Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Common Frameworks
Rethinking the Developmental City
As the first of a three-year long sponsored research on China, the studio will begin with the city
of Xiamen, followed by Macao and Shenyang. The premise of this investigation rests on the
rethinking of the developmental city, defined as the city conceived and constructed through
mega-plots, and used primarily as a developmental tool, instigated primarily by speculative
capital. The urbanization of these mega-plots result in the dissolution of the city as a legible
artifact, bereft of a civic dimension and public sphere. This dissolution into a sea of enclave
urbanism does not constitute the idea of the city; either in the European tradition as a space of
partnership or coexistence, or in the Chinese sense, where the city is a seen as an accommodative
framework with a clear and legible deep structure that regulates its spaces and social structure.
Therefore, the task for the studio is to conceive of and design a common framework for the city,
accommodating housing, nature and another associative civic functions.
Besides their present developmental nature, these cities are chosen precisely for their propensity
towards an accommodative urbanism due to their position on the frontier of Chinese territory.
The history of these cities demonstrates a high degree of pliability that engendered an inclusive
plurality prior to the rapid urbanization of recent years. Xiamen, as an island city, grew through
the infusion of colonial settlements, overseas Chinese investment and its strategic proximity to
Taiwan. The conjecture of this studio is that the ability of these cities to be accommodative can
be found in the very nature of the city as a common framework. Thus these cities offer the
possibility to re-conceive the developmental city as a space of cooperation and partnership - the
idea of the city as a common space par excellence.
The studio will travel to Xiamen and Shanghai in September 2012. The historical and theoretical
underpinnings of this studio will be offered by Course 09123: The Fourth Typology. The
outcome of the option studio and course seminars will be subject to a publication.
Harvard GSD Fall 2012, Option Studio 1406, 1506: Common Frameworks: Rethinking the Developmental City 1
Working hypothesis
1.
In 1986, Manuel Castells referred to Singapore as a developmental city state. He argues that a
state is developmental when, it establishes as its principle of legitimacy its ability to promote and sustain
development, understanding by development the combination of steady high rates of economic growth and structural
change in productive system, both domestically and in its relationship to the international economy.1 Singapore,
he argues, can achieve its impressive economic success due to the ability of the government to
exercise tight control of society and the acceptance of the population of such measures. This is
driven by two important ideas; first is that the state prioritizes the transformation of economic
conditions above everything else. Second, is that economic development attains a high status as a
means to larger goals and as an end in itself. Singapore, ruled by a one party system, with a highly
centralized decision making structure that micro manages all aspects of economic and social
development, uses the city as an apparatus for development and as a reification of the states
ability to deliver real and tangible improvements to the lives of its citizens. The city is always in a
state of becoming, continually remolded according to a clear political agenda and is made suitable
and adaptive for capital accumulation, following the economic logics of neoliberalism. As
Koolhaas declared in 1995, this developmental model is being implemented in cities across
China2.
2.
The contemporary Chinese city is clearly developmental. In this developmental city, the political
legitimacy of the governing party is sustained through its ability to initiate, promote and
administer economic growth above all other considerations. This city relies on market
speculation as its modus operandi, and requires planning strategies and parameters with the least
developmental restriction and political resistance to attract developers and financiers. At the
heart of this strategy is the utilization of the mega-plot.
This over sized plot as the basic planning module can vary between four hectares in
urban areas and forty hectares in city peripheries and is an efficient planning apparatus that
allows the government to urbanize in quick pace by shifting the investment required for
infrastructure to developers, for the former only constructs widely spaced infrastructure, leaving
the latter to provide for infrastructure within the plot.
This mega-plot is the basic parcellation of masterplans represented by landuse colour
patches served by large scale infrastructure. Its lack of architectural and spatial attributes makes it
highly efficient for planning and land transaction. It requires tabula rasa as a precondition for
speed and freedom of development favored by speculative developers. Within the mega-plots,
buildings are regulated by planning parameters that result in free standing towers in large
unconsolidated open spaces or colossal super blocks as housing developments; either in gated
communities as luxury developments or unrelenting monotonous rubber stamped blocks in
cheaper version. The urbanization of this mega-plots result in the dissolution of the city as a
legible artifact, bereft of its civic dimension and public sphere. In the hands of speculative
developers, this sea of enclave urbanization does not constitute any idea of the city; either in the
European tradition as a space of partnership or coexistence, or in the Chinese sense, where the
city is a seen as an administrative framework with a clear and legible deep structure that regulates
its spaces and social structure. What is lost is the idea of the city as a common space par
excellence.
1 Castels, Manuel, Four Asian Tigers with a Dragon Head: A Comparative Analysis of the State, Economy, and
Society in the Asian Pacific Rim, in Appelbaum, R. and Henderson, J. (eds) States and Development in the Asian Pacific
Rim (Newburry Park: Sage, 1992)
2 Koolhaas, Rem in Singapore Songlines in SMLXL (Rotterdam: 010 Publishers, 1995), p.1009-89
Harvard GSD Fall 2012, Option Studio 1406, 1506: Common Frameworks: Rethinking the Developmental City 2
3.
The idea of the common is not alien to China. The collective culture has been a constant feature
of Chinese civilization and the collective nature of Chinese cities in fact predates the
developmental city, and offered different expression at different historical junctures. For
instance, the collectivization of the Chinese population in work unit followed the formation of
the Peoples Republic; and in urban areas, the work unit or the danwei is manifested as a large-
scale, walled in commune that brought all aspects that enabled the activity of working and living
in one compound. It represented the basic irreducible productive unit, social nucleus and the
elemental part of the Chinese city. It is the embodiment of the socialist city with Confucianist
characteristics, where social identity and structure is forged through labor, kinship and political
ideology.
When the communes became decollectivised in the 1980s, state owned land became
developable through processes of marketisation as a legal and political framework. This is
accomplished through the leasing of state owned land to private developers. In the mega-plots of
the developmental city, two dominant types prevailed: the highrise tower and slab blocks that
constitute most housing projects and the podium block, with shopping as its primary
programmatic instigator. These dominant types fill the mega-plots as impenetrable enclaves; each
enclave an autonomous expression of difference for market differentiation. In this constant state
of exception, the pluralism of the city, articulated by meaningful contra-positioning of difference
is flattened and the concreteness of the city melts into an ever expanding sea of urbanization.
4.
To define what is common through the dominant type and the city fundamentally touches upon
the very reason why the question of type is raised in architectural theory and history. Type as a
heuristic device uncovers architectures connection to society through a discursive understanding
of what is common at every juncture in history when the universal principles of architecture and
its accepted conventions are no longer valid. This notion of what is common obviously cannot
be reduced solely to a formal or tectonic similitude, like a prevailing style of architecture, nor can
it solely mean public property or space (as opposed to private).
The dominant type can be defined as the element that constitutes an idea of the city and
is a reification of the idea of what is common. The idea of the city is the apotheosis of what is
common if we are to understand the city as a space of coexistence, a space to live among others,
following Aristotles definition of the polis - the word that means the city and the root word for
politics. The dominant type can be understood in two ways; the first is that it acts as the most
typical element that due to its ubiquity and pervasiveness is recognizable to all, like the siheyuan
(walled courtyard house) of Beijing for example. The second is due to its special character, its
individuality; that is to say as an exception - a building with exceptional quality that holds a
special value. For this dominant type to be common, it must persist over time and be involved in
the continuous transformation of the city. Through this capacity to remain permanent it
becomes a collective artifact or framework, for it is sanctioned by acceptance over time3. To
draw this connection between type and the city is to establish a link between the works of
architecture and the wider milieu in which the work is produced. It is also an act of validation as
to the relevance of the works of architecture outside its own disciplinary domain.
5.
Not all dominant types are common frameworks but they have the potential to be one. The first
task in the attempt to create a common framework is to identify the dominant type and its deep
3This mirrors Aldo Rossis conception of the urban artifact. Whilst Rossis argues this through the notion of the
collective memory and uses the European historical city as a site for the identification of the urban artifact, the
dominant type referred here is found in the context of a globalised production of architecture and is focused on the
organization potential of its deep structure.
Harvard GSD Fall 2012, Option Studio 1406, 1506: Common Frameworks: Rethinking the Developmental City 3
structure. The deep structure can be defined as the irreducible structure that is weathered by use,
through the passage of time; it bears the traces of daily life or exceptional events. More
importantly it holds the potential for organizing new programme whilst maintaining a precise
spatial arrangement. For instance, the walled courtyard of Beijing can be used as a family
dwelling, a temple or an imperial residence. What it lacks in programmatic specificity it
compensates in organizational precision; for the walled courtyard maintains an alternating
sequence of pavilions and courtyard, with a gradation of privacy along its circulatory path;
domestic, religious and administrative activities unfold irrespectively in this same organizational
configuration. This deep structure thus acts as a common framework, not only as an
administrative tool for the formation and management of the imperial city that emphasizes
central control and authority but most crucially it also embodies the collective culture that
underwrites Chinese social relations and structures.
As the deep structure is transparent to function, it inherently becomes a projective
element. That is to say the same deep structure can accommodate new uses and thus bears the
potential for programmatic transformation without altering its configuration. Therefore using the
deep structure of the dominant type allows one to seek for what is common from past
precedence without resorting to the recreation of the image of the past; the latter being a
tendency all too often and wrongly associated with a typological approach.
6.
The city of Xiamen, Macao and Shenyang will form the case studies for this attempt to rethink
the developmental city. Besides the developmental nature of these three cities today, they are
chosen precisely for their propensity towards an accommodative urbanism due to their position
on the frontier of Chinese territory. The history of these cities demonstrates a high degree of
pliability that engendered an accommodative plurality prior to the rapid urbanization of recent
years. Xiamen, as an island city, grew through its accommodation of colonial settlements,
overseas Chinese investment and its strategic proximity to Taiwan. Macao, as a constellation of
islands of exception, is simultaneously artificial and natural in its programmatic make up, and in
its structure of the city. It is at once European, American and Chinese. Shenyang, one of the
northern most cities of China, is also Chinas most culturally and ethically diverse city, with more
than 36 ethnic groups. It is the conjecture of this research that the ability of these cities to be
accommodative can be found in the very nature of the city as a common framework. Thus these
cities offer the possibility to re-conceive the developmental city as a space of cooperation and
partnership, a model that is increasingly critical in todays global context.
Harvard GSD Fall 2012, Option Studio 1406, 1506: Common Frameworks: Rethinking the Developmental City 4
Extended Brief
Week 2 - 3 (3 Sep - 14 Sep 2012)
The Brief History of Type (BHoT) centres on the critical and descriptive analysis of architectural
precedents that are relevant to the design of a common framework for the city. This will entail
the analysis of exemplary housing types as well as elements in the city that can be considered as
displaying the characteristics and propensity to act as common frameworks. In line with the
research agenda of the studio, the precedents chosen are explicitly architectural, that nevertheless
demonstrate a propensity to organize and affect its surrounding context.
The eighteen exemplary projects selected here are tentatively classified here according to
the way in which they situate themselves in the city and the expanded urban context. They are:
armatures and walls, city rooms, mats, plinths and punctuators. These classes may change, be
removed or new ones added upon the completion of our analysis. Students are to work in pairs,
selecting any two of the twelve given examples. The pair will also introduce one more further
related example to compliment the analysis.
Armatures/Walls
1. SANAA, Gifu Kitagata Apartments, Gifu, Japan (1994-2000)
2. Aldo Rossi, Gallaratese Residential Complex, Milan, Italy (1969-73)
City Rooms:
3. Mies van der Rohe, New National Gallery, Berlin (1962-68)
4. OMA, Agadir Convention Centre, Morocco (1990)
Mats
5. Si-He-Yuan or the Beijing Courtyard House, China (c. 1st century AD)
6. Ryue Nishizawa, Moriyama House, Tokyo, Japan (2002-2008)
7. Aldo Rossi, San Rocco Housing, Monza, Italy (1966)
8. OMA, Exposition Universelle, Paris (1989)
Plinths:
9. Oscar Niemeyer, National Congress, Brasillia (1957-64)
10. SANAA, 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa (1999-2004)
Puntuators
11. Riken Yamamoto & Field Shop, Jianwai Soho, Beijing, China (2004)
12. Peter Eisenman, Cannaregio Town Square, Venice, Italy (1978)
Harvard GSD Fall 2012, Option Studio 1406, 1506: Common Frameworks: Rethinking the Developmental City 5
Part 1.2 is dedicated to the study of the types through comparative matrices - that chart
programmatic and organisational distributions, structure, and their relation to their
surrounding context - through the abstraction of the deep structure of the type. This deep
structure can be best understood as the irreducible structure that gives rise to organisation.
The matrices should document the following descriptive characteristics and considerations of
the type in question:
Project Descriptions (Name, Location, Year, Architect, Project Brief)
Figure-Ground (Nolli Plan)
Solid to Void
Programmatic components and its distribution
Circulation and occupation
Part to Whole [Repetitive to Unique]
Organisational Grids
Density [Floor Area Ratios]
Deep structure
Deliverables: The BHoT will culminate in a typological sourcebook that the studio will produce
together. This source book will be a collective knowledge that the studio will draw upon
throughout the semester. It will consist of illustrations, written text (max. 1,500 words),
photographs, analytical diagrams and scaled orthographic drawings.
The studio will travel to Xiamen and Shanghai for a site visit from Thu 20 Sep to Thu 27 Sep
2012.
Harvard GSD Fall 2012, Option Studio 1406, 1506: Common Frameworks: Rethinking the Developmental City 6
5. Topography
6. Figure/ground plan
7. Open Space
8. Building heights
9. Nodes
Deliverables:
1. Research document of the city of Xiamen (draft).
2. Photographic documentation of design site, its surrounding context and their dominant
types.
Prepare a design brief outlining the programmatic component that will accompany the housing
component of your proposal. It must take into consideration the overall design task of the
studio, that is to conceive and design a Common Framework for the city. This attempt to
construct a project of the city through its architecture must be reasoned through the preceding
analysis of the BHoT, Xiamen's dominant types and the structure of the city. Secondly, you are
to propose the design of your Common Framework by indentifying, abstracting and projecting a
deep structure of a type or dominant type from the earlier analysis and research.
Deliverables:
1. Draft argument in PPT, which makes use of all the materials from the preceding two
stages.
2. Excel chart of proposed programme (Gross Floor Area chart)
3. Diagrammatic sketches of proposed Common Framework
Harvard GSD Fall 2012, Option Studio 1406, 1506: Common Frameworks: Rethinking the Developmental City 7
Part 4.1: Scheme Design
Learning from the BHoT, the next stage will focus on the design of your Common
Framework in two syntactic and discursive steps that cuts across a strata of consideration:
from the Typical Dwelling Unit to the Common Framework, the deep structure to the
dominant type, the individual to the collective and from type to the idea of the city.
The Typical Dwelling Unit stands as the irreducible living unit (for one person, one
family, a group of students or flat mates) and should consider both typical situations related
to living and the deep structures that organizes these situations. Your Typical Dwelling Unit
should have the pliability to be repeated and differentiated towards a clear and legible
Common Framework. This should be conceived as a dominant type that not only structures
the Typical Dwelling Unit but must embody an idea of the city and possesses a wider
significance for the city of Xiamen. You should define this idea within the framework of the
city as an agonistic space and the embodiment of what is common. This will be discussed
intensively in our studio seminars. Your design must be conceived and presented with clarity
and accompanied by an equally clear and sharp argument.
You should work simultaneously from both ends: from top down - designing the
Common Framework that has a wider strategic role for the city; and from bottom up
multiplying and differentiating the Typical Dwelling Units into a legible and coherent urban
framework. To do this, use simple geometric transformation techniques from your BHoT. ie
translation, rotation, mirroring and scaling, combined with simple formal transformation
techniques like extruding, lofting, layering, projecting, folding or something of your own
choice.
Deliverables:
1. Draft version of Deep Structure (Axonometric), Typical Dwelling Unit and Common
Framework (Plans and Axonometric), written argument (500 words)
2. Refined argument in PPT, which makes use of all the materials from the preceding two
stages.
3. Research document of the city of Xiamen.
5. Interim Review
Deliverables: Full presentation of all material to date - argument in PPT, drawings and one image
that encapsulates your idea of the Common Framework.
6. Final Design
Harvard GSD Fall 2012, Option Studio 1406, 1506: Common Frameworks: Rethinking the Developmental City 8
The final four weeks of the semester will be used to conclude your design project. The focus will
be to make minor adjustment to the design and finalise it by Week 11. The remainder of the time
should be spent on producing the necessary drawings, physical model(s), imagery and arguments
that will serve to support and defend your position. The studio will spend a lot of effort and time
in reworking and refining key drawings, images and arguments. The emphasis is on the quality of
portfolio and the sharpness of argument.
The first task towards the Final Design is to consider further its interface with its immediate and
extended surrounding. The second task is to further articulate and refine your design taking into
consideration the issues of construction and structure. This should not be taken as a task to
merely detail the building but instead an opportunity to bring about a certain inventiveness and
the poetry to technical considerations.
Deliverables: Satellite photomontage, site plan, one image to convey the idea of your design,
plans, sections, axonometric of construction and structure.
The scale of the physical model will be decided according to the proposed design.
Deliverables: Final digital model for physical model and a small fragment of test model
Deliverables: Satellite photomontage, site plan, image to convey the idea of your design, plans,
sections, axonometrics, written argument (500 words) and a physical model
Thanksgiving week
Harvard GSD Fall 2012, Option Studio 1406, 1506: Common Frameworks: Rethinking the Developmental City 9
Workshops
Simon Whittle
The workshops that accompany the studio are intended to provide a grounding of ideas and
technical skills that run parallel to the studio brief. Each workshop is organized to aid the
development of the project at that specific point in the brief with the required skill set and
understanding.
Required: Research material on chosen building including plans, sections, and photographs.
Required: All material collected from the studio visit to Xiamen such as photographs, drawings,
sketches, building measurements, and other useful information.
Required: Dominant type study and additional diagrams, drawings and photographic studies.
Harvard GSD Fall 2012, Option Studio 1406, 1506: Common Frameworks: Rethinking the Developmental City
10
Workshop 5: Framework Drawing and Modelling
This workshop will provide instruction of the 3d modelling tools necessary for the development
of the deep structure of the project. We will cover basic modelling techniques as well as proper
workflow. All instruction will be applied to the development of the deep structure and
framework design. Alongside this there will be examples of previous work and a further
discussion of the idea of the frame work and deep structure. We will also look at different ways
of drawing the projects and how to use plans, sections, axonometric, and ideograms to best
convey their ideas.
Harvard GSD Fall 2012, Option Studio 1406, 1506: Common Frameworks: Rethinking the Developmental City
12
General Reading List
Type and Typology
Argan, Giulio Carlo, On the Typology of Architecture in Theorizing a New Agenda for Architecture
An Anthology of Architectural Theory 1965-1995, ed. by Kate Nesbitt (New York: Princeton
Architectural Press, 1996), pp. 242-46 (first publ. in AD: Architectural Design, 33.12, Dec
1963, 564-565)
Colquhoun, Alan, Modern Architecture and the Symbolic Dimension of the Type and
its Transformation in Essays in Architectural Criticism; Modern Architecture and Historical Change
(Cambridge, MA; London: MIT Press, 1989), pp. 43-50
Colquhoun, Alan, Typlogy and Design Method in Theorizing a New Agenda for Architecture: An
Anthology of Architectural Theory 1965-1995, ed. by Kate Nesbitt (New York: Princeton
Architectural Press, 1996), pp. 250-57 (first publ. in Arena 83 (1967)
Lavin, Sylvia, Quatremre de Quincy and the Invention of a Modern Language of Architecture (Cambridge, MA:
The MIT Press, 1992)
Moneo, Rafael On Typology in El Croquis: Rafael Moneo 19672004 (El Croquis Editorial, 2004)
Oechslin, Werner, Premises for the Resumption of the Discussion of Typology, Assemblage, No. 1
(Oct., 1986), pp. 36-53
Vidler, Anthony, The Third typology in Oppositions 7 (1976): 1-4
Vidler, Anthony, The Writing of the Walls: Architectural Theory in the Late Enlightenment (Princeton
Architectural Press, 1987)
Vidler, Anthony. The Idea of Type: The Transformation of the Academic Ideal: 1750-1830 in
Oppositions 8, (New York, NY: Rizzoli, 1977)
Youns, Samir, Quatremre De Quincy's Historical Dictionary of Architecture: The True, the Fictive and the
Real (London: Andreas Papadakis Publishers, 2000)
Harvard GSD Fall 2012, Option Studio 1406, 1506: Common Frameworks: Rethinking the Developmental City
13
Rowe, Colin, The Mathematics of the Ideal Villa and Other Essays (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press,
1999)
Sarkis, Harshim, ed., Le Corbusier's Venice Hospital and the Mat Building Revival (Prestel, 2002)
Sherwood, Roger, Modern Housing Prototypes (Harvard University Press, 1981)
Harvard GSD Fall 2012, Option Studio 1406, 1506: Common Frameworks: Rethinking the Developmental City
14
Sitte, Camillo, City planning according to artistic principles (Phaidon Press, 1965)
Smithson, Alison, ed., Team 10 Primer (The MIT, 1974)
Soria y Puig, Arturo, Cerda: The Five Bases of the General Theory of Urbanization (Electa, 1999)
Sudjic, Deyan, The 100 Mile City (London: Flamingo, 1993)
Ungers, Oswald Matthias, Rem Koolhaas, Peter Riemann, Hans Kollhof, Peter Ovaska, Cities
within the City, Proposal by the Sommerakademie Berlin, in Lotus International, n.19, 1977.
Venturi, Robert, Denise Scott Brown, and Steven Izenour, Learning from Las Vegas: The Forgotten
Symbolism of Architectural Form (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1977, repr. 1998)
Critical Theory
Colquhoun, Alan, Essays in Architectural Criticism: Modern Architecture and Historical Change (Cambridge,
Mass.: The MIT Press, 1981)
Colquhoun, Alan, Modernity and the Classical Tradition: Architectural Essays 1980-87 (Cambridge, Mass.:
The MIT Press, 1989)
Eisenman, Peter, The End of the Classical The End of the Beginning, The End of the End in
Theorizing a New Agenda for Architecture An Anthology of Architectural Theory 1965-1995, ed. by
Kate Nesbitt (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1996), pp. 212-27 (first publ. in
Perspecta 21 (1984), 154-173.).
Eisenman, Peter, The Formal Basis of Modern Architecture (Lars Muller Publisher, 2006)
Harvard GSD Fall 2012, Option Studio 1406, 1506: Common Frameworks: Rethinking the Developmental City
16
TYPE: A GLOSSARY
For the definition of the word type in architectural theory we can turn to Antoine-Chrysostome
Quatremre de Quincys (1755 1849) masterful definition in the Dictionnaire historique
darchitecture (1825) that also formally introduced the notion of type into architectural discourse.
For Quatremre de Quincy, The word type presents less the image of a thing to copy or imitate completely
than the idea of an element which ought itself to serve as a rule for the model 6. For him, type is the idea or
symbolic meaning that is embodied in an element, an object or a thing. Thus type is abstract
and conceptual rather than concrete and literal. Following a neo-platonic tradition, this idea for
Quatremre de Quincy can also be understood as the ideal that an architect should strive for in
the process of creative production, that is, an idea that can never be fully materialized in the
process of artistic creation. Thus Quatremres definition touches upon and serves as a
metaphysical theory of type. According to Quatremre de Quincys theory of Imitation7, this
idea is the laws that govern nature rather than the product of nature. This law or abstract
4
In part, this tendency to classify group buildings according to use can be attributed to Nicholas Pevsner, in his
Architectural Guides (1951-75)
5 Quatremre de Quincy, Rule in Encyclopdie Mthodique, vol. 3, trans. Samir Youns, reprinted in The Historical
Harvard GSD Fall 2012, Option Studio 1406, 1506: Common Frameworks: Rethinking the Developmental City
17
principle that guides any artistic production is therefore eternal and ideal, although the models
that arise from the application of these principles are infinite in its variations.
Whilst agreeing with Quatremre de Quincy on the distinction between idea and model,
Gottfried Semper (1803-79) defines type as the idea that must be understood through the
potentials of four building techniques: terracing (masonry), roofing (carpentry), the hearth
(ceramics) and walling (textiles)8. This materialist approach of Semper displaces the idea of type
from an idealist position to a practical one.
Similarly, Giulio Carlo Argan (1909-1992), departs from Quatremre de Quincys insistence on
deriving principles from nature as an ideal. For Argan, type is an idea no longer residing in
nature but in building precedents and therefore in the history of architecture. This value is thus
relative, not an ideal nor immutable. For Argan, The birth of a type is therefore dependent on the
existence of a series of buildings having between them an obvious formal and functional analogy9. This assertion
points to the crucial fact that new types can be detected as much as they can be surpassed,
hence enabling a design process that is syntactic and discursive in equal measure. I would argue
that, seen this way, to work typologically is to analyse, reason and propose through things which
are of the same type, thus considering them in series. Working in series10 reveals the shared traits
between things and to harness the embodied and cumulative intelligence of that series into
architectural projections. This serial consideration emancipates the idea of type from a fixed ideal
without displacing the need for an ideal.
Influenced by Argans On the Typology of Architecture, Aldo Rossi (1931-1997) defines types as
the very idea of architecture, that which is closest to its essence. In spite of changes, it has always imposed itself
on the feelings and reason as the principle of architecture and of the city.11 For Rossi, type is the principle
that can be found in the urban artifact. The urban artifact, as defined by Rossi, is not only a
building, but a fragment of the city. The urban artifact should be understood as fatto urbano or
faite urbaine, they are not just physical thing in the city, but all of its history, geography, structure
and connection with the general life of the city as noted by Peter Eisenman12. The ambiguity of
the urban artifact also owes to the above definitions; that the city itself is an artifact, that it is
divided into individual buildings and dwelling areas. Following this, it would mean that every
physical structure in the city is potentially an urban artifact. Thus for Rossi, the differentiating
factor would have to be its individuality which comes from its quality, uniqueness and
definition.13 This individuality depends more on its form than material, its complex entity that
developed over space and time, its historical richness, its certain original values and function that
8 Semper, Gottfried, London Lecture of November 11, 1853, RES: Journal of Anthropology and Aesthetics, no.6,
Autumn 1983, p.5-31
9
Giulio Carlo Argan, On the Typology of Architecture, Architectural Design, 33.12 (1963), 564-65
10 Lee, Christopher C.M, Working in Series: Towards an Operative Theory of Type in Lee, Christopher C.M. &
p.41
12 Ibid., p.22
13 Rossi, Aldo, The Architecture of the City, trans. by Diane Ghirardo and Joan Ockman (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1982),
p.29
Harvard GSD Fall 2012, Option Studio 1406, 1506: Common Frameworks: Rethinking the Developmental City
18
persist (which for Rossi is its spiritual value), and its sum of all experiences and memories
(ominous or auspicious)14.
Typology
14 The most significant urban artifacts for Rossi are housing and monuments. This is because the changes in housing
and the imprints left on them become the signs of daily life, a collective memory of the city. Urban monuments owe
their singularity to the quality of permanence, and are primary elements acting as fixed point in the urban dynamics.
15 Youns, Samir. The Historical Dictionary of Architecture of Quatremre de Quincy . London : Adreas Papadakis Publisher,
1999. p.255
16 Durand, Jean Nicolas Louis. Pr'ecis of the Lectures on Architecture. Trans. David Britt. Getty Trust Publications, 2000.
Durands diagrams primarily capture the structural elements of various building types, comprising a layer of grids
that denotes both structure and geometric composition.
17 For an elaboration of the Typical Object, see Lathouri, Marina, The City as a Project: Types, Typical Objects and
Harvard GSD Fall 2012, Option Studio 1406, 1506: Common Frameworks: Rethinking the Developmental City
19
The suffix ology of typology, comes from the Greek logia, which means a discourse, treatise, theory
or science. Thus typology is the discourse, theory, treatise (method) or science of type.
Typology is not the opposite of topology. This false opposition is often made to contrast the
processes of formal differentiation in architecture. The former is characterised as a combinatory
process resulting in discontinuous differentiated forms whilst the latter produces a continuously
differentiated form. Type and typology as defined above is not concerned with the
smoothness or continuities of formal differentiation and thus to pose it as the opposite of
topology is a folly.
Typicality
Typicality18 as put forth by Peter Carl refers to conventions or frameworks of understanding
that relies on common situations and typical elements. For Carl, type is a subset to typicalities.
This is because Carl understands type as formal variations (or model). He draws a clear
distinction between type and typicality; and to illustrate this point, Carl uses the example of the
type bedroom versus the typical situation associated with the bedroom. The former refers to a
medium size room with a bed, side table, window, closet and an access to a WC. Whereas the
latter refers to a richer and more profound interpretation that can include sleep, sex, illness,
death and so on. Thus for Carl, types are isolated fragments of a deeper and richer structure of
typicalities and The principle difference between typology and typicality is that the former concentrates upon
(architectural) objects, the latter upon situations.19 Typicalities for instance operate in language as a
framework of understanding, for mutual understanding requires the element of recognition,
otherwise we will be compelled to invent language a fresh at every meeting. Carl argues that this
language should not be understood as the structuralism of French linguistics that attempts to
translate all language into a grammar of messages or codes. Instead this language as framework
of understanding disposes typicalities in strata. The most immediate are common meanings,
followed by accents or sounds, then bodily gestures. As such, recognition is only possible
through the common elements carried by typicalities.
Dominant Type
The word dominant means ruling, governing or having an influence over something; it also
means something that is prevailing. Thus, for a type to be dominant, it has to prevail. What is
the most prevailing is also the most typical and what is the most typical is also common to all.
And no other sphere is more common to all than the city. Thus, a dominant type can be
understood as the typical element that constitute the city and are the embodiment of the
common. It oscillates between both ends of typicalities - common situations and typical elements
- and serves as both a framework of understanding and as a reified typical architectural object
that figures forth the idea of the city.
The idea of the city is historically constituted and concerns itself with the civic and symbolic
function of human settlements and coexistence. As cities owe their main characteristic to
18 Carl, Peter, Type, Field, Culture, Praxis in Architectural Design, 81.1 (2011), Typological Urbanism. This distinction
between type and typicality was first drawn by Dalibor Vesley 30 years ago according to Carl and appears now as the
role paradigmatic situation in Architecture in the Age of Divided Representation: The Question of Creativity in the
Shadow of Production (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2004).
19 Ibid., p.40
Harvard GSD Fall 2012, Option Studio 1406, 1506: Common Frameworks: Rethinking the Developmental City
20
geographical and topographical condition and that cities are always linked to other cities for trade
and resources, they tend to specialize and form a distinctive character20. It is this distinctive
character coupled with the need to accommodate differences that gives rise to the possibility of a
collective meaning for the city. This meaning changes with time, in response to its ever changing
inhabitants (or citizens) and external circumstance and is often formalized, historically, in the
construction of civic buildings as landmarks for common identity and as elements of
permanence in the city, exemplified by town halls, libraries, museums and archives. It is through
this understanding that I am proposing that the Idea of the City can be embodied in these
dominant types. The dominant type here carries not only the idea of the city but also the
irreducible typal imprints of the history and construction of the city. Thus, to understand the
dominant type is to understand the city itself21.
20 Cities founded on river banks, sea ports, railways, highlands (hill towns) and so on. We see today, cities that
position themselves as knowledge cities, financial cities, medical cities, sport cities etc.
21 For further discussion on the dominant type and the city, see Lee, Christopher C.M Projective Series in Lee,
Christopher, Jacoby, Sam, eds. Typological Formations: Renewable Building Types and the City (London: AA Publications,
2007) and Lee, Christopher C.M & Jacoby, Sam Typological Urbanism: Projective Cities in Architectural Design 209:
Typological Urbanism (London: Wiley Academy, Jan/Feb 2011)
22 Lathouri, Marina, The City as a Project: Types, Typical Objects and Typologies in Architectural Design, 81.1 (2011),
Typological Urbanism
23Rossi, Aldo, The Architecture of the City, trans. by Diane Ghirardo and Joan Ockman (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1982),
p.46
Harvard GSD Fall 2012, Option Studio 1406, 1506: Common Frameworks: Rethinking the Developmental City
21
ultimately typical. Rossi further conceives the city as a repository of history24 and serves as a
kind of collective memory to the citys citizens. Through this search and redefinition of the
typical, I would argue that the recourse to the city as a project to revalidate the works of
architecture is underpinned by the redefinition of what constitute the common. In other words,
what will be the idea of the city that architecture must again respond to?
24 Ibid., p.127
Harvard GSD Fall 2012, Option Studio 1406, 1506: Common Frameworks: Rethinking the Developmental City
22
Studio Schedule & Deliverables
Week Date Day Time Program Staff Notes Deliverables
1 30/08/2012 Thu 09:00 Option Studios Presentation
31/08/2012 Fri 14:00 Design Brief discussion CL
15:30 Launch Brief History of Type (BHoT) CL/SW
17:00 Workshop 1: BHoT SW Dip 6 BHoT and Serie Axo
2 05/09/2012 Wed 13:00 Seminar 1: The Idea of Type
yp CL
15:30 Seminar 2: The Deep Structure of Type CL
06/09/2012 Thu 14:00 Pin-up CL BHoT Interim BHoT Analysis Part I
07/09/2012 Fri 14:00 Workshop 2: BHoT SW Drawing/modelling
3 12/09/2012 Wed 13:00 Seminar 3: Standard, Megastructure and Archetype CL
15:30 Seminar 4: Type and the Historical City CL
13/09/2012 Thu 14:00 Pin Upp CL/SW BHoT Final Review y Part II
BHoT Analysis
14/09/2012 Fri 14:00 Workshop 3: City Analysis I SW Mega-plot and Structure of the City City Drawing(figure/ground, infrastructure)
4 20/09/2012 Thu Fly to Shanghai CL/SW
21/09/2012 Fri Shanghai Symposium CL/SW
22/09/2012 Sat Shanghai Symposium CL/SW
23/09/2012 Sun Fly to Xiamen CL/SW Tutorials Deep Structure and Typical Dwelling Unit
5 24/09/2012 Mon Visit Xiamen CL/SW y
Xiamen Analysis
25/09/2012 Tue Visit Xiamen CL/SW Xiamen Analysis
26/09/2012 Wed Visit Xiamen CL/SW Tutorials Design Brief, Deep Structure to Common Framework
27/09/2012 Thu Fly to Boston (via Shanghai) CL/SW
6 03/10/2012 Wed 13:00 Seminar 5: Typology and Reinvention CL
15:30 Seminar 6: Dominant Type and the Idea of the City CL
04/10/2012 Thu 14:00 Pin Upp CL g Brief and Strategy
Design gy PPT, pprogramme
g g
chart, diagrammatic sketches
05/10/2012 Fri 14:00 Desk Crit CL
Deep Structure, Typical Dwelling Unit, Common
7 11/10/2012 Thu 09:30 Skype Tutorials CL Scheme Design Framework
12/10/2012 Fri 09:30 Skype Tutorials CL
14:00 Workshop 4: City Analysis II Site context and dominant type of XM Collective material for site documentation
8 17/10/2012 Wed 09:30 Desk Crit CL By appointment Pre-Interim Presentation
13:00 Seminar 7: Criticality: Between China and the West CL/JF
15:30 Seminar 8: Largeness CL/JF
18/10/2012 Thu 14:00 INTERIM REVIEW CL/Guest Scheme Design Plan, Axo, Model, Image, Common City Analysis
19/10/2012 Fri 10:00 Desk Crit CL Post-interim feedback
9 25/10/2012 Thu 09:30 Skype Tutorials CL Final Design
14:00 Workshop 5: Framework Drawing and Modelling SW Drawing and model production
26/10/2012 Fri 09:30 Skype Tutorials CL Final Design
14:00 Workshop 6: Model Making SW Physical model making techniques
10 31/10/2012 Wed 13:00 Seminar 9: Dominant Type and the Developmental City CL
15:30 Seminar 10: From Big to Small to Mega CL/FL
01/11/2012 Thu 14:00 Desk Crit CL Final Design All drawings (Draft)
02/11/2012 Fri 14:00 Desk Crit CL Final Design All drawings (Draft)
11 08/11/2012 Thu 09:30 Skype Tutorials CL
14:00 Workshop 7: Image Representation SW Final Design
09/11/2012 Fri 09:30 Skype Tutorials CL
14:00 Workshop 8: Image Development SW Image making Completed Digital Model
Seminar 11: The Economic Basis for the conception,
12 14/11/2012 Wed 13:00 construction and sustenance of the public realm in cities CL/BW
15:30 Seminar 12: Conclusion and tutorials CL
15/11/2012 Thu 14:00 Desk Crit CL Final Design All drawings (Refinement)
16/11/2013 Fri 14:00 Desk Crit CL Final Design All drawings (Refinement)
13 21/11/2012 Wed
22/11/2012 Thu Thanksgiving
23/11/2012 Fri
14 29/11/2012
/ / Thu 14:00 Deskk Crit CL Final presentation A ddeliverables
All b
30/11/2012 Fri 14:00 Desk Crit CL Presentation
15 06/12/2012 Thu 14:00 Desk Crit/Workshop 9: Model Photography CL/SW Final model photos and drawing final Final Model
07/12/2012 Fri 14:00 Desk Crit/Workshop 10: Book Prep CL/SW Graphics and book assembly Final Drawings and Images
16 11/12/2012 Tue 10:00 OPTION REVIEWS CL/Guest All Deliverables Presented
12/12/2012 Wed 14:00 Final feedback CL