Seven theses generating new development by VoD Value of Differences

VoD _ Value of Differences

www.vodblogsite.org

“SEVEN THESES GENERATING NEW DEVELOPMENT” EDITOR Anna Brambilla

INTRODUCTION Prof. Giuseppe Longhi CONTRIBUTORS Alessio Barollo Alice Braggion Anna Brambilla Marco Caorlini Alessandro Carabini Linda Comerlati Chiara D’Agostin Alvise Luchetta Marta Michieli Lucia Miotti Gloria Pezzutto Lucia Speri GRAPHIC DESIGN Anna Brambilla Marta Michieli

Seven theses generating new development, by VoD_ Value of Differences, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. Every effort has been made to trace the original source of copyright material contained in this book. We would be pleased to hear from copyright holders to rectify any errors or omissions. Venice, January 2013

INDEX Gro VoD u

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FACES

VOD VALUE OF DIFFERENCES

Giuse p

Longhi pe

1.0

3.0

g a D’A ostin iar

e Bragg Alic io

4.0

li chie Mi

Anna B r

merlati _ Ch Co

VERONA LAB 2050

A VISION FOR URBAN CREATIVIY

GROWING SCENARIO

A GENERATIVE ECOSYSTEM FOR A BIOACTIVE CITY

Gloria Pezz

ucia Sp o_L e utt

5.0

FLYOVERCITY

SYSTEM FOR 10˙000 THINKING²

rollo Ba

6.0

CROWD VILLAGE

CROWDSOURCING AS A METHOD FOR SUSTAINABLE DESIGN

A rlini _ lvise ao

7.0

ta chet Lu

Marco C

Aless io

MARGHERA MULTI.FACES

AN INCLUSIVE AND RELATIONAL FUTURE FOR VENICE-PORTO MARGHERA

billa _ Marta am

Lucia M

AGENDA FOR A RESILIENT MESTRE SCENARIOS AT 2050

ti iot

8.0 02

Alessandro

2.0

Lind a

TOWARDS A GENERATIVE URBAN DESIGN

i rabin Ca

PREFACE

EX_CHANGING IS’TANBUL 2050 CREATIVE AND SUSTAINABLE CITY

FACES VoD GROUP

VoD_Value of Differences

FACES GIUSEPPE LONGHI

GIUSEPPE graduated in Urban planning at IUAV University of Venice, after a degree in Economy from L. Bocconi University in Milan. Nowadays he is an international expert of sustainability in urban areas, and he has been for several years professor at the Urban Planning Faculty at IUAV University of Venice, scientific director of the Master’s degree in sustainable urban development and promoter of the Unesco network between Universities for the field of sustainability. GIUSEPPE :::::...................................................... .................................... POSITIVE WEAKNESS: belief in the power of collaboration and people creativity ENJOYS: reading, writing scientific articles, teaching, visionary and farsighted thoughts

ALESSIO BAROLLO

ALESSIO born in Montagnana (IT), after becoming a Mechanical Engineer he worked four years as a design engineer. With the desire to grow his career in 2006 he enrolled at IUAV University of Venice, Faculty of Architecture for Sustainability. Five years after he graduated with a thesis on the use of Crowdsourcing methodologies for architecture. As an architect, ALESSIO believe in the power of creativity and the potential of the Internet and the possibility of social change through collaboration. POSITIVE WEAKNESS: impulsiveness, books, football ENJOYS: Fab Lab, crowdsourcing, architecture innovation through internet platforms, snowboarding and having brunch with friends

ALICE BRAGGION

ALICE has always had a creative attitude towards things and a great confidence in the power of people and the value of diversity. Strongly wanting to become an architect, she graduated at IUAV University in Architecture for Sustainability with a research on social innovation and generative processes applied to architectural environment. In Venice, ALICE met Tamassociati Architects with whom she shared cooperation and partecipation principles. Looking for new challenges, she moved to Paris where she’s currently living and discovering new opportunities. For the future, ALICE imagines innovative urban strategies to promote sustainable and social development in our cities. POSITIVE WEAKNESS: children’s books, chocolate, making surprises ENJOYS: giving a smile to people, unexpected discoveries, photography, cooking cous-cous

ANNA BRAMBILLA

ANNA tries to bring positive energy, creativity, sensitivity and commitment wherevere she goes. She has always been an highly curious and inventive girl: creativity bring pleasure to her life. With a fascination for technical and social innovations, during her Master of Science in Architecture for Sustainability at IUAV University she focused on sustainable building, renewable energy, and mobility. Together with her obsession for details and urge to deliver only ‘perfect’ material she can be described as a communicative analytical. She would like to get to know as much as there is to know about sustainability, to apply what she learned to concrete solutions for improving the world. POSITIVE WEAKNESS: pumpkin soup, children’s books, graphic design ENJOYS: mountain life, playing with kids, cooking, sleeping, reading, photography, biking, traveling

MARCO CAORLINI

MARCO has always been interested in everything it’s linked to innovation, from new technologies to alternative materials and processes. After one year studying abroad (Erasmus Programme in Spain), where he learned how to enjoy life combining hard work and active social life, he graduated in Architecture for Sustainability at IUAV University of Venice with a research on urban resilience. Now MARCO works like assistant architect in Venice, with two years of experience, but he continues to be interested in urban development. He today believes in the power of sharing ideas and in clear communication, and he always will be. POSITIVE WEAKNESS: semplicity ENJOYS: discovering rare music, traveling, tasting new wines

ALESSANDRO CARABINI

ALESSANDRO graduated at IUAV University in Architecture for Sustainability with a research on urban social design and generative tools applied to architectural environment. After quitting his dream to become a football star, he decided to follow his curiosity and love for cities that have led him to study in Venice, and to live in London, Barcelona and Paris, where he’s actually working. Interested in network design and generative thinking, he’s currently studying computational design, innovative technologies and open processes applied to cities to enhance partecipation and social inclusion, always with the focus of investigating hybrid realities and spaces. POSITIVE WEAKNESS: cannot live without a bike, French cheeses ENJOYS: learning new things, networking, old movies, (open eyes) dreaming

LINDA COMERLATI

LINDA has always loved travelling, and has always tried to find occasions to live in new cities. Studying Architecture in Venice was the perfect occasion to meet the everyday simple life of Venetian people. She has lived for small periods in Munich, then in Nice, Berlin (Erasmus Program), and in London. She has always been interested in art and architecture, that’s why she decided to study at IUAV University, graduating in 2012 with the thesis “Verona Lab, a vision for urban creativity”. Now she is dealing with urban planning and sustainable architecture research. LINDA thinks European cities have a great need to be renewed. POSITIVE WEAKNESS: books ENJOYS: people, traveling, swimming, art exhibitions

FACES

CHIARA D’AGOSTIN

CHIARA loves experiencing new things and facing challenges. She first graduated in Architecture at University of Trieste with a research on urban regeneration, then she decided to improve her studies at IUAV University of Venice examining in depth Sustainable Design, she graduated in 2012 with a research on the role of creativity in sustainable urban planning. She firmly believes in the power of collaboration and in the relevance of immaterial technologies, therefore she enjoys work in team and share knowledge. CHIARA is currently dealing with sustainable urban development, pursuing the idea that cities are complex systems of relations. WEAKNESS: cannot live without sport ENJOYS: having fun, reading, comics, hiking, climbing

ALVISE LUCHETTA

ALVISE has always had a lot of curiosity for the world surrounding him, since I was a kid. A curiosity ended up in the love for the territory in which he lives: the lagoon of Venice. He decided to quit the footballplayer carrer in order to study architecture at IUAV, faculty of Architecture for Sustainability. This choice is closely related to the desire of fighting the lack of protection and respect people have toward the environment. ALVISE thinks it is essential that architect start being guarantor of an equal world, between the social sphere that is embodied in the city and the environmental sphere: there he sees the new and winning role of the modern architect. POSITIVE WEAKNESS: every king of nice food, birds ENJOYS: animals, trees, traveling, mountains, playing piano

MARTA MICHIELI

MARTA since childhood is creative: she draws her dream house with a star-shaped pool on a overhanging terrace. A lot of time has passed since then, and her neverending energy to learn and explore led her to achieve the Master of Science in Architecture for Sustainability at IUAV in Venice. Today she is interested in environmental protection, efficient use of resources, urban regeneration and social sustainability. Now her aim is to design to make real her responsible contribution to the city of the future. And tomorrow, will MARTA have her star-shaped pool? POSITIVE WEAKNESS: childrens, wildlife ENJOYS: sports, friends, music, traveling, photography

LUCIA MIOTTI

LUCIA had always found stimulating to go over her limits, that’s why she’s always attracted by new challenges. Since she was joung she worked on her flexibility to be able to adapt in every situation. She strongly believes everyone should get far away from routine at least once in the life in order to discover himself/herself better: that’s the precious value of traveling. Wanting to express herself through a discipline LUCIA eventually became enchanted by architecture. She graduated at IUAV University and during those years she studied in Istanbul for eight months as Erasmus student. POSITIVE WEAKNESS: pop-up books, kites ENJOYS: people, traveling, self-learning, listening, graphic exercises

GLORIA PEZZUTTO

GLORIA graduated at IUAV University, March 31, 2011, in Architecture for Sustainability with the thesis “Porto Marghera: the storerooms to the system for the East Japan - South East Asia”. Architecture for her is a process of imagination and vision for the future of the world, a continuous discovery and regeneration. Nowadays GLORIA is a designer at Simco Tecnocovering Srl in Noventa di Piave (IT) and in her free time she enjoys herself with her team participating in different competitions to develop her idea of architecture and her creativity. POSITIVE WEAKNESS: innovative APPs, cakes, dogs and cats ENJOYS: traveling, cooking, reading

LUCIA SPERI

LUCIA grew up in a colorful and lively atmosphere, that taught her to observe and achieve. She graduated at IUAV University in Architecture for Sustainability with the thesis “Porto Marghera: the storerooms to the system for the East Japan - South East Asia”. She is currently living and working as an architect in Paris (GAIA-Architectures) where she cultivates ideas and contacts. Even in her free time she devotes herself to competitions, collaborations and creative projects. For LUCIA “Architecture” means integration between physical and virtual space, always. POSITIVE WEAKNESS: graphics, logos, music and advertising ENJOYS: people, traveling, swiming, sewing

PREFACE Towards a generative urban design

Giuseppe Longhi

PREFACE Towards a generative urban design It’s common knowledge that Philip Johnson, seeing the Dymaxion House project of Buckminster Fuller, exclaimed: “If Fuller’s projects will be realized, to all architects will not remain anything but gravestones for the cemetery”. We’re in the first years of the postwar period and Johnsons is realizing that, beyond Fuller’s success (and beyond his doubts about the architectural quality of the technological house), a series of structural changes are involving the way to interpret architecture and, most of all, the process of architecture’s production. In this regard forestall by Giedon with its “Architecture you and me” (1958). We are in fact on the eve of a series of waves addressed to sign the end of modernity’s myth, based on the processes of limitless growth, on the assumption of the man’s supremacy over the nature, on the figure of architect-demiurge, engaged to dictate his codes to the citizens. The theses researches presented in this book are the evidence of a responsible behavior (with the meaning given by Roegen to this concept) towards the design, in the sense that they take charge of the modernity paradigm’s crisis and they set off on the complex path: 1. of the renovation of the projects’ alphabets, 2. of an “anthropocenetic” vision about the resources’ use, due in part to their scarcity, in relation with the exponential population growth, and in part, to the new perspectives opened by nano and biotechnologies. A path made difficult : • by the speed of innovative processes, which blame both the knowledge’s accumulation criteria, and those of their critical-planning restitution; • by the dozing of the majority of the academic environment toward the new scientific frontiers of the design process, a behavior which doesn’t help the growth of the abilities and opportunities of the new generations. On the renewal of project alphabets It will be a young Italo Calvino, with the conference “Cybernetics and ghosts” (Torino, 1967), through a detailed analysis of the mathematical structure of the language, to fully understand the potentialities of a radical change in the project’s alphabet, attributable to the change carried by the new cybernetic culture: the end of the thinking meant as linear process in favor of a “discrete” process composed by a high number of input 10

which can be recombined infinitely, thanks to the power of the new cybernetic supports. “The thinking process, which until yesterday was seen as something fluid and which recalled inside us linear images as a river flowing or a thread unraveling, or gassy images, as a kind of cloud (in fact it was often called “spirit”) today is seen as a sequence of discontinuous states, of a combination of impulses into a finite number (a huge number, but finite) of sensor organs and organs of control”. For Calvino the influence of Werner and Von Neumann on the structure of the thinking process gives new awareness: the combinatorial art expresses itself and originates as a process addressed to a revenge of the discontinue, divisible, combinatory over everything which constitutes a continuous track. The result is a decomposed reality which moves forward with inputs: cause-effect. Exactly from these assumptions, in the same years, the anarchical dream of architects and cybernetics begins, among which Christopher Alexander, Nicolas Negroponte, Alan Kay, with the “theorization” of the end of architect as a demiurge which imposes his choices to citizens, in favor of the myth “we are all architects”, thanks to the skill of the citizens augmented by the availability of new machines. The conditions to realize this myth are: • the codification of the architectural language to create an alphabet on which everyone can operate, according to the path going from “Pattern Language” (Alexander, 1977) to “The logic of Architecture: Design, Computation and Cognition” (Mitchell, 1990); • the necessity to create new machines, the “architecture machines”, able to recognize the contest, its changes of meaning and to identify the goals generated by the changes inside the contest. Machines able to learn, to proceed by attempts, to make mistakes, to be our architectural partners. This will be the mission absolved by the big research laboratories, from ArcMac, to MediaLab, to Palo Alto Lab, starting from to 70’s; • the necessity to realize what Papert calls “a mega-change”: it will be necessary to shift the center of interest from the computer meant as device of teaching to learning processes (better if child’s learning) through the computer. Negroponte explains this concept as a whole turnover of the roles: the pupil becomes the teacher, and the machine becomes the pupil. This principle, born in the 60’s, started off the school based on the learning to

PREFACE learn, overcoming the didactic model, has remained mostly unchanged since centuries. It remembers the production chain, on which knowledge is put in people’s head as a sequence. The teacher’s role is no more to provide all the parts of knowledge, but to act as a guide, to manage difficult situations, to stimulate the pupil, maybe to give advices. As Negroponte informs, with the arrival of cybernetics, the designer doesn’t have only “helping” machines that are able to do faster or more à la mode what the designers already do, but they have the tools to provoke a daily evolutive revolution, under the banner of the radical renewal of project’s alphabet, so that the architect is the favored interpreter between the human needs and the physical form. This is the challenge of cybernetics to the design world, which our academic world couldn’t understand during the last 40 years, without worrying about getting the changes of scientific paradigms and consequently building new infrastructures, necessary to the cyberntic design (especially mass memories and settled nets) and to renew the didactical processes.

pressure of a growing population and over-consumption in the rich part of the world. In this scenario some meaningful visions are coming to light: the attention of Boulding on Earth land, whose scarce resources should be eaten sparingly as the astronaut in the spaceship (Boulding, Earth as a space ship, 1962); Roegen with its references to the responsible use of resources, whose decreasing availability is inextricably linked to the thermodynamics laws, and the human tendency to build increasingly expensive esomachines, in terms of material consumption (Nicolas Georgescu Roegen, Enrgy and economic myths, Pergamon, New York, 1976). All of them have been anticipated by Feynman (with the famous lecture “There’s Plenty of Room at the Bottom”, 1959). He understands the revolutionary potential of working directly with the atoms: instead of working by extraction with the surface of the material, he deals with the atom through recombination. Along with Feynman, this step opens an era characterized by: • hyper miniaturization, through nanotechnology the spaces become almost endless and exploited with a low consumption of materials; • no more mechanical but organic production processes: once the process is identified, this is able to reproduce itself; in this way the nano factories produce nano factories, the buildings are able to reproduce themselves, etc.. These insights, which later will become widely operational (starting from the 80s those related to nanotechnology, starting from the 90s, those of bio genetics, thanks to the reconstruction of the livings’ genome), are designed to radically evolve the basis of the project, which can be summarized in the following driving forces.

The anthropocenetic vision of the project The great challenge of argumented human intelligence is part of another major challenge: how to ensure a decent life expectancy for an exponentially growing population, in a planet with constant resources. Historically, the architectural and urban resources were considered as unlimited, capable to be manipulated, within the paradigm of Neolithic man’s domination over the world. That attitude becomes unbearable under the EXPLOITATION OF RAW MATERIAL

EXPLOITATION OF ATOMS

EXPLOITATION OF BITS

EXPLOITATION OF THE SURFACE OF THE MATERIAL

EXPLOITATION OF THE INTERIOR OF THE ATOMS MAKING UP THE MATTER AND THEIR RECOMBINATION

CONNECTIVITY AMONG THE MOMENTS OF PRODUCTION THANKS TO “INDUSTRIAL INTERNET”

ESO-MACHINES PRODUCTION

ENDO-MACHINES PRODUCTION THANKS TO NANOTECHNOLOGY

REMOTE ENDO-MACHINES MANAGEMENT

ELECTRONIC-MECHANICAL PRODUCTION CYCLES IN CONTRAST WITH THE NATURAL ONES

SELF-REPRODUCTION IN SYNERGY WITH NATURE

HIGH CONNECTIVITY BETWEEN THE PLATFORMS INVOLVED IN SELF PRODUCTION

LINEAR DESIGN

GENERATIVE DESIGN

SPACE DOMINATED BY PHYSICAL PROXIMITY

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SPACE DOMINATED BY RELATIONAL INTENSITY

PREFACE The result is a man, in this case an architect, who, called into question by his historical mission to build esomachines (houses, means of transportation, consumer goods), remains naked, covered by a film of bits (Toyo Ito, Tarzan in the media forest, 2005). As they found themselves naked and undergraduates at the beginning of their journey, they faced the need to reinvent their codes of design in order to be able to design creatively and in a socially useful way. As a result, a new working method was initiated, with the aim of strengthen the creative project basis, in order to increase the opportunities for a qualified entrance into the world of work. This has given rise to a process, whose most significant moments are: • to learn how to use the increased memory thanks to the availability of laptops and cloud, and then overcome the practice of the study, characterized by the paper as basic unit, in favor of a constantly growing database, to download, elaborate, expand knowledge. The project is then a continuous process of weaving; • to be aware that the subject of the project are atoms and bits;

Gloria Pezzuto and Lucia Speri with the thesis Flyovercity: system for 10˙000 thinking², invite you to change your geographical perspective for the hyper Veneto Region, from the trivial theory of the “sprawled city” to a qualified node on the contemporary Silk Road. They stimulate the sleeping Venice to become friendly towards other cultures, reinventing the territories of Porto Marghera in order to reconnect the old city with this more dynamic time.

In the same areas, Marco Caorlini and Alvise Lucchetta with the thesis Agenda for a resilient Mestre: scenarios at 2050, invite you to creatively discuss the effects of climate change, proposing a resilient policy.

• to understand that the project’s scope is the optimization of the present, but it is also the development of generative processes, and the creation of a system of continuous opportunities for the future. The result is a range of opportunities for the regeneration of design thinking and territory, thank to the followings contributions: Alice Braggion and Alessandro Carabini, with the thesis Marghera multi_faces: an inclusive and relational future for Venice-Porto Marghera,

In a metropolitan direction, Linda Comerlati and Chiara D’Agostin with the thesis Verona Lab 2050: a vision for urban creativity, invent a development engine fueled by the fair and the knowledge in Verona.

PREFACE Always in the direction of regional development, Alessio Barollo with the thesis Crowd village: crowdsourcing as a method for sustainable design, proposes the development of new organizational models and crowd technologies.

The reduction of the ecological footprint, the growth of biodiversity, the morphologies borrowed from biological forms, inspired by the project for Almere, are analysed in Anna Brambilla and Marta Michieliâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s thesis Growing scenario: a generative ecosystem for a bioactive city.

The challenge of connecting economic flows, mobility and biodiversity is experienced for a new model of sustainable development in Istanbul by Lucia Miotti with the thesis Ex_changing Isâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;tanbul 2050: creative and sustainable city.