arch-peace news and articles

The Cultural Role of Architecture: Contemporary and Historical Perspectives (Paperback) - Routledge

2012-01-21T02:15:00.001+11:00

With a contribution from our colleague Prof Ashraf Salama, The Cultural Role of Architecture explores,

"the ambiguities of how we define the word ‘culture’ in our global society, this book identifies its imprint on architectural ideas. It examines the historical role of the cultural in architectural production and expression, looking at meaning and communication, tracing the formations of cultural identities.

Chapters written by international academics in history, theory and philosophy of architecture, examine how different modes of representation throughout history have drawn profound meanings from cultural practices and beliefs. These are as diverse as the designs they inspire and include religious, mythic, poetic, political, and philosophical references."

The Cultural Role of Architecture: Contemporary and Historical Perspectives (Paperback) - Routledge:

'via Blog this'

A hospital with an attitude: the new Royal Children Hospital in Melbourne, Australia

2012-01-09T15:28:00.002+11:00

I recently visited the new building for Royal Children Hospital in Melbourne, Australia which, as I hope these images capture, manages to successfully create a friendly and stimulating environment for children.

Hospital's main façade

On Koolhaas's Defense of Generic Architecture

2011-12-31T18:02:00.000+11:00

When I read Rem Koolhaas I can't help thinking of Groucho Marx's words when he says: "Those are my principles. If you don't like them I have others."

I question whether a city with a 40% or more of foreign workers, particularly those in many African cities where Koolhass asserts his architectural power-- people who have no right to vote, many of whom don't have their family with them and where creating a community is pointless--can ever be really free. Richard Sennett discussing 'flexibility' (a work approach in capitalist societies) claims that, "Once people used to come to the city in search of anonymity, diversity and the freedom to meet others. Cities were also places of collective struggle and solidarity. Now, just as the workplace is affected by a new system of flexible working, so the city, too, risks losing its charm as businesses and architecture become standardised and impersonal." (Richard Sennett's "A flexible city of strangers").

Koolhaas believes the generic city is also the freest. Liberated from the codes and rules of the old city center, it’s a free zone, a safe haven for the migrant workers who make up (in Amsterdam’s case) 40 percent of the city’s population. Generic plug-in waterfronts (like the Baltimore Inner Harbor, New York's East River Waterfront and, yes, HafenCity) are the product of a simple equation between developers and city governments.

In these scenarios, architecture is "icing on the cake," a broken, out-dated profession, validated at random by an "unstable ideological environment" that changes according to the whims of an ever-evolving bureaucracy.

Find "Koolhaas's Defense of Generic Architecture" by Kelsey Campbell-Dollaghan here.

Remember those who live without peace and whose homes and land have been occupied

2011-12-31T17:10:00.001+11:00

And, at this time of the year when we celebrate home, family, friendship and peace, it is important to remember those who live without peace and whose homes and land have been occupied. To them, to us, with hope for a more peaceful and just future.

Wide Open Road: how did Australia plan pedestrians, cyclists and transit out of its cities?

2011-12-19T23:04:00.001+11:00

Author: Peter Newman

Professor of Sustainability at Curtin University

Before the motorcar “owned” the road, cyclists weren’t seen as space-taking nuisance.

The ABC documentary Wide Open Road is a totally fascinating history of the car in Australia.

The characters who pioneered the car in the Australian bush 100 years ago are remarkable. The images of Australian cities as the first cars arrived on the scene are wonderful, with their carts and trams winding through huge flows of pedestrians and cyclists.
Read more »

Corporate Social Responsibility

2011-12-15T07:35:00.000+11:00

The first time I ever met Simon was on the rooftop of a three storey car park overlooking the Nicholson street Mall in Footscray. With a proud smile he told me ‘Footscray is the new Richmond!’ Back then he was the Senior Planner responsible for overseeing the management of the Footscray TOD for Maribyrnong Council whilst I was the urban designer putting together a bid to try and get a project for my then employer. Today, Simon still works for the City of Maribyrnong, however in a different role as the Place Manager for Footscray. When I caught up with him recently he told me about his project - he was trying to get businesses in Footscray to talk to each other by volunteering their time and or money towards a charity function for the most marginalised in Footscray. As I spent time with Simon and his team from the City of Maribyrnong and the Assertive Outreach program of the Western Region Health Centre, the only question that went through my mind was ‘why would anyone volunteer their time and money towards such a cause?’

There are a number of social and moral reasons why individuals volunteer their time and money towards charitable causes, but do those same reasons motivate corporations towards social responsibility. We live in a society where we want as much bang as we can get for our buck as possible, hence the notion of value is critical; ‘how we spend our money is directly defined by the perceived worth of what we receive in return.’[1] How does a corporation decide the perceived worth of the return when it is providing a service on voluntary grounds? To fully comprehend such a decision we need to define the concept ‘value.’

In economic terms ‘Value’ can be broken down into two important concepts ‘Return on Investment’ (ROI) and ‘Utility.’

ROI = (Gain from investment - Cost of investment) / Cost of investment [2]

Utility: An economic term referring to the total satisfaction received from consuming a good or service[3]

President's Report – Wrapping up 2011

2011-12-12T22:54:00.006+11:00

We couldn't quite let 2011 roll to a close without a bit of a wrap up on what we have been up to and a few thank yous. It's that time of year of course, when time and attention spans are short – so the following is sub-titled for your convenience. Feel free to skip over the boring bits!

Volunteers

Our active volunteer base has increased following a session for new members in August. We welcomed 12 new people to our team, who have been primarily involved in words, pro bono and news.
Read more »

Guerrilla street cleaners

2011-12-07T21:30:00.001+11:00

Guerrilla – a person who engages in irregular warfare especially as a member of an independent unit carrying out harassment and sabotage [1]

First there was guerrilla gardening, now we have guerrilla street cleaning! When did society feel the need to organize as specialized covert independent units to carry out harassment and sabotage on civil servants everywhere? What will we have next, guerrilla financial planners?

http://www.theuglyindian.com/

Aga Khan Trust for Culture, Media and Publications

2011-11-30T02:38:00.001+11:00

The Aga Khan Development Network (AKDN) has just released the Aga Khan Trust for Culture, Media and Publications. This is a comprehensive list of books, monographs and publications covering the topics of culture, architecture, cities, music and museums and exhibitions and reflecting the needs and aspirations of Muslim societies. Each topic is introduced with an explanatory note.

Image source: the Aga Khan Trust for Culture, Media and Publications. Click on image to access the publication.

Why did the Mullah cross the road?

2011-11-29T21:46:00.001+11:00

When I say Muslim what’s the first thing that comes to your mind? Would fun, cheek or even humour come in your top ten? Some of the satire used thus far has resulted in tensions within the Muslim community often leading to retribution. Could this have something to do with what Ayatollah Khomeini once said ‘there are no jokes in Islam.’ However it is the perception that people of an Islamic faith do not have a sense of humour that causes harm. In a multi-cultural society it is this perception that extends an already marginalised community and makes them an easier target. The unfortunate reality of the situation is that Islam has had a rich history of humour. Unlike Christian texts, Turkish literature featured a Sufi sage by the name of Mullah Nasreddin who was notorious for his wit; even the prophet Muhammad was known to make the occasional joke. The Hidah recalls ‘Why are there no old women in heaven? Because they become young girls when they get there!’ But yet this problem of all Muslims being fundamentalists persists.

2010 Public art project at North Yarra Community Health Centre[1].

Minority Rights Group International in their 2010 report states that the ‘rise of religious nationalism, the economic marginalization of religious minorities and the abuse of counter-terrorism laws have all led to a growing pattern of persecution against religious minorities globally. Minorities, particularly Muslims, across the USA and Europe, have been targets of increased state controls as well as nationalist campaigns by right-wing groups. In Switzerland, following a campaign by the ultra-conservative Swiss People's Party, a majority of participating voters backed a referendum, which proposed a ban on the building of new minarets in mosques.[3]’

Arctic Food Network

2011-11-23T08:00:00.000+11:00

Baffin Island geographically is the fifth-largest island in the world or one-and-a-half times Germany. This is true polar bear territory where winter nights are long and dark with most likely the harshest environment on earth. However in saying that there are over 13,000 inhabitants sparsely spread across the island. Baffin Island is part of Nunavut, Canada's newest territory; created on 1 April 1999 to give control of the lands back to the Inuit. Physically however Greenland is closer in proximity thanks to the major waters of Baffin Bay. Today hunting and fishing are still the day to day activities keeping alive the local community. Traditionally whale, seal, walrus, caribou, eider duck and goose were staple Inuit diet; today this is slowly being replaced with fast food flown in from the mainland. For the younger generation satellite TV, ice hockey and fast food seem rather more appealing than time honored traditions. The census of 2001 identified the median age of Nunavat as 22.1 with the life expectancy for men at 66.4 years and 71 years for women. These were the lowest in Canada. Alcohol was banned over 20 years ago after the community faced ongoing issues with alcoholism. The region faces a number of challenges to the environment but the biggest concern is the isolation faced by the youth. 60% of the youth are under the age of 25 with greater numbers of young people moving away in search of work or to move away from the traditional ways to more urban environments in search of fast food and satellite TV.

AGM 2011 + End of Year Dinner

2011-11-21T20:30:00.007+11:00

Click on poster to download.

On behalf of the Architects for Peace team, we'd like to say thank you for your contribution to our efforts this year. You are warmly invited to our Annual General Meeting and end of year dinner on Thursday 1 December 2011.

AGM
Where: RMIT Building 50, Orr St, Carlton
When: 6.00pm

Followed by...

Dinner
Where: Seoul Tookbegi, 260 Russell St, Melbourne
When: 7.30pm (we'll supply drinks, menu is very reasonably priced)

RSVP team@architectsforpeace.org or
to Katherine on 0423 472 984 by Thursday 24 November

All members are welcome to nominate and/or vote for the Committee of Management. You'll find the agenda and nomination form here.

The formalities will be short. So afterwards join us for our end of year drink and something to eat! Partners welcome :)

When the 1% have gained at the expense of the 99%

2011-11-21T12:14:00.000+11:00

By Ajith Kuruvilla

Alan Grayson former democratic representative for Florida and economist recently noted on the television, ‘Wall Street wrecked the economy three years ago and nobody has been held responsible for it…they are upset about the fact that Wall Street has iron control over the economic policies of this country and that one party is a wholly owned subsidiary of Wall Street and the other party caters to them as well.’2 The masses are dissatisfied with the state of economic policy which allows rich bankers a free ride on the back of the poor and the middle class. Young people from Europe to the US to Australia have greater difficulty finding a job, are more likely to face higher taxes, less generous handouts from the government and will stay with their parents longer to pay off the debts incurred from our excess over the last 10 years. The middle class face higher mortgage repayments in an economy where house values are dropping and where falling wages, reduced pension returns and inflation could ruin any signs of an early retirement. Protesters from young people, factory workers, middle class and the elderly - people on the left and on the right all have a legitimate right to feel the system has let them down. After all weren’t we promised free markets would create prosperity?

Read more »

Working within and for the 99%

2011-11-07T21:00:00.000+11:00

Architects for Peace works within and for the 99% of the world--the majority world.

As part of our mission, our talks provide the most needed dialogue, learning and critique of current issues.

You are invited to this Thursday's talk: Resilience in Infrastructure & Urban Form | Thurs. 10 Nov. 7pm | by Che Biggs. This event will be recorded for all to see. Please help us promoting the event. Click on the image to find more.

Annual General Meeting

2011-11-02T22:19:00.000+11:00

Thursday 1 December
6.00pm
Building 50
Orr Street
Carlton, Victoria
(Off Victoria Street between Cardigan and Lygon Streets)

All members are welcome to nominate and/or vote for the Committee of Management.
The formalities will be short. So afterwards join us for an end of the year drink and something to eat.

Implementing the right to the city in Brazil

2011-10-19T16:07:00.000+11:00

The right to the city is a concept employed by a variety of actors at different scales, with its use ranging from being nestled within the status quo to staunchly anti-capitalist. Although present in many declarations and charters, the one place where binding legislation on the right to the city actually exists – along with inevitable, significant tensions inherent in its implementation – is Brazil.

Comunidade Campo Grande Jurubatuba, an informal settlement in Santo Amaro subprefecture, São Paulo. Magic Condominium Resort tower in the background.

Thanks to decades of struggle by an alliance of social housing movements, professionals, squatters, NGOs and academics, legislation ensuring the right to the city has been enshrined in the 2001 City Statute, a development law regulating the chapter on urban policy, specifically articles 182 and 183, in Brazil’s 1988 Constitution.

Cohousing – an instrument for peaceful resolution of conflict

2011-10-19T14:44:00.000+11:00

Cohousing, i.e. housing with communal spaces and shared facilities, is gaining momentum in Europe, USA, Australia and some other countries. The author of this article has been involved in research on cohousing since the middle of the 1960s and lives in one such housing unit in Stockholm since 1996. In this article the focus is put on the possible contribution of cohousing to peaceful resolution of conflict.

The cohousing models of today were influenced by examples far back in history. In her books about the history of communitarian settlements in the USA the famous feminist architect researcher Dolores Hayden finds that these projects were based on wishes to establish self-sufficient settlements incorporating both industry and agriculture. The design solutions were determined by the machine ideal (forerunners of modernism), the model home idea (emphasising new lifestyles) and/or the garden ideal (forerunners of ecovillages 100 years later).

In the cohousing unit Tullstugan in Stockholm (home of the author) 50 residents share the duty of preparing dinners four evenings a week. Each member is served meals 18 out of 20 times without any duties of shopping, cooking or dish washing. Twice every fifth week one has to spend four hours cooking for other residents. Men and women have equal duties.

BASHOURA cemetery's airspace

2011-10-17T01:50:00.003+11:00

By Sandra Rishani

Beirut maps highlighting cemetery location by an outline: Map1 1876 - Map2 1919- Map3 1964- Map4 1994- Map5 2011

Bashoura's built space to open air ratio is one of the least shocking in relationship to Beirut's other neighborhoods. This is mainly attributed to the large historic cemetery that creates a breathing space in the middle of the dense neighborhood. Yet when the cemetery was planned it was surrounded by plantations; today it is surrounded by apartment buildings. The cemeteries location today actually allows the neighborhood fresh air, ventilation space, and direct sunlight.
Read more »

How I became interested in Urban Planning

2011-10-14T05:15:00.010+11:00

Author:Andrew Ma

In eighth grade, my dad was sent to London for work and I got to live with him for 2 months. During my stay at London, I had no friends nor spoke good English. All I had was a PlayStation, TV, a Math textbook and a DVD of “Saving Private Ryan.” Whether it was my fascination with war or the movie itself, I watched Saving Private Ryan everyday for 2 months. I originally watched the movie with Korean subtitles, then with English subtitles and eventually with no subtitles at all; in ways, Saving Private Ryan taught me English. By the end of my stay in London, I not only understood what they were saying but also started feeling as if I was part of them. Understanding the power of visual image I started filming.

Read more »

Sustainable Futures: architecture and urbanism in the global south

2011-10-06T09:45:00.001+11:00

Conference:This conference is relevant to Built Environment professionals interested in the future and sustainability of our built environments, with particular reference to the Global South.

"The nature of architecture and urbanism in the Global South presents us with an opportunity to evaluate global challenges related to urban sustainability from a new perspective. Are there lessons here for architects, landscape architects and urban designers? Can there be a productive transfer of best practice principles from south to north, south to south, as well as north to south? Certainly, the ever-increasing number of inter-country exchange programmes, studio projects, and design-build projects set in the Global South, from India, to South America and across Africa, suggest that there are lessons that can be taught and learnt. These projects, set to help urban and rural societies with infrastructure and technological transfer, also aid the transfer of knowledge back to the participants, related to sustainable futures at different scales - from individual buildings to the district and urban-scales."

Empowering Communities to Preserve Character of Place

2011-10-06T01:11:00.000+11:00

Landscape Architect Assoc Prof Ray Green discusses his ground-breaking approach in which a community is able to define the character of its neighbourhood. This methodology seeks to restore the balance of power between communities and external bodies such as planners and developers. With host Jennifer Cook.

"Typically these so called character studies are done by town planners, landscape architects, urban designers based on their professional judgements. My research is based quite differently where I assume that the local residents of these towns are the true experts." -- Associate Professor Ray Green

Credits:
Host: Jennifer Cook
Producers: Kelvin Param, Eric van Bemmel
Series Creators: Eric van Bemmel and Kelvin Param
Audio Engineer: Gavin Nebauer
Voiceover: Nerissa Hannink

Note: Permission to republish this article has been granted by the University of Melbourne, unimelbvisions.

Peru Slum and water demand

2011-09-29T08:40:00.003+10:00

SAFE AGUA Perú es el título de este video realizado a razón del taller de innovación social del Art Center College of Design en Pasadena, USA en conjunto con el trabajo del Centro de Innovación de Un Techo para Chile/ Un Techo para mi País y las familias de campamentos. Una impactante mirada a la vida en campamentos en América del Sur.

SAFE AGUA PERU, is the name of the video based on the work done on the studio for social innovation of the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena USA and the work of the Centro de Innovación de un Techo para Chile/ Un Techo para mi País and the slums residents. An amazing glimpse of what is it to live in Slums in South America.

http://www.vimeo.com/29308073

Stretch and squeeze: Sustainability vs. sprawl in crowded Asian cities

2011-09-28T22:13:00.000+10:00

Dr Sidh Sintusingha discusses the phenomenon of urban sprawl and approaches to enabling sustainability in increasingly crowded Southeast Asian urban corridors. With host Jennifer Cook.

JENNIFER COOKSo in your view is urban sustainability even possible and what are the consequences if it’s not?
SIDH SINTUSINGHAWell putting an idealistic hat on it is possible but we human beings have to be given the big stick, you know a very serious environmental catastrophe for instance might push us towards that direction. But…

Up Close, the research talk show from the University of Melbourne.

10 years later

2011-09-28T21:52:00.000+10:00

The plane attacks ten years ago in New York and Washington were related to architecture in more than the obvious way. They were attacks on symbolic buildings, led by a trained architect, funded indirectly by the bin Ladin construction empire. The hawks masterminding the follow-up invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan were eventually labelled "architects of war" by the media.A year later, in New York, the good architects had risen, and with a bit of coordination and promotion by the New York Times and Muschamp, denounced the six development-parcel proposals from the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation.

"In June, a group of New York architects met to discuss their dissatisfaction with the planning process unfolding under the auspices of the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, the state agency created to supervise the rebuilding of ground zero and the financial district. The group included Richard Meier, Steven Holl, Peter Eisenman, Charles Gwathmey and Guy Nordenson, a structural engineer." NYT 08/09/02

Daniel Libeskind won the design competition hastily organised by the LMDC, but by 2004 he had lost control of the Freedom Tower design to S.O.M. and was battling his client in court over $800,000 in fees.

Read more »

Waterless toilets for Jamaica's Poor

2011-09-05T01:55:00.000+10:00

Food For The Poor has launched an initiative to install eco-friendly, waterless toilets in locations throughout St. Catherine, Jamaica. The initiative aims to replace dangerous pit latrines and provide schools and families throughout impoverished communities of the island with proper sanitation.

In our efforts to bring sustainable solutions to those we serve, we were eager to invest in a test of this environmentally friendly technology. This innovative solution will allow Food For The Poor to improve the living conditions of the poor, regardless of their proximity to water.

- Robin Mahfood, Food For The Poor’s President/CEO.

The system separates liquid and solid waste as it enters the toilet bowl. Liquid waste drains to the bottom of the container, while solid waste remains on the drying plate. Both are exposed to a continuous flow of air. As the air moves through the system it dehydrates the solid waste as it migrates down the drying plate, and causes the liquid to evaporate quickly.

After a three-month trial period, Food For The Poor will determine whether this environmentally friendly sanitation system will be included in schools and homes constructed by the nonprofit organization in Haiti and Jamaica

Episode 3 at FatinHistorico.org

2011-08-22T22:35:00.003+10:00

On this episode, we look at Gua Tujuh caves. Gua Tujuh bore witness to the Japanese invasion of East Timor and served as a background for the 1975 skirmish between East Timorese pro autonomy and pro independent factions.

For photos and essay, check out fatinhistorico.org.

A sad day for Australian architecture

2011-08-11T17:22:00.002+10:00

This is a sad day for Australian architecture with the tragic deaths of Greg McNamara, Lena Yali (Troppo Architects) and Kevin Taylor (Taylor Cullity Lethlean).

Our condolences to their families, friends and colleagues.

Their work and subtle but influential stance on environmentally sustainable architecture will be missed and we hope that new generations of architects will follow in their footsteps.

The architectsforpeace team

Here is an ABC Darwin’s Tribute to Troppo Architects: http://www.abc.net.au/local/audio/2011/08/11/3290893.htm?site=darwin

Join the arch-peace team: new volunteer positions

2011-08-07T21:16:00.003+10:00

Been thinking about getting involved with Architects for Peace but not sure where to start?

Maybe you've been a member for a while, made the odd comment on Facebook - even come along to an event or two? Or perhaps you just stumbled across us and are wondering what it's all about? Well, we'd love to show you! We're putting a call out for volunteers to join our active team and you just might have something we're looking for.

Why?
This is an opportunity to be part of a dynamic and supportive team of enthusiastic volunteers, expand your professional and social network, and have some fun - all while contributing to the promotion of sustainable urban development based on social justice, solidarity, respect and peace. We are an inclusive and close-knit bunch. Our organisation is fundamentally defined by our principles and the talents and energy of the volunteers behind it.
Read more »

Architects for Peace partners with Fatin Historico

2011-08-04T08:04:00.003+10:00

Fatin Historico iha Timor Lorosae

Fatin Historico is a youth led and initiated project with a focus on documenting historical places and architecture of East Timor. We try to cover places that are historically significant including traditional, Portuguese, Chinese, Japanese and Indonesian architecture, and other significant (non-architecture) places. This project strongly involves the participation of Timorese youth in the production of materials.

We are very pleased to have partnered with Architects for Peace as we are expanding our scope and engagement, and we hope that we can learn from and share with the organisation and the network!

If you would like to be involved, please contact fatin.historico@gmail.com or afp@architectsforpeace.org.

IntentCITY, the book: now download as PDF

2011-08-03T10:55:00.008+10:00

IntentCITY: the political city
IntentCITY was the inaugural forum establishing many of the principles of the Architects for Peace. This publication features the articles presented to the IntentCITY forum and discussions about social responsibility and the right to the city. Contributors to include Dr Darko Radovic, Dr Beatriz Maturana, Dr Kit Lazaroo and Liz Coleman, Marc Purcell, Geoff Hogg, Su Mellersh-Lucas and Mick Pearce.

You can now download the book free of charge. But if you feel this book is special, and worth something to you, then we would like to encourage you to donate what you can via 'Our Community' button below — it's up to you.

Open publication - Free publishing - More architecture

Maturana, Beatriz C., and Anthony McInneny, eds. IntentCITY: the political city. Edited by Architects for Peace. Melbourne: Architects for Peace, 2010. ISBN 9780646490748.

Parque Cultural Valparaíso a tres meses del estreno: Obra, Cultura y Gestión pública

2011-08-02T18:25:00.005+10:00

Note by Architects for Peace: This article was originally published at Plataforma Patrimonio and it has been re-published with the consent of its author Alberto Texido. The article, entitled Cultural Park Valparaiso (Chile), discusses the conversion of a former jail and its surroundings (listed as cultural heritage) into a complex for cultural manifestations--workshops and installations. This project puts an end to 150 years of abandonment and deterioration and provides the city with a new cultural space of a scale that Valparaiso had not seen before.

Por Alberto Texido
Read more »

Volunteer travel, is it for our own benefit or do we actually contribute ?

2011-07-25T21:54:00.003+10:00

Volunteer travel, one of the most growing sectors in the tourism industry. As a student, honestly I was debating for a long time on whether it’s worth to put my hard earned saving into doing it. Gathering friends over for discussion, two comments stick into my mind: is it altruism or the expected post-volunteer fell-good-feeling that motivate people doing volunteer travel? Do we really make a difference over such a short period of time? At that time it was hard to argue because none of us had done it before. Hence, after much dilemma, I decided to go for it and try to find the answers to those questions.
Read more »

Under the Bridge

2011-07-25T21:16:00.003+10:00

FILM AND ESSAY BY NORA NIASARI

The consequences of the Lebanese Civil War in Beirut’s public transportation are exposed through the film “Under the Bridge” by Melbourne-based filmmaker Nora Niasari. By studying the past and present, we can lay the groundwork for new thinking.

Dora Transportation Hub – Under the Bridge © Nora Niasari

Beirut’s public transport infrastructure has experienced a lifetime of conflict in its struggle to provide an ongoing platform for citizen mobility. Through the window of history, we can retrace the establishment of the Lebanese railway system to the beginning of the twentieth century. These railways not only connected the major cities in Lebanon, but neighboring countries including Syria, Iraq and Turkey where the line operated along the famed ‘Orient Express’ train route from the late 1920s to the 1940s. Today, such developments for infrastructure seem unimaginable with the ongoing socio-political struggles in the Middle East. In Lebanon’s case, years of war and post-traumatic recovery have created uncertainty for the future of its public transport infrastructure. Since the beginning of the Lebanese Civil War and the collapse of Beirut’s public transportation system, three key developments have taken shape: Cola Transport Hub, Dora Transport Hub and Charles Helou Bus Station, which embody the ongoing failures and conflicts of contemporary Lebanon.
Read more »

Driven to despair in Australia’s outer suburbs

2011-07-17T01:21:00.004+10:00

Author: Peter Newman
Professor of Sustainability at Curtin University of Technology

In cities all over the industrial world, people are driving less. Changes to society and the structures of our cities have made jumping in the car less popular. But what does this mean for people who have no choice but to drive?

Getting out of the car: easy for some. Hunter Desportes/Flickr

Impromptu: a presentation by Mathias Klotz

2011-06-25T20:49:00.004+10:00

Mathias Klotz discusses his projects, the role of nature and local knowledge in informing architectural form, the 8.8 Chilean earthquake and much, much more...

Casa 11 Mujeres, Cachagua, Chile. Source Abduzeedo.com

Early last year, Chilean architect Mathias Klotz accepted an impromptu invitation to an Architects for Peace forum. Klotz's direct and engaging presentation took place soon after the 8.8 earthquake that hit Chile on February 2010, which Klotz often referred to in his talk.

Mathias Klotz Germain was born on April 1965 in Viña del Mar (Chile). In 1991 he graduated as an architect from the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile. He has been awarded numerous awards and has major projects in Chile, Mexico, Italy, Lebanon, China, Uruguay, Argentina, Spain...

"I am interested in belonging to a place… That is what my work is about…
I have no idea if I have found a place, but I think there are some projects that do have one.
The Reutter House has one by climbing up the trees. The Las Niñas Winery has one by illuminating the industrial space with natural light. The Mulchnick House has one by constructing an inhabitable terrace. The Ponce House has one on the River Plate." (Source: Mathias Klotz website)

Among his awards:
2011 Distinction, Modular Building Institute (Restaurant Rucary)
2010 Green Good Design, Casa La Roca;
2002 Second Place, Miami Biennial Miami (Colegio Altamira)
2002 Third Place, Miami Biennial Miami (Casa Reutter)
2001 Borromini Award, Catgory Architect under 40 y.o., Roma
2000 Finalist, Mies van der Rohe Award, Casa Reutter
1998 Finalist, Mies van der Rohe Award, Casa Müller

We invite you to watch this presentation captured in the following three videos.

Impromptu: Mathias Klotz (Chile) Part 1 from Architects for Peace on Vimeo.

Impromptu: Mathias Klotz (Chile) Part 2 from Architects for Peace on Vimeo.

Impromptu: Mathias Klotz (Chile) Part 3 from Architects for Peace on Vimeo.

Find more about Mathias Klotz' work at: http://www.mathiasklotz.com/

On Politics and Public Space - Prof. Kim Dovey - video now available online!

2011-06-09T21:36:00.003+10:00

In April this year, Professor Kim Dovey presented On Politics and Public Space: an exploration of the public square and its role both as a reflection of power and a space where collective empowerment may be acted out. Citing examples in China, Thailand and Egypt, this was a compelling insight into Pr Dovey's research. The talk is now available in instalments to view online, so if you missed out, or would like to revisit it, you can check it out below..

Do you want size with that? The McMansion malaise

2011-06-08T11:28:00.002+10:00

This article was originally published in The Conversation on 7 June, 2011. The article has been re-published under under Creative Commons license.

Author: Terry Burke. Professor, Institute for Social Research at Swinburne University of Technology

Living large down under – Australians love big houses. travelskerrick/flickr

Australia has long prided itself on being an equal society, and for most of the 20th century our housing was a mirror of that value or belief.

Almost all houses were single-storey detached and, with the exception of the Tooraks and Vaucluses, the dwellings of the affluent were not greatly larger than those of people on more moderate incomes.
Read more »

Resetting agendas: a conference in a climate of change

2011-06-01T22:23:00.000+10:00

Reflections on the Oxford Conference 2008

This article discusses ‘The Oxford Conference 2008: 50 Years on – Resetting the Agenda for Architectural Education’ aimed to influence architectural education. With delegates from forty-two countries representing every continent there was a manifest change in the composition of the delegates as compared to 50 years ago. On the face of it this would suggest that a more diverse attendance made a difference in the spectrum of issues coming to the forefront: but did it?
Resetting agendas: a conference in a climate of change

This article was first published by Cambridge Journals, ARQ. How to cite the article: Beatriz Maturana (2008). Resetting agendas a conference in a climate of change. Architectural Research Quarterly, 12, pp 209-212 doi:10.1017/S1359135508001127

The original article can be downloaded from: Architectural Research Quarterly

Where do our friends come from?

2011-05-17T20:43:00.002+10:00

Where do Architects for Peace's friends come from? Without doubt we are a very diverse and cosmopolitan bunch. Here a list of our top 20 countries represented in Facebook:

720 Australia
342 United States
209 Italy
199 Egypt
130 Tunisia
119 United Kingdom
90 India
76 Chile
72 Spain
68 Morocco
66 Turkey
62 Indonesia
58 Mexico
58 Malaysia
56 Argentina
52 Palestine
50 Canada
50 Germany
46 United Arab Emirates
45 Bangladesh
(...)

Pritzker Prize 2011 to Eduardo Souto de Moura: acknowledging local context

2011-04-25T00:55:00.004+10:00

By Beatriz C. Maturana

According to the words of the Pritzker Prize jury, in the 80’s and at the height of post-modernism, Souto de Moura buildings were “intensely out of fashion”.[1] Souto de Moura deliberately did not give in to the pressure to conform to architectural fashion or fads. Working with and within his own architectural national context has provided Souto de Moura with an abundance of meaningful references to build upon. The jury referred to Souto de Moura’s architectural work in terms of the “echoes of architectural traditions”, “mindful of its context” that reinforces history while, “expanding the range of contemporary expression”.[1] His most challenging, innovative and unconventional trait is that Souto de Moura’s architecture is bravely local.

Braga Municipal Stadium. Photograph by Luís Ferreira Alves. Image source: The Pritzker Architecture Prize. © The Hyatt Foundation

Dog whistling in the face of distaster.

2011-04-17T16:59:00.002+10:00

In Australia, political thinking is inherently connected to our place in the world and the world in our place. While this island continent nation is multicultural and built on an immigrant culture (2% of the population is indigenous) the contradictions of our dominant Judeo Christian values and legal system are amplified not only when disaster occurs but also when prosperity reigns. An economy of scarcity in a time of abundance pervades the political imagination in the annual attack on welfare recipients at home and a mean spirited foreign aid program and down right inhuman response to our obligations to refugees.

"They are not foreigners and that's why this disaster has especially touched the hearts of every Australian,"
Tony Abbott, Leader of the opposition Liberal Party of Australia, on the earthquake in New Zealand. Februrary 23, 2011, ABC radio

A poster in an Afghan carpet shop in Thomas Street, Dandenong February 2011. The poster asks members of the community to assist those affected by the Queensland floods, signed by the Australian Hazara Council, Rasul Akram Association of Australia.

Thisted Municipality smart development

2011-04-02T18:32:00.003+11:00

Important advance for Thisted Municipality in Denmark. In 20 years the Thisted territory with 45.500 habitants has reach the generation of it 100% renewable energy source. Is important to stand out the compromise between the people and the local government as an example of private-public partnership looking for a low carbon city.

HMC Blog » Francois Roche’s Recent Cancellation Letter to SCI-Arc

2011-03-31T23:16:00.001+11:00

This article deals with Francois Roche’s cancellation notice to SCI Arc. The issues discussed here are important—painfully important I would say—, particularly to those involved in architectural education. The following quote should give you an idea of the issues that the cancellation letter deals with,

The gap of point of view, and the lack of interest for politics and attitudes, reducing the architecture process to a unique design agenda cannot fit with our scenario of production and scenario of speeches.

Our works and attitudes are toxic, animal, dangerous, regressive, politic and computational.

Find the article here: HMC Blog » Francois Roche’s Recent Cancellation Letter to SCI-Arc

Lucky Charm Fundraiser

2011-03-30T11:32:00.003+11:00

In light of the recent bout of devastating natural disasters that have taken place around the world, in particular, Australia, New Zealand and Japan, it has become apparent that humanitarian charities such as the Red Cross have become increasingly stretched for funds and resources which allow them to respond quickly and effectively in critical times.

In an act of support and unity, an assembly of contemporary jewellers from near and far have banded together to hold an extraordinary fundraising auction titled "Lucky Charm. Making Good Fortune Happen". With donating artists such as Lucy Folk, Julia deVille, Anna Davern , Nicholas Bastin and Melinda Young on board, alongside an incredible, diverse collection of local and international, emerging and established makers, this auction is one not to be missed.

By bidding and donating through this auction, you not only have the chance to nab yourself some amazing work for an absolute steal, but best of all, all the proceeds go directly to the Red Cross Disaster Relief and Rescue Fund.

An event that organiser, Melbourne jeweller Natalia Milosz-Piekarska calls "An unstoppable force of Good Nature!".

With new work still being loaded up onto the site every day, you are getting the first look at what will be a huge collection of generously donated contemporary jewellery going under the hammer.

Please take a moment to look through the media package and help us by spreading the word as far and wide as you possibly can.

See here: Lucky Charm Fundraiser

The auction for all works ends April 21st, 11pm EST, 2011.

If you have any queries, please contact Natalia at luckycharmfundraiser at gmail.com or on 0409 232 415.

Chicago city decarbonization plan

2011-03-19T09:20:00.007+11:00

Image from Skycraper.org

'Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture’s Robert Forest, AIA, and PositivEnergy Practice’s Roger E. Frechette present the new, holistic planning approach they have developed to reduce carbon emissions in dense urban cores.'

Please follow the attached link
http://www.environmentalleader.com/2010/10/26/sustainable-urban-design-in-chicago/

Source: Environmental Leader

Changing panorama: a reflection on Tahrir Square and WikiLeaks

2011-02-22T00:15:00.002+11:00

The political demonstrations that began in Tunisia and spread to Egypt and to other countries in the region, appear to have instilled a new sense of possibility, solidarity and optimism in large parts of the world—citizens might be able shape their history after all. This also poses many questions that need discussing, for instance, the role of the public realm (Tahrir Square), the role of social media and of citizens, local and across the other side of the world—and our role.

Tahrir Square. Photograph by Monasosh

Are we witnessing a new stage of political evolution? And if this is the case, what is our responsibility as professionals? To what degree has the social and public space facilitated these events? And, are these special types of public spaces? What are the characteristics of, say, Tahrir Square, that could assist public civic expression?

CALLE DIECIOCHO (en sepia)

2011-02-21T12:27:00.001+11:00

SANTIAGO, CHILE
21 November 2010

Calle Dieciocho is located close to the centre of Santiago, Chile, in an area of historical and architectural value. However, unlike other streets close by, such as, República and Avenida Brasil, calle Dieciocho has not received a similar level of attention or recognition.

Sadly, important historical areas of Santiago, such as this, were badly damaged during the February 26, 2010 earthquake. In some cases, only the façade of some of these buildings stand as testimony of their architectural value.

Calle Dieciocho (en sepia) from beatriz maturana on Vimeo.

elseplace: If It Was Me: (UAE Parliament in Abu Dhabi, Like a...

2011-02-04T14:06:00.000+11:00

elseplace: If It Was Me: (UAE Parliament in Abu Dhabi, Like a...: "I started yet another series today in my blog. It is called 'If It Was Me' which aims to take other architects' important projects of world ..."

Housing behind bars

2010-12-01T23:01:00.005+11:00

25% of all prisoners on the planet are incarcerated in the United States of America, according to an article published in the Boston Globe recently. That's 2,500,000 people - creating the third biggest industry in that country. It hasn't always been like that, in the Seventies incarceration rates were similar to other countries. The Globe draws a comparison to the parallel reduction in the provision of new public housing in the U.S. Borrowing from the research of sociologist Loic Wacquant, the article says,

In the 1990s, as federal corrections budgets increased by $19 billion, money for housing was cut by $17 billion, “effectively making the construction of prisons the nation’s main housing program for the poor."

In the current recessionary atmosphere public spending is decreasing - so what does this mean for these "big houses"?

Read on at James Carroll's Boston Globe article.

End of year celebratory picnic! Sunday 5 December 2010

2010-11-27T20:12:00.007+11:00

So, it's International Volunteers Day - what better occasion to get together on a grassy patch for some afternoon sunshine, to celebrate a successful year and say thank you to our members and friends for your support?

We're teaming up with our friends at Architects Without Frontiers, co-design, Emergency Architects Australia and Urban Village Melbourne to make it a communal event. If you're in town, we hope you can join us!

When: Sunday 5 December, 2.00pm onwards

Where: Fitzroy Gardens, East Melbourne

(Enter from cnr Lansdowne St and Treasury Pl, Melway Ref 2G B3) - see map of the gardens here. Head for the big triangle on the left side of the map, between the conservatory and the dolphin fountain!

Getting there: It's a short walk from Parliament Station or Wellington Pde (Trams 48 and 75)

Flyer below, all welcome - BYO picnic rug and something to share!

RSVP/further info: eleanor@architectsforpeace.org, 0431 254 644

Architectural Biennale Chile 2010

2010-11-23T02:03:00.017+11:00

"XVII Bienal de Arquitectura: 8.8 RE-CONSTRUCCIÓN"
Reports Beatriz C. Maturana

After the 8.8 earthquake that hit Chile in February 27—a year in which Chile celebrates it bicentenary of independence—this biennale is not surprisingly characterized by a focus on reconstruction projects; among them, housing, public buildings, and infrastructure. In spite of the enormous reconstruction task, the overall mood of the display is optimistic and confident.

Many of these projects are proposals by various faculties of architecture located in cities representing the most devastated areas. Thus, often these projects are located in small coastal and country towns that would have seldom been featured at earlier biennales. This is one of the many important aspects of this biennale worth carrying into the future.

Read more »

Invitation to our Annual General Meeting - 2010

2010-11-07T23:23:00.005+11:00

Our Annual General Meeting will be held on Thursday November 25th at Bldg 50, Orr Street, Carlton, at 7.00pm. All members are invited to attend.

The agenda and proxy details are attached here. If you have been thinking about getting more involved in a4p, would like to know more about what's been happening behind the scenes this year and what's planned for 2011, we would love you to join us at our final meeting for the year!

If you would like to nominate yourself or someone else for a position on the Committee of Management, or have any queries, please email eleanor@architectsforpeace.org. Nominations are due by Thursday November 18th.

Also - an end of year gathering is planned for Sunday 5 December - International Volunteer Day! - and we will be teaming up with some of our favourite Melbourne non-profit groups, including Architects Without Frontiers, co-design, Urban Village Melbourne and Emergency Architects Australia. Be sure to save the date and stay tuned for more details!

Au revoir Camille!

2010-11-01T23:37:00.006+11:00

Last month we said farewell to Camille Gharbi, a French architecture graduate who has been part of the words @ bldg 50 team for most of 2010 and has now headed back to France temporarily, ahead of her next travel adventure in the UK!

A huge thank you to Camille! Her enthusiasm and graphic design talent (not to mention acrobatic ability!) will be missed - as will the hilarity of having two C(K)amil(le)s around! :D Keep your eyes peeled for an a4p off shoot talk series popping up some time soon in a European outpost...

معرفی وبلاگ

2010-10-30T21:54:00.002+11:00

وبلاگ دانشجویان درس سیر اندیشه ها در شهرسازی

کارشناسی ارشد ورودی89

دانشگاه هنر اسلامی تبریز

Gardens Beneath Which Rivers Flow

2010-10-18T01:35:00.002+11:00

The Central outdoor space and
the upper level Fountain

Water in the Muslim Constructed Landscape

Ashraf M. Salama, 2010

This article was first published in: Faith & Form, Volume 43, Issue 3, 2010, PP.30-36. An article in a theme issue of Faith and Form: Sacred Landscape.

The Muslim faith emerged in a desert culture that thirsted for water, which was praised and prized as a rare yet breathtaking phenomenon. The faith spread across lands where great civilizations had already prospered: in the fertile valleys of the Nile in Egypt, of the Tigris and Euphrates in Iraq, and eventually of the Indus in India and of southern Spain. Water played multiple roles in relating the holy Qur’an and the sayings of the Prophet Muhammad to Muslim culture, from being a landscape element in mosques, mausoleums and palaces, to its use for irrigation and for everyday living. This article highlights selected manifestations of the use of water as one of the important elements that shaped the built environment of Muslims.

Gardens Beneath Which Rivers Flow: Water in the Muslim Constructed Landscape

Urban Growth Boundary - Public forum - recap

2010-09-26T20:02:00.011+10:00

We called a forum to debate the recent State government decision to expand Melbourne's Urban Growth Boundary. A crack team of experts was lined up to participate in a discussion on this announcement – the aim being to flesh out the context of the decision, the implications for Melbourne and outer-suburban communities (existing and future) and alternatives to urban sprawl.

Give the people what they want! (bananas?)

Tony de Domenico (Urban Development Institute of Australia) and Stuart Worn (Planning Institute of Australia) shared the pro-expansion corner; de Domenico claiming that developers are driven by creating affordable housing and 'what people want', a position that Worn carried further by valiantly expounding the inalienable right to live near work, friends and family (although failing to articulate just how this is achieved by making sheep paddocks available for suburban living). To be fair, it soon emerged that credit was due to both Worn and de Domenico for voicing what proved to be a minority view on a panel (and in front of an audience) that was otherwise roundly dismayed at the planned expansion and concerned about its consequences for Melbourne's sustainability.

Both seemed to plead a kind of helplessness of their respective bodies in the face of two intrinsic forces - the market (de Domenico compared houses to bananas in a reference to Cyclone Larry's impact on the Queensland banana crop in 2006) and the will of the people – essentially dictating where and what kind of housing is made available. This seemed to be something of a flimsy premise (is it always a choice to live in the outer suburbs, or might it be in some cases an inability to afford anywhere else?) and as Dianne Moy made an argument for the oppositecase – noting that the structure of the market can effectively prevent alternatives from emerging, and changes in the system are needed to present people with real choices of alternative forms of housing.

Housing affordability

The argument that expanding the UGB would improve housing affordability was dismissed as a fallacy by Kate Shaw, who suggested that the measure is in reality driven by the government's interest in economic growth through creating opportunities for developers, and Dr Carolyn Whitzman, who noted the financial disadvantage experienced by poorer outer suburban dwellers without access to infrastructure and forced into car-dependency.

Infrastructure

While Dr Paul Mees was adamant that an effective public transport system is achievable no matter what the size of the city, there was general consensus that the current trend to create houses ahead of transport infrastructure is concerning, contrary to the historical growth of Melbourne and unsustainable.

Planning consultation

2030 inevitably reared its ugly head, and was criticised for its authors having failed to engage with communities during its development. As the discussion turned to politics, the need for a genuinely democratic planning process was raised, with a comment from the floor suggesting that lack of public consultation breeds a general sense of frustration and disempowerment among communities, who resort to lodging objections (sometimes leading to VCAT legal battles) in order to engage with the planning process. It was a sentiment that was evident in comments from representatives of residents' groups in the audience, clearly passionate about appropriate development, but frustrated by a consistent lack of governmental response to their concerns.

So, where to next?

Some of the key points to emerge from the discussion...

Planning reform needed (there are helpful overseas precedents)

Different forms of tenure could be made available to people – ie not just home ownership – co-housing/ownership as a possible alternative?

Strategies to address disempowerment and engage people in planning processes – not just as objectors to decisions

Need to lobby government

What role can design play? How can architects work more directly with people on small-scale incremental changes to their dwellings?

A number of questions remain. We want to continue this conversation and would welcome your contribution (please feel free to comment below). A video recording of the night will be up on the words page soon. Note that submissions to the Growth Areas Authority are currently invited - see http://www.gaa.vic.gov.au/index/ for more info.

Thank you to the panellists for generously providing their time and insights, and a special thank you to Ian Woodcock for his input in the lead up to the forum, and for chairing a discussion that managed to be equally informative and entertaining!

The Extraordinary vs. the Everyday Catastrophe: Part 1

2010-09-25T21:31:00.002+10:00

This article was first published by Archinect on 10 Sept, 2010 and it has been republished by Architects for Peace with due permission from its authors.

Sunday August 29th marked the 5th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina’s landfall in Louisiana. On April 20th of this year, an explosion on Deepwater Horizon – an oil drilling rig stationed near Louisiana – killed 11 crew-members, and set off the largest offshore oil spill in the history of the United States. These 2 extraordinary catastrophes have each brought into focus the more insidious everyday catastrophes that plague their respective systems.

About a week after the explosion on Deepwater Horizon, I was sitting in on the final review for Derek Hoeferlin’s urban design studio (at the Graduate School of Architecture and Urban Design | Sam Fox School of Design and Visual Arts | Washington University in St. Louis, where Derek is a faculty member and I am a student). As it came to a close, the review transitioned into a conversation between the students and reviewers, and at one point, Derek made a comment about catastrophes that struck a chord with me.

What follows is a conversation between Derek and his former student Jess Garz (WUSTL alum and current graduate student at the MIT Department of Urban Studies and Planning). Their conversation – which includes contributions by several others – struggles with the issues raised by distinct catastrophic events and ongoing systemic failures, and asks what role design and design education can play in addressing catastrophes of everyday life.

Make sure to click through to Part 2 & Part 3 of this feature, which are illustrated by student work from Washington University in St. Louis, the University of Toronto, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology – including several examples of work created as part of the Gutter to Gulf initiative.

Aaron Plewke: Derek, the idea for this conversation came from a comment you made at your Urban Design studio's final review in early May (about a week after the oil rig explosion that began the ongoing disaster in the Gulf of Mexico). As a starting point, can you re-state your perspective on the everyday vs. the singular catastrophic event for the Archinect audience?

Derek Hoeferlin
July 14, 2010
Day 86 of BP Oil Spill

A week or so after the Deepwater Horizon oil explosion, most eyes, at least via the media’s gaze, were on the unfortunate lives lost from the explosion, rather than the impeding environmental disaster of what was oozing upward from deep beneath. I made a comment in a review of my Washington University in St. Louis urban design students’ work that stems from my past 5 years worth of leading architecture and urban design studios focusing on the rebuilding of the New Orleans region following Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

↑ Click image to enlarge
image credit: © Stan Strembicki

The comment is this:

The real problems we face, not just as designers but as citizens, are not Extraordinary Catastrophes but rather Everyday Catastrophes.

↑ Click image to enlarge
Lower Ninth Ward destruction from Industrial Canal levee breach. image credit: photo by Derek Hoeferlin, Spring 2006

↑ Click image to enlarge
Upper Ninth Ward flooding from everyday heavy rains. image credit: photo by Gutter to Gulf studio, Spring 2010

Part of why I say bring this up is of self-critique. As architects, artists, designers and educators, we collectively, including myself, have fallen into a “repetitive-cause” trap that follows pretty much any crisis in the United States of America.

The real problems we face, not just as designers but as citizens, are not Extraordinary Catastrophes but rather Everyday Catastrophes.

It is a trap of responding to that of the Extra-ordinary catastrophe (i.e. Hurricane Katrina=levee failures; Deepwater Horizon oil-platform explosion=BP oil spill; exotic mortgage lending=2008 Economic collapse; 2001 terrorist attacks=Afghan/Iraq wars, etc.), rather than preventing what is right in front of our noses – that of the Every-day catastrophe (i.e. water management crises tied to poor development policies; our addiction to finite fossil fuel resources tied to the USA’s reliance on private industries for such resources; irresponsible practices of both the public and private sectors tied to Wall Street decision-making; or, national security issues tied to the USA’s complicated relationship on the global stage).

Maybe putting it more dumbly: Compare this reactive method to what has grossly lacking in our nation’s health care system – insuring preventative care.

But for some reason we have gotten into our bottom-line mindsets that prevention is economically unfeasible. There is no clear dividend on this strange form of “speculative” investment. In other words, collectively we have lost sight of design as foresight.

What is economically unfeasible is this: many of the fishermen who fetch bountiful quantities of fish we eat are out of [their original] jobs because of this gross negligence on all of our parts. According to the USDOC, Commercial fishing accounts for over $200 million of Louisiana’s annual economy, over 20% of the lower 48 states. The fish are dying; the fisherman’s wetland communities are disappearing.

↑ Click image to enlarge
image credit: © Stan Strembicki

But disappearing wetlands began far before the BP oil spill. According to the USGS: 1,900 square miles lost since 1930 (Louisiana has 30% of the total coastal marsh and accounts for 90% of the coastal marsh loss in the lower 48 states), 24 square miles a year between 1900-2000 (areas the size of one football field every 38 minutes), current projected land loss over next 50 years is 500 square miles; and, 217 square miles of marsh were lost to open water as a result of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita alone. Climate change, rising seas, sinking land, single-line-defense-levees cutting off natural Mississippi River sediment discharge resulting in salt water intrusion; and, oil and natural gas pipelines cutting through the interconnected wetlands to deliver energy to a majority of the United States, have most to do with this. According to the Louisiana Dept. of Natural Resources, Louisiana ranks 1st in crude oil and 2nd in natural gas production in the US. All of these are arguably human made, and most only made within the last century. All a Gordian knot.

↑ Click image to enlarge
Economic importance of Gulf region. image credit: Gutter to Gulf studio – Washington University students Philip Burkhardt, Erin Dorr, Jonathan Dowse, Brendan Wittstruck statistics compiled at: http://www.americaswetland.com/photos/article/web factsheet09‐14‐2009.pdf

It is estimated that 2-4 miles of healthy wetlands can reduce storm surge height by 1 foot. Most do not know this, but healthy coral reefs reduce storm surge as well (as was the case with the 2004 SE Asia tsunami). Who knows what the status of the fragile Gulf of Mexico coral reefs are in the wake of the BP oil spill. We tend to ignore what we can’t see. Out-of-site, out-of-mind. We can see [what’s left of] the wetlands...we can’t see what’s happening to the coral reefs – reefs that are the basis for marine life.

↑ Click image to enlarge
Wetlands provide storm surge protection. image credit: Gutter to Gulf studio – Washington University students Philip Burkhardt, Erin Dorr, Jonathan Dowse, Brendan Wittstruck

To respond to our pretty-much-incompetent-measures to proactively prevent and efficiently respond to the now all-too-frequent extraordinary catastrophes, I believe that the education of the next wave of architects and designers must focus on the everyday, MOSTLY UNSEEN, catastrophes that ultimately accumulate to the extraordinary, HIGHLY SEEN, catastrophes.

Maybe this is obvious to many who will read this, but I truly believe it is being taken for granted.

We must expose the everyday catastrophes.

Jess Garz
July 28, 2010
Day 100 of BP Oil Spill

Derek, what happens when the everyday catastrophes become extra-ordinary?

The 100-year storms now seem to come every 20 years, and the amount of time between human-controlled/human-caused “storms” seems to be consistently shrinking. I admit to be a more active world citizen this decade as compared with the last, but let’s just think for a minute of the past 10 years:

Catastrophic Natural and Human CausedDisasters
-Category 3/4 Hurricanes Katrina and Rita
-2004 Southeast Asian Tsunami
-7.6 magnitude earthquake in Pakistan
-7.9 magnitude earthquake in Sichuan province
-7.0 magnitude earthquake in Haiti
-Coal Mine Collapse in West Virginia
-BP Oil Spill
-9/11 Terrorist Attacks
-Bridge collapse in Minneapolis
-Catastrophic flooding in China and Pakistan

↑ Click image to enlarge
image credit: © Stan Strembicki

This is obviously just a quick (and negative) look at the past few years, but it is clear that the glory days of overbuilt and under-maintained infrastructure are over, and that as inhabitants of the earth, we will be put into check by natural systems.

...what we really have to fear are not the category 5 storms and the bridge collapses of the future; it is not the extraordinary events happening more frequently, but rather beginning to acknowledge and discuss the daily attacks on our health, sense of reason and ultimately our sanity.

But getting back to my first thought about “what happens when the everyday becomes extraordinary?” and also Derek’s reference to our (American) health-care system and its (complete) lack of insight into covering preventative care – I believe what we really have to fear are not the category 5 storms and the bridge collapses of the future; it is not the extraordinary events happening more frequently, but rather beginning to acknowledge and discuss the daily attacks on our health, sense of reason and ultimately our sanity. The scariest thing about these attacks is that most of us don’t perceive that they are even happening. We sell each other food with no nutritional value, send our kids to schools with no educational expectations, incarcerate our offenders with no vision of reform, and fight wars, abroad and on our own streets, that claim to be fought in the pursuit of peace.

I am prone to say that in the next decade we need to take some time to catch our breathe. We are so concerned with mitigating disaster, but we no longer even know what defines disaster. It is easiest to point at the spectacular as extraordinary, but I ask that we question this tendency. I think it’s pretty extra-ordinary that 1 in 3 American children is obese, and that our prison population tops 2 million. An oil rig exploding in the gulf is specular and spectacularly tragic, but is it really extraordinary? We don’t smoke at gas stations because we are aware, even in our ordinary lives, that oil and gas can explode. We are also aware that when a pipe breaks, the contents flood. These concepts are ordinary.
An obese, over-eating, leisurely child that is suffering from malnourishment is not ordinary. Unfortunately it is also not spectacular. But, in my perspective, it is a DISASTER, and a disaster to the highest magnitude.

I do not want this to become a debate about semantics. So Derek, do you think we should, for the sake of clarity, define (or attempt to define) the terms - disaster, extraordinary, catastrophe, spectacular, etc.?

Derek Hoeferlin
August 4, 2010
Day 106 of BP Oil Spill
“Well is Dying, BP Says” -CNN

I think Jess’ point about “taking a breathe over the next decade” is really appropriate. Taking a breathe doesn’t mean laying around on the couch and not doing anything for a while and catching up on back episodes of Law and Order. In fact it’s exactly the opposite. It’s about patient, diligent and well-informed work over a longer time-frame, a.k.a - maybe an actual definition of sustainability? I once read one’s reaction to the word “sustainability” in Dwell magazine. The person was asked how his or her’s marriage was: “my marriage is sustainable.” I don’t think that makes sustainability sound so hot.

But long-term commitment makes sustainability sound a bit more palatable.

I’m not sure we have to define what the terms disaster, extraordinary, catastrophe, spectacular, are, in a rhetorical sense per se. Rather than clearly define words that aren’t clearly definable, I think it’s more appropriate to continue the thread of how Jess and I are questioning disaster response through our own experiences since Hurricane Katrina. Our critical reflection of experiences and delivered work ultimately lead to the definition that will help us, help the future students, and maybe help some of the Archinect readers better prepare through design (resilience=sustainability), rather than react through design (recovery=rebuilding). I just think it will make architects, artists and designers a bit smarter and ahead of the curve. Jess and I have been involved in the reactive method and want to get to the preparatory method. People who will read this will wonder who the hell the two of us are and why are we talking about this stuff? Where’s the proof? We’re not recognizable like Brad Pitt. We need to explain ourselves, through actions.

So maybe a little bit of definition first. Dictionary.com defines “disaster” as a “calamitous event, especially one occurring suddenly and causing great loss of life, damage, or hardship, as a flood, airplane crash, or business failure.” “Disaster,” at first glance, is thought of as the hurricane, the earthquake, the oil platform explosion, etc...the “extraordinary” that occurs “suddenly.” Then the “ambulance chasers” swoop in for the triage response. Ambulance chasers, in our case, are architects, artists and designers reacting in a militaristic methodology, not just the typical “ambulance chaser” lawyers. I don’t know many architects or designers with military background, but I find this knee-jerk design response strange and borderline experimentation on post-disaster citizens. Case in point, without me pointing any fingers, after Hurricane Katrina some design schools’ students led by their “good-intentioned” faculty did just this after the hurricanes: quickly caravan in, build something “good” for a community without much community input of what “good” means, leave quickly without being held accountable for the fallout of whatever was “good,” get the “good” object published in a slick design magazine that only architects read; and, ultimately add the “good” work to the tenure packet. In other words, what I call “ambulance chasing.”

But, it is only once one begins to engage the perceived immediate “disaster” for longer sustained periods that the everyday disasters begin to expose themselves; i.e. - that child obesity is one of the everyday disasters embedded within the health care debate that is presented to us as the extra-ordinary disaster. To put it another way, my students and I were asked to build a new chicken coop for a community garden in New Orleans. The original coop was damaged by Katrina. That was our simple design challenge in response to the “extraordinary disaster.” Only after getting to know the mission of the garden more is when we realized what we were actually doing: through a simple catalyzing funky chicken coop we were addressing the “lack of access to healthy food disaster” that has long besieged New Orleans...and what ultimately helps lead to child obesity that leads to higher health care costs, coupled with lack of insurance, and ultimately leads to the extra-ordinary health care disaster.

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NOLA Chicken Coop – design/build by undergraduate architecture students at Washington University in St. Louis, Spring 2008. Students: Alla Agafonov, Nicholas Berube, Elizabeth Bochner, Claudia Bode, Eric Cesal (Teaching Assistant), Zhan Chen, Leigh Heller, Kathleen Johnson, John Kleinschmidt, Andrew Stern, Aaron Williams. image credit: photo by Derek Hoeferlin, Spring 2008

So as architects, artists and designers we have one advantage over the jaded pundit or the crazed blogger. I don’t want this piece to turn into that. We don’t just talk about things – why disasters happen or how they shouldn’t happen, etc. – we make things or we enable things. I guess this has come to be known as “design activism,” or simply what architects, artists and designers are supposed to do.

Jess Garz
Sunday afternoon, August 22, 2010

Yesterday I visited the Philadelphia Museum of Art to view the “Late Renoir” show, though I am not a fan of his paintings – the show was curated to highlight his dedication and reverence for the everyday. To paint his children and friends in his home, combing hair or playing a song rather than staging a formal model in a regal pose. Seems oddly relevant to this conversation.

Derek, about your last writing – think you're right. Theory and allegory are fun (and self-serving) but not always so useful. So to start, I am pasting some opening words I wrote for the Transforma website, which was recently redesigned, reconsidered and renewed. And for reference, for the past 3 years, I have served as the sole staff person for the Transforma initiative, which was founded by artists and arts administrators – Jessica Cusick, Sam Durant, Rick Lowe and Robert Ruello.

In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, we formed Transforma to expand opportunities for artists to use their creativity in the rebuilding of New Orleans. As practitioners within the field, we had seen art and culture become increasingly commercialized, limiting the opportunities for artists to work in public or socially engaged practices. To counter this trend, Transforma strategically supported such practices with direct financial assistance, technical assistance, and networking opportunities. Generally it encouraged a greater emphasis on the role of artists, the arts, and culture in addressing the social and political needs that confront our society.

Although Transforma focused on the post-Katrina landscape, we would like to acknowledge the innumerable cities and communities throughout this country with shared legacies of disaster— whether social, physical, economic, or environmental (like the current oil-related disaster in the Gulf Coast). We hope that this website, the print publication, and the past five years of work in New Orleans, will encourage engagement in, and discourse about, art, creativity, and community.

I bring these sentences to the conversation as a means of introducing Transforma, but also as a means of beginning a conversation about the adaptation of skills from an extra-ordinary context to that of the everyday. How can the work in which Transforma participated or supported, post-Katrina, be applied to other cities, towns, communities (before a “Katrina”)? The publication that we released in July of this year (2010) intends to continue/initiate such dialogue, and more importantly inspire action elsewhere. Post-Katrina New Orleans was a place filled with a lot of energy both positive and negative. “Ambulance-chasers”, “carpet-baggers” and “self-important do-gooders” were part of that mix, but at this point I would rather stay away from the name-calling and focus on what really happened. There was a disaster in a struggling American city. This struggle was defined by decades of urban disinvestment, a legacy of political insecurity (some might call corruption) and unresolved racial and class tensions. Sound like New Orleans? Yes. But it also sounds like many other American locales. But to continue with the story... we start with a struggling city, and then one day, we have a catastrophic natural disaster, followed immediately by the catastrophic infrastructural failure. Next we have chaos/disorder that exacerbates trauma, followed by “under-effective” response from the government (implying that it is possible that the resources were allocated, but maybe not to the right people or in the right period of time). Then we have wide-spread frustration and maybe distrust in government. And then very quickly following an inspired, yet incoherent rush of independent aid. This includes the individual volunteer, the activist-architect, the activist-artist, the activist-designer, the university professor and student, the national foundation, and many others. The point that I am trying to make is that the disaster was really effective in drawing together a lot of really interesting people, and honestly a whole lot of money. In my work both with Derek (while we worked with H3 Studio) during the Unified New Orleans Plan (UNOP) and in my work with Transforma, simply put, I was compensated thanks to the support of national foundations. This was the case for a lot of folks in New Orleans, natives and non-natives alike. The point of this story is this – it is our responsibility as people/organizations/universities to hold off on patting ourselves on the back about the work in New Orleans, until we spend the time and energy considering how the lessons learned in the city Post-Katrina can we applied or shared with other locale. I argue this point because so many of the issues that we tackled Post-Katrina were actually pre-exisitng problems – problems that clearly ail other cities. I will speak very briefly about some of the Transforma-associated projects to make this point in a quick and dirty way. (Please refer to www.transformaprojects.org for more coherent information about all of this work)

1. Home, New Orleans? (HNO?) is a community-based, arts-focused network of artists, neighbors, organizers, schools, and universities that brings together diverse constituencies in long-term collaborations to create positive change in New Orleans. One of the main concerns of this project is that resources and experiences in different New Orleans neighborhoods vary tremendously, based on racial division, economic class – prior to Katrina there was rarely collaboration between neighborhoods and very little institutional collaboration between Xavier, Tulane and Dillard universities. This project was mildly to very successfully at accomplishing these goals. (again, pre-K issues that are faced in most cities).

2. Fundred / Paydirt: The Operation Paydirt / Fundred Dollar Bill project seeks to facilitate the complete transformation of New Orleans into a city with lead-safe soil through the delivery of a scientific solution to lead contamination while calling for action through a nationwide drawing project designed to engage young people. (This project looks to New Orleans as the savior city, since so many American cities deal with lead poisoning).

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Safehouse preview party for the Fundred project. St. Roch neighborhood, New Orleans, October 2008. image credit: Transforma

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Press conference for the Fundred project held at the Safehouse. St. Roch neighborhood, New Orleans, November 2008. image credit: Transforma

3. Plessy Park: The project was initiated by community activist Reggie Lawson of the Crescent City Peace Alliance, artist Ron Bechet, and others to acknowledge the site on which Homer Plessy was arrested on June 7, 1892. There was event held on the anniversary of Plessy’s arrest in 2008 to bring together the various stakeholders – of the land and concept. This event highlighted how civil rights concerns of the 19th century relate to contemporary civil rights issues, especially related to the public education system. (Again, an issue in New Orleans and elsewhere throughout the country).

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Temporary chalk board installation for Plessy Day 2008. Corner of Press and Royal Streets, New Orleans, June 2008. image credit: Transforma

4. Creative Recovery Mini-Program: supported work produced at the intersection of art, social justice, and recovery in New Orleans. Mini-grants provided direct project support for the work of independent artists, unincorporated groups, gathering spaces, publications, and collectives active during the rebuilding of New Orleans. In each round the applications were reviewed by a different panel made up of individuals with professional backgrounds in art history, community organizing, education, community development, urban planning, urban agriculture, real estate, and housing rights.

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Convening of mini grantees from rounds 1,2 and 3, New Orleans, July 2009. image credit: Transforma

The general idea that I am getting at is the question/statement - how do we harness the energy and fervor that disasters often inspire and apply such to the everyday recovery needs of society?

Also, I’m interested in conversation about water management and how it’s not only a design, economic, and political issue, but also cultural. [Obviously] everything is cultural, but I think “we” as designers, economists and politicians [ignorantly] undervalue such consideration. As the fifth anniversary approaches, and the specials begin appearing on Dateline NBC and every other popular news program, it is hard not to crave the extraordinary, but in thinking back on the past five years of work and participation in recovery, the actions of the everyday are more inspired and ultimately more addictive.

Continue to Part 2 →

The Extraordinary vs. the Everyday Catastrophe: Part 2

2010-09-25T21:29:00.003+10:00

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Derek Hoeferlin
August 23-27, 2010
(5 years ago on August 23, 2010 Hurricane Katrina formed as a Category 1 over the Bahamas)

What is most impressive about Jess Garz’s work with Transforma Projects has been the ability for a small group with limited funding to mobilize a large network of artists and designers. What have resulted are unique recovery projects that ultimately bring legible awareness to pre-Katrina issues (Plessy vs. Ferguson, lead contamination, etc.), but ultimately through the lens of the post-Katrina New Orleans context.

I think this is what Jess and I are getting after – how can we continue to achieve similar design implementation success without relying on post-Katrina New Orleans or other disasters; how can we achieve results without relying on losses of ecologies, cities, cultures, properties, and most unfortunately, lives? I don’t know if I have the magic bullet answer.

But, I think part of getting to the answer is that architects, artists and designers have the ability to create extreme legibility through the process of research and design. Legible, yet creative, propositions that are informed by diligent research and careful understanding of context can get us to exposing the everyday conditions beset by most metropolitan American cities and landscapes.

My work with graduate and undergraduate architecture and urban design students at the Sam Fox School’s College of Architecture & Urban Design at Washington University in St. Louis has operated at multiple scales, programs and venues throughout post-Katrina New Orleans since January, 2006.

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Multiple Scales (backyard to city), Programs (chicken coops to water strategies) and Venues (non-profits to collaborations). image credits: Photos by Derek Hoeferlin: left column and lower right; Drawings by Gutter to Gulf studio: top right and middle right

First things first – my work in New Orleans dates back to 1992, so the strange place is no stranger to me, and that’s crucial in understanding place. The academic, yet reality-based and broad-ranging work includes the above-mentioned fully functioning NOLA Chicken Coop for God’s Vineyard Community Garden, led by Earl Antwine and Noel Jones, in the Lower Garden District neighborhood of New Orleans (www.nolarecipe.blogspot.com) in 2008.

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image credit: photo by Derek Hoeferlin, Spring 2008

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God's Vineyard Community Garden Site Photo and Plans. image credit: drawing by Kathleen Johnson and Washington University in St. Louis undergraduate architecture studio, led by Derek Hoeferlin, Spring 2008

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NOLA Chicken Coop pre-fabricated design and installation sequence in God’s Vineyard Community Garden, 2008. image credit: drawings by Kathleen Johnson and Washington University in St. Louis; photo sequence by Derek Hoeferlin, Spring 2008

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sustainable cycle of God’s Vineyard Community Garden. image credit: drawings by Kathleen Johnson and Washington University in St. Louis undergraduate architecture studio, led by Derek Hoeferlin, Spring 2008

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Interior of NOLA Chicken Coop. image credit: photo by Derek Hoeferlin, Spring 2008

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Translucent polycarbonate panels for diffuse light attached to galvanized steel structure; transparent operable polycarbonate louvers and lapped corrugated steel roofing for ventilation for cooling and so coop doesn’t explode due to methane build-up! image credit: photo by Derek Hoeferlin, Spring 2008

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NOLA Chicken Coop all lit up at night, Spring 2008. image credit: photo by Derek Hoeferlin, Spring 2008

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Hen with polycarbonate. image credit: photo by Derek Hoeferlin, Spring 2008

From 2008-2009, my students collaborated with city planning graduate students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Department of Urban Studies and Planning, guided by Karl Seidman, for adaptive re-use designs and business development plans for historic buildings for two prominent New Orleans non-profit groups – Broad Community Connections, led by Jeffrey Schwartz and the Good Work Network, led by Phyllis Cassidy.

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Existing and proposed Robért’s grocery store and site re-design, New Orleans, Fall 2009. image credits: upper photo by Derek Hoeferlin, Fall 2009, design and business development plan by Washington University in St. Louis Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts students Philip Burkhardt and Brendan Wittstruck and Massachusetts Institute of Technology Department of Urban Studies & Planning students Jacquelyn Dadakis and Aditi Mehta

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Renderings of proposed renovation to Robert’s grocery store with roof farm and site improvements, New Orleans, Fall 2009. image credits: upper photo by Derek Hoeferlin, Fall 2009, design and business development plan by Washington University in St. Louis Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts students Philip Burkhardt and Brendan Wittstruck and Massachusetts Institute of Technology Department of Urban Studies & Planning students Jacquelyn Dadakis and Aditi Mehta

Since 2009 and to continue for multiple years is our collaborative work with the University of Toronto department of landscape architecture, directed by Jane Wolff and Elise Shelley, on the “Gutter to Gulf” initiative (www.guttertogulf.com) that is advocating for integrated water management strategies within New Orleans since 2009.

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image credits: photos by Derek Hoeferlin, Spring 2009. “Gutter to Gulf” studios - Springs 2009, 2010 Students: Washington University in St. Louis Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts: Jordan Adsit, Nicole Andersson, Sofia Balters, Philip Burkhardt, Daniela Covarrubias, Erin Dorr, Jonathan Dowse, Annemarie Gray, Zachary Gong, Saima Gullabar, Brandon Hall, June Kim, Valerie Michalek, John Monnat, Julian Pelekanakis, Jim Peraino, Rebecca Rowney (Teaching Assistant), Eric Soifer, Andy Sternad, Brendan Wittstruck, Steve Waldron, Michael Wyrock University of Toronto Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape & Design: Zahra Awang, Laura Baltodano, Caitlin Blundell, Adam Bobbette, Martina Braunstein, Matthew Brown, Jenny Bukovec, Fionn Byrne, Justin Cheung, Laurel Christie, Alessandro Colevecchio, Nadia D’Agnone, Shadi Edarechi Gilani, René Fan, Kenny Fung, Marc Hardiejowski, Martin Hogue, Yuda Huo, Maxwell Kerrigan, Nicole Napoleone, Shadi Katami, Ayda Khazaei Nezhad, Yeu Ma, Anson Main, Stefania Mariotti, Fadi Massoud, Karen May, Justin Miron, Maria Muszynska, Shikha Narula, Wei Pang, Denise Pinto, Maxwell Probyn, Tara Razavi, Juan Robles, Scott Rosin, Jameson Skaife, Lada Semeniuk, Todd Smith, Brett Snyder, John Vuu, Gregg Warren, Li Xu, Xuekun Yang, Lu Zhang

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Gutter to Gulf Spring 2009 collaborative design studio “layered systems” model of New Orleans. image credits: photos by Derek Hoeferlin, Spring 2009

In addition, the work in 2008 would not have been possible without the on-the-ground help of the CITYbuild Consortium of Schools, hosted by Tulane School of Architecture.

Working on all of these projects within a collaborative multi-disciplinary network has been rather successful. In other words, the clients are happy with the results. That makes me and more importantly the students happy as well. For example, in our collaboration with MIT we have helped secure a total of $40,000 in project seed money for the two above-mentioned non-profit groups by placing first in the 2008 and second in the 2009 Chase Community Development Competition, hosted by Enterprise Community Partners in New Orleans.

...unfortunately I believe all of these grassroots efforts do not add up to a sustainable whole.

But I hate saying this – unfortunately I believe all of these grassroots efforts do not add up to a sustainable whole. Many may disagree with me in terms of the grassroots mobilizations and the unprecedented power of them in New Orleans, now known as the “brain gain.” But what lies on the 2050-horizon, for not just the New Orleans deltaic region, but also within New Orleans itself, in terms of big-scale issues like sea level rise, disappearing wetlands and a sinking city is not just daunting, but if we continue down the same path of design activism without larger and long-term visions, I believe is deeply irresponsible.

Obviously part of the problem is lack of political will and leadership, coupled with unclear funding streams. We all too well know these failures with all of the last administrations – local, state and federal. But the optimist architect in me truly believes the new mayoral administration under Mitch Landrieu not just is beginning to just address, but maybe already reverse, the previous political incompetence. Let’s keep our fingers crossed, regardless of our political party affiliations.

However, something else is truly spatially amiss, and this is where architects, artists, designers, ecologists, engineers, landscape architects, urban designers, etc., fit in what needs to become a much more multi-disciplinary equation. At present, this equation, policy decisions aside, is guided by one discipline – engineering. And within this engineering discipline these – mostly static – solutions are largely designed by the US Army Corps of Engineers. I think it’s futile and beyond this conversation whether to point blame at design flaws made by the Corps (there are already independent commissions who have revealed such gross negligence), or to blame the US Congress who gives the design directives to the Corps (because often times we don’t even know if the Corps even follows such directives), or to blame the Flood Control Act of 1928 that pretty much releases any liability to the Corps for such flood protection failures. It is true the post-Katrina upgrades by the Corps are highly visible, but this “building strong” system of perimeter defense is definitely questionable. (The comedian Harry Shearer pointed out in his TEDxNOLA talk that the Corps has trademarked the motto “Building Strong.” So if you build something strong, Shearer guesses you owe the Corps money).

What is not futile to discuss is our collective and complete lack of understanding of what it means to inhabit the ground, more specifically our continually shifting deltaic landscapes. First of all let’s be clear, as my partner-in-crime Jane Wolff, director of the landscape architecture department at University of Toronto, says, “New Orleans is the product of ongoing interaction between engineering intentions and the dynamic natural processes of the Mississippi Delta. The delta is a landscape in flux, and our engineering interventions haven’t stopped its fluctuation: instead, the forces for change have been redirected in ways that we didn’t expect (and don’t always like).”

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image credit: © Stan Strembicki

There’s no turning back. But we must get a better grip of what it means to live in a deltaic region. And wholesale abandonment I believe is a moot point. Most nations’ economies find their sources in the deltas, in terms of resources and transports; and, hundreds of millions, if not billions, of the world’s population lives in deltas. Abandonment and blatant avoidance is not the answer.

Quickly, the post-Katrina regional planning for Louisiana has been quite successful.

And then the BP oil spill hit.

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image credit: © Stan Strembicki

But if there’s one thing the BP oil spill did do, it finally brought national awareness to the dire need for wetland restoration. President Obama even explained the “one-football-field-every-30-minutes-wetland-loss” thing in a national address. This is of continental consequence, simply from an economic standpoint. In other words, different projects, from multiple lines of defenses that take cues from Dutch water management models, to legitimate discussions of Mississippi River sediment diversion projects to re-grow the wetlands, are taking root at the regional level. But are these the only answers?

And even some say the wetlands actually may be exhibiting resilience to the oil onslaught. But what is really happening underneath the water with what we can’t see? What are the long-term implications?

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image credit: © Stan Strembicki

New Orleans is the product of ongoing interaction between engineering intentions and the dynamic natural processes of the Mississippi Delta. The delta is a landscape in flux, and our engineering interventions haven’t stopped its fluctuation: instead, the forces for change have been redirected in ways that we didn’t expect (and don’t always like). - Jane Wolff

But within the leveed confines of the City of New Orleans itself, these ecological understandings of what it means to live with the landscape, and more specifically to live with water as not just security, but spatial and therefore economic amenity as well, has been largely absent. However, an effort titled “Dutch Dialogues” (www.dutchdialogues.com) was initiated and has been sustained by New Orleans architect David Waggonner of Waggonner & Ball Architects, with critical support from the Royal Netherlands Embassy in Washington D.C. – notably Dale Morris, and further support from the American Planning Association – notably Paul Farmer. For the past few years Dutch Dialogues has been a lonely advocate for a comprehensive water strategy within the City of New Orleans, not just the New Orleans region. There have been three Dutch Dialogues workshops in New Orleans with Dutch experts and their American counterparts to bring awareness to what it means for a sustainable New Orleans future to live with water within the urban landscape. I have been fortunate to be an active participant in these workshops.

The University of Toronto and Washington University in St. Louis “Gutter to Gulf” (www.guttertogulf.com) effort is meant to support the mission of “Dutch Dialogues.” Then too, Gutter to Gulf is greatly indebted to Dutch Dialogues, the geographer Richard Campanella, and most importantly Waggonner & Ball Architects for base information and constant feedback. Mainly via thorough research into the existing hydrological condition of New Orleans, the effort is to legibly make visible, in effect to classify and to expose, the current “out-of-sight, out-of-mind” water conditions that define New Orleans. In doing so, Gutter to Gulf aims to reveal the contradictions that exist between development of New Orleans and its physical conditions vis-a-vis water – past, present and future; in addition to analyzing the incongruity between hydrological, jurisdictional and planning district boundaries of New Orleans. Students speculate on a vocabulary for a water plan for hybrid architecture, landscape architecture and urban design interventions, from the scale of the lot (the Gutter) to the scale of the city and beyond (the Gulf). Without citing specific projects or addresses, the speculations are meant to better explain to the public the positive possibilities of living with water. A new Gutter to Gulf website currently is being developed to legibly disseminate both the existing environmental and drainage conditions and the supplemental water management design possibilities.

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Lower Ninth Ward levee wall at Industrial Canal, constructed post-Katrina. image credit: Gutter to Gulf, Spring 2009

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Various flood protection in New Orleans. image credit: Gutter to Gulf, Spring 2009

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Out-of-sight, out-of-mind. image credit: Gutter to Gulf, Springs 2009, 2010

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Analysis of below grade sub-drainage unit within drainage basin 1 of New Orleans. image credit: Gutter to Gulf, Spring 2010. Washington University students - Jonathan Dowse, Brendan Wittstruck; University of Toronto students-Justin Cheung, Marc Hardiejowski, Juan Robles, Scott Rosin

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Analysis of below grad sub-drainage unit within drainage basin 1 of New Orleans. image credit: Gutter to Gulf, spring 2010. Washington University students - Jonathan Dowse, Brendan Wittstruck; University of Toronto students-Justin Cheung, Marc Hardiejowski, Juan Robles, Scott Rosin

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Below grade drainage system taxonomy. image credit:Gutter to Gulf, Spring 2010. Washington University students - Jonathan Dowse, Brendan Wittstruck; University of Toronto students-Justin Cheung, Marc Hardiejowski, Juan Robles, Scott Rosin. Left photos – US Army Corps of Engineers

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Open canal drainage system taxonomy. image credit: Gutter to Gulf, Spring 2010. Washington University students - Philip Burkhardt, Julian Pelekanakis; University of Toronto students- Kenny Fung, Karen May, Denise Pinto, Tara Razavi

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Historical development of drainage system. image credit: Gutter to Gulf, Spring 2010. Washington University students – Jordan Adsit, Michael Wyrock

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Historical development of drainage system. image credit: Gutter to Gulf, Spring 2010. University of Toronto students – Adam Bobbette, Gregg Warren, Lu Zhang

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Historical development of Mississippi River edge. image credit: Gutter to Gulf, Spring 2010. Washington University students – Erin Dorr, June Kim

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Analysis of jurisdictional boundaries as they relate to hydrology – “policy-physical city”. image credit: Gutter to Gulf, Spring 2010. Washington University students – Saima Gullabar, Valerie Michalek, Steve Waldron; University of Toronto students –Jenny Bukovec, Yuda Huo, Karen May, Jameson Skaife

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Proposals from the scale of the lot to the scale of the city. image credit: Gutter to Gulf, Spring 2009. “House and Garden” – John Monnet (WU); “Forest” – Lara Semeniuk (UT); “Parcel” – Brett Snyder (UT); “Park” - Martina Braunstein (UT); “Decontamination” - Laurel Christie & Anson Main (UT); “Street Detail” – Matthew Brown (UT); “Street Network” – Andy Sternad (WU); “Levee” – Jim Peraino (WU); “Tank Farm” – Zachary Gong (WU); “Fish Farm” - Fadi Masoud (UT); “Canal” – Annemarie Gray (WU); “Jursidiction” – Martin Hogue (UT)

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Proposal for urban forestry of cypress trees for water uptake that leads to economic return for immediate neighborhood. image credit: Gutter to Gulf, Spring 2009. University of Toronto student – Lara Semeniuk

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Proposal for street water network in Gentilly neighborhood for multiple uses of water as both security and amenity. image credit : Gutter to Gulf, Spring 2009. Washington University student – Andy Sternad

This article was first published by Archinect on 10 Sept, 2010 and it has been republished by Architects for Peace with due permission from its authors.

← Return to Part 1 | Continue to Part 3 →

The Extraordinary vs. the Everyday Catastrophe: Part 3

2010-09-25T03:49:00.296+10:00

← Return to Part 2

But fundamental to the whole “Gutter to Gulf “and “Dutch Dialogues” enterprises I personally think can be traced back to one simple thing – ALL of New Orleans before the late-19th century was at or above sea level. I will say it again – at or above sea level. When the Mississippi River naturally flooded and deposited its rich sediment, in effect consistently growing the earth, the water naturally drained to Lake Pontchartrain to the north – again all at or above sea level. It was not until the invention of pump technology (that was exported to the Netherlands) that the back-swamps of New Orleans could be pumped and drained for relentless development, mostly post-WWII suburban slab-on-grade style. In effect, by the mid-to late-20th century there was not much water to be seen or found within the friendly leveed confines of what had become both an urban and suburban Orleans Parish.

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Pre-levee condition of Mississippi River and wetlands. image credit: Gutter to Gulf studio – Washington University students Philip Burkhardt, Erin Dorr, Jonathan Dowse, Brendan Wittstruck

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Post-levee condition of Mississippi River and wetlands. image credit: Gutter to Gulf studio – Washington University students Philip Burkhardt, Erin Dorr, Jonathan Dowse, Brendan Wittstruck

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New Orleans topography, PRE pumping and draining technology; image credit - Gutter to Gulf studio – Washington University students Philip Burkhardt, Erin Dorr, Jonathan Dowse, Brendan Wittstruck

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New Orleans topography, POST pumping and draining technology; image credit - Gutter to Gulf studio – Washington University students Philip Burkhardt, Erin Dorr, Jonathan Dowse, Brendan Wittstruck

This decision was critical and lacked any foresight whatsoever for what would follow – the city began to sink – a lot.

According to Richard Campanella (who consistently and graciously delivers awesome presentations to the Gutter to Gulf effort), portions of New Orleans neighborhoods such as Lakeview, Gentilly and Pontchartrain Park (where Wendell Pierce is from) are now 6-8 feet below sea level and portions of New Orleans East are now 10-12 feet below sea level. Quoting Campanella, “The stages of the Mississippi usually oscillate between 6-10 feet in the summer and fall, to 12-16 feet in the late winter and early spring. Sometimes it's as low as 3-4 feet or as high as 17+, at which time they open the Bonnet Carre Spillway (upriver from New Orleans). The highest it's been in the last 50 years has been just under 20 feet; the lowest has been 0.7 feet.”

Do the simple math of elevation difference between the higher river and the low-lying neighborhoods.

How the hell did we let this happen?

Campanella continues, "The soil composition of New Orleans consists of sand, silt, clay, organic matter, and water. And in pre-20th century, there was lots more groundwater than there is today. The largest particle size of this mixture is sand – picture that! Anyway, when the city was drained in the early 1900s, the removal of that groundwater opened up cavities in the soil body. That dryness allowed the organic matter to decompose, which created more spaces. Clay, silt, and sand particles settled into those cavities. The soil had only one way to go – down. And New Orleans continues to go down, although at different rates at different times and places.”

But many buildings and major sub-surface drainage infrastructure remain more or less at the same constant level.

Wait a minute. How is this?

Most buildings and the massive drainage culverts, some large enough to drive a bus through, are friction pile-supported. Therefore, they don’t sink. They may weeble and wobble a bit – that gives them that special funky New Orleanian “je ne sais quoi” – but in effect they don’t sink like non pile-supported earth. Paraphrasing David Waggonner – if the land continues to sink and the structures remain at constant height, imagine a future apocalyptic New Orleans high up on stilts. This may be a bit hyperbolic, but it does raise the fundamental question of what needs to be done.

And herein lies the irony of all ironies – New Orleans is thirsty for water, not just for sazeracs.

New Orleans is not just thirsty – New Orleans is starving. New Orleans is a humid desert, if that makes any sense, water-locked by an inaccessible oasis. The answer for a future sustainable New Orleans is simple – intelligently re-introduce water in what wants to be a deltaic, watery, dynamic urban landscape. Here are some thoughts endorsed by Gutter to Gulf and Dutch Dialogues:

1) Allocate different scaled and usable areas for retaining, detaining and filtering water – this includes smarter architecture and infrastructure types that can help delay transference of water, in addition to introducing lots of water-loving plantings, like cypress trees, to uptake water – in turn offsetting pressures from the overburdened existing drainage system. A mature cypress tree can uptake 440 gallons (9 bathtubs) of water a day.

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Washington Avenue canal – morning, February, 2010. image credit: Gutter to Gulf, Spring 2010. Washington University student – Brandon Hall

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Washington Avenue canal – afternoon – same day, February, 2010. image credit: Gutter to Gulf, Spring 2010. Washington University student – Brandon Hall

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Mature cypress tree uptake capability. image credit: Gutter to Gulf, Spring 2010. Washington University students – Philip Burkhardt, Erin Dorr, Jonathan Dowse, Brendan Wittstruck

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Proposal for a “water neutral” house and lot for the Broadmoor neighborhood. image credit: Gutter to Gulf, Spring 2010. Washington University students – Sofia Balters, Brandon Hall, Jim Peraino. Design entered in the USGBC 2010 Natural Talent Design Competition: Small, Green, Affordable. Presented by Salvation Army’s EnviRenew Initiative

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Proposal for a tank farm along major highways to collect storm-water runoff. image credit: Gutter to Gulf, Spring 2009. Washington University student – Zachary Gong

2) Re-charge the existing constantly shifting and variegated soil types with water to re-balance the water table level and therefore stop the soil from moving so much and wreaking havoc on structures, streets and existing water infrastructure. The recent report “The Price of Civilization” from the Bureau of Government Research noted that an astonishing 70% of water in New Orleans is UN-metered, due to leaking infrastructure!

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Example of re-configured street, park and neutral ground based on soil requirements (New Orleanian for median). image credit: Gutter to Gulf, Spring 2010. Washington University student – Julian Pelekanakis

3) As the third Dutch Dialogues workshop advocates – in addition to promoting an economically feasible alternate to the US Army Corps of Engineers proposal for the permanent pumps at Lake Pontchartrain and their correlating outfall canals in drainage basin 1 of New Orleans – create a robust circulating and highly visible water system. This is not limited to just fresh water, but also could add brackish water into the system (brackish water is part saline water that mosquitoes really hate) from Lake Pontchartrain via the historic Bayou St. John and Lafitte Corridor. This would not only supplement and tie into the existing drainage network, but also spatially re-connect the French Quarter to Lake Pontchartrain. In historical context, this connection is exactly why the City was founded where it was in the first place – this was the shortest portage length from the Mississippi River to Lake Pontchartrain (BTW – a secret short cut that the Native Americans graciously gave to Bienville and Iberville). See www.dutchdialogues.com for more information.

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1798 map of New Orleans. Image courtesy of The Historic New Orleans Collection

4) Water management is not just about public stewardship, but private responsibility as well. We cannot simply rely on the US Army Corps of Engineers, the New Orleans Sewerage & Water Board and the Public Works department for protection. Private owners of lots and buildings need to shoulder some of the water management responsibility as well. The first step would be to incentivize such private actions.

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Tools to make a marshland and places for water. image credit: Gutter to Gulf, Spring 2010. University of Toronto students – Jenny Bukovec, Denise Pinto

In other words, re-introduce a variety of water conditions, cognisant of varied soil types and existing neighborhood conditions and land uses. Weave water within the complex and exquisite urban morphology that already exists in New Orleans – a seductive hierarchy of radial streets that dance and meander with the Mississippi River – defining its rich aggregate of differentiated, diverse neighborhoods. Many of which already have vast open public and private spaces.

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300 foot wide West End Boulevard neutral ground, Lakeview neighborhood (no existing below-grade drainage – previous location of New Basin Canal). image credit: photo by Derek Hoeferlin, Spring 2010

But let’s be clear about one thing – this is exactly the opposite of forced removal of neighborhoods. If you want to go there, you might as well write off everything downriver from Baton Rouge, since it’s all a “flood plain” anyway.

The world is one big watershed.

Once again, all this said is not about the extra-ordinary catastrophe. It is about everyday storm-water management and specifically for New Orleans, how everyday storm-water management fits into the larger scope of regional wetland restoration and environmental stewardship, coupled with multiple lines of defense from storms and their surges. The ginormous Gulf Intracoastal Waterway West Closure storm barrier to block off the dysfunctional Mississippi River Gulf Outlet (MRGO) is fully under construction and due for completion in 2011, but the general consensus still is significant wetland restoration is the priority for survival.

And maybe most importantly, storm-water management is not just specific to New Orleans – it is a priority for any metropolitan landscape, nationally and of course globally.

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Localized flooding in East St. Louis, Spring 2010. image credit: photo by Derek Hoeferlin

To answer Jess’ question about water management and culture, again I think there’s a simple answer.

WATER IS THE SOURCE OF ALL CULTURES. And the site of New Orleans, problematic as it may be, was founded because of strategic confluences of waters and the subsequent cultural relationships to these waters. The mixing of Native-African-European (and most recently Asian and Latin) Americans.

Many water cultures, like the Khmer in Cambodia, set the gold standard for integrated water management developments of their time – every aspect of their lives was tied to water – their culture was rooted in their dynamic landscape.

Cheesy as this sounds – water is life. We just need to get back on the same page of learning to live with water, not to fight water with what are band-aid, static solutions. Cultural awareness of the ground needs to be fundamental and foundational, and water is the primary component for this fundamental foundation, part of a dynamic system. All cultures have their roots with coexistence with water. There is no denying that. Many water cultures, like the Khmer in Cambodia, set the gold standard for integrated water management developments of their time – every aspect of their lives was tied to water – their culture was rooted in their dynamic landscape. But according to a theory presented in the July, 2009 issue of National Geographic, possibly due to decades of drought and environmental upheaval, eventually the Khmer started to tinker, in an ad-hoc manner, with their ingeniously integrated system. They therefore undermined their own brilliance – in effect they turned their backs on water and resorted to a band-aided static system. As a result, their civilization was severely compromised, eventually sacked by rivals, and collapsed.

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Moat, Angkor, Cambodia, Spring 2010. image credit: photo by Derek Hoeferlin

Therein lies the cautionary tale for not just New Orleans, but every delta and watershed condition worldwide – and there are lots of them. As Bruce Lindsey, Dean of the College & Graduate School of Architecture & Urban Design at Washington University in St. Louis, says, “the world is one big watershed.”

We’ve just lost sight of, and are blind to our innate connection to water as the source of anything and everything.

If New Orleans does not embrace water as its fundamental, foundational and ordering principle, “a within our sights-within our minds” mentality (with potentially beautiful and dynamic spatial results), New Orleans may die. As designers, we cannot allow this to happen. Can we?

So five years after Hurricane Katrina, I’m an architect in it for the long haul. Are you?

Derek Hoeferlin
August 29, 2010

5 years ago, Hurricane Katrina made landfall as a Category 3 hurricane near Buras, Louisiana. At least 1,836 people died along with $81 billion in damage.

This was a result of poorly designed and maintained navigation waterways, such as the Mississippi River-Gulf Outlet, and the lack of floodgates and pumping stations at the sites where the New Orleans outfall canals meet Lake Pontchartrain. These allowed for the funneling of catastrophic storm surge to the city and surrounding parishes and then breached a poorly designed and maintained flood protection system. But compounding this man-made catastrophe was a city that had been pumped and drained dry in the 20th century causing it to sink, coupled with rapid wetland loss along the coast.

If we fix the – everyday – catastrophes of a sinking city and disappearing wetlands, New Orleans will be less likely to fill up like a stagnant bowl of water or get inundated with storm surge. Therefore we – as tax-paying citizens – will not have to solely rely or trust a perimeter line of defense designed by the US Army Corps of Engineers.

DEREK HOEFERLIN is a registered architect and urban designer with his own practice, a senior architect at H3 Studio, Inc. in St. Louis, and collaborates with Waggonner & Ball Architects of New Orleans, most notably the “Dutch Dialogues” initiative. He is a senior lecturer at the Sam Fox School College & Graduate School of Architecture & Urban Design at Washington University in St. Louis, where his students’ work has been highly recognized and publicized. Derek and his architecture and urban design students collaborate with University of Toronto landscape architecture faculty and students on the “Gutter to Gulf” initiative which advocates that water planning be fundamental for New Orleans. The Sam Fox School awarded Derek a 2009/2010 Outstanding Teaching Award; and, a 2010/2011 Creative Activity Grant for “Gutter to Gulf Goes Global” to begin comparative delta/watershed research between the Mekong, Mississippi and Rhine/Meuse.

Derek was a full-time employee with Waggonner & Ball Architects from 1997-2003 where held primary roles on AIA award winning projects in Louisiana and China. With H3 Studio, Inc. he was a District Plan Project Manager for the Unified New Orleans Plan (UNOP) in 2006. In 2009 with Ian Caine, Derek tied for first-place in the “Rising Tides” design competition seeking solutions for sea-level rise in San Francisco. Derek and Ian are currently finalists in the “Build a Better Burb” design competition for retrofitting Long Island downtowns. With H3 Studio, he is currently part of the Behnisch Architekten team as a finalist for “Framing a Modern Masterpiece: The City, the Arch, the River | 2015” to reinvigorate areas surrounding the Gateway Arch in St. Louis. Derek has presented his New Orleans work at several national design and planning conferences and has contributed his thoughts on disaster, recovery and long-term rebuilding to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and St. Louis Beacon.

Derek holds Master of Architecture degrees from Tulane and Yale.

JESS GARZ has served as the sole staff person for Transforma since 2007. In addition she conducts research for the Urban Institute on how arts and cultural activity influences the health of communities throughout the country. She is also working as the interim project director on the Multi-Tenant Arts Facility Project for the National Performance Network. Previously she worked on various aspects of the post-Katrina recovery of New Orleans with an urban-planning firm, H3 Studio; an architecture firm, Waggonner & Ball Architects; and the Tulane City Center, the community outreach program of the Tulane School of Architecture. Garz holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in architecture from Washington University in St. Louis, where she was a student in Derek Hoeferlin's first post-Katrina design studio in 2006. Jess will begin graduate studies in city planning at Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the fall of 2010.

STAN STREMBICKI is currently a professor of art in the College of Art at Washington University in Saint Louis where he has taught since 1982. He has exhibited though out the USA and internationally and has taught in Florence, Italy since 1990. He was granted a National Endowment for the Arts Grant in 1993. His work from the Katrina portfolio was recently purchased by the Louisiana State Museum, The Museum of Contemporary Photography in Chicago and the Kresge Art Museum.

Later this semester, Derek Hoeferlin and Stan Strembicki will be taking students from their respective disciplines – architecture and photography – to New Orleans for documentation and research.

This article was first published by Archinect on 10 Sept, 2010 and it has been republished by Architects for Peace with due permission from its authors.

← Return to Part 1

Strangers 101

2010-09-19T12:24:00.004+10:00

John Brack, Collins St 5p.m. NGV Collection

Kio Stark teaches human social dynamics at NYU's Interactive Telecommunications Program. This month she wrote about her 'Stranger Studies' course for The Atlantic. Here she gives us a fascinating week-by-week precis of the course, a linked reading list, and a series of exercises we can try at home - there are more on her blogs.

The course has three themes:

Why stranger interactions in cities are meaningful
The spaces and the significance of the spaces in which strangers interact, and
How strangers 'read' each other, how they initiate interactions, how they avoid interactions, how they trust each other and how they fool each other, how they watch, listen and follow each other.

It veers from an analysis of the original Bystander Intervention case in '60s New York, to William.H.Whyte's "The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces." Starck gathers many examples of research into stranger interactions, chiefly from the Sixties and early Seventies. It appears we have not been thinking about strangers (except online ones) for a few decades. Perhaps they are making a comeback.

Task A: See if you can find 3 ‘unwritten rules’ about the place from the way people are behaving? Hint: you’ll see these the most clearly when they’re violated. My fave is “civil inattention.”

The Atlantic, 1/9/10
Municipal Archives

Fenced Lot

On Proposed Manhattan Mosque and Islamic Community Center

2010-08-30T10:12:00.000+10:00

By Orhan Ayyüce
Article originally published for this discussion thread in Archnect.com and re-published here with the author's permission.

I am not a practicing Muslim. Perhaps, then, not a muslim at all. Growing up in a secular but, nevertheless, un-officially and majority muslim country, I have been exposed to Islam, learned about its traditions, customs, and, as an architect, developed great appreciation for the design of its places of worship.

Here-Say: State of Design Re-Cap

2010-08-27T16:43:00.010+10:00

(photo by Tobias Titz)

We partnered with the Department of Counter Culture to bring you 'Here-Say': a speakers forum during the State of Design Festival in July. In case you missed out, video footage of the program will be available on the website soon, but in the meantime, we've got the following summary of the week for you, a smorgasbord of inspiring contributions from practitioners addressing socially and environmentally conscious design in various ways.

Professor Kim Humphrey officially opened the program by speaking of extreme consumerism and how the fashion industry has the opportunity (and a responsibility) to counteract the habit of consumers to buy and discard possessions haphazardly, with little consideration of the sacrifices made by people involved in making the product or for the natural environment – and all for the sake of appearing “fashionable”.

Read more »

Pakistan: more than 20 million people have been made homeless

2010-08-27T12:06:00.002+10:00

A man looks out over traffic as residents return to flood-affected areas in Nowshera Photograph: Daniel Berehulak/Getty Images: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/gallery/2010/aug/01/pakistan

Imagine the entire population of Australia being affected by a natural disaster.

Pakistan is experiencing the worst floods in living memory, and the crisis is deepening as torrential rains continue to fall across the country. An estimated 20 million people have been affected – more than the Indian Ocean tsunami, the Kashmir earthquake and the Haiti earthquake combined. The threat of disease is high.

Please give generously. You can do it on line and all it takes is 2 minutes, your credit card and your shared humanity.

Please donate now at unicef.org.au or call them on either 1300 884 233 or 1300 134 071.

Nyanza Hospital: appreciative inquiry design in Africa

2010-08-26T10:59:00.000+10:00

Following Dr. Ashraf Salama’s last editorial on Appreciative Inquiry and its impact on environment and performance, I wondered about the outcome of this approach if applied in developing countries instead of industrialized ones –all cases cited in Dr. Salama’s editorial occur in the US, where people are more exposed to participatory systems. How different is it in other less participatory or developed parts of the world?

Competir o Planificar

2010-08-26T10:51:00.001+10:00

Articulo publicado en La Яevuelta, 23 Agosto 2010 (republicado con permiso del autor).

Por: Arq. Marcos Barinas

La agresiva política exterior que ha llevado el Estado Dominicano en la última década, al abandonar el tradicional “mirar hacia adentro” por “mirar hacia fuera”, ha importado no solo los beneficios que se corresponden a la marcada orientación hacia las economías mundo, también ha generado interrogantes acerca del futuro de la planificación territorial y urbana.

Read more »

"Minimizing car travel by changing how we think about development"

2010-08-21T19:48:00.003+10:00

Is this really possible? "Minimizing car travel by changing how we think about development." A recent study, referred to as a "meta-analysis" by his author, claims that,

"If you’re trying to minimize vehicle miles traveled and maximize walking and transit, you’re better off emphasizing mixed-use and destination accessibility than just bumping up density. A dense development in the suburbs, far from transit and employment centers and stores, is probably not going to buy you much in the way of walking and transit use. Almost any development in the central city is going to be more efficient from a transportation standpoint."

According to the study, augmenting density comes second in regards to effectiveness as compared to the above finding, yet, increasing density is the solution most often promoted.

What do you think of these assertions? Are there counter-arguments that also look at the "meta" picture?

Find the original article at SmartPlanet: here

(With thanks to Prof. Louis Sauer for sending this link to us.)

Hiroshima

2010-08-07T07:29:00.004+10:00

Un día como hoy, 6 de Agosto de 1945, a las 8.15am, Little Boy cayó sobre Hiroshima. Ochenta mil personas murieron y antes del final del año la cuenta llegó hasta 140,000. El 69% de los edificios fue destruido y un 7% afectado gravemente. Tanto daño con el único objetivo de una rendición rápida e incondicional de Japón a los Estados Unidos. Hoy estuve viendo por televisión el evento conmemorativo anual. Este año fue el primero en el que participa un embajador de los Estados Unidos.

No obstante, Hiroshima fue reconstruida después de la guerra mediante una ley que la convertiría en Ciudad de la Paz, en 1949. Esta ley financiaría la reconstrucción y donaría tierra del estado o de uso militar, y le daría atención internacional para albergar conferencias sobre la paz y otros temas sociales, dándole cierta esperanza a una ciudad devastada y aún crujiente.

Esclavos y Stone Town

2010-07-19T09:59:00.003+10:00

Author: Tulio José Mateo
(arch-peace)

El último mercado de esclavos del mundo en cerrar la trata fue el de Stone Town, donde llegaban hombres, mujeres y niños desde todos los países de Africa del Este, desde tan adentro en el continente como en Burundi y Rwanda. Cuando la trata de esclavos fue detenida en 1873, sobre el lugar de comercio y azote fue construida la Anglican Christ Church Cathedral.

MIFF 2010. A complete section about cities.

2010-07-14T16:43:00.006+10:00

The Melbourne International Film Festival is coming and it has a complete section about cities under the name “Our Space”.

The connection on four Danish films called “Cities on speed”. These four movies show the Megacities of Mumbai, Bogotá, Shanghai and Cairo in his deepest understanding of complexity, problematic and marvelous globalized culture and creation process.

Also they will show the film which narrates a journey through Foster’s life work under the name of How Much Does Your Building Weigh, Mr. Foster?

The other aspect of our living space is shown in the movie called Nostalgia for the Light which was filmed in the beautiful landscapes of the North of Chile.
Movie List:

- Bogotá Chance
- Cairo Garbage
- Mumbai Disconnected
- Shanghai Space
- Dream in Copenhagen
- How Much Does Your Building Weigh, Mr. Foster?
- Over Your Cities Grass Will Grow
- Petropolis: Aerial Perspectives on the Alberta tar Sands

More details: http://www.melbournefilmfestival.com.au/program/sections

CABE downunder

2010-07-01T23:49:00.003+10:00

CABE Downunder is a Melbourne-based organisation seeking to emulate the UK Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment, but in a low key, working on the smell of coffee sort of way.

Carrying on from a series of small meetings held in Melbourne since the mid 1980s, CABE Downunder (a working title) is now determining just what sort of group it will be in the future.

Founding member, architect Bill Chandler says, "There’s been lively debate about [our] form or status, whether it should be a commission for cities or more of a stimulus group... The initiative is quite inclusive, compared to more territorial organisations that only focus on one particular area. We’re looking at the socio-economic dimensions as well as the physical – the practice of good architecture."

To join the discussion, attend the next meeting at Melbourne Town Hall on July 13th.

5th Estate
Urban Design Forum (with contact details)

intentCITY book launch by arch-peace

2010-07-01T00:40:00.004+10:00

IntentCity was the inaugural forum establishing many of the principles of the Architects for Peace. This publication launch will feature contributors to IntentCity and a discussion about social responsibility and the right to the city. Contributors to IntentCity include Dr Darko Radovic, Beatriz Maturana, Dr Kit Lazaroo and Liz Coleman, Marc Purcell, Geoff Hogg, Su Mellersh-Lucas and Mick Pearce

‘If you want to fuck with the falcons, you’d better learn how to fly’

2010-06-21T18:41:00.003+10:00

By: Rory Hyde

This article was first published on Archis' Action! Blog

A brief roundup of ‘extra/ordinary’, the Australian Institute of Architects national conference, Sydney, April 2010

Although delivered simply as an amusing anecdote, when taken out of context, this crude piece of wisdom from the elder statesman Peter Corrigan seemed to capture the essence of ‘extra/ordinary’. This was a conference about engaged practitioners; engaged in the ‘ordinary’ messy reality while still managing to scratch out something ‘extra’. Architects presented innovative (and often idealistic) approaches to complex problems, while not afraid to go beyond the discipline to engage with the pragmatics of financing, policy or public engagement in order to see them executed.

Creative director Mel Dodd’s vision for the conference included the words ‘contingency’, ‘compromise’, ‘complexity’, ‘concession’, ‘collaboration’ and ‘constraint’ – a clear endorsement for tentative conclusions and grappling with the real as opposed to the confident presentations of crisp and complete buildings by architectural stars as we have seen at past conferences. This is at once a reflection of our ‘no frills’ economic times – an end to the age of excess – but also a statement of urgency for the profession. If we continue to hitch our future on offering rarefied aesthetics instead of participation in the complex mechanisms of the city, our days are surely numbered.

Read more »

Re-cap: Impromptu-2: Sabbagh Architects, Recent Projects

2010-05-23T19:09:00.019+10:00

Juan Pedro Sabbagh became partner of Sabbagh Architects in 2001. Opened in 1984, Sabbagh Architects is today one of the most influential architectural practices in Chile. The typology of their architectural work covers industrial, commercial, housing, educational and heritage projects.

Sabbagh Architects is one of the most influential architectural offices in Chile, not only because of the 1.5million sqm of architecture they’ve constructed, but also because of the quality of their architectural language. The magic began with Juan Sabbagh, founder of the office and national architectural prize-winner, through his definitive architecture and academic teachings at the University of Chile.

Read more »

Re-cap: On Openness: Public Talk by Shanaka Fernando

2010-05-23T18:53:00.004+10:00

As Lentil As Anything's Abbotsford premise faces closure, and in the wake of the recent documentary The Naked Lentil looking at the restaurant, there has been a strong interest taken by the public in the operations of this social enterprise. Ten years since its conception, founder Shanaka Fernando has witnessed changes and turbulence, all the while maintaining his unique approach to doing business - where the notions of justice and inclusion take shape, unhindered by money.

He might appear cool, calm and collected, but there is much more happening behind the “chilled out” front of Shanaka Fernando, founder of Lentil As Anything and guest speaker at the Words@bld50 on 06 May 2010.

As expected Fernando spoke of food and the power of food preparation and meal sharing. These are important cultural activities that are familiar to all nationalities and religions, and similar to architecture in that the magic of the action and interaction can occur despite any language barriers. But more than this, he spoke of quiet activism, sustainable change and (without specifically saying so himself) the good old Aussie attitude of “fair go.” (Whether that attitude still dominates Australian mainstream culture is another discussion altogether…)

Lentil As Anything is a restaurant that has become famous for its philosophy of “pay as you feel/can” and has been so successful that there are currently restaurants in St. Kilda, Abbotsford and Footscray (with one soon to open in Fitzroy). Pay as you feel/can is a philosophy built on TRUST, which is paramount to how Lentil operates. According to the Lentil philosophy, “trust at Lentil is not conditional” and for this reason the business does not perform job interviews, simply handing an applicant an apron and asking them to work hard. This kind of philosophy has enabled many new-to-Melbourne and hard working people the opportunity to work and gain experience, where other attempts at employment may have been inhibited by language or lack of previous hospitality experience.

The business model of Lentil As Anything is an important example of how non-traditional forms of business operation can result in not only a successful practice, but more importantly positive change within a community. Sociologically, the model also demonstrates that when given the chance, human behavior is often caring, innovative and of course, trustworthy. One of the nicest things about the business is that customers in Abbotsford pay what they believe their meals are worth (often being very generous in their payments) which in turn makes it possible for someone in a lower socio-economic situation to have a cheap meal for which they cannot perhaps pay as much.

Shanaka Fernando and his team at Lentil As Anything are working hard to give people a fair go, to encourage intercultural dialogue and interaction right here in Melbourne. In addition they are providing delicious food and a plethora of other services and activities that can all be checked out on their website (below). Thank you Shanaka for speaking to us, inspiring us to make quiet but important changes in our world and proving that alternative ways of running a business can result in growth and positive change in more than just an economic sense.

Contact Shanaka at: www.lentilasanything.com
Image credit: www.lentilasanything.com

Cardboard for Haiti

2010-05-15T02:18:00.004+10:00

Shigeru Ban has been in Port-au-Prince building prototype cardboard shelters and has plans to build many for a small community who've slipped through the cracks. It's not his first venture into disaster relief

Ban has been active in disaster relief for many years, and has worked in Rwanda, Kobe, Sri Lanka, Gujarat, Sichuan, and l’Aquila. "I thought it was really important for us to do something for society, not just to build monuments or help developers make money." How does he do it?

"From experience, I know I just have to go there, even without any connections, to find out who needs what. Then one thing leads to another."

He's taking donations for Haiti now: LINK

Haiti - the replanning

2010-05-11T22:20:00.006+10:00

Photo: Marco Dormino/ The United Nations

As international humanatarian organisations and planners start to describe the shape of the new Port-au-Prince, others are becoming concerned that the wrong principles are being applied at the wrong time...

Recent articles in the New York Times and Fast Company speak of guidelines showing the new Port-au-Prince being decentralised, and far less dense. The population would be spread across Haiti in "growth poles". This insulates the population from earthquake-induced construction collapses -Port-au-Prince is on a fault-line. And part of the reasoning is that the pre-earthquake Port-au-Prince was artifically dense thanks to the work of the U.S. in 1915 and Francois Duvalier in the 1960s, so should be fixed now that there is an opportunity.
Read more »

Gaza pavilion

2010-05-09T03:17:00.007+10:00

On the occasion of the Shanghai World Expo 2010, here are the two famous pavilions.

I shared these two pictures to remind people that the real Expo has begun on December 27, 2008 in Gaza; and that all their pavilions are still exposed until today as this mosque in clusters of stone (photo below). Unlike other expositions, this fair is closed to public. It was completed in only 22 days in which 1,350 victims have died and about 5,500 have injured. This is a real feat that Israel has made when compared to other expositions that took several months of work without any victim recorded.

The theme of this famous Expo summarizes the course of Human Being from its creation until today. This theme is called deconstruction. Besides, Deconstructivism - artistic and architectural movement - was inspired from this theme. So, despite the intellectual, scientific and technological level, Human Being spirit remains the same until the end of this world. It's just the framework and context that has only changed.

As responsible people who do not accept injustice, our duty is at least to remind constantly our entourage of this bitter reality. At least we have a clear conscience toward our children,that would be proud of what we have left as an inheritance.

Personally I am not very fascinated for what has exposed in Shanghai World Expo when I remember that there is a hidden face behind the utopian and ideal images. But on the other hand I strongly encourage the creativity and scientific & technological development, provided they are not based on destruction and colonialism.

The theme's world Expo of this year is : "Better City, Better Life". Personnaly I don't see neither City nor Life...!

Thanks for interest.

Sincerly,

Mourad Bendjennet for Architects for Gaza.
http://www.facebook.com/Architects.for.Gaza

Rebuilding in Aceh

2010-04-30T20:34:00.004+10:00

Foreign Correspondent on ABC1 Australia next week will show a documentary that includes an investigation into reconstruction efforts at Aceh after the Boxing Day Tsunami in 2004...

The show will be on Tuesday May 4th at 8.00pm.

Indonesia Correspondent Matt Brown has discovered that rebuilding effort has been chaotic and in places very uneven. He meets former merchant banker turned hands-on helper Sarah Henderson who learned quickly not to make the same mistakes as some aid agencies that had constructed homes for non-existent villagers.

“When I was designing the houses I though oh how great I’ll give them an inside bathroom, I’ll give them an inside kitchen oh this is going to be wonderful and when they saw the plan they were horrified and they said no, no, no, no they didn’t want the bathroom inside, they didn’t want the kitchen inside and so I think listening is very, very important.”
SARAH HENDERSON

LINK

In the fantasy world of reconstruction let’s try calling a spade a spade

2010-04-08T13:26:00.076+10:00

The notion of reconstruction is complex and involves careful planning of the stages that will comprise at least immediate emergency solutions and then permanent reconstruction. Planning involves a thorough knowledge of the areas in questions. The staging needs to be conceived in a manner that facilitates a smooth transition from one stage of the process to the next. Unfortunately this is not easy to achieve and as I saw in Managua, Nicaragua almost three decades after the earthquake, inappropriate planning can later prevent the implementation of permanent solutions. For instance, I am referring to one of the many cases in which a “temporary” market solution became a permanent ill conceived feature, which determined most of what later developed around. Reconstruction in some of the poorest regions of the world carries the danger that emergency solutions will become permanent features and we need to be aware of this.

Planning entails the big picture which is tied to cultural, social, economic, political, heritage, geographic and climate aspects. Furthermore, as we have seen in Chile—where large numbers of psychologists, social workers and university students mobilised to the affected areas to support those people traumatised by the disaster—reconstruction also involves careful and long term consideration of the needs of those who were directly affected by the disaster.

The point of this quick outline on reconstruction is to provide the context within which architecture might play a role as part of a much large strategy.

Container solution for Haiti. Image source: Inhabitat [1]

Collapsed infrastructure in Santiago, Chile. Image source: AP Photo/David Lillo

When looking at some of the architectural solutions proposed, I wonder whether these architects have ever experienced or visited and engage with people in need anywhere, including their own countries. If not, have they studied what reconstruction is really about? In view of their own sense of their architectural contributions, the following questions come to mind: Who should decide what is to be done? Are there other reasons behind the apparent altruistic architectural works? Do the people designing for others know the place, the social and economic conditions for which they are designing? Are local citizens and among them their own professionals better positioned to design and decide on the terms of their own reconstruction?

Designers have the power to make things worse as much as better, and are most effective for good when operating within a context prescribed by their abilities and influence. If there was a genuine programme to help Haiti, it would have been initiated years ago, in concert with an organisation with the resources to carry out a focused, effective (and therefore probably small-scale) intervention. It might have saved a few dozen lives. But architects were too busy drawing houses on stilts in the Lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans.[2]

These questions emerge once more after having seen too many stylistically focused and at many levels inadequate (design, cultural and cost terms) proposals for the Victorian bushfires reconstruction (Australia) and a similar abysmal number of inapt architectural “solutions” proposed for earthquake affected areas in Haiti and Chile. Note that in this case, the same container solution was suggested for Chile and Haiti (countries diametrically opposed in almost every aspect)—a solution tested earlier with Bosnian refugees.[3]

In the fantasy world of some architects, their misplaced dreams don’t distinguish between different climatic, economic and cultural conditions. People from all different parts of the world, under the spell of these architectural creations, can now look as if strolling along the beach. According to their “global” ignorance, the world is all the same, particularly if referring to countries poorer than their own. Within that conception of a homogeneous world, their creativity (under the banner of ‘sustainability’, by way of getting rid-of some of their own trash) is contributing to the reconstruction process—but is it?

Many of these solutions are insensitive to the population’s needs and of cultural differences, as they depart from the belief that one architectural idea fits all (the not very creative container idea for instance). Many of these solutions are insensitive and “globally” ignorant of the diverse climatic conditions, seismic cultural and economic conditions. For instance, the recycled container would need expensive and robust structural system to lock the containers in place in a seismic region of the world. As claimed by one of the many container emergency solutions designers, these containers may have worked well in Bosnia, but wars and earthquakes are not the same thing.[4]

Have any of these designers ever investigated local building codes and solutions? For instance, here is an article on la “Villa Portales”, a large social housing development built between 1955 y 1967 in Santiago Chile, which suffered no damage after one of the strongest earthquakes ever recorded. Local solutions such as the "mediaguas", have for many decades served as emergency housing in Chile—these are also sustainable and provide insulation from the very cold winters of Santiago. These 'mediaguas' are minimal and do not display “sexy” rococo or postmodern frills. They do the job while responding to local conditions, using local materials and labour—they are simply temporary emergency housing.

Social housing in Villa Portales, Santiago Chile. Plataforma Arquitectura

"Mediaguas", Local emergency housing by Elemental Chile

Much care is given to the positioning of these houses in a layout that resembles a neighbourhood and that can foster conviviality while maintaining the privacy of their occupants. This important work was not prompted by the earthquake. This work is supported by years of experimentation and testing and it represents one of the many examples from which architects willing to engage in reconstruction could learn from.

Image source: RedArquitectura

Ignorance mixed with designers’ arrogance makes for a dangerous mix. Dangerous because the efforts are misplaced, so are the economic resources and worst of all, the perpetuation of ignorance and disregard of the accumulated knowledge of local professionals and the people affected—characteristics that continue to pervade much of these reconstruction efforts.

Let’s “call a spade a spade”. While it is not my intention to upset any of these designers, it is on the other hand important to ‘mature’ as a profession, to step out of this egocentric infantile state and then perhaps we will have a chance to contribute to and with the rest of the world. For now I propose that we interrogate these proposals to understand what is to be done if we are to engage with the real world at all.

Below I have pasted some links that can give the reader a glimpse of the issues here discussed.

Some proposed solutions and proposal discussions:
• Green Container International AID
• Puerto Rico 'Haha…bitat'
• Architectural responses to the Haitian earthquake reveal misplaced motives.
• Is Haiti a Laboratory for New Urbanists? What the Country Really Needs Is Old Urbanism | Aerotropoli

Articles on the earthquake in Chile:
• “Why did fewer die in Chile's earthquake than in Haiti's?”. BBC News, 1 March 2010.
• “Un Techo para Chile construirá 30 mil viviendas para damnificados por terremoto”. El Mercurio. 3 March 2010.
• Frank Bajak. “Chile was ready for quake, Haiti wasn’t”. Associated Press (AP), 27 February 2010.
• Sebastian Gray. “Santiago Stands Firm”. New York Times, 2 March 2010.
• “Ministra de Vivienda llama a propietarios a acogerse a Ley de Calidad por daños” (Minister call home owner to find protection for damages to their properties in the ‘Law of Quality’). El Mercurio, 3 March 2010.
• Beatriz Maturana. “Notes on the Earthquake in Chile”. Architects for Peace, 8 March 2010

Author: Beatriz C. Maturana
The author would like to thank and acknowledge colleagues from ReCUA (Caribbean Network of Urbanism and Architecture) for the rigorous and stimulating conversations on many of these topics.

Notes

[1] Two days after this article was published, the post published in Inhabitat which this link refers to has been removed. A reference to this post, which includes some images, can still be found here (10.04.10): http://sigalonenvironment.soup.io/tag/Disaster-proof%20design; now (24.05.10) is back again: here

[2] Baldwin, Ian. "Architectural responses to the Haitian earthquake reveal misplaced motives." Custom Home Online (1 March 2010, originally published in Architectural Review), http://www.customhomeonline.com/industry-news.asp?sectionID=275&articleID=1225348.

[3]+ [4] Since publishing this article, the webpage displaying one of the container solutions which I have referred to, has changed its content (http://green-container-intl-aid.com/home). It now (10.04.10) includes detailed information about the structural system that supports the containers.

* This article was updated on 10.04.2010

In Conversation with Mathias Klotz

2010-03-18T23:49:00.007+11:00

On Friday, 19 March 2010, we'll be having an informal presentation/talk by Mathias Klotz. This is gonna be a chilled out, after work/study conversation about architecture and Mathias's work. A great way to welcome the weekend!

Venue: RMIT Building 50, Orr St, Carlton (the usual place we have Words series)

Time: 6:30 PM

Date: Friday, 19 March 2010. RSVP words@bld50

Snacks, drinks, and friendly atmosphere will be provided!

*image from dezeen.com

Notes on the Earthquake in Chile

2010-03-08T10:50:00.069+11:00

(one week after the 27 February 2010 earthquake)

The earthquake in Chile and consecutive three tidal waves of between 10 to 20m height (accounts vary), affected an area approximately 800 km long. In this long and narrow country defined by extreme climate and geographic conditions (desert on the north and glaziers on its south), the area affected by the earthquake was by far the most populated. The extension is somewhere similar to the linear distance between Paris and Venice, or locally, between Melbourne and Sydney. However, in the case of Chile we need to consider that apart form the capital Santiago (with an approx. population of 5M) and the regional capital of Concepción (approx. 300,000), this extension includes many important cities varying in population sizes from small rural and coastal tourist towns, to medium size cities. Cities, such as the Port of Valparaiso and Talcahuano have approximately one quarter of a million people. The extent of the earthquake and tsunami that followed has no precedent in the recorded history of Chile. So far the death toll is at 452 people, but Chilean President Michelle Bachelet warned that this may continue to rise.

Solidarity has been a major feature in this catastrophe. A “Telethon” started 6 days after the earthquake and managed to double the initial target, reaching AU$65 million in financial donations. Numerous accounts of solidarity are starting to be told. For example, victims, who after the earthquake found refuge from the 3 consecutive tidal waves on the mountains around Constitución (one of the cities worst hit by this catastrophe), were given cooked meals by people from neighbouring towns who were, under the circumstances, better off. Looting was unforgivable, but also grossly exaggerated by the local media. Still, the country was shocked by the images of vandalism that according to some are evidence of something going wrong with ‘the pillars of society’, situation that some believe presents yet another challenge.

All theatres have reopened and are offering their productions for free. The public is invited to attend theatres for a contribution, of any amount, to the reconstruction funds (large gatherings were forbidden for a few days after the earthquake because of aftershocks).

Secondary and tertiary students have enrolled as volunteers and are now assisting in the worst affected areas. In regards to our professions, the Chilean Ministry of Urbanism and Housing (MINVU), together with the Chilean Institute of Architects are also organising teams of professional volunteers. National and international architects are invited to register--although at this stage the focus is on national capacity.

Donations gathered from every city in Chile have arrived and continue to arrive to those in need—those in shelters (gymnasiums and schools) are receiving breakfast, lunch and dinner. A government lead employment program for recent graduates (offering 1 year paid jobs in remotes areas of Chile), is from now on focusing on the areas worst affected. Doctors, psychologists, architects and many others are working non stop to support traumatised communities. Immense examples of effort, sacrifice and solidarity give everyone the strength to get the country back on its feet.

As always, the most affected are the poor.

Aftershocks are, by all measures, new earthquakes--these happen everyday some reaching 6.4 in the Richter scale.

Extensive damage to key road infrastructure:

Carretera Sur. Photo: Oscar Acuña

Amidst a relative well organised emergency response, Santiago managed to be back on its feet in 48 hours, with electricity, communication and public transport (including the underground) restored. Although services in the country are 90-99% restored, unfortunately, some smaller towns and communities have experienced perceived or real abandonment. Yet, the coordination of efforts between the authorities, media, civil organisations and industry is nothing less than impressive. At organisational levels, these is the result of sophisticated strategies lead by the government and involving public and private enterprises, local authorities and the educational system.

"On a per-capita basis, Chile has more world-renowned seismologists and earthquake engineers than anywhere else," said Brian E Tucker.[1]

President Michelle Bachelet decreed 3 days of national mourning. She also gave an estimated at between $15bn to $30bn for the financial cost of this tragedy and confirmed that the reconstruction process will take 3 to 4 years.

Entire coastal towns have been erased. Added to the personal trauma, the collapse of sections of carefully preserved historic districts, that characterise most cities and towns in Chile, has robbed Chile of much of its cultural/architectural heritage. In Santiago, the popular and historical “Barrio Yungay” was one of the most affected. My friend from St Fernando (small city in a mainly agricultural province), lamented the damage of the city’s heritage, that she said included buildings that had undergone recent and costly restorations. Professor of architecture Sebastian Gray expressed:

Towns that had managed to dodge the forces of nature for hundreds of years were toppled or washed away.
Beautiful old buildings of adobe and simple masonry are now gone forever.
Saddened as I am by the loss of life and landmarks, I am scandalized by the few modern structures that crumbled, those spectacular exceptions you keep seeing on the TV news. The economic bonanza and development frenzy of the last decades have clearly allowed a degree of relaxation of the proud building standards of this country. (…)
For Chilean architects, this is the challenge of a lifetime: to restore beauty, to preserve history, to build sensibly.[2]

The cases below are by no means the worst, but shows examples of the loss of in historic districts among many rural and traditional towns:

Provincial hospital of Chimbarongo, destroyed and now evacuated. (Photo: author, 2007)	A modest provincial church of San Jose de Chimbarongo, in the town of the same name, built in 1660. (Photo: author, 2007)
Church of San Jose de Chimbarongo now. (Photo: Marisol Acevedo, 2010).	Church of San Jose de Chimbarongo now. (Photo: Marisol Acevedo, 2010).

According to authorities, most high-rise buildings withstood the earthquake very well and this is due to strict seismic regulations. However, a few recently finished residential buildings were severely damaged. Among these, a 15 storey building (in Concepción) collapsed on its back. Expert rescue teams (recently returning from Haiti), worked for 7 days in an attempt to rescue people believed trapped inside this building.

Seismic building systems are designed to flex with the telluric movement instead of resisting it. This assists to preserve their structural integrity. However, non-structural infill bears the consequences of the flexing and may crack or collapse. It is the result of these building strategies which offer such a visually devastating panorama in some urban areas, but it has on the other hand prevented more deaths. Housing Minister, Patricia Poblete, reminded those affected that they are entitled to protection under the “Law of quality” (Ley de Calidad).[3] New buildings collapsing have by far been “spectacular exceptions”.[4] Yet, in a country fully aware of its seismic nature, these “exceptions” stand as evidence of a recent lax approach to societal priorities. Things may start to change and three days after the earthquake authorities were considering extending seismic regulations to include not only structural elements, but also finishes, lighting and non-structural walls.[5]

Structural damage to supporting wall under water tank. (Photo: Fernando De Gregorio, 2010).

Detail of damage to supporting wall under water tank. (Photo: Fernando De Gregorio, 2010)

In some regions up to 50% of the schools suffered some degree of damage. A number of hospitals are damaged beyond repair.

Sadly, Chile was/is celebrating its bicentenary of independence this year.[6] An important aspect of this celebration were/are many large and ambitious infrastructural and architectural projects planned to be inaugurated on 18 Sept 2010.

The times ahead present some extraordinary opportunities for the professions of the built environment. This cannot only be measured in regard to the improvement and rigour of norms, design and technical matters. It is also an opportunity to sensibly approach the future of damaged heritage buildings, to improve and develop new skills to salvage what is left of the rich Chilean urban and architectural heritage.

Author: Beatriz C. Maturana.
Thanks also to my colleagues and friends in Chile Gabriela Sabadini Dorich, Fernando De Gregorio C. and Marisol Acevedo V. for their updates and current photographs.

Note: some information included in this article was amended and updated on 9.03.10. More photographs will be added as they become available.

Notes:
1. Frank Bajak. “Chile was ready for quake, Haiti wasn’t”. Associated Press (AP), 27 February 2010. http://www.smh.com.au/world/chile-was-ready-for-quake-haiti-wasnt-20100228-pasn.html
2. Sebastian Gray. “Santiago Stands Firm”. New York Times, 2 March 2010. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/02/opinion/02sgray.html
3. “Ministra de Vivienda llama a propietarios a acogerse a Ley de Calidad por daños” (Minister call home owner to find protection for damages to their properties in the ‘Law of Quality’). El Mercurio, 3 March 2010. http://www.emol.com/noticias/nacional/detalle/detallenoticias.asp?idnoticia=401423
4. Sebastian Gray. “Santiago Stands Firm”.
5. Lorena Guzmán H. “En Chile las terminaciones no están reguladas” (“In Chile finishes are not regulated”). El Mercurio, 3 March 2010. http://www.mercurio.cl/2010/03/03/ciencia_y_tecnologia/ciencia_y_tecnologia/noticias/DD167C8F-0AC4-4FD6-9716-ABB5E0124411.htm?id={DD167C8F-0AC4-4FD6-9716-ABB5E0124411}
6. See “Works, projects and national bicentenary programs”, http://www.chilebicentenario.cl/frmArticuloObras.aspx?iDseccion=27&&idArticulo=104

Other links of interest:

- “Why did fewer die in Chile's earthquake than in Haiti's?”. BBC News, 1 March 2010. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8543324.stm
- “Maps of the Chile Earthquake”. New York Times, 1 March 2010. http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/02/27/world/americas/0227-chile-quake-map.html
- Three days after the earthquake, the authorities announced that, under the A roof for Chile initiative, 30,000 emergency houses or ‘mediaguas’ will be built. Three hundred volunteers will start working immediately. “Un Techo para Chile construirá 30 mil viviendas para damnificados por terremoto”. El Mercurio. 3 March 2010. http://www.emol.com/noticias/nacional/detalle/detallenoticias.asp?idnoticia=401357
- "Terremoto de Chile de 2010." Wikipedia, La enciclopedia libre. 6 mar 2010, http://es.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Terremoto_de_Chile_de_2010&oldid=34709949.

Donations:
Chilean Consulate in Melbourne has opened a bank account for direct deposits:
Name: Chile's Earthquake Help
Bank: Westpac Banking Corporation
BSB: 033 165
Account: 175301

Santiago Stands Firm

2010-03-06T17:14:00.010+11:00

By SEBASTIAN GRAY
Originally published in the NYT: March 1, 2010

Santiago, Chile

I was awoken from a heavy sleep by the characteristic sly shaking of a tremor. I leapt from my bed in the dark and ran to hold up the glass cabinet in the dining room, as I usually do during quakes.

Soon, though, the entire building was rocking widely with a deafening roar, the roar of a building in critical stress, and then I realized in absolute horror that this was the big one, at long last, the one you are taught from childhood to expect and fear, the one that changes history and geography, the one that can kill you. There’s no use running: that could be far worse. Stay where you are, and wait.

After a few minutes — as long as a lifetime — the shaking and the noise finally stopped. I cried out for my loved ones, and my cat; we were all so disoriented that it took us awhile to find each other and to comprehend that we were safe, unscathed. I ran back to my room and fumbled in the mess of my strewn belongings until I found a flashlight to survey the damage.

All the drawers in the house had sprung open; furniture had danced around; books and dishes and ornaments had flown onto the floor. Yet even though the earthquake was far more violent than the one in Haiti, not one serious crack had opened up in our sturdy four-story walk-up from the ’50s. Is this good luck or the height of civilization?

Indeed, of the thousands of contemporary mid- to high-rises in Santiago and Concepción, most were able to withstand the quake with only cosmetic damage, if any. Thank the stringent building codes and responsible building practices that have existed here since the devastating earthquakes of 1939 and 1960, which leveled many older structures.

I teach at the School of Architecture of the Universidad Católica, and faculty and students have begun to discuss how to help the reconstruction efforts in the southern regions of Maule and Bío-Bío. There, in the heartland of Chile, the postcard of our national identity, the earthquake unleashed its full force, made worse by an enormous tidal wave that swept the entire coastal area just a few minutes later, trapping many people, still shaken, inside their homes. Towns that had managed to dodge the forces of nature for hundreds of years were toppled or washed away. Beautiful old buildings of adobe and simple masonry are now gone forever.

Saddened as I am by the loss of life and landmarks, I am scandalized by the few modern structures that crumbled, those spectacular exceptions you keep seeing on the TV news. The economic bonanza and development frenzy of the last decades have clearly allowed a degree of relaxation of the proud building standards of this country. That’s likely why some new urban highway overpasses, built by private companies with government concessions, are now rubble. It’s a sobering lesson for the neoliberalism favored for the past 35 years, and a huge economic and cultural setback for the country.

For Chilean architects, this is the challenge of a lifetime: to restore beauty, to preserve history, to build sensibly.

Sebastian Gray is a professor of architecture at Universidad Católica de Chile.

Note: This article was first published in The New York Times and it has been republished by Architects for Peace with the permission of its author Prof Sebastian Gray

Earthquake in Chile

2010-03-01T11:09:00.005+11:00

In this critical time for Chile, Architects for Peace would like to extend its deepest sympathy for the lives lost. We also lament the loss and damage of a considerable number of Chilean’s architectural and historical urban heritage.

Chile is a country well prepared for emergency situations, with many response teams having just returned from Haiti. Yet, the magnitude of the earthquake has been unprecedented. Architects for Peace will be ready to do its best to assist in the long road to recovery and reconstruction.

We wish all our Chilean members the best in these difficult times.

Abrazos y fuerza,

The Architects for Peace Team

Health Clinic for Haiti by Kristen Smith

2010-02-24T20:58:00.000+11:00

HEALTH CLINIC IN USE

What are Haiti’s most pressing health challenges? Immediately following the quake, trauma injuries were the most urgent medical concern, but the focus now is on follow-up of patients who have had surgery as well as basic primary healthcare services, including services for maternal-child health and chronic diseases including diabetes, heart disease, HIV, and tuberculosis, among others.

(Pan-American Health Organization, 19 Feb 2010)

The intention of this project by architect Kristen Smith is to construct a series of permanent structures throughout the massively damaged areas near Port-au-Prince, so that all inhabitants are at a walkable distance away from a clinic site [1/3 mile].

The mobile health clinic is composed of three pods that contain the necessary medicines and supplies; these pods along with the medical staff travel between the clinic sites. When the mobile clinic is not at a site, then the local community can use the shaded space. This space along with the refrigerator can be used for outdoor markets, community gatherings, educational groups, women’s support groups, and movie screenings.

HEALTH CLINIC - ALTERNATIVE USE

It is designed to be lightweight and open. The program and structure are focused on a 4’ wide core, which minimizes self-built foundations. The permanent structure includes a large amorphous photovoltaic array supported by steel columns, a solar refrigerator, and a storage/mechanical room. This structure is built of materials from disassembled shipping containers.

The solar panels provide shading for the site, which is crucial in this hot climate. Sunlight is a natural disinfectant; a limited amount of beneficial sunlight enters the project through the 4” spacing between photovoltaic panels. The generated electricity powers the refrigerator, and excess electricity can be used by the local community.

HEALTH CLINIC DISTRIBUTION IN CITE SOLEIL; HAITI

Container / Shelter for Haiti by Kristen Smith

2010-02-23T20:48:00.001+11:00

"The two biggest problems are shelter and sanitation. It’s urgent that we get people with reasonable waterproof shelter over their heads, " U.N. disaster chief John Holmes said.

The goal of this project by architect Kristen Smith is to design a disaster relief shelter that can be assembled within 48 hours. The shelter responds to the immediate needs of the people, and also be a core for permanent housing. The idea of the container/shelter is that a shipping container holding relief items is designed to become a home.

The 500 or so improvised tent camps that have sprung up across the city - some of them on precarious sites on the sides of ravines - may be here for years to come, turning into slums in a city that was already poor, run down and ringed with shantytowns. U.N. disaster chief John Holmes said.

"Please send us a tent" asked Senita Mazile, a 43-year-old living in the same camp as Vital with her three children. All her neighbours said the same.

The items needed for relief are being shipped in large shipping containers. The premise of this project is that a container will then itself become a shelter after the goods are unloaded.

"My husband and I had to sit through the rain on buckets with two children each on our laps." said Jeanne Vital, 30, camped out in the town square park in Petionville, a suburb of Port-au-Prince.

The container/shelter employs the economical and readily available materials and technology used to make standard shipping containers. Inexpensive sheet metal composes the panels and the majority of the structure, and the connections are made with mass-produced hardware and standard bolts and screws. Low-tech building construction allows for a quick assembly.