Thresholds of the Common by George Garofalakis

Thresholds of the Common

El Harrach River Fatema Al-Sehlawi Dimitra Christodoulou Georgios Garofalakis

MArch Urban Design | 2012-13 | Algiers Unit

Fatema Al-Sehlawi 110088140 Dimitra Christodoulou 12077654 Georgios Garofalakis 12054265

Supervisors: Beth Hughes DaeWha Kang

MArch Urban Design | 2012-13 | Algiers Unit

Acknowledgements We would like to express our gratitude to our tutors Beth Hughes and DaeWha Kang, for their engagement, constructive criticism and help through this thesis project. Furthermore, we would like to thank our colleagues and friends for sharing their knowledge and time with us. We would like to thank especially our colleague, Odysseas Diakakis, without whom, a deeper insight of Algiers would not be possible. Special thanks to Adrian Lahoud, the director of this program, for his guidance, generous support and for providing us inspiration during this academic year. Finally, we would like to thank our families for their encouragement and understanding.

GDF

Contents I. Research and Analysis:

Urban Form and Housing Typologies of Algiers

1. A survey of the Evolution of the City ++

The Formation of the Capital City 12

French Conquest & the Colonial Period 13

The War of Independence 14

The Socialist Era - Absence of Urban Development 15

The Open Market & Time of Civil War 16

The Market Management Period 17

Housing Shortage 18

The Governmentâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s investment in Housing 19

2. Typological Research

4. Site Selection ++

Site Selection 74

El Harrach river 76

The governmentâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s proposal 78

5. Site Analysis

Typological Timeline 25

Site analysis 84

Timeline - Governance 26

Socioeconomic and administrative borders 86

Typological Research 28

Urban Limits 88

Low Rise Courtyard House 30

Open and vacant spaces 90

Medium Rise Courtyard Block 34

Land Uses 92

Low Rise House 38

Territory of intervention 94

Medium Rise Linear Block 42

High Rise Apartment Tower 50

3. Housing in Algiers:

Main Problems Identified ++

Housing in Algiers: Main Problems Identified 58

Current housing delivery system 60

Lack of Structural Flexibility & Spatial Adaptability 62

Monotonous housing development 64

Non-functional Communal Spaces 66

Exacerbating Sprawl 68

II. The Design Intervention:

An Alternative Approach to Housing Development

1. Activating the Riverbanks

101

4. Appendix

177

Existing productivity 103

Mapping the Mediterrenean 178

Mediating 105

Housing 105

Elia Zenghelis Workshop 180

Proposed Centralities 107

Computational tests 182

Phasing 109

Housing in Algiers - Georgios Garofalakis 184

Integrating existing programs 111

Civic facilities Study 112

Spatial Governance Through Housing Development Fatema Al-Sehlawi 190

Colonial And Neo-Colonial Practises - Dimitra Christodoulou 196

2. Design Development ++

The Site of the Design Development 119

The notion of the threshold 122

Creation of the common ground 124

Distinctive urban characters 125

A Typological Approach 127

Design Principles 128

Master - plan 136

The civic housing district 140

The civic housing units 144

The industrial housing district 150

The industrial housing unit 154

The Agricultural housing district 160

The Agricultural housing typology 164

3. Conclusions ++

Fatema Al-Sehlawi 172

Dimitra Christodoulou 173

Georgios Garofalakis 174

117

171

5. Bibliography

203

Introduction Urban design today is approached in two discrete manners of either predictable repetition of conventional methods or absolute conceptual experimentation abstracted away from reality.

The mission of the MArch Urban Design program at the Bartlett was to bridge this detachment into a balanced method inclusive of both approaches. Each of the six studios within the program based its research and design efforts on a city within the geo-political region of the Mediterranean. The cities of study ranged between Athens, Tangier, Marseilles, Messina, Beirut, Tunis, and Algiers with a multidisciplinary research methodology to each. The city of Algiers was the site of our pedagogic experiment. The initial segment of the Algiers studio carried out a preliminary research about Algeria, its historical and geographical position within the world and the Mediterranean, and its internal structure of cities. An in-depth survey of the capitalâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s urban evolution followed based on a chronological analysis to extract fundamental turning points in history that shaped its current urban formation. The rhythm and extents of the cityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s growth at each period was mapped out to illustrate its rapid transformation. The culmination of the material gathered, analyzed, and illustrated was summarized into a chronological timeline mapping the major urban transformations in relation to local and global economic and sociopolitical events. The shift into design propositions was initiated during the first Elia Zenghelis workshop of the year. Here, the theoretical familiarity with the city developed during the research stage, was taken to a different scale of investigation into a preliminary spatial and structural intervention within the city. With a strict brief to be conformed, the result was far from a realistic proposition. Yet, the instigation of a responsive intervention into a problematic given condition was a catalyst for what came to follow in the research and design project. The process revealed the pertinent and urgent issue of social and spatial fragmentation that facing Algiers today brought on by the challenges of housing its inhabitants amidst the rapid growths of both its population and its urban expansion due to the tumultuous previous 70 years of independence from colonization and a bitter civil war. The research revealed an open question about the topic of housing in Algiers. Why is it that today the population is dissatisfied, frustrated, and often protests in relation to housing? This prompted an extensive investigation and analysis of the Algerian housing types as the main focus of term two. A chronological and genealogical investigation was carried out to further understand and illustrate the continuing trends or the shifting attitudes towards housing in Algiers, both spatially and socially. An early outcome of the exercise was the understanding of governance of the population through housing and urban formations in Algiers. This topic continued to become the backbone of the typological analysis as well as the following design period of the project.

What became another asset generated by the studio was the generation of an overall typological timeline that summarized the different approaches to typological research and analysis. Each typological theme was arranged according to its temporal position and was linked with main events that affected the form of the city. The overlapping of events, introduction of design approaches, and shifts in the social reactions helped further understand the relationship between the inhabitant and the spatial and physical elements of the city throughout time. Due to safety and security issues at the time, travel to Algiers was not possible so an alternative analogous field trip to Morocco aided in gaining a close look at similar or at times contrary conditions to what would be found in Algiers. In order to visit and observe different urban settings ranging from traditional Casbah, coastal port-city, colonial interventions to self-built unregulated housing districts the trip included a variety of cities: Tangier, Casablanca, Fes and Marrakesh. The trip was documented in photographs, narratives, sketches, and videos in order to return with rich reference materials. During the field trip to Morocco, the group continued focus on the investigation of the means and success of housing, social and spatial governance through housing, and the implications they have on the society and spatial character of the city. It was during this field trip the group decided to tackle the notion and delivery of housing would be the main focus of the thesis design project. Following our return from Morocco, the research concentrated on the current delivery systems of housing in Algiers. The research revealed the chronic issue Algiers has been facing: the massive shortage of housing in the face of equally daunting demand. Multiple negative consequences stem from this main problematic issue, with our main interest being the social and spatial fragmentation due to the methods of housing delivery to date. Today, the Algerian government is faced with the continuing dilemma of what model of housing is needed to cater to the major short comes of current implemented models. The government remains the major housing developer and provider to the middle and low classes of the growing population. The strain on the government has been amplified with the continuous influx of rural migrants, migrants from regional problematic countries, and the return of many Algerian migrants. The following thesis narrates a proactive approach leading to design research and a proposal in response to the current method of housing delivery in Algiers. The group project presented tackles the issues and problems raised during the research by proposing an alternative to the development of housing, taking the El Harrach River as a context for a test site. The proposal offers a multi-scalar solution to the problem of

housing, from the territory of the city, to the finer social relationships at the building block level. Therefore, elements of the proposal can be utilized and implemented elsewhere in the city taking into account necessary adjustments which due to the change in context. The scenario presented in based on the given conditions of the El Harrach River, in order to conduct a more thorough representation of an implemented prototype. Each member of the group took charge of developing different portions of the design research and intervention. The three efforts were continuously amalgamated to compose one coherent design intervention. Typical tower developments (http://www.liberte-algerie.com)

Diar El Mahรงoul - social housing (http://www.flickr.com/photos/f5msr)

Aerial view of the city 2010, albatros11, (http://www.flickr.com/photos/ albatros11/4937143723/)

I. Research and Analysis: Urban Form and Housing Typologies of Algiers The first part of the urban design project comprised of different stages and levels of research and analysis. A multidisciplinary in-depth research was carried out to grasp the historical and geographical position of Algeria within the broader context, followed by a survey of the evolution of its capital city, Algiers. The chronological layering of the political, social, and economic factors shaping the current city revealed fundamental aspects in history that lead to the current urban form and status of the city. The sequence of events resulting in the chronic shortage of housing in Algiers was revealed. This research was then followed by a thematic typological investigation and analysis. Our groupâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s mission was to analyse and further illustrate the continuing trends or the shifting attitudes towards housing in Algiers. The multi scalar analysis of housing typologies was used as a method to further understand their role in increasing social control, political legitimization, and economical gain. Arriving at the current housing models developed by the government, we evaluated their problematic effects on the city, socially and spatially. The aspiration following the research was to address the housing shortage and incompetent development model through a design intervention. Hence, different potential sites were identified, evaluated, and analysed, arriving to the choice of the El Harrach River.

1. The Evolution of the City The city of Algiers was the site of our pedagogic experiment. The initial segment of the Algiers studio carried out a preliminary research about Algeria, its historical and geographical position within the world and the Mediterranean, and its internal structure of cities. An in-depth survey of the capitalâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s urban evolution followed based on a chronological analysis to extract fundamental turning points in history that shaped its current urban formation. The rhythm and extents of the cityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s growth at each period was mapped out to illustrate its rapid transformation. The culmination of the material gathered, analyzed, and illustrated was summarized into a chronological timeline mapping the major urban transformations in relation to local and global economic and socio political events.

The Formation of the Capital City The ancient city of Algiers was revived by the Arab Zirid dynasty in the 10th century, after it was a Phonecian colony destroyed by the Germanic Vandals during the 5th century. It remained to be a minor port in North Africa until the Ottoman rule made it into the capital of Algiers in the v.1

A major sector of the population consisted of Muslim refugees from Spain, who fled to Algiers due to the return of Spain to the Christians in the 15th century, resulting in this ‘reconquista’ as well as Berbers. The Ottomans and Berbers coexisted and coordinated in administering the Casbah. The remaining make up of the population consisted of Andalusian and Moorish families running commercial and artisanal setups, the working class Kabyles, the Jew tradespeople (who inhabited three distinct neighbourhoods), the Saharans, and some Christian slaves. The Ottomans rule lasted 300 years, where the main base of Barbary pirates also remained.2 The fabric of the Casbah grew vertically on the slopes of the Sahil hill, circumscribed by high protective walls. Intricate spatial formations and spaces were built organically and managed locally, resulting in the deep shared and communal structure of the population.

Map of the Algerian Coast Around Oran and Mostaganem http://www.zaman.com.tr

1 “Algiers.” Encyclopaedia Britannica. 2004. Encyclopaedia Britannica Online. http:// concise.britannica.com 2 Çelik, Zeynep. 1997. Urban forms and colonial confrontations: Algiers under French rule. Berkeley: University of California Press.

The fortification of the Casbah http://www.historyfiles.co.uk

French Conquest & the Colonial Period France constituted one of the major colonizer power states of the past and occupied Algeria from 1830 to 1962. Through the enforcement of foreign rule system, urban transformations, social changes and economic control, France accomplished the absolute dominance of the territory.3

France constituted one of the major colonizer power states of the past and occupied Algeria from 1830 to 1962. Through the enforcement of foreign rule system, urban transformations, social changes and economic control, France accomplished the absolute dominance of the territory. For 132 years of colonization, Algiers remained to be Franceâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s most important and valued territory. The city was the grounds for experimentation, be it political, militaristic, spatial, architectural, or social experimentation.4 The initial colonial French urban interventions of the 19th century took place in the existing Algerian indigenous residential quarters of the Casbah. The Fabric alien to the colonizers was amended to cater to their militaristic spatial requirements, influenced by the French planning methods imported from France. The urban interventions of the 1900â&#x20AC;&#x2122;s created large-scale housing developments, referred to as the Grands Ensembles. Much of these developments segregated the native Algerian communities from the European residents of Algiers. The period between 1930 and 1939 distinguished by sweeping attempts to bring order to the entire city through zoning and development master plans. These attempts however were halted by the start of World War II. During the war, France made Algiers its provisional capital for some time. Algiers also housed the Allied forces headquarters in North Africa. During this time, no attention was given to the urban growth of Algiers. Hence, the city grew with an uncontrolled rise in urban population, the infrastructure could not sustain and was deteriorating, and the city faced a great housing shortage.5

French occupation http://maghrebrevolt.wordpress.com/2011/10/17/history-of-algeria-part-iii/

3 Yasser Elsheshtawy, Planning Middle Eastern Cities: An Urban Kaleidoscope, New York: Routledge, 2004. 4 Zeynep Celik, Urban Forms and Colonial Confrontations: Algiers Under French Rule (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997) p. 2.

The French part of the city http://www.historyfiles.co.uk

5 ibid 4

The War of Independence In 1954, the Casbah was the site of extreme guerilla warfare utilized by the National Liberation Front (FLN) as a battleground against the French colonizers.

The lack of political will in France to address the Algerian migration, which caused partially political instability, the impoverishment of Algerians living in Algeria and France and the development of the notion of the Algerian nation after colonialism constructed the identity of the Algerian versus the French, increasing the polarization between the two nations. Furthermore the notion that French nationality was superior to Algerian enlarged the separation and thus, the conflicts.1 The National Liberation Front (FLN), a nationalist socialist oriented party, was created in 1954, and started attacks to different colonial institutions in the city. The FLN army grew at steep rates and the French brought in tens of thousands of soldiers in Algiers. Algeria finally, gained its independence in 1962, with a cost of 300,000 lives and the destruction of major districts within its capital city.2 During the war which lasted for 8 years, the fabric of the city devastated and halted all plans of development and construction projects. As a reaction, the French created a satellite town 50kmto the East of Algiers called Rochet Noir, which during the war housed the provisional government.

Armed revolts Algeriaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Front de LibĂŠration Nationale (FLN) http://www.businessinsider.com

1 Windrow, Martin, 1997. The Algerian War 1954-1962. Oxford: Osprey Publishing. Pg. 19 2 Ivanov Georgi, The Algerian War of Independence, 1954-196, November 13, 2009

French soldiers intruding the Casbah http://world.time.com

The Socialist Era - Absence of Urban Development After the 1962 independence, the new independent Algerian government set created a modern socialist movement. This period lasted from 1962 to 1989, bringing with it major reformations to the economy of the country. The FLN initiated the process of nationalization within the country’s resources, industries, urban developments, and mainly land ownership. While some efforts were made to upgrade the housing situation, the majority of efforts were aimed at the industrial sector.2 Most governmental investments were dedicated to promote and develop the industrial sector in this period of ‘forced economic growth’. This state-socialist development model brought with it the rise of industrialization while minimizing investments on housing or infrastructure projects.2 The city was left under-developed in an urban manner. The rise of industrialization created thousands of job opportunities, which in turn lead to an increase in migration from rural areas of Algeria and the North African region. The result was a severe shortage in housing and overpopulation of existing housing units. The government responded by developing standardized complexes of social housing, known as the ZHUN housing model. Although handed over to the residents at no costs, the housing units were uncompleted to living benchmarks and created areas of lower standards of living. A new layer of ‘socio-spatial marginality’ was added to the city.4

ZHUN social housing project http://maghrebrevolt.wordpress.com/2011/10/17/history-of-algeria-part-iii/

The failure of the governmental urban plans to resolve the urban dilemmas of housing and zoning resulted in an increase in squatter settlements, known as the bidonvilles, and self-help housing estates, known as loitissements d’autoconstruction. Both housing models lacked adequate infrastructure and services. The city’s peripheral growth was dominated by such illegal and informal occupation.5 2 Rahmani, C., 1982. La Croissance Urbain en Algérie. Algiers: Office des Publications Universitaires. 3 Pickvance, C. G., 2002. State socialism, post-socialism and their urban patterns: theorising the central and Eastern European experience. 4 Souiah, S. A., 2005. Les marginalités socio-spatiales dans les villes algériennes. In: ed. Ville Arabes on mouvement. Paris: L‟Harmattan, pp.47-69. 5 Boussoualem, Themila, ‘Access to Housing in Tizi-Ouzou, Algeria: A Case Study of Self-Help Housing Processes and Outcomes’ (doctoral thesis, University of Kent, 2011) pg 62

The Open Market & Time of Civil War Following the drop in the oil economy in 1990, the Algerian government was forced to renounce from its socialist structure. The government of Algiers resorted to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and agreed to open the Algerian market to international economic trade and foreign investment. 1

The sudden change in the political and economic structure resulted in social insecurity, political failure, and rise of terrorism. The dissatisfaction of the Algerian population created the uproar of various Islamic rebel groups. In 1991, The Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) nearly won the presidential elections when the FLN cancelled the elections in order to retain power of the country. This caused uproar, which in turn lead to the Algerian Civil War between the FIS and FLN. Different conflicts occurred between rebel groups, which increased the levels of insecurity, and fragmentation of the country’s social structure. The consequences of the war have remained today with a continuous worrying state of security and stability in the country. The government finally won the war in 2002, but was left with major burdens. One main burden is the rise in levels of unemployment within the youth population. Limited education at the time of war and the lack of job opportunities have both lead many youth Algerians to the streets, with unemployment still existing today.

1 Akacem, K., 2004. Economic reforms in Algeria: an overview and assessment. The Journal of North African Studies, 9(2), pp. 155-125. 2 Boussoualem, Themila, ‘Access to Housing in Tizi-Ouzou, Algeria: A Case Study of Self-Help Housing Processes and Outcomes’ (doctoral thesis, University of Kent, 2011) pg. 63 3 AADL (Agence National de l‟Amélioration et du développement du logement) (2004) Programme de Logement Location Vente. Available at: <http://www.aadl.com.dz> (Accessed 14 July 2008).

To aid in the housing crisis received by this new governmental structure, the Ministry of Habitat and Urbanism in collaboration with the World Bank created the National Agency for Amelioration and Development of Housing (AADL).2 The agency’s role was to manage and promote housing developments. The AADL receives land from the government, equips it with infrastructural connections and services, and passes it to contactors for the development of social housing. The AADL became its own client, taking advantage of the economic gains of the system and hence repeating the monopolistic attitude of the government in developing social housing. Housing developments by the AADL followed a template model, nonadaptive to the different development sites and different social needs of the residents.3 Towards the end of the decade, some reforms were made in the legal framework of private land ownership and housing developments. The continuous failure of the top-down attitude of the government forced the emergence of smaller initiatives and developments of housing.

Families of the disappeared cannot question the role of the security http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/2010/11/2010118122224407570.html

The Market Management Period The economic liberalization reforms initiated in the late 1990’s were continued and heightened by president Abdulaziz Bouteflika beginning with his time of power in 1999.

Bouteflika’s mission has continued to be one of economic liberalization and privatization, while maintaining the monopolistic state power over the country’s natural resources of oil and gas. Urban development and planning management became of greater importance within the government’s priority tasks. Urban plans and regional regulations were no longer centralized to the governmental economic and political agenda. Instead a managerial hierarchy was set out to carry out plans more efficiently. Different sizes of urban plans and developments were to be managed by different entities depending on their size. Small development plans would be open to local entrepreneurship, medium developments would be managed by provincial administration of the Wilaya, and larger plans would still be subject to ministerial administration.4 Bouteflika’s government has invested in infrastructure projects, public transportation, rehabilitation plans, housing developments, and cultural and recreational zones. The post-socialist era has helped improve the urban planning attempts and the facilitation of real estate projects, with an aim to overcome the halt era of development.

Abdulaziz Bouteflika during the elections http://www.bouteflika2009.com/fr/

4 Boussoualem, Themila, ‘Access to Housing in TiziOuzou, Algeria: A Case Study of Self-Help Housing Processes and Outcomes’ (doctoral thesis, University of Kent, 2011) pg 65

Train station Gare d’Agha http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Company_for_Rail_Transport

Housing Shortage Algiers suffers from a chronic shortage in housing due to various reasons. One is the rapid pace of rural migration and hence growth in population. An additional reason for the shortage is the limitation on the land availability and legal approval of privately developed housing due to the high level of state control over developments in the country. The affordability of housing is a further issue affecting the shortage of housing as well as civil unrest within the Algerian population. While it became easier for the upper class of Algerians and high income foreigners to have sufficient access to housing, the middle and lower classes of the population continued to struggle in affording building their own dwelling units, or affording the prices of housing developed by the private sector. The struggle leads to most households waiting extended periods of time for publicly funded and delivered housing units, which creates a strain on the capacity to meet the demand in time. The housing shortage has in turn lead

to overcrowding in urban areas. Not only are districts developed in high density with layers of formally planned and informally built housing, but also the occupancy rates have increased reaching 7 persons per household.1 Due to the monopolistic approach of developing and supplying housing, increase in population and rates of rural migration, and hence increasing demands, the state is faced with limited time frames, limitations in design sensibility, and negligence in comprehensive urban and legacy planning.

1 Housing Finance Yearbook 2012, Algeria: Housing Supply & Affordability, (Centre for Affordable Housing Finance in Africa, 2012), http://www. housingfinanceafrica.org/ country/algeria/ [accessed 20 May 2013] map 1: Urban evolution of the city of Algiers

The state aims to deliver 1.4 million housing units by 2017, dealing with a $60 billion dollar budget. As a result of the current condition, the development of informal alternative models has increased, contributing to the sprawl, disintegration, and fragmentation of the city. Social unrest has also been triggered by the insufficient supply of housing by the government.

3km

The Government’s Investment in Housing The government of Algiers is investing in large-scale projects in an attempt to regenerate and develop different areas of Algiers with a concentration in housing supply, 2.4million housing units are to be completed by 2017 at a cost of €40billion.

2 million out of the 2.4 million are set to be social housing units. The construction generates 2million jobs and local Algerians will occupy the housing. In order to be able to meet the 2017 target the Algerian government relies heavily on foreign firms and foreign construction workers, mainly from China. Foreign sub-developers and contractors have entered Algiers to aid in the development of housing, importing with them construction expertise, materials, and housing development and architectural models. The state continued to develop the 1970’s model of housing development until recent foreign influence arrived. Therefore, the local construction and design expertise within the labor force remains outdated and unfit for developing new advanced models of development. Construction laborers remain unskilled. Their proficiencies were never developed beyond the 1970’s development methods. The transfer of knowledge and expertise of the building industry from foreign to local workers has been initiated but remains a major dilemma to be solved.

Housing shortfall in Algiers http://www.zawya.com/story/Focus_on_housing-ZAWYA20120513081044/

The housing development models today offer cost efficiency, speed of constructability and large quantities of unit. However, construction quality and design sensitivity both remain as missing elements.2 2 Housing Finance Yearbook 2012, Algeria: Housing Supply & Affordability, (Centre for Affordable Housing Finance in Africa, 2012), http://www.housingfinanceafrica. org/country/algeria/ [accessed 20 May 2013]

National office of statistics

Conclusion The multi-disciplinary break down of the history of Algiers reveals crucial moments principal in the urban evolution of the city. Each political era guides different means of manifestation into the urban realm and governance of the population. The population of the city grew and developed with time with the increase in job opportunities, instability in regional areas, rural migration and the return of immigrants. Meanwhile, the state continued to dominate the sector of social housing development. The result was the inability to meet the growing demands for housing, populations having to adhere to long waiting lists and periods to receive housing, growing a sense of frustration and uprising. The number of bidonvilles squatter settlements and self-help housing districts grew as a reaction to the unavailability of social housing. The number of occupancy within each social housing unit doubled as families grew and extended families shared units. The result was a decline in the quality of living, urban sprawl and urban fragmentation. A more detailed research and analysis is required to further comprehend the condition of the housing sector today.

2. Typological Research The chronological study of the urban evolution of Algiers was followed by Thematic typological. The emphasis on the type as a basis of the research allowed for a further understanding of the genotype, be it a type of public space, infrastructure, cultural element, housing unit, or climatic design element. This section summarizes the outcomes of the research and analysis, with a greater focus on the housing typologies examined by our group.

Typological Timeline The different themes of the typological research are summarized in this timeline, arranged into their chronological position. The overlapping of events, introduction of design approaches, and shifts in the social reactions helped further understand the relationship between the inhabitant and the spatial and physical elements of the city throughout time. 25

Timeline - Governance

Infrastructure Development

The pressing issues of the 1830s consisted of lodging military troops and cutting through the necessary arteries to enable rapid manoeuvres.

Casbah Alteration Protection

Due to frequent attacks from Europe, The Ottomans under the powerful corsairs Aruj & Khayr Al-Din built a continuous wall enclosing the Casbah from all sides, including the seaside. Access points were limited to 5 five gates.

Organic Development

The upper part of the town was left practically untouched, the lower part underwent certain transformations that accentuated the pre-existing division during the colonial period.

The cubic structures of the Casbah were built organically throughout time, attaching one to the other cascading along the rising topography. With the townâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s border being fixed by fortifications, it developed vertically into a high-density settlement.

The Start of Urbanism

True French urbanism in Algiers originated with the carving of a Place du Gouvernement and the widening of three main streets off this square that led to the main gates:.

Ottoman Rule 1516

Housing Shortage

The squatter house or the shanty towns, otherwise known as the bidonville, was a response to the migration of indigenous people from the countryside to the urban centres enforced by the housing shortage.

The Tenure of Mayor Chevallier: 1953â&#x20AC;&#x201C;58

These years marked an intense housing construction program toward the local population producing high rise development projects.

Socia

French Rule 1830

1930

1954

Private Land Development

Since 1974, when a legislation was passed that gave each commune the right to develop the land it owned. The outcome is a curious pattern of attached or freestanding two- or threestory houses, densely packed together

Plan de Constantine: 1958–61

Algerian Social Housing

The concept of ZHUN followed the lines of urban planning in Algiers and continued the main ideas of the grand ensembles. Due to the serious problem of the lack of housing and the ongoing problem of Bidonvilles compromises were made at their construction.

Fifty thousand housing units per year were projected, as compared to the eighteen thousand built in 1958. This quantity dictated that the form of housing be large blocks exclusively.

al Housing Algerian War

The Gulf Recipe An armed conflict between the Algerian government and various Islamist rebel groups which began in 1991.

Independence 1962

The ‘Gulf Recipe’, as a formula for urban development, has arrived in Algiers after an attempt to open the market to foreign investments as well as the aspiration to import celebrated development models from other cities, usually with the aid of foreign consultants.

Civil War 1991

Open Market 2002

Typological Research Urban interventions through housing developments have been the governmentâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s means for the city development and expansion in Algiers throughout its history. Architecture and urbanism became dual tools for the government to achieve dual aims in the interests of both, the population and the government itself.

Housing developments have been the governmentâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s main means for urban intervention and expansion in Algiers. Architecture and urbanism became tools for the government to achieve dual aims in the interests of both the population and the government itself. Such urban interventions were deployed as strategies of containment of the people in tailored settings. A chronological and genealogical investigation was carried out to further understand and illustrate the continuing trends or the shifting attitudes towards housing in Algiers. The multi scalar analysis of housing typologies was used as a method to further understand their role in increasing social control, political legitimization and stability, and economical gain. During the study, our aim was to understand how each generation of housing encapsulated different forms of daily life, spatial and social governance, communal organization, as well as design principles and qualities. The main and early outcome of the exercise, the notion of governance of the population through housing and urban formations in Algiers, continued to become the backbone of the following thesis project. 28

LOW RISE COURTYARD HOUSE

MEDIUM RISE COURTYARD BLOCK

LOW RISE HOUSE

MEDIUM RISE LINEAR BLOCK

HIGH RISE APARTMENT TOWER

Low Rise Courtyard House Casbah - The Indigenous fabric Fatema Al-Sehlawi

Site Area: 284,000m2 Site Coverage: 220,000m2/ 77% Height: 12m Unit Size: 200m2 GFA: 500,000m2 Population: ca 50,000 Year: 16th cent. Architect: -

Ottoman fortification main artery - commercial secondary roads neighbourhood subdivision upper Casbah Algerian residential lower Casbah

administration-commercial, Turkish residential Upper class Algerians

MOAT fig. 1

sub-neighbourhood /primary roads secondary roads tertiary roads dead ends courtyards fig. 4

Fig. 1-3: As all Ottoman urban systems, the governance of the Casbah was decentralized, having fifty sub districts, each supervised by its own leader who usually was a prominent religious figure from the same district.

Fig. 4-6: Our k-study is located in a strictly isolated border separated by dominant infrastructure elements (in this case railway lines). The internal structure is defined by self organised amenities and facilities (mosques, schools and shops) that form smaller subcommunities.

fig. 2

fig. 3

fig. 5

fig. 6

Low Rise Courtyard House Casbah - The Indigenous fabric Fatema Al-Sehlawi

Source: http://argeliamanece.com

During the Ottoman Era in the 16th century, Algiers grew vertically and densely within the walls of the Casbah. Due to frequent attacks from Europe, The Ottomans built a continuous wall enclosing the Casbah from all sides. Access points were limited to 5 five gates. The Turkish dignitaries and families associated with the ruling power inhabited the lower quarter, towards the seaside. The population of the Upper Casbah was a mix of different origins from Andalusian to Jewish tradespeople and Saharans. As all Ottoman urban systems, the governance of the Casbah was decentralized, having fifty sub districts, each supervised by its own leader who usually was a prominent religious figure from the same district. All house layouts were organized around a central courtyard, regardless of the residentâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s level of income. Religious schools, Mosques (Masjids) and baths (Hammams) were scattered throughout the neighbourhoods.

The Casbahâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s street network had a functional hierarchy that created a system of filtered accessibility. The main commercial street was the widest, dividing the Casbah into two parts, the lower waterfront part being the public, administrative, and military quarter (Al Wata), and the upper cascading part being the more introverted Algerian residential quarter (Al Gabal). The secondary transversal roads linked the upper Casbah and lower quarter. The tertiary narrow, irregular neighborhood streets usually lead to dead ends which was a means of security and privacy, complementing the introverted lifestyle. Gates often closed up the narrow roads in the evenings for further security.1

1 Robert Oxman, Hadas Shadar and Ehud Belferman, Casbah: A Brief History of a Design Concept. Urbanism, vol.6, no.4, 2002. Pg 324

The resulting interiorized layout of the Casbahâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s domestic architecture achieved the required privacy and security. The hierarchy of privacy, spatial governance shaped by housing clusters, and high density, resulted in an intricate community character.

Medium Rise Courtyard Block Colonial French Apartment Block Dimitra Christodoulou

Site Area: 995m2 Site Coverage: 598m2 / 60% Height: 24.50m Unit Size: 61.6 m2 GFA: 4,186m2 Population: ca. 139 Year: 1928 Casbah limits primary roads secondary roads

Architect: Year: 16th cent. Architect: -

old demolished fortification upper Casbah Algerian Residential marine frech quarter upper class residential administration

Fig. 1-3: Gradually with the engraving of new streets â&#x20AC;&#x201C; boulevards or the widening of former (grid), French encircled the area of Casbah and created a sharp dichotomy and segregation between the indigenous people and Europeans physically and socially.

fig. 1

primary roads secondary roads tertiary roads deadens private shared space

fig. 4

Fig. 4-6: As a military city, wide roads were required to provide rapid circulation of troops. The port was expanded with the vision to become an important economic element of Algiers and a link between the colonized country and France.

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Medium Rise Courtyard Block Colonial French Apartment Block Dimitra Christodoulou

Looking in the scale of the unit, Â the main core of circulation is divided in two parts. One acting as the main access for the residents of the units and the second one for the service. This core provides access to two separate units. 36

Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/quedate_en_la_luz/

The French colonization of Algiers lasted 132 years, beginning in the 1930â&#x20AC;&#x2122;s. During this period, changes in the urban structure of the city were dictated by Napoleon the third through the plans of Eugene de Redon. As a French colony, the centre, formerly the Casbah became a French Quarter created with a militaristic mindset of colonization, occupation, and control, reshaping the urban fabric and relocating Algerian households.1 The roads were built in a linear manner, unlike the irregular streets of the Casbah, in order to gain more control over circulation, and allow for straight uninterrupted views of street activity and also to facilitate the movement of traffic and military maneuvers. Street monitoring became more important to avoid clashes between the two segments of the population, Algerians and Europeans or the more liberal with the Islamist groups.2

The zone of intervention was implemented at an urban scale, announcing the beginning of urban planning in Algiers. The above-mentioned Haussmannian logic of urbanisation of Paris were imported, utilized, and re-tested in Algiers during the colonial era. The imported model was viewed as an existing method of amending the alien fabric of Algiers in a way familiar to the colonizers, which had proved successful in terms of reformation and control in Paris.

1 (Celik 1997) 2 Isabelle Grangaud, Masking and Unmasking the Historic Quarters of Algiers, (Los Angeles: Getty Research Institute: 2009), p. 182.

During this era, further governance and jurisdiction was achieved through urban alterations. The amendments to the urban fabric brought with it segregation between the European population and Algerian population. The core of the Algerian residential quarters was transformed into a civic centre while relocating them to distant housing developments explained in the next section.

Low Rise House Bidonville - Baraki district Georgios Garofalakis

Site Area: 220,000m2 Site Coverage: 180,000m2/ 86% Height: 3m Unit Size: 60m2 GFA: 140,000m2 Population: 20,000 development limits infrastructure division

Year: 1950 Architect: -

secondary roads neighbourhood subdivision placed city limits

self build city limits

industrial area

fig. 1

primary roads secondary roads tertiary roads entrance amenities facilities

fig. 4

Fig. 1-3: The limits of bidonvilles are constantly redefined as the limits of the city evolve respectively. Its residents were referred to as a “new type of man” distinct from the Muslim urban population and unaffected by the “European civilization” giving a third element to the dual system of Algerian cities.

Fig. 4-6: Our case study is located in a strictly isolated border separated by dominant infrastructure elements (in this case railway lines). The internal structure is defined by self organised amenities and facilities (mosques, schools and shops) that form smaller subcommunities.

fig. 2

fig. 5

fig. 3

fig. 6

Low Rise House Bidonville - Baraki district Georgios Garofalakis

One single dwelling functions as a set of smaller units sheltering and entire family. The common open spaces are the main facilities of a house like the cooking area and the bathroom. 40

Source: http://www.lemonde.fr

The areas of shanty houses, otherwise known as the bidonvilles, were a response to various socio political conditions as found in many other countries. Nevertheless, the specific mechanisms of the colonial governance played a crucial role in the increase of this phenomenon in Algiers. The bidonvilles districts first appeared in the 1930’s. Usually located on the edges of the city. The housing shortage in Algiers and the rise in rural migration from the countryside, precipitated by increased employment opportunities in the capital city, contributed to the increasing emergence of the housing typology. An investigation of the Baraki Bidonville district was utilized to help understand the settlement’s structure. This example remains today as one of the biggest shanty-house areas in Algiers. The Baraki Bidonville is located in a strictly isolated border site, separated by dominant infrastructure of rail lines. The internal structure is defined by

self-organized amenities and facilities such as mosques, schools and shops, forming smaller sub-communities. The limits of bidonvilles are constantly redefined as the limits of the city evolve respectively. Its residents were referred to as a “new type of man” distinct from the Muslim urban population and unaffected by the “European civilization” giving a third element to the dual system of Algerian cities. The urban fabric and social structure of the bidonvilles employed a similar model to that of the Algerian Casbah, with its irregular and narrow streets, attached houses, and paths leading to dead ends. Dwelling units were amended as families expanded and joined while the common spaces contained shared cooking areas and bathrooms. The tight urban and social structure resulted in self-gover nance, control, and management of such districts. What remains as informal and regularized, carried hints of a fabric familiar to and manageable by the Algerians.

Medium Rise Linear Block Diar Al Mahcoul â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Grands Ensembles Georgios Garofalakis

Site Area: 93,925m2 Site Coverage: 26,567m2/ 28% Height: 21m Unit Size: 93m2 GFA: 212,536 m2 Population: 17,100 Year: 1950s Architect: Fernand Pouillon

development limits primary roads secondary roads main artery division Europeans Algerians Algerian Residential fig. 1

primary roads secondary roads tertiary roads entrance amenities facilities fig. 4

Fig 1-3: The scale of intervention is this of the masterplan, its location on one the hills of the city, isolated by the main city fabric. The development was designed to facilitate Algerian population and lower class of European citizens however the division was clear as a main road operates as physical limit.

Fig. 4-6: Creating an autonomous society was achieved through the implementation of different public amenities in each part. Interesting fact is the omission of a mosque in the Muslim part of the development.

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Medium Rise Linear Block Diar Al Mahcoul â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Grands Ensembles Georgios Garofalakis

http://ruisseau-alger.e-monsite.com

The Grands Ensembles modernist model of social housing was introduced to Algiers during the second half of the 1920’s. This model of housing became the basis for future housing developments in Algeria. The social housing complexes were built on the outskirts of the city as an instrument for urban growth away from the congested centre. Each complex formed an independent community, with little spatial or social integration with neighboring communities. The complexes followed a rigorous sociocultural guideline of maintaining the segregation between the Algerian and European communities.1 Their fragmented placement surrounding the city was a method intended to create isolated autonomous communities and avoid acts of rebellion. The planners and designers behind the Grands Ensemble projects of Algeria questioned the traditions, and lifestyles of the Algerians and attempted to adapt to address their findings. Only few projects were implemented with the Algerian household’s nature as a reference. The universal modernist approaches and architectural languages fast took lead, especially

during the era of vast housing developments backed by Mayor Jaques Chevallier from 1953 to 1958.2 We here analyze the Diar El Mahcoul complex designed by Fernard Pouillon. Pouillon attempted to recreate the concurrence of private and public spaces of the indigenous Algerian built fabric by creating a network of characterized open spaces.3 Diar El Mahcoul was designed and built to be a paradigm for housing complexes that would satisfy the population’s needs and hinder any dissatisfaction with the governing bodies. Contrary to the vision for the complex and its public squares and gardens, major uprising and clashes occurred on its grounds.4

1-4 Zeynep Celik, Urban Forms and Colonial Confrontations: Algiers Under French Rule (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997) 5 Extract from Fatma AlSehlawi H&T

Housing development, as in many colonized cities, was a tool for the French colonizers to secure and guarantee their rule and dominance in Algeria, by means of presenting it as solving the population’s crucial problems. The social segregation, choice of a distant location to disperse the formerly concentrated population, and the attempt of altering traditional norms and lifestyles were common tools used to gain control through spatial interventions.5

Medium Rise Linear Block Bab Ezzouar â&#x20AC;&#x201C; ZHUN Dimitra Christodoulou

Site Area: 674,963m2 Site Coverage: 102,533m2/ 15% Height: 11.5m Unit Size: 64m2 GFA: 512,665m2 Population: 17,100 Year: 1974 Architect: ECOTEC

primary roads secondary roads agricultural area rural housing single family housing Industrial area

Fig. 1-3: Under the control of the government the management of the development had as its main purpose to isolate. Common open spaces remained empty and neglected and usually working as parking lots. The structure of the development creates multiple subdivisions in the circulation network.

fig. 1

primary roads secondary roads tertiary roads entrance public space

fig. 4

Fig. 4-6: The area of intervention works in the master plan scale. The segregation was enhanced by the lack of infrastructure in the urban scale and at the same time in the scale of the block unit also.

fig. 2

fig. 3

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fig. 6

Medium Rise Linear Block Bab Ezzouar â&#x20AC;&#x201C; ZHUN

Dimitra Christodoulou

The common shared spaces are reduced to the minimum as the patio is completely eliminated. The access core serves two individual apartments and it occupies the minimum sq meters avoiding once again the interaction of its residence. 48

Source: AzizBendriss

The increase in population and rural migration lead to an upsurge in the demand for housing. The number of informal bidonvilles settlements multiplied, and therefore housing development became a pressing issue to be dealt with by the Algerian government. In 1977, the Ministry of Housing was formed and had the commitment to deliver 100,000 housing units annually for the following decade.1 The housing developments were aimed at low-income and public sector employees who made up the majority of the housing demand. The ZHUN (Zone d’Habitat Urbaine Nouvelle, or new urban housing zone) model became the main model utilized for housing developments in the late 1970’s and 1980’s. The model consisted of compounds of standard 4 to 5 storey residential blocks with apartment units that varied in size consisting of 2 to 6 bedrooms each.2 The model was an alteration and an evolved version of the Grands Ensembles taking many of its attributes. However at this period of time in Algiers, the housing crisis was heightened and bidonvilles were spreading and sprouting at rates higher than ever before. Therefore the

high quality of building construction and care of design found in the Grands Ensemble projects were sacrificed. Instead, ZHUN housing blocks were built using imported prefabricated modules from the Netherlands & Sweden that lead to standardized monotonous four to five storey housing blocks laid out on vacant plots, as can be seen in this example, the Bab Ezzour project.3 The spatial compositions created odd shaped outdoor spaces, which were rarely used or inhabited. Unlike the former model of the Grands Ensemble, ZHUN developments were developed along remote areas of the city with very little infrastructural connections or civic amenities.

1 Makhlouf Nait Saada, ‘Housing Policy in Algeria: Issues and Perspectives’, 2009. p. 4. 2 Magda Behloul, ‘Post Occupancy Evaluation of Five Storey Walk-up Dwellings: The Case of Four Mass Housing Estates in Algiers’, (doctoral thesis, University of Sheffield, 1991). p. 44. 3 Ibid., p. 46

Therefore, the tool of developing ZHUN housing projects only addressed the crisis of housing shortage by adding housing units into the market. The mere supply was to target the uprising frustration of the lower working class population. Not much was addressed in terms of improving living conditions, refining construction knowledge and local expertise, addressing the local needs by integrating the voices of the population, or enhancing the delivery systems of housing.

High Rise Apartment Tower Trust Residential & Commercial Complex Fatema Al-Sehlawi

Site Area: 19,948.5 m2 Site Coverage: 111,500m2/ 50% Height: 42.25m Unit Size: 131m2 GFA: 290,000m2 Population: 9,667 development limits

Year: 2013 Architect: MOC

primary roads secondary roads plot subdivision existing residential districts New mixed use developments Industrial area

fig. 1

Fig. 1-3: The residential and commercial towers are raised on a shared podium level which is continuous along the plot perimeter. The residences and employees of the complex are offered a private shared outdoor space created by the surrounding tower blocks.

primary roads secondary roads tertiary roads entrance private shared outdoor space

fig. 4

Fig. 4-6: Constructing the required infrastructure prior to the completion of any developments of the subdivided zone. A system of road network supporting the circulation within the development is often connected to major highways.

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High Rise Apartment Tower Trust Residential & Commercial Complex Fatema Al-Sehlawi

The delivery of social housing to the low and middle class segments of the society remains to be a priority to the State. However, the desire to construct a new image of Algiers as a developing modern state has become of importance to the government.

deprived areas of the city. The governmental planning authority is usually responsible of the subdivision of a greater development zone; selling mega plots to private developers, and allowing for further subdivision and sale of land by each owner.1

The main housing programs of such projects are glorified by programs of culture, commerce, leisure, and settings for the tourism industry to justify and legitimate the project’s sensitivity and responsibility towards addressing the society’s needs. In other countries, mostly in the Gulf States, such projects have proven short-term economic gains accompanied with long-term fragmentation of the city as a whole.

We here analyze the Trust Residential & Commercial Complex. Developed by an anonymous private developer group, the complex is currently under construction and consists of residential apartment towers, 5 star hotels, a shopping mall, and supporting local amenities. The complex is an exact duplicate of Al Murooj Rotana complex in Dubai mimicking its architectural aesthetics as well as program, setting an example for mere design import rather than design sensitivity. Distant sites are allocated for new developments in order to relieve the capital’s centre from overpopulation, and to allow for a level of economic and spatial upgrade to

1 Makhlouf Nait Saada, ‘Housing Policy in Algeria: Issues and Perspectives’, 2009, p. 7

The model of development creates introverted fortresses within the already fragmented urban fabric of the city. An autonomous part of the city is created, consisting of any amenities that the residents and visitors of the complex might need. The ‘Gulf Recipe’ approach to urbanism brings with it consequences of socio-economic divisions within the society as an effect of containing people and targeting a specific sector of the society, mainly the upper class populations of Algiers and foreigners moving to the city.

Conclusion Each generation of housing was studied within the specific historical, political and social context were it was implemented. This study informed the following research and design process of the project, as entry points and additional tools. Summarizing, the spatial formation of Casbah was taken into consideration, regarding the main courtyard housing typology, the small scale of developments, the successful hierarchical organization of shared spaces, and the multifunctional ground floor condition. On the contrast, the ZHUN, the Grandes Ensembles and the â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Gulf recipeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; developments, used as studies of unsuccessful spatial organization. Mainly because of the left over open spaces, the blurred ownership status leading to problematic management issues and the fragmentation of space due to social segregation. However, the enduring issue of housing shortage today has lead to depraved housing developments, dissatisfying the society. The situation reached today after the continuous evolution of the Algerian housing model has merely arrived to a solution of addressing the housing crisis by infilling the market with housing units, neglecting design sensibility and quality of human life.

3. Housing in Algiers: Main Problems Identified Following the typological research, current housing development status, delivery systems, and problematic issues were further studied and investigated. The key problem is the inability of the Algerian government to meet to the rising demand for housing. High levels of rural migration, urbanisation, rapid population growth and the limited space for expansion, have resulted in this major housing shortage and lack of a long-term housing development plan. The majority of social housing in Algeria is the responsibility of the state; also meaning the majority of the land also belongs to the government with a very small percentage of private ownership and a few exceptions of private housing developments. The following section outlines the current housing delivery methods and the social and spatial issues that these models create.

Housing in Algiers: Main Problems Identified

1. Current housing delivery system Although the most dominant form of housing development is state led in Algiers, there have been some exceptions of privately developed housing as well. There are three main models in which housing is developed privately as alternatives due to insufficient supply of state led housing:

2. Lack of Structural Flexibility & Spatial Adaptability The type of the imported high-rise apartment block develops a smaller building plan while increasing in height. It limits any structural and spatial adaptability, which would allow the resident to somehow achieve adaptability within the structure of their housing unit.

3. Monotonous Developments

4. Non-Functional Communal Spaces

The lack of time and expertise for design sensibility, quality control, and legacy planning have been a driving reasons behind the use of monotonous imported housing models

The current implemented housing developments result in unclear responsibility within the housing blockâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s residents and lack of communal space management. Therefore, outdoor spaces remain poorly maintained and seldom used, increasing isolation and disintegration within the members of the community.

5. Exacerbating Sprawl

The majority of housing developments are moving towards distant sites towards the outskirts of the city. Residents become reliable on vehicular transportation to the city centre and distant amenities, again creating disconnected communities.

Current Housing Delivery System Although the most dominant form of housing development is state led in Algiers, there have been some exceptions of privately developed housing as well. There are three main models in which housing is developed privately as alternatives due to insufficient supply of state led housing: Following the typological research, current housing development status, delivery systems, and problematic issues were further studied and investigated. The key problem is the inability of the Algerian government to meet to the rising demand for housing. High levels of rural migration, urbanisation, rapid population growth and the limited space for expansion, have resulted in this major housing shortage and lack of a long-term housing development plan. The majority of social housing in Algeria is the responsibility of the state; also meaning the majority of the land also belongs to the government with a very small percentage of private ownership and a few exceptions of private housing developments. The following section outlines the current housing delivery methods and the social and spatial issues that these models create. Until the 1970’s, all housing and landownership is Algiers was through the state. Although the most dominant form of housing development is state led in Algiers, there have been some exceptions of privately developed housing There are three main models in which housing is developed privately as alternatives due to insufficient supply of state led housing: Informal squatter bidonvilles settlements, self built housing legalized post completion, promotional or private developed high-end housing.

Public

Land

Social Rental Rental Sale Participatory Social

Finance

Construction

Management

Fig. 1: The current housing delivery system

Private

One of the most peculiar situations in Algeria is the system of land ownership, and it’s only since 1974 that the market became open to local people. Acquiring land from the government still remains a really difficult task that refers to people that have the money and power to do it. This situation has resulted to a rather disturbing landscape with skyscrapers that are being duplicated all over the city.1 While public housing is a fast growing segment the government is promoting home ownership among the middle-class.2 The recent emergence of privately developed housing has remained an unclear agenda. Selective private entities or individuals are granted the privilege of developing housing projects on plots subdivided and sold by the government. Foreign private investors have proposed larger developments following the ‘Gulf Recipe’ model while most are smaller developments by local investors. Such projects are usually aimed at high-end housing types addressing the housing needs for the foreign and local upper classes while also providing some middle class housing. The projects are developed with an aim to limit costs and increase returns, and usually with very little to no quality supervision or planning control. What such developments offer is not much more than the public housing projects, merely larger units, additional facade treatments and lush landscapes. The architecture, development floor plans, and housing units remain monotonous and lack individuality. State-led housing delivery models: Today, a major portion of the Algerian population has access to various types of State housing programs. An estimated 34% of the total population of Algiers applied for one mean of housing assistant or another between the years 1999 and 2012. In order to cater to the demand for housing, the State created four different housing program types: rental housing, assisted

market housing, lease-to-own housing, and rural housing. The programs replaced the monotonous program of social housing.

1 Joanna, O. 2011. Report on a Scoping Visit to Algeria by the Construction Equipment Association. Construction Equipment Association. Pg. 7

The typical models of the supplied housing are in forms of highrise apartment blocks, built on municipal land. The different models are financed by the government at different rates depending on the residentâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s income level, and ownership varies between rented units to the full transfer of ownership. The Ministry of Housing leads and manages such developments.

2 Oxford Business Group. 2011. The Report: Algeria 2011. Oxford

The rental-housing program is aimed at households with an income of less than $320 a month (1.5 times the Algerian minimum wage). The cost of construction is fully covered by the state on governmental land. The household then pays a low rent once the unit is received. In 2010, the government launched the Assisted Market Housing Program. Households who have an income equivalent to less than six times Algerian minimum wage can benefit from this program. Land is offered by the government at a very low price and an additional $8000 is granted in order to assist with financing and loans for construction. The Lease-to-Own Program offers serviced land for free and finance is subsidized. Rural Housing Programs offer advance subsidies of $5000 to households who have the need to renovate their existing homes or to build newly constructed ones. This program applies to households living in rural areas in an attempt to discourage rural migration.

Formula Ownership Land Finance

Social Rental Housing Rented

Municipal

10% government funding

Construction Developers

100% built with private contractors

Management/ Maintenance

Ministry of Housing

Occupants class

Low Income

Rental Sale Housing Rented/ private owned

Municipal or private land

Participatory Housing Rented/ private owned

Municipal or private land at reduced price

25% first 3 years

Government grant +

& 75% 20 years instalment

low rate bank load 1%

Public or private

Ministry of Housing

Middle Income

Tbl 1: Housing delivery system in Algiers

Lack of Structural Flexibility & Spatial Adaptability The type of the imported high-rise apartment block develops a smaller building plan while increasing in height. It limits any structural and spatial adaptability, which would allow the resident to somehow achieve adaptability within the structure of their housing unit. TThe smaller constrained unit plans disable expansions due to family extensions and depletes the local traditional living standards. The limit of size and possibility of growth results in the dispersal of the Algerian extended family nature of living. Signs of re-appropriation and desired expansions are evident in various housing estates in Algiers. For example, the current situation in 200 Colonnes housing complex is rather different than the one imagined by Pouillon. Extended families have chosen to live under one roof due to the problematic shortage of housing. Therefore, the unit’s residents have found ways to take advantage of outdoor areas by incorporating them into their housing units for additional living space.1 Illegal structures made of bricks have been self built on the vast roof area and almost every balcony has been modified to an extra bedroom.2 The desirability of adaptability and expansion is also found in the method of building self-help housing in rural areas of Algiers. The method allows for structural capacity where additional spaces of expansion can be added and altered. Such lessons can be learnt from in order to construct a more suitable model of housing typologies, taking into account the cultural and social needs.3

diagram 1: re aproppriation of 200 colonnes img. 2: 200 colonnes - reapropriated by its residents Sahnoune L., http://www.youtube. com/watch?v=Cgc880J4ff8 img. 3: 200 Colonnes Myop, http://www.myop.fr/fr/ archives-serie/liste?q=1644

1 (The Guardian. 2012. Recipes for change abound in Algiers project where politics are peripheral. Published on 13/06/2012 http:// www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/ jun/12/algeria-housing- climatfrance-algiers#start-of-comments. Accessed May 2013 2 Le Monde. 2012. Climat de France, la plus grande cité d’Alger. Published on 21/05/2012. 3 extract from George H&T essay conclusion

Monotonous Housing Developments The lack of time and expertise for design sensibility, quality control, and legacy planning have been a driving reasons behind the use of monotonous imported housing models The d ev elop m e n t o f re p e ti ti v e housing blocks started in the 1970’swith the introduction of the ZHUN housing model in Algiers. D u e t o t h e c h ro n i c s h o r t a g e i n housing units within the capital, the government would put out plans of housing estates with aims of delivering thousands of units in short periods of time and at the lowest costs. Therefore a standardization of architectural prototypes was unitized in order to cut down costs, time, and increase quantity of units delivered. F o r e x a m p l e , i n t h e 1 9 7 0 ’s t h e Algerian government developed two large ZHUN housing projects, Bab Ezzouar and Ain Nadja. The Bab Ezzouar project itself comprised of around 200 duplicated housing blocks, delivering 10,800 housing

units into the market.1 Today the government develops a model derived from the ZHUN housing model, in a form a highrise apartment towers. The logic of standardization and adhering to the minimum qualities of design continues to be the case implemented. The housing development model mainly impor ted through the Chinese development companies consists of the typical repetitive bundle of housing towers lacking any variation in form or design. What differs one housing estate from another is a mere differentiation in the minimal façade elements and colors. The result is the creation of housing districts where legibility, sense of identity and community character are bland and unclear.

map 1: Bab Ezzouar - monotonous housing plan img. 2: Typical tower development http://www.liberte-algerie.com img. 3: Typical tower development http://www.skyscrapercity.com/ showthread.php?t=1364339 1 TADJEROUNI, D. (1985) “Industrialising Housing Production, Towards a Policy of Mass Housing in Algena”, MA thesis, Town and Regional Planning Department, University of Sheffield. Pg. 162

Non-functional Communal Spaces The current implemented housing developments result in unclear responsibility within the housing blockâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s residents and lack of communal space management. T h e re f o re , o u t d o o r s p a c e s remain poorly maintained and seldom used, increasing isolation and disintegration within the m e m b e r s o f t h e c o m m u n i t y. Designating residential land uses to large areas, the mass development of housing, and the absence of communal scale retail or civic uses have resulted in mono-functional districts. Hence, communal bonds are eroded and social isolation is increased while the smaller economic activities are moved to distant commercial complexes. The Garidi and AIn Allah housing estate here convey the notion of unused wasted outdoor spaces. The quality and forms of spaced

between housing blocks remain to be unresolved in such housing developments. The spaces are large in size and lack any efforts of incorporating landscaping elements, communal amenities, or income generating facilities.1 The lacks of sense of ownership, management structures, and surveillance have contributed to the impracticality of the open spaces. The disregard of the open spaces is a lost opportunity t o c re a t e c o m m u n a l b o n d s , income generation, and quality living amongst the housing estates. Care and design for such elements would greatly benefit the residents as well as the urban structure of the city.

1 Behloul, Magda, â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Post Occupancy Evaluation of Five Storey Walkup Dwellings: The Case of Four Mass Housing Estates in Algiersâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;, (doctoral thesis, University of Sheffield, 1991) pg 73 map 1: Vacant spaces img 2: Bd Zirout Youcef the port side of the city ahmed1948, http://www.flickr.com/photos/ ahmed1948/9351224522/ img 3: El Harrach, shared space in front of social housing Odysseas Diakakis, personal archive

3km

Exacerbating Sprawl The majority of housing developments are moving towards distant sites towards the outskirts of the city. R e s i d e n t s b e c o m e re l i a b l e o n v e h i c u l a r transportation to the city centre and distant amenities, again creating disconnected communities. The city becomes vehicle oriented with fragmental mega infrastructure and amenities become more centralized and internalized in larger structures. The dispersed character of housing complexes in Algiers creates a fragmented social and spatial structure. The ease of circulating from one district to another becomes lengthy in time and, hence districts become self-dependent and almost autonomous in character. The former cultural tradition of living close by to extended family members becomes a challenging will and starts to diminish from the social norms of living. Families are dispersed due to the housing allocation methods, and such cultural social bonds are broken. The vast sprawl has also lead to many areas being unconnected to major public transportation and infrastructural services. Thus, these districts become lower in living quality or else create a burden on the government to extend infrastructural lines.

map 1: Urban sprawl - 1960-13 img. 2: Aerial photo of Algiers 60s http://oran2.free.fr img. 3: Aerial view of the city 1922 http://alger-roi.fr/Alger/saint_ eugene/pages_liees/35_vue_ aerienne_5_venis.htm

3km

Conclusion The Algerian government continues to dominate the housing development sector in Algiers. Due to the increasing demand for housing and urgency to deliver housing units, the government is left developing housing models that create major social and spatial problems. Hosing models, since the 1970â&#x20AC;&#x2122;s, have created repetitive and monotonous housing districts, lacking in design sensibility or spatial character. The lack of structural flexibility and spatial adaptability within the housing unit has constrained the Algerian family from re appropriating their home as the family grows. The monotonous repetition of the housing blocks, and lack of integrating landscape and communal elements, result in non-functional outdoor spaces. Housing developments have continuously been relocated to peripheral sites of the city, resulting in exacerbating sprawl. The result is the increasing dependency on vehicular transportation, as well as social and spatial fragmentation within the structure of the city. An alternative housing development approach and model are required to mitigate the short-comes of what is currently being developed. The rethinking of where to develop housing becomes a crucial point, making site selection a challenging task. Architectural and spatial planning also become vital issues to address.

4. Site Selection Most housing developments in Algiers are currently being developed along the cityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s periphery, causing major consequences. The distance from the urban city center puts strain on existing infrastructure due to increase in vehicular traffic, and demands the implementation of additional road networks. Extended families and different communities within the population become dispersed geographically, breaking the traditional tight bonds found in the Algerian population. The City becomes spatially fragmented as the sites of development are dispersed. Each housing district becomes autonomous depending on its communal facilities, not allowing for the integration and dependence of one community on the other. The city hence suffers from extreme levels of urban sprawl. This section describes an alternative approach to site selection for housing developments. The attempt it is reduce strain on the government for additional infrastructure, and to reduce both spatial and social fragmentation

Site Selection Instead of following the common practice of peripheral development we chose to identify vacant sites within the existing fabric of the city. Filling Urban Voids: Instead of following the common practice of peripheral development we chose to identify vacant sites within the existing fabric of the city. The intention is to propose locating housing developments within the existing urban fabric of Algiers, contrary to the common practice of peripheral development. The ongoing development along the periphery of the city has lead to disperse social and urban structures as well as an increase in urban sprawl and need of additional infrastructural links. Algiersâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; urban fabric is of low density, and increasing its density would allow for more efficient use of its existing infrastructure and amenities minimizing the need for further demand. Therefore the vacant sites within the existing urban fabric of the city were identified. Adhering with the Waliâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s vision: The Wali of Algiers has set out development and regeneration plans for the city of Algiers, proposing five new urban centres. With their central civic facilities and prime locations, the proposed centres aim to upgrade the s u r ro u n d i n g c o n t e x t b o t h s p a t i a l l y a n d

economically. Allocating a site of intervention within the proposed centralities would therefore support the Waliâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s vision. Reacting to proposed mega-developments: As the market opens for foreign investments, mega-developments have star ted to be proposed. The aim is to react to the proposals with an alternative adaptive model, fulfilling the gap between the market and demand. The El Harrach River is a site with an overlap of the mentioned conditions. Development concepts and economic methods have been imported from regional developing cities, more specifically Dubai. The attempt to open the market to foreign investments as well as the aspiration to import celebrated development models from other cities targets higher classes of the society, housing them in introverted gated and secured settings. Such mega-developments have been proposed for different sites within the city. These developments lack integration into the urban context, and the absence of response to specific social needs.

map 1: Proposed mega developments map 2:Urban voids map 3: Proposed centralities

3km

El Harrach River The El Harrach River is a site with an overlap of the previously mentioned conditions. It is envisioned to become one of the main civic centralities planned for the capital city. The River is also a site for a major recreational and regeneration project. Additionally, the El Harrach river is one of the major urban voids and sites of underdevelopment within the built up, urban fabric of Algiers. The research included a further analysis of the intentions behind the Waliâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s vision and proposed developments of the river to further comprehend the potentials. The El Harrach River is also one of three main rivers in Algiers. In all cases, the riverbanks of all three areas lack any major or successful development. The potential of river front developments and their positive contribution to the city is capitalized on

by many cities around the world such as: London, Chongqing, Portland, and Brisbane. The potential has not been tapped into with any of the Algerian rivers. We envisioned the El Harrach River as an example of how sites in Algiers could be developed for housing following the proposed model. The design proposal adopts the given conditions of the site taking full account of the contextual givens. The scenario represents and deals with specific conditions of the El Harrach River, in order to conduct a more thorough representation of an implemented prototype. A variety of sites chosen elsewhere in the city could also adopt this model in turn responding to the specific contextual conditions.

map 1: Main rivers in Algiers

3km

300m

Figure ground - El Harrach Group Work

El Harrach River Rehabilitation Project

The Ministry of Water Resources and the Welaya (Municipality of Algiers) have launched a rehabilitation project to upgrade the state of El Harrach River. The implementation was entrusted to the Algerian Korean consortium (Cosider-Daewoo Constructions). The proposed rehabilitation and upgrade plan however, does not integrate or respond to the existing complex spatial and social conditions. Instead, like most imported development models, it includes high-end privately developed housing towers, centralized civic amenities and indoor commercial facilities spatially separated from the riverâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s existing built context. Such developments require large plots for easier subdivision and liberated planning, distant from the complexity of the current conditions. Golf courses and outdoor sports facilities a l o n g w i t h a l a n d s c a p i n g u p g r a d e a re proposed for the riverâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Southern stretch. The 78

rehabilitation and clean up of the El Harrach river are scheduled for completion in 2015.1 The socioeconomic make-up of this area, to be further described in the following section, is of lower class within informally built housing districts. The lack of mediation between the existing and proposed development neglects the potentialities and benefits of spatial and social integration and perpetuates the problems of social disparity and fragmentation in the city. Alternative models of developing and regenerating the river site would make other marginal sites along the river valid as sites of potential development. We chose this approach to lead us in tackling the design intervention. The northern area of proposed development is taken as an existing condition, while the sites along the river and southern parts of the proposal are to be intervened in with an alternative proposal.

1 http://www.skyscrapercity. com/showthread. php?t=1507323 ALGIERS | Oued El Harrach | Rehabilitation, written by Aghelis on 20th april 2012.

300m

Proposed scheme by the government

Conclusion The El Harrach River site was selected as the site for the design intervention through multiple layers of potential site identification and classification. The vision for the housing development project was to react to an urban void site within the urban areas of the city. This is contrary to the common practice of relocating housing development along peripheral sites, distant from the complexities of the city. The second layer of identification revealed the proposed mega rehabilitation and housing projects launched by the government and foreign investors. The attempt was to overlap with the Waliâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s vision for the development of Algiers, in order for the project to be not a burden but a complimentary addition to the proposed plans and investments. The El Harrach River site is one example of where this proposed strategy of housing development can be implemented. In this case, its complex social and spatial conditions will be taken into account in the design process to further contextualize the design intervention.

5. Site Analysis Setting up the territory of intervention required an in-depth study of the El Harrach Riverâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s complex context. We here reveal the findings from analyzing the complexities in the areaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s social and spatial conditions. The territory of El Harrach River constitutes a variety of demographic classes in its residential districts. The formation of each district and building typologies were studied to reveal further information on their current status. The fragmenting urban limits separate such districts from one another and are studied to help shape a response to this given condition. The site analyses further includes studies of the current program distribution and land uses, the road structure and plot division, as well as a survey of open and vacant plots open for development potentials.

Site Analysis

1. Socioeconomic and administrative borders

2. Urban Limits

Demographic distribution varies between upper class, middle class, and low class residential districts; each with a make up of varying housing typologies. However, social fragmentation occurs due to the introverted and autonomous nature of each district.

The territory of El Harrach River is not only fragmented socioeconomically, but also spatially. Major infrastructure has caused this spatial fragmentation throughout the El Harrach river area.

3. Open and vacant spaces

4. Land Uses

El Harrach river is one of the major urban voids and sites of under-development within the built up, urban fabric of Algiers. Along the river are numerous leftover and undeveloped sites as well as degraded building sites.

A survey across the El Harrach region was carried out to identify the main land uses currently present. As anticipated, the urban fabric is mainly occupied by residential uses. Most of the residential districts are isolated from the riverbanks by crossing infrastructure lines.

Socioeconomic and Administrative Borders Demographic distribution varies between upper class, middle class, and low class residential districts; each with a make up of varying housing typologies. However, social fragmentation occurs due to the introverted and autonomous nature of each district. The urban fabric surrounding the El Harrach River includes a rich yet fragmented array of housing types, social groups, and spatial conditions. This context offers an interesting site of intervention with complex conditions. Socio-economic analysis of the El Harrach territory and the building typologies found there has revealed a layering of different chronological developments, ranging between the Ottoman Era, Colonial developments, postindependence state-led developments, modern day infrastructural projects, as well as informal settlements built across time. The existing complex make-up of the urban and socioeconomic structure allows for a multi-faceted design approach complying with all different conditions. Each social class requires a distinctive mode of spatial and programmatic intervention. The same goes with different existing spatial conditions. The majority of plots along the river do not fall under a specific municipal administration structure. Therefore, an key mission of the proposal is to intervene along the different conditions along the river in an integrated manner, creating a unified development and potentially single administrative area.

img 1: Social housing in the area Odysseas Diakakis, personal archive img 2: Self-build area Odysseas Diakakis, personal archive img 3: Colonial part Odysseas Diakakis, personal archive

PRODUCED BY AN AUTODESK EDUCATIONAL PRODUCT

300m

Socioeconomic and administrative borders Group Work

87 PRODUCED BY AN AUTODESK EDUCATIONAL PRODUCT

Urban Limits The territory of El Harrach River is not only fragmented socioeconomically, but also spatially. Major infrastructure has caused this spatial fragmentation throughout the El Harrach river area.

High-speed vehicular bridges run across residential districts and cross the river at various points. The massive structures create major circulation obstacles between different residential districts and along the riverbanks. The newly built tram and rail line run along the western bank of the river and across the river towards the south. The track lines create circulation obstacles between districts, where accessing the river becomes a major challenge. Introverted residential neighbourhoods and industrial zones have been created due to the slicing infrastructure structures. The flow of activity and flow of circulation from one area to another is a lacking desirable character. 1

img 1: Elevated bridge Odysseas Diakakis, personal archive img 2: Tramway Odysseas Diakakis, personal archive img 3: Elevated road Odysseas Diakakis, personal archive

300m

Urban Limits Group Work

Open and Vacant Spaces El Harrach river is one of the major urban voids and sites of underdevelopment within the built up, urban fabric of Algiers. Along the river are numerous leftover and undeveloped sites as well as degraded building sites. Such sites had to be further identified and evaluated. Therefore, vacant, adaptable, green, and leftover plots were highlighted to allow for an approximation of the potential territory of intervention. Although poor in condition in their current state, most of the identified sites lie within interesting urban and social settings. The numerous potential sites have various sizes, shapes and are fragmented and scattered across the area. Green plots, whether parks or unmanaged green sites, were also identified. Such sites would become potential adaptable or integrated green areas into the design intervention. 1

img 1: Brown site Odysseas Diakakis, personal archive img 2: Open space Odysseas Diakakis, personal archive img 3: River side Odysseas Diakakis, personal archive

Brown sites Vacant spaces Green Spaces

300m

Open and vacant spaces Group Work

Land Uses A survey across the El Harrach region was carried out to identify the main land uses currently present. As anticipated, the urban fabric is mainly occupied by residential uses. Most of the residential districts are isolated from the riverbanks by crossing infrastructure lines. Sandwiched between major infrastructure and the river are areas of heavy and light industrial programs. Major petroleum and construction material plants are located towards the northern stretch of the river. Lighter industries, such as carpentry, food packaging, and textile factories occupy sites along the rest of the river. The Eastern side of the river is site of two main military camps. These military walled complexes create programmatic and spatial voids within the built fabric. Civic facilities are dotted across the El Harrach area, ranging from educational, healthcare, and sports facilities. The main observation from analysing the land uses is the concentration of residential uses in districts lacking serious communal and commercial programs within them. The concentration of industrial uses also portrays monotonous zoning, creating dysfunctional areas by night. The industrial zones along the river further lead to the lack of public circulation across the short span of the river.

The numerous conclusions extracted from the land use analysis helped shape the intentions of the design proposal informing a more comprehensive program distribution providing for the new proposal along with allowing for deficiencies in the existing context 2

img 1: Local mosque Odysseas Diakakis, personal archive img 2: University Odysseas Diakakis, personal archive img 3: Market Odysseas Diakakis, personal archive

Civic amenities Commercial Cultural use Education Health facilities Accommodation Industrial land Military land Religious Sport facilities

300m

Transport facilities Land Uses Group Work

Territory of intervention

300m

In setting the territory of Intervention, we amalgamated vacant, adaptable, green, and leftover plots. This approach allows for a surgical intervention within the complex setting.

Conclusion Improving the degraded social and spatial conditions of the El Harrach area requires an overall alteration strategy for the urban stretch of the river. Therefore, by setting up seven main strategies at the urban scale allows for an overall intervention and not a fragmented development of isolated monotonous housing districts. Traces of existing industrial and agricultural productivity are enhanced in order to make the El Harrach river a productive and income generating territory, creating jobs and a sense of communal character. The housing intervention within the territory of the river will take place in a surgical manner within sites that form spatial gaps in the contextâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s fabric. A Hierarchy of communal programs are allocated in each housing district, to create focal centralities within the area and to also encourage the circulation of residents and visitors from one district to another. An additional strategy is to tie in existing civic facilities and areas of interests, such as parks and forests. The proposed intervention is envisioned to develop in different phases, starting from the most improvised areas towards the better-planned areas. This underlay of strategies sets a ground for the next hierarchy of design intervention.

II. The Design Intervention: an Alternative Approach to Housing Development The site analysis and initial development strategies have allowed for a comprehensive understanding of the site of intervention. With the multi-scalar understanding of the social and spatial conditions, a set of responsive strategies is proposed at three different scales: the scale of the riverâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s territory, the residential district, and the domestic unit. The strategies respond to the identified problems in the existing models of housing development. The main design strategies constructing the design intervention are: Activating the Riverbanks, achieving a gradient of program, privacy and ownership through the notion of the threshold, a typological approach to flexible housing, the creation of a common ground, and the introduction of three distinctive urban characters.

1. Activating the Riverbanks One of the main aspirations of the alternative housing development intervention is to incorporate spatial reforms to the regional context. Therefore the El Harrach River is not merely a site of intervention, but also a principal component of the responsive design proposition. The improvements to the social and spatial conditions of the El Harrach area would not be conceivable without an overall alteration strategy for the urban stretch of the river. Therefore, we propose to intervene at the scale of the riverâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s territory by motivating the areaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s productivity and economic generation as an underlay to the housing intervention. The spatial gaps identified through the analysis process become the sites of the housing interventions. The introduction of new housing districts is overlapped by a set of proposed central nodes and communal facilities to further activate the territory. The aim is to also connect and integrate the housing intervention with what already exists in the surroundings. The following section will further define the different intervention strategies responding to the scale of the riverâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s territory.

102

Existing Productivity Fatema Al-Sehlawi

Heavy and light industries are located along the urban stretch of the El Harrach River, while agricultural fields are spread along its Southern, more rural stretch. This programmatic base constructs a foundation for our intention to hybridize our proposal between housing and supporting programs. The ambition is to preserve and integrate with participatory light industries. Urban agriculture is introduced in vacant sites. This allows for social and spatial cohesion and economic stimulation of existing productive communities as well as creating new ones. 103

104

Mediating Housing Georgios Garofalakis

A challenge of the site is the existence of residential neighbourhoods that are socio-economically, spatially, and programmatically fragmented. These gaps create grounds for our proposed housing intervention that aim to create a catalyst for cohesion in these areas of fragmentation. The infill housing districts are envisioned to contain a programmatic mix with residential and support programs. The presence of commercial or communal programs and outlets would ensure the exchange of inhabitants from one district across to another. This intention attempts dissolve the introversion and self-containment of each residential district, allowing integration with those adjacent to them. 105

106

Proposed Centralities Georgios Garofalakis

The potential of the existing core programs are built upon to create centralities which in turn are used to construct and dictate a character for each zone, central points to create a hierarchy in the urban setting, and linkages to adjacent neighbourhoods. The central core programs are envisioned to range between mosques, markets, and civic as well as cooperate centers. A following evaluation of existing civic core programs would dictate this allocation. 107

108

Phasing Fatema Al-Sehlawi

The development of the site is proposed to start at the less privileged areas with lower living and economic conditions. The housing interventions in such sites would benefit the communities, raise living conditions, and help integrate fragmented communities. The development would then move to areas with better conditions. 109

Integrating Existing Programs Dimitra Christodoulou

As described in the land use analysis, the El Harrach area consists of various dotted civic facilities and communal programs. Such programs are isolated from some residential districts due to infrastructure limits. The impermeable river in turn creates another layer of division between various districts. Hence, residents living across the river from them do not easily reach the existing civic programs. The aim is to bridge the river at specific moments that would connect main civic programs. Therefore, a network of accessibility is ensured between programs intended to serve a larger catchment area.

Existing Civic Facilities Group Work

An analysis of existing civic facilities was carried out to evaluate the catchment areas covered by each. Schools, healthcare centres, mosques, and sports facilities were identified. The addition of unnecessary major civic programs was to be avoided. Instead, the project aims to connect to and integrate existing facilities in order to make maximum use of them and promote cross-neighborhood interaction. 112

Mosques

Sports Facilities

Healthcare

Educational Institutions

113

Proposed Civic Facilities Group Work The project then inserts new facilities that are not covered by the existing catchment areas. The larger number of local mosques required within the territory of intervention was due to each mosqueâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s narrow catchment area at the neighborhood scale. Health centers and a sports facility were also added across the site. The civic programs make up the central nodes proposed as part of the intervention, and allow for a variety of urban formations within the residential district they are located in.

Population Threshold Nursery Primary School

1 per 1,500 people 4,500-5,500

Maximum Driving Distance

Maximum Walking Distance

Minimum Site Area

1 km

0.02 ha

15m

1-1.5 km

2.8 ha w/ 0.9 Ha field

Secondary School

10,000

25m

1.5-2 km

4.8 Ha w/ 0.9 Ha field

Educational Institution

5,000

45m

0.6 ha

Health Clinic

5,000-15,000

15m

1.5 km

0.2 - 0.6 ha

Community Health Centre

50,000

30m

2.5 km

1.5 ha

Local Market

4,000

1 km from public transport

0.02 - 4 ha

Community Centre

20,000

15m

1.5 km

0.2 - 0.5 ha

Civic Centre

200,000

30m

2.5 km

1 - 2 ha

Mosque

2,000

10m

250 - 450 m

800 - 3,500 m2 GFA

Post Office

10,000

15m

1.5 km

0.01 - 0.03 Ha

Library

20,000

15m

0.05 - 0.1 Ha

Police Station

60,000

25m

5 km

0.1 - 1 Ha

Neighbourhood

0.3 Ha per 1000

Park

people

15m

1 km

1 Ha

Community Park

20,000

25m

1.5 - 3 km

1.5 - 8 Ha

Multi-purpose Sport Hall

12,000

25m

1.5 - 3 km

0.35 Ha

Football Training Field

4,000

15m

1.5 km

0.55 Ha

114

115

2. Design Development This chapter intends to illustrate the design component thesis project. Starting at the small scale, the different designed typologies of housing units are explained. The typologies are used in different configurations for different sites, responding to different existing site conditions and desired spatial qualities. A matrix of design principles overviews the different design responses and possible configurations of the housing typologies. A portion of the overall territory of intervention is chosen as a testing ground for the design composition at a master plan level. We then present a closer view of what this master plan contains and the different envisioned urban characters.

118

The Site of the Design Development

A portion of the whole river strategy has been developed in more detail to illustrate how the clusters can create a possible scheme. The illustrated design principles become the building blocks of a potential master plan. The principles can be applied to various sites, depending on the given conditions. The portion of the El Harrach River that has been chosen for more detailed elaboration was selected due to the various spatial and social conditions present in. This portion is also site of what we envisioned to be a gradient merging between industrial housing, agricultural housing, and civic housing districts. 119

The Notion of the Threshold The analysis of the current housing development models revealed the problematic nature of outdoor spaces within the housing districts.

A trait found not only in the current models but also in the ZHUN housing models of the 1970â&#x20AC;&#x2122;s, is the lack of communal and social interaction at the left over spaces between housing blocks. This could be due to the lack of integrated landscaping and communal facilities. However, the design of the housing block itself contributes to the absence of threshold spaces in between buildings and outdoor spaces, which could act as catalysts of activity generation and social interaction on the ground planes. By studying pictures of older parts of Algiers, its Casbah and the French quarters, we found that this notion of the threshold layer did exist and still continues to become an important factor in achieving the vitality of street life still present today. During our visit to Morocco, we experienced both the presence and absence

images on the following spread: Morocco trip documentation, study about threshold. Georgios Garofalakis, personal archive

120

of the threshold layer while visiting different housing districts. The interstitial spaces provide a blur between the private and public parts of the street, allowing for activities to spill out from the housing units while the passing public interacts with them. One of the projectâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s intentions is to reintroduce the element of the threshold layer within the built fabric of the housing districts. The in-between spaces would support the gradient of privacy element of the design and also support the programmatic occupations of the ground floor. Different levels of threshold occupation dimensions are studied for the various widths of streets found in the El Harrach area. The notion of the threshold is incorporated at the housing typology scale, making it an integral design component.

Road

Street

Alley

Local Cafe Grocery Workshops Car Mechanic Produce store Food market

Road width: 12m Sidewalk width: 3m Ground floor setback: 0m - 2m Threshold occupation of sidewalk: 73%

Street width: 6m Sidewalk width: 1m Ground floor setback: 0m - 2m Threshold occupation of sidewalk: 65%

Alley width: 3m Sidewalk width: 0m Ground floor setback: 0m - 2m Threshold occupation of sidewalk: 0%

Hardware store Clothing shop Tailor Material supplier Took store

Road width: 12m Sidewalk width: 3m Ground floor setback: 0m - 2m Threshold occupation of sidewalk: 40%

Street width: 6m Sidewalk width: 1m Ground floor setback: 0m - 2m Threshold occupation of sidewalk: 25%

Alley width: 3m Sidewalk width: 0m Ground floor setback: 0m - 2m Threshold occupation of sidewalk: 0%

Local clinic Pharmacy Barber shop Hairdresser Butcher

Road width: 12m Sidewalk width: 3m Ground floor setback: 0m - 2m Threshold occupation of sidewalk: 50%

Street width: 6m Sidewalk width: 1m Ground floor setback: 0m - 2m Threshold occupation of sidewalk: 50%

Alley width: 3m Sidewalk width: 0m Ground floor setback: 0m - 2m Threshold occupation of sidewalk: 0%

Low Threshold Occupation

Medium Threshold Occupation

High Threshold Occupation

Use

121

122

123

Creation of the Common Ground Creating a common ground across the territory of intervention has been a driving factor behind many design decisions.

Domestic Unit Regulated facade but flexibility of personal configuration

Block Extended ownership of space Local Economic Generators

River/Quarter Starting at the housing unit, the element of the threshold extends to connect to adjacent outdoor spaces, which in turn extend towards the more public spaces within the hierarchy of open spaces. At the micro scale, each unit includes an economic generating space on the ground floor, housing some sort of communal program. This space, referred to as the generator, activates the ground floor spaces of the housing districts while allowing the public to pass through them. The generator programs spill out to the threshold spaces, extending the area of activity and the area of the shopkeeper or residentâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s management and ownership. The hierarchy of open spaces accessible by the common public extends to integrate and link existing public spaces currently isolated. 124

A hierarchical system of communal spaces

Current Realm Non functional communal spaces

Distinctive Urban Characters The overall design intervention consists mainly of residential development. The research revealed that typically the housing is developed in a fragmented way with minimal access to other amenities.

The urban fabric of the civic quarter.

In response to this the project works with three distinct urban characters of residential districts. The intention is to improve the riverbankâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s productivity levels and generate income by promoting areas of light industrial activities as well as urban agricultural production. This allows for the overlapping of such programs and facilities within residential districts. The third urban character proposed mainly consists of housing units with communal spaces and facilities on the ground level. Such spaces can be rented or operated by the residents. These districts are more civic in character, focusing less on productive activities and more on communal facilities and commerce. Each programmatic overlap works with a different building typologies and urban fabrics. Three different urban fabrics are envisioned for the different residential conditions. In areas of agricultural activity, the built up fabric is proposed to have a gradient of density, with the lowest most dispersed parts along the river edge. The open spaces follow a gradient of privacy, being more private towards the dense civic areas, and more public towards the river edge. The civic districts are composed of uniformly dense, interlocking housing units.

The urban fabric of the industrial housing quarter.

The urban fabric of the agricultural housing quarter.

125

Single Family Unit Area: Housing 72 - 144 sqm | Generator 55 sqm Number of rooms: 2 - 4

Adapted Structure

Provided Structure

Typical Floor Plan

Ground Floor Plan

Number of residents: 4 - 8

Extended Family Unit

Multiple Familly Commercial Block

Area: Housing 135 - 270 sqm |

Area: Housing 860 sqm |

Generator 135 - 270 sqm Number of rooms: 2 - 4

Generator 325 sqm Number of rooms: 2

Number of residents: 4 - 8

Number of residents: 4

Industrial Housing Unit

Agricultural Housing Unit

Area: Housing 84 - 168 sqm |

Area: Housing 108 - 216 sqm |

Generator 67 sqm Number of rooms: 3 - 6

Generator 487 sqm Number of rooms: 4 - 8

Number of residents: 6 - 12

Number of residents: 8 - 16

A Typological Approach Group Work The typological prototypes are designed to vary between three different categories: housing and commercial or civic amenities, housing and industrial activities, and housing and agriculture activities. The hybrid types create the main building block of the design intervention. Some of the problems identified in the existing housing delivery models are responded to at the scale of the dwelling unit. The proposed typologies are made up of structures that simplify constructibility and delivery methods in an attempt to aid in resolving the housing shortage. As mentioned before, rigid monotonous Housing Developments offer a lack of flexibility and spatial adaptability. Therefore, the proposed alternative typologies allow for the expansion of the dwelling unit as the family expands. In addition, the model allows for the possibility of multiple ownerships and the possibility of renting different parts of the dwelling unit. The different types offer the opportunity of running commercial and production activities within the building structure. Therefore, the mono-functionality of current housing districts is avoided. The overlapping of housing with other programs creates the proposed hybrid typologies and allows for a social infrastructure bonding the residential community. Three models of the civic housing unit are developed: the single-family unit, extended family unit, and multiple family apartment blocks. This variation caters to the demand on the different housing models currently present in Algiers. While the civic housing units allow for commercial or communal activities within their ground floor, the agricultural housing unit allows for cultivation plots and selling or storage sheds. The industrial housing unit in turn allows for workshops to set up on the ground floor and extended out door spaces for production.

Responses +Clusters forming urban courtyards neighborhood feeling +Overhangs for the promotion of the â&#x20AC;&#x153;thresholdâ&#x20AC;?

Design Principles Group Work

Identified conditions

Current

The typologies are used in different configurations on different sites, responding to existing site conditions and desired spatial qualities. This matrix of design principles summarizes the different design responses and possible configurations of the housing typologies. The matrix tests different spatial site conditions against different programmatic conditions. The left column illustrates current examples of pedestrianized areas, areas with dominant vehicular streets, areas with major infrastructure, conditions along the river, and areas of recreational parks and open spaces. These conditions are then tested against the possibility of having purely residential fabrics, scenarios with civic facilities, commercial strips, urban cores, industrial facilities, and agricultural plots. An additional layer that this matrix reveals is the possibility of achieving different gradients of privacy within each customized fabric. Each scenario creates a distinct pattern of hierarchy in open spaces. Hence, a variety of spatial formations and characters are achieved when different scenarios are amalgamated to construct an integrated district. Following are modelled examples of different configurations each treating a specific urban condition and incorporating a specific set of programs. The elements of the generator, threshold space, and hierarchy of open space are highlighted. 128

Pedestrian Internal -Undefined open spaces -Numerous dead ends -Disconnection -Lack of spatial definition

Vehicular street -Lack of pedestrian paths -Lack of character -Lack of accessibility to the civic part

Infrastructure /limit -Harsh limits -Lack of treatment

River -Lack of access -Lack of civic activities -Lack of management

Park -Monotony -Limited availability

Civic

+Combination with open shared spaces +Neighborhood assistance + Defined by regular grid

Civic facilities

+Clusters of commercial activities promenades +Distribution promoting circulation

Commercial

+Wider streets for service +Towards connectivity areas

Industrial

+Housing connected with distribution of land +Agriculture used as urban landscape

Agriculture

129

Civic - Pedestrian Internal Georgios Garofalakis 130

Civic facilities - River front Georgios Garofalakis 131

841

Commercial - Vehicular Street Dimitra Christodoulou 132

Industry - Vehicular Street Dimitra Christodoulou 133

Agriculture - Park Fatema Al-Sehlawi 134

135

Masterplan Group Work

The masterplan is constituted by a series of layers of design elements, that when combined result to the final scheme.

The Existing Condition

The existing condition includes different urban fabrics each with a distinct character and form. Further challenging components of the existing condition are heavy infrastructure, including rail lines and vehicular highways. The river at its current state remains poorly bridged with degraded conditions along both riverbanks.

136

Circulation network The proposed organization of the housing intervention assures connectivity between different edges, districts, as well as along and across the river. The attempt is to bridge not only the river, but the fragments between main civic programs and different housing districts.

Built fabric and programs The proposed organization of the housing intervention assures connectivity between different edges, districts, as well as along and across the river. The attempt is to bridge not only the river, but the fragments between main civic programs and different housing districts.

Landscape element & common ground

The landscape component expands the territory of intervention to tie in existing adjacent programs such as schools, sports facilities, and civic centers. The variation in the landscaping element corresponds to different urban characters and hierarchy of open spaces.

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Masterplan Group Work

The proposal creates an urban setting that responds to multi scalar economic stimulation, such as job creation and productivity, and also creating multi scales of functional shared open spaces. The following section of the thesis will delve into different areas of the master plan in more detail and explain the specific intentions and design elements. The overlays expose different levels of information or design components of the master plan. Each layer reveals a response to one of the specific problematic spatial or social issues highlighted previously.

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The Civic Housing District Dimitra Christodoulou

The elaborated master plan contains all three different urban fabrics described earlier. The central, and most frequent urban fabric found in the master plan is the civic housing district.

These areas comprise of the residential typologies hybridized with commercial and communal spaces. A portion of such character is chosen here to illustrate the intentions and design elements in more detail. Uniformly dense, interlocking housing units are proposed for the civic housing districts. Although following linear streets, the formation of housing clusters vary from one another depending on the rotation, interlocking, and sizes of units. The interlocking of units creates local courtyards making these spaces more private. Each courtyard is unique in shape and size and becomes an outdoor extension of the surrounding units. The open spaces become more public as they approach central civic facilities, shown as a health clinic in this example.

In such civic neighbourhoods, the typologies inserted all offer the flexibility of allowing communal or commercial activities to take place at the ground floor. Such ground floor activity would create a common ground accessible by the public in most areas of residential districts. This character is unlike existing residential quarters around the El Harrach River. The unit residents have the option to run the ground floor activity or rent it to other operators â&#x20AC;&#x201C; in both scenarios generating a small amount of income and serving as a public activity. Vehicular activity is restricted to few a vehicular streets, allowing most of the public outdoor areas to remain pedestrian. Car parking also runs along these vehicular streets. Therefore, the clusters appear to be introverted towards pedestrian and courtyard active spaces rather than facing busy vehicular roads.

Residential units & access: 1,290m2 - 9.1% Generator: 2,527m2 - 17% Parking: 1,200m2 - 8.5% Built up ground area: 4,883m2 - 34.6% Open space: 9,229m2 - 65.4%

Program distribution

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Parking

Pedestrial network

Residential Units

Courtyard

Generators

Threshold Common ground

Figure ground

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A gradient of materiality - civic stripe Fatema Al-Sehlawi 142

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The Civic Housing Units Georgios Garofalakis

Three models of the civic housing unit are developed: the singlefamily unit, extended family unit, and multiple family apartment blocks. This variation caters to the demand on the different housing models currently present in Algiers.

In the single-family unit, the ground floor could contain commercial and communal uses or be transformed into an additional smaller housing unit. The entrance to the main housing unit is through a staircase accessed from a setback outdoor area. The structure, as with the other typologies, allows the expansion of the unit horizontally as well as vertically. The plan and spatial configuration of the single-family unit varies depending on its placement within the built up cluster. A constant ground floor setback allows for spaces of threshold activities and transition in privacy towards the dwelling unit.

The extended family unit allows for extended families to live across from one another. The families could share common spaces such as kitchens and outdoor courtyards. The ground floor can be run by separate families with separate activities, while also allowing for the amalgamation of individual spaces to create a larger area run collectively.

The multiple family apartment block allows for a greater variety of unit sizes. The vertical and horizontal circulation is less private in this type, they allowing for a sense of communal interaction and integration within the blockâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s shared outdoor space. As these blocks are usually located along infrastructural limits, they allow for public commercial and communal activities to take place in units facing towards such conditions to be operated by the blockâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s residents or others. 144

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Elevation of the civic cluster Dimitra Christodoulou

View of civic housing courtyard Georgios Garofalakis

The Industrial Housing District Fatema Al-Sehlawi

The second urban fabric found in the partial master plan is the industrial housing district. Such districts are mainly located along the northern stretch of the El Harrach River, where existing industrial facilities are located. The ambition is to inject as much housing as possible in what is currently a sterile purely industrial portion of the river. While intervening within the existing industrial zones, the proposed scheme aims to hybridize housing with industrial workshop productive facilities. The aim is to enhance the levels of production along the river whilst promoting the creation of specialized communities such as carpenters or textile producers. A portion of the industrial housing zone is chosen to further illustrate the design intention and details. The industrial nature of this district requires wider and more frequent transportation routes. Therefore, each housing unit is located in close proximity to a

vehicular road, with loading areas connected to them. The density of the built up fabric remains constant across the industrial housing districts. Pedestrian paths are located in between different housing units, allowing for a second layer of outdoor spaces with greater privacy serving each unit. Industrial productive workshops are located at the ground floors of most housing units. Where housing units are closer to the river front, ground floor activities become more commercial and recreational. Programs such as shops, cafĂŠs, and communal programs would take place in such parts of the district. The river front remains publicly accessible with points of central boat docks.

Residential units & access: 440m2 - 3.5% Generator: 2,422m2 - 17% Parking: 912m2 - 6.5% Built up ground area: 3,810m2 - 27% Open space: 10,301m2 - 73%

Pedestrian network

Program distribution

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Parking

River front treatment

Residential Units

Courtyard

Generators

Threshold Common ground

Figure ground

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A gradient of materiality - Industrial stripe Fatema Al-Sehlawi 152

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The Industrial Housing Unit Dimitra Christodoulou

The industrial housing typology integrates housing with the industrial nature of the area.

The exterior structure of each dwelling unit allows for spatial flexibility and expansion. The structure also allows for the ground floor to remain as a clear-span workshop area. The ground floor workshop facilities allow for the families to run specialized crafts or production, generating an income and stimulating the economy. Outdoor spaces surrounding the workshop facilities are spaces where the production activities can spill out and expand for additional space. Each unit benefits from a private outdoor courtyard while also including a set back publicly accessible outdoor threshold area.

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Elevation of the industrial cluster Dimitra Christodoulou

View of industrial housing courtyard Georgios Garofalakis

The Agricultural Housing District Georgios Garofalakis

The Third urban fabric found in the partial master plan is the agricultural housing district. This condition is found toward the southern stretch of the river, extending the existing agricultural activities found in the rural south upwards. These areas comprise of residential typologies hybridized with storage areas, selling sheds, and cultivation plots. An example district is chosen here to illustrate the intentions and design elements in more detail. The agricultural housing units form a rigid and continuous built up areas along vehicular roads and towards the more civic edges. The intensity and density of housing units then disperses through a gradient towards the river edge of the districts. In the later case, the fabric becomes highly permeable with an increase in the number and size of cultivation plots. Hence, open spaces become more publicly accessible towards the river front. Similarly to the civic housing typologies, the agricultural housing typologies offer both

areas for possible generation of income as well as structural and spatial flexibility. The production, communal and commercial activities take place on the ground floor of the units to promote the social and spatial integration with the surrounding. Vehicular transportation is also limited to streets distant from the public character of the river front. Parking is placed along these streets, ensuring that all remaining open spaces are preserved as purely pedestrian. The river filters through into the built up and plantation areas in order to aid in irrigation networks. The public shared river front bridges over such irrigation canals and offers a continuous accessible pedestrian area for the districtâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s residents and visitors.

Residential units & access: 1,280m2 - 9.1% Generator: 553m2 - 3.9% Outdoor Generator/ agricultural land: 2,492m2 - 18% Parking: 435m2 - 3.1% Built up ground area: 2,272m2 - 16.1% Open space: 11,840m2 - 83.9%

Pedestrian network

Program distribution

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Parking

River front treatment

Residential Units

Courtyard

Generators

Threshold Common ground

Figure ground

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A gradient of materiality - Agricultural stripe Fatema Al-Sehlawi 162

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The Agricultural Housing Typology Fatema Al-Sehlawi

The agricultural housing typology takes into account spatial and programmatic needs of residential units found within active agricultural fields in rural areas of Algiers.

Each housing unit has the flexibility to grow vertically. Hence, the residents have the option to retain the ground floor spaces as storage and workshop areas. Each unit is attached to a private garden towards its riverside. The garden can be taken advantage of for uses related to the agricultural production. Small sheds located at the outer edges of the garden, can be used as spaces for equipment storage or shacks where the agricultural produce is sold to the public. Each unit is then allocated a plot for further agricultural activities.

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Elevation of agricultural cluster Dimitra Christodoulou 166

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View of agricultural housing units Georgios Garofalakis 168

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3. Conclusions

Fatema Al-Sehlawi There remains a chronic crisis of housing supply in Algiers due to multiple consequences of historical political instability and continuous population growth.

A further reasoning behind the shortage is the monopolistic attitude of housing development carried out by the Algerian government, comprised of incompetent housing development models. The Algerian government continues to implement ZHUN housing models from the 1970â&#x20AC;&#x2122;s as well as the imported universal model of the highrise apartment block. The study of the consequences derived from the implemented models led to a set of criteria guiding the design response. The housing development proposal narrated throughout this thesis is a pedagogic responsive approach towards the current methods of housing development in Algiers. The Algerian government currently plans to complete 2 million social housing units by 2017. The design intervention is proposed as a possible model to be developed by the government and not a perfect alternative replacing the existing model. The evolution of the city was studied and analyzed at several scales and disciplines, revealing effects of the multiple generations of political transformations, cultural shifts, demographic compositions, urban development, and economic conditions. The multi-scalar understanding of the notion of housing the Algerian was derived from the research period and in turn sets the multiscalar predicaments to respond to. With the possibility for the housing model to be implemented elsewhere in the city, The El Harrach River was chosen as a test ground. The given contextual social and spatial conditions allowed for a research and design approach that offer a realistic response, while experimenting through the a new architectural intervention. The resulting proposal I believe, achieves a sensibility in responding to the given problematic conditions of the governmental housing model by intervening to improve the socioeconomic condition, the spatial

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fragmentation, the quality of design, and the efficiency in terms of construction time and cost. A continuous aim during the design process was to achieve an urban design response that intricately works with the existing rather than attempting to gentrify the territory of intervention as a solution. The methods and outcomes of the research exercise allowed for an in-depth understanding and approach to an urban design experiment. The methods or research and design response led to a broader understanding of how to unravel the multi-layered conditions found in a city like Algiers; hence, fostering this educational and practical skill for future ventures. The knowledge gained does not stop at the scale of Algiers, but rather allows for a broader understanding of the Mediterranean geopolitical region, the Middle East and North Africa, as well as global cities facing similar notions of dilemmas in housing development. Undertaking the research and design project as a team had many benefits. A personal gain was the experience of working within a group of multi-disciplinary academic backgrounds ranging from urban planning to architecture. The constant exchange of different ideologies, skills, and knowledge was a key factor in accomplishing the final outcomes of the project.

Dimitra Christodoulou The research of Algiers, stands as a paradigm and a case study within the wider frame of the Mediterranean territory.

The problems identified in the city are similar across the Middle East region thus, relevant in a wider scale and affecting a significant amount of population. The study of Algiers, revealed a complexity of socio - political, economic, historical parameters which concluded to a fragmented spatial formation of the city. The research and design project has as focal point the response to the main current issue of the city, the housing shortage. The problem initialized from the French colonial era, due to the extensive rural migration and rapid urbanization. The appearance of slums to the outskirts of the city along with the implementation of problematic social housing typologies characterize the city’s urban fabric. Although the problem is being identified by the government, the approach practised is proved inadequate. The problem not only remains, furthermore multiplies and erratic ‘solutions’ are implemented across the city. The so called ‘gulf recipe’ projects implemented and the Chinese high rise repetitive housing developments are examples of the current reality of the city. The discourse of the housing shortage in Algiers, is framed incorrectly, focused in a numerical concern rather than delivering as well a certain quality of spatial, social and economic standards.

The design project operates in different scales, addressing the problems identified respectively. The research informed the design leading to the proposal that took into consideration the context of adjacent communities, programs, and typologies. The scheme applied, aims to connect the fragmented sites and communities, upgrade the area economically, spatially and propose a new housing delivery system through specific typologies. The new typologies respond to the scale of existing ones in the site and the city, the existing social conditions and economic situation. Although the scheme is designed based on the site, urban rules in the scale of the quarter and typologies in the scale of the block and unit are proposed, allowing a general implementation across the city adjusting to the needs of each site. The achievement of social and spatial connections, underlie my personal interest in the project, leading to an ongoing research in current housing proposals within the urban context. Furthermore, the typical current urban approach is being reconsidered, thus conducting the project also as a starting point of a personal further investigation of space and design.

Within this context, the site selection was the overlapping of different conditions. El Harrach river, one of the three main rivers of Algiers, is one of the proposed new centralities by the government, a promoted current development site, and a site consisted of vacant or adaptable plots. The site is also a representative paradigm of the city, consisting out of an antithetical socio economic background, a variety of typological findings, and a diversity of programmatic distribution.

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Georgios Garofalakis The urban reality of the city of Algiers today is a result of various socio political movements creating a rather complex environment

Housing has always been an immense problem for the city starting by the housing shortage the feeling of ownership of space and the lack of a worth living urban environment. The city constitutes a bricolage of multiple housing typologies that each represents not only a different urban and social condition but a distinctive political period. This study helped us identify not only the main elements other could influence the design process but also issues that needed to be addressed. The main issues that were identified through the typological research lead us to investigate and design in a multi scalar approach in order to create an urban reality that has a variety of characters and urban structures, allows adaptability and promotes a functional system of shared spaces. The selection of the site took under consideration the vision of the city of Algiers and the current conditions of space. The El Harrach river is not only a point of interest for the development of the city but represents a perfect example of its complex situation. My personal aspirations that influenced my design process begins with the investigation of the notion of the threshold and the idea of the extension of privacy into the shared realm of space. This idea promoted the logic of the creation of a system that promotes an extended ownership of space in the city. In the history and theory part of the course I investigated further a housing project of the city the “200 colonnes” that constitutes an fine example of its urban conditions, the element of the reappropriation of space and the idea of the role of a designer in a city played a significant role in the design process. Understanding the reality of the chosen site, not only in terms of its urban elements, its socioeconomic conditions but also the greater reality in the scale of the city and the

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modern world was an important structural element of the project. Thus the scheme attempts to connect the missing links of the current approach of the government that identifies the housing issue in term of numbers (by proposing copy-paste solution in the city) and the fact that the mega developments approach resinates a fundamental problem for the development of the city - the need of massive plots instead of existing space in the extends of the city. The proposed scheme approaches space in a surgical way, implementing the solution of a smaller type in the city whose development is significantly supported by the idea of local economic boost through what we refer to “generators”. The project opens a great field for further investigation, a new possibility for a housing development process that resinates in to the local needs but also is composed from the logic of a world that is developing rapidly allowing for a profitable yet sensitive delivery system.

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4. Appendix

Mapping the Mediterrenean The horizontal workshop combined group members from different cities to explore the Mediterranean through new conceptual methods. It was a process of understanding the sea and our individual cities in a richer and more comprehensive way.

climate

Our group concentrated on the boundaries of the Mediterranean. What is a boundary? What are the boundaries of the territory, policies, environment, or economics? Can these be mapped? These are the questions we attempted to answer in combining the boundaries of climate and agriculture, energy use, international water borders, and migration data. The final map shows the boundaries of what may be considered Mediterranean-ness. The resulting complicated web of borders shows how complex the issues of the Mediterranean really are. Group members: Fatema Al-v Dimitra Christodoulou Nithita Fongtanakit Georgios Garofalakis Zhongxing Huang Artemis Karaiskou Jing Lin Lily Tsolakidi Christina Varvogli Lavanya Venugopal Meng Xu

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energy systems

international waters

migration

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Elia Zenghelis Workshop

The site of intervention chosen is one that was developed to become the City’s new cultural centre in the early 1980’s. The attempt failed, leaving behind an unused disconnected complex of buildings, open spaces and a ruthless monument which the population labelled as the “monument of Scandals”

The structure bridges the higher more affluent, commercial, civic, and industrial zones of the area with the coastline. Hence, creating a common ground connecting different segments of the population, different uses and infrastructure, which occurs within the structure as well.

The Complex is strategically located high on a hilltop giving it a dominant panoramic visual connection to and from different parts of the city.

The proposed structure inhabits the central location through absorbing excess sprawl into this alternative development. It is dramatic in scale, a wall in appearance, but aims to create a common ground through different interventions and integrations with the existing conditions at the ground level where it crosses.

As the scale of development increased in Algiers, more urban elements suffered from spatial & social disconnection. This site is an example of such a predicament.

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Computational Tests The logic behind the tests follows the concept of the gradient of common shared spaces. Parametric testing allows us to create a quick catalogue of different examples and choose from variety of options the ones that approach the general vision of the project.

Agricultural Part

The current scripts are based on the logic of dissolving space towards a set of attractors, elements such as main roads and the river that promote a different reaction to the gradient resulting to a different urban character. The agricultural part: A linear logic of dissolve is applied in order to create the gradient of urban spaces. The first set of tests is investigating how space can be structured achieving different densities and different formation based on the circulation. The final test takes the most successful result and defines 5 different bands that represent the characters (starting from pure housing, finishing with agriculture). The civic part: The idea is based on the definition of the clusters in a neighborhood. A gradient based on a radial logic that the defined centres of each clusters form the urban clusters. Clusters are formed under specific measurements and when a cluster is smaller than the minimum required space its height is increased to accommodate the same amount of residents. The industrial part: The industrial part is formed based on a regular grid of housing units, the attractor on the first set of tests is the river and the gradual devolve is tested reducing housing units by 20% each time. In the final result two areas where tested that surround the a main axis creating a more permeable space towards the main circulation. 182

Public space and agriculture pattern applied

Civic Part

Industrial Part

Differentiation in height

Based on main axis

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Housing in Algiers Georgios Garofalakis

Located on the hill of Bad el-Oued the largest housing estate in Algiers is one of the French colonial projects designated to relocate “indigenous people” from shanty towns and the oldest part of the city, the Kasbah. Introduction Located on the hill of Bad el-Oued the largest housing estate in Algiers is one of the French colonial projects designated to relocate “indigenous people” from shanty towns and the oldest part of the city, the Kasbah. Designed by the French architect Fernand Pouillon and commissioned by Chevallier the mayor of the city during the 1950s, it compresses and represents a microcosm of the Algerian political and social situation. The design (or the lack of it) of the urban realm in Algiers has always been one of the principle political tools to tame and control people, and it is apparent in every step of its evolution from the Ottoman period, the colonial rule and the current reality. Pouillon was an architect with immense experience in the French building sector and he had developed an extensive selection of works for public and private projects. Being a person that was involved in every stage of the design process made him think and design as an architect, but also as a developer. His profile triggered Chevallier’s interest and he was summoned to become the chief architect of the city, with the main idea to design large scale housing projects as a response to the massive housing shortage. (Avermaete, 2007) Chevallier was the mayor of the city from

1953 until 1958, a sensible politician with a personal love for Arabs, or “the mayor of Arabs” as he was called. He had an ambitious vision for Algeria to become independent, but maintain a cultural and economic link to France. His period is marked with a wide range of experimentation and architectural ambition and such is Pouillon’s project Climat de France. (Celik 1997) The “lifetime” of Climat de France represents the socio political conditions over time in Algiers. Examining Pouillon’s vision, the political implementations of the colonial period and the reformation/reapropriation of this space represents a complete image of the circumstances of the city envisioned through the human scale. The current essay represents in parallel the matter of housing in Algiers and the transformation of the “Climat de France” project, as a series of cause and effect and tries to investigate upon the principles implemented in housing in every historical period as well as the relation between space and people. French Colonialism in Algiers In order to understand the conditions that formed Chevallier’s decision to commission Pouillon as the main architect of the city and the principles that affected Pouillon’s design an investigation of the colonial urban mechanism is required. Algeria was a long lasting colony of France, from 1830 to 1962, it was cherished and considered the capital of French colonies. As the cultural sphere plays an important role in imperialistic colonialism, “architecture and the urban form are key players for the development of culture and the identity of the city” (Celik 1997). The colonial system created an unbalanced relationship between the native people and their perception of space, as a result of 132 years of the colonial presence that changed the way that people use space today. France persistence to

Figure 1: La Mahieddine bidonville, Algiers, 1953

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Figure 2: Nuit de Ramadan (Mohamed Racim, 1950s).

dominate Algeria, the anti-colonial movement that these actions created are key factors to the transformation of the Algerian society. (Dijar 2010) In this point it is important to specify how French colonists identified the houses in Algeria, something that affected deeply their design solutions. Especially Poullion’s personal aspiration was to create a modern hybrid influenced by the traditional housing solutions. In the extensive research of Zeynep Celik (1997) the identification process is presented through time resulting to different types of houses and developments. Initially, the “Indigenous Housing” is presented by Le Corbusier (1967) as a home of the “invisible space”, a refuge, a buffer against the colonial society. A house with appealing elements, the courtyard, the opens to nature - with the use of the terraces, but also with mystical aspects, with a blank planar facade

with minimal openings disconnected with the urban public space, a hidden haven for the local people. Also, the squatter houses or bidonvilles (figure 1) are presented as an important element of the city, first developed in the 1930s accompanying the immigration from the countryside to the centre. Similar with the older part of the city the Casbah, developments that utilise the site and the configuration of space, creating the same isolated relationship of the indigenous house and including a diverse spectrum of functions. Aspects that where considered in the projects that French did. (Celik 1997) As a response to various socio political reasons, squatter areas are not a pattern unique to Algiers, but has parallels in many countries. Nevertheless, the specific mechanisms of the colonial governance played a crucial role in the increase of this phenomenon in Algeria. Usually located on the edges of the city this movement was enforced by the housing shortage during the 1930s (when they first appeared), one of the main reasons of this movement was the impoverishment of the countryside and the attraction of Algiers as an employment centre. In the 19th century France established the French colonial rule, making its mission the “civilising” of the indigenous population. Acknowledging that the urban environment was the absolute expression of culture in the city, the French government “declared an ideological war on the Medina”. (Djiar 2010) A place that nurtured a set of stereotypes and fantasies about the life in the Medina. A community and a lifestyle well preserved away from the eyes of the colonists. Something that was illustrated from various artists (figure 2) creating an even more intriguing background for the “civilised” Europeans. (Djiar 2009) The first action of this war was the demolition and complete destruction of the lower part of the Medina in the April of 1831. The destruction of palaces and mosques followed by the construction of a new European style part of

the city, something that contradicted every spatial attribute of the Ottoman Medina. Their destruction was consequently translated into a psychological trauma for the native society filled with hatred about the deprivation of their cultural heritage. (Djiar 2010) As Franz Fanon (2004) suggests “the colonial world is compartmentalised”, a world of two parts, the colonist, carrying the light, creating pared straight roads and possessing goods and the colonised, a world with no space, people on top of the other, hungry for basic needs, people full of lust and envy. This is exactly how French colonists perceived space, this is exactly how they designed it. French where not equipped with urbanistic tools which were able to address Algeria’s challenges and thus Algeria was a trial and error city in terms of design. And so a city full of racial, cultural and historical difference was created, something that dominates all building activity in Algiers creating a physical and architectural separation. (Celik 1997) Housing Policies The main tool of design introduced by France was the big housing projects or the “Grands Ensembles”, projects that dotted the unbuilt zones on the edge of the city and played a catalytic role in its development. What French colonists suggested was yet another means of separation between the two communities, providing a modern low-cost housing for the Algerians and, in the best of cases, a sanitised summary of the Algerian architecture. (Celik 1997) They were used as a political tool to isolate and tame the indigenous people, but these actions failed to do so. Vividly manifested the War of Independence transformed the social atmosphere of the settlements, turning the public squares and gardens into proper battlegrounds and army stations. For example, on 11 December 1960 about five thousand residents of Diar el-Mahçoul and the

Mahieddine bidonville descended from the hills, joining the demonstrations downtown. (Celik 1997) Relocating indigenous population from shanty towns and the Medina was also one of the main goals of the Grands Ensembles, as they were considered “perfect refuges for terrorists”. By creating a contradiction with the spatial typologies of the common courtyard house of the Kasbah French colonisers tried to configure “the new indigenous flat” that was targeted on creating enduring changes in the community, gender relationship and family structure. (Djiar 2010) What was unexpected though was the fact that the revolutionary armed struggle altered “exactly the same cultural aspects” that the colonisers wanted to alter, as Djiar (2010) shrewdly observed. This process happened as new tactics were required, especially in dense urban areas, as the Medina or shanty towns. The Algerian revolution established what Dijar (2010) refers to as “criteria of Algerianness” aka the patriotism of the individual. Franz Fanon (2004) refers to this cultural change especially regarding the change of the position of the woman in the society. “The abandonment of the veil, the detachment from family life all became gestures of patriotism.” Every house was made open to every Algerian fighter, something that in the past would be considered inappropriate became the “biggest demonstration of patriotism”. This whole process of patchwork of housing and segregation and the never-ending shortage of housing has led to the creation of this peculiar bricolage of urban typologies. And quoting Rolnik (2011) “..the idea of housing as a fundamental right is deeply rooted in Algerian society and that the State considers the question of housing to be one of its main responsibilities..”. More so, the “mystical” character of the architecture and the structure of the city (the isolation of internal space, the maze-like feeling of space, the usage of rooftops for communication) created

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Housing in Algiers Georgios Garofalakis

a secret and really powerful anti-colonial society. “The transformation of the built environment in Algiers had a multidimensional impact on the indigenous population” (Djiar 2009). As Djar (2010) asserts two main threads can be identified: One is the form of native reaction and the frank opposition with the increase of the anti-colonial movement. And the cultural merging that affects both sides (the colonisers and the colonised), leading to a “hybridity” or “transculturation”. Such were the circumstances that affected the colonial housing policy and the design principles of most of the architects that operated in Algiers. Pouillon is considered to be an architect that was sensible about space and his design principles were formed by the traditional principles of design and a respect to the creation of ethical urban conditions. But his design was heavily affected by the colonial housing demands that imposed a hasty approach to construction and the minimum requirements in terms of the housing units.

Figure 3: Climat de France site plan (Celik 1997)

The Design Principles of Climat de France The project is located in a rather isolated area, an urban island that is surrounded by main roads. Its proximity to the dense urban fabric of the Kasbah and the colonial military

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buildings located at the hillside create a challenging condition for a designer. Pouillon’s idea was to use an orthogonal grid following the contour lines and the slope of the valley, as a result the landscape of the site was modified in a process that lasted 18 months. A variety of buildings in different sizes was implemented on the area and every building was composed out of three different apartment units that varied in size and some of them included patios. (Avermaete, 2007) Poullion’s urban design principles where based on the idea of a continuous sequence of open shared spaces that with the aid of architecture, obtain a proper form. This concept was entitled “Promenade Urbain” in which “types, forms and positions of buildings and public spaces are inextricably linked in all cases”. Even the apartments were sometimes oriented in an unconventional way, or places halfway underground in order to create homogeneous façades or well proportioned gardens. Facing the problem of the housing shortage Pouillon was interested in a rapid, economic construction. ‘More and more I started to orient myself towards rapid and economic construction. I elaborated a method, a technique. I reworked the organisation of the construction process in order to make it more rational. I had to solve three problems: prices, deadlines, comfort . . . I was the first one to think simultaneously as an organiser, a financier, an engineer, an inventor and an artist.” (Pouillon, 1968) The centrepiece of the project is a colossal rectangular housing complex in the middle of the site. Its facade is an extremely closed element with opening for windows and private balconies, that are protected by punctured walls. In the inner part a colonnade encircles the 223m long courtyard offering its name “200 Colonnes”. Two main axis are created one crossing the courtyard lengthwise and one perpendicular to it. Pouillon makes a

Figure 4: Climat de France areal photo (fernandpouillon. com)

game of antithesis combining in an interesting way the domestic scale and the monumental character. Looking at the colonnade from the central courtyard gives the feeling of a monument and creates a feeling of awe, but walking in the corridor they create one comes across 200 small shops and a Kasbah neighbourhood feeling. Its size and antithetical character makes it a remarkable experiment of monumental and domestic scale. Oriental and cultural are important determinants in the design of Climat de France, Pouillon is constantly using housing in both human and monumental scale. Elements like balconies in every dwelling, that are protected with a perforated wall, and directed views in order to give privacy and shade are crucial in his design process. A tribute to the traditionally of Kasbah is the vast roof terrace that is designed as a place of socialisation for house chores an element that turned out to be highly unsuccessful as women refused to use

the narrow stairs that were build for access. (Architecture mouvement continuite, 1983) Pouillon’s decision was highly critiqued by Albert-Paul Lentin, a French anti-colonial journalist discussed the “anachronism between the exterior appearance” and the microscopic design of the apartments, that many times had only one bedroom and were lacking a bathroom. But Pouillon claimed that it was a required measure to achieve this monumental scale and give comfort to a broad group of people. (Avermaete, 2007) And quoting his words: “The monument ‘Climat de France’ was born. It encompassed thirty hectares. What to think today of this composition? Is it a success or a failure? I could not say... Nevertheless, I am certain that this architecture was without contempt. Perhaps for the first time in modern times, we have installed human beings in a monument.” (Pouillon, 1968) At a first glance the project appears to be a collection of independent entities but the design process was well thought. The landscape is “internalised and defined by its surrounding elements”. The idea of the modern isolated building block is still a principal element but three architectural methods were being used in order to achieve a cohesion on the project. Beginning with the choice of materials, natural stone was being used to create the walls on the perimeter gave character to the complex and achieved an economic construction method. The use of rhythm throughout the project.1 The use of the landscape as a construction element creating horizontal and inclined open spaces. (Architecture mouvement continuite, 1983)

Figure 5: 200 Colonnes elevation (fernandpouillon.com)

Pouillon’s design principles are indeed coloured with a sensibility about the landscape that it plays an important role to the design process and its incorporated in a very delicate and interesting way that responds to the conditions of the surroundings but also enhance it. The response to the urban demands of the period that it was designed and the implementation of a fast and economic way of construction is a lesson that the current government of Algiers could benefit from. But the constrains that were brought about in terms of the requirements of the quality of the housing units and the socio political situation in the future has lead to a rather interesting situation in its current state. Post-Colonial Period “After the war of independence a classic phenomenon took place in the city of Algiers, the departure of 300,000 European settlers in 1962 left 98,000 houses empty and the indigenous population invaded all the liberated flats. The Medina on the other hand didn’t recover to its spatial importance of the past, as in the urban context social disparities manifested, despite the socialist tone of the new government, it came to be the home of the disadvantaged groups of Algerians.” (Djiar 2010) On the same logic as the Grandes Ensembles the unoccupied government implemented a hasty solution to the lingering housing problem of the city, introducing the ZHUN (new urban housing zones) housing project. Placed in the outskirts of the city lacking basic infrastructure and connectivity with the main urban fabric. Similarly with the

Grands Ensembles they were considered a prime tool of urbanization promoting the sprawl of the city towards their position. They were built by state companies mainly utilising prefabricated constructions systems imported from Switzerland and Denmark. Its occupants often where the workers of the sites according on their performance they would acquire the units bigger apartments would be provided to higher employees. (Celik 1997) This urban history of Algiers has led to the radical change of the urban habits of its citizens, making the typical courtyard residence less suitable to the current requirements. As Djiar (2010) supports the main elements that made traditional housing and living in the Medina obsolete are: “the small size of the bedrooms, the increasing multi functionality of the bedroom, the separated bathroom and kitchen, the lack of privacy in the house, the inappropriate thermal conditions and the general degradation of the buildings”. On the other hand he recognise the significance of the community lifestyle, with festivities and religious celebrations that create a social unity in the old town and the use of the roof terraces as an urban common space that fosters social contact between the citizens. Nowadays, people prefer to leave independently against the basic principle of the courtyard unattached to their larger family. Currently Algeria is focusing on the retail, offices and tourism which have more potentials in term of profitability than the residential housing projects. As it is documented in the report for Algeria by the Oxford Business Group (2010) every part of the real estate market is experiencing strong demand. A large number of multinational cooperation are investing in the region and most of them are from the gulf area. The growth of the population has led to a high demand of housing stock. Programmes have been launched by the government in an effort to meet the demand that was estimated in 2m housing units by

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Housing in Algiers Georgios Garofalakis

housing projects. The fact that the Algerian government continued the same practices with the colonisers does reveal the strong dependence on the colonisation process and the tremendous housing shortage that Algeria is facing today. This urban evolution has led to the degradation of several areas in the city that face the problem of overcrowding and consequently Climat de France was heavily affected. The current situation of Climat de France The current situation in the estate is rather different than the one imagined by Pouillon and showcased in the stunning commercials (see archive). The number of people living in the estate is estimated around 30,000. Families that have up to nine children living in a two or three room flat. The housing problem in Algiers has led to a common situation forcing extended families to live under the same roof. “The smallest apartment has a 9m2 bedroom, with a stove in the corner and no bathroom, just a toilet.” (The Guardian, 2012) Figure 6: Bottom: 200 Colonnes areas photo (Avermaete, 2007)

2017. While public housing is a fast growing segment the government is promoting home ownership among the middle-class. (Oxford Business Group, 2010) One of the most peculiar situation in Algeria is the system of land ownership, and its only since 1974 that the market became open to local people. Acquiring land from the government still remains a really difficult task that refers to people that have the money and power to do it. This situation has resulted to a rather disturbing landscape with skyscrapers that are being duplicated all over the city. (Oliver, 2007) But Algeria seems to be in a limbo concerning the housing problem. Globalisation seems to have conquered their goals and dreams as a form of postmodern colonialism, as Silbey (1996) describes in her essay.

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“Local cultures are being colonised by global markets” and such a market is that of the gulf recipe. As seen in the most recent proposals the Algerian government is trying to apply the gulf dream into Algiers, by designing huge housing proposals and leisure developments, that in most cases remain as ghost project that are never realised. Dubai is the hope for the Arab world and quoting Reisz (2010) “It is now a cliché to mention that children in Algeria proudly don Dubai T-shirts depicting skyline and camels” It is really interesting to see how Algiers evolved in the post-colonial period, people immediately claimed any available empty dwelling embracing in a way the colonial architectural and urban environment. Making the European parts of the city the most lively and used parts of the city in contrast with various colonial and current

“Muhammad said he lived in the city since 1962 and its repeated requests for housing since 1976, have never been taken into account. He lives in cramped three-room apartment with his family of 15. Sometimes I think of suicide, when the night I hear the whispers of my brother and his wife in their intimacy” (Le Matin DZ, 2011) The 200 Colonnes complex has been completely re appropriated by its inhabitants, “illegal structures made of bricks have been built on the flat roof of the housing block and almost every opening on the facade that used to serve as a balcony has been modified to an extra bedroom along with the cellars”. Le Monde refers to the estate as “reminiscent of a prison yard”, all the small shops surrounding the courtyard are illegal and “There are dealers selling Mother Courage, a powerful, destructive drug costing 200 dinars ($2.50) a tab.” Although many of the young people

prefer to deal drugs for a living many residents do have jobs supporting their extended families. (The Guardian, 2012) In January 2011, along with the demonstration in Tunisia the local residents decided to claim the streets building a shanty town that was completely destroyed three months later with a clash that left 50 people injured. The destruction of the illegal settlement of 150 houses left people once again homeless of forced them to return to their crowded family house. (Le Matin DZ, 2011) Influenced by the notion that decolonisation could be considered a form of profanation as discussed in the Book of Profanation by Sandi Hilal et.al. People have dominated space in Climat de France in the most profound way altering the character that was intended. Making a European housing monument to the monument of the Algerian harsh reality, that desperately seeks solution to the housing problem and protests on the streets when needed. What was meant to be a complex to allocate and control people has become the exact opposite. Conclusion Colonial architectural practices/urbanism is believed to be an inconsiderate process of division and preconception towards indigenous people. Creating projects in order to separate and create a distinguish urban environments between the European crowd and the indigenous is considered to be a common practice in various colonised cities. Nevertheless comparing modern practices of urban design in Algiers with what was applied by Pouillon in his colonial project for the city it is rather obvious that his approach is a far more elegant one. His consideration about the urban environment its a lesson that not only the Algerian government but also any other modern developer could acquire knowledge from. Even though some of his critical ideas are driven by the preconceptions of orientalism

and his personal aspiration of the monumental scale the urban realm that is generated is far more interesting than a mere repetition of indistinct towers. What is alarming, but expected in a way, is that the urban practices that the Algerian government is implementing today are of similar mentality of the colonial period. The discrimination pattern has shifted from indigenous vs Europeans to the distinction between classes and income. Of course the current demand for housing is forcing the creation of solutions that are hasty and economic but it seems that capitalism is the new colonial power. As Agamben discusses in his book â&#x20AC;&#x153;Profanationsâ&#x20AC;? (2007), capitalism has become a new kind of religion and in the case of Algiers it has taken over in the form of repetitive residential towers of poor quality. But communities form even under the toughest of situations and as people re appropriated 200 Colonnes making it a proper monument of their harsh reality, in the same way people will always re appropriate space and use it in the most expected or unexpected way. But what is the position of design through this process? In Pouillonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s example the architectural elements that compose the urban reality are either being used in the way that were designated but the majority has been re appropriated or rejected from the start. And maybe that is what designers should consider in their solutions, the need of people to adjust space, to appropriate and own it.

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Spatial Governance Through Housing Developments Fatema Al-Sehlawi

Studying the urban evolution of the Algerian capital Algiers has revealed a chronological categorization of the city’s housing development. Rural migration, sub-Saharan migration, and the growth of the local population have resulted in a continuous increase of urban sprawl. Introduction: Studying the urban evolution of the Algerian capital Algiers has revealed a chronological categorization of the city’s housing development. Rural migration, subSaharan migration, and the growth of the local population have resulted in a continuous increase of urban sprawl. (fig.1 & 2) The result is the protracted consequence and challenge of shortage in housing availability and supply. As a prioritized concern within the Algerian population, the shortage in housing has caused ceaseless discontent and frustration towards the governing bodies. Due to this socio political threat, different political periods have attempted in different ways to deal with the housing predicament. The development of housing in Algiers evolved through various transitions in their spatial formations and methods of delivery. With each case and time came a tailored method to address the housing shortage and discontent of the demanding population. However, it can also be argued that with each case of housing development, occurred a dual aim of controlling unrest within the society, controlling urban growth, and the monopolizing of housing delivery. Architecture and urbanism became dual tools for the governing bodies in charge of delivering housing developments to achieve aims in the interests of both, the population and the government itself. Urban interventions through ‘master plans’ have always been and continue to be one of the governing bodies’ means for city development and expansion in Algiers, delivering through them the different generations of housing projects. Studying and analyzing different generations of such urban interventions and housing developments chronologically through the different political transformations reveals the continuous attempts of social control through spatial governance and surveillance. In each

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case of housing development and delivery method was an attempt to regulate, organize, and contain Algiers’ population in tailored settings in order to control any social unrest, external threats, ensure political stability, as well as to hinder catalysts of social power. The first part of this research aims to describe chronologically the different generations of housing development and delivery systems in Algiers, starting from the 19th century colonial project onwards. The urban alteration of the French Colonial era will be interpreted through the colonial interventions in the indigenous Casbah as well as Diar El Mahcoul, an example of the Grands Ensemble model. The ZHUN model is then described and analyzed to portray the post-independence Algerian model of housing development through the Bab Ezzour project. The Trust residential complex is then analyzed to illustrate the ‘Gulf Recipe’ model. The second intention of this research is to extract and interpret the strategies of spatial governance of people deployed through the different case studies of housing developments mentioned above. The governing bodies in Algiers have continued to inject additional housing units into the housing market to meet the national demand. A continuous exertion to achieve social control through spatial governance came alongside the shift between the different methods and models of state delivered housing development. The paper aims to portray the continuous evidence that the excessive controlling factor of the state has become a cause in the prevailing housing shortage. Today the housing demand in Algiers is far from being met and continues to be a social and political dilemma in the country. 2. The Evolution of Housing Models in Algiers: 2.1 The Initial Colonial French Urban and

Housing Interventions The initial colonial French urban interventions took place in the existing Algerian indigenous residential quarters of the Casbah. With its dense and irregular structure, labyrinth of circulation paths, and introverted residential character, this indigenous urban set up was foreign and unfamiliar to the French, leading to a sense of discomfort and fear of unfamiliarity. This lead to the initial changes in the urban form influenced by the French planning methods imported from France. The French, upon their arrival, intended to create an orderly administrative spatial Fig.3. Aerial view of Algiers in 1935 showing the meeting point between the Casbah on the right and the French quarter on the left

classification and action plan of Algiers. Their attempts were laid out and executed with very little reference to the people of Algiers, to their social structure, and to the inner needs and traditions of the communities. The need of an urban survey and proposed order was required to gain further knowledge, control, and method of monitoring the different quarters of the city. The approach was further extended to the engraving of new streets and boulevards within the fabric of the Casbah. The roads of the tight residential districts were made wider in order to cater to the military needs of the colonizers. In addition, the roads were built in a linear manner, unlike the undulating streets of the Casbah, in order to gain more control over circulation, and allow for straight uninterrupted monitoring views of street activity. Street monitoring became more important to avoid any clashes between the two segments of the population, Algerians and Europeans or the more liberal with the Islamist groups. The main aims of the French urban interventions were outcomes of a militaristic mindset of colonization, occupation, and

for future housing developments in Algeria. Additional social housing developments were built to house Algerians following their success in resolving the housing supply issues of the Europeans. The social housing complexes were built on the outskirts of the city as an instrument for urban growth away from the congested centre. Each complex of social housing formed an independent community, in a sense that there was very little spatial or social integration with neighboring communities. In addition, the complexes followed a rigorous sociocultural guideline of maintaining the segregation between the Algerian and European communities. Fig. 4. Aerial view of Dial El Mahcoul

control. Further governance and jurisdiction was achieved by urban alterations. The above mentioned iterated means of Haussmannian urban modernization of Paris were imported, utilized, and re-tested in Algiers during the colonial era. The imported model was viewed as an existing method of amending the fabric of Algiers alien to the colonizers, which proved successful in terms of reformation and control in Paris. 2.2. The Grands Ensembles: As a following intervention into housing the Algerians, the French dealt with Algiers as an experimental ground for testing housing development models derived from former models used in France. The Grands Ensemble became the main tool of creating habitats for both the Algerians and the more special segment of the population, which was made up mostly of French and some European and upper class Algerians. The Grands Ensembles modernist model of social housing was introduced to Algiers during the second half of the 1920’s. The initial intent was to house the European households who had no space in the central parts of the city. This model of housing became the basis

The planners and designers behind the Grands Ensemble projects of Algeria questioned the traditions, and lifestyles of the Algerians and attempted to adapt the social housing models adopted from the modernist methods in ways to address their findings. Only few projects were implemented with the Algerian household’s nature as a reference. The universal modernist approaches and architectural languages fast took lead, especially during the era of vast housing developments backed by Mayor Jaques Chevallier from 1953 to 1958. One example of the Grands Ensemble projects is the Diar El Mahcoul complex designed by Fernard Pouillon, named chief architect of Algiers by Chevallier. The residential complex was made up of two zones: Cite Confort Normal, which housed the Europeans with views towards the bay of Algiers, & Cite Simple Confort, which housed the Algerians facing the infrastructural zones, highways, and valleys. (Fig. 4.) Pouillon attempted to recreate the concurrence of private and public spaces of the indigenous Algerian built fabric by creating a network of characterized open spaces. With such care to the design of public spaces, respect of local lifestyle characters, and the quality of construction, Diar El Mahcoul was designed

and built to be a paradigm for housing complexes that would satisfy the population’s needs and hinder any dissatisfaction with the governing bodies. Contrary to the vision for the complex and its public squares and gardens, major uprising and clashes occurred on the grounds of Diar El Mahcoul. (Fig. 5). Such attempts to segregate the different ethnicities and classes took place in the second half of the 19th Century Paris. The time of the Second Empire brought with it amendments in the housing system that led to a greater housing segregation. While housing development areas were reserved for the upper class housing and the Bourgeois in the inner city, lower and working class residential projects were developed in the city’s periphery. The amendment brought with it an upsurge in housing rents, while household incomes remained fairly low. Many fled to illegal settlements, and the number of slums grew. Yet to the Haussmannian agenda, such informal settlements were a threat and Haussmann was behind the clearance of many. It was in these slums and their irregular courtyards that agreements on uprisings and revolutionary activism took place, leading to the need of a controlled means of settlement for such groups. Here the need for large-scale lower working class residential projects was

Fig. 5. The current use and state of the public spaces of Dial El Mahcoul

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Spatial Governance Through Housing Developments Fatema Al-Sehlawi

evident, and the Grands Ensembles housing complexes were proposed to tackle the issue. In Algiers, this displacement and the direction towards an iterated version of the large-scale housing complexes was initiated in the 1920’s and most importantly was the main outcome of Chevallier’s actions in the 1950’s. The years of Chevallier were of importance due to the major development efforts of housing projects that addressed the deteriorating housing situations, housing shortage, and growing numbers of uncontrolled bidonvilles. The aims of development were dual as evident from studying the major projects. On one hand to provide adequate housing, yet on the other hand to inhibit any uprisings due to dissatisfaction and poor qualities of living, as well as to place residents of uncontrolled bidonvilles in controlled and planned settings. Housing development, as in many colonized cities, was a tool for the French colonizers to secure and guarantee their rule and dominance in Algeria, by means of presenting it as solving the population’s crucial problems. The social segregation, choice of a distant location to disperse the formerly concentrated population, the lack of religious facilities, and the attempt of altering traditional norms and lifestyles were common tools used to gain control through spatial interventions. 2.3. Post-independence State-led Housing Interventions – The ZHUN Model: From the time of the Algerian independence up to the late 1970’s, the question of housing was not of a pressing priority on the Algerian

Fig. 6. Bab Ezzour master plan

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government’s development agenda. The government focused on developing healthcare, education, and economic development through the upgrade of industry. What seems to have inhibited the issue of housing was the vacancy of the colonial residential quarters, formerly inhabited by the French population. These quarters were ideal for the Algerian population who wished to move closer to the capital’s central and better planned areas, as well as the rural immigrants searching for a city dwelling. The increase in population and rural migration lead to an upsurge in the demand for housing. The number of informal bidonvilles settlements multiplied, and therefore housing development became a pressing issue to be dealt with by the Algerian government. In 1977, the Ministry of Housing was formed and had the commitment to deliver 100,000 housing units annually for the following decade. The housing developments were aimed at low-income and public sector employees who made up the majority of the housing demand. The ZHUN (Zone d’Habitat Urbaine Nouvelle, or new urban housing zone) model became the main model utilized for housing developments in the late 1970’s and 1980’s. The model consisted of compounds of standard 4 to 5 storey residential blocks with apartment units that varied in size consisting of 2 to 6 bedrooms each. The model was an alteration and an evolved version of the Grands Ensembles taking many of its attributes. However at this period of time in Algiers, the housing crisis was heightened and bidonvilles were spreading and sprouting at rates higher than ever before. Therefore the high quality of building construction and care of design found in the Grands Ensemble projects were sacrificed. Instead, ZHUN housing blocks were built using imported prefabricated modules from the Netherlands & Sweden that lead to standardized monotonous four to five storey housing blocks laid out on vacant plots, as can be seen in the example of the Bab Ezzour project. (Fig. 6 & 7). The spatial compositions created odd shaped outdoor spaces, which were rarely used or inhabited. Unlike the former model of the Grands Ensemble, ZHUN developments were developed along remote

areas of the city with very little infrastructural connections or civic amenities. Therefore, the tool of developing ZHUN housing projects only addressed the crisis of housing shortage by adding housing units into the market. The mere supply was to target the uprising frustration of the lower working class population. Not much was addressed in terms of improving living conditions, refining construction knowledge and local expertise, addressing the local needs by integrating the voices of the population, or enhancing the delivery systems of housing. Interesting short-comes of the ZHUN projects delivery, were the cases in which the state would deliver the bare minimum of the housing unit, e.g. the skeleton structure, and allow the individual households to complete and finalize their unit. Such a move, although unintentional, allowed for a level of individuality and shift from the uniform monotony of the typical ZHUN developments. Such cases of adaptation also took place after the residents moved into the fully completed housing blocks, creating an array of individual changes to their own units. These interventions can be seen in Grands Ensembles projects such as 200 Collonnes by Pouillon, as well as ZHUN projects such as Bab Ezzour. The amendments could be seen as ways of understanding what the housing models missed in terms of satisfying the needs of their residents. 3. The Current Housing Situation in Algiers 3.1.

The Housing Shortage

Algiers suffers from a chronic shortage in housing due to various reasons. One is the rapid pace of rural migration and hence growth in population. An additional reason for the shortage is the limitation on the land availability and legal approval of privately developed housing due to the high level of state control over developments in the country. The affordability of housing is a further issue affecting the shortage of housing as well as civil unrest within the Algerian population. While it became easier for the upper class of Algerians and high income foreigners to have sufficient access to housing, the middle and lower classes of the population continued

Fig. 8. The ‘Gulf Recipe’ High rise residential tower typology

to struggle in affording building their own dwelling units, or affording the prices of housing developed by the private sector. The struggle leads to most household awaiting publicly funded and delivered housing units, which creates a strain on the supply capacity. The consequences of the housing shortage have in turn lead to overcrowding in urban areas. Not only are districts developed in high density with layers of formally planned and informally built housing, but the occupancy rates have increased reaching 7 persons per household. 3.2. Attempts of Change and Liberalization With the start of the 1990’s came major reforms in the political and economic structure of urban development in Algeria. The State’s role as a regulator increased rather than being purely a provider of social needs, however only by an incremental degree. Private land ownership became an option, allowing for private housing developments albeit it being feasible only for a specific economic class of the society. In an attempt to further liberalize and encourage housing developments, foreign investors wishing to develop housing projects in Algiers were granted 99 years leases with the help of laws endorsed in 2011. From being merely a social product by the state, housing became an economically generating product with the option of renting and selling residential units. Access to financing aid is increasing in Algiers with the help of the rising numbers of bank offerings and development legal programs. In addition,

a subsidy system was put in place that varied according to each household’s income level, which aided in the completion or initiation of self built housing. In general, the private sector had a greater role, in comparison with the past, in delivering housing developments. These became different delivery methods of housing replacing the monotonous state delivery method. While the results and legacy of the housing facilitation instruments in aiding the housing crisis remain unapparent yet, they begin to appear as narrow outlooks lacking a inclusive and holistic resolution to the issues of the crisis. Solutions to the lack of multi-scalar planning, building quality and design assurance, construction expertise development, and addressing the more intricate needs of the population expected from housing developments remain absent. 3.3.

The Reformed Housing Programs

Today, a major portion of the Algerian population has access to various types of State housing programs. An estimated 34% of the total population of Algiers applied for one mean of housing assistant or another between the years 1999 and 2012. In order to cater to the demand for housing, the State created four different housing program types: rental housing, assisted market housing, lease-toown housing, and rural housing. The programs replaced the monotonous program of social housing. The rental-housing program is aimed at households with an income less that $320 a month (1.5 times the Algerian minimum wage). The cost of construction is fully covered by the state on governmental land. The household would then have to pay a low rent once the unit is received. In 2010, the government launched the Assisted Market Housing Program. Households who have an income equivalent to less than six times Algerian minimum wage can benefit from this program. Land is offered by the government at a very low price and an $8000 amount is granted in order to assist with financing and loans for construction. The Lease-to-Own Program offers serviced land for free and finance is subsidized. Rural Housing Programs offer advance subsidies of $5000 to households who have the need to

renovate their existing homes or to build newly constructed ones. This program applies to households living in urban areas in an attempt to discourage rural migration. 3.4.

Alternative Delivery Systems

Albeit the attempt to provide alternative means of housing financing and development strategies, the shortage persists. The allocation of housing units to Algerian households remains as one of the problems leading to the continuous shortage of housing supply. Due to the central governance of the housing development projects, there continues to be little to no tracking or investigation of the method of development and allocation. The building quality remains low with a high negligence of design, and the allocation process is fraudulent and lacks transparency. In other cases, the receivers of the housing units are at fault, as there are cases where the receiving household already owns a unit or they have moved deliberately to bidonvilles in order to enter into the allocation process. Despite efforts to create a variety of choices of financing and delivery, the continuing State dominance of the middle and lower class housing supply market over burdens the housing crisis. The state remains hesitant this means of control over the organization and placement of population. 3.5. The ‘Gulf Recipe’ Model of Urban Interventions: With the market opening to foreign investors and private housing developers, a new typology of housing projects emerged with the start of the 21’s century. Comparing Algiers with its broader context of the Middle East and North Africa, it becomes apparent that Algiers is going through a real estate development thrive in sectors including but not limited to housing. New projects in industrial, housing, and tourism sectors are under construction and in the future pipeline. A so-called “Gulf Recipe” bundle of gated state-led and private lifestyle development concepts and economic methods have been imported from regional developing cities, more specifically Dubai. This recipe, as a formula for urban development, has arrived in Algiers after an attempt to open the market to foreign investments as well as the aspiration

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Spatial Governance Through Housing Developments Fatema Al-Sehlawi

to import celebrated development models from other cities. Such proposals to develop large areas in short periods of time, introduce both new urban typologies in Algiers as well as new social and economical settings benefiting not only the society in some ways, but also the developer and the state economically. The Trust Residential & Commercial Complex, developed by a private developer group, is currently under construction in Algiers and consists of residential apartment towers, 5 star hotels, a shopping mall, and supporting local amenities. (Fig. 8). The complex is an exact duplicate of Al Murooj Rotana complex in Dubai mimicking its architectural aesthetics as well as program. Fig. 8. The ‘Gulf Recipe’ High rise residential tower typology Distant sites are allocated for new developments in order to relieve the capital’s centre from overpopulation, and to allow for a level of economic and spatial upgrade to deprived areas of the city. The governmental planning authority is usually responsible of the subdivision of a greater development zone;

selling mega plots to private developers, and allowing for further subdivision and sale of land by each owner. These developments are used to upgrade areas of the city with very little economic value by replacing downgraded buildings and the poorer sectors of the population. The Trust Complex and its neighboring developments, in common with many other upcoming projects, is located between infrastructure, industries, and social housing in an attempt to attract a higher caliber of developments, now more possible due to foreign investment, and trigger the formation of a new development zone. The typical components of such projects, for example housing, are glorified by programs of culture, commerce, leisure, and settings for the tourism industry to justify and legitimate the project’s sensitivity and responsibility towards addressing the society’s needs. In other countries, mostly in the Gulf States, such projects have proven short-term economic gains accompanied with long-term fragmentation of the city as a whole. As gated developments are foreseen as

market-driven projects aiming to offer a certain favorable lifestyle, it can be argued that they analogously carry a dual aim to apply a layer of surveillance and control over their users and residents; they create the possibility of invisible surveillance over a community. This possibility can be looked at through the metaphor of the Panopticon’s architecture, which Michel Foucault delves into in “Discipline and Punishment”. The kind of totalitarianism found in gulf recipe projects imitates the panobservation possibilities in a Panopticon. Such form of surveillance is made easier in the contained communities of the gated projects. A central surveillance room allows the monitoring of all parts of the development without its occupants knowing and feeling has become a norm in such gated communities. The psychology created with the residents or occupants of the developments is that they are being protected from outsiders and undesirable events and actions, yet I believe a dual outcome is to the benefit of the developer/ state. Residents are never assured or certain whether they are being watched or not. The model of development created introverted fortresses within the already fragmented urban fabric of the city. An autonomous part of the city is created, consisting of any amenities that the residents and visitors of the complex might need. On the outer edges of the development, movement is kept to the minimum vehicular necessity in the form of infrastructure. The ‘Gulf Recipe’ approach to urbanism brings with it consequences of socio-economic divisions within the society as an effect of containing people and targeting a specific sector of the society, mainly the upper class populations of Algiers and foreigners moving to the city. (Fig. 9). 3.6.

Fig. 9. Approved ‘Gulf Recipe’ projects to be implemented in Algiers by foreign developers.

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The Current Construction Status

Of the 7.4 million housing units in Algeria, 20% are vacant due to their poor conditions. A further 560,000 units are in a very poor state yet inhabited. A sum of 2 million units were built before the 1962 independence. Such statistics from the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development exemplify the challenges faced by their current obligations. With a goal to deliver 1.2 million housing

units by 2014, and further 800 units by 2017, the state is dealing with $60 billion dollar budget. Although these goals are greatly publicized, no more details are revealed about such projects other than numerical values. The avoidance of announcing any part of the design or implementation does not allow for social integration and participation of opinion. The magnitude of housing development projects has brought the challenges of the limited availability of construction materials and the limited construction expertise within the local realm. With this increasing pressure on the Algerian government to yet have to meet the housing demands, foreign companies have been contracted to take part in bidding for construction tenders of major housing projects. The foreign companies not only ease the procurement and import of materials, but also provide better construction expertise and quality through their skilled construction workers and engineers brought it to reside temporarily in Algiers for the duration of the project. 4. Conclusion: The different attempts of supplying housing developments in Algiers have gone through various models and methods of delivery. The analysis of the various models reveals that the aims of the delivering governing bodies were dual along the chronological evolution. With each period and delivery model was the main aim of addressing the housing shortage and dissatisfaction of the demanding society. In addition, there continues to be the concealed aim of controlling unrest within the society, controlling urban growth, and the monopolizing of housing delivery. The Architecture and urbanism of housing developments were utilized as tools to achieve such aims in interest of the society, and as revealed, in the interest of the governing body responsible for the housing delivery. The anticipated political control derived the need for spatial governance and control over the delivery of housing developments. The spatial allocation of the developments, organization of people throughout the city, ordering the degree of social coexistence, and regulating the housing delivery are some of the

embedded agendas achieving governance through the housing projects. However, through reading the statistics and implications derived from each housing development period, it becomes evident that the continuous importance of state control over housing development and its delivery has factored into the chronic issue of the shortage in housing. The inability to meet housing demands pertains in Algiers today, continuing to be a trigger for social uprising, dissatisfaction, and unrest. Algeria’s different generations of housing developments have been influenced and in some cases imported, from cities where they had been implemented and tested. The models of housing developments are laid down on sites prescribed by the state in order to tackle the shortage of time in addressing the shortage of housing. Deriving most of the housing models from foreign models has lacked major alterations to serve the local needs of the society and housing market. They could be looked at as projects that are abstracted out of the existing city and its social structure. Therefore, as the state continues to predict what could satisfy the society spatially and in aims of gaining further control over it, it becomes more evident that such attempts are done in great distance and isolation from the structure of the society. Planning regulations and designs are plotted with an intention of order and reorganization of the country’s urban structure. Yet, it is another repetition of former mistakes of socio-economic separation, social and urban fragmentation, and a race with time. Algiers is in need for urban development, yet with an awakened more alert view and approach in order to prevent the dysfunctional interventions and achieve goals beyond the benefit of the state and the elite population and beneficiaries. The State housing development strategies have been and continue to be highly monopolistic and self administrative. The lack of the society’s involvement in the planning, implementation, or management phases limited the legacy span of any developed project. From the available references on developments in Algeria, this absent involvement initiates

links to the consequences of the social seclusion. The worldwide emergence of the market economy in the 1990’s initiated the amendment of the monopolistic approach to development, however the current development spectrum in Algiers shows this as merely an incremental change. One can argue that the State’s fear of loosing control over the urban development, social structuring, and economical cycle inhibits any major changes in delivery methods of development projects. State methods of housing development should be welcomed yet with a wider approach of allowing a hierarchical approach to control, organization, and surveillance non-intrusive to one’s everyday life and allowing a level of social and urban integration and connection. A question rises concerning the possibility of an alternative to the evolving methods interpreted in the body of this paper. An alternative approach shifting from the common import of housing methods is sought. The delivery method may be altered with not only changes in the delivery and financing system. The testing of alternative approaches such as the introduction of new programmatic strategy into the housing development, or the development in the means of construction and choice of building materials. A new DNA of housing development characterized by its innovative yet humble approach to overlaying new developments with already existing characters and lifestyles of Algiers is needed. The greater integration of the society be it through consultation, further research into the individual households, or through raising the local expertise of construction can all lead to further satisfaction and ease of further meeting the housing demand. The government would benefit greatly from not only reforming its development models but also encouraging further the new approach of private development in order to facilitate in the housing shortage and overburden of development obligations on the state. Such questions are further investigated in the design component of this program to reach a more detailed hypothesis and thesis answering and testing such needs.

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Studying the urban evolution of the Algerian capital Algiers has revealed a chronological categorization of the city’s housing development. Rural migration, sub-Saharan migration, and the growth of the local population have resulted in a continuous increase of urban sprawl. The process of modernization and colonization during the 19th and 20th century affected and shaped significantly cities in the Middle East. Colonialism used in the past as a political apparatus to enforce power and implement human and source exploitation. The case study of French colonialism in Algeria is a paradigm that encapsulates practices of power which could be traced through the urban formation of the city of Algiers. France constituted one of the major coloniser power states of the past and occupied Algeria from 1830 to 1962. Through the enforcement of foreign rule system, urban transformations, social changes and economic control, France accomplished the absolute dominance of the territory (Yasser 2004). French colonial power is traced also in attempts to enforce cultural and custom principles onto the colonized. A mechanism used for establishing and strengthening political control often ‘justified’ by the belief of racial or cultural superiority. The history of colonialism is thoroughly associated to the exploitation of human and natural resources. In that frame misappropriation of land property, establishment of trade relations and the introduction of capitalist forms of production consist some of the practices used by the colonizer. The first decade of colonization was characterized by practices related to military transformations. Such arrangements were related mostly with adaptation to the urban fabric in order to serve troops rapid movement. Similar adaptations applied to the existing buildings; residential, commercial and religious buildings were demolished or reused as military cores (Celik 1997). After 1891 the focus shifted to the transformation of Algiers in a European city aiming to the creation of a commercial centre. Gradually with the engraving of

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new streets – boulevards or the widening of former (grid), French encircled the area of Casbah and created a sharp dichotomy and segregation between the indigenous people and Europeans physically and socially (Celik 1997). All building activity and generally spatial alterations during French colonialism were characterized by segregation between races and classes as a mean to define otherness and surveillance. The traces of colonial enforcement power from the Medina separation with the French quarter to the construction of social developments to the edge of the city’s borders are still evident. Starting in the 1900’s the colonial French urban interventions were concentrated and organized rigorously on creating large scale housing developments. During this period the French government launched the Grands Ensembles social housing developments. Situated in the outskirts of the city designed as independent enclaves and significantly affected the growth of the city. Emphasis was set once more to maintain the duality form of the city (Europeans – Indigenous population) and enhance this dichotomy spatially. The separation was not only physical but also embodied in the architectural form. Their fragmented placement, surrounding the city, was method intended to create isolated autonomous communities and avoid acts of rebellion, used as a political tool to isolate and tame the indigenous people. The colonial regimes concentrated to transform Algeria as the main provider of product supplies to France; export of raw materials, agricultural products, and import of industrial. Infrastructure systems were developed linking the rural areas with different ports to enable the export of agricultural products to metropolitan markets. The economic relation between the colonizer and colonized is another key factor to the colonialism politics. “Europe on its own would

not have the required resources to supply it and would collapse economically without primary materials and labor from the colonies and their vast exterior markets” (Celik 1997)1. Industrial zones were created in the centre of the city forcing rural population to move partially since the colonial legal frame changed, lead to the fall of agriculture occupation. In addition, significant alteration was the introduction of land privatization in lieu of communal ownership adjunct to complex arrangement of rights and obligations. The economic ‘liberalization’ aimed to land liquidation and consequently offer the possibility of land ownership for future European population and enforcement of the colonial system. Within the new legal system, the agriculture production altered and the distribution of land was unequal. The new consisted state would first misappropriate parcels of land from the Algerian population and afterward small parts of them sold back to chosen part of the people in an advantageous cost. The social structures were destructed as they were evicted of their land and transformed into a rural proletariat. The more fertile regions generally were taken by the colonizers increasing their profit in contrast with the natives developing another form of physical and economical marginalization. The colonial policy was compounded by the creation of unemployment and underemployment conditions. The housing shortage by extend was a new problem created by the colonists themselves; “Construction of housing responds to an urgent social need. . . . Housing is a decisive factor in social evolution: the modification of habits and familial needs that it instigates broadens the possibilities for industrialization and general development.” (République Française, Délégation Générale du Gouvernement en Algérie, Plan de Constantine).

Thus, housing shortage became the main discourse in Algiers leading to the development of slums. Slums or shanty towns, otherwise known as bidonvilles, appeared during the 1930s in the colonial period, located on the edges of the city. One of the main reasons of this movement was the derivable impoverishment of the countryside and the attraction of Algiers as an employment centre. The takeover by the colonizer of Algerians properties to serve their accommodation, the priority of French instead of Algerians in housing claim constitutes different socio political reasons, lead to housing shortage. One single dwelling could facilitate two or three families. Its residents were referred to as a “new type of man” distinct from the Muslim urban population and unaffected by the “European civilization” giving a third element to the dual system of Algerian cities (Celik 1997). 1 Çelik, Zeynep, Urban forms and colonial confrontations: Algiers under French rule, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997, . 8-9. Squatter areas are not a pattern unique to Algiers, but has parallels in many countries. Nevertheless, the specific mechanisms of the colonial governance played a crucial role in the increase of this phenomenon in Algeria. During 1954 and 1962 the colonial housing construction increased significantly. At this point military sovereignty and building developments coincided more evidently; however failed to accomplish the colonial ideological agenda and proved ineffective as Grands Ensembles developments acted as cores of resistance and even military confrontation (Celik 1997). “On 11 December 1960 about five thousand residents of Diar elMahçoul (Grand Ensembles development) and the Mahieddine bidonvilles descended the hills, joining the demonstrations downtown. Hostilities toward the French had already surfaced much earlier. As reported by L’Echo d’Alger in March 1957, a visit by Mayor

Chevallier and a group of schoolteachers to the construction site of Diar el-Mahçoul had ended with the “salutations of about one hundred little Muslims who shouted ‘Algeria is ours’ and who threw stones at the visitors. A couple years later, military forces would be installed in the school buildings of Diar elMahçoul and Diar es-Saada, as well as the high-rise structure in Diar es-Saada” (Celik 1997)2. More recently, in March of 2011, in Climat De France - colonial development one of the largest and overpopulated housing blocks, a new conflict aroused. The clashes triggered when the government ordered and initiated the demolishment of one hundred slums, considered by the state as illegal developments. The residents protested and one thousand policemen were authorised to confront them (Wall Street Journal 2011). After the independence, colonial housing policies were not eliminated, as they were inherited by the Algerian government. The concept of ZHUN (new urban housing zones) followed the lines of urban planning in Algiers and continued the main ideas of the grand ensembles. Usually, placed in the outskirts of the city, lacking basic infrastructure and connectivity with the main urban fabric. Similarly with the Grands Ensembles they were considered a prime tool of urbanization promoting the sprawl of the city towards their position. They were built by state companies mainly utilizing prefabricated constructions systems imported by Switzerland and Denmark. Its occupants where often the workers of the sites, while according on their performance they would acquire units. Bigger apartments would be provided to higher position employees. The adoption of colonial plans and projects continued under the Algerian administration system. The deep colonization process affected the colonized to the extent of implementing the policies that previously theoretically rejected. The typologies imported by the French became afterwards the model for future trends and

means of the urbanization process. In essence the overall intention was the deepening of material and social deprivation, deliberate efforts to undermine, demoralize and control the social structures of the indigenous society, and the secure of French empowerment. The aspiration of colonies moreover was to develop further the notion of la plus grande France, an “imperial French doctrine,” and a “colonial consciousness.” It was also utilized to consolidate Algeria’s ties to 2 Çelik, Zeynep, Urban forms and colonial confrontations: Algiers under French rule, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997, 149-150. France. Algeria was presented as an integral part of France; “Here [in Algeria] there is truly a new France..[its] people have but one desire, one ambition: to be intimately fused with the Mother Country.” (Nkrumah 1965).3 In a broader sense colonial experimental policies constitute a world phenomenon operated that time from Western to Eastern countries. It is also significant that parallel urban planning process designed in French colonial countries, was carried out in France. Characteristic paradigms are those of policies regarding slums (bidonvilles), large social housing projects (Grands Ensembles developments) and the discourse of facing the ‘problem of unsanitary’ districts. THE PROCESS OF DECOLONIZATION: THE WAR OF INDEPENCE IN ALGERIA After the Second World War socio-economic crisis, French African Empire started the decolonization process. Although the majority of French colonies gained their independence by 1960, Algeria remained under the French rule until 1962. Algeria was the exception since it had been officially integrated into France and considered part of the state rather a typical colony. After a long period of subjugation and exploitation the Arab population of Algeria

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demanded political reformation and rights. The failure of the colonizer to accomplish such demands lead to common frustration and to the rise of indigenous nationalism. Social unrest and the formation of Islamic parties concluded to the war of independence between 1954 -1962. NEO COLONIALISM: A NEW FORM OF COLONIALISM? The 19th century colonialism is rather relevant in our days. Not only for us to understand the mechanisms of it and how it operated in the past but in order to identify the traces of it in its contemporary forms. The post- colonialism, neo-colonialism are notions which try to define the evolution of colonialism theory. Post-colonialism describes a set of theoretical approaches which focus on the effects of colonization, however reintroduces the perception and understanding of modern political acts and by extend economic, cultural and spatial (NKrumah 1965). Decolonization process concluded to political independence for the colonized states. Economically though, they are still under the European control. This form of control which is equal to economic exploitation is described by the term ‘neocolonialism’. Neo-colonialism practices exist alongside or within neo-liberal forms of capitalism, within the practices of disposition, thus practicing as a political apparatus of a new form of sovereignty mainly among the western and eastern world. The process of neoliberalism alters socio-political conditions using economic strategies restructuring local institutions to organizations based on marketbased power (Brenner & Theodore, 2010). The new formed institutions are primarily reliant on their international interactions; “such as global investment, information flow, and migrants as human capital, instead of their historic local interactions” (Harvey, 2007)4. Although colonialism is linked directly with the territorial dipole where it operates and thus becomes obvious, the new form of it, lies along economical agreements. Agreements of energy sources exploitation, transactions, investment and so on. Imperialism simply transforms since the applied tactics are

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exercised by an indefinable body of individuals and organizations, apparatuses of a greater political system (NKrumah 1965). “Neo-

new form of sovereignty; a number of rights usually demanded as territorial privileges, resources exploitation as minerals and oil.

Investment under neo-colonialism by the developed countries using political, economic and ‘informal’ means, is a process that enlarges methodologically the gap between the rich and the poor states. At the same time, such transactions conduct a process that reinforces the ability of further control. According to Nkrumah the alleged independent State (in this case the Eastern States) is subjected to international sovereignty since its economic and political status is induced and directed by the global capital. The result of neo-colonialism is that foreign capital is used for the exploitation rather than for the development of the less developed parts of the world. “The neo-colonial State may be obliged to take the manufactured products of the imperialist power to the exclusion of competing products from elsewhere. Control over government policy in the neo-colonial State may be secured by payments towards the cost of running the State, by the provision of civil servants in positions where they can dictate policy, and by monetary control over foreign exchange through the imposition of a banking system controlled by the imperial power” (NKrumah 1966)6.

ALGERIA: AS A NEO COLONIALISM CASE STUDY

Another neo colonialist operation is the different international organizations described as ‘multilateral aid’ systems. These agencies exercise power among others by forcing countries to submit economic, political and internal plan information to be reviewed and even supervised for the use of the given ‘financial aid’. “International aid and development initiatives are very often aligned with economic policy diktats that disable ‘Third World’ economies (a case in point would be the World Bank/IMF injunction against subsidies). Neo colonialism, therefore, may be the more insidious and dangerous form of colonialism” (Nayar 2008)7. These conditions apply broadly to industrial, commercial, agricultural and often militarily developments, establishing with this way, military bases in developing countries, former colonies. At the centre of this agenda lays the

Algeria gained its independence in 1962, however the colonial policies continued not only in the country itself by the new governmental system, nevertheless possible continuation of the French strong relation to Algeria take place in the present day situation and will be examined. French colonialism left Algeria with permanently marks, and formed the foundation for a future relation of dependence. Through a complex network of agreements and colonial pacts France still controls former African colonies. During the independence period in the 1960s the CFA organization system (French Community of Africa) constituted of “compulsory solidarity” including 14 African states. The involved members are obliged to deposit 65% of their foreign currency reserves into the French Treasury and furthermore the 20% for financial liabilities. The access to their own income is limited to 15% and thus since the remaining financial amount is insufficient, the 14 countries are forced to borrow from the French at commercial rates. CFA zones are solicited also to provide private funding to the French government and political parties during the French elections. The agreement contains as well management restrictions in any natural resources found in the territory of the engaged 14 countries. “France has the primary right to purchase or decline the natural resources forbidding to the rest competitive free market to claim them” (leo-kanisani, Koulibaly, 2011)8. The capitalistic circle which hypothetically operates in these countries is entirely controlled and monopolized. All these could be evidences for the new colonialism that operates in the east, through a vast variety of political and economic agreements. Focusing in the urbanism practices imported by the west, the new developments

integrate to an analogous context. “Real estate developments and property is the new consumable good and the main concern around the world. Urban development within the new global cities is largely dependent on international real-estate market instead of local demands” (Harvey, 2007)9. Within an international, capitalistic system that seeks for rapid growth and profit, cities across the region participate in this consecutive development competition. Arab cities distorted the urban reality and community life, tracing back to the Dubai model; privatization, exorcize of low and medium class indigenous population, along with the development of ‘urban islands’. “The dominant neoliberal values, more or less, change local life-style and resident’s demands; urban spaces are largely transformed in order to respond to the new life-style and demands” (Rankin, 2009)10. Such policies include the conservation and regeneration of historical parts of the cities, urban growth, sustainability consciousness and elimination of slums. Multinational companies, institutions of global capital, and star architects are used as an apparatus to transform the cities which, just like as in the past, are offered as an experimental site and a replica for the rest of the world. PARADIGMS OF INVESTIGATION 1: TRUST COMPLEX DEVELOPMENT Through the chosen paradigms illustrating the new promoted projects taking place in the wider territory of Algeria the paper seeks to expose the common urban dynamic which drive the genesis of such projects. The selected paradigms are two of the projects that are already developing in Algeria and they operate in different scale; the ‘Trust Complex’ a residential and commercial complex located in the capital of the country and the new city of ‘Boughezoul’, 160km south of the capital are the two selected projects. Through them a better understanding in the scale of a district and in the architectural scale as well in the urban scale is feasible in terms of how they work with the existing surrounding, the social integration and the mechanisms operating in the background of such developments. In Algeria, as the State is the

main landowner it then controls the privatization process forming one of the key actors of the urban metamorphoses. Although, the housing shortage regarding the low-middle class of the population is the main discourse in the country the State instead of focusing entirely to address the issue, appears to concern with the image of the country. Conflicting issues arise within the society since people living in slums or in marginalized districts are displaced and the new developments take over their place. The result is usually the discrepancy between such luxurious and extravagant projects and the existing urban conditions. The Trust Residential & Commercial Complex, is a duplicate of Al Murooj Rotana complex in Dubai, mimicking its architectural aesthetics as well as program organization. It consists of residential apartment towers, 5 star hotels, a shopping mall, and supporting local amenities. In the case of the Trust Complex, the residential and commercial towers are raised on a shared podium level which is continuous along the plot perimeter. The residences and employees of the complex are offered a private walled shared outdoor space created by the surrounding tower blocks. The existing district where the project is being developed is a mixed use development area characterized by industrial character and social housing blocks. This upper class development project, stands between various conditions and infrastructure limits entirely introverted, detached from the city fabric and reality. Such private real estate developments are located on plots in areas planned, subdivided, and sold by the central planning authority on behalf of the government. Greater development zone is subdivided and afterwards mega plots are sold to private developers allowing further subdivision and sale of land by each owner. The guidelines given, concern mainly allowance of maximum height –usually exceeding the adjacent heights of existing developments. The site coverage guidelines, usually are flexible, leading again to isolated buildings standing in empty plots. The State decision to allow foreigner investors to purchase freehold property is the catalyst for these ambitious mixed-use urban

developments in Algeria and in the wider Middle East area. Eastern countries rebuild their cities and promote their ‘new image’, mimicking the Dubai’s urban approach, introduced by the west. Such luxurious facilities and residences, are addressed to foreigners and to the higher Algerian class, since the low and middle class part of the population are unable to afford high living costs. Historically this has always been the case for the Algerian population, segregated into groups in terms of ethnicity or class. In the present condition social segregation and control of population is achieved through economic factors. “That neoliberal model of development inherently generates social segregations in the contemporary society. The international interactions and forces such as global market as external factors mostly shape these agglomeration cities instead of internal socioeconomic interactions” (Harvey 2007)11. 2: BOUGHEZOUL: NEW CITY The concept of “new town” (Ville nouvelle) -a gulf formula- for urban development imported in Algeria as a mean of appeal for foreign investments, a solution to growing slums and overpopulation matter. Such development posits the creation of cities from scratch, in order to reduce urban sprawl. The result is, an organization of a new suburban form. They stand usually as floating islands in the urban fabric independent of any context and detached from the city’s reality. The Algerian government has already started adopting and developing several similar projects often even precise replicas from the gulf developments following the same ambitious arguments of sustainability, eco-friendly, and high-tech cities. The new project of Boughezoul city in Algeria, 160km south of the capital; part of the Algeria’s city planning scheme accompanied with the ambition of changing the national urban hierarchy and the change of national population distribution. The general scheme includes more future cities placed in the southern parts of Algeria with similar goals and aspirations

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“New Town” Boughezoul project is an Algerian government project in collaboration with Global Environment Facility (GEF) institution and will be funded by both parts while the supply and install of telecommunication systems is assigned to Siemens Company. The city is promoted as a landmark model for developing countries: “The design and development of the new town of Boughezoul is an opportunity to introduce best practices in architecture, building construction and urban planning, as well as to promote research and development and business opportunities in response to climate change through the development of conditions favorable to the transfer of clean technologies that will benefit Algeria.” (Bernard Jamet, head of the Technology Transfer Unit of the Energy Branch, Division of Technology, Industry and Economics for the United Nations Environment Programme). The economic structure of the city will be based on high technological and bio technological systems in the general sustainable framework which operates. The video for promoting the project in the market forms a mix of urban trend clichés; green spaces, luxury buildings and leisure activities. In the project, a specific island is also included. An island for the local fauna, persevered by plan, which tries to promote environmental concerns. The development is characterized by a strict geometrical grid, large avenues, landmarks, and of course dominant skyscrapers emphasizing that the project, is ‘a product of national pride’. The superficial approach is reflected as well to the neglect of the local economy and the local characteristics. The picture promoted, is one of a ‘global metropolis’. PROMOTION OF PRESTIGE PROJECTS: A REAL ESTATE TRICK? The use of images and illustrations of the new prestige projects is another mean to increase the competitiveness amongst the Middle East cities. The promotion of ideal cities seems to be the most important element of a false economic regeneration and the apparatus of the government to demonstrate the upcoming progress and affluence of the country. Iconic buildings and landmarks as ritual, cultural

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or civic buildings are promoted by the government to attract investors and real estate companies. The new trend around the world, the promotion of new ‘green cities’, ‘eco-friendly’ and hi-profile buildings as landmarks, remain often only in announcement form though. In the case of Algeria specific, such projects promotion method, on billboards and websites, is usually vague lacking of any significant information. Typical drawings are completely absent and the only information is usually illustrated through simplistic futuristic three dimension images, usually lacking any context or relation to the city fabric. Declaration of prestigious agreements and cooperation with foreign investors is usually announced, not achieving realization though. The contracting owner, the architect/planner, the management team and different actors of an actual project or any financial substance are entirely missing from the descriptions of such projects. These promoted ‘ghost’ projects “follow international principles, deploying AngloSaxon terminology (expert, benchmarking, master plan, workshops, waterfront...), inspired from managerial and consulting processes” (Barthel, 2008; Barthel, Verdeil, 2008)12. Along with these principles, the architects and developers are using the local context to adjust these international implements. The architectural style and the naming is superficially influenced by the Arab culture and history. This use of marketing tactics has side effects on the general urban understanding and context as well as on the population of the country applied. As mentioned previously, in Algeria, the majority of the population is characterized by the high impoverishment levels. Although the critical need continues to be the development of low-cost housing projects, the government in collaboration with private investors, aim to upgrade the city image in order to be part of the global market, economy and political scene. Fictional advertising strategies are used in order to achieve publicity and attract foreign investments. The majority of such projects are never realized and even the ones developed,

are used as marketing products. The promise of modernity and wealth within the globalization frame by the government is not improving the everyday living conditions of the majority of the population, is used though a symbolic desire to participate in this phenomenon. The symbol of luxury and consumerism is supposed to give hope for the “bright future” of the country and its citizens. EPILOGUE NEO COLONIALIM: A CONTEMPORARY APPARATUS OF CONTROL Algeria after over a century of subjugation and foreign control gained its independence in 1962. During the colonial period political, economic, social, cultural and spatial changes have occurred. Alterations that affected the current condition of the state significantly. The independence though did not coincide with the elimination of colonial practices. Within a different framework, the colonizer simply switched tactics, continuing the dialectic of control to the present. Masao Miyoshi argued that “ours . . . is not an age of post colonialism, but of intensified colonialism, even though it is under an unfamiliar guise,” and stresses that the present-day “global configuration of power and culture” must be understood in relation to the “historical metropolitan-colonial paradigm.” (Shohat 1993)13. In the wider frame of Middle East the impact of imperialism and the domination of Western states is linked with the socio political context of past colonialism. Neo colonialism still operates, and interconnects with the capitalistic system, can be traced in neo liberal practises and relate to the globalization manifestation. After the transformation of Dubai, a new urban model has emerged. The so called “gulf recipe” model, stands as an example of rapid growth and profit, thus cities around the Arab world mimic its principles. Although arguments about cultural hybridization, heritage conservation and restoration have been expressed, in essence they stand as pretexts to conceal imperialist tactics. In this respect, global economy is driven by a real estate point of view having mainly as a priority,

methodologies aiming to attract capital, investors, tourists and so on. In the midst of this marketing approach the reproduction, circulation and promotion of ideal images is used to manufacture false perceptions of the cities. Huge and luxury shopping malls, iconic buildings and towers are considered a sign that indicates progress towards modernization and globalization. The international free market has thus become another form of exploitation and domination primarily by the western states to the eastern. Although housing shortage consists the main discourse, the government concerns mostly about the promotion of a modern image of the state. On the contrary no real effort is made to address social issues or to confront the lower class primary problems. In such a context the new luxury developments become isolated, fragmented and â&#x20AC;&#x153;floating islandsâ&#x20AC;? in the urban fabric. Isolation leading inevitably again to segregation of groups of population and discrimination based on class as in the colonial past. Within this loop of marketing tactics, architectural offices and construction companies take their piece of publicity, and support or even legitimize neoliberal practises as a respond to the competitive market demand; thus the question raised is an open discourse in relation to these complex socio political and spatial issues.

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5. Bibliography

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