Proposal 2
This project is a statement on the idea that there is no utopia.
Since the 1960's, capitalism needed to find a new means of generating production to sustain itself as it realized that the world resources were coming to an end and production was slowing down. Capitalism then implemented itself into forms of culture, music, fashion, and design etc. This can be best noted with the French uprising of 1968. Capitalism then emerged through the years as commercialism and projected itself as the iconic high rise. The incident of 9/11 set capitalism to hide once again, where insurance companies now will not insure buildings over 15 stories high and because of the current economic recession.
(A brief history of horizontality, Kazys Varnelis, 29 May, 2005.
http://varnelis.net/articles/horizontality)
All major high rise developments have come to
an end. The government will inject $63 billion into the economy because of the
pullouts in developments and the money will be used to renew the city's
infrastructure. In Obama's inaugural address, he states that we are now in the
age of infrastructure.
(Goodbye, icons; hello, infrastructure: Obama inaugurates a new era of
architecture, Blair Kamin, 24, Jan, 2009. http://featuresblogs.chicagotribune.com/theskyline/2009/01/goodbye-icons-hello-infrastructure-obama-inaugurates-a-new-era-of-architecture-.html)
'In
the current climate, the only possible utopias are those perfecting capitalism
and its present, consumerist, forms of order.' Lebbeus Woods( Utopia? Lebbeus Woods, 11 Oct, 2009. http://lebbeuswoods.wordpress.com/2009/10/11/utopia/)
The Abstractions of Delusions
Capitalism has devoured the arts, the culture and the life in which we have been living so naively. It sits to exploit our desires by stating false rebellions in music, fashion and design, so as to re-fashion its own exsistance. It has merged into our cultural industry for limitless production and ravaged with late capitalism to produce postmodernism.
Praise the Enragès!
Viva La Revolution!
The skylines ripped the heavens with new symbols of economy, only to be punished by planes of retribution. Where are these vertical impediments of communication that monumentalize our economy with office planning? The sense of unmistakeable change quivers the metropolis as the insurance company ventures below the fifteenth floor, forcing the facades of postmodernism out to suburban realms.
Death to the towers!
Death to the architectural icon!
Disrupted by intimidation, capitalism congregates its losses and resumes with invisibility. Hidden under the networks and databases of the economy, it sustains as recession. Our new president cries "hope," to lay new foundations for growth and announce "The age of infrastructure" with the faith of $63 billion.
The prophecy rings true, on "Fluidity" and programming, the "No-Stop-City" can now serve under the neutral field of identity and amoralism. The era of the architectural spectacle has passed, for the new monument is now in infrastructure.
Death to Form!
Death to the Façade!
The new avant-garde is in the immaterial; objects turn to programs and the private becomes public. Spatial circuits negotiate rhythm between the connections of industry, finance and design, and the global economy will be networked into cities that will reflect both interactions and dependencies. The topographic representation of these new networks might not be the best solution to encourage its global relationship but it will satisfy certain aspects of distribution and transport routes.
Death to the rigid grid!
Death to block planning!
Latent between the internal and the external, capitalism redefines itself by taking new forms of urbanization, spreading with density and linking itself with real estate, the new spatial organization of both structure and infrastructure will be merged with existing buildings. Class segregation will continue to accommodate the expanding professional class, but visually the buildings will reconcile in the past and the future. This plague of homogeneous structures will weave in and out of buildings to impose ecological principles into space, and will be devoted to material systems.
This new infrastructural building will erect within the existing city as a second grid, layering itself vertically to provide mediation between the new and the old, the soft and hard spaces. It is structurally independent in nature, yet it will provide structural support to existing buildings. Its task is not only to preserve the existing façade and maintain the integrity of the city's cultural heritage, but also to redefine the gridded network to a new soft city. Like Capitalism, it hides tamely within the urban social network, only to peak through the gaps of transitional space to reveal as the bonding agent of time.
Appearance of
proposed structure in relation to existing buildings.
Proposed City: Venice
Problems with Venice:
-overcrowding
(tourism) -pollution of water,
air, land -flooding -lack of shops except for
tourists -homeless -Pigeon problem
The sinking city of Venice is facing the reality of its destruction
through its dissolving bricks that lie four feet underwater and the high
moisture content in the air. My proposed infrastructure will be merged with
parts of the existing city (2 block radius) and will act as the new structural
support to its existing buildings (suspension instead of hydraulics). This new
infrastructure can act as a soft city above the rising water level and will
play on the new urban sprawl based on overlapping girds. These new grids will play
on the ideas of public space, while echoing the hard and soft spaces from its
original design. Based on the pollution
and flooding of the Venice canal, this new infrastructure will segregate its
population vertically. The building will reflect the city by dividing itself into 3
sections based on population density. It is important to
note that the porosity of the infrastructure will be strategically placed to
increase the living conditions between levels.
Example of
topographic building
I will comment when the text is the background information of the project of the plan! I need to see architecture, spaces, and talk on that more that only on text. Come tomorrow with the plan, I will read the text and we can discuss during the tutorial while looking at the plan!