The Why Factory, led by Dutch architect, urbanist, researcher Prof. Winy Maas, co-founder of MVRDV, has released its new book "PoroCity - Opening up Solidity", published as a manifesto for the introduction of the public realm into the private sphere of our cities.

Focusing on more open spaces in our vertical architecture and urbanism, the book provides various tools to make urban porosity socially, environmentally and economically valuable. 

Image © Frans Parthesius, The Why Factory/Delft University of Technology TU Delft

The book will officially be launched on 6 November, 17:45 at Delft University of Technology with a lecture of Prof. Winy Maas and will be available for sale from nai010 publishers.

It is the eleventh book of The Why Factory released after Copy Paste last year, alongside series, and follows Visionary Cities, The Why Factor(y), Green Dream, Vertical Village, Hong Kong Fantasies, City Shocks, We Want World Wonders, Absolute Leisure, Barba and Copy Paste. 

Held in an exclusive interview with Winy Maas in World Architecture Community last year, he deeply emphasized the mission of The Why Factory as a collective work. 

"The Why Factory offers a 'publication machinery' where somehow the things become more public and we don’t throw away all the work normally done in the universities," Maas added.

"95% of all the student works in all universities are not visible, and they are completely thrown away - they are not public and they are all individual."

In his latest book, Maas asks that "Our current cities are comprised of enclosed, distant and introverted architecture equally isolated from urban life and ecological context."

"How might we open these spaces? How might we introduce pockets of space capable of triggering social encounters, multiplying circulation and facilitating the introduction of flora and fauna?."

PoroCity - Opening up Solidity gathers the research conducted by The Why Factory into what they term ‘urban porosity’. Using both analogue and digital approaches, the institution's researchers and students explored modes to open up our cities. 

"What might be imagined to open our towers and city blocks? Stepped floors? Public stairways? Grottos in which city dwellers might meet? Could we manipulate building envelopes in order to increase façade area? Might we perforate built volumes and thus create pocket parks?."

Each of our hypotheses led to a series of step-by-step interventions that materialized in the form of a vast collection of towers built by The Why Factory's students using LEGO blocks. 

"When gathered together, the resulting army of LEGO towers shows how far we can—and cannot—go. How much can a tower bend before it collapses? At what point does a porous tower become financially impossible to build or maintain?," Maas added.

The book launch will take place 6 November, 17:45 at Delft University of Technology, Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment, Julianalaan 132-134, 2628 BL Delft (Orange tribune, Oosterre). A sneak preview of the book can be seen here.

The Why Factory is a global think tank, run by MVRDV and the Delft University of Technology and led by professor Winy Maas. Education and research of The Why Factory are combined in a research lab and platform. 

It explores possibilities for the development of our cities through the production of models and visualizations for cities of the future. The results of this research programme are being presented in a series of books—the Future Cities series—published in association with nai010 publishers in Rotterdam.

All images courtesy of The Why Factory, unless otherwise stated. 

> via The Why Factory