PoroCity - Opening up Solidity is a manifesto for the introduction of the public realm into the private sphere of our cities. The book provides the tools to make urban porosity socially, environmentally and economically valuable. The book will officially be launched on 6 November, 17:45 at Delft University of Technology and will be available for sale from nai010 booksellers www.nai010.com.

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?

This book gathers the research conducted by The Why Factory into what we term ‘urban porosity’. Using both analogue and digital approaches, our 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 our 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?

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.