Monday, March 31, 2014

「台灣」作為設計論述的基地:馬可幾件作品的討論

「第三代城市」

過去三十年間,「世界工廠」的台灣歷經土地與生活世界的嚴重破壞,所謂「療癒系」的設計思考已經從專業論述的轉變滲透到政策實踐。細細檢視台灣這幾年所累積的實踐經驗是有機會成為發展「療癒系」建築」可能基地,下一個世代將成為眼前商業雜誌所稱頌之前仆後繼成為「金磚四國」與「VISTA五國」國家的都市,在不慎重蹈覆轍之後的分享經驗與參考。
但是這個狀況不會自然發生,社會的轉變已經給台灣的空間專業者許多機會,在都市規劃實踐中解構與重構既有之主流空間專業的知識與技能。但是,此一匯聚島內特殊「土法煉鋼」方式下的城市治理術,依目前的狀況來看,充其量只是滿足了市民文化休閒的基本需求,卻依然無法讓台灣正視眼前的城市競爭與環境課題的嚴峻性。
在這樣的認知下,來淡江大學建築系客座的馬可在一場演講中,從「我們只有一個地球」的開場白中,論證了建築發展中,建築作為人造世界的作為,又如何處理自然體系的價值與作為。而提出「第三代城市」(The Third Generation City)的實踐論述。馬可在台灣短暫的教書過程,卻也累積相當的網絡,於是將近十年間,台灣已經成為他進行創作與發展論述的重要基地。本文是以這樣的因緣,就近觀察他的作品,提供一些對話的訊息。


「都市禪園」2006
基地位在台北盆地外側沿河的高灘地上的一個工作營。「高灘地」提供了「公共服務」重要的基地回應了都會區休閒的功能。這一塊有許多人種菜與運動的土地,卻是垃圾所填充出來的土地,依據在地居民的訪談,填築的高度接近四公尺,原本潮水可以上岸打在鐵軌的狀況已經逐漸遠離有五十公尺之遠。
在一段時間中,都市農園的出現。但是仍是重要的遊憩地點。
馬可在淡江大學建築系擔任客座教授,除了擔任設計課之外,以「都市禪園」為名的環境工作營。從日本「禪園」的構想下手,進行「後城市」的冥想。在這一次的工作說明書中,馬可提出了慢城市(city of slowness)、都市針灸(urbanism of acupuncture)、與新都市游牧族(new urban nomad)與「後工業的再生」(post industrial rehabilitation)等主題關鍵詞,作為這次工作營的概念,回應了這塊基地看得見與看不見的歷史經驗中的土地過程,更是往後他所進行諸多提案的核心概念。
淡江大學建築系老師與學生沿著河岸分組展開進行操作。深刻的操作在工作營中展開,印象深刻的是畢光建老師所帶領的小組,學生們進行土壤開挖,將泥土與垃圾分類出來,垃圾移除之後的土壤填回去。於是學生們在這塊軟而有彈性的泥土地上跳躍。不同於過往習慣的知性設計思考,這一次透過身體勞動改變了物質世界,回應了台北都會區的後工業處境下設計的可能性。

「三芝農舍」2009
從大屯山一路下到海洋的大屯溪是淡水三芝間的野溪,聚落產業沿河分佈早期的水圳路仍是居民的生活空間。隨著臺灣工業發展,農村人口外移,產業設施(茶場)閑置,原本優良的農田在不當的產業政策下,逐漸荒廢。
近年來,居民開始提議封溪護漁,用行動關心中游零星工廠排水對於水中生態的影響。透過花卉的種植,希望可以帶動人潮來促進地方產業。在這流行的表現農村復甦的活動表像下。馬可將學生帶到這一片流域中,租了一棟廢棄的茶廠與民宅作為探索的基地。學生順著流域提出裝置作品,這些作品基於對於農村的重新認識,裝置位在稻田與水圳之間,在人造傾圮與自然恢復之間。他要學生在基地上過一夜,體驗農舍廢墟中如何棲身的設施設計。馬可用「在地知識」(Local Knowledge )作為平台,進行人類學式的田野調查,或是說這次的田野調查是用設計的方式去進行,透過設計,多了身體的體驗,關於存在環境中的前人對於環境的回應構築經驗。
這片火山灰所滋養的田野,在廢耕之後很快地恢復生意盎然的野地面貌。基地上雜樹成林,提供作為「三芝農舍」興建基地,這棟依著加藤教授所引介的「永續建築法」和「微型氣候」而創作的家屋,以一種新的構築與空間重新回到田野間的住家,居住者可以透過體驗而回憶到基地上的耕種經驗。在地知識並不只是前人所留下的空間處理模式,也涵括了各種價值觀下的設計手法的挖掘,透過設計重新激發了在地知識的生產,也設計出新的地點經驗。
關於基地構築的辯證在馬可最近在島嶼金門所創作的「牡蠣人」作品中也可以深刻感受。「牡蠣人」的裝置潮汐的作用下,連結二座島嶼之間的通道上的時間作用,等候與眺望的情境與情緒日復一日的再現。在漁人已經消失的年代,「牡蠣人」成為守護者,遙望對岸廈門的天空線,訴說當下情境已經不同以往了!島嶼正在轉捩點上。

「廢墟學院」2010
相關於都會區周邊所無法轉變的邊緣化命運!都會中心區的轉型發展之路更是詭譎多變!面對都市轉型的機會,台北城市似乎並沒有調整其治理方式,仍舊採取「發展主義」的方式。特別是在新自由主義的土地邏輯中,土地以及所衍生出來的「容積」已經成為新的政商之間的對價關係。
因此,各種公共利益的挪用與轉用機制與辦法不斷被發明,而成為法令。相對於台北市將三十年以上的建築物視為需要積極更新改建的對象。馬可這個「被創造出來的」廢墟透過身體的勞動提供了詮釋學的書寫,等待更新而空置的公寓成為基地,空間改造之後,成為前所未有,而能夠容納都會心靈作為居所的空間狀態。這個作品表達了「準確」的設計執行,建築在等待拆除的剎那間,成為設計的基地。
經過設計/真實改造的演化過程,改寫了因為人離開而廢墟畫的空間經驗。改造過程一個步驟一個步驟的書寫著空間氛圍,時間被壓縮成為可以經驗的向度。於是真實空間成為衝突經驗中的「宣言」之作, 設計介入了都市中的轉變,宣言將空間轉變成為地方。最後雖然只能留在紙上,但是建築的力量,透過真實地營造,找到在城市作戰的姿態。

「關渡的河川都市主義」2009,「反相城市2014
2009年馬可針對台北盆地提出的「關渡的河川都市主義」計畫,提供「去工業化」的一套都市計畫新思維。回顧了盆地的都市發展前的生態面貌,提供重回自然的都市規劃模式,嘗試透過設計策略去論證跳脫既有機制的可能性。這個計劃的關鍵在於說服台北市政府,「為何這是一個可行的計劃?」最後當然這個計劃沒有被採用,但是那個被採用的計劃,仍舊被限制在地方政治與盆地的發展限制而動彈不得!更顯這個提案的機會。
關渡平原是盆地出海口位置,是潮間帶與山腳下之間的新生地,早期一直到現在能就維持農耕狀態,應該是台北盆地中最後一塊農田。雖然土地已經透過地方政治而重新分配,但是除了水文的調解,其位置也影響了盆地熱島效應可以調解的風道所在。所以維持目前的狀態成為共識。
相對來看,馬可的提案提供了一個看似遙遠,但卻是務實地回應問題的計畫提案,可以作為論辯的新出路。

延續對於台北盆地的「河流城市」關注,即將在北京市展出的「反相城市」,是以「第三代城市」宣稱。這個計劃在台北盆地中所流過的淡水河中的沙洲地,過去是作為自然河道的調節作用。經過設計之後,沙洲的生態本能獲得恢復,可以成為療癒台北工業城市污染的機制。同時,這個計劃也嘗試在沙洲上置入了「開放形態」(Open Form) 建筑的理念,提供一套尊重使用者需求的自主營建體系。這套體系回應了台北盆地在工業城市階段所建構的都市空間生成模式。
這個設計的提出,我們也看到台北市城市正朝著另一個方向發展,「大門深鎖的社區」大樓逐漸取代院落巷弄成為新的地景經驗,公寓大廈管理辦法推動一種視覺化的品質,改變了傳統的住商混合居住模式。當城市逐漸發展成為背景,於是沙洲城市成為主題。馬可透過拼貼,強化了既有城市生活空間中的景象,記錄、轉化與再現那些熟悉的景象,以此為背景,描述其生活圖像。
面對急切的外在環境的改變,結果非常清楚。馬可提供了一個清楚說理的設計策略作為對話的啟動。不斷地以台北作為論述發展的基地,他的出手提供一個非常清楚的對照,建立在另外一套基盤上的提案,而這套基盤可能是台北盆地所需要,但是我們如何將之變成為真實呢?

小結

台灣不只是位在太平洋地緣政治的戰略地點上,同時也是生態城市與建築學典範轉變的交叉點上。島嶼臺灣正面臨產業與城市轉型的壓力,建築設計產業如何在社會經驗的轉變下進行典範的轉移,是一個重要的時刻。而轉變過程中的因應,種種建築設計的提案將透過對話的開展,擴大了都市生活內涵是一個重要的經驗。
轉變中的台灣充滿了真實與機制上的縫隙,提供了一系列的實踐機會。馬可以旁觀之姿,無關真實的政治機制的干預,設計執行對焦於其中「可以做的」,和「可以做到的」。針對議題,找到策略,非常清晰!然後去實踐!並非是一成不變的方式!因此,這些看似無關的作品,提供一個可以理解的網絡,相對於真實的城市,這是一套「索引」(index),提供許多的資訊,對於像台灣這樣的亞洲城市來說,這些東西已經存在,只是我們視而不見,或是說我們覺得找到了答案,其實是掉進去了更大的泥沼中。
馬可的「第三代城市」已經擴大到「亞洲城市」的範疇,關注這個地域中快速發展的都市經驗,這些都市空間中處處充滿了還來不及消化,就已經鋪蓋上去的混雜狀態!馬可似乎比島嶼內的建築師更為敏感於面對此一轉變的處境,用建築的策略直接提出一些可能性,而這些可能性將展開聯結世界的對話!

RIGID FABRIC

Menno Cramer


The empowerment of novelty, flexibility and change will create an environment in which humans can grow and live in a natural manner. They will not be constrained by the current rigid fabric of urbanized areas that doesn't allow for natural growth to occur. 

Illustration: Joni Virkki / C-LAB CURE

RIGID FABRIC

Many of the issues urban societies are facing are caused by the lack of provision of life afforded by current cities. The rigid urban fabric of urbanized areas does not allow for natural evolution to occur. Natural evolution within and among human beings is crucial for a truly sustainable society. The redesign and re-evaluation of urban areas can alter and improve the provision, however this will only be a temporary solution as for a new rigid fabric a new static state is induced. It is not natural for humans to be in such a rigid dead fabric. We are forced to move around in order to fulfill our basic needs. Natural evolution only occurs in places where the speed of urban sprawl exceeds the planners or governments influence on where society starts to fall apart and from within the ruins life can spread.

Negative aspects of the current city structure are caused partially by the inflexibility of urban areas, whereas a river moves over time cities are snapshots of pathways frozen in time. Whereas tribal structures were in place to increase the social well being of a group the current urban metropolis seems to have lost this function. User experience design and human centered design flourish more than ever. However, where are these views among the planners and architects? Humans are and should be the center point of any architectural design. So what does the concrete giant do for me? What does it bring me?

Studies have shown that city life is positively correlated with increases in depression, burnout, health problems, obesity, economic disproportions, racism and a steep increase in negative social interaction. The current urban fabric has managed to evolve into a framework for a relatively sustainable capitalistic individualism; where humans mutually agree to ignore each other and avoid any major human interaction.

However society as a whole is suffering from this. Urbanization allows for the cohabitation of multiple social classes and groups however it does not encourage natural social and individual well-being.

PARACITY @ China Central Academy of Fine Arts CAFAM Biennale 2014.
Survival of the fittest has been eliminated in the physical terms, however the battle for mental and physical space is even more ruthless. Causing social discomfort and e.g. increased stress, which is a dangerous threat to life in current society. We all strive for superiority over other human beings. Let it be economic, physical, physiological or mental. We have constructed an urban fantasy of social cohabitation without ever intending to acknowledge the society one is a part of. The discrepancy between personal well-being and social admiration is larger than ever. 

Humans are biological, they come from nature, and they are nature. Humans need a space to live in because they can’t exist without being. The current place present in a space where most of the earth’s human population inhabits is what we call urban areas. An urban environment does not have the same qualities as a natural environment. Today’s society and social class has evolved from the Neanderthals and therefore we do not feel like caveman and women anymore. However everyone has neglected the fact that the current exposure to a non-natural environment will harm us as human beings. We have noticed negative consequences as listed above however thus far they have not outweighed the benefits. Seeing as that urban areas are growing more rapidly than ever I believe we need to reevaluate the urban fabric as such and propose a biological solution for urban growth.

Cover of the independent newspaper Paracity for the China Central Academy of Fine Arts CAFAM Biennale 2014.

It is this biological solution which will host a new way of life which will address some of the issues presented above in a natural biourban manner. It is the way the issues are addressed through a this non-rigid structure which will aid society to develop and look at a new way of life. The social interactions which are forged are there purely to emphasize the individual. We work hard and network to grow personally in a Paracity this is the city and we can grow from it around it with it and within it.


Menno Cramer is a brain scientist and neuro-biourban researcher for PARACITY / Casagrande Laboratory Center of Urban Research C-LAB CURE.

Tuesday, March 25, 2014

P A R A C I T Y

Katie Donaghy 

A paracity is an organic structure which can encompass a large number of human individuals. It has some things in common with our current urbanised areas however a paracity is not bound to space. It can live off a currently existing city and inhabit the same space. It can be seen as a second layer on top of a society. A paracity lives off another city like a parasite off its host. 

CLT-structure of the Paracity in Taipei.

How will a paracity affect the city it is leaching from? If you imagine an actual leech and how it sticks onto your leg and sucks from your body. Not only does it take away a resource from your body it can also pump actual parasites back into it which will harm your body. However, if you imagine it as a structure leeching onto the main city it will pull resources from the city but also provide to the city and will grow through these actions. Local knowledge can spread through the fabric and infiltrates the city. The resources it takes from the city will however depend more on what the city is able to provide rather than what the paracity wishes to take from it. This will then develop into an organic relationship providing a physical structure where a community may begin to form. The paracity would ideally be where old is combined perfectly with the new without having to be old but simply by acknowledging the old. The paracity can do this as it attaches onto it and takes from the city what is no longer desired. 


The structure of a paracity is unique in its construction method but also in the way that it chooses to move away from conventional traditional planning and architecture. It offers a personalized architectural identity in which individuals may develop their own space and transform a structure into a place. The paracity as a space is interesting similar to nature which grows around what is built a paracity will grow according to what is already present and what can be found to add onto that. Where nature may struggle a paracity will find innovative solutions to incorporate something into the structure or simply build around or on top of it. It is this biourban approach to design which allows for the development of a unique structure in which individuals will form a community. These individuals will naturally come together as they have the will to create something which is their own, which they can appropriate and share with others. In a growing society one must also consider access, provision and capacity. How will the design of a space cope with something which is completely unpredictable. The answer is found in how nature copes with growth and change in provision. The paracity has no limits which are not defined by nature itself. The paracity offers a place with new aims and thoughts. With a new system of thought we can forge a new place which creates the space for a new society to combine with what already exists and the organic growth of nature. 

Organic Paracity spreading into the surrounding industrial Taipei like a positive cancer.

The structure must offer organic growth and thereby give access to as much as it can. The structure may fold itself around what is currently present and thereby incorporate it in its design. How will individuals travel through this structure once it has become more than just a structure? The paracity seeks to be a point of play between the individual and the structure. As Foucault has said as humans we need this play to help us enhance who we are and what we deliver. This play will feed the structure as well as relationships between the individual and the structure and others living in the city. This play will form at the moment where the individual becomes a part of a greater picture, when an individual has invested in the city is the point where they will form a relationship which is constantly changing in order to accommodate others as well as the change in nature. 

Third Generation City is the organic ruin of the industrial city, an organic machine. Ruin is when man-made has become part of nature. 

A crucial aspect for the success of a paracitic society in my view depends on how quickly a society will form and the pace at which it will grow. Societies and relationships form organically over time and are dependent on the detailed design of the structure. If one would put a very large number of strangers together the chance of success at forming a society will be lower than when a group naturally forms to subsequently slowly expands. This will be dependent on the initial structure present but also on what comes readily available from the city. If there is too much available for the paracity to leech on then there will be more chance for a fast growing structure which will not accommodate the natural growth we are seeking.

Paracity primary structure at the Dashui River island in Taipei. 

A place will also depend on growing organically in order to function as a society. Places have rules and community engagement. Elders often play an important role in being in charge and enabling a community to grow around them according to unwritten rules like in Treasure hill. In a paracity it is necessary for this hierarchy to form itself in order for the rest of the society to treacle down from this in such a way that there is no room for altruism and only co-dependencies. This allows a society to grow organically mimicking natural growth. Where in nature a tree will not grow under another tree or too near another tree because they would be fighting for each others light, ground and water in society we must live according to similar innate rules whereby we prove selfless and show an interest in the well-being of others. A paracity must therefore grow according to need rather than desire. When the city needs new labour or when relationships become complicated we must envisage that new people will come and help to form a greater community. 

Farming the Paracity.

A community network often refers to an online form of community whereby individuals become linked through interest and other personality traits rather than according to location. This changes the way our day to day society works. If you think of a city no matter the scale we often do not interact with those in our close proximity. If we are lucky enough to live in an area where people spend a lot of time we may get to know some familiar faces however we still won't often reach out for help or offer help as easily as we would if we were a part of a defined community network or living in a small village where everyone knows each other. As individuals we have the innate trait to want to help others whether it be because we care or simply because it makes us feel good. This gets lost in an individualistic city where we find it more difficult to extend help to a stranger but also where there is often no one to recognise and praise your efforts. The paracity offers a solution for this which is rooted in its design. The paracity offers a communication which lies beyond the current systems whereby the city itself becomes a form of communication. Those living in the paracity will communicate through the design and what they can offer to it.

Basic 6m CLT-structural unit.
The paracity defines itself in its origin as reliant on another living structure in order to forge its existence. Without another living structure it is unable to survive. It leaches off society in order to make its own. Through this act of leeching off another society it becomes to a certain extent dependent on it. This dependency is what creates a community network in the paractiy as individuals become reliant on one another to develop this complex structure. The structure of this paracity will depend on what is readily available and how different users come together and assemble these unique pieces. It is this act of coming together which will help different users to become more assimilated with one another and begin to develop a network. This network will then create a community with co-dependencies. In such a society where we are dependent on others it is more natural for individuals to form a society where they come in aid to one another. The society will then evolve naturally according to this pattern and what nature makes available to them. It is expected that the actual structure of the paracity will play a significant role in how the community interacts and creates links between one another. Dependent on the structure and how easy it is to create links between different sections will depend on how easy it becomes to forge relationships across different sections of the design.

Formally illegal biourban settlement Treasure Hill in Taipei, Taiwan. 

Living in a close environment it becomes necessary to hold contact with one another as we are so dependent on what another individual chooses to do. How someone else chooses to expand or build their structure will directly affect those surrounding that structure. Whether it be through sound, changing of available daylight or access. All these things will come into play with the changing structure of the paracity. A strong community network will help individuals to form a social structure in which they aid one another to create a friendly more organic place to live. It is this friendly more organic structure which will then allows the community to continue to live according to paracitic rules and not to revert to the destructive ways of a traditional society.

Cover of the Paracity publication for the China Central Academy of Fine Arts CAFAM Biennale 2014.

Katie Donaghy is a biourban sociologist for Paracity / Casagrande Laboratory Center for Urban Research CURE and Programme Officer of Urban Design London.




Monday, March 10, 2014

反相城市

文/巫祈麟 Nikita Wu


来自芬兰的建筑团队 Casagrande Laboratory 主事者马可卡 萨格兰(Marco Casagrande 长期关注自然与人为城市互为 影响之议题,近年来提出「第三代城市」(3rd Generation City)、「都市河流学」(River Urbanism)、「都市针灸术」( Urban Acupuncture)等崇自然尊天地之新种都市规划创见, 他亦是2013 年欧洲建筑奖的得主。


现时台北寸土寸金的条件下,在淡水河道中间两座往来台北 市和新北市忠孝桥和中兴桥之间,存在着这座会依河水涨退冲 刷或淤积时大时小的沙洲岛,其土地面积约为一公里宽三百米 长, 三十多公顷。因地界和产权会随自然条件改变,使得这岛 有着全台北最为廉宜的地价。岛上现有二十一名岛主,因其岛 位于洪水平原一级管制区限制开发,仅能在岛上种菜 。



在本次参与北京中央美术学院美术第二届CAFAM 双年展。 他以本座沙洲岛做为设计标的以〈反相城市〉(Paracity)为 名,因袭「开放形态」(Open Form) 建筑的操作手法。构建开 放平台,尊重个体使用者需求,自主营建内容。使无人闻问被 城市发展遗忘的沙洲岛成为有机生态岛。


〈反相城市〉以源自欧洲新型木建筑材料「交错层压木材」(cross-laminated timber 简称CLT)做为主要建材,突破传 统木建筑之规模及型式。在岛中以6×6×6 米的空间模块为基 本架构单位,构造出有机网格。此基本空间模块能抗震抗火及 洪涝,亦能在建于防洪区、山间、废置工业区或是贫民窟等跟 不上工业城市发展而被人们抛弃的城市区域。主木结构之上, 居民们能DIY 自建房舍, 社区自主农耕,建立花园和大自然 共相习气。在共构可持续发展有机生态平台中,还加载高端先 进环保科技技术模组机具,能淨化污染的河水,生产生质能 源,回收岛民有机灰水废物与处理淤积污泥之再利用 。不但 能就岛上居民所需灵活设置,更能同步淨化台北城中因工业发 展所产生的污染源。




马可反思人类进代城市发展历程,千百年间世界各民族透过 中央集权分配城市土地利用,以城外农村周边自然资源支持城 内居民生活所需,作为延续人类文明巩固既得利益当权者便宜 行事的解决方案。这时期的城市和大自然连接并没有消失, 甚至是因为依附大自然所给的优势条件下,城市得以延命存 续,他称之为第一代城市。工业革命之后人类向资本主义 靠拢,资本的本性便是无理性的追逐扩大化,提高生产力 刺激人们消费拜金拜物,城市以摧毁自然为手段无限膨胀 城市疆界与自然争地,农村的农民们嚮往所谓城市的繁华 喧嚣现代摩登。以为无穷尽的“开发”是值得庆贺的“进 步”现象。这正是我们现在面临到最大的城市发展议题,
非理性疯狂资源竭尽开採,人口密度爆炸土地超负荷利 用。不仅全面断开和自然环境的连接,乃至藐视自然以为 人可胜天足能驾驭自然。马克思在资本论曾谈到“异化”, 便是我们所处时代的城市悲哀,人类在资本的无限扩张 中,被城市机器异化贻害深远。这便是他所谓之第二代城 市。



〈反相城市〉提供人类对第三代城市的想像,或者说幽 微地提示了与现存工业城市相反的发展愿景。回归第一代 城市和自然安好共存, 进一步修补第二代城市人为工业 建筑对自然的污害。意图变身成为台北城中一隻正面积极 的寄生虫,吸取工业后的废料化作成洁淨肥料和大自然和 谐共生,祈达天人合一的精神境界。



Casagrande Laboratory Centre of Urban Research CURE / Paracity:
Marco Casagrande, Menno Cramer, Katie Donaghy, Niilo Tenkanen, Nikita Wu, Joni Virkki, Ycy Charlie, Sauli Ylinen, Dave Kan-ju Chen

Sunday, March 9, 2014

PARACITY

"To find a form that accommodates the mess, that is the task of the artist now."
- Samuel Beckett


Paracity is a biourban organism that is growing on the principles of Open Form: individual design-build actions generating spontaneous communicative reactions on the surrounding built human environment and this organic constructivist dialog leading into self-organized community structures, development and knowledge building.




The growing organism the Paracity is based on a three dimensional wooden primary structure, organic grid with spatial modules of 6 x 6 x 6 metres constructed out of CLT cross-laminated timber sticks. This simple structure can be modified and grown by the community members working as teams or by an assigned Paracity constructor.

Axonometric section of the Paracity.  

Primary wooden CLT -structure. 


The primary structure can grow even on neglected urban areas, such as river flood plains, hillsides, abandoned industrial areas, storm water channels or slums. Paracity suites perfectly to flooding and tsunami risk areas and the CLT primary structure has a high standard of earthquake performance.

People will attach their individual self-made architectural solutions, gardens and farms on the primary structure, which offers a three dimensional building grid for the DIY architecture. Primary structure offers the main arteries of water and human circulation, but the finer local knowledge nervous networks are grown by the inhabitants. Large parts of the Paracity is occupied by wild and cultivated nature.

Paracity growing on the Danshui River island in Taipei.

Paracity’s self-sustainable biourban growth is backed up by off-the-grid environmental technology solutions providing methods for water purification, energy production, organic waste treatment, waste water purification and sludge recycling. These modular plug-in components can be adjusted according to the growth of the Paracity and moreover, the whole Paracity is designed not only to treat and circulate its own material streams, but to start leaching waste from its host city becoming a positive urban parasite following the similar kind of symbiosis as in-between slums and the surrounding city. In a sense Paracity is a high-tech slum, which can start tuning the industrial city towards an ecologically more sustainable direction.


Paracity is a third generation city, an organic machine, urban compost, which is helping the industrial city to transform into being part of nature.

Scale model 1:50 of a fragment of the Paracity exhibited in the China Central Academy of Fine Arts CAFAM Biennale 2014 in Beijing. The model is approx. 6% of the planned Paracity in Taipei. 
PARACITY / TAIPEI

The pilot project of the Paracity is growing on an urban farming island of Danshui River, Taipei City. The island is located between the Zhongxing and Zhonxiao bridges and is around 1000 meters long and 300 meters wide. Paracity Taipei is celebrating the original first generation Taipei urbanism with high level of illegal architecture, self-organized communities, urban farms, community gardens, urban nomads and constructive anarchy.

Master plan of the Paracity in Taipei located on a flooding island. 

Paracity Taipei will be powered mostly by bioenergy that is using the organic waste, including sludge, taken from the surrounding industrial city and by farming fast growing biomass on the flood banks of the Taipei river system.

Environmental technology components are mounted on barges that are plugged into the Paracity maintenance docks. Barges can be modified according to the needs of the growing biourbanism.

Paracity Island with the primary structure grid in-between the Zhongxing and Zhonxiao bridges
Paracity is based on free flooding. There are no flood walls. The first 6 m level above the ground is not built, but the whole city is standing on stilts and thus providing the whole ground floor for community actions, nature and space requiring recycling yards.

Primary structure into which people will attach their own homes, businesses and gardens. 

Paracity Taipei will construct itself through impacts of a collective conscious as a nest of post-industrial insects. Paracity is estimated to have 15.000 – 25.000 inhabitants.

E L E M E N T S


Open form

In its growth Paracity is following the organic design methodology of Open Form (Oscar Hansen, Svein Hatloy), in which community level design is viewed as an open dialog with design actions generating spontaneous design reactions within the surroundings. Open Form is close to the original Taiwanese ways of developing the self organized and often “illegal” communities. These microurban settlements are containing a high volume of Local Knowledge, which we also believe will start composting in Paracity, when opening up the community development to the citizens. Centralized architectural control is opened up in order to let nature including human nature to step in. The life providing volume of Paracity is 11, existence maximum, highest possible life in the given conditions, and more.

Cross laminated timber primary structure.

CLT Skeleton

Paracity provides the skeleton, but citizens bring in the flesh. Design should not replace reality, Flesh is
More. The skeleton, the primary structure of Paracity is constructed out of 6 meters long (50x50 cm profile) cross laminated timber CLT sticks which are used to form 6x6x6 m cubes, that are piled up to 16 stories high (8 cubes). The CLT primary structure has a fine earthquake performance and it is fire resistant. The structural elements / sticks with wood joints are prefabricated and transported to the Paracity Island
on barges. The construction work – the growing of the Paracity primary organism can be manually done by residents in teams of by professional parasite constructors. The CLT structure is just a landscape on which citizens will attach their own houses and gardens.

1:1 scale Paracity module at HABITARE 2014, Finland. 

Enviromental technology

The biourban growth of the Paracity is supported by high environmental technology which is mounted on barges. These modular bio-vessels are attached to the Paracity service harbor and can be adjusted according to the needs of the evolving urban organism. The post-industrial fleet of bio-vessels can travel along the Taipei river system and is ready to start the biourban restoration process also from other hot-spots of the river city. The environmental technology barges provide solutions for:
• Waste water treatment of Paracity and of the surrounding Taipei
• Water purification. The infrastructural water circulation is originated from the polluted Danshui River.
• Sludge treatment for fertilizer and bio-energy.
• Closed circuit aquaculture.
• Recycling of construction waste.
• Recycling of organic waste for fertilizer and bio-energy.

The barges have no problem with the flooding river.

Paracity maintenance harbor. Environmental technology will be mounted on barges.

Bio-energy

The main energy source for the Paracity is bio-energy, which is using both treated organic waste and sludge from Paracity and surrounding Taipei and especially biomass that is harvested around Paracity and on the flood banks of the Taipei rivers. The fertile flood banks, flood plains and storm water channels provide ideal cultivation areas for fast growing biomass plantations. The vegetation will be harvested by boats and then shipped to Paracity Bio-Energy Facility. The growing of the biomass on the river banks will also benefit on the natural river restoration through root cleansing of sediment pollution and the biomass will have a positive impact on the Taipei micro climate and urban ecology.

Paracity crossing the 12 m high flood wall into the city.
Parasite Urbanism

Paracity is living off the material streams from the surrounding Taipei. Even the polluted river is a resource for this biourban intestine. Paracity is Medieval medicine: using leaches to cure the circulation. Paracity is letting off the bad blood of Taipei and it uses it a resource. In fact it makes money out of the process. Officially 37% of the Taipei City waste water goes untreated to the river. Paracity wants it all. And it wants all the other materials which the industrial city is regarding as “waste”. Paracity and modern Taipei live in a similar kind of a symbiosis as a slum and the city: the urban nomads will clean the static city from its “waste”; only in Paracity the cleaning and recycling process is boosted up by high environmental technology. In a sense the Paracity is a high-tech slum.


Existence Maximum

Paracity is a seed of the Third Generation City, the organic ruin of the industrial city (2G). The modular biourban organism is designed to grow following the rule of nature: existence maximum. The primary structure can be grown by people and after Paracity has reached the critical mass, the life providing system of the CLT structure will start escalating. It will cross the river and start rooting on the flood plains. Then it will cross the 12 meters high Taipei flood wall and grow gradually into the city. Seeds of the Paracity will start rooting in the urban acupuncture points of Taipei: illegal community gardens, urban farms, abandoned cemeteries and waste-lands. From these acupuncture points the Paracity will start growing following the covered irrigation systems, such as the Liukong Channel and eventually the biourban organism and the static city will find a balance, the Third Generation Taipei.


Paracity @ CAFAM Biennale in Beijing.


Mediator

After rooting on the riverside and gaining a critical mass the Paracity will climb over the 12 meters high reinforced concrete flood wall which is separating modern Taipei from the rivers and nature. The flood wall will remain in the guts of the Paracity, but the new structure enables Taipei citizens to fluently reach the river. Paracity will reunite the river reality and the urban fiction. Paracity is a mediator between the modern city and nature.


Bioclimatic Architecture

Paracity has a lot of holes, gaps and nature in-between houses. The system is ventilating itself like a large scale beehive of post-industrial insects. The different temperatures of the roofs, gardens, water bodies and shaded platforms will generate small winds between them and the hot roofs will start sucking in breeze from the cooler river. Also the individual houses should follow the traditional principles of bioclimatic architecture and not rely on mechanical air-conditioning.

Paracity during high water.
Free Flooding

Paracity is based on free flooding. The whole city is standing on stilts allowing the river to pulsate freely with the frequent typhoons and storm waters. The environmental technology of the Paracity is mounted on barges, which have no problem with the flooding either. Actually the Paracity is an organic architectural flood itself, ready to cross the flood wall of Taipei and spread into the mechanical city.

After reaching the critical mass Paracity Taipei will cross the Danshui River and root on the flood bank before crossing the 12 meters high reinforced concrete flood wall in order to grow into the industrial city. 


Biourban Restoration

Paracity is a positive organic tumour in the mechanical tissue of Taipei. While it is leaching and processing the industrial and organic waste of the city, it is gaining momentum in its growth and becomes more and more important to the static industrial urbanism. Paracity is an alternative reality within the industrial development and will start treating the city the same ways as the urban acupuncture points of illegal community gardens and urban farms of Taipei do today. Paracity has the ability to become a network of biourban acupuncture tuning the whole industrial city towards the organic, ruining the industrialism on its way to become part of nature, the Third Generation City.



Organic Layers

The biourbanism of the Paracity is as much landscape as it is architecture. The totalitarian landscape-architecture of Paracity includes organic layers for natural water purification and treatment, community gardening, farming and biomass production as an energy source. Infrastructure and irrigation water originates from the polluted Danshui river and will be both chemically and biologically purified before being used in the farms, gardens and houses of the community. The chemically purified water gets pumped to the roof parks on the top level of the Paracity, from where the gravity will circulate the water into the three dimensional irrigation systems.
Paracity will use purified water from the polluted Danshui River. After chemical bacteria based primary treatment the water is pumped to the roof gardens for oxygenation and taken by gravity to the farms and gardens. 

Adaptability

The pilot-project of the Paracity is designed in Taipei, but the solution is developed to work in different locations around the world. Paracity offers an alternative for the Chinese strategic urban planning to start ecologically harmonizing the growing river cities of China. And Paracity can be used as urban acupuncture for the emerging cities of China and elsewhere. Paracity can grow along the Oshiwara chain of slums in Mumbai providing better living conditions, cleaning up the Oshiwara River and more effectively treating the urban waste that is flooding in from the surrounding city. Paracity can parachute into Nairobi and start growing from the fertile top-soil of the slums. Paracity should grow into the favelas of Brazil and start celebrating the local knowledge of these organic communities. Paracity is organic, adaptable and welcomes local knowledge. The city is built by hands of a high diversity of different people.


Treasure Hill in Taipei, the original local knowledge inspiration for the Paracity biourbanism. 
Local Knowledge

Paracity is inspired by the Local Knowledge of Taipei, the original Taiwanese urban elements that include a high level of self-made “illegal” architecture, self-organized communities, extensive networks of self-organized community gardens and urban farms, fluid nomadic ways of using the city, communicative collective subconscious in community and urban scale, feeling of dominating the no-man’s land by human nature and other forms of constructive anarchy. The Paracity basically only provides the primary structure, the three dimensional landscape for the Local Knowledge to be attached and grow. The primary structure and the environmental technology solutions will remain pretty much the same no matter in which culture the Paracity starts to grow, but the real human layer of DIY architecture and gardens will follow the Local Knowledge of the respective culture and site. Paracity is always site-specific and it is always local.


Casagrande Laboratory Centre of Urban Research / PARACITY:
Marco Casagrande, Menno Cramer, Katie Donaghy, Niilo Tenkanen, Nikita Wu, Joni Virkki, Ycy Charlie, Sauli Ylinen, Dave Kan-ju Chen


http://issuu.com/clab-cure/docs/paracity_issuu

CLICK: PARACITY the newspaper




...............................

P A R A C I T Y
- Review by Eric Hunting / International Society of Biourbanism

Paracity. Image: Matteo Serafini / Casagrande Laboratory
Paracity is a new project of Marco Casagrande which promises to be one of the first full scale demonstrations of a practical peer-to-peer urbanism. Taking advantage of a unique situation on the Danshui River Island in Taipei, Paracity explores a notion of positive urban parasitism, using a novel, freely adaptive, modular, volumetric structural skeleton serving as an urban ‘backplane’ that can subsume otherwise neglected/devalued urban environments, in this particular case an area prone to frequent flooding. Based on a fairly large span cubic structural grid made of cross-laminated timber, this backplane accommodates adaptation and habitation by retrofit, allowing for several possible tiers of social participation in the habitat from the high-level peer-managed deployment of the backplane structure and its key infrastructure elements to the more spontaneous and personalized retrofit deployment of individual dwellings, industry, and commerce. Here we see a totally evolvable urban habitat able to almost spontaneously accommodate any potential change in situation, environmental conditions, urban and domestic technology, and baseline standard of living without the strife associated with an anachronistic presumption of architectural permanence leading to ready obsolescence. This is ‘city’ as a verb. A freely evolvable urban organism with a declared evolutionary imperative of transitioning older urban habitats toward sustainable integration with the natural environment. A Post-Industrial habitat growing on the compost of Industrial Age urbanism.

I find this project concept quite exciting because it incorporates many concepts I have been proposing and exploring for a long time. This is an urban development concept based on truly 21st century sensibilities, questioning the dominant presumptions about property, space, the role of architecture, and the role of inhabitants as creators and managers of their own habitat that characterize the inherent dysfunctions of contemporary cities. I have always wondered why cities are not designed with the practical sensibility of the network/data center–with a recognition of the simple reality that they persist as an application–an activity–in a constantly changing medium of hardware and technology. We are no longer limited by primitive construction technology with no means to adapt. Why then are cities commonly, physically, designed to dogmatically resist the constant evolution that is their very life-blood? It is this very resistance that is the root of their dysfunctions. The modern city is not a collection of architecture. It is not a physical thing. It is an epiphenomenon. An attractor to an emergent form, like consciousness is to the brain and like an operating system is to a cluster of computers.

Paracity Settlement. Image: Matteo Serafini / Casagrande Laboratory.
Paracity’s architecture is most interesting in how it lays bare this paradigm. One might accuse it of being, superficially, a throw-back to the ‘plug in’ architecture of the ’60s, and perhaps this is one of the reasons for a choice of a more organic primary structural material rather than the steel frame and concrete systems of the past. But it is more like one of those transparent ‘visible body’ models that turns our perspective inside-out by bringing its urban backplane out into the open as an overt, visible, architectural feature to be embraced for its bounty of adaptive use possibilities. This habitat revels in its nakedness and its perpetually unfinished state.

The personal computer ran into an evolutionary rut at the time when it had the most diversity of systems architectures, their very deliberate and often pointless incompatibilities wielded like clubs by corporate interests vying for monopolistic control of market share. It was the old Industrial Age mindset abusing a Post-Industrial technology with its quaint notions of value and fuddy-duddy ideas about how money is supposed to be made. The industry had to be dragged kicking and screaming into the realization that market share was, in fact, keyed to interoperability rather than propriety. That the personal computer existed in a non-zero-sum ecology and made more profit the more you shared and cooperated. Today we have but a few, mostly open, mainstream personal computer architectures and more physical diversity in design, a more rapid pace of advance, and greater potential for personalization and customization than was ever imagined possible in the late 1970s and early ’80s.

Relegated to an upper tier of peer organization largely independent of the individual human-scale retrofit use, the modular backplane of Paracity is not so much an overarching architectural scheme as it is a genome in which an unlimited number of urban situations can be ‘sequenced’, expressed, and evolved. It imposes order and standardization to facilitate its ease of use and change, but doesn’t impose any individual designer’s ego over the aesthetic of the habitat. It is not megalomaniaclemegabuild. It’s Lego.

If realized, I think Paracity has the potential to be a breakthrough on many fronts. The community planned for Taipei promises to be a great opportunity for exploring peer-to-peer urbanism and the cultivation of a Post-Industrial culture rooted in the new technologies of alternative energy, sustainable resource use, urban farming, and independent production and economy. Being right in the midst of one of the world’s most important and cosmopolitan cities, the catalytic potential is great. It could be an opportunity for people from around the world to converge on the experimentation and demonstration of a very new urban lifestyle without the hassles and hardships of retreating to the remote edge-of-wilderness locations so many intentional communities are relegated to. And it offers the prospect of creating a package of systems–a vernacular–that, like an urban version of OSE’s Global Village Construction Set, can be freely disseminated through the medium of the internet and applied most anywhere. By virtue of the kind of technology used–the standardization and ready reproducibility and repurposing of this urban backplane–one could contribute to this project in many ways from anywhere in the world. This is most definitely a project to keep an eye on.

Eric Hunting, erichunting@gmail.com