Nonlinear Urbanism by Birkhäuser

Anton Falkeis, Anastasia Shesterikova, Benjamin James, Michael Tingen, Institute of Architecture at the University of Applied Arts Vienna (Eds.)

Nonlinear Urbanism Towards Multiple Urban Futures

Birkhäuser Basel

NLU It’s been almost 100 years since the German physicist Werner Heisenberg formulated the uncertainty principle and his theory of quantum mechanics broke not only the paradigms of physics, but also those of philosophy. And yet today, we are still accustomed to arguing and acting primarily along linear patterns of causality within isolated boxes of fragmented sciences. The world no longer fits into these rigid parameters. We are now being forced to accept that the extinction of uncertainty is an unrealistic illusion, or even an ideological allegation. We are living in a world characterized by change, ambiguity and unpredictability. Never before in human history have changes been taking place so fast, and been so deeply disruptive in various areas at the same time, interconnected with each other and demonstrating global repercussions. While our societies have been constantly growing ever more complex, and we are having to increasingly acknowledge that seemingly different aspects of our realities are interconnected, the history of universities has been one of fragmentation, speeding up over the last few decades. On the one hand, this has been necessary for the dramatic expansion of our scope of knowledge. On the other hand, the price we have paid for this has been a general loss of perspective on interrelationality. The impression that a photo, video, object or building leaves on a viewer’s retina is necessary, but not sufficient in and of itself. The decisive factor is the effect it has on our minds — which is dependent on the creation of contexts of experience and interpretation.

Dismissing Nonlinearity Means Ignoring Reality Gerald Bast

Hans Hollein once placed a pill on a piece of paper and named it “single-family home in a rural setting.” One of the most significant developments in our modern world is the increasing existence of uncertainty. From Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle to Schrödinger’s cat, which is, in a quantum mechanical sense, alive and dead at the same time; from breathlessly keeping pace with the digital information society to fear of the total surveillance state; from the crisis of political institutions to the crisis of the financial system. Jürgen Habermas identified the displacement of politics by the market ten years ago, and now the markets are going crazy as well. Uncertainty dominates our attitude towards life — but will it ever be possible to get rid of uncertainty? To prohibit uncertainty? How can we ignore multilinearity and transdisciplinarity? What we are currently experiencing is the phenomenon of those who have been socialized in our supposedly enlightened society trying to escape this increasingly unsettling world. People are looking for security, simple answers, certainty, the elimination of doubt. And this comes as no surprise when we realize that people who are educated and socialized in intellectual environments tend to avoid nonlinearity and doubts. Dismissing nonlinearity also means rejecting certain realities, including that of our brain’s neural network. A flight from doubt is also a flight from enlightenment! I would like to extend my thanks to Anton Falkeis and all the authors of this publication who are following the culture of nonlinear investigations.

NLU The Problem of Linearity Throughout history, urban development has been fueled by technological innovations. Ever since the ancient Romans exported their urban techniques while conquering the world, urban design has become synonymous with infrastructure technology and technological solutions. These technologies were mainly based on innovations initially driven by military and later by economic interests. Disruptive technologies became fundamental to laws and regulations for urban development, ultimately determining the forces that shape urban space. They significantly changed the way we inhabit our cities, and the way we live, work or move in urban space. The integration of large-scale technological inventions into urban life has marked major turning points in history, causing substantial damage to societal structures and urban space.1 As we have seen throughout the course of the Industrial Revolution(s), more or less every aspect of everyday life was affected by this development, and still is up until the present day. Modern societies, as well as modern cities, are rooted in this period of radical transformation of work and life.

Nonlinear Urbanism, Towards Multiple Urban Futures Anton Falkeis

and work — dissolved into spatially dissected concentrations of monofunctional activities. Executing this strategy on an urban scale led to an unprecedented, radical segregation of urban life. Thus, isolation and exclusion eventually became the core policies of an industrialized city.2 The second wave pushed the production output towards one that resulted in an unparalleled quantity of goods. This first form of mass production was based on the division of labor. The workflow was disassembled into less complex sequences. Structured into rigorous, linear processes, these smaller portions of work were then reassembled alongside assembly lines, regardless of what kind of product was being manufactured. This concept was applied to the first and most well-known assembly line, the Ford line, to the lesser-known Cincinnati slaughterhouse lines. Mass production, powered by electrical energy, provided products at affordable prices by minimizing input costs.

As a result of this development, automobiles made an appearance on the urban agenda. Having the most influence on urban planning up to date, they The first wave of the Industrial Revolution complete- became the driving force behind city development. ly shifted our production routines from being based Once populated by a variety of activities, the streets on hand production methods to being driven by and public spaces of preindustrial cities were now steam-powered machines. Breaking apart preindus- facing being relegated to exclusively hosting traffic. trial societal structures, the spatial concentration Back in these days of a rising age of the automoof labor established a new type of urban structure: bile, US car companies began systematically buying the manufacturing plant. Site and location evolved up public transport systems in order to shut them into becoming the essential criteria for industrial down, leaving millions of Americans stranded. Now manufacturing. The traditional production techhaving to depend entirely on car mobility, cities niques — defined by the spatial coexistence of life developed into sprawling urban forms. 1 Kiess, W. (1991). Urbanismus im 2 Falkeis, A. (2015). “Thinking Out of the Industriezeitalter. Berlin Urban Design Tool Box.” In: Arts, Research, Innovation and Society. New York: Springer

This development of rapid suburbanization had had Throughout this process of transforming humanity a big and long lasting impact on urban, as well as into an industrial society, the prevalence of linearity societal, structures. has shaped the way we think and speak. This can clearly be seen in metaphors we live by:3 orientaLogistics and new means of transportation enabled tional metaphors such as ‘good is up’ and ‘good is spatial differentiation between production and forward’ have become deeply embedded in Western consumption. This process of separation was very culture. Thus, we understand progress as a linear disruptive, not only to the existing manufacturing movement going forward and upwards. landscape but also — and maybe even more importantly — the perception of urban space. What is Following the same logic, ‘more,’ in its spatial known as spatial segregation — the core model of expression, means stacking one thing on top of the a functionalized city — is rooted in a strict chrono- other. Therefore, as a spatialization metaphor, ‘more logical order. Organized alongside linear processes, is up’ is directly coupled with ‘good is up,’ which is the city’s development followed the path of a solely coherent with ‘more is better.’4 These most fundaeconomical practice. Consequently, linearity was mental metaphorical structures in Western culture established as the fundamental principle of an coincide with their most fundamental values. Such industrialized world, crucial towards all transforma- culturally embedded metaphors as ‘progress is a tions that would follow. linear movement forward and upwards’ and ‘more is better’ have given birth to the imperative of unlimitHence, the predominance of linearity did not dimin- ed growth and an ever-increasing economic output. ish with the third wave of the Industrial Revolution. Following the same logic as the previous waves, the From Linearity to Exponential Growth third Industrial Revolution was only different in All future models of how we inhabit our planet have terms of the efficiency of scaling. Whereas produc- been developed alongside this single but all-determining factor. Addicted to growth, our belief in tion during the first two waves was only scalable economic growth became almost religious. Rarely by ‘adding bodies to the lines,’ the third wave of discussed, it remained virtually unchallenged for a the Industrial Revolution introduced automation to the production chain for the first time in history. long period of time. For more than half a century, mainstream economists failed to question whether Machines that were able to repeat a linear series of or not growth is always possible, desirable, or even simple tasks partially replaced humans on the assembly lines. Just as the physical abilities of man and necessary at all.5 animal defined the pace of the preindustrial world, the speed of machinery determined the pace of the industrialized world. 3 Lakoff, G. et al. (1980). Metaphors We Live 4 Lakoff, G. et al. (1980). Metaphors We Live 5 Raworth, K. (2017). Doughnut Economics. By. Chicago: University of Chicago Press By. Chicago: University of Chicago Press Seven Ways to Think Like a 21st-Century Economist. London

mental problems and the implementation of more sustainable technologies, humanity at large had missed the opportunity to correct its course over the previous 30 years. Numerous symptoms of a world in overshoot clearly demonstrated that we were Dismissing the report as holding radical views, they moving towards an environmental and economic were overlooking the obvious: its basic thesis — that global collapse. Now, the main challenge identified unlimited economic growth on a finite planet is in the report is that of how to soften the impact.8 impossible — was indisputably correct. A calculation formula to measure growth was By means of a global computer model utilizing sys- already developed in the 1930s. It is based on the tem dynamics theory, the team formed around the income generated within a nation’s border. With this leading report author, Donella Meadows, analyzed calculation — first referred to as gross national prod12 scenarios resulting in different environmental uct (GNP) and later on as gross domestic product outcomes of world development over two centuries, (GDP) — the most influential element in world ecofrom 1900 to 2100. The scenarios displayed how nomics was launched. The possibility of comparing population growth and natural resource depletion and competing with other nations using just a single interacted to impose limits on industrial growth. As number as a measure made GDP a truly powerful a sobering result, the model showed an “overshoot tool. Governments, eager to push their own growth and collapse” of the global system by the mid-to-late into the lead, set questionable priorities within a 21st century.7 variety of social fields. In this way, GDP became the main driver behind governmental policy, while the On the 20th anniversary of the publication in 1992, powerful political interests that have allowed it to there was compelling evidence that humanity was dominate today’s economies remained hidden.9 The moving deeper into unsustainable territory. We appeal of having a single year-on-year indicator for had already extended our demands on the planet’s measuring economic progress became far too strong. resources, which had sunk beyond what could be GDP growth shifted from being a policy option to a sustained over time. The main challenge that was political inevitability, and finally, to the actual policy identified was that of how the world could be moved goal. As the concept of GDP exclusively follows the back into sustainable territory (Meadows 1992). logics of quantitative methods, the fundamental problems of this most powerful number demonIn a comprehensive update of the report 30 years lat- strate how little relevance it has to principles such as er, the authors were far more pessimistic than they equity, social justice, and environmental protection. had been in 1972. Although there had been some With its “first priority [of achieving] the highest progress in terms of a new awareness of environsustainable growth” (OECD Convention 1961), GDP Moreover, the only attempt to question unlimited growth, the “Limits to Growth” report6 published in 1972, was harshly rejected by the same mainstream economists.

6 Meadows, D. et al (1972). The Limits to Growth: A Report of the Club of Rome’s Project on the Predicament of Mankind. New York

7 Meadows, D. et al (1992). Beyond the Limits. White River Junction, VT: Chelsea Green Publishing Company 8 Meadows, D. et al (2004). Limits to Growth: The 30-Year Update. White River Junction, VT: Chelsea Green Publishing Company

9 Fioramonti, L. (2013). Gross Domestic Problem: The Politics Behind the World’s Most Powerful Number. London: Zed Book

obviously sustains growth of output, not the environment. Trapped in the logic of linear thinking, output growth had become the overriding policy object of industrial countries, and the theory of growth became the driving force behind their economies — an addiction that has endured to this day. For more than a century — like an ever-rising line indicating GDP — the world has been experiencing exponential growth in a number of areas, including its economy, production, consumption, emissions, environmental destruction, and population. For instance, in 1900, the world’s population had a doubling time of 100 years. But a hundred years later, in 2000, the time it took for the world’s population to double in size was less than 40 years. With more than 50 percent living in cities, the world had become urban by 2007. For the first time in history, the global urban population has exceeded the global rural population, and there is evidence showing that the number of urban dwellers is continuing to grow faster than the rural population. As people across the globe continue to move to growing cities, the share of the world’s population living in urban areas is expected to reach 60 percent by 2030. By 2050, the world will be more than two-thirds urban, which is roughly the reverse of the global ruralurban population distribution of the mid-20th century.10 But even more problematic: as a consequence of the increase in urban population, today’s cities are growing twice as fast in terms of land area as they are in terms of population. Over the past century, most cities have expanded their built-up area more than 16-fold.11 Consequently, projections indicate that future trends in urbanization could 10 United Nations (2019). World Urbanization Prospects. The 2018 Revision (ST/ESA/ SER.A/420). New York: United Nations. (https://population.un.org/wup/ Publications/Files/WUP2018-Report.pdf)

result in the global urban land area almost tripling by 2030. If these trends continue and all areas with high probabilities of urban expansion undergo change, then by 2030, urban land cover will increase by 1.2 million km2. This additional amount of land will be developed into urban levels of density. Such urban expansion will destroy biodiversity and will contribute largely to carbon dioxide emissions through deforestation and land-use change. One of our most significant nonrenewable resources is productive land and fertile soil. Land-use change is therefore of great concern because of how the rate of topsoil renewal slows down as a result. It takes approximately 500 years for a 2.5 cm layer of topsoil to become fertile. With increasing urbanization triggered by population growth, the amount of arable land available for each person is continually dropping. Currently, each human being has only 2000 m2 at his or her disposal. In 1961, that figure was twice as high. The amount of arable land available per person will decrease to 1500 m2 by 2050.12 Moreover, 40 percent of global food production is lost each year after harvest or wasted in retail and households. Resulting in produced but unconsumed food, this adds almost 1.4 billion hectares of vainly occupied land to an already dramatically decreasing amount of arable land.

11 Angel, S. et al. (2011). Making Room for a Planet of Cities (Policy Focus Reports). Cambridge, MA: Lincoln Institute of Land Policy

12 UNCCD (2014). Land Degradation Neutrality: Resilience at Local, National and Regional Levels. (https://www.unccd. int/sites/default/files/relevant-links/2017-08/ v2_201309-unccd-bro_web_final.pdf)

Towards Multiple Urban Futures Looking into our collective urban future, we must take on all these urgent, global questions. We have to recognize these clear signals and understand to what extent the exclusiveness of a linear model of development and the subsequent overriding principle of exponential growth have pushed the world into overshoot. According to António Guterres, UN Secretary-General, “we are on the edge of an abyss — and moving in the wrong direction.”13

In this state of flux, design and urban planning have crucial roles to play. Replacing the rigidity of form and program with an open system creates elastic urban conditions — from innovative solutions to entirely new urban formations. We have to rethink future urban development in terms of its social, cultural, economic and environmental nonlinearity — towards a multiplicity of urban futures.

Water shortage and energy scarcity, climate change, global poverty, inequality, and refugee crisis — and most recently, the coronavirus disease — all these concerns are colliding head on in urban agglomerations. Being at the forefront, cities are playing a central role in the global response to those crises, raising fundamental questions about sustainable and synergetic development. Unravelling complexity into a chronological order, the linear model of urban growth in 20th century city planning did not involve models of complexity; it was not expected to be evolutionary. Since it was not based on strategies similar to those employed by living organisms, the planned city was unable to operate different activities simultaneously. On the contrary, segregation, fragmentation and exclusion are the exact countermodels of a system in which diversity provides the resources for change. This system lacked flexibility, and failed to open up the design system and keep conflicting elements in play.14 Therefore, this model is not able to operate within our vulnerable contemporary conditions. 13 António Guterres, Secretary-General’s address to the 76th Session of the UN General Assembly, New York, September 21, 2021

14 Falkeis, A. (2017). Urban Change. Basel: Birkhäuser

[Image 1] Img. 1: Unknown Author, Workers on the First Ford Assembly Line, 1913

NLU Nonlinear Urbanism is a collection of speculative essays discussing a multitude of disruptive and nonlinear futures of urban agglomerations. The book is based on urban innovation research conducted at the Department for Special Topics in Architecture at the Institute of Architecture at the University of Applied Arts Vienna. In addition to investigations by students, renowned experts contribute to questions related to our urban future. The structure of the book is nonlinear in itself. Graphically and thematically interconnected cross-references allow for both a contextual as well as sequential reading of the book. Merging the printed volume with an additional digital layer offers an interlaced and simultaneous experience, navigating multiple levels of content, thereby mirroring the complexity of urban systems. This book consists of nonlinear, interwoven explorations of design on global, urban, architectural, societal and individual scales. The short texts and evocative imagery serve as both discrete, standalone works and as interconnected pieces of a larger ecosystem. The underlying concept of this publication is that the texts may be read in multiple ways, similar to how we experience and understand the interconnected design ecosystem:

On How to Read the Book Benjamin James Michael Tingen Anastasia Shesterikova Anton Falkeis

1. The texts can be read in a conventional and linear manner by progressing sequentially through articles using scale as a guide to understanding the different topics examined. 2. The texts may be read in a nonlinear manner by using graphic annotations and highlights embedded within articles to jump between sections that are thematically and conceptually connected. This is shown by text fragments that are annotated with a colored box and then connected to the page edge with a dotted line. The color(s) of the box indicate the scale of the corresponding articles and the dotted line leads to a particular section of another conceptually linked article. In this way, it is possible to leave the current article and intersect it with a new article covering a similar concept. 3. The texts may also be read in an augmented manner through augmented reality (AR) digital content that exists, grows and is updated beyond the printed physical text. This AR content is graphically indicated with a large cross adjacent to an image. This signals that this image triggers additional content in the AR app. To experience interactive augmented reality content, please visit the QR code below. Ultimately, the evolving and multithreaded reading of this publication will allow for different experiences and perspectives on the same text, depending on the manner in which one reads the work.

[Author, page number]

[Article Chapter]

[Image 1]

[Image 2] Img. 1: QR Code to the Nonlinear Urbanism Website, https://starch-ioa.at/index.php/ nonlinearurbanism/

Img. 2: iheartblob, _Sources; Image 2 indicating AR content, 2020

Global Scale Projects in this section address topics on scales that are interurban, international, intercontinental, and even interplanetary. The inferences raised and conclusions drawn are related to macroeconomic, social, and cultural trends with impacts that transcend geopolitical borders. Due to the expansive nature of their scopes, these articles serve as contextual frameworks for other works within the magazine and discourse.

[ c23, m80, y42, k13 ]

The Synchronous Garden (SynG)

Keywords: - Metabolic Architecture - Expanded Media - Technological Advancement - Ecology - Management and Control - Synchronicity - Social Exchange - Natural Systems - New Forms of Communication Human societies have shaped and influenced ecological patterns and the biosphere significantly, whether it has been directly through agriculture, initiating species migration, pollution, or climate change. To sustain ecological patterns without altering them any further has also become increasingly more difficult and complex. Ecology, in the broadest sense, represents the balance between human presence and nature. These relational conditions are becoming increasingly too complex to fully understand or evaluate and are being continuously mediated by technology. This technological mediation is defining our experience of the world, signifying a dominating discourse in terms of human relations to technology and defining a technical understanding of nature and ecology. We consider environmental sciences and ecology on a historical level, we refer to obsolete models such as gathering information, data analysis, design, building, maintenance. These models have generated concepts and concerns such as remediation, regeneration, and human safety concepts that are symptoms of an optimized gaze of science that is trying to extract from the environment, to make the natural world ‘how it should be.’

New Perspectives between Architecture and Ecology

MAEID (Tiziano Derme, Daniela Mitterberger)

We may start to look at ecology as a point of departure in order to encompass and promote other agencies, deoptimizing the way we look at the world, deconstructing the false belief in precision and control in order to move towards new forms of intelligence and autonomy. This may support the reflection that ecology is a thoroughly dynamic dimension, rather than something capable of being frozen or trapped between binary concerns. This new look at ecology may avoid any static definition of nature and ecology and instead support a definition that exists in a technological continuum of different media, signals, scales and temporalities. 1: Architecture of the Expanded Media Architecture — seen from the perspective of being a physical perturbation of an environmental condition — is fundamentally an act of betrayal of the natural environment. It requires a critical displacement of ‘natural’ relationships,1 through actions such as site clearing, material assembly, and the continued consumption of natural resources. Those actions, created to serve a finished building, reinforce an image in which the built environment faces and battles the natural one. Undoubtedly, leaky roofs, cracking foundations, spalling surfaces, insect infestations, fires, floods and earthquakes all demonstrate that architecture fundamentally struggles with natural phenomena. In opposition to this concept, architecture could be also understood as a category of life, with a capacity for continual adaptation, evolution, change, and a precise lifespan. Considering architecture as a category of life favors the creation of new cultural associations, with completely different features, biological ranges, and expanded capabilities to 1 Ingersoll, R. (1992). “The Ecology Question and Architecture.” In: The SAGE Handbook of Architectural Theory. SAGE Publications Ltd.

respond to environmental fluctuations. This condition entails a simultaneous placement of architecture into the current discourse on ecology and media theory while demanding expansion and ecological thinking, especially in opposition to binary ecological understandings. The question is: How can we confront architecture with a more intricate system of media and ecological interactions? How can we avoid a nostalgic line of ecological discussion that suggests that ‘the past was better’ — which is not at all certain — or that ‘such a landscape is the ideal for living a happy life.’

In the case of radical ecology, the concept of nature as an endemic ‘indigenous’ species is different. Endemism refers to the production of diversity through isolation. Geographic isolation and climatic barriers create a multitude of environments that support the emergence of new species. A plurality of habitats and biotopes offer more species a place to live. The longer the habitat remains isolated, the longer diversity remains. “A garden is a delimited and enclosed space/territory constructed to exercise a very specific relation to nature.” 2 As an extension to this quote, the borders of the garden and its enclosures may disappear when the garden relates to specific ecological concerns. Borrowing this expression from Gilles Clement, “This new garden, from one connection to another (biologically speaking), assumes the scale of the planet,” moving beyond binary conceptions of ecology doesn’t necessarily mean rejecting the current position towards nature, it’s rather about building a new, dynamic relationship between the humanistic and the radical approach to ecology. This definition would accept its evolutive character and understand the dialogue between the anthropic, nature, and the technologically mediated. A dynamic presence that is neither-nor, that is here and there: this is most likely the domain

2 Clément, G. (2015). “The Planetary Garden” and Other Writings. University of Pennsylvania Press

[C .a. Kumpusch, p. 105 ]

2: Beyond the Binary Concern: Expanded Ecology Ernst Haeckel invented the term ‘ecology’ at the end of the 19th century. In his mind, ecology was the study of the dynamic exchange between living creatures and their essential relationships with their surroundings. Current discourses on ecology support mainly two ideologies that derive from very specific conceptions of nature: first, humanistic forms, and second, radical forms of ecology. Humanistic ecology represents a set of values prone to a systemic understanding of nature and the actions taken upon it. This conception is based on ‘management and control’ of a specific system. Landscapes that have been anthropomorphized, controlled and designed by humans, or by machines, can be seen as an extension of the human will. Supporting such a system, we assist in the creation of a very specific system of values.

Control and management of some of these values can be recognized by the simple, strict and very delineated geometry seen in ponds, reservoirs, terraces and gardens. Nature, in contrast, is organized in a complex and seemingly barely legible way.

The End of the Anthropocene City Jan Kovaricek

Keywords: - The Anthropocene - Artificial Intelligence - Machine Learning - Neural Network - Urban Planning Tools - Cultural Bias - Algorithms - Urban Objects - Symbiotic Relationships

help us in our general understanding of how big data are utilized by large corporations and governments. User-generated data are marginalized, used mostly as an easily marketable, for-profit commodity. The undervaluing of this data completely neglects any chance for their qualification and general adoption towards improving our society in an opensource/open-platform manner. These enormous datasets and the powerful algorithms that decode them could offer us insight into the underlying patterns of the city of today, and The End of the Anthropocene City Throughout the history of mankind, urban agglom- help us create scenarios for tomorrow. Searching and naming the qualities of the habitat that make erations were solely created to fit human needs for safe habitats. But the age of the City of the Anthro- humans experience specific sensations and alter their behavior would be the initial step towards pocene is over. gaining an understanding of how these mechanisms The cities of today have a tendency to act in a reactionary way to the digital evolution. They have work and why. AI could help us unravel the patterns layers upon layers of systems producing accidental behind it. Algorithms have become an inseparable part of how virtual and physical megastructures (Benjamin life is being channeled into the society of the early Bratton refers to them as “The Stack”).1 The ever21st century — something so complex, it defies indiexpanding tendency towards dataism has been vidual comprehension. The Post-Anthropocene City mostly neglected by the general and professional will be a city for more than just humans. It will host public outside of the core AI industries.2 a plethora of organic and inorganic entities. It will How are cities perceived and understood by maalso host ephemeral resources such as energy and chines? Can the architects of tomorrow use the data as its currency (or even as our equals, as citiurban fabric as an interface to teach the machine? Is the next city an interface for machines to under- zens?). Robots; artificially augmented people; virtual stand and learn from humans? Urban fabrics could entities; flora and fauna. Energy, Data, Information, be used as a tool to teach the AI nuances of complex Consciousness. Our species will inadvertently experience a shift in social interactions and behaviors of humans. the role humans have on the planet, which will no longer be as apex predators of the Anthropocene, The Post-Anthropocene City but as caretakers and ideally, cobuilders (together The utilization of the term ‘smart’ in front of ‘city’ lies within the realm of false advertisement. We are with the machine) of the Post-Anthropocene. suffering from a lack of digital literacy, which could 1 Bratton, B. H. (2016). The Stack: On Software and Sovereignty, MIT Press, USA 2 Field, M.: “Lack of digital skills will cause 7 million to be ‘left behind’ in next decade,” https://www.telegraph.co.uk/ technology/2018/09/11/lack-digital-skillswill-leave-7-million-left-behind-nextdecade/ 28

3 Harari, Y. N. (2016). Homo Deus: A Brief 4 Robertson, D. “This is how Facebook’s History of Tomorrow. shut-down AI robots developed their own United Kingdom: Harvill Secker language — and why it’s more common than

you think,” https://www.independent.co.uk/ voices/facebook-shuts-down-robots-aiartificial-intelligence-develop-ownlanguage-common-a7871341.html

The Power to Understand Urban Phenomena In his book, Homo Deus, Yuval Noah Harari questions the general idea that an algorithm cannot be seen as a member of the society since it is an intangible invention of the human mind. Harari argues that existing societal constructs such as countries are also immaterial and yet they form a substantial part of our life on Earth.3 For a couple of years already, stock exchange brokers have been using highly optimized algorithms to perform huge trades within split seconds. These automated trades happen in real time and have control over market dynamics: their trading strategies will eventually have control over how expensive your morning coffee is, and whether you will even be able to get your preferred roast blend at your favorite local café. We are now in a situation in which algorithms have power over our jobs, how we consume, and with whom we interact. In 2017, computer engineers at the Facebook AI Research Lab trained two deep learning algorithms (named Alice and Bob) to trade virtual books, hats and balls with each other. The training data provided were in English, yet there was not any priority given to using English as a language of conduct. Over time, Bob and Alice utilized their own version of communication that was incomprehensible to humans (even to their own designers), which allowed them to carry out trade negotiations faster and more effectively. The downside? Humans completely ceased to understand how the deals were done, and why.4 It is widely believed that with enough computational power (set at the magnitudes of exascale: 1018 FLOPS), it would be possible to effectively forecast local weather conditions.5 5 Putman, W. “A Glimpse at the Future of Global Weather Prediction and Analysis at NASA,” https://www.nas. nasa.gov/SC17/ demos/demo34.html

A future in which we will be able to predict the weather two weeks in advance with a 100% success rate might not be so far off from now. Such an ability would find a vast number of applications, ranging from safer flight control to more efficient planning of crop harvests.6 Is the urban realm really that much more complex than a simulation of planetary weather conditions? Using machine learning (ML) to find the patterns hidden within the collected data could help us comprehend urban phenomena and their deviations, and allow us to conceive simulations of artificial systems that are far more emergent and unimaginable than those conceived by standard procedures of designing. What exactly is a neural network (NN)? These networks (similar to human neuron networks) form a backbone to general machine learning algorithms. They are programs that have the ability to learn when they are given large enough sets of ‘learning data’ to analyze. After processing layers of inputs into outputs and correcting the parameters (a process generally referred to as deep learning [DL]), the neural network finds a function that can effectively solve the problem at hand while ignoring the data that are irrelevant to the solution. If a machine has enough teaching data and the necessary processing power, it can create functions that solve any given number of complex problems — a feature that is turning out to be crucial towards understanding our overly technicist digital era, which is generating redundant data every second of the day.7

6 U.S. Dept. of Energy. The Opportunities and Challenges of Exascale Computing, https://science.energy.gov/~/media/ascr/ ascac/pdf/reports/Exascale_ subcommittee_report.pdf

7 Marr, B. “How Much Data Do We Create Every Day? The Mind-Blowing Stats Everyone Should Read,” https://www. forbes.com/sites/bernardmarr/2018/05/21/ how-much-data-do-we-create-every-daythe-mind-blowing-stats-everyone-shouldread/#374fab3d60ba 29

Culturally Biased AI Data analysis and its quantification and qualification is still a process that is so far still fully dependent on humans. As a part of a Chinese government initiative to become a leading superpower in AI,8 new types of businesses have been emerging there. The cheap labor force has realigned itself to fit the trend of industries shifting towards automation within manufacturing.9 Low-income employees work full time behind computer screens, tagging tens of thousands of pictures every day. In this way, AI systems on board self-driving cars are able to understand the difference between the shape of a human and a lamppost, an automatic cash desk is able to differentiate between the goods you buy, and the governments of some countries can send you a digital fine for running traffic lights with the help of facial recognition cameras. A man behind a computer in some provincial city in China teaches the machine to recognize the world. But how does he teach it? He does it in the best way he can — based on Chinese cultural mentality. It is his own culture and life experiences that he unavoidably passes on to the machine. Does this potential ‘cultural’ affectation of the machine even matter in the age of complete globalization? Imagine an NN-powered urban planning tool tasked with categorizing and evaluating city districts based on defined ‘qualitative’ criteria. The Chinese tagger who would be in charge of qualifying the learning data for the AI program would be used to living a life in a society where high-density accommodation is thriving — not due to the of lack of space, but because of the cultural value the Chinese place on companionship and a feeling of belonging.

As the cultural bias inherent to each society differs, the Chinese tagger would apply a different set of hierarchical values to city planning than his Western counterpart would. If we then used a system trained with these specific priorities in the USA, whose citizens tend to value individuality and territorial claims above all, the result would inevitably be a culturally mismatched built environment. One of the many vulnerabilities of this situation (including, among others, hackers compromising the learning data used by NNs) is the production and availability of relevant teaching data that are a substantial element of the future proofing of the entire DL ecosystem and its mainstream implementation. In 2016, Microsoft developed and launched an ML program called Tay, an AI chatter bot. The sole purpose of the DL-powered chatbot was to learn how to converse with real-life users of Twitter. 24 hours after Tay was put online, it started using racist and misogynistic remarks frequently. It turned out that that was what it had been taught by the users themselves.10 This experiment raises an important question: How can deep learning algorithms using public data be taught without any sort of filtration mechanism? Furthermore, how can prejudice and racial/cultural subjectivity be avoided? Is there a need for some kind of regulation to be imposed on the procedures for selecting what kind of data is fed to NNs?

8 Lee, K. F. (2018). AI Superpowers: China, 9 Yuan, L. “How Cheap Labor Drives Silicon Valley, and the New World Order. China’s AI Ambition,” https://www.nytimes. New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt com/2018/11/25/business/china-artificialintelligence-labeling.html

10 Vincent, J. “Twitter taught Microsoft’s AI chatbot to be a racist asshole in less than a day,” https://www.theverge. com/2016/3/24/11297050/tay-microsoftchatbot-racist

[M. Sahin, p. 72]

[Image 1] Img. 1: Jan Kovaricek, The Post-Anthropocene City, 2021

Urban Scale Projects in this section address topics on the scales of cities and other geographically expansive and spatially interconnected entities. Themes of networks and fluidity, infrastructure and economics dominate the key ideas underlying these essays. The issues address extensions and correlations of concepts raised on smaller scales and mediate between larger and smaller nonlinear readings of the publication.

[ c00, m63, y20, k00 ]

Urban Fictions through the Lens of Artificial Intelligence Matias del Campo Sandra Manninger

Keywords: - Urban Planning - Neural Networks - Artificial Intelligence - Algorithms - Cartography - Aesthetic Conditions - Urban Density - Authorship - Role of the Architect

What is meant by this? Traditionally, prospective architects have been trained during their studies to operate like data miners. Every new project is based on the hundreds and thousands of images ingested during the training they received in architecture school. This, of course, is an oversimplification of a highly complex pedagogical model, but at its very core, there is an element of truth to it. Learning the trade of designing architecture is a profoundly visual matter, which has been amplified in this age of social distancing through Instagram, Pinterest, TikTok, Architectural design is a very volatile process; it is hard to break down into discrete chunks. Attempts Zoom, and Miro boards. This image-based tradition can be exploited with a series of techniques deriving to do so often fail or just oversimplify the intricate neurological processes involved in a design process. from AI research such as StyleTransfer, CycleGAN, It is almost impossible to judge architectural design StyleGAN, etc. on a purely pragmatic level. Architecture — with a What goes beyond the ability to simply ingest big A — always simultaneously addresses aspects such as planning processes, economic environments, imagery is the inherently human ability to perform pattern recognition, as well as our talent for material preferences, political conditions, stylistic extrapolation. One of the things the human mind fashions, aesthetics, and the general culture of the time the design was being created. Whether it is in is exceptionally skilled at is recognizing events and objects, separating fore- and background. That also the rigorous structure and geometrical purity of a implies being able to realize that an error or mistake Renaissance building, or the intricate, voluptuous, and at times, as Mario Carpo put it, messy geometry holds the potential for a creative solution to a problem. How can this problem, which is computaof the architecture of big data,1 in both cases, it is not surprising that the intrinsic matter of designing tionally rather challenging to grasp, be harnessed in order to be able to differentiate between a successinvolves aspects of ideology. Both of the examples ful or unsuccessful image to image style transfer? mentioned above can be identified as representative of ideologies that span areas beyond shape and This is where the aspects of the neural network’s geometry and involve political, social, and economic learned features come into play. (Factually, what it has learned are salient pixel patterns within a given conditions. It might not be surprising that, to that image — just saying.) We can use trained neural extent, they also represent a vessel and repository of the history of architectural imaginations and, as networks to successfully identify specific features such, can be considered an enormous mine for new within images. In the context of architectural design, ideas on the nature of architecture and urban design. we can create images of possible projects based on 1 Carpo, Mario. 2017

[M. Sahin, p. 75]

detailed, predetermined datasets. Of course, this brings along with it a whole set of other problems, such as questions about semantic information, correct labeling, and the proper training of networks, but I’ll try to keep the geek talk to a minimum. In any case, I should mention the ethical implications of the work on databases, which include aspects of data bias, data justice, and questions regarding data ownership. In this article, we present a speculative project regarding the application of neural networks in urban design. Viennangeles is a theoretical project. On a purely technical level, it is a neural style transfer between two locations: Vienna and Los Angeles. Of course, this is only the outermost layer of a more significant disciplinary interrogation of the problem of the city in the age of intelligent machines — in the age of Neural Architecture. It is almost impossible to judge the planning of urban textures on a purely pragmatic level. They always simultaneously discuss various aspects, including planning processes, economic environments, material preferences, political conditions, stylistic fashions, aesthetics, and the general culture of the design period. Whether this is in the rigorous structure and geometrical purity of Renaissance ideal cities, as exemplified in the concept of the ideal town proposed by Leon Battista Alberti in his De re aedificatoria,2 or in the intricate, voluptuous geometry of parametrically designed settlements3 — in both cases, it is not surprising that the intrinsic matter of urban planning on a large scale involves aspects of ideology and utopia.

[Image 1]

[Image 2] 2 Alberti, Leon Battista. 1988 3 Zaha Hadid Architects. 2006

Img. 1: SPAN, Urban Fictions 1, 2018

Img. 2: SPAN, Interior, Austrian Pavilion for the Dubai Expo 2020. Ceiling and walls were designed using a 2D-to-3D neural style transfer, mashing up various styles found in the historic urban texture of Vienna, 2018

[J. Kovaricek, p. 30]

SO Keywords: - Artificial Intelligence - Machine Learning - Neutral Network - Cultural Bias - Algorithms - Cognition - Ideology - Simulation - Urban Design

Reconciliation between the Individual and Digitization Merve Sahin

be the unfolding project. At this point, I wonder how space production via analog tools devised by architects and designers would intersect with or contradict the digital tools with a special focus on artificial intelligence in terms of both the analysis and the production of urban space?

#data #hierarchy #thresholds What I see are the layers of experiences and emotions versus the layers of objective data. However, The city is not only its material components, it also what we could teach artificial intelligence about embodies the human interest of maintaining and ourselves, where to start the story of humans, and expressing one’s personal identity. In urban space, how to construct the hierarchies of relations are not there are various layers of shared narratives that objective. Data tends to overrule, however, the nucontain hope, joy, sorrow, unity, power, struggle, ances in that urban fabric that create certain threshconflict, terror, alienation, fear, justice, uncertainty, olds in unforeseen times, places with activities, and nostalgia and amnesia. Everywhere in the world, we these are the exceptions to the rule. I believe these see various ways of habitants affirming their individ- moments are what create the intangible qualities of ual identities in a public way.1 From this perspective, the urban spaces. Can AI conceptualize the nuanced the problem of the future urban realm stems from moments of human life expressed in urban space? digitization of space production and data projection techniques being too general, overlooking and fail- #AI #machine #neural #memory #theoryofmind ing to understand spatial and cultural liminalities It would be beneficial to first clarify the progresand individualities. On the most general level, the sion of artificial intelligence, so as not to merely be devices that are being used to analyze and generate deceived by our amazement over what science has the urban realm are becoming inhumane, and indi- achieved. The development of artificial intelligence viduals are being reduced to data, working in favor is classified into four main divisions — reactive maof the mechanisms that profit from the capital and chines, limited memory machines, theory of mind, big companies (Microsoft, Google, IBM, Apple, etc.) and self-awareness. The first two groups of AI do not have the capability to create narrations or to form #analog # individual #digital long-term memory. They lack the ability to perceive How to reconcile the digitization and individual time, to conceptualize and abstract their exterior human expression in public space in the future? world, or to realize the intentionality of the actions The merging of these two seemingly contradictory of others. Deep Blue, IBM’s chess-playing supercommovements in culture, politics and society would puter, which beat international grandmaster Garry 1 Falkeis, A. (2017). Urban Change. Basel: Birkhäuser

Kasparov in the late 1990s, self-driving cars, and neurals are perfect examples of this type of machine. Only Type III AI, devising the theory of mind, has the capability of understanding social situations. In psychology, ‘theory of mind’ is the understanding that people, creatures and objects in the world can have thoughts and emotions that affect their own behavior. This is crucial to how we humans have formed societies because they have allowed us to have social interactions. Without understanding each others’ motives and intentions, and without taking into account what somebody else knows about me or the environment, working together is at best difficult, at worst impossible.2 Type IV AI is aimed at being a self-aware machine. That would be the final point at which a machine would function as a human, or at least would be able to differentiate between itself and organic beings, realize systems of thoughts, abstract and conceptualize the physical world, and form representations about itself. That’s why we should focus our efforts toward understanding memory, learning, and the ability to base decisions on past experiences.3 This is especially important while tackling a digital intelligence that only physically classifies and analyzes what is being seen and its encounter with the act of design that architects and designers perform on a daily basis, which is far more complex than these basic procedures. At this point, we should also try to understand the relationship of an individual with space. [Image 1] 2 Hintze, A. “Understanding the four types 3 Ibid., footnote 2 of AI, from reactive robots to self-aware beings.” The Conversation. (November 14, 2016), accessed January 5, 2019, https://theconversation.com/understandingthe-four-types-of-ai-from-reactive-robotsto-self-aware-beings-67616

Img. 1: Merve Sahin, Invitation, 2018

IN Keywords: - Space Creation - Rhythm - Urban Life - Sound - Informal Systems - Organization - Private and Public - Intersections - Vibrance

Sound as a Space-Creating Tool Mathias Juul Frost

in order to survive, you need to sell in order to sell, you need to create a personal space (make yourself noticed) in order to create a personal space, sound becomes the tool, with the ability to represent whatever you are selling — sound becomes a space-creating tool The carpenter, the hairdresser, the car mechanic each have a sound, which all become part of the individual layers in the overall composition.

Lagos is a fascinating agglomeration of city on top of city. How does the social condition and individu- This in exchange is transformed into an extreme al responsibility affect a city and its spaces? soundscape, produced by the intersections of the independent layers, confirming each others’ existence Polyrhythm is a notion in music, the backbone of at this very point. the drum sound, especially in West Africa. It’s a layered sound of independent rhythms. The sound has The all-encompassing morphology of people, emno beginning, middle or end, it forms a continuous phasized by the nonregulated sound and movement, pace, that you as a passerby step into and out off. forms a continuous space, where the individual is The drum rhythms are traditionally used in rituals, forced to negotiate his/her own boundary. The body in which these become the mediums for individuals is the main actor. It is in the public arena that the to transcend and communicate between the dead means for survival can be pursued, this essentially and alive. transforms what we perceive to be public space into a potential market spot — essentially becoming The polyrhythmic additionally describes the seem- private. This, in exchange, transforms the city into a ingly independent and continuously intersecting negotiable zone. layers of diverse movements, realities, histories and futures expressed in the city. The negotiation of space is not in the hands of the city. The city has become light and flexible. Because of the lack of a formal social system, the Its volumes have become porous and have been individual is left with the responsibility for his/her transformed into a framework — put on wheels. Its own survival — which in my eyes, becomes the most iteratively redefined organization is purely negotiatvibrant force in the city. ed by the desires of the people. The city has become under siege — by its own inhabitants.

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[L. Ly, O. Alunovic, p. 60]

[Image 1]

Img. 1: Mathias Juul Frost, AFa, Busy Streets of Lagos, 2017

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