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T r a n s i e n c e and the
F l e x i b l e H a b i t a t an a
enquiry in to systems, transien t times and the flexible habitat an ti type
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March 2005 The following study is hereby approved as creditable work on the approved subject, carried out and presented in a manner sufficiently satisfactory to warrant its acceptance as a pre-requisite to the Degree for which it has been submitted (B.Int.Des) . It is understood by this approval that the undersigned does not necessarily endorse or approve any statement made, opinion expressed or conclusion drawn therein, but approves the study only for the purpose for which it is submitted and has satisfied the requirements laid down by the thesis committee.
Name of Student Ms. Anjalika Bose SID 0298
Name of Guide Prof. Mrs.Krishna Shastri
Thesis Title : TRANSIENCE AND THE FLEXIBLE HABITAT: an enquiry into systems, transient times and the flexible habitat antitype
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for a super furry
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a brief enquiry into
the world of systems
High transience as a phenomena in our life today
And its response in the habitat in the form of flexibility in its spatial system
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THE PHENOMENA OF T R A N S I E N C E
A NOTE ON SYSTEMS
DEFINITION TYPES CHARACTERISTICS SYSTEMIC THINKING SYSTEM DYNAMICS
eventual flux and functional flux in the system
UNDERSTANDING TRANSIENCE AS A STATE OF FLUX
globalization
REPERCUSSIONS OF TRANSIENCE ON LIFE AND THE FAMILY
glocalization
THE SPATIAL SYSTEM SPECIFIC TO THE HABITAT
diversity
THE EVENT SYSTEM THE FUNCTIONAL SYSTEM THE PHYSICAL SYSTEM
novelty delocalization disintegration
evolution of Spatial Junk the need for Sustainability the need for Re-configuration and Relocation the solution : Flexibility
Transformability Portability
The Archigram Group Rogers and Piano The Metabolist movement and Kisho Kurokava
DEFINITION CHARACTERISTICS TYPES
FLEXIBILITY
EARLY VISIONS
THE FLEXIBLE H A B I T A T THE TRANSFORMABLE HABITAT THE PORTABLE HABITAT
REPERCUSSION ON THE BUILT FORM
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contents 0 introduction
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1 a note on systems 1.1 Insight into systemic thinking Characteristics of a system Types of existing systems Origin and need of Systemic Thinking 1.2 The interior spatial system and the system of a habitat Manifestation of systemic approach in space making Layers of Systems in the spatial matrix Components of each layer Transition of past built space from the ephemeral to the permanent
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2 a
note on high transience and emerging global scenarios
2.1 Understanding transience Low transience and high transience Dynamics of transience : cause and effect 2.2 Repercussions of high transience on the user systems: event and function the onset of glocalization and the birth of the antitype 2.3 Repercussions of high transience on User-systems pertaining to a Habitat diversity novelty delocalization and disintegration 2.4 Physical Spatial Manifestation of built form in a state of high transience and the emergence of the Flexible Habitat evolution of spatial junk need for sustainability the glo-cal habitat of today the future habitat : a possible scenario
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3 a note on flexibility and flexible habitats 3.1 Flexibility definitions and essence 3.2 Early examples and benchmarks of the concept of ‘parts’ emergent types of flexibility 3.3 Types of Flexibility and the flexible habitat types of spatial flexibility transformable habitats and portable habitats
Tw12elve habitats analyses
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conclusion
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glossary of terms
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bibliography
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“Necessity is the mother of Invention” -Jim Carrey in The Cable Guy
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introduction
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With the rise of science came rapid advancement in technology and this advancement in technology led to an excessive ease of knowledge acquisition and a high state of global connectivity. With tremendous global connectivity emerged the business class and the death of monopoly thereby giving rise to a state of rapid obsolescence of things, jobs, and spatial structures accommodating a certain function. Transience is a relative term used as a measure of the rate of situation flow within a system of relations. Modern man today tends to live in a state of high transience where the rate of replacement of our relationship with things, people, places, organizations and situations is relatively very high. The pace of life is increasing with each passing day and the human being’s capacity to adapt seems to be escalating indefinitely, matching up unfailingly, with this pace of life. Kinesis has set into our lives, with patterns of logical arrangements and associations evolving and changing at very high speeds. High transience thus has its repercussions in altering the rate of change of association of man with his immediate environment (the event) thus forcing him to be a in a permanent state of flux, embracing and cursing change and kinesis at the same time. The concept of permanence is diminishing or dead. Man’s relationship with ‘things’ is becoming more and more temporary everyday. In the words of Buckminister Fuller: Cities have turned into a continual evolutionary process of evacuations, demolitions, removals, temporary vacant lots and installations.
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Life and society today is giving birth to a genre of global urban nomads who live in a constant state of high transience and flux. We have thus come to survive in a throw away society where the spatial system that accommodates a function needs to constantly be disposed of , be changed or replaced. High transience has its outcome even in the approach to creating his immediate environment, the spatial system that accommodates the eventual and functional systems. The only way built environment is attempting to synchronize wih high transience , is by addition or subtraction of its parts, and if this carries on, the process will soon begin to wreak havoc on economy and resource. Lack of permanence of the functional organization of a system, be it commercial, professional or residential, results in the need for spatial containers or systems to posses the ability to constantly adapt and transform to the changes in an organization. Responding to this constant state of flux, we observe new forms of spatial systems that have emerged and are still emerging to embrace this state of transience. Spatial systems that have no beginning or end, no fixed site or rooting, and that represent triviality, movement, fluidity, exhaustion of the object in a project
Spatial systems that represent a cultural phenomena of a global scenario yet attuned to the interests to the particular, the singular and the individual Spatial systems not based on context or tradition thus leading to other types of arrangements based on new forms of uninhibited logic rather than orthodox configurations. Spatial systems based on revaluation of situations and creation of strategies, capable of encompassing complexity rather than formulation of constructions. Thus emerges the representation of the transience in our lives, in the kinetic matrix of our living and working environments. We are today, on to a new definition of monumentality of a space that no longer is defined by its relative permanence or staticity, but by its ability to adapt to radical eventual and functional flux. We thus observe high transience sweeping the global community today, manifested in the form of emerging spatial systems that respond to this phenomena of high transience. Thus emerges the flexible spatial system. Flexible spatial systems that are represented in various forms as a result of sociocultural, economic, technological and environmental forces unleashed in the age of high transience.
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The thesis aspires to briefly and clearly understand these forces in any organizational system in the age of high transience that manifest itself in various forms of spatial flexibility. Here it specifically intends to address the issue of the ‘living space’, the habitat, and the effect that high transience has on this. The house is no longer a space which can be built and maintained for generations , with each successive generation following the same pattern of life-style. Patterns of functioning within a family’s or individual’s living environment, are changing as we speak, and the only solution, that design has been providing in the past is to dispose of the existing spatial matrix and build a new one. With increasing rates of situation flows, this is obviously not the best solution to a habitat, as it disregards sustainability and is a terrible waste of resource and time. The new emerging habitat responds to the varying and diverse needs of individuals within a family or a single person over a period of time. It responds to the uncertainty of siting and location. It responds to the diverse cross cultural value systems of each individual in the construct of a habitat. It responds to the phenomena of delocalization that a family faces in modern life. It responds to the desire for minimum responsibility and maximum asset. The new emerging habitat sets the human being free.
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In short. Without a chaos there would not be a system of organization, without a system of organization there would not be transience to disturb it, and without transience there would not be the need for flexibility to embrace it. The following study thus departs with a brief understanding of a system. It is mandatory, that before we get into the core of the thesis, namely high transience and the flexible habitat, that we attain a clear comprehension of the systems that are affected by transience. What defines a system, what are its basic characteristics, what are its dynamics? What is the spatial system composed of and what layers compose the spatial matrix of a habitat? Following that we go on to understand the implications on life-styles and the habitat as a result of the phenomena of transience. What is transience and what kinds of flux does it result in, to effect the various systems around us, and therefore our lives? What happens to the family? Here we briefly examine the offsprings of technology and travel, and the products of glocalization: diversity, delocalization, novelty and disintegration : of communities and families. How this has led to fragmented and hybrid cultures and diverse individual needs. We go on here to take a look at the effect of transience in a spatial system when it fails to adapt to change, and the emerging need from built space as a result. We conclude that a system of parts must be flexible as transience as an inevitable and perpetual process is far more apparent today than before. The flexible space embraces it, blends into it and holds it. Flexibility of built form is the spatial manifestation of high transience. In this section we look at the most fundamental notions of flexibility and their various manifestations within transformability and portability of space. Analyses. Summary. Conclusions
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1 a note on systems 1.1 Insight into systemic thinking Definition of a system Characteristics of a system Types of existing systems Origin and need of Systemic Thinking 1.2 The interior spatial system and the system of a habitat Manifestation of systemic approach in space making Layers of Systems in the spatial matrix Components of each layer Tansition of past built space from the ephemeral to the permanent
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1.1 An insight into systems “And yet Relation appears, a small Relation expanding like the shade of a cloud on the sand, a shape on the side of a hill.” 1 - William Stevens Connoisseur of Chaos “ The world is changing from being a world of objects to being a world of relations.” -Paul Virilio
The universe is composed of infinite relations. These relations form the system. The universe itself is a system in a state of perpetual stable chaos. Within this stable chaos, there is unpredictably and cyclicity, rhythms and non-rhythms, but somehow in this complexity, there is an overall state of equilibrium with a definite balance in the totalitarian exchange of energy. Chaos in the universe gives rise to a system to hold it, to organize it, to order it. This system is self sustaining, self organizing and self evolving. It is able to adapt, reconfigure, evolve. It is thus intrinsically, as an entity, ‘flexible’. system : interacting, interrelated, interdependent components coming together to form a whole
Definition 2
So what exactly is a system? In one line, a System is a group of INTERACTING, INTERRELATED and INTERDEPENDENT components, which form a complex and unified whole. It is a construct of components that are linked by communication links that enable the components to interact within themselves, by facilitating the flow of feedback between the its parts and the whole, hence making them related and dependent on each other to make the system ‘function’ in totality. Take the human body for instance. The human body is a complex system of components. Each component is linked to, and communicates with the other, enabling the totalitarian functioning of the human body.
Problem Solving by W.Heath-Robinson , from Absurdities (1934)
1 Gleick,James CHAOS Vintage 1998 Page 81 2 internet reference http\\:www pegasus.com
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System Properties 1 We are all part of various larger systems and there are various systems contained within us. Systems are innumerable; each with many more within them and all of them part of much larger systems. The earth itself is an ecological, economical, technological, virtual, sociocultural system, and is part of larger systems of the universe . A built form is a system of parts, the conscious and intuitive effort to impose meaningful order. The human body not only is a system by itself, but is a part of a much larger ecological system, taking from it, depending on it and giving back to it. 2 Every system has a purpose within a larger system The numbers of systems that exist within each other are infinite. But each one is dependent on the other and on the whole. All systems and hence all components within each system are related to each other, but this affect on each other is relative. Hence one may affect a second system more than it effects a third one. But they all have a role to play within the larger matrix. Every component within a system also has a role to play in the totalitarian functioning of the system. 3 A system’s parts must be arranged in a specific logical way for the system to carry out its functions optimally The structure of a system evolves as a result of the links / interaction between its various components. The configuration of interaction links are based on the communication and feedback flow between one component of a system and another component .This arrangement of interaction links, this communication, this ‘give and take’, within the system is what is required for the system to perform and function. Going back to the human body it is the ‘arrangement of the components’ within it that allows for the processes within to be optimal. If the human body’s head was turned backward, or if its arms were located only on one side, it would not fulfill the purpose of its function. The optimal functioning of any system hence depends in a big way on the way the components are arranged. In any spatial configuration, its parts must be arranged in a logical systemic order for space to fulfill its function. 4 All of the system’s parts must be present for the system to carry out its purpose optimally. What makes a system function ‘optimally’ is the fact that it is an organization of interdependent communicating components. Each one of these components has a role to play in the optimal functioning of the system. The absence of one or more than one will only result in the system functioning less optimally than it was originally
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open and closed system properties: 1 we are all part of larger systems and there are various systems contained within us
intended to. It may continue to exist but its fundamental purpose will diminish. A human being without one eye for example will continue to live as a body of parts, but the impairment of his vision will only diminish his ability to function completely.
2 every system has a purpose within a larger system
Systems can be ‘open’ or ‘closed’. Closed systems are complete systems, that do not adapt to change or grow. The above properties apply to open as well as closed systems. However, what differentiates closed from open systems are the next three system properties. The following three properties only pertain to systems which have the capacity to adapt, transform or grow. The following properties are applicable only to open systems.
3 systems’s parts must be arranged in a logical way based on the levels of interaction and interdependence between its components 4 All of the system’s parts must be present for optimal functioning of the system specific differentiating properties for an open system: 1 open systems change in response to feedback, closed systems cannot respond by transforming or growing or reconfiguring 2 open systems maintain equilibrium by adapting based on feedback, closed systems cannot adapt or transform 3 In an open system a change in one part of the system will cause a change in the connecting parts and on the system as a whole. A closed system will simply get destroyed by this kind of change
1 Open Systems change in response to feedback open systems may change in the nature of the organization within, based on feedback. 2 Open Systems maintain their stability by making adjustments based on feedback. Systems are a inflicted by forces all the time. Forces that cause it to change resulting in flux. However, systems adjust. The fundamental nature of an open system lies in its ability to be flexible. An open system adapts and reorganizes its constructing components to adapt and attain stability. A human being walking on a road, reacts to an obstacle which he sees with his eyes, and hence reacts by changing the course, and taking a detour around it. In extreme warm temperatures, the human body adapts by producing sweat and keeping it cool. Open systems thus maintain stability by adjusting, adapting, transforming, to the forces of change. 3 In an open system a change in one part of the system will cause a change in the connecting parts, on the system as a whole and on connected systems. When an external force affects a part of a system, the rest of the parts of the system are affected as well. As a result there is an overall change in the overall system and on connected systems.
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Systemic Thinking Systemic Thinking is a method of analysis that has its roots in understanding social systems. It has its foundation in the field of System Dynamics, founded in 1956 by MIT professor Jay Forrester. Professor Forrester recognized the need for a better way of testing new ideas about social systems; in the same way we can test ideas in engineering. Systems thinking allows people to make their understanding of social systems explicit and improve them in the same way that people can use engineering principles to make explicit and improve their understanding of mechanical systems.
Systems Thinking: method of analysis with its roots in understanding social systems
Systems Thinking: founded in 1956 by MIT professor Jay Forrestor
System dynamics as a field, has a long history, and has drawn from other fields as diverse as mechanical engineering, biology, and the social sciences. System dynamics focuses on The flow of feedback (information that is transmitted and returned) that occurs throughout the parts of a system And the system behaviors that result from those flows. System dynamists study Reinforcing processes: feedback flows that generate exponential growth or collapse Balancing processes: feedback flows that help a system maintain stability. These reinforcing and balancing processes are all around us and within us: The world population explosion The U.S. Stock market crash of the 1930s The sudden onset of disease when foreign microbes proliferate in our bodies Our bodies’ ability to maintain a basic temperature of 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit The stability that occurs in predator/prey systems The difficulty we often face when we try to change the way our organization does things are all examples of balancing cycles. System dynamists study the impact of DELAY on systemic behavior What are the implications when a cause takes a long time to exert its effect, and when cause and effect are physically far apart? For instance, from the time of a building’s conception as an idea, to its final construction on site, what are the various forces to be analyzed, that may imply a need for change within its spatial framework, and how must that be approached in its design? And what scenarios of change must be kept in mind when one designs a space for long term use?
Systems dynamists study flow of feedback between parts of system and the system behaviours that result from the flows reinforcing processes balancing processes impact of delay o systemic behaviour
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Systemic Thinking can been defined in the following ways: Systems Thinking: 1 a powerful new perspective 2 a specialized language 3 a set of tools
It is a powerful new perspective used in the understanding a pattern of events Systemic thinking is a new method of understanding an organization, where it is looked at as being made up of various parts and the relationship between these parts and the whole , rather than viewing it as a singlualr whole entity. Systems thinking thus deals with 1 listing the components of a system 2 segregating the parts based on a logical structuring ( for example the parts of a space can be segregated from each other based on their relative life spans: how temporary or permanent they are) 3 Establishing the level of interaction between the groups of components 4 Organizing the components within each group and organizing all the groups of components in relation to each other. It is a specialized language that can aid in communicating a problem and its solution using interconnections When systemic thinking is applied to any organization of parts, it evolves its own language for defining and grouping the constituent parts and the relationships between them. It is a set of tools that are used in this problem solving process These tools facilitate in Graphically depicting analysis of a particular system’s structure and behavior Communicating this analysis Designing high-leverage interventions for problematic system behavior Each system of organization comes with its own set of tools (shaping elements) that help in understanding the nature of flux that effects it. Systemic Thinking is the application of the principles of systemic behavior that system dynamics discovered in practical ways to resolve common problems in any organizational configuration or setup.
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1.2 The interior spatial system and the system of a habitat In this section we shall be looking at the interior spatial system by approaching Manifestation of systemic approach in space making The Layers of systems in the spatial matrix Components of each layer specifically addressing the interior space of a habitat. Architectural space of the built form, which houses an activity, is human being’s most basic invention of a system in response to necessity. The built form in most rudimentary form is ‘the shelter’ , the habitat, the skin that protects human being from his external environment. What is this architectural space in the language of systems? Architectural space is the tangible matrix of physical systems that respond to the intangible matrix of the user systems of event and function. Architectural space thus can be composed of various layers which interact within themselves. Systemic thinking thus applied to architectural space, implies understanding the levels of interaction and interdependency between the various systemic layers. The human being is the generator of this spatial matrix on the basis of his needs and the needs of the community. Architectural space, thus, systematically defined, is a group of interacting, interrelated and interdependent spatial components, which come together to form the whole.
ARCHITECTURAL SPACE : THE PHYSICAL MATRIX OF SPACE THAT RESPONDS TO THE INTANGIBLE MATRIX OF EVENTS AND FUNCTIONS
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Like any other system, the laws of systemic behaviour are applicable to architectural space as well. 1 Architectural space has various systems within itself and is part of larger systems as well. 2 Every system within this architectural space has its own purpose within the larger spatial system. 3 The parts of the architectural space must be composed in a specific logical way to carry out its functions optimally 4 All the parts of the architectural system must be present for the space to carry out its function optimally.
The three laws of systems that are NOT applicable to ALL architectural space are the two additional properties of open systems. 1 Open Systems change in response to feedback Architectural space is not built to respond to feedback always. It may or may not fulfill the act of ‘reaction’.
ARCHITECTURAL SPACE IS A SYSTEM OF INTERACTING, INTERDEPENDENT , INTER-RELATED PARTS WHICH COME TOGETHER TO FORM A WHOLE SYSTEM
2 Open Systems maintain their equilibrium by making adjustments based on feedback Architecture that is built for permanence cannot maintain stability when the phenomena of change strikes it. Spatial systems are controlled by human beings. Hence unlike natural systems, they are not biological, self organizing, self evolving or self sustaining. They do not have an inherent capacity to adapt to change. Only the inevitability of withering or eroding with change or destroyed by defunctity. Hence only flexible architecture ( open system architecture ) is able to perform this task, because of the adaptability of its constituent parts in the design process that respond to change and thereby reconfigure.
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3 In an open system a change in one part of the system will cause a change in the connecting parts, on the system as a whole and on connected systems. When an external force affects a part of an opensystem built form, the rest of the parts of the system undergo an engineered change as well. As a result there is an total resultant change in the overall system and on connected systems. Thus systemic thinking applied to architectural space is a process of defining the various layers that construct it, and analysing the level of interaction/feedback flows between the layers, and applying this analysis to create spatial models. It is about 1 listing the various parts and components that will make the space 2 segregating these components in architectural space into groups of logical interrelated, interacting and interdependent parts based on the definition of grouping ( like drawing a time-line to define the most permanent to the most temporary ) or (in case of a visual segregation, the most lit areas to the most dimly lit areas) 3 defining the levels of interaction between the parts 4 and thus organizing all these parts into a whole In this way, systemic thinking becomes a powerful new perspective to spatial design. When systemic thinking is applied to designing space, it also brings with it its own specialized language or grammar of grouping the constituent parts and defining the links between these parts. The tools available to construct this spatial matrix are the analyses of various fluxes in the user system whihc are directly afected by: technology, society, economy and environment that define the eventual system and the functional system. These fluxes are used to develop the spatial construct to hold the event system. The rate of flux in the cyclicity of events and the meaning of the event (functional response) determines how permanent or temporary the spatial matrix needs to be.
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1 LISTING THE SYSTEMS AND SUB PARTS OF THE SYSTEM 2 SEGREGATING PARTS BASED ON LAID DOWN CRITERIA
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3 DERIVING THE LEVELS OF INTERACTION AND INTERDEPENDENCY BETWEEN EXISTING SYSTEMS
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4 ASSEMBLING ALL THE SYSTEMS INTO A WHOLE
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Lets take a look at this point at the various existing systems that construct a spatial system specific to the systems in a habitat. 1 the eventual systemic matrix 2 the functional systemic matrix 3 the physical and perceptual systemic matrix The eventual system and the functional system compose the intangible ‘USER SYSTEM’ , which in turn gives rise to the ‘PHYSICAL SPATIAL SYSTEM’. 1 the eventual systemic matrix is the intangible but most fundamental system in the spatial matrix. It is the system which defines the very basic premise which physical and functional space is built around. The event system is what occurs within the space within a given time-frame. For example a space may have to hold the event of eating. Thus the event is the occurrence within a user system. The event in a space also has a certain rhythm to it. It is cyclical in nature. A church fills up with people at every Sunday mass. A sleeping area is occupied every night to sleep. The dining area is occupied by the event of eating, at regular intervals, every day. The cyclicity however gradually evolves into newer cycles due to various states of flux. socio cultural flux economic flux environmental flux technological flux These different types of flux, affect and change the cyclicity of the event, thus causing a change in the user-system. The basic event system of a habitat has not changed over eons of time, but the pattern and cyclicity has. What is a house? As we have seen, through the evolution of man, and across different functional interpretations by diverse cultures and peoples, the events in a house have remained the same: Living Sleeping Cooking Eating Washing/bathing Working Storing Religious needs These events are assume the form of activity zones in a space. The relationship between the events and the meaning of the event is determined in the next section in their manifestation in the functional system.
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FORMULATING THE EVENT SYSTEM : LISTING DOWN THE EVENTS THAT WILL CONSTRUCT THE SPACE WITHOUT DEFINING THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THEM
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2 the functional systemic matrix is that system in the spatial matrix that which arises in response to the eventual systemic matrix. The functional system permits the events to assume the shape of interacting zones.
THE FUNCTIONAL SYSTEM IS CONSTRUCTED OUT OF THE MEANING OF THE EVENT AND THE LINKS BETWEEN THE EVENTS
Every system of events that takes place in the spatial system gives a function to that space, a purpose that it is supposed to be enable to fulfill. The functional matrix is thus the meaning of the event. In any space thus, the functional matrix is composed of 1 links between events / feedback flows between events 2 meaning of events The function-system therefore, by means of its various layers of event-meanings and event-links, is able to respond to the event-system in a space. Thus, a change in the meaning of the event or the link between two events will result in a different functional response. This difference in functional responses to a single act, arises as a result of evolution of the functional response itself within a community. Or as a result of cultural diversity. In a habitat within the same community, the event of eating, for instance, may have evolved in meaning from praying around a cooked animal, to sitting around a table following rules and etiquette to simply popping a food pill. Thus the event of eating may remain the same but its process and meaning may change, or in other words its functional response in terms of process and configuration of zones may change. Let us also examine how this difference in interpretation of the event and its manifestation in the functional matrix differs across cultures. A traditional Japanese family may eat ‘seated’ in the ground on Tatami mats, centred around a perfect square table. The same event of eating for a typical American family responds in the functional matrix as grabbing a ready to eat meal from the refrigerator. Hence the ‘zone’ of sitting around a table is not required anymore. The dining space has changed in meaning and configuration. This evolving functional response (as a result of the change in meaning of activities and links) thus very clearly occurs due to 1 technological advancement or 2 cross cultural confluence.
TWO INTERPRETATIONS IN THE ACT OF EATING VARIATION IN MEANING OF THE SAME EVENT RESULTING IN VARYING FUNCTIONAL RESPONSE IN DIFFERENT HABITATS
VARIATION IN CLUSTERING OF EVENTS RESULTING IN VARYING FUNCTIONAL RESPONSE IN DIFFERENT HABITATS
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Thus the functional system of a space is arrived at in the following two steps 1 the event zones themselves are configured or arranged by linking them or relating them to each other by proximity isolation overlap between one activity and another. (dwgs on opposite page) 2 The ergonomics and anthropometric dimensions required for each event in the space is determined on the basis of the meaning of the activity in the event The first part deals with the arrangement and interaction between these activity or event zones. Thus in analysing and drawing the function-system diagram of a habitat one must hence address the following questions. Which activities must be closely related? Which activities can be isolated ? What is the required degree of accessibility between two activity zones? The answers to these questions vary by means of the differences in functional interpretations and evolution of the event itself, and thus give rise to a set of variables in the way the various zones in a habitat are configured. In the second step, the zones created by the event are given their required anthropometric dimension depending on interpretation of the event in the given context. This is arrived at on the basis of analyzing the actions that go into making the event. Illustrated in the following pages is an abstract demonstration of the various events in a habitat and their how their functional interpretation varies due to the difference in the answers to the above questions thus causing a variation in functional response over time and across space or cultures.
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DRAWING THE FUNCTION SYSTEM DIAGRAM OF A SPACE: PART 1 : ANALYZE THE LEVELS OF INTERACTION BETWEEN ZONES BY ADDRESSING THE QUESTIONS ABOVE AND DERIVE A SUGGESTED CLUSTER PATTERN
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VARIATIONS IN CLUSTER PATTERNS (FUNCTIONAL GROUPING) OF EVENTS BASED ON CULTURAL DIFFERENCE WITHIN A SINGLE TIME SPAN OR CHANGE IN MEANING OF EVENT WITHIN A CULTURE OVER TIME
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3 the physical systemic matrix is the tangible manifestation of event and function. The events in the habitat and the functional interpretation together give rise to the various physical responses. For example the roof of a habitat can take the form of a shed or a gable or a vaulted structure. This physical diversity in the roof structure arises due to the difference in functional responses. The physical system is then achieved by means of geometric elements of point, line, plane, and volume, arranged to articulate and define space. The geometric elements, assume the form of the following basic spatial components column beam wall floor roof These spatial elements are the constituent physical elements in the following fundamental physical spatial systems: The foundation system forms the base of a building, anchors it firmly to the ground and supports the building elements and spaces above. The building superstructure consists of structural floor systems, structural wall systems, structural column systems, and structural roof systems. These systems must work together to support dead loads, live loads, and dynamic loads. The building envelope consists of exterior walls, windows, doors and roof, which serve as a responsive interface between the interior space and the exterior environment. Non-structural defining elements, such as walls, partitions and ceilings, subdivide an define interior space. They carry no loads apart from their own weight. Mechanical and electrical systems provide the necessary environmental conditioning and make the spaces habitable. These include heating systems, ventilation systems, air conditioning systems, sanitary waste facilities, fresh water supply, electric power
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The actual physical manifestations of course comes about as a result of the functional system. Variations in the functional system thus give rise to innumerable interpretations and configurations to give rise to the whole physical system. The following pages outline how and why the habitats evolved in its event, function and physicality, from temporary to permanent.
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From temporary to permanent: from nomadic to settled man : a brief overview of the shifts in ways of living Our cavemen ancestors Prehistoric man found shelter in nature, in caves, which essentially were ready made homes for this curious and somewhat strange being, for whom the world was a limitless wonder and his life revolved around hunting, eating, fornicating, praying and sleeping. The human being of prehistory succumbed to the forces of nature and resided within naturemade abodes : the cave. Even then man was obsessed with retaining experience for posterity. The walls of the cave was his canvas for expression. The only means of sending ‘information’ from one lifetime to another was this cave wall where his artwork was a representation of what he believed was ‘a higher controlling life force’ and his experience as a life form which he conveyed in his own evolved language. His only threat was other predators and wild animals which could consume him and for that his only source of protection was fire. The only ‘things’ in this very basic abode were his tools : for hunting, shooting, chopping; firewood which he used to light up darkness; and animal skin which he used for warmth. A vary basic survival kit.
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A society of nomads The human being however cannot live alone, for he is part of a community of other similar beings. The human being soon discovered the advantage of the ‘society’ . Thus was born the king and his servants, all part of the nomadic community. The nomads derived a major portion of their subsistence from large flocks of animals which cause them to follow recurring patterns of movement from season to season in pursuit of suitable grazing and water. Their tents were designed to shelter a single family- the fundamental economic unit - which is the social and political level at which herd were owned. Five to ten tents were grouped to form a herding unit for the pooling of labor for tasks that could be performed cooperatively, and for additional security from attack. The social, political and economic organization of the tribe did not need to extend beyond the herding unit. The basic need for the nomadic community was ‘portability or mobility’ of the habitat. This attribute was of course clubbed with disposability as the materials used at that time was entirely natural and hence recyclable into nature’s own system. The following plates illustrate the lifestyle and the habitat of a typical nomadic community : the Kibitka of Central Asia The Kibitka are a relatively new community of Nomads and are still surviving. It is hence easy to study their lives to understand a typical nomadic lifestyle. The Kibitka is basically the name of the tent structure habitat in which the tribes live. They are distributed throughout the vast area extending from the Volga river and the Anatolian Plateau in the west to the Khingan mountains in the east.
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Construction A Kibitka is essentially a limp covering draped over a light demountable wood frame. This frame comprises a low circular wall about 4.6 to 6.1 m in diametre, and 1.2 to 1.5m high assembled from lengths of collapsible trellis, a wood roofing or wheel 1 to 2 m in diametre supported some 3.1 m above the ground on a series of radial roof ribs of struts spanning the gap between the top of the wall and the rim of the roof ring. The ends of the lattice wall are fitted to the posts of a door on the southern side of the tent. The lattice wall lengths consist of rectangular slats held together by camel skin inserted into holes where the rods cross, and when extended they assume a rhomboid mesh of about 30.5 cm. The number of lattice hurdles vary from four for a small tent to six for a large Kibitka of about 6.1 m in diametre. Each 3.7 m long hurdle has approximately 15 heads formed by the V-shaped upper ends of slats to which roof struts are attached. The lattice hurdles are lapped and the slats tied by means of hair chords. The roof ring is the most important distinguishing feature of the Kibitka for it is not found in any other type. The roof ring is and ingenious construction device which overcomes several deficiencies of a typical conical tent. It eliminates the need for a foundation structure and avoids obstruction of the smoke hole by the crowding of poles at the apex by distributing the upper ends of the poles around the circumference of the ring. Thus liberated the roof ring admits light and air to the interior, allows smoke from the central fire to escape, and also serves as a chronometer. It also reduces great differences of air pressure and so reduces the wind load on the tent.
The Kibitka might have developed from the covered wagons (2000 bc) which served as the early homes of the nomadic pastoralists. The Kibitka is confined to the Turkish and Mongolian peoples who live on the Northern steppes of Central Asia.
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Interior arrangement of the Kibitka The arrangement of the Kibitka’s interior space expresses two principles. First, practical household and work activities are relegated to the front of the tent in the vicinity of the door. Secondly, social, ceremonial and symbolic functions take place towards the rear of the tent. The rear of the tent is divided into special areas. On the left is the house master and is couch, while the right side in front of the family’s precious objects is reserved for honored guests. In large Kibitkas the woman’s side is screened with reed partitions and serves as a kitchen, although copper cauldrons, wooden platters and leather vessels often lie around the fire pit. In spite of their different orientation, the interior arrangement of the Kibitka is similar to that of the North American India Tepee. The explanation is probably physical, the disposition of living areas coinciding with zones of thermal comfort. Other factors are also involved : for example the area next to the door is most convenient for work activities which require materials to be brought into or taken out of the tent, and the rear of the tent is psychologically dominant since it faces the door. Felt rugs, and among the richer people, tapestry carpets from Persia and Turkestan were used to cover the tent floor of beaten earth or cowdung.
The Kibitka is one of the most advanced prefabricated and demountable dwellings to evolve in a traditional culture. Its form and construction are dominated by the requirements of adaptability, portability and recyclability. The nomads were not flexible people and lived and survived strictly within their community but their abodes were representative of highly flexible architectural solutions. Buckminister fuller used a Kibtika form for his Wichita House(1944-46), which is known was based on a standard type of American Grain Bin. Beech Aircraft proposed to mass produce the design for housing, for the American-returned servicemen. The Kibitka frame is based on a standardized kit of parts whose size and proportions are governed by the strength of the materials used, the method of manufacture and system of dimensions.
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Society settles and develops. The plough was the invention that turned society on its head, because people began to plant seeds and grow crops. As early farming economies became more established Neolithic societies became more stable and less itinerant. This all seems to have begun in c.9000 B.C in the Middle East, and over the next three thousand years agriculture spread across Asia, arriving in Northern Europe from the Balkans around 1000 B.C. The Neolithics were responsible for the spread of domestic culture. The Neolithic farmers seem to have been the first to put down roots around 6500 B.C, but ploughs probably started to come into use in a big way around 3500 B.C. With man settling down in one location came ages and empires of human advancement in the fields of science and art. Human society began to be bound by strict laws, rules and regulations. Patterns of organization remained static for ages and human advancement was slow. The architecture that evolved during this time was immensely large and varied, but there is one commonality that can identified in all the difference and sociocultural, geographic and climatic : Permanence. Architecture became a Closed System. Architecture was built to last as long as it could.
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1 THE INVENTION THAT GOT EVERYTHING MOVING: THE WHEEL 2 CLAY VESSEL DATING BACK FROM TE SECOND MILLENNIUM BC AND IS THE OLDEST REPRESENTATION OF A CART 3 BRONZE WAS AN EASILY MO LDED MATERIAL THAT LENT ITSELF TO ALL KINDS OF TOOLS 4 CERAMIC VESSEL FROM GREECE SHOWING MEN PLOUGHING WITH AN AXE AND A PLOUGH: THE BEGINNINGS OF SETTLING DOWN
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Systems to transience Up till this point we have understood clearly the essence of a System and architectural space as a system of parts. We have briefly followed up on the representation of architectural space as a response to the event (activity) zones and the relationship between and meaning of the event zones that construct a space. We have thus come to realize that the physical response has been in the past to embrace a permanent eventual and functional system. Life has and will always have a certain sense of transience. Time after all does not stop to move. But human beings have grown used to a certain rhythm in the cyclicity of events, and a certain constancy in the functional interpretation of an event. So what happens when to space the cyclicity of the event becomes erratic? What happens when the meaning of an event differs within a community, within a single family? What happens when the flow of feedback between events is no longer static, thus causing a need for frequent change in the links between events? What happens when the flux in the events and the functional interpretations is so huge that architectural space needs to constantly synchronize and reconfigure itself to the changing demands and the morphing relationships between human and human, community and community, or head towards complete and utter disorder: spatial Junk? What is transience and how does it effect humankind? What happens when architecture fails to respond to this flux, and what type of built form emerges as a result to adapt to this constant kinesis?
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2 a note on high transience and emerging global scenarios
2.1 Understanding transience Low transience and high transience Dynamics of transience : cause and effect 2.2 Repercussions of high transience in the functional and eventual systems of life globalization, glocalization and the birth of the antitype 2.3 Repercussions of high transience on User-systems pertaining to a Habitat diversity novelty delocalization and disintegration 2.4 Physical Spatial Manifestation of built form in a state of high transience and the emergence of the Flexible Habitat evolution of junk space need for sustainability the glo-cal habitat of today the future habitat : a possible scenario
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2.1 Understanding transience If the last 50000 years of man’s existence were divided into lifetimes of approximately 62 years each, there have been about 800 such lifetimes. Of these 800, fully 650 were spent in caves. Only in the last 70 lifetimes has it been possible to communicate effectively from one lifetime to another, as writing made it possible to do so. Only during the last 6 lifetimes did masses of men ever see a printed word. Only during the last 4 has man been able to measure time with any precision. Only in the last 2 has anyone anywhere used an electric motor. And the overwhelming majority of all material goods we use in daily life have been developed within the present, the 800th lifetime. The 800 th lifetime is the age of superindustrialization and super-communication and super-technology. The most glaring certainty about the 800th lifetime is that man’s relationship with resources has reversed itself. U Thant, ex-secretary general of United Nations summarized this most appropriately by stating: “The central stupendous truth about developed economies today is that they can have – in anything but the shortest run – the kind and scale of resources they decide to have. It is no longer resources that limit decisions. It is the decision that makes the resources. This is the most fundamental revolutionary change, perhaps the most revolutionary man has ever known. The 800th lifetime is where all boundaries have disintegrated. The consequences of contemporary events radiate instantaneously around the world. The 800th lifetime is where we have radically altered the scope of change. A User-system can be said to be composed of: Event : the occurrence with a particular linear of cyclical rhythm Functional response: is the intangible construct of a relationships composed of an individual and his interaction with systems around him : (things, places, people, organizations, values and ideas) in a given span of time. Event and Functional Flux: the transition between one event and functional response to another in terms of its cyclicity and levels of interaction. The 800th lifetime is where we have radically altered the rate of event and functional flux. Which implies that not only the cyclicity of the event has become erratic and unpredictable, but the functional arrangement and functional anthropometric response of the event zones have a high level of indeterminacy.
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The ad for Motorazr, the latest phone model from the Motorola company, very simply identifies the essence of modern human life: transience
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definitions of space are boundless, free and without rules
unpredictability of situation leads to the need for a high state of flexibility to exist in all ‘things’ around you, be it a house, a camera or a phone
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The tangible tends towards the virtual: a medium which is the embodiment of constant change, adaptation and transformability
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High transience and low transience With radical event flux we have thus released a completely new social force: namely accelerated change: and this social force influences our sense of time, revolutionizes the tempo of our daily life, and affects the way we ‘experience’ the world around us. This accelerated change is what results in the impermanence - the transience – that radically affects our interaction with other people, things, organizations, places, ideas, assets and values. Accelerated change implies a relatively high rate of eventual flux and functional flux. Our association or relationship with things is becoming more temporary every day. In other words the flow of interaction from one person, thing, organization, place, idea, asset and value to another is very high in our life and times. Transience is a measure of the rate of change of interaction, between systems, in a given span of time. It is a term used to define the rate of interaction from one person, thing, organization, place, situation, idea, asset and value to another. It can thus also be defined as a measure of flux in the User-system. Low transience is a state of permanence. High transience is a state of impermanence. We live in a high transience age. Much of our theorizing about social and psychological change presents a valid picture of man in relatively static societies, but a distorted and incomplete reality of the truly contemporary human being. It misses a critical difference between human beings in the past or present and human beings of the future. The difference is summed up in one word : Transience The concept of transience provides the missing link between sociological theories of change and the psychology of human beings. Integrating both, it permits us to analyze the dynamics of high speed change or radical eventual flux in a new way. It gives us a method to measure inferentially the rate of eventual flux. Transience is the ‘temporariness’ in everyday life. It results in a feeling of impermanence. Philosophers and theologians have always been aware that man is ephemeral. In this grand sense transience has always been a part of life. But today the feeling of impermanence is more acute and intimate.
All asset, information, communication and contact can fit into the palm of your hand.
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The big idea is nothing but a consumer product.
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Dynamics of transience : cause and effect 1 How did we reach this state of high transience? This can be illustrated with two simple cycles of progress. Number one is the INNOVATION CYCLE. Innovation happens in a flow of 3 steps. 1 The first step is the evolution of the creative idea out of basic human need. 2 The second step in this cycle is its practical application. 3 The third step is its diffusion through society. The diffusion through society leads to response, more needs and more creative ideas. The age of high transience is a result of the radically decreasing gaps between step 1, 2 and 3 of the cycle. And WHY this radically decreasing gap? The second cycle or the TECHNOLOGY CYCLE aims at demonstrating that. Knowledge acquisition is the fuel for technology. Technology in turn is the fuel for accelerated change in human society. Accelerated change in human society, leads to further knowledge acquisition and faster knowledge acquisition. The wheel of the technology cycle moved relatively gradually in the past. Today it has stepped up its pace. With the incessantly escalating pace of knowledge acquisition we have reached a point, where in the innovation cycle, the gap between practical application of a creative idea and its diffusion through society is minuscule. And hence the extremely high rate of eventual flux. Hence the high transient life. Hence the high rate of disposability and the high rate of replacement of things with new things, people with new people, place with new places.
1 Tofler, Alvin Future Shock The Bodley Head Ltd 1970
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The
Innovation Cycle and the Technological Cycle demonstrated using the evolution of a phone
1 Creative idea out of human need Alexander Graham Bell invented the Centennial telephone in 1867 : a truly epoch making invention
1 knowledge acquisition is the fuel for technology (in this case the basic phone resulted in better and faster communication than before)
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3 Intentional diffusion through society, response and more needs leading to more creative ideas
accelerated change thus leads to newer, faster and better means of knowledge acquisition (this growth in development led to the need for even faster communication and thus more innovation leading to converging technologies)
2 Technology in turn leads to accelerated change in human development (better communication led to greater connectivity and growth)
2 Practical application
The American Candlestick style Epson telephone, 1912. The dial system prevailed until the push button system in the 1970s.
The classic 30s telephone developed by Jean Heiberg for Ericsson of Sweden
This ‘skeleton’ telephone was made for the Rothschilds by the Ericsson company
... and computer technology combined with the phone has lead to the cellular phone today which is a communication device, camera, imaging studio, a planner, advertiser, gaming device, and personal planer, all in the palm of your hand.
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DWG 10 HUMANS IN THE AGE OF TRANSIENCE : THE WORLD IS AN OPEN SYSTEM OF MINDS WITH LIMITLESS CHOICE AND POSSIBILITY
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2.2 Repercussions of high transience on event and function : the onset of ‘Glocalization’ and the birth of the ‘Antitype’. high transience radically alters the event system and the functional system beyond any ‘typical’ definition
Let us take a look at what happens when this phenomena of transience hits the ‘open’ systems of event and function. By open systems we are talking about systems that can adapt to change by re-configuring its internal configurations to maintain equilibrium. Examples of this are most obviously all around us : the society, the economy, the community, the family, the environment. All of these are illustrations of systems that respond to change and react by re-configuring themselves. The phenomena of transience shatters the cyclicity of ‘event’. No longer is family dinner a ritual, and no longer is going to office restricted within preset timings and place since most managerial work can actually be performed through internet connectivity: and now through just a cellular phone. No longer is going to the supermarket a regular affair because most shopping is being conducted over the phone or the internet. The cyclicity of a conventional event is now tending towards erratic and chaotic. The phenomena of transience also alters the meaning of an event within a single group of people, who are ‘supposed’ to have a common thread of values. Rules and regulations as to ‘how’ one must sleep, eat, pray or work differs between various members of a single community. No one has a common definition yet everyone is heading towards their own personal definition of a life-style.
the Antitype is born
The boundaries of time and space have been crushed and folded leading to the creation of the ANTITYPE, that category of user-systems and spatial-systems that do not fall under any typology. Yet we all want to be in a familiar place. Familiarity defined by our initial roots, by conditioning and by notions fed into out minds by this radical state of connectivity. The world has thus evolved from globalization to glocalization. In a general way, the concept of globalization is best understood as expressing fundamental aspects of time-space distanciation. Globalization concerns the intersection of presence and absence, the interlacing of social events and social relations ‘at distance’ . According to the Oxford dictionary of new words (1991,134), the term ‘glocal’ and the process noun ‘glocalization are formed by telescoping global and local to make a blend. The terms glocal and glocalization became features of the business jargon during the 1980s, but their major locus of origin 1
globalization evolves to become glocal ization
1 Robertson, Roland Ed., Kathleen E.White Ed. Globalisation : Critical concepts in Sociology (Global membership and Participation) Routelouge 2003
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appears to have been Japan, where the idea of glocalization was modelled on the Japanese dochakuka , originally the agricultural principle of adopting one’s farming techniques to local conditions. The idea of glocalization in its business sense is closely related to what in some contexts is called , in more straightforwardly economic terms, “micro-marketing” : the tailoring and advertising of goods and services in a global or near global basis to increasingly differentiated local and particular markets. Almost needless to say, in the world of capitalistic production for increasingly global markets, the adaptation to local and other particular conditions is not simply a case of business responses to pre-existing global variety - to civilization, regional, societal, ethnic, gendered and still other sets of consumers, as if such variety or heterogeneity existed simply “in itself”. To a considerable extent, micro-marketing - or in more comprehensive terms, glocalization - involves the construction of increasingly differentiated consumers, the ‘invention’ of ‘consumer traditions’ (of which tourism, arguably the biggest ‘industry’ of the contemporary world, is undoubtedly the most clear cut example.) To put it very simply diversity sells. In one way or another, the issue of the relationship between the ‘local’ and the ‘global’ has become increasingly salient in a wide variety of intellectual and practical contexts. In some respects this development hinges upon the increasing recognition of the significance of space as opposed to time, in many fields of academic and practical endeavour. The general interest in the idea of post-modernity, whatever its limitations, is probably the most intellectually tangible manifestation of this. The most well known maxim - virtually a cliche - proclaimed in the diagnosis of the “post-modern condition” is of course that “grand narratives” have come to an end and that we are now in a circumstance of proliferating and sharply competing “narratives”. (Lyotard 1984) In this perspective, there are no longer any stable accounts of dominant change in the world. This view itself has developed on the other hand, at precisely the same time that there has crystallized an increasing interest in the world as a whole as a ‘single place’. It is appropriate a this point to say something more specific about the role and function of media and mass communication in the process of glocalization. Undoubtedly, inanimately mediated communication has over the centuries been of increasing importance. But it was the mid to late nineteenth century that seems to have been crucial with respect to the beginnings of international communication. It was during that period that “the initial technologies of international communication” (Fortner 1993,11) - such as the electronic telegraph, the telephone, the submarine cables and the wireless - emerged.
origin of the concept or idea of glocalization: Japan
glocalization and the market
glocalization as a salient feature in various intellectual and practical contexts
glocalization as a result of media and communication
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In this period and the first thirty years or so of the twentieth century these and other such innovations were increasingly institutionalized on an expanding international basis. From a different angle we can say that the period since the 1830s has been one of extensive ‘mediasation’. The mediasation of modern culture can thus be defined as the “rapid proliferation of institutions of mass communication and the growth of networks of transmission through which commodified symbolic forms have been made available to an ever expanding domain of recipients.
2.3 Repercussions of high transience on User-systems pertaining to a Habitat What are the by-products of the phenomena of glocalization? What are the various sub-phenomena we come across when we disintegrate glocalization, that affect man and his immediate surroundings , his habitat? What exactly is this accelerated change in society? In other words, how does a high rate of knowledge acquisition and technological advancement affect the dynamics of society?
the by products of glocalization that affect the functional patterns of the habitat
We go on further to understand four integral manifestations of technological advancement and knowledge acquisition, discernible in community structure and family structure that have led to the flux that exists within a community and within a family today. 1 2 3 4
Diversity Novelty Delocalization Disintegration
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1 Diversity Diversity within families and communities, is a direct outcome of knowledge acquisition. The deluge of knowledge has connected people across the world, and shaken the very foundations of their original respective value systems. Diversity is also the inevitable outcome of the commercial side of technology. Diversity is what is generated by engineered obsolescence of things, places, people, organizations and information. It is what brings about continuous replacement of products, places, people, things and jobs. Diversity implies new hybrid cross cultural value systems. It implies further need to ‘connect and reach out’ . It implies that within a community or a family, an individual’s choice of profession, site, personal value system, life-style, partners, becomes infinite. Hence leading to varied possible associations between the various living people in a community or within a single family. 1 diversity : the distorted value system and the new morphed Individual identity
2 Novelty Novelty is a process that human beings adopt to acclimatize and adapt to diversity. Novelty is thus a ‘new family’ or ‘community’ born out of new associations between seemingly diverse patterns, people, and places. Novelty is the offspring of the diversity that becomes apparent as a result of cross cultural connectivity, and engineered obsolescence. The new family thus has no common cultural rooting but is a hybrid of the individual value systems of each of its members. This gives the family a new identity as a whole.
novelty : the infinite new variations of family and community identity and the creation of new personal lifestyle
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3 Delocalization Delocalization is the phenomenon of not being restricted in movement to any particular place. It is that process in the realm of transience that occurs in response to 1 diversity and novelty 2 technological advancement that has enabled the ease and the speed of travel The phenomenon of delocalization was apparent in the past with early nomadic communities. But this delocalization was a result of exhaustion of natural resources in that particular area of their habitation. Moreover it was restricted within a particular region and was an excessively gradual process.
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delocalization : the freedom of movement in space that leads to a sense of being uprooted with no permanent ground
Delocalization implies that no longer does an individual in a family or a community sense a permanent rootedness to any particular place. An individual’s experience of the world is now no longer restricted to one culture, place, organization or environment. He is caught in this constant state of flux, a high level of transience. A permanent physical habitat in a single location is perceived as an excess responsibility or a monetary asset or a holiday getaway. Their is no contextual, cultural or traditional tie that an individual establishes with it apart from familiarity. Delocalization is what gives rise to the need for ease of mobility.
4 Disintegration Diversity, novelty and delocalization directly manifest themselves in the disintegration of common values and common needs of a community or a family, which often results in fractured families in the realm of time and space. As a result of this disintegration, we find today an assortment of cross cultural value systems, a morphing of basic individuality, a pursuit for new personal identity, and an emerging group a multi hybrid communities and individuals. 4 disintegration : the fractured family and community formed out of experience and imagery, through information and connectivity
images 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 courtesy Academy of Art San Fransisco Prospectus
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2.4 Spatial Manifestation of built form in a state of high transience and the emergence of the Flexible Habitat What happens to space as a result of high transience? What are the repercussions of diversity, novelty, delocalization and disintegration within a community and a family, in the space?
What is space? Architectural Space or place, in convention is the ‘resting site’ for a composition of a pattern. Which means essentially that any architectural space, in the past, was designed as a container intended to hold a ‘relatively permanent pattern’. This pattern is a matrix. The matrix is composed of layers of various complex systems as we have seen in the chapter on systems. These systems as we have seen in the chapter on systems include Intangible user systems: 1 Event systems 2 Function systems Tangible spatial systems: 3 Physical tangible elemental systems Hence space or place is the resting site for a composition of various physical systems built to embrace a permanent pattern composed of layered matrices of events and functions. High Transience however changes one tiny detail. The pattern of events and functions today is no longer as permanent as before. As a result of high transience this pattern is constantly evolving, changing and altering. This transience gives rise to the cross cultural, ever morphing, incessantly regenerating global hybridization of today. In short, flux in technology, economy, socio cultural values, and the environment causes the eventual and functional flux rate to be very high. Thus resulting in a state of continuous change or high transience. In this state of high transience constantly synchronizing and re-synchronizing the physical construct of a space with the rate of eventual or functional flux that occurs within it, will simply wreak havoc on the economy and resources.
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Evolution of Spatial Junk: what happens when a space fails to adapt to high transience The evolution of Spatial Junk takes place when a spatial system has not been built for growth or transformation. In the past a single family had a common value system, cultural and traditional mesh that they could adhere to. They had a sense of permanence of location, as the lack of connectivity and technological advancement, resulted in the lack of choice. The houses built in the past to permanence , thus fail to allow for the diversity within a single family or technological change. As a result we find new layers on the old house type, like the process of sedimentation, and hence the formation of ‘junk’ which is a conglomeration of all the changes and individual needs within a family. Habitats today thus tend to become this tangled mess of being 40% Indian, 20% Japanese , 18% Romanic, 12% Modern and 10% high tech, for instance, with physical ‘Bandaids’ to fix the unexpected and unresolved.
when the permanent matrix cannot adapt to transience : formation of spatial junk
In our age today, as a result of diversity, novelty, delocalization and disintegration, we thus no longer find the various members of a family or the various families in a community restricting themselves to one set sociocultural value system and life-style or one permanent location. The meaning of a permanent house thus diminishes . This problem also arises because the boundaries of time and space have disintegrated, thus allowing the individual to free himself from the habitat to pursue his way of living. The permanent house thus becomes this container for people and things to pass through it, and stash or storage area for things to pile up without maintenance. Spatial Junk thus forms, when a space is not planned for future growth or transformation and not left open ended as a design solution. And as a solution to spatial junk, the permanent space is simply broken down, altered, rebuilt or renovated. The result : mindless waste of earth’s resources, financial waste and pollution. The need of the day is not only to resourcefully exploit technology but to allow resources to sustain themselves for future development. The world is getting eroded and consumed by consumption itself . The world did not falter in a state of transience in the past as the process of flux was gradual and permitted resource to regenerate and renew itself. Today however, resource is being used up with thoughtless candor. We have come to an age where humankind has started to look around and find ways of less consumption and wastage and better means of dealing with prevention of spatial junk.
the need to prevent spatial junk : an aspect of sustainability
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DWG 11 : EVOLUTION OF SPATIAL JUNK : WHEN ARCHITECTURE CANNOT ADAPT TO CHANGE
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Understanding the big picture: Sustainability 1
It is imperative that we keep in mind, that human beings are part of a system of limited resource. Technological advancement exploits resource, and resource in turn exploits technology. In the cycle of innovation, and consumer revolution, human beings in the past have seldom expressed the concern of expendability and exhaustion of resource and rarely realized the need to respect and value the natural cycle and system. But this was because the flux in human development was not as apparent as it is today. Today, the innovation and technological cycles are moving at super fast speed resulting in a new global culture, and the GLOCAL village. The new emerging glocal scenario thus is a scenario of uncertainty of event, terminating the concept of relative permanence of function. Cyclicity and pattern have become uncertain and result in a need for indeterminate and open ended built form and not perfect finite solutions that may become redundant with flux and high transience. The depletion is now staring us straight in our faces, and the concern is expressed. The new built form antitype has emerged.
sustainabilty: a generalized viewpoint
Globalism is both intimacy and distance at one and the same time. New phenomena supplement the existing, in a world where the equal value of everything has removed any sense of order. The digitized society has disintegrated under the frameworks for the importance of place and time, and no one is bound by their physical presence. Presence - being present - is not a necessity but requires a conscious choice. Man forms part of a global community in a inconstant relationship with the world. In all ages, man lives like a nomad, virtually and concretely. You move in space and time in a second and during a lifetime. The nomad lives off the place. To the human being in transit, physical locations have a social identity creating value. Man understands himself by virtue of his actions and through communication with others, but the home is the sign, which signifies man’s existence on Earth. It anchors us to a place in the fluctuating global space. The glo-cal fixed point imbues the ‘now’ , with meaning in the unfathomable simultaneity of the global world. Sustainability is about seeing each and every element in its wider context and assigning priority to those parts of this context which has the greatest importance to the largest possible number of factors. In the complex global society the elucidation of correlations and connections is of great value to each individual. Flexibility in a system, focuses attention on our life-styles, the quantity and validity of our consumption. By realizing the consequences of our consumption, we understand our significance in the world. 1 www.design.dk
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How does one define sustainability? 1
sustainability definitions
The launching point for most is the following statement from Our Common Future, a report issued in 1987 by the U. N. World Commission on Environment and Development, popularly known as the Brundtland Commission: “Sustainable development is development that meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs.” As a new organization, Sustainable Sonoma County worked for about eighteen months to define sustainability and created the following three sentence definition: Sustainability secures people’s quality of life within the means of nature in a way that is fair and equitable to all humanity, other species and to future generations. Sustainability recognizes the interrelatedness of the economy, society, and environment. It requires that we not consume resources faster than they can be renewed nor produce wastes faster than they can be absorbed. Below are some other definitions of sustainability. Each one reflects a different perspective and food for thought. Sustainability is equity over time. As a value, it refers to giving equal weight in your decisions to the future as well as the present. You might think of it as extending the Golden Rule through time, so that you do unto future generations (as well as to your present fellow beings) as you would have them do unto you. Robert Gilman, Director Context Institute Activities are sustainable whey they: 1. use materials in continuing cycles 2. use continuously reliable sources of energy 3. come mainly from the potentials of being human, i.e., communication, creativity, coordination, appreciation, and spiritual and intellectual development. Activities are non-sustainable when they: 1. require continual inputs of nonrenewable resources, 2. use renewable resources faster than their rate of renewal 3. cause cumulative degradation of the environment, 4. require resources in quantities that could never be sustainable for all people, 5. lead to the extinction of other life forms. Guideposts for a Sustainable Future Project M. Nickerson Sustainability is part of a trend to...consider the whole instead of the specific. Sustainability emphasizes relationships rather than pieces in 1 www.sustainablesonoma.org
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isolation...Sustainability is not all about regressing to primitive living conditions. It is about understanding our situation, and developing as communities in ways that are equitable, and make sense ecologically and economically. Center for Sustainable Communities Sustainable means being able to keep going or able to endure; sustainability, then, is acting in such a way that life on Earth endures on into the future, providing for the needs of all citizens and creatures while maintaining the natural functions, resources, and beauty of the planet...Sustainability is rooted in looking to the inherent workings of nature as a model, with the idea that the natural systems of the world do work in balance to perpetuate life, and by working in harmony with those natural systems, we can sustain our own lives. Sustaining the Earth Debra Dadd-Redalia
sustainability strategies and methods of application
Solar Cyclic Safe Efficient Social Edwin Datschefski Green Product Designer 1
Developed by Swedish oncologist Dr. Karl Henrik Robert in 1989, The Natural Step (TNS), is often referred to the compass for sustainability helping to indicate the direction for sustainable action. Along with the Ecological Footprint, SSC uses the TNS Framework to define sustainability in it’s educational workshops (for example, MASH). A number of businesses are in the process of redefining their activities within the TNS Framework and serve as models of how movement towards a more sustainable world may occur. The framework consists of three parts: o the Four System Conditions o the Funnel o Strategies for Action System condition one addresses what we take from the Earth’s crust. It says that if we take metals, minerals and fossil fuels from the Earth faster than they can be recycled back into nature, these substances will build-up in the environment in problematic ways. We experience those problems in the form of smog, ozone depletion, global warming and poisoning from heavy metals like lead and mercury. Burning oil and coal faster than the trees can absorb the carbon is an example of violating the first system condition. System condition two looks at the things we make and how well and quickly they can be reintegrated 1 www.tns.se
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into the natural environment. Too much of anything, like garbage in land fills or sewage compromises the health of the natural system. There are also problems when we create synthetic chemicals nature can’t break down quickly, like Styrofoam and plastics. Creating nuclear waste is an example of violating system condition number two.
The Funnel TNS uses a “funnel” as a visual metaphor to describe our current situation and the goal of sustainability. The downward sloping line describes the decline in the life support systems of the world. This would include the loss of species, the decline of many natural systems such as forests, coral reefs, soil, etc. as well as the build up of toxins that increasingly make resources unavailable to us like the pollution of fresh water. The other, upward sloping side of the funnel represents the increasing demands of human activity. This is driven by increasing numbers of people consuming greater amounts of resources such as food, forests, land as well as minerals, metals, fossil fuels, etc. Together these two trends show that human demand is outstripping (and many would say has already outstripped) our supply of natural resources. In order to be sustainable, we must change the shape of this funnel. We need to both decrease our impacts and restore the life support systems.
System condition three is about maintaining the natural systems that support life. Everything comes from and goes back to the natural environment. All life, including humans, depend on these natural services: clean water and air, building materials and food. So system condition three says we need to restore and maintain these natural life support systems for our long term well-being. System condition four is about fairness and meeting the needs of all people and all species by using the most resource-efficient methods possible. If we don’t meet the basic needs of everyone, through fair and efficient use of resources, it will be difficult or impossible to meet the other three conditions. Bananas and coffee grown on tropical plantations for sale in rich countries reflects problems with local food systems, loss of habitat and exploitation of cheap labor and so is an example of violating number four. Strategies for Action In addition to being a conceptual tool, TNS is an organization committed to helping other organizations, individuals and communities take steps towards sustainability. Widely used in Sweden, especially by business and government, TNS has begun to shape the vision of leaders throughout the world including those in the United States. TNS’s Strategies for Action includes four elements referred to as ABCD: o Awareness—Developing a common understanding of the situation within an organization o Base-line mapping—Mapping current operations of an organization in terms of the four system conditions. o Clear vision—Creating a vision and identifying measures that take an organization from where it is now to where it can be in a sustainable future o Down to Earth action—Prioritizing measures for achieving the organization’s vision that move it toward sustainability. To assist with this last step, TNS uses a technique called “backcasting”. Unlike forecasting, where one looks forward with projections, backcasting starts with one’s goal or vision and looks back at how one might get there. TNS also recommends that initial steps toward sustainability address the “low hanging fruit”, meaning “do the easy things first”. In this way people are encouraged to get started and make progress where they can. The first step is often the most important. Some of the companies that have embarked on this journey toward sustainability using TNS include Interface Carpets, McDonalds Sweden, Nike, Ikea, and Scandic Hotels. Thus understanding the larger picture of sustainability, we now take a look at its manifestation in the emerging habitat of today and a possible future scenario.
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The emerging glo-cal habitat of today Going back now to the response observed in emerging spatial systems, let us examine the glocal habitat of today. 1
The dynamics of the new family is an outcome of glocalization, the high transience life, the flux and kinesis in our interaction with the world around us and obviously has or is soon going to have an incredible impact on the emerging habitat type ... or rather the ‘habitat antitype’, as we shall begin to call this state of architecture now, as there is no fixed typology we can attach it to. Ideas, such as place, dwelling unit, habitat and function do not adequately represent the reality of the urban dwelling today. Things are no longer as clear cut as they once seemed. Observers often point out the loss today of any fixed character of place, any clear definition of dwelling unit and any firm concept of function. The unit called the family is no longer bound together by self contained clearly hierarchical relationships. Individuals have much stronger statuses within their family. Moreover family relationships undergo radical change with time. Our idea of what constitutes a dwelling unit is likely to become more ambiguous as relationships within the family become more tenuous and unstable and unpredictable. The boundaries of the dwelling unit are no longer well defined. Moreover as relationships within the family become uncertain, the boundaries of the subspaces that comprise the house are also fated to become more ambiguous. The hierarchical order that once prevailed in the living room, the dining room, and the bedroom is breaking down and the house itself is losing its centre. This tendency is being reinforced by the fact that the activities taking place in the contemporary dwelling suggest no set or simple clear cut functions. Contemporary families, and the individuals in those families lead diverse lives and take part in complex activities. A house would have to have an infinite number of rooms with completely adjustable boundaries to account for all those activities. If ideas, dwelling unit and function no longer provide a sound basis for the design of contemporary houses, what is taking their place?
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The answer would be information and things. The biggest difference between houses of the past and contemporary houses is in the volume of ‘information and things’. Contemporary dwelling spaces are flooded with enormous amounts of both. Information summons things and things in turn evoke information. The flood of information and things is what invalidated the ideas of place, dwelling unit and function, in the first place. Information and things easily cross over boundaries of dwelling units and rooms. They nullify the meaning of boundary. They themselves continue endlessly to change in character. In what direction are these contemporary houses ruled by information and things heading? If boundaries of dwelling units and rooms become even more ambiguous and eventually disappear, will houses dissolve into and become indistinuishable from the urban space?
“ We want to be able to move our lives and our belongings to pursue our careers or our desires. We always want the latest rather than the last year’s model. And yet there is a sense of yearning that cuts through and is floating all around us. We want to be at home.” -Aaron Betsky Our age is characterized by coordination, diversity, uncertainty, synthesis, ambivalence. Our era is marked by the blurry, the cloudy, the vaue associated with the logic of “both/ and”. We must relinquish order, we must accept that order arises out of chaos, so chaos and order are not mutually exclusive. In the habitat of the future we will live alone and be with others, work and recreate. We must be sustainable and live in luxury. The dwelling of the future must be both accessible and inaccessible, both extrovert and introvert, both simple and complex. Thus emerges the indeterminate. Thus emerges the open-ended, the irresolute, the uncertain. The built form that embraces change, the spatial system that supports diversity and flux. Thus emerges Flexibility.
1 Boase The Future Home - a prize competition focusing n sustainability and accessibility Editors Claus Bech-Danielsen ,Merete Kjaer Christensen Peder Duelund Mortensen, Karen Zahle Kunstakademiets Arkitektskole 2001 Extracted from page 247 Toyo Ito’s essay on Future habitats
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The Home of the Future : a possible scenario a point of view by Kent Larson A+D July 1993 ‘Visions for the future’ 1
The home industry could possibly look something like this in a few years : By 2015, savvy, well capitalized companies from outside of the housing industry have taken over the market and speclative developers have all but vanished. A young couple looking to build a new home begins the process at a number of internet home sites, where they play design games and select from options presented to them. As the sysem begins to understand their needs and values, proposals are generated for their evaluation - which then in turn generates additional designs. In the process they find that their has been an explosion of creative activity as dozens of young architects and industrial designers develop and license systems to integrators - based on new industry-wide standards for both physical building components and digital technologies. Systems from one manufacturer are inter-changable with another, similar to what evolved in the PC industry wenty five years earlier. The couple learn that IKEA SystemsTM has expanded their kitchen and home furnishing project line to include low-cost kit home components with Scandinavian detailing and energy saving technologies; BMWTM has developed sleek, modern, high tech house components made from no-maintainence, high perfirmance composites and metals; and Home DepotTM and Martha Stewart have merged into Stewart-DepotTM to offer furnished reproduction historic homes. At each step of the process, our couple investigates spatial configurations and options for lighting, finishes, appliances, energy producing components, and a whole host of new technologies - making choices that take them closer and closer to their ideal. For several weeks the couple spend hours each evening in their living room discussing alternatives and exploring the wealth of information available to them. With a limited budget, but unwilling to compromise on quality they settle on a small but compact design strategy developed by an Australian architectural firm with cleverly conceived transformable and multi use space using BMWTM parametric components. For example they select options for conversion of the husband’s office to a formal dining area for the parties they will host every few months, and also to a guest suite with a folddown bed for the occasional overnight visitor. They pre-plan a series of additions they intend to make over time as the size of their family and income increases. They also attach an efficiency apartment for the wife’s frail mother, signing up for $49.95 per month, 24-hour health monitoring service by HomeBiometrics.comTM that includes a host of robotic assisting devices that will help her live independently. 1 A+ D July 1993 ‘Visions for the future’
THE FUTURE HABITAT
converging technologies
multifunctionality of space
variation and choice
transformability to embrace change
planning for future growth
sustainable development
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Ordering their home is no more difficult than buying an automobile online. Behind the scene, software agents have already negotiated with lenders, installers, and energy and service providers, allowing the couple to determine their total monthly cost. Rejecting lease options, they choose a twentyyear mortgage with a twenty year warranty and upgrade package with regularly scheduled maintenance. The shrink-wrapped digitally tagged house components arrive on their site, four weeks after ordering, and three installers connect the pieces together using conductive, industrial Velcro fasteners. The couple moves in two weeks later. Living in this new home takes some getting used to. With sensor arrays and digital displays embedded into most surfaces, the home begins to discover their patterns of activity and tries to anticipate what they might need or want. At first it only gets half right, but within several weeks it begins to fit like a glove. It adjusts the ambient light for reading a book in the afternoon, keeps tuna fish on hand in the pantry, monitors their nutrition and tracks down the films it knows they will enjoy. Assessing the Vision How realistic is this scenario? If it seems far fetched it is only because the housing industry is years behind others in transitioning to the post-industrial economy. Compare the housing industry to others: Most major companies outside of the housing compete internationally, with innovation on one side of the globe instantly rippling across to the other. New materials, technologies and processes are adopted in just months. Industrial behemoths have become lean, agile, integrated and digital - they tap information in real time. In Housing, competition is primarily local, processes are labor intensive and innovations take an average of seventeen years to find their way into homes. We assume that this year’s cell phone or iPod is dramatically more useful, higher quality and less expensive than last year’s. Customers are demanding more for less from their products and getting it. Except for the vanishingly small percentage of homes designed by architects for individual adventurous clients, the housing industry produces variations of the same low grade, standard product that it has been making for the past 50 years. There is a perception that housing gives you less for more with each passing year. Companies making products from cars to clothes have become customer-centric, selling lifestyle and fantasy. Whimsy and pleasure are often as important as function and features. Many have disintermediated, cultivating a relationship directly with the consumers. The Ford Motor Company has decided that Fordism is outdated with “mass-buildto-suit” to replace mass production for the customization of cars in the future. Post indstrial companies are selling services, systems and experiences - not commodities. In housing,
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rather than helping to create experiences and pleasure - a stage set to play out one’s life -developers are creating mostly banal boxes. New Rules of the Game But the rules have recently changed in the housing industry creating risks for companies still stuck in the old ways, and extraordinary opportunities for those who know the new game: 1) the Internet, information technologies, and powerful computation have created a new alternative to factory or site-built mass-production models: mass customization, 2) labor intensive, site oriented processes are increasingly unworkable in a hot economy where skilled labour is expensive and scarce, 3) sophisticated technology/service companies have identified the home as a huge potential market, and are looking for avenues for entry - often looking for new ways of designing and building, 4) demographic changes have made the old single-template model of housing unworkable for a large segment of the population and 5) the baby boomers are beginning to demand more choice and a greater level of sophistication in housing than did the generation before. Boomer Market Forces The baby boomers born between 1945 and 1965, control much of the wealth of the U.S and the world and are the largest purhasers of new homes. Their values are very different from their depression era parents who accepted mass-produced homes. Market studies by AARP Research, Roper Starch and others, reveal that boomers want choice and tailored solutions that closely reflect their values. They reject the ‘one size fits all’ model. They want homes that can accommodate increasingly complex family activities and work patterns. They want environments that can easily adapt over time as family/financial/health situations change. They want their homes to help them remain productive, connected, healthy and autonomous as they move into retirement. They have ever increasing expectations of the products they buy, and want to be assured that they are getting value for their money. They expect full disclosure and immediate information. They want low maintainence materials, systems that can be upgraded without disruption, and houses that can readily accept new technologies and services. It is difficult to find even one of these attributes in the generic, massmarket, low tech offerings of speculative housing.
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Post Industrial Design and Construction Many of the construction tools that make up the scenario presented above are actively under development. For example:
Automated Design Tools. The economics of professional practice have prevented architects from having any meaningful role in the design of most houses and housing. That could change if architects begin to focus on the far more challenging task of creating agile and customized architectural systems and strategies - where success is measured according to how effectively different but fully coherent solutions can be created. Work is now beginning at MIT to develop automated design tools that 1) encode into rules high standards of practice (from universal design principles to energy conservation design) 2) define as rules multiple architecture design strategies or visions through the use of shape grammars and parametric design, 3) remotely decipher and evaluate personal values or programmatic requirements 4) generate multiple, coherent, tailored design solutions for evaluation by an individual homeowner, and 5) provide people with the information and visualization studies they need to make informed decisions regarding budget, spatial configurations, finishes, direct and ambient light, comfort, energy consumption, technology options and life-cycle costing. Ironically, the automation of design could finally bring the art of architecture into the place where most people live. Component based mass customization of housing. Automated design tools will be particularly useful when linked to automated manufacturing. This will require the home to be made up of manufactured components, integrating structure, finishes, communication, power, embedded sensors, etc. Components should be rapidly locked together on the site with the least skilled labour. CNC (computerized numerically controlled) machines have become common in many large millwork and metal plants, allowing unique components to be manufactured as efficiently as identical units. The manufacturing infrastructure is largely in place - even if it has not been widely tapped for residential construction. Controlled and precise fabrication of integrated components will more easily allow new materials such as advanced polymers, composite and special purpose metals to find their way into the home and will also permit low cost embedding of delicate electronics and devices into the fabric of the environment. Open Architecture Standards. Just as competitors in the computer industry have adopted universally accepted standards that yield great diversity, a component based approach to architecture will require standard protocols, infrastructure and connections. Whereas many in the past have developed propri-
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etary single factory approaches, open architectural standards will allow for diverse companies to compete head to head for the loyalty of customers. This will foster desperately needed innovation in the housing industry. Integrated Technologies Many of the technologies that are hinted in the above scenario are also under development. For example :
Integrated Information and Communication Technologies. Many major building material manufacturers have prototypes that integrate low cost sensors into materials, and are only waiting for applications and market demand. The internet is leading to an explosion of new services in the home, but the potential of this technology is limited if not fully integrated into the environment. With economies of scale, the cost of embedding sensors ranging from heat and humidity detectors to miniature cameras into architectural components will likely approach the negligible - as is evident in the toy industry. This will make practical a home where structure, enclosure, and finishes contain devices that continuously measure the state of the physical world - finally tuning it to maximize energy conservation, etc. Low-cost output devices such as large displays and projectors will provide feedback to users wherever and whenever they need it in the home, simplifying the connection to the digital world. Environments responsive to the occupants. Future thinking physicians are beginning to realize that twenty four hour, non-invasive biometric tracking of the well being of people in their own homes may revolutionize the practice of medicines. Health related infrastructure in the home may make possible for the first time effective preventive medicine, helping doctors to monitor health, exercise ad nutrition, and to identify potential problems before they become critical. Ultimately, monitoring algorithms in conjunction with medical knowledge base information systems may make preventive medical care low cost and ubiquitous. Arrays of sensors embedded in the environment and miniature wearable computers will simplify the task of obtaining data about activities of people. Using computational reasoning and pattern recognition techniques this sensor data can then be used to compute what the people in the space are currently doing. By monitoring what people typically do it then becomes possible to predict what they might do next, enabling imaginative ne products with comfortable, natural and easy to use interfaces that bridge the digital and physical domains. This will give biometric data the necessary context for accurate interpretation, and allow the home to begin to anticipate needs and desires. Eventually sophisticated systems will be self programming, with the environment melding ever more intimately with the individual over time.
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Environments Aware of Objects. Many large producers of goods are actively working on a transition from the bar code (UPC) to low cost radio frequency identification tags placed in every product we buy. Standards for the electronic product code are now being developed at MIT. In just a few years, most objects entering and leaving the home will be recognized by low cost sensors embedded in architectural components. At least one manufacturer has developed a prototype for low-cost tag readers embedded into counter-top laminates, with the idea that all horizontal surfaces in the home may eventually incorporate object sensors. Such infrastructure will make possible continuous and unattended inventory of objects in the home, automated reordering of commodities, appliances that interact with objects and connect to the manufacturer’s website for optimized control, low cost robotics systems designed to interact with tagged objects, digitally mediated medicine dispensing, and automated routing of goods from the factory to the warehouse to the kitchen cabinet. This new infrastructure could spawn dozens of new enterprises providing new products and services to the home.
Hold on.... let us breathe for a moment. All this seems too much to happen in our lifetime. But by the way technology and lifestyles are evolving, it does seem highly likely that we shall live to see our homes like the way they are described above. With this we come to the end of the chapter on transience, and the new paths for the architecture of the habitat. What are these new paths? As we have seen, the emerging need in the twentieth and twenty-first century has been flexibility of space to embrace flexibility of our lifestyles. The industrial revolution brought with it mass production and mass produced spaces and interior parts. Following that, the Information revolution brought with it the concept of mass-customization: a combination of mass production and flexibility. In the next chapter we go back to the basics. We go on to understanding Flexibility and outline a short history of its early visions and application in built form. Finally we go on to analyses of habitats that are products of transience and flexible design.
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3 a note on flexibility and flexible habitats 3.1 Flexibility definitions and essence 3.2 Early examples and benchmarks of the concept of ‘parts’ emergent types of flexibility 3.3 The flexible habitat transformable habitats and portable h a b i t a t s
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3.1 Flexibility 1
A man dwelt in a very comfortable house, with a large, light, airy cellar. The river ran near by. One day the river overflowed, the cellar was flooded, and all the hens that he kept in it were drowned. The next day he bounced off to see the landlord. ‘I have come,’ he said, ’to give you notice. I wish to leave the house.’ ‘How is that?’, asked the astonished landlord. ‘I thought you liked it so much. It is a very comfortable, well-built house, and cheap. ‘Oh, yes,’ the tenant replied, ‘but the river has overflowed into my cellar, and all my hens are drowned.’ ‘Oh, don’t let that make you give up the house, the landlord reasoned; ‘try ducks!’ -Frank Boreham
The above story tells us in a very simple way, the unpredictability that effects a man’s immediate environment. In today’s world, there is little that can be categorized as relatively finite and perfect, except the notion of uncertainty. It is thus important that all that when we create as our immediate surrounding space we must envisage it to be inflicted by transience. 2
Definition and essence Flexibility is defined as the inherent property of a system of components to be able to modify itself to the forces of various internal and external stimuli, which directly or indirectly affect the system. For example the human being is flexible due the inherent property of its components to be able to adapt to the various external and internal forces to maintain a state of equilibrium. Flexibility is a property of a system, preserving its basic recognizable qualities in response to change. Thus change implies not-change
flexibility as a response to change flexibility as a property of a system flexibility as ‘not-change’
Flexibility as a response to change The flexibility of a given system is described in terms of its ability to adapt to external change. Therefore change becomes a force which evolves the nature of flexibility inherent within a particular system. It is hence imperative to be aware of what change we are talking about. For example change in technology demands the interior space to adapt accordingly, to embrace the flux, without disturbing its inherent equilibrium. Similarly, environmental change demands the interior space to respond in a certain way to maintain a state of equilibrium. Flexibility as property of a system Any typical system has embedded in it the inherent property of responding to external stimuli and flux by adapting and regaining its basic state of equilibrium. Thus flexibility is the most fundamental property of a system, the property by virtue of which it is able to sustain itself for given periods of time. Flexibility as not-change
1 Frank Boreham, Mushrooms on the Moor, London: The Epworth Press, 1930, p. 52-53 2 www.users.globalnet.co.uk
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Equilibrium is maintained in a system, when the individual components of the system change their configurations to produce a ‘not-change’ in the overall system . A building or information system continues to fit its purpose, even though the original designer didn’t know exactly what its purpose would become. When a spatial system is designed with a fixed set of re-configurable components, the building does not change in character of purpose, but adapts to the varying forces of change to maintain stability. Flexibility is the ability to make small changes in order to avoid large (catastrophic) changes. Flexibility depends on the caprice of the environment The word ‘caprice’ is used by to describe the flux in the realm of Nature. Flexibility is born out of caprice. Flexibility would not exist without caprice. It is only the adaptive response that a system performs, to forces of change, that brings out the quality of flexibility in a system. Flexibility thus depends on the forces of the environment to become apparent as an attribute of a system. Flexibility depends on the level of abstraction Flexibility needs to be addressed, by abstracting the various fluxes within the system and the various relationships that occur within and around it. The level of abstraction determines its open-ended-ness. The less the abstraction, the more the flexibility is going to result in a tightness of activities, leading to loss of real flexibility. Flexibility depends on the system boundary If we define flexibility in terms of the responsiveness to events in the environment, then it obviously matters where we draw the line between the system and its environment. The entire universe is a system and contain various infinite systems within it. Each one effects the other to some extent. But we cannot predict every force that may effect a system to lead to the need for adaptation, as the extent to which one system affects another has too many variables. Hence while designing a flexible system it is important to define the system boundary, beyond which one does not consider any other force. Paradoxes of flexibility Simplistic attempts to increase flexibility often result in a loss of flexibility. Flexibility is achieved not just by keeping your options open, but by making decisions. It is thus important to define the arametres of the ‘design world’ within which flexibility is required to be achieved. Thus making the wrong decision may also reduce flexibility.
flexibility depends on the caprice of environment flexibility depends on the level of abstraction flexibility depends on system boundary
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Varying
attributes
of
Flexibility
spatial multi-functionality a Swiss knife : many tools in one system
spatial variation and choice a set of dice : limitless possibility
spatial transformability origami : endless transformation
spatial growth LEGO : infinite growth
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Flexibility : a legibility of parts - the Language of Technology The spatial product becomes an unfinished project, a permanent continuum of projects that have reached the limits of definition, that are limited both in their ability to define themselves and to be defined socially through use. -Asymptote design, Archilab
The direct architectural outcome of high transience, touching our lives today, has been the emerging need for flexibility in the spatial system. A spatial system that will embrace the speed of change and constantly adapt to the ever diversifying and ever changing needs of human beings today, by virtue of its inherent flexibility. Flexibility is an outcome of the industrial age, the machine eon, the technological era. From very early years, the quality of flexible architecture was perceived as clustering parts of its system. Nations, states, cities, neighbourhoods, streets and buildings are quarries of information giving off signals which can be read. The flexible built form type aims at making these signals easily legible both to the passerby and the user. 1
Therefore, though this new emerging building type is complete at any one stage, in order to allow for growth and change, it is functionally and therefore visually open ended. This indeterminate form thus offers legible architectural clues for the interpretation of future users. The dichotomy between the complete and the open ended nature of the building is a determinant of the aesthetic language. Thus the flexible emerging building type is designed in a way in which it can be broken down into elements and sub-elements which are then hierarchically organized so as to give a clearly legible order. A vocabulary is thereby created in which each element expresses its process of manufacture, storage, erection and demountability; so that, to quote Louise Kahn, ‘ each part joyfully proclaims its role in the totality, “ Let me tell you the part I am playing, how I am made and what each part does”, what the building is for, what the role of the building is in the street and the city.’ Flexibility as Growth and Change: Transformation and Permanence : a point of view by Richard Rogers 2 The flexible building type that has emerged out of transience, is thus a system and a balance which offers the potential for change and urban control; a system in which the totality has complete integrity, yet allows for both planned and unplanned evolution. A dynamic relationship is established here, between
1,2 Powell, Kenneth RICHARD ROGERS Artemis London limited 1994
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transformation and permanence, resulting in a three dimensional framework, with a kit of changeable parts designed to allow people to perform freely inside and out. This free and changing performance of people and parts is the expression of this emerging architecture. These built forms are not to ‘straitjacket’ the developing activities enclosed, and are capable of being easily adapted. In extending the life of a building by even a small percentage, considerable economy in materials, man hours and rent is achieved. The plan, section and elevation of flexible buildings respond to the user’s needs without loss of order. Apart from the obvious economic benefits that longer building life offers, a further advantage is that building and places achieve a patina created by time which adds to the humanization of the building. The methodology by which one defines areas designed for permanence and those designed for transformation is rooted in the program itself. A hierarchical system is set up based on the analyses of function and form, ranging from the most changeable elements such as moveable partitions, to changeable elements such as the services and the facade, to fixed elements such as the basic structure and outline silhouette. The whole is organized in a manner that though the form is not finite, the order and the meaning remain clear. This form of improvisation within a framework may also be found in contemporary music, poetry and sculpture. In analyzing the hierarchy of change, certain elements are separated. The basic framework of a building, if designed as an easily adaptable, well lit, general purpose space, offers the potential for a very long life. Even if the activities change there is rarely a need for different specifications in height, width and length between one activity and another. For example, a university, a block of flats, offices, or workshops, have much the same spatial needs and can be interchanged. It is primarily the mechanical servicing which is different , and which therefore needs to be adapted to meet the change in building use and the demands of evolving technology. With boundless knowledge acquisition resulting in cross cultural confluence, we are thus in an age where we cannot predict with certainty how the eventual and functional systems of a space will evolve. Hence transience implies that the emerging building behaves flexibly in response to various possible eventual and functional fluxes. Flexible built forms thus separate the long life general purpose spaces, which offer maximum economic return, from the short life technol-
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ogy dependent activities. This in turn allows ease of access and simple maintenance, as well as the ability to modernize the mechanical services which need to be constantly upgraded. Le Corbusier, concurring with most users, stated that life is always right, it is architecture that is wrong. From this way we may deduce that a new architecture should be capable of both reflecting the on going changes in restructuring the process of life and transforming into three dimensions the perpetual dialectic between permanence and change. Flexibility: The philosophy of metabolism: a point of view by Kisho Kurokava Before we get into the various types and examples of flexible systems and a short history of early visions, let us take a look at a last movement, without which the process of understanding flexibility would be incomplete. This is a movement that has its roots in Japan, with architects like Kisho Kurokava and Kiyonari Kikutake taking the lead steps in expressing the philosophy in built form. Taking clues from Biology, with its continuous renewal, growth and destruction of organic tissue, whole structures of built forms are conceived as a combination of many units with varying life-span. The theory of metabolism states that the important step is to distinguish between the fixed parts and the changeable parts. These could be further subdivided according to their degree of durability - how often they would need to be discarded. 1
Then only the outdated parts would have to be replaced. This would contribute greatly to the conservation of resources by using the buildings for much longer, a concept that owes itself to the Japanese Buddhist philosophy of cosmic change and eternal growth. This is also termed as the ‘Metabolist Cycle Theory’ . According to this theory, the fixed parts of a building are to be the primary structural system. Less permanent than that would be the primary mechanical systems - the supply and return ducts, the main water lines, electrical lines and so on. Even less permanent is the main circulation system: the stairs and the elevators. And the capsule is the most temporary part. It was born out of the jiga, the oriental individuum which consists of a relationship in which the society and the individual, while being contradictory, include each other. Like wise the capsule is independent of the building to which it is attached.
1 Suckle, Abby By Their Own Design Granada Publishing 1980
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In the words of Kisho Kurokava himself... “Systems are necessary for supporting human activities but they are scarcely reasons for living. They merely establish the framework in which the inhabitants of capsules can do whatever they want. In this diversified society of the future, one can paint a picture of the family as a household based on the encounter of individuals abolishing the housing unit centred on the nuclear family. “ The housing capsule designed for the Theme Pavilion of Expo ‘70 was intended to demonstrate what such a house might be like. The Capsule is the ultimate form of prefabricated building which will make qualitative conversion of industrial production of buildings possible. Mass produced on a selective system the capsule permits an interchangeability of parts. These parts, the functional units, can easily be replaced; proliferation is possible by simply adding additional components. The actual physical design and construction of capsules suggested a systems approach due to the high level of technological sophistication required of the end product. This implied that the building is dissolved into parts and capsulated into functional units; each particular functional unit was designed and split into its component elements, which were then checked for usefulness and acquirability. Working backwards the parts were recombined to see if they could be assembled with reasonable ease, if the scheduling sequence was feasible, if it was possible to transport and attach them into their environmental context, and foremost, if the package was aesthetically fit, and no more expensive than ordinary construction. The only junction where all the parts of the capsule has to fit together is the point of joining. This makes it possible to replace parts and to mass produce freely. Metabolism is a philosophy which values the preservation of relationships among architecture, society and nature while constantly changing with the passage of time. The basic kinetic form in which space develops is metabolism, and its process is expressed as an increased entropy. Metabolism does not presuppose any system of though previously established and built up. It rejects all primary conceptual definition. Its effectiveness and the attention given to it, depend on its relevance to the problems facing contemporary architecture and planning. What follows is a brief overview of the early visions and benchmarks of the ‘concept of parts’ , which is the basis of the property of flexibility.
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3.2 Early Visions and Benchmarks in the concept of ‘Parts’
1851 A
The Crystal Palace, London
100
YEARS
AFTER
THE
INDUSTRIAL
REVOLUTION
The Parthenon of the Industrial revolution, designed by Joseph Paxton. The building was put together from millions of prefabricated units, with a network of pipes to stabilize the structure. The network had nodes at regular intervals into which columns could be inserted and erected literally in minutes. It was actually built in a matter of weeks, in the last possible moment, to house the Great Exhibition of 1851, a chance for Britain to show off the outcome of the Industrial revolution. Paxton made maximum use of plate glass - a recent invention - in the design of the palace, employing 300,000 sheets of plate glass. The Building was designed to be put up by semi skilled workers. It was the first large scale, prefabricated building in modern materials the world had seen. It pointed the way forward. It was dismantled and relocated in 1854.
1903 The
opening of the Ford Motor Company
the beginning of the assembly line and the MACHINE AGE The outstanding contribution of the automotive industry to technological advance was the introduction of full scale mass production. Henry Ford (1863-1974) revolutionized factory production with his assembly line methods. In 1903 he and his partners formed the Ford Motor Company. His business philosophy was to reduce the unit cost and increase the volume of sales. The Model T appeared in 1908. By 1913, mass production enabled him to reduce the price to produce “ a motor car for the great multitude”. How did the assembly line affect architecture? In two ways. First it brought in the era of mass private transport and with it the phenomena of ‘delocalization’ that we have talked about earlier. Secondly, buildings started to become mass produced due to mass production of certain building components: windows, doors, curtain wall mullions, raised floors and suspended ceiling are mass produced to standard patterns in factories. Buildings quietly got industrialized.
1924
The Schroder House
Utrecht The Netherlands 1924
one of the first open plan spatial configurations applied in modern houses The open plan spatial organization of this 1924 house was remarkable for its time. The first floor was occupied by a large living and dining area, with sliding panels for partitioning off smaller rooms arranged around it. It was also innovative in its use of huge windows, strong blocks of color and built in furniture. The design program was developed by the client, Truus Schroder, in collaboration with Gerrit Rietveld, as an expression of her desire for a house where she could live closely with her children and entertain a constant flow of visitors and liberal ideas. Rietveld started his career as a furniture designer with links to the radical Dutch De Stijl art movement. The Schroder house is celebrated as the first architectural embodiment of De Stijl principles of color and abstraction, with its white and grey intersecting planar walls and colored windows and railings, and is a landmark in the history of modern house design.
1949
The Eames House
Pacific Palisades, CA USA
modern design applied to domestic buildings Lightweight, steel and glass, the Eames house presented the Case Study Program, initiated by the magazine Arts and Architecture, to demonstrate the applicability of modern design to domestic buildings. The house and its associated studio ( visible beyond the house) create as much space as possible with minimal materials. Developing an identifiable aesthetic out of such practical construction gave it an enduring place in the canon of great architectural works. Steel was chosen for its relative cheapness as well as its lightness and strength. The structural shell of the Eames house was raised by 5 men in 16 hours and the roof deck completed by one man in three days. The Eames house was the embodiment of the first ever cut paste modern catalogue house.
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THE CRYSTAL PALACE AN EMBODIMENT OF PREFABRICATED, MASS PRODUCED PARTS
THE FORD MOTOR COMPANY ASSEMBLY LINE : A REVOLUTIONARY METHOD OF MASS PRODUCTION
THE SCHRODER HOUSE : FLEXIBILITY OF INTERIOR SPACE
THE EAMES CASE STUDY HOUSE NO.8 A FIRST CONCEPTION OF ‘KIT OF PARTS’ INTERIORS
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1960s
The ARCHIGRAM group
England
PLUG-IN, CAPSULES, BLOW OUT, FOLD IN : a revolution of future concepts the radical Archigram group from England, the brainchild of a coterie of AA graduates including – Warren Chalk, Peter Cook, Dennis Crompton, David Greene, Ron Herron and Michael Webb, which aimed to break down the conventional boundaries of architecture by the use of technology. Archigram dominated the architectural avant garde in 1960s with its playful, pop-inspired visions of a technocratic future after its formation in 1961 by the young London architects.
A new generation of architecture must arise with forms and spaces which seems to reject the precepts of ‘Modern’ yet in fact retains those precepts. We have chosen to by pass the decaying Bauhaus image which is an insult to functionalism. You can roll out steel – any length. You can blow up a balloon – any size. You can mould plastic – any shape. Blokes that built the Forth Bridge – they didn’t worry.” -David Greene Auto Environment (drive in housing) Experimental project 1964 - 65 UK Mike Webb ARCHIGRAM This is a proposal for a system of housing, a solution for modern living, where the concern is not about aesthetics, but about service requirements. The scheme combines the perceived advantages of the car - freedom of mobility and status - with our living needs. Mobile, personalized living areas are designed to be driven around and plugged into fixed service points which contain washing and cooking machines. The auto environment project prompts us to question what we want from our homes - a sense of permanence of location or emphasis on replacable products? Designed by Mike Webb, part of the controversial Archigram group, the scheme was not physically realized (the scheme required political and revolutionary input) but its prophetic influence can be seen in contemporary work practices, where ‘hot-desking’ and the effects of a mobile phone culture are having a huge impact on our working office environment. In the drive in auto environment home, the volume of the habitat at any time was directly proportional to the number of people in it; when the family was away on holiday, the house consisted only of folded in storage units. During a party or social gathering, as many as thirty mobile containers may gather around a unit to form a big space. Extra panels could be ordered for, to increase area in case of need. Living Pod experimental project 1965 David Green (Archigram) This model of an experimental living pod combines and exploration of the contrasting demands of our daily lives (physical and functional needs) with the help of a biologically determined organism. The interior is zoned into living spaces for work, sleep and play, the space being modified by inflatable furniture or dividers as required. Machines attached to the exterior of the pod provide necessary services : such as an eating machine, wash capsule, clothing dispensers and climate control. The pod can be freestanding and self contained, or plugged into a service structure, clustering together to create a community. Inside the Living Pod, what is basically a capsule, has satellite parts working inside it, but these themselves can also travel outside. Its precedents were trailer homes and prefabricated houses. The house here was regarded as consisting of two major components : a living pod and attached machines. Quite a futuristic thought, if you look around yourself in your house today. Thus the pod consisted of twelve support nodes (6 tension and 6 compression), four apertures (windows with 25% surface) and 1 access aperture (door), all with vacuum sealing panels, inner bonded sandwich of insulation and/or finish. Forty percent of the floor space was a multi purpose inflating area. The machinery consisted of 4 self levelling compression legs for maximum five feet water or 40 degree slope. Included in the standard machinery were two wash capsules with electrostatic disposal, air entry and body cleaning equipment. Climate machinery for the temperate zone was thoughtfully provided and included connections to inflating sleep mats and warm sections of the inflating floor. There was a non static food dispenser with self cook modifications. Non static media, teach and work machines ( a vision of today’s multimedia capacity) were also part of the package.
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THE AUTO ENVIRONMENT : COMBINING NEW FOUND MOBILITY WITH MASS PRODUCED AUTOMOBILES, WITH ADAPTABILITY OF VARYING ENVIRONMENTS : THE IDEA LED TO MASS PRODUCTION OF CARAVAN LIVING
THE LIVING CAPSULE : A HIGHLY INVENTIVE VISION OF THE FUTURE AND TECHNOLOGY CONNECTED TO THE HOME
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Ron Herron’s Walking City Experimental project Ron Herron’s ‘Walking City’, New York 1964, was probably inspired by the engineering marvels for space exploration at Cape Kennedy in the US. In this project Ron Herron pushed the idea of mobility to the hilt. Forty story anthropometric buildings, with telescoping legs literally moved across the international landscape. It was the concept of the whole city being a nomadic community, and being able to transport itself to any location on the planet. This project played far and loose with conventional ideas about buildings and urbanism. It was one among many of their projects that illustrated a modular approach to buildings or cities, in which each individual unit was an inter-changable pod. Realized in the form of a series of richly detailed cartoon drawings, Walking City was also a major design influence on Richard Rogers and Renzo Piano’s Pompidou Centre, as well as the work of many British and Japanese designers since.
Capsule Dwellings Experimental project Warren Chalk The capsule dwelling was a set of inter-changable elements: snugly fitting and efficiently locked yet capable of total interchangeability. Several of these wedge shaped units fitted into a circular tower. Warren Chalk of the Archigram group, expected a continual exchange to take place, with constantly changing and evolving parts. The whole tower was to be organized to allow the larger elements to be replaced by cranes, and the smaller elements to be manoeuvred from within. The works of Archigram were among the most influential shock vibrations of the 1960’s for architects and planners around the world. In a decade that ended with riots expressive of social and political disorder, this group of young London- based architects began and sustained a campaign of environmental revolution. They went beyond function to images of fantasy based on mechanical invention and pop culture. Archigram explored the continuities of change and choice using the opportunities presented by new, spacey technologies. “Plug-in City”, “Living Pod”, “Instant City” and “Ad Hoc” design are visual Archigram inventions that are part of our intellectual and visual vocabulary. Even further out are the environmental situations of “Manzak”, “Suitaloon”, “Cushicle”, “Blow out Village”, “Gasket Homes” and the “Walking City”. The polemics of Archigram were originally communicated using all the media of our time, including throw aways and seed packets. But their fundamental offering was in the form of pictures - beautifully drawn projections and skillfully assembled collages - that instantly evoked a future of change and adaptability, flow and movement. The colors were full; florescent lime, day-glo pink, electric blue and saturated yellow. The means were mechanical; “Blowup”, recycle, dissolve, zoom, prefab, clip-on, robotize”. The effects were evocative, outrageous, hilarious, daring and intense and, always, poetic. “Bewitched by nomadic fantasies, Archigram argued that an architecture based on mobility and malleability could set people free,” wrote US critic Michael Sorkin. “This notion of consumer choice combined optimized technology, a postBeat hitchhiker’s sense of freedom and the giddy styles of customization found in Detroit.” Critically, Archigram’s approach to architecture was fun, as illustrated by two of the group’s most memorable projects: Ron Herron’s 1964 cartoon drawings of a Walking City, in which a city of giant, reptilian structures literally glided across the globe on enormous legs until its inhabitants found a place where they wanted to settle; and the cranemounted living pods that could be plugged in wherever their inhabitants wished in Peter Cook’s 1964 Plug-in City. Equally irreverent were the ingenious devices that Archigram dreamt up to fulfil the functions of traditional buildings from miniaturized capsule homes like Ron Herron and Warren Chalk’s 1965 Gasket Homes and David Greene’s 1966 Living Pod, or Michael Webb’s 1966 Cushicle mobile environment and his 1967 wearable house, the Suitaloon. In 1968, the group proposed to transport all the entertainment and education resources of a metropolis in an Instant City airship, which would fly from place to place and temporarily ‘land’ in small communities to enable the inhabitants to enjoy the buzz of life in a city.
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THE CONCEPT OF MOVING CITIES
THE EARLIEST MODERN CONCEPT OF PLUG IN ARCHITECTURE, UNREALIZED THEN, BUT A REALITY NOW.
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1960 - 61
CEDRIC PRICE The Fun Palace
A LARGE KIT OF MOVABLE PARTS Price’s reputation is chiefly based on the radicalism of his un-built ideas. His 1960-61 project, The Fun Palace, established him as one of the UK’s most innovative and thought-provoking architects. Initiated with Joan Littlewood, the theatre director and founder of the innovative Theatre Workshop in east London, the idea was to build a ‘laboratory of fun’ with facilities for dancing, music, drama and fireworks. Central to Price’s practice was the belief that through the correct use of new technology the public could have unprecedented control over their environment, resulting in a building which could be responsive to visitors’ needs and the many activities intended to take place there. Miss Littlewood wanted a theatre in which versatility might be maximized, in which she might present anything from an ordinary play to political rally, from a performance of dance to a wrestling match - maybe all at the same time. The plan of the Fun Palace, calls not for a multipurpose building, but what is, in effect, a larger than life-sized Erector Set, a collection of modular parts that can be combined in almost an infinite number of ways. More or less permanant vertical towers house various services - such as toilets and electronic control units - and are topped by gantry cables that lift the modules into position and assemble them to form any temporary configuration desired. After an evening’s entertainment, the cranes come out, disassemble the auditoria, exhibition halls and restaurants and store them away. According to critic Reyner Banham, ‘... the Fun Palace is a piece of ten-year expendable urban equipment. Day after day this giant Neo-Futurist machine will stir an reshuffle its movable parts - walls, floors, ramps and walks, steerable escalators, seating and roofing, stages and movie screens, lighting and sound systems sometimes with only a small part walled in, but with the public poking about the exposed walls and stairs, pressing buttons to make things happen themselves. As the marketing material suggested, there was a wide choice of activities: “Choose what you want to do – or watch someone else doing it. Learn how to handle tools, paint, babies or machinery, or just listen to your favorite tune. Dance, talk or be lifted up to where you can see how other people make things work. Sit out over space with a drink and tune in to what’s happening elsewhere in the city. Try starting a riot or beginning a painting – or just lie back and stare at the sky.” Using an unenclosed steel structure, fully serviced by travelling gantry cranes the building comprised a ‘kit of parts’: prefabricated walls, platforms, floors, stairs, and ceiling modules that could be moved and assembled by the cranes. Virtually every part of the structure was variable. “Its form and structure, resembling a large shipyard in which enclosures such as theatres, cinemas, restaurants, workshops, rally areas, can be assembled, moved, rearranged and scrapped continuously,” promised Price. Although never built, The Fun Palace was one of his most influential projects and inspired Richard Rogers and Renzo Piano’s early 1970s project, Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris.
1964
CEDRIC PRICE The Thinkbelt plan
practical application of modular thinking In 1964, Price critiqued the traditional university system in his Potteries Think Belt project. Radically rethinking the basic concept of a university, his proposal provided a mobile learning resource for 20,000 students utilizing the infrastructure of a declining industrial zone. Largely in response to the rash of university campuses being built during the 1960s, Price’s proposal transformed the derelict Staffordshire potteries into a realm of higher education, mainly on railway tracks, creating a widespread community of learning while also promoting economic growth for scientists and engineers”. The Thinkbelt was to be a “higher education facility” devoted to science and technology. The “PtB,” as it became known, was not a “building” and perhaps not even “architecture” as it was understood at the time. Price proposed utilizing the derelict railway network of the vast Potteries district as the basic infrastructure for a new technical “school.” Mobile classroom, laboratory and residential modules would be placed on the disused railway lines and shunted around the region, to be grouped and assembled as required by current needs, and then moved and regrouped as those needs changed. Modular housing and administrative units would be assembled at various fixed points along the rail lines. There were to be three major “transfer points,” where various types of mobile, prefabricated housing and classroom units could be transferred to and from the rail lines as needed. Some of these units included self-propelled seminar coaches, with scheduled service of class length between stops so that students could literally learn “on the move.” Classroom and laboratory trains could be linked to form larger units. The largest lecture-demonstration units spanned three parallel rail lines and came equipped with foldout decking and inflatable walls. The housing units were equally inventive. Various types of prefabricated housing modules could be combined in different configurations, densities and terrains, depending on changing needs and conditions. “Capsule” housing was made up of small units arranged in linear layouts on steeply sloping sites with good views. “Sprawl” units had adjustable legs for uneven ground, while “crate” housing units could be plugged into a high rise framework. Like all elements in the Thinkbelt, housing units could be moved around and rearranged as the program changed over time.
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SECTION THROUGH THE FUN PALACE
THE POTTERIES THINKBELT PLAN AND THE CONCEPT OF MODULARITY Price was arguably the first architect to develop an architecture expressly for such programmatic variability, and in this sense, the Potteries Thinkbelt anticipates the characteristics of the virtual machine and the computer. But Price’s cybernetic paradigm is very different from the mechanical model envisioned by Le Corbusier or the architects of the Neue Sachlichkeit. Price’s use of technological gadgetry is expedient, aimed at directly improving the lot of “downsized” workers, rather than symbolic or aesthetic. Social advancement and individual freedom are the core values which motivate Cedric Price and inform his use of technology. Price makes this attitude clear when he writes, “no one should be interested in the design of bridges – they should be concerned with how to get to the other side.” Although information technology was still in its infancy at the time, the paradigm for the Potteries Thinkbelt is the electronic computer circuit of the third machine age, capable of temporal transformation, of being reprogrammed and becoming an entirely different instrument at different times and situations.
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1971
The Pompidou Centre, Paris
Richard Rogers and Renzo Piano AN EXAMPLE OF A HIGHLY FLEXIBLE PUBLIC BUILDING Centre Georges Pompidou Paris 1971-77 The Pompidou Centre provided flexible open space, in the form of floors nearly 50 meters deep, on a staggering scale. It took to extremes, Roger’s concern to free space of the intrusion of services and stairs (which reflected the Kahn’s doctrine of ‘served and servant spaces’). The result was a highly expressive, strongly articulated building which came to be seen as a landmark in the development of ‘high tech’ . Yet the achievement of Rogers and Piano at Beauborg was broadly urbanistic as much as architectural. The building changed the character of Paris and laid the foundations for the Grand Projects. It is a place for the people, and restatement of the fundamental belief that cities adapt to the need of the people and not vice versa. The architects envisaged their building as a cross between ‘an information oriented, computerized Times Square and the British Museum’, simultaneously instant and solemn, and the centerpiece of regenerated quarter of the city. It was to be giant climbing frame, the antithesis of existing cultural monuments. The completed centre fully realizes their intentions, miraculously fusing the spirit of 1968 with the ostensible aim of commemorating a head of state. An architecture of possibilities is rooted in the constant of change. Conceived as a flexible container capable of continuously adapting not only in plan but also in section and elevation to whatever needs should arise, the Pompidou Centre is an ‘inside-out’ building. The 25 foot (7.5 metre) thick exterior structural wall zone, houses the servicing entrails, movement galleries and audio visual information, while forming the structural cage which supports the five trays of column free loft space. In addition to totally inverting the traditional notion of the facade, it affords a technical simplicity by allowing the components to be easily adapted, clipped on or removed Constructed completely from pre fabricated dry elements, it becomes an ever changing erector set. Flexibility is best illustrated in the partitioning system. Every partition is movable. The Burolandschaft office dividers can be shifted in a couple of minutes, the larger suspended museum partitions may take an hour, and the fire walls
take a day to unbolt. The Facade is movable as it is free of the vertical structure. Should the situation require a more radical response, it is possible to completely gut the building down to the structure and then begin all over again.
EVOLVING ACTIVITIES ON THE PLAZA, AND THE CHANGING NATURE OF THE FACADE TO BE ABLE TO EMBRACE VARIETY OF SIGNAGE AND BILLBOARD TYPES
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THE ADAPTIVE NATURE OF THE MAIN FOYER TO HOUSE ACTIVITIES OVER THIRTY YEARS
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1978-1986
The INMOS microprocessor factory Richard Rogers AN EARLY EXAMPLE OF A HIGHLY FLEXIBLE FACTORY BUILDING INMOS Microprocessor Factory Newport, Wales 1982 The INMOS scheme was seen as a model factory, suitable for construction in a wide variety of locations. The technical brief was demanding. Highly controlled conditions were required for the production of electronic microchips, with more conventionally serviced space housing offices, staff canteen and other facilities under the same roof. The building had to be designed for fast construction - which implied a high degree of off-site fabrication - and great flexibility. The context of the commission was a government backed drive rapidly to expand the British microchip industry: the need was for specialized production space , to be available at the earliest possible opportunity. The architects added a series of additional requirements: that the design be able to respond to changes in the program as it evolved during construction; that the building be both a high performance precision production machine and a friendly and stimulating environment for employees; that the design allow for maximum potential growth to meet the needs of a new and fast evolving industry; and that the design and construction principles suit the client’s fast building program.
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The resulting building has great external presence and a strong sense of identity inside for those who work there. The decision to divide the space into ‘clean’ ( for microchip production) and ‘dirty’ ( for normally serviced ancillary) areas along the central spine produced the long central promenade (or street) which surmounted by banks of servicing machinery, and buttressed by the main roof masts, gives the building a strong vertical emphasis. 1 SITE PLAN SHOWING PROPOSED EXTENSION TO TWENTY BAYS 2 ROOF PLAN OF PHASE 1 3 DETAIL, LONGITUDINAL SECTION THROUGH LAB, SHOWING ROOF MOUNTED PLAN IN ELEVATION 4 NATURAL SYMMETRY OF CIRCULATION, STRUCTURE AND SERVICE DISTRIBUTION GIVES THE BUILDING A MONUMENTAL QUALITY 5 DETAIL, CROSS SECTION SHOWING THE CENTRAL SPINE WITH AIR TREATMENT PLANT ABOVE 6 FACADE CAN BE INFINITELY Y VARIED
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6 INMOS : Logical, flexible, efficient and durable. The building design evolved as a single story steel structure conceived as a kit of prefabricated parts to allow the building to be erected rapidly, bay by bay. The basic concept for phase one is a central circulation and service spine with internal wings for specialized activities. The spine, 23’/7.2 m wide and 348’/ 106 m long, acts as an internal street or informal promenade. It is wide enough to contain vending machines, public telephones, seating, meeting places, planted areas and waiting areas for the offices. It provides total and visual security control and is intended to link up with other future phases of the building on the site.
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Offices and restaurants are on the South side of the spine and the clean room production area to the north. The main air supply equipment is grouped in localized modules to minimize duct runs above the spine. Ducts are taken across the roof to the point of use. Production wastes are collected in floor trenches and production supply services are distributed on service walls within the production zone. The building is infinitely extendible on the spine. More of the 42’ x 118’ / 13m x 36m bays can be added as required with additional easy access service modules. The tubular-steel assisted span structure is supported by tension rods from the spine towers. The structural system provides column-free spaces for maximum planning flexibility. The roof is 20’/ 6m span steel decking with thermal insulation and a five layer roof membrane. The external walls are based on a system of standardized mullions that accept any type of infill: single glazing, double glazing, translucent or opaque panels. This allows the client to alter wall performances and finishes as desired. The initial design proposed double glazing on the office areas and solid insulated sandwich panels for the production areas.
1 SITE PLAN SHOWING PROPOSED EXTENSIONTO TWENTY BAYS 2 ROOF PLAN PHASE 1 3 DETAIL, LONGITUDINAL SECTION THROUGH LABORATORY SHOWING ROOF MOUNTED ELEVATION 4 DETAIL, CROSS SECTION SHOWING THE CENTRAL SPINE WITH AIR TREATMENT PLANT ABOVE 5 THE OPEN RURAL SITE 6 EXTERNAL CLADDING IS A STANDARD GRID WITH INTERCHANGEABLE PANELS 7 PROPPED END OF TENSION-ASSISTED SPAN, LATTICE STEEL BEAM 8 ELEVATION 9 ISOMETRIC VIEW OF ONE STRUCTURAL BAY SHOWING ROOFTOP SERVICE DISTRIBUTION 10 INTERIOR VIEW 12 ELEVATION AND SECTION THOUGH SPACE 13 AND 14 EXPLODED DETAILS OF MAST, BEAM AND TENSION ROD CONNECTIONS : A FULL SIZE MECCANO CIONSTRUCTION SET
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Early Plug-In architecture Kisho Kurokava and the Metabolist Movement 1970s The Metabolist movement emerged in Japan in the 1970s through the works of Kisho Kurokava, Kenzo Tange and Kiyonari Kikutake. The philosophy of metabolism was based on the biological processes of growth, transformation, re-configuration of ‘cells’. The Nagakin Capsule Tower Building Chuo-Ku, Tokyo 1972 This project, built at the junction of the central business district and the shopping district, has dual functions: that of a hotel, and a second house in the city centre.
In more concrete terms, this is used as a den or a study by businessmen and free business people living in the suburbs, or as an accommodation for firms which have their headquarters away from Tokyo. The central shaft is a vertical passage with an elevator and a staircase. Around this shaft, room capsules, mass produced in a similar process as a container, are fixed at two points by high tension bolts in a manner of cantilever. The exposed mechanical systems are fixed by flexible joints. The central idea of this project was not for seeking a merit by mass production, but for pursuing a possibility of metabolic expression in arranging individual spaces freely and for obtaining a technical assurance for it. It is also possible to extend such a capsule tower system from a hotel into multiple housing, since each individual capsule can be connected with each other by its own opening.
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The Osaka Expo ‘70 Built for Expo’70 in Osaka, the Takara Beautillion synthesizes the philosophy of metabolism, by virtue of being quickly assembled and disassembled from prefabricated components. High technology capsules were inserted into the frame, displays were inserted into the frame, while the building was left visually and physically frayed and open ended at the edges, symbolic of endless growth.
3 1 THE NAGAKIN CAPSULE TOWER UNDER CONSTRUCTION 2 THE NAGAKIN CAPSULE TOWER 3 THE TAKARA BEAUTILLION IN THE OSAKA EXPO’70
Mass-production, the assembly line, open plans, kit of parts, modular thinking, plug in architecture, metabolism. From the above examples we can draw a common line of definition to the notion of flexibility. We can clearly say that flexibility of a built form is thus to with the ‘system’ and ‘parts of the system’ , and establishing the links between these systems, to leave an open endedness where change is foreseen. Flexibility cannot be specified to a single ‘type’ . There are an infinite number of permutations and combinations within each set of defining lines to each type of flexibility. We go on to understand the broad categories of flexibility.
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3.3 Types of flexible systems and the flexible habitat The last chapter on transience traced briefly the evolution from globalization which started to occur in the early twentieth century, to ‘Glocalization’, in the 1980s, as a direct outcome of transience. This phenomena of globalization and glocalization, led to diversity, novelty, delocalization and disintegration. Architecture began to fail to respond to this evolved lifestyle, resulting in what we call Junk space, and an urgent need for saving resource, thus turning towards sustainable and flexible design solutions. These design solutions are a thus a response to Reconfiguration and Relocation of the space in use. Thus the various types of flexible spatial systems fall under : 1 transformable flexibility in response to the need for spatial Re-configuration and reuse 2 portable flexibility in response to the need for spatial relocation and mobility Thus we find two broad categories of flexibility in spatial systems First a flexible system that responds to eventual and functional flux by adapting and transforming its physical spatial system to external forces. This kind of flexibility is transformable flexibility. This category of flexibility is essentially composed of various sets of components that come together to construct a physical spatial system whose parts can be re-configured with ease to respond to external forces of eventual and functional flux. Secondly, a flexible system that can be transported in parts or as a whole to a completely new site or location. This kind of portable flexibility can be seen in spaces/spatial systems which are either mobile and can be moved to a new environment , or its parts can be transported to new locations. Transformable Portable Flexibility Within transformable space and portable space one may or may not contain the essence of the other. For example a transformable space may also be portable by virtue of its constituent ‘parts’ being easily mobile or be only transformable as its parts are not easily mobile, but can reconfigure components within themselves. Similarly, a portable space may be flexible by virtue
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of it parts or the whole being easily mobile, but may or may not be transformable within its spatial configuration as a whole. Flexible spatial systems thus have a global quality about themselves, a freedom that does not define the varying nature of their specific activities, and a non-rootedness that gives it the character of autonomy. Transformable and portable flexibility in spaces are characterized by some or all of the following common traits. 1 Since they are all systems, their constituent parts are prefabricated and mass produced. 2 They are designed in such a way that they have tremendous ease of assembly. 3 Thus they are cost effective and affordable. 4 The parts or the whole are either reusable in a new configuration or recyclable. We have now understood the various systems in question, the effect of transience and glocalization on life and on these systems; we have understood the effect of this phenomena on the notion of a home and the family structure in contemporary families. We have gone through the creation of junk space when a building does not respond to change. We have accepted that the fact, that we cannot write a program for just the present, without the building becoming functionally obsolete within a short time, which is also a poor financial investment. We thus have looked at the big picture, that of Sustainability, and have looked into various points of view on the possibilities of systematic segragationand the philosophy of metabolism. And thus we have evolved the need for flexibility, adjustment and growth possibilities in the built form. In this chapter we have come to comprehend the various types of flexibility, and their manifestations in the built form. Using our combined knowledge in all these fields, let us now take a look at the various possible outcomes of flexibility in the habitat.
1 The Transformable Habitat When we are addressing the ‘transformable habitat’ we are literally talking about spatial systems, whose constituent parts adapt reconfigure to meet change. The parts of the spatial change are flexible in what they can be or do, thus being able to change the links or the levels of interaction between the parts, resulting in transformation of the space. This re-configuration may take place within a habitat, or within a conglomeration of habitats forming a community living area (housing). Diversity within a family leads to the need for
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transformability of space, in response to varying identities and needs within a family. This results in the phenomena of ‘novelty’, the new identity of a particular family and thus causes a diverse population to emerge , leading to the need for a flexible housing system. Hence the need for Transformable space arises today, as event cycles are erratic and their meanings are infinitely variable. Thus with every permutation of needs, the event links need restructuring, and the size of each activity requires re-sizing due to new ‘associations’. Mapping the event and functional systems of a transformable habitat thus requires analysis of these associations and resulting overlapping functions. The transformable habitat fulfills as its individual spatial physical components only need a certain reorganization to redefine the size and organization of the eventual and functional zones Transformable spaces thus establish great freedom and choice on the user’s part, in terms of spatial reconfiguration and usability.
2 The Portable Habitat Portability is a form of flexibility of space that is defined by its mobility. It refers to a physical system whose parts or whole can be relocated to a different location. These are Flexible spatial systems that emerge in response the need for flexibility of site or Flexible spatial systems that emerge in response to the need for speed of erection of the built form. Global Spatial needs , oppose coincidence to siting, installation to foundation, in order to claim an emphatic right to build unencumbered by the traditional spatial order imposed by a foundation. ‘Marinetti’s locomotive has derailed’, according to Hani Rashid in ‘on recent nonevents’. The mobility and speed embraced by the Futurists has not in the end caused a radical change in how we conceive our relation to space. Portable flexibility is achieved where a system of parts can be broken down to its individual components and transported to a new location or where the system of parts remains stationary, but the skin of the system (the link between the interior space and the external environment), allows the space to be able to be part of variable environments by being mobile.
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Portable spaces may or may not be planned for interior transformation and growth. Portable flexibility arises out of a sense of nonrootedness that defines our time. It embraces the phenomena of ‘delocalization’, and gives the user maximum freedom with minimum liability of place. Portability is about the ephemeral, about shifting contexts and images, the character of this age of transience. Within Transformable and Portable habitats their are a large number of levels of variation by combination of the properties of the two. The following touches six broad categories, using interactions between the ‘whole spatial system’ and ‘parts of the spatial system’ to define the categories. These are used in the analyses that follow in the next section. 1 The whole spatial system is movable within a fixed structure on fixed location This give rise to interchangeability within a fixed structure : clusteral transformability 2 The whole spatial system is movable within a fixed structure on a fixed location and the parts of the spatial system are changeable This gives rise to interchangeability within a fixed structure : clusteral transformability changeability within the spatial system : interior transformability 3 Parts of the spatial system are changeable on fixed location This gives rise to changeability within the spatial system : interior transformability 4 The whole spatial system is portable to any location and the parts of the spatial system are changeable This gives rise to changeability of location: portability changeability within the spatial system : interior transformability 5 The individual parts of the spatial system is portable to any location and the parts of the spatial system are changeable This gives rise to changeability of location: portability changeability within the spatial system : interior transformability 6 The individual parts of the spatial system are portable to any location and the parts are then fixed on site This gives rise to changeability of location: portability
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The question of flexibility : how to achieve it We can thus summarize the points of views on flexibility by analyzing briefly at this point how to go about designing flexible space. 1 Analyzing the event and required functional responses over time to establish the required physical construct what are the required events in the space what events have a definite cyclicity what events are likely to have an erratic cyclicity over time what events are related what events are not related what events belong/may belong to the same subset of space
2 listing the components of space and creating a ordered higherarchy of components based on: most permanent (fixed) to most temporary ( changeable) components in the structural system (fixed) components in the circulation system ( less fixed) components in the mechanical and plumbing system (variable but still permanent) components in the building envelope (variable and temporary) components within the built form for transforming spatial configuration (variable and temporary)
3 establishing the level of interaction between the parts : defining what components are linked to what components defining what these links are defining the points in the permanent framework that can be lef t open ended to growth and transformation defining what the temporary parts may change into
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TW12ELVE
Habitats 1
M’House Building Nantes France 1997-2000 ACTAR ARQUITECTURA spain 2
Seventy Dwellings at Mont Hacho Ceuta Spain 1998 ACTAR ARQUITECTURA spain 3
HOUSE AT EAGLE ROCK Budlett’s common UK 1982-83 Ian Ritchie 4
Paper Loghouse Kobe Japan 1995 Shigeru Ban 5
House at Almere, near Amstersdam Completed 1984 Benthem, Crouwel 6
Portable House Individual Global Home Berlin, 1996-2000 Gregoire & Petetin, France 7
Nomadic Dwellings Languedoc-Roussilon, France, 1998 Decosterd & Rahm Switzerland 8 The Monte Carlo Apartment 1997 Lazzarini - Pickering 9 Rome Apartment 1994-95 Lazzarini - Pickering 10 The Transformable Apartment Soho London 1996 Mark Guard 11 THE SLIDING BLOCK HOTEL 1998 softroom 12 The 5 minute bathroom 2000 and the 24/7 HOTEL ROOM Prototype 2002 Joel Sanders
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1 M’House Building Nantes France 1997-2000 ACTAR ARQUITECTURA spain
Flexibili ty type transformability
:
clusteral
Project type : Housing Aspect of transience : diversity and delocalization Concept : inter-changable parts / catalogue house This is a typical example of a design solution to housing when the community of people living together are made up of a hybrid collage of various cultures and times.
This project is presented like a menu of interchangeable modules. These modules form a 0.90 x 4.50 meter grid on the ground with a height of 2.80 meters, This results from a fixed structural section, carefully studied so as to permit their lateral and vertical assembly, and the subsequent incorporation of floor, facade and partition units made of different materials, and with diverse textures and colors. They can combine by juxtaposition and superposition, and offer a limitless number of configurations based on a the variation of a limited number of standard spaces and flexible technical elements (accumulators, fitted walls, vertical circulation systems). The shape of this ‘a la carte’ building is not based solely on the choice and color of the outside silkscreening, but also on the particular and custombuilt design of the standard. The theme of the catalogue house is based here on the relationship between industry and design, conceived to encourage cheap quick an simple systems and technical solutions, that are both precise and open. This construction which can always be reversed, draws up and implicitly time related contract with the landscape.
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1 FIXED PARTS
2 FLEXIBLE
PARTS
3 LAYERING
4 GROWTH AND TRANSFORMABILITY
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2 Seventy Dwellings at Mont Hacho 1998 Ceuta Spain Flexibility type : clusteral and interior transformability Project type : Housing Aspect of transience : diversity and delocalization Concept : recounting of a host of ‘particular stories’ in one and the same coherent grid This is a typical example of a design solution to housing made up of a community of people planning on settling in a common location, but with diverse backgrounds and specific particular needs.
This housing project, clinging to the sides of Mont Hacho, forming a natural amphitheater overlooking the Mediterranean was designed as part of Europan 1999. Through an experimental transposition of literary narrative in architecture, this project is based on ‘recounting’ a host of particular stories in one and the same coherent grid. A landscape of terraces, surfaces, colors, textures and even many viewpoints. Each unit is base on a square 4x4 metre module corresponding to the optimization of industrial prefabrication- and a semi fitted service wall. This latter, containing bathtubs, basins, toilets, cupboards, kitchen modules, work surfaces, and even stairways, works like a backbone along which there may be all possible distributive and typological variations. This arrangement should permit a flexible and programmed adaptation to the individual backgrounds of the residents.
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1 FIXED PARTS
2 FLEXIBLE
PARTS
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3 HOUSE AT EAGLE ROCK Budlett’s common UK 1982-83 Ian Ritchie
Flexibility type : portability of mass produced parts Project type : Individual Holiday Home Aspect of transience : phenomena of delocalization and the need for adapting to any environment Concept : a strong narrative content: it is based on the form of a bird, signifying freedom and a sense of non rootedness.
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This is a typical example of a design solution to a symbolic representation and a technical manifestation of freedom from any kind of constraint or pre conceived notion of a habitat.
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This exuberant structure plays with its construction, clearly expressing every truss, tie and strut. At the client’s request the house a strong narrative content: it is based on the form of a bird, with two large steel A frames as the central body from which are suspended the head and the tail (the head, to the left of the picture, is used as a car port) and two accommodation ‘wings’.
1 SITE PLAN 2 VIEW OF HOUSE 3 VIEW OF HOUSE 4 EXTERNAL BLINDS MOVE LIKE RUFFLED FEATHERS 5 VIEW OF ENTRANCE 6 AXONOMETRIC 7 VIEW OF ENTRANCE
The bird analogy is carried to the louvered blinds which have been described as feathers which ruffle in the wind, in response to climate. Influenced by the design of the 1960s design group, Archigram, and being part of the high tech metabolist ceuvre, the house can be mass produced and relocated as necessary. It is however a one-off, site specific holiday house. It was assembled from prefabricated elements.
The structure centres on an inclined A frame of circular hollow steel sections that provides a core for the suspension of the body of the building and its two wings. The body is constructed of Vierendeel trusses supported by goal-post frames that also provide lateral stability. At the main entrance, the ends of the Vierendeel trusses are suspended from the A frame. T he wings are prismatic trusses supported by the body and by suspension rods from the central A Frame.
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Smaller A Frames at the ends provide lateral stability.
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Layering of parts: Temporary to permanent
1 SKIN : Exterior walls
4 Services : mechanical systems
2 SKIN : Roof plane
5 Framework : secondary structure
3 SKIN : Outer roof membrane
6 Framework: main A section structure
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Growth: Assembly of parts
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4 Paper Loghouse Kobe Japan 1995 Shigeru Ban
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Flexibility type : portability of mass produced parts Project type : Temporary Housing for Natural Disaster victims Aspect of transience : need for quick temporary habitation Concept : mass building and quick building : no storage of materials : recyclable This is a typical example of a design solution to embrace the need for high speed of construction, signified along with the uncertainty of our age. It is both economical and ecological for our times, and hence is a sustainable design solution to quick temporary habitation.
1 INTERIOR VIEW 2,3,4 CLUSTERS OF HOUSES 5 AXONOMETRIC EXPLODED VIEW 6 THE CANOPY 7 SECTIONAL ELEVATION 8,9 USERS BUILDING THEIR OWN HOUSE
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With this project Shigeru Ban responded to an urgent issue: to provide decent temporary housing to victims of the Kobe earthquake in 1995. The design criteria called for a cheap structure that could be built by anyone and quickly assembled. Ban’s solution was to use a foundation of sand filled beer cases, walls of paper tubes (diameter 108 mm, 4 mm thick), and the ceiling and roof of tent material. With this system, there is no need to store anything, and it is possible to make the paper tubes on site. The floor area of 16 square meters is the same as the UNHCR basic shelter size for Africa. With the thermal properties of the paper tubes, these are being developed as prototypes for many countries. At the Minamikomae Park in Kobe, more than twenty units had been built. Not only did the log houses compare favorably with other types of temporary housing in terms of cost and ease and speed of construction, but they were easy to recycle after use and easy to store.
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Layering of parts: structure to skin
1
3
foundation structure : sand filled beer cases
SKIN : walls : hollow paper tubes
4 openings : light wood
2 structural members : hollow paper tubes
5 ceiling skin : tent material
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Growth: Assembly of parts
Sectional layering
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5 House at Almere, near Amstersdam Architects: Benthem, Crouwel Completed 1984
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Flexibility type : portability of mass produced parts Project type : Family Habitat Aspect of transience : phenomena of delocalization and the need for relocation Concept : quick dismantlability This is a typical example of a design solution to a people transit who’s lives revolve around constant relocation over periods of a few months.
1 ALL DOORS WERE HATCHES AS IF THIS WERE A VEHICLE RATHER THAN A HOUSE 2 HOUSE AND PYLON: DIFFERENT FUNCTION, SIMILAR EXPRESSION 3 THE HOUSE CONTRASTS SHARPLY WITH ITS TRADITIONAL NEIGHBOURS : PRIVACY WAS NOT A PRIORITY
2 3
4 EXPLODED PERSPECTIVE OF VARIOUS SYSTEM LAYERS IN PLAY: THE ROOF IS SUPPORTED BY GLASS WALLS HELD DOWN BY TENSION WIRES CONNECTED TO THE FLOOR 5 GLASS AND STEEL: CHARACTERISTIC OF THE HIGH TECH 6 DIAGRAM OF MAIN BUILDING ELEMENTS IN THE SPATIAL SYSTEM
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This was one of the ten winning designs in a competition held in 1982, the prize being free use of a site for five years. The house had to be capable of being dismantled and removed, leaving the site completely clear. The architects decided on an easily demountable construction using lightweight, low cost, high performance materials, which would allow the house to be relocated. Minimum space standards were also followed, which helped keep the weight of the house and the number of components to a minimum. The single story plan is based on a 6.5’/2 m grid. The floor rests on a space frame supported on 4 concrete ground pads. The roof deck is supported mainly by the glazed walls on three sides of a plan and restrained against wind uplift by steel wires attached to the floor deck. The architects assembled the house themselves, using it as a testing ground for components, material and techniques that they were proposing to use on their projects.
4 5
6
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Layering of parts: skin to structure 1 roof plane
2 building envelope
3 floor plane
3 foundation concrete ground pads
2 structural members : space frame
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Growth: Assembly of parts
Sectional layering
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6 Portable House Individual Global Home Berlin, 1996-2000 Gregoire & Petetin, France
Flexibility type : portability of a whole set of layers of parts ; growth and expandability. Project type : Mobile Habitats Aspect of transience : the phenomena of delocalization Concept : being akin to the household space in the domicile and the public space of the street This is a typical example of a design solution to the need for low cost mobili ty, alongside planning for expandability of space.
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Inspired by an age old tradition in Berlin, that of the Rollheimers, or ‘caravan people’, Phillipe Gregoire and Claire Patetin’s Portable House is presented like a fleeting moment of emergence in the heart of the metropolis. It inhabits the surface, moves about on it, attaches itself to it and is akin to the household space of the domicile and the public place of the street. The challenge of the Gregoire and Petetin project is well served by this proximity and mobility: the model of an alternative space-time, set against the gridded metropolis on which the portable house stands. It thus becomes a cut out, a micro gap on the surface of the metropolis: a moment of paradoxical continuity. Gregoire and Petetin have designed it to be as similar to the body as possible, like an item of clothing, it becomes ‘clothing inhabitable’, a technological and variable extension of this body. With an attentive eye on the various drifts away from the strict demarcations of the metropolis, they thus look for the best suited materials and instruments, those of sports and computers in particular, so as to meet the desire to be exposed and protected by the filter of this new proximity.
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Layering of parts in a single unit: structuring to skin
1 FIXED LAYER : STRUCTURE
2 FLEXIBLE TRANSFORMABLE LAYER : INTERIOR LAYER
3 FLEXIBLE EXPANDABLE LAYER : OUTER SKIN
Joining of several units
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Growth : multiple metabolic growth and expandability
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7 Nomadic Dwellings For artists on the coastal conservation areas of Languedoc-Roussilon, France, 1998 with Gilles Clement and Michael Aubrey Decosterd & Rahm Switzerland
Flexibility type : portability of mass produced parts, recyclabili ty, disposability Project type : Habitats for coastal conservation Aspect of transience : need for sustainable development Concept : the habitat is part of the carbon cycle yet technologically advanced
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Between the leather coat we wear and the piece of meat we eat, the habitat is made of cow hides, removed by knives, duly cleaned of flesh, immediately salted and folded, until they are layered over a selftensioning structure. 1 FIXED LAYER : SELF TENSIONING STRUCTURE
The hairy side is the innermost, forming an insulating climatic thickness between the grain of the leather and the flax of the interior finish. The flesh is outermost. The hides are in a precarious state of equilibrium between what is liable to become putrid and what is not.
2 TEMPORARY LAYER INNER : HAIRY HIDE OUTER : FLESH
Salt, against which people have battled on the seashores in their attempt to introduce farming, now becomes an ally in the maintenance of the inhabitable space in the form of temporary tanning. Revealed here in an alimentary way, is the ceaseless energy exchange between man and his environment through architecture as parasitism and symbiosis.
ASSEMBLY OF PARTS
The habitat is placed on a field of Salicornia, like a link in the carbon cycle, accommodating the salty winds by frequently requiring an additional input of salt. As such it remains a possible nutritive factor for wildlife and microorganisms, which pounces on it as soon as the inhabitant goes away.
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8 The Monte Carlo Apartment 1997 Lazzarinin and Pickering
Flexibili ty type : visual and spatial transformability Project type : Habitat for a businessman as a retreat from work and home. Aspect of transience : the need for temporary retreat for experiential value. Concept : transformability of space by elements that conjure, trick and surprise
This is a typical example of a design solution to provide a habitat which is like a retreat away from home and work, for today’s businessman. It is an example of a space which acts as an peaceful experiential buffer in a hectic lifestyle with no fixed address.
interior views
plan
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Lazzarini Pickering’s brief, for a businessman who spend a few days a week in Monaco, was simply to design a ‘beautiful hotel room’, purposefully separated from family life and entertaining. The client gave them free reign, and did not meet them during the design process, communicating only long distance. Perhaps inspired by this mysterious approach, the primary concrete load-bearing wall has been broken down into elements that serve to conjure, trick and surprise : Glowing shelving units lit internally by colored gelatin lights. A swivelling mirrored surface producing an infinite variety of reflected images and vistas. Portals lined in stainless steel. These are glamorous interventions, verging on kitsch. The kitchen, bathroom and wardrobes were inserted as pure volumes into the shell of the apartment, and the balcony has been treated as an integral interior space. A panoramic view over the bay is framed by slicing a horizontal aperture, which returns into the solid flank in a strip of reflective material. This dissolves the wall by appearing as a continuation of the window blue by day and black at night. Lazzarini Pickering felt able to use delicate materials that would not withstand the rough and tumble of everyday family life and, besides the glamorous undertones, the overwhelming impression of the project is of an elegant and peaceful interior, a haven from hectic schedule, and a space that is infinitely transformable by virtue of a few illusive spatial elements.
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LAYERS AND VOLUMETRIC TRANSFORMATION
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9 Rome Apartment 1994-95 Lazzarini - Pickering
Flexibility type : spatial transformability Project type : Habitat for a business-lady with a hectic schedule, in the need for a ritualized way of living. Aspect of transience : Diversity, the product of a cross cultural value system leading to the need for spatial variation Concept : transformability of space by flexible space dividers and slide out furniture elements
This is a typical example of a design solution to provide a habitat for a person in today’s world of cross cultural identities. It addresses the need for transformation of space according to growing and changing needs.
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LAYERS AND VOLUMETRIC TRANSFORMATION
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This project is described by the architects as ‘the portrait of the client’ - a busy young woman in the fashion world - and was driven from the beginning by her very clear idea for a Japanese house in Rome. Over time, Lazzarini Pickering came to understand that her house would form a necessary component of a consciously chosen ritualized way of living. The site was a small, vernacular house near the Pantheon, where a hotchpotch of structural Band Aids had been applied to myriad problems over time. Lazzarini Pickering definitively resolved the structural issues and began to articulate the space according to three dynamic ‘functional and formal centres’ 1 the bath and the western dining table 2 the door/desk/work surface for the kitchen 3 the night table which incorporated rotating drawers and an extractable bench Black-Glass mosaic distinguishes service spaces (entrance, bath, kitchen) from the bleached oak parquet of the other zones. Sliding perspex panels were incorporated to open up and close off vistas and circulation spaces throughout the house. The movements of these elements, coupled with strong design ideas governing intensities of artificial lighting contribute to create an environment that is infinitely variable. Lazzarini Pickering state that though the architect and client have only ‘partially explored’ the configurations this enables, they enjoy the fact that the project hides itself even to its designers something of itself.
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10 The Transformable Apartment Soho London 1996 Mark Guard
The transformable apartment in the Manhattan Loft Company’s, Soho Lofts building represent’s one of Mark Guard’s more extreme developments of the concept of transformable flexibility. Here the apartment can have no bedrooms, one bedroom or two bedrooms, simply achieved by swinging large doors out from the freestanding boxes in te centre of the space. The beds pivot out of boxes once the doors have been positioned to form the bedroom walls. The boxes also enclose the bathroom, while additional swinging planes provide an access corridor to the master bedroom when the guest bedroom is in use.
Flexibility type : spatial transformability Project type : individual or group habitat Aspect of transience : changeability of space according to changes in the family and the demand for smaller spaces in the city Concept : transformability of space by slide out elements from a central mass. This is a typical example of a design solution to provide a habitat for a person in today’s world where relationships with people and things are uncertain. It thus provides for utmost flexibility by being able to accommodate varying situations of relationships.
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LAYERS AND VOLUMETRIC TRANSFORMATION
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11 THE SLIDING BLOCK HOTEL softroom 1998
Flexibility type : spatial transformability by multiplicity of function in a single space; Project type : Habi tat for single or coupled business people, where work doubles up with living, fitness and recreation. Aspect of transience : changeability of space according to need from work to home to retreat. Concept : transformability of space by slide out elements and flexible space dividers This is a typical example of a design solution to provide a habitat for a person in the age of transience, who cannot spend time to travel to work or leisure.
1 PLAN CONFIGURATIONS 2 CONFIGURED AS A LOUNGE 3 MOVABLE PLANES 4 CONFIGURED FOR A MEETING OR REMOTE OFFICE 5 CONFIGURED AS A HONEYMOON SUITE
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The ultimate experience in lifestyle transformation. In this project the hotel was conceived as a sliding block puzzle - allowing for massive permutation of space.
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Providing a meeting room, honeymoon suite, private gym or simple sleeping area out of a basic grid plus eight movable modules was a far fetched idea at that time, but today is closer to reality than ever.
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12 The 5 minute bathroom 2000 and the 24/7 HOTEL ROOM Prototype 2002 Joel Sanders Joel Sander’s 2000 prototype Five-minute bathroom commissioned by the Wallpaper magazine, contains a bedroom, bathroom and closet. To accommodate an assembly line of functions from walking through dressing, Sanders designed the Five-minute bathroom with efficiency in mind. In the morning the bed can be retracted into the wall. The underside of the bed is a smart mirror - a programmable mirror surface that also functions as a screen to display time, weather and weight.
1 SYSTEMATIC ZONING OF SPACES
The dressing closet, water closet, smart mirror and bed blend together creating seamless spaces that gently fold into one another. Made from prefabricated molded fiberglass, this unit is designed to be installed in existing or new construction. The folded and curved edges recall the molded contours of Fuller’s pre-digital prefabricated bathroom unit (1936).
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THE BED FOLD INTO THE WALL WITH A SMART MIRROR ON ITS REVERSE
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FOLDING SPACES THAT GENERATES MULTIFUNCTIONALITY
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24/7 HOTEL ROOM Prototype 2002
Flexibility type : spatial transformability by multiplicity of function in a single space; plug in to larger framework ; overall growth.
UNITS PLUGGED INTO A LARGER SERVICE FRAMEWORK
Project type : Habitat for single or coupled business people, where work doubles up with living, fitness and recreation. Aspect of transience : changeability of space according to need from work to home to retreat. Concept : transformability of space by slide out elements and flexible space dividers; plug in to any service system This is a typical example of a design solution to provide a habitat for a person in the age of transience, who cannot spend time to travel to work or leisure.
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MULTIFUNCTIONALITY OF A SMALL SPACE
Joel Sanders’s 24/7 Hotel Room is a prototype with the objective of retooling the template of a traditional hotel room (12’x24’) into an opulent, productive 24/7 space . Building off, of his earlier proposal for the Five - minute Bathroom, Sanders expands this concept into the complete hotel room experience for modern human being. His hotel room looks at the concept of plug in architecture, with units plugged into the larger permanent framework of the building. The 24/7 hotel room would be fabricated from fiberglass components that comprise two separate units but can also function as one suite. By systematically zoning the hotel room space, Sanders has visually and literally folded functions together: Office / seating area Bed/ conversation pit Spa/ bathroom and a floor to ceiling fitness center merge to create an overall space driven by fitness-efficiency that is emblematic of the ideal twenty first century working man’s hotel experience.
WORK COMBINED WITH LIFE AND LEISURE IN THE SAME SPACE
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LAYERS AND VOLUMETRIC TRANSFORMATION
SPACE DIVIDERS
PUBLIC - PRIVATE LAYERING
VARIATIONS OF PUBLIC VOLUMES
VARIATIONS OF PRIVATE VOLUMES
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1 M’House Building Nantes France
PROJECT TYPE
ASPECTS OF TRANSIENCE
FLEXIBILITY ATTRIBUTES
small scale housing
novelty and delocalization
clusteral transformability by interchangeable modules on fixed grid
new associations between individuals of same community due to new individual and family identities
1997-2000 ACTAR ARQUITECTURA spain
2 Seventy Dwellings at Mont Hocho Ceuta Spain
small scale housing
new associations between individuals of diverse community due to cross cultural confluence: arrangement to permit a flexible and programmed adaptation to the individual backgrounds of the residents.
1998 ACTAR ARQUITECTURA spain
3 HOUSE AT EAGLE ROCK
individual holiday home
Budlett’s common UK 1982-83 Ian Ritchie
4 Paper Loghouse Kobe Japan 1995 Shigeru Ban
5 House at Almere, near Amstersdam Completed 1984 Architects: Benthem, Crouwel
diversity and delocalization
single house/ community housing for disaster victims
habitat for single family
delocalization non rootedness to a single environment and adaptation to varying environments
uncertainty of environment non rootedness to a single environment and adaptation to varying environments
delocalization non rootedness to a single environment and adaptation to varying environments
clusteral transformability by interchangeable modules on fixed grid A landscape of terraces, surfaces, colors, textures and even many viewpoints.
fast and easy construction and dismantlability mass produced kit of parts Concept : a strong narrative content: based on the form of a bird, signifying freedom and a sense of non rootedness
fast and easy construction and dismantlability mass produced kit of parts
fast and easy construction and dismantlability mass produced kit of parts
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SYSTEM PARTS / GROWTH / CONFIGURATION fixed parts
flexible parts
growth pattern
0.90x4.50 metre grid on the ground with a height of 2.80 meters on fixed structural section
flexible technical elements (accumulators, fitted walls, vertical circulation systems) floor, facade and partition units made of different materials, and with diverse textures and colors.
lateral and vertical assembly of flexible elements
fixed parts
flexible parts
growth pattern
Each unit is base on a square 4x4 metre module on fixed structural section and service wall
optimized industrial prefabricated elements- and a semi fitted service wall containing bathtubs, basins, toilets, cupboards, kitchen modules, work surfaces, and stairways
assembly of flexible elements the fixed part works like a backbone along which there may be all possible distributive and typological variations.
fixed parts
flexible parts
growth pattern
1 Main A-Section structure 2 Secondary structure 3 Mechanical Plumbing Electrical systems
4 skin : exterior walls 5 skin : roof plane 6 skin : outer roof membrane
growth involves assembly of parts to form a whole
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closed transportable system with no scope for metabolic growth
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fixed parts
flexible parts
growth pattern
1 Foundation : sand filled beer crates 2 Secondary structure
3 skin : exterior walls : hollow paper tubes 4 skin : openings 5 skin : outer roof plane and PVC membrane
growth involves assembly of parts to form a whole the whole can also be multiplied to establish a housing community
fixed parts
flexible parts
growth pattern
1 Foundation spacefame 2 Concrete pads and roof plane structure
3 skin : exterior walls 4 skin : roof plane
growth involves assembly of parts to form a whole closed transportable system with no scope for metabolic growth
1
2
3
4
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6 Portable House Individual Global Home
PROJECT TYPE
ASPECTS OF TRANSIENCE
FLEXIBILITY ATTRIBUTES
dwelling for single person or more
delocalization
portability of entire system of parts
Berlin 1996-2000 Gregoire & Petetin,
non rootedness to a single environment and adaptation to varying environments
expandability
France
7 Nomadic Dwellings For artists on the coastal conservation areas of Languedoc-Roussilon,
dwellings for artists
need for ecofriendly built space
recyclability and disposability of parts mass produced kit of parts
France, 1998 Decosterd & Rahm Switzerland with Gilles Clement and Michael Aubrey
8 The Monte Carlo Apartment
apartment for single businessman
1997 Lazzarinin and Pickering
9 Rome
apartment for single business woman
Apartment 1994-95 Lazzarini - Pickering
10 The Transformable Apartment Soho London 1996 Mark Guard
apartment for individual or more
delocalization the need for temporary retreat for experiential value.
visual and spatial transformability
Diversity the product of a cross cultural value system leading to the need for spatial variation along with a busy schedule requiring a ritualized way of life
spatial transformability
growth uncertainty of people to people relationship changeability of space according to changes in the family and the demand for smaller spaces in the city
spatial transformability
by elements that conjure, trick and surprise
by flexible space dividers and furniture units the whim for a Japanese interior
by flexible space dividers and furniture units the whim for a Japanese interior
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SYSTEM PARTS / GROWTH / CONFIGURATION fixed parts the main structural framework and the service system to be plugged in
flexible parts
the inner partitions and the expandable skin
fixed parts : transportable parts, fixed relative to each other in space
growth pattern
growth pattern
assembly of parts and linking with environment
fixed parts
flexible parts
growth pattern
main exterior structure
Glowing shelving units lit internally by colored gelatin lights. A swivelling mirrored surface producing an infinite variety of reflected images and vistas. Portals lined in stainless steel.
growth is established by transformability of interior space by means of flexible interior elements no scope for multiple metabolic growth
fixed parts
flexible parts
growth pattern
main exterior structure
space dividing elements flexible furniture units
growth is established by transformability of interior space by means of flexible interior elements no scope for multiple metabolic growth
fixed parts
flexible parts
main exterior structure and central mass
movable furniture flexible slide out space making elements
growth pattern growth is established by transformability of interior space by means of flexible interior elements no scope for multiple metabolic growth
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ASPECTS OF TRANSIENCE
FLEXIBILITY ATTRIBUTES
temporary living space for individual or more
delocalization
transformability and multifunctionality by sliding elements
temporary or permanent living space for individual
delocalization
PROJECT TYPE
11 THE SLIDING BLOCK HOTEL 1998 softroom
12 The 5 minute bathroom 2000 and the 24/7 HOTEL ROOM Prototype 2002 Joel Sanders
non rootedness to a single environment and need for constant professional travel
non rootedness to a single environment and need for constant professional travel
transformability and multifunctionality interior space due to flexible elements
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SYSTEM PARTS / GROWTH / CONFIGURATION fixed parts
flexible parts
growth pattern
main outer walls of space
all inner movable space making blocks
growth is established by transformability of interior space by means of flexible interior elements no scope for multiple metabolic growth
fixed parts
flexible parts
growth pattern
main outer walls of space
all inner movable space elements which result in spatial flexibility
growth is established by transformability of interior space by means of flexible interior elements the bathroom can also be plugged into any standard service system
fixed parts
flexible parts
growth pattern
central service system
space dividing elements which result in volumetric transformability and spatial multifunctionality
growth is established by transformability of interior space by means of flexible interior elements the standard hotel room space can also be plugged into a standard service system thus resulting in multiple metabolic growth
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conclusion
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Concluding thoughts : a world of infinite open ended processes We end with where we began, only transferred in concept to a new spatial dimension: the virtual space. The scope of this thesis has permitted a basic understanding of the various layers of spatial systems specific to the habitat, and the way in which transience has altered spatial definitions in a house, leading to the need for flexible space. The analyses of habitats summarized in the last section, goes to show that each example is a unique type in the realm of flexibility, that has emerged from transience, exclusive for its own distinct program and client life-style. The levels of flexibility also vary across scales. On the one hand, the M’House Building Nantes, France (pg 116) is an illustration of an architectural response to variation in the needs of a community of families, each with a completely different identity. The Portable House (pg 132) - Individual Global Home - is an evolved version of the caravan, not only freeing the individual from site, but also giving him the freedom to evolve his needs, his space, his relationship with things and people. On the other hand, the Transformable Apartment at Soho, London (Pg 146), is an illustration of a living space for an individual, free to choose his relationships, living partners, and space requirement for a given period of time. The 24/7 hotel by Joel Sanders (pg 152), is another extreme altogether, revolving around the life-style of individuals who have no ‘time’, to travel from home to work or home to leisure. Their living space thus doubles up as workspace and exercise/leisure, by variations in volumetric combinations, to achieve levels of private and public zoning. The habitat in transience, has thus lost its centre, and has been thrown into a zone of endless possibility, with numerous variations arising out of numerous different needs. We can state with certainty at the end of this thesis that flexible design is to do with 1 layers of systems 2 parts of the each system 3 the links between the parts and layers 4 the definition of these links (the design parameters) Using the above, one can define the limits of flexibility pertaining to a single project. The more systems analyzed, the better the understanding and control over the needs and the possibilities within that project. This thesis is thus a step before the future, a study which opens up avenues for further narrowing down, beyond an overall concept. We can conclude with this study that the notion of flexibility is infinite, and
Space is no longer just space, but a world of infinite relationships within it and around it.
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that programmatic limitations to create space are defined by many more related organizational systems (defined broadly in this thesis as the event system and functional response). The number of spatial systems and related organizational systems under study and application however, has only increased exponentially with the onset of the information and digital era. 1
I’ve had a sense for a while now that we’re in some sort of smectic state The smectic being the interstitial phase or state-shift between solid and fluid as crystals begin to emerge out of their base medium or melt back into it In fact its the prior nematic phase where molecules begin to link and form chains and the smectic where this stealth process takes on geometric or directional properties when the chains conspire into patterns and motifs... -Mark Goulthroup (dECOi)
We are now on the brink of a serious digital revolution. To what extent the digital revolution will alter our lives is at the moment quite incomprehensible. There’s a sneaky feeling in the air of ‘not knowing the big possibilities’ , but knowing that the possibilities are big. In fact they are tremendous. The ways in which digital technologies are influencing the world around us are becoming gradually but definitely recognizable. Working practices, social interaction and many other facets of life have been radically changed just within the past few years. The future is suspect. Who can be so certain about the future in the middle of volatile and unpredictable change? More over meditating on tomorrow turns attention away from the significance of uncertainties of today. For us, the greatest dilemma to understand the contemporary condition is the surplus of information. With more data, less is sure. The tremendous amount of available input cannot be translated into easy conclusions since the methods, assumptions and reliability of material on any topic, vary widely. For the first time in history, we are now entering into a completely artificial space, a parallel universe. Today the actual complex dynamics in the matrix of a space, that is, the various systems in a space, can be almost completely mapped in three dimensional virtual space. The conceptual construct of architectural and interior space thus has the ability to be
1 RIBA Future Studies Ed. Mark Goulthroup (dECOi) Designing for a Digital World Wiley Academy Britain 2002
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animated, not only in terms of spatial perception, but in the form of real time movement patterns of the occupants of the space, their ‘things’, personal information and their knowledge and memory banks. Can one imagine the number of possible associations between people, places, information and things, that this sort of mapping can extract? With such complex comprehensible layers of systems at work, it would have seemed in the past, an impossible task to be able to construct space from available data. Today, it not only appears to be possible, the infinitely huge data bank of social, economic, cultural, political, environmental structures and their dynamics is increasingly being used to understand future spatial needs for transformation. This in turn is opening up new avenues for constructing space and a host of methodologies of analyzing space and human need. If we try and compare the endless possibilities of digital spatial mapping to achieve flexibility, then this thesis, in a very rudimentary way, has only outlined simply a type of flexibility which came about in the industrial and technological revolution. A very tangible, type of flexibility of visible physical spatial components. The thesis is thus like an intermediary zone of understanding between the technological era and the up and coming digital era. It has only attempted to bring to notice, a very basic concept of spatial flexibility, and the approach of ‘mapping links between parts of a whole’ , to try and create that spatial flexibility. More importantly, it has tried to understand how and why the need for flexibility came about in the first place, the birth of numerous multihybrid human needs and identities, and the fact that the associations today are limitless and defy the gravity of ‘the type’. The thesis has left itself open to the next revolution. Which we are already heading towards, now. With the digital revolution already coming through, now at stupendous speed, built space is entering a new level of ephemeral, one where not only can the designer plan for the flexibility of spatial transformation or adaptation to site, but a flexibility of formal transformability. Built space has shifted from the two dimension worksheet of paper, to the infinite dimension of virtual space. The mental construction of space today is not composed of only the limited space on the drafting sheet, but to a vast logical mesh of zeros and ones, in the system of computation. Computation has tremendously narrowed down the delay between the ‘Idea’ or the conceptual construct of design in the mind, and its generation on a worksheet. It has also opened up a new understanding of spatial visualization, being able to feed us with
Today spatial organization can be mapped into an infinite number of combinations of layers, based on the relationsips that exist within it and around it.
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spatial and formal possibilities that the human mind could not have ever generated on paper. But most importantly, the digital revolution is enabling us to map organizational patterns with quite a huge amount of precision. Take an ‘Organigram’ for example, a computer program for drawing corporate organizational patterns. Thus giving rise to numerous variation in pattern, structure and form.
The translation of organizational patterns into space utilizes the Organigram as a spatial 2D medium of articulation that architecture shares with organization theory and the practice of management consultancy. The graphic repertoire employed, determines the scope of organizational patterns that the consultancy business is able to work with. This repertoire is currently limited to 2D Venn diagrams, operating with boxes within boxes and network diagrams operating with lines connecting nodes. Up till yesterday the combination of the two formalisms was the most complex that has been achieved in the domain of corporate organization design. On top of this, the expansion of graphic diagram diagramming repertoires has able to achieve the systematic incorporation of layering, the articulation of gradients, the employment of morphing to produce morphological series and matrices of similitude, the move to complex 3D diagrams and the computer animation of 4D time figures. These time figures are geared to capture, model and manipulate the dynamics of organizational life on various time scales: the daily pattern of movement and communication within the company, the formation and reformation of team structures across the cycle of a project, as well as more long term corporate growth or restructuring scenarios. Each design language is dependent on a given or chosen formal a priori, i.e. graphic language or ‘design world’, a certain set of graphic primitives and attendant rules of aggregation and transformation. While the computer expands available repertoires, it nevertheless represents a strictly bound ‘design world’, further constrained by the choice of tools and specific ways of building up the formal structures in each project. While this reduction of complexity is unavoidable, it is all the more important to choose on the basis of comparative experimentation with various formal systems and to be aware of the contingency of any argument/result upon the initial formal choices. For example when it comes to articulating an organization in terms of grouping of individuals, various formalisms may be considered. One might start with rectangles next to/within rectangles to express relations of divisions and subsumption. Alternatively one might operate with circles next to/ within circles. At first sight these two formalisms might seem functionally equivalent. But the formalisms on the basis of circles has a number of impor-
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tant iconographic advantages.: the circular system allows the hierarchical level of a domain to be read off locally from its radius and the distinction between inside and outside can be read off the difference between concave and convex, while the orthogonal system remains mute in these respects. In the case of overlapping domains, the orthogonal intersection between two rectangles, might be read as just another rectangle, while the intersection between the various circles cannot be mistaken for just another circle. It clearly reads as a domain of intersection, revealing as well the number and size of the intersecting domains. The move from 2D to 3D, from intersecting circles to interconnecting spheres, has the further advantage of allowing for a more complex pattern of overlap than can be managed within a 2D plane. At an even higher level of complexity, the diagram might even have to resort to deformed 3D blobs to avoid accidental intersections. This comparative evaluation demonstrates how formal decisions might be rationalized within a functional context that poses the semantic division of architecture, i.e., orientation through articulation, to be crucial. This also shows why - once an articulate level of the visualization/spatialization of organizational relations has been achieved within the diagram - the directive for the translation of the architectural space can only be as literal as possible - in order to maintain the orienting features of formalism. If this slogan is applied to the animated time-diagrams that claim to model and articulate the temporalization of organizational complexity as an essential component of the organizational system, then the literal translation into robotic field is called for. The hypothesis is that animated kinetic spaces will have a critical advantage with respect to facilitating and orienting the dynamic life of the organization. The first step in making this vision of an animated architecture tangible, is the recognition of the total mass of furnishing - fixed as well as mobile - as the crucial space making substance rather than regrading it as an accidental filling of an already constituted space. The dichotomy of space versus furniture is dissolved into layers of transience that start with the most ephemeral flux of light or images on computer screens, the movement of people and paper across the space of the office, files, mobile chairs, trolleys and the semi-mobile swarm of light fixtures, the more stable tables, shelves and cabinets, the semi fixed partition walls, etc. all the way to the supposedly permanent structural shell and external envelope. The tendency of computing space, has been to blur these typologies and to aim for an overall other words, it is its own reality. It is free to explore
Co - citation mapping is a form of electronic indexing and information retrieval. As an index it works according to a similar principle to any key-based library work, listing all the related to the same keyword, thus revealing non-apparent conceptual connections across categories such as humanities and science for example. Interestingly the next level of organization is constructed as a map, a geographical description of rational knowledge. They have no absolute axis. Instead their spatial configuration is based on continually becoming hierarchies which are contingent upon the frequency of citation and thus subject to change over time.
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THE RESI RISE SKYSCRAPER PROPOSED FOR THE COLUMBUS CIRCLE SITE IN THE NEW YORK CITY sulan kolatan and william j.macdonald Collectively the building is a central structure with plugin pods. Conceptually speaking, it comes across like a amatrix of ‘lots’ taking the shape of so many different pods. The morphology, size, program, functions, materials, servicing and furnishing of each pod is indeterminate and depend purely on the personal options of the users and on the programmatic scenarios and parameters laid down by the architects. Individual choice and collective performance merge in a complex and flexible system linking the parts and the whole together
Inhabitable as soon as the first pod is installed and furnished, the construction of the tower, which is endlessly updated by the vagaries of the property market, by technological developments and by the mobility of the occupants, can never actually be completed.
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increase and acceleration of transience and mobility within all of these strata, including structure. On the other hand, the attempt is made to increase the ever defining power of each system with the result of dynamizing what is phenomenologically recognized as the space. Once the substance of spatial articulation is thus put in motion, the electronic augmentation and steering of the behaviour of these substances can be elaborated. The invention/refinement of these behavioral patterns and their dynamic spatial coordination is the challenge of this new paradigm of digital design. The consideration thus moves from mere form to morphology in relation to behaviour: types of movement, modes of transformation, and the agglomeration into collective organisms. Thus a closed semantic universe is constituted subject to complex matrix of differentiations: formalinformal, fixed-flexible, individual-collective, demarcating-connecting etc. There is an immediate configurational as well as material engagement with the human body and its close range activities, both individually and with respect to the formation of groups and patterns of collaboration. In the final analysis it is the speculation about new social configurations and patterns of communication that we are most concerned with. Which brings us to the mapping of spatial patterns within a habitat. A corporate setup, at least brings with it a certain amount of formal organization that aids in the formation of this ‘design world’ we are talking about. The habitat in our age, on the other hand is far more difficult to map, as it comes with a much more complex set of patterns and associations and a much larger amount of uncertainty in future growth. Mapping a habitat, and customizing it to the needs of the occupants is hence a far more specialized task. It is about the individual’s personal hybrid identity, it is about completely uncertain associations with people, places, information and things and it is about the psychological construct of the occupant and his needs. How does one map such complexity to redefine personal space? No longer is architecture to be construed as simply the art of putting two bricks together as, Mies Van de Rohe once suggested; instead it has become the art of arranging two bits or qubits (quantum bits), together. Whereas all forms of modeling, including computer modelling, rely on the principle of entailment which makes reference back to a transcendent origin or the natural world, the process of simulation, contrary to its conventional understanding as a derivative form of imitation does not rely or entail any referential origin other than its internal system of monadic encoding, which is purely abstract. In
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combinatorial space of possibilities to engender various forms of self organization. With evolutionary computation whose realization is immanent in the near future, these bits will recursively replicate, mutate and evolve to engender new forms of architectural species beyond our current capacity to imagine them. We are moving towards an architecture of formless, an age of mass customization, where spatial components will be mass produced and spaces mass customized, transformable to individual needs. The future holds great promise and great uncertainty. A future of completely flexible design solutions which can free us or bind us depending on how we formulate the ‘design world’ in the virtual space of the infinite. We can to be part of this system or be left to be swallowed by chaos. It is only a matter of choice.
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glossary of terms Chapter 1 : a note on systems System a group of interacting, interrelated, interdependent parts that come together to form a whole. System Dynamics The dynamics of functioning or processes of functioning within a system of or a group of systems based on the flow of feedback within a system, and the system behaviours that result from these flows. Systemic Thinking The application of system dynamics to resolve organization problems in any system of parts Open Systems Systems that may reconfigure their components or maintain their stability or cause a change in connected systems, when inflicted by change. Closed Systems Systems that do not reconfigure their components or maintain their stability or cause a change in connected systems, when inflicted by change. User system The intangible matrix of systems composed of event and function systems. Event System The system composed of a set of occurances within a space, defined by cyclical and linear rhythms. Function System The system or matrix of systems that arise in response to the “meaning of the event system” and the “links/feedback flows between event zones”. Spatial System The tangible matrix of physical systems that are manifested in response to the intangible matrix of the user system. Chapter 2 : a note on high transience and emerging global scenarios Transience Measure of the rate of change of interaction between systems in a given span of time, or the measure of flux in a user system. High Transience A relative state of radical flux in the user system. Low Transience
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A relative state of permanence. Antitype That category which does not fall under any particular preconditioned typology. Antitype Architecture That category of a spatial system which does not fall under any particular preconditioned typology of architecture. Globalization A phenomena that expresses time-space distanciation, concerning interlacing of social events and social relations at distance, or the intersection of presesence and absence at distance. Glocalization A process of global locaization or local globalization/ telescoping global and local in a blend. Mediasation The rapid proliferation of institutions of mass communicaion and the growth of networks of transmission through which commodified symobolic forms are made available to an ever expanding domain of recepients. Diversity The phenomena of breaking from original value systems leading to new individual cross-cultural value systems. Novelty The process that humans adopt to acclimatize to diversity by creation of “new identities” of individuals and families. Delocalization The phenomena of not being restricted in movement to any particular place. Disintegration The phenomena of rapidly increasing fractured families and communities in te realm of time and space. Spatial Junk The manifestation of unplanned alteration and renovation in a spatial system when its permanence prevents it from adapting to fluxes in surrounding usersystems and/or the manifestation of useless space when the spatial system fails to fulfill its purpose any longer when inflicted by change. Sustainablity Equity over time / giving equal weight in decisions to the future as well as the present / a trend to consider the whole instead of the specific. Sustainable Development The development that meets the needs of the present
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without compromising on the needs of the future. Mass Production Production of a system and/or its components in large quantities, in a factory. Mass Customization Customization of a system and/or its components in large quantities, using strategies based on customercentric needs, and existing mass-produced systems and components. Chapter 3 : a note on flexibility and flexible habitats Flexibility The inherent property of a system of components to be able to modify itself to the forces of various external and internal stimuli which may directly or indirectly affect the system. Spatial Flexibility The inherent property of a spatial system to be able to modify itself to the forces of various external and internal stimuli which may directly or indirectly affect it. Transformable Flexibility That type of spatial flexibility in which the constituent parts of the spatial system adapt or reconfigure in response to flux in the user system, thus transforming from one configuration to another. Portable Flexibility That type of spatial flexibility in which the constituent parts of the spatial system can be transported in parts or as a whole to a new external environment, thus being mobile from one location to another.
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bibliography NID Library Robertson, Roland Ed., Kathleen E.White Ed. Globalisation : Critical concepts in Sociology (Global membership and Participation) Routelouge 2003 Baldwin, Carliss Y. , Clark, Kim.B Design Rules Vol 1 The Power of Modularity The MIT Press 2000
Personal Collection Gleick,James CHAOS Vintage 1998 Page 81 Tofler, Alvin Future Shock The Bodley Head Ltd 1970 Migayrou,Frederic and Brayer,Marie- Ange ED. Archilab Radical experiments in Global Architecture Thames and Hudson 2001 Gleick,James CHAOS Vintage 1998 Rosa, Joseph Next Generation Architecture Thames and Hudson 2003 Glancey,Jonathan Foster,Norman Fwrd. The Story of Architecture Dorling Kindersley 2000
-Mark Goulthroup (dECOi) Designing for a Digital World Wiley Academy Britain 2002 RIBA Future Studies
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CEPT Library Bech-Danielsen,Claus Ed. Christensen,Merete Kjaer Ed. Mortensen ,Peder Duelund Ed. Zahle, Karen Ed. Boase The Future Home - a prize competition focusing on sustainability and accessibility Kunstakademiets Arkitektskole 2001 Page 32
Powell, Kenneth RICHARD ROGERS Artemis London limited 1994 Suckle, Abby By Their Own Design Granada Publishing 1980 Davies,Colin High Tech Architecture Thames and Hudson 1988 Ching Francis D.K Interior Design Illustrated Van Nostrand Reinhold Academy of Art Prospectus
Journals The Home of the Future : a possible scenario a point of view by Kent Larson A+ D July 1993 ‘Visions for the future’ A + D July 1998 Ephemeral Architecture A + D July 2000 Transformable House
Internet references ww.design.dk www.pegasus.com www.thinking.net www.arcspace.com en.wikipedia.org www.archined.nl www.designmuseum.org www.archigram.net www.greatbuildings.com www.users.globalnet.co.uk www.sustainablesonoma.org
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Thank You to
LIFE
and to all those who have come with it.
Before we take this ride and let it slide Into the cracks where fall and winter collide I surrender all my gall in a song of modern love Remember you’re the one who summoned me Above any other kind
