NYC lecture one - 1/27/11

1. City as Lab
THURSDAYS 6-9PM

2. Introductory Lecture
6-6:10
Purpose of this course
Where are we? Introductory images
6:10-6:30
Course Structure
Syllabus
- Readings, Assignments, Tumblr Blog
6:30-7PM
- Why are we dealing with space?
- What is the multi-national city? What is the global city?
- Visual Research - Map making, Diagrams, Data Viz
7-7:15
Explain homework and readings
- Will review homework in detail in small group meetings on Friday

3. Where are we?
“They speak of Beirut as if it were an abstraction of the human
experience: it is not. Beirut was a city like any other and its people
were a people like any other. What happened here could happen
anywhere.”
- Makdial, 1990 from Divided Cities
“Especially between 1890 and 1940 a new culture (the Machine Age?) selected
Manhattan as a laboratory: a mythical island where the invention and testing of a
metropolitan lifestyle and its attendant architecture could be pursued as a collective
experiment in which the entire city became a factory of man-made experience, where
the real and the natural ceased to exist.”
“Manhattan is an accumulation of disasters that never happen.”
- Rem Koolhaas, Delirious New York, 1978

4. Balthazar in Beirut & NYC

5. High Line & Corniche

6. 14th Street & Hamra Street

7. Standard Hotel & Saint Georges Hotel

8. Green Markets NYC & Souk El Tayeb Beirut

9. Downtown Beirut & Downtown Beirut in Cairo

10. What is a city?

11. “The MNC is haunted by old memories and by visionary hallucinations.”
- Baxi and Martin

12. What are we to do?
1. Learn to read space
urban design theory + frameworks
2. Conduct visual research
mapping, photo, video, site analysis
3. Collaborate across disciplines
architecture, urban planners, international developers, technologist
4. Practice
field work, testing, prototyping
5. Share
social media, open source platforms

13. How will we learn?
Course Structure
Syllabus
Readings
Assignments
Tumblr Blog

14. Visual Research
MAPPING
Diagraming
Infographics
Tools:
Digital
Photo
Video
Open-source mapping platforms
Analog
Fabric
Interviews
Installation

15. MAPPING is political power.
1. Mapping as Identity Formation
2. Mapping as Border Building
3. Mapping as City Making

16. What is the urban fabric?
a participatory neighborhood fabric map

17. Google MyMaps Tutorial:
http://maps.google.com/support/bin/static.py?hl=en&page=guide.cs&guide=21670&topic=21676

18. Enclaves, Edges, Pathways of NYC & Beirut

19. We will embroider parts of NYC & Beirut

20. Homework Map a node of a local foodshed:
1. Locate a site where food is consumed, produced, sold and
visit it.
2. Identify the flows shaping your site (e.g. cultural, economical,
spatial, social). Find ways to visually document them and write
about them.
3. Take photos that document the specific site condition. Add
them to your map.
(You can do this in Google MyMaps or in other open-source
mapping platform)
Image: Liz Kueneke, Barcelona