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Personal Narrative

I visited New York City for the first time when I was four years old. Upon reflection, that first trip gave me the strongest impression of the city. I was a child, and memories are very blurry from that trip. Still, I remember the World Trade Center Observatory, and I was only able to see the top parts of the skyscrapers because of my eye level. Seeing that silhouette very much inspired me. I don’t want this great city and its street culture – filled with multiculturalism – to die.

I want to see it rise not only vertically but horizontally. My theory is that architecture should have a strong relationship with the Earth – in harmony with

the ground and enmeshed with the landscape. Skyscrapers uproot pedestrians’ experiences,

drawing our sightline up and away from our communities.

Setting the Context

NEW YORK CITY

Overview

Any space that is free and open to everyone is considered to be a public. Looking at the pros and cons of an urban project after receiving user feedback is absolutely very important work that has to be done by designers. It is important to carefully analyze data from user feedback because architects design for the people most of their time and this feedback might not be immediate. Design and building processes become very quick but still, there is response time, and from the time the architect designs the building anything could change until completion because we are talking about years. The Highline effect is a great example of a design and built process because everything has been glass transparent to the public and press.

Focus

What is the temporal relationship between urban stoops and the neighborhoods they

have existed in terms of demographics, population size/density, income levels, etc. of such neighborhoods? Temporal relationship: the relationship of two or more things over a long period of time; from historic/origin to present Urban Stoop: a set of stairs leading up to the entry of a residential home/townhouse/brownstone. Demographics: statistical study of populations, including criteria such as education, age, nationality, religion, ethnicity, etc. Population density: the number of people in a specific area/neighborhood at a given time. Income level: how much money a person or family unit earns per year.

Concers

Peak Human - 2050 and 3000.

More Walkable Cities Reduces the Carbon Gas Emmision. Living together helps people to stay mentally and physically heatlhy. Possible big floodings might destroy the existing infrastructure on ground level. Alternative living and transportation is the new way of life.

URBAN DENSITY AND

URBAN COMPACTNES

NEW YORK CITY

Urban compactness is absolutely becoming the solution for the increasing demand in dense and highly populated world-famous cities, and billion dollar real estate investments are taking place on top of the existing infrastructure. Jacobs values good cities because of the immediate and practical benefits they deliver to their citizens, but also because they serve as settings where people can attain intrinsic values of mutual respect and sacrifice. (Sonia, 2012. 15) Residential density is 59.150 people per kilometer square in new york also has 151.600 jobs per kilometer square. Due to the lack of land, cities are growing more vertically. Hudson Yards’ development as a whole is a great example of compactness. The site used to be a west side yard, a storage yard for railroad trains which is existing infrastructure. Buildings would sit on

a platform built over the railroad storage. Because of the elevation difference, this solution might cause dark and depressing leftover spaces between the platform and block, however, developing these spaces will eventually create an imagined city.

Compact City:

City of Short Distances

The compact city model, ideally, creates benefits that are attractive to modern urbanites. The desired benefits include shorter commute times, reduced environmental impact of the community, and reduced consumption of fossil fuels and energy. However, research on compact cities from around the globe suggests that these outcomes are not guaranteed. To make matters worse, the design of the cities is limiting residents’ access to green space and reasonable views. For the compact city model to gain in popularity, it is necessary to review both their pros and cons. The term compact city was first coined in 1973 by George Dantzig and Thomas L. Saaty,[4] two mathematicians whose utopian vision was largely driven by a desire to see more efficient use of resources. The concept, as it has influenced urban planning, is often attributed to Jane Jacobs and her book The Death and Life of Great American Cities (1961),[1] a critique of modernist planning policies claimed by Jacobs to be destroying many existing inner-city communities.

Among other criticisms of the conventional planning and transport planning of the time, Jacobs’ work attacked the tendency, inherited from the garden city movement, towards reducing the density of dwellings in urban areas. Four conditions were necessary to enable the diversity essential for urban renewal: mixed uses, small walkable blocks, mingling of building ages and types, and “a sufficiently dense concentration of people”. The ‘sufficient’ density would vary according to local circumstances but, in general, a hundred dwellings per acre (247 per hectare – high by American standards, but quite common in European and Asian cities) could be considered a minimum.

Urban Mobility:

Road Space Requirements

The compact city or city of short distances is an urban planning and urban design concept, which promotes relatively high residential density with mixed land uses. It is based on an efficient public transport system and has an urban layout which – according to its advocates – encourages walking and cycling, low energy consumption and reduced pollution. A large resident population provides opportunities for social interaction as well as a feeling of safety in numbers and “eyes on the street”.[1] It is also arguably a more sustainable urban settlement type than urban sprawl because it is less dependent on the car, requiring less (and cheaper per capita) infrastructure provision (Williams 2000, cited in Dempsey 2010) Achieving a compact city does not just mean increasing urban density per se or across all parts of the city. It means good planning to achieve an overall more compact urban form: Achieving a compact city does not just mean increasing urban density per se or across all parts of the city. It means good planning to achieve an overall more compact urban form: Governments of sprawling cities can take many actions to seek a more compact form, often also involving higher densities. Other cities, such as Cairo, with large, dense slum areas, are responding by reducing urban densities in core areas. In either case, limiting outward urban expansion can be combined with more efficient use of land resources and more effective protection of natural resources. City growth can be physically limited in this way through legislated urban growth boundaries, non-urban green belts, and the quarantining of development in certain areas

Compact City and Proximity

Related Concepts

Compact cities are intended to provide everything a person needs to live in one community, including work opportunities. When a person works inside the compact city, he/she can walk or bike to work instead of driving. This reduces fossil fuel consumption and helps to reduce emissions and traffic density on the highways between cities.[15] However, not everyone finds work inside the compact city, and subsequently, many people commute to neighboring cities to access their employers. The need to commute creates two concerns for the compact city dweller, commuting time and the impact of commuting.

Traffic Gridlocks:

Transportation Problems

Coined in New York City, the term gridlock means traffic congestion that blocks a city’s network of intersections and has been used to describe the Manhattan core’s overwhelming traffic volume in general.. Despite the number of vehicles on our streets, New Yorkers most often choose from a variety of available transportation options including regional rail lines, the 24/7 metropolitan subway and bus system, ferries, cycling, and walking. New York City is among the most congested traffic spots in the world.

Soon, in an effort to ease some of the Big Apple’s legendary gridlock – and make the air more breathable – driving a car into midtown Manhattan will cost you.

New research by Cornell and the City College of New York (CCNY), which is part of the City University of New York system, shows that by enforcing a $20 toll for cars and taxis to enter the central business district of Manhattan, traffic congestion could be reduced by up to 40%, public transit ridership could grow by 6% and greenhouse gas emissions could be reduced by 15%.

Traffic woes have plagued Manhattan for decades. In the same 2019 New York state budget bill that spelled the end of plastic retail bags, Gov. Andrew Cuomo urged the Legislature to pass congestion traffic pricing to cull vehicles from the central business district of Manhattan, and to help fund more than $1 billion in public transit and subway infrastructure repairs.

Sustainability

Green City

When it comes to sustainability, big cities can get a bad reputation. When so many people are concentrated in a relatively small area, convenience often takes precedence over environmental awareness. Cities like New York are trying to battle this though, and they’re starting on the home front: real estate. Buildings are the foundation of a city, and making them sustainable can encourage other sustainable practices. For example, the well-known LEED certification is based not only on how a building is built, but the continued energy consumption in the building. This can include water usage, recycling practices, and air quality. Since 2005, public buildings costing more than $2 million have been required to meet LEED standards. Another reason New York is an ideal place for passive housing is the cost of living for individuals. With the trend of luxury housing on the rise, and property prices moving in the same upward direction, buyers can save big on energy costs and those funds can be used for other aspects of living. This savings on energy bills can also offset the initial price of building materials, which can be more expensive than non-sustainable materials, as they are as of yet not widely available. Of course, sustainable living has to take a well-rounded approach in order to be fully effective. LEED focuses on building materials. Passive housing focuses on self-contained energy creation and usage. The living building challenge focuses on water usage, aiming for buildings to use only water that they produce. This is especially challenging in New York, where building codes require being hooked up to the public sewer lines.

Environmental Concerns

Sea Level Rise

Sea levels are rising at an accelerating rate, and the scientific community is confident that global warming is the most important cause. Higher sea levels translate to more and higher coastal floods. Using local sea level projections closely aligned with a likely midcentury range developed by the New York City Panel on Climate Change, this analysis finds a 3-in-4 chance of historically unprecedented coastal flooding in New York City by 2100, assuming sea level rises on the fast end of the spectrum; or a 1-in-10 chance under a slow rise scenario, as might be expected under reduced carbon emissions. We find that sea level rise from warming has already increased the likelihood of extreme flooding at the Battery – flooding high enough to seriously threaten the subway system – by 50%.

120 square miles of land lie less than 6 feet above the high tide line in New York, the height of a statistically extreme flood. This land is home to nearly half a million New Yorkers, 21% of whom live in just three zip codes. $101 billion in property value sits on the same land, as do more than 1,500 miles of road, 1,200 EPA-listed sites, and 100 public schools.

These numbers nearly double when assessed at 9 feet above the high tide line – Sandy’s peak flood elevation as measured at the Battery in New York City. In Brooklyn and Manhattan, the most socially vulnerable populations are, respectively, about 30% and 80% more likely than the population as a whole to be flooded at this level.

Social Concerns

Living Together

New generation is moving to cities and this is increasing the demand. When people share cultural valuse they feel and live happy together. It is important to carefully analyze data from user feedback because architects design for the people most of their time and this feedback might not be immediate. Design and building processes become very quick but still, there is response time, and from the time the architect designs the building anything could change until completion because we are talking about years. The Highline effect is a great example of a design and built process because everything has been glass transparent to the public and press. Today, following the success of the blockbuster 1.45-mile-long elevated park in Manhattan, nearly every major city in the country is eyeing its abandoned or underutilized rail lines, airfields, and industrial waterfronts in hopes of transforming them into places that people will want to visit.

Intended Audience

Main Effect: Feedback From Community

It is important to carefully analyze data from user feedback because architects design for the people most of their time and this feedback might not be immediate. Design and building processes become very quick but still, there is response time, and from the time the architect designs the building anything could change until completion because we are talking about years. The Highline effect is a great example of a design and built process because everything has been glass transparent to the public and press. Today, following the success of the blockbuster 1.45-mile-long elevated park in Manhattan, nearly every major city in the country is eyeing its abandoned or underutilized rail lines, airfields, and industrial waterfronts in hopes of transforming them into places that people will want to visit.

INTRODUCTION

Creating elevated spaces in new york and envisioning the multi-layered roads have been always imagined in the past. A style of architecture called “fantastic” or “visionary,” produced without the constraints of clients, budgets, materials, or building and planning regulations. Any space that is free and open to everyone is considered to be the public realm. Nowadays, when cities are densely populated, they suffer from dilapidated housing, high crime rates, traffic gridlock, and dirty air. If engineering technologies are capable of building enormous bridges, we should be able to create sky streets, avenues, and mega-structures for air public transportation. Generally, a public space or public space is any area or place that is open to everyone, regardless of race, age, gender, ethnicity, or socio-economic level. Locations for these public gatherings include squares, squares and parks. Places that connect people, such as sidewalks and streets, are also called public places. Pedestrians use public spaces to communicate and interact with each other. This allows them to communicate and build relationships. Some people use this place to eat, chat, and exercise without distraction. There are no restrictions on public places as long as you follow the rules such as park maintenance and cleanliness. There are two types of public areas: public areas that you can access freely and private areas that you can access for a small amount of money. However, many public places are freely accessible and contribute to the equality and understanding of the general public. Sustainable urban mobility planning is used by authorities for strategic planning of mobility. It aims to move towards a more sustainable mode of transport. To address the challenges of urban mobility, we need a sustainable urban mobility plan. The Sustainable Urban Mobility Plan aims to support all modes of transportation for sustainable and efficient mobility to improve accessibility. Particular attention is paid to joint planning, monitoring mechanisms, evaluations and quality control. In any city center, most of the city plays an important role in the well-being of its citizens. The ability to move freely and quickly through the city determines people’s concentration, interactions between people, and their perception of the environment.

RE-THINKING ARCHITECTURES AGENDA

Parametric Urbanism

The method of designing parametrically characterized objects and constraints, whether PC-based or manual, has distinct advertising advantages over traditional planning systems (Pimmer et al, 2016). First, as more important data is included, segments can be used to update awkward starting plans so that the insights added to the speculative plan can be maintained later in the plan. Second, it takes into account a sound framework in which important relationships are tested using social commentary (Hensel et al., 2013). These parts of the parametric design are identified in the early stages of the design. Traditional structural strategies require a lot of planning work each time you adjust the plan in the form of a model. Also, the illustrations need to be recreated to varying degrees, but the parametric structure approach allows you to keep the configuration open for most planning steps. Misfortune (Mio, 2018). This makes it more practical to start the demonstration at the application framework stage rather than at the plan implementation stage. Parametric CAD structures require the designer to view the state of a section or assembly. This allows you to determine changes by changing measurements, designing parameters that introduce geometric changes, and designing the history of part features to create topology changes (Pimmer et al). .2016). The state of this impact on the designer is shown as a combination of key points for the various key points of the frame part. Each key point is represented by its shape, position, and geometric parameters of introduction (Bodein et al, 2013). Parametric plans in this sense are sometimes referred to as social showcases, diversity structures, or constraint-based plans because the focus is on the designer’s relationship.

Defininf Design Criteria in Urban System

Mio (2018) claims that the role of parametric design is to include the measurements and other explicit data needed for practicality and manufacturability (Mio, 2018). Similarly, a particular material will be selected if it has not been recently assigned. In this way, the parametric framework provides all of the size, resilience, and material data points by the underlying points of the robust plan for both the driving philosophy and the design specifications. In the least responsible framework, parametric plans should not provide data with a level of accuracy that is not really required by the specification. However, in practice, most measurements are usually resolved at the parametric stage. Parametric modelling allows authors to customize all states of the model, not just individual individuals. For example, to adjust the roof structure, architects traditionally had to change the length, width, and height. However, in the parametric demo, the planner only needs to change one parameter. Therefore, the other two parameters are balanced. Experience-based assumptions that have influenced past architectures and charting strategies are engineers’ attempts to accommodate new interpretations of the problems described. With a specific purpose in mind, the parametric planning tool will perform the same function, also helps to limit the problem (Bodein et al, 2012). The Meta-rules framework was to organize the kind of problem environment that requires a link to one of the problems or different problems parameters. According to Dudek (2012), Parametric modelling was first developed by Rhino, a 3D drawing program that extends from AutoCAD (Dudek, 2012). The main advantage of parametric demonstrations is that when customizing a 3D geometric model, you can change the state of the model’s geometry by changing parameters such as dimensions and arcs. Therefore, there is no compelling reason to redraw the model whenever it needs to be modified.

This is an incredible time-saver for architects, especially when planning. Before the advent of parametric mapping, planning was not an easy task for architects, as models tend to change from time to time. As a result, changing the state of the development model was very tedious.Both BIM and parametric design, to create these wonderful design, relies on technology, therefore the software. Grasshopper, Rhino, MicroStation, Catia, Autodesk Maya, Autodesk 3DS Max, Generative Components, applications such as CityEngine is used (Boeykens, 2011)Apart from BIM, parametric design or modelling is most often used in combination with BIM, but it also affects urban development and building construction around the world. Parametric architectures are also increasing worldwide. More and more buildings are using this style to modernize and inspire optimism. Parametric design is used to achieve accuracy and efficiency between project deliverables and project design concepts. Besides, the parametric design uses algorithms and geometric relationships to create structures that bridge the gap between new technological capabilities and traditional building manufacturing. Today, many designers and architects use parametric design. These include Zaha Hadid Architects, SANAA, J. Includes MayerH, Kengo Kuma, de Meuron, Sou Fujimoto, Herzog and more. In fact, the Heydar Aliyev Center building analyzed above was built using a parametric design. Currently, other structures following parametric design include Starbucks Interior Design, Serpentine Gallery, Harbin Opera House, Metropole Parasol and Shanghai Expo UK Pavilion. The only building that draws attention to the use of this design is the Heatherwick Studio UK Pavilion at the 2010 Shanghai World Expo. The pavilion is unbuildable, with early renderings of the project built using complex designs whose feasibility was questionable. The developer, Studio Heatherwick, described the building as a quest for the relationship between the city and nature. At the pavilion, developers incorporated the Kew Gardens Millennium Seed Bank to create the iconic Seed Cathedral. We also added multi-layer landscape processing for an area of 6000m2. The developer also surrounds the exhibition area with artificial grass and acts as a resting place for exhibition visitors.

Case of New York:

Manhattan

What is the temporal relationship between urban stoops and the neighborhoods they have existed in terms of demographics, population size/density, income levels, etc. of such neighborhoods? Temporal relationship: the relationship of two or more things over a long period of time; from historic/origin to present Urban Stoop: a set of stairs leading up to the entry of a residential home/townhouse/brownstone. Demographics: statistical study of populations, including criteria such as education, age, nationality, religion, ethnicity, etc. Population density: the number of people in a specific area/neighborhood at a given time. Income level: how much money a person or family unit earns per year. Urban compactness is absolutely becoming the solution for the increasing demand in dense and highly populated world-famous cities, and billion-dollar real estate investments are taking place on top of the existing infrastructure. Jacobs values good cities because of the immediate and practical benefits they deliver to their citizens, but also because they serve as settings where people can attain intrinsic values of mutual respect and sacrifice. (Sonia, 2012. 15) Residential density is 59.150 people per kilometer square in new york also has 151.600 jobs per kilometer square. Due to the lack of land, cities are growing more vertically. Hudson

Yards’ development as a whole is a great example of compactness. The site used to be a west side yard, a storage yard for railroad trains which is existing infrastructure. Buildings would sit on a platform built over the railroad storage. Because of the elevation difference, this solution might cause dark and depressing leftover spaces between the platform and block, however, developing these spaces will eventually create an imagined city.

New York City 2050:

Modern Infrastructure

Futurama was an exhibit and ride at the 1939 New York World’s Fair designed by Norman Bel Geddes, which presented a possible model of the world 20 years into the future (1959–1960). The installation was sponsored by the General Motors Corporation and was characterized by automated highways and vast suburbs. Geddes’ “vision of the future” was rather achievable; the most advanced technology posited was the automated highway system of which General Motors built a working prototype by 1960.[8] Futurama is widely held to have first introduced the general American public to the concept of a network of expressways connecting the nation. It provided a direct connection between the streamlined style which was popular in America between 1928 and 1938, and the concept of steady-flow which appeared in street and highway design in the same period. The modeled highway construction emphasized hope for the future as it served as a proposed solution to traffic congestion of the day, and demonstrated the probable development of traffic in proportion to the automotive growth of the next 20 years. Bel Geddes assumed that the automobile would be the same type of carrier and still the most common means of transportation in 1960, albeit with increased vehicle use and traffic lanes also capable of much higher speeds. Four general ideas for improvement were incorporated into the exhibition showcase to meet these assumptions. First, each section of road was designed to receive greater capacity of traffic. Second, traffic moving in one direction could be isolated from traffic moving in any other.

Third, segregating traffic by subdividing towns and cities into certain units restricted traffic and allowed pedestrians to predominate. And fourth, traffic control included maximum and minimum speeds. Through this, the exhibition was designed to inspire greater public enthusiasm and support for the constructive work and planning of streets and highways.

URBAN VISION: STREETS IN SKY

Structures for Democratic Cities

Streets-in-the-sky were conceptualized by architects Alison and Peter Smithson as collective space, an articulation between individual and civitas. This essay argues that streets-in-the-sky are a particularly democratic type of urban element, which also has many positive sustainability potentials. The first use of this concept was in the Smithson’s unbuilt Golden Lane estate (1952), which became a hallmark in post-WW2 debates over urban structure, domesticity, and social housing. Park Hill, the first streets-in-the-sky estate by Jack Lynn and Ivor Smith, was a success in the 1960s. The Smithsons continued to explore the idea in several urban projects, only to put it to built form in Robin Hood Gardens (1968–1972). These estates have adapted streets-in-the-sky and afterward evolved to very different states of maturity. While Park Hill is a refurbished Grade II listed building, Robin Hood Gardens is awaiting full demolition. Streets-in-the-sky were generally abandoned in more recent housing schemes, but the situation of these estates suggests that no consensus exists as to their urban value. Here, we analyze streets-in-the-sky at the time of their emergence as a concept. To assess their cultural, morphological, social, and political implications, we explore their development in built and unbuilt housing schemes, using the abovementioned case-studies to point out how streets-in-the-sky evolved, including their possible role in important urban debates of the present. Since many social housing estates employing streets-in-the-sky have been and continue to be demolished in redevelopment projects, we aim to understand what losses—aesthetic, functional, and environmental—may be implied in the decimation of this element of urban form.

Streets-in-the-sky suggest rather large horizontal schemes as Park Hill and Robin Hood Gardens. Coleman disliked high-rise buildings, but large horizontal estates were equally problematic, since anonymity feeds on size (Coleman 1990, 15). Yet Coleman’s argument fails to be realistic: her defense of private low-density housing is conveniently oblivious to the fact that urban population tends to grow, not decrease, and that there was never a consensus in the adequate size of urban forms. Among others, Arnis Siksna, Barry Maitland, Ernie Scoffham and Anne Vernez Moudon have argued that large blocks are more appropriate to accommodate specific activities, such as commercial and mixed ones, throughout the promotion of new galleries and inner routes, especially where intensification and change is predicted (Marat-Mendes 2002), as it happened in London. Marat-Mendes (2002) has also pointed out that small blocks do prevent physical change to occur while ensuring stronger changes in uses and functions.

urban vision.

Coleman hastily identifies Ebenezer Howard’s Garden City (1898) and Le Corbusier’s Radiant City (1923) as roots for postwar planning and criticizes those models for being based upon intuitive beliefs and prejudices (Coleman 1990, 7). This critique could be turned against Coleman herself: despite her misrepresentation of statistical provocation as scientific inquiry, Coleman’s greatest flaw is her unrealistic vision of urban fabrics made of townhouses and cottages in low-density neighborhoods. This is the perfect scenario for houses ready to be explored by the private market. But taking a walk in London would show why this is a dangerously reactionary urban vision.

DELIRIOUS NEW YORK

Difinitive Instability:The Grid

The Grid makes the history of architecture and all previous lessons of urbanism irrelevant. It forces Manhattan’s builders to develop a new system of formal values, to invent strategies for the distinction of one block from another. (Koolhaas. 2012, 20) For the first time, Manhattan’s inhabitants can inspect their domain. To Have a sense of the Island as a whole 1$ also to be aware of its limitations, the irrevocability of its containment. If this new consciousness limits the field of their ambition. it can only increase its intensity. (Koolhaas. 2012, 23) . Generally, a public space or public space is any area or place that is open to everyone, regardless of race, age, gender, ethnicity, or socio-economic level. Locations for these public gatherings include squares, squares and parks. Places that connect people, such as sidewalks and streets, are also called public places. Pedestrians use public spaces to communicate and interact with each other. This allows them to communicate and build relationships. Some people use this place to eat, chat, and exercise without distraction. There are no restrictions on public places as long as you follow the rules such as park maintenance and cleanliness. There are two types of public areas: public areas that you can access freely and private areas that you can access for a small amount of money. However, many public places are freely accessible and contribute to the equality and understanding of the general public.

Sustainable urban mobility planning is used by authorities for strategic planning of mobility. It aims to move towards a more sustainable mode of transport. To address the challenges of urban mobility, we need a sustainable urban mobility plan. The Sustainable Urban Mobility Plan aims to support all modes of transportation for sustainable and efficient mobility to improve accessibility. Particular attention is paid to joint planning, monitoring mechanisms, evaluations and quality control. In any city center, most of the city plays an important role in the well-being of its citizens. The ability to move freely and quickly through the city determines people’s concentration, interactions between people, and their perception of the environment.

Futurama: New York World’s Fair

Paul Rudolpy

Location: New York

The Lower Manhattan Expressway, which would link New Jersey to Brooklyn, Queens, and Long Island via the Holland Tunnel and the Manhattan and Williamsburg bridges, was conceived of by the influential (and controversial) New York City urban planner Robert Moses in the 1940s. After years of public debate, in 1967 the Ford Foundation commissioned Rudolph to produce a speculative study of the proposed expressway. Designed to leave the city’s infrastructure intact, Rudolph’s proposed Y-shaped corridor suggested a new approach to city building, in which transportation networks could bind rather than divide communities. At key points in the transportation corridor are multilevel, stacking pedestrian plazas, people movers, and parking—all above and below existing bridge and rail systems. Tall, stepped-back residential buildings provide light, air, and views, flanking the corridor at these gateways.

At the time, Rudolph was particularly keen to explore how large, modular, prefabricated elements could serve as building units for the city. The iterative nature of his design for the Lower Manhattan Expressway proposal demonstrates how additional sections could be added as deemed necessary without disrupting the city’s existing fabric: Rudolph’s scheme appears to fit seamlessly around the Williamsburg Bridge (at center), and his illustration even accounts for atmospheric urban details like boats on the East

Constant Niewenhuys and Yona Friedman

Constant Niewenhus was part of the group Situationist International which was active between 1957 and 1972. The group was against the forceful nature of rationalist grid adapted by the modernist. The Rigid grid was devoid of any type of playful expression and surrealist tendencies in architecture.

“under the pretext of putting a little order an discipline back into architectural expression,” Le Corbusier and his allies had instituted an architecture of “right angels” and “cadaverous rigidity(19)”

The Situationist International belived that the functional environment opposed the very core basis of the modernist ideas. Rather that the machine liberating the common man, it was burying him as a component of the functionalist society. They explain this bu stating that

‘We have been given the machine for living in, where very often nothing is sacrificed to the only truly human parts of life, to poetry and todream. There is worse: for our intranigent rationalists, a residential building can be nothing other than the superimposition of four, ten, any number of linked machines for living in... The ambience is overwhelming; at the en of his day, man quits his factory for working for his factory for eating and sleeping in”(20) -Michel Colle

Constant Niewenhuys envisioned freedom of the common man from factories and strived for total automation in his utopian worl, so that the common man would be free for creative and social play. He introduced concepts of play, nomadism and flexibility in his new design for a new city which he termed as the ‘New Babylon’. The new design strived to answer questions like,

“To what extend can we freely build the framework of social life in whcih we can be guided by our aspirations and not our instincs?”

19- Michel Col Le, Vers une architecture symbolique. In Cobra, No 1. (Briussels, 1948). pp.21-23

20-The Situationist CIty, Simon Sadler, MIT press, 1998, pg-7

The design was his effort t go beyond the grid, the harsh right angled functionalist layouts and advocating free forms and mixed use patterns to create a new sense of relationship between the human and social needs.

He came up with a megastructure design that would encompass multiple functions that was previously housed individually in functionalist city. This city was hoisted above existing city. Unlike the strict segregation of city into districts based on their programs, New Babylon had no predetermined program and was left to decide and discover by the humans using the city. I actually want to connect his point with the agent based design that I wrote about on the previus discoveries. This city was similar to the one propesed by Yona Friedman who was the founder of Mobile Architecture Study Group in 1957. Both of them proposed a complex web frame supporting the functions raised on pilotis (a grid of supporting columns) (22)

For Both Yona Friedman and Constant Nieuwenhuys the megastructure was a mobile and flexible formation of technology instead of the permanence nature of modernist designs. For them the giant concrete block of Le Corbusier’s Unite d’Habitation was based on obsolete ideas of material housing and society. Unlike this the framework for both the cities was flexible creating transitory spaces. Within this structure the inhabitant could build their own cell and let their imaginations run wild in building a playful environment of their own. The fixed structural framework composed of movable partition and lightweight materials like titanium floors and nylon pavements and patitions.(23)

Its interensting to note how so many collective came together in italy. An architect in post war italy had limited options. There was huge divison between the elites who were fuelling the economic boom and the poor. Working with the elites would mean siding with the capitalists who were the reason for the large part of population suffering in poverty. Even if the architect would work on housing for the working class, the real estate would open up that area for Italy’s predatory housing speculators, this playing into the same capitalist system they sough to reject. Hence Archizoom and Superstudio chose to complete absience from architecture.

21- The Situationist City, Simon Sadler MIT Press, 1998, pg-123-129

22- Constant (Art and architecture in the Netherlands), H. van Haaren, Meulenhoff (1966), pg-8

23- The Situationist City, Simon Sadler, MIT Press, 1998, pg-130-133

Superstudio- Archigram

‘[One] type of action is that of refusing all partifipaction, staying and apart, while contiuning to produce ideas and objects so intentionally different that they are unusable by the system without becoming involved in fierce self criticism. For us, arhcitecture is always opposed to buildin.’(31)

This mutiny was first recieved by critics as an attempt to revive the mega structure (32) like Archigram. However there strategies closely resembled those of Dada and surrealism. The group worked towards a logical conslusion to the modernist morals thay they stated as a nightmare of the 20th century architecture. Altough pro consumerist Archigram on technology and automation. This is confirmed by Perer COok reflecting on their work- ‘If these things can be happening simultanaeously in painting, music, engineering and the rest, if Buckminster Fuller lived, then what were we doing with neatly dimensioned metal windows? Such a reaction, and the energy of the corporate audacity enabled even the sheyst (Toraldo di Francia of Superstido) to come out of the Expressionistic closet.’ (33

The Radicals, like many of their younger contemporaries were frusted by the trivial attention to detail displayed by the modernist, specially in the post war era of youthfulness and exciting pop culture. These young pioneers intead admired the likes of Robert Venturi, which was a playground of aestethics. (34)

31- Defying the Avant-Garde Logic: Architecture, Populism, and Mass Culture, Delft school of Journal. Volume 5 number 1, pg-60

32- William W Braham , Rethinking Technology in architectural theory 1968 Superstudio (London Routledge,2007) pp 174-183 (p175)

33- Peter Cook, ‘N ataili Super Studio (New JErsey John WIlley and Sons. 2012. pp40-43 p(41)

However irrespectiv of this clash of thoughts the radicals didnt’t simply follow the likes of Archigram, Constant Nieuwenhuis and Yona Friedman. Instead they dismissed their particular fascination with megastructures and instead argued that architecture could solve human problems if and only the world desired nothing or through a process they termed as ‘Anti Design’ (35)

Archizoom proposed the No-Stop city, a therotical project published for the first time in Casabella magazine in 1970 under the title ‘City, assembly line of social isses, ideology abd theory of the metroplos.” It was based on the idea that technology would overcome centralized modern city. The plan illustrates a grid like symbolizing walls that can be extended infinitely through the addiion of homogenous elements adapt to a variety of uses. Residential of homogenous elements adapted to variety of uses. Residential units and free-form organic shapes representing parks are placed over the grid sturcture allowing for a large degree of freedom within a regulated system. It called for free space to live for everyone as campers.

Superstudio in 1969 piblished their work the Continous Movement which focused on utopian idea of a near future in whcih all architecture will be created with a signle act, from a signle design, a grid that circulates the entire globe. The resultant architecture emerges from a single continous environment encased uniformly by technology and culture. This massive monolithic block which is superimposed over New York in the image would ultimately provide shelter for all populationand the rest of the environment, built before this would remain as a material base reabsorbed by nature as landscape. The imposing imagery was seen by the architectsas a way introduce human reasoning and communicative participation. The repetativeness of the design is kind of parody against the mass produced steel and glass modernist boxes all over the globe leading to loss of local culture. For Superstudio imagery was a tool to engage with the fellow architects around the world and mass culture. They preffered new mechanical, equipment of the mass media: photography, film, advertising, publicity, publications, over steel glass and concrete. They sought these democratic ations to challenge the conservative institutions. (36)

35- Design Museum Touring Exhibition.

36- Defying the Avant Garde Logic. Architecture, Populism, and Mass Culture. Delft School of Design Journak. Volume 5 Number 1. pg 64-66

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