the technical and the social

The Fifth Ward Project attempts an explicit link between a "subject position" and the form of a routine street infrastructure. This link will be identified as the characteristic intersection, or "street corner" that lies at the heart of the project's abstractions (switch fields) and the scene of the Ward's most intense social settings. The street intersection is the locus of the technical and the social that animates the project.
          There are physical points at which infrastructure itself to have a potential that goes far beyond the technical domain. Once again, Bruno Latour's reflection on the classification of things comes to the fore.  It has been some time since modernism defined for (our environmental profession) a series of technical or rational artifacts; since that time, civil engineering has remained for us a simple matter of fact. The limitations of such classification can no longer be denied. Like so many transparent "matters of fact" bequeathed to us by modernism, the common street now becomes a matter of concern.  It is no longer possible to think of such as an urban intersection — where the syntactic world of form meets the semantic world of the social and the technical world of civil engineering — as a simple, transparent "fact." To say the obvious, the technical specifications for the site work of a new urban subdivision does not contain a heading labeled "subjectivity." Yet, undeniably, the street corner is as it sometimes remains the locus of event, particularly in those urban settlements that lack a characteristic density or crowd.
          Can a new subjectivity be created out of the abstractions of point, line, plane and volume?

We begin to think of a formal logic that possesses and emphatic corner condition.

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the first five inches

CIVIL ENGINEERING AS A WORK OF ART. The plan is referred to as a work of art in order to challenge the classification of things that arbitrarily relegates the design of the life-world to engineers and developers who are remain indifferent to the power of the built environment to do anything but produce wealth. To put is clearly, cities constitute our ontological substrate.

FIRST SETTLEMENT: above. The Northeast Sector covers approximately 132 acres. The new construction is conceived as a complex assemblage [network of actants] held together by the Unit of Aggregation. In this regard, it was conceived as a Megastructure. [Call this megastructure a subdivision, call this subdivision a megastructure.] It is, however, a megastructure that has qualities unknown to its predecessors. First, it is a megastructure that is an aggregate unit that takes part in a larger aggregate field.  Insomuch as traditional megastructures are isolated and autonomous, this particular megaform is not. A second unique quality is that it is not a megastructure that privileges [its own] form. It is a megastructure that privileges space, like the Megalopolis in which it sits. Owing to the configuration of unit 2.14, it bends around the spatial void that constitutes the conglomerate ordering of the sector. Finally, it possesses a clear hierarchy described by the unit and the subgrid. IT is the subgrid that attempts to balance open form and open space and thus attempts to transcend the terminal distribution [excessive individuation] inherent in Megalopolis today. 

PROGRAMMING SPACE: above left. This mat is the base of all following megastructure diagrams. It represents the collective programs areas of the Fifth Ward that are dominated by space. The overall plan projects space as the matrix of a conglomerate ordering. The adjacent diagram represents that portion of the spatial matrix that exists in the Fifth Ward and serves as the primary influence on unit 2.14 and the new megastructure it supports. It is space that binds the greater aggregate field of units together.

SWITCHES: above right. The switches in the Northeast sector of the Fifth Ward show the distribution of megastructural form within the spatial matrix.  Switches that overlap onto the spatial map are one-way switches that terminate movement while providing access to the open areas. The cluster of switches indicates a residential area. Switches that border the mat are generally three-way switches or “T” intersections that form invisible walls that separate programmatic areas without material boundaries.

SUBGRID: above left. The subgrid creates the finest grain of organization in the megastructure. More than any other level of formal organization, the subgrid gives the megastructure its characteristic quality. The subgrid rents form, creating the appearance of separate buildings. It is an appearance. The contemporary subdivision is a megastructure and the megastructure is a contemporary subdivision. It is the attempt to construct a megastructure that possesses both open space and open form and so mitigates individuation.

TOPOGRAPHIC CELLS: above right. The Northeast Sector is almost flat with less than a ten foot drop from corner to corner. While largely outside the hundred year flood plane, variations in elevation give rise, more often than not, to instant wetlands that, if left undisturbed for even a few years, grow into rich ecosystems. As disuse and neglect have overtaken the Fifth Ward, these isolated wetland patches have become more commonplace giving way to a more primitive relation to the natural than is normally found in suburbs or cities.

UNIT OF AGGREGATION: above left. While the Northeast Sector is dominated by open space, that space is defined by Unit 2.14. The unit is colossal measuring 4,500’ east to west and 3,000’ east to west. The unit threads its way through and around the primary spaces serving to structure the built masses that occur in the adjacent program areas. It forms the armature for two large residential grouping that exist at either end of the unit. In between, it structures a large commercial area in the north. First and foremost, however, it provides fast and ready access to the open territories that shape the area.

BUILDING FOOTPRINTS: above right. With the completion of the infrastructure proposal we faced a critical juncture in the redevelopment of the Fifth Ward. Having stressed the decisive role of new infrastructure in urban rehabilitation, it would be possible to announce that the process is complete by simply turning over this new infrastructure to the forces of market development. This was an appealing option. Bringing a diverse set of players into the project at this point would not only be practical, but desirable. By opening up the plan at this point, the architecture of the Fifth Ward would be built over time by many agents each with a unique conception of the city. Furthermore, the outsourcing of building design would eliminate the specter of a uni-dimensional or totalizing environment where the architecture and infrastructure together are delivered as a singular design environment. Such totalizing urban ambitions recall the spectacular failures of modern urbanism that, fifty years after its demise, continues to haunt the modern urban project. 

          In our subsequent development, however, turning over the new infrastructure to external forces was ultimately rejected in order to instigate a series of alternative trajectories for the Fifth Ward. There are three instigations.  First, the introduction of three new building types — the pavilion, the slab and the tower — to add diversity to a district totally defined by the single family house. Second is the introduction of urban density into an area whose present urban forms are radically evanescent and dispersed. The benefits of densification run from the economic [economies of scale] to the environmental [energy conservation], to the political [coherent communities]. The combination of the first two trajectories introduce a third, the positing of collective subjectivies that here-to-fore have not existed in the Fifth Ward but that grow out of its existing potential.... 

          It should be noted that the discontinuities encoded in the infrastructural plan of the Fifth Ward work against a collective subjectivity. Closed or semi-closed urban systems are largely characterized by the isolating nature of terminal distribution. The panoply of “urban” devices inherent in modern architecture — skip-stop elevators, roof gardens, streets in the air — are proof enough of the new demands made by discontinuous infrastructure. In light of the creation of closed urban systems, modern architecture must now work to create a subjectivity that had heretofore been supplied by an open infrastructure. To that end, the design of specific new buildings in the Fifth Ward compensate for discontinuous infrastructure with the introduction of new types and the population densities that they create. The pavilion, slab and tower each provide opportunities for the construction of distinct collectivites within the framework of a radically discontinuous plan...

FIRST FIVE INCHES. Stressing the infrastructure that occupies the first five inches above grade is another way to affirm what Aldo Rossi called the "Permanence of the Plan."

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the behavior of switches

THE SPATIAL CORE: 1-WAY SWITCHES INDICATE OPEN SPACE

SWITCH BEHAVIOR. The characteristic behaviors of the one, three and four-way switch are demonstrated in the diagrams below. The open space mat is shown as the base pattern against which one, two, three and four-way switches can be compared. 

SOFT WALLS: THREE WAY SWITCHES, above. Fences and walls destroy the qualities of contemporary urban space. Three-way or “T” intersections create invisible walls. Instead of constructing material boundaries, we have subdivided the Ward using “soft walls” made of 3-way switches. Replacing the ubiquitous barriers surrounding the fortified subdivision, these virtual walls are one of the most important aspects of mapping and manipulating spatial dis/continuity. The diagram on the left shows how the “T” intersections coincide with the new subdivision of the Fifth Ward. The drawing on the right shows the plan of the Fifth Ward with the three-way switches indicated.

RESIDENTIAL CONTINUITY: FOUR-WAY SWITCHES, above.  There are ten discrete residential subdivisions in the new plan. Residential areas require the maximum of continuity and are located in a field of 4-wqy intersections. Fitting neatly within the boundaries of the 21 sections, these ten zones are flanked by open zones possessing low continuity.

SPATIAL MATRIX: ONE-WAY SWITCHES, above. By reconfiguring the discontinuities of the existing Ward, we form an organizational “core” of the project that is manifest by space rather than form. In the new plan, space is "glue" that binds the many parts project together. This void strategy is possible only where a dominance of space characterizes the urban environment. What most distinguishes the contemporary from the traditional city is the dominance of space over form. In our attempt to reconcile the inner city with the realities of contemporary urban production, we have incorporated this characteristic into the new plan. Given the large amount of dilapidation and abandonment, the Ward already possess a dominance of space. We have attempted, however, to redistribute this space in order to employ it as an organizational matrix.

NEW STREET GRID WITH SWITCHES

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a network of intersections

SWITCH FIELD. The diagram below is the existing street plan of the Fifth Ward. Directly below it is a translation of that plan into a "point field" of street intersections. Like nodes in any network, intersections establish the connectedness of a larger urban field. Tracking those intersections is not only a way of determining if one may procede left, right or straight ahead (or whether one may proceded at all), it is also a way of tracking the relative spatial "continuity" of any given street network.

With regards to mapping this spatial continuity, the very first observation is that the intersections in a street network are not equal to each other. Each point has a different “status” as regards to its ability to connect to adjacent nodes. The status of each point can be determined for the present configuration of each intersection whereby a four-way switch is an intersection that is open in all four directions. A three-way switch is a T intersection. A two-way switch is a simple bend in the road, and a one-way switch represents a terminal node. The final switch is a “null” point where the intersection was completely demolished or never built in the first place. With regard to these five states, the term “switch” reflects a varying status. A switch suggests that actual street intersections are not only variable but that their status can be flipped or otherwise altered at will. Moving directly from analysis to design, the switch field becomes a tool for the active manipulation of urban continuities based on the relative status of a given intersection.  In other words, the switch field made a spatially biased reform of urban infrastructure possible. It also delivered the specific means of intervention.

The Switch field is the basis for the entire Fifth Ward project. The status of intersections measured in terms of relative continuity and discontinuity are, at one level, a simple diagram of physical access. On an entirely other level, however, dis/continuity of intersections is an indicator of the dis/continuity of space. In this regard, dead-end cul-de-sac streets are not automatically “bad,” and open (four-way) intersections are not automatically “good.” Such prejudices operate off of outmoded urban assumptions and ultimately limit the number of viable options. In the context of the switch field, the so-called dead-end street becomes an important device used in the production of spatial continuity. Considered as a switching mechanism functioning within an overall urban network, the dead-end is redefined by its capacity to mark the end of form and the beginning of space. The capacity to quantify and manipulate space is the single most important factor in the design of Megalopolis — an urbanism that is, first and foremost, dominated by space.

FIFTH WARD EXISTING STREET GRID

EXISTING WARD INTERSECTIONS EXPRESSED AS A POINT FIELD 

FOUR INTERSECTION TYPES. Below are a series of images of the Fifth Ward that are marked in relation to their adjacent intersection or switch. Top Left is a large warehouse that sits at the end of a cul-de-sac or one-way intersection. To the right of that is an image of "elbow" or two-way intersection that blocks of the street grid from the freeway and the Houston CBD seen beyond. Lower left is a "T" or three-way intersection where a misalignment creates a subtle form of barrier to the continuity of the gridiron. The fourth is a an abandoned duplex sitting in the middle of a residential area surrounded by four-way intersections. Residential areas exhibit a greater continuity of street infrastructure than any other program area.

CHARACTERISTIC INTERSECTIONS. The two diagrams below mark the location of the three-way intersections (left) and the location of the four way intersections (right). The three-way intersections form a network of invisible "walls" that run throughout the Ward. The four-way intersections typically indicate residential fabric, in this case, a field of single family houses.

THE FIFTH WARD BY INTERSECTION. The spatial characteristics of a residential neighborhood are bound up in the state of the network in which they sit. The images of the Fifth Ward above and below are marked by their adjacent intersections which divulges as much information about the actual location as does the image itself. Specifically, the overriding spatial characteristics of a dead-end street or a completely open four-way intersection hardly register in visual documentation. We know what the end of the road feels like as surely as we know what it means to be presented with four viable directions of travel. The status of the intersection is perhaps more valuable as an existential indicator than a "realistic" visual portrayal.

NULL FIELD. Below is the diagram of all the demolished or unbuilt intersections of the Fifth Ward. For all the tragic mistakes of urban construction, there is no greater tragedy than that which was never built in the first place. The unrealized continuities of these unrealized intersections make an abstract testament of lost potential that reverberates across the city. Nowhere is this reverberation felt so strongly as in the mile upon mile of cul-de-sac subdivision that constitute the majority of Houston's urban fabric. "Let me feel the lack..."

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open space and open form

METROPOLIS: OPEN FORM/CLOSED SPACE. In the diagram above, the upper RIGHT panel represents a Central Park within a gridiron of streets that characteristic of the Metropolis. It juxtaposes the open, infinitely extensible gridiron streets to the framed or closed space of the large urban park. The gridiron street infrastructure is open to the horizon. The counterpoint to this openness is the contained space of Central Park.

MEGALOPOLIS: CLOSED FORM/OPEN SPACE. In the diagram above, the lower RIGHT panel shows a transformation where the gridiron is cut back to the point that streets are no longer open and extensible but closed. On the other hand, the axes cut through the existing park have been significantly enlarged by the elimination of infrastructure. The urban space that emerges is now infinitely extensible.

OPEN FORM/OPEN SPACE. Some kind of “indeterminate stage.” is located in the space between the open form/closed space of the 19th century Metropolis and closed form/open space of the 20th century Megalopolis. This intermediate stage is presented in the digram below as an ideal that exists between two completely dysfunctional extremes.

UTOPIA. This diagram summarizes the relation between the open gridiron Metropolis and a closed cul-de-sac Megalopolis. Against two axes representing closed and open forms and spaces, four distinct environments are described in each of the resulting quadrants. In the lower right-hand quadrant, the gridiron Metropolis is constituted by open form and closed space. By open form I mean the open gridiron streets that extend infinitely to the horizon. By closed urban space I mean the framed space of an urban park such as Central Park in New York or Marquette Park in Chicago. In the upper left-hand quadrant, the cul-de-sac Megalopolis is constituted by closed form and open space. By closed form I mean the closed streets of cul-de-sac infrastructure that end in a terminal destination. By open urban space I mean the unframed space that emerges in the interstices of these closed terminal conditions. Often referred to as sprawl, this space is the product of open space planning, land banking, automotive infrastructures or simple neglect.

While Metropolis and Megalopolis emerge from the historical conditions of 20th century, the urbanism the other two quadrants can be obtained by design. The quadrant marked by closed form and closed space makes a prison. The remaining quadrant constituted by both open form and open space is an ideal which may ultimately allow Megalopolis to emerge as a fully formed design problem.

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inner-city tracts: subdividing the Ward

CONTEXTUAL SUBDIVISION. The diagrams below display the method of subdivision employed in the new town. Building on top of the older disruptions on the grid, the new cuts took the path of least possible resistance. There are four overlapping levels of subdivision creating one, three, seven and twenty one sections or districts within the new ward. The ambition is not to locate the ideal subdivision among these four, but to come up with a plan where all four levels of subdivision would be simultaneously present.

MAXIMIZING SURFACE. At a practical level respecting preexisting grid disruptions meant that the subdivisions were made along the lines of large scale infrastructure — rail lines, widened streets, freeways — that disrupted the grid continuity. The jagged edges seen in the new subdivisions are the primary legacy of those old disruptions that were taken up in the new subdivisions as distinct opportunities. Like the built-in complexity of a jigsaw, these jagged pieces of the ward maximized the length of the interface or seem between any two given subdivision.  In the bottom row of diagrams the number of surfaces produced by each subdivision are listed.

PREEMPTIVE CLOSURE. In the top row of diagrams the number of street closures required for each respective subdivision are listed. It was not necessary or desirable to close every district off from the next; quite the contrary.

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