PART 1 / Midterm: Researching an Urban-Ecological Geography of Conflict
Foundational Research:
Main Layers Towards a New Speculative Urban Ecological Imagination
For the midterm, each student will prepare a document containing images and
texts, that illustrate the main layers and provocations of your initial urban
ecological research. This research will serve as the detonator for the design and
construction of your final urban-ecological speculative text (PART 2 of the
assignment). This document will be composed of a visual component and a
written component.
VISUAL COMPONENT:
1. Selection of urban-territorial area
Each student will select an area of the San Diego-Tijuana region. This can be
initiated by using Google Earth and begin surveying an area that seems
interesting to you. The main criteria for selection is to focus on areas where you
notice a variety of ‘patterns,’ natural, artificial, infrastructures, vegetation, large
and small constructions, topography, etc. The more complex the patterns the
better. Primary to the selection criteria is that this area must also emblematize
the collision between natural and artificial systems, the conflict between urban
and ecological domains. The size of area is up to you, but should be substantial,
no smaller than 2 mile radius. You should crop this image and this will be the
visual base map for all your experimental research. I will suggest a few areas.
2. Visualizing existing patterns:
Once you commit to this particular urban-territorial zone, now you have to ‘pull it
apart.’ Please analyze it, visually, in depth, expand, elaborate on the main critical
issues you notice. It is important that you interpret -critically- what you see,
asking deeper questions about the patterns, textures, contrasts and critical
relationships among elements, that you notice. This also means a process of
masking, editing, framing to identify each pattern on its own.
Select at least 5 patterns (but please feel free to do more), i.e., water ways,
vegetation, transportation (freeways-roads, etc.), canyons (dramatic topographic
features), buildings at different scales, parking lots. By isolating each of these
layers you will see the drama of their shape
Based on your critical observations, please add to these patterns a series of
personal graphic annotations -using digital or manual, Illustrator or any other
graphic program, collage or hand sketches. These “graphic notes” should
reinforce some of the observations you have made. These annotations include
arrows, dashed lines, solid lines, circles and other geometries or symbols, to
indicate the main critical ‘conditions’ you are prioritizing, etc.
3. Prioritize urban-ecological geographic conflict as creative tool:
Then combine some of these patterns or layers to dramatize the conflicts,
between them. Develop at least 3 combinations, denoting 3 critical collisions –
each combination is a graphic system conveying a particular idea (see sample on
course essential module on CANVAS) about existing urban-ecological conflicts,
within the area you selected.
Each layer should communicate a main issue you are interested in investigating:
Maybe one of the ideas you are interested in investigating is how the ‘flow’ of
water collides with urban development, and therefore you visualize this
juxtaposition between natural water spaces and a more geometric, artificial
spaces of urbanization. In essence, I am proposing that you begin your research
visually, noticing a dialectical relationship between two conditions. In summary,
then, using lines, color, textures, etc., juxtapose a series of graphic patterns on
the google-earth maps to further analyze the different existing conditions of
conflict (we will discuss this through examples in class)
4. Urban-ecological research layers (existing):
Once you have a visual and conceptual approximation of these existing patterns
and combinations (this involves not only understanding what they look like, but it
is about speculating about what these patterns ‘do’ to the territory, how they
‘perform,’), now it is time to begin opening critical research topics found in this
area of study, and the conditions that have produced the urban-ecological
conflict, to further deepen your understanding of what is “happening” inside the
particular, geographic juncture you selected. These topics include zoning,
planning and policy maps that you will analyze, as a point of departure for your
urban-ecological design speculations (PART 2 of this assignment)
Below you will find a few suggested research layers. This research is really about
finding “evidence” to substantiate your visual intuitions, to further elaborate
conceptually and creatively about what are the mechanisms that have produced
these urban ecological conflicts in the first place. It is from this critical
understanding of the conditions that have produced these collisions that each
student will produce an alternative design approach, a different narrative-
proposition, a new urban-ecological conceptual systems to challenge the status
quo.
A. Land use: A map that shows the different city uses denoted in zones with
colors, such housing (yellow), (retail-mixed use red), industrial, educational,
green space, etc., etc.
B. Zoning: regulates the quantity and the size of buildings permitted in particular
zones.
C. Ownership-jurisdiction: Shows public and private jurisdiction, etc: What is
private what is public? also you can find this in google maps showing the size of
actual parcels.
D. Water-Flood: demarcates the flood plains across 50-100 years intervals, etc.,
and now even shorter periods of time; but also other information pertaining to
water.
E. Demographics: Shows the ethnic diversity, amount of population, etc., in a
given zone.
F. Environmental zoning: demarcates areas that are protected, or green zones,
etc. Also, open space areas, parks, etc.
G. Transportation and circulation: maps showing main lines of circulation and
mobility.
H. Ecological systems: Estuaries, wetlands, creeks, conservation, protected
lands, etc.
I. Mythologies, perceptions, cultural values: Shifting meanings of democracy,
nature, nation, the American dream, the collision of private and public priorities,
etc.
J. Phenomenological systems: The qualities of the urban-ecological context,
visual, psychological, perceptual, etc.
Please simply “search” for information among these topics, that might be relevant
to “reveal” the problematics of this specific geography of conflict, and validate
and advance a particular idea, a proposition, during PART 2 of this assignment.
Use your intuition and your early analysis and visual observations to advance a
conceptual research on these issues. An example will be offered in class.
WRITTEN COMPONENT:
These images, diagrams, doodles, collages, etc., and their research, across
these various topics listed above, will be the basis to write 4 concise statements.
1. WHY THIS ZONE OF CONFLICT? (300 words minimum)
A brief narrative about the nature of the Geography of Conflict you
selected: Submit a statement that narrates why you selected this particular
juncture of conflict. This includes “naming” your zone, in a provocative and
conceptual way. What is the overall conclusion about this area of analysis.
2. WHAT DOES IT CONTAIN? (450 words minimum)
A brief narrative about the specific layers of conflict you selected: What
are the main patterns, the main conditions that characterize this specific
zone. What are the main layers you explored, what do they signify? How do
they perfom? Why are they important to the territory? how their function is
compromised, etc.?
3. WHAT ARE THE INSTITUTIONAL MECHANISMS THAT PRODUCED
IT? (500 words minimum)
A brief narrative about the evidence you found to support your visual
and conceptual assessment: This includes elaborating on a few of the
research topics listed above, integrating facts, data, policy-oriented
information, ecological definitions, urban informatics, etc., as well as other
cultural and socio-environmental research that is important to include to
support your “position.”
4. WHAT POSITION DO YOU TAKE? WHY IS THIS URGENT? WHAT TO
DO ABOUT IT? (750 words minimum)
A brief but provocative statement that summarizes your critical
position about this zone of conflict, and what to do about it: How this
area of analysis is emblematic of the polarization of natural and artificial
systems? The first part of this statement should be a pointed and direct
critical statement about your findings, written as a critique of the politics and
economics, value systems and patterns of growth that have endorsed the
polarization urban and ecological domains. The second part of this statement
should give us a broad, general sense of what is to be done? What possible
urban-ecological design strategies could have been considered
(retroactively), or could still be enacted to transform and adapt this zone into
a more intelligent, inclusive, and resilient urban-ecological environment.
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