Cybernetic Urbanism
Designing Strategic Structures and/or Infrastructures for the Tokyo 2020 Olympics as long-term Urban CatalystsContents
- Context
- Modules
- Schedule
- References
CONTEXT
After the explosive spread of personal computers since the late nineties, Information and Communication Technology (ICT) has redefined the border between human and “machine” in a drastic way. We cannot think of our life without cellphones and Google search any more; in other words, the way humans perceive, recognize, and question “reality” has become highly hybridized with ICT. Expanding upon this point of view, such symbiotic hybridizations of human and “machine” are happening on every level of our daily lives, not merely in our Google searches. The computational algorithm running behind these “machines”(ICT) has highly procedural consistency as a system and has potential to deeper impact human thinking than all other “machines” in history.
What if we shift this recognition to our urban environment (as humans) and informational/logistical/energy infrastructure driving the city (as machines)?
The hyper-cybernetic universe of the twenty-first century requires a wholesale re-evaluation of our relationships to and amongst labor (human resources), materials (natural resources), and finances (capital resources), subsumed in all levels of decision-making processes embedded in neoliberal capitalism. Ultimately manifested in various modes of urban scenarios and commodified moments, invisible yet quantifiable “flows” sustain unyielding control over our daily lives. Let us extract latent material – both intellectual and physical – from the chaos of information cosmos insofar as to offer architects tools to formulate urban, organizational, and formal strategies that are catalyzed instantaneously by a periodic event, such as the Olympic Games, but has long-lasting consequences well after.
OBJECTIVE
To explore the hybrid condition of sustainable, ecological processes coupled with the imminent search for a newfound theoretical design strategy. Use of computation to bridge Material Flow-based / Statistic Network-based urban strategy and Architectural/Spatial Design.
OUTPUT
This studio seeks to produce a tripartite result: 1) urban strategy; 2) organizational protocol; and, 3) formal prototype. Each has a parallel context: A) Tokyo Olympics; B) Highly distributed network; and, C) Formal manifestation based on the concept of “Incongruency.” The design proposal, as such, can be summated as a temporary or permanent structure for the Tokyo 2020 Olympics in the form of – but not limited to – a public space, infrastructure, or intervention networked to an existing structure. The program(s) within the proposal should be inherently hybridized or poly-programmatic.
MODULES
1st Semester : Foundations
>1st Phase-A: Urban Material Analysis Workshop, 4 weeks
Students will form a team of two people to explore two parallel topics:
- Find characteristic materials related to the Olympics & visually and quantitatively illustrate its material cycle in an urban network.
- Find characteristic material related to the Olympics & visualize spatial distribution of it in urban spaces either on a micro or macro scale.
>1st Phase-B: Fabrication Workshop, 3 weeks
As an extension of a first phase workshop, students will propose three proposals, distinct in scale and organization, of how a material can form a structure which has some spatial quality in or around it.
Proposals should include at least;
-one proposal of a new and independent structure from an existing urban context
-one proposal to replace existing urban elements with the proposed structure
-one proposal to modify or mutate existing urban elements with the proposed structure
**link of 1st Phase –A and B to CU tutorials :
➢Measure(Quantify) and digitize the elements with hybridized use of 3D scanning, photos, GPS, hand drawing on a map, general measurement devices (length, weight, temperature, wind, humidity, etc.), statistical data from field research, Google search, and more. [A]
➢Analyze the digitized elements in a digital environment to recognize and extract potential inputs out of them for form generation. [B]
➢Produce a set of algorithms based on the analysis above using the set of inputs extracted from the digitized urban elements. [B]
>1st Phase-C: Scenario Production workshop, 3 weeks
As an extension of the two preceding workshops, students will construct a scenario of how material flows in and out of a city in relation to the Olympics and visually and quantitatively illustrate it.
>Thesis-Prep
Simultaneously, as material ecology is being mapped, the individuals and teams will start to formulate the first draft of their respective thesis-prep statements. As it is a first draft, the thesis-prep statements need not be final, but rather a serious investigation into how the students aim to contribute to architectural or urban discourse. The first draft package shall include a concise one A4 page statement, a site documentation, and beginnings of programming.
2nd Semester : Design Development / Scenario Movie Production
Parallel Research at Individual and Team Scale: 9 weeks
Teams of two people will explore topics for individual thesis preparation and team project proposals.
I: Individual Research
Each student will conduct research on two parallel topics based on the previous workshop phase results:
A. Fabrication and material cycle in an urban network in relation to the Olympics
B. Analyze urban scenarios, and based on this extensive series of variegated urban analyses, construct a theoretical position for site selection and their distribution in an urban network.
II:Design Development
Student teams will develop a proposal for a strategic structure for the Tokyo 2020 Olympics coupled with a proposal for a public space, infrastructure, or networked to an existing structure, also with hybridized programs within, while proposing a scenario for how a material flows in and out of a city in relation to the Olympics, which strategically forms and stimulates incongruent urban activities.
III: Thesis Milestones
Two milestones for refinement and strengthening of student’s respective thesis statements. At the final draft phase, the statements shall demonstrate clear and critical intent of their project. Correlated to the “II: Design Development” phase, the thesis package must have comprehensive content including site documentation, material cycle analysis, urban strategy, and programming. With this as an underlying and concrete conceptual structure for the thesis semester, students will be able to start designing and developing more in detail.
To present this integrated proposal in an effective way, the final draft package shall include a 3 minute movie of the proposed urban scenario illustrating the complex and integrated relations between material cycle, urban strategy and its hybridized/poly-programmatic functions.
Thesis Semester : Design Development and Thesis
>Design Development, 8 weeks
Students will develop a proposal for a strategic structure for the Tokyo 2020 Olympics coupled with a proposal for a public space, infrastructure, or networked to an existing structure, also with hybridized programs within them.
>Thesis, 8 weeks
Visualizations and written thesis for a proposal for a strategic structure for the Tokyo 2020 Olympics coupled with a proposal for a public space, infrastructure, or networked to an existing structure, also with hybridized programs.**Detailed format of thesis book submission to be announced later.
Schedule
1st Semester : Workshops
- 1st Phase-A: Urban Material Analysis Workshop
- 1st Phase-A Review
- 1st Phase-B: Fabrication Workshop
- 1st Phase-B Review
- 1st Phase-C: Scenario Production workshop
- 1st MODULE, FINAL REVIEW
- DUE: Thesis First Draft
NEW YEAR’S BREAK
2nd Semester : Design Development
- Parallel Research
- 2nd MODULE, Mid-term REVIEW
- DUE: Thesis, Second Draft
- 2nd MODULE FINAL REVIEW
- Presentation Material:
- Movie of curated urban/material scenario
- powerpoint or keynote
- DUE: Thesis Final Statement of Intent
SPRING BREAK
- Design Development
- 3rd MODULE, Mid-term REVIEW
- 3rd MODULE, FINAL REVIEW
Thesis
- Formalization, Formulation, Production
- Thesis title submission, consultation & deskcrits (to be verified later)
- THESIS and abstract submission (to be verified later)
- Thesis Presentation (university-wide)
- Thesis Presentation (G30 in-house with invited guests)
References
Book / Text
- Postmodernism, or The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism (Fredric Jameson,1992)
- Situated Technologies Pamphlets 1: Urban Computing and Its Discontents (Adam Greenfield and Mark Shepard)
- Situated Technologies Pamphlets 3: Suspicious Images, Latent Interfaces (Benjamin H. Bratton and Natalie Jeremijenko)
- Situated Technologies Pamphlets 4: Responsive Architecture/Performing Instruments (Philip Beesley and Omar Khan)
- Situated Technologies Pamphlets 5: A synchronicity: design fictions for asynchronous urban computing (Julian Bleecker and Nicolas Nova)
- Discrete City (Hiroshi Hara, 2004)
- Empire of Signs (Roland Barthes, 1983)
- http://www.cddc.vt.edu/sionline/index.html (Situationist international)
Movie / Animation
- Flash Animation Music Clip from 90’s
- Baraka (Ron Fricke, 1993)
- Koyaanisqatsi (Godfrey Reggio, 1982)
- Sans Soleil (Chris Marker, 1983)
Art / Design
- Cy Twonbly
- Banksy
- Puente Bridge (2006), Retoque Painting (2008), Francis Alys
- Fake Estates (1973-74, Gordon Matta Clark)
Built project
- High Line (New York, 2009, 2011, Diller Scofidio + Renfro, Field Operations)