The forming of the urban context is based on the existing territory, something that changes slowly, and human activities, which are changing all the time. Due to the non-stop pace of human activities, the urban context remains in a cycle of perpetual negotiation. Like organic tissue, the city is always in a state of growth, decay, and rebirth.
In the initial forming of a city, people gather according to their habitual behaviors, which are collective ideas. The multiple and collective ideas often made singular. However, in the development of urbanism, master plans are always rigid and lack tolerance and changeability, like a machine. However, when a mechanical system is broken, it forms another context, in which the city can release and breathe. Therefore, I would argue that an ideal urban design should be like a coordinating machine that retains flexibility for its users to adapt the city for themselves. In the past, cities like Rome and Paris were driven by politics and symbolic development. Nowadays cities like New York and Los Angeles are driven by economics, like fields of shopping. I think the presentation of the practical urban layout can be derived from the fields of shopping. A good function shopping field must contain coordination and flexibility at once, which is the exact ideal, a city should have. Moreover, a shopping field directly represents local habitual behaviors. In order to attend this goal, I will use aggregation as a driving technique to form buildings. In this technique, each social space is seen as a unit for aggregating the city. This technique will be combined with the transformation to accommodate and articulate differences. In summary, I’m going to develop a new urban fabric like an organic tissue by proposing certain rules but still keeping tolerance and changeability. An urban context that keeps growing is a field in which any particular location can be modified to fit the new activities.
Credits:
ta (David) YU
SCI-Arc, MArch 2 Thesis
