The Interactionist City

THE INTERACTIONIST CITY

The demolition of Ray Bradbury’s house in the Cheviot Hills section of Los Angeles in January set off a flurry of commentary over a variety of social media.  At the heart of it there seemed to be a common theme: people don’t want to see their city change.  Each time a building we love is torn down, our hearts break just a little.  How do we deal with the anxiety over the changing city?  Conventional theories of urban development do not offer a satisfying answer, nor do architectural histories, which treat the evolution of the built environment as a succession of styles tied to political or economic trends or, alternatively, to a particular lineage of architectural icons operating within the context of that city.

In the final analysis, these approaches are inherently retrospective and thus insufficient in apprehending change as it happens.   A closer, more sustained look reveals that cities evolve not in a series of large movements but in small, incremental ones – in fact, very small: it turns out that a city evolves building by building.  Each project, no matter how seemingly insignificant, changes the city just a little. Furthermore, each building is the product of a specific interaction of particular individuals, one that bears imprint of each participant, and thus a unique response to economic, social, or programmatic imbalance perceived by each of those individuals.  The city is constantly evolving, creating not so much an archive of successive architects or styles as an archive of successive interactions.  Nowhere is this phenomenon more palpable than Los Angeles – where change almost always proceeds from the bottom up – which is why it might be called the Interactionist City.

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How do these interactions occur?  What initiates them?  In her book Acquiring Genomes late evolutionary biologist Lynn Margulis echoes the translation of Lord Kelvin’s second law of thermodynamics from physics to biology to be re-read as “Nature abhors a gradient.”  Applying this law to systems both living and non-living, she believed that all organisms are systems of systems in a flexible hierarchy occurring at all scales at all times time, each of which is concerned primarily with overcoming any gradient it perceives.  “we must begin thinking of organisms as communities,” she writes, ”and communities are ecological entities.”  She goes on to say, “As natural selection filters out the many to preserve the remaining few, those few ever more efficiently use environmental energy to ‘purposefully’ (her quotes) reduce their gradients.”

The importance of gradients is also emphasized by Nick Lane in his book, Life Ascending. In that volume he explain the work of Mike Russell, the iconoclastic scientist currently at Cal Tech’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, in particular his study of the sea vents in Tynagh, Ireland where he observed that  “bubbling alkaline fluids into acidic oceans produced a natural proton gradient” between carbon dioxide and hydrogen that, through chemiosmosis, created organic molecules as well as ATP, and eventually proteins and DNA, the building blocks of life itself.

Lane is convinced that if Russell and his colleagues are correct—and he thinks they are – that all life proceeds from such a gradient or imbalance; more, he contends that contrary to the conventional understanding of entropy, equilibrium is never achieved.  Instead, persistent imbalance is what fuels interactions in all systems, both living and non-living.  DNA, while remarkably good at replicating itself, does produce enough variation, generation by generation, to give evolution options when faced with imbalance.  Thus a species evolves, mutation by mutation, an iterative process that, like imbalance itself, never ends as each mutation is tested against the stark reality of natural selection.  This is something that is hardwired into the genes of all living things; but could it apply non-living systems as well?

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In a recent article in the Science Times section of The New York Times, George Johnson wrote an article, Creation, in the Eye of the Beholder, in which he states, “the brains and hands that design civilizations artifacts are products of the same evolutionary algorithm – random generation and testing” that drives evolution itself. 

Following this logic, then everything we produce would adhere to this algorithm, even things as ephemeral as stories.  In Hollywood movies, for example, the algorithm seems embedded in the standard story structure:  protagonists begin the story with an imbalance they are unaware of; they have a particular desire for something or someone but are blocked from access to it; a crisis occurs that takes them from their ordinary world; they attempt to return to it using whatever means are at their disposal, and yet fail each time; at the midpoint, they hit an obstacle that raises the stakes for them, making their goal even more desperate; they then embark on a new course of action that seems to hold promise – until it doesn’t – and the protagonists are defeated and hit bottom; it is at their lowest point, when they have lost all hope, that they have an epiphany; their goal shifts from pursuing what they thought they wanted to what they actually need.  They prepare themselves for battle, engage in a protracted final conflict, and emerge victorious. 

So, after a long and heated succession of trials and errors, a new equilibrium is established for a protagonist – one unimaginable at the outset – and balance is restored.   Great in movies, to be sure but – going back to Nick Lane – not in real life, where true equilibrium is never achieved.

Another window into the workings of this evolutionary algorithm can be seen in the field of entrepreneurial innovation.  MIT professor Eugene Fitzgerald, with colleagues Andreas Wankerl and Carl Schramm have identified a very specific process that they feel delivers innovation most efficiently.  In their book, Inside Real Innovation, they distinguish between “incremental innovation” and “fundamental innovation,” the former is more like fine-tuning an existing technology, the latter is more revolutionary.  Focusing on fundamental innovation, they identify a team made up of individuals – not groups – that must be in constant interaction for a true breakthrough to occur, each individual representing three different points of view and thus bringing their expertise to bear: technology, market, and implementation.

The person representing technology is most often an inventor of a new product or process that addresses a perceived imbalance and may or may not have an application; the person who represents the market is someone who understands what will work in the marketplace and how the technology might be embraced by the public at some point in the future; the person representing implementation is the one who knows how to connect the technology to the market, how to make the invention functional, and how to deliver it to the market.

What is compelling is how much importance is stressed on these three people interacting.  It is a long, often 15-year process to bring a technology to market, and that time is spent creating iteration after iteration then subjecting them to the critique of each member of the team.  Only if a product or process can survive this relentless gauntlet of judgment will it ever see the light of day.

The key point that they stress is that for the interaction to really work, each of the three team members first must respect each other; they must also have some awareness and experience of the other two points of view: it is rarely a productive interaction if one member is unable to compromise due to an inability to comprehend another’s stance.  That said, the other key point is that each of the team members must have a strongly-held opinion; and that they must fight for it.

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The creation of a building routinely undergoes a similar process: an interaction between the developer – who initiates the project due to a perceived imbalance in the market; the architect – who addresses programmatic problems through material and spatial manipulation; and the contractor – who negotiates between the aesthetic aspirations of the architect with the budget constraints of the developer.  The three participants do battle, all fighting for the best design according to their particular criteria. The building is the byproduct of this three-way conflict, and it is the accumulation of these byproducts that forms the city.

Thus, going back to Margulis, if all organisms are systems of systems in a flexible hierarchy occurring at all scales at all times time, each of which is concerned primarily with overcoming any gradient it perceives, then the city could be seen as such an organism.  Though most urban problems seem to be large in scale and largely unaddressed, the solutions seem to come from countless interactions that are small in scale and largely invisible to those not involved. 

Sustained observation reveals the Interactionist Protocol:

IMBALANCE (1)

An imbalance is perceived by an individual, which leads to an emotional reaction.

OPINION (2)

The emotional reaction induces an opinion as to how to address the perceived imbalance. 

ACTION (3)

The opinion often sparks a course of action; if the scale of that action requires it, an interaction is initiated.

INTERACTION (4)

The interaction proceeds, pitting criteria against criteria, most often through trial and error, toward a specific goal.

RESOLUTION (5)

The imbalance is resolved to the satisfaction of the interactors.

REPEAT (6)

A new imbalance is perceived and the process is repeated, more often than not by a new set of interactors.

While the goal is always to achieve a new equilibrium by solving a specific problem, this leads without fail to new problems at various scales and along different timelines. This aligns with Nick Lane’s concept of dynamic equilibrium, where true balance remains ever elusive.  In the Interactionist City, an imbalance could be misread, an opinion off base, an action inappropriate, an interaction hijacked by charisma or money – any of which would lead to an ineffective resolution and a new imbalance.

Is there a way to devise more comprehensive solutions that diminish the effect that changes to one system have on related systems?  Is there away to reduce subsequent imbalance?  Perhaps in the future, when the promise of the digital revolution is fully realized.  But today, in the Interactionist City, imbalance is welcomed because it sparks emotional reaction, transforms opinion into action, propels heated interaction, and compels us to make better – and more human – cities.

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In the end, the frenzy surrounding the demolition of Ray Bradbury’s house diminished considerably when it was learned that the person that bought the house was Thom Mayne of the architecture firm Morphosis.  Mayne, who is known for aggressive, iconoclastic work across the globe, was initially rumored to favor a design incongruous with the memory of Bradbury, the writer of such classics as Fahrenheit 451 and The Martian Chronicles.  Instead, a spokesperson for Morphosis stated that this was to be the Mayne’s own home and that it would be set in a garden with a wall surrounding it etched with an homage to Bradbury.  The building is scheduled to start construction in 2017.

Did the media attention to this incident influence Mayne’s design?  Doubtful. Given his history of mining deep context for design inspiration, it is no wonder that Mayne’s design already intended to honor the beloved author, though perhaps not in the way that local residents had hoped.   However, it was Mayne’s rhetoric that ultimately won them over, if not through the logic of the argument, then in creating the sudden and urgent need to flee his verbal quicksand while they still could.

Which goes to show that the anxiety of the changing city does diminish over time, eventually leading to acceptance of a new status quo – that is, until someone knocks down another cherished building and starts the cycle all over again.

OBSERVATIONS

1.         Imbalance occurs at all scales and at all times.  It can be physical (hunger), relational (infidelity), social (keeping up with the Joneses), economic (a business opportunity), political (an oppressive regime), even conceptual (architectural theory), etc.  When an imbalance is perceived and an emotional reaction takes place, it is often a primal, pre-verbal response.  The imbalance can be something as small as an itchy nose or as large as the rise in student debt, but the feeling generated is the same: the imbalance perceived by an individual requires action to be resolved. 

2.         Opinion emerges formed by criteria embedded within the individual’s egosystem – itself a system of systems bringing together the entire history of an individual’s experiences, traumas, education, relationships, etc.; Those criteria are thus an incomplete and potentially flawed, and are further compromised by the influence of affinity in all its forms. 

3.         In Microcosmos, Lynn Margulis with Dorion Sagan contend that all real change in a system occurs at a scale micro to it.  Talking about forest ecology, they argue that it is in the signaling and exchange within the microbiome at the forest floor – the fungi, algae, lichen, and other microorganisms – that the shapes what we see in the macrobiome – the trees, shrubs, the insects and fauna.

Building, Planning and Zoning codes outline the physical parameters of a project and the budget dictates the limits of the scope.  This might be analogous to the physical substructure of a forest: the bedrock, the mountains, the streams.   The socio-economic conditions (as defined by the business opportunity present divided by the gathered opinions of any and all in affected area) might be akin to the weather.  We then would form the microbiome of the city.  In the end it is the role of the critical interactors in the microbiome – the makeup of which differs with every project – to take in all opinions and form a sort of “criteria soup” that digests all of them into a coherent solution.  Thus is created the genome of things in which the DnA of all participants is present in the final product.

4.         Affinity can be very attractive.  We are drawn to things like us we like people places and things that reinforce our world-view.  Is affinity is the enemy of innovation? Affinity is a positive force when is brings people together to develop a common vision; but affinity that creates hostility between groups is counterproductive in the evolution of a city.  In the Interactionist City both can occur, but the primary arena where affinity is felt is in the interactions themselves.  Aspirational affinity will pull some to agree with those they admire, while the affinity of belonging will compel some people to buckle under merely to get along.

The main obstacle to an effective interaction is that people with opposing opinions will not listen to each other and would rather defend their criteria to protect their world view.  The fact is, people feel better when they are surrounded by evidence and opinions that support their world view.  However, certainty comes from fixed criteria, which inevitably leads to stasis.

William Goldman famously said, “No one knows anything,” which is as true for successful movies as it is for companies, relationships, or cities, because when they get too cumbersome to innovate, their criteria become fixed, therefore unable to adapt, blind to a changing reality. Success mixes with affinity to create an entity that it is so large it lacks agility and is less likely to alter criteria in response to prevailing conditions.   Affinity causes these entities to misread their environment both due to – and to reinforce – their outdated criteria.  However with each subsequent iteration in the Interactionist Protocol, the extent of the misreading diminishes. 

5.         The iterative process may reduce the misreading of current conditions by entities laden with bureaucratic inertia, yet — to borrow from Inside Real Innovation – it still produces more incremental than fundamental change.  True breakthrough comes when the shift occurs, when a new criteria emerges, which starts with an individual who sees things just a little differently and who trust his or her instincts enough to survive the inevitable counter-assault of affinity.

Should the role of affinity somehow be removed from the Interactionist Protocol to facilitate the acceptance of the new criteria?  The obvious answer would be yes; but since “nobody knows anything,” it might just be the inherent imbalance of affinity that inspires the innovator with the new criteria to fight even more passionately for the cause.  Perhaps it is in this battle that the innovator is able to fine-tune the new criteria until its inevitability becomes clear to all.

6.         Of course, cities move at a much slower pace.  Even with passion, even after a breakthrough new project is completed, urban equilibrium is never achieved.  In fact, even after a building is built, it is constantly adjusted to adapt to user needs, what Lars Lerup meant by “building the unfinished.”  But even so, as a city evolves – at all scales and at all times –  the microbiome is at work, ceaselessly, remaking itself, building by building.

REFERENCES

Aldo Rossi, Architecture of the City (MIT Press, 1982)

Reyner Banham, Los Angeles, The Architecture of Four Ecologies (Penguin, 1971)

Mike Davis, City of Quartz (Verso, 1990)

Norman M. Klein, The History of Forgetting (Verso 1997)

Dana Cuff, The Provisional City (MIT Press, 2000)

Doug Suisman, Los Angeles Boulevard (Los Angeles Forum for Architecture & Urban Design, 1989; ORO Editions 2014)

Kazys Varnelis, Editor, The Infrastructural City (Actar, 2008)

Manuel DeLanda, A New Philospohy of Society (Bloomsbury, 2006)

Lynn Margulis and Dorion Sagan, Acquiring Genomes (Basic Books, 2002)

Nick Lane, Life Ascending (Norton, 2009)

George Johnson, Creation, in the Eye of the Beholder (The New York Times, May 20, 2014)

Clayton M. Christiansen, The Innovator’s Dilemma, (Harper Business, 2010)

Eugene Fitzgerald, Andreas Wankerl, and Carl Schramm, Inside Real Innovation (World Scientific, 2011)

Margaret Heffernan, Willful Blindness (Bloomsbury, 2011)

Lynn Margulis and Dorion Sagan, Microcosmos (University of California Press, 1986)

Robert McKee, STORY (Harper Collins, 1997)

William Goldman, Adventures in the Screen Trade (Warner Books, 1983)

Lars Lerup, Building the Unfinished (Sage Library of Social Research, 1977)