[05] Hot Lava | Fall 2020 | N;C

Hot Lava

Spaces of Conflict Design Studio 05 N;C by Nicholas Chung tschung@syr.edu

Contents 04 ______Preamble 14 ______Research Cabrini Green, High Line, Praries and Savannas 34 ______Urban Still Life 46 ______Manifesto 50 ______Charette First Iteration for Mid-term review 60 ______Final Project You’ve Lost Your Place! Allergies, Invasions, and Settlements 84 ______Epilogue ARC307 Cabrini Green Nature Reserve

Hot Lava 05 Design Studio Spaces of Conflict Nicholas Chung

04 ________ Preamble

Spaces of Conflict Cabrini Green PC: Prof. Joel Kerner SYR SoA ARC307

05 ________ Preamble

06 ________ Preamble

The overall site is the Cabrini Green neighborhood in Chicago, located on the North of Chicago adjoining the North Branch of Chicago River. At its peak, the public housing project was home to 15,000 people in mid- to high-rise apartment building.

With years of neglect, the living conditions became hostile and plagued with crime and violence. In 1995, the Chicago Housing Authority began tearing down the housing towers, with a promise to rehouse original residents.

07 ________ Preamble

08 ________ Preamble

It has been over 10 years since the last tower fell, and most of the land has since remained vacant. Today, only the original two-story row-houses on the Southern section of the neighborhood remain, boarded up with their inhabitants still in them. A slue of new high-end developments rose around the periphery of the neighborhood, driving up the real estate value of the area by commodification and gentrification.

09 ________ Preamble

10 ________ Preamble

11 ________ Preamble

As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, we have seen the resurgence of wildlife in the urban landscape, reclaiming space that has been colonized by human activity. It also highlights the inequity of ownership, with humans subjugating, controlling, and culling wildlife when they trespass into human territory. In addition, the Forest Preserves of Cook County has made a commitment to restore and expand protected lands by at least 30%, an ambitious target that requires humans to restructure the relationship between urbanity and nature.

12 ________ Preamble

As a provocation for the studio, the ‘Right to the City’ is extended to the ecology, with proposed designs returning the ground to nature, with humans inhabiting within or above. By considering relationships between residents and governments, humans and nature, the projects will also develop a dichotomy between top-down and bottom-up relationships. The new Cabrini Green neighborhood will be prototype of what urbanity could (or should) be, and how begin a discourse on how to better design for our biosphere.

13 ________ Preamble

14 ________ Research

CABRINI GREEN

SPACES OF CONFLICT: HOT LAVA

SYR-SOA--20F-ARC307--RESEARCH

RESEARCH BOOK

Spaces of Conflict: Hot Lava

1

15 ________ Research

Research Cabrini Green The High Line Prairies & Savannas Collaborator: Emerald Man Full research book: https://issuu.com/n.chung/docs/cabrini_research

16 ________ Research

Site Analysis: Formal & Semiological

the formal grid: an instrument for bias HIERARCHY The grid of Chicago follows a formal, regulated grid that is somewhat indifferent towards the natural topography. It proposes a systematic arrangement and division of space, quadrants, ambiances. The grid only begins to sub-divide itself as it breaks down to the quaternary level. Cabrini Green’s centroid is marked by the terminus of a diagonal axis as well as a police station, centering the government at the core of the community.

FIGURE-GROUND Residential +Social Nodes best represent people’s daily movement in Cabrini Green. Shops and restaurants are located in the pink zone, while the residential areas are represented in the green zone. This indicated the private and public zones, as well as the central point and gathering space for Cabrini Green residents. On the other hand, Demolished vs Existing Residential indicates the demolished area in the 1950s and how it’s transformed into the existing residential area nowaday.

URBAN INJUSTICE The overlay image indicates the Racial distribution of Chicago in 1960 and Chicago Expressways in 1933–2003.

This illustrated White-dominated Suburbanization and how expressways were built as environmental racism, in that race played a role in the decisions made about our humandesigned, built environment. The black poche indicates a prodominantly minority neighborhoods, which are segregated by the formal urban grid.

2

ARC 307: Fall 2020: Joel Kerner

17 ________ Research

Emerald Man & Nicholas Chung

URBAN HIERARCHY Primary Secondary Tertiary Quaternary Quinary Senary

Gathering

RESIDENTIAL + SOCIAL NODES

Secondary Gathering

Demolished

Residential

Existing

DEMOLISHED VS EXISTING RESIDENTIAL Spaces of Conflict: Hot Lava

3

18 ________ Research

Site Analysis: Formal & Semiological

SEMIOLOGICAL INTERPRETATION By mapping the programs that engage the street, the clustering of capital, and thereby injustice caused by capital, emerges. The new developments on the northwestern area has a concentration of commerce and commodities, all connected through a network of services that privilages those who can afford to live in the newly built condos. Moving southwest, the programs become more clearly segregated and categorized in a Corbusian sensibility.

By isolating these enclosed/self-referrential networks, urban continuity can be broken up into factions whose characteristics are reflected in the materiality, sequencing, and ‘vibe’ of the built environment. To appropriate Guy Debord’s diagram of derive, one can begin to understand how the wealth gap has impacted the urban grid and how it bends over to facilitate the flow of money and dibilitate upward mobility, figuratively and literally.

cabrini green: a jigsaw puzzle with irregularly connections

Education Finance Commerce Dining Retail Parking Religious Municipal Park (small) Park (large) Pharmacies Hospitals/Medical

4

ARC 307: Fall 2020: Joel Kerner

19 ________ Research

W

H RT O N

Emerald Man & Nicholas Chung

SEDGWICK

E AV

SEWARD PARK

W DIVISION ST N HALSTED ST

W CHICAGO AVE Spaces of Conflict: Hot Lava

5

20 ________ Research

Site Analysis: Formal & Semiological 01

W NORTH AVE

The New Development Area is bound by the Apple Lincon Park and the NEWCITY mall.

The picturesque composition of commodity and delux residential reflects the opulence of capital privilage.

02

W DIVISION ST

Adjacent to 03, this entry bottlenecks the east-west traffic in and out of Cabrini Green. It passes above the North Branch Canal, which can be understood as a natural boundary.

03

N HALSTED ST

Adjacent to 02, this entry bottlenecks the north-south traffic in and out of Cabrini Green. It passes above the North Branch Canal, which can be understood as a natural boundary. Compared to 02, the addition of vegetation forms a pictureque landscape.

04

W CHICAGO AVE

Similar to 02 and 03, this bridge crosses the natural threshold of the North Branch River.

The flanking buildings on the side create an imposing gate frame, heightening the image of boundary.

05

W CHICAGO AVE

Compared to other entry conditions, this almost seems as if the city is allowing nature to reclaim the landscape, completely obscuring the visual connection to the row houses.

06

N ORLEANS ST

The dichotomy between new and old become very visable in building height, material, and relationship to the street. The new contains commodities that service the residents, blurring the definition between living and spending. This is in contrast to the highly regulated grid categorization strategy.

6

ARC 307: Fall 2020: Joel Kerner

21 ________ Research

Emerald Man & Nicholas Chung 07

SEWARD PARK

Similar to Lincon Park, this is a picturesque landscape that transitions from the East into Cabrini Green.

08

N SEDGWICK

The northwestern quadrant of the area is demarcated by the above-ground train tracks that marks what is considered within and beyond a boundary.

formal indifference manifests in sensorial experience 08

01

DESIGN CONSIDERATIONS - How and where does the urban matrix disrupted to create idiosyncratic nodes? How will those nodes engage their social context?

- How do we facilitate or resist capitalistic decisions or interventions in the composition of Cabrini Green? How do we undermine the wealth disparity and formalistic planning that resulted in the self-referential ‘puzzle pieces’?

- How should the hierarchy of movement be re-designed to better integrate different systems/factions of the neighborhood?

bottom up 02 07

top down

03

- Semiological concerns such as transitions and visual composition to the pedestrian, vehicles, and residents need to be addressed as to establish a sense of belonging. This can also be achieved by improving the porosity between social programs and residences.

Spaces of Conflict: Hot Lava

06 04

05 7

22 ________ Research

RTTC: High Line

RECLAIMING THE HIGH LINE In collaboration with Friends of the High Line during (19992002), conducted a comprehensive study and outlined recommendations for the reuse of the elevated railway as public open space. They researched and analyzed the High Line’s historical significance, physical conditions, local zoning, current land use and community needs, and evaluated all the possibilities for the High Line – reuse for transit, reuse for commerce and reuse for open space. In the study of “ Reclaiming the High Line”, they propose that the design should focus on pedestrians, commercial potential existed along the High Line, and a walkway on top of the High Line, caused values of adjacent properties to rise due to this open public space. They suggested preserving the elevated railway, enabling them to move forward with their goal of turning the railway into an elevated park.

OPEN CITY ≠ RIGHT TO THE CITY An open city, in this sense, is not merely a space that can be accessed and enjoyed equally by all; it would also be a realm in which the institutional capacity to produce and transform space has itself been radically democratized. Lefebvre referred to this capacity as autogestion – self-management – and he insisted that, “far from being established once and for all, [it] is itself the site and the stake of struggle.”

GSD Urban Theory Lab, ISSUE 85: OPEN SPACE

conflict: public vs “The Public” 14

public (adjective)_spatial equity as written in Stavros Stavrides’s “The City as Commons”; undefined constituents; democratic mechanism of chance and equitable accessibility to resources.

The Public (noun)_privatized appropriation of space and program; identified participants with explicit parameters; capitalistic bias that facilitates ‘equal’ access to valuebased commodities.

ARC 307: Fall 2020: Joel Kerner

Emerald Man & Nicholas Chung

23 ________ Research

PUBLIC SPACE/ RESOURCES DAVID HARVEY’S “DEMOCRACY”

PUBLIC SPACE/ RESOURCES DE

-CO

MM

OD

COMMODITY MASS ALIENATION

IFI

CA TIO

N

CONTESTED SPACE

DAVID HARVEY’S DISCONTENTS

TRAIN TRACKS public transit capital

THE HIGH LINE

public resource DE

-CO

privatized “public” park

MM

OD

MASS ALIENATION

IFI

CA TIO

N

MODEL APPLIED TO HIGH LINE

CHELSEA privatized neighborhood

Spaces of Conflict: Hot Lava

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RTTC: High Line

24 ________ Research

ERASURE OF CONTEXT It is maybe unsurprising, then, that many of [Jane] Jacobs’ disciples have had nothing but scorn for the High Line.

The New Urbanists, a movement who elevate Jacobs’ ideas into dogma, have often attacked it in print. One of their number, James Howard Kunstler, blasted the High Line as “decadent”, “a weed-filled 1.5 mile-long stretch of abandoned elevated railroad”, where “mistakes are artfully multiplied and layered”, such as “the notion that buildings don’t have to relate to the street-and-block grid ... instead of repairing the discontinuities of recent decades, we just celebrate them and make them worse”.

Kunstler is elsewhere an advocate of a new agrarianism, so his problem is not greenness per se, but its use just for the sake of it, for contemplation rather than production – a return, as he sees it, to the old Corbusian ideas.

HIGH LINE

HIGH LINE STREET

The Guardian, “High Lines and park life: why more green isn’t always greener for cities”

“DISNEY WORLD ON THE HUDSON” The New York City Economic Development Corporation published a study last year stating that before the High Line was redeveloped, “surrounding residential properties were valued 8 percent below the overall median for Manhattan.”

Between 2003 and 2011, property values near the park increased 103 percent.

INVESTOR

CIRCULAR ECONOMY

The New York Times, “Disney World on the Hudson”

[...] the project would help generate some $200 million in new real estate taxes, a bit more than it would cost to build the park. But they wildly underestimated its impact: development adjacent to the High Line will pump $900 million into the city’s coffers by about 2038.

LAND FOR SPECULATION

effect: mass alientation 16

A survey of the inclusionary zoning program from 2005 to 2013

by New York’s Department of City Planning shows that 1,470 new affordable units were built on Manhattan’s West Side, but a separate study by a city councilman’s office indicates that only 348 of them are in West Chelsea. Clearly, providing a funding mechanism or incentives for affordable housing isn’t nearly enough. What’s required is a much more focused effort, something that has the depth and determination of the 11th Street Bridge Park’s plan.

Karrie Jacobs, “The High Line Network Tackles Gentrification”

ARC 307: Fall 2020: Joel Kerner

Emerald Man & Nicholas Chung

25 ________ Research HUDSON YARDS

01

06

08 01

STREET

W 30TH ST.

02 W 28TH ST.

05

03

W 26TH ST.

05

09

W 23RD ST.

04

06 10 W 20TH ST.

03

07

W 18TH ST.

07 08

W 16TH ST.

09

W 14TH ST.

10

“STARCHITECT” DEVELOPMENTS

04 GANSEVOORT ST.

02

Spaces of Conflict: Hot Lava

Access Points

17

26 ________ Research

RTTC: High Line

RESOURCE

COMMODITY

URBAN RESURFACING But the High Line is washing all that away. D&R Auto Parts saw its profits fall by more than 35 percent. Once-thriving restaurants like La Lunchonette and Hector’s diner, a local anchor since 1949, have lost their customer base.

Today it’s another hole in the ground. Its third-generation owner, Alan Brownfeld, blamed the High Line for taking away the thriving business he’d inherited from his grandfather. “It’s for the city’s glamorous people,” he said. [...] But the new locals will rarely be found at street level, where chain stores and tourist-friendly restaurants will cater to the crowds of passers-by and passers-through. Gone entirely will be regular New Yorkers, the people who used to call the neighborhood home. But then the High Line was never really about them.

The New York Times, “Disney World on the Hudson”

18

ARC 307: Fall 2020: Joel Kerner

27 ________ Research

Emerald Man & Nicholas Chung

“You could be forgiven for reading the art as a message to less-thanopulent New Yorkers: You’ve lost your place.”

Bloomberg City Lab, “The High Line Is Trolling Us”

DESIGN CONSIDERATIONS - When programming, who is the private, the public, and “The Public”? Whose identity is accentuated and whose is silenced?

- Where is the line between resource and commodity when creating a ‘public space’?

- How will a new urban intervention change the reading of the ‘context’? In general, how should architecture relate to the most public space - the street? How can those relationships be replicated?

Spaces of Conflict: Hot Lava

19

28 ________ Research

Ecology: Praries & Savannas

SAVANNAS A savanna or savannah is a mixed woodlandgrassland ecosystem characterised by the trees being sufficiently widely spaced so that the canopy does not close. The open canopy allows sufficient light to reach the ground to support an unbroken herbaceous layer consisting primarily of grasses.

Savannas maintain an open canopy despite a high tree density. It is often believed that savannas feature widely spaced, scattered trees. However, in many savannas, tree densities are higher and trees are more regularly spaced than in forests.

The general appearance of a savanna is that of an open field of grass and wildflowers with scattered trees, or an occasional cluster of trees. The trees in a savanna are usually thick-barked species that can withstand occasional fire, such as bur oak.

trees ≠praries PRARIES 22 million years ago, western North America witnessed the growth of the world’s first prairie grasses. The landscape gradually moved east, reaching our region a few thousand years ago, after the last glacier receded into Canada. Illinois prairie supported Native Americans, who burned the grasslands as they hunted buffalo on foot.

European pioneers pushed through the dark forests, amazed to find 22,000,000 acres of sunny, flower-filled grassy landscape.

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ARC 307: Fall 2020: Joel Kerner

29 ________ Research

Emerald Man & Nicholas Chung

TYPES OF BIOMES Factors to consider include canopy density, trunk regularity, ground shrubbery and composition of nutrients, ecological networks and required daylighting.

01

50M

10M DRY DECIDUOUS FOREST

10M

02

THICKET

10M

03

OPEN WOODLAND

10M

04

SAVANNA WOODLAND

10M

05

TREE SAVANNA

10M

06

SHRUB SAVANNA

10M

07

TREE AND/OR SHRUB STEPPE

10M

08

THORNY SHRUN STEPPE

Spaces of Conflict: Hot Lava

9

Ecology: Praries & Savannas

30 ________ Research

Wet Prairies

Wet Prairies -Found in flat or gently sloping areas -Lower lying depression marshes, slightly higher pine flatwoods -Soil contains clay

-Found in flat or gently sloping areas -Lower lying depression marshes, slightly higher pine flatwoods -Soil contains clay

Hill Prairies -Dominant type of prairie in Southern Illinois -Surrounded by forest.

-Dry and exposed to prevailing winds -Found in shallow layer of topsoil or bedrock

Prairies minant type of prairie in Southern Illinois rounded by forest. and exposed to prevailing winds und in shallow layer of topsoil or bedrock

Sand Prairies

Sand Prairies -Predominant southeast Chicago into Indiana -Supported Dry- adapted plants and animals -Sandy soils

-Predominant southeast Chicago into Indiana -Supported Dry- adapted plants and animals -Sandy soils

upland site mostly bare ground mud flats short grass

floodplains clays

ground

mud flats short grass

floodplains clays

short grass to mid grass

mashes

mashes

wet

dry wet

10

moist

moist

ARC 307: Fall 2020: Joel Kerner

short grass to mid grass

grass mixed with forbs and woody shrubs

31 ________ Research

Emerald Man & Nicholas Chung

Black Soil Prairies

Black Soil Prairies

-Dominant type of prairie in central and northern Illinois -Classic prairie type -Retain moisture and rich minerals

Dolomite Prairies

-Dominant type of prairie in central and northern Illinois -Common type of prairie in Northern Illinois -Classic prairie type -Found in shallow soils, bedrock is exposed in wide expanses.

-Retain moisture and rich minerals -Less densely and shorter than in other prairie ecosystems.

Dolomite Prairies

Great Plains Prairies

-Common type of prairie in Northern Illinois -Common type of prairie in Northern Illinois -Found in shallow soils, bedrock is exposed in wide expanses.

-Dry and well-drained -Less densely and shorter than in other prairie ecosystems.

-Found in mounds or ridges of gravel

Great Plains Prairies -Common type of prairie in Northern Illinois -Dry and well-drained -Found in mounds or ridges of gravel

Gravel Prairies

Gravel Prairies -Prairie in Northern Illinois -Dry and well-drained -Found in mounds of gravel

-Prairie in Northern Illinois -Dry and well-drained -Found in mounds of gravel

grass mixed with forbs and woody shrubs vast high plateau of semiarid grassland

vast high plateau of semiarid grassland

grass with spanse

thick shrub layer under trees

tallgrass prairie

dry farming grass with spanse

thick shrub layer under trees

tallgrass prairie

dry farming

dry

dry

Spaces of Conflict: Hot Lava

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Ecology: Praries & Savannas

32 ________ Research

RESTORATION CYCLE

1a

1b

02

Create a seed bed of freshly Hand-pull method Controlled burn method worked soil and rototill the area to If you wish to avoid a chemical pro- This method can burn away dead cess, you can hand-pull the weeds plants; prevent certain other plants a depth of 1 to 4 inches from the area. from encroaching and release nutrients into the ground to encourage new growth.

04 Mulching provides some erosion control and aids in soil moisture retention. Make sure not to use hay, because it may contain seeds you do not want to introduce to your area.

05 Year 1

06 Year 2

03 The best time to seed is from the spring to late summer (or to early August in North America).

Hand planting is the simplest and the most reliable method

07 Year 3

After one year, Most prairie plants are perennials. Although perennial seeds will germinate the first year, the young seedlings' root growth will be two to three times their above-ground growth, and they may not flower until the second or third year.

WHY RESTORATION?

- The real promise of prairie restoration is that it can enlarge and reconnect native prairie, providing populations of animals and plants a much better opportunity to survive.

- Restoration refers to the purposeful assembly of plant and animal communities in order to reconstruct a stable ecosystem that is compositionally and functionally similar to that which originally exist.

- Prairies restoration enhances the environment.It increases the abundance of native plants, increases ecological diversity, and therefore creates habitats for native animals and insects. Prairies absorb a lot of rain, reducing erosion and runoff.

12

ARC 307: Fall 2020: Joel Kerner

33 ________ Research

Emerald Man & Nicholas Chung

controlled burns: a necessary human intervention to regulate ecology FIRE MANAGEMENT Fire is especially important in oak savanna restoration. An oak savanna restoration project should not be initiated if fire is not an option. Ideally, fire should be used annually for at least 10 years. After 10 years, fire can continue to be used annually, but should be used at least two out of every three years indefinitely. Fuels are different physically and chemically.

Fuel in a savanna burn is usually heterogeneous, consisting of oak leaves; weedy forbs; warm-season grasses in sunnier openings; small dead sticks and limbs (coarse woody debris).

Because the principal fuel is oak leaves, the fire burns cooler and the flame heights are lower than in prairies. Because flame heights are lower, firebreaks can usually be narrower.

DESIGN CONSIDERATIONS - How are maintenance mechanisms, like control burining or fire breaks implemented?

- Consider how canopy and density overlap or displace different components.

- What are the animals desired in the ecology and what are the mechanisms to establish natural barriers? (e.g. Ha Ha Walls) - What are the lighting requirements for vegetation and wildlife? How is light brought down?

Spaces of Conflict: Hot Lava

13

34 ________ Urban Still Life

35 ________ Urban Still Life

Urban Still Life Phenomenal Skeleton Exploring top-down and bottom-up relationships through figure, field, form, and idiosyncrasies.

The phenomenal skeleton is then applied and parcelized into the Cabrini Green site boundaries.

36 ________ Urban Still Life

Line.

37 ________ Urban Still Life

Colour.

38 ________ Urban Still Life

Hatch.

39 ________ Urban Still Life

Sticker.

40 ________ Urban Still Life

Erosion and opacity.

41 ________ Urban Still Life

Composite 1.

42 ________ Urban Still Life

Combination of techniques.

43 ________ Urban Still Life

Composite 2.

44 ________ Urban Still Life

Composite 3.

45 ________ Urban Still Life

Final base drawing as agreed upon by the studio. Parcelized and randomly distributed to all 14 students.

46 ________ Manifesto

47 ________ Manifesto

Interlude Design Manifesto A response to research, provocations, conversations.

48 ________ Manifesto

The issues of Cabrini Green are a result of inhabitant and inhabited space dislodging from one another.

The space of the city, as it stands, has little interest in how it wishes to project itself, but instead is more inclined to concede the populist imaginary in favor of a self-reproducing conditional order. This ‘order’ is the product of top-down (capitalist) governmentality, the all-seeing-eye that craves a grid into the ground, creating quadrants of microcosmic urbanity. This should not come as a surprise, it is for the convenience of governance that institutions wish for “identities to remain distinct and distinguishable” so that they are “recognizable, classifiable, therefore predictable” (Towards the City of Thresholds). The Cabrini neighborhood, an urban condition defined by an arbitrarily drawn boundary (according to the grid, of course), is a simulacrum of wider society writ large. Any sense of income, racial, class (the list goes on indefinitely) inequality can be studied and engaged on the macro scale. That said, all those inequities can have the capacity, by virtue of capital, to resist change forced upon it.

All that is to say: designers, planners, speculators, and participants are required to integrate (or invest) ‘substance’ or ‘identity’ to vandalize the generic components of an urban circuit board so that that circuit “expresses those values that are necessary for social production” (Thresholds). The research done begin to tease out the mechanisms available to perform these adjustments as well as warn against not totalizing the gap between idealism and capitalist realism. The crux of the matter is that there is not yet a balance in spatial continuity. The early history of Cabrini Green and Chicago’s development spree has resulted in an overdependence on infrastructural systems. Even as the civic sphere is attempting to resolve these issues, it cannot be done without authoritative legitimacy. What needs to emerge is a common sense of agency by both people and environment that does not necessarily co-exist by default, but instead in constant contentious dialogue with one another.

Housing Authority Plans or Conservation Agendas will not sustain without it being engrained into the everyday from the macroscale, nor will it be effective as long as inhabitants do not see it as both right and obligation to engage with civic concerns. This is best exemplified through the original housing strategies of Cabrini Green. Crime and disarray are the direct result of a ‘not my problem’ attitude caused by the lack of attachment between inhabitant and inhabitation. Income, race, class has little to do with a sense of belonging. The hostility of a place and how it generates memory is what tethers personal practices and collective beliefs. One of many examples of doing so Quinta Monroy by ELEMENTAL in Chile. It is a social housing project in which the architect effectively builds half the architecture and allows the families that move in to fill in the blanks. What this implies is that it would be counterproductive to say

49 ________ Manifesto

that there is a ‘sensibility’ or ‘style’ or ‘way of life’ that can be actively designed. The better option would be to provide a blank canvas flexible enough to support the parametric possibilities of how the spatial image of Cabrini Green would change. The goal here is not to design the new radical, but to design the radically banal – a new gene sequence that can mutate into localized contexts anywhere as a counterweight to the formalistic tendencies of urban planning.

To resolve issues of social, natural, economic conflict (all of which are found in Cabrini Green) that urban spaces are concerned with, one would be remiss to not start by understanding their common exigence – scarcity. If the city is to be understood as the “imaginary geography of emancipation […] that gives form to social practices”, it is to say that the city gives and takes from those who inhabit it.

Right to the city is effective the right to access a resource ‘bank’, where one ‘borrows’ space to support program or function by ‘paying interest’. That interest tends to be in the form of ownership to ‘common space’. (Stavrides) That said, this interest rate also tends to skew against certain demographics by raising the bar of entry to those that the ‘bank’ (i.e. the city) deem high-risk or those who will not provide a high return. In practice, this means that people who are on the lower end of the economic spectrum have a harder time accessing a limited amount of supply regardless of how high the demand is, mainly because by comparison, those who can afford to procure in abundance are more likely to perpetuate value inflation. This implies that access to what is considered to be common resource (e.g. access to nature, medicine, education…) becomes a commodity that has negotiable value. The solution is obvious – the new urban banal needs to actively revise and de-commodify programmatic parameters of ecology and economy.

50 ________ Mid-Terms

Seward Park

W Hobbie St

zone of influence

zone of intervention

N Cleveland St

original site conditions

By The Hand Club for Kids

buildings

St Matthew N Orleans St

market-rate housing

W Oak St

W Locust St

circulation

parcel 11

Francis Cabrini Green Row Houses

voids

Original Parcel Condition

51 ________ Mid-Terms

Charette ExtrudeCrv & Floating Walkways Initial interpretation of the phenomenal skeleton. Inclusion of massing, program, circulation.

Critics: Francisco Sanin, Studio Coordinator Britt Eversole, Studio Coordinator Lawerence Davis, Undergraduate Chair

52 ________ Mid-Terms abstract basemap

ground ecology distribution

ground ecology distribution

53 ________ Mid-Terms

abstract basemap

ground ecology distribution

Left Top: Base drawing from the phenomenal skeleton of parcel 11.

Left Bottom: Ground ecology derived from base drawing.

Above: Collage of precedents that considers that ‘civic-ness’ of natural and human spaces.

54 ________ Mid-Terms

circulation

program massing commercial municipal residential

Public Residential

Social/Affordable

Co-Living Units

Private Temporary

Studio Units

Garden/ farming plot Co-Living Commons

Local Commercial Affordable Commercial Temporary Residential External Commercial Social/Affordable Residential Co-Living Threshold Commons Public Residential Education Social Condition

Private Residential

Market

Fire

residential: public

Wellness Center

20%

Library/ Workspace

10%

15%

Low Accessibility

Waste Treatment

residential: private

15%

Private Residential

residential: social

Waste Treatment

Low Visibility residential: temporary

Garden/ Fire Wellness Center farming plot

Nature Preserve Library/ Workspace

Garden/ farming plot Social/Affordable Residential Co-Living Public Residential Education Social Commons Library/ Workspace

Temporary Residential Wellness Center

Local Commercial Affordable Commercial External Commercial

Market

“police” Medical Centers

Nature Preserve Market Medical Centers

High Accessibility

Threshold Condition Fire “police”

High Visibility

55 ________ Mid-Terms

Local Commercial Affordable Commercial Temporary Residential External Commercial Social/Affordable Residential Co-Living Threshold Commons Public Residential Education Social Condition

Private Residential Fire

Low Accessibility

Garden/ Fire Wellness Center farming plot

Waste Treatment

Garden/ farming plot Social/Affordable Residential Co-Living Public Residential Education Social Commons

Private Residential Waste Treatment

Temporary Residential Wellness Center

Library/ Workspace

Low Visibility

Local Commercial Affordable Commercial External Commercial

Wellness Center Local Commercial External Commercial Social/Affordable Residential “police” Nature Preserve Medical Centers Library/ Education Social Fire Threshold Workspace Temporary Residential Condition Affordable Commercial

Waste Treatment

Fixed

Temporary Residential Social/Affordable Residential

Waste Treatment Fire

Public Residential Private Residential

Low Viscosity

Library/ Workspace

Library/ Workspace

Nature Preserve

Education

Public Residential Social/Affordable Residential

Wellness Center External Commercial

Isolated from Ground

Local Commercial External Commercial Affordable Commercial

Co-Living Commons Education Social

Temporary Residential

Private Residential

Medical Centers

“police” Medical Centers

Market

Nature Preserve Library/ Workspace

High Accessibility

Nature Preserve Market Medical Centers

Threshold Condition Fire “police”

Garden/ farming plot Market

Garden/ farming plot Social

Market Local Commercial

Affordable Commercial Waste Treatment

Public Residential Private Residential

Medical Centers Threshold Condition

High Visibility

Co-Living Commons

Modular

Co-Living Commons Market

High Viscosity

Nature Preserve Threshold Condition Fire Garden/ farming plot

Connected to Ground

“police”

+ Commercial & Municipal Public Residential

Social/Affordable

Co-Living Units

Private Temporary

Garden/ farming plot Public Residential Co-Living Commons

Social/Affordable Private Temporary

Studio Units Community Center

Education Social Municipal

Co-Living Market Units

Wellness Studio Units Center

Garden/ farming plot Co-Living Commons

Market Wellness Center Library/ Workspace

residential: public

Library/ Workspace “police”

20%

Medical Centers Fire

15%

residential: private

Nature Preserve Waste Treatment

Community Center

External Businesses

Education

Local Businesses

Commercial

Social

“police”

Municipal

Medical Centers

Affordable

Threshold Condition

Welcome Center Parking

Fire Nature Preserve Waste Treatment External Businesses Local Businesses

Commercial

Affordable

Threshold Condition

15%

10%

residential: temporary

commercial

10% 15%

residential: social

15% 15%

community: education

community: municipal

threshold: nature

Welcome Center Parking

Left Top: Circulation diagram Left Bottom: Programmatic massing.

Above: Program intentions characterized through spatial qualities, user seperation, percentage distribution, and contextual rationality.

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Roof Plan | 1’0”-1/16”

Plans studying possible program distribution and the composition of the ground.

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A

Roof Plan | 1’0”-1/16”

A

B

Ground Plan | 1’0”-1/32” 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

commerical galleria municiple facilities residential units ‘commons’ plaza promenade nature reserve facilities marketplace galleria / culture center

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Speculative sectional perspectives that show the ‘floating circulation’ connecting each massing, with an interest to experiment with passing through, above, under, and parallel different programs.

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Section AA | 1’0”-1/32”

Section BB | 1’0”-1/16”

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You’ve Lost Your Place!

Allergies, Invasions, and Settlements

In response to a studio-wide interest in top-down vs bottom-up dynamics, this project in Chicago’s Cabrini Green neighborhood returns the ground to nature as a wildlife preserve, whilst the human realm continues throughout/above. In an attempt to challenge how design can autonomize/disenfranchise both human and nature, the parameters and definition of conventional ‘urbanity’ expands itself to presuppose an inherent opposition between human mechanisms and ecological tendencies in spatial arrangement, thereby challenging a normalized instinct of commodifying nature or the commons. The thesis of the project is to acknowledge the contradictions between these systems and use the architecture (formal matter, process, networks of relations etc.) to accentuate that tension.

Critics: Anthony Gagliardi, Almost Studio Yaohua Wang, Preliminary Research Office Catty Zhang, UNC Charlotte

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The design is the possible iterative process by which humans and nature argue/negotiate through their coexistence, which manifests as strategic compromises or stubborn palimpsest conditions asserting dominance over each other. Form and program are therefore decoupled by virtue of oscillating territorial boundaries through feedback loops between humans and nature, residents and planners, top-down and bottom-up.

The site was divided up into 4 areas of study. The first focusing on a nomadic landscape that behaves as a suburban field condition, where questions of spatial ownership and identity investment play out.

The second centers around the municipal core, studying transitions between communal private to communal public porosities. The third and fourth look at the threshold condition between the city and the nature reserve, with an emphasis on returning nature to the city whilst bring the city into nature.

Throughout the project, there is an interest in destabilizing prescriptive programmatic stability and how autonomy can be developed from formal and spatial opportunities/idiosyncrasies.

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Left: Roof Plan, with 4 areas of study demarcated. The site is located on the eastern boundary of Cabrini Green, producing a threshold condition that transitions between ‘city’ and ‘natural reserve’ dynamics.

Above: Ground Plan, emphasizing on earth parcelization, structure, and egress.

Next Spread: A possible narrative of how the tension between top-down and bottom-up mechanisms, considering how agents and ‘architecture’ (matter, process) change through time.

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elevated + structural biomes resrvoir delicate / managed biomes plaza mixed apartments welcome center ecological blockade cabrini development + planning offices ranger’s office sapling nursery botanical lab

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13

5

numadic layer + human settlements shared workspace community center plaza - extended mixed housing apartments welcome center - logistics + fulfillment center public housing apartments cabrini development + planning offices welcome center sapling nursery - landscape garden ranger’s office - extended botanical lab - garden pavilion ‘forbidden forest’

5

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3 2 1

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9 10 2

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1 3

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1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

new nomadic layer above vertical circulation to parcel 8 retstraining frame workspace - extended nomadic layer medical center ecological blockade - connective corridor retail complex cabrini development + planning offices - municipal offices culture center

1

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

12 10

nomadic settlements community center - resturant management offices vertical garden new nomadic layer above ‘datum’ / ‘street level’ nomadic layer public houing units - rehoused in nomadic units culture center - expanded

13

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3 5 3 4 1

1 2

1 2 3 4 5

new nomadic layer above park nomadic layer - agricultural layer public houing units - community center + civic atrium nomadic settlements

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Area 1: Nomadic horizon. A suburban field condition where settlers comission units that form s network of social relations. Once a nomadic layer is overpopulated, a new layer that mediates infrastructural and conditioning for humans and nature is applied above.

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Left: Axonometric block of Area 1 Above: Plan of Area 1

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Section of Area 1, with evacuation egress and area of refuge highlighted.

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Area 2: Conglomeration of municipal programs extending from the suburban condition. Of particular interest is a different sensibility when spatializing nature. Area 1 biases a palimpsest condition with openings that bring light in. Whereas Area 2 uses a more evasive formal strategy, allowing the canopies and massing to coexist on the same plane.

Above: Axonmetric block of Area 2, centered around the medical center.

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Plan of Area 2, showing the transition between suburban layers, workspace, recreational areas, to municipal massings.

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Section of Area 2, highlighting the drop down areas of refuge within the medical center.

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Area 3: The threshold between the city and Cabrini Green. It returns nature to the city rhythm by introducing gardens and pavilions along the pedestrian narrative whilst introducing the rhythm of the city into the forest preserve through a culture center and office space.

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Left: Axonometric block of Area 3 Above: Plan of Area 3, focusing on the culture center spaces and garden pavilion.

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Section of Area 3, cutting through the garden pavilion.

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Area 4: The elevated datum that rethinks the organization of a ‘street’. Building towers are connected not by parcels that are seperated by street, but instead by programatic relations that seep into one another. Aside from the office tower from Area 3, there is an old residential tower that has been voided out to create a civic atrium, a new residential tower that reconfigures its floor plan to meet occupancy needs, and a vertical garden which behaves as a literal room that nature fills.

Above: Axonometric block of Area 4.

Next Spread: Plan of Area 4.

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Section of Area 4, cutting through the four towers and the datum.

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Circulation diagram. Each gradient represents a continuous plane and their sectional relationship with one another. The blue figures are modes of vertical circulation and egress.

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Top: Programmatic distribution amongst figural massings.

Bottom Left: Transformation of original residential tower to civic atrium.

Bottom Right: Thesis diagram that probes a possible urbanity and sensibility.

84 ________ Epilogue

ARC307 Kerner Studio Samantha Lee Yiqun Feng (Eve) Thitaree Suwiwatchai (Jenny) Tianyu Lyu (DK) Chu Han Tarn (Joshua) Eduardo Pradjonggo (Edo) Junming Liao (Oliver) Javier Lam Qingyang Fan (Fan) Weiwei Lei Junye Zhong (Johnny) Tsz Man Nicholas Chung Emerald Man Houming Lu

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Epilogue Cabrini Green Nature Reserve Composite drawings of collective projects from ARC307 studio.

Considering the possibility of other green imaginaries for tomorrow’s urbanity.

PC: Prof Joel Kerner

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Overall Site Ground Plan

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Forested Areas

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Savannas & Wetlands

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Water

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