FUTURE FACTORY MELBOURNE SCHOOL OF DESIGN

UNIVERSITY OF MELBOURNE

VENICE BIENNALE 28.5-27.11 2016

CITY! X-RAY THE X-RAY Paul Walker White Marcus Geoff Kimm Geoff Kvan Tom Nano Langenheim Hannah Lewi Elek Pafka Alan Pert Stanislav Roudavski Saniga Andrew Gideon Aschwanden Donald Bates Burns Karen Mark Burry Kim Dovey Philip Goad Xiaoran Huang Justyna Karakiewicz

FUTURE FACTORY MELBOURNE SCHOOL OF DESIGN UNIVERSITY OF MELBOURNE

VENICE BIENNALE 28.5-27.11 2016 X-RAY THE X-RAY CITY! Gideon Aschwanden Donald Bates Burns Karen Mark Burry Kim Dovey Philip Goad Xiaoran Huang Justyna Karakiewicz Kimm Geoff Kvan Tom Nano Langenheim Hannah Lewi Elek Pafka Alan Pert Stanislav Roudavski Saniga Andrew Paul Walker White Marcus 02 03

Key

1946 2016 2046

Contents

DEDICATION Copyright © National Library of Australia 04 06 34 58 Melbourne School of Design Cataloguing-in-Publication FUTURE FACTORY Introduction: MRI the city Doing Bigness entry This book is dedicated The University of Melbourne and the work Austria to Australia, Tom Kvan Stanislav Roudavski 2016 to the memory of Ernest X-Ray The City! of Ernest Fooks Fuchs to Fooks Fooks (born Ernest Published by 1. Urban Design Alan Pert and 38 66 Leslie Fuchs, 6 October Melbourne School of Design 2. Architectural History Philip Goad X-Raying Urban Cities… they’re so hot 1906 – 4 December 3. Architectural Design The University of Melbourne Policy Frameworks right now 1985) and his wife Victoria 3010 Australia 4. Urban Analytics 14 Mark Burry Marcus White, Noemi Fooks. www.msd.unimelb.edu.au ISBN 978-0-7340-5258-2 Fooks, Rudofsky Geoff Kimm, All rights reserved. No part and Henard 42 Nano Langenheim, of this publication may be Alan Pert Connectivity and Xiaoran Huang and reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any morphology Mark Burry form or by any means, 18 Xiaoran Huang, including photocopying, Metric City Marcus White, 72 recording, or other Karen Burns Mark Burry and Fooks and the electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior Geoff Kimm emergence of urban written permission of the 22 science publishers. Fooks: Integrating 46 Justyna Karakiewicz Urban Functions The City as a Printed by Brambra Press 6 Rocklea Drive Paul Walker Mix of Mixes 76 Port Melbourne 3207 Kim Dovey and Studio Projects Australia 26 Elek Pafka Knowledge is not for 100 Publication Design: Sean Hogan, Trampoline knowing; knowledge 50 4D Data, Diagrams, trampoline.net.au is for cutting How learning Density and Hannah Lewi algorithms support Diagnostics urban design AND Donald Bates 30 the problem of too Taking Them Back: much data 104 the Austro- Gideon Aschwanden Biographies Australians returned to Vienna 54 Andrew Saniga Spatial Nearness Marcus White, Geoff Kimm and Nano Langenheim 04 05

Through his 1946 book X-Ray the City! Ernest Fooks sections (each with a focus on a bespoke period: FUTURE FACTORY offers a provocative departure point for the Future 1946 / 2016 / 2046), the exhibition touches on Factory community to develop theories, insights and a broad range of perspectives including urban and the work of applications to support innovative adaptive designs analytics, design tools, geometry, society and Ernest Fooks and to tackle the complexity of the future urban stakeholders, and simply trying to understand the challenges head on. Many of the arguments and city using the X-Ray analogy. speculations Fooks presented 7 decades ago in X-Ray the City! remain relevant to date, and will keep Urban development in practice typically assumes on being so for generations to come. They are in that the built environment is essentially a foreseeable line with Future Factory members’ fields of inquiry set of outcomes for which, given sufficient data who together explore novel ecosystems at any scale and information, future behaviour is predictable. The Melbourne School of Design (MSD) at the University of seeking a clearer understanding of past, actual and Instead the contemporary urban condition can Melbourne is home to a diverse group of researchers and emerging environmental issues ranging between be understood alternatively as a set of systems: individual needs and their reasonable aspirations and complex spatial aggregates of social, natural practitioners who share a passion for design, design research and the collective needs of society and the planet as a and technical phenomena that are destined to sustainable whole. supersede and merge traditional typologies such studio-based teaching. as ‘cities’, ‘landscapes’ or ‘biota’. Such systems How can one contextualise Fooks’ work in a do not follow universal or linear laws leading us to contemporary setting? consider the role of complexity theory and its role within creative investigations of ‘the future’. As an As part of the University’s drive for a whole-of- transdisciplinary design-led research probes, the For the 2016 Venice Biennale, Future Factory applied intellectual undertaking design is well suited university approach to tacking several ‘Grand Future Factory Research Hub explores, shapes and members take a fresh look at X-Ray the City! 70 to suggest and interrogate unlikely pathways across Challenges’, a diverse group of individuals from tests design speculations across all scales working years after it was first published. Their contributions datasets; this exhibition and catalogue demonstrates the School have formed a research hub to reach with many discrete disciplines. We are organised to the exhibition in the Palazzo Mora contextualise a the value of combining a critical view of both the across what would otherwise be rather disconnected around project-based investigations that explore broad range of Fooks influences and contemporaries past and the present in any argument promoting streams of inquiry. Established as a place for alternative scenarios in the quest for insights into to reflect critically on the past, scrutinise the present competing views of the future, and how the future possible credible urban futures. and speculate on the future. Split into three major might be. 06 07

Ernst Leslie Fuchs was born in Bratislava, Fooks’ career can be broken down into three distinct Introduction Czechoslovakia on 6 October 1906. His family phases: first, his time in Vienna and his work on the moved to Vienna in 1908 where he went on to study first high-rise development in that city; second, the Austria to Australia, architecture at the city’s Technische Hochschule, early years of life in Melbourne when he worked as completing a doctorate in Technical Science with a design architect within the government agency of Fuchs to Fooks a major in Town Planning, and opening his own the Housing Commission of Victoria and published architectural practice in 1932.2 His doctoral thesis, widely on urban design and town planning including entitled ‘Stadt in Streifen’, was a detailed analysis the publication of X-Ray the City! in 1946; and third, of the concept of the linear city.3 After escaping his work in private practice which passes through Europe’s increasing anti-Semitism, Fuchs married two distinctive phases, which, align with the impact Alan Pert and Latvian-born Noemi Matusevic in Canada before of his travels overseas. In particular his trips with migrating to Australia, arriving in Melbourne in Noemi to Scandinavia and Japan which directly Philip Goad May 1939. He initially worked for the Housing influence his domestic work. Commission of Victoria before becoming in 1944 the first lecturer in town planning at Melbourne Technical Fooks was also an accomplished artist, holding College (now RMIT University). He changed his name exhibitions over the period from 1944 to 1984, In the 1990s The University of Melbourne’s Architecture Building to Ernest Fooks on becoming an Australian citizen in including ‘Cities of Yesterday’ (1944) and ‘The 1945 and established an architectural practice under Two Faced Metropolis’ (1952). He presents as a and Planning Library was fortunate to have bequeathed to it the his own name in 1948. Today, Fooks is best known significant figure from the émigré design diaspora, in Melbourne for his postwar modernist flats and which brought numerous professionals from ‘Fooks Collection’ from Noemi Fooks, widower of the late Dr houses, many of which still exist. Despite common Europe to Australia during the interwar, World War public disdain for ‘European style’ high-rise living, II and immediate postwar periods.5 Positioned Ernest Fooks (1906-1985), émigré architect and town planner these modernist flats represent some of the best within the ranks of both public and private and author of X-Ray the City! The density diagram: basis for examples in Australia of European taste in modern practice, and responding to pressures for housing, apartment living.4 From the notable ‘Growing House’ infrastructure, and education, artists and design 1 urban planning (1946). Who was this émigré writing on the other in the early 1930s, an expandable small house type professionals like Fooks had a lasting impact on designed while in Vienna, to his more than forty the development of postwar Australian visual and side of the world? Why was his book prescient, and what is its apartment blocks built throughout the Melbourne design culture, especially during the significant suburbs of Caulfield, Toorak, St Kilda and South immediate postwar years. They also explored their message for today? Yarra, his large body of residential work produced in newly adopted country in ways that both reflected Austria and Australia will be the subject of a future the ideas associated with their formative years in research project at the University of Melbourne’s a European context and came to terms with the Melbourne School of Design. unique (often outdated and conservative) conditions

1 Ernest Fooks, X-Ray the 3 Ernst Fuchs, ‘Stadt in Streifen’ 4 Caroline Butler-Bowdon 5 Accounts, largely biographical City!: The density diagram: (City in Stripes), PhD Thesis and Charles Pickett, Homes case studies, of the impact basis for urban planning, (in German), Technische in the sky: apartment living in of émigré artists, designers Canberra: Ministry of Post-War Hochschule zu Wien, 1931. Australia, Carlton, Vic.; Sydney: and architects in Australia can Reconstruction, 1946. Held in the Ernest Fooks Miegunyah Press in association be found in Karl Bittman (ed), Collection, Manuscripts Library, with Historic Houses Trust, Strauss to Matilda: Viennese 2 Harriet Edquist, ‘Fooks, State Library of Victoria, 2007, pp. 115, 118. in Australia, 1938-1988, Ernest’, in P. Goad and J. Willis, Melbourne, Australia. Leichhardt, NSW: Wenkart The Encyclopedia of Australian Foundation, 1988 and Roger Architecture, Melbourne: Butler (ed), The Europeans: Cambridge University Press, émigré artists in Australia, X-Ray the City!, Ernest 2012, pp. 258-9. 1930-1960, Canberra: National Fooks, Ruskin Press 1946 Gallery of Australia, 1997. 08 Alan Pert and Philip Goad 09 thrown up by Australian society, culture, politics So why look at Ernest Fooks now? October 2016 of the social and cultural capital of Europe and which to test some assumptions and explore a and economics. Fooks was also involved with his is the 50-year anniversary of the completion of Australia, offering insights into design trends during distinct perspective on Fooks the Architect, The wife Noemi in community life including the Jewish Fooks’ own home at 32 Howitt Road in Caulfield the interwar years, the war years and importantly, Town Planner, The Furniture Designer, The Artist and service organisation B’nai B’rith, and his prominence North, Melbourne as well as the 70-year anniversary the post-WWII decades as Australia learned what The Writer. within the Jewish community was later recognised of his most notable written work: X-Ray the City! it meant to be cosmopolitan. In turn, the ‘Fooks through his commission to design the National (1946). The house at Howitt Road was occupied by Collection’ manifests as a potential exemplar into Fooks was far more than an architect. He was Jewish Memorial Centre and Community Facility Fooks’ wife Noemi until her death in 2013 and then the investigation of émigré practitioners, as it a prolific traveller, artist, lecturer, designer and in Canberra, completed in 1971. Fooks died in following the sale of the property Alan Pert has been provides links to key areas of professional activity theorist. Through boxes of letters to notables 1985. Despite his prolific output in built work and occupying the house while working with colleagues such as domestic architecture, public housing such as Australian Prime Minister Ben Chifley, US publishing, especially his writing on modern housing at the Melbourne School of Design on research and speculative flat developments, and, to key urban theorist Lewis Mumford and former Bauhaus overseas in the 1940s,6 and the extensive national which examines Fooks’ career (both in Vienna and government institutions such as the Housing Director Walter Gropius as well as to the exemplary coverage of his work in magazines such as Australian Melbourne) and his built-work, publications and Commission of Victoria. Furthermore, as universities photography of his frequent overseas endeavours; a Home Beautiful, Australian House and Garden and personal records held within various archives. The and professionals around the world engage in new vast array of tangible histories preside around Fooks, Architecture Today Fooks’ work has not been widely ultimate goal is the formal creation of ‘The Ernest forms of urbanism, design and practice theory, it is yet to be uncovered and documented. There is more acknowledged in general architectural circles. Fooks Collection’, a research, exhibition and imperative that we reflect upon, understand, and to understand and learn about Fooks, and in order to publication project, which brings together disparate explore the significant contribution and influence do so, Venice 2016 begins to investigate, speculate Ronnen Goren’s exhibition catalogue, 45 Storeys: archives and information located at the University that émigré architects like Fooks brought to the and test the theoretical position of the somewhat A Retrospective of Works by Melbourne Jewish of Melbourne, RMIT University and the State development of not just Melbourne and indeed, forgotten urban polemic, X-Ray the City! architects from 1945 (1993) and Catherine Library of Victoria. In the 1990s the University of Australia’s design culture and thinking, but also to Townsend’s conference paper, “Architects, exiles, Melbourne Architecture Building and Planning Library countries like the United States, Canada, South new Australian” (1997) are to date, the most received the basis of the ‘Fooks Collection’ from Africa, Brazil, Malaysia and the United States. Fooks’ X-Ray the City!: 70-Years After extensive coverage of Fooks’ life and career along Noemi Fooks. This collection has lain dormant until story is one with global parallels. X-Ray the City!, published in 1946 while Ernest with another slender publication entitled Ernest recently and now a group of Melbourne academics Fooks was still working for the Housing Commission Fooks: Architect (2001), prepared by Harriet Edquist, are recognizing that ‘The Fooks Collection’ offers 12-boxes of books which were removed from the of Victoria (including a foreword by Dr H C. which was conceived as a catalogue to accompany a poignant window into the life of an exemplary shelves of the house at Howitt Road following the Coombs, Director General, Minister for Post-War a small exhibition curated by Helen Stuckey staged architect, urban thinker, designer, theorist and artist. sale of the estate were retrieved and returned to the Reconstruction) was discovered inside one of the at Melbourne’s Jewish Museum of Australia.7 By house in 2013. This collection has provided valuable boxes at 32 Howitt Road. The book pioneered in Edquist’s admission, her 2001 booklet was not With the exile of so many Europeans from countries information in relation to Fooks’ life and clues to the Australia the topic of urban density, and in it, Fooks intended to be an exhaustive study of Fooks, but like Austria during World War II, the influx of new thinking behind his work, his writings and his art. declared that “It is the principle of the integration of simply to draw attention to his body of work, and to professionals brought with them new teachings, For Pert, residing at the house has as much been a the four urban functions, to live, to work, to recreate provide a useful framework for further investigation. new ideas, new theories and new skills that would process of discovery - uncovering the life of Fooks and to distribute, which has to accompany every act It is clear that a great deal of other information is yet influence planning, design, architecture and culture - as well as experiencing a deeper understanding of urban planning.”8 But he believed that integrated to be uncovered and documented within the ‘Fooks in the development of modernist Australia. These of the motivations behind his work through a lived urban research could only be achieved by a science Collection’, and also within other relevant archives. contributions present undiscovered narratives experience. The house has provided a lens through

6 For example, Ernest Fooks, 7 Ronnen Goren (ed), 45 “A Growing House”, Australian Storeys: A Retrospective of Home Beautiful, March 1940, Works by Melbourne Jewish pp. 26-7; “An Architect Visits architects from 1945, Prahran, Norway”, Australian Home Vic.: Jewish Festival of the Arts, Beautiful, July 1940, pp. 24-6; 1993; Catherine Townsend, “Travels through Europe – “Architects, exiles, ‘new’ Leaves from and architect’s Australians”, Papers from the sketchbook”, Australian Home 15th Annual Conference of Beautiful, October 1943, pp. 19- The Society of Architectural 22; “Wartime housing in Europe: Historians, Australia and New Switzerland”, Australian Home Zealand, Melbourne, 1998, pp. Beautiful, August 1945, pp. 379-87; Harriet Edquist, Ernest 12-15; and “Wartime housing Fooks: architect, Melbourne: in Europe: Sweden”, Australian RMIT, 2001. Home Beautiful, September 1945, pp. 10-12. 8 Fooks, X-Ray the City!, p. 95. 10 Alan Pert and Philip Goad 11 of urban planning that demanded the input of data. book titled X-Ray the City! ….. Fooks wanted and administrative urban boundaries makes the interaction of its parts. Urban design What he proposed was a “method [that] can be to place Australian town planning on an overall density figures meaningless. A study cannot be form alone. Purposeful social compared to an X-Ray of the human body, the single intellectually rigorous footing, and wrote the of the two accompanying tables makes this commitment must precede all action in the maps forming parts of an ‘anatomic atlas’ of the book to show how this might be done. clear’ (p. 48). The two tables show self- design process without concern for the urban entity”.9 evidently absurd results, such as Vienna’s techniques or shapes through which the The central argument of X-Ray the City! is one density being lower than Melbourne’s and commitment may finally be translated into While the debt to CIAM’s Athens Charter (1933) that still needs to be made in the 21st Century. about the same as Los Angeles’, and Detroit physical reality.14 on urbanism10 was clear, Fooks added something Most reported measurements of urban density having double the density of Zurich.12 new – he proposed two new research instruments: are calculated by dividing the population of a Clues to Fooks’ interest in the ‘X-ray’ as metaphor Seventy years after X-Ray the City! first appeared, the the Distance Grid and the Density Diagram. These municipality or other administrative region by can be found in his book collection and archival FUTURE FACTORY Research Group at Melbourne graphic representations mapped his integrated its gross area. ‘It is of the utmost importance,’ notes. A paper clipping referring to the use of the School of Design will reimagine the Distance Grid urban functions and calibrated the social needs Fooks says, ‘to stress the major defect of X-ray to unlock secrets underneath paintings, and the Density Diagram for Melbourne in 2016 and of the metropolitan population. He wrote: “Visual such figures: THE ARBITRARY NATURE OF including types of paper, materials, preparatory 2046. Fooks had suggested that some elements of order is always the expression of the social order URBAN BOUNDARIES’ (Fooks, 1946, p. sketches, changes to the composition, and other the city could never be measured, that some issues which it serves. It is the human scale, which has 43; capitalisation in original). Municipal and clues is used as a bookmark in a book about could not be reduced to a table of figures.13 What is to be the guiding principle. Human beings, their administrative boundaries rarely correspond Picasso. The article describes the layering of the immeasurable data missing from X-Ray the City!? collective needs, their grouping, their distribution and to actual urbanised areas. Some cities (e.g. paintings from the sketch to the final composition. How can it be graphically represented? And, why is redistribution, become the primary concern of urban Brisbane) contain large areas of vacant land Fooks has underlined a section, which reads: “X-rays it critical to the reimagining of the future metropolis? planning”.11 within their boundaries, while others (e.g. can see through different layers. But instead of flesh, Our project investigates and presents a new way of the City of Toronto) occupy only the inner these ‘X-rays’ see different layers of paint”. A more representing this missing “immeasurable data”. X-Ray the City! appears to have been forgotten part of the urbanised area. Therefore, more significant clue to the ‘X-ray’ metaphor would be within Australia’s urban planning community with accurate density measures are needed: Fooks Fooks’ copy of the catalogue Foto-auge (Photo- The X-Ray as Metaphor - space-time renderings the exception of the late Paul Mees from RMIT proposed a series of them, linked to form Eye),15 one of the most influential publications in University. In his paper ‘How dense are we?’, Mees a ‘density diagram’ that could be used to the field of the New Photography in the 1920s.16 Perhaps it is what you do not see which writes: ‘X-Ray the City’. Foto-auge contains seventy-six reproductions makes sense of urban situations. We need to reflecting the entire range of the Neues Sehen see beyond superficial form and understand The problem is not new. More than six Fooks provided examples to illustrate his (New Vision), and formulates the new photographic decades ago, Ernest Fooks published a little main point: ‘The artificial character of legal the internal structure of the environment and

9 10 11 13 16 Photo-Auge, Wedekind, 1929‬ Fooks, X-Ray the City!, p. 95. The four functions of living, Fooks, X-Ray the City!, p. 96. Fooks, X-Ray the City!, p. 96. For further information on working, recreation and Foto-Auge, see Inka Graeve circulation (distribution) were an 12 Paul Mees, “How Dense Are 14 Typewritten notes by Fooks Ingelmann, “Mechanics and intrinsic part of the outcomes We? Another Look at Urban found in his archive/library at 32 Expression: Franz Roh and of CIAM 4 which took place on Density and Transport Patterns Howitt Road, North Caulfield in the New Vision—A Historical the SS Patris between Athens in Australia, Canada and the Melbourne. Sketch”, in Mitra Abbaspour, and Marseilles in 1933, but USA”, Road and Transport Lee Ann Daffner, and Maria were then put into documentary Research, vol 18, no 4, 15 Franz Roh and Jan Tschichold Morris Hambourg (eds.), Object: form by Le Corbusier initially 2009, 58–67. (eds.), Foto-Auge, Stuttgart: Photo. Modern Photographs: in La Ville Radieuse (1935), but Wedekind, 1929. The Thomas Walther Collection then more precisely in Charte 1909–1949. An Online Project d’Athènes in 1943. Both books of The Museum of Modern appear in the bibliography of Art. New York: The Museum of X-Ray the City! Modern Art, 2014, pp. 1-14. 12 13 aesthetic that had established itself as the way of of a mere technique. The ability to expose from 1919 where this new aesthetic of transparency Unfashionable Human Body (1971). Are Clothes the future around 1929. Along with photographs and simultaneously the inside and outside was also being applied to buildings. The structural Modern? opened as an exhibition at the Museum photographic experiments by well-known artists of a thing, to retain the object’s surface ‘skeleton’ covered only by a ‘skin’ of glass became a of Modern Art in New York in 1944 and the press and photographers such as El Lissitzky, Man Ray, even while probing its depths, describes familiar architectural idea. release also makes reference to the use of X-rays.21 László Moholy-Nagy, Albert Renger-Patzsch, Walter a scientific phantasy as well a scientific Peterhans, Hans Finsler, Umbo (Otto Umbehr), imperative…. The term artefact perhaps There is clearly a relationship between Fooks’ In the twentieth century, the widespread use of and Sasha Stone, the publication also includes best describes the x-ray image, which is fascination with the art world and emerging media X-rays made a new way of thinking about art and anonymous photos from picture agencies, press at once buried and revealed, invoking the (photography and film) around this time and modern architecture possible as Beatriz Colomina suggests. services, and business archives. These images archaeological aspect of its function.18 architecture. Beatriz Colomina in her paper “X-Ray “At the turn of the twenty-first century, the CAT scan represent the various uses of the medium: reportage, Architecture: Illness as Metaphor” suggests: (Computerized Axial Tomography) may be for the field scientific photography, aerial photographs and X-ray Fooks also had a copy of Gyorgy Kepes’s Language what the basic X-ray was for architects early in the photographs. The content of the publication was of Vision. Kepes pioneered the construction of Avant-garde architects of the early decades of the twentieth century.”20 In 1946, the exclamation mark of selected from ‘Film und Foto’ (FIFO), the seminal digital imagery and the fusion of design with art, 20th century, from Le Corbusier to Jan Duiker or Ernest Fooks’ title X-Ray the City! was a command photography exhibition held in May-July 1929 in architecture, science and technology. His archives, Richard Neutra, presented their new architecture or an entreaty to look beneath the existing city and Stuttgart which included on its selection committee sold in 2010 to Stanford University, included letters as a kind of medical equipment for protecting discover its invisible form. To proclaim ‘CAT scan the Swiss art and architectural historian and CIAM from Josef Albers, R. Buckminster Fuller, John Cage, and enhancing the body. Buildings even started City!’ somehow doesn’t have the same mystique as Secretary-General Siegfried Giedion and László Walter Gropius, Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, Piet Mondrian to look like X-rays, revealing the secrets within. searching for the hidden ‘X’ of any city, so ‘X-Ray the Moholy-Nagy. Gideon’s Space, Time and Architecture and Richard Neutra, all of whom he influenced. Think about Mies van der Rohe’s project for City!’ it is. (1941)17 is also referenced in Fooks’ X-Ray the City! The theories that he and Moholy-Nagy devised the Glass Skyscraper in Berlin of 1922, with its and we can now start to understand Fooks’ wider in the 1930s are still relevant today in relation to exposed skeleton. It’s not by chance that Mies interest in scientific graphics and visualization. contemporary theories of data visualization and even collected and published X-rays.20 digital information. Laszlo Moholy-Nagy (1895-1946) pops up elsewhere But at the same time, Fooks’ book reveals an added in Fooks’ bookshelves and bizarrely it turns out Within Fooks’ book collection there are also, dimension – that of the human, almost primitive, he shares a birthday with the X-ray. Jane Gaines references to some of the avant-garde Russian quality of the city. The front cover to his book is not and Michael Renov in their book Collecting Visible painters such as Mikhail Larionov and Kasimir an X-ray but his own hand drawing of the Belgian Evidence capture Moholy-Nagy’s interest in x-ray Malevich who famously wrote in 1915 that “objects late medieval city of Bruges. It’s described in critical technology and particularly its impact on art, an have vanished like smoke”. The Russian avant-garde terms within the book as ‘Overcrowding in Europe’ interest expressed in print in 1947, contemporaneous was fascinated by the idea of seeing through as a but almost contradictorily drawn with genuine with Fooks’ 1946 book: precursor to seeing beyond. Naum Gabo is also fondness that will increase with Fooks’ travels referenced and he declared his own rules of art: “Just and documentation of vernacular architecture. In “In x-ray photos,” he writes, “structure as X-rays are shaded from black to white, so are this regard, Fooks shares sympathies with fellow becomes transparency and transparency layers of tissue they reveal. That grey scale is reality.” Viennese-trained architect and exhibition curator manifests structure. The x-ray pictures, to “The real”, Gabo announced, “is what is beneath, Bernard Rudofsky, then resident in the United States, which the futurist has consistently referred, not what is superficially apparent.”19 Gabo’s 1920 Amongst the Fooks bookshelves we can find almost are among the outstanding space-time manifesto was one of a string of artistic declarations the entire Rudofsky book collection: Are Clothes renderings on the static plane”….. Moholy- announcing a new aesthetic. He was succeeded by Modern? (1944), Behind the Picture Window (1955), Nagy’s description of the use of x-ray the Surrealists and preceded by Dada but his fixation Architecture without Architects (1964), The Kimono technologies in art exceeds, however, that with transparency can also be found at the Bauhaus Mind (1965), Streets Are For People (1969) and The

17 Sigfried Giedion, Space, time 18 Jane Gaines and Michael 19 Naum Gabo, Realist 20 Beatriz Colomina, “X-Ray 21 Press release for Are Clothes and architecture, Cambridge, Renov (eds.), Collecting Manifesto, 1920, quoted in Architecture: Illness as Modern?, exhibition held at the Mass.: Harvard University Visible Evidence, Minneapolis: Bettyann Kevles, Naked to Metaphor”, Positions, No. 0, Museum of Modern, New York, Press, 1941. University of Minnesota Press, the bone: medical imaging Positioning Positions (Fall 2008), 29 November 1944 – 4 March 1999, p. 72. Moholy-Nagy’s in the twentieth century,New pp. 30-35. 1945, MOMA Archives. words are quoted from Lazlo Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers Moholy-Nagy, Vision in Motion, University Press, 1997, p. 131. Chicago: Theobald, 1947, p. 252. 14 15

by Rudofsky, Behind the Picture Window (1955), Architecture and city making for Fooks and Rudofsky being consolidated to maximise building footprints. Fooks, Rudofsky there is a chapter titled: ‘The Ballast of The Home’ was not just a matter of technology and aesthetics Human-scale buildings and heritage overlays where Rudofsky refers to the importance of storage but the frame for a way of life. Rudofsky famously struggle to survive the growth that is driving the and Henard: as the organising principle of domestic life. Fooks designed sandals ("Footwear without tears"), single use residential development. Thoughts on Sandals and a Pair of Nike - has written in his archival notes ‘The Street’ and which he suggested were designed to liberate The Street next to it ‘The Ballast of The City’. We can only the foot. He would have no doubt approved of 70-years on from X-Ray the City! rates of retail hypothesize on the parallels Fooks was intending that quintessentially modern development, the vacancy are at an all time high in many Melbourne here in relation to the functional role of the street in performance running shoe like a pair of Nike. The streets. The city’s high streets and distribution of relation to the city; possibly provoking the thought science of footwear has never been so advanced shopping has been going through a rapid decline. of the street as something to be filled (with people), and just as the sandal is the most primitive form of This follows the growth in retail centralization and the a vessel essential to social exchange and well- liberation for the foot so too could the Nike runner globalization of brand shopping in major cities as well Alan Pert being or something providing weight and stability be seen as liberating in a very different kind of way. as the steep rise in online shopping. Communities and of great functional importance in the life of a For Rudofsky and for Fooks the frustration is that our were, literally, built around our high streets in the city. Rudofsky and Fooks share an interest in the homes and our streets haven’t kept pace. past. Once the social glue of a community these human, almost primitive, quality of the city and linear aggregations of diverse frontages, activities Melbourne’s distinctive high street shopping while X-Ray the City! promotes a scientific approach and people will have to be reimagined beyond the strips were established in the late 19th and early In X-Ray the City! Fooks highlights the plight of to urban research Fooks is also suggesting we single purpose of retail. 20th centuries. They have seen little material marginal shops sitting isolated on the outer areas do not overlook the visual, experiential and social difference in the built fabric over the last 100 years. of the city and how they contribute to an ailing dimensions of the historic city. Linking Fooks and Melbourne’s arterial network has been the focus In appearance the high street currently remains urban form. Fooks was interested in the role that Rudofsky to Eugene Henard is a clipping Fooks had of an MSD design studio for the last two years familiar, yet the activities taking place there are the space of the street played in the social life of inserted in Rudofsky’s, Streets for People. “Street of combining students from architecture, landscape transforming: the shops remain, but with much communities and the convenience of everyday life. the Future” (1910) was the French planner Henard’s architecture and urban design. The ‘Vacancy Market’ less shopping. The basic topography of the street He saw the street as a delineated area for common paper, presented at the Royal Institute of British studio 2014 explored Bridge Road in Richmond, an remains largely familiar, its buildings essentially the use and the distribution of services along the street Architects’ Town Planning Conference “The Cities of inner suburb of Melbourne, while ‘Almost Pretty’ same; the patterns and conditions of pavements, as a communal asset. Fooks often referred to his the Future” in London. In that paper, he presented 2015 explored Sydney Road, Melbourne’s longest roads, vehicles and street furniture are largely friend and colleague Bernard Rudofsky (BR) in his plans and sections of existing and ‘future’ city streets continuous shopping strip to the north of the CBD. consistent but change is acute. Recent planning lecture notes and as noted in the introduction to and buildings. The Rue Future plan and cross-section In their most basic form these streets form part of controls have allowed increased density to begin to this publication Fooks had a copy of Rudofsky’s posited a future where the complete integration a route that connects people and places, from the transform these largely two storey arterial routes. book, Streets for People (1969), in his collection. of technology seamlessly links public and private CBD at one end to the outer suburbs at the other Development companies and planning set back In the book Rudofsky argues that the street is the realms through infrastructure. Yet, the futuristic built end. They are also a series of spaces that align to controls have become the primary determiners of historical stage for the mundane and the remarkable, form of the city did not actually look very different compose an urban strip. Behind this ‘regulated’ urban form and swathes of individual shopfronts are the personal and the communal. In another book from the existing form.

1 Ernest Fooks, X-Ray the City!: The density diagram: basis for urban planning, Canberra: Ministry of Post-War Reconstruction, 1946.

Figure 1. From X-Ray the Figure 2. From X-Ray the Figure 3. Eugène Ménard City!, Page 40 City!, Page 41 ‘CITIES OF THE FUTURE’ Vacant Shops, Strut St, The Isolated Shop Royal Institute of British South Melbourne Originally situated within a Architects, Town Planning Endless rows of shops, purely residential district Conference London, 10-15 interspersed with October 1910, Transactions dilapidated dwellings, line (London: The Royal Institute the main roads of the inner of British Architects, suburbs. 1911):345-367 16 Alan Pert 17 urban strip lies a diverse range of laneways, The MSD studios exploring high streets forms way we move through our cities we might reconsider As Fooks suggests: “It is the demands of today’s backdoors, service yards, garages and car-parks that part of a larger study of Melbourne’s major streets the hierarchy of fronts and backs. Automated taxis society that makes the social needs of the human form a less regulated hinterland of opportunities. and hinterland spaces. As these streets and open on-demand, increased cycling, electric bikes and being the nucleus of urban integration. Due to this spaces transition under the new urban policies cars, improved public transit, hover-boards and an perception, today’s approach towards urban planning This duality of spatial complexity raises some designed to drive a certain type of urbanity we ageing demographic requiring a range of mobility differs from that of yesterdays. Then it was the fascinating opportunities when considering the stand to miss a great opportunity for remaking the devices have the potential to radically alter the optical, approach, the visual sensation forming the heterogeneous coexistence of cultures in places middle ring. Fooks took on the quarter-acre plot by physical space of the street and its relationship to the decisive factor. Today it is the sociological approach. like Melbourne. In contrast to the structure of the introducing the residential ‘six-pack’ to the suburbs spaces beyond. The visual order cannot be divorced from the realities grid found at the heart of the CBD and behind the over 50-years ago and it is still an important lesson of daily life. Visual order is always the expression diverse frontages that form a typical high street we in scale and density today. What is emerging along Celebrating this new mobility and reinforcing the of the social order, which it serves. It is the human can find an unusual distribution of left over spaces. our major streets is a generic tiered ‘wedding cake’ high street as a circulation corridor for all types of scale, which has to be the guiding principle. Human There is pressure on these hinterland spaces to of recessive blocks and homogenized shop fronts. services from collecting waste to moving people beings, their collective needs, their grouping, their accommodate future residential development and We stand to lose the texture of the streets as the helps to reinforce a radical rethinking of the urban distribution and redistribution, become the primary with this brings the risk of homogeneity of land assortment of individual verandahs and canopies fabric. The hinterlands to our high streets are then concern of urban planning”.2 use. These spaces already mediate a variety of morph into over-sized protruding ‘downstands’ that no longer the left over bits of the discussion but Maybe a new definition of the urban arterial needs to uses around their edges (hospital – warehouse - have lost their human touch and fine grain detail. the primary opportunity for a new typology of be written in the context of the ‘Ballast of The Future workspace – house – church - supermarket) yet the The texture of small open spaces scattered across distributed common space. Vast amounts of urban City’. At the same time we should update Eugène economics of development are forcing a singular the rear of the streets is a clue to a new relationship space currently given over to wasteful parking for a Hénard’s idea for residential use over an opportunity to between the street and the community beyond. New declining retail market become opportunities for new accommodate diversity and a distributed model routes, new intersections and new topographies can forms of living, working, leisure time and learning “Cities of the Future narrative”: Let us now of communal activity. Just as the city is under reshape physical as well as social relationships. creating a new common experience of the future consider the buildings fronting (‘and backing’) these pressure to accommodate higher densities and a city. The street is reinforced as a continuous space, streets………. globalized architecture of curtain walling there is a The high streets were conceived as ‘urban veneers’ a high performance space (Nike trainer) while the similar concern that these unique neighbourhoods – shop frontages with servicing and storage directed hinterlands offer a diversity of places for people to are losing their distinctive local characters with an to the rear, out of sight. As the physical form of pause (the sandal). A transportation and technology architectural and spatial language of similarity void of these streets begin to change and as new modes of conduit adjacent and connected to a new type of distinctiveness. mobility have the potential to radically change the dispersed civic realm could navigate the frustrations of Fooks and Rudofsky.

Figure 4. The Vacancy Figure 5. ‘The Vacancy Market, Melbourne Market’ Study of Melbourne 2 Hinterlands. High Streets Fooks, X-Ray the City! p. 9 18 19

The cover features an expressive drawing of streets century visionaries who re-planned urban life around Metric City of tightly packed houses; immediately conveying the dreams of an organic community. the themes of overcrowding and density, and the granular study of the size of population per The long shadow of Ebenezer Howard and the urban area. The text’s X-Ray vision however, lies garden city ideal are cast on the book, leavening the in the narrator’s ability to see through the density dominance of urban formulae on Fooks’ modernist ratios: into the social fabric beneath and inside the mind-set. Howard countered the ills of the industrial numbers. His interest in urban data looks backwards city with a pastoral urban world. Although Fooks Karen to the nineteenth century and gazes forwards to the did not propose a garden city his thinking seems new post war world. In this short essay I use X-Ray indebted to Howard’s ideally sized population Burns the City! to sketch out the brief history of density centres, organisation of new urban formations by contained within its pages and then move forwards concentric rings, and emphasis on the social basis of to consider a new kind of density diagram: maps of communal life. “financial density”. The X-Ray study stands out amongst the The overcrowding ratios and density diagrams of abstractionism of famous modernist architectural X-Ray the City! extended a century old tradition of blueprints from Le Corbusier to CIAM. Fooks used mapping the city through the analytical category local knowledge to dissect universal measures. He of overcrowding. Unlike other modernist designers observed that Stockholm, Berlin and Birmingham however, Fooks also rekindled the nineteenth- all share the same density ratio whilst being very century’s scepticism towards mathematical data. different cities. Equally attentive to Melbourne’s Opening with a famous quotation popularly attributed differences, he compared the late nineteenth-century to Mark Twain and Benjamin Disraeli, he declared century middle-class garden suburb of Malvern that there are “Lies, damned lies and statistics”. with its 1940s density ratio of 11.2, to Melbourne’s The data was praised for its revelations but kept in mid-nineteenth-century industrialised suburb of Ernest Fooks’ X-Ray the City! (1946) check by other empirical methods and social values. Fitzroy and its density ratio of 33.4. The comparison brings together social and numeric “I do not believe that figures and standards are able challenged a century-long tradition of linking to produce urban and community life”, pronounced crowded, unhealthy environments with criminality. ways of knowing the city. Fooks. He was heir to nineteenth and early twentieth- Fooks found no link between overcrowding measures 20 Karen Burns 21 and juvenile crime: rates of ‘delinquency’ remained In 2014 architectural theorist Eyal Weizman called Fooks wrote of the city’s “immeasurables”, of the equivalent for Malvern and Fitzroy. Ideology is one of for “financial density” maps: representations that social things that escape the net of measurement the intangible things exposed by his x-ray analysis. correlate the parts of society in boom with the other and visualisation. Policy and “master plans” need parts in bust.1 Major cities hoard job opportunities local and bottom-up knowledge. His “anatomic atlas” Three important ways of knowing the city were and resources at the expense of peripheries and could be reimagined as a compendium of life stories; invented in the nineteenth century: eyewitness regions. The uneven geographical distribution of revealing individual experience of shifting economic testimony, ethnographic analysis and statistical population magnets and sparsely inhabited areas conditions and journeys. New integrated ways of methods. Testimony and statistics operated side was something Ebenezer Howard understood in displaying information through sound, text and image by side in Britain’s famous blue books, the vast his planning of new towns. A financial density map might make us more optimistic than Fooks about government inquiries into industrial, and “condition of the state of Victoria would depict Melbourne’s what the data eye could not see nor understand. For of England” questions. Huge reports collated concentration of employment resources, a monopoly example, geographers working with GIS mapping numeric survey data and hundreds of pages of that provides a social and financial barrier to regional have been experimenting with ways of incorporating informant witness testimony was recorded from up redistribution. Recent predictions suggest that by ethnographic information such as individual and and down the social scale, from factory inspectors 2056, 9 million people will be living in Melbourne. local histories into geo-spatial displays.3 Density can to industrial workers. Fooks did not include This revelation has been accompanied by a call for be interpreted as a form of Clifford Geertz’s “thick ethnographic information but his sensitivity to social increased population densities across the state, description”: an intensely detailed narration of events difference placed him closer to late 1950s and early which could be formed from rural and regional and characters as a way of explaining and setting 60s analyses of the city made famous by Jane centres. These “magnets” would be anchored behaviour in context. Jacobs’s work on Greenwich Village and Herbert around government service hubs or new specialist Gans’ investigation of Boston’s West End. In Fooks’ industries.2 A map of extant regional training X-Ray the City’s poetic nomenclature – from the humanist study density was analysed at the scale of institutions - from universities to TAFES, high anatomic atlas to spatial nearness – extends room, lot and area to produce an “anatomic atlas”, schools and community learning facilities – and density debates beyond the efficient distribution and social relations were described as “spatial local factories, workshops and businesses would and management of populations into a web of nearness”. Ways of knowing zoom between intimate describe existing social, economic and intellectual social bonds. In order to really map one of Fooks’ proximity and numerical distance. infrastructure as the basis for planning specific local immeasurables - the lived experience of community- industries in a multi-city future. Financial density we will need to find new ways of bringing the analytic maps place the city in a larger social context and tie and the anecdotal together. urban planning to economic futures.

1 Eyal Weizman, “Interview” in 2 Farrah Tomazin, “Population 3 M.P. Kwan, “Feminist Real Estates: Life Without Debt, Growth has become Victoria’s visualization: re-envisioning ed. Fulcrum (London: Bedford biggest political issue”, The GIS as a method in feminist Square, 2014), 124. Age, 8/05/2016, 21. geographic research”, Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 92, 4, 2002: 653. 22 23

The bibliography in Fooks’ book bears his useful Fooks renders the four functions – in forceful Fooks: Integrating annotations for several key works, and on the uppercase in the introduction to his book – Sert book he observes “Based on the proposals as “LIVING, WORKING, RECREATING and Urban Functions formulated by the CIAM…, it contains an analytical DISTRIBUTING”. survey of the urban living conditions of today. Popularly presented and excellently illustrated by The most striking parallel between the Fooks book means of maps, graphs, diagrams and photographs. and the Sert is not, however, their common adoption The best book to convey an overall view of today’s of the Le Corbusier orthodoxy of CIAM’s urbanism. urban problems.”2Sert’s book, in turn, was for Rather, the telling common ground between X-Ray the most part an explication of the vast list of the City! and Can Our Cities Survive? is in their Paul points contained in the Charter of Athens, the characterisation of the one of the basic components Walker urban doctrine adopted by CIAM - the Congrès of dwelling, which both Fooks and Sert call “the Internationaux d’Architecture Moderne - in 1933. Neighbourhood Unit” (give or take a hyphen). Both It appears that Sert’s book – originally published in define this unit as centring on an “elementary school” 1942 – contained the first widely distributed version – Fooks even uses this American terminology.4 Fooks of the Charter of Athens, or what it renders as “The reports English work that suggest a neighbourhood Town-planning Chart, Fourth C.I.A.M. Congress, unit is 1000 families; eight such units make a Athens, 1933”. ‘borough unit’ which should “contain all essential amenities of a town, such as a town hall, railway The urbanism of the Charter of Athens was of course station, theatre, hospital and a wide range of shops”.5 based on the functional approach to urban planning Eight boroughs constitute a district; while larger adopted by Le Corbusier in his key urban project cities would be clusters of such districts with open of the 1920s, the Ville Contemporaine, the Voisin spaces between and served by a central business Plan, and the Ville Radieuse. Sert’s version of the area. For Sert, the neighbourhood unit is similarly four functions renders them as “dwelling, recreation, composed of “the dwellings required to house a work, and transportation”. And in these terms, the sufficient number of people to support an elementary four functions have been discussed by urbanists and school”, and a “borough” is likewise defined as a architects ever since, first as four unquestionable cluster of neighbourhood units, including a range principles, then as a problematic schematization that of facilities that services them all – administrative disregarded urban complexity and whose pursuit offices, theatres and concert halls, cinemas, clubs, veiled real principles of “human association” (the a stadium, secondary schools, a central library, Ernest Fooks’ X-Ray the City! can be understood as a prescient Smithsons’ term that was in turn adopted by CIAM’s department stores, medical facilities.6 With less Team 10 critics), and then perhaps as a kind of exactitude than Fooks, Sert also refers to broader call to plan Melbourne on the basis of evidence and analysis. historical curiosity, to be viewed empathetically for urban units as districts, which in turn collectively its aesthetic implications, but more in the manner making up larger cities. Published in 1946, it is apparent that it was influenced by José of an ancient discursive monument than as a living Luis Sert’s book of 1942, Can Our Cities Survive? An ABC of philosophy. Here of course I am thinking of the Fooks and Sert also share a common attitude to 1 approach adopted by Rowe and Koetter’s Collage the problems of density. Both point to the tendency Urban Problems; Their Analysis; Their Solution. City of 1978.3 to see high population densities per se as bad,

1Sert, Can Our Cities Survive? 2Ernest Fooks, X-Ray the 3Colin Rowe & Fred Koetter, 6Sert, Can Our Cities Survive?, 70. See also Sert, “The An ABC of Urban Problems; City! The Density Diagram: Collage City (Cambridge, Mass.: Neighborhood Unit: A Human Measure in City Planning (circa 1953)” Their Analysis; Their Solution Basis for Urban Planning MIT Press, 1978). in The Writings of Josep Lluis Sert, ed. Eric Mumford, (New Haven: (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard (Canberra: Ministry of Post-war 4Fooks, X-Ray the City!, 33. Yale University Press, & Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Graduate University Press, reprinted Reconstruction, 1946), 104. 5 School of Design, 2015). 1947). Fooks, X-Ray the City!, 30. 24 Paul Walker 25 since crowding characterises slum conditions, and had demonstrated that there were 1.5 children for slums feature various kinds of social pathology. each school grade per 100 of urban population. He But very low densities lead to facilities being suggests that schools can only be run economically too dispersed to be conveniently accessed by if they have two classes at each level. This leads to households, and to heavy investments in roads and the calculation that a population of 3740 is needed other infrastructure for relatively small populations. to sustain an optimally operating school – this is While Sert emphasises that urban centres will have the head count of the neighbourhood unit. The high levels of population concentration because of acceptable variation in class size leads to minimum their high land values and because concentration and maximum neighbourhood populations of 2680 is needed in order to sustain their specialised and 4660. The “Time-Space factor” of a child’s activities, Fooks comments that even on the urban maximum walking distance leads Fooks to estimate fringe “comparative concentration” of the population a maximum area in which this population range can is needed. “The grouping of men into social and live (taking into account that paths from school to economically balanced communities, as instruments home will not be in straight lines), which in turn leads for healthy life: that is the primary task.”7 to a population density of 13.4 persons per acre for the desirable neighbourhood population of 3740, What distinguishes Fooks, however, apart from his and a minimum density of 9.6 persons per acre for constant reference to the specific planning problems the minimum neighbourhood population of 2680. No of Melbourne, is his analytical and quantitative bent. maximum desirable density logically emerges out of Thus, his sifting of data he had gathered about the this analysis.8 population needed to sustain an elementary school, coupled with his view that “it is generally agreed Fooks’ X-Ray the City! stays within the functional, that the maximum walking distance to schools CIAM doctrine of Sert’s Can Our Cities Survive? But for children of the elementary school age should his empirical turn in relation to scale and related not exceed half-a-mile” leads to a very specific ‘space-time factors’ (re-emergent in Melbourne proposal for the viable range of minimum densities in recent discussion of the 20- or 30-minute city) of an average Australian residential neighbourhood. leads him to advocate integration between functions Having surveyed expert “opinion” as to advisable just as strongly as the functions themselves. As class sizes for elementary schools in Europe, Fooks comments in his concluding chapter “It is England, the United States, and Australia, Fooks the principle of the integration of the four urban settles on 28 as the optimum average class head functions, to live, to work, to recreate and to count, within an acceptable range from 20 to 35 distribute, which has to accompany every act of children per class. Australian government statistics urban planning.”

A page from José Luis Sert’s Can Our Cities Survive? demonstrating neighbourhood units 7Sert, Can Our Cities Survive?, 8Fooks, X-Ray the City!, 34-35. 9Fooks, X-Ray the City!, 95. and their clustering into 60; Fooks, X-Ray the City!, 29. “boroughs” 26 27

“Knowledge is not for knowing: knowledge is for cutting.” Michel Foucault

This method creates the proper technical tools of coordinating and integrating the various urban factors in SPACE and TIME, and it adheres to the essential Hannah principle underlying today’s functional approach to physical planning. It is the principle of the integration Lewi of the four urban functions, to live, to work, to recreate and to distribute, which has to accompany every act of urban planning.

‘The principle of the DISTANCE GRID and This method can be compared to an X-Ray of the human the DENSITY DIAGRAM, with their different body, the single maps forming parts of an “anatomic atlas” applications, as suggested in this study, offers of the urban entity.’ a wide scope for a scientific method or urban research. caught by forumulae and definitions, and can hardly ‘To all but the scientist, tables of figures are be expressed with words: it is the life pulsating in liable to strike a rather inhuman note; all the the town, the life of generations, past and present, more when they refer to human beings and are an inkling of which we find expressed in the physical accompanied by the technical terminology of the environment in the structure, face and spatial order of town-planner. None the less, it is only by starting a town. with figures and standards – and drawing certain deductions from them – that an improvement of But I do believe that this method of integrated urban the living conditions of great numbers of human research will furnish the practical tools for urban beings can be achieved. analysis. I do believe that such an analysis based upon adequate methods can reveal the true degree I do not believe that figures and standards are of the defects and diseases of urban structures, the able to produce urban and community life, cancerous growth, as well as the overcrowding and which can only grow from the actions of human decentralization diseases, in all their ramifications. beings. No matter how thoroughly we may scrutinize a town, there will be an element that Only then shall we be able to find methods or urban cannot be measured, even by the most elaborate rehabilitation. Tools for analysis have to form the system of scoring; that cannot be expressed dynamic preparation for further action; they have to in figures or graphic exhibits; that cannot be become the tools for activity, the tools for creating the new urban environment.’ Ernest Fooks X-Ray the City! 28 Hannah Lewi 29

Melbourne 1946: With the rise of the welfare state in implement unprecedented changes to everyday living In X-Ray the City!, Ernest Fooks focuses on the know-how is depicted by Fooks as, on the one hand Australia, as elsewhere, there came a concern for the in modern urban environments. ‘problems’ of the modern city of Melbourne in the source of mis-guided and blinkered technocratic proselytisation of a code of social and professional comparison to other major world cities of the day. solutions, and on the other hand a valuable resource responsibility. Professionals including planners, The formation of the persona of the expert Akin to Giddens’ ‘dis-embedding’, here Fooks makes for re-imagining, re-ordering and eventually curing architects, engineers and landscape architects professional, and the depiction of new kinds expansive comparisons to international contexts and the damaged urban body. Programs of post-WWII alongside civil servants were key protagonists in of technical expertise and work, was a crucial away from the local, and he closely echoes other reconstruction and repair like Fooks’ ‘anatomic designing the post-WWII ‘social contract’ which was mechanism of modernity. Although extensive contemporary international planning organisational atlas’ were to be operated upon the Anglo-Saxon founded on the principles of extended citizenship urban census data and social mapping had been systems like Patrick Abercrombie’s Greater London body; a body laid bare by industrialisation, economic rights and consensus politics and backed by the undertaken from the latter nineteenth century Plan of 1944. depression, war and decentralisation. power of expert knowledge. (famously by Charles Booth among others), it was in the mid-twentieth century decades that Through photographic reportage, maps, charts X-Ray the City! attempted to show readers A raft of media types was enthusiastically adopted professional knowledges and tools relating to urban and diagrams, the wholesale investment in the how urban space and time could be made more from the 1930s onwards to persuade and promote planning and design were systematically established. codification and visualisation of information is striking visible and thereby more manageable through the new ideas about social and physical modernisation Anthony Giddens has termed these techniques as in this genre of planning and design documents. knowledge and actions of designers and experts. and reconstruction. Documentary films, travelling symptomatic of a ‘dis-embedding’ expert system Despite a veneer of ‘factual’ distance, audio-visual exhibitions, photographic surveys, public lectures of modernity: dis-embedding because of how such techniques were used as amplification of ideologies ‘It was these technicians of space— social pamphlets and books all offered new ways of systems attempt to restructure social relations as well as invitations towards policies and actions. statisticians, doctors, urban reformers, town persuasively communicating to a broad public away from immediate local, traditional contexts and X-Ray the City! is no exception. Together words, planners—who, in making space thinkable, also make audience. Through this media the design professions towards more universal and indefinite organisation maps, diagrams and surveys become blueprints, it practicable and enable certain intellectual and attempted to project themselves at the frontline; of the material and social urban environment across or what Fooks describes as an atlas, for both practical authority to be exercised over human beings 1 experts who could both educate about and space and time. scrutinising the problems and envisioning the future. by acting on the spatial aspects of their existence.’ Through forensic ‘scientific’ examination, planning Thomas Osborne and Nikolas Rose.2

1Anthony Giddens, The 2Thomas Osborne and Nikolas Consequences of Modernity Rose, “Spatial phenomotechnis: (Cambridge, England: Polity making space with Charles Press, 1991), 21. Booth and Patrick Geddes,” Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 22 (2004): 225. 30 31

In 2011 I took up a position as Gastprofessor at we discovered that one building could be linked Taking Them Back: the Institute for Landscape Architecture, University to both! Hochhaus at Herrengasse 6-8 has the of Natural Resources and Life Sciences (BOKU), ominous-sounding mantle of being ‘Vienna’s First the Austro-Australians Vienna. The aim of my visit was to spend time Skyscraper’. Designed by architects Theiss-Jaksch returned to Vienna completing my manuscript which ended up being in1931-32 and built within approximately 200 metres published a year later as Making Landscape of Michaelerplatz and the entrance gates to the Architecture in Australia (2012). I also agreed to lead Hofburg, this high-rise apartment building consisted a seminar based on my research, thus involving a of 224 flats, a roof-top restaurant with dance floor, group of landscape architecture students at BOKU and ground floor shops including a circular glass on a project of my choice. My research was primarily corner café (see Figures 1 and 2). After opening, Andrew concerned with explaining the origins of landscape Hochhaus attracted Vienna’s notoriety. It became a Saniga architecture in Australia, particularly during the years hub of activity, not only for a suite of Vienna’s artists, following World War II. I decided to explore any links performers, and other people of note, but also for the that could be established between Australia and general public who came to its shops, cafés, dance Austria. I knew émigré architects to Australia like events and the like. Ernest Fooks (1906-85) and Karl Langer (1903-69) had links with Vienna early in their careers, but it was My students became intrigued by the discovery their trajectories in Australia that I had researched up that two practitioners with expansive and influential to that date. careers in Australia had also been involved in early modern building projects in their city. At the time To my good fortune, I was presented with a Hochhaus was constructed Fooks was working Culture is bound to single points, it reaches its blossom fantastically receptive student cohort who took to my as an architect for Theiss-Jaksch. We found ambitions without reservation. This was important photographic evidence of him in discussion with in the cities. Nature is not bound to anything. It can be because I really had no confidence that we could builders, climbing scaffolding and generally being find any extant building or landscape that had in the thick of building this modern and radical new everywhere. It has to be in the metropolis also. That is clear connections to either Fooks or Langer. So it development within a part of the city steeped in the assignment.1 was with great excitement that within two weeks historic buildings and infrastructure. Karl Langer’s

Figure 1: The entrance foyer of Hochhaus in 2011. Photograph: A Saniga

Figure 2: A model of 1 Ernst Fuchs (Ernest Fooks), Hochhaus on display within “Stadt in Streifen”, excerpt the vacant corner café in trans, Christian Car (PhD diss., the building’s foyer in 2011. Technical University of Vienna, Photograph: A Saniga. 1932), 102. 32 Andrew Saniga 33 connection involved a 1927 concept for the site and form. This includes propositions for alternative to have resided in, or been linked closely with, Acknowledgement called The Cityhaus Projekt. His scheme was never forms of housing and density that might be adopted Hochhaus in the early years. Discovering their built however the design reflected bold thinking for Australian cities. Importantly, they identified a role breadth of importance historically, Car proposed, Thanks to the students of BOKU in 2011, for their and challenging ideas for the time. It consisted of for landscape architecture in Australia. The value of amongst other things, an ‘interactive doorbell’ (see preparedness to explore the unknown, and their a number of large rectangular volumes banded landscape within the metropolis and the domestic Figures 3 and 4) in an attempt to reclaim lost pieces willingness to engage in the history of Australian horizontally in alternating colours: red for the lower garden was clearly on their radar. Yet given that their of Viennese cultural heritage. It used an original landscape architecture. parts, orange for the middle storeys and yellow at existence seemed virtually unknown in Vienna, many doorbell at Hochhaus that he found to be defunct the top. Some of the students thought echoes of of the students became dedicated to the project of and for each button he developed a series of sound- his scheme permeated the eventual design, sans expressing this past, much of which involved tragic scapes consisting of 10-20 second sound-grabs the bold colours. In the students’ reading of various histories relating to the Jewish community in Austria. that epitomised the particular character chosen. accounts (written in Austrian) they argued that Langer The students explored ways of infiltrating the fabric He scoured the telephone records and archives to wanted the building’s multi-coloured quality to have of Hochhaus and its curtilage and adjacent streets determine the residential address of Fooks in Vienna psychological meaning for the urban space, that with the stories of Fooks and Langer. They were prior to his departure for Australia and recorded its it should be therapeutic but also that the colours encouraged to avoid the ubiquitous bronze memorial streetscape sounds at the doorstep. For Langer, should correspond to functional differentiation, and plaque and to instead explore alternative designs Car used the sounds of birds in a forest, an idea hence, legibility. for interpreting the traces of Fooks and Langer in generated through reading Langer’s accounts of Vienna. early experiences in Australia. In these ways the It is interesting that both Fooks’ and Langer’s careers student projects left us pondering the void these in Australia should involve innovation and speculation A scheme by Christian Car sparked my imagination two practitioners left behind in Austria, but also, the in terms of housing development and a city’s shape the most. He researched some of the notoriety inspiration that permeated their new lives in Australia: new ideals forged in a new land.

Iris Meder and Judith Andrew Saniga, Making Figures 3 and 4: ‘A Doorbell Eiblmayer, Haus Hoch: Das Landscape Architecture in to the Past’ interpretive Hochhaus Herrengasse und Australia (Sydney: UNSW Press, design for the cultural seine berubmten Bewohner, 2012). (Vienna: Verlagsburo W.GmbH., heritage of Hochhaus, by Metroverlag, 2009), 46. Christian Car, 2011. 34 35

We can imagine the extensive transcribing of facts had to literally explore the site, in doing so inflicting MRI the city from numerous data tables from diverse sources and damage to what might have been something that checking to ensure that a mistake had not crept into was in good condition (but they did not know it). the transcriptions, then laying these onto maps to obtain the spatial distribution and next drafting the What Fooks did was show that a compilation of data, geometries to carry out the analysis needed for this brought together from several sources and overlaid Tom Distance Grid and Density Diagrams that constitute into a spatial representation, could tell us things we the X-ray, a Space Time presentation of the city. might not see if we had not made the composition. Kvan Once the laborious transcriptions of facts was An X-ray offers insights into particular portion of completed and their information re-represented the anatomy that has been imaged, revealing its and additional boundaries drawn over them, he structure and composition with the shades of grey was able to show us the consequences of what he revealing what we cannot see otherwise. The image called unbalanced and haphazard growth. From his The insights that Ernest Fooks delivered in his slim book X-Ray distinguishes between dense bone and soft tissue, diagrams (figures 29 and 30) we can see how the the City! are remarkable. From our contemporary perspective, revealing facts to identify if anomalies exist that population did not align with the location of work (in provide the information needed to decide the extent his day, it was industry that depended on factories it is difficult to conceive of the detailed work that went into this of a problem, allowing us to decide where to act on and warehouses). Although he did not produce the the nature of our interventions. Without an X-ray, maps, he wrote too about the poorly located schools intellectually rich exploration of how we read a city. the person who needed to act (usually the surgeon) that were not coincident with the “centre of the child

Figure 1. X-Ray the City! Figure 2. X-Ray the City! Diagram of Area Densities Distribution of Population Necessitated by Location of industry 36 Tom Kvan 37 population”. His summary observation was that the How can we produce this multi-dimensional of obesity. Not only can we ensure, as Fooks malignant or benign, just as the medical profession is population of Melbourne was too low to properly representation? Ernest Fooks had to work with suggested, that there is a school for every 1000 now using multidimensional photographs to screen support the social infrastructures that it needed. census tables and government reports that conveyed families but we can ensure that the schools can be for cancerous growths. data in particular tables printed on paper. If he reached by cycling without crossing major roads. As with an X-ray, the insights afforded by the image wanted to carry out an analysis he copied the figures Public transport routes and timetables can be What then might we do with all these data? Where make you wonder how we carried on without and built his own interim tables. If the information mapped to employment and we can determine the Fooks had to laboriously construct his Distance Grid these for so long. Our understanding was so much was not available in one set of tables he had to proportion of the population who can readily get to and Density Diagrams, we can use all that saved time impoverished by only relying on what we can see find another source, calling upon government work by bus or train. The combinations of data are to construct questions of the data. This is the hard if we cannot use tools to analyse and look past the departments or other agencies to send him the text unlimited as we seek answers to diverse questions. part – what do we want to know. Just as desktop 3D surface. In recent years, though, the X-ray has been or visiting the library. Perhaps many of the questions All this, of course, without leaving your desk. printers mean you can finally make your own chess supplemented and increasingly replaced by other he wanted of these data to ask went unanswered pieces at home, these online datasets can allow you techniques – the computer tomography (CT) scan because a key item was not available. Increasingly we are bringing these capabilities to to know more about your community. As with the 3D and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). With these, everyone’s laptop (even if they are in the café, not at printers, the challenge is to work out why you want not only is the data different but so is its method Today we have an abundance of data. Not only are their desk). For example, Australia now has a national this capability. Do you really need a chess set or is of acquisition. While an X-ray is a photography, the we collecting more but every digital device generates map service (nationalmap.gov.au) through which we that the only use that comes to mind? MRI gives us into a three dimensional model. We data constantly. We know what the economic can learn about the hydrology of the country or of a can tile photographs together to render a picture of activity of a neighbourhood is because we can neighbourhood. We also have a data portal for urban Ernest Fooks was able to conceive of the question, the landscape (like a panoramic picture) but a 3D track shop registers and card transactions. We can data, the first in the world, the Australian Urban conceptualise the tool and show us what an x-ray model lets us pick up the object and turn it around, quickly gather education outcomes of every precinct Research Infrastructure Network (AURIN, aurin.org. could tell us. It was a static urban image, that looking from different points of view and therefore because schools track these. These datasets can au). The national map has now been enhanced with x-ray. With a multi-dimensional MRI, a smart and reveal things we did not see when we took the image be used to gain insights about our cities. Medical additional datasets from AURIN (maps.aurin.org. responsive city can be seen to be operating and we (or made the model). Cities are multi-dimensional records can generate a health profile of a community. au) that can tell you about housing stress, economic know where to perform the keyhole surgery. entities consisting of objects, experiences, ecologies activity and education. If you access AURIN itself and capabilities with flows in and out of resources, These facts can be integrated and overlaid onto and are qualified (as Fooks would have been), you agents and products across time. A two dimensional maps so that you can derive your own insights. can get access to almost another 2000 datasets. understanding of a city is inadequate as is a three Locations of fast food outlets can be considered If we can use these data sets over time, we can dimensional representation. A city is N dimensional. against supermarkets as we examine the prevalence diagnose changes and determine if the change is 38 39

Fooks’ book X-ray the City! explained the advantages Teoría General de la Urbanización (‘General Theory X-Raying Urban of deliberately restructuring the city around the of Urbanization’) was published as the theoretical findings of careful statistical analysis framed by adjunct to his commissioned 1859 survey and Policy Frameworks humanistic and sociologically motivated priorities proposed expansion to Barcelona; the city would The opportunities lost (Fooks, 1946). He was reacting to the peri-urban ad ultimately expand into the fields surrounding its hoc sprawl from developers who had made no effort medieval walls, within which it had been constrained to ensure appropriate levels of civic, health, leisure, despite a burgeoning population and new needs commercial, educational, or employment amenity coming from the industrial revolution. Cerdà actually were offered close to inhabitants’ dwellings. At the coined the word ‘urbanization’ to encapsulate the same time the sprawl was already leaving behind an phenomenon of a urban populations swelling through Mark ex-industrial urban wasteland and significant inner mass rural emigration. Like Fooks, Cerdà proposed Burry urban decay, the unwitting by-product of a lack of a scientific method to x-ray under the skin of the any comprehensive socially driven framework for a distressed city in order to understand it systemically, denser, more organized major city. and plan for a polycentric expansion. Fooks’ book makes no reference to Cerdà, Barcelona, or any At the end of the book he likened his urban analytics 19th Century urbanisation theory which is a pity, as as the equivalent of undertaking an “X-Ray of the he might have pushed some far more radical ideas 70 years ago Dr Ernest Fooks (1906 – 1985) ‘X-rayed’ Melbourne. human body, the single maps forming parts of an (Burry, 2013). The word ‘policy’ appears only three ‘anatomic atlas’ of the urban entity.” He did not times in the entire book too: clearly there is a sense In doing so he set out to diagnose Melbourne’s growth pains pretend to provide the “anatomic atlas” of Melbourne of transcendent idealism taking centre stage. – “only some leaves of it”. and propose a prosperous course of action - an “integrated For Melburnians today the lack of any meaningful technique of urban research” - to ensure that the rapidly growing The book is a strangely antipodean reworking of outcome from Fooks’ prescient advice from 7 crucial aspects of the work of Spain’s Idefonso Cerdà decades ago is especially frustrating just as it is not metropolitan Melbourne would work for all its citizens. (1815-1876). Almost a century earlier, Cerdà’s 1867 being able to identify who exactly is at fault. With

3D Building Diagrams

Ildefonso Cerdà’s “General Theory of Urbanization” published in 1867 was ruthlessly logical but profoundly civic. He Cerdà’s characteristic grid may have been corrupted proposed a framework by which city blocks would be public gardens with two parallel blocks on either side. These at the detailed level of individual city blocks, but as a were arranged such that pedestrians could filter through the city without interfacing with vehicular transport too closely, schema for the city’s expansion it was fully implemented, while trains were envisaged as being underground for the same reason. Cerdà’s plan shows his ‘polycentric egalitarian’ 2D City Blocks Layout - typical accommodating natural obstacles and existing historic approach extending the city far beyond the highly constrained medieval walled city. From the first speculators protested settlement with reasonable facility. about the poor use of the blocks and densified the arrangement such that there is hardly any evidence remaining of the openness that Cerdà had proposed. The policy framework proved to be insufficiently robust. 40 Mark Burry 41

notable exceptions much of Melbourne shows the Cerdà nor Fooks were able to succeed in doing? data’ we are rewarded. Even when what we are well yield extraordinary new insights into problems typical blight of unbridled land speculation and all looking for lies across several unrelated sets of data that no one even conceived as being existential and, the concomitant failure to think ahead in the ways As an emerging transdisciplinary thematic, ‘Urban there are tools with which to correlate even when more intriguing still, emerging viable solutions to that X-Ray the City! sought to promote. Will anything Futures’ draws together and augments expertise working beyond linked relational databases. To unimagined problems can be identified and taken-up. be different in 2046 at the centenary of the book’s in urban visualisation, urban analytics, and urban make the most of big data the principal challenges The designer might well be able to see such publication? policy through a whole-of-university strategy. At lies in being successful working with unrelated data emergent possibilities but, ironically, they typically the University of Melbourne’s Architecture Building sets, and ‘inferencing’. This particular high-order do not have the skills to work the data. 2046 The deficiency in sustainable urban growth despite and Planning Faculty’s Melbourne School of Design quest is characterised by knowing that we need to might see wholly different working arrangements in clear strategic advice from urban theorists such as (MSD), Urban Futures research posits possible know what we do not know that we do not know: the place. Expert data managers, for example, could Cerdà and Fooks reveals one of the more ironical outcomes derived from credibly argued scenarios ‘unknown unknowns’ that both challenged NASA’s be working closely with designers looking for an paradoxes of democracy: urban futures depend supported by abundant evidence. Future-gazing extra-terrestrial planners for years, but which also led elegant solution to a query into a problem that they on ultra-long-term strategic thinking whereas scenarios need to be undertaken with a scholarly to many unanticipated yet valuable discoveries. do not individually recognise, but are nevertheless politicians are inclined to look to the next election and respectful engagement with the past, the In presuming that unknown unknowns might in a position to mutually comprehend once the dots and make make their decisions accordingly. Without crucial foreground for any such speculation. In yield unanticipated and useful insights there is are connected. If an unbridgeable divide between a robust policy framework in place their decisions endeavouring to look today at how the City of the risk that something potentially vital might be data parser, statistician, and designer has hitherto will inevitably be far too short-term to make viable Melbourne might be in 2046 we have unparalleled missed altogether simply through unfamiliarity: contributed to the society’s failure to benefit fully and durable inroads to future-proofing cities for access to information and tools with which to access if you do not know what you do not know, how from the advice given over the last century (Cerdà, fully sustainable growth. As a society we need to it: Cerdà and Fooks were aware of the opportunities do you recognise a potential ‘answer’ when it is Fooks, et al) might we assume that transdisciplinary insist on a long-term bipartisan framework through for drawing vital new information from data, but revealed? For the designer this is hardly a risk worth teams of the future will have a far better chance which all decisions will be shaped as policy. Political they could not have foreseen the gifts that strategic worrying about adept as they are in absorbing the of providing a more robust long-term framework parties can espouse radically competitive policies thinkers have today in this regard: ever deeper and emergence of something unexpectedly useful from transcending the short-term expectations of the most to move forwards while ensuring that the framework richer sources of data to be X-rayed in the quest for delving into the unknown as part of their creative avaricious of developers and cynical of politicians? remains robust by not doing anything to set it radically fresh insights. exploration. Handled the right way, unrelated Sustainable urban futures will depend on the team backwards. How will we break the cycle that neither datasets explored via an unstructured route could being able to fuse data analysis with creative When we know what we are looking for within ‘big exploration.

Fooks, Ernest X-Ray the City!. The Density Diagram: Basis for Urban Planning, Ruskin Press, Melbourne, 1946.

Cerdà, Ildefonso, Teoría general de la urbanización y aplicación de sus principios y doctrinas a la reforma y ensanche de Barcelona. Madrid: Imprenta Española, 1867. Facsimile republished by the San Fernando de Henares (near Madrid, Spain) is an example of a framework that is suffiuciently robust to defy two Melbourne 2016. Fooks would be entirely familiar with the Instituto de Estudios Fiscales, 1968-1971. centuries of profound change. Settled in 1746 by King Philip V to accommodate a factory, the building has gone through peri-urban excrescence that characterises the entire urban profound changes from being a hospice to its current use as the town hall. The entire town was arranged in a Beaux Art periphery, as if X-Ray the City! had never been published. Burry, Mark, Ideas and computation in contemporary urban design: tradition in response to the factory, seen to the left of the green square in the blow-up. Effectively only the façade remains Vast quantities of data and powerful analytical algorithms addressing the disconnect, in Adaptive ecologies : correlated systems of living London, (edited Theodore Spyropoulos), of the original building yet despite the majority of the buildings in the town being from the 20th Century, the masterplan will help ensure that Melbourne 2046 will have eschewed Architectural Association, London 2013 imposed in 1746 has nevertheless driven all future development. all the unsustainable characteristics that define the current urban sprawl. Image credits: all aerial photographs from Google Maps. 42 43

problems are with us today. The emergence of the represents a function of man's social activities.” Connectivity and morphology Internet and ‘big data’ affords architects and urban (Fooks, 1946, p29) He introduced the problems for refining urban density by taking X-Ray the City! as a historical review designers with the opportunity to access and analyse urban density and population distribution as three information with a complexity at an order of speed layers: spatial nearness, hierarchy and the size of and depth such that those of the 1940s could not social units, and spotting discrete functions. All have conceived as being possible. Nevertheless, these aspects could not be properly realised without the unprecedented data-bombardment that we face knowing the limitations and boundaries of data today may confuse us or worse and, in particular analytics and its subsequent implementation. cases, even make things more difficult to read. Web Xiaoran Huang applications such as Mapbox, CartoDB and MapZen Using examples of municipal borders which are are readily accessible to people even with limited ubiquitously defined through jurisdiction and thereby Marcus White mapping experience, who can directly download through administrative process and geographical urban meta-data and create visual analyses based fundamentals such as the need to have an address, Mark Burry on it. It therefore becomes especially important today Dr Fooks indicated the major challenge for Geoff Kimm for digital tool users to understand not only how meaningful data analysis was the arbitrary urban to manipulate software but also grasp the intrinsic boundaries (figure 1) . meaning of data flow; how to interpret data and how data can be used to inform today with a profundity Based on these insights he summarised the that Fooks was able to presume instinctively, disadvantages of existing paradigms and cited 70 years ago, Dr Ernest Fooks observed that urban vitality is whereas there is an accessibility today that borders several cities drawn from the UK, continental on the democratic. Europe and US in order to demonstrate that higher essentially derived from human activity. density does not necessarily lead to environmental Going back to the 1940s, Fooks’ observation deficiencies. He summarised the quality of urban His critical recognition was that the population In X-ray the City! he indicated that misconceptions revealed that a balanced distribution of the living conditions based on the physical features of as a whole is the foremost consideration in urban drawn from an insufficiently critical appraisal of population must be differentiated from an even dwellings and space and environmental factors. planning, and therefore he focused his urban statistical data had been extensively applied. The layout. “...density figures lose their practical value He also suggested new methods to refine — the research on population density and its distribution — 'urban decay' issue was demonstrated as clear if they are not related to an area, the size of which distance grid by introducing the following key ideas: in a more demographic perspective. example of the misuse of facts (as ‘data’). Similar

3 4

5 6

Figure 1. Population Figure 2. Diagram of Figure 3. T1024 Integration Figure 4. T1024 Node Count Figure 5. T1024 Total Depth Figure 6. T1024 Total densities according to population density R1600 metric [Segment Length Wgt] Segment Length R1600 suburban boundaries R1600 metric metric. 44 Xiaoran Huang, Marcus White, Mark Burry, Geoff Kimm 45

1. The introduction of clearly-defined notions for model. It is important to realise the ‘distance-density’ to be passed to reach a street, in which the higher population through cannier management of urban expressing the crucial environmental factors of figures, but without contemporary analytical tools, number of choices could be considered as offering density and morphology. The choices network map urban living conditions, crowding notions, measuring Fooks was not able to interpret and engage with the better location in terms of urban vitality. Since the in Melbourne has been chosen and weighted with population distribution, density notions. the data as effectively as his instincts no doubt centrality of each road segment can be mapped and segment length to achieve a more accurate result. determined. visualised, we can therefore compare the existing (Source data: State Government of Victoria, Australia, 2. Illustrating the distribution of the population within network with current population map. (figure 7) 2016) Consequently we have been able to zoom urban areas by means of the diagram of population Emerging technologies and mass computation into a precinct scale and select one viable test bed density in its various forms, based on the distance make it feasible today to consider city connectivity The most populated areas are mainly concentrated (a central area near Werribee train station). Network grid. and density in a more topological perspective, in precincts offering higher number of choices — data outside the boundary was able to be deleted rather than stick solely to Euclidian distance. From although besides the centrality there are many to reduce system redundancy. Albeit the site has 3. Replacing the vague overall density figures, by the late 1970s, Bill Hillier and Julienne Hanson other aspects that have an affect on population an arbitrary margin the data is considered in a city distance-density figures and distance-density factors started crystallising space syntax theories and distribution. The relative location is nevertheless scale, which provides the possibility of marrying in their various forms. techniques, which are used to describe urban spatial one of the most vital factors and, in many cases, planning information with local design strategies. arrangements.(Hillier, B. and Hanson, J., 1984) can even be a vitality determining force. Apart from Urban density and height limitation were assigned “...The principle of the DISTANCE GRID and the Spaces are not backgrounds of social and economic a ready-densified district like the CBD area some in relation with adjacent choices figures. (figure 8) DENSITY DIAGRAM is to create the proper technical activities but are constituent parts of them; the suburban precincts with high choice level factors Public open space, offices, commercial amenities, tools of integrating the various urban factors in subdivisions of urban precincts that can be used to may have great potential to become emerging and the residential area could be potentially applied SPACE and TIME... for four urban functions: live, analyse a network of choices and potentially show municipalities than other candidate precincts with according to further analysis with population layout work, recreation and distribution.” (Fooks, 1946, p95) their intrinsic connections with urban vitality (Bill precincts offering less choice. and spatial vitality (figure 8). (figure 2. Hillier et al. 2002). The graphs and maps generated by this concept can describe the relative connectivity “A town must be regarded as a flexible shell, able Compared with the 1940s, this method reveals "urban gravity is usually easy to determine...urban in urban space, and the road segment, one of the to meet the constantly changing needs of the probable urban futures with more rigorous life and urban facilities tend to become concentrated smallest components in the urban design scenario, is population.” (Fooks, 1946, p32) interpretations of far richer sources of data compared near this centre of gravity, and the value and scarcity an applicable unit to test. Topographical relationships with Fooks’ era. A design process based on density of urban land are generally measured by the distance between transit networks could be better articulated In one of our case studies, Werribee, a south- and connectivity is far better informed than possible from it." (Fooks, 1946, p81) by using road centrelines as graph axes. Compared west Melbourne suburb with a high choices factor, in the past, and arbitrary (‘political’) boundaries with Fooks’ grid distance map, the boundaries has been considered as principle transit node in gradually fade. This method could potentially evolve His ideas and the resulting paradigm proposals were for density data would not simply derive from a the ‘Melbourne 2030’ Planning. (Department of with higher resolution and complexity as ubiquitous indeed ground-breaking especially for that time, distribution resembling a pie-chart, but instead could Infrastructure, 2002) Emerging as a consequence computing and big-data are further developed. We which described a proactive parametric thought be tilted more in relation to business and centrality of of the 2013 census data and the Government’s envision with optimism a design shift in the near process. However, the distance grid is biased the network. (figures 2-6). white paper, a radical population growth can be future that builds more effective bridges between big through setting it in a singly-centred origin with anticipated during the coming decades. (Department data (as output) and designers (who demand deeper distributed areas based on evenly subdivided radii. A ‘busy’ or at least a prosperous space is usually of Transport, Planning and Local Infrastructure, State and more detailed data-driven input), guiding radical In contrast today, multi-centred cities are becoming triggered by plenty of social activity with sufficient Government of Victoria, 2013) With the assistance of shifts in urban morphology development during the ubiquitous and the relationship between their transit participants to give it life. A ‘choices map’ could be advanced digital toolboxes today, we are facilitated next 30 years (figure 9). networks cannot be simplified through Fooks’ radial interpreted as the number of intersections that need to propose a new design methodology to distribute

References

Fooks, Ernest. X-Ray the City!: The density diagram: basis for urban planning. Ministry of Post-War Reconstruction, 1946.

Hillier, Bill, and Julienne Hanson. “The social logic of space, 1984.”Cambridge: Press syndicate of the University of Cambridge (1984).

Hillier, Bill. “A theory of the city as object: or, how spatial laws mediate the social construction of urban space.” Urban Design International 7, no. 3 (2002): 153-179.

2011 Census QuickStats, 2011. http://www.censusdata. abs.gov.au/census_services/getproduct/census/2011/ quickstat/2GMEL?opendocument&navpos=220

Department of infrastructure. “Melbourne 2030 - Planning for sustainable growth.” Victorian Government Department of Figure 7. Melbourne Census Figure 8. Choice map Figure 9. Proposed urban Sustainability and Environment Melbourne, 2002 Data 2013 overlapped overlapped with urban morphology coloured with with network choices map, morphology and density density figures State Government of Victoria, Australia. Vicmap Transport. 2016. Huang 2016. population figure https://services.land.vic.gov.au/landchannel/content/ vicmapdata?productID=3 data source: Australian Bureau of Statistics 46 47

The concept of functional or land-use mix is seminal make sense? The diagram above shows how the Three Cities The City as a to urban studies: the mixing of functions shortens range of most commonly used functions might distances between attractions, increases walkability overlap. Most categories incorporate aspects of We have mapped three cities with very different Mix of Mixes and stimulates streetlife intensity. Here we develop a others and such categories are inherently unstable histories and morphologies: New York, Barcelona new tool for mapping and understanding functional with new functions and distinctions emerging and Bogotá. All functional categories other than mix, tested on detailed floorspace use databases depending on whether we seek to understand residential, office, education and industry are from the cities of New York, Barcelona and Bogotá. walkability, transport, health or streetlife. A key combined to create the category of ‘visit’. Education problem with the mapping of functional mix has has been included with office and industry functions Kim Dovey and In this work we conceive of mapping as the urban long been that the greater the mix the harder it is to comprise the ‘work’ category. While parks and design and planning parallel of the use of the x-ray to map - suburbs are simple but intensive cities are squares are not part of the floor area databases, Elek Pafka in medicine or security screening. The x-ray is a complex. Our approach is adapted from the work of they are significant attractors and we have coloured technology that filters layers of data to produce an Hoek with a division of functions into three primary them with a darker green to distinguish from other image from which we can read the ways in which categories of live, work and visit, organized as a attractions such as shops and theatres. something is working or to identify problems. While triangle to capture different levels of mix between it requires sophisticated techniques, it is primarily an them. If we ask why anyone might be in any To ensure that the significantly higher urban impact intellectual rather than technical tool. Good maps are given urban location at a given time, then it makes of visitation functions is evident in the maps we like x-rays of the city; they have an empirical base sense to say that they ‘live’ there, ‘work’ there or used a 1:2:5 weighting ratio of live/work/visit but cannot be easily reduced to numbers and need are ‘visiting’ some kind of facility or amenity. The related floor space; in other words the floor area interpretation to reveal how the city works. The maps triangle shows three primary kinds of mix: live/visit data for workplace and visitation sites is multiplied are not illustrations, they are findings. Just as x-rays (yellow) is mostly linked to lifestyle (where we live, by 2 and 5 times respectively to determine the are cross-sections of the body of evidence, so maps shop, eat and play); live/work (magenta) mix is the colour represented in the maps. The ratio is thus are cross-sections of the city. What they reveal in commute; work/visit (cyan) is the ways we shop, a filter that makes the extent to which different these cities is that functional mix is not one thing eat and play in conjunction with work. functions contribute to the functional mix legible -that the best of cities are a mix of mixes.

The Live/Work/Visit Triangle

A key goal of mapping functional mix is to better understand productive alliances between attractions - but what kind of functional categories

Aggregating Functions The L/W/V Triangle (adapted from Hoek 2008) MANHATTAN: CADASTRAL MIX WALKABLE MIX (one square km catchment) 48 Kim Dovey and Elek Pafka 49 on the map. Our use of the multiplier is a loose A Mix of Mixes correlate for tuning an x-ray machine in order to render particular distinctions visible. Ternary graphs of this data from the three cities show how their many neighbourhoods are distributed We present these maps at two scales of analysis. On across the Live/Work/Visit triangle - each hectare is the left is the mix for each plot of land revealing the a dot with a walkable catchment. It can be tempting kind of mix that emerges at streetscape scale. This to measure the mix in terms of closeness to the is the ‘experiential mix’ of what we can see, hear centre of the triangle or whiteness on the map. Yet and smell in the city; the spectacle of streetlife and the deeper potential lies in understanding the range face-to-face encounter. On these maps we can read of different kinds and degree of functional mix - the the degree of on-site mixing most pronounced in the mix of mixes. There is no ideal mix but rather many yellows (live/visit) of Barcelona and the cyans (live/ kinds of productive mix. The task for urban design work) of Manhattan; contrasted against the reds, and planning is not so much to lighten the map, nor blues and greens of Bogotá. to replicate white neighbourhoods; it is to address the monofunctional corners. There can be no single The right hand map for each city applies a multi- index for functional mix because the good city is a scale analysis where each hectare is mapped mix of mixes. While functional mix is deeply complex, according to the mix that is accessible within a it goes to the heart of what makes a city tick - great square kilometre (100 hectares) - roughly the scale cities are cities of difference and we need better of walkable access (500 metres). The degree of means of understanding how such differences work lightness represents the intensity of mixing and the together shade of colour represents the type of mix, thus the map visualises both the quantity and quality of the walkable mix.

BOGOTÁ: CADASTRAL MIX WALKABLE MIX (one square km catchment)

References Dovey, Kim. Urban Design Dovey, Kim. Elek Pafka Hoek, Joost. “The Mixed Use Thinking. London: Bloomsbury, and Mirjana Ristic, editors. Index as a Tool for Urban 2016. Mapping Urbanities, New York: Planning and Analysis”, 2008. Routledge, forthcoming. http://www. BARCELONA: CADASTRAL MIX WALKABLE MIX (one square km catchment) corporationsandcities.org. 50 51

In 1946 Fooks invented a new method to understand Current data is collected constantly on the activity How learning algorithms support the city through urban data better by increasing the and characteristics of individual properties and granularity from large, distorted political boundaries people making letting grow constantly. When in urban design AND the problem of to concentric rings. Today the problem has shifted Fooks’ time residential location of people was too much data to the other extreme. With data collected for each sufficient for tax purposes contemporary information person and building at multiple times within a day the spans to employment sector, age, education, to Since Fooks our relation to data has changed question shifts to ‘How can we aggregate this data name a few of the over 2000 datasets are available over space and time to make it meaningful?’. on Melbourne.

Fooks’ work shows that rearranging the The problem with this ever-increasing avalanche of representation of information can yield new insights. information is to gain insights. What is different since Gideon He used population data available on the level of this is not a new problem that has been solved in each Municipality – he then calculated the population many occasions by data visualisation and statistics? Aschwanden density for concentric rings of one-mile width with The current problem differs in three ways. the CBD as centre. This showed that the centre of First data is collected without a particular question Melbourne is depopulating, while the fringes have an in mind. This is different to hundreds of years where increased population density (see Figure 1). scientists and governments first identified a problem and consequently defined what data is required to Within the last 70 years the granularity and number find gain insights and find a solution. This led to of urban datasets have become finer and greater. purpose built information structures that couldn’t be

Figure 1. Diagram of Figure 2. Diagram of Figure 3. Melbourne Roads Population Density transportation, popularion and activity density 52 Gideon Aschwanden 53 used beyond the identified purpose. Today data is modelling and learns from examples. The following To solve this problem software is written that The neighbourhoods that the software identified have collected even without a clear purpose, and can be example uses a Self-Organising Map that can collects data about each place and tries to find the very distinct characteristics; one neighbourhood unstructured, incomplete and dirty. structure any data with a high number of dimensions neighbourhoods based on similarity. Finding similarity is closely related to the CBD, defined by detached and finds similarities. This is not yet a general- between two places that are defined by one attribute houses, industry or jobs etc. (see Figures 5-10) The second change is in the dimensionality of data. purpose artificial intelligence, but it comes very close. can be done in a simple map but finding similarity These neighbourhoods can now be used to draw Contemporary datasets contain multiple attributes between places with 10, 20 or 100 parameters is new political boundaries, highlight a problem area and are as wide as they are tall. Visualising in a Back to Fooks’ place of investigation: Melbourne. beyond the capabilities of human cognition. and choose your next residential location. manner that allows humans to understand the The city of more than 4 million people is still Software on the other side can handle multiple To summarise, the problem of too much data is a structure of such datasets is impossible. organised along political borders that are based datasets in a high dimensional space. The software solved problem for which we have tools that support The third and last way the current problems on historical boundaries and don’t reflect the uses the data and learns the characteristics of the our efforts of understanding the world better. differ from the past is that the problems are not current structure of the city. Also, the current individual places. Like dreaming, it starts with a anymore linear. Contemporary problems in health or neighbourhoods do not reflect the current random distribution and with each new data point transportation are the result not of a single parameter municipality structure of the city. added the picture and understanding becomes but of a myriad of interacting and counteracting clearer. The understanding the software has is still factors. For example having a heart attack is the The neighbourhood structure of the city is fluid and a high dimensional, not readable by humans. The result of multiple risk factors and not a single virus. constantly reconfiguring. A neighbourhood is defined software then projects this high dimensional space by a myriad of characteristics like travel behaviour, into 2 dimensions + colour (see Figure 4). In this These three challenges can be overcome by using land use patters, street characteristics, population two dimensional space closeness is equivalent intelligent software. Current software allows us characteristics, borders etc. . Each one of these to similarity. The software then continues to find to structure data without prior knowledge of the characteristics is defined by multiple parameters clusters of similarity. Each cluster represents places purpose or the question we would like to ask. The leading to a huge number of parameters to track that are similar to each other: the neighbourhood. method is called pre-specific modelling or model free constantly (see Figures 2 and 3).

Figure 4. Self Organising Figures 5-10. Self Map Organising Map Clusters 54 55

He considered proximity and accessibility as a key piece of parametric software generating patterns for ‘Spatial Nearness’ - ingredient to healthy cities using the term ‘Spatial cheap overseas labor to stitch together. We have Nearness: Condition for Community Life’: access to online produce purchase systems such Proximity and Accessibility as Ebay, Aliexpress, and Taobao delivering goods to In previous civilizations, in the Greek period or in the our doors in ubiquitous white vans or, as companies Middle Ages, the sphere of man’s social activities like Amazon and Taco Bell begin to experiment with was limited by walking distance. Towns in those UAV delivery, by quad-copter drones. Despite these periods were limited in size. Ten or fifteen minutes' dramatic changes to how we access goods and walking distance to the communal facilities, such services (they come directly to us), ‘Spatial Nearness’ as the Greek Agora, or the medieval market place, is even more important than it was in 1946. In 2016, Marcus White usually formed the utmost limit for an effective social obesity and being overweight costs Australia over Geoff Kimm intercourse […] Modern transport facilities, telephone $55 billion every year and has begun to overtake and wireless have immeasurably increased the smoking as the country’s leading cause of premature Nano Langenheim sphere of man's social activities; but these technical death and illness. Promoting an active community achievements are not able to diminish the importance requires radically different strategic approaches of SPATIAL NEARNESS for creating community life, to urban transformation in the coming decade not even nowadays, when the entire region becomes necessitating innovative urban design to get people the natural unit of social life (Fooks 1946 p.28). out of their cars.

Our communication technology has advanced in Pedestrian-friendly neighborhoods within walking unimaginable ways, we now have an endless list distance to services encourage walking over car use of social communication media such as Twitter, resulting in higher levels of physical activity and a SnapChat, Facebook, WeChat, and YouTube. The positive impact on social inclusion. In the 1940s Fooks identified the need for planners to carefully method for accessing goods and services has also consider the location of services with respect to uses and location changed dramatically. We seldom need convenient Until very recently, modelling walking proximity to walkable access to a cobbler, coal merchant or services has been limited primarily to ‘Euclidean of population density. tobacconist, and our ‘tailor’ is not a human, but a buffers’ or ‘circular catchments’ (distance from

All images: Nano Langenheim

Figure 1: White and Kimm’s Figure 2: White and Kimm’s Figure 3: White and Kimm’s Figure 4: White and Kimm’s PedCatch animated PedCatch animated PedCatch animated PedCatch animated pedestrian access tool pedestrian access tool pedestrian access tool pedestrian access tool applied to calculate the applied to calculate the applied to calculate the applied to calculate the walkable pedestrian walkable pedestrian walkable pedestrian walkable pedestrian catchment for Albert Park catchment for Albert Park catchment for Carlton catchment for Carlton Primary School Primary School detailed Gardens Primary School Gardens Primary School view detailed view

56 Marcs White, Geoff Kimm, Nano Langenheim 57 services such as railway stations and schools as- PedCatch The resulting tool has proven effective and flexible, into consideration spatio-temporal aspects with the-crow-flies). Little has changed since Fooks’ PedCatch (www.pedcatch.com) is our online map allowing a diverse group of stakeholders to test a potential for future development as cities become observations in the 1940s: tool that provides modelling of urban pedestrian variety of urban scenarios such as optimal location denser, and complex three dimensional accessibility catchments with an emphasis on mobility impaired of new schools, aged care facilities or medical is needed; the tool will be capable of testing Children cannot walk long distances to school; walkability. It builds on prior agent based pedestrian facilities and impacts of potential urban interventions accessibility in hyper-dense urban scenarios. If, it is generally agreed that the maximum walking modelling work by White3 and is designed to be to increasing catchments such as pedestrian links. as currently proposed for Melbourne, railway lines distance to school for children of the elementary accessible to non‑specialists and displays walkability Users can produce a range of metrics such as are to be lifted from the ground plane to remove school age should not exceed half -a-mile. These analysis via an intuitive animation-based interface. average walking speeds; numbers of crossings, ‘on-grade-crossings’, the height of this elevation figures have been accepted in computing the size catchment area versus circular buffer ratios; numbers and relationship with future built form, vertical and of the social unit supporting an elementary school The method adopted for this study involved porting streets crossed; and test different walking speeds diagonal circulation inside and outside of buildings [...] measurement of the sphere of influence of a an animation software based agent-based modelling (children, older adults) and set gradient limitations could dramatically impact on accessibility. As community facility by a circle drawn at the maximum tool to a vector based GIS web tool using an open- (for people with mobility impairments). Melbourne densifies, there are opportunities to walking distance would be justified only by a strict, source data from the Australian Urban Research improve walking and cycling accessibility to services radial street pattern which is not desirable, and Infrastructure Network (AURIN) as well as crowd The PedCatch tool has the capacity to influence through strategic architectural and urban design seldom possible. (Fooks 1946 p.35). sourced and open source network data sets and planning and public health advocacy and the open- interventions. topographic/elevation data with worldwide coverage. access nature of the tool means that it is available This method is grossly inaccurate and does not The tool was developed and tested with the input to all. There is considerable scope for extending this Our PedCatch tool demonstrates the potential to allow ‘what if’ scenario testing. Recent development from stakeholder working groups and provides an tool, including incorporating diverse spatial and non- contribute to the development of more walkable of proprietary GIS software with additional network agent‑based modelling analysis method that can be spatial data and integration with the more commonly and accessible communities for all, to continue to analysis plugins (ESRI Arc Map with Network- used by researchers, urban designers, planners and used walkability indexes. improve Spatial Nearness aiming for an optimal Analyst plugin) makes a dramatic improvement policy makers and the wider community to assess ‘Condition for Community Life’. on this modelling though it can be prohibitively spatial nearness to key infrastructure and services Though currently limited to 2.5D (2D with height) costly, require a high level of expertise to operate [Figures 1-14]. we are continuing to develop the tool set taking (particularly in the case of QGIS)1, and do not consider time related factors such as traffic lights2.

Figure 7: White and Kimm’s Figure 8: White and Kimm’s Figure 9: White and Kimm’s Figure 10: White and PedCatch animated PedCatch animated PedCatch animated Kimm’s PedCatch animated pedestrian access tool pedestrian access tool pedestrian access tool pedestrian access tool applied to calculate the applied to calculate the applied to calculate the applied to calculate the walkable pedestrian walkable pedestrian walkable pedestrian walkable pedestrian catchment for Middle Park catchment for Middle Park catchment for Port catchment for Port Figure 5: White and Kimm’s PedCatch animated pedestrian Figure 6: White and Kimm’s PedCatch animated pedestrian Primary School Primary School detailed Melbourne Primary School Melbourne Primary School access tool applied to calculate the walkable pedestrian access tool applied to calculate the walkable pedestrian view detailed view catchment for Kensington Primary School catchment for Kensington Primary School detailed view

1 Badland, Hannah, Marcus 2 for planning.” in proceedings 3 Marcus White, “Densification, Figure 11: White and Figure 12: White and Figure 13: White and Figure 14: White and White, Gus MacAulay, Serryn of the International Conference Pedestrian Catchments and Kimm’s PedCatch animated Kimm’s PedCatch animated Kimm’s PedCatch animated Kimm’s PedCatch animated Eagleson, Suzanne Mavoa, on Sustainable Urbanism, Texas the Battle for Middle Earth. pedestrian access tool pedestrian access tool pedestrian access tool pedestrian access tool Christopher Pettit, and Billie A&M University. 2007. Can Agent Based Pedestrian applied to calculate the applied to calculate the Giles-Corti. “Using simple Modelling be Used to applied to calculate the applied to calculate the agent-based modeling to inform Inform Urban Morphology” walkable pedestrian walkable pedestrian walkable pedestrian walkable pedestrian and enhance neighborhood in proceedings of the IFHP catchment for Carlton catchment for Carlton catchment for South Yarra catchment for South Yarra walkability.” International journal 2007 Copenhagen Future of Primary School Primary School detailed Primary School Primary School detailed of health geographics 12, no. 1 Cities Impacts: Indicators: view view (2013): 1. Implementations 51st IFHP World Congress. 2007 58 59

Written as a provocation that reflects on some of the where it was conducted by large teams of physicists Doing Bigness relationships between data, habitable environment and engineers, supported by huge amounts of and design, this article uses the essay called money and governed by hierarchical bureaucratic X-Ray the City! that was written by architect and processes.3 Fooks’ hopes to underpin design by town planner Ernest Fooks in 1946 as its starting science are related to the spirit of such undertakings point.1 The discussion below compares some of but are modest by comparison. His site of application Stanislav the propositions made by Fooks at that time with is comparably large – whole cities, his search for two subsequent periods: the situation now, in 2016, patterns with statistical tools is also similar to the big Roudavski and near the symbolic future moment in 2046 when science approaches but his analysis is a one-man Fooks’ essay will be 100 years old. Specifically, it job and his data are obtained from a limited selection focuses on one characteristic that is comparable of existing sources. between these periods: a practical attitude towards bigness. The main device introduced by Fooks is the distance grid or the diagram of population density. This *** diagram has several core properties: it’s geometry – it is concentric; it’s uniformity – it is made of even cells; Writing in 1995, near the midpoint of the timeline its universality – it is meant to be applicable to any established above, a prominent architect and city. The contemporary tools are allowing for greater What will architectural architectural thinker Rem Koolhaas insisted that variety and yet, as will be discussed below, the future “[b]ecause there is no theory of Bigness, we don’t tools might result in the return of the regular-pattern design look like in a world know what to do with it, we don’t know where to put superposition, the standardisation and the data it, we don’t know when to use it, we don’t know how totalitarianism, even if in a new guise. of ambient intelligence? to plan it. Big mistakes are our only connection to Bigness.”2 But was he right? Fooks saw defects in the way statistical data was collected and analysed and his proposal was to sample and map the available data differently. And Big Science yet, possibilities for such difference were limited: on one hand, by the small number of available – In other domains, bigness pre-existed Koolhaas, for typically, governmental – data sources; and on the example in the form of “big science” that emerged other, by the inefficiency of manual processing. after the Second World War as a practice that was distinct from the previous forms of science that were One such defect was to do with “the arbitrary 4 “small”. Small science referred to the traditional nature of urban boundaries.” This question of experimental physics that was done by individuals boundaries, or – more generally – of patterns, with local resources, with little collaboration and with remains important in the contemporary, and more rapid returns on personal initiatives. By contrast, big fluid, world of data. The data are influenced by science emerged in the US weapons laboratories their providers, the data collection methods, the

1 2 3 4 NatureTrader, a project by PocketPedal, a project by Ernest Fooks, X-Ray the City! Rem Koolhaas et al., S, M, Andrew Pickering, The Fooks, X-Ray the City!, 43. Mangle of Practice: Time, Gwyllim Jahn, Tom Morgan Alexander Holland and The Density Diagram: Basis for L, XL (New York, NY: Monacelli Agency, and Science (Chicago; Stanislav Roudavski; other Urban Planning (Melbourne: Press, 1995), 509, 510. and Stanislav Roudavski; Ministry of Post-War London: University of Chicago other credits: Alexander credits: Julian Rutten. Reconstruction, 1946). Press, 1995), 43. Derek J. de Holland, Julian Rutten. Solla Price, Little Science, Big Science (New York: Columbia University Press, 1963). 60 Stanislav Roudavski 61

suitability of particular phenomena for quantification and easily accessible. Availability of such data led as well as by the character of specific systems, to the emergence of new data-analytic toolsets that data streams, data owners, and so. As the city are designed to cope with the data abundance rather becomes increasingly cyber, the nature of boundaries than with data scarcity. becomes more general. Boundaries take form of pattern discontinuities that can appear as The resulting analytics can be descriptive – reporting indices, identities, standards, database formats, on the past; predictive – modelling the future from the communication protocols, resolution choices, past trends; or prescriptive – using models to specify metadata specifications and so on. It is impossible optimal actions with resulting approaches going by to understand or process large volumes of data the names such as data mining, predictive analytics, manually and many of these boundaries come to data science and business intelligence. Such tools the fore because they are intrinsic to automation. On provide new support for the design approaches the other hand, contemporary – and future – data- compatible with the Fooks’ insistence that “[a] town collection techniques can overcome many traditional must be regarded as a flexible shell, able to meet 6 boundaries such as those that are to do with the constantly changing needs of the population.” physical space or site ownership. The types of data The relationship with data enabled by such methods defects change with technology but some defects is much more active than before, however, they always remain. Data continues to be highly political, still primarily focus on the understanding and decidedly contingent, dependent on craftsmanship, interpretation of the already-existing environments. reliant on human imagination. And yet, the reverse influence, that of data on the environment, is becoming increasingly more Big Data apparent, for example through such visions as the Internet of Things. This network of objects is predicted to link many billions of devices, some say Today is characterised by the potential of big-data more than 50 billion by 2020. When every person will tools to make decisions on small-grain, local and have several connected devices, the whole world dynamic information, making arbitrary boundaries will turn into a network of connected objects. Many still further obsolete. As reported by the big-data of the common things are already connected. Pets. narratives, historically, data have been time- Livestock. Fridges. Tennis rackets. Most objects consuming and expensive to generate, analyse that have a name already exist in versions that and interpret.5 It provided static and, often, coarse can make, use and transmit data. Such connected representations of phenomena. Consequently, devices do not need independent interfaces. Smart good-quality data were valuable, proprietary and phones and tablets provide universal windows into expensively traded. With the advent of networked the relationships of interconnected entities and computing, data have retained their value, but support dashboards with which these objects can be their production has become significantly easier controlled. and the result is an increasingly overwhelming flow of relational data that is finely differentiated, That these new hybrid ecologies are more tightly timely and of high resolution. Such data come from integrated with the surrounding environments is heterogenous sources, at multiple scales and can be only right, given the newly common appreciation for fertile for exploratory data analysis. Often, these data the environmental concerns. Such concerns were are of low cost and, increasingly, – openly available

NatureTrader, or where it might lead. An experience of the world where all experience is 5 E.g., see Rob Kitchin, The Data Revolution: Big Data, Open Data, 6 Fooks, X-Ray the City!, 32. data-dependent. All environment is mapped. All mapping units are standardised, named, Data Infrastructures and Their Consequences (London; Thousand indexed. All units are sentient and can act. All units trade. Everything is commodified, Oaks, CA: Sage, 2014). everything is one market. 62 Stanislav Roudavski 63

unfamiliar to Fooks and the discourse of his time. historically nuanced understandings of technological STOP/GO BRAIN His essay is concerned with humans only. “It is the development than those that are commonly SPEED BRAIN human scale which has to be the guiding principle. promoted by the pervasive-computing and big-data GO, GO — YEAH! FASTER, FASTER, 10 FASTER! Human beings, their collective needs, their grouping, enthusiasts. their distribution and redistribution, become the RISK BRAIN primary concern of urban planning.”7 Today, the At the same time, the logic of Fooks’ method as TOO RISKY! need to pay attention to or consult with nonhuman an all-revealing x-ray breaks down in these new stakeholders is becoming increasingly evident. It conditions. He claimed that his “method can be is by now uncontroversial in relationship to living compared to an X-Ray of the human body, the single ecosystems and is becoming more accepted in maps forming parts of an “anatomic atlas” of the regard to artificial agents. urban entity.”11 This metaphor stops to work when tools, such as x-rays, become grown into the bodies under study. Big Cognition The situation where the amount of available data is The uniformity of standardising tools such as overwhelming, and where there is no clear distinction Fooks’ distance grid can miss local variations; their between data producers and data consumers, simplification is necessarily lossy. Future techniques the environment and its users or the data and the promise substantially greater data resolution but they city motivates the introduction of new toolsets, also make it impossible for humans to peruse this attitudes and behaviours. This new paradigm, first TURN BRAIN data; requiring some form of automation. In addition, conceptualised in the early 1990s, is termed here Big SHARP RIGHT! and more significantly, stakeholder relationships Cognition and can also be encountered under the names of automated analytics, ambient intelligence, HAZARD BRAIN themselves are changing under the impact of cognitive computing and deep learning. CAR! data. For example, the role of “spatial nearness” as a condition for “community life” – a relationship emphasised by Fooks – is diminishing as new social As the number of connected entities grows, the aggregations become possible through electronic task of managing them becomes harder and more networks and the proximity to data and data sources expensive. The ambition of the industry is, therefore, to define communication standards and procedures THE PHONE emerges as more important than the nearness to 8 that can support autonomous operation without The virtual cycling world physical locations. The exact nature and influence is accessed through a of these new relationships is far from obvious. To human interference. Already now, organisations are device familiar all. illustrate: if spatial nearness is no longer significant, building proof-of-concept machines that automate why are cities still growing so rapidly? The fact aspects of decision-making. Their ambition is to that utility services such as water supply, garbage construct cognitive technologies that can support disposal, drainage, sewerage, gas, electricity and multiple applications. The result can take form of cultural institutions such as schools or kindergartens modular services or so-called “cognitive platforms”. are harder to distribute might be one of the reasons. Such services can comprise analytics, analysis Fooks argues that technical achievements of of behaviour, visual recognition, natural-language 1946 were “not able to diminish the importance parsing and so. Such ambitions are seen by some of SPATIAL NEARNESS for creating community as a pervasive threat of automation while others life.”9 In this, his argument is compatible with more see this trend as a radical opportunity to construct

7 10 PocketPedal, or one way to resist. An approach to design Ibid., 96. For the criticism of solutionism motivated by over- enthusiastic that places stakeholders in the midst of data. All data is felt, embrace of networked technologies see Evgeny Morozov, To Save 8 For “nearness” and Everything, Click Here: Technology, Solutionism and the Urge to Fix performed, played. Designing occurs in the magic circle. All “community life”, see Ibid., 26. Problems that Don’t Exist (New York: Public Affairs, 2013). design is negotiated. All action is rehearsed. Every decision 11 is supplied with an alternative. 9 Ibid., 28. Fooks, X-Ray the City!, 95 64 Stanislav Roudavski 65 systems that can self-improve through the running ambiguity, amorphousness, self-contradiction, YOUR GOAL of continuous experiments and by doing this, shift and other such phenomena are not necessarily the You are a cyclist riding along St Kilda Road, from historical enumeration to real-time, predictive, problems that need fixing. Instead of being “bugs”, Melbourne. Can you actionable intelligence. Many different types of they can function as valuable “features”. These get to the city? processes from shopping, to plant growth, to traffic, features can be valuable because they are historically THE ROAD to energy fluctuations can be seen, analysed and unique expressions of complexly interrelated St Kilda Rd lacks affected as they occur, in real time; redirecting data behaviours. Elimination of such features can lead proper cycling infrastructure. On your toolsets from accumulation to action and from to severe restrictions on the operation of known way to the city you’ll storage to value-making. systems including, not unimportantly, the restriction have to negotiate a on freedoms such as the freedom to mention, the route full of traffic. Some vehicles pay In 1995, Koolhaas claimed that “[n]ot all architecture, freedom to act or the freedom to know. In this attention to you; not all program, not all events will be swallowed by light, characteristics that common sense interprets others not so much. Bigness. There are many “needs” too unfocused, negatively and Big Cognition promises to eliminate HEALTH too weak, too unrespectable, too defiant, too secret, – including hypocrisy, inconsistency, ambiguity and How safe is you too subversive, too weak, too “nothing” to be part of mendacity – can be as essential to the operation riding? The health 12 indicator reflects how the constellations of Bigness.” Today, it seems that of the inclusive political processes as the similarly safely you ride. all architecture, all program, all events or – to put it unfancied inefficiency, redundancy and opportunism Compliance with road differently – all matter, all processes and all life are are necessary for the robust operation of living rules, remaining within the bike lane, and delectable for the bigness of Big Cognition. systems. navigating obstacles increases health. In these conditions, design actions have diverging References Riding outside bike potentials for activism. This may be illustrated by lanes and colliding Fooks, Ernest. X-Ray the City! The Density Diagram: Basis for Urban with traffic decreases the contrast between two radical approaches. One it. Planning. Melbourne: Ministry of Post-War Reconstruction, 1946. of these seeks to formulate new labour demands SCORE presuming the inevitability of automation at all levels: Kitchin, Rob. The Data Revolution: Big Data, Open Data, Data You are awarded in manufacturing, data production, communication Infrastructures and Their Consequences. London; Thousand Oaks, points for every ten and analysis.13 The next step within this logic is to CA: Sage, 2014. metres successfully cycled towards the not just accept but to demand full automation and Koolhaas, Rem, Bruce Mau, Jennifer Sigler, Hans Werlemann, and city. with it such seemingly counter-intuitive arrangements Office for Metropolitan Architecture. S, M, L, XL. New York, NY: You are much more as the right to be lazy and the guaranteed basic Monacelli Press, 1995. likely to end your minimum income. The second and contrasting ride in a high score Morozov, Evgeny. To Save Everything, Click Here: Technology, by cycling safely approach seeks to encourage general scepticism Solutionism and the Urge to Fix Problems that Don’t Exist. New York: than simply riding at for all solutionism. The solutionism believes that Public Affairs, 2013. breakneck speeds. network technologies can find the answer to most Pickering, Andrew. The Mangle of Practice: Time, Agency, and HAZARDS of the world’s problems and optimise most of the Science. Chicago; London: University of Chicago Press, 1995. Colliding with traffic existing life-patterns. This scepticism towards such decreases your road beliefs rejects the fascination with the Internet along Price, Derek J. de Solla. Little Science, Big Science. New York: health per the severity Columbia University Press, 1963. of the collision. with the presumption that the network is an eternal On low bike health, entity with intrinsic and immutable properties, Srnicek, Nick, and Alex Williams. Inventing the Future: impacting an obstacle deserving of the unquestioning respect.14 The logic Postcapitalism and a World without Work. London: Verso, 2015. will cause your cyclist BIKE LANE THE PLAYER to crash, ending the of this second approach is to see that imperfection, Try to stay within the bike lane! Here, your This cyclist is game. bike health will slowly recharge. you. You’re a hipster girl; Sticking to the bike lane means you will a MAMIL; a gain more points, and have enough health reckless guy in to survive a crash or two. his twenties. Being in the bike lane has its own Tap to pedal, tap dangers: watch out for those opening the sides of the cars doors! phone to turn.

12 Koolhaas et al., S, M, L, XL, 14 13 Nick Srnicek and Alex Morozov, To Save Everything, PocketPedal, the game 515, 516. Williams, Inventing the Future: Click Here. interface and mechanics. Postcapitalism and a World without Work (London: Verso, 2015). 66 67

Our cities are growing at unprecedented rates comfortable microclimates can lead to greater car- citizens access to sun light, contribute to Vitamin D Cities… they’re so hot undergoing rapid urbanisation and intensification1–3. dependence – which increases emissions pollution deficiencies and result in environments perceived as Melbourne’s population is predicted to reach 8 and, in the long term, adds to the impact on global ‘dark’, ‘dank’ or oppressive, thereby discouraging right now million people by 2050, becoming Australia’s biggest climatic instability. This climatic impact then leads to walking or other active modes of transport – a critical Hot in the city, hot in the city tonight… city. Though much of this growth is in the form of further car dependence… and so goes the downward component of healthy cities. lateral expansion (usually referred to as sprawl), spiral. a significant proportion will continue as urban Australia has one of the highest rates of skin cancer densification with both building and population Heat retention, sunlight access and thermal comfort in the world, which suggests the need for heavily intensification in existing urban areas. Just as Fooks become spatially complicated overlays in relation to shaded streets particularly in walking proximity to identified population densities and “arrangements of health in densifying cities. In Melbourne, with its high schools and business districts to protect people from Marcus White overcrowded settlements” as a major challenge for rate of skin cancer, deep shaded street canyons of sun exposure while engaging in active transport. Geoff Kimm sanitation and health of a population (Fooks 1946 high density streets might be seen as an advantage. However, a counter health issue is that nearly one p.51), the densification of Melbourne will come with However these same deep street canyons can trap third of Australian adults are also currently suffering Nano Langenheim equally significant challenges if it is to continue as longwave radiation, impacting local atmospheric vitamin D deficiency8 from a lack of sun exposure one of the most liveable cities in the world. conditions, contributing to the phenomena known which suggests an opposing street design which Xiaoran Huang as the Urban Heat Island (UHI) where temperatures preserves solar access through the cooler months of There is a strong relationship between urban within urban centres can be considerably higher May to August. Mark Burry microclimates and walking comfort and accessibility when compared to surrounding rural areas4-7 and and spatial nearness. If the temperature is contributing to heat related fatalities. And in the cool, Compounding these health and comfort issues uncomfortably hot or cold, the likelihood of people temperate Melbourne winter, when the shadows Australian cities are also particularly susceptible to walking to services is greatly reduced. Less are long, these deep canyons also decrease impacts of climate change with increasing extreme

Figure 1: Photograph of seagulls sitting under a tree’s Figure 2: Photograph of Vipoint Street Footscray in Figure 3: Urban street tree impact study showing light- Figure 4: Urban street tree impact study showing light- shade on a 41 degree day in Swaby Square, Footscray in Melbourne, Australia showing street tree’s shade with shade measurement at precinct scale – aerial view. Image shade measurement at precinct scale – plan view. Image by Melbourne, Australia, with thermal image overlay taken thermal image overlay taken using a Seek Thermal™ by Marcus White. Marcus White. using a Seek Thermal™ camera. Photographs by Marcus camera demonstrating the dramatic impact of street trees White. on surface temperature. Photographs by Marcus White.

1 Brenner, N., and Schmid, 2 Koolhaas, R., Boeri, S., 3 Rode, P. (2013) Trends and 4 Basara, J. B., Basara, H. G., C. (2014) The “urban age”in Kwinter, S., Tazi, N., and Obrist, challenges: global urbanisation Illston, B. G., and Crawford, question, International Journal of H.-U. (2000) Mutations, Actar. and urban mobility, Springer. K. C. (2010) The impact of the Urban and Regional Research, urban heat island during an Wiley Online Library 38, 731–755. intense heat wave in Oklahoma City, Advances in Meteorology, Hindawi Publishing Corporation 2010. 68 Marcs White, Geoff Kimm, Nano Langenheim, 69 Xiaoran Huang, Mark Burry weather events such as heat waves9 which are likely work or school, maximising exposure to sun (and dangerous Summer UV and a lack of Winter light. drying or social gatherings and has been shown to to increase in frequency, intensity and duration as vitamin D) in winter but minimising UV exposure in Vegetation on the other hand, is fundamentally have no greater cooling benefit to the building or a consequence of climate change10. City fabrics Summer? designed to seasonally adjust foliar cover and ground the city at street level than a coat of reflective white with deep ‘urban canyons’ are an unintended shading making it ideal to include in dense cities paint12. consequence of densification - More density puts It is critical for planners and urban designers to where building form is adjusted to maximise solar more pressure on our public spaces to “perform”. understand the relationship between accessibility, access. Vegetation, if used in clever ways which The choice of street tree species, size, placement Densification puts pressure on solar amenity which, urban form, heat retention, solar access, thermal harness individual species traits and strategize and diversity is an integral part of street design potentially leads to winter “Dark Cities” like those comfort, micro-climates and health and integrate specimen placement and spacing, overlaid with particularly in cities with large seasonal temperature seen in the cult classic by Alex Proyas in 1998, or as analysis tools into the design decision making elements of Spatial Nearness, thermal comfort, variation such as those experienced in Melbourne, New York City described by Fooks – “The smoke of process. seasonal change, health data and land use data Australia13. People and animals know the benefits of its factories reduces the sun shine to almost 40 per improves both the perception of Spatial Nearness shade in heat mitigation [see Figure 1 and Figure 2]. cent., and it swallows annually about one-fifth of its You’re in the jungle baby… Urban street trees using and the performance of the city fabric for the health Even in deep urban canyons which might experience natural light”11 p.23. Dense cities can also potentially algorithmic botany and flexible urban models of residents of dense urban settlements. high levels of overshadowing all year, trees contribute become summer ‘urban furnaces’ like China’s Building form has a limited capacity to seasonally to city cooling through evapotranspiration and Chongqing, Wuhan, and Nanjing cities. adjust levels of sun exposure to the street through The impact of green-roof on building temperature has contribute to human health and comfort through air building awnings or other ‘tacked on’ additions. been a popular field of study recently. While making and storm water pollution mitigation and a host of So how do we balance the need for protecting Additionally, limitations for building over shadowing roof spaces trafficable and habitable environments aesthetic considerations. people from excessive UV exposure and heat are often legislated to Summer and Winter equinox’ for residents in dense cities with small apartments is whilst encouraging active modes of transport? And, which result in streets, fully over shadowed in Winter certainly sensible – making these spaces ‘green’ can Our approach for modelling urban street trees, how can innovative strategic approaches to urban and highly sun exposed in Summer increasing be prohibitively expensive, may not provide flexibility integrates spatio-temporal characteristics of transformation increase the potential for walking to the vulnerability of active transport users to both for residents to use these spaces for passive clothes trees into the process of designing streets using

Figure 5: Aerial rendered view of Arden Macaulay area Figure 6: Aerial rendered view of Arden Macaulay area Figure 7: Solar radiation exposure analysis of Arden Figure 8: Solar radiation exposure analysis of Arden digital model showing potential planting of Corymbia digital model showing potential planting of Platanus Macaulay area digital model showing potential planting Macaulay area digital model showing potential planting of maculata 7m spacing in summer. Image by Marcus White orientalis 7m spacing, in winter. Image by Marcus White and of Platanus orientalis 7m spacing, in summer. Image by Platanus orientalis 7m spacing, in winter. Image by Marcus and Nano Langenheim. Nano Langenheim. Marcus White and Nano Langenheim. White and Nano Langenheim.

12 Sailor, D. J., Elley, T. 5 Mills, G. (2004) The urban 7 Oke, T. R. (1981) Canyon 8 Daly, R. M., Gagnon, C., Lu, 9 Patz, J. A., Campbell- 10 Akompab, D. A., Bi, P., 11 Fooks, E. (1946) X-Ray 13 White, N. M. & Langenheim. B., and Gibson, M. (2011) canopy layer heat island, IAUC geometry and the nocturnal Z. X., Magliano, D. J., Dunstan, Lendrum, D., Holloway, T., and Williams, S., Grant, J., Walker, the City!: The density (2014) Measuring urban Exploring the building energy Teaching Resources. urban heat island: comparison D. W., Sikaris, K. A., Zimmet, Foley, J. A. (2005) Impact of I. A., and Augoustinos, M. diagram: basis for urban canyons with real-time impacts of green roof design of scale model and field P. Z., Ebeling, P. R., and Shaw, regional climate change on (2013) Heat waves and planning, Ministry of Post-War light based sky view factor decisions–a modeling study 6 Oke, T. R. (1988) Street observations, Journal of J. E. (2012) Prevalence of human health, Nature, Nature climate change: Applying Reconstruction. modelling. In Our common of buildings in four distinct design and urban canopy layer Climatology, Wiley Online vitamin D deficiency and its Publishing Group 438, 310–317. the health belief model to future in Urban Morphology: climates, Journal of Building climate, Energy and buildings, Library 1, 237–254. determinants in Australian identify predictors of risk 21st International Seminar Physics, Sage Publications Elsevier 11, 103–113. adults aged 25 years and older: perception and adaptive on Urban Form - ISUF2014 1744259111420076. a national, population-based behaviours in Adelaide, (Oliveira V, P. T. Pinho P Batista study, Clinical endocrinology, Australia, International journal L, and C, M., Eds.), pp 239–304, Wiley Online Library 77, 26–35. of environmental research and Faculdade de Engenharia da public health, Multidisciplinary Universidade do Porto. Digital Publishing Institute 10, 2164–2184. 70 Marcs White, Geoff Kimm, Nano Langenheim, 71 Xiaoran Huang and Mark Burry algorithmic botany and flexible urban models13. ‘negative shadow’ object derived from angles of the Fooks identified the intuitive urban design decision We can prioritise the environment of the street, sun during a given range of times. This approach making process in 1946 as problematic, with “errors modelling both the daylight hours trees will receive, results in potential development envelopes within inherent in the still widely used method of ‘Hunch which inform growth rates and aspects of projected which any buildings can be built without casting a and Guess’ in urban planning”11 p.55. Though we morphology in a given urban fabric and also shadow onto the public space during the designated believe there is still some room in the urban design modelling the shade over time and season that time range [see Figure 9]. process for intuition and hunches – that urban design trees provide if spacing, species and placement is not a pure deterministic engineering discipline of are strategically prioritised to radically improve the Urban Canyon assessment – opening up to the sky brute-force optimisation, when we have hunches, microclimate of our city streets [Figure 3 to Figure 8]. Urban canyon analysis tools can be used for our hunches are informed by rigorous analysis - the assessment of existing city canyons using the equivalents to X-Rays, or CAT scans and MRIs ‘hacked Go-Pro video processing’ method today. Rather than ‘guess’ at solutions or ‘guess’ our Subtracto-Sun – the solar carvery developed by White and Kimm16, or integrated into proposed solutions will work, we can test them using the design process using GPU based calculation previously “immeasurable data” with rigorous spatio- Preserving open space amenity can be achieved using a hemispherical light source for real-time Sky temporal simulations to evaluate our proposals, just using a four-dimensional subtractive volumetric View Factor calculation developed by White and as surgeons will use bioinformatics through virtual modelling method developed by White14,15 called Langenheim13 [see Figure 10]. reality simulations. ‘Subtracto-Sun’, a technique which utilises parametric digital sun systems with real-time More than “Hunch and Guess” urban design and flexible Boolean operations. The technique creates planning… permissible building envelopes by subtracting a solid

Figure 9: White’s “Subtracto-Sun” public space solar Figure 10: GPU based calculation using a hemispherical amenity preservation tool. Diagram showing plaza space light source for real-time Sky View Factor calculation extrusions tapered to match the altitude and azimuth developed by White and Langenheim. Image by Marcus angles of the sun at a range of day times, carved from White. a surrounding potential building envelope to ensure no shadow falls on the plaza during specified times. Image by Marcus White.

14 White, M. (2010) Homo 15 White, M. (2014) Global 16 White, G. M. Kimm. (2015) Measuring sky view factor of urban Faber: Modelling identity and Demographic and Climate canyons using hacked Gopro hemispheric video processing. the post digital (Burry, A. M Challenges in the City In Research for a Better Built Environment: 49th International Ostwald M Downton P & Mina, (Pfaffenbach, C., and Schneider, Conference of the Architectural Science Association 2015 (Crawford, Ed.), pp 111–124, Archadia C., Eds.), pp 107–126, R. H., and Stephan, A., Eds.), pp 525–535, Faculty of Architecture, Press. Department of Geography Building and Planning (UniMelb). of RWTH Aachen University, Aachen Germany. 72 73

The image included in this report London Villages: “Government”, “Press”, “Law” and so on. Each Fooks and the Social and functional analysis of London (Figure district has its shopping street with recreational 1) identified London as “highly organized and space either within its boundaries or immediately emergence of urban inter-related system of communities” (Forshaw, adjacent. Some of the communities, but not all, have science Abercrombie 1943). The major purpose of 1943 town halls, indicated by red dots. As in Fooks’ model County of London Plan, was to strengthen and of a neighbourhood unit of 1000 families, the London sustain these communities: communities were subdivided into neighbourhood units of 6,000 to 10,000 people with an elementary The proposal is to emphasise the identity of school and service zones. Each of the districts the existing communities, to increase their was to be surrounded by an open space to provide degree of segregation, and where necessary a “natural cut-off between it and its neighbours” Justyna to reorganise them as separate and definite (Forshaw, Abercrombie 1943). The Abercrombie city entities. The aim would be to provide is organised around communities, with each of them Karakiewicz each community with its own schools, defining a separate place with a specific identity. public buildings, shops, open spaces, etc. Furthermore, each of these districts seems to be (Abercrombie 1943). aligned to one cultural reference. In a mid-twentieth century response to the conflict of their immediate This innovative map was intended as a grand past, this might be intended to create monoculture master plan for rebuilding London after the war. settlements, something we might seek to avoid today Three years before Ernest Fooks’ book X-Ray the City! was Abercrombie subdivided London into districts of although very evident in Fooks’ post-war Melbourne. published, Patrick Abercrombie and John Forshaw produced the particular character and generalised their spatial limits by showing them as rounded blobs. Just Three years after this map was published, and 1943 County of London Plan. as Fooks described his nucleui of integration with in the same year that Fooks’ book was issued, dominating elements, Abercrombie defined and the New Towns Act was promulgated in London. separated the many districts of London by naming The act established New Town Development them after their dominating element. Thus we Corporations that were responsible for the delivery can see on the map districts named “University”, and management of new towns. The development

Figure 1. London Social and Functional Map 1942, drawn by Arthur Ling and D.K. Johnson in 1943 as a part of comprehensive 1943 County of London Plan by Forshaw and Abercrombie. 74 Justyna Karakiewicz 75 framework of these new towns was drawn up to The term of integration connotes not only a significant gap between these data and our on one of the most durable and fascinating ensure the provision of mixed housing, industry, a whole composed of an indefinite number knowledge of how cities work and thus more robust, subjects in all of philosophy. And we learn services, open space and transport infrastructures. of parts and functions but also the close meaningful theories about cities. Whether we try to that life’s creativity draws from a source that Fooks refers to this framework frequently in his interdependence of those numerous parts and develop new a physicalism, which combines the is older than life, and perhaps older than time book; he must have been very aware of what was functions and their interpenetration. (Fooks scientific inspiration of Geddes with Abercrombie’s (Wagner 2014, p. 221). going on in the UK and has possibly drawn ideas 1946, p.95) professional pragmatism, as suggested by Batty and from Abercrombie. Marshall (2009), or apply methods of complexity With this in mind students from MSD, The University This clearly illustrates Fooks’ understanding of the science with its well-established methodologies, we of Melbourne were asked to develop their tools and Abercrombie just like Fooks shared the belief that cities not as collection of integrated or interrelated can be confident that the role of science may deepen their ideas for Melbourne 2046. The following six planning should be supported by science. His artefacts but rather as a dynamic system. His our understanding of what is happening within projects describe how our next design leaders think work was rooted in “physicalism”, a theory that description reads very much like CAS theory; the city structure but it cannot give us answers or about the future and articulate their dreams and assumed that social problems could be solved by he frequently refers to elements that cannot be provide us with design solutions. Nevertheless, it is aspiration for the next 30 years. Perhaps this is what manipulating the physical built environment (Batty measured and their influence on the city as a whole. the rigorous understanding of data that can guide our Fooks would have done if he was describing an X- and Marshall 2009). Abercrombie advocated top- Without a theory to guide his way, however, the tools interventions in the city and thus influence the way Ray of the city in 2046. down planning as he stated unequivocally in his that he deploys are not adequate to deliver what he city functions, operates, grows and develops. lecture at the University College in 1937: dreams of offering: The tools at our disposal today allow us to create I would like to remark that we are (it is The tools for analyses have to form the dynamic “what if scenarios”. For example, we can use References assumed) agreed upon certain fundamentals preparation for further action; they have to disturbance theory (part of CAS theory) to test these such as: the necessity of planning as Abercrombie, P. (1937) Planning in Town and Country: Difficulties and become the tools for activity, the tools for scenarios. Disturbance theory has been applied by compared with a reliance upon the Possibilities (An Inaugural Lecture), London, Hodder and Stoughton. creating the new urban environments. (Fooks ecologists who suggest that natural systems require evolutionary chaos, with Adam Smith’s 1946, p.97). periodic disruptions in order to evolve (Barnett and Barnett, R. and Margetts, J. (2013) Disturbanism in the South invisible guiding hand behind the clouds – an Margetts, 2013); the same could be said of urban Pacific, in Resilience in Ecology and Urban Design, edited By ancient fallacy this, which still has its votaries. Pickett, Cadenasso, McGrath, New York: Springer Today we have at our disposal CAS and CES systems. But if we want to be as insightful as Fooks, (Abercrombie, 1937, 16). (Control Engineering System) theories to help us. a few steps ahead of our time, we could look to more Batty, M. and S. Marshall (2009) The evolution of cities: Geddes, CAS enables us to understand cities as natural recent developments in science such as the Arrival Abercrombie and the new Physicalism, Liverpool University Press, This was intellectual environment in which Fooks Town Planning Review, Vol. 80: Issue.6: pages 551-574. systems, capable of learning and readapting, while of the Fittest (Wagner, 2014). Complex adaptive was writing X-Ray the City! The environment of CES conceptualises the city as an artificial system systems and disturbance theory are developed on Batty, M. and P.M. Torrens (2002) Modelling Complexity: the limits management and control and the will to create able to be optimised on many levels. Both theories the premises of Darwin’s evolution theory. Wagner to predictions. CyberGeo 201 new forms and impose them onto the city structure give us insights in city structure and provide tools believes that adaptation is not driven by chance believed that the new environment improved Forshaw, J. and P. Abercrombie (1943) 1943 County of London for modelling what is happening around us. These but by a set of laws that allow nature to discover Plan, London: Macmillan. quality of life for its residents. Much of the planning decades on, however, after the bright new future new molecules and mechanisms in a fraction of and modelling was based on the belief that a city promised by scientific methods has palled, we the time that random variation would take place Stanton, A. (1896-01-23). “Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen On a New could attain a state of equilibrium and therefore Kind of Rays: translation of a paper read before the Würzburg are aware that using science in the quest for exact (Wagner 2014). Urban development moves too optimization was not only possible but achievable Physical and Medical Society, 1895” answers to important problems is not any longer quickly for evolution alone to deliver changes. When through modelling and that master planning could possible (Batty and Torrens 2001). We now have dealing with city development, we cannot rely just (de) Vries, H. (1904) Species and Varieties: Their Origin by Mutation, guide the city to an desired ideal end state. Chicago: The Open Court Publishing Company. p.826 a growing recognition that the certainty it offers is on evolutionary processes. Even in nature natural illusory. In this context Fooks’ work is decades years ahead selection may explain the survival of the fittest, but it Wagner, A. (2014) Arrival of the Fittest: Solving evolution’s greatest puzzle, New York: Penguin Group of his time. We might posit that Fooks was one of the There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned cannot explain the arrival of the fittest (de Vries 1904, p.826). As Wagner suggested: first planners who visualised the city as a dynamic lies, and statistics. (quoted by Fooks 1946, Watanabe, M. S. (2002) Induction Cities: a Method for Evolutionary system, one today we call a complex adaptive p. 7) Design, Basel: Birkhauser When we begin to study nature’s libraries we system. Although he never referred to the theory of If Ernest Fooks was writing his book today, he would aren’t just investigating life innovability or that complex adaptive systems (CAS) since it was not most likely start again with this quotation. As we gain of technology. We are shedding new light developed at that time, or even systems theory, his access to ever more data on urban life, there remains INTEGRATION concept states that:

Figure 2. Infrastructure for the 21st century by Justyna Karakiewicz 76 Yu Wan and Cheng Chen 77

Projects

Our project is aiming to create reasonable spaces that can avoid several potential issues that Fooks argued in his book. Two main theories are considered as our essential references—Fooks’ ideas from his book X-ray the city! : the density diagram: basis for urban planning and “ERG” theory.

Density as an expansion, is a reasonable proposal for Melbourne 2046 that largely focuses on the current situation, and take a bottom-up design method to approach our concept. Fractal structure, agent behavior simulation and optimisation algorithm are three major methods that mainly helped us design.

The project is based on two major parts: Module and Journey. The module has been developed as a mathematically fractal structure, it can be understood as a tree structure and staring from bottom as individuals, following by residential units, and social unit Class I, II, III and IV. Each class covers different function spotting (Fooks). The density number decides which function should be placed in which class, furthermore, it is a hierarchical structure that referred to the size of population density. The functions in each social unit are developed gradually from private to more public.

The fractal structure can represent the idea of “Limitation Growth” and “Function spotting” in size of social unit’ in Fooks’ theory. 78 Yu Wan and Cheng Chen 79

SOLID--LIQUID--GAS JOURNEY

As the stated by Fooks, the essential principle underlying current functional approach to physical planning is to integrate the four urban functions, living, work, recreation and distribution. We assume that in the future, these four urban functions will become more blurred and will mix together. Consequently, the development of module has three stages: “Solid—Liquid—Gas”. The whole module becomes instability, uncontrollability and equivocality. This picture is the module looking at the first stage—Solid.

Liquid, as the second stage, the whole urban functions are gradually mixed, and it starts with each close social function spotting, the colour gradient demonstrates how functions are merged with each other at an abstractive aspect.

Gas is the last stage of the module, all urban functions mixed The journey can be understood as the “bridge” that connects with each module. The journey is deeply relevant to in a fully blurry level. Function is not “function” anymore. We “relatedness” and “growth” of ERG theory. Instead of optimization, efficiency, and rational calculation, the Journey is more only can see the multiple function space and the optimised about personal experience and preferences. The journey path is built by a random moving rule. For example, the 3D traffic system in our module. agents have one single destination. However, where the path each agent will go is based on their personal preference, in another word is random behavior but the final destination will be the same. And if we set the destination more than one, the result will be much more complex. And later we modelled this simulation result into 3D space. Besides the function of transportation, the journey also illustrated other functions that related to ‘E’ and ‘R’ part, for instance, landscape view, big shopping malls, fancy restaurants, information exchange hubs, meditation rooms for people social, relax, and self-growth. 80 Chun Long Fok, Reed Sze Lok Chan, Yu Fu 81

URBAN DECOMPOSER

In 1946, Ernest Fooks published his book X-Ray the City! and to where we live, groundwater contamination and toxic the soil voiced his concerns regarding construction and environments in that it takes few decades to be recovered. Since creating waste post-war Melbourne. Fooks foresee that apartment living as a is unavoidable, why don’t we make us of it? We believed that necessity in urban planning in the future and noted that density everyone in the futurewill not simple be a consumer any more, alone was not responsible for poor urban living conditions, but all of us will become the source of the decomposer engine. That that the quality of urban living was related to community life and it will change the relationship between social service and urban access to quality facilities, housing and open spaces for leisure. dweller from linear “supply and demand” to “interdependent” Fooks specifically addressed that social services are including:- By understanding the current situation, that motivate our team 1) Educational; 2) Recreational; 3) Health facilities; 4) to think about what architecture and urban design can make utility services: i) water supply, ii) garbage disposal, iii) drainage, contribution and improvement. Decomposer in the nature system iv) sewerage, iv) gas, v)electricity, vi) telephone and public gave us hints and insight in handling waste. conveyances. In nature, there is no waste. Waste become a resources, but in In the past seven decades, many of social services have been order for waste to become the resource in urban area, we need changed by the adaptive use of internet and the advance of decomposers. Bacteria from nature are the natural engines of science research, except the “Utility services”. The form of utility decomposition. In our design, we are applying the concept services has not been changed since the date that it has been from the nature and inserting a missing part of urban organism. developed, one of the reasons is that each of the infrastructure It converts the current negative disposal to resources that can costed huge amount of investment, and it takes at least 20 – 40 recontribute to the utilities system, and that became an unlimited years to recover. In this project, we want to explore a different resource to generate what we need. The urban decomposer way to access “necessities” in urban. For developed counties, does not act on a single purpose which handling waste, it it seems that we take utilities services for granted, the problem also provides opportunities to convert chemical energy from we face is only how much we need to pay, obviously human sewerage and food waste to electricity and heat, and it can also being is addicted to energy, and only take the benefit from carry out water treatment for both rainwater and sewerage. The limited resources to support services, without taking serious system should be further expend in large scale of urban farming consideration of the way how we live and the consequences of or planting industrial crops that can both provide food for urban our being, especially the way how we dispose waste and over- dweller, and industrial crops such as soya beans will accelerate produced products. It costs irreversible environmental impact the energy regeneration rate to increases the efficiency of the overall decomposer system. 82 Chun Long Fok, Reed Sze Lok Chan, Yu Fu 83

The initial design concept intents to combine decomposer system and rainwater collection system, by having a mega amount of water as product after sewerage treatment and rainwater harvesting, a new layer of water storage and distribution method will be created, which can also establish a new connection that connect urban dwellers to access of wide range of amenities and public spaces. Instead of having traditional lagoon system that will take large amount of floor space to hold infrastructure for sewerage system, the decomposer system is developed vertically that minimise the footage of the tower that it can fit in a such demanding urban environment.

The configuration of each decomposer tower can be unique, it is designed to give responses to its surrounding buildings and urban context. By having a simple structure tower, it gives the tower capability to glow vertically according to different stage of urban development.

By adopting existing underground sewerage system and introducing organic waste collection point, the decomposer tower will process unlimited raw material from urban and operating in 24 hours and across the year. Unlimited recourses mean electricity and heart will also be non-stop generating. Spaces in between decomposer equipment’s creates platform to hold different social services and enjoy ultimate city view.

[Island] There is a unique island on each of the decomposer tower, the island has multiple purpose including but not limited to act as a pier for water transportation between towers, a place for relaxation and urban farming. Diagrams on the above shown prototype design of islands.

[Sky-bridge] Besides having activities on the island, urban dweller can also get different experience on decomposer bridges through walking along the sky- river, as well as swimming or taking a sailing boat trip to home and work. Industrial crops are planted on both surface and islands, as part of the urban farming associating with urban decomposer system. Bubbles on the river is one of our prototype design of further transportation, which explores the enjoyment and happiness about transportation.

[Implementation of the tower] The decomposer tower will be implemented in stages; Stage 1, Erection of decomposer tower at urban voids; Stage 2, Establish connection between towers; Stage 3, Decomposer network influent urban form and planning such that the overall system hybridised with surrounding environment. 84 Cheng Shun Ren Leon, Zhao Su Yang, Zhao Qing Quan 85

Introduction 2016 2026 2036 Volatile Melbourne is about creating a system where information is the integral aspect that flows through the various components that would respond to fit the conditions created by the population. It is a system that is able to react to potential problems as well as the emergent properties from the population and subsequently have the urban fabric reconfigured. Density calculated by number of people per hectare of land during Fooks’ time was very two 2 Dimension 2.5 Dimension dimensional. Today, we see more mixed use buildings and homes that are stacked vertically but functions are minimal. What we envision for 2046 is that humans will breach across buildings on the horizontal plane without having to proceed back onto the ground level and functions that respond to the behavioural patterns of the population. Volatile Melbourne Information Collection 3 Dimension 4 Dimension 2046 The information that we have gathered over the years on the human population becomes less reliable as time passes. The reaction time taken to make changes to the urban settlement is always a long process and by the time the implementation has taken place, the problems that were initially there may have changed. Furthermore, the fact that we are still receiving information from a two dimensional map indicating the particular function from urban planning authorities is a clear indication of how our urban settlement is still stuck in a two dimensional world. We propose for a way that information could be gathered in real- time through the use of sensors placed around the urban fabric.

Energy Generation

Human beings are the largest consumers of energy on this planet and we must accept that we are part of the overall system and cannot properly control how the overall system operates. There is so much potential for energy to be harnessed from human’s daily activities. Sensors would be able to analyse the information gathered from the movement patterns of an individual. To ensure that there will be enough power generated by human beings to power the system, walking should be encouraged within the urban fabric. 86 Cheng Shun Ren Leon, Zhao Su Yang, Zhao Qing Quan 87

Removal of Motorised Transport Psychological Well-being Prefabrication - Assembly & The City that Changes with the People Disassembly Pedestrian tends to walk more in exciting Through active travel as well as the The five components together forms the and environmentally pleasant environment; energy nodes that harvest energy from The physicality of the urban fabric is that overall system for Volatile Melbourne. Our knowing that the pedestrian walking the population, the overall physical buildings are always seen as a permanent strategy to concentrate the human population, system is connected to fast travel could well-being is increased. Furthermore, object. If a prefabricated building can be consolidate various functions and communicate encourage more pedestrian movement. the concentration of population along assembled in a day, it should be able to the information gathered to the overall urban This would draw the population towards the travel routes and consolidation of be disassembled with the same time. settlement ties together the five components the areas of fast travel which would functions together with the provision of Once that is achieved, the building will be into a system. In Volatile Melbourne, the density allow for more energy to be generated. interactive spaces encourages social able to reconfigure itself to adjust to the of the urban population would give rise to the Furthermore, these areas of fast travel will interaction between individuals. The varying needs of the human population. accessibility. provide a myriad if interactive spaces to quality of spaces within these areas are With the development of technology rising allow the population to be able to wander significantly increased so that it would at an exponential rate, this process has The higher the density, the higher the energy around in the area. By doing so, we have be an added bonus on top of a myriad the potential to be automated. This can generated which would power the fast travel minimised motorised transport. This of functions so that the population would be achieved by the analysis of the human system across the urban fabric and leads to breaks down the social barrier between travel though these areas to their desired population through information collection increased accessibility. Volatile Melbourne human beings as we are often confined destination. where the building functions will be shifted is a system that would be able to react to the within our private vehicles and also around the urban fabric to adjust to the irrationality of human beings and also able encourages active travel. demands. to reconfigure itself according to the varying demands of the population. Volatile Melbourne will be the city that changes with the people. 88 Sophie Farmer and Bi Wang 89

Diversity as Density

There is a great latent potential in our of attraction and aversion, different ty, allowing for the city’s architecture urban fabric today. This hidden potential buildings can couple with compatible to expand rhizomically, that is through is located within our city buildings partners to create hybrid spaces and infinite expansion based on needs of currently lacking a connection to one thus increase dense diversity. the city. As buildings slowly merge another. They currently do not function together and fragment themselves as a collective in a physical sense. Yet, In order to script this, each sub new characteristics from neighbouring we call our city a collective, we say that classification is designated a number areas not within the immediate radius our city is an interconnected, closely so each building has it’s own unique of a building cancombine together, thus woven together system, yet physically genetic code. If there is over a 50% further increasing diversity in our architecture we do not see layers compatibility, that is, more than 50% of the city embedded within all of its of the values in a building’s dna string As a result of intersection and merging components and sub-components. match with another building within of buildings and the creation of more the zone of influence created by the diverse species within the urban city There is increased density, yet our metaballs, then a positive coupling can system, new hybrid typologies can arise, buildings still function and stand occur and a new breed of building can particularly in the reformatted former separately. Our tall apartment and office be generated. corridor spaces. Examples include: buildings are cut off from the rest of the Vertical farm and energy generator, city, they have no street connectivity and Each building is analysed based on the drone operated capsule flower and there is no visible relationship with their following specifics: vegetable garden, as well as apartment neighbouring buildings. Furthermore, living with neighbourhood fish farm and despite common complaints about Usage function Surface function aquarium. less space for dwelling, and a call for Usage generation Faciality the Victorian government to implement Degree of faciality Circulatory balance What results from this experiment is regulations regarding minimum size of Spatial continuity Spatial division a complex and highly interconnected apartment dwellings, we continue to Density Diversity urban system that allows for increased use redundant spaces in our planning Pace accessibility through spatial nearness of such establishments. The prime and also through hyper-hybrid formation example that can be identified is the A building is no longer seen as a through building genetic combination current utilisation of the corridor, or building and redundant spaces are that results in increased diversity and rather, its underutilisation. reduced as it is physically intertwined density as the final outcome. with many other building species to Density as Diversity, is a speculative create a dense, diverse interconnected A building should not be considered as proposal for Melbourne 2046 that urban system full of multiplicity, better sole building with direct boundaries, focuses on taking a reductionist, realising the spatial nearness and urban we need to think of the city as a city, bottom-up approach by identifying interdependence that Fooks advocated. a closely interconnected and hyper figurative ‘genes’ and classifying diverse system. If we x-ray the city buildings into different species through This kind of script can run again and look at the little things in the a process similar to phylogenetics. and again to increase complexity, system that we do not pay so much Based on basic coupling rules following density and in turn diversity, allowing attention to in current urban design and a biological logic, different building for the city’s architecture to expand planning practices then we can create species are able to connect and reformat rhizomically, that is through infinite architecture that allows all citizens to be themselves into hybrid complexes. expansion based on needs of the city. drawn in and enhance social cohesion As buildings slowly merge together and lifestyle connectivity in a diverse, From the 11 core categories designated and fragment themselves new lively environment for many years into for a building to be examined against characteristics from neighbouring areas the future. and 22 different sub classifications not within the immediate radius of the under these categories, we can identify meatball combine together thus further unique building species. By using rules increasing diversity 90 Sophie Farmer and Bi Wang 91 92 Faith Freeman, Isaac Chen and Tommy Heng 93

MONGREL CITY

In pursuit of better urban conditions, Ernest Fooks and exciting uses of space through a contraction of within municipalities so too do the required services. The agents for our CAM are transportation, primary wanted to equip planners and designers with more the city footprint and the use of hybridised spaces. To accommodate these new services in an efficient and secondary education, tertiary education, intellectually rigorous footings to consider urban way, we need to look at hybridised spaces. Second, commerce, places of work, residential, hospitals, density and to change the way density measurements Looking to 2046 we examined how population was we saw the opportunity to focus on access rather than and clinics. Their parametric criteria are size of unit, are applied. Unfortunately, much of Fooks’ work has distributed across Melbourne in terms of density mobility. size limit, proportion of solid/void, growth rate, agent gone unheeded and, as a consequence, today we (people/hectare). We observed a correlation between responsiveness, and the relationships between observe some poor urban conditions in Melbourne. property prices, the gross number of people and The prime method employed for our project was agents and agents. With our agents and parameters Namely, an unsustainable urban sprawl of sparsely density. Within a municipality, lower property prices complex adaptive modeling (CAM) which allows us to established we constructed our CAM using Quelea in populated suburbs with little access to services and generally result in a greater number of residents quickly produce an exciting system where agents can grasshopper. We were able to produce a scenario for amenities. Compounding the problem is the way we distributed less densely. These municipalities adapt, emerge, and recur according to parameters. 2046 where our programmatic agents are behaving currently treat services and amenities as discrete generally have less access to services but most have We are able to program features like complexity, in interesting and unexpected spatial configurations units; impeding efficient use of space and making it a greater number of cars per household. Projecting emergence and self-organisation to agents within a to serve the population. Observable are hybridised difficult for people to gain access to multiple services to 2046, we observed that municipalities that are defined system resulting in a high degree of adaptive programmes between commerce, residential, within a limited area. Pushing against such conditions increasing at the greatest percentage are those with capacity and resilience. It allows us to review multiple healthcare, transport and education. and adapting Fooks’ theory for the 21st Century, our lower property prices and low population density. scenarios spawning from a single set of base proposition for 2046 aims to focus the design of our From this study we saw two opportunities arise. First, parameters in order to design for 2046. Our model In designing the individual hybrids that emerged in cities on access. In doing so, we look at more efficient the need for hybridisation. As the population increases uses programmes as agents which seek population our CAM, we ran the risk of designing three distinct growth according to a series of parameters. and isolated clusters that could potentially undermine 94 Faith Freeman, Isaac Chen and Tommy Heng 95

our underlying thesis. To offset that risk, we decided these arteries will be replicable and scalable across to design a common thread for Melbourne 2046. the city over time in stages. In the first stage (2016- That thread took the form of the adaptation and 2026), we propose the introduction of a raised diversification of an existing transport route to serve platform hovering above existing tram routes. On that as an artery of the city in 2046. Transport arteries in platform would be a tiered travelator system to move Melbourne offer great opportunities for innovation people. Simultaneously, the trams will be converted in the future. While in their current state most of into mobile vessels for various services that slowly Melbourne’s major transport routes are inefficient and traverse the strip - offering a dynamism and liveliness unsustainable, with careful interventions, they can to the strip. evolve into wonderful and sustainable hubs to give life to the city. In the second stage (2026-2036), we propose the addition of raised bicycle networks as well as the By 2030, it is estimated that 80% of the infrastructure contraction and sinking of the road that services cars in Australian cities will have been built prior to 2010. and buses. Our aim is to provide a safe and efficient Combine with this the population projections for route for cyclists while down-scaling our reliance on Melbourne and it is clear that transforming our cities the motor vehicle. for the future is intimately related to rationalising, utilising, diversifying and adapting existing transport In the third stage (2036-2046), with the reduction in the infrastructure. number of motor vehicles we propose the introduction of a two pronged courier service: first, the pneumatic In order to create a more efficient and accessible city tube system where individuals can shoot small items in 2046 we propose the adaptation of major transport from one place to another in a confined area; and routes in Melbourne into vibrant city arteries. The second, the use of drones to transport larger items to core systems to be developed and integrated along various places beyond the strip. 96 Sirui Guo 97

Loop Melbourne 2046

The proposal is an attempt to connect the major nodes of Melbourne by an Underground Railway transit with a HUB in the Port Philip Bay created over an artificial island. The island will act as a Center for New development creating more space for Live, Work and Move. 98 Sirui Guo 99

18,295 100 101

Data is rather in the architectural sensibility of Fooks and 4D Data, Diagrams, his methods to coax an understanding out of data Statistical data is the evidence basis for Fooks and sets, while remaining attuned to the particularly Density and Diagnostics his examination of Melbourne in 1946. But his very social dimensions of the task at hand. Data not as introduction advances a cautionary overlay to the cold, hard fact, but data as an indicative, projective uncertainties, ambiguities and abuses within the swirl and swarm of tendencies, bringing visibility application of statistics and collected data. It is to that which had more or less remained unseen, not so much that the data is un-true, but that it is unacknowledged. insufficient. Caught in the trap of all encyclopaedic endeavours, the demands for comprehensiveness Diagrams Donald are always undone by the acknowledgement that Also elsewhere in this volume, several contributors Bates there is always more to be gathered, more nuances elaborate on the metaphor or instrumentality of the to be referenced and notated, newer, more relevant “X-ray”. Its employment by Fooks is unique, but categories yet to be identified. also of a clear lineage. Historicity would suggest that with its invention 50 years before Fooks applies In such scenarios, data is both fact and fiction. Its it to Melbourne, the “X-ray” was a known scientific very specificity and identity, is made tenuous and advance. And yet even today, some 120 years provisional by the act of deeper investigation. This after Röntgen, we still marvel at the mechanics of Contemporary plans, new techniques. is a pre-Mandelbrot fractal universe where solid revealing that which lies beneath the surface of our Progressive city, new plans. numbers and decimal point accuracy is challenged daily world. each time a data set is interrogated, with additional information, additional sub-categories, additional Issues of surface and depth, the superficial and the attributes calling into question the relevance and substantial, the revealing of the “real” – all these substantiality of previous inferences and conclusions. categorisations seek a definitive determination of what is more truthful, what is most worthy of placing Elsewhere in this volume, others have provided a one’s faith in, or simply deciding on what basis do we more precise, more authoritative presentation of make decisions from. The metaphor of the “X-ray” data collection and interpretation. My interest here is the employment of a technology of revelation. The 102 Donald Bates 103 machine, the process; that reveals. Its scientific Density the grain of his contemporary colleagues and public graduate section, the Melbourne School of Design. acuity is the consequence of a mechanical Unlike my fellow contributors, I am not a scholar sentiment – on the benefits socially, materially, At the same time, the artifice of Ernest Fooks and his autonomy to the process. That is to say that the and therefore I don’t have at my disposal the spatially, temporally and urbanistically on increased X-Ray the City! has generated surprising connections use of the x-ray, reveals by its inherent nature, techniques and practices that would allow me to density – when managed thoughtfully and with and insights, both about Melbourne and its urban irrespective of the operator. Of course, the state with authority the supporting evidence for tectonic sensitivity. Melbourne has only taken development, but also its place within a wider results have to be interpreted, explained. It takes my next claims. Rather, I have only an intuition; a seriously the positive benefits of such a position discourse on the city, data insights, the graphic a skilled technician to discern muscle from bone, presumptive inclination that seems to coincide with within the last 20 years. And even this change of representation of information and relationships, and cartilage from marrow, and injury from normal other observations. development orientation is patchy, limited and barely the social dimension of urban policy. occurrences. advancing. It is a “shock of the old” to hear it so I am conceptually surprised and heartened by Fook’s eloquently advocated some many years back. Our most distilled or journalistic tagline was: “What Where Fooks overrides mechanical autonomy is emphatic emphasis on the benefits of density in his can we do now (with data, information, techniques in his development of diagrams and maps. Here analysis of Melbourne in 1946. It might be written Diagnostics and technology for the city) that Fooks could not do is revelation through representation. The facts off as the natural tendency of a European émigré to This book is a trial balloon, a preamble to a larger in 1946, and what does that afford us?” This book don’t change [subject to all the caveats previously a post-colonial outpost at the other end of the globe, endeavour. It took its abbreviated form as a does not answer this simple question nor does it notated], the circumstance isn’t altered, the attempting to remake a new world city into the form response to an opportunity to exhibit and to provoke confine our more ambitious mandate. What we hope investigative mandate remains intact, and yet a of the old world. It might be nostalgia for a type within the context of the 2016 La Biennale di it does do, is to begin a more intense investigation new graphic depiction, a new diagrammatic logic, of urbanism (and resultant urbanity) more in tune Venezia. In the short preparation time allocated to and more demanding speculation, through affords us a glimpse at something already present with the cosmopolitanism of central Europe – now its formulation and production, only a shadow of an research, through design production and through but not apparent. The reveal is in the insight of removed and practically destroyed in both time and idea was determined at the start. It was accepted new techniques to expand the encyclopaedia of the graphic. In what might well be called the space by WWII and resettlement on the far side of a that it would be incomplete, provisional and without architectural and urban effects as a means and “gestalt” of the graphic, in which a mostly full distant continent. clear objectives, much less clear thematics and well opportunities for a more socially supportive urban and comprehensive understanding takes place argued positions. development, in a city such as Melbourne. through the first glimpse of the new diagram, But the text of X-Ray the City! and the advocacy that the new map, the new chart. Embedded in Fooks undertakes, is more precise and more spatial Nonetheless, the push to inject a small provocation these graphic reveals are all the data sets, determined by attention to issues of infrastructure, into the large enterprise that is the Venice all the relational coordinates, the contextual growth, amenities, resources and one might even Architecture Biennale has stimulated a measurable backgrounds that situate this information in a say a nascent sustainability, than by any lingering collegiality across the Faculty of Architecture, specific domain, but the sense of it all is made thoughts of café societies and a golden age. Fooks Building and Planning at the University of Melbourne, to make sense by the fabrication of a particular focuses – and I suspect, does so very much against and more specifically within its graduate and post- graphic logic. 104 105

Biographies

Dr. Gideon Aschwanden co-editor of Parlour and and resilience - through an modernism and buildings is currently focusing more resilient urban Professor Tom Kvan is Pro landscape architecture. She is Lecturer in Urban co-director of Parlour urban futures perspective, for housing, education and on ‘Enhancing precinct structures. Vice Chancellor Campus brings together education Analytics at the University Inc. cross-Faculty linkages, health. He is currently the walkability: improving and Global Developments in landscape architecture of Melbourne with a focus and developing broader lead investigator on an design process by Geoff Kimm is an in which role he provides (RMIT), horticulture and on learning algorithms Professor Mark Burry research and industry Australian Research Council implementing agent-based experienced software leadership in the alignment Arboriculture (Burnley UoM) to evaluate the urban is a practising architect connections. funded project, ‘Bauhaus modelling’ developer who holds of academic and research with over fifteen years of fabric to improve health, who has published Australia’, which examines a Bachelor of Science strategies with opportunities design and construction transportation and internationally on Kim Dovey is Professor the impact of European Dr Justyna Karakiewicz, with a major in computer for campus developments. practice experience in a economic opportunities. two main themes: of Architecture and Urban émigrés on art, design and RIBA, currently Associate science, a Bachelor of With many years in senior diverse range of award He joined the University putting theory into Design in the faculty of architecture education in Professor at University of Environments and Master leadership roles in three winning projects in both of Melbourne in 2015 practice with regard to Architecture, Building and Australia. He is co-editor of Melbourne. She trained of Architecture (University universities, most recently the private and public from Princeton University procuring ‘challenging’ Planning at the University of Modernism and Australia: as an architect at the of Melbourne). Geoff serving from 2007 – 2015 realm. She has expertise where his teaching and architecture, and the Melbourne. His research on Documents on Art, Design Westminster University has been a collaborating as Dean of the Faculty of in algorithmic botany research was on digital life, work and theories social issues in architecture and Architecture 1917-1967 and the Architectural researcher with Dr. White Architecture, Building and technology and works on fabrication methods and of the architect Antoni and urban design has (2006); Modern Times: The Association. In 1984, since 2014 applying his Planning in Melbourne urban research projects building systems (cooling Gaudí. He has been included investigations of Untold Story of Modernism Justyna was appointed software development during which time he led relating to precinct and heating architecturally Senior Architect to the housing, shopping malls, in Australia (2008); and a full-time tutor of the skills to a range of research the establishment of the scaled data modelling for optimized systems). He has Sagrada Família Basilica corporate towers, urban The Encyclopedia of AA and at the same time projects utilising a great Melbourne School of Design advocacy and decision an MSc in Architecture and Foundation since 1979, waterfronts and the politics Australian Architecture established the practice variety of technologies and delivered an award making support in complex a doctoral degree from the pioneering distant of public space. Books (2012). In 2014, he was PCKO. She later joined including object-oriented winning building to host the built environments that are ETH Zurich where he also collaboration with his include ‘Framing Places: co-curator of ‘Augmented the Bartlett School programming, web graduate school. Tom is facing densification and taught graduate students in colleagues based on-site Mediating Power in Built Australia: regenerating lost of Architecture at the services, image processing, internationally recognised climate change. Nano’s the use of digital evaluation in Barcelona. Form’ (Routledge 1999, architecture, 1914-2014’, University College London databases, user interfaces, for his pioneering work in urban design project tools in urban planning. To In December 2014 2008) ‘Fluid City’ (Routledge the Australian exhibit at as a design tutor and then add-ons for industry tools, design, digital environments with Harrison and White deepen his knowledge he Mark Burry joined the 2005), ‘Becoming Places’ the Venice International the University of Hong Kong modelling and simulation. and design management. called ‘Implementing worked as a researcher at University of Melbourne (Routledge 2009) and Architecture Biennale. as Associate Professor. He has developed custom, He is the founding Director the Rhetoric’ was one the Future Cities Laboratory as Professor of Urban Urban Design Thinking Justyna’s expertise high-availability network of LEaRN (the Learning of only 16 projects from in Singapore and has Futures at the Faculty (Bloomsbury 2016). Current Xiaoran Huang is a Ph.D. lies primarily in the of applications for routing Environments Applied Australia to be selected for professional experience in of Architecture, Building research projects include candidate at the University engagement of complex buy and sell orders Research Network), inclusion in the 2010 Venice Switzerland, Singapore and and Planning. In this those on urban place of Melbourne. He holds adaptive systems theory between clients and to the delivering multidisciplinary Biennale. The project the United States. position he is developing identity, creative clusters, a BSc degree in urban in urban design and in Australian Stock Exchange research on learning and explored transit oriented the Faculty’s capacity to transit-oriented urban planning. From 2013 - 2014, high-density urbanism and written digital design architecture, and was hyper-development, solar Dr Karen Burns teaches consolidate research in design and the morphology he worked in the Bio- that she developed in her tools in diverse areas founding Director of AURIN, amenity preservation, and architectural history, theory urban futures by drawing of informal settlements. Urban Lab in the Bartlett doctoral thesis. She has including complex systems the Australian Urban pedestrian connectivity and design at the University together and augmenting School of Architecture; he won numerous architectural and emergent behaviour, Research Information modelling. of Melbourne. Her essays expertise in urban Professor Philip Goad received a master degree in competitions and her finite element analysis, Network, which has on nineteenth-century visualisation, urban is Chair of Architecture Architecture from UCL with work has been exhibited computer vision, and developed a national digital Hannah Lewi is an architecture and design analytics, and urban and Redmond Barry distinction in 2014. He used around the world in more program optimisation. He infrastructure to support Associate Professor in and post-1960s theory and policy. He is assisting Distinguished Professor in to work in Gensler, MAD than 60 locations. Justyna developed for the popular urban research, both Architecture in the Faculty history have been widely with the University of the Faculty of Architecture, Architects and Landscape has published two books, Quokka tool, an add-on networks hosted at the of Architecture, Building and published in amongst Melbourne’s collective Building and Planning at the Architecture Cooperation 13 book chapters and 48 for the Grasshopper visual University of Melbourne. Planning at the University others: Assemblage, AD, goal of tackling three University of Melbourne. of China and has been papers. She was the leader scripting environment in the of Melbourne. Her interests Journal of Architectural ‘Grand Challenges’ He teaches architectural actively involved in many of the Linear City research Rhinoceros 3D modelling Nano Langenheim is span modern architecture Education, and the essay - understanding our history, theory and design. projects in Beijing, Hohhot project examining density package, which allows a landscape architect history, conservation collections Postcolonial place and purpose, He has published widely and Shanghai. His interests and transportation in Hong the use of the Microsoft and urban designer, and heritage, and the Spaces, Desiring Practices, fostering health on Australian architecture, lie in parametric design Kong and is currently Kinect as a 3D point cloud horticulturist, and arborist. design of new media for Deleuze and Architecture, and wellbeing, and both recent and past, for both architectural and working on new tools for scanner. She is a practitioner, representing history and De-Signing Design. She is a supporting sustainability with a special focus on urban scales. His research analysing and designing researcher and lecturer in place. She is currently 106 107

the national vice-chair 2002 Alan established model of housing to Aided Architectural Design Paul Walker is a professor Master of Urban Design of Docomomo Australia, NORD (Northern Office meet the current crisis of from the University of of architecture at the Program Coordinator at the and past president of of Research & Design). affordability and lack of Strathclyde (UK) and Doctor University of Melbourne. Melbourne School of Design SAHANZ (the Society of NORD has won numerous diversity in housing choices of Philosophy from the Walker’s teaching focuses – University of Melbourne. Architectural Historians of awards including; ‘Young in Victoria. University of Cambridge on architecture history, He holds an Honours Australia and New Zealand). Architect of The year’ (UK). theory, and design. He was degree in Architecture She is historical advisor (YAYA) in 2006 awarded by Dr Stanislav Roudavski co-editor of Fabrications, (RMIT University) and a to the current Australian Building Design Magazine is an architect and Dr Andrew Saniga is Senior the Journal of the Doctorate Degree (Spatial exhibition and book on and RIBA and Scottish Senior Lecturer in Digital Lecturer in Landscape Society of Architectural Information Architecture ‘The Pool’ for the Venice Architect of The Year 2007, Architectural Design at the Architecture, Planning and Historians, Australia & Laboratory). He has been Architecture Biennale, 2016. while ‘Shingle House’ for University of Melbourne. Urbanism at the University New Zealand 2007-2011, the recipient of numerous She has recently written Living Architecture reached Stanislav’s research of Melbourne. He teaches and a contributing editor design awards including extensively on the history the RIBA Manser Medal interests include philosophy landscape architectural to Architecture Australia the RAIA Haddon Travelling of film and other media in shortlist for ‘House of of ecology, technology history, landscape design 2001-2011. Walker’s recent Scholarship, the AIA the representation of urban the Year’ and the Primary and design; speculative and the conservation research has encompassed Victorian Emerging Architect planning and architecture in Substation for London 2012 designing; creative and management of mid-twentieth century Award, the inaugural AIA the twentieth century. And was included in the long- computing; parametric and heritage landscapes. His architecture in Australia National Emerging Architect is engaged in two major list for the RIBA Stirling generative processes in research is predominantly & New Zealand, Award for his “contribution research projects on the Prize in 2012. In 2013 architecture; emergence concerned with the history contemporary museum to architectural practice, history of University campus NORD were also awarded and self-organisation; of landscape architecture architecture, and colonial education, design design in Australia, and an the Doolan Prize for a complex geometries in Australia and he has museum buildings in excellence and community exploration of citizen-led Creative Industries & Artists and digital fabrication; explored landscapes and Australia, New Zealand involvement”, an AIA digital heritage. studios co-work space in virtual and augmented infrastructure in cities as & India. He is currently residential architecture Glasgow. Alan is also a environments; theory and well as regional centres the lead investigator on award and was recently Elek Pafka is a Research partner in the AHRC funded practice of place-making; and remote towns. His an Australian Research awarded the Graham Treloar Fellow at the Faculty of ‘Invisible College’ project, and practice-based book, Making Landscape Council funded project on Fellowship. His design Architecture, Building and which was modeled on research methodologies. Architecture in Australia the work of the architect research into architectural Planning at the University the experimental networks The outcomes of his (2012), profiles the people John Andrews in Canada, design, urban modelling of Melbourne. His research of the early scientific practice and research have who have shaped the the United States, and and new design approaches focuses on the relationship revolution, and Patrick been disseminated through nation’s landscape and Australia. With Justine have been widely published between material density, Geddes summer schools. It multiple publications and forged a profession: Clark, Walker is co-author and exhibited throughout urban form and the intensity brings together academics, international exhibitions designers, architects, of Looking for the Local: Australia, North America, of urban life, as well as policy makers, artists and including ACADIA, ISEA, public servants and Architecture and the Asia and Europe. methods of mapping the local people to tackle FutureEverything and activists. It tells the story New Zealand Modern, ‘pulse’ of the city. He has issues of regeneration, others. Before arriving of the battles fought over Victoria University Press, participated in research conservation and in Melbourne, Stanislav the right to determine the Wellington, 2000; and on transit orientated education. Since arriving in worked on research distinctive shapes and with Julia Gatley, Vertical development, functional mix Melbourne in 2012 Alan has projects at the University of forms of the landscapes Living: the Architectural and high-density living. been researching the life Cambridge, had a teaching that make Australian cities. Centre and the Remaking and works of Ernest Fooks engagement at MIT and Dr Saniga’s book was of Wellington, Auckland Alan Pert was appointed (Ernst Fuchs) while working practised architecture in awarded the Victoria Medal University Press, 2014. Professor of Architecture on the restoration plans for several European countries. (2013) and the National and Director of Melbourne Fooks modernist heritage Stanislav holds degrees Landscape Architecture Dr Marcus White is an School of Design (MSD) house. Alan is also chair of of Master of Architecture Award for Research and award winning architect in October 2012. Alan’s the Strategy Board for the / Master of Fine Arts from Communication (2014) from and urban designer, co- research interests lie in ‘Melbourne Housing Expo’, the Academy of Arts in St. the Australian Institute of director of Harrison and the boundary between which was set up in 2016 Petersburg (RU), Master Landscape Architects. White, lecturer, researcher, theory and practice. In to deliver a transformable of Science in Computer- Assistant Dean (IT) and