Nonlinear Urbanism: Towards Multiple Urban Futures 9783035624410, 9783035624397

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

Nonlinear Urbanism Towards Multiple Urban Futures

Birkhäuser Basel

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

Dismissing Nonlinearity Means Ignoring Reality Gerald Bast

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

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

Nonlinear Urbanism, Towards Multiple Urban Futures Anton Falkeis

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[Author, page number]

[Article Chapter]

[Image 1]

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

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

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

[ c23, m80, y42, k13 ]

GL

GL

The Synchronous Garden (SynG)

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

New Perspectives between Architecture and Ecology

MAEID (Tiziano Derme, Daniela Mitterberger)

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

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

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

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

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[C .a. Kumpusch, p. 105 ]

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

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

and the constitution of how we should rediscuss the presence of architecture. We may want to start having a dialectic position towards ecology, one that can consider cycles of inhabitation and alternation between human presence and human absence.

communications across multiple time scales and media, across different frequencies, impulses, signals, wavelengths, particles, and detections of fields.

“This new garden is a place of detection, translation and communication, beyond the diversity and it is 3: From the Planetary Index to the Synchronous hyperlocal, does not favor cross-contamination, but Garden accepts synthetic forms of life. There is a very different Approaching ecological concerns using gardens as kind of feedback: a bewilderingly complex array of a medium of expression certainly characterized the interrelated and unpredictably erratic fluctuation over work of Gilles Clement and his “planetary garden.” which we have little to no control.” This garden is conceived of as a controlled territory and planetary intermingling. This garden is the We define the term ‘synchronous garden’ as the only manifestation of human activities, as we are conplace where humans, nature and technology meet, stantly moving and making everything else move. in which dreaming is allowed without any particular In his garden, plants and animals meet in new and interest in the exploration of nature for financial unforeseen circumstances that geography does not and functional purposes. Within the synchronous permit spontaneously. The construct behind the garden, technologies of mediation are not used to planetary garden is fundamentally rooted in a huexploit the land but rather to construct and enhance manistic conception of ecology, which on one hand new cycles of renewal, empathy and affinity. This destroyed the notion of the “enclosed” garden, and differs quite substantially from the idea of the wild on the other, favored a vision of domestication and garden, as the synchronous garden is an intervencontrol over nature. The word ‘garden’ comes from tion carried out by humans in a territory where they the German ‘Garten,’ which means ‘enclosure’ — an interpret nature, diversity, and the synergy between enclosed space. With the advent of ecology, people media and natural phenomena. Attributes of the realized that any form of control over this enclosynchronous garden vary but include dynamic sure is fundamentally an illusion. Butterflies, wind, feedback, restoration, biodiversity and mediation. birds, seeds, even people: everything communicates. The interest on placing a garden at the forefront of Those conditions of involuntary cross-contaminaour current understanding of the relationship betion represent an opportunity for the expansion of tween architecture and ecology stems from different the term ecology towards new media intelligences. factors: 1) the garden is a hyperlocal presence, 2) its This expanded intelligence should be understood identity is connected within biotic substrata: water, not as a mechanism to create profit nor a mechaair and soil form a part of those, 3) a garden is connism of protection of an ideal form of ‘Nature,’ but cerned with the definition of an aesthetic resolution, rather as a medium for establishing new forms of and 4) the generation of an index of immaterial 3 Thoreau, H. D. (1906). Walking. In: F. B. Sanborn (ed.), The Writings of Henry David Thoreau (Walden edition) — Vol. 5 4 Waterman, L. et al. (1992). Wilderness Ethics: Preserving the Spirit of Wildness. Countryman Press

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5 O’Rourke, E. (2000). “The reintroduction 6 Cookson, L.J. (2004). Wildness, the and reinterpretation of the wild.” Journal of forgotten partner of evolution. Gatherings, J. Agricultural and Environmental Ethics Internat. Community for Ecopsychology. 13:1, 13(1), 145–165 www.ecopsychology.org/journal/ezine/ wildness.html

[S. McCallum, p. 70]

imals and a part of natural processes. If we oppose values compatible with new ways of living and planetary concerns. These factors challenge our re- natural processes and wildness, the artificial can sponse to and interaction with the built and natural increase wild behaviors. The artificial can therefore environment. The synchronous garden represents increase the degree of autonomy of natural processan opportunity to radically redesign and renatural- es resonating with the environment. ize the decision-making process of architecture and considers the possibility of a ‘design from a distance,’ 5: Gardeners allowing ecological systems to coevolve through interactions. “If there is no gardener, there is no garden, but if a gardener is a machine, a new wild state is potentially 4: Nature’s Own Terms: Wildness defined.” When we refer to the ‘synchronous garden,’ we present an expansion of radical forms of ecology that The world of Gardens is entangled and dependent favor the engagement of humans and technology as on Gardeners.9 These are figures with the capacity to noninvasive agents. The synchronous garden disoperate within a determined system of relations and cards the idea of the creation of an enchanted, “Un- species. Gardeners have the capacity to thoroughly touched Nature and that we will live basically in a describe this system, pointing out species, their natural reserve.” In order to expand upon the notion comparative rarity, tracking their vital status, of radical ecology, it is useful to acknowledge nature transporting and rearranging them in a certain on its own terms, referring to specific and potential order. The gardeners are the medium to delegate conditions of ‘naturalness.’ Going ‘into the wild,’ or technology into a new realm of nature and create an autonomous system of interconnections between ‘wildness,’ represents the limit through which we species and biotic cycles. Like ‘wildness,’ autonomy can discuss the relationship between nature and technology and potential overlaps. Wildness is often can take on many forms. When we refer these terms to the ‘natural,’ there is a tendency to confuse the described as a) a quality produced in nature,3 b) the spirit of the wild,4 c) that which emerges from term ‘autonomy’ with ‘automation.’ However, those a place or a forest,5 d) a level of achievement in terms relate to quite different domains: the first, nature.6 Most importantly, this term is related to a ‘automaton,’ refers to the description of movement process7 rather than a place. The term ‘wildness’ de- (a machine receiving an instruction from outside), scribes a form of nature that retains as a measure of ‘automatos’ means ‘acting of oneself ’ in Greek. autonomy, apart from human constructions.8 When Something that is automated can do what it is meant we leave the limit of wildness, we enter the artificial/ to do without having a person around to run it. The synthetic domain of the human. Indeed, artificiality mystification of the term ‘automation’ in the context is a paradox in contrast to nature. But ultimately, the of the natural environment has often led to results ‘artificial’ is a product of humans, who are also anthat consider technology as a form of media used to 7 Higgs, E. S. (2006). “Restoration Goes Wild: A Reply to Throop and Purdom.” Restoration Ecology, 14(4), 500–503

8 Evanoff, R. J. (2005). “Reconciling Realism 9 Clément, G. (2015). “The Planetary and Constructivism in Environmental Eth- Garden” and Other Writings. University of ics.” Environmental Values 14, no. 1: 61–81 Pennsylvania Press

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domesticate nature. This condition led culturally to learning, a very human character that enhances our place ‘machines in the gardens,’ describing a form ability to contract, expand, engage, disengage. of automation of nature that is mainly related to the description of a movement. Placing ‘machines’ 6: Liveness such as lawnmowers or lawn-watering systems Natural systems are constructed through an amalin the gardens enforces a form of control and gamation of different actors, systems and signals automation over nature. In contrast to automation, and their interrelationships. These actors might there is the concept of ‘autonomy,’ which describes be plant-based species, animals, or climatic actors. the production of a norm or a rule. Autonomy, Transferring this characteristic of interrelationship according to the term ‘wilderness,’ describes a between actors to the idea of the synchronous territory of self-governance beyond human control. garden, we start to understand the importance of This condition reflects a possible convergence linking different technologies, media, and biological between nature and technology, in which machines systems to enable such a system of wildness. This suddenly enter a trans-species courtship dance, information-translation, similar to the commufighting our classical idea of ‘nature.’ nication between animals and their surroundings, translates data between sensor systems, biological Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari describe in their actors, and sensorial representations. The synchrobook, A Thousand Plateaus‚ the concept of courtnous garden becomes itself a domain, a device of ship and becoming through a biological narrative of spatial translation connecting biology, media and technology for the sake of translation, similar to the the orchid and the wasp:10 idea of a “Babel fish” — a fictional creature invented “The orchid leaves its own territory by forming an by the author Douglas Adams. image, by imitating a wasp; but the wasp returns to its territory in this image while leaving its turf “The Babel fish is small, yellow and leech-like, and at the same time and becoming part of the orchid’s probably the oddest thing in the Universe. It feeds on reproduction apparatus; the wasp reterritorializes the brainwave energy received not from its own carrier orchid by carrying pollen…capture code, surplusbut from those around it.” value code, an increase of valence, a true becoming, Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the becoming-the-wasp of the orchid, becoming-the-orGalaxy chid of the wasp.(15)1” The Babel fish is a biotech creature whose sole purThis domain of courtship, description of behavior, pose is the machine translation of different input and interconnectedness: these are mechanisms and stimuli. It not only translates and transforms inforabilities that rely on the capacity of distinguishing mation but also communicates between different and discriminating, responding or reacting and subjects. In the case of the synchronous garden, 10 Guattari, F. (2008). The Three Ecologies. Bloomsbury Publishing PLC

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we instate the human visitor as one subject facing the biological system achieving interconnectedness through technology. Therefore, the human who visits the garden no longer rules or governs the garden but rather becomes part of an audience of the system. This audience is no longer passive but rather influences the creation, transformation and growth of the garden. This bidirectional feedback between the audience and the synchronous garden is enabled through feedback technology, the capacity of a system to signal and respond to input instantaneously. To enable satisfactory feedback between different subjects, different signals have to be translated. Movement, smell, chemical composition, facial expression, are all signals that subjects continuously broadcast. Some of these signals are unconscious, such as chemical composition and temperature, other signals are conscious, such as movement, interaction, and speech/sound. To enable bidirectional communication and feedback, the translation interface needs to translate between these crucially different signals, similar to language-translating software. Audio frequencies are equalized to geometrical articulations, movement is translated into chemical properties, pH value translates to a gradient of green, and human presence is projected in machine movement. The techno-organic garden becomes a hyperlink: references to a branch-like structure of information and references. This translation between frequencies establishes its very own language and alphabet, whereas the letters are made of specific translation logics. These translation logics move from different temporalities, such as real-time to recorded, to different scales, such as room-size, global, or microscale.

The system thus interacts with the audience and creates in the same moment the feeling of aliveness. The active act of translating and interaction and the sense of a machine and systems agency might even ensure that the audience perceives the encounter as if they were interacting or observing a persona.11 This interaction between the human-animal and the synchronous garden might be both physically and temporally copresent or via teleoperation. The first resembles the classical idea of ‘live performance’ while the second resembles Philip Auslander’s understanding of “digital liveness.”12 It is “contemporaneous,”13 a term originating from Kierkegaard and Gadamer and extended by Auslander. ‘Contemporaneous’ describes a particular thing that represents itself to us in its full presence, despite the remoteness of its origin. The term describes our engagement with another system, independent of its physical location. This dissolving of temporal and spatial borders happens in the techno-organic garden via digital broadcasting technologies. The digital liveness, even though spatially separated, still allows the audience a particular way of being involved with something, describing a specific relation between the self and other. New media art, as well as the techno-organic garden, involve varying degrees of interaction between the installation, the garden and the observer, between creator and public, switching between participation, social exchange, and interaction.

11 Morse, M. (1998). Virtualities: Television, 12 Auslander, P. (2012). A Historico-PhilMedia Art, and Cyberculture. Indiana osophical Perspective. PAJ: A Journal of University Press Performance and Art, 34(3), 3–11

13 Kierkegaard, S. (2008). Preparation for a Christian Life. Dodo Press

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[Image 2] Img. 1: MAEID, 3D Printing Technique Using a Pressing and Extruding Tool ©, 2020

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7: Artificial Ecologies The series Artificial Ecologies comprises three garden types: Pahoehoe Beauty, Terrestrial Reef, and Magic Queen. The series is based on the description of the synchronous garden. Those gardens specifically reflect on the role of robotics applied to the use of machines as a means of fabrication, and machines as a means of interfacing natural systems. They reflect on the often troubled, incompatible, and even oppressive binary relationship between the built environment and the natural environment as defined by Western modernity, while proposing an alternative to the current cultural associations of nature as being ‘green’ or ‘sustainable.’14 Artificial Ecologies engage with new spatial articulations, systems and motives that simultaneously embed machine intelligence, material resources, and different levels of aliveness. The series describes the ubiquitous reality of computing, not just through the introduction of information media into surfaces, but also by how it nurtures what is already there. The techno-organic gardens, Pahoehoe Beauty, Terrestrial Reef, and Magic Queen, extend their obliquity into a new material substrate of things through biochemical heterogeneity, nested diversity, transversal contamination, symbiosis, and transmission. From a more technical standpoint, all three structures represent a need architecture has to address challenges defined by the environmental crisis and linked to a novel technological condition and development in automation. All the gardens are fabricated using a novel robotic binder-jetting process for granular biocomposites and nontoxic binding agents, with different levels of technological refinement and tuning. The combination of soil and Img. 2: MAEID, Terrestrial Reef ©, 2020

14 Karafyllis, N.C. (2002). “Biotechnology – the offspring of life science or technoscience?” Newsletter of the European Society of Agricultural and Food Ethics (EURSAFE) (4), No. 2

hydrogel as building materials shows the potential of a fully reversible and biodegradable construction process for architectural and landscape components and foresees its potential for being used to create full-scale architectural implementations. Biodegradability and decay are two fundamental components in the development of the Artificial Ecologies series. These concepts highlight the problematic relationship between architecture, time, geological time, and decay. These parameters were crucial in the planning and design of these structures and robotic fabrication. The three gardens, despite being placed within the series, have some specific aspects that differentiate themselves from each other. Pahoehoe Beauty, presented on the occasion of the 2018 Ars Electronica festival, is a scenario that problematizes the role of human intervention within natural systems. The constructed landscape is composed of two robotic arms actively scanning the earthly surface, and protecting this natural area from the human presence. The two robots are equipped with camera systems that scan and observe the soil landscape. Specific cracks and riffs in the surface are translated into different frequencies and ambient sounds sonify the installation. The zone defined by the landscape is understood as quarantine space, as constructed nature protected by machines. Visitors are only allowed to enter if they follow specific hygienic precautions and wear technical clothing.

[Image 3] Img. 3: MAEID, Pahoehoe Beauty, Soil 3D-Printed Landscape ©, 2020

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Terrestrial Reef, presented at the 2019 RHS Chelsea Flower Show, takes the topic to a slightly different level. Here, nature is presented as a very fragile entity that cannot survive without human and machinic intervention. The vital character of this approach and its coordination within the biotechnological continuum enables novel transformations of borders of life, in reference to the terms ‘natural,’ ‘living,’ ‘artificial,’ ‘synthetic.’ The garden is constituted simultaneously by in situ and in vitro technologies, the former being applied to micropropagation techniques borrowed from microbiology to be able to cultivate the Ganoderma lucidum fungal species in a controlled environment (large glass flasks).

visual interface. The robotic arm was understood as performing the role of what we would usually associate with a ‘gardener.’ The end effector mounted on the robotic arm consisted of two primary sensing camera devices and a processor. The computing unit then used different machine vision and artificial intelligence algorithms, which gathered and sorted data to identify patterns deriving from the interaction of the landscape with the surrounding environment. The computer vision system is based on a combination of a deep learning-based system for object detection (YOLO v4) that performs the detection and tracking of people, and additional traditional computer vision techniques to detect grass, mushrooms and surface features of 8: Magic Queen soil organic landscape. A combined depth/RGB-D Magic Queen was presented on the occasion of the camera was used and an additional tracking camera 17th International Exhibition of the Venice Architec- that ran a simultaneous localization and mapping ture Biennale in 2021. It is currently the biggest iter- (SLAM) algorithm and provided positional, orienation of Artificial Ecologies. By increasing the size, tational and inertial data. The system ran entirely the perception also moved from a cut-out landscape on a single-board computer (NVIDIA Jetson Nano). to a performative, living architecture. Magic Queen It sent data over a network to other machines that is a 3D-printed earth landscape maintained by a performed the visualization and sonification of the robot arm, which scans, nurtures and sonifies the image analysis results. Machine learning techniques environment. It uses sensors, responsive technolo- were also used to generate a complementary sound gies, and machine learning to create a continuous environment that was further processed based feedback loop between sensing, virtualizing, and on the data from the computer vision system in a induced change. custom Max/MSP environment. Finally, bridging data gathering, machine vision, and robotics with The robotic arm that hovers over the structure the natural environment enhanced new ways and waters the mushrooms and plants and monitors opportunities for robots to be integrated into the the soil ecosystem over a period of six months. natural and built environment. Magic Queen was Throughout the duration of the Biennale exhiconceived as a built habitat that can restore and bition, the robot gathered physicochemical data nurture itself, redefining the role of living systems and translated this data into audible sounds and a within architecture. The structure was erected on

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[Image 4] Img. 4: MAEID, View of the Robotic Gardener Hovering Over the Magic Queen ©, 2020

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site by a team of humans and machines within three months. Only soil from the region and biomaterials were used — the installation is therefore completely biodegradable. Various plants and fungi were growing in the installation throughout the exhibition; a robotic arm carried out the gardener’s function. The inhabitable indoor environment of Magic Queen combined visual, auditory, olfactory and haptic features to capture the sensual experience of this new, mediated form of nature, which evolves around and within different media and forms of representation. No element in Magic Queen could exist without the presence of the other elements, underlining the nature of interconnectivity in biological entities, as described in the chapter before. The fungal flora and the soil structure depended on the robot to water them. At the same time, the robot relied on their existence to be able to move. The ambient sound was generated through the interconnectivity and performativity of all the elements, accompanied by a visual interface uncovering the otherwise invisible stream of impact and growth. The idea behind Magic Queen was to have a structure that was able to evolve, decay, and grow over the timespan of the Biennale. The structure was seeded with different types of grasses and inoculated with mushroom spores during and after fabrication. The aim behind the evolving structure was based in an architectural setting. On the one hand, Magic Queen aimed to provide an architecture that didn’t exhaust itself in one visit and instead used infrastructure to stimulate our curiosity to return. On the other hand, working with a material system such as soil allowed the work to incorporate an entirely new set of physical parameters such as decay and aging.

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These parameters supported the subject of temporary architecture and the essential question: Can we accept the idea that a building has its own metabolic patterns?

[A. Shesterikova, p. 81]

[Image 5] Img. 5: MAEID, Detail View of the Surface Quality of the Magic Queen ©, 2020

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The End of the Anthropocene City Jan Kovaricek

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[M. Sahin, p. 72]

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

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What if these procedures were self-regulated in the same way the city regulates itself according to thousands of local microphenomena? Decentralized activity is one of the reasons behind the lack of an overall urban theory, and cities are being researched by architects and urbanists in order to get at least some insight into how the urban organism operates. How to Read the Post-Anthropocene City As mentioned previously, AI technologies are already greatly affecting our society and will soon influence how cities are shaped and how they operate. With the dawn of the Industrial Revolution, cities were designed to reflect the needs of a newly emerging mobility and mass production. Le Corbusier dreamt of cities that would glorify automobiles over humans (conceived in 1922 in his proposal for a ‘Ville Contemporaine’ and refined eight years later in his ‘Ville Radieuse’). Despite the fact that the 20th century showed us that Ville Contemporaine was a dead end in terms of urban planning, the ideas the project represented still shaped the design of our cities and created a nostalgia for the grandeur of Le Corbusier’s visions and bright machinic futures. The question at hand is: Is history bound to repeat itself? Corbusier’s urban vision might not have been completely invalid as he (knowingly?) pioneered one of the first concepts of what is now being labeled as the ‘Posthuman City’ by an increasing number of architects and thinkers:11 large boulevards designed for automobiles, sky bridges, aeronautic commutes, factory spaces inhabited by machines that are inaccessible to people — an urban design that completely erases any trace of the anthropomorphic scale.

And yet the automobiles and industrial machines of the 20th century were merely analog tools incapable of helping us better understand our environment and its dynamics — a quality that big data and AI systems indisputably do possess (if utilized correctly). It is certain that we will start designing and building human environments that are accessible and comprehensible to machines and machinic visions on a greater scale than ever before. The rise of autonomous machines and omnipresent algorithms will unavoidably lead to the development of new typologies that prevent the machine from gaining access to certain spaces, places devoid of signals, cloaked in smart materials in order to be unreadable to The Artificial. The biggest threat to the successful integration of ML would be failing to pay attention to how algorithms translate our built environment and our actions, nature’s phenomena, and the dynamics of our society and human interactions. The sooner we accept that we cannot be the sole inhabitants of our cities, the sooner we can focus on inventing active policies and actions that will closely tie the human coliving with the algorithm. We will be able to invent symbiotic relationships in order to successfully move through the turbulent age in which algorithms will play an increasingly important role in our daily lives in the future.

11 Young, L. (guest ed.). (2019). Machine Landscapes: Architectures of the Post Anthropocene. Oxford: Wiley

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[M. Walczak, p. 96]

Urban Life as a Teaching Tool Let me slightly rephrase the question from the abstract of this text: How can we form the next city into an interface for machines to understand and learn from us? Cities are the synthesis of human creation, the peak of complex emergent systems created by men and layered upon each other. Urbanized environments are sets generating infinite streams of data on human behavior and interactions, management of energy and its usage, dynamics of elements (citizens, data and knowledge, goods and other resources). If we used these sets purposefully, ML could help us create a new space syntax and help us to see our actions outside of our subjective anthropocentric view. It is impossible to control the city with any one single plan. If we broke down the urban fabric into smaller discrete elements and their phenomena, we could extract all the imaginable data and use the NNs to find patterns unforeseeable by planners, while using the very same pool of data to improve the algorithm and include an ethical framework that is inherent in the data produced by the city. The machine excels in understanding the patterns, and if we succeeded in making it understand localized events, it could help us create larger models of the global system of the city. In a sense, it is not unlike humans analyzing the swarming behavior of ant colonies and deriving rules that can be used to recreate and understand the colony’s emergent behavior.

We need to let the AI watch the swarming of the vastly more complex colonies of humans. We are unable to comprehend cities because we are limited in our understanding of objects that form systems that are several magnitudes larger than us. In reference to Timothy Morton’s theory of “hyperobjects,”12 the city and the AI could arguably potentially be seen as a hyperobject (The City) or should already be considered as a man-made hyperobject (The AI). The shift from viewing these as mere human inventions to viewing them as hyperobjects that transcend us reflects the real importance of both the city and AI and prompts us to develop deeper relationships with them.

12 Morton, T. (2013). Hyperobjects: Philosophy and Ecology After the End of the World. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press

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GL

A Short Fantasy about the City of the Future

Keywords: - Cities of the Future - Internet of Things - Artificial Intelligence - Algorithms - Cohabitation - Architecture Extensions - Body Extensions - Nomadism - Urban Growth

Excerpt from “The Friendly Giant and Us: a Short History of Human Mistakes and Artificial Heroes” (2195) Sasha Belitskaja Goni Dagan

Georg Popp David Rüßkamp Shilun Yang

of what ‘home’ was. The sentimental definition of ‘home’ became fluid, people weren’t attached to any space anymore. What ‘home’ had meant in the 20th century disappeared and became something that you could carry around with you and have at any time. ‘Home’ could be anywhere, you just had to take it with you. The City could finally access the data people were constantly sharing online: their likes, dislikes, comments and shares. The code could analyze and redistribute resources within the city whenever needed. “A city is a dynamic entity — while parts of it are thriving, others start dying. This common process - the virus has a link to everyone’s personal profile in the City has been recognized in cities all over the world. Technological development has become so fast, the - it can predict what you want to have/be around.” - From the Introduction of the Brochure for the SmartCity has never caught up with it. Technology is able to provide all these opportunities for expandhouse Generation 3 Version 11.2.5 ing capabilities, but the City has become outdated, redundant and clumsy instead. Sick Cities all over The Internet of Things the globe found it impossible to host their citizens. “The network of sensors was expanded and implantSomething had to be done. Then the Virus was ed into a wide variety of objects — from extra small created. The Big Change was meant to make cities to extra large. A large amount of information was better, but it did way more. A group of architects, being created every second. An entire building engineers and coders developed an entity which would be connected to the IoT, and data was being changed the full notion of the City.” generated by its many different parts: the windows, - Blogpost on tumbleweed.se User stu.weer March 3rd, the doors, the floors, the electricity system, the walls, 2173. etc. This data was connected to the social media activity of the user and allowed the building, on Social Media a smaller scale, and the City, on a larger scale, to “With the overwhelming usage of social media in respond to their ever-changing needs. everyday life, more and more people started living a New technologies allowed the building materials to ‘nomadic’ life, travelling and changing their location be flexible and responsive. The user got to interact on a daily basis. Social media blurred the boundawith the building and the City, which then reflected ries between countries, which encouraged this flexi- the users’ needs. The IoT minimized dependence on ble lifestyle. There were no more borders or material production and supported the needs of the nomadic attachments. This changed the entire perception society. It allowed the users to produce objects when

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[L. Ly, O. Alunovic, p. 62]

needed, and to recycle them once they were no longer being used. Similarly, it allowed the building and the City to build and recycle itself, according to its immediate needs.” -Classified Archives, Historical Entry (2279)

Img. 1: S. Belitskaja, G. Dagan, G. Popp, D. Rüßkamp, S. Yang, Virus’s Behavior Depending on Data, 2018

[Image 1]

[Image 2]

Img. 2: S. Belitskaja, G. Dagan, G. Popp, D. Rüßkamp, S. Yang, Social Media, 2018

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[C. a. Kumpusch, p. 106]

AI Citizen “The City was gradually turned into a megastructure made up of countless machines and sensors, hardware processes, and software protocols operating locally and simultaneously on a global scale. Computational processes framed the City as an envelope and defined the objects within it, and turned the City into hardware-like modules. By inserting synthetic intelligence into an urban landscape, mankind bestowed upon this fabric of inorganic forms a capacity for abstraction, and a perception of itself and humans as cohabitants within and outside of one another. The future cities were not for humans alone, they were cohabitants alongside machines and algorithms. They were becoming the embodiment of the multifaceted machine vision and intelligence, through which matter found a way of organizing itself into a form of durable complexity as an urban design project. Humans influenced this AI urbanism through their abstract city planning to set the mechanics and processes in motion that calibrated them and their cohabitants within the city, and in this way negotiated a liveable postAnthropocene. Humans started to become abstracted to objects, not to degrade them, but to learn to empathize with the inorganic and ready mankind for new types of logic and sensations taught and experienced by an artificial neural network.”

[Image 3]

[Image 4] Img. 3: S. Belitskaja, G. Dagan, G. Popp, D. Rüßkamp, S. Yang, AI Citizen, 2018

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Architecture Extensions As early as 1914, the Italian futurist architect Antonio Sant’Elia predicted that the future of buildings would develop into a megastructure, that all the transportation systems would be attached to the surfaces of one building, but that using a huge building with integrated, complex functions would be difficult to maintain. This future building was meant to be flexible, recyclable and growable. A kind of virus would attach to the existing buildings, change the buildings, or compose new buildings. It would create a new, symbiotic city environment. Eventually the city would become so responsive, it would be in a state of constant flux: people moving from place to place, exploring new places, the building materials replaced with a new material substance, which would be 100% recyclable and able to be reconstructed in a matter of minutes. The code would change people’s body extensions as they wished. - Opening speech of Virus department CEOs at the 2176 Milan Fashion Week. “Ladies and Gentlemen… Inspired by the human anatomy, our product touches upon the narrow boundaries between the decay and reinforcement of the human body as a source of a new aesthetic and social behavior. On the one hand, we would be able to settle in uninhabitable spheres like outdoors in nature or in shrunken and empty cities with intelligent bodyextension housing systems, but on the other hand, this may lead to a risk of becoming isolated nomads. What kind of hierarchy and social interests would evolve if we acquired godlike abilities through Img. 4: S. Belitskaja, G. Dagan, G. Popp, D. Rüßkamp, S. Yang, Architecture Extensions, 2018

[V. Sandor, p. 50]

technology, and how would art and design change? How would we communicate if the extended human body was able to convey emotions and thoughts, or if it could even communicate to itself? The typology of human decay that extends its actual body was the starting point for creating an intelligent, speculative device. Its wires can learn and store information in the same way tendons can. They are connected to the neural system in order to be able to respond to emotions, they can grow and shrink according to special needs like having better stability, and they are flexible. This is just the beginning.”

[Image 5]

[Image 6] Img. 5: S. Belitskaja, G. Dagan, G. Popp, D. Rüßkamp, S. Yang, Ladies and Gentlemen…, 2018

Img. 6: S. Belitskaja, G. Dagan, G. Popp, D. Rüßkamp, S. Yang, The Internet of Things, 2018

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

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

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

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

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[M. Sahin, p. 75]

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

[Image 1]

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

Img. 1: SPAN, Urban Fictions 1, 2018

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

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Both examples mentioned above can be identified as representative of ideologies that span areas beyond shape and geometry and involve political, social and economic conditions.4 It might not surprise us that, to that extent, they also represent a vessel and repository of the history of urban planning imaginations and, as such, can be considered an enormous mine for new ideas on the nature of the city.5 What is meant by this? Traditionally, urban planners (and architects, for that matter) are trained during their studies to operate likedata miners. Every new project is based on the hundreds and thousands of images ingested during the training they received at architecture school.

[J. Koerner, p. 132]

[Image 3]

[Image 4] Img. 3: SPAN, The Hollywood Hills invaded by the Gründerzeit grid of Vienna. The dark terracotta of Wienerberg roof shingles is certainly a feature that was recognized by the Neural Network, 2018

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This, of course, is an oversimplification of a highly complex pedagogical model, but admittedly at the very core, there is truth in this statement. Learning the trade of planning is a profoundly visual matter, amplified in the age of social distancing with Instagram, Slack, Zoom, at.studio, and Miro boards. This image-based tradition is exploited in the 2D-to-3D style transfer approach presented in Urban Fictions – Viennangeles. But let’s circle back to the ability of human perception to perform pattern recognition. One of the things the human mind is skilled at is recognizing events and objects. That also implies realizing that an error or mistake holds the potential for a creative solution to a problem.6 How can this problem, which is computationally rather tricky to grasp, be harnessed to be able to differentiate between a successful and unsuccessful image-to-image style transfer? This is where the aspects of the neural network’s Img. 4: SPAN, The lot of Paramount Pictures populated by the distinct scale of the grid of Vienna. The Gründerzeit housing block feels comfortable in the environment of Los Angeles, 2018

4 See Sources and Notes, p. 46 5 See Sources and Notes, p. 46 6 See Sources and Notes, p. 46

learned features come into play. Various layers in a neural network perform different tasks of recognizing features: edges, corners, blobs, ridges, etc. This is done to extract increasingly complex features of an image, starting on a low level and then increasing the level once the various layers of the network have been traversed. We can use trained neural networks to successfully quantify and define textures within images. In the context of urban maps, we can create a ‘city texture’ and hallucinate7 its specific features in other images of city plans. SPAN has developed a specific technique that harnesses the ability of neural style transfer to not only create a mash-up between existing cities, thus interrogating their underlying rule sets in terms of their material and symbolic culture, but also to expand it to include their inherent sensibilities. This approach breaks away from the traditional assumption in architecture regarding patterns as mere appliqués on volumetric objects and instead explores the organizational and aesthetic value intrinsic in these geometric configurations.8 Projects such as Barcelona Recursion,9 Recursion III,10 and Blocks11 are evidence within SPAN’s oeuvre of an obsession with algorithmically generated textures interrogated for their architectural qualities. On another note, these projects demonstrate another focus within the work of SPAN: the continuous questioning of the architect’s role in a field of tension between top-down authorship and the emergent agency of computational processes.12 Within this lineage, the project Urban Fictions – Viennangeles presented in this essay interrogates the ability of neural networks to serve as a cartographic device that measures 7 This essay does not discuss machine hallucinations but talks about 2D-to-3D neural style transfer. 8 See Sources and Notes, p. 46 9 SPAN 2011 10 SPAN 2011 11 See Sources and Notes, p. 46

and records underlying aesthetic conditions in the work of the architect. In this case, it is not intended as a tool of expediency that serves the purposes of optimization or rationalization but instead serves as a quasi intelligent machine for exploration. More specifically, this machine explores the combination of sensibility and input images. Lines, Surfaces, and Quasi-Intelligent Machines As laid out in the introduction to this essay, the urban map is a cultural staple of the architectural discipline. It is the vessel that best captures the intentionality of the urban project in an abstract medium as a two-dimensional surface. In architectural discourse, the line, the plan, the abstract representation of materiality has played a significant role, and it has always been interpreted as the result of human cognition. This can be illustrated as a core idea in the architectural theory of Leon Battista Alberti, for example, as expressed in his De re aedificatoria, regarding the distinction between “lineament,” the line in the mind of the architect, and “matter,” the material presence of the building.13 This particular distinction has played a crucial role in architectural design, and the conceptualization of the architectural project, throughout the history of Western architecture. Le Corbusier described it during the heyday of modernism in the 20th century as follows: “Architecture is a product of the mind.”14 The distinction between mind and matter can be found in Vitruvius’s work, in the distinction between “that which signifies and that which is signified,”15 at the Accademia di San Luca in Rome, between disegno interno and disegno esterno,16 or in Peter Eisenman’s distinction between profound aspect and surface

12 See Sources and Notes, p. 46 13 Hendrix, John S., 2011 14 Le Corbusier, 1970 15 Vitruvius 16 Hendrix, John S., 2011

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aspect17 in architecture, to name just three examples that profoundly describe the planning process as a particular ability of the human mind. What position does the discipline have when it comes to understanding the potentialities of applications such as NNs, which can produce results that question the exclusive authorship of human ingenuity? Well, there is always the chicken and egg problem: NN’s origins in the human mind. They can autonomously generate plan solutions in and of themselves that are not yet proof of thinking or even intelligence. However, if we take the philosophical standpoint of materialism, it allows us to create an even field between these two thinking processes. In a materialist tradition, thought itself is just the result of material processes in our brain, neurochemical reactions able to form a thought. If this position is taken, then the conclusion is that AIs are capable of thinking and forming original language18 or shapes19 as much as humans are — the only difference being that their neural processes are not based on neurochemical processes but rather computational processes within another material paradigm. But we digress.

[Image 5] Img. 5: SPAN, Silverlake, firmly in the grip of Viennese colors, edges, blobs and corners, 2018

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Urban Fictions – Viennangeles investigates the possibility of utilizing AI applications to generate design processes: in particular, the application of style transfers with NNs. This approach critically examines the unique position of the human mind when it comes to creative processes and, in addition, questions aspects of creativity in planning processes. In a design ecology where the boundaries between human and computational cognition are becoming 17 Eisenman, Peter D., 2020 18 See Sources and Notes, p. 46 19 See Sources and Notes, p. 46

increasingly blurred, the presented process combines the ability of neural networks to read and recognize features of a style image and combines them with a target image.

advocating for a reevaluation of the city with the aid of machine learning. It should be stated that this is only a first attempt in the area of the critical examination of planning in architecture in the age of AI. There is still a lot to be done. The results presented Viennangeles – An Overdue Reevaluation in this essay can only be seen as an initial effort to of Urban Density tap into the potentials of this approach, which could Urban Fictions – Viennangeles is an experiment in range from novel design directions that look at how exploring the combination of urban textures from machines see our world (with all the wonderfully existing cities. So, what did the neural network strange results in terms of morphologies, chromatlearn? Exploring the resulting images, it is still pos- ics, and possible theories) to profoundly pragmatic sible to read the inherent morphologies of Vienna approaches. Further research needs to be done to and Los Angeles: the tightly packed Gründerzeit dive deeper into the opportunities presented by grid of Vienna is squished into the undulating this approach to urban design. In that sense, the canyons of L.A., the soundstages of Universal Stuwork on this problem can be considered a work in dios are broken up into the heterogeneous texture progress. The refinement of the algorithm allows of Vienna’s Mariahilf District. The arid nature of for the continuation of the conversation laid out in Los Angeles is populated by the lush green of the this design methodology. We have already begun to Wienerwald and the Baroque gardens of Schönrefine this approach and to expand the code in order brunn and Belvedere. This thin line between utopia to understand the semantic information, crucial for and reality is precisely what makes these images a a well-informed design method. We are looking forcompelling proposal for a reevaluation of the urban ward to the in-depth exploration of this posthuman condition. Urban Fictions can also be read as a redesign ecology. sponse to the current criticism of the city in the light of the COVID-19 crisis.20 Instead of joining the choir praising life in the countryside as a remedy in times of social distancing, Urban Fictions – Viennangeles celebrates urbanity and its density as a possible, or somewhat necessary, future. The reasons why could fill tomes, but in short: architects understand that the city is (apart from being a symbol of human culture) a necessity for the responsible consumption of the planet’s resources. Instead of painting a gloomy dystopia (controlled by a pathogen), Urban Fictions relies on the possibility of lauding urbanity and 20 See Sources and Notes, p. 46

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Sources and Notes: 1 Carpo, Mario. The Second Digital Turn – Design Beyond Intelligence. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 2017. p. 70

9 SPAN 2011, first shown at the MAK in Vienna and subsequently acquired by the FRAC collections Orléans 10 SPAN 2012, first shown at the MAK in Vienna and subsequently acquired by the FRAC collections Orléans

2 Alberti, Leon Battista. De re aedificatoria. On the Art of Building in Ten Books. (Translated by Joseph Rykwert, Robert Tavernor, 11 See also Matias del Campo, “Moody Objects,” in Architectural and Neil Leach). Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 1988 Design 06, Vol. 86, 2016 and Evoking through Design: Contemporary Moods in Architecture. London: Wiley, 2016, pp. 54–57 3 Zaha Hadid Architects. Kartal Pendik Masterplan Istanbul. London, 2006 12 See also Matias del Campo, “Autonomous Tectonics: The Work of SPAN, between Autonomous Behavior and Cultural Agency,” 4 Just think about Patrik Schuhmacher’s theoretical oeuvre and Ph.D. dissertation, RMIT. Accessed August 21, 2020, the schism it has created in the discipline through provocation http://researchbank.rmit.edu.au/view/rmit:162717 with neoliberal statements, in the process creating a counterculture in digital design that is opposed to the neoliberal position 13 Hendrix, John S. “Leon Battista Alberti and the Concept of and adopts a leftist, accelerationist ideology instead. Lineament.” School of Architecture, Art, and Historic Preservation Faculty Publications, Paper 30, 2011 5 See also the discourse put forward in Michel Foucault’s Archaeology of Knowledge, which forms the basis for a critical interro14 Le Corbusier. Towards a New Architecture. New York: Praeger, gation of methodologies that use systems based on scouring the 1970, p. 202 internet for data to serve as the basis of a design. Foucault argues that the contemporary study of the history of ideas, although 15 Vitruvius. On Architecture, Volume I: Books 1–5. Translated by it targets moments of transition between historical worldviews, Frank Granger. Loeb Classical Library 251. Book One, Chapter ultimately depends on continuities that break down under close One: The Education of the Architect, 3. Cambridge, MA: Harvard inspection. The history of ideas marks points of discontinuity be- University Press, 1931, p. 7 tween broadly defined modes of knowledge, but the assumption that those modes exist as wholes fail to do justice to the complex- 16 Hendrix, John S. “Leon Battista Alberti and the Concept of ities of discourse. Foucault argues that “discourses” emerge and Lineament.” School of Architecture, Art, and Historic Preservation transform not according to a developing series of unarticulated, Faculty Publications, Paper 30, 2011. Accessed August 21, 2020, common worldviews, but according to a vast and complex set https://docs.rwu.edu/saahp-fp/30 of discursive and institutional relationships, which are defined as much by breaks and ruptures as by unified themes. Foucault, 17 Eisenman, Peter D. “Notes on Conceptual Architecture: Michel. The Archaeology of Knowledge. New York: Harper & Row, Towards a Definition.” Design Quarterly, no. 78/79, 1970, pp. 1–5. 1976 Accessed August 21, 2020, doi:10.2307/4047397 6 Greg Lynn, “Architectural Curvilinearity: The Folded, the Pliant 18 See, for example, the Bob & Alice experiment by the Facebook and the Supple,” Folding in Architecture, Architectural Design. AI Research group. Two chatbots were programmed to discuss London: Academy Group LTD, 1993, p. 13 economic problems with each other. Once the test ran overnight, the two bots started to develop their own language. 7 This essay does not discuss machine hallucinations but does talk about 2D-to-3D neural style transfer. 19 For example, the portrait of Edmond de Belamy created by the Paris-based art collective Obvious using a generative adversarial 8 See also Matias del Campo, “Moody Objects,” in Architectural network. It was sold at Christie’s for the sum of $432,000 and Design 06, Vol. 86, 2016 and Evoking through Design: Contempowas promoted by the auction house as “the first painting solely rary Moods in Architecture. London: Wiley, 2016, pp. 54–57 created by artificial intelligence.”

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20 See, for example, the article in Time magazine, “Architect Rem Koolhaas Says Redesigning Public Spaces Was Necessary before the Pandemic,” May 14, 2020. Accessed August 21, 2020, https://time.com/5836599/rem-koolhaas-architecturecoronavirus/

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UR Keywords: - Urban Planning - Driverless Cars - Suburbia - Smart Cars - American Dream - Autonomy - Housing Requirements - Place of Work / Place of Living - Suburban Developments

The Impact of Self-Driving Cars on a New American Urbanism Benjamin James

Such an assumption has always fit well into the ‘American Dream,’ which envisions a white-picketfence-lined house for everyone. Urban Scale Implications Previous iterations of this model have created negative developments of urban sprawl and suburban situations that didn’t take community or context into account. However, driverless cars create a stress-free commute in which a user is able to productively use their time (e.g., working on their way to their job). This negates the need to be out of, yet in close proximity to the city, meaning suburban developments would lose their fundamental appeal and people may choose to live in more isolated places. Questions regarding community and context are still pertinent, and perhaps would even become a driving market force, as opposed to that of minimum driving distance.2

Urban and architectural issues of space and time are being confronted in a very tangible way by the rise of driverless car technologies. These vehicles are heralding the potential for new levels of safety, increased mobility, and environmental benefits that suggest that they will become a part of our society within a few years. This case study looks at two possible urban implications of such a widespread adoption within the United States. In the first scenario, driverless cars are largely individually Architecture/Infrastructure Scale Implications owned — increased user satisfaction encourages more ownership and a greater importance is placed The increased efficiency of driverless cars allows existing infrastructure to be used more thoroughly, on cars as a part of an individual. In the second though additional investment may be required for scenario, driverless cars are shared as a new form upkeep.3 In addition, greater vehicle numbers would of mass transit and hybrid platform due to their require additional parking structures and places increased efficiency and potential for nonstop use. for recharging or refueling. The ‘smart’ nature of the cars could allow for them to be located on or Scenario 1 Widespread adoption of driverless cars reinvigorates outside the city periphery. urbanistic discourse and ideals from Congrès Internationaux d’Architecture Moderne (CIAM), in which there exists a separation of between places of work (the ‘City’) and places of living (the ‘Landscape’), as exemplified in cities like Brasilia.1 1 Mumford, E.P. ( 2002) . The CIAM Discourse on Urbanism, 1928–1960. MIT Press

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2 Howard, D. & Dai, D. (2014). “Public 3 Thierer, A. & Hagemann, R. (2015). “Reperceptions of self-driving cars: The case moving roadblocks to intelligent vehicles and of Berkeley, California.” Transportation driverless cars.” 5 Wake Forest JL & Pol’y 339 Research Board 93rd Annual Meeting. Vol. 14. No. 4502

[S. McCallum, p. 70]

Scenario 2 The autonomous nature of driverless cars allows for them to be used as a new form of hybrid public transportation. As a result, individual car ownership decreases without causing a dip in transportation efficiency, and cities are regarded as more convenient places to live. Urban Scale Implications More efficient cities with less stress regarding transportation would create incentive for people to increase the density of urban areas. Intelligent vehicles would also allow for urban layouts based less on car paths and more on alternative modes of transportation, especially pedestrian traffic.4 Architecture/Infrastructure Scale Implications Increased density of urban areas will result in additional housing requirements. However, the increased efficiency of vehicles will result in less need for existing parking structures, which could be converted into new typologies, including inhabitable structures.

[Image 1]

[Image 2]

4 Litman, T. (2017). “Autonomous vehicle implementation predictions.” Victoria Transport Policy Institute

Img. 1: Royal Historical Society of Victoria (RHSV), Harvey Wiley Corbett’s ‘City of the Future,’ 1913

Img. 2: Courtesy of the Photo Collection – Levittown, Aerial Image of Levittown, 1948

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[S. Belitskaja, G. Dagan, G. Popp, D. Rüßkamp, S. Yang, p. 36]

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The Permanently Temporary Viktoria Sandor

Keywords: - Urban Planning - Temporary Architecture - New Structures - Spatial Division - Artificial Intelligence - Urban Density - Communication - Environmental Changes - Physical Materials

Temporary architecture is “…neither a thing nor a concept, but a continual flux of process.”5

Ephemeral In a world of constant change, making accurate predictions of the future is challenging. The increasing complexity of captured and predicted data generates plentiful constraints on long-term decisions. Since the number of significant decision constraints1 is directly proportional to the degree of decision risk,2 this has a major impact on the speed of decision-making3 processes. The higher the risk, the slower the process.

Temporary architecture, by the limits of its existence, transforms ‘nothing’ into ‘something’ and makes it ‘nothing’ again. Unlike multifunctional architecture, in which flexibility and/or transformation is embedded in the design, the value of temporary architecture lies in its ability to both functionalize and de-functionalize space. Its ability to appear and disappear allows the urban volume to adapt to local conditions as needed. In this sense, the level of spatial adaptation is determined by three main factors: the speed and resolution of demand recognition (sense), the duration of the construction and deconstruction of spaces (macro act), and the level of ability to transform and reorganize local conditions (micro act).

In the Age of Gravity-Independent Architecture To progress in new directions and avoid locked-in patterns of behavior, new systems are needed to Temporariness or ephemerality by definition is instigate change. The project “The Permanently the quality of lasting, existing, serving or affecting Temporary” (“TPT,” developed as my diploma for a certain period of time only.4 Its value lies in the guarantee of the limited existence of its subject thesis) assumes that the implementation of ephemeral architectural systems in cities may bring new and the reduced weight of the consequences of its responses to the fluctuating value of space and effects. While the decisions we make in the ‘world bring about changes in the applications of our built of permanence’ fix positions for longer periods, in the ‘world of the ephemeral,’ decisions are affective environment. It believes that temporary architecture, due to its defined short period of physical operation only in the short term. Such decisions have fewer constraints and lower risks, allowing decision-mak- and lower level of responsibility compared to that of ing mechanisms to be accelerated and aligned with long-lived structures, could increase the adaptive capacity and responsiveness of the built environment. the pace of local and global change in the society, Temporary architecture provides ideal platforms for technology, environment, etc. spatial adventures. 1 See Sources and Notes, p. 58 2 See Sources and Notes, p. 58 3 See Sources and Notes, p. 58

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4 Online (Available) 5 Kelly, K. (1994). Out of Control: the New http://www.dictionary.com/browse/ Biology of Machines, Social Systems and the temporariness Economic World

TPT: Architecture is our tool for spatial division. To increase the potentials of physical space for human use, buildings with their defined envelopes subtract space from the volume of the city and increase their independence from externally controlled conditions. These subtracted volumes — the interiors — are then subdivided by artificially generated vertical, horizontal, diagonal, etc. elements to expand their usability along x, y and z axes. This general method of spatial densification has been shaping our cities for centuries.

[Image 2]

[iheartblob, p. 112]

To increase the density of a given urban volume (without expanding it in x-y directions), instead of permanently isolating more space from the exterior and creating further subdividable interior volumes, TPT promotes the temporary isolation of outdoor spaces. By recording the fluctuation frequencies of the used capacity in the interior and exterior volumes of the city, potential sites for temporary architecture are detected. These ideal sites for ephemeral functions are vacant lots, residual urban spaces, and forgotten platforms within the landscape of the built environment. Other than roofs, terraces, spatial gaps and niches that are over-regulated or do not provide the required conditions for permanent architecture to appear, TPT detects transitionally semi-used or unused ‘snoozed zones,’ streets and urban junctions whose usage capacity can be potentially increased, but only during determined time intervals.

[Image 1]

[Image 3] Img. 1: Viktoria Sandor, TPT – Scene 2, the Event Pointcloud Visualization. Flibri Flocks Attracted to the Predesigned Event Space to Provide Shelter, 2016

Img. 2: Viktoria Sandor, TPT – Scene 2, the Event Footage Frame, 2016

Img. 3: Viktoria Sandor, Scene 4, the New Ground Footage Frame, 2016

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[Image 5]

[Image 4] Img. 4: Viktoria Sandor, The Evolution of Interior-Exterior Division, 2017

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[Image 6] Img. 5: Viktoria Sandor, Vienna, Map of Vacant Land and Empty Platforms, 2016

Img. 6: Viktoria Sandor, Vienna, TPT Vision, Flibri Flock Activates Snoozed Zones in the City, 2016

TPT focuses primarily on intensification strategies based on detecting unused spaces in the city with the integration of time. To detect those, TPT uses Vienna as a case study and relies on the analysis of its noise intensity and traffic flow maps and the overlay of these two elements. To increase the density of the existing urban fabric, the project not only detects infrequently used outdoor areas but also synchronizes the appearance of temporary architecture with the changing capacity usage of the interior and exterior spaces. Through the implementation of ephemeral architecture, the permanent interiors — neighboring the detected ‘snoozed streets’ — expand their areas and volumes towards the exterior, on demand. The optimized physical fluctuation of space, determined by human occupation, frees indoor square meters from current usage and thereby the intensification of the city. What is the form of communication between spatial claim and transformation (audio communication6/ visual communication,7 telecommunication8/wireless communication9)? How does the temporary design of space react to the changing demands (smart design10/intelligent design11/interactive design12/responsive design13)? And who controls and executes the construction and deconstruction of the temporary architecture?

TPT envisions a new urban infrastructure whose elementary units are identical, mobile in all three dimensions of the space, able to communicate with the city and its citizens, unmanned, able to selforganize, and able to form inhabitable structures and control climatic conditions. Due to the identical properties of the units, their functionality is not individually specified. This allows them to take on any tasks determined by the spatial requirements of the city and in certain cases, can be replaced by any other units of the infrastructural system. Due to their three-dimensional mobility in space, movement within the city is independent from the movements of the citizens and other ‘gravitydependent’ objects. The infrastructural units ‘flow’ above the city in order to avoid intersections with other types of urban traffic that may result in congestions.

The units can receive information from the real-time status of the urban space through communication with global servers, citizens and urban planners. They can be directed towards the locations where there is a need for temporary spatial operation, while their ability to sense the environment (radiation, airflow, humidity) makes them useful tools for collecting real-time data. The infrastructure becomes the medium for tempo“When the building elements of ephemeral architec- rary architecture. It provides the physical material to ture fly and self-organize according to the spatial isolate and subdivide the temporary semi-interiors demands, the urban space transformation becomes from the exterior. The predesigned static or responsmooth and fluid.” sive augmented envelopes (defined by architects) attract the infrastructural units, which then populate those and become the building blocks of the 6 See Sources and Notes, p. 58 7 See Sources and Notes, p. 58 8 See Sources and Notes, p. 58 9 See Sources and Notes, p. 58

10 See Sources and Notes, p. 58 11 See Sources and Notes, p. 58 12 See Sources and Notes, p. 58 13 See Sources and Notes, p. 58

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short-lived spaces. The quality of the resulting semi-interiors and the level of their isolation from the exterior depend on the quantity of the populating units and their positioning. Their primary goal is not to produce complete separation between the interior and exterior spaces of the urban volume, but rather to create a transitional zone (semiinterior, semi-exterior) where the required comfort for the users can be achieved with moderate climatic control.14 The project distinguishes between two different unit configuration strategies: the ‘gravity-dependent’ and the ‘gravity-independent.’ In gravity-independent configurations, each unit relies on itself without dependencies. Its failure should not affect the space. If the units of the space are ‘independent from gravity,’ the space itself also becomes independent. In that sense, the ability to create flying architecture redefines the entire notion of structure. It is no longer a physically interconnected, self-supported system, but rather a communication-based, pixelized, porose and fluid entity. With this new definition of the ‘structure,’ we could also redefine the design constraints of artificial spaces. As an example, we could imagine and realize open spaces covered with infinite horizontal surfaces, or envelopes which can change their porosities and densities in real time on a large scale. The other strategy is applied once the real-time changing factor of the configuration is reduced. In such cases, the units can modify the populated envelope into static, gravity-dependent structures. Each unit can be seen as functioning as a ‘basic brick’ that

can be assembled and reassembled to suit various needs. If the configuration sees potential in resting, its core becomes a space frame. Once the units are assembled the structure becomes self-supportive. The distribution of the tensile and compressive forces, the rigidity, and the ability of the structure to de-form locally makes it safe and reliable. Thanks to the communication between each unit, they can recognize their individual positions within the overall geometry and will then maneuver to their set position. During the assembly process, the units analyze their global structural performance and calibrate themselves accordingly for optimization, adding or subtracting units at weak points. While external systems (global servers, augmented envelopes) determine the main orders, destinations, and the duration of spatial operation, they do not individually define the accurate flight trajectories for each unit. The default movement between the destinations are controlled locally. Each unit follows the rules of cohesion (steered to move toward the average position of local flock mates), separation (steered to avoid crowding local flock mates), and alignment (steered toward the average heading of local flock mates), and becomes part of the collective behavior without any central coordination. The intelligence of the unit is defined by the radius of its perceivable environment. The greater this radius is, the more complex the feedback system it creates within the infrastructure is.

14 See Sources and Notes, p. 58

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[Image 7] Img. 7: Viktoria Sandor and Abraham Fung, TPT – Flibri Assembly and Specifications, 2016

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[Image 8]

[Image 9] Img. 8: Viktoria Sandor, TPT – Scene 3, the Playground. Drawing, 2017

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Due to the communication skills of the units and their three-dimensional mobility, they are not only the physical materials of the created spaces, but also the constructors and deconstructors of the designed configurations. The infrastructure is responsible for the entire production line of temporary architecture in the city (transport, construction, transformation, deconstruction). Independently from any external physical supports (form work, scaffolding), the time it takes for temporary architecture to ‘appear and disappear’ is reduced. The units of the infrastructure create climatically controllable zones not only through the isolation of the temporary spaces from the exterior, but also through their ability to radiate heat and direct light. In that sense, the units can operate individually and, without the support of the whole, can improve the conditions of the existing interior and exterior spaces. As an example, the flying units can redirect natural sunlight to indoor spaces without getting into physical contact with them. They potentially become the detached attachments to the network of interiors and can thereby reshuffle the values of the built environment. With these properties, such an infrastructure provides real-time reactivity and responses to the changing spatial demands of the city. Its capability for self-organization and communication with external systems creates a good balance between centralized control and decentralized behavior. Thinking of the built environment as the ‘hardscape’15 of the city, by the integration of a fluid, ‘gravityindependent’ architectural infrastructure, a new ‘softscape’16 starts to operate. The softscape, which alternates between its flowing and hardening Img. 9: Viktoria Sandor, TPT – Scene 3, the Playground. Point Cloud Visualization, 2016

15 See Sources and Notes, p. 58 16 See Sources and Notes, p. 58

behavior, becomes the primary tool for updating the cities that we have lived in for centuries — by improving their adaptivity to the ever-changing trends of life. The essence of temporary architecture in the city is defined not only by the artificial space it creates, but also by the infrastructure that ensures its appearance and demise. It is an intrinsically complex system that must evolve in a continuous dialogue with all the defining components of urban life.

[Image 10] Img. 10: Viktoria Sandor, TPT – Scene 3, the Playground: Physical Model, 2016

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10: Smart design is most frequently used for materials and surfaces with ‘embedded technological function’ (see D. Michelle 1: In the decision-making situations of real life, a course of action, Addington and Daniel Schodek, Smart Materials and Technolto be acceptable, must satisfy a whole set of requirements, or ogies for Architecture and Design Professions, Oxford: Elsevier constraints. Sometimes one of these requirements, or constraints, Architectural Press, 2005) that involve specific environmental is singled out and referred to as the goal of the action. responses operating through internal physical property change Gary Goertz, “Constraints, Compromises, and Decision Making,” or external energy exchange. The characteristics of such materials The Journal of Conflict Resolution, Vol. 48, No. 1, Feb. 2014 and surfaces are immediacy (real-time response), transiency (responsive to more than one environmental state), self-actuation 2: Decision risk is the risk of changing strategies at the point of (internal intelligence), selectivity (response to discrete and premaximum loss. dictable), directness (response is local to the activation events). In John L. Maginn, CFA, Donald L. Tuttle, CFA, Dennis W. smart design, no external source of power is needed to instigate McLeavey, CFA, Jerald E. Pinto, CFA, Managing Investment Portchange. folios: A Dynamic Process, 3rd ed., 2007 11: Their goal is to optimize the building system relative to 3: Decision-making is the process of identifying and choosing climate, energy balance (based on prediction models), and alternatives based on the values, preferences and beliefs of the human comfort. The characteristics of intelligent systems are decision-maker. environmental characterization, cognition characterization (information system, expert system, artificial intelligence), and 4: Online (Available) http://www.dictionary.com/browse/ implementation characterization (special methods for operation temporariness and control). The ‘intelligent’ differs from ‘smart’ mainly in its control and behavior. While smart is an intrinsic material prop5: Kevin Kelly. “Hive Mind.” In: Out of Control: The New Biology erty which leads to functionality, intelligent systems are primarily of Machines, Social Systems and the Economic World. Basic Books, controlled through computation and automation. On one hand, 1994 smart material/surface behavior is binary and limited to control and intelligent systems have more variables, on the other hand, 6: Sharing of information between individuals by using sound other than intelligent systems, smart materials/surfaces do not necessarily require external power to function. 7: Information exchange in forms that can be seen by the use of light as transmission medium 12: Less frequently used to define building envelopes and fundamentally requires human input! 8: Communication over a distance by cable, telegraph, telephone or broadcasting 13: It describes “how natural and artificial systems can interact and adapt.” (Philip Beesley, Sachiko Hirosue, and Jim Ruxton, 9: Transfer of information or power between two or more points Responsive Architectures. Subtle Technologies 06, Cambridge: that are not connected by an electrical conductor. The most Riverside Architectural Press, 2008, p. 3). A responsive system is common wireless technologies use radio waves. similar to intelligent systems but always includes real-time sensing while “both the user and the system are capable of shaping an unlimited set of performance outcomes. … Rather than the designer predetermining appropriate responses to user inputs, the system measures reaction to its outputs and continually modifies its action according to these responses.” (D. Michelle Addington and Daniel Schodek, Smart Materials and Technologies for Architecture and Design Professions, Oxford: Elsevier Architectural Press, 2005). Responsive systems have the capacity to learn and create a coevolutionary interaction between building, inhabitant and environment. Sources and Notes:

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14: There is an assumption that the domain of human comfort temperature is wider in the exterior. While in indoor spaces, according to a study by Weilin Cui, Guoguang Cao, Jung Ho Park, Qin Ouyang, Yingxin Zhu (“Influence of indoor air temperature on human thermal comfort, motivation and performance,” Building and Environment, Vol. 68, October 2013, pp. 114–122), the optimum temperature range for performance is between 22°C and 26°C, the outdoor comfort zone may differ from that. (Tsuyoshi, Honjo, Thermal Comfort in Outdoor Environment, Faculty of Horticulture, Chiba University, 2009) 15: I am using the word ‘hardscape’ for the artificial, statically operating built environment. 16: I am using the word ‘softscape’ for the artificial, dynamically operating built environment.

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UR Keywords: - Urbanism - Social Design - European Union - Economic Conditions - Temporality - Informal Settlements - Border Conditions - Markets - Social and Economic Networks

Terminale Lauren Ly Oliver Alunovic

The Bosnian border to Croatia is one of the most unresolved borderlines outside of the European Union. Due to resolved military conflicts and a high unemployment rate, a lot of unutilized military and industrial infrastructure is situated close to the line, waiting to be taken over.

[M. Juul Frost, p. 140]

Urban Economy An informal settlement on the outskirts of the European Union is confronting the rigid legislative and bureaucratic system of the latter. Through There will be an urbanism that arises from the looser regulations, and a generally weaker economy, restricted access policies of the European Union. specific economic conditions will arise through Cities will grow on the borders within the the interplay of two different bureaucratic systems. European Union, as these places often serve as The economies outside of the European Union will interesting melting points between two very become much more dynamic and therefore different economic or legislative conditions. prosperous. A specific form of market tourism might appear, with settlers of the European Union Urban Design consuming products and services that are only The fictional city of Terminale is an imagined city that will emerge on the border between Croatia and available at these informal market spaces. One day, Bosnia. The City will be formed by settlers who ini- these markets will be institutionalized and grow into tially try to cross the border towards the European competitors of actual markets inside of the European Union. Union. As Europe’s anti-foreigner policy becomes radicalized and security measures around the border Time & Space increase, less people will be able to transverse the border. Nevertheless, an increasing mass of refugees Terminale is being visualized over three time leaps: in 2020, 2035 and 2091. will converge on the outlines of the EU. They will settle temporarily, in the hope that one day it might become possible for them to cross the ever-increas- New Typologies People have settled temporarily, in the hope that one ing border. day, a passage across the border might become possible. The permanent condition of people arriving at the border, with hardly anyone getting through, has led to an informal settlement formed by tents, huts, temporary first aid facilities, and cars.

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[Image 2]

[C .a. Kumpusch, p. 109]

[Image 1]

Img. 1:, Img. 2: O. Alunovic, L. Ly, The Growth of the City of Terminale along the Borderline, 2018

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[S. Belitskaja, G. Dagan, G. Popp, D. Rüßkamp, S. Yang, p. 34]

Human Body Extension “The globe stinks for those who own it, for the displaced or the dispossessed, the migrant or refugee, no distance is greater than a few feet across borders.” Temporary protective huts will become settlements. A body needs a temporary shelter, these shelters will lead to the possession of building plots. Social Media The entanglement of a network of people around the globe is leading to the financial success of the Terminale settlement. As the first citizens are stuck at the borderline, they will soon start to organize themselves and create economic and social networks. Soon, more settlers will arrive from the home countries of the first settlers, shifting their main goal from getting across the border to the creation of a permanent settlement.

[Image 3]

Img. 3: O. Alunovic, L. Ly, Settling Down along the Border; Waiting for an Opportunity to Cross the Fence. Temporary Constructions Will Be Permanent, 2018

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[Image 4] Img 4: O. Alunovic, L. Ly, Migrants Fixing Temporary Tents and Shelters along the Border; NGOs and the Red Cross Are the Dominant Forces. First Trades and Economic Opportunities Emerge, 2018

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[Image 5] Img. 5: O. Alunovic, L. Ly, Suburbia; Along the fence of the border, the patrols built up towers to defend the dead man’s land between the neighboring countries.

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Trespassing became almost impossible. The tents developed to form suburban conditions. Supermarkets and vegan food trucks can be found within the city grid. Brick houses, tents and trailers form a vital neighborhood, 2018

“‫ ونعامل الشرطة الكرواتية معاملة‬، ‫من أسرة متعلمة‬ ‫ وأنا‬، ‫نحن أشخاص متعلمون‬. ‫ لكن قلبي مكسور‬، ‫ أنا رجل ولا يجب أن أبكي‬.‫ سنة‬11 ‫ ابنتي‬.‫الحيوانات‬ .‫ لكنت قد رجعت منذ فترة طويلة‬، ‫لدي أطفال‬ ‫”إذا لم يكن‬ “We are educated people, I am from an educated family, and we are being treated like animals by the Croatian police. My daughter is 11. I am a man and I should not cry, but my heart is broken. If I didn’t have children, I would have moved back a long time ago.” - Azam, 39, Afghanistan

[Image 6]

[Image 7] Img. 6: O. Alunovic, L. Ly, Suburbia, 2018

Img. 7: O. Alunovic, L. Ly, Suburbia; The Development of the Hospital of Terminale over the Years, 2018

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[Image 8]

Img. 8: O. Alunovic, L. Ly, March 2091 at the Border between Croatia and Bosnia, 2018

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“Roden sam kao farmer, ali gospodarstvo je stagniralo. Radove sam našao samo u Zagrebu dok tecno govorim bosanski i engleski. Ovdje se naseljavaju male industrije, jer je ovdje jeftinije nego na drugoj strani.” “I was born as a farmer, but the economy was stagnating. I only found work in Zagreb as I speak fluent Bosnian and English. Small industries settle here, as it is generally cheaper here than on the other side.” - Eduard, 50, Bosnia, Bihac

[Image 9]

[Image 10] Img. 9: O. Alunovic, L. Ly, Migrants Living in an Abandoned House in Bihac, 2018

Img. 10: O. Alunovic, L. Ly, Warehouse and Factory, 2018

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Societal Scale Projects in this section look at topics which address aggregations of people and cultural identities as they relate to the environment around them. The topics in this section have a strong relationship to those on an urban scale as both address interconnections and aggregations of smaller-scale topics.

[ c76, m29, y19, k04 ]

SO

[MAEID, p. 19]

SO

The American Dream and Its Gamelike Topology Shaun McCallum

Keywords: - The American Dream - Suburbia - Endless Runner Games - Flexibility and Customization - Centralization - Societal Constructs - Technology - Social Status - Globalization

akin to the popular mobile game Temple Run. Endlessly, the user runs, collecting coins, jumping hurdles, and avoiding enemies — the parallels to life in the fabricated American Dream are beyond uncanny. If the player falls from an edge or is caught by an enemy, the game restarts from square one, however, the more it is played, the more privilege can be seen playing its role. As you collect points and bonuses, your start becomes expedited, so you rarely begin with a score of 0 because you have garnered “shoulders to stand on.” The promise is that The image of domesticity over the past 100 years even after liquidation, you can start again without has been largely propagandized by the ideology of any consequences, yet, we all know who is afforded the American Dream, whose image is constructed primarily with terms like ‘optimistic’ (cough), ‘naive’ this luxury. There is no death, only a never-ending loop of longing. You can never win and you will (cough), ‘privileged’ (cough) and upward mobility, heavily fueled by the standardization of consumerist never stop playing. From a formal architectural point of view, this is exemplified through a copious objects and the efficiency of mass production duplication of ubiquitous American suburbia. alongside a ‘can-do’ attitude.

Architecture’s primary role in the American Dream is the provision of image: it is the one commodity which pertains to the idea that all of you are living the American Dream. It has helped to position the importance of our societal status with regards to that of the object: our homes are commodities and therefore so is our societal status. The architecture of suburbia becomes an emblem of a middle-class status, therein it becomes a tool enabling societal segregation. This propagandized structure can more rationally be compared to the popularized endless runner mobile games. The Endless Runner The structure which the architecture of the American suburbs enables is that of an ‘endless runner,’

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Ubiquitous American Suburbia Ironically, the duplication of American suburbia is primarily sold to players as a flexible, customizable and somewhat affordable commodity that one must own before the homes are rebranded, which sheds light on the future of living in everything from kitchen gizmos to virtual reality headsets. Although, the claim of flexibility may be visible in the furnishings or the color of the walls, the spatial arrangement of the plan utilities tried and tested tropes reliant on the idea of efficiency of mass production and industry standards, but where the ‘flexibility’ of spatial living is certainly not flexible. Mass copies of homes directly contribute to the system of mass production and mass consumption, generating a mass humanity with collective goals and ambitions

[B. James, p. 48]

world builder, in which its impact, although dystopian in nature, expands beyond the built form and is reflected upon an unfortunate societal imprinting. This overlap between architecture and the video game world of the endless runner is key in considering where architecture may find purchase, as the images of our reality no longer live physically but as images on our mobile devices, scrawled across social media feeds. The platform for the architect fits precisely into the world of image creation. From Drawn by Tim, Age 7 video game worlds to augmented reality experiences, Architecture deploys a child’s vision of the home these curated worlds that are interlaced with our in order to procure mass adoption. It is one so own are what will hold the thread of the architect’s ingrained in our psyche, it can be consumed by all impact intact. The architect’s role is no longer conwith ease. Now, of course, this image has become an structing built projects but rather the construction infographic, the ubiquitously known ‘home’ button of images which build worlds. across the entire world. The centralized colored door anchors the home, the windows are aligned like eyes wide open, a pitched roof sits atop its frame. The garage outlines your car, which sits in the driveway alongside the greenest grass this side of the fence. The white picket fence lines the yard, defining the boundary of your territory, outlining what is yours with pride beyond belief. Each home, duplicated side by side, each with a boundary, each facade color chosen in earnest from the defined shades of pastel. Yet somehow, it all only depicts an ordinary world, that has been carefully curated — like a kind of developer-led societal normcore. to produce and consume, to have more. Architecture’s willingness to contribute to globalization is crystal clear in the image it generates, in its divisive role in propagandizing the American Dream, expediting the movement from centralized commerce to suburban infrastructure and the provision of homes for it — the construct and the allure of the suburban home and its specific iconography begins to subtly destabilize centralization.

[M. Volkova, p. 125]

The Last Frontier Architecture situates itself at the intersection of technology and societal construct, its action as a world builder is its future. The American Dream exposes the role of the architect as a constructor of image, a

[Image 1] Img. 1: Shaun McCallum, Dream Agency – For Sale, 2021

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[J. Kovaricek, p. 30]

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

Reconciliation between the Individual and Digitization Merve Sahin

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

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

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

Img. 1: Merve Sahin, Invitation, 2018

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[Image 2]

Img. 2: Merve Sahin, Art for Free, 2018

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[M. del Campo, p. 40]

#cognition #mapping There are many subjective parameters for how people perceive places. To further develop this thought, I would like to give an example: a sensorial mapping of London’s bridges by the artist Nigel Peake.4 This highly subjective mapping illustrates relations on a personal level to an urban environment. Colors, textures, forms, time, personal history, experiences, memories: they are all the input of the artist, who has a personal cognition behind it. How sensorial mapping is different from a digital data collection is that sensorial mapping is reductionist and selective. Human cognition creates relations in a random or unpredictable way that limits our understanding of them. Here, the artist neglects actual locations, forms and functions. The question for me is therefore not whether data projection can have all the information layers of the urban environment. The problem with this is that the collected data would have so many nonspecific, independent layers. Also, they wouldn’t have any hierarchical relations to another like a human would due to the lack of personal history or belonging to space.

developed by designers.5 Architects and designers accumulate knowledge, observation and experience over many years and bring together objective and subjective tools of analysis, abstraction, drawing, modeling and presentation in a single design. While doing so, they appreciate, valorize and prioritize certain aspects of an existing context that shows us that architecture can also flourish in a cultural environment. That is why I would rather be discussing the future process with questions such as “Does AI have a cultural background that belongs to a nation, an ideology?” as well. This would show that we were interrogating the machine, the interpretation of data, the relation of a human with space in various contexts. It would mean that there would still be a possibility for human understanding of the interpretation of data. Interpretation of urban space is more than ‘This person is happy, this person is not.’ It is about human action. How do we move? Where do we stop? What is our eye catching? On an abstract level, how do we relate to space? Our actions are complex systems that are happening in the moment. But what artificial intelligence, neural networks, or humanoids can analyze is more on #actofdesign #architecturalthinking the surface, hard facts. An architectural drawing Moving on from artists, we could also try to can operate simultaneously along four strands of understand how architects and designers might time. First, there is the real situation of the present. relate to their design in an existing context in this Second, there is a past time, conditions grounded manner. As designers, our tools are abstract and in the content of our knowledge, which may be subjective. The idea starts in our brain, stimulated translated as memory, what has been thought. Third, by our observations, sensorial relations, context, there is a view of all possible time, which gives history, what to protect, what to bring forward rise to countless meanings, which in the common with the design proposal, and what to eliminate. relational sense, are all nearly possible ones. Design thinking refers to the cognitive, strategic and “A fourth strand of time activates the simultaneity of practical processes by which design concepts are all three as a poetic time…”6 4 Peake, N. (2011). Bridges: XXXIV crossings of the Thames. London: Nigel Peake

5 Visser, W. (2006). The Cognitive Artifacts of Designing. Mahweh, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates

6 Lewis, D. (2014). “Disegno.” In: Shining Dark Territories: 100 thoughts on architecture. Pisa: Edizioni ETS, 15–24

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Considering the harsh contrast between architectural thinking and the development of the machine, it seems like it would take more time and effort to create an artificial intelligence that operates on multidimensional time, the world of possibilities, and hidden intentions. However, even the development level of data collecting and interpretation is not enough for the completion of a design process. What AI can do now seems to be working well for corporations such as Google, Microsoft, IBM, Facebook and Apple. They are in control of data projection and they tend to use digitization and usage of data in the most efficient way, in favor of the capital in the urban realm. Human action in the streets, squares, public transportation, and common spaces is analyzed in favor of the most efficient, “the easiest, the fastest, the most profitable, the smartest,” but not the most human way. So returning to the point about the mismatch of cultures, I believe the real danger would be the misuse of data. Yet ‘theory of mind’ at this point might be the next step for the architectural implementations of artificial intelligence. The skills that have been studied under this theory are seen as a way of bridging between high-level cognitive phenomena and low-level perceptual systems. Constructing the foundational skills for a machine and link between these two realms might be the next step towards preventing urban space production from becoming a dull mechanism. The urban realm is the product of humans. So, the mentality behind the digital operations should recreate itself with the vocabulary of social sciences in combination with the design discipline. Future public space should be reinvented

by trying to humanize what is in danger of becoming inhumane. Design is the spirit, the idea, the intention, the project, the structure, the support, the sheet of paper, the black of the line, the line on white, the line alone. It is also the beauty, the quality, la bella maniera, the criteria of evaluation… It is the sketch, the outline, the rendering, the work itself. It is the work even before it exists; it is the work that already exists. It is the shadow of the image that will spread across the surface, and the completed image already before our eyes. It is the transparency of the work, which is revealed in all its perfection, the opacity of emptiness from which it appears.7/8 The vocabulary of design brings together intangible layers, such as time, memory, intentionality, casual encounters within built and unbuilt environments. All social relations that we form in a city are reflected upon in our built public environment because the design urban realm itself is the product of the human mind. #socialskills #humanoid #simulation The study of ‘social robots’ however is still a challenge for engineers. The debate over the process of introducing the theory of mind is raising many questions about the brain, its learning process, and its implementation into a digital embodiment. An experiment conducted at MIT by Brian Michael Scassellati for his doctorate research project “Foundations for a Theory of Mind for a Humanoid Robot,” tackled the idea of developing a natural learning process for robots interacting with people under certain parameters. The most promising teaching method for AI regarding human behavior is making a robot watch a person acting in their 7/8 Joselita C. (2014). Un art paradoxal: La notion de disegno en Italie XVe-XVIe, 160 Wizniewski, D. (2014). “Perspectival Shining.” In: Shining Dark Territories: 100 thoughts on architecture. 100 thoughts on architecture. Pisa: Edizioni ETS, 25–38

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[Image 3] Img. 3: Merve Sahin, Glitch Your Machine, 2018

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#protest #virtual #uselessdata #individualunderobservation To conclude, I would like to reflect on the questions that have been raised on digitization of urban space, digital tools and their comparison, and design thinking, with a visual narration. The short visual story I would like to introduce invites people to act in a way in which they, as individuals, create actions that have the potential to show the least efficient way of using urban space. The exaggerated timeframe of actions, repetitions, dislocated objects, aimless actions, introducing artistic interventions, bringing together or isolating groups, playing with senses via colors, textures, smells, are only a starting point and are aimed at triggering series of actions that disrupt the understanding of data collection. When it comes to architectural thinking of urban spaces, collected data should sometimes be useless, funny, clever or misleading. They should include culture, history, time, memory and emotions. Whoever decides to join in on this game and would like to glitch their machines accepts the task of producing inefficient data. They can choose from a list that is only a starting point, or create their own actions, #urbanfuture #machinemustglitch be it a five-second dance party or jumping up and In a future scenario, where the urban realm is under- down five times in each corner, watching the sunset stood as a place where machine and human coexist, everyday, or leaving behind traces using flowers… I would like to think of individuals as becoming These acts are exceptions to the rule, express personteaching agents, in contrast to human actions being ality, use space unexpectedly, and hopefully, let the only one branch of numerous data sets. machine glitch. The individual and their desires, emotions, cultures: all in all, personal tendencies should be understood as the ruling mechanism of digitization of urban space, instead of implementing the data for the control of the individual in urban space. natural course as this offers a chance for robots to also understand the process behind an act performed in an isolated space. The robot should be faced with clear, repetitive, sometimes exaggerated gestures in order to fully comprehend what the person is doing. The actions start with basic skills such as eye following and complexity builds up gradually. In this case, the speed of the actor, number of objects, number of gestures, facial expressions, angles between subject and object, and background noises have to be kept under control, and then the robot starts to develop a vocabulary for the psychological actions and mental processes behind them. Within the same scope, Winfield wants to develop that understanding through “simulation theory of mind,” an approach to AI that lets robots internally simulate the anticipated needs and actions of people, things and other robots — and use the results (in conjunction with preprogrammed instructions) to determine an appropriate response. In other words, such robots would run an onboard program that models their own behavior in combination with that of other objects and people.

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[MAEID, p. 26]

SO Keywords: - Time Measurement - Environmental Change - Time Tracking Devices - Temporal Architecture - Material Change - Future Travel - Time Perception - Architectural Style Periods - Perception

[M. Tingen, p. 145]

A Brief History of Human Time Since the beginning of mankind, humans have always been interested in determining their exact temporal location. Before the invention of time measurement tools, people relied on the observation of the ever-changing materiality around them. Even before the first calendars were fabricated, people relied on changes in temperature, light, humidity and star constellations to navigate their being, adapt to their surroundings, and improve their overall living conditions. Although they are not scientifically documented, the techniques of determining time through environmental change were frantically analyzed and have been applied throughout history up to the present. Time measurement devices date back to 8000 BC, which suggests that even hunter-gatherers had the need and the sophistication to track time using natural resources, such as light or water.1 Despite orientation in time being as important to humans as shelter, considering the fact that temporal changes always accompany changes of behavior and habitat, why do we still struggle to find spatiality for the temporal, and when we do, what are we facing?

Time and Change Anastasia Shesterikova

Working with the Temporal The most common example of working against time in every day life could be found in the constant restoration of architecture, whether that is repairs around the house or the preservation of landmarks. All these actions try to reconstruct the previous state of an object. In that sense, architecture oftentimes seeks the absence of change throughout time, thinking of an object as timeless and indestructible. Yet, in nature, everything undergoes transformation and is still perceived as a whole. So why does an unnatural behavior in the built world seem so adequate? From A to B In Bernard Tschumi’s The Manhattan Transcripts, the relationship between space and the event is explored, concluding that one relies on the other for its existence. Since the use of the word ‘event’ rather than ‘program’ implies a much stronger relation to time, the connection between happenings in time and space becomes more evident. In Tschumi’s eyes, an event creates the space within architecture as bodies move through it. He illustrates his thoughts using linear diagrams that indicate a clear and linear transition from state A to state B over a period of time.2 But do human beings actually behave like this, or is this again a simplified perception of our behavior in relation to time? And what would happen if our perception of time and events shifted towards not going hand in hand anymore?

1 https://www.scientificamerican.com/ article/a-chronicle-of-timekeeping-2006-02/

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2 Tschumi, B. (1981). The Manhattan Transcripts. Wiley

As we face drastic changes in the transportation While this topic is oftentimes discussed in literature, industry, which is likely to change our perception movies and the arts, switching between different regarding time, travel and space, we have to consid- states of architecture or wishing back a certain er the effect this will have not only on architecture, period of time (such as the Gothic Revival or Robut also on the human psyche. manticism, for example) does not quite capture this phenomenon and is thought of rather negatively From A to B and Back to A among architects. Whether it has been willingly or unwillingly, architecture produced spaces that play with the But now we are facing faster transportation methperception of time way before new inventions in the ods that could distort our perception of distance transportation industry did. Robert Venturi, for one, and time, making it possible to change locations used the Las Vegas Strip as an example of timeless much faster. We are living in a time when AI and big space, in which the visitor cannot determine time data are leading to constant exponential progress due to the perpetual lighting conditions.3 And since and growth and are therefore already changing our Las Vegas is one of the most entertainment-driven perception of space through faster adaptation to places on Earth, that leads us to the assumption that our needs. Architecture is now able to change mind the less control over time we have, the more likely states through spatiality and blend the virtual and are we to dive into a new state of mind. When we the real. Considering these circumstances, we can touch on the topic of the absence of time, we also no longer rely on the linear change of time as our have to take a look at the theory of nonlinear time main method of time perception. How will going perception and its effect on space. Scientists, includ- back and forth in space and time and the swift ing Einstein, have argued that different particles can changes between state 0 and state 1 affect our pertravel and therefore exist along different timelines. ception of our environment? In architecture, we have only dealt with linear time perception up until now. This assumes the gradual and steady decay or change of architecture or position in space. Architecture movements are being replaced constantly, although they overlap, they are still linear, introducing new aesthetics, usage of material, and ideology into the built environment. Buildings also decay based on the lifetime of their materials, if not destroyed by outer influences. Yet those processes never change their temporal direction, and are always evolving into a new state. 3 Venturi, R. et al. (1997). Learning from Las Vegas. MIT Press

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SO Keywords: - Representation Techniques - Drawings - Digital - Realism - GPU - Urban Transformation - 3D Models - The Future - Cybernetics Theory

An Approximation to Digital Urban Imaginaries0 Michael Walczak

The whole idea of 3D on a computer is to create a realistic simulation of the real world (Marinčić 2019). However, this does not necessarily mean a photorealistic representation, since the more detailed a scenario is, the more convincing it will be, but at the same time, it will be considered less probable (Kahneman 2012) with less imagined and conceptual space for observers. Still, the aspect of ‘realistic’ will be considered by DIGITAL URBAN IMAGINARIES in conceptual terms. Representation techniques such as animation are rarely attempted on personal computers but are rather sent to render in “farms” that combine thousands of powerful computers (Marinčić 2019). Yet, due to the rapid development of graphics processing unit technology (GPU), such animation can in fact now be computed on today’s personal computers, even in real time, which opens up vast potential for applications. Compared to reductionistic techniques, the processing of information and data, in this case, is considered complex. Hence, the purpose of the communication is to reduce its complexity for the observer while grounding its evidence on complexity. In short, we can say that the purpose of a model is to reduce complexity and create new information (Marinčić 2019). The reduction of complexity to benefit communication is particularly essential for us observers in order for us to understand the information, for which further implications concerning urban transformation processes have not yet been fully exploited in current research in terms of the chosen communication medium, level of detail, or perspectives.

[J. Koerner, p. 130]

In the art-based Notation Projects (Falkeis 2015a), Anton Falkeis introduced the use of digital models, which can describe a novel perception of space and therefore anticipate the unexpected. In his book, The Second Digital Turn (2017), Mario Carpo points to the fact that three-dimensional models have replaced text and images “as our tools of choice for the notation and replication, representation and quantification of the physical world around us: born verbal, then gone visual, knowledge can now be recorded and transmitted in a new spatial format.” We should be using images for all kinds of reasons and tasks as long as we have eyes to see (Carpo 2017). Key advantages are that such three-dimensional models “contain much more information than any single planar projection of the same (Carpo 2017).” Three-dimensional (3D) models can process complex and repetitive command structures (Schneider and Fankhänel 2020). 3D models can be exploited or experienced in countless ways (Carpo 2017). Simultaneously, however, they offer possibilities for new forms of representation and production as these will also most likely change “the way we see almost everything, and represent and know the world around Today, the computer is both the technical instruus (Carpo 2017).” ment required to produce such digital models and

0 Modified excerpt from: Michael Walczak, “Digital urban imaginaries: digital models transforming citizen-centred design processes,” Dissertation, University of Applied Arts Vienna, 2021 Available online, http://permalink.obvsg.at/ kaw/AC16197168, accessed July 6, 2021 82

also — consequently — a creator of human imagination (Weizenbaum 1978). In other words, a computer can generate a multitude of simulations of, as Paul Virilio1 puts it, the “actual” reality, from which, for example, a decision-maker may draw conclusions. The only limitation is simply ourselves, since “man is only able to create little that he has not previously created in the imagination (Weizenbaum 1978).” A theory in the form of a computer program is both a theory and — once inputted into and processed by a computer — a model to which the theory is applied. The theory solves the task it explains. Strictly speaking, a theory cannot ‘solve’ anything. But a model can, and therein lies the sense of its statement (Weizenbaum 1978). Such a synthesis of theory into models has thus opened up the possibility that “[…] the basic numerical logic of the digital encouraged transfers, generalizations, and conflations of tools (Bottazzi 2020),” which allows evidence and knowledge to be applied on a much broader and impactful scale, like they are to policymaking (Avrami 2019) (see Walczak 2021). Reality consists of a linear process bound to space, time and location. In comparison, the virtual or digital is a nonlinear process, meaning that “[…] space is no longer seen as static and fixed, as it had been since Descartes and the Cartesian coordinate system, but as polymorphic, changeable and flexible. According to this view, space is relativistic, and time becomes an important dimension in the experience of, for example, architecture. Movement, time and architecture influence and depend on each other in this virtual architecture (Fankhänel 2020a).” 1 http://www.ljudmila.org/scca/urbanaria/ txt/e/pvirilio.htm, accessed February 11, 2021

Furthermore, we can apply cybernetic theory to the method of such adaptive digital models, which affirm the concepts of control, automation, regulation and optimization (Marinčić 2019). This allows for the use of Norbert Wiener’s legacy by relying on feedback chains to automate and optimize the operation of the model (Wiener 1948). During a discussion2 with Peter Eisenman, Greg Lynn pointed out that a computer between the late 1980s and the early 1990s would go through iterations at the same speed as a human would draft them. For Lynn, that was an incredibly exciting moment. The book, Archeology of the Digital, edited by Lynn, illustrates a particular interest in that specific human-computer relationship in architecture, showcasing four projects by Frank Gehry, Peter Eisenman, Chuck Hoberman, and Shoei Yoh, respectively. The computer can now go through iterations faster than a human, which opens up different opportunities. Nevertheless, DIGITAL URBAN IMAGINARIES will not be a simple “black box (Glanville 1988),” in cybernetic terms, with a system “where the output of a machine is linked to its input and compared against some intended performance measures (Marinčić 2019).” It is a more dynamic system in which multiple quantitative inputs, as well as qualitative stakeholder engagements, create numerous outputs. The power of our imagination, in the form of the imaginaries of the future, is immense. Imaginaries can not only show us how the future may look but they can also fundamentally influence or even create it. For example, in the technological discourse, in 1965, Moore’s law initiated the trend of imaginations influencing the future, which anticipated that the

2 https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=DUrA1Lod--g, accessed October 26, 2020

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[Image 1]

[Image 2] Img. 1: “Apple Knowledge Navigator” film released in 1987 imagining the year 2011. https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=umJsITGzXd0&t=217s, accessed January 12, 2021

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number of transistors on integrated circuits would double approximately every two years (Bridle 2020). Historically, technology firms have had a tradition of imagining the future via the use of films as a communication medium. Apple Computers released a video in 1987 imagining the year 2011 (see image 1), in which the tablet is invented as a device for video communication, enabling digital assistants, or remote teaching. Sun Microsystems released a video in 1994 imagining the year 2004 (see image 2), which reinvented our vision of how the workspace of the future would look. Governments also joined in: Chile’s administration drafted ‘cybernetician’ Stafford Beer, in an attempt to imagine how computers could help run a country in future in the form of a decision-making space called the “Opsroom.”3 Imaginaries are also used in mathematical theory to communicate to a broader audience, for example, Benoit Mandelbrot (1967) used the imaginary of the coastline to communicate his theory of fractals and self-similar curves. These imaginations of a future gave the impetus to an entire industry that strove to fulfill them, a scenario which is still valid and shapes our lives today. Digital Model ‘Model’ is a treacherous word. It denotes several realities with different natures. These do not contradict each other, indeed, they often overlap, but according to Herbert Stachowiak (1973), we cannot combine them. A model can denote 1) a representation (scaled architectural representation), 2) a reduction (mathematical equation), or 3) a pragmatism (cybernetic usage) (Stachowiak 1973). In terms of the last definition, cybernetics has contributed Img. 2: “Starfire” film released in 1994 imagining the year 2004 by Sun Microsystems. Source: https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=w9OKcKisUrY&t=124s, accessed January 12, 2021

3 http://countercultureroom.cl, accessed January 12, 2021

massively to the global proliferation of diagrams, and probably no other science has relied so much on advancing arguments via visual analogies. The (flow) charts that are frequently used in cybernetics play an essential role in the production of analogies. ‘Building a model’ does not mean already materially implementing it, rather only producing a hypothetical (or heuristic) ‘machine’ whose characteristic is to include heterogeneous elements into the ‘machine’ through recursion and communication. The basic model of such a machine, on which the most diverse phenomena can still be cybernetically ‘grounded,’ is the control loop. Within the visual argumentations of cybernetics, we can lay its diagram over all possible images like a transparent foil. For example, “cooking means rules: again and again the actual value must be checked, compared with the presented target value and the correct control must be carried out. If the cook is not herself a captain, she follows a ‘recipe’ as a controller (Pias 2003).” In architecture, for example, it is the computer that assists with the drawing during the design, recalculates the statics, checks the costs, etc. Humans then fill in the gaps.

identical models […]. And that means that in the similarity of machines and organisms, there is at the same time a radical dissimilarity (just as one uses wheels and not legs on a train), but that this dissimilarity is at the same time utterly irrelevant if and as long as one limits oneself to behavioral equivalents or models (Pias 2003).” In the case of DIGITAL URBAN IMAGINARIES, the model will potentially be applied in a variety of different contexts, fields and professions, ranging from spatial policies to environmental measures including wind, air quality, and solar radiation, and lighting simulations. Such dissimilarities of the case studies and topics focus on the testing of the durability, flexibility, replicability and scalability of the developed model. It forms the universal language of the DIGITAL URBAN IMAGINARIES.

Nevertheless, a model needs to be communicated before it can impact human perception. In communication theory, human communication is a series of proposals that codify the world. So why, we must ask, does one codify? To communicate with others — we code to create order. The intention behind DIGITAL URBAN IMAGINARIES applies the terminology of cybernetics theory concerning abstraction, such structuring techniques is also the intention behind informing. Thus, “informing” means changforgetting, and its synthesis in the form of models: ing, and “changing” means doing something the way “The foundations of such powers of abstraction or it should be (Flusser 1996). From the perspective forgetting concerning concrete circumstances and of Vilém Flusser, communication is always artificial material complications are not due to any ‘false’ or (compared to animal communication forms, like simplistic popularization but date back to the very that of birds, for example, which are not artificial). beginnings of cybernetics which are, i.e., active, purposeful, feedback, and predictive. It is precisely The main reason for communication is to give this neglect that drives the productivity of a model, meaning to life. which in turn allows the application of always

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If communication is always artificial, we can produce communication with digital images, as potentially in the case of DIGITAL URBAN IMAGINARIES.

give tangible form to one’s experiences and fantasies is the insatiable need to exercise one’s imagination, judgment and thought in worlds, situations and characters that are different from those of one’s In order to communicate a digital model, it has everyday life (Rheingold 1992). The digital image as to be translated into an understandable language: one possible form of representation combines the a ‘digital image.’ For example, radio and television possibilities of painting (subjectivity, freedom, unculture have only existed since it has been possible reality) and photography (objectivity, mechanics, reto collect and record radio and television programs. ality) (Weibel 2019). Through video, and animation You only broadcast what you are able to keep. in particular (creativity, technology, imagination), Comparing forms of communication: the word the digital image even takes on a temporal aspect. communicates, the stone conveys. In other words, We reconcile the reproduction and the fantasy in long-term messages improve their chances of surthe digital image. We can realize the digital image vival when they are reduced to their bare essentials in any medium (Weibel 2019), but as Pias (2003) (the sketch is more appropriate than the drawing) stated above, the underlying model stays the same. (Debray 2003). From the perspective of art, analog Peter Weibel (2019) suggests that scaling, layering, elements are present in digital art and digital aspects contour/texture, speed and perspective have to be in analog art. And that is precisely what, for exam- considered as the core of a digital image’s aesthetic ple, digital art does: it digitally represents analog strategy. In order to understand what the digital improcesses of nature or creates analog images from ages can provide additionally to the commonly used numbers. These digital images, the basis of which methods, the following chapter will examine these is the number, are called artificial images, synthetic aspects from a literature point of view. Particular images of the computer (Weibel 2019) — DIGITAL interest lies in scaling and speed, which represent URBAN IMAGINARIES. the aspect of animation and time. Among others, we add the ability of real-time generation to the digital “Actual”4 reality is not the ultimate goal of a digital image strategy. image. It essentially seeks to represent nonreality, realistically, with the interaction between soft- and From Simplicity to Complexity hardware’s help — creating the image of a new A static image can represent complex informa“virtual”4 reality, a new imaginary, which might tion, but it is only through animation that we can become “actual”4 reality. Nonreality is the opposite transmit complex data and the impression of reality of reality, but is not, in Paul Virilio’s terms, “virtuin a series of images shown over time — it comes to al”4 or “actual”4 reality. Historically, Kevin Lynch suggest truth (Weibel 2019). Film is truth in (1989) introduced the representation methods of a 24 frames per second, as Jean-Luc Godard used to physical experience. The age-old human desire to say (Rheingold 1992). Animation is a suitable 4 http://www.ljudmila.org/scca/urbanaria/ txt/e/pvirilio.htm, accessed February 11, 2021

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medium for recording and analyzing computer output and data reduction, and also for creating models for the presentation and illustration of processes in architecture and urban planning (Weibel 2019). It can represent processes running parallel to each other. We can use animation to create new visual phenomena. Olafur Eliasson (2019) came to similar conclusions by stating that particular phenomena cannot be fully taken in without movement and time: “Our ability to sense depth and understand dimensions is intensified through […] motion.” Continuing the study of Peter Weibel (2003), we can see two fundamental formal principles for the visualization of time and space. The method of simultaneity was developed by Étienne-Jules Marey (see image 3) and the practice of succession comes from Eadweard J. Muybridge (see image 4). Marey combined different stages of movement side by side on one screen, showing different moments simultaneously. However, Muybridge came remarkably close to current animation techniques when he used images in a sequential manner. Various phases of movement in succession are dissected in image sequences. His method founded the three-dimensional art (area and time) of moving images. If you break an action down into at least 16 phases (parts) of a second and then perform them again within a second, they appear to the eye as a continuous unit: we must first break up the movement into different individual images to create the illusion of continuity later.

Img. 3: Étienne-Jules Marey, Chronophotograph of a Pelican Flight, circa 1882. johnedwardcochran.wordpress.com

[Image 3]

[Image 4]

Img. 4: Eadweard Muybridge “The Horse in Motion,” unknown date. Zeno.org, ID Number 20001885286

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However, the first apparatus for artificial stroboscopic movement simulation on a mechanical basis was constructed by Michael Faraday in 1829: the Faraday discs, the first homopolar generator (see image 5). It was only through T. A. Edison and his team, and many other inventors, especially Louis Aimé Augustin Le Prince (1842–1890), that the machine through which the Muybridge photo sequences ran at a certain speed was invented. This invention heralded the achievement of graphic simulation and the two-dimensional illusion of movement: the kinetoscope (movement viewer) (see image 6). [Image 5]

[Image 6] Img. 5: Historical unipolar generator, so-called Faraday disc. Downloaded from Émile Alglave & J. Boulard (1884) The Electric Light: Its History, Production, and Applications, translated by T. O’Conor Sloan, D. Appleton & Co., New York, p. 224, fig. 142 on Google Books 88

Complex topics and “big data”5 previously needed to be presented in a very abstract and reduced way in order for a human to be able to analyze it. The creation of specialists that could understand and convert these topics was inevitable. This abstraction is now obsolete with the advent of the methods of DIGITAL URBAN IMAGINARIES, since we can harness computational power to process, cross-reference and visualize large amounts of data. We can “embrace” the complexity (obstacle) as an opportunity (Zafiris 2019). No longer do we need stereotypical models such as one expert assigned to each problem, instead, we can gain and develop understanding through a process of mediating various citizens from diverse disciplines using DIGITAL URBAN IMAGINARIES (see video 1). Since any given task has certain boundary conditions and inputs and is reduced to a product/goal through a process, the basic architecture/structure of this described problem-solving approach remains Img. 6: (Science editor) in The Literary Digest. v.X Publicity photograph of man using Edison No. 4 (24 November 1894), p. 15 (105). Image Kinetophone, ca. 1895 file uploaded from [1] Albert Tissandier - Originally published as an illustration to “Le Kinétoscope d’Edison” by Gaston Tissandier in La Nature, October 1894, Republished with “Mechanism of the Kineto-Phonograph” by Arthur E. Bostwick

the same within the DIGITAL URBAN IMAGINARIES. It remains the same because until now, the development of such technologies has been initiated based on humans’ capabilities, knowledge, and their specific training sets. And, at the same time, the general field of computer science cannot yet perform fully autonomously since it cannot yet set its own goals in a manner detached from any human input (Socher 2019), and perhaps may never do so. However, in terms of the visibility and transparency of the process — whether a black box (process not visible) or grey box (process slightly visible) or a white and transparent box (process fully visible) (Glanville 1988) — it can be vastly different. This model can change and adapt depending on which input, which desired output, or which operation is requested. A black box can become a transparent white box or the other way around (Stalder 2019). DIGITAL URBAN IMAGINARIES proposes performing such assessments and even processing the complexity in real time. It argues that the algorithmic accessibility allows the complexity to be broken down — without reducing the complexity. In other words, the user front end (graphical user interface such as Windows or Mac OS) reduces information to the maximum of what a human can perceive, but the back end (‘invisible’ computational power) retains the highest possible level of complexity with no scaling. This reduction of perceived information is crucial since we humans fall into apathy in the face of too many emotions, worries or issues (Eliasson 2020).

digitally, i.e., computational manipulation. Through this ‘digitality,’ the size of an object can be isolated from its natural context and given any desired size and location, which means that the scale is then no longer critical (Weibel 2019), but can improve and unveil through multiple viewing angles a new understanding of certain phenomena. Such a feature can, for example, help in the field of criminology as “[…] the visualization of crime at different spatial and temporal scales is critical to both our understanding of crime and our ability to devise ways to reduce it.” (Brantingham, Brantingham, Song and Spicer 2018). Furthermore, in digital aesthetics (Weibel 2019), a figure or an object is also regularly decomposed, quasi automatically, into its contour (outline) and its texture (surface). Once the item is dissected in this way, one can play autonomously with these elements, similar to how one plays with size. Texture no longer plays a role (Weibel 2019). Both aspects, the term which we have coined ‘nonscale,’ as well as Weibel’s “decomposition,” are necessary in order to decontextualize, transfer, scale and reconfigure, for example, objects or technology, to other contexts or locations, mainly while speaking about urban transformation processes.

Weibel (2019) introduced the terminology of the scale as one of the core elements of the “digital.” Present-day computational power enables existing urban settings to be documented and codified in the Nonscale and Transferability form of a “digital urban twin.” Whether you want to In digital imaging technology (Weibel 2019), ‘scaling’ show one building, a whole city, an entire country, means the capability to reduce or enlarge any object or a continent has been irrelevant to the 5 The term “big data” was initially coined by Roger Magoulas from O’Reilly Media in 2005. https://www.researchtrends.com/issue-30september-2012/the-evolution-of-big-data-as-aresearch-and-scientific-topic-overviewof-the-literature/, accessed February 11, 2021 89

[Video 1]

[Video 2]

[Video 3] Vid. 1: Michael Walczak, Real-time traffic visualization using GemSIM and Vienna 3D data within Unreal Engine. Source: Michael Walczak, https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=19W-kmZ02yQ, accessed December 15, 2020 90

processing unit since the paradigm shift from the central processing unit (CPU) to the graphical processing unit (GPU). GPU technology allows a large number of processes of very low complexity to be performed compared to CPU technology, which can only perform a few complex operations. Such large-scale visualizations could become a key element in spatial planning since they allow us to understand relationships and interdependencies between buildings and humans in a broader context, which to date has been impossible for reasons of size (Garber 2018). Iterative decision loops can be made, for example, in current and future planning policies and their impact on the built environment can be computed on a countrywide scale and visualized in a three-dimensional space (Walczak 2019). The ability to perform such large-scale assessments can support the relevance and applicability of such DIGITAL URBAN IMAGINARIES in the form of transferability, scalability and replicability into other contexts. Looking at such dimensions affects both quantitative and qualitative insights. Quantitative and Qualitative Research findings point in a direction that neglects the overlap of quantitative and qualitative methods. Natapov et al. (2017) state that “current methods used in the study of urban systems are based mostly on economic and transportation demands and ignore human spatial cognition processes, like visual perception, while cognition is an active player in the evolution and dynamics of urban space.” Historically, the computer was mainly used for quantitative evaluations. The University of Cambridge Centre for Land Use and Built Form Studies, founded in Vid. 2: Michael Walczak, Real-time delivery vehicle visualization using GemSIM and Zurich 3D data within Unreal Engine. Source: Michael Walczak, https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=eaXMmB4CAdI, accessed December 15, 2020

Vid. 3: Michael Walczak, 360° 3D VR experience of Caracoli, Bogotá by night with current lighting condition. Source: Michael Walczak, https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=Ehz-36KBlHg, accessed December 15, 2020

1967, was inspired by Ivan Sutherland’s presentation on his Sketchpad and used the computer to quantify the geometry of built form and plan layout (Steadman 2016). In the 1960s, Constantinos Doxiadis was a pioneer in the adoption of computers in regional planning and used computers for statistical calculations.6 The 1968 exhibition, Cybernetic Serendipity, curated by Jasia Reichardt and shown at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, United Kingdom (Reichardt 1968), can be seen as a first attempt to link or shift the quantitative aspect of algorithms and computing with qualitative features. In other words, computers were being used to make art and drawings. Today, the metric recording of reality is widespread, whereby only that which we can represent in numbers can be considered as “fact” — with a claim to almost sole methodical validity (Kammasch 2020). Dirk Baecker (2018) visualizes this phenomenon between the quantitative and the qualitative by using the example of light and sound. We do not see light (photon waves), but we see all the objects that it illuminates. We do not hear sound (short wave), but we hear the tone that it makes audible. Another significant contribution to architecture and urban planning perception is the research done by Kevin Lynch. His book, The Image of the City (Lynch 1989), describes the physical experience and impact of urban elements on the perception of the layperson and the professional. Lynch evaluates this experience through surveys and mapping, representing a more qualitative approach. At this point, it is also essential to mention Jan Gehl and his introduction of a qualitative analysis toolbox into the urban jargon, with the mechanics of analog research such as on-site counting, recording, tracing, tracking,

photographing, forensics, strolls, and keeping a diary (Gehl & Svarre 2016). Gehl performs such analyses on an exceptionally handcrafted small scale. Another attempt at the overlap of quantitative and qualitative methods is the already mentioned work of Constantinos Doxiadis, who organized the complexity of urban phenomena through the use of algorithms, computational data analysis, and visualization. As a result — in addition to qualitative spatial visualization — he visualized quantitative measures in the field of architecture and urban planning such as daily movement patterns of residents in work, leisure and supply activities (Theodosis 2017). Such methods require multidimensional representations in order to depict all required information (see video 2). 4D Imaginary Immersion As one of Weibel’s digital image strategies (Weibel 2019), “perspective” means that it is possible to choose any distinct viewpoint and any distinct location, from an eye-level perspective to a bird’seye view in digital image technology. Weibel (2019) considers another strategy, “layering,” which means that it is possible to navigate and superimpose between various objects displayed in digital image technology. These characteristics underline our thesis of the ‘nonscale’ and the gain in understanding while observing certain phenomena from different viewing angles with different objects displayed. In the context of Dirk Baecker’s theory of a timeline for society (2018): society 1.0: language, society 2.0: font, society 3.0: letterpress, and society 4.0: electronic media, the next level would be the

6 Course by Mario Carpo that took place on December 13, 2020 in the context of the “Theory of Architecture 1” format from the Institute of Architecture at the University of Applied Arts Vienna.

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discourse of immersion and volumetric representation of interaction, the extended version of society 4.0. By literally being immersed in the virtual space, we can “[…] see the patterns unveiled when looking from various contexts and perspectives (Kalisch et al. 2016).” Baecker (2018) also strengthens this hypothesis by using technology to visualize social practice and its citizen relationships. Through the use of technology within a context and purpose for which it was not initially developed, it creates much more valuable and meaningful results. An example is the use of game engine technology in architecture and urban planning, which has already become very popular among architects as the program environment is very close to that of standard computer-aided design (CAD) programs (Pedercini 2019). Such technology now allows us not only to look at one specific image — as Mitchell introduces the “pictorial turn” which he fixed in time — but virtual environments also introduce multiple possibilities that are unframed by any predefined conditions. Virtual space or cyberspace is not an either/or, but a both-and-also (Rheingold 1992). For example, game development tools allow us to wear multiple “hats” through the provision of simulation, modelling, visualization, and useful procedural generation tools (Dimopoulos 2019). Unframed Image An image such as a printed photograph, a painting or a screen usually has a frame. The frame limits the image to a particular surface. When using virtual reality (VR), this limitation is no longer the case, since we are fully immersed in that specific displayed image. “VR […] is, indeed, a very powerful new

medium (Kaganskiy 2017).” The first ideas related to this technology date back to the 1932 text by filmmaker Rudolf Arnheim, who proposed an extension of spatial depth by exhibiting his “Raumfilm” (English: “stereocinema”) (Arnheim 1932), which was similar to a stereoscope and recorded two strips of film a couple of centimeters away from each other and then exposed the left eye to the left film strip and the right eye to the right film strip (Arnheim 1932). The power of immersing humans into such virtual environments to enhance understanding is clear: “[…] using Virtual Reality as a therapeutic tool […], rel[ies] on VR simulations to perform a kind of exposure therapy wherein patients are asked to confront a traumatic experience or event in order to overcome it. The results have been remarkable […] (Kaganskiy 2017).” Such virtual multidimensional environments can even serve to uncover evidence in investigating human rights violations by merging data points into one platform (Weizman 2019). “Virtual Reality’s true potential, I believe, is that it allows us to experience radically different environments and perspectives, and to challenge the dominant and habitual perceptual states we’ve come to know and understand (Kaganskiy 2017).” VR lets us begin to understand the content of the medium — even if it does not precisely represent ‘actual’ reality — by immersing us into a ‘virtual’ reality world (see video 3). Art Representing Abstraction Starting with the representation of literature and rhetoric, the concept of ekphrasis7 uses text and the reading of that text to evoke a described object as vividly as possible: the spoken representation 7 ‘Ekphrasis’ is the description of visual work as a rhetoric statement.

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enables the recipient, as it were, to have the described thing in front of his or her own eyes (Kammasch 2020). In the 1930s, film theory measured the quality of a moving image by the accuracy with which the film captured the representation of reality: the better the copy, the higher the shot was rated (Vertov 1923). Yet even now, as with film, computer-generated images are a construct of simulated reality that we evaluate depending on the truthfulness of their representation (Niquille 2018). Human perception and the ability to imagine nonrealistic representations are different nowadays compared to the pre-digital age. Nonreality can also be seen as something abstract. Such abstraction can be a powerful tool to imagine the improbable or the impossible as the opposite of Dunne and Raby’s (2013) fourfold cones. Baecker (2018) or Ramon Llull (Vega et al. 2018), for example, use the notion of abstraction and combine different “things, persons and moments” that initially are independent of and have nothing to do with each other in a way in which they suddenly become dependent and have something as a common denominator. This allows for new insights such as cross-use of methods and technologies in transcultural and interdisciplinary interaction, new ideas, and unexpected solutions. As seen previously, immersive technology can be an excellent medium for communicating in a human-compatible manner. At the same time, immersive experiences could represent abstraction and imaginary virtually while still evoking reality in human perception, as has been seen in the use of such environments in the medical treatment of patients and the exposure of our imagination to multiple scenarios.

From ‘Historical’ Prediction/Forecasting to ‘Real-Time’ ‘What If ’ Scenarios/Influencing Firstly, a potential message in the form of a digital image can be produced in real time to receive immediate feedback (see image 7). Only then does it allow for a constant modification of, for example, animation sequences. The constant modification provides immediate visual feedback of the results. We can repeat it until we achieve the desired result. In other words, real time reduces the iteration time through a feedback loop (Weibel 2019). Secondly, looking into current prediction or forecasting systems, it is difficult to predict or shape the future, especially as far as human behavior is concerned (Bargh 2018). Reality — even built reality — is too multifaceted for there to be only one correct view of things. If one accurate description exists, then so do infinitely many (Kammasch 2020). Dunne and Raby (2013), with their idea of “speculative everything,” propose the following method in narrowing down the scope of opportunities, starting from the present state to the “possible,” to the “plausible,” the “probable,” and resulting in the “preferable.” Real-time technologies could allow for such multiple scenarios with different boundary conditions and parameters to be represented. To generate multiple solutions requires an iterative selection process with the most optimal and appropriate variance to be devised. Many forecasting models forecast incorrectly because we base models on historical data. We cannot accommodate disruptions in such models, which means that we cannot master phases of transformation with recourse to past patterns of thinking and acting (Schneidewind 2018).

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Access to more data and information is not helping us resolve our current global issues in any way since the world is outrunning us: it is becoming more chaotic, not least due to climate change and changing patterns (Bridle 2020). Borrowing the term ‘influencer’ from social media, the future can be influenced by the proposed ‘scenario’-based models. What we see determines our actions, especially when we passively watch, for example, TV, or surf the web and pay little attention to the messages the medium is displaying (Bargh 2018). [Image 7]

[Video 4]

Img. 7: For example, a piano is a real-time device that gives direct feedback to user input in the form of sound. Pierre Erard - traced, colorized and reoriented for right hand view by Mireut from plate III, Paris, 1834 94

Since ancient times, populations have been laying down their most substantial views and ideas in the form of works of art (Hegel 1835). As Friedrich von Borries and Benjamin Kasten (2019) emphasize, without “Zukunftsbilder” (images of the future), we can imagine neither a creative policy nor the role that civil society plays in such a system. Such discussions about multiple futures, in our case urban futures, are also the institutional frame of DIGITAL URBAN IMAGINARIES at the Department for Special Topics in Architecture Design (STARCH) at the University of Applied Arts Vienna. Otherwise, we would lose the ability to change trajectory and align ourselves with alternative goals and agendas. Comparing the impacts of multiple scenarios allows us to understand the different interdependencies and differences between these various solutions in the form of a white box — in cybernetician terms. We do not need to rely on biased and/or prejudged and/ or predefined and/or incorrect techniques such as the Google Translator. We base many such models on a machine learning technique known as, in this specific case, ‘word embedding,’ which are systems http://www.musiques-vivantes.com/ index.php?option=com_content& task=view&id=57&Itemid=32

Vid. 4: Michael Walczak, Public Lighting in Informal Settlements: Using VR as an Evaluation Tool for Policymaking, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v= Mv4HQUH_WY0&t=90s, accessed December 15, 2020

created by, for example, software engineers, and which have a specific cultural background, including associated biases and prejudgments, which is directly fed into such algorithms. As an example, the method of word embedding teaches language by giving machines numerous texts, such as Google News articles. The machine processes them and creates links between words, which result from how they are associated with one another. To illustrate the kind of prejudgments the machine learns, we can see, for example, that ‘kitchen’ has a stronger relationship with the word ‘she’ than ‘he’ because it occurs more frequently with the female pronoun in sentences (Rozenberg 2019). Another example was visualized by the 2019 exhibition and accompanying publication of artist Trevor Paglen at the Barbican in London, which took as its starting point how we teach artificial intelligence networks “how to ‘see’ and ‘perceive’ the world by taking a closer look at image datasets.” For example, if you want to use technology to detect if somebody is smiling, you need a thousand images of people smiling and not smiling, ‘teaching’ the neural network to distinguish between those two things for it then to classify other things based on these images. “This dataset is archived and preselected in categories selected by humans (Paglen 2019).” The people who build training sets rarely think about which training categories we will use and what those images contain. Depending on the person classifying the training set, hidden politics, biases and stereotypes may be rife in the result of the artificial intelligence (Paglen 2019). Especially now with the ‘digitalization’ of our lives, it is necessary to increase the

understanding of the impacts of these technologies that are being implied in our everyday lives, since 84 percent of the Western European population has access to such information and knowledge (Artheau 2018). We need to develop a ‘critical reading’ of such technologies: it is crucial to understand who is developing such methods and techniques, who has fed what information in, and what information the digital strategies have learned from. From Misunderstanding to Understanding In many developing countries, there is a lack of data and/or fragmented provision of data as well as a lack of tools and methods to understand the available data (Schechtner 2017). “Only by identifying more comprehensive ways to map [visualize], understand and engage urban real economies can the momentum for infrastructure-led and environmentally sustainable economic growth be maintained (Simone 2014).” However, raw data, do not convey any information — to generate knowledge and communication, they have to be organized and put into a format that makes sense to the reader (Doyle et al. 2019), which ultimately results in a knowledge society rather than an information society (Falkeis 2015b). As Olafur Eliasson (2020) put it, “the language to communicate the data matters.” The method of communication is critical in the philosophy of DIGITAL URBAN IMAGINARIES in order to facilitate knowledge. It is not a question of showing quantitative numbers, rather qualitative images — DIGITAL URBAN IMAGINARIES — powered by quantitative values in the back end. Humans have a very visually based perception, or at least have become very visual in our modern society (Mitchell 2018), and

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[J. Kovaricek, p. 33]

understand things much better in three dimenables us to explore diverse methodologies. It allows sions (Beck 2019). We also need to be very careful us to make the “disciplinary boundaries and barriers in choosing how we communicate and visualize more porous,” which underlines the basic principle information since there is evidence that the results that we cannot solve current “multifaceted problems can vary drastically depending on how we visualize from the perspective of a single discipline (Falkeis and share data (Walczak 2019). Methods such as VR 2015b).” DIGITAL URBAN IMAGINARIES allow for facilitate our human understanding of cross-refermuch more robust citizen inclusion, engagement enced parameters and their impacts onto the built and exchange with each other. Through a better environment (Walczak 2019). This approach is also understanding of other disciplines, exchange among manifested in the exhibition Knowledge in Imcitizens can be inclusive and fostered; suddenly, you ages – Information Design Today at the Museum für can understand a lighting designer, a wind engineer, Gestaltung Zurich (Sept 2019–March 2020): never or a software developer (Falkeis 2015a). It enables before have we exchanged as much information as us to broaden the spectrum to include a variety of we do today. urban issues, which is essential if we are to take a highly interlinked view. A specialist can fix one Whether it’s for visualizing big data, publishing specific point in a network, but we need to be able journalistic findings, spatial orientation, or as mate- to oversee the whole system, so we can consult a rial to promote effective learning and teaching — in- specialist when one is needed. Knowing the whole formation design explains the most diverse array of network allows for complex, evidence-based content in the shortest amount of time by combin- decision-making. ing a quantity of visual material with few words (Janser 2019). Images have the power to simplify Evidence-Based Decision-Making and communicate complex facts and help us make From a global perspective, citizen science and DIGdecisions that are more well-founded. ITAL URBAN IMAGINARIES are allowing laypeople to understand complex phenomena, stakeholders From Specialized to Generalized who are not trained in a specific professional field From an individual perspective, speaking of ‘citizen are suddenly being enabled to engage in interactions science,’ DIGITAL URBAN IMAGINARIES means such as a discussion between, for example, a city allowing yourself to be exposed to topics that you planner and a choreographer (Falkeis 2015b). The do not cover within your profession. Through trial status of a layperson itself warrants further comand error of computationally simulating issues from ment. Laypeople — citizens — are often the real oter disciplines, it generates thinking, understand- experts in certain situations, i.e., residents who have ing, and knowledge from that specific discipline. lived in a particular neighborhood for many years It allows for more accessible glossaries than those and therefore understand its dynamics much better than an expert observing this specific neighborhood commonly found among experts to be used. It en-

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for a shorter, fixed period. This interaction between those familiar with the status quo and outside observers generates new “hybrid ideas,” the recombination of knowledge which results in more inclusive solutions, innovations, and new instruments that can be interwoven into a discourse around the very fabric of society (Falkeis 2015b). Such recombination logic was already introduced by Adam Smith in The Wealth of Nations in terms of combining “the powers of the most distant and dissimilar objects (Smith 1776).”

to those two systems as the unconscious and the conscious. System 1, the unconscious, refers to the DIGITAL URBAN IMAGINARIES; and System 2, the conscious, represents the decision-making or policymaking process evoked by us as human actors.

Initiation and Codesign Since the 1990s, there has been a visible trend of opening up formal planning processes to a higher number of participants (Healey 1992). Conversely, however, communication between experts and nonspecialists can prove to be difficult during these For a decision-making process to be documented exercises. Because of the visualization tools used and archived, DIGITAL URBAN IMAGINARIES can (architectural drawings, plans, images, models), it serve as a visual protocol in each decision, step is often impossible for laypeople to imagine future and phase. Each phase has associated boundary proposals (buildings, neighborhoods, districts) in a conditions and parameters. Carmen Sirianni and sufficiently precise way (Neuhaus et al. 2015). Only Jennifer Girourd (2012) subdivide a “good planning a minuscule proportion of dwellings for the world support system […]” related to “[…] alternative population have been designed by architects (one policy choices” into four categories. The philosophy percent) (Brillembourg et al. 2005), which gives of DIGITAL URBAN IMAGINARIES focuses on the us an idea of proportionally how few people may fourth point of “[…] instantaneously view[ing] the understand such described forms of representation. results graphically in the form of charts, maps, and The broader audience generally does not know what video/sound display that enhance citizen underthey might want since any proposal is usually just standing.” This concept thus not only allows for accepted, an outcome that is not least due to the way participation in any process but also the initiation in which such recommendations are communicated of real and meaningful ideas. Here it is interest(Walczak 2019). The will of political institutions and ing to refer to Daniel Kahneman (2012) and John agencies drives such participatory processes towards Bargh (2018), who studied how we as humans make implementation, and exerting influence over them is judgments and decisions. Kahneman (2012) distin- often challenging (Kubicek 2010). Thus, it is critical guishes our cognition into two systems, System 1 that responsible and sustainable proposals are initiand System 2. All human assessments are automat- ated so that local communities can adopt them and ically performed by System 1, and one of the tasks help codesign, develop and execute their realization. of System 1 is to determine whether any additional input is required from System 2. Bargh (2018) refers

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Making “Painting with a mouse on the computer screen has a high entertainment value, but […] drawing a stroke with a pen is no different from drawing a stroke with a mouse. The real challenge is to discover the intrinsic properties of the new medium. To find out how the stroke you draw via computation is one you could never draw, or even imagine, without computation (Maeda 2001).” This paradigm has remained unchanged up until today. When we look at architectural tools described as “architectural aids,” they often just replicate analog architectural tools (Hanspal 2018). Stanislas Chaillou (2019) has managed to a shift away from this with an initial approach that proposes a “generative adversarial network” to aid in the design of plan layouts for buildings. In today’s information society and data accessibility through network technology, the entry point into the field of DIGITAL URBAN IMAGINARIES is low and therefore accessible. Massive online community platforms that are robust, that exchange knowledge, and that support each other by debugging code are critical. Outstanding online education through highly applied tutorials is essential. Such online platforms allow each individual to customize and combine snippets of code for individual projects and purposes (Gross et al. 2018). Through the process of initiation, making and combination, we are exposed to different disciplines and topics and therefore learn from these fields in an interdisciplinary way. Interdisciplinary Autodidact DIGITAL URBAN IMAGINARIES are changing the way we make decisions. Suddenly, laypeople and residents can apprehend a complex urban

phenomenon without actually understanding it. A layperson can use and implement specialist knowledge (such as data collection with air measurement devices that feed a more extensive database of air quality across the whole world)8 without actually having such knowledge themselves. DIGITAL URBAN IMAGINARY technology could provide instant and iterative feedback loops, trial and error, learning by doing and making. Historically, Marvin Minsky, who founded the notion of “artificial intelligence” in 1961, theorized this method as a problem-solving machine. In other words, the machine solves problems by trial, error and learning (Minsky 1961). Nicholas Negroponte made an initial attempt at creating such a problem-solving machine in 1973 with “URBAN5,” which enabled any layperson to become an architect through the use of computers (Negroponte 1973). We all use certain technologies without actually understanding how they work, for example, a car and its engine. The improvement of understanding has the capability to change, for example, politics, drastically and maybe even disruptively. When we vote for any political initiative, it’s mostly communicated verbally or via text and thus does not fully communicate its intentions as compared to, for example, immersive environments. A ‘model’ for a software engineer is a mathematical equation, whereas for an architect, it is a ‘scaled physical representation of reality.’ Learning the glossary, the thinking, the methods — a sort of common platform of exchange — of the other discipline is key for interdisciplinary projects, and we can acquire this through DIGITAL URBAN IMAGINARIES. 8 https://air.plumelabs.com/en/, accessed January 17, 2020

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Interdisciplinary and Specialized We do not generate new knowledge within closed disciplines and professions (von Borries et al. 2019); instead, this is generated through interdisciplinary exchange and insights. At the same time, this exchange has to be applied on a personal level for its insights to be properly understood. Thus, interdisciplinary knowledge is the utility that emerges from communication, collaboration, and working with multiple stakeholders: the DIGITAL URBAN IMAGINARIES methodology allows stakeholders to be activated at the most meaningful moments, using the appropriate communication channels, within the process of the task, project, etc. At the same time, the work itself is done by creating a novel, interdisciplinary specialist in each case who — through the DIGITAL URBAN IMAGINARIES method — can metaphorically act as an ‘integrator’ through the whole process and holistically become a key figure in interdisciplinary approaches (see video 4).

[Image 8]

Img. 8: Michael Walczak, An Approximation to Digital Urban Imaginaries, Bibliography https://uttnext.com/Publications/ bibliography_an-approximation-todigital-urban-imaginaries_walczak.html

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[Video 1]

[Video 2]

[Video 1]

[Video 2]

Vid. 1: Michael Walczak, Two exemplary snippets at different moments of the day using the custom visualization framework for Vienna’s context. The DIGITAL URBAN IMAGINARY includes GemSIM public and private traffic simulation, daylight simu-

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lation, satellite imagery, and the built and natural environment, 2020 Vid. 2: Michael Walczak, Two exemplary snippets at different moments of the day using the custom visualization framework

for Zurich’s context. The DIGITAL URBAN IMAGINARY includes a delivery vehicle followed by the camera, GemSIM public and private traffic simulation, satellite imagery, daylight simulation, and the built and natural environment, 2020

[Video 3]

[Video 3]

[Video 3]

[Video 3]

Vid. 3: Michael Walczak, Real-time building geometries including predicted densification, pedestrian simulation, lighting, vegetation and topography for Bogotá, Caracoli, 2002

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Architectural Scale Projects in this section address topics on the architectural scale. The inferences raised and conclusions drawn are related to spatial design, material form, movement, and the identity of place. Due to the expansive nature of their scope, these articles serve as contextual frameworks for other works within the publication and discourse.

[ c08, m00, y81, k00 ]

AR

[MAEID, p. 17]

AR Keywords: - Real Estate Development - Architectural Design - Future of Profession - Sustainability - Context - Culture and Society - Machine Learning - Algorithms - Research R.E.D. − Real Estate Development ∩ − Intersection / Overlap / With / Through ARCH − Architecture 1. R.E.D. ∩ ARCH

RED ∩ ARCH

Equity. Advocacy. Adaptability. Variability. Sustainability Christoph a. Kumpusch

The RED ∩ ARCH [and] approach will consistently consider the intersections of real estate development and architecture in relation to or with something else: RED ∩ ARCH [and] social equity RED ∩ ARCH [and] environmental sustainability RED ∩ ARCH [and] professional accountability RED ∩ ARCH [and] economic assets RED ∩ ARCH [and] political advocacy

The future developer ∩ architect will not be restricted to one profession or the other, but will rather be nonbinary.

This supposition guides our creative process and opens up opportunities to integrate architecture within multiple contexts.

Developing joint concepts that are fundamental to both RED and Architecture introduces new ways of architectural thinking and making — which draw connections between environment, form, performance, policy and politics, both for human and nonhuman participants. Participants are public, private, or anything in between. It is inevitable that the process of architecture creates real estate assets. But it is just as inevitable to take a fluid role as a designer and developer. It’s never just, it’s always and.

2. [and] In a way, the architectural lens that pervades RED can be applied to five focal points or pillars: equity, advocacy, adaptability, variability, sustainability. These pillars are merely questions aimed at redefining what it means to be a critical developer, an architect, or a participant in the physical and imagined environments. Contributing and thriving within the real estate industry and the physical environment at large means being a public voice. As a point of departure, my approach inclusively investigates and innovates the work within multiple interpretations of systems and publics through development according to these five pillars, which are

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actually less pillars than they are points of departure ostensibly critique and question the intersections that set up a network of cross interactions, interpola- that lie within and beyond RED ∩ ARCH, and investions and innovations across and outside our fields. tigates the unpredictable yet necessary results of [and]. The two disciplines of architecture and real estate development can no longer function along the 3. Approach default horizontal planes of their respective proce- Through these approaches, we will build crossdures, but rather need to be understood as a recon- cultural/socially conscious connections, manifesting figuration of the principles regarding conditional, in social constructs, their taking shape and form, relational, aesthetic and contextual space. building up and simultaneously deconstructing our understanding of layers and processes that contribHere, I aim to harness and channel social equity, ute to the making of architecture and real estate. In cross-cultural momentum, and nonbinary extruding and transforming all three dimensions positionality into making. This approach frontloads involved, within this equitable architectural framenew vocabulary, precedents, design prompts, quick work, we will consider the fourth dimension, that of assignments, and ambitions to build a full menu time: namely, buildings, our understanding of how of language, citations and styles for subsequent they came into being, what that took, and what they will stand for in the future is implicit. reference as the students’ creative arc expands. RED ∩ ARCH understands and investigates its referMy office, Forward-slash ( / ) Architektur, also ences — it assigns value to what can be identified. This fluidity necessitates a specific modus operandi: actively seeks to engage unpredictable scenarios, first, by promoting regularly scheduled injections of often working within performative situations and ideas and inspiration from our mentor and teaching environments. In 2015, Forward-slash was the teams, including field trips, film screenings, weekly winner of an international competition to design syntactic lectures, word marathons, workshops on a performance space in New York’s Tribeca for Performa — the largest collective of its kind. More making, and sessions on storytelling. This method assumes that “no unexamined life is worth living” by recently, our focus has been applied to integrated transforming documentation into a continuous, po- environments: climatic, political, social and cultural. rous and reflexive process; documentation becomes In 2018, the office competed and was shortlisted in the Burning Man Temple competition. Earlier this a practice of recording everything studiorelated — at all times — and underscores the value year, with the exhibition and interactive installation of all the attempts and iterations made throughout Salt Works at the MAK Center for Art and Archithe students’ journeys. Value is assigned to what can tecture in L.A., a speculative field of what remains be identified. This is a pedagogy that favors those was proposed. As urban sites adjust to climates in a students’ interests and research threads that state of flux, we offered extraction as a strategy for

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[S. Belitskaja, G. Dagan, G. Popp, D. Rüßkamp, S. Yang, p. 35]

uncovering future possibilities. Currently, V-2, a Variability Hub for Humanity at the headquarters for VERV LONDON, the largest gender-fluid retailer in Europe, is under construction, and the Equity & Ecology Center, which includes an artist and engineer in-residence program at the intersection of Slovenia, Hungary and Austria, just broke ground. This summer, Forward-slash’s recently won master plan competition for an ecology resort in the Himalayas, Nepal, started to be implemented.

5 Lenses − 5 Approaches Real estate is about references; it tells stories. This language translates into a strategic sequence: five modes of engagement, through an interactive formula of seminars, courses, workshops and community engagements. Each mode reinterprets conditions of exchange.

Investigations will occur through research, drawing, modeling, making, collaborating, investigating, interacting and outreach. From human to nonFor my teaching practice, RED ∩ ARCH has become human (machine learning (ML) and algorithms), our space for conceptualization, critical exchange, we will offer diverse ways of reading, seeing and and socioeconomic production. High energy, understanding the human condition within the built open-mindedness, and passionate engagement are environment. Apart from the resulting architectural the prerequisites. My studios work intensely and bodies, or archi-types, we will focus on interactions collaboratively; all ideas are equally valued and between the human body and the urban body: represented; constructive criticism and bold design crossing the lines of transportation, adaptation and responses constitute our primary means of commu- configuration to project a future reality of what it nication. My own design education was geographi- means to inhabit the city. cally and pedagogically disparate; I studied architecture across Asia, Europe, the Americas and Africa, Conditions, which form and inform our interacculminating in a doctorate thesis at the University of tions, which we experience on a daily basis, Applied Arts Vienna. Exceptional mentors nurtured all relate to the physical and conceptual ground, site, my interests: encouraging me to build an archiland or field. We are setting and testing boundaries, tectural practice emphasizing research, education, staying within site lines or breaking out of them, environmental, and above all, human awareness. My operating on both physical and conceptual projecteaching philosophy places an emphasis on the rela- tions. We will learn and challenge the fundamental tionship between research, practice and education. statics of architecture, development, land use, and My ambition is to make RED ∩ ARCH an integral simultaneously question them, in order to establish approach towards a more equitably built and specu- connections between RED ∩ ARCH [and]… lative environment.

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EQUITY

ADVOCACY

ADAPTABILITY

VARIABILITY

EQUILIBRIUM

exchange - planning

context - activism

specificity - program

policies - diversity

informalities - interests

ASSETS

ENVIRONMENT

ACCOUNTABILITY

POLITICS

URBANISM

[Image 1]

[1] EQUITY − ASSETS

[2] ADVOCACY − ENVIRONMENT

1a: justice according to natural law or right specifically: freedom from bias or favoritism b: something that is equitable, dealing fairly and equally with all concerned, existing or valid in equity as distinguished from law 2a: the money value of a property or of an interest in a property in excess of claims or liens against it b: the common stock of a corporation c: a risk interest or ownership right in property d: a right, claim, or interest existing or valid in equity

1a: the act or process of supporting a cause or proposal: the act or process of advocating (see ADVOCATE entry 2) something Advocate: to support or argue for (a cause, policy, etc.): to plead in favor of Etymology Middle English advocacie “intercession,” borrowed from Anglo-French advocassie “pleading,” borrowed from Medieval Latin advocatia “patronage,” from Latin advocātus

Etymology Middle English equite, from Anglo-French equité, from Latin aequitat-, aequitas, from aequus “equal, fair”

What is equity in real estate? In urban planning? Within zoning policies? How are assets managed throughout all phases of the construction process — asset design, bidding, ownership and distribution…[and] architecture?

How does the environmental context inform a way of design as activism? Who are the groups or communities we are designing for — what type of labor do we use and support — who do we collaborate with? How does advocacy exist beyond land use, affordable housing — in an interlinked equilibrium?

Img. 1: Christoph a. Kumpusch, Intersectional Modes of Engagement, 2020

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[3] ADAPTABILITY − ACCOUNTABILITY

[5] SUSTAINABILITY − URBANISM

Adaptable: capable of being or becoming adapted Adapted: suited by nature, character or design to a particular use, purpose or situation — used with, to or for

1: capable of being sustained 2a: of, relating to, or being a method of harvesting or using a resource so that the resource is not depleted or permanently damaged b: of or relating to a lifestyle involving the use of sustainable methods sustainable society

Etymology Middle English adapted (as translation of Latin adaptātus), borrowed from Middle French & Latin; Middle French adapter, borrowed from Latin adaptāre, from ad- AD- + aptāre “to put into position, bring to bear, make ready,” verbal derivative of aptus “fastened, prepared, suitable”

Etymology Middle English sustenen, from Anglo-French sustein-, stem of sustenir, from Latin sustinēre “to hold up, sustain,” from sub-, sus- “up” + tenēre “to hold”

How can we build systems that are adaptable despite How can divergent interests be balanced in a their specificity? What does it mean to build for project? How can we find an equilibrium between a specific context, while designing for alternative building sustainably and building profitably? How future uses? can we design for urban informalities to exist within a rigid system based on resilient design? [4] VARIABILITY − POLITICS Variable (adj): able or apt to vary: subject to variation or change Variable (noun): 1a: a quantity that may assume any one of a set of values b: a symbol representing a variable 2a: something that is variable b: a factor in a scientific experiment that may be subject to change Etymology (adj) Middle English, borrowed from Anglo-French, borrowed from Late Latin variābilis “changeable,” from Latin variāre “to make changeable,” VARY + -­ābilis -ABLE

How can we design cities that have variable elements — buildings with parts that can change and adapt, and be as diverse as their human and nonhuman inhabitants? How do policies and politics inform building codes?

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Each approach builds off the last, and threads of each run throughout the other, establishing a dictionary of the nonsize fits all. We will look at bodies of architecture and real estate development resulting from the necessities of moving, from the human and nonhuman to the urban body, moving forward from point A to point B, but also onward at different speeds and in different modes. We design the points of departures, or arrivals, upward and downward interactions, horizontal intersections with the city’s surface: the urban and social ground made visible through architectural bodies.

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

4. Methodology My methodology is grounded on an intensive phase of research and production. I harness and channel social equity, cross-cultural momentum, and nonbinary positionality into architectural making. This approach frontloads new vocabulary, precedents, design prompts, quick assignments, and ambitions to build a full menu of language, and references for subsequent references as the students’ creative arc lengthens. RED ∩ ARCH understands and investigates its references — it assigns value to what can be identified. My ambition is to make human actions and interactions with our natural and built environments as responsible, equitable, and energy-conscious as possible; at the center is each student’s universe, an experience they can wake up to each day and be excited about — one they won’t forget in years to come. I interweave individual and collective work, zoom in and out, push the use of drawings and models as speculative and representational tools, promote community outreach, and formulate meta themes. Most recently, my studio has focused on architecture and advocacy.

architectural language through a series of casespecific and community-based projects and engagements that move between scales: from the human to the urban, the architectural detail to the master plan, the microconditions of materiality to macrotectonics of politics and program. Above all, I aim to set a high standard of diversity and energy for every project, lecture, desk or Zoom crit, and review: modeling a global sensibility and a distinct set of values that emphasize the joint natures of our professions, through human engagement, details, technology, and legible, yet experimental, expression. This combination guarantees an attention to the development of a representational skill set inseparable from critical conceptualization and project development.

Conclusion Neither real estate development nor architecture can exist in the globalized modern world with a boiler-plate approach. Air rights, land leases, boundaries and borders act as projected site-lines, influencing the way we build. We will investigate those site-lines, search for a way to expand out — into the void, through the ground, and onto its edges — looking and investigating its transitions, While it is important to first understand and learn movements and connections, on both detailed and fundamentals, we are at a moment when archigrand scales. tecture and the city, or the rural, or simply its Each project and semester will be an opportunity context, are never separate. We will progressively become more integrated in our social and physito balance the geopolitical specificity that comes at cal contexts. Our foundational ground shifts with the intersection of RED ∩ ARCH, while bringing up a modifiers or syntax: infrastructural field conditions, larger international conversation about equity, advovantage points, lines of inquiry, energy vectors, and cacy, adaptability, variability and sustainability. planes of dissection. We will develop an

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AR

Fungible Non-fungible Architecture

Keywords: - Decentralization - Artificial Intelligence - NFT - Community - Craftsmanship - Built Environment - Citizen’s Involvement - Stakeholders - New Architectural Model Architects are no longer in control. You are in control. We are proposing a new decentralized and systemic approach towards architectural design, fabrication, and economic funding in which the community includes both the designers and investors. As the protagonists of our own future, decentralized architecture can lead towards an emergent structure that evolves and grows over time. The role of the architect as the ‘Master Builder’ is no more. Howard Roark is dead. The architect is now more analogous to a systems designer: weaving innovative technological tapestries to empower community agency and embody local craftspersonship. Through the implementation of trustless, decentralized protocols, architecture can begin to remove itself from the inherently political and financial ties that determine its existence and often its demise. By incorporating trustless systems, architecture empowers mass customization, participatory design with community funding, and thereafter, generated community capital — distributed by a system directly governed by that very community through the use of decentralized autonomous organizations

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iheartblob

(DAOs). If architecture can reformat its own understanding of itself — how it’s funded, designed and constructed — then it can succeed in its current centralized, hierarchical reality of a flattened system that works for the decentralized communities it represents. To achieve these ambitions, proposals must integrate a series of innovative technologies: blockchain, NFTs (non-fungible tokens), DAOs (decentralized autonomous organizations), and AI (artificial intelligence). The integration of such technologies enables architecture to facilitate designs that evolve and grow across realities — physically and digitally. Blockchain is at the heart of both NFTs and DAOs, the former presents a model that allows both digital and physical entity existence / ownership to be certified as unique and not interchangeable. The latter is a decentralized form of transparent governance — governed by a set of encoded rules which are only interchangeable through the unanimous permission of the community that designed it. Artificial intelligence does not directly rely on blockchain technologies or vice versa in our proposed reappraisal of the existing architectural design model. However, its importance is to filter, dissect and organize complex datasets existing in traditional architectural building information models. This system is capable of supervised training (organized by the DAO and even traditional craftspersons) that enables a resulting intelligence synonymous with craft and architectural construction. For example, consider a structure in which the unique ability

of an AI to learn construction joinery details and techniques whilst understanding local relationships and global assemblages can be balanced against its complex understanding of timber material and structural qualities, as well as a community-enabled focus on site constraints and possibilities. This novel reappraisal of the architectural design model can lead to works that are more reflective of community and environmental awareness. The outcomes would be physical-digital hybrids that balance the ‘slow’ (constantly evolving) physical life of architecture with real-time, reactive digital components. In this respect, architecture itself might begin to look a lot like John Hejduk’s “construction of time,” without the top-down design process. It is possible to implement this suggested architectural model by enabling community participation at the design stage by creating a unique custom-built NFT system that doubles as a digital twin and promotes flexibility and creativity. As part of the NFT generative tool, a parametric setup for users provides design constraints (e.g., grid systems, predefined interlocking components, timber materiality, etc.) and the initial minting fee can therefore be calculated to cover the budgeted costs of material and overheads (labor, fabrication, etc.) to manifest a physical object from this digital design. In essence, every NFT minted by the generative tool funds a physical twin for which the resultant assemblage is the architecture designed by the community and organized by artificial intelligence. [Image 1] Img. 1: iheartblob, Rendering of AI-generated blockchain design; iheartblob proposal for the 2022 Tallinn Architecture Biennale, 2021

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The more the community engages with the project and the NFT application, the more the project can grow in scale and diversity. The result is an architecture composed of unique parts, each with different designers and owners, and ultimately reflective of a broader community demand and aesthetic sentiment. Because this system aims to enable both design and community capital generation, each designed digital twin can then be sold, by the owners, on secondary marketplaces as a way to generate returns on their design. It is also assumed that the community who designs the architecture would receive recurring royalties as digital twins are traded or accrue value over time or if the digital twin is constructed elsewhere. Having a community-designed and -funded architecture that continuously evolves would only be possible if its unique parts could be composed in such a way that meets the aesthetic and architectural needs of the structure and its environment. This is a very complex task, but one for which AI is particularly well suited. Effective training of an AI is also built upon the complexity and specificity of the dataset provided — it is anticipated that it would be trained intensely for local architectural sensibilities and craftsperson creativity, alongside structural and material limitations.

[Image 3] Img. 2: iheartblob, Rendering of AI-generated blockchain design; iheartblob proposal for the 2022 Tallinn Architecture Biennale, 2021

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With that said, the machine-learning-algorithms intelligence would be driven by aesthetic references, design constraints, and works within a system that balances both local relationships of form with global assemblages of space. More specifically, these constraints would directly work with, and be Img. 3: iheartblob, Rendering of AI-generated blockchain design; iheartblob proposal for the 2022 Tallinn Architecture Biennale, 2021

[V. Sandor, p. 50]

influenced by, local craftspeople — a type of human-machine interface between AI and craftsmanship. This AI setup would further help decentralize and redefine the role of the architect into one of a systems designer in order to create structures that are able to accommodate the ever-changing nature of architecture and slowly evolving community sentiment, whether that relates to environment, culture, aesthetics, etc. This new model would radically transform the way architecture could be built — the architect would cover their own costs, build according to the demand, and directly reflect community diversity. This proposal seeks not only to build an innovative architecture, but more specifically, to provide a reappraisal of the traditional architecture design model by directly redefining how architecture is funded, designed and organized. By incorporating decentralized, trustless protocols and artificial intelligence, architecture and the model employed by its current centralized production can be transformed into something more sustainable (both environmentally and financially) and ultimately be more responsive to the community it represents. This radical repositioning of architecture is the first step towards empowering citizens to become stakeholders of their own built environment.

[Image 4] Img. 4: iheartblob, Rendering of AI-generated blockchain design; iheartblob proposal for the 2022 Tallinn Architecture Biennale, 2021

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AR Keywords: - Built Environment - Material Qualities - Digital Realm - Permanence - History - Culture - Urban Realm - Time - Notion of Artwork “Nothing endures but change.” - Heraclitus A future can be suggested, however, it is rather impossible for it to be foreseen or foretold. Which qualities of a built environment would be valuable in a constantly changing world? Once architecture reaches the state of the contemporary, is it prepared for an evolution?

Unpredictableness Gakku Jumaniyasova Michael Nemkov

The growing importance of the digital realm highlights a shift in lifestyle. The way people use buildings is changing, the familiar functionality of a space either evolves or becomes appendant. In the latter case, a space cannot serve people the way it was originally designed to, which often leads to reconstruction. The built environment is showing a tendency towards adjusting to the rituals coordinated by digital reality, with a request for a space to be an ever-changing interface. Nonetheless, the built environment is associated with permanence, appearing as a cultural and historical legacy with a growing divergence from the inquiries of reality. Fundamentally, buildings were perceived as a shield, a barrier in between an interior and exterior world. Within a functionalprogrammatic approach, the concept of a shelter became subordinate. However, the way we use buildings is constantly changing and it cannot be simplified to a function. As our perception is shifting, we are starting to value different qualities in the built environment. Once a context that framed a building is no longer present, a building or its elements take part in a new assemblage (M. DeLanda). That makes me think of accidental qualities of the object, something that was left unplanned, something that was not meant to be there, and the object’s ability to be absorbed by a new reality. In philosophy, it is defined as ‘accidentia’ — an attribute that may or may not belong to a subject, without affecting its original essence.

[B. Boigon, p. 134]

Every now and then, I wonder about the physical world that surrounds me and I focus on basic things. Simple questions come to my mind: What was built? Is it something that is called context, preexisting and predefined? Which qualities of this environment can be clearly distinguished and what future do they contain? I recall a feeling of a district from my memory: consider any urban space, and release it from its intentional/inscribed characteristics such as function, previous conditions, social context, etc. Windows are no longer windows and doors are no longer doors. Walls and ceilings, streets and squares, rooftops and basements, seem so different now. Does this enviTranslating this term to the urban realm, the rigidity ronment serve us in the way it was intended to? and stability of a building confront an inter-

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pretational dynamism of time. An environment gains a new life (afterlife) through seemingly insignificant attributes, which put a building in a state of perpetual change. Throughout the 21st century, architecture has been fascinated by the idea of changing the environment. One could find it in Herman Hertzberger’s Diagoon housing, the Metabolism movement, and Toyo Ito’s 1997 essay,“Tarzans in the Media Forest.” However, contemporary music theory appears to have developed this topic further in a different direction. Aleatoric music (music created by chance, accidentally; as the product of free improvisation; indeterminate music; open form) is a genre in music theory in which some elements of the composition are left uncertain and accidental. Some primary elements of composed works are left open to be freely interpreted by listeners. John Cage commented on the premiere of his composition, 4'33": “They missed the point. There’s no such thing as silence. What they thought was silence, because they didn’t know how to listen, was full of accidental sounds. You could hear the wind stirring outside during the first movement. During the second, raindrops began pattering the roof, and during the third the people themselves made all kinds of interesting sounds as they talked or walked out.” Aleatoric works challenge a traditional notion of an artwork as a complete entity determined by its author. Roland Barthes also mentioned a similar topic in his essay, “The Death of the Author.” In the scope of architecture, another analogy seems

[Image 1] Img. 1: Patrik Slusarski, Michael Nemkov, Agora: Semi-Controlled Surface Conditions, Studio Sejima, University of Applied Arts Vienna, 2019

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significant — the notion of ‘void’ in Japanese culture, as the matter of space for a diversity of possible contents and infillings, serves that comparison. Ku — an element in Japanese philosophy — is the void. Ku is the emptiness. Ku is the absence, the hole at the center of who we think we are, the womb from whence we came, knowing nothing, having nothing; ku is the death that looms before us. In the Tao Te Ching, Laozi wrote: “We mould clay into a pot, but it is the emptiness inside that makes the vessel useful. We fashion wood for a house, but it is the emptiness inside that makes it livable. We work with the substantial, but the emptiness is what we use.”1 Brick walls, old marble, concrete are the patterns of history — solids in their qualities that frame the void of things. The void that surrounds them is there to be explored. The void stays unpredictable, undefined. The void remains as a perpetual possibility of the future. The development of the physical world lays in the layer of the unknown, different mental constructs, and other states of ideas and concepts.

[Image 2] Img. 2: Michael Nemkov, Relational Space: Simulation of an Evolution of Landscape, Studio díazmoreno garcíagrínda,University of Applied Arts Vienna, 2021

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An object is burdened with additional meanings and performs unplanned functions — its future consists of something unseen, untouched and unnoticed. “But entropy is something else. It denotes a condition of ongoing uncertainty, something beyond the jurisdiction of any professional body. One aspect of the modern project, quotations for purity and unfettered ideas, can be seen as an ongoing battle to halt the processes of entropy.”2 1 Barton, D. W. (2016). The Five Elements in Japanese Culture

2 Laozi. Tao Te Ching. 6th century BC

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Img. 3: Michael Nemkov, Soundscape, 2021

Img. 4: Patrik Slusarski, Michael Nemkov, Relational Space: Irrigation System Studio díazmoreno garcíagrínda, University of Applied Arts Vienna, 2019

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Human activity and behavior, despite the considerable effort being made to research, simulate and mimic it as a system, will always remain rather unpredictable in particular situations. If such occurrences are defined as unpredictability and unfinishedness, the most useful qualities of objects might remain unexposed and hidden. Moreover, once an object evolves in an unplanned direction, it starts to function independently from its concept. Unfinishedness and unpredictableness are not the results of the lack of control of an author or poor planning, rather they offer a chance for a redefinition. When an architectural project is considered as an open-ended, ongoing process within dynamic contexts, ‘accidentia’ appears as one of its natural principles.

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[Image 5] Img. 5: Patrik Slusarski, Michael Nemkov, Agora: Layered Spaces, Studio Sejima, University of Applied Arts Vienna, 2019

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ARchitecture

How Augmented Reality Technologies Will Change Architectural Design

Keywords: - Augmented Reality - Architectural Elements - Architectural Language - Cultural Context - Communication - Physical Space - Digital Space - Transparency - Digital Content 01 — Walk Imagine yourself walking down a street looking for a certain address. You count the house numbers, searching for the right one. Then you enter the main door, searching for the main staircase or the elevator. After getting upstairs, you appear in the narrow corridor. Looking at the numbers, you move through space and finally find what you’ve been looking for.

Margarita Volkova

But what if we could assume that we didn’t need literal or architectural language anymore? If we could imagine numbers and street signs disappearing and we didn’t have to look for the main door or main stair because the architectural environment had become communicative instead of just giving us signs, walls and ceilings, and architectural elements1 have turned from static objects into interactive elements that transform and move, leading us through an architectural environment. The invention of this new, communicative architectural language has become possible with the development of augmented and mixed reality technologies.

02 — Architectural Language It’s quite easy to understand what the literal language is: literal signs with street names, house numbers, or arrows showing us what direction to go in. We will call these signs literal because they involve a literal speaking language with letters and digits. In this narrative, all the architectural elements, such If we are clear about what literal language and signs as the main door or main staircase, are ‘architecare, let’s then define what architectural language is tural signs’ that help you. Doors, windows, vertical and where it comes from. Umberto Eco, in his book, connections: all these architectural elements help Function and Sign: The Semiotics of Architecture, us navigate through the building and environment. explains that “a phenomenological consideration Via this simple ‘architectural alphabet,’ we can orient of our relationship with architectural elements tells ourselves within the space and ‘read’ space. Howus that we commonly do experience architecture as ever, when these architectural signs are similar and communication, even while recognizing its funcarranged right next to one another, they become tionality.”2 hard to discern: to find a certain door, we have to address the literal figures — door numbers. It causes Considering Eco’s example, let’s “imagine the point the phenomenon of complex navigation within a of view of the man who started the history of arsimple space. chitecture. Driven by cold and rain, a hypothetical Stone-Age man takes shelter in a cave. Once the storm is over, he might leave the cave and 1 ‘Architectural elements’ in this text means details and component parts that, together, form the architectural space and building, such as columns, ceilings, slabs, windows, doorways, etc.

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2 Leach, N., ed. (1997). “Umberto Eco.” Rethinking Architecture: A Reader in Cultural Theory. Routledge

reconsider it from the outside; there he would note the entryway, rethinking architecture as a ‘hole that permits passage to the inside.’ Thus, an ‘idea of the cave’ takes shape, which is useful at least as a mnemonic device, enabling him to think of the cave later on as a possible objective in case of rain, but also enabling him to recognize the same possibility of shelter in another cave. The model functions so well that he can now recognize someone else’s cave from a distance. Now, this would still be a matter of an individual’s realization of an abstract model, but in a sense, the model is already codified, not yet on a social level, but on the level of this individual. The architectural code would generate an iconic code, and the ‘cave principle’ would become an object of communicative intercourse.”3 According to Eco’s interpretation, this works for all basic architectural elements. In the cultural context in which we live, a stair exists as an architectural form that might be defined as “an inclined progression of rigid, horizontal surfaces upward. And such a form denotes the meaning ‘stair as a possibility of going up’ on the basis of a code that I can work out and recognize as operative even if, in fact, no one is going up that stair at present and even though, in theory, no one might ever go up it again.”4 The semiotic perspective that we have shown a preference for, with its distinction between sign vehicles and meanings, permits us to recognize sign vehicles in architectural signs capable of being described and catalogued, which can denote precise functions, provided one interprets them in light of certain codes. Until now, we have required signs because they have 3 Ibid., footnote 2

been our only way of understanding our architectural environment. Despite the fact that Eco calls our perception of the stair’s ‘possibility of going up’ communication with architecture, we have to dispute this term. In fact, architecture only gives us a sign (architectural or literal) and we only read it. This is more like reading the language but not having the dialogue. And the dialogue appears only in the case that architecture also reads us and responds accordingly. What if we didn’t need to have only one door to ‘read’ the architectural sign and deter us from the entrance, but we could instead have ten doors without any numbers because the door we needed was highlighted by mixed reality? In this case, we would still consider all ten doors as a possible way to enter, but when the one that we need was highlighted, it would mean that the architecture would speak to us because we would tell it exactly where we need to go. What would people do? What would the architecture of the nearest future be if we could take usage of mixed reality technologies on a daily basis for granted? Operating with the current literal and architectural sign vehicles, architecture faces the simplicity of the phenomena of the architectural environment and the complexity of the navigation within it. Having ten doors, we see that the architectural sign door is pretty simple, although among the ten doors, it’s hard to find the one we need (and that’s where literal language comes in). Responding to the problem of navigation and the monotony of architectural elements, I would like to introduce a new

4 Ibid., footnote 2

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interactive language, in which architectural elements imperfections of the design, for instance). Now, augmented reality (AR) is also becoming can become complex, while the navigation within can remain simple and understandable. popular in architecture. There are a couple of ways of using this technology, including for construction Relying on Eco’s statements about communication and engineering. between the architecture and user, we only consider an architectural element as the language. Taking a But we are more interested in the potential of broader look at what communication with architec- augmented and mixed reality and their impact on ture and navigation means, we are able to address architectural typology and design. a postmodern investigation of the architectural environment and its spatial qualities. In their essay, As examples, let’s consider two recent architectural “Transparency: Literal and Phenomenal,” Colin diploma projects: the “Games of Deletion” project by Rowe and Robert Slutzky investigate the underRunze Zhang (Sci-Arc)6 and the navigation system standing of the space through “the disposition of el- of the “Read/Write” project by Shaun McCallum.7 ements, which allows our mind to mentally rebuild These projects clearly demonstrate current ways of the composition behind them without actually being using and applying augmented and mixed reality. able to see through it.”5 Through the term “phenom- The first project was conceived as a game in which enal transparency,” they describe the possibility of players operating through the device’s screen are understanding and reading an architectural space able to deconstruct the appearance of the architecand thereby navigating within it through the specific tural elements (walls and facades) by discovering spatial arrangement, in which a few architectural the simulation of the view behind these elements. spaces are organized in a way that one can perceive The second example is designed as a device applithem simultaneously and thus perceive the comcation as well, whose aim is to navigate through bination of them as the whole. In short, Rowe and the complex built architectural environment. The Slutzky consider architectural space organization as application works through the deconstruction of the existing architectural environment and its separate an architectural language. shapes and the simulation of the conspicuously 03 — [AR]chitecture noticeable landmarks for navigation within the Currently, designed mixed reality applications pro- space. This project is a good example of the switch duce additional layers covering the existing physical from literal and architectural language to the new environment. The physical environment is the main communicative environment language, which reacts ‘actor’ in this case, and always comes first. As an and responds to the user. Here, newly designed addition, digital layers tend to only augment the landmarks become architectural elements of a new physical environment and fix imperfections in the type. existing space (like difficulty in navigation or related 5 Rowe, Colin; Slutzky Robert; “Transparency: Literal and Phenomenal,” 1955

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6 “Games of Deletion,” architectural diploma thesis by Runze Zhang (Sci-Arc) https://www.z-rz.com/home

7 “Read/Write,” master architectural diploma thesis by Shaun McCallum (University of Applied Arts Vienna) https://shaunmccallum.xyz/readwrite/

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Img. 1: Margarita Volkova, Three Modes of Space Perception, 2021

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The “Games of Deletion” project is a good example of how modernist ideas of ‘transparency’ are projected on the contemporary vision. While the user is given the power to digitally destroy and remove architectural elements, he faces a new contemporary phenomenon: virtual transparency. If literal transparency is characterized by physical material qualities and phenomenal transparency is defined as the conceptual transparency of space reading or organization, virtual transparency can be defined as a digital opportunity to look through and read the space through digital modifications with architectural elements.

storm movement. Due to the fact that the user is able to touch a physical object (concrete block), s/he already perceives the projection not as an illusion, but as something real.

So far, we haven’t had a direct physical connection between physical space and digital content: everything that moves stays visual only; every projection on the wall physically (tactilely) stays on the wall. Designing the corridor at the place of projection, we allow the user to actually enter the mixed reality environment. Changing the design approach towards this hybridization, we get the opportunity to design a new perception — and an immersive and exciting Both projects use augmented reality to design the one. It’s time to consider the process of space design additional digital layers in order to change the not as the “digital follows the physical,” but as the physical environment, which has already been built. simultaneous development of both. Also, both architects use the physical environment as a basis for the digital one. And what if we consid- When augmented reality technologies are applied to ered a simultaneous design of both the physical and architecture, they have the potential to be changed and to become a rigid hybrid between the physical digital environments? In this case, we would consider AR as a full-fledged environment having equal and virtual environment. Due to such changes, the value to a physical environment. So the physical and typology of future architecture will change in order digital environment would be adapted to each other. to provide the environment with AR content. Architecture in the world of AR daily usage isn’t a physical The combination of the physical and digital envi‘white canvas’ for the digital augmentation layer. It ronment on the stage of design gives architecture is a cooperative environment built to carry certain the potential to design a different typology with a new type of architectural space experience — imtypes of information in order to show it in the most mersion. One of the best examples of this kind of impressive way. experience is the project by studio DRIFT, “Concrete Storm.”8 This project is designed in a physical room 04 — Conclusion with a few concrete blocks on the floor. As soon You might imagine yourself walking within a as the user wears the provided HoloLens, s/he can physically walkable area which is arranged for see that the concrete blocks actually act as bases for augmentation. For instance, going up with staircases the concrete columns floating in the air, simulating and ramps within an atrium surrounded by floating 8 “Concrete Storm,” art piece by studio DRIFT. https://www.studiodrift.com/ concrete-storm-microsoft/

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[S. McCallum, p. 71]

and morphing blob-like shapes, or moving through a hall with columns that have partially remained physical and some that have been augmented in order to provide a simultaneously haptic and augmented immersive experience. Thus, when we combine the physical with the digital, we erase the boundaries of the existing and the nonexisting and thereby heighten the immersion. Currently, we have to ‘read’ architectural elements and literal signs as sign vehicles in order to understand space and navigate within it. Digital augmentation will give architecture the capacity of direct interaction and immediate response. The monologue will become a dialogue. As soon as architecture begins to speak, it speaks with new types of architectural elements: interactive architectural shapes (typical architectural elements turned into moving objects with a changeable quality). Architectural elements such as doors or stairs will remain the function of the navigation element: we will still understand the possibility of upward motion upon seeing stairs, but the number, design and placement of the stairs will change, which offers a new architectural typology. Instead of the oversimplified forms designed for easy navigation, architectural elements will get a more individualized, nonsimilar look, but navigation will not be affected due to the usage of the AR navigation environment. The value of the numbers and tablets will be decreased due to the migration of their navigation function to the digital environment and the ability to interact.

As already mentioned, the notion of designing architectural space as a speaking environment is already permeating postmodernist studies. Coming back to the essay, “Transparency: Literal and Phenomenal,” one can draw a parallel between the terms. Literal transparency helps one to understand the space using physical, material qualities (e.g., the transparency of glass). Phenomenal transparency involves a spatial arrangement using overlapping and interpenetrating spatial dimensions in order to give the user the ability to navigate by perceiving the multiple spaces from one vantage point. Both types of transparency exist in order to design the language for ‘reading’ the architectural environment. Invention and development in the architecture of a new interactive digital language is a contemporary way of searching for possibilities of communication with the architectural environment. Architecture has the potential to go through a dramatic change. Architectural design will evolve, bringing new, exciting, immersive experiences, while communication will be improved, which will allow for simple navigation and an understanding of the space.

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Individual Scale Essays in this section address topics at the micro- and most personal of scales. The ideas behind these essays address internal psychological ideals and focus on inward-facing impacts of broader topics. Looking at this human scale, the projects serve as catalysts for spatial decisions across much larger scales and projects.

[ c62, m20, y12, k07 ]

IN

IN Keywords: - Fashion Design - Product Design - 3D Printing - Photography - 2D-to-3D Processes - Nature-Inspired Geometry - Garments - Manufacturing - Support Structure Innovative new production processes are enabling us to rethink urban manufacturing across various disciplines, like fashion, product design, and architecture. The SETAE, ARID and HY designs showcase otherworldly aesthetics and explore emergent technologies that are disrupting traditional manufacturing techniques. The three designs were created using architectural design processes and focus on local and on-demand production using 3D printing. The overall ambition is to reduce shipping and to implement innovative, sustainable production and design methodologies utilizing plant-based and biodegradable materials, while mimicking biological growth processes, color schemes, and aesthetic morphologies.

SETAE, ARID, HY Julia Koerner

microscopic structure. Butterfly wings are made up of membranes that are covered by thousands of colorful scales and hairs, known as setae. These hair-like structures help the butterfly to sense wind, temperature, and the location of body parts during flight. Photographs of the Madagascan sunset moth wing setae were digitized into an algorithm that translates the color pixels into 3D bristle patterns that correspond to the form of the garment design. Each bristle is an independent structure that was printed on white denim fabric. The relation between the colorful, rigid setae and the flexible fabric creates enigmatic visual effects when the garment is in motion. In collaboration with Stratasys, the digital designs were 3D printed in an innovative way, without any supporting structure, thereby eliminating sacrificial support material and optimizing the printing process. The separation of the 3D print from the body through a fabric enhances the wearability, durability and comfort of the jacket in comparison to those qualities using existing 3D-printed fashion techniques.

The design was exhibited at the Designs for Different Futures exhibition at the Philadelphia Museum of The SETAE Jacket is a unique visualization of the Art and Walker Arts Center from 2019 to 2021 and Madagascar sunset moth. The unique design was 3D was awarded the Big See Fashion Design Award printed directly on the fabric in multicolor for the 2021. Stratasys Chro-Morpho collection. The piece shows how 3D printing can work in harmony with textiles to enhance the level of comfort for the wearer. The design was initiated by research into natural patterns, particularly butterfly wing patterns and their

SETAE Jacket

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Img. 1: Img. 2: Julia Koerner Setae Jacket for Chro-Morpho Julia Koerner Setae Jacket for Chro-Morpho Collection by Stratasys, Collection by Stratasys, Photography Ger Ger, 2019 Photography Ger Ger, 2019

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ARID Collection

The ARID Collection was designed as part of the year-long European grant-funded project, Digital Vogue – Between Synthetic and Organic Processes, a collaborative research project for which selected artists and designers teamed up with a community of scientists to rethink the urban manufacturing process of the fashion industry. The goal was to develop new concepts for the future of fashion by means of new processes and aesthetics that are inclusive and sustainable. The research focused on 2D to 3D digital processes for nature-inspired geometries and the connectivity and adaptability of textiles with multicolor 3D-printed parts, with an underlying focus on material efficiency and sustainability. The design process was driven and inspired by imagery of natural artifacts with a juxtaposition of oceanic and arid environments. The digital designs were 3D printed in an innovative way, without any support material and directly on sustainable fabrics and in multicolor, creating an enigmatic visual effect when the garment is in motion while maintaining the comfort and wearability of fabric garments.

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The ARID collection amalgamated the research into a collection of 38 3D-printed parts that can be combined together to form a full dress, or cascade into a number of different looks and combinations. The collection allows for personalized size adaptability through modified connectors that are derived from 3D scans of the wearer. The collection’s design took inspiration from the crystalline formations of the Dead Sea and its earth-tone, arid textures, yet

Img. 3: Julia Koerner ARID Collection Re-FREAM Project Digital Vogue, Photography Ger Ger, 2020

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[M. Walczak, p. 82]

shimmers as the 3D prints flow with fabric movement. This collection exemplifies the possibilities of the digital design process and 3D printing. The research partners in this project were Stratasys, Haratech, Profactor, and the Consultancy University of Art and Design Linz - Department of Fashion & Technology. The collection was designed in a cascading manner, it can be worn as a full dress or its elements can be disassembled and worn with regular traditional clothes. The garment consists of a jacket with different lengths, a skirt, a corset, and a series of accessories. The structure of the seams is based on the muscle layout and anatomy of the female body. There is no sewing involved in the final assembly of the parts, instead, all the seams are connected using 3D-printed joinery. For the first time, 3D-printed connectors were used in the assembly of a 3D-printed garment. The design displays months of research into textiles, joinery, and digital design processes. The ultimate goal within Re-Fream was for the design workflows to become fully digitized from design to production, leading to “local production and mass customization.” One of the challenges with consumer 3D-printed clothing is practicality and comfort for the wearer. 3D printing on textiles holds the key to the future in fashion due to its advanced wearability, as the 3D print is separated through a textile base layer and does not directly touch the skin. During the initial research phase in 2018, 3D geometries were tested on desktop printers, which revealed the vast

[Image 4] Img. 4: Julia Koerner ARID Collection Re-FREAM Project Digital Vogue, Photography Ger Ger, 2020

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opportunities for 3D printing on fabric. During the co-research phase with the technology partners Stratasys and Profactor, a large variety of textile swatches of different weaves and dyes were tested, with benchmarked adhesion tests to create a summary catalogue. The design incorporates the potential of the cascading idea and the many variations that can be realized with it. Besides single garments, there is a variety of accessories and further applications that can be achieved with these design techniques, which can add to changes in urban manufacturing in the long term. There are tremendous opportunities for 3D-printed joinery and geometry development. [Image 5]

[Image 6] Img. 5: Julia Koerner ARID Collection Re-FREAM Project Digital Vogue, Photography JK Design, 2020

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During the design process, several different workflows were developed to design the dress based on a series of 3D scans. With these workflows, the dress can be printed automatically in different sizes. For this technique, local and on-demand production and personalization and mass customization were some of the main ambitions. In regards to the sustainability ambition, 100% natural hemp fiber was sourced as the base layer for the textile, which utilizes significantly less water than cotton. For the 3D-printing process, geometries were designed that can be printed without any support material — meaning only the material that is needed is used. The work leading to this invention received funding from the European Union Horizon 2020 Program under grant agreement no. 825647. Img. 6: Julia Koerner ARID Collection Re-FREAM Project Digital Vogue, Photography JK Design, 2020

[M. del Campo, p. 43]

HY CLUTCH The HY Clutch features intricate and complex organic forms that are inspired by natural hymenium lamella structures and can only be created using additive manufacturing, resulting in a bag consisting of 3,626 layers. The lamellar structure, in combination with the translucent material, creates exciting translucent effects. Sustainably manufactured from plant-based materials in JK3D’s solar-powered lab in California and clean energy lab in Vienna, the HY Clutch is fully 3D printed and features an integrated closure clasp, partially opening hinge, and interior pocket — all monolithically created by the same process and material. It can be carried in the hand with an ergonomic grip along its lamellas, or using a shoulder strap with integrated loops. Lastly, it can be displayed using resting angles on its lamellas. The product demonstrates a new approach to disrupting traditional manufacturing techniques and questions critical issues in production, such as environmental concerns. The HY Clutch was awarded the Red Dot Design Award 2021 and has been longlisted for Dezeen’s Product Design and Wearable Award 2021.

[Image 7]

With JK3D, we are rethinking urban manufacturing in regard to local production, reducing its global carbon footprint, and on-demand fabrication, reducing material waste through additive manufacturing, and implementing sustainable resources such as biodegradable and plant-based materials.

[Image 8] Img. 7: Julia Koerner HY Clutch, JK3D, 2021

Img. 8: Julia Koerner HY Clutch, JK3D, 2021

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IN Keywords: - Nonlinearity - Future Worlds - Androids - Singularity - Totality - Connection - Routines - Characters - Wholeness

THE INTEROPERA

A Future Riff on the Future Mothership: When the Impossible Happens Artist: Brian Boigon Studio Research Assistant: Bo Zhang

Machines, Avatars, Data Shrapnel, Ember’s Chrome Throat, Dining Tables with Shakespearean wrath billowing forth where then, near-death lived in a robotic Android flipping titanium secrets to higherdimensional Aliens held in check by Surgical Guards for Alpine on the Mothership. We worried and ventilated the Future for our Autonomy and its Rules of Play. After all, Autonomy was the Devil’s Pitchforked Bifurcation. While we all raced to become independent in one direction, they strived About It to be ripped and connected, and melded into one When the Impossible Happens spins a Nonlinear another. Being is Singular and Total. Being Total is visual Quantum clip glued to narrative vector path- being part of the Whole. Wholeness is connectedways that arc from a nonordinary reality => The ness. Connectedness is wholeness while seeking the Interoperatic world. All together, these locomotive, entanglement of Implicate Wholeness conducted by asymmetrical alignments represent early embryonic way of a Retinal Circus. That’s the Interopera. equilibrium beacons found in the splintered shards deeply embedded in various characters => dipped into the rotating, entangled past future sent us => dancing in the tunnel of the UnderWorld on the graves > of spirits in the totality of birth, life and death => as Tibetan Monkeys swing between Ayahuasca vines in the Amazon Jungle => alien throats screaming for their Shamans to activate the invisible telekinetic splinters in their brains. Happiness drops > The Interopera follows its geometric hollow ship shape hull alongside meaningful routines hosting Entanglement Bins, Dakota’s Loom, Revolvers, Forgotten Forest, Ocular

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Brian Boigon LIST OF INTEROPERA WORKS Image Courtesy of Gallery Christie Contemporary 6. Connectedness Wholeness 7. IO Ship Shape Semi-Detached Kiss 8. Implicate Wholeness 9. The Reefer 10. Nonordinary Reality Customs Portal 11. Ship Shape RNA RIP Addition 12. Death 3 13. Alien Ship Shape Procreation 14. IO Vortical Leader2 15. Load2 Quantum 16. Pitchfork Bifurcation 17. My Ship 18. Quantum Link 19. Conical Wholeness 20. Implicate Takeout 21. The Reef

22. Ship Shape Nodal 23. Implicate Conical Wholeness 24. The Healing 25. Codex Quantum Ship Shape 26. Apex Alien Ship Shape 27. Alpine Mother Ship Shape 28. Divinity Transfer 29. Security Shaman Ship Shape 30. Queen Mother Alpine 31. One Universe Ship Shape 32. A5 for the Implicate Order 33. Spirit Map of Life 34. Devil’s Cauldron, The Reefer

[G. Jumaniyasova, M. Nemkov, p. 114]

[Index 1]

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[Index 1]

[Image 19] Index 1: Image Courtesy of Gallery Christie Contemporary, Array of Images, 2020

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Img. 19: Image Courtesy of Gallery Christie Contemporary, Conical Wholeness, 2020

[Image 28]

[Image 15]

Img. 28: Image Courtesy of Gallery Christie Contemporary, Divinity Transfer, 2020

Img. 15: Image Courtesy of Gallery Christie Contemporary, Load2 Quantum, 2020

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[Image 16]

[Image 30]

Img. 16: Image Courtesy of Gallery Christie Contemporary, Pitchfork Bifurcation, 2020

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Img. 30: Image Courtesy of Gallery Christie Contemporary, Queen Mother Alpine, 2020

[Image 11]

[Image 33] Img. 11: Image Courtesy of Gallery Christie Contemporary, Ship Shape RNA RIP Addition, 2020

Img. 33: Image Courtesy of Gallery Christie Contemporary, Spirit Map of Life, 2020

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

Sound as a Space-Creating Tool Mathias Juul Frost

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

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

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

[Image 1]

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

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[Image 2]

Img. 2: Mathias Juul Frost, AFA, Inner City of Lagos, 2017

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[Image 3]

Img. 3: Mathias Juul Frost, AFA, A Street Scene in Lagos, 2017

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IN

Time in Architecture on the Sociocultural Scale Michael Tingen

Keywords: - Time and Space - Movement - Representation - Materialization - Sound - Audiophysical Experience - Motion - Symbolism - Audible Information

that the occupation of enclosed space, and the need to inscribe information into it, is a phenomenon that is profoundly rooted within our species. Furthermore, movement — in this case, movement of animals shown through multiple ‘frames’ — was the prevailing subject of depiction. This implies that humans may have an intuitive understanding of the relationship between time and motion. As it relates to space, if it is true that we have a natural, intuitive sense of time and motion, as well as the desire to V=D/T ; T=D/V ; D=V*T inscribe this information into form, then we have Time is described as distance multiplied by velocity, essentially arrived at a form of proof that the huwhich is a mathematical index of natural phenom- mans of prehistory had explicit architectural ideas ena. Rather than as the result of the Enlightenment about time and motion in spaces of enclosure. and scientific method, I would like to argue that this was arrived upon as a result of millennia of intuitive Architecture/Materialization of Movement sensory experience. Furthermore, if we establish Sociocultural information becomes embedded in that variety of experience is fundamentally vital to physical form — as time progressed, and architecthe development of intelligence, I would argue that tural craft developed, we began to see examples of the modification of our sensory experiences is: explicit embedding of information within architectural form. Hindu temples exemplify this phe1. A universally human quality nomena as they not only depict information about 2. A fundamental mechanism of intellectual and specific social behavior, the composition of this is a cultural development literal animation of human positions in time. In this manner, the architecture becomes a document of Origins of Representation of Movement human experience through time. Clearly, we have always been considering time in the context of space and form. The cave paintings in Sound/Dematerialization of Movement Lascaux, France, made approximately 40,000 years There was also a transition from formal symbolism ago, used the walls of a cave to depict complex im- to audible symbolism of movement within space. agery of animals in motion. The compositional and Moving about a thousand years forward to Gothic technical expertise displayed in these paintings in- architecture in Europe, we see a similar scenario dicates not only a mastery of craft, but also indicates playing out throughout this period. that the cavemen had spent significant amounts of time inside these caves. Therefore, we can assume

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[A. Shesterikova, p. 80]

Only this time, the information of time becomes less explicit (no longer a literal image of the human moving in space) and dematerialized to express experiential qualities of the space. The placement of a building-scale musical instrument, the pipe organ, in the rear of a building, and high-arched spatial volumes supported by rhythmically placed columns, create a sonic atmosphere. This allows for a wider array of information to be expressed within a finite space and creates a feedback loop between formsound in space/audible information and the persons experiencing it. Furthermore, the people constantly act as the filter for these coalescing phenomena, in a constant state of morphological authorship of audiophysical experience.

[Image 1]

[Image 2] Img. 1: Photo: Thomas T. Etologic Horse Study, Chauvet’s Cave, 2010

Img. 2: Photo: Dmitry Rukhlenko, Stone Carving Bas Relief Sculptures on Vaman Temple, Madhya Pradesh, India

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Appendix

[ c00, m00, y00, k00 ]

AP

AP Oliver Alunovic Born in 1992 in Linz. Studied architecture and transdisciplinary art at the University of Applied Arts Vienna. He utilizes different media like photography, sound, and new technology such as video game engines and artificial intelligences. Gerald Bast Gerald Bast has been president of the University of Applied Arts Vienna since 2000. After his studies in law and economics at Johannes Kepler University Linz, where he earned a doctorate in law, he worked at the Federal Ministry of Higher Education and the Ludwig Boltzmann Research Society. He is a member of the European Academy of Arts and Sciences, and editor-in-chief of the Edition Angewandte and Art, Research, Innovation and Society book series. As university president, Gerald Bast has initiated various new programs focusing on transdisciplinarity and the interrelation between the arts and society. He founded the Angewandte Innovation Lab, accentuating the role of the arts in innovation processes by facilitating intercommunication between art, science and technology, economics and politics. Gerald Bast has published in the fields of university law, university management, as well as educational and cultural policy and held various invited lectures on the role of art, creativity, innovation and higher education, among them at Johns Hopkins University Washington D.C., Columbia University New York, Tsing Hua University Beijing, Tong Ji University Shanghai, City University Hong Kong, University of Auckland, Lalit Kala Akademi New Delhi, University of Porto, NTU Singapore, European Forum Alpbach, and the European Culture Forum Brussels.

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Biographies

Sasha Belitskaja Sasha Belitskaja is an Estonian architectural designer, NFT artist, and UX developer whose work centers on novel interactive design models and the interplay of new emergent aesthetics. Her projects focus on utilizing computer graphics and game engine technology to explore new forms of connectivity between audience, creator and community. Her experimental work and proposals have been published internationally. Sasha Belitskaja has taught workshops on building dynamic spatial conditions through custom-built game design environments and experimental 3D modelling softwares. She received her bachelor of architecture from the University of Dundee, graduating with distinction, before continuing her master’s studies at the University of Applied Arts Vienna in Studio Greg Lynn. Throughout her professional career, Sasha Belitskaja has worked for award-winning internationally known design offices in Stuttgart, Vienna, London and Los Angeles. Brian Boigon Brian Boigon is an artist and philosopher. His works span a multitude of operational disciplines including quantum mechanics, locomotive dynamical systems, science fiction, cartoon animation, and the ballet of computational script hacking. He is a professor at the Daniels Faculty of Architecture, University of Toronto, where he also runs the Inner Outer Space Lab, sits on the board of the Toronto MOCA, and is represented by Gallery Christie Contemporary. Brian Boigon is currently working on “The Magic of Membranes through Drawing/ Writing/Movies and Music” under a sci-fi project

Tiziano Derme Tiziano Derme is an architect interested in the relationship between architectural design, emergent materials, and biotechnologies within digital and robotic fabrication. Goni Dagan His research focuses on microbially mediated fabGoni Dagan is an Israeli architect, currently active rication processes applied to the built environment. in a Tel Aviv-based architecture studio. Her main He is a Ph.D. researcher at the Chair for Digital focus is on city renewal projects as well as innovaBuilding Technologies (dbt), Institute of Technology tive schools. in Architecture (ITA) at the Department of ArchitecShe received her bachelor of architecture with hon- ture at ETH Zurich. Tiziano Derme is the cofounder ors from Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design and and director of MAEID Büro für Architektur und took part in the exchange program at the University transmediale Kunst. of Applied Arts Vienna in Studio Hani Rashid. Her graduation project dealt with an alternative system Anton Falkeis for allocating donations and architectural programs Anton Falkeis is a licensed architect in Austria and to informal education buildings. Liechtenstein. Together with Cornelia Falkeis-Senn he is cofounder of falkeis2architects and falkeis2arMatias del Campo chitects.building innovation lab. Their architectural Matias del Campo is a registered architect, dework has been widely published and exhibited at signer and educator. He is an associate professor Venice Biennale, and in solo exhibitions at ACFNY at Taubman College for Architecture and Urban New York, A+D Museum Los Angeles, MAK MusePlanning, University of Michigan, and director of um Vienna, Aedes Architecture Forum Berlin, and Urbanspace Gallery Toronto. It is part of the permathe AR2IL – The Architecture and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory at UoM. He conducts research on nent collection of the MAK Museum Vienna. advanced design methods in architecture, primarily Anton Falkeis started his academic career as a guest through the application of artificial intelligence researcher at the University of Tokyo, Japan and techniques; collaborating with Michigan Robotics has lectured at several universities worldwide. He and the computer science department. Matias del was a guest professor at Nanjing University of Art Campo is the cofounder of the architecture practice China and is a full professor at the University of SPAN. Their award-winning architectural designs Applied Arts Vienna, where he was also a vice dean are informed by advanced geometry, computational of the School of Architecture, dean of the Institute methodologies, and philosophical inquiry. Arts and Society, founding head of the Department of Social Design, and is head of the Department for Special Topics in Architecture Design. He is a known as “The Interopera;” where he continues to explore the dimensions of his trilogy in the nonordinary reality as its bank shot through the nonlinearity of framing, looping and projecting.

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visiting critic at ETH Zürich and a frequent speaker at international conferences, including keynotes at “Building Lasting Change” Vancouver and “Green Building Conference” Toronto, Canada. Writings by Anton Falkeis include “Featureless City,” “Western Style and Eastern Mind,” “Urbanizing the World,” “Thinking out of the Urban Design Toolbox,” “Urban Change,” and “Active Buildings.”
 Anton Falkeis is JSPS fellow of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science and the National Winner of the Energy Globe Award 2020. He holds a patent for building integrated energy generating systems. www.falkeis.com iheartblob iheartblob is an award-winning mixed reality design studio and research collective with a strong focus on the Architectural Object and the role of emerging technologies within architecture. Their work is meant to both enchant and reflect on the crisis of thought which is running through architecture today by investigating new and established ideas as though they were materials, engaging seriously with hard-hitting agendas, whilst remaining at a distance from full immersion. The studio has exhibited numerous provocative proposals across the globe, including at the Storefront for Art and Architecture in New York City and the A+D Museum in Los Angeles; they have constructed a variety of mixed reality works as physical/digital pavilions for the Toronto Winter Stations Festival and Magazin Gallery in Vienna; and their research has been presented at the Architectural Association Visiting School in China and in publications such as Archinect’s Ed magazine.

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They have most recently released their book iheartblob – Augmented Architectural Objects: A New Visual Language. Benjamin James Benjamin James is an American-British economist and architectural designer. His works fuses these disciplines by focusing on the use of new disruptive technology in design, specifically, the link between machine vision, machine learning, and digital fabrication. Benjamin James graduated with honors from the UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School and the Architectural Institute in Prague before completing his master’s studies at the Io A, the University of Applied Arts Vienna in Studio Greg Lynn. He has worked professionally on architecture projects in New York, Copenhagen, London and Hong Kong, as well as consulted for Fortune 500 companies. As an academic, he served as a visiting researcher at the CIEE Global Institute in Berlin, where his work explored computational fluid dynamics and digital fabrication as applied to the architectural discipline. He has been an invited guest at the AA Visiting School in Shenzhen, and lectured in Hong Kong on the impact of new emergent technologies like AR and AI, exploring how they will affect smart cities and New Ruralism. Gakku Jumaniyasova Gakku Jumaniyasova is an architectural designer from Kazakhstan. She recently graduated from the University of Applied Arts Vienna Studio Hani Rashid and is currently practicing in Amsterdam. Her recent works include creating strategies and designs for environments.

Mathias Juul Frost Mathias Juul Frost graduated from the University of Applied Arts Vienna, Studio Hani Rashid, in 2019. Since then, he has worked for MAD Beijing and Juul Frost Architects Copenhagen. Julia Koerner Julia Koerner is an award-winning Austrian designer working at the convergence of architecture and product and fashion design, specializing in 3D printing. Her work stands out and is recognized at the top level of these disciplines, where it has been featured internationally in world-renown museums, institutions and publications. She is founder and director of JK Design GmbH and JK-LA LLC. Her recent collaborations involved 3D-printed fashion pieces developed with haute couture houses for Paris Fashion Weeks and Hollywood entertainment productions such as Marvel’s superhero blockbuster Black Panther. Julia Koerner is a graduate of the Architectural Association (EMTECH), London and the University of Applied Arts Vienna; she is an assistant adjunct professor and the Director of Summer Programs at the University of California, Los Angeles. In 2021, she launched her brand JK3D together with her partner Kais Al-Rawi, which is focused on 3D-printed fashion accessories, products and home decor.

in the Atelier of Informed Architecture, Technical University of Liberec, coteaches architectural typology seminar at the Academy of Art, Architecture and Design in Prague, and is a guest tutor at the Digital Design and Full Scale Fabrication seminar at the Institute of Architecture at the University of Applied Arts Vienna. Christoph a. Kumpusch Christoph a. Kumpusch is a New York-based architect, the head of Forward-slash ( / ) Architektur, and the cofounder of the Mutating-Cities Institute. He teaches design studios and visual studies courses in the architecture and real estate programs at Columbia GSAPP, where he also directs the Extraction Laboratory. Christoph a. Kumpusch is the director of Forward-slash ( / ), a multidisciplinary practice founded in 2008, and the head of Back-slash, the experimental arm of Forward-slash ( / ), investigating technology and material effects on humanity, form and tectonics. It grounds its work in a concentrated research program focused on architectural details and the spawning of new buildings from the smallest parts outward. A theoretical project runs parallel to this work, identifying historical and cultural contexts triggered by detail and societal innovation. The office is both a design and publishing outfit, producing essays, books, exhibitions, installations, podcasts, performances, films and buildings.

Jan Kovaricek Jan Kovaricek is an architect, researcher and educator. His design research ranges from computaLauren Ly tional architecture and speculative design to digital Lauren Ly was a student at the University of Applied fabrication using 3D printing, robotic actuation, and Arts Vienna. augmented reality tools. He is a university assistant

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MAEID [Büro für Architektur und transmediale Kunst] MAEID is a hybrid studio based in Vienna interested in the relationship between human, space and performativity. The work of MAEID is a continuous act of hybridization between different agents: Local:Remote, Physical:Virtual, Natural:Synthetic. Their projects are a seamless interaction between computation, the material and the virtual, living systems and machines. MAEID has been recognized with several international awards and has been widely exhibited at various galleries, institutions, and events including La Biennale 2021, Seoul Biennale, Ars Electronica Linz, Melbourne Triennial, Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, and HdA Graz. Sandra Manninger Sandra Manninger is a registered architect, teacher and researcher. She is coprincipal of SPAN, a practice that folds advanced design, culture and technology into one design ecology. Her work is part of the permanent collection of the FRAC Collection, the Luciano Benetton Collection, the MAK and the Albertina in Vienna. Her work has been published extensively in numerous proceedings, magazines and books. She pioneered AI and Architecture, collaborating with the OFAI in Vienna starting in 1997 and conducting workshops on machine learning in 2006 at the University of Applied Arts Vienna. She continues this research in collaboration with Michigan Robotics as part of the AR2IL lab, the Architecture and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory of Taubman College.

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Shaun McCallum Shaun McCallum is a Scottish architectural designer and is part of the faculty at UCLa’s School of Architecture and Urban Design. His work investigates the impact of new technologies upon sociopolitical cultures through ephemeral architectural objects and installations. He received his bachelor of architecture with distinction from the University of Dundee before studying at the (Sci-Arc) Southern Institute of Architecture in Los Angeles and the University of Applied Arts Vienna in Studio Greg Lynn. His projects, which explore the accessibility and integration of digital technologies within existing physical structures, have received a variety of awards and have been published internationally. As a researcher, he has served as a travel fellow in China investigating the interplay of mystical historical ruins juxtaposed with new consumer-led architectural objects and under occupied mega cities. Shaun McCallum is cofounder of the mixed reality architecture studio iheartblob and has recently authored iheartblob – Augmented Architectural Objects: A New Visual Language. Daniela Mitterberger Daniela Mitterberger is an architect and researcher with a strong interest in new media and the relationship between human and machine in digital manufacturing and emerging technologies. She is cofounder and director of MAEID, a transdisciplinary architecture practice based in Vienna. Currently, she is a Ph.D. researcher at ETH Zürich focusing on intuition in digital design and robotic fabrication.

David Rüßkamp David Rüßkamp is an architectural designer currently based in Berlin, Germany. He was trained in architecture and computational design at the TechMichael Nemkov nical University Innsbruck and the University of ApMichael Nemkov is an architect based in Vienna plied Arts Vienna. His work and personal research and Saint Petersburg. He works at the intersecaims to inform architectural design and cultural tion between process-based design strategies and discourse on technology and identity with a digital research on contemporary culture. Michael Nemkov sensibility appreciating nature as spatial hierarchies, is currently studying at the studio of Cristina Díaz effective material organizations, and complex relaMoreno and Efrén García Grinda (amid.cero9) at tionships in ever-changing ecologies. In this way, arthe University of Applied Arts Vienna. chitecture and design potentially become subject to mutation by internal resonance and mimic growth Georg Popp and variation inside their own technical realms. In Georg Popp is a Vienna-based architect and design- his work, the design process is seen as a permanent er with an academic background in both archinegotiation between an increasing amount of actors, tecture and interior design. His work focuses on representing a diverse range of present and future conceptions, strategies and experiments concerning concerns that need to be expressed: environmental, social interests that are forming the near future in technological, cultural. the most positive sense with innovative technology as a key figure. Georg Popp works at the converMerve Sahin gence of architecture, product design, and simuMerve Sahin was born in 1994. She completed her lation in order to create innovative solutions for bachelor’s degree in Turkey and is currently living social and spatial problems. His creative approach is in Vienna after completing her master’s degree at closely connected to many different kinds of media. the University of Applied Arts Vienna in Studio To name a few, he previously worked as a musician Díaz Moreno García Grinda, following a year in and collaborated as a director and writer in film Studio Kazuyo Sejima. Her work’s central focus is to projects. Furthermore, he was involved in a reexplore new expressions of an artistic vision in the search team for a new orthosis system and designed architectural medium while exploring the overlap extending attachments for orthoses. His graduate of physical, virtual, social and cultural definitions of research studies were highly focused on motion lived spaces upon each other. capture technologies with machine learning and how they can be integrated in both the architectural design process and building parts as a new building typology.

She is also a researcher at the University of Applied Arts Vienna and coleader of an FWF PEEK project titled “Co-corporeality.”

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Viktoria Sandor Viktoria Sandor is an architect and researcher. Currently, she is a senior lecturer at the University of Innsbruck and is also working on her Ph.D. as part of the SFB Advanced Computational Design collaborative research program. She earned her master’s degree in architecture at the University of Applied Arts Vienna in January 2017. Over the last few years, she has collected several scholarships and awards in the field of responsive urbanism and temporary architecture. Since 2017, she has been involved as an organizer and tutor in several workshops and summer schools such as the Society in Motion three-year Erasmus+ summer school program, and parametric design workshops at the University of Applied Arts Vienna, University Liechtenstein, and Tallinn Architecture School. She has taught design studios and been invited to design critiques at the TU Innsbruck, TU Kassel, University of Applied Arts Vienna, and TU Berlin. In 2019 and 2020, she was part of the advanced geometry team at the Studio Olafur Eliasson. “There must be alternatives to what we have learned to think of as knowing.” (Andrea Börner) Her primary goal is to investigate the potential role of responsive systems and tools in spatial design. Her motivation is to improve the adaptivity and responsiveness of physical space by bridging digital performance to the limits of realization. https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3742-0741

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Anastasia Shesterikova Anastasia Shesterikova is a Swiss-Russian architectural designer currently based in Vienna. She is interested in the creation of narrative environments: exhibition spaces, event spaces, as well as set design. In her work she combines new 3D modeling tools and representation techniques to communicate stories and atmospheres. She completed her bachelor’s degree in architecture with honors at the University of Liechtenstein and graduated with honors from the Institute of Architecture at the University of Applied Arts Vienna Studio Greg Lynn. She has worked professionally on architecture, exhibition and interior design projects in Switzerland, Austria and the United States. Michael Tingen Michael Tingen is an architectural and urban designer and maker. He holds his B.Arch from the Pratt Institute and M.Arch from the University of Applied Arts Vienna, Studio Greg Lynn. He has worked on a wide variety of architectural, research and educational projects in New York, Zurich, Vienna and Liechtenstein. At present, he is focused on developing new forms of architecture, urban planning and agriculture which result in more walkable and ecologically integrated civic experiences. Margarita Volkova Margarita Volkova is an architect with a strong interest in computational and digital design. After graduating from the University of Architecture and Arts of the Southern Federal University in her hometown Rostov-on-Don (Russia), she began her master’s studies at the University of Applied Arts

Vienna, where she discovered her interest in parametric design. During the last year of her studies, she developed her skills in the area of XR technologies. This led her to the investigation of the XR technologies perspectives in the future and her diploma topic choice. Michael Walczak Michael Walczak studied architecture at the Bern University for Applied Sciences (BFH) in Burgdorf, Switzerland, where he attended a project semester at Stanford University and an exchange semester at the Bremen University of Applied Sciences. For his interdisciplinary doctoral studies, he graduated in 2021 with distinction from the University of Applied Arts Vienna, Department for Special Topics in Architecture Design under Anton Falkeis. Michael Walczak has bridged his work with the ETH Zurich Institutes Chair of Architecture and Urban Design, Laboratory for Energy Conversion and the ISTP Urbanization Research Incubator. His doctoral dissertation, “Digital Urban Imaginaries: Digital models transforming citizen-centered design processes,” received the Award of Excellence from the Austrian Federal Minister of Education, Science and Research. This research resulted in the codevelopment of the commercialized software Enerpol for large-scale urban simulations coupled with data-driven analysis. Michael Walczak is currently a postdoctoral researcher at the ETH Zurich Chair of Architecture and Urban Design leading the Urban Transformation Project Sarajevo and developing the General Urban Plan for the City of Sarajevo, and is co-directing urbanthinktank_next in Vienna and Sarajevo.

Shilun Yang Shilun Yang received a master of architecture degree from University of Applied Arts Vienna in 2020. He is currently located in Shanghai as a full-time architect and is planning to build his own home studio. He is interested in both practical architecture and visionary architecture, and is happy to see the digital world changing our lifestyle. Bo Zhang Bo Zhang is an architecture intern and a space photographer. He has been working on Brian Boigon’s project, “the Interopera,” in the areas of atmospheric rendering models, script hacks, avatars, and 3Dprinted sci-fi artifacts.

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AP This book would have not been possible without the support of many individuals and organizations. Therefore, I would like to extend my sincerest gratitude to all of them. First of all, I am very thankful to the authors who devoted their time and experience by contributing to this book. I am also grateful to the University of Applied Arts Vienna for their financial and logistical support. I would like to express my sincerest thanks towards Gerald Bast, president of the University, Roswitha Janowski-Fritsch, head of Io A Publications, as well as Katharina Holas from Birkhäuser Verlag. I would also like to thank my coeditors, Anastasia Shesterikova, Benjamin James, and Michael Tingen, for taking care of the layout, the AR content, and the thematically interconnected cross-references within the book. Merging the printed volume with an additional digital layer offers an interlaced and simultaneous experience, navigating multiple levels of content, thereby mirroring the complexity of urban systems. Anton Falkeis Vienna, December 2021

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Acknowledgments

Anton Falkeis, Anastasia Shesterikova, Benjamin James, Michael Tingen, and Institute of Architecture at the University of Applied Arts Vienna (Eds.) ioa.angewandte.at; https://starch-ioa.at/ With contributions by Oliver Alunovic, Gerald Bast, Sasha Belitskaja, Brian Boigon, Goni Dagan, Matias del Campo, Anton Falkeis, iheartblob, Benjamin James, Gakku Jumaniyasova, Mathias Juul Frost, Julia Koerner, Jan Kovaricek, Christoph a. Kumpusch, Lauren Ly, MAEID (Tiziano Derme, Daniela Mitterberger), Sandra Manninger, Shaun McCallum, Michael Nemkov, Georg Popp, David Rüßkamp, Merve Sahin, Viktoria Sandor, Anastasia Shesterikova, Michael Tingen, Margarita Volkova, Michael Walczak, Shilun Yang, Bo Zhang. Concept: Anton Falkeis, Anastasia Shesterikova, Benjamin James, Michael Tingen Project Management “Edition Angewandte” on behalf of the University of Applied Arts Vienna: Roswitha Janowski-Fritsch, A-Vienna Content and Production Editor on behalf of the Publisher: Katharina Holas, A-Vienna Proofreading/Copyediting: Janima Nam Layout, cover design, and typography: Anastasia Shesterikova, Michael Tingen, Benjamin James, Raffael Strasser Printing: Holzhausen, die Buchmarke der Gerin Druck GmbH, A-Wolkersdorf Library of Congress Control Number: 2021934602 Bibliographic information published by the German National Library. The German National Library lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available on the Internet at http://dnb.dnb.de. This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in other ways, and storage in databases. For any kind of use, permission of the copyright owner must be obtained. ISSN 1866-248X ISBN 978-3-0356-2439-7 e-ISBN (PDF) 978-3-0356-2441-0 © 2022 Birkhäuser Verlag GmbH, Basel P.O. Box 44, 4009 Basel, Switzerland Part of Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

www.birkhauser.com

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