Abstract ยท Updated 13 December 2005, by Jason
The dynamics of contemporary culture means that urban design must be adept at managing temporal structures, ordering movement, and prognosticating future trends without aid of specific programs or even clients and without the traditional zoning diagrams and spatial devices that architects historically rely on. Today's cities are temporal architecture, but temporal urbanism is not simply made up of ephemeral structures. Instead temporary urbanism is concerned with emergent programs, movement, and infrastructure as well as consideration of the quality of the architectural product. Temporary structures include infrastructure (the management of urban flows), events (the temporary or fugitive architectures and programs that are facilitated or facilitate urban activity), and buildings (open, adaptable but with strong image or urban effect.)
We have done studio research on the urban potentials for the New York waterfront over the past four years using rules sets generated from historic urban types but adjusting them through. This spring and summer we are working with four other institutions in a study of the Greenpoint/Williamsburg neighborhood. The most provocative research tool we have begun to develop is a programming language for simulating the Mat system for studies of New York City's industrial waterfront. Our proposal is to further explore processing language and computational tools to evaluate and simulate future urban patterns relative to these other historic organizations.
Part One of the research project will review and tune the prototypical rule sets for developing these urban patterns. Part Two will develop preliminary processing language for simulating these rule sets. Part Three will include running test simulations on waterfront sites in Brooklyn, NY. Part Four will involve development of three-dimensional models and graphic representation of the rule sets.