In Praise of Sprawl – Sam Clark
Urban sprawl occurs on the fringe of an established urbanity in zones with high accessibility to urban attractors. With advances in analytical technology and the availability of satellite images we have much greater means by which we can assess and understand urban development and future growth. These new techniques are used to identify ‘un-healthy’ urban zones and assess the effects of interventions within the existing contexts.
In Praise of Sprawl studies biological systems of attraction and growth that produce stable and integrated ecologies by comparison to the fragile ecologies of mono-programatic urban sprawl, and proposes a strategy to identify key locations and typologies for strategic intervention.
Hybrid Africa
Hybrid Africa discusses the impact of high intensity farming and western agricultural techniques upon the social and environmental ecologies of developing countries, focusing on Benin in West Africa.
The essay makes comparison between the construction and agricultural industries and studies the Song Hai project, which integrates western construction processes and materials into the indigenous building techniques to create a built environment that is both socially and environmentally sustainable.
In conclusion, Hybrid Africa proposes a hybridisation of the indigenous subsistence farming techniques with western agricultural technologies, to produce enough food to feed the local populations as well as creating a surplus of crops for export.
Architecture of the Night
Architecture of the Night provides a critique of Bruno Taut’s crystal chain correspondence, to explore the spiritual and non-rational ideals that influenced modernist theory and the development of artificial light and glass in architecture in the early 20th century.
SAMWITHTHEPLAN 