the topic
The main issue of this research project is to try to develop a general theory about the understanding of the structures and logics were the construction of the urbanity is based, considering urbanity as a complex and diverse ecosystem were the people is able to develop their lives in a artificial environment exchanging information between them.
The undestanding of this complex reality as a system of networks that are mixed between them is the starting point for the methodology of analyse; ‘urban network structures’ are based on four elements:
Nodes > concentrate the information and specific contents
Nets > distribute the information between nodes
Enviroment > supports all the systems in a specific context
Protocols > organise the ingredients of the system: the information
Crossing this general structure to understand the city with the parameter of the scale, makes possible to recognise all the possible combinations, sizes and behaviours in the methodology of analysed proposed. The scales that we are considering are
1, 10, 100, 1.000, 10.000, 100.000 and 1.000.000 people, and it is specially interesting to detect the ‘ascalarity’ of the system. This means, for example, that the garden of our house (1 person) is the same that a big park for the city (1.000.000), or that the fridge of your house (1 person) is the same as a supermarket for a neighbourhood (1.000 people) or a big mall for a town (100.00). This ‘ascalarity’ is we can find it in physical and physiological studies of the city.
The main objective is to extract the general rules to generate domestic ecosystems for humans that are created from topics of sustainability, reaching the maximum level of self-sufficiency, capacity of self-proliferation and adaptation to the variable social, economical and environmental issues.
The first step to understand the rules of generation of the city is to detect and structure the anatomy of each systems that if taking part in the city.
anatomy
It’s the material analysis of the environment, following the three ‘urban network structures’ elements (nodes, networks and fields), but without paying special attention to the internal relations between each element of the structure. It’s the exploded analysis of all the fragments of a city.
The main aim of the anatomic analysis is to create a tool, a structure, able to locate, classify, filter and order these fragments.
This tool is a complex taxonomic structure (tree mode) based on a layered and multiscalar system. We recognise at least four basic levels (blocks of layers) for this taxonomic structure. Residential, working, facilities and infrastructures.
Each one of these blocks is composed by a certain number of layers. Each one is developed in a tree structure way. For example in the sleeping block its included collective housing, individual housing, hotels, student residence as well as jails or refugee camp.
This structure of 21 trees is crossed with another axis containing the eleven scales. In this way, we could develop the housing tree as follows: apartment, storey, building, block, neighbourhood, district, city, metropolis, region, continent, planet.
physiology
The relations of the different parts of the systems, the inputs and outputs or the balance of energy are processes that are taking place in the urban systems and the can not be studied thought a taxonomic and physical analyse (anatomy).
The physiology is focused in process and functions of the living systems. The growing, the interaction with the environment, the exchange of material or the way of political management are all physiological and part of the urbanity.
This understanding of the process is also related with the scales. Process are mixing and crossing different activities that belong to 1, 100 or 100.000 people. In living organisms, we can recognize similar internal working in particles than in organisms.
All the systems related with the city will be affected and their organization will be different depending on parameters, for example, the process that we can find in a non-dense (flat) city only in terms of transportation is radically different from a dense (vertical) city, or in terms of energy if it is for one person, place as independently (photovoltaic panels), for 1000 people (small thermal plant) for 1.000.000 (hydraulic or nuclear plant) the systems organization, the distribution of energy and the political and economical structure is also different.
The structure of analyse for this process will be based on the understanding of the infrastructural- energetic systems, The tool of analysing and proposing will be crucial to have a clear representation of all the process that takes place in each infrastructural layer. (diagrams, programs, calendars, webs…)
metabolism
this concept is referred to the inputs and outputs that a urban systems produce and receive. Mainly this could be organized in three basic parameter: economical, social and environmental. In each node we can find a level of interaction between the multiple systems and networks, producing an exchange that allows them make their functions. We will call this interaction urban metabolism in order to quantify the global exchange (information, energy, social interaction, knowledge, money…)
The final topic of this general theory would be to generate new ways in the creation of domestic ecosystems in the territory and also to achieve processes in charge of the transformation, organization and improvement of urban systems that presents partial or completely malfunction.
SALINGAROS
http://math.utsa.edu/~salingar/index.html
ARCHITECTURE: BIOLOGICAL FORM AND ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE.
http://math.utsa.edu/~salingar/arch-biologicalform.html
COMPLEXITY AND URBAN COHERENTE
http://www.acturban.org/biennial/doc_planners/complexity_urban_coherence.htm
CONNECTING THE FRACTAL CITY.
http://www.fractal.org/Samenhang-Industrieel-Ontwerpen/Connecting-the-Fractal-City.htm
MICHAEL BATTY
http://www.iemar.tuwien.ac.at/fractal_architecture/subpages/62Cityplanning.html
SALVADOR RUEDA
Shannon Index
http://www.tiem.utk.edu/~mbeals/shannonDI.html
UN MODELO URBANO PARA EL DESARROLLO DE ECOBARRIOS
http://www.bcnecologia.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=98&Itemid=52&lang=CA
http://www.bcnecologia.net/documentos/Un%20nuevo%20urbanismo%20para%20una%20ciudad%20mas%20sostenible.pdf