Janiski_round 2

As presented, the work is still investigating the idea/territory of "mirror space" and identifying the terms from which to continue. Ideally, the project will incorporate all three of the following aspects of mirror space, though eventually one will take a priority:

1. symmetry + difference: symmetry considered as a mostly formal project, as a contested/eschewed topic in contemporary architecture (according to Jeffrey Kipnis and in general) and difference as something we innately look for as a means of understanding individuality (with reference to Derrida's differance and Freud's narcissism of small difference)

2. reflection of society: architecture as a cultural product mirrors society in terms of those things we care most for at any given time; for example, Robert Levit reads our reflection, as a society of many individuals (the "multitude"), in the cellular pattern-making of contemporary architecture

3. real + imaginary: the mirror mediates between real space and reflected, imaginary space; the work will test the productivity of working on complementary "real" and "imaginary" sites as part of a single project's construction of mirror space

Potential, physical sites are currently located in the "other islands" of New York City, namely Rikers Island, North Brother Island and South Brother Island, as identified in the maps below. The first and second images show the context of these islands. The closeness of LaGuardia is of interest, as is the relationship of these island to the five boroughs.




Rikers Island, below, is cited as "the worlds largest penal colony" and is mostly made of reclaimed land/landfill. The light red line approximates the original 90-acre island prior to its growth.

North and South Brother Island are currently bird sanctuaries and completely uninhabited by people. They are 20 acres of land together. North Brother Island hosts a number of abandoned buildings including Riverside Hospital and the quarantine home of Typhoid Mary and was the site of the 1904 General Slocum wreck.


Programmatic considerations are outlined around the following four topics:

1. The institutional "non-place" like a double-loaded corridor, party wall or reflected ceiling plan; these sites and programs would be selected for their characteristics of symmetry and/or difference for formal investigation

2. The visitor's center: where a version of the place being visited is curated and explained for the tourist to more easily navigate. What would it mean to create a visitor's center for a prison? A bird sanctuary? An island only discovered within the past ten years?

3. Punishment & Imprisonment: This topic could be interpreted loosely or very directly; if investigated directly and literally, the questions are led by one: what is the agency of architecture when considering spaces like solitary confinement, which the UN has just denounced as torture, and death row?

4. Cultural competency: As part of a course in medical school on the topic of patient care, medical students at Michigan State University were asked to read a book on the culture clash between western medicine and the traditional culture of a Hmong family. Cultural competency or negotiation or appreciation in this case specifically requires conversations between "real" medicine and the "imaginary" spirit world the family identifies as the cause for a child's epilepsy.

FEEDBACK
Some of the comments, questions, and suggestions that came up include:
- soft versus hard versions of imprisonment
- is Rikers Island too loaded and "known" as a site, will it get in the way of the work? is there another site or program that's inherently the same in terms of imprisonment but different?
- pairing a visitor's center with an institution
- difference of time and scale in reflection
- spreading out to work on a network of islands instead of a singular island
- Ellis Island's role in a transition to society, transformative processes on various Islands in the NYC area
- how would I describe a "serious" project?
- differences of water, land and air in the siting of realness and imagination
- the history of the National Parks system is marked, positively in terms of generating tourism, by the creation of the visitor's center
- cloning: Shinto temple construction every 20 years; there's never more than one fully complete at one time; theater of the absurd?
- strange twinning of buildings: Piazza del Popolo
- mirror as magic trick: making something disappear
- look up the movie Mindwalk made up of a conversation between three characters visiting Mont-Saint-Michel, a tidal Island in France

People Mover

4exit4

The People Mover is an elevated transit rail line that circles the downtown area providing a great look at Detroit and chance encounters with local artists, performers, poets, and chefs. This video is an extraordinary glimpse at the talent and spirit that is Detroit.

4exit4 Productions presents the premiere of People Mover, a short film capturing 24 local artists, cooks, thinkers and musicians as they came together to showcase Detroit's spirit, performing inside the train one day in April.

Sarpi Border Checkpoint

Thought this pretty formally interesting.

Chan_West Bank Barrier_Fortress

West Bank Barrier

Bizarre Boundary Conditions

http://randomaxis.blogspot.com/

The blogger (Andy) posting at the location above has created and compiled a series of maps that illustrate strange border conditions around the world - worth a quick look!

Clements_5_Technological Mediations

This thesis proposal builds upon some of my previous proposals and research interests.
I think its getting closer to how I can work on investigating how architecture may operate to level a condition between two parties, a space of diplomacy.

 Technological Mediation

SITE
This proposal places a university’s new multimedia/library/classroom architecture/space (of a similar scale but not character to 41 Cooper Square) within a global urban city, possibly New York.  

CONTEXT/circumstance:
The American government supports the “public” university, yet education, due to both physical isolation -  the university is often placed in an isolated territory- and classroom’s physical opaque character - being essentially closed boxes - prevents the public from being able to participate and share in learning/teaching as an active part of an urban experience. 
 


The cost of education has made it out of farther reach from many Americans.  Of particular note is how fast the increase in the cost of education has outpaced other metrics, including the increase in housing prices. The university here is positioned as one whose education is more open and engaged with the city, refuting the idea of a “private” school for one that is more open and accessible.  

This context is further relevant because of the increasing global competition in education and its relevance to jobs in the workplace.  American students have consistently been shown to be behind their international peers in their knowledge of science, math, and technology.  Architecture, in this case, is seen as enabling a reinforcing these fields and making them more visible and open to conversations with the public.  

In our world of promoted “interdisciplinary” work, the traditional classroom hinders this, fostering an isolated model of learning, one as exclusionary, rather than one which promotes a sharing of knowledge.  

Technology is being used more and more in the academic world, either through ipods, cell phones, or presentation screens; its role in education, both physical and digitally, can continue to be investigated by architecture and educators.  



These conditions provide the framework for the investigation of an architecture that changes education, information, and media and its relationship to the urban experience.

The Architecture:  
1.  Reframes media/information access’ relationship to its users
2.  Transforms the idea of perception and perceiving - how content is viewed/learned.
3.  Rethinks architecture’s ability to serve as a framework or armature for a new models of institutions, in this case, that of education.
4.  Promotes new experiences and environments enabled by adaptable and responsive architecture and technology.

PLAYERS:
The primary players are the professors and students - who have a direct, contractual relationship - and the common public, who are viewed as deserving education also, but of being a third party not mandated to receive such.  The secondary players include government policy/policy makers, unions, and global universities.  




PRECEDENTS:
Seattle Public Library by OMA
The Seattle Public Library is a model precedent because it reframes how we conceive of and interact with knowledge. It also exemplifies a project which takes into consideration public accessibility and urban experience.

Culture Shed by Diller Scofidio + Renfro
The Culture Shed houses an institution that is global and interconnected.  The architecture is seen as being adaptable and reconfigurable, allowing for the institution to survive economic downturns and expanding programs.

Eye Beam Museum by Diller Scofidio + Renfro
This precedent is important because of its relationship between production and viewing spaces. The architecture’s integration with technology and media promotes a new way of understanding how we may learn/interact with the world through a technology mediated architecture.

Sendai Mediateque by Toyo Ito
The Sendai Mediateque exemplifies an architecture that is perceived as barrier free and accessible, promoting the idea of an open architecture enabled by technology.

Pompidou Centre, Renzo Piano and Richard Rogers
The Pompidou Center is applicable because of its concept of overlapping activities and its reframing of the institution.
"It is my belief that exciting things happen when a variety of overlapping activities designed for all
people—the old and the young, the blue and white collar, the local inhabitant and the visitor,
different activities for different occasions—meet in a flexible environment, opening up the
possibility of interaction outside the confines of institutional limits. When this takes place, deprived areas welcome dynamic places for those who live, work and visit; places where all can participate, rather than less or more beautiful ghettos."  - Richard Rogers

PROGRAM:
The program of this new place of education will be place for both the physical and the digital, with an emphasis on the integration of both practice and teaching.  Its location in an urban setting promotes relationships with other institutions and businesses.  Furthermore, this promotes its ability to be always teaching and instructing, an instructor’s voice carrying beyond the confined doors of the classroom to a world open to the public.



The architectural intervention is seen as providing both large spaces for physical prototyping, other spaces more conducive to group gathering, discussion, etc, and spaces for computing, with a hybrid of these also appearing.  This place of learning is public, private, physical, digital, and gradations in between.

STRATEGIES/TACTICS:
This project reverses education’s role as of being both exclusionary and elitist.  Through a changeable and interactive architecture, it promotes a model of education which includes and promotes an open framework, taking as a starting point the conceptual basis the internet as a source of open access to information.  

ALLIES (in no particular order)
Primary Allies:
Diller Scofidio + Renfro  - form + technology, architecture viewed as a catalyst.  Their architecture observes and then makes statements about relationships.
Toyo Ito - emphasis on technology and mediating with it, “soft spaces” as well as hard spaces.
Rem Koolhaas - critical rethinking of programming, overlapping, and adjacency. 
 

Acquaintances:
Tectonics and Materials:
Renzo Piano - elegant details/assembly
Foster + Partners - technology emphasis, clean aesthetic
Herzog and de Meuron - using materials to bring out relationships

The Business Consultants:
SHoP Architects - Rethink how architects work/operate, interdisciplinary
Kieran Timberlake, Loblolly House building and construction

Non-allies (enemies...): Form overpowers program/relationships/clarity in meaning
Zaha Hadid
Libeskind
Morphosis
Gehry
Gordon Gill

METHOD:
Polemic:

49 States Flunk College Affordability Test by Kim Clark, US New and World Report

Library as Space: Rethinking Roles, Rethinking Space by Council on Library and Information Resources.

The Role of Libraries in the Information Age by Viviane Reding

Media Fields: Contested Territories from Carsey Wolf Center (UC Santa Barbara)

Media of the United States:  Wikipedia entry.

Media in the online age by Peter Fraser

Only the Rich and Gifted Need Apply by Julia Hinde, Times Higher Education

Global Competition: US students vs International Peers by Kathleen Kennedy Manzo, Education Week.

Discipline:

Digital Ground by Malcolm McCullough

Sensing Architecture - Blog by Maria Lorena Lehman, GSD

The future of the library by Seth Godin, Stanford MBA

Technologies of Writing, by Kittler

Cult of Distraction by Kracauer.

This is not Architecture, Media Constructions by Keiller

The Post Modern Condition by Jean-Francois Lyotard.

From Control to Design by Michael Meredith.

Prosthethic Theory by Mark Wigley

Tarzan in the Media Age by Toyo Ito

Project Japan by Rem Koolhaas and Hans Ulbrist

The Question Concerning Technology by Martin Heidigger

Physical:

Mediateques

Centre Pompidou - Great Buildings Online

Open Building Concepts - International Council for Research and Innovation in Building and Construction.

Slimbouwen, smart building theory, jos lichtenberg, Tu Delft

Interactive Architecture

How is this a Space of Diplomacy?
The proposed new school becomes a place of diplomacy as it attempts to level the access to education and information to a broader public. Architecture here is used to negotiate between the “public” - or is it private - institution and the public people of the city.  It reframes education as occurring not in isolated territories but embedded within the city.  Technology conveys the happenings of the institution to a larger city audience than education typically impacts.  It promotes accessibility and messy hybrid spaces that fuse learning with working, one discipline with another, and the informal public “students” with the “formal” university student.  



Schedule:
Week (11.7.2011)

Background - What is the disciplines understanding of technology and buildings, physical and digital?

What is your position on this relationship?

Week (11.14.2011)

What structure might your thesis project take?  What might a semester schedule look like?  What might it include, exclude?  What do you see your final project being (installation, display, etc)?

Refine thesis positioning/relationship.

Appendix:  Architecture Diagrams and Images.  

Additional things relevant things in the news...

http://archinect.com/features/article/25485248/decoding-bangkok-s-pocket-urbanization-social-housing-provision-and-the-role-of-community-architects

Interesting look at community architects and social housing

http://www.observer.com/2011/10/east-side-park/

This one is about changing the way people move through manhattan by closing the gap on the East side coast.

New York Times Headline

Unesco Approves Full Membership for Palestinians

By STEVEN ERLANGER and SCOTT SAYARE

Published: October 31, 2011

PARIS — Palestine became the 195th full member of Unesco on Monday, as the United Nations organization defied a threatened cutoff of American funds under federal legislation from the 1990’s. The vote of Unesco’s full membership was 107 to 14, with 52 abstentions.

The step will cost the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization one-quarter of its yearly budget — the 22 percent contributed by the United States (about $70 million) plus another 3 percent contributed by Israel. Unless that shortfall is made up by other nations, Unesco will have to begin closing offices and laying off staff.

Cheers filled the hall at Unesco’s headquarters here after the vote, with one delegate shouting “Long live Palestine!” in French. The Palestinian foreign minister, Riad al-Malki, praised the organization, saying that “this vote will help erase a tiny part of the injustice done to the Palestinian people” and will help protect world heritage sites in Israeli-occupied territory.

In a long speech that was met with applause, Mr. Malki said that “this membership will be the best step toward peace and stability,” insisting that the Palestinian request for membership in Unesco was “linked in no way to our request to join the United Nations.”

The Obama administration, which values its membership in Unesco, tried unsuccessfully to keep the vote from taking place, while Irina Bokova, the American-supported director-general of the organization, traveled to Washington to meet with congressional leaders and ask them to alter the law.

Legislation dating from 1990 and 1994 mandates a complete cutoff of American financing to any United Nations agency that accepts the Palestinians as a full member. State Department lawyers judged that there was no leeway in the legislation, and no possibility of a waiver, so the United States contribution for 2011 and future years will not be paid.

Addressing Unesco’s general conference after the vote, the American ambassador to the organization, David T. Killion, said that the United States “remains deeply committed to Unesco,” which he called a “vital organization.” But he repeatedly called the vote on Monday “premature” and said the United States would seek other means to support the agency, though he did not offer specifics.

Victoria Nuland, a spokeswoman for the State Department, said an expected November payment of $60 million to the agency would not be made.

The United States argues that Unesco should have waited to act because the Palestinians applied in September for full membership in the United Nations, and that application is still under study. Washington also argues that Palestinian statehood should emerge from negotiations with Israel, not from acts by third parties or international groups, and it has been pushing the two sides to restart those talks. Otherwise, Washington has argued, U.N. membership will change little for Palestinians on the ground.

Arab diplomats say that the American positionn is a bit disingenuous, though, since Washington has promised to veto full Palestinian membership in the Security Council. At Unesco, no country has a veto.

In a statement, Mr. Killion said that “the only path to the Palestinian state we all seek is through direct negotiations.” He added: “There are no shortcuts, and we believe efforts such as the one we have witnessed today are counterproductive.”

Last week, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton called the Unesco application “inexplicable.”

Elias Sanbar, the Palestinian ambassador, said that in talks with Mr. Killion over the weekend, the American described Washington as “prisoners of this law.”

Both parties in Congress denounced the Unesco action on Monday. Representative Nita Lowey, Democrat of New York, called it “counterproductive,” saying in a statement that “Unesco is interfering with the prospects for direct negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians at a time when both parties have taken the positive step of committing to present comprehensive proposals on borders and security.”

Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, the Florida Republican who heads the House foreign affairs committee, characterized the Unesco move as “anti-Israeli and anti-peace” and called for the group’s money be cut off promptly. “The administration must stop trying to find ways not to fully implement this law,” she said.

There has been some discussion of Arab nations contributing more to make up the budget shortfall, but nothing has been promised. And the Unesco bylaws seem to require that extra funds contributed to the group cannot be used for its operating budget.

Ms. Bokova. the Unesco director-general, said in interviews that she was concerned about immediate financial problems for her agency, and about American disengagement from the United Nations, which she said ran counter to America’s “core security interests” and which she hoped would be temporary. After the vote, she said that she was worried that “the universality and financial stability” of Unesco would be jeopardized.

The Israeli ambassador, Nimrod Barkan, said that Unesco has done “a great disservice” to international efforts to restart negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians. “Unesco deals in science, not in science fiction,” he said, noting that a Palestinian state is not otherwise recognized by the international community. Unesco, he said, had acted on a “political subject, outside of its competence.” he said.

Yigal Palmor, the Israeli foreign ministry spokesman, said the vote would not give the Palestinians “any advantage on the ground” and called the Unesco vote “a big diplomatic car crash.”

Ghassan Khatib, a Palestinian spokesman in the West Bank, urged Washington to provide the funds for Unesco regardless of the law. He called the action on Monday “a vote of confidence from the international community” and said it was “especially important because part of our battle with the Israeli occupation” and what he called Israeli attempts “to erase Palestinian history or Judaize it.” Israel says it takes the obligation of protecting world heritage sites extremely seriously.

Palestinian officials on the West Bank rejected the notion that they had harmed Unesco and embarrassed Washington by pressing for the vote. “Washington has to look at these laws that should have been changed ages ago,” said Muhammad Shtayyeh, a close aide to the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas. “The P.L.O. is not a terrorist organization any more. It exchanged letters of recognition with Israel back in 1993.”

Unesco, perhaps best known for designating world heritage sites, is a major global development agency whose missions include promoting literacy, science, clean water and education, including sex education and equal treatment for girls and young women.

The United States rejoined the organization in 2003 under President George W. Bush, ending a boycott that began under President Ronald Reagan in 1984 that arose from charges that the organization then was corrupt, anti-Israel, anti-Western and had made efforts to impose licensing on the international press.

On Monday, the United States voted against Palestinian membership, joined by Germany, Australia, Canada, Sweden, the Netherlands and Israel, among others.

The European Union failed to come to a common position. Some European nations, including France and Belgium, voted in favor, joining China, Russia, Brazil, India and most African and Arab states. Many other Western nations abstained, including Romania and Latvia, which had earlier voted no in the executive council. Others abstaining included Britain, Poland, Portugal, Denmark, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Ukraine and Switzerland.

Earlier in October, Unesco’s 58-member executive board voted to put Palestinian membership on the agenda of the general meeting by a vote of 40 to 4, with 14 abstentions.

Unesco has a two-year budget of $643 million for 2010-11 and a projected budget of $653 million for 2012-13.

Isabel Kershner contributed reporting from Jerusalem, and Steven Lee Myers contributed from Washington.

Examples of formal categories

A few things that came to mind:

Fortress- Alhambra (A palace that separates commoner from royalty, sited specifically to be viewed from afar in the city of Granada, Spain. The plan moves from public entry points to more and more private spaces the further one travels into the interior, and then back to public space in the courtyard.)

Symbolic/Point?- Libeskind's democracy institute and conflict resolution center. (Giving democracy a voice as a human right- an iconic building that makes a statement just by its existence).

Transparency- Public restroom with one way mirror. "This public toilet was built in front of London’s Tate Britain Gallery as an art exhibit by an Italian born artist. What is special about this restroom is that it is made up of semi-transparent glass. The “visitors” of the public toilet (who need to defy their own fear and embarrassment) can see through the one-way mirrored glass but passers-by can’t see the person inside the restroom."

Read more: http://purpleslinky.com/offbeat/10-of-the-world%e2%80%99s-most-unique-restrooms-understanding-the-new-toilet-culture/#ixzz1cKuubFhF

Field: Smallest hotel rooms ever- capsule hotels- pod hotels. A field of stacked rooms, this typology "levels the field" of potential customers by means of its form and consequent economic value- less space=cheaper, more opportunities/diverse users. Read more: http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/236680/20111024/worlds-smallest-hotel-rooms-capsule.htm

Baxter Territory3 Cooking_Dining

Much of the world is entering the routine of long work hours and reduced domestic experience. The result of this has been the proliferation of small condos and apartments that favor lives that rarely come home. Due to the size of the kitchen and dining space, these homes would never be thought of as spaces of hosting guests, and just having a dinner with extended family becomes an unbearable chore.

Recently, in response to the fast food culture, a counter movement towards slow food has emerged. This movement represents a different philosophy on the importance of the dining and kitchen space and their centrality to the culture of domesticity. It is interesting how a simple change in the philosophy about the food we eat could radically alter the structure of the homes we live in.

Directly related to this, I'm interested in how this relates to diplomacy. Diplomatic tact will often/usually involve bringing those we must negotiate with into our domestic space. Through this act, we deepen ties with those whose relationships are most important to us, and thus personalize the decisions that were only political prior to the exposure of our personal lives. This is one of the most sensitively orchestrated moments in diplomacy but also the most personal and real. We should ask ourselves what is the domestic experience necessary to make us comfortable with a new acquaintance whose initial relationship is likely an extremely formal and uncomfortable one? Is it the contemporary bachelor pad, watching the local sporting event on the wall mounted flat screen or a space that privileges a more cozy communal setting with (good) food and (relevant) conversation?

The rapid lifestyle that has forced us to all but abandon our most important dining culture here in the states has begun to be completely abandoned in the next wave of modernization happening in Asia. What effect will the domestic space that represents lifestyles of all work and no play have on our ability to be diplomatic and create pertinent relationships with the people we need to know better in order to coexist? Have we completely exported the ability to host guests from the domestic experience to restaurants. As a result, have we lost our ability to personalize relationship building across impassible cultural and class boundaries that divide us? Is the domestic space I speak of only important for the richer classes because they have to manage these relationships or is the cozy domestic space a universal necessity?

Baxter Territory2 Expat-Repat

Europeans are building "Kasbah" buildings all over the place, while Shigeru Ban builds refugee structures in Africa. Countries like Japan and China use western architecture to help their argument that they've modernized. Some places have been colonized or modernized for so long that they struggle to remember what their local architecture used to prioritize. Frank Lloyd Wright brought back new ideas from ancient Japanese temples and bath houses that influenced his designs of the new American domestic residence. Prior to the proliferation of information, we already lived in a world that mixed up global ideas to solve local problems, but today the process has accelerated.

Today, I can take an overnight flight to Mongolia to look at their yurts in the grass plains, while simultaneously, on a single screen, comparing them online to the tent structures of Berber peoples in northern Africa, reading about the ground breaking inflatable structures of archigram and video conferencing a meeting with my project manager and design team back in the United States.

I'm interested in the impact exposure to other cultural solutions to similar problems that entirely altered the urban landscapes of cities across the globe in the last generation has evolved into something entirely new during our generation. How is the ability to instantaneously engage such distant realities altering the potential of design, and is it?

Ex-pat, refers to the idea that an ideology is inevitably exported when an uninfluenced person travels to another place and offers their expertise. The expertise that they offer is often based in philosophical foundations that differ completely from the thinking of the people that they wish to assist. The result of projects in this situation often end up being something blatantly foreign amongst a sea of projects that all share a similar aesthetic. This implantation of foreignness then leads to an integration, by the locals, of the strengths of the new into the customs and skills of the old, resulting in a wave of something new.

Re-pat, refers to the reverse of the situation of the Ex-pat, when that professional, who by being immersed in that other culture, has been deeply influenced by the immersion in that new lace and brings back expertise discovered there and by default begins including those ideas in the designs he/she does. The result would be the introduction of simple strategies that alter the way design and construction are done at home.

This process is inherently diplomatic. What level of attention and respect do we give to cultural strategies that have developed over thousands of years when we can access the schematic information about it instantaneously? To what depth do we understand the meaning inherent to the styles and strategies we then implement into our own contemporary designs. Is the Kasbah I mentioned above, not based on Monarchical social structures? Are we properly understanding the implications of a thousand year old structure meant to control its occupants when we build it today as an open democratic building?

Musialowski - Territory3-NGOS

Territory3-Non Governmental Organizations/Civil Rights

massive, judicial, obsolete

At the lecture last night Alexander D'Hooghe brought up this building, which is the Palace of Justice in Brussels. In my search for spaces of diplomacy I had referred to the international courts at the Hague, and it was suggested that they might be spaces of diplomacy only due to their use. The reason why the palace of justice came up during the lecture, which is a law court only for Brussels by the way- not an international court, is because it is so outdated that they need a new one. At first glance this looks like any palace in Europe, but on closer inspection, it's actually a jumble of every monumental style that the architect could find. It's also massive, larger than St. Peter's in Rome, with soaring staircases and marble statues, etc...it was the biggest building constructed in the 19th century. Ironically, this great building meant to symbolize justice was built on a site that had been home to hundreds who were forced to move by the government. If one thinks about how buildings mean, this one "means" less about justice than it does about complete governmental control...though maybe in 19th century Belguim that was the extent of justice.

As a space of diplomacy, I wanted to include it because it exhibits such a clear connection between the form of the building and the power it implied. This will be true even in the future, after it is used as something else. This is much different than the International Criminal Court in the Hauge- which has power only due to its current use, otherwise it looks just like every other glass office building (shown below).

Clements_4_Ambiguous Space

Ambiguous Space

Public nor Private

Introduction:
Public and private space today face a crisis of identity.  Many spaces, due to commercial interests or lack of government provision, no longer can be defined as strictly public nor strictly private.  “Public” space is now being appropriated by private interests, which bring to question how accented or emphasized towards particular interests such a space is. This ambiguous space provides clues as to access by whom and for what.  How might architecture address, accent, or define this ambiguity?  Can ambiguous space spark a point of cultural interaction and intensity?  

Territory:
Civic friche type (urban fringe sites)
Mill sites (Mumbai)
Cetram sites (Mexico City)

Tentative Step to Connect with City:  Lodha Place by  Pei Cobb Freed & Partners tries to connect with the city of Mumbai but the shear scale of the new development ove whelms the pedestrian street below.

Site/Situation:
In our current society today, architecture can critique, provide for, and maintain the public realm.  The public realm, whether it be publicly owned or privately made public, provides for a social intermixing that is necessary for the sustainability of society, for the transferring of ideas, and for the development of understanding between people of different backgrounds, ethnicities, and generations.  This type of social intermixing is important to the development of each other and for the continuity of culture which makes life rich and more meaningful.  In American cities and in other foreign cities, such as Dubai or new developments in China, space has become segregated by use, which hinders its ability to facilitate cultural exchange.  

In history, the public space of the city was often the town square or plaza, which provided a central place for the interaction of economic, social, and culture.  As we moved forward into the twentieth century, the democratization of space and both its expanse and decentralization creates a conditioning where the model of a singular all identifying public space no longer served its citizens.   

As central government began to take a less structured role in providing for citizen’s public space, public space began to become a function of the private realm, particularly centered around places of activity and commerce, such as shopping and outlet malls.  These models provided the public space amidst a motivated agenda for purchasing and consumerism.

Relevant Legal Instruments that Govern:

Codes/Zoning, Open space requirements, Project pro formas  

Government/Economic Conditions:
    Private land ownership versus public goods/services, Project pro formas
Everyday Uses/Misuses:
    Appears public but with many hidden segregations.

Additional Categories/Qualifiers

Developed/Inherent Dis-balances:
Looking for power differentials:  
Who are the existing players?:

    Architects, developers, governments(cities), citizens (wealthy, middle, poor)

What are the existing relationships between players? (circumvent, emphasize, rectify, qualify relationships?):
Architect/urban designer using arguments of connection and human activity to advocate for public space.  Developers focus on profit.  Citizens - no voice.
   
Potential Case Studies (Concentrate on Architecture)

Cetrams (Mexico City)

Mill Sites (Mumbai)

Public/private spaces (malls, high rise towers, transportaiton hubs)

Reading List:

Art and Spatial Politics by Deutsche

Space of Appearance by Easterling

Homo Sacer by Agambenm, Human Condition by Arendt