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ARTANARCHY

Art + Anarchy

This intervention would take place at the one block stretch of Superior Street between Franklin and Wells. The area is known for its many art galleries, yet only well-established professionals may exhibit here. Art+anarchy would allow “outside art” to be sold alongside professional art – bridging the gap between the everyday pedestrian and the world of high art. 

1. The street would be closed and the pavement would be turned into a green space with grass and trees.

2. A cable grid would be installed which could hold lanterns and provide support for user created partitions. These partitions could be made out of sheets, tarps, or any other cheap temporary material that is opaque. Each “shop” would be created in this way. 

3. Modular furniture made of recycled materials would be scattered across the lawn. The module could be used as a single seat or be combined in large numbers to create platforms, tables, or even stages for performance pieces. 

4. The majority of the value of the space would be added by the people who used it – music, art, crafts, and food.  If space and basic materials are provided, people will create a culturally rich experience for themselves.

Efficiently producing happiness by relying on user generated value.

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sustainable public interest design

As the world’s population grows exponentially, and resources are consumed at an alarming rate, urban planners question the sustainability of the modern life style. It is without question that we as designers must change our practices so as not to detract from the existing environment, but to provide a beneficial contribution. Public interest design is a human centered and participatory design practice that places emphasis on ecological, economic, and social sustainability. The Butaro Hospital in rural Rwanda has recently become the face of the movement and set the standard for dedicated architectural design and production with the public in mind.   

Conscious design solutions proves beneficial at Butaro. The spread of tuberculosis and other hospital born infection was all too common in rural healthcare locations. Rather than “simply” sanitizing the area, pushing ventilated air around the facility, and separating patients from visitors by quarantining the later in the corridors, MASS Design Group manipulated architectural systems. Overall layout, patient and staff flow, natural ventilation, framed views, materiality, and the elimination of corridors were reorganized to create a new standard for world class hospitals.

The success of the Butaro Hospital reaches beyond the architectural form and the purpose which it serves; its construction tells an impactful story. Built entirely with local labor, this project showed the dedication and investment the local community was willing to put into the building, they made it theirs. Nearly 4,000 people were hired and trained in construction methods, skills and experience which can be used for the rest of their life. Not only does this hospital better the life of its patients, but it creates an opportunity to begin afresh.

The key to sustainable design for our future is to involve the public. To get them enthusiastic about what is being developed by creating what best supports them. Ultimately, our designs must not simply fit under the umbrella of sustainability. The systems we design must address issues such as economic development and social strengthening as well as preservation of the environment. 

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The Sahara Forest Project

We can grow food in the desert now.

It's been happening in Qatar since 2012, when the pilot site of the Sahara Forest Project, became operational. The 600 square meter facility, brainchild of Exploration Architecture, produces just shy of 100,000 pounds of food per year using just seawater and sunlight.

Is it glamorous? No. It's just awesome.

Heat from the sun is collected with parabolic mirrors and powers an on sight generator. The electricity produced is used to run the control system and pumps, any excess is diverted to desalinating water.

Seawater is used to cool the air in the greenhouse. Basically, it is trickled over some very thick corrugated cardboard, and when the outside air blows through that cardboard, the water evaporates and the air becomes more suitable for plant growth. They can even grow plants outside by setting up a similar system and using the air that escapes the greenhouse.

Some of the moisture generated can be condensed and used as fresh water for the plants. Other seawater greenhouses have been able to produce more water than they use. They distribute that water outside the facility, allowing for the natural growth of vegetation in the desert.

This location is just the start. The current operation is being supported by fertilizer companies Yara International and Qafco, but the project is expanding. Research is being done to open a 20-hectare test facility in Jordan, and if it is successful other locations are sure to follow.

More detail on the Quatar site:

http://vimeo.com/56035829

http://news.sciencemag.org/asiapacific/2013/11/desert-farming-experiment-yields-first-results

More from Exploration Architecture:

http://www.exploration-architecture.com/section.php?xSec=50&xPage=1

http://www.ted.com/talks/michael_pawlyn_using_nature_s_genius_in_architecture

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Ermou Street Athens, Greece

Ermou Street, despite being one of the most expensive shopping streets in the world, appears to be a gathering place for people of all classes with a great deal of varied activity happening on the street.

A youtube video provides a good look at the street life

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D62HYUqWCTo

On the street one sees public art and fountains, points of interest for passers by; the streetscape never gives the impression of being boring.  

Greece's population is very good-looking, so the people watching is very good on this street. 

The softness of the edges of the street enhance the overall experience and usability of the street-space; arcades under buildings provide places to hang out, trees along the sides of the road add a certain canopy to the edges, restaurants have outdoor seating that engages with the street life.  

The most fantastic thing to me that I saw in the video was the way that people were engaging with the architecture and the urban fabric.  There were some hooligans breakdancing within an area defined by a change in the brick work, there was a man playing guitar to the street under an arcade, and there were small vendors selling their crafts off to the side.

I think what really makes this place successful is that it seems to me that laws do not regulate the form of the street as much as the people do. 

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Places for People: Marché Mouffetard

Marché Mouffetard, Rue Mouffetard, 5th Arrondissement, Paris, France

The whole thing is less than half a mile long and lined with retail under three or fours scoops of residential. It’s one of the remaining segments of Roman road still hanging around Paris, so it has all of the fixin’s of classy old world charm: 12th century buildings, narrow everything, stone paving, and a gentle slope. Most of it even has one way traffic and a snazzy bike lane, but right now we aren't interested in that. We are interested in the 400 foot stretch that doesn't.

That mythical realm where Google Street View can't go.

The pedestrian street market.

Here the shops and cafes aren’t confined to the walls of the street; they can spill onto the sidewalk and into the road. During the day essentials like produce and wine meet specialty stores selling jewelry and luxury hand cream. In the evening the cafes can take over more of the space. Street performers mingle with crowd of locals and tourists.

It’s tight. It’s busy. It’s intimate. It’s open five days a week.

Visiting the market is both a necessity and choice.

The space is attractive because of its density. As you walk through, you are always hoping from one sight to another. There is no awkward void space; you are constantly being stimulated by a product or a group of people. The movement here is constant, and you only have to pause to engage.

The market ensures its occupancy by prioritizing the local experience. A portion of the crowd is fixed year round because they need to buy groceries. They know the shops will be open consistently so they come here running picturesque errands. In this romantic setting it becomes a kind of quaint, cultural performance. Tourists can't get enough of it, so they come easily by foot, by metro, or by car to watch the fantasy unfold.

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“It’s time to put Marcel Duchamp’s urinal back on the wall.”

quote by Teddy Cruz

Architecture can only save slums if the slums have a say in the architecture.

Using design for medicinal purposes is an interest objective, but it cannot be an “insert here” application of it.   We understand-hopefully-that when we as designers are presented with the issue of saving the slums that naturally we must employ the ideals of modern metropolis growth.  Though it would be irrational to assume that in terms of money, space and time we could simply adopt and implement these ideals. 

Instead, the transition of slums from being outside the city to being integrated into the city and in turn shifting the city from city, to mega city, we need to understand the inherent pattern of growth in the slums and use a grand scale plan beginning with a bottom-up micro-project oriented approach.  The only way to do this, is to participate in the slum, live with those who are there and work closely with them to develop in a natural way, receiving their support and ideas, then we will begin to understand exactly how we can meet basic needs in terms of energy, transport, infrastructure, waste and water.  We need a democratization of planning effort between locals and multi disciplinary experts. Then I think architecture can relieve the slums of some of its ills, and not solely exist on or in it.  Certainly successful cities need office buildings, arenas, museums, etc…and that these types of things attract investments and wealth but as architectural landmarks they do not even graze the root of the problem, they are in these areas mindless development for money mongering profiteering. 

The only way to save the slums with architecture is to let the people decide how it participates in their growth as a whole. 

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The Last House Standing

Resourcefulness is a trait many in slums need in order to survive. It is one which the rest of the world could learn from - making the most of what is left behind to create a lasting effect. Housing durability is another strong concern facing the rapid development of slums across the globe. Materials able to face the elements over a length of time which have been disposed of are difficult to come by. But what if you find a common material, and apply a new process to its construction? It becomes an entirely new medium.

So what if we take a plastic bottle? Its holding your water, your soda, your juice. But what happens when the beverage is gone? It is estimated that some 22 million plastic bottles are thrown away each year.  Plastic is a man made material that should decompose in, say, 500 years. hm.

Finding and filling people's discarded plastic bottles creates a redesigned brick. They can be filled with sand, mud, concrete, anything you could imagine. A mass that has the ability to stack and plaster is an ancient construction method. The solid wall when finished would be fireproof, bulletproof, a thermal regulating mass, and an incredibly strong structure among numerous other benefits.

The resourcefulness of the slums and simple ingenuity of reinterpreting the a growing global issue creates a beautiful solution, one that could come to redefine recycling and "green" architecture.

for it's practicality in areas of poverty:

http://www.visualnews.com/2011/11/16/plastic-bottles-20-times-stronger-than-bricks/

for the design guru's out there:

http://webecoist.momtastic.com/2011/05/06/drink-it-in-14-buildings-made-from-plastic-bottles/

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New Public Space

With cities quickly growing and forming across the world, introducing new and usable public space is a critical aspect of how cities work. But what involves a new public space? 

These public spaces should relate to the architecture surrounding. If buildings around a community or city contained multiple primary use program, the spaces immediate would be more lively and usable. One solution that many architects used in urban planning is to create districts within the cities. These business, commercial, or residential districts form strong hubs for these type of communities, however, there lack of diversity attracts only a certain group of citizens during a certain time. A city, town, or even community, should attempt to attract various types of "districts" levels of all age groups. 

One way to introduce this integrated and mixed area, would be to bring public space that encourages it. Public space that encourages all age groups, will raise the population around the area, thus giving it a higher chance to make it successful.a

Of course, all areas of public space and public architecture should not be the same, but should use various ways to achieve a similar goal. Kevin Lynch, an american writer, mentions in his book "The Image of the City" are able to locate themselves and others based on landmarks. Landmarks play a huge role in how people view the city or community. Each are of public space can play a role as a landmark, but can achieve the same goal of encouraging all types and ages. 

The aim of this attempt would be to make the entire city livable for everyone. 

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A Humble Proposal to Decrease Slums

When Le Corbusier wrote the Athens Charter, cities were still recovering from the negative effects of the industrial revolution. Cheap housing was positioned right next to industry which polluted the air to no end. Cities became synonymous with filth and the working class. Corbusier suggested zoning regulations to segregate the functions of the city – housing over here, industry over there, etc. As this idea took hold, the pendulum swung the other way – resulting in acres and acres of homogenous sprawl.

Here is my postulate: When the functions of the cities are separated out, slums are more likely to occur. This is because the places of value or opportunity are all concentrated in one spot. Those in poverty flock to those areas and build informal development in a radial, unregulated geometry – like insects to a light. Most people who are looking for these low-skill jobs cannot afford to own a car. Their survival requires them to be in range of their job. When this approach to urban planning is paired with the government of a developing nation, slums flourish.

Here is my proposed solution: Instead of having one super dense core of a city, break it up into multiple nuclei and connect everything with an extensive system of public transit. This way there is a diverse mix of housing, business, industry, and transit, which would result in a variety of housing options all within range of the low-skill work places. This would also increase community and the walkability of the city, as there would be more to see in a shorter distance. Corbusier’s objection was that housing was located right next to dangerous industry. But today’s economies are largely driven by non-industrial jobs. And the industry that we do have has been made (relatively) efficient and clean. The risk is no longer as relevant. By mixing city functions, and increasing transit options, valuable districts are readily available to anyone who is looking to improve their condition.

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Improving the Future by Designing for Children

Cites across the world have problems with social justice, crime, and sense of community that all start from adolescence. Lack of strong and empowering programs for children and teens allow children to fall through the cracks that could have potentially benefited society in a positive way and could bring the population of cities closer to a similar playing field. As designers, we must actively work with people that teach and run programs for adolescents in the cities so that we can design better for our future youth.

Getting children more involved within the communities of cities can be as simple of a concept as creating green spaces and areas, like parks and community centers that have programs and places for children to communicate, congregate, be active, and discover their potential. I think that focusing on children, to better the population of the future, is the place for us to start paying more attention. There are examples of currently existing spaces that have been set in place to improve the community, as a whole, such as the classic example of Central Park, New York, but they often do not work as well as they were intended to. Such spaces are often not actively used for programs or to improve the sense of community, so the rich population takes over the area and the rest of the community has a hard time accessing the space, which then becomes underutilized.

Although an easy solution is elusive, there must be more of an effort put forth to improve the design of the cities to make spaces for children. We can no longer put “green spaces” in our designs as an attempt for beautification and hope that the city or community will use them in the way that suits them best. Here is a good criticism of the current population using Central Park: http://www.metropolismag.com/Point-of-View/December-2013/Who-Really-Benefits-From-Central-Park/ Here are some websites that show the advantages of having such spaces available for children: https://www.planning.org/cityparks/briefingpapers/helpchildrenlearn.htmStreet Children in Mongolia

Image and powerful article about the problems that modern urban children face in our modern world at:

http://wanderful-world.com/2013/06/11/cultural-reading-street-children-lost-cities-and-heritage-sites/

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Simple Thoughts: Plans for People

Planning cannot happen without vision

Vision is generated by interests

Power generates interests

Power tends to seek more power

Power does not always align with social justice

People have needs

People don’t always know what they need

People know what isn’t working

Designers like to fix problems

Designers have lots of ideas

Designers are just people with degrees

Ideas respond to feedback

People are more invested in what they help create

Collaboration generates better interests

People (Needs) + Designers (Ideas) = Effective Planning

  Effective planning = Improved Quality of Life

I swear it can work:

http://www.pps.org/

http://www.iied.org/our-work

http://www.dcdc-udm.org/

http://p2purbanism.blogspot.com/

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Change Perception of Corridors to Improve Social Justice and Quality of Life

The most used spaces in a home are those for passage, corridors.  Any time we want to move from one space to another it seems we must make a passage through a corridor.  Frank Lloyd Wright was an innovative architect for many reasons, among them his treatment of corridors; he eliminated them.  Naturally one still has to make a passage of some sort in his homes but now an arrangement of communal spaces serve the function.  

If we scale up the ideas of the home to apply them to the city, we hypothesize that if we rethink corridors as opportunities to create communal spaces quality of life will improve.

Bogota, Colombia is one of many examples that seem to substantiate this hypothesis.  Enrique Penalosa, the mayor of Bogota between 1998 to 2001, talks in this interview about how the creation of a public pedestrian space transformed the life in some of Bogota's poorer areas

http://www.dac.dk/en/dac-cities/sustainable-cities/experts/enrique-penalosa---city-of-equality/

Like in Frank Lloyd Wright's homes, these communal spaces are still used for passage.  What differentiates them from corridors is that they are no longer solely for passage.  A typical New York street contrasts the Bogota pedestrian model; the street with the cars is clearly about going somewhere, and few other human activities (socializing, relaxing, reading) are given the opportunity to also take place in these corridors.  You probably wouldn't want to read, relax, or talk to someone in the hallway.

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Density as a function of verticality and diagrams of varying land coverages.  Information found at:

http://scenariojournal.com/strategy/gubei-gold-street-2/

http://densityarchitecture.wordpress.com/category/architecture/page/2/

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These areal photos reveal the nature of density's effect on the urban fabric; as density goes up, the street and building networks become more regimented (i.e. China) and lower densities yield a more organic form (i.e. Kenya)

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Pico Living

Pico – Living: Living in an extremely small space; designed for maximum efficiency and functionality.

Pico is the prefix used in the metric system to denote 1/1 trillionth– one order smaller than Nano.  These spaces are often inhabited (or constructed) by individuals who are passionate about minimalist living. Steve Sauer is one such individual. In this brief video, you can see the subterranean storage space that he turned into a 182 sq. ft., three-level, fully functional living space. He has a kitchen, shower, bath, closet, desk, sitting area, and den (much more like a real cave than the typical “den”). Everything is designed for efficiency and functionality. Steve approached the project from the perspective of an engineer, but gave no regard to building codes initially. After a 2 year struggle, he finally got his certificate of occupancy, and was granted permission to legally live there. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJkBlqLJLWA The Keret House by Jakub Szcsesny is the world’s thinnest house. Inspired by the context of two historic buildings and an alley way, Szcsesny set out to design a “pico” residence to slide in-between the two.  A pre-fab structural frame was inserted into the alley, and the residence built into the space. The residence is used as a temporary house for traveling writers.

http://www.archdaily.com/289630/inside-the-keret-house-the-worlds-skinniest-house-by-jakub-szczesny/

In both instances, designers found unused or underutilized spaces in the urban fabric to design highly useful spaces. Such housing moves away from the idea of the house as being a place for entertaining guests, something to show off. Instead these homes offer the essentials, while relying on the city to provide the lawn, the game-room, the community space. As more and more of the population turns to “the city” designers will have to become more aware of how they use space, and how to get the most value out of the space that already exists. If there is a market for pico-dwellings then we could see a filling in of the cracks in the urban environment. It would create an extreme diversity – as each project would be a new challenge, and it would push the limits of what we conventionally know to be a home – both culturally and legally. 

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The "Right" Density

What is the "right" density for today's ideal sustainable city, and how do we achieve this?  This lingering question is a difficult one to answer, as there are many issues that affect this answer. 

A core factor that lies within the issues of designing an urban area with the most appropriate density, is of course, cars. Many Americans are still keen on car ownership, which skews away from the majority of city government's public transportation initiatives. 

However, if we can't fix it, then why not embrace it? Mark Delucchi and Kenneth Kurani, from the Institute of Transporatation Studies at the University California-Davis, provide a compelling solution to sustainable urban design which embraces car ownership. According to Delucchi and Kurani, many social issues, including death tolls, air pollution, etc., are caused by the size and speed of the automobiles. Therefore, the challenge in creating a sustainable transportation and land-use system is to dramatically lower the "size and speed" of personal travel while retaining the advantages of personal motorized mobility and low-density development.

An example of this type of approach is shown below. 

The segregation of fast heavy roads and lightweight roads provides a dual roadway system. The fast heavy roads line the city clusters, but never intersect with the lightweight roads, which thread through the town. These lightweight roads are primarily for pedestrian, bicycle, and small automobile (that do not exceed 25 mph) use. This proposal promotes interaction and accessibility. Low density housing surrounds the city center, while multiple family housing would be situated close to the core. Each town would be populated with about 50,000-100,000 residents. 

This approach provides a compelling and innovative new outlook of what the most appropriate density could look like. 

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Sustainable Infrastructure

Future urban growth has great potential to be increasingly sustainable. Green roofs, public transit, and renewable energy come to mind, but another very important practice to consider is the construction of high performance infrastructure. Unlike a singular building, infrastructure affects the entire city. Standards must be upheld, and consistency of sidewalk widths, road dimensions, and transit types are important. When a new station or road is built, it often dictates the way new construction is built in the surrounding area.

High performance infrastructure meets all of the required needs of regular infrastructure – but with extreme efficiency. So instead of building a drainage system to remove water from the urban-scape, high performance streets redirect water to planters, trees, and green spaces. This not only keeps storm water out of the sewage system (which often overflows into natural bodies of water during storms), but it also provides a cost-effective (free) way of watering urban green spaces.

Another goal of High Performance Infrastructure is to reduce maintenance cost by selecting long lasting materials, and utilizing as much of the current streetscape as possible. If we continue to push this practice (as NYC and others have done through legislation) we can design sustainable frameworks for our cities; and if successful, this high performance infrastructure will influence and sculpt the buildings nested within in a way that is efficient and sustainable.