urbanxchanger en with constructlab in São Paolo by constructlab

EDITORS Marcos L. Rosa CURATOR, URBANXCHANGER Ute E. Weiland DEPUTY DIRECTOR, ALFRED HERRHAUSEN GESELLSCHAFT; INITIATOR OF URBANXCHANGER

Nitin Bathla LOCAL RESEARCHER AND COORDINATOR (NEW DELHI) Linda Radau PROJECT MANAGER (BERLIN) Anja Paulus PROJECT MANAGER (BERLIN) Ludwig Engel CURATOR, UNTIL NOVEMBER 2015 (BERLIN)

ASSOCIATE EDITOR

INVITED COMMUNITY INITIATIVES

Lindsay Bush ASSOCIATE EDITOR AND LOCAL EDITOR (CAPE TOWN)

SÃO PAULO CITIES WITHOUT HUNGER Hans Dieter Temp Jonas Steinfeld Genival de Morais Farias Sebastiana de Farias

EDITORIAL TEAM Ana Alvarez LOCAL EDITOR (MEXICO CITY) Nitin Bathla LOCAL EDITOR (NEW DELHI)

INVITED CRITIC Edwin Heathcote WRITER, ARCHITECT AND DESIGNER ARCHITECTURE AND DESIGN CRITIC OF THE FINANCIAL TIMES SINCE 1999

URBANXCHANGER TEAM Ute E. Weiland INITIATOR AND SUPERVISOR Marcos L. Rosa CURATOR, LOCAL RESEARCHER AND COORDINATOR (SÃO PAULO) Ana Alvarez LOCAL RESEARCHER AND COORDINATOR (MEXICO CITY) Lindsay Bush LOCAL RESEARCHER AND COORDINATOR (CAPE TOWN)

MEXICO CITY MIRAVALLE COMMUNITY COUNCIL ASAMBLEA COMUNITARIA DE MIRAVALLE CAPE TOWN HANDS OF HONOUR Paul Talliard Glenda Hendricks Keith Petersen Mark Solomons (CONSULTANT BUILDER) NEW DELHI CURE Renu Khosla (HEAD) Vishnu Jeesha (PROJECT COORDINATOR) Tamneeq Tariq (COMMUNITY COORDINATOR) Megha Gupta (COMMUNITY COORDINATOR)

INVITED TEAMS SÃO PAULO VAPOR 324 + BANDONI + MASAGÃO Vapor 324, Andrea Bandon, Julia Masagão BERLIN CONSTRUCTLAB Alexander Römer, Pieterjan Grandry

CREDITS

credits

MEXICO CITY ROZANA MONTIEL | ESTUDIO DE ARQUITECTURA + RODRIGUEZ + JARAMILLO Rozana Montiel, Claudia Rodriguez Daniel Jaramillo, Hortense Blanchard Daniel Rivera BERLIN SMAQ Sabine Müller, Andreas Quednau, Irene Frassoldati CAPE TOWN JO NOERO ARCHITECTS Jo Noero, Uno Pereira, David Long, Oliver Brown, Nikita Schweizer BERLIN BAU COLLABORATIVE Rainer Hehl, Philipp Luy, Susie Ryu, Tom Schöps, Justine Olausson NEW DELHI ANAGRAM Madhav Raman, Vaibhav Dimri, Akanksha Bansal, Akshay Shetty, Akshay Srinivas, Ganesh Babu, Surendra Mohite BERLIN FAR Marc Frohn, Mario Rojas, Max Koch, Daniel Grenz, Elena Ambacher

SPECIAL THANKS TO THE SENIOR ADVISORS Prof. Jörg Stollman TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY OF BERLIN Prof. Edgar Pieterse AFRICAN CENTRE FOR CITIES, CAPE TOWN Jose Castillo Olea ARQUITECTURA911SC, MEXICO CITY Prof. Jagan Shah NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF URBAN AFFAIRS, NEW DELHI

This publication is licensed under the Creative Commons Licence Attribution-Non-CommercialNoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0). More information at: http:// creativecommons.org/licenses/ by-nc-nd/4.0/. Images may or may not permit reuse and modification.

INDEX

02 The difference an alliance between grassroots solutions and architecture can make 04 An urban exchange: New Forms of Collaboration in Cities 08 Informal Intelligence Sharing the Public City 22 Cities without hunger 24 The project 38 Miravalle community council

40 The project 46 Building new perspectives 68 Hands of honour 72 Turning the tables 76 Cape town and the housing question 92 Cure 96 The project 102 Sutradhar: the emergent social designer? 122 Biographies 126 credits

UTE E. WEILAND IS THE DEPUTY DIRECTOR OF THE ALFRED HERRHAUSEN GESELLSCHAFT AND RESPONSIBLE FOR INITIATING THE URBANXCHANGER PLATFORM

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The difference an alliance between grassroots solutions and architecture can make

initiatives. With guidance from influential public personas or entities, the core concepts of these smaller projects can be expanded or adjusted, in an effort to address the challenges of urban life in rapidly growing megacities. It was this realisation that served as the stepping stone for the initiation of the Deutsche Bank Urban Age (DBUA) Award, which recognises exemplary locally organised projects designed to improve the urban environment, and in turn, the quality of life of residents.w As such, the award can be viewed as a means to facilitate those grassroots projects that seek creative solutions to the everyday problems that confront a large portion of the world’s city-dwelling population.

In the modern metropolis, successful urban politics is largely based on temporary alliances. Cities, particularly megacities, have become too complex to be governed by the more traditional top-down approach. Moreover, in these ever-expanding urban landscapes, it has become increasingly important to foster and nurture urban grassroots projects that seek to improve the livelihood of cities’ inhabitants. Evidence indicates that such small grassroots projects can successfully serve as blueprints for larger, more far-reaching

Established in 2007, the DBUA Award has been presented in Mumbai, São Paulo, Istanbul, Mexico City, Cape Town, Rio de Janeiro, and New Delhi. The aim of the award is to make the invisible visible, to unveil urban potential in the slums, townships, barrios, gecekondular, or favelas, and to constitute a lobby for those who have never had one. Seven years, seven cities, and hundreds of community initiatives later, doubts about contemporary urban planning practices have begun to surface. It is time for

urban practitioners to develop new processes based on the experiences of community initiatives. To enable this process, the Alfred Herrhausen Gesellschaft has started the urbanxchanger project in which practitioners can learn from community initiatives, and vice versa, and in which actors from the Global North can learn from actors from the Global South. It is my firm belief that grassroots projects, if executed properly and carefully, have the potential to not only fundamentally improve the quality of life in the neighbourhoods in which they are initiated, but also in other environments. Their immense societal value must first be recognised, of course, before they can be utilised as a blueprint for similar, larger initiatives. Moreover, I strongly believe that these grassroots projects have a vast and untapped potential for bringing peace and social harmony to cities around the world.

An urban exchange: New Forms of Collaboration in Cities

MARCOS L. ROSA IS AN ARCHITECT AND URBAN

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PLANNER, AND THE CURATOR OF

URBANXCHANGER

CO-DESIGNING CITIES ’Co‘, as a prefix, indicates partnership or equality. It refers to something made jointly, together, and with mutual relevance. Co-design refers to the making of cities collectively. A city is the result of a collective effort poured into the making of its spaces, so the question we would like to focus on here is how those acts of making are carried out. In acknowledging the fact that cities are the result of the collective, there lies great potential for change in the way that they are currently constructed. But for change to take place, there is a need for designers to understand the complexity of the cultural and

societal scenarios they encounter in their work, and for community initiatives to grasp the potential of trained designers to contribute to better and more acceptable living conditions. In an effort to forge new forms of collaboration in cities, urbanxchanger was created to approximate architecture from what we refer to as an informal intelligence. In this newspaper we show this process through the collaboration between designers, or urban practitioners, and local community initiatives in four cities: São Paulo, Mexico City, Cape Town and New Delhi.

AN URBAN EXCHANGE A team of urban practitioners from each of the four cities was paired up with a team of urban practitioners from Berlin. The resulting four teams were each introduced to a local community initiative selected from the shortlist of the Deutsche Bank Urban Age Awards. The teams were composed to deliberately encourage an ‘urban exchange’ between the different parties involved. Community initiatives with a strong impact on, and interest in, the built environment were chosen for the project. Additionally, we looked for initiatives whose work was linked to macro structures in the greater metropolitan area, despite their projects being focused on improving urban spaces at a local level. Our selection criteria was supported by the following rationale: while urbanxchanger acknowledges the fragility of isolated action—due to its local character—the programme also analyses the mechanisms used to bring about change, and looks at how those same mechanisms could be applied on a larger scale. That thinking led to four distinct scenarios: the urban gardens beneath the electrical lines in São Matheus, São Paulo; the community spaces along the city borders of Miravalle, Mexico City; the self-

built spaces found on ‘the edge’ of the slum in Sangam Vihar, New Delhi; the ‘upcycling of people’ through skills training, being used to address the housing crisis in the Cape Flats, Cape Town. After long-distance discussions, the groups met for the first time in each of the four respective cities, where they were introduced to the local community initiatives through in-depth, custom-designed workshops. The workshops included site visits, urban walks, multidisciplinary discussions, informal conversations, and participatory design sessions with local residents. Throughout the project, the teams and communities worked with curators and local coordinators, who were key actors in mediating the process due to their previous work with the selected community initiatives. THE GOALS OF AN OPEN PROCESS Intentionally, we did not ask for the teams to necessarily build anything, but rather to listen and to learn from each other on the ground. They were asked to test collaborative modes of action with the community and to develop a local, process-oriented approach to dealing with the challenges faced by each of the initiatives, thus reimagining the relationship between community initiatives, urban practitioners

Coming from different cities, the teams were called on to use their different perspectives to reflect on if and how, urban knowledge and social intelligence from one city could be transferred to the sociocultural fabric of another city. It was deemed vital that this exchange of knowledge and sharing of experiences be mutually relevant and beneficial. Community initiatives should be able to exchange experiences and benefit from shared ideas in order to assist each other in overcoming the challenges that they face. In the process of coming up with solutions, the teams were encouraged to examine the status quo of built environment design, to consider the notion of shared responsibility for the built environment, and to address the social, political, economic and environmental impact of their actions. In all cases, the proposed solutions were tested or implemented in the urban environment. REFLECTION Later, the teams met in Berlin, a city considered by some to be a centre for contemporary urban innovation. Here, the urban practitioners were able to share their work and findings and

reflect on their processes, based on feedback from the other teams as well as on the contact with Berlin-based community initiatives. This phase of urbanxchanger involved critical reflection on the experimental practices that had been developed in the four partner cities. A critique of the methodological approaches used was undertaken, along with an analysis of the tools generated through the working process and an interrogation of the transfer of knowledge gained from the experience.

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and the city. In each case, the process was guided by the active participation and negotiation of all parties involved on the ground.

FOUR NARRATIVES The four practices presented in this newspaper reveal alternative approaches to conventional planning. The knowledge they produced is related to the social and processual aspects of space, and could prove to be of great use to communities, designers and governments. Based on the urbanxchanger experience, we suggest that the field of urban studies can be enhanced by incorporating local ways of doing things. This line of thinking points to a necessary review of the current instruments available for intervention. It suggests a shift from the design of the architectural object, to a design capable of articulating the complexities involved in urban spaces—the means of

production in cities, as well as how spaces are used, appropriated and experienced. These acts of spatial transformation stress the role of the ‘makers’ and ways of ‘place-making’ that result from a constellation of social relations weaving together at a particular locus. The process of reflecting on and critiquing the urbanxchanger experience generated critical knowledge in two main areas: it raised questions and guided adjustments to the practices that developed in the four cities, and it showed how the experiences and the knowledge gained might be transferable to the city of Berlin. This highlights the different levels of collaboration involved in the urbanxchanger project. It is not simply about the South learning from the North, or the other way around, or about architects, designers or urban practitioners learning from community initiatives, or vice versa. More importantly, the process stresses the discourse of the ‘co-’ as a possibility at a global level and focuses on the much-discussed ‘nature of participation’ through the lens of design, methodologies, tools and techniques. At the core of the urbanxchanger project is the concept of co-design: collaborating with the users—accepted as experts on their own environments—rather

than designing for them. The approach is also about postulating the impact and the role of architecture and design as disciplines that should engage with the status quo and contribute to shaping adequate urban environments. It’s about finding the potential for change by engaging with the challenges posed by the inhabitants’ everyday lives. It’s about joining political forces in order to empower residents to transform their own realities through a hands-on approach and with the resources available to them. Lastly, it’s about channeling different perspectives into a singular innovative direction in order to co-design possible futures: together, mutually and jointly. ‘Co-designing cities: architecture and informal intelligence’ refers to a collaborative approach with regards to architecture, urban planning and the design and management of public spaces, one which capitalises on the assets of local communities. The research process presented here identifies opportunities and develops alternative instruments to intervene in the construction of collective space.

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Informal Intelligence Sharing the Public City

‘The city’, wrote Lewis Mumford, ‘is a fact in nature, like a cave, a run of mackerel or an ant-heap. But it is also a conscious work of art, and it holds within its communal framework many simpler and more personal forms of art.’ There’s something unsettling about the ant-heap, but the notion of the informal city as something more akin to an organism than a modernist machine, rings true. It is a settlement made without architects, without planners, but not made without architecture or planning. When we talk about sustainability, we talk about embodied energy in the structures of the city—but we do not talk about the embodied intelligence that the informal city is so clearly soaked in. The ad hoc, improvisational character of informality is endlessly astonishing. People make their city however they can, with whatever tools and whatever means they have available to them. And although they may lack many of the amenities we have come to expect from our cities,

BY EDWIN HEATHCOTE WRITER, ARCHITECT AND DESIGNER ARCHITECTURE AND DESIGN CRITIC OF THE FINANCIAL TIMES SINCE 1999

We invited architecture and design critic Edwin Heathcote to share his thoughts on the activities carried out over the six month period. As someone who was not involved in the project process, we asked him to explore and write about his impressions of the work developed in urbanxchanger and to review the outcomes with fresh eyes.

these places are at least—if not more—urban than the most carefully planned cities on earth. Their magic is in their density, not just in how tightly packed they are with people, but in the intensity of transactions—social, financial, cooperative, community. People making and repairing, inventing, stripping down and making anew, in chance encounters and mutual support. The temptation with the informal city is always to start again—to plan, to rebuild. But the problems facing the world’s cities are almost incomprehensible in their scale. The world will double its rate of urbanisation by the year 2050. There will be twice as many people in cities as there are today, with two billion of them living in informal situations. There are no solutions that can be imposed from above. Change will have to come from the streets and the shanties, the alleys and the hillsides, from the bottom up. Urbanxchanger is an attempt to catalyse that change, that ingenuity, through research and experimentation in particular places and with existing populations, and then to create a platform for sharing that intelligence.

Whether it is intensity, density or boundary, each of the interventions presented here are, in their own way, about the definition and delineation of space. On the very edge of Mexico City, space seems to be abundant, the natural landscape stretching as far as the eye can see, yet it is precisely the question of defining the boundary between city and country that will maintain it as a special place. Outside São Paulo, there is leftover space, a strip of unused land beneath the overhead power cables. In the dense informality of New Delhi there is urban space, but it is ill-defined as a place. In Cape Town, the problem is the containment of interior space, the creation of a framework to define space. In Berlin the problem is definition too—the strange anomaly of generous communal space that appears to have no particular purpose and ends up being used by no-one. The problems of informal settlements are often assumed to be insurmountable. The urbanxchanger projects illustrate the tangibility of even the smallest interventions in defining place

and space, and in radically improving urban conditions through minimal means. Every city has its own problems, and every settlement its own specific scarcities and deprivations, but each can learn something from every other. This is the story of that potential for exchange.

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WASTE OF SPACE? Space can be scarce, space can be abundant, space can be ill-defined. But it is in the intelligent and intense use of space that the spirit of the city resides.

Production Beneath Power The edge of any megacity is poorly defined, a boundary in constant flux, always being tested, pushed and questioned. It vacillates between the urban and the rural, between productivity and waste, between agriculture, suburb and slum. It is precisely this uncertainty that makes it so full of potential, an embryonic space of the possible. But how does the city impinge on the country without the rural disappearing, or the informal flattening its potential? The answer—in provocative part at least—is here, on the eastern edge of São Paulo. And that answer snakes along wasted space

SÃO PAULO The electric power transfer lines are installed in linear areas that cross throughout urban regions, isolating the space it occupies. This initiative exemplifies a partnership forged with the local farmers, responsible for the management of these areas, which led to temporary concessions allowing for the use of those spaces.

beneath the power lines that are bringing electricity into the city. Beneath this corridor of power is an attenuated landscape of urban agriculture, brought back into productive life by communities, in cooperation with AES Eletropaulo, the power company and proprietor of the overhead cables and the strip of land beneath them. The project addresses both the lack of public and green space in the city, the

lack of access to freshly-cultivated food for the poorer inhabitants of the community, and the lack of opportunities for small-income supplements for local residents. Cities Without Hunger, an NGO that’s been in operation since 2004, uses gardening as a mechanism for not only improving the nutrition of adults and children, but also as a way of socially reintegrating marginalised groups. Food is always a focus of social

Coalescing around the work started by Mr Genival, a local pioneer who had begun cultivating the land beneath the power lines, this project represents an attempt to formalise the arrangements with the power company, to promote the garden as both production and activity, and to create a space where food can be tested, tasted, discussed, and ideas disseminated. This is a project based on production, on the land. Its physical manifestations are designed with only the lightest touch. Yet it is also about the creation of an urban space to supplement a piece of city that is dense and poorly-served. It is paradoxical in its nature—an urban space in the country, a green strip for the city from which it stands apart, and an organic farm compensating for the carbon-hungry power being transported directly above it. The elements of the project, developed in collaboration with the NGO and the local farmers, are unassuming—deliberately ad hoc and impermanent as they bow to the rural, rather than attempting to emulate the urban in the countryside. There is the roof—a simple timber structure with a fabric covering to create a place for gathering—

the most basic canopy for table and benches. There is the toilet— another archetypal shelter, in which waste becomes fertiliser. And there is a playground and a gym, two sides of the same coin, which allow city-dwellers to move freely, exercise and enjoy each other’s company and the fresh air. The equipment in both is ingeniously recycled—tyres to drag or grow things in, waste wood and metal up-cycled into equipment. And then there is the food cart, a vehicle for vending the products of the land and a totem for taking the fruits of the community’s labour out into the wider city—a piece of mobile architecture. This is not a project that’s going to change the world. It is predicated on a particular piece of unused land beneath a particular type of infrastructure, and it draws its strength from the particular conditions and fertile ground of São Paulo’s urban edge. But perhaps it is precisely in its modesty, in the simplicity of its aims and the ad hoc nature of its construction that it becomes something more. This is something any community can easily aspire to—and the conditions which might seem so specific—the unused strip of land—are conditions which prevail in every city, whether it is under-used pubic space, railway verges or infrastructural fringes. With the city’s

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life—but its importance is amplified through poverty.

imaginative use of its water facilities as public pocket parks, Medellín has already proved how fruitful it can be to re-appropriate the urban possessions of the utility companies. The São Mateus scheme looks modest in comparison, but that’s precisely why it is reproducible—with the means available even to the poorest. Where it needs clarity is in the relationship to the city. São Paulo’s vast scale means that those living at its edges will spend the beginnings and the ends of their days on journeys into the city for work. Will there be enough to attract them to travel yet further in the precious few moments of their spare time? Or is this a project for the others whose jobs do not take them to the city centre, or who have no jobs at all? The young, the old, the women, the marginal? It is fascinating that what in the Global North looks like a decadent project, expressing an urban bourgeois yearning to produce organic food of ones own, to escape the city for the roots, appears on the margins and in the Global South as a lifesaver, the difference between hunger and desire, and providing a tool for cohesion and social togetherness. Perhaps it is precisely in this paradox that its universal applicability lies. Food here, as it is in all our realities, is at the heart of our culture and our survival. ///

finding the edge The project in Miravalle embraces the myriad complex issues of the informal, and, in the process of making small changes to particular situations, it also radically redefines the city’s edge into a place of production and real community, rather than a distant, dysfunctional, inconvenient dormitory suburb. The problems this project addresses are possibly the most universal of urban concerns, and it is intriguing to see how solutions aimed at the poor extremities of a Global South megacity can seem so pertinent to the ennui of the modern metropolis in the cool climate of the Global North. This is a scheme about edges, in the macro and the micro context. It is about how the city ends and how it meets the landscape at its edge, and it is about how boundaries are defined within the settlement, how privacy is maintained, while civic life is simultaneously allowed to flourish. Beyond these more abstract ideals is a series of interventions addressing everyday needs—including a dome designed to facilitate the collection of potable rainwater.

VIEWS MEXICO CITY View of’ Miravalle from the volcano

The project began with a group walk. If this could be seen as a way of marking territory through civic action, it was, I think, intended rather as a vehicle within which to understand the context— to take the landscape into psychic public ownership. This is critical here—as it is in all cities—because the definition of the edge reflects the perception of the city itself. London has its green belt, Venice has its lagoon, Miravalle has its volcano.

A communal climb up that volcano’s verdant side acts as a bonding session for the community that undertakes it, and as an act of cultural appropriation (but not of physical ownership). And it allows a view back onto the neighbourhood itself—that collective vantage point is symbolic of a community understanding of the scale, the context and the character of the settlement. It is also a glimpse of beauty— the landscape, the topography and the forest. It is a quality so often lacking in the

informal settlements—and sometimes it is easy to forget even when it is there. Once the ritual walk is undertaken, the intention is that the community itself decides which interventions it might build. This is a highly organised community that has, in the last decades, increasingly defined itself socially, as well as physically. Here, each project is a critical part of the affirmation of its identity. Based on existing community development, the resulting interventions veer between the subtle and the overbearing, the magical and the questionable. The definition of boundaries in these contexts is always difficult— it’s understandable for a community to want to define itself and its edge, but how does it affect those who might arrive in the future? Will it deny newcomers the opportunities its residents had themselves? This is a new neighbourhood, now formalised, which evolved from an informal settlement. Are these new boundaries symbols of success and consolidation? Or of exclusion? The previous interventions found in the landscape are many and varied, all constructed with modest means, often with dual functions. A retaining wall, necessary to provide a kindergarten with a level playground, is

transformed into an amphitheatre, a public forum and place of performance. Stairs are created from treads of discarded tyres, trees are given surrounds which become seats. These structures are formed using materials gathered from the landscape, and the topography is worked with, rather than against, so that the landscape becomes a feature rather than an obstacle. Different than a government-built school that proved unwieldy and over-scaled, the community did not build large new structures, but rather negotiated and repaired existing, adequate ones. The one totemic new structure was the billowing canopy of the ‘Water Dome’, upgrading it into an ingenious method for collecting the abundant downpours from the rainy season, and storing it in a cistern for community use. This becomes a marker of place and use, a kind of contemporary village well. Beyond these landscape projects, the collaboration with the community turned its hand to the construction of physical forms of safety. In a series of moves that echo the principles of Jane Jacobs—eyes on the street, open doors and courtyards, improved connectivity—the public spaces were animated and tamed, made safe for all through minimal, but

top table The fundamental condition of informality is precariousness. The existential uncertainty which underpins the anxiety of informal living is exacerbated by seemingly every condition of day-to-day life: the unstable, ad hoc buildings, the unplanned development which is somehow simultaneously both too-dense and too-sparse, the lack of tenure and the questions hanging over utilities, land and legality. But it spreads beyond the physical conditions and becomes an aspect of life itself. Lack of access to education and employment, proclivity to crime, dependency on drugs and alcohol, social isolation, lack of communi-

ty—each of these factors contributes to an existence on the edge, in which every element acts as a reminder of inadequacy. Innumerable architects, NGOs, inventors, charities, engineers and assorted outsiders have proposed solutions to these problems, yet few of these solutions have gained much traction. When governments move in the results are almost invariably failures—cookie-cutter solutions laid out in dim networks, too dispersed to make a town, the dwellings too similar and too simplistic to create a streetscape. The houses themselves are usually inadequate, becoming symbols of dependency rather than of attainment, and they are rarely suited to the diverse needs of communities—proposing instead a single way of living, and allowing for little else. They have no capacity for expansion, for accommodating workshops or garages, or extra space for extended families—and they take little account of cultural, social or climatic conditions. Solutions proposed by outsiders may be ingenious, but they tend not to last long. Once their inventors have moved on, residents often return to found materials and low-tech techniques to supplement them. The scarcity of good solutions explains Alejandro Aravena’s, Half a Good House, which earned him this year’s

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thoughtful intervention, which also had the effect of making the pubic space more coherent and contained. The final element of safeguarding consisted of wrapping spaces—on the principle that if a space appears to be cared for, it will be more respected. Is this always the case? Perhaps these are steps that need to be taken as experiments. Some may work, some may fade or be adapted. But, as a means of intervention with minimal resources and maximal efficiency, they are undeniably effective. ///

CAPE TOWN Construction process: assembling various actors for the construction of a proto-type

Pritzker Prize. It may not be a hugely original solution, but it does propose a decent, urban dwelling with the built-in capacity to adapt and grow, and to allow the inhabitants to express their own desires and needs through the architecture as it develops. Architects like it because it looks like a compromise between top-down (Aravena has made the designs freely available) and bottom-up (inhabitants are allowed to customise the architecture). And they also like it because

it looks like they are doing something. It assuages guilt by proposing that a decent house could be provided to the poor. But it is still, necessarily, a state-sponsored solution that demands money and building expertise. The Table House is archetypal architecture—pure structure, a minimal provision of posts and beams that provides a solid base, but little more. It is the structural expression of exactly the stability which life in the informal settlements lacks.

The structure is simple—steel posts (table legs) and steel beams and deck (table top), and a junction that resembles a kind of concrete column capital. The deck can be a roof for an existing shack, or a first floor. The construction allows flexibility within the structure or can become the structure itself. Most importantly it anchors the dwelling to the ground—a solid base from which to start. The metaphor works for the workers as well as the dwellers. Co-designers of the Table House, Hands of Honour, is a community initiative working in the Cape Flats with local unemployed men and those recovering from addiction. They make simple furniture using up-cycled materials. The punchline is that they up-cycle people too, broken lives patched back together. The process of construction and the skills needed—welding, construction, laying con-

crete—impart valuable experience, and help to build trust and cooperation. There is something slightly ‘60s about the Table House—the idea of the mega-structure brought down to the scale of the informal. Many of the most radical architects of the period were looking at space-frames and superstructures (Yona Friedman’s Ville Spatiale, Konrad Wachsmann’s spaceframes and even Superstudio’s visionary drawings come to mind). Each saw that the architect of the future may be employed, not to create the individual dwelling, but the frame within which inhabitants would be free to build their homes in any way they wanted. This was a libertarian, sci-fi vision that transferred contemporary ideas from extra-terrestrial planetary bases and post-apocalyptic landscapes to commuter cities, and provided ways of overbuilding existing historic centres without destroying the original fabric. The Table House is a kind of miniaturised version, with the same idea of freedom in which it is the dweller who determines the materials, scale and appearance of the home. The architect does not dictate the conditions, the aesthetics or the lifestyle—but rather provides only the structure, anchoring the house to the site and the dwelling to the city. ///

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One of the most intriguing things about the Table House is that it can accommodate an existing dwelling beneath it. In earthquakes, extreme weather (or nuclear wars, as it once was) we are told to hunker down beneath a table for protection from falling rubble. The table—that most elemental expression of family life and sustenance—becomes a kind of literal and symbolic architecture of protection.

Waste and Space

infrastructure and a sense of legitimacy, it is also vulnerable to planning decisions—the city master plan envisions a ring road that could open the area up to land speculation.

Sangam Vihar is a settlement of perhaps one-and-a- half million people on the edge of Delhi. It is a huge, but neglected territory at the frontier between the forest and the megacity. The neighbourhood is inhabited mostly by new arrivals to the city, so its sense of identity and belonging is very much in flux, something still unformed. As an unauthorised colony, not only does the settlement lack the provision of basic

This complex, collaborative project is an attempt to consolidate the sense of community, location and physical fabric within a fragile structure. It is an effort to reinforce the links between people and place, but also to signal the presence of the place—spatially and politically—within the vast Indian metropolis. To do this, the initiative embarked on a so-called ‘Schizo-Plan’— an approach defined by its determinedly not

NEW DEHLI View of the settlement from Asola Wildlife sanctuary

Part of the project involved marking the territory with the use of wayfinding and location balloons, designed to establish identity and communicate legitimacy beyond the settlement. Based on the ubiquitous Google Map symbols these markers became a ludic, almost pop art intervention, an attempt to stamp a sense of place on the collective consciousness of community and city. Five red balloons identified sites and events along the edge to facilitate the recoding of the settlement, and to establish the green edge as Sangam Vihar’s new front. Alongside water and waste management projects, other initiatives included creating mock-ups of the green spaces in an effort to raise awareness about the potential to turn wasteland at the edge of the settlement into public space, while at the same time acting as a buffer to protect the vulnerable area from development. Through the activation of urban space, the initiative ultimately attempts to forge a new dialogue amongst the fragile urban constituencies that lack entitlement and security. ///

Transfer, Transaction and Transformation

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being a master plan—where the design teams and different community voices developed micro and macro-planning tools to facilitate local action, and to communicate to governmental agencies at large.

There is a persistent idea that the Global North could learn much from the Global South: the notion that the astonishing variety, inventiveness, ingenuity and speed with which informal settlements can respond to successive crises and changes in situation, could provide inspiration for the rigid, seemingly static and inflexible cities of the cool Global North. The contrast between the intelligence embodied in unplanned informal areas, and the lethargy, lack of responsiveness and sheer waste often characteristic of the planning in the wealthiest cities, certainly seems to favour the former. We read that planning is the basis of every civilised city, yet what room does the system leave for improvisation? Many of the most successful cities have proved themselves inadequate to deal with the radical changes they are required to cope with: mass immigration from very different cultures; financial crises; ageing populations; the collapse of heavy industries; globalisation.

The irony is that the space is there. In East Germany, where planning has responded to political and social concerns, rather than a commercial agenda, public space is plentiful, yet is allowed to lie fallow. The no-man’s land represented by neglected communal spaces between housing blocks and municipal buildings should present an opportunity to create a territory to bring disparate communities together, and to use the city as a social space. Yet it is not. Whether this is due to the reluctance of communities comfortable in their own company, or whether it is because people lack the models, the language and the experience to activate public space, is uncertain. Or even, perhaps because of the rigid ways in which the contemporary city is controlled—the rafts of legislation which demands liability for any accident or unplanned event. Whatever it is, the transfer of knowledge seems problematic. The challenge for otherwise prosperous cities in adapting to changing conditions will be to address the atomisation and alienation embodied in their current incarnations. Cities are measured incessantly in terms of GDP, financial transactions, land values, and now even in questionable measures of ‘happiness’. Architect Teddy Cruz has suggested instead that we measure the

density and success of the city in terms of social, rather than financial transactions. If that were the case, then the myriad encounters and bargains, the favours and the conversations exchanged outside doorways, the free babysitting, and the care of the elderly in the extended family, all suddenly appear as evidence of success. The citizens of the Global North have spent decades improving their living conditions, only to find themselves isolated, worried about security and separated from their loved ones. Can the urban commons be resurrected to address these issues? Can we use the seemingly simple measures invented and adopted in the conditions of the informal to begin to stick the city back together again? This is a question about the idea of a city. What is it for? Who is it for? The experiments of the urbanxchanger allow us to better understand the humanity that is at the heart of the city. They make us think about what the city is, how it is defined, and how we can play our part in redesigning it where it is found lacking. The exchange provides an understanding that scarcity is not always an issue of resources, but can be about a lack of cohesion, involvement and inclusivity. There is always something to be learnt.

PARTNER COMMUNITY

PARTNER

INITIATIVE SĂ&#x192;O PAULO

Cities Without Hunger

WHAT IS IT AND WHEN WAS IT FOUNDED? Cidades sem Fome (Cities without Hunger) is a non-governmental organisation (NGO), founded in 2004 in SĂŁo Paulo by Hans Dieter Temp, a technician for agricultural and environmental policies. WHERE AND WHAT? Operating in the East Zone of the city, community food gardens generate profits for the families who tend to the gardens, while at the same time educating people about the benefits of organic farming. IMPACT ON THE BUILT ENVIRONMENT The community food gardens modify the urban landscape, transforming unused public and private plots of land by creating green spaces that contrast with the otherwise densely packed surrounding built environment.

Before and after: the community food gardens modify the urban landscape, transforming unused plots.

ACHIEVEMENTS To date, the organisation has initiated 21 community gardens and assisted 115 people in becoming community gardeners. Participants are also provided with basic training on how to run their garden as a small business, helping them to become financially independent. In addition, 38 gardens have been set up in public schools and educational institutions, assisting a further 650 people. BENEFITS TO THE COMMUNITY On top of boosting the local economy and providing employment, Cities without Hunger makes fresh, healthy, affordable food available to locals. The programme also provides opportunities for social networking and social interactions, adding to the overall wellbeing of the community.

São Paulo is Brazil‘s largest city. Hyper-urbanised and far removed from the exotic image of a laid-back tropical country, it is a multicultural metropolis full of dramatic contrasts and resulting social inequalities. The diversity of São Paulo is expressed not only by the many layers of its society, but also by the numerous cultures and ethnicities that comprise its very mixed population. The district of São Mateus, located in the East Zone, about 20 kilometres from the centre of São Paulo, is made up of houses hiding behind walls and fences, with a distinct lack of open or greened public spaces. The local population is a mix of middle and lower income residents, most of who work in the city centre and

commute daily. The area is characterised by strong cultural expression, especially through music such as samba and funk. While São Paulo often promotes the urban development of its central areas as an exemplary model of good planning, it was in the East Zone of the city—a place that feels rather backward and underdeveloped—that the urbanxchanger team found the most appealing innovation. Cities without Hunger’s work consists mostly of organising and maintaining community and school gardens, as well as agricultural greenhouses. Apart from guaranteeing a livelihood for some of the poorest families in São Mateus, what is unique about this community initiative

A Sunday lunch hosted in the garden provides an enjoyable social occasion for invited stakeholders—from government agencies, policy-makers and architects, to professionals from the fields of culture and gastronomy.

PROJECT DESCRIPTION

SÃO PAULO

the Project

The mobile kitchen, built with the same techniques used by local street vendors. A two-day workshop was held, during which the team built a mobile kitchen to host weekend community lunches. The kitchen also serves as a social space, and is used to help sell produce—being mobile, it can move from the garden into the neighbouring streets.

is that most of the gardens have been developed on unused and neglected public and private land, such as servitudes normally reserved for use by major utility companies. Cities without Hunger is currently in the process of expanding operations at some of the community gardens in São Mateus, so as to allow for other revenue-generating ahctivities. Proposed new ventures include developing local products to sell to neighbouring communities, cooking, hosting events and offering weekend meals with an educational flair. THE GARDEN Mr Genival is the person responsible for starting one of these food gardens under the electrical power lines of AES Eletropaulo. The 64-year-old Genival started out working alone, but was later joined by three other families,

followed by Cities without Hunger, who offered their support to the project. The garden makes an impact at a local level by greening 8,000 square metres of previously vacant land, generating income for local residents, and supplying affordable organic food to the community. It also protects and maintains the land

To focus on the educational potential of organic gardens, designers compiled an archive of the local herbs and plants based on the community’s popular knowledge.

PROJECT DESCRIPTION

Genival and his wife work full time in the garden and sell some of the produce they grow in a small shop at the entrance to the garden. They also sell their produce at the local street market once a week, as well as in shops outside São Mateus. The founder of Cities without Hunger, Hans Dieter Temp, believed that there was a need for a building of some description, so that they could expand their activities beyond growing and selling their food. While the project offered garden tours for visitors, and organised educational workshops, without a structure it was difficult to properly receive people or host functions where food made with local products could be sampled.

SÃO PAULO

around AES Eletropaulo’s transfer lines, as defined in the concession agreement signed by both parties. The agreement also stipulates other restrictions, such as the prohibition of the cultivation of tall plants and trees, and the building of permanent structures.

containing five layers: the Roof, the Toilet, the Gym, the Playground and the Garden Goes Outside.

A space was needed where people could at least sit down and chat.

The aim of the plan was to change peoples’ perspectives and interpretations of the area, and to bring new life into a previously neglected part of the city.

Working together with the community, the designers established what the gardeners would need from the building, both in the immediate term and the long term. To meet the needs of local stakeholders, and, at the same time project the future of the initiative, the team arrived at a plan THE GYM The garden doubles as an outdoor gymnasium, a place for physical activity. As well as the more exerting activities, such as digging, ploughing and harvesting, the ‘gym’ also offers therapeutic activities like planting, pruning and watering. Gardening is also successfully used in various occupational therapies, particularly with the elderly, children, sufferers of depression, and recovering addicts. In this scenario, the garden contributes to both physical and mental health, helping to improve the quality of life of its users.

THE ROOF The infrastructure needed to enable the garden to act as an event space was broken down into individual elements: a roof, a mobile kitchen, tables and benches. These elements were designed and built by the team in four days, after which a pilot event was held. People were invited from the central areas of the city to share food, and talk about their work and day-to-day experiences. The event allowed the team to understand what worked well, and which aspects of the project still needed refine-

THE PLAYGROUND The garden can also be used as a place to play, entertain, and be entertained— not only for children, but for people of all ages. The playground facilities are created by repurposing or activating existing elements in the garden. These include spatial elements (the terrain, different site levels, boundaries and shade screens), material elements (tyres, waste wood, metal objects and equipment, tree trunks, foliage, sand and earth) and the very products from the garden (herbs, flowers and vegetables).

On a larger scale, this project is intended as an inspirational example—not only for the other gardens managed by Cidades sem Fome, but also for the rest of the city. It highlights the potential for underutilised areas to be converted into productive spaces—in every way: economically, socially and creatively.

PROJECT DESCRIPTION

THE GARDEN GOES OUTSIDE By extending the garden beyond its current physical limits, the team envisioned it becoming a kind of ‘hub’ for the community. The garden can extend into the neighbourhood in a number of different ways. The mobile kitchen is able to move around, and serve different functions: it can be used as a cart to sell tapioca (as suggested by Dona Sebastiana,

one of the gardeners); as an alternative pharmacy; or as a stand to sell vegetables or food prepared using produce from the garden. Part of the garden could also be used as a semi-public space containing, for example, a playground and public toilets, or serving as a contemplation or meeting area. The garden products could also be sold in local shops, restaurants, bars and pharmacies.

SÃO PAULO

ment. In the context of the five-layer plan, the roof was the starting point and also of symbolic value: a physical example of a joint effort, reinforcing the strength of the project.

Project Credits PARTNER COMMUNITY INITIATIVE Cities without Hunger São Paulo Team Vapor 324, Andrea Bandoni and Julia Masagão BERLIN TEAM ConstructLab Team participants: Alexander Römer and Pieterjan Grandry CURATOR AND LOCAL RESEARCHER Marcos L. Rosa

Sao Paulo

East Zone (location of initiative)

19,683,975 11,253,503 7,947 2,209 1,523

3,300,000 Population

Municipal Population:

STATISTICS

SĂ&#x192;O PAULO

Metropolitan Population:

0,478 40% Human Development Index (HDI):

Metropolitan Area:

km2

Municipal Unemployment Rate:

Urbanised Metropolitan Area:

km2

Urbanised Municipal Area:

km2

VAPOR324+BANDONI+MASAGÃO

In a very hands-on process lasting only four days, we built a roof structure to shelter an event space and also held a real pilot event in the garden, during which a chef cooked with locally-grown produce and visitors took a tour of the garden to learn about the initiative. Despite the conflicts arising from differing stakeholders and expectations and the very short time frame, the group process was a resounding success.

The attitude of ‘making’ is extremely potent!

How to match the local urgencies with a long term plan?

VAPOR324+BANDONI+MASAGÃO

In São Paulo, the community wanted a space to receive visitors and promote activities inside the garden. We had the vision that the garden could be much more than a space for events. It was important to understand we had to work ‘with’ them not only ‘for’ them. The team then decided that in a first moment we should all build the infrastructure needed and prototype an event, and in a second moment make a plan on how to develop further the space within a broader vision.

In Berlin we realized that a garden could cultivate more than vegetables. We saw gardens that rather fulfilled a social function and were used as places to learn, recreate and activate underused pockets of urban land. The main issues facing urban gardens in Berlin are their seasonal nature (largely dormant in winter), the fact that many of them are temporary concessions, the infeasibility of actual food production and the absence of a connection between gardeners to discuss different methods and approaches. This observation â&#x20AC;&#x201C; the importance of knowledge transfer - led us to create a platform where information about urban gardens can be input in a different way. Back in Brazil, these learnings inspired another action: we returned to the garden to register the medical uses attributed by popular culture to the plants growing there, and compiled these a an atlas.

VAPOR324+BANDONI+MASAGĂ&#x192;O

The transfer of knowledge led us to realize and try out new things.

WHAT IS IT AND WHEN WAS IT FOUNDED? In 2006 a number of local organisations came together to form the Miravalle Community Council, with the goal of improving conditions in the neighbourhood.

Miravalle Community Council

Existing dome and community complex with library, creamery and heath centre, seen from dome

PARTNER

MEXICO

WHERE AND WHAT? Miravalle was built on former agricultural land in the late 1980s. It forms part of the Iztapalapa borough on the periphery of Mexico City, and is located on the side of a dormant volcano, overlooking the metropolitan urban landscape below. IMPACT ON THE BUILT ENVIRONMENT Concerned about a lack of safe recreational and cultural spaces, the community has transformed a number of previously abandoned public spaces into a wide variety of facilities and programmes,

including a library, a digital centre, a community dinner, an open forum, a health centre, a recycling centre and sports courts. In addition, the community is interested in sustainable approaches to development that directly benefit them by providing things such as access to affordable water and the protection of the adjacent nature reserve. ACHIEVEMENTS AND BENEFITS TO THE COMMUNITY The Miravalle Community Council has created a robust network of local stakeholders, specialists and civil organisations. Cooperation between these groups allows for improved communication with government structures. The ambition of the council is to foster local transformation, and, in the process, become a model for socio-cultural reactivation in other marginalised urban communities.

it was important to map this information, which was done at a workshop in Mexico City.

On the very edge of the city, on the slopes of the Guadalupe volcano, lies the neighbourhood of Miravalle. In three decades, Miravalle has developed from an informal settlement into a well organised, and politically structured, neighborhood. Yet despite all of its achievements, the community still faces challenges concerning the maintenance and safety of its

Invasion of the natural reserve

public spaces, as well as the management of the adjacent nature reserve. The Miravalle Community Council aims to provide solutions to these shared problems of urbanity and citizen rights. It is also concerned with the misuse of local resources, which, if managed properly, could provide autonomy when it comes to critical issues, such as a costly dependency on potable water, which is currently delivered to Miravalle by trucks. UNDERSTANDING WHAT IS NEEDED Through group walks and discussions over meals, the team began to gain an understanding of both the strengths and shortcomings of the approach taken in Miravalle. Community leaders decided that

MEXICO

ON THE EDGE OF MEXICO CITY Mexico City, the city that was once a lake, sits in a drainless valley, surrounded by mountain ranges, one of which is Sierra Santa Catarina. Its volcanos play a very important hydrological role: its slopes are permeable, allowing rainwater to infiltrate the deep aquifer, and preventing water from running down into the city. Today, parts of Sierra Santa Catarina have been urbanised. Development in the area means that the rainwater now runs down the streets, instead of being absorbed by the bare rock, causing issues of flooding in parts of Mexico City.

PROJECT DES CRIPTION

the Project

Three urgent issues came out of the discussions at the workshop: the importance of protecting the cityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s edge; the effective use of local resources; and the safeguarding of public spaces. In response, three interventions were identified through a participatory process with the community representatives: a walk to the top of the volcano in order to identify local resources; a system to harvest rainwater from the roof of a communal building; and the retrofitting of security measures in urban spaces in order to safeguard them. Throughout this process, it was important to keep in mind the eco-hydrological role of Miravalle, and to recognise and reflect on the possibilities that the territory offers its inhabitants. On one hand, there exists the responsibility of promoting an urban ecology that will help to repair the infiltration function of the slopes. And on the other, the realisation that the volcano, if taken care of and properly managed, could provide much needed wealths. BORDER SPACE At Miravalleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s edge, urban life and the nature reserve meet. The conflict created by a growing population and the protection of

the natural space is causing pressure on this border. In some areas, established programmes and facilities such as sports fields, peri-urban agriculture, and schools, prevent the further occupation of the land. Existing programming of the border space points to a strategy that could be expanded on: protection through usage. Rather than fencing off the nature reserve, it could become a space of productive inhabitation. With the promise of recreational facilities and the potential to generate income, the edge will be protected by the residents themselves.

People from neighborhoods beyond Miravalle joined the expedition to the top of the volcano. Recognising the mountain as a provider, and not as a threat, shifted the perspective of the community.

THE USE OF LOCAL RESOURCES Located in one of the driest spots in Water supply in Miravalle is not sufficient for the population and presents a major expense for an already economically stressed neighborhood. On the other hand, and despite the fact that Miravalle is located at one of the driest spots in Mexico City, its seasonal rainwater would be enough to cover the needs of the area. The community has experimented with the harvesting of rainwater, but with little success.

Gathering flowers on the slopes of the volcano for adorning a street saint, and for use in traditional medicine. One can imagine the volcano melting into the city through the vegetation contained in the green urban spaces designed to infiltrate and store water. 42

PROJECT DESCRIPTION

THE VOLCANO WALK The walk to the top of the volcano created a framework for a series of events aimed at raising awareness around the value of the natural area, the possibilities it offers if managed properly, and its potential to absorb and retain water if proper strategies to restore its capacity are employed. More than a simple recreational outing, the aim of the walk was to identify local resources that would help to improve the lives of community members. It’s important to realise that because of its location, Miravalle sits in a privileged position within Mexico City’s periphery

The team suggested that the challenge lies in finding a way to

MEXICO

Poster Rainwater Harvesting. As harvesting surfaces serve the slopes of the volcano and dammed water bodies, the roofs of the houses and—the dome.

Dome fountain functional sketch

scale up existing interventions, creating a network, rather than having individuals working by themselves. Such a system would help to create independence, and generate a new sense of wealth, with the realisation that local resources are abundant, and that the needs of the community can be met from within. RAINWATER HARVESTING DOME FOUNTAIN The dome fountain initiative that is currently under construction gives new function and meaning to an important, but under-utilised communal space. Rainwater collected via the dome, which also

functions as an open-air parliament, will provide drinkable water for the public. Water is harvested from the roof of an existing public building, after which it is pushed through a bicycle pump, exiting through the water fountain. The fountain allows free access to clean drinking water. Water is also pumped into storage tanks on top of the community diner. The rainwater collected via the dome’s roof will be purified and accessible to everyone. The project serves not only to make use of a locally available resource, but also as a model for The kindergarten in Miravalle is a good example of the community’s ability to create pleasant and multi-functional spaces, taking advantage of topography and local resources. Located on a steep slope, teachers and parents used volcanic stones to build a retaining wall, with steps that double as seats for the open-air amphitheater.

FUNNEL COMMUNITY

capture of the rainwater

CANTEEN

and stone filtration

Dome fountain

DITCH

EXISTING DOME

PIPE

capture area

infiltration of the

capture and filtration

rainwater through the

rainwater into potable water

EXISTING BIKE PUMP FOUNTAIN WATER TANK from the pipe to the bottle

landscape

urban water management practices that can be replicated throughout the neighborhoods, and the city. SAFEGUARDING PUBLIC SPACE Miravalle stands out as a community for having built facilities such as the dome—taking social control of previously neglected and dangerous places. Yet, paradoxically, on a smaller scale these buildings often create unsafe corners, niches and walkways. The physical integration of these spaces as part of the neighbourhood is essential to convey the idea that the spaces are owned and cared for.

SPACE WRAPPING The team suggested that wrappings made from semi-transparent materials was one way in which to integrate leftover spaces, and show that the community is taking ownership of them. Thus the design of the dome’s public space is complemented by enclosures that regulate the relationship of users with the various public and semipublic spaces, such as the roof terraces, balcony, and entrance to the health centre. The design of these structures can be further expanded upon through workshops with residents, putting community involvement at the centre of the project.

MEXICO

RAIN GARDENS

PROJECT DESCRIPTION

site plan

FUTURE OUTLOOK Reviewing the strategies previously implemented in Miravalle seemed to have been a turning point for this community that had already accomplished so many things. Growing inwards rather than expanding; reinforcing strategies that make use of local resources and that provide safe environments; introducing small interventions to upgrade existing infrastructure—these are the new drivers of design, with the residents acting as the key agents of the transformation process. Changing the community’s perspective about their geographical position—from a marginalised border town to a neighborhood with an extraordinary landscape and access to natural resources— will hopefully bring even more transformation down the line.

Poster illustrating space wrap

Project Credits PARTNER COMMUNITY INITIATIVE Miravalle Community Council MEXICO CITY TEAM Rozana Montiel | Estudio de Arquitectura Rozana Montiel, Claudia Rodriguez, Daniel Jaramillo Collaborators: Hortense Blanchard, Daniel Rivera BERLIN TEAM SMAQ Office participants: Sabine Müller, Andreas Quednau and Irene Frassoldati CURATOR Marcos L. Rosa LOCAL COORDINATOR Ana Alvarez

ANA ÁLVAREZ HAS WIDELY

BUILDING NEW PERSPECTIVES

RESEARCHED MEXICO CITY FOR INTERDISCIPLINARY PROJECTS AND WAS THE LOCAL

Miravalle is a place where many community-based architectural interventions have already taken place, and building new facilities has been a way to keep community engagement alive. As such, the community representatives asked the urbanxchanger team to work

with them to balance the strengths and the challenges of what they had achieved thus far. The apparently simple actions carried out at the very beginning of our local workshop - walking, talking and leaving space for the locals to present and explain their most insignificant problems – in fact revealed a whole set of needs not visible at first. That request – that moment – laid the basis for a contribution that had to do with space, but that was not only about buildings or providing infrastructure. Rather, the dialogue created the framework for a larger understanding of autonomy, wellness and citizenship, through the recognition of local resources, existing achievements and the inclusion of a metropolitan perspective, to foresee Miravalle’s role in the challenges faced by the entire city.

NOTES ON THE PROCESS

“We are architects, not social workers - we bring about space solutions.” This provocative statement, made in one of the urbanxchanger meetings in Berlin, lingered in my mind for a while and led to my questioning around how this open project-experiment took place in Mexico. Was the most important part of the work carried out in Mexico City the physical modification of the dome per se? The richness of what was an intense and multi-layered process, in fact pointed out contributions that, in different ways, went beyond the actual spatial intervention.

MEXICO

COORDINATOR IN THAT CITY.

“I know it is hard to believe, but we hadn’t realized what we had on our back [doorstep] until the team of urban practitioners came and pointed out the potential of the volcano. Suddenly the volcano appeared to us in all its greatness and as a water provider.” That statement, given by a Miravalle representative while explaining the contributions of the project, summarizes the enthusiasm felt by local residents while looking at the forgotten or previously undiscovered landscape of the volcano, during a presentation by the urban practitioners - a moment when they shared with the community what they saw, and one that felt like a significant turning point. This new, jointly-constructed perspective became even more important when other challenges emerged during the process of carrying out the rainwater harvesting intervention at the dome (see project description Mexico City). In a city where 60% of the construction is done by the informal sector, much of it actually self-built, architects are seen as a luxury and not as professionals that provide spatial solutions. As a result, even if it turned out that the details of the proposed design were not fully embraced by the community representatives, it became clear that the broader perspective and the multi-scalar approach brought about by this experience was, in

itself, a substantial contribution. Moreover, the fact that, of the many prevalent issues, the team had chosen to work with the subject of water supply and flooding - topics that connect local problems with metropolitan challenges - also positioned the community differently, as a key actor within the city to which it belongs. The many hours of talks and discussions and the strategy of not only presenting a design project but actually first sharing with the community how the teams read and understood things, enriched the collective sense of citizenship and created the opportunity to actually build a perspective that could work as a “spatial intervention compass” for other future projects besides the dome. This broader perspective, clearly rooted in an understanding of space, resources and infrastructure, is not something that a social worker could have brought. For the scope of this project, this change of perspective presented a very powerful achievement. Translating this new perspective into specific interventions was however a more troublesome process during which the various stakeholders didn’t fully find common ground. This was partly due to the time and budget constraints of the project, but also

At a certain point, it was a difficult realization that the dome project risked leaving everyone unsatisfied. In addition, it generated concerns regarding the communityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s respective compromise with the different sponsors. It had clearly stopped being regarded as

This experience revealed the complexity of a truly collaborative project that aims to tackle real issues. To start with such an open brief was both suggestive and challenging because it gave participants the freedom to explore multiple new opportunities, but also generated difficulty in managing the outcomes of these explorations. Despite the difficulties, the project demonstrated that working on local issues and with available resources, but with a metropolitan perspective and in collaboration with the community, can be as important as â&#x20AC;&#x201C; if not more important than - generating conventionally outstanding designs. This proved to be the case in a city that will continue to change and grow without urban professionals but not necessarily without their influence.

NOTES ON THE PROCESS

The community was responsible for liaising with other funding partners (the Mexican Agency of International Cooperation and the Uruguayan Agency of Cooperation for Development) and community representatives would also directly manage the construction workers and materials as they had done with other projects. They understood the design drawings as sketches of a general idea with exchangeable details, whereas the team of urban practitioners saw the framework as a comprehensive plan that involved an aesthetic proposal for socially reactivating a space and a strategy for avoiding the negative side effects of construction that had resulted from other recent interventions in Miravalle.

an experiment and, as such, become a project that was expected to yield results outside the community for the other local and international funding Agencies. However one of the great virtues of both the community representatives and the urban practitioners was their capacity to express with honesty and respect their positions at critical points in the process, and move forward together.

MEXICO

because there seemed to be a gap in the understanding of what design is for (luxury or need?) and a level of confusion with regards to agency: who (the community or the team?) would lead this collaborative process of actually transforming the dome into a water-harvesting device.

Mexico City

East Zone / miravalle

20,116,842 8,918,653 7,854 1,494 2% 20%

1,800,000 13,000 16,029 0,72 93% 7%

(location of initiative)

Population Iztapalapa:

Metropolitan Population:

City population:

Population Miravalle:

km2

Population Miravalle: Population Density:

STATISTICS

MEXICO

Area occupied (Metro):

people per km2

Area occupied (City):

Human Development Index (HDI):

(Iztapalapa average)

Informal Settlements (Metro):

Land Use:

f the land (federal district)

urban Use

Informal Settlements (City):

of the population (metro)

natural reserve

Sometimes the process is more important than the product.

Was the most important part of the work carried out in Mexico City the physical modification of the dome per se? The richness of what was an intense and multi-layered process, in fact pointed out contributions that, in different ways, went beyond the actual spatial intervention.

ANA ALVAREZ

In a collaborative process, some conflicts, contradictions or disagreements are clear at the outset. Others, however, are only unveiled while making things, and in those cases, time and resources (both human and non-) become key to resolving them.

The act of â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;makingâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; is, in itself, revealing.

Seeing a familiar place through a new lens can unveil great potential for change. ANA ALVAREZ

A short term exchange may contribute to a solid agenda of transformative actions.

MIRAVALLE COMMUNITY COUNCIL

We started urbanxchanger with few expectations, as we were asked to participate in a platform for experimentation. However, that experience converted into a laboratory of ideas in the short, medium and long term - ideas that came to strengthen our working agenda and open up new fronts of action with great potential to transform the privileged urban surrounding where our community lives.

COMMUNITY OF MIRAVALLE

The viabilization of resources â&#x20AC;&#x201C; especially water â&#x20AC;&#x201C; already constitutes part of a previously unexplored agenda. Furthermore, it presents many possibilities for co-creation in the community and in the Sierra de Santa Catarina. With urbanxchanger we have launched a pilot project with a water-harvesting dome that illustrates to the community a possible way to manage rainwater and has great potential to be replicated in individual housing units.

Innovate by designing according to local needs and possibilities and not by copying models imported from outside the community.

Explore the use of available local resources.

Innovate by designing according to local needs and possibilities and not by copying models imported from outside the community.

COUNCIL

COMMUNITY

MIRAVALLE

Tuning local and external expectations and setting time frames is fundamental but also a difficult task for the community.

COUNCIL

COMMUNITY

MIRAVALLE

To actually carry out the many ideas generated during the workshop remains a challenge, as does effectively negotiating with diverse local and external stakeholders. Managing the time requirements of different project stakeholders at the same time as dealing with other community projects proved quite difficult. We need to establish criteria for working better with external professionals in order to achieve a more fluid and effective workflow tailored to our specific conditions and availability of human and material resources.

This collaboration gave us new understanding of what constitutes design.

Fresh perspectives brought by the urban practitioners complemented the work that had already been carried out, generating a wider understanding of what constitutes design from an architectural point of view, and the need for adequate planning - of time, resources and expectations - before starting the building process.

The collaboration with design professionals gave us new understanding of what constitutes design and helped with the preparation of a more integrated community development plan.

MIRAVALLE COMMUNITY COUNCIL

WHAT IS IT AND WHEN WAS IT FOUNDED? Hands of Honour is an NGO that was founded in Cape Town in 2010 by Paul Talliard.

Hands of Honour

Permanent temporality— precarious living conditions in Cape Town’s townships

PARTNER

CAPE TOWN

WHERE AND WHAT? Based in Retreat, a low-income suburb on the eastern border of the Cape Flats, the organisation concerns itself with ‘upcycling people, spaces and objects’. Former gang members and addicts are given the opportunity to learn skills in carpentry, building, and landscaping, with the hope of them becoming integrated into the economic life of the city. IMPACT ON THE BUILT ENVIRONMENT As well as designing and making furniture from donated and waste materials, the team also upgrades buildings and spaces—community centres, creches, gardens—on request. Hands of Honour not only contributes to an improved built environment, but also deals directly with the issues of substance abuse, youth empowerment and job creation. Profits from their work are invested in derelict community spaces and buildings that have become havens for anti-social behavior.

ACHIEVEMENTS The programme has achieved great results in the short space of time that it’s been operating, helping to transform lives and upgrade neglected urban spaces. Official annual crime statistics reflect a reduction in crime in the areas in which Hands of Honour are active, and, to date, nine full and part-time jobs have been created, with eleven derelict sites having been transformed into safe and attractive public spaces. In addition, two other income generating projects have been established: Crosses4Change (burial crosses) and Hands of the Rainbow Colours (organic vegetable farming). The Hands of Honour upcycling programme has also been the recipient of eight local and international accolades.

Cape Town

Philippi (location of initiative)

200,603 4,182 0,71 38% 56%

3,740,026 2,454

Population

Metropolitan Population:

Population Density:

Metropolitan Area:

people per km2

km2

13,6%

Human Development Index (HDI):

Informal Settlements in Metropolitan Area:

of the population

STATISTICS

CAPE TOWN

(Cape Flats average)

Unemployment Rate:

Informal Settlements:

of the population

TURNING THE TABLES

ed on the identification of actors and the facilitation of relationships and processes. A ‘gentle role’, it consisted mostly of observation and documentation – nudging behaviours, highlighting common ground, capturing moments. Most insightful, I believe, were the following conversations noted during the Cape Town workshop week, which give a rich snapshot of the genesis of the primary project output, the Tafelhuis or Table House:

LINDSAY BUSH, AN ARCHITECT AND RESEARCHER FROM DURBAN, WAS THE LOCAL COORDINATOR FOR URBANXCHANGER

are hard down South. I was also suspicious of the culture of foreign architects parachuting in to solve our problems for us, and rather fiercely protective over the people and projects with which I had developed strong bonds over the years. There was however something hugely appealing about the urbanxchanger proposal – so open, so much potential, so many possible outcomes - and I thought back to all those times as a civil servant when I was told: ‘that will never work’ and they were, invariably, wrong. Maybe this time I was wrong too? As the local coordinator for Cape Town, my efforts were concentrat-

NOTES ON THE PROCESS

It sounded like a long shot, at first. Perched on a kitchen counter in a guest house in Cuba, clutching a landline to my ear while a thunderstorm raged outside, I listened as Marcos painstakingly described what they had in mind. It will never work, I thought: too complex, too many actors, not enough time or money. I also cast doubts upon the ability of urban practitioners, particularly architects, to negotiate such an open brief, and on the likely lack of interest we would face from the community initiatives that had entered the Award in each city, to partake in a project with no explicit monetary reward – times

CAPE TOWN

CAPE TOWN.

What a house IS vs what a house DOES in people’s lives? Is this a state of permanent temporality or temporary permanence? What will the repercussions be of acting outside the law (by building the prototype without permission)? Will the City come and bulldoze it down? Could it cause reputational damage for those involved? Might it cause jealousy or problems with the neighbours? What constitutes a successful approach in an environment where it is easier to ask for forgiveness than permission? Is it to act collectively as a stimulus, an irritant? There was much discussion around a different way of looking at housing production: What can we learn from the way of building informal settlements in South & Central America – multi-storey concrete frame & brick infill compared to the less sophisticated tin and wooden shacks found in South

Africa? How can we move away from the Fordist, top-down separation of labour, and closer towards the Volvo ‘One-car system’ which offers pride, accountability and an opportunity to see the fruit of one’s labour? How can housing production become a training opportunity during which participants pass on skills to others? Is the prototype structure a composition of small elements (eg. block & beam technology) or a more sophisticated shuttering system such as an in-situ concrete slab? Could we limit the scale of the intervention eg. to hand-held tools only? And lastly, what is the potential for replicability at different scales eg. Micro (the House) – Midi (the Neighbourhood) – Macro (the National Housing Programme)? Only once all teams had regrouped for the last time in Berlin to present their work, was it possible to grasp the richness and diversity of the explorations and interventions that had resulted. Urbanxchanger unveiled new modes of collaboration: true co-creation, allowed to evolve naturally without the constraints of a necessary deliverable. While this prompted a lot of questioning, it also gave the space for the projects to evolve organically in response to different needs and contexts. It gave teams an opportunity to work in ways – and with

NOTES ON THE PROCESS

There were several overall ‘learnings’ from the project, of which two stood out for me. The first was the limitation of time. Working with communities that had evolved incrementally over many years, a focused intervention in such a short time felt out of place, like a 6-year project wearing a 6-month corset. The other ‘learning’ was a deeply personal one. Having often visited and worked with the community where the first Tafelhuis client lived, I thought I knew the situation there quite well, yet was ill-prepared for the close-up view. I found myself repeatedly shocked at the volatility of a life lived in poverty and constantly reflecting

back to my own life, lived just on the other side of Table Mountain but a whole world apart. As built environment professionals, we rely on planning – we are taught how to dream and how to convert those dreams into something tangible – but as a shack-dweller in the Cape Flats, you simply cannot plan as you have no idea what the near future holds. Next week you may not have enough money to put bread on the table for your family, you may not have a table because your dwelling has burnt to the ground, and you may not have a child because she was caught in gang crossfire walking home from school. This volatility reared its head many times during our short process but every time the team adjusted, recalibrated and forged on. Their perseverance demonstrated that when these two worlds come together, regardless of differences and constraints and despite (or maybe partly because of) less than ideal situations, very special things can happen.

CAPE TOWN

people – that might not ordinarily be possible, to test ideas, reexamine and possibly redefine one’s own role as an architect, urban practitioner or social entrepreneur. The process also shed light on the limitations of traditional education and practice, which does not necessarily equip us with the tools to negotiate the complexity of today’s cities.

fire that also destroyed his neighbours’ homes. He was issued with a city-sponsored emergency kit for victims of fire, and constructed his house using these materials, together with other found scrap pieces. His resourcefulness was remarkable, but the house itself is not adequate for human occupation. It is cold in winter and hot in summer, is not waterproof and has no services at all. Water is collected from a nearby public standpipe, and sanitation consists of a portable toilet that is emptied regularly by the city.

The result is disastrous: ever-expanding city boundaries to accommodate substandard suburban housing; people living ever further from their workplaces, unable to afford transportation; and unsustainable environments that are not able to support commercial activity. No matter how well intentioned government

housing policy might be, it cannot match supply with demand, causing considerable political difficulty for the state, and continual civil unrest. Outside of state-provided housing, most shelters are built by people for themselves, using cheap recycled materials, on unserviced land that they don’t own, resulting in far-flung acres of precarious self-built settlements. The future for housing in South Africa looks bleak in the face of a housing delivery system doomed to fail, and local people who take action and occupy land, but are unwilling or unable to build decent homes. The result is an acute condition of temporariness that the Cape Town URBANXCHANGER team chose to tackle.

PROJECT DESCRIPTION

Cape Town is a city divided by race and class. It has a metropolitan population of close to four million people, many of who live in rudimentary temporary structures or shacks. The National Housing Policy is directed towards producing single freestanding houses of 44 square metres for families who earn below the poverty line—a minimum habitable space on a small piece of land, which they can sell after seven years. Repeated all over the country, with scant recognition of contextual differences, 3.5 million of these houses have been built since 1994.

CAPE TOWN

Cape Town and the Housing Question

In extensive discussions with Clive, it became clear that he was deeply upset by the conditions under which he lives. He has a wife and a young son, and two older daughters who would love to live with him, but there is no space. He is angry, as he is a proud man who wants to take care of his family, but cannot do so. This condition of uncertainty and powerlessness is one

THE TABLE STRUCTURE AS AN ENABLER FOR SELF-EMPOWERMENT The idea of the table structure was born out of discussions with Clive and Paul Talliard, and over time developed into a design concept that would achieve a number of benefits: firstly, enable Clive to take charge of extending his house to accommodate his family; secondly, transform the temporary nature of the structure into a more CLIVE’S HOUSE Clive is a member of Hands of Honour. He lives in a house that he built himself over a two-week period after it burned down in a fire that also destroyed his neighbours’ homes. He was issued with a city-sponsored emergency kit for victims of fire, and constructed his house using these materials, together with other found scrap pieces.

CLIVE’S HOUSE Clive is a member of Hands of Honour. He lives in a house that he built himself over a two-week period after it burned down in a

shared by many other people in Clive’s community, who are convinced that their shacks are temporary homes while they wait for state-provided houses. Sadly, some people have been waiting for more than 25 years. The approach proposed by urbanxchanger was immediately understood and supported by Clive: to find a way to convert the temporariness into a sense of permanence, rather than just adding a floor or two to the existing shack as seen elsewhere.

Table construction rendering: the prototype with further extensions (if something is already built on top of the Table)

profitable businesses run by local entrepreneurs. THE PROTOTYPE The first Tafelhuis was built with a grant of €2,000 from the Alfred Herrhausen Gesellschaft. Clive, the original client, encountered complications within the local community, apparently having assaulted his wife, and was deemed an unsuitable recipient for the table structure. Consequently, the team had to find another site and client. They were granted permission to construct a Table on a large site owned by a Construction process—various actors participating in the construction of the prototype

PROJECT DESCRIPTION

The Table as enabler for self-empowerment —future scenario for assisted self-construction

CAPE TOWN

permanent one; and finally, develop the house vertically since the ground level is overcrowded. The Table achieves all of these objectives in a cost-effective manner, and also engages the imagination of the homeowner, giving them control over the home, and in turn, empowering them. The table structure is a minimal, permanent structure that requires little work to construct and allows the homeowner to decide how he or she wants to organise the internal spaces of the house. The construction of the Table is well within the capacity of local people, with the only capital cost being the materials, and with labour being provided by Hands of Honour. There is also the option of developing additional components—staircases, cladding systems, etc.—that can, over time, form the basis for

group of families who were descended from slaves and had been given the land by the Methodist Church. Melissa, a young married woman with two young children, was the recipient chosen by that community. She lives in a state of heightened insecurity as the area and adjacent informal settlement is riddled with criminals, gangs and drug addicts, so the idea of living one floor above the ground appealed very strongly to her desire for safety. Hands of Honour provided the labour for construction, while a local builder managed the process. The architects spent considerable time designing a

system of connections that would enable lateral expansion of the table structure in all four directions. They also had to design a support system for the four columns to ensure that they were correctly placed relative to the shack, and were straight and true. They developed a diagonally-braced sliding system which could be adjusted to create a table top in the different sizes (from 2.4x2.4m, to a maximum of 4.4x4.4m) necessary to accommodate different sized shacks. The construction took only two working days, but the build extended over six days in order to allow for the concrete foundations to set. Given the opportunities that the Table

Capacity building for local productionâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;assisting Hands of Honour as social entrepreneurs for slum-upgrading

PROJECT DESCRIPTION

FUTURE OUTLOOK The response to the project has been nothing less than phenomenal, with many families wanting similar structures erected over their shacks. Once people understand the concept of making permanent homes for themselves where they live, the permutations are endless, and the potential limitless. The biggest challenge facing people is the skill and technical know-how to build upward, which is the only way that growth can take place, given the overcrowded nature of these settlements. The Table easily overcomes this problem by creating a stable new ground

plane above the existing one. The resulting system allows for vertical densification, offers a relatively cost-effective and safe way to expand a dwelling, and is open-ended enough to allow the owner to take charge and shape the home to suit their particular needs. Lastly, the Table offers hope to shack dwellers that they too can put down roots and create more permanent homes for themselves.

CAPE TOWN

offers, the final cost of R12,000 is deemed affordable for low-income families.

Project Credits PARTNER COMMUNITY INITIATIVE Hands of Honour CAPE TOWN TEAM Noero Architects Office participants: Jo Noero, Uno Pereira, David long, Oliver Brown and Nikita Schweizer BERLIN TEAM BAU collaborative Office participants: Rainer Hehl, Philipp Luy, Susie Ryu, Tom SchĂśps and Justine Olausson CURATOR Marcos L. Rosa LOCAL COORDINATOR Lindsay Bush

People are scared to act and make the change, as they are disempowered by history and policy

PAUL TALLIARD / HANDS OF HONOUR

We were saddened that the informal settlement dwellers were by and large reluctant to work with anybody for fear of being reprimanded by the local leaders on the street committee, even though the greater community could benefit immensely. After decades of being made to feel powerless by Apartheid, people were too scared to make any decisions on their own, even those that would directly affect them, such as the provision of suitable housing.

We learnt that the best way forward is to befriend collaborators and beneficiaries long before you start working with them. Only once mutual trust is gained, is it possible to work together with them as partners towards the greater good.

Trust is a prerequisite for working with communities.

PAUL TALLIARD / HANDS OF HONOUR

LINDSAY BUSH

With co-creation, there is no one moment where the birth of an idea can be marked. Where the design process manifests as cyclical storytelling between specific actors, the solutions crystallize slowly as a result of combined experience, knowledge and creativity. Each actor fills a different part of the spectrum and they come together to make a complete picture of a possible alternate future.

Design as a provocation might enable the inversion of the status quo.

LINDSAY BUSH

“Is it more of the same we want, or rather something completely different?” In the Cape Town proposal, there was a realization that in order to initiate the physical and psychological conversion of ‘temporary’ to ‘permanent’, the team would need to break completely with the accepted way of doing things, and also with the law – a very brave and radical move both for an established, well-respected architecture firm and for a dynamic young social enterprise.

LINDSAY BUSH

Arriving in Berlin, viewing the city through the lens of the infant Tafelhuis, we sought obvious relevance and found little. Across all emerging themes (urban agriculture/ housing/ public space/ waste management/ nature) it proved difficult for teams to transplant or adapt objects, systems or processes from one location to another as the context was different in every way. Conversely however, participants were better able to provide useful, objective input on the projects being developed by teams from other cities, as they were seeing them for the first time, sans lens.

No situation can be viewed objectively as it is already ‘loaded’ or ‘skewed’ by what has been seen and done before.

WHAT IS IT AND WHEN WAS IT FOUNDED? The Centre for Urban and Regional Excellence (CURE India) is a not-for-profit (NPO) development organisation that was founded in Delhi in 2001 by a group of urbanists.

CURE

WHERE AND WHAT? Aimed at improving the lives of the urban poor, CURE believes in partnering with communities. It strives to deliver an equitable level of service across communities, in a connected and comprehensive manner that builds urban resilience. IMPACT ON THE BUILT ENVIRONMENT CURE implements innovative slum upgrade projects. It offers alternative approaches to more traditional city planning, and encourages city administrators to un-think and de-engineer their current policy guidelines and solutions.

NEW DEHLI

Life in Sangam Vihar

ACHIEVEMENTS CURE is currently working with more than 50 low-income settlements in Delhi, mobilising people and designing ecologically sustainable technology for infrastructure, water, sanitation and job support. BENEFITS TO THE COMMUNITY The communities in which CURE works have become cleaner, more prosperous and more integrated, owing to improved access to sanitation and other basic amenities. Access to infrastructure has helped people to upgrade their homes, and has improved their overall sense of wellbeing. CUREâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s activities have also resulted in greater inclusivity of communities within New Delhi, by better connecting people with local government. The organisation works towards long-term prosperity for communities, by encouraging changes in behavior, and helping people to generate sustainable livelihoods.

Delhi 16,349,841 11,034,555 1,483 1,113 10%

1,000,000 75% 142,860

Metropolitan Population:

Population: approximatel

inhabitants

Municipal Population:

Percentage of Population without Piped Water Supply:

inhabitants

Metropolitan Area:

Population Density:

km2

people per km2

Urbanised Metropolitan Area:

km2

Informal Settlements in Metropolitan Area:

NEW DEHLI

of the developed land

Informal Settlements (City):

65%

Sangam Vihar (location of initiative)

of the population

the Project 1979, as it absorbs migrants from all across India.

Wasted land at the back side of the development

FORGOTTEN PLACES Although Sangam Vihar applied for regularisation many years ago, it still remains outside of city planning purview. This has two main consequences for the lives of its residents: firstly, it makes the area very vulnerable to land clearance, as residents lack legal rights to the ownership of their properties and assets; secondly, public services such as piped water, sewage and waste collection, available to people living in the city, are not extended to the residents of Sangam Vihar,

The new master plan prepared by the municipality showing the future ring road in relationship to Sangam Vihar

PROJECT DESCRIPTION

causing a multitude of problems. These include ground water contamination from household septic tanks, seasonal flooding from clogged drains, and the rise of mafias that control the supply of water.

NEW DEHLI

Sangam Vihar, located on the southern edge of Delhi, is Asia’s largest agglomeration of ‘unauthorised colonies’— unplanned and unserviced settlements that have sprung up over time without permission from the Delhi Development Authority. Over one million people live cramped into the five square kilometer area that it covers. The 30 colonies that comprise Sangam Vihar are demarcated as blocks of agricultural land belonging to the surrounding villages. In the face of a massive shortage of affordable public housing in the city, the settlement has been steadily densifying since its inception in

Sangam Vihar is situated between the formal city in the north and the Asola-Bhatti Wildlife Sanctuary in the south. As the livelihoods of the residents are dependent on the city where the people work, the forest sanctuary is regarded as the back end of the settlement, with the border of the forest being treated as an urban wasteland. Solid waste is dumped here, leading to the filling up of natural drainage pools and channels, and giving rise to flooding and related health risks. TWO CHALLENGES The settlement faces two major challenges at present. The most immediate physical threat is the

flooding of parts of Sangam Vihar. Heavy seasonal monsoon rains are unable to find channels for drainage due to the illegal dumping of waste along the edge of the sanctuary. In addition, the run-off floodwater mixes with toxic chemicals from the garbage dumps, giving rise to health hazards. The current Delhi Master Plan constitutes the second— political, and ultimately also physical—threat to the neighbourhood. The Delhi authorities continue to turn a blind eye to the settlement, demarcating it as agricultural and forestry land, and forcing its legal fate into a state of permanent and precarious limbo. The Master Plan document also indicates a soon-to-be-built third ring road for Delhi, passing by the southern edge of Sangam Vihar, which would result in an increase in development pressures on the corridor adjacent to it.

protected, instead of being destroyed, it may serve as a political deterrent for the development of the future ring road that threatens to encroach on the settlement.

COMMUNITY LEVEL The majority of the waste in Sangam Vihar currently ends up along the green edge of the settlement. At a community level, the action plan to deal with the disposal of solid waste includes the design of interventions and exercises aimed at ritualising the clean-up process, and gamifying waste segregation and disposal.

TOOL (SCHIZO-PLAN) In Sangam Vihar, the edge is not only the interface between nature and the city, but is also a confluence of the different urban stakeholders—the public institutions responsible for the well-being of the sanctuary—and the voiceless communities who inhabit the development. In order to address this unequal balance of power, the architects have employed an innovative planning tool called the Schizo-Plan, which aims to address the power imbalance of Sangam Vihar, bringing the institutions and the community together on an equal footing.

PROJECT DESCRIPTION

INSTITUTIONAL LEVEL The Schizo-Plan identifies a number of critical partners who will help to ensure the longer-term success and implementation of the scheme. These include an eco-task force that is entrusted with the upkeep of the sanctuary. The plan tries to address the problems of flooding and waste management by proposing measures to deal with stormwater runoff, planting of soil-stabilising succulents, and the restoration of water pools along

Large-scale negotiations in relationship to the sanctuary

NEW DEHLI

TWO STRATEGIES Both of the challenges identified point to the important role that the green southern edge can play in finding solutions to the problems that the settlement faces. The project thus proposes two overall strategies. The first strategy seeks to turn the green edge, currently a neglected and abused portion of land, into a well-used space that is linked to the wildlife sanctuary through a series of interventions. The second strategy builds on the first, seeking to implement measures to protect the ecosystem of the sanctuary. If the wildlife sanctuary is recognised as a resource, and is

the edge that are currently contaminated with waste.

MARKERS The success of these strategies depends on a change in the community’s perception of the area of land along the edge of the sanctuary. While the area is relatively close to many of the homes in Sangam Vihar, it is simply not visible through the urban maze. As a result, the trash ‘disappears’ into it, out of sight and out of mind of the residents of the settlement. In order to identify critical ecological sites such as

Project Credits PARTNER COMMUNITY INITIATIVE CURE

NEW DELHI TEAM Anagram Office participants: Madhav Raman, Vaibhav Dimri, Akanksha Bansal, Akshay Shetty, Akshay Srinivas, Ganesh Babu and Surendra Mohite

BERLIN TEAM FAR

Office participants: Marc Frohn, Mario Rojas, Max Koch, Daniel Grenz and Elena Ambacher

Renders produced by FAR/Anagram illustrate possible solutions to be developed and built by the community in areas identified as critical within the edge area of Sangam Vihar. Visualisation of the refurbishment of the cesspool which is currently used as a waste dump

LOCAL COORDINATOR Nitin Bathla

OUTLOOK The multiplicity of levels at which the Schizo-Plan addresses the green edge of Sangam Vihar reveals a number of possible starting points for its longer-term development, some of whic h have already been actioned. In the future, in addition to mitigating environmental threats, the edge may also offer new public infrastructure, such as toilets and washrooms, play areas and a medical dispensaryâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; attractive and much-needed facilities, realised together with the residents of Sangam Vihar.

100

PROJECT DESCRIPTION

The ubiquitous Google Maps marker that floats over its virtual maps was turned into a physical balloon hovering over the green edge of Sangam Vihar. This marker is easily recognisable, particularly amongst the younger generation who hold the future of the development in their hands. The balloons were used to identify sites and events along the Sangam Vihar edge that were deemed critical to its recoding. These small interventions constitute one part

Ludwig Engel

of the Schizo-Plan that seeks to establish the green edge as Sangam Viharâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s new front.

NEW DEHLI

pools that have been filled with rubbish, and also to announce events along the edge of the forest, the teams devised a simple geographical marker that would be visible throughout the development and give the edge a crucial presence in the community.

CURATOR

The ubiquitous digital Google Maps marker that floats over its virtual maps was turned into a physical balloon hovering over the green edge of Sangam Vihar

101

and designing with communities, – ways of representation, communication and later, ways of practicing as an urban professional. As with everything new, it takes much time and effort to discover and refine these new ways, but however difficult such a process might be, it offers very important learnings for those brave enough to embark on the journey. I have tried to capture some of these lessons from the Delhi exercise below.

SUTRADHAR: THE EMERGENT SOCIAL DESIGNER?

NITIN BATHLA IS A SOCIAL ARCHITECT AND

RESEARCHER BASED OUT OF DELHI. HE WAS THE LOCAL COORDINATOR FOR THE DEUTSCHE BANK URBAN AGE AWARD, DELHI IN 2014 AND FOR URBANXCHANGER IN

of top-down urban policies on the lives of ordinary people. Continuing to develop small experiments of my own in cocreation with communities, I constantly reflected upon how to utilise this newly gained knowledge for action and how to translate the lessons into pedagogical tools. It was in this spirit that I excitedly acceptedthe invite to participate in urbanxchanger as a local coordinator. The brief for the project was very open and looked at synthesising new and fresh ways of engaging

102

NOTES ON THE PROCESS

In 2014, the experience of coordinating the Deutsche Bank Urban Age Award in New Delhi led me to realize the innovativeness and ingenuity with which people were responding to urban challenges from the bottom up. Furthermore, it motivated me to find new forms of practice that would engage with people at the grassroots level, empower the marginalized and help foster social equity, and reposition communities at the centre of the design process. A whole new facade of the city opened up as I became aware of the implications

NEW DEHLI

2015-2016.

For the purpose of simplification and to provoke reflection on the topic, I would like to suggest calling what could be the ‘new profession’ emerging from this process, ‘Social Design’. To work with the community, a Social Designer is required to possess a level of humility and patience, but also to play another role, that of the narrator. In a conversation with Dr. Renu Khosla (Director of CURE) one February winter evening, she said in summarising the project, that one of its important contributions had been the creation of a Sutradhar. In Hindi, Sutradhar means narrator and facilitator, that is, one who connects the dots and helps disjointed things and phenomena to come together and work seamlessly. The younger professionals might be the biggest takers from such processes and projects. During the

103

course of the project I had the impression that it was the young professionals from the architecture offices that came closer to the professionals from the community initiative’s office. Their motivation to design for a larger section of the society was accompanied by their noticing that the formal education process was limited to preparing them to design only for the top 10 percent of the society. Young professionals might be more open to changing their approach towards designing for communities. Open discussions held inside the community offered an opportunity to create awareness about the challenges and engage in overcoming them. In the first week of activities in New Delhi, we organised for two outdoor workshops that were open to the public: one on social design in general and the second to reflect on the project-specific process. In my view, these were the moments that proved the most insightful and triggered longer-lasting discussions that later became relevant in the context of the developed design strategy. These events also helped disseminate messages to a larger audience and spread awareness of the potential of innovative design solutions to respond to social problems plaguing the city. In addition to more traditional

Co-creation is a non-hierarchical, organic process, best done through equal participation and without authority. It requires substantial time and deliberation, achieved in this case through numerous visits, walks, meetings and discussions. In addition, there arose a need to find a balance between top-down and bottomup approaches, which the team attempted to do with an Action

Such intense and focused transfer turned out to be the springboard for some very interesting and hybrid initiatives. The urbanxchanger project was just the beginning of my engagement with CURE and the communities with which it works, and the methods employed proved useful to begin to imbibe new ideas and concepts and recontextualise them in Delhi. One example of this is my continued collaboration with CURE to develop a livelihoods program in Savda Ghevra, a

104

NOTES ON THE PROCESS

New technology, more specifically Social Media, proved invaluable in bridging the gap between different actors in the process. Through the use of hashtags to publicise and disseminate our work and the ‘actions’ taking place, an increasingly large number of residents and people working locally in the civil society space came to connect with us and participate. This proved especially useful while operating in an area as large as Sangam Vihar.

Plan. The problem of flooding in Sangam Vihar for example is very much related to the apathy of the government owing to the settlement’s unclear status on official master planning documents. This lack of clarity leads to the non-performance of essential civic functions like the provision of drainage and sewage infrastructure and solid waste collection inside the community, so the dynamics at top-down level are seen to have a very profound influence on the situation at the ground level in the community. The Schizo-plan tool devised during the urbanxchanger process provides for an approach that alternates and moderates between interventions at the top-down at the bottom-up level, and as such, allows the intervention to transcend beyond just a once-off guerrilla tactic.

NEW DEHLI

presentation drawings and techniques, the team explored alternative ways of conveying ideas using real life objects that allow for spatial experience. At an advanced stage of the Delhi intervention, the Google pinshaped balloon evolved as an important tool to demarcate physical events taking place on the ground, thus making them visible and tangible for the local residents.

resettlement colony on the western fringes of the city. Then, during our exposure visit to Berlin, Dr. Khosla and I visited CUCULA, a Berlin-based initiative described as a ‘Refugees Company for Crafts and Design’. Deeply inspired by what they stood for and how they strived for social equity through an activity as simple as coming together to build furniture, we returned to Delhi and immediately began identifying stakeholders to try something similar. Three months later, we started a training workshop with the community of Savda Ghevra, experimenting with the making of furniture using local resources. In addition, through academic work at the School of Planning and Architecture in Delhi and The Design Village in NOIDA, I am now able to pass on the pedagogical understandings developed through the urbanxchanger process. I believe exercises like these help to dissolve the superficial barriers that exist between the Global North and South, and have realised not only the value of transformative processes arising out of such transnational idea exchange, but also how ordinary ideas from ordinary places can synergize in a quiet yet powerful way.

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NITIN BATHLA

To work with the community requires a level of humility and patience. Everyone likes â&#x20AC;&#x201C; and has the right - to be heard and contribute to the design process, and this is essential to foster a sense of ownership over the project. Designers working with communities need to have the ability to work laterally, to listen and contribute as co-creators rather than imposing their thoughts and ideas on the community.

The Social Designer should be humble.

During the course of the project, it seemed that the young professionals from the architecture offices became closer to the representatives from the community and the NGOâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s office. Their motivation to design for a larger section of society was accompanied by a new awareness that their formal education had in fact prepared them to design only for the top ten percent, making them likely to be more open to changing their approach to designing in community environments.

Younger professionals might be the biggest takers from such processes and projects.

NITIN BATHLA

It is interesting that in Delhiâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s case, the local partner was a well-established NGO and the intervention took place inside a single community through their mediation. As such, CURE has since been able to adapt the learnings from the design process to the interventions it carries out in other parts of the city. CURE is currently working within five communities in Delhi alone, which allows the process and the tools developed to reach a larger demographic than would have originally been intended.

Working together with NGOs can generate greater impact than individual interventions.

NITIN BATHLA

Although an unequal balance was scripted, clearly the architects were imagined as the ideas people and NGOs as implementers. At CURE, we expected this partnership to be typical of any such partnerships – CURE bringing to the table its ideas on community and community processes and the architect teams, their design skills. We imagined ‘us’ educating ‘them’ – building a new social design narrative, offering a new lens by which to view our spaces. We had clearly underestimated the ‘people’ knowledge of our architect partners.

Working together with NGOs can generate greater impact than individual interventions.