URBAN HYPEROBJECTS by Valeria Cedillos
Received and approved:
_______________________________________________________ Date: July 1, 2020 Thesis Advisor Signature Ariane Lourie Harrison _______________________________________________________ Thesis Advisor Name
URBAN HYPEROBJECT Valeria Cedillos
PRATT INSTITUTE, SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE Graduate Architecture & Urban Design (GAUD) David Erdman, Chairperson GRADUATE ARCHITECTURE AND URBAN DESIGN (MSAUD) Ariane Lourie Harrison, Coordinator
2019 - 2020
Program Introduction
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Research Introduction
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Contemporary Urban Environment
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Specie(s)
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Interplanetary Urbanization
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Objects: Architecture and Nature
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Interobjective Systems
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Enmeshed Urban Blocks
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Multi-level Systems
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Phased Urbanity
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Urban Catalyst
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Contextual Correlations
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Fractal Interpretations
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Hyper Hybrid
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Objective Transformations
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References
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MS Urban Design Program Introduction
We began the 2019-2020 MS program year musing on the dense block as a figure of the Anthropocene, the geological period marking the undeniable impacts of human activity on the planet; we concluded the program with urban hybrids and entirely new learning conditions that, on some level, usher in the “post-Anthropocene.” What does it mean to be post-Anthropocene? The term “post” may be lazy, realistic or optimistic. We might suggest that “post” yokes us to our prior condition: we cannot just dive into new terminology and ignore it. “Post-Anthropocene” then means we wrestle with our anthropocentric exploitation of the planet; that we examine and acknowledge the inextricable relationship between racism and environmental degradation; and that we look at the manner in which social inequity is inscribed in the built environment, in particular regarding access to urban transportation systems.
Pandemic brought us into new dialogues with the effects of the Anthropocene. Infection is not limited to animals and humans, but describes, as well, a structure of interactions that are reconfiguring around pandemic, racism, isolation, and environmental catastrophe. The conventional physical aggregation of non-diverse academic bodies makes way to zoomed discussions across time-zones and perspectives; studio reviews, the province of top down expert monologues makes way for new platforms of committed listening, engaged looking and real dialogue. The Covid-19 crisis atomized urban space. Self-quarantine and isolation, necessary to fight the epidemic, are spatial practices that inscribe intimate boundaries and that counter the ideals and, in fact, the very idea of public space. Urban parks, considered the lungs of the city, today become potential hot spots for respiratory illness; access to verdant material and fresh air is increasingly constrained by life circumscribed by one’s interior space. Yet any “nature” left in the city is highly unnatural: it is constructed, cultivated and maintained by man and machine. It has few if any provisions for non-human species. Yet the “garden” remained lodged in our urban imaginary, ready to be reconfigured by alternative transportation systems and novel figurations of the urban block. The pandemic cast a harsh perspective on urban mass-transit. We had grown accustomed to the crowded bustle of the subway, the churn of buses and the vagaries of train schedules, but had not been prepared for Covid19’s dismantling the very raison d’être of the city: its masses, its community. The MS Urban Design’s research on micromobility and alternative transportation seemed prescient: we had already begun to allocate streets to new circulation rhythms. The blurring of façade and street to create variations on the “porte-cochère” anticipated our spring 2020 reality: a street-scape in which pick-up and drop-off of goods, food, supplies required the infrastructure of awning, archways and canopies. The interface between building façade and street would prove complex and contentious.
We became newly allied in virtual space, linked by our screens; we grew physically distant from the lively makers’ spaces of Pratt studios yet joined in the spaces of activism. Pratt itself has been transformed: the understanding that 3D printers could produce frameworks for emergency workers PPE set design activism at the top of our agendas; the imperative of self-isolation made us critically evaluate our home-spaces; the requirements of quarantine made us reflect on the critical role of accessible and distributed greenspace in the city; the needs of our families, our health and wellbeing, impressed a new shape of concern on this spring’s culminating projects. To arrive at this result, the MS Urban Design project worked across several different scales with Studio faculty (Jonas Coersmeier, Oliver Schaper, Ferda Kolatan) and studio instructors (Emilija Landsbergis) and studio partners, RXR’s The Hall (David Gise), HK Development (David Dobkin) and EA Creative (Erich Arcement, Charlie Cunningham). The, starting with a dense urban block, expanding to an expansive urban context that took note of transit deserts, flood zones and pollution hotspots, and finally returning to The Hall in Wallabout to explore the interface between Hall Street and its flanking blocks. The culminating studio examines how the integration of autonomous vehicles (AV’s) reconfigures the very understanding of the street as a hybrid space. Ferda Kolatan, leading the culminating studio, suggests in the UD 903 course syllabus the manner in which the hybrid provokes new questions for the postAnthropocene city: “Is it possible to think of the objects brought along by AV technology as vital counterparts to the existing (and new) artefacts of the city’s architecture? Can we perhaps produce truly novel urban hybrids that combine technology, design, and even “nature” in unprecedented ways? If so, can these hybrids further articulate new conceptual and theoretical strategies for the 21st century city without reversing back to the modernist tropes of technological positivism?”
The culminating studio developed hybrid architectures comprising building facades, sidewalks and street, basements and scaffolds. Hall Street transformed accordingly, becoming an AV scaffolded greenspace, a carbon garden, a plastic-sequestering street mural, and infrastructural façades for new art spaces and for a vertical vineyard. The final projects demonstrate the hybrid functioning of AV technology, street and building, but also produce a compelling vision for our rapidly transforming city. This work is the subject of Pratt GAUD’s “The Street of the 21st Century” virtual exhibition, designed by Jeffrey Anderson. It is a testament to your resiliency, your commitment to your education and your understanding of the significance of this spring — that this period of pandemic, protest, national quarantine and national protest – will mark a significant change for architecture and urban design. We are different now. Your culminating projects suggest that we have already ushered in the post-Anthropocene: that, in acknowledging the blinkered perspectives of the Anthropocene period, architects and urban designers will now envision, fabricate, and script more inclusive engagement in a global environment circumscribed by pandemic, climate change and inequitable socio-economic policies.
Ariane Lourie Harrison MS Urban Design, Program Coordinator
Urban Hyperobjects
Research Introduction Urbanization is a complex, abstract, and extense concept which we will denominate as a hyperobject. Through the conception of urbanization as a hyperobject we speculate urban models in different types of scales to have a deeper understanding its transformation within cities.
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Contemporary Urban Environment
ur·ban, adjective In, relating to, or characteristic of a town or city. “the urban population”.
Most people can agree that cities are places where large numbers of people live and work; they are hubs of government, commerce and transportation. But how best to define the geographical limits of a city is a matter of some debate. So far, no standardized international criteria exist for determining the boundaries of a city and often multiple boundary definitions are available for any given city. One type of definition, sometimes referred to as the “city proper”, describes a city according to an administrative boundary. A second approach, termed the “urban agglomeration”, considers the extent of the contiguous urban area, or built-up area, to delineate the city’s boundaries. A third concept of the city, the “metropolitan area”, defines its boundaries according to the degree of economic and social interconnectedness of nearby areas, identified by interlinked commerce or commuting patterns, for example. Even though humans have lived and studied cities for centuries, there isn’t yet a solid answer as to what they are, or moreover, what they should be. During this research we should understand the present-day city as a contemporary urban environment, a set of conditions and surroundings in which humans live and operate.
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Figure 1: Montage proposing new forms of urban densification. Work by Valeria Cedillos and Victoria Tsukerman. Pratt GAUD
The contemporary urban environment that we now inhabit is a consequence of ongoing human actions. These actions have led to irreversible changes not only in the urban environment but in our planetary scale. Humans are currently in a state of shock while we are witnessing the actions of the footprint we’ve left on the planet. In this time of realization, we must stop mourning our past environments, accept the new conditions, and think of how we can preserve and do things properly through:
Current environmental conditions as opportunities Contemporary urban environments as a resource Design as a strategic device to shift
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ur·ban·i·za·tion The process of making an area more urban. “he saw nature being destroyed by urbanization”
In recent decades, the world has been urbanizing rapidly. In 1950, only 30 per cent of the world’s population lived in urban areas, a proportion that grew to 55 per cent by 2018. The global urbanization rate masks important differences in urbanization levels across geographic regions. Northern America is the most urbanized region, with 82 per cent of its population. residing in urban areas, whereas Asia is approximately 50 per cent urban, and Africa remains mostly rural with 43 per cent of its population living in urban areas in 2018 (United Nations, 2018).
More than one half of the world population lives now in urban areas, and virtually all countries of the world are becoming increasingly urbanized. This is a global phenomenon that has nonetheless very different expressions across regions and development levels: richer countries and those of Latin America and the Caribbean have already a large proportion of their population residing in urban areas, whereas Africa and Asia, still mostly rural, will urbanize faster than other regions over the coming decades. These trends are changing the landscape of human settlement, with significant implications for living conditions, the environment and development in different parts of the world. Even though the world still contains a vast amount of rural areas and settlements, these areas risk being absorbed into cities. It is an uncontrollable phenomenon that is exponentially spreading across the earth’s surface. The sprawl calls for attention, where architects and urban designers carry a huge responsibility in thinking new forms of reurbanization and density.
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Figure 2: Urban Catalyst Master Plan. Fall 2019 by Valeria Cedillos and Victoria Tsukerman
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Whithin the debate of urban sprawl and redensification, it is necessary that architects, urbanists, and designers question themselves the actual current conditions, taking into consideration the historical actions and objects that have led us to them, and from their understanding be able to plan ahead of time. Some of the questions that should be considered when rethinking our urbanities are:
Where to add density? What type of city do we want to build? What is architecture in the age of extreme urbanization? Architecture and urban design are interpreted in the importation and exportation of existing and foreign forms. The boundaries of this exchange have been clear in the past, but the future expectations are still a blur due to the larger range of opportunities we now have from scientific, technological, architectural, and engineering research. As we face present and future challenges, we must exert our efforts on exploring the possible outcomes of extreme urbanization. While exploring new forms of densification and urban design we can detach future possibilities from being strictly on the ground or on planet Earth.
Figure 3: Hong Kong Urban Density by Dietrich Herlan
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Specie(s) It is known that Earth is inhabited by thousands of species, including human, but to understand their role within urban environmets we must first understand what species actually are. As described by the Oxford Languages, species is: A group of living organisms consisting of similar individuals capable of exchanging genes or interbreeding. The species is the principal natural taxonomic unit, ranking below a genus and denoted by a Latin binomial, e.g. Homo sapiens. Human evolution on earth had undergone a series of irreversible changes throught centuries, but we have to be prepared for a more selective evolution in the future which would be directly linked with technology. Besides genetic changes, we need to forsee that future colonists will experience changes in their culture and technology. In addition to focusing on what makes up the “urban conditions”, shouldn’t we also attentively observe those elements that constitute the “urban experience” of populations in these new conditions? What type of populations should we be foreseeing in the future? Since humans become more tied to technology every day, we can speculate the chance of robots become a sort of variation from the human species. Robots have several inherent advantages. They are much cheaper than humans because they don’t require a vast support infrastructure to provide things like water, food and breathable air. They are immune to the risks of cosmic radiation and other dangers inherent to space travel. The idea that human evolution can be merged with robotic life is closer than we think, and urban scenarios have to be rethought for this new varieted species.
Figure 4: Homo Sapiens evolution with future speculations. Valeria Cedillos. Pratt GAUD
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Interplanetary Urbanization The evolution of urbanization and humans is pushing the boundaries of life being sheltered only on Earth, and the shift towards life on Mars is essential to be researched and considered. As architecture in space enters a new era, there has been a fundamental shift in the space industry from short term explorations onto long-term colonization, and new ventures such as space tourism. Present day architects need to learn how to develop multiple specie supporting design concepts for space exploration, as well as the need to employ an architectural intelligence and experimentation that can result in an operational architecture capable of inserting itself on space. The future urban realities require imaginative and resourceful approaches, in which architecture redefines the history of human conditions, a search in which urban active forms can enable urban shifts and transformations. When we talk about interplanetary colonization, we need to shift out of the traditional boundaries of design and construction since this is a challenging, multi-disciplinary problem that requires expertise from a wide variety of fields: aerospace engineering, environmental engineering, social science, urban planning, design, architecture, and structural engineering. Unlike structural engineering for the built environment on Earth, there are virtually zero rules of thumb or design precedents to draw on for construction on Mars or the Moon. There is exciting potential to shape this discussion with fundamental structural engineering principles and forward-looking material and fabrication strategies. The opportunity is lying in front of us, the challenge is to learn how to open a multidisciplinary collaboration that has success as the main interest. “Mars is the most habitable planet in our Solar System besides Earth,” said Laura Kerber, Research Scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. “But it remains a hostile world for many kinds of life. A system for creating small islands of habitability would allow us to transform Mars in a controlled and scalable way.” (Nature Astronomy volume 3, pages898–903(2019). This statement leads us to begin thinking and planning how the urbanization should be thought beforehand as a controlled and scalable object.
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Figure 5: Sectional studies of Mars colonization proposals. Drawings by Valeria Cedillos.
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Figure 6: Sectional studies of Mars colonization proposals. Drawings by Valeria Cedillos.
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Introduction
Apart from space technology and urban design, before we land on the mars, we need figure out a series of ways to support human living on such extreme environment including getting water, producing oxygen, acquiring energy and so on. Since the atmosphere on Mars is very thin and contains very little oxygen, we need enclosed interior space meanwhile allowing the nature light enters. In order to create a huge space, there is a need to design a huge structure system formed by interconnected domes. Designer and Engineers not only have to analyze and deeply study the urban conditions of the extraterrestrial planet, but once they are understood they need to provide solutions for a new type of unknown civilization: human and martian species. Even though there is still not enough information to know what types of living organisms are found in the planet, we need to contemplate that there might be some, maybe only microorganism life. This forces us to create habitats in which humans wouldn’t arrive to displace martian life, but create some sort of new interaction and connection in between species. Metabolic approaches for urbanization on space must render the built environment as unevenly produced, and constantly reshaped, by a continuous circulation of material and energy driven by socio-political and biophysical forces. Exploring the ways in which contemporary forms of urbanism hinge upon, and in turn intensify the variegated array of transformations across multi-scale operational landscapes—including landscapes of extraction, circulation and accumulation. Urbanization approaches on space could help us learn and bring back urban qualities to earth, and instead of facing and exposing human species to unknown and extreme environment we could start redesigning in a dark ecological way, admitting our coexistence with the toxic contemporary urban environment that we have created and exploited. Even though interplanetary colonization would be a milestone for our species survival, we can’t detach from the thought that if there where to be existing life on mars, then we should no nothing with Mars, because it would then belong to the martians.
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Objects: Architecture and Nature Within the Object-Oriented Ontology (OOO), we can think of architecture and nature as equal objects. In this case, there is no hierarchy between them but instead they have an equal value. Looking deeper into how each object works, we find that they are constantly interconnected, but that they also coexist one inside the other. There is a series of affiliations between these objects, and the more we understand them the more we know they are connected. They exist in way that they have a gap between what they are and how they appear, and are constant footprints of hyperobjects. For this book, architecture, urbanization, cities, nature, and global warming are all hyperobjects. These hyperobjects magnify the wierdness of things for our inspection, and are not simply mental constructs but real entities whose reality is withdrawn from humans. As these hyperobjects are interconnected and correlated, they remain without any hierarchy inbetween.
Figure 7: Chunk model of “Urban Catalyst� Fall Studio 2019 Project by Valeria Cedillos and Victoria Tsukerman. Instructor: Oliver Schaper and Emilija Landsbergis. Pratt GAUD 2019.
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Introduction
Figure 8: Chunk model from Material Urbanism Summer Studio 2019 Project by Valeria Cedillos and Victoria Tsukerman. Instructor: Jonas Coersmeier. Pratt GAUD 2019.
Since there is no nature to which one must cling, what matters is not the anesthetized experience of feeling part of something bigger but establishing bonds of intimacy between beings and objects. The city and global warming are hyperobjects, in which their internal and external operations and relations within the environment are also objects. Every decision we as humans make is directly related with them, and we are glued to this phenomenological situation. These hyperobjects are there, no matter what we are aware of. They are present and impossible to shake off, like a viscous material that is all around us. We can’t get rid of neither of them, and they do not manifest at a specific time and place but rather are stretched out in such a way as to challenge the idea that a thing must occupy a specific place and time. These hyperobjects seem to inhabit a human casual system in which association, correlation, and probability are the only things we have to go on.
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Figure 9: Pedestrian activity map.
Figure 10: Pedestrian activity map
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Introduction
Both hyperobjects, cities and global warming, have challenged and generated certain conflicts within them and around them on our planet. Because of this, the idea of interplanetary urbanization gives us the change to replace those objects with external ones, such as life on Mars. We are exerting our efforts to ease conflicts on earth while we still need expand our living space. We need to find a place to take our problems “away” Fortunately, the great progress of technology in various fields is bringing about new possibilities for interplanetary urbanization. People had left footprint on the moon fifty years ago. Now, landing on the Mars is appealing and it could be the “away” we are searching for. Even though It would make more sense to design in a dark ecological way, admitting our coexistences with toxic substances that we have created and exploited, we need to find solutions for future apocalyptic conditions in the present “here”. Ecology means thinking of home, hence world.
Eco = oikos = home Home is unstable: who knows where it ends and where it starts? In urban design the term “away” is constantly used. What we need to understand is that there is no “away” in our same planet. The word “away” just generates confusion since it implies that there is some mysterious dimension to which we can send all our mistakes or problems. Instead, we should understand that away is here and how they are interconnected. In another way, we could create a new “away”, but designing it to be the correct escape and the opportunity to do things right. What if this “away” can be found in our same planet. Urban hyperobjects are impossible to handle right, and we have little time to learn them. The actions we retrieve from them is what makes events stay in sync. Their future is somehow beamed onto our present. By dismantling the traditional hierarchies of urbanism into urban hyperobjects, we can then learn their different levels and scales weaving information, program, and form.
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Interobject Systems Redensification of a block through interconnections and correlations between program, information, and form.
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Enmeshed Urban Blocks Urban blocks are urban hyperobjects that are made up of interobjective systems that work as a mesh. These meshes are what connect things, but at the same time have a strangeness because they are full of gaps and absences. Sticking to the OOO, the block and all of its components are objects as well. Some find themselves inside, above or below other objects, but within the mes that makes up the interobjective system. When an object is born, it is instantly enmeshed into a relationship with other objects in the mesh. The mesh doesn’t subtend things, but it rather floats “on top” of them and “in front” of things. A mesh consists of links, and gaps between objects. The links are what enable casuality, and it is the casual dimension in which things are able to happen, and not to happen. In the case of the urban block, we can physically percieve the links and gaps found within, and how they are stacked as a system until becoming a whole object, a hyperobject. Interobjective systems provide a ontollogical space for objects. Urban block hyperobjects provide multiple examples of interobjectivity, like the way in which nothing is ever experiences directly, but only mediated through entitites in some sensual space (e.g. the noise of the wind).
Figure 11: Material massing models fabricated by urban design students for material urbanism Summer Studio. Image by Valeria Cedillos
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For a deeper understanding of an enmeshed urban block, we will study the project “E-Waste Materialities�. The project developed its own type of interobjective system, made up by multiple programs and connections between them. By first understanding the existing block conditions as an object, and the area to be redensified as another, but also both together as another object, we begin to understand the relations, links, and gaps between them as well as to see it as a new hyperobject. The project finds an interobjectivity not only through the connection between program, but also between systems. The first step in the development of this project consisted on material massing, a seires of models made up of different materials that show different results. Studying and analyzing the material qualities found in those objects is what began defining the geometrial and form outcome. The project would begin stacking new residential blocks above the existing object, interconnecting both systems as well as being eveloped by an e-waste facility that sustains great part of its infrastructure and creates the sensual space of the existing and proposed architectural spaces.
Figure 12: Section studies from urban massing. Summer studio 2019. Instructor: Jonas Coersmeier
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The focus on E-Waste is due to the the accelerating change of technology that suggests a faster and profound change in the future which will not necessarily be accompanied by equally profound social and cultural change. The upcoming changes not only give space for growth opportunities, but also open a gap of problems. The accelerating progress of technology and its changes in mode of human life, are unable to continue in the same pace. Even though accelerating change is already part of the Anthropocene epoch, it is not restricted to it and it could become a predictable and developmental feature of the universe. The accelerating change of our epoch is due to physical processes that give rise to exponential and superexponential technological change. These technological advances also give architecture a glimpse of its future possibilities, considering the crucial role it plays in the development of technologies. Architecture can control future scenarios along with technology giving society the opportunity to directly engage in the transformations. In the excitement of technological change there is an oblivion to the existing and past technological features, and this is linked with the ongoing problem of E-waste. and this is linked with the ongoing problem of E-waste. The interconnection between the architectural objects is what makes up the interobjective system in this urban block hyperobject. This urban block hyperobject projects itself through the multiple geometries, materialities, and sensual spaces.
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Figure 13: Section studies from urban massing. Summer studio 2019. Instructor: Jonas Coersmeier
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Figure 14: Section studies from urban massing. Summer studio 2019. Instructor: Jonas Coersmeier
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Figure 15: Interior block material rendering. Summer studio 2019. Instructor: Jonas Coersmeier
Figure 16: Interior block material rendering. Summer studio 2019. Instructor: Jonas Coersmeier
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Multi-level systems
The proposal consists in a series of photo montages which merge unique details found in the existing BQE (Brooklyn Queens Expressway) with elements of The High Line in Manhattan. The main purpose is to replace the vehicular traffic from the BQE undergroud, giving the opportunity to reuse the existing infrastructure as a public space which produces new levels of density among its corridor. The reuse of existing infrastructure open the opportunity to new forms of mobility, such as a tram system running along the previous expressway lanes. the BQE is proposed as a double decker park that interacts with the surrounding buildings pressurizing the urban space object. The urban excercise begins through capturing multiple sets of photographs in order to compregend the surrounding elements and the space object. Three photo montages come together through edition an photogrammetry as a speculative narrative of the current urban scenario.
Figure 17: Photo montages narrating the proposal for the BQX. Images by Valeria Cedillos and Victoria Tsukerman.
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Phased Urbanity A phase space as a set of all possible states of a system, in which we only see brief patches of it as it intersects our urban realities.
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Urban Catalyst Urban Hyperblocks phase in and out of the human world. Because of this, we percieve them as a phased urbanitiy, in which we can only see pieces of that hyperobject at a time, and appear to be nonlocal and temporally. They occupy such a high dimensional phase space that make it impossible to see as a whole on a regular 3D human scale basis. Urban Catalyst is viewed as a phased urbanity that explores multiple levels of phasing by its interconnectedness with new and existing objects. The desire for density allows the object to grow while preventing itself from becoming relentless. The ongoing system reactivates the Brooklyn Navy Yard and can extend onto Manhattan, giving the city a system that can power it. A strong re-engagement between the buildings and the urban landscape encodes new types of relationships of the space object. The solids and voids along the site have coincidences and moments that are possible through urban joinery, which translates into circulatory systems that create urban interiorities that displace the threshold between public and private, past and present, present and future. The modularity and iterations of the project create symbiotic moments between context, program, users, and space.
Figure 18: Urban Massing object made up of interlocking programs. Instructor: Oliver Schaper and Co-teacher Emilija Landsbergis. Fall 2019. Pratt GAUD.
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Figure 19: Urban massing subtraction to existing conditions. Fall 2019 Pratt GAUD.
An essential part of the design research for this project consisted on the experimential ways that the urban massing extends itself into and onto the existing urban infrastructure. Through multiple experimentations and excercises, there are three main approaches towards the site: addition, substraction, and infill. These are applied to some of the buildings or site lots. As the project’s urban massing extends itself frome east to west, north to south, it comes accross multiple scenarios in which it finds a way to adapt and adjust itself. In the vast empty areas or lots we applied an infill of urban massing, which consists on filling the void, densifying urban activity and adding program to the site.
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Figure 20: Urban massing addition to existing urban conditions. Fall 2019 Pratt GAUD.
The second type of intervention is addition to existing program and massing. By adding above or below the existing conditions create new collaborations between two programs and multiply the existing density within a block or a building. Finally the third type of intervention consists on substraction. Considering a great variety of the site’s buildings contain a vast amount wasted space or non active program which could be subtracted from them and replaced with public program, creating a new urban model for interaction between programs and different types of pressurized space in the urban scenario.
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Figure 21: Urban Catalyst chunk section. Instructor: Oliver Schaper, Co-teacher: Emilija Landsbergis. Fall 2019. Pratt GAUD.
This phased urbanity is a set of all possible states of a system. This hyperobject seems to come and go but this is only a function of our limited human access to it. It is as if it where an eclipse, a continuous entity that simply shows up in our social and congitive space suddenly and for a while. The human perception of phased urbanities is like if we were looking at a sectional drawing, since they occupy a higher dimensional space we can only experience slices at a time. It is impossible to grasp them as a whole at a time with our senses. This type of phasing is the evidence there is interections between objects, or object.
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Figure 22: Urban Catalyst chunk section. Instructor: Oliver Schaper, Co-teacher: Emilija Landsbergis. Fall 2019. Pratt GAUD.
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Figure 23: Urban Catalyst chunk section. Instructor: Oliver Schaper, Co-teacher: Emilija Landsbergis. Fall 2019. Pratt GAUD.
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Contextual Correlations The representation of glimpses from urban hyperobjects data helps us understand them and hypothesize their outcomes. Their phases can also me analyzed if the correct information is captured. And example is the study of The Brooklyn Navy Yard. It has a full potential of prosperity from social, economic, and political perspective. The entire area is going through several changes that are densifying and helping the commercial sector grow generating more jobs and opportunities for local and external users. By providing all the basic need in the local community there is no need for users to migrate from the area. Even though the area is currently undergoing a series of changes involving densification and gentrification, there is still a huge need for connection and transportation along the site. Users are forced to use vehicles to transport themselves around the area, increasing one of the worst problems in New York City: traffic. Automobiles are one of the largest contributors to pollution, and Wallabout area is directly affected because there is scarce public transportation. The entire site is disconnected with the rest of the city’s network, and with its current area program.
Figure 24: Public transportation areas
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Figure 25: Public transportation density
Figure 26: 5 minute walk from public subway system
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A strategic solution for the area are micro-mobile vehicles, considering the distances are not so far apart for mass transportation but not short enough for pedestrian activity. Studies show that half of all kilometers traveled per year in the USA are with cars, and 90% of all car trips are under 20 miles. Short distance trips are more expensive and slower, but they are also the predominant trips taken. As the Wallabout area becomes more urban, streets are more crowded and micro-mobility services could more effectively replace personal vehicles and ride hailing trips through first and last mile solutions connected to the mass public transit. Our study is focused on how current users connect to the local public transportation, and where do they connect to. By studying local patterns of daily commute as well as the connections with boundary neighborhoods the outcome of this research can help propose which areas can be densified as well as what type of mobility network may be proposed. It is important to consider the program area and its effect on which routes do users take or avoid. The study helps us be prepared for design solutions that bring into consideration the huge need of transportation along the area tackling pollution and traffic problems of the city.
Figure 27: Pedestrian activity density
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Figure 28: Pedestrian activity density in 3D.
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Figure 29: Public transportation density
Figure 30: Pedestrian density studies
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Fractal interpretations
Hyperobjects profoundly change how we think about any object. In a way, every object is a hyperobject. And we have now started thinking this way because of the ecological emergency we are inside of, we find ourselves waking up within a series of gigantic objects. The phasing of urban hyperobjects forcibly reminds us that we are not the measure of all things. A way to think about this upcoming and downsizing of scales within and without the objects is to look into fractal explorations. This fractal research was focused on exploring crystals and their fractal exploration through 2 and 3D tools, as well as material explorations. We began our research through the curiosity of different types of crystals and their SEM pictures. Our Taxonomy is made up mainly of different scales of different crystals, interlocking through a fractal formation.
Figure 31: Fractals morphology in 3D animations. Nanotectonica Seminar. Valeria Cedillos and Victoria Tsukerman. Instructor: Jonas Coersmeier.
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Figure 32: Fractals morphology in 3D animations. Nanotectonica Seminar. Valeria Cedillos and Victoria Tsukerman. Instructor: Jonas Coersmeier.
Figure 33: SEM Image of a Crystal. Nanotectonica Seminar. Valeria Cedillos and Victoria Tsukerman. Instructor: Jonas Coersmeier.
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Figure 34: Fractals morphology in 3D animations. Nanotectonica Seminar. Valeria Cedillos and Victoria Tsukerman. Instructor: Jonas Coersmeier.
Figure 35: Fractals morphology in 3D animations. Nanotectonica Seminar. Valeria Cedillos and Victoria Tsukerman. Instructor: Jonas Coersmeier.
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Figure 36: Fractals morphology in 3D animations. Nanotectonica Seminar. Valeria Cedillos and Victoria Tsukerman. Instructor: Jonas Coersmeier.
Figure 37: Mandelbulb fractal with fractal texture mapping. Nanotectonica Seminar. Valeria Cedillos and Victoria Tsukerman. Instructor: Jonas Coersmeier.
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Figure 38: Mandelbulb fractal with fractal texture mapping. Nanotectonica Seminar. Valeria Cedillos and Victoria Tsukerman. Instructor: Jonas Coersmeier.
Figure 39: 3D Mandelbulb animations.. Nanotectonica Seminar. Valeria Cedillos and Victoria Tsukerman. Instructor: Jonas Coersmeier.
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Figure 40: Fractals explorations as architectural drawings. Nanotectonica Seminar. Valeria Cedillos and Victoria Tsukerman. Instructor: Jonas Coersmeier.
A fractal is a never-ending pattern that is self-similar across different scales. We find fractal patterns in multiple network-like branching patterns in nature systems such as trees, roots, and leaves. Creating and manipulating fractal patterns through the digital realm enlarges our ability to create objects and devices that enhance our ecology since they follow patterns that resonate with the patterns around us. Fractals may also inspire awe and wonder, since they capture full attention to study and explore their condition in different scales. Fractals help us study the art of science, such as crystal growth, seeking explanations for random behaviors that may occur within a system. (chaos theory). Our project has been developing multiple levels of fractal explorations, beginning on 2d explorations that helped us understand the 3D formations. The experimentation and exploration of the fractal formations led to explorations withing the traditional architectural floor plan, and how this can be translated into different categories of space.
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Figure 41: Fractals explorations as architectural drawings. Nanotectonica Seminar. Valeria Cedillos and Victoria Tsukerman. Instructor: Jonas Coersmeier.
Figure 42: Fractals explorations as architectural drawings. Nanotectonica Seminar. Valeria Cedillos and Victoria Tsukerman. Instructor: Jonas Coersmeier.
Urban Hyperobjects
Hyper Hybrid Monitoring, regulating, and controlling the flow of urban hyperobjects through urban hybrids.
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Objective transformations Since we can’t get rid of urban hyperobjects, we have to find a way to work our realities with them. Urban hybrids are a way of transforming our current urban scenarios into systems that respond to urban hyperobjects. Monitoring, regulating, and controlling the flows of urban hyperobjects can be called sustainability. In this case, the project presented responds to our current situation through sustainable practices The proposed urban model consists of a civic initiative that integrates public space with an environmental consciousness through plastic recycling. The street functions as a framed open and public space that extends towards the interior of the buildings, densifying public activity and creating a new type of collaboration between the public and private programs of the building. As a response to the ecological crisis, lack of urban life and civic engagement within the site, the project transforms the traditional street into a vehicle-free public plaza, activating urban life for the community and making it an attraction for visitors. The basement space for some of the buildings is reprogramed as a public workshop which is used for a plastic recycling process within the block. The integrated plastic recycling system consists of a small-scale industrial process which opens the opportunity of community engagement in which both locals and visitors can place their used plastic and transform it. The scale of the objects ranges from plastic filament to molded objects such as tiles. The street is made up of a tile pattern combined through different iterations along the ground surface, and in some cases, it is extruded in multiple heights creating a dynamic and playful urban scenario. The integration of street, façade, and building evolve into social practices that densify urban life within the block. The proposal brings new forms of civic interaction and community participation throughout the multiple stages of the system’s ecology while creating an active and sustainable environment.
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Throughout the year we have been working on the Wallabout area, with a core area between Brooklyn Navy Yards and The Hall. The site is an area for interesting explorations in density and mobility. The proposal is on Washington Ave, located between Flushing Ave and the BQE, which is part of what some people call “the transportation dessert” of Brooklyn. Eventhough the area is undergoing multiple changes and developments, there is still a lack of connectivity and public life in that specific area.
The current site conditions consist mainly on a wide road with low activity and traffic, leaving only a small space of sidewalk in between the road and the building. The existing buildings we are working on are mainly residential, and some have varying conditions on their ground level. The existing buildings have designated basement areas, which we saw as an opportunity to redesign for public space and density. There is very low activity and attraction towards pedestrian activity.
Our design research consisted on new modes of transport ation, and through this we came across the idea of completely displacing vehcles and replacing the streets with maneuverable micromobile devices which give opportunity to rethink the public space and street activity.
In the US most of 60% of trips are less than 5 miles, and more than 75 percent of CO2 emissioons come from vehicles. By rethinking the user’s routes to and from the site we came across the first and last mile scenario, in which streets can completely displace cars and shift the streets program towards pedestrians and public activity. Specially since the site is surrounded my public transportaantion means but doesn’t have any within, so by using these devices we can facilitate first and last mile trips, considering our site is no further than 1 mile from any public transportation system.
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Hyper Hybrid
Figure 43: Micromobile devices collage. Valeria Cedillos and Victoria Tsukerman. Spring 2020. Instructor: Ferda Kolatan, Co-teacher: Emilija Landsbergis. Pratt GAUD.
Figure 44: First and last mile trip scenarios. Valeria Cedillos and Victoria Tsukerman. Spring 2020. Instructor: Ferda Kolatan, Co-teacher: Emilija Landsbergis. Pratt GAUD.
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The project consists of a system of altered streetscape and multiple programs joined by hybridization. The street functions as a framed open space, that replaces vehicles with a new generation of maneuverable micromobile devices,transforming the street into an open plaza where there is no rigor or linearity for the mobility of the users. It is an open space where the street extends itself into some of the building that have the integrated system, multiplying the existing public space. The project gains vitality of urban space through the pattern and material texture produced in the plastic recycling system found in some of building’s basements. The system has ongoing transitions between scale and space, creating new architectural objects and moments. The project multiplies the space of public activity and breaks with the progamatic categories of the site, as the street extends in and out of the building.
Figure 45: Plastic pattern. Brooklyn Plastic Hybrid. Valeria Cedillos and Victoria Tsukerman. Spring 2020. Instructor: Ferda Kolatan, Co-teacher: Emilija Landsbergis. Pratt GAUD.
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Figure 46: Plastic pattern. Brooklyn Plastic Hybrid. Valeria Cedillos and Victoria Tsukerman. Spring 2020. Instructor: Ferda Kolatan, Co-teacher: Emilija Landsbergis. Pratt GAUD.
Through our design process we drew different types of sketches that we then altered using digital tools, having as a result different types patterns and iterations, that we then explored into transforming from 2D to 3D and materialize as a texture for our project. The pattern is then made up of different tiles, which are produced on site by means of recycled plastic, creating a colorful diversity and adding vitality to the texture of our street and public space. The tiles and pattern are a new way of rethinking the sensibility of our street, since the contrast between colors add livelihood and texture to what is usally grey and dark. This system of pattern can also manifest itself in different objects.
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Figure 47: Plastic pattern. Brooklyn Plastic Hybrid. Spring 2020. Instructor: Ferda Kolatan, Coteacher: Emilija Landsbergis. Pratt GAUD.
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Figure 48: Plastic pattern extrusions urban furniture. Brooklyn Plastic Hybrid. Spring 2020. Instructor: Ferda Kolatan, Co-teacher: Emilija Landsbergis. Pratt GAUD.
Figure 49: Recycled plastic products.. Brooklyn Plastic Hybrid. Spring 2020. Instructor: Ferda Kolatan, Co-teacher: Emilija Landsbergis. Pratt GAUD.
Urban Hyperobjects
Figure 50: Chunk render front view. Brooklyn Plastic Hybrid. Spring 2020. Instructor: Ferda Kolatan, Co-teacher: Emilija Landsbergis. Pratt GAUD.
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Figure 51: Chunk render backview. Brooklyn Plastic Hybrid. Spring 2020. Instructor: Ferda Kolatan, Co-teacher: Emilija Landsbergis. Pratt GAUD.
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References and Image Citations
REFERENCES: Chakrabarti, Vishaan. A Country of Cities: A Manifesto for an Urban America, 2013. Print Clog Journal. Data Space, 2012. Print Gorman, Michael J. Buckminster Fuller: Designing for Mobility. Milan: Skira, 2005.Print. Martínez, G. M. et al. The modern near-surface Martian climate: a review of in-situ meteorological data from Viking to Curiosity. Space Sci. Rev. 212, 295–338 (2017). Forget, F. et al. Improved general circulation models of the Martian atmosphere from the surface to above 80 km. J. Geophys. Res. 104, 24155–24176 (1999). Cockell, C. S. et al. The ultraviolet environment of Mars: biological implications past, present, and future. Icarus 146, 343–359 (2000). Michalski, J. R. et al. The Martian subsurface as a potential window into the origin of life. Nat. Geosci. 11, 21–26 (2018). Morthon, T. Hyperobjects: Philosophy and Ecology after the End of the World, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press (2013). Morthon, T. Dark Ecology: For a Logic Future Coexistence New York: Columbia University Press, (2016). Tarp: Not Nature. Architecture Manual. Pratt Institute (Spring 2012) Lydon, M. Garcia, A. Tactical Urbanism: short term action for long term change. Island Press. (2015). United Nations Annual Report 2018. Thun, G. Infra Eco Logi Urbanism: A Project for the Great Lakes Megaregion Park Books. (2015). Lee, C. Jacoby, S. Typological Urbanism: Projective Cities, Academy Press First Edition (2011).
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