Description

Fine-grained Urbanism: Computational Data Acquisition Methods around Socio-Environmental Problem Topics from Barcelona

ARCH 410 510 Media Seminar Winter 2025 School of Architecture and Environment, Department of Architecture

Philip Speranza, University of Oregon + Speranza Architecture +Urban Design

Contemporary problems of urban design include air pollution, sound pollution, urban heat island effect, water management and animal habitats, as well as social topics of houselessness, social interaction and inclusive design. Fine-grained urbanism describes the method of using mobile-based and online data acquisition workflows to understand designer-defined problem topics around the intersection of these social and natural forces.  This course will ask students to research the local perceptions of these topics, especially the intersections of environmental and social with vulnerable populations via popular press, urban theory readings and academic journals. Students will work in teams of two to create a theoretical framework from topical ideas, urban ecological subtopic, related qualities, and measurable indicators. A study area related to Barcelona Agency of Urban Ecology’s pedestrian Superilles in Marina del Prat Vermell and baseline comparison Girone Super Eje in Barcelona with data collection occurring both onsite and offsite in Eugene via Google Streetview and Maps. A custom Rhino Grasshopper script called Elephant will be used to overlay background context via OpenStreetMap with custom data collected in public and private store-front spaces via each team’s spreadsheet database. Data visualization will be used to analyze emergent relationships and patterns. A design intervention for street and or plaza design will consider both infrastructure, vegetation, strategic and tactical urbanism elements as well as situation technologies that present information to the public in real-time. Part I of this course through week 6 will focus on Fine-grained Urbanism with a topical program set in Marina del Prat Vermell in Barcelona. Part II will then focus on Arduino-based sensor work to make a mockup of the situated technology in Part I tested in Eugene to also then be used in Barcelona RCR for an on-site design build at La Vila and possibly in public space in la Marina, or housing or buildings spaces for population especially vulnerable to air quality including children under 7 years old. Urban Design at the human scale, Jan Gehl and History – John Snow, Sarah Williams GSAPP

  Biography Philip Speranza is an architect, urban designer and educator.  He explores the idea of Fine-grained Urbanism using computational data acquisition and visualization methods to understand social and environmental qualities at the human scale.   As Associate Professor at the University of Oregon he is the Director of the Barcelona Urban Design program IG leading a team of instructors for a full-term spring program partnering with the Ajuntament de Barcelona Municipal Institute of Urbanism, architects and urban ecologists from Catalunya and Galicia. His Social Interaction Tool for Barcelona’s Superilles was developed in 2016 from meetings with Barcelona Agency of Urban Ecology Director Salvador Rueda and was first published in 2018 in the Journal of Urbanism. Another project at that time measured air quality at the scale of Barcelona’s three-by-three Superblocks for both Barcelona and Portland working with Xavier Querol of CSIC and epidemiologist Jordi Sunyer. Speranza is on the Editorial Board of the Journal of Urban Design and was recently Co-chair of the Human-Centric Environments, EDRA 55 in Portland. As principal of Speranza Architecture + Urban Design he aims to apply this research with both public agencies and private developers at the scale of cities, master planning, new Middle housing and single-family homes.  Recent projects have included an air quality and urban ecology study for the City of Tigard outside Portland, Oregon, and a similar study for the Ajuntament de Barcelona’s Marina del Prat Vermell post-industrial district for 28,000 new resident and 52% protected housing alongside the port, highway and local industrial traffic. The 260 Ferry Street mixed-use adaptive reuse project and Kesey Farm Masterplan Project use data-driven phenomenological design to filter sound, light and air pollution. His Oregon Middle Housing Birch Fircrest,  Hudson House in Hyde Park, NY and his AIA SWO Honor Awarded  Push Pull House in Veneta, Oregon use simulation and onsite sensor technology to drive passive cooling strategies. He has worked at the offices of Steven Holl in New York and Carlos Ferrater in Barcelona, and was collaborating architect with artist Janet Echelman in Porto, Vancouver, Phoenix and San Francisco. His firm was recently named to Forbes America’s Top 200 Residential Architects.