Monday, April 15, 2013
" Designing Urban Space " by Richard Senett . ET 15.April.2013.Monday
" Designing Urban Space " by Richard Senett . ET 15.April.2013.Monday.
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" The basic principle of a closed system is - ' overdetermined form'. They keyword in this principle is ' overdetermined', rather than ' form'.
Some measure of definition and determination is necesaary to give form to things in build enviornments as in the naural world. In a closd system, however, structures cannot modulate in response to changing conditions, or do not allow experiment in their procedures and processes ....
In the human environment of the city, over determination , both of the city's visual forms and its social functions can have a simiilar ' dinosaur-effect'. This danger is particularly acute in th rapidly growing cities today of the developing world ; the placement, shape and function of many buildings and streets in Shanghai 10 years ago often makes little sense a decade later as the city has expanded ; the buildings have to be torn down, streets, erased.
In some cases, it's simply too expensive, and in all cases, wasteful ; the dead dinosaur that human beings have built then begins to deaden the space around it. Overdetermined form in human society is usually the results of rgimes of power, seeking permanent control. Rigidity is equated with the regime's security ... one result of overdetermination is that , modern urban environments decay much more quickly than the urban fabric inherited in the past . The average life span of new public housing in Britain is now 40 years ; that of new skyscrapers in New York is just 35 years.
Excerpted from " The Public Realm "
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" The basic principle of a closed system is - ' overdetermined form'. They keyword in this principle is ' overdetermined', rather than ' form'.
Some measure of definition and determination is necesaary to give form to things in build enviornments as in the naural world. In a closd system, however, structures cannot modulate in response to changing conditions, or do not allow experiment in their procedures and processes ....
In the human environment of the city, over determination , both of the city's visual forms and its social functions can have a simiilar ' dinosaur-effect'. This danger is particularly acute in th rapidly growing cities today of the developing world ; the placement, shape and function of many buildings and streets in Shanghai 10 years ago often makes little sense a decade later as the city has expanded ; the buildings have to be torn down, streets, erased.
In some cases, it's simply too expensive, and in all cases, wasteful ; the dead dinosaur that human beings have built then begins to deaden the space around it. Overdetermined form in human society is usually the results of rgimes of power, seeking permanent control. Rigidity is equated with the regime's security ... one result of overdetermination is that , modern urban environments decay much more quickly than the urban fabric inherited in the past . The average life span of new public housing in Britain is now 40 years ; that of new skyscrapers in New York is just 35 years.
Excerpted from " The Public Realm "
