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Transcript of Permeable City
Permeable City: Mending the Urban Fabric Through Breaking Down Infrastructureby: Drew Powers
“But then the Depression came, and war, and a generation of Americans grew up who had apparently forgotten what a town was, or how a city was built and who were obsessed by enthusiasm for the free passage of the automobile at the expense of all other values. We were told that this was the way it had to be done by hero architects… ; and hero administrators… put it heroically, savagely, into practice, and the Bronx was destroyed, and l-95 and its connectors came to New Haven and smashed through between the railroad station and the old town, destroying everything in their path. And l-95 went on down the east coast, reaming out the centers of cities, scattering neighborhoods, mostly those of black Americans, all the way to Miami, where as its last act it obliterated Overtown, an African American community of long standing, where Cab Calloway had delighted to sing.”
- Vincent Scully, 1999
Communities have been severed and left for dead by the ever-expanding reach of urban infrastructure, often left searching for an identity within the larger construct of society. The hard edges created by infrastructure should be broken down to create a more permeable city, one that will promote interactions between communities and social classes. It is through architectural intervention that focuses on bringing people together in an open minded and learning environment that the gap created by social stratification can be bridged. By understanding the causes of stratification and the strain it puts on society one can then seek to repair and unify a shattered community.
i
Table Of Contents
Thesis Abstract............................................................................1
Objectives....................................................................................3
Key Words....................................................................................4
Research Essay............................................................................5
Visual Studies.............................................................................15
Conclusion.................................................................................24
Hypothesis.................................................................................25
Site................................................................................................27
Program.......................................................................................41
Design Method.........................................................................45
Timeline......................................................................................45
Evaluation Criteria..................................................................46
Ideas for Further Research..................................................46
Results.........................................................................................47
Bibliography..............................................................................49
Appendix....................................................................................53
iii
My thesis will explore the socioeconomic and cultural impact of urban
infrastructure on society. I seek to stitch together the urban fabric that
has been scarred by years of failed modernist planning and uncontrolled
infrastructural growth. By stitching, or reconnecting, the urban fabric
back together I intend to create a more permeable city, one in which
infrastructure does not create hard boundaries between communities.
This permeable city will foster more interactions and experiences among
all inhabitants. This will help to mitigate the alienation and separation
felt by many communities caused by the hard edges created by urban
infrastructure. By “infrastructure” I refer to man-made structures such
as highways and off-ramps, train tracks, canals, sewers, retaining walls
and electricity grids. These objects are inherently necessary for a
functional society, but they also impact the adjacent communities and
neighborhoods. I want to research the extent of their impact and what can
be done to alleviate the negative socioeconomic issues related to these
industrial structures. Unlike mid 20th century modernist planning, I do
not look to recreate a utopian society, but seek to reunite socioeconomic
classes through real world architectural and urban strategies.
Since the industrial revolution and the rise of cities, a lot of infrastructure
has been built to necessitate urban growth. However, little thought was
given to the impact of these large structures and systems on adjacent
communities. Much of this infrastructure was predicated on master
planning that ignored the needs and desires of these local neighborhoods
and communities. This infrastructure contributed to social stratification
and all the negative impacts we currently see in society as a whole. While
stratification is an inevitable construct in a modern capitalist society,
some of its strains can be alleviated if thoughtful planning goes into
infrastructural growth.
I plan to do further research on the impact of social and cultural
stratification on society as well as how built infrastructure impacts society.
My most important scholarly resources are books and journal articles that
chronicle the rise of infrastructure during the 20th century, as well as
the apparent take-over of the city by the automobile. An important part
of research is the sociological causes and effects of social stratification
within society. My sight research focuses on communities that have been
severed by infrastructural growth, looking at historic maps and land use
1
patterns to diagram the impact of the infrastructure through the course of
the century. Some precedents to do further research on include Boston’s
Southwest Corridor and Big Dig projects. These local examples have a
great amount of published data and are good illustrations, successful or
not, of my thesis idea.
Accomplished Objectives:
• Explore interests in socioeconomic diversity within a city.
• Investigate the impact of infrastructure on surrounding communities.
• Find a site where infrastructure has reinforced social stratification
within a community.
• Define a program that will help to stitch together stratified and
fragmented communities.
Future Objectives:
• Design a project that serves the surrounding community while
bringing its citizens together in an educational environment.
• Provide physical and visual connections across previously
impervious barriers within communities.
2 3
Research Essay
Key Definitions:
Urban Infrastructure: Man-made objects that are built to serve the needs
of urban life. These include highways and off-ramps, train tracks, canals,
retaining walls, and electricity grids.
Hard Boundaries (Lines, Edges, etc.): The boundaries created by
infrastructure that are impossible to physically cross except at certain
locations such as bridges or pathways.
Socioeconomic: The relationship of social standing and economic factors
as they pertain to quality of living.
Social/Cultural Stratification: The tendency for people with racial, social,
financial, religious, or educational differences to segregate themselves
from one another.
4 5
Much of the research has focused on finding a common thread between
societal stratification and the impact of widespread infrastructural growth
that took place early in the 20th century. I sought to understand the
reasons that stratification is prevalent in almost all societies, and what role
infrastructure plays in it. I divided my research into three different research
tracks; the impact that the rise of transportation infrastructure had on
urban fabric, the causes and effects of social stratification on society,
and examples of actions taken to mitigate the impact of infrastructure on
communities.
The 20th century saw a great growth in both population and urban
sprawl. This growth inevitably led to a large amount of infrastructural
growth, which was often built on large-scale master plans. This large-
scale outlook often ignored the immediately impacted communities in
favor of helping the sprawling towns of suburbia. This frequently meant
that communities were ripped apart and left divided and in pieces as large
swaths of the urban fabric was destroyed to accommodate highways,
train tracks, and other forms of infrastructure.
The impact of transportation infrastructure on the urban fabric of cities:
There is no doubt that transportation has had an astounding impact on
the urban fabric making up most of our cities. It has reshaped the fabric
of many historic cities and dictated the fabric of newer cities.
Moshe Safdie discusses many of these issues in his book The City After
the Automobile1. Safdie expresses many of his views on the impact of the
automobile on the urban environment. He states in the introduction to
the book:
“If we look at cities over the past century, we can
see that each transformation in urban form has
been linked with some type of transportation
revolution: electric streetcars spawned the early
suburban towns; elevators begat tall buildings. And
the automobile, of course, burst all boundaries,
scattering new, low-density development across
1 Safdie, Moshe. 1997. The city after the automobile: An architect’s vision. Basic
Books.
the countryside.”
This sets the framework for much of my further research and reinforces
the impact that transportation infrastructure has had on the urban
environment. He further explains that urbanization in response to modes
of transportation has taken over many city centers and expanded
outward. He makes the claim that “the car and the freeway have become
the essence of the regional city.” He goes on to highlight the impact of
new infrastructure on many older North American cities:
“Common solutions to making older cities accessible
to cars have been widening streets (Montreal’s
Boulevard René Lévesque); displacing pedestrians
to underground districts (Montreal; Toronto) or
overhead walkways (Minneapolis); cutting new
traffic arteries between neighboring urban districts
(Seattle’s waterfront; Boston’s North End; downtown
Hartford, CT) or through the middle of cohesive
neighborhoods (everywhere)...As the highways have
taken over, the tightly woven fabric of urban streets
has been progressively destroyed.”
This assessment raises many of the key issues behind my thesis research,
and focuses on the on how the growth of infrastructure has shaped and
carved the urban fabric. The cities mentioned are precedents for further
exploration
Another very good source is Sprawltown: Looking for the City on Its
Edges2, by Richard Ingersoll. This book is a rigorously written source on
urban sprawl. Most of the book talks about the concept of suburbia, but
the chapter Jump-cut Urbanism talks about the impact of highways and
transportation systems on the urban form. He sites pieces of infrastructure
such as highways, ring roads, feeder roads, and flyovers as the basis for
a new city scale. This causes settlement away from city centers and
fragmenting urban fabric to facilitate automobile circulation. He goes on
to further describe the impact of the automobile on urban design, even
comparing the psychosocial impact to that of the advent of monotheism.
2 Ingersoll, Richard. 2006. Sprawltown: Looking for the city on its edges, ed. Jennifer
Thompson. New York, NY: Princeton Architectural Press.
6 7
It is this psychosocial impact that reinforced social stratification within
many communities.
Ingersoll, as did Safdie, describes the impact of earlier modes of
transportation, citing the impact of the locomotive on many historic cities:
“London, Berlin, Paris, and New York underwent
traumatic interventions to accommodate train lines,
often witnessing brutal demolitions and drastic
separations of one part of town from another.”
It it these “brutal demolitions” that rip communities apart, often leaving
them permanently fragmented. The cities referenced will be further
explored in later research. He goes on to link many of the urban highway
projects to the “urban renewal” programs of the 1949 Housing Act, stating
that it “led to the largest nonmilitary destruction of cities ever executed.” He
sites many cities that were affected by the renewal, claiming that 40 acres
of land would be taken for every mile of new freeway. This is a startling
number, and the damage can be seen throughout many American cities.
He singles out the damage done to Boston:
“The demolitions in Boston were most tragic from a
historical point of view, eliminating the dense fabric
of the only ‘medieval’ city in the U.S. To build the
central artery, and elevated freeway that crossed
the center of the city, more than twenty thousand
residents were evicted”
The Boston central artery is an important case study into the damage
caused by infrastructural growth, but also later on how communities tried
to repair the damage.
My research into the effect of urban infrastructure on Boston continued
with the book The City in Mind: Notes on the Urban Condition3, by James
Howard Kunstler. The book highlighted many cities throughout the world
and the different forces that have shaped them throughout the 20th
century. I found the chapter on Boston to be the most helpful. It presents
a good amount of information on the different highway initiatives in the
city and the impact they had on the neighborhoods. He talks first about
3 Kunstler, James. 2002. Boston. In The city in mind: Notes on the urban condition, 195-
224. New York, NY: The Free Press.
the Massachusetts Turnpike (I-90) extension that was brought into the
city below the Fenway4 destroying a once stylish neighborhood and
creating a large swath of traffic between the Back Bay and Roxbury. He
later describes the impact of Interstate 93 on the downtown district of
Boston:
“The new elevated artery sliced clear across the tip
of the old Shawmut Peninsula, around the financial
district, cutting off the historic North End from the
rest of the city with a great wall of noise, perpetual
darkness, and tailpipe emissions.”
Kunstler also describes the corridor of the city removed to build Interstate
Highway 6955 and the large amount of land taken by imminent domain
for that project. It is these examples that really demonstrate the impact
of large-scale urban planning on the cityscape. These highway projects
carved Boston into pieces, leaving fragmented neighborhoods, and often
times dividing people with impermeable barriers.
One final source that frames some of the issues I am looking at is the
book Perspectives on Urban Infrastructure6, which compiles essays by
different authors. The chapter The Evolution of the Urban Infrastructure
in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries highlights all of the great
movements of modern infrastructural growth from the late 1800’s through
the 1980’s. It gives the reader a great foundation on the development
of urban infrastructure. The section about the “automobile revolution”
went into depth on the impact of the car on the urban form, stating that
the “radical innovation” prompted huge changes in urban infrastructural
systems, with great investment in new and improved highways, traffic
systems, and the redevelopment of downtown areas. This, like the previous
authors discussed, draws a strong connection between the advent of
transportation systems and the form that urban areas have taken. This
4 The Fenway is part of the series of parks and green spaces designed by Frederick
Law Olmsted that has become know as The Emerald Necklace.
5 Interstate 695 is an un-built highway project that was meant to be an “inner belt”
for the city of Boston. The project was abandoned in 1970 after strong community
opposition.
6 Tarr, Joel. 1984. The Evolution of the Urban Infrastructure in the Nineteenth and
Twentieth Centuries. In Perspectives on Urban Infrastructure. 4-66. Washington
DC: National Academy Press.
8 9
sensation can be seen in urban areas worldwide, with great impact on old
European and Middle Eastern cities with ancient urban fabric, as well as
newly formed American cities with new urban fabric.
Social stratification within society:
Social stratification has been a part of society from the very beginning
of civilization, and is an inevitable construct of every modern society. That
being said, there are certain factors that can either reinforce or break
down the forces causing social stratification. The goal of this realm of
research is to understand these forces and their effects on society.
The most informative source on social stratification is Society: The
Basics7, by John Macionis. The chapter titled Social Stratification, as the
title suggests goes into great depth on the causes and effects of social
stratification and gives a good foundation for further exploration. The
book states that social stratification is based on four important principles:
“Social stratification is a trait of society, not
simply a reflection of individual differences…
Social stratification carries over from generation
to generation… Social stratification is universal
but variable… Social stratification involves not just
inequality but beliefs as well.”
It is these four points that outline the main features of social stratification
within all societies. It goes into further discussion siting examples of
stratification within societies throughout the world. It even states that
stratification makes societies more functional and prosperous. It goes
into great depth to describe the factors that cause stratification and the
feelings it causes amongst the social classes.
One very helpful source that starts to stitch together the correlation of
social stratification and urban infrastructure is Common Place Revisited:
Repairing the American Metropolis8, by Douglas Kelbaugh. This source is
very in depth, but I found the chapter Paved With Good Intentions to be
the most helpful and on topic with my tracks of research. It focuses on
7 Macionis, John. 2009. Social Stratification In Society: The basics 10th ed. Leah Jewell. 206-245. New Jersey: Pearson.
8 Kelbaugh, Douglas. 2002. Common Place Revisited: Repairing the American Metropolis,
University of Washington Press.
repairing what he considers culturally fragmented cities:
“We would be better sustained if our communities
were more mixed in socioeconomic, racial, and
ethnic terms. It is better to take out our differences
with our fellow citizens on a day-to-day basis in
mixed communities, where we rub shoulders in a
true public realm with everyone, including people
we don’t understand and don’t like. Many small face-
to-face encounters, however unpleasant, are better
than infrequent but cataclysmic violence, whether It
be mugging, civil insurrection, or terrorism.”
He also talks about the tendency for the upper class to settle outside of
the cities in suburban areas:
“This kind of separation breeds Ignorance and
misunderstanding and builds tension. This tension,
allowed to fester long enough, is likely ultimately to
erupt in violence and confrontation.”
This supports my claim to bring socioeconomic classes together, that
through interaction and face-to-face experiences some of the negative
effects of social stratification can be mitigated. He also sites that many of
these neighborhoods have been fragmented in the past century by great
expansion and new urban planning methods. He argues that cities are
complex organisms that have been built over many generations:
“They must be designed and built incrementally,
evolving slowly and laboriously – the sum of many
acts, some large, some small. And, like any self-
regulating system, they must correct and recorrect
themselves continuously.”
It is this long-term mindset that can be taken when looking for strategies
to remedy many of the issues caused by the advent of large-scale
infrastructural systems.
10 11
Actions taken to mitigate the impact of urban infrastructure on
communities:
There have been many attempts in the last few decades to try to undo
much of the damage caused by the urban planning of the early and mid
20th century. Many communities have sought to bury or bridge over large
pieces of infrastructure in order to stitch together pieces of fragmented
neighborhoods. The two case studies I researched both took place in
Boston, and they are good examples of how a historic city has tried to
repair the scars left by infrastructural growth.
A journal article that appeared in Harvard Design Magazine discusses
the Big Dig9 project. The article, titled Paved with good intentions:
Boston’s central artery project and a failure of city building10, goes into
great depth on the initial plans and eventual failures of the project. It sites
the initial goals of the Big Dig as wanting to reconnect the divided sectors
of the city and bring new life to the zone inhabited by the double-decker
highway. The resulting area, named the Rose Kennedy Greenway11, has
been met with criticism as doing little more to unite the neighborhoods
than the highway it replaced.
Douglas Kelbaugh12 talks about some of the issues that face the
greenway. Citing that the space should not be left entirely open as it is
today:
“Twenty-seven acres is a lot of land in the urban
setting. It could be composed to contain tremendous
civic amenity, activity, and value, without skyscrapers.
Indeed, if the old city is to be truly knitted back
together, this land must be built upon.”
This shows that the strategy often employed by contemporary urban
planners of leaving large areas of “green space” can be detrimental to
the urban setting if not also mixed with a certain quantity of built forms.
9 The Big Dig was the nickname for the project to bury Boston’s central artery
highway under the city as an attempt to reconnect the financial district and the
North End of the city.
10 Murray, Hubert. 2005. Paved with good intentions: Boston’s central artery project and a
failure of city building. Harvard Design Magazine (22) (2005): 74-82.
11 Named in honor of Kennedy family matriarch Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy
12 Kelbaugh, Douglas. 2002. Common Place Revisited: Repairing the American Metropolis,
University of Washington Press.
The book Breakthroughs: Re-Creating the American City13, discusses the
project to build I-695 and the eventual community backlash that led to its
abandonment. The project eventually became known as the Southwest
Corridor and is a great example of a project that tried to repair the
damages caused by the clearing of land to create the highway. The book
catalogues the project from when the highway plans were abandoned
through its development into the early 90s. It highlights the power of
community opposition and how united communities feel empowered to
fight against fragmentation.
Kelbaugh further elaborates on the importance of the community
opposition movement:
“A coalition of forces now formed that ran across
class, party, and ethnic lines from rich Brahmins
in Milton to poor working Irish constituents of
Congressman Tip O’Neill in blue-collar Cambridge
to “black power’’ militants in Roxbury, some of
whom stood to lose their homes to l-695· The issues
came into focus. They’d all had enough of urban
freeways slicing and dicing the city. They wanted
better streetcars, subways, and commuter rail.
They wanted to rescue the historic city from the
Highwaymen.”
This community opposition movement is a key part of the movement
to remedy the issues created by urban infrastructure. It shows that the
communities recognize the impact and the benefits of having cohesive
and non-fragmented communities. The desire to re-unite fragmented
communities is the core argument of my thesis.
After conducting the research, the parallels between social stratification
and the growth of urban infrastructure can be identified. It is apparent
that the automobile has had a profound impact on how cities have grown
and changed over the past century. The infrastructure built to facilitate
the automobile often ran directly through existing communities, leaving
13 Guskind, Robert, and Neal Peirce. 1993. Breakthroughs: Re-Creating the American City.
New Jersey: Center for Urban Policy Research.
12 13
them severed and disconnected. This only served to perpetuate the
construct of social stratification that is apparent in all functional societies.
There have been attempts at reconnecting the fragmented communities
in many cities, but many have been unsuccessful. It is important to learn
from these precedents so that future reparations can be made more
successful.
Visual Studies
15
Much of the exploration process fo-
cused on visual and image based
studies that help to build a foun-
dation and understanding of ideas.
The investigation started with broad
ideas and through production was
narrowed down to reflect the cur-
rent thesis ideas. A running blog of
these explorations are available at:
www.drew-powers.com
The mind maps to the right
explore the main ideas of the
thesis, and emphasize the key
terms for further research.
16 17
Collaging was used as a way to
express and explore ideas. Digital
montage as well as physical collaging
allowed the expression of integral
concepts of the thesis.
This collage expresses the idea
that a barrier such as a highway
or railroad track can often divide
people of different socioeconomic
backgrounds, leaving them
separated by feet but living
worlds apart.
18 19
This physical collage uses two webs
to represent different social classes
within society that are then “tied”
together through bonds within
society.
20 21
This visual abstract compiles a series
of images that show the impact
infrastructure has on the urban
environment.
22 23
After conducting the research, the parallels between
social stratification and the growth of urban
infrastructure can be identified. It is apparent that the
automobile has had a profound impact on how cities
have grown and changed over the past century. The
infrastructure built to facilitate the automobile often
ran directly through existing communities, leaving
them severed and disconnected. This only served to
perpetuate the construct of social stratification that
is apparent in all functional societies. There have been
attempts at reconnecting the fragmented communities
in many cities, but many have been unsuccessful. It
is important to learn from these precedents so that
future reparations can be made more successful.
By stitching together and reconnecting communities
that are interrupted by pieces of infrastructure, one
can break down the hard lines and prevent them from
reinforcing social stratification within society.
24 25
Site
26 27
Site Criteria
• Urban Setting in a city that has older urban fabric and modern infrastructure in conflict
• Neighborhoods that have been interrupted or divided by built infrastructure
• Unique socioeconomic situations on either side - Preferably some type of glaring extremes (financial, racial, age)
• Should have space for new interventions with minimal demolition or disruption to existing buildings and infrastructure
• Look for areas that can be “activators” to stitch the urban fabric back together
Site: Interstate 90 - Allston/North Allston
Interstate 90, as known as the Massachusetts Turnpike, was built in the 1950s as a means to connect Boston to the fast expanding suburbs west of the city. It sits on the old right of way for the Boston & Albany Railroad. The highway runs directly through the neighborhood of Allston, leaving the two sides segregated with only a few points of physical and visual connection. This separation has caused the two sides to grow differently over the years, leading to different demographics and sense of identity on either side. While an exact site has not yet been determined, the area is definitely intriguing, and the need for re-connection across the Pike is necessary to activate both neighborhoods.
aerial image of site overlay shows the area impacted by the pike
site plan
28 29
1776
1779
Historical maps show the conditions over the centuries. The overlay shows the amount of urban fabric currently inhabited by the Mass Pike.
figure ground - shows the void in the urban fabric and difference in building density on either side
figure ground - shows what the urban fabric could look like if the area had grown naturally with its surroundings
30 31
1924
1908
33
1954
1930
35
1967
1955
37
current
39
Program
41
Foster Community AwarenessVoyeurism
Break Urban Boundaries
Unite Social ClassesLocal Government
Sharing KnowledgeSharing Experiences
ArtsSocial InteractionConversation Physical Activity
Education
The program I seek to bring to the sight should help to bring social classes together and foster social interactions and experiences between them. The program should have an emphasis on education and the arts. The building could take on the form of a performance arts center or school that focuses on the performing arts. This will create an environment that will foster the interactions and experiences that I seek to create. If children from the surrounding communities attend the same school or activities it will lead them to be aware and respectful of one another regardless of their socioeconomic position.
42 43
Potential Program Inclusions
Performing Arts School and Exhibition Center
Performance Center/Auditorium..................................................10,000 sq ft
Classrooms (qty undetermined)........................................................700 sq ft
Gymnasium/Recreation Space.......................................................6,000 sq ft
Administrative Space...........................................................................1,500 sq ft
Undetermined........................................................................................3,000 sq ft
Design Method
As I move forward with my explorations, I will continue to research
the issues pertaining to my thesis. This will include many site visits to
understand the socioeconomic dynamics of the surrounding community.
Strong understanding of site forces and demographics will be very
important in creating a successful intervention. The goal will be to create
a project that serves to reconnect communities and mend the bonds
broken years ago. This will foster a strong sense of community identity
and involvement.
44 45
Timeline
46 47
Evaluation Criteria
The following is some of the criteria I believe that my
final thesis project should be judged on:
• Does the thesis explore new territory or advance
the discourse on a subject in architecture?
• Does the designed project embody the ideas and
goals of the thesis idea?
• Did the design process engage with and reinforce
the thesis idea?
• Is the project site appropriate for the thesis idea?
• Are the ideas represented well both graphically
and through text in the final presentation?
Ideas for Further Research
The thesis project should raise many questions for
further research and exploration:
• Can architecture bring fragmented communities
together?
• Do stratified communities want to be united or do
they seek to stay separate?
• Will educational programs serve to bring social
classes together?
Results
The results of the thesis should advance the discourse
on the impact of urban infrastructure on surrounding
communities. It should represent one solution to
mending the broken urban fabric that has been
destroyed by decades of uncontrolled infrastructural
growth. This should raise awareness that there is a need
to address these communities instead of looking past
them in the push towards new urban environments.
48 49
Bibliography
50 51
Giovannini, Joseph. 2009. Highway High: A Progressive Public School
Repairs an Architecturally Fragmented Neighborhood. I.D 56 (2)
(2009): 79-80.
Guskind, Robert, and Neal Peirce. 1993. Breakthroughs: Re-Creating the
American City. New Jersey: Center for Urban Policy Research.
Ingersoll, Richard. 2006. Sprawltown: Looking for the city on its edges,
ed. Jennifer Thompson. New York, NY: Princeton Architectural
Press.
Kelbaugh, Douglas. 2002. Common place revisited: Repairing the Ameri-
can Metropolis, University of Washington Press.
Kunstler, James. 2002. Boston. In The city in mind: Notes on the urban
condition, 195-224. New York, NY: The Free Press.
Macionis, John. 2009. Social Stratification In Society: The basics 10th ed.
Leah Jewell. 206-245. New Jersey: Pearson.
Mann, Roy B. 1991. Boston’s Southwest Corridor: From Urban Battle-
ground to Paths of Peace. Places 7 (3) (Spring): 46-61.
Murray, Hubert. 2005. Paved with good intentions: Boston’s central
artery project and a failure of city building. Harvard Design Maga-
zine(22) (2005): 74-82.
Safdie, Moshe. 1997. The city after the automobile: An architect’s vision.
Basic Books.
Schultz, Anne-Catrin. 2007. Carlo Scarpa Layers. Trans. Lize Klavina.
Everbest Printing Company.
Tarr, Joel. 1984. The Evolution of the Urban Infrastructure in the Nine-
teenth and Twentieth Centuries. In Perspectives on Urban Infra-
structure. 4-66. Wasington DC: National Academy Press.
52 53
Appendix
54 55
Some early collages experimenting
with the concept of biomimicry (below)
as well as Light & Shadow (right)
Mind maps were used as a tool to
explore our interests and find common
ideas amongst them.
56 57
57
Permeable City: Mending the Urban Fabric
Through Breaking Down Infrastructure
Drew Powers
www.drew-powers.com