Diagrams - Network Concepts

Diagrams of network concepts: board containing the development of centralized and nodal networks - with the addresses without roads diagram; the web tree (source nodes provide constant connectivity and access, feeding a hierarchy of nodes); social networking; blog network stream.

Networks

These sketches/diagrams depict networks in the built environment. This initiative was based on Monday's discussion*. These are specific diagrams about networks within buildings. I was looking for diagrams of networks in the built environment and this is where I started. Not sure I'm getting to the point. I hope it can lead me to a clearer definition of what a network is in building terms. I think I'll try again.



*Our discussion was based on the review (the hot topic was for me to find what is essential about this project) and we talked about defining what a network is, and, what a network is in building terms. In addition, I want to ask:
-What constitutes a network?
-What drives it?
-What are the elements?
-How can it be challenged?
Combing all of the above will then help answer: how does this affect the site?
And further: how can this fill the 'gap' (the essential)?

Section

Eye candy

Tunnel House

This is just something fun to look at. Also, read the comments below, which are funny as well.

F/G

This is one of several figure ground studies.

Boston

The T

Site Photographs

I intend to visit the site and take my own pics but until then I've pieced together some montages to get a few views of my selected site.

Base Map

Happy Thursday !!!!!

Today:

woke up early
got to school and worked on some cover letters
knowles came up and asked if anyone had a subaru in the risd lot. yes. it is being towed.
getting car off tow truck - $88
ticket from risd cops - $10
(learned car is not registered spend 2 hours at dmv)
re-register car - 61.50
realized windshield wiper is bent. new wipers (2 pair, just in case) $42
bought a tea for $1.85, but had to pay with credit card and they have $4 minimum. had to buy soup. total - $5

total cost of day = $206.50
total amount of productivity = 0
level of anger = priceless

the economy is fine, really.

Simple Site Analysis

Given this parcel is part of the Rose Kennedy Greenway, part of the Big Dig project that invigorated the former site of the Route 93 overpass, and that the project/intervention takes on the idea of a public gathering spot, I wanted to start by showing the area that encompasses the greenway.

In this analysis, I am showing a simple breakdown of elements and the proximity to the site.

Sobriety

Here is the wet blanket.

http://archinect.com/features/article.php?id=84596_0_23_0_C

Site

Dewey Square Parks on the Rose Kennedy Greenway in downtown Boston. Across from South Station.

Abstract (2 lines extruded)

to bridge a gap* in two senses/ways -

[
1.) the cause of distance created by "the very proximity of self and machine creates an insurmountable distance between self and world" (Taylor, 198)

2.) the possibility of reducing distance of physical space

*the gap: is what exists when individuals retreat into a digital/virtual/online existence to the degree that their relationships with people and space is rendered inconsequential

*the gap: is a consequence of economy, politics & culture where a distance of physicality AND information sets people further apart than is actually quantifiable
]

by an architectural object/intervention, harnessing digital technology, acting as a node on a network, maybe its own network, making the private public; drawing people to it physically, to experience it together, at a public site, a physical node, challenging the barriers of public/private/social/economic/in/out.

Considerations:
- multiple locations
- temporal
- exhibition

One more from the City of Bits

- the conditions of barriers broken down and all things becoming one physically based on the accessability of all things from one network

Consider these things being replaced physically

• libraries
• museums
• theaters
• schools
• malls
• banks
• work-places
• homes

by their digital counterparts, thereby bringing all things together physically onto one network. How can this idea of network be translated into a new physical architecture? "In the end, buildings will become computer interfaces and computer interfaces wil become buildings."

Cyberspace is the new frontier. A place where there are addresses but no maps.

Diagram/Sketch 3

Here I was thinking about the spatial relationships created by making a 2D representation of wireless access. Each node is a wireless hub providing access to a small community. Each hub and each community is connected through the network of hubs, still connected physically.

Diagrams/Sketches 2

An increase in wealth equals an increase in connectivity. An idea would be to provide some type of connectivity to even those without resources (see red lines).
Something other than this idea*, which I just don't fully believe is the right approach. This just creates more waste on products who's relevant lifespan is about 3 years.

[*Coincidentally, this web site was built by the Rubenstein Technology Group. As far as I know, I don't know them.]

Diagrams/Sketches

On the left is a diagram of our position in the physical world, with broken boundaries allowing to things we need and activities we participate in such as commerce, eduction, etc.
On the right is a representation of our position as it pertains to having digital access to the things we need and activities we participate in. We can now order, online, groceries and other goods. We can do our banking via our computer and we can socialize in this new environment. Also shown are the nodes, physical in nature, that connect the information architecture of our world.

Week in Review P4

Yet another interesting book: (in progress)

CITY OF BITS: SPACE, PLACE & THE INFOBAHN
-Willam Mitchell

"(The Neuromancer* fantasy of cyberspace that totally masks physical space - and so produces completely disembodied electronic existence - represents a theoretical limit, not a practical condition.)"

[* A book by William Gibson (1984) - where he coined the term cyberspace as "a consensual hallucination experienced daily by billions."]

I will read this book, later.

Anyway, the reason Mitchell points to this example is that he is describing how "for millenia architects have been concerned with teh skin-bounded body and its immediate sensory environment...Now they must contemplate electronically augmented, reconfigurable, virtual bodies that can sense and act at a distance but that also remain partially anchored in their immediate surroundings."
The idea that physical design in our real-world must take into account the idea that we will exist on two planes: the physical and the digital. Therefore, the physical spaces must be designed to accomodate these two parallels.


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"...every node is potentially both a publication and consumption point, such centralized concentrations of activity will be supplanted by millions of dispersed fragments."

This is a interesting and realistic idea as it relates clearly to the digital but how it could also relate to the physical (although it could somewhat represent itself to the terrible idea of urban sprawl). Given the way internet access has changed our relationship to space and how we obtain goods and services, nodal living could easily be a reality as all that we need and desire could be ordered and delivered.
I also think of how information has become nodal in that our main sources are slowly deteriorating to the vast choices offered by the information superhighway. However, as a former journalist, I worry about the increase variety reducing the credibility. Can something be done to give access that relies on many user interaction rather than one producer and many consumers (such as the blog phenomenon). {Can it make Fox news go away??}

Library Fines Part Deux!!

You need to be on your GAME when you are involved in transactions with our library. I know I was responsible for the late books and I paid my dues (literally) but here is why I come with warning:

I went back, after settling up, to take out another book and they suddenly tell me I am about to billed for another book! It happens to be a book for a project I did in November and IF it did take it out, I definitely returned it. They told me to check at home and come back and if I still could not find it, they put out an APB.

I asked them for the call number and found the dang book on the shelves in it's rightful place.

Keep an eye out maties!!