S4 Encrypted Mega-Cities

Ecosophy City Model-Bogotá D.C

francisco.castillo@iaac.net — Mon, 11 Mar 2013 21:10:38 +0000

Ecosophy City Model (ECM) is proposing a theoretical machine for increasing the complexity of the City. The model articulates the concept of Three Ecologies, formulated by Felix Guattari. The model pretend to extend the traditional vision of ecology, proposing a new model of sustainability, that is structured in social ecology, environmental ecology and ecology of mind. ECM encodes agents behavior for modeling complex autoadaptive city. These agents behave to inferring the design of Nonlinear Infrastructure in order to optimize the complexity of the city under ecosophy approach. The Agents will be able to explore new configurations of public spaces, generating the multiplication of the singularity and amplifying the resolution of urban design.

Ecosophy City Model v02 from Responsive Environment on Vimeo.

Ecosophy City Model v01 from Responsive Environment on Vimeo.

Ecosophy City Model is a research project by Fran Castillo, Miguel Landinez, Jose Manuel Reyes

Open World City | Rio De janeiro + Space, Time and Play

Rasheed Shallah — Mon, 11 Mar 2013 01:38:03 +0000

With +12 million people and beautiful landscape, Rio De Janeiro sets an example of a charming mega-city. However, it also sets an example of a disconnected city with many social and natural boundaries. This observation comes in contrast to the idea which we have found in “Space, Time and Play” book that the cities in the video gaming world are border-less and connected, creating an open-world city experience. Combining those two notions together rises the question of how we can create a continuous city growing horizontally and vertically through opening new territories and unlocking growth patterns, in respect to the natural givens, that make the citizen a super hero in his own city.

The challenge was to search for a code that could translate the idea of connected city without borders. Cellular Automata’s rules could change our perception of our city planning’s rules if we took a closer look at how the idea of a simple cell can proliferate to create such complex connected patterns. One of the emerging ideas is how can we can understand this complexity as a way to create this open-world city? How this can help the citizen to interact positively as a superhero in his own mega-city?

(Please check the video for a detailed look into the process of coding the growth of a mega city: http://youtu.be/sIvE5t22Y6E )

Applying 2D CA rules with additional rules for a city like Rio, can give brilliant solutions not only for the city growth pattern but also to its citizen. If we take the mountains/forest as a starting point, then the city emerges in respect to them; they are no longer regarded as a physical border but rather a different level of the city where urbanization can be harmonious and respectful to the surrounding, not timid nor intrusive. However, the urban fabric continues and doesn’t stop, to create in the next level a new pattern that can create urban clusters of a medium density that allow the citizen to move freely from the built and the unbuilt through series of interconnected and intersected open and closed spaces. The complexity grows as we unlock a new level of the city, a more dense, favelas -like urbanization. The relationship between the unbuilt and built stays the same to ensure the continuity of the fabric, but the scale changes allowing more flexibility to increase the number of inhabitants and create a more crowded experience of the city for the superhero-citizen.

The interpretation of the code into the real world comes in a flexible system of adding, changing and substituting interconnected city elements such as blocks, voids and fabric to create a border-less city with a game-like approach of it’s growth.

The City of Needles

nuri.choi@iaac.net — Mon, 11 Mar 2013 00:57:12 +0000

Delirious New York & Bei-Jing city

http://vimeo.com/nuri5317/the-city-of-needles

Imagine the city composed of needles separated from its surrounding neighborhood with no social interaction.

Forms a district of towers with a strict boundary line between the high level commercial district with no social qualities, and the city of interactions formed of small housing units and interesting events. So what will happen if explode (like a final scene of fight club), deconstruct the needle to break down into a formation of pieces. The later will be exposed to external forces that bond them together and parasite on the existing structure. In other words, The recycled material taken from the deconstruction is transformed into an energy serving the human need and not the market powers.

Taking “Delirious New York” by Rem Koolhaas as a reference to the research, gave us the ability to understand the notion of the needle and the sphere. In which the needle represents the form being an iconic structure isolated from the ground and the surrounding. where the sphere acts as a beautiful reflecting to the outside, with all the activities acting on the surface of its skin, and the inside is just a hollow space conflicting the exterior.

Due to the fact that there are a lot of unbalanced development and contradictions between local residences and modern urban plan (especially skyscrapers), we choose Bei-Jing city as an experiment site for the concept of the needle and the sphere.

The idea and the challenge was about reaching a stage of balance between the preceding two concepts.

The study went on to study the forces controlling the agents (which they act and interfere as a parasite behavior). So a grid of force points were placed on the existing towers. These powers has the potential to change their location and the amplitude of their force according the typologies of the different levels of the tower. In that case, you’re able to witness the section of the tower in different layers interacting with each other according to the different needs of the human activity and not the commercial need.

The parameters of control to reach the design phase were basically the grid or the placement of the force points with characters. the reference lines between the points. Defining the attraction lines. Therefore, we’d have a field of a new set of points, acting as a connection between the needle and the other.

A component based system merges with the points distribution to create an interesting set of events between and inside the spaces of the towers. The Interior of the new city is compiled in different iterations to created different social interactive behaviors. INTERESTING!!!

The result will be an appealing image to the eye by losing the identity of the component/agent creating the whole. Different experimentation took place focusing on the materiality, transparency and spatial performances of the whole acting as one system.

Instant City

yousef.alnafisi@iaac.net — Sun, 10 Mar 2013 17:10:07 +0000

We understand cities as huge density moments of information. Data is continuously moving around the world, but in some sites it creates big nodes where de culture appears. Our project express this idea through particles of information that move constantly and when they intersect they create huge bubbles of density.

This means that all the process is lead through the Deleuzian concepts of topologies: there is a body plan that sets some rules, and then a big family of designs appear. Moreover, this final design is topological because what happens in one part of the hole body has a consecuence in the rest of the design: all the information system is interconnected.

DESTINY OF DENSITY

nasr.chamma@iaac.net — Sat, 09 Mar 2013 13:17:40 +0000

“First we shape our buildings, then they shape us” [Winston Churchill, 1943]

When designing any random building we are indeed designing our future for they direct and manipulate the way in which we engage with our social values, educational, commercial and spiritual needs. Cities have always been a source of attraction for people living in suburbs and villages, and immigration has increased dramatically through the years making the amount of people living in the cities ascend from 10% in 1900, to 50 % in 2012 and 75% later in 2050; making each city a coin with two contradicting faces, the touristic smart face, and the social crises one. Blinded by the first face, people curiosity always encourage them to seek for more when it comes to better chances in life, making this city a large exhibition where designing buildings has become a competition between some brands or some fake modern pioneers seeking fame and declining “The Human Quality” the city should possess, focusing on the best ways to create a building that can be considered a “work of art” or the tallest building in the century depriving it from its surrounding in many cases.

There are seven billions living in this world, 1.354.040.000 of which are in China, one of the most advances countries, and when it comes to overpopulation, there’s always a particular city that beats all the records, Shanghai “the city of the future”. However looking deep into the architectural spaces within, that future doesn’t seem so bright after all, homes are more like cages in many areas denying that the individual carry within the urge for something much more important than just eating or sleeping which is Living.

Accordingly, designing a mega city for the most overpopulated city in the world is a challenge and can become a standard, when solving “The Human Quality” dilemma, in which other cities can refer to. Our aim behind this proposal was to draw the future in a different way and to lead the next urban age, and to create a more sustainable society, in shape and function, full of humanity. The most ideal way of designing a mega city is to take into consideration every single citizen it contains and approach this project from his perspective.

If one more citizen is not fitting into an endless city, we architects should write the destiny of densities, we should create mega cities of future thinking about each single citizen.

It’s our challenge, by satisfying the human needs with every line we draw.

Moritz Begle Nasr Chamma

The Multi_Layered City

meropi-eleni.skordalou@iaac.net — Fri, 08 Mar 2013 23:55:24 +0000

The identity and the character of a city is a multifaceted issue. Although different cities share common features, there are differences that establish each city as unique. Space has an abstract meaning and doesn’t form the character and the physiognomy of a city on its own. Activities, creations, emotions, ideologies and human dreams give character and personality to a place. Time is a factor that also affects the identity of a place. Time, like space, is made specific with human presence and involvement and is transformed into an era, and in different eras, one site can offer different images. So, the history of a city is one of the most important factors that define the identity and the uniqueness of it. Therefore, a city cannot exist separately of its history.

The project is about solving the problems of the contemporary cities that tend to become generic, introducing a new city typology which intends to serve the history and by extension, the identity of a megacity.

Istanbul is located in northwestern Turkey, constituting the country’s economic, cultural, and historical center. The Bosphorus, which connects the Sea of Marmara to the Black Sea, divides the city into the European, Thracian side—comprising the historic and economic centers—and the Asian, Anatolian side. Also, it is primarily known for its Byzantine and Ottoman architecture, but its buildings reflect the various people and empires that have previously ruled the city. So, Istanbul can be characterized as a multirational and multicultural city. Only 28% of its residents are originally from Istanbul. The secret story but also one the most interesting characteristics of Istanbul is its underground city that contains the remnants of its history. There are different layers of city’s civilizations below the ground surface. The main idea of the project is a multi-layered underground city where one can explore the history through different underground layers. The underground city offers a path through the different civilizations that today are absent and buried below the megacity of Istanbul.

Processing video (Click on the following image) .

Mobility Flows RESPONSIVE Megacity

ALEJANDRA DIAZ DE LEON — Thu, 07 Mar 2013 11:39:44 +0000

In order to begin with the creation of a Megacity, we took as our case study Mexico City and its chaotic transportation systems, along with the the concepts of collective behavior, swarm intelligence and patterns, that we read in the book “Emergence” by Steve Johnson. When observing the problematic of Mexico City’s mobility flows, we found they behave in similar ways to fluids. We localized 4 configurations of the city – grid, random, linear, radial – and , through a simple experiment, we could compare mobility flows to fluids behaviors in the presence of boundaries.

to see videos of the experiment go to http://vimeo.com/59019996

After analyzing these behaviors we thought of working with a digital tool that allow us see the free patterns of fluids. We worked with a Turing Pattern processing script that clearly shows the interaction of fluids in two different densities and with opposite properties that in terms of urban configurations could be translated as the boundary and the open space. The organic patterns show the natural way fluids – or mobility – behaves.

Our machine for the creation of the megacity was AMIRA. It is a software mainly use for visualizing biomedical data but in our case, it help us shape the city by taking moments of the transformation of the patterns from the processing script and put them together into a three-dimensional model.

to see videos go to https://vimeo.com/61204861

Faculty

admin — Tue, 22 Jan 2013 17:38:30 +0000

Pablo Ros as main teacher

Pablo Ros graduated as an architect obtaining a specialization degree in Structural Engineering at the Escuela Técnica Superior de Arquitectura de Barcelona (ETSAB) . He received his Post Professional Master of Science in Advanced Architectural Design (MSAAD) from the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation (GSAPP) at Columbia University in the city of New York. After concluding the Advanced Architectural Research Program (AAR) at Columbia University, he is pursuing a Phd focused on Neuro-Architecture. He is recipient of Arquia-Fundación de Arquitectos´03, La Caixa’09, Gatsby Arts Foundation´12 and Kinne´12 grants.
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He is a researcher within Storefront for Art and Architecture Technology Platform and collaborates at Cloud Lab at GSAPP, an experimental platform that explores the design of the environment through emerging technologies in computing, interface and device culture.
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He has worked for different international practices, most notably Cloud 9 and Foreign Office Architects (FOA). As Project Director and Associate Architect he was responsible of the design and construction of a wide range of projects, most notably the South-East Coastal Park in Barcelona, La Rioja Technological Center in Logroño, Zona Franca Office Park D38 or the Madrid Pavilion for the Shanghai Expo´10. In a more infrastructural scale, he has develop the urban planning of the Aerospace Campus in Toulouse, and the new ports of Marbella and Santander in Spain. His work has been nominated and awarded by the Mies Van der Rohe, FAD, and Think-Space Prizes, amongst others.
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He combines both academic and professional experience. He has been teaching at GSAPP Columbia University, Barnard College or Instituto de Arquitectura Avanzada de Catalunya (IAAC). He is currently tutoring the Diploma18 Unit “Energy Attack” at the Architectural Association of London and is the Head of the Office of Cloud 9.

Alexandre Dubor as assistant teacher

From web platform to 6axis Robot, Alexandre Dubor is an architect hacking new technologies in an attempt to reinvent how we buil and leave in our cities. He recently joined the academic field as teacher and lecturer in different school (Iaac / FabLab Barcelona, TU Delft, TU Vienna and UTS), while working on various research including Magnetic Architecture and Smart Citizen.

ENCRYPTED MEGA-CITIES I syllabus

admin — Tue, 22 Jan 2013 08:48:32 +0000

While in this decade cities will grow exponentially to host more than half of the world population, architects are not yet ready to design adaptive urban models capable to react to this phenomenon.

“Encrypted mega-cities” provides an opportunity to think critically about urban potentials responding to this rapid growth through a mode that utilizes analysis, computer advanced tools and the tactical intuition of the architect and in a rapid manner.

The seminar will collectively navigate a vast cloud of examples that will be used to approach and imagine future models of mega-cities. The primary mission of this research will be unveiling the logics and relations that make these cities not chaotic but complex, not frozen but vivid, not stable but adaptive, not only geometric but social.

The second part will encrypt all these discoveries in a digital machine that will provide a solution for a Mega-City of the future. It is important to understand that the so-called supermodel is not just one “master” digital model, but rather an entire body of exploration that can provide a catalog of solutions in different types of environments, scenarios and social behaviors. What would it be the impact of this digital tool in the design of the city?

“Encrypted mega-cities” architects will heavily utilize a robust spectrum of automated and manual tools and techniques with great rigor and agility. The architect, instead of just being a traditional masterplanner will operate as a DJ mastering a session for citizens in an encrypted mega-city.