Appitecture: A Tool for Urban Redundancy
'There's an app for that!' - This thesis is a speculation on how an architectural app can be used as a tool for urban redundancy in Auckland.
We live in a period where emerging technologies are changing the way we do everything, and architecture is by no means exempt from that rule. In an architectural profession where optimisation is key, we strive to create the best solution for the identified problem. Yet, Auckland’s urban fabric is riddled with blank walls, vacant city sites, and pockets of urban redundancy, which are currently overlooked for their potential to accommodate much-needed homes and compelling urban spaces in a rapidly sprawling city.
This speculative research questions the implications of an architectural app and its uses towards a broader architectural vision. Specifically, it asks, “How can an architectural app attend to urban redundancy?” It also asks, “How might we establish redundant pockets of space in the city as compelling places to live?”
This research places itself amongst other works of global urban strategy, from the conceptual undertakings of Archigram’s Plug-in City, megastructures of the metabolism movement, and the successful redevelopment of Amsterdam’s understated port districts. In the pursuit, prefabrication, mobile structures, and temporal architecture are some of the employed architectural tactics. A systematic/ taxonometric approach collates the research into a digestible realm of plausibility while maintaining an open format of growth and development. The development and creation of an architectural app creates a platform through which these fundamental principles can be filtered and showcases the results in three separate case studies of varying scales. Final speculation on the direction of digital/app architecture is made, including potential directions future research could take.
The potential of the urban redundancies within Auckland City could hold the answer for the imminent housing shortage and improve the fabric of the central urbanity. All that is required is the right tool. Through the use of an architectural app, we can speculate an alternative way of designing while reducing urban redundancy and creating compelling spaces.
