This short research work aims to explore the impact of different cycles on the urban environment of a city. The more I try to search for cycles in my surrounding, the more I see all actions going in cyclical operations. It seems to me as if the city life is kind of programmed along these patterns of repeated actions in daily routines. Due to their repetitive pattern it can be easily compared with a computer program that just repeats its commands along a defi ned string of codes. But for me, cycles in real life seem to be more, more fl exible, more adaptive and more playful.
The fi rst picture I had in mind of cycles in the city was the mechanical clockwork like the ones used in analogue watches. But the further I develop this research and later the transformation into the project, I realize how deeply the cycles are connected to actual urban life. And this life is probably the essential element of the city, the one thing that makes any environment lovely, enjoyable and familiar. In one of my earlier essays in this course, I wrote on system theory. I thought of the city as a system in relation to the system theory that evolved from Bertanalffy‘s work on natural systems [Bertanalffy, 1968]. I looked at this theory of systems and subsystems and how they are constituted out of elements, how they defi ne their dynamic borders through relations between themselves. „The whole is more than the sum of its parts“ [Aristotle, in the Metaphysics].
I can imagine cycles to be a element in this picture of a system. It could be the element that brings in a third aspect, the aspect of movement. This can be all different kinds of movement - pedestrian movement or material fl ows; or on an abstract level just the representation of life and time. Besides movement, the cycles introduce a tool of constant feedback inputs through repetition. On this basis the system can take decisions and deal with changing environments and different impacts.
This developed brought about a second picture of how to look at the city.
In the following I would like to introduce, how the idea of looking at cycles evolved from. The AKA project of a fl oating city in the Thames Estuary, developed in a group with Anika Mittal, Juergen Haepp and myself earlier this course, talked about a lot of different things like reconfi guration, process and self organisation. But the main topic from the beginning was mobility and movement. We had the picture of total mobility that would become possible on this water-based site in the Thames Estuary. In our case, the city is able to adapt its physical confi guration to needs and changes in a short period of time. So it was always and is still the question of how do people move and how does the city confi gure. The second main element of the AKA project was the fact that living on water creates a totally different environment. Mainly the connection to nature is different as one is exposed to the natural forces and can feel the constant move of the waves on the fl oating boat or platform.
These two elements, the natural forces that appear in cycles, and the movement pattern led to this research work on cycles. I found I could integrate the two in this one topic due to their similar behaviours in terms of repetition and permanence.
I will explore in the second part of this report the question of whether these cycles can be taken as a constant factor and therefore as an element guiding the design, or whether it is a design element itself and part of the design. This part fi nally brings a cyclical structure back into an urban environment. It is a trial on how the research on cycles can inform a design work. Here I tried to work out cycles with the main focus on how they interact with the proposal. The previous project AKA acts as a base to run the trials. This second work is not intended to be a direct further development of the project as such. It therefore has not the aim to answer all the remaining questions on the AKA project. But the special focus on cycles within this environment could lead to new ideas and give other sets of inputs and maybe clarify or densify certain singular aspects.
About my personal cycles
I choose to observe my own daily activities over a period of time to get into the cycle topic in more detail in the sense of scale. These records are on a very personal level integrated into the urban environment. I wanted to look at the very normal and maybe trivial things. I do not know whether these records can be labelled as some kind of average daily activities but they are certainly not exotic. Not only my personal activities are subject to research, also the activities of other people‘s live and moves around the city, are part of these records. There is no time I am not crossing anyone else‘s path.
These crossings are here of much importance. They tell stories about interactions and intersections of cycles. The crossings just in time, in the sense of clashing into one another, are usually avoided. But these crossings can still be traced after a while, they do not necessarily need to be on time. For the research work I therefore started a collection of lost or left behind objects, where each of them tells a story about someone else‘s path I just crossed. To extend my records I traced my route in the city on a daily basis with a gps device. The data set maps my spatial activities and tell the story of my personal interaction with the city environment.
How my day structures are - a short story. I live in some kind of family household with tree members: Malik, age 20 month, Sandra, age 27 and me, age 26. We try to coordinate three very different activities with a clear structure. We fi nd very helpful to have a quite strong rhythm to orientate and give security to our lives. The structure is based on a rhythm to best meet all the needs of the three of us. Malik, Sandra and I, all have different perceptions and needs. With this rhythm we are able to give enough stability to allow each of us to change positions, take some time off and come back into the family structure.
Malik with his 20 month of age needs far more rest and recovery time. This gives some kind of basic elements in the daily structure. Basically this is: breakfast, a snack at around ten, a nap of between two to three hours at noon, lunch, an afternoon snack around four, dinner and then going to bed after seven. During the morning and afternoon units either Sandra or I take care of Malik. Usually the other one can go to work or school. There is a third unit added on, in the evening wile Malik is a sleep, which is mainly used to work. On a weekly basis we have fi ve days of work/ school activities. Malik goes to the nursery two full days a week. Two days of activities for all three of us at the weekend provide some family time. On Saturdays we have one fi xed family activity, the weekly food shopping, and the rest we plan day by day on the basis of what we are up to.
This is a raw structure which, of course, is adapted to the everyday changes of our lives and the changing tasks of urban live. This can be seen as a list of personal cycles that structure my activities. Some of them are imposed from outside sources and others are created by the three of us as our personal layout of living together. This simple example already shows the complexity of cycles and how different factors are involved. Cycles do not appear isolated they are integrates in a highly interconnected system. Nothing is experienced by itself, but always in relation to its surroundings, the sequences of events leading up to it, the memory of the past experiences [Kevin Lynch, The image of the city, p. 1]
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