How to Build a City: The Roman Operating System

There is no doubt that the Roman cities were wonderful artifacts, which represented their society and the empire in a way cities today struggle to match. But exactly how did the romans manage to achieve this?


   The first chapter of Rem Koolhaas's Mutations  book (published by ACTAR in 2001) is a manual for building your own Roman city (thank you Ewa M. for pointing it out to me!). The chapter discusses the way Roman cities were planned and created in a DIY style of writing which tempts you to go out there, buy a plot of land, and actually try it out! 

   The birth of the Roman cities were all the same: using the axial cross - called the cardo  and ducumanus - to align themselves to the heavens above, then generating a grid, and finally placing the buildings. In a way, this planned view of city building is very simple and strict, however the romans knew that rules where meant to be broken, and that the basic form of the city had to co-exist with the specific conditions each individual city presented. The argument is that Roman cities were "100% generic" - thus having common principles making them all the same - but equally, they were "100% specific" as they each reacted and adapted to local environmental, typographical, site specific situations as well as diverse cultures which spread across the empire. This makes the Roman city a successful tool...

"... the Roman Empire's most elevated subject and most useful object..." (Koolhaas, 2001, p.11)

...And what the author classes as a "200% city". The city was the object through which Rome expressed their authority and through which trade - the most valuable resource of the Empire - was maximized. Cities were like independent islands but interconnected through the infrastructure technology of the time - the road - to form a unified whole.


   The chapter hits on some interesting principles: it aims at setting up the city as a program rather then a series of buildings. To use Stephen Marshall's analogy, the city is explained as a computer which does a specific function within the network of the Roman Empire, and the singular buildings within the city (which in themselves are standardized and categorized) are seen as hardware to make the city function. In other words, the way the Romans built the city was like an intricate game of chess: set pieces (being the key buildings) organized in such a way onto a centuratio (or grid) and confined by limites (or edge systems of walls). 


   Through the city, the Romans created an Empire, and through the infrastructure connecting each city, they strengthened it. I wonder if today we can take these ideas and adapt them to our time. Is there a way of creating cities which are like flat packed Ikea furniture, containing within them all of the elements which, if placed together properly following a set logic, can become a fully functioning city? One might say that planned cities have existed way after the Roman Empire fell, such as the modernist cities envisioned by Le Corbusier and his colleagues. But although these statements are true, then why is it that today we identify problems within cities in areas which are primarily planned... and not organic historic centers? Perhaps we should take a time leap backwards to the Roman way of doing things and try to understand why their methods were so successful, and ours are not.


   

ECO-Positive Architecture: Vincent Callebaut

Vincent Callebaut (Belgian Architect in his 30s living and working in Paris) is possibly the most interesting architect which I have come across. His architecture is a blend of futuristic-organic-technological and a true ecstasy to look at. His work is zoomorphic but blended with high tech specifications and designed with sustainability in the forefront.

Fig 1. - LILYPAD by Vincent Callebaut (2009)

   Although his projects tend to remain fantastic conceptions - his visionary and highly stimulating designs make you dream of what the future could be like. In particular, his design LILYPAD (2009) is beautiful both in form and in intent: a prototype for a self-sustainable floating community (refer to figure 1 & 2). Can you imagine floating around the world on one of these floating cities? Imagine being able to live, work, and float around the world with the comforts of your own city always with you?

Fig 2. - LILYPAD by Vincent Callebaut (2009)

   Vincent Callebaut's designs range from floating algae farms to tackle CO2 to skyscrapers in New York for urban agriculture but they all share a strong eco-positive manifesto. What Callebaut has done, is showed us how we can take nature and blend it with technology to create a glimpse of what the future could indeed be like in a sustainable and beautiful manner. 


   There is a monograph book called ARCHIBIOTIC (published in 2008 by AADCU) which - if you manage to find it anywhere - is well worth a buy as it contains within it all of Vincent's designs up to 2008 in high quality full color images.

Click here to get directed to Vincent Callebaut's website.

Clash of Class in San Paulo

The favelas of San Paolo (Brazil) share a wall with a top luxury apartment. The contrast here is so great that it looks like a collage.

Caracas: City of Contrasts

I found these images of Caracas (Venezuela) quite amazing. On one side of the road, the poverty struck 'barrios' are an emergent 'spontaneous' system most of us refer to as shanty towns. On the other side of the street, the planned city - paradigm for todays modern lifestyle. It is amazing how one road could have so much power; an urban edge which resembles a frontline trench. 

Grids, Emergence, and Space Syntax: New York vs Barcelona

I have recently read a paper (click here to view the paper) by UCL researchers Kinda Al Sayed, Alasdair Turner and Sean Hanna, discussing the morphological logic of cities through space syntax methodologies. The paper attempts to "detect and define the generative rules of a growing urban structure by means of evaluation techniques" (Sayed et al., 2009, p1) and focuses on Manhattan and Barcelona as a case study as the authors believe that there is a logic behind city growth (even within a gridded system) which has an emergent quality to it. 

Fig 1: A Segment angular integration model with 500m metric radius of Manhattan depicting the integration levels of the city from the first settlements of 1642, to the implementation of the grid in 1811, up to recent times in 2009. Note the integration levels being much higher in the organic settlement rather then the planned grid.

   The paper defines the city as a diachronic model - and therefore as an artifact which has come to be through constant historic layering and remodeling. However, space syntax analysis takes on a particular synchronic view - that is to say that it analyses just a snapshot in time in the history of the city. For this reason, the team at UCL have analyzed the cities through space syntax (more specifically angular segment analysis using a metric radius - a type of analysis in tune with Bill Hillier's axial space methodology) taking into account their historical development to understand how the city developed. By doing so, they hope to achieve their research objectives:

"Understanding the spatial evolution of existing urban environments and the regularities and particularities which can be extracted from the partial morphology of cities." (Sayed et al., 2009,p.2)

   New York and Barcelona have been chosen because they have two diverse grids within their urban fabric, each representing a quasi-opposing paradigm of city. The first is what is known as the bottom up emergent spatial structure (also known as the organic grid) which can be identified in New York as the old settlement of downtown Manhattan and in Barcelona as the old town (or Gothic Quarter). The second is the more geometric and regular top down planning which spreads across Manhattan and Barcelona similarly in the form of a grid. In the case of Barcelona, one more growth process influenced the morphology of the city around the same time of the implementation of the grid (also known as the Ensanches) in 1891 and this is the growth of the peripheral suburban town centers in an organic emergent manner.

Fig 2: A Segment angular integration model with 2000m metric radius of Manhattan depicting the integration levels of the city from the first settlements of 1642, to the implementation of the grid in 1811, up to recent times in 2009. Note the high integration levels spread from the organic old town outwards. Also note the high integration levels to the north of central park which are emergent patterns of morphology, not grids.

   What is interesting to observe, is that in both case studies, the most integrated part of the city is in fact the emergent model, not the top down planned grid (refer to figure 1)! Furthermore, the parts of the grids which are integrated are in fact the ones which are broken by irregularities (such as areas around Broadway in Manhattan), making them diverse anomalies in an otherwise rigid system. This goes to show that the emergent 'organic' systems - in contrast to the planned urban typologies - have a quality to them which is more in tune with the inhabitants of the cities and thus make for better urban systems... or at least are more integrated within the city. This highlights their relevance even today in understanding good city form. There is a final observation worth mentioning, and that is that the integration of the city spreads from the organic core outwards, further suggesting that it is the emergent morphologies of the city which allow for the overall success of the urban habitat (refer to figure 2). 


   Barcelona proves a great example of this phenomenon, and it holds a vital clue as to how grids can indeed work when mixed with organic morphologies as a mechanism for urban re-integration. In fact, we see that the grid in Barcelona has been created to fill the void between the old town and the emerging peripheral suburban centers and villages. By doing so, the integration levels of the emergent typologies spread through the grid, creating a well integrated city: 

"... a network which connects all parts of the urban grid. As the spatial system grows, the distinct features of the three different grids become more blurred and stronger spatial connections start to rise and become more vital in linking all the city parts." (Sayed et al., 2009,p.6)

   Barcelona's success is due to the grid being 'gated' by suburban organic emergent developments to the north and morphological obstacles on the west. Secondly, the grid is more flexible, as it adapts to specific conditions in both city and landscape. Thirdly, the grid is being segmented by numerous diagonal cuts, which the authors of the paper acknowledge and state that "the distinctive diagonal lines in the uniform grid play an important role in connecting all the city parts [...] this is not counting their added value as being urban buzz areas. The grid lacking diagonal lines seem to be more disconnected. Some integrated areas along the diagonal lines disappear with them." (Sayed et al., 2009, p.8). As mentioned before, these diagonals act as grid erosions, creating variety which in turn promotes integration.

Fig 3: The evolution of Segment angular integration model with 500m metric radius of Barcelona. Note the higher integration levels arising with the growth of emergent 'organic' peripheral settlements and the old historic centre.

Fig 4: The evolution of Segment angular integration model with 2000m metric radius of Barcelona. Note how the grid's integration is as high as the old town as it connects the peripheral organic settlements of equally high integration.

   Barcelona's success is it's adaptive qualities within a variety of spatial elements. The city and the grid adapt to changing situation in time, and thus, even if the grid is a planned top down geometric structure, it has emergent bottom up qualities within itself which contribute to it's success. In other words;

"The high global integration values are mostly visible in the uniform grid because of its connective attributes." (Sayed et al., 2009, p.8)

   It is clear from this study that cities rely on variety not just in their functions but also in their core morphologies as agents of success. This is why we identify so positively to urban fabrics which are made of narrow winding streets, unexpected piazzas, or undulating facades - such are the historic cities of Europe. The real question is, how can we recreate those systems of emergent urbanism in today's society? How can new regeneration developments simulate the integration which the old town centers hold within them without replicating them; in tune with today's urban paradigms and needs? Or indeed, are the old historic centers integrated because they are a process of time and hold within them a historical heritage that we as humans identify with and respect? Partly, I believe that history plays an important part - we as people are ephemeral, well aware of our mortality. Cities can be eternal - and in some ways we admire and worship that. 


   That said, and to conclude, the research by UCL in this paper goes to prove that variety in relatively modern parts of the city have the same impact as old towns. That is a lesson which needs to be learnt. It is the variety and emergent organic morphological principles of the old towns of Manhattan and Barcelona which work! And the rigid grid's success is either through close association to the organic part of town, or because there is a break within its regularity. In essence, the grid areas which show successful results of integration within the two cities are ones which pass through several optimization stages in their developments. These serve to deform the grid's rigidity and create an adaptive model, which in turn is said to evolve with now local factors. 


   This study by UCL is a very important study, proving that our old towns hold within them key morphological values which we can learn from even today. Emergent models of urban areas are key sources in understanding the evolution of a particular city and it is my strong belief that these have to be used to inform new forms of urbanism aimed at urban regeneration.