Catalogue of Spatial Typologies

New Park for Green Era:

While this project is relatively open to interpretation, Urban Growers Collective is interested in some specific uses to extend their practice and serve the surrounding community.  Urban Growers Collective is dedicated to urban farming and a food co-op it is also dedicated to researching plant intelligence, recovering memories about the growth, use, and relationships of plants and communities who may have left the American South for Chicago during the Great Migration.  They are also dedicated to developing new economic models, and serving communities according to diverse interpretations of needs.    

Similarly, adjacent to the Green Era site is Mahalia Jackson Park.  Of course, the very name of this park relates to an important cultural history and surrounding community who made enormous contributions to it.  Though an important park, there has been limited investment in its infrastructure for leisure, recreation, sport, and cultural events.  There are site related constraints to consider.   Because of the adjacent train lines, history of industrial zoning and related  infrastructures, expanding the boundaries and uses of the park will raise inevitable questions about how to connect it to adjacent sites in order to expand its potentials, define it as a realm, and develop it as an enviroment. 

Instructions

An architectural or landscape plan is usually informed by data.  It references the sizes of human an non-human bodies, vehicles, infrastructrures, and other objects because a  plan is a platform for working through and speculating upon the relationships between activities, the spaces that support them, and material assemblies.  A plan of a space is, therefore, a way of thinking through the infrastructure that nourish and condition a range of activities.  For this reason, measures matter.  Some spaces are informed by histories of social convention, for example, the lines of a sporting field or court.  Others are require the coordination of spaces for bodies and machines or equipment, for example a farm.  Others are informed by cultural, natural, geologic, hydrologic, or other processes, all of which have physical implications that can be measured in some way.

Thankfully, there are helpful references (Neufert for example) to expedite planning. Cataloguing some conventions of spatial organizations in preparation for the next step should not constrain your imagination, it merely informs.  This first step is not unlike planning a meal by reacting to what you find in the produce market; allowing what you find to inspire you and inform decisions.

Collaborate in Teams:

In teams of 2 or 3, designate roles to catalog possible activities that might be supported by this new park.  These may extend the existing activities of Green Era and the Chicago Park District, but may also include new activities.  Teams can begin by making:

1. A comprehensive written list of potential activities.
   
2. An associated list of the environments and/or infrastructures required to support those activities (text).  For example, a new program of musical performance might need an environment to structure relationships between artists and audiences, sound systems, sightlines, etc.
   
   Once you’ve generated these lists:
   
   
3. Collect orthographic drawings (in plan and/or section) or aerial photos (plan) of those environments and instructures to generate a visual catalog.  You can accomplish this by hand, cutting and pasting on paper -- or in software like Photoshop or Illustrator.
   

To assist, you can find a huge array of drawings in Neufert’s Architect’s Data, Volume 2 here, and Volume 3 here.  You can also pan the globe to copy/past aerial images via Google Maps or Google Earth, or from professional aerial photographers (like Mitch Rouse) provided you don’t infringe on copyrights when finalizing your own work.

This preparatory step will facilitate an in-class workshop next week.  Since we will be working at a scale of 1”=100’ (1:1200) it would be idea for you to size your catalog to that common scale.

Possible Tools:

Collage on Paper
Adobe Illustrator
Adobe Photoshop

Reference Texts:

Neufert Architect’s Data, Volume 2
Neufert Architect’s Data, Volume 3

Other Texts of Interest:

Spoerri, Daniel. Anecdoted Topography of Chance.
George Perec, Think Classify.

Other Inspiration:

Michael Landy, “Breakdown” (link)

Thinking about Drawing

This is a step in preparing to develop models and plans as constructions in themselves.