DYNAMIC PLATFORMS: OVER / ON / IN THE SEINE

NEW YORK-PARIS ARCHITECTURAL STUDIO. SPRING SEMESTER

19.01.2015

Principality of Sealand. H.M Fort Roughs Blueprint

Professors: Alessandra Cianchetta, Marcos Garcia Rojo, Antoine Santiard, Tsuyoshi Tane

Platform (n.):
Middle French plate-forme diagram, map, literally, flat form
First Known Use: 1535

1. A usually raised structure that has a flat surface where people or

machines do work.
2. A place for opportunity for public discussion.
3. A declaration of the principles on which a group of persons stands.
4. A flat surface that is raised higher than the floor or ground and that
people stand on when performing or speaking.
5. A vehicle (as a satellite or aircraft) used for a particular purpose or to
carry a usually specified kind of equipment.
Dynamic (adj.):
French dynamique, from Greek dynamikos powerful, from dynamis power,
from dynasthai to be able. First Known Use: 1827

1. Always active or changing.

2. Having or showing a lot of energy.
3. Of or relating to energy, motion, or physical force

Source: Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary; http://www.merriam-webster.com

ABSTRACT
An infrastructural element is the resource required for an activity.
Rivers are infrastructures since the value they provide is crucial for urban development, serving
as a source of water but also as a means of transportation, power generation or waste disposal.
However, this infrastructural condition is less and less evident in western metropolis. This
historical nature the flourish of cities and civilizations very often coincide with areas irrigated with
large fresh-water streams- has been progressively dismissed in a process of deindustrialization
occurring in parallel to their development. As a result, productive activities are pushed out from the
city center in the search of cleanliness for downtown areas and rivers appear as idyllic and
pastoral recreational areas used as mere real estate or touristic assets. This act of river remediation
has been a constant in many major European cities for the last decades, picturing rivers as idle and
bucolic public spaces. This conception would perfectly fit in the XIX century ideal of what the
modern, urban experience is (le flneur) but does not seem to do justice to their real potential as
generators of activity, exchange and urban density in a contemporary context.
The Seine at its passage through Paris intramuros is a clear example of this phenomenon: the
city is fixed in its historic form as a sort of precious fossil for tourists and so it is the river, crafted to
not clash with this apparent perfection.
How to recover the underlying potential of the river as an urban definer? How to develop new
modes of interaction, exchange, live in the city (the river)?
The studio will focus on these challenges and their potential as a trigger for change, diversity
and urban transformation. Students will work on three different areas (portions of the river, the city
and their bridges) and three different conditions (over, on, in) to develop a series of dynamic
platforms of exchange between the city and the river.
The goods and the nature of the exchange are to be determined in order to complete a given
program: a food market.

The first five sessions of the studio will serve to engage different individual short-and-quick
exercises that should allow to open design strategies for the second half of the semester. After this
initial phase, students will work in pairs to develop further their intuitions into a fully comprehensive
and detailed design. Reviews and pin-ups will be held regularly to assess every project
development. A mid-term (March 13th) and a final review (May 7th) will take place with guest critics.

NB. All deliverables must be highly crafted even as in progress. Since the studio will not provide CAD (or any other
design software) tutorials, it is highly advised that students allow themselves enough time during the first five weeks of
the semester to fully master at least a computer assisted design (CAD) piece of software program -Rhino or AutoCad
recommended- For those purposes, make the most of GSAPPs training resources, such as Lynda. For design standards,
refer to Francis Chings essential: Architectural Graphics.

ASSIGNMENTS

1. DEPICTING FRAGMENTS (3 weeks)

1A. Over the River
1B. On the River
1C. In the River
2. ASSEMBLING FRAGMENTS (2 weeks)
2A. From the unit to the whole: clustering the individual cell
2B. Introducing a public, communal space
3. DYNAMIC PLATFORMS (8 weeks)
4.

FINAL RENDERING AND PRESENTATION TECHNIQUES (3 weeks)

Paris sous la Seine. Paul Maymont, 1962