph while exposing ephemeral structures not explicit within the image itself. The following visualizations are of the alley and radioactive park structured through this lens. They focus on moments rather than the whole—moments both spatially and temporally. Their intent is to build an understanding of the two sites through particular fragments, albeit chosen by me, to seek out design through a forensic reality rather than cursory assumptions.

Having complete access to the alley, I understand its structure on a more tactile level than the park. I experience it through its temporality and interdependent fragments.

michigan ave.

michigan ave.

n macChesney ct

Dusable Park is often seen, but rarely accessed. Filled with radioactive thorium, I have never been physically on the site. A park by name only, its existence as is completely fabricated. Always detached from the site continually raises questions of architecture and sites that cannot be readily be occupied.

A figure/ground of phenomena doesn’t detail solids and voids but rather begins to define the layers of the grounds own existence. From the provisional effect of weather to its lasting effect on the ground, this plate examines the intricate rather than the encompassing.

ice water asphalt concrete setts

scaffold

A broken bottle within the alley raises questions of scale and influence.

While it is only a few inches in diameter, when thrown its effect certainly filled the alley. Upon crashing against the alley ground its echo redefined its scale yet again. A moment later its scale has been reduced to its fragments.

H

e. wacker pl.—1X ZOOM

h

broken bottle—13X ZOOM

t= f

dx

-2H g

+

-2(h -H) g

d

y

n. garland ct.—1X ZOOM

8

5/

7-

shadow 10:35am

missing

downspo ut · missing

ut · missing

downspo

downspo ut · missing

downspo ut · missing

downspo ut · missing

downspo ut · missing

downspo ut · missing

downspo ut · missing

downspo ut · missing

downspo ut · missing

downspo ut

The brick plates index the decay of an alley wall. Sixty days passed between the visualizing of the two.

+60

3-1 /2

A map of what was once there. These joist locations embedded into the brick wall remain long after the building is demolished.

crack

washing platform

85’-0

day 12

day 17

day 10 day 7

day 18

day 22

day 1

day 3

day 5

day 16 day 9 day 15

day 19 day 2 day 19 day 14

day 8

day 13

day 26 day 20 day 23

day 21 day 11 day 4

day 25

day 6

day 24

heuristic fiction

The use of heuristic fictions allows me to mediate the city’s and site’s complexities. The application of such fictions allowed me to ask new questions about the two sites’ existence within the city and produce expatiated discovery. The following pages are in search of such discovery.

This model of DuSable Park begins with the heuristic fiction that the shadow from the alley way is detached and relocated to the park. Accepting this as truth I was able to work on questions of effect and inhabitation of the not so inhabitable site. This thinking allowed me to consider creation of the defined shadow. Stretching over 200 feet above, the metal armature recasts the alley’s shadow upon the park. The imposing armature exists at an imposing distance over the park while only coming in contact with the park’s surface at 6 points.

The image transposed onto the park is that of the Battle of Mollwitz in 1741. Pre mechanized war is much more responding to the landscape in which it is being fought. The terrain becomes an aspect of advantage and disadvantage and must be acutely understood.

This map is analogously used to the acuteness I am looking for within my reads of site.

Satellite 1 0:00:00 0:00:15 0:00:55 0:01:35 0:02:05 0:02:49 0:03:33 0:04:00 0:04:02 0:04:05 0:05:07 0:20:35 0:45:00 0:59:22 1:07:24 1:34:59 1:35:01 2:10:10 2:44:51 3:01:13 3:39:41 4:17:21 4:17:22 4:17:23 5:33:00 5:58:04 6:09:46 6:41:55 6:41:56 6:41:56 7:32:00 8:00:13 8:53:57 9:44:00 10:15:25 11:15:25 12:15:25 13:15:25 14:15:25 15:15:25 16:15:25 17:15:25 18:15:25 19:15:26 20:15:22 21:15:25 21:15:26 21:15:28 21:15:31

sidewalk sidewalk sidewalk sidewalk sidewalk sidewalk sidewalk sidewalk foot sidewalk sidewalk sidewalk sidewalk sidewalk sidewalk foot sidewalk sidewalk sidewalk sidewalk sidewalk foot foot sidewalk sidewalk sidewalk sidewalk razorblade razorblade razorblade razorblade razorblade razorblade razorblade razorblade razorblade razorblade razorblade razorblade razorblade razorblade razorblade razorblade razorblade razorblade sidewalk sidewalk sidewalk sidewalk

normal normal normal normal normal normal normal normal *ALERT* normal normal normal normal normal normal *ALERT* normal normal normal normal normal *ALERT* *ALERT* normal normal normal normal *ALERT* *ALERT* *ALERT* *ALERT* *ALERT* *ALERT* *ALERT* *ALERT* *ALERT* *ALERT* *ALERT* *ALERT* *ALERT* *ALERT* *ALERT* *ALERT* *ALERT* *ALERT* normal normal normal normal

Satellite 2 0:00:00 0:00:15 0:00:55 0:01:35 0:02:05 0:02:49 0:03:33 0:04:00 0:04:02 0:04:05 0:05:07 0:20:35 0:45:00 0:59:22 1:07:24 1:34:59 1:35:01 2:10:10 2:44:51 3:01:13 3:39:41 4:17:21 4:17:22 4:17:23 5:33:00 5:58:04 6:09:46 6:41:55 6:41:56 6:41:56 7:32:00 8:00:13 8:53:57 9:44:00 10:15:25 11:15:25 12:15:25 13:15:25 14:15:25 15:15:25 16:15:25 17:15:25 18:15:25 19:15:26 20:15:22 21:15:25 21:15:26 21:15:28 21:15:31

wall wall subject 01 wall wall subject 02 wall wall wall wall wall wall wall subject 03 wall wall wall wall wall wall subject 04 wall wall wall wall wall wall wall wall wall wall wall wall wall wall wall wall wall wall wall wall wall wall wall wall subject 05 wall wall wall

normal normal *ALERT* normal normal *ALERT* normal normal normal normal normal normal normal *ALERT* normal normal normal normal normal normal *ALERT* normal normal normal normal normal normal normal normal normal normal normal normal normal normal normal normal normal normal normal normal normal normal normal normal *ALERT* normal normal normal

The satellite visualization of the DuSable Park and subsequent model on the following page is a modern response to reading de Certeau’s ‘Walking in the City.’ Whereas he discussed leaving the 110th floor of the world trade center to walk the city, through what he terms, tactical navigation, the imaging satellites have been appropriated and refocused on moments within the city. One is focused on the decay of an apartment while the other on a 3”x3” square of sidewalk.

ma

cC

he sn

ey c

t

macChesney drop-off

du sab

le p ick -up

Through questions of habitation these two visualizations investigate a situation in which the radioactive soil from the park is relocated to the alley. Not only do they investigate how relocation occurs but the resulting effect on the alley itself. Habitation becomes increasingly entrenched within the city. Occupation becomes limited within the surrounding buildings as the radioactivity redefines new boundaries.

river bed

DRAFT

11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

DRAFT

third site

This third site further describes my read of the original two sites rather than proposes a formal response to it. It does not provide the panoptic view but rather demands a fractured aggregation towards understanding. My reads of the alley and radioactive park are embedded into this new site through obstructions, detached views and incomplete wholes.

wall

The wall is not about curating the visualizations but to further explore the structure of the alley and park. It is designed to never allow for an encompassing view of the work. Its overall position along the permanent wall and its fractured corners play a role in emphasizing moments rather than a full frontal understanding. A viewer looking at the outside of the wall only can find glimpses of what lies behind through moments such as the horizontal slit 2 feet above the ground.

visualizations

The drawings take advantage of the form of the wall. Using corners and mirrors to their advantage, at no point can all of the drawings be seen at the same time. Their positions begin to narrate the reads of an entrenched alley and exposed park. The visualizations of the alley are found within the most compressed moments of the wall.

armature

In contrast to the alley visualizations hidden behind the wall, the overhead metal armature fully exposes the park. However, just as the park cannot be readily occupied, these visualizations can only be seen once removed through a pair of mirrors.

camouflage

First used during WW1 its intent was not to hide, but rather to obscure the speed, direction and number of ships in a fleet. Like the ships, this site isn’t intended to mask the work that lies behind but rather emphasize my intent towards the need for a more focused read of partial moments.

Postscript:

My final review conversation revolved around the accessibility of my work—both in the staging of my wall and its accessibility to the viewer during the critique as well as the access of the idiosyncrasies in the site visualizations. The difficulties in access during the presentation were deliberate and planned out. To have allowed a full view of the work would have undermined the intent of the installation. It was interesting though throughout the critique in how this clashed with disciplinary norms. Reviewers immediately chose to arrange themselves in front of the work like they would any other, and even after getting up to move around the installation found their own ways back to their seats in a position which they could no longer engage the work fully. While my intent was not to critiquing aspects of the review process, it seemingly became an active part of the conversation.

I have had a much more ongoing concern with the access to the work itself. While the representational techniques are often idiosyncratic and particular, I always worked hardest to frame the work in a way that directly tied it back into the contemporary disciplinary issues from which the work began. This pairing of developing a personal methodology and broad accessibility, I believe, finally found a level of resolution and equilibrium within the final review. This relative resolution took the entire semester to discover.

This thesis project set out from the beginning to last long after my final presentation date. It is the conversations such as the balance of personal method to disciplinary standards that will allow my thinking towards this work to continue. The personal benefits from me having worked in this way go well beyond the work itself. I found the thesis framework, as it is structure at TCAUP, to directly face my flaws as a designer---not only the flaws which I was aware, but those in which I had yet to discover.

Bibliography

Borden, Iain, Joe Kerr, and Jane Rendell, eds. The Unknown City : Contesting Architecture and Social Space. New York: MIT Press, 2001.

Bunschoten, Raoul, Helene Binet, and Takuro Hoshino. Urban Flotsam : Stirring the City: Chora. New York: BPR, 2001.

Kastner, Jeffrey, Sina Najafi, and Frances Richard, eds. Odd Lots : Revisiting Gordon Matta-Clark’s Fake Estates. New York: D. A. P./Distributed Art, 2005.

Barthes, Roland. The Death of the Author. 1967 Tschumi, Bernard. “Event-Cities (Praxis)” Cambridge, MA: The MIT P, 1994.

Smout, Mark, and Laura Allen. Augmented Landscapes. New York: Princeton Architectural P, 2007.

Kwon, Miwon. One Place after Another : Site-Specific Art and Locational Identity. New York: MIT P, 2002.

Hill, Jonathan. The Illegal Architect. Grand Rapids: Black Dog Limited, 1998.

Vaihinger, H. The Philosophy of As if A System of the Theoretical, Pratical, and Religious Fictions of (International Library of Philosophy). New York: Routledge, 2000.

De Certeau, Michel. “Chapter 7.” The Practice of Everyday Life. New York: University of California P, 2002.

Koolhaas, R. ‘What Ever Happened to Urbanism?’, in S,M,L,XL. New York, N.Y: Monacelli P, 1998.

Lefebvre, Henri. Rhythmanalysis Space, Time and Everyday Life (Athlone Contemporary European Thinkers). New York: Continuum International Group, 2004.

Acknowledgments

Tom Buresh Danelle Guthrie Jason Young Will Glover Amy Kulper Perry Kulper Ryan Lynch Jon Puff Katie Peterson Kyle Osterhart Andrew Bodley