Subverting Aqaba SEZ (Un-installing software) Linda Schilling Speculative City Seminar Spring 2018 GSAPP
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Representation of Aqaba`s SEZ as a logistics space divided between luxury tourist developments and Port activities. Elevation and all p
online repository S 2
index Introduction 4 Highway living
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Energy fields
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Gas stations remediation
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Customs border housing
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Bibliography 14
perspective views used in this booklet were taken from a model composed in Sketchup 2018 with an already modeled set of blocks from the
Sketchup warehouse 3
Introduction
The acronym SEZ stands for Special Economic Zone, a term
Abdula, the city of Aqaba was anointed as a new SEZ to
used interchangeably with export processing zones (EPZs)
Jordan and was tasked with the development of this strategic,
and free trade zones (FTZs), other forms of spatialized trade
and only, outpost on the Red Sea for the country.
instruments that combine infrastructure and policy to promote
Soon Aqaba`s SEZ will not be alone. Saudi Arabia is creating
investment and exports.
the city of NEOM just a few miles south from the Jordanian
Initially offering the global market tax exemptions, they now
border where Aqaba sits. An example that shows that despite it
have evolved to include in their repertoire relax labor laws,
being promoted as a tool for development during the seventies,
which adds to their appeal when luring in global capital.
this form of “ready made urbanism” 1 still has the attention and
The SEZ or “Zone”, was heavily promoted in the seventies
a renewed interest from country leaders that look at them as a
by the United Nations and the World Bank as a tool for
way to get on the world stage.
developing countries to jump-start their economies, get onto
In today’s Aqaba, its infrastructure is all about allowing
the global market and achieve development. A goal that sought
mobility. The sea-port, the airport, gas station, highway,
above else autonomy and economic independence from larger patron nations. Even though they make an aggressive appearance in the second half of the twentieth century, the Zone is as old as some of the most famous port cities like Hamburg, and have been around running parallel to ancient trade routes on the Baltic, the North Sea, and the Mediterranean. On the Red Sea, the Gulf of Aqaba is home since 2001 to a Special Economic Zone that has its own governing body, ASEZA. Created by Jordan’s monarch, his Majesty King
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Remembering the “ready-made”, a concept introduced by
Marcel Duchamp to describe prefabricated, mass-produced objects, decoupled from their intended use. “Ready-made urbanism” here refers to the ability of the Zone to set up a city`s worth of infrastructure (airports, highways, customs, etc) that have the purpose of luring investors which would like to plug in their latest projects, from luxury tourist developments, state of the art medical facilities, to sports centers. “Readymade urbanism” embeds a critic that points out to the highly engineered city that a SEZ comprises. Usually set up following master plans designed by international firms, in this case, Gensler, they erase any trace of locality in preference of a standardized urban aesthetic.
customs combo (even the proposed Red to Dead water pipeline)
of a second function, to subtract agency from the combo of
drives the flux of material goods (or water) as well as people.
infrastructure constituents.
Luxury developments, a requirement in MENA SEZ’s, aid in the underlying process of expulsions the locals experience due to the
To explore this thesis, short fictions from the point of view of the
agency infrastructure has got over the city. In this light, the city
Zone´s characters will be written alongside images that depict the
acts like a corridor that has undermined the city fabric and its
city from their perspective.
public spaces. Could this system be subverted from within its own definition and constituting elements? If the SEZ is a spatialized set of rules that gains agency over the territory they precede by deploying infrastructure that becomes the backbone of the city, or what Keller Easterling refers to as dumb software, can it be possible to reverse the commodification of space inside of an SEZ by interfering with the infrastructures that hold its agency?
The following pages will explore the thesis by which a coupling strategy could undermine the Zone`s infrastructure primary function in order to uninstall the SEZ software and regain control over the city of Aqaba. A coupling strategy would be defined as a series of spatial tactics that attempt, by virtue of their design, the implementation
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Highway living
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Every day used to be the same until the highway began to look
subsistence farming used by the Egyptian migrants in plots by
different from the crane where he sat all day. His job at the
the flood channels in the old city center.
Port was part of new job openings brought by the intense Port
From above he saw it as a green thin line that would go to
activity Aqaba was experiencing. The reconstruction of Iraq
change path and colors over the seasons. It did make sense that
and Syria carried out by Egyptian companies had increased the
this type of activity happened there, it usually was the moistest
movement of good between its ports on the Red Sea and the
and fertile soil in the desert. A short rain season would bring
Zone.
flash floods that deposited sediment and fresh water along
It only took a couple of months for the Zone to get an influx
its impervious surface, not even phosphate from the nearby
of people looking for a job in the logistics sector as drivers and
processing plant own by KEMAPCO was necessary to see the
machine operators. Many people slept in their cars or trucks
vegetables thrive.
for lack of proper housing stock for middle-class workers. A
Slowly the green thin line began to widen, the cars became
night per person in any of the luxury tourist projects was too
tents, and the tents became housing provided by ASEZA
expensive to be afforded by unemployed newcomers to the city.
after international pressures were placed on Jordan to end the
The cars and trucks sat undisturbed along the highway waiting
informal occupations of the highway. It did not look good
for an opportunity to make quick money moving goods to
for business to have a highway plagued with non regulated
cities along the highway that connected with the Al Karameh
settlements.
border crossing. One of many that had built warehouses next to
The farming and housing slowed the highway functioning,
the customs office that served as an entry point for the goods
too many interruptions occurred along its path. Eventually,
destined for the reconstruction.
the Port activities slowed down, Egypt did not trust the Zone
The highway, once a solitary landscape was now gradually
anymore to move goods to the reconstruction countries. Many
changing nature. The amount of transient population that
jobs where lost, but also many others where gained by the local
found refuge along its edges were now beginning to occupy
economy that revolved around the highway. The last day he
its median with small agricultural plots. The same type of
worked the crane he decided to join the highway too.
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Energy fields
The Zones authorities were eager to showcase Aqaba as a city
move the contained goods around. In this sense, goods take
made better by its presence.
precedence over people.
The Sahara Project, a desert greenhouse growing food with
To generate more energy, the container fields that occupy
desalinated water from the Red Sea, anticipating the depletion
an expansive area, are retrofitted with windmills. The city`s
of the Disi aquifer that feeds the city with fresh water, had been
location on the north of the gulf makes it an ideal candidate
a success in terms of public relations. It had given the boost the
for this type of harvesting of renewable energy since it enjoys
administration needed to apply for international development
strong winds all year round.
funds, and in so doing, attracting private investments for its
The containers fields started popping windmills by the dozens
other projects.
once the technique was proven successful, the only downside
Desalination was by then the go-to technique being
became the fact that now, stacking and expanding the container
investigated at different research facilities from the University
terminals was not possible. Cranes could not be deployed
of Jordan in Aqaba and Amman. But the deserts miracle of
to move the containers around for they would collide with
producing fresh water from salt water in its only outpost on the
the windmills, and so finally Aqaba is deemed not suited for
Red Sea didn’t come without a cost. Desalinization by reverse
handling this type of operations and a new container terminal
osmosis is an expensive endeavor, to produce water like this
is built down south where it would have to compete with
energy coming from fossil fuels needs to be widely available.
humans for energy.
But in Aqaba that is not the case. Most of the fossil fuel
Some container units still populate the landscape, left behind
energy is used to run the motors of trucks and machinery that
by Port operators, they sit dispersed on an unrecognizable grid.
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Gas stations remediation
The Zone`s first crisis was water, the second, fossil fuel.
growing and developing infrastructure gave way to financing
The MENA region was the last to run out of oil, but it ran out
remediation strategies that sought to repurpose the Zone`s old
anyways.
servants.
Zero-day was May fourth, 2035. That day the Zone`s design
One of the most notable cases where the sites of old gas
seemed to lack logic. People got stranded cross Aqaba`s two
stations which became known as Energy Commons. At them,
main highways that cut across the city, cars went no further
people would now dispose of waste for bioenergy generation
than the little amount of gas they had left in their tanks, and
and charge batteries with the energy harvested off renewables.
so, people where one day displaced to a new world where the
Old gasoline underground tanks at these sites were removed
Zone`s layout was completely obsolete.
and the soil cleaned from years of leakage.
People argued that if the city had reinvented itself more
The Zone proved that its main components were in itself
efficiently, as to avoid large distance commuting of people and
design to make the model fail, a slow building crisis, the
goods, the fossil fuel economy could have lasted longer, but that
undermine was built from within.
argument is presented a little too late. The large investments once made in the city towards
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Customs border housing
She thought that with her experience in Amman and the
same way the highway truckers turned farmers negotiated with
resort on the Dead Sea she would be set, she saw the city as a
the Zones authorities, they managed to do the same.
place where she could start again. The popularity of the Zone
Unfortunately, that would be the beginning of the end for the
brought many service industry workers to Aqaba, for luxury
Zone. To the south Aqaba shares a border with Saudi Arabia,
developments were known for hiring experienced labor to
to the north it had all the desert to keep expanding, but now
tend to the jet set guests that stayed at the only seaside city in
expansions are restricted, the women’s villages located north of
Jordan. But soon one cardinal rule of market regulation was
the city, right off from the Kings’ highway next to the customs
broken, supply outstripped demand an many people found that
offices where they used to wait, makes it impossible to keep
arriving at the cities doors was a dangerous act.
growing.
It was possible that without a job offer you where not let in,
Eventually, the city no longer can grow and enters an economic
also, often people did not have the means to return, and so,
recession aided in part on its absolute reliance on international
small colonies of unemployed workers began to pop up along
investments.
custom border posts.
The luxury developments saw gradually fewer people flying
Villages run by mostly women that used to work as maids
to Aqaba to spend a weekend by the sea and eventually fewer
became settlements that were difficult to ignore, and in the
women working in them.
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Bibliography
Easterling, Keller. Extrastatecraft: The Power of Infrastructure Space. London: Verso, 2016.
Sassen, Saskia, and Stella Mastrangelo. Expulsiones: Brutalidad Y Complejidad En La Economía Global. Móstoles-Madrid: Katz Editores, 2015.
Bhatia, Neeraj. Pamphlet Architecture 30: Coupling: Strategies for Infrastructural Opportunism. New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2011.
Rosler, Martha, and Pelin Tan. “Autonomous Infrastructure: Forms of Decay.” Autonomous Infrastructure: Forms of Decay. Accessed March 20, 2018. http://autonomousinfrastructure. tumblr.com/. Autonomous Infrastructure: Forms of Decay is a project commissioned by: After Belonging
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