The city can no longer keep up with the people who inhabit it. The solution may be an inexpensive,

flexible strategy of rapid urbanism capable of mediating between the rigid permanent city fabric

and the volatile nature of modern consumption.

placeholder

{temporary occupation of vacant lot}

reverse parklet

{revitalization engine for vacant spaces}

Upgrade path

{intermediate step for entrepreneurs}

atomization

{extension of reach by existing tenant}

 TERRITORIES OF OPERATIONPRECEDENTS/TYPOLOGIES

INTERFACE WITH ENVIRONMENT

QUALITIES

AROUND

(STREET)

INSERTED

WITHIN

(VACANCIES)

FLUSH

BETWEEN

(INTERSTITIAL)

FLOATING

FAST

ABOVE

(ROOFTOPS, SKY)

MOBILE

CHEAP

precedent strategies

SUBTRACTIVE CITY MAPPING

code analysis

/ POP-UPrenew newcastle

parklet

/ local codes/ pet arch.

aldo van eyck

plug-In city

food truckpark(ing) day

POTENTIAL APPLICATIONS

misa grannisthe calcified city

The city has become calcified. With

advancements in technology, the way weconsume our environment changes rapidly,outpacing the adaptive capacity the

permanent city fabric mired in endlessbureaucracy, high costs and the inherently

slow nature of new construction. The resultis wasted financial and materialinvestment, stagnation and decay,

particularly in times of economic hardship.We must, then, develop a secondary layer of operation outside the realm of 

permanence that exploits new territoriesfor growth; one that enables fast, cheap

and flexible interventions that can rapidlyreact to changing demands.

The codes governing these spaces arestudied in depth and mapped in reverse;by beginning with the maximum possible

territory and carving away space only whenspecified by the code, the greatest possible

new territory for growth is revealed. At thestreet scale, this method also revealsundefined variables that may become a

tool for innovation, such as the lack of amaximum vertical dimension for parklets.Finally, territories and interfacing strategies

are extracted from the collected precedents

and then cross-bred in a matrix of potentialprojects.

A design experiment is carried out at theintersection of the territory around

buildings and a plug-in interface. Theexisting element of scaffolding is appropri-ated for a more substantial use—creating a

layer of rapid, reciprocal urbanism thatnon-destructively augments the buildingsto which it attaches with the eventual goal

of rehabilitating or enabling growth withinthe permanent structure and rendering

itself obsolete. The system can then besimply disassembled and moved to a newlocation in need of rapid stimulus.

By analyzing the strategies employed byintellectual predecessors as well as mining

San Francisco’s own extensive collection of codes for potential loopholes, this thesis

hopes to define a strategy of rapidurbanism that creates a layer of reciprocitycapable of mediating between the rigid

infrastructure of brick and mortar and thevolatile nature of modern consumption.

 

     F     O     U     R     T     H

      S     T     R     E     E     T

     F     I     F     T     H

      S     T     R     E     E     T

FLEXIBLE

PARKLET CODE INTERPRETATION

hauptstadt

scaffold city pneumatic space

design experiments

brian price, latent politics