Imagining a City-World Beyond Cosmopolis: New Geographies Seminars 2010 – 2011

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Imagining a City-World Beyond Cosmopolis

A Research Report of theHarvard Graduate School of Design

New Geographies Seminars

Spring 2010 & 2011


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2010Paola Aguirre

Mais al-Azab

Hessa Alsowaidan

Allison Austin

Constantine Bouras

Jerey Butcher

Christina Cho

Ilana Cohen

Chris de Vries

Yao Dong

Nathan EtheringtonJaemin Ha

Song He

Hsiao Rou Huang

Jian Huang

Steve Huang

Laura Janka Zires

Nikolaos Katsikis

Saehoon Kim

Seong Seok Ko

Daniel Kumnick

Hungkai Liao

Shuhan Liao

Constantinos LoucaPatricia Martin Del Guayo

Ashley Merchant

Victor Munoz Sanz

Zhuorui Ouyang

Shawn Yee Shiong Pang

Pamela Ritchot

Christopher Roach

Pedro Santa-Rivera

Jonathan Scelsa

Ducksu Seo

Zeltia Vega Santiago

Rikako Wakabayashi

A Studio Research Report of theHarvard Graduate School of Design

Imagining a City-World

Beyond Cosmopolis

2011Ghazal Abbasy-Asbagh

Sheryl Bassan

Yarinda Bunnag

Yenlin Cheng

Dongjae Cho

Jonathan Crisman

Blair Cranston

Nick Crot

Robert de Miguel

Aneesha Dharwadker

Hana DischJill Doran

Samaa Ellmam

Hui Feng

Amy Garlock

Chelsea Garunay

Michelle Ha

Daniel Ibanez

Mireille Kameni

Mariusz Klemens

Gavin Kroeber

Brendan Kellogg

Hee Seung Lee

Somin LeeJames Leng

Yu-Ta Lin

Elizabeth MacWillie

Jonathan Linkus

Ryan Madson

Pilsoo Maing

Fadi Masoud

Ryan Maliszewski

Paul Merrill

Magdalena Naydekova

Conor O’Shea

Andre Passos

Victoria PinerosMark Pomarico

William Quattlebaum

Trude Renwick

Li Sun

Mary Grace Verges

Clementina Vinals

Tory Wolcott

Ke Yu Xiong

New Geographies Seminars

2010 - 2011


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Copyright 2011, The President and Fellows o Harvard College. All

rights are reserved. No part may be reproduced without permission.

The Harvard University Graduate School o Design is a leadingcenter or education, inormation, and technical expertise on thebuilt environment. Its departments o Architecture, LandscapeArchitecture, and Urban Planning and Design oer masters anddoctoral degree programs and also provide the oundation or Advanced Studies and Executive Education programs.


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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Foreword by Prof. Hashim SarkisCourse Description

Esquisses 2010 Infrastructure

InterregionalityMegaformsNew Geographies

Esquisses 2011 World 1 - TITAN

World 2 - Hydro StatesWorld 3 - The Efficient WorldWorld 4 - Post-EcumenopolisWorld 5 - The New Real

Conceptualizing Optimum Land Transformation ProcessesSaehoon Kim

Managing TransitionNikolaos Katsikis

Credits

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Foreword by Prof. Hashim Sarkis

The World According to Architecture

Beyond Cosmopolis

Why should the city be considered the ultimate spatia lmaniestation o globalization?1

Much o the literature about urban development todaypresents the global city or cosmopolis as the spatial outcomeo globalization with which we have to contend. Worldmigration patterns, ecological and other collective risks, andunathomable ows o capital are generating new patterns o social, economic, and political organization thatspecialists are still trying to identiy and understand. They

are all unprecedented, we are told, and i they could only becareully modeled and well analyzed, and i some o their undesirable impact could be addressed, they could lead tomore eective individual emancipation and better ormso collective lie. When it comes to their spatial modeling ,however, we are generally noticing the recur rence o centralized metropolitan patterns o urbanization.Granted, these settlements are rising at an unprecedented

scale and pace and in new settings. We have also nodoubt benefted enormously rom two decades o r igorousdocumentation and analysis o new settlement conditionsacross the world, but this literature persists in describing thenew phenomena through established gradients o density andcentrality such as urban-suburban-rural, with conventionalland-use categories and within the confnes o nation-states.Many radically dierent morphologies and typologies arebeing recorded but their collective impact remains the city,as big or ast-paced as it may have become.

To be sure, and whether coming rom within the disciplineso urbanism, landscape, geography, or ecology, we arewitnessing an increasing number o new positions that try torespond to the complexity o the problem by proposing morecomplex interdisciplinary approaches, but these positions, asanalytically rigorous as they may be, are ultimately so pre-occupied with the nature o their interdisciplinarity that theytend to orget the object o their inquir y. No matter how novelthe combination o tools, these interdisciplinary propositionsdo not seem to oer better insight into the way that globaleconomic and social changes have transormed the builtenvironment. I one o the ambitions o architecture andurbanism is to make visible emerging social conditions, why

are we not seeing the world as a possible scale o operation?I fnancial and demographic ows are challenging nationalboundaries, why is our imagination about space still boundto the city and city-region-state order? Can we fnd anequivalent to the scope o globalization in the space o theworld, as one spatial entity?

The City-World: A Brief HistoryAn age, Gilles Deleuze repeats a ter Michel Foucault, doesnot precede the visibilities that fll it. The image o a city-world predates the advent o globalization, but it has yet tocome into consciousness as a representative visibility. Therepresentation may be too literal, but the world conceived as

one spatial entity corresponds to the scope o globalization,where national and natural borders do not set limits to thephysical environment and to its perception. Early science-fction writers such as H.G Wells oretold o the whole worldat war with itsel ahead o a period o peace in which theunifed conception acquired during wartime is maintained.Led by technocrats, the world operates as one entity, as acity-world. Science fction has continued to re-imagine the

world as a single entity, whether in the Asimov’s Tranin more popular renditions such as Star Wars’ CorusDeath Star. Admittedly, these worlds dier consideratheir governance, social and spatial organization, denand degree o urbanization, but they do anticipate anrehearse the yearning or a spatial totality at the scalworld.

Discerning such a yearning rom a totalizing project that o empire or colonialism is as necessary as it is dIn the context o imagining the world as one entity, w

overlook the grounds that such political aspirations cas emphasized by the likes o Fredric Jameson and BLatour, the necessity o the separation between the po totalities and o totalizing projects is important i wto persist in developing clearer mappings or represeno the world. Jameson’s reerence to Kevin Lynch’s comapping parallels Latour ’s to the phenomenon o thenineteenth century panorama.2

In architecture, the classical project, and, in related,that o the early Modernist universalism culminatingthe International Style, have aspired to a certain samacross national boundaries. This aspiration was drive

by a temporal understanding o the world than a spatone. The world it imagined wanted to move in sync. Na spatial conception was lacking, but it was lagging. aspiration or sameness o high Modernism emulatedexpressed the aspiration or equality among human band states. The criticisms o this project are all too aand they have helped us discern the indelible ties beormal and political projects. Here again, however, wnot miss out on the outlooks o connectedness and cothat Modern architecture eected across the world. Avisibilities, they should be able to live past their poliassociations.

From the 1930s onward, the qualities o connectednecontinuity, and sameness move rom wish images to bprojected outcomes o development. Jean Gottman’spremonition eatured a Megalopolis where cities growconnect to create regional bands o urbanization enaby increasing creation o communication and transpoThis premonition was magnifed to the scale o the wand turned into an inevitability by Constantinos Dox

Victor Pimstein, Horizon 39, 2009. Oil on wood, 54.5 x 78 cm.


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in his proposition or an Ecumenopolis, a city-world ormedout o settlements around major routes o transportation.Slowly, all development is drawn to this inrastructural gridwhile clearing the rest o the planet or agriculture andpreservation. Speed o movement and proximity o peopleto each other guided Doxiadis’ anticipatory and remedialapproach to urban planning. His contemporaries and ellowworld-warriors, such as Yona Friedman, Superstudio,ConstantNieuwenhuis, and Buckminster Fuller, all aspiredto a worldly conception o their domain o operation thattranscended locality and city.

Friedman scaolded a parallel city on top o the ground-bound and sequestered one we inhabit. In doing so,he accelerated spatial mobility and generated a newtopography that diused boundaries and multiplied usesand connections. For Superstudio, the connectivity o theworld’s citizens to each other depended on the establishmento a fctive, smooth inrastructure that provided continuityand connectivity against the earth’s geographic hurdlesand minimized the superstructure that is architecture toalmost nothing. Fuller’s obsession with mapping the worldin ways that could make its fnitude and ragility visible ledhim to invent such representational devices as his amous

maps as well as the geoscope. Even though the scope o Unitary Urbanism continued to be the metropolis, thedegree o diusion o activities and land uses proposed byNieuwenhuis clearly transgressed the centrist models o development toward more uid continuities that heralded theglobal space o New Babylon.

Not all o these attempts at representing and imagining theworld stemmed rom a need to shape the larger totality, butthey all shared a dissatisaction with the urban models o high Modernism. The overwhelming revocation o thesemodels by postmodernist urban theories has in many waysconsolidated the Modernist centralized understanding o

the city. It has also ratifed it as the largest scope o theinhabited environment while detracting rom the radicalattributes o these late Modernist experiments in which theworld as one entity was articulated in architectural terms.

The renewed interest in this cast o renegade charactersand creations has primarily stressed the systemic versusobject-oriented approach to urbanism. Their environmental

and democratic motivations no doubt make them all the moreattractive and current, but even in the present reiteration o these visions, their rendering o the world as one entity hasnot been stressed. The g lobal city has somehow eclipsedthe city-world. The dierence between the two modelsis important to stress even though city-world should notbe seen as the opposite o the world-city (or o the globalcity or cosmopolis or whatever name will be applied to itin the coming years). The cityworld is the scope, spatialparameters, geometries, land-uses, and inrastructuresthat connect the world and make us actively take part in its

description, its construction, and its perception as a totality.

“Worldliness”Difculties abound in thinking the world as onearchitectural entity, but these di fculties are being slowly,i inadvertently, overcome. We are venturing into a situationwhere the city-world becomes a necessity. The seemingimmodesty o such a proposition and its imperia l scopeshould be countered with the scale and scope o risksthat contemporary society conronts, be they generated byenvironmental, nuclear, or public health concerns; the scopeo action these risks generate requires a worldwide response,including the coordination o the world’s spatial resources.

The capacity to understand and map the lived environmentbeyond the scope o the city, corresponding to new patternso global mobility and demographic shits, is now greatlyenhanced by new technologies and modes o representationand communication that make us constantly aware o theworld as one entity. The lack o corresponding governingauthority that can help coordinate shaping the world remainsa major impediment to thinking the world but this mayweaken the totalizing dimension and mobilizes architectsto think o ways in which the qualities o the orms theyproduce—their sameness, repetitiveness, connectednessto larger geographic attributes like the horizon or trans-regional phenomena—can mobilize the physical and

aesthetic dimensions o orm in more eective ways than aservile association with a political project. Most importantly,while the emancipatory dimensions o such a scope o imagination and operations, which predate the globalcity to as ar back as Heraclites, have been unnecessarilybundled with the larger package o globalization, severalsocial theorists and philosophers such as Jean Luc-Nancy,Kostas Axelos, and Michel Serres have recovered the project

o being in the world rom the suocating impositionglobalization.

Furthermore, and despite valid criticisms thathave acompanied its resurgence, the discourse oncosmopolitanism has helped imagine the subject o tas a positively nomadic stranger whose constant yearor being here and there at the same time produces wo describing and representing the world as the scopeindividual imagination. The writings o Edward Saidworldiness and those o Anthony Appiah on strangen

particularly poignant on this issue.

World history, as an established feld o inquiry into history o the world as a set o collective phenomena,also helped generate historiographic and spatial modor this investigation. In this respect, the recent workthe history and historiography o the Mediterranean icompelling. The Mediterranean that is most relevantidea o the world is that o historian David Abulafa, speaks o distant shores with a requency o communbetween them. Abulafa has argued that what mostcharacterizes the Mediterranean is a geography o opbut accessible shores with a requency o exchange. I

conception, the edges o the Mediterranean consist oand towns that are loosely connected with their hintebut are mostly connected via trading communities anbusinesses. The opposing shorelines could and shoultaken at dierent and nested scale.

What is most pertinent in Abulafa’s proposal is that Mediterranean is a model that could be applied to thThe increasing sameness within cities and between ecity and the rest o the world points to the dissolutionplace and to the acceleration o development to the pwhere we can anticipate a world moving in a real-estadevelopment sync, especially ater the last recession

global risks it generated. These global risks include and economic vulnerability that tie every city’s patteto those o the world and bring it sometimes to the poo brinkmanship and collapse, perhaps, as some arguspeak to the world. We ought to think again about wthe sameness in the world is a sign o poverty o ormo an untapped richness—a new source o inspirationor urbanism and architecture. This sameness that I


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anticipating is not dull. It points to the act that we are allworldly, that we work to link to the world rom where weare, to achieve a sense o the total ity and to anticipate acity-world beore and beyond globalization that ows withHeraclitus’ River, where identities could be constantlyconstructed, and constructed in part by design.

The World as an Architectural QuestionBut will the world ever be placed at the doorstep o architects as an architectural question?

Increasingly, architects and planners are being compelledto address and transorm larger contexts and to give thesecontexts more legible and expressive orm. New problemsare being placed on designers’ agendas (e.g., inrastructure,urban systems, regional and rural questions). Problems thathad been confned to the domains o engineering, ecology,or regional planning are now looking or articulation bydesign. This situation has opened up a range o technicaland ormal possibilities that had been out o reach or designers. The need to address these “geographic” aspectshas also encouraged designers to reexamine their tools anddevelop means to link attributes that had been understoodto be either separate or external to their disciplines. The

importance o such questions as those o sustainability andrisk are beginning to put measurable standards in ront o architects so that they have to think about the world as aphysical scope o impact, i not o operation.

Yet engaging the geographic does not only mean a shi t inscale. This has also come to aect the ormal repertoire o architecture, even at a smaller scale, with more architectsbecoming interested in orms that reect the geographicconnectedness o architecture, by its ability to bridge thevery large and the very small (networks and rameworks) or to provide orms that embody geographic reerences (e.g.,continuous suraces, environmentally integrated buildings).

Curiously, while most o the research around these variousattributes has tended to be quite intense, the parallel trackso inquiry have remained disconnected. For example,the discussion about continuous suraces in architectureignores the importance o continuity o ground in landscapeecology. Even i there is not a common cause driving thesedierent geographic tendencies, a synthesis is possible,

even necessary, to expand on the ormal possibilities o architecture and its social role. This makes the need toarticulate the geographic paradigm all the more urgent,because the role o synthesis that geography aspired to playbetween the physical, the economic, and the social is nowbeing increasingly delegated to design.

Even though the term geographic is used primarily in ametaphorical way to designate a connection to the physicalcontext, the paradigm does overlap with the discipline o geography. Some clarifcation is necessary in this respect

to beneft rom the overlap while avoiding conusion.The history o geography is strongly linked to the historyo discovery and colonization. The instruments or thediscovery o territory were extended into its documentationand then, in turn, into its appropriation and transormation.And yet the discipline has evolved to become more diverseand broad, to become institutionalized around geographicsocieties; to split into human and physical geographyproducing very di erent approaches and even subjectmatters; then to disintegrate (as in the case o Harvard)and migrate into other disciplines (sociology, public health,inormation systems); and then to be revived aroundcentral contemporary issues such as globalization. The

paradigmatic role o geography in our thinking about designin this proposition could be taken in the narrower sense o geographic as being an attempt to study the relationshipbetween the social and the physical at a larger territorialscale, but also to attempt a synthesis a long the lines o “high” geography by design. It may be an exaggeration topropose that something like a geographic attitude, in bothmethod and content, is guiding dierent strands o designthinking today toward convergence, or that a geographicaesthetic dominates ormal pursuits in the same way that themachine aesthetic inspired unctionalism at the turn o thecentury, but it would be important to study the extent andpotentials o such a tendency.

As a way o pushing these ormal possibilities, the questiono human settlements should be cast at the scale o the world.Within this scale, the marks o the urban centralities wouldbe diused and we can identiy new spatial patterns thattranscend the limitations o cosmopolis and help us imaginea better city-world.“Worldmaking”

According to Nelson Goodman, “the way the world isnot predetermined. Moreover, it is not useul to drawexact distinction between what is given (out there) anis represented (mental or cognitive). To speak o the wmeans to speak o one o its representations or constrI two equally rigorous representations seem incompthis implies two incompatible but nevertheless possibworlds. Truth or “rightness o rendering” can only bedetermined instrumentally, within a construction andthe purpose or which it is constructed. Goodman hacalled on philosophers to examine the way artists con

worlds through their media and techniques. Art anticand elucidates the idea o world-making.

Goodman’s proposition bridged between the logical asemiological approaches to the question o representbut its emphasis on the world as the space in which ao operation is internal ly consistent (and thereore recould be linked to the proposal o thinking the worldentity. As per Latour’s conceptualization o the totaliReassembling the Social, we ought to take these panrepresentations seriously because they provide the “ooccasion to see the ‘whole story’ as a whole.” He goesTheir totalizing views should not be despised as an a

proessional megalomania, but they should be addingeverything else, to the multiplicity o sites we want toFar rom being the place where everything happens, their director’s dreams, they are local sites to be addas so many new places dotting the attened landscaptry to map. But even ater such a downsizing, their robecome central since they al low spectators, listenersreaders to be equipped with a desire or wholeness acentrality. It is rom those powerul stories that we geour metaphors or what ‘binds us together,’ the passiowe are supposed to share, the general outline o sociearchitecture, the master narratives with which we aredisciplined. It is inside their narrow boundaries that our commonsensical idea that interactions occur in acontext; that there is a ‘up’ and a ‘down’; that there isnested inside a ‘global’; and that there might be a Zethe spirit o which has yet to be devised. 3

Along these lines, we should think o the ability o arto construct new worlds and to encourage new orms inhabitation, or habits, in these worlds. This constru


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position in architecture could be expanded into the ollowingmain ideas:

— The idea that each building could be a world or part o a world, that it would start rom an internal logic and thatit would unwind outward to meet the edges o other worldsand transorm them. That this transormation could alsotransgress the conventional boundaries between buildingand context so that a new spatial relationship could emerge,something like a new geography, to redescribe the terrain inwhich architecture operates.

— The idea that the unctional dimension o architectureshould remain important in this process, but that it shouldbe addressed as habits o living, as inhabitation. In thatsense, these habits o living should be interrogated andrevised to allow or the ormat ion and expression o newhabits. This is the core o world-making à la Goodman.

— The idea that we should inhabit these new contextswith new eyes, that the new habits o living encourage newhabits o representation and seeing, which in turn help inachieving another level o signifcance to architecture. Thissignifcance is one that maintains a level o openness to the

experiences o its inhabitants. They are acquired rather thanimposed.

— The idea that the attributes o sameness, repetition,placelessness, scalelessness, and homogeneity that haveso ar been scaring us and compelling us to obsessivelyarticulate and dierentiate by architecture could be turnedinto a treasure o qualities waiting to be re-explored.

— The idea that architecture, by virtue o its ability tobalance between internal worlds and external ones, shouldmaintain a certain level o operative autonomy and behavemore like an object than systemic thinkers (blinded by theutilitarian approaches o ecology or technology) would like.The possibility o a quasiobject, to borrow rom MichelSerres, is also waiting to be explored.

These ideas are not oreign to our palette o moves or tothe history o our ormal pre-occupations. Every buildingby Mies van der Rohe alternated between constructing aninternal world and inscribing part o the horizon that links

it to the world. Every other building by Enric Miralleswrapped a belt around the world but bled into it. EliasTorres uses geometry as the means o mediating betweenthe particularities o the setting and larger orders thattie a locality to the world. The practice o an exaggeratedsilhouetting o buildings attens an object into constructingskylines rather than being fxed into grounds. The quasi-object-like character o much o contemporary architecture islatently pointing to this direction and impatiently waiting tobecome conscious.

Reprinted with permission from New Geographies 4. Edited by El Hadi Jazairy

Notes

1. This essay is the outcome o research toward the

course “New Geographies” that I have been teachingat the Graduate School o Design since 2006. I am grateulto the students who have participated in the class through itsdierent iterations, particularly to those who took part in thelast versionon “Imagining a City-World Beyond Cosmopolis” and whoseresearch and insights have helped clariy many argumentsmade here. Peder Anker, as usual, has helped in raisingthe bar on intellectual provocation. I am also very grateulto Neil Brenner or his insights and or pointing me in thedirectiono Stuart Elden and Kostas Axelos.

2. See, or example, Fredric Jameson’s canonicalessay on Ideology… See also Bruno Latour,Reassembling the Social: An Introduction toActor-Network-Theory (Oxord and New York:Oxord University Press, 2005)

3. Bruno Latour, Reassembling the Social, 189.


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COURSE DESCRIPTION

This course invited the students to imagine better urbanand architectural orms that overcome the limitations o theglobal city, or cosmopolis.

Much o the literature about urban development todaypresents cosmopolis as the inevitable outcome o globalization with which we have to contend. Worldmigration patterns towards the urban, collective ecologicalrisks, and the global economy are generating intense but

ultimately undesirable cities. We have benefted enormouslyrom two decades o rigorous documentation and analysis o this condition, but this literature persists in describing thesephenomena within the confnes o nation states, throughgradients o density and centrality such as urban-suburban-rural and with conventional land-use categories that overlookmany o the radically dierent morphologies and typologiesthat are emerging. Ultimately, many o these methodologiescompromise the originality and potentials o emerging ormso settlement.

Geography as ParadigmIncreasingly designers are being compelled to address

and transorm larger contexts and to give these contextsmore legible and expressive orm. New problems are beingplaced on the tables o designers (e.g.: inrastructure, urbansystems, regional and rural questions). Problems that hadbeen confned to the domains o engineering, ecology,or regional planning are now looking or articulation bydesign. This situation has opened up a range o technicaland ormal possibilities that had been out o reach or designers. The need to address these ‘geographic’ aspectshas also encouraged designers to re-examine their tools andto develop means to link together attributes that had beenunderstood to be either separate rom each other or externalto their disciplines. (For example, in the past decade,

dierent versions o landscape urbanism have emerged inresponse to similar chal lenges).

Yet engaging the geographic does not only mean a shi t inscale. This has also come to aect the ormal repertoire o architecture, even at a smaller scale, with more architectsbecoming interested in orms that reect the geographicconnectedness o architecture, by its ability to bridge

between the very large and the very small (networks andrameworks) or to provide orms that embody geographicreerences (e.g.: continuous suraces, environmentallyintegrated buildings).

Curiously, while most o the research around these dierentattributes has tended to be quite intense, the parallel trackso inquiry have remained disconnected. For example, thediscussion about continuous suraces in architecture ignoresthe importance o continuity o ground in landscape ecology.The seminar does not propose that a common cause is

driving these dierent geographic tendencies but it doesinsist that a synthesis is possible, even necessary, in order to expand on the ormal possibilities o architecture and itssocial role.

This makes the need to articulate the geographic paradigmall the more urgent because the role o synthesis thatgeography aspired to play between the physical, theeconomic, and the social is now being increasingly delegatedto design.

The aim o the course was to expose the workings o thislatent paradigm and to help articulate and direct them

towards a more productive synthesis.

Even though the term geographic is used primarily in ametaphorical way to designate a connection to the physicalcontext, the paradigm does overlap with the discipline o geography. Some clarifcation is necessary in this respect inorder to beneft rom the overlap while avoiding conusion.The history o geography is strongly linked to the historyo discovery and colonization. The instruments or thediscovery o territory were extended into its documentationand then, in turn, were extended into its appropriationand transormat ion. And yet the discipline has evolved tobecome more diverse and broad, to become institutionalized

around geographic societies; to split into human andphysical geography producing very dierent approaches andeven subject matters; then to disintegrate (as in the caseo Harvard) and migrate into other disciplines (sociology,public health, inormation systems); and then to be revivedaround central contemporary issues such as globalization.The paradigmatic role o geography in our thinking aboutdesign in this course could be taken in the narrower sense

o geographic as being an attempt to study the relatiobetween the social and the physical at a larger territoscale but also to attempt a synthesis a long the lines o‘high’ geography by design. It may be an exaggeratiopropose that something like a geographic attitude, bomethod and in content, is guiding dierent strands othinking today towards convergence, or that a geograaesthetic dominates ormal pursuits in the same waymachine aesthetic inspired unctionalism at the turncentury, but it would be important to study the extenpotentials o such a tendency.

ProposalTo be sure, we are seeing an increasing number o neinterdisciplinary positions that try to adequately respto the complexity o the problem, like landscape-nowecological urbanism or post-metropolitan studies butpositions are ultimately too preoccupied with the nato their inter-disciplinarity and not ocused enough oormal consequences o their undertaking.

We are also seeing new design propositions that addrthese challenges quite provocatively but i we examin

careully, as we will do dur ing this semester, some omore vivid visions turn out to be powerless premonit As a way o pushing these ormal possibilities to the the course proposes that we cast the question o humsettlements at the scale o the world, we can identiy spatial patterns that transcend the limitations o cosmand help us imagine a better city-world. The courseocuses on the emerging geographies o urban regioninrastructures, new urban conglomerations, mega-oand on the emergence o new geo-aesthetics.

The city-world is not the opposite o the world-city or

global city or o cosmopolis. The city-world is the poso imagining the spatial parameters, geometries, landinrastructures that connect the world and make us atake part in its description and construction as a tota


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Note: student participants from each course (2010 top, 2011 bottom) are listed alphabetically in the title page.


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lake chad [chad//nigeria//cameroon]lake nakuru [kenya]

aral sea [k azakhstan//uzbekistan]dal lake [india]

yangtze river basin [china]yellow river basin [china]

tonle sap lake [cambodia]

lake baikal [russia]

dojran lake [greece//f.y.r.o.m.]

lake chapala [mexico]

great lakes [usa]

mono lake [usa]lake owens [usa]

constantine bouras // new geographies_the melting ice and shrinking lakes infrastructure

sources: united nations environmental programme // www.unep.org

nasa // www.nasa.gov

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Image source:

http://worldofweirdthings.com/

Image source:

http://shiftboston.blogspot.com/

2009/08/iphone-city.html

Black hole

Real-time communicationthrough multiple mode;

Reshuffling of physicalconnectivity;Virtual Reality

De-materialization

Virtual Reality

The merge of space and time,physicality and virtuality;Communication protocols.

Internet

Global 3G/4G Network

Connection at its geographConnection after the distorti

i -frastrucGlobal iphone ne

iphone network Server network

Totality

New Connectivity

GSD 3420: New Geography

Jian Ming Huang

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P A T R I C I A M A R T I N

D E L G U A Y O

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APPEARANCE CULTURE

PRODUCTION COMMERCE

BABTERRITORYBABCITIZ

BABECONOMY

BABLANDSCAPE BABMETROPOLIS

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LANDSIDE LANDSIDEAIRSIDE

Modern architects are negligent. They have systemati-

cally ignored the massive transformations of everyday

life caused by the twin forces of globalization and rap-

id urbanization. Their endless ‘new urbanist’ schemes

desperately provide token fragments of ‘pseudo-nature’

to pacify ruthlessly exploited citizens. The modern

city is a thinly disguised mechanism for extracting

productivity out of its inhabitants, a huge machine

that destroys the very life it is meant to foster. Such

exploitative machinery will continue to grow until a

single vast urban structure occupies the whole surfaceof the earth. Nature has already been replaced. Tech-

nology has long been the new nature that must now be

creatively transformed to support a new culture. The

increasingly traumatized inhabitants have to take over

the shaping of their own spaces to recover the pleasure

of living. This reshaping will be come the dominant

activity when information technology soon handles all

forms of production.

The airport will be hijacked as the medium for reshap-

ing the city because of its connection to global mo-

bility and its command over vast tracts of land. The

airport’s continual absorption of all urban functions

and its open-ended process of continual transforma-

tion will be co-opted to transform the web of mobility

infrastructure into a vast continuous interior. The

relationship between the city and its infrastructure

will be reversed. The increasingly localized produc-

tive capacity of the city will be used to support the

truly ‘oiko-nomic’ activity of building and maintain-ing this global aviopolis. This global aviopolis is the

New Babylon. Its citizens are not the generic laborers

of the global service economy but are the new nomads of

cultural production and ludic exchange. Passage to this

Mediterranean of the air is gained not through proof of

nationality or one’s status as a consumer, but through

the repudiation of material possessions in exchange for

the true freedom of unhindered creativity. Citizenship

and identity are constructed through the continu-

ous artistic production of urban atmospheres, and

the New Babylonians become anointed as angels;

airborne, all-seeing, outside of time.

Leisure time will be the only time.

Work gives way to an endless collec-

tive play in which all fantasies

are acted out. The static

constructions of archi-

tects and urban plan-

ners are thrown away.

Everybody becomes

an architect,

practicing

a never-

-end-

ing, all-embracing ‘ecumen-urbanism.’ Nothing will be

xed.

This new urbansim exists in time, it is the

activation of the temporary, the emergent

and transitory, the changeable, the

volatile, the variable, the immedi-

ately fullling and satisfying.

An intimate bonding of desire

and space will produce a

new kind of architec-

ture for a new so-

ciety: the avio-

ecumenopolis.

A New Baby-

lon of

t h e

BABNEW BABYLON GLOBAL

A I R P O R T • C I T Y • W O R L D

a medi terranean o f the a i r

15


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66° 33’N 1992 20

t o t a l m e l t a r e a [ 1 0

k m 2 ]

6

5

10

30

20

15

38

25

1978 1988 1993 20031983 1998

S

1 9 8 2

2 0 0 7

lake chad

1963

1973

1987

1997

2007

nigeria

chad

cameroon

hamoun lakes [iran//afghanistan]

lake chad [chad//nigeria//cameroon]lake nakuru [kenya]

aral sea [k azakhstan//uzbekistan]dal lake [india]

yangtze river basin [china]yellow river basin [china]

tonle sap lake [cambodia]

lake baikal [russia]

dojran lake [greece//f.y.r.o.m.]

lake chapala [mexico]

great lakes [usa]

mono lake [usa]lake owens [usa]

constantine bouras // new geographies_the melting ice and shrinking lakes infrastructure

sources: united nations environmental programme // www.unep.org

nasa // www.nasa.gov

5.0rise of sea lev

la

sf

sd

utnv

az

ca

barranca del c

cotahuasi cany

kali gandaki gorgyarlung zangbo grand c

grand canyon

rikako waka


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19


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20


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NETROPOLIS

High-techIndustries

MunicipalGovernment

Financial&TradingCenter

Logistics

MainFarmlandCluster

MainAgriculturalCluster

51-809hab/sqkm 810-2443hab/sqkm 2444-4352hab/sqkm 4353-17818hab/sqkm 17819

Profess ionals Manufacturer Logis tics Agricul ture Port

Shenzhen, China

The development of Shenzhen is a process during which urban context gradually extends towards the waterfront areas and mountain

areas. The reclaimed land, about 4% of the city’s land area, is mainly used for housing, industry and highway constructions

21


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Greater Seoul Metropolitan Region for The Unified Korea, 2050 New Geographies : Imagining a City - World Beyond CSeon

Seoul Metropolitan, 2010 Now

Seoul-Incheon Metropolitan Region

The Capital of Tadya’s Korea and previous Dynasty 'Choseon'

Seled 1394 AD.

Area Special City : 605.25㎢Metropolitan Area : 9,864㎢

Density 17,288/㎢ Populaon Special City : 10,464,051

Metropolitan Area : 24,472,063

Seoul-Kaesong Metropolitan, 2050 Near Futreu aer Establishment of The Unified Korea

Seoul - Incheon - Kaesong Metropolitan Region

The Capital for The New Unified Korea aer Unificaon of South and North Korea

SArea Special Cies (Seoul + Kaesong) : About 2,100㎢

Metropolitan Area : About 11,500㎢ Density About 11,000/㎢ Populaon Special Cies (Seoul + Kaesong): About 17,000,000

Metropolitan Area : About 34,000,000

Kaesong City, 2010 Now

Seoul-Incheon Metropolitan Region

The Capital of Korean Old Dynasty 'Corea'

Seled 1394 AD.

Area 1,309㎢ M D Populaon 308,440

Kaesong

Yellow Sea

Seoul30km60km

Seoul Metropolitan Region Land Use (2010 Present)

North Korea

Yellow Sea

D.M.Z.

Mountain RangeExpansion

Expansion to The West

Yellow Sea

Kaesong

Seoul30km60km

Seoul - Kaesong Metropolitan Region Land Use (20

CommercialResidence

IndustryTransportaonSatellite Res.

30km

60km

CommercialResidence

IndustryTransportaonSatellite Res.

30km

60km

2010 2050

Yellow Sea

Mountain Range

Expansion

Expansion to The North22


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23


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24


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25

Internally Displaced People Worldwide


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Internally Displaced People Worldwide

April 2010

composite map

natural resources

agricultural land

green zone

new settlements

The proposal looks for providing settlement to

African refugees between Sudan and Chad. The newsettlements will be autonomous from existing cities

they will settle near natural resources in order to ben

from them and p rosper.

The main economic activity is focused on farming

and agriculture but the new cities will have other fac

ties such as school, hospitals and markets which w

also serve the exisiting cities

A green zone will protect all settlements and the

resources.26


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27

Neo Regionality


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Humans han been familiar with binary thinking in dividing man and nature, culture and nature, rea-sonable and emotional, architecture and landscape architecture. Several critics and philosopherssuch as Jacques Derrida, Gilles Deleuze, and Alice Jardine argued that binary thinking can beidentified as a strong medium to establish a controlling power in a hierarchical structure. The bi-nary thinking has led to ruthless industrialization and urban sprawl which have the most destruc-tive force against nature since it contains the highest concentration of human activity. The conceptof the region mentioned by Mumford and McHarg implicated a new relationship between landscapeand built environment. Mumford considered regional planning as a means of responding to the de-teriorating environment, and put more emphasis on coexistence of human and nature in it. McHargstrongly stressed the intrinsic suitability of lands for urban and regional planning, and arguedthat physical planning should be well mingled with natural conditions and values. Neo-regionalityis to integrate natue and built environemnts. The critical components of natural system are con-nectivitiy and flow. The neo-regionality reestablish relationship with human and nature with inte-grative thinking.

Neo-Regionality


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31

Energy Ma

URBAN CANOPY


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17%

7%

15%

5%

30%

Energy

Livestock

Transportaon

Argriculture

Ma

Oth

Lan

Wa

Daily Life

21%

18%

14%

12%

10%

2

Livestock

Transportaon

Argriculture

Oth

Lan

Wa

Daily LifeCarbon Dioxid

Carbon Dioxide

Capture Carbon Dioxide a

Energy Consum

Input

output

100%

URBAN CANOPYCARBON DIOXIDE AND ENERGY CAPTURE SYSTEM

AcvityPoolRainy


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INTER -CITY

S OL A R E NE R G Y P A N

A L

B U I L D I N G

B U I L D I N G

P UB L I C

C I R C UL A T I O

N

C E N T R A L T R A N S P O R T A T I O N

UNDERGROUND CENTRAL TRANSPORTATION SYSTEM

INTER -REGION

GLOBAL

INTER -CITY

INTER -REGION

GLOBAL


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TRANSPARENT METASTRUCTURE

Ring of Fire_earthq

Shu-han Liao

34


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64

the walrus

JQ@M¤@SKGJDO@?OC@JPG?=@?P==@?

OC@?@N@MOD >


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water desalination

energy generation

food production

living area

gathering space

hans hollein | transformations (1963 - 1968) | aircraft carrier city in landscape nl architects | virtual realities (2008) | cruise city, c

plug-out citiesg , g g

these cruise cities can carry pieces of the old cities and be plugged into anywhere around the world zhu

these cruise cities can carry over 10,000 inhabitants


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Shawn Yee Sh

Víctor Muñoz Sanz


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PLATE TECTONICSa.k.a. Andinarchitecture

Víctor Muñoz Sanz

After the impact of its incandescent surfaces on Buenos Aires, the Shopping Rock stands amidst a cloud from the evaporation of water of the lagoons

a s p h e r i c a l i c o s a h e d r o n . . .

. . . b e c o m e s t h e w o r l d

i t s d a t a i s p r o j e c t e d o n t o i t s i n s c r i b e d i c o s

a h e d r o n

t h e g e o s c o p e

t h e p l a t e b o u n d a r i e s o n t h e g e o s c o p e

i t s s t r

u c t u r a l l i n e s a n d t h e o n e s o f t h e e a r t h a r e d

i s i m i l a r

b a c k t o t h e w o r l d

t h e t e c t o n i c b o u n d a r i e s

p o l i g o n a

l i z a t i o n

a p o l y h e d r o n w i t h n o n p l a n a r f a c e s

p r o j e c t i o n o f t h e a r e a c e n t r o i d o f t h e f a c e s

o n t o t h e s p h e r e a n d t r i a n

g u l a t i o n

t h e t e c t o c n i c r o c k

t h e p l a t e s

a c t i v a t e

s o m e p l a t e s e x t e n d

s o m e o t h e r a r e d

e s t r o y e d

v o l c a n o s a n d r i d g e s a p p e a r i n i t s s u r f a c e

t h e v o l c a

n i c r o c k

t h e r o c k i s r o t a t e d a n d i t s b a s e c o o

r d i n a t e s

b b a a b b a a b b a a b b a a b b a a b b a a b b a a b b a a b b a a b b a a

b b a a b b a a


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Paola A

41


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A r c h i t e c t u r e

and The Surface of The World

w a t e r

d e s e r t

p l a t e a u s

m

o u n t a i n s

p l a i n s /

g r a s s l a n d s

m

a n - m

a d e

g e o m o r p h o l o g y

Spatial Mosaic . Mais al Azab . Ma

The surface of the globe creates a natural landscape mosaic ; the new Architecture challenges the discontinuty of some of these surfaces and blurs the line between the architectonic spatial continuity and the surface of the world as a new form o

42

THE OMPHALOS PROJECT J ff B t h


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THE OMPHALOS PROJECT

Earth has reached a population and environmental tipping point. Urban growth has extended around theplanet and the environment is suffering as a result. The thin atmosphere can not sustain life as it has in the past.

As an end run, The Omphalos project is a first step in a process of galacticization and interplanetary exchange.

The first, and closest source for primary resources and raw materials is our moon. The dusty soil on the moon has

been studied since we first landed there on Apollo 13, some 250 years ago. The samples brought back have told

us that the flour like soil, composed of iron, silica and oxygen are very nearly nanoparticulates. Therefore, the

fusion of this mixture can happen at low temperatures and yield a very hard substance, as hard if not harder than

steel. The process for farming this material is unique. NASA has developed large lunar tractors fitted with thermal

microwave discs. These disks heat the surface material with 250 watts of microwaves - the same as a conven-

tional microwave oven - congealing the soil to a depth of 1 meter. These new building materials are then shipped

back to earth to be used in the construction of domes over much of the earths surface.

Discussions of the creation of an ecumenopolis revolve around two issues. First, the density with which theplanet is covered and the corresponding population required to maintain it. Second, the environmental or socialreasons for creating a world city. Using Isaac Asimovs city world of Trantor as a starting point, the Omphalosexamines these issues by using the moon as a resource for creating an ecumenopolis and galactic center hereon earth. With President Obamas recent privitization of space travel the effect of decreasing the percieveddistance between earth and space, between individual and universe is becoming more apparent.

The Omphalos is an ancient religious stone artifact, or baetylus. In Greek, the word omphalos means "navel".According to the ancient Greeks, Zeus sent out two eagles to fly across the world to meet at its center, the"navel" of the world. Omphalos stones used to denote this point were erected in several areas surrounding theMediterranean Sea; the most famous of those was at the oracle in Delphi. History when considered in relation-ship to such a project displays an interesting temporal effect. Once changes to the moon become visible fromearth, we will have created a historic hinge point. A kind of referent point of no return, which distorts yet codi-fies the history of our civilization.

Jeffrey Butcher

CONCERTED, GLOBAL RELIEF EFFORT

Countries from around the world “donate” pods which then interlock and recongure


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1

1

3

3

3

Port-au-Prince

EPICENTER

CarrefourGressier

Gonaïves

Saint-Marc

Léogâne

blue whale offshore platform cruise ship

pontoon community pod

2480 ft

1100 ft 100ft 500 ft

Countries from around the world donate pods which then interlock and recongure

exibly according to its the specicity of its destination. Floating infrastructure does

not rely on an armature. Standardized pod size and parameters allow for asynchronous,

globally-distributed construction. Iconicity of aggregated pods diverts the world’s

collective gaze, heightening its anticipation of news on the disaster relief.

POD MOVEMENT

Pods are propelled through their own locomotive

system. The pontoon pods oat on ballasts and

hulls which integrate into the hydrologic energy

generation infrastructure.

EMERGENCY MEDICAL

Floating hospital pod is on-ca

be deployed within

POD SHAPE

Hexagonal shape aggregates to mediate

curvaceous and re-entrant coastline

geometries. The shape also allows for

seamless agglomeration. Pods are not

anchored to the ocean oor.

ROADS NETWORK

Pontoon pods link together such that the

roads continue, allowing short circuits of

existing highways which have shut down.

Decrepit transport infrastructure further

slows rebuilding effort. Immediate new

infrastructure facilitates overall rebuilding.

ENERGY PRODUCTION

Less than 1.5% of Haiti’s tree coverremains intact. Lack of other energy

sources has led to severe deforestation.

Pod infrastructure makes possible the

harnessing of hydroelectric & wind

energy. Energy may power the pod or if

exceeding energy demand, be sent

back to grid to mainland.

IMMEDIATE, TEMPORARY HOUSING

Each pontoon pod can be a self-sufcient community with potential

for self-expression.

PROTECTION AGAINST SUBSEQUENT NATURAL DISASTERS

Floating on the water, the pod benets from natural base isolation in face of

aftershocks.

44

T Al h


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Te Aleph The Aleph’s diameter was probably little more than an inch, but all

space was there, actual and undiminished. Each thing (a mirror’s face,

let us say) was innite things, since I distinctly saw it from every angle

of the universe; I saw the teeming sea; I saw daybreak and nightfall; I

saw the multitude of America; I saw a silvery cobweb in the center of

a black pyramid; I saw a splintered labyrinth (it was london); I saw,

close up, unending eyes watching themselves in me in a mirror; I saw

all the mirrors on earth and none of t hem reected me;

Jrge Lus Borgs

T Synhnc w T Diahnc w T Labnt

8.00m 50.00m3.12m

300m

2000.036m

2000.000m

45


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WORLD OF EQUITYMAUD Huang, Hsiao Rou

SCALE TESTS


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SCALE TESTSFrancois Blanciak proposes that form can be conceived a priori of sit

a tea saucer still have social significance when writ large as a city? Th

ms of Brazilia, Masdar, and Dongtan, according to Kenneth Frampto

unify the random character of the megalopolis and connect cities wi

zontality of the ground. Yet legibility from the aerial photo might not

at the human scale.

GSD3421

city on the water - New Tea Saucer City

1 m 10 m

tea saucers arden stairs

floating dock structure

infrastructural ties to mainland

Francois

experime

scaleless

1000 m

l .

m

47


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ProblematicAs the virtual is increasing the milieu or easysocial commercial and political gathering we

World One | TITAN


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social, commercial and political gathering, weare let with the irony that human interactionsare undamentally more efcient, intense, andmeaningul when conducted in person.

Currently the world seeks to address this issueby making the virtual means o communica-tion more robust without accepting the limitstate that it cannot be, by its nature, ever equivalent. The rapid increase in world-wideows o inormation and data transers is ar

outstripping, and gradually replacing, theows o people within the world.

PropositionTo create the world as a unctioning totality wemust create a dynamic equilibrium betweenthe physical ow o people and the ow o inormation. I personal and group interac-tions are undamentally more successul inthe physical world we should seek to createa world that maximizes these interactionswithout rejecting globalization as a act o lie. Our current model o urbanization is not

capable o dealing with this on a global scaleas people remain tied to particular localesand a ew large urban areas. We must allowor the ow o people in the same manner thatwe allow or the ow o inormation in order to maximize these undamental interactions.Instead o a ocus on a specifc place thisworld will construct itsel around the creationo temporary events. This proposition wil l havedramatic ramifcations on notions o ownershipand use rights, and we imagine that the onlypath orward will emerge rom a paradigm o ‘open source property’ and the provision o

urban hardware and sotware that is reelyuseable by its citizens.

51


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52


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53


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54


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55


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ProblematicAs the virtual is increasing the milieu or easysocial, commercial and political gathering, we

World Two | Hydro States


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, p g g,are let with the irony that human interactionsare undamentally more efcient, intense, andmeaningul when conducted in person.

Currently the world seeks to address this issueby making the virtual means o communica-tion more robust without accepting the limitstate that it cannot be, by its nature, ever equivalent. The rapid increase in world-wideows o inormation and data transers is ar

outstripping, and gradually replacing, theows o people within the world.

PropositionTo create the world as a unctioning totality wemust create a dynamic equilibrium betweenthe physical ow o people and the ow o inormation. I personal and group interac-tions are undamentally more successul inthe physical world we should seek to createa world that maximizes these interactionswithout rejecting globalization as a act o lie. Our current model o urbanization is not

capable o dealing with this on a global scaleas people remain tied to particular localesand a ew large urban areas. We must allowor the ow o people in the same manner thatwe allow or the ow o inormation in order to maximize these undamental interactions.Instead o a ocus on a specifc place thisworld will construct itsel around the creationo temporary events. This proposition wil l havedramatic ramifcations on notions o ownershipand use rights, and we imagine that the onlypath orward will emerge rom a paradigm o ‘open source property’ and the provision o

urban hardware and sotware that is reelyuseable by its citizens.

hydro-despotismnew geographies

Roads

collectoRs

collectoRs

connections

majoR

hydRo

couRtyaRds

blocks

public space

open

buildings

eneRgy

tRansit

d fr f vr

w ,

, r w wr.

hr cvz, r

r f gr-

ar r kr Wf,

f r v

rr

r- r

wr wr wr

- rv, fr rr, rv fr f r. or

w r wr

wr -

r

fr rr f ,

rr, r .

57


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58


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59


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60


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61


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StatementOur world seeks to increase world efciencythrough the redistribution o resources.R i l d t d d

World Three | Efficient World automatic—acilitated by a universal datasystem that calculates how much resourceseach region requires through a global web o

t ti Th ill l b


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Resources include water, energy, ood, educa-tion, minerals, technology, and services. Themodel exaggerates present world conditionsin hopes o improving total gross production,efciency, and airness o distribution. In thisrestructured economy, the grid emerges as amegaorm, the economy becomes the base o interregionality, and new inrastructures andgeographies arise.

Economic System

The economy changes based on two layers o redistribution. First, there is the creation o new zones where resources are produced inthe most geographically appropriate locations.Each zone is one economic region and isresponsible or the production o one essentialresource, which is then delivered to the rest o the world. For example, the Middle East willocus on oil production while North Americawill primarily be agricultural. In return or the participation in the global economy, each

zone receives the resources, which it needsrom other regions and rom itsel. Resourceregions are distributed around the world asto minimize costs in transportation. For thisreason, there are several agricultural zonesdispersed throughout the globe. This type o resource collection and redistribution brings“specialization” to a new level and generatesmore resources than ever produced beore onearth.

The second layer o redistribution is the cre-ation o a universal welare system. As more

goods are generated throughout the world,some resources are redistributed so that eachregion receives a package o goods that issufcient to meet the basic needs o all their population including a daily 2000-caloriesration o ood. The distribution is based onpopulation density. To minimize corruptionand human prejudices, the distribution is

automatic sensors. There will no longer beworld hunger or lack o drinking water. Be-cause everyone’s basic needs are met, peoplebecome even more productive and generateadditional goods. Individuals have the capac-ity to earn more than just their basic ration o goods. In act, individuals are incentivized tobe as efcient and as productive as possible,because they can keep a portion o their extraearnings.

Through these two layers o restructuring,the world will advance and become ever moreefcient and productive.

Social SystemSocial systems are dictated by the economicunction o the region. Each region and itsresidents hold highly specialized skills, live ina built environment shaped by the productiono the regional resource, and, consequently,hold distinctive understandings o the world.For example, technological regions produce

a dierent liestyle rom agricultural regions.In the ormer, sotware engineers partake in acomplex urban society characterized by highpopulation density and advanced communi-cation. In the latter, armers are dwellers o agrarian society largely dependent on primarysocial ties. Economic specialization createsdistinctively dierent ways o lie in eachregion. Cross-regional migration is permittedand is acilitated by the market demand or labor and resources.

Political System

Current nationhoods and political systemscan exist, but take a back seat to new regionalnetworks o distribution. Nations and regionscan opt out o the new world, but they willchoose not to because o the interdependentnature o our world.

63

-

[resource distribution rethINFRASTRUCTURE


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SHIPPING

AIR

RE-ZONING

GROUND

TELECOMMUNICATION

-

-

ENERGY

Solid

Liquid

Wired network

Wireless network

-

In World 3, social, political, and

geographical regions are re-

defined and re-zoned as areas of

specialized production of specified

resources, and each zone is con-

nected to the world networks of

redistribution - grid - of those re-

sources.

A set of categories of prodution is

defined. Each region is assigned

with each category according to

the abundance of existing re-source.

Each resource is modfied on site

into the easiest form to be trans-

ported to and consumed in other

gions. eg. fossil fuels can be made

into electicity before being trans-

ferred. Some raw material may be

processed on site, but most may

need to be shipped directly. Most

liquid products, such as water,

would be trasported through ex-

tensive network of pipes.

Infrastructure is the multiple grids

of transporting those resourcesinto other regions as well as within

the region. The grid can take form

of aerial and naval network, or

ground connection such as pipes,

or wireless nexus; the presence of

those grids and their intersections,

such as airports, would be intensi-

fied.

Each system of infrastructure will

strongly reflect the characteristics

of the resource each region is pro-

ducing. For instance, infrastructure

that supports region condensed

with human resource, or technol-

ogy, would take a vertical exten-

sion of the horizontal grid in order

to maximize the use of its land.

Consequently, the tower would

host a internal network of human

resource, information and data

while being connected to the wider

network of resources.

Power plant (Oil-Electricity) Multi-layered

Transportation

Oil reserves Oil-refinery O

Human resource tower Multi layered Transportation Infrastructure

[resource distribution rethougMEGAFORMAgricultural Region Production Region


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Megaform generation strategies

g g

land parcelation system for ecient resource generation, management and distribution

division into regularized parcels

facilitates production

plugin to global resource megagrid

- data collection grid

- human resource management

- energy and materials distribution

transportation networks and

settlements bind each agri region

creating a consistent pattern

ow networks

- roads

- canals

division of grid cells into

inner production region

and border settlemnt network

output product specication

and labour intensity/density

- low density settlements

- ecient specialization

grid variation according

to topography and

argricultural requirements

- mega agricultural plots

- product transportation

production megaform

output plugin

production megaform

hight speed ligh

waste conv

input & output center manufactodata collection

resource distributionprodcut distribution

input and recycling energy

Megaform generation

g

plug into the resource distribution megagrid system

key points of region edge

plug into the resource distribution

megagrid

- data collection

- human resource management

- energy and materials distribution

plugin to global resource megagrid

district grid variation

according to topography

and urban form fabric

- highspeed light rail

- product transportation

- waste transporting tu

- heat and eletricity net

production megafo

voronoi as production mega

formand region main arteries

- receive energy and raw materials

from globlal resource megagrid

- distribution of goods from output center

I Input resource plugin

I

I

I

I

I

I

waste conveying system

connected to residential grid

- manufactoring centre

- waste conveying centre

O output product plugin

O

O

O

O

agricultural land - replies of a system of ecient parcelation

agri resources production zones - each zone is responsible for a

dierent set of crops/live stock products

settlement zones - uniformly distibuted throughout region

inbetween boundaries - ow networks for input/output parcel interior - production

parcel boundary - human inhabitation

65

THE EFFICIENT WORLD: Interregionality [resource distribution retho


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Source:

ECONOMIC SYSTEM:

Resource distribution

in economic regions.

SOCIAL SYSTEM:

Dierent economic regions= dierent social systems.

POLITICAL SYSTEM:

Existing national borders

within economic regions.

P R O D U C E D B Y A N A U T O D E S K

E D U C A T I O N A L P R O D U C T

P R O D U C E D B Y A N A U T O D E S K E D U C A T I O N A L P R O D U C T

P R OD U C E D B Y A N A U T OD E

S K E D U C A T I ON A L P R OD U C T

PRODUCEDBY ANAUTODESK EDUCATIONAL PRODUCT

Natural Resources

Minerals and Ores

Agriculture

Fossil Fuels

Alternative Energy

Tech & secondary production

Population and Production Overlay Map Data Collection and Enforcement G

Interregional Connectivity Map

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[resource distribution rethought]NEW GEOGRAPHIES


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Technology Region

Natural Resources Region

The Collection and Distribution System

Our world introduces a new economic system based on the redistribution of resources. While the current political system still exists,

they take a back seat to the new system of checks and balances that the redistribution of resources creates between regions.The new

resource distributional system is f ormed by a worldwide grid which serves as the mechanism of collection and distribution. The nodes and

connecting segments plug into each other creating a megastructure which then plug into the other systems of resources creating our

world's megaform. Our New Geographic is the collection and distributional system itself. The system's function produces its form and since

the function remains consistent throughout, its pipeline formation becomes the constant state of being. Then each region's individual

function ascribes the system a secondary condition to its form by changing the manner in which the system interacts with the ear th.

For example, Agricultural Regions will see the system at ground level. This allows for a more ecient transportation condition

between the elds and distributional system. Technology Regions will see the system rising up to meet the level of the skyscraper. Cities

in this region will become nodes with outlying areas plugging into the system. Fossil Fuel Regions will see the system dive under the

surface, tapping directly into the source. In its default state, the system is raised 10 feet above ground. The aesthetics that go beyond the

functional formation of the system varies and depends on the locality.

Agriculture Region

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StatementWorld Four emerges rom Doxiadis’ conceptiono the world as ecumenopolis, ater reachingits peak population o 20 billion in 2120 The

World Four | Post-Ecumenopolis ringed edges or the resources in the center introduces a period o negotiation andcooperation, or alternatively war and amine,either case ushering in an era o massive


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its peak population o 20 billion in 2120. Theworld o the post-ecumenopolis posits a state o civilization where greater educationalattainment, resource scarcity, environmentaldegradation eventually culminates in adecrease o population worldwide.

The question o the post-ecumenopolisworld is, what is to be done with all o theinrastructure, services, and built matter

constructed to support the highest density o urban growth the planet has ever seen? Someinrastructures, such as those that underpinthe digital domain, continue to be developed--screens, consoles, and wires persist to bethe vehicles through which we communicateand govern. As density deteriorates, peoplebecome urther dispersed and isolated, butsocial and cultural alliances still survivethrough the digital. The only physicalmobility is the transport o material goods,taking place underground in a system o high-speed tubes. The built environment that

previously resembled a single web o densitynow crumbles in the center, as remainingcitizens move to the edges o ecumenopolisclusters which provide best access to preciousdwindling resources. Cities themselves are nolonger - now stratifed into edge sett lements,they encircle resource territories and take onthe cooperative identity o a region. However,the culture o the past city still lingers, amessy artiact-strewn backyard, the “salvagezone” where digital richness and waste thr ivetogether.

All energies now concentrate on the fciencieso resource extraction, and it is the pastoralarable lands that ironically become stage tothe greatest achievements in architecture andtechnology. But everything built up must comedown, and the regional decisions to repair,improve, or divest in these systems becomeblurry. Inevitable competition amongst the

either case ushering in an era o massiveinrastructural destruction and rehabilitationor strategic use. Extraction componentsbecome bearing walls, building ragmentsbecome barriers, and the edges now fndthemselves ully divided and surrounding anedifce o sel-protective, boundary-inducinginrastructure.

It is now this central mass o built matter, o

past transport, agriculture, countryside, andwarront with its tombstones o the past, thatbecomes a monument, a symbol that embodiesall that has been lost and won on the path romde-densitifcation to stability. Inhabitants o post-ecumenopolis are constantly remindedwith layers o social, political, and urbanhistory, charged with connotations that arephysically maniest in the debris o thearchaeological ruin. The ruin presents anew networked geography that replaces theconnective tissues o ecumenopolis -- andeach ruin embodies a particular struggle

representing the end o urbanization, theconquest o the machine age, and theneglected symbols o cultural identity.

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powerregional

powerindividual

powerglobal

water

ECUMENOPOLIS

POST-ECUMENOPOLIS: INTERREGIONALITY

DEPOPULATION POST-ECUMENOPISOLATED DENSITIES

water

Global Power is inherited from the

Ecumenopolis model and controls

trade and Post - Ecumenopolis

resource allocation.

Due to isolated personal identity,

Regional Power is less about

crafting a unified local political

identy and more about a shift in

scale of global government in

order to control the allocation of

resources.

Due to the free flow of

information through the digital

realm, as well as the fact that

energy is plentiful and no

longer plays a significant role in

the distrubtion of global power,

the Individual’s Power

becomes the most prominent

form of governance.

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PHASE 01: ISOLATED DENSITIES PHASE 02: DETERIORATING INFRASTRUCTURE +

DISSOLVED GOVERNANCE

PHASE 03: DIVIDED GROUND, MIDDLE GROUND


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POST-ECUMENOPOLIS: THE MEGAFORM

01 Concentration of population in edges

02 Underground infrastructure for

goods/materials

03 Arable agricultural center with deteriorating

transport infrastructure

04 Personal isolation + dependence on digital

05 Loose governmental identification at inter-

regional scale – increasing individual power

06 Existing cultural ties through digital infra-

structure within “salvage” areas

“SALVAGE” ZONE WITH DIGITA

01 Population in edges, globally shrinking

02 Underground infrastructure for goods/materials

03 Increasingly deteriorating i nfrastructure

04 Individual isolation with increased dependence

on digital

05 Almost no governance at regional scale –

increasing ties within the edges

06 Increased digital infrastructure in salvage areas

serve to connect culturally, divide physically

01 Population in edges globally shrinking

02 Sustained underground infrastructure for

physical goods/materials

03 Arable agricultural center with reappropriated

transport infrastructure, strategically built up to

create edge resource allocation boundaries

04 Complete personal isolation through digital

05 Amicable decision to dissolve interregional

governance due to shrinking population + no

need for larger central governing body,

self-sustaining edges oversee resource

distribution

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POST ECUMENOPOLIS


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PRE-ECUMENOPOLIS ECUMENOPOLIS DEPOPULATION RESETTLEMENT POST-ECUMENOPOLIS

POST-ECUMENOPOLIS: TIMELINE

PHASE I: ISOLATED DENSITIES PHASE 2: INFRASTRUCTURE NETWORKS PHASE 3: RESOURCE NEGOTIATION PHASE 4: POST-ECUMENOPOLIS

- Global depopulation leads to ininhabitation of the border between thestructure of the crumbling ecumenopolisand the hinterlands

- Cultural identity remains in the old city

- Regional government dictates thedistribution of the natural resourcesaround which the edge citiesaccumulate

- Advances in technology allow formostly digital interaction leading tophysical isolation

- New infrastructure networks are constructedunderground for the transport of goods and people

- 21st century constructs of transportation are nolonger useful because of the vastly diminished needfor travel as well as the advent of new travel

technologies

- As natural and salvaged resources becomemore diminished, the need for clearly definedterritories becomes paramount

- Conflict breaks out where territorial bordersare unclear

- The crumbling transportation infrastructureof previous eras are broken down andreassembled to form barriers, more clearlydefining resource allocation

- As the disputes settle, the barrier takes on asymbolic value

- The border cities increasingly rely on digitalmeans of communication. To accommodatethe increased digital communications, thenow depopulated centers of theecumenopolis are occupied by a dense webof digital infrastructure.

- After long disputes over resources, theinterregional governments are dissolved. Thisis largely due to the self-sustaining quality ofthe cities, as each is located within reach ofall necessary resources

- cities retain their cultural ties with othercities that share their digital core. - cities that have adjacent natural resourcesm

Imagining a City-World Beyond Cosmopolis: New Geographies Seminars 2010 – 2011

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