The Unplanned City: Preserving Place Through Urban Making

The American City is changing. For a long time it has been “shrinking” aspopulations evacuate the center1 in favor of the ex-urban periphery.2 However,recent evidence suggests that the trend may be slowing, or even reversing.3This reality presents opportunities to transform our cities, as long as we avoidpitfalls of planning.Roles architecture plays in urban transformation are varied. Architecture thatdoesn’t consider characteristics of local culture will disrupt a city’s evolution.4This architecture is a component of a planned city that supplants local traditionswith a contrived image of urbanity; the city becomes “theme park.”5However, an architecture that builds from existing conditions is one that hasthe potential to foster social interaction and cultivate a sense of community.6It contributes to an unplanned city, one that evolves according to the changingneeds of a populace.How can architecture facilitate unplanned change? Can the city be transformedat the scale of individual buildings, or are these practices forever relegated tourban planners working at the scale of districts? Is there a way to reestablishthe role of the architect as urbanist through design education? These questionsframe a proposal for design pedagogy that explores the potential of architecturalintervention to act as a catalyst for the growth of the American City.7This pedagogy promotes an understanding of the city as a complex set of interrelatedsystems, both cultural and physical.8 Studios implementing it dependas much on technique as knowledge. Generative mapping is used to documentand analyze urban form and cultural traditions. Synthesizing different facetsof the urban context enables the student to understand social drivers of urbanform. The act of mapping guides the design of an architectural intervention thatresponds to multiple site forces. Can architecture be at once generated by theconstraints of its surroundings and a force for directing their transformation?This paper proposes strategies for addressing issues of the city in architecturaleducation. Of special interest is the technique for generative mapping,the architecture that results from it, and the potential of this design processto affect the transformation of the city while preserving its unique character.1 See David Rusk. Cities without Suburbs: A Census 2000 Update(Washington D.C.: Woodrow Wilson Center Press, 2003)2 See Mario Gandelsonas. X-Urbanism: Arhcitecture and the AmericanCity (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1999)3 The Brookings Institute Metropolitan Policy Program. State of MetropolitanAmerica: on the Front Lines of Demographic Transformation. (WashingtonD.C.: The Brookings Institute, 2010)4 See Colin Rowe and Fred Koetter. Collage City. (Cambridge: MITPress, 1978)5 See Michael Sorkin. Variations on a Theme Park, See You in Disneyland.(New Yok: Hill and Wang, 1992)6 See Lebbeus Woods. War and Architecture: Pamphlet Architecture15. (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1993)7 See Stan Allen. Points + Lines: Diagrams and Projects for the City.(New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1999)8 See Christopher Alexander. “A City is Not a Tree” Architectural Forum(122, no. 1, April 1965: 58-62)

Volume Editors
Martha Thorne & Xavier Costa

ISBN
978-0-935502-83-1