Urban Security.pdf by Jasubhai Media Pvt Ltd

URBAN SECURITY “The growth of cities will be the single largest influence on development in the 21st century”. These were the opening words of UNFPA’s 1996 State of World Population Report. But the “Urban” envelope addressed by the architectural and design fraternities becomes a superficial idealist model that fails to address the pulsating reality of lives that inhabit them…human cultures that make/ break or sustain urban environments. Their insecurities generate architecture without the architect that is far from the professional’s utopian ambition. A study of these throws light on the architecture of survival that our fast-growing urbania is home to. This special focus hopes to capture these essences that will make or break our future cities and possibly be the crux of architectural practice in the times to come. The sections and features included are -

The Space “My Space” Ethical Responses The Conflict Inside

- Ajay Nayak - Shilpashree Balram - Rahul Srivastava & Matias Echanove

The Wall The Map, the Wall and a Dream Gates within the City The New Walls of India

- Prof. Percy A. Pithawala - Ripin Kalra - Brook Meier

The Void Slum(e)scape with Habitects A New Urbanism (W)architecture A Grave Battle for Space Prisoners of Our Own Device Enabling Cities

Francesca De Filippi Radha Kunke Ekta Idnany Jinisha Jain Amrita Ravimohan Kanchana Ganesan

Shilpa Ranade, Shilpa Phadke, Sameera Khan G. Shankar Narayan Prof. Lori A. Brown Santanu Banerjee Samir Kassir Square by Vladimir Djurovic LA Liner by Gail Borden

The Public Entry Restricted : Open Public Spaces in Mumbai Death of the Public Space Claiming Public Space Designing Health Facilities Reflecting into the Future A Flexible Urban Edge

The Fault Lines Preying Spaces Brick by Brick Ornament and the City

- Hina Nitesh - Preservation of urban heritage of Zabid by PDHCY - Kaiwan Mehta

40 Text & Photographs: Ajay Nayak

efining space…is a question of scale. It gets rendered by man’s animal instinct of being territorial by nature. From defining a nation to raising walls around our individual realms, civilisation has been a constant escalation of this territorial claim. -an instinct that drives us to constantly “want” more than what we “need”. A claim that is driven by individual, communal, financial aspirations that renders the urban landscape into spaces of conflict…or better expressed as conflicts for space. A conflict seen as traffic jams and road rage, with more and more self-owned vehicles hitting the road to claim public space as their own. A conflict

What was defined as public is intrinsically private as we lay limits for access- in malls, theatres, schools, hospitals, hotels, parks and places of worship. This battle for “My” space continues as the grapple for new lands (forest/agricultural) go on between governments, developers and the default inhabitants. “ ..When you are standing in the eye of the storm everything seems calm. But as you step away…you realise that this storm is changing the rest of the world around you dramatically,” 1 said academician Sergio Palleroni (last year) cautioning America with

envisioning of the optically perfect environments, we seem to have missed out on the behavioural patterns of its inhabitants. Our canvases are “portraits” for portfolios which bring out the best features and ignore the skirmishes of existing lifestyles. If we go by expert statistics only about 5% professionals are involved in civil service. Whereas the majority of the practices impress claim upon the rendered facades and manicured avenues that add only to the conflict of climbing skylines- unanswerable to its future users or their neighbours. In this assimilation one wonders whether mainstream architecture has limited its skillsets to simply the genesis of their

Commercial

Skywalk

Road Network

highlighted by the middle and upper classes who complain of illegal squatter settlements, but indulge in by-law defying encroachment for excesses in their private establishments. Or by the communal muscle that allows religious edifices to bulldoze into public space and our acceptance of damaged public property when the communal needs are not met.

Public Toilet

Service Lines

regard to global crisis. The Indian architects, planners and associated “space” professionals apparently have been aware, yet comfortable in a similar eye of a storm that is generated by the conflicts of the Urban Diaspora. We the space experts have little to say about this friction that most probably is the repercussion of our own utopian exercises. In our

Mangroves

“MY SPACE”

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Considering the realities of the urban landscape, a design professional’s planned utopia seems in conflict with what can only be reckoned as “disturbia”. Does mainstream design refute its socio-political influence and potential?

idea and to then abandoned the potential of their influence on continued urban evolution – political and cultural. Palleroni had gone onto discuss in his paper (2007) that things may be calm then for many American clients and their architects, but the storm clouds are

the space on the horizon-and they are rapidly approaching. His words bear weight in the eye of the current economic recession which has gone on to tighten lifestyles of the much mortgaged American world. Says Roger Lowenstein “The United States is fast becoming divided, like many developing countries, into a small number of the super-rich and the majority, whose relatively stagnant incomes place the American Dream permanently beyond their reach.” 2 If this is in America where do we stand as developing countries? While America is no benchmark to stand by, as seen in the pattern language of neo-american growth seen post the liberalised market. But the disparity we will encounter will be of a similar nature but compounded in multiplicity as we haven’t developed the basic infrastructure to offer urban security. Add to this the prediction that as many as 200 million environmental refugees will be on the move over

and optimsing existing resource (conservation), the second being Global flows sweeping the architecture industry - new factories, SEZ, IT Sector and more and the last being local programs that grow out of social concerns. Our future depends on how we address these local programs to explore how architecture can be made a tool for resisting polarisation in cities and our rural landscapes.” The last being of high importance as much of the current urban poor are a result of neo-urban landscapes or refugees from tampered or failed agrarian lands. Also with the global financial crunch the architectural community is already finding the limits to global flows and its project pipeline. These are all facts which we have encountered and ignored. These differences in our urban individuality might lead to irreversible insecurities and damages… terrorism, disease, famine…starting as small conflicts

of the inhabitants– their cultures and conflicts. Otherwise the new economic order will ultimately push us to merge design intelligence with not just its feasibility but also with its long-term endurance and maintenance. Currently statistics state that only 2-5% of what is built has a design expertise behind it. According to Mehrotra the entry of architects into this space would directly lead to better quality of public infrastructure. In this process, it would engage and even give expression to the change that we want to see in our urban environment and redefine the role of the architect and his relationship with the society. Maybe as we take up architectural expeditions and admire the ruins of an ancient lost city, we must ponder what kind of conflict eradicated this culture that built this. And if we choose to continue admiring simply the motifs, filigree, structures, planning and built remains only, then maybe unknowingly

“ ..When you are standing in the eye of the storm everything seems calm. But as you step away…you realise that this storm is changing the rest of the world around you dramatically.” Housing

Railways

Dumping Ground

Slums

The microhabitat around Bandra in Mumbai.

the next decade because of global climate change, and we have the makings of a human hurricane from which no one will be entirely safe.3 A few months back architect and urbanist Rahul Mehrotra discussed the Indian architect’s practice resource, “In post liberalised India, architects have to deal with three different kinds of projects- the first being recycling

leading to larger battles around the singular element of urban space and services. This line of questioning aims to investigate the limits of the designer’s influence– by choice or by default. It arises from the fact that the act of space-making is associated with offering a secure environment. In the urban context it would be a folly to not address the insecurity

we would have witnessed our joined futures. A beautiful line without life… 1 “Building Sustainable Communities and Building Citizens”, by Sergio Palleroni in Expanding Architecture - Design As Activism, Bell/Wakeford, Metropolis Books, 2008 release 2 “The Inequality Conundrum”by Roger Lowenstein, New York Times Magazine, June 10, 2007 3 “Environmental refugee:An Emergent Security Issue” by Norman Myers, www.osce.org/documents/eea/2005/05/14488-en.pdf.

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THE ETHICAL ROLE OF AN ARCHITECT IN CREATING SAFER URBAN COMMUNITIES.

Text & Photographs: Shilpashree Balaram

rchitecture is about creating places for people to inhabit. We, as architects, are part of a larger team of built-environment professionals who aim to learn from the past and create environments that will better serve present and future generations. Faced with the complexities of designing and developing rapidly expanding cities, what ethical responsibilities do we have as architects? Ethics, as described by the Oxford dictionary, are ‘the moral principles governing or influencing conduct’. Architecture courses teach us how to theorise, analyse, research and develop conceptual designs 1

and turn them into functional serviced buildings for people to inhabit. They teach us how to create briefs, communicate our ideas to clients and contractors and develop practical and buildable solutions. Once we have ventured into the real world of architectural practice we learn how to manage projects, negotiate fees, specify suitable materials and deliver projects within defined budgets and time-scales. Within the areas of expertise that we develop over time we are constantly faced with ethical decisions. Whether it is the acceptance of a commission to build a nuclear power station, working for clients who

form a part of an autocratic government, designing for religious fundamentalists, building substandard and poorly designed housing developments or specifying materials that are detrimental to the environment, each decision is laden with ethical choices that have to be addressed. Ethics are by nature subjective and relative to a person’s viewpoint and opinion, just as design is. Though the quality of the aesthetics of a building may be debated, its functionality and value for money can be agreed upon without much disparity of opinions. Similarly, ethical decisions will vary,

the space

1. View of both the facades from the street. © Satoru Mishima

but design aimed at creating safer communities cannot be disputed at any level. Do we, as architects, have a professional duty to assist in creating safer communities? Or is this decision a subjective one, based on the ethics of each individual architect? As cities grow, the need for real and perceived safety also increases. Gated communities are an example of this need to create a perceived sense of security by physically and socially segregating developments. The need to design safer cities has been identified and analysed through seminal works by Jane Jacobs, Amos Rapoport, Elizabeth Wood, Space Syntax and Oscar Newman.

In “The Death and Life of Great American Cities” Jane Jacobs argued for the design of safer communities by using what we now consider common sense theories such as natural surveillance (‘eyes on the street’) and mixed use developments. She showed through examples that high levels of crime were directly linked to the poor quality of design of housing

developments. She also highlighted the need for designers and developers to create opportunities for the community to take ownership of their spaces by clarifying private and public spaces. 1. A sketch of the balcony in Barcelona, Spain, that provides a visual link with activities in the square below. 2. Balcony in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, that provides a visual link with activities on the street and canal below.

Ethics are by nature subjective and relative to a person’s viewpoint and opinion, just as design is. 2

Oscar Newman further studied and analysed these theories using detailed statistics and introduced pragmatic design guidelines in “Defensible Space: Crime Prevention through Urban Design”. Through exploring the cultures of folk tradition in ‘House, Form and Culture’, Amos Rapoport identified self expression as a key element in creating a sense of pride and ownership which encourages people to protect their surroundings and thus create a safer community.

The Aranya Housing Scheme by B.V. Doshi which commenced in the 1980s was developed as a design framework to re-house squatter settlements. The architect studied the community’s way of life to create spaces that would provide them with the same sense of safety with the means to construct better quality housing. Though this project has suffered from financial drawbacks, its approach in creating communal and semi-public spaces is noted as a good example of community design.

Whilst their work did not specifically highlight the ethical responsibilities of the designers, it provided a clear indicator that the real and perceived social security of the community was directly dependent on the built form and its configuration. These theories date back to the 1960s, but how many architects address these responsibilities in their work today?

A more recent example of ethics in action is the UK Stirling prize winner for 2008. Accordia, a housing development project, was the result of a collaboration of architects (Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios, Alison Brooks Architects and Maccreanor Lavington) who envisaged a variety of communal spaces and designs that encouraged interaction. By using elements of natural surveillance and creating

opportunities for people to personalise their spaces, this development aims to create a real sense of safety and community. Through this development the architects have demonstrated that volume house builders do not have to compromise on the quality of design to achieve their targets. Ethical and social responsibility should be an inherent part of an architect’s vocabulary. This does not necessarily translate into providing pro bono services, but implies that we also have an ethical responsibility not to be developer-led or base our decisions primarily on the square metre rate of development when it comes to making design decisions. The examples above indicate that with design that is driven by ethical and social thinking, design teams can create desirable places without additional funding. If the design community turns its back on this responsibility to win prestigious

4 There are some basic design decisions on which architects can take a stand to create safer communities:

projects and become accepted by clients, it is the cities and people that will lose out. The UK police have spearheaded an initiative called ‘Secured by Design’ which enables built environment professionals to collaborate with the police to ensure that developments are designed to reduce the opportunity for crime. Whilst collaborations and partnerships across different professions are definitely the way forward in our complex cities, why has it become the responsibility of the police to implement design guidelines to build safer environments? Why should the government and planning authorities take these issues seriously when we, the trained professionals, do not raise a collective voice against segregated gated communities and haphazardly planned and poorly designed developments?

Create opportunities for people to stop and stare, to interact and congregate We experience these formal and informal spaces in cities that have evolved over time – Prague, Amsterdam, Edinburgh, Kathmandu. These spaces enable chance meetings and impromptu conversations and create a sense of belonging. With developers wanting to market every piece of available land in new developments, these spaces are very limited and often ‘left over’ spaces or service areas. As architects we need to take a stand for the importance of these urban places to create thriving communities. Create a real and perceived sense of security Physical barriers such as high walls or fences only create boundaries and enhance a feeling of segregation and insecurity. We need to design pedestrian-friendly routes and spaces to encourage interaction and activity on the streets. ‘Eyes on the street’ Jane Jacobs’ theory of designing homes that have a visual link with the street is just as valid today as it was over 40 years ago. This aims to discourage potential thefts and vandalism and creates a sense of security. Opportunity to personalise spaces Through Rapoport’s studies, we understand the link between the opportunity to personalise

3. Home owners in Borneo, part of the Amsterdam Docklands in The Netherlands, were allowed to choose their own architects to design and personalise their homes within a design framework set out by urban designer Adriaan Geuze. 4. Create opportunities for people to stop and stare, to interact and congregate - Campo Santa Maria Formosa in Venice, Italy that encourages people act this ways.

spaces and the community taking ownership and pride in their environment. Architects need to take an ethical stand and start designing safer communities - ultimately it is not just an issue of ethics, it is also an issue of professionalism and common sense. We create communities for real people to live in. If these communities rely on entry phones, electronic security systems, high walls and security personnel to protect their environment and feel safe, it does not matter how many architectural accolades their homes win, we would have failed as architects.

Shilpashree Balaram is a UK based Urban Designer and Indian Architect. She has experience of working in the public, private and humanitarian sectors of community planning, urban design and architecture.She has previously worked for Communities Scotland, an agency of the Scottish Government and has experience working in private architectural practices in India, Nepal and the UK. She has also been involved in humanitarian work through Article 25 and currently heads Experimental Design Studio, a design practice that aims to create a collaborative, global community of creative professionals that focus on social and community development.

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THE CONFLICT INSIDE The article discusses the conflict between creativity and practicalities that an architect encounters in his mind during the process of design and how a ‘back-to basics’ approach can help resolve this. Text: Matias Echanove & Rahul Srivastava Photographs: Filipe Balestra

rchitecture is in constant conflict mode, against the elements, against clients, against developers, against planners, against previous conventions, techniques and theories. Even against itself. That’s why architects make good mercenaries, working in the service of rich clients, and intense critical theorists. However, they rarely become fighters in their own names. Or even in the names of other causes. Architects usually like to think of themselves as mighty creators. However, as Arjun Appadurai reminds us, there is no architectural construction without destruction. Architects typically have to destroy whatever is on the ground before their own venture can start. It is virtually impossible to build without uprooting trees and disturbing the local ecosystem. And that’s just for a house. Imagine the destruction involved in the production of a neighbourhood or a city. The ritual of destruction and construction is actualised in different ways in different cultures and civilisations. Sacrifices, prayers, games, collective performances are all brought into play when transformations are in progress. The rituals that modern creators perform are similar in spirit. Architects, governments and urban planners make searing critiques of earlier designs, templates and forms, thus rendering entire schools of thoughts and practices redundant. They declare whole neighbourhoods as dysfunctional and arcane in acts of symbolic destruction before setting up their own plans and designs into motion – which eventually will face a similar fate.

At heart, most architects know that 99% of buildings are built without architects. Just as most cities are not master planned. Yet, this cannot be acknowledged after a point, lest it means hacking at the very branch they sit on. As a result architects split themselves up. Their roles as commentator and critic become distinct from the practice. It is virtually impossible to have a dialogue between the two stances. For example, you have a Rem Koolhas who theoretically advocates an anti-architectural stance and then goes onto produce artefacts in the same breath. What bridges these two positions is a shrug and a sigh – usually of resignation. A resignation embodying both self-awareness and cynicism.

The conflict between the world of ideas and the world of money and its collusion in the form of luxury homes and corporate architecture are every bit as dramatic as the suffering endured by a bipolar patient, passing from a state of ecstatic joy to one of utter depression. In the same way, architects can experience the sublime joy of pouring forth the human thrust for eternal recognition. And minutes later be confronted with the dire realisation that not only will their contributions not be fully acknowledged, even by the people whom they were intended to serve, but also that their visions will be revised and adapted to the will of the all mighty client. Instead of being gods themselves, they are merely pawns in the service of a higher being: the client.

Architects find themselves in the eye of this cyclical industry of building and re-building and soon

Responses to this sorry state of affairs have been as imaginative as one could expect. One is a

At heart, most architects know that 99% of buildings are built without architects. Just as most cities are not master planned. Yet, this cannot be acknowledged after a point... discover that their talents are frequently abused and perverted. The more architects become aware of the history of the discipline and the forces that shape it, the greater is their disenchantment. They become highly conscious of the contradictions the profession embodies. They are aware that, as an artist or a socially concerned individual, they have one set of impulses, and as a professional another.

special version of the Stockholm syndrome that causes architects to fall in love with their client. At this point, they can become “bottom-up” advocates submitting themselves to the will of the noble savage for whom they have all types of contradictory feelings. Sometimes they decide to indulge instead in the love of money, cynically selling their creativity to whomever pays more.

the space

Photos of a 2006 project by 24 years old architect Filipe Balestra with the Instituto Dois Irm達os i2i in Rocinha, the largest favela of Brazil. With the help of local residents, they converted an old rotting house into a school and community centre. The whole project cost $30,000 out of which $16,000 went to buying the plot. This structure is now serving nearly 70 children during the day and adults during the night. For more info: www.2bros.org. Filipe is now in Mumbai where he is planning to build incrementally developable structures in slums with the NGO SPARC.

Another kind of response transforms them into Peter Pans. They refuse to grow out of the mighty age of architectural adolescence, when all dreams were lived with full intensity and faith. This sometimes produces geniuses such as constructivist Iakov Chernikhov, who entered the pantheon of famous architects after building only one structure, but sketching hundreds of fantasies into architectural glory; and Hermann Finsterlin who privileged inspiration over rationalism and refused to undergo formal architectural training because he thought it would hurt his creativity. But usually it produces teachers of architecture, who take their revenge by making their pupils dream harder and higher than they ever could, thereby producing the next generation of frustrated architects. Architects are nearly never able to resolve their internal conflicts between artistic creation, building actualisation, economic success and social recognition. Even those architects that become superstars have often been so used to selling their soul on Main Street that they have become intellectually frigid and unable to experience the simplest joys of creation. The practice of architecture evokes the greatest agony amongst its most creative and rebellious souls. They are acutely aware of the inconsistencies they embody, at once full of importance as producers of the physical world and profoundly aware of their own futility. Sometimes these internal conflicts produce a friction that stimulates creativity even as it destroys the creator in his core. Sleepless nights, heavy consumption of coffee and cigarettes, hours in front of the computer screen, loneliness and seclusion from the family, and miserable paychecks are the common lot of architects around the world.

Architects are usually unwilling to face the true object of their quest. They are therefore unable to realise how this quest could be fulfilled. Lets face it, architects are narcissistic egomaniac dreaming of reshaping the world in their own individual and idealised self-image. Architecture as we know it today may be a language but it is hardly a spiritual path. Ego has been driving architecture for as far as we can remember. And that’s true of almost all acts of creation. This drive is fundamentally human and its fulfillment possible, if only one approaches it with a healthy dose of pragmatism and a bit of perversion. It can be done by hitting at the aesthetic and economic arrangements on which the profession is based - from below. For example, let’s not immediately aim at designing the highest skyscrapers or masterplanning an entire city. Instead canalise these impulses into the total production of a structure that means the world to someone who would normally not have the means to afford an architect. See this not as do-good charity. But as the way to a balanced resolution. A sacred union of the enemies within the architect’s psyche will certainly happen once you swim against the tide and project the self not merely on a CAD design, but more radically engage in the physical production of an architectural object. If the whole mind and body focus on the enormously challenging task of realising a project with limited means, you will shock the system and transform it. All you must do is fully project your ingenuity, skills, and know-how into every minute of the construction process. Even the most conventional colleagues will have to applaud this move. The architect will then really feel as a god, since as the saying goes: “God is in the details.” In this respect, Indian architects have a head start. They are surrounded with so many informally

developing settlements filled with people with some resources and a great need for some architectural legitimacy and support. They can help them fulfill their own dreams of a well-built house or neighbourhood, short circuit the system and find a place in hall of fame. Unfortunately, they are ignoring this opportunity. Instead, their colleagues from around the world are coming in large numbers - in search of the real raw material of architecture - people in need of shelter, with the basic skills of making their own. Young architects are coming from far away to work in Indian cities because they want to learn by doing. Unplanned settlements, where many residents still remember how to build a shelter for themselves, provide the most amazing learning environment. At the same time, these deprived contexts give adventurous architects a chance to actually put their learning to good use and build. The practical knowledge of materials and methods of construction should make a comeback in architectural education, if only because they can help the contemporary architect to cure his conflicted mind. Resolve the conflict inside the architects’ minds and we will have moved centuries ahead, into a culture of sustainability.

Mathias Echanove is an urbanologist affiliated to the University of Tokyo. His research interests include city planning, spontaneous development and informal settlements. He has researched and worked extensively in New York, Mumbai, Bogota, Geneva and Tokyo. Rahul Srivastava is a writer based in Panjim Goa. He is a research advisor to PUKAR, Partners for Urban knowledge, Action and Research, Mumbai and also writes fiction for younger readers. He has been trained in social anthropology and was the initiator of the Neighborhood Project.

50 IA&B - JAN 2009

Geographer Bernard Nietschmann quotes â&#x20AC;&#x153;Either it is you that makes the map, or you that is mapped by someone else. The impression of finding yourself really in a place is a question of culture and politics, just as much as it is of movie technologies and three-dimensional graphicsâ&#x20AC;?. Text & Photographs: Prof. Percy Adil Pithawala

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the wall

teven Johnson, the eclectic American scholar and author of the best seller ‘Everything bad is good for you’, is also perfectly aware of this concept propounded by Nietschmann and took it further by launching a curious web experiment. His site, http://outside.in, gathers comments, local news and blogs about specific areas of cities. By selecting a neighbourhood or street on a map, information can be obtained about the bloggers who live there and about its organs of information, plus petty news related to the urban sector. In all, 3365 zones are surveyed in 55 American cities. The growth of the service is fairly fast: you need only register to insert fresh information about your district. Although it does not feature a single 360 degree live photo of a city, there is no doubt that by moving through Johnson’s site you get the sensation of being immersed in the life of the chosen neighbourhood populated by voices, words and faces. It is as if the walls of these cities had become transparent to make a place of potentially more meaningful relations. The global phenomenon of web mapping-of interactive satellite maps-shows that everyday and at every moment millions of people cast an instant enquiring eye across the crust of our planet. This intensive sort of voyeurism on a global scale, by raising the technical possibility of instantly focusing and zooming onto any point of the earth, in fast vectorial movements, is rapidly resetting

Percy.indd 51

our perception of the world’s image. However, if one were to rightly represent the earth today, one would have to switch from the satellite scale of the planisphere to the anthropological scale of the inhabited space by descending from an aerial perspective to a more human one.

DIVIDING TERRITORIES –WALLS OF BERLIN AND JERUSALEM AS URBAN PROJECTS While describing the wall built by Israel in the Palestinian occupied territories, one is frequently reminded of other examples of walls in other places. The Europeans, in particular remember the Berlin wall as an instrument that divided the city and its inhabitants into two political and economic systems. The wall in these accounts is conceived as a means of neatly dividing a space into two equal halves: us on this side and them on the other, clear and concise.

1. Graffiti on the walls of an abandoned villa of Saddam Hussein.

realisation. For example, on looking at the map of Europe before the fall of the Berlin wall we discover that it did not divide the communist Eastern Europe from a capitalist Western Europe, but instead formed an enclave. West Berlin was an island within East Germany. This spatial dimension, overshadowed by an ideological representation of the conflict, is aptly conveyed by Rem Koolhas in the Exodus Project. In this Project the Berlin Wall is an inhabited place, an architecture within a group of people, “voluntary prisoners of architecture” moving towards it. The subtitle evokes precisely this dimension of the wall as an enclave, of a wall closing off and isolating a space, rather than of a symmetrical political division between two presumed entities. So we can start thinking of the wall not as an abstract line, as a sign on the map, but as an architecture, a measure

It is as if the walls of these cities had become transparent to make a place of potentially more meaningful relations. These parallels, adopted to understand better the functioning of the wall in its architectural rather than its ideological dimension, in Berlin as in the occupied territories, we find that the idea of separation, so easy to think of abstractly, is in fact far more complicated and complex in its physical

of control, a means capable of constructing a new spatial order, hence new rights to the movement and residence of people. Likewise, the wall erected by Israel between Bethlehem and Jerusalem and which incorporates

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3 of Palestinians. In its path, houses and trees have been demolished, with a dramatic impact on the territory and people’s lives. What was once the city’s most thriving district has indeed since the Wall been turned into a derelict area, inspiring terror both in Israelis and Palestinians alike.

1. Access to the Bethlehem area. 2. Access road to Rachel’s Tomb. 3. Muslim cemetery. 4. Rachel’s Tomb. 5. Ayda refugee camp.

MAP SHOWING JERUSALEM WALL

Rachel’s Tomb, does not divide Israel from the eventual future Palestine. Rather it creates an enclave. Comprising towers, trenches, terminals, parking lots, routes and buildings, the wall is truly an urban project imposed on an existing territory. Its breadth varies from a few dozen to a few hundred meters. Located at the northern entry to Bethlehem, Rachel’s Tomb is a religious monument for the Jews, but also a hallowed spot for Muslims and Christians. Up until the second outbreak of the Intifada the Rachel’s Tomb

Percy.indd 52

area had been a rapidly expanding one. Being situated between the two cities, it provided a natural meeting place between the Israelis and the Palestinians, very different from the improbable ones organised by the Europeans in Berlin. To reach and to annexe the tomb to Israel, the wall is forced into a slalom between Palestinian inhabited areas. The strategy is to take in as much territory as possible and the least number

Such is the awe inspiring power of its architecture, that anyone visiting Bethlehem today will get the impression that the city has always been surrounded by the wall. When one moves around this area one can easily lose one’s bearings, because the wall entails a series of about-turns without any apparent spatial logic. Going through the spaces around the wall, one understands how the abstract representations on the maps and in speeches of the politicians do not at all tally with the physical reality on the ground.

URBAN TOYS AS BOMBS OF PEACE – INSTALLATIONS IN BEIRUT BY NADIM KARAM No argument on Beirut can disregard the relationship between destruction and memory; as in Berlin and other cities that have experienced equally tormented events in their history, the story of reconstruction coincides impressively with the systematic attempt to remove the signs of past violence. Lebanese artist and architect Nadim Karam, founder of the Atelier Hapsitus says “In 1993 I went back to Beirut. The

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7 2&3. The waste man effigy by Antony Gromley. 4. Urban Toys installation by Nadim Karam in Beirut. 5. Graffiti on the Palestinian side of the wall, erected by Israel between Bethlehem and Jerusalem. 6&7. Square Depression at Munich by installation Artist Bruce Nauman.

square”. The relationships of these works with the public space echoed the estranged and parasitic ways of street art, with, however, the aggressive component, the guerrilla rhetoric filtered out.

5 centre of the city, left to refugees and down- andouts, was a desolate place. The widespread postwar amnesia was almost worst than the war years, with an unhappy and voluntarily anaesthetised population”. Nadim Karim conceived and placed a number of anthropomorphic and zoomorphic shapes around the city, icons connected to an enigmatic bond, to activate in the population a sleeping imagination, to create dreams.

Percy.indd 53

The Urban toys, that are like solidified shadows, had to belong strictly to the realm of the ephemeral; exihibited on the roofs and streets of Beirut for a period of around three years, they continually appeared and disappeared, changed place, cropped up in groups or were scattered around unexpected places. Their presence was expressly anti-monumental, a manifesto against the art of the propaganda, the “Sculpture in the

Nadim’s passion was in fact entirely aimed towards poetic creation, the weaving of stories. “Destruction and creativity are never on the same plane; both work based on the void, one using nihilism to suppress the freedom of thought, the other using the absurd as the basis for a story”. His structures are signs susceptible to various interpretations that can be reconfigured according to complex paths that boycott the violent simplification of religious and identifying symbols.

Prof. Percy Adil Pithawala is the Principal of Arvind Patel Institute of Design, Vallabh Vidhyanagar. He has been consistently engaged in testing boundaries on design issues ranging from research based competitions, writings, projects, paintings, installations, fashion design under a cell called “the Red Studio” at Baroda.

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54 IA&B - JAN 2009

GATES

WITHIN THE CITY

This is a commentary on increasing levels of non-formal ‘Fences, Walls and Gates’ around new as well as existing urban developments that try to control ‘security’ much beyond the individual house, segregate by ‘class’ and selectively let-in people. An increasing number of individual developments are adapting this pattern that is resulting in a streetscape of walls, gates and isolation within the city’s neighbourhoods and making safety a ‘private’ matter in urban areas.

Text: Ripin Kalra Photographs & Sketches: Courtesy the architect

or a set of events rarely witnessed the account is remarkably crisp. Some men, with little on them but ‘briefs’ and bodies covered in oil, scale over the boundary and rope down into the court of the house while the family is asleep. They break through bars with ease. Each one in the family, adults and children, is strangled in his/her sleep, and little is left in the house as jewellery to electronics are all carried away. It all happened quietly and in a matter of minutes while the guard went to take a round of the other face of the block. Occasionally, this incident is

described for daylight, involving guns nearly always preceded by a visit by two men who came the day before to check the cable connection complete with genuine ID cards. This fear of an invasion, being tied-up, harmed and robbed in your own home is a recurring nightmare for the millions who feel the discomfort of prying eyes at the goods and objects in their house perceived as valuable. The talk is that ‘even the poorest Indian household holds some gold in their premises’, providing an ample incentive for any robber to enter a residence. Security of

the wall

3 taxis, and school vans come to the house on a daily basis. However simply securing the house itself is insufficient in controlling the movement of several ‘unknown characters’ who pass into this stream of visitors and ‘have no business’ walking around their neighbourhood. The security of private cars parked along the street and the nuisance

1. A typically elaborate front gate to a house. 2. A cluster of security guards at the entry gate to this block of apartments or ‘society’ as it is commonly known. 3. Metal grills secure all possible openings into the houses from the service lanes at the back. 4. Hawkers filter through a gated street into residential roads during daylight hours when the gates are open.

Simply securing the house itself is insufficient in controlling the movement of several ‘unknown characters’ who pass into this stream of visitors and ‘have no business’ walking around their neighbourhood.

the ‘Jhuggi-Jhopdi’ (squatters) out. The Residents’ Association raised the wall on their own. It has been breached since then on more than one occasion mostly by grazing cows from the bordering ‘urban’ village of Wazirpur. The latter also led to fences around a number of green parks and ‘tot-lots’ within the confines.. The entire neighbourhood now has four gates in its perimeter, each of them is manned during daylight by a contracted security agency and only one remains manned and open overnight. To identify regular visitors, resident car permits, hawker and servant IDs were issued but these have proved to be expensive and difficult to monitor. This pattern of putting gates around the locale is fairly common.

of cars driving through adjoining blocks have contributed to the need for a broader ‘safe zone’ that is fenced and gated. There are ‘threats’ from other types of encroachments. In one landmark case in Ashok Vihar (Delhi), people from a nearby slum were regularly defecating in the green belt surrounding the houses. After several protests from residents, the police was forced to intervene and on one occasion the police shot bullets at the slum-dwellers. The ensuing dispute hastened the ‘need’ to secure the entire block of nearly 200 houses with 2m high walls to keep people from

Perimeter control has been proved easier to implement in apartment blocks often known as ‘societies’, where the fencing is part of the original design and the costs of manned security at gates is charged through the mandatory service charge. The general response in some instances is that it keeps unwanted people, traffic, cars and of course stray animals out, all new visitors sign-in and regular ones have IDs and the guard keeps an eye on the children from the ‘society’ and generally the inside feels more secure. The ‘front door’ of the ‘society’ is also a removal point

the home with grills, gates, fences and guards is increasingly becoming common. Residents describe that a constant stream of ‘known’ and ‘necessary’ persons such as regular vendors, builders, tradesmen, maids, servants, rickshaw-pullers, car-cleaners, delivery boys,

5. Metal railings on top of this wall running through the green belt have been ‘stolen’ over a period of time. 6. Metal grills secure all possible openings into the houses from the service lanes at the back. 7. View through a grill: rickshaws, car traffic and stray animals are kept to the perimeter of housing. The fencing is not necessarily high enough to prevent someone scaling it. 8. Signage outside the ‘society’ alerting visitors.

for waste, as the municipal collection does not enter the premises. In either of the two types of gated developments, there is no clear evidence that they are in fact more secured. Minor incidents of stealing continue to take place despite gates and guards, particularly with cars, and so the dual fencing of the house as well as the neighbourhood continues to keep its justification. Gated communities are now increasingly becoming desirable among the wealthier classes in Americas, Middle-East, Western Europe and India because of the ‘exclusivity’ they offer in addition to the ‘security’ considerations. “Condomínio fechado” (closed housing estates) in Brazil and ‘Security Villages’ in South Africa provide the secure and exclusive environment often with leisure and recreational facilities within the walled environment including club houses, mini markets, sports centres and even mini golf courses in some instances. In larger South American cities such developments can be found adjacent to vast slums from where necessary domestic help filters into their gated developments. The idea of segregation in urban areas is not new. Colonial settlements in West Africa almost set a new standard for segregated living between natives and colonisers who needed and visited each other but retired to their individual ‘compounds’ to live in the comfort of their own culture. In the previous century, Edwin Lutyen’s master plan for New Delhi buffered the bungalows of the British Civil Servants from the ‘natives’ in Old Delhi with both security (in case of another 1857 style ‘revolt’) and cultural distinctions in mind. The buffer in this instance were bungalows of junior officers and a market rather than a physical gate. It is also believed

In some areas in Pretoria and Nairobi, visitors are actively encouraged to avoid walking along high-end gated streets or they risk being mugged as nearly all residents come and go by car. 8 hundred metres of blank walls with no overlooking onto pavements result in a joyless streetscape and the fear of running into an ‘unknown’ person without the comfort of anyone watching over the pedestrian. In some areas in Pretoria and Nairobi, visitors are actively encouraged to avoid walking along high-end gated streets or they risk being mugged as nearly all residents come and go by car. Walking towards the gate of a ‘society’ you can commonly expect to speak to the guard through a small hole in the gate and to answer several questions before being let-in.

that the West African pattern was the model for planning segregated townships in South Africa and in other colonial cities and towns. A common example of ‘compound’ type living is seen in national embassies with their secured high walls, armed security while replica ‘high-streets’ remind expatriates of their home environments. Gated communities in small neighbourhoods have led to interesting debates on urban governance issues. Local police often encourages the gates and guards around the societies as the responsibility (and cost) of security gets shared with the residents. The level of security varies across the various gated developments dependent on the type of fencing employed; the

6 level of inconvenience (such as checking by the guards) accepted by the residents and of course the contract with the security agency. Costs vary with the number, equipments and ‘training’ of the guards. Some yield a visitor’s book while others deter by holding a weapon. Security in the city is emerging as a ‘private’ matter. The streetscape in gated neighbourhoods can be an isolating and confusing experience. Gates added to existing neighbourhoods re-direct the way vehicles and people move. While several

While gates and high walls are unlikely to go away anytime soon, overlooking is an amazing tool for design at an urban scale and brings back the security that lies in ‘someone watching over you’ and restores the sense of safety in our streets, neighbourhoods and its green spaces.

Ripin Kalra is an architect and master planner working on community development, natural resources, and climate change and disaster mitigation issues within urban and regional planning. Since 1995 he has carried out consultancy works for master planning in India, Ecuador, Italy, UK, Jordan, Cyprus, South Africa, Kenya and Malawi. He also carries out research and teaching as Senior Fellow at School of Architecture and Built Environment, University of Westminster in London.

58 IA&B - JAN 2009

THE NEW WALLS OF INDIA How Architects can find inspiration in Pink Floyd & Facebook, stop merely creating the Illusion of Safety, and reclaim the profession. Text: Brook Meier Photographs: IA&B archives

ndia has changed tremendously over the last 15 years. This startling growth is evident in new housing projects, larger shopping malls, fancy restaurants, and the increase in costs for just about everything. It’s just as easy, however, to identify the things that aren’t changing. The streets are still filthy and full of potholes, slums still prevalent and expanding, and the urban infrastructure – particularly mass transit - wasn’t probably acceptable even in 1980. As India continues to experience this accelerated growth and financial prosperity the need for City Planning is in an obvious state of desperation, and our roles as architects have become severely marginalised. This year the urban population of the world eclipsed the 50% mark. This is much higher than India’s urban population of roughly 30%, which is growing at alarming rates. Also India is the only country that has 3 “Megacities” – cities with an excess of 10 million people – Mumbai, Delhi, and Kolkata, all of which attract new citizens on a daily basis. This rapid urbanisation is largely without planning or preparation. Local governments have been unable or unwilling to expend the resources necessary to prepare for the influx of these new citizens, straining the existing resources to the breaking point. This leaves private developers to be counted on to fill in the gaps; providing modern utilities (water and uninterrupted power) and a clean public realm. Too often these developments – residential, retail or commercial – hide behind walls, their experience reserved for the occupants or customers. These walls are seen as security

Brook.indd 58

1 measures, but are they really making us safer or merely isolating the prosperity of a growing India to a select few? Especially considering the “holes” that are inherent in this system from a residential standpoint, as we bring servants, cooks, and drivers, who are often strangers, into our inner sphere. What is the role of THE WALL in modern Indian society? Walls have been used throughout history for a variety of purposes. They can be used to isolate, separate, or defend. The Berlin Wall and the Great Wall of China being two prominent examples with Delhi having these remains as well. Walls have

also played a role in procession, assisting in the navigation and way finding of major architectural works and playing a role in their urban theatre. The Taj Mahal provides a quintessential example, where the walls mask the final goal until one reaches the main axis and the beauty is revealed. Walls, of course, are a crucial element to almost any building providing a foil to the natural forces of gravity. Through the centuries walls have continued to evolve, the jaali wall being a great example of innovation in wall technology; simultaneously defining space and filtering light, while also providing texture and rhythm – a sort of ornamentation. It is this type of ingenuity that

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the wall

1. People’s protest near the Berlin Wall that symbolised the East and West halves of Germany. 2. The Great Wall of China that stood to protect a nation.

Floyd offers a worthy parable to keep in mind as we continue to build a new India, realising the social implications of what we are doing and the long-term impact on the City at large. This can be quickly attributed to eager developers who need to be mindful of their budgets and profit margins. It should also be seen as our failure as architects who have been unsuccessful in balancing client needs with those of society. This imbalance is only magnified by the extreme social connectivity of India, which is the original “Facebook”. It is this ancient Indian network that finds us jobs, gets our children married, finds us our maids, and locates the best new restaurants in town. What effect do these walls and our “modern” method of development have on this vast system of people? Could it become extinct as more and more people retreat into isolation from new experiences that keep the network thriving? Or will many members of the network simply fall out of the system and find their own local networks that exist in their new enclosed world? Maybe

“The Wall” application in Facebook – used as a centre for public graffiti – can provide a futuristic concept for our physical walls, becoming a tool of social communication? Maybe transforming the wall into an interactive entity that collects and organises the hopes & fears of a society in new an often-unexpected ways can save the social side of modern India. Unfortunately the current City Planning mindset is dominated by this strategy of isolation. Since our local governments are not capable or willing, developers are forced to provide all the essentials that one has come to expect in a traditional modern neighbourhood - recreation, dining, shopping, entertainment and infrastructure. The concept - as much architectural as it is financial - creates a false sense of progress, trapping our homes, our malls, our lives in “bubbles of progress” spread throughout the City, as specified lots or small portions of the Metropolitan area become modernised within vast zones of slums or buildings in disrepair. This strategy lacks an

What is the next evolution of the wall and can it assist in finding ways to respect the complicated entities that our Cities have become? is needed today as the wall continues to dominate the landscape of our Cities in an often destructive and anti-social manner. What is the next evolution of the wall and can it assist in finding ways to respect the complicated entities that our Cities have become? Pink Floyd’s concept album, THE WALL lays out a possible doomsday analogy for Indian architecture, telling the story of a boy who, in reaction to the chaotic world around him, builds a wall and retreats into self imposed isolation. In India, total isolation is not the goal, but rather an increasing side effect of poor planning. Nonetheless, Pink

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3 3. Roofscape of a Mumbai slum.

over-arching idea - or master plan - for our Cities and is actually working against the possibility of a unified whole. Instead we are building islands and are forcing citizens to wade through neglected swaths of the city as they drive from one island to the next. This is the path of least resistance as it is much more difficult to create an integrated neighbourhood or district that responds to context and tradition, while still retaining a modern vocabulary. For all of the talent we may possess as designers we cannot

Brook.indd 60

spontaneously cultivate the kind of emotion and love that is present in the more organic neighbourhoods, which evolved over a series of decades or centuries. Manufacturing history is not a viable path, however, in most cases, weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re not even trying to. Instead, with the current use of walls, gates, and security guards we are creating an illusion of safety. These components, the walls in particular, are set pieces for an audience of potential buyers, refusing to address the needs of inhabitants or the vitality of the City. So what are the New Walls of India? Where is the experimentation and search for new concepts in

architecture? Or is India stuck with the simplistic idea that a curved wall is an innovative solution? Until we confront these questions weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll continue down an unfortunate path of isolating prosperity for short-term gain, ignoring the long-term problems that are being seeded.

Brook Meier is an architect with experience in areas like multi-family residential development, mixed-use developments, civic architecture. He is a Director at Research Design Office, an international collective of designers based in Banglore, Hyderabad, Kolkata and Milwaukee(USA).

1/24/2009 10:39:07 AM

62 IA&B - JAN 2009

he IV World Urban Forum “Harmonious Urbanisation”, held in Nanjing in November 2008, highlighted once more that in the year 2008, for the first time in human history, more people live in urban than rural areas. Urbanisation and urban growth cannot be stopped; the challenge is how to manage it. Urban populations could double by 2030, and developing countries could triple their entire urban built-up areas by 2030. Climate change may force more millions to migrate to cities. Few urban centres have been planned to absorb these numbers. The result is a growing urbanisation of poverty (UN 2008). This process of urbanisation and the global energy and environmental crisis are driving an increasing interdependence between the various regions of the planet, establishing at the same time a structural base of shared interest in issues involving the use of their environment.

¢6/80 ( 6&$3(£ :,7+ ¢+$%,7(&76£ The World Congress 2008 addressed the ever-expanding urban challenges. A session was dedicated to slums-the eternal bete-noir of cityscapes, and options derived from it were discussed. Text & Photographs: Francesca De Filippi

2 It is critical that future generations of architects provide a contribution to solving the problems of marginal urban areas, taking a clear stance against the view that architecture belongs only to the gratuitous and extravagant realm. “Extreme” situations with rigid restrictions constitute a challenge for architecture, forcing it to face the contradictions produced by the great processes of territorial transformation. On the other side, slums sometimes have become the only available option for the neediest citizens, and not just in

the void developing nations. Creating “illegal” (and thus “invisible”) spaces is often the only way to secure resources that would otherwise be unavailable: square footage, water, electricity and work. About 1 billion people presently live in slums or squatter settlements, and this is projected to increase to 2 billion by 2030 unless radical action is taken. Slums are growing faster than alternatives. In this context, the Millennium Development Goal of improving the lives of at least 100 million slum dwellers by 2020 is a very modest and insufficient goal (G. Payne, 2008). The term slum refers to an informal or unplanned residential area, considered irregular or illegal due to the lack of deeds and registered property owners. Slums are synonymous with crowding and

the low incomes and the impossibility of improving one’s quality of life are made even more intolerable by the high numbers of vulnerable social groups, high crime levels and other factors associated with social degradation. On 1 stJuly, the XXIII UIA World Congress of Architecture took place in Turin. One of the main sessions, coordinated by the Politecnico di Torino - Research and Documentation Centre in Technology, Architecture and Town in Developing Countries (CRD-PVS), was named “Slum(e)scape. A challenge for sustainable development projects”. This tricky double innuendo name is suggests a re-interpretation of urban alienation, a view that sees challenges instead of an escape. A solution that seeks to create new opportunities for development, alternatives to the established urban centres founded on citizenship, social inclusion, space and architecture for everyone. It is thus not a question of creating an access to the dominant urban models for these marginal locations, but instead creating in these outlying areas, new models of urbanisation with low social and environmental entropy. To achieve this, we must re-examine our attitudes towards globalisation, moving beyond critiques of the cultural homogeneity and economic exclusion it engenders and looking at the opportunities it presents for creating new social roots, new experiences in innovative social construction. The round table discussion was aimed at enlivening the debate about possible policy options and

3 high population densities. Living in a slum means to deal with the lack of basic services, including health care, drinkable water, garbage collection, electricity, transportation and infrastructures. The houses themselves, built illegally or using inadequate methods, are below the minimum standards set for housing by the respective cities and are often made using rapidly degradable materials, discarded or recycled and often ill suited to the local climate and conditions. Finally, slums are a concentration of poverty and social exclusion:

1-3. Urban centres are not planned to absorb the rapid urbanisation. This has resulted in growth of slums and squatter settlement which lack the basic facilities like water, electricity and health care.

care services, defining appropriate building codes and housing regulations, providing an alternative to the formation of new slums, involving the private sector, creating jobs), mobilise resources and attract investment, empower local actions (develop and reinforce networks, support local strategies to reduce poverty) and involve the population in participative processes. The panel included people from UN Habitat, committed to the formulation of strategies that will improve living conditions in the slums; representatives of the Cities Alliance; university professors and researchers; architects and urban planners who collaborate in research networks examining urban problems in developing nations, with extensive experience in the field. The following speakers took the floor: Alex Abiko, Professor at the Escola Politécnica of USP (University of São Paulo, Brazil); Mohamed El Sioufi, Head of the Shelter Branch in UN-HABITAT in Nairobi, whose experience in architecture, housing and urban planning bridges professional practice, academia, research, training and technical advise; Marc Gossé, Emeritus Professor at la Cambre University (Bruxelles, Belgium), where he created and directed “Architecture et Développement” research unit; Pietro

“Extreme” situations with rigid restrictions constitute a challenge for architecture, forcing it to face the contradictions produced by the great processes of territorial transformation. intervention strategies, beginning with the experiences of institutions and organisations that operate on a global scale. In particular, some of the most critical issues currently facing us will be explored, such as how to plan “development”, how to carry out local interventions (regulating property rights, determining whether the areas are fit for construction, supplying adequate infrastructures and services at a fair affordable price, building public transport systems, ensuring the availability of water, sanitation and health

Garau, Director of the DIPTU Urban Research Centre for the Developing Countries at the University of Rome La Sapienza (Italy); Laura Machado de Mello Bueno, Professor in Pontifícia Universidade Católica de Campinas in Brazil, until 1992 Coordinator of the Sao Paulo Municipality Upgrading Favelas Program; Rodney Harber, Professor in the School of Architecture, Housing and Planning in Durban (South Africa), Chairman of the Bureau of Education, Research and Technology, who also represents Africa on the UNESCO Council; Geoffrey Payne (UK), housing

and urban consultant from London (Geoffrey Payne & Associates); lastly, Alberto Zerboni, architect representing the NGO Medici senza Frontiere Italia. The session included an exhibit featuring rehabilitation projects, selected by means of competition. They were staged in a specifically designed all-bamboo display area powered with renewable energy sources, a huge photovoltaic “sail” made of and supported by on a network of bamboo and metal joints with the area behind it acting as passive solar greenhouse. The pavilion’s structure intended to exemplify the potential of low-cost building materials like bamboo, with excellent physical-mechanical properties and a very high degree of environmental sustainability.

Among other projects, the results of the Design Studio on the rehabilitation of the Favela Morro de Socò in Osasco (San Paolo, Brasil) were presented. This was the major output of an agreement between the Politecnico di Torino, the Municipality of Turin and the Secretaria de Habitação e Desenvolvimento Urbano (SEHDU) of Osasco, which included mobility of researchers and postgraduate students involved in the favela rehabilitation design process. Slum(e)scape main session closed with a conclusive stand where the panelists prepared a document titled “Creating space for habitects”, in which some important issues were stressed to carry forward the discussions.

• Urbanisation is inevitable, slums are not: The world’s urban population has surpassed the rural, and it continues to grow. Most of the cities’ new dwellers, both in the North and in the South of the world, are poor or with limited income. However, this does not mean we cannot create decent alternatives to living in slums or in slum-like conditions – overcrowded, poor structural conditions, vulnerable tenure, lack of essential urban services. • Access to decent housing is becoming a worldwide emergency: Access to decent housing is becoming a problem everywhere to growing portions of the urban population, both in the North and in the South. We can all learn from each other’s problems, efforts and solutions, no matter where we are and where we work.

4-7. The exhibition area was designed completely in Bamboo. It was powered with renewable energy sources using photovoltaic cells which were placed on a network made and supported by bamboo. The structure acted as a passive solar greenhouse. 8 & 9. The rehabilitation projects, selected in a competition, were exhibited at the XXII World Congress of Architecture.

• Going barefoot with rolled-up sleeves: To face this emergency, we need a new professional figure: the “habitect”. Habitects are defined as built-environment professionals (designers, architects, engineers, planners) who roll up their sleeves, step out of their professional architect’s shoes, get out in the slum, informal settlement or policy arena and re-possess the architect’s historical role: designing and building with a deep and wide sense of people, place, technology and participation. • The agenda: Turning slums into cities, making sure that future cities do not turn into slums: Settlements, however poor and precarious, are where places and people come together. Tearing down informal settlements and evicting

communities is both a brutal and short-sighted policy. The best solution is turning slums into cities through slum upgrading: working with residents to ensure forms of reasonably secure tenure, improving services and infrastructure, provide the means for appropriate and affordable maintenance. At the same time, prevention is better, and cheaper, than cure. We can prevent slums by providing viable alternatives. One is the assisted self-help housing in suitable location. Both approaches require political engagement and sound urban planning, with special attention to sustainable development approaches. • Creating space for habitects: More and more university students and young builtenvironment professionals are eager to test

themselves as habitects both in homeland and abroad. Universities, and particularly schools and departments of planning and design, must respond to this demand by supporting special courses, and equally importantly, mainstreaming the issue of access to affordable housing, infrastructure and services shelter and planning solutions in their curricula. Networking initiatives going across the North and the South must also be encouraged.

Francesca De Filippi, architect, Director of the CRD-PVS Research and Documentation Centre in Technology, Architecture and Town in Developing Countries, Politecnico di Torino.

66 IA&B - JAN 2009

A NEW URBANISM The Tamil Nadu post-Tsunami reconstruction had many lessons to teach. The lessons were primarily about what should not be done in the next disaster. Text & Photographs: Radha Kunke

new urbanism has come to the rural, coastal regions of Tamil Nadu. The landscape has changed dramatically. The region which was dotted with small and medium hamlets, mostly made up of mud and thatch houses, with little clumps of green around, clinging to the beach and its environs, now sees a wave of concrete boxes - rows and rows of differently coloured concrete boxes marching to nowhere. The coastal, rural villages have been transformed into semi-urban ‘townships’. The populace has been precipitated into a new “urbanism” and now adjusts to a new lifestyle. “New urbanism supports regional planning for open space, context-appropriate architecture and planning, and the balanced development of jobs and housing. Their strategies can reduce traffic congestion, increase the supply of affordable housing, and rein in urban sprawl. It also covers issues such as historic preservation, safe streets, green building, and the redevelopment of brownfield land”, Wikipedia. But the new “urbanism” here is a different ball game altogether. The transition from rural to urban or semi-urban has meant severe losses – environmental, economical, psychological, social – to these communities. It has meant that the villages have to suddenly face all the issues of a dense, urban slum: inadequate water, sanitation and sewage facilities, greenery, uneasy social and communal interactions and others. Let’s take a tour …

Radha Kunke.indd 66

The design response very visibly comes from an urban, educated, and a ‘western’ mind, which perceives a compartmentalised lifestyle to be an ideal. Where rural, communal interactions happened seamlessly in a variety of ways – at the well, at the bore well, under the tree, at the tea centre, at the bus stop, at the market, interactions

communal, public spaces in a single fabric between private and public life, the homes are now on ‘plots’ that encourage territorial fencing insulating the family in a way which is new to the community. Except for a few exceptions, the site planning response has been a disaster in itself. Whereas

But the new “urbanism” here is a different ball game altogether. The transition from rural to urban or semi-urban has meant severe losses... are now expected to happen in specified, marked-out areas – parks and ‘open spaces’, community centres, and sometimes nowhere. Where the rural home flowed into the street, into

earlier the acquired sites were undulating, covered by shrubs and trees, and dotted with small water bodies, they are now ‘prepared’ –cleared, levelled, or filled. The sites have lost

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the void

Markedly different from what is “normal” or “traditional” in the area, the design, material and structural response entirely has concentrated on “safety”, an extreme response, no doubt, from a panicky government, to allay the fears of a population that was recovering from a never-seen-before and once-in-a-lifetime disaster. The architect/designer/planner was helpless in the face of a political and bureaucratic response. The building codes for resettlement had to be followed. Forced to adhere to a RCC-column-beam structure, there was very little space to negotiate a better design response. With the entire resettlement and reconstruction controlled

their character, their ambience and their soul. The environmental costs of such hasty action will be borne by the communities rehabilitated there. The sites are bare, featureless, and the water bodies around only threaten to become potential waste pits. The earlier clustered, meandering layouts of the villages have given way to very military, grid formats. Where one fostered interaction and connection, the other has transformed communities to nuclear families.

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by the Tamil Nadu government, with NGOs becoming mere contractors, and the beneficiary becoming ‘beneficiaries’, the government became the ‘superclient’ with all actions responding to the priorities expressed by this superclient. The design, thus, could not respond or be adapted to lifestyle, occupational needs, community relationships, size of family, special needs etc. of the beneficiary. The uniformity, while trying to eliminate inequity, also eliminated creativity and sensitivity.

“Urban security” takes on new forms here. Are these communities that are catapulted into an alien lifestyle “secure”? Where there were communities and family linkages, connections that were depended upon during difficult times, there are now new and culturally different neighbourhoods. New linkages will have to be forged. New relations will have to be 1. Rehabilitation sites in Karaikal - low-lying and prone to flooding. 2. The grid-iron plan of a rehabilitated village at Karaikal, Pondicherry. 3. Arunthanganvilai village, Kanyakumari District - rural lifestyle overflows into the street. 4. An old home; Arunthanganvilai village, Kanyakumari District. 5. Villagers from Arunthanganvilai draw up the village plan that reflects existing hamlets before the Tsunami. 6. Traditional home, Veerapakupathy village, Kanyakumari District. 7. Godspace, Veerapakupathy village, Kanyakumari District.

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68 8. Where have all the backyards gone? - Karaikal, Pondicherry. 9. A sea of roofs, Karaikalmedu village, Karaikal, Pondicherry. 10. A new ‘township’, rehabilitated village, Karaikal, Pondicherry. 11. Till the eye can see - rehabilitated village, Karaikal, Pondicherry.

built. New insecurities and mistrusts, caste and class divisions, will have to be addressed. The communities always had assured, even though not adequate, access to informal facilities and resources. Now they face constraints. Open spaces earlier used as a public convenience now have given way to private, individualised toilets that lack water and thus are unusable. The people have ‘lost’ one of their most vital resource. The psychological insecurity faced by the people, especially the women and young girls, under such situations is painful and unexpressed, only to be talked in whispers or behind hands covered over mouths. The ‘resettlement’ has been riddled with conflict, negotiations and confusion. The conflict has been between the people and the government on the issue of relocation being 500m away from the sea. Seemingly for the ‘good’ of the people and their safety, the relocation raised many questions. Why relocate a community that is dependent on the visibility of the sea so far? What happens to the ‘remaining’ families? Will the communities and families be torn apart just to fulfil the safety perception of the government? Is

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there a more nefarious political agenda behind this move? Is the government planning to sell off the coastline to developers? The community managed to negotiate with the government and brought down the minimum distance from the sea to 200m. They also negotiated such that they could keep control over their old space while relocating to a new site. The government did not get off easy either. It had to face the consequences of its decision too. Land prices shot up and the government had to pay 3-5 times the price during normal times. In many cases the lands acquired were a disaster to build on – low lying, water logging prone areas where the salt water ingress is high, lands on edges of salt-pans, soil too soft to build on, sites too small to accommodate the expected population, lands too far-off from the old community… the list is endless. People took what they got, knowing that eventually they will modify their environs to suit their needs and lifestyle. The real architecture, design and reconstruction will begin, once the designers, the contractors, and the donors have gone.

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There is a learning here. If we are going to be faced with climatic extremes – cyclones, earthquakes, drought, heavy precipitation etc., as foreseen by climate change, we will be responding almost continually with reconstruction. Reconstruction response itself needs to undergo revitalisation. It needs to become a subject to be deeply reflected upon. With solutions and responses to be theorised in the hallowed halls of educations, so that eventually it will not remain a ‘response’ but will transform itself into an ‘approach’ where sustainability and humaneness become embedded in it. So that the disaster can end in the disaster, and does not spill over into reconstruction.

Radha Kunke is a social activist with over 20 years of experience in the field of social development. Her experience includes work on sustainable built environments with special emphasis on post-disaster response and community participation.

1/24/2009 10:37:04 AM

70 IA&B - JAN 2009

(W)ARCHITECTURE A comment that looks at the architecture born out of war and conflict: their form and the different functions they are eventually utilised for. Text: Ekta Idnany Photographs: IA&B archives

s architecture the ‘solution from’ or the ‘means of’ war and conflict?

Ironically, War and Conflict, essentially destructive in nature, seem to inspire a lot of creativity of architectural thought. Active conflict like war and natural disasters seem to inspire variant architectural types like the Brutalist concrete bunkers to facilitate destruction as well as the temporary urbanism of refugee camps and shelters to allay the effects. Remnants of Hitler’s designs on the world can still be seen in the Atlantic Wall and the Siegfried Line that ran from the French coast up to Denmark and Norway. These bunkers have not only been food for thought for Paul Virilio in his treatise “Bunker Archaeology” but have also prompted J G Ballard to say in an interview to the Guardian that the ‘Death’ signified by these remaining war monuments embodied Utopian Modernism. The blockhouses of the Atlantic bunkers have a form purely inspired by function. Their architecture is basically an extension of the ground as mass and not plane; many are built without foundations and can rotate 360 degrees, and though mainly symmetrical they are directionally aligned. Also noteworthy about the bunkers are the massive curved concrete walls that are designed as defense against ballistics. Virilio’s idea for a revolutionary habitable space for cities comes from an investigation of bunkers that

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1 had toppled over in the sand combined with ideas of the oblique plane. These structural qualities and philosophy of space inspired Virilio’s ideas of an urbanism that would exist beyond boundaries and alienation. Ballard however uses the bunkers to explain quite appropriately “The death of Modernism”. According to him, the brutality of Modernism aided by its utopian world view and grand narrative inspired an ‘architecture of death’ of which the Nazi bunkers are a perfect embodiment. While he attributes the heroic periods of modernism to the reaction against World War I, he states that modernism “died first in the blockhouses of Utah beach and the Siegfried Line”: it finally succumbed with Pruitt-Igoe. Aside from the philosophical thought inspired by the remnants of the greatest War we have known, physically too these bunkers have been a source of intrigue to many. Several surviving bunkers have been appropriated to several uses. Nature conservationists believe these to be extremely

useful as biotopes where rare animals and plants can take refuge and grow. Several artists have also appropriated the bunkers for their work. Magdalena Jetlova’s show titled ‘Atlantic Wall’ consisted of black and white photographs of the Atlantic wall bunkers. The bunkers have Virilio’s words from “The Bunker Archaeology” imposed on them using lasers. The Nazi era bunkers that exist in Berlin have become a huge tourist attraction with underground tours being conducted by an organisation called the Berlin Underworlds Association. Berlin sits on a vast network of underground passages and bunkers and close to a thousand bunkers were built during the Nazi era, of which a third have survived. An existing 120-room bunker on Reinhardtstrasse, Berlin has been converted into an art gallery by Christian Boros. In a diametrically opposite thought, conflict and disaster also seems to inspire the very essence of architecture- ‘shelter’. Several have been displaced by manmade conflict situations in the Middle East, Afghanistan, Africa and by natural disasters in India,

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the void 1. A view of the Atlantic Wall, with the backdrop of the coast. 2. Graffiti on one of the blockhouse faces of the Atlantic Wall. 3. An interior view of one of the shelters designed by Nader Khalili, with light streaming in through the openings. 4. The architecture of the Atlantic Wall is an extension of the ground as mass and not plane. 5. A workman completes the underside of a earth-brick dome, designed by Nader Khalili using ‘Super Adobe’ technology.

Thailand, Nepal and even the United States. So much of humanity is living in a kind of makeshift, temporary yet politicised ‘urbanity’ that is managed by the UN but sustained by several NGOs such as Habitat for Humanity, Architecture for Humanity, Architects without Borders and several others.

4 In the pitifully small list of famous architects involved in refuge and rebuilding, the likes of the Japanese architect Shigeru Ban and Nader Khalili of the California Institute of Earth Art and Architecture come to mind immediately. These have made the thinking of temporary disaster relief housing as a long-term design problem. Ban’s cardboard tube structures have been used in natural and manmade disaster areas like Turkey, Rwanda and Sri Lanka. His prototypes in Sri Lanka were so successful that the architect often jokes that several villagers whose houses were not damaged also wanted Ban’s houses.

Khalili developed a technology called ‘Super Adobe’ using the earth found on site to build. The structures use sandbags and barbed wire as reinforcement to create the spiraling forms. As Khalili himself says “The structures make the materials of war-sandbags

Much of humanity is living in a kind of makeshift, temporary yet politicised ‘urbanity’ that is managed by the UN but sustained by several NGOs...

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6 6. One of the underground bunkers in Berlin, which have now become a tourist attraction. 7. Israeli forces destroy the settlements of Gaza. Courtesy Nadav Harel (http://www.decolonizing.ps/visitors.pdf) 8. Part of the bunker in an underground station in Berlin. 9. Israeli ramparts at Gaza. Courtesy Nadav Harel. (http://www. decolonizing.ps/visitors.pdf) 10. A model as part of the research project “Decolonizing Architecture” by Sandi Hilal, Alessandro Petti and Eyal Weiszman.

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8 post-disaster communities that spring up after a crisis generally last much longer than intended to become grossly inadequate permanent housing for the inhabitants. Also refugee camps are planned by organisations based on principles of neutrality, structured organisation and segregation by function and use. Irrespective of context and culture, a Modernist European Urban Organization is applied

and barbed wire-into materials of peace”. These buildings climatologically and contextually appear quite well-suited to conflict ridden nations of the Middle East.

everywhere. Several of these pseudo-cities go onto last for generations. Therefore it is no longer just the architecture of refugee camps that is a design problem, but also its unintended but highly political urbanity.

Studies and observations of conflict zones have shown that temporary refugee camps or

Probably architecture’s most significant contribution to war and conflict can be

exemplified by the research project “Decolonizing Architecture” by Sandi Hilal, Alessandro Petti and Eyal Weiszman. While mostly concerned with the Israeli colonising or occupation of Palestinian land, they do raise an important problem - the humanisation and normalisation of a conflict situation that is ultimately an establishment of control for the colonial ruler. Gideon Boie in

10 reaction to this suggests that “architecture is war or it is not architecture”. How ironic then that the bunkers that are a direct monument of war should be appropriated to creative uses, but humanitarian efforts of refugee camps become instruments of further conflict.

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IA&B - JAN 2009

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A G R AV E B AT T L E F O R

In cities which are radically designed to be functionally deferential to their LIVING millions; a muse on the spaces for their DEAD is literally immaterial. The extant perception of these is written large in their condition as they existâ&#x20AC;Ś like totems from another world and age, perched in landscapes that escape both our collective memories and our vision documents. Their battle then is more than one for the physical spaceâ&#x20AC;Ś

Text & Photographs: Jinisha Jain

n cities, divided and sub-divided into tyrannical use-zones and use-premises; chequered with plots of varying sizes, volumes and densities; classified in the various typologies of buildings; radically designed to be functionally deferential to the teeming millions and serving them in various capacities-as residences, institutions, offices, recreational destinations, structures of faith, of defence, of commerce and countless more; a muse on the spaces for their DEAD is probably distant and literally immaterial. With these municipal conurbations yearning for more and more of space for their living, and the state governments, the local bodies, the public sector agencies, professional groups and the community more occupied with many mounting and urgent requirements of the population, who would cogitate the needs of the deceased? A handful of burial spaces do find themselves in illustrious publications and travel brochures and some also manage to be deemed with a protected status, which calls upon some regular care and maintenance. These are the spectacular tombs, the former royal necropolises, war cemeteries and others which qualify as epitomes of our monumental heritage, as grand reconcilers of histories and genealogies or as components of revenue-generating tourist circuits.

The Burial and Cremation grounds, by various names- Kabristan/Kabragaha/Shamshan Ghat/ Cemetery, usually concerned with the final ceremonies and cessation of life, are ironically sizeable open spaces within any city. Just to take the case of New Delhi, the national capital which is home to a population of almost 16 million people, has 59 cremation grounds and 4 graveyards under the MCD; 53 burial grounds under the Waqf Board and 5 Christian cemeteries managed by the Delhi Cemeteries Committee besides many others owned

• In the existing cremation grounds, provision of crematorium is to be made. • In proposed urban-extension, new burial grounds/crematorium/ cremation grounds/cemetery, etc. are to be planned with proper parking and landscape provisions. The plot area to be about 0.4 hectares per 5 lakh population for a cremation ground and up to 1.0 hectares per 10 lakh population for a cemetery and burial ground, subject to availability of land.

However, the more ordinary of these, struggle to exist with little reverence and attention. This, when the 74 th Constitutional Amendment Act ‘92 and its much-quoted 12 th schedule enlist, burials and burial grounds, crematoriums, cremation grounds and electric crematoriums as a function of the urban local bodies, one of the added 18 tasks to ensure devolution and democratic engagement at the local level. A need which finds due importance and functional domain in our Constitution, though ostensibly complied by the ULB’s and neglected by the larger community, in the country’s umpteen cities and towns.

and maintained by autonomous committees and localised religious or communal bodies. All these put together, comprise a significant percentage of the open areas within the municipal limits. The Delhi Master Plan which clearly defines, ‘Burial ground’, ‘Cremation Ground’, ‘Cemetery’ and ‘Crematorium’, as permissible uses in its Public and Semi-Public (PS) sub-use zone, though not completely flippant to this unusual need, in brevity mentions:

1. 5 x 4ft deep, a grave being dug. 2. Lodhi gardens in Delhi, originally founded as a royal necropolis is now a popular public park, where people idle and stroll in the landscape ornately dotted by protected archaeological monuments of 15th century. 3. Nicholson’s cemetery, Kashmiri gate, Delhi is visited by many Europeans. ‘Cemetery tourism’ has not only hit India but travel houses in other parts of the globe encash on opportunities such as the one in 2007, when ‘150 Years of the Mutiny’ were celebrated. With Tourism ministries, ASI, NGOs and other private bodies as their patrons, these burial sites are saved from neglect. 4. Parked Vehicles and Shacks of the khidmatkar’s family at “Panj Peeran Kabrustan”, Hazrat Nizamuddin, Delhi. 5&6. The butt of the shop walls at Panj Peeran can still be seen with a large signage-post as proofs of Waqf’s revenue generating stints. It is evident that both the ‘Care-taker’ parties here have their vested interests.

There are obvious problems in the projections and the last five words must be read bold and underlined. As a policy document that aims to address the demands of the residents of the city, most master plans increasingly slant the demands of its deceased population. More appalling is the fact that many new master plans for upcoming towns and cities have clubbed cremation grounds and cemeteries as common or adjoining land use for the different communities not appreciating that religious beliefs and cultural practices differ, there are exclusive ways in which their last rites are performed. This planning oversight is serious as it increases the sensitivity of these areas to cultural conflicts. There are many issues that relate to negligent planning and policy. The locations of these are often questionable, a direct outcome of the incongruity of the functions that strive around them...imagine a hospital (a direct market

to the bone-diggers), a temple (offensive to the worshippers), a school (horrifying to the children) or a residence (dangerous to the health and well being of the persons living in the neighbourhood) sharing its wall with one. Even as there continue to be protests in different places regarding the administration’s lackadaisical attitude in providing new lands for burial grounds, in the past existing graveyards have shrunken and disappeared due to construction of residential colonies, schools, government offices, community halls, cricket grounds, wider roads and others. Local agencies and authorities in most places have been repeatedly accused of transferring such land. In qualifying these spaces as PS or PSP in the master plan’s lingo, their potential as landscaped open spaces, as part of the green belts of the city is disregarded. (MCH), Municipal Corporation of Hyderabad’s initiative could have been a trendsetter. As part of its `Clean and Green’ programme, the civic body in 2000 embarked on a scheme to plant about 10,000 trees and indigenous plantation in some 28 graveyards of the city. Using burial grounds as expanded green coverage has its own implications in monitoring the vegetation and ensuring it does not intervene with the bona fide function of these. The initiative unfortunately did not follow suit.

temporary structures and vehicles parked inside; the Waqf here is no good Samaritan, given that they themselves tried to ‘encroach’ upon the land already short in its space for burials, in the construction of ‘unauthorised shops’, many of which would have come up on existing graves, had the construction not been subject to a stay-order. These seemingly forbidden territories face many other dilemmas as they are forced to share space with other unintended users and serve substitute

Overlooked in the urban planning and often devoid of adequate policing and controls, the problems related to these spaces, abound. (How does one exercise controls on the dead?) Panj Peeran in Hazrat Nizamuddin-Delhi, one of the oldest and largest Islamic graveyards of the city, is often in disputes. The property is now claimed to be Waqf Land. Though, inside the old khidmatkar, family of caretakers, continues taking care of the graves. Blatantly called the ‘unauthorised encroachers’ by the Waqf Board and rightly so when one sees their

grounds for several social and anti-social activities. The graveyards have repeatedly turned out to be the relief camps and secured quarters in times of cultural incense. At Mohammed Rafi Nagar, Govandi, Mumbai, the graveyard served as the refuge area during the riots. When thousands of slum-dwellers were evicted in the Maharashtra government’s demolition drive (2004-05), they were again forced to live on this graveyard, also the city’s garbage dump. Similarly, during the Gujarat riots of 2006, some of those rendered homeless had to actually live within the graveyards, as an option over living under them. Pir Kasamshak ki Roza in Ahmedabad’s Gomatipura area was one such burial ground with a persisting history of camps having set up here during the 1985, 90 and 92 unrests. In graveyards like one at Hauz-i-Rani, Saket, Delhi, squatter settlements have sprung up and this bizarre address is shared by as many as 50 families living inside. One of the first houses to be encountered 4 is that of a vegetable vendor, Sharif, who stays in a Kutchha slum house with his family of four on a monthly rental of Rs. 500. Besides ‘familial ensembles’, many others are active sites for drug peddlers, gamblers and boot-leggers, who use the burial platforms as comfortable furniture pieces. The Chameliyan Kabristan on Purana Idgah road, is multi-used as a dumping ground, an extended space for neighbouring 5 residences where they can wash and dry clothes and as a play-ground for children. In localities, with a clear absence of child-friendly areas, the nearest graveyards turn into venture playgrounds. It is known that certain kinds and parts of public space are more fit to children’s developmental needs, though, social and spatial segregation relegates them to their ‘own sites’ within available public realm. Unfortunately, it is mostly children from the so-called weaker-section, who are relegated to discover their space in these not so prodevelopment, adapted play-oases. In many cemeteries and graveyards, the land is not just fought over for ownerships, right of way and

whoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s law, but also contended by the departed where one grave finds its way over the other or older graves are dug out or shoved to accommodate new ones. With persisting issues of graveyards having been overrun, of affordability, restricted usage by certain sects and the absence of burial grounds in most localities, for many it becomes a matter of travelling large distances to ensure the right to the last rites for their known ones. While relatives mourn their loss, many of those buried themselves mourn a loss of their identities as their tombs are broken, headstones and crosses destroyed and their corpses shifted or taken out. In most Muslim graveyards, pucca graves are strictly prohibited presently both by the pressing need of land and by the Islamic law, though fervidity intensed by hierarchies and economic potency results in a continued use of carved stones, grills and other frills. Add to this, for many the choice of where to be buried, which graveyard, which location and next to whom can be exercised in their lifetimes as land for the dead is auctioned off for unbelievable prices. Kabristan adjoining noted Shrines- Dargahs and Majars often follows this trend. The minimum labour charges for digging the graves and laying the â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;marhuumâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; may vary from Rs 50 to Rs 1500. The Christian cemeteries such as the ones under Delhi Cemeteries Committee have fixed charges for laying Kutchha (non-masonary) and Pucca (masonary) graves, which conform to Rs 1000 and Rs 3500, respectively. Maintenance charges are separate. Nonetheless, relations may spend over Rs 50,000 in decking up the graves of

12 their near ones. Here, death though hailed as ‘The Great Democratiser’ also fails to ascertain an equal minimum space and conduct. Where every inch of space is contested for, it shall be no surprise to record that the spaces for the gone and forgotten also wrestle a daily battle amidst heaps of garbage, wild vegetation, cattle, insects, homeless refugees, play-sick children, polarised parties, the trickestering land-laws and an oversteered city planning which would not know how to match this special requirement, so obvious in its projected population growth. To quote from a Guide for Burial Ground Managers (produced by the Department of Constitutional Affairs, DCA, U.K Govt.), “Burial grounds are not simply places for the burial of the dead. They provide areas for the living to commemorate those who have died, a focal point to record and appreciate the life, aesthetics and ethos of previous generations, and, by default or design, a lightly used largely unbuilt environment offering an open space refuge for local flora and fauna, as well as for human recreation.” Neglected, abused and over-used, our cemeteries and burial grounds have at once become a dichotomous expression of a physical and psychological disjunction and continuity of our urban reality. The extant perception of their significance is written large in their present condition. They exist like totems from another

13 7. “Chameliyan Kabristan” on Purana Idgah Road, Delhi, is used as a dumping ground, an extended open space to wash and dry clothes and as a play-ground for children. 8. Relief Camp at Gomtipura graveyard, Ahmedabad. (Source: http://www.dionnebunsha.com) 9. Entrance to “Pathanan ka kabristan”. 10. Losing identity. 11. Squatter Settlements inside “Hauz-i-Rani Kabrustan”, Saket, New Delhi. 12. Pucca graves are strictly prohibited and the prohibition is usually defied. The shortage for burial land leads to one grave over the other or older graves being shoved to accommodate new ones. 13. …they exist like totems from another world and age. 14 & 15. Continuing sacrilege.

world, stranded in time and perched in landscapes which largely escape both our collective memories and our vision documents. Yet, in these dark, oblivious, less-frequented spaces, the city continues to function in its importunate ways whilst continually performing an everyday sacrilege to its dead citizens.

Notes: 1) Most of the information is gathered from field-surveys of cemeteries in Delhi and other places. 2) Dionne Bunsha’s Blog- a journalist with Frontline magazine and author of the book, ‘Scarred: Experiments with Violence in Gujarat’ - gives more detailed insights into the cases of Mohammed Rafi Nagar, Govandi, Mumbai and Pir Kasamshak ki Roza, Gomatipura, Ahmedabad. 3) The generalist opinions are based on a sample selection of case studies and master-plan documents and are by no means absolute. Though most Master Plans designate these spaces as Public and Semi-Public and expound little information on their planning and controls, some may differ. 4) The study of Shamshan Ghats or Cremation grounds is not within the ambit, as the problems and situations they pose are characteristically different.

78 IA&B - JAN 2009 1

PRISONERS OF OUR OWN DEVICE In an age where human rights are being given high priority, where does one draw the line between providing a safe habitat for the incarcerated and making it a desirable haven for repeat offenders?

Text: Amrita Ravimohan Photographs: Will Alsop Architects & IA&B archives

ention the words ‘prison’ or ‘jail’ and most of the associated imagery that comes to mind is architectural: high boundary walls, watch towers, dimly-lit cramped rooms, narrow unventilated corridors, overflowing toilet bowls et al. These images have not transformed in nature for many decades; the main cause being that prison design is low-priority for lawmakers and enforcers alike. Consequently, designers, especially in India, have never taken prison design seriously. The effect of this is three-fold: the appalling physical conditions of most prisons, the diminished importance given to the location of inner city prisons and the negative impact of prison facades within the urbanscape. All of these suggest that very little is being invested in the underbelly of modern society, one whose presence is a reality most would like to avoid acknowledging.

RIGHTS OR NOT RIGHT? Do hardened criminals have human rights? One school of thought thinks not. Many prisons till date conform to either the Separate System (a form of prison management and architecture, its principle

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The Prison Building Board set up in the UK in 1980 stated “Our duty is to look after them [prisoners] with humanity and help them lead law-abiding lives in custody and after release”.

1. The exterior of S21 or Tuol Sleng prison in Cambodia. 2. The interior of a cell at the Carbon County prison, USA. 3. A standard prison interior. 4. The Separate Prison, Port Arthur, Australia. 5. A security camera at the prison boundary.

being to hold prisoners in solitary confinement) or Panopticon (a design concept that allows an observer to monitor all prisoners without their knowledge). Although most prisons have undergone some kind of upgradation programme, involving addition of systems of surveillance and added security measures for the prevention of jailbreaks, but this is surely not enough. The Prison Building Board set up in the UK in 1980 stated “Our duty is to look after them [prisoners] with humanity and help them lead law-abiding lives in custody and after release”. This is surely not the case in many prisons, what with common problems such as overcrowding, low hygiene, and severe space constraints. Another issue is the inability to prevent outbreaks of violence within inmates and/or between inmates and staff. The primary issue is to protect not only the citizens outside from the risk of escaped convicts (hence high levels of security at prison perimeters), but also those living within the prison in any capacity. The living conditions in large Indian jails such as Jaipur Central Jail are nothing short of appalling and while one might disagree with them becoming luxurious, one cannot deny even criminals a basic habitat, one that is hygienic and comfortable.

BEYOND THE BOX Two recent projects have taken this idea a lot further. The first is the Leoben Justice Centre in Austria designed by Josef Hohensinn, completed in 2004. This building approaches prison design in a radical way – it provides maximum comfort to the inmates, almost bordering on luxury, by way of a cafeteria, a gym, and an indoor court with ping-pong and cells with furniture and built-in TVs. Throw in some designer lounging chairs and you wish you were there, well almost. The point is that should this approach be adopted as a prototype of model prison design? The concept behind such a solution is to question the notion that only when the prisoner is made to suffer, will he be penitent and thus unlikely to repeat his crime. In this case, the living conditions created inside are similar to those on the outside, i.e. the spaces are divided into a residential zone, a work zone and a recreation zone. Hohensinn has a radically different take on rehabilitation, claiming that rather than making prisoners harder, angrier and more likely to commit future crimes, a scenario that would be likely in uncomfortable prison

8 challenge attitudes to current prisoner rehabilitation. The collaboration examined how the design of prisons informs their effectiveness and involved a unique collaboration with prison staff and with inmates serving life sentences at HMP Gartree, Leicestershire, UK.

7 environments, the Leoben Justice Centre provides a ”happy” place for them to rethink the errors of their ways. The Centre also alters the effect of such institutions on the urban fabric and their perception among the populace. Along with the prison, it houses a land court, public prosecutor’s office and a municipal court, and together these present a new image to the city. An image that moves away from the ”Palaces of Justice” of old, and transforms more into a ‘service centre’ in contemporary times – one that is open and welcoming, both physically as well as tangibly. The second such project is the Creative Prison by Will Alsop, a hypothetical exercise undertaken in 2006, in collaboration with artists Shona Illingworth and Jon Ford. Led by the arts organisation Rideout Creative Arts for Rehabilitations, it aimed to debate and

Alsop said “They spend 12 hours incarcerated in tiny spaces that are too hot in summer and too cold in winter. They look at a lavatory from their pillow, while lying on a bed, which is too short, with no space for a proper table to draw, read or write. We have developed an outline scheme that proposed a series of much smaller cellblocks of 12 to 13 people. At the base of the prison villa there is a sitting room, kitchen, large table, secure external garden area and television. Each cell would have its own balcony where the growing of plants is encouraged. In this way a sense of ownership and responsibility is created within a group that is small enough to relate to. These villas are distributed within the landscape surrounded by a secure boundary. My intention is to introduce above all a sense of beauty to the prison campus because ultimately it is the raising of spiritual values which leads to better citizenship”. The designs that the collaborative team came up with were unconventional in that, apart from the high security perimeter wall, there appeared to be little that might cause significant discomfort. In the age of CCTVs and other sophisticated surveillance devices, this is not only believable but also easily implementable. Interestingly, many of the facilities in the new designs, i.e. the sports field, the gym, the education block, the

library, the debating society and the giant chess game, are already in place at the chosen site at Gartree. The ingenuity of the designers is to reposition them so as to ensure their benefits are maximised. Importantly, the Directors of the programme, Chris Johnston and Saul Hewish emphasised that “We wanted to draw on the thinking of both sides to create plans for a prison that staff would be happy to work in and provoke prisoners to examine personal priorities”. In entirety this seems a more grounded scheme, one that is similar to an interactive community-based approach that is for example adopted in many conflict/ disaster hit areas. Also conforms to this view by saying that “A prison is a small town… the ideal prison would give its inhabitants a sense of self respect”.

BACK HOME In the face of this perhaps over-the-top level of comfort being provided to the prisoners at the Leoben Justice Centre, one cannot but feel pity for those incarcerated in Indian jails. While the cash-forcomforts schemes are rampant in most prisons, it is only the rich and influential that can afford ‘luxuries’ within those confined spaces. On the other hand, Tihar Jail in New Delhi, the largest prison in the world, in terms of numbers, turned its reputation around under the control of the then Inspector General of Prisons, Kiran Bedi. She introduced a number of prison management reforms and the most publicised move was the introduction of a Vipassana programme on the premises. The results were positive and the changes were well received by inmates and staff alike. In fact

6. The street-facing exterior of Leoben Justice Centre, Austria. 7. Outdoor recreational facilities at the Leoben Justice Centre, Austria. 8. Interior of a cell at the Leoben Justice Centre, Austria. 9. A rendering of the hypothetical Creative Prisons project by Will Alsop. 10. A ‘Stand Up, Speak Out’ session in progress at Tihar Jail, New Delhi. 11. A gate at the SCI Pittsburgh prison.

9 the model was adopted at three prisons in the USA: the W.E. Donaldson Correctional Facility, Alabama; the San Francisco Jail; and the North Rehabilitation Facility, Seattle. During an earlier unsuccessful attempt to introduce Vipassana at the Tihar jail in the 1970s, there were accounts that the accommodations were abominable: open-air cells in the seasonally frigid northern climate, stone slab beds, standing pools of water acting as bath and toilet. To make matters worse, the behaviour of inmates - and guards at times - was allegedly frequently violent. Conditions were not very different when Bedi took over in the 1990s, but she managed to bring about change and even if the physical environment did not improve, there was a reported change in the mental

scheme. Since inner-city prisons are a common phenomenon, their location itself is nearly always contentious. It is not feasible to place them near a school or a residential area, so in the first instance land acquisition is a problem. The second matter, one that is rarely addressed, is the impact of a prison structure in the urban fabric. The high boundary walls, often topped with barbed wires, running along the perimeter of the premises, creates an

state of inmates and a more peaceful atmosphere within the prison. What then does this have to with the design of the built environment? Nothing at all, one is tempted to think: perhaps if we could solve the overcrowding and sanitary problems of our Indian jails (with the addition of modern surveillance techniques), then it is these non-architectural transformations, such as the introduction of Vipassana programmes and upgraded prison management techniques, that can truly keep these environments safe for those living and working inside the prisons as well citizens on the outside. However, this does not tackle the issue of the status of a prison in the overall masterplanning

11 urbanscape that propounds danger. This is definitely avoided in a building like the Leoben Justice Centre, wherein the façade is like any other contemporary public building and does not reveal itself as a prison to passers-by.

But what we seem to require, first and foremost, is a sea change at the policy making level. According to Leslie Fairweather, architect and co-editor of Prison Architecture, Policy, Design and Experience, “What we need is a sane, rational and humane policy towards prisons, carried through by successive governments”. Our policy makers need to urgently understand that prison management reforms is an issue that has far-reaching consequences and only when that occurs will this change trickle down to the level of design. Perhaps, one day…

82 IA&B - JAN 2009

ENABLING CITIES A truly globalised city is one which holds equal opportunities for all the people irrespective of their diversities. Kanchana Ganesan discusses how â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;accessibilityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; needs to be treated holistically in order to achieve this.

Text: Kanchana Ganesan Photographs: Kanchana Ganesan, Jinisha Jain

7 2

1, 3, 5 & 7. Accessibility remains a problem despite interventions. 2. A view of ITO where the project was carried out. 4 & 9. Signage indication special facilities. 6 & 8. Grab bars and ramps are provided to ease the disabled to move about. 10. Broken pavement reflects the state of maintanence.

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ndian cities, like in any other developing country, are coping with the polemics of a rapidly changing morphology, owing to the onslaught of consumerism, and finding an identity. Governmental interventions also have been aggressively steered towards propelling the economy, investing in areas that encourage consumerism, and developing the cities in order to woo the investors. This has lead to a spasmodic spurt of development in metro cities like Calcutta, Mumbai, Bangalore, Chennai and Delhi. Sections of society continue to be cordoned off as ‘consumers’ and development is concentrated around areas inhabited by them. Those that do not fall into the category are overlooked leading to the creation of intracity islands, which witness a contrast in economic, cultural and social diversity. The rapidly evolving socio-economic milieu of contemporary cities has the government grappling with quick-fix ways to disburse developmental policies in order to solicit the image of global cities. One of the key components of being a global city is the notion of inclusion, enabling people access irrespective of their diversities. Inclusion is quantified as a tangible in terms of visibility. Here visibility can be

Given the existence of intra-city islands, accessibility interventions should ideally enable ease of physical as well as socio-cultural navigations to create enabling cities. Denying this would create yet another microcosm where these pockets would function perfectly within these environments, but would fail, in the larger socio-cultural fabric. To highlight this, two accessibility interventions are described below: the New Delhi Pilot Project located at ITO and the Neelasandra Slum Rehabilitation Project in Bangalore. The focus is on the concept of accessibility in our present urban environment, the relevance of socio-cultural context and the role of the design professional.

pedestrian movement area, such as open gutters on the footpath d) location of two bus stops in close proximity to each other which led to excessive crowding.

NEW DELHI PILOT PROJECT

Neelasandra was a disability intervention project initiated by the Association for People with Disabilities (APD) in an urban slum in Bangalore. The initial intervention focused on attaining maximum mobility for children in the community with post-polio locomotor disability. Later, it was realised that disability was only one among innumerable problems of everyday survival in an urban environment leading to the formation of the department of Urban Slum Outreach Program (USOP) in 1989. Initiatives over the years involved: a) vocational training and income generation programmes for women, b) training of people within the community to function as health administrators to handle referrals, first aid and health advice, c) monitoring nutrition and education of the children in the area, d) generating employment for the community through vocational training.

The New Delhi Pilot Project organised by the United Nations Economic and Social Commission of Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP) and the Ministry of Urban Affairs and Employment was a barrier-free project based on UNESCAP guidelines. Accessibility was defined as empowering the disabled by providing them accessible work environments and consequently empowerment through economic independence. I. P. Estate in New Delhi was selected

...a global city is the notion of inclusion, enabling people access irrespective of their diversities. addressed in two ways: one in terms of enabling access within certain sections of these urban islands and as a result granting a greater density in visibility within these selected islands; and the other in terms of enabling access by negotiating and establishing connections in order to grant visibility across these urban voids. With the passing of the Disability Act in India in 1998, there has been a flurry of development policies aimed at enabling inclusion of people with disabilities in these cities. Since these policies address inclusion, visibility of people with disabilities is the desired outcome. The dilemma faced then, is that which of the two approaches should be taken in order to negotiate these urban voids and grant accessibility. It also raises the larger question of whether design interventions in the physical environment truly enable accessibility for the disabled in these cities or whether accessibility is more of a social issue and hence the need for a more holistic approach.

for the project, given the concentration of offices in the area. Fourteen buildings were selected where at least one entrance, one toilet was to be made ‘accessible’. Parking space, corridors and walkways were to be modified to suit the mobility requirements of the disabled in every building. The modifications included changes to the interior and the exterior environments in the form of walkways, ramps, curbs, handrails, parking, entry and exit, corridors, toilets, and signage and symbols. However, after completion of the project, a mapping of the movement of a disabled person from the public transportation mode to the individual buildings identified the following obstacles: a) overlap of pedestrian and vehicular movement, b) uneven pedestrian pathways, c) congestion due to encroachment of hawkers on the footpath, presence of obstacles in the

Therefore, even though accessibility features were provided in the individual buildings and curb cuts and textured paving were provided on the streets, it did not change the plight of the disabled working in the area because the question of ‘access’ from home to the workplace remained unresolved.

NEELASANDRA URBAN SLUM OUTREACH PROGRAM

The organisation realised that the success of any intervention was due to community organisation and therefore it concentrated on skills training, skills transfer, training the trainers and capacity building. The project addressed accessibility as a socio-cultural intervention. At Neelasandra, the narrow and cobbled streets function as activity spaces where the children play, women cook or even wash clothes. Maneuvering these streets on a wheelchair did not seem possible. Also the access to the community, which lies in the midst of Bangalore’s commercial district, was through congested traffic. There was also the question of economic disparities which was visible in the landscape’s transition from thatched

84 their physical disability. The entire community was more educated and aware and over the years had gained access to a better standard of living.

employment and consequently a better living by building a sustainable community. Even modifications to the physical environment were incidental and gradual, not deliberated.

CONCLUSION

Both the projects were interventions aimed at providing a better living environment to the disabled. However, their influence on those concerned was very different. In the New Delhi Pilot Project, it was observed that a strict adherence to providing ‘accessibility features’ further created islands. Once outside these island

Our cities are faced with the dilemma of adapting to the rapid pace of modernisation, balancing the innate and the indigenous, with the global. Accessibility design functions as a secondary reflection of this dichotomy. Given the complexity in contemporary everyday urban experiences, the notion of any disability intervention would ideally

11. Wheelchair distributed by the government finds the right place on the roof. 12. Railings in the school provided for accessibility. 13-17. Views of the slum. the narrow lanes also function as activity spaces and render wheelchair and other mobility tools useless.

roofs, to tiled roofs to concrete houses. Some of the houses incorporated accessibility features, 16 for example modifications were made to existing 14 toilets by adding grab bars, constructing a concrete slope from the street level to the threshold of the buildings, one was not granted mobility, easily house. APD built a school for the children of the and independently. It was also observed that community, with the help of a retired architect who prolonged habituation to an environment that was had worked for 15years at Skidmore Owings and accessible in contrast to the bigger city envelope, Merrill. The school incorporated simple solutions which still lacked all these features, further of grab rails and ramps. According to the architect, disoriented a person. Accessibility design needs to the issue of access was addressed only after the be an intervention that is a long-term strategy for basic necessities were fulfilled and that it could not sustaining long-term improvements as opposed be developed forcefully. Success depended on the to immediate design interventions that cater to a particular microcosm. The approach has to be increase in capabilities of the people. holistic and contextual. This was illustrated by the Over the years, through programmes for vocational project in Neelasandra. The project was directed training and general awareness, the women in at the requirements of the community and their Neelasandra were empowered to play an important realistic needs rather than creating something role in the community. Coalitions were formed that was an ideal ‘accessible’ environment and consisting of women from different backgrounds trying to fit the people into it. They relied on and religion, who helped each other through difficult indigenous materials and local expertise within times. The children were educated and employed and the community. Access was defined in terms of living a life of independence and dignity, in spite of attaining maximum mobility, access to education,

17 be reflective of this contextuality. Interventions that bring these fragments together, rather than add to the existing fragmentary existence, could be more meaningful. As designers we need to realise that cities are co-existing microcosms of sub cultures interacting. The focus is myopic if it caters to only the section that designers acknowledge through their designs. As professionals we should perhaps inculcate the humility to be prepared to accept that our role in such scenarios would have no grandiose physical edifices to speak of our contribution. In all probability it would be muted, yet far noble.

Kanchana Ganesan is a Boston based architect who has worked in the field of accessibility design, senior living and healthcare. She is a post-graduate in Human Environment Behavior Studies from the University of Cincinnati.

86 IA&B - JAN 2009

CLAIMING PUBLIC SPACE

Prof. Lori A Brown examines the role that academia plays in confronting the issues of culture, conflict and the city as it relates to architecture and the public space and illustrates it through installations designed by a set of students.

Text & Photographs: Prof. Lori A Brown

n the United States, as in many other regions around the world, public space is becoming less public as architects continue to provide services supporting its demise. Designing collective spaces to be easily surveilled and controlled and removing publicly programmed zones within and around buildings demonstrate ways in which civic space is quietly being usurped. In her book, “Evictions and Spatial Politics”, Rosalyn Deutsche argues that ideas of “public” can be used for the rhetoric surrounding redevelopment of urban space to maximise profit and facilitate state control. (Deutsche 1996: 260). Once a clear indication of democracy, where people freely congregate or actively participate and demand their voices be heard, the power of public space has greatly diminished today. What is the role of the architect in how public space is designed 1 and politically defined? As public policy and public–private partnerships continue to erode the publicness of our cities, how can architects and designers begin to take back public space and reclaim it as our democratic right? Furthermore, what is the role of academia in confronting issues of culture, conflict and the city as it relates to architecture and public

space? How do we train students to engage in issues that are not singularly focused on object making but include political and social justice concerns? To reclaim architecture from the world of developers, corporate conglomerates and high-end clients to a profession for average everyday people where design matters to the larger public realm, it is imperative to introduce students to the contentious issues surrounding

the city, the politics of public space and the heterogeneity of cultural identities. It is during a student’s architectural education and academic exploration that diverse ways of engaging and thinking about architecture must occur. This critical period encourages students to freely explore and grapple with what kind of citizen architects they aspire to be.

Class polemic. As an architect increasingly interested in the politics of space, power and representation, I believe architecture must reclaim and reinvent its role in our contemporary built environment. Teaching in the United States during this past decade and observing what little role architecture has taken in planning and negotiating the complex global environmental, political and social problems, I am compelled to teach in ways that raise awareness and question the lack of architecture’s involvement in our built environment. One way to introduce students to the politics and debates on public space is through a seminar I teach called Gender Space and Power. Arguing that we are all creative individuals and have the power to promote critical public engagement, I ask the students to take responsibility by participating in this debate during the semester they are enrolled in my course. The class discusses work by a wide range of people including critical and political theorists, geographers, architects and artists, all those who use their work as a way to engage issues of space, identity and power. I require each student to engage the space immediately around her beginning with the community of the university and city where she lives. The course culminates with group installations in public spaces of the city discovered by the students.

the public It is imperative to introduce students to the contentious issues surrounding the city, the politics of public space and the heterogeneity of cultural identities. Whose public is it anyway? Initially, as expected, most students are not aware of the politics inherent within their profession and architecture’s exclusionary tactics perpetuating certain power dynamics. Through the semester’s readings, the class explores strategies of those who confront, challenge and propose alternatives to these powerful systems through their writing and design work. For example, in her essay “Bodies – Cities,” Elizabeth Grosz questions the distinction between the body and culture. Arguing for a non-hierarchal rather than binary relationship, she sees both the body and culture as mutually defining, interfacing and co-creating one another. Once the opposition between nature and culture is removed, she encourages us to imagine the possibilities of how we can co-create ourselves and our spaces through the advent of emerging technologies and networks. (Grosz 1992: 242-251). Located within a position of privilege, students are often not aware of how exclusive public space can be. If all do not have access to this space for reasons of social inequalities such as race and gender, or economic status, then where and how does everyone claim space and have a voice? The critical theorist, Nancy Fraser, argues in “Rethinking the Public Sphere: A contribution to the Critique of Actually Existing Democracy,” for a plurality of competing publics so that counter discourses occur thus expanding the idea of the larger public realm. Allowing for multiple publics or what she refers to as subaltern counterpublics, these spaces are parallel discursive arenas providing space for all to have voice. (Fraser 1990: 66-70).

Taking these ideas one-step further and incorporating Fraser’s ideas of counterpublics, in Inclusion and Democracy, Iris Marion Young calls for a single public sphere for all. Asserting the public sphere is the connector between ordinary citizens and power elites, it is through this critical space and activity that ordinary citizens are able to pressure and influence the actions of the power elites. (Young 2000: 171-177). Approaches: I desire to cultivate student diversity within the classroom requiring everyone to learn to speak to the group, not to their respective disciplines. The class is interdisciplinary in composition and has included students not only from architecture but also art (digital media), women’s studies, geography and law. I have found this approach to be incredibly fruitful for both discussions and installation projects.

The class also models real world experiences where one must be able to converse with multiple disciplines and points of view to make projects happen. Installations: The installations from the class vary in scope and scale from year to year. Beginning with the student’s immediate space

3 within the university, one group of students sited its installation on the quad, the large open central space of the campus. Wanting to address what is perceived as “public space,” the students staked off all edges of the quad with yellow “do not trespass” tape 18 inches above the ground. In addition, they posted enlarged Xerox versions of the required official application form all students must submit prior to receiving permission to use the quad. Since this institution is private, the quad is a private space highly patrolled and monitored by security cameras and security officers. If the students had not received permission for their installation, it would have been promptly removed. Another group was interested in social justice issues making local headlines and decided to use their installation project to create both a physical and virtual response to 2 these issues. Mapping key locations within the city where issues were being contested, the students created a series of placards with questions, statements and fillin-the-blank sentences hoping to garner public

1. The installation created a virtual and physical response to local issues. Placards with questions, statements etc were put up in the locations dealing with these issues and public participation was sought.

participation. These were installed around the contested sites throughout the city. Concurrently, the students created a website discussing these local issues, documenting the process of their project, mapping the sign locations and whether the signs were acted upon and relocated. The last project was interested in Guy Dubord’s Society of the Spectacle and ways to disrupt consumerism. Their installation challenged the “public” space of the largest shopping mall in the city. Having organised a team of students to help with the installation, this group designed and installed a large banner that hung from the mall’s five-storey atrium space. Interested in creating an anonymous event and drawing attention to

the “public”area of the mall, the students hoped their “spectacle” would encourage spectators to “go find out what was happening” and thus momentarily, disrupt consumption. Conclusions: I believe all groups felt a certain responsibility to their self-identified publics and wanted to make the biggest impact as possible. In each case, discussions occurred about whether the students would go through the appropriate channels to seek permission for their installations. In the case of the quad project, all members agreed with the need to go through the appropriate channels for permission so that the project would have a life beyond its immediate installation. In the later two groups,

the students decided no permission would be sought and the results would be what they would be. Particularly in the mall installation, the students were concerned permission would be denied and were more interested in creating a guerilla event on a busy Saturday afternoon of shopping. I have noticed in teaching this class that students tend to be incredibly timid when confronting real public space. It is one thing to design an abstract public space for a completely autonomous “public” in a studio project but it is quite another to actually act out and claim public space. It is precisely the latter that these installations require the students to do. The socialised idea

of the state is a powerful tool in preventing public action and works to the advantage of the power elites. As future architects, geographers, lawyers, artists, and citizens, these small-scale installations require the students to critically engage and participate in democratic space. It is my hope that these projects will ignite a curiosity and provoke further questions about their role in these issues. As the students eventually graduate and move out into the world, I hope this assignment will have a lasting affect on their engagement and involvement in what is left of our democratic spaces and help to literally claim more space in this struggle.

2 (previous page) & 4. An installation in the open central space of the campus, addressed the “perceived” public space. The edges were marked with “do not trespass” tape and an enlarged copy of the permission to “use the space” was posted. 3. (previous page) Based on Guy Dubord’s “Society of the Spectable”, this installation challenged the public space manifest by the shopping mall. The students hung a banner in the atrium to generate interest in it, thus disrupting “consumption”.

Prof. Lori A Brown is an Associate Professor at the Syracruse University School of Architecture. Her work emerges from the belied that architecture can participate in and impact people’s everyday lives.

90 IA&B - JAN 2009

ENTRY RESTRICTED: OPEN PUBLIC SPACES IN MUMBAI The article discusses the interaction of women with the open public spaces in a city and how the design of these spaces reflects the city’s attitude towards them. Text: Shilpa Ranade, Shilpa Phadke and Sameera Khan Photographs: Ankita Sharma

ll work and hardly any play seems to be the fate of the Mumbai woman. As our research on gender and public space in Mumbai revealed, there is an appalling lack of public recreational space for women in the city. Parks and promenades lie at the heart of the city’s open public spaces and the city’s attitude to them reflects its attitude to its citizens. The ratio of open space per thousand residents in globally aspirational Mumbai is a shameful 0.03 acres as against more than three acres in New Delhi and Kolkata. The National Commission on Urbanisation (1988) suggests that the ideal ratio of open spaces is 4 acres per 1,000 persons. Where parks do exist in Mumbai, they are not equally welcoming to all and are often governed by an impulse not to include but to exclude. Given this grossly inadequate and

Gender.indd 90

rapidly shrinking open space, one might naturally argue that it is unfair for women to ask for space when there is hardly any public recreational space even for others. We contend, however, that women’s access to open public space is closely connected to access for other groups of citizens to these spaces and cannot be seen in isolation. Our research on parks, maidans and sea-fronts shows that many people feel uncomfortable in accessing these spaces. These spaces often tend to be badly maintained or policed stringently, both discouraging popular use. Open public spaces are frequently seen as being an invitation for ‘antisocial-elements’ who will somehow misuse them. In the past decade, the pressures of liberalisation and the concomitant rise of right-wing regionalist and communal politics have ensured that the list

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the public

1. The lack of appropriate personal space in the residences results in couples moving out to the public spaces where they become victims of culture policing.

middle-class people from nearby neighbourhoods who use it regularly. But setting a fee for accessing a public space fundamentally militates against the principle of publicness and also has the effect of segregating the space on the basis of class. Those who cannot afford to pay the entry fee everyday – if they happen to be men, hang around outside the park; if they are women they wait for weekends and public holidays. Those are the special days when families from nearby slums in Dharavi, Bharat Nagar and Behrampada come there. Ironically, our interviews show that on these days the presence of working-class people, and in this case Muslims, marks the space as undesirable for the local residents, especially women.

1 of those-who-do-not-really-belong-to-the-city is larger than ever before. These now include the poor, the barely acknowledged lower castes, the typecast Muslims, the ‘immoral’ couples, the too-different gays and lesbians, the ‘outsider’ bhaiyas, the ‘encroacher’ hawkers, the ignored elderly, and the invisible differently-abled.

in point are the new concepts of public space management in the city such as paid parks and participation of local resident’s groups in the upkeep of public spaces. These have on one hand aesthetically improved the spaces under their jurisdiction but on the other hand, they have reduced the access of many groups.

This social segregation and exclusion is reflected in the everyday spatial practices in the city. Cases

In City Park at the Bandra-Kurla Complex, for example, the entry fee of Rs 5 is not much for

The right to the city means a right not only to inhabit urban spaces but also to participate in a city as an ongoing work of creation, production, and negotiation – acts that are enabled by public spaces. Gender.indd 91

Thus, while these parks privilege access for a certain class of women (at certain times), this is done at the cost of keeping away other groups of men who are seen as threats to their safety and comfort, as well as women from other classes and communities. Such a method, however, can only guarantee conditional access for middle-class women. The creation of the image of some kinds of men as the executors of violence against women provides the indisputable rationality for restricting all women’s access to public space. Ironically, both the perceived aggressor and the potential victim become outsiders to public space based on this premise; poor men as potential perpetrators and women as potential victims. The exclusion and the vilification of other marginal citizens from public space are inextricably linked to the exclusion of women. Moreover, even in pure materialist terms, physical barriers designed to keep out certain people, effectively keep out women as well. Urban

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2. The Oval Maidan, with high iron fences and gates, restricts movement across the maidan and discourages women alongwith undesirable people. 3. The Shivaji Park in Central Mumbai is an example of inclusiveness. A low wall, used as seating, is the demarcation between the park and the road. 4. The Oval Maidan fails to engage with the city in any manner that would benefit its scale and location.

3 designers and planners have repeatedly pointed out that the way to make a public space safer is not by keeping out the ‘undesirables’ but by encouraging more and more ‘desirables’. Ironically parks in Mumbai are proactively designed to discourage certain groups from accessing them and this has the effect of making them unsafe for women as well. An example of this is the Oval Maidan, located along one of the busiest pedestrian corridors in

Gender.indd 92

South Mumbai, and restored in the late 1990s through initiatives of a local citizen group. The project was successful in aestheticising the space; yet fails to engage with the city in any manner that would befit its scale and location. The maidan is policed more stringently and closed at night with the intention of keeping out ‘anti-social’ elements. The high iron fence restricts movement across the maidan and creates deep uncomfortable corners at the longer ends. In our interviews, many women users of the park reported that they

did not always feel comfortable using the space. The lighting in the Oval is also found wanting. In setting up a variety of physical barricades against undesirables, women are also discouraged from using public spaces. In contrast, Shivaji Park – the only large maidan in Central Mumbai – is a very good example in inclusiveness. The maidan supports activities ranging from political rallies attended by tens of thousands to the intimate conversations of

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couples. The shifting activities in and around the maidan begin before day break and carry on late into the night. The low wide edge wall merely acts to demarcate the maidan from the space around it without restricting access. Although located in the middle of a predominantly Maharashtrian residential locality, its openness gives it the sense of belonging to the larger city. Moreover, the fact that the maidan is open at all times of the day and night means that it is active until quite late in the night. This is another factor that makes women feel safe in and around it. Parks as open public spaces are also used to impose a specific ‘moral vision’ of order on the city. Citizens groups would like parks to comply

across the city. At various times police personnel have been directed to discourage such couples by shooing them away or even arresting them on grounds of obscenity and/or immorality. In fact, this moral policing is also imprinted on the body of the city through the design of public spaces such as park benches with dividing armrests and singleton seats. Some years ago, in the Five Gardens at Dadar for example, park benches were made into single-seaters to discourage couples from engaging in ‘indecent behavior’. Women are often the prime targets in such cases of culture policing. When canoodling couples are rounded up, it is often the young women who are sought to be shamed by threatening to inform their

4 with a notion of middle-class aesthetics and morality – timings for opening and closing, rules about edibles, lists of dos and don’ts in the park, and the presence of visible security signifies not just beauty but also morality. In Mumbai, as in many cities across the country, this morality is peculiarly directed at public displays of romantic affection by couples. Since the home is usually a space of crowding, couples often seek privacy along promenades or in parks

Gender.indd 93

parents. For example in case of the Marine Drive rape in 2005, a private security guard appointed by the local residents’ association complained to a policeman about the victim and her male friend who were hanging out on Marine Drive, an open public promenade, in the late afternoon. The policeman on duty then took the couple for questioning to the local police chowki, threw the boy out, and then proceeded to rape her. Her ‘crime’ apparently was in being out with a boy in a public place on a hot afternoon.

Certainly, the Marine Drive rape case example is an extreme. But no less is it true that on an everyday basis women in public are policed on where they are hanging out, what they are wearing, who they are with or without, what time they are out and so on. Although there are many women in public space in Mumbai, our research shows that their access is circumscribed by the need to demonstrate purpose and respectability. When being in a public park or promenade poses a potential threat not just to their physical safety but also to their respectability, women are prone to avoiding them. Open public spaces reflect the city’s attitude to its citizens. The presence of sensitively designed and welcoming public spaces are a measure of its inclusiveness. The right to the city means a right not only to inhabit urban spaces but also to participate in a city as an ongoing work of creation, production, and negotiation – acts that are enabled by public spaces. The lack of public space for women not just amounts to a denial of access, but actively prevents them from participating in shaping the future of the city.

Shilpa Ranade, Shilpa Phadke and Sameera Khan have worked together on the Gender & Space project at PUKAR (Partners for Urban Knowledge, Action & Research) and are now authoring a book on women’s access to public space in Mumbai.

REFERENCES Khan, Sameera (2007): ‘Negotiating the Mohalla: Exclusion, Identity and Muslim Women in Mumbai’, Review of Women’s Studies, Economic & Political Weekly, Vol.42, No.17, 1527-1533. Phadke, Shilpa (2007): ‘Dangerous Liaisons: Women and Men; Risk and Reputation in Mumbai’, in Review of Women’s Studies, Economic & Political Weekly, Vol.42, No.17, 1510-1518. Ranade, Shilpa (2007): ‘The Way She Moves: Mapping the Everyday Production of Gender-Space’, Review of Women’s Studies, Economic & Political Weekly, Vol.42, No.17, 1519-1526.

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94 IA&B - JAN 2009

DEATH OF THE PUBLIC SPACE Fear which is a result of increased terror activities is fast becoming a part of the urban environment as well.

Text & Photographs: Shankar Narayan

anguage is not a static entity – it evolves to accommodate and reflect changes in social mores and technology. Thus we have expressions like ‘SMS’ and ‘googling’ making their debut into the English lexicon. There is already a word for the fear of open spaces – agoraphobia. This probably came into being during the Roman times when large plazas and grand streets dwarfed and overpowered some individuals. Soon we may see an addition to the vocabulary to mean something like ‘the fear of public space due to the threat of being killed in a terrorist attack’. How does ‘Agora-terroro-phobia” sound?

Looking through the eyes of a potential terrorist, our country offers many juicy opportunities for causing maximum havoc with minimal means. A remote controlled bomb, random firing and ramming explosive laden vehicles extract heavy casualities. Our cities are crowded and dense with our public transport always brimful with people, so are our public spaces. Due to climatic and social reasons, Indians tend to spend a lot of their time outdoors. Market streets are crowded because of the burgeoning middle class. Railway and bus stations are packed because Indians are one of the most mobile populations anywhere

in the world given the number of festivals spread through the year and the tendency for relatives to get together for familial events. Our economy is also one in which hawkers flourish as a trade adding further to the use of public space. Many of our social and religious functions have people using the street as in a ‘baarat’ or ‘rath yatra’. Political rallies add to the 1. The security is everywhere be it in the form of physical barriers or scanners or any other type of surveillance. A view of Lajpat Nagar, a major commercial centre in Delhi. 2. Metal detectors placed at the entry of CST Station in Mumbai as a security measure after the terrorist attack of 26/11.

shanker.indd 94

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the public colour and din of the ‘chowk’ or the ‘maidan’. Public spaces are thus more public and extensively peopled than in other cultures. In the aftermath of the terror attacks in Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Ahmedabad and most recently in Mumbai, there is a creeping fear in the use of public space. Something that was second nature and spontaneous, like going to a movie or just window-shopping is now done with some trepidation and forethought. One sees it in the elderly advising youngsters to curtail their outings. There is also the increasing awareness and aloofness to one’s immediate surroundings - borne out by the impulse to check out spaces under seats in trains and cinemas for any suspicious looking baggage. Constant reminders by the police to be stay

away from unattended objects are only adding to the paranoia. Isolationist and fort-like mentality is not new to human kind. Segregation and protection was one of the oldest ways of securing a community from unwelcome intruders. We seem to be going back to that scenario albeit in a high-tech way. Metal detectors, physical barriers, surveillance cameras, bomb sensors, baggage scanners et al are fast becoming part of our urban landscape. We are being watched and frisked at every step be it malls, stations, cinemas, even streets (refer picture of Lajpat Nagar, New Delhi). Gates are coming up on residential colony streets and security men are posted to keep vigil. Like in other walks of life, the economically well off are better protected. Malls and multiplexes, star-rated hotels, airports cannot be entered without escaping the watchful gaze of the

Every space outside of home is being transformed into a bubble, visible and often times invisible.

uniformed security guard. The recent Taj and Oberoi hotel incidents in Mumbai will only serve to deepen this division between the haves and the have-nots. Here too, the proverbial man on the street loses out – in the literal sense. Gradually every space outside of home is being transformed into a bubble, visible and often times invisible. With public space in our cities under assault and a creeping fear of using them, the question to be asked is whether their nature will metamorphose or will public space die altogether? Can we imagine a city devoid of public space – replaced by an agglomeration of secured private or access-controlled spaces? Zones may be marked out as sanitised and normal. Sanitised architecture and interiors may be a new trend. Forms will be smoother with no alcoves, dark corners and hiding places. Materials will be developed to be explosive resistant. There will be bullet-proof glass and probably nets with high impact strength offering protection from falling debris and flying shrapnel. Much like the battlements of fort architecture, these elements may acquire aesthetic overtones and become features in themselves. Structural design, apart from being earthquake proof, will have new codes for blast proofing. Are we moving towards another phase of bunker architecture? The challenge for designers will be to continue to keep the humane, open, friendly, non-discriminatory feel of a true public space. Is it just a coincidence that the virtual public space on the Internet like ‘Second Life’ (www.secondlife. com) is growing by the day as real physical space is threatened? Is it the first sign of the times that home is the safest place of all and increasingly public interaction will be virtual? Technology seems to be pointing in that direction. After the telephone and television, the Internet now offers the choice of being connected to the outside world without moving out. However the chink in the armour – and a silver lining in a bleak scenario - may well be the tiny cell phone. A liberating instrument that celebrates the freedom of movement and open space!

shanker.indd 95

Shankar Narayan has a practice in Hyderabad working on a range of small residential to institutional campus projects. For the last 20 years he has been a votary of humanistic architecture, and continues to write, speak, teach and practice the same.

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96 IA&B - JAN 2009

DESIGNING HEALTH FACILITIESâ&#x20AC;&#x201C; A PLANNING NIGHTMARE

the public

CONFLICT Economic development is often perceived as rate of urbanisation. Industrialisation and development of high-valued service sectors give rise to new urban habitat and expansion of the existing cities. People with high purchasing power and disposable income settle in new towns and developing cities which results in the development of several service facilities and utilities in urban zones. This further leads to large-scale rural urban migration seeking employment in low valued services. The development process gives rise to rural urban inequity, inequity amongst cities and inequity within urban areas. The disparities in facilities for education, health care, transport, and entertainment are only some of the many sectors mentioned to highlight the conflict arising out of economic development.

HEALTH CARE PLANNING

Santanu Banerjee discusses the challenges that health care planning involves and redefines the role of the designer. Text: Santanu Banerjee Photographs: Kazim Thakur

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Health care is classified in four broad natures of services viz. preventive, curative, rehabilitative and promotive. It is also classified by residence viz. rural and urban health care. It is provided in three levels viz. primary, secondary and tertiary services. These services are either provided from facilities like clinics and hospitals or at domiciliary and community levels. Primary health infrastructures are designed to provide institution-based primary health care in both rural and urban areas. Secondary care institutions are indoor services located in urban areas which provide critical care and may have outdoors and day care services. Tertiary facilities are institutions providing super specialty clinical services. Ideally, patients needing clinical care should approach primary care facilities and later on can be referred to secondary or tertiary facilities if needed. Largest number of cases should be treated at primary levels and least at tertiary levels. 1. The dark corridor in one of Mumbaiâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s hospital - a reflection of the abysmal state of primary health care planning in India.

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In the Indian scenario burden of diseases arises largely from simple preventable causes: high fertility rates due to poor education of the people and apathy of health workers to provide extension services. Moreover investment in health sector is much below the desired amount. Due to scarce funds and shortage in trained manpower, tertiary facilities are equipped leaving very little opportunities at lower levels. Consequently people perceive that primary and secondary facilities do not have adequate amenities to provide quality care. Patients suffering from minor ailments crowd tertiary facilities resulting

paucity of government funds, decision-making in developing appropriate health facilities is extremely difficult. As a consequence of this dilemma rural health services are dependent on inadequate government facilities. Urban areas have overcrowded government hospitals and unregulated growth of private health care facilities. Economic growth has not only increased the spending power but also created more disparities in certain sections of the population. More people are seeking private health care, sometimes unnecessarily,

A health planner having sufficient resources like funds, skilled manpower, supplies and information could assess the local burden of diseases and plan the distribution of health facilities. in unnecessary overload while lower levels remain unutilised. The higher facilities, due to overburden, are unable to give due attention to deserving cases for paucity of time, space for accommodation and drainage of vital resources. Quality of health services is abysmal across the country. Planning health services becomes very challenging. Large investments are needed to reduce the burden of disease by boosting preventive and family planning services through effective extension work. Since peopleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s perception of good health services is based on quality institutional facilities therefore it is equally important to expand the secondary and tertiary hospitals. Considering the

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whereas the poor are frustrated due to denial of proper medical care. Health planners in our country and in other developing nations are moving from an era of exclusive government health services to privatisation of medical care. More regulated private health care facilities are required with the development of publicâ&#x20AC;&#x201C;private partnership schemes to provide a large range of health care services. In an ideal situation a health planner having sufficient resources like funds, skilled manpower, supplies and information could assess the local burden of diseases and plan the distribution of health facilities. Architects

could design appropriate health infrastructures depending on locations, level of health care required and estimated case load round the year. However the situation is far from ideal. The prevailing situation is of inadequacy in all aspects. Like health planners, architects are also under pressure to develop low cost but safe health infrastructures with maximum space utilisation without detriment to health standards. The great earthquake in Mexico City in mid eighties caused extensive damage to hospitals across the city killing many immobile patients. The World Health Organisation resolved that all health facilities must be constructed using earthquake safe designs and building materials. Then there are the ever present situations in Government hospitals where patients are subjected to poor environmental conditions in terms of air quality, furnishing, hygiene, sanitation and above all poor amenities which all supplement to the belief that government facilities provide low standard of health care. The growth of health facilities is led by popular public opinion. Unnecessary civil infrastructure is built, duplicating facilities in many places but inadequate across the country. Moreover, health facilities were originally built with a curative focus. As a result hospitals came up in major cities based on the prevailing burden of disease and population size of that by gone era. The hospitals were very small in size with limited design and space. Gradually the needs for expanding the said facilities were felt with expansion

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of the specialised care and population explosion. With limited resources additional structures were built with very little coordination with existing structures. This led to architectural conflict in both the design vocabulary as well as difficulty in managing the flow of patients, service providers and logistic. Today some of these clumsy structures are registered as heritage buildings. In a way the future of these incompatible health infrastructures are sealed forever.

IN SEARCH OF SOLUTIONS The National Rural and Urban Health Missions have taken up micro level planning based on estimated localised burden of diseases, availability of manpower, equipment and civil infrastructure as per Indian Public Health Standards (IPHS). Strategies are designed to build the facilities by mobilising resources and capacity building of the health organisation. First step is taken to move towards standardisation of health sector and reduce the inequity and conflict. Health infrastructures starting from rural health sub-centres, primary health centres, rural hospitals, sub-division and district hospitals are covered under IPHS. Standard requirements are laid down for planning new and refurbishing existing facilities. Architects will now be able to design new and refurbish existing facilities for developing Primary and Secondary care facilities under the National Rural and Urban Health Missions. However utilisation of these facilities will largely depend on the manning and attitude of health workers. Unless people have confidence in these facilities, overcrowding of Tertiary facilities will continue at the cost of quality. Merely designing beautiful buildings cannot improve the quality of care.

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According to recent reports, the Indian Health Industry is growing annually at 30 percent and is expected to touch Rs 1,56,000 Crore by 2012. India is also a tourist destination including medical tourism.. According to a CII-McKinsey study, medical tourism will be a major revenue generator for the private health care industries.

CONCLUSION Architects designing hospitals in government sector will be largely guided by the IPHS. Designing private facilities will be very challenging. To reduce social and managerial conflicts a few pointers that need to be considered while designing health care facilities are given below: • Through survey of Burden of Diseases according to socio-economic distribution and carrying out appropriate master plans for developing health care facilities. • Generous subsidies to promote public–private partnerships in health care. • A multi-hazard risk reduction approach with a team of multi-disciplinary consultants. This ensures the project design benefits from an appropriate level of intervention at every stage of the design. • Zoning must follow the various classifications of services viz. primary, secondary and tertiary. Spatial treatment of different facilities should be able to reflect their relative significance. • Flow and utility space must adhere to standards. • Internal layout for public facilities should be able to communicate itself to orient visitors with a sense of direction within the space. • People with disability can independently move around in the facility with the assistance of

built-in support facilities. • Major functional points should have a heightened design language to indicate its location. • Include all needed spaces, but no redundant ones. This requires careful pre-design programming. • All spaces must have wheelchair access and circulation areas must have enough width and turning radius for patient trolleys. • Allow easy visual supervision of patients by limited staff. Nurse stations on inpatient units should be designed to provide maximum visibility of patient areas. • For inpatient units, provide a central meeting area or living room for staff and patients and provide smaller rooms where patients can visit with their families. • Make efficient use of space by locating support spaces so that they may be shared by adjacent functional areas, and by making prudent use of multi-purpose spaces. • Appropriate air conditioning and illumination. • Designs must support easy housekeeping, disposal of hospital waste and provide privacy. • Hospitals should have a friendly look.

BIBLIOGRAPHY • CII- McKinsey Report, 2002. • Evaluation of the Health Sector in India, German Federal Ministry of Economic Co-operation and Development (BMZ), David Griffith, Chris Potter and Sankar Lall Banerjee, September 2003. • Indian Public Health Standard, Ministry of Heath and Family Welfare, Government of India, 2005. • www.healthcooperative.org/journal/hah-Health and History Vol 9, Issue 1. • www.aia.org/aah_gd_hospcons

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IA&B - JAN 2009

the public

REFLECTING INTO THE FUTURE

The Samir Kassir Square in Beirut designed by landscape architect Vladimir Djurovic overcomes the divide of the civil war to create a public space that responds to the needs of people.

Text: Hina Nitesh Photographs: Courtesy the architect

eirut is reinventing itself after decades of war and devastation that have erased a significant part of its urban fabric. The city needs urban spaces that respond to the needs of people, be it for leisure, commercial, cultural, or political purposes. Also, in the case of Beirut, the need is to have a symbolic space that roots and represents the people, their lifestyle and customs. There is a longing for the city that Beirut once was. The area of the Beirut Central District (BCD) was once one of the liveliest and most emblematic quarters of the city. Due to its ‘no-man’s land’ character during the war, this area, unlike the rest of the city, does not have the political, religious, and physical divide that the civil war represented. Due to these reasons, BCD has the potential of becoming a host for a truly successful public space.

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Solidere, the Lebanese Company for Development and Reconstruction, developed a masterplan for the Central Business District, which included a number of public spaces. The Samir Kassir Square was one of them. Designed by landscape architect Vladimir Djurovic, the square provides 815 square metres of greenery, shade and clam within a busy urban setting. Originally known as Square Four, the space was renamed Samir Kassir Public Garden after the assassination of the popular intellectual and an-Nahar columnist Samir Kassir in June 2005. The scheme received the prestigious Aga Khan Award in 2007.

trees that existed on the site. Though Solidere initially considered cutting down the trees as ficus are notorious for their invasive root system and extensive shedding of leaves, but the architect dissuaded them. He incorporated them into the design, as he believed that the trees were an expression of the history and memory of the place. They also had the inherent sculptural quality that made them the main visual focus of the square. However, nothing else in the design of the square refers back to the city’s history. There is no attempt to establish any contextual link through historical references or traditional typologies.

The Square, located in the BCD with buildings on three sides and a busy thoroughfare on the fourth, plays an important role as an open space. The design revolves around the two magnificent ficus

The area around the two trees is covered with a raised timber deck of Burma teak planks. This raised 1. Samir Kassir Square is a small public space bordered by buildings on three sides and by a street on the eastern side.

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2. The pool is flanked on the west by a rectangular timber deck that also encircles the two ficus trees. 3. The large ficus trees and the pool create a very pleasant, cool and shaded micro-climate within the centre of Beirut, offsetting the heat of the summer months. 4. Local basalt pebbles are used for the interior of the pool. 5. The raised wooden deck separates the floor from the root system of the ficus, which is aggressive and can break on-grade pavement made of concrete or stone. 6. Since the site is relatively small, Djurovic emphasised the creation of an intimate and contemplative space, with the reflecting cascading-pool providing an element of separation from the busy street flanking the site from the east. 7. Vladimir Djurovic had to deal with a relatively small plot that slopes down in two directions and in addition, the site includes two large sculptural trees.

A serene space that allows the city to speak about itself and its memory through the reflection of its skyline, with its mosques and churches, on the water surface, always sheltered by the two old ficus trees.

MASTER PLAN

ELEVATION

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SECTION

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6 deck separates the floor from the root systems of the ficus, which can break on-grade pavements made of concrete or stone. It also protects the trees: the more usual practice of adding layers of earth to the original ground level to cover the root system carries the risk of suffocating them. In addition, the use of the raised deck creates space underneath for the mechanical room housing the pumps and filters for the pool. The landscaping in stone is accentuated with plants. Local basalt pebbles line the inside of the pool, and imported Italian Bardelio stone is used for the sides, since no local stone could be found with the requisite characteristics of colour and reflectivity. Local limestone is used for the floor paving, the long bench and the steps. The latter are made from solid stone blocks rather than a reinforced concrete skeleton sheathed in paving – for better resistance to wear and tear. The reflecting, cascading pool

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7 provides an element of separation from the busy street flanking the site on the east, helping to create an intimate and contemplative space. The sound of the water brimming over the pool’s grooved edges has a soothing effect and creates a counterbalance to the noise of the surrounding city. The reflecting surface of the pool mirrors part of the surroundings, creating a sense of expansiveness. The square’s design responds to an abstract conception of the space, where the space itself, its materiality, its sounds, light quality, and even smells become its essential constituent elements. It is a serene space that allows the city to speak about itself and its memory through the reflection of its skyline, with its mosques and churches, on the water surface, always sheltered by the two old ficus trees.

the garden points to a clear new direction for landscape design in a region where the discipline is not yet well established or mature, and where designers try to emulate prototypes. A serene and contemplative space in the heart of downtown Beirut, Samir Kassir Square provides welcome relief from the built-up urban fabric and frenetic pace of the central business district.The Square draws people towards it, highlighting the positive role that public spaces can play as places of refuge, calm, and contemplation.

FACT FILE: Project

: Samir Kassir Square, Beirut, Lebanon

Architect

: Vladimir Djurovic Landscape Architecture

Client

: Solidere (Société Libanaise de Développement et Reconstruction)

In its visual conception, in its sparing use of materials and forms and in its quality of detailing,

Completed : 2004

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102 IA&B - JAN 2009

A FLEXIBLE URBAN EDGE

Designed by Gail Borden the L.A. Liner project establishes a non-hierarchical relationship, linking LA Forum with the public sphere in which it is placed. Text: Hina Nitesh Photographs: Courtesy the architect

he traditional street is defined by its edges. Governed by commerce and security at the pedestrian level, the façade defines the relationship of architecture with the street. Conventionally, the storefront serves as a window into an interior of visual wealth. It also acts as a connection between the interior and the energy and life of the street. When closed, a security door severs this connection and disengages the two defining the boundary of the building, thus separates the internal life and architecture from the public life of the street. Designed for the L.A. Forum (a non-profit architecture gallery in Los Angeles located on Hollywood Boulevard), the L.A. Liner project reconsiders this urban joint. The architect Gail Borden was asked to design a new street presence

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and flexible liner, on a modest budget. The liner was given a time frame of 3 weeks for design and 3 months for construction. The L.A. Forum Liner responds to the iconic imagery of Hollywood Boulevard through reflection. Built on Ray Bradbury’s definition of the mirror as a “spatial leak”, the mirrored surfaces allow for space to perceptually continue. Through the simple act of reflection, the cone of vision expands to allow the pedestrian to be aware of their surroundings. The front façade takes off-the-shelf mirrors from Ikea, as standard inexpensive units, and deploys them at variable angles to produce a highly dynamic visual surface. The reflection becomes a fractal array of the context. The variable angles of the segmental mirrors provide a cubist spatial

experience of multiple vantages perceived from a single viewpoint. The effect is a diverse reframing of the surroundings. The reflection provides a new view of “self” within this modernist spatial and chronological condition. The wall opens in its entirety through two doors to reveal an inner display liner. A smaller door on the left hinges out and holds a three-dimensional frame box while the large door has a centre pivot that swings into the setback of the existing storefront wall. These walls fully open or shield the front face of the space. When open the walls engage the sidewalk as signage, display surface, and mirror images of the passers-by. This porosity to the outer surface allows for a more welcoming connection and blurring between

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the public

1. An axonometric showing the various components of the LA Forum Liner. The concept of the project is based on Ray Bradbury’s definition of the mirror as a “spatial leak”. 2- 5. The store-front which employs mirrors in open and closed state. The front façade takes off-the-shelf mirrors from Ikea, as standard inexpensive units, and deploys them at variable angles to produce a highly dynamic visual surface.

Governed by commerce and security at the pedestrian level, the façade defines the relationship of architecture with the street.

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6 outside and inside, providing an inclusive engagement seamlessly merging the street with the interior. This connection extends the social responsibility of the passer-by into the storefront while offering the local gallery a connection and ownership of the street. This interconnection provides a community of occupation. Two elements are visible at pedestrian level: a two-dimensional surface to house signage for the local show/event and a three-dimensional thickened wall box to house objects or serve as a framed view through the reflective wall and into the gallery proper. These flexible infrastructures display and entice the passes-by even when the facility is closed. A light field of one-foot standard fluorescent light fixtures has variable colour bulbs to spell out LAFORUM in orange amidst a field of white light. This flexible system has the opportunity to spell a variety of words by simply repositioning the coloured bulbs. At night this illuminated sign adds to the mystique and image of Hollywood Boulevard. 7

6. A model of the L.A. Liner with its components. 7. The multiple usage of the legend multiplicity of the L.A. Liner work.

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calibration relative to need and performance. Each of the walls contains an inner welded 1.5” tube steel frame on eight lockable casters. This allows for a sturdy flexible system for easy reconfiguration of use or simply the ability to close them and store them away. The space of the gallery and its interconnection with Hollywood Boulevard establish a new non-hierarchical relationship between the interior and the exterior. The linkages, formal and physical as well as perceived and implied, generate a blur of traditional boundaries. To relate the street back to the adjacent buildings that define it is to provide an integrated responsibility for the public sphere. The L.A. Liner engages material, image, context and function with the urban requirements of security, communality and culture.

FACT FILE: Project Description : L.A. Liner Architects

The interior is treated simply. The existing is maintained and painted. This allows these surfaces to be operated upon based on the need of the event or installation. Three mobile walls are added to space. Identical in dimension [12’ x 2’ x 8’] but variable in program, these walls provide a flexible backdrop for adaptable events. Each wall has two sides that provide for operable adjustment and

: Gail Peter Borden – Borden Partnership llp www.bordenpartnerhsip.com Brian D. Andrews – Atelier Andrews www.atelierandrews.com

Project Location

: Hollywood Boulevard, Los Angeles,

Client

: L.A. Forum for Art and Architecture

Date

: 2008

California, USA

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106 IA&B - JAN 2009

PREYING SPACES What happens when religion, which aims to bring people together, acts as a catalyst to separate them into groups? Tracing history, one hopes to discover the fault lines that make a city the constantly changing matrix of communal encroachment.

Text: Hina Nitesh Photographs: Mehul Solanki, Amrita Ravimohan, Suparna Rajguru, Hina Nitesh & IA&B archives.

RELIGION AS AN URBAN RESTRAINT

eligion is a system of values, beliefs and practices, often with a supernatural quality, that gives meaning to experiences of life through reference to an ultimate power. This collective social thought binds people emotionally into a community and induces them to perform altruistic acts. Individuals practice different religions depending on either their choice or what is passed onto them. So we infer that religion forms the foundation of the individual’s identity. The relationship between man and God, as laid down by the scriptures, took concrete form in the cities that they built. As early as 5000BC, the port city of Ur in Babylon was planned by the priests and numerous cities in Egypt were directed by Ra, the Sun God. There is evidence that the Harappan cities, which followed the gridiron-planning pattern, were based on the ‘mandala’. These are examples of how

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the greatest religions transformed not only the belief systems but also the transcended into the cultural spheres influencing the architectural environment. Like the case of best intentions going wrong, the humanitarian values professed by religion seem to take a back seat as it grows, the world over, to create more divisions than bridges. As inter-religious differentiations give rise to conflicts, they further divide the urban populace. These differentiations take the shape of violence at various levels – blasts, riots, wars and grow in dimension to affect the psyche of the individual to give birth to urban insecurity. This is when religion comes to fore yet again and takes on the role of the shelter provider. Hence religion, which shapes identity by taking individuals in its fold, also gives rise to social conflict. In this fluctuating dual state, religion gives

shape to architectures of various dynamics- as conceptual, as a preservative and also destructive. The latter dominates the urban landscape with its political insecurities.

RELIGION AS AN IDENTITY PROVIDER Identity is a complex subject. Identity of an individual is based on a core set of values consisting religion, language, race, colour or culture. Issues of identity are often embedded in emotions. Exercise of religious power is integral to the construction of personal, communal and national identities. Cities do not subscribe to any one religion; they follow the religion of their people. The built environment in the cities, especially the ones considered holy, reflects the religious influence and creates its unique identity.

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the fault lines

1. Religion formed the basis of city planning in the ancient cities. A view of the port city of Ur in Babylon. 2 & 3. The built environment reflects the religion predominantly practised in the city. A view of Benaras and old Delhi.

The city of Varanasi is probably the most important pilgrim places for the Hindus. The culture of the city is closely associated with the river Ganges and its religious importance. The city’s interface with the river is in the form of steps, which lead to the water. Ghats, as they are known are continuous along the river and are centres of religious activities. Roads, all of which seem to be leading to the river, give way to narrow lanes, which open up at the ghats. Temples and their shikharas dot the skyline, here not to mention the innumerable shrines scattered all over the city, reinforcing its unmistakable Hindu identity. Shahjahanabad or old Delhi, as it is now known, was the capital of the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan. The city’s urban design was an amalgamated model of Persian and Islamic principles. Persian architects determined the formalism and symmetry of the

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Palace complex, gardens and boulevards and even the style of its buildings. Islamic influences have been inferred from the likeness of Samarkand plan to that of Shahjahanabad. Here one is aware of the elements of Islamic architecture like domes, minarets

and geometric ornamentation on the structures, which visually proclaim its Muslim identity. The Vatican City is the centre of Roman Catholicism and the residence of the bishop of Rome – the

“Religion is a search for security and not a search for truth. Religion is what we so often use to bank the fires of our anxiety. That is why religion tends toward becoming excessive, neurotic, controlling and even evil. That is why a religious government is always a cruel government...” –John Shelby Spong 1/24/2009 11:38:12 AM

108

4 Pope. The city’s identity is religious, not national. It presents itself as trans-national and universal. It is home to architectural masterpieces, including Saint Peter’s Cathedral and the Sistine Chapel. The Vatican is a Catholic state whose population is virtually 100 percent Roman Catholic. In the earlier cities, the place of worship was the most important and would be located on a hillock or a higher platform. The residential area was subdivided into localities where people practicing the same trade (often they belonged to the same religion as well) resided. This often gave birth to a unique architectural features for example the ‘Pols’ of Ahmedabad. Pol is a small residential unit consisting of a single street with a group of houses, which is usually protected by a massive gate at the entrance. The Gheevala Pol, the Pathan Pol, the Chippa Pol – all were residential areas belonging to people in the same occupation. The want to stay together finds its roots in the sanity of security and self preservation. The choice is based on several factors, important amongst them being faith, rituals and language.

THE COSMOPOLITAN CONFLICT The cosmopolitan cities like Mumbai and Delhi are planned on a secular basis. The planning is based on urban development and infrastructure growth rather than on religious sentiments. There is no differentiation in the land use based on caste or

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6 religion or community. However, even in these cities, cluster areas are formed, naturally, on the basis of community. In some cases these areas existed from the earlier city like in the city of Shahjahanabad in Delhi. The capital of the Mughal Empire was a Muslim dominated area. After partition divided the country on religious basis, it was here that the Muslims from across the city settled. After having witnessed the massive religious violence, they felt secured in an environment where the majority belonged to their community. Today the old city is one of the largest Muslim dominated areas of Delhi. Another example is from the old city of Ahmedabad. The ‘Pols’ which had started as secular architecture, acquired a religious identity after the communal riots of 1714. The inhabitants sought security by living together within the Pols. The segregation, which was as per convenience earlier (because of occupation), now was a conscious attempt by the members of one religious community to live together. The Pols, which were meant to enhance community living and provide security to the occupants, lost their motive. The choice of being amongst one’s own community is but natural. However, the disturbing element is the fact that even in cosmopolitan cities, people move out from more secular territories (which might have been their ‘home’ for years) to same community areas. This need is born out of a feeling of insecurity,

which has resulted from the increase in riots, blasts and other acts of terrorism, especially in the last few decades. These ‘cluster areas’ propagate ‘safety in numbers’. Though not homogenous, these areas have a mix of people from different communities but are dominated by one community. These areas are an attempt to re-create the culture ‘back home’. Another unsettling fact is that while renting out a place for either residence or business, the involved individuals draw a line at religion - places are not rented out to people belonging to a different community. This can be seen as a means of enforcing social security but it essentially creates islands in the city, which are communal in nature and will in the future become centres of conflict. These with time result in walls within the city that become physical barriers and ghettos of communal potency. A ghetto is a portion of a city in which members of a minority group live especially because of social, legal, or economic pressure. It is formed when either the minority lives together in an area (generally away from the main hub) due to economic constraints or when the majority forces the minorities to live in particular areas. These are inward looking areas, neglected by the government and immune to all development. If they are located on the edge of the city, they do not even form a part of the city planning process. Since these communities are forcefully

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8 separated from the mainstream society, they harbour negative sentiments towards the majority. These voids in the city isolate the communities and become a breeding ground for communal feelings leading to incidents of violence.

A CONFLICT OF SPACES It doesn’t take much for the faith to take a built form - a stone, a little vermilion and rice, few flowers… or a tree and few threads or a candle. Innumerable such shrines dot the Indian cities. Over a period of time they grow, not only in their fan following but also in structure to engulf the surrounding area. One can interpret these as an attempt by the people to proclaim their identity, but strictly speaking these are encroachments upon the urban public space. They are illegal structures - a means of acquiring land. (Shrines can only be built after land is purchased and proper plans submitted and approved by the authorities). They disrupt the planned flow of traffic, the pedestrian movement and at times create unhygienic conditions around the area. They also 4. The pol developed as a result of people living together as per their convenience. 5 & 7. The house of God sometimes becomes a shelter for the terrorists. The Golden Temple and the Hazratbal Mosque have in past become refuge for these activities. 6. Ghettos are neglected areas home to the minorities and the economically weaker section of the society. 8 & 10. The conflict of space – illegal roadside shrines. 9 & 11. The Siddhivinayak Shrine in Mumbai, built an illegal wall around it as a security measure – an act of encroachment.

further instigate communal feelings. Case-in-point are the maha artis, which continue to be performed along roadside temples in Mumbai after the 1993 riots or the mass takeover of roads and pavements in mosque-neighbourhoods for the Friday prayer. Apart from disturbing normal life, they caused tension in the city, limping back to life. In 2003, a PIL was filed with the Mumbai high court asking for demolition of the 827 illegal shrines in the city. The court ordered the Muncipal Commission to demolition these shrines, which was done in a half-baked manner. Sometimes, a shrine, which has been built legally, starts to encroach on public space in a complete departure from the planned thought. The famous Siddhivinayak Temple in Mumbai felt the existing security in the temple was not sufficient and so the Temple trust built a wall around the complex. Apart from inconveniencing the already dense street culture, the wall encroached onto a busy traffic way, which needed more breathing space for the mounting vehicular demand. When a PIL was filed, the Bombay High Court as well as the Supreme Court passed a verdict proclaiming the concrete barrier wall as illegal and issued orders for its demolition. The wall remains today “enshrined” within a security blanket provided by the administration. The fortresses of God often become homes for terror when the militants take shelter in them.

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10 The communal sentiments render them as no-mans-land. The Golden Temple in Amritsar, the Hazratbal Mosque in Srinagar, the Church of Nativity in Bethlehem and many more such places have become a haven for militants who find them to be safe harbours for hiding. Similar is the case for young terrorists in training in terror-torn Afghanistan or the underworld cult of criminal sages who find these religious centres to be safe houses. In the larger urban picture these spiritual places of peace become centres of distrust and insecurity.

THE COMMUNAL CITY? The contemporary urban environment fails in its very existence if voids and fault lines drawn by distinctions of faith divide the individuals. What happens when a city, a synonym for home, instead of instilling a feeling of safety and security in its inhabitants is subjected to terror? What is the future of such a city? How can it be ensured that democracy and secularism do not lose out to political will? What patterns of urban use can the city be developed on? Does it lie within the sphere of architecture dialogue or is it in the hands of the chosen leaders? Whatever be the answer to these questions, at the end of the day, it will remain up to the individuals to decide their role in preserving the city’s sanctity and security.

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114 IA&B - JAN 2009 1

ORNAMENT AND CRIME

Security and safety are treated by design practitioners as physical issues. The role of a designer as the problem solver, in smart and aesthetic ways, needs to be expanded to be more of an intellectual activity, an activity that involves thinking as its function. This essay focuses on what security and safety mean for a city, laying out certain questions that ‘design’ will need to think about. Text: Kaiwan Mehta Photographs: Kaiwan Mehta and Anuj Rao

he essay borrows its title from Adolf Loos’ essay, but it does not claim to make any particular references to it here. However, it would try and indicate visually how the decorative property of ornaments is an essential ingredient of crime prevention objects designed within architecture and for the city, while we narrate in the text stories of urban sin and fear. On another hand, one could also look at security and crime as the new ornaments of the contemporary metropolis – the ornaments are designed or planned paradise versus a disordered chaos seething in hidden but imagined geographies. As the architectural theorist Akos Moravanszky noted “imaginary places are invested with strong identities”, cities today that are rendering themselves further and further ambiguous need stronger handles to understand or comprehend the chaos that apparently surrounds them. The chaos and the ambiguity of a space, like a metropolis, get more and more exposed to its citizens who believe in the planned order and reality of the neighbourhood and city they live in. In such a situation, the chaos and the ambiguity have to be

brought to order. The modern city dweller cannot accept that the city or his building is no haven of sanity despite the architect and planner’s claim and struggle, and professional belief. Obviously the concern for order is more psychological than social, however it is projected to be social. The city as the site for a dream life, of job, of progress and a happy family, so often projected as the obvious to be expected, actually has to be continuously protected and struggled for. Physical or financial, securities and safety are continuously projected as the need of the hour, the motifs of ‘fine life’! The home is attacked! You get an insurance policy. You get Domestos, or any other such phenol, mosquito repellent, germ killing soap, and so on. We are a society of panic and attack-fearing people. But this is not as simple as it sounds, the imagination of the home attacked is only the tip of the ice-berg. ‘Fear’ seems to be some kind of industrial production today. Mass manufactured! And then there are products, and products, to destroy that fear, or at least you imagine so. From the germs on your hand, to the robber in your neighbourhood, to the rapist

on the street, to the terrorist in Taj Mahal Hotel, they are all threatening your dream!! The bracket of classification is getting defined in a particular direction for sure! Cleanliness, or a crime-free neighbourhood, or the integrity of (an imagined) nation are the ornaments we live by and prefer to decorate our anxieties of living with. The essay will do a common knowledge survey of two incidents that rocked the city of Mumbai, both on Marine Drive road. For this one has to accept the status of this road in the imagination of Mumbai. Marine Drive, like Victoria Terminus or now the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus, has often been the image of the city. Often Bollywood movies begin their narratives with a pictureperfect shot of these sites. The glory entry and the fulfilled dream are often contained in these symbolic images. About four years ago, a police constable raped a girl, during the afternoon hours, inside a police booth on Marine Drive. There was a big uproar in the city. Media covered it at an all-India level. The local residents got

the fault lines

5 angry and burnt down the police booth – the site of crime. Well, crime in this city is nothing new. This rape case was not the first of its kind in the city. Police atrocity is nothing new. What is disturbing, and in some ways new, is that there was crime on Marine Drive. Suddenly the life of girls was in danger, because ‘this could happen on Marine Drive’. The sanctity of this road, and its plush residences, and its rich residents was disturbed. A logic that always prevails is that crime should have its geographical locale in the city clearly specified. Germs in the gutter on the road, its fine! Germs in my house… never! Hence

7 geography is comfortably organised in safe areas and not-so-safe areas, if there is any threat to this imagined and accepted map, then ‘crime’ suddenly becomes a threat to life and human sanctity, until then, crime is accepted as a part of life, just like you accept disease as a part of our physical life. One knows, rather one accepts, that crime will exist, but as long as it follows the planner’s map of where it should be and where not, it is fine, else it becomes the object of concern. In having geographies of crime and safety defined in the citizen’s imagination of space, home and neighbourhood, there is a clear management

The city’s geography is comfortably organised in safe areas and not-so-safe areas, if there is any threat to this imagined and accepted map, then ‘crime’ suddenly becomes a threat to life... if any house that has any apparent sign of germs inside it… they are not the pure and perfect homes anymore; its residents are lesser mortals. Similarly, if crime happens in Dongri or Pydhonie, or Antop Hill, geographies that are not common knowledge, but only created through stories of disorder in the press or television, then it is the accepted complexity of a city, where crime happens… but not in ‘my’ face. So for crime to take place at Marine Drive is like crime in the face of the city! The rhetoric was more about ‘crime at Marine Drive’ rather than ‘rape’ per se. The city’s

of crime. Those who can afford, politically and economically, a stamp of safety and security for their homes or neighbourhoods also prefer to hold it as a certificate to their holistic ‘nice human being’ projection. And for this they do not need a complete eradication of crime, because else how will they distinguish ‘safe’ from the ‘unsafe’? They need crime to exist, but elsewhere, so that my ‘safe’ space is a special one. This struggle is one that happens not only between neighbourhoods in cities, but also

9 1. Urban chaos; apparent lack of clarity. 2. Navigating a city; aspiring for organisation as sanitisation. 3. Urban Object 1 - Railings to limits. 4. Urban Object 3 - Gates, with flowers as arrow heads. 5. Urban Object 3 - Gates, birds that fly but stop you. 6. Urban Object 4 - Every corner. 7. Urban Object 4 - security and comfort. 8. Urban Object 5 - Seeing through the fence. 9. Urban Object 5 - Fence, my window to the world. 10. Urban Object - the final ornament - the inside, discrete and to be protected.

between nations at a global level. Terrorism is a perfect system invented to dislocate crime. It is a purposeful and organised dislocation. Where, then to keep your home, your nation safe, you can fight wars elsewhere, you can blame crime in the other’s home! Without further going into a discussion on terrorism, which is not the central agenda here, one could discuss the question of crime and security as far as the recent terror attacks in Mumbai in November 2008 are concerned. One can start with an anecdote here. A person, who was outside Café Leopold where the first shooting happened, immediately ran for safety and could not think of a place safer than the 5-star Taj Mahal Hotel just a few streets away. Lest did he know he was jumping from the frying pan into the fire… literally! Café Leopold, every Bombay-visiting bag-packing tourists haunt, every college goer’s beer drinking hideout, started functioning on the Monday immediately after the terror weekend. Taj

116 or the Oberoi Hotels are also public spaces that are fiefdoms. Many individuals who visit these hotels and their restaurants regularly for meals, or coffee, or wedding receptions spoke of attacked corners, furniture, and the staff as if it was their home outside home. For Mumbai, and India’s ‘who’s who’ it was nearly a private space attacked. Again here there is the fear that ‘their space’ which they thought was above this world and politics was the site for some kind of an urban war for three days. At one level a hotel is a public space, a city space, but the way it operates, it is also a very privatised and ‘secured’ space, in many, many ways. For the vast masses that probably never entered these monument-sized buildings, secured and sanitised as they are, and which appeared so well guarded from the outside, and could be fairy-tale rich and glamorous from the inside, were now exposed to chaos. The fairy-tale imaginations of these sites of aspiration entry were chaotically unplugged. 11 Mahal Hotel even today stands cordoned off! These are clear indications of how places and sites are assumed havens of safety or of crime. The shooting at Leopold was immediately reported as ‘gangwars’, and for ages now Mumbai has not witnessed any gang-wars, but just the location of this café where every beer drinker is seen as partaking off in some hedonistic revelry and also maybe some ‘dirty-business’ was obviously not worthy of big talk, but a site for ‘gang-war’, Mumbai’s darker side of crime and gangsters. But if the Taj Hotel was attacked, it was the ‘symbol of the city’ under attack. Well for the record, it took these very terrorists to get the building graduated to this status. Before this incident, one never remembers the Taj Hotel ever referred to as the ‘symbol of the city’, except in its self-made documentary played in its suites and rooms for their own customers! What was shocking for all, and everyone, was that a place that is apparently, and I mean here visually and psychologically, a fortress could be so easily penetrated and attacked. One should remember that only a few months ago, there were allegations that a woman wearing no footwear was not allowed to enter the Hotel although she claimed she had enough money to pay for her purchases at any of the restaurants. The Taj Mahal

Another most interesting aspect of this incident was the way these building spaces were navigated as geographical terrain. The spatial structure of a hotel, with its rooms, corridors, staircases, lifts, along with service stairs, service corridors, kitchens and service entries, forms a crazy but very interesting landscape in the context of this incident. The anti-terrorism squad had to continuously be briefed on this terrain, as they had never entered these kinds of spaces before. The terrorists, by previous training and familiarity with the sites they had planned to attack, completely used this spatial geography to their advantage, very much like a mountain tribesman would use that terrain of rocky outcrops and passes. The complexity of space in these buildings was the biggest impediment to safety, one could say. The building, which is apparent as a one whole object, had suddenly become an enclosed terrain. The street outside was safer than the corridors or rooms inside. The street was from where you could view the spectacle, the inside is where the insecure citizens were struggling. The inside was attacked. The hotel, which is a home to many who travel so often to foreign cities in these ‘world is flat’ days, was under siege. The same inside, enclosed within the glamour of architecture on the outside, that assured of a safety from the chaotic outside, was precisely under siege. Its secure self confidence

11. The security forces and barricading at the Taj Mahal Hotel, post the terror attacks of 26 November 2008.

was shattered. In the study of urban wars and crimes, this will be an interesting example of how architecture of a certain nature provided a perfect site for war, while the city outside functioned fairly normally for those three days. From advertisements of burglar alarms, good strong locks and safes, protecting your credit card pins, to insuring your life and home, saving in securities (that are subject to market risks in fine print or fast read), to be unsure if the train is safer than a bus after bomb attacks, to seeing a national security drama on television for three days, to hoping that my garden is greener than yours, spaces, architecture and cities are nasty design objects. In these design processes are we designing for making this world a better place to live in, or are these booby traps of our own making? Is design thinking? Or is design just providing, like a handmaiden to economic and political structures? Dividing cities into neighbourhoods, either as planners or as users of real estate spaces, most often historical exigencies are deep hidden political agendas. Designing strong and monumental iron gates to tall and fancy-looking buildings that immediately downsize a human being trying to enter it are designed as lush floral creepers and bouquets. We prefer to design objects in a context-less imagination, and worse believe that we are part of the world. The blank paper we screen or design on is contained with historical exigencies, and often our design training has no clue about handling it. We design ornaments – objects that a flourishes, superfluous (apparently so), yet accept them in the way the world sees itself, but we forget that the ornament is the silent container. Whether it is a Police chowki (booth) or the Taj Mahal hotel, or the Bandra promenade where couples are prevented from sitting, designing gates and security fences, protecting computers from viruses, it’s a bundle of objects we are constantly designing, not knowing why, except for its immediate function and apparent design quality. I would end by extending my earlier question – Is design thinking? To ‘What is the designer thinking’?