Abstract:

10.21.11
Shawn Whitehorn CCA Fall 2011 Research Lab Instructor: Neal Schwartz

Representations of the urban condition have enabled conceptualizations of spatial identity, locale, region, and context since Bufalini's map of Rome in the mid 16th century. Its ability to evoke meaning through stand-in immediacy inherent in cartography, creates a powerful medium of representing reality and fiction unseen at the body scale. This investigation is situated relative to the issues raised by the Structures of Power | Resistance lab in that it seeks to unpack cartography not only as a means of representation but also its significant impact on the development of urban communities. This investigation seeks to find the embedded connections between the interests of producers and users of urban cartographies and the subsequent influences on the development of urban communities. intervention. As American cities swelled in the early 20th century due to mass immigration, employment, and access, so did the complexity associated with urban density. As complexity increased so did the need to abstract these complexities into representations of the city. Urban swells caused a need to assess both perceived and factual hazards associated with urban development and density. I am intrigued by these cartographies of risks and both planned and disproportionate patterns of urban development specifically within the city of Oakland. Oakland will serve as a testbed for the collection, reinterpretation, reproduction, and proposal of intervention. An intention of this investigation is to engage cartography through the lenses of historical maps of risk such as Sanborn and redline maps to contemporary maps of crime, environmental, and economical risks. While these structural, planning, capital, and crime based maps are important in understanding risks, so are environmental risks such as liquefaction to be included in this investigation. I am interested in the trajectory of cartographies of risk and what are possible embedded interests of its producers over time. In doing so, this may identify systems of cartography that may, in fact, perpetuate socio-economic disparity, disinvestment, and discontinuity. How can these systems be subverted at the scale of the body and activate a spatial form of resistance? How can architecture serve as a mechanism for subverting the influences of these cartographies? How can architecture and design promote socio-economic integration,development, and sustainability?Does this architectural response operate at a locale or regional scale and how can these responses produce new cartographies of potential securities that existed as risks previously? Developing a strong methodological approach of investigating historical, contemporary, and conceptual cartography can serve as a framework for making an informed hypothesis on connections between producers of these maps and marginalization over time. Engaging these boundaries at body scale through literary photos, videos, and other narratives may give insight on spatial and experiential qualities not seen at the scale of a map.Extracting quantitative and qualitative data and the transformation of this data over time has the potential to build a strong body of inputs for datascaping, diagramming, mapping, modeling, etc. In doing so, not only does the possibility of establishing a scope to work within surface as a result, but a possible investigative, representative, and possible design language specific and unique to this investigation may be produced. Experimenting with other risks associated with Oakland and producing new maps of risk may serve as a case study into how architecture can shift or collapse boundaries of zones of risk. I hypothesize this investigation may reveal a significant source of discrepancies and disparities experienced at the body scale in urban communities as a result of interests manifest in representation. In revealing this condition, do I also believe that opportunities of conceptualizing how cultural, socio-economic, and political exchange can occur at both body to body and body to built scales.