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Design Strategies for Reimagining the City Design Strategies for Reimagining the City is situated between projective geometry, optical science and architectural design. It draws together seemingly unrelated fields in a series of new digital design tools and techniques underpinned by tested prototypes. The book reveals how the relationship between architectural design and the ubiquitous urban camera can be used to question established structures of control and ownership inherent within the visual model of the Western canon. Using key moments from the broad trajectory of historical and contemporary representational mechanisms and techniques, it describes the image’s impact on city form from the inception of linear perspective geometry to the digital turn. The discussion draws upon combined fields of digital geometry, the pictorial adaptation of human optical cues of colour brightness and shape, and modern image-capture technology (webcams, mobile phones and UAVs) to demonstrate how the permeation of contemporary urban space by digital networks calls for new architectural design tools and techniques. A series of speculative drawings and architectural interventions that apply the new design tools and techniques complete the book. Aimed at researchers, academics and upper-level students in digital design and theory, it makes a timely contribution to the ongoing and broadly debated relationship between representation and architecture. Linda Matthews is the Co-director of the UTS Visualisation Institute and a Senior Lecturer in the School of Architecture at the University of Technology, Sydney. Her research interests draw upon the history, politics and techniques of representation to explore new architectural and urban design methodol- ogies that utilise the optics of digital visioning systems. The research aims to use virtual urban spaces as a source of qualitative and quantitative data to generate non-traditional modes of architectural and urban form. Linda has won several significant academic awards, including the prestigious Design Medal from the NSW Chapter of the Royal Australian Institute of Architects and the University Medal from the University of Technology, Sydney. Routledge Research in Architecture The Routledge Research in Architecture series provides the reader with the latest scholarship in the field of architecture. The series publishes research from across the globe and covers areas as diverse as architectural history and theory, technology, digital architecture, structures, materials, details, design, mono- graphs of architects, interior design and much more. By making these studies available to the worldwide academic community, the series aims to promote quality architectural research. Radical Functionalism A Social Architecture for Mexico Luis E. Carranza The Architect and the Academy Essays on Research and Environment Dean Hawkes Architecture of Threshold Spaces A Critique of the Ideologies of Hyperconnectivity and Segregation in the Socio- Political Context Laurence Kimmel Pyrotechnic Cities Architecture, Fire-Safety and Standardisation Liam Ross Architecture and the Housing Question Edited by Can Bilsel and Juliana Maxim Architecture and the Housing Question Edited by Can Bilsel and Juliana Maxim Mies at Home From Am Karlsbad to the Tugendhat House Xiangnan Xiong For more information about this series, please visit: https://www.routledge. com/Routledge-Research-in-Architecture/book-series/RRARCH Design Strategies for Reimagining the City The Disruptive Image Linda Matthews Cover image: Bill Kopitz/Lower Manhattan at Night/Getty First published 2022 by Routledge 4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2022 Linda Matthews The right of Linda Matthews to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloguing-in-Publication Data Names: Matthews, Linda (Linda M.), author. Title: Design strategies for reimagining the city : the disruptive image / Linda Matthews. Description: Abingdon, Oxon : Routledge, 2022. | Series: Routledge research in architecture | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Identifiers: LCCN 2021061465 (print) | LCCN 2021061466 (ebook) | ISBN 9780367680176 (hardback) | ISBN 9780367680183 (paperback) | ISBN 9781003133872 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Architecture and technology. | Architectural design‐‐Data processing. Classification: LCC NA2543.T43 M38 2022 (print) | LCC NA2543.T43 (ebook) | DDC 711/.40285‐‐dc23/eng/20220210 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021061465 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021061466 ISBN: 978-0-367-68017-6 (hbk) ISBN: 978-0-367-68018-3 (pbk) ISBN: 978-1-003-13387-2 (ebk) DOI: 10.4324/9781003133872 Typeset in Sabon by MPS Limited, Dehradun Contents List of figures ix List of tables xii List of abbreviations xiii Acknowledgement xiv PART I Constructed fields of vision 1 Introduction 3 1 The problem of the image of the city: From perspectival to digital space 8 Disruptive techniques of spatial representation 8 Singular or narrative spaces of representation 10 The ‘symbolic’ intent of linear perspective geometry 10 The perspectival city 11 Photography as the bearer of truth 12 Fragmentary spaces of representation 15 Anamorphosis and the reversal of logic 15 The Vertovian image: Issues of critique, representation and form-making 16 Filmic space/architectural space 18 Vertov in the digital image: Envisioning the contemporary city 19 The qualitative image and affective space 22 2 The pixel’s visual territory 28 From analogue to digital 28 Unique modes of digital assembly 30 vi Contents The discontinuous digital line 30 Qualitative content is connected data 31 The predictability of pixel relationships 32 Digital geometry’s intersection with optical science 33 Perceptual behaviours 33 The digital mediation of colour, brightness and shape 35 Technological disruption 35 Digital colour: Unique translations of digital technology 36 Contrast perception, luminosity and the contextual advantages of pixel geometry 38 Form perception and the inherent imperatives of pixel geometry 40 Representation and the pixel’s ‘symbolic form’ 41 Many authors 41 3 Seeing through digital image-making technology 46 Colour’s transformation 46 Colour as form 47 The digital manipulation of colour 50 Proprietary colour 50 Colour by guesswork 52 New digital opportunities 53 Non-proprietary colour and open-source code 53 Exploiting CFAs 54 The digital perception of brightness 55 Shifting the register: The pictorial application of brightness 55 Eliminating the uncontrollable: Brightness as an artefact 58 Fraunhofer diffraction as a productive aberration 59 Digital image legibility: Shape 60 The human perception of shape 60 The human visual system and scan path theory 61 Saliency and the advantages of webcam technology 65 The productive inclusion of digital artefacts 67 4 The new agency of distributed digital networks 74 Digital anamorphosis and the virtual picture plane 74 Pre-digital anamorphic techniques 74 The affective anamorphic network 76 Contents vii Digital anamorphic techniques 77 The expanded image 80 The distributed network and the multiplication of viewpoints 80 An expanded temporal frame 84 Responding to the digital city 86 PART II New techniques of intervention and disruption 91 5 Generative techniques 93 New modes of practice 93 The qualitative image 95 The space within the image 98 The anamorphic potential of digital technology 98 The dynamic image 103 The image as a 3D volume 103 The synthesised landscape 106 Transdisciplinary modes of activating digital colour and luminance (brightness) 106 Colour and luminance (brightness) profiles as a generative procedure 108 Conclusion 110 6 The building surface as a colour modifier 113 Design templates for the built surface 113 Test strategies 114 Colour 114 Image artefacts 114 Attention tracking 114 Validation methods 115 Series 1 tests overview 116 Test part 1: Strategies of pattern hierarchy 117 Test technical data and conditions 119 Test analysis methodology 120 Test results 120 Test summary and conclusions 121 Test part 2: Hierarchies of visibility – the shifting function of luminosity (brightness) 122 Test results 122 viii Contents Test summary and conclusions 123 Test part 3: The disruptive potential of additive colour 123 Test technical data and conditions 124 Test results and analysis 125 Test summary and conclusions 121 The data matrix 125 7 Re-viewing diffraction 130 Series 2 tests overview 130 Patterns of disruption 132 Test technical data and conditions 132 Test analysis methodology 133 Test results and analysis 134 Test summary, conclusions and the data matrix 135 8 New readings of the city 137 Series 3 tests overview 137 Scanning variants 138 Test technical data and conditions 138 Test analysis methodology 140 Test results and analysis 140 Test summary, conclusions and the data matrix 142 Concluding comments on the test series and the data matrices 144 9 ‘La città ideale’: Design drawings for the digital city 147 The digital Urbino Panel 147 Preliminary digital site mapping procedures 148 The digital Urbino Panel: A summary of visual effects 148 Intervention 1 150 Intervention 2 151 Intervention 3 152 Conclusion 156 The new tools and techniques of architecture 156 The disciplinary shift 158 Glossary 160 Bibliography 162 Index 171 Figures 2.1 Image of Bondi Beach, Australia, generated in PixelMath software. The image shows the distinct edges and the RGB value of each pixel 39 3.1 Antonio da Correggio, Assumption of the Virgin, 1526–1530 57 3.2 Piero della Francesca, Annunciation (St Anthony), 1460–1470 64 4.1 Michelangelo Buonarotti, The Last Supper (1536–1541) 75 5.1 Digital glitch broadcasting error blue pixel noise ([golubovy]/Depositphotos.com) (left). Close-up of a section of the transmission error showing RGB pixel values of the artefact (right). (Image by author) 96 5.2 Emmanuel Maignan’s fresco San Francesco di Paola (1642) in Trinità dei Monti, Rome, showing distorted image when viewed from frontal position (top left), image when viewed from ‘correct’ oblique viewing position (top right) and micro-landscapes embedded within the larger image visible from a viewing position perpendicular to the image surface (bottom). (Image by author) 100 5.3 Stationary camera viewpoints near Customs House, Circular Quay, Sydney (top left); catoptric anamorphic image generated from the same viewpoints (top right); Catoptric cylindrical anamorphic projections of Customs House, Circular Quay, Sydney, showing anamorphic projections, and ‘corrected’ Cartesian arrays in the reflective surface of the cylinder (bottom images). (Image by author) 102 5.4 Rotated time-lapse image stack (top left), intersecting orthogonal slice (top right) and conflated projection of an image stack along z axis (bottom) showing a view of Broadway looking towards Times Square, New York 104