random tangents

SUBMITTED FOR YOUR APPROVAL:FIRST PAGE OF MY THESIS....

Marketscape :: A Dynamical System in the Urban Context
::Thesis Topic::
To explore the dynamical system and its process of adaptation and permanence within the urban setting of New Orleans, utilizing the undervalued area underneath the freeway. This process will force the dynamical system to not only deal with the challenges of form but also organization as it intermingles with the infrastructural flows within site.

::Thesis Outline::
Definitions of key terms in order by appearance::

dynamic system – n. (physics) a phase space together with all of the transformations of that space. William Braham: As dynamical systems are non-linear, influences of a design situation cannot simply be predicted or characterized but only experienced or shown as a result, either because the situation is sufficiently dynamic or the influences are too numerous and complex in their interaction. Gilles Deleuze’s abstract machine: a system that must be set in motion for a transformative process to begin; Manuel DeLanda: a non-linear equation that is non-solvable, self-organizing, and performs bifurcations, mutations that occur at critical points in the ‘balance of power’ between physical forces when new configurations become energetically possible, and matter spontaneously adopts them; Sanford Kwinter: an open end, evolving [system], where energy and information flow into and out of a system simultaneously. Information flowing into the system transforms the whole system from the inside out and he initial information flow moves easily from one level to another and the internal levels both absorb and react to the exchange altering the whole system.

diagram – n. 1.a plan, sketch, drawing, or outline designed to demonstrate or explain how something works or to clarify the relationship between parts of a whole. 2. (mathematics) a graphic representation of an algebraic or geometric relationship. Lawrence Barth: a tool for a more progressive urban schema allowing for the abstraction of the natural complex fabric of the city to read and understood, a strategic consideration of the urban landscape, transformational in nature and has multiple effects.. Ben Van Berkel & Catherine Bos: a reductive machine for compressed information, a proliferating machine; Anthony Vidler: the basis of a more complex, and more rich analysis allowing for a loaded theoretical underpinning of information and the connections of that information;

emergence – v. 1. a gradual coming forth; the act of coming(or going) out; becoming apparent. Something that is generated and becomes altered over time, evolving; has the characteristic of progression and adaptation. See dynamical system.

topological – adj. 1.study of a particular place; specifically: the history of a region as indicated by its topography. 2. being or involving properties unaltered under a homeomorphism Ex: continuity and connectedness are topological properties. Sanford Kwinter: the behavior of forces in space over time; Anthony Vidler: “Now however, they[diagrammatic elements of examination] can be mapped synthetically as direct topographical information, weighted according to theory their hierarchical importance, literally transforming the nature of the ground. The resulting ‘map’, however hybrid in conception, is now less an icon to be read as standing in for a real territory than a plan for the reconstitution of its topographical form.”

morphogenesis – n. formation of the structure of an organism or part; differentiation and growth of tissues and organs during development. .Manuel DeLanda: form producing events; Sanford Kwinter: “The dynamical theory of morphogenesis characterizes all form as the interruption of a discontinuity, for a form to emerge the entire space must transform with it as a local but generalized transformation.”

mapping – v. 1.the act or process of making a map. 2. (mathematics) a rule of correspondence established between sets that associate each element of a set with an element in the same or another set. Ben Van Berkel and Caroline Bos: “This notion of meanings are not transferred from one agent to another but constituted in the interaction between two agents”.
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Taking the above definitions into consideration, as the dynamical system almost solely exist within the process of diagramming a varied range and amount of influences that are vital to the site, the form and more importantly the organizational zoning come into play. The dynamical influences or flows, as one might come to call these factors, speak to the economic, social, political, and infrastructural nature of the site in question.

Emergent systems as seen in architecture become expressed within the typology of cellular programming, the forced expansion of this process onto an urban landscape will occur in this case, as the site is read at multiple scales simultaneously. These same systems in landscape design are developed through the process of zoning and large scale moves, expressing the evolutionary and adaptable nature of the emergent/dynamical system. In this investigation, the architectural, urban, and landscaped readings and understandings of the dynamical system will be tested and merged within each discipline, and understood to physically graph the three-dimensional space to be read as a system that is growing, adapting, shifting, and hardening over a period of time into a multi-functional hybrid condition of programming, form, and flow.

The topological approach that this methodology exists within incorporates multiple readings of scale, flow, and distribution while still retaining its significance at each of these various scalar shifts, making the resultant project only overwhelming in its ambition, not in its application. The emergence of various smaller systems at each layer of the topography not only allows for the system to be influenced by outside forces, but also creates an inner realm of influence within each layer, allowing the true nature of the dynamical system to exist within the project. This nature being one of continual evolution and adaptable change over time, in relation to the aforementioned dynamical forces or influences. As these forces grow or lessen both outside and within the system, it becomes altered, and therefore adaptable as time progresses. As time in this type of system exists, each topological layer and each system which inhabit that layer, exist cohesively and simultaneously at inconsistent speeds, so the morphogenesis of each of these systems is different, and therefore the alterations within the larger project are also relative, sometimes experienced as subtle variance and nuance, and in other points extreme and grotesque. Iterations of this topography are created at these concurrent scales, and yet the newest iteration is only fully understood as the mapping of the previous layer hardens into a version of permanence.

The purpose within the New Orleans site is reclamation of space under the I-10 freeway at the intersection of N. Claiborne and Orleans/Basin Street through the dynamical system. The eventual solidifying of the temporary happenings within this intersection and the surrounding neighborhood in an adaptive way by proposing a market will not only come to serve the needs of the current denizens but as New Orleans and the people become altered over time, so too will the project and it’s mappings of these changes. The vehicle of reclamation is a multi-functioning marketscape, as its typology exists simultaneously in both a cellular nature and an urban-esque organization and format.



i feel like i can speak another language now.... thank you archispeak!!!
just kidding...

posted by ekeith @ 11:09 PM