Flow Garden: On Paths of Least Resistance
By: Lucille D. Ynosencio
B. D. Bachelor of Design
University of Florida 2003
Submitted to the Department of Architecture
In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the degree of
MASTER OF ARCHITECTURE
at the
MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
June 2009
@2009 Lucille D. Ynosencio. All rights reserved. The author hereby grants to MIT permission to reproduce and to distribute publicly
paper and electronic copies of this thesis document in whole or in part in any medium now know or hereafter created.
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Certified By:.
Accepted By:
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Lucille D.Ynosencio
Department of Architecture
February 10' 2009
Mark Goulthorpe
Associate Professor of Design
Thesis Supervisor
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Julian Beinart
Professor of Architecture
Chair of the Department Committee on Graduate Students
THESIS COMMITTEE:
Mark Goulthorpe
Associate Professor of Design
Thesis Supervisor
Meejin Yoon
Associate Professor of Architecture
Reader
Flow Garden
On Paths of Least Resistance
by
Lucille D. Ynosencio
Submitted to the Department of Architecture on February 10, 2009
in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements
of the Degree of Master of Architecture
ABSTRACT
Flow Garden is a proposal for a park architecture in which building becomes pathway. The project conceives of the building as an instrument within its
larger urban context which has the capacity to strengthen and unify fragmented public space. The project does so by collecting and articulating all possible
wanderings within a public park strategically located adjacent to Downtown Orlando, Florida. The strategy employed in Flow Garden is an inversion of the
architectural strategies of its many neighboring theme parks which set a precedent for the building to operate both as an obstacle and as a spectacle within
its broader urban context. This thesis represents a search for an architecture in which the building, rather than being a monumental rupture in the public
realm, is instead, a formula for its completion.
Thesis Supervisor: Mark Goulthorpe
Title: Associate Professor of Design
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS:
Thank you to my beloved family, my dear friends, and my brilliant teachers.
CONTENTS
Introduction
Site Analysis
Form Finding
Proposal
Bibliography
INTRODUCTION: Theme Park, USA
The context for this thesis is highly charged. It is the realm of the
visitors present daily. 2 While the parks are able to charge admission ($71 for
mouse. The project is a public park within Orlando, Florida. The city of Orlan-
the right to spend one day in one of Disney's four parks), the city of Orlando
do has the distinction, perhaps a curse, perhaps an overwhelming privilege,
has no such fee. 3 Thus, raising funds to accommodate the extra burden
of being the nearest major city to the economic and mass culture goliath of
placed on the city's infrastructure is far more difficult and far less straight
the Reedy Creek Improvement District-a pseudo-city otherwise known as:
forward.
Walt Disney World.
The city's most substantial neighbor, while perhaps being the Hap-
Since the arrival of Disney World, Central Florida has become one
of the largest tourist destinations in the world, with an annual tourist population of more than forty-seven million people.
1
Disney is not the only draw for
piest Place on Earth, is also a successful global corporation. As such, Disney
has perfected the art of expansion, employing this art to absorb all identifiable niches in the market. In addition to having the resources of an enor-
these visitors. Sea World, Discovery Cove, Universal Studios, Wet N' Wild,
mous corporation, within the state of Florida, Disney has the added advan-
and Busch Gardens are several more pleasure parks which collectively de-
tage in the pursuit of its business objectives, of falling outside of the rules and
fine the region as Theme Park Central. When combined with the presence of
regulations of its competitors. In Married to the Mouse, Richard Foglesong
The Kennedy Space Center, Cocoa Beach, Daytona Beach, Tampa Bay, and
describes powers signed into law on behalf of Disney by the Florida State
the White Sand Beaches of the Gulf Coast, Orlando finds itself located at the
government, and the challenges these powers pose for the local non-Disney
center of a tourist mecca,
government and economy: The Reedy Creek District (a.k.a Disney World)
The relationship of the city of Orlando with the major corporations
was given its own
that have set up camp nearby is a complex one. While there are benefits to
the masses which the tourist industries are able to draw, the city must bear
private government, a sort of Vatican with Mouse Ears, with powers
the weight of the extra traffic and services needed to support the 500,000
and immunities that exceed nearby Orlando's... [Disney Co.] has
1Metropolitan Orlando. A Case for Local Option Rental Car Surcharge. (Orlando FL:
21bid.
Metropolitan Orlando, 2006), p. 14.
3
Henthorn, Dawn. About.com: Florida Travel: Walt Disney World Ticket Information.
http://goflorida.about.com/cs/Disneyworld/a/wdw_tickets.htm
~it.00
1 Busch Gardens
District
Disney Property
,f
2 Walt Disney World
3 Sea World
4 Wet n'Wild
5 Universal Studios
6 World's Largest McDonalds
7 WonderWorkS
8 Ron Jon's
used its powers and immunities to acquire a competitive advantage
a full half of its annual visitors, and was eventually foreclosed. 6
The story of Church Street Station is telling of the somersaults
over other entertainment and hotel companies, building nightclubs
private government, a sort of Vatican with Mouse Ears, with powers
which businesses in competition with Disney and the other large entertain-
and immunities that exceed nearby Orlando's... [Disney Co.] has
ment industries of the region must perform in order to remain vital. It is a Las
used its powers and immunities to acquire a competitive advantage
Vegas, or Times Square environment, in which the architecture of the place
over other entertainment and hotel companies, building nightclubs
has begun to take part in an economic competition. A competition for dollars
and hotels on a scale never contemplated in their original govern-
becomes a competition to out-spectacle one's neighbor. International Drive,
ment charter. Their immunities have impeded local government's ab-
located between Orlando and Disney World, is a perfect example. On Inter-
ility to manage growth, even as Disney competes with surrounding
national Drive, a person describing having seen an upside-down building
governments for convention business, tourist spending, retail and
is not exaggerating. If this person were to mention their sighting to a local:
professional office space, and entertainment venues.
4
the local would reply, which one? Up the Street from the two upside-down
buildings (not to be confused with the off-kilter Ripley's Believe-it-Or-Not)
The dangers of doing business within the vicinity of a mega-corpo-
and a pink castle (again, not to be confused with the decidedly un-pink Skull
ration that has been given special powers by the state, is made clear by the
Kingdom castle around the corner), is the world's largest McDonald's Play
coming and going of Church Street Station. Church Street Station was once a
Place-in the appropriate form of a box of French Fries. Welcome to Theme
collection of night clubs, bars and restaurants located in Downtown Orlando,
Park Central. Welcome to America.
and the fourth largest tourist destination in the state of Florida. 5 However,
with the opening of Downtown Disney, the once successful social center lost
4
Foglesong, Richard. Married to the Mouse: Walt Disney World and Orlando. (New
Haven: Yale University Press, 2001), p.6.
5 Church Street Station Chronology. (OrlandoSentinal.com: 2007), http://www.orlandosentinel.com/business/orl-churchstreet-chronology, 0,1980404.story
61bid.
The Skull Castle Foreshadows its own Demise
Spectacle is War. The Newer, the Bigger, the
Brighter will make way for the Newer, the ever
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Bigger, and the ever Brighter. There will be
casualties.
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Skull Kingdom versus it's neighbors:
The Pink Castle.
The Big Pink Castle.
The Even Bigger Castle + Fire Power
INTRODUCTION: Banality is Camouflage
The architecture within the city of Orlando itself is far more banal
and by the shadow of the anything but banal spectacle that is Disney. One
than that which I have described above. It is an architecture of stucco,
might make an ontological argument that Orlando is visible because it is
of painted concrete, and of reflective glass towers. The stucco of the city
Disney, and for the world, it is-but for the two million residents of the greater
extends endlessly outward to the stucco of the suburbs and the exurbs.
Metropolitan area of Orlando, the city has an independent identity from its
Orlando is a classic sprawl city. T.D. Allman, a journalist for the National
theme park neighbors located to the south, the largest of which wanted so
Geographic, describes his encounter with "the moving edge of Orlando:"
much to be hermetically sealed off from the world outside, that it self-con-
"Fifteen miles southwest of downtown, I reached the latest spot where cen-
sciously bermed itself in. It is said that Walt Disney never forgave himself for
tral Florida's population explosion has turned wilderness into tract housing
not making Disneyland in California big enough.3 His original theme park, the
overnight. If the moon were ever settled, this is how it would be done. Whole
Disneyland of southern California, covered fewer than 300 acres and "soon
neighborhoods, consisting of hundreds of houses, arrived here instantly." 7
was ringed with the suburban blight that its success inevitably attracted-motels, strip malls, copycat amusement parks...but in Florida, [Disney] hoped
The big and growing sprawl, checker-boarded by strip mall streets,
to rectify that mistake." 9 He covertly purchased 28,000 acres "so that every
creates an architectural landscape to which Jean Nouvel might have
approach to the magic kingdom came through an elegant landscape of
been referring when he said, "What I personally like about American
curved roads that permitted brief tantalizing peeks at the familiar icons of
cities, even if one wouldn't cite them as models - is that you can go
a Disney domain." 10 The strategy was effective. While a reality communi-
through them without thinking about the architecture... in terms of their
cated by advertisements has the power to condense an entire state, region,
actual presence, those cities, as pure event, pure object, avoid the
or country into one homogenous representation, the on-the-ground reality of
pretense of self conscious architecture." 8
Central Florida, as in the rest of the world, is a heterogeneous one-a quality
And so it does. Orlando, as a city, renders itself invisible to the world
'Allman, T.D. The Theme-Park Megachurching, Franchising, Exurbing, McMansion-
guaranteed it by Walt Disney himself,
9 Allman.
ing of America: How Walt Changed Everything. (National Geographic.com, 2007),
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0703/feature4/
10 Harris, Neal "Expository Expositions: Preparing for the Theme Parks," in Designing
Disney's Theme Parks: The Architecture of Reassurance. (Montreal: Canadian Centre
8
Jean Baudrillard and Jean Nouvel, The Singular Objects of Architecture. (Minneapo-
lis: University of Minnesota Press, 2002), p. 12.
for Architecture), p.85.
Evolving Battle Field:
The Broken Rule Becomes the Status Quo
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The Spectacle defines itself by contrast. If
there are rules, it wishes to break them. But
when contrast is the rule, the spectacle has
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become the status quo. In order to survive
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in the evolving battle field, the spectacle
must remain agile.
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The Off Kilter Ripley's Believe-it-or-Not, the Upside-Down WonderWorks, and the Also Upside-Down HardRock Vault
ill
INTRODUCTION: THE SITE
Lake Eola: Facing East
Lake Eola: Facing West
INTRODUCTION: THE SITE
The selected site for the project, Lake Eola Park, is the social hub
of Orlando, and the city's most iconic location. The park, which occupies a
forty-three acre block, was founded around a sink-hole turned scenic lake
located just east of Orlando's relatively petite downtown high-rise district. 1 3
Half of the park's acreage is water, occupiable via rentable Swan paddleboats. The other half of the park is stretched around the lake in the form of
a walking and jogging path nine tenths of a mile in length. The pedestrian
ruled green-scape of the park, while extensive, is rarely expansive. A cross
section sliced through virtually any point along the pedestrian trail would reveal a condition in which a park occupant remains in visual contact with both
the urban material of the surrounding city on one side, and the liquid plane of
the adjacent lake on his or her opposite side.
The iconic nature of the site is owed in part to the rare views it provides of the city. In the flat terrain that typifies Florida topography, an extreme
depth of field is the only mechanism outside of a helicopter or a tower top
position, in which a person can observe the city in panorama. Of these possibilities, only one can be utilized in a space given over to the public. Thus,
Lake Eola Park is significant as being the most suitable site for the public to
observe the city skyline. Here, like nowhere else, Orlando is front stage.
11 Debord, Guy. Society of the Spectacle. (Detroit: Black & Red, 1983), p. 2.
SITE ANALYSIS
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SITE ANALYSIS: SCALE COLLISION
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FORM FINDING: FRAGMENTED SPACE
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FORM FINDING: FALSE SUBORDINATION
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FORM FINDING: TREE CHAMBERS
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FORM FINDING: PATHS OF LEAST RESISTANCE
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FORM FINDING: MATERIAL FLOWS
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FORM FINDING: ALL POSSIBLE WANDERINGS
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FORM FINDING: MATERIAL WANDERINGS
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PROPOSAL: FLOW GARDEN
Flow Garden is an architecture of false subordination. The project, a public
park, is situated alongside the Downtown core of Orlando, FL. Serving as the
social hub of the city, the project seeks to strengthen the potencies of the existing park, which has served as an island of green pedestrian territory within
a city ruled by car and concrete. The current site possesses one slender pedestrian loop that threads its way around the site's periphery. Flow Garden
releases the space of the park beyond the territory of that single line, subjugating all negative space to the logic of flow. The result is a single unending
space --an archiscape dedicated to the wanderings of the collective.
36
PROPOSAL: FLOW GARDEN
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PROPOSAL: BITS AND PIECES
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PROPOSAL: TREE CHAMBERS
A Potency of the Site Revealed: Places of Flow Frame Spaces to Gather.
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PROPOSAL: IN THE CANOPY
The project confirms the stratified organization of the space of the park while
giving access to the previously inacessible tree canopy and sky levels.
PROPOSAL: SKY PATH
There is a horizontality implicit in the deep wide views created by the lake.
The form of the project relates to and emphasizes that horizontality.
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PROPOSAL: MATERIAL FLOWS
The intervention of the elevated pathways actively frames/defines public
spaces of gathering. It does so with the participation of the existing landscape.
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BIBLIOGRAPHY
Allman, T.D. "The Theme-Park Megachurching, Franchising, Exurbing, McMansioning of America: How
Walt Changed Everything." National Geographic, March, 2007
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0703/feature4/ (accessed May 2008).
Baudrillard, Jean and Jean Nouvel. The Singular Objects of Architecture. Minneapolis: University of
Minnesota Press, 2002.
Debord, Guy. Society of the Spectacle. Detroit: Black & Red, 1983.
Dixon, Steve and Barry Smith. "Liveness" Digital Performance: A history of New Media in Theater, Dance,
Performance Art, and Installation. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 2007.
Foglesong, Richard. Married to the Mouse: Walt Disney World and Orlando. New Haven: Yale University
Press, 2001.
Harris, Neal. "Expository Expositions: Preparing for the Theme Parks," Designing Disney's Theme Parks:
The Architecture of Reassurance. Ed. Karal Ann Marling. Montreal: Canadian Centre for Architecture, 1997.
Metropolitan Orlando. A Case for Local Option Rental Car Surcharge. Orlando, FL: Metropolitan Orlando, 2006.