Misa Grannis Thesis Review 2.22.

12 Advisor: Brian Price

Abstract
The permanent structures that comprise the majority of built space in the city are too rigid and inflexible to keep up with the fast pace of a modern, technology-driven life. As seen in the work of Archigram and Buckminster Fuller, for example, the shortcomings of permanence in an era of rapid change were apparent even before the advent of global networks or mobile technology. The problem is becoming even more pronounced as advances in personal technology enable more flexible patterns of living, particularly when combined with the financial limitations of a global recession. This thesis hypothesizes that by looking to a more impermanent form of architecture, the problems of inflexibility and stagnation inherent in fixed structures can be bypassed and new opportunities for revitalization and growth can be seized that were previously unattainable. Moreover, mobile and temporary architecture does not have to exist in competition with the existing fabric, but can augment it and work symbiotically to make the city more efficient and productive at multiple scalar and chronological levels. Finally, mobile and temporary strategies foster community involvement and a sense of ownership, benefiting both the city and individual neighborhoods. The modern urban economy is driven in large part by social forces augmented by technology. Spectacles pop up, attract crowds and promptly disappear, converting patches of sidewalks and public plazas into temporary event spaces. This twitter urbanism is particularly evident in the growing popularity of the food truck movement. However, while extremely mobile, food trucks and carts are insufficient in their ability to span multiple scales. This proposal seeks to be as nimble and rational as the food truck, but as ambitious in its reach as Archigrams Walking City. Comprised of two flexible tracks and an accordion of rigid partitions that slides along them, the proposal is both highly adaptable and embedded with constraints. By sliding the partitions along the rail a tall, narrow space can be transformed into a short, wide one, affecting the adjacent cells in turn. A variety of interchangeable panels can be substituted to create an assembly of difference that allows users to customize and control the flexible cellular matrix. The criteria for this fast, cheap and flexible system were that it be continuous and as spatially and tectonically sophisticated as the slinky without being limited to a single dimension of movement. It should accommodate multiple scales of program and be free of fixed dimensions without being infinitely flexible. Finally, it should act as an extension or thickening of the street and sidewalk as well as connect to adjacent buildings. I have chosen to operate on the south side of Market between fifth and sixth avenues because this block, with its collection of vacant parcels left by the stalled CityPlace development, exemplifies the conditions of stagnation and opportunity for reinvigoration I previously described. However, the open nature of this system suggests it could be deployed on any site in need of reinvigoration or a temporary space of operation.