Urban Asymmetries Masters Program

Program Coordinator: H Sohn.

General Program Description:
The Urban Asymmetries Program is aimed at developing the architectural and urban means of countering uneven urban development in diverse contexts. It emphasizes the relation of architecture to political-economy, politics, society, and culture, not in order to emulate the current conditions, typically dominated by neoliberalism, but in order to identify realistic alternatives. The program cluster includes courses which address these issues from various perspectives, including technique (UA Studio, The Agency of Mapping), knowledge (UA Studio, The Agency of Mapping, The New Urban Question/Minor Infractions, AT thesis), and architectural and urban design (UA Studio). It introduces to students a wide array of scholarly work and analysis, ranging from urban geography to architecture theory, from sociology to political-economy, experiments with diverse means of analysis, and creates the framework for developing solutions to urban blight which do not shy away from intervening in spheres outside those traditionally demarcated as ‘architectural'. 

Info:

DSD Graduation Studio: Urban Asymmetries

 

• Course Code: AR3DSD020 [AR4DSD020]
  

• ECTS: 15 [30]
  

• Course type: Research and Design Studio

• Course coordinator: H Sohn

Summary
In the Urban Asymmetries graduation studio, we analyze the material consequences of political economy, urban policies and practices in developing regions and diverse contexts, investigating the 'thin-line' that is produced within an asymmetrical urban condition. We focus on simultaneous, but diverting, processes from a critical angle, and using the tools available to our disciplines we analyze and research the mutations of contemporary urban environments.

Among specific topics, studios focus on the 'formal' (as manifested in the homogenization and uniformity of large-scale, low-density housing developments that conform the majority of contemporary urban sprawl, for example, or the demand for formal difference and spectacle which dominates city centers), or assess the challenges brought about by the encroachment and consolidation of asymmetrical processes which nurture conditions in urban landscapes such as the 'informal city', ‘slumming', incoherent peripheral formations and edge city conditions.  

We deal with these and other phenomena from a perspective that includes more than the architectural and urban domains alone (in scope, program, and scale), extending our investigations to encompass other disciplines and fields as well, such as sociology, urban geography and urbanism. In other words, we theorize architectural and urban action, investigating and exploring a wide range of possibilities that may function as alternatives or counter-proposals to the present urbanization trends occurring in cities.

Our main aim is devising alternative dwelling modalities (which may include social housing, habitual processes, or financial structures) that may act in the definition of new urbanities within the growing geographies left by the advance of neoliberal globalization.

Course Content
During the first semester (Master 3) of the UA Studio we focus on specific asymmetrical conditions and urban problematiques, carrying out thorough empirical and analytical research on specific case studies - or city-areas.

The main aim of the UA graduation studio is to conceive and project latent dwelling modalities (architecture) and strategies (urbanism) to act as the ‘cohesive platform', between different urban actors, social domains, and diverse urbanities. Furthermore, we investigate possible 'tactics' and practices that could facilitate our collective right to the city.

Urban Asymmetries comprises two sequentially coupled semesters: Master 3 - Design & Research Studio focus on specific asymmetrical conditions and urban problematiques, carrying out thorough empirical and analytical research on specific case studies - or city-areas. The studio is dedicated to the collective (group) analyses and research of the chosen case study or problematique, the development of a set of planning and design strategies and recommendations, and a schematic, collective design counter-proposal. Among the curriculum of required DSD MSc3 course, students follow The Agency of Mapping course, which includes a seminar section and a mapping project. The seminar will provide the platform to read and discuss different key theoretical texts about mapping and interpreting the urban environment, whereas the project will allow testing these theories in practice. The Master 4 Graduation Lab will be dedicated to the development of a thorough architectural design project to meet the analytical and empirical findings in Master 3.

The Fall 2011 UA studio will be taught by Heidi Sohn and Gerhard Bruyns. The project will deal with the progression of neoliberal practices on urban environments in the twenty-first century, dealing with issues such as over-development and the militarization of urban space. The project will be located in either Berlin or Beirut. The Spring 2012 studio will be taught by Tahl Kaminer and Gerhard Bruyns, the location of the project has yet to be determined.

Info:

Research Methods and Design Practices

• Course code: AR3A160
• ECTS: 6
• Course Type: Lecture Series Research Methods.
• Course Coordinator: Dr. T.L.P. Avermaete & Ir. H.J. Engel
• Required: For both Architecture Thinking & Urban Asymmetries graduation studio students.

Summary

This lecture series deals with the intricate relation between architectural research and design approaches. It holds that there exist certain 'episteme' in the field of architecture in which a specific analysis of the built environment resonates with a particular architectural design approach. It focuses on the ways that architectural research can offer a basis for the delineation, formulation and composition of architectural projects. Out of this perspective architectural research is not considered as a value-free venture, but rather as an activity that reflects a clear frame of reference and intentionality.

Course Contents

The lecture series consists of six twin lectures. The first two twin lectures focus on the modi and instruments of architecture.
The four remaining lectures are composed of:

• a theoretico-historic lecture in which an episteme is delineated and,
• an evaluation of the operativity of a certain research method and the related design strategy.

Gaols

Against the aforementioned background this lecture series has a threefold goal:

• to offer an insight in the intricate relationship between research and design as two aspects of the same architectural episteme.
• to delineate and analyze some of the key episteme in the field of contemporary architecture.
• to illustrate the operativity of the episteme within contemporary research and design approaches.

Urban Questions or Minor Infractions

 

• Course code: AR3DSD040
• ECTS: 3
• Course coordinator: Heidi Sohn
• Course type: Lecture Series
• Required: For both Urban Asymmetries & Architecture Thinking graduation studio students.

Summary
In this weekly lecture series we will explore the new urban questions that spring from and surround contemporary debates on architecture, urbanism, and the spatial disciplines, critically questioning the contemporary situation of urban environments as the locust of diverse epistemologies of space.

Each week expert guest speakers and researchers will present specific case studies, theorizing them, and relating them to the pressing 'new urban questions' of our contemporary world: what are the challenges brought about by these new developments? How can we read, understand, and critique these new urban environments of the 21st century?

Course Content
Since the publication of David Harvey's The Condition of Postmodernity of 1990, many of the processes identified by Harvey and others have manifested themselves upon our contemporary human world: from the over-urbanization of the world's population, rapidly changing geopolitical configurations and shifting relations between State and civil society, the poignant environmental questions that plague us incessantly, to the encroachment of the media in our daily lives, the last decades of the 20th century appear to have functioned as a catalyst to capitalism in its advanced stages, rather than as a vehicle for emancipation, socio-economic improvement or general positive change.

The transition from modernity into postmodernity has been everything but straightforward, or unproblematic. One thing has become clear: under the logic of flexible accumulation, endorsed by the slogan of modernization, progress, and globalization, capitalism has managed to mutate once again into what appears to be an all-encompassing economic system that, backed by parallel transformations in all realms of human endeavor, has transformed not only our imaginaries and desires, but also our lifestyles, subjectivities and practices.

The logic of neoliberalism claims to be based on values and ideals that cannot be sustained in reality: instead of balance, it produces deafening homogeneity and uniformity; instead of 'difference' and variety, it thrusts informality. Troubled by a natural tendency to conflict and contradiction, neoliberalism and its many practices are (re-)producing extreme conditions of socio-economic polarization, environmental devastation, and more generally, differential conditions that generate degrees of unprecedented uneven development and asymmetries in all domains and scales.

These changes necessarily manifest themselves upon the built environment, producing changed relationships within localities, cities and entire regions, posing new urban questions for the 21st century. Such as: What are the new urban conditions brought about by the liberalization of the global economy? Where has 'the public' gone? Can we still speak of public spaces in the conventional sense under conditions of extreme commercialism and the dissolution of the political? What are the implications for the city? What is occurring in regions in which the transition into neoliberalism has occurred in partial occlusion, or invisibility? How are architects and urban designers reacting to these changes?

As entire cities rise from scratch in what was previously desert, and the peripheries of urban giants in the Third World consolidate into hyperslums, the role of architects and urbanist is called into question. Are we responding to the new urban problems and questions from a critical perspective, or are we perpetuating with our practice the 'Minor Infractions' that will shape the contradictive cities of the 21st century?

The Agency of Mapping

 

• Course Code: AR3DSD060

• ECTS: 6

• Course Type: Seminar

• Course Coordinator: T Kaminer.

Summary
In recent times a great deal of architectural discourse has shifted its attention from discussions on architectural representation and more conventional forms of epistemological production, towards a field traditionally reserved to the cartographer, the geographer, the engineer, or the planner: 'mapping the city'. Debates on the role of the architect in this domain of the urban, a dimension that encompasses many additional elements and complexities to the ones commonly addressed by the architect, imply a shifting of scale, of position, of range, and of epistemology (knowledge), not always grasped and comprehended in depth by the architect.

In an attempt to adapt to what could be seen as the 'urbanization of architectural theory', the architect has begun to explore and experiment with techniques and practices reserved for other disciplines: the script, the score, the diagram, and finally, the map. After decades of 'playing' with the first three techniques, architects are beginning to find in the map and in the
practice of mapping many interesting possibilities and opportunities. Not a new discovery, many would argue, but the issues of mapping, however, are becoming pervasive in architectural production, and thus require a more in-depth understanding of the origins, and applications of mapping, as well as the difficult questions of subjectivity, action (agency), and the implications of mapping upon material reality.

Maps, as instruments of diverse ideologies, encompass dimensions that are not innocent or neutral; in fact, in their instrumentality, maps hold the potential to not only represent what is, but also, and especially, to change existing conditions. Envisioning new worlds, generating new environments, producing or facilitating new relationships among elements: these are all 'projective' qualities of mapping, which need critical assessment before they transcend into reality.

Course content
In this weekly seminar we introduce, analyze and discuss a series of theories that, as a result of rapidly changing perceptions of space-time, emerged during the 20th century, largely influencing the way we understand and represent the built environment. We analyze the relationships of these theories to the spatial disciplines, in particular to present-day urban design and architectural production, theorizing them, and exploring the diverse forms of mapping and projective methods that these may have when implemented in actual urban and architectural projects.

More than formal changes or innovations, we focus on concepts such as 'process', 'change', 'agency' and the practice of mapping: what is the role of agency? What are the effects and material consequences of these changes? Can we think beyond a representational system without falling into the common trap of self-reflexivity or over-formalism?

The seminar includes a project, which is designated as an opportunity to test and experiment with techniques in the study of the city - using diverse methods and media as a means of exposing ‘the hidden city'.

DSD Urban Asymmetries ATHENS Graduation Studio

[Also see description for AR3DSD020 [AR4DSD020], above] 

The economic crisis which has been unfolding in the last three years places cities at the centre of the storm, whether as the locus of the subprime mortgages which set off the meltdown, as the centres of finance capital and governments, as well as the locus of protest movements. The condition of crisis will directly affect cities - reducing their tax revenues, leaving city neighbourhoods in physical decay, with shuttered shops and empty office and residential buildings, as well as social devastation and increasing deprivation. The condition of crisis makes visible aspects of the status-quo which have been previously veiled; it also provides the opportunity for a major shift in the political economy and everything it affects, including the built environment. The current global protest movement, most visible in Barcelona, Athens, Tel Aviv, Santiago de Chile, and New York, is therefore an attempt to direct the shape society - and consequently also the built environment -will take in the future.

The URBAN ASYMMETRIES ATHENS GRADUATION STUDIO will focus on the city that has been at the centre of social, political, and economic turmoil in the last year, with its population placed under incredible pressures and facing a dire future. Public sector employees fired and their pay slashed, mass unemployment in the private sector, a retreat to countryside as last resort, and a political class which offers no acceptable solutions - Athens has become the epicentre of political incompetence and cowardice, popular rage, experiments in ‘direct democracy' and movement-building as well as nastier, xenophobic expressions, violence and nihilism, condensing in one city many of the processes that are currently taking place globally. The study and direct experience of Athens will therefore enable perceiving not only the specific crisis of the Greek capital, but also the general dead-end of cities in the current political economy.

The DSD Urban Asymmetries  Athens Graduation Studio Athens study urban alternatives to the future scenario of Athens as spelled out by the Greek government, IMF, EU, and WTO, investigating plausible options for a city which better serves the majority of its residents, via ideas such as ‘the right to the city' and by engaging with political, economic, and social issues beyond the limits of the architect. Specific issues the studio will address include the manner in which society and the city are formed, the relation of architecture to political economy, and the role of architecture in social transformation. The studio will attempt to identify the means of bringing about the socially possible by intervening in the built environment with the tools available to architects.

Students who are looking for an interesting, challenging and intense graduation project are welcome to come to our information meeting on May 4 (see DSD website) and to register to our studio. There are a limited number of places available; we encourage you to register with anticipation.