Programming a vertical city.

From “Re-inventing the Skyscraper”, diagrams on vertical theory:

Starting to think about the skyscraper in terms of ‘variable linkages’ instead of shelving is helping tremendously. Using Kevin Lynch’s traditional paths, edges, nodes, landmarks, and districts in terms of vertical inhabitation will be useful for the massing stage we’re now in.

	What works is the idea of pulling traditional, horizontal urbanism, vertical; with linked, open spaces.
What doesn’t is the author’s literal transition of a historic city grid into a theme’d skyscraper. Eeeee gad! Officially creepy.

• Programming the variety of a city block into the sky,
• The elevator as the equivalent of the metro system,
• Visual connections at multiple levels instead of a singular, observation deck,
• Spatial folding to enable local conditions,
• Vertical land use mapping, a high rise matrix,
• Transitional areas switching between modes of circulation as where the opportunities lie.

Very useful.

 

koolhaas’ version of Dubai

  . . . includes a perfectly square grid, surrounded by a moat (from the NY Times article).  Need I say more?  In its isolation, this ‘urban block’ (ha) will only attract the global elite.  But maybe this is Dubai’s fuction.  It hasn’t yet been defined, but even so, those that work in services still need somewhere to live.  And that type of social density is born over time, not created through a single, grandiose architectural vision.   However, that being said, his version might induce less whiplash than what is currently on slate for construction.  In response to his research on the ‘generic city’ (here’s a student thesis project on the topic), OMA’s plan makes a point to include both generic, similarly massed towers that are juxtaposed with moments of pure gluttony.

One thing I agree with for certain:

 ’We always have to keep up a high alertness around a problem until it becomes more clear.’

-Koolhaas in his office, 2006.
Rem Koolhaas, Al Manakh, the 2007 edition is described as the first comprehensive guide to architecture and urban design in the The Gulf.

From the developer’s webpage:

Waterfront will transform an unprecedented 1.4 billion square feet of empty desert and sea into an international community for an estimated population of 1.5 million people that is twice the size of Hong Kong Island. Waterfront is being developed on the last 15km of natural coastline in Dubai.  This mixed-use development of commercial, residential, resort and amenity areas offering 250 master-planned communities . . .  will help Dubai in setting the standards in property development.

Thats for sure.   Does anything about that insta-mega polis just absolutely terrify you? Or am I just the wimp . . . ?

 

10 Urbanisms

Also in the GSD Winter 07 magazine, is a short article – list really – of an ongoing research project conducted by Joan Busquets. The research attempts to classify the various types of urban and architectural interventions that are taking place in our cities today. This is, when I signed up for history of urban form, modern american public policy, introduction to urban design, history of city planning, introduction to the fields of city planning and the like, what I thought I would be getting. A direct comparison of the various ways and scales with which to integrate the social, policital, economical, and environmental aspects of city design, regeneration, and planning. But, like many introductory survey courses are, they only skimmed at the surface of some of the more experimental and innovative methods of urban transformation.

‘The work in the forthcoming catalog to “Cities – 10 Lines” does not argue that all urbanism fits within the proposed categories, but it does propose that each line of work is endowed with a precise set of methods and instruments that can foster change in city-building.”

	Synthetic Gestures – work relying on high profile, clearly delimited, yet spectacular design projects that use their impact to trigger broader urban revitalization. Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao. Ghery.
	Multiplied Grounds – This uses converted infrastructures and/or high density reuse. The new conditions establish a restructuring of the surrounding fabric. Lille Intermodal Station, France. Koolhaas.
	Tactical Maneuvers – The project involves reducing the intervention to the least possible dimension, wherein its strength and success lie. Malagueria Housing Project, Siza.
	Reconfigured Surfaces – The restructuring of fine-grain, open space. Urbanity achieved by providing a new lease on life without the cost attached lo larger restructuring operations. Schouwburgplein, Rotterdam, West 8.
	Piecemeal Aggregations – An intermediate scale intervention of approximately eighteen to twenty five city blocks. This type realizes it can use an urban fragment as a starting point to address general city issues. Battery Park City, SOM.
	Traditional Views – This model assumes the lasting apeal of the late 19th and early 20th centrury residential city. Seaside, FL, DPZ.
	Recycled Territories – This results in the restructuring of large tracts of land in which human settlement becomes a single element that participates ina broader ecological system. Emscher Park, Germany.
	Core Retrofitting – The updating of historic cores without altering the city’s most delicate tissues, providing access to the center as well as new uses of old facilities. Master Plan Toledo, Spain. Busquets.
	Analog Compositions – Rethinks the scale of the master plan to take advantage of urbanistic projects at small and intermediate scales. Towards an Urban Renaissance: London’s Urban Task Force. Richard Rogers.
	Speculative Procedures -Experimental investigations in urbanism adapted from theories in philosophy, hydraulics, thermodynamics, the computer, etc. Provides a way for formulating new planning principles. Blur Building. Diller + Scofidio.

 

Soja a deux.

In the mornings, while I eat my hot cinnamon oatmeal with sliced almonds and pears (way yum), I’ve been re-reading the Winter ‘07 Harvard Design magazine. I bought it last fall, and devoured it almost instantly, but am now going back at a less frenetic pace in an attempt to actually absorb some of the material. The ULI competition really did me in, I felt like I didn’t have almost any type of grasp on the current day, major tenants of urban design at all. Or at least in enough of a way so to be able to verbally present them to my highly ‘debate-centric’ group mates. So, to be able to take a few steps back and re-read articles that I found fascinating from the start has been highly informative.

For the past three days, I’ve been reading one article in particular that I really enjoyed. So I finally flipped back a few pages to the title only to find it had been written by Edward Soja. This is the second article of his that I’ve really been able to dig into. Titled “Designing the Postmetropolis”, some highlights:

To a significant extent, much of urban design as a distinctive subfield seems to me to be conceptually and analytically trapped in a static and stranded space, consisting of little more than pods of buildings hived together . . . Cut off this way, urban design has little else to draw upon other than the idiosyncratic creativity of the architect designer.

Design project (should be) put into context, linking project sites not just to their immediate surroundings but also to broader developments in the urban region, national politics and policy, and questions of distributional equity and social inclusion.

Even well into the 1980s, traditional theories and practices of urban development persisted, despite their growing disconnection to what was happening to cities worldwide. New terms multiplied to mourn the death of the city as we knew it: trans-urbanism, city lite, chaos city, post-urbanism.

Three interrelated processes are driving the transformation of the modern metropolis: 1) intensified globalization, 2) the formation of a new, information economy, and 3)the spread of communication technologies.

The transformation of the modern metropolis and the emergence of a new urbanism (without its capital letters) are nowhere more effectively demonstrated or more comprehensively studied than in the urbanized region of Los Angeles.

The next half of the article goes on to describe this thesis point. I’m guessing he’ll mention that LA is now the highest urbanized city in the US, beating out even areas of Manhattan, even though it began as the poster child of sprawl.  This fact has continued to amaze me from the first time I heard it from a particular professor’s rant last year.  I guess I had been zoning out, but when I heard him say that LA had eclipsed NYC on the density scale, I came back too.  But he moved forward with his argument, no giving any supporting details, so I figured I had mis-heard.  It wasn’t until months later that I heard the factoid repeated and I finally google’d it:

Robert Brugemann’s original publication.

LA Times  LA has always been dense.

Sprawl Brawl Critics square off over statistic that suggests LA is denser than NYC.
Liveable Places UCLA students clear up confusion that arises over various definitions of density.