Does Urban Air Mobility—meaning the transformation of cities’ aerial ecologies through the integration of autonomous or remotely piloted vehicles—turn entire cities into airports? If so, how might the status of a cities roofscape change? Sloping, hosting terraced patios, or luxury amenities such as infinity pools, roofs are primarily inaccessible to humans and are reserved for mechanical equipment (with their louvered hats), green, ashphalt, or white roofs.
If roofs serve as a new intermediary between building and aerial logistics network then will they be a functionalist space? Landscape architects of the 1950s, decried the design of the airport of their day, criticising how mechanical efficiency was prioritized over human experience. Their disdain fed popular movements organizing against airport expansion within the United States.1 Might their call for greater ecological sensitivity have, for a moment, returned the airport to a “common use”?
Since 2001, DC has been surrounded by an Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ), requiring special clearance for pilots to enter its airspace. These special conditions also implicate drone pilots. Nonetheless, this pamphlet surveys DC’s roofscape. Roof samples are selected to reflect all major land use types. Images are presented twice highlighting roof types and the their urban pattern. Fugro Earthdata Inc, a Dutch multinational corporation, recorded these images on October 24, 2013 using a Lecia ADS80 sensor at a resolution of 1px=0.16m. Orthographic, these images have been algorithmically adjusted to remove distortions from perspective and change in terrain. This survey documents a pre-UAM roofscape; however, in doing so, it perhaps falls victim to the myth making Barthe’s diagnosed as images that naturalize dominant value structures.2
1. Duppleman, Flights of Imaginations,..
2. Barthes, Mythologies...