Thesis Abstract as of 11/18
Every time you change the DNA that defines a city and makes it unique, you change the living, breathing creature itself. Cities are spaces that have been built up of layers that allow tradition, dynamic relationships, and personal identities to thrive within them. Urban planning, modernism, and utopian dreams from the City Beautiful movement in the late 19th century to post-war planning in the middle of the 20th century to now have been affecting changes on cities with little or no regard to the existing characteristics that make the city vibrant and distinctive. Large-scale urban planning projects need to be abandoned in exchange for small scale, site-specific urban interventions. These future urban initiatives need to involve small changes that reflect the historical and existing urban fabric of the city while accounting for change, time, and flexibility. This can be approached using recombinant design, a technique that takes characteristics from opposing or disassociated aspects existing in a specific site and combines them to introduce a completely new idea into the space. Applying identifying characteristics that already relate to the existing community in a new and different way to new urban initiatives allow people to create an associated connection with the project while bringing new characteristics into the community. Introducing hybridism in the form of recombination into the designing of specific urban interventions will allow for the creation of a better urban space that respects the constant evolution of the city as a creature.
Thesis Abstract as of 11/11
Every time you change the DNA that defines a city and makes it unique, you change the living, breathing creature itself. Cities are spaces that have been built up of layers that allow tradition, dynamic relationships, and personal identities to thrive within them. Urban planning, modernism, and utopian dreams from the City Beautiful movement in the 19th century to post-war planning in the middle of the 20th century to now have been affecting changes on cities with little or no regard to the existing characteristics that make the city vibrant and distinctive. Future urban initiatives need to involve small changes that reflect the historical and existing urban fabric of the city while accounting for change, time, and flexibility. This can be approached using recombinant design, a style that takes characteristics from opposing aspects existing in a specific site and combines them to introduce a completely new idea into the space. [This can be approached using symbiotic design, a style that takes adjacent aspects existing in a specific site and pulls them together to create a intermediary idea into the space.] Introducing hybridism in the form of recombination [symbiosis] into the designing of specific urban interventions will allow for the creation of a better urban space that respects the constant evolution of the city as a creature.
Thesis Abstract as of 10/29
Every time you change the DNA that defines a city and makes it unique, you change the living, breathing creature itself. Cities are spaces that have been built up of layers over time. These layers allow tradition, dynamic relationships, and personal identities to thrive within them. Through urban planning since the early twentieth century, demolitions, new building projects and revitalizations have been affecting changes on cities with little or no regard to these characteristics that make the city what it is (see Actor Matrix), causing major problems for the inhabitants and bringing down the success of the city overall.
Future changes that are made to urban spaces need to take many factors into consideration to be successful. They must be designed as small initiatives as opposed to large-scale plans. They also need to take the unique urban fabric of the city into consideration while accounting for change, time, and flexibility in order for the city to remain vibrant. This can be approached using the idea of recombinant design, a style that uses characteristics from opposing aspects of a specific site and combines them to introduce a new idea into the space.
By taking the uniqueness of every urban space into consideration and remembering the mistakes already made in historical urban planning initiatives, small urban interventions can be designed to better an urban space while respecting the creature that is the city.
Thesis Abstract as of 10/15
The eclectic urban fabric that has developed over the lifespan of the city and makes it unique, allows for dynamic relationships, establishes a cities identity, etc is necessary to maintain the city as a living, breathing creature of its own. This fabric has been altered over time by ways of demolition, new building projects, and revitalizations. If these changes (made by acted upon decisions and not passage of time alone) were/are made without consideration to the city as a living, aging organism, they could affect the city drastically. People in charge of this change must be aware that every time you change the DNA that makes up the city, you change the creature itself.
The history of “urban planning” has proved to be mostly detrimental to the successful urban way of life. Over time, it has taken aspects of a city that make it unique (real traditional influences [as opposed to ones modeled after traditional styles], textures, scales, amenities, opposing styles, etc) and rebuilt “undesirable” parts of cities that it has decided to demolish using new, cookie-cutter versions of the cities characteristics, attempting to make people identify with this rebuilt part of the city on a purely superficial level. It does not account for change, time, or flexibility that allow a city to remain vibrant.
Creating new parts of the city, especially parts that need to be redeveloped, based on a demolish-and-copy urban planning concept will not help the city, but instead, destroy a part of the city that defines it, even if it defines it in a lackluster way.
Parts of a city that need to be redeveloped because of relationship problems they have with the rest of the city (industrialism, crime, degeneration, uselessness, etc) must be evaluated based on what they contribute or have contributed in the past.
Most city problems can be resolved by restoring or creating a sense of human scale and human identification within the area.
Thesis Abstract as of 9/29
Eclecticism: a style that derives ideas, styles, or tastes from a broad and diverse range or sources
Recombinant Urbanism: relating to an organism formed by recombination
The eclectic urban fabric that has developed over the lifespan of the city and makes it unique, allows for dynamic relationships, establishes a cities identity, etc is necessary to maintain the city as a living, breathing creature of its own. This fabric has been altered over time by ways of demolition, new building projects, and revitalizations. If these changes (made by acted upon decisions and not passage of time alone) were/are made without consideration to the city as a living, aging organism, they could affect the city drastically. People in charge of this change must be aware that every time you change the DNA that makes up the city, you change the creature itself.
The current idea of “urban planning” is detrimental to the existing urban way of life. It takes aspects of a city that make it unique (real traditional influences [as opposed to ones modeled after traditional styles], textures, scales, amenities, opposing styles, etc) and rebuild an “undesirable” part of the city it has decided to demolish using new, cookie-cutter versions of the cities characteristics, attempting to make people identify with this rebuilt part of the city on a superficial level.
Creating new parts of the city, especially parts that need to be redeveloped, based on a demolish-and-copy urban planning concept will not help the city, but instead, destroy a part of the city that defines it, even if it defines it in a lackluster way.
Parts of a city that need to be redeveloped because of relationship problems they have with the rest of the city (industrialism, crime, degeneration, uselessness, etc) must be evaluated based on what they contribute or have contributed in the past.
Most city problems can be resolved by restoring or creating a sense of human scale.
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