Civis

Abstract

The word ‘city’ originates from the Latin root ‘civis’, meaning ‘citizen.’ As the etymology of the word suggests, cities have an intrinsic tie with its citizens. Urban spaces can be described as a ‘framework’ in which the inhabitants dynamically interact and occupy space. However, the citizens shape the formation of this framework just as much as the framework shapes the citizens. This thesis seeks to explore new strategies that prioritize the citizen as agents of change within a responsive architectural environment. Currently, the world’s cities are undergoing a dramatic densification and population increase. As cities continuously change, urban issues begin to emerge. The current reductive process of zoning and its programmatic organisation at the urban scale is a major problem. Instead of a top-down segregation of spatial use, contemporary cities show a more fine-grained, bottom-up mixed-use approach of program organisation. Likewise, population increase leads to high spatial demand. With the rate of population increase, demand outstrips supply, leading to an increase in land value. Consequently, city centers undergo a significant decrease in affordability. Problems of social segregation are joined handin- hand with problems of affordability. As land values increase, mid to low socio-economic citizens are often marginalized from the city center. The loss of diversity within society often leads to loss of culture within cities. The source of these urban issues do not originate solely from densification and population increase. The problem is in the approach and methodology in which these issues are mediated. This thesis argues that the current method of program organisation is too static to adequately respond to the dynamic changes and evolution of cities. Situated within the data abundant New York, this thesis will explore a responsive architecture that supports the fluid, changing nature of contemporary cities as the population increases. The application of a systematic, holistic and scripted design approach allows for architecture with adaptation inherently built into its core. Through analysing the digital traces of social behavior left behind by social networks such as foursquare, the built environment self-organises as a direct response to social inhabitance. Civis becomes a user driven, adaptive architectural infrastructure; a creation of its citizens.