Society. Spaces. Screens

Abstract

‘The city’ provides in immersive canvas of histories, societies, and changes from which we can derive meaning. Rooted in the palimpsestic relationship of the distant past, the zeitgeist, and the contemporary future, the city represents a synthesis of form and agency in its excavated layers. The iatrogenesis of societal evolutions presents an opportunity to catalyze new design derived from the diverse screens or lenses of the urban past. This paper examines the city, its histories, associations, and latencies, as an instrument for teaching iterative processes for beginning architectural designers. The Parc de le Cité project, theoretically grounded in the 1982 Parc de la Villette Paris Competition, introduces cities that have experienced significant changes over time as a subject for parti diagramming that emphasizes agency over aesthetic. The project asks students to translate and critique a world city through new conceptual design. In contrast to the age-old “Form Follows Function,” Parc de la Cité employs a strategy of “Form Interprets Agency.” The learning outcomes symbiose with expanded course outcomes to transition beginning designers from their foundational curriculum to architecture-specific skillsets. Centered on abstraction and iterative ideation, Parc de le Cité layers academic research, parti diagramming, design software fluency, model craft, and photography as part of the conceptual exploration. As student creative exploration and failure tolerance becomes more challenging in light of their secondary education, Parc de la Cité teaches passive and active criticism as integral to design iteration, while confronting the historical societal past as inspiration for new, conceptual design.