final presentation!

presentation should be embedded below.

final thesis prep presentation

revised statement for final presentation

here it is (a little rough), will add presentation and post-crit thoughts later

statement: The overarching aim for this project is to redefine the relationship of downtown Chicago to its river. The intention is that the river becomes part of the urban fabric at once, affording possibilities for public habitation, and a functioning piece of sanitation infrastructure. The river was initially a vital part of the city, acting as an economic driver and sanitation channel. The river is now largely neglected by the urban fabric, serving as a secondary sanitation channel and small tourist attraction.

This project explores the hybrid systems that the density of the urban condition allows. Can layered functions produce urban space which are both socially constructive and functionally productive? What happens when opened ended systems are introduced into the architectural process?

The river once again becomes an integral part of the urban fabric. The river reclaims its original functions as a cleanser of the city, cleaning and managing water run off. Sewage is treated at the mouth of the river before being returned to the lake and used as a fuel for fertilization. The river also becomes a social scape, linking the downtown and river north areas. The way people use public space is highly influenced by their environmental conditions: temperature, light, humidity, sound, textures, pollution, wind speed. The environment relates to the climate and human body becoming particularly significant in order to improve the quality of the urban space. The perceptual experience of the space creates a connection between the functional and social aspects of the river. A staged plan of implementation, with inputs, constructions and feed-back mechanisms are designed to evolve the river into a productive and habitable scape.

update!

so, been in a holding pattern lately. between a lack of direction in my thesis and the studio beast rearing its ugly head, i havn't been producing much for thesis lately. but here's an update post-crit-week presentation.

prez_12_11_2011

revised statement and research objectives

revised statement:

The proposal is about designing a new type of public space, using mapping as an exploratory design technique to reveal latent conditions. The activity of mapping is a revelationary act. In architectural practice, mapping is used as formal generator, as intervention, and as analysis. James Corner gives four mapping categories: drift, layering, game-board, and rhizome. But these processes examine mapping as either intervention, or as form, without really examining mapping as analysis. The problem with these  is that mapping as intervention becomes the total design practice, and mapping as form is too often arbitrary. The possibility of mapping to be integrated into the design as analysis is left largely unexplored by Corner.

In this project, mapping is utilized as a form of documentation and analysis. Mapping asks questions about activity and usage and what the spatial and temporal correspondences are. What patterns or events are revealed? What possibilities can the addition of mapping reveal, as a design technique, during the design process?

The proposal is to develop a design project that integrates mapping to extend James Corners idea.  Mapping is integrated into the design process, not as a means in and of itself, but to make the design intervention more contextual and responsive to surrounding conditions. The two possibilities are the creation of affect in a empty public space, or the accentuation of affect in a densely populated public space.



research inquiry:
The method for the proposed inquary is mapping.
This is essentially design experimentation. In terms of research, I have to study and catalogue different mapping practices. The actual design project involves the documentation of site and the collection of data, and the production of images showing important relationships.

I would like to have site documentation and data collection done by the beginning of the next semester, allowing for an entire semester of design production.

My objectives are to produce a pamphlet documenting the design process and design intervention along with the installation.

Issues: What/why of  the site?

questions, questions, questions

interesting review from last night, as per david's recommendations i wrote 5, 1 sentence questions trying to describe my project in the simplest terms possible:
how can/are emergent behaviors revealed and actuated?
how can activities outside of those supported by built form be provided
for?
how can architecture rewire the top down assignment of program and site?
how can investigative research generate program and site?
how can uninhabitable sites/programs be reinhabited?

rework of statement statement

Statement: The Chicago river acts as a physical cut through the city. It acts as a datum to understand the existing city. It creates a void in the grid where emergent behaviors and environments arise. It is an intersection of local and global. Recently ignored in the traditional architectonic sense, the river represents a huge variety of emergent events and affects not catered to in the constructed urban fabric. Mapping is proposed as a method of understanding the relationships of river and city, emergent affects, and functions. Drawing on the mapping practice of Raoul Bunschoten/CHORA, a datum or set of data are overlayed on the city and mapped as formal generator. Yet, the work of Bunschoten is fragmented, it lies in the tradition of the deconstructionists. I am interested in a contextual architecture, one which draws out the latent opportunities of the site. One which engages its participants in a dialogue, between participant, architecture, site. The desire is not to create a false naturalism on the river, in the manner of the lake front, but to accentuate existing affect in constructive manners and to reinhabit the river.

updated x,y,z statement

Revised (of the revised, revised, revised) XYZ statement: 

Borrowing from the mapping practice of Raoul Bunschoten, which uses historical or global overlays as datum to generate mappings and study affect, the Chicago river is taken as an existing, physical cut through the fabric of Chicago, providing a datum to understand the city and to reexamine a part of the city which has been ignored. The river is mapped, exploring the functions, environments, and affects which have emerged, both as a revelationary act towards an important feature of the city, and as a driver of site and program. The result is the creation of a contextual architecture which goes beyond the fragmented, deconstructionist space of Bunschoten, a public space which creates dialogue between participant, architecture, and affect.