HOUSING FOR THE 21st CENTURY
New York's Storfront for Art & Architecture is inaugurating a new discussion about housing and its importance to urbanites and rural dwellers alike. A new publication is being launched - eVolo.
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eVolo #1 Launch
Jul 28 2009
7pm
by Carlo Aiello, Editor-in-Chief
It is with great pleasure that we introduce you to the premier issue of eVolo. This architecture and design journal was initially conceived in 2004 by a group of graduate students at Columbia University in New York City. Following graduate school, inspired and idealistic, many of us felt the need to reach further and look more closely at ourselves and our specific strengths to figure out what we could uniquely contribute to the field of architecture. Unfortunately entering the work force revealed a scary truth; the world of architecture is a tough place, making little room to accommodate all the unique contributions that so many brilliant young architects were so eager to make. This, specifically, is the inspiration for eVolo; to provide a forum for showcasing the most innovative, the most avant-garde designs that will define architecture in the twenty-first century.
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North American housing stock will need to be renewed in the next 15-30 year period. In Toronto, Mayor David Miller is overseeing the Mayor's Tower Renewal Project. Its aim is to renew and rebuild large-scale apartments in the Greater Toronto Area. Initial focus will be on greening and improving existing buildings. The project will likely soon have a successor. Build Toronto may bring about regional activity. Other players will be soon to enter. New banks and alternative financing models are in development. The financing available to the Housing sector will grow considerably in the near future. Mixed-income projects are ideal for achieving excellence in landscaping and architecture. I think the visions that eVolo will help display and promote will help the field gain strength, daring, and broad appeal.
The graphic and geo-spatial modes of representation germane to architecture and landscaping appeal to a variety of literacies. With the inclusion of video or audio, many senses are brought in to play.
A discussion of spaces focuses on the terms and conditions in which buildings are situated. What is the vocabulary of the surrounding environment? What is its taxonomy and heritage? Conditions relate to a place's sensitivities, proclivities, and restrictions.
The graphic portrayal of local conditions by the architect, urban designer, or cultural planner, each permit citizens to more fully enter a proposed world. They portray the past or the near future, invoking an imagined context and passage. A diversity of issues can be explored through the assistance of the architectural field and the planning fields. When consulting the public on issues of land and development, there exists latent opportunities for engagement. Engagement leads to citizens interacting more directly. Cities set the context. They are incorporated bodies created precisely to establish and support frameworks, within which people and organizations act and are acted upon in mutual assurance.
The City of Toronto is playing host to a conference this fall. It's about collaboration and the health of urban regions. Sherri Torjman identifies the role of emergent systems, each supported in their networking and dynamic states. Organization and bodies within the city need to network fluidly, yet within pools of activity and knowledge best suited to their aims. Torjman identifies four areas or zones for social services delivery - Sustenance, Adapatation, Engagement, and Opportunity. It's a framework for labelling and socializing a region's NGOs, government offices, schools, hospitals, and most public services. Online systems play a considerable role. The emerging economy communicates dynamically using information feeds. A regional system must offer a groundwork for participation. Its aim would be to professionally support an emergent order of resource and information sharing among residents and corporations. Info-Nets in cities will likely require proof of residence or connection to the city for the registration and ownership of sub-domains. It's kind of like a new land deal. Everyone gets some real estate. But now the digital realm directly assists isolated and connected residents alike through regional conversations, local happenings, familiar issues, and the world beyond. Homepages take on a new sensibility in this new wave. Inclusion of a domain's ownership in the sale of a property might make sense. What if a localized address, say 347 Yonge St. could be typed: (http://)347yonge.toronto . What if you didn't need to maintain it. If one or several photographs were displayed of your property's front, would that be ok? As other properties posted photos, viewers would be able to skip horizontally along streets, viewing the city through its residents eyes. Photos can be uploaded and presented using Photosynth (Microsoft) or similar technologies. If one chooses, a sophisticated overlay of information and media can be activated for each Homepage. How do sensibilities change and harmonize when individuals are connected to timely, relevant, and assistive information? Will regions unify?
Public consultation related to cultural and urban planning, architecture, and landscaping can connect engagement opportunities through online assistive systems. These regional Info-Nets provide common spaces for imagination, which all encounter other issues and complexities as they play out. Does the architecture of the 21st century begin with the home? How do digital and physical localities help the architecture come about? The localizing of information and media can aid neighbours in conceptualizing their common situations, challenges, and opportunities. EveryBlock.com's code is now publicly avaiable under open license. I think regional Webs will build on top of EveryBlock's code. Common interfacing throughout leagues of cities will permit wide nets of citizens to form. The connection rates may be more than we have recently seen. Consider recent advancements in online translation services. Cities can interface with each other through on-the-fly translating amidst sharing and contributing. If Barcelona mount's a public project, perhaps I and others globally have something to contribute. Much of the Web's presentation is controlled through CSS files, which stand for Cascading Style Sheets. For a federated online system of City Webs, we can commonly develop a City Style Sheets. I think this should be the focus of the Web's next generation of pioneers - our global cities.
