GEORGETOWN, GUYANA
Georgetown
Index
Introduction
Neighborhood Planning
The Reserves and Community Spaces
Moving Forward
Housing at Three Scales A New Vision for Sophia’s Neighborhoods
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Neighborhood Upgrading for Productive Public Space and Housing Improvement in Georgetown, Guyana
Public Realm
03
Introduction
Neighborhood Upgrading for Productive Public Space and Housing Improvement in Georgetown, Guyana
The Context Guyana is known as the land of many waters. Its capital, Georgetown, is defined by water. Built along the sea-coast, bordered on the western edge by the wide, muddy Demerara river that flows from the Amazon, the city is in a perpetual battle with water. The Dutch established the first colonial settlements in Guyana, followed by the British who founded Georgetown as the capital in the 18th century. Today, Georgetown and its peri-urban area have about 311,000 inhabitants, comprising 40% of the national population. Colonial-era sugar plantations were built along the fertile coastal plain and left behind a network of irrigation and drainage canals that created Georgetown’s fragmented and often inundated urban grid. This area now hosts Georgetown’s low-density, formal and informal neighborhoods. However, the design of an infrastructure system to support agriculture is vastly different from the demands of residential development. Built 1 meter below sea level, the city relies on an aging system of pumps and sluices, only some of which are functional, to control the flooding. All of this is exacerbated by a lack of maintenance of the canal system. In 2005 and 2015, the city suffered catastrophic flooding from heavy rain and may face increasing flood risk from storms and rising sea levels in the future. The area called Sophia, within Georgetown’s limits, is a grouping of 6 former sugar plantations, first settled informally in the 1980s. Owing to rapid growth, the area has been undergoing a regularization process. Since 2001, Guyana’s Central Housing and Planning Authority (CHPA) has established a plan to give legal status to the settlers and to improve the substandard infrastructure. Of the 18 plots reserved by them for community facilities, 5 were built. The remaining were encroached upon for housing, thus depriving the community of common spaces and local institutional infrastructure. Similar to the canal structures elsewhere in Georgetown, primary canals form a grid through the plantations. They are built on land referred to as ‘reserves’, preserved for canal maintenance (dredging). Larger canals form the spines off which secondary and tertiary branches are laid out, further fragmenting the area; each resident has to cross a canal to get home. Bridge crossings are few and dilapidated. Additionally, Sophia has very poor linkage to the center of Georgetown with few roads linking the neighborhoods to the larger street network. Unpaved roads within Sophia give limited access for small transit buses and municipal service vehicles for garbage pick-up. Unpaved roads are a hazard, particularly with inadequate street lighting. There is no sewerage system. Households build pit latrines and, more recently, small septic systems that require extensive maintenance. The informal occupation of the reserves compounds the existing environmental and health hazards due to increased sewerage pollution. Today, there are lively communities in the neighborhoods that comprise Sophia. Households differ widely by age and economic status. Divisions, however, are reinforced by the poor quality of infrastructure, with canals serving as barriers to access and mobility, and the lack of facilities and shared spaces. Out of approximately 4,200 households in this area, over 550 are squatters living tenuously on the reserves. As a whole, the community experiences high rates of unemployment, crime, and food insecurity.
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The Workshop
Upgrading Infrastructure and Services
In late 2017, the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) approved a loan to assist CHPA with Neighborhood Upgrading and Housing Improvement in Georgetown. IDB invited a team of faculty from MIT with graduate students in architecture and urban planning to spend 4 weeks working with their team. Graduate students in planning from the University of Guyana were invited to join. This workshop aimed to develop innovative design and planning strategies that could be built and duplicated elsewhere in Guyana.
Each layer of the existing infrastructure had to be examined individually and as part of an interrelated system. For example, the unpaved roads could not support garbage trucks and centralized garbage collection failed. Individual households burnt their garbage, adding to the poor air quality. Garbage was also dumped in the canals. Tapping into a state plan to improve waste management and introduce recycling, we proposed the construction of a recycling plant and an educational facility in the eastern expansion area. We introduced a distributed system of bicycle rickshaw waste collection. The lack of street lighting along with pools of muddy water that had to be circumnavigated made simple journeys for the elderly at night quite hazardous creating a feeling of vulnerability in these areas. Accordingly, we identified a priority list of improvements along key street corridors.
Sophia was chosen as a site because it was within the urban area and was representative of challenges elsewhere. Before leaving MIT, we attempted to understand the context through maps or information we could gather. Not surprisingly, there was a paucity of data, much of it contradictory. The workshop began in Guyana with an extensive bus tour of Sophia, the plantations, and a few community buildings. We were accompanied by highly informed staff of CHPA and IDB who also briefed us on climate risk, the state of current infrastructure, community development, and new progressive housing types. We returned to the site a few times to document the built landscape through maps, measurements, geo-coded photographs, and video. Most importantly, with help from local IDB and CHPA partners, a meeting of community leaders was set up in the only large community center in Sophia. Through facilitated group discussions, we engaged in very informative, lively conversations leading to a consensus about some of the key issues being faced by the community. These included infrastructural concerns such as the need to improve road conditions and street lighting, water and drainage management, and security and safety. They also expressed the need for vibrant community centers and public spaces including a market place, local employment opportunities, and opportunities for youth engagement. This seemed urgent and referred to the need for a new middle school in the community. We found that most leaders took pride in their neighborhoods, were willing to put effort into improvements, and represented the positive attitude that would be needed to initiate change. The design team compiled critical urban spatial data, including the quantity of open land versus built space, the numbers of vacant lots, the width of the primary canals, and the size of the land reserves. These aided in understanding the patterns of settlement over time and the changing size and quality of development. Despite the lack of topographical maps, we observed that the south-western area of the site was wetter, the houses smaller, and the gardens less used. Although the land was fertile and many residents had agricultural backgrounds, few had vegetable gardens. This was surprising given the high cost and limited supply of vegetables in Guyana.
A Distributed Network of Community Centers The acute lack of community facilities for education, healthcare, gathering, and recreation posed a significant challenge. Security was identified as a critical issue; burglaries, often during the day, were frequent. The fragmented nature of the land parcels and limited access made street surveillance by neighbors impossible. We used walkshed analysis to evaluate proximity to the few existing community facilities and found that one-third of the households were not served. We identified potential sites for new facilities based on location and need, and proposed a new distributed network of community centers that would support communication and security. Since there were few open parcels available we developed an innovative, micro, 24-hour community center unit that could be located on a vacant residential lot. This facility would support social and educational services such as a computer center, health clinic, or classroom, and serve as an illuminated security hub at night. These micro units were proposed as priorities for underserved neighborhoods.
Housing Innovation Houses in older areas had grown incrementally, and ranged from being well maintained to being abandoned. Houses in the eastern parts of the neighborhoods were of shoddy wood construction, mostly elevated on stilts because of flooding. Plots were large, underutilized and poorly maintained. Drawing from CHPA’s current core housing initiatives, we developed a new core house typology to improve private and shared living conditions. This compact twin house with a shared utility wall could utilize a slightly smaller plot, and would be grouped to form clusters of 4 or more houses. The houses would share a wider, vehicular bridge over the canals to a common entry courtyard with a shared septic system placed in an accessible area for maintenance. This new typology could replace sub-standard housing in the larger neighborhood, especially in the extension to the east where the compact planning would facilitate the freeing up of space for community facilities such as playgrounds, marketplaces and sports facilities.
Introduction
Community Infrastructure An early observation was that these neighborhoods were wealthy in land, especially valuable due to the fertile alluvial soils found throughout the region. Our analysis of the physical environment showed a high ratio of open to built space suggesting that community gardens to produce marketable crops and generate income could address multiple deficits faced by the community. The largest areas of continuous open land were the reserves along the large north-south canals where the CHPA is beginning to relocate the squatters. These could be the focus of community development efforts; they could be used productively for multiple community purposes. Current canal dredging practices require the reserves to be left open. However, alternative technologies and approaches do exist which can potentially open the land up for new community purposes. Transforming the reserves into spines of pedestrian circulation, with a series of public places with activities catering to residents, would change the image of these districts dramatically. For example, a public market where local crafts could be sold could be constructed off the main street connecting back to the city center. Greenhouses with raised beds and shade roofs could be productive centers providing vegetables to be sold at the market. Several such sources of local income could be generated. Each reserve would be different, reflective of the adjacent community needs, but these well-landscaped community spines would be a strong statement of progress. Linking these together into a network would require east-west roads and bridges, street lighting, and trees. These new reserves should also be planned to improve resiliency to flooding while creating public space. A series of floodable open spaces could be sized along each reserve, thus creating a new flood management infrastructure. These would be planned to not only preserve the neighborhoods during rain events but also serve as new public open spaces during dry periods. This may seem a dream too big but the basic facts show that the reserves are a treasure trove of good fertile land. The prudent use of these spaces for the common good can be the means by which these fragmented communities can come together and create a strong, resilient, economically viable place to live.
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Primary canal in Sophia
Team
MIT
Collaborators and MIT Support
Adèle Naudé Santos Marie Law Adams
Central Housing and Planning Authority of Guyana (CHPA) Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) MISTI Global Seed Fund Department of Urban Planning and Management, University of Guyana
Giovanni Bellotti Kyle Branchesi Sarah Brown Kadeem Khan Qianhui Liang Helena Rong Nneka Sobers Yair Titelboim Yue Wu
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Regional Challenges
The Housing Challenge
Vulnerability to Flooding
In Guyana, 27% of the population is multi-dimensionally poor, which exceeds the regional average of 18%. Despite a decline in population due to migration, Guyana still faces an affordable housing crisis. There is a need to meet a housing deficit of 20,000 units for low income families and an additional need to improve 52,000 houses that are over 30 years old and deteriorating.
Approximately 90% of Guyana’s population of 750,000 is concentrated along the country’s semi-continuous coastal belt; this strip of land represents only 5% of Guyana’s total land area. This coastal plain is located 6 feet below sea level, which puts these denser settlements at particularly high risk to flooding, storm surge, and the effects of sea level rise. In the capital city of Georgetown, which is settled on Dutch colonial sugar plantations, an agricultural drainage and irrigation system of canals creates additional risk to flooding, particularly when these canals are not properly dredged and maintained. In 2005, Georgetown suffered a 100-year flood, the most devastating in the country’s history – damages were estimated at $465 million, with the majority affecting the housing sector.
Downtown Georgetown
Sophia
Source: Google Maps 2018
Demerara River
Understanding Sophia
Introduction
Settlement History Sophia was first settled informally in the mid-1980s, predominantly in the northern portion along Dennis Street and the western fields. As settlement moved eastward over the last 3 decades, homes were built at lower densities and occupied smaller building footprints. The eastern-most fields contain not only the highest concentration of new construction but are also the least densely populated with the smallest homes.
Average Building Footprint by Block (square meter)
Buildings Constructed After 2002 (shown in orange)
Average Building Density by Block (built area as % of total land area)
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The IDB Loan In late 2017, the Inter-American Development Bank approved a loan to assist the Central Housing and Planning Authority of Guyana. The loan – the Adequate Housing and Urban Accessibility Program – had 3 main objectives:
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Improve housing conditions and access to basic infrastructure for low income communities
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Enhance urban mobility and safety
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Strengthen national and local capacity to operate and maintain urban services.
Fields Sophia is a disconnected and fragmented community. It is divided into 6 “fields”. They reflect the legacy of the linear organization of sugar plantations from which the fields inherited their names.
Canals The fields are separated by 4 wide primary canals that run northsouth. These are part of a larger canal system of secondary and tertiary canals.
Reserves Each primary canal has a reserved strip of land in the center, known as a reserve. The land is reserved to be used during canal maintenance but is currently occupied by squatters.
Paved Roads There are minimal bridges and east-west connections that cut across the fields.
Community Spaces Roughly one-third of Sophia’s residents do not live within a 400 meter walking distance of community facilities.
Housing
Bridges
Squatter Settlements CHPA is in the process of a squatter regularization program to address the 562 squatter settlements still located on the reserves.
Of the 112 kilometers of internal roads in Sophia, 73% are unpaved.
Sophia has 1 primary school, 3 nursery schools, 2 community centers, and 1 health center. Less than 1% of total land area in Sophia is reserved for community spaces.
A Community Wealthy in Land
Sophia has an abundance of underutilized and overgrown land. Several lots are abandoned and overgrown with vegetation as there is no form of routine maintenance. Structured lots are often not built out to efficient densities. Open space, either private or a part of the reserves, is not used productively. On average, 89% of the fields in Sophia constitute unbuilt land area.
Built Area and Land Area by Field and Reserve
Underused lots
Small-scale gardening
Fertile land on the reserves
Located on former Guyana Sugar Corporation (GUYSUCO) lands, the community is rooted in a rich history of agricultural production. Many of the first settlers were farmers, but today there is only a small presence of micro-scale agriculture, including kitchen gardens on individual properties and the rearing of livestock, such as chickens and goats.
A Community that Cares
Introduction
Sophia also benefits from organized and passionate residents who care about the future of their community. Several of Sophia’s first settlers are still among today’s residents; they are proud of the community that they have built and are committed to improving it for all. During their visit to Guyana, the workshop team attended a meeting at the Pattensen Community Center with several community leaders.
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group
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group
IMPROVE ROAD CONDITIONS
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WATER MANAGEMENT
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VIBRANT COMMUNITY CENTERS + SPACES
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PARCEL MANAGEMENT
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SECURITY + SAFETY
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LINKAGE/PEDESTRIAN SAFETY
DRAINAGE MAINTENANCE
ENVIRONMENTAL
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PLAYGROUNDS/MANAGEMENT
VACANCY/STANDARDS
LIGHTING/YOUTH ENGAGEMENT
DEVELOPMENT STANDARDS + ENFORCEMENT
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GOVERNANCE/ROAD SETBACKS
FLORA AND FAUNA
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YOUTH ENGAGEMENT
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SOCIAL
WILDLIFE/DOMESTIC ANIMALS
middle school/training
COMMUNITY COHESION
ECONOMIC
COLLABORATION/DEVELOPMENT
LOCAL EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITIES
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CENTRALIZATION OF ECONOMIC ACTIVITY
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local residents with local jobs
COMMUNITY MARKET/HUB
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Public Realm
The Reserves and Community Spaces
Linear Corridors of Circulation The reserves, once cleared, are first programmed with non-negotiable infrastructural improvements, such as lighting and paved pedestrian paths and bridges. They become linear corridors of connection in Sophia, improving both mobility and safety. Second, portions of the reserves are carved away to act as retention ponds in the event of flooding. The result is a new infrastructural spine that serves as the foundation of the public realm.
New Productive Public Spaces Once infrastructural improvements are made, the remaining reserve land is the site of introduction of new productive public spaces in Sophia. Here, there are markets, playing fields, community gardens and farms, and grazing space for animals.
Micro-Community Centers To complement the existing large community spaces (schools, health center), there are a confetti of microcommunity centers distributed across Sophia. These structures, no more than 300 square feet in area, are continuously active over a 24-hour period, serving as small community spaces during the day and security posts and beacons of light in the evening. They are located on existing vacant lots, reserve spaces, and adjacent to recreational fields.
Programming the Network Together, the existing community spaces in Sophia paired with the micro-community centers create a community space network. These spaces are programmed together as a system to ensure a variety of activities and continuous activation throughout the day.
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Reinventing the Reserves
The reserve areas within Sofia are underutilized and poorly maintained zones of separation between the linear fields currently prone to squatter settlements, resulting in community safety issues and health hazards. We conducted on-site fieldwork measurements of the primary canals and identified available reserved land which could be re-imagined as productive realms of public space and connective interventions. This section examines the sequence of steps to reclaim reserve areas for community activities and to reactivate the reserves as a prototypical model for living with water in Georgetown. Our investigation and documentation for Sophia reveals the 4 reserves separating the linear communities as sites of opportunities, varying in width and therefore programming capacity, informing the design of a kit of parts that could be deployed strategically at various scales as per specific site conditions.
A Hierarchal + Layered Approach 1.
1. Add lights along main networks.
Infrastructure Provisions As a hierarchical and layered system, our intervention proposes initial non-negotiable measures targeted at resolving rudimentary infrastructural needs related to canal clean-up, accessibility, roadway safety, and future retention capacity of the canals. A system of street-lighting, paved paths, and east-west connective bridges function as a first step to initiate the public realm project.
2. Pave walking routes and build new bridges.
2. Water Retention A retention system network is then placed throughout the reserves at intersections of primary and secondary canals to function as open play fields or tree nurseries during dry seasons, and floodable drainage surfaces during events of flooding or heavy rainfall. 3. New Productive Public Spaces Once the basic infrastructural demands are catered to, the spatial quality and productive capacity of the landscape are optimized and maximized by the introduction of community spaces such as markets, gardens, community centers and playgrounds. Developed as modular plug-in units, the markets and the community gardens serve to generate income and create more job opportunities for residents, which resolves food shortage, consolidates inconspicuous and sparse sprinkles of public spaces, and fosters the buildup of a community that is productive, self-sufficient, and desirable.
Canal
Reserve
Canal
3. Dredge canals to improve water flow.
Reserve Kit of Parts
4. Implement retention ponds.
5. Implement community gardens and growing areas.
6. Implement community market areas.
Markets
Public Realm
Currently, Sophia lacks a formalized structure which results in the sporadic and temporary market stalls found in piecemeal throughout the community. Our proposal is a module measuring 26 feet wide and a minimum of 24 feet long (length of a structural bay) featuring a Y-shaped roofing canopy that channels and collects rainwater in the center, and is equipped with movable stalls which follow the same module.
Market Modular Extensions
Single Block Module 300’ x 26’
Single Block Module Section
Roofed Single Block Module
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Community Gardens
Public Realm
The community garden project envisions a productive landscape that takes advantage of the fertile soil that Sophia has to offer to provide job opportunities locally. A basic double bay module featuring 2 cold-frames is designed to accommodate a minimum size of 5x30 feet garden bed that can be rented to individual households in the community. Planting beds are raised to facilitate drainage and shaded by tensed geotextiles; rainwater is collected and used for irrigation.
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Productive Reserves
Tree Nursery
Public Square
Retention Pond
Market Place
Community Gardens
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Creating a Community Space Network
The workshop explored a new typology of public space that operates at a smaller scale: the micro-community center. The wide availability of open land in Sophia, and the legacy of the gridded parcels from the sugar plantations, provide an opportunity to carve out smaller underused spots in between homes and reserve them for public space. Together, the existing large-scale anchor community centers and the proposed confetti of micro-community centers, on both inner lots and the reserves, can create a new community space network in Sophia. This network is designed to be considered as a system, thoughtfully programmed to accommodate typical community gathering functions, but also activated at all times of day, providing beacons of light in the evening and around-theclock security presence.
Public Realm
The Micro-Community Center The micro-community center also incorporates a compact prefabricated utility core, designed to incorporate 3 main functions: security, sanitation, and storage. Constructed on an elevated plinth, this structure acts as a control point to manage the site and maintain operations.
The Utility Core
Compact kitchen
2 bathrooms with separate access
Storage units Office space
Beam and rafter roof with gutter Collector tanks Community center utility core
Elevated plinth
Embankment with overflow spillway system
Landscape improvements
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Flexible Programming
Community Gardens
Movie Night
Weekly Market
Public Realm
Shared Office
Athletic Fields
Security Post
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Neighborhood Planning
Housing at Three Scales
Housing in Sophia is self-built in most cases, using the cheapest, wood construction method. Several houses are not durable and many remain only partially built. Due to flooding, houses are built on stilts, and often on insecure foundations. Some earlier construction projects were overly ambitious and remain as ruins, thus blighting areas that are otherwise well finished. The adoption of the CHPA core house design was promising, however, not many of them exist in the neighborhood. The first section of this chapter introduces the case for a twin house strategy. The twin house is located on a combined lot size of two 30x90 feet lots, compared with the original CHPA core house proposed lot size of 40x80 feet, resulting in a substantial reduction of costs for utilities. This chapter then explores the twin house type and the 30x90 feet double lot at 3 scales: house, neighborhood, and field.
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Scale 1: House At the scale of the house, the project engages with the current design of the single family house types proposed by the CHPA. The project proposes a system of twin homes which still grants individual access to an address on the street for each plot of land, while reducing the costs for connections to water and electricity. By adjusting the placing of the homes within the plot, more opportunities for expansion and modification arise. The house may expand internally, with a mezzanine above the bathroom and kitchen block; and externally, either below the house, or towards the back. The external extensions can be utilized as extra rooms or as ground floor working space, directly accessible from the street, with little interference with the home above.
The Case for Twin Housing
Incremental Housing Extensions
Three housing prototypes are recommended: 2 for the twin house and 1 for the single. The single house structure is arranged at the corner of streets or along the canal, allowing for optimal shared spaces. Additionally, we propose a model for incremental housing extensions.
Single House I
Core Family House: 2 Bedrooms x 2 Layouts
Multi Family House 3 Bedrooms x 2 Layouts
Twin House I
Core Family House: 2 Bedrooms x 2 Layouts
Multi Family House: 3 Bedrooms x 2 Layouts
Multi Family House: 4 Bedrooms x 2 Layouts
Core Family House: 2 Bedrooms x 2 Layouts
Multi Family House: 3 Bedrooms x 2 Layouts
Multi Family House: 4 Bedrooms x 2 Layouts
Twin House II
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Scale 2: Neighborhood The neighborhood scale operates at the lot-to-lot relationship. Three different lot combination methods are provided, yielding 3 neighborhood prototypes. The different arrangements help create a shared space, which can be used as a playground, a marketplace or a gathering space during daytime, and a microretention pond in rainy seasons.
Neighborhood Prototype I: Courtyard
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Neighborhood Prototype II: Market
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Neighborhood Prototype III: Canal
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The shared space could serve as a retention pond and playground.
2. Each house has a pitched roof which could function as a rain catchment area. 3. The ground space could be used as a laundry room, market space, etc.
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The shared market space.
2. Every other house would have a different setback, creating a shared street space. 3. The different setbacks appear in specific sequence.
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The single house will be arranged at the corner of the neighborhood or along a canal in order to create housing diversity.
2. Landscape and retention ponds along the main canal and road.
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Scale 3: Field At the largest scale, the F-Field demonstrates the ways in which new density arrangements can allow for a public activity spine, a newly defined road circulation network, and a site for waste management. This expansion models our belief that the design in Sophia should not be static; it should grow and adapt with time and changing needs.
Neighborhood Layouts of Different Combinations
Block Layouts of Different Densities
F-Field Expansion: Master Plan
0 50 100 200
400
Canal System + Public Spaces
Ft 800
WASTE TREATMENT CENTER
Market Street
Canals
0 50 100 200
400
Ft 800
0 50 100 200
PLAYGROUND PLAYGOURND
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400
F-Field Neighborhoods
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Moving Forward
A New Vision for Sophia’s Neighborhoods
Neighborhood improvement in Sophia begins and ends with the reserves. The workshop proposes a vision for the transformative potential of these slivers of land. Programming the reserves with streets and lighting enhances safety and mobility, while adding markets and community gardens supports livelihoods and creates jobs. Building retention ponds protects against the rising sea levels in a vulnerable, waterlogged community. These interventions have the power to reinvent these spaces, turning them from barriers between neighborhoods into connective networks of productive public space. Cleaning the canals is the first step in this transformation. The CHPA has made considerable strides in the squatter relocation program, but even after these structures are removed and replaced, there is much work to be done. An institutionalized system for regular waste removal, and canal maintenance and dredging, is integral to the clean up process and the re-envisioning of Sophia. This will require collaboration at all scales – between CHPA and other national and local government entities, between community leaders across the fields of Sophia, and between neighbors on a block. Sophia’s canals are an interconnected system, therefore the clean-up effort cannot be led by a select few. Instead, the future of the canals, the reserves, and Sophia should be a collective one; it must be shaped and protected by the community.
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Georgetown
This publication is a preliminary summary and accounting of work conducted by graduate students in a workshop held at MIT. This report is not intended to be read as a comprehensive peer-reviewed document.