TYPOLOGICAL REMIX (OR WHY BJARKE IS BIGGER THAN REM)

BIG - W57, New York

From the readings on the suburbs to the Arctic Monkeys’ album, the idea of cataloguing and defining the idea of what is a city has taken its place. For the concept that a city is a walled portion of land, to a virtual construct, to a limitless expanse of free-movement, the concept of suburbia (or any synonym) needs to be defined. 

But I think there are always two conditions in any urban situation: the formal and the relational. The former has to do with the shape of things: how is the city laid out? How the architectural spaces are formed in respect to the land use, access to sun, light and nature? How the infrastructure and its input/output of resources inform the inhabitants? These are questions that concern the limits of the architecture. Questions that (might) be influenced by the product of architects and planners.

The second condition, the relational, is a more tricky one. It exists in respect to the network formed within people. We can call it the idea of community, perhaps. The bonds between people, their personal/social connection to each other and to the whole. The program, events or situations that happen within the boundaries of the architectural space.

And in this disjunction that lies the key to understand the suburban effect. We see a positive longing for the intrinsic qualities of suburbia (access to space, detached houses as a symbol of power, freedom of choice, cleanness and the invisibility of the outside-circle). From Wright to the de-urbanists to recent garden cities in UK, the ideal of sprawl still occupies the imaginary of the middle-class. These are formal conditions elevated as a desire continuum - while the negative aspects (long distances, detachment, dependency on the individual, isolation and sameness) tend to be ignored. 

Building on this relevance, I suggest we tackle the problem the way architects can afford. Why not considering the formal condition as the desired solution and work on the idea of remixing typologies? Why not suburbanize our metropolises? 

Typological understanding of what is interesting in the suburban form can be the key to re-create new urban types that could be apprehended by the urban population, create new formal conditions and, in turn, influence how people live inside the cities. 

Instead of complying with the generic city of today, we can built new forms of living that in turn, can become new relationships to how we experience our city.