a general theory of urban relativity 1. connectivity must be regained. The city is a semilattice 2. the Manhattan block is the evolutionary objective of the dispersed urban plot, the field, (the pre-condition of the city) 3. in every city but Manhattan, building the extruded block is a process of agglomeration; the inevitability of enclosure should be ensured 4. architecture is always relative, read against conditions 5. the envelope is absolute and can be regulated by code and by-laws. the absolute envelope is a local condition and will be governed locally 6. voids exist on four terrains: rooftops, between buildings, under overpasses, landscape scars (railway beds) 7. three lessons we should all learn: the evolved form of the classical city (maximum densities), the contradictory possibilities in Hilbersheimer (ideal densities), and the density of the favelas (organic densities) 8. adjacent forms, if not formally similar will always reflect upon one-another 9. a responsive local code is necessary, if not a system for relative and responsive design 10. the preservation of urban conditions: proximity, community, density, cultural acuity, formal variation, sobriety, furious rhythm, geometry and anguish 11. transgression is necessary to suture the ‘global objects’ on the urban plane. The mutual intelligibility of ‘relativity’ is necessary due to the transgressive nature of the urban proposal – incursions into private property, the ‘furnishing of new territories,’ the parasite structures. 12. relativity must be codified
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onsite 19: street, streets and lanes, the straight and narrow, wide and busy