Spatial Blending

42
Spatial Blending Connecting Un-used and Contrasting Site Adjacencies Through Scalar and Visual Strategies. Sean Curran

description

Connecting Un-used and Contrasting SiteAdjacencies Through Scalar and Visual Strategies.

Transcript of Spatial Blending

Page 1: Spatial Blending

Spatial BlendingConnecting Un-used and Contrasting Site Adjacencies Through Scalar and Visual Strategies.

Sean Curran

Page 2: Spatial Blending
Page 3: Spatial Blending

2

Introduction

ProblemObjectivesKey TermsResearch EssayVisual Studies

Hypothesis

Theory

SiteProgramDesign MethodTimelineFuture ResearchBibliography

Page 4: Spatial Blending

3

This thesis suggests urban intervention through spatial blending as a strategy to activate under used space due to failures in the realization of modernist urban planning. These failures are formed from the poor interaction with spatial adjacencies in the urban landscape. The resulting problematic spaces will be analyzed through the forms of social media mapping, observation, photography and surveys in order to see the effectiveness of various solutions. The duality of contrasting urban ideas that have arose over time through planning, renewal, and zoning have created mental barriers that isolate districts of the city. While natural blending from city country does exist, it is done so in a way that it is not recognizable at the human scale. A spatial blending at the human scale will make it possible for the human to interact with the city-scape, changing the perception of each side of the mental barriers in the process, therefor activating unused space.

Problem

Page 5: Spatial Blending

4

Page 6: Spatial Blending

5

- Activate public space in the urban realm currently under used.

- Break mental barriers that have caused predetermined opinions of these under used spaces.

- Allow hard to access public voids become more accessible for inhabitants.

- Create an awareness for the contrasting spatial adjacencies that make up the cities we live in.

Objectives

Page 7: Spatial Blending

6

Blending -

Mental Barriers -

Spatial Adjacencies -

Urban Landscape-

Social Media Mapping -

Key Terms

A combination of scalar and visual typologies that create the spatial atmosphere.

Walls that are created in ones mind that are built off familiarity and preconceived conceptions.

Space that has direct connection to another space. These areas are defined by boundaries and thresholds.

The continuity of space working through the city, defined by levels of accessibility.

Cartography through data gathered from media such as online photography services, social networks and cell phone data.

Page 8: Spatial Blending

15

Through these visual studies there has been many different forms of blending. These experiments have helped create spatial and graphic experiences that have expose what blending can create in an urban environment. They have also proved helpful in showing the change in perception once a blend is created.

blog: bajasmedia.com/seancurran

Visual Studies

Page 9: Spatial Blending

16

Page 10: Spatial Blending

17

Page 11: Spatial Blending

18

Page 12: Spatial Blending

19

Page 13: Spatial Blending

20

Page 14: Spatial Blending

21

Page 15: Spatial Blending

22

Page 16: Spatial Blending

23

Page 17: Spatial Blending

24

Through urban intervention in the form of spatial blending un-used space in the urban landscape will be activated by breaking mental barriers and therefor creating a more accessible city.

Hypothesis

Page 18: Spatial Blending

25

Page 19: Spatial Blending

26

The search for site began by looking at urban locations around Boston which had site adjacencies that included contrasting urban typologies . These specific sites included a generic urban typology and also modernist planning techniques. This duality happens at a variety of locations, and also at a variety of scales. Through visiting at varying times it was possible to observe the amount of use the locations are getting, and the barriers that define these voids. The west end site had the largest contrast, from the 3 story brick townhouses on the backside of beacon hill to the large modernist towers where Boston’s west end is. The failures in the methodologies for this “garden city” typology have created many physical barriers also limiting the public spaces usage. Currently, with new medical buildings filling in the voids, this garden city is now becoming large blocks of small barriers, connected by alleys of gravel, and separated by parking lots. It is possible to see a large amount of activity happening in the adjacencies of this site, while the public voids on the site become uncomfortable and disconnected further from the city.

Site

Page 20: Spatial Blending

27

Page 21: Spatial Blending

28

Page 22: Spatial Blending

29

Page 23: Spatial Blending

30

Page 24: Spatial Blending

31

Page 25: Spatial Blending

32

Page 26: Spatial Blending

33

Page 27: Spatial Blending

34

Page 28: Spatial Blending

35

Page 29: Spatial Blending

36

Page 30: Spatial Blending

37

Page 31: Spatial Blending

38

Page 32: Spatial Blending

39

Page 33: Spatial Blending

40

In order to spatially blend the contrasting adjacencies of the site the program will create a continuos space that allows the void to be penetrated, making the site accessible to the inhabitant. To allow for awareness for contrasting typologies of the city, the program will be a urban design institution. This program would allow for community interaction, in the form of classes, seminars and meetings. A linear campus will have the possibility to keep large areas of the site activated. Using scale, landscape and public amenities a familiarity will be given to the site, and give the user an experience of the change in typology, while not masking it. With the large towers, there is also the opportunity for institution growth, with more housing being created the form of mixed use buildings, also helping enforce a community that the site currently lacks, unlike its adjacency.

Program

Page 34: Spatial Blending

41

To grow an understanding of the site and its barriers the site will be analyzed to a high level of detail. A large part of what creates to mental barriers of the site is the small barriers in the form of fences, ledges, handrails and landscape features. Through detailed drawings of these edges it will grow an understanding of the reasons of the disuse. Another aspect of the mental barrier is the contrast of scales, and the inhabitants interaction with these scales. By drawing the different features and there interaction with people, and comparing them to spaces that have become more successful it will become apparent how a blending can occur. Social media mapping can show a lot about where and when people spend there time, and even how people interact with other people on the site. By using GPS data of cell phone usage, photography geotagging, and social networking posts it could be possible to see where these edges occur. In doing this mapping the results of changes could be predicted. Beyond analysis, this type of mapping could also be a way of promoting interaction, and activating the site. Mapping will be looked at in the way of research, but also as an generative feature of urban space. In understanding of past development, the zoning, land plots will be analyzed, leading to ways to promote change from single use zoning.

Design Methods

Page 35: Spatial Blending

42

This project will lead to new ways of looking at modernist city planning. This thesis will bring out positive aspects of spaces like these, changing perspectives of how people can interact with these unfamiliar and familiar spaces.

In the form of zoning, ideas of a blending, and less of a hard edge districtified planning could be looked at as a new typology to creates uses for unused space.

Another aspect of future research is the idea of mapping as a generative urban design and architectural idea. With many of the leading cartographers and visualization specialists using new technology to create interactive mapping techniques, there will be an interest on where these techniques can move forward to in the future.

Future Research

Page 36: Spatial Blending

43

Bibliography

Rowe, Colin, and Prof Fred Koetter. Collage City. Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1984.

Collage City is written as a new idea in contemporary urban design. The proposal seeks a city

built of small, miniature utopias. This goes against some of the earlier planning ideas, seeing large

utopias that make up entire cities. It also criticizes earlier “modern” urban design for not having

any impact yet, probably to do with the scales of these utopias. Rowe then proposes small utopias,

which are based on the physiological effects on people, and less on science. Rowe believes the role

of architects includes to be an observer of humans. There are aspects of this thesis I agree with, to

do with the idea of small parts of the city, and not as a city as one fabric. Rowe focus much on the

connections of these different, smaller fabrics, which would be my focus. Also, I don’t believe in

these utopias at any scale. While at certain points of time it was possible for small utopias to be

built, at this point I believe our role is to tie together the fabrics of the city through the past.

Jacobs, Jane. The Death and Life of Great American Cities. 50th anniversary ed. New York: Modern

Library, 2011.

In The Death and Life of Great American Cities, activist and writer Jane writes from a different

direction, focusing mostly on the human aspect of the city, and less the major ideas that build that

whole. Jacobs’s talks about the modernist and urban renewal movement that she believed had torn

apart cities and communities. Along with these ideas, with zoning, the city becomes an isolated

and unnatural urban spaces. Jacobs is a proponent of mixed use buildings and planning, against the

idea of a city becoming a group of districts. I agree with the major ideas that are seen here, but also

believe that there is a possibility for these “unnatural” and “isolated” urban spaces can become a

vibrant part of our urban fabric that Jacobs likes so much.

Kostof, Spiro. The City Shaped: Urban Patterns and Meanings Through History. Boston: Bulfinch,

1993.

The City Shaped is an overview of cities, and what has created them. It focuses on the urban pat-

terns and their development through time. While the book seems to mostly focus on medieval cit-

Page 37: Spatial Blending

44

ies, it also touches on modernist planning as well. Kostof views the city in a historian’s sense, and

does not touch on the interaction and experiential aspects that other writers focus on. This book

is comprehensive in building a knowledge base on urban design history. Kostof’s writings on the

organic patterns in contrast to gridded patterns are important in understanding the meeting point of

these contrasting ideas.

Rossi, Aldo. The Architecture of the City (Oppositions Books). Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press,

1984.

Architecture of the City, first in 1966 is an argument against the modernist movement in urban

design. Rossi talks a lot about early European cities, which escaped the modernist movement due

to the slower moving, less industrial aspects. The book is set to go against the ideas that were hap-

pening in both American and more industrious European cities. Rossi creates a basis for design

using his ideas of the historic city, a typology that fits his ideas and thoughts of what a city should

be. This book acts as a critique of the modernist movement and its interaction with pre modernist

typologies. Rossi writes much about the importance of the scale of architecture of the city, contrast-

ing the grandeur of many of his fellow architects work at the time.

Boeri, Stefano, Harvard Project on the City, Muliplicity, Jean Attali, Moulier Boutang, Sanford

Kwinter, Reinhold Grether, Stephano Boeri, and Celine Rozenblat. Mutations. Edited by Hans-

Ulrich Obrist. Barcelona: Actar, 2001.

Mutations is written as a manual for building your own city. The manual talks about the kit of parts,

and how these can be used to create a “genericity”. Included in this book is a large amount of data

on the population, growth, and economy of cities. This book also shows many compelling images

describing problems in the city, relating to the analytical writings on these problems. While the

book looks at many cities, a good portion of which are third world cities that are then related back

to American metropolis. The writings of Rem Koolhaas also talk about how society is what defines

this kit of parts. It also talks about the ease of designing a generic city, and the difficulty in creating

a human friendly city.

Page 38: Spatial Blending

45

Koolhaas, Rem. Delirious New York: a Retroactive Manifesto For Manhattan. New ed. New York:

The Monacelli Press, 1997.

Delirious New York is Rem Koolhaas’s manifesto of Manhattan. Koolhaas analyzes the city as a

large scale laboratory testing a “culture of congestion” and “hyper-density”. This new lifestyle is

the American modernism, analyzing the differences to the European model, in which a “noise from

order” is apparent. He talks about the relation of the metropolitan lifestyle in relation to the grid

and how the grid produces a formality, but is also informal through its program. Koolhaas also talks

about the program becoming a large part of the impact on the architecture of the city and how the

form and exterior do not define a metropolitan building. In the chapter about the “downtown ath-

letic club” he writes about a typical urban building, with the complex program of an athletic club.

The perception of the building cannot be defined by the exterior form, but its program and content.

Holl, Steven. Edge of a City. New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1996.

In edge of the city, Stevel Holl talks about where the city meets the natural landscape and the in-

teraction of the two instances. He also talks about the Blending of program in architecture through

the use of his “hybrid” buildings. In the relation of the architect and city planning Holl believes

that the architect should be researching at the scale of the city, unlike architects of the past. There

are too many important issues that architecture affects, such as the human environment and the

preservation of the natural landscape through prevention of urban sprawl.

Kelbaugh, Douglas S. Repairing the American Metropolis. Seattle: University of Washington Press,

2002.

Eastly, Linda, and Deanna Snyder, eds. The Harvard Architecture Review 10: Civitas / What Is City.

Vol. 10. New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1998.

Holl, Steven. Intertwining: New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1996.

Burdett, Ricky, and Deyan Sudjic, eds. The Endless City: the Urban Age Project by the London

School

of Economics and Deutsche Bank’s Alfred Herrhausen Sociey. London: Phaidon Press, 2010.

Burdett, Ricky, and Deyan Sudjic, eds. Living in the Endless City: the Urban Age Project by the Lon-

Page 39: Spatial Blending

46

don School of Economics and Deutsche Bank’s Alfred Herrhausen Society. London: Phaidon Press,

2011.

Eisner, Simon, Arthur Gallion, and Stanley Eisner. The Urban Pattern, 6th Edition. 6 ed. New York:

Wiley, 1993.

Botton, Alain De. The Architecture of Happiness (Vintage). New York: Vintage, 2008.

Burdett, Ricky, and Deyan Sudjic, eds. Living in the Endless City: the Urban Age Project by the Lon-

don School of Economics and Deutsche Bank’s Alfred Herrhausen Society. London: Phaidon Press,

2011.

Lamunière, Ines, Roberto de Oliveira Castro, and Jean-Paul Jaccaud. Natural and Urban, Green

and Grey: Studies On Specificities of Contemporary Urban Architecture. Switzerland: Laboratory of

Architecture and Urban Mobility, 2009. http://lamu.epfl.ch/2010/publication/index.php (accessed

October 12, 2011).

Allen, Smout. Augmented Landscapes. New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2007.

Waldheim, Charles. 2006. “The landscape urbanism reader” Princeton Architectural Text, 295 p.

Wentworth Stacks-Upper Level

Mostafavi, Mohsen, Gareth Doherty, and Harvard University, eds. Ecological Urbanism. Lars Mül-

ler Publishers, 2010.

White, Mason, and Maya Przybylski, eds. On Farming: Bracket 1. Actar, 2010.

Basulto, David. “Serpentine gallery pavilion 2011 / Peter Zumthor.” in Archdaily (database online).

2011 (accessed 9/27 2011). Available from http://www.archdaily.com/146392/serpentine-gallery-

pavilion-2011-peter-zumthor/.

Page 40: Spatial Blending

47

Page 41: Spatial Blending

48

Appendix

LAN

DS

CA

PE

WAT

ER

BO

UN

DA

RIE

S

PU

BLIC

SP

AC

E

CO

NT

RA

ST

INT

ER

SE

CT

ION

JUX

TAP

OS

ITIO

N

UR

BA

N FA

BR

ICU

RB

AN

FAB

RIC

UR

BA

N A

GR

ICU

LTU

RE

AG

ING

CO

NT

RO

L

UR

BA

N C

ON

DIT

ION

SO

CIE

TY

BLE

ND

ING

CO

-EX

ISTA

NC

E

WILD

NE

SS

SC

ALE

TY

PO

LOG

Y

Can an Interaction of the landscape and the built form exist? Blurring of boundaries in the urban

enviorment to change the human experience.

Contrast and Juxtaposition of contrasting ideas changes the way we look at spaces.

Contrast of the Organic and the Generated through juxtapostion. Can an Organic Landscape interact

with the built world?

Control and planning in urban design creates different urban fabrics. What happens when those

fabrics are juxtaposed. Organic urban fabrics inter-section with a planners grid.

How does this juxtapostion of two known ideas cause a different perception of our original seperate

thoughts?

Using natural landscape as a way of raising aware-ness of what the natural enviorment is too people

who have not got the chance to experierience this.

Why is natural landscape important to an urban condition? Creating a feeling of wholeness with the

world around us.

Ideas of the bringing together of natural and built, different urban fabrics, control and wildness all

stems from an interest in blending .

Blending in an urban enviorment creates a feeling of wholeness and relationships in a city. This creates a human scale that makes people feel a part of the city

The scale of blending should be brought down to the human level so its understandable while experienc-

ing a space.

PU

BLIC

SP

AC

E

Page 42: Spatial Blending

49