ADA MITCHEV
Remedium: Cells of Resistance
In Collaboration with Marina Pickrel / Pratt Institute Archive
2017
A city's runaway growth in terms of population, technological advancements and infrastructural demands is choking residents as structures are built entirely for the wealthy. Urbanism has failed to heal cities such as San Francisco of its extraneous demands simply by returning to default reconstructions largely led by corporate benefits.
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As cities increase in density, they must be able to think with a collective brain rather than individually. Social media and the sharing economy as a tool for unification has the potential to cause occupants of a city to think and navigate collectively in moments of high density. Evolving to shift thoughts and movements from the individual to the collective is a crucial skill to develop for the future of cities as they become increasingly high in density (even if such evolution is aided by technology and devices).
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This precision based network questions the role of the architect
in large scale spontaneous gatherings in the digital age. It is an architecture that will respond to real time changes in action and event to emphasize the complex social nuances of the 21st Century San Francisco. These types of gatherings have previously excluded the architect in their planning and design, instead using ineffective measures to mark territory and attempt to limit movements.
To encourage this type of collective action as instigated by social media, this new ontology of architecture will activate and confirm the roles of the participant and the observer by reacting to real time, collective user movement and data input. It serves not only as a manifestation of a gathering or individuals, but of their thoughts and ideas by means of serving an open source network through which self expression and identity can be expressed.