Measuring the non-measurable:
eco-urbanity analysis of the relationship between urban densities and intensities
In simplified terms, urban phenomena tend to be classified as those which easily lend themselves to measurement and exact quantification, and those which escape quantification (Low, After Method, 2004). Relevant engineering disciplines typically address the first group, while social sciences and humanities explore the rest. Urban design, founded upon the social, aesthetic, environmental, political and economic importance of design in the public realm, focuses on the intersections between the disciplines of architecture, landscape and planning. Having to respond to totality of those complex demands, urban design is irreducible to any of individual components or systems of components which constitute the urban, oeuvre (Lefebvre, Key Writings, 2004). Urban design needs to address, with equal confidence, both the non-measurable (“textual”) and measurable (“numerical”) manifestations of the urban.
This project (central to of the recently inaugurated International Keio Institute for Architecture and Urbanism – IKI) challenges that unsustainable schism by examining and (it is hoped) by expanding the overlap or, at least, facilitating better communication between the “textual” and the “numerical”. That will be addressed by focusing at two systems of urban phenomena which stubbornly resist our urge to quantify – (urban) culture and (environmental) sustainability.
At the broad, conceptual level the project enters latest investigations of the relationship between system theory (social sciences and engineering) and assemblage theory (Deleuze, De Landa, Dovey). A composite interdisciplinary theoretical framework(s) of the project will be critically reliant on place theory, Lefebvrian social theories and the idea of eco -urbanity. The project will include explorations of recently resurgent practices of Situationism (Debord), and psychogeograpy.
Issue of urban density gains special importance in recent reorientation of urban design theory towards the issues associated with the imperative of sustainable development (Mostafavi, Ecological Urbanism, 2010). Dominant responses tend to emphasise the correlation between density and public transport. Dense urban environments evidently facilitate more efficient mobility, but singling out that particular aspect of urbanism, also keeps responses squarely within an established repertoire, with trust given to a hypothetically ever-increasing efficiency of technological systems, rather than to a much-needed paradigm shift (Radović, eco-urbanity, 2009).
Current investigations of urban density often oversimplify the challenge by:
(1) equating the issue of urban density solely with that of residential density;
(2) missing to include closely related (but not equivalent) themes of urban intensity; and
(3) neglecting environmental and cultural specificity of urban development.
This project aims to advance urban design theory related to dialectical couple density/intensity by:
(a) focusing on dialectical relationship between concrete (multiple) densities and (multiple) intensities;
(b) emphasising and addressing the complexity arising from recognition of cultural specificity of the urban;
(c) defining local assessment criteria (as measure of responsibility and responsiveness of design proposals).
The geographical focus of the project is on two types of urban environment which commonly understood as extreme poles of intensity – busy public transport hubs, and ordinary residential areas, with corresponding, high and low densities and diversities. Such precincts have been identified in a number of Asian (Bangkok, Beijing, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Singapore) cities. Those situations will be investigated and benchmarked against the list of selected European (Barcelona, Belgrade, Copenhagen, Florence) and Australian cities (Melbourne, Sydney). The comparative character of such research-design approach gives central place to issues associated with and arising from cultural otherness, diversity and difference, and thus it positions the core of the proposed investigation at its most challenging of its tasks: definition of a model capable to addressing the non-measurable quality of the urban.
The focus will be on spatial and temporal nodes of urban intensification and their dialectical interrelationship, intensities associated with places, their rhythms (Lefebvre) and resultant socio-cultural uniqueness. While being comprehensive in its scope, special attention will be given to detection, definition, recording, representation and, eventually, “measuring” of non-measurable intensities, such as those of human encounter, mnemonic aspects of space/place etc.
The project will be structured in a number of overlapping, iterative phases of research and design-research which combines intensive periods of fieldwork and sustained laboratory investigations – organised as data collection, analysis and testing – model development and testing. Data/information collection and management will be based on application of Geospatial Information Systems - GIS, remote sensing and innovative use of augmented reality. GIS explorations will be facilitated by local data-bases of various host institutions (academic, research, administrative), in return enriching their data-bases with original and innovative products of its own fieldwork recording. The sequence of data management will follow the following pattern: accumulation, digitalization, categorization, computation, visualization – spatialisation/modeling.
As the emphasis is on urban design, central place will be given to experimental, various visualization and spatial representation of information. A coordinated effort will be put towards representations which promise to capture the non-measurable, and demystification, transformation, transposition, cross-fertilisation of data and visions, on clarifying the blur and “messiness” of the “unclear”, while questioning the clarity of the “facts”.
Regular fieldworks, design-research hypothetisation sessions, and communication/dissemination events (conferences and symposia) will be organised to coordinate the project with relevant explorations worldwide.
Over the three years, the project will generate three annual IKI Symposia and Conferences, produce a number of research papers and one research book per annum.
