8/3/2019 Misa Grannis - Abstract 2/22

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Abstract

The permanent structures that comprise the majority of built space in the city are too rigid and

inexible to keep up with the fast pace of a modern, technology-driven life. As seen in the work of

Archigram and Buckminster Fuller, for example, the shortcomings of permanence in an era of rapid

change were apparent even before the advent of global networks or mobile technology. The problem

is becoming even more pronounced as advances in personal technology enable more exible patternsof living, particularly when combined with the nancial limitations of a global recession.

This thesis hypothesizes that by looking to a more impermanent form of architecture, the problems

of inexibility and stagnation inherent in xed structures can be bypassed and new opportunities

for revitalization and growth can be seized that were previously unattainable. Moreover, mobile

and temporary architecture does not have to exist in competition with the existing fabric, but can

augment it and work symbiotically to make the city more efcient and productive at multiple scalar

and chronological levels. Finally, mobile and temporary strategies foster community involvement and

a sense of ownership, beneting both the city and individual neighborhoods.

The modern urban economy is driven in large part by social forces augmented by technology.Spectacles pop up, attract crowds and promptly disappear, converting patches of sidewalks and

public plazas into temporary event spaces. This twitter urbanism is particularly evident in the

growing popularity of the food truck movement. However, while extremely mobile, food trucks and

carts are insufcient in their ability to span multiple scales. This proposal seeks to be as nimble and

rational as the food truck, but as ambitious in its reach as Archigrams Walking City.

Comprised of two exible tracks and an accordion of rigid partitions that slides along them, the

proposal is both highly adaptable and embedded with constraints. By sliding the partitions along

the rail a tall, narrow space can be transformed into a short, wide one, affecting the adjacent cells

in turn. A variety of interchangeable panels can be substituted to create an assembly of difference

that allows users to customize and control the exible cellular matrix. The criteria for this fast, cheapand exible system were that it be continuous and as spatially and tectonically sophisticated as the

slinky without being limited to a single dimension of movement. It should accommodate multiple

scales of program and be free of xed dimensions without being innitely exible. Finally, it should

act as an extension or thickening of the street and sidewalk as well as connect to adjacent buildings.

I have chosen to operate on the south side of Market between fth and sixth avenues because this

block, with its collection of vacant parcels left by the stalled CityPlace development, exemplies

the conditions of stagnation and opportunity for reinvigoration I previously described. However, the

open nature of this system suggests it could be deployed on any site in need of reinvigoration or a

temporary space of operation.

Misa Grannis

Thesis Review 2.22.12

Advisor: Brian Price