Parameter Update

Here's what has become of a couple of my experiments with Grasshopper...

'Curve Bender' is a test drive in manipulating curves and surfaces. There were no goals per se, other than exploring Grasshopper's capabilities in a somewhat prosaic way (i.e. making a blob).

'Self-organized Flats - Revisited' is much more interesting to me. This video is the culmination of the project I laid out in the original Parameter post. For more details, read here.

Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving. You may have guessed I did from the long hiatus!

Reconstruct

I've briefly touched upon effects of mid-twentieth century urban renewal in a previous post, and the form that urban reconstruction took at the time. The buildings may have looked different but the structure of urban centers remained largely the same despite massive social, political, and economic changes. I just came across this quote from Kevin Lynch's 1972 book What Time is This Place? I start quoting after a discussion of general efficiency and only limited failures in conception:

"Despite these more spectacular failures, the replanned public services and the regulation of rebuilding were both highly effective. The new city did not adjust as well to it's new economy, the changes in its population, or the shift from river traffic to road traffic. In these areas the City was planning for obsolete needs, but indeed most plans are preoccupied with the past. Moreover, and this is also not unusual, the changes bore most heavily on the poor."

Ok, this sounds about right. We're probably talking about Detroit or St. Louis, or one of the many 'Rust-belt' cities that sought to renew despite large shifts in the economy and in society. Having just seen the Pruitt-Igoe Myth (I highly recommend it!) it was clear that demographic trends went in the opposite direction of those projected by urban planners. Their misreading of population dispersal to the suburbs and de-industrialization laid their efficient work to waste to the detriment of the poor population left in the city.

Energy

Central Shanghai, 2010.

A recent article in the China Daily relates a disturbing new phenomenon in several Chinese cities directly related to the rapid pace of growth. Due to deficiencies in the manufacturing, installation, or maintenance of glass curtain wall systems, some glass has been reported to shatter and fall, sometimes from great heights. These 'glass bombs' have injured and killed several people, and in the case of Shanghai, they have led to an outright banning of the extensive use of glass curtain wall systems in the city. Ones first reaction may be to wonder whether that's going too far given the ubiquity of glass as a modern building material. In fact how would this affect the look of the city?

While the Newtonian embodied energy of glass may be on display in the spontaneous shattering of windows, the energy embodied in glass by the process of manufacturing may be a more compelling—if hidden—reason to limit it's use. While not the highest embodied energy material (this distinction goes to steel and aluminum, which are also required elements in a curtain wall), the manufacturing of glass requires roughly 10 times as much energy as one of the most common construction materials in China: concrete. The figure comes out to about 12-25 giga-joules of energy for 1 metric ton of glass. (1 joule = 2.7778×10-7 kilowatt-hours)

South Street 2

Schermerhorn Row, South Street Seaport.

Continued from here.

In 1968, the same year that the replacement for New York's old Pennsylvania Station (Pennsylvania Plaza and Madison Square Garden) was completed, Schermerhorn Row on the southwest tip of Manhattan was designated an historic landmark by the Landmarks Preservation Commission to save it from destruction. It would eventually become part of a larger redevelopment: the South Street Seaport.

From the beginning the planning of the South Street Seaport was divided between a variety of interests including the mayor's Office of Development, the Seaport Museum and affiliates, the Maritime Museum, the state of New York, various financial institutions, the Rouse Company, and several design firms. However, as the developer, the Rouse company set much of the agenda for the site, and on the tail of recent successes James Rouse proposed a festival marketplace.[1]

South Street 1

Corner of 4th & South, 1963 and 2011.

In 1968, the same year Jane Jacobs was arrested during a protest against the Lower Manhattan Expressway, Denise Scott Brown and Robert Venturi took up the fight against the Philadelphia City Planning Commission's scheme to replace South Street with a cross-town highway. Hanging in the balance was the premise that cities can be shaped and formed to meet the needs of their residents.

After the plans for the 'Crosstown Expressway' were made public, the Citizens’ Committee to Preserve and Develop the Crosstown Community (CCPDCC) formed to unite the communities of the South Street corridor against the highway and to create an alternative vision.[1] A driving factor behind the opposition was the idea that communities have a right to self-determination. This concept grew as a response to the power of planners in shaping urban environments, which arguably hadn't changed since the sweeping plans of Fredrick Law Olmstead and the City Beautiful movement transformed cities earlier in the century. However, the seeming absolute power that figures like Robert Moses engendered in treating populated neighborhoods as blank slates contrasted starkly with democratic principles.

Pruitt-Igoe Myth

In a previous post, I cited an article by Katherine Bristol titled "The Pruitt-Igoe Myth" detailing the tortured history of the Pruitt-Igoe public housing project and how it fits into larger narratives. There is also a new documentary film by the same name that is wrapping up screenings across the country this month that tackles the same themes.

From Pruitt-igoe.com:

The Pruitt-Igoe Myth tells the story of the wholesale changes that took place in the American city in the decades after World War II, through the lens of the infamous Pruitt-Igoe housing development in St. Louis.

At the film’s historical center is an analysis of the massive impact of the 1949 Housing Act, which built Pruitt-Igoe and other high-rise public housing of the Fifties and Sixties.  This critical piece of legislation also initiated the so-called urban renewal program and prompted the process of mass suburbanization, which emptied American cities of their residents, business and industry. 

Those that were left behind faced a destitute, rapidly de-industrializing St. Louis, parceled out to downtown interests and increasingly segregated by class and race.  

The residents of Pruitt-Igoe were among the hardest-hit.  Their gripping stories of survival, adaptation and success are at the emotional heart of the film.  The domestic turmoil wrought by punitive public welfare policies, the frustrating interactions with a paternalistic and cash-strapped Housing Authority, and the downward spiral of vacancy, vandalism and crime, led to resident protest and action during the 1969 Rent Strike, the first in the history of public housing.

And yet, despite this complex history, Pruitt-Igoe has often been stereotyped, with help from a world-famous image of its implosion, and used as an argument against Modernist architecture or public assistance programs.  

The Pruitt-Igoe Myth seeks to set the historical record straight, to examine the interests in Pruitt-Igoe’s creation, to re-evaluate the rumors and the stigma, to implode the myth.

The goal of this film is no small feat considering the power these myths hold... Catch a screening if you can.

Urbanized

I'm working on a whopper for this afternoon so this morning I thought I'd share news of a new film by Gary Hustwit (Helvetica, Objectified).

From Urbanizedfilm.com:

Urbanized is a feature-length documentary about the design of cities, which looks at the issues and strategies behind urban design and features some of the world’s foremost architects, planners, policymakers, builders, and thinkers. Over half the world’s population now lives in an urban area, and 75% will call a city home by 2050. But while some cities are experiencing explosive growth, others are shrinking. The challenges of balancing housing, mobility, public space, civic engagement, economic development, and environmental policy are fast becoming universal concerns. Yet much of the dialogue on these issues is disconnected from the public domain.


Who is allowed to shape our cities, and how do they do it? Unlike many other fields of design, cities aren’t created by any one specialist or expert. There are many contributors to urban change, including ordinary citizens who can have a great impact improving the cities in which they live. By exploring a diverse range of urban design projects around the world, Urbanized frames a global discussion on the future of cities.


There are still screenings being added, so get on it!