This is No-Stop City.
In honor of Andrea Branzi of Archizoom, we continue the spirit of No-Stop City through Fragmentation.
Infinitely open space dissolves into vastness of the human experience—it is merely a container for malleable, lightweight, reproducible objects. Without presence of light, disintegration of the floor plate both above and below skew directionality, where the infinite space quickly becomes a maze of fractal planes. Once replicated, a singular open plan becomes a multiplying stack of to create an open section based on blurring which architectural plane is read. Each personal reading becomes true, where each individual becomes the author of what every line, object, and material stands for.
Cyan. Magenta. Yellow. Black. Colorful representation begins to showcase conceptualization via visualization, as if a printed illustration is an abstracted architectural model in itself. Therefore, design development methodologies via abstraction is how No-Stop City is created. In essence, process becomes thesis. There is no longer a recognition of if a line—and thus a wall—is a wall, or if that same line transforms into a ramp, or a floor plate, or merely a distant echo of what the place could become.
Follies—which function as central hubs for gathering—encourages purposeful spontaneity and encompasses the dissolved nature of No-Stop City. Built from a kit-of-parts, these objects can become shared kitchens, dining, bars, restrooms, or bathhouses. The Follies inform each use, but only those who fill the space can determine how far they will push the limits. Each Folly is placed in a regular pattern to orient the occupants in an otherwise delirious space.
Open space fracturing into pieces, surfing up, down, and disintegrating into chaotic confusion: this is the end product of shifting the plane into a 1:3 slope ratio? The green becomes the grid. With every movement in this space, the occupier becomes evermore disoriented, as there is no clear marking to where you have been nor will go. Was that cylinder a column, a tree, or stacked containers? Yes, it was. It can be anything you want it to be, as the lack of light within this space becomes forever confusing for the occupants.
Unfinished. This space is unfinish. Unrefined. Uncurrated. But only due to the very junk perpetually falling down the stepped terrain.
Have a walk during light, and have the same walk in darkness. The immediate shift, the immediate closeness of what you are able to see becomes not as important as what cannot be seen. The unknown becomes close rather than far, and the objects nearby become an ideal of safety and shelter from beyond. Now keep walking. Look back. Wait... are those objects that were part of my safety and shelter still there? As if it no longer matters, those pieces of the fabric are now on to another life, and what is immediately in front of you is the most important. What this space’s essence is, though, only a handful of objects exist in repetition. That container is this container, that folly is this folly now.
Is the plan a smooth slope manifested in an algorythmic representation, or are they large steps, impeeding on the usability of the space itself? Those ramps drawn certainly don’t look useful, so let’s hope this is all a part of our imagination! At which point do we admit defeat to allow the representation become the hellscape rather than hide the hellscape through representation?
When does the architecture become chocked full of useless objects? Do the objects become useless because there are too many? Is it no longer valuable? What does disposability mean when it comes to architecture, and where is ‘away’?
Architecturally, this space does not work. It’s also not real... yet. So what can we learn from it? We see that the graphics choice of the dissolving floorplate is orthogonal, but is that just because this was drawn on a digital platform, taking advantage of the pixilization? Is it really just a smooth surface, just perpetuating the confusion of the space onto the reader of the architectural plan? Now that this iteration of No-Stop City exists, importantly, what objects can we get rid of, and what make sense as something else? Where is the light going to come from, maybe the greenery? Well, let’s disintegrate this very plan. Even more than what has already been done, and take information that is born from the overabundance of everything from the original kit of parts. Let’s make a new kit.
By modeling a drawing onto multiplying mylar sheets stacked together evolve into a new whole. By (re)creating drawings to inform the next, the drawings mash together with transparent layers, with the final layer being the final form. Not a single piece is the aggregate, but the cumulation of the many. No-Stop City is an algimation of drawings, conceptualized from multiplying representations of fantasy if possibly commentary on reality. There is not a single type of No-Stop City, but an infinite.
What happens when we put the pieces back together—the pieces that didn’t become junkspace? We receive new imperative information from what is left.
The original No-Stop City plan is embedded into the new. It maps the means onto which the green is first played. The green is re-interpreted into moveable light rods that illuminate the dark space. No longer is the whole plan merely uninhabitably unknown, but carefully curated by a matter of personal choice the occupants have. Plug the light poles into dedicated spaces, then do it again, and again. There are enough to create both bunched up gathering spaces along with remnants of darkness. We now are able to play with the new value that is dark and light, where its use can be determined as night and day—all within the perpetually internal city.
The space becomes infinite, not just by darkness, but by sight. No longer is closeness unknown. It’s a choice.
