Emergence(y)
Design Tactics for Disaster Prone Urban Landscapes Niki Schwabe
Emergence(y) Design Tactics for Disaster-Prone Urban Landscapes How can emergence be used as a tool for design in disaster-prone landscapes? This research considers the opportunities presented in a disasterprone landscape to design vital spaces of refuge for vulnerable urban communities. It does this through the mechanisms of emergency relief informed by patterns of spontaneous social assemblage. It draws on settlement tendencies as a disaster event unfolds, looking for ways to generate a flexible landscape that supports the shifting needs and aspirations of the affected community as it moves into the longer term disaster recovery phase. The project therefore aims to address immediate disaster relief with a view to facilitating ongoing disaster preparedness as part of the disaster management cycle. The project aligns theoretically with the HAT Kobe project by Yoji Sasaki, who noted that city dwellers had established invisible “life fields” and intuitively knew where to seek shelter throughout the 1995 Kobe earthquake. His design approach was to integrate open spaces for refuge into peoples’ daily activities, distributing them according to a theory of social tendencies. My approach works with a similar understanding of social dynamics, but proposes an open-ended system of design that incorporates standard tools of emergency relief to generate the spaces. My ideas are tested in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, which suffered a catastrophic earthquake in 2010. Countless people continue to live in “temporary” camps. By critiquing the current design practices, my research aims to establish the emergency camp as a catalyst for lasting change rather than a disposable step in the recovery process. I propose a set of design tactics that examine the relationship between the landscape and emergent social patterns. The design components can combine according to the context to generate diverse, spontaneously inhabitable emergency spaces. They initially address the immediate needs of those affected in times of disaster but have emergent potential to adapt to the community’s changing needs throughout the disaster response, recovery and preparation cycle. In this way a pathway towards a more resilient community is fostered and new, durable urban forms may emerge whilst maintaining their true potency as spaces for refuge during future disasters. Niki Schwabe
Contents Introduction Emergence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Simulation: A Tool for Design Thinking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Feedback . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Dynamics of Disaster . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 Dynamics of Displacement: Spontaneous Social Order . . 20
Emergency Settlement Standards . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 International Standards of Emergency Relief . . . . . . . . . . . 27 Current Design Practice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
Precedents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35 PĂŠtionville Golf Course . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35 HAT Kobe Nandohama . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36 Teufelsberg, Berlin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37 Wild Building . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38 Other Influences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
Approach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41 Making Site . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41 Landscape as Shelter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49 Spatial Concept . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50 Developing a Toolkit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57 An Unfolding Camp System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91 References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97 Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
Introduction
My intention from the outset of this masters study was to understand how the phenomenon of emergence might be put to work in my design practice in a way that leads to concrete design action. This paper discusses my research in relation to three core lines of enquiry: the phenomenon of emergence, the disaster condition, and emergency spaces. The design project based in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, represents the confluence of my reckoning with these concepts in relation to my early practice as a Landscape Architecture student. First I discuss my continuing interest in emergence and demonstrate ways in which I have attempted to engage with it. I follow on by investigating the dynamics of disaster and the spontaneous social orders that arise in the aftermath. Through a critique of current emergency response camp-making procedures and other precedents, I investigate new approaches for camp design that incorporate ideas of emergence and spontaneous social assemblage. Moving through my main design gestures should give the reader an insight to my current progress. The study concludes with a brief discussion of my findings thus far and an indication of a future direction. The confluence of urban densification (often manifesting as informal settlements on marginal land) and increasing climate instability sets the backdrop for a world where disaster becomes increasingly commonplace, and its impacts more and more devastating. If we accept that disasters are inevitable, then the primary design objective should be to foster community resilience. The intent of my project is to suggest an approach for increasing community resilience through the provision of urban spaces of refuge. While the project deals with a single site and demographic, it has implications for the resilience of the city as a whole, influencing not only the immediate needs of people but the wider systems that constitute the city. I was initially motivated by the mass displacement and rapid emergence of disaster encampments in the aftermath of the 2010 earthquake that devastated much of Port-au-Prince in Haiti. A good friend of mine in the international emergency response field suggested that I look to Haiti as an example of mass urban displacement. I literally stumbled upon the
Pétionville Golf Course turned Internally Displaced Person (IDP) camp while trawling emergency spaces on Google Earth. The image (at left) stuck with me. It has become a powerful symbol of resilience and speaks of the incredible forces at play in times of disaster. It propelled my interest in urban emergency spaces and prompted me to consider how Landscape Architecture might engage with this issue. The earthquake, now locally referred to as the “Goudougoudou” (Bellegrade-Smith 2011), caused devastating human loss and brought Port-au-Prince to its knees in a matter of minutes. The reasons why the catastrophe was so acute are numerous and complex, and can be explained in part by Haiti’s turbulent history. As well as a history of natural and man-made disasters, Haiti has suffered a succession of tragic political, social and economic setbacks that have contributed to its demise. A former French colony, it has been a victim of the pressures of free trade and a rapidly expanding global economy in which it could not secure a place. The 1970s saw a mass migration of the rural population to urban centres. A lack of proper building codes, good governance and adequate infrastructure ensured the explosion of informal
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OpenStreetMap reveals the inner structure of the camp. Roads, public tap stands, latrines, commercial areas, a bank, school and gaol are all marked. Crowdsourcing is a decentralised information gathering approach that has proven to be a very effective tool in emergency response. Source: Haiti OpenStreetMap
settlements in the urban setting. Poverty, corruption and poor access to education have helped secure Haiti’s place as one of the least developed countries in the Western hemisphere, and one of the poorest in the world (US Department of State 2011). When the earthquake struck in 2010, the effects were devastating and Haiti’s ability to recover was extremely compromised. It is with this complex moral and political milieu that my project engages. A top-down design methodology currently dominates the development of emergency camps, but this approach is incongruous with the bottomup, open-ended interactions that give rise to the form of unplanned settlements. My design method aims to strike a balance between control and response. It tries to achieve a synergy between the spontaneous tendencies of the camp inhabitants and the planned operations of the landscape architect and disaster response NGOs.
Emergence
“We are everywhere confronted with emergence in complex adaptive systems – in ant colonies, networks of neurones, the immune system, the internet, and the global economy, to name a few – where the behaviour of the whole is much more than the behaviour of the parts” (Holland 1998). Textures in nature have long been a source of creative inspiration for me and continue to fascinate me to this day. My wonder at visual displays of complexity initially sparked my interest in the concept of emergence. Over the years, a photographic record of this fascination began to manifest itself. It is through this research that I develop my personal understanding of complexity, particularly the mechanisms of emergence and its potential application to my design process. While I certainly do not profess to grasp the concept in its entirety I have, through experimentation, gleaned enough to see its potential design applications. Texture can be distinguished from pattern in important ways. Pattern implies rigidity and repetition within which difference is suppressed or avoided, whereas the characteristics of texture are dependent upon the specific differences within repetitions or refrains (Edna-Brown 2007, p.48). Shown here is a small selection of my photographic record.
In Philosophy and Simulation De Landa asks: “What kind of concrete emergent wholes can we legitimately believe in? Wholes the identity of which is determined historically by the processes that initiated and sustain the interactions between their parts. The historically contingent identity of these wholes is defined by their emergent properties, capacities and tendencies� (2011, p. 3). A sand folly investigating dynamics of erosional forces of the sea
A sand folly investigating dynamics of erosional forces of the sea
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This sand folly sparked my investigation into emergence as a tool for design. I was struck by the simplicity of the making process: the simple act of pouring water in one position and over time watching a dynamic system of erosion taking place. The complexity of the form that emerged was intriguing and aesthetically rich. It alluded to geological processes that occur over a much greater temporal and physical scale. I wondered how one might approach design of the landscape in a similar way, allowing form to emerge incrementally over time.
De Landa defines properties as being actual, like an attribute or a state; capacities, on the other hand, refer to abilities and have infinite emergent possibilities based on actual realisations. A capacity is also contingent on other things, while a property is not. Tendencies are similar to capacities but have finite emergent possibilities. De Landa discusses the need to structure the space of possibilities that are defined by an entity’s tendencies and capacities (2011, p. 5). He argues that understanding the mechanisms of emergence does not require that we necessarily understand every process that gives rise to new ontological levels. In essence, he advocates abstraction as a means of simplifying how we can model and understand emergence. Through a discrete framing of a problem space we are free to accept certain truths. Selection of textural images with an aesthetic emergent quality
To me this presents an approach for thinking about emergence in relation to my project. I attempt to design a possibility space by defining a set of procedures and tools for landscape intervention. Key components in my design are a kit of parts: components of the design, a notion of sequence,
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a matrix of operating rules and an understanding of social tendencies. What I did not set out to achieve was to generate a finished architectural form. Rather than tackling emergence as a complete phenomenon, I explore the notions of tendency and capacity as means of influencing design outcome. To distil my understanding for the purposes of this project, I have decided to define emergence as the process by which new properties arise through the interactions of the constituent parts of a system that do not in themselves possess those properties. Through simulation I investigate abstracted mechanisms of emergence. Defining possibility spaces in code and observing the emerging order provides insights into the nature of emergent systems. I focused on social assemblage because it is an emergent dynamic that relates most closely to emergence(y) situations. By developing an understanding of social assemblage, my approach suggests ways of engaging with the spontaneous tendencies of displaced communities. For example, by tapping into the dynamics of community cohesion it is possible to start to define spaces by locating or seeding community centres. Accepting and working with the real tendencies of people allows the designer to think and work in a bottom-up manner where one thing builds upon another. Using the frame of emergence allows a design outcome that is potentially more effective and longer lasting than a traditional top-down planning approach. Emergence is a complex and debated topic. In essence, though, it is the study of how things come into being, how new orders of complexity arise through local relational processes. In this sense everything, including ourselves, indeed the concept of emergence itself, has an emergent quality. It is a topic that has the capacity to vex and that might easily consume a lifetime of study. The difficulty is to maintain a balance between philosophy and practicality. In the following pages I hope to demonstrate how I have personally grappled with a difficult topic.
Simulation: A Tool for Design Thinking Simulations gave me a means to test ideas that would not otherwise have been possible. For example, testing how subtle alterations to the logic of a cellular automata simulation affected the nature of the resulting organisational structure would simply not be possible without employing digital technology. The simulation gave me immediate feedback about how one small alteration might dramatically change the nature or tendency of an outcome. At this point, it becomes a process of active discovery not dissimilar to physical modes of enquiry. The framework of the simulation is like a material to be tested, poked and prodded. Revelations about the nature of the emerging structures in response to subtle alterations become another feedback mechanism allowing me to make intuitive design decisions. For instance, making qualitative assessments about emerging structures enabled me to determine whether one rule set produced more or less spatial diversity and, in this way, became a means to fine-tune the design. In essence, therefore, the quality or property of ‘spatial diversity’ can be encoded in a set of camp operating instructions, not definitively but relationally. In this sense, this work is a study of relationships, not absolutes. A digital approach is well suited to investigating this kind of scenario and is therefore of value to my practice. The real excitement, however, comes when something unexpected arises. The vector field experiment, for example, revealed how vortices would spontaneously occur as a complex function of the relationship between parts that were never consciously planned by me. The problem about how to translate these simplified studies into a vastly more complex realworld situation, involving the dynamics of people, presented the most challenging problem for me. My design gestures can be seen as a collection of tactics that correspond to my evolving understanding of emergence. The project is an attempt to combine those tactics in a way that leads to a coherent procedure for continuous camp-making (or urban development). Grounding the project in an emergency scenario in Haiti against a compressed timeline required me to adapt my strictly bottom-up approach. Representing a vision was an important design step because it started to clarify my intention for the space. I have learnt that the creation of a vision is an important part of
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the design process. Projecting ideas forward immediately requires the revaluation of the bottom-up premise of the design. I understand that this is essentially how my design process works: a step in any direction inevitably feeds back to inform the original assumption or hypothesis. Perhaps this is how design itself is emergent.
I created this cellular automata simulation based on well-established theory. The rules each cell operates on are very simple. For each iteration of the simulation a cell (black) moves one space to a free space (white) in a random direction. A cell has two states: active or settled. If after moving, if a cell is adjacent to one or more settled cells it too changes its status to settled and no longer moves. What emerges is a familiar dendritic pattern. Although it is a tried and tested algorithm, it was worth constructing it for myself.
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This sequence uses the same basic rules but introduces a movement bias and requires that a cell be in contact with at least two settled cells before its status changes. Such a simple shift in the structure of the possibility space gives rise to a very different formal outcome. New possibilities arise.
This sequence investigates circle packing as a potential way to model spatial units in a camp. I modified a circle packing algorithm and tested how different ratios of circle size would pack together. Some possibly useful spatial configurations did emerge, however, the main realisation I came to was that the spaces were defined in relation to each other and not to an arbitrary grid. Through a set of repeated negotiations a best fit for the entire space is achieved. Relative ratio of circle size is the determining factor of the resultant spatial configuration.
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Simulation exploring the dynamics of social cohesion. The grey areas represent no-go zones. The colours represent distinct community groupings. The various coloured dots indicate the location of the community centre (based on the current location of all the community members) towards which all agents have a tendency to move. Each agent also tends to move away from other agents within a given threshold. What starts out as a random spread of jostling agents soon develops into distinct community clusters that themselves jostle for real estate. I adapted this script from a generic flocking algorithm to understand how community boundaries might operate in informal settlements. While not directly useful to design, it does reveal an interesting and emergent phenomenon of collective boundaries in action.
This image is one frame taken from my first agent-based simulation, which investigates density gradients. The rules governing the system are very simple. Each agent’s movement vector points directly away from its nearest neighbour. A line connecting nearest neighbours is rendered. After a number of iterations the population density equalises. How might we understand this phenomenon in relation to the dynamics of human settlement?
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I experimented by rendering agents in relation to external forces. In this case, a randomised vector field defines the fixed points (possibly an analogy for the landscape) while the agents’ movements respond to the relative position in the field (analogous with the spontaneous actions of people). I was surprised by the poetic aesthetic that emerged as the agent locations were recorded over many iterations. Recurring patterns such as vortexes emerge as a function of the relative influences of all vectors in the field. This simulation was useful as a way of understanding the interconnected nature of the landscape and the mostly invisible relationship between fixed and spontaneous.
This simulation applies some of the spatial requirements of the Sphere standards to an agent-based settlement algorithm. A random field of taps and latrines are placed in a field. Agents wander randomly and settle only if they are within 50 metres of a tap stand and are between 6 and 20 metres from a latrine. Two agents cannot occupy the same space. Communities spontaneously spring up and expand out from tap stands before converging.
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Feedback Feedback is a fundamental aspect of emergence and has a critical role to play in all of the scripted simulations produced in the course of my research. Feedback is also a component of my design proposal. It is the historically contingent mechanism through which a systems complexity arises (De Landa 2011, p. 3). In the case of my cellular automata, it represents the cell’s situational awareness. For instance, for each program cycle, each cell or ‘agent’ tests the state of its neighbours and its actions are then derived from these collective states. This occurs on an ongoing manner for the entire population meaning that a local change in state has the potential to affect the entire population and vice versa. The recursive nature of this process can give rise to incredibly complex outcomes that have the potential to produce emergent properties. An important realisation I came to early in my research was that although cellular automata simulations are typically represented as a 2D graph, in reality the output could be applied to any number of dimensions, scenarios or mediums, including the built landscape. Central to their value for a designer are the principles embodied in the inputs and outputs; the logic or rules of operation that almost intangibly bind the system together. Landscape discourse often makes reference to programming the landscape: to program its multitude of uses. My background in software development compels me to enquire how we might think of landscape in abstracted language. Particular uses of terms like object, iteration, interface, protocol, polymorphism, concrete instance, recursion, and inheritance are second nature to programmers who, by necessity, must think of systems in abstraction. Computer code is by its very definition highly abstract in nature. It deals with very specific types of problems, which are typically to do with transformations from one state to another. It is therefore a language of transformations and comparisons. Any good programmer will recognise the value of using design patterns. Design patterns provide a further layer of abstraction that describe how to construct systems using code that achieves a particular task. Design patterns are vital as they describe approaches to archetypal problems that can be translated to many different environments. I think a compelling parallel in the world of architecture is Christopher Alexander’s (1977) attempt to define a “pattern language” for architecture. In this body of work, he develops an abstract system of
common patterns in architectural form. In a similar way, I think his work tries to free the designer from ‘reinventing the wheel’, allowing them to concentrate on higher matters. This is partly the aim of my research. I am enquiring how, through a system of coded operations, a richly complex and adaptive landscape might be evoked. The problem then becomes a matter of identifying or constructing a system of inputs and outputs and rules of operation that can be applied to the real world. An important question that arises is, in this abstract system, how do we define feedback? I approached this problem by constructing a matrix that allows a particular point in the landscape to be defined or abstracted in terms of its properties. Properties such as shelter, enclosure, slope, size and program can be used as inputs into a system of logic, of which the output is an operation on the landscape. The operation, which may be something as simple as inserting a drain, in turn feeds back to affect the landscape properties that in turn affect the next design operation. It is analogous to the cellular automata experiments, but is not tied to a 2D gridded representation or, for that matter, any rigid system of time, only sequence. Unlike the sanitised virtual environment, the real world presents myriad complex challenges including the tendencies of people and the entropic effects of time. To address this, the matrix also allows the designer to understand how landscape properties might affect settlement tendencies. A simple measure of enclosure based on an aggregation of edge conditions and area determine a cell’s relative suitability for spontaneous settlement. Although this example is fairly simplistic, it points to a way of linking the concrete world of the built landscape with the spontaneous world of people. The passage of time adds yet another layer of complexity to the system. Many landscape interventions such as latrine orchard rows take time to reach maturity, and the nature of their use is intended to change as conditions progress. This constant shifting draws attention to the difficulty in defining a system that factors in time. Ideally, a rule-based approach to design must allow for decisions to be made based on the current state of the system (or landscape). Emergence is inherently uncertain, but, through tweaking the logic of the agent simulations, I have discovered that it is possible affect the tendency for certain conditions to occur. In Ednie-Brown’s wonderfully inspiring writing on the aesthetics of emergence, she eloquently argues that a reductive conceptualisation of emergence does not account for it’s aesthetic and compositional potential for design (2007, p. 57–75). It is the designer’s sensibility, then, that ultimately has the potential to make
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emergence directly useful to the landscape design profession. This leads me back to the success of my original sand folly. I, as the designer, had just enough control of the inputs (water, speed, duration) to be able to influence the nature of the emerging structure. In other words, I was able to alter complex aesthetic outcomes through essentially simple measures, thus getting a lot from little – a hallmark of complex emergent phenomena. This lead me to consider emergence as a valuable, albeit slippery, tool for design.
Dynamics of Disaster
In this project I examine the conditions in Port-au-Prince in the aftermath of the 2010 earthquake. In particular I investigate how urban spaces of refuge manifest and look for common patterns that may inform design. I also briefly touch on possible material opportunities that arise in the aftermath, in particular the masses of rubble produced.
Dynamics of Displacement: Spontaneous Social Order How communities spontaneously organise in the aftermath of disaster became a subject of intense enquiry for me. My project engages with the dynamics of displacement and tendencies for communities to self-organise through the spontaneous inhabitation of places of refuge. I questioned the mechanisms that give rise to the form of emergency settlements
Urban edge
Refuse pit
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Water
Commercial edge
Main strip
and concluded that it would only be possible to pull together a set of generalised tendencies to inform design. The tendencies I uncovered were based partly on simple environmental conditions of site such as shelter, proximity to resources and the social grouping. It led me to the realisation that simple landform modifications providing degrees of shelter could be used to influence a settlement’s development over time. Similarly, I considered how the placement of essential resources, namely water taps and latrines, might begin to define emergent community spaces. By manipulating the location of resources such as water, and consciously
Community space
Existing shelter
Example of displacement dynamics in action. Communities relocate according to a set of invisible rules or priorities. communities typically relocate in close proximity to their origin.
Spontaneous linear camp occupying a building void. This starts to suggest how spontaneous camp boundaries are not fixed but are in fact embedded in the existing urban fabric.
Temporary shelters cling between the damaged buildings
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altering pedestrian flows through the built landscape, vital open spaces can be created. As time passes, community facilities develop in these open spaces, notably commercial activity, football pitches, schools and so on. In this approach I was greatly influenced by Yoji Sasaki’s writings on the HAT Kobe project. His design philosophy was to foreground human needs – which shift throughout the disaster cycle – and use them to drive design. Two stages in a camp’s development. A soccer pitch emerges adjacent to the settlement.
In the context of this study, my understanding of “social emergence” relates to the emergence of collective functions within a settlement. How does a market space come into being, for instance? A market cannot exist on an individual level; it is contingent on a critical mass and collective need. Collective needs and desires manifest over time in particular, favourable locations. In some cases the location will be planned, but, more often than not, commercial activity will emerge spontaneously in the fabric of a camp, typically at points of intersection and intensity. Makeshift shelters dot Haiti after the January 2010 earthquake as residents struggle to recover from its devastation. Source: United Nations Development Program
This mapping reveals the extent of the urban disruption. Red signifies destroyed buildings or new urban void space. Blue represents temporary shelter and black indicates intact structures. A disaster of this magnitude can redefine the urban structure.
Spatial distribution of camps across Port-au-Prince. Yellow indicates dense gatherings of emergency shelters. By filtering this image based on the blue of the UNHCR tarpaulin I was able to reveal the distribution of emergency settlements. The largest camp occupies the former airport to the north. Source: Google Earth
A football stadium becomes a site of immediate refuge in the aftermath of the earthquake. As a mark of the city recovering, inhabitants soon find alternative shelter as collective desire for recreation outweighs the immediate need for shelter. Source: Architecture Week
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Understanding some of the tendencies of spontaneous settlement informed my design. The most powerful design tool at my disposal was the communal tap stand. Water in particular becomes a powerful way of influencing how and where people congregate. Tap stands are the most heavily politicised and socially valuable components of an emergency settlement (Jordan 1984). The five settlement tendencies informing my design were: community cohesion, exploiting shelter, resource proximity, livelihood activities, contested spaces.
Community Cohesion The tendency for communities to re-group as close to their point of origin as possible is a powerful design driver. Through the lens of Google Earth, I witnessed this phenomenon time and time again. It is consistent with Sasaki’s observations about ‘life fields’. By adapting a flocking algorithm I was able to explore the dynamics of community cohesion in an abstract way. I introduced the concept of community identity, whereby simulated agents cohere in distinct groups while eternally jostling for space. Observing how the simulation behaved, I started to understand that for a community to cohere there must be a shared concept of centre. This reinforced the importance of community infrastructure as a way of defining a community and led me to the realisation that social centres are a powerful structuring mechanism.
Exploiting Shelter The tendency for displaced people to make use of existing shelter in the landscape is an obvious but powerful driving force. It makes sense that any topographic feature or vegetation offering shelter from the elements or a psychological sense of enclosure will be preferred, and therefore appropriated first.Propoerties of the built landscape (such as a sense of enclosure) that have the capacity to affect spontaneous inhabitation are incorporated in my operational matrix. This is way of bridging the gap between spontaneous and fixed in design.
Resource Proximity The tendency for routes to emerge between distribution points such as water or food is a powerful and well-studied process. Opportunity for commerce along these busy main routes leads to the spontaneous emergence of market stalls and traders. This suggests that the placement of distribution points is a powerful way of manipulating where main routes form and, ultimately, how urban structures might develop. I started to test methods of manipulating path formation to generate centres. I did this through a series of plan diagrams, which I then developed further using computer models. Social centres begin to surface as an important spatial concept in my design approach.
Contested Spaces Contested spaces became a way of understanding how competing pressures for land use play a role in the emerging urban fabric. The tendency is that collective needs manifest themselves over time. Understanding that collective needs or priorities shift implies that certain spaces exist in tension, and are not static. A striking example of this is the emergence of recreational spaces such as football pitches due to the collective desire for social recreation. Open spaces large enough to support a game of football, for instance, will exist in tension between the community need for shelter and recreation. Understanding this dynamic led to a design proposition that deliberately plays on this tension.
Livelihood Activities The tendency for livelihood activities to occur spontaneously comes as no surprise. What is important is that a diversity of space exists for a range of livelihood activities to occur. In my design I develop a number of simple interventions, such as commercial edges and sharecropping spaces, that support various livelihood activities.
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Emergence(y) – Aftermath
Emergency Settlement Standards International Standards of Emergency Relief The Sphere Project’s handbook Humanitarian Charter and Minimum Standards for Disaster Response is an important document that sets out guidelines for emergency and transitional settlement design. It presents a set of minimum standards relating to the design of emergency settlements. The standards pertain predominantly to specific quantitative aspects of design, such as the distance between dwellings and the provision of water and sanitation, and also address the qualitative requirements, though to a lesser extent. Despite its specificity, there remains a lot of room for interpretation and adaptation. In a sense, this document could be seen as rule set from which a number of camp structures have emerged. Aid agencies are required to use the standards as a guide, but the outcomes can vary considerably as the guidelines allow for topographical and climatic variation. The basic social units of a camp are defined as: family (4–6 people), community (16 families), block (16 communities), sector (4 blocks) and camp module (4 sectors). These guidelines are necessarily universal and focused on the immediate well-being of the affected community. Master plan of Camp Ambokt, a fairly typical small-scale camp. Expansion can be seen to the north. A strong axis underlies the militaristic grid layout. Source: Hertz, M.
Retain existing trees and other vegetation to maintain the soil stabilisation. Maximise the opportunities for shade and protection from the climate.
Shaded external spaces adjacent to the shelter can be established for food preparation, cooking and sleeping
The flexible use of the covered space accommodating different activities at different times during the day or night
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The plot layout in temporary planned camps should maintain the privacy and dignity of separate households by offsetting door openings and ensuring that each household shelter opens onto common space
In mass shelters, the grouping of related families, well-planned access routes through the building or structure, and materials to screen personal and household space can aid the provision of adequate personal privacy and safety
Groups of households return to a defined geographical area or identify host families in close proximity to one another
Routes should avoid creating isolated or screened areas that could pose a threat to the personal safety of users
Current Design Practice Although it is by no means an exact science, the basic procedure for camp-making follows a more or less linear, top-down process. First, land is acquired. A survey is performed. Roads, drains and firebreaks delineate the space that is divided into sectors, blocks and communities, down to the smallest spatial unit, the family plot. Community activities such as food preparation, schooling and the provision of healthcare are established and a master plan of the camp is maintained. Room for expansion is usually included in the design master plan (Sphere Project 2003). The simplest, and consequentially most common, camp implementation is based on the grid. The grid has its advantages as a control mechanism for camp administrators. It offers equal access to family plots by all inhabitants. An important drawback is that it restricts community network formation. While it may be the most convenient approach for relatively flat land, it is not necessarily the most beneficial for the camp inhabitants. In Port-auPrince there are a number of examples where the grid system has been applied rigidly.
My initial attempt at spatialising the Sphere standard guidelines. Here optimal configurations for latrines and tap stands are tested. It was through this manual process that I developed an insight into the potential complexity of the apparently simple spatial rules. It led me to the idea that a camp’s development could be simulated through a set of relational, iterative steps.
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Cluster planning is an alternative design approach and has many advantages over the gridded approach, especially due to its flexibility to adapt to changing topography and site conditions. It has other advantages including the reinforcing of community through the creation of shared spaces. A cluster is essentially an inward facing cul-de-sac. An informative Spatial Syntax analysis of various tent layouts, including the grid and cluster approaches, highlights issues with the various layouts and concludes that the most beneficial layout is the cul-de-sac (Potangaroa and Chan 2010). This useful study led me to understand the importance of spatial gradients and spatial diversity in strengthening community cohesion. This became an important quality I aimed to achieve in my design outcome. Example of a grid layout showing little relation to the surrounding context or sensitivity to community network formation.
Due to their focus on meeting the basic needs of people, camps are not intended to be sustainable entities. The search for building materials and fuel for cooking have a detrimental impact on the surrounding landscape. A better emergency space would provide some of these basic materials. The World Disasters Report 2010 recognises the need for aid agencies to take a more active role in urban development:
The crisis of urban poverty, rapidly growing informal settlements and growing numbers of urban disasters arises from the failure of governments to adapt their institutions to urbanisation. It stems also in part from the failure of aid agencies to help them to do so – most aid agencies have inadequate or no urban policies and have long been reluctant to support urban development at a sufficient scale. (IFRC 2010, p. 18). While camp implementations vary widely between organisations and sites, few add to the existing urban fabric in a meaningful way. I hope to suggest how lasting spaces of refuge can be nurtured through an openended sequence of operations on the landscape. Spontaneous camps are emergent entities. By accepting this position, the designer’s role is to engage with settlement processes rather than imposing a rigid order on the camp.
This spatial syntax study of tent layouts by Potangaroa and Chan (2010) demonstrates how privicy gradients are important to community cohesion. Red spots are highly trafficked and are suitable for community functions while the blue represents private domestic spaces. The study reveals what we might intuitively know about design but it also throws up some new insights.
32 | 33 Emergence(y) – Standards
Transitional settlement developed according to Sphere standards in Kinglake, Victoria. Although the settlement is temporary, it embeds itself within the existing Kinglake township. I imagine its imprint will remain providing a point of future refuge. Source Emergency Architects Australia website
Precedents Pétionville Golf Course The transformation of the Pétionville Golf Course into an IDP camp became a powerful inspiration for my project in the early stages. Mapping the settlement’s development over time was an important first step in understanding the complexities of displacement and spontaneous organisation. Before and after images from Google Earth illustrating the immense transformative effect of disaster. In a sense the camp is an emergent phenomenon.
Diagrammatic sequence of the Pétionville Golf Course’s development over time. What begins as a process of spontaneous self-settlement soon becomes a managed camp for 55,000 displaced people. Over time, communal functions such as schools and clinics are added. Drainage lines become roads. A market emerges. The camps show no sign of disbanding any time soon.
HAT Kobe Nandohama Yoji Sasaki is an important influence throughout this study. His work on earthquake disaster spaces in Japan, particularly the HAT Kobe project, sets a precedent for how we as landscape architects can approach disaster through design. Perhaps most poignantly, he advocates designing for the needs of affected communities. He expands this by explaining that there is an important mental unit for people in the aftermath: For the first three hours people’s only priority is to survive with their life and families; in three months they hope to recover their lives; after three months it’s time to recover the city (Sasaki 2000, p. 191). I adopted this timeframe into my design thinking. Sasaki uses the term
Evacuation point in Kobe. Open spaces
“life fields” quite literally to mean fields for life, noticing that during the
are of paramount importance during
Kobe earthquake in 1995 people intuitively knew safe places in which
times of emergency, especially during
to congregate. This corresponded directly with my observations of
earthquakes.
spontaneous camp formation in Haiti, and gave me a starting point for design. “Nature is the order of the city, not the structure of architecture or the structure of civil engineering” (Sasaki 2000, p. 191).
Pedestrian mall and section of the semipublic green seating area for the HAT development in Kobe: an example of ‘life fields’ in urban regeneration after the earthquake
City blocks “Gaiku” (left) defined by 6 metre roads crossed by 4 metre roads creating green centres. Amenity areas in non-emergency times, gathering spaces in case of earthquakes. Then the addition of hedges and trees to fire proof the space.
36 | 37 Emergence(y) – Precedents
Teufelsberg, Berlin Teufelsberg, one of a number of vegetated urban mounds in Berlin, is the product of man-made disaster. Constructed by women after WWII, it has since become a vital component of the citiy’s urban fabric. It has served varied and sometimes strategic functions during its lifespan. Teufelsberg is a precedent that demonstrates how the raw material of disaster can be used to directly contribute to urban form in a long-term and meaningful way.
Teufelsberg, one of a number of rubble mounds constructed by women in the aftermath of the second world war
Wild Building Although the architecture in this example is rather dreary, it does illustrate the potential for a rule-based system of incremental yet unplanned development to occur. Wild building is an open-ended system of building that plans for incremental expansion without defining an end state. Leaving reinforcement bars protruding from the built structure to allow for others to extend the structure is a kind of operating protocol. By its nature it is an open-ended process that allows form to unfold over time.
38 | 39 Emergence(y) – Precedents
Source: [http://lebbeuswoods.wordpress.com/2011/07/19/wild-buildings/]
Other Influences James Corner, Field Operations, Downsview Park Time-Based Ecological Management Diagram. This depiction of ecological succession is useful as a way of understanding how a species web emerges over time (Lister 2007, p.38).
This Bruce Mao with Rem Koolhaas OMA Downsview Park program diagram suggests a way of creating a framework through which a landscape is allowed to incrementally develop. The adjacencies it throws up through the use of repetition and pattern defer the actual program and implementation. In this sense it is an open-ended proposition enabling the novel to arise. Source: OMA Downsview Park.
A generated structure: Shilnath, Indore, India (Alexander 2002, p.182). Christopher Alexander notes how structures that develop over time through a multitude of interactions give rise to the most livable, enduring environments. His theories resonate with me. A successful emergent design must therefore operate on the level of interaction and negotiation and not fixate on the idea of finished outcome or form.
Approach Making Site My main contact with Port-au-Prince has been through the interpretation of images. The government does not have the means to conduct a land survey, so no accurate cadastral drawings currently exist. I managed to obtain a fairly detailed but dated plan, but this lacked topographical detail and was only useful for strategic thinking. What was surprising, however, was the wealth of cutting-edge mapping technology deployed by the international community in the wake of the earthquake. Extremely detailed Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) point clouds for Port-auPrince are available to the public from Open Topography. To add to this, crowdsourcing became an important mapping tool in the relief effort. According to a blog post on the New York Times, “Haiti OpenStreetMap [is] now the most complete digital map of Haiti’s roads, hospitals, triage centres and refugee camps currently available (The New York Times 2011)”. I spent considerable time working with the point cloud data, but, ultimately, it was of limited use for this project. All things considered, I don’t think there is any substitute for first-hand experience of site. Results of a watershed script developed
Sequence is an important aspect of my design proposition. I designed a
in Rhino 3D. It demonstrates visually
timeline that incorporated three parallel layers: community needs, camp
how water might flow through the camp.
phase and landscape architect. The community needs stream was based
Again, scripting became part of my
on Sasaki’s rule of threes. The camp phase layer corresponds to the
design process. Source: Google Earth
disaster cycle. The landscape architect layer describes three landscape phases: ground work,
My site of intervention is a strip of open space flanking the highway close to the centre of Port-au-Prince. It is surrounded by dense informal settlements. The highway used to be the main airport, which has now relocated to the north. Opposite: Watershed diagram based on surrounding surface topography. Red indicates ridges and black indicates troughs.
42 | 43 Emergence(y) – Approach
Detailed LiDAR point cloud data of Port-au-Prince. For a city with no official cadastral plan, this became a valuable resource. OpenStreetMap is another technology that emerged as an incredibly useful tool in the relief effort.
44 | 45 Emergence(y) – Approach
To better understand the spatial conditions in the settlements, I used LiDAR data to construct an accurate model of the dense urban conditions surrounding the site
46 | 47 Emergence(y) – Approach
Understanding the existing edge conditions in the camp.
48 | 49 Emergence(y) – Approach
Landscape as Shelter Landscape as shelter became a way for me to understand the relationship between the static and spontaneous elements in my design. Open space is a form of shelter during an earthquake, where collapsing buildings strike fear into the hearts of communities. Land form can provide shelter from the elements such as wind. In flood plains, elevated land represents refuge. Trees and shrubs provide shade and protection from sun, rain and wind. The meaning of shelter shifts with peoples’ needs and the nature of the hazard. The arrangement of shelter therefore becomes a tool for design. A gradient of shelter through a site may facilitate the spontaneous expression of social hierarchy.
Aspects of the landscape that provide shelter and therefore might be used to influence spontaneous inhabitation
Spatial Concept I propose a system of defining space for inhabitation through the modification of ground conditions and the placement of infrastructure. How new spaces are defined relates to an understanding of the existing state of the system, which is developed through a matrix. By modifying existing pedestrian flows, new open spaces are defined. Large open spaces form the core of the neighbourhood. Another important method influencing inhabitation is the size of an open space compared to its degree of shelter. The more sheltered a site, the more desirable it becomes for spontaneous settlement. Larger, more open, spaces can support other activities.
Concept for delineating social spaces by level change
50 | 51 Emergence(y) – Approach
This diagram describes how I envisage the design developing over time: central spaces developing at intersections, then other social centres developing in relation to it.
This sketch diagram best describes my intention to develop communities outward from a large open space. The smaller but more enclosed spaces surrounding it tend to become domestic spaces, while perimeter spaces are more likely to be cultivated.
Diagram sketches investigationg ways to generate open spaces through the manipulation of flows
52 | 53 Emergence(y) – Approach
Process diagrams exploring ways to spontaneous inhabitation might generate form
Designing through a sequence of steps based on an understanding of how desire lines might distort a rigid grid over time. Below is a render of a possible formal outcome. This is one of a series of tests exploring qualities of static versus spontaneous in the landscape.
54 | 55 Emergence(y) – Approach
By manipulating existing flows I suggest a way that dynamic adaptive spaces can be established. Here, an open space large enough to be used as a sports ground is defined by modifying edge conditions (in this case levels). The space can be used as a temporary shelter during an emergency, but, as conditions improve, the collective need for recreation reinstates it as open space.
Tap Stands Taps are the most heavily politicised and effective design tool in camps. They become community meeting places where activities such as washing clothes and bathing occur. They also become a way of defining community centres.
Latrines Only half the population of Port-au-Prince have access to a latrine. Sanitation is therefore a major concern not only for camps, but for the wider community. My design proposes that latrines become permanent structures that continue to serve the community.
Refuse Pits and Bins Waste management is virtually non-existent in Port-au-Prince. Starting a recycling program within the camp has the potential to benefit the community into the future. The Sphere guidelines nominate that households should be no further than 15 metres to a household pit and no further than 100 metres from a communal pit. There should be no more than 100 people per refuse container (maximum 10 families). Fire Breaks Fire breaks are a vital consideration as temporary settlements are often highly fire prone. The guidelines state: minimum distance between buildings 2 metres, minimum distance between clusters of buildings 6 metres and between blocks of clusters 15 metres. Creative use of levels and nonflammable items might challenge this requirement.
Distribution Centres Food and commodity distribution centres can be used to direct flows within the camp. They therefore help to determine its internal structure and how it relates to the existing urban context.
56 | 57 Emergence(y) – Approach
The basic toolset includes the essential
Developing a Toolkit
components of a camp. This includes tap stands, bins, showers and toilets.
Identifying a kit of parts was a fundamental part of my design process.
A core understanding is that tap
I deliberately keep things simple starting with standard components of
stands have the tendency to become
emergency relief such as latrines, water taps and bins. I also propose an
community centres.
extended set of tools that incorporate planting. The inclusion of vegetation introduces a temporal quality as spatial qualities change according to the plants lifecycle. The tool set also includes a matrix of edge conditions such as drains, level changes, tree lines and paths that are used to define areas. Open spaces are defined by edges. Edges are graded as to the degree to which they provide shelter or a sense of enclosure. Via this mechanism, a space’s relative tendency to be inhabited can be measured and used as feedback in the rules of operation.
A core tool for understanding the stages
reconstruction
of disaster is the disaster cycle. This
Disaste
diagram is a clear way of representing significant phases occuring through a disaster event. It highlights the fact that
mitigation
recovery
quiescence
restoration
disaster is cyclical in nature. It allowed
after
Flood
before
Fire
me to develop a design that reposnds to the distinct phases. response emergency
Earthq
Tsunam preparation pre-impact
Eruptio
Operational Matrix
Pad Matrix Environmental Slope
Drainage
Spatial Fertility
Flood Risk
Enclosure
Amenity Shelter
Size
Flow
Latrine
Potable Water Non-potable
P1 – Recreation
50 m2+
P2 – Domestic
P3 – Productive
8 m2+
P4 – Community
50 m2+
P5 – Functional
20 m2+
?
?
?
?
?
?
>6 m<50 m
<100 m
>6 m<50 m
?
?
?
<100 m
?
Pad flow
Pad flow is a product of the edge arrangement
58 | 59 Emergence(y) – Approach
Edge Matrix
Water
Enclosure
Shelter
Shelter
Enclosure
Water
E1 – Open Drain
E2 – Level Change
E3 – Wind Break
E4 – Fire Break
E5 – Latrine Row
E6 – Permeable Edge
?
?
?
---
?
?
?
Y
Y Flow < 3
Enclosure >1 Y Adjacent to P4?
N
N
> 50 m2?
N
Fertile?
Y
N
Develop Edges Prepare Ground
Y
Insert Tap Stand
N
Reserve Space
Reserve Space
E4 – Fire Break P3 – Productive E6 – Permeable Edge
P1 – Recreation
P6 – Unprogrammed
P6 – Unprogrammed
E1 – Open Drain
60 | 61 Emergence(y) – Approach
This sequence shows a selection of frames from a cellular automata implementation of the camp system logic. Each colour represents a different program with its own system of logic. Neighbourhood awareness is combined
T 001
T 006
T 002
T 007
T 003
T 008
T 004
T 009
with a simple rule set.
Example of rich spatial diversity emerging. Notice the green cells tend to
Unprogrammed
cohere into a network.
Domestic Livelihood Agriculture Recreation
T 005
January 2010 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Shortly before the event. The former airport now operates as a highway. The surrounding open spaces are rare in Port-au-Prince. There are obvious signs that the spaces are used by the community.
62 | 63 Emergence(y) â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Approach
An Unfolding Camp System Understanding how and when to intervene is vitally important to the success of this project, so I developed a timeline that corresponds to the disaster cycle. A simple decision matrix defines how the design can adapt over time.
January 2010 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Shortly after the event: community groups start to emerge in a spontaneous manner. This is shortly before aid arrives and where my design proposition starts to take effect. Source: Google Earth
Structure positioned at the edge of the central evacuation centre
Distribution points for water, food and hygiene kits as well as camp administration infrastructure are located and start to define main routes within the camp boundaries
Planted 1:6 slope acts as a wind break for central space
64 | 65 Emergence(y) â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Approach
1) Define the basic network structure The initial phase sets out the basic camp network by tapping into principles of spontaneous organisation. Initially, I identify spaces of spontaneous refuge. These become main centres for the evolving camp space as they are already known to, and chosen by, the community. By strategically locating essential distribution points, I tap into the tendency for paths to form spontaneously between them, thus start to define the campâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s internal structure. It is a form of indirect design. New centres are then created by disrupting the flow. Distribution points established at the centre of the new camp block
Central evacuation spaces are reinforced by inserting drainage and edge conditions that provide a degree of shelter. The central space will continue to serve the community in future emergencies.
Main drainage line
1:100 Sheltered central space along main drainage routes
Initial tap stand with shade structures serving as central community spaces for water collection, washing, and bathing
66 | 67 Emergence(y) â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Approach
2) Foster network formation The central evacuation space is selected by the community and then reinforced by defining its edges according to the matrix. By enhancing the central spaceâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s degree of shelter, it is maintained as an open space for future refuge. In parallel, basic water taps stands are located away from the central space to aid the formation of community groups and to preserve the central evacuation space. My community cohesion simulation demonstrates how a sense of community relates to a shared concept of centre. This finding informed how I considered tap stands in my design to provide an anchor for this social tendency. Locating tap stands becomes a way to define new social centres affecting the development of the system. â&#x20AC;&#x153;A tap stand is more than just a physical structure, it will become a new and important gathering point [...] where women will be washing clothes and men bathing themselvesâ&#x20AC;? (Jordan 2010, p. 140). The tap stand pads are then further developed by using the edge matrix. It is through this process of placing social infrastructure then defining size and boundaries through a system of logic that the design progresses and new spatial configurations emerge. WASH engineers pipe drinking water to locations out from the centre
Evacuation centre defined by main routes and drainage lines
Step 1: Locating tap stands in a hierarchy from the central evacuation space to form community centres
Step 2: Domestic centres are now inserted in relation to the tap stands. Edge conditions (developed through the matrix) start to define spatial boundaries. Here I use the mathematical Voronoi technique to ascertain the positions of the edges.
68 | 69 Emergence(y) â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Approach
3) Develop domestic spaces Once community centres have been established, domestic centres for cooking and child-raising are inserted in relation to the tap stand. The decision about where to insert them might follow a simple rule set, such as 20 m from a tap stand and no closer than 15 m from another domestic centre. From the proposed centre the designer can use the matrix to identify the spatial qualities of the location, such as its sense of enclosure, grade, proximity to resources etc. To avoid extreme spatial adjacencies, further conditions can be stipulated, such as not opening up to spaces more than three times the current capacity. In this way, it is the relationships between entities, rather than a preordained plan, that informs the development of spaces. Community groups form in relation to tap stands
Edges differentiate forming community groups
Landscape architect assists settlement by seeding new domestic centres
Courtyard like domestic community groups. Safe private spaces for food preparation and children.
Shade structures combined with planting strategy.
Domestic space
Identify spaces for play
Rubble mounds provide sheltered semi-private spaces
70 | 71 Emergence(y) â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Approach
4) Develop spaces for livelihood A by-product of the rules played out in the previous steps is that spaces for livelihoods are maintained. These transitional spaces will likely be spontaneously appropriated and it becomes the landscape architectâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s role to support the spontaneous activities taking place in them. Transitional industries related to disaster recovery, such as rubble processing, occupy larger spaces and provide a source of income for the camp inhabitants. Latrine and drain infrastructure are incrementally upgraded.
Domestic centres established while community life begins to return to normality Support commercial activity with transitional space
Busy route defined by drainage line
Trees provide shelter from the sun
Shelter: domestic centres
72 | 73 Emergence(y) â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Approach
Transitional space: sharecropping
5) Fine-tune spaces Projecting the evolution of the drain system
This point represents a shift in the design procedure where the landscape architectâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s role is to assist the transition to public use. New spaces for agriculture are established and supported, while community spaces are developed further with a view to them becoming long term spaces for public use. Highly contested spaces, such as the central open spaces, start to host social recreational activities such as soccer.
An example of a desirable spatial hierarchy achievable through the system logic. Extreme adjacencies are avoided and a diversity of spatial qualities emerge. Working scenarios should be supported by the landscape
Access to income: rubble processing
Testing different uses for rubble. Rubble can be put to various uses beyond land reclamation (currently the main use).
74 | 75 Emergence(y) â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Approach
6) Support urban development Small scale agricultural plots 8 m x 8 m are implemented on land not
As the city rebuilds and communities begin to relocate, the matrix once
suited to inhabitation. Sharecropping is
again provides a tool for the designer to feed the current state back into a
a common practice in Haiti and could
the rule logic to identify a new program. What emerges from this complex
be a means to establish an economic
process is a varied patchwork of spaces that are both coherent and
basis for the emergency spaces.
unpredictable, and ripe for spontaneous habitation. A critical difference between my simulated experiments and the real world is that events in the real world do not necessarily occur in a controlled sequence.
76 | 77 Emergence(y) â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Approach
As the central evacuation space develops, higher order functions such as markets start to emerge
Example of the spatial conditions that tend to give rise to commercial activity in camps
Screening Pit
Entry
Latrine structures designed to be easily erected and dismantled
Rubble gabion planting system
6 m to domestic space
78 | 79 Emergence(y) â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Approach
Drop pit 1.5 m from water table
Fruit-producing trees, such as mango, to meet future food needs of displaced communities
6 m fire break
1:100 Latrine section
Open space is a safe zone during an earthquake where the primary hazard is building collapse
Communities construct rudimentary shelter from whatever is available. The land surrounding camps gets stripped of vegetation.
Tarpaulin supplied by NGO organisations is part of the shelter upgrade process
80 | 81 Emergence(y) â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Approach
Tarpaulin lasts 2 years at most. Shelter structures become more substantial.
As conditions improve, more permanent materials such as concrete are used. Due to financial constraints, Haitians practice a form of wild (open ended) building.
1: The initial design gesture is to identify the originating neighbourhood
2: Communal open spaces form open evacuation spaces
3: Modifying flows through the placement of attaractors and spatial constraints such as ditches and barriers
4: Last on the hierarchy of implementation is the programming of productive spaces. Cultivation is reserved for the least suitable land for habitation. Here it exists in the flood plain of the river.
82 | 83 Emergence(y) â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Approach
This diagram illustrates a possible scenario of a camp development. The layers separate out the different aspects of the design. They include drainage, vegetation, flow manipulation and evacuation centres.
This sequence shows an open-ended method for responding to earthquake damage in dense informal settlements.
Voids created after the earthquake once the rubble is removed
Following a simple rule of not rebuilding in the new void spaces, but reinforcing and adding levels to the buildings west of the void spaces to rehouse the displaced families, not only generates open emergency spaces but also provides robust shelter
Ground floors could be developed into community functions such as schools that maintain the open space generated by the disaster
84 | 85 Emergence(y) â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Approach
In this early test I used Sasakiâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s 200 metre rule to try to locate where to develop new emergency spaces to form an emergency network
This plan tests the idea of developing emergency spaces at intersections of dense informal neighbourhoods
A design sketch showing the intention of using water infrastructure as a means of ensuring emergency spaces continue to be used by the community
Concept sketches exploring various spatial systems
86 | 87 Emergence(y) â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Approach
88 | 89 Emergence(y) â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Approach
Design sketch investigating the insertion of emergency infrastructure in the voids left by the earthquake. Water infrastructure is used as a means to weave the space into peoples daily lives .
90 |
Emergence(y) â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Approach
Conclusion
Over the course of the past two semesters I have identified and tested a number of approaches for designing with emergence. Simulation became a means for me to gain insights into aspects of complex systems that would otherwise not have been possible. Translating ideas from the relatively unproblematic sanitised virtual environment to the messy postdisaster setting presented many problems. Although I recognise that I have only just begun to scratch the surface of a complex topic, emergence provided me with a new lens through which to approach the landscape in a complex world. In terms of my project as it currently stands, there remains a distance between the vision and the premise. My stated objective was to use the dynamics of disaster as a way of reconfiguring the urban fabric to make it more resilient to future disaster. My vision demonstrates some scenarios where this occurs: the productive public boulevard that evolves from a latrine system is one example, but a degree of disjunction will always exist between the intent and the method. The latrine row example is a good test case as it shows a concrete example of how an intervention geared to immediate needs can develop into a functioning part of the urban fabric â&#x20AC;&#x201C; the resulting design then feeds back into further design moves as part of any future disaster response. It is a useful example because it forced a deeper consideration of my rule-based approach. Determining a hierarchy and sequence for the interventions is challenging in an emergency scenario. Much happens in parallel over a compressed timeframe â&#x20AC;&#x201C; in reality, conditions can be chaotic and responsive. Priorities shift rapidly as community needs evolve. For example, the immediate priority is the distribution of basic resources such as water, food and hygiene kits. After basic needs are met, requirements take a longer term view and relate to the reinstatement of livelihoods and lifestyle. My design operations attempt to track these shifting needs, moving from the initial ground work phase, which sees the basic camp network being defined by the placement of resources and drainage, to the more refined actions that further develop and fine-tune the emerging space.
I set out to discover how emergence could be used as a tool for design and discovered that using a bottom-up approach requires letting go of the notion of a finished master plan and accepting a degree of uncertainty. For me this has been quite challenging. However, in the context of urban camp design, my approach could be a valuable way to ensure a more durable outcome than current practice permits. It begins to suggest how a landscape architect might positively engage with the design of emergency spaces in other areas of a world that is becoming increasingly prone to urban disaster. Through this research, emergence has become a framework for me to better understand the indeterminate nature of design. It highlighted to me the need to approach design with flexibility, understanding that many aspects lie beyond our control and that the most effective outcomes will catalyse further change. The importance of emergency spaces in disaster prone urban landscapes is now forefront in my mind. In a world increasingly prone to disaster, I remain convinced that landscape architecture has a vital role to play in international aid and development. Adding a landscape-based design approach counterbalances a design domain largely focused on food, water and shelter provision. It begins to reinstate the importance of quality public open space as a measure of a communityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s resilience to disaster.
92 | 93 Emergence(y) â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Conclusion
Final exhibition presentation in Kensington, Melbourne
94 | 95 Emergence(y) â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Conclusion
References
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98 | PB Emergence(y) – References
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100 | PB Emergence(y) – Bibliography