ABSTRACT
An infrastructure model of managing large, complex systems is introduced and discussed as a natural response when projects – buildings and neighborhoods or building complexes – become ever larger and involve an increasing number of players. When that happens, centralization of control doesn’t work, and tasks are separated. Control is distributed and design tasks (as well as the work of construction, management, finance, regulation and upkeep) are ‘partitioned’ accordingly. Task separation reduces risk to any one party, keeps the system operational while parts are put off-line for replacement or upgrading, and assures optimal capacity to meet evolving technical or performance standards, spurs innovation, meets user expectations and lowers costs.
This is what the Open Building approach to large-scale residential development projects accomplishes. The means, to achieve these goals is to make each dwelling in a multi-occupant or attached building typology fully independent. Each dwelling should be able to adjust, be replaced or altered independent of other dwellings in the same building. This is the same independence we take for granted in detached dwellings, the most prevalent typology everywhere in the world. Detached dwellings are attractive because they reduce potential points of friction between neighbors and enable independent action and responsibility in the context of a ‘commons’ that respects community norms. With increased density, more technical, social and legal boundary frictions arise. Enabling the independence of each dwelling helps to establish dwellings as the basic cell in a living urban tissue capable of regenerating itself over time.
