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University of Calgary | Faculty of Environmental Design
that is defined not so much by the division of land and water, but by the segmentation of land through usage, ownership, political designations, function, buildings, atmospheres, infrastructure and so on. The city is a conglomerate of a vast number of diverging interests and practices. This cacophony of activity keeps the urban fabric in a state of constant change and transformation. Layer upon layer of development builds to make up the evolving identity of the place. Going back to the paragraph above the city therefor is shaped ultimately to the social and cultural practices it creates. Within the city some interests often start to align in order to assert greater power. Such an alignment can be based on interest, function or location. Communities are smaller units within the city that have a number of overlapping interests to align themselves. An important factor is of course location or proximity that binds communities together. Translating these communal interests onto the land in practice means occupying this territory by creating some kind of boundary, creating an urban island. An island that is distinct and identifiable against the sea of otherness. This identity is the source of power and control. There are of course a number of other interests that support the creation of these urban islands. The same concept that leads to the creation of a territory from each community can be scaled up to the city itself. In order to control and plan internally the land is broken up into manageable chunks - communities. A perspective that leads to a range of additional questions. What is the nature of the unit we are working with, who is pulling the strings, how is power distributed and is everything as it seems? On the other hand even within the islands, social practice, everyday activities and physical structures lead to the creation of distinct places, some of which themselves wield enough power to create their own identity and form an island of their own. We want to call them Objects. Such objects mainly come to live through their capacity to map memories and project desires. They are larger than life, but often there is more small and screen - pretence. These are the drivers for the islands creating Situations. Situations are created by practices in relation to the Object. Maybe a detour or a draw pulling in passer-bys. In short the city is a set of islands stacked and enclosed on different scales like Russian dolls. Each with its own set of Objects and Situations asserting power to form a territory. The question now is however, what happens along the boundary lines and in between the islands? Is there such a thing as the in-between and who shapes it and what qualities does this space have? There too must be ways of exchange some form of trade, traffic and overlapping interests across these borders. Just like a living cell structure there are ways and means mitigating this hierarchical structure in the no-man-land between land and water, between same and otherness, between the form and its context. 1.1.1 Location For this studio we will be working with the communities of Kingsland, Fairview, Haysbro, Acadia, Southwood and Willow Park in the south of Calgary. The area is between Glenmore Trail in the north and Anderson Road in the south as well as 14th Street in the west and Deerfoot Trail or the Bow River in the east. These communities are all sharing Macleod Trail, the main corridor leading south from the city centre. This corridor is home to businesses and trades as well as the Calgary Light Transit (LRT) with the stations Heritage, Southland and Anderson all of which have their individual transit oriented development areas (TOD). They are also sharing a whole range of topics related to economics, population and building stock that leads to the creation of a temporal super community in order to engage with the constant change of the urban fabric more effectively. Several layers of the island concept are inscribed here including, the south, the super community, the individual community and potential locations within each community. 1.1.2 Topic Of interest is what happens between and across the islands. The communities themselves have already identified a range of aspects they feel cross the boundaries and that they need to address these, in order to be effective, collectively. The communities are part of the 1960s/70s ring around Calgary. Communities that were built during that time in a wave of expansion of the city. This has
