Urban Thermodynamics

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URBAN THERMO DYNAMICS THESIS MASTER PROJECT MOISES GAMUS DUEK

description

Urban renovation strategies explored through tehrmodynamic principles

Transcript of Urban Thermodynamics

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URBAN THERMO DYNAMICSTHESIS MASTER PROJECT

MOISES GAMUS DUEK

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Moises Gamus Duek © Master in Advanced ArchitectureBarcelona 2010

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Evolutionary Index________________________________5Introduction____________________________________6-7Work Developed During Masters’ Program___________8-11Thesis Framework________________________________12

Week 1 Thesis Proposal________________________________13 Brainstorming_______________________________14-15 Urban Thermodynamics_______________________16-17 On Neighborhood Planning____________________18-19 Cellular Organization_________________________20-21 Dynamic Balance____________________________22-23 Site_______________________________________24-28

Week 2 Eco Machinic Apparatus 1.0____________________29-31 Eco Machinic Apparatus 1.1____________________32-33 On Thermodynamics _____________________34-35 Eco Machinic Apparatus 2.0____________________36-37 Eco Machinic Apparatus 2.1____________________38-39 Eco Machinic Apparatus 2.2____________________40-41 Comments and Conclusions______________________42

Week 3 Network Systems______________________________43-47 Eco Machinic Apparatus 3.0______________________48-54 Magnetic Fields Diagrams________________________55-60

Week 4 Eco Machinic Apparatus 2.3______________________61-67 Comments and Other Influences_____________________68 On Boundaries________________________________69-71 On Density______________________________________72

Week 5 Eco Machinic Apparatus 4.0_________________________73 Locating Urban Elements________________________74-79 Apparatus 4.0 Strategy and Design_________________80-85 Reflections______________________________________86

Week 6 Eco Machinic Apparatus 2.4 Design________________87-89 Results and Observations________________________90-99

Chronological Index

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Evolutionary Index. Natural selection of ideas.

Eco Machinic Apparatus 1.0

(29-31)

Eco Machinic Apparatus 1.1 (32-33)

Eco Machinic Apparatus 2.3 (61-67)

Eco Machinic Apparatus 4.0 (73-86)

Eco Machinic Apparatus 2.4

(87-99)

On Boundaries (69-71)

On Density (72)

Eco Machinic Apparatus 2.0 (36-37)

Eco Machinic Apparatus 3.0 (48-54)

Network Systems (43-47)

Eco Machinic Apparatus 2.1 (38-39)

Eco Machinic Apparatus 2.2 (40-41)

On Thermodynamics (34-35)

WEE

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URBAN PLANNINGNATURAL SCIENCES

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Neighborhood Planning (18-19)

Site Analysis (10-14)

Urban Thermodynamics

(16-17)

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The present research has been developed as a final project for the Master in Advanced Architecture at the Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia (IaaC), 2009-2010.

eco-Machinic ApparatusAdvisors: ecoLogic Studio: Marco Poleto, Claudia Pasquero

Thesis Advisors´ Introduction:

While systemic thinking provides the cultural substratum for an understanding of the relationship between cause and effect in the realm of complexity, the discipline of architecture still lacks operational instruments for the organization of complex material transformations [artificial ecologies].This thesis framework will therefore concentrate on the development of such instrument, the “eco-Machinic Apparatus”, an architectonic platform where technology is embedded in new forms of synthetic life. The ”Apparatus” offers the opportunity to incorporate scientific and technical ‘know how’ while testing in real time its effects within the realm of architectural and urban design.

This research framework is organized around the development of the following 3 components:

The Apparatus:Students will be asked to formulate their initial research hypothesis by extracting from their previous projects: - material properties - organizational principles

and logics – energetic and informational flows.These will be then synthesized in a first working model were the emergent patterns of self organization and potential for systemic self regulation will be explored. This “Apparatus” will then become the main tool of design research allowing direct evaluation of architectural effects as a result of material and organizational changes; every experimental iteration will lead to a refining of the model and its material qualities, sensing capabilities and behavioral intelligence. As the experiment progresses a more complex behavior can be nurtured and qualitative differences can be appreciated.

LabBook:While the “Apparatus” provides the main mean of research and architectural expression, the LabBook will be the recording instrument of the research activity. Formatted as a diary, it will register any daily activity, experimental findings, background research, fabrication drawings, comments and thoughts, conceptual and critical arguments. At the end of the course it will be bound as hard covered book.

VideoScenario:A 2 min. video will be accompanying the final presentation as a mean to recreate a design scenario based on the behavior and performance of the“Apparatus” and its architectural scope and or repercussions. Presented as a conceptual scenario it can integrate ‘extracted scenes’ form research videos, stills or videos form the experiments, as well as staged scenarios of actualization.

Introduction

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URBAN THERMODYNAMICS.

The present research explores the possibility of applying thermodynamic principles to the form and evolution of the urban structure.

The analogies presented here are both physical and conceptual, where the test results are read through empiric thermodynamic behavior, offering the possibility to speculate with similar behaviors in urban environments.

A specific site has been chosen in order to apply the resulting observations and flow patterns. Evidently, the results are influenced by the site´s unique context and local realities.

Above all, the intention is not to present an actual proposal for a masterplan, but to speculate on the possibility of urban renovation strategies based on thermodynamic behaviors.

Introduction

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Previous work during the Master’s Program

The present research is the culminating document of a series of projects, ideas, reflections and concerns during the Master in Advanced Architecture program.

It is for this reason that selected work is included in this document, to be understood as a reference of a contiuous research line based on the Emergent Territories Studio at the Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia.

The IaaC works beyond the conven-tional scales of territorial design, townplanning, building or fabrication in de-signing a multiscale habitat. As in thedesign of ecosystems, each level has itsown rules of interaction and relation,and at the same time must complywith certain parameters that pertain tothe system as a whole. The EmergentTerritories group works on projectsthat range in scale from the territory tothe neighbourhood. The idea of Emer-gent Territories is related to two issues:On the one hand, the IaaC is interestedin understanding those countries andcities around the world with emergingeconomies and cultures that, by virtueof their regional or economic position,can contribute value to the planet as awhole. In recent years we have studiedBrazil, Croatia, Taiwan, Romania, Co-lombia and Tunisia, or in the near future

will be studying India and the countriesof North Africa, the Persian Gulf andSub-Saharan Africa. The work done inthese countries seeks to identify theparticular urban and territorial valuesof these places in order to constructE M E R G E N TT E R R I T O R I E Smore intelligent territories anywhere in theworld, moving on from the Western ideathat there is a single model of city (be it Eu-ropean or American) to work on the basis ofmore complex and more open values. Theother issue related to emergent territorieshas to do with the creation of intelligentterritories that function in a multiscalarway, in order that the relationship betweennatures, networks and nodes can fomentthe ‘emergence’ of an urban intelligence.To this end we are interested in pursuingwhat we call ‘Hyperhabitat’ research as aprocess of developing a general theory of.

the multiscalar habitat that can be appliedanywhere in the world and at any scale, as abasis for the construction of complete com-plex ecosystems. This group also focuseson Barcelona as a site for ongoing urbanexperimentation, with a view to contrib-uting to the discussions and re# ections inrelation to the urban progress of the city.

IaaC’s Brief

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Previous work during the Master’s Program_ Arboreal Studio

REACTIVE PERFORMANCE

A tree is a reactive organism, continuously adapting to its environment.Similarly, our design for a tree house deals with a reactive and adaptive behavior.The house is a research tool, a living organism spatially and structurally related to the tree, always moving and shifting its shape following environmental conditions and the behavior of the tree.

The Tree-Lab, as we call it, offers shelter as well as the possibility to extract data from the tree and the environment. This information is registered in the structural joints, which are spherical joints allowing multidirectional movement. The skin is a sensitive envelope that reacts to the tree as well as the environment: its substructure is defined by a parametric system that monitors climate conditions and reacts to them, becoming a mechanized organism able to interact with its environment, bringing closer the dialogue between human and nature.

Team: Jessica Lai, Gianluca Santosuosso, Moises Gamus D.

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Previous work during the Master’s Program_ Emergent Territories Studio I

E C O B A R R I O

Uncontrolled urban growth has caused social deterioration and environmental disequilibrium, especially in emergent global economies. Resources scarcity has set an urgent agenda to switch to renewable energetic resources and more efficient ways to distribute them.

Current models of urban planning have the limitation of extending the cities sideways, whereas in this research we explore the possibility of releasing the city from the ground condition, creating an infrastructural framework that can be adapted to different built environments.

Resources are prioritized in the morphology of this neighborhood, setting up cyclic loops of energy, water and waste, in order to generate an efficient generation and distribution of energy.

Based on the geometry of a hyperbolic paraboloid, the neighborhood is arranged as a compact and integrated urban system within itself.

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Previous work during the Master’s Program_Emergent Territories Studio IIOPERATIONAL LANDSCAPES

There is no change without need, cities are continuously evolving through time, as they need to grow and adapt to new technologies, frequencies and modes of operation.

We envision the contemporary city as a compact and interrelated urban system, in which public space is able to articulate urban program and integrate society. Contextual realities are forces that give shape to built environments: It is just a matter of acute observation and critical selection.

The present proposal attempts to adapt and reinterpret particular spatial qualities that result from spontaneous (unplanned) development and local tradition, following self organization logics, as in the case of Saki-Naka/Asalfa neighborhood, in Mumbai.

Through careful observation of the site, dense and intricate patterns emerge, suggesting inventiveness and economy as people build their own homes, following simple rules regarding the environment, the territory and local social fabric.Informed by topographic opportunities and environmental conditions, the main focus of the site plan is to disperse public space throughout the land at comfortable walking distances, articulating urban programs and detonating social interaction.

Public space defines the shape and geometry of the urban tissue, a compact and intertwined pattern regulated by density constrains, environmental performance and a sense of harmonious coexistence.

Conceiving the landscape as a microeconomic platform, a food production cycle is organized, strategically locating food crops, trading areas, industrial spaces and distribution networks. Such cycle will help the community sustain itself, develop a healthier relationship with the environment and allow the urban form to convey the vitality of the city.

By 2050 more than 70 % of the global population will be urban. We cannot let this happen; we have to plan for it to happen in a balanced, organized and sustainable manner. Let’s start now. .

Team: Michael A. Harrison, Moises Gamus D.

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EMERGENCE AND THE FORMS OF CITIES.

City forms are material constructs that are composed of aspatial array of dewllings, a pattern of streets and public spaces together with differentiated buildings of varying sizes associated with the regulation of energy and material flow, and the extension of a metabolic network across the surrounding territory.

City forms emerged within different topographies and ecological systems, evolving from regional variations of the founding system and the established patterns of settlements from which they condensed. The forms expanded and developed, strongly coupled to the dynamic changes of climate and ecology within which they were situated.

METABOLISM IN LIVING FORMS

Metabolism is the ‘fire of life’, the system by which all living forms are able to live, to construct themselves and to grow, to dynamically mantain themselves over time, and to reproduce. Metabolic processes enable and regulate the capture of energy and materials from the exterior environment, and excreting changed materials and energy back into the environment.

The metabolic processes of living forms produce changes in their environment (...). The organization of whole ecological systems emerges from the multiple processes of all forms of life that coexist within it. Many living forms externalize some aspects of their metabolism by material constructions, often collectively arrayed and organized (such as nests and burrows).

- Michael Weistock, “The Architecture

of Emergence”.

Thesis Framework

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WEEK 01

THESIS PROPOSAL

Inspired by processes of nature, urban renovation strategies can be developed resulting in efficient and harmonious urban environments.

Urban population is increasing at a fast pace. This is an opportunity to redefine our conception of neighborhood and plan for a sustainable urban environment, inspired on the logics of nature.

Develop an Eco-Machinic Apparatus as a tool to observe and test natural behaviors of aggregation, expansion and boundary (rezdefinition, based on density gradients and heat-induced behaviors and deformations.

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bRAINSTORMING

Brainstorming

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Brainstorming

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The contemporary city should be understood as a hybrid organism between self-organized, dynamic patterns, and a continous application of urban planning policies.

Cities are the habitat of humans, the most complex species of all, due to the wide number of fields and networks it responds to: thermic, magnetic, symbolic, cultural, biologic, psychologic, economic, historic, and many more.

Urban Thermodynamics

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Understand the city as an urban ecosystem,following logics of social dynamics and biologic behavior. This research will attempt to deal with the city from different perspectives, allowing a holistic and non-linear approach.

URBAN PLANNING (architecture, urbanism, sociology, economy, engineering...)

+NATURAL SCIENCES (biology, physics, chemistry, astronomy...)

URBAN THERMODYNAMICS.

Urban Thermodynamics

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Main principles of sustainable urban planning and design, by N. Salingaros:

A) Implement geometry of compact, human-scaled cities.

B) Use traditional building and urban planning techniques -- but not exclusively, nor for nostalgic reasons -- but because these evolved along with humankind in difficult energy conditions, and are therefore the most energy efficient.

C) Planning and design should be based upon invariants such as socio-geometric patterns. Patterns cannot be contradicted by some fancy innovative artistic "design" without causing seriousnegative consequences, because the patterns are based upon human nature itself.

D) Re-use models and typologies that have worked in the past.

E) Innovate but only if an innovation adds functionality in a sustainable sense, never if it is just a flashy new-looking image, and never if it totally replaces a sustainable older solution that works. Any improvement on evolved solutions introduced too suddenly could be catastrophic, so be very suspicious of utopian schemes.

Place Diagram www.pps.org

On the Gobal and Digital City, by Saskia Sassen:

There is no such thing as one global city. The global city is a function of a network of cities. In that sense it is different from the capitals of old empires where you have one city at the top. The kind of urban space that the contemporary period makes possible is different -because of the simultaneity, the instantaneousness of the communication - from any older period where you always had cities connected to each other. This is different because this is something that is happening simultaneously in long-distance digital networks and in a very, very concentrated space.

However, this notion of the digital community -- the global village in digital space -- I find it a concept that is both attractive and terribly ambiguous. We are dealing with a certain kind of community in public digital space which is only a part of digital space.

“Public space is for living, doing business, kissing and playing.It can’t be measured with economics; it must be felt with the soul.”

-Enrique Peñalosa, Bogata Major 1998-2000

On Urban Boundaries, by Michael Leaf.

The very nature of urban planning practice requires that we think carefully about the implications of boundaries. In the most fundamental sense of the term as it pertains to urban planning, boundaries refer to the basic parameters of problem definition, with the observation that what lies beyond may be insufficiently conceptualized, if not overlooked entirely.

Neighborhood Planning

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Land use demand can be estimated as the amount of land necessary for each urban programme, considering population and employment growth.

The concept of neighborhood must be able to reproduc e how agents interact, considering both spatial and functional levels of interaction.

Systems interdependent to each other, linking scales and programs. Allow for exchange of information between urban program , density, urban fabric and public space.

Neighborhood definition must shift from the concept of a limited area to a larger and interconnected part of the territory both at regional and local scales.

Urban interactions can be measured using indicators of population, employment, and commuting flows. Urban patterns as contextual tissues evolving in time.

Humanist urban theorists.Jane Jacobs. Christopher Alexander. Nikos Salingaros....From masterplanning as zoning to space occupation as process of growth and differentiation. Emergence and cell aggregation allow for urban programs to develop naturally. Grid morphology has been driven mainly by a ‘planned’ top-down process where underlying forces have been driven by political decisions that have distorted market forces. First and foremost, the impositions of the Spanish Empire’s orthogonal grid laid down tacit rules, embedded in the geometry itself, that would guide its development from then on.

New neighborhoods, although developed without much governmental control and faster than they could be planned responding to economic boom, happened in the context of the existing implicit structure laid out by the original orthogonal geometry, hence the predominance of offset grids and the resulting ‘patchwork’ morphology of the city. The only processes that could be regarded as more‘naturally’ developed or organic are adaptations and subdivisions that have occurred in the original Spanish grid of the Historic Centre, squatter settlements and prevailing indigenous pueblo cores, but they are minimal.

Mexico City’s land use pattern selection developed driven by bottom-up movement economy forces regardless of its top-down growth and resulting patchwork morphology. Market forces adapted to the city’s ‘unnatural’ grid causing the complexity and at-first-glance distortion of the space-land-use relation. The city developed a spatial hierarchy similar to that of organic cities. These findings support urban economics ideas of agglomeration economies and network effects.

Land use patterns and access in Mexico City, By Claudia Ortiz-Chao.

ComplexCity by Lee Jang Sub

alfredo brillembourg. livespot 3xn & nord. aarhus masterplan

modernist urban “dream”

mad et al. huaxi city center

buckminster fuller + shoji sadao. dome over manhattan

north africa. dense urban tissue

Neighborhood Planning

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pathnet, by bruce pollockEpithelial tissue

bambusa cellular structure

cytokinesus

Cellular organization

Life exhibits varying degrees of organization. Atoms are organized into molecules, molecules into organelles, and organelles into cells, and so on. According to the Cell Theory, all living things are composed of one or more cells, and the functions of a multicellular

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Cellular organization

organism are a consequence of the types of cells it has. Cells fall into two broad groups: prokaryotes and eukaryotes. Prokaryotic cells are smaller (as a general rule) and lack much of the internal compartmentalization and complexity of eukaryotic cells.

“Any complex system (...) is capable of simoultaneously generating order and actively organizing itself into new structures and forms”. - Manuel De Landa

“The evolutionary development of all forms is regulated by the dynamics of energy flow. An increase in complexity is always coupled to an increase in the flow of energy through the system. Nearly all systems tend to increase in complexity over time” - Michael Weinstock

cellular division

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“The processes of complex systems produce, elaborate and mantain all the forms of natural and cultural systems, and those processes include exchanges of energy and material with their environment.” - Michael Weinstock

Dynamic Balance

EVERY ORGANIZATION IS AN ECOSYSTEM

An ecological system is a functional dynamic organization, or steady state. Steady state is understood as the phase of an ecological system’s evolution when the organisms are “balanced” with each other and their environment. This balance is regulated through various types of interactions, such as predation, parasitism, mutualism, commensalism, competition, and amensalism. Introduction of new elements, whether abiotic or biotic, into an ecosystem tend to have a disruptive effect.

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Dynamic Balance, local and global

The Milky Way, a dynamic systemThermic balance

Water Cycle Historic Balance: www.whoi.edu

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Site

Mexico City > Las Lomas de Chapultepec > Molino del Rey

Chapultepec, lung of the city and core of the metropolitan area. This forest remains one of the biggest green spaces of the city, providing both a natural relaxation field as well as a social gathering place.

Surrounded by high value residencial areas, commercial facilities and services, and right next to major avenues and roads, this neighbourhood has remained partially untouched by the real estate force and the end of century´s construction boom.

As the city expands and acquires new lands for its growth, there is no doubt that there will be a reconfiguration of this neighborhood. Wheather this urban renovation will happen in an organized and coordinated fashion, or in a dispersed and unplanned way, will have very different effects and reactions at the regional scale.This proposal deals with the reorganization of the neighborhood, using biologic behaviors as models for growth and interaction in spatial and temporal dimensions.

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Site

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GREEN SPACE

RESIDENTIAL (LOW - MEDUIM DENSITY)

COMMERCIAL / SERVICES(MEDIUM DENSITY)

MAJOR TRANSPORTATION

CYCLING TRACK

ADMINISTRATIVE PROPERTY

N

Site Analysis

SITE

Site Analysis

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Site Analysis

SITE AS OPPORTUNITYCurrently this “neighborhood” can not be considered as a dynamic sustainable environment.There is a lack of identity in terms of legibility and social interaction, which translates into a disfunctional and isolated entity in relation to the urban environment. There is no Barrio feeling, no community interaction.Unsusteinble both economically as well as ecologically, based on the fact that there are no internal cycles for production / consumption / systematic recycling of matter nor energy. No networked solutions.

Cannot be considered as a vibrant and dynamic environment in terms of urban planning, since there is no specific public space that allows social interaction of the people living on the immediate suroundings. Lack of community values. Infrastructural boundaries have delimited the urban site, as in the case of the cycling track, which could potentially help integrate the site with the city, but as of now it represents a phyisical and symbolic boundary.

This specific sector of the urban form has remained partially abandoned by real estate development, allowing an hollistic and strategical approach to neighborhood planning, in terms of scale, behavior simulations and potential realistic interventions.

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Site Analysis

Licencia de relotificación en superficies mayores a 10 veces Lote tipoDescripciónTrámite mediante el cual se trata de relotificar predios ubicados en el suelo urbano que no impliquen la modificación de la vía pública; y cuya superficie total sea como máximo de 10 veces la del lote mínimo determinado en los programas para la zona que se trate.

Documentación a obtener:Licencia de fusión de predios.

Tiempo de respuesta:Hasta 33 días hábiles. Si la solicitud está completa, la autoridad notificará la resoluciónaprobatoria en un plazo de 5 días hábiles, contados a partir de la fecha recepción de la solicitud.Una vez recibida la notificación, el solicitante deberá presentar o los avalúos, así como el comprobante de pago de derechos, en un plazo de quince días hábiles.La autoridad expedirá la licencia en un término de dos días hábiles contados a partir de la fecha de recepción del o los avalúos y del comprobante de pago de derechos. Si transcurrido el plazo de respuesta la autoridad no ha notificado la resolución al solicitante, se entenderá otorgada la licencia, conforme a los artículos 89 y 90 de la Ley de Procedimiento Administrativo del Distrito Federal.Una vez expedida la licencia correspondiente, deberá constar en escritura pública, dentro de los 3 años posteriores a aquel en que se otorgue, en su caso quedará sin efecto. Sin embargo podrá ser prorrogada.

Fundamento Jurídico:Ley Orgánica de la Administración Pública del Distrito Federal.- Artículos 13 fracción II, 21 fracción XIII y 32 fracción III. Ley de Desarrollo Urbano del Distrito Federal.- Artículos 12 fracciones IV, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48 y 49. Ley de Procedimiento Administrativo del Distrito Federal.- Artículos 41, 89 y 90. Código Financiero del Distrito Federal- Artículo 209. Reglamento Interior de la Administración Pública del Distrito Federal.- Artículos 25 fracción I, 46 fracción I y 77 fracciones VII y VIII. Reglamento de la Ley de Desarrollo Urbano del Distrito Federal.- Artículos 130, 131, 132, 133, 134 y 135. Reglamento de Construcción del Distrito Federal.- Artículo 63. Manual de Procedimientos para la expedición de Licencias de Uso del Suelo; Autorización de Subdivisiones, Fusiones y Relotificaciones; Placas de Control de Uso y Ocupación de Inmuebles; Conservación de Placas de Nomenclatura de Vías y Espacios Públicos; Regeneración o Rehabilitación de Cavidades en Zonas Minadas.

Requisitos:De acuerdo al artículo 135 fracción I, II, III, IV, V y VI Reglamento de la Ley de Desarrollo Urbano Vigente,

I En todos los casos:Nombre, denominación o razón social de o de los solicitantes y, en su caso, del representante legal, señalando su registro federal de contribuyentes, los documentos que acrediten su personalidad; cuando sean varios los solicitantes designarán un representante común. Domicilio para oír y recibir notificaciones. Domicilio del inmueble a que se refiera la solicitud. Croquis de ubicación y superficie del predio que se trate. Descripción de la obra o actividad. Boleta predial del último bimestre, y Certificado de zonificación.

II En caso de licencia de fusiones, subdivisiones y relotifiaciones adicionalmente:Constancia de alineamiento y número oficial. Croquis en original y dos tantos que contengan, en la parte superior, la situación actual del o de los inmuebles, consignando las calles colindantes, la superficie y linderos reales del predio y, en la parte inferior, el anteproyecto de fusión o subdivisión, consignando también las calles colindantes, la superficie y linderos del predio o predios resultantes, de acuerdo al formato que para tal efecto autorizará la Secretaría y publicará en la Gaceta con cargo al particular. Copia certificada de la escritura de propiedad del o de los inmuebles que pretende subdividir, Identificación del propietario o representante legal; II Tratándose de licencias de relotificación, adicionalmente a los que señala la fracción I de este precepto, cuando se trate de predios mayores a 10 veces el lote tipo que marquen los Programas Delegacionales, cumpliendo con lo siguiente:

Uso actual de los inmuebles, que deberá ser acorde a lo que determinen los Programas. En el caso de que requiera estudio de impacto urbano o urbano-ambiental, dictaminen aprobatorio de la Secretaría. Los que determinen en el Reglamento de Construcciones en el caso de obra nueva, ampliación, modificación, cambio de uso con modificaciones estructurales, reparación o demolición. Registros de declaración de apertura o licencias de funcionamiento, en su caso. Registro de manifestación de construcción, en su caso. Manifestación de Obra en su caso. Copia certificada de la escritura de propiedad de los inmuebles. Croquis de localización del polígono a relotificar, a escala 1:500 a 1:5000, según sea su dimensión, y Proyecto de relotificación. IV La información documental, se entregará impresa y en medio magnético compatible con el que use el Registro y consistirá en:La memoria descriptiva. La relación de propietarios e interés, con expresión de la naturaleza y cuantía de su derecho. La propuesta de adjudicación de inmuebles resultantes, con determinación de su uso y designación nominal de los adjudicatarios. El avalúo de los inmuebles que se adjudicarán. El avalúo de los derechos, edificaciones, construcciones o plantaciones que deben extinguirse o destruirse para la ejecución del proyecto de relotificación, y La cuenta de liquidación provisional; V La información gráfica, que se entregará impresa y en medio magnético compatible con la que use el Registro y será la siguiente:Los planos catastrales con división de predios. El plano de situación y relación con el entorno urbano. El plano de delimitación del polígono a relotificar, en el que se expresen su superficie en metros cuadrados, los limites del polígono, linderos de los terrenos afectados, construcciones y demás elementos existentes sobre el terreno. Los planos de zonificación que contengan la expresión gráfica de las rmas de ordenación a que se refieren los Programas. El plano de clasificación y avalúo de las superficies adjudicadas; El plano de adjudicación con expresión de los linderos de los inmuebles adjudicados, y Los planos impresos que se entregaran en una escala comprendida entre 1:500 y 1:5000, con la calidad suficiente para que puedan percibirse los linderos y la simbología utilizada. VI Tratándose de la relotificación adicionalmente a lo señalado en la fracción I, lo siguiente:Avalúo vigente de los terrenos, para cálculo de los derechos. Costo: Estipulado en el Código Financiero del Distrito Federal, Artículo 209.

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Legal framework

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WEEK 02

CELL ORGANIZATION. ECO-MACHINIC APPARATUS 1.0The idea of the apparatus is to test dynamic environments, where cells can react to each other under an exterior stress, causing a deformation in the tissue.What can be the maximum saturation level? What is stress dependant to? Maybe volume (number of units).

If maximum stress is achieved, what happens? How is that critical point like? Periodic increments can lead to a spontaneous collapse?

Collapse...?

Simulation of different organization scenarios, respondig to self containig rules.

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rhotekin domaingenerative drawings, by andreas fischer

The natural environment is composed of innumerable interrelated systems. In this same logic, urban environents should be understood as continuously interacting systems, in multiple scales both in space and in time.

Formal and stylistic impositions are giving way to a more adaptable behavior, where flows of energy, material and information allow for the structures and geometry to emerge.

“(...) avoiding typical analogue relationships, biological metaphors or quasi-scientific rationales in favor of a preformative model of investigation.”

-Michael Beaman

simulating saturation

OBSERVE ORGANIZATION PROCESSES

Apparatus 1.0 __Cell aggregation

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First experiment on cell organization strategies, using rubber bands as flexible units reacting to stress inputs. The rubber bands have a given elasticity,which is directly proportional to their diameter: + diameter = + deformation.

The bands represent urban clusters, where a given density (flexibility) will allow more or less adaptation to environmental stress, thus creating a collective behavior between all cells, represented by the geometric deformation of the biggest bands.

The result of the experiment is compromised by an intolerance to higher degrees of stress, and the system‘s balance is broken when bands burst out.

Next simulations should introduce a liquid in order to avoid friction.

Apparatus 1.0 __Cell organization and collective behaviorApparatus 1.0 __Cell aggregation

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Apparatus 1.1 __Cell aggregation: Uncontrolled growth. Simulating current conditions.

Simulation of current urban (unplanned) growth in emerging economies, where urban expansion does not follow any internal logic nor organizational pattern.

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33 URBAN STRESSSimulation of current urban (unplanned) growth in emerging economies, where urban expansion does not follow any internal logic nor organizational pattern.

As the surrounding stress increases, the internal behavior gets more chaotic and dissoluted, resulting in negative urban / social / health conditions.

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Different ways to see the World

Extensive map of the world: area, lenght, volume...

Dymaxion. Geodessic representation of the Globe. R Buckminster Fuller, 1946.

Networked Nights, 2000. www.astronomicpictureoftheday.com

Voronoi cell structure map. www.geodyssey.com Intensive map of the world: Temperature, pressure, density, speed ...

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“A theory is the more impressive the greater the simplicity of its premises is, the more different kinds of things it relates, and the more extended is its area of applicability. Therefore, the deep impression which classical thermodynamics made upon me.

It is the only physical theory of universal content concerning which I am convinced that, within the framework of the applicability of its basic concepts, it will never be overthrown.”

- Albert Einstein

Thermodynamics:In physics and chemistry, thermodynamics (from the Greek θέρμη therme, meaning “heat” and δύναμις, dynamis, meaning “power”) is the study of energy conversion between heat and mechanical work, and subsequently the macroscopic variables such as temperature, volume and pressure.

1st. Law of Thermodynamics:The change in the internal energy of a closed thermodynamic system is equal to the sum of the amount of heat energy supplied to or removed from the system and the work done on or by the system: “Energy is neither created nor destroyed”.

2nd. Law of Thermodynamics:The total entropy of any isolated thermodynamic system always increases over time, approaching a maximum value: “In an isolated system, the entropy never decreases”.

Internal energy of a system = Kinetic Energy + Potential Energy.

Entropy is a macrostate variable. Energy and Matter tend to disperse in disorder.Heat Conduction

energy

time

Deluzian Intensive Thinking:Extensive properties: Length, volume, area, weight.Intensive Properties: Speed, pressure, temperature.

Intensive properties drive processes.

On Thermodynamics

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Apparatus 2.0 __Cellular clustering

In order to define patterns and understand behaviors, there must be a minimum amount of bodies with certain proppertiesthat will bring them together or make them reject each other. In this version of the experiment, such propperties are expressed through the densities of different liquids, specifically water and oil. By having different densities and resistance to dissolve into each other, certain patterns are observed, as a first attempt to simulate biological organization on the urban scape.

The liquid working as a container is water with an orange/reddish color, and the environment for the system to happen is vegetable oil. Drops are once again water with same colorant, though in different proportinos for visual clarity.

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Understanding heat flows and density gradients

As this experiment proceeds, different behaviors can be observed:1. Turbulent pattern when mixing water with food colorant.2. Boundary extension as oil is poured into water container.3. Drops isolation as colored water is dropped into oil environment.4. Boundary flexibility and merging as external force is applied.5. Boundary trasgression as drops leave oil environment into water.

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Apparatus 2.1 __Self organization based on density gradients and temperature increments

This version of the apparatus will try to resolve the issues of surface occupation, allowing the system the freedom toreact and find its own balance. Once this balance has been reached -meaning that the environment has found its minimal surface for its contained cells to be comfortably arranged- a new form of turbulence is introduced . This turbulence is represented by thermal energy (heat), which will agitate the oily environment. Since the oil and water have different heat capacities, the cells will try to leave the oil surface looking for a cooler environment. As this tension grows, a pattern emerges. Once all the cells have left the warm environment, the next step is to bring them back, and it is through mineral deposition in form of salt that the boundaries of cells and container are finally merged.

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Threshold condition: Increased tension between environments. Redefining boundaries (rigid > flexible)

“All forms emerge from the dynamic processes by which natural systems produce organized arrangements of material in space and time.”

“Coherent behavior of a group arises from the repetition of simple actions by many different individuals,

in response to stimuli from their immediate neighbors and from their close environment.”

-Michael Weinstock

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This iteration tries to look at the behavior of the material with controlled volume inputs.An abstract grid is pre-established, in order to relate to a measure system wich has an immediate traslation into distance units.As the material accumulates, its surface grows and so increases its “clustering” capabilities, merging with neighboring cells.Surface occupation strategies in this experiment are left solely to density gradients between oil (host environment) and water (red). The unpredicted “explosion” of the drops was due to the surface friction with tne envelope (glass), which eliminated the possibility of continuing the test of boundary redefinition and cell clustering.

Apparatus 2.2__ Controlled aggregation Methodical approximation. Organizing the space with a grid: behavior of the cells can be more readable and interpreted.

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Apparatus 2.2__ Controlled aggregation Methodical approximation. Organizing the space with a grid: behavior of the cells can be more readable and interpreted. Growth and organization measured by volume. Matter accumulation = space occupation.

Further research based on this experiment could be to introduce the site, both as reference background and also as organizational field. In such a case, more than one input can be tested to see how the system reacts in relation to the site. Such tests could include: social gathering places, accesibility points, most/least desired living areas, commercial programmes, resources&networks connections (water, electricity, wi-fi, garbage collection, drainage maintenance, cleaning systems...)Each organizational pattern can be tested in different levels, bringing them together to have a multilayered reading and perhaps a more complex emergent behavior based on the strongest trends observed and selected through artificial selection.

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Dynamic systems naturally tend to balance themselves.

Energy transactions.The beauty of networks is that you don´t need to design them, you set them up and they start interacting.

Develop a set of criteria... Spatial manifestations of network systems. Optimization as change... Define a mechanism to generate a iterative process.

In order for self emerging patterns to raise, there needs to be minimum number of elements reacting. Is like having 10 people and 10,000 people in a beach: the pattern will only be read when a minimum theshold is reached.

KNOW HOW VS. KNOW WHAT Theory VS. Craftman

Occupation/Abandonment strategies.Interventions in the city that detonate urban renovation against speculative growth.

Dynamic diagram on the flows of the city.

Declaring the expected behacior of the cells is like “Cell Masterplanning”. Concentrate on the boundary conditions as dynamic processes of exchange; explore on the potential flows that could generate built environments.

Triggering the reactions of the material. Strong graphic diagrams... Keep that symbolism and translate into urban environments, without having a too direct traslation. How each cell is reacting to their neighbours and the environment, as the heat is changing their equilibrium state.Compared to an ecosystem that attracts biodiversity, and when there is a change in the environment, the biosphere will change, reacting and resulting in new patterns.

Boundary (re)definition, from very clear and rigid into a more flexible, blured, permeable field of operation.

Urban agitations.

How to find urban reorganization patterns?

Defining the comfortable environment for a system to happen, both in terms of its position and its shape. What kind of networks does this patterning produce?

Fields with different density gradients affected by the environment and immediate urban context.

Urban reconfiguration according to bio-logics: cell reproduction and aggregation.

Observe natural phenomena in which cell relationships can be clearly translated into urgan environments.

Blurred boundaries

E.M. Escher

Presentation and comments

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Planet Earth’s Electromagnetic Field, simulation.Kirk korista.

WEEK 03

NETWORKS. ECO-MAGNETIC APPARATUS.

Understanding the site´s logics, context and internal flows.Organizing the urban structure following internal observed logics, instead of imposed and abstract lines and geometries.What kind of materials can be used to simulate flows on the site, in order to test different condition and reactive behaviors?Develop an Eco-Magnetic Apparatus as a tool to observe and test natural behaviors of aggregation, dissasociation and boundary (re)definition, using magnetic fields to shift the system´s balance.

Presentation and comments

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The example of ants efficiency.

Without a central controlling intelligence, without blueprints or managers, ants are able to build astonishing networks and colonnies, both in terms of their efficiency and their collective behavior.

Pheromones are chemicals released by an organism into its environment enabling it to communicate with other members of its own species.

Observing network systems in biologic communities.

Ant colony optimization algorithmAnt network pattern. Each ant lays down pheromone so others can follow: collective behavior.As obstacles appear, ants respond in the simplest and fastest way: optimized pathways

Trail Pheromone. Certain ants, as they return to the nest with food, lay down a trail pheromone. This trail attracts and guides other ants to the food. It is continually renewed as long as the food holds out. When the supply begins to dwindle, trailmaking ceases. The trail pheromone evaporates quickly so other ants stop coming to the site and are not confused by old trails when food is found elsewhere.

Alarm Pheromone. When an ant is disturbed, it releases a pheromone that can be detected by other ants several centimeters away. They are attracted by low concentrations of the pheromone and begin to move toward the region of increasing concentration. As they get nearer to their disturbed nestmate, their response changes to one of alarm. The higher concentration causes them to run about as they work to remedy the disturbance.

A little experiment to attract ants (and other insects) and observe possible patterns. Results will be compromised by short time and rough settings.

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Air Lines, Mario Freese

Choreography of agents in the urban spaceLisbon Traffic, Pedro Cruz

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Urban Systems

Understanding the urban site as a system

All biological organisms and many non-living systems are maintained by the flow of energy through the system.

Energy enters the ecological system as light, is transformed into chemical energy in organic molecules by photosynthesis in plants, and is converted into heat energy by hervibores that feed on the plants, and then by carnivores that feed on them or other carnivores. Other organisms process dead organic matter, and release a great deal oh heat energy during the process.

Matter is recycled but energy is not. Energy in biological systems is dissipated, lost to the system as heat.

- Michael Weinstock, “The Architecture of Emergence”

C O N C E P T O F S Y S T E M :

Science systems thinkers consider that:

A system is a dynamic and complex whole, interacting as a structured functional unit.

Energy, material and information flow among the different elements that compose the system.

A system is a community situated within an environment.

Energy, material and information flow from and to the surrounding environment via semi-permeable membranes or boundaries.

Systems are often composed of entities seeking equilibrium but can exhibit oscillating, chaotic, or exponential behavior.

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Attracting nodes

All

The city is a dynamic field, a process of continuous reactions.The site can be seen, under this same scope, as a system composed of continuosly operating force fields, where different attractors generate behaviors among residents and bypassers. How can the city block adapt to such flows? Can this neighborhood, now chaotic and without identity, be turned into a model for “bio-logic” growth? From grid to tissue, from block to cluster. Redefinition of boundaries according to flows and their interaction in space and time.

Green SpaceSTRESS + + +

Cycling Track

STRESS + + +

Commercial SpaceSTRESS + + +

Cultural Program

STRESS + + +

Access PointsSTRESS + + +

STRESS + + +

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Cell boundaries can be flexible to adapt to the forces of the environment and immediate neighbors. System: Vegetable Oil / Metalic Powder.Attractor: MagnetConductor: Water

Define a comfortable environment for a system; oil drops mixed with powder will have the minimal unstressed configuration.Density gradients between oil and water will prevent them to merge.Bundary becomes critical threshold.

Once the system is balanced, introduce a turbulence: a shift in the environment to trigger dynamic fields to operate.

A magnet is brought closer to the system, in order to generate a magnetic field which will attract powder - along with its oily membrane- allowing responsive patterns to emerge: tracks of metal, new boundary definitions, change of geometry and location of elements in the system.

Apparatus 3.0__First Studies

Triggering feedback processes.

As different magentic fields are introduced, the system will respond immediately, leaving as it goes a history of itself, a track which will be used to map it’s evolution.

Once the magnetic force has been balanced and the system has found a new level of equilibrium, the resulting pattern can be digitalized (vectorized) allowing parametric simulations, such as the value of stress of each attractor, the number of elements being attracted, time of response, pace...

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Magnetic Lab

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A ferrofluid is a liquid which becomes strongly polarised in the presence of a magnetic field. Ferrofluids were originally discovered in the 1960`s at the NASA Research Center, where scientists were investigating different possible methods of controlling liquids in space. The benefits of a magnetic fluid were immediately obvious: The location of the fluid could be precisely controlled through the application of a magnetic field, and, by varying the strength of the field, the fluids could be forced to flow.

Since the Apparatus being developed is based on the idea of the dynamics of organization (site, flows, patterns...), the use of a material such as a ferrofluid could help induce a more controlled manipulation of the patterns and their responsiveness. The magnetic field can be transpositioned (and not translated) into the urban domain as a planned or unplanned reality that attracts people, such as green open spaces, commercial areas, accessibility points, cultural programs, and other spatial arrangements that trigger ecomomic growth, social interaction, cultural manifestations and technological innovations. In this way, attractors can be represented with magnets (with different intensitites), and flows can be represented with metalic powder and oil, in order to generate a controlled magnetic field. Each kind of attraction will be tested independently, so there is a better understanding and a measurable behavior of each field, which are: 1. Accessibility points 2. Green Space 3. Commercial Space 4. Cultural Program

The apparatus should be useful to inform on the pattern of energy flow.

Apparatus 3.0__Material research

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferrofluid

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Apparatus first tests

process

materials

wateroilnatural dyemagnetsmetalic powder

setting

site photographsite cutout in plexiglass 3mm

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After a few structural colapses of the model itself, plus some other unpredicted flaws on the system (filtrations, density and material limitations), the first tests result in a somewhat succesful frustration. There is a great potential for the apparatus to produce interesting simulations, but the flaws have to be fixed soon to present the first results.

Patience and expectation.......

flaws on the simulations

“Form generating models developed for architectural purposes, may be valuable if they model a phenomenon that scientists are seeking to explain.”

- John Frazer. An Evolutionary Architecture, 1995.

Meteorite on Spaceship Earth

In the meantime...First parametric explorations with Grasshopper.Attractors and current grid center points: A shift in geometry.

Material research

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Locating attractor points for each of the urban programs, according to the site analysis.

COMMERCIAL SPACE CULTURAL SPACE GREEN OPEN SPACE ACCESS POINTS

“Attractors are features of topoligal spaces which represent tendencies in material systems.”

-Maunel De Landa

Site Attractor Points

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Attra

ctor

: Com

mer

cial

Spa

ceAtt

ract

or: G

reen

Spa

ceAtt

ract

or: A

cces

s Po

ints

Apparatus 3.0__ Magnetic urban fields

As the metallic powder is attracted to the strategically located magnets, the liquid flows towards the areas with less attraction.The urban grid can be transpositioned into dynamically generated urban patterns.

Attra

ctor

: Cul

tura

l Pro

gram

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Apparatus 3.0__ Magnetic urban fields

Urban description:Generating a pattern of energy flows through the urban site, in order to understand its massing propperties, namely geometrical dispersion of matter. Density represented here as the quantity of matter in a given space. It corresponds to a bidimensional reading of the site, in order to understand the horizontal relationships in terms of direction, distance, strenght.

Material description:Metalic powder is attracted to magnets strategically distributed on the testing bed. The coloured liquid represents the areas under less stress of the magnetic field.

mag

netic

cha

rge

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Magnetic fields as urban patterns

Commercial flow pattern Cultural flow pattern

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Green space flow pattern Access flow pattern

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Field outlines

“A diagram is a graphic assemblage that specifies relationships between activity and form, organizing the structure and distribution of functions.”

-Stan Allen

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imposed grid

access field

cultural field

public field

commercial field

From grid to fields

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“These images are composed of the layered trajectories followed by millions of particles as they flow in fields of forces.

Each individual trajectory is essentially an independent random process, with the trail terminating when it reaches a deposition zone. Collectively, however, the paths combine to form delicate complex shapes of filigree and shadow in the areas of negative space that the paths don’t reach.

There are no actual defined boundaries, simply intricately structured gradients of tone formed by the end points of trajectories.”

-Andy Lomas

Images of flow, by Andy Lomas

Results evaluationAfter obtaining a series of patterns of the energy flows on the site, it is necessary to reconsider where these results might lead. Cricital thinking on the process and on the materials being used give rise to doubts on the continuity and coherence of the apparatus manifestations.

Magnetism is another kind of energy, which represents another level of information and behavior simulation; at this stage and for the sake of the research’s clarity, the number of factors and variables must be reduced to a minimal.

By this criteria, magnetic fields and such kind of attractors can be considered for further research, concentrating for now on thermodynamics and the patterns generated by heat intensities in a system with density gradients.

One interesting observation was achieved through this process though, and it is the possibility of generating tracking patterns as a behavior of the material.

By having the paths of the energy flows, the simulation trascends the instantaneous character of a reaction and becomes a history of its own behavior, an evidence of itself.

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WEEK 04

REDEFINING ECO-MACHINIC APPARATUS.

On site flows and behaviors.Heat Capacities and thermodynamic flows.Turbulence patterns: From periodic cyclic behaviors to turbulent flows.

Turbulence sketches, Leonardo da Vinci.

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Thermal energy is generated and measured by heat of any kind. It is caused by the increased activity or velocity of molecules in a substance, which in turn causes temperature to rise accordingly. Heat capacity is a measurable physical quantity that characterizes the amount of heat that is required to change a body’s temperature by a given amount.Heat Capacity values indicate how much thermal energy ΔQ a physical body can absorb for a change in temperature ΔT.

Thermoregulation is the ability of an organism to keep its body temperature within certain boundaries, even when the surrounding temperature is very different.

Entropy is the the tendency for all matter and energy in the universe to evolve toward a state of disorder. Irreversibility.

In physics, fluid dynamics is a sub-discipline of fluid mechanics that deals with fluid flow—the natural science of fluids (liquids and gases) in motion. Fluid dynamics has a wide range of applications, including calculating forces and moments on aircraft, determining the mass flow rate of petroleum through pipelines, predicting weather patterns, understanding nebulae in interstellar space and reportedly modeling fission weapon detonation. Some of its principles are even used in traffic engineering, where traffic is treated as a continuous fluid.

The solution to a fluid dynamics problem typically involves calculating various properties of the fluid, such as velocity, pressure, density, and temperature, as functions of space and time

Unlike extensive properties, intensive properties have critical points of intensities, thresholds where matter changes from one set of properties to another one: vaporization, cristalization, gasification.

Turbulence is a specific form that emerges spontaneously at a critical point of intensity.

Understand what is driving the process (...) Extensive properties drive processes.

- Manuel De Landa, “A Thousand Years of Non-Linear History”

Humans and all other living beings emerge from, and exist within, the dynamic processes and phenomena of the natural world, and they have had and continue to have a profound effect upon it. All forms of nature and all forms of civilisation have ‘architecture’, an arrangement of material in space and over time that determines their shape, size, behavior and duration, and how they come into being. Energy, information and material flow through all the forms of the world, and human forms and culture have coevolved and developed within those flows.

- Michael Weistock, “The Architecture of Emergence”

On

Ther

mod

ynam

ics

On

Flui

d D

ynam

ics

On

Emer

genc

e an

d N

ew M

ater

ialis

m

Theoretical Background

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CULTURAL PROGRAM

PUBLIC SPACE

ACCESS POINTS

COMERCIAL SPACE

Cells merging together following self organizatIon patterns. They can respond to the impulse of their immediate neighbours and the stress of the environment. In this case, such stress will be represented as a direct heat application.

Allow for internal forces to resolve their distribution (and eventually their form and structure), in order to find optimal geometries, movility patterns and networks for local metabolic processes (energy and water distribution, waste colletction).

Site’s program current distribution.Follows the organization of grid, which is a planar drawing on the landscape.

Heat supply: direct flame undertesting bed. Trigger process of

reorganization of program on site.

Speculated redistribution byheat driven process.

Program attracted by stronger nodes.

Eco Machinic Apparatus 2.3__Speculation

+ Temperature

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Eco Machinic Apparatus 2.3

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Eco Machinic Apparatus 2.3

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Eco Machinic Apparatus 2.3

Due to different heat capacities between fluids (oil and water), a turbulent pattern emerges. After a critical point, the liquid cells can't resist the heat concentration, and as they try to reach the cooler environment, their boundaries collapse.

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Eco Machinic Apparatus 2.3

The behavior of the material in response to periodic heat increments generates unpredictable and unique patterns.Applying the behavior of thermodynamic flows to urban environments, can provide potential organization strategies for energy and matter distribution through the urban landscape.

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Site Boundary is an unnecesary limit. Why constraining the behavior of the system to an abstract border? In the urban scope, other organisms do NOT respond to such limits imposed by this abstract limitation... Birds and cats, for example, don’t repond to the neighborhood boundary.

Urban fields diagram is not accurate. Fields cannot work on simultaneous levels... Impossibility to mix “public space field” with “cultural field”. Even though they caninfluence one another, it has to be mapped on a more specific level... have to be more punctual.

E N T I T I E S

Drop benches... Drop Trees...Define strategic and precise location for specific elements. The distribution of entities should respond to a given logic (i.e: every cross street, every plot, every two meters...)Test different scenarios with apparatus.

Spatial manifestation of processes.The technique of density gradients is understood, now run the apparatus and from the result start to speculate on simple ideas for specific scenarios.

FROM TYPOLOGICAL THINKING TO SYSTEMIC THINKING

Systems thinking is the process of understanding how things influence one another within a whole. In nature, systems thinking examples include ecosystems in which various elements such as air, water, movement, plant and animals work together to survive or perish. In organizations, systems consist of people, structures, and processes that work together to make an organization healthy or unhealthy.

Systems thinking has been defined as an approach to problem solving, by viewing “problems” as parts of an overall system, rather than reacting to specific part, outcomes or events and potentially contributing to further development of unintended consequences.

Systems thinking is not one thing but a set of habits or practices within a framework that is based on the belief that the component parts of a system can best be understood in the context of relationships with each other and with other systems, rather than in isolation. Systems thinking focuses on cyclical rather than linear cause and effect.

Science systems thinking attempts to illustrate that events are separated by distance and time and that small catalytic events can cause large changes in complex systems.

“Don’t fight Nature, collaborate with Her.”- Proffesor Julius Sumner Miller .

“Whatever we can simulate through digital tools, is not as sophisticated as natural material coumputation, the way a wave or a sand dune computes itsel”

-Neil Leach.

Presentation, comments and other influences. June 18, 2010

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B O U N D A R I E STHE BOUNDARY OF A BODY

THE BOUNDARY OF A SYSTEM THE BOUNDARY OF A CITY

THE BOUNDARY OF A HOUSE

THE BOUNDARY OF AN IDEA

THE BOUNDARY OF SILENCE

THE BOUNDARY OF OUR PLANET

THE BOUNDARY OF THIS PAGE

Presentation, comments and other influences. June 18, 2010 On Boundaries

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Fixed Boundaries

Boundaries not only contain entities and/or systems, they also suggest the potential interactions an organism may have with neighboring organisms and the immediate environment.

Historically, human kind has referred to boundaries as a safety procedure: stronger boundaries mean higher protection from the outside. In this mentality, mankind has built, designed and conceptualized dwellings and possessions.

Nature, on the other hand, has a consistent and subtle way to define container and contained; organisms of multiple scales show boundaries that, as they contain and protect the entity, also provide an opportunity to link to the exterior, becoming flexible and sometimes permeable boundaries.

The regulatory mechanisms to define boundaries in the urban environment do NOT respond to natural phenomena: they are imposed organizational forms that in turn generate chaotic flows and desorganized networks.

Military field

Yellow and Orange, Mark Rothko.

Humankind´s obssession to delimitate.

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Flexible Boundaries

Contained growth possibilities

Nature’s boundary definitions

Growth and networking patterns, dynamic and flexible.

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Density: The density of a material is defined as its mass per unit volume.

Population density is a measurement of population per unit area or unit volume. It is frequently applied to living organisms, and particularly to humans. It is a key geographic term.

Urban density is a term used in urban planning and urban design to refer to the number of people inhabiting a given urbanized area.

In thermodynamics, hot air becomes less dense, wich means its mass occupies more volume. This is due to an increase in the agitation of the atoms, caused by the increase in temperature.

The atomic agitation (heat) translates into an expansion of the volume that the air molecules occupy, even though the mass remains constant.

The hot air, being less dense, will raise in the environment, displacing the colder mass of air to a lower level, creating thus convection currents which will remain active as long as there is a difference in temperature between to masses of air.

According to the Second Law of thermodynamics, the heat transfers from the hotter body to the cooler one, never the opposite way (that is, without an external force or system, like a pump).

In the urban environment, heat can be understood as an increase in the activity of a specific territory; in different terms, where more people are attracted towards, causing that particulary territory to become more vibrant and dynamic.The increase of heat in a certain site can be due to a commercial attraction, an event, a shift in the regular pace of the site that is recognized as an improvement, a reorganization of form or information that will make people feel inclined to participate.Relationship between urban density and transport energy use. P Newman, JR Kenworthy. 1989

DENSITY =MASS

VOLUME

On Density

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WEEK 05

BOUNDARIES. ECO-MACHINIC APPARATUS 4.0Redefining Boundaries in the system through heat induction.Generating a spontaneous shift in the system´s balance to observe dynamic behavior on self defining boundaries between entities.Fixed or flexible?Permeability and energy exchange through envelope surface.Urban systems, as well as thermodynamic systems, have a tendency towards irreversible disorder. More people, more movement, more interaction, more, more, more.Is there a possible analogy between a critical point in a thermodynamic system and the urban environment?

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Trees every 10 meters

Organizing urban elements. Bottom up approach

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Trees every 10 meters

Urban elements located on site

Benches every 3 trees Lamp post next to each bench

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Grasshopper definition to locate elements on site.Trees, benches and lamp posts are the initial testing entitites.

Trees are located every 10 meters on each block, benches are located every third tree, and next to a bench there is a lamp post.

This layout can shift in terms of distances and number of elements, and so the testing results will also respond to the change.

The repetition of the same simple rules and the interaction beteween them, should raise a complex behavior of the system.

Organizing urban elements, parametric setting of elements

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Mapping elements on the site: benches

Locating benches in a specific location. Once they are all set up, the system is heated to trigger the reactions between elements.

As the heat increases, the drops representing benches cluster together in an unpredictable yet orderly manner.

Once the heat capacity of the drops is exceeded, they loose their molecular cohesion and dissolve into the environment.

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Mapping elements on the site: lamp posts

Locating lamp posts in a specific location, according to the location of the benches. Internal logic of space distribution.

As the system is gaining heat from an exterior source, the behavior is starting to emerge, until the container collapses due to an overheating of the glass surface.

The refinement of the apparatus is indispensable. Heat must be supplied gradually and evenly in order to test different scenatrios under similar conditions. In this sense, temperature and time become controllable variables on the simulations.

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Locating lamp posts in a specific location, according to the location of the benches. Internal logic of space distribution.

Behavior observation

Observing the behavior of “benches” and “lamp posts”, where the quantity of elements and their spatial location will generate flow patterns once the system is activated (heated). This patterns can be understood as potential organizations of elements in the urban environment, responding to local flows and spatial relationships, as oposed to an imposed grid approach.

The process of heating the liquids must be more subtle and controlled, otherwise the drops representing the elements are heated above their critical point and evaporate or rather disolve into the environment. The behaviors that are meant to be observed in further detail are the clustering and merging of the elements; the location where they actually merge is unpredictable and random, and does not respond to the reading of the site plan, so at this point they lack rigor and consistency to be mapped. Potentially, another reading would be to actually insert three-dimensional volumes representing the blocks, which will prevent the drops to flow freely in the environment and limit their behaviorto the streets or “open spaces”, voids and other irregularities on the grid system.

Nevertheless, this would represent a contradiction on the simulations themselves, since the idea of the apparatus is to test the behaviors of different elements and observe as they reorganize themselves “freely” in the environment. The empiric observation of such organizations can lead to certain speculations on the development and application of a potential Masterplan for this specific site, that could include notions such as:

How to reorganize the urban form in order to optimize flows of energy, matter and information, how to promote healthy and harmonious living environments, locating specific areas that lend themselves for aggregation into land use districts or zones; promote mixed-use development within most of theland uses to minize external travel; provide for flexibility within each land use to allow the entire site to respondto internal logics and external stresses (market conditions); provide a local hierarchy from low density to high densitydevelopment, given the tendencies and locations of the urban elements such as trees, benches and lamp posts.

In this way, a bottom up approach is conducted, inspired by the behaviors of nature, specifically the principlesof thermodynaimc and the aggregation/dissolution of liquids based on their densities and heat capacities.

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MORE ON THERMODYNAMICS:

The spontaneous processes occur because of two main tendencies:1. Tendency of a system to acquire a state of minimum energy (EQUILIBRIUM)2. Tendency of a system to acquire a state of maximum randomness (ENTROPY)

Based on these principles, we can infer that the “urban system” will be in equilibrium before the heat is supplied. Since the entropy always tends to maximization, the heat supply will necessarily shift the system’s state, bringing a new level of organization.

Heat respresents thus a triggering effect on the system, the introduction of more energy which will detonate a new process of regulation and adaptation. This process will obey the logics of density gradients (H2O and Oil), molecular cohesion and thermal capacity of each substance.

The scenarios to be tested are to be based on simulations in the urban environment. The resulting flow patterns can be used to speculate on potential urban behaviors when dealing with energy and matter flows, as well as programmaticdistribution along an urban site and the human networks that emerge from/on it.

A P P A R A T U S

Heat should be constant and evenly distributed on the surface so it does not affect the resulting behavior of the liquid environment.

Multiple layers of simultaneous behaviors can offer comparative scenarios, having the possibility to develop more complexity in the simulations.

Drops must be strategic and specific. Simulate entities, not fields: Trees, benches, lamp posts, etc...

The goal of the apparatus is to be able to observe the resulting patterns that emerge form the interactions between water and oil when heat is supplied (and the system has been “activated”).

Flows will be first periodic and then turbulent, and they will be influenced by volume (of the substances), heating time and intensity.

More specifically, the behavior of the system will be periodic as long as the heat capacity of the substances is not exceeded.

Turbulent behaviors will start to emerge after passing the critical threshold, that is, the substance’s heat capacity. After crossing such point, the boundaries will start to give way to new material configurations, and the dynamic behavior can be collected as periodic snapshots or a continuous video of the testing bed.

It is crucial to understand that these simulations DO NOT have immediate translations into the urban environment. It would be naive to reduce the complexity of the city to a series of material simulations. Rather, these observations can offer a window to speculate on different approaches to urban behaviors and resulting networks, based on the principles of thermodynamics.

Apparatus 4.0

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Apparatus 4.0__Constructive diagram

HEAT TRANSFERTO EACH TESTING BED

ELECTRIC HEATER

ECO-MACHINIC APPARATUSCONSTRUCTIVE DIAGRAM

EACH TESTING BED REPRESENTSAN INDEPENDENT SCENARIO

HOLDING STRUCTURE MUST:

1. ALLOW HEAT TRANSFER WITHOUT

HAVING ANY DEFORMATIONS.

2. ALLOW FOR VISUALIZATION FROM

TOP VIEW WITHOUT OBSTACLES.

3. ALLOW EASY MANIPULATION OF TESTING BEDS (INSERTION/REMOVAL)

CAMERA POSITIONED TO READ THROUGH ALL SCENARIOS SIMULTENOUSLY

1

2

3

4

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Apparatus 4.0__Design, sources of inspiration

Maestro Benjamin, @ Residencial Cigale, Maharishi Arquitectos Sketches on apparatus design

Thermosyphon principle

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Apparatus 4.0__Design

Electric Heater

Copper Pipe 12 mm

Heat Exchanger

Control Valve

Plan View

Side View

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Apparatus 4.0__Plans

18 c

m6

cm

Front View Side View

PerspectivePlan View

30 cm

30 c

m

15 c

m15 cm

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The design of the apparatus responds to the need to supply heat in a distributed and even manner along the testing bed. Control valves are strategically located to regulate the heat flow along the pipes, in such a way that flow can be allowed or blocked in different paths. Temperature is a crucial factor in the behavior of the system: it has to be in a minimum range so it actually generates a reaction and not too strong to overheat the system and go beyond the critical point of heat capacity.

Apparatus 4.0

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The design of the Apparatus 2.3 led to valuable observations and reflections on the behavior of heat; nevertheless, due to a limitation of time and resources it is strongly recommended to reformulate the apparatus and simplify it.

The Apparatus, more than a machine to generate water and heat flows, is the coherent and precise setting of the drops of water in the oil container, as well as the potential repetition of simulations in order to understand consistent behaviors.

As for the urban reading, the drops will be still representing precise and concrete elements, such as trees and benches. Following the logics of a “Bottom Up” approach in urban planning, the precise distribution of this urban elements -and their further reaction to heat- will allow for certain patterns to emerge, which can give way to speculations onmore complex relationships in the urban landscape as an active field of flows and structures.

Trees and benches... a whole book can be written about this lifelong couple: the infinite possibilities that emergewhen there is a place to seat next to the presence of a tree. Strategically located or spontaneously set, a bench and a tree will always trigger an event, a moment, a distraction; for grown-ups and children, for lovers and strangers, for men, women, birds and squirrels... a bench and a tree, the simplest expression of public space.

Park Bench, Erdal Redjep ©

Reflections

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WEEK 06Simplify apparatus.Establish a logic to distribute trees and benches.Run simulations

A tree on every street corner A bench between 2 trees

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Apparatus pieces nesting: to be lasercut from 5mm plexiglass

Apparatus 2.4__Design and fabrication

Plexiglass StructureDropping guidesGas HeaterRegulation valveTesting bed (ceramic container)Substance holder

1

1

2

2

3

3

4

4

5

5

6

6

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Apparatus 2.4__Design Process

The Apparatus has finally proven to be simple in its fabrication, though there were some delays with the laser cutting process.

As of now, technology on digital fabrication is evolving at giant steps, allowing the possibility for prototyping simple machines relatively fast and easy.

The total time for drawing the pieces needed for this apparatus was close to four hours, and one more hour for the actual cutting of the pieces;assembly and setting was less than thirty minutes. The total time of design and fabrication (without counting the time invested in “shopping” and transportation) was less than six hours.

The main focus on the design of the apparatus was the possibility to apply heat to the system in a partial and even manner, in order to test gradual increments of temperature and their corresponding levels of influence.

Another consideration on the design was to be able to insert and remove the “dropping guides” without obstacles, since the process of simulation needs to change between one guide and the other.

Tests should be run without further distraction or technical delays, except maybe for the lighting technique in order to get clear and colorful images of the simulations.

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Apparatus 2.4__First simulation. System is activated when trees and benches are in equilibrium

1. Dropping tree entities in every street corner, following dropping guide.

4. When the system is balanced, turn heater on, observe behavior.

6. Oil begins to dissipate drops, causing bubbles and oil splatters. Tendency of system to move towards the south-east.

00:00 0º

01:000º-10º

02:0010º-20º

05:0070º-100º

06:00100º-120º

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Apparatus 2.4__First simulation. System is activated when trees and benches are in equilibrium

8. Comparing patterns.7. System reaches a new level of organization and equilibrium.

5. Increment in the agitation level between drops.

2. Dropping bench entities between trees, following dropping guide. 3. System is self-balanced.

Apparatus 2.4__First simulation. Balanced dispersion

03:0020º-40º

04:0040º-70º

07:00120º-130º

08:00> 130º

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Apparatus 2.4__Second simulation. Benches are added when trees have been reorganized

03:00 10º-20º

07:0080º-100º 08:00

100º-120º 09:00 > 120º

04:00 40º-60º

05:00 60º-80º

02:00 20º-30º

02:00 30º-40º

00:00 0º

1. Dropping tree entities in every street corner. 2. Turn heater on to activate tree system

4. Tree environment reaches a new stage of equilibrium after reorginizing itself. 5. Let oil cool down

7. Both systems start interacting. Grid pattern can still be read. 8. Maximum activity in both systems.

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Apparatus 2.4__Second simulation. Dispersed Equilibrium

06:00 60º-80º

05:00 40º-60º

01:00 10º-20º

06:0080º-100º

07:00100º-120º

08:00120º-130º

04:00 20º-40º

3. When temperature reaches a minimum of 50º, more activity is observed.

6. Dropping bench entities on the already reorganized environment

8. Maximum activity in both systems. 9. The system rebalances itself: a more intense concentration of drops towards the south side is observed.

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Dropping “urban elements” on the environment. The urban grid dictates the distribution of elements in space.

System before activation (heating). Elements mantain the pattern in which they were deposited.

Gradual temperature increments. Process is driven by intensive propperties of materials (temperature, density, speed of response). The pattern will never be identical, but through the repetition of tests certain tendencies are observed

System starts to respond to heat increments. Some elements merge, others divide into smaller units.

Apparatus 2.4__Evaluating results

00:00 0º

00:00 0º

01:00 10º - 20º

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Gradual temperature increments. Process is driven by intensive propperties of materials (temperature, density, speed of response). The pattern will never be identical, but through the repetition of tests certain tendencies are observed

As thermal energy flows through the system, dynamic behavior intensifies. Tendencies: Clustering, division and spreading.

Maximum agitation in the system (entropy). Boiling starts; concentration of elements towards south side.

As heat is reduced, the system balances itself and stops moving. A new organization level has been reached.

Apparatus 2.4__Evaluating results

03:00 20º - 40º

07:00 100º - 120º

10:00 80º - 0º

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Apparatus 2.4__Results and observations

Through the repetition of the experiment and the reduction of the number of variables to a minimum, a consistent pattern emerges, both for the behavior of the substances as well as for the heat dynamics, which allow to observe that:

1. The system will remain balanced for as long as there is a change in the energy distribution. This observation confirms the 1st. Law of Thermodynamics, demonstrating that the system will tend to acquire a state of minimum energy. There is no spontaneous generation or dissipation of energy: all systems tend to be balanced.

2. Once there is a shift in the energy supply in the form of heat, the system will acquire a state of maximum randomness: entropy. The system will gain heat, and as it does its internal behavior will change, attempting to adapt to the temperature increments.

Since the two substances used on the tests have different heat capacities, there will necessarily be a difference in the behavior of each one. Oil, having more heat capacity than water, will remain more stable and will become the environment for the reactions of the other substance. Water drops, on the other hand, will become agitated and will try to change their surface area to resist heat, sometimes merging with other bodies to gain surface area, and some other times they will divide into smaller units that will eventually gain heat faster, going through a phase change and liberate from the environment in the form of vapor.

3. Although the conditions and setting of the experiment remain constant and almost identical, the resulting

patterns will never be the same. The disorder on the system will respond to internal fluid convection forces produced by heat. As there is a finite number of drops inserted in the system, and for all the tests it has remained constant, the different patterns do not change as for the amount of material being tested.

Nevertheless, there is a strong relationship between the location of the material inserted and the resulting patterns that emerge. In other words, there is a consistent tendency on the system to flow towards the area of maximum material available. Since the drops were injected in a specific and almost identical location every time the test was run, we can induce that the patterns are responding to this first input. It is easy to observe that in the original distribution of drops, there are more elements towards the southern area of the testing bed, which respond to strategic locations on the urban site.

As much as the results are unpredictable and always different, the tendency of the drops to flow to and accumulate on a specific area of the testing bed, leads to the hypothesis that surface occupation responds to density gradients, to material distribution and to the material’s own extensive properties, in this case heat capacity and molecular cohesion ratios.

Such observations can have relative analogies on the urban environment. As a continuity of this research and the possibility to find interesting relationships, such analogies will be taken forward, remaining as generic observations on the physical behavior of elements.

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The city is an organism in a continuousmetabolic process, as the rest of the organisms that populate the planet.

Cities grow and exchange energy with the environment, and in doing so they modify it in a continuous feedback process (sometimes positive and some others negative).

The pattern of such expansion and growth responds to collective flows of energy and material through the urban environment: electricity and water distribution channels are built forms that represent the necessity of resource network systems, so are all transportation systems in our cultural and technological evolution: networks of roads, train tracks and airways.And, for the last ten years, information and communication technologies have been exponentially developed in a network system pattern as well.

Such network patterns are composed of the repetition of “similar” elements and behaviors at smaller scales: in the case of a city it is the repetition of neighborhoods, and these last ones emerge from the repetition of built structures and open spaces that allow all possible human processes.

The way such built structures and open spaces link to each other has to do with many factors, from technical efficiency to symbolic meaning, and the geometry used to define the differentiations of boundaries has been imposed on the landscape rather than emerging from it. What defines the boundaries?Can there be improvements in the way we plan our cities?

Through the patient observations developed in the current research, as well as the seemingly dispersed information collected here, I support my initial hypothesis based on the idea of developing urban renovation strategies based on the logics of nature.

As the present document shows, there were different simulations driven on the behavior of water and oil, attempting to relate it to the urban environment and trace analogies between urban patterns and the logics of natural behavior.

Some iterations are more powerful and directly applicable than others, but all simulationspresent tendencies and consistent behaviors when observed in detail. Weather the substances merge, divide, cluster or dissipate, they will react under ta specific pattern to the environmental stress (heat).These tendencies have to do with the intensive properties of the material and the way they react to each other and the environment; in all simulations elements react to themselves, as a collective behavior.

Potentially, these behaviors can be understood as driving processes for urban renovation strategies, in the terms of adapting to existing stresses and local conditions, and developing more coherent flows and structures that will benefit inhabitants as well as the environment.

Trees and benches, finally, don’t require thermodynamics nor magnetic fields to be set up, and the potential they have to generate public space are silently immense.

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Apparatus_ Simulated Clustering

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Global Urban Clustering

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