PROJECT DEVELOPMENT TRANSPORTATION - ROAD NETWORK The term “infrastructure” has been used since the 1920s to refer to the basic physical and organizational structures such as roads, power lines, and water mains needed for the material and organizational aspects of modernity (Gandy 2006, 58). In a traditional urban planning term, these infrastructure elements not only support but also enhance urban development. While according to later landscape practices, infrastructure might include earthwork grading, drainage, soil cultivation and so on – the preparation for ground to future uses. As Kathy Poole reflects on existing infrastructure conditions, “Through roughly 150 years of industrialization we have come to believe that the politics of efficiency are beyond question and that standardization is the ultimate expression of democracy” (Poole 1998). It is not difficult to notice the trend of increasing standardization of infrastructural systems when we are pursuing a higher efficiency. Most road networks were designed in a similar way to meet with demand of cars, only as a track for this machine. Numerous riverways were converted from natural curving forms into artificial crude lines in the name of flooding prevention. These urban environments have been considered and evaluated solely on technical criteria while ignoring the functions in social, aesthetic and ecology. When applauding for the successful proposals like Chon Gae Canal renovation in Seoul and Los Angeles River restoration, we just cannot help to being
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WEAVE RETHINKING THE URBAN SURFACE
surprised that China’s on-going South-to-North water diversion project is extremely similar to these samples before refurbished. In the last few decades, lessons of the infrastructure construction result in a consensus that all kinds of space are valuable and meaningful, not only the traditional public spaces as parks and squares. This requires the re-examination of the single-functional oriented infrastructure and the liberation of infrastructure from impacts of congestion, pollution and noise into an inhabitable part of city. Also it needs the engagement with natural phenomenon as well as the social and cultural demands of the community. Rather than to precisely control urban conditions, landscape urbanism implies to create a more flexible future. With deliberately organizing the infrastructural catalysts, this methodology is able to produce effects and performances (Corner 2006, 60). WEAVE attempts a new strategy in the design of our road network, one that is responsive to the existing conditions and density of the site yet projective towards the future potential of the city, we don’t view streets as only “paved surfaces but as elements in a larger network and hierarchy” (Rabinovitch 1995, 8) They don’t just connect to buildings, they create opportunities of exchange with the different programatic elements of the city, and establish the structuring of the site on which the future potential can grow.