Will's MODI Blog

I think I'm stuck. Or that means I've found a topic to get into. I've still been looking at the intersection of infrastructure and architecture for the past week, and to be honest, I haven't spent as much time on it as I'd like cause of studio. I have looked at, Jerkovic-Babovic, Bojana, Ivana Rakonjac, and Danilo Furundzic. 2020. “ Fluid Spaces in a Contemporary Urban Context: Questioning the Boundary between Architecture and Infrastructure. ” Spatium , no. 43: 35–43. https://doi.org/10.2298/SPAT2043035J. though, and it gave me some insight on how to approach my inquiry in a way that can make it more dynamic. Dissolving spatial boundaries between bridges, highways, utilities, and other transitory spaces, and the spaces that people typically occupy through clever use of architectural design can help combine these spaces into coherent wholes. I don't know if this is typical or the goal of the capstone, but as of now it essentially feels like I'm designing my ...

I've done some additional reading since last week in the book, The Infrastructural City , a book primarily concerned with the study of real and found phenomena in the city of Los Angeles.  I've also been thinking about the capstone, Cut and Paste , that I've been studying and how the author, Daniel Barker, had used case study in order to understand the nuances and intricacies of Mies van der Rohe's own collages. The book chapter I read discussed how the Alameda Corridor, a 50 foot wide, 30 foot deep, 10 mile long trench is a vessel for one of the most important train lines in the country. It transports so much of America's imported and exported products for sale from ocean to city or vice versa. It's interesting how the author of this chapter makes this corridor feel elusive. Almost as if it's not there, despite the glaring reality that this trench is primarily visible when driving next to it and  when looking down into the trench from buildings. This natura...