DG1: loopcity

A project by Dietmar Offenhuber

Describing the city based on repeated everyday actions. How do you experience the spaces around you?
In his novel L'Innommable Beckett describes a strange world made up from a complex system of repetitive cyclical events. What is described as social architecture - the spatial / temporal organisation of everyday life- is often very similar to this: people do the same things at the same time. They follow the same routes in regular periods. Sometimes when riding the tram, visiting a cafe or going to the supermarket I recognize strangers who seem to live in the same "loops” like I do.

The Project which I propose is a subjective description of the city as a set of repeating actions and events on different scales. A space composed of closed loops, intersecting each other. each loop is a thematic entity, a story: a stroll through the shelves of a local supermarket. Looking for a free place in a parking lot. A tourists guide round through a district. A hotel maid's morning round.

Loop city’s concept of space is topological and relativistic – the lengths of each strand don't have to correspond to its accurate metric length in real space. They can be scaled by its temporal length or by the amount of information contained within.

"Cities are movement economies" B. Hillier

http://www.iamas.ac.jp/~didi/