T F Tierney | University of California, Berkeley (original) (raw)
Papers by T F Tierney
Journal of Urban History, Oct 5, 2023
Ladera, a postwar interracial housing cooperative, provides a compelling look at 1940s housing po... more Ladera, a postwar interracial housing cooperative, provides a compelling look at 1940s housing policies, exposing cultural norms of race in state lending structures. In contrast with most midcentury suburban developments, Ladera was architecturally progressive in design and egalitarian in scope, open to all regardless of race, class, or creed. The research examines the innovative planning and fiscal features of the community, followed by an explication of the 1940s lending landscape and state-sponsored financing process that ultimately reshaped Ladera's development. As a necessary corrective to established narratives of California's housing policies, this study reveals the influential intersection of racial and class dynamics prior to Palo Alto's eventual transformation into the nexus of Silicon Valley, exposing the critical preconditions that produced the sprawling, segregated technopolis of today. The cooperative's history is analyzed through archival materials, including the cooperative's records, personal journals, architectural drawings, and the FHA's internal memos and correspondence.
Journal of Urban History, 2023
Ladera, a postwar interracial housing cooperative, provides a compelling look at 1940s housing po... more Ladera, a postwar interracial housing cooperative, provides a compelling look at 1940s housing policies, exposing cultural norms of race in state lending structures. In contrast with most midcentury suburban developments, Ladera was architecturally progressive in design and egalitarian in scope, open to all regardless of race, class, or creed. The research examines the innovative planning and fiscal features of the community, followed by an explication of the 1940s lending landscape and state-sponsored financing process that ultimately reshaped Ladera's development. As a necessary corrective to established narratives of California's housing policies, this study reveals the influential intersection of racial and class dynamics prior to Palo Alto's eventual transformation into the nexus of Silicon Valley, exposing the critical preconditions that produced the sprawling, segregated technopolis of today. The cooperative's history is analyzed through archival materials, including the cooperative's records, personal journals, architectural drawings, and the FHA's internal memos and correspondence.
Architecture_MPS
In August 2015, Google reorganized its various interests as a conglomerate called Alphabet Inc. U... more In August 2015, Google reorganized its various interests as a conglomerate called Alphabet Inc. Under the new umbrella, Google’s search, data aggregation, and advertising subsidiaries, were joined by Sidewalk Lab and its suite of urban products: high-speed broadband services, Android Pixel2 phone, mobile mapping, autonomous cars, artificial intelligence, smart homes, and all the data captured therein. The City of Toronto’s recent award to Alphabet’s Sidewalk Lab for design services has sparked a heated controversy among urban planners and citizens alike. Toronto’s decision not only signals a different model of professional practice, but it also represents a conceptual shift away from citizen to urban consumer. By engaging a private technology company, one that passively captures data on its customers and then re-sales that data to third parties, Toronto’s smart city points to a significant change in the understanding and practice of contemporary urban planning and design. Acknowledg...
Architecture and Culture, 2019
While acknowledging the city as a site of disciplinary and technological disruption, this paper i... more While acknowledging the city as a site of disciplinary and technological disruption, this paper introduces Bratton's stack theory as a way to understand smart cities more generally, and Waterfront Toronto specifically. We build on Bratton's position by closely examining twenty-first century histories and anthropologies related to the internet, privacy, and the dominance of big data. Our principal concern is with the transformation of personal and environmental data into an economic resource. Seen through that particular lens, we argue that Toronto's smart city has internalized relations of colonization whereby the economic objectives of a multinational technology company take on new configurations at a local level of human (and non-human) information extraction-thereby restructuring not only public land, but also everyday life into a zone of unmitigated consumption.
Leonardo, 2003
Regarding Edward Shanken's essay, "Art in the Information Age: Technology and Conceptual Art" (Le... more Regarding Edward Shanken's essay, "Art in the Information Age: Technology and Conceptual Art" (Leonardo 35, No. 4, pp. 433-438, 2002), I believe that rigid boundaries do little to deepen understanding of the art movements of the late 1960s and early 1970s. Instead these ...
Thresholds 41: MIT Press, Cambridge MA, Spring 2013
Leonardo: Journal of the International Society for Arts, Sciences, Technology. MIT Press; Cambridge MA. , 2007
Leonardo: Journal of the International Society for Arts, Sciences, Technology. MIT Press; Cambridge MA, Jun 2013
Technologies of space, information and power are integral aspects of cartography that have seriou... more Technologies of space, information and power are integral aspects of cartography that have serious implications for the legibility and accessibility of a city. This project develops the concept in three phases: first, a theoretical discussion of urban representation traced to historical notions of the commons; second, a description of research methodologies and summary of findings exposing a critical information inequality. Third, the author outlines a locative media intervention as a design response.
Architectural Design, 2006
For decades, the MIT Media Lab has been a centre of innovative and highly influential research on... more For decades, the MIT Media Lab has been a centre of innovative and highly influential research on emerging technologies, including responsive and interactive sensing systems, software programming and forms of artificial intelligence, and robotic design and communication systems for new forms of knowledge production and distribution. Therese Tierney writes about several aspects of the Media Lab's research, including the current work of John Maeda, as well as the work of collaborators such as CEB Reas and Ben Fry, who she argues are developing work in new and sophisticated directions. She positions this work within the larger thematic of collective intelligence by addressing the particularly social forms of practice and the necessary connection to intelligent software and sensing technologies. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Books by T F Tierney
Within the book's visually imaginative design framework, Abstract Space engages discourses from a... more Within the book's visually imaginative design framework, Abstract Space engages discourses from architecture, visual and cultural studies to computer science and communications technology to present an in-depth study on contemporary architectural imaging. Tracing a provisional history of the topic, the book also lends a provocative and multivalent understanding to the complex relations affecting the architectural image today.
Social media is restructuring urban practices–through ad-hoc experimentation, commercial software... more Social media is restructuring urban practices–through ad-hoc experimentation, commercial software development, and communities of participation. This book is the first to consider how practices contained within social media are situated within a larger genealogy of public space, including theories of communal identity, civitas and democracy, the fete, and self-expression. Through empirical research, the actual social practices of participants of networked publics are described and analyzed.
Documenting how online counterpublics use the Internet to transmit classified photos, mobilize activists, and challenge the status quo, Tierney argues that online activities do not stop in online conversations; they are physically grounded through mobile GPS coordinates which are then transformed into activities in physical space—the street, the plaza, the places where people have traditionally gathered to demonstrate and express their opinions publicly.
The twin revolutions of the global economy and omnipresent Internet connectivity have had a profo... more The twin revolutions of the global economy and omnipresent Internet connectivity have had a profound impact on architectural design. Geographical gaps and, in many cases, architecture's tie to the built world itself have evaporated in the face of our new networked society. Form is now conceptualized by architects, engineers, and artists as reflexive, contingent, and distributed. The collected essays in Network Practices capture this unique moment in the evolution of design, where crossing disciplines, spatial interactions, and design practices are all poised to be reimagined. With contributions by architects, artists, computer programmers, and theorists and texts by Reinhold Martin, Mark Wigley, Dagmar Richter, Michael Speaks, and others, Network Practices offers an interdisciplinary analysis of how art, science, and architecture are responding to rapidly changing mobile, wireless, and information embedded environments.
The Architectural Review by T F Tierney
Journal of Urban History, Oct 5, 2023
Ladera, a postwar interracial housing cooperative, provides a compelling look at 1940s housing po... more Ladera, a postwar interracial housing cooperative, provides a compelling look at 1940s housing policies, exposing cultural norms of race in state lending structures. In contrast with most midcentury suburban developments, Ladera was architecturally progressive in design and egalitarian in scope, open to all regardless of race, class, or creed. The research examines the innovative planning and fiscal features of the community, followed by an explication of the 1940s lending landscape and state-sponsored financing process that ultimately reshaped Ladera's development. As a necessary corrective to established narratives of California's housing policies, this study reveals the influential intersection of racial and class dynamics prior to Palo Alto's eventual transformation into the nexus of Silicon Valley, exposing the critical preconditions that produced the sprawling, segregated technopolis of today. The cooperative's history is analyzed through archival materials, including the cooperative's records, personal journals, architectural drawings, and the FHA's internal memos and correspondence.
Journal of Urban History, 2023
Ladera, a postwar interracial housing cooperative, provides a compelling look at 1940s housing po... more Ladera, a postwar interracial housing cooperative, provides a compelling look at 1940s housing policies, exposing cultural norms of race in state lending structures. In contrast with most midcentury suburban developments, Ladera was architecturally progressive in design and egalitarian in scope, open to all regardless of race, class, or creed. The research examines the innovative planning and fiscal features of the community, followed by an explication of the 1940s lending landscape and state-sponsored financing process that ultimately reshaped Ladera's development. As a necessary corrective to established narratives of California's housing policies, this study reveals the influential intersection of racial and class dynamics prior to Palo Alto's eventual transformation into the nexus of Silicon Valley, exposing the critical preconditions that produced the sprawling, segregated technopolis of today. The cooperative's history is analyzed through archival materials, including the cooperative's records, personal journals, architectural drawings, and the FHA's internal memos and correspondence.
Architecture_MPS
In August 2015, Google reorganized its various interests as a conglomerate called Alphabet Inc. U... more In August 2015, Google reorganized its various interests as a conglomerate called Alphabet Inc. Under the new umbrella, Google’s search, data aggregation, and advertising subsidiaries, were joined by Sidewalk Lab and its suite of urban products: high-speed broadband services, Android Pixel2 phone, mobile mapping, autonomous cars, artificial intelligence, smart homes, and all the data captured therein. The City of Toronto’s recent award to Alphabet’s Sidewalk Lab for design services has sparked a heated controversy among urban planners and citizens alike. Toronto’s decision not only signals a different model of professional practice, but it also represents a conceptual shift away from citizen to urban consumer. By engaging a private technology company, one that passively captures data on its customers and then re-sales that data to third parties, Toronto’s smart city points to a significant change in the understanding and practice of contemporary urban planning and design. Acknowledg...
Architecture and Culture, 2019
While acknowledging the city as a site of disciplinary and technological disruption, this paper i... more While acknowledging the city as a site of disciplinary and technological disruption, this paper introduces Bratton's stack theory as a way to understand smart cities more generally, and Waterfront Toronto specifically. We build on Bratton's position by closely examining twenty-first century histories and anthropologies related to the internet, privacy, and the dominance of big data. Our principal concern is with the transformation of personal and environmental data into an economic resource. Seen through that particular lens, we argue that Toronto's smart city has internalized relations of colonization whereby the economic objectives of a multinational technology company take on new configurations at a local level of human (and non-human) information extraction-thereby restructuring not only public land, but also everyday life into a zone of unmitigated consumption.
Leonardo, 2003
Regarding Edward Shanken's essay, "Art in the Information Age: Technology and Conceptual Art" (Le... more Regarding Edward Shanken's essay, "Art in the Information Age: Technology and Conceptual Art" (Leonardo 35, No. 4, pp. 433-438, 2002), I believe that rigid boundaries do little to deepen understanding of the art movements of the late 1960s and early 1970s. Instead these ...
Thresholds 41: MIT Press, Cambridge MA, Spring 2013
Leonardo: Journal of the International Society for Arts, Sciences, Technology. MIT Press; Cambridge MA. , 2007
Leonardo: Journal of the International Society for Arts, Sciences, Technology. MIT Press; Cambridge MA, Jun 2013
Technologies of space, information and power are integral aspects of cartography that have seriou... more Technologies of space, information and power are integral aspects of cartography that have serious implications for the legibility and accessibility of a city. This project develops the concept in three phases: first, a theoretical discussion of urban representation traced to historical notions of the commons; second, a description of research methodologies and summary of findings exposing a critical information inequality. Third, the author outlines a locative media intervention as a design response.
Architectural Design, 2006
For decades, the MIT Media Lab has been a centre of innovative and highly influential research on... more For decades, the MIT Media Lab has been a centre of innovative and highly influential research on emerging technologies, including responsive and interactive sensing systems, software programming and forms of artificial intelligence, and robotic design and communication systems for new forms of knowledge production and distribution. Therese Tierney writes about several aspects of the Media Lab's research, including the current work of John Maeda, as well as the work of collaborators such as CEB Reas and Ben Fry, who she argues are developing work in new and sophisticated directions. She positions this work within the larger thematic of collective intelligence by addressing the particularly social forms of practice and the necessary connection to intelligent software and sensing technologies. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Within the book's visually imaginative design framework, Abstract Space engages discourses from a... more Within the book's visually imaginative design framework, Abstract Space engages discourses from architecture, visual and cultural studies to computer science and communications technology to present an in-depth study on contemporary architectural imaging. Tracing a provisional history of the topic, the book also lends a provocative and multivalent understanding to the complex relations affecting the architectural image today.
Social media is restructuring urban practices–through ad-hoc experimentation, commercial software... more Social media is restructuring urban practices–through ad-hoc experimentation, commercial software development, and communities of participation. This book is the first to consider how practices contained within social media are situated within a larger genealogy of public space, including theories of communal identity, civitas and democracy, the fete, and self-expression. Through empirical research, the actual social practices of participants of networked publics are described and analyzed.
Documenting how online counterpublics use the Internet to transmit classified photos, mobilize activists, and challenge the status quo, Tierney argues that online activities do not stop in online conversations; they are physically grounded through mobile GPS coordinates which are then transformed into activities in physical space—the street, the plaza, the places where people have traditionally gathered to demonstrate and express their opinions publicly.
The twin revolutions of the global economy and omnipresent Internet connectivity have had a profo... more The twin revolutions of the global economy and omnipresent Internet connectivity have had a profound impact on architectural design. Geographical gaps and, in many cases, architecture's tie to the built world itself have evaporated in the face of our new networked society. Form is now conceptualized by architects, engineers, and artists as reflexive, contingent, and distributed. The collected essays in Network Practices capture this unique moment in the evolution of design, where crossing disciplines, spatial interactions, and design practices are all poised to be reimagined. With contributions by architects, artists, computer programmers, and theorists and texts by Reinhold Martin, Mark Wigley, Dagmar Richter, Michael Speaks, and others, Network Practices offers an interdisciplinary analysis of how art, science, and architecture are responding to rapidly changing mobile, wireless, and information embedded environments.