RURReiser + Umemoto

West Side ConvergenceNew York, USA

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References:

Allen, Stan. "Notations + Diagrams: Mapping the Intangible" in S. Allen and D. Agrest, Practice: Architecture, Technique and Representation, 2000. 41-61.

Benjamin, Andrew. Reiser + Umemoto: Recent Projects. Chichester: John Wiley & Sons Ltd, 1998.

Bratton, Benjamin. "Architecture from Without: Body, Logic, and Sex" in Architecture from Without, 1993. 173-195.

Castells, Manuel. "The Space of Flows" in The Rise of the Network Society, 1996. 372-428.

Deleuze, Gilles and Félix Guattari. "1440: The Smooth and the Striated" in A Thousand Plateaus, University of Minnesota Press, 1987. 474-500.

Eisenman, Peter. "The End of the Classical: The End of the Beginning, The End of The End", in Kate Nesbitt, ed. Theorizing a New Agenda for Architecture, 1996. 212-223.

Eisenman, Peter. "Visions Unfolding: Architecture in the Age of Electronic Media", in Kate Nes-bitt, ed. Theorizing a New Agenda for Architecture, 1996. 556-561.

McDonough, Tom. "Situationist Space", in T. McDonough, ed., Guy Debord and the Situationist International, 2004. 241-265.

Merleau-Ponty, Maurice. "The Synthesis of One's Own Body", in Phenomenology of Perception, 1962. 148-153.

Rahim, Ali. "West Side Convergence: Urban Processes", in Contemporary Processes in Architecture, Architecural Design. Vol. 70, No. 3. 2000. 78-89.

Reiser, Jesse and Nanako Umemoto. Atlas of Novel Tectonics. New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2006.

Spuybroek, Lars. "The Structure of Vagueness", in L. Spuybroek, ed. NOX Machining Architecture, 2004. 352-359.

Tafuri, Manfredo. "Toward a Critique of Architectural Ideology", in K.M. Hays, ed. Architecture Theory since 1968. 7-35.

Wise, J. Macgregor. "Home: Territory and Identity", in Cultural Studies, 2000. 295-310.

introINTRODUCTIONWest Side Convergence Project Description

“Cities are the nexus of material and informational �ows, developed within multiple infrastructures of transportation, distribution, culture, and knowl-edge. �e increasingly interconnected world has produced cities where global systems are intermeshed in local environments, and scale shi�s rapidly from the local to the regional and international. As the locus of intense economic, social, and idea exchanges and connections at all levels, the city of the 21st century must support these vital urban interactions, and design new meeting, working, and entertainment environments. With this competition comes the opportunity to reinvent this site by transcending the separation and mono-functionality of many of its large infrastructural elements through a mode of operation we term 'infrastructuralism.' �ere are very real bene�ts - social and political as well as functional and economic - to the loosening of the strati�cation of infrastructure and activity in this area. It is at this level that we would operate to produce change in the form of the city.”

-Jesse Reiser + Nanako Umemoto

Size: 8 city blocks by 5 city blocksType: mixed-use urban landscapeStructure: spaceframe, concrete, glass, landscape

�e following study attempts to deconstruct various principles expressed both through Reiser + Umemoto’s theoretical writings as well as their project, West Side Convergence. It is expressed in four parts: form, body, technique, and space.

formFORMCongruence vs Non-congruence

"Mass-customization is most successful when mobilized in some larger construct rather than individual units marketed and released into society in isolation from the rest of the series" (Reiser et al, 62).

Congruence is the state of agreement that is achieved by the coming-together. This defines a set of operations that will output systems with positive intrinsic relationships. As stated by Reiser and Umemoto, systems provided in larger constructs that are then parsed to provide a series containing 'uniques' or customizations are more successful. However, when it comes to combining multiple systems (in this case, architecture and transportation infrastructures), conventional distinctions become negated. This exemplifies the case for non-congruence. Non-congruence becomes the state of agreement that is achieved by disassociating. It creates a coherence through the utilization of both congruent forms and the conditions extrapolated by the negation of said forms. This, in essence, provides a loosening of existing fabrics that allows for the interjection of new programmatic, spatial, and formal possibilities.

Expressing Non-congruence

"Trace is a partial or fragmentary sign; it has no objecthood. It signifies an action that is in process. In this sense a trace is not a simulation of reality, it is a dissimulation because it reveals itself as distinct from its former reality. It does not simulate the real, but represents and records the action inherent in a former of future reality, which has a value a value no more or less real than the trace itself " (Eisenman, 222).

Traces capture non-congruence. They become the tools by which one can define and expose the passage from congruent space to its negation. They document the particular conditions through which non-congruence provide convergence between what is congruent and what lies in the negation of congruent space. Tracing provides us with a means of explain-ing a non-congruent system through which rationalization can then take place. This enables the creation of the in-between (in particular, the 'archportation' space), that allows for the breakdown of distinct objects and merge them together. The defining of non-congruent spaces through tracing allows that architect to create an artefact. This artefact then provides the architect with an artificial stratification through which exist-ing fabrics become loosened (and thus changeable).

simple 1-d congruence simple 2-d congruence simple 3-d congruence

1 point congruent field 3 point congruent field 5 point congruent field

n-point congruent field

congruent space (field)

negated space

non-congruent space

trace

‘archportation’

architecture

transportation

unique congruent field (derived)

formFORMNon-congruence and West Side Convergence

not one ground upon which a building is built, but rather, multiple grounds within which spaces are developed." (Rahim, 83)

West Side Convergence incorporates three separate but necessary systems: the global parkscape, the local city grid, and the global transportation infrastructure. In order to keep all systems intact, Reiser and Umemoto work outside of congruence - that is, the West Side Convergence does not work to establish one system as dominant (whether it be the transportation or architecture), but rather, combine the parkscape, city grid, and transpor-tation infrastructure to create a basis for developing a cohesive space

which each space becomes articulated separately, but remains under one

ment for multiple grounds is necessary. Multiple grounds arise from the fact that each congruent system can derive unique spaces from it, but the

(that is, the space required for the hotels and convention centre cannot be shared with the space that is required for vehicular access, they're too

). Depending on the number and types of systems at play, it is

Flows

"Urban form...is not characterised by static, isolated objects, but is condi-

One of the major factors regarding the form of this building arrives from

with the view of the city brought up by Stan Allen. He states that "the city today is a place where visible and invisible streams of information, capital,

West Side Convergence. In order to understand how each of the park-scape, the city grid, and the transportation infrastructure work, it is

account for this as a principle strategy, which can be easily seen in the

own nexus within the greater nexus of New York.

static structure - single system

vertical + horizontal non-congruence

terminal forces - single system

bodyBODYReiser + Umemoto + Body

" Ours is therefore not an argument about phenomenology but an organiza-tional principle of architecture that understands architecture as a great body, or an assemblage of bodies, that cut across a wide range of scalar and mate-rial regimes. While the phenomenological could be understood as a special case of this work, it is impossible to simply use embodied experience, or phenomena, as a generative model. There is no organizational principle in architecture directly linked to phenomenology. In fact, all architecture can be understood phenomenologically. As a result, phenomenological architecture typically lapses into some form of modernism for the purpose of organizing space. Such a phenomenological practice could never propose a new architec-ture, only a projection upon existing systems" (Reiser et al, 84).

Reiser and Umemoto create a system for body that rejects phenomenology. As stated above, they are uninterested in how phenomenology works within architecture for two reasons. First, all architecture can be under-stood phenomenologically. This is not particularly useful when attempting to generate architecture that requires a specific organizational principle. Second, using phenomenology to generate architecture essentially reduces the architecture down into a modernist formation of spatial organization. Instead, they propose that their architecture engages "...what a body can actually do. A skateboarding ramp, for instance, is not patterned on a human. Rather, it is an intervening technology that belongs to a totally different pattern of order upon which the human works. The ramp augments the body; it is an extension of the body via the vehicle of the skateboard, but it does not represent it" (Reiser et al, 85). The view of the body becomes abstracted not in a phenomenological sense, but as a relation to the user. Architecture becomes performative, allowing for assemblages through augmentation in relation to how the human works.

Maurice Merleau-Ponty expresses a similar philosophy to that of Reiser and Umemoto. He states "it is a bodily auxiliary, an extension of the bodily synthesis. Correspondingly, the external object is not the geometricized projection or invariant of a set of perspectives, but something towards which the stick leads us and the perspectives of which, according to perceptual evidence are not signs, but aspects" (Merleau-Ponty, 152). The body becomes related to the external world through objects that augment it. In Merleau-Ponty's case, the blind man's walking stick becomes a perspective through which he relates to the world. For Reiser and Umemoto, the skateboard ramp creates the same relationship of body and object that the walking stick does with the blind man. The object-human augmentation becomes cybernetic as it produces a third knowledge--it breaks down the original body and presents a new body (or assemblage thereof), complete with a new set of organizational principles.

organizational principle - generative body

new bodies - new organizational principles

amoeba - feeding

amoebas - organized array

negative space mesh structure - generated form

amoebic mesh applied on amoebic surface

spatial organizations - iterations

de facto global transportation system - West Side Convergence

bodyBODY

conception of the city and how its systems relate to one another. In this sense, the site in question is astonishingly paradigmatic of this phenomenon, with the profound separation and ensuing monofunctionality of each of its singu-lar (albeit colossal) programmes" (Rahim, 80).

both self-relational as well as related to the surrounding environment.

while at the same time folding in upon itself. It creates an assemblage that merges its programs: global parkscape, the local city grid, and a global transportation infrastructure. Each of these contribute to the body of the

ing logic through which each become articulated and combine with the others. In this way, this building relates to Eisenman and his discussion on folding. Eisenman reiterates Gilles Deleuze, stating "folded space articulates

inside and out" (Eisenman, 559). West Side Convergence dissolves tradi-tional relationships between its parts in the same way - its body discon-

horizontal augment the body assemblages of the West Side Convergence.

the site upon which it is situated may be pushed in the direction of recom-

emerge from the deliberate and indiscrete incorporation of the genetic,

organizational principles that Reiser and Umemoto employ to relate architecture to a body (or assemblage of bodies) may be further explored on the principle of recombinant architecture. By re-codifying the systems they used to produce the logics found in the West Side Convergence, it

monofunctionality of each programmatic elements found, but at the same time dissolving the separations of each element, much like how genetically modifying sheep to produce spider silk through lactation fundamentally breaks down separations between the systems of sheep and spider.

transportation system - spatial body

transportation system - triangulated body

transportation system - cellular body

technique TECHNIQUEWest Side Convergence Technique: Part One

"What makes the anexact different is that its geometry is assumed to play out in real space rather than in the ideal space of abstract geometry...In the anexact, the matter/force index is precisely that which establishes its rigor and distinguishes it from the inexact, which is merely a less precise form of the exact. The anexact is therefore intimately tied to a material field, the expressions of which are the direct index of forces and the energetic of which is manifest through intensity" (Reiser et al, 144-146).

The frameworks by which the form and body for the West Side Convergence are expressed provide many ways in which technique is also expressed. Three ways in which I will discuss technique are through the deconstruction of force, flow, and reflexivity. The first deconstruction, force, is discussed by Andrew Benjamin, who examines Reiser and Umemoto's recent works. He states "while history is not communicated, force is. The magnitude and directions of a force, its vectorial resultant, finds expression not simply in itself, but non-linearly in the adjoining media. These exchanges, while mutual, are not equal. The dominant media exerts proportionally greater influence than the relatively weak forces of the flow of space." (Benjamin, 51). This relates heavily to the idea of the anexact. The exertion of pressures, while equivalent is not equal. This provides the basis for realistic architectural geometries that exhibit non-idealized geometries--those found in the real world. The second deconstruction, flow, relates heavily to force, but differs in a fundamental way. While force provides pressure, flow reduces time to a linear progres-sion. Flow can then be captured in such a way that is physically expressed. For Reiser and Umemoto, this deconstruction of flow "suggested a meth-odology and yielded a proposition that is highly dependent upon the unique situation and density of material and cultural flows that is charac-teristic of New York" (Rahim, 83). The subsequent reconstruction of flow allowed a folding of both cultural and material information that further articulated the West Side Convergence.

The third deconstruction, reflexivity, further iterates the folding of infor-mation through the processes by which the West Side Convergence is created. Lars Spuybroek suggests that "we need to start from a state of equilibrium that already contains information through its structure, then we need disequilibrium to increase the amount of information, then we need equilibrium again to memorize it" (Spuybroek, 355). Reiser and Umemoto employ a framework where three smaller systems (global parkscape, local city grid, and global transportation system) are put into one larger system, exert pressures on each other, and are recombined and memorized to emerge as a the equilibrium that is solidified as the West Side Convergence.

examining systems that create form and body

parkscape

global transportation system

city grid

techniquetechnique

congruent tessellation acting force points force change in tessellation resultant 3D variation in surface modulation

Recipe:Force systems can be deconstructed in such a way that examines resultant effects and potential outcomes. Forces can act both in congruent and non-congruent systems. Results vary depending on force location, intensity and proximity.

acting force pointsuniform flow resultant topology of flow 3D flow from topology

Recipe:Flow systems are also deconstructed in the same manner as forces. The primary difference results in path relationships when flows are represented through euclidean geometries. Nonetheless they can be useful in generative techniques.

techniqueTECHNIQUEWest Side Convergence Technique: Part Two

"Recent projects that attempt to develop organization out of a dematerialized field of flows, as for example through site analysis and substantiation, are not productive of anything new. Such analyses yield only second degree represen-tations of what is already there. Actualizing a field of flows requires that one be propositional from the outset. Context can only provide potentials. The analytical moment, therefore, arrives in testing the new proposition rather than representing the old" (Rahim, 87).

The outcomes of deconstructing and rebuilding the techniques through which the body and form of the West Side Convergence elucidate reveal instances of differing social and material relationships. Tafuri elaborates on the condition of material and social emergence from a given frame-work, stating "the restructuring of the entire urban space and surrounding landscape thus corresponds to the need to rationalize the total organization of the urban machine: on this scale, technological structures and transpor-tation systems must constitute a unitary "image" in which the antinatural-ism of the termins artificiels laid out at various levels, and the exceptional nature of the road network--the superhighway running at the highest level of the serpentine block designed for the workers' residences--take on a symbolic meaning" (Tafuri, 26). The techniques employed therefore demonstrate the way in which West Side Convergence's form and body are recognized and become a symbolic expression of the way Reiser and Umemoto derive their architecture. It also provides information into how materiality and socio-cultural relationships come into play.

Reiser and Umemoto can use the West Side Convergence to further gener-ate information on any given set of forces, flows, and reflexivity. Through their process, they devise "a system of differential repetition [that] thus has the capacity to produce a field that embodies variable scales and organisa-tions in the same structure. These potentials thus enable the local to be created within a global system" (Rahim, 89). Essentially, the exploration of flows, forces, and reflexivity can be extracted and re-applied in any situa-tion where local systems are combined, exert pressures on each other, and sublimated in order to be re-expressed in a larger, more stable system. In one sense, this process becomes similar to the combination of carbon and oxygen to move from excited, unstable self-states to a larger, more stable equilibrium of carbon dioxide. Engulfing flow, force, and reflexivity allow for techniques that remember unstable self-states, but stabilize and inform a new global state.

Recipe:The inherent generative qualities of reflexivity provide an intersting study of how reflexive techniques come to generate more information.

normal condition outcome (pressure enacted onnormal condition to producederivative condition)

new re-informed state (normalcondition and derivative conditionprovides tertriary, condition)

Flow, force, and reflexivity combine to create new opportunities for the West Side Convergence, or any ‘architecture of flows’.

pressure points placed for exertion: creating a second-order architecture of flows

spaceSPACEThe Space of West Side ConvergenceWhat is the formal logic of space?

"Multiplicities of this second kind are not metric and allow themselves to be striated and measured only by indirect means, which they always resist. They are anexact yet rigorous" (Deleuze et al, 483).

Reiser and Umemoto predicate their formal space on the idea of flows. The smooth nature of a flow provides a multiplicity that cannot be easily rationalized, but can be revealed through the anexact. The anexact provides a matter and force index that establishes an inherent level of rigor. It becomes intimately tied to material fields, and is expressed through intensities in forces and energies. The West Side Convergence explores the idea of flows by exploiting systems already existing in the landscape. The anexact then provides a system through which examinations of flows can be analysed and used in meaningful ways. The resulting formal space physically elucidates flow, but carefully reveals the pressures inherent in the original urban fabric. Movement through the formal space also becomes indicative of flow. The ability of pedestrians to move from the parkscape to the transportation infrastructure while limiting vehicular traffic creates formal differences from one space to another. This informs the way in which sectional flows begin to work (two-dimensional vehicular flows and three-dimensional pedestrian flows), further informing each formal space.

What is the cultural logic of space?

"space is not a photocopy of society, it is society. Spatial forms and processes are formed by the dynamics of the overall social structure...Furthermore, social processes influence space by acting on the built environment inherited from previous socio-spatial structure" (Castells, 410-411).

The cultural logic producing West Side Convergence's spaces culminate with the global parkscape. The parkscape provides both large and small programmatic spaces and allows for easy pedestrian access to activate the spaces. Less public acts become relegated to the smaller, more intimate public spaces whereas the larger public spaces become more social spaces. This, however, becomes the most traditional element of the West Side Convergence. The cultural logics at play still adhere to traditional notions of collection and dispersion. Cultural spaces such as Times Square enact a particular form of social process, one which informs the physical space of the way certain social interactions occur. This information is passed through to the West Side Convergence which then provide the same cultural spaces, but also folds in the information of flows and the other infrastructures. Unlike Times Square, this results in simultaneous cultural-formal spaces that then operate without one having to give way to the other.

traditional public assembly model

WSC cultural space solution: combined public/transportation spaces with sectional movement

compression of formal space from multiples to singularities

flows: formal volumetric generation

spaceSPACEWest Side Convergence: The Evolution of SpaceHow is space governed?

"it is predicated on a model of model of moving, on "spatializing actions," known to the situationists as dérives; rather than presenting the city from a totalizing point of view, it organizes movements metaphorically around psychogeographic hubs" (McDonough, 246).

The West Side Convergence superimposes three independent psychogeo-graphic hubs onto each other. While differentiating them through physical verticality, they are inextricably connected to each other in terms of how they operate holistically. The global transportation infrastructure allows for physical movement from one place to another. This informs how the local city grid above is situated. The flows combine to provide a sectional multiplicity rather than a single surface. This allows for program above and below the city grid to support movement through the site without boundaries normally imposed by streets. The global parkscape caps the region, providing a fully public domain in order to activate both large and small spaces found throughout. All of these spaces (social, functional, transport) are governed by their use, but are separated as dérives through section. Each one negotiates through its own program in its own way, but all three combine to create a larger system (much like how tributaries converge into a larger, more dynamic body of water).

How does space deal with time and how might this space evolve over time?

"We can say of the nomads, following Toynbee's suggestion: they do not move. They are nomads by dint of not moving, not migrating, of holding a smooth space that they refuse to leave, that they leave only in order to conquer and die. Voyage in place: that is the name of all intensities, even if they also develop in extension" (Deleuze et al., 482).

From the sectional nature of the West Side Convergence, the various spaces may diffuse into each other vertically. One challenge that the West Side Convergence faces is maintaining the identities it originally set out to create. While the parkscape may be a space for social activity, the transportation infrastructure may become an equally important space for a different kind of social activity (or a different home for different people). J. Macgregor Wise suggests that "the nomad is the continual struggle between spatial forces and identity, the struggle to make a home, to create a space that opens onto other spaces" (Wise, 305). The evolution of the West Side Convergence is exactly this--taking the three striated spaces and having them diffuse into each other to make a single smooth space. The systems that are predicated on flows begin to create a standing wave, the city becomes the nomad that then holds the standing wave, the smooth space.

West Side Convergence, New York’s naked city: dérives of parkscape, city grid and transportation infrastructure

distinct spaces are placed on one another: they congeal and create a single space with localized differences

evolutionary systems reveal new uses: modes of inhabitation diffuse throughout the spaces

time = n time = 2n