This morning was our first meeting with Thom Mayne for Research Studio. Our meetings will occur every Saturday morning at the office of Morphosis. The project is a critique of New Urbanism and a return to the ideas of Team 10- an urban planning/ architecture group from the 1970s. Outside of the New Urbanists, Thom sees not much being done in the development of urban planning since the 70s. Rem Koolhaas's criticisms point to a similar reconsideration of 70s planning.
The project will be planning one of the satellite cities that is developing around the city of Madrid. The city is developing in a nodal, networking pattern similar to Los Angeles. In February we will travel to Madrid for a week to investigate the site, meet with the mayor and other city officials as well as meet with local architects like Rafael Moneo. The 14 students in the studio all seemed very excited by today's meeting as Thom is really into the project for this year and is devoting resources from Morphosis towards the endeavor.
