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tuf lab


we study current events as they impact the built form of cities, with a particular focus on tough issues such as:


suburbs
property

parking
detached homes malls
regionalism
institutionalism
equity
immigration 
deveopment
subdivisions
modern planning
schools
real estate
policy
ecology
recycling
transit
landscape
architecture
sreets
ethnoburb
ethnic mall
the commons
malls
schools
real estate
policy
institutionalism
ecology
recycling
transit
landscape
architecture
sreets

























see conference paper here








With the early phases of North American urban dispersal buildings seemed to repel each other with maximum entropy producing a scattered urban form. Car use obviated the need for physical coherence between buildings, helping to produce a built form that spread out like confetti (figure 2a). Over the last thirty years, though, buildings have clumped together, gathering around significant structures such as malls. What has long been lamented as an amorphous land- scape of loose objects and self interest, now shows signs of figural order and moments of collaborative organization. This research speculates that such volun- tary collectivism2 offers architects cause to reevaluate contemporary theories on urban architecture and market-based urbanization.

Citation TBD, ACSA conference 2015
by Michael Piper