2019_Thesis Book: Maria Diavolova

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abstract “History is humankind trying to get a grip, but it could go better if you would pay a little more attention to certain details, like for instance your planet.” — Kim Stanley Robinson, NY2140 London is inherently vulnerable to flooding as a result of high tides and storm surges on the Thames, which are exacerbated, at an increasing frequency, by storms in the North Sea. Since 1984, Great Britain’s capital has been on the defense, primarily in protection of the City of London, when the government erected the Thames Barrier. The 1,800-foot retractable floodgate stretches between Silvertown and New Charlton, cutting off high tide ahead of the meanders that define London’s cityscape. Designed for a one in a one-thousand-year event, the two-billion-pound investment has already been used 182 times, and 50 times in the year 2013 alone. London is a sprawling example of a cosmopolitan urban hub whose architecture visually defines the city’s temporal boundaries; rigid, brick and masonry buildings, on the one hand, and tall-glass curtain skyscrapers on the other. At both extremes, these structures lack resilience. This thesis scrutinizes the resiliency of London’s built environment both from an urban and a typological perspective; it engages with texts in urban ecology, science fiction and critical preservation in an attempt to forge interdependencies in the shape of a fictional story through time. How will sea level rise affect the spatial configuration of London? At an architectural level, resilient design solutions oscillate between utopian paper architecture and novel solutions for new construction. Neither the private nor the public sector can afford to retroactively introduce architectural resiliency to every corner of London. Hence, the field relies on infrastructural defenses like the Thames Barrier. This infests the city with a false sense of security and permanence, promoting a static way of life, and thereby habitation. We live as subjects of rapid and forthcoming change. Preservation is a means to derive security. When all else changes, there is comfort in knowing the physical objects of memory are here to stay. Yet, how will London adapt its existing architectural typologies? At an urban level, waterfront schemes – popular solutions in the face of rising sea levels – run the risk of reinforcing economic and social inequality via environmental gentrification. An analogous social infrastructure in New York City, the High Line increased contiguous property values by over one-hundred percent. Luxury building types, like Zaha’s 520 West 28th Str., further inflate property values. If we are to avoid similar precedents, how can the architectural type, as the proposed resolution in the face of rising waters, further equality, as opposed to inequality? To address these questions, this thesis speculates on the value of erosion as a vehicle to critically engage the challenges of rising tides. Can the resurgence of the non-human be thought of as the erosion of the man-made on an urban and typological scale? 009 010
preface “Creative agents advance their interests in architecture through designed interventions in existing buildings, which challenge architectural conventions, and weaken its disciplinary boundaries.” WATER is the first means to traverse the world; to exchange resources between faraway lands; to extract and redistribute. Water is inherently endowed with the quality of a fuel—energy, which can be transformed into power; but as found, it is a potentiality, a “not yet rigidified [form] of power. 3 Within a reservoir, it becomes an echo of socio-political conditions for the production of capital, 4 a mirror image of a place in time. Once rigidified, it can become a tool for human use and abuse, losing its identity as anything but a ‘means to.’ 5 The most notable periods in the history of the United Kingdom are defined as those of greatest geographic reach, not in terms of landmass but in terms of claim to offshores. The hard divisions between land and water stem from cartography, of mapping as a tool for the “exploration” of offshore territories. Globally, waterways became dominant sites of economic activity. Shoreline factories, warehouses and ports enabled the centralization of economic production, distribution and exchange. The contemporary domestication of water emanates from the transformation of these labor practices, from predominately industrial in nature to primarily service-oriented. Waterfronts have become the sites of the spatial transformation of capital. 6 Specifically, London’s riverfront is now the site of the global economy, of vertical forests, which offer far-reaching views that dissolve locality and instill globality. The Anthropocene—the era during which human activity has been the ruling influence on the environment—is increasingly destabilizing the perception of water as a controllable presence in the environment; insofar as the River Thames is a tool, “it is quite invisible…[it] disappears in favor of some purpose that it serves.” 7 With anthropogenic global warming, land subsidence and sea level rise, hard, infrastructural solutions are deployed to contain it in an effort to preserve its identity. These solutions, like the Thames Barrier, are predicated on the idea that the effects of global warming can be localized and resolved as such. Hence, the River Thames remains ‘invisible,’ a background animation, because it continues to operate within its prescribed boundary. Rephrasing Heidegger, Graham Harman says, “We generally notice equipment only when it somehow fails.” 8 If London continues on a trajectory of infrastructural defense, it will notice the River Thames only when it fails to be contained. This thesis proposes that water can assume a new identity within London’s built environment, one that reflect its inherent physical property of a liquid. What effects would this bear on London’s existing architectural typologies? London’s waterfront, specifically along South London’s Bermondsey, is populated by former warehouses. The buildings are Grade II listed, which prevents any significant modifications to their exterior; they have, however, been transformed into luxury housing, boutique storefronts and riverside restaurants. As a result, their functions are supported by extensive HVAC systems, which populate their rooftops and thus ensure the preservation of the industrial aesthetic of their façades. These systems expend an enormous amount of energy for the preservation of a borough’s aesthetic identity. This thesis claims that this identity is no longer viable in the context of sea level rise. Architects such as Keller Easterling and Rem Koolhaas have spoken on the value of subtraction 9 or abstinence 10 in architecture; both of these terms, however, operate on the same timescale of quick or momentary exchanges. This thesis speculates on the value of erosion, a term, which implies a longer, geological, time scale — Jorge Otero-Pailos 2 (3) “Fuels, as I hope to distinguish them from systems of energy, are potentialities—a vexing terms that I will revisit at various points—perhaps flowing or trapped in a rock, perhaps gaseous and invisible, slippery and noxious, not yet rigidified forms of power” (Pinkus 2016, 1) (4) “…the changing states of the river play out in terms of history, class struggles, nationalism and modernization” (Goh <strong>2019</strong>, 254); referencing the research of Anne Redemacher on the Kathmandu river ecologies, Goh is arguing for an understanding of river ecologies as both biophysical and sociopolitical in nature. Similarly, the domestication of the Thames as a backdrop to London’s skyline should be understood as the product of a long history of imperialism; on the one hand, in terms of the management and redistribution of imported goods on its south-eastern shorelines; and on the other, in terms of embankments, such as Victoria Embankment, which activate the river as a background animation to London’s cultural landmarks. (5) …insofar as the tool is a tool it is quite invisible. And what makes it invisible is the way that this disappears in favor of some purpose that it serves…we generally notice equipment only when it somehow fails.” (Harman quoted in Gage, <strong>2019</strong>) (6) …David Harvey, Professor of Anthropology and Geography at CUNY, calls the city “the land of the spatio-temporal fix for the contradictions of capitalism” (Harvey quoted in Dawson, 2017). Namely, as production declines, the city shifts toward real-estate speculation as a means to grow via the high returns on investment in real estate. London’s waterfronts are prime territories for this “fix.” (7) Keller Easterling proposes “an economy where subtraction is the other half of building,” such that subtraction is transformed from a term, which connotes failure or loss to a term, which signifies exchange (Easterling, 2014, 2) in the transformation of London’s built environment. Erosion is commonly defined as a natural process whereby an entity is being eroded by wind, water or other natural agents. In the context of the Anthropocene, however, erosion is hardly a “natural” phenomenon; instead, it is the product of anthropogenic activities. This thesis defines erosion as the gradual removal of the man-made, permitting the resurgence of the non-human within the built environment; it argues that the built environment is full of erosive potentialities—objects, systems, and moments, which bear a capacity for erosion as a means to transform place in the face of surging seas. Subsequent chapters tell the psychogeography of a person living in a particular time, as a way to illuminate the layers of historical processes, which have led to the climate crisis as experienced today. This thesis explores the relationship between narrative and design; and then, between mapping and narrative. Beginning in 2052, the reader is briefly transported to Post-Carbon London, where carbon-neutral technological solutions are failing to resolve the crisis. Then, it focuses on three time periods – 1870, 2020 and 2150, presented chronologically; the objective is to imply a longer time scale for the contemporary and future realities. 1870 suggests the onset of the carbon emission curve, which we continue to accelerate; 2020 is the moment of potentiality, where indecision and inaction will (and do) prove detrimental; and 2150, as the projected scenario of managed retreat. This thesis proposes a reality where the resiliency of London’s built environment is not predicated on defense. Instead, the built environment becomes a moment of exchange between man and the non-human; in this process, architecture and urbanity may be eroded, but their value multiplies as they become hosts to new habitats, human and non-human, both. (9) camilo vergara, “green ghettos” vacancy permitting the resurgence of the non-human (10) “…I come closer-to one of my most intimate utopian dreams, which is to find an architecture that does nothing. I’ve always been appalled that abstinence is the one part of the architectural repertoire that is never considered…there ought to be an equally important arm of it that is concerned with not doing anything” (Koolhaas and Otero- Pailos) 011 012
Page 1 and 2: atlas of erosive potentialities URB
Page 3 and 4: contents abstract...010 preface...0
Page 5: 15% London 40% UK carbon emissions
Page 9 and 10: capital of capital blackfriers rail
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Page 13 and 14: erosive potentialities “I am not
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2019_Thesis Book: Maria Diavolova

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