BigUrbanThings

Nathan GellerAdvisor : Kyle MillerSyracuse University

Awarded Citation for Excellence in Thesis Design

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Objects

Scale

Context

Bigness

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Rem Koolhaas, “Bigness,” in XMLXL (1994) 495-516.Object Oriented Ontology is a movement in contemporary philosophy founded by Graham Harman that rejects the priveledging of human existence over that of nonhuman objects.

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Big Urban Things are the culmination of three different elements: Bigness1 of scale, Context, and Objects understood through the lens of Object Oriented Ontology.2 This thesis explores the role of large buildings within their greater urban context, and in doing so seeks to fi nd new means by which buildings of a large scale can be considered contextual.

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tangible

intangibleObject Oriented OntologyNew York City Identity

Capitalism

Zoning

Mid-Atlantic Climate

Part to Whole

Manhattan Grid

Surrounding Buildings

PhysicalDiscursivePoliticalEconomic

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ContextAlso identifi ed as sensual context, physical context is characterized as anything that can be perceived or felt by the subject. This includes the buildings in the city, the grid of the city, the climate of the city, and the city’s identity.

Discursive context pertains to infl uences from contemporary architectural discourse that infl uences the building’s design.

The political context presents itself in the form of zoning laws and building codes.

The economic context of capitalism also infl uences design decisions.

Physical

Discursive

Political

Economic

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ContextWhen considering context, the relations between people and objects and objects and objects present themselves differently depending on scale and the distance to the Big Urban Thing.

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ContextWhen closest to a Big Urban Thing, the contextual relationship is much more tangible. The building form relates to its context through the framing of views, adjacencies to other buildings, and its relationship with the user.

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ContextSlightly further from the Big Urban Thing, the contextual relationship mediates between a tangible relation and intangible relation. The relationship to the context presents itself as a more nuanced relational form and posturing within its surrounding context.

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ContextAt the furthest point from the Big Urban Thing, the contextual relationship is primarily intangible. In this sense, a Big Urban Thing relates to its context by reacting to the city’s identity, character, and essence.

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The interest with context, and being contextual, is born from the belief that the ultimate manifestation of architecture is in the built environment. What separates architecture from the fi ne arts of sculpture and painting is its unavoidable interaction with not only intangible context but tangible context as well.

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Architecture According to

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Cody Clancy, Zach Hoffmann, Alyssa Johnston, Braden Scott. “The Synthetic Proto-Image”.Zach Grzybowski, Maria Nikolovski, Danica Selem. “Objectifi ed Field”.Zach Beale. “The Infernal”.Megan Cheung, Andrew Gardner. “Maximalism: Ferrari Headquarters”.Daniel Caven. “Anamorphic Carcases”.Chunlan Zeng. “Agglomeration Apartments”.Shane Bearrow. “The Birth and Reverberation of an Object”.Moksud Khan. “Object-Oriented Artifacts”.Zach Beale. “Speculative Duplicity”.Cedric Al Kazzi, JiaRui Su. “Objects in Objects on Objects”.Alex Blugerman, Smita Lukose. “Withdrawn”.

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When considering recent projects that claim to driven by the infl uence of Object Oriented Ontology, a lack of a rigorous study of architecture and its context presents itself as a major shortcoming.

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“An object is any unifi ed entity, whether it has a reality in the world or only in the mind.”1

Graham Harman, Towards Speculative Realism: Essays and Lectures (Winchester, UK: Zero Books, 2010), 109

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In architectural terms, an object building is usually meant to signify a building that rejects its context. Objects in terms of Graham Harman’s Object Oriented Ontology or OOO, however, have a much broader defi nition. As Harman explains in his book Towards Speculative Realism, “An object is any unifi ed entity, whether it has a reality in the world or only in the mind.” This expanded defi nition of the term object helps to form the foundation of Object Oriented Ontology. Therefore, it can be said that not only is a building an object, but things like people, the city as a whole, the economic climate, and the environment are also objects.

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Bjarke Ingels. BIG. http://big.dk/#projects-81

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Objects in Object Oriented Ontology are viewed as discrete entities that cannot be understood through their external relations. Harman refers to attempts to examine objects through their relations as overmining, undermining, and duomining. These acts are to be avoided, according to Harman, as they prevent us from understanding the object in and of itself.

An example of duomining shown here is BIG’s 8 House in which the building’s design is undermined by justifying it through a step by step process and also overmined justifying it as a reaction to contingencies such as sun angles. OOO argues, in fact, that an object can never be fully exhausted by its relations, not matter how many different ways we consider it.

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Object Oriented OntologyFlat Ontolog y –Vicarious CausationObject Oriented Ontology claims that all objects, human or otherwise, belong on the same ontological plane. This places the object to object relationship that buildings have with one another on the same level as a person’s relationship to a building. In speaking of these relations, Graham Harman introduces vicarious causation as a way to understand and characterize the way in which objects interact with one another. These characterizations (Containment, Contiguity, Sincerity, Connection, None) can perhaps begin to inform new ways in which architecture can begin to relate to its context.

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House

Block

District

City

“...many of the relations of containment–one object in another–that you might think are real might not be. It might be that, maybe the house isn’t part of the city. Maybe the house is part of the block and the block is part of the city. The fact that you can state that there is a relation between one object and a larger object doesn’t necessarily mean that it is there.”1

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ContainmentArchitecture Relating to the CityWhen discussing the problem of context Graham Harman presents this theory of containment which states that a house (or singular building) cannot relate directly to the city as a whole. A house can only relate to its surrounding block, the block can relate to its district or neighborhood, and then that district can relate directly to the city as a whole.

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House

Block

District

City

“...many of the relations of containment–one object in another–that you might think are real might not be. It might be that, maybe the house isn’t part of the city. Maybe the house is part of the block and the block is part of the city. The fact that you can state that there is a relation between one object and a larger object doesn’t necessarily mean that it is there.”1

BigUrbanThing

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A Big Urban Thing is something that is too large to be contained by anything except for the city. By introducting a Big Urban Thing into the city, the relation of containment is exploited in a way that allows the relationship between building and city to become present.

ContainmentArchitecture Relating to the City

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CityBigUrbanThing

BigUrbanThing

City

How does a Big Urban Thing relate to the city in which it exists contextually?

How does a city absorb something that does not fi t within its inherent logic?

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A Big Urban Thing fl ickers between singular object and a collection of spatial experiences.

A Big Urban Thing is an object and a thing. It oscillates between an object relating to other objects—a physical relationship to built context—and an object in relation to its inhabitants.

A Big Urban Thing is as interested in how its parts relate to one another as how its collective whole relates to the collection of buildings making up the city in which it lives.

Big Urban Things

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Graham HarmanObject Oriented Ontology

Rem KoolhaasBigness

Architecture can only be related to the city through a level of Bigness

Bigness as a theory negates the relationship between architectureand the city.

HOWEVER

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Harman and KoolhaasKoolhaas’ assertion that once architecture expands to a certain scale that the relationship between building and context becomes internalized creates an interesting paradox when read through the writing of Graham Harman.It is within this paradox where Big Urban Things fi nd themselves situated. By revisiting Koolhaas’ explanation of Bigness through the writings of Graham Harman, architecture can only be related directly to the city through a level of Bigness.

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The Pentagon

Merchandise Mart

Renaissance Center

Osaka Station City

CCTV Headquarters

De Rotterdam

Apple Campus 2

One World Trade Center

Empire State Building

MetLife Building

111 Eigth Avenue Google

55 Water Street

Washington, DC

Chicago, IL

Detroit, MI

Osaka, Japan

Beijing, China

Rotterdam, Netherlands

Cupertino, CA

}}}Located in New York City

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Big Urban Thingsby square footageWhen looking at existing buildings that can be considered Big Urban Things and comparing their size in terms of square footage to some of the largest buildings in New York City, we can see that the introduction of a Big Urban Thing into New York City quickly becomes the largest project in Manhattan. This perhaps suggests that the strict logic of the grid in Manhattan does not easily accommodate the introduction of a Big Urban Thing. Thusly, by introducing a Big Urban Thing into Manhattan, and forcing the grid to adjust, new frictions and relationships will be revealed.

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737’

356’

440’300,000 ft2

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SiteThe specifi c site that I have selected is a vacant plot of land along the East River, just south of the United Nations Headquarters.

This land, which was the former location of the Con Edison Power Plant, has been of great interest for possible redevelopment, but has been left vacant for a variety of economic and political reasons. The site’s location directly adjacent to the East River is also desirable, because it allows for the necessary distance needed to perceive the Big Urban Thing in order to appreciate it as a singular object.

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SiteThe site is already zoned correctly for a large offi ce building, and has an FAR of 18, provided a public plaza is included on my site. Given the uniquely large site for Manhattan, this site is allotted a maximum of 5.45 million square feet. This is all to say that this site provides a unique set of circumstances that make the design of a Big Urban Thing possible.

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ContingenciesQualities

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I propose that prioritizing qualities derived from a composite of the apparent and latent characteristics of the urban context provides a new way for architecture of a large scale to relate to the urban context within which it is situated. These qualities essentially form the program list as they are the basis upon which I design.

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BignessThe large scale of the buildings that comprise the city as well as the city itself evoke the quality of Bigness.

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ConcentratedThe density of the districts that culminate in the makeup of New York City is created by a concentration of similar or related activities, industries, and cultures.

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AutonomousEach district can be thought of its own self-suffi cient entity, providing all services one would need, yet the districts still make connections with each other, both aparent and latent. The multitude of services and activities contained within the Big Urban Thing allow it to operate in a similar manner, creating an environment that is essentially self-suffi cient.

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Relationship to GridThe regularized grid established by the Commissioner’s Plan of 1811, creates a rigid framework within which the city relentlessly abides. The grid not only serves as an ordering device, but also creates expansive view corridors. These corridors serve to frame specifi c objects at times, while in some instances a sense of the infi nite is achieved.

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FiguralIn only rare instances is an urban building’s fi gure able to be perceived in totality. The density of the urban condition causes buildings, that we know to be discrete, to cluster and form collectively singular fi gures.

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Unique CharacterThe uniqueness in the character of each district in New York City, while not always tangible, is a quality that has a great impact in shaping the city. Each district’s character seemingly is able to maintain its uniqueness while also acknowledging its surrounding districts.

Midtown Business District SoHo Shopping District

Financial District Theater District

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One World Trade Center

Empire State

Building

Bank of America Tower

Chrysler Building

New York Times Tower

The Pentagon

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ProgramRedesigning the Pentagon in New York CityReturning to the analysis of Big Urban Things in New York City, the Pentagon becomes particularly interesting when compared to the tallest buildings in the City. Here we can appreciate the sheer size of the Pentagon.

A project that considers a redesign of the Pentagon in the context of Manhattan allows for the new readings of context that Big Urban Things offer. The Pentagon itself is lacking a rigorous relationship to its current context.

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ProgramRedesigning the Pentagon in New York CityIn fact, the Pentagon was originally intended to be built on a different site. It is from this site that the pentagonal shape was derived. When the decision was made to change the site for the original design, time constraints did not allow for a complete redesign. Instead, the irregular pentagon designed for the initial site was transformed into the perfect pentagon of which we are familiar.

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ProgramRedesigning the Pentagon in New York CityThe Pentagon has been moved before.Why not move it again?

By relocating and redesigning the Pentagon in New York City, new frictions inherent in the introduction of Big Urban Things into a city—frictions that the current Pentagon avoids—can be brought to the forefront.

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5.1 Acres

6,636,360 sq ft

921 feet

1414 feet

77.3 feet (5 fl oors above ground)

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ProgramRedesigning the Pentagon in New York CityPrimarily composed of offi ces for the Department of Defense, the Pentagon also contains a large amount of other programmed areas for the convenience of approximately 24,000 employees.

3,700,000 sq ft of Offi cesPentagon Athletic Center (PAC)Meditation and Prayer RoomsHall of Heroes(17.5 miles) of circulation Food Courts and Shopping Centers

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BignessBigness is a quality extrapolated from the Pentagon, but then operates in a productive manner when introduced into the city.

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IconicWhile this quality was originally derived from an understanding of the Pentagon’s physical and conceptual impact on its surroundings, it is also very much apparent in New York City as well. Architecturally, this quality presents itself in the form of recognizable shapes and fi gures.

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SecureThe nature of a building designed to house the nation’s Department of Defense calls for a facility that provides security at a variety of means and methods. Not only is the building itself secure, but it presents a perception of security as well.

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SublimeThe sublime aesthetic is utilized in the form of obscured forms, repitition, magnifi cence of scale, and power. Traits of this quality can be found in both the urban fabric and the Pentagon.

Repititious facade

Inability to be perceived in its entirety

Vastness of scale

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MonolithicA monolithic quality is maintained from an analysis of the Pentagon. This quality is the result of presenting the building as if it is one singular whole. Power and heaviness are also associated with this quality.

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ChunkyChunkiness alludes to the preservation of the “objectness” of each component. While the fi nal form is meant to be perceived as one unifi ed whole, its smaller elements relate to each other in a way that preserves their “wholeness”; rather than combining submissively in service of creating one smooth object. This distinction is in response to Object Oriented Ontology’s position that there are no longer parts in service of a whole, but rather whole objects combining to form other whole objects.

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Relationship to GroundA specifi c relationship to the ground is integral in maintaining the “objecthood” of both the building and the ground itself. It is important for the building to avoid fusing with the ground as that would only confuse the independence of each.

Puncture Plinth

Peel Merge

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My project is about contextualizing Bigness1 through the writings of Graham Harman2.

Rem Koolhaas, “Bigness,” in XMLXL (1994) 495-516.Object Oriented Ontology is a movement in contemporary philosophy founded by Graham Harman that rejects the priveledging of human existence over that of nonhuman objects.

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By balancing the seemingly competing viewpoints of both Graham Harman’s Object Oriented Ontology and Rem Koolhaas’ Bigness, this project has developed a way in which large buildings can become contextual by prioritizing desired qualities of the context over unperceivable or over simplifi ed contingencies and adopting principles of Koolhaas’ theory of Bigness. This new strategy aims to expand the scope for which we deem architecture to become contextual by embedding the qualities of the context into the design rather than reacting with or against the surrounding context.¬

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60in x 32inPhysical Model Scale 1” = 50’-0”Medium-density Fiberboard, Museum Board, Acrylic, Paint

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Completed with assistance from Ian Mulich, José Sanchez, and Wilson Slagle

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18in x18in Physical Model Scale 1” = 300’-0”Makerbot Replicator 2 (Context), ZPrinter 350 (Design), Acrylic, Medium-density FiberboardCompleted with assistance from Ian Mulich, José Sanchez, and Wilson Slagle