87 IA&B - APR 2009
IMAGINING
URBAN FUTURES
R
ahul Mehrotra grounded the session with key facts on the increasing urban population around the world that had passed the 50 percent mark - an ideal time, he emphasised, to engage in a discussion about Imagining Urban Futures. Defining “urban” as the manifestations of various physical forms like the core, the periurban, the suburban, rurban or the edge, he said, “The mapping of such multifaceted emergent landscape is often complicated. Furthermore, we have been engaged with the urban condition either through the lenses of the social sciences or we account for explosion in urban growth though statistics, numbers and economic mapping.” Mehrotra stressed that for designers it was critical to occupy the space between such mapping and speculation with the ground reality of emergent urbanism. “Design speculations,” Mehrotra continued, “are bound to be challenged sometimes on moral grounds and sometimes by pragmatism.” He particularly pointed to the bizarre condition where all the forces that mould the urban form or urbanisms, whether they are political or economic, are all situated in their debates and imagination in the future. Architects are the only ones who seem to be often grounded in the present or in the past for their inspirations. Architects and urbanists, Mehrotra went on to say, have to become more concerned with the future and find new ways to be inspired in these imaginations. The conventional tools used for speculating about the future are weighed down with the baggage of the past – a comfortable zone architects need to urgently jettison! Mehrotra analysed that the architectural profession in India has been largely engaged in recuperative action or sort of reacting to problem of the present or the past, not avant-garde imaginations of possible futures, or the rearrangement of the emergent landscapes. He went to show how the mega cities and the tier-two cities are not where the future of Indian Urbanism lies – although our gaze is locked on these. It is the 392 towns that are presently at 1,00,000 people and projected to become 1 million people cities that is the real urban time bomb that India is sitting on. That is the zone that we should turn our attention for the coming decade. Mehrotra argued three critical contestations pertaining to the future imagination of India-cities: a. The recycling of urban land. b. The rise in informal settlements on account of the poor supply of affordable housing c. The growth of Special Economic Zones in the city and around its edges.
Raising the debate whether the architects are holistically imagining urban futures, Rahul Mehrotra opened the track of Imagining Urban Futures with a call for speculations and their need to align with empirical projections, while maintaining a synergy between the questions as well as demands of the local and the global. He went on to elaborate that resolving these conflicts will drive political agendas and need the urgent engagement of architects and other professionals trained in spatial articulation. These conflicts are emblematic of the larger imbalances in our urban society and are also reflective of the poor engagement of architects and urbanists in these debates. We as a profession, he emphasised, have not equipped ourselves to deal with the conditions nor have we developed the repertoire to understand these emergent patterns. He elaborated that questions of mapping the change in the emergent landscape and those of representations are all part of the instruments that help us move towards speculating and imagining what might be the urban future of India and the world. “This change seems to come from the flow of people, economies, technologies and political processes that intersect with multiple forces that mould our urban future. While these layers of change present urgent problems that need to be dealt with separately, we are still compelled to understand through speculation what direction we can ascribe to our urban future. Planning methods with strong utopian models have often produced a fixed order assuming an idealised social stability. They have a preconceived idea of a correspondence between social form, and social process and have demonstrated that fixing futures is often a banal or repressive caricature of the imagined utopia. What we need more than ever before is a framework to understand the city as an instrument that transcends the limitations imposed by static and utopian conceptualisations…about the city and its physical manifestation,“ The presentations at Imagining Urban Futures, he explained, would discuss the possibility of building an explicit framework around the principle of urban change and for knowing how we can influence that change. He further said that there is no place in our world which is not touched by the global and which is transmitted absorbed or resisted in different ways, some of which are not physical. The challenge for design is to understand the mechanics for the city in terms of urban scale relationships and networks, which mediate them enabling new inter-relationships into the local and the global and all scales in between. He said that the local and the global are not opposite categories. He said, ”In fact in today’s world, all binaries in confrontation, whether it is the rich/poor, formal/informal, static/dynamic, are redundant oppositions. These are continuous phenomena and they bore and challenge our future urban imaginations. The challenge really is how does one spatialise them as continuous. These seemingly oppositional forces actually are simultaneously valid and ever transforming in terms of their relationships.” Mehrotra concluded by urging designers to “accept that the city is kinetic in nature, for this will bring new challenges for architects and urbanists and will fundamentally alter our role as well as contribution to society in ways we imagine the urban future for India.”
88 IA&B - APR 2009
Defying Gravity Alfredo Brillembourg was born in New York in 1961. He is a graduate of Columbia University, B.A. ‘84, M. Arch. ‘86, where he studied under the architects Romaldo Giurgola, Tod Williams and Henry Smith-Miller. In 1992, he received a second architecture degree from the Central University of Venezuela and began his independent practice in Architecture. A keen interest in writing on architecture led him to collaborate with two publications: one is the work of Jimmy Alcock and the other is Alejandro Pietri, both talented Venezuelan architects. Since 1994, he is a member of the Venezuelan Architects and Engineers Association and has been a guest professor at the University José Maria Vargas, the University Simon Bolivar and at the Central University in Venezuela. He has lectured on architecture at conferences in Boston, Berlin, Caracas, Miami and Switzerland. In 1995, he opened his own office in Caracas, BVG Architects and the CCSTT urban research laboratory and in 2000, Brillembourg/Hotson Architects in New York City. He has lectured at various international symposia and has been invited to participate on design review juries at Cooper Union and Columbia University. In 1993, he founded the Urban Think Tank (UTT) in Caracas, Venezuela. SELECTED PROJECTS 1. City of Sports, Vienna, Austria. 2. Telcel Service Centre, Venezuela. 3. Vertical Gymnasium, Sport Facility, Caracas, Venezuela. 4. British School, Escape Stair Design, Caracas, Venezuela. 5. Banco de Venezuela, Office Building, Caracas, Venezuela. 6. St. Mary’s Anglican Cathedral Church, Church Center, Caracas, Venezuela. 7. La Sabaneta, National Park Henry Pittier Cacao Hacienda, Municipio Giradot, Estado Aragua, Venezuela. 8. Metro Cable, San Agustin, Caracas, Venezuela.
1. Proposed station for the Cable Car project in Caracas.
Alfredo Brillembourg discusses the ideas for urban interventions and inserts, which need to be collaborated with the city and the community, making the city a palimpsest of patterns over time. Text: Transcribed & edited by Hina Nitesh Photographs: Courtesy Urban Think Tank
A
lfredo Brillembourg’s lecture questioned the idea of cultural synthesis by asking whether architecture really is a global practice. Justifying the title, he explained that as an architect, one has limitations like the context, the budget, the global practices etc., and still has to create something out of it. According to Alfredo, revolution by design and invention was the only idea acceptable to the society and the system. To explain this concept, Alfredo took the example of Kibera in Kenya, which is the largest slum in Nairobi. It is a complex neighbourhood with a train line running through. Sez is a knowledge city in Kibera, which works as a complete machine integrating its system of production and commerce. If one studied the grain and fibre of the city further, one would see an appropriate relationship between social activities and the physical form. He questioned if architecture could be developed into a machine which harmonises the processes of production, sales and commerce. A city, he said, should work in multiple ways. Discussing the experiments done to develop the city as a machine, he illustrated the project Eco Sheds, 1940, by a French urbanist. The project aimed at planning an expansion to Casa Blanca by creating an 8x8 grid for site services. Instead of leaving the site and the infrastructure, he built the plinth and the ground floor and sold that to the user of the first floor. The user was permitted to gather four
imagining urban futures
PLAN OF THE mETRO CABLE PROJECT, CARACAS or five of his friends and build up blocks over time, which could be sold off as various pieces of property. Talking about Petare, the largest slum in the world located on the eastern side of Caracas, Alfredo said that its topography makes it more complex and dramatic as compared with Kibera. In the background, the form of the city produces a strong visual contrast. As compared with the chaotic formal city, the informal city is much more uniform in texture, morphology and size as it is built in an incremental way. This is how Alfredo introduced the concept of Urban Darwinism, urging the architects to use accidents as products of design. Advocating building of the new city on top of the old city to densify it, he took the example of London which in the absence of a master plan kept on building on top of the previous city. Infact London is conceptually not one city, but a combination of many villages. Alfredo said that we are living in an environment which is a combination of archaic and modern, of rural and urban. The question which arises is how can we urbanise the rural? Talking about his works in the cities of Caracas and Petare, he said they were informal and had grown over layers of greenery, river and street structure. For a long time, the city mayors looked at the slums in
1
90 1. The structure is wrapped in polished metal louvers, to reflect and dissolve the planned surroundings. 2. The ‘honeycomb’ exterior becomes an exoskeleton, a sheer solid surface that lends the building strength and stability.
2 city as ‘white spots’ whereas these were actually densely urbanised with an intense social capital. His firm Urban Think Tank (UTT) is trying to combine the existing five municipalities with a 6 th which will be the river walk. The projects were envisioned around the city, after identifying about a 100 sites where some of the urban prototypes could be inserted. The project is aimed at bringing power back to the people. Alfredo reasoned that one of the problems today is the failure of decision makers to identify, contribute and activate a larger vision. We assume that the elected experts know the best but often the solutions offered by them are absurd and complete failures because they are based on 19 th and 20 th century models. Describing the organic growth of a house in Latin America, Alfredo gave an example of Elisia who expanded her house from 5sqm per person, for a family of 3, to 16sqm per person and ended up with 80sqm of space. He believes that these are interesting cartographies to map. “Architecture can alter the very quality of life when it engages the people in the city. Cities grow in transforming scale and place, playing a role in the understanding of our society. Architecture responds to the fundamental human question of how we live, what we do and share in the world. It is at the heart of the social and physical aspects of life. “
Venezuela faces a deficiency of 2.5 million housing units and that is why there is the growth of slums. According to Alfredo, accepting the slums as a reality and retrofitting them is the way out. The idea is to understand the relationship of the embedded slum with the city, climate, structure, etc. UTT looked at ideas where they could grow on terraces by making them into roof gardens or collect water or look at sewage and electric lines. They created modular stairs, which can be made by the users themselves and can reach at different places. Alfredo further added that this was also a chance of producing new products, new mechanisms. If design could be directed towards this informal sector, the ideas can be re-iterated all over the world. He illustrated his views through projects executed by UTT which included: Pedestrian Bridge This is one example of an urban bridge in the centre of the city - it is a car bridge which divides two municipalities. This bridge is a prototype which the firm has used not only in the slums but also for the city. Vertical Gymnasium Located in the informal city, the Vertical Gymnasium provides a medical module of the city health department, a road and sports facilities, all on the site of a former soccer field. The previous training facility was located
3
2.Construction of the Metro Cable Car project, Caracas. 3. The Vertical Gymnasium provides a medical module of the city health department, roads and sports facilities, all on the site of a former soccer field.
“A good city is a product of layers and layers of time and information. We believe that the architects have to take on the responsibility of cities that are in conflict over the world and put them into layers of time and patterns”. on street level and due to the densely built surroundings, the possibility of horizontal expansion was impossible. It complies with international standards for disabled sports and offers a health buffet and a kiosk as well as a covered area towards the street for gatherings before and after the training sessions. The structure can be used for cultural, entertainment and conference events as well and includes the offices of the Municipal Sports Director. The Gymnasium was built to house multiple fields of activity all in the same moment. This was accomplished by creating a complex with interconnected spatial fold that the athletes and visitors could experience from different levels of the buildings while practicing or visiting the structure without interfering or crossing the venues. Anglican Church This project consists of a three-floor building with a central space on one of the roofs that connects the church with the parish house. The ground floor communicates through a series of openings with the next level, producing a tropical architecture that takes advantages of both the sun and the rain. This creates an architectural frame for the activities of the congregation and the community. Underneath the church base we have added a little kindergarten, excavating underneath the church. Metro Cable Project The valley of Caracas is located 1000m above sea level. It was here that the Cable Car project was envisioned in the urban realm. According to Alfredo, the new building inserted is the growing house typology but with an understanding of the topography. They considered the mountain as one house instead of 1000 individual houses. The different zones
were identified and the 6 th municipality was to be the glue, which would connect the various blocks. The firm designed a music school that gets plugged into the cable car. It illuminated and transformed the worst part of the city into the most emblematic part. The cable car system, which is integrated with the Metro System of Caracas, is 2.1km in length and employs gondolas holding eight passengers each. Metro Cable’s capacity allows for the movement of 1,200 people an hour in each direction. Both the systems will connect with the Caracas public transportation system. Three additional stations are located along the mountain ridge, on sites that meet the demands of community access, established pedestrian circulation patterns, and also suitability for construction, ensuring minimal demolition of existing housing. Each station differs in configuration and additional functions, and these additional functions include: • Cultural, social and system administrative functions. • A gym and a supermarket and a daycare centre. He ended his talk by emphasising on the concept of global networks and said that an architect needs to be open to different ways of thinking and take on the role and responsibility in social, political and economic arenas. He also said that policies about renewable energy sources in sustainable strategies should be in place. Design innovation, architectural excellence and practice should not be assumed to be mutually exclusive.
92 IA&B - APR 2009
URBANISATION & INNOVATION Design Intelligence for Learning Networks Lawrence Barth is a Senior Lecturer in Urbanism at the Graduate School of the Architectural Association. In 2004, Mr. Barth initiated the formation of a sustained research programme in architectural urbanism at the PhD level and integrated the ensuing research culture into teaching in the school’s MA and Diploma programmes. He has developed a new research cluster at the school, entitled ‘The Architecture of Innovation’ to bring architectural work at the AA into engagement with the multi-disciplinary challenges inherent in an urbanism for the knowledge economy. Mr. Barth works as a consultant urbanist. He has collaborated with Zaha Hadid Architects, integrating a commitment to strategic urban thinking into their large-scale design investigations. In London, he has initiated a series of AA discussions with architectural practices on the evolving role of design in the development and spatialisation of innovation environments. Mr. Barth lectures and publishes broadly on current trends in urbanism and the role of design in addressing contemporary issues in planning and urban development.
PROJECTS 1. Consultant Urbanist to Gustafson Porter Landscape Architects, Gardens by the Bay Masterplan, Singapore. 2. Consultant Urbanist to Zaha Hadid Architects, Regeneration Masterplan for Kartal-Pendik District, Istanbul, Turkey. 3. Lead Consultant, Revised Masterplan and Conceptual Design Guidelines for Nepal Hill and ICT-Media Districts, One-North Masterplan, Singapore. 4. Consultant Urbanist to Zaha Hadid Architects, Zorrozaurre Masterplan, Bilbao, Spain. 5. Consultant Urbanist to Zaha Hadid Architects, Refinement of the Masterplan for Vista Xchange District, One-North Masterplan, Singapore.
Lawrence Barth investigates into architecture’s contribution, through a material practice, towards the imagination or envisioning of the future.
Text: Transcribed & edited by Hina Nitesh Photographs: Courtesy Lawrence Barth
L
awrence Barth talked about a set of issues that concern industry, networks, design and the urban process. He began with the example of Han Solo’s Millenium Falcon from Star Wars - an image of the idea of the future that shares a number of resonances with the cross over between the formal and the informal, the not quite typical that defines innovation. “Innovation happens through networks. It goes beyond what we think we can predict or what we can give an image to. The Millennium Falcons of the future emerge at places like this (India) – little abused, disused, tortured.” According to Barth, the urbanists are often confronted with challenging sites where they are uncertain how to rebuild the energy and the drive to move forward. Different parts of an urban area offer different challenges and accordingly the design treatment varies. Added to this is the fact that there are different types of peripheries and networks. He illustrated this point with an example of a project in Bilbao. The site once upon a time had the world’s largest manufacturer of anchor chains, but in the current scenario, that industry had disappeared and the land was going to be recycled for housing. The challenge of the site was about how to get an industry, networks and the local population together and what would be the role of design in that. He took example of three different areas – the Cambridge Science Park, the Texas Medical Centre and the Architectural Association in central London. While the first two places contribute little towards
imagining urban futures
1 the integration with the urban process, the landscape in Architectural Association had changed from being houses for the wealthy to schools. This part of London had given rise to a fabric that would become a home to new industries, research centres and institutes, combining living, playing and working and influencing the pattern of change. He cited the project at the Student Faculty Centre for University of California, San Fransciso’s Medical Centre, as an attempt at harnessing the urban process and bringing investment back into the city. Comprising students’ housing, medical research facilities, the project was backed by housing strategies but despite this, the larger urban plan was incomplete. The need was to look at material experimentation and exploration through architecture, along with the stakeholders, to carry the urban process forward. Differentiation between innovation and strategies needs to be made. Historically, there are examples of pooling of urban processes, experiments with new productive patterns and networks, which need to be learnt and put back in the system. Barth also spoke about the concept of the sub-urban shopping mall as conceptualised by the American urbanist Victor Gruen, which according to him was more than just a tool of urban sprawl. There was a sustained research on how to establish nodality, concern and new forms of urban life, arising from the need to convert the pedestrians into shoppers. This brought him to the issue of the stakeholders who architecture should address. He experimented with the anatomy of the pedestrian environment of New York as well as the vehicular environment of the west coast cities of Seattle. He then thought of ways to bring people together in the
1. The fictional space craft, ‘Milennium Falcon’ from Star Wars is an image of the idea of future.
suburbs where there was no consistency in their movement pattern. The first design exploration was to define an anchor – the department store began with a cluster of shops around it to create a movement. This, with progress in design reasoning, evolved to become compact and incorporated design solutions like the atrium as a community resource. It was about getting ideas together and creating a sum that was larger than the parts. The ambition was to create a centre for a much larger community where the relationship between the community and the mall was one of nodality. Lawrence Barth also cited the example of the Seattle Public Library which, within the constraints of the environment, asked what a library should be for a city especially in the context of the networks of today. It belongs to the genre of the library and has carried that aspect forward in interesting ways. At the same time, it has found its stakeholder base and has transformed the way people interact with it as an element within the city. To further illustrate his views, Barth took the example of the One North project in Singapore. He said that there was a strong contrast in the life on the street and in the towers in Singapore. Life could be generated on the streets, and the brief given by the Singaporean authorities was that they. They were capable generating life on streets and investment into
94
2
2. The Seattle Public Library, belonging to the genre of the library, has transformed the way people interact with it as an element within the city. 3. Conceptual evolution of networks and patterns. 4. Bridges were built between structures by the stakeholders as a means to explore the possibility of sharing resources.
the country but they could not gel the concepts. So as per the demands of the economy, there would be isolated towers. When questioned on what they didn’t like about the existing science parks, they would say that people go in there but never come out - the statement was a metaphor for concern about tower or pavilion environments. The challenge was to re-invigorate the street life by generating new industries while accommodating the investment for the preservation of the historic city. The solution for creating a new environment could have been simply the restoration of the shop-fronts but it would not have catered to the scale of investment involved. Taking a cue from the environment at Bloomsbury Soho in London, the design team questioned what it was that allowed the landscape to absorb investment changes and continue to support networks of change linked with industries, every time. They discovered that it was a highly concentrated urban environment with multiple levels of engagement that supported porosity and permeability both in the ground fabric and the skin of the building. It had a high degree of support in the form of residential communities catering to all the classes. The architects wanted to make similar adaptations in the 200Ha environment in Singapore but with a different urban structure, which would be defined with a different grid. Barth quoted from the essay on Mega Form by Kenneth Frampton which suggested that through mega form one can design an avenue of learning and change where the city has become dissipated, fragmented and illegible to drive the formation of new networks forward. Drawing similes from the urban environment in London, the designers began to look at Mega Form not as an icon but as a place to live. As the project progressed, the form developed and cut through the activities of future stakeholders. The government was able to secure the interest of five research institutes in taking a part of the site so the stakeholders were involved in the design process.
Epicentres: driving urban and economic growth
Grid: flexible and active cities
Parks and Voids: shaping the life of the districts
3
“It is important to understand stakeholders’ involvement in the design process and the need take a concept and ask how the stakeholder can be involved in networks and relationships in the new environment.” The structure and the pattern of an urban area were established which could later on be transformed. The driving concept was the consistently thickened ground. Bringing the buildings closer, enabled this engagement in the decision-making process amongst the public research institutes. Bridges were built between structures which were not part of the initial design plan. Instead, they were taken up by the stakeholders as a means to explore the possibility of sharing resources. In the idea of networks here, design works to support the image of synergy. The thickened ground produced hubs, where there is an intimacy of space – a cross over between the idea that networks extend into the city and networks as clubs. The project is distinctive in that its beginning is club-like but it enables a further extension that becomes increasingly network-centric. The lesson learnt from the project is that a defined plan enables a number of stakeholders to be involved in the design process. It cultivates an attitude of learning through development. The realm in which it is structured allows for different stages and a transition between them. It enables developers to come together with specific stakeholders to drive the plan forward with design research. The need is to bring to the design environment a process rooted in design reasoning. He concluded his lecture by saying ‘imagination of future cities has to do about a willingness to experiment both the inside and outside in the city and engage in the materialistic exploration of design which adds to the service of the stakeholder base which is ore than corporation but is a network of learning.’ 4
96 IA&B - APR 2009 Farid Esmaeil is the founding partner of X-architects, a leading architecture and urban design practice in Dubai. He graduated from the American University of Sharjah (AUS) in 2003. His design work addresses issues of contemporary society, urban identity and architecture. He has been the driving force in conceptual projects such as “Xeritown” a 60-hectare sustainable city in Dubai, and “Al Nasseem” a 12-hectare community development in Al-Ain, amongst others. His work has been published in both local and international magazines, and he has designed and built a number of noted projects including sustainable structures, commercial towers and private villas. He has lectured and exhibited work in numerous universities and institutions worldwide, including Venice Biennale 2008, AUS, Technical University [TU] Berlin, AIA Berlin 2002 and Archiprix international Architecture thesis program. His design work has won numerous awards including regional Holcim Awards 2008 and Cityscape Awards 2008 Dubai. Farid is also a founding member of Architecture Associations in UAE and currently serving in the board of directors.
selected PROJECTS 1. TBT Showroom, Completed. 2. House Boat - `O’ De Squisito, Completed. 3. Ismaeil Villa, Completed. 4. Al Nasseem, Ongoing. 5. Al Ghadeer Sales Centre, Ongoing. 6. The White Hotel, Competition Proposal. 7. Public Shading Structure, Proposal. 8. Desert Cafe, Proposal.
Xeritown – a sustainable city Farid Esmaeil from X-architect gives an insight into the design process that went in the creation of Xeritown – a sustainable township in Dubai. Text : Transcribed & edited by Hina Nitesh Photographs: Courtesy Farid Esmaeil
E
verything about Dubai is about being the biggest, the tallest and the most unsustainable kind of urban design. For Farid Esmaeil, from X-architects, the challenge was to achieve sustainability in this environment and his project Xeritown became a “sustainable” pilot. Believing in the collaboration of ideas from urban planners, landscape designers, engineers and other professionals resulted in a global design team whose vision was rooted in sustainability. The design team for the project consisted of professionals from all over the world, who interacted with each other daily using FTP servers and online sketchbooks. The site located in Dubailand – is a part of new development in Dubai – being envisioned as the Las Vegas in Middle East. This 10km strip of hotel and leisure programs maximises the use of energy. It is the flat landscape in the desert topography with dunes created by wind. The vision was to tackle the environmental, cultural and socio-economic issues and create a city which adapts itself to the context. Design varies as a result of natural and environmental forces; wind, soil, energy, water, sun and climate and social interaction were the various factors of sustainability that were addressed.
imagining urban futures Turbulence due to towers
Wind turbines Breaking of warm wind thanks to micro and macro rugged skyline
Deviation of warm wind thanks to sun roof Channelling of cold breeze
The landscape as natural wind cooler
Channelling of cold breeze
active urban form: wind
Facades designed according to the orientation
The compact urban forms shades, facades, interior alleys, courtyards
Shaded arcade
Sun roof with photovoltaic panels creates shades Shade provided by vegetation
Energy from photovoltaic panels used for lighting, parking & lobbies
active urban form: SUN
Water saving appliances Water attracts flora and fauna to the site
Grey water is recycled for irrigation
active urban form: water & biodiversity Ventilated and shaded interior terraces
Facade Rugged skyline treatment generating ventilating according to turbulance orientation Low use water appliance
Road LED light
Roof provides shade for pedestrians Pedestrian LED light
Under soil irrigation saves water by avoiding it to evaporate
Water attracts Solar energy flora and fauna absorbed by to the site photovoltaic panels Ventilation due Roof deviates to channelling warm wind of cold breeze
Shaded arcade
active urban form: energy
Energy from photovoltaic panels is used for irrigation water pumps
Under soil and clay pot irrigation reduces water loss by evaporation
98 1. The built-form was kept at low height at the edges and high-rise at the centre. The entire site was compacted to allow for landscaped areas. 2. The design aims to encourage a pedestrian-orientated lifestyle and minimise energy consumption. 3. Arcades were created to enable people to walk around anytime of the year.
1
Wind The architects studied various characteristics of wind at the site like speed, direction and temperature. The result was a compacted master plan with soft edges to the landscape. The maximum exposure was created on the north and the south faรงades to control heat. 5-6 storey high towers were used as elements to create turbulence. The building mass was used to diffuse the hot wind. The compacted built forms helped create a shade within themselves. The built form was kept at low height at the edges of the city and high-rise structures were built in the centre to blow out the hot wind. The landscape as well as vegetation was used as a natural cooler. Arcades were created where people could walk any time of the year. Water Stressing on the fact that water is very precious, Farid said that there is no water on the site and that Dubai goes through a large process of de-salinating water. A humidity chart was made for the site to study humidity levels that exist deep in the earth. The idea was to maintain as much of the desert as possible so indigenous plants were used for the landscape. The other aim was to educate people on the kind of plants that could be part of the desert and maintain the desert the way it is and not think of ways to make it green. Soil The idea was how to construct with minimum excavation, use minimum energy during construction and also preserve the flora and fauna layers that have developed over the years. The topography has been maintained throughout the landscape.
2
3
Energy LED technology was used in collaboration with the lighting designers as identification for the city. According to Farid, the urban fabric of Xeritown is formed by triplex apartments, courtyard villas and apartments of varying heights that create the iconic new skyline. Each of the parcels benefits from the close relation to the landscape by the improved microclimate and the grand vistas. The landscape is one of the main attractions of the development that can be explored via a jogging and cycling track running through it. Additional programs like the public library, the desert museum as well as the mosque turn it into a destination, an urban flair, and in close ties with the characteristic local landscape. Xeritown is an urban complex that is designed to work in harmony with the environment of the region through site specific and climate sensitive architecture and planning.
IA&B - APR 2009
99
imagining urban futures
Romi Khosla is an Indian architect who received a B.A. in economics from the University of Cambridge and qualified as an architect at the Architectural Association, London. Mr. Khosla founded GRUP (Group for Rural and Urban Planning) in Delhi in 1974 and has designed a number of large institutional complexes as well as small community-based rural projects. His recent work includes developmental and revitalisation projects for the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in Central Asia, Tibet, Egypt and for the Government of India in the Himalayan belt. Mr. Khosla’s published works include Buddhist Monasteries in Western Himalayas (1979). He served as professional advisor for the Aga Khan Trust for Culture’s International Competition for Ideas on the Revitalisation of Samarkand. Mr. Khosla was a member of the Award Technical Review for the 1986, 1989 and 1992 cycles. SELECTED PROJECTS 1. Research Institute, Patiala. 2. School for Spastic Children, New Delhi. 3. Children’s Playground, Haryana. 4. Sir Sobha Singh Public Charitable Trust, Delhi. 5. Siddartha Tytler, New Delhi. 6. Shantanu and Nikhil Shop (The White Pod), New Delhi. 7. Castro Cafeteria, Cultural Complex Jamia, JMI University, New Delhi. 8. Hui Hui Villa, Dharamshala, Himachal Pradesh. 9. The Indian Ambassy, Tashkent, Uzbbekistan.
Our Urban Futures
Romi Khosla believes that we are at cross roads of planning today. He presented the future of the cities with examples from cities around the world as well as research by scholars on the issue.
Text: Edited by Hina Nitesh Photographs: Courtesy Romi Khosla
C
ities are microcosms of our national cultures and civilisations. Urban settlements reflect whatever is happening in the nation-states. Romi Khosla believes that the past, the present and the future of nations and cities are intertwined. Town planning laws and regulations are a part of the national law and are framed by the same mind-set that runs the countries. The History Of Town Planning He began his talk with an introduction to town planning. He said that Modern Town Planning began in the mid-17 th century in England. When King Charles I was beheaded, the liberal and democratic ideas of Utopian life began to take shape across Europe and America. A century later, the second revolution took place which substituted the British rule over the 13 American colonies with a written American Constitution. Two years later, with the French Revolution, the Age of Enlightenment and Reason had dawned. A fourth revolution, which was brought in the 20 th century, added socialism to the gifts of enlightenment. It also saw a new breed of philosophers, scientists, politicians, entrepreneurs, engineers, social activists and the predecessors of the urbanists, who began dreaming about ‘The Cities of Tomorrow’. Armed with convictions and commitments to change the world, this force had great ideas about freedom, democracy, human rights, capitalism, socialism, scientific methodology and religious tolerance. It took four revolutions and a lineage of new-age philosophers and activists to give one the ability to use intelligence and control one’s life. Instead of believing in the old-fashioned norms of permanent equilibrium, one began to believe in the dialectics of ever-growing wealth and utopia. Town planning, which originated as an idea of securing a higher level of urban life and freedom for urban citizens, has
100
1
2
today deteriorated and as a result towns have become realms of continuously increasingly human suffering.
are many such examples from the modern world where building of religious structures has required demolitions.
Citing Jerusalem as an example, Romi Khosla said that it symbolises a space where the decline and fall of reason has come to announce the closure of imperial civilisations that were once found on enlightened values. He reiterated that Jerusalem was our urban future, if we chose to take the route of betrayal. “I am referring to a larger Jerusalem, not just the mile square walled city but the wider region around it, as a metaphor, as a symbol of the real future that could await us”. He listed four characteristics of urban governance of Jerusalem which are being emulated as respectable ways to govern urban affairs.
3. Governing through Coercion According to Khosla, the mythical dream of an ideal land and the ideal urban centres in that land cannot be realised without bullets being fired. Even in the mythical land of Zion, the Zionists began coercive governance of Arab territories in the 1950s and consolidated them after the 1967 six-day war.
1. Gating Communities The gated community is a well-established urban way of life all over the world. It exists in India as well in the form of metal gates, barbed-wire fences and private security armies, proliferating around tightly packed building complexes surrounded by green lawns. Since 1967, in Jerusalem, the uplands of Samaria and Judea have been increasingly occupied by Israeli settlements. These settlements, which began in the 1950s as social Kibutzes, were lightly guarded housing communities but today are protected by fortified concrete walls. This has destroyed the society historically, geographically and economically and regressed it into the land of apartheid. Gating barriers cannot be penetrated – they are guarded by turrets and armed soldiers. Governments are happy to withdraw their responsibilities for security and let the private agencies take over. Romi Khosla also brought out another aspect to gating which is like returning to mediaeval times where fortified city-states excluded outsiders without permits. 2. Propagating Mythical Futures Another facet of future that Romi Khosla brought out is the continued governance of cities by propagating myths which are completely divorced from the actual experience of the citizens. An example is the myth that Jerusalem is the place where the Messiah would return. The place to receive the Messiah was the Third Temple – currently the location of the 800 years old Al Aqsa Mosque – the third most important mosque for the Muslims. There
4. Profiteering through Water The fourth critical aspect of the mythical land is the capturing of water sources and its privatisation. When Jerusalem became a state of Israel, an order was passed which appointed an Israeli officer to control the water supply of Palestine. Another military order prohibited extraction of water by the Palestinians without a permit. The Palestinians are required to buy their own water taken from their land and sold back to them by a private company. The four interlinked points illustrate that the decline and fall of reason has gained extensive support. The betrayal of reason, the coercive governance and the myth making are shared across ideologies. Romi Khosla then raised the question that though not searching for Zion, are we not on the same road, experiencing gating, coercion, myth building and the privatisation of water? The City of Tomorrow Khosla went on to talk about the city of tomorrow and its need to be set in a social, political and urban environment, removing obstructions from the lives of its inhabitants - an all-inclusive place which resists global pressures. He said that the alternate urban futures are not realms where democratic decision-making plays an insignificant role in projects to re-design contemporary cities without any civic participation. To participate in urban futures, one needs to consider the ways where there is democratic space for the alternate road. One needs new urban institutions that offer resistance to the current future trajectories and to choose the philosophical and activist basis for this resistance. 1. The Democratic Space for the Alternate Road The Age of Enlightenment and Reason changed societal relations forever. It altered the consciousness of people and gave them rights that cannot be
1. The past, present and future of the nations and cities are inter linked. 2. Metal gates, barbed-wire fences and private security all contribute to make a gated community. 3. Continue governance of cities is assured through propagation of religious myths - religious structures are demolished to accommodate the newer structures.
3
‘Why are we creating our urban futures by emulating urban governance and by handing over our futures to private builders and municipal bulldozers? taken away. Khosla said that the space for the alternate road to the free city of tomorrow is the road that builds on these gains. This road travels in the gap that has opened up between the free-enterprise-laser faire utopia of globalisation and the weakening capabilities of the nation-state to discharge its social responsibilities. This is the space in which urban futures can be formulated and need not be dictated by transport engineers, social engineers, builders, private water and electricity companies and corrupt municipalities. He said that urban futures are a civic responsibility and only civil society can direct their course. 2. The Institutions that can Offer Resistance The nation-state cannot be taken as a benign agency that will intervene on behalf of the citizens. Khosla said that urban governments cannot be trusted to prepare a fair master plan. Reason and enlightenment can prevail in the urban environment if the citizen is placed at the centre of this concern. Citizens themselves need to participate in deciding the directions which their lives demand. The typology for such alternative institutions exists - Porto Alleger in Brazil is an example of a civil society which is creating better urban futures by participating in the mainstream municipal governance. Another example is the Citra Niaga Development in Samarinda – Indonesia. Khosla stressed that at the core level, urban development plans about the future of the city need to be driven by civic participation. In Indian cities, the civic participation driven by NGO activity is marginal, as it has not penetrated the mainstream of municipal budgeting and decision-making. However, there is a reason to feel optimistic as traces of civic participation exist - Jockin Arputham and the National Slum Dwellers Federations help to understand the vast potential of a civil society that resists the betrayal of reason of urban governments. 3. The Philosophical and Activist Basis for Alternate Futures A contemporary philosophical foundation for ideas is relevant for a change which can only come about because of civil society activism. Romi Khosla talked about his own notions for change in urban affairs and the direction in which activism is needed to achieve them. He shared the ideas which were part of a continuing search for solutions to urban dilemmas. These solutions
were a result of substantial interaction with Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen and Magsaysay Award winner, Jockin Arputham, founder of the National Slum Dwellers Federation. Amartya Sen’s philosophical ideas have re-defined the core values of Enlightenment and Reason for the modern world. Romi Khosla questioned if these ideas could be found on the ground, in the work of social activists. Sen re-evaluated the framework of development to include a concept that centres on freedom. The goal of development is the pursuit of ever-expanding freedom, the constraints to which can be considered to be barriers of society. The degree of freedom can be seen through five instruments. These are: a. Political Freedom or the opportunities to citizens to determine who should rule them and on what principles and with what rights to criticise those who rule them. b. Economic Facilities and opportunities to use the economic sources of the city for consumption and production and exchange, to finance and support. c. Social Opportunities are the choices that citizens have to avail for education, health and other essential community facilities from their governments. d. Transparency Guarantees that ensure an open transparent right to information and evidence of trust in the social contract that is made every five years with elected representatives and their administrative officers. e. Protective Security is to be provided by the state in the form of social security and also from natural disasters. According to Sen, the change, while pursuing freedom, has to emerge from individual citizens acting as agents of change. To illustrate the directions of the change that have been initiated by the ideas and thoughts of Sen, Romi Khosla referred to the Happiness Index - a term coined by Bhutan’s King Jigme Wangchuk to give a unifying vision for the planning process in Bhutan. Romi Khosla ended his talk by leaving the audience to answer, ‘why are we creating our urban futures by emulating urban governance and by handing over our futures to private builders and municipal bulldozers? We have an extraordinary philosophical inheritance that has guided our social activists for centuries, why then do we need to emulate the faltering steps of the Imperial urbanism?
102 IA&B - APR 2009 Linnaea Tillett, the founder and principal of Tillet Lighting Design Inc, is a globally reputed lighting designer who has collaborated on urban planning, landscape and architectural projects with leading architects, interior designers, landscape architects and artists: Beyer Blinder Belle, Maya Lin, Toshiko Mori, David Easton, Olin Partnership, Cooper Robertson, Quennell Rothschild, Kiki Smith and Lebbeus Woods. Founded in 1993, her firm has the reputation for artistry, technical innovation and functionality. She specialises in security and perceptions of safety in settings that serve diverse users. Her innovative approach incorporates a thorough understanding of the perceptual, behavioural and psychological effects of light with extensive experience in landscape, architectural and fine art lighting. Her projects reflect careful consideration of not only the visual environment, but also the emotional texture of the space as well.
SELECTED PROJECTS 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10.
“This Way” – art installation – Brooklyn Bridge Underpass, New York. The Battery Bosque, New York. Rosa Parks Circle, Grand Rapids, Michigan. Children’s Defebse Fund Chapel, Tennesee. Mill River Park, Connecticut. East New York Pedestrian Lighting Project, New York. Tangula Train, Beijing. Greyston Bakery, New York. Friends Meeting House, New York. River to River Festival, New York.
Lighting the Public Realm Dr. Tillett talks about several lighting projects that have helped generate an urban renewal. Text: Transcribed & edited by Ekta Idnany Photographs: Courtesy Tillett Lighting Design
D
r. Tillett began her presentation by illustrating the influences of lighting in the built environment. She specifically showed projects in which the lighting schemes had helped in urban renewal. She began by showcasing the project set in the area of East New York in Brooklyn, New York. The project was an initiative by the Department of Transportation to get designers to adopt and improve certain areas in the city of New York. The project involved the lighting of the intersections on the underside of tracks on the street so as to improve social conditions in the area. Tillett chose to light not just on the underside but also in areas that were one block over from the exact intersection. This involved lighting the church and the community centre and the library to make them appear friendly and accessible to the public. The success of the project was actually determined from data that showed that the attendance in the library had actually increased. As a result of the project the security, vibe and atmosphere in the community improved greatly. The firm has now published a manifesto for lighting communities so that they can actively light urban areas on very small budgets. Tillett undertook another project that involved urbanisation of the town centre in Grand Rapids, Michigan, in the United States. The city had adopted a Dutch model of pedestrianisation for the centre of the city and
rebels
due to this, the city centre was rarely used and had become defunct of activity and dead. In attempts to revive the centre, the city approached artist and architect, Maya Lin and it was decided to build a skating rink there. The lighting piece de resistance was the embedding of an image of the illuminated night sky using lighting techniques into the skating rink that would light up in the dark so that it would appear that skaters were skating on the sky. This project helped to attract visitors to the city centre and regenerate an otherwise dead zone of the city. Another installation that Tillett Lighting engaged in was a project with Lebbeus Woods at the Snow Show in Lapland, Finland. The project involved embedding a dynamic 3D structure made up of LED lights into the snow and this became a major visitor attraction to the exhibit. The city even wanted to keep the installation until they realised that the snow had melted.
9
9
8
8
8
Subway Station
4
7
Barbey
Schenk
8
Warwick
Elevated Subway
10
Jerome
Livonia Avenue
8
A very important project that Tillett Lighting was involved in was the regeneration of the southern most tip of Manhattan that is known as Battery Park. The Urban Planning Authority in Manhattan commissioned this project on an urgent basis after September 11, so as to renew interest in lower Manhattan. The park consisted of several small pavilions, benches etc. However as constraint for the lighting scheme, Tillett was allowed to design only one light feature. So the lighting feature was designed as a bollard that had a disc of water that sprung from its top and helped to reflect the light and spread a shimmering spectral effect across the landscape. Other features that lit up were the pavilions and the fountains. Here Tillett reiterates that she engages lighting design so as to make the light interact in different ways with the environment. Be it reflected, absorbed or refracted light, the idea was to enhance the visual experience and engage it with textures and the quality of the space.
2 1
New L
o t s Av
6
enue
5
3
1 Day care centre 2 Library 3 Landmarked church 4 Vacant lot 5 Community centre 6 Cemetary 7 Gas station 8 Apartment buildings 9 New 2-family houses 10 Underpass
LIGHTING strategy for the intersections at the project in east new york
104
1
2
3
“This project helped to attract visitors to the city centre and regenerate an otherwise dead zone of the city.“
a comparative study of the number of visitors attending the library after tillett’s lighting intervention in the area of east new york.
4 Another project that contributed to urban renewal and attracted attention was the approach stair of the Brooklyn Bridge. It was located in a shady area, largely being used as a urinal. Tillett placed a lighting installation under the bridge so as to make it a more visible and noticeable area. She concluded the presentation with a lighting scheme for a pedestrian and biking bridge to be built in Albuquerque, Arizona. The lighting scheme was inspired by the waves of the water under the bridge and the reflection and refraction of light on water. This scheme would help make the bridge into a very intriguing visual feature and address the visibility and security concerns of the users. LIGHTING PLAN- TOWN CENTRE, GRAND RAPIDS 1 & 2. East New York Lighting Project - Before and After. 3. Lighting the approach stair of the Brooklyn Bridge. 4. The Town Centre, Grand Rapids, Michigan. 5 & 6. Installation with Lebbeus Woods at the Snow Show in Lapland, Finland.
5
6