Prescriptive Urbanism _ Midterm Review
Regulatory policies are often conceived as the primary focus of criticism that is rooted in governmental deficiencies or market failure. Narrowly defined, regulation is set forth through a series of local administrative controls that deliberately preserve previous social and political climates by embedding them into the urban fabric with the intention of managing the form of the city. To this end, the problem lies not with regulation, in and of itself, but with the preserved tracts of the city that are carried through time and forced to exist in climates to which they cannot adapt. These tracts, or residual enclaves, are the physical manifestations of this form of regulation in the built environment, and serve as the primary focus of inquiry into the regulatory network.
Through an improved understanding of the effects of the enclave on the local community, a higher degree of community sustainability can be achieved that addresses municipal economic, environmental and community actions that extend beyond land use and planning. New sustainable regulatory protocols must be informed by past experience as well as a new understanding of human behavior, societal needs, and the limits of regulatory capabilities. The nature of these regulatory initiatives must be posited in a way that constructs and nurtures the residual enclaves as dynamic and robust, and functions in concert with the evolving social and political climates that it currently exists in. At this level, pieces of the past are moving simultaneously with current climates creating a situation that is limiting progress as it pertains to efficient sustainable regulation.
This project seeks to address the effects of the residual enclave by acquiring a new methodology and systems of intelligence to negotiate antiquated modes of regulation. In its current form, the enclave has become a stable fixture within the city and positions the inscribed communities to search for loopholes or illicit means to manage them. These illicit means behave as counterprotocol to the regulatory network and challenge the fundamental elements of its origin.
Ruin-Nation Midterm Review
Conditions of urban decay and abandonment are beginning to spread through New York City at a rate not seen since the 1970s. 2008 was the first year on record that the DOB kept records of stalled construction sites and the foreclosure crisis has wreaked havoc on some of the city’s most vulnerable neighborhoods. Landlords default on payments and renters who never engaged with dangerous mortgage financing have come to account for half of the cities foreclosure victims. Simultaneously the NYC Dept of Homelessness together with the NYC Housing Authority have been advocating for an approach which stresses permanent housing over the typical transitional shelter model.
With this in mind we propose a new type of transitional housing membrane which can be applied to the exterior of vacant buildings. The purpose of the membrane is too provide varying degrees of housing for a shelter resistant population while also aiding in the eventual renovation, development and re-occupation of the abandoned structure it is adjacent to. Through the use of a high tension system the membrane will be quite literally an index of the housing development process taking place in the South Bronx.
Deployed by the New York City Housing Authority, the membrane seeks to promote a way of life that is about the collective fulfillment and empowerment achieved through attaining housing ownership. Via a “rent to own” model, tenants can occupy space within the membrane before the building supporting it is even under renovation. This provisional form of occupation will eventually lead to a highly durable form of occupation and ownership as the renovation process unfolds and tenants build community while building homes.
Performance by Interactions- MIDTERM REVIEW
Zakiya Franklin | Peechaya Mekasuvanroj
The Pavilion is designed to housing all forms of performing arts activities in different scales for the community. Our infrastructure itself is the physical art object, the medium, to be molded from the tools, being the users. The users of our infrastructure use their body as a medium to induce the changes that occur to the architecture. The outcome is a configuration that is a reflection of the user reaching the point of contentment with the space for their particular activity and scale. Certain mechanisms are used to gauge the activity levels that trigger the changes that occur within the infrastructure. These mechanisms are tools that we have identified that measure one’s personal satisfaction; density, frequency, movement intensity, pitch, and duration. The spatial configuration has two primary scales, the individual and the collective, and the transitions between them.
Mystery Market_Midterm Review
To create a market typology onto a site, does one propose to bring the archtypal storage to the site or bring the program to the pre-existing architecture? For this arguement to take place, the site in consideration is Union Square in New York, which currently plays host to several types of markets that manifest themselves throughout the year at different seasons of the year. All of these markets are temporary and have to consider set up and break down times each day they intend to be there. What the intervention seeks to create is an architecture that allows for a level of permanance in terms of storage that can cater to the markets that manifest on the site. The architecture for this proposal is not one of simply placing storage onto the site, but a systematic unpacking of spacial qualities that relate to types of markets and organize them in such a way that the flow logic relates to what happens on each level of the site. The architecture seeks to exploit the site in a way that relates to the way distribution systems are exploited in the movement and distribution of goods, as well as peoples and so called non-tangible items, such as property leases. The way the intervention unpacks and organizes itself onto the site relates to the level of exploitation and what type of spacial qualities are a result of those types of markets, in terms of spacial density, circulation flow and ability to distribute throughout the architecture. One other part of the proposal for bringing storage to the site is that the “units” can be active or inactive in regards to the market, meaning that when a particular area of the architecture is considered inactive is when it is not being used directly in relation to the market, it can unpack itself and adapt another program, depending on its location and relationship to other parts of the site.
Excursions on Volume _ Midterm Review
Should big box retail exist in New York City? The physical space required often prohibits such programs from existing in cities as dense as this, but perhaps the flow of goods and volume could be utilized to produce new land for these typologies to exist. If this were the case then no longer would big box retail cast the same political shadow it historically has. Instead it might offer a unique opportunity to channel the American consumer’s force into a land building operation. These images are from the Crisis Front Midterm Review and depict a range of studies that collectivity attempt to harness the power of global logistical flows and direct that energy into a tangible good that can be given back to the city. Currently the dredged materials form the Hudson River are carried out into the ocean and dumped because of their toxic attributes. However the toxicity levels are dropping and for the first time since an industrialized New York, the sediment collected from dredging operations has the potential to remain in the city and be utilized in a land forming process. With a system in perpetual growth and change like that of the shipping infrastructure and big box retail, coupled with a local material, a new dynamic between infrastructure and the consumer is on the horizon; one where you directly participate in the creation of new topographies.
Prescriptive Urbanism_Review 1
Images from the first review of Spring 2010
Rebecca Caillouet and Roxanne Sadeghpour
Ruin-Nation Review 1
The project as it exists thus far… Explorations in scenario planning and parametric system development.
Mike House and Victor Orriola
Excursions on Volume_Review 1
Excursions on Volume Erik Martínez | Shawn Sims
Images from the first review of Spring 2010. These pertain to studies of volume fluctuation within port infrastructures for their harvesting and application as possible land growth and extension.
System Exploitation_Research Final
System Exploitation Ashkahn Bazl
The trade of illicit consumables along different paths and points across the globe reveals an intricate system of overlapping networks through which these goods are stored, transported and distributed. Some networks are in place and revolve exclusively around the trade of one specific and many times disproportionately lucrative product, and others tend to facilitate movement of many goods falling under a general category. There are certain protocols that are observed within each of the networks by both operators, licit and illicit. The level of specificity pertaining to the particular consumable or set of consumablesdictates to a certain degree the types of protocol or counter protocol utilized in the construction of the illicit network.Points of transportation, exchange, storage and distributionof the consumables are all opportunities for the illicit networks to exploit the existing licit ones to continue their operations. The illicit networks often locate themselves within the context of a hyper dense, high traffic urban landscape. This type of urban context allows for areas of local camouflage that overwhelm the senses and as a result one does not notice the particulars when movingthrough these areas. It is within these hyper dense and high traffic zones of conditions that legitimate market conditions acquire a scale of ambiguity in terms of authenticity,legality and legitimacy that create spatial and infrastructural pockets for infiltration by the illicit trade networks.This allows for the simultaneous existence of both legitimate market and trade of illicit consumables. These areas of simultaneous existence present a zone within which to intervene. Since these types of conditions operatewithin the cityscape, it has an affect on the operations of the city, meaning that the illicit network does not have to abide to the regulations that the licit networks have to. However, there is an intelligence within the zones that both operate that allows them to indeed work simultaneously, and it is within these zones that an intervention proposalcan be made.The illicit networks use and exploit certain sets of protocolsto allow for their continual operation within the licit networks. In order to locate these areas of duality withinthe hyper dense urban context certain protocols and qualities have to be identified to make the connection that there is a zone of duality that exists. However, the continualexploitation of and operation within licit networks by illicit ones relies on several factors that also become transparent within the cityscape in regard to municipal and law enforcement practices. One instance would be that there is insufficient and/or incomplete evidence that is preventing law enforcement agencies from shutting down operations. In other instances the illicit networks are alreadyso far embedded into the legal or legitimate urban fabrics and practices that they are unable to be separated from each other. One context created when the networks become so far embedded within each other and there is an open disregard for the operation of illicit network practicesis that the illicit practices have an understood value to the licit ones. Meaning there is a creation of touristic, economic or cultural values that is undeniable to the identityof the city.The infrastructural proposal is to intervene in these existingzones to create a foreseeable continual existence betweenthe licit and the illicit networks. More specifically, intervene within the zones that seem to be far too embeddedwithin each other to take apart. The proposal is not to rip apart and shut down such operations, but make them more transparent to the public and have it become a fully legitimate system that the city can still embrace as an identity.
Ruin-Nation : Research Final
Ruin-Nation: Possibilities for a Post Capitalist Frontier
Since 1968 architects have continually questioned notions of capital and commodity driven space making. The notion that architecture is merely a channel for the various flows of capital and market forces has been coming under scrutiny as of late. With the rise of emerging markets and new global flows of capital during the 1990s, first world cities were experiencing tremendous growth and increases in the production of space. However this growth was greatly challenged
during the recent financial crisis. Mass foreclosure, outsourcing of entire job sectors and class stratification has resulted in conditions of dysfunctional urbanism.
Former manufacturing centers such as Detroit and other rust belt cities have been experiencing massive depopulation and decay. The exodus of the car industry in Detroit has resulted in the loss of 800,000 residents since 1960 (1). Large industrial facilities and corporate headquarters now sit vacant throughout the city resulting in the spread of crime and general conditions of decay.
New York has been experiencing quite an economic shock of it’s own lately. While New York was once home to a burgeoning
industrial sector, the loss of those jobs has not been unmanageable due to the strength of the financial and real estate sectors. However this past year has seen these industries reeling from the world wide financial crisis. An estimated 82,000 financial sector jobs were lost last year. (3) Major slowdowns were experienced in the real estate and construction industries as well with 2009 being the first year that the DOB kept records on stalled construction sites.
There are currently a number of city neighborhoods that are experiencing this condition of dysfunctional urbanism. Former city industrial and manufacturing zones in Mott Haven, Williamsburg, Hunts Point and East Harlem are continuing
to experience moderate levels of abandonment and urban decay. A recent Manhattan wide survey of vacant buildings showed the majority of empty structures in the area immediately north of Central Park.(4) We speculate that the recent instability of other major local job markets could further this condition of decay in the next few decades.
We posit that this condition of abandonment exists within the margins of two economic systems, Capitalist and Post-Capitalist. Practices which utilize these sites operate in a manner that is dependent on the failures of capitalism. They exist in a frontier territory in which expansion, occupation and survival are the primary modes of operation. While this “Marginal Frontier” operates with similar goals in mind; those of “occupation” and “resource gathering”, it is fundamentally
different than capitalist frontierism. Occupation and resource gathering within Marginal Frontiers does not seek to further the flow of capital for the dominating forces, but rather to ensure a basic quality of life through the re-appropriation of cast off materials. Notions of private property, monetary enrichment and excess are trumped by the common good of the collective.
Two current illicit social practices are in operation in Marginal Frontiers currently. Metal scrappers and squatters concern
themselves with occupation and resource gathering. To this end they employ a series of space and social based protocols which activate frontier territories through the virtual linkage of abandoned sites. Our aim is analyze and map these illicit protocols in the hope that a network logic will become apparent. Such a logic is fundamentally unconcerned with traditional notions of capital and could serve as a model for a post capitalist infrastructure.
Excursions on Volume_Final Review
Excursions on Volume Counterfeit Terrains Erik Martínez | Shawn Sims
The life of a counterfeit product allows an opportunity to understand the clandestine activities through which it goes in order to successfully exploit a legitimate market. As illicit network, counterfeit economies rely on blind spots in the legislative, informational, bureaucratic and political aspects of legitimate networks. Through extremely precise protocols, such as extorting quantity and excess with regard to time, they are able to navigate and hack licit networks in a covert manner. These counterfeit networks have a specific knowledge regarding the protocological flow of the infrastructural arrangements; revealing through exploitation different ingress typologies. These moments of ingress exist simultaneously on different logistical scales allowing for multiple modes of infrastructural hacking to occur.
Historically the process of standardization has spawned from the need for efficiency. The performance requirements of standardization create unbiased arteries that are susceptible to forms of exploitation. This also entails that at the global logistical scale the network possess a duality regarding the status of the good: being licit or illicit. As globalization generates new organizational models for distribution and logistical networks, the intelligence of the counterfeit network is its ability to uncover and anticipate opportunities embedded within these structures of efficiency. However, the morphology of efficiency bifurcates to multiple logistical scales, each susceptible in its own way. Moments of ingress must be assessed with respect to the logistical and operational scale in which they are nested.
The modern shipping container is a natural offspring of these standardized practices, both physical and protocological, in an effort to increase globalization. While the mechanism of the container seeks efficiency it simultaneously generates an opportunity for the insertion of an illicit flow. The scale of this infrastructural network, coupled with a high volume of containers circulating around the world operates with a set of variables such as quantity, proximity, and time. Counterfeit movement can be understood as a form of slippage: the abuse of an unbiased network. Slippage can be quantified as a set of variable ratios that produce blind spots. In its most basic form, there may be simply too much volume and too little time to properly scan every container, thus slippage occurs and counterfeits seep into the market. While the relationship between time and quantity may exist on other network scales, the global infrastructures of transportation exemplify the power of this variable ratio. This ratio acts as a filtering mechanism that seeks to identify illicit traffic.
Certain logistical points along the trajectory of product movement are susceptible to highly intelligent protocological hacks. The global logistical infrastructure of shipping can be seen as a set of highly rigid channels providing passage to a steady flow of matter. The system is most comfortable when it exists in its normalized state of equilibrium. While this perpetuates the rigidity of the system, this is a highly fragile moment. At any instance there may be a point in the system that is experiencing great pressure, while, opposite that, there is a void created by this dynamic. The greatest threat to a system with this nature is flooding. Unlike a hack, which is a systematic attack on specific ingress typologies, flooding does not necessarily attempt to operate with stealth; instead it locates its ingress moment, and through sheer force, attempts to breach the rigid system. The flood is an attempt to disrupt the structure of the network and the equilibrium. This offers the illicit matter an opportunity to blend in with the masses. Both hacking and flooding occur due to specific counter-protocols in operation. The two modes are able to correspond at times and, at others, operate independently. In correspondence the power of the collective hack is able to generate a new, differentiated rigidity spawning internally out of the licit network.
Historically, logistical spaces were positioned within the closest proximity to urban areas. This was in attempt to maintain the singular space of commercial and social programs, often resulting in urban environments producing high degrees of capital flow. Within these spaces, a public forum, often times a plaza or park, begins to emerge as a viable topology for understanding the link between commercial and social infrastructures as they pertain to capacities of slippage.
Isolation/Quarantine_Midterm Review
Isolation/Quarantine Edwin Lam | Sean Stevenson
With the advent of mobile technologies, our perception and conception of space has experienced a radical transformation. Whereas space was first commonly understood in a concrete and/or geometrical fashion, contemporary society has redefined a more abstract consideration of space. By researching the impacts of ubiquitous computing we begin to look at the protocols of social technologies and locative media as a different way of organizing bodies through a hierarchy of relationships and scales of landscape. The outcomes and inner workings of locative media reveals the subtleties of reorganization of flow and with an introduction of few elements that produce distinctly different effects. With this understanding, our goal is to set out and find ways to redefine boundaries created within new models of the public health system, focusing on its recent crises of epidemics. Starting with health monitoring organizations based on the logic of virtual infrastructures, our goal is not to just recreate a more comprehensive solution, but to also pry into the fragility of the virtual system. Our approach starts with forms of resistance on the individual scale, specifically resistance that arises from the paranoia of locative media and the personal needs of privacy. Using the city as an apparatus, we are stimulating migration of health regimes from hospitals to public infrastructures. Our primary sites of engagement are daycare centers, senior centers, cultural centers and after-school programs. Such facilities position themselves as a middle ground for moments of dialogue between the power structures of each side of the spectrum. The act of choice to attend such facilities further justifies them as our site as opposed to other sites of mandatory attendance. The city would develop a these sites into public health mechanisms that are in a state of perpetual feedback between individual bodies and governing bodies, giving them the ability to work on the scale of tracking individuals based on their capacity to spread disease to the scale of a city wide quarantine.
LEISURE CITY – MIDTERM
LEISURE CITY
Zakiya Franklin | Peechaya Mekasuvanroj
In Urban planning and in architecture, the goal is to satisfy the majority, whether it deals with a client or a community. In doing so, the outcome leads to the highest amount of success. In any given issue that concerns a vast amount of people, the resolution most typically aims to rule in favor of the majority. This is a standard method of practice. With regards to providing places of leisure, this same concept is used, especially in such a dense borough as Manhattan. When companies decide on what types of basic leisure places they plan to develop, they look at general statistics, such as age groups and income, where they can generalize what activities would please the most amount of people and what type of people. Since these decisions are based on generalizations, the levels of satisfaction among people range between both extremes. In most cases, people are just partially satisfied. This is problematic because people are only exposed to preselected activities that disregards any personal preferences. They are expected to be satisfied with what is provided to them. The margin of people that do not fit within this general group are left with nothing, none of the developed activities will make them happy. In addition to the generalization of the activities, the location in which these activities are to be situated in are determined based on the same types of considerations. Such places are located where there are high fluctuations of people. These zones are not only target locations for leisure, but for all other commercial markets. Therefore, these “hotspots” tend to be overcrowded and overbearing. The satisfaction level that people would receive from the leisure activities are therefore reduced. Having to continuously meander through crowds of people will effect one’s enjoyment level.
We plan to propose a fundamentally different way of thinking. One that focuses on the niche market as opposed to the mass market. In doing so, we use Chris Anderson’s Long Tail Theory as a model. The Long Tail Theory is an economic niche strategy of businesses that sell a large number of unique items, each in small quantities. We redefine the application of this theory, so that it can be applied to an architectural context, specifically leisure. In regards to leisure, we propose to supply a location where people can obtain the highest level of satisfaction when engaging in their leisure activity of choice. By providing the necessary spaces for people, we reject the mundane activities they are constantly exposed to, thus allowing them to pursue any activity that genuinely produces contentment. Each person is provided a designated space for a certain period of time. As time elapses, the spaces change as well as the occupants. The development and form of these spaces are dictated by the social interaction and the amount of the people that inhabit them.
The current means of practice replicates itself, where nothing new can ever develop. People are exposed to the same activities within the same location. It controls people by keeping the mass centered in a certain area.
The Long Tail Theory allows us to lure people away from this centered mass, to a site that is under utilize. A site that lacks places of leisure and has a low density of people. It is segregated from highly dense areas that contain several conventional leisure activities within the existing infrastructure. By doing so, we extract people away from a general popular area and introduce them into a “foreign” location, a place where they can rediscover and explore. The location that we perceive as foreign is the edge of the city, the shoreline. Manhattan’s extensive shoreline is known to be one of the city’s most valuable resources as well as one of the city’s oldest problems for many years. The existing edge condition performs only as a point where water and land meet. Drawing people into this area will activation it, meaning enhancing the current social institutions of the area.
Within the current infrastructure, natural gas is the main market of energy. It is not the most ecologically desirable, but it is the most readily available for use. The Long Tail Theory let use the niche markets of energy as an alternative. Sustainable energy defines the niche markets of energy because it is ecologically desirable, unlike most other primary energy sources. In addition, they are rarely used as much. The deciding factor as to which particular energy source to use relies on the location of our site. Since we have chosen the shoreline as our designated site, tidal energy would be the most suitable source. By using a sustainable energy source, the infrastructure is not only recreationally desirable, but ecologically beneficial, especially with the crisis of global warming. Collectively, all these niche markets targeted to develop our infrastructure will help pull away from the center.
Ruin-Nation: Possibilities for a Post Capitalist Frontier_Midterm Review
Ruin-Nation Mike House | Victor Orriola
Since 1968 architects have continually questioned notions of capital and commodity driven space making. The notion that architecture is merely a channel for the various flows of capital and market forces has been coming under scrutiny as of late. With the rise of emerging markets and new global flows of capital during the 1990s, first world cities were experiencing tremendous growth and increases in the production of space. However this growth was greatly challenged during the recent financial crisis. Mass foreclosure, outsourcing of entire job sectors and class stratification has resulted in conditions of dysfunctional urbanism.
Former manufacturing centers such as Detroit and other rust belt cities have been experiencing massive depopulation and decay. The exodus of the car industry in Detroit has resulted in the loss of 800,000 residents since 1960 (1). Large industrial facilities and corporate headquaters now sit vacant throughout the city resulting in the spread of crime and general conditions of decay.
New York has been experiencing quite an economic shock of it’s own lately. While New York was once home to a burgeoning industrial sector, the loss of those jobs has not been unmanageable due to the strength of the financial and real estate sectors. However this past year has seen these industries reeling from the world wide financial crisis. An estimated 82,000 financial sector jobs were lost last year. (3) Major slowdowns were experienced in the real estate and construction industries as well with 2009 being the first year that the DOB kept records on stalled construction sites.
There are currently a number of city neighborhoods that are experiencing this condition of dysfunctional urbansim. Former industrial and manufacturing zones in Mott Haven, Williamsburg, Hunts Point and East Harlem are continuing to experience moderate levels of abandonment and urban decay. A recent Manhattan wide survey of vacant buildings showed the majority of empty structures in the area immediately north of Central Park.(4) We speculate that the recent instability of other major local job markets could further this condition of decay in the next few decades.
We posit that this condition of abandonment exists within the margins of two economic systems, Capitalist and Post-Capitalist. Practices which utilize these sites operate in a manner that is dependent on the failures of capitalism. They exist in a frontier territory in which expansion, occupation and survival are the primary modes of operation. While this “Marginal Frontier” operates with similar goals in mind; those of “occupation” and “resource gathering”, it is fundamentally different than capitalist frontierism. Occupation and resource gathering withing Marginal Frontiers does not seek to further the flow of capital for the dominating forces, but rather to ensure a basic quality of life through the reappropriation of cast off materials. Notions of private property, monetary enrichment and excess are trumped by the common good of the collective.
Marginal Fronteirs in New York City exist whithin at least two social practices currently. Metal scrappers and squatters concern themselves with occupation and resource gathering. To this end they employ a series of space and social based protocols which create fronteir territories through the virtual linkage of abandoned sites. Our aim is analyze and map these illicit protocols in the hope that a network logic will become apparent. Such a logic is unconcerned with traditional notions of capital and could serve as a model for a post capitalist infrastructure.
Counterfeit City_Midterm Review
Counterfeit City Erik Martínez | Shawn Sims
The life of a counterfeit product allows an opportunity to understand the clandestine activities it goes through in order to successfully exploit a legitimate market. As an illicit network, counterfeit economies rely on blind spots in the legislative, informational, bureaucratic and political aspects of legitimate networks. Through extremely precise protocols, such as extorting quantity and excess with regard to time, they are able to navigate and hack licit networks in a covert manner. These counterfeit networks have a specific knowledge regarding the protocological flow of the infrastructural arrangements; revealing through exploitation, different ingress typologies. These moments of ingress exist simultaneously on different logistical scales allowing for multiple modes of infrastructural hacking to occur.
Historically the process of standardization has spawned from the need for new structures in efficiency. The performance requirements of standardization create unbiased arteries that are susceptible to forms of exploitation. This also entails that at the global logistical scale the network possess a duality regarding the status of the good; being licit or illicit. As globalization generates new organizational models for distribution and logistical networks, the intelligence of the counterfeit network is understood to be its ability to uncover and anticipate opportunities embedded within these structures of efficiency. However, the morphology of efficiency bifurcates to multiple logistical scales, each susceptible in its own way. Moments of ingress must be assessed with respect to the logistical and operational scale they are nested in.
The modern shipping container is analogous with standardized practices, both physical and protocological, in an effort to increase globalization. While this mechanism seeks efficiency it simultaneously generates an opportunity for the insertion of an illicit flow. The scale of this infrastructural network coupled with amount of containers circulating around the world operate with a set of variables such as quantity, proximity, and time. Counterfeit movement can be understood as a form of slippage; the abuse of an unbiased network. Slippage can be quantified as a set of variable ratios that produce blind spots. In its most basic form, there may be simply too much volume and too little time to properly scan every container, thus slippage occurs and counterfeits seep into the market. While the relationship between time and quantity may exist on other network scales, the global infrastructures of transportation exemplify the power of this variable ratio. This ratio acts as a filtering mechanism that seeks to identify illicit traffic.
There is a second more localized logistical setting that operates on the scale of a product or package. The staging of packages within a formal space offers a unique momentary stasis for understanding the data associated with any physical good. Within these spaces of logistics, embedded virtual data emerges as the primary organizational machine; providing the virtual with means to position physicality. Global trajectories, temporal agendas, and physical dimensions of products are translated into a virtual tags that have the ability to manifest a specific physical organization. A package’s location within a formal staging space is determined by its relationship with other packages in transit. Much like the unbiased arteries stemming from standardization, the data set attached to any one package positions the status of the material in such a manner that its legitimacy is camouflaged. In a sense, only the illicit product that is detected is actually illicit. The temporality of the counterfeit status is subject to termination without detection.
Certain logistical points along the trajectory of product movement are susceptible to highly intelligent protocological hacks, while others are nested with thresholds pertaining to sheer quantities. The global logistical infrastructure of shipping can be seen as a set of highly rigid channels providing passage to a steady flow of matter. The system is most comfortable when it exists in its normalized state of equilibrium. While this perpetuates the rigidity of the system, this is viewable as a highly fragile moment. At any instance there may be a point in the system that is experiencing great pressure, while opposite that, there is a void created by this dynamic. The greatest threat to a system with this nature is flooding. Unlike a hack; a systematic attack on specific ingress typologies, flooding does not necessarily attempt to operate with stealth, instead locates its ingress moment and through sheer force attempts to breach the rigid system. The flood is an attempt to disrupt the structure of the network and the equilibrium. This offers the illicit matter an opportunity to blend in with the masses. Both hacking and flooding occur due to specific counter-protocols in operation. The two modes are able to correspond at times and at others operate independently. In correspondence the power of the collective hack is able to generate a new, differentiated rigidity spawning internally out of the licit network.
Mystery Market_Review 1
Mystery Market Ashkahn | Sylvia Herrera
Looking at the trade of illicit consumables along different points across the globe reveals a series of networks and protocols through which these goods are stored, transported and finally distributed. Some networks are in place and revolve exclusively around the trade of one specific and many times disproportionately lucrative product, and others tend to facilitate movement of many goods falling under some general category. The level of specificity pertaining to the particular consumable or set of consumable dictates to a certain degree the types of protocol or counter protocol utilizes in the construction of the illicit network.
Points of transportation, exchange, storage and distribution of the consumables are all opportunities for the illicit networks to exploit the existing licit ones to continue their operations. The illicit network often locates itself within areas of hyper dense zones of high traffic and many local areas for camoflauge that the senses are overwhelmed and do not notice the particulars when moving through these areas.
We are looking to pinpoint the areas of final transaction, or moving, of consumables within these hyper dense urban fabrics. It is within these hyper dense, and complex zones of commercial exchange and high volume traffic conditions that legitimate market conditions acquire a scale of ambiguity in terms of authenticity legality and legitimacy creates spatial and infrastructural pockets of infiltration by the illicit trade networks. This allows for the simultaneous existence of both legitimate market and trade of illicit consumables. The method for locating these areas is to define their qualities into a set of protocols, including high degree of storage opportunity, high frequency of traffic, proximity to access points, existing networks of exchange and opportunity for overlapping and exploitation. Once the data has been collected and mapped for the set protocols over the hyper dense context, we can begin to pinpoint these areas of transaction.
The infrastructural proposal is to intervene in these existing areas in order to create a public marriage between the illicit and licit networks. The infrastructure intervention is to create a change, or better a re-form. The infrastructure being introduced in a passive-aggressive manner that would serve as an attempt to create a marriage between the licit network and the illicit one. We understand that passively introducing this infrastructure by means of no power cap, but it being aggressive enough to re-form the illicit networks into the existing ones, creating cohesion.
The new infrastructure would reduce exploitation by making transparent the workings of the system, i. e. who is responsible for illicit implementions, how the money and goods are now appropriated and who is accountable.
LONGTAIL_REVIEW 1
LONGTAIL Zakiya Franklin | Peechaya Mekasuvanroj
Manhattan’s extensive shoreline is known to be one of the city’s most valuable resources as well as one of the city’s oldest problems for many years. The existing edge condition performs only as a point where water and land meets in which there is a much higher potential of what this area can become. Since Manhattan’s urban culture continues to grow, there is a higher demand for recreational areas; where people can have the opportunity to relax and enjoy the scenery of water in an urban setting. There is also a higher demand for public access from the water and into the water. There is a necessity for the city to utilize the coastal resources efficiently and creatively.
With the high amount of water available along the edge of Manhattan, we decided to use this advantage to generate an alternative source of energy: Tidal Energy. The demand for energy continues to increase globally in which every country seeks for an alternative method due to the deficiency of resources and for the potentially greener environment. Tidal energy can provide a cleaner yet efficient form of energy. The energy can be distributed in much smaller scale but can be spread out more frequently. This form of energy can perform by itself with no need of excessive wiring system.
We want to define our nature of interest through a Long Tail infrastructure. Our proposal involves an infrastructure that functions as negotiator between land and water as it exploits the existence of water to produce tidal energy. The Long tail infrastructure will generate niche energy that can be distributed in small scale in large quantity throughout neighborhoods, using leisure area as an attractor to bring in consumers along with the energy itself. Tidal energy is a form of niche energy in comparison to other mass production of energy. They are self-dependent and they can be provided for communities that wish to consume this specific kind of energy. The infrastructure also consists of leisure area, which becomes the attractor that coexists with the tidal energy production. The attracting elements may vary throughout different neighborhoods depending on different groups’ interests, even ones that do not share common interests.
Sites Of Abandonment
Abandonment Networks Mike House | Victor Orriola
Recent events in the world economy have caused great distress, disruption and insecurity through all levels of society. It is impossible to go a day without news of another downturn or massive financial bailout. Complex market economic theories have been embedded in our collective conscience and it would appear that we are all now living on “Main Street”.
Recent events concerning the real estate / housing markets have had perhaps the greatest impact on average citizens. New York City in particular suffered a massive housing bust following the boom years of the late 1990’s. Economic vehicles such as sub-prime loans and variable rate mortgages have put a huge amount of home owners into foreclosure. Primarily minority areas such as Harlem and East New York have seen foreclosure rates as high as 15%. (1)
As homes continue to be vacated former owners appear to be adapting by creating improvised transitional communities. Like all informal settlements, these temporary villages operate with a specific set of protocols. They are often located near existing transport infrastructure (highway overpass), members engage in collective construction of dwellings, etc. (2)
Our initial interest in the behavior of these emerging tent cities and “Hoovervilles” required a deeper investigation into Protocols of Absence. The study of relationships, practices and spatial organization within sites of abandonment aims to uncover some of the logic built into these systems. Simultaneously an inquiry into philosophical and artistic speculations on Absence, Impermanence, Insertion, Removal and Memory has allowed us to formulate an abstract thesis which is as follows:
The process of removal and it’s resulting absence does not simply result in a void, but quite the opposite. Absence can create strong linkages of varying intensity. These linkages are usually virtual in nature, and can intensify a sense of community and common good within populations.
Both clay and the absence of clay are needed to produce a vessel, . . . thus as we profit from what is present, so we benefit from the absent.
-Lao Tzu
BIOURBANISM_Review 1
BIOURBANISM Rebecca Caillouet | Roxanne Sadeghpour
The Free Housing Market has remained fluid, dynamic, and robust since its inception, responding and adapting to social, political, and technological advancements. Rent Control laws are a product of post war instability and were intended to function as a temporary emergency measure to work in concert with the protocols of the Free Housing Market. These laws have transformed into a stable fixture and have remained rigid and inconsistent with the needs of evolving social and political climates. They behave as counterprotocol to the Free Housing Market and challenge the fundamental elements of its origin. Originally enacted to promote more abundant housing, the current stabilization laws are causing adverse effects in the community, which need to be analyzed to find ways to promote a more symbiotic relationship.
Regulatory infrastructures employ responsive methods to amend existent problems and require continuous evaluation to manage changing social behavior and physical growth. Development within cities has long-term downstream effects on climate that, in the future, will adversely affect cities in left in their current state. These survival infrastructures are presupposing disaster, and by examining the connection between high-density residential areas and energy consumption and emission, newly defined territories based on an imposed value system, will provide nodes that exhibit high potential for environmental remediation. Converting the land use from strictly residential high-energy consumption to low-energy emission within these territories affords an opportunity for architectural intervention to serve as an interface between community and climate. Collected environmental data is analyzed then further redistributed and mapped onto existing infrastructure to reinform the emergent ecological network’s shared dynamics. We seek to redefine zoning, not in terms of reactionary methodologies, but through the implementation of proactive means as a mechanism to reshape future sustainability and survival.
Counterfeit City: Review 1
Counterfeit City Erik Martínez | Shawn Sims
The life of a counterfeit product allows an opportunity to understand the clandestine activities one goes through in order to successfully exploit a legitimate market. As an illicit network, counterfeit economies rely on blind spots in the legislative, informational, bureaucratic and political aspects of a legitimate network. Through extremely precise protocols, such as extorting time and excess with regard to security, they are able to navigate and hack licit networks in a covert manner. The counterfeit network has a specific knowledge regarding the protocological flow of the legitimate infrastructure; revealing through exploitation, different ingress typologies.
The indexical understanding of this data plays a key role in the definition of the network’s behavior. The project does not lie in this network explicitly, rather in a place guided by the characteristics of the research. This allows for its placement in a much broader spectrum of extremely specific protocols, succeeding the research as data, and entering it through its relational attributes. The protocols of control unveil a series of characteristics that provide a framework of relationships superseding the physicality of the network.
A counterfeit flow is highly adaptable and exploits various points along an infrastructural trajectory. As legitimate protocols and legislatures seek to unveil the counterfeit’s constituents, illicit discourse tends to maneuver away from contact points that pose a threat to its existence. In doing so, it tends to reveal a flexibility that is the nature of this illicit network. By extracting variables responsible for the dynamism of the illicit flow, a formula of elasticity may be reached. A simulation of a product’s life provides an incubation machine that is responsible for generating new typologies of this flow’s behavior. Within the simulation there are quantifiable elements that provide insight regarding degrees of exploitation and the infrastructural connections at fault.
Synthetic protocological migrations provide new typologies in illicit network behavior; supplying pedagogical tools in how one might hack logistical infrastructures. While the flow of a counterfeit product does not provide a transferable protocol, the nature of its protocological behavior provides a model for maneuvering through existing infrastructures. New York City provides infrastructural networks that pose an opportunity to generate an architecture that behaves with the intelligence extracted from the counterfeit’s hacking nature.
The city’s old subway lines are an example of an existing infrastructure that has ability to be exploited. One could imagine the skyscrapers of Manhattan penetrating the the ground even deeper, extending their foundations in order to hack the dead tunnels underneath the city. A new level of the city is resuscitated and the lines passing through the lowest level of Grand Central Station are now a thriving space. This relationship reflects the behavior of a counterfeit’s intelligence to covertly navigate away from formal logistical checkpoints. The active lines of New York however offer a rich context to insert the intelligence of the simulation. There may in fact be a way to hack this while maintaining the dynamism. One could imagine a program that is also mobile, but has nothing to do with transporting people or goods. This relationship exemplifies the nature of the counterfeit as it infiltrates the licit networks unnoticed and exploits the global flow.
Los Angeles: Pre-Final
Los Angeles Jun Pak | Cole Reynolds
The project explores the opportunity in developing an infrastructural system that is analogous to the growth logic of the city. In so doing, the infrastructure system augments the unique micro urban characteristics of the city as it currently exists. This is done through the implementation of several micro municipal infrastructural devices that allow for an immediate affect on the city. These devices, which in their quantitative and qualitative deployment offer diverse and unique social protocols that currently do not exist.
Mumbai: Pre-Final
Mumbai Allison Hoffman | John Seward
Our thesis posits a reflexive assembly system developed as an incrementally built structural framework and integrated component system. The normative framework enhances the structural integrity of informal settlements and allows for self-guided spatial transformation, both horizontally and vertically, of the local environment while also harnessing the extreme appropriation characteristics found within such urban contexts. The embedded components augment the capacity of informal settlements to collect their own resources in a massively distributed fashion and utilizing the fundamental cooperative strategies already employed, share them communally for the benefit of all involved. Operating globally as a continually reconfigurable framework constituted by these simple yet intelligent parts, the systems local growths and alterations over time result in new global organizations that, through their spatial form, begin to expose the social organization and individual agenda which is traditionally invisible in more formal architecture. The overall form of the framework is always in flux and never predetermined, however, it is guided at all times by purpose and necessity, and the flexibility of human cognition.
