Parasites: Shaping the Image of the City

By Abdel-moniem El-Shorbagy

One of the most emerging and controversial social issues in the 21st century is ‘Parasitic Structures,’ which began to underpin its presence within the existing urban environment. Parasites in the city refer to various forms of individual interventions that are implanted in the fabric of the city and have an impact on the visual character of its cityscape and urban context. These forms include a parasitic addition to an existing structure, reconstructed in-between spaces in the urban fabric, and parasitic graffiti. However, this book grounds itself on the act of these different forms of parasites since they form a robust architectural discourse that inspires alternative spatial configurations within the urban fabric. The book also intends to allow the readers to trace the development of the notion of parasitic, and explore the potential of the visual continuity of the parasitic components within its physical, social, and cultural context.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookRix
• Release date: Dec 21, 2020
• ISBN: 9783748769095

Book preview

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PARASITES

Shaping the Image of the City

Content

1. Introduction

2. The Origin of the Term Parasite

3. Parasitic Architecture

4. Parasitic Architecture Behavior

5. Early Parasitic Architecture

6. Parasitic Housing in the 21st Century

7. Parasitic Public and Commercial Buildings in the 21st Century

8. Parasites in the Urban Environment

9. Parasitic Graffiti

10. Graffiti in Urban Contexts

11. Conclusion

1. Introduction

The 20thcentury has witnessed the development of many remarkable architectural movements, approaches, and tendencies, including modern and late-modern architecture, postmodern architecture, deconstruction, and parametric architecture. These movements and approaches introduced different architectural styles, which have a tremendous effect on the forms of buildings and the visual appearance of the fabric of cities. However, cities have experienced a significant change and transformation in the way buildings are constructed and the characteristics of the built form. These contemporary transformation processes likely affected people’s aesthetic preferences and the way they perceive and interpret the change in buildings’ form and the urban context in the city. Change in the visual character of a city might be perceived as a significant factor that provides value to the urban environment. In his ‘The Image of the City’, Kevin Lynch (1960) argues that for any given city, a corresponding set of images takes place in the minds of the people who experience that city. He also believed that a city would never be complete because of the constant change in its morphological level.

Buildings with blank exterior walls and the unbuilt in-between spaces in the city became relevant for accommodating the parasitic structures. Although these inserted pods would create an increase in the density of the city, the inhabitants might be more linked together, as well as social sustainability would be developed. Also, these vacant in-between spaces have been the subject of several academic discourses. Merten Nefs discussed the role of unused urban spaces in city planning and the production