Zenon's City - Prolegomena to a Critique of Urban Reason

/ ITA / Institute of Technology in Architecture / Faculty of Architecture / ETH Zurich / Chair for CAAD / Klaus Wassermann / Leipzig Hot::Spot / 10.12.2010 / 1 v2.14 10.12.2010

Klaus Wassermann

Zenon‘s City

[email protected]

Preliminary Suggestions on Urban Reason

Hot Spots :: der Stadtentwicklung

/ ITA / Institute of Technology in Architecture / Faculty of Architecture / ETH Zurich / Chair for CAAD / Klaus Wassermann / Leipzig Hot::Spot / 10.12.2010 / 2

Hot Spot :: Perspective

ONE

MANY

ANY

personal

formal

medial


Critique of Geometry

Critique of Urban Reason

Which is the Essence of City?

Preliminary Remarksmethodological issues

as a figure of thought in Architecture

Proto-Schemata:Growth-network-Complexity-Information

Potential Elements of Construction


Begin of the first Part:

Preliminary Remarksand a short methodological warm-Up

((( aspects )))


Is it possible to plan „CITY“?

Is it possible to plan „URBANITY“?

theoría: Anschauung, Überlegung, Einsicht

theory = (ortho-)regulation of the genesis and parameterisation of models


City Development – Linguistics of a Figure

the C

ityDevelopment

of

of a

city

-lik

e

Evolu

tion

Plan

Engineering

run of„events“

Th

eory

Perform

ances

pace

time

Individua

l

Logics

Growth

pla

inly


Methodologicals (I)challenges & constraints by

Disziplinary Perspectivesanalysis of power, conflict-/consumism-analytics (Weber, Durkheim)

Normative (naturalistic) Fallacies Romanticisms and Idealism (Feldtkeller, Mumford)

Reductionisms, IdeologicalizationsMaterialism: statistical (Hillier), naturalistic (Mitscherlich),

formal (L.Wirth, Burgess), cybernetic (Luhmann)

„Projectionism“Import of highly integrated Theories: knowledge (Matthiesen),

evolution (Schamp)


Aspekte und ihr WechselAspects become visible only in their exchange


Methodologicals (II)

Structure

Element

Mechanism

cave definitionem !!!

„City“ is obviously difficult to grasp

?Heterotopia Koolhaas/Foucault

with strong symbolistic Components

SyntheticComparatistics

no existential questions please ... What „is“ ...

serious story telling


Begin of the First Part:

Critique of Geometry

Influence, Reach and Overloadings


The Holiness of Geometryfirst procedure, which promised correctness of a construction ...

independent of ...

locationtimeperson

in opposition to symbolisation

Safety was achieved through the

linkage o structure (axiomatics) and

values (Sinnanspruch)

narration, poetics

Universals

There are none!

are there...?

justific

ation?


Fatal inherited Diseaserole of geometry

by Euclid quite unsuitable positioning of axiomatics

things, that are directly (unmediated) clearWhat, if there is no epistemic directness ?

Primacy of Interpretation

... then axioms would moult into interesting rules of games.

first heureka-experience by the power of „ideomatics“

complementary: Primacy of Modelling


Inherited Disease (II): Phenotypical FoldingsG

eom

etry

Cen

terC

on

dit

ion

alcausal chain

Causality

AxiomaticsD

efinition

If - Then

Proof

Mat

hem

atik

CyberneticsScience

Juristerei

Frankfurter Schule

control technologyIT

Frege

Positivism

Shannon

Luhmann

navigator


Towards the Sun in a straight Line...

City (?) as a kind of Accidens

Karlsruhe m

id 17th century


Obsessions on Centers

Palmanova: Inhabiting or Freedom plans for new garden city,18th century

Pal

man

ova „London“


Nowa Huta (Pl) – City (?) for Heroes of Production


geometry just yesterday


The Roaring Twenties...

bold utterings

serious issues


geometry today: according to human Measure?

urban?

progressive? well developed?


of course, Bucky-Boy won‘t miss...

The straight-lineObsession


Logistics: the straight regime of Causality


CCD Registers: Logistics of Information


The APOLLO Story 1969

the Atlas-phantasm of

the fixed point

the total triumph of the global

equation

Oh holy Grale of geometric Modernism

the steady pole


The Story 2009

never only ONE,

though not yet

just MANY,

but ARBITRARY(as YOU<!> like)Fixed Points


the first and (so far) the only

Compass for topo- logicalSpaces

Owner:

Sparrow, Jack


Zäsur

/ ITA / Institute of Technology in Architecture / Faculty of Architecture / ETH Zurich / Chair for CAAD / Klaus Wassermann / Leipzig Hot::Spot / 10.12.2010 / 27Michael Hansmeyer

What can not be drawn (any more)...

About

Ichn

ogra

phia

Ort

hogr

aphi

a at the

End

of

Geo

Metry

what we cannotspeak

Sce

nogr

aphi

a

The end of Expressibility

Formalisability

Axiomatisability

...has to be calculated, may be rendered...has to be calculated, may be rendered

/ ITA / Institute of Technology in Architecture / Faculty of Architecture / ETH Zurich / Chair for CAAD / Klaus Wassermann / Leipzig Hot::Spot / 10.12.2010 / 28Subdivision Mechanism

just a different rendering


What can not be drawn (any more)...

freezed to state

freely choosable point in time

not an algorithm any more

semi-open results

Reaction-Diffusion Mechanism

Michael Hansmeyer


What can not be drawn...

Schuytgraf, NL

real-time

constraint

optimization

120 clients

1000‘s of constraints

hierarchy of goals


ethz caad


Globus Zh, CH

pre-specificdesign

das differential ofarchitectonicmatter




End of the First Part:

Critique of GeometryThe End of axiomatic Universals


Begin of the Second Part:


((( which are the essences of any thinking about the City, beyond of any specific theories? )))

Conditions for a Thinking of City-Becoming


Layout (genealogy) of our Critique

Network

Growth

Associativity

Complexity

Self-Organisation

Cat

egor

yO

peration

Information

formalisable structural models

Efficacy Causality



das einfachste Wachstum

entlang des Atomgitters: Mikro=Makro

repräsentationale Symmetrie

::by attachment (from the outside)

vollständig de-individualisierte „atomare“ Module


::by attachment (from the outside)


::by attachment (from inside)

the principle:fixing of singular points & differentiating & repeatingfinding of a particular point: 2-Component System

fraktal growth




welwitschia

Welwitschia – a living fossil


Plant

Plant (-like)

Growth in Plants2-Component-System at singular mikro fields (meristeme)

self-affine replication

added complexity by repetition of processes


::by attachment (from outside & inside)

added complexity by standardised regulation

primitive division of labor

swarm


::by attachment (from outside & inside)

Michael Batty, 2008Caglioni & Giovanni, 2003


::differentiation towards the inside


::differentiation towards the insideK

owlo

on 1

972

Kow

loon 1993


::differentiation towards the inside

verticalve

rtic

al


::differentiation towards the inside: embryo

locally-induced growth,foldings AND Apoptosis !

fractality establishesonly lokal any more

„blue prints“


Koolhaas, an embryologist?

melting



Embryonic Growth

added Complexity by deeply layeredand embedding regulation

gain ofadaptivity

and potential

Differentation towards

the inside

emergence ofcontexts and individuality


::differentation towards the inside ...

innere Kompartimente können umarrangiert werden: potentielles schmelzen, Fusion von Räumen und Membranen

Zuweisung von „innen“ / „aussen“ muss immer wieder neu verhandelt werden


Growth, Differentiation: ImmaterialGrowth

Konrad Lorenzchanges in behavior precede changes of morphology

Evolution

Training

Learning, Memory, Habits, Virtualisation, Mediatisation

unfolding

structural dynamics

scaling

immaterial differentiation

changes inmorphology


Interestingness and Patterns of Growth

which patterns

are the most frequently used?

associative (as a „body without organs“)

which arethe most promising?

anorganic, crystalline

swarm-basedplant-likeembryonic

informationallogistic, optimizing (leafs)

learning & behavior

organic


interim resultCritique of Urban Reason

Growth

temporal dynamicstemporal dynamics of the transformation of structures

overcoming of the „contingencycontingency--hypothesis“

transition to evolutiveevolutive processes

new questions: regulative factorsregulative factors, e.g. for continuity, melting

typology typology of differentiation processes (epi/genetics)


Genealogy of our Critique: Part 2

Networks

Growth

Associativity

Complexity

Self-Organisation

Cat

egor

yO

peration

Information

formalisable structural models

Efficacy Causality


living things

social issues


Complexity: Bestandsaufnahmeclear and dark bright and

labyrinthinedark and convoluted

Luhmann, Sozial Systeme: „Complexity is that information, which is missing for the system, in order to measure, comprehend and describe its surrounding environment completely.“

Self-preservation develops into a problem, „since for any system the surrounding environment is more complex than the system itself."

Complexity as a cipher for non-understandability

Complexity als inevitable external threat

Complexity as a syntactic-algorithmic entity

definitely ineligible for

real contexts


Context of Complexity

complexity is not reducible

makroskopichproperties are notdescribable on the mikroscopic levelin principal

complexity involves strong emergence

strong emergence is indispensable for adaptivity


What is the minimal, sufficient

(and necessary)

description of emergence ?

What is the minimal, sufficient

(and necessary)

description of emergence ?


weak, farweak, far

strong, closestrong, close

micro-antagonistic self-referential 2-component system

Turing P

attern


a mystical-opaque concept

is being transformed

into a non-deterministic

parameter space

Elementarisation of Complexity

(1)

(2)

(3)

(4)

(5)

Dissipation

Antagonistic Forces

Standardisation

Active Compartmentalization

systemic Knots

reaction-diffusion-system, dialectics as population

flow of entropy, consumption of energy

sign theoretical: semiotic, algorithmic, geno-/phenotype, code, rule

transition from order to organisation; demands for: left-overs, death, reduction

internal model-based control provokes latentantagonisms, „self-sustaining complexity“


RD-Prozesse: Besonderheiten

absolutely„impermeable“epistemologicseparation

mikro

makro

molekules, cells, ants, words, events, human individuals, actants in a network

descriptive categories can NOT be applied to

the other layer mutually!


interim resultCritique of Urban reason

Complexity

Elementarisation allows for Operationalisabilityof creative Processes

objective diagnosis / prognosis ofstasis, Adaptivity or chaos-like melting


Genealogy of Critique U.R.: Part 3

Networks

Growth

Associativity

Complexity

Self-Organisation

Cat

egor

yO

peration

Information

formalisable struktural models

Efficacy Causality


Networks

Cities are networks, ok, so what? a TRIVIAL remark?

Concept had not been in use before 1980.

Network Knots and Links (everything is network, isn‘t it?)


From different Worlds

Logistic Networks

Associative Networks

geometric-causal

algebraic-informational

effect-orientiet::basic typology of networks

temporally neutral, „real-time“

actualizes just as operation = as sth temporal


hubs, scale-free

hierarchical

fractal

deterministic


rhizomatic

Growth ?

redundant

recurrent

probabilistic

random density

Learning !


...... a powerfula powerful andand scalablescalable formalformal

modelmodel

mapping of n-dimensional descriptions mapping of n-dimensional descriptions

onto a m(2+)-dimensional maponto a m(2+)-dimensional map

self-organizing map (SOM)self-organizing map (SOM)


Associativity in the Space of the City

Meta-Stability of Neighborhoods

not reducible to the reasoning power of individuals

“Once set up, a city is a great sorting mechanism

which ... infallibly selects out of the population

as a whole the individuals best suited to live in

a particular region or a particular milieu.”Robert Park, 1952: Human Communities.

Zürich Augustinergasse,Farbraum Stadt, 2010


Associativity and Memory


Logistic Networks

are the great Optimizers

of identified Relations

in (quasi-)material contexts

useful


are the great inducers and inventors

of potential Relations,

yet to be constructed

Associative Netwerks

Randolations

in purely informational contexts

interesting


an

urban- material-proto-inter-net in steel &

glass

The Manhattan-Syndromthe „Urban“ & the Web share important properties

associativity

abundant heterotopias

information as essential driver

high density, intensive flows

mediagenicity


web(b)ed Urbanity = Wurbanitythe new mash-up: the Urbane und das Web

descriptional scheme: abstracting from both = WURB

development of cities not (anymore just) as built substanceInternet of Things (150 web devices/person by 2015) local semi-virtualisation of physical processesextending social realities as kind of „mixed reality“ New Media, new Spaces, new habits, new densification

New kinds of „Urbanity“


interim resultCritique of Urban Reason

Associativity

description of dynamic aggregations

dynamics of qualitative properties becomes accessible

„collective“ memory processes are rendered explicable


Schemata of a Critique of Urban Reason

Networks

Growth

Associativity

complexity

Cat

egor

yO

peration

formalisable Struktural Models

formalisable

skalogen

active Comparatistics

operationalisable

interdependent Conditions for Thinking the Costruction of the City


End of the second Part:


conditions for a thinking of constructing the city


Begin of the third Part:

Potential Elements of Construction

((( getting operational )))

(semi-)abstract conditions for a City-becoming


Conditions of the Possibility of Urbanity

Logistics material as well as immaterial, visible body of rules,organisatorically adaptive, „real-time“ function

irreducible dimensional construction

Participation real-time, „mixed-reality“, and densified

Continuity organisatorical-(quasi-)material

Heterotopia informatorical-ordinal, open, manifold and mediatised antagonisms

„Abundance“ local, accessible, due to suitable scaling


Entwicklungsfelder Urbaner Vernunft

Stadt densified potential for the creation of organisation from order, often limited tophysical-material aspects

residential areas

tradition-bound order of individual roles as predecessors of institutions, often centralistic, oligarchic or autokratic

Urbanität volatilised AND virtualised conditions for „Citiness“ in the realm of the immaterial;in the future tendentially more as „Wurbanity“


Zenon‘s City ...

A field made from differential, volatile, sprouting inertial reference systems! ... which as a (semi-)autonomous entity develop its own character and its own power (as potential)


Thanks !