Thesis Abstract Draft

Syracuse University School of Architecture

Timothy Gale

Liquid Infrastructure

Primary Advisor:
Brendan Moran

Secondary Advisor:
Julia Czerniak
Abstract

If the 19th century was a point of modernization and humans capacity for mass production,
and the 20th century has been marked by our global thirst for fuel to sustain this increased
consumption, then the 21st century will be defined by our collectively growing need for water.
Impending water shortages and crises are changing the rapid patterns of urbanization by
requiring urban form to adapt to water need and defense paradoxically. Increasingly required is
elaborate infrastructures/systems to source, divert, collect and transport this liquid substance
to our urban centres. How can the dehumanized infrastructural complex’s change in
accordance with the urban landscape so a balance between infrastructure, social program, and
ecological existence create a new productive urban typology.

Cities are dynamic. Cities are everyday inventions. Their existence is labile and suffused with
temporality undergoing constant change [Kemp 2]. Cities are not only and accumulation of
buildings and streets - the existence of a city is also embedded in the relationships of
individuals and interactions. Research of this analog process by which we engage with a city’s
intricate fabric is important. Additionally, a crucial component to the process of this project will
be activism and agency - engaging with communities, political entities and institutions through
event and intervention. Using a multilectic [as opposed to dialectical concept] approach to
expose relationships between interacting agents in the city will serve as a platform for
exploring urban trajectories in the urban phenomenon [Boelens, 50].

Areas of exploration will include the depiction of humanism and modernity within nature and
the infrastructural landscape - this will provide a lens with which to examine and define
research in relation to the urban context [Kolind 45]. The internet will be used as a tool to
distribute knowledge and serve as a dialectic basis with water as fundamental platforms for
humanities current existence.

London, United Kingdom is a possible site. London is simultaneously a city facing crisis due to
continual growth of urban existence without recognition of the ecologically changing
environment and contains strong political denial towards the social infrastructure of the city at
various scales. Using London one can begin to understanding the conflicting impacts of human
occupation and the situations sought to be subverted. Intertwining social and infrastructural
functions would reveal invisible processes into the public realm and ability to humanize the
lifeblood of our urban existences.

The contention of Liquid Infrastructures is that the utilitarian water complexes, and natural
ecological systems – as well as less tangible meanings such as the infrastructures of social
corporatism and virtual information flows can be transformed. Current modes of abstract
infrastructures/systems have dehumanized and created a non-tangible relationship between
people, space and need. The notion of ‘liquid infrastructure’ is poised to redefine notions of
resource flows, urban networks and ecological importance. The attempts of the research will
inform a larger network of spaces and problems in dealing with unsustainable imbalance
between the hydrological industrial utilitarian complex engaged with political, human, and
ecological parameters in order to create a new urban paradigm in this impending elemental
crisis.
Bibliography

Boelens, Luuk. The Urban Connection: An Actor-Relational Approach to Urban Planning. 010
Publishers, 2009. Print.

Berman, Marshall. All That is Solid Melts Into Air: The Experience of Modernity. Simon and
Schuster, 1982. Print.

Cauter de, Lieven. The Smithsons: The Independent Ensemble of an Urban Model, the Rise of
the Mobility Society, from Utopia to Heteroptopia. Archis 2, 2000. Print.

Czerniak, Julia and Hargreaves, George. Large Parks. Princeton Architectural Press, 2007. Print.

Ghosn, Rania. New Geographies 02 Landscapes of Energy. Harvard University Press, 2010.
Print.

Gould, Stephen. The Pandas Thumb: More Reflections on Natural History. New York WW Norton,
1980. Print.

Kemp, Petra. You Are The City. Lars Muller Publishers, 2001. Print.

Knechtel, John. Alphabet City : Water.MIT Press, 2009. Print.

Kolind, Hanne. Nature Strikes Back: Man and Nature in Western Art. Narayana Press, 2009.
Print.

Lefebvre, Henri. Critique of the Everyday Life. Verso Publishing, 2008.

Lefebvre, Henri with Rabinovitch, Sacha. Everyday Life in the Modern World. The Athlone Press,
2000. Print

Maria, Kaika. City of Flows: Modernity, Nature and the City. Routledge, 2005. Print.

Mendez, Ana. UrbanAccion. Impresores, 2009. Print.

Mostafavi, Mohsen with Doherty, Gareth. Ecological Urbanism. Lars Muller Publishers, 2010.

Ramos, Stephen and Turan, Neyran. New Geographies 01 After Zero. Harvard University Press,
2009. Print.

Viljoen, Andrew. CPUL’s: Continous Productive Urban Landscapes. Architectural Press, 2005.
Print.
 Graphics

] [architectural vision] [archite

l vision ctura
itectura l vis
ion]
arch
n] [ [arc
sio hit
ral vi ect
ura
c tu lv
ite isi
rch on
] [a ][
n ar
sio ch
i ite
lv
a

ct
ur

ur
ct

al
ite

vis
rch

ion
] [a

]
ion

[ar
s
explorer [traffic]

ch
activ
vis

ists

ite
ral

artis
ts

ctu
ns
ctu

historia

ral
hite

visi
citize
[arc

ns

on]
ion]

artists

[arch
ral vis

RY

itectu
HISTO
esenta
tion] PRO arch
itects
POS
itectural vision] [architectu

pr
[history [pro
posa
l pre AL

ral vision]
senta
urer tion]
advent

[EVENT] plan
ners

[architectural visio
BLOG
[cultural info point :: event update]
desig
ners
n] [arch

n] [ar
[tra
l visio

c
ffic

h
a

it
]
r

ectu
tu
itec

ral v
]
fic
ch

af

isi
ar

[tr

o
] [

n
n

] [a
io

ISSUES
is

rch
v

[issues presentation]
al

it
r

e
tu

c
c

tu
e

ral
hit

scientists
c

v
r

i
a

environ
io
] [

n]
n
io

ar
[

vis ch
planners ral ite
developer tu ctu
politicians
ec ral
rchit vis
[a ion
[ar n] ]
chi l visio
tec ura
tura ect
l vis
ion] [archit
[archit n]
ectural vision] [architectural visio

Process Using the virtual environment to connect and distribute knowledge based on tangible
events and interactions. The internet as a platform for societal existence should be exploited in
its techniques to resource and connect people in active discussion.
Natural Ecologies

Urban Ecologies

An Amalgamous Existence An innovative architecture approach can emerge based on civic

awareness, balancing human infrastructural needs with ecological systems. This is explored
through the issues of water in relation to social and physical infrastructures as a lens to rethink
urban relationship between abstracted/alienated modernity and the ecological.
!"#$#%&"'( )#(&*&"'( -#"&'( &$/,'-*,0"*0,'( !.&-*!$*&'( !$+&,#$%!$*'(

&$*!,-!"*&#$1#/1",&-!-1),#"!--!-
Intersection of CrisisCity Project Interests

!"#$#%&"'(
)#(&*&"'(
-#"&'(&$/,'-*,0"*0,'(
!.&-*!$*&'(
!$+&,#$%!$*'(