Albert Pope Gus Sessions Wortham Professor of Architecture Rice - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

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Dec 11, 2023 347 likes •473 views

Albert Pope Gus Sessions Wortham Professor of Architecture Rice University Teaches : Graduate Level Architecture at Rice University (15 years) Directs the Graduate Thesis Program Taught Architecture at Yale University and Sci-Arc Attended :

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Albert Pope

Gus Sessions Wortham Professor of Architecture Rice University Teaches: Graduate Level Architecture at Rice University (15 years) Directs the Graduate Thesis Program Taught Architecture at Yale University and Sci-Arc Attended: Sci-ARc (BArch), 1978 Princeton (MArch), 1986 Awards: Numerous awards from Progressive Architecture National and regional awards by the AIA Publications: Ladders (Princeton Architectural Press, 1997) Numerous articles on the implications of post-war urban development.

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Van Eyck’s Dilemma

(lecture at Parson’s SCE 11/05/2010)

“if society has no form, how can architects build the counterform?”

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City Superseeded

Van Eyck was Wrong

“The logic of an urban present has been introduced and developed both within the diciplinary confi nes of modern architecture as well as half a century of urban production.”

Sprawl is not formless.

It has it’s own unique structural logic.

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The Evolution of Megalopolis

Chicago, Illinois

MEGALOPOLIS DID NOT DROP FROM THE SKY - it is an ongoing evolution in a line of aggregate urbanisms that came before” Today’s city “has been in formation throughout the twentieth century and Hilberseimer merely abstracted it to the point that we could fi nally grasp its logic.”

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The Scope of Megalopolis

Rockford, Illinois

The spine is the DNA of the Megalopolis.... of sprawl.

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The Origin of the Settlement Unit

Elkhorn, Wisconsin

Stage 3: 6 levels of hierarchy replace gridiron: Interstate, Frontage road,Local exit, Collector, and 2 levels of Residential streets

, b l PHASE 2 ELKHORN WISCONSIN

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Stage 1: Ideal American farming town - gridiron

rganization

Stage 2: Connections between town and Hinterland replaced by national highway

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Discontinuity

Megalopolis

prison city Metropolis

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On Subjectivity

below OPEN DIFFERENTIATED NETWORKS ral feature. The subjectivities of the superblock correspond precisely to the in- frastructural form such that a ‘lock’ between program and structure is created. Besides being locked into the infrastructure, these subjectivities can also be more easily isolated as a result of a defined perimeter and the reduced number

f entrances and exits that typically occur in superblock development. In other

words, the same networks can be formed, but the dynamic between them is utterly changed. Superblocks are the organizational unit of such well-known projects as Frank Lloyd Wright’s Broadacre City and Llewelyn-Davies’ Milton

Keynes. They are also characteristic of the immediate postwar subdivision in

North America. The superblock encodes another level of hierarchy within the urban infrastructure. With the addition of the boulevard, the superblock shows a third level of hierarchy non-existent in the gridiron. This three-level hierarchy can be expressed as BOULEVARD/STREET/DESTINATION.

Informal, Overlapping and Simultaneous 2 level Hierarchy:STREET/DESTINATION Some Restriction of Events 3 level Hierarchy: BOULEVARD/STREET/DESTINATION Separation of Events 6 level Hierarchy: FREEWAY/FEEDER/BOULEVARD/ SPINE/STREET/DESTINATION

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On Subjectivity

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Counterform

Fifth Ward District, Houston, Texas

disribution integration street

Since different programs have different continuities, by indexing

intersections, levels of continuity can be quantifi ed and translated directly into new networks of intesections.

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From Typology to Form

1.4 2.14 3.7 4.16 5.3 7.0 6.16