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A Future City Vision for Detroit

Dan Pitera

A Future City Vision for Detroit

Detroit is probably one of today’s largest urban laboratories as well as one of the most fascinating examples of a city that reluctantly has been coerced into reinventing itself in order to survive, now that it is bankrupt and faces urban wastelands of titanic dimensions, and is affected by a severe decrease in population. Dan Pitera evokes Detroit’s renewal through the “Detroit Future City” project, which fosters citizen initiatives and experimentation. It promotes a dense city in terms of complexity and intensity of human interactions. His hybrid work, midway between research and practice in the field, leads him to engage in “participatory planning” with the ambition to improve the resilience and adaptability of the city. Dan Pitera is an architect and the Executive Director of the Detroit Collaborative Design Center at the University of Detroit Mercy School of Architecture.

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Reactivating Downtown Detroit

Dan Mullen

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Reactivating Downtown Detroit

The city of Detroit, the symbol of the bust of the automobile industry and the herald of the second Industrial Revolution and the disastrous urban sprawl that accompanied it, is now in a process of complete self-reinvention. This requires the energy and determination of all of its residents, but also, given the near-disappearance of public services, that of a new generation of private real estate developers—among whom is the investment fund, Quicken Loans. Dan Mullen presents their investments and their approach of the revitalization of Downtown Detroit, which could be summarized as “Live, work and play in Detroit.” The city has become an observation point for technological transition. A compelling sign of the times, the group works with no real planning agenda, by multiplying experiences, especially in public spaces, just as informal organizations would have done in previous times. Dan Mullen is the president of Bedrock, a full-service real estate firm based in Detroit. Bedrock is helping to revitalize downtown Detroit by attracting prestigious tenants and operators to the Central Business District.

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New Old Cities vs Old New Cities: The City of which future?

Julien Eymeri

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New Old Cities vs Old New Cities: The City of which future?

When one travels to visit the smart cities that are emerging everywhere on the planet, one is confronted with urban realities that are so novel that they seem to be perpetually underway. That is, should these cities finally fully materialize one day, and not simply remain an object of well-intentioned and more or less single-minded discourse. The consultant Julien Eymeri confronts for Stream his experience of Songdo (the Korean smart city) and Masdar (its Emirati equivalent), along with Detroit’s reinvention and transformation efforts to question the characteristics of cities in the digital era and the role of business in their development. Julien Eymeri is consultant at Quartier Libre Agency.

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The City-District of Copacabana: from the modern to the contemporary

Roberto Cabot

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The City-District of Copacabana: from the modern to the contemporary

The contrast with the neo-cybernetic model of smart cities (a vision of urban planning based on control and security that has many troubling facets) may explain why many observers of urban realities are riveted as they examine the spontaneous urban forms typical of the cities of the South. Copacabana is an exemplary microcosm of this dimension that is such an integral part of Rio de Janeiro. The artist Roberto Cabot analyzes the district of Copacabana from the inside and beyond stereotypes, including its informal way of operating, its self-managed and non-institutional systems of shops, security and social life. Roberto Cabot is a Brazilian painter, sculptor and musician.

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Inhabiting the World

Michel Lussault

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Inhabiting the World

The year 1972 probably stands as a watershed in human history given that with Blue Marble, a photo taken by Apollo 12, humanity was able to contemplate for the first time the outer boundaries of its territory, completing the cycle of the conquest of the planet initiated by modernity. Yet also, with the publication of the Limits to Growth report, it realized what the adverse consequences of this continuous conquest were. For Stream, the geographer Michel Lussault reflects on the urban revolution and exposes how much it modifies our way of inhabiting the Earth, the World with a capital “W”, as if to signify this new human condition, before proposing an approach of cities in terms of spatialities rather than spaces, in an effort to better address the challenges of the urban revolution. Michel Lussault is a geographer, professor at ENS Lyon, and director of the Institut Français d’Éducation. He is also the president of the architectural center Arc-en-Rêve in Bordeaux.

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Interactive Collaborations

Yann Moulier-Boutang

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Interactive Collaborations

As early as the 2000s, Yann Moulier-Boutang discussed in his article for Rem Koolhaas’ Mutations the issues of cognitive capitalism, digital technologies but also the environment—a topic that has finally become pivotal now that it is finally perceived as problematic. He had already foreseen the return to a quest for meaning, which stemmed from the desire to find an approach to life that goes beyond the myth of progress and continuous growth, and to go on to live the “good life”. The destruction of the industrial era has accelerated and he now calls for an “ecology of thought,” referring to widespread urbanization and its main developments, including the consolidation of a “capitalism of intangibles” and the importance of externalities. He presents us with new conceptual tools to understand and to survive this state of complexity—most notably his concepts of “pollinization” and the “halo”, but also the importance of collaborative approaches, trust, and open data. Yann Moulier-Boutang is an economist and essayist. He teaches at the University of Technology of Compiègne, at the Binghamton University of New York, and at Shanghai’s UTSEUS Complexcity laboratory.

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Imaginary in a Techno-Sciences-Economy Age

Pierre Musso

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Imaginary in a Techno-Sciences-Economy Age

The reason why the unfolding urban revolution represents such an upheaval for our societies is because it revaluates both our conventional and modern value systems, which were the foundations of the development of our societies. Western observers are overwhelmed because they have suddenly been deprived of meaning, narratives and imagery—precisely what would enable them to see themselves in this new world. Our representations of the world were neither natural nor eternal, but to understand their history and how they were formed is essential to building a new collective narrative of our dwelling on Earth. The philosopher Pierre Musso exposes the historical depth of our representations and describes the generalized technological turn in society as a major force affecting our imaginaries, but also the paramount role taken on by the networks and the cyclical play of metaphors between machine and organism that was developed to better grasp urban space. Pierre Musso is a philosopher and PhD in political sciences. He teaches information and communication sciences at Télécom ParisTech and the University of Rennes.

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The Age of Discontinuity

Jean Viard

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Jean Viard

The Age of Discontinuity

The reason why the urban revolution is so acute, quick and sudden, is because it is driven by a compelling force: the spectacular increase in the world population. By the mid-twenty-firstt century, the number of human beings will have tripled. We are currently facing the formidable challenge of having to house all these people to come. This brutal shift also entails new ways of experiencing time on our human scale. The sociologist Jean Viard describes the link between accelerated global urbanization and the demographic revolution that people are experiencing now that humans have begun to live complete and discontinuous lives, before delving into the issue of time as well as the importance of collaborative approaches in improving our quality of life. Jean Viard is a sociologist and economist. Associate director of research at the CNRS and Cevipof, he is also the director of the Éditions de l’Aube publishing company.

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The malleable, adaptable metropolis: toward a temporary and temporal urbanism

Luc Gwiazdzinski

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The malleable, adaptable metropolis: toward a temporary and temporal urbanism

Urban planning, under the impulsion of modernism, has long been considered solely from the perspective of space. Time-based approaches are still a neglected field of public policy. However, the ongoing changes in our relationship to time and space call for a revaluation of these values. Luc Gwiazdzinski identifies the reasons why he theorizes a greater use of time-based planning to address the challenges of sustainable urban development, insisting on the notions of temporary and temporal urbanism while promoting a malleable and adaptable metropolis. Luc Gwiazdzinski is a geographer, head of the “Innovation et Territoire” Masters Program at IGA (Grenoble Alpes University), associate professor at Shanghai University, and president of the Pôle de recherche et d’expérimentation sur les arts urbains (Polau).

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Coactivity : Notes for The Great Acceleration, Taipei Biennial 2014

Nicolas Bourriaud

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Coactivity : Notes for The Great Acceleration, Taipei Biennial 2014

As a prelude to the Taipei Biennial, Nicolas Bourriaud presents a panorama of contemporary art and its transformations in the era of the Anthropocene. The impact of human activities on the Earth system has led us to the geophysical epoch of the Anthropocene. This condition affects our world view and is bringing about new philosophical perceptions on the world, considered in terms of substance, as the speculative realists invite us to do with their holistic school of thought in which human beings, animals, plants and objects must be treated in the same way. This philosophy resonates strongly with contemporary art, as the relationship between biological life and the inert seems to be the main tension within contemporary culture, creating a “space of coactivity” that provides a new meaning to form and gives birth to what he calls “exformes.” Nicolas Bourriaud is an art historian, art critic, theorist and exhibition curator. Since 2016, he is the director of the future Montpellier Contemporain (MoCo).

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Naturalizing architecture

Marie-Ange Brayer

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Naturalizing architecture

Since digital technologies have emerged, they have caused an epistemic rupture in the field of architecture. Initially misunderstood and rejected, this revolution now informs a large part of architectural research and has achieved an expressive power as well as operational capability on an unprecedented scale. Art historian Marie-Ange Brayer analyzes the recent evolutions of computational architecture and presents the work of a young generation of architects whose work revolves around temporalities, materials, and the self-organizing systems of living organisms. She explains the concept of “naturalization” in the field of architecture: a form of hybridization that makes it possible to rethink the opposition between nature and artifice. Marie-Ange Brayer is doctor in architecture and art history. From 1996 to 2014, she is the director of the Frac Centre.

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Peri-Urban Land Stakes

Michel Desvigne

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Peri-Urban Land Stakes

The city of the Anthropocene boasts a new relation to nature that emerges from the elaboration of a novel continuum between urban spaces and the biosphere. This living dimension, which has long been suppressed by modernist planning schemes, has nevertheless always been at the core of the work and of the practice of landscape design. Michel Desvigne speaks of his attachment to the physical dimension of things, of how he envisions urbanization as a landscape designer and of his work on peri-urban territories and scattered housing—a key urban issue that he seeks to “mend” by working on the “lisière”, the intermediary landscape situated between the city and the agricultural landscape. He calls for a more significant commitment on behalf of public authorities, but also for a new vision for agriculture. Michel Desvigne is a landscape designer and architect, director of MDP Agency, Grand Prix in Urban Planning.

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No One Likes A City That’s Too Smart

Richard Sennett

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No One Likes A City That’s Too Smart

Smart cities are making the headlines of newspapers and symposia on urban planning. Rightly or wrongly, they—sometimes simultaneously—intrigue or concern people. Cities situated at the fringe of the world that have barely been founded are universally known even before having any residents. Whatever their potential, this overexposure is a sign of the times; reflective of our concerns with the way that technology will affect our lifestyles. In his study of smart cities, Richard Sennett compares Songdo, Masdar and Rio to promote a vision in which technology will improve coordination and collaboration, as opposed to preconception, circumscription and control—actions that would render cities barren. Richard Sennet is a historian and sociologist. He teaches at the London School of Economics and at Columbia University.

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Cities of Information

Carlo Ratti

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Cities of Information

An ever-increasing number of economic and institutional entities have taken up the subject of digital urbanism to conceive and design the smart cities of tomorrow, but also to program the technological shift that affects the cities of today. Spearheading this research is Professor Carlo Ratti, who describes the central role played by information in the development of cities and the way it is redefining their vision, their very nature and their day-to-day operations. He then describes for Stream the urban data processing experiments that his MIT laboratory, the SENSEable Lab, has conducted. These have led to the concept of the “real-time city”, which is equipped with sensors to capture and process data in addition to being characterized by “opportunistic remote sensing” of data that is generated by the behavior of the residents themselves. Managing and inhabiting cities becomes more efficient through this open-source approach. Carlo Ratti is an architect, founder of the Carlo Ratti Associati design firm. He is a researcher and teaches at the MIT SENSEable City Lab.

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Redifining the boundaries of architectural practice

Nader Tehrani

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Redifining the boundaries of architectural practice

In the current context of complex urban mutations, the architectural approach to the city must be completely revisited. Architects cannot base themselves on their own knowledge and their obsession for form anymore, but must gather, digest and confront the knowledge and methods from a large number of fields. This entails a radical shift in both culture and education. The director of MIT’s school of architecture, Nader Tehrani, presents his work on revamping the syllabus, which he has designed to foster interactions, collaboration and cross-disciplinarity. According to him, these are crucial aspects of the architecture of the cities of tomorrow, which he created the Center for Advanced Urbanism to investigate. Nader Tehrani is an architect and director of the NADAAA design firm. He teaches at the MIT, where he was the director of the architecture department from 2010 to 2014.

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Complexity, multiplicity, and adapatation within ecosystems

Alisa Andrasek

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Complexity, multiplicity, and adapatation within ecosystems

Contemporary architectural research is often fascinated by biological life but with an approach that goes beyond simple organic metaphors thanks to recent technological developments. Alisa Andrasek discusses the link between biology and her architectural practice, and her interest in the distribution of information in natural processes—a complexity that she tries to approach via big data. Her work in computational design is influenced by the convergence between information and materials, in an increasingly complex and open synthesis which enables it to go beyond the production of form and address the dynamic processes of matter itself. Alisa Andrasek is an architect, director and founder of the Biothing laboratory. She teaches at the Architectural Association of London.

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Material ecology

Neri Oxman

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Material ecology

It is a sign of both a shift in our relationship to organic life and the ubiquity of new information technologies that a young generation of architects has seized the digital tools within their reach to conceive of new forms in direct interaction with biological life. This is happening both through computational power and digitally-controlled additive fabrication. Nexi Oxman—an architect and a researcher at MIT, where she founded the Mediated Matter design research group—brings up the links between biology and design in her work on materials and 3-D printing. They reflect the use of biology as a technique and an approach to design that is inspired by nature and that modifies the very properties of materials themselves. Neri Oxman is an architect, designer. She is the director of the Material Ecology research initiative, and teaches at the MIT Media Lab.

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Self-assembly & programmable materials

Skylar Tibbits

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Self-assembly & programmable materials

According to Skylar Tibbits, we are living a period of revolutionary convergence between programming capabilities, biology, physics and nanotechnologies. Bolstered by these scientific breakthroughs, he works with his lab at MIT (the Self-Assembly Lab) in two main directions: self-assembly and 4-D printing of programmable materials, which accounts for the dimension of time, and changes in the behavior of materials when specific conditions are met and according to predefined scenarios. The development of these technologies will allow him to return to the scale of architecture, with elegant solutions in terms of both engineering and form to address the challenges of contemporary construction. Skylar Tibbits is an architect and director of SJET LLC. He is a researcher and teaches at the MIT, where he is the director of the Self-Assembly Lab.

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Typological Metabolism of Urban Transitions

John E. Fernández

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Typological Metabolism of Urban Transitions

To understand the mutations of global urbanization, one must take into account the local singularities of every urban situation. A new categorization of cities is more necessary than ever, and technology, including digital technology, is proving to be an essential tool. In this context, Professor John E. Fernández presents the work of MIT’s Urban Metabolism Group, whose complex studies use big data in order to draft a set of urban types categorized according to their metabolism. Resource use and waste production are just some of the metrics they employ in the design of carefully-targeted and efficient sustainability strategies. John E. Fernández is an urban planner and architect. He teaches in the architecture department’s Building Technology Program at MIT.

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Global City into Perspective

Saskia Sassen

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Saskia Sassen

Global City into Perspective

When they acknowledged the global urban boom at the turn of the twenty-first century, Western observers were dumbfounded by the sheer magnitude of the revolution that was unfolding. A small number of thinkers such as Saskia Sassen and Rem Koolhaas have nevertheless tried to grasp the phenomenon through concepts such as the “generic city” and the “global city.” After nearly fifteen years, this urbanization of the world is still advancing at full speed, even though a number of critical factors seem to have come into play. For this issue of Stream, Saskia Sassen looks back on our urban condition and on the evolutions of the “global city,” highlighting the increasing importance of social issues. More than ever before, she believes that the complexity of the city makes it the right scale for formulating sustainable strategies by repositioning our relationship with the biosphere. Saskia Sassen is a sociologist. Specialist of globalization, migrations and the sociology of the world’s largest cities, she teaches at Columbia University. Richard Sennett is the Centennial Professor of Sociology at the London School of Economics and a professor of the humanities at New York University.

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From a City of Residents to Urban Territory: The Advancing Revolution

Gilbert Emont

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From a City of Residents to Urban Territory: The Advancing Revolution

Global urbanization is acutely disrupting our ways of life and our ways of understanding the world. We are experiencing an ontological crisis and remain clueless when we try to reflect upon it and to conceptualize it, seeking for answers but also for solutions to its challenges. It seems clear to all that there is no one absolute truth anymore and that we can only apprehend this phenomenon in fragments, by asking questions of professionals in each and every possible disciplinary field. Many initiatives proceed in that way, gathering and comparing the points of view of thinkers and researchers. In light of the research carried out by the Institut Palladio—one of the think tanks that is re-examining contemporary urban planning—, Gilbert Emont analyzes the factors of change that are bringing about a “society of urbanites”, a new condition at the junction of four material transformations: the increase in life expectancy, the urbanization of the planet, the importance of sustainable development, and the widespread use of digital technologies. In this new world organized around human activity, he describes the challenges which cities of tomorrow will face, up to and including continuous innovation, physical adaptability and flexibility of use. Gilbert Emont is an economist and researcher at the Institut de l’Épargne Immobilière et Foncière (IEIF). He is the director of the Institut Palladio des Hautes Études sur l’Immobilier et la Cité.

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Future of Time

Etienne Klein

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Future of Time

Our altered relationship to time is at the very core of contemporary mutations, and the disruption of time has in fact become an obsession for our societies. The result of changes in technology and our new lifestyles, our experience of time is such that it feels fragmented, fleeting, accelerated or multiplied—even though, of course, it can only remain the same. For Stream, the physicist Étienne Klein has investigated the idea of an anthropological rupture before explaining his work in “cleaning up the verbal situation” as regards the notion of time, the changes in our relationship to time, the “chrono-dispersive” society, and the questioning of the notion of progress, and its corollary—our incapacity to project ourselves. Étienne Klein is a physician, philosopher and holds a PhD in philosophy of science. Renowned specialist of the notion of time in physics, he is the director of the Research Laboratory for Material Science at the CEA.

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Living systems

Philippe Chiambaretta

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Living systems

New relationships to nature have been fostered by the increasing awareness of our entry in the era of the Anthropocene and as a result the figure of biological life has largely become an obsessive metaphor. For artists, it is less a form of aesthetical inspiration than an opportunity to reconsider their work by circumventing the separations and simplifications of modern culture. Pierre Huyghe talks to Stream about his interest for the complexity of biological life, and the manner in which he is trying to incorporate it in his work over time, as well as his concepts of indifference, non-destination and under-determination. Introducing biological life in an oeuvre comes down to accepting a loss of control, creating a spectrum of undefined possibilities, and bringing about areas of “non-knowledge” and speculative conditions in the life forms. Pierre Huygue is a French artist. A recipient of many awards, and having been exhibited in the most prestigious international cultural institutions, his work investigates the complexity of organic life in order to create the conditions for the emergence of a self-evolving work. Interview with Éric Troncy, advises large companies on their strategy, organization and management culture. He is the co-founder of he consulting firm Quartier Libre, and Philippe Chiambaretta, graduated from the École des Ponts et Chaussées of Paris and MIT in Boston. He is the founder and director of PCA-STREAM.

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Multiple networks of globalization

David Ruy

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Multiple networks of globalization

For David Ruy, the key change in contemporary globalization lies in the way it is narrated, departing from the naive optimism in the beginning and now moving on to new fears, with each technology seemingly creating its own threats. Nevertheless, humankind will not renounce this knowledge and we will witness the emergence of new worlds based on technological platforms that will provide them with both coherence and communicability. David Ruy is convinced that we are starting to experience a shift in the metaphor of nature, which in earlier times was based on divinity, then later on the machine, and now, on the computer. This connection between nature and computation appears in his eyes to be the major challenge of tomorrow’s architecture, as a hybrid practice informed by new concepts in philosophy, especially Speculative Realism. David Ruy is an architect, co-director of the Ruy-Klein agency in New York, and teaches at SCI-Arc à Los Angeles.

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