to talk about cycles in connection to basel is quite difficult for me at the moment. I haven't had time to explore them so far. so the following lines are pure speculation but maybe provide some hints on where to look for.
generally most of the activities can be placed under the topic of cycles but I guess we would be interested on cycles that have a very precise impact or effect on spacial configurations or at least the built environment in general.
a good example could be an annual trade fair that just closed its doors about a week ago. it is some kind of autumn street market with large areas of amusement parks. it has different locations within the town, basically it just fills up all the squares with ether fun-fair or market stands. these low rise instant buildings - it is some kind of standardized market stand but with shutters and locks and everything in wood so that it perfectly fits to its historical surrounding... - these elements and the blinking and singing fun-fair stuff create a totally new spacial configuration. the time of usage is different too. the market closes at nine at night, this is very unusual as here in switzerland all the shops close at half past six! normally - on saturday already at four and on sundays they do not even open! - . so this temporary installation creates a new environment for inhabitants and visitors. thats probably why they're all so excited each year... this whole thing happens for about two weeks and then closes down. the squares are empty and dark again. there is some kind of transition stage before and after this event. as all the market stands are the same prefab type and quite luxury it takes about one week to set up all the units with electrical and other technical installations and it also takes about one week to take them down. so the transition stage is quite interesting.
there are of course the general elements of daily cycles such a rush hour around work hours or the cluster times on the weekend, but it's not comparable to any bigger city.
what I am surprised about most is the seriousness everyone takes his cycle for. people seem to have a clear path with a defined goal and some key-points in between and then just execute the code. the whole scene on the street or elsewhere - where cycles meet, generally - is determined by prefixed tours. they do nearly anything not to get interrupted. this creates some kind of isolated one person missions and blocks any interaction.
I really miss the beauty of in-between cycle spaces that I found in London, where spontaneously something surprising could happen and change the setting of a path.
I think this could need some more investigation as this difference could be interesting - not that I like it, but to understand it could be interesting - I would be interested especially how far this one person mission continuos in spacial terms...
the next topic I think could be about change and dynamic spaces. not in terms of flow, I am thinking more about places and spaces in a transition stage...
3 comments:
I really like the topic of cycles and I do think you made a very good example, cycles in the city can be found almost anywere, I constantly find myself thinking on this topic since you brought it up and feel that the behaviour of people changes not only according to the place but also in the social class, I say this because here in Bogota the class difference is really abrupt and quite easy to see. I will work on this topic so u guys can have an idea of what I amtalking.
Personally, I like this topic as it relates to my previous research interest – adaptability. It is very interesting to me when you relate cycle with spatial configuration. It is a very good example that how people interact with the space. Lucho and I had a discussion before on the definition of adaptable spaces. When there is something happen like what you mentioned, is it space adapts to the requirement of people when the nature of activities change (The square allows people to do very different activities by allowing different spatial organizations and structures, providing flexible infrastructure to some extent, e.g. allowing more pedestrian and traffic ), or the human / community adapts (People self-organizing in a unchanged space) *Lucho, please complement if my description is not complete. If the former is correct, how can designer foresee the future requirement / trend; if the later is correct, what are the urban designer doing? People can anyway self organizing by a way that we cannot predict.
Referring to cycle, the above discussion may not completely relevant except we are going to trace the history. Which goes first - the square or the yearly fair? When’s the start of the cycle and how can it integrate with the existing elements? I don’t know if it is what you are interested, but I believe most human cycles have starts and ends; hence I guess it is inevitable to touch such question.
Yes, further investigation is required; see if the overlapping of cycles may create further unexpected spatial changes. Moreover, |would suggest when talking about cycle, we may have to define its scale or influence area. As cycles are not equal and somehow not comparable, without knowing their relationships in terms of scale, it’s difficult to describe the ways they are added / integrated.
Flow itself is meaningless other than a metaphor. To me, it represents ways of change, like pedestrian flows, logistics flows and money flows, etc. Personally, I don’t agree flow is being taken as a physical form, but an abstract meaning of flow could be quite inspiring / helpful to imagine the changes.
great comments! I would be ver interested how cycles appear in bogota especially socially as u describe it L. to compare would be interesting and goes beyond space.
J ur comment, we should try to classivy cycles as we speak about them. I think this could be helpfull on bringing down the topic on a level where is could start becoming helpful to develop new thinks. I started doing this in my report with the three classes of natural, activity and material but this by far not good enough. classicifcation is a very difficult task but interesting.
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