Symbiotic States: Architecture of economy as architecture of agency

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Cornell University Department of Architecture, Art and Planning Bachelor of Architecture Thesis

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LAURA KIMMEL

SYMBIOTIC STATES : Architecture of economy as architecture of agency

Cornell University Department of Architecture, Art and Planning Bachelor of Architecture Thesis May 2017

Laura Alane Kimmel lak243@cornell.edu

Thesis Advisors: Andrea Simitch Leslie Lok

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LAURA KIMMEL

Acknowledgements I am deeply grateful to my advisors, Andrea Simitch and Leslie Lok, for encouraging me through an exploration that will continue to influence my work for years...

Many thanks to my thesis helpers, Ibrahim Desooky and Claire Guffey

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“Despina can be reached in two ways: by ship or by camel.

The city displays one face to the traveler arriving overland and a different one to him who arrives by sea.�

-Italo Calvino, Invisible Cities

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CONTENTS I. R ESEARC H Borders + Migration Public Spaces + Private Borders “Safe Spaces” Generic Codes Excersizes in Misreading

II. C ONTEXT Thre Prototypical City of the Central Valley

III. INTER V ENTION Defining an Alternative Occupation of the City

SOURC ES

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8 Manifesto

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SYMBIOTIC STATES Architecture of Economy as Architecture of Agency For undocumented day laborers in the California’s Central Valley, exposure to the road is crucial for being hired. Residual suburban spaces such as parking lots or sidewalks are then critical thresholds of visibility in the routine of a day laborer. At the same time, these interstitial zones surrounding big box stores and strip malls alienate those who use space unconventionally, leaving them targets of surveillance.

While the suburban landscape proliferates surveillance and exposure, its architecture alters perceptions through false facades and deceptive proportions. This thesis exploits these generic tactics to create a city of multiple readings, uses, and temporalities.

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RESEARCH

MIGRATION + PUBLIC SPACE Contested spaces of labor in the Central Valley

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WA

ME

ND OR

WI

ID

MI OH VA

KY CA

AZ AL

Entrance + Destination States

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TX

GA

FL

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MIGRATION

Common Routes

Restricted Circuit

Nomadic

Point-to-Point

Many farmworkers travel throughout a season within a relatively small geographic area.

Other farmworkers travel away from their home for a long periods of time (sometimes many years), working from farm to farm and crop to crop. Some of these farmworkers may eventually settle in the area where they migrated.

Farmworkers migrate to the same place or series of places along a fixed route during the course of a season. These people tend to live in home-base areas like FL, TX, PR, MX, or CA. 13

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BORDERS + SURVEILLANCE 100 MILE BORDER ZONE law enforcement may arbitrarily stop vehicles warrant / reasonable suspicion not needed immigration checkpoints allowed Over half of California is in this zone 14

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Sanctuary Counties 364 counties

Sanctuary Cities

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REGIONAL AGRICULTURAL NETWORKS Highway 99 + I-5

Stockton

Sacramento

Manteca

Modesto Stockton

San Francisco

Modesto

Turlock

Fresno

Merced Visalia Bakersfield

Madera Highway 99: dividing spine of agricultural towns

Los Angeles

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Fresno

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THE CENTRAL VALLEY + MAJOR AGRICULTURAL ROUTES

The Central Valley

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Street Vending

Food Trucks

Day Labor

Civic Spaces + Parks

Neighborhoods

Home Depot

S. Alvarado St MacArthur Park Los Angeles, CA

York St. at 54th Ave Highland Park Los Angeles, CA

1200 S Flower St Burbank, CA

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add parking lots PUBLIC SPACE + INFORMAL LABOR The boundaries between public space and private commercial property, where jobs are often found by day laborers, is a contested zone.

Day Labor

Farm Labor

Home Depot

Off-Hours Parking Lots

5600 W Sunset Blvd, Hollywood, CA

Mecca, CA

On one hand, the exposure that these shopping centers and parking lots afford is crucial for being hired, but on the other, it is easily observed by law enforcement.

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signage risk / benefit depending on location

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ammenities tables, shelter minimal- waste disposal

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cultural/religious

parking/mobile living

alter

parking allowance on lots

street food/ specialty stores

services via trucks

CONTESTED PUBLIC SPACE 21

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GENERIC STRUCTURE

tilt-up with steel frame roof

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URBAN development spans multiple blocks proximity to freeway + infrastructure surrounding shopping mall/ chain stores

ON SITE

CORPORATE

parking perpendicular to entrance loading zones in back 2 entrances - commercial loading + general interior/exterior garden zone

structure advertisement iconography

GENERIC CODES If shopping centers and parking lots are contested spaces for undocumented laborers, how can the generic code that forms these spaces be hacked to design space for the people who occupy it the most?

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Home Depot Mass Programming

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GENERIC CODES Home Depot App- Database of Plans

If shopping centers and parking lots are contested spaces for undocumented laborers, how can the generic code that forms these spaces be hacked to design space for the people who occupy it the most?

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Schools schools

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religious

Religious SAFE SPACES Churches, Schools, and Health clinics are known as “safe spaces�- places where law enforcement are ethically advised against entering or surveilling without threat. However, their known status makes them a target when the space around them- often parking lots- is free range.

hospital/clinic

Health Clinic

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Home Depot / Day Labor Shelter Day Labor

Home Depot / Sidewalk Day Labor

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Plaza Street Vending

Food Trucks Parking Spots + Residual Street Space

SPACES OF DAY LABOR 29

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Chain Stores

fast food restaurant

Fast Food Restaurants

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(Isolated)

convenience store

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ARCHITECTURE OF ECONOMY Big Box Stores big-box

Strip strip mallMall

Built cheaply and lightweight but with deceptive facades and materials, the prosaic architecture that is isolated in parking lots - contested spaces 31

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property lines become flexible inhabitable boundary

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BORDER INTERVENTIONS The generic fence is the subject of an excersize: the border between public and private ownership influences the program and decorative pattern of the physical boundary 33

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Existing 34

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ramp extends from freeway parking ramp -> walkable path

ventilation + HVAC -> ammenities

ammenities external units for parking + shelter

volume as surface box is canopy

SYSTEMATIC MISREADINGS How can misreading the plan generate a different use of the space?

Potential Misreadings 35

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CONTEXT

FRESNO, CA The Prototypical City of the Central Valley

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Highway 99 I-5

Highway 99: dividing spine of agricultural towns

FRESNO, CA FRESNO, CA City built around Highway 99 38

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FRESNO: A CITY DIVIDED Fresno can be read as a protoypical city of the Central Valley : it has developed in conjunction with Highway 99, which divides it, broken only by a series of overpasses. Agriculture and transportation are not only imperative to the economy, but become a defining physical characteristic of the city.

FRESNO + HIGHWAY 99 + FARMS

HIGHWAY 99 AS SPINE

DIVISION OF WEST FRESNO + DOWNTOWN

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RESIDENTIAL

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SUBURBAN DEVELOMENT

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FRESNO AS THE GENERIC CITY, FRESNO ST. AS “MAIN STREET” If the divided, agricultural city is a condition that exists across the Central Valley, its components can also be seen as sites that are replicated in each city.

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Fresno’s version of “Main Street”appropriately named “Fresno Street” - bisects the highway and cuts a section through various suburban and urban conditions. This project uses these conditions, from residential to civic, as sites for prototypes that can be applied to various cities across the Central Valley.

Fresno Street

INDUSTRIAL

DOWNTOWN / CIVIC CENTER

Highway 99 x Fresno Street

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Fresno Street

Community Services Government Public Park Religious Retail/ Commercial

RESOURCES + INSITITUTIONS : “SAFE SPACES” of FRESNO ST.

Fresno Community Church

Using Fresno Street as a comparison to the “Main Streets” of the Central Valley, “safe spaces” (churches, schools, clinics, and other resources) are identified based on previous research.

Life Ministries of Fresno

What are the urban and architectural conditions where “safe spaces” occur?

What opportunities are there to avoid “safe spaces” becoming targets of surveillance?

Kearny Park

Golden Cross Health Care Sunset Guest Home House Miracles Faith Ministries

Centro La Familia Advocacy Services

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Schools

Health Clinic

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Fresno County Courthouse Fulton Mall CASA of Fresno County Fresno Housing Highway 99 FoodMaxx Fresno Produce Co.

Firest 5 Fresno County

El Concilio Immigration Project Transportes Intercalifornias

Burger King Panda Express Pizza Hut House of Zion Church New Beginning Apostolic Assembly Rising Stars Missionary Baptist

Highway 41 Fresno Rescue Mission Poverello House St. Agnes Holy Cross Center for Women Apostolic Holy Ghost Revival Tabernacle Greater Faith Missionary Church Fresno Temple Church of God

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Fresno Street

SAFETY VS EXPOSURE : ARCHITECTURES OF ECONOMY It becomes clear that spaces of intented refuge are put at risk by the architectures of economy surrounding them.

Consumer-aimed urban space and its infrastructure of efficiency - large intersections, highways, advertisementsare places designed for surveillance that put those on the fringes of society- or those who use public space differently- at risk of harassment.

If these public spaces surrounding “safe buildings� create more opportunities for their surveillance, alternative spaces of refuge are crucial.

What if these generic consumer spacessuburban shopping developments, highway and advertisement infrastructure, and civic and economic districts become the site of a new architecture of safety and agency?

Fast Food Restaurants

Big Box Stores

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Strip Mall

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suburban shopping developments business/ government districts

highway infrastructure

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INTERVENTION

THE PROSAIC CITY Defining an alternative occupation of the city

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Highway 99

Fresno Street

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PROSAIC AS SITE From the analysis of Fresno, 5 sites are opportunities for the union of the architecturally prosaic and commercial, with the program of the “safe space�- resources and gathering space for undocumented persons.

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ARCHITECTURE OF ECONOMY

ARCHITECTURE OF AGENCY

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I. Fountain

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II. Overpass

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DEFINING AN ALTERNATIVE OCCUPATION OF THE CITY Through their program and ownership, these architectures are inherently intertwined in the lives of the Central Valley’s undocumented workforce.

Big box stores are points of labor pick-up, which reinforce a reciprocal relationship between contractors and laborers.

Billboards advertise the farms in which many undocumented laborers work seasonally.

III. Billboard

IV. Strip Mall

V. Big Box Store

The prosaic is not only a component of the urban sphere that is overlookedit is also intricately related to the workforce which it often ignores or excludes.

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I. FOUNTAIN Downtown / Civic Center

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Fountain

Downtown / Civic Center Sculptures and public works populate a neglected pedestrian mall

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Fresno Municipal Baths fountain as found

Downtown / Civic Center Public infrastructure - the prosaic fountain- is “misread” to provide ammenities for undocumented workers who utilize the goverment resources and community services in the downtown area.

Channels the public drinking fountains and baths that historically provided hygeine and hydration to the masses.

embedded infrastructure : water supply

potential ‘misreading’of prosaic

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Public Seating Downtown / Civic Center Sculptures and public works populate a neglected pedestrian mall

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Fresno Municipal Baths Downtown / Civic Center Public infrastructure - the prosaic plaza- is “misread” to provide ammenities for undocumented workers who utilize the goverment resources and community services in the downtown area.

public plaza as found

Channels the public drinking fountains and baths that historically provided hygeine and hydration to the masses.

potential infrastructure : water supply

potential ‘misreading’of prosaic

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Fresno’s pedestrian mall circa 1960s

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Prosaic Fountain

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Fountain as found

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Potential Misuse of Infrastructure

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II. OVERPASS Highway 99

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Overpass Highway 99 The overpasses are the only element weaving together Fresno over Highway 99.

They are a host of graffiti and advertisement.

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Fresno St. Market Highway 99 The overpass is the only place pedestrian and auto both can cross the highway, and it is also one of the few places where surveillance - in the form of a parked government car- is difficult.

At the same time, it is a platform for advertisement, bridging over the most travelled agriculture route in the U.S. The intervention uses advertisement for farms as an extension of the overpass structure, which provides stalls and shelter for temporary markets.

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Fresno Street Overpass Market

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III. BILLBOARD Highway 99

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Billboard, Generic

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Billboard Highway 99 The Billboard occupies an undesirable and overlooked zone between the highway and the city- but structurally has opportunities for more deliberate occupation.

While advertisements lure people into farms with agricultural tourism and gimmicks, the aspect of labor which they survive on is rarely acknowledged outside of the farm.

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Market + Chapel + Disco

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Billboard Highway 99 If the prosaic, replicated aspect of the billboard is taken advantage of, it provides shelter with direct connection to the highway, where labor pickup and travel to farms occurs.

This interstitial zone is an opportunity for farms to not only advertise, but provide a network of recognizable yet covert spaces along these critical routes for farmworkers to gather with shelter.

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Highway 99 Ad Park

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IV. STRIP MALL Suburban Shopping Development

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STRUCTURE TO HACK

HACK; OVERHANG + COLUMN

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STRUCTURE VS SURFACE

GENERIC TACTIC: OVERHANG + COLUMN

GENERIC TACTIC: OVERHANG + COLUMN STRUCTURE TO HACK

HACK; OVERHANG + COLUMN

STRUCTURE VS SURFACE

GENERIC TACTIC: OVERHANG + COLUMN

GENERIC TACTIC: OVERHANG + COLUMN

STRUCTURE TO HACK

Strip Mall, Generic HACK; OVERHANG + COLUMN

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Strip Mall

Suburban Shopping Development False facades, hollow overhangs, tall parapets, and deceptive proportions all characterize the strip mall aesthetic- dependent on concealing the lightweight and efficient structure below.

Proposed intervention

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Housing + Gathering 1: 25

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overhang

Kearney Palms Shelter + Community Center Suburban Shopping Development

parapet

The existing mis-use of the Kearney Palms strip mall is adapted structurally as a space for temporary housing, an extension of the parking lot which is used as a place of labor pick-up or overnight parking.

column / false facade

Structural Opportunity

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V. BIG BOX STORE Suburban Shopping Development

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Big Box Store,

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Big Box Store Suburban Shopping Development ROOF Open Joist Framing

The Home Depot has been a site of day labor pick-up by both contractors and customers in the Central Valley and cities. Some stores have provided shelter on-site and designated pick-up zones separate from the customer entrance.

FALSE FACADE Tilt Up Construction

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Home Depot Garden Center Extension + Market Suburban Shopping Development The Home Depot roof is deconstructed and its real estate becomes both a parking deck, temporary shelter, and an extension of the Garden Center, a pivotal part of Home Depot’s identity, now expanding to incorporate produce and plants from surrounding farms.

The Home Depot Garden Extenision takes on the identity of the local farms, but also the farmworkers who are hosted in the inhabitable roof and the day laborers who use the on-site facilities for work opportunities.

TRUSS ADAPTATION 1 occupyable layer in unused air space

TRUSS ADAPTATION 2 air space as layer for mobile roof

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BOOKS / ARTICLES

Christopher Alexander, A City is not a Tree (from intro to Ladders) Marc Auge, Non-Places: Introduction to an Anthropology of Supermodernity Jamie Bartlett, The Dark Net Fazila Bhimji, Struggles, Urban Citizenship and Belonging: The Experience of Undocumented Street Vendors and Food Truck Owners in LA (essay) Buckley and Littman, A Contemporary Vernacular: Latino Landscapes in California’s Central Valley (essay) Mike Davis, Beyond Blade Runner (essay), Ecology of Fear Mike Davis, Magical Urbanism Nicholas De Monchaux, Local Code Temporary Urban Spaces, 2006 Keller Easterling Organization Space: Landscapes, Highways and Houses in America Call It Home: The House That Private Enterprise Built Extrastatecraft: The Power of Infrastructure Space Enduring Innocence: Global Architecture and its Political Masquerades Rem Koolhaus, SMLXL - imagining nothingness (from intro to Ladders) Lars Lerup, After the City, One Million Acres and No Zoning Kevin Lynch, The Image of the City Stephen Marshall, Streets & Patterns Albert Pope, ex nihilo urbanism James C. Scott, Seeing Like a State Scott-Brown + Venturi, Learning From Las Vegas William Vollman, Imperial William Whyte, The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces Xaveer De Geyter Architecture, After-Sprawl 120

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PROJECTS / FILM

David Lyon El Mojado El otro lado Llanito, Little Boy (subject, using vignettes) Norman Bel Geddes National Motorway Plan, Control Bridge, Magic Motorways, 1940 (p 104 organization space) William Whyte ‘Social Life’ film

ORGANIZATIONS Cornell Farmworker Program - Mary Jo Dudley CVHC - Coachella Valley Housing Coalition CARECEN - Los Angeles Valley LEAP - Latino Environmental Advancement Project Galilee Centers

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