mari

thoughts to mari'siences

. . .

it's kind of defined now, that mari's first project will deal with the topic of
housing in the greater porto region, more specific its coast line. here as
elsewhere, the traditional duality between urban and suburban areas is
vanishing. even if the development is called to be slower in portugal,
there is no need to wait for the changes to become more than obvious.
but let's stay to the ideas and facts behind this statement;
the distinction blurrs, because the areas are part of so called de- and re-
processes. these processes happen in multiple scales - local/global &
micro/macro - and simultaniously in our urban and social environment.
de-and re-urbanization can be observed everywhere without a defined
time frame, it seems that not only life styles overlap in our present time,
also urban development is split in multiple aims and therefore developments.
understanding the 21st century urban reality as a flexible, mobile and
fluctuating network of proceses leads us to new approaches in urban design.
how much we have to open our mind and stress the borders depends not
only on us designers, but we are in charge to promote our visions for urban
regions through the means of our designs to reach the society and its
decision processors.

that's what i think we have to achieve . . . how "far" we go, where we put
our focus on, depends on the processes inherent to the projects content.
strategies - as mentionend before in this blog - are an orientation, and i'm
optimistic, that we can develop mari's acts in an appropriate and fresh way.

we could start to develope our thoughts about an intervention in
the processing area of urban/suburban focussed on questions about
the private/public realations and distinctions. here is a list, which gives
some aspects of first categories related to our theme.
put some additions/extensions to it!

life styles - - - individuality/ values/ flexibility/ . . .

sense of community - - - space/ relations/ values/ . . .

communication - - - media/ interfaces/ data/ interactivity/ processes/ . . .

network - - - nodes/ channels/ structures/ event orientated/ dynamic/ . . .

time space relation - - - proximity/ speed/ . . .

urbanity - - - city space/ data space/ motion space/ nomad space/ . . .
. . .

mari&madalena

yesterday 4/5 of mari met urban reality near porto. going by car was as well obligatory, as taking lots of pictures. i don't know which 1/5 we left at home, but it was not the one - others do quite often, as it seems to me.

for gomes and all of you dear readers . . .

. . . vende-se.

ate ja, with more to say. alex.

ola mari . . .

i will talk to you in english as long as my portuguese isn't good enough to make myself understood. i know that you don't mind.

well mari, you are made by all of us that write here and in this way you will grow with this happening. so lady and gentlemans let's start a breathless communicatio[n-o]rgy devoted to mari.

i was reading yesterday something about "intensity" in architecture and so far i agree on the points that scott lash und arjen mulder made in their little chat. "what we are talking about is more an architecture of experience than an architecture of direct perception." we perceive shape, volume, geometry - we experience movement, sphere, communication [in short: intensity]. so if we start mari as a creation of intensity, why shouldn't we attempt to do in our upcoming project an architecture that takes intensity as point of departure.

mari you don't have a photograph, but you have intensity.

ps. see "intensity generators" p300/301 in "content".