Meeting with Olga Sezneva, on structuring the research proposal

Political economic literature:

  • What is their method? How do they imagine the urban? What is their conception of the urban?
  • How do they conceive of social actors? Who are the social actors that matter for them? 
    • Implied conflict between the private interest of the capital and social life as such.
    • The state, not clear where the government begins, where we talk about national, municipal and stadsdeel level.
  • Map of who are the people that matter.
  • Understand that style of analysis. 
  • Problem definition in this literature:
  • States produce their visions of the world. They are standardized. Criticism on standardization and also on rationality of planning. 
  • Seen like a state, James Scott. article. Modernist architecture and how it translates ideas of predictability. 
  • Pick up actors. For example, Harvey on fragmentation. Scott on standardization and heritage. And then see where these come together. This is the framework.

Finding limitations:

  • Start with Lefebvre and problematize it.
    • Brought our attention the importance of rhythm, relating to everyday life of social self. However this contribution is difficult to use empirically.
    • The concept of rhythm remains to be underdeveloped. Does he talk about sounds in the city, movements or architecture?
    • I’m inspired by his descriptions but it doesn’t satisfy me as concept. 
  • What you identify as a gap is Lefebvre’s method. Become super interdisciplinary to fill in that gap.

About rhythm:

  • Urban processes happen in great complexity. How can we develop rhythm that it can be understood to define urban processes?
  • What is the quality of rhythm? 
  • Rhythm has attention in different areas of research. One example of each field that matters. Lefebvre can be one, sirish. 3 main perspectives on rhythm. 
  • What is the theory of rhythm in the built environment?
  • Built element, materiality, scale, shape, material itself. 
    • Find architecture Kelly Esterling. The politics of infrastructure and the network ecology. 
  • Routine vs contingency is an important dimension. We are going from routinised, schedules to flexibility. 
  • Venturi and Scott-Brown.
  • None of them talk systematically about rhythm. This can also be stated as a problem.
  • Framing rhythm is my contribution. Pulling out and making clear elements of rhythm, which the other authors and scholars did not see as such. Convince the reader that it is possible to see the rhythm, by explaining the elements and structures that have rhythm.
  • Find specific aspects of rhythm as concept. Theoretical construct and take it to a place to apply it there.
  • Rhythm in space - look at public space, how they are rhythmically organized. Types of interaction, daily rhythms of life. 

Data Science:

  • Data science, as urban analysis, is used for making decisions in cities. How can rhythm perspective of the city influence also data collection? Behavior of the people is trying to be identified.
  • Go back to base rhythm. How do buildings form a base? What type of social activities sound as base? Not all sounds that come together constitute a base. What is the one? 
  • Is there actually an alignment? Maybe show that there are different bases for different people. We look at the rhythm, and not population. We show each rhythm generates its own demographics. Pet owners’ rhythm, for example. 

Zuioost:

  • See Zuidoost as different rhythms produced by different bodies. 
  • What does having a rhythm enable people to do? 
  • Rhythm of life may call for smaller steps and different lengths of connections. And create impact on social life. The people who don’t use bikes have a different idea of the city. 
  • Pattern is synchronic. Rhythm is diachronic. 
  • A square in the city is a rhythmic structure. 
  • About standardization: superimposed pattern vs base rhythm. 
  • Discussion of what holds things together is also about how and what elements constitute base. Does the coming together of all elements also arrive to a base or is it the scale and specific elements being proportionally close to each other establishes a base? 

Defining a framework:

  • Discuss different aspects of rhythm and how they can be expressed spatially. 
  • 3 perspectives on rhythm. Describe in them what is the main message. 
    • pattern
    • experience
    • Connectivity
  • An option is to place those 4 dimensions of open set.Â