A City is not a Tree
[ABSTRACT] In 1965 Christopher Alexander wrote “A City is not a Tree”, in which he critiqued urban orders like those of Ludwig Hilberseimer that reduced the city to a collection of dichotomous, branching conditions. In 1980 Deleuze and Guattari continued the critique of the tree in A Thousand Plateaus when they propose the rhizome as an alternative to the tree: as a lateral, multiple system in which “any point can be connected to any other, and must be. This is very different from the tree, which plots a point, fixes and order.”
[ABSTRACT] In 1965 Christopher Alexander wrote “A City is not a Tree”, in which he critiqued urban orders like those of Ludwig Hilberseimer that reduced the city to a collection of dichotomous, branching conditions. In 1980 Deleuze and Guattari continued the critique of the tree in A Thousand Plateaus when they propose the rhizome as an alternative to the tree: as a lateral, multiple system in which “any point can be connected to any other, and must be. This is very different from the tree, which plots a point, fixes and order.”
[HYPOTHESIS] So we pursue this rejection of the tree, both as a generative methodological episteme and as an essential urban structure. Can we design a city which is not a tree, using methods which are not tree-like?
[ASSUMPTIONS] Our inquiry was built upon a generative schema of peninsulas and channels that conceptually [and urbanistically] transformed the entire site into an edge [in which the subject, then, always inhabits the edge]. Embedded in this act of convoluting the edge are a diagram of urban organization and a performative will to resiliency and soft edges.
[METHOD] Our method worked recursively—with the inevitable degree of path dependency—between forces, interactions, systems, and morphologies to develop our hypothesis.
[FORCES] Mappings identified the various vectors and intensities on the site. These served as schematic site analysis that helped us to generate strategies.
[INTERACTIONS] We then devised site diagrams that gained the ability to assume additional variables and forces—ecological, urban, real estate, and cultural forces—as we developed them. These diagrams enabled us to settle upon programmatic dispositions across the site. Additional diagrams of program “infiltration” revealed the overlapping of these interactions and the fact that the edge between programs, water/land, etc., are not clear-cut lines.
[SYSTEMS] We sought to address variables such as detachment, continuity, density, and site coverage through the systematic transformation of architectural massing, program distribution, open space types, and housing types. Taxonomies of these systems registered the adaptability of such forms to those variables.
[MORPHOLOGIES] By morphology we refer to the adaptive forms that the project delineates at a theoretical +00:00 time after which the proposal will continue to be reshaped by the interactions of present forces.
{Circulation} Roads follows the axis of each peninsula and mesh with the adjacent South Boston grid. These roads link to a series of transverse bridges that connect programmatic affinities across peninsulas.
{Architecture} A modular armature of buildings that follows the length of each peninsula enables a wide range of residential and public building types. This adaptable built fabric is shaped concurrently with a sequence of courtyards and open spaces within the architectural armature.
{Slopes} Sloped land between the building and the water allows the direct inhabitation of the intertidal edge and is variously programmed based on the degree of slope.
{Retaining Walls} A transverse system of retaining walls demarcates the unit of development of buildable land on the peninsulas and produces differentiated sediment deposition over time.
{Vegetation} Lines of street trees follow the roads and occupy the sloped land. Informal clusters of trees provide shade and canopy in the spaces of the courtyards.
[FINDINGS] The overlay of these morphologies produces an urban space to be simultaneously navigated and occupied sequentially [through the disposal of buildings and courtyards one after another] and sectionally [through the transect of the slope, the road, the building, and the courtyard].
Our project proposes that, by developing systems and morphologies that allow both sequential and striated occupation of and movement through the landscape of the site, we can create a city which enables variation, adaptation, and diversity of experience. The tree—as a structure of thought and a model of urbanism—is eluded in favor of a more open and yet more precise order.
