Would Cedric Price be happier in a sandpit?

The continued blurring of our ephemeral and physical boundaries continues to grey as the speed of technic development exponentially increases and disperses. It is when exposed to news of new developments we find ourselves either decrying the loss of conservative superlatives and resisting inevitable change, our we are found enraptured by the promises of brighter futures, empowerment, efficiencies and new liberties.

There have been some very interesting and powerful projects recently, two of which have come from Carlo Ratti and the Senseable City Lab of MIT which use new technic media to further merge the ephemeral and physical in order to create new integrated environments.

The first is the Copenhagen Wheel by MIT. MIT students and Ratti have researched and developed a beautiful sexy product which could see very practical application within the public realm by providing both an attractive, marketable product to the public in the form of an auxiliary power source for cyclists (which constitutes an overwhelming percentage of Copenhagen's transport modes), as well as a research/community tool through the information gathering capabilities of inbuilt technologies.

The second project is what has been termed "The Cloud" and was presented by Carlo Ratti. Carlo Ratti's focus as Director of MIT's Senseable City Lab appears to have been in the realm of representation and information gathering of spatial-temporal data (as can be seen in his list of patents here). It forms a proposal for the Mayor's Landmark Precinct for the upcoming London 2012 Olympics.

The Cloud serves multiple purposes; as screen, as viewing platform, as place, and as technic innovation and physcial/ephemeral blur. Perhaps we can add gimick to the list of diasporic functions... an important function for a mayor nearing elections no doubt. But I am showing my cinisicm again, I digress. Ratti took inspiration from the olympic torch, Diller+Scoffidio's Blur project, and the Eiffel Tower, and has worked with both his Senseable City innovators and Arup Engineer's.

During the panel discussion of Ratti's Cloud proposal, the interesting point was made by Prof John Frazer (QUT's head of the School of Design) that the precinct due to be occupied by Ratti's Cloud was indeed close to the the old site used by Cedric Price for his Fun Palace proposal (1962). Price's Fun Palace claimed as it's tenants the provision of truly public space which empowered the community through both political and architectural means, responsive to the needs of the community.

A similar proposal was Magnet (1994), where a series of temporary bridges and viewing platforms enabled new social and spatial experiences of the city.

But in the words of Cedric Price; "technology is the answer, but what is the problem?" I seem to burden these technic enhanced ephemeral/physcial optimisations with my own prime agenda; which i guess today could be summed up in the objective: "the empowerment of "open source" communities". Perhaps this is a reflection of my own personal agenda, but regardless... in response this question, I find that technology has definite gaps in it's answer.

"technology is the answer... but what is the
problem?"

The Copenhagen Wheel provides a technic answer to the question for improved cyclist experience, and the need for optimisation of current transport modes through more accurate research methods.

The Cloud, however, seems to provide little in the way of solution to problem. Perhaps this is inherint in it's politically motivated commissioning (Boris Johnson, the London Mayor, wanting the most impressive building to stand in front of as it is opened in the lead up to an election no doubt), but still... it poses to me the question; "when does the blurring and technic enhancement of architecture move beyond useful to become mere gimick.

We are kidding ourselves if anyone, like me, thought for a moment that technology can solve my interpretation of the problem; the same problems of community emancipation that Constant designed for, and that various sub-cultures have fought for again and again, their expression of community.

"Christopher,..." I hear you all whisper; "...gimicks sell architecture! Shutup before we loose our commissions!".
And sure, you're right for a lot of people. But I don't like to separate my needs for answers from architecture. And no one does architecture for the money or so I am told by those well off and impoverished alike.

We can see how the very absence of technology greatly empowers sub-cultures for community expression. The very campus containing the SenseAble City Lab used to house an old dilapidated timber radar research facility that was built during the second world war. After it's military occupation was redundant, it was appropriated by many students and modified daily to suit the use of inhabitants. There was no programmed constraints where the architecture disallowed the workflow, expression or community utility of the occupants. If the architecture got in the way, it was simply removed... knocked down or modified by the industries MIT students so that it did work. And in the hearts of generations of students, that old building was the most prescious piece of academic and community infrastucture. *

"Christopher..." I hear you whisper again... "but you are proposing that the best architecture is that which we care less about.. and yet love the most..."
Well, perhaps I am.. and this conflagrated conclusion seems the most linear and logical in the view of this argument, yet it appears to be the most unjustifiable economic logic (if the desires of a buildings occupants were to be harnessed to 'commodify architecture'). Perhaps it is my saving grace that I believe architecture to go beyond being "commodity".

So why do we buy a big mac meal when we only want fries?

"technology is the answer... but what is the problem?"

What is the problem that this technology exists for?


*refer the text "How Buildings Grow" by Stewart Brand. In it he describes numeruos examples of the same sentiment as well as this particular example; the MIT timber radar building.