Harvard GSD

Option Studio Fall 2014

Te Countryside as a City
Common Framework: Rethinking the Developmental City in China, Part 3
Christopher C.M. Lee
Harvard GSD Fall 2014, Option Studio 1503: The Countryside as a City 1

STU 1503: Opti on Studi o Syl l abus
Harvard GSD Option Studio Fall 2014
Christopher C.M Lee (chris@serie.co.uk)
Teaching Assistant: Simon Whittle (simon@serie.co.uk)



The Countrysi de as a Ci ty


1. Type and the Idea of the Ci ty

The studio is premised upon two fundamental ambitions, the recuperation of an idea of the city
as a project and the pursuit of alternative forms of urbanization in response to the challenges
posed by the developmental city in China. The former treats the project of the city as a cultural,
political and aesthetic act; the latter as a strategic project for urbanization, articulated through its
architecture, landscape and infrastructure.
This studio works typologically. It approaches the problem of the city through the
investigation and redefinition of its persistent architectures - its dominant types. Any attempt to
define type is an attempt to define what is typical; and what is most typical is common to all. As
such, type lends itself as an effective heuristic device to locate commonalities. This search for
what is common in architecture is not to locate formal or tectonic similitude, but a search for
what is the idea that can be commonly held so as to invest architecture with a social and political
role.
To define what is common through the dominant type and the city fundamentally
touches upon the very reason why the question of type is raised in architectural theory and
history. Type as a heuristic device uncovers architectures connection to society through a
discursive understanding of what is common at every juncture in history when the universal
principles of architecture and its accepted conventions are no longer valid. This notion of what is
common obviously cannot be reduced solely to a formal or tectonic similitude, like a prevailing
style of architecture, nor can it solely mean public property or space (as opposed to private).
The dominant type can be defined as the element that constitutes an idea of the city and
is a reification of the idea of what is common if we are to understand the city as a space of
coexistence, a space to live among others, following Aristotles definition of the polis - the word
that means the city and the root word for politics. The dominant type can be understood in two
ways; the first is that it acts as the most typical element that due to its ubiquity and pervasiveness
is recognizable to all, like the siheyuan (walled courtyard house) of Beijing for example. The
second is due to its special character, its individuality; that is to say as an exception - a building
with exceptional quality that holds a special value. For this dominant type to be common, it must
persist over time and be involved in the continuous transformation of the city. Through this
capacity to remain permanent it becomes a collective artifact or framework, for it is sanctioned
by acceptance over time
1
. To draw this connection between type and the city is to establish a link
between the works of architecture and the wider milieu in which the work is produced. It is also
an act of validation as to the relevance of the works of architecture outside its own disciplinary
domain.

1
This mirrors Aldo Rossis conception of the urban artefact. Whilst Rossis argues this through the notion of the
collective memory and uses the European historical city as a site for the identification of the urban artefact, the
dominant type referred here is found in the context of a globalised production of architecture and is focused on the
organization potential of its deep structure.
Harvard GSD Fall 2014, Option Studio 1503: The Countryside as a City 2



2. Common Framework

The studio defines the common framework as an architecture, landscape and infrastructure that
reifies the idea of the city as a space of coexistence. It is most poignant when it is shared, lived,
experienced and viewed as a whole, as a city - as a collective work of art.
Not all dominant types are common frameworks but they have the potential to be one.
The first task in the attempt to create a common framework is to identify the dominant type and
its deep structure. The deep structure can be defined as the irreducible structure that is
weathered by use, through the passage of time; it bears the traces of daily life or exceptional
events. More importantly it holds the potential for organizing new program whilst maintaining a
precise spatial arrangement. For instance, the walled courtyard of Beijing can be used as a family
dwelling, a temple or an imperial residence. What it lacks in programmatic specificity it
compensates in organizational precision; for the walled courtyard maintains an alternating
sequence of pavilions and courtyard, with a gradation of privacy along its circulatory path;
domestic, religious and administrative activities unfold irrespectively in this same organizational
configuration. This deep structure thus acts as a common framework, not only as an
administrative tool for the formation and management of the imperial city that emphasizes
central control and authority but most crucially it also embodies the collective culture that
underwrites Chinese social relations and structures.
As the deep structure is transparent to function, it inherently becomes a projective
element. That is to say the same deep structure can accommodate new uses and thus bears the
potential for programmatic transformation without altering its configuration. Therefore using the
deep structure of the dominant type allows one to seek for what is common from past
precedence without resorting to the recreation of the image of the past; the latter being a
tendency all too often and wrongly associated with a typological approach.


3. The Countrysi de as a Ci ty

For the final year of our three-year sponsored research and design studio on China, our research
will be focused on the transformation of China's rural villages into towns, with the villages of
Zhongmou County, at the outskirts of Zhengzhou, as our site of investigation and proposition.
With Chinas rate of urbanization reaching the 51% mark in 2011, the next phase of economic
and social development will now be focused on the urbanization of its rural areas. In Premier Le
Keqiangs recent announcement, the states urbanization target of 70%, affecting 900 million
people by 2025, will not come from the further expansion of large cities but will instead be
focused on the growth of rural towns and small cities. As a continuation of the 'Building a New
Socialist Countryside' program of 2006, developed against the backdrop of rural unrest and the
urgent need to secure food production, this drive attempts to reverse the migration of the rural
populace to the city, uplift the living standards in the rural areas, and to safeguard farmland from
further speculative developments.
At present this form of urbanization can be divided to three categories, the
redevelopment of villages stranded in the city into higher density developments; the demolition
of villages to make way for urban developments at the edges of the city; and the wholesale
demolition, amalgamation and rebuilding of villages into new towns.
Chinas rural urbanization should not be mistaken with the process of suburbanization of
the United States or the creation of low-density picturesque garden cities in Britain. It should
neither be the transformation of rural areas into dense urbanized cores, with the glut of
speculative housing as the primary economic driver. Beyond the upgrading of basic
infrastructure and sanitation, the challenge here is to imagine a self-sufficient place that can
Harvard GSD Fall 2014, Option Studio 1503: The Countryside as a City 3

support a dynamic economy in the countryside, provide cultural and intellectual stimulation, and
offer a respite to the inequalities and divisions that plagues the developmental city; in other
words, the city as a space of equal and plural coexistence.

4. Desi gn Task

The studio will focus on the version of rural urbanization that involves the wholesale demolition
and merging together of several villages into a larger 'New Agricultural Town'. The
amalgamation of villages enables the sharing of new communal amenities and the efficient
introduction of improved services and infrastructure into the countryside, an effort to raise the
living standards to that of the city.
We will prepare two design responses, one that accepts the demolition and therefore
works from a tabula rasa, and one that rejects erasure as a precondition for transformation. The
first will involve the complete design of the New Agriculture Town and the second will involve
the renovation and strategic insertion of amenities and services that will cohere the disparate
villages into a single entity.
Our design site is in Zhongmou County, at the outskirts of Zhengzhou. The current plan
calls for the demolition of four villages - Heiniuzhang, Dongzhao, Taiqian and Yantai Village - to
form a New Agriculture Town, named the New Taiqian Community. Housing a combined
population of 4,400 people, the new town will include 1,200 dwellings, two schools, a
community center, a cultural center and commercial spaces.
In both of our responses, the design task for the studio is to conceive of the restructured
villages as a common framework - with housing, cultural and communal facilities, and work
spaces that can cultivate an economy alongside its agriculture base. This must be supported by
empirical research, and a historical and theoretical argument. Indeed, the title The Countryside
as a City is a provocation towards the rethinking of the age-old division between rural and
urban, and the countryside and the city. Our conjecture is that these new towns can exist as small
cities and reify the idea of the city as a plural and diverse space of coexistence. It must offer a
sense of familiarity and community as well as the possibility for surprise and anonymity. It can be
compact yet expansive on the horizon, vibrant yet contemplative when required. Perhaps a city,
envisioned through the countryside offers an alternative to the narrative of hyper density and
culture of congestion of the recent past.
This idea of the city and the challenges of urbanization have their corresponding
architectural, landscape and infrastructural responses and problems. In considering the city as a
common framework, some of the lines of inquiries that you can pursue are the potentialities of
accumulative units versus the autonomous and singular architectural object, the centrifugal grid
versus the centripetal grid as an organizational matrix, the segmentation of territory by walls and
gates versus the containment of rooms, the sequential layering versus the stacking of programs,
and the continuous gridding of territories versus their severance into islands of exacerbated
difference, are some of the line of inquiries that you can pursue.












Harvard GSD Fall 2014, Option Studio 1503: The Countryside as a City 4




Ext ended Bri ef

Week 1 - 6 (29 Aug - 3 Oct 2014)

1. The Deep Structure of Type

The Deep Structure of Type analysis (DSoT) centers on the critical and descriptive analysis of
archetypes, landscape and urban plans that share the same deep structure. They are also chosen
for their potential relevance to the design of a common framework for the city. Instead of
analyzing buildings according to their use, the DSoT entails the close reading of exemplary
projects that can be considered as displaying the characteristics and propensity to act as common
frameworks. In line with the research agenda of the studio, the precedents chosen are archetypes
- defined here as types that embodies an idea of the city and is defined by a clear deep structure -
that has the potential to organize and affect its surrounding context.
The twelve exemplary projects selected here are tentatively classified here according to
the way in which they situate themselves in the city and the expanded urban context. They are:
rooms, grids, frames, punctuators, walls and bands. These categories may change, be removed or
new ones added upon the completion of our analysis. Students are to work in pairs, selecting a
category for comparative analysis.

Rooms
1. Mies van der Rohe, Neu Nationalgalerie, Berlin (1962-68)
2. Ryue Nishizawa, Moriyama House, Tokyo, Japan (2002-2008)

Grids
3. SOM, Nanhu New Country Village Masterplan, Jiaxing, China (2011)
4. OMA, Exposition Universelle, Paris (1989)

Frames
5. Kisho Kurukawa, Agriculture City Plan (1960-61)
6. Aldo Cibic , Rural Urbanism, China (2010)
http://issuu.com/cibicworkshop/docs/rethinkinghappiness_issuu/126?e=1396518/421752
6

Punctuators
7. Le Corbusier, Ferme Radieuse (1933-34), Village Radieux (1934-38)
8. Mies van der Rohe, La Fayette Park (1961-65)

Walls
9. SANAA, Gifu Kitagata Apartments, Gifu, Japan (1994-2000)
10. Aldo Rossi, Gallaratese Residential Complex, Milan, Italy (1969-73)

Bands
11. Toyo Ito, Antwerp Rejuvenation Project, The Netherlands (1992)
12. OMA, Ville Nouvelle Melun Senart, France (1985)

To conduct a typological analysis is to analyze these different precedents in a series - identifying
its shared traits and repetitions, isolating peculiarities and drawing upon its cumulative
intelligence. This will be conducted as group effort in the studio.
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The DSoT is divided into three parts:
Part 1.1: Textual analysis
This part is a historical and cultural introduction to the type. In a concise written survey
(max. 500 words) with diagrams and photographs, the chosen examples are critically analyzed
and recorded.

Part 1.2: Abstraction of deep structure
Part 1.2 is dedicated to the study of the types through comparative matrices - that chart
programmatic and organizational distributions, structure, and their relation to their
surrounding context - through the abstraction of the deep structure of the type. This deep
structure can be best understood as the irreducible structure that gives rise to organization.
The matrices should document the following descriptive characteristics and considerations of
the type in question:
Project Descriptions (Name, Location, Year, Architect, Project Brief)
Figure-Ground (Nolli Plan)
Solid to Void
Programmatic components and its distribution
Circulation and occupation
Part to Whole [Repetitive to Unique]
Organizational Grids
Density [Floor Area Ratios]
Deep structure

Part 1.3: Comparative Analysis a conclusion
Following on from Part 1.2, a comparative analysis between the types will form the
conclusion to the DSoT. This should consist of a written argument (max. 1,000 words) and
interpretative drawings of the deep structures that concludes the characteristics and
potentials of the type in question, guided by the following categories:
Legibility
Hierarchy
Layering
Modularity
Difference / Differentiation
Flexibility, Growth and Limits

Deliverables: The DSoT will culminate in a typological sourcebook that the studio will produce
together. This source book will be a collective knowledge that the studio will draw upon
throughout the semester. It will consist of illustrations, written text (max. 1,500 words),
photographs, analytical diagrams and scaled orthographic drawings.

2. New Agri cul ture Towns: A bri ef research i nto agri cul ture, vi l l ages, towns
and thei r domi nant types (wi th Di ngl i ang Yang)

The studio will travel to Zhengzhou and Beijing for a site visit from 20 to 28 Sep 2014. Prior to
the trip, the studio will conduct an analysis into the various New Agriculture Towns currently
under design, the structure of the four villages of Heiniuzhang, Dongzhao, Taiqian and Yantai,
their dominant types and history, and the models of agricultural production in Henan. Informed
and running in parallel to the DSoT, this analysis will involve the following categories:

1. Village
1.1. Geographical features (terrains, waterways, greenfield and brownfield)
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1.2. Infrastructure and mobility: all future and present modes of transport
1.3. Dominant types
1.4. Demography
1.5. Economy (current modes of production and consumption)

2. New Agriculture Town (Tushan New Town)
2.1. Same types of analysis as above

3. Agricultural productions
3.1. Current methods in China and Henan (resource dependent and labor-intensive method
with their land-efficiency, labor-efficiency, resource-efficiency)
3.2. Other modes of more efficient agricultural methods around the world (technology-
intensive method with their land-efficiency, labor-efficiency, resource-efficiency,
especially in Europe and US)

4. The transformation or modernization of agricultural village/township and their spatial
quality/standard
4.1. Consolidation of existing villages and their spatial transformation
4.2. Township and Village Enterprises development in China and their spatial requirement
4.3. Villages for tourism
4.4. Secondary-home villages around Metropolises, especially around Beijing and Shanghai

A seminar will be given on Thursday the 11
th
of September to introduce the history and key
concepts of rural urbanization. The seminar will briefly review the last 50 years of urbanization
in China and the reasons for the recent policy towards rural urbanization before going into
significant issues and problems that are posed by the policy. It will also examine strategies for
rural urbanization.

Deliverables (to be completed in groups of two):
1. Maps, charts and description of the four villages and Tushan New Town, to consist of:
Geography (incl. figure-ground plan, property boundaries, landscape features etc.)
Infrastructure (incl. roads, public transport, industrial transport, services, hydrology/
drainage/aqueduct system)
Demographics (incl. population, density, family structure, social organization of the
area (the percentage of elders, women, children and male urban-migrant workers etc.)
Economy (incl. land-use, modes of production and consumption)
2. Mappings and charts of larger scale trends in rural urbanization.
3. Deep structure analysis of the dominant types in the four villages.
4. Deep structure analysis of the dominant types in the Tushan New Town.
5. Presentation on agricultural production and other industries that form the economy of
the area. The focus should be on potential mechanisms for transformation and
modernization of the Chinese countryside and their spatial consequences.

Week 6 (2-3 Oct 2014)

3. Desi gn Bri ef and Strategy

Prepare a design brief outlining the programmatic component of your proposal. It must take into
consideration the overall design task of the studio - that is to conceive and design a Common
Framework for the city. This attempt to construct a project of the city through its architecture,
landscape and infrastructure must be reasoned through the preceding analysis of the DSoT and
the New Agricultural Towns. Secondly, you are to propose the design of your Common
Harvard GSD Fall 2014, Option Studio 1503: The Countryside as a City 7

Framework by identifying, abstracting and projecting a deep structure of a type or dominant type
from the earlier analysis and research.

Deliverables:
1. Draft argument in PPT, which makes use of all the materials from the preceding two
stages.
2. Excel chart of proposed program (Gross Floor Area chart)
3. Diagrammatic sketches of proposed Common Framework

Week 7 8 (9 Oct - 17 Oct 2014)

4. Scheme Desi gn

Learning from the DSoT, the next stage will focus on the design of your Common Framework
in two syntactic and discursive steps that cuts across a strata of consideration: from the deep
structure to the dominant type, the individual to the collective and from type to the idea of the
city.
The deep structure should also serve as a Typical Dwelling Unit it stands as the
irreducible living unit (for one person, one family, a group of students or flat mates) and should
consider both typical situations related to living and the deep structures that organizes these
situations. Your Typical Dwelling Unit should have the pliability to be repeated and
differentiated towards a clear and legible Common Framework that also organizes your
communal and cultural facilities, and workspaces. This should be conceived as a dominant type
that embody an idea of the city and possesses a wider significance for the discourse on the
Countryside as a City. You should define this idea within the framework of the city as an
agonistic space and the embodiment of what is common. This will be discussed intensively in
our studio seminars. Your design must be conceived and presented with clarity and accompanied
by an equally clear and sharp argument.
You should work simultaneously from both ends: from top down - designing the
Common Framework that has a wider strategic role for the city; and from bottom up
multiplying and differentiating the Typical Dwelling Units into a legible and coherent urban
framework. To do this, use simple geometric transformation techniques from your DSoT. ie
translation, rotation, mirroring and scaling, combined with simple formal transformation
techniques like extruding, lofting, layering, projecting, folding or something of your own choice.

Deliverables:
1. Draft version of Deep Structure (Axonometric), Typical Dwelling Unit and Common
Framework (Plans and Axonometric), written argument (500 words)
2. Refined argument in PPT, which makes use of all the materials from the preceding two
stages.

Week 8 (16 Oct 2014)

5. Interi m Revi ew

Deliverables: Full presentation of all material to date - argument in PPT, drawings and one image
that encapsulates your idea of the Common Framework.

Week 9 - 11 (23 Oct - 7 Nov 2014)

6. Fi nal Desi gn

Harvard GSD Fall 2014, Option Studio 1503: The Countryside as a City 8

The final four weeks of the semester will be used to conclude your design project. The focus will
be to make minor adjustment to the design and finalise it by Week 11. The remainder of the time
should be spent on producing the necessary drawings, physical model(s), imagery and arguments
that will serve to support and defend your position. The studio will spend a lot of effort and time
in reworking and refining key drawings, images and arguments. The emphasis is on the quality of
portfolio and the sharpness of argument.

The first task towards the Final Design is to consider further its interface with its immediate and
extended surrounding. The second task is to further articulate and refine your design taking into
consideration the issues of construction and structure. This should not be taken as a task to
merely detail the building but instead an opportunity to bring about a certain inventiveness and
the poetry to technical considerations.

Deliverables: Satellite photomontage, site plan, one image to convey the idea of your design,
plans, sections, axonometric of construction and structure.

Week 12 (13 Nov - 14 Nov 2014)

7. Fi nal di gi tal model

The scale of the physical model will be decided according to the proposed design.

Deliverables: Final digital model for physical model and a small fragment of test model

Week 13 (20 Nov - 21 Nov 2014)

8. Fi nal Drawi ngs and model maki ng

Deliverables: Satellite photomontage, site plan, image to convey the idea of your design, plans,
sections, axonometrics, written argument (500 words) and a physical model

Week 14 (26 Nov - 28 Nov 2014)

Thanksgiving week

Week 15 (4 Dec - 5 Dec 2014)

9. Argument and Representati on

Deliverables: Presentation and completion of all deliverables

Week 16 (12 Dec 2014)

10. Opti ons Revi ew
Harvard GSD Fall 2014, Option Studio 1503: The Countryside as a City 9

Workshops
Simon Whittle

The workshops that accompany the studio are intended to provide a grounding of ideas and
technical skills that run parallel to the studio brief. Each workshop is organized to aid the
development of the project at that specific point in the brief with the required skill set and
understanding.

Workshop 1: Deep Structure of Type I: Introducti on
An essential component of the studio is the undertaking of a detailed study and close reading of
a particular architectural and urban projects. This workshop equips students with the techniques
and methods to undertake this study in a comparative manner and allow it to form part of the
studios collective knowledge. Examples of the study will be shown alongside a wider theoretical
discussion of the reasons and methods. The specific types of analysis will be explained and
discussed in relation to the buildings chosen.

Workshop 2: Deep Structure of Type II: Ski l l s and Techni ques and i ntroducti on
to research on new agri cul ture towns
Drawing is the primary representational tool of the studio and this will be the first of many
sessions in honing the skills required to produce finely considered drawings. During this
workshop we will review and compare all drawings and diagrams in order to refine them and
achieve a consistency of representation across the studio. We will cover the basic techniques to
produce clear and elegant drawings using autocad.

Required: In-progress DSoT drawings.

Workshop 3: New Agri cul ture Towns Research
This workshop, run in conjunction with Dingliang Yang and his seminar on the 11
th
of
September, will be a review of all research to date. We will discuss further resources and
methods to use and refine the modes of representation. This will also be an opportunity to
discuss on site research and make appropriate preparations. Strategies of observation will be
discussed and key questions framed in order to better focus our time on site. We will also look at
how to extract and represent geographical information and urban analysis in a clear and
consistent manner.

Required: All research and analysis done so far. Plan of action for site visit.

Workshop 4: Framework Drawi ng and Model l i ng
This workshop will provide instruction of the 3d modelling tools necessary for the development
of the deep structure of the project. We will cover basic modelling techniques as well as proper
workflow. All instruction will be applied to the development of the deep structure and
framework design. Alongside this there will be examples of previous work and a further
discussion of the idea of the framework and deep structure. We will also look at different ways
of drawing the projects and how to use plans, sections, axonometric, and ideograms to best
convey the ideas.
Harvard GSD Fall 2014, Option Studio 1503: The Countryside as a City 10


Required: Early work in progress of the framework.

Workshop 5: Model Maki ng
The other integral part of the final production of the studio is a physical model that has a
tectonic accuracy of the proposal. This is normally achieved through a detailed laser cutting of
sheet material which is then assembled to form the structural and cladding components. Full
instruction model making techniques, file preparation, assembly and workflow methods will also
be covered. The session will work with the final digital model of the proposal.

Required: Digital files for model making process

Workshop 6: Image Representati on
The studio treats the image not as just a representation of a space or an architectural form but as
an encapsulation of the projects idea of the city. The image is argumentative, not just a
representational projection. This workshop will introduce ways of thinking about composition,
montage, and narrative as ways to construct another facet of the projects argument. We will
actively work in the session to explore how the image might provoke a deeper reading of the
project through the techniques of montage, composition, and rendering.

Required: Dominant type and type change digital models.

Workshop 7: Image and Drawi ng Devel opment
This workshop will focus on the development of images and drawings. This will include
instruction in rendering and montage techniques alongside greater drawing refinement which will
include control of line weights, graphic conventions and drawing management. Instruction of V-
ray rendering will be provided if necessary.

Required: Draft of all drawings and images

Workshop 8: Model Photography and Drawi ng/Image Refi nement
During this workshop we will be photographing the finished models. Instruction on proper
lighting, camera technique, and model display will be covered. It will also be the final session for
the refinement of all drawings and images with additional technical help possible for rendering,
montage and drawing.

Required: Finished models, late draft drawings and images

Workshop 9: Fi nal Presentati on
The studio presents its work through large printouts and models, individual slide presentations
and an accompanying booklet, this workshop is to compile and edit the work into these forms.
Attention will be given to rehearse and refine the presentations, select and format the drawings
and also to arrange the booklet. As the work is intended as a collective body of knowledge that
will form the basis for a publication, we will look at how to present the projects in a comparative
manner.
Required: Final drafts of all deliverables
Harvard GSD Fall 2014, Option Studio 1503: The Countryside as a City 11

General Readi ng Li st

Type and Typol ogy
Argan, Giulio Carlo, On the Typology of Architecture in Theorizing a New Agenda for
Architecture An Anthology of Architectural Theory 1965-1995, ed. by Kate Nesbitt (New
York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1996), pp. 242-46 (first publ. in AD: Architectural
Design, 33.12, Dec 1963, 564-565)
Colquhoun, Alan, Modern Architecture and the Symbolic Dimension of the Type and
its Transformation in Essays in Architectural Criticism; Modern Architecture and Historical
Change (Cambridge, MA; London: MIT Press, 1989), pp. 43-50
Colquhoun, Alan, Typlogy and Design Method in Theorizing a New Agenda for Architecture: An
Anthology of Architectural Theory 1965-1995, ed. by Kate Nesbitt (New York: Princeton
Architectural Press, 1996), pp. 250-57 (first publ. in Arena 83 (1967)
Lavin, Sylvia, Quatremre de Quincy and the Invention of a Modern Language of Architecture
(Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1992)
Moneo, Rafael On Typology in El Croquis: Rafael Moneo 19672004 (El Croquis Editorial,
2004)
Oechslin, Werner, Premises for the Resumption of the Discussion of Typology, Assemblage, No.
1 (Oct., 1986), pp. 36-53
Vidler, Anthony, The Third typology in Oppositions 7 (1976): 1-4
Vidler, Anthony, The Writing of the Walls: Architectural Theory in the Late Enlightenment
(Princeton Architectural Press, 1987)
Vidler, Anthony. The Idea of Type: The Transformation of the Academic Ideal: 1750-1830 in
Oppositions 8, (New York, NY: Rizzoli, 1977)
Youns, Samir, Quatremre De Quincy's Historical Dictionary of Architecture: The True, the
Fictive and the Real (London: Andreas Papadakis Publishers, 2000)


Bui l di ng Types, Model s, and Precedents
Abalos, Inaki, and Juan Herreros. Tower and Office: From Modernist Theory to Contemporary
Practice. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2003
Behne, Adolf, The Functional Building, trans. Michael Robinson (Santa Monica, CA: Getty
Research Institute for the History of Arts and Humanities, 1996)
Bilodeau, Denis, Precedents and Design Thinking in an Age of Relativization: The Transformation
of the Normative Discourse on the Orders of Architecture in France Between 1650 and
1793 (unpublished doctoral thesis, Technische Universiteit Delft, 1997)
Durand, Jean Nicolas Louis, Prcis of the Lectures on Architecture, trans. by David Britt (Los
Angeles: Getty Trust Publications, 2000)
Laugier, Marc-Antoine, An Essay on Architecture, trans. by Wolfgang and Anni Herrmann (Los
Angeles: Hennessey & Ingalls, 1977)
Markus, Thomas A, Buildings & Power: Freedom and Control in the Origin of Modern Building
Types (London: Routledge, 1993)
Palladio, Andrea, Four Books on Architecture (MIT Press, 1997)
Harvard GSD Fall 2014, Option Studio 1503: The Countryside as a City 12

Perrault, Claude, Ordonnance for the Five Kinds of Columns after the Method of the Ancients,
trans. by Indra Kagis McEwen with introduction by Alberto Perez-Gomez (Getty Center
for the Art and the Humanities, 1993)
Rowe, Colin, The Mathematics of the Ideal Villa and Other Essays (Cambridge, MA: The MIT
Press, 1999)
Sarkis, Harshim, ed., Le Corbusier's Venice Hospital and the Mat Building Revival (Prestel, 2002)
Sherwood, Roger, Modern Housing Prototypes (Harvard University Press, 1981)


The Ci ty and Its Archi tecture
Alexander, Christopher, A City is not a Tree in Architectural Forum, April and May 1965
Andrea Branzi, No-Stop City: Archizoom Associati (Orleans: HYX, 2006)
Banham, Reyner, Megastructure: Urban Futures of the Recent Past (New York: Harper & Row,
1976)
Duany, Andres; Plater-Zyberk, Elizabeth; & Speck, Jeff, Suburban Nation: The Rise of Sprawl and
the Decline of the American Dream (North Point Press, 2000)
Eisenman, Peter, CodeX: The City of Culture of Galicia (New York: Monacelli Press, 2005)
Hilberseimer, Ludwig, The Nature of Cities: Origin, Growth, and Decline; Pattern and Form,
Planning Problems (Chicago: Paul Theobald, 1955)
Hilbersheimer, Ludwig, Groszstadt Architektur (Julius Hoffmann, 1927)
Howard, Ebenezer, Garden Cities of To-morrow (Dodo Press, 2009)
Kenneth Frampton, Towards a Critical Regionalism: Six Points for an Architecture of Resistance,
in The Anti-Aesthetic. Essays on Postmodern Culture, ed. by Hal Foster (Bay Press, 1983)
Koolhaas, Rem, Delirious New York (010 Publishers, Rotterdam, 1994)
Koolhaas, Rem, 'Postscript. Introduction for New Research "The Contemporary City" ' (1988), in
Kate Nesbitt (ed.), Theorizing a New Agenda for Architecture, op. cit., pp. 322-; in A+U,
no. 217, October 1988, p.152
Koolhaas, Rem, S, M, L, XL, 2nd ed. (New York: Monacelli Press, 1998)
Koolhaas, Rem, Sze Tsung Leong and Chuihua Judy Chung, eds., Great Leap Forward: Harvard
Design School Project on the City I (Taschen, 2001)
Kostof, Spiro, The City Assembled: The Elements of Urban Form through History (Thames &
Hudson, 2005)
Krier, Leon, Architecture: Choice or Fate (Windsor: Andreas Papadakis Publishers, 1998)
Krier, Rob, Urban Space (Stadtraum), with foreword by Colin Rowe (Academy Editions, 1979)
Lang, Peter, Superstudio: Life without Objects (Skira, 2003)
Le Corbusier, The City of Tomorrow and its Planning (New York: Dover Publications, 1987)
Le Corbusier, Towards an Architecture (Frances Lincoln, 2008)
Lee, Christopher, Jacoby, Sam, eds. Typological Formations: Renewable Building Types and the
City (London: AA Publications, 2007)
Lynch, Patrick, The Image of the City (The MIT Press, 1960)
Maki, Fumihiko, Some Thoughts on Col l ecti ve Form in Structure in Art and in Science, ed.
by Gyorgy Kepes (New York: George Braziller, 1965), pp. 116-127.
Middleton, Robin, ed., The Idea of the City (Mass: The MIT Press, 1996)
Rossi, Aldo, An Analogical Architecture in Kate Nesbitt, ed., Theorizing A New Agenda for
Architecture (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1996), pp.348-352.
Harvard GSD Fall 2014, Option Studio 1503: The Countryside as a City 13

Rossi, Aldo, Selected Writings and Projects, Architectural Design, London 1983.
Rossi, Aldo, The Architecture of the City, trans. by Diane Ghirardo and Joan Ockman (Cambridge:
MIT Press, 1982)
Rowe, Colin, and Fred Koetter. Collage City (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1978)
Sitte, Camillo, City planning according to artistic principles (Phaidon Press, 1965)
Smithson, Alison, ed., Team 10 Primer (The MIT, 1974)
Soria y Puig, Arturo, Cerda: The Five Bases of the General Theory of Urbanization (Electa, 1999)
Sudjic, Deyan, The 100 Mile City (London: Flamingo, 1993)
Ungers, Oswald Matthias, Rem Koolhaas, Peter Riemann, Hans Kollhof, Peter Ovaska, Cities
within the City, Proposal by the Sommerakademie Berlin, in Lotus International, n.19,
1977.
Venturi, Robert, Denise Scott Brown, and Steven Izenour, Learning from Las Vegas: The Forgotten
Symbolism of Architectural Form (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1977, repr. 1998)


On Chi nese hi story, theory and the ci ty
Bray, David. 2005. Social Space and Governance in Urban China: the Danwei System from Origins to
Reform (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press), Ch. 6
Friedmann, John, China's Urban Transition (Minneapolis, London: University of Minnesota Press: 2005)
Francois Jullien, The Propensity of Things: towards a History of Efficacy in China, trans. Janet Lloyd
(New York: Zone Books, 1995)
Lothar Ledderoses Ten Thousand Things: Module and Mass Production in Chinese Art (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 2000)
Lu, Duanfang. 2006. Remaking Chinese Urban Form : Modernity, Scarcity and Space, 1949-2005.
Planning, History, and Environment Series (London; New York: Routledge, 2006)
Lu Junhua, Lu, Rowe, Peter G., and Zhang, Jie, Modern Urban Housing in China 1840-2000 (Munich:
Prestel, 2001)
Liang, Ssu-cheng & Fairbank, Wilma, Pictorial History of Chinese Architecture: A Study of the
Development of Its Structural System and the Evolution of Its Types (Cambridge, Mass.: The
MIT Press, 1984)
Shatzman Steinhardt, Nancy, Chinese Imperial City Planning (Honolulu: University of Hawaai Press,
1990)
Shipp, S., A Political History of the Portuguese Colonys Transition to Chinese Rule (Jefferson, USA:
McFarland, 1997)
Wang, Jun, Beijing Record: A Physical and Political History of Planning Modern Beijing (Singapore:
World Scientific Publishing Co Pte Ltd. 2010)
Wu Fulong, Xu Jiang, Yeh Anthony Gar-On, in Urban Development in Post-Reform China (London:
Routledge, 2007)
Youlan Feng, A Short History of Chinese Philosophy (New York: Free Press, 1966)
Zhu, Jianfei, Chinese spatial strategies : Imperial Beijing 1420 1911 (London : Routledge, 2004)
Zhu, Jianfei. Architecture of Modern China : a Historical Critique (London; New York: Routledge, 2009)



Cri ti cal Theory
Colquhoun, Alan, Essays in Architectural Criticism: Modern Architecture and Historical Change
(Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press, 1981)
Colquhoun, Alan, Modernity and the Classical Tradition: Architectural Essays 1980-87 (Cambridge,
Mass.: The MIT Press, 1989)
Eisenman, Peter, The End of the Classical The End of the Beginning, The End of the End in
Theorizing a New Agenda for Architecture An Anthology of Architectural Theory 1965-
Harvard GSD Fall 2014, Option Studio 1503: The Countryside as a City 14

1995, ed. by Kate Nesbitt (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1996), pp. 212-27 (first
publ. in Perspecta 21 (1984), 154-173.).
Eisenman, Peter, The Formal Basis of Modern Architecture (Lars Muller Publisher, 2006)


On Drawi ng and Di agram
Allen, Stan, Diagrams Matter in ANY 23 (1998)
Allen, Stan, Points and Lines: Diagrams and Projects for the City (New York, NY: Princeton
Architectural Press, 1999)
Allen, Stan, Practice: Architecture, Technique and Representation (Amsterdam: G+B Arts
International, 2000)
Cassar, Silvio, Peter Eisenman: Feints (Skira, 2006)
Eisenman, Diagram Diaries (New York: Universe Publishing, 1999), pp. 6-25
Eisenman, Peter, Ten Canonical Buildings (Rizzoli, 2008)
Evans, Robert, The Projective Cast: Architecture and Its Three Geometries (Cambridge, Mass.: The
MIT Press, 1995)
Evans, Robin, Translation from Drawing to Building and Other Essays (London: Architectural
Association, 1997)
Ferriss, Hugh. The Metropolis of Tomorrow, with essay by Carol Willis (New York: Princeton
Architectural Press, 1986. Reprint of 1929 edition)
Garcia, Mark, ed., The Diagram of Architecture (London: John Wiley & Sons, 2010)
Kipnis, Jeffrey, Re-originating Diagrams, in Peter Eisenman: Feints (Skira, 2006)
Kipnis, Jeffrey, Toward a New Architecture in AD: Folding and Pliancy, Academy Editions,
London, 1993
Pai, Hyungmin, The Portfolio and the Diagram: Architecture, Discourse and Modernity in America
(Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2006)
Roger, H. Clark, and Michael Pause, Precedents in Architecture: Analytical Diagrams, Formative
Ideas and Partis (London: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2005)
Somol, Rob, Dummy Text, or the Diagrammatic Basis of Contemporary Architecture in Peter
Eisenman, Diagram Diaries (New York: Universe Publishing, 1999), pp. 6-25











Harvard GSD Fall 2014, Option Studio 1503: The Countryside as a City 15

TYPE: A GLOSSARY

Type as commonl y understood
This studio works typologically. In common usage and often even in academia, the word type
and typology is used interchangeably, and are understood as buildings grouped by their use, that
is schools, hospitals, prisons, churches and so on
2
. However, this understanding is limiting as
the use of a building has shown to be independent from its building and evolves in time. A
warehouse can be turned into apartments, and a Georgian terrace into a school. What this means
is that to understand type via use tells us little about the shared characteristics and traits of the
artefacts or objects that belong to the group in question, hence impeding against the knowledge
that could have been otherwise acquired. It is this impasse, arising out of the confusion and
misunderstanding that type is often used as the straw man that underpins any architectural
proposal that seems out of character with what it proposes to displace. This is rampant in the
exotic formal experiments of the past 15 years, every folded tectonic, every twisted and bended
building, every swoosh and woosh will be justified as being more superior from the type that was
displaced. However, when pressed, it is unclear what were these ill properties or characteristics
of type that these exotic and novel forms has displaced and to what ends. Architectural
experiments in this manner have no wider relevance and cannot be considered an invention, for
invention, quoting Quatremre de Quincy, does not exist outside rules; for there would be
no way to judge invention
3
.


Type as Idea (Ei ds)
The word type comes from the Greek word typos which means model, matrix, impression,
mould, mark, figure in relief, original form and from the Latin word typus which means figure,
image, form, kind.

For the definition of the word type in architectural theory we can turn to Antoine-Chrysostome
Quatremre de Quincys (1755 1849) masterful definition in the Dictionnaire historique
darchitecture (1825) that also formally introduced the notion of type into architectural
discourse. For Quatremre de Quincy, The word type presents less the image of a thing to
copy or imitate completely than the idea of an element which ought itself to serve as a rule for
the model
4
. For him, type is the idea or symbolic meaning that is embodied in an element, an
object or a thing. Thus type is abstract and conceptual rather than concrete and literal.
Following a neo-platonic tradition, this idea for Quatremre de Quincy can also be understood
as the ideal that an architect should strive for in the process of creative production, that is, an
idea that can never be fully materialized in the process of artistic creation. Thus Quatremres
definition touches upon and serves as a metaphysical theory of type. According to Quatremre
de Quincys theory of Imitation
5
, this idea is the laws that govern nature rather than the product

2
In part, this tendency to classify group buildings according to use can be attributed to Nicholas Pevsner, in his
Architectural Guides (1951-75)
3
Quatremre de Quincy, Rule in Encyclopdie Mthodique, vol. 3, trans. Samir Youns, reprinted in The
Historical Dictionary of Architecture of Quatremre de Quincy, Papadakis Publisher, 2000
4
Quatremre de Quincy, type in Encyclopdie Mthodique, vol. 3, trans. Samir Youns, reprinted in The
Historical Dictionary of Architecture of Quatremre de Quincy, Papadakis Publisher, 2000
5
Ibid., p.175
Harvard GSD Fall 2014, Option Studio 1503: The Countryside as a City 16

of nature. This law or abstract principle that guides any artistic production is therefore eternal
and ideal, although the models that arise from the application of these principles are infinite in its
variations.

Whilst agreeing with Quatremre de Quincy on the distinction between idea and model,
Gottfried Semper (1803-79) defines type as the idea that must be understood through the
potentials of four building techniques: terracing (masonry), roofing (carpentry), the hearth
(ceramics) and walling (textiles)
6
. This materialist approach of Semper displaces the idea of type
from an idealist position to a practical one.

Similarly, Giulio Carlo Argan (1909-1992), departs from Quatremre de Quincys insistence on
deriving principles from nature as an ideal. For Argan, type is an idea no longer residing in
nature but in building precedents and therefore in the history of architecture. This value is thus
relative, not an ideal nor immutable. For Argan, The birth of a type is therefore dependent on
the existence of a series of buildings having between them an obvious formal and functional
analogy
7
. This assertion points to the crucial fact that new types can be detected as much as
they can be surpassed, hence enabling a design process that is syntactic and discursive in equal
measure. I would argue that, seen this way, to work typologically is to analyse, reason and
propose through things which are of the same type, thus considering them in series. Working in
series
8
reveals the shared traits between things and to harness the embodied and cumulative
intelligence of that series into architectural projections. This serial consideration emancipates the
idea of type from a fixed ideal without displacing the need for an ideal.

Influenced by Argans On the Typology of Architecture, Aldo Rossi (1931-1997) defines types
as the very idea of architecture, that which is closest to its essence. In spite of changes, it has
always imposed itself on the feelings and reason as the principle of architecture and of the
city.
9
For Rossi, type is the principle that can be found in the urban artifact. The urban artifact,
as defined by Rossi, is not only a building, but a fragment of the city. The urban artifact should
be understood as fatto urbano or faite urbaine, they are not just physical thing in the city, but all
of its history, geography, structure and connection with the general life of the city as noted by
Peter Eisenman
10
. The ambiguity of the urban artifact also owes to the above definitions; that the
city itself is an artifact, that it is divided into individual buildings and dwelling areas. Following
this, it would mean that every physical structure in the city is potentially an urban artifact. Thus
for Rossi, the differentiating factor would have to be its individuality which comes from its
quality, uniqueness and definition.
11
This individuality depends more on its form than material,
its complex entity that developed over space and time, its historical richness, its certain original

6
Semper, Gottfried, London Lecture of November 11, 1853, RES: Journal of Anthropology and Aesthetics, no.6,
Autumn 1983, p.5-31
7
Giulio Carlo Argan, On the Typology of Architecture, Architectural Design, 33.12 (1963), 564-65
8
Lee, Christopher C.M, Working in Series: Towards an Operative Theory of Type in Lee, Christopher C.M. &
Gupta, Kapil, Working in Series (London: AA Publications, 2010)
9
Rossi, Aldo, The Architecture of the City, trans. by Diane Ghirardo and Joan Ockman (Cambridge: MIT Press,
1982), p.41
10
Ibid., p.22
11
Rossi, Aldo, The Architecture of the City, trans. by Diane Ghirardo and Joan Ockman (Cambridge: MIT Press,
1982), p.29
Harvard GSD Fall 2014, Option Studio 1503: The Countryside as a City 17

values and function that persist (which for Rossi is its spiritual value), and its sum of all
experiences and memories (ominous or auspicious)
12
.


Type as Model (Ei dol on)
When type is understood (solely) as model, it refers to an irreducible element, object or artifact,
that can be further varied (as a copy) in the process of artistic creation or design. For
Quatremre de Quincy, The model, understood in the sense of practical execution, is an object
that should be repeated as it is; contrariwise, the type is an object after which each artist can
conceive works that bear no resemblance to each other. All is precise and given when it comes to
the model, while all is more or less vague when it comes to the type.
13
This conception of type
as model in the late 18
th
and early 19
th
century can also be traced to the way Jean-Nicolas-Louis
Durand (1760-1834) treats the notion of type, and has been commonly associated to typology
as a design method. In his Recueil et parallle des edifices de tous genres, anciens et modernes
(Collection and Parallel of Edifices of All Kinds, Ancient and Modern), (1799-1801) and the
Prcis des leons darchitecture donnes lcole Polytechnique (Prcis of the Lectures on
Architecture Given at the Ecole Polytechnique), (1802-1805), Durand attempts to find a
systematic method in classifying various genres of buildings and to distil them to its most typical
elemental parts
14
. Durand proposed that new types for the recently emerging urban condition
can be created through the adaptation and recombination of these typical elements to specific
sites, responding to its constraints. This notion of type as model, represented graphically as
structural axes in Durands case, introduces precepts that are fundamental to working
typologically: precedents, classification, taxonomy, continuity, repetition, differentiation and
reinvention. It must be pointed out that Durand did not use the word type in his two books
and did not explicitly set out to define the concept of type
15
. His theoretical ambition was to
systematize architectural knowledge and to set out a rational method in designing buildings. In
doing so, he constructed a science of architecture that inadvertently outlined a didactic theory of
type and constitutes what we understand as typology. Although Durand utilizes typology in a
pragmatic manner, evidenced in his pedagogical approach in teaching architectural design in the
cole Polytechnique, his larger ambition was to arrive at a general principle of architecture that is
understandable and can involve not only architects and engineers but the general public. In this
light, I propose that Durands typology can be seen as a common grammar, where this form of
disciplinary knowledge no longer utilizes symbolic means to construct a shared value but utilizes
the very material of architecture as a common grammar that unites.

Typol ogy

12
The most significant urban artifacts for Rossi are housing and monuments. This is because the changes in housing
and the imprints left on them become the signs of daily life, a collective memory of the city. Urban monuments owe
their singularity to the quality of permanence, and are primary elements acting as fixed point in the urban dynamics.
13
Youns, Samir. The Historical Dictionary of Architecture of Quatremre de Quincy . London : Adreas Papadakis
Publisher, 1999. p.255
14
Durand, Jean Nicolas Louis. Pr'ecis of the Lectures on Architecture. Trans. David Britt. Getty Trust Publications,
2000. Durands diagrams primarily capture the structural elements of various building types, comprising a layer of
grids that denotes both structure and geometric composition.
15
For an elaboration of the Typical Object, see Lathouri, Marina, The City as a Project: Types, Typical Objects and
Typologies in Architectural Design, 81.1 (2011), Typological Urbanism

Harvard GSD Fall 2014, Option Studio 1503: The Countryside as a City 18

The suffix ology of typology, comes from the Greek logia, which means a discourse, treatise,
theory or science. Thus typology is the discourse, theory, treatise (method) or science of type.
Typology is not the opposite of topology. This false opposition is often made to contrast the
processes of formal differentiation in architecture. The former is characterised as a combinatory
process resulting in discontinuous differentiated forms whilst the latter produces a continuously
differentiated form. Type and typology as defined above is not concerned with the
smoothness or continuities of formal differentiation and thus to pose it as the opposite of
topology is a folly.


Typi cal i ty
Typicality
16
as put forth by Peter Carl refers to conventions or frameworks of understanding
that relies on common situations and typical elements. For Carl, type is a subset to typicalities.
This is because Carl understands type as formal variations (or model). He draws a clear
distinction between type and typicality; and to illustrate this point, Carl uses the example of the
type bedroom versus the typical situation associated with the bedroom. The former refers to a
medium size room with a bed, side table, window, closet and an access to a WC. Whereas the
latter refers to a richer and more profound interpretation that can include sleep, sex, illness,
death and so on. Thus for Carl, types are isolated fragments of a deeper and richer structure of
typicalities and The principle difference between typology and typicality is that the former
concentrates upon (architectural) objects, the latter upon situations.
17
Typicalities for instance
operate in language as a framework of understanding, for mutual understanding requires the
element of recognition, otherwise we will be compelled to invent language a fresh at every
meeting. Carl argues that this language should not be understood as the structuralism of French
linguistics that attempts to translate all language into a grammar of messages or codes. Instead
this language as framework of understanding disposes typicalities in strata. The most immediate
are common meanings, followed by accents or sounds, then bodily gestures. As such,
recognition is only possible through the common elements carried by typicalities.


Domi nant Type
The word dominant means ruling, governing or having an influence over something; it also
means something that is prevailing. Thus, for a type to be dominant, it has to prevail. What is
the most prevailing is also the most typical and what is the most typical is also common to all.
And no other sphere is more common to all than the city. Thus, a dominant type can be
understood as the typical element that constitute the city and are the embodiment of the
common. It oscillates between both ends of typicalities - common situations and typical elements
- and serves as both a framework of understanding and as a reified typical architectural object
that figures forth the idea of the city.

The idea of the city is historically constituted and concerns itself with the civic and symbolic
function of human settlements and coexistence. As cities owe their main characteristic to

16
Carl, Peter, Type, Field, Culture, Praxis in Architectural Design, 81.1 (2011), Typological Urbanism. This
distinction between type and typicality was first drawn by Dalibor Vesley 30 years ago according to Carl and appears
now as the role paradigmatic situation in Architecture in the Age of Divided Representation: The Question of
Creativity in the Shadow of Production (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2004).
17
Ibid., p.40
Harvard GSD Fall 2014, Option Studio 1503: The Countryside as a City 19

geographical and topographical condition and that cities are always linked to other cities for trade
and resources, they tend to specialize and form a distinctive character
18
. It is this distinctive
character coupled with the need to accommodate differences that gives rise to the possibility of a
collective meaning for the city. This meaning changes with time, in response to its ever changing
inhabitants (or citizens) and external circumstance and is often formalized, historically, in the
construction of civic buildings as landmarks for common identity and as elements of
permanence in the city, exemplified by town halls, libraries, museums and archives. It is through
this understanding that I am proposing that the Idea of the City can be embodied in these
dominant types. The dominant type here carries not only the idea of the city but also the
irreducible typal imprints of the history and construction of the city. Thus, to understand the
dominant type is to understand the city itself
19
.

The Idea of the Ci ty
This search for what is common in the city - through architecture - has been underpinned by the
discursive definition of the typical. This search arose in critical moments of architectural history,
at the points where architecture was forced to redefine its role and relevance in a context
affected by societal, economic and political changes and demands. The first moment was
characterised by the efforts of Quatremre de Quincy in the late 18th century, where the
amalgam of type as origin, natural principle, symbolic mark and legible form of a purpose, was
eventually fixed in the practice of the academic architect. The thrust for the architects of the
French Enlightenment was to put to question the validity of the architecture of the ancient
regime in light of the rise of scientific disciplines. The second moment coincided with the
conflation between mass production and the question of housing in the early 20th century. In
the conception of the modernist city, the notion of the typical came to be identified with the
standard. The typical or standard object came to provide a framework for a social and ideological
agenda that informed the design and production of all artefacts to encompass life
20
. The object
type covers the entire scale of reference for living and working, from an entire city defined by a
few perfected housing types, for instance Corbusiers A Contemporary City for Three Million
(1922), with its Redent Blocks, Immeubles-Villas, to dwelling units and furniture. The third
critical moment where the question of what is typical in the city resurfaced in the 1950s and 60s.
It emerged out of the tension between the sequence of unitary element and the synthetic instant
of a more complex and ambiguous figure of the existing historical city. Centred around the
critique of the city of architectural modernism as naive functionalism
21,
an alternative reading of
the city was put forth by Aldo Rossi in his Larchitettura della Citt (1966). The city was read as
something that constantly evolved and changed, and thus what was crucially permanent was

18
Cities founded on river banks, sea ports, railways, highlands (hill towns) and so on. We see today, cities that
position themselves as knowledge cities, financial cities, medical cities, sport cities etc.
19
For further discussion on the dominant type and the city, see Lee, Christopher C.M Projective Series in Lee,
Christopher, Jacoby, Sam, eds. Typological Formations: Renewable Building Types and the City (London: AA
Publications, 2007) and Lee, Christopher C.M & Jacoby, Sam Typological Urbanism: Projective Cities in
Architectural Design 209: Typological Urbanism (London: Wiley Academy, Jan/Feb 2011)
20
Lathouri, Marina, The City as a Project: Types, Typical Objects and Typologies in Architectural Design, 81.1
(2011), Typological Urbanism

21
Rossi, Aldo, The Architecture of the City, trans. by Diane Ghirardo and Joan Ockman (Cambridge: MIT Press,
1982), p.46
Harvard GSD Fall 2014, Option Studio 1503: The Countryside as a City 20

ultimately typical. Rossi further conceives the city as a repository of history
22
and serves as a
kind of collective memory to the citys citizens. Through this search and redefinition of the
typical, I would argue that the recourse to the city as a project to revalidate the works of
architecture is underpinned by the redefinition of what constitute the common. In other words,
what will be the idea of the city that architecture must again respond to?


22
Ibid., p.127
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Sub-briefs Duration Deliverables Format Weightage
1. Deep Structure of Type 6 weeks Typological source book A1 Pages 15%
2 New Agriculture Towns Research 6 Weeks Geography Drawings / Slides
Infrastructure Drawings / Slides
Demographics, Social structure Drawings / Slides
Economy Drawings / Slides
Countrywide trends in Rural Urbanisation Drawings / Slides
Dominant Type Studies - Four Villages A1 Pages / Slides
Dominant Type Studies - Tushan New Town A1 Pages / Slides
Agrictultural production and innovation Projected Slides
3. Design Brief and Strategy 1 weeks Argument in PPT Projected Slides 35%
Programatic breakdon in excel chart Spreadsheet
Diagrams and sketches of common framework Drawings
4. Scheme Design 2 Weeks Draft version of deep structure Axonometric
Typical dwelling unit and common framework Plan and axo
Written Argument 500 words
5. Interim Review 16th Oct All material so far 20%
DSoT Drawings A1
City Structures Drawings A2
Plans, Sections, Axonometrics A0 drawings
Image A2 print
Argument Projected Slides
6. Final Design 2 Weeks Satallite photomontage A2
Site Plan A0
Image A0
Plans, Sections, Axonometric A0
7. Final Digital Model 1 week Final digital model for physical model Rhino model 30%
Small test of physical model
8. Final Drawings and Model Making 2 Weeks Completed physical model TBC
Refinement of all deliverables
9. Argument and Representation 1 Week Final Presentation Projected Slides
10. Option Review 9 - 13 Dec Site Plan A0
Key Plans A0
Fragment Plan A0
Key Sections A0
Axonometric A0
Satillite Photomontage A0
Image A0
Physical Model TBC
Written Argument 1000 Words
Presentation Projected Slides
100.00%
Deliverables