URBAN MAGAZINE
EMERGENCE
SPRING 2020
The original edition of the publication was made possible by the support of The Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation at Columbia University New York, New York Copyright © 2020 by the Trustees of Columbia University in the City of New York All illustrations and layouts © 2020 URBAN Magazine All photographs © 2020 All rights reserved
Letter from the Editors 2 Demeter’s Anger
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by Niki Kourti
Emerging Through a Way of Life
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by Nina Ndichu
Retail Apocalypse
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by Einat Lubliner, Sushmita Shekar, Hatem Alkhathlan, and Chris Zheng
Emblems
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by Mariya Chekmarova and HK Dunston
Regenerating Our Farming Systems by Angus Palmer, Claudia Kleffmann, German Bahamon, Nina Lish, and Nina Ndichu
Matter and Why It Matters
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by Kirthana Sudhakar
Integral Tension
by Vasanth Mayilvahanan
The Glass Fad
IN THIS ISSUE
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by Elijah Turner
Pandemic Urbanism
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by Professor Hiba Bou Akar, Maureen Abi Ghanem, Sebastian Andersson, Dare Brawley, Jenna Davis, Lanier Hagerty, Joe Hunnekens, Martine Johannessen, Stefan Norgaard, Zeineb Sellami, and Wenfei Xu
When We Collectively Set Foot on Streets Again
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by Juan SebastiĂĄn Moreno
Citations and Notes
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Letter from the Editors When we selected the themes for the 20192020 academic year, we could not have predicted how much of our lives, our world, and our environment would be altered with the emergence of COVID-19. As urban planners, we, like many of our colleagues, are deeply concerned and angered by the lack of resolve to address our climate crisis. Our urgency for intersectional and robust climate action had propelled us to ask:
how can we begin to ideologize cities, spaces and our natural environment in a more circular, holistic and just way? As we wrote in our last letter, we are now more than ever, in a moment of forced adaptation or face likely obsolescence. Like disasters before it, COVID-19 has shocked and exploited our individual 2
and collective vulnerabilities--with our most precarious populations the most hard-hit. It has also highlighted the best in us--from the balcony cheers in thanks and solidarity to our frontline workers to the assemblage and organization of mutual aid funds and localized support networks to the production of PPE in our very own Making Studio. Collectively, we are working to fill gaps when and where they exist. As architects, planners, and designers, this pandemic offers us a critical moment to reflect and derive purpose. Either six-feet-away or halfway across the globe, COVID-19 is a collective condition, challenge, and opportunity for all of us to ideologize and produce better futures. And if anything good has come from this, it is that we now know we have within us the propensity to act swiftly and urgently in response to crisis.
While not every piece in this issue covers COVID-19, they do implore you, as they have for us, to consider what our collective emergence will look like, conceptually and practically? We can’t possibly know when or how we will all be together again, or understand the gravity of our losses and failures in this very moment; all that we can do is remain hopeful in our shared humanity and urgency.
URBAN’s Senior Editors, Maya, Conor and Kirthana
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DEMETER’S ANGER by Niki KOURTI
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According to an ancient Greek myth, Persephone was the beautiful daughter of Demeter, the beloved goddess of Earth and Agriculture. When Hades (Pluto), the God of the Dead and the Underworld, saw the young girl, he fell in love; but, as he was sure that Demeter would never allow him to become Persephone’s husband, he decided to set a trap, abduct her, and bring her with force in his underground kingdom. And so he did, with the help of Zeus, the king of Gods. Demeter, not knowing what happened, felt devastated as she was hopelessly searching for her daughter across every land and sea. But Helios (Sun), who always saw and knew everything, revealed the whole truth to the tragic mother. Demeter’s anger and sorrow was so deep that she refused to allow any harvest; the Earth became infertile, and the plants did not grow. People starved, death arose, and humanity was about to disappear. The only act that could stop this disaster and bring back life to the Earth and the people would be that Demeter’s anger was relieved, so Zeus did not have a choice but to ask Hades for a compromise, to rejoin the mother and daughter. And so it happened; from then on, Persephone would spend six months on Earth and six months in the Underworld; half the year Demeter would be happy and the harvest would be plentiful, and the other half she would miss her daughter and would not allow for plants to grow (Kakridis, 1986). The myth above is not used as a way to honor a glorious cultural past while judging a complex contemporary era, and by no means does it contain any scientific accuracy. The myth above, however, is just another proof of how humanity’s position towards the earth, nature, and the ecosystem, has been changing over the millennia. From an unknown world full of mysterious phenomenons that can only be explained with imaginary stories, we, humans, have managed to reveal a significant part of the world we live in through the use of research and science. According to Y.N. Harari and his book Homo Deus, “For the
first time in history, more people die today from eating too much than from eating too little; more people die from old age than from infectious diseases” (Harari 2018). Going one step further, humans gained so much more power over nature, that the effects led to the so-called Anthropocene era. The climate crisis effects are closely related to nature, animals, humans, societies, and economies; yet the only way to face and resolve it is through politics. How could a human of the past, a mythology believer in the ancient years, even imagine that the world as we knew it would eventually be changed not by a mysterious and strong religious force, but by human’s decisions, actions and choices? Proposals such as the Green New Deal seem to be urgent, but I must admit that the European’s Commission slogan, “A European Green New Deal: Striving to be the first climate-neutral continent” makes me hesitant (European Commission). The spread of the coronavirus pandemic in the winter and spring of 2020 is apart of a tragedy, a reminder of how small our world is; how borders do not exist in front of such a global issue; and how pointless it is for countries to take such policies individually, since we are all part of one, continuous, uninterrupted closed world. In other words, is the scale of a country, or even a continent, powerful enough to respond to such a global issue? Apart from voters we are also architects. Proposing and designing arguments and ideas that will be realized in the future context, however, is itself a political act and must be a very cautious and conscious procedure. And while forming and learning the principles and goals of green architecture is a necessity for its practice to be wholly successful and aligned with tackling the climate crisis, it must be driven by the knowledge of the environmental and social footprints of our work as an absolute given. It will only be successful once the terms sustainable and green are not being used in front of architecture because of a pleonasm.
There are no Demeters, Persephones and Zeus’ to blame for disasters, only humans and their decisions. It would be unfair to claim that globally all people are equally responsible for the current climate and social crisis, as it is naive to believe that the effects will be the same for all. The major question that should arise, however, is how we, the upcoming generation of designers, architects, planners and preservationists, the privileged and lucky Columbia GSAPP students, will respond to these conditions? To be answered soon and hopefully, proudly!
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EMERGING THROUGH A WAY OF LIFE by Vasanth MAYILVAHANAN
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Figure 1: Streets can be joyful and public spaces, Gehl Institute. Source: Fernando Neyra
When we navigate through any of the current paradigm shifts like the Green New Deal or the New Urban Agenda, one clear thing is the interest in orienting ourselves towards a people-centric design. Yes, you heard it right! Does that mean, we have been dealing with design so far as something that isn’t people-centric? Maybe we did put people in front, but at some point, we decided to lose the importance given to the environment in which these people exist. So, while we talk about the paradigm shift the world is going through, in most cases, we fail to address that it is not just the environment or a set of buildings that has to change but also the way of life. The way of life is a reflection of the environment and vice versa. While we live in the homogeneous bubble (or the way of life) created by us, addressing change in the form of policies or agendas, it might change the environment this bubble is present in, but not the bubble itself. If we could trace a little into our history, be it from any part of the world, culture could always be attributed as a pluralistic system of mutual
trust (Harari, 2015). There is a need to understand culture because it can be defined as a set of practices or a way of life that people of a certain region are accustomed to. It is a form of overlap between the way of living and the systems that embodied them. The critical aspect is not just about the interconnections between the systems, but also its overlap with the way of life. This forms an integral part when dealing with large-scale issues like climate change. To understand living pattern is to acknowledge that living pattern doesn’t function in isolation but is deeply influenced by the environment. And cultural knowledge stems from traditional ecological awareness and a set of multigenerational practices that are rooted in its environment (Watson & Davis, 2019). Moreover, living patterns are dynamic, and it is necessary to understand that nothing is constant. These are also the primary factors that are necessary to create a holistic and circular society. And a holistic society is not about a start or an end but a continuous, functional, and dynamic process. So defining
target goals in the frontier of climate change and sustainable development shouldn’t be viewed as a destination but as a set of principles that would continuously evolve as policies created in the present is what impacts the future. When analyzing the way of life, if we fast forward to the present, we are more concerned about viewing the natural and built environment in isolation to our way of living. Intersection not just between the various systems, but the intersection of these with our living patterns is lost. In other words, our understanding of the natural environment is turning out to be linear by the passing day. Through the lens of sustainability, this also means that there is a lack of systems thinking. The reason systems thinking is essential, especially with designers, is because we are a smaller part of a larger system (McCombs, 2015). This introduces us to the concept of urbanism as not just the built form but also about the life between them (Gehl, 1987). To not consider spaces as stand-alone factors but the spaces we design within the environment as something that enables the person to perform an activity that defines his or her life. So making a set of drawings that is disconnected from the way of life rooted in a set of sustainable principles does not aid the process of achieving a paradigm shift. Maybe we start to idealize cities, spaces, and our natural environment in a more circular, holistic, and just way?
Figure 2: Systems Thinking. Source: Author
This is further pioneered by the concept of Triple Bottom Line that involves social, economic, and environmental capital (McCombs, 2015). The fact that the spaces we design are a part of a larger capital that deals with the people, profitability, and the planet through a set of integrated processes are of crucial importance. This integrated process is where we overlap the expertise of design professionals with the policies and agendas drafted to create a paradigm shift in the form of sustainable development. As most of these factors exist in isolation, it is essential to acknowledge them while we navigate through the process of creating a change.
Figure 2: Triple Bottom Line. Source: The Corporate Sustainability Solution: Triple Bottom Line
In conclusion, when we talk about Emergence, it is crucial to stop and trace back to understand the fact that the issue is not just about higher bodies of governance and policies but something more fundamental. It is time we ask ourselves the question if tracing back is the only way to move forward? Is creating a culture a form of Emergence? Are we emerging as long as we are selling mass-produced goods in a green-certified building? Or maybe Emergence is not about moving forward, but about stopping to look back and understand the mistakes and opportunities for a progressive future.
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THE GLASS FAD Trouble or Worth It? by Nina NDICHU
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Figure 1: From the imposing I&M Building (left), which glitters in the warm Nairobi sun to the newly constructed Sifa Towers (right), Nairobi clearly sees a future in glass. Source: NATION NEWSPAPER
Glass buildings have become very popular not because they provide excellent views and allow maximum light into a building but because they demonstrate how far we have come in the development of materials (Musau, 2015) . Most designers argue that the glass skyscrapers reflect architecture in the present and most clients feel relevant having their buildings covered in glass. I myself used to be fascinated with fully glazed buildings growing up,until I first learnt about the damage they are doing to our environment in my second year of university. My professor was very passionate about relaying the information of how buildings affect climate too. That got me thinking, why is it when we talk about climate change, we only think about the damage caused by human activities and not the buildings we ‘live’ in every day. From this brief encounter of learning about building science and passive cooling and heating technologies, I slowly came to realize that our ancestors had this right. They had been designing climate responsive buildings for the longest time and industrialization came and ruined it for everyone. The most talked about topic in the world today is climate change and has been situated within the context of reducing global temperatures by
2°C or we will have no resources left for us on the planet let alone future generations. Yet, come to think of it, the buildings we occupy are the major contributors to the ever-heating landscape we live in. The cycle is the same: the more it gets hotter, the more we use our air conditioners and the hotter it becomes and the stronger and more energy dependent our air conditioners become. Did you know that the refrigerant in air conditioners is the main contributor to carbon emissions that has led to global warming and the depletion of the ozone layer?
Glassiosis In this digital age, designers face the dilemma of clients opting for buildings that are designed in various climates as they bring these images from the internet and suggest that we should design the same in their home climates. But the fact remains, a building built in a temperate climate will not do well in a tropical one. Moreover, if you do not employ the basic passive and active techniques, the building will have a high carbon footprint, high running costs due to cooling of the building using air conditioning and primarily have low thermal performance, therefore making it energy inefficient.
Nairobi has followed this trend. Competing to join the ranks of global cities, like New York, Dubai, and London, Nairobi has over 50 new skyscrapers with 80 stories of glazed curtain walls. Architects and designers are no longer looking to design climate responsive buildings that were evident in the 1960s. Instead, they have unanimously decided that being modern means the building needs to be glazed, putting aside their design liberties to follow the global trend. This is hurting the environment and the occupants as the facades are designed not to be functional automatically,making the end user depend on air conditioning. In Nairobi, most of the buildings have 20% occupancy, offices have now moved to apartment buildings because they are more comfortable than the new high-rise office towers and in the end the developers and owners lose a fair share of money keeping up the ruse that glazed building means modern building.
Figure 2: View Park Towers in Nairobi completed in 1989 is only 60% occupied and incurs $40,000 a year in electricity bills due to air conditioning. Source: AUTHOR
For Climate’s Sake
Communi-who?
Whilst there is increasing recognition that green buildings outperform conventional buildings in terms of a variety of environmental, economic and social indicators, much less is known about how green-building initiatives might be incorporated into existing buildings, which make up the bulk of the market. If the challenge of climate change is to be successfully addressed, the vast majority of older buildings which were designed without climate consideration would need to be retrofitted. Unfortunately, retrofitting existing buildings is significantly more difficult than creating a new green building from scratch. For example, in existing multi-tenant commercial buildings, any sustainable retrofit or technology upgrade requires the cooperation and participation of a wide range of stakeholders (i.e., owners, managers, occupants and contractors) who often must reside in the building during the potentially disruptive retrofitting process. Moreover, whilst there is the technological capacity, issues such as cost and tangible demand from consumers, organizations and policy-makers will determine the priority the industry places on retrofitting existing buildings for sustainability (Miller, 2008). Designing retrofits for existing buildings to include sustainability initiatives will reduce operation costs and negative environmental impacts.
We know certain areas are more susceptible and vulnerable to the effects of climate change. Communities should come together in a large think tank and establish different building materials that can be used for construction as an alternative to glass in order to make them perform better. Sustainable retrofitting can include photovoltaic glass for the façades if the client wants to retain the ‘modernity’ look and feel of glass. This can ensure that the building is self-sufficient and generating energy instead of only exhausting it. The implementation of preliminary architectural and energy efficiency improvements in buildings would have the additional benefits of increasing community wellness and have positive social effects and incentivizing users on the awareness of energy consumption. At the same time, energy efficiency implementations targeted at these vulnerable neighborhoods can also improve indoor air and indoor environmental quality, which correspond to reducing the overheating risk assessment of a building. In addition to direct energy consumption reduction, energy use potentialities of retrofitting measures can provide indirect economic benefits.
Figure 3: Process Zero: Retrofit Resolution, incorporates an algae farm and bioreactor onto the sunny southern side of the building to provide energy and clean both wastewater and air at the same time. Source: INHABITAT
The Future is NOW Optimizing energy efficient retrofitting measures for mass and large-scale developments are of crucial importance; thus, policies for construction need to be formulated and employed into the building code to ensure everyone has access to high energy efficient and thermal performing buildings. We need to carb the current certifications used for energy efficiency, as they have become too commercialized and are not at all inclusive. Designers and developers alike have tweaked the performance of buildings only to get LEED certified but do not necessarily construct it to meet those certifications. Undoubtedly, as consumption patterns change and social standards shift, the adjustment of eco-efficiency will need to adjust our eco-retrofit priorities. 9
RETAIL APOCALYPSE Rethinking the Conventional Model by Einat LUBLINER Sushmita SHEKAR Hatem ALKHATHLAN Chris ZHENG 10
Figure 1: In the map above, the red dots represent the e-commerce infrastructure and the white x represents the closed malls.
The global transition from traditional shopping to e-commerce and the change in consumer trends, have led to the transformation of main street retail, Big Box stores and malls which were a de facto social space for American small towns into redundant infrastructure. In the last decade more than 150 malls and big box stores have closed and retail blight is increasing in most cities and suburbs in the US. This identifies with a decline in traditional shopping and the fast growth of the e-commerce industry The e-commerce industry is mostly based on a logistic system, hence through our research we found that it has a greater impact on the carbon footprint. This transition greatly influences consumer behavior. We looked at three types of consumers - the traditional shopper, the online shopper and the impatient shopper (prime user). The prime shoppers who account for 51% of the online shoppers contribute to nearly 3.3kg/e of CO2, owing to the vast amount of freight transportation involved in shipping the orders.
The repercussions of this shift has not only increased consumption, but also caused loss of jobs, strengthened monopolies and lack of physical social interaction. The Local economies and small businesses are usually the most vulnerable to this change since they cannot compete with the prices and delivery that the large e-commerce platforms offer. This draws a clear picture of the suburbs of New York- empty retail stores in the main streets, which the rise of the shopping malls created in the 50’s, and vast amounts of ‘dead’ shopping malls and big boxes that the shifting to e-commerce has left behind. As Urban designers we enquire into how the main street had a great impact on the social interaction and social life as in the past. With the shift to shopping malls , the paradigm changedwith greater focus on the product and atmosphere for shopping, and with the advent of e-commerce the social and spatial aspects don’t exist anymore. That led us to question how we can shape a new retail module through a social, economic and
Figure 2: Retail evolution throughout the years and the influence on the public space
carbon effective lens in the era of the Green New Deal resolution. Our project aims to address the spatial and social aspects of this transition. To investigate this phenomenon further we chose Kingston as a case study to look at this change. Kingston is a city in the lower hudson valley , about 91 miles from New York City. In the last decade the street retail vacancy has increased dramatically and the Hudson Valley mall located at the periphery is on the verge of shutting down. The city has several small businesses and entrepreneurs who have great potential but lack funding and infrastructure. The existing model of these micro businesses is based on the traditional model where each of them depend on individual infrastructure which is less cost effective and increases the carbon footprint. When each individual business has its own supply chain of raw materials, customer shipping, processing machinery, it increases freight transportation, energy consumption and the overall cost of production and sale.
number of vacant storefronts and the streets are predominantly vehicular. Our approach focussed We challenged this trajectory by redefining on street activation by broadening the pedestrian a new retail module that spurs from a bottompath and activating it with collaborative pop up approach through main street revival, by up elements. The street social extension has establishing a shared collaborative platform for collaborative consumption components for reusing small businesses. These platforms offer shared and sharing materials and goods in relation to the space, energy, resources, waste management and Co-op .For example in a textile co-op the remnant storage. This sharing of assets not only reduces fabric can be available for community use. cost and carbon emission but also funnels local To address this transformation as a holistic economy, promotes interaction, elevates jobs, sustainable system we re-shape the Big boxes enables social equity. In addition it increases social and the malls to form a support infrastructure responsibility and awareness, as consumers now of the Co-op . The malls and big box stores are engage with the producers or makers and thereby repurposed as a local distribution center and shifts the focus from consumption to experience. The main street in Kingston has a vast
Figure 3: Prototype of the collaborative street model
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Figure 4 : Street extension components to support collaborative consumption Figure 5 : The new Retail infrastructure implemented in Kingston
recycling center. In order to connect these we reuse the existing rails for transporting raw materials , finished goods and waste to the malls. At this moment in time, as we see the massive shift to the virtual realm, we should rethink how we utilize existing infrastructures rather than acquiring greenfield areas to build new ones over the expanse of an existing ecosystem. The public realm should be also taking into account those transformations as an anchor point for social interaction and equity. Creating micro business through a shared platform of production and marketing, could generate social capital and assets that challenge monopolies and empower local communities. In today’s time financial capital of cities should be measured through social and ecological assets rather than materialism and consumerism.
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Figure 6 : Views of the new retail infrastructure
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EMBLEMS Symbolizing City Data by Mariya Chekmarova and HK Dunston
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“On the day when I know all the emblems,” he asked Marco, “shall I be able to possess my empire, at last?” And the Venetian answered: “Sire, do not believe it. On that day you will be an emblem among emblems.” (Italo Calvino, Invisible Cities) Can the data we encounter about cities help define them? Or does data, like the ostrich feathers and tales of leaping fish Marco Polo brought to Kublai Khan in Calvino’s fable, offer only glimpses of what a city might be? Is possession of the real city beyond our grasp? These generated “emblems” --based on data from 15 cities in the U.S. and reinterpreted through layers of spirographs--capture elements of the variety and dynamism of each city that seem to distinguish one from another. But they are beautiful cautionary tales, subjective in their creation and expressive in their interpretation. Our hope is that by shifting our view, we might begin to explore the equal but less acknowledged subjectivity in other, more customary ways of interpreting information about cities. The emblems represent a pantomime of comparison, elaborate gestures to make us pause and consider city data itself with its implicit authority and rational sharp edges, as perhaps simply another story we tell of distant lands. This project originated in Anthony Vanky’s Urban Informatics class at Columbia GSAPP and was revised for Data x Design 2020.
Area & Population Density
In each city emblem, the expression of area is literal. It defines the scale of the overall shape. As New Yorkers, there’s no mystery about our preference: cities with higher population densities are more beautiful. Patterns fully resolve only when the city’s population is as dense as New York’s.
larger area
higher population density
Cultural Vibrancy
We believe that a beautiful city is one that welcomes newcomers and makes space for art of all kinds, from late-night music venues to high-art temples. The percent foreign born metric and the city’s percentile of people working as independent artists are used as proxies to measure vibrancy.
Road Density & Dead Ends
We’ve used the number of square feet of road surface per person to measure road density. The number of dead ends in a city’s road network indicates higher connectivity, densification potential and shorter drive times. A more connected city is a more beautiful city.
Building Density & Supertalls
The number of square feet of land dedicated to buildings per person defines the built environment. The number of buildings above 200 meters tall further reinforces a city as vertical rather than horizontal. New York City’s dramatic verticality is our ideal state, and the pattern reflects that completeness.
higher number of working artists
fewer dead ends
higher number of buildings over 200 meters
higher percent foreign born
greater population per sq foot of road
greater population per sq foot of building
Qualtity of Parks
The Trust for Public Lands ParkScore provides an indicator of a city’s investment in green space, and by proxy, its investment in residents’ wellbeing. Cities with high ParkScores have large, bright, complex patterns. Cities with lower scores patterns feel smaller and less resolved.
People Living in Poverty
Cities with the highest percentage of people living below the poverty line have a pattern that disrupts the rest of the emblem with discordant angles. As the burden of poverty lightens in a city, the pattern becomes softer and more consistent with the rest of the emblem.
higher number and quality of parks
lower percentage of people inpoverty
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New Orleans
Washington DC
Seattle
Boston
San Francisco
Dallas
Atlanta
Los Angeles
Miami
New York
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REGENERATING OUR FARMING SYSTEMS by Angus PALMER Claudia KLEFFMANN German BAHAMON Nina LISH Nina NDICHU 18
Introduction
Deal. Our group, which consisted of landscape architects and architects explored the policy As the COVID-19 crisis continues to proliferate framework of the Green New Deal. This proposed in the United States, it has subsequently exposed package of legislation is centered around policies the nation’s inadequate systems as well as the which address climate change and economic general lack of proactivity in response to crises inequality. Using the Green New Deal as reference at the national level. Looking more closely at for our research, we were prompted to re-envision these systems, the farmland now needed to help how we think about topics surrounding the ensure community food security for the duration agriculture industry, community food security, and of this pandemic is crucial. However, much like resiliency overall. The end result was a spatial the nation’s overwhelmed health system, the U.S. urgently needs a strategic plan for both agriculture design and system that was moulded and has continued to evolve as a result of the research and farmland. done in collaboration with farmers in the Hudson In today’s climate crisis, there are certain Valley. By integrating a variety of concepts such industries that are considered to be major culprits as the principles of regenerative agriculture, our in regards to their production of greenhouse gas emissions. Increasingly so in the eyes of the public, studio group came up with a project that would have the potential to sequester significant amounts agriculture finds itself as one of the most notable of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, question contributors to greenhouse gas emissions. Some the rural landscape, create new local jobs, and may wonder whether or not this has been unfairly attributed to the industry. Globally, this reputation bring together isolated farmers throughout the and perception has evoked protest and movements Hudson Valley. These concepts and proposals could be the type of thinking that the Green New against the agriculture industry; an industry that Deal needs if it is to catalyze a paradigm shift in we simply cannot live without. This is highlighted agriculture. by current events in New York City as the city undergoes a lockdown due to a global pandemic and it’s residents continue to need access to fresh Agriculture, food and the Green New Deal Democratic U.S. Representative, Alexandria produce. Our food comes from farmers throughout the nation and the commodities they produce from Ocasio-Cortez, has called for a 10-year national mobilization of the Green New Deal. Within those both their crops and livestock. resolutions provided to Congress in early 2019, Although the industry is clearly important to there were two key policies relevant to agriculture our daily lives, this does not mean we can let the and food security which can be seen below: agriculture industry off the hook in regards to their rate of emissions. This holds increasingly “Working collaboratively with farmers and true as we become more concerned with climate ranchers in the United States to eliminate change and the climates instability in the age of the anthropocene. Moving forward, it is necessary pollution and greenhouse gas emissions from the agricultural sector as much as is that the United States re-think the ways in which technologically feasible.” it approaches agriculture. The nation needs to understand that there are more sustainable “Providing all people of the United States practices when it comes to agriculture and how with (i) high-quality health care; (ii) affordable, farmland is managed. safe, and adequate housing; (iii) economic In the fall of 2019, the Masters of Architecture security; and (iv) access to clean water, clean and Urban Design program framed their Design air, healthy and affordable food, and nature.” Studio on the Hudson Valley and the Green New
Background Beginning as early as the industrial revolution and continuing into the Nixon administration, farmers were pressured into large scale farming, otherwise known as industrial agriculture. The timing of this federal pressure for large scale farming also coincided with Nixon putting an end to New Deal programs. Industrial agricultural practices were geared towards the promotion of a faster and cheaper way to get produce from farmland to plate. This effort resulted in poor land and crop management, which included practices such as the tilling of harvested cropland and stripping the land of quality soil, the use of heavy farm machinery, the use of pesticides and fertilizers, factory dairy farming, and the process of sending livestock--specifically ruminant animals (beef cattle, sheep and pigs)-- to grain feedlots halfway across the country. One of the repercussions of feeding ruminant livestock grain instead of grass was that it contributed to slower digestion of food in the animals’ first stomach compartment. This then led to belching, which contributes to 95% of methane emissions from ruminant animals. Subsequently, the impact on the consumer’s plate from the industrial agriculture mechanism was an inferior quality of food with a lower amount of nutrients. The food has also been produced through chemical intervention. To provide some context, roughly 94% of meat production in the U.S. is grain fed and processed through the industrial system. This starkly contrasts to Oceania nations such as Australia and New Zealand, where 97% of the meat produced is grass fed. Simply put, industrial agriculture nowadays in the U.S. operates in a way that is out of sync with both the long term sustainability of farmland as well as with the well being of the people it is designed to feed. Agriculture makes up 9% of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in the U.S.. When scaled down regionally, New York State agriculture contributes to 4% of GHG emissions, with only 0.64% of these emissions originating in the Hudson Valley. This reduction in emissions is
the result of smaller farm operations and a demand for better quality food locally and in the New York City area. This opportunity in the Hudson Valley provides potential to not only adapt agriculture locally and produce a net zero GHG emissions prototype, but to also be a regional and national model for best practices for carbon farming.
How do we shift the paradigm? How can we give farmers the right tools and knowledge to reduce and reverse GHG emissions, to become leaders in the fight against climate change, all the while simultaneously restoring agriculture as a more appreciated and wellregarded industry? Regenerative agriculture is a step up from organic farming, which emphasizes the use of produce that has not been treated with chemicals. Regenerative agriculture goes even further than organic practices by working with nature by rebuilding soil and increasing carbon storage. This results in a lessened need for nitrogen, pesticides
and herbicides. Furthermore, this results in a reduction in the likelihood of flooding and erosion. All of this works to cumulatively restore water systems and provide healthier food for the local community. Holistic management--which was originally developed by Zimbabwean ecologist Allan Savory-is a whole farm planning system and helps farmers better manage agricultural resources in order to reap sustainable environmental, economic and social benefits. Regenerative agriculture also entails the practices of holistic management. These practices are based on planned grazing and rotational pasture management to ensure soil health is maximised. This means that the paddocks of farmlands have the capacity to be carbon sponges. Ultimately, regenerative agriculture is dependent on livestock as they are crucial in keeping the land sustainable and productive, only if appropriate rotational pasture management and diverse crop management are applied.
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A spatial resolution When organising and designing our project under the framework of the Green New Deal and with consideration of both regenerative agriculture and the goal of bringing agriculture to carbon neutrality in the Hudson Valley, our project had to navigate through a myriad of challenges as we experienced constant deliberation. The final spatial resolution has taken the form of a unique system in the composition of an arterial route that will be connected with adjacent paddocks and harvested cropland that weaves and
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meanders through easements which dissect and intersect farms and other rural land between two small towns in Columbia County. This concept, which is proposed as a shared corridor, allows farmers to be able to share each other’s land while simultaneously developing social networks and ultimately promoting local connectivity. Livestock will be moved and rotated through the trail and adjacent paddocks to regenerate the land and sequester carbon under the principles of holistic management.
The proposed trail would become part of a new type of public realm which would also cater to human movement and passive recreation, such as cycling and walking. The trail would also extend into urban areas, connecting rural areas with key town nodes. By doing so, the trail would increase opportunities for the distribution of healthy food and the awareness of regenerative agriculture practices. With this proposal, 18% of farmland in the Hudson Valley is required to reach carbon neutrality in the agricultural sector of the region.
Economic and social benefits The transition to regenerative agriculture and this unique spatial arrangement will create new jobs, both skilled and unskilled. Examples of job creation include roles in animal husbandry, agricultural educators, food distribution logistics, abattoirs, agronomy, livestock & ranch agents, nurseries, hospitality, fencing contractors and potential new Not-for-Profit Organisations. This transition goes further than the creation of new jobs wherein it also improves quality
of life for farmers from both an economic and social standpoint. Transitioning farmers to this system would result in less cost overheads, the ability to procure better market prices for farmer’s produce, and potentially, to have an increased agribusiness capacity. It would also bring a level of environmental resiliency when climate impacts (such as drought, floods and wildfires) do occur. The healthier land would also lower the mortality rate of livestock and improve land value, which will also set up future generations of farmers with the
land asset they need. This new system also enables improved social connections for isolated farmers and increases their capacity to build social capital in their localities all the while increasing the lure of being a farmer. In essence, if the Green New Deal comes into effect, it would help support family farms which have felt the effects of the current degraded agriculture system while also helping feed the mouths of millions of Americans.
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MATTER AND WHY IT MATTERS by Kirthana SUDHAKAR
What does the term materialism mean? Through the course of history, the term has had several connotations depending on your cultural background and personal world-view. In the 20th & 21st centuries, most interpretations view materialism through the polarizing lens of money. Meaning that the accumulation of material wealth may be seen as positive or negative depending on one’s perspective. When we take the concept of materialism, and apply it to cities, it becomes more complex and less comprehensive through linear interpretation. For example, take the case of one’s home. The home is the most primitive symbol of well-being. Historically the home and hearth retain the universal symbol of security. When we extrapolate this concept to the linear scale of modern day “materialism”, we enter into the realm of polarity between the “absolute despair” of homelessness, and the “excess” of a $14 million home in Beverly hills. The Alan Watts article titled “A true Materialist society”, delves into the concept of materialism and materiality as applied to all aspects of life. This piece sees the author reinterpreting the idea of materialism through the lens of Zen Buddhism. Thus, it brings to light some of the problematic subconscious thought processes that “demonizing” of materialism can lead to. This demonizing, if left unchecked, can pervade food habits, body image, clothing, wealth and the home.
A: Show me the money! B: What money? The second reference I’d like to make for this paper is a September 11th Lips Lecture by Saskia Sassen. This lecture addresses the idea of materialism, employing the example of the real estate market in New York City today. Sassen begins this lecture with a definition of what the concept of “high finance” means to her. She takes us through the precedents established to the growth of high finance: the discovery and meaning of “the digital” in the 22
1980’s; and how technology became a part of our lives in the late 90’s. “The steam engine right now in our advanced economies, is high finance. High finance is grandly different from banking. The bank sells money, it’s commerce, we all need it, it’s been around for centuries and centuries in one way or another. High finance, one way of thinking it, which gets at what I want to get at, high finance sells something it does not have. The bank sells something it has: money.” Expanding on the steam engine analogy, the growth of high finance has exceeded anyone’s imagination. This exponential and explosive growth transformed the global economy; much like the steam engine. She illustrates how this is important in the context of the city, by describing the concept of “dark pools”, as private networks that account for a large majority of money transactions. These mechanisms employ the materiality of global cities. Worldwide real estate assets comprise 60 percent of the world’s material assets (Sassen, Sept 2018). Cities like New York, San Francisco, London and Tokyo, hold high value in the eyes of wealthy investors, who invest in large quantities of real estate. In the context of cities, Sassen sheds light on how the polarizing concept of materialism can be stretched to its limit. In the style of “If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?”; “Is a house where no one ever lives, still a home?” This brings us to the reason why the awareness of these mechanisms is important. In Sassen’s words: “The working city is a very special space that has outlived us for many generations. The city is one of the few places today where those without power, get to make a history, a culture, an economy.
There are moments in the daily routine of the city, where we are all urban subjects.”
Blue Hawaii The institution of maritime law as a protective measure for domestic shipping has a long history in the United States. This dates back to 1789, when the first session of Congress imposed duties and taxes on foreign built, foreign flagged ships engaged in U.S. Atlantic coast trade. After World War I, under an 1817 Act concerning navigation within the United States, a law required that domestic shipping be conducted only with U.S. flagged vessels. Essentially, only U.S. built ships could be flagged, and so, by implication, the Act barred foreign competition. Iterations of this law have been restated through the course of history, with updates and addendums. Hence, although we know of the Jones Act or Merchant Marine Act enacted in 1920, this policy has in fact influenced the global economy for over two centuries. The Jones Act requires that all waterborne shipping between points within the United States be carried by vessels built in the United States and owned and operated by Americans. A 1986 study by Jackson McKetta addressed speculation that the Jones Act has particularly harmful effects on non-contiguous states such as Alaska and Hawaii, which rely heavily on expensive cabotage services to import most of their consumption and capital goods.
Power-play: It’s a dangerous game This brings into question the systems of control that exist today, which create inequalities, disadvantaging certain sections of society. These spatial relationships are often seen in the physical planning of cities where inequity exists. An example is the colonial planning in cities such as Bengaluru, where historically the city was segregated into “white” areas or cantonments, serviced by surrounding shanty settlements for
natives. These segregations are still reflected in the physical planning of the city, however, today, the segregation is one of class-based difference. There exists a bias within these structures of power, which, imposed through the mechanisms of policy and planning, has invisible, damaging effects. While the Jones Act may have been intended as a protective tariff, today, the Act has served to prevent the development of competitive trade, and has inflated the cost of living in U.S. territories and noncontiguous regions.
How much for this banana? In Justin Lewis’s paper titled “Veiled Waters: Examining the Jones Act’s Consumer Welfare Effect”, the author proceeds to estimate how the price range of domestic cabotage services would differ if the Jones Act were not in place. He adopts the method of “shadow pricing” which simulates the removal of the Jones Act compliance costs, while adopting measures of market elasticities from the International Trade Commission’s Computable General Equilibrium Model. His findings indicate that without the Jones Act in place, coastal water transport in the United States would be approximately 61 percent cheaper, and that consumers using these services would stand to gain a minimum of approximately $578 million annually in economic benefit. With respect to Hawaii, a 1988 General Accounting Office publication shows that an average Hawaiian family pays between $1,921 and $4,821 more than its mainland counterpart (Oyedemi, W. O., 2011). Representative Gene Ward of Hawaii claimed that Hawaii residents subsidize the Jones Act by about $1 billion per year; and because of the high price of goods due to the Act, this amounts to about $3,000 per household in the state (Frittelli, J., 2013). The need for secure ship-building establishments is one that might have been instrumental in keeping this policy firmly in place today. A second, often undiscussed purpose is to protect American sovereignty over maritime
commerce. These interests include crude oil from California, grain from the Midwest, iron ore from Michigan and Minnesota, refined petroleum from the East, to name a few.
So, what do we do? Hawaii has come to depend solely on American vessels in order fulfill all of its material needs, including food and supplies. In light of the shift in food habits created by imported food, it becomes valuable to examine the progression of Hawaiian food traditions. Historically, the culture placed value on the concept of coexistence with nature as a way of life. With the shipbuilding industry dominating employment, and tourism offering a close second, the island has seen a steady decline in agricultural incentives and a shrinking of the practice. Additionally, inflation has led to skyrocketing prices for land and supplies. Based on available data, the cost of living for an individual would be estimated at about $5,000 per month. The real per capita income is placed at $2,823 per month, indicating a deficit of about $2,100 per month (Expatistan, 2018). With locals on a suffocating budget, a dependency on cheap foods is created . Foods such as spam and canned goods often offer the only affordable option, with the cost of fresh produce being much higher. The meal of taro and fish, made traditionally, might not be one within your purview unless mechanisms of material creation are encouraged. The simple act of re-evaluating materialism and building the means for material creation might be the answer to breaking free of the shackles of dependency. One method of doing so would be by encouraging local cycles of production and consumption. Thus shifting the idea of materialism from the amount of money you can earn, rather to the amount of food you can grow, or even, the quality of shelter you can build.
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INTEGRAL TENSION Imagining a Changed New York by Elijah TURNER
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As we face the threats and challenges of climate change, we are forced to reckon with and reimagine what cities are and what cities do. We must decide how our future will play out. To do so, we can mirror our ambitions, and even predict our successes and failures, by examining the art we make. Fictional narratives help us develop theories about our situation; the artists and storytellers frame the world and our place in it. We leave the theater and act the narratives out subconsciously, like a waking dream. For good or ill, we are empowered to choose which narratives, which theories, which futures we want to envision and enact. To that end, I hope the New York of the indefinite future turns out more like Star Trek than Neo Yokio. There are many examples of possible climate futures in popular media. In the last 15-20 years, the global scale disaster movie dominated our box offices and captured our imaginations in a visceral—if not nuanced—way. The Day After Tomorrow, 2012, San Andreas: these films all envision nature’s rebuke to man-made meddling as cataclysms of Biblical proportions. Another pervasive concern is escape. Herbert’s Dune series, Robinson’s Mars trilogy, Cameron’s Avatar—stories like these present an urban polity that has (all but) deserted our home world, resigned to the stars. We see these narratives reproduced in our emergent behavior. They didn’t listen to the scientists in The Day After Tomorrow, so we don’t listen to our scientists now. SpaceX and Blue Origin are racing to Mars—bonus points to the first one to reach the asteroid belt. Class-conscious climate narratives are especially important as we try to imagine what socioeconomics will look like in a post-impact city. Will people be able to live in city systems that have irreversibly changed due to a range of issues, including but not limited to wildfires, drought, hurricanes, sea level, and cosmic radiation exposure? If so, What kind of people will remain in these cities? Examples that consider class dynamics in a realistic way tend to include a
great deal of death, as in Yeon Sang-ho’s Train to Busan. We do not often see similar considerations of class portrayed more positively in media, perhaps because this feels euphemistic, like daydreaming about the best possible ways one could die. We fear our speculation—no matter how light-hearted—will fulfill itself as prophecy. The importance of engaging in this cheerily morbid exercise of imagining the best-possible-worstcase-scenario is that of planning ahead, hedging against incalculable looming externalities as the geology and ecology of our world changes, unbalanced by human hands. The optimism inherent in this exercise is that of survival, as we assume that humanity will last at city scale. Ezra Koenig’s Neo Yokio and Gene Rodenberry’s Star Trek are two relatively positive survivalist class-conscious narratives about human societies that have responded to our climate realities in very different ways. In the Netflix original animated satire Neo Yokio, the title is the setting for the drama, analogous to a futuristic, fantastical New York City. The story follows Kaz Khan, a young socialite, bachelor, and magical exorcist—derogatorily referred to as nouveau riche “rat-catchers” by the city’s old money, due to their status as magical immigrants to Neo Yokio. He vies for the title of #1 Bachelor against his arch rival Arcangelo. Notably, the characters in the show— Kaz, his robot servant, his friends and family, his exorcism clients, his rival—are all wealthy. Most of the action centers on issues of class and status: who is the most eligible bachelor? Should my date to the gala wear the Fendi bag or the Celine? Why not both! The Long Island branch of the family is so gauche and vulgar. Equally notable, everything south of 14th St. in Manhattan is submerged beneath the waves, as the title of the first episode suggests: “The Sea Beneath 14thSt.” This leads us back to the original questions: what is this city, this Neo Yokio? What does it do? It is home to wealthy people who
can afford to live on receding luxury real estate, or else people who can afford to live beneath the waves (oxygen tanks? personal submersibles?). Resident occupations include pop star, heir and/or heiress, fashion guru, and private demon exorcist. The unthinkably wealthy and techno-magically enabled inhabitants of this city fret and concern over the finer things in life while half the city rests beneath the tide. Poor people are represented in the city insofar as they are necessary to labor in the service class and earn a living supporting the rich by refereeing and commentating on bouts of gentlemen’s field hockey or working the sales floor of Bergdorf. Koenig’s satire has a cutting edge to it, a stab in the ribs delivered with a goofy, glittery, anime wink. If we ignore the magic and robots, we see an eerily imminent (not so) alternate reality. New York’s poor and low-income residents have already been radically displaced in processes of development and gentrification. If sea levels rise and New York begins to flood, it is easily imaginable that the highest value property owners subsume the remainder of the city and divvy up the offal among the highest bidders. Hurricane Sandy and its aftermath provide a sobering example. In contrast, I would argue that we should attempt to adhere to the climate narrative described in Gene Roddenberry’s Star Trek franchise. The Earth of Star Trek is composed of agrarian urbanities, toeing the line between arable farmland and dense technological city centers. There is certainly social stratification, but scientific and technological breakthroughs have flattened the worst of human poverty and inequality. It seems everyone has some opportunity to work. The global government has erected weather towers that geoengineer the earth’s climate to a dynamic equilibrium. Social progress has also engendered cultural advances. People express their heritage without being discriminated against on that basis, at least within our species. However lofty or unrealistic the goal may be, the narrative remains useful to inform steps we
currently could—and arguable should—be taking to stave off the worst damage of climate change, to create a peaceful and cohesive human society. We can’t use geoengineering to stop storms quite yet, but we can adapt our social practices and built environments to cope with a changing world. We can design flood proof public spaces that use clever tech and simple physics to retain and drain water before it reaches people’s homes. We can revolutionize public transportation and drastically reduce carbon emissions by investing in nationwide high speed rail and advanced electronic vehicles. We can create laws that protect poor people in cities from displacement, climategenerated or otherwise. It might actually be possible to geoengineer our climate. To find out, we must commit ourselves to the type of narrative we want to follow into the future.
I hope things end up more Star Trek than Neo Yokio.
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PANDEMIC Praxis in the Time of COVID-19 Prof. Hiba Bou Akar, Maureen Abi Ghanem, Sebastian Andersson, Dare Brawley, Jenna Davis, Lanier Hagerty, Joe Hunnekens, Martine Johannessen, Stefan Norgaard, Zeineb Sellami, and Wenfei Xu.
In March/April 2020, PhD and Master students from two Columbia University Urban Planning Program courses, along with faculty, collectively developed an annotated reading list related to urbanism, governance, and planning during the COVID-19 pandemic (https://bit.ly/ pandemicurbanism). We embarked on this project to contribute to the larger academic community in a heightened moment of uncertainty about COVID-19 in relation to our built environment. Using a method and process of collaborative co-writing, we developed an active archive of scholarly material on the pandemic engaging a range of topics including: space, governance, labor, gender, settler colonialism, and carceral geographies. Our call to transform this collaborative co-writing process into a “living document” has received positive responses across the globe, making the document broader and more inclusive. Our readings show how space has been historically key to understanding and combating
diseases, through disease mapping and spatial techniques to contain illness. We show how historically, diseases have impacted disadvantaged communities more severely and have been blamed on racial minorities and immigrants, which we also witness with COVID-19’s disproportionate impact on minorities. Research also reveals how many responses to disease further exclude or segregate marginalized populations. We argue the current pandemic will not be different: urban planning and policy will face major physical and epistemic disruptions. Theory, practice and pedagogy must rethink best practices and adapt longstanding ideas to this new context, learning from the past, observing the present, and giving voice to alternative narratives of what the future could be. The annotated reading list was assembled and developed during Professor Hiba Bou Akar’s two Spring 2020 classes: On Spatial Exclusion and Planning and Advanced Planning Theory.
https://bit.ly/pandemicurbanism 26
URBANISM I. Urban History of Pandemics II. Urban Planning and the Spatiality of the Crisis III. Political Economy, Labor, and (De)-Development IV. Shelter, Housing, and Homelessness
V. Urban Governance, Governmentality, and Political Theory
IX. Conflice, PostConflict, and COVID-19 X. Data and Privacy
VI. Architecture, Design, XI. Academia and the and ‘Innovation’ Pandemic VII. Gender, Space, and the Pandemic VIII. Carceral Spaces, Race, and Settler Colonialism
https://bit.ly/pandemicurbanism 27
WHEN WE COLLECTIVELY SET FOOT ON STREETS AGAIN by Juan SEBASTIÁN MORENO
I. This piece was originally about how cities in Latin America were dealing with the climate crisis – a challenge not of their own making, but rather one forced upon them. It was about the precariousness of urban life, about the everyday manifestations of colonial power that still want to civilize the Other. Finally, it was about the fluid meaning of the concept of emergence in the Spanish language, an apt metaphor to describe how these cities can address the uncertainty ahead of them. Little did I know about uncertainty. After withstanding three decades of neoliberal assault by the Washington Consensus, healthcare systems in cities of the global South – so different in shape, size, smell, yet so united by a common plight – are slowly but effectively being ravaged by the effects of a pandemic. Were the situation less dire, I would find some delight in the irony of a virus bringing the world to a halt, of all frameworks to discuss emergencies being shattered. A temporary consolation, however, is that at least the amorphous effects of global phenomena – so hard to pin down when talking about local droughts, or floods, or famines – are now drawn before us with absolute clarity. An enemy has been named, and we are constantly being invited to watch carefully how this war is being waged. I digress. Thinking about military discourse to fight an illness is another problem in itself. For now, with enough attention, there is perhaps something to be learned from the chronic and painful asymmetries that a virus has laid bare.
II. I will not to let a good analogy go to waste, and I intend to salvage at least one component of my initial thoughts. In Spanish, the word emergencia carries a triple meaning: first, it means emergence, the creation or germination of new things or ideas; it can also represent a calamity, an unexpected accident that produces an uncertain state of affairs; finally, it conveys a sense of emergency, of
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impending peril and danger. (Common sense would consider that the perpetual ambiguity of the Spanish language impedes it to describe with precision. Yet I find comfort in using words so filled with meaning, always demanding for context in order to make sense.) What is this pandemic (which needs a more prosaic name than “covid-19,” or at least some capitalization as The Pandemic) if not calamity born out of thin air; what does it convey, if not a reiterating sense of unrealized disaster. Death tolls increasing, everyday life tightening, curves not flattening – but we still don’t know when the worst will be over. While the outcomes of the crisis are far from being determined, I believe there is some radical change in the way we think about cities. These gargantuan, cruel, and marvelous crucibles of human interaction will be transformed. And we, as a privileged group that has the existential privilege of thinking about cities while inhabiting in them, can turn this emergencia from emergency to emergence.
III. The road will not be easy. Specially for informal settlements – a common occurrence in the South and the North, albeit with different features – The Pandemic envelops multiple challenges. The threat of the virus has risen in opposition to the fear of poverty and precarity. The paradoxical outcome of this situation was best summarized, decades ago, by the Cuban poet Nicolás Guillen: “me matan si no trabajo, y si trabajo me matan.” They kill me if I don’t work, and if I work they kill me. The radical contradiction of capitalism, one that illustrates the struggle for survival of workers, has now another form: you need to stay inside to survive, but you will die if you stay inside. That is the reality that many informal workers, who earn their daily livelihood in the dynamic yet uncertain flow of cities, are now facing. The contradiction takes hold in the racialization
of politics in the United States, in the profound mistrust of state agencies in Brazil, in the search for absolute power by an ethnically-oriented government in India, or in the reversal of migratory fluxes between Venezuela and Colombia. In all these cases, quarantines – the most rational measure to slow the spread of the virus – have result in hunger and dispossession for the working poor, who suddenly find themselves among empty streets, with no means to make a living. We are told to stay home. What kind of homes are those, in vast swathes of urban fabrics in the global South? Never mind the overcrowding, the precarious materials, or the absence of running water. These are homes that need the street to survive – to barter for food, to get help from neighbors, to have hope in surviving. So perhaps the most salient loss that informal settlements will have to endure is the tearing of social networks as a result of the fight against the virus. These are critical mechanisms that enable the everyday life of their residents. But with many poor migrants gone and support systems forever altered by death and displacement, there is a more present threat to survival than The Pandemic itself. Maybe this is another lesson in the complexity that is deeply embedded in informal settlements. Sanitary measures that seem to work elsewhere will have deleterious effects on the lives of these communities, who every day wage a battle against precariousness and exclusion. The close and often paradoxical relationship between urban planning and hygienist thought has brought us to a point of inflection. The permanent nature of informality as an urban phenomenon has perpetuated hygienic discourses – ranging from legitimate concerns on light and air to enacting mass displacement – in planning debates and practices. They also permeate current approaches to health and sanitation in the global South. On one hand, informal settlements are still considered ideal places for the spread of disease. But informal settlements are not a vector of infection. They face, instead, a disproportionate
risk of being ravaged by a virus as a consequence of the exclusionary emplacement of public infrastructure, limited access to health services, and a profound disconnection from the formal city. On the other hand, the presence of informal residents in other parts of the city – as street vendors, for example – has been read as a threat to the modernizing project of the urban experience. When we collectively set foot on streets again, an opportunity to reclaim cities will begin. It will not live for long, and the opponents – the usual ones, again – will still be mighty. But I would find it untenable to keep reflecting on the urban experience as if this calamity had not radically altered us. This represents the critical moment to tear down the artificial division between the formal and the informal, and to fight against the tangible separation of the urban poor. It will be a time to revert the necropolitics that have dominated the construction of the built environment, and to make cities places for the living.
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CITATIONS Demeter’s Anger
by Niki Kourti (AAD ‘20) edited by Maya Ephrem
European Commission . n.d. https://ec.europa.eu/info/strategy/ priorities-2019-2024/european-green-deal_en (accessed 04 01, 2020). Harari, Yuval Noah. Homo Deus. Harper Perennial, 2018. Kakridis, I. Elliniki Mythologia (trans. Greek Mythology). Vol. 2. Gods. Athens: Ekdotike Athinon S.A. , 1986.
Emerging Through a Way of Life
by Vasanth Mayilvahanan (AUD ‘20) edited by Kirthana Sudhakar
The Glass Fad: Trouble or Worth It? by Nina Ndichu (AUD ‘20) edited by Maya Ephrem
ASHRAE (2011). Advanced Energy Design Guide for Small and Medium Office Buildings. American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers, Inc. Builtr (2015), Eight Myths About Green Design, Retrieved from: http://www.builtr.io/eight-myths-about-green-design/ Burton, S. (2014) Sustainable retrofitting of commercial buildings: Cool Climates, London and New York, Routledge Cetinera I., Ozkan E., (2005) An approach for the evaluation of energy and cost efficiency of glass facades, retrieved from: Energy and Buildings 37, p673–684
Givoni, B., (1997) Climate Considerations in Building and Urban Design, New York, Van Nostrand Reinhold Hooper, C. (1975), Design for climates: a guideline for the low-cost houses for the climates of Kenya, Nairobi, University of Nairobi Kimeu, M., (2015), Environmental Building Design Guidelines for Practitioners, Financiers & Developers in East Africa: A paper presented at The Eastern Africa Real Estate Infrastructure Development & Finance Conference, Nairobi Koenigsberger, Ingersoll, Mayhew and Szokolay, (1974). Manual of Tropical Housing and Building – Part 1 Climatic Design, London, Longman. Miller E., Buys L., (2008), Retrofitting Commercial Office Buildings for Sustainability: Tenants’ Perspectives. Journal of Property Investment & Finance, Retrieved from: http://eprints. qut.edu.au/ Mtamu, Kililo (2015), Africa Needs Glass Architecture; Or Does It? ArchiDatum: Architecture in Africa. Retrieved from: http:// www.archidatum.com/articles/africaneeds- glass-architectureor-does-it/ Mwangi, M.N, (2008), Transformation of Nairobi PostIndependence Architecture: Climate Responsive Architecture, Nairobi, university of Nairobi, Unpublished Ndichu, N., (2017), Retrofitting for Environmental Suitability, Master of Architecture, Environmental Building Science Thesis, Department of Architecture and Building Science, University of Nairobi, Unpublished Njoroge, B. (2015), Towards a Climate-Responsive Architecture: A sensitivity analysis of passive design strategies for a freerunning building in the Tropical climate of Nairobi, Department of Architecture, University of Cambridge, Unpublished
Dixon D., Eames M., Lannon S., Hunt M. (2014), Urban Retrofitting for Sustainability: Mapping the transition to 2050, London and New York, Routledge
Ventures Africa (2014), Nairobi’s Changing Skyline: Commercial Real Estate on The Rise, Retrieved from: http://venturesafrica. com/nairobis-changing-skylinecommercial- real-estate-on-therise/
Gichuyia L. N., (2012), Impact of Climate Change on buildings, MPhil Essay 3 and 4, Department of Architecture, University of Cambridge, Unpublished
WBCSD, (2008), Energy Efficiency in Buildings. World Business Council for Sustainable Development
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Retail Apocalypse: Rethinking the Conventional Model by Einat Lubliner, Sushmita Shekar, Hatem Alkhathlan, and Chris Zheng (AUD ‘20) edited by Kirthana Sudhakar
Emblems: Symbolizing City Data
by Mariya Chekmarova and HK Dunston (UP ‘20 / ‘21) edited by Tihana Bulut
Regenerating Our Farming Systems by Angus Palmer, Claudia Kleffmann, German Bahamon, Nina Lish, and Nina Ndichu (AUD ‘20) edited by Tihana Bulut
Matter and Why It Matters
by Kirthana Sudhakar (UP ‘20) edited by Conor Allerton
Expatistan (2018, November 11). Cost of living in Honolulu, Hawaii, United States. Retrieved from https://www.expatistan. com/cost-of-living/honolulu John F. Frittelli, July 8, 2003, The Jones Act: An Overview. Retrieved from https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/RS21566.pdf Oyedemi, W. O. (2011). Cabotage regulations and the challenges of outer continental shelf development in the United States. Hous. J. Int’l L., 34, 607.citation
NOTES Integral Tension: Imagining a Changed New York by Elijah Turner (JD ‘22) edited by Zeineb Sellami
Pandemic Urbanism: Praxis in the Time of COVID-19
by Professor Hiba Bou Akar, Maureen Abi Ghanem, Sebastian Andersson, Dare Brawley, Jenna Davis, Lanier Hagerty, Joe Hunnekens, Martine Johannessen, Stefan Norgaard, Zeineb Sellami, and Wenfei Xu (MS / PHD UP) edited by Conor Allerton
When We Collectively Set Foot on Streets Again
The Editors
Special Thanks
Senior
Michael A. N. Montilla Go Bears!
Kirthana Sudhakar - Content Maya Ephrem - Publishing Conor Allerton - Design
Junior
Carolyn McShea (UP ‘22) for designing our table of contents and editor letter spreads!
Zeineb Sellami Tihana Bulut Geon Woo Lee
The Class of 2020 Good luck out there!
by Juan Sebastián Moreno (UP ‘21) edited by Zeineb Sellami
See your work in the next volume of URBAN! Send your written and visual work to
urban.submissions@gmail.com
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