09.06.11 blam-summer manual presentation

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Architecture and the Social Production of PlaceBecky Lam | Thesis 2011-2012 | 2011.09.06



How is “place making” situated in the role of the architect in designingand fabricating today’s cities?

What happens when the architect relinquishes his/her power in place making? If we acknowledge thatplace is socially driven, what can we do to design space in order to ultimately influence its sense of place?



How do we define “place” (versus space, site, or location)?

On the concept of locality:In an era when, it is argued, ‘local communities’ seem to be increasingly broken up, when you can go abroad and

find the same shops, the same music as home, or eat your favourite foreign-holiday food at a restaurant down theroad – and when everyone has a different experience of all of this – how then do we think about ‘locality’?

Doreen Massey, “A Global Sense of Place,” in Space, Place, and Gender

On the hegemony of space:

The grid of analytical geometry becomes the gridlock of physical space itself. Thrust into the limbo of a purely passive space regarded as impassive but not impassable, place is rendered vacuous (of) itself, freeing the field for

the building of sites – themselves evacuated of any significant content… How, faced with the hegemony of Space,can we rediscover the special nonmetric properties and unsited virtues of Place?

Edward S. Casey, “The Reappearance of Place,” in The Fate of Place: A Philosophical History On the spectacle and commodification of history:Busy creating simulated traditions, urban developers seem intent on stockpiling the city’s past with all the

available artifacts and relics, thereby obscuring the city’s actual history. The homogenized icons in our historic

marketplaces reveal the limited stock of images spectators are meant to use to understand American history.M. Christine Boyer, “Cities for Sale,” in Variations on a Theme Park



Architecture is a fictionalization of how space may be used, which islater subsumed into the social construct of “place”.

URBAN “FABRICATION” – how is place generated?Examining the neighborhood as a starting point to define “place”.

The urban fabric of a neighborhood makes it a place in that(a) it is developed over time(b) embedded with the history of the many interactions between its buildings and blocks(c) has a clear identity in relation to other neighborhoods(d) its identity is not fixed, but is relative to the perceiver(e) its characteristics and identity in general evolve over timeLine of inquiry:i. How is the urban fabric modulated? Are there any patterns or repetition?ii. How does housing define the site?iii. What architectural tactics are deployed?iv. How does the neighborhood tackle density?



HABITAT ‘67

Design Precedent: Habitat ‘67 Architect: Moshe SafdieLocation: Montréal, CanadaArea: 22,160m2 / 238,000 ft2

Description:This ten-storey housing complex is composed of aseries of prefabricated reinforced concrete cubes that

were fabricated on-site. With a series of 15 unit typesmaking up 148 units, each module is stacked one on

the other, totaling 354 cubes. Adapting the suburbansingle-family dwelling into an urban form, each unit hasan outdoor terrace space on the neighbor’s roof below.

Meant to be affordable (continuing the modernist idealof social equality in design), it was built for the Expo 67

alongside projects by Buckminster Fuller (the geodesicdome) and Frei Otto (hyperbolically curved tent). It islocated on the Marc-Drouin Quay on the Saint

Lawrence River in Montréal, which is actually notdense, but far from the city center on a man-made

peninsula. The scheme was developed as an editedand softened version of Safdie’s thesis out of McGillUniversity titled, "A Case for City Living: A Three-

Dimensional Modular Building System." Theconstruction was funded by the Canadian government,

hoping it would be an attractor at the Expo 67 as a pilotproject for this building typology. However, it ended upcosting far more than anticipated, eliminating it as a

viable form of affordable housing. Rather, today, it hasbecome an enclave for the upper class.



HABITAT ‘67



SPACE BLOCK: HANOI

Design Precedent: Space Block: Hanoi Architect: Kazuhiro KojimaLocation: Hanoi, Vietnam

Area: 466m2 / 5,016 ft2Description: This was an experimental housing complex completed in 2003 in the Ancient Quarter of Hanoi.Mimicking the high-density, low-rise buildings the area, this project was meant to be a prototype for developing aclimate adapted 4-storey townhouse. The major obstacle here was incorporating natural ventilation in a high-

density neighborhood. With the goal of eliminating air conditioning, the design team used computer fluiddynamics (CFD) to analyze a method for stacking the porous boxes and courtyards that make up the Space

Block concept while attempting to establish visual privacy between neighbors.



SPACE BLOCK: HANOI



TUBE HOUSES IN THE ANCIENT QUARTER OF HANOI

Chosen subject for analysis and design experimentation: The Ancient Quarter of Hanoi, Vietnam (specifically, lessons from the history and context behind the ‘tube house’ vernacular)IDENTITY: The Ancient Quarter is also known as the “36 Guild Streets” for its mercantile history (and where the

streets are named after the trades it once housed). It is one of the oldest surviving neighborhoods inSoutheast Asia where its urban fabric and architectural integrity is relatively intact.

DENSITY: According to the deputy secretary general of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Vietnam,

Hoang Van Dung, initially, Hanoi was planned for a population of about 300,000. Today, out of the estimated6.5 million people residing in the city, forty-percent of them live in urban areas, with a projected increase of 3million in the next two decades. According to a 2006 census, there are 21,900 households with approximately

84,000 people packed into an area of less than 247 acres, or less than 0.4 square miles, in the AncientQuarter.

VERNACULAR: The tube house is a housing typology that is only found in the Ancient Quarter of Hanoi. There isa similar version of this typology in the World Heritage site of Hoi An, though at a smaller scale with less

density. It evolved out of the old shop house, having been directly impacted by Hanoi’s history of ruralexodus, politics, and poverty. To this day, the tube houses are being rebuilt, but continues to evolve with

influences from modern architecture and the Hanoian penchant for the French colonial style.



TUBE HOUSES IN THE ANCIENT QUARTER OF HANOI



EVOLUTION OF HANOI’S TUBE HOUSES: analysis and experiment



TUBE HOUSE MODEL : interpreted longitudinal sections + plans



TUBE HOUSES OF HANOI: interpreted longitudinal sections + plans



TUBE HOUSE MODEL : interpreted cross sections through the block



BLOCK MODEL: analysis + experiment



DESIGN EXPERIMENTS : RESULTS + QUESTIONS

- Issues examined:- access- privacy- density/crowding

- Architectural consequences: - interstitial spaces- pockets or residual spaces- overlapping spaces (multi-level)- elongation; linearity; striation

- Subjects to pursue:- Development of the urban fabric: organic versus synthetic

- Design methods involving modularity, interstices, and/or time-based design- Mitigating issues dealing with compact, dense spaces: natural lighting, ventilation, and safety concerns

09.06.11 blam-summer manual presentation

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