While I see the idea of paracity very interesting, a few questions arise: - How will water and sewage be organized? It seems it's up to the "occupants" to deal with - It will result in a maze of stairs and access ways. Could be fun/beautiful, but maybe difficult? - Would it not result in a lot of dark spaces inside the cube?
But most importantly, I am interested in shedding light on this question: - How can "organic" "p2p" "evolvable" "adaptable" city spaces be created where there are no star-architects involved or where no favorable city-planners are around? I mean sort of a bunch of individuals decide they want to create such a structure (let's for simplicity sake assume they have some basic funds for that...). I know that especially in Europe industrial areas in neglect / disuse could serve this perfectly. How about cities in Latin America, Asia or Africa, where these spaces are not abundant (that's where production takes place...) 2014-03-16 14:43 GMT-05:00 Michel Bauwens <[email protected]>: > > > ---------- Forwarded message ---------- > From: Eric Hunting <[email protected]> > Date: Sat, Mar 15, 2014 at 12:20 PM > Subject: Paracity Article > To: Michel Bauwens <[email protected]> > > > > Here's my attempt at a short article introducing the Paracity project. Let > me know if you think it's useful. > > Eric Hunting > [email protected] > > Paracity -- An Urban Organism > > http://casagrandetext.blogspot.fi/2014/03/paracity.html > > Paracity is a new project of Marco Casagrande which promises to be one of > the first full scale demonstrations of a practical peer-to-peer urbanism. > Taking advantage of a unique situation on the Danshui River Island in > Taipei, Paracity explores a notion of positive urban parasitism, using a > novel, freely adaptive, modular, volumetric structural skeleton serving as > an urban 'backplane' that can subsume otherwise neglected/devalued urban > environments, in this particular case an area prone to frequent flooding. > Based on a fairly large span cubic structural grid made of cross-laminated > timber, this backplane accommodates adaptation and habitation by retrofit, > allowing for several possible tiers of social participation in the habitat > from the high-level peer-managed deployment of the backplane structure and > its key infrastructure elements to the more spontaneous and personalized > retrofit deployment of individual dwellings, industry, and commerce. Here > we see a totally evolvable urban habitat able to almost spontaneously > accommodate any potential change in situation, environmental conditions, > urban and domestic technology, and baseline standard of living without the > strife associated with an anachronistic presumption of architectural > permanence leading to ready obsolescence. This is 'city' as a verb. A > freely evolvable urban organism with a declared evolutionary imperative of > transitioning older urban habitats toward sustainable integration with the > natural environment. A Post-Industrial habitat growing on the compost of > Industrial Age urbanism. > > I find this project concept quite exciting because it incorporates many > concepts I have been proposing and exploring for a long time. This is an > urban development concept based on truly 21st century sensibilities, > questioning the dominant presumptions about property, space, the role of > architecture, and the role of inhabitants as creators and managers of their > own habitat that characterize the inherent dysfunctions of contemporary > cities. I have always wondered why cities are not designed with the > practical sensibility of the network/data center--with a recognition of the > simple reality that they persist as an application--an activity--in a > constantly changing medium of hardware and technology. We are no longer > limited by primitive construction technology with no means to adapt. Why > then are cities commonly, physically, designed to dogmatically resist the > constant evolution that is their very life-blood? It is this very > resistance that is the root of their dysfunctions. The modern city is not a > collection of architecture. It is not a physical thing. It is an > epiphenomenon. An attractor to an emergent form, like consciousness is to > the brain and like an operating system is to a cluster of computers. > > Paracity's architecture is most interesting in how it lays bare this > paradigm. One might accuse it of being, superficially, a throw-back to the > 'plug in' architecture of the '60s, and perhaps this is one of the reasons > for a choice of a more organic primary structural material rather than the > steel frame and concrete systems of the past. But it is more like one of > those transparent 'visible body' models that turns our perspective > inside-out by bringing its urban backplane out into the open as an overt, > visible, architectural feature to be embraced for its bounty of adaptive > use possibilities. This habitat revels in its nakedness and its perpetually > unfinished state. > > The personal computer ran into an evolutionary rut at the time when it had > the most diversity of systems architectures, their very deliberate and > often pointless incompatibilities wielded like clubs by corporate interests > vying for monopolistic control of market share. It was the old Industrial > Age mindset abusing a Post-Industrial technology with its quaint notions of > value and fuddy-duddy ideas about how money is supposed to be made. The > industry had to be dragged kicking and screaming into the realization that > market share was, in fact, keyed to interoperability rather than propriety. > That the personal computer existed in a non-zero-sum ecology and made more > profit the more you shared and cooperated. Today we have but a few, mostly > open, mainstream personal computer architectures and more physical > diversity in design, a more rapid pace of advance, and greater potential > for personalization and customization than was ever imagined possible in > the late 1970s and early '80s. > > Relegated to an upper tier of peer organization largely independent of the > individual human-scale retrofit use, the modular backplane of Paracity is > not so much an overarching architectural scheme as it is a genome in which > an unlimited number of urban situations can be 'sequenced', expressed, and > evolved. It imposes order and standardization to facilitate its ease of use > and change, but doesn't impose any individual designer's ego over the > aesthetic of the habitat. It is not megalomaniaclemegabuild. It's Lego. > > If realized, I think Paracity has the potential to be a breakthrough on > many fronts. The community planned for Taipei promises to be a great > opportunity for exploring peer-to-peer urbanism and the cultivation of a > Post-Industrial culture rooted in the new technologies of alternative > energy, sustainable resource use, urban farming, and independent production > and economy. Being right in the midst of one of the world's most important > and cosmopolitan cities, the catalytic potential is great. It could be an > opportunity for people from around the world to converge on the > experimentation and demonstration of a very new urban lifestyle without the > hassles and hardships of retreating to the remote edge-of-wilderness > locations so many intentional communities are relegated to. And it offers > the prospect of creating a package of systems--a vernacular--that, like an > urban version of OSE's Global Village Construction Set, can be freely > disseminated through the medium of the internet and applied most anywhere. > By virtue of the kind of technology used--the standardization and ready > reproducibility and repurposing of this urban backplane--one could > contribute to this project in many ways from anywhere in the world. This is > most definitely a project to keep an eye on. > > > > > -- > *Please note an intrusion wiped out my inbox on February 8; I have no > record of previous communication, proposals, etc ..* > > P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net > > <http://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation>Updates: > http://twitter.com/mbauwens; http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens > > #82 on the (En)Rich list: http://enrichlist.org/the-complete-list/ > > _______________________________________________ > P2P Foundation - Mailing list > http://www.p2pfoundation.net > https://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation > >
_______________________________________________ P2P Foundation - Mailing list http://www.p2pfoundation.net https://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation
