Alternative Culture Movements in Sydney

Check it out, ... Sydney actually has an intellectual past, who'd have thought it could happen in Australia?

S y d n e y  P u s h

Tales of the Royal George

Sydney Recommendations 2030

In 2007 City of Sydney Council employed Gehl Architects to carry out a study and provide recommendations for the future of the city's design. Its an incredibly dense document, with a lot for Sydney to think about, but is its primary position correct? Exactly what areas of Sydney does it see as valid?

Gehl Architects Data Report
Gehl Architects Recommendations

UPDATED Blog,

Thanks to all our affiliate links and their bloggers! We have discussed a number of issues relating to the Gehl Report and a few things stand out as major criticisms.

1, there is no denying that the report is completely Eurocentric, a discussion of the history of Sydney is completely absent.  Australian Urban Design History remains absent from the report.  Lifestyles of Sydneysiders are different to that of Europe.  Gehl seems to presume that Sydney can turn in Copenhagen.

2, Verticality in the city is completely ignored.  The only engagement with views and any level beyond the ground or underground mall is criticism of the Cahill Expressway.

Device (future object) - Body?

Superseded was recently ask what we think in regards to the future of "device"; the mobile phone etc. As the demands for information exchange evolve then so too will the device.
In context of the urban environment it should be said that the devices' impact is more concerned with the capabilities of the technology rather than the device (object) itself.


WIRELESS- as the technology itself get physically smaller, the connectable activities of the device will grow. Connection without a device (enter the cyborg/hybred) or rather without a physical interface will the new status quo.



ATTACHMENT-human obsession-
What happens to the object? What is the new state for "fashion" of the object? People like objects, and their implied value, they like to show them off, they like to play with them. What next then?
Will the portrayal of the object transfer to the body, to fashion, to the self-projected image? has it already?


image source - http://www.makemeheal.com

The future (?) for oil economies

image source- The Oil Drum

Peak oil is no new concept, we don't want to advocate the doomsday scenario here at SUPERSEDED but we thought this image was definitely worth including.

The way in which cities and gadgets shall be designed in the future shall be directly affected by the availability of fuels and resources.  Will technology be the catalyst that allows us to deal with a resource shortage?  Is the rate at which our society progresses sustainable when our most important primary resource is running out?

The fundamental (philosophical) aspects of sustainability (AKA Homage to Prof Atkinson)

"The speed of technological development is accelerating exponentially and, for this reason, by the year 2030 it will seem as if a whole century’s worth of progress has taken place in the first three decades of the 21st century.

By 2030 it will appear as if a mass of dizzying scientific breakthroughs have suddenly been made simultaneously – in computing, in healthcare, in communications, in wealth generation, in materials performance (including smart plastics), in travel and in robotics. In many ways, life in 2030 will be unrecognisable compared with life today."

Ray Hammond (ibid pg7)

We often hold that the future is a place where the pace of technological development continues along the same trajectory as it has been following since the industrial revolution.  The question of whether or not we can sustain such a pace is rarely addressed.  When we consider the resources and levels of specialization that goes into advancing technologies we see that today our society or professions are far more specialized than ever before.

BUT....

Is this sustainable? As oil prices rise can we maintain the production of plastics so cheaply and readily? The IPCC reports says that food shortages, water infrastructure and availability are likely to be a problems in the near future.  As famine rises in the developing world can our wealth in the Western world protect us?

Can the trajectory of technological advancement maintained ...when food prices go up? ... when water isn't so readily available? ...when the cost of oil drives the price of so much up?

When resources are limited and the cost of living takes a far greater percentage of our incomes is our modern way of life sustainable?

"Virtually certain"

IPCC Report 2007

Water security is set to be a major concern for Sydney and global security in the future, this is highlighted by a number of politicians and social commentators.  Food price rises and extreme weather event another part of life in Sydney 2030.

New Zealand set to benefit from global environmental change?

World in 2030 - Futurology

"The fourth decade of the 21st century will be the beginning of the end of human evolution as it has progressed over the last two million years. As machines surpass the intellectual capacity of humans they will become a companion species on Earth with the potential to become humanity’s successors. But, as genetic medical techniques allow humans to alter their own biology, individual humans will have the ability to enhance their physical and cognitive abilities and to greatly extend their longevity. Humans will also have the ability to interface at a neural level with super-intelligent machines. How these developments will affect the future of human evolution cannot yet be discerned with any confidence."

Ray Hammond-November 2007

Check out the Report (also the image source)

Plastics Europe

Through Sydney 2

Tracking through the City

The act of moving through the city is one thing, the traces and record of it are another.

Through Sydney

A few pictures taken in order to try and understand how our sequences are controlled by signs and cameras, if at all.

Sequences (aka TSCHUMI)

SPC VNT MVMNT

The idea that spaces/architecture can orchestrate our exposure to the environment is nothing new. The processional way, an ancient idea, leads us through the city, past the significant buildings to the seat of power.  "...architectural sequences do not mean only the reality of the actual buildings, or the symbolic reality of their fictions. An implied narrative is always there, whether of method, use, or form" (Bernard Tschumi, "Sequences")

1 Space 2 Event and 3 Movement

The three key factors for sequence, here the relationship of architecture and body can vary.  Architecture can be designed to control the event and imply certain relationships of spaces.  Event and choice can also subvert this relationship, that is to say that we do exert a certain amount of choice within the parameters that the architecture sets.  When we consider Tschumi's obsession with film we can understand that it sets up the right metaphor for his discussion.

For Tschumi the ritual or seat of power; ie church, company or parliament, implies a frozen relationship, in order to exert total control the institutes aim to avoid disorder.  The processional way is a ceremony as much as it is a site, and only really exists in one form or type of event.

"The expanded sequence makes a solid of the gap between spaces.  The gap thus becomes a space of its on, a corridor, threshold, or doorstep- a proper symbol inserted between each event." (ibid)  The construction of spaces in this light then is contingent on program.  The insertion of an implied intention is thus essential for creating a sequence, essential for architecture.  The program can shift and move around the architecture, and indeed the development of the architecture can shift and move around the program.

Tschumi closes by stating; "Alternatively, of course, architectural sequences can also be made strategically disjunctive (the pole-vaulter in the catacombs)"(ibid).  Then where does that leave us today? In light of our focus on technology we must think; how does or can device change this relationship?

The ubiquity of which one can access telecommunications means that sequence (or program, or event) can be interrupted by device.  Access to information (no matter how useful) can then break the intended sequence.  Is this in any way a breaking? or is it simply a shifting? an new element? should or three point include a fourth - 4 Information?  Does this element become part of a new narrative, ubiquitous among all sequencing? 

The potential for information to make sequences change and become similar throughout the world is there; the potential for us to exercise a certain amount rejection, or rebellion through this medium as set in this system lies awaiting.

1 Space 2 Event 3 Movement and 4 Information