Made issue 8

made at the welsh school of architecture

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Editorial

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Residen(ce)ts John Folan

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Editors: Mhairi McVicar and Cristian Suau Publisher: Welsh School of Architecture, Cardiff University, King Edward VII Avenue, Cardiff. CF10 3NB. Tel: +44 (0) 2920 874439 Web: www.cardiff.ac.uk/archi/made Orders: made, Welsh School of Architecture, Cardiff University, King Edward VII Avenue, Cardiff. CF10 3NB. Mail: made@cardiff.ac.uk

Post Industrial Transformation and the Obesogenic City William Worn

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Temporary Urbanism in the Rhondda Valley Phil Henshaw

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Mountain landscapes and the tradition of industry: the Cambrian Mountains of Wales David Austin

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Energy Modelling in Wales: Looking Ahead to 2050 Tom Bassett, Diana Waldron, Heledd Iorwerth and Simon Lannon

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(Post Normal) Cultural Heritage Frances Whitehead

The Valleys of South Wales: a cultural landscape legacy Richard Keen

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Researching Sustainable Living Styles in Post-carbon Societies Yangang Xing­­­

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Changing Parameters of the Industrial Land- and City Scape Martin Kläschen

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Grand Paysage: Between Memory and Invention of Urban Voids in Transformation Cristian Suau

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Facade-integrated Vegetation as a Sustainable Solution for Energy-efficient Buildings Irina Susorova and Payam Bahrami

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Regional Energy Transitions: Pathways to Hydrogen Infrastructure in South Wales Nick Hacking

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The Tallest 20 in 2020: Entering the Era of the Megatall Nathaniel Hollister and Antony Wood

90 ISSN 1742-416X £20 cover photo: Detail of Vertical engine at Glyn Pits Courtesy of Richard Keen

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Umbrella Teahouse Takeshi Hayatsu, Shibboleth Shechter and Sam Clark Re-visioning the Heads of the Valleys Andrew Roberts Contributors made

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made is about materials and connections in architecture: physical making, joining and crafting; also the intellectual materials and connections of architecture: its science, histories, theories, practice and material culture.

made materials architecture design environment

made “bring into existence, cause to be, cause (something to happen), (MSw. maka construct, Da. mage manage, arrange) Gr. massein (aorist pass. magenai) knead, magieros cook, mageus baker, Osl. mazati anoint, grease, sb. manner, style, form. Maker, manufacturer, creator; (arch.) poetâ€? Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology

Editorial In 2011-12, a British Council UK-US New Partnership grant funded an international symposium1 and exchanges between the Welsh School of Architecture and four USA institutions: Illinois Institute of Technology, The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and Carnegie Mellon University. Architects, historians, urban planners, researchers, and staff and students compared and discussed postindustrial conditions in Wales and the USA midwest ‘rust belt.’ This year-long series of exchanges provoked the question: what potential exists for nineteenth century industrial urban areas and landscapes to be transformed to meet post-industrial 21st century expectations of sustainable and healthy living, in an innovative and efficient way which retains the distinctive character of these regions? This issue of Made at wsa is the outcome of these conversations.

Diminishing populations and social and economic inequalities within developed modern cities is the focus of John Folan’s review of Carnegie Mellon’s one-year participatory design of CAFÉ 24 in Homewood, Pittsburgh.

As the reprogramming of a derelict building to address local social and economic gaps, CAFÉ 24, designed as a catalyst for physical and social change, rigorously tested means of teaching within community engagement initiatives. Frances Whitehead questions the legacies of ‘post-carbon, postindustrial, post-colonial’ landscapes, addressing their inherently complex contradictions through remediation projects in abandoned urban landscapes.

William Worn’s proposal that the ‘natural evolution of post-industrial cities is towards obesogenicity’ compares Dansville, Illinois with Merthyr Tydfil, Wales. Worn argues that relationships between urban form and obesity form ‘wicked problems’, demanding an ‘evolving, iterative design process’ which

a sustainable and energy-efficient strategy.

Nick Hacking presents the challenge of transitioning to alternative energies, specifically hydrogen and fuel cells, drawing from best practices in Germany to suggest how similar transitions could be achieved in South Wales. Further research from the CTBUH, presented by Nathanial Hollister and Antony Wood, focuses upon the ‘Megatall’ building – over 600 metres in height – surveying the global trend towards building higher for a rapidly urbanizing global Research by Tom Bassett, Diana Waldron, population, highlighting the implications Heledd Iorwerth and Simon Lannon upon considerations of energy and of the Low Carbon Research Institute efficiency as buildings overcome previous at WSA focuses on the renovation of height limitations. the pre-1919 stone terraces of the Welsh Valleys towards a low-carbon 21st century. Closing with work from two WSA Richard Keen’s detailed survey of the teaching studios, ‘Umbrella Teahouse’, led industrial development in the valleys of by Takeshi Hayatsu, Shibboleth Shechter south east Wales through iron, coal and and Sam Clark combined traditional steel tracks the rise and fall of industrial Japanese and Welsh building techniques development in these intensely ‘probed and local materials with standardized and prodded’ landscapes, and reflects industrial building components. Andrew upon their economic and cultural future. Roberts reviews the 2011-12 M.Arch Yangang Xing’s analysis of historical studios at WSA which focused on the phases of energy systems argues that Heads of the Valleys at the northern agrarian societies still have much to extremity of the South Wales coalfield. teach us in terms of sustainable land Through a comprehensive mapping of planning and resource use. The role of the physical, economic, health, social and post-industrial landscapes and cityscapes cultural aspects of the region, followed by in shaping and transforming identity individual thesis proposals along broad is addressed by Martin Kläschen, who themes, student proposals demonstrated takes us from Wales to Chicago, USA. the potential of small projects acting Klaeschen surveys the close relationship as catalysts for further development in between industry and the cultural urban areas and landscapes struggling identity of Chicago, and reviews the with the legacy of the Post-Industrial. impact of a shifting cultural identify In challenging economic times, Roberts in a post-industrial era. Cristian Suau suggests, a ‘cacophony of small projects, similarly considers the role of memory some successful, some not’ may be a within the recycling and regeneration of more viable strategy than that of large scale project funding - a view shared post-industrial sites. throughout many of the papers within Work from the Council for Tall Buildings this issue. and Urban Habitats (CTBUH) is presented by Irina Susrova and Payam Bahrami’s research into methods of achieving façade-integrated vegetation as Mhairi McVicar and Cristian Suau permits projects to ‘fail fast, fail cheap’ in lieu of an over-determined approach.

Phil Henshaw’s ‘Temporary Urbanism’ similarly proposes ‘faster, less formal, and inquisitive means’ of tackling urban shrinking in the Rhondda valley in South East Wales. David Austin extends our considerations of ‘industrial’ landscapes well beyond those of the nineteenth century, reminding us that industry has had a long term presence in the physical and cultural shaping of our landscapes.

1 The symposium, ‘Post Industrial Transfornations: Sharing knowledge and identifying opportunities’, was held on November 22 and 23 2011 at the Welsh School of Architecture, Cardiff University (WSA) with keynote speakers from WSA, Illinois Institute of Technology, The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and Carnegie Mellon University.

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N.Y. 9 12 5 13

MICH. 8 6 3 1 4 7 OHIO IND. 10 ILL. 11 2

PA. 14 MD

U.S. RUST BELT MO.

Residen(ce)ts John Folan Charcteristic Contexts In 2008 the world witnessed an amazing transformation with very little tangible recognition – the balance of majority population shifted from rural locations for the first time in history. The world’s urban population grew rapidly during the twentieth century, from 220 million people at the start of the century to 2.8 billion at the close of the century.1 Over the next thirty years, projections indicate that urban populations in developing countries will double. In contrast, developed modern cities throughout the world are facing population declines at an unprecedented scale. Over the last fifty years, 370 cities throughout the world with populations of 100,000 or greater have experienced declines of ten percent or more.2 Vast metropolitan regions of the United States, Canada, Europe, and Japan are projecting double digit declines in population over the coming decades. This is evidenced by 2010 Census results in the United States which reveal that sixteen of the twenty largest cities from the 1950 Census have diminished in population by significant amounts. Buffalo, Cleveland, Detroit, Pittsburgh, and St Louis have lost more than half of their peak populations.

Baltimore and Philadelphia have lost onethird of their peak populations.

Buffalo, Cleveland, Detroit, Pittsburgh, St. Louis, Baltimore, and Philadelphia are representative American Post Industrial Cities located within a large geographical tract colloquially referred to as the Rust Belt. Only recently, six decades away from the nadir of peak population densities, have residents of American Rust Belt cities begun to let go of Alfred Marshall’s concept of “thickly peopled Industrial Districts” described in The Principles of Economics (1890).3 Residents of these Post Industrial cities are now re-affirming an identity rooted in a very different reality, one marked by gross inequities in income distribution. In the “Post” culture, stark contrasts exist between those who are appropriately skilled—professionals, managers, administrators; those in high

technology service industries—and those manner in which it manifested itself in the who represent a poorly paid service industry. physical environment was much less The former can afford high house prices, obvious. Today, vacancy is the not only a and, in fact, contribute to them; the latter, visible byproduct of population loss, but together with the unemployed - cannot.4 also the greatest symbol of socio-economic disparity. Vacancy leads to the evolution While this socio-economic condition of terrains vagues– vast unplanned existed during industrial prosperity - prior landscapes of conspicuous neglect where to the vast decline in populations - the residual nature is mixed with deteriorating made

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housing, waste, and crumbling outmigration can be a negative influence in infrastructure.5 In these areas employment promoting social equity.8 As a result, there centers diminish, outmigration expands, is a new generation of researchers focusing and nature begins to reassert itself in the on the development of frameworks and form of urban wilderness, forest, meadow, strategies that identify mechanisms for and succession areas. Considered amenities stability prior to growth for the promotion in healthy urbanized areas, these forms of of social equity in these areas. The questions green space form ambiguous unmanaged they are raising focus on the identity of place landscapes in the Post Industrial American – it is no longer about the number of City - contributing to anxiety, reduced Residents, it is about new forms of Residence. property value, and a lack of confidence in a neighborhood’s future.

Engaging Residents

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These changes in physical environment have significant social impacts. Since the birth of urban studies research in the middle of the twentieth century social scientists have been studying the social dimensions of urban decline. Brian Berry6 and Ray Oldenburg7 were early pioneers in examining the impact of neighborhood depopulation on the people that remain in a specific place. Their research focused on the decline of population being proportionally related to a decline in social equity and it called for the focus of physical planning and policy planning strategies that could reverse the decline. Recent research indicates that rapid growth within areas of urban regions affected by sustained

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In the fall of 2009 Carnegie Mellon University’s Urban Design Build Studio (UDBS) initiated a one year long participatory design process focused on the realization of a catalytic demonstration project in the Homewood Neighborhood of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The project was calibrated specifically to address challenges facing shrinking cities and disinvested neighborhoods. As with all UDBS projects, work commenced with a semester long urban analysis and urban design framework definition process.

Across a series of four community meetings the UDBS worked with residents and politicians to identify stakeholders for advancement of the work through strategic 6

design proposals. The following semester the UDBS worked with those community stakeholders to identify a single project that represented the needs of the community based on the analysis done at the urban scale. Once the project program was defined, the UDBS collaborated with stakeholders to complete the design of the proje c t t h rou g h c on st r uc t ion documentation. The following summer construction commenced on the adaptive re-use project which will house a non-profit minority business incubator and a for profit café/third space in Homewood, CAFÉ 524.

Within a condensed period of time, the collaborative work of the UDBS and the community of Homewood provided an opportunity to speculate about the identity of place in a context of catastrophic loss and disinvestment.

Localized Condition of Residence To understand the trajectory of the CAFÉ 524 project’s development, it is critical to understand the localized condition of residence – socially and physically. Out of the American Rust Belt cities mentioned previously, demographic data illustrates that Pittsburgh consistently ranks as one of the

worst performing cities in terms of poverty, crime, employment, income and housing abandonment.9 Paradoxically, Pittsburg is widely regarded as a renaissance city continually rating extremely well in quality of life and affordability studies.10 Research conducted by Karina Pallagst has focused specifically on the phenomena related to the Pittsburgh Paradox. The research indicates that the city has benefited from four

interrelated physical, social, and economic policy initiatives: 1) Focused Preservation of Historic Buildings/Heritage, 2) Diversification of Economy, 3) Promotion of Mixed-Use Pedestrian Friendly Development, and 4) Regionalism.11 The first three of the initiatives identified are universal; there is nothing specific about an attachment to Pittsburgh or the Allegheny Valley. The fourth is informed by a state of

Collection of Terrestrial Rooms When James Parton observed in the Atlantic Monthly that industrialized Pittsburgh was “Hell with the lid taken off�, his prose was shaped by more than made

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mind, but remains firmly connected with the natural physiography; a condition that must be understood as primary.

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the prevailing smoke and fire of the city’s ironworks and glass manufactories; it was also shaped by his specific spatial perspective – looking “over and into” a valley perceived as an abyss. Evidence of this prospect is provided later in the same article when Parton describes the “deep chasm in which Pittsburgh lies….at the bottom of an excavation.”12 The observation about the significance of Pittsburgh’s terrain is not unique. Written narrative about Pittsburgh is almost universally based on a discussion of the land formed by the confluence of the three rivers - the Allegheny, Monongahela, and Ohio Rivers.

Pittsburgh is built on a portion of the Appalachian Plateau that extends westward from the Allegheny Front; a high escarpment that slices diagonally across Pennsylvania and assures that the western portion of the state is substantially higher than the east. Elevations in Pittsburgh range from 710 feet above sea level where the rivers meet to 1,300 feet at the highest points of the basin. There are three primary topographical conditions from datum line to datum line: floodplains and bottom lands in the river valleys, uplands between rivers and hilltops, and high land at the prevailing level of the plateau. Each datum is connected through a sloping terrain forming the tissue of the city context.

Consequently, Pittsburgh lies unevenly upon unruly land. Communities and Neighborhoods are variously defined by hills and demarcated by hollows. It is not uncommon for Buildings to present facades two stories in height on one side and four or five on another across a distance of no more than fifty feet. The topographic form and consequences thereof, are inescapable.

They condition every action, they confine every vista, and they expose every prospect.

As a topographic city, perception of Pittsburgh is inherently linked to perception of the landscape. Any depiction of Pittsburgh in aerial perspective reveals urban development and the underlying terrain with equal weight. At the urban periphery, dense foliage forms a pictorial frame for what is a pastoral setting intervened - one where an expansive panorama appears to encompass the curvature of the earth.

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That panorama is critical in understanding the underlying organization of Pittsburgh’s unique urban condition. It is an urban condition where changes in level reveal, but also conceal – altering sense of scale, connection, and the perception of finite boundary. Pittsburgh’s topographical and

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pictorial space is organized into what William Rees Moorish defines as “terrestrial rooms.” Moorish argues that our concept of the room, and of human occupation generally, is derived from spaces that are enclosed by surrounding landforms “Within the uncultivated landscape the landforms contain resources, rooms to contain the heterogeneity of urban growth.”13 The “terrestrial rooms” in Pittsburgh are its neighborhoods.

Neighborhoods are the city’s strength and the bedrock of its identity; an identity that is simultaneously clear and ambiguous.

While every city has neighborhoods defined by an array of conditions in varying strata of hierarchy - political status, economic and social function, landscape and the built environment, ideology and way of life, and processes of development; those in Pittsburgh are defined physically - by the geomorphic condition. The other conditions inform, but they are secondary considerations to boundary formed by landscape. Ironically, that reality has created a condition of urban ambiguity.

Each neighborhood has navigated territories of autonomy and dependency in a manner that has defied clear cohesive urban/suburban identity throughout the city’s history.

Each of Pittsburgh’s neighborhoods maintains an autonomous economic core.

Each has an autonomous service based commercial district. Each possesses a distinctive infrastructural form related to settlement patterns. Each possesses unique housing typologies that respond to settlement patterns and localized terrain.

And, each has its own ethnic heritage.

While the overarching condition in Pittsburgh is urban, healthy neighborhoods, and those neighborhoods that were healthy prior to severe population loss, resemble a collection of sub-urban territories. There

exists autonomy, but there are necessities of interdependency consistent with those normally assigned to Combined Statistical Areas (CSA).

The ambiguity that exists is reinforced further if we consider the history of development along Penn Avenue, the primary connective artery linking Homewood to the other city neighborhoods.

Penn Avenue is a relatively flat piece of land that forms a linkage from Pittsburgh’s Golden Triangle to outlying boroughs that once formed the industrial basin of the Monongahela Valley. The last three miles of Penn Avenue within the City’s limits form the southern boundary of the Homewood Neighborhood. As author Franklin Toker points out, “This section of Penn Avenue was once the most opulent millionaire row of Nineteenth Century America. Armstrong, Heinz, Frick, and Westinghouse – the kings of cork, pickles, coke, and electricity lived here; so did Andrew Carnegie, his mother, his brother, his cousing George Lauder, and half a dozen of his partners. The thaws and R.B. Mellon resided around the corner, aggregating a minimum of three dozen millionaires when the term meant something significant.”14 By contrast, “Catastrophic Disinvestment” is the euphemism utilized by planning agencies to describe the vacancy that is the prime characteristic of Homewood today.

coveted desirable place sought out by the wealthy and upwardly mobile – a condition that pre-existed this assignation in nineteenth century Homewood. By virtue of it’s trajectory and characteristic evolution, Homewood’s identity has been perpetually anachronistic – and ambiguous.

To be Clarified through Evolution Homewood is not alone, it shares the conditional inverted identity with many communities in Pittsburgh; validating participatory based applied research in urban design. The work of the UDBS in Homewood is predicated on broad scaled urban analysis that reveals a specific set of conditions suggestive of a less dense urban form predicated on specific regional needs.

The catalytic adaptive re-use project developed for Homewood is biased to synthesize those conditions.

According to the Pittsburgh Neighborhood and Community Information System (PNCIS) data,16 There are a total of 4,364 taxable properties located in Homewood.

The total number of tax delinquent properties is 2,492. Of those properties 2,208 are vacant, representing a total area of 8,309,297 square feet. As of November 2009, the total taxes owed on the vacant parcels are $5,107,257.00. A majority of the property in Homewood, 92%, has an assessed value of less than $20,000.00.

Of that property almost 30% is owned If we revert to the nineteenth century by absentee landlords living outside the origins of the word “suburb”, a word that state of Pennsylvania. This representative literally meant sub-urban, the term sampling of demographic data collected signified an inferior part of the urban and analyzed by the UDBS indicates the landscape where nefarious activity occurs social and economic challenges that exist and marginal populations aggregate, in Homewood.

Homewood today is representative of that condition.15 As research by Nicoliades and The urban design framework generated Wiese indicates, by the twentieth century, with residents and stakeholders in the assigned meaning of the word radically Homewood specifically addressed social transformed. Suburbs came to represent a issues as a component of work. There were made

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a number of “grass roots” organizations engaged in Homewood duplicating efforts due to communication failures. The framework identified a collaborative influence structure for the different groups and made proposals for the consolidation of efforts in an effort to advance sympathetic causes. The consolidation of the groups enables them to approach civic and political leaders as a unified entity enhancing potential in garnering “grass top” support which is critical in program implementation and funding. The physical environment was assessed and recommendations made regarding Housing, Open Space, Commerce and Infrastructure. Each was addressed qualitatively and quantitatively with a focus on the salient characteristics that can perpetuate a specific identity for Homewood.

A Program to Catalyze

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The result of the fall efforts evolved into the CAFÉ 524 project. CAFÉ 524 will occupy an abandoned building located at

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one of two entry points provided through a formidable physical barrier, the MLK Busway. Of all building sites investigated, the site for CAFÉ 524 was selected specifically because it offered opportunities to exploit the Four Tenets of the Pittsburgh Paradox revealed in Pallagst’s research. 1) Built in 1924 as the East End City Post Office, the building has remained programmatically significant to the population base in Homewood throughout it’s existence. Anchoring the edge of the commercial district, it pronounces the entry to the public realm in Homewood. The building is a significant landmark and is worthy of being preserved in an effort to perpetuate the heritage of the community and identity of place. 2) Located adjacent to the most heavily utilized Martin Luther King Bus Rapid Transit (MLK BRT) station, residents from adjacent, more affluent communities enter the community on a daily basis without extending their stay beyond the access and departure transaction associated with the transportation. The station offers no 10

amenities to riders. A tremendous opportunity exists for a developing entrepreneur to capitalize in providing service amenities that these consumers can afford. As a place of informal gathering, providing a function not present in the community, the site and program not only offer a significant opportunity to diversify economy consistent with Pallagst’s obesrvations, but also provides the additional benefit of satisfying a salient need for an Oldenberg “Third Space.” 3) As the fundamental purpose of the project is to catalyze future development, the building program includes a non-profit business incubator and Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT) as major components of the physical structure – expanding the use of the site/real estate to its highest and best use. While the building site and programming itself will demonstrate the benefits of pedestrian friendly mixed-use development, the programming offered will enable future projects to demonstrate the same characteristics. 4) The last component is

the responsibility of the architects as conduits. It must be the direct extension of the physical environment and the cultural values of the people who reside in the community. The ability of the proposal to manifest something ref lective of regionalist significance can only be understood with time. The residents of Homewood and the physical environment of the context influenced decision making throughout the design process in an effort to satisfy the desire to manifest a regionally significant place.

Project Design The design for adaptive reuse of the existing structure was informed through a participatory process that engaged the community, and a smaller group of residents who formed a steering committee, and the end users of the building. Operation Better Block (OBB), a Homewood nonprofit entity served as the projects developer.

The National Black Masters of Business Administration Association (NBMBAA) operates the business incubator, and the Community Stewards Committed to the Revitalization of Inner-Cities (CSCRI) operate the Real Estate Investment Trust.

CSCRI also acts as the operations entity for the CAFÉ.

The existing structure that the CAFÉ occupies was fortified over its life span, with all openings being removed. Most of the modifications were made after the 1968 riots. The first community objective that was articulated focused on a desire to determine how the building could be opened back up to address the neighborhood and welcome visitors. The second was to understand how the building and site could be developed to a highest and best use. The third objective was to reduce operations costs.

The formal ordering strategy accepted by the community and steering committee located the CAFÉ on the first level, within the boundary of the existing building shell.

Business related program elements were located on the upper level, to be added to the existing building. The structural feasibility of adding an additional level required the integration of a new structural system to relive stresses on the existing masonry shell and foundation system. This requirement enabled the design to evolve in response to passive environmental considerations and desirable urban affinities.

The masonry shell was perforated to create an arcade along the southern flank of the made

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structure. The new structural system was incorporated into a secondary, lightweight, secondary enclosure system.

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This strategy enabled the southern exposure to be treated as a series of spatial and environmental filters. The masonry shell acts as a primary filter, with apertures sized to eliminate direct solar access and heat gain in the summer, while concentrating solar access in the winter to reduce heating demand for the building. The spatial relationship between the existing masonry shell and the new enclosure system provides a protected exterior space that can be utilized for CAFÉ service and gathering in the summer and shoulder seasons, and offer protection for BRT passengers in the winter. The new environmental barrier along the southern periphery is a double wall enclosure system. The twenty-eight inches in depth, the wall is made up of a series of smaller structural elements dispersed across a hollow cavity. Shear is managed systemically through the employment of diaphragms which are composed in concert with a variety of windows that provide natural ventilation and visual access.

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The form of the roof structure for the CAFÉ 524 project is derived from a combination of factors. The Building is optimized to include a number of passive ventilation strategies. The double enclosure system provides a conduit for channeling cool air from an earth tube located along the northern periphery of the structure.

Air from the earth tube is drawn through the basement and channeled up through the double enclosure system to cool the upper level of the structure during warm seasons. The roof is designed to concentrate prevailing winds from the south, and utilizing venturi effect, draw air across the upper level space to induce the flow.

The roof extends in all directions to shade the building and provide enough surface area for the integration of a 7.5 KW Photovoltaic Array.

The building employs a geothermal heating and cooling system with four 10� diameter are dispersed throughout the building merits of passive design to the residents of wells extending over three hundred feet according to programmatic demand. Homewood and other neighborhoods in below the terrain outside of the building. Digital Simulation played a predominant the city. The formal manipulation of the All mechanical heating is handled through role in the calibration of form throughout roof provides a beacon for the neighborhood the use of radiant systems embedded in the design process, yielding a structure that and relates directly to the riders on the the floor structures. Cooling is managed can provide sustained Net-Zero elevated BRT line that passes by the through a ductless split system. Modules performance and tangibly demonstrate the building. With the REIT and Incubation made

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programming offered in the upper level requiring night operation, the forms are also intended to provide glimpses and sustain the curiosity of local residents.

Throughout the design process the building was utilized for demonstration of proposed design strategies so that residents and stakeholders could tangibly understand the proposals being made and their implications. These exchanges provided the residents an opportunity to evaluate whether or not the proposed building design reflected the aspirations of the neighborhood.

Construction

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The scale and scope of work suggested in the design phases is well beyond the capacity of what a University Affiliated Design-Build entity like the UDBS can implement in construction. The total value of the proposed construction was placed at 1.6 million dollars. The objective in developing the work was to see it implemented within a short duration, and combat the plan fatigue that often exists in challenged urban environments.

Partnerships were essential to the realization of the project.

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The UDBS accepted responsibility for the completion of all construction/ contract documents and constructed the new south double wall enclosure system.

The construction documents were completed utilizing Building Information Modelling (BIM), a nd a BIM implementation plan was developed in collaboration with the Genera l Contractor, PJ Dick Construction. The tools were utilized t hroughout construction to enhance visualization, increase opportunity for replication of systems devised, and increase efficiencies in construction scheduling/4D logistics.

In the span of one year, the residents of Homewood were able to see a participatory design process yield a substantial construction project oriented toward manifesting a reflective regional identity.

reapportionment, land consolidation, and infrastructure realignment is suggestive of a unique urban form specific to place; suggestion and reality are two very different realms. In selecting and developing the CAFÉ 524 project as a With the Residents catalyst for change, the residents empowered themselves to determine if In the fall of 2009, the definition of that future is something that is reflective urban design frameworks with residents of their aspiration. Perhaps in a Post of Homewood related directly to Industrial context their altered identity collective ownership and the realities of will have the same level of authenticity physical conditions. The proposed re- as the one that perpetuates nostalgic orientation of the community through longing; the seat of a collective quality s e l e c t i v e d e c on s t r u c t i on, l ot and characteristic – a RESIDENCE.

1 City Mayor’s Society, UN Population Fund – Schelin, Lisa, De Capua, Joe, Kruger, Sven, 2007 2 Oswalt, P and T. Rieniets. 2007. Global Context Shrinking Cities. http://www.shrinkingcities.com/ globaler_kontext.0.html?&L=1 3 Marshall, Alfred, Principles of Economics, London: Macmillan and Co., Ltd., 1890, 8th edition (1920) at the Library of Economics and Liberty 4 Mayhew, Susan, Oxford Dictionary of Geography (A Dictionary of Geography); Oxford University Press, USA, 4th Edition, 2010 5 Girot, Christophe. 2005. Vers une Nouvelle Nature.

In Landscape architecture in Mutation-Essays on Urban Landscape, edited by Arley Kim, Maya Kohte, and Claudia Moll. Zurich: gta Verlag, 2005.

6 Berry, Brian J.L. 1963. Commercial structure and commercial blight: Retail Patterns and Processes in the City of Chicago. Chicago: University of Chicago

Department of Geography.

7 Oldenburg, Ray; The Great Good Place Paragon House, 1989 8 Multiple studies have identified negative impacts of growth in promoting social equity; see Molotch 1976; Logan and Molotch 1987; Nyden and Wiewel 1991.

9 Hollander, Justin B. 2009. Polluted and dangerous: America’s Worst Abandoned Properties and What Can be Done About Them. Burlington: University of Vermont Press.

10 Multiple articles and reports have addressed the phenomena of a paradox in Pittsburgh and chronicled the renaissance plans; see Streitfeld, David. 2009. For Pittsburgh, there’s life after steel. The New York Times.

January 7; Davis, Todd S., ed. 2002. Brownfields: A Comprehensive Guide to Redeveloping Contaminated Property. 2nd edition. American Bar Association.

11 Pallagst, Karina M.. 2007c. Patterns of shrinking

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cities in the USA. The future of shrinking cities: Problems, patterns, & strategies of urban transformation in a global context. Berkeley, CA. February 8.

12 Parton, James; Pittsburg, Atlantic Monthly 21, no.123 January 1868, 18 13 Moorish, William Rees, Civilizing Terrains: Mountains, Mounds and Mesas, San Francisco: William Stout Publishers 1996 14 Toker, Franklin, Pittsburgh A New Portrai, University of Pittsburgh Press, 2009 15 Nicolaides, Becky M. and Wiese, Andrew Editors; Suburban Reader, Routledge, Taylor and Francis Group New York, Introduction page 7, authors focus on definitions and historiography of what the origins of the word suburb represented.

16 Pittsburgh Neighborhood Community Information Systems (PNCIS), University of Pittsburgh Interdisciplinary Research Center GIS Data Base.

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(Post Normal) Cultural Heritage Frances Whitehead prosperity, and they are complex, local students, and perform community ambiguous, and contradictory physical outreach toward environmental awareness.

Recent attention to the 1991 debate spaces, which continue to affect and be concerning “Post-Normal Science” affected by the local community, ecosystem Urban Agriculture for the characterized by Funtowicz and Ravetz1 and infrastructure.

Colonial Center, Lima, Peru has revived interest in Kuhn’s concept 2 of “paradigm shift” and the “normal”, creating Seen in this light, these sites resemble The historic center of Lima, a magnificent, connections between multiple types of conditions we identify as the Post-Colonial, crumbling, UNESCO heritage site, houses disturbed sites, including: the post- where the burden of past policies and the urban poor, who suffer from inadequate industrial, the post-carbon, and the post- practices weighs disproportionately on nutrition and food insecurity. Lima has colonial. Kuhn postulated that periods of communities where natural and human exploded in population in the last two defined rules are interrupted by periods of capitals have been exploited, under overt decades, growing from 2 to 8 million. An scientific revolution, or paradigm shifts, or tacit colonialism.

SAIC team of faculty and students has where accepted rules are questioned. As a provided creative support to the City of methodology for inquiry, where “facts are Civic Experiments in Lima in their efforts to create a meaningful uncertain, values in dispute, stakes high Phytoremediation at Abandoned urban agriculture program, integrating and decisions urgent”, 3 Post-normal Gas Stations in Chicago architectural conservation and the needs Science focuses on the generation of of current inhabitants. Paradoxically, it is dynamic models, connecting qualitative SLOW Cleanup is a whole systems approach, the ruined architecture and vacated facades which increases the net benefits of plant that offer the potential for green space – aspects and quantification. based remediation processes. The plantings there are few parks and public spaces.

Cultural heritage, the legacy of ideas contribute to the aesthetics and passive Further, this spatial pattern of interiority expressed through cultural forms, operates economic revitalization of the sites, while is a growing cultural idiom,4 as communities tacitly within the post-industrial landscape. adding environmental value, creating in every social stratum create gatedIt serves as a reminder of the embedded habitat, green corridor connections, communities for self-security. The complexity of the project of land reduced heat islanding, and carbon dominant issues in Lima are socio-spatial. development, which continua lly sequestration. Piloting the use of Here we return full circle to Post-Normal transforms urban space, even after ornamental, flowering, and fruiting plants, Cultural Heritage, manifest in the productivity has ceased. The prefix “post” along with the typical agronomic plants underlying ethical and even pragmatic is used to describe the current state of most associated with phytoremediation, dilemma of sustaining a desert city that is ecological, economic and social-cultural original project research has increased the arguably in the wrong place –a perpetual affairs, and implies that we are indeed plant palette for this technology, colonial legacy that must be examined as living in the future of a past era. This trope identifying 12 new hydrocarbon remediator an unsustainable settlement pattern. also implies that we invoke our past as species in Lab Trials. Common urban part of our current paradigm –Post-carbon, conditions inform the design of 8 new Post Normal Cultural Heritage is a Post-industrial and Post-colonial are land-use schemes, which can be constructed perspective through which these inherent inherited cultural landscapes, literally with these 12 species. The fenced site contractions can be invoked, radical designs allow visual permeability through processes can be assimilated, and the Post-Normal Cultural Heritage. vistas and allees, while protecting the complexity of sustainability can be plants from pedestrians.

The Post-Industrial and productively addressed.

The Post Colonial A Community Laboratory Garden hosts 1 Funtowicz, S.O. and Jerome R. Ravetz. 1991. “A New The Post-Industrial is often associated with the parallel Field Trials for the program, Scientific Methodology for Global Environmental Issues.” the Post Carbon, as the extraction and embodying the principals of Post-Normal In Ecological Economics: The Science and Management of Sustainability, ed. Robert Costanza. New York: utilization of fossil fuels often drive the Science. The site is designed to be Columbia University Press creation of disturbed land. These sites aesthetically pleasing, scientifically 2 Thomas. S. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, demonstrate how the costs of development functional, and highly legible for all users, 1st. ed., Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Pr., 1962 3 Funtowicz, S.O. and Jerome R. Ravetz. 1991. “A New are not reflected in our narrow markers of even as it cleans the soil onsite. The Scientific Methodology for Global Environmental Issues.” success: profit, power and technological investigations at the Lab Garden will In Ecological Economics: The Science and Management innovation. These sites are never part of a contribute to our understanding of the of Sustainability, ed. Robert Costanza. New York: Columbia University Press future that is intended –they are both remediation of urban soils, provide 4 Jörg Plöger, Lima “City of Cages” European Journal symbols of a passing era of materialistic advanced educational opportunities for of Geography, 2005 The Post Normal

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Post Industrial Transformation and the Obesogenic City William Worn Introduction Chronic diseases such as heart disease, diabetes, and cancer are reaching epidemic levels in much of the world.

But it is in post-industrial cities that the chronic disease burden has become nearly overwhelming. The causes of this epidemic are multivariate, ambiguous and nearly impossible to fully define: a perfect example of what has been termed a “Wicked Problem” or a “Social Mess.” One variable, though, seems to be omnipresent when discussing chronic disease: rising Body Mass Index, or obesity. Current research indicates a clear correlation between certain urban characteristics and increasing BMI. It appears that certain environmental characteristics shared by post-industrial cities are contributing to increasing BMI and thus increasing chronic disease. The thesis of this paper is that the natural evolution of post-industrial cities is toward obesogenicity. Obesogenicity is ‘the sum of influences that the surroundings, opportunities, or conditions of life have on promoting obesity in individuals or populations. In order to address the wicked problem of chronic disease and obesity in post-industrial cities it is necessary to understand the unique nature of wicked problems and to develop an architectural/ urban planning tool set specific to this problem type.

The classical architectural approach to problem solving is convergent. This approach is based on the assumption that a planning or design project can be organized into distinct phases: analysis, synthesis, action, etc. For certain problem types, however, this type of convergent process simply does not work. In 1973 H. W. J. Rittel and M. M. Webber1 identified a whole set of problems that cannot be successfully treated with the traditional linear, analytical, convergent approach. They called this problem set “Wicked Problems.” They contrasted wicked problems with “tame” problems.

Left: Obesity correlates

Tame problems are not necessarily easy or simple. They can be, and are often, very complex—for example the design of a nuclear power plant. What differentiates a tame problem is that it can be tightly defined and a solution arrived at using a convergent process.1 There is no definite definition for a wicked problem nor can it be solved using a convergent approach. The information needed to understand the problem depends upon one’s idea for solving it. A wicked problem is a posteriori, that is, it can only be solved through experience.

Characteristics of a Wicked Problem Wicked problems are multivariate in nature. This means that there are many variables contributing to the issue and that the relative importance of any variable is constantly in flux. There is no ultimate test of the validity of a solution to a wicked problem. The classical assumptions of a reliable and valid result become moot. Neither are wicked problems stable in the classical sense. Frequently wicked problem evolve at the same time that designers are trying to address the problem. The variables required to define the wicked problem may be legislative, scientific, social or political and evolve in real time with the creation of new knowledge in these areas.2 Attempts to solve wicked problems often lead to unforeseen consequences.

These consequences may be negative and may well outweigh the intended “fix” offered in the solution. The unintended consequences are a result of the multivariate nature of wicked problems; any solution after being implemented will

generate waves of consequences over an extended (unbounded) period of time.

Wicked problems have no clear solution or end point. Since there is no definitive, stable problem there is often no definitive solution. Problem solving often ends when deadlines are met, or as dictated by other resource constraints rather than when the ‘correct’ solution is identified. Solutions to wicked problems are not verifiably right or wrong but rather better or worse.

Wicked problems are socially complex often requiring behavior change as a part of the solution. For this reason these problem types are often called “Social Messes.” The social complexity of wicked problems, rather than their technical complexity, overwhelms most current problem-solving and project management approaches. Solutions to Social Messes demand coordinated action by a range of stakeholders, including governmental organizations, nonprofit organizations, private businesses and individuals. Wicked problems do not sit conveniently within the purview of any agency, department or organization.3 Because behavior change is at the heart of many wicked problems the solution must involve changing the behavior of individuals. The tools available to effect individual behavior-legislation, taxes, fines, education are often necessary but not sufficient. Personalized approaches are necessary to motivate individuals to actively cooperate in achieving sustained behavioral change.

Chronic disease is a classic wicked problem in post-industrial cities.

“Post Industrial” made

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Global Studies of the Obesity correlate web

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Obesity Trend: UK

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The Cities: Population Density to Scale

Complex judgments are required in order to determine an appropriate level of abstraction needed to define the chronic disease-wicked health problem.

For example: Over the past thirty years the world has experienced a pandemic that we have chosen to call obesity. This pandemic exhibits all the characteristics of a wicked problem. Obesity creates confusion between symptom and disease obscuring the appropriate level of abstraction and action. Obesity is not a disease, yet it is a major risk factor for cardiovascular disease, certain types of cancer, and type 2 Diabetes. Like all wicked problems, obesity and its relationship to chronic disease is complex and highly resistant to definition.

[Wicked] Obesity Certain basic concepts are necessary in order to frame the problem of obesity and the post-industrial condition.

Obesity can be quantified using the metric of the Body Mass Index (BMI).

A person with a BMI of 25 or greater is considered overweight and a BMI of 30 or greater is considered obese. BMI is calculated from a person’s weight and height and provides a consistent indicator of body fatness that may lead to health problems. BMI is a useful metric because it can be applied equally to men, women and children.

The traditional analysis of obesity is that it is a simple energy equation: more

calories consumed than burned equals increasing weight.

Calories in – calories burned > 0 = increasing BMI But this equation ignores the multivariate nature that is the hallmark of all wicked problems. It ignores the complexity that has contributed to skyrocketing BMI worldwide.4 Obesity: The Problem Space Problem Space is a mental representation of a problem that contains knowledge of the initial state and the goal state of the problem as well as possible intermediate states that must be searched in order to link up the beginning and the end of the task. Our current public health response to obesity assumes that the problem space is complex yet finite, while contemporary research is challenging this notion of a bounded problem space for obesity.

In 2001, Kumanyika proposed the “causal web” to help illustrate the wide range of ecological factors affecting energy expenditure and food intake in individuals.5 This was the first serious attempt to provide a comprehensive conceptual model of obesity. The causal web groups societal influences into separate “black boxes” (e.g., school food and activity, public safety, media programs and advertising) and sorts them based on their proximity to the individual.

Others have attempted to create evidence displays that illustrate the multivariate nature of this problem space.7 As the number of variables increases it is assumed that we are approaching a resolved Problem Space. But, there are no criteria that enable one to prove that all the solutions to a wicked problem have been identified and considered.

This means that our understanding of a “solution” may never be found, owing to logical inconsistencies in the ‘picture’ of the problem. The problem of obesity may simply not be definable, a classic condition of a wicked problem.

Today, overweight and obesity are the fifth leading risk for deaths globally.

Since 2001 at least 2.8 million adults die each year as a result of illness related to being overweight or obese. 44% of the diabetes burden and 23% of the ischemic heart disease burden are attributable to overweight and obesity. For the first time in the recorded history of public health, made

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But even this analysis is insufficient to describe the complexity of this issue.

For example, in the study “The Spread of Obesity in a Large Social Network over 32 Years” the authors created a 4-D diagram representing the social network of obesity over time.6 The conclusions were that “Network phenomena appear to be relevant to the biologic and behavioral trait of obesity, and obesity appears to spread through social ties.” In other words: you can catch obesity from your friends.

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obesity related disease is predicted to shorten life expectancy of the average American two to five years by 2050.8 Currently Wales is the fattest nation in the UK with 57% of adults classed as overweight or obese 22% of 13-yearold boys and 16% of girls are classed as either overweight or obese and research

by Swansea University, published in 2005, found 8% of girls and 5% of boys are obese by the age of five. By the year 2019, 85% of adults and children in Wales will be obese. The former post-industrial towns in the Heads of Valleys region lead the fattest areas, while people from the more affluent South are generally the slimmest. The heads of Valleys cities have seven of the ten highest areas with the highest average BMI.9 People with chronic conditions account for 80 per cent of all General Practitioner (GP) consultations in the UK. The Department of Health estimates that 69 per cent of the total health and social care spent in Wales is for the treatment and care of those with long-term chronic conditions. Given that the population aged 65 and over in Wales is projected to grow by 33 per cent by 2020 the prevalence of chronic conditions is likely to place an increasing burden on health and social care services in the future.

Food Options Danville

The obesity epidemic in the US has arrived at an astonishing pace. Recent estimates suggest that 1 in 2 adults in the United States is overweight or obese, an increase of more than 25% over the past 3 decades.

Although Wales may be able to claim the most obese standing in the UK, the US can clearly state that “We’re number one!” within the G20 nations. The UK comes in at a respectable #5 in the G20, slightly fatter than Germany. When all nations are considered, the US comes in at seventh place with the Republic of Nauru leading with an impressive 94.5 percent of all residents overweight or obese. (Nauru is a small island in Micronesia). That will be hard to beat.

The US medical costs associated with obesity and related diseases have risen from $74 billion in 1998 to $147 billion in 2008. Obesity related disease accounts for more than 9% of the total medical spending in the US. People who are obese spend significantly more on healthcare, almost $1,500 more per year or 41% higher than for an average weight person.10 The cost of treating obesity in Wales rose

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to ÂŁ73m in 2010, nearly one quarter of the total NHS budget.11 Obesity and Chronic Disease So, why does it matter that the world is getting fatter? It matters because the correlation between obesity and chronic disease has been proven. This correlation is unchallenged by science. Chronic disease is characterized by, long duration and slow progression. It is by far the leading cause of mortality in the world representing 63% of all deaths. 36 million people died from chronic disease in 2008, nine million of those were under the age of 60.12 Ninety per cent of these premature deaths occurred in low- and middle-income countries. In the most deprived town in the Heads-of-the-Valleys region, Merthyr Tydfil, 28% of the current population reports having at least one chronic disease, many having as many as five.

Thesis The natural evolution of postindustrial cities is toward obesogenicity.

Obesogenicity is ‘the sum of influences that the surroundings, opportunities, or conditions of life have on promoting obesity in individuals or populations.13 This study looks at two cities to test this thesis, one in the US and one in the UK. The two cities: Danville, Illinois on the plains of the mid-west United States and Merthyr Tydfil in the Heads of Valley Region in Wales. Although located thousands of miles apart both cities have experienced a very similar path to their current post-industrial condition.

More importantly, they also share many of the same variables that contribute to obesogenic environments.

To test the thesis that de-industrialization leads to obesogenic environments, it was necessary to identify the physical characteristics that these cities share.

Based on a literature search, six variables were identified that correlate highly with obesogenic environments: Low Density; Limited Mixed land use; Limited Connectivity; Limited opportunities for physical activity; Automobile centric transit; and Limited access to healthy, affordable, fresh food.14 These variables have been identified by the United States Centers for Disease Control as most likely to occur in obesogenic neighborhoods and cities. [It must be remembered, of course, that a wicked problem cannot be defined by a static set of variables.]

Danville layered variables

Merthyr Tydfil layered variables

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Evidence Displays Single variable data displays were created for each variable and for each city.

Displays that layered these variables were then created to identify the most deprived areas in the cities. People living in the most deprived fifth are more than 2 times as likely to develop chronic obstructive pulmonary disease; 1.78 times as likely to develop type 2 Diabetes; and 1.5 times more likely to be obese than the comparable rate in the least deprived areas.

The layered evidence displays show a consistent outcome for both Danville and Merthyr Tydfil: both illustrate strong obesogenic characteristics for each of the six variables. Maps representing highest housing density and lowest income clearly illustrate that only a very small portion of these neighborhoods are within a ½ mile walking distance to a park. Additionally, both cities illustrate a striking correlation between opportunities for activity and high crime rates. This means that even if parks are present, that residents are unlikely to use these facilities because of the fear of crime.

Parks and Crime: Merthyr Tydfil

The deprived areas have limited access to fresh, affordable food but have ready and easy access to energy dense, micronutrient poor fast foods. Residents must drive, often drive considerable distances, to grocery stores while access to fast food or convenience stores is neighborhood based. In Danville in 2008 the number of full service grocery stores: 9. Number of fast food restaurants: 47. Only 38% of zip codes have access to healthy food outlets, compared with 53% for the rest of Illinois. In Merthyr Tydfil only 38.5% of residents reported eating five or more portions of fruits or vegetables the previous day.15 The rate of people having a healthy diet in Merthyr Tydfil is about a third lower than the comparable rate in the least deprived areas.

Both cities are have become auto-centric, this despite Merthyr Tydfil originally being a pedestrian centric village. Both cities also exhibit radically increased disconnection since de-industrialization with significant increases in the number of cul-de-sacs and dead-ends. Because planning authorities in both cities did not prioritize brownfield development over greenfield development, demolition and abandonment of industrial facilities has left gaping holes in the urban

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Merthyr Tydfil Food Environment

fabric. These holes disrupt connectivity and lead to auto-centric environments that discourage physical activity. They create huge cul-de-sacs in the urban grid that inhibit walking and encourage automobile use. Factories and industrial facilities were once integrated into the urban land use fabric. Worker health suffered from living in close proximity to these giant pollution and noise generators. Public health advocates encouraged cities to use zoning and land use tools to separate industrial uses from residential uses. With the separation of these uses, and without adequate public transportation, the automobile became the dominant form of commuting for workers. The unintended consequence of the public health movement of the nineteenth and twentieth century has been to create obesogenic environments in these post-industrial cities.

It is critical for future land use planning to integrate public transport and to co-locate new housing growth with new employment sites, retail sites, and opportunities for physical activity. Ironically, the model for healthy cities of the future may be the pre-industrial revolution, mixed-use, dense, fully connected community in which no separation existed between residential, commercial, industrial and agricultural uses.

Danville Food Environment made

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unintended consequence of this intervention in Australia and California17 trials was the reassertion of the larger wicked problem.

Children simply stopped eating lunch, and used their money to buy junk food on the way home from school.18 If interventions are limited to the sub-problem rather than the wicked problem, the problem can appear solved, at least in the short-term.

Planning no longer applies Access to Fast Food

Design has been understood to involve planning. We design to anticipate detail and process in the belief that this will reduce error and maximize opportunities for success. The reason we plan is so that things go smoothly, details aren’t forgotten and difficulties are anticipated.

It’s what architects and planners do.

But, when dealing with an inherently unpredictable, social mess like obesity we do not and cannot predict what will be the result of a design intervention.

We need to acknowledge this and act in a way that will maximize outcomes while recognizing that each intervention is likely to have surprising outcomes and will often fail. A “solution” to obesity will require a change in our work cycle. The cycle must become condensed. Collapsed.

Design, execution, measurement, review, must now happen concurrently.

Fail Fast/ Fail Cheap19

Connectivity in Merthyr and Danville

From Problem Space to Solution Space

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The challenge with obesity has been to move from the problem space of obesity to the solution space, from a “problem-oriented” to a “solution-oriented” paradigm. The problem-oriented approach is reductionist in nature in that it pushes us to understand the detailed mechanisms that cause disease; in contrast, a solution-oriented approach moves us toward more integrative methods and pushes us to understand the causes of

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improved health. These are all necessary for the solution of a wicked problem.

The most common mistake in solving wicked problems is “locking down the problem definition.”16 This often involves addressing a sub-problem that appears easy to control or influence. For example, if the problem were obesity in children, the more tractable solution would appear to be removing unhealthy food from school lunchrooms.

This is an achievable intervention. The 26

The classic mindset for designers is to design an intervention as “right” as possible before taking action. This process works for tame, but not for wicked problems. It fails because as soon as the intervention is implemented its flaws are immediately apparent. By then, it’s often too late to change the design in a cost effective manner. The alternative is to get a design proposal about 50% right, then let the market determine the mistakes.

The intervention is then put through the process again. Instead of endlessly debating options internally, designers use the market to test the “rightness” of their design intervention. The goal is an evolving, iterative design process that learns as it fails. Failure is cheap because the initial interventions are small. This process works because it is done in small chunks from which the designer may learn, re-work, re-imagine and re-cover almost endlessly and in real time. Failure becomes a natural part of the process and is viewed as necessary for the success of any design intervention. The “fail fast, fail cheap” is the only design approach

that speaks directly to the unique aspects of wicked problems.

Conclude The obesity solution space will not look like the solution space for a tame problem.

It will be indefinite. We won’t know when it has been solved. The goal of the solution space for [Wicked] obesity, therefore, is to design interventions from which good things can emerge rather than to design for pre-determined results.

So, does de-industrialization in cities make us fat, or is it simply that we are growing fat in our post-industrial cities? The answer is unknown and perhaps unknowable.

What is known is that architects are uniquely qualified to address these types of ambiguous, socially messy design briefs. The problem of obesity will not be solved with one elegant, intervention whether in the realm of architecture, urban planning, health policy, or public health. In fact, a true definition/ solution of an obesogenic environment will begin to emerge only after design interventions have begun. The solution(s) to obesity and chronic disease will be the result of lots of learning from lots of failures. The key is to begin to intervene, to accept that repeated failures represent progress, and to know that we will never really know when these problems are solved.

Merthyr Disconnections

Danville Disconnections

1 Horst W. J., R., & Melvin M., W. (1973). Dilemmas in a General Theory of Planning. Policy Sciences, 4(2), 155-169.

2 Poppendieck, M (2002). “Wicked Problems.”

Poppendieck.LLC. [Online]. Available from the World Wide Web: http://www.poppendieck.com/wicked.htm.

3 Poppendieck, M (2002).

“Wicked Problems.” Poppendieck.LLC. [Online]. Available from the World Wide Web: http://www.poppendieck.com/ wicked.htm.

4 Conklin, J. (2001). “Wicked Problems and Social Complexity.” CogNexus Institute. [Online]. Available from the World Wide Web: http://cognexus.org/wpf/ wickedproblems.pdf.

5 Beyond Energy Balance: There Is More to Obesity than Kilocalories George A. Bray, Catherine M. Champagne Journal of the American Dietetic Association 1 May 2005 (volume 105 issue 5 Pages 17-23 DOI: 10.1016/j. jada.2005.02.018) 6 Kumanyika, S. (2001). Minisymposium on Obesity: Overview and Some Strategic Considerations. Annual Review Of Public Health, 22(1), 293.

7 Christakis, N. A., & Fowler, J. H. (2007). The

Spread of Obesity in a Large Social Network over 32 Years. New England Journal Of Medicine, 357(4), 370379. doi:10.1056/NEJMsa066082 8 Shift N, Obesity System Influence Diagram. available from the World Wide Web at http://www.shiftn.com/ obesity/Full-Map.html 9 World Health Organization, Fact sheet N°311 Updated March 2011.

10 Health in Wales, National Health Service, Wales.

Available on the World Wide Web at: http://www.wales. nhs.uk/healthtopics/lifestyles/obesity 11 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Overweight and Obesity, Economic Consequences. http://www.cdc.gov/obesity/causes/economics.html 12 Welsh Government, “Obesity and alcohol costs to your NHS.” http://wales.gov.uk/newsroom/healthandsoc ialcare/2011/110331obesity/?lang=en 13 World Health Organization,”Noncommunicable diseases country profiles. 2010.” http://www.who.int/ topics/chronic_diseases/en/ 14 Lake, Amelia A., Townshend, Tim. Obesogenic Environments: complexities, perceptions and objective measures. Blackwell Publishing, Chichester, West Sussex,

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15 Khan, L., Sobush, K., Keener, D., Goodman, K., Lowry, A., Kakietek, J., & Zaro, S. (2009). Recommended Community Strategies and Measurements to Prevent Obesity in the United States. MMWR Recommendations & Reports, 58(RR-7), 1-29.

16 Health Needs Assessment 2006: Nutrition and Obesity. National Public Health Service for Wales. Health Information Analysis Team. 18 January, 2007.

17 Australian Public Service Commission. “Tackling Wicked Problems: a public policy perspective”.

2007. http://www.apsc.gov.au/publications07/ wickedproblems2.htm 18 Watanabe, Teresa. “L.A. schools’ healthful lunch menu panned by students”, L.A. Times, Dec 17, 2011 19 Austrailian Public Service Commission. “Tackling Wicked Problems: a public policy perspective”.

2007. http://www.apsc.gov.au/publications07/ wickedproblems2.htm 20 Hall, Doug. “Fail Fast, Fail Cheap.” Bloomberg Business Week. July 2007. http://www.businessweek. com/magazine/content/07_26/b4040436.htm

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Temporary Urbanism in the Rhondda Valley Phil Henshaw urbanism’ may provide an opening.

Temporary urbanism is a dynamic concept With reference to a ‘Shrinking Urbanism’, in urban design used to describe a broad this article reflects on the post-industrial range of theories, agendas, everyday urban condition in the Rhondda Valleys and offers situations and interventions typified by temporary urbanism as an approach to shorter life-spans. It can be expedient and low-cost, employed to unite communities, reactivating the forgotten territories. support entrepreneurship or even occupy One of the phenomena of post-industrial frozen construction sites. transformation is a ‘Shrinking Urbanism’ characterised by economic, demographic When considering a temporary urbanism and spatial contractions. This ‘new in the Valley, it is interesting to note the volatility’ 1 (Rugare, 2008) is forming recent history of one of its industrial ambiguous territories that demand an monuments: The Grade I listed ‘Hetty Colliery’ in Hopkinstown (fig.1). In the alternative approach. mid-1980s, the former County Council Urban shrinking is not restricted to large bought the site for land reclamation cities and its prolonged effect can be seen on purposes proposing a heritage-based tourist South East Wales; especially its post- attraction with provision for a number of industrial valley regions. The Rhondda Valley small business units, but due to local in particular has been a victim through the government reorganisation the scheme has loss of mass coal mining, rapid depopulation never been implemented.6 This unfortunate and the exit of the manufacturing industry.2 situation begs the question: why not test Since the Second World War, towns have temporary uses in the meantime? diminished and, in the case of the former Fernhill Colliery settlement (beyond Cedric Price championed expediency and ‘Blaenrhondda’), have literally disappeared.3 would have fascinated in the possibilities The resulting gaps are breaking down the for the Pit Head Winding Gear structure. coherence of the greater Cardiff networks He did not perceive past objects as eternal precluding the government’s future truths but rather as future transformable development goal of a consolidated artefacts.7 The Situationists would no doubt networked city region of 1.4million people.4 have celebrated a continuous process of Furthermore, Cardiff ’s failure to gain construction and decay on the site whilst European Capital of Culture status in 2008 Archigram would engulf the relic within due to ‘not including the Valleys enough’ 5 only a broader sporadic network. serves to add insult to injury.

Contemporary strategies for temporary The Rhondda Valley is a curious urbanism, as epitomised in the research of environment of urbanised and peripheral the interdisciplinary platform ‘Urban landscapes where rusting industrial Catalyst (UC)’, are more grounded structures, ribbon terraced housing, suggesting dynamic master planning and forgotten lidos and suburban improvised ‘soft’ programmes to facilitate ‘Hetty’s’ allotments coalesce. Its shrinking territories reintegration. Alternatively, a ‘grass roots’ are interspersed in and around the linear approach can be seen in the studies of ‘The network of towns commonly linked by rail, Cleveland Urban Design Collective’ and the where boundaries between private and Parisian collective so-called‘Atelier d’Architecture Autogérée’, who focus on the public land dissolve to abjectness. temporary as a means for empowering Looking to its future, the Rhondda Valley communities to question urban mutations needs a catalyst for reactivation and there through self-management and microis precedent to suggest that ‘temporary political actions.

Abstract

Not getting ahead of ourselves, the reality of intervening on such sites in South Wales must be balanced with the local politics, regulatory framework, general skills and attitude of the people. Notwithstanding these constraints, it is promising that recent reports from the boroughs Licensing Committee who review applications for Temporary Event Notices (TENS) indicate an increasing trend towards temporary events in the Valley:8 such as the thriving outdoor farmers market scene. Their observation of the rise and diversification of temporary uses can be construed as a shift towards an informalised environment necessary to respond to the region’s urban condition and immobile economy, giving rise to concerns of how to monitor activity, regulate multiple sites and distinguish between landowners.

It seems that the potential of temporary urbanism is to question the Valley’s apathetical urbanism through faster, lessformal and inquisitive means. Based on the ‘Hetty’ Colliery case, temporary urbanism may not be a matter of importing new methods of development, but a fresh look at the Valleys’ existing dynamics.

1 Rugare, Steve. [2008] ‘Cities Growing Smaller’, CUDC: Kent State University 2 Williams, Kate Scott. [2010] ‘Election 2010: Reviving Rhondda’s Economic Fortunes’, BBC [http:// news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/election_2010/ constituencies/8633006.stm, accessed on 20/10/2012] 3 Correspondence: Ray Smith, former Fernhill Colliery employee [12.12.2010].

4 Welsh Assembly Government [2008] ‘People, Places, Futures: The Wales Spatial Plan’ 5 Sir Jeremy Isaacs, Capital of Culture Judging Panel, comments from BBC: [04.06.2003] ‘Valleys link blamed for culture failure, BBC [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/ wales/south_east/2963888.stm, accessed on 20/10/2012].

See also: Griffiths. Ron [2005] ‘City/Culture Discourses: Evidence from the Competition to Select the European Capital of Culture 2008’, European Planning Studies Vol. 14, No. 4, May 2006. Routledge 6 Correspondence: Jane Cook, Director of Regeneration and Planning, [20.08.2009].

7 Vodanovic, Lucia. [2007] ‘Obselence and Exchange in Cedric Price’s Dispensable Museum’, Invisible Culture, Issue 11 8 RCT Licensing Committee, ‘Licensing Act 2003: Item4-Report 20 Sep 2011’ [http://www.rctcbc.gov.uk/ Licences, accessed on 20/10/2012]

(left) Views to the derelict pit head winding gear of the ‘Hetty’ Colliery, Hopkinstown. Photograph Stitch © P.Henshaw (2007) made

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Mountain landscapes and the tradition of industry: the Cambrian Mountains of Wales David Austin

I am an historic landscape archaeologist.1 single themes and to achieve this many As an archaeologist I am an observer of scholars come into the upland looking for things, traces and remains of human specific things and one of them is industry. action and its interaction with the The hills and mountains of Wales are rich environment. As a scholar of landscape I in traces of such activity and there is a thread together the material palimpsest special resonance to their histories. That of patterns which depict the use of land resonance feeds a baseline of Welsh historic and its resources. As an historian I create identity embedded in the notion that this the narratives of people, their deeds, their country, from the latter end of the 18th perceptions, their motivations and their century, was engaged as a major player in trajectories through time and space. At the origins of the ‘Industrial Revolution’ the heart of all is a sense of design, the and that Welsh people were drawn into its artefact of purpose and intent within the processes, transforming the fabric of the physical expression of landscape and to land, both above and below, and being reconstruct it, I collect, depict and narrate. transformed in their turn as social and economic beings. The contemporary The landscape of upland Wales is a complex extension of that story is that, willy-nilly, weave of such elements and threads and the people and their communities have can produce a myriad of narratives become also key players, some would say depending on which ways you turn it in victims, of the collapse of industry, during the light.2 The usual way of dealing with the recent decades in the face of global this is to break the narratives down into competition and the emergence of the Post-

Industrial Western world. There is plangency and nostalgia in this part of the continuing narrative as people live or leave, and, if they stay, as they attempt to survive amongst the wreckage of an Industrial Heritage, rapidly being cleared away or commodified into tourism packages.

This is a real story carrying much political consequence and the hills of Central Wales, the Cambrian Mountains, abound in the traces of this legacy. The demands of industry and the capitalised enterprises producing goods for world markets called upon the extraction of key metals, notably lead, copper, zinc and silver, all to be found in the rich ore lodes of the bedrock shales.3 The archaeology of such activity is to be seen in the huge spoil tips and broken buildings of the mine and primary processing sites at places like Cwmystwyth (Fig. 1). Communication systems of road

Figure 2. Terraced row of late 19th century miners’ houses in Pontrhydfendigaid, near Strata Florida, Ceredigion (Photograph: David Austin) (left) Figure 1. Air photograph of the mining complex at Cwmystwyth (Photograph: Toby Driver with kind permission of the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales) made

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Figure 3. Air photograph of the Hafod landscape with Pumlumon behind and the site of the mansion at bottom left (Photograph: Toby Driver with kind permission of the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales)

west Wales, of the rich lead-mines of the Hafod estate notably those at Cwmystwyth and fat farmlands in the Marches acquired on the marriage of his father to his mother.

Johnes fell in love with this part of his inheritance, just a tenanted sheepwalk when he first saw it, and realised its potential as a place of wild, mountainous terrain, a place where Nature reigned supreme and a location for the true Romantic soul. Ironically, not only was this Mountain Beauty built on the wealth created by the toil of workers deep in the bowels of the earth not three miles away, but it was also designed and enhanced to heighten the Beauty and the experience of Nature using the skills of the miners themselves as well as designers, architects, The way this large story is told breaks down The full history of this place has been botanists and agricultural labourers. The into local histories of communities or brilliantly written by Jenny Macve,6 but landscape had thousands of trees planted academic texts on economic or social here are a few salient points. It is renowned in it, rivers and streams engineered into history, but mostly it is embedded in the as the location for one of the most important cascades and torrents, tunnels driven oral memory of families who were once expressions of the Romantic Picturesque, through tortured rock, soft walks laid for part of the industrial action or in the acts with its owner at the end of the 18th century, ladies and awesome ones for gentlemen, of nostalgia and heritage which preserve Thomas Johnes, deliberately espousing both secret ‘discovered’ gardens designed and a an engine house here or an old mill there, the philosophical and practical principles mansion of Gothic delight built (Fig. 3). with, ironically, much of this being done of the movement. The personal story of the by recent incomers buying into the sense Johnes family has hubris and nemesis, Such was his pride in this monument of of past that comes with the landscapes and sadness and the loss of a child: it is, in short, the Romantic that Johnes encouraged idylls they are purchasing. As such it attains a high Romantic tragedy. The wealth that visitors to the estate to experience the awe the quality of myth, absorbed into that created this came from a mixture of the and wonder of it all. It thus lies at the other great landscape myth of mountains Johnes holdings (ancestral), in central and beginnings of British tourism during the made

and rail servicing this industry and its rapidly expanding communities of workers and owners are also part of that industrial landscape, as do the particular forms of buildings, villages, towns, chapels, shops and public amenities that can also be identified with this narrative (Fig. 2). In amongst all this there is also the story of the woollen industry with the remains of watermills using the powerful streams and rivers of the Cambrian Mountains and the wool from the huge numbers of mountain sheep kept by local farmers.4 Both these industries received mortal blows in the years between the Great Wars of the 20th century and finally died in the two decades after 1945.

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in modern Britain, wilderness and natural beauty. This heady brew of aesthetics and science can be said to have its birth at the same time as the Industrial Revolution and its intellectual engine still drives much of the policy, politics and sentiment of Postindustrial society and its relationship with the Welsh uplands. This is no place for a long academic analysis of that part of the history of ideas, not least because it has been examined by many scholars before.5 However, there is one place in the centre of the Cambrians whose particular story is both a microcosm of that history and a powerful metaphor for what I want to discuss: the estate of Hafod in the upper Ystwyth valley of northern Ceredigion.

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Figure 4. Maes Llyn Air photograph of the ancient farm of Maes Llyn on an island of good land between the bog (Cors Caron) and the mountain (Photograph: Toby Driver with kind permission of the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales)

Napoleonic era when the British gentry and the growing middle classes alike conducted their grand tours and published their travel journals, exploring the wild uplands of Wales, Scotland, England and Ireland while Europe itself was off limits.

To house the visitors he built the hotel at Devil’s Bridge on the new turnpike from Aberystwyth to Rhayader and all points east. This hotel is still there today servicing the same tourism aspiration, with the spectacular Devil’s Bridge falls just below.

Also to assist the visitor to the Hafod landscape a map was commissioned from, and drawn by, William Blake, the visionary of industrial and urban hell and rural paradise. The sentiment of escape to the country begins here and with it comes the addition of Romantic Socialism, born in Thomas Payne, nurtured by Blake and brought to magnificent maturity by William Morris. Out of all this flows the aspiration of an overwhelmingly urban society to protect and preserve historic monuments and buildings, areas of outstanding natural beauty, and wildlife threatened with extinction by industrialised processes, and to turn it all into a consumer product of a massive and vitally important tourism ‘industry’. For those building in this landscape or finding ways to regenerate the life of communities, these are the areas of

law, planning guidance, policy, education, Quaternary. Cors Caron began as a postfunding and administration with which glacial lake of rotting ice trapped behind they have to grapple.7 These inhabit the a great natural dam of moraine where the Romantic, urbanised middle class town of Tregaron in Ceredigion now sits. perception of the upland as areas of This lake has silted up and filled with peat awesome beauty and threat, areas in need formed from the sphagnum. For a long of protection and conservation, places of time the environmental story in the pollen wilderness and amenity, of timeless rural is one of natural sequences of vegetation, pursuits and a slow rhythm of hardy of extensive woodland of different types, existence: the pastoral interspersed by birch and hazel with pine first, then alder the occasional cruel, but healing wounds replacing pine, leading about 5000 BC to of industry. a more mixed climax woodland including elm and oak. Humans begin to clear this However, for the landscape archaeologist woodland from about 3000 BC, slowly working in the Cambrians this is only part and piecemeal at first and by about 2000 of the story and arguably not even the most BC on the upland tops this led to the important part despite the millions of formation of peat bogs and very acid soils, pounds of public money spent on it. There giving the bleak open landscapes we see are longer-term histories and sets of social today. In the surrounding valleys and on and economic relations which are deeper the steep slopes the woodland was not laid. To begin to understand this some finally cleared to about its present sense of time is required. The raised bog proportions until the later Iron Age and of Cors Caron, on the western side of the Roman periods.

Cambrians at the head of the Teifi valley, has trapped within its steady accumulation So a first important story is that the of dead sphagnum moss laid down in landscape is one of dramatic change and annual layers a record of pollen rain created over these long sequences there have been by the surrounding vegetation, a record alterations and adjustments in the climate which stretches back over 12000 years.8 similar to the one we are currently This is the entire length of the current warm experiencing. People have shown a interstadial of the present Ice Age we are remarkable tenacity in adapting to such now living in, called by geologists the change, experiencing it as incremental made

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annual alterations in their patterns of life and as events in their family histories. These alterations and events, however, have seen not the kind of peasant stability and permanence of living which is the Romantic rural myth in much of Britain and Europe, but great mobility and f lexibility.

Individuals and families moved around, left and came, while the land itself on the other hand was farmed and exploited by people on a constant basis operating to the impulses and exigencies of social power, cultural structures and economic need.

Thus we can see a farm like Maes Llyn (Fig. 4), lying between bog and mountain on a small piece of good level arable soil, continuously occupied probably since the Bronze Age 4000 years ago, first recorded in the 1184 grant of estates to the great Abbey of Strata Florida9 and still worked today as a constant place but with a succession of tenants and owners from an array of different families over those thousands of years.

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Within the fabric of this relationship with the land and its resource was a growing capacity to exploit, backed by technological innovation. On this western Atlantic edge of Europe, most of this capacity was imported by those with both the technical skills to create new tools and the machines and knowledge of how to use them. This tended to be achieved in specific moments of technological change or ‘revolution’, although the social and economic consequences may have taken centuries to happen. It is clear that almost from the start, that is from the Early Bronze Age 4000 years ago, there were those with specialist skills operating either within the agricultural communities at a variety of social levels or as itinerant craftsmen. These activities, which we tend with our modern perceptions to label as ‘industrial’, were often episodic or seasonal in their performance in specific places and regarded as part of the normal annual cycle of work: what one might call ‘embedded industries’.

Prominent amongst these was metalworking.

First working in copper and tin, then in iron and lead, were the commonest elements of this pattern of production. But there were also the precious metals, gold and silver. The Cambrian Mountains were rich in copper, lead, silver and gold, but not in tin or iron. All the three key processes, mining, smelting and artefact creation, involved specialist knowledge, but only the making of objects required the continual presence of trained craftsmen. Mining until relatively recently involved quite low-level technologies, as did smelting and much of

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this would have been done during the slack times of the agricultural year by ‘peasant’ miners. But in the making of objects the skill was much higher, except perhaps for the making and maintenance of basic agricultural and domestic tools, and itinerant craftsmen would produce weapons of war and jewellery often travelling with hoards of scrap metal or ingots to do the job. As such they were agents not just of technological change but also of longdistance trade in the raw materials not available in an area such as iron and tin in the uplands of Wales. For all sorts of reasons, therefore, some of these craftsmen had very high status.

So we should regard pre-capitalist industry as a set of productive technologies and skills essentially supporting a rural agrarian society, but in already complex ways. Apart from a brief episode in the early Roman period in Britain, this only begins to change in the earlier Middle Ages, especially, in Europe, from the 9th and 10th century onwards, when both technology and the socio-economic mechanisms make a fundamental shift towards what some have called ‘proto-capitalism’. On the periphery of Europe in upland Wales this change does not really start until the 12th century.

What happened? During the 9th and 10th centuries in Western Europe we see, in the break-up of the great Empire of Charlemagne, the emergence of feudal states which are the origins of our modern nations.10 This is influenced by the fact that the Mediterranean with its long-established structures of power and urban moneybased economies has effectively passed into the hands of Islamic polities. This is a complex story, not simply of confrontation, but also of much creative interaction. The result is that there was a fundamental shift in European power from the south to the north. As part of this phase of state creation, a new money economy based on silver emerged focussed on new towns which acted as administrative centres and fortifications and as places of production and trade. This is the beginning of the embedded market economy. Industrial production became closely related to urban living with the result that the new towns and cities had, within their walls and in faubourgs and suburbs, extensive areas of specialist manufacture in a wide range of materials, such as metal, leather, ceramics, cloth, glass, stone and wood. For the archaeologist there is a rich haul and explosion of artefacts from these stratigraphic horizons.11 The change is remarkable – suddenly the northern 34

European world was awash with commodities produced by men and women who concentrated on the making of a limited range of object defined by their specialist capacities and knowledge: these came to be embodied in guilds.

With the growth of states and their powerful institutions came tax based on money, written law and fundamental changes in property. There came also the need for greater and greater quantities of raw materials, such as metal, animal skins and timber, and of primary goods required by the growing urban populations such as processed food, yarn and cloth. So, in the countryside agricultural production intensified, partly to feed the growing, nonagrarian urban populations, and partly to permit the accumulation of capital whether as cash, land or commodity. As a result, radical new forms of settlement (notably the semi-urban village), field systems and technologies were introduced to enable the dramatic increase in rural production. As part of this even the poorest peasants became locked into the market as they needed money for tax as well as for commodities or the purchase of freeholds.

In an early 13th century peasant house on Dartmoor I excavated many years ago there were suddenly 10000 sherds of pottery on a site which had previously been entirely aceramic and nearly all the vessels had been made in Exeter.12 It is noticeable too that these peasants followed the patterns of architectural design which had been established by Europe’s elites in the 10th and 11th centuries and had cascaded down through the social orders. This, sometimes known as the ‘feudal sense of space’, was centred on the open hall with apartments and services appended. Noticeably too the desire to build more complexly in stone and timber also filtered down through the social structure, while in towns and cities the specialist producers and merchants began to inspire new forms of architectural design, a vertical expression of the feudal sense of space on the one hand, but attended by utilitarian structures for industrial production and storage on the other.

In West Wales, in Ceredigion, the arrival of this Brave New World was delayed until the later 12th and early 13th centuries and, demonstrably, the peasant markets were not fully locked into the new products until late in the 14th. Welsh native princes in upland Pura Wallia, while seeing the need for modernisation in attempting state formation and the promotion of markets, were tied by strong tribal traditions of

Figure 5. Air photograph of Caer Cadwgan, a hill-fort on the frith or mountain edge with the good lands of the Teifi valley below (Photograph: Toby Driver with kind permission of the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales) made

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The right-angle landscape transect: a model of Welsh upland landscape

RCAHMW

RCAHMW Mynydd Ffrith Allt Ystrad Afon

The direction of perception and movement Dol

Figure 6. Community perception of the upland resource: Afon – river with fish, wild fowl, reeds; Dol – flood meadowland for hay; Ystrad – the dry valley floor for arable; Allt – woodland on steep slopes; Ffrith – the mountain areas nearest the community used for seasonal occupations; mynydd – the mountain grazing and mining regions. (Photographs: Toby Driver with kind permission of the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales)

Direction of perception and movement

it ffr

h

tr ys

lt al

ad

lt al

l do

t ra ys penclawdd

llt

ffr

d ffr

ith

a

d yd n y m

ith

Territories and landholding laid out at right angles (a transect) to the resource of soil and plants

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Figure 7. The community access to resource: based on the parish of Cellan in Ceredigion on the west side of the Cambrian Mountains

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exchange and clientage.13 So although they founded new towns with market privileges and tried to support institutions with the kinds of administrative talents needed for the running of a medieval state, markets scarcely took off, money did not freely circulate and there is little sign of urban production. This is in stark contrast to the March of Wales in the east and south where the English state, through predatory lordships, took control from the late 11th century onwards.

Mountains, more efficient milling of grain and a massive increase in the production of woollen cloth from their famous sheep.

of Western Europe. In the late 16th and 17th centuries another step change came with the venture capitalists of the Mines Royal Company and the probable introduction of specialist mining engineers from By the 15th and early 16th centuries all parts Germany and Cornwall which ripped at of Wales were fully in the modern economy the landscape with deep shafts, adits, just at the point when the next shift in massive hydraulic systems and specialist industrial activity was about to occur. At buildings. The final transformation came this time the great empire-building nations with the steam technologies of the mid to of Europe began to feel the full effects of late 18th century to be followed by fossila new world system of exploitation with carbon powered engines which kept a an enormous hike in wealth through the productive industry there until the middle Despite this time-lapse on the periphery in impact of venture capitalism. Coupled with years of the 20 th century when the the arrival of the full consequences of the this came new technologies and a shift in businesses collapsed as new, more viable proto-capitalist phase in the European primary production towards the sites opened up in Malaysia, South America experience, there were agents of change countryside, especially in mining for metals and Africa. Thus a site like Cwmystwyth about and this immediately affected the and coal, weaving, quarrying and building, is a palimpsest of different phases of processes of primary production. Perhaps as well as glass and iron works, shipbuilding, industrial activity, all of which is visible to the most important were the great all powered by advanced hydrological the trained eye, with many architectural monasteries founded by the native princes technologies.17 This was what some have and landscape effects rippling away from in their bid to acquire not just spiritual called the first Industrial Revolution which it through the mountain countryside for credit, but a cohort of educated men came to its full force in the 17th and early miles around. capable of running and ideologically 18th centuries. In the Welsh upland underpinning a complex state. It is no countryside the major impact was in There were indeed great changes in the accident that the monastic order preferred mining, metal production and weaving Industrial Revolution and a transformative above all others was the Cistercian.14 Not with the traces of ever deeper quarries and momentum was given to the world, but only did they have rigorous schools of shafts, of early industrial buildings, of the greatest manifestations lie, first, in the learning and ascetic observances, but also dams, ponds and leat systems, mills and extraordinary growth in population and sophisticated structures of governance and the domestic architecture of those engaged the shift from the majority of people living administration drawn from the post- in the specialist practices. All of this, of and working distinctively rural ways of life Carolingian European experience. This course, was an adaptation of, and addition to an urban one, and, second, the geometric included the legendary capacity of the to, the embedded industries of the gathering of pace in technological change Cistercians to intensify the productive countryside. Increasingly, through the great which has passed from being at specific capacity of the land, as Gerald of Wales secular estates of the Anglo-Welsh gentry, well-spaced moments in time to being himself put it: this was caught up in the ideology of constant and enabling greater and greater Improvement and Capital. volumes of production.

Give them a wilderness or a forest, and, in a few years, you will find a At the end of the 18th and beginning of the Yet, and here is my main point, beyond the dignified Abbey in the midst of 19th century, when, ironically, Hafod was booming cities these activities which seem smiling plenty.15 being created in the alternative ideologies to define the industrial eras have long been, of Romanticism, the social, legal, economic and have remained, a part of the holistic Strata Florida, in particular, (an abbey in and technological forces of change began fabric of the countryside, not separate central Ceredigion on the western edge of to produce what we call the Industrial entities. To explain this I will need at first the Cambrian Mountains with lands Revolution. In the uplands of Wales this to step away from the narrative of granted in 1184 by the Prince of usually led to the intensification and technological and social change.

Deheubarth, the Lord Rhys of Dinefwr), extensification of activity which had already Communities which inhabit upland regions begun on sites many hundreds, indeed actually live for the most part on the river was in the course of time enriched thousands of years before. So at valley floors and this has always been so. far more abundantly with oxen, Cwmystwyth right in the heart of the Their more permanent settlements sit studs of horses, herds of cattle and Cambrian Mountains, archaeologists have around the best of the arable land at the flocks of sheep, and the riches they found traces of copper extraction and foot of the slopes where the good soil produced, than all the houses of processing undertaken right at the collects and above the flood levels of the the same order throughout Wales.16 beginning of the Bronze Age when the ‘flashy’ rivers which can fill and overspill technologies of production were brand new in moments. Each valley has a different It was the Cistercians who brought new in north-western Europe.18 The working of topographical character, but usually the technologies and systems of agriculture, the ore lodes must have been constant over best land is limited and needs to be notably woodland management, intensive the next three millennia, but a step change protected and constantly manured to keep production, new breeds of animal, came in the 12th and 13th centuries when the fertility high. Traditionally each hydrological engineering and water mills. the lead ores were mined and more deeply landholding has a piece of this good ground These two latter in particular allowed to meet the massive demands of the and appended to it were other resources, deeper mining in the rich ore veins of Cistercian and other building programmes mostly controlled as rights of access to their extensive lands in the Cambrian which were transforming the architectures water, meadows, woodland and the hilltops made

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Figure 8. Photo of Castell, Rhosgelligron, c. 1900 (With kind permission of the National Museum of Wales)

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themselves on the flood plain (Fig. 5). The holdings thus gave a full range of agrarian produce for the families and kin groups to live on: cereals, fish, wildfowl, fodder for the winter, grazing for the livestock, wood and peat for fuel and timber and stone for building. In many parts of Britain these rights of access to resource survived until the modern era, in Wales up to the middle parts of the 19 th century, when the mountains were enclosed. Even then, however, the primary perception and relationship to the land was retained by the farming communities: it works outwards from the farmsteads themselves and the arable land around them where the work was pretty constant from March to October and stock needed to be kept off the growing crops. So there was also movement of stock and people to other resource areas such as short-distance transhumance to the mynydd where younger members of the kin would stay to look after the beasts and do the dairying. This movement was up and down the mountain slopes, and the perception and act of living always drew the eye and the body upwards in a line running at right angles to the

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topography (Fig. 6). Amazingly, as far back as we can document the ancient territories of communities, they were laid out also at right angles to the direction of valleys and their adjacent mountains, such as the communities lying along the west side of the Cambrian Mountains in the Teifi Valley (Fig 7). By some process we cannot understand community identity and living was deliberately designed into the landscape to ensure the means of life. It is a telling indicator of this that the Cambrian Mountains were only given this name by incoming map-makers in the 18th century and anciently, and still surviving strongly today, each community named its own piece of the upland, thus Mynydd Llanddewi or Mynydd Llanybyther.

Laid over all of this in modernity was property right and ownership. Even this, however, has an ancient stem in the medieval social structures of lordship, freehold and bondhold which gave way to gentry estates, freeholds and tenancies under English law. In amongst all of this what we would call industry, the capacity to make things other than what we grow 38

and eat, was part of this fabric of life. Mills, forges, sawpits, peat-cuttings, quarries and mines were everywhere, and during the slack times in the agricultural year farmworkers would take part in this productive activity. However, there were also specialists, metalworkers, millers and miners, who lived within the communities.

Industry in this way was part of the resource by which mountain communities survived.

They may not own the mineral rights, since these were usually reserved to great freeholders, but their labour could bring rewards to supplement their tough agrarian subsistence, and this could be given seasonally or by the spare human capacity within families and kin groups.

A site within the Cambrian Mountains close to the old Abbey site of Strata Florida is, for me, emblematic of the complexity of this mountain culture and its relationship with industry, and its final story an exemplar of the post-industrial condition.

On the edge of the mynydd area is a piece of open rhos or moorland, a mixture of rough grass and bogs, called Rhos Gelli Gron.19 Here there are the remains of many

the mountain communities at this time, owned by local landowners and entrepreneurs, but worked by all.

small cottages of dry-stone with their thatch rooves long gone. There is a photograph of one of these, about 1890, with its inhabitant next to it which has become one of the iconic photographs of Welsh Folklife and thus part of the source of nostalgia and historic identity (Fig. 8).

These buildings started to be built from the seventeenth century onwards. Under English law they were squatter houses, but

by Welsh custom they were bwddyn or cottages, traditionally the tenements of the poorer labourers.20 However, the origins of this part of society lay in the families who had bondholdings who were tied to the land by heavy labour services but supported within the fabric of the community on the valley floor in and amongst the farmsteads and in separate bond settlements. The introduction of English land law administered by the great estates in the 16th and 17th centuries broke this pattern and increasingly these families were dispossessed of their customary means of living. Many emigrated, but many stayed, still supported by the community, but no longer among the lands and tenant farms of the estates. Instead they lived on the open mountain lands where ancestors had their temporary summer dwellings (hafodydd) for grazing the beasts. They built temporary dwellings by Welsh right and custom with the tacit consent of local officials, but which were illegal by English law. Then they lived permanently in them with a little enclosed land around them for growing vegetables. This reinvention of custom for new circumstances, called today ty-y-nos (the one-night house), can be seen all over the Welsh uplands. Those who lived within these dwellings could not survive on what their poor land could grow, but instead they worked on the farmland, but mostly in the mines and the cloth industries which flourished in

always as part of the physical and emotional fabric of the communities. So, when wind farms arrive they, in one sense, are merely the next in a four thousand year sequence Towards the end of the 19th century, about of industrial activity which has aided the the time the photograph was taken, the life of the communities, bringing a world was about to turn again. Within a supplement to the economic well-being of generation Rhos Gelli Gron had been communities living on their primary abandoned. The arrival of cheap grain from resource, the land. But here is the postAmerica and refrigerated meat from South industrial conundrum, what I might call America and New Zealand heralded the the Hafod Syndrome, fed by the intellectual collapse of the traditional way of mixed inheritance of Romanticism. The comersfarming with the switch to monocultures in, who also bring new wealth, have come of sheep, dairying and woodland which so for an idyll of living among the lowly characterise the upland Welsh landscapes populated and beautiful landscapes of the of today; all this taking place over the first mountains. They have literally bought the half of the 20th century. For similar reasons rural idyll instigated by the likes of Thomas in the world market system, mining and Johnes. They, by and large, do not want cloth also collapsed. The means of the wind farms, since they feel that they livelihood had gone. To cap this the later have left behind the industrial urban and nineteenth century had seen the men of sought the non-industrial rural and have Rhos Gelli Gron migrating on a seasonal no wish for it to pursue them. Such a basis down to the growing number of coal dichotomy, however, never existed. Yet it mines of the Welsh Valleys, taking with goes a bit deeper than this. The Hafod them the skills they had acquired in the Syndrome also brought another industry metal mines of Cardiganshire. Slowly they to Wales, another phenomenon of poststayed and did not return to cultivate the industrial society: tourism. It may be an small fields around their cottages. For a industry by metaphor in one sense, but in time in the two decades on either side of another it is very real and has made the 1900 Rhosgelligron was almost entirely a very mountains themselves and their community of older women surviving on ancient landscapes an artefact of knitting, vegetables and the money sent by consumption. Tourists too do not want their kin in the Valleys. By the Great War wind farms and here lies the difficult choice it was gone. for planners and communities alike. For me as a landscape archaeologist I know Industry cannot then be disentangled as a that their installation is destructive, but I separate element from the story of the know also that within the time spans I mountain landscape. It had a long-term espouse wind farms will be archaeological presence as a part-time element of survival stumps sooner than the engine houses of in difficult environments. It was a reflection the 19th century mines and there will be of seasonality and short-distance mobility another industry along in a minute. It is and always had the feeling of impermanence, an irony that the landscape enjoyed by so as an extra way of supplementing a living many and cherished by all as home are full in and amongst the agriculture. Industry of industrial wreckage we are now making and its remains and memories remain into heritage.

1 For a practical introduction to this subject see Stephen Rippon, Historic Landscape Analysis: Deciphering the Countryside, Council for British Archaeology, Practical Handbooks in Archaeology 16 (York: CBA, 2004) 2 David M. Browne and Stephen R. Hughes, The Archaeology of the Welsh Uplands (Aberystwyth: Royal Commission on Ancient and Historical Monuments in Wales, 2003) 3 David Bick, Old Metal Mines of Mid-Wales, combined edition (Newent: Pound House, 1993) 4 J. Geraint Jenkins, The Welsh Woollen Industry (Cardiff: The National Museum of Wales, 1969) 5 Peter Lord, The Visual Culture of Wales: vol.2 Imaging the nation (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2000) 6 Jennifer Macve, The Hafod Landscape: an illustrated history and guide (Pontrhydygroes: Hafod Trust, 2004) 7 For a practical guide to the sort of efforts which can be undertaken see The Regeneration through Heritage Handbook, ed. by Fred Taggart (London: Phillimore for The Princes Regeneration Trust, 2006)

8 S.H. Morriss, 2001, ‘Recent Human Impact and Land Use Change in Britain and Ireland: a Pollen Analytical and Geochemical Study’ (unpublished doctoral thesis, University of Southampton, Department of Geography, 2001) 9 Huw Pryce, The Acts of the Welsh Rulers, 1120-1283 (Cardiff: University of Wales Press) pp. 172-3 10 Richard Hodges and David Whitehouse, Mohammed, Charlemagne and the Origins of Europe (London: Duckworth, 1983) 11 John Schofield and Alan Vince, Medieval Towns, 2nd edn. (London: Continuum, 2003) 12 David Austin, 1978, ‘Excavations in Okehampton Deer Park, Devon, 1976-1978’, Proceedings Devon Archaeological Society, 36 (1978), 191-239 13 J. Beverley Smith, Llewelyn ap Gruffudd: Prince of Wales (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1998) pp. 187-273 14 David Robinson, The Cistercians in Wales: Architecture and Archaeology 1130-1540 (London: The Society of Antiquaries) pp.24-36

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15 David Williams, The Welsh Cistercians (Leominster: Gracewing, 2001) p.21 16 Brewer, J.S. (ed) 1861-91, Giraldus Cambrensis Opera, 8vols. London: Rolls Series, 21, vol. IV, 142 17 The Age of Transition: the Archaeology of English Culture 1400-1600, The Society for Medieval Archaeology Monograph 15, ed. by David Gaimster and Paul Stamper, (Oxford: Oxbow, 1997) 18 Simon Timberlake, Excavations on Copa Hill, Cwmystwyth (1986-1999): An Early Bronze Age Copper Mine within the uplands of Central Wales, British Archaeological Reports, British Series 348 (Oxford: Archaeopress, 2003) 19 Sarah Tarlow, 2008. ‘Who are you calling marginal?

A squatter settlement in upland Wales’, in Paul Rainbird (ed) Monuments in the landscape: studies in honour of Andrew Fleming. (Oxford: Tempus, 2008), pp. 177-189 20 Eurwyn Wiliam, Y Bwthyn Cymreig (Aberystwyth: Royal Commission for Ancient and Historic Monuments, 2010)

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Energy Modelling in Wales: Looking Ahead to 2050 Tom Bassett, Diana Waldron, Heledd Iorwerth and Simon Lannon Our homes consume a significant proportion of our day-to-day energy consumption - and, by consequence, produce a significant proportion of our greenhouse gas emissions – and it’s time to wrap up. The government has promised we all will wrap up tightly by 2050, with the first checkpoint coming in 2020. We have all, by proxy, agreed to reduce the amount of the greenhouse gas emissions we emitted in 1990 by 20% by the end of this decade, and by a whopping 80% by the time the middle of the century rolls in. Research here at the Welsh School of Architecture has focussed on how to deliver this level of reduction across the Welsh building stock, and it is a unique challenge.

The Welsh Valleys, in particular, to the north of Cardiff have been the focus of several avenues of research. The Valleys consist of deep folds in the landscape, running predominantly north to south, with communities established almost overnight in the heady days when coal mining was everything to everyone. This sculpted landscape, lined with row upon row of pre-1919 stone terraces – the most predominant housing type in all of Wales - has long been the focus of research to discover how best to renovate these sometimes isolated communities as we transition into a low-carbon 21st century.

One focus of research within the Low Carbon Research Institute at the WSA involves looking at the existing environmental challenges homes in the Valleys face due to the combination of landscape and their existing built form.

The rolling, three-dimensional nature of the landscape has led us to create a plugin for the popular drafting program SketchUp to more accurately model and analyse the

impact the surrounding environment imposes upon the built communities.

One example is New Tredegar, a community hugging two sides of the Rhymney Valley about 40 minutes north of Cardiff, home to just over 4000 people.

Recent solar photovoltaic installations to the roofs of a sample of properties, most likely a direct result of the recent feed-in tariff (FiT) introduced by the government in 2010, provided a basis for research of solar access for these and similar homes across the Valleys. Using SketchUp, Google StreetView, and Google Earth, our team modelled the basic envelopes of the houses in situ and imported the threedimensional valley terrain for analysis.

Running the model using Virvil for HTB2, our recently developed thermal modelling plugin for SketchUp, both with and without the terrain present, we were able to determine the hills to either side of the valley directly cause a 20% reduction in annual solar harvesting potential for the solar panels facing west, in comparison with a similarly constructed terrace in a geographically flat location.

Solar panels orientated to the south face a reduction in annual solar insolation of 10%. Furthermore, in terms of building physics, the walls of the houses facing up the valley receive 25% less annual solar radiation than a similarly built terrace elsewhere, which means less free heat is available to the most vulnerable part of the houses’ envelopes. To give a practical sense of the challenge faced in New Tredegar, even in the height of summer, the sun goes down on the western half of New Tredegar at 16:00.

Another branch of research into energy demand at an urban scale has harnessed

databases native to GIS (Geographic Information System) to target the most appropriate renovations for the Welsh housing stock according to SAP (Standard Assessment Procedure) ratings. The procedure combines existing Ordnance Survey and LandMap data with our research into building typologies to estimate the SAP rating of the existing building stock across broad swathes of Wales. This method precludes the requirement for extensive modelling and can provide effective, legible information about the current condition of Welsh housing using little more than a map.

Ongoing work within the WSA aims to refine these outputs to assist both homeowners and local councils as they look to reduce housing-based carbon emissions.

These research tools have provided new opportunities to investigate the intricacies facing the Welsh building stock. In collaboration with local small- to mediumsized enterprises and local housing authorities, our research outputs are aimed at analysing and understanding the Welsh built environment in order that the most appropriate steps are taken to ensure our carbon emission reductions in line with the Department of Energy and Climate Change’s 2050 targets are met. Our research has led to the exposure of the significant issues existing homes face in terms of energy demands within their urban or regional environment. Th is information can assist homeowners and local authorities make holistic decisions whilst they consider renovations. In this way, houses in our communities are not assessed as islands, but rather as united neighbours, marching in tandem toward meeting regional energy reduction targets by 2020, 2050, and beyond.

(left) Recent energy modelling at the WSA has revealed the impact the landscape has upon the efficiencies of solar installations in the Welsh Valleys. made

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The Valleys of South Wales: a cultural landscape legacy Richard Keen The landscape defined within the boundaries of the coalfield in south east Wales has witnessed over two hundred and fifty years of intense intervention. As a consequence it has to be one of the most probed and prodded areas of landscape in Britain.

In 1750 the population of Wales was estimated to be 493,000. In 1851 there were more people engaged in or dependent upon industry than in agriculture and this statistic was largely dependent on the industrial expansion along the northern outcrop. By the time of the 1901 census the population exceeded two million people, most of who were crammed in to the iron, steel and coal mining areas between Swansea in the west and Blaenafon to the east. Industrialisation has dominated the cultural and historic character of the area since the first coke fuelled furnace was opened at Hirwaun in 17571 and although the monolithic industries of iron, steel and coal mining have all but disappeared, their legacy remains in both the psyche of the communities and the physical layout of the towns and the urban villages.

It is all too easy however to perceive the area as one of mainly intense linear conurbations although in some places this is true. Yet taken as a whole the actual developed areas only constitute about 30% of the total landmass. Industrial based development was crammed along the floors or lower slopes of the narrow river valleys or concentrated in pockets along the blaenau or, as it is more commonly known, the Heads of the Valleys, along the northern outcrop of the coalfield. To the south and the west are the cities and towns along the coast that developed as a consequence of the industrial output of their hinterland.

landscape are mixed. A survey2 undertaken in 2000 revealed that the majority of those questioned thought that most of the land was either owned by, or the responsibility of, Local Authorities.

Geology of South Wales

The geology of the area dictated, to a large extent, what developed and where. Along the Head of the Valleys the outcropping or easily accessible coal measures interspaced with deposits of iron stone (ore) provided a rich source for the manufacture of iron on a huge scale. The juxtaposition of substantial volumes of It is certainly a landscape of contrasts. limestone alongside the coal measures Within a few minutes vehicular travel, resulted in the opening of huge quarries tarmac’ and hard pavements can be for building material and for industrial exchanged for open mountains and wooded uses.3 Bands of Millstone Grit also outcrop hillsides. The coastline is also easily in places alongside the coal measures. accessible and the Brecon Beacons have long been a ‘lung’ for the valleys. This ease The main building stone was extracted from of accessibility has long been an important the Pennant Series as is evidenced by the part of the relationship between people hundreds of long abandoned quarries along and their particular place. Concepts of the sides of the valleys. With the opening ownership and responsibility for the of the railways, slate was imported in

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increasing quantities from north Wales to mined near Margam in the mid 13th cover the snaking terraces that were built century and by the 16th century the first both following and crossing the sharp copper smelting works had been established contours along the lower valley slopes. In at Aberdulais near Neath. In the thickly many places the locally available clays and wooded valleys of south Wales charcoal shale’s were worked to manufacture bricks. fuelled iron furnaces were at work in the 16th and 17th centuries. It is perhaps The coal measures of south Wales produced surprising to consider that Tintern in the a variety of coal that could be used for Wye Valley, - one of the iconic differing purposes. To the west was the personifications of the picturesque - was a hard, hot burning anthracite – the ‘glo centre of brass, wire and iron manufacturing carreg’ - that intermingled eastwards with in the 16th and 17th centuries. By the mid the semi anthracite. Bituminous and Steam 18th century copper smelting was underway coals were the fuel mainstays for in Swansea and within a matter of decades industrialisation with the bituminous coals it developed into the most important being intensively worked to the south of copper working area in Britain; to such an the coal basin although ‘it is important to extent that it was nicknamed ‘Copperopolis’. bear in mind that in their properties, as well as in their geographical distribution, The industrialisation of south Wales can the varieties of coal by almost imperceptible be divided very roughly into broad periods. gradations blend one into another’.4 Beginning with ‘Industry Before The Industrial Revolution’5 then followed by The lateral variety of coals were also the ‘Iron Age’ between the 1750s and the reflected by the vertical disposition of the mid 19 th century that was, in turn, workable deposits with the Lower Measures followed by the reign of ‘King Coal’ from producing very high quality steam coal, then until nearly the mid 20th century. In the Middle Series producing excellent the latter part of the 19th century iron coking and manufacturing coal and the making was gradually supplanted, and Upper Measures where the gas and house then overtaken, by steel manufacture as coals were worked. The Upper Series were the primary product. the first to be exploited simply because of their relative ease of access and by the The decades after the end of World War I limited technology available. The deeper saw the accelerating decline of the smoke productive seams were accessed later in the stack industries along the blaenau and nineteenth century as mining techniques within the valleys themselves, and the and technology improved. depression years wrought havoc on the communities. Right across the area the The deposition of the coal measures can be consequences of the recession were very likened to a saucer in cross section and evident but especially so in the larger where the seams outcropped to, or close to centres like Ebbw Vale and Merthyr Tydfil. the surface were the areas that were first An indication of just how serious the exploited. Local demand and the limitations situation was perceived to be can be seen of early mining technology resulted in these from a report by the Parliamentary areas being the first to be worked in the Political and Economic Planning Unit 18th and early 19th centuries. Towards the that was published in 1939. It mid and latter part of the 19th century and recommended that Merthyr Tydfil be into the 20th century so the deeper seams completely abandoned and the total were worked as the demand accelerated population moved to other locations near and mining techniques and technology the coast or in the Vale of Usk. improved dramatically.

Such was the plight in the coalfield that Industrial development even the most hardened politicians could not ignore the situation and legislative The evolution of industrial development in measures were introduced to try and offset the valleys of south east Wales took place the dire economic conditions. The against a backdrop of industrial ‘something should be done’ statement by development across the whole of Wales, the the uncrowned King Edward VIII at a visit roots of which can be traced back to the to the Dowlais Works in Merthyr Tydfil medieval period and earlier. in 1936 added strength to the need to help.

These included the Special Areas Acts Gold, lead and silver were being mined and (1934–37) and the Distribution of Industry processed during the Bronze Age and Act (1947). With the return of the Labour during the Roman Occupation. Coal was party to power in 1945 there was a

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concentrated effort to revive the economies and with government assistance and encouragement new factories were built.

Among the companies to arrive were Hoover Ltd (1945) and Thorn Electrical Industries (1951) in Merthyr Tydfil and the Dunlop Semtex factory in Brynmawr built between 1947 and 1953. The ‘Semtex’ or ‘Rubber Factory’, as it was known locally, deserves special mention as it has been considered of one of the most important industrial architectural statements to have emerged in mid 20th century. The concept was astonishing for its time and spoke volumes for the response of a member of the English aristocracy to the problems of one of the ‘Special Areas’.

Arising from the plea in her publication6 in 1934 Hilda Jennings looked for “an industrial magnate (who) will build a giant factory within its area which will absorb all the unemployed”. In an act of great generosity and enlightenment such a patron came forward. He was Lord Forrester who was a member of the Subsistence Production Society that had been active in the Valleys since the 19030s. Besides running the Brimsdown Rubber Company that was part of Enfield Cable Ltd., he had a bold vision to help the area by providing large scale employment of a type that would be suitable for the unemployed miners and iron and steel workers.

The factory at Brynmawr was the realisation of the dream. Working in conjunction with the Architects Cooperative Partnership - two of whom worked for Brimsdown Rubber – and Ove Arup and Partners they created, one of the most astonishing post World War II buildings in Britain. It was inspirational and innovative in its design and construction with its use of thin, concrete, shell domes spanning a huge production area. The complex later suffered from the addition of unsightly and incompatible accretions and from lack of maintenance but was still considered of sufficient importance to have been listed Grade II* in 1986. Alas, this statutory protection was not enough to safeguard it despite the efforts of the Thirties Society ably assisted by members and staff and students of the Welsh School of Architecture.

In what can only be described as an act of short sighted vandalism the factory was demolished in 2001 and all that remains are the sad remains of the Boiler House with its “inverted paraboloid concrete

Side elevation of Cyfarthfa Iron Furnaces, Merthyr Tydfil made

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roof ” 7 that has been described as architectural sculpture, and the circular, stone clad pump house in a reservoir that had been constructed in the 19th century to serve the nearby Nantyglo Ironworks.

The demolition of the ‘Rubber Factory’ must be regarded as one of the greatest losses to the twentieth century built heritage of Wales. This unfortunately is true for many of the other twentieth century industrial buildings as with exception of a few places like the Hoover Factory in Merthyr Tydfil and the British Nylon Spinners in Mamhilad most other sites have been demolished to make way for other uses.

benefits and disadvantages. In some of the coal mining communities only three or four generations may separate the present urban dwellers from their grandparents or great grand parents who may have arrived from the rural counties of Wales and England.

Cultural change

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The onset of industry in the 18th and 19th century instigated profound cultural change as an agrarian societ y transmogrified into an industrial one. It was not an overnight transition but was spread over several decades at different periods in different parts of the coalfield.

So too, there were other periods of In common with other parts of Britain, transition including the most recent as World War II had an important influence parts of the area are still experiencing the on the cultural landscapes with the effects of post industrialisation increasing demand for munitions resulting in the construction of Royal Ordnance The early phases were socially traumatic as Factories at Hirwaun, Bridgend and the old industrial order was being Glascoed. The Special Areas Act of 1934 supplanted by a new society that demanded specifically designed to assist areas of high better standards, conditions and lifestyles. unemployment (South Wales, Scotland, The 19th century social history of south North East and North West England) by Wales was punctuated by strikes, lock outs, providing investment funds for new projects and confrontations; all them part of the saw the development of the Treforest process where the communities sought to ‘Trading Estate’, as it was commonly known. achieve a better standard of living and The industrial estates established in the post greater social and political freedom. war years set a pattern for diversified employment becoming available in Until the mid 18th century the upland areas centralised zones heavily reliant of good were largely under populated and it was transportation and access. They provided along the coastal plain of Glamorgan and employment for the dispossessed male Monmouthshire that most people lived. workforce but also helped with a Even so, Cardiff and Newport were very fundamental change in the role of women small towns (in 1801 the population of in society. With employment becoming Cardiff was about 1,800). 8 In the available outside the home or service or immediately pre-industrial period there retail, females began to achieve a degree of was little indigenous capital available to financial and cultural independence. allow for industrial investment and expansion. It was usually the case that This was part of the changes in society that individuals and companies from outside were accelerated as the educational policies the boundaries of Wales with the necessary of the 1940s and 1950s began to produce finance and entrepreneurial endeavour increasing numbers of educationally were responsible for beginning to change qualified individuals with aspirations that the landscape. were starting to be realised in the 1960s and later. Economic independence improved, It was the conversion of coal into coke that private cars started to complete with public helped instigate the change. The charcoal transport and legislation such as the fuelled furnaces were small – sometimes Enfranchisement Act of 1967 helped only about twelve to fifteen feet high and alleviate the reversion of long established with tiny capacities but the use of coke home to distant landlords and with its strong cellular structure enabled uncontrolled increases in rents. There was furnaces to increase substantially in size more money available to remove lower and output. High masonry furnaces were quality and slum housing and Home constructed usually against a natural bank Improvement Grants had a powerful on top of which all the raw materials could physical effect on the built environment. be gathered, cleaned, sorted and processed before being gravity-fed into the furnaces The communities of south Wales are the tops. For their time some of the structures inheritors of industrialisation with its were enormous. The bank of furnaces at

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Cyfarthfa Ironworks in Merthyr Tydfil appear to form a continuous wall overlooking a site that was once covered with rolling mills, puddling furnaces, workshops and brick works. Close inspection shows that the ‘wall’ is in fact composed of individual sharply tapering furnaces that have been in-filled with masonry work.

Industrial Communities Merthyr Tydfil epitomised 19th century iron making in south Wales. The output from the town was prodigious providing iron, and later steel, for armaments and railways. By 1846 the population was about 46,000 having grown from a small village of about forty houses about one hundred years before. There were four ironworks9 in the town but two names dominated – Dowlais and Cyfarthfa. The Dowlais works were established in 1759 and by 1767 were under the control of the Guest family. By 1846 it was the largest ironworks in the world employing over 10,000 people in the works and the associated coal and iron stone mines, coke ovens, quarries, brickworks and transport systems.

Under the direction of very astute management the Dowlais Company made the transition into steel manufacture and in 1865 started to produce steel by the Bessemer process. By the turn of the century however, new steel works were being established along the coast at Cardiff and Port Talbot. Huge efforts were made to retain iron and steel making activity in the town but the decline was inevitable and iron and steel manufacture was at an end by the 1930s. A foundry continued to operate until 1987 when its closure marked the end of over two hundred years of iron and steel manufacture.

The Cyfarthfa works had been the largest in the world in the early years of the 19th century employing 1,500 people. Iron making began on site in 1765 and by 1783 the works were under the control of the Crawshay family who continued in control until the final closure in 1910.

Merthyr Tydfil has had a fascinating and sometimes tormented history. So much of the human experience of the industrialisation in south Wales can be deduced from its landscape. It was a town that saw innovation and invention, conflict and tension. The first steam locomotive to run on rails was made at the Penydarren Ironworks in 1804 and the first Red Flag

Oblique view of Cyfarthfa Castle

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was flown there in 1831 when the workers virtually took over the town for about a week holding out against the might of the British Army. It was the hanging of Richard Lewis ‘Dic Penderyn’ for stabbing a soldier in his thigh that gave Wales its first industrial martyr.

Cholera graveyard at Cefn Golau above Tredegar

Cast and wrought iron door at the Round Houses, Nantyglo

Conditions in the town throughout the 19th and well into the 20th century could be appalling and there are many sources that bear witness to the difficulties encountered by the majority of the working people. Little wonder perhaps that the average life expectancy of a working person in the 1840s and 1850s was estimated to be just seventeen and a half years of age.10 This average was produced as a consequence of the very high levels of infant mortality.

The main cause of low life expectancy across south Wales was disease caused by poor food (or the lack if it), very hard work, poor sanitation and inadequate fresh water supplies. Water was an important industrial commodity and the first call of the supply was to feed the industrial processes. One of the most poignant reminders of 19th century disease is the Cholera Graveyard at Cefn Golau, high on the hillside above Tredegar. The memorials on the burial markers are fascinating examples of the cultural change. Some are in Welsh only, some in English and others a mixture of the two languages.

There are few places that remain as direct reminder of the social trauma of the time.

The musket holes still visible in the columns of the Westgate Hotel in Newport are a vivid reminder of the ill fated Chartist March in the town in 1839. Contingents of reformers from mainly Monmouthshire marched on the town only to be confronted, once again, by troops and shot down in front of the hotel.

Aerial of Blaenafon world Heritage landscape

Such was the concern of one of the ironmasters that he had built a complete defensive complex at Nantyglo in 1813.

The buildings at the Round House Farm are among the most important of their kind. Originally consisting of twin, circular towers, only one remains. It provides a valuable insight into the thought processes of the time. Constructed entirely of stone and cast and wrought iron the completely fireproofed towers were mini fortifications. The main entrance door accessible via a narrow pathway is complete with musket barrel holes set at knee and waist level. The farm

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Last make of Open Hearth Steel, Ebbw Vale Works, 1978

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building include one range with cast iron flooring support columns and cast and wrought iron roofing trusses supporting an original slate roof.

Former iron making sites are still extant across south Wales. Some have been partly preserved and others await much needed conservation. The presence of reusable adjacent buildings has ensured the long term preservation in some places. These include the complex of buildings of the Gadlys Ironworks in Aberdare housing a museum and offices and the preserved Beam Engine house at the former Tondu Ironworks, also providing office accommodation. The best preserved example is the complex at Blaenafon in the care of Cadw and an integral part of the World Heritage Landscape.

The history of steel manufacture has fared less well and with the closure of the Ebbw Vale Works in 2002 and with the subsequent removal of everything with the exception of the very fine former Works Offices it is hard to believe that crammed into the narrow valley floor was once one of the most important integrated steel works in Britain.

The virtual demise of coal mining in the 1980s and 1990s saw the demolition of dozens of coal mines site across the area and the once symbolic spinning head wheels have long gone or have been mounted on plinths as reminders of what once existed. There are sites that have been preserved including the surface arrangements at Cefn Coed Colliery near Neath and the Rhondda Heritage Park in Trehafod. A short distance away at Hopkinstown the Ty Mawr Colliery Winding Engine House towers above the main road.

Typical coal mining valley scene in the late 1950s. Image courtesy of the National Waterfront Museum, Swansea

Porth Rhondda general view probably 1968 or 1969

It is at the National Museum of Coal Mining at Big Pit, part of the World Heritage Landscape at Blaenafon, where visitors are able to descend the shaft and explore the underground workings.

The over-riding character of the housing pre late 20th and 21st centuries was that of locally available building materials constructed by speculative builders or landlords. There was little company housing. An exception is Bute Town11 at the head of the Rhymni valley. Built between 1825 and 1830 by the local iron company the three terraces, in the Palladian style, were to be the first of a proposed model town that never materialised.

Bryn Hyfrydd, Pontygwaith, Rhondda, photographed in 1978 made

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Pontycafnau

Most of the iron towns lacked any form of planning and development was haphazard.

Again there are exceptions. The centre of Tredegar focussed on the cast iron ornamental clock of 1858 is a good example of the streets and buildings forming a coherent layout with views and vistas in four directions. The entrance to Bedwellty House and park in the town – home of the local iron master – forms part of the vista.

of this. A visitor in 1836 described them as ‘a wild and mountainous region where nature seemed to reign in stern and unbroken silence’.13 By 1851 the population was 951, rising to its peak in 1924 of 167,000.14

roads. Without these it is doubtful that the industries could have expanded at the rate they did.

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One of these tramroads that linked the Cyfarthfa Ironwork with limestone quarries at Gurnos can be walked for nearly all of The majority of the valleys’ population lived its route and crosses Afon Taff via a cast (and continue to live) in two storied, two iron bridhe of great rarity and importance. or three bed roomed terraced houses. This Pontycafnau (the bridge of troughs) just uniformity was punctuated by the chapels, below the confluence of Taff Fawr and Tredegar and the Sirhowy valley combined the Workingmen’s Institutes and Public Fechan dates from either 1792 or 1793. It make a good case study to better understand Houses rising above them. The chapel and is the first cast iron railway bridge in Wales the evolution of 19th century development. institute exemplify the self-help nature of and marks an important technological Small, isolated communities such as the industrial society as the finance for development for the time. In addition to Troedrhiwgwair and Bedwellty Pits to the their construction was usually raised locally. carrying a horse dram tramroad it also south of the town are examples of industrial There are now many gaps where once these supported water courses supplying water ‘islands’, whereas Trefil to the north built buildings stood, the empty spaces marking to the ironworks. to serve the adjacent large limestone aspects of cultural change as the need for quarries still retains its sense of isolation. such places has diminished.

Steam power was applied to some of the Then in contrast, Manmoel high on the tram roads and it was along the Merthyr ridge above the valley has its roots in the Transport networks Tram road (opened in 1802 and more medieval period and earlier.12 familiarly known as the Penydarren Tram The topography of the valleys and along road) that the first steam locomotive ran The terrace is synonymous with the coal the Heads of the Valleys presented great on rails on 22nd February 1804.15 Many mining valleys and the housing necessary challenges to the canal, tram road and of the tram road routes are open and to meet the increase in population after railway engineers. The canals running provide easy, well-engineered access into 1875 was built at an intensity and north/ south through the narrow valleys the upland landscape. Along their lengths concentration that transformed some were linked to the various iron works, coal can be found the remains of limekilns, environments in less than a decade or so. and iron mines and the quarries by a bridges, cuttings, quarries and mines. Over The twin valleys of Rhondda are archetypal veritable network of horse drawn tram the past two decades they have become

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Cefn Coed Railway Viaduct

increasing well-used by walkers, a purpose that has improved their preservation and conservation prospects.

mountains and spanning valleys interconnecting places that had been separated by high ridges.

If the canal builders responded to the topographical challenges with impressive engineering responses then the same applies to the railway builders from the 1840s onwards but on a much larger and more complex scale. Railways have left a rich legacy and some of the viaducts that remain can truly be described as monumental. The sweeping arches of the Cefn Coed viaduct easily seen from the A470 road at Merthyr Tydfil is one of the best examples with its combination of masonry block work and brick. It was built by the contractors Savin and Ward and completed in 1866 to carry the single track of the Brecon and Merthyr Railway. The use of brick is reputed to have arisen from a strike by stonemasons after which the masons were dismissed.

It was not until the 1920 and 1930s that the railways began to lose their primacy in inter-valley communication as the road systems were slowly improved. Some of the roads still followed pre-industrial routes that had been mainly used for local traffic. The valley roads were hemmed and hampered by the industrial development (low railway bridges were a particular problem), rivers and the topography. The cross country route along the Heads of the Valley dipped and rose, twisted and turned passing through the chain of iron making towns Very few roads crossed the ridges and it took government intervention to provide work for the unemployed in the 1920s and 1930s before connections were made between the Ogmore and Afan and Rhondda Fach Valleys, and Rhondda Fawr and Rhondda Fach to Hirwaun and Aberdare.

In addition to their physical impact in the form of cuttings, embankments, tunnels and viaducts and so on the railways were inf luential in changing the cultural perceptions of time and space. The linear constraints of the narrow mining valleys were released when some of the lines cut across the grain of the land piercing

Road construction over the past five decades has helped change both the physical and economic landscapes with improvements southwards towards Cardiff and Newport and the M4 and with the

A large retail complex strategically placed close the entrances to the valleys or along the northern band now attracts customers from a wide area. Before private transport and improved road access almost every settlement, large and small, was largely self-contained. Work was available locally as were the shops, schools, chapels, churches, cinemas, clubs, libraries and institutes.

There is still a degree of cross-country separation between the communities especially those at some distance from the M4 and A465. Some of the settlements have experienced growth since World War II with the expansion of housing where the topography, infrastructure and economy have been favourable. There are others that, with the exception of small scale infill and made

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opening of the A465 connecting to the M4 near Neath and providing good access to the M50. This, combined with the availability of reclaimed brown field land has resulted in the development of retail, business and industrial parks. The A465 was opened in 1964 and has been upgraded since then. The high, soaring arch at Cefn Coed y Cymmer is another example of the design and expertise require to create the west/ east link.

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New road being built, 1920s

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Cefn Coed y Cymmer Bridge carrying the A465

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localised developments, still retain their industrial character.

Place and landscape It is sometimes easy to overlook the importance and significance of the localised perception and understanding of ‘place’. Even though a particular individual may not be deeply aware of the history of their area there is every likelihood that they will hold a strong identity to ‘their’ localised landscape.

Merthyr Tydfil or Rhondda Fach perceived externally may appear respectively as a ‘V’ shaped conurbation spreading northwards from the Taff Valley towards the Brecon Street scene 1913 Beacon or as an unbroken strip of housing alongside Afon Rhondda and reaching into the smaller side valleys. Yet both are composed of a series of smaller settlements that evolved around an iron works or coal mine. In the minds of many of the residents there will be a difference between Penydarren or Gurnos or Gelli and Porth.

Cultural landscapes are often very clearly defined in the minds of the people who occupy them.

Preservation of the remains of industrialisation in south Wales has had a chequered history to say the least. Much has disappeared yet it is surprising that so much remains. Perhaps it was because of the sheer concentration in such a confined area that precluded wholesale demolition.

Industrial complex

Attitudes towards preservation and conservation have changed considerably across south Wales over the past fifty years as the passing of time has lessened the rawness and hurt that many people felt for the aftermath of industrialisation that was made manifest by the depression years of the 1920s and 1930s. The appalling disaster at Aberfan in 1966 sparked off the extensive

and expensive programme of land reclamation that has re-shaped and reconfigured huge areas of landscapes. The impact of industrialisation and our inherited perceptions of it have, obviously, affected the way we have treated the landscape.

The communities of the valleys have changed and are changing. In some places

1 D. Morgan Rees, Mines, Mills And Furnaces, (H.M.S.O. 1969), pp 74 -76 2 Public Perception Study for Bridgend/Rhondda Cynon Taff/Caerphilly LANDMAP Survey, 2000 3 Limestone burned in kilns was used as a flux in the iron making process and for agricultural purposes as a ‘sweetener’ on the high acid soils of the uplands. Lime washing was important for the weather protection of houses, and as an antiseptic especially during outbreaks of contagious disease.

4 F. J. North, Coal and the Coalfields in Wales (Cardiff: National Museum of Wales, 1931), 173.

5 William Rees, Industry Before The Industrial Revolution, (University of Wales Press, Cardiff, 1968), Vols. I & II. 6 Hilda Jennings, Brynmawr: A Study of a Distressed

Area, (Allenson & Co., London, 1934) 7 John Newman, The Buildings of Wales: Gwent/ Monmouthshire, (Penguin Books/University of Wales Press, 2000), pp 133 – 134 8 Less than 15% of the population lived in towns with populations more than 1,000 people 9 The Dowlais, Cyfarthfa, Plymouth and Penydarren Ironworks 10 Ieuan Gwynedd Jones, Health and Sanitary Engineering in Mid-Nineteenth Century Merthyr Tudful, (Journal of the South East Wales Industrial Archaeological Society, Vol. 2. No. 2. pp. 27 - 48) 11 John B. Hilling, Cardiff and the Valleys; Architecture and Townscape, (Lund Humphries, London, 1973, p. 103) 12 For more information see: Richard Keen Partnership,

Sirhowy Valley Partnership: Cultural Character & Aspect Areas, (Part Two, December 2006) 13 E.D. Lewis, The Rhondda Valleys: A Study in Industrial Development, (Phoenix House. London, 1959) 14 Malcolm J. Fisk, Housing in the Rhondda 1800- 1940, (Merton Priory Press, Cardiff, 1996) 15 M.J.T. Lewis, Steam on the Penydarren, (Industrial Railway Record, No. 59, April 1975) Information for this article has been drawn from: The Heads of the Valleys: 250 years of landscape change, Archaeologia Cambrensis: Journal of the Cambrian Archaeological Association, Vol. 159, 2011 Unless otherwise stated the illustrations are by Richard Keen

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this is marked by new roads and new buildings, very often to house local and central government departments, and some of the centres are busy and vibrant.

However, there are many other places where economic regeneration is much needed.

Some of the post- industrial settlements are still suffering from under investment and in need of cultural rejuvenation.

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Researching Sustainable Living Styles in Post-carbon Societies Yangang Xing At the turn of the century, as the Nobel Prize winner Robert Lucas Jr. pointed out, “For the first time in history, the living standards of the masses of ordinary people have begun to undergo sustained growth ...

Nothing remotely like this economic behaviour has happened before”. 1 Resources are essential for every economy.

However, oils and coals are finite sources.

To create sustainable livings in post-carbon requires fundamental changes in how societies employ resources, transforming them and creating critical assets for present and future generations.

A number of researchers are proposing future renewable energy systems which are detached from fossil fuels. However, the roles of demand side techniques in decarbonisation of current energy systems are often underplayed. This research is aiming at searching for historical evidence of sustainable living in post-carbon societies with radical demand reductions. Historical energy transitions and challenges to sustainable living in post-carbon societies are reviewed. A transition pathway to sustainable livings in free-carbon cultures

is presented here. Future work is introduced at the end of this short paper.

transition process from the production of goods to the provision of services.3

In the long term, the energy systems are grouped in the following five phases: uncontrolled solar energy systems, controlled solar energ y systems, industrialization, post-industrialization and post-carbon energy systems. The nomadic communities before the invention of agriculture were basically hunters and gathers. The energetic metabolism has been described as an uncontrolled solar energy system. 2 The invention of agriculture -about 10,000 years ago - is the most important transition in human history.

Since human beginnings, we learned to live in settlements for security and partnerships whilst growing grain, raising livestock, and tending fruits trees. Such villages were indeed small. This initial phase belongs to the controlled solar energy system. As a part of a wider modernisation process, Industrialization energy systems are closely related with technological innovation, particularly with the development of large scale coal-based energy and metallurgy production. Postindustrialization is consequently a

In this study, future sustainable postcarbon societies are defined as adaptable societies that employ alternative forms of energy and adapts to the climate changes.

Overwhelming evidence and experts’ opinions show that anthropogenic climate change is happening and it is accelerating.

Mitigation and adaptation are both vital for us to cope with climate change issues.

However, symmetric traits of future postcarbon societies and traditional settlements are often overlooked in current literature.

This author argues for learning from agrarian societies in terms of sustainable resources consumptions and land planning.

A series of tests will be carried out to investigate resources utilization patterns in traditional dwelling and settlements and its potential impacts of such techniques.

1 Lucas, Robert E. (2004). ‘Lectures on Economic Growth’.

Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

2 Krausmann, F., M. Fischer-Kowalski, et al. (2008).

‘The Global Sociometabolic Transition.’ Journal of Industrial Ecology 12(5-6), Yale: Wiley-Blackwell, pp 637-656.

3 Bell, Daniel (1974). ‘The Coming of Post-Industrial Society’. New York: Harper Colophon Books.

learning uncontrolled solar energy system

controlled solar energy system

industrialization

postindustrialization

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2

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invention agriculture 1000 BC

coal-based systems AD 1500

oil-based systems 1950

postcarbon 5 tipping

(left) Energy system transitions. Top image: feudal system of Carcassone Castle (South France); middle image: oil-based energy systems represented by the American highway and bottom image: Photovoltaic panel installation in Parc del Forum, Barcelona (Spain). Credits: Suau, C. made

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Changing Parameters of the Industrial Land- and City Scape Martin Kläschen The gentle mountain landscape of Ystwyth Valley in Wales is overgrown with a thick carpet of colorful moss. One wouldn’t necessarily notice that the Cwmystwyth Mine diggers had such a strong impact in that region for the past two thousand years.

Here and there, one finds evidence that there was a relatively high population of people that used to inhabit the valley due to the attraction to zinc, silver and lead minerals. In fact, the origin of industrialization in this region reaches far back to roman times1 and had its peak during the industrial revolution in the nineteenth century. During this time, the average life expectancy was as low as thirtytwo years2 due to the high level of lead poisoning in the drinking water.3 There is no doubt that the valley deals with environmental damages resulting from heavy metal and other poisonous discharges from the mines. However, the Cwmystwyth Miner community blogs4 list a very high amount of child deaths that indicate not only adults but also children had been working and dying in the mines. They also show that generation after generation of miner families spent their entire life in and around the mines passing on their long grown culture and traditions over the course of hundreds of years. They had a very strong connection to this place since their existence relied upon the land they dug into. Dave Austin, Professor of Archaeology at the University of Wales, described to us how this consciousness unified the miners and their families with their land, creating a very strong local identity. In the twentieth century the mines and metal mills in the region have closed down and the descendents now struggle, fearing that their cultures and traditions will be lost. Apart from the gigantic task of reducing the severe environmental pollution, there is also the possible loss of heritage of the local cultures and traditions. These issues prevent the miner’s families from moving on. They are facing a change that eventually will cause

them to lose the close connection they have to both their origins, and as a result of that also their identity.

of such identity conflicts. What is identity and how does identity relate, in our particular case, to industrial landscapes?

The post-industrial generation is accustomed to the phenomenon that industrial landscapes are changing, often without us even really noticing. Sometimes we observe such changes from a rather detached perspective and other times we feel highly affected by such changes. The latter becomes a serious problem when our environment changes so much that it becomes foreign to its inhabitants and its population. One can lose one’s connection to one’s own habitat and feel that one’s own home is slowly isolating us. But what is this disconnection really about? It is unquestionable that the complexity of this deplorable problem cannot be discussed in whole within this short essay. Accordingly, this discourse will adjust the focus towards the question: How do the changes of particular parameters potentially result in a collective identity conflict? Since the USA are also currently experiencing this phenomenon in the Midwest, Chicago will serve as a case study for further explorations.

This investigation is aiming on receiving a better understanding about this problem

At first, I will examine this problem by describing different examples of it that hopefully demonstrate step by step a more holistic picture of the post-industrial cityscape of Chicago. Chicago had to deal with circumstances that were comparable to Ystwyth Valley’s change, when it had gone through an extreme shift from a dying heavy industrial metropolis to the thriving international service centre of the Midwest that it is today. This metamorphosis has profoundly changed the identity of what used to be called the “tough city.” What are the driving parameters of Chicago’s identity today and how do they materialize?

Daniel Burnham and Frederick Law Olmsted designed the World’s Columbian Exposition in 1893 in Chicago applying French neoclassical architecture principles based on symmetry, balance and splendor.

The Beaux Arts utopian exhibition, also called “White City,”5 created an aesthetic contrast to Chicago’s heavy industrial landscape namely “Gray City.” What was

Grey City – Chicago around 1950

(left top) Lead Mines of the Ystwyth Valley (left bottom) World’s Columbian Exposition; Looking West from Peristyle made

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understood by the exhibition designers as a vision for a future city created an identity conflict for the general population in Chicago. The white neoclassical facades, the grand scale of the buildings, the parklike civic spaces and the electric lighting of the entire exhibition was not comprehensible as a role model for what Chicago might possibly become at some point. The appearance of the White City had little in common with what the actual Chicago was like at that time. Most of the exhibition pavilions were designed by non-Chicagoan architects, who were considered to have no relationship with the city’s culture and mentality whatsoever.6 Neither the know-how that established the design of the White City was part of domestic Chicagoan resources, nor was any principle criteria integrated in the exhibition design that related to the physical appearance determining the existing Chicago of the turn of the last century. Whereas the main building materials of post-Chicago-fire era used to be the so-called Chicago common brick and structural iron,7 the buildings of the exhibition consisted of primary structural frameworks that were covered by lightweight plaster-fabric claddings.8

Bascule Railroad Bridge

A lthough the W hite Cit y never established a sense of local identity as a habitat, it was still very successful as a world exposition that presented a utopian idea of a city model that the world had not seen before. Surely the fact that Chicago was actually able to meet such challenges and build a utopia must have fulfilled it’s citizens with pride. It clearly marked their identity as a a city of makers, people who took on every task even if it was thought impossible elsewhere.

Steel-scapes The all-present exposed heavy structural steel gave Chicago its tough face. It was the ultimate materialization of a place of makers. People made steel and that steel made their city.

Bridges across Chicago’s water ways are made of heavy steel mechanisms. Some of the so-called rolling lift bridges reach to more than fifty yards (46 meters) in the sky when they are open. Steel roars on steel when the legendary EL-train passes by on its elevated ‘subway’ lines that are woven together to a single loop in Chicago’s Downtown, meanwhile it is spreading its steel tentacles far into the city’s periphery.

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Chicago Bridges. Image by John Connor

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An even more prominent example is the Inland Steel Building by the architecture firm SOM, the corporate face and headquarter of one of the premier American Midwest steel manufactures. It was the first tower to be built in Downtown Chicago after the Great Depression and the first building of its scale that presented stainless steel as a facade finish material.9 The Chicagoan architect Charles Braucher described to me how he experienced this building when he was a boy. During his childhood, stainless steel was a material only small objects such as silverware and some hand tools were made of. Seeing an entire building clad in this shining same material was a real spectacle, a sign of prosperity and power. And he added, there was this smell of steel, when the wind came from the south and blew the exhaust of the steel mills into the city. It represented the material that Inland Steel building stood for. Thousands of Chicago steel mill workers, as they used to be the makers of this material, had a relationship with the material like no one else in the city. They were the men who with their own hands poured the iron ore into the 2,500°F (1,371 °C) fire. They operated the gigantic machinery that rolled the glowing raw mass over and over until it became a mile long flat strip that got wound up into stainless steel sheet metal wraps, which is the facade finish material the Inland Steel building is clad with. This experience essentially contributed to what the Inland Steel building meant to the steel workers, when it was built in 1956/57. The presence of the stainless steel sheet metal facade that made the building so unique, represents this experience that steel workers and their families were identifying with.

Today, the Inland Steel Building, a mere rented out office building, remains but a shiny shell that has lost not only its original content but more so its meaning. Although the building still presents the steel it is made of, it no longer represents the place where its steel was made because the origin of its steel production, the Inland Steel plant, was closed down and no longer exists. With the exodus of the steel plants, the workers vanished from the cityscape, also causing the change of the relation of the Inland Steel Building to the city. The building was made of steel and it represents the experience of making steel. Today, this experience has largely been forgotten, but traces and remnants can still be seen. These traces are the symbols that encode a fundamental aspect of this city. The Inland Steel Building today represents the once heavy industrial

Inland Steel Building

metropolis that Chicago once was, and it stands there as a symbol of its past.

unthinkable at this time for two reasons; on the one hand glass panes of full storyheight were not available as an industrially The Power of Making manufactured product and on the other hand a high-rise building consisting of a In 1921, Mies van der Rohe participated structural system without peripheral in a competition with his design of his bearings had never been built before and Friedrichstrassen Skyscraper in Berlin. His therefore was not regarded as a considerable design proposal shows a high-rise building structural solution. The competition entirely cladded in glass, which until then, organizer, the Turmhaus-Aktiengesellschaft the world had not seen yet. During the selected exceptionally conservative building 1920’s, the state of the art in high-rise designs indicating conventional structural construction generally had exterior bearing systems and Mies’ fundamental innovative walls made of solid brick or bolted steel and certainly radical proposal did not even skeletons combined with brick shear walls. get short-listed.10 However, what might Accordingly, the only option to establish have appeared as unrealizable science window openings within such facade fiction to the Turmhaus-Aktiengesellschaft, systems was to build punched openings. A was regarded as a utopia by professionals. building skin entirely made of glass was Bruno Taut published some of the design made

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proposals in the magazine “Frühlicht.”

The 1920-1922 issue appeared under the title “An Episode for the Realization of the New Idea of Building.” 11 In this issue he praised Mies’ design proposal as one of the most conclusive design schemes that carried the idea of progressive urban development with a humanist agenda based on great spatial qualities.

Due to Germany’s disastrous economic situation none of the design proposals ever got built. Mies kept on studying the exterior application of glass as a building material but would have to wait for another some twenty-seven years until he would get his chance in Chicago.

As the new head of IIT’s College of Architecture, Mies had received the commission for designing and building the new campus of the university. The economic constraints caused by the Second World War helped him reduce the exterior appearance of his first campus buildings to be no more than a pure reinforced concrete skeleton, filled-in with brick and glass. However, at the same time, Mies not only found Chicago’s vast amount of structural steel products as a resource for building materials, but he also used the 860–880 Lake Shore Drive Apartments, Chicago

Railway Development. Image by Adam Newmann

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Water Ways

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Livestock Yards in Chicago, 1947

fearless mentality of Chicago’s builders, as they helped him to finally realize his vision for a tower made of glass. Once again, Chicagoans took on what had never been done before when they started constructing Mies’ design of 860–880 Lake Shore Drive Apartments in 1949. They were completed only two years later in 1951. Once again they realized what was thought of as a utopia but in fact, it became the prototype for the industrialization of the production process of making buildings. Mies had used Chicago’s large steel industry to his advantage by modularizing the structural system of his buildings. The repetition of his module allowed him to order large amounts of standard steel sections cut in pieces in a cookie cutter manner. Whereas conventional structures had to be entirely built on site, he relocated the production of all building parts off-site where they were produced in an industrialized premanufacturing plant. This new off-site pre-production process reduced the time and cost in comparison with the former on-site building assembly. A building type was born and with it the industrialization of building production that was going to determine the face of the city. An industrial

face of steel mullions and glass panes was going to replace the sooty brick walls and punch-hole openings of the past. Quickly, this prototype was exported into the world, opening up a new era of high-rise construction. Ever since, Chicago has kept the central position in the race of building the world’s tallest towers, either by constructing them locally or by having Chicago-based firms keep authorship over the tallest skyscrapers even if they might have been prefabricated elsewhere.

connected Chicago not only to major cities, but also gave access to the wheat fields and cattle meadows in the Illinois hinterland, as well as to the lumber mills in the Wisconsin forests. Factories were built for processing natural food commodities that were harvested in the West and transported via the new railway lines to Chicago. Daily, thousands of cattle were shipped into the city’s rapidly expanding stockyards, where they got slaughtered and further processed.

After refrigerated cars replaced salt as the main meat conservation agent, meat Steel Fields shipments to the East increased profoundly.14 By the 1880s Chicago had become the Chicago’s urban rapid development is closely largest railway hub in the US with more tied to its infrastructure and transportation than a quarter of its Downtown area covered growth. Located at the Chicago River, with train tracks. The southern and western Chicago is naturally one of the Great Lakes’ rail yards interfacing the trans-shipment port cities. With the opening of the Illinois centres along the port were surrounded by and Michigan Canal connecting the city the pounding rhythm of the steam through the Mississippi River to the Gulf locomotives, the strong smell of life stock, of Mexico, it already became in 1848, the and the sound of steel screeching on steel. nation’s main transportation, shipment and Their large open planes of rusty steel tracks warehouse centre.12 Chicago’s first rail line were made by men, working in the mills was built in the same year, quickly followed making steel. by the eastbound lines that ended in Chicago, and lines starting in Chicago going North During the 1950s, the importance of longand Westward.13 Soon, thirty-some lines distance intercity train lines were replaced made

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Southern Rail Yards

by faster jet-planes.15 At the same time, the expansion and improvement of highways and interstates caused mass transit to shift from local train lines to the private automobile as well as for cargo transportations to be more and more transferred to trucks. The inner-city train lines were exchanged with highways and automobile lanes so that more and more areas of Chicago’s rail yards lay to waste.

As cars became accessible to low-income classes, the victorious entry of the automobile traffic was inevitable. Cars were no longer only status symbols for individual freedom and wealth but they also stood for the realization of the American Dream.

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Driving around town in the back of his parents’ car Charles Braucher described how he used to be able to identify the different neighborhoods by their particular smells.

Chicago’s neighborhoods used to naturally develop around the different production industries and factories attracting the worker families that lived close by. The smell of the different factories and its goods were so strong and present that they contributed profoundly to the sensuality of each place.

Mr. Braucher emphasized that he had never perceived these smells as something disturbing. This phenomenon was a very attractive characteristic that gave its identity to each place. He remembers it as a wonderful sensation that gave him a very particular sense of orientation.

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The economic downturn during the 1970s and the Civil Right movement initiated social and racial riots in the city centre, causing Chicago’s middle class families to move out of the city centre into suburbs that grew along the city’s periphery.16 A loss of investments and the modernization of the factories and industrial plants reduced Chicago’s ability to compete internationally.

Step by step Chicago’s job generators lost their shares on the world market and finally closed their local businesses due to the outsourcing of their production plants to Asia. Thousands of workers lost their jobs and with them Chicago lost its prosperous spirit of production. During the 1980s Chicago’s city centre imploded turning into wasteland. Entire neighborhoods decayed, warehouses became empty shells and factories fell into ruins.

The vanishing of the factories and supply businesses had a profound impact on the identity of the city. With the fall of the steel production industry Chicago lost one of its essential origins: namely its “toughness.”

Today, the meaning of the still-present steel in the cityscape changed from being a product made by Chicagoans to a generic construction material. The particular connection between this material and Chicago’s steel workers has been lost.

The 1990s introduced the recent transition from an economy that used to have its 62

emphasis in the primary industrial sector of heavy production and processing machinery to an economy that now has its emphasis on the finance and service industry of the tertiary sector. This development created an enormous growth of prosperity and consequently a profound shift of the urban identity. The disappearance of primary industries reduced emissions causing the overall environment to be much cleaner. The inner-city attracted young middle class families to move back from the suburbs. The blue-collar culture of the past almost entirely disappeared. Today, one barely gets to hear the thick accent of Chicago’s working class.

Today, the white-collar mentality of a global economy determines the culture of the city.

Trading replaced the making. Entire warehouse districts got converted to lofts that became dwellings and offices. The river does not function anymore as a port, and Navy Pier was “remodeled” into an amusement park for tourists.

The southern rail yards that once covered about one quarter of Chicago’s Downtown area disappeared, replaced partly by urban developments along the southern bay of the Chicago River, and partly by the northern extension of Grand Park. The few remaining train lines got buried underneath one of the world’s largest green roofs, Millennium Park.

This mix of Neo-Baroque landscape overlaid with entertainment program mirrors in a nutshell what the identity of Chicago is today.

A majority of the contemporary developments present Neoclassical or plain facades made of brick veneer, hiding their structural steel skeletons. This “wallpaper-like” building method is very much reminiscent of the way Burnham’s exhibition pavilions were made.

Whereas Burnham’s pavilions where meant to be temporary structures, contemporary developments in Chicago are supposed to last. However, in reality many contemporary developments are planned only to stay off maintenance investments until they paid off their primary investment in an average term of seven years. This means these buildings stay intact just as long as the developers need to sell all the units and are not liable anymore for eventual repairs.

Whereas the all-present steel of Chicago’s industrial revolution used to reference the local culture of heavy industry, blue-collar society and makers, the contemporary neoclassical cityscape references a culture that has its origin elsewhere than in Chicago. These wallpaper-like Neoclassical brick veneer facades are much more comparable with packaging that is designed according to the latest marketing strategies. In this particular case, it is designed to pick up on a past, located in the Europe of the 19th century, suggesting old values such as durability, solidity and maybe a bit of nostalgia with a sense of the “good old times.” What determines this experiential shift of identity is essentially the disconnection between structure and shell, the disconnection between materiality and surface.

Warehouse converted to a condominium

Aerial comparison: Site of the Southern Rail Yards

This construction method stands in contrast to the well-established traditional means of building in Chicago. Chicago’s warehouses and dwelling buildings of the 19th century show their exterior bearing structure. The structure is as much part of the shell as the shell is part of the structure. One is integrated in the other. It is impossible to change the exterior appearance of such buildings without impacting their structural condition. Their exterior lets us sense their heaviness, solidity and durability. Their exterior appearance is generally still in great condition. It shows no significant signs of wear, merely some patina indicating that they have already existed for more than a century and will keep on resisting the tough climate of the Midwest for many more centuries to come. These buildings are what they seem to be: they are tough.

In contrast today, cladding and veneer facade systems are added onto the bearing elements of the structural system. Cladding and

Neoclassical brick veneer buildings made

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veneer systems do not function structurally; their function intends to protect the structure from weathering. This systemic exclusion of the structure from the shell reduces the thickness and weight of the exterior building skin drastically. The shell becomes easily exchangeable without affecting the building structure whatsoever, which causes the appearance of such buildings to transform to an extent that entire neighborhoods alter within a few years. Here, the focus is not aiming anymore on sustaining durability rather it is aiming on sustaining marketability. The product remains the same but its packaging gets adjusted to the demands and fashions that drive the overturn of the market. These buildings are meant to adopt their appearance to soft factors such as cultural, economic, stylistic and environmental changes. They are getting dressed, undressed, decorated and redecorated. The exchangeability of the shell makes the building adoptable to the forces of the market, similar to creatures that shed their skin in order to adapt to their environment.

Plain brick veneer buildings

Ironically, it had been two of Chicago’s most innovative architects that fostered this development. By systemically disconnecting structure and shell they contributed to this profound identity change of the city. As already mentioned, Burnham applied this technology to the design of his exhibition pavilions in 1893 and Mies van der Rohe further developed this system for industrial pre-production for the construction of his Lakeshore Apartment Towers. What started out as a temporary solution became status quo for the cityscape, driven by the supposedly inevitable and constantly changing demands and needs of our society. The shell became consumable, becoming an essential entity of capitalist society.

Conclusion What defines the identity of a place is neither the sole appearance of its cityscape nor its embedded materiality. Both the identity of the heavy industrial Chicago of the past as well as the post-industrial metropolis of today is defined by the relationship between population and their habitat. What matters are the factors which create an interface between us and the place we identify with.

Identity is determined by those experiences that shape our life as much as they shape the landscape of our city. It is the common denominator of habits, conventions,

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Building with structural exterior walls made of Chicago Common Brick

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traditions and values by which each of us lives that constitutes the self-determination of our society as much as it constitutes our impact on the shaping of the environment we live in.

The identity of a place such as a city is determined by the sensational state of being that a number of people not only have in common, but that they even share amongst each other. It determines them as it determines the place and it is this determination what creates this particular unity of people and place that we call identity.

Identity is a collective sensational state of being. Here, I am not referring to sensation as the spectacle, the outstanding event, the German “Erlebnis.” In relation to identity I am referring to sensation as a state of It is the sensitive matter of sensation in being, the continuity of experiencing (or identity that makes it very delicate and so better “sensationing”) us, to that which is ephemeral. Identity is anything but the matter of the whole flow of our lives, durable. Even strong and long-established the German “Erleben.” identities such as the toughness of Chicago’s industrial past that felt It is our sensation that establishes a ubiquitous and well-rooted has vanished continuous connection between us, ourselves away. However, there are long-lasting and our immediate environment. Reflexively, identities such as the life-earth connection it is the sensation that our environment of Cwmystwyth miners. It seems that such stimulates in us that determines ourself, our long-lasting identities get sustained by a being. Our sensational state of being allows certain feedback effect. In this particular us to reflect upon our own immediate case it is the land that gives the resources presence in our environment as much as it sustaining the existence of human beings. allows us to reflect upon the presence of our Through practicing their work, human immediate environment in us. beings build up their experiences and earn knowledge that opens up new methods “Being at home” is an example for such a and technologies for accessing further form of sensational state of being on an resources. There might even be a individual level. “Home” is not something proportional dependency between such that is determined by its physical cultural developments and identity. At the manifestation. “Home” is a sensational peak of a cultural development we speak state of being that is generated by of a high culture and surely we experienced experiences that are meaningful for us and such a cultural peak once our ancestors consequently determine who we are as had established the full industrialization much as it is determined by this particular of our environment. At this point the place that we call “home.” feedback effect came to an end. Today our

1 Simon Timberlake, Excavations on Copa Hill, Cwmystwyth (1986-1999) (British Archaeological Reports, 2003). pp. 12-16.

2 Wikipedia contributors, ‘Cwmystwyth Mines’, Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., 2012) <http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index. php?title=Cwmystwyth_Mines&oldid=491460174> [accessed 27 August 2012].

3 Wikipedia contributors, ‘River Ystwyth’, Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., 2012) <http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=River_ Ystwyth&oldid=470375795> [accessed 27 August 2012].

4 ‘PENMON FAMILY HISTORY AND RELATED TOPICS - CWMYSTWYTH MINING COMMUNITY’

<http://www.penmon.org/page36.htm> [accessed 16 October 2012].

5 Harold M. Mayer and Richard C. Wade, Chicago: Growth of a Metropolis (University Of Chicago Press, 1973). p. 193.

6 Erik Larson, The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed America (Vintage, 2004). p. 105.

7 Carl W. Condit, The Chicago School of Architecture: A History of Commercial and Public Building in the Chicago Area, 1875-1925 (University Of Chicago Press, 1998). p,21.

8 Larson. p.120.

9 Mayer and Wade. pp. 454-456.

Both, the replacement of the ‘immediate’ reference of the industrial past with repre sent at iona l referenc e s a nd entertainment environments, as well as the replacement of informal engineering driven design with formal market driven package design, lets us wonder what Chicago is about today. The sense, the atmosphere of its original industrial identity is lost. What remain are a certain nostalgic romanticism and the myth of toughness.

Once again in its relatively young history, Chicago managed to re-establish itself, put itself back on the map as a thriving, prosperous metropolis. The new course that Chicago took on already more than a decade ago puts it on the same map with other Global Cities, such as New York, Los Angeles, London, Hong Kong, Barcelona, Hamburg, etc. These are all port cities that attract expertise with their high-standards of clean, healthy, recreational inner-city life quality. It will be these high standards of urban living that will set the parameter for Chicago’s future development, requiring profound sustainable measures as much as the creation of a new vision and the establishment of new utopias.

10 Vittorio Magnago Lampugnani, Barry Bergdoll and Rosemarie Haag Bletter, Mies In Berlin, ed. by Terence Riley (The Museum of Modern Art, New York, 2002). pp. 42-44.

11 Bruno Taut, 1920 1922 Fruehlicht Eine Folge Fuer Die Verwirklichung Des Neuen Baugedankens, Bauwelt Fundamente (Berlin: ULLSTEIN, 1963), VIII. p. 124.

12 The Encyclopedia of Chicago, ed. by James R. Grossman, Ann Durkin Keating and Janice L. Reiff, 1st edn (University Of Chicago Press, 2004). p. 826.

13 Grossman, Keating and Reiff. p. 826.

14 Grossman, Keating and Reiff. p. 515.

15 Grossman, Keating and Reiff. p. 831.

16 Grossman, Keating and Reiff. p. 634.

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post-industrial society searches for the substance, the matter, which establishes new identities in the shadow of the strong and long-established identities of the industrial past of our cities and landscapes.

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Grand Paysage: Between Memory and Invention of Urban Voids in Transformation Cristian Suau

This article is part of a major current urban research project called ‘the EuroMediterranean Urban Voids Ecology’ (EMUVE1), an EU funded research project which is focused on the study and recovering of existing voids produced by current shrinking cities at the EuroMediterranean coastline. EMUVE is available at: http://issuu.com/cristiansuau/ docs/emuve_presentation Globally the remaking of post-industrial large areas –as complex and dynamic systems- involve fundamental alterations of the land. They are mostly based on pragmatic principles of rebuilding and transformation. Therefore, are there any embryonic landscapes that have been developed from industrial ruins? How can the European ‘Grand Paysage’ become an instrument of memory whilst open to changes and inventions?

Post-industrial large areas such as obsolete infrastructural ports and industries could be reactivated with radical eco-urban strategies as complex systems of social, environmental, economic, topological and symbolical relationships. EMUVE intends to develop a comparative research on several case studies mainly along the EuroMediterranean littoral.

The recycling of these Post‐industrial spaces could contribute to the regeneration of degraded lands into socio-productive and ecological landscapes. New recovering strategies should be found for the posteconomic crisis at the European landscape’s level. As result Infrastructural Landscape and Ecological Urbanism offer valuable guidelines to understand and explore radical urban reinventions and ecologic empowerment. The European Landscape Convention 2 (Florence, 2000) is a formidable design instrument to support regenerative strategies in brownfields or vacant regions.

This research reflects on design processes and techno-parks demonstrate novel visions of forms and meanings of paradigmatic urban and technological achievements or European post-industrial landscapes which unconditional celebrations of technological represent a new type of landscape progress. If we perceive World Fairs as characterised by large-scale interventions. It visionary urban spaces in continuous visits two distinctive European industrial development, then design strategies on places that have been transformed into ‘ densification’ and ‘infill re-development’ offer paradigmatic examples of landscape recovery. new outlooks for their transformation on all scales. So how can we protect and Spain and Germany led some of the most transform the modern urban space of significant examples of post-industrial World Fair as resilient green voids? For landscape design in Europe a few decades instance, the urban legacy of the World ago, setting examples that have been followed Fairs in Barcelona during 1888 and 1929 in most regions across Europe. A comparative needed a dynamic definition that envision case study of Zollverein in Essen (UNESCO future uses and mediated between listed site) and Barcelona (port and industrial preservation and development: urban parks. exhibitions) was broadly debated in the past These post-event parks in Barcelona are conference called ‘Post Industrial still the urban catalysts that trigger the Transformations’ (November, 2011) led by current processes of urban development Mhairi McVicar. My presentation is available along the renewed port areas. at: http://issuu.com/cristiansuau/docs/post_ industrial_landscape_cs These chosen examples have not adopted the principle of tabula rasa or erasure but Zollverein in Essen, Germany are able to evoke the past whilst metamorphosing towards the future. What As part of the IBA Emscher Park project, as should we repair instead? Mass or void? landscape intervention extended along an Should we densify inwards or outwards industrial coal-mining wasteland of high- the voids’ boundaries? polluted terrain, along with colossal facilities, still intact, including factories, blast furnaces, The common design strategy was to ‘protect refrigerator towers and smoke stacks. Their the destruction’ 3 by renewing the site while recovery method was to reinterpret and preserving their uniqueness of structures restore the abandoned site of its lucidity to and forms, and enhancing the new prolong both cultural and leisure time use. ecologies that have established on each site.

They repaired the damaged soil wherever Here the applied design strategies were they could or put it in ‘quarantine’. This new twofold: remaking each site by revealing park was conceived in conjunction with the memory, and reinventing the context. local residents, extending to the adjacent residential blocks, free admission and open 1 Marie Curie Actions: Intra-European Fellowships all year. It converted an ecological disaster (IEF), FP7-PEOPLE-2012-IEF, Proposal No 331084 and acronym: EMUVE. Dr Suau is the current scientist in into a fecund and astute contemporary charge/coordinator and Dr Wulff is the fellow. The full digital version of EMUVE is available at: http://issuu. ‘urban attractor’.

Barcelona, Spain: Industrial Exhibitions and Port World Fairs are related to the industrial capacities of cities. These temporary

com/cristiansuau/docs/emuve_presentation.

2 The ‘European Landscape Convention’ promotes the protection, management and planning of European landscapes and organises European co-operation on landscape issues. Refer to: http://www.coe.int/t/dg4/ cultureheritage/heritage/Landscape/default_en.asp.

3 Beard, P. Peter Latz, Poet of Pollution (1996): London, Blueprint 130, p 35.

(left) Grand Paysage: Transformation of urban voids in the industrial wasteland of Essen (top) and the former port industrial areas of Barcelona (bottom). Source: Suau, 2013 made

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Facade-integrated Vegetation as an Environmental Sustainable Solution for Energy-efficient Buildings Irina Susorova and Payam Bahrami Introduction For centuries, vertical vegetation was used in building construction to shade building walls and atriums, to shield buildings from wind, and to cultivate agricultural plants.

Many countries with hot climates carry on the tradition to grow vines along building perimeters and above atria to shade the facade from excessive sun exposure and to cool the air. In castles and palaces of medieval Europe, it was also common to grow ornamental plants and fruit tree espaliers along the walls of internal courtyards to provide shade and to grow fruits and vegetables in limited horizontal space. In the building practices of the Vikings, building roofs and facades were clad with turf, a top layer of soil consisting of grass and roots. Such turfclad facades were well-insulated against severe cold weather conditions. A similar building practice was spread throughout the Northern Midwest prairies of the United States and Canada, where the first pioneers built houses from sod, stacking layers of prairie topsoil on top of each other to form building walls. Although sod provided great insulation, it was not a good structural material due to its susceptibility to water damage from rain - the main reason why there are so few remaining examples of sod houses.

The energy consciousness and sustainability movement at the end of the twentieth century brought a new wave of interest in using vertical vegetation in building construction. In recent years, building designers have been promoting the integration of plants into building envelopes. Although green roofs covered with layers of vegetation have long been prominent features of buildings in many cities, green walls that integrate plants into buildingsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; vertical elements are still a relatively new feature in contemporary architecture. Such facade-integrated vegetation systems can be added to existing

Two-dimensional green facade system Source: Irina Susorova

Three-dimensional green facade system. Source: Irina Susorova

(left) Example of a green facade: ivy climbing along a building wall. Source: Irina Susorova made

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Example of a living wall: vertical garden on the facade of The Driver restaurant, London, designed by Patrick Blanc. Source: Irina Susorova

exterior walls or incorporated as a part of the exterior wall assembly in new construction. Green walls, which include green facades, living walls, vertical gardens, hanging gardens, bioshaders, and biofacades, are becoming important devices for building designers who include them into facades of commercial, residential, and public buildings with great imagination.

In addition to their striking visual effect, green walls increase building energy efficiency by reducing energy consumption, mitigating the urban heat island effect, and creating natural habitat areas in cities.1 Multiple studies have demonstrated the positive effect of facade-integrated vegetation on reducing heat transfer through building envelopes, and therefore on building heating and cooling energy consumption and energy cost.

Green Wall Typology

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The main elements of green walls are plants, planting media, structures that support and attach plants to the facade, and the irrigation system. Depending on what plant species, planting media, and support structures are used, one can distinguish

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multiple types of green walls, which are broadly categorized into green facades and living walls.2 A green facade is a system of steel, wood, or plastic trellises externally attached to a building facade where plants are supported by horizontal, vertical, or diagonal trellis members. Climbing plants and vines used in green facades grow from planters located on the ground or at some intervals along the facade height. Green facades can be two-dimensional, formed by cables, ropes, and meshes, or three-dimensional, formed by rigid frames and cages. An example of green facade use in architecture is the Edificio Consorcio in Santiago de Chile designed by the Chilean architects Enrique Brown and Borja Huidobro (1993), whose southwest glass exterior wall is shaded by an almost 3,000 m² area of trellises.3 A living wall is a system in which vegetation is not only attached to a building facade but is fully integrated into the facade construction where plants and planting media are both placed on the vertical surface of exterior walls. Plants are pregrown in containers on the ground or 70

grown directly in planting media on exterior walls. Typically, living walls are separated from the facade surface by a layer of waterproof membrane intended to protect the rest of the facade construction from unwanted moisture. Living walls have built-in horizontal or vertical automated drip irrigation systems installed behind planting media, which can be accompanied by rain sensors. There are multiple variations of living walls including vegetated mats, hanging pockets, and modular systems.

Vegetated mat living walls consist of fabric layers attached to a rigid back up layer.

Pre-grown plants are inserted into holes cut in fabric, where they establish their root system in between the layers that serve as a planting medium. Vegetated mats are a hydroponic system because no planting medium is used and nutrients are delivered to plant roots through water from irrigation pipes installed behind fabric layers. This living wall system was invented by French botanist Patrick Blanc who has designed green walls for multiple building facades around the world. The examples of his works include an eight-story tall living wall of the Athenaeum Hotel in London which

Living wall of the Athenaeum Hotel in London, the UK. Source: Irina Susorova made

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covers approximately 260 m 2 , 4 and a vegetated facade of the Musée du Quai Branly in Paris. Similar to vegetated mats, hanging pocket living walls consist of pocket-shaped fabric containers attached to a rigid back-up layer. Plants are rooted in these felt or plastic containers that are filled with planting medium.

Modular living walls, made of rigid rectangular containers that are filled with planting media, can be attached to an exterior wall or be free-standing. The containers are manufactured of metal or lightweight structural plastic and can be shaped as framed boxes, wire cages, or solid boxes with pre-cut holes. Sometimes the containers are subdivided into smaller individual cells placed perpendicular or angled to a container’s back wall. Modular living walls can also be made of a series of troughs or horizontal mini-planters stacked vertically. Plants are grown directly in containers that are filled with soil, inorganic planting media, or natural fiber.

The tallest modular living wall in North America, measuring 220 m², is installed on a 30-story facade of the PNC building in Pittsburgh.5

Vegetated mat living wall system. Source: Irina Susorova

Green wall types extend well beyond green facades and living walls, and can include exterior walls covered with a layer of moss or grass, and even whole trees. Examples of moss and grass-clad exterior walls include facades created by Dutch designer Oasegroen and British visual artists Ackroyd and Harvey. A fascinating green wall example, featuring trees grown twodimensionally along the exterior walls, is the facade of the Holiday Houses in Jupilles, France, designed by French architect Edouard Francois.

Hanging pockets living wall system. Source: Irina Susorova

The Effect of Green Walls on Energy Efficiency

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Modular living wall system shaped as framed boxes. Source: Irina Susorova

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The energy efficiency of green walls lies in their ability to affect heat transfer between a building’s interior and exterior environment. The main exterior factors affecting heat transfer though a building’s facade are solar and thermal radiation from the atmosphere and the ground, air temperature, relative humidity, and wind speed. Plants and some other elements of green walls, such as planting media or support structures, decrease the effects of these weather factors on the exterior wall surface, which causes a reduction in heat transfer through the facade and, as a result, a decrease in heating and cooling energy consumption.

A layer of plants intercepts a fraction of total radiation incident on leaves, reflects some radiation, and transmits the rest of it to the exterior wall behind it. The amount of radiation transmitted through the plants decreases exponentially with leaf density and the thickness of a vegetation layer.6 Vegetation also effectively blocks wind by significantly decreasing its speed as it passes through dense foliage. In conditions of reduced air movement, a layer of almost still air formed around plant leaves and branches serves as an additional layer of thermal insulation. A study from Princeton University, in which a wind tunnel test was conducted for a building model with a row of trees placed in front of its exterior walls, found that trees and hedges could be even more effective in blocking wind than solid barriers because the porous structure of vegetation helps distribute wind pressure on facades more evenly.7 Temperature of the facade surface behind a plant layer is lower than that of a bare facade since it is exposed to less radiation.

As a result, the thermal resistance of the whole exterior wall assembly increases because the difference in temperatures between the exterior and interior surfaces is lower than that of a bare facade. The thermal resistance of an air film at the exterior facade surface also increases due to reduced air movement near the facade surface behind vegetation. Thus, a plant layer on a building facade, shades the exterior wall behind it from the sun, shields it from wind, and generally acts as an additional layer of thermal insulation.

Other materials used in green wall systems can also contribute to the improved thermal performance of the facade, such as organic and inorganic planting media, which also have good insulating properties.

Modular living wall system shaped as wire cages. Source: Irina Susorova

Modular living wall system shaped as perforated boxes. Source: Irina Susorova

Studies on Facade-integrated Vegetation and Building Energy Efficiency Studies of the effects of facade-integrated vegetation on building energy efficiency first appeared in the late 1980s, and since then, interest in this topic has been steadily increasing with research conducted in Asia, Europe, and North America.

An early study by Hoyano investigated the cooling effect of plants on a buildingâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s exterior walls in Tokyo by conducting two experiments using real buildings.8 In the first experiment, two recessed windows of a concrete building facing south-west were compared. The first window was left free

Modular living wall system shaped as boxes with cells. Source: Irina Susorova made

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ambient air temperatures, vegetation surface temperature, facade surface temperature behind vegetation, and interior surface temperature of a room were measured. The facade surface temperature was considerably lower where it was covered with vegetation, especially in warm days. The temperature of the facade surface behind the vegetation was 1.9°C to 8.3°C lower (average 5.7°C) than the surface temperature of the bare facade.

Modular living wall system shaped as troughs. Source: Irina Susorova

of vegetation while the second window had an ivy-covered screen in front of it. As a part of the experiment, the researcher measured the ambient air temperature, surface temperature of vegetation, solar radiation on and behind the vegetation, and relative humidity. The solar radiation incident on the window behind the ivy screen was 25% lower than that on the window with no screen. The ambient air temperature at the screened window was 1°C-3°C lower than at the window with no screen. The study also showed that the presence of a vegetated screen significantly impairs the effect of cross ventilation used as a passive cooling technique. In the second experiment, two west-facing building facades were compared, one bare and the other completely covered in ivy.

The ambient air temperature, surface temperature of vegetation, temperatures of the interior and exterior facade surfaces, indoor room temperature, solar radiation on and behind the vegetation, and heat flow through the façade were measured.

The surface temperature of the vegetationcovered facade was 10°C lower than that of the bare facade. The heat flow through the facade was reduced from 200 kcal/m²h at the bare facade to 50 kcal/m²h at the vegetation-covered facade.

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A study by Di and Wang evaluated how vegetation affects building thermal performance.9 The researchers used the west facade of a two-story brick building in

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Beijing, where the area of the facade densely covered with ivy was compared with the bare facade area. The researchers measured solar radiation, ambient air temperature, vegetation surface temperature, exterior facade surface temperature, indoor air temperature, relative humidity, and wind speed at the facade. The experiment showed that during the day the temperature of the plant surface was 4.5°C lower than that of the bare facade and 8.2°C higher than the temperature of the facade surface behind the plants. At night, the bare facade surface temperature was 4°C higher than that of the plant-covered facade. The heat flux measured at the exterior surface on the vegetation-covered facade was 50% lower than that on the bare facade during the day and slightly lower at night. The heat flux measured at the interior surface of the vegetation-covered facade was much lower (0 W/m² on average and maximum 8.16 W/m²) than the heat flux of the bare facade (average 2.045 W/m² and maximum11.38 W/m²) during the day and slightly lower at night. In total, the building peak cooling load was reduced by 28%.

Eumorfopoulou et al. evaluated the effects of wall vegetation on thermal behavior of the east facade of a five-story brick building in Thessaloniki, Greece, with a glazing area equal to 15% of the floor area.10 The vegetation-covered area on the second floor was compared with the bare area on the third floor. The outdoor and indoor 74

A study by Wong et al. tested different types of vegetated wall systems to evaluate their effects on building thermal performance.11 Full-scale wall mockups replicating nine types of green facades and living walls were installed in the HortPark in Singapore. The mockups included the following vegetated facade types: (wall 1) modular living wall panels with vertical interface and mixed substrate, (wall 2) modular trellis facade, (wall 3) grid and modular living wall with vertical interface and mixed substrate, (wall 4) modular living wall panels with vertical interface and inorganic substrate, (wall 5) planter living wall panels with angled interface and green roof substrate, (wall 6) framed mini planters with horizontal interface and soil substrate, (wall 7) vertical mosstile living wall with vertical interface and inorganic substrate, and (wall 8) plant cassette living wall with horizontal interface and soil substrate. The planted side of the mockups represented the exterior wall face. The nine green wall types were compared with a bare wall without vegetation. The temperature of the facade surface under vegetation, surface temperature of the substrate, ambient air temperature (at 0.15, 0.30, and 0.60 m from the facade), and relative humidity were measured. The results showed that all green wall systems caused a significant temperature reduction of the facade surface behind the plants compared to the bare wall with the largest reduction during the day. The highest maximum surface temperature reduction was in walls 3 and 4 and reached 11.58°C and 10.94°C; walls 1, 5, and 8 experienced a 9.27°C, 10.03°C, and 10.03°C maximum reduction; and walls 6 and 7 had a 6.85°C and 7.13°C maximum reduction. Wall 2 (modular trellis) had a 4.36°C maximum temperature reduction. The study concluded that the largest exterior facade surface temperature reduction occurred in green wall systems with the densest vegetation. The results also showed that vegetated facades lower the ambient air temperature up to 3.33°C.

Recent research by Perini et al. studied the effects of green walls on wind speed and temperature reduction.12 Three different green wall systems in the Netherlands were monitored for two months in summer.

These systems included a vine-covered northwest facade and two types of modular living walls incorporated into northeast and west exterior walls. The results showed that the surface temperature of the plantcovered facade is lower than that of the bare facade by an average of 1.20°C for the vine-covered northwest facade, 2.73°C for the northeast-facing living wall type, and 3.85°C for the west-facing living wall type.

The green walls decreased wind speed near exterior walls by 0.43 m/s for the vinecovered facade, 0.55 m/s for the first living wall type, and 0.15 m/s for the second living wall type.

facade surfaces shaded by the plant screen was on average 5.5°C lower that of the facade exposed to the direct sun. The results of the experimental studies are summarized below.

The latest study by Peréz et al. investigated the effects of a vertical vine-covered screen placed 0.8-1.5 m in front of the northwest, southwest, and southeast facades of a building in Lleida, Spain.13 The study measured exterior illuminance, ambient air temperature, facade surface temperature, relative humidity, and wind speed. The results showed that the temperature of the

Conclusion

Author and year

Description

Location

Hoyano, 1988

Vine-covered Tokyo, Japan screen in front of a window

Over the last 30 years, interest in the positive role of vegetation, attributed to rising environmental awareness and the sustainable architecture movement, led to much research on integration of plants and building elements. Various studies have investigated the role of plants in improving

Climate

Orientation

Duration and Decrease period in air temperature

Cooling Decrease in facade surface savings temperature (%)

humid subtropical

SW

a few summer days

13°C -15°C

1°C -3°C

W

Plant-covered building facade

10°C

Beijing, China humid continental

W

1 month (Jun.)

Eumorfopoulou, Plant-covered 2009 building facade

Thessaloniki, Greece

semi-arid

E

1 month (Jul.-Aug.)

Wong, 2010

Mockups of 9 green wall types

Singapore

tropical

S

3 days in Feb., 3.33°C Apr., and Jun.

1.1°C-11.58°C

Perini, 2011

Vine-covered building facade

Delft, Netherlands

oceanic

NW

1 month (Sep.-Oct.)

0.12°C

1.20°C

Living wall type 1

Rotterdam, Netherlands

NE

0.17°C

2.73°C

Living wall type 2

Benthuizen, Netherlands

W

(0.85°C)

3.85°C

Di, 1999

Peréz, 2011

Plant-covered building facade

Vine-covered Lleida, Spain screen in front of a building facade

arid

NW, SW, SE 6 months (Apr.-Sep.)

8.2°C

1°C-2°C

28%

1.9°C-8.3°C

5.5°C

Overview of experiment-based studies: the effects of facade-integrated vegetation on building thermal performance. Source: Irina Susorova made

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Living wall of the Sportplaza Mercator in Amsterdam. Source: Marshall Gerometta

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building thermal performance and mitigating the urban heat island effect for buildings with vegetation-covered roofs; however, few studies have been dedicated to vegetation incorporated into building facades. The research was done for a wide variety of evergreen and deciduous plants present in urban landscape in different forms: street trees and shrubs, live fences, trellises with wall-climbing plants, and green walls.

The principal objective of most green wall studies was to research various ways in which vegetation affects building thermal performance and energy consumption.

Experimental and simulation research models ranged from a segment of an exterior wall to a room with one thermal zone, and from a one-story building to a 10-story building with multiple thermal zones. To evaluate the effects of vegetation, all studies compared a model with a vegetation-covered facade to a base model without plants. The measured parameters varied from study to study and usually included outside air temperature; inside air

1 Steven W. Peck, Chris Callaghan, Monica E. Kuhn, and Brad Bass, Greenbacks From Green Roofs: Forging A New Industry in Canada (Canada Morgage and Housing Corporation, 1999).

2 Nigel Dunnett and Noel Kingsbury, Planting Green Roofs and Living Walls (Portland: Timber Press, 2010).

3 Giuliano Pastorelli, ‘Edificio Consorcio Sede Santiago’, in Plataforma Arquitectura <http://www. plataformaarquitectura.cl/2009/01/21/edificio-consorciosede-santiago-enrique-browne-borja-huidobro/> [accessed on 27 October 2012].

4 ‘10 Clever Urban Gardens’, in Mother Nature Network <http://www.mnn.com/your-home/organicfarming-gardening/photos/10-clever-urban-gardens/theathenaeum-hotel> [accessed on 27 October 2012] 5 Alan Aldinger, ‘PNC Unveils Largest Green Wall in North America’, in PNC <http://www2.prnewswire.

temperature; exterior facade surface temperature; interior facade surface temperature; heat flux through the facade; heating load; cooling load; peak heating and cooling load; overall annual consumption; annual energy cost; and reduction in building energy use and cost for different climate zones, building types, construction types, orientations, and plant species. The majority of research tested the effects of vegetation on building facades during relatively short periods of time - on average one month in experimental-based and one year in simulation-based studies.

Overall, experimental studies showed significant improvements in energy performance when plants were used on building envelopes: facade surface temperature was decreased by an average of 8°C, ambient air temperature near the facade by an average of 2°C, interior room temperature by an average of 3°C, and cooling energy consumption by an average of 24%.

The positive role of facade-integrated vegetation is a versatile research topic

com/mnr/pncgreenwall/40156/> [accessed on 27 October 2012] 6 Gaylon S. Campbell and John M. Norman, An Introduction to Environmental Biophysic, 2nd edn. (New York: Springer, 1998).

7 G. E. Mattingly and E. F. Peters, ‘Wind and Trees: Air Infiltration Effects on Energy in Housing’, Journal of Industrial Aerodynamics, 2 (1977), pp 1-19.

8 Akira Hoyano, ‘Climatological Uses of Plants for Solar Control and The Effects on The Thermal Environment of A Building’, Energy and Buildings, 11 (1988), pp 181-199.

9 H. F. Di and D. N. Wang, ‘Cooling Effect of Ivy on A Wall’, Experimental Heat Transfer, 12 (1999), pp 235-245.

10 E. A. Eumorfopoulou and K. J. Kontoleon, ‘Experimental Approach to The Contribution of PlantCovered Walls to The Thermal Behaviour of Building

Envelopes’, Building and Environment, 44 (2009), pp 1024-1038.

11 Nyuk Hien Wong, Alex Yong Kwang Tan, Yu Chen, Kannagi Sekar, Puay Yok Tan, Derek Chan, Kelly Chiang, and Ngian Chung Wong, ‘Thermal Evaluation of Vertical Greenery Systems for Building Walls’, Building and Environment, 45 (2010), pp 663-672.

12 Katia Perini, Marc Ottelé, A. L. A. Fraaij, E. M. Haas, and Rosanna Raiteri, ‘Vertical Greening Systems and The Effect on Air Flow and Temperature on The Building Envelope’, Building and Environment, 46 (2011), pp 2287-2294.

13 Gabriel Peréz, Lídia Rincón, Anna Vila, Josep M. González, and Luisa F. Cabeza, ‘Green Vertical Systems for Buildings as Passive Systems for Energy Savings´, Applied Energy, 88 (2011), 4854-4859.

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because, in addition to improving energy per forma nce, vegetation of fsets greenhouse gases, reduces the urban heat island effect, improves air quality, and increases the biodiversity of plants and animals in cities. However, despite a great number of green wall products and built examples, very few buildings use vegetation with the specific goal of improving building energy efficiency. In general, the popularity of green walls may be mostly attributed to their aesthetic properties rather than to their use in energy-conserving strategies. Even though multiple studies have investigated the effects of vegetation on building thermal performance, there is still a lack of experimental data obtained by monitoring actual buildings and measuring their thermal performance over a long period of time. More detailed research must be done to assess how much vegetation a f fect s a mbient a ir temperature, solar radiation, wind velocity, heat transfer through facades, overall building energy consumption, and energy cost.

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Regional Energy Transitions: Pathways to Hydrogen Infrastructure in South Wales Nick Hacking The potential for new forms of energy to transform post-industrial landscapes is very real. Research in innovation studies suggests that the emergence of a “cheap, almost universally available input, characterized by rapidly falling costs, that potentially can be used in many sectors of the economy … may have very pervasive effects”.1

The country’s federalist structure is key.

Not only does regional activity in H&FCs benefit from historically close industryacademia links, but there are national and regional funding programmes. In North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW), there is a true H&FC cluster centred on the Ruhr. With around 350 related companies, infrastructure funds comevia the national Konjunkturpaket II economic stimulus package. This solves the chicken-and-egg problem by kick-starting the construction of hydrogen filling stations. There is a ‘hydrogen highway’ planned in the Ruhr.

Regionally, regeneration policies in NRW are pushing the area away from its historic reliance on coal production and further into renewables. Fiscal measures include startup support and attracting foreign investment in R&D and manufacture.

When modelling energy transitions at the regional level, significant barriers to change are evident. These include price, path dependency, the cost of new infrastructure, and the chicken-and-egg nature of infrastructural deployment.

Despite such barriers, transnational original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) in the automotive sector and transnational energy producers have longterm corporate strategies for renewable energy transitions. Since the 1990s, this has also included hydrogen and fuel cells This potential energy transition is not all rosy. There are still problems for all German (H&FCs).2 regions trading in H&FCs given a declining Germany leads Europe in making an engineering skills base, the squeezing of energy transition towards the greater use funding by some foreign-owned companies, of H&FCs and in exploring how this can and the fact that federal funds for be linked to regeneration. Aware of the hydrogen and fuel cells will stop in 2016. long-term strategic direction taken by its Nevertheless, the evidence so far suggests leading automotive OEMs, the federal that H2 Mobility and Konjunkturpaket II government signed a Memorandum of are helping Germany to meet Europe’s low Understanding (MOU) in 2009. This is carbon targets for 2050 and simultaneously helping roll out more H&FC products boost its domestic economy. and infrastructure. The MOU is linked to a federal ‘H 2 Mobility’ programme, a Could a similar vision be replicated for coordinated cross-sectoral approach to South Wales’ post-industrial landscape? bringing out mass-produced hydrogen-, The region is a strong potential base for and hydrogen-electric-powered vehicles hydrogen and fuel cell (H&FC) activity. by 2015. It is a bold vision that has helped There is significant research undertaken at align actors and de-risk funding via the University of Glamorgan, plus a number public-private partnerships. For example, of regional H&FC demonstration projects Germany is committed to 500 hydrogen in the past with both linked to a number filling stations by 2015, rising to 1,000 of nationally-based entrepreneurs who are in the marketplace. In terms of governance, by 2017.

the newly devolved Welsh Assembly Government (WAG) began overtly pursuing policies based upon sustainable development in 1999. The automotive component sector in South Wales, made up of 200 or so national and regional OEMs, was already a priority. Livelihoods and communities are very much dependent upon renewed growth and thanks to very active advisory work by the University of Glamorgan, the idea of moving towards a regional hydrogen economy has remained on the table throughout the 2000 sas a technological option. However, a planned national regeneration policy instrument known as a Low Carbon Economic Areas (LCEA) hasn’t yet taken off yet, and a new national transport study known as ‘UK H2 Mobility’ is not expected to report on private H&FC interest before the end of 2012.

Thus, without a top-down, politicallysanctioned vision, as in Germany, prospects for an economic transition based on H&FCs do not look as strong.

The UK also has shorter-term trading horizons on its capital markets, persistent under-resourcing and under-valuation of education and training, and less effective institutional links between academia, industry, development agencies and local planning authorities (LPAs). Also, while the car industry is strong, it lacks home-grown R&D. This appears to be why Whitehall historically has failed to strategically support H&FCs. Instead, national policy makers have largely focussed on the shorterterm roll out of electric vehicles. While energy can help transform post-industrial landscapes, currently in Wales, a more longterm vision combining a lead from central government and delivery via devolved regional government is required.

1 Fagerberg, J. (2003), Schumpeter and the revival of evolutionary economics: an appraisal of the literature, Journal of Evolutionary Economics, 13(2), 139.

2 Fuel cells are electrochemical devices that produce clean energy from chemical reactions. Energy can be stored in hydrogen, just one chemical that can be used with fuel cells.

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The Tallest 20 in 2020: Entering the Era of the Megatall Nathaniel Hollister and Antony Wood It is also useful to understand the tallest 20 in 2020 in the context of global tall building trends. The average height of these twenty buildings is predicted to be 598 meters (1,962 feet). Yet, as we stand at the end of 2011, there are actually only What is perhaps the most interesting aspect 61 buildings currently in existence over of the study is that the previous world’s 300 meters (the threshold for “supertall”). tallest mentioned above now barely make Until recently, in fact, the completion of the list at all. In just two decades Petronas a supertall was rather a rare occurrence, will have gone from 1st to 27th tallest in the with only 15 supertalls completing in the world, and Taipei 101 just scrapes into the 65 years between the world’s first such study in 18th place. When we take into building (New York’s Chrysler Building, account that new projects not included in 1930) and 1995. It was only in the mid this study will surely be announced and 1990s that it became common for more built throughout the next decade, one can than one supertall to be added to the lists predict that, with the exception of the Burj annually, with 1995 being the last year Khalifa and Makkah Royal Clock Tower, when no supertalls were completed. Now, all of the tallest 20 buildings in the year less than two decades later, the number As we started the 21st century, just 11 short 2020 are not yet built (though a number of supertalls completed annually has entered double digits, and is set to years ago, the Petronas Towers held the title are already under construction).1 continue to rise. Meanwhile, the number of “The World’s Tallest” at 452 meters (1,483 feet) in height. Taipei 101 took the title in The tremendous change that the tall of megatalls set to complete in the 2004, at 508 meters (1,667 feet).Then, at building industry has seen in two decades upcoming decade is similar to the number the end of the decade; the Burj Khalifa set is clearly shown by a juxtaposition of three of supertalls completed in the 90s. In new standards at 828 meters (2,717 feet) – skylines: the tallest 20 buildings in the year terms of height, therefore, 600 m seems to be the new 300 m. over half a mile high. Now, with work set 2000, 2010, and 2020.

Within this decade we will likely witness not only the world’s first kilometer-tall building, but also the completion of a significant number of buildings over 600 meters (around 2,000 feet) – that’s twice the height of the Eiffel Tower. Two years ago, prior to the completion of the Burj Khalifa, this building type did not exist.

And yet, by 2020, we can expect at least eight such buildings to exist internationally.

The term “supertall” (which refers to a building over 300 meters in height) is thus no longer adequate to describe these buildings: we are entering the era of the “megatall.” This term is now officially being used by the Council to describe buildings over 600 meters in height, or double the height of a supertall.

to start on-site in January 2012 for Jeddah’s 1,000+ meter Kingdom Tower, we can expect that in a mere two decades (2000– 2020) the height of the “World’s Tallest Building” will have more than doubled.

(above) The projected 20 tallest buildings in 2020, all of which are over 500 meters and eight can be classified as “megatall” (600 meters) Credit: © Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (left) The world’s tallest is set to change yet again in 2018 with the completion of Jeddah’s Kingdom Tower Credit: © Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture made

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Status, location, and use of the “Tallest 20 in 2020” Credit: © Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat

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Not only increasing in height, the “Tallest 20 in 2020” also demonstrates diversity in project location not previously seen in the world’s tallest 20. The projects are scattered across 15 cities in 7 countries. China, with 10 of the 20 projects, clearly stands out as the country most rapidly pursuing the supertall, followed by South Korea (3),

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Saudi Arabia (2), and the UAE (2). If we analyze via a larger geographic region, however, the picture becomes even more pronounced. Asia (not including the Middle East) accounts for 70% of the buildings (14). The Middle East counts for 25% (5). The only other region to be represented in the study is North America, 82

where New York’s One World Trade Center is the only tower in the western hemisphere to make the study. If we consider the Middle East as part of continental Asia, then Asia contains 19 of the 20 projects, certainly added impetus to the CTBUH 9th World Congress which took place in Shanghai in September 2012

Skyline comparison of the tallest 20 buildings in 2000, 2010, and 2020 Credit: Š Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat

Supertall and megatall building completion showing a significant projected increase Credit: Š Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat made

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The Ping An Finance Center will become Chinaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s tallest building Credit: Š Kohn Pedersen Fox

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Shanghai Tower will complete a trio of skyscrapers in the Pudong district Credit: © Gensler

on the theme of “Asia Ascending: Age of the Sustainable Skyscraper City.”

With over 1.3 billion citizens and a rapidly urbanizing population, China is perhaps the country with the most obvious reason for building tall. The ten Chinese projects show great diversity in location, spread across seven cities: Shenzhen (2), Shanghai (2), Tianjin (2), Wuhan (1), Guangzhou (1), Dalian (1), and Taipei2 (1). The tallest of these, Shenzhen’s Ping An Finance Center, is now under construction and scheduled to complete in 2015. Once complete, the project will provide over 300,000 m 2 of office space and become the country’s tallest building and the world’s tallest office building. Also in China, the 632-meter (2,073 feet) mixeduse Shanghai Tower will complete a supertall cluster in the city’s Pudong area, as it sits alongside the Shanghai World Financial Center and the Jin Mao Building.

The Shanghai Tower’s unique dual-skin design provides atrium space containing “gardens in the sky” between the skins every 12 – 15 stories. The project began

construction in 2009 and is scheduled to complete in 2014.

has two additional projects in the works which have not yet received planning permission, and thus not included in the 2020 study (the 620-meter Triple One and the 540-meter Hyundai Global Business Center). This means that Seoul could potentially contain as many as four of the tallest 20 buildings in 2020.

South Korea, a country with a population about 1/25th that of China but twice as dense by area, contains a somewhat surprising three of the 20 projects, two of which are located in Seoul. There are many reasons for this dramatic increase in supertall construction in South Korea, a Where can we expect the next nucleus of country that has never had a single building tall building construction globally? The within the world’s tallest 20 and is now on Signature Tower Jakarta perhaps predicts the verge of having several. Perhaps the the answer to this question. Indonesia’s foremost reason is a general feeling that current tallest building is Wisma 46, Korean cities lack the “iconic” or “landmark” completed in 1996 at a height of 262 meters buildings that many world-class cities – less than half the height of the proposed contain. Seoul’s tallest planned building Signature Tower. Much of South and is the 640-meter (2,101 feet) Seoul Light Southeast Asia in fact, including Indonesia, DMC Tower, located at the western edge India, and Vietnam seem ready to become of the city overlooking the Han River. The one of the next centers of skyscraper tower will implement power generation construction. Together, the three countries strategies to reduce the building’s energy listed above represent nearly a quarter of usage by around 65%. Seoul is also home the world’s population and yet contain no to the now-under-construction Lotte World supertall buildings and a total of only four Tower, a 555-meter (1,819 feet) supertall buildings over 250 meters. Signature Tower scheduled to complete in 2015. Besides is therefore seen to herald the coming of these two significant buildings, the city the supertall to these countries. Excavation made

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Seoul Light DMC Tower will become a landmark for the city’s skyline Credit: © SOM | Giroud Pichot

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for the project is set to begin during the first quarter of 2012. Another significant project in this area, Mumbai’s planned 700-meter India Tower, was not included in this study as construction has stopped, and final completion is therefore not predictable. However, the presence of these two possible megatall projects point to the dramatic potential of this area.

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Five of the Tallest 20 in 2020 projects are located in three countries in the Middle East: the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar. These projects include the current world’s tallest (Burj Khalifa), the future world’s tallest (Kingdom Tower), and what is soon to become the world’s second tallest (Makkah Royal Clock Tower Hotel). Quite obviously, a motivating factor 86

in all of these projects has been to push the boundaries of technology and accomplish feats never before imagined. The Burj Khalifa exemplifies this fact. The next decade of supertall building construction will, in one sense, fill in the gaps between the record-breaking Burj Khalifa and Taipei 101, the world’s tallest building until January 4, 2010. Thus, 15 of the Tallest 20

Jakarta is set to contain the world’s 5th tallest building, the 638-meter Signature Tower Jakarta Credit: © Smallwood Reynolds Stewart Stewart

in 2020 fit into this 320-meter gap, with only the Kingdom Tower exceeding the height of the Burj Khalifa.

York, is set to become the tallest building challenges in terms of space constraints, in the western hemisphere in 2013. In the security concerns, as well as millions of 2020 study, the project comes in as the concerned citizens. In the case of One world’s 12th tallest building. The building’s World Trade Center, there were strong Having discussed four regions/countries final height of 1,776 feet (541 meters) economic motivations to build tall, to in the eastern hemisphere where 19 of the points to the United State’s declaration of provide valued office space in one of the projects are located, we turn to the opposite independence, and birth as a country. economic centers of the world, as well as side of the world for the remaining project. Located near the site of the old WTC strong emotional motivation, to overcome One World Trade Center Tower, in New buildings, the designers faced tremendous the tragic events of 9/11. made

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The nearly complete Makkah Royal Clock Tower Hotel will be worldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s second megatall Credit: Š Saudi Binladin Group

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One World Trade Center Tower is the only building in the western hemisphere included in the “Tallest 20 in 2020” Credit: © Skidmore, Owings & Merrill | dbox studio

The Tallest 20 in 2020 study ultimately advances in the fields of structure, underlines a now well-known fact: the construction, and transportation (to name skyscraper is here to stay. Shortly after 9/11, a few) allowed for a steady increase in many predicted the death of the tall building height. Now, the tremendous building, but as the study shows, skyscrapers heights being achieved globally demonstrate are increasing in number, height, and that many of the physical constraints that diversity. The ever-increasing and rapidly once restricted height have been broken. urbanizing global population will continue The question for humanity is thus no longer to drive cities higher. “how high can we build?” but “how high should we build?” With every increase in Not long ago, building height was primarily height, there are energy implications in the restricted by structural limitations. In the construction, maintenance, and occupation late 1800s, Chicago’s Monadnock Building of a building. Additionally, with added demonstrated the maximum height height comes less space efficiency, as achievable with a masonry structure while structural members and service cores still providing economically feasible space increase to service the increased height of efficiency. Over the 19th century, many the building. At what point are the

significant benefits of increased density provided by building tall overtaken by the energy repercussions of height? This elusive figure is most certainly affected by the technologies of the day. Half a century ago, a megatall would have been considered just a dream. It is now a reality. Is it not possible that we could soon see the emergence of a zero-energy megatall? Just as we pushed the structural boundaries of height, we must now continue to push the boundaries of environmental engineering in order to progress the tall typology. For, as skyscrapers continue to multiply, their effect on our cities – visually, urbanistically, and environmentally – continues to increase exponentially.

1 “Future Tallest” Criteria: Buildings included in this study are either built, under construction or considered real proposals. Projects that have commenced construction, but with works currently halted, are also included if there is a strong possibility of the project progressing to final completion. A real proposal can be considered such if it has: a specific site with ownership interests within the building development team; a full professional design

number of prominent projects were not included in the study, including: India Tower, Mumbai; Triple One, Seoul; Hyundai Global Business Center, Seoul; and Zhongguo Zun, Beijing.

2 For the purpose of this study, Taipei has been considered a Chinese city.

team progressing the design beyond the conceptual stage; formal planning consent/legal permission for construction (or is in the process of obtaining such permission); and a full intention to progress the building to construction and completion. Furthermore, this research only considers projects that are within the public domain and have the consent for inclusion from the respective client-consultant teams. Because of this multi-faceted inclusion criteria, a

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Umbrella Teahouse Takeshi Hayatsu, Shibboleth Shechter and Sam Clark Umbrella Teahouse was built by ten first and second year architecture students from the Welsh School of Architecture during a three week intensive studio programme in April / May 2013. The studio was led by tutors Takeshi Hayatsu, Shibboleth Shechter and Sam Clark. The teahouse was built in the Temple of Peace Gardens at the University as a temporary structure providing a place to sit and enjoy the spring garden.

under the rein of Shogun Tokugawa during the 16th Century. Wabi-Cha calls for a reduced, simple and humble aesthetic.

Wabi-Cha makes a references to Sou-An, a small ‘shack made out of weed’ found outside the city, and Minka houses, vernacular farmhouses, with mud walls and thatched roofs. In the original KasaTei, readily available local materials were used, such as bamboo and bent logs, and mixed in a playful way.

Kasa-Tei

Transformation

The design of the Umbrella Teahouse is based on the 16th Century Japanese teahouse Kasa-Tei in Kyoto, Japan. It is situated on the steep slope of Higashiyama Mountain in Western Kyoto overlooking the city centre, as part of the Zen Garden in Kodaiji Temple. ‘Kasa’ means umbrella in Japanese, named after the unique tall roof structure made out of bamboo and straw. The roof is lightly propped on naturally bent logs formed into a tie beam and off-center column. The teahouse is a simple structure, yet spatially complex due to its articulation in section. Split floor levels and a series of sliding screens and top hung shutters create an adaptive environment that is both open to the landscape and closed around its ceremonious dwellers.

The studio was interested in transforming the original teahouse into something new, by mixing up traditional Japanese and Welsh building techniques with contemporary standardised building components and domestic household materials. The proportion of the space including windows and doors follows the original Kasa-Tei teahouse, reduced by 75% for reasons of economy and a desire to make a child-friendly environment.

Wabi-Cha Kasa-Tei is thought to be designed by Sen No Ryikyu, the Japanese tea master who established the Wabi-Cha style aesthetic movement through his tea ceremonies

Project credit Tutors Takeshi Hayatsu Shibboleth Shechter Sam Clark

Decking boards are arranged to mimic the grain of the tatami mat floor in the original teahouse. A lattice of small roofing battens forms the umbrella roof structure, wrapped with hand folded aluminum tinfoil sheets.

The resulting teahouse is a collage of old and new, natural and manmade materials.

The tinfoil is a good reflector of light, which bounces around the interior of the teahouse, creating a shimmering effect. Its thin surface rattles when it catches raindrops, and makes mesmerizing sound when wind blows through it. Large openings frame views to the garden and invite people to sit in the sun or rain, to enjoy the surrounding spring flowers and tree leaves.

Beyond the school

The timber frame was constructed using standardised softwood of various sizes, donated by Western Timber Association.

We engaged with the local Japanese community in Cardiff, by means of a oneday daub workshop. Volunteers, children and adults joined up with the students to in mix paddling raw materials and applying the resulting y the mud daub mixture to the walls. The original Kasa-Tei was first built in Azuchi castle outside of Kyoto then later moved to its current location in Kodaji Temple, adapting its orientation and arrangement in relation to the garden setting. Similarly the Umbrella Teahouse will be relocated to Cardiff Central Library, coinciding with the Cardiff Japan Day event on 25th May 2013. It will then be relocated to a park garden setting within the capital city, where it will become a permanent structure to be enjoyed by the visitors and residents of Cardiff’s Japanese population.

Students Myoung Bae Amelia Brown Hannah Bloor Alex Davidson Pablo Fuster Tom Guinane Jo Hart Michael Mitchell Lauren Searle Matt Sinderberry

Supporters Western Timber Association Forestry Commission Wales Stockland Farm Japanese Society Wales Midori Matsui MBE Bet Davis of Wales Millennium Centre Cardiff Central Library Rob Jones of Cardiff Council Parks Services WSA Workshop Kodaiji Temple, Kyoto Japan

Students began the studio by collecting the teahouse materials from their local sources.

A farm just one mile outside Cardiff city centre provided soil, straw, cow and horse dung for wattle and daub, a traditional Welsh mud wall-building technique. With the permission of Forestry Commission Wales the sStudents coppiced hazel and collected air dried logs from fallen trees in a forest, 7.5 miles due north of Cardiff.

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Re-visioning the Heads of the Valleys Andrew Roberts The Heads of the Valleys refers to the region leading to low levels of aspiration. at the northern extremity of the South Nevertheless, the landscapes and Wales Coalfield. Formerly the hub of the topography of the region are on the whole welsh coal, iron and steel industries, the comparable to other regions of the UK South Wales Valleys saw massive prosperity that might have been classified as a between the late 18th Century and the 1st National Park.

World War with the population of Glamorganshire rising from 70,000 in 1801 In 2006 Welsh Assembly Government to over a million by 1921.1 With the published its strategy for the area known discovery of highly valued steam coal in as the Heads of the Valleys entitled the valleys in the mid 19th Century, many ‘Turning Heads.... A Strategy for the Heads likened the population influx to being of the Valleys 2020.’3 This strategy was yet similar to that of an American gold rush one more attempt to arrest the decline of with over 500 coal mines opening. More the area and details the government’s recently however, the region has seen ‘shared’ vision for what the area would look and feel like by the year 2020 outlining significant economic decline. the ways in which the ‘vision’ would turn The extent of this decline has led the region to ‘reality’ were explained. Five priority to be described as the “the most intractable themes were identified: development region in the UK.”2 It shares An attractive and well-used natural, a history with many post-industrial regions, historic and built environment which hark back to days of wealth and prosperity coupled with images of A vibrant economic landscape industrial grime, pollution, and tough offering new opportunities working conditions. Unlike many other post-industrial areas, and in spite of A well-educated, skilled and numerous government initiatives, the healthier population heads of the valleys have struggled to reinvent themselves following periods of An appealing and coherent tourism industrial decline. and leisure experiences This slow pace of recovery stems from the Public confidence in a shared bright Welsh Valleys’ dependence on a narrow set future of heavy industries – coal and steel. When these moved away, there was a paucity of opportunities to take its place. Opportunities As part of this strategy £140 million was were inhibited by excessive travel distances pledged from government sources to help between the Heads of the Valleys and the achieve this, this would be supplemented economic centres of the South Wales coast, by at least £360 million from private sector and also by the challenging local topography. partnerships.4 This announcement preMany of the southern valleys, closer to the dated the recent global economic downturn, coast have re-invented themselves as and as a result attracting the private sector dormitory towns for Cardiff, Newport and funding has proved difficult leading to slow Swansea but this is an unlikely option for progress in meeting the strategic targets. the Heads of the Valleys.

The Welsh School Architecture recognised Some of the economic indicators for the that a great deal of political capital had Heads of the Valley’s region are terrifying been invested in the Heads of the Valley’s with only 54% of the working age region but with limited impact. We population in employment, many of whom wondered how students of architecture are suffering from long-term health might help to uncover potential problems. The image of the region is poor, opportunities for the region. The Heads of

the Valleys appeared to provide fertile ground for the activities of our existing M.Arch Studios and we felt that the combined output of the different thematic studios could add up to a coherent approach for the future of the region. The area – topographically unique, economically stressed but still socially ‘communal’ – presented opportunities that match some of our existing studio interests such as Place, Economy, Infrastructural Urbanism and Materials. As a result we decided that our entire M.Arch degree year should have their projects based in the Head of the Valleys, in a strip between the Neath Valley in the west and Blaenafon in the east The students’ first task was to conduct a comprehensive mapping of the region.

Inspired by ETH Studio Zurich’s publication Switzerland an Urban Portrait,5 this mapping process had the students conducting detailed investigations into the economic, social and cultural history of the region, health and welfare, economic potential, and physical aspects such as geography, geology, climate and the remnants of the industrial past. Students were able to make comparisons with other post industrial regions though study visits to the Ruhr Valley in Germany and the American‘Rust Belt’.

As a result of the mapping exercise, the students were able to propose strategies for how they saw the region developing.

Reviewing all of the mapping documents it became clear that a broad consensus was developing across all of the groups, comprising 3 principal strands: the heads of the valleys as an independent city region, densification of the towns, dedensification of the rural and localism and community resilience.

Following the mapping exercise, the students focussed on developing a personal intellectual thesis which they would test through design. The students elected to work in one of 6 studios focussing on Infrastructural Urbanism, Place, Economy, Memory, Tectonics and Materials and these

(left) Scenarios for the heads of the valleys region in 2050 showing the impact of decline and growth. made

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The symbolism of Air Mining, Student: Mark Cooney

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themes represented potential lenses by declined. The students were interested in which the region could be understood. the potential for alternative energy sources There was no requirement for students to be they wind, hydro, geothermal or fuel work within the strategies uncovered from waste products or algae. Explorations during the mapping exercise, but in reality looked into the potential of small-scale many did. It was therefore possible to get generation across the region. One student a fuller understanding of how the strategies in the Economy studio for instance might be realised architecturally. catalogued the potential of every stream in the region as a possible source of hydro Strand 1: The heads of the valleys as electric power and then developed a strategy an independent city region for the manufacture, marketing and distribution of small scale hydro generation.

The first of these was a broad political- In a similar way others in the Infrastructural spatial view that saw the heads of the valleys Urbanism studio looked at the potential region as something that was quite separate for the region to become a hub for the from the lower valleys and the coastal manufacture and use of wind turbines, or planes. Much political talk on the region for the generation of energy from waste focusses on the concept of the South Wales materials in an attempt to make the region Valleys developing as an extended city self sustaining. These explorations led to a region centred on the predominant coastal variety of architectural outcomes which towns of Cardiff, Newport and Swansea. some of which looked at the networks for The final report from the City Regions Task collection and distribution of fuel and and Finish Group includes the improvement energy, others at the development of plant of the transport infrastructure to allow to generate energy or factories to those residing in the Heads of the Valleys manufacture the necessary components. to access the main cities.6 It might be Particularly interesting were those schemes argued that strategies of this type effectively which attempted to marry-up uses, for would turn the valleys settlements into instance linking a waste recycling plant dormitory towns supporting economies of with an energy demanding programme, the big cities along the M4 Corridor. The such as a care home, ice-rink or swimming population of the proposed Cardiff City pool, minimising energy transmission loss region would be 1.4million, which by supplying the neighbouring building compared to Cardiff’s population as a city directly. Any financial surpluses would be of 330,000 is large and it is doubtful as to used to fund the insulation of local homes. whether the main cities were able to support this number, even if transport links were Methods of distribution were investigated, improved. The students’ initial with one student in the Economy studio investigations were on the whole contrary looking at how innovative energy storage to these ideas, focussing to a greater extent systems might be networked within the on how the heads of the valleys region welsh valleys. In this case turbines might might be allowed to develop independently. power a cryogenic process, cooling and Proposals to turn the main A465, known compressing nitrogen, which can then as the Heads of the Valleys Road into a distributed by road to one of a series of dual carriageway, had the potential to local power plants. When energy demand create a strategic route between Birmingham is highest, the nitrogen is released to power Swansea and on to the Pembrokeshire ports. a turbine to generate electricity for local The students were interested in what communities or the national grid.7 As the opportunities this development might have energy is released, the symbolism of this on the settlements it passes close to. ‘air mining’ replacing traditional ground mining is made apparent by the illumination The idea of taking the Heads of the Valleys of a tower clad in nitrogen-filled gas as a city region, independent of the lower discharge tubes. valleys and the coastal areas of South Wales, was embraced by a number of students in Proposals were also made to improve the their design investigations. The preliminary transport networks in the area, building task in many cases was to identify the on the work of transport specialist Mark resources necessary to sustain the region Barry 8on the development of a South Wales independently, and much of the initial metro, but placing a greater emphasis on mapping exercise looked at the availability the east-west connections across the Heads and potential of such resources. Energy of the Valley’s region. One project of note extraction had always been a major player here was the creation of a cable car network in the survival of the valleys, but with the across the whole of the region, piggybacking loss of the coal industry this has clearly onto the existing power transmission

Strand 2: Densification of the towns, de-densification of the rural The second broad strategy that emerged was one which saw a concentration of the population within more closely defined town centres, rather than as has developed over time, sprawling communities that dominate the length of the valleys. Students focussing on the economy of the region perhaps took a more pessimistic view than our political leaders as to the region’s ability to maintain its current population. There was a feeling that depopulation would be inevitable as people moved out of the region to find work and that this should be seen as an opportunity rather than something that should be resisted. The landscapes of the region, typically underrated, but with stunning potential to attract tourism, could be enhanced by reclaiming large areas of open countryside from the previous urban sprawl and emphasis on housing regeneration should be focussed a selection of key town centres.

The strategy of encouraging the towns to increase in density whilst allowing the landscape to regain the areas between the town centres, provided some particularly interesting strategies, particularly in terms of how we might allow the process of dedensification, whilst preserving the memory of what went before. This was an issue tackled by a number of students in the Memory studio, with one in particular looking at the hill town of Pen Rhys above the Junction of the Rhonda Fawr and Fach valleys. Pen Rhys, once one of the most sacred locations in Wales, was developed in the 1960s as an Italianate hill town housing those from the local mining industry. The development which was once the largest public sector housing scheme in Wales rapidly fell into disrepute with a consequent loss of population. The proposed scheme was to re-establish a Cistercian monastery in the village, and then to turn the empty shells of the houses into shrines. A network of wires connecting the monastery to the houses would attract climbing plants, enabling the buildings to gradually disappear into landscape in a way that perhaps Peter Latz has done with his landscaping of Duisburg Nord in the German Ruhr Valley. Similarly inspired by the work of Latz, other students conducted detailed studies of how plant remediation might allow the landscape to made

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network. The network would be used to distribute health services to the often remote valleys.

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The transformation of Pen Rhys into a Cistercian Monastery, Student: Oliver Steels

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return to its original self, perhaps less concerned about preserving the memory of the industrial past.

The theme of the retreat seemed to be a common one amongst students, within the de-densified landscape. Partly this was a response to a need to revive the region’s economy by attracting tourism, but also as recognition of, and as an attempt to enhance the beauty of the region’s topography.

The flip side of the coin was the need to increase the density within the town centres.

Fewer students chose to tackle this issue, with an apparent draw towards the landscape and the rural aspects of the strategy. One scheme from the Economy studio placed an interesting take on the re-development of the High Street in Merthyr Tydfil by turning it into a University of the Street. Merthyr College (part of the University of Glamorgan) already have a presence in Merthyr, but it was recognised that any expansion of this facility would probably take the form of an out of town development. The student’s scheme looked at how the university might

be slotted into vacant buildings and spaces along the length of the high street, enabling a vibrant mix of town and gown. Vocational courses, for instance the school of hairdressing, would have their shop front on the main street, allowing a stronger engagement between the university and the local population. Sailing ETFE canopies above the existing roofs, helps provide a sense of enclosure, place and a location for formal and informal meetings, irrespective of the weather.

Strand 3: Localism and Community Resilience The third strategy was perhaps more political than spatial and showed a recognition of the social history of the area, where communities would come together through difficult times to achieve what might not have been possible, from national intervention. The development of the miners’ institutes within many communities was an example of this, individuals contributing a proportion of their wages to house the institutes, which became a key source of enlightenment. One group

in particular focussed their research on the “Fighting Spirit” offered by the communities over periods of history, and through an anonymous ‘guerrilla’ campaign of bill posting and contributions on internet blog sites aimed to revitalise some of the community spirit, that they felt had been lost over time. In some respects this community focus, ref lects current government policy on localism, with the emphasis being on bottom-up community level interventions rather than broad national strategies. Much consideration by the students looked at the potential for cooperative organisations to come together and procure architecture with a local focus.

Whilst this was identified as a key issue in the students’ initial research, often with some passion, it was perhaps somewhat more difficult to translate into architectural ideas beyond proposals to build community buildings. Nevertheless, it was something that was attempted by a small number of students who used their architecture as an attempt to suggest how aspirations might be raised within the community, as a means to share learning and develop skills and as

The university on the street, Student: Wei Han Ho made

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Community resilience and food networks, Student: Helen Ayton

a means to create a community resilience.

Of particular note were those schemes that proposed an architecture within a new model of ownership, where buildings are funded procured and managed by the community, enabling a degree of self sufficiency, with surpluses rolled back into the community. One example from the Infrastructural Urbanism studio proposed a network that would support a series of food cooperative across the valleys, that would grow and distribute their own food and generate their own energy on a local basis and the network would also provide support for horticultural training. The aim here was to achieve resilience in terms of food, energy, economy and emotion.

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Other examples included an emphasis on the development of new community-based skills, for instance through cookery schools which might encourage an improved attitude towards food, and enable

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communities to come together to share in the economic synergies of large-scale catering. Similar projects were also suggested to raise skills in the construction trades, one in particular looking at how placing a factory for the manufacture of pre-fabricated housing panels in the centre of the community (rather on the outskirts) might become a focus of local redevelopment and training. Another scheme, looked at how Merthyr Tydfilâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s high street might be re-branded as a centre for digital making, again drawing in the community to develop a custom production base. This â&#x20AC;&#x153;Fab Labâ&#x20AC;? would allow making of domestic artefacts beyond the constraints of mass production. This might be achieved by the establishment of a local not for profit cooperative, who would initially bring in the volunteer sector to help members of the community to collaborate, share ideas and develop mutual skills.

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Conclusions Unless attempts to re-vision the Heads of the Valleys are successful, there is a danger that in relatively short time, the region could be labelled as having undergone one hundred years of decline. Whilst many attempts to rejuvenate the region have been made through massive investment in improved transport links, this has done little to develop and maintain the prosperity and aspirations of the towns within the region. What the students have shown is the potential of using relatively small investment in small projects within the towns to act as catalysts for further development. In times of low levels of national funding, we may no longer have the luxury of large scale project funding, but opportunities might still be possible through these focussed projects that often build on the principles of social enterprise and localism,9 with funding for such

initiatives coming from institutions such as the charities bank, and small-scale philanthropic donations. In this way, the town of GlynCoch has raised nearly 800 thousand pounds for a new community centre through crowd-funding with a mix of donators, from celebrity to supermarket chain and overseas contributors.10 One might ask to what extent the local communities were involved in developing the ideas with the students. Certainly some of the groups conducting the initial

mapping did involve the informal discussion with residents of the region, but at the design level, there was little engagement and perhaps much of the student output was top-down in nature – suggesting a ready-made solution to impose on the local population. Nevertheless this exercise might be seen as merely the start of a process of re-developing the region.

What the students have produced are a series of ideas, that perhaps might have been stifled in terms of creativity should there have been more community

involvement. These ideas might be fed into subsequent discussion and consultation with communities to encourage the development of ideas, perhaps beyond those immediately obvious. The message for those whose responsibility it is to ensure future of the region; the Welsh Government, local authorities, and the communities themselves is to develop the means to encourage a cacophony of small projects to develop, some successfully, some not so.

The often misquoted adage “Let a thousand flowers bloom” surely has resonance here.

1 John Davies, A History of Wales (London ; New York: Penguin Books, 1994) 2 Steve Fothergill, ‘Futures for the Heads of the Valleys’, in The Most Intractable Development Region in the Uk. ed. by John Osmond and Institute of Welsh Affairs.

(Cardiff: Institute of Welsh Affairs, 2008), p. 79 3 Welsh Assembly Government, ‘Turning Heads.... A Strategy for the Heads of the Valleys 2020 ‘, (Cardiff: Welsh Assembly Government, 2006) 4 Government, ‘Turning Heads.... A Strategy for the

Heads of the Valleys 2020 ‘, 5 Roger Diener and others, Switzerland : An Urban Portrait (Basel: Birkhäuser, 2006) 6 Elizabeth Heywood, ‘City Regions final Report’, ed.

by City regions task and finish group (Cardiff: Welsh Government, 2012) 7 Highview Power Storage, Cryo Energy System (London: Highview, 2012) <http://www.highview-power. com/wordpress/?page_id=8> [accessed 17/7/2012] 8 Mark Barry, A Metro for Wales’ Capital City

Regionconnecting Cardiff, Newport and the Valleys (Cardiff: Institute of Welsh Affairs & Cardiff Business Partnership, 2011) 9 Kevin Morgan and Adam Price, ‘The Collective Entrepreneur:Social Enterprise and the Smart State’, (Cardiff: Community Housing Cymru & The Charities Bank, 2001) 10 Spacehive, Glyncoch Community Centre (2012) <http://spacehive.com/GlyncochCC> [accessed 17th July]

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at wsa

Contributors David Austin is Professor of Archaeology at the University of Wales Trinity St David and is a specialist in historic landscapes with a core interest in the Middle Ages. He has conducted major projects in England, Wales and France with current programmes at Strata Florida and the National Botanic Garden of Wales.

Dr Payam Bahrami, as Research Associate, is responsible for preparing research proposals and conducting and developing research projects at the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH). His research experiences include building’s energy efficiency, net-zero energy building, sustainable design, green building technologies, building’s safety, and smart habitat. He is also a registered architect in practice.

Tom Bassett is an LCRI researcher and building simulation modeller at the WSA investigating methods of delivering a low carbon built environment. His work at the urban scale is focussed upon solar renewable energy and embodied energy analysis.

John Folan is the T. David Fitz-Gibbon Professor of Architecture, Founder and Director of the Urban Design Build Studio (UDBS), and member of the Remaking Cities Institute (RCI) at Carnegie Mellon University. Since joining Carnegie Mellon in 2008, John and the UDBS have worked with challenged urban communities in Allegheny County on the development and implementation of catalytic projects through participatory design processes. This work is an extension of efforts in university affiliated community based design and construction initiated while John was a tenured faculty member at the University of Arizona. In Arizona ,John co-founded, codirected, and served as an executive board member of the Drachman Design Build Coalition (DDBC), a university affiliated, non-

profit, 501(c)3 corporation dedicated to the design and construction of environmentally specific, energy efficient, affordable housing prototypes. Projects implemented in Tucson’s Urban Empowerment Zone designed and constructed by the DDBC under John’s direction were made available to HUD approved families earning below 60% of the median income level in Tucson. John maintains a small private professional practice that focuses on social, economic and environmental issues in architecture and urban design.

Nick Hacking is a researcher and part-time PhD student in the Low Carbon Research Institute (LCRI) at the Welsh School of Architecture (WSA).

His academic background is in geography, planning and sustainability policy. His research focuses on innovation and the importance of space and place in sustainability transitions.

Nathaniel Hollister As the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH)’s Production Coordinator, Nathaniel Hollister (BArch) is primarily responsible for contributing to the research, design, and production of various CTBUH publications and outputs. Additionally, Nathaniel coteaches an advanced architectural highrise studio at the Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago, and manages The Skyscraper Center, the CTBUH’s tall building database.

Heledd Iorwerth is a researcher of the Low Carbon Built Environment project with a background in Maths and Building Physics.

Her current interest lies in the use of GIS and statistical data to aid in modelling energy use on an urban and regional scale.

Phil Henshaw graduated from the Welsh School of Architecture Masters degree in 2007 and has been a teaching assistant to the

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MA Urban Design programme, whilst also completing MPhil research on the potential for temporary urbanism in the Rhondda Valleys. Following 5 years with Fletcher Priest Architects, Phil is now an architect and urban designer at suttonca architects in London.

He remains active in academia as an external reviewer and offers design consultancy in collaboration with partner Lianne Russ.

Notable schemes include the Ebbw Vale ‘Vertical Gardens’ and award winning competition entry: ‘Splottments’.

Richard Keen MA worked for the National Museum of Wales and the National Trust before becoming a freelance consultant on heritage, landscape and tourism. He has served on the Heritage Lottery Fund Committee for Wales, the Ancient Monuments Board and as Chairman of the Historic Buildings Advisory Council.

Martin Kläschen is the founder and principle of HouseHaus LLC. in Chicago, with projects in the US, South America and Europe. Mr. Kläschen graduated at the Brandenburgische Technische Universität in Germany and holds a diploma of honor from Saint-Petersburg State University of Architecture and Civil Engineering in Russia. He was an ER ASMUSfellow at the Escola Tècnica Superior d’Arquitectura de Barcelona (ETSAB) and Fulbright researcher at IIT’s College of Architecture and Institute of Design. Mr. Kläschen has taught design studios at the Brandenburgische Technische Universität, Germany, The School of the Art Institute Chicago, The Escola da Cidade, Brazil, and the Universidad de Los Andes, Colombia.

As Adjunct Associate Professor, he has taught at IIT’s College of Architecture since 2000. His research projects include the development of ecological hybrid buildings and a dissertation investigating the paradox of “Erleben” (“sensational state of being”) in architectural designing.

Simon Lannon is a research fellow at the WSA, whose research interests include GIS, software design and building physics. He is co-author of the Energy and Environment Prediction (EEP) model and a member of the Low Carbon Built Environment project team.

Dr Andrew Roberts is a Senior Lecturer in the Welsh School or Architecture, and is currently the programme convener for the M.Arch degree. His research interests explore the relationships between key players within architectural education and architectural practice. This includes the pedagogic relationship between students and their tutors, and how architects work with their clients.

Dr Cristian Suau holds both a Ph.D. in Architecture and a Masters in Urban Design. He has an international teaching and postdoctoral research experience on Eco-Design, Low-Tech Fabrication and Ecological Urbanism: www.ecofab.org. He was senior architect at OMA, Holland. Since 2007 he has led BSc design studios at WSA. Irina Susorova is a doctoral candidate at the College of Architecture, at the Illinois Institute of Technology researching optimization of building energy consumption, building energy modeling, and sustainable design technologies. As part of her doctoral research, she investigates the effects of facade-integrated vegetation on building energy consumption and energy savings.

Diana Waldron is a researcher at the Low Carbon Research Institute, based at the WSA. Her work is focussed on urban scale energy demand and supply, also exploring the paths towards reducing the negative environmental impact of existing and new buildings.

External Editorial Board: Hilde Heynen (Katholieke Universitaet Leuven) Marc Treib (University of California, Berkeley) Simon Unwin (Emeritus Professor, Dundee School of Architecture) Pierre Von Meiss (EPFL Lausanne) Adam Sharr (Newcastle University)

Frances Whitehead is a civic practice artist focusing on the cultural dimensions of adaptive urbanism, land use, and plant-based practices of all kinds. She works between art and science on highly disturbed industrial sites. Whitehead is Professor of Sculpture and Architecture at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Internal Editorial Board: Wayne Forster Richard Weston

Antony Wood (PhD RIBA), as Executive Director, is responsible for the day-to-day running of the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH) and steering in conjunction with the Board of Trustees. His tenure has seen a revitalization of the CTBUH and an increase in output and initiatives across all areas. Antony is also an Associate Professor in the College of Architecture at IIT.

Editors: Mhairi McVicar Cristian Suau

William Worn is President of Worn Jerabek Architects P.C. in Chicago. He has taught at the University of Illinois since 2001 as Associate Professor and as Director of the Master of Science in Health Design program.

His research interests lie at the intersection of sustainability and health.

Dr Yangang Xing is interested in energy systems, urban sustainability and resilience.

His research methods are centered on systems thinking and long term dynamic simulation methods to investigate complex phenomenal transitions from historical and emergent perspectives. Yan is a Research Associate at the Welsh School of Architecture.

Art Director: Janice Coyle

made is published annually Printed on FSC approved paper made from sustainable forests in Europe.

Views expressed in made are those of the author alone, and not necessarily of the editors, editorial board, Welsh School of Architecture or Cardiff University.

All illustrations by author unless noted otherwise.

Every possible effort has been made to trace copyright holders of images and photographs used. made welcomes any information concerning copyright holders that viewers may provide.

This issue of made was partially funded by a 2011-12 British Council UK - US New Partnerships grant.

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Umbrella Teahouse Team- Umbrella Teahouse was built by 10 first and second year architecture students from the Welsh School of Architecture during a three week Vertical Studio programme in April / May 2013. The studio was led by tutors Sam Clark (Welsh School of Architecture), Takeshi Hayatsu (6A Architects), and Shibboleth Shechter (Chelsea College of Art & Design / Central Saint Martins). Student designer-

makers were Myoung Bae, Amelia Brown, Hannah Bloor, Alex Davidson, Pablo Fuster, Tom Guinane, Jo Hart, Michael Mitchell, Lauren Searle, Matt Sinderberry.

at wsa

Call for Papers

We invite papers for made 9, 2014. We are happy to consider papers relating to architecture and its making, within or beyond the orthodox ‘fields’ of design, history, theory, science or professional practice. We invite submissions in one of two possible categories: first, papers of 800 words with one A4 image, for which expressions of interest should be sent to the editor; second, full papers of 3000-5000 words, for which abstracts of 300500 words are invited, to include a full title and the author’s name, contact details and affiliation. These should be submitted by January 31st 2014.

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