India’s Daughter: for the right to walk free and without fear

Image source: NDTV India News

There cannot be social justice, solidarity, respect or peace when women, who represent more than half of the world's population, are exposed to violence.

Women in many countries are not granted the same rights as their male counterpart. In many countries too, women have no right or access to education. Furthermore, in too many countries women suffer or are exposed to discrimination, abuse, brutal beating, rape and murder.


BBC Delhi Nirbhaya Documentary full BBC India's Daughter HD from AwaitNews on Vimeo.

Many, if not most of the Architects for Peace committee and members are women and we would like the freedom that many of us enjoy to be extended to every woman.

We were pleased to learn that a documentary entitled India’s Daughter was produced by the BBC, a documentary aiming to inform and sensitize society about the situation that women face in India. Such a documentary has the power not only to inform, but also to educate society, so violence against women could become unacceptable and something of the past. However, India’s Daughter has been banned in India, a censorship decision that is both shameful and inexcusable. Unfortunately, in a move that is no better than that of the Indian government itself, "the BBC has launched a much more severe, global ban—the broadcaster has asked Google to remove all copies of the documentary, viewable anywhere in the world, from YouTube, citing copyright infringement."

Architects for Peace stands for the right of all women to be treated equally in their community. We stand for the right of all women to be respected and to contribute to her society in a manner that she sees fitting, and for women everywhere to enjoy their “right to the city”—walking free and without fear.

To commemorate Women’s day this year, we wanted to share with all of you (women and men) the BBC's banned documentary India’s Daughter.

If you have watched the documentary and feel disgusted by the comments of defence lawyers, we would encourage you to sign a petition aiming to "Initiate investigation and take appropriate action against Nirbhaya defence lawyers."

Entrega final "Hábitat sustentable: el campus universitario y su entorno".

La asignatura colegiada INVI (Facultad de Arquitectura y Urbanismo) “Hábitat sustentable: el campus universitario y su entorno” se ha enfocado en el semestre invierno 2013 en explorar  prácticas de sustentabilidad en el Campus Juan Gómez Millas (JGM) tanto en su interior como su entorno. El  curso se propuso desarrollar en los estudiantes conocimientos técnicos que permitieran una comprensión integral del problema ecológico, asumiendo que éste, no es solo una cuestión ambiental o técnica, sino como plantea Elizalde, sería "más bien un problema político cultural”.

Grupo 1: Legibilidad como base de la sustentabilidad. Autores: Madariaga, Misraji y Cárdenas.

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Going to school

This American Life/Bill Healy

This American Life, a U.S. public radio show, recently aired an extraordinary two part episode about Harper High School in Chicago's West Englewood district. Three reporters were embedded in the school for five months following a particularly trying year in which 29 of the schools current or recent students were shot. Eight died.

The experience of 'neighbourhood' is almost war-like for students at Harper, from the moment they set foot on their front porches in the morning. Being a kid on a block automatically makes you a member of the local gang, whether you like it or not. Getting to and from school is a stressful experience - walk alone and you're a target. Walk with other people from your gang and you're a threat.

A teacher asks his student how his summer break went. "It was good... safe."

Part One Part Two

Resilient Urban Futures PhD scholarship

PhD scholarship available.
(Note: Text republished from the information sent through "An urban geography discussion and announcement forum")

We are seeking a suitably qualified person to undertake a PhD linked to the Resilient Urban Futures research programme. This inter-university study is funded by the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment and led by the New Zealand Centre for Sustainable Cities at University of Otago, Wellington. The successful applicant will be based at in the Dept of Geography at the University of Canterbury (http://www.geog.canterbury.ac.nz/) and be supervised by Professor Simon Kingham. This three year scholarship is valued at NZ $25,000 p.a. (tax free) plus tuition fees (including all international fees).

Study overview
The Resilient Urban Futures project will compare the broad costs and benefits and qualitative features of two possible urban development paths, one emphasising more compact development and the other emphasising more greenfield development. Using geographically based models we will examine the impacts of urban development on water and air quality, landuse, housing and transport patterns and the varying co-benefits for people’s health and welfare.

The successful candidate will work on a project examining the interlocking themes of residential choice, social infrastructure and community formation in compact urban developments; with the ultimate aim of answering the question ‘How to we create/facilitate good community in urban areas?’

Application process
It is expected the candidate will hold a master’s degree in a social science discipline. To apply please send a brief CV, covering letter, details of your academic training and results, and the name of two academic referees to Professor Simon Kingham.

Closing date 31st January 2013.

For more details see http://www.geog.canterbury.ac.nz/scholar/RUF%20PhD%20scholarship%202013+.pdf

Book: "La espacialidad del niño que no ve" (Spatiality of the child who doesn´t see)

Invitation to the launch of the book "Espacialidad del niño que no ve", Dic. 20, 2012. 

Tonight is the launch an important book written by two inspiring young and motivated architects, Mónica Díaz Vera y Constanza Mena Maino. The book entitled "Espacialidad del niño que no ve" (Spatiality of the child who doesn´t see) will be launched by Beatriz Maturana in representation of Architects for Peace.

This book poses some crucial questions, among them, one that makes us reconsider the location of the problem. It asks, "Then--, who is really disabled? The child that doesn´t see? o The city that is un-able to shelter them and offer spaces where people of all different physical, psychological, emotional and sensorial abilities can be welcome?

If you are in Santiago, we hope you can make it to the launch tonigh.

find more about this book: Plataforma Arquitectura

A public university, for the public, in a public square

A public university celebrates its 170th year anniversary, with the public, in the public square

"What a beautiful thing it is, that for the 170th aniversary of a public university, to take place in a public square and to be dedicated to its public, to all chileans who are and own this university." Prof. Víctor L. Pérez Vera, Vice-Chancellor, Universidad de Chile. (Santiago, November 17, 2012)

Image source: uchile.online

Consistent with the values of the University of Chile (a public university), the commemoration of its 170 years were celebrated with a concert by the University of Chile's Symphonic Orchestra and Symphonic Choir in the public square, the Plaza de Armas. Values that have been continuously and traditionally held by the university, such as equity, quality education, public education, democracy and inclusion were stressed in the opening speech of the event.

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Modelo de autogestión: desarrollo integral de comunidades mapuche, comuna de Freire, Araucanía

Seminario sobre Hábitat Residencial
This seminar was presented on April 27th, as part of the "Seminario sobre Hábitat Residencial" organised by the Instituto de la Vivienda (Institute of Housing), Faculty of Architecture and Urbanism, Universidad de Chile.

Find below a PowerPoint presentation and a link to the complete PDF article. This presentation has been published with the consent of its author Patricio Jara Tomckowiack (In Spanish).

Titulo:
Aplicación del concepto de Hábitat Residencial al ejercicio académico-profesional: Modelo de autogestión para el desarrollo integral de comunidades mapuche de la comuna de Freire, región de La Araucanía.

Resumen
El “Modelo de autogestión para el desarrollo integral de comunidades mapuche de la comuna de Freire, región de La Araucanía” es una investigación aplicada, desarrollada por el Instituto de Estudios del Hábitat de la Facultad de Arquitectura de la U. Autónoma de Chile y financiada por INNOVA-CORFO, cuyo objetivo es diseñar e implementar una propuesta replicable, participativa, integral y con identidad, para el desarrollo territorial de 34 comunidades mapuche, aledañas a los terrenos donde se construye el “Nuevo Aeropuerto de La Araucanía”.

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Aga Khan Trust for Culture, Media and Publications

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.

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Resetting agendas: a conference in a climate of change

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

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

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

The Extraordinary vs. the Everyday Catastrophe: Part 1

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.

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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.

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

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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.

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image credit: © Stan Strembicki

↑ 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.

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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.

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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

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image credit: © Stan Strembicki

↑ 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.  

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The Extraordinary vs. the Everyday Catastrophe: Part 2

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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.

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