Sean Henderson
January 28, 2016
ARCH 423
Speranza
Parametric Measures
Intro Thesis
What is social interaction in Superillas, why is it important and who does it serve?
What qualities are used to support these ideas in planning? Who does it affect inhabitants and why is it important (social value)?
Abstract:
Data collection has been a hot top as of late due to the ability of entities to gather data about individuals without their approval. The data is then in turn used to better the software or products used by the individuals. Aside from privacy discrepancies, this trend is also example of the ease at which we are able to gather information. In the first and much of the second worlds modern technology is widely spread from smartphones to laptops to digital cameras and many of these technologies are able to be used to gather and share data. Since these technologies are so widely used, the data flow is almost constant and are becoming more and more accurate. Accuracy can be defined as a specific time and date, geographic location, and individualized per data source – the user. These technological advancements are able to give designers and planners the most update and accurate data both remotely and on site than ever before. The cities of tomorrow should reflect this ability by creating places that react to human input, cater to future use, and respond to environments. Cities of this nature will intrinsically be more capable of catering to all social groups and demographics. Doing so will create not just cities, but entire environments which are meant to support living, social interaction, safety, and productivity.
What are the objectives of the Superilles as related to inhabitants in the areas of use, demographics and infrastructure?
The purpose of the superilla is to increase the quality of life for the citizens. Or in other words, the purpose is for the city to cater to people again, not businesses and not cars. Doing so will bring the city back to a human scale instead of a vehicle scale. This should be the goal of cities, but instead it has largely become the goal of a city to cater to vehicles. In Jan Gehl’s “Cities for People” he points out that if cities invite people to sit down they will. If a city invites people to ride bikes and use public transportation, they will. And if a city invites people to interact more, they will. He uses his home city of Copenhagen as an example of this. Since the mid-1950s Copenhagen has actively denied ease of use to vehicles and supported the use of bicycles and public rail systems. This has in turn led to 37% of people riding bikes daily, 33% use public transport systems, 5% walk, and 27% drive a car. In this case, the data has already been collected, filtered, and turned into a working plan. Their lead only needs to be followed by other planners and designers.
How may a unit/system approach (data, local, live input) support this idea of social interaction and planning?
The beauty of units and systems is that they are able to be repeated. The ability to be repeated is what makes the idea of a “modular” city so enticing. The implications of a modular city are that once the qualities of the city which we want to replicate are defined and quantified they can be implemented and repeated. The power in this comes from the ability to create the same feeling or “place” multiple times over. This not only creates places with similar desired spatial and experiential qualities, but also in terms of infrastructure the predictability through standardization could have positive economic outcomes. The argument to this would be that we are creating places that are the same and thus boring or lacking uniqueness. However, with these spaces being parametrically designed, they would be easy to vary while maintaining the qualities they were originally based off of. Additionally, with a parametric city that responds to human input no two places could be the same since the people occupying these spaces would be different and giving different inputs to the system. These areas would then be left to the users to further create the atmosphere or spirit of place – allowing for the most dynamic of spatial qualities.
How does the Plan Cerda (plan or execution) relate to this investigation as both a beginning for systems planning and open-ended bottom up design, and provide a base organization for Superilles?
Units of scale. Top down has been the standard for a while (since the industrial revolution). This led to thinking that looking into planning at a large scale because of its efficiency. Though efficient at creating plans for large areas at a time, this approach does not work at the human scale because it too far removed. Changing this design scheme would put the human back at the center. Placing humans back into the focal point of city design creates placed that are meant for and optimized for human use. Viteillo and Willcocks discuss this this issue of scale in the opening of their article “the difference is in the details”. They point out that when told to think of a place like London, most people will think about details like bowler hats, double decker busses, and fog. It is the details, the more human scale and humanly relatable elements that we have the most connection to because it is in the details that large scale (cities) manifest their character. With this said it is apparent that moving from the small scale (bottom) to large scale (up) will in turn raise the likelihood of creating cities that are more relatable to its inhabitants. When a city is able to provide a strong relation to its inhabitants a sense of ownership is created. With ownership comes care, which often develops into citizens making the city their own.
How may parametric tools relate to create understandings of place from the bottom up in general and at the Superilles or even 22@?
Parametric tools. These tools are able to work at small scales in the immediate area of use. All that is needed is to have a set data that is going to be collected and a methodology quantifying that quality (data). For instance, parametric tools such as grasshopper can be used to determine how viable the option of a roof garden is for a single building or cluster relatively quickly. Once the definition has been written, it only needs to be applied to different locations where it can be just as effective. The trick with parametric tools, however, is quantifying the data. In Tadao Ando’s “Toward New Horizons in Architecture” article he explains, “Architectural creation involves contemplating the origins and essence of a project’s functional requirements and the subsequent determination of its essential issues. Only this way can the architect manifest in the architecture the character of its origins.” Here he is pointing out that not only do we need to quantify the qualities of the space, but we it is also necessary to quantify the outcomes. Yes, it is great that grasshopper with its various plugins can produce all sorts of data, but this data needs to be broken down so that the qualities of the source of the data can be recreated. Only after this cana truly parametric city exist. An example of how parametrics could change or support the fabric of a city from the bottom up would be Carlo Ratti’s Water Pavilion in Zaragoza, Spain. Though ultimately not the most sustainable design it does indeed show how a responsive architecture can take in inputs, respond, and cause reactions from the input sources.