Generative Architecture_489_Spring 2009
Texas A&M University College of Architecture
definition
The following is a condesery of the book KM3: Excursions on Capacities by Netherlands based architectural firm MVRDV.
Three-dimensionality can be seen as architecture’s fundamental existence, the profession’s acclaimed domain. In times of globalization and scale enlargement, and update of this definition seems needed: meters turn into kilometers, M3 becomes KM3. [0.2_1_Winy Maas]
content
Each mini book explores different elements, adds information, and is positioned in methodological sequence: from observations of upcoming densities, via hypotheses for how to deal with them, through speculations on localizing global densifications, to emergent possibilities via suggested directions (hypothetical dense cities), while learning from the past, delivering applications for current situations, experiements through collaborations, projects and recent realizations and a possible summary with software that stores and activates the found knowledge. It culminates with a postscript, a possible jump to the stratosphere, the next 3D action, the ultimate escape. [0.3_2_Winy Maas]
- space gap
- hyperoptimized world
- new regionalism
- km3
space gap
The world is doomed. Maybe. It has been suggested that in order to sustain one person, 1.8 Ha of land are required. By those standards present day USA would need an area 4 times its size, while Singapore would consume an area 20 times its size. By the year 02070 the Human Development Index is expecting to reach 100%. Life Expectancy is to reach 77 years old world-wide by 02045. Data suggests that by 02050, 480 million immigrants will be on the move. Overall, trends suggests that in our planet’s future populations will grow rapidly, while the amount of plant and animal species and resources will decline gradually. As of the year 02005, in order to sustain ourselves we would need 2.15 earths.
KM3 looks at human occupation as a skin that covers the earth. Over the last century these individual skins or cities or human developments have been slowly moving towards each other. Urban and suburban sprawl begin to eat away land and resources. In this new Information Age people live longer, are more educated, and look to consume more. Our current skins or cities do not and will not meet the needs of these emerging capacities. KM3 calls on architects and urbanists to adapt and innovate. KM3 suggests a world where there is an endless skin of human development. Where we have expanded to our limits. Deserts, forests, seas, oceans, underground, skies. What does this mean for architecture, for the city, for the region, and for our planet?
Architecture is a device.
In the face of an uncertain future, architecture is pushed aside. The role of the architect has been decidedly reduced to a luxury service dominated by corporations looking to provide the design de jour. Spatial possibilities (on the building, neighborhood, and city level) become limited by this fact. But architecture is more than a service, it is a device to be utilized. The World of Architecture should position itself at the forefront of the spatial debate. Architecture inherently addresses the physical manifestation of political, economic, and societal demands. As the world’s population, spaces, and occupations converge on each other, architecture will become increasingly important for survival of the Human Race.
KM3 asks architects and urbanists for a vision of a new city, that emerges from this new and chaotic world. If the architecture of the present could be considered reactionary or considered negative feedback, then this new architecture and new city is an action of positive feedback. Proactive design.
hyperoptimized world
Data is an attempt to represent reality in numbers. A way of understanding the physical through the meta-physical. We are at the beginning of a new area, and Age of Information. A shift in technology has occurred. In the Information Age our species will not be pushed forward into progress by physical technologies. The most socially important technologies will be meta-physical in nature. The rise of silicon based technology (as opposed to carbon based) allows our physical lives to be highly altered. At a time when our species is facing possible endangerment or even extinction, productivity and efficiency are pushed to the forefront.
KM3 assumes a world where all peoples are equal and all resources are open. In this assumed world, a re-thinking of the way we produce and consume resources is required in order to obtain the optimum efficiency. Five distinct natural resources are identified: energy, forests, agriculture, seas, and deserts.
After that, industries, infrastructures and urban agglomerations follow the primary resources, suggesting further a new density map of the world organized in a n efficient way for distributor. It would lead to ‘terroirs’ with the finest agriculture on the proper spots, to windmill parks on the windiest places surrounded by floating cities, since these places will be mainly in the oceans. It would lead to zones with high-quality forests that act like giant CO2 absorbers . . . Everything will seek the best position for production with the exact amount of people allocated nearby to maintain it. [3.4_74_Berlage Institute/MVRDV]
Dispersment of Earth’s existing cities and populations are not structured for efficient production. In the assumed global society of the future there is free movement between regions. Once the optimized areas are located and development/transformation begins, populations will organize themselves accordingly. KM3 does not suggest a world where all orders are received from the top-down, rather a pattern of migration will emerge through the individual decisions of free citizens based on job availability, quality of life, specialty area, etc.
Currently, our global population is 6.3 billion people. According to the data and projections, our planet could reach hyperoptization by the year 02130, with an estimated population of 16 billion. Through optimization of resources, new metropolises will materialize. The densities of these new cities will change according to the specialty of production. Agricultural clusters will be connected to hub cities which will distribute products to port cities. Port cities will then further distribute the products globally. These clusters of hub and port cities will be the most dense, working 24 hours a day in order to efficiently distribute products to consuming regions. KM3 outlines a future world where fresh food products can be shipped within 12 hours of their ripening. This is the future (or the process of creating this future) that many of the experiments and hypothetical situations found throughout the work occur.
Data projects that Earth will be maximized by the year. After which, colonization of outer-space and extra-terrestrial planets will become necessary.
new regionalism
Costa Ibérica. Tourism_MVRDV speculates that in 50 years time the southern coast lines of Spain and Portugal will become a Constant City providing an endless linear skin of hotels and services. It will become Europe’s leading Leisure City, but over time will devalue itself due to the wreckless expansion and mono-cultural (tourist) behavior. How can this self-destructing Leisure City be stabalized? By utilizing its strengths. This area is rich in its sense of climate, beuaty and accesibility, as well as existing city conditions. The smaller cities of the region can reorganize themselves into pristine ecotourist sites, promoting a return to nature. While the larger existing cities like Barcelona Benidorm can absorb more prommatic functions, increase in size and density, and become clear regional hubs of diverse activities. This reduces the mono-culture aspect of tourism by varying the degrees of density and activities throughout the linear Leisure City while still capatlizing on its unique strengths.
Forêt MLM. Suburbs_Montceau-les-mines is a small pre-Information Age city in the French countryside. The European countryside as a whole can be seen as decaying. The young move to urban areas while the old remain and die out. Heavy Industries have moved away to eastern Europe and Asia, while new highways, business parks, and strip shopping centers make a futile attempt to lure in population and economy. Instead of creating productive Constant Cities that work on a global scale, these areas in the European countryside tend towards a destructive endless suburb consuming land. How do we rectify this problem?
Leave.
Give the countryside back to nature and to agriculture. Allow the suburbs to die off, accept the situation. Over time the old industrial parks and larger buildings that have long since lost their use will become ruins in a thick and expansive natural park. Coating the selected contemporary ruins with a polyurethane paint will allow vegetation to slowly take over the structures allowing opportunities for interesting acts of nature. Populations will condesnse around the new cities and the countryside will once again be open.
Ciudad Valle Central. Agriculture_There is a valley in Chile that stretches between the Andes and the Cordilleras that could possibly wield agricultural value on a global scale. Overlapping areas of productive soils, mediterranean climate, and water resources converge on this narrow valley. KM3 looks to turn this region into a HyperAgro economy. Every cm2 of land will be used to its uptmost potential, and using the foremost production methods. This new economy could play a role in the larger regional scale of Chile by attracting workers from the already over-populated existing cities like Santiago. On the global scale, the CVC will be among the top Agro Product Exporting regions.
NL Stad. Urbanism_When considering urban planning at the scale of a nation, the Netherlands is the first to come to mind. The Dutch have embraced the idea that one is not simply restricted to the existing geography, a country can makes its own topography. This idea is called ‘makability’ in the planning culture. However, seeing the past large scale urban projects in light of recent global conditions and the future that KM3 presents, there is an air of doubt in the rationality and ecological effects of these projects. Which leads to a culture of pessimism and protectionism, and an unorganized complexity of planning procedures forcing Dutch cities to compete with each other for resources and populations. Effectively ending the collective initiative.
Currently, Holland stands as sprawling string of relatively low density cities with no urban core. KM3 proposes a re-organization of the Netherlands. No longer should it be seen as a single autonomous nation with independently operating cities, but for what it is, a single skin of human development. A megacity of some 16 million in population.
In this nationwide city, the roads would become ‘city streets’ and thereby take on a n entirely different character. Areas of natural landscape would become ‘city parks’. There would be several water districts and a power-generating zone, as well as a couple of neighborhood committees. In short, you would have NL-CITY. [4.9_182_MVRDV]
NL CITY distinctly changes the way planning is dealt with in the country (new city). The Netherlands is often considered by many residents as ‘full’ and thus migration is currently being limited. However, when the nation is considered to be one large municipality, ‘full’ is no longer applicable. With 16 million inhabitants, NL CITY becomes the most populated, least dense city in the world. In fact, only 15% of the land is developed.
Two kinds of fullness exist. Negative fullness, which is currently felt in Holland, is a reaction to perceived inevitable consequences such as congestion. This leads to insecurity and pessimism. The second, positive fullness, is a proactive event which creates culture and diversity.
Another rationale for changing the scale of the Netherlands from nation to city is the European Union. Movement of people becomes easier, transportation becomes an international idea, and individual national autonomies become less clear cut. Already, Rotterdam is Europe’s most active port, but would not be so with out the support of Europe. Though a significant percentage of land has been given over to agricultural production, the Dutch AgroEconomy finds itself lacking in the global market. Europe as a whole is in a state of programmatic transition. Depending on how the future manifests itself, NL CITY will become a very specialized region. Possibilities include becoming a knowledge center (the University City of Europe), a wetland paradise where the interior is devoid of people and agricultural products are developed on mass scale, or it could become north mainland Europe’s megacity of 30 million inhabitants.
NL CITY simplifies the current conditions of the Netherlands, making planning issues much more transparent. As these new and existing problems become apparent, they can more easily be addressed by considering NL CITY as a single whole. A wonderful example of a minimalist approach to planning that wields an uncountable number of possible outcomes.
km3
One of the main agendas of MVRDV is to promote urbanism that works in three dimensions. Throughout their built and theoretical projects an underlying current of three dimensionality expresses itself in various design solutions. KM3 takes this idea to a new level. In the Information Age, an architect is no longer simply a provider of shelter, of a single building operating individually. But as a organizer, analyst and innovator of urban organisms. KM3 addresses the pressing issue of globalization. Not in a negative or apathetic light, as so many contemporaries of MVRDV, but in a positive and optimistic way. KM3 is an exploration into new city forms (in the way of mega-densities, and 3D cities) and future global programmatic issues, and the supporting data and emergent possibilities that coincide with these two subjects. It is a rationalistic approach that rethinks and simplifies globalization by guiding and promoting (rather than restricting) emergent elements of human populations and developments.
Just as the radical groups of the 01960s attempted to rethink culture and society, so does MVRDV and their allies in design. KM3 is a study that hopes to provide possible solutions. Dealing with problems such as the 2D skin that is slowly enveloping our planet, and providing solutions for swallowing this matter in a 3D skin. It also looks into the productivity of the city and region, which will become incredibly important as Earth’s resources become further stretched by future populations. This new 3D city operating as a collective member of a global programmatic arrangement allows for density without the congestion of the 2D pre-Information Age city. It can have a positive effect on local growth in that there is increased productivity and efficiency (at both the local and global scale). Out of this re-organization springs new architectural possibilities, and new urban conditions that promote social interaction and diversification of programs.
The most important aspect of KM3 and MVRDV is optimism. The idea that, though the future is wrought with problems as diverse as collapsing economies or a severe change of climate globally, for every problem there is a solution. Past and present pessimism have resulted and contributed to many of the problems our planet and species face today and in the future. Pessimism, protectionism, and over-individuality leads to a stagnant society that will surely be overcome by the problems that they create. Large scale problems call for large scale solutions. The time of thinking small is over. The World of Architecture can no longer be reactionary (or a device of negative feedback). It is only through optimism that we will overcome the difficulties ahead of us (become a device of positive feedback).
All situations are survivable by this species. [6.3_506_Yona Friedman]
