London / L.A. Geography
"CARDS GAME"
How to play?
1. At each turn one of the players spins the wheel. A certain type of move gets sorted and the player whose turn is on picks up a card from their own bundle. Both boards get changed accordingly to what type of move has come up and to what the instructions on the related picked-up card say. This is to compare the cities showing the changes in parallel. Each move is timed and has to be completed within the given time. The move is defined by the set of rules found in the cards we provide for each city, for each type of move. The cards are designed in order to provide instructions as for how to change the city, but at the same time to allow a degree of free will for the players as for where in the city and how to execute the change.
2. At the end of each turn the move gets scored accordingly to the scores indicated in the cards. If one team has not managed to decide for a move within the given time frame, they will loose a fixed amount of points. This is to put pressure on them to play and think fast, and to achieve a better entertaining effect. It could be argued that it doesn’t make sense to take points away if one team don’t change the city scenario, but we think that in this game abstraction “not coming to a decision” represents those hitches in a complex society that prevent a city from changing and possibly evolve for the better
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3. After a certain number of turns the total scores for each city get counted. The city that gained more points wins. Of course the total amount of points for each bundle of cards is equal, so the maximum possible score for both cities is even.
SLIDING CITY
This fragment of the future city takes place on a piece of land where existing buildings are spread randomly. How re-use and revitalized built environment and set up the new
The idea is making the new city’s system within a light three-dimensional frame structure which works also as infrastructure for urban and interurban transportation over the old district and open space. New prefabbed apartments settled on the top of this space frame are movable structures.
Movement makes this new town always different, creates a sense of disorientation but, at the same time, moveable and adaptable to different sceneries.
Sliding city is raised on the existing old buildings, works on different levels which are all interconnected. The idea is leaving the ground totally free, no traditional motorized transport, infrastructures are not necessary anymore. Ground level is a greenery space without roads and rails. The original transportation system doesn’t exist anymore, existing buildings with public functions are occupied by offices, commercial activities, leisure and entertainment.
The grid wraps existing buildings which become part of this organism as they take a new sense and function in the sliding city.
The spatial frame is a multifunctional regular structure that got inside, along its uprightness, retails, shopping centres, public places where people can meet and socialize as well as lifts and stairs, vertical connections and other facilities.
The idea is making the new city’s system within a light three-dimensional frame structure which works also as infrastructure for urban and interurban transportation over the old district and open space. New prefabbed apartments settled on the top of this space frame are movable structures.
Movement makes this new town always different, creates a sense of disorientation but, at the same time, moveable and adaptable to different sceneries.
Sliding city is raised on the existing old buildings, works on different levels which are all interconnected. The idea is leaving the ground totally free, no traditional motorized transport, infrastructures are not necessary anymore. Ground level is a greenery space without roads and rails. The original transportation system doesn’t exist anymore, existing buildings with public functions are occupied by offices, commercial activities, leisure and entertainment.
The grid wraps existing buildings which become part of this organism as they take a new sense and function in the sliding city.
The spatial frame is a multifunctional regular structure that got inside, along its uprightness, retails, shopping centres, public places where people can meet and socialize as well as lifts and stairs, vertical connections and other facilities.
RECOMBINANT URBANISM
SQUATTING THE NON COMMERCIAL HOUSE: HETEROTOPIA OF CRISIS AND ILLUSION
Non-Commercial House is based on the idea of using a private owned space that is not currently in use and re-activate it thanks to a voluntary action of space occupation (a squatting action) carried out by a group of urban actors.
The space gets actually broken into by forcing the locks of its doors, so the first action taking place on the site is literally against the law, being at the same time the action that allows this place to become heterotopic, with a new set of rules that regulate the public access to the place (like the normal shop, this one has also opening hours).
Seen from this perspective of “going against” the private property logic that generally rules the city, we can be talking here about a Heterotopia of Crisis. In this heterotopic type a group of urban actors that – following Foucault definition – “belong to a strange mix of people who are [socially] weak or temporarily at disadvantage” – in this case being excluded from the private property system - act on the local scale to change a place and its original dynamics.
A Heterotopia of Crisis, again as Foucault defines it, is a “sacred or forbidden place reserved for individuals who are in the state of crisis in relation to the society in which they live”. Here the urban actors – the activists who promoted this Non Commercial House project – actually choose and take the forbidden (private) place for the community, claiming that, in a society of over consumption and waste, spaces which reflect on the problems of the political, economic system, and which are organized on the basis of collective decision-making, are the corner-stones for creating a better society. Following this belief non-Commercial House aims to offer an alternative based upon cooperation, mutual respect and sustainable living through recycling goods and sharing instead of trading them.
