Infrastructure Space


Infrastructure that runs our cities also will define their locations


    The image above responds to the changing infrastructure all around the globe. In her book 'Extrastatecraft: The Power of Infrastructure Space' Keller Easterling (a professor and architectural theoretician at Yale University) draws attention to the relationship between society the built environment and their infrastructure that is holding them together. The biggest infrastructure developments in the last couple of decades were focused on broadband connection as means of accessibility to phones and the internet all around the globe. It is no surprise that the earliest and best connections existed between Europe and North America, in the late 20th century and beginning of the 21st century, we can observe the rest of the continents to be included and developed at least on their broadband connections. This trend raises the question of its aftereffects on zones, cities, and architecture. According to Easterling, "Near Konza, two more Dubai-style cities have been proposed - Machakos New City and the Kenya-China Economic Zone." In fact, this is evidence that broadband has a big influence on the future development of cities and their locations.
    Historically, civilizations and cities were developed along rivers (like Egypt, Mesopotamia, - Rome, Paris, London, etc.) to provide them access to easy water transportation and drinking water. During the industrial revolution, this trend of river and coastal development started to change with the introduction of trains and train tracks to accommodate them. In the 20th century, we could observe another jump with the popularization of automobiles and the construction of highway systems. All of these historical changes played a role in the location of cities, and later in the invention of suburbs as well. 
    We can conclude that broadband will be a major component of new emerging cities. The question now is: how we will choose to design and construct those cities? Did architects and developers learn from the construction of controversial places(mistakes) like Dubai or will they continue with the trend of destructive inconsiderate architecture? 


Short Summary of Chapters from 'Extrastatecraft: The Power of Infrastructure Spcace' 
by Keller Easterling. 

  • The author introduces spatial infrastructure disposition as the main component of our society that is often overlooked and is considered to be inactive, or static. Form, as a concept in architecture could not, and should not be considered to be a driver of buildings shapes but as a driver for urban planning and infrastructure planning. Most times when architecture takes place, infrastructure is a given. For example, there are adjacent roads and powerlines to the property, there is an already established sewage system as well as a train station down the block. This already existing infrastructure will play a role in the design of any building. And similarly, already existing infrastructure will play a role in the design of any city. Therefore, infrastructure needs to be handled and considered just the same, however static it will be in the end. 
  • She further talks about the active form, which "can be organizational like a multiplier, a remote, a switch, or a governor..." or "a social story". A multiplier, for example, is the base concept for suburban development. The developer won't be aiming for 100 individual houses but rather for 100 individual framing, 100 individual roofing, 100 individual plumming, etc. Switches act as nodes or intersections in the infrastructure system, like a highway fork or a train station. They influence their environment and the activity that flow through and around them. And a governor can be a modular city plan that of Savannah, Georgia. The establishment of the city grid was rather a set of rules and regulations guiding construction than the overall plan of the city. However, in the end, the city grid was developed as a whole from all the individual patterns that were driven by the rules. 







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