Structuring the Void

Structuring the Void PDF Author: Jerome Klinkowitz
Publisher: Durham : Duke University Press
ISBN:
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 200

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Book Description
If, as the literary theorists of postmodernism contend, "content" does not exist, then how can fiction continue to be written? Jerome Klinkowitz, himself a veteran practitioner and theorist of fiction, addresses this question in Structuring the Void, an account of what today's novelists and short story writers do when they produce a fictive work. Klinkowitz focuses on the ways in which writers, finding themselves in the same position as abstract painters and death-of-God theologians, have turned their inquiry itself into subject matter, and he shows how this approach has in recent years produced something more than mere metafictive self-questioning. With no subject to structure, the writers Klinkowitz discusses nonetheless persist in the act of structuring. For Kurt Vonnegut, this has meant finding a form for an otherwise unrepresentable world by organizing his autobiography as a narrative device. In the generation following Vonnegut, Max Apple makes a similar move in the ritualization of a national history and popular culture, while Gerald Rosen and Rob Swigart invent a style of literary comedy based on their comic response to a new imaginative state, the state of California. Klinkowitz also considers subjects that, though they cannot be represented, nevertheless exercise constraints on a writer's intention to structure. In recent decades, two of these pressing themes have been gender (as seen here in the works of Grace Paley) and war (the Vietnam conflict itself as well as the struggles of two generations to come to terms with it). Structuring the void left when content collapses, these writers have, as Klinkowitz demonstrates, developed an entirely new style of fiction, one that necessarily privileges space over time and self-invention over representation.

The Void in Between Urban Neighborhood

The Void in Between Urban Neighborhood PDF Author: Pankaj Nath Joy
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh and one of the most crowded cities on earth, is almost three times as dense as Manhattan. The city’s edge is constantly evolving to respond to the never-ending needs. In this thesis, I am interested in ap plying lessons from the old part of Dhaka to new developments amid urbanization by questioning the unrestrained commitment to western urban design principles in a city like Dhaka from South Asia. In this contemporary global context of constant ly changing technological, socio-economical, and political paradigms, traditional neighborhoods in different cities in South Asia are constantly creat ing room for change. However, the lacking sense of belonging and social integrity in contemporary city design makes the new neighborhoods vul nerable and isolated and this creates an invisible social void. Le Corbusier, one of the pioneers of modern city design, completely ignored the diver sity that must be kept in mind while designing a city in South Asia. When we follow Corbusian city planning, we mostly forget about the coexistence of diverse demographics in our traditional cities. Without these cultural spaces, the people living in the cities loses the sense of belonging. This the sis is about addressing those social and cultural voids in a city like Dhaka and bringing back the cultural dynamics in the urban design by building critical references from different traditional and new neighborhoods. In this thesis, I will consider Jane Jacobs’s theo ries in urban space and how her criticism of the failings of modernist planning theories in her book “The Death & Life of Great American Cities”. Then, I will define the notion of “Social Void” and why it is necessary to address it now. Through dif ferent case studies from the old Dhaka, I will first try to find all the traces of diverse coexisting de mographics. The analysis of the findings in those traditional spaces will include the story of its street, people, culture, sense of be longing, and socio-economic and political contexts. Secondly, I will study different neighborhoods of newly developed Dhaka and try to find out, how some of them lost their identity while following the western city design pattern and how some of those neighborhoods are constantly trying to get back to their organic growing pattern of the city. Last, I will investigate multiple cultural and social spaces in a neighborhood in the new Dhaka and propose where and how these cultural values should be integrated into the design of a city. These solutions can play a crucial role in designing a new kind of communal neighborhood space where its inhabitants will have the ability to grow and have strong social integrity. This thesis will create room to question Modern City Planning and how we as architects or urban designers should look at the development of a new city planning and its neighborhood in the context of the Global South.

One Hand Occupies the Void

One Hand Occupies the Void PDF Author: Tsz Wai Eveline Lam
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Ceramics
Languages : en
Pages : 117

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Book Description
The interconnected nature of void and matter and form is implied in architecture, but rarely explicitly expressed. Since the void is neither form nor material, it is difficult to define, but it occupies a critical role in urban development as the counterpart to the urban mass. The narrative of the modern city can be told through the presence of urban voids: the transposition of material and built form resulting in two typologies of the void, the found and the formal. The first exploration of the found void is dedicated to the analysis of the clay pit, the companion of bricks, which is often ignored as an unwanted by-product of the construction process. This deliberate exclusion from the urban narrative is reversed once it is rehabilitated as a formal void, which is valued as an element of urban development. The second exploration analyses the condition of the formal void, using the ceramic vessel to construct a domesticated spatial model of the monumental public space. The identity of the city is therefore analysed by making visible the imperceptible void through the documentation of traces and boundaries. The found void is a by-product of the city's development and is not planned; it can also be described as a procedural void whose physical impact is rarely, if ever, considered as a positive influence on the growth of the city. From the economic point of view, its temporary use produces resources that transform the urban fabric, but the found void itself requires reintegration into the city either through erasure or reversal to solid. The analysis of the former, now filled-in, 19th-century clay quarry in east Toronto serves as the first investigation of the urban void, where the industrial process of clay extraction acts as a force that influences the form of the quarry and also the surrounding neighbourhood. The formal void is a tool that transforms the city through the imposition of a hierarchical structure derived from a deliberate absence within the existing fabric. The valorization of the formal void as a solution to congestion and chaos in the built-up urban structure is based on its perception, even now, as an ideal space that promotes circulation, light, and air. The analysis of an alternative vision of Paris conceived by Pierre Patte in 1765 expresses the interjection of the void into a pre-existing urban fabric and how its form is connected to the buildings that it displaces. The practice of throwing clay on a wheel depicts the reciprocity between matter, form, and void: clay is shaped into a hollow vessel through the interaction of the body. The found void, as a fragment evolving over time, is compared to the process of throwing and analysed according to the redistribution of the material around the perceptible void. For the formal void, the final pieces are used as models to express the circulation and tension that becomes evident when conceptual forms are given material bodies. This process occupies the intersection between the theory of the void and the material of the clay medium and thereby offers a critical solution to the architectural paradox that engages the nature of the profession and the approach to space itself.

Structuring the Void

Structuring the Void PDF Author: Jerome Klinkowitz
Publisher: Durham : Duke University Press
ISBN:
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 200

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Book Description
If, as the literary theorists of postmodernism contend, "content" does not exist, then how can fiction continue to be written? Jerome Klinkowitz, himself a veteran practitioner and theorist of fiction, addresses this question in Structuring the Void, an account of what today's novelists and short story writers do when they produce a fictive work. Klinkowitz focuses on the ways in which writers, finding themselves in the same position as abstract painters and death-of-God theologians, have turned their inquiry itself into subject matter, and he shows how this approach has in recent years produced something more than mere metafictive self-questioning. With no subject to structure, the writers Klinkowitz discusses nonetheless persist in the act of structuring. For Kurt Vonnegut, this has meant finding a form for an otherwise unrepresentable world by organizing his autobiography as a narrative device. In the generation following Vonnegut, Max Apple makes a similar move in the ritualization of a national history and popular culture, while Gerald Rosen and Rob Swigart invent a style of literary comedy based on their comic response to a new imaginative state, the state of California. Klinkowitz also considers subjects that, though they cannot be represented, nevertheless exercise constraints on a writer's intention to structure. In recent decades, two of these pressing themes have been gender (as seen here in the works of Grace Paley) and war (the Vietnam conflict itself as well as the struggles of two generations to come to terms with it). Structuring the void left when content collapses, these writers have, as Klinkowitz demonstrates, developed an entirely new style of fiction, one that necessarily privileges space over time and self-invention over representation.

Rehabilitating Lost Space

Rehabilitating Lost Space PDF Author: Kevin G. Roberts
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 90

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Book Description
The intent of my 5th year comprehensive architectural project is to explore Roger Trancik's concept of lost space as detailed in his book Finding Lost Space: Theories in Urban Design. Lost space is described by Trancik as a void in the urban fabric; the unwanted or undeveloped spaces within the core and at the edges of our cities. Charlotte posses many of these types of spaces within its built environment and it is my belief these lost spaces can be filled with positive spaces which aid and support Charlotte's urban environment as a whole. With this concept in mind, I have chosen a site that fits Trancik's description well. The parcels of land bound by Seigle Avenue, East Tenth Street, and the US 74 / I-277 ramp are situated at the intended gateway of the neighborhood of Belmont, which is in the early stages of a revitalization as seen in the nearby neighborhoods of First Ward and Plaza-Midwood. As it is currently developed, the site is isolated and disconnected from Charlotte's uptown, First Ward, as well as its own community within Belmont. The program for this project includes the addition of a perimeter block and two mid-rise towers of residential housing on the site to anchor the gateway into the Belmont neighborhood and reestablish a connection to Charlotte's growing uptown environment. In addition to establishing a relationship to the buildings soon to replace Piedmont Courts, a derelict section 8 housing development across the street, this building will address the streets of Belmont and recognize the site's proximity to uptown Charlotte. The design of this project explores how a building, related to the street and considerate of its surroundings, can rehabilitate lost space and begin to remedy the blight currently found throughout our urban environment. Additionally, design emphasis will be focused on the facade's layering, which will allow residents to capture the views of the city while regulating the impact of the traffic noise from the US 74 / I-277 ramp. In doing so, I hope to justify the viability of this building typology and its marketability in this area of Charlotte.

A Clear View

A Clear View PDF Author: Thomas S. Shiner
Publisher: Oscar Riera Ojeda Publishers
ISBN: 9789881397546
Category : Architectural firms
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Paperback in slipcase: A Clear View is the first book published by Washington, DC-based architect Suzane Reatig, FAIA. Exploring new interpretations of small-scale urban infill housing, it addresses the changing needs and the real demands of city dwellers. Filling the void in the urban puzzle, in narrow and constrained sites, all of Reatig's new structures ensure comfortable and safe spaces. - The majority of the work in this book is located in one neighborhood of Washington, DC, Shaw, demonstrating the powerful effect architecture can have on transforming and reviving a neighborhood. Through the use of simple materials and innovative clear design, Reatig reveals how community can be achieved among inhabitants without giving up privacy or independence. All projects share the same spirit; they are imaginative, rigorous, and give priority and value to their inhabitants and enhance their quality of life. Each project has its own unmistakable identity.

The Urban Archetypes of Jane Jacobs and Ebenezer Howard

The Urban Archetypes of Jane Jacobs and Ebenezer Howard PDF Author: Abraham Akkerman
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
ISBN: 1487512821
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 275

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Book Description
Ebenezer Howard, an Englishman, and Jane Jacobs, a naturalized Canadian, personify the twentieth century’s opposing outlooks on cities. Howard envisaged small towns, newly built from scratch and comprised of single-family homes with small gardens, while Jacobs embraced existing inner-city neighbourhoods that emphasized the verve of the living street. Both figures have had their share of supporters as well as detractors: Howard's conceptualization received criticism for its uniformity and alienation from the city core, while Jacobs’s urban vision came to be recognized as the result of invasive gentrification. Presenting Howard and Jacobs within a psychocultural context, The Urban Archetypes of Jane Jacobs and Ebenezer Howard addresses our urban crisis in its recognition that "city form is a gendered, allegorical medium expressing femininity and masculinity within two founding features of the built environment: void and volume." These founding contrasts represent both tension as well as the opportunity for fusion between pairs of urban polarities: human scale against superscale, gait against speed, and spontaneity against surveillance. In their respective attitudes, Howard and Jacobs have come to embrace the two ancient archetypes of the Garden and the Citadel, leaving it to future generations to blend their two contrarian stances.

Soul Strip

Soul Strip PDF Author: Lauren Leow
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Land use, Urban
Languages : en
Pages : 99

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Book Description
Space exists without people, but people identify what the spaces truly are. People identify these spaces based on how they are used and what they are used for. The spaces that are used are considered habitable areas. However, these spaces can change over time depending on the number of people surrounding the area and their needs and wants. Over time, these habitable spaces can become nonfunctional and the buildings within these spaces are considered obsolete. An obsolete building can be defined based on the culture, population, and desires of the neighborhoods surrounding. The people see these obsolete buildings as useless areas, or voids. People view a void as an empty space or a space that is no longer functional. The voids of an urban environment are seen as negative spaces, such as an abandoned building or empty lot. These spaces are what divide neighborhoods from one another. They are the areas that people avoid. Voids are not always considered nonfunctional for everyone. Some people see a void as a space that can be functional but not for its defined purpose. The way the voids are filled in and used is what gives an urban space its identity. In this thesis, it will explore the options of what a void can become. This will be done by identifying specific voids, exploring how the voids are currently used, who uses them, and what further possibilities can become of them. It will involve a deep investigation in the neighborhoods: learning about the culture of the areas and recognizing the identity of the neighborhoods. The thesis will prove that there are opportunities within these voids and these voids will be what reconnect one neighborhood to another. A void is not always an empty space rather what some perceive to be nonfunctional or inhabitable. Not everyone may see a certain space as a void but through this thesis it will be a way of celebrating the void and having others recognize its significance. The thesis will explore these uninhabitable voids and discover the possibilities and changes that can be made. Architecture is a way we are able to celebrate these voids by reconnecting different neighborhoods and cultures. It will celebrate the identity of the neighborhood or in some cases establish a new identity for a neighborhood. A void is not always a space that should be avoided but rather a space that has the opportunity to create a connection between space and people.

The City as Campus

The City as Campus PDF Author: Sharon Haar
Publisher: U of Minnesota Press
ISBN: 0816665648
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 278

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Book Description
A social and design history of the urban campus.

Sustainable Urban Neighbourhood

Sustainable Urban Neighbourhood PDF Author: David Rudlin
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 0750656336
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 340

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Book Description
Now in its 2nd edition, this title explores and explains the trends and issues that underlie the renaissance of UK towns and cities and describes the sustainable urban neighbourhood as a model for rebuilding urban areas.

The City as Subject

The City as Subject PDF Author: Carolyn S. Loeb
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1350258628
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 313

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Book Description
In The City as Subject, Carolyn S. Loeb examines distinctive bodies of public art in Berlin: legal and illegal murals painted in West Berlin in the 1970s and 1980s, post-reunification public sculptures, and images and sites from the street art scene. Her careful analyses show how these developed new architectural and spatial vocabularies that drew on the city's infrastructure and daily urban experience. These works challenged mainstream urban development practices and engaged with citizen activism and with a wider civic discourse about what a city can be. Loeb extends this urban focus to her examination of the extensive outdoor installation of the Berlin Wall Memorial and its mandate to represent the history of the city's division. She studies its surrounding neighborhoods to show that, while the Memorial adopts many of the urban-oriented vocabularies established by the earlier works of public art she examines, it truncates the story of urban division, which stretches beyond the Wall's existence. Loeb suggests that, by embracing more multi-vocal perspectives, the Memorial could encourage the kind of participatory and heterogeneous construction of the city championed by the earlier works of public art.