DAVE HAMPTON SELECTED RECENT WORK
re:ground llc messysystems.com
‘Towards Resilient Regions’, messysystems.com ‘Disasters Depend’, messysystems.com
‘Promised Lands: 5 Examples of Housing Developments in Haiti’, UrbDeZine ‘Rebuild by Design’ competition
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UrbDeZine
UN-Habitat
2010 Hurricane Sandy, USA
J/P-2 Community Clinic, Port-au-Prince, Haiti Ecole Mixte Bethesda classroom addtion, Port-au-Prince, Haiti J/P-1 Klinik Ijans Urgent Care Clinic, Port-au-Prince, Haiti Kay Rose pilot home, Port-au-Prince, Haiti Kay Kominote Community Center, Port-au-Prince, Haiti Fransbeda Académie school additions, Port-au-Prince, Haiti Kay Solid/ Kay Kat Fanmi model home, Port-au-Prince, Haiti Ravine mitigation, Port-au-Prince, Haiti Kay Solid/ Kay Kat Fanmi technical training films, Port-au-Prince, Haiti ‘The Ravines of Port-au-Prince, UrbDeZine
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Architecture for Humanity J/P Haitian Relief Organization
2004
earthquake, Haiti
Hampton Avery Architects
The Rebuilding Exchange
Delta Institute
Allen Residence, Chicago, IL Warren-Boulton Residence, Chicago, IL (unbuilt) Rooftop Victory Garden at True Nature Foods, Chicago, IL Bronzeville Rehab, Chicago, IL 1309 W. Fargo building envelope rehabilitation, Chicago, IL Private Residence 23rd floor balcony garden, Evanston, IL Green in the Loop Red Lion Pub LEED feasibility study, Chicago, IL Levinson Residence Energy Star consultation, Evanston, IL Independence Park Bungalow Rehab Study for Shaw Environmental, Chicago, IL Little Nell Hotel interior design for Holly Hunt, Aspen, CO “Liquid Home” Living Wall for Repkin Biosystems, Discovery World, Milwaukee, WI Gries Residence Registered Energy Professional Review, Chicago, IL Heisler Gordon space planning for Green Exchange, Chicago, IL Rubino Residence Registered Energy Professional Review, Chicago, IL Carole Residence rooftop garden, Chicago, IL Coleman Residence, Chicago, IL Youth Jobs Center Passive House consultation, Evanston, IL Access(ible) Contemporary Music space planning, Chicago, IL Studio 309 Mr. Taco Restaurant No. 2, Chicago, IL Tomlinson Residence, Chicago, IL San Jose Obrero Mission, facilities planning consultation, Chicago, IL Labiak Residence rooftop garden, Chicago, IL
Deconstruction advocacy, IL
Parkway United Church of Christ Additions and Alterations, Winston-Salem, NC Passenger Depot Rehabilitation, Hamlet, NC Prince Ibraham Elementary School Addition, Winston-Salem, NC Master Plan for Martin Luther King Drive, Winston-Salem, NC Master plan for Downtown City of King, NC Family Restoration Facility for Children’s Group Home of NC, Franklin, NC 915 Northridge Street for the University of North Carolina, Greensboro, NC Baez Residence Melby Residence Field Museum of Natural History Collections Resource Center (CRC), Chicago, IL Sushi Taro, Washington, DC Abbott Park Senior Center, Chicago, IL Austin Senior Center, Chicago, IL Englewood Senior Center, Chicago, IL Portage Park Senior Center, Chicago, IL West Town Senior Center, Chicago, IL Harris Banks, Chicago, IL Espiritu Santo Church feasibility study, Chicago, IL Pope-Obeda Residence, Chicago, IL Friedewald Residence, Chicago, IL
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Echo Studio
tsunami, Indian Ocean
2001
Chicago Green Tech University Urban Habitat Chicago
1996
Skidmore Owings and Merrill Echo Studio (created) STL Architects
earthquake, Turkey
1989
David E. Gall, Architect
1984
Governor’s School of NC ‘After the Warming’ Virginia Tech
1972 cathedral of Notre Dame de Paris
TABLE OF CONTENTS
TIMELINE &
2013
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DECONSTRUCTION ADVOCACY 2005-2010 adapt adaptive aid
reuse capacity-build
cities conserve context demolition developing nation displaced diverse
educate engage
environment foster housing
home humanitarian design impact integrate job training lead mentor mitigate multidisciplinary
preserve relocate respond retrofit
nonprofit outreach partner
permanent post-disaster reconstruct redevelop
reclaim
repurpose
resilience stewardship
strengthen temporary transition underserved
urban urbanism
The first commercially deconstructed home in Chicago awaits a new life as repurposed materials, 2007.
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Friends Don’t Let Friends Demo! A late-night call to Urban Habitat Chicago led us to salvage materials
from the home of a Japanese gardener in 2005 before it was demolished. It was an “aha!” moment. Later that year, I began partnering with the Delta Institute to promote building deconstruction as an alternative to demolition, helping to bring that growing industry to Chicago. From 2005-2010, I personally reached out to the general public, commmunity colleges, universities, trade organizations, and business though presentations and lectures. The following are a selection of slides used to illustrate: • why material reuse is timely and environmentally-conscious • deconstruction basics • case studies using my own projects - a garage built from wood joists reclaimed from the deconstruction of an old warehouse, repurposed into framing; concrete donated for use on a high school garden. • the role of design professionals in stewardship of the natural and built environments. Slides are followed by a reprint of my article “The End of Demolition”.
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5
6
7
8
9
10
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HAITI 2010-2013 adapt
adaptive reuse aid
capacity-build cities conserve context demolition
developing nation displaced diverse educate engage
environment foster housing home
humanitarian design
impact integrate job lead mentor mitigate
training
multidisciplinary preserve relocate respond retrofit nonprofit outreach partner
permanent post-disaster reclaim reconstruct redevelop repurpose resilience stewardship strengthen temporary transition underserved urban urbanism A Haitian mason applies ‘crepissage and enduissage’, or plaster finish, to the news walls of a seismically reinforced medical clinic, 2011.
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Kay Solid/Kay Kat Fanmi Port-au-Prince, 2011-2013
Getting people back to safe homes following the January 12,
2010 earthquake in Haiti required rethinking traditional models for the design and delivery of housing by aid agencies. Kay Solid takes design cues from throughout the Caribbean - New Orleans, Puerto Rico, Cuba, and other cities in Haiti adapting passive cooling strategies and water conservation to a dense, urban context. Full-height openings and open floor plans allow for ample opportunities for ventilation as well as flexibility for customization by residents (i.e. subdivison for small businesses, rental spaces). Economy of material and simplicity of construction was achieved through the elimination of lintels, often a challenge for masons to do correctly, by incorporating them into reinforced roof and floor slabs. As the fourth anniversary of the earthquake approaches, permanent housing solutions such as Kay Solid are helping J/P HRO fulfill its goal to safely relocate all displaced residents of the Petionville Camp by January 12, 2014.
Community design input session, 2012
A family relocated from Petionville Club camp moves to their new home, 2013.
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The two Haitian Creole names of the project reflect its fluid
identity, a path from original intent to its perception by the public. ‘Kay Kat Fanmi’, or ‘four-family house’, indicates its realization as two houses built by separate contractor teams to identify common challenges during construction. ‘Kay Solid’, or ‘solid house’, emerged after being overheard during public outreach.
Competitive spirit - one contractor is slightly ahead of the other in the application of plaster finish.
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During construction, the pilot project was used as a
model home by the Haitian Ministry of Public Works (MTPTC) to demonstrate earthquake- and hurricane-safe building practices to Haitian masons, homeowners, NGOs, and the general public. In 2013, I returned to Haiti with UN-Habitat to script and produce technical training films for use by the MTPTC, scheduled for release in spring 2014. A full compliment of public workshops helped shape the content for printed material (see following pages).
A Ministry of Public Works engineer shows local masons how to check for level. Still from a technical training film.
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Ravine mitigation Port-au-Prince, 2011-2013
In late 2011, following unstable
conditions in the Petionville IDP camp managed by J/P HRO, the NGO conducted an extensive search for suitable locations for the establishment of a new clinic to serve both residents of the camp and the adjoining Delmas 40B neighborhood. A private residence was located, selected, and underwent an earthquake-resilient retrofit and adaptive reuse to transform it into a medical clinic. Located alongside one of the ravines which bisect Port-au-Prince, directing stormwater from mountains to sea, the facility was threatened by an eroding ravine edge composed partly of soft soil, undermined by the scouring action of water during the wet season, compounded by acceleration around a sharp turn in the ravine.
Ravine before mitigation, 2012. J/P-1 Clinic is visible at top left. Ravine curves sharply at Impasse Belo near the clinic (‘C’). LIDAR DEM digital terrain model of ravine bisecting the neighborhood. Source: World Bank Natural Hazards Assessment Team (NATHAT)
C
Ravine before mitigation, 2011.
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h
Following analysis by a Natural
Hazards Assessment Team (NATHAT) from the World Bank, a two-phase mitigation was undertaken: 1) A temporary wall of wire gabions filled with stone was erected until funds were secured for 2) a permanent wall faced with concrete finish, topped with a concrete curb and gutter to direct surfacewater away down the ravine face, and a concrete balustrade to discouage the dumping of trash and protect pedestrians from falls. JP-1 Klinik Kominote continues to provide community healthcare services to over 1,000 individuals weekly. This project fueled my further interest in urban ravines, (see my article “The Ravines of Port-auPrince�, UrbDeZine, 2013).
Ravine after mitigation, 2013.
Ravine after mitigation (under construction), 2013. New gutter directs water along and away from ravine. New concrete walls prevent falls.
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The Ravines of Port-au-Prince by Dave Hampton
This article was originally published in two parts at UrbDeZine March 12, 2013 and in condensed form at Planetizen on March 14, 2013.
After walking through more than one ravine – places where many Haitians dump their trash, direct their bodily wastes, and all too often wash clothes and even retrieve their water, the last adjective above – ‘beautiful’ – seems particularly out-of-place. Yet, as they say, there is much beauty in strangeness. In the summer of 2012, while gathering feedback from the community for a project, I met a man who built his home – a fairly substantial reinforced-concrete roofed affair complete with toilet and rooms to rent – in a ravine 25 years ago. Just above the floodwater mark, his is a relatively safe and stable location, which many would view as illegal since currently in a no-build zone, as well as for the fact that most ravines are considered state land. Compared to many Fig. 1.: Ravine near Rue Dalencourt in Canape Vert neighborhood. Fig. 2.: A typical view in a ravine in Port-au-Prince: retaining walls need- homes nearby which overlook concrete, concrete, and ing repair or replacement, ill-constructed squatter housing, people bathing more concrete with smatterings of asphalt and the all-perand washing clothing, prevalent garbage, and… gorgeous trees! vasive vehicular traffic, his existence seemed, by contrast, rural with views of red-flowered flamboyan trees, The ravines of Port-au-Prince represent for me a perfect Palace, the formal axes of the Champs de Mars – a vestige almost patiently munching goats, and the gentle sound of water. distillation of adjectives about this city. of colonial French planning – and other public spaces. A major problem with living in a ravine, however, is the negative amplification of seemingly natural processes. Ravines, however, despite some cosmetic efforts at comInteresting. Unusual. Disgusting. Extensive. Problematic. munity-led cleanups and municipal trash pickups, can still Port-au-Prince lies in a valley bounded to north and south be counted on to belie both specific challenges and the Dynamic. Maddening. Beautiful? by mountains, to the east the bay of Port-au-Prince, and to broader challenges still facing Haiti: deep, (infra)structurthe west Lake Azuei and the Dominican Republic beyond. In the six months since I wrote the first edition of this post al, inherently tied to environment and ecology, and inexWith vistas to the sea from multiple vantage points and tricably linked to the communities around them and the (for my own blog), and after having left Haiti to return to views of ‘mountains beyond mountains’, the perfect conpeople who live there. the United States, travel a bit in South America, and now fluence of geography, hydrology, and biological diversity, back in Haiti, I see some notable changes in Haiti’s capital the region could be considered an unparalleled and ideal The ravine is both a set of specific challenges in an urban city: a (more) modern airport arrival experience greets environment and a perfect analogy for what has occurred place… except for the city situated right in the middle. the visitor. More public spaces are either accessible or are and still occurs in this country where people and environbeing improved. ‘Tent cities’, for better or worse for the A subject for future posts, suffice to say that Port-auresidents, have been removed from their former and very ment intersect. Prince tests every conceivable input or output common to prominent locations near the now-demolished Presidential cities, with its own special vibrancy and flavor.
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Fig. 4.: Garbage collects at the outflow of a canal near Blvd. Harry Truman in downtown Port-au-Prince, 2012.
Fig. 3.: Erosion in agricultural fields above Furcy. This is where ravines are born.
But back to ravines. The region roughly to the north-northwest of Route National #8, bisected by Route National #1 could be considered a floodplain at the foot of the Chaine des Matheux mountains. The southern portion of the Port-au-Prince watershed is formed by a nearer chain of mountains on which considerable parts of the city are built. Since unchecked development spurred by migration of rural populations to the cities following the departure of Jean-Claude
‘Baby Doc’ Duvalier in 1986, more of these hillsides have become densely packed with informal settlements filling in between the occasional elite hilltop aerie: Martissant, Villa Rosa, Jalousie. Trickling waters flowing from higher up – agricultural areas above the towns of Kenscoff and Furcy (Fig. 3) largely stripped of trees since colonial times and more recently by cottage industries that collect charcoal for cooking – become torrents in the rainy season, flowing through communities on hillsides, and accumulating in low-lying areas, rising during periods of heavy rains to 3 meters (10 feet) or more in height of garbage-choked rushing rapids. Cars have been known to be washed away in these floods.
truth in this adage which has gained traction in recent years. In developed nations, it is still possible to fool oneself into thinking one can throw something ‘away’ thanks to comprehensive waste (which I prefer to refer to as ‘mismanaged, underutilized resources’) management, recycling and, increasingly, composting: after doing our part, unwanted material is removed from sight by the trucks and/ or employees (or subcontractors) of a municipality. In many areas of Port-au-Prince, Haiti, however, the results of this line of thinking are readily visible, and painfully tangible, on a daily basis (Fig. 4). Parc de Martissant serves as a striking example. To those few travelers wanting to avoid the press and bustle of the downtown area by taking the ‘Martissant shortcut’ (Fig. 5) from Petionville through the historic neighborhoods of Turgeau and Pacot, skirting Carrefour-Feuilles, is an unpolished jewel coming as a pleasant surprise and last stand of green before the choke of Carrefour, to reach the southwest beaches beyond.
Erosion, usually held in check in healthy watersheds by stable vegetation, is made progressively worse by the action of surface, rain, and drainage water, rendering banks of the ravine more prone to degradation and eventual collapse. All along the way, people, of course, interact with water, and the paths along which it – and they – travel. There is no away On some philosophical level, most of us recognize the
Fig. 5.: The Martissant neighborhood.
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Fig. 6.: A typical view of Parc de Martissant.
After driving through the Martissant neighborhood with its monotony of unpainted concrete-and-concrete-block houses jostling for space against each other on hillsides, the streets lined with brightly painted shops and informal markets selling produce, soda, shampoo, etc., arriving at the park itself is like entering a forgotten world; Jurassic Park without the dinosaurs (Fig. 6). A leafy canopy filters strong light. Climbing plants scale the trunks of mature trees.
Fig. 7.: Example of a recently constructed canal in Parc de Martissant. Geotextile fabric on either side helps anchor the banks.
Fig. 8.: Layering of garbage.
The remains of a hotel from the 1950’s, plaster crumbling, lend the air of a less grand version of Angkor Wat or, at least, something from the director’s cut of ‘Apocalyspe Now.’ At this writing, the park is effectively a nature preserve, a ‘public utility’ intended to become a public park of approximately 15 hectares (37 acres), assembled from three private properties – one of them the properties of the family of Albert Mangonès, influential Haitian architect and creator of ‘Le Marron Inconnu’. Unfortunately, the park is not yet open to the public. We’ll return to Parc de Martissant in later posts to address its long history and ambitious plans for its future. For now, let’s use it to illustrate an analogy.
– a ‘cattle-catcher’ of sorts – prevents garbage from the neighborhoods along the northern ridge of Morne l’Hopital mountains from flowing into the park. Our guide, Marc Bungener, a Haitian urban planning student studying the park for his Masters thesis, explains the years of marginalization the Martissant neighborhood faced – including at least a generation of no regular trash pickup – and the extensive community partnership between the neighborhood of Martissant and the Fondasyon Konesans ak Libète (FOKAL) since 2008 to do, among other things, ravine cleanups.
He points to the left of the canal outflow, to the steep side of the ravine. Cut by the flowing and scouring action of water, the earth is exposed to show the stratification of layAs one walks through the trees, winding up a path along a wooded ravine stabilized with recently constructed con- ers of garbage. “It’s amazing: trees are literally growing on top of, and out of, garbage – plastic bags, a shoe…” notes crete canals (Fig. 7) – the steep sides planted with understory plants anchored by geotextile fabric – one reaches the Marc (Fig. 8). top of a hill which signals the beginning of the lower part Again, the analogy is visceral: some communities are built, quite literally, on their own garbage, and ravines, as they of Leclerc bidonville in Martissant. A concrete cleanout wind their way through, ever deeper, expose this truth.
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egy more sustainable than simple cleanups. Rather than relying on out-of-scale ‘hard’ technology deployed further downstream – namely concrete canals which divert water from place to place without actually treating and using it: “These banks and thresholds should allow rainwater to infiltrate the soil and thus reduce the risk of rockfalls and landslides,” said Felder Théolin, the Coordinator of the National Organization for Young Professionals Save Haiti (ONJPSH), initiator of the project. Best of all, using local labor not only helps by providing livelihoods, it exposes them at an early age to something easily replicable, involving them in long-lasting solutions, and, hopefully, strategic thinking about problems others dismiss as un-fix-able. Fig. 9.: Construction of terraces in Morne l’ Hopital. Photo: Logan Abassi – UN/MINUSTAH
Start high, work your way down As noted earlier, ravines are born in the mountains.
With tweaks such as adding hardwood and fruit tree varieties within terracing, as NGOs such as ORE do, projects like these would come closer to helping address a key environmental challenge for Haiti – reforestation.
To address violence and underemployment in Martissant, locals were employed by MINUSTAH, a peacekeeping mission of the U.N., in the mountains of Morne l’ Hopital above the neighborhood of Martissant. Teams built dry stone retaining walls and planted some 2 million bamboo plants and vetiver, a local grass variety with a modest root system good for anchoring banks (Fig. 9). Why do I single this example out? Because it uses readily available local materials – grass and rocks (ever-present in agricultural fields) – and simple, appropriate technologies and techniques – stacking rocks. The project attacks at its source high in the mountains the problem of environmental degradation affecting an entire watershed (and many neighborhoods) below with a strat-
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messysystems.com 2013-present adapt adaptive aid reuse capacity-build
cities conserve context demolition
developing nation displaced diverse
educate engage
environment foster housing humanitarian design impact
home
integrate job training lead mentor mitigate
multidisciplinary
preserve relocate outreach
respond retrofit nonprofit
partner
permanent
post-disaster reclaim reconstruct redevelop
repurpose
resilience stewardship strengthen temporary transition underserved urban urbanism
Cranes over Rockaway Beach, Queens, in summer 2013 signify recovery after Hurricane Sandy.
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Towards Resilient Regions by Dave Hampton
This article was originally published at messysystems.com on October 28, 2013
affordable place to live within the city.” However, policies which focus exclusively on certain areas, or notions of certain areas – cities, for example – without taking into account the wider regions of which they are a part, can be shortsighted and divisive. Where I End And You Begin There’s a gap in between There’s a gap where we meet Where I end and you begin I couldn’t put it better than Radiohead above, in a song subtitled ‘The Sky Is Falling In’, but let’s focus on the positive!
Fig. 1.: Post-Hurricane Sandy damage to older homes at the Rockaways.
Fig. 2.: Post-Hurricane Sandy damage to newer homes at the Rockaways.
In ‘How Density Makes Us Safer During Natural Disasters’
tools in mitigating climate-related risks”, writes Chakrabar- Scottish landscape architect Ian McHarg wrote in 1969’s seminal Design with Nature: ti.
by Vishaan Chakrabarti, the author uses the example of Hurricane Sandy’s effects within New York City to highlight urban resilience:
…higher-density neighborhoods—from downtown Brooklyn and Battery Park City up to Harlem—were up and running within a week. By contrast, lower density areas like Staten Island and Breezy Point—with their single-family homes, elevated power lines, timber construction, and auto-dependency—took longer to recover. He begins the article by citing the 1956 Highway Defense Act, a key piece of legislature which not only secured a critical system of infrastructure nearly unprecedented in scope at that time – a national highway system – but contributed to de-urbanization and sprawl. “Policies that support the development of dense urban areas are critical
As Director of the Center for Urban Real Estate at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning & Preservation, and the author of A Country of Cities: A Manifesto for an Urban America, Chakrabarti is, unsurprisingly, an advocate of cities. What about the rest of us non-city dwellers? How will we be expected to weather future disasters? To be fair, Chakrabarti also writes “critics will assert that to put more New Yorkers in harm’s way is madness, but when coupled with well-conceived land-use plans that incorporate regional resilience considerations, these areas can become integral in providing these newcomers with a more
“While the name [‘metropolitan area’] has been coined to describe the enlargement of the older city, it is appropriate to observe that this is more a convenience for cartographers than a social organism.” Furthermore, McHarg notes that the American dream did not see that: “…a subdivision is not a community, that the sum of subdivisions that make a suburb is not a community, that the sum of suburbs that compose the metropolitan fringe of the city does not constitute community nor does a metropolitan region.”
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Stephen Metts, a GIS and planning expert and a messy systems contributor, notes the utility of metropolitan statistical areas, or MSAs, in describing clusters of regions spatially (Fig. 4). Metts cites Craigslist ZIP code clustering as an example to describe regions, showing “how individuals think spatially of ‘how far’ they are willing to think of their ‘local’ space.”
Fig. 3.: A natural transect. Source: transect.org
Fig. 4.: Statistical Areas of the Contiguous United States by Laura Guzman. Click the image for an interactive map!
McHarg relied on the notion of a transect (Fig. 3), or cut through part of the environment showing a range of different habitats, to highlight the interconnectedness of nature as a positive example for design and planning, but tended to reinforce the dichotomy between nature and cities.
Sounds good, but the feasibility, impact, and popular and political acceptance of consciously blurring the distinctions between urban and rural, especially in the United States, is a work in progress.
Distinctions between urban and un-urban, dense and undense, often set up false dichotomies which belie the true nature of how places, people, and systems are interlinked and flow into – and out of – each other. Understanding how regions currently function and the degrees to which they are robust will lead to better ways of predicting how they will recover after a disaster, leading to greater success in making more distinct areas – cities, towns – ready to weather the next storm.
‘Resilient cities’ may very well turn out to be an oxymoron in the best sense – that cities are inherently resilient – but let’s not rest on our urban laurels just yet, and insure that when discussing policies and strategies for cities, we don’t do so while ignoring the contributions of, and the interconnectedness to, their supporting regions.
(for another take on transects, read about Alan Berger’s Drosscapes at Urban Transects Revisited). What’s in a name? Fundamentally, the issue could be considered one of naming.
When one thinks of the notion of ‘city’, one usually sets out of mind all things rural, suburban, or ‘country’. Conversely, ‘city’ tends to be, for those living outside of it, something In 2003, Duany Plater-Zyberk & Company extended the apart, different, and unconnected. Shirley Jackson, one transect idea to include human habitats. The resulting of my favorite short-story authors, highlights this either/ SmartCode, “is a model transect-based planning and zon- or distinction in “The Summer People”, to ominous effect. ing document based on environmental analysis. It address- Political mastermind and urban planner Robert Moses’ es all scales of planning, from the region to the community focus on New York City amenities, raising the the ire of to the block and building. The template is intended for lo- legislators in Albany, and that of wealthy industrialists, cal calibration to your town or neighborhood. As a form- aristocrats, and farmers from Cedar Point to the Catskills, based code, the SmartCode keeps settlements compact and is legendary. rural lands open, literally reforming the sprawling patterns of separated-use zoning.”
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Disasters Depend by Dave Hampton
This article was originally published at messysystems.com on October 29, 2013
and urban than, say, Santiago, Chile and far less than Portau-Prince, the loss of life comparisons are startling: 519 in Peru, 521 in Chile, and somewhere between 49,190316,000 in Haiti. The point being: Chile, a country with a GDP per capita income over twice that of Peru and nearly 20 times that of Haiti, yet over three times less than the U.S., was prepared for the type of disaster that befell it. After experiencing a devastating earthquake in 1960, building codes and inspection, good design, engineering and construction, and high emergency response capability were prioritized. Fig. 1.: Whose density? Informal settlements ring the hillsides of Port-auPrince. Source: IOM/UN-Habitat.
Fig. 2.: A debris-choked street in the dense Port-au-Prince neighborhood of Delmas 32, May 2011.
Which disaster?
ress has been made, displaced Haitians still number in the hundreds of thousands, nearly 4 years after the quake.
During (and after) which disasters is density an asset, and where? Port-au-Prince, for example, fared poorly during (and after) the 7.0 magnitude earthquake which struck the island nation of Haiti on January 12, 2010. While the epicenter was 16 miles (25 km) distant in Léogâne, the capital city, with a population density on par with Mumbai or Kolkata, still experienced widespread injury, death, population displacement, and devastation to buildings and already overtaxed and inadequate infrastructures. Recovery efforts were hampered for years by millions of tons of debris lining very narrow streets, such as those in the highly-dense neighborhoods of Delmas. 250,000 buildings, many already inadequate in terms of life safety, were left in varying states of damage, often remaining occupied. Demolitions of unsound buildings still occur today, and, though prog-
Suffice to say, density in terms of population or disposition of dwelling units was not an asset for Port-au-Prince, either during or after its recovery from disaster. But, is it unfair to compare the resilience of the capital city of the poorest nation in the Western hemisphere to New York City? Possibly. Let’s try this: Marcial Blondet, an engineering professor at the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru who helped develop earthquake-resistant reinforced adobe homes, compares three recent earthquakes of powerful magnitudes: Pisco, Peru in 2007 (mag. 8.0); Chile in 2010 (mag. 8.8); and Haiti in 2010 (mag. 7.0). While Pisco is considerably less dense
Fig. 3.: People potentially affected by earthquakes and tsunamis. Source: Swiss Re. See below for the full report.
Who is ‘us’? Second, we need to define the ‘us’ in ‘density makes us safer’: where are people and assets most at risk? In ‘Mind the risk: A global ranking of cities under threat from natural disasters’, Swiss Re, a company which knows a thing or two about urban risk and resilience, identifies 616 urban areas and their loss potential from a range of disasters: earthquakes, storms, storm surges, tsunamis,
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and river flooding. The indicators are the size of the urban population and impact on the local and national economy. The metropolitan areas most at risk from multiple types of disasters: China’s Pearl River Delta, and Japan’s OsakaKobe and Tokyo-Yokohama regions, all highly densely populated regions. The study acknowledges the preponderance of those high-production, high-income areas as being the most risk-averse since the evaluation criteria focuses on standardized absolute values of working days lost. Thus, Tokyo-Yokohama tops Jakarta, though population numbers are comparable between the two. However, when productivity losses of a city are weighed in relation to the GDP of an entire country, “a smaller country with only one or a handful of urban centres can end up in the first ranks because these cities play an essential role to their home country’s national economy. …These local rankings give an indication of how a disaster can impact the resilience of a whole nation.”
Fig. 4.: An urban system, just messy enough: a canal (left) doubles as a market corridor (right) in Ravine Pintade, Port-au-Prince, Haiti.
Bloomberg’s reign – have produced a highly sophisticated set of checks and balances in the form of strong building and health codes, zoning laws, inspections enforcement, and robust support networks of emergency response and public health.
While New York City’s influence on its state, region, and the nation is uncontestable, its overall loss potential is lowWhere Port-au-Prince struggled during the immediate er, in context, due in part to the types of disasters which it aftermath of the 2010 earthquake, and continues to do so is most likely to face. in the recovery period in part because of numerous prequake shortcomings, New York City’s many systems, deThus, the who and the where of dense urban areas holds spite some fits and starts during and after Hurricane Sangreat weight in determining resilience to disasters. dy, will ultimately prove more resilient. Systems matter Again, as Mr. Chakrabarti acknowledges “…cities are vulnerable sets of materials and systems.”
Over the coming months, we look forward to exploring how these kinds of systems work, and the lessons which can be shared to make many places the world over more resilient. We hope you’ll join… and contribute.
An economic powerhouse metropolis in a developed nation, New York has everything going for it. Density, admittedly, concentrates people, power, and capacity.Years of focused prioritization – with little chance this will evaporate anytime soon, regardless of the impending end of
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CREDITS PAGE
PHOTOGRAPHER / SOURCE (by Dave Hampton except as noted below / elsewhere)
Cover 2 3 6 7 8-11 13-16 17 18 19 20-21 23 24-27 Credits
Michelle Marrion Ken Ortiz, The Reuse People/OBI Deconstruction (top left image) ibid (both images) ibid (top right image) Urban Habitat Chicago (top right image) Reprinted by permission of Sustainable Chicago Magazine J/P Haitian Relief Organization J/P Haitian Relief Organization Michelle Marion/ J/P Haitian Relief Organization ibid Reprinted by permission of the Ministry of Public Works, Government of Haiti Beth Milbourne (left image); J/P Haitian Relief Organization (right images) Reprinted by permission of UrbDeZine Jack Tucker (top right); Urban Habitat Chicago (bottom right)
Note: Pages 24-27, and 29-32 have been reformatted from their original appearance online to fit the format of the current publication.
Dave Hampton, davehamptonjr@gmail.com (336) 775-7924