Layered Networks

This is a Preliminary layered plan of the different infrastructural networks on the site. Still not pleased with it; I am trying to get the various networks more integrated with one another and with the site itself. Thinking that the form should emerge from mapping of the forces on site: rainfall, evaporation, gravity, existing habitats and their fluctuations, irradiation, circulation, economy etc. As well, I am still feeling that the connection between the infrastructural systems and the public realm is missing. The point is to have infrastructures that augment the living environment, not just run along it (or obliterate it altogether). Need to let the plans be and venture into 3D sections and models.

Potential mapping

The 3 systems layered, overlapping with existing roads and borders.
(not sure why this uploads so strangely)

Water opportunities

Energy opportunities

Soil opportunities

In the next few weeks I will be compiling information on rainwater collection systems in arid zones, to be used as a precedent and basis for the water system design. This seems to be the limiting factor of this hybrid system, and so needs to be resolved to establish the foundations or basic assumptions of the project. Later on the same approach will be applied to overlay the energy systems and the greenhouse agriculture. Hopefully the effective hybridization and appropriate form will then emerge...

Networks, cities and trees

Occupying and connecting. Frei Otto. 2009. P.51

The image above is provided by Otto in support of his argument that human spontaneous networks of urbanity follow similar patterns to ones formed in nature through the structures of leaves, insect colonies or soap bubbles. The attractive part of this argument has to do with an energy analysis. Since none of these networks mentioned is formally planned, their form is the outcome of an evolutionary process favouring systems with a minimal energy path or more accurately an energetic equilibrium. In a similar manner our own organic non-planned communities, such as medieval villages follow those patterns, which minimize energy expenditure. This may lead us to one of two possible conclusions: 1. we need not bother with urban planning, as the emergent self organization would take care of itself in the most efficient way, or 2. our planning should be informed by these processes and at best imitate their operations to 'become one with nature'.

Network types by Paul Baran, developer of the distributed communication network system, early 1960's

In criticism of some of these interpretations, as well as his own earlier assumptions, Christopher Alexander's article from 1965, "A city is not a tree", claims that the tree (or centralized, hierarchical) structure is simplistic, limited and limiting when applied to city planning. Alexander argues that our current needs embody a higher level of complexity than the tree structure permits. He proposes a three dimensional 'semilattice' network (not unlike the distributed system above) which allows for multiple overlapping to occur, as well as provides non hierarchical means of connectivity. Although published almost half a century ago, these ideas may still prove relevant especially with our growing familiarity with distributed complex communication networks such as the Internet. As we develop our social network understanding in a more distributed way, the question still remains: how does this affect city planning? Is the omnipresent grid laid out obliterating any landscape and context the way to go? Minimal energy path tree structure with its obvious limitations? Or could (and should...) the semilattice network materialize and be manifested beyond the virtual world? I would love to get some comments on these issues from anyone out there..

Pharan floods- site II

a 1000 wells

Tunbridge Wells, Kent, England.

"Isaura, city of the thousand wells, is said to rise over a deep, subterranean lake. On all sides, wherever the inhabitants dig long vertical holes in the ground, they succeed in drawing up water, as far as the city extends, and no farther. Its green border repeats the dark outline of the buried lake; an invisible landscape conditions the visible one; everything that moves in the sunlight is driven by the lapping wave enclosed beneath the rock's calcareous sky.

Consequently two forms of religion exist in Isaura. The city's gods, according to some people, live in the depths, in the black lake that feeds the underground streams. According to others, the gods live in the buckets that rise, suspended from a cable, as they appear over the edge of the wells, in the revolving pullyes, in the windlasses of the norias, in the pump handles, in the blades of the windmills that draw the water up from the drillings, in the trestles that support the twisting probes, in the reservoirs perched on stilts over the roofs, in the slender arches of the aquducts, in all the columns of water, the verticle pipes, the plungers, the drains, all the way up to the weathercrocks that surmount the airy scaffoldings of Isaura, a city that movesentirely upward."

From: Invisible Cities, by Italo Calvino



Venice, Italy

While I am well aware that 'Invisible Cities' has been quoted to death, in any imaginable context, this excerpt seems so relevant to the Wadi condition, I just couldn't resist, so bear with me while I get it out of my system.

As Marco Polo is describing the wonders of Venice to Kublai Khan, each time as if it were an entirely different city, I can't help but remembering the wonder I felt sitting in a Venetian Piazza, wondering if it would have been such a great public place if it weren't for the fountains in the center. Since most of them are today out of use, thanks to modern sanitation systems, one is kept wondering, what could replace these ancient wells. What would be a current necessity of the urban infrastructural kind, that doubles as a mechanism for the creation of a public realm. It has to do with need. Of course, the necessity preceded the emergence of a public space, I imagine these places became Piazzas because people congregated there to draw water from the well. Nevertheless, the symbiosis works tremendously well. With regards to the two gods of Isaura- one of them is the natural system; the lake or the wadi. The other is the man-made infrastructure that enables the use of the natural resource. One can not exist without the other. Both combined enable the prosperous life in Isaura. A depleted lake would not sustain a city, no matter how ingenious its infrastructure may be. The wadi alone, without a mechanism to manage its flows, can bring loss and devastation, with proper flood management and water harvesting it could be a source of desert livelihood.


Neve Tzedek, Tel-Aviv, Israel

Ein-Karem, Jerusalem, Israel

productive lattice schematics

hot, flat and crowded

What better day than today to be reading 'Hot, flat and crowded' by Thomas L.Friedman... Summer is upon us in full fierce, and even if only for 3 days, in Canada too we comprehend, by the pores of our skin, what difference only a few degrees make. Now imagine this as a daily average for 4-5 months of the year. Imagine 10 degrees more during reoccurring heatwaves. Imagine very little shade, no air conditioning and depleting water resources. For many this is the current state of reality. For many more (estimated by Friedman at about 5 billion) it will become so by 2050. The good news are that Canada, North America and parts of Europe will likely not take much of the heat. The bad news is that we should still care. According to Friedman population is growing mostly in underdeveloped countries, which are also surprisingly close to the equator. The world is flattened by the internet and communication revolution, and all these billions of people who are soon to be born will want to turn on the light, drive a car and post on their blogs. So we then realize global growth is something we need to manage, since it can not be avoided. However, the effects of its carbon footprint, at its current emission rate, on global climate change may be well beyond our ability to set things right, once the process is beyond a certain tipping point. "Avoid the unmanageable and manage the unavoidable", in Friedman's own words. Friedman's green revolution is not a revolution of feel good recycling and efficient light bulbs. It is an infrastructural revolution of global magnitudes. The goal is to avoid doubling CO2 emissions by 2050, while still supporting growth. One of the strategies suggested, as a part of a global solution, is to increase solar power seven-hundred fold and eliminate all coal fired power. Our 5 billion friends by the equator might be able to help with that.

Site specific

Choosing a site in this vast emptiness, or appearance of, is not obvious. It is tempting to look for an existing urban form to intervene with. However, the thesis is concerned with how infrastructural systems can be stretched to provide an added economic value (energy export) while creating a renewed sense of community. It appears that the best strategy to achieve this would be to start with a 'tabula rasa'. The determining variables will then be the existing large scale infrastructure, natural or man-made. The site considered is the intersection of wadi Pharan and Road 40. Pharan is an ancient watershed, the largest in the Negev, which is today dry most days of the year. During rare rainfalls it overflows, draining the entire Negev Plateau. Road 40 is bisects the desert connecting its northern node Beer-Sheva, with the southern one Eilat. This road functions as a life line for all the Negev's communities, connecting them to the electrical grid and the national water carrier. They both meet in the very center of the Negev, a distance of approximately an hour away from any other populated settlement. Following is a closer examination of the four potential sites and their relationship to the Wadi and the road: