Fall 2018, Arch 100C – The Non-Productive Space

The city is a productive entity.
The city is efficiently zoned for programmatic uniformity and predictability.

The city cements together solidified masses of space, largely impassable, meticulously divided into parcels, surfaced with walls pressing right up to the limit of the street. In this relationship, the imperative to secure productive elements and the street collide to co-create the current of the city… frequently resulting in a dense stream of traffic. Practically impermeable, the streetwall of the city forms an explicit boundary for the purpose of creating separation between the precious productive elements that articulate our existence, and the often unpredictable open current of the city. Architectural elements are imbued in the thin space between the two.

We will examine the systems of the city to expose the potential for expanding that thin space into a form of territory for the city. We will search for opportunities to bring dimension to the informality of our shared life beyond the street and street wall paradigm. We will develop an architecture that is more precise about our way of living in the city. Considered syntactically with adjacent social infrastructures, we will explore solutions that instigate a restructuring of this space that has the potential to alter the cultural and spatial identity of the local context.