ARCH_500-600 Options Studio: ‘Flexing Place Compact’

Can architecture and the stories of its inhabitants trigger a change in current modes of urbanization—one in which the relevance of place has become subsidiary to economic and political considerations? In answer, students tested emergent possibilities of living within a typical urban block in New York City. They investigated whether this planning unit (the apartment, the building, the urban block, and the street) and its programmatic content can adapt to life unfolding onsite. By directly binding the agency of architecture to the story of its inhabitants, students were invited to construct a locally emergent and robust environment that accommodates technological innovation to connect the informed and globally participating society living in urbanization.

To begin, students took a closer look at the configuration of the urban grid, which—one could argue—is perhaps the most resilient, functional figure-forming ground that has enabled humans to define and abstract their relationship to one another, as well as distinguish themselves (through architecture) from the ground that surrounds them. Within the realm of design, the grid played an ambivalent role, as its geometry relates not just to form, but also reveals the presence of a spatial configuration closely tied to ecological and sociopolitical relationships, forming an association toward a certain mode of life. As a result, this interplay has led to a distinct configuration of the relationships of inhabitants toward the ground they stand on, the building unit, the urban block, and entire neighborhoods.

Considering that urbanization divides, expands, and accommodates shortcuts of various ecological, sociopolitical, and scalar implications toward the built and un-built environment, students generated concrete ideas to construct a locally driven urban unit within this vast field of urbanization.