Design Strategies for Reimagining the City: The Disruptive Image

Description

Design Strategies for Reimagining the City is situated between projective geometry, optical science and architectural design. It draws together seemingly unrelated fields in a series of new digital design tools and techniques underpinned by tested prototypes. The book reveals how the relationship between architectural design and the ubiquitous urban camera can be used to question established structures of control and ownership inherent within the visual model of the Western canon. Using key moments from the broad trajectory of historical and contemporary representational mechanisms and techniques, it describes the image’s impact on city form from the inception of linear perspective geometry to the digital turn. The discussion draws upon combined fields of digital geometry, the pictorial adaptation of human optical cues of colour brightness and shape, and modern image-capture technology (webcams, mobile phones and UAVs) to demonstrate how the permeation of contemporary urban space by digital networks calls for new architectural design tools and techniques. A series of speculative drawings and architectural interventions that apply the new design tools and techniques complete the book. Aimed at researchers, academics and upper-level students in digital design and theory, it makes a timely contribution to the ongoing and broadly debated relationship between representation and architecture. Cover Half Title Series Page Title Page Copyright Page Contents Figures Tables Abbreviations Acknowledgement Part I: Constructed Fields of Vision Introduction Notes 1. The problem of the image of the city: From perspectival to digital space Disruptive techniques of spatial representation Singular or narrative spaces of representation The 'symbolic' intent of linear perspective geometry The perspectival city Photography as the bearer of truth Fragmentary spaces of representation Anamorphosis and the reversal of logic The Vertovian image: Issues of critique, representation and form-making Filmic space/architectural space Vertov in the digital image: Envisioning the contemporary city The qualitative image and affective space Notes 2. The pixel's visual territory From analogue to digital Unique modes of digital assembly The discontinuous digital line Qualitative content is connected data The predictability of pixel relationships Digital geometry's intersection with optical science Perceptual behaviours The digital mediation of colour, brightness and shape Technological disruption Digital colour: Unique translations of digital technology Contrast perception, luminosity and the contextual advantages of pixel geometry Form perception and the inherent imperatives of pixel geometry Representation and the pixel's 'symbolic form' Many authors Notes 3. Seeing through digital image-making technology Colour's transformation Colour as form The digital manipulation of colour Proprietary colour Colour by guesswork New digital opportunities Non-proprietary colour and open-source code Exploiting CFAs The digital perception of brightness Shifting the register: The pictorial application of brightness Eliminating the uncontrollable: Brightness as an artefact Fraunhofer diffraction as a productive aberration Digital image legibility: Shape The human perception of shape The human visual system and scan path theory Saliency and the advantages of webcam technology The productive inclusion of digital artefacts Notes 4. The new agency of distributed digital networks Digital anamorphosis and the virtual picture plane Pre-digital anamorphic techniques The affective anamorphic network Digital anamorphic techniques The expanded image The distributed network and the multiplication of viewpoints An expanded temporal frame Responding to the digital city Notes Part II: New techniques of intervention and disruption 5. Generative techniques New modes of practice The qualitative image The space within the image The anamorphic potential of digital technology The dynamic image The image as a 3D volume The synthesised landscape Transdisciplinary modes of activating digital colour and luminance (brightness) Colour and luminance (brightness) profiles as a generative procedure Conclusion Notes 6. The building surface as a colour modifier Design templates for the built surface Test strategies Colour Image artefacts Attention tracking Validation methods Series 1 tests overview Test part 1: Strategies of pattern hierarchy Test technical data and conditions Test analysis methodology Test results Test summary and conclusions Test part 2: Hierarchies of visibility - the shifting function of luminosity (brightness) Test results Test summary and conclusions Test part 3: The disruptive potential of additive colour Test technical data and conditions Test results and analysis Test summary and conclusions The data matrix Notes 7. Re-viewing diffraction Series 2 tests overview Patterns of disruption Test technical data and conditions Test analysis methodology Test results and analysis Unique colours Particle data count Test summary, conclusions and the data matrix Notes 8. New readings of the city Series 3 tests overview Scanning variants Test technical data and conditions Test analysis methodology Test results and analysis Pattern legibility Luminosity Test summary, conclusions and the data matrix Concluding comments on the test series and the data matrices Notes 9. 'La città ideale': Design drawings for the digital city The digital Urbino Panel Preliminary digital site mapping procedures The digital Urbino Panel: A summary of visual effects Intervention 1 Intervention 2 Intervention 3 Notes 10. Conclusion The new tools and techniques of architecture The disciplinary shift Notes Glossary Anamorphic/anamorphosis (digital anamorphosis) F-stop and zoom Indexical/raster or pixel grid Instrumentalisation Notes Bibliography Index