HOW TO PLAN UNPLANNED:
Can subjective microcosmos rewrite a city?
KANA ARIOKA
Master of Architecture engagement Urban Cultures, Campus Sint Lucas Brussels 2024-2025
Semester 2 / Constructing Urban Cultures
English / Max. 12 students
Main tools are mixed with digital and analogue, model and drawing
Group work for Chapter 1-3 and individual work for Chapter 4
Image: Ljubljana under a Common Roof / Marjetica Potrč
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INTRODUCTION
The German biologist Jakob von Uexküll observed that animals live in species-distinct perceptual worlds, which he called umwelten – subjective microcosmos- carved out from the objective, measurable environment.
Umwelt, however, is more than the notion of immediate surroundings. Rather, Uexküll understood that the perceptual characteristics of living things rewrite even the larger environment – architecture -.
The Japanese architect Yasutaka Yoshimura talks about the programs in architecture that split into behaviours and protocols. The behaviourists set their sights on actions, picking up attitudes, indications and other faint signals from everyday life. On the other hand, the powerful command systems related to broad external constrains such as ecology and economy, latent but no less difficult to resist, are protocols. The problem is that the protocolist works are inflexible and often exaggerated, being politically correct, while the behaviourists, however the beauty of their works with delicacy and openness, confine themselves to behaviours.
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STUDIO
HOW TO THINK
HOW TO APPROACH
HOW TO VISUALISE
This studio dares to PLAN UNPLANNED, starting from the subjective microcosmos.
The subjective microcosmos is depicted through behaviour, and what is seen when that behaviour is analysed as action and attitude of human and architecture, is joined together to form a new perspective.
In this studio we call the scape that emerges when such methods are attempted ‘SOFT CITYSCAPE’. The principals of SOFT CITYSCAPE stand in simplicity, adaptability and intelligent cooperation among individual contributing elements. Such scape should be drawn at the pre-planning stage with operational openness and be questioned on ‘HOW TO PLAN UNPLANNED’.
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METHOD and EXERCISE
The studio sets up three small thematic based exercises and one main project.
First three chapters happen every three weeks while the last chapter for the last five weeks (3+3+3+5=14 weeks). First three chapters are group works of three students, while the last one is individual work.
All the exercises are to be reflected on ‘How to think’, ‘How to approach’ and ‘How to visualise’. The exercises will gradually scale up and find a way to design in tangible scale. In this studio, students are asked to position themselves as architects working at diverse scales.
Chapter 1:
Site survey and Time as four-dimensional element of subjective microcosmos
Chapter 2:
Cityscape by infrastructural behaviorlogy of crops, water and energy
Chapter 3:
How about working on creative common license: evolutionary dwellings
Chapter 4:
HOW TO PLAN UNPLANNED:
Can subjective microcosmos rewrite a city?
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SITE
The site is the whole commune of Neder-over-Heembeek. The characteristic of this site is not only the hybrid architectural assemblage, but also the clearness in topography. The productive activities that operate on this site are inspiring due to the completely different scales and operational systems.
READINGS
– Ilka & Andrea Ruby, Re-inventing Construction, Ruby Press 2010
– Bas Smets, Landscape Stories, Bureau Bas Smets 2016
– Yoshiharu Tsukamoto, Manabu Chiba, Seng Kuan, Tsuyoshi Tane, How is life?: Designing for our earth, TOTO publishers 2023
– Yasutaka Yoshimura, Behaviours and Protocols, LIXIL publishers 2012
– Tim Ingold, Essays on Livelihood, Dwelling and Skill, Routledge 2002
– Rachel Armstrong, Liquid Life: On non-linear materiality, Punctum 2019
– Carlos Moreno, The 15-Minute City, Wiley Publishers 2024
– https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/
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ASSESSMENT
Assessment will take into account regular attendance at the studio, with the design process being presented to the teacher on a weekly basis.
Each assessment will take into account the content (60%), the graphic elaboration (25%) and the oral presentation (15%).
AGENDA
WEEK 1 _ Introduction and group forming
WEEK 2 _ Site visit + Chapter 1
WEEK 3 _ Chapter 1 presentation + Intro Chapter 2
WEEK 4 _ Chapter 2
WEEK 5 _ Chapter 2
WEEK 6 _ Chapter 2 presentation + Intro Chapter 3
WEEK 7 _ Chapter 3
WEEK 8 _ Chapter 3
Atelier week (31/03-04/04) _ building up the model
WEEK 9 _ Chapter 3 presentation + Intro Chapter 4
WEEK 10 _ Chapter 4
WEEK 11 _ Chapter 4
WEEK 12 _ Chapter 4
WEEK 13 _ Chapter 4
WEEK 14 _ Final Jury