Read his other essays from here and here.

On the 31st of December 2023, Felix Tshisekedi was reelected President of the Democratic Republic of Congo, following months of uncertainties on the feasibility of the campaign. The election period wasn’t only original in its scale – 43,000,000 voters for 75,000 vote places across 2 million kilometer scare – but also because it combined all national, legislative, provincial and municipal elections at once, raising the number of competing candidates to 100,000.

The official electoral period campaign, or “propaganda period” as many like to call it, controlled by the Independent National Electoral Commission (Ceni), started on the 19th of November and ended on the 18th of December, two days before the poll.

During that month, the urban landscape of major cities was overrun – both visually and audibly — by competing parties, in a great show of ingenuity to occupy every possible inch of the public space with their faces and candidate numbers.

The following pictures offer a small glimpse of this unprecedented electoral campaign through the visual metamorphosis of Bukavu, capital of the South-Kivu province in the Eastern part of the country and home to an estimated 1.3 million people.

Important disparities in resources can be seen depending on the type of election candidates are running for. Presidential candidates – like the current president Felix Tshisekedi — tend to appear on a larger variety of visual displays, which are bigger in scale and of better quality, in stark contrast to the small posters most provincial candidates are limited to.

Various candidates surrounding a more common add poster of a church service.

Bukavu deserves better.

Save the nation or die.

Entrance of the city center main market.

City main avenue.

Dominating the public space of a city with faces, numbers and logos of parties is obviously a strategic goal in campaigns everywhere. However, despite having the highest hydroelectric potential of the continent, only 21.5% of the population has access to electricity. Therefore, the main electoral battle doesn’t take place on TV screens but on the streets.

City main square.

Taxi station.

Rickshaw drivers’ fav.

Cycled poster.

Land cruiser candidate number 3 edition.

Campaign truck.

157 multiplications.

Parade of a candidate – Copies and the original.

Cape and shirts – backs parade.

Drunkers dancing in praise of a candidate with her stickers on faces.

Candidate irruption during a boxing match main event.

The “propaganda period” can have a certain impact on the city's economic activities. Not only is every possible poster spot rented and streets filled with free clothes portraying the candidates, but people can also earn money when participating in candidate’s public marches.

Various candidates competing for the front of a taxi bike.

Bucket of a kid selling sodas.

Stickers in a hair salon.

Flaglet on bike mirror.

Watches and bracelets seller’s box.

Chapati vendor’s umbrella.

At a beer depot.

109 scarf.

Crowd.

Winners smile.

Despite the election results being strongly contested by the opposition, after an electoral process called a “gigantic organized disorder” by the country Catholic church – a key institution in the country political history – the formidable amount of candidates and their efforts are at least showing wrong the words of former dictator Mobutu who used to say that “democracy is not for Africa”.

I am omitting the details of the project here, since it's already written on our Kickstarter page. Instead, I want to articulate my thoughts as I undertake daily cleaning, demolition, and repair work amidst the dust. I also want to properly archive the beautiful moments that emerge in between the grueling, seemingly never-ending renovation process.

Despite my exhaustion from unfamiliar physical labor on site, I realize I have been neglecting to archive and share our progress. But the space changes so quickly that I hurriedly snap photos, regretting letting the moments pass. I wonder if raising children feels similar to this.

Among the collapsed toilet walls and chaotic toolboxes, this shot of the messiest angle in the building still seems beautiful. Is it because of the sunlight filtering through the trees, or the water basin? Luckily, visiting friends leave behind beautiful photos like souvenirs. Photo: Daiki Nakamori

When I’m in this building, I feel the delicacy of the light throughout the house. Depending on the time of day, each room presents a different face. It can appear calm, chilly, or cheerful — it’s a mystery. Photo: Daiki Nakamori

As I repair deteriorated portions and undertake partial demolition, the first thing I realize is that this “Western-style house” is genuinely made of earth, wood, and bamboo — it’s a traditional Japanese house. It reveals earth when you scrape away a bit of the wall. Digging further, bamboo lattices are hidden inside. The exterior may look like a Western-style house, but the interior is entirely Japanese architecture. I think the carpenters of the time must have built it by observing and mimicking Western architecture.

In fact, when friends from the western part of the world visit and I call it a “Western Style Building,” most of them tilt their heads in confusion. The roof tiles make it look like a Japanese house, and the original green tiles that remain in some parts give it a Chinese feel. Even Japanese friends who have seen this building describe it as “kind of like a Western-style house,” adding vague words like “like” or “kind of” at the end.

Perhaps, by the official definition, it might not be a Western-style house. But it’s also not quite a typical Japanese house — it’s an interesting building that defies definition.

When speaking to elderly residents who have lived in this area for a long time, many say they used to visit this internal medicine and pediatric clinic. I wish I could have visited such a stylish hospital. I particularly like the original signboard, which appears to be handwritten. Photo: Kawashima Katsumi

Neither the result of a trained architect’s “genuine” creation, nor a shoddy copy-and-paste job, but a product of ingenuity born out of admiration and curiosity for the unknown. This building, built in 1934, embodies the comical beauty at the end of a process where things that didn’t exist here were somehow recreated with available materials and techniques. I see a recreation stemming from the mingling of cultures.

Apparently, there used to be something called the “Kyoto Microbiology Research Institute” in Okazaki. I’ve left the medical posters scattered around the medicine room as they add a touch of the past. It’s interesting when English notes pop up from time to time. Photo: Daiki Nakamori

A small window at the front door, a remnant of the pediatric clinic. The arch shape cut into it is cute. I want to buy movie tickets, coffee, or train tickets here. Photo: Daiki Nakamori

The arch-shaped ceiling in the bathroom is extremely cute. Photo: Daiki Nakamori

I’m currently most interested in architectural and design practices created informally, which blend cultures and originate from the so-called “Miyo-mimane” — watching and mimicking — a kind of practice often used in a negative context. These practices are born out of cross-cultural imagination and desire, coupled with a positive “misunderstanding.”

With the internet allowing us access to global information and increasing international exchange, it’s easy to encounter“real” things and become good at copying/imitating. But I like the “reinterpretation” and design practice in this era, where understanding is drastically insufficient.

There are a lot of old medicine boxes. The old packagings are quite unique. They’re not something you can recklessly throw away, so they’re stored in boxes. To my dismay, there’s also medicine sleeping in the basement… Photo:satsuki

I feel like each graphic on these packages hides various stories. Photo: @satsuki

Homi Jehangir Bhabha played a significant role in post-colonial studies. His concept of “hybridity” is overwhelmingly famous, but his discussion on imitation is also fascinating.

Bhabha says our act of imitating things is the product of a “nearly the same but not exactly the same” modification and reconstruction process. When people in colonized areas are forced to “properly” imitate (mimic) the culture of the colonizing country, Bhabha showed the potential for expressing themselves through “improper imitation,” that is, parodies of displacement and mockery. This connects to Mary Louise Pratt’s concept of a “contact zone” and its main phenomenon, transculturation, proposed in Imperial Eyes (1992).

I think this Western-style house, built in the Showa era with the modern West in mind, might be an improper imitation or a shifted imitation as mentioned here. It might be a creative act that starts from imitation.

Looking at the German dictionary and English notes left from the original clinic, I am reminded again that what we now call “medicine” was a foreign concept. Photo:satsuki

In contrast, the majority of the building is comprised of very traditional Japanese-style rooms. Photo:satsuki

When I visited Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam, I liked the interior of a café that is popular among young people, but I couldn’t quite pin down its style. Some friends described it as Shanghai French Concession style, while others said it was Chinese-Vietnamese style or “Neo-Vintage” Asia. The definition and memory are ambiguous. The one thing that can be said is that it is a product of a vague connection of multiple cultures — a creation of something not quite understood. I wonder if it was made by applying ingenuity to a longing for a world somewhere out there. My interest, which started from the “monkey see, monkey do” design practice of the early Showa era, is expanding to contemporary practices. In the era when we were imitating the West, what are we longing for now, what are we imitating, and how are we creating it? From there, I feel like we can understand a piece of the dynamics of the present age. Are we still longing for and imitating the modern West? Or has the direction of our admiration changed? How are we interpreting that longing, making it “our own,” and trying to recreate it?

This lampshade, made by my friend Hieu who runs a space called NEM Space in Ho Chi Minh City, is a “fake” self-made version of a certain famous Japanese designer’s work. I was deeply moved by the strength to imitate and make an item that is very expensive and hard to obtain with the materials and skills at hand, and the new creativity that arises from it. I think this is the beauty of “Miyo-mimane”.

What I’m particularly interested in now are the connections, influences, and “imitation” relationships between non-Western regions such as within Asia, between Asia and Africa, and between Asia and South America. While continuing to think deeply about these topics amidst the dust and renovation, I want to keep my mind active as well as my hands. I want to be conscious about articulating and conveying the significance of the long process I’m currently undertaking.

Public space and COVID-19

In Ireland, public space has been seen as being an important platform for people to be able to recuperate and engage in socially and physically restorative activities in the wake of COVID-19 restrictions. As with most cities, and evidenced by much research, the ideal of public space as being a platform for all citizens to equally share and enjoy does not unfortunately match the realities on the ground (Valentine 1990; Smith and Pain 2016; Jalalkamali and Doratli 2022). This article examines the experiences and perspectives of women regarding public space in an area of south Dublin city known as Dublin 6. It explores the complexities of life after COVID-19 lockdowns regarding women’s social use of public space and provides an insight into fear, sources of fear and potential remedial actions that may assist in resolution from the research study participant’s perspective.

COVID-19 was of course not geographically limited to Ireland and has been a profound and difficult challenge for urban life and urbanites in cities across Asia, Europe and the rest of the world (Sepe 2021). Urban research on the restrictions of access to public space has highlighted the ‘the sting of having lost our familiar, vibrant, social and lively public spaces’ (Honey-Rosés et al. 2020, 263). In Ireland, restrictions saw people considerably limit their social interactions and brought a sometimes challenging and increased focus on the home as being the focal point for both work and life. However, despite the importance of public space as an outlet for activities such as exercise and as a platform to interact passively and actively (Whyte 1980) with wider society in the wake of the pandemic the experiences of some women in Dublin saw their mobilities/interactions permeated with fear. Rather than public space being a purely restorative space (Thwaites, Helleur and Simkins 2005) it was or continued to be a problematic space in relation to everyday mobilities and usage.

Residential footpath in Dublin 6. Source: William Murphy, CC License.

In order to understand the context of the participant’s perspective in the study it is first worthwhile to briefly present the situation in Ireland regarding COVID-19. In Dublin, and Ireland (i.e. the Republic of Ireland) generally, the arrival of COVID-19 in February 2020 had a significant impact in relation to mobilities in cities. The virus led to extensive disruptions in daily life and substantial shifts in approaches to public health. The government implemented necessary, yet stringent, measures in all the counties of Ireland to counter the spread of the virus. From an everyday urban mobilities perspective this included implementing strict lockdowns where the distance one could travel from one’s home was restricted. Other measures included the closing of businesses that were deemed to be non-essential and the promotion of social distancing. Large gatherings in public spaces were banned and facilities, such as schools and childcare units, were also shut. Public parks were also periodically closed. Notably, the main annual event in public space in Dublin city, the Saint Patrick’s Day Parade was cancelled in both 2020 and 2021 (Kilraine 2021; Kim and Scottie 2020).

The restrictions in Ireland, and thus Dublin, regarding mobility were amongst the strictest and longest in Europe. Stay at home orders, also known as Level 5 lockdowns, which came into force in March 2020, banned all non-essential travel, contact with others, and made people keep apart in public space (Irish Government Department of Health 2020). A mobility limit of five kilometres from one’s dwelling was put in place and people had to remain within that limit if outside their abode. These orders lasted for 120 days in Ireland. This was the longest of such restrictions in Europe. For comparison, similar orders were in place in Finland for 74 days, Slovakia 66 for days and Bulgaria and Estonia both for 65 days (Bulman and Koirala 2020). Arising from this scenario came a sudden shift away from public space and a move towards the home space. Working from home rose in tandem with ubiquitous Zoom meetings during this lockdown environment when contact with others and mobility in public space was significantly curtailed. Further COVID-19 infection surges saw restrictions on social gatherings and non-essential services stretch into the winter of 2021 with the arrival of the COVID-19 Omicron variant. Finally, most COVID-19 restrictions were ended in the spring of 2022 (Bowers 2022) and Dubliners had more scope to be in public space and in social gatherings.

Study context

With the preceding brief contextual timeline in mind, what were women’s experiences of public space in Dublin like at the end of those series of extraordinary lockdowns? And what were women’s perceptions of public space like at that unique point in time in Dublin? This article will endeavour to shed light on those questions.

Research has shown that women have faced challenges in public space in both historical and contemporary settings as well as in both international (Pain, Rezwana and Zuriatunfadzliah 2020; Ella, 2021) and Irish contexts (Coakley 2003; McMahon 2020, Bourke, Lalor and Cuffe 2015). From a global perspective, the United Nations Safe Cities and Safe Public Spaces for Women and Girls Initiative report (2021) recently stated that in the wake of COVID-19 a ‘shadow pandemic of violence against women’ had occurred from a worldwide perspective, and further, that ‘empty streets and fewer witnesses lead to women in public spaces experiencing heightened risks’ (UN 2021, 2). Other recent European based research (Caselli et al. 2022) in Spain, Portugal and Italy has shown that gender inequality home based labour burdens rose regarding COVID-19 as a result of lockdowns. Caselli et al. (2022, 105) stated that ‘the disproportional impact of the crisis on women is also visible in mobility patterns.’ Research in Northern Ireland, which is part of the UK and thus under a different jurisdiction from Ireland (Republic of Ireland) which this article is focused upon, with migrant women about COVID-19 mobilities found that the situation had unfortunately ‘reinforced the existing mobility regimes’ there (Kempny 2022, 75).

In Irish contexts, research on mobility connected to COVID-19 has been more limited to quantitative perspectives in assessing mobility as a risk factor for spreading the disease (Manzira et al. 2022) rather than the qualitative experiences of urbanites such as the pursued by Kempny (2022) in Northern Ireland. Prior to COVID-19, Irish research on women’s experiences of public space has shown ongoing problems existing for more than two decades. Coakley’s (2003) excellent research into Ireland’s second largest city, Cork, entitled ‘I don’t relax until I’m home’ women’s fear of violent crime in public space in Cork,’ examined fearful mobility issues outside the capital and drew heavily on Koskela’s (1997) important conceptual work regarding women’s public spatial use in Finland through ‘boldly’ walking in the face of fear.

Meanwhile, focusing specifically on Dublin, Technological University of Dublin (TUD) conducted extensive research on women’s experiences of public space for Dublin City Council ‘Safe City Programme’ (Bourke, Lalor and Cuffe 2015). This research was mainly focused in the north side of the city centre. This included the main public thoroughfare of O’Connell Street, Abbey Street and near the largest train station in Dublin, Heuston Station. Dublin city is divided in the city centre by the River Liffey. For those unfamiliar with the geography of Dublin the River Liffey bifurcates the city into a north side and a south side. As the capital city of Ireland, Dublin is a large city, at least by Irish urban standards, with more than 600,000 urbanites dwelling within the city proper on both the north side and south side. There is a current estimated population of more than 2 million people living in the wider Dublin region. This article focuses on an under researched south side area of Dublin city called Dublin 6. Colloquially, the historical postal zones of Dublin divide the city into different local areas by attaching a number after the word ‘Dublin’. These numbers are used by Dubliners as quick geographical references. Often the name of the area is shortened by locals to only the letter ‘D’ and the corresponding number, for example Dublin 4 would be D4 or Dublin 1 would simply be D1. Dublin 6 (D6) falls within the remit of Dublin City Council (DCC) and it encompasses the neighbourhoods of Ranelagh, Rathmines, Milltown, Harold’s Cross, and Terenure.

Typical footpath in Dublin 6. Source: William Murphy, CC License.

Further important previous research into women’s experiences of public space outside Dublin city centre has been conducted in southwest Dublin by South Dublin County Council (SDCC) (McMahon 2020). This research occurred in an area known as Clondalkin. Both the previous studies which focused on the northside of Dublin and the south west in Dublin county. Research in those areas showed significant negative issues existing regarding women’s sense of safety using public space (Bourke, Lalor and Cuffe 2015; McMahon 2020).

In south Dublin city however a gap in the research exists and this study represents an opportunity to build on the preceding main pillars of previous research into women’s experiences of public space conducted in other parts of Dublin. Secondly, as to the current knowledge of the author, no study has specifically examined an area located in the south of the city regarding women’s experiences or perceptions of using public space in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Methodology

The methodology adopted a qualitative approach to allow for access into participants' experiences and perspectives. The study utilised both one-on-one semi structured interviews in combination with two focus groups with 11 participants in total. Semi-structured interviews have been shown to allow access to the affective (Thien 2005) and everyday dynamics in participants lives and thus they were chosen as the most appropriate tool for this study. Being cognizant of the need to approach the field in an ethical manner to ensure harm is not incurred on behalf of those participating in the research (Aitken and Valentine 2006) the names of the participants have been anonymized and different names assigned for the purposes of this article to protect their identity.

The recruitment of participants was achieved using snowball sampling (Naderifar, Goli and Ghaljaie 2017). The initial participant was recruited via email through a personal network of educators known to the author as the author’s background is in geography education. That initial participant received background information on the purpose of the study, an ethical section on how their personal information would be secured and an inquiry if they could bring other interested parties into the study by sharing the email. Participant questions were actively encouraged to ensure a full understanding of the study. The entry criteria for participants was threefold 1. That they were women above the age of 18, 2. That they were currently living within the Dublin 6 area of the city, and, 3. That they had lived in Dublin 6 at least since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in Dublin. Some potential participants were rejected due to being outside of the Dublin 6 area. For the participants who acquiesced to participating and met the entry criteria, ethical consent forms were distributed and completed.

Of the 11 women who participated in the study and all of them lived in the Dublin 6 area for varying lengths of time. Nine of the participants had lived in the area for at least 10 years while two of the participants had lived there for less than two years. All of the participants had worked in the education sector at primary and secondary level. Socio-economically the participants identified themselves as middle to high earning households. The age range of the participants ranged from the youngest of 25 years old to the oldest 59 years old. The interviews and focus groups were conducted online. The focus groups were divided by age. Focus Group 1 was composed of six participants within the age range of 25-39. Focus Group 2 was composed of five participants with an age range of 40-59. The rationale behind dividing the participants by age and holding separate focus groups arose out of practicality in terms of my ability to engage with small groups being better than engaging with 11 participants simultaneously in an online setting. Additionally, scheduling a time when all 11 participants were available simultaneously did not prove possible.

As stated above, the interviews with participants were conducted online. This choice was one of necessity at the time due to how changeable the public health situation was. Methodologically, at that time I found online interviews more challenging as a researcher compared to traditional face-to-face interviews as it was a new experience where people were trying to find their way forward via technology. Transcriptions of the online interviews were verbatim to ensure an accurate representation of the voices of the women who participated in the study.

Participant perspectives and experiences

The material which emerged from the participant interviews revealed that there are several ongoing concerns regarding women’s sense of safety and equitable usage within the research area. For the participants this manifested in fears connected to perceived danger and a lingering self-imposed mobility restriction even after COVID-19 mobility lockdowns had ended.

The participant perspectives indicated that COVID-19 restrictions acted as a form of catalyst in the loosening of some social bonds, and furthermore in the breakdown of established shared motilities for public space activities compared to pre-COVID-19 times. For example, friends that had developed a pattern of walking together outside in Dublin 6 for exercise in pre-restriction times were unable to resume their shared activity after the restrictions were lifted due a psychological shift in one of the walking partners. As Aisling stated:

(Aisling, 39): It’s been terribly hard. We’d been doing our walks together for years but something changed. She (referring to her friend) barely comes out of her house at all now. We can catch up on the phone, but sure, I miss chatting and walking together. I’ve been stuck home so much lately, too much. I was hoping we could pick it up where we left off but it seems to be finished for good.

The quote from Aisling indicates the negative impact COVID-19 has had on the important social bonds which are relational to public space. This indicates that the restrictions have had profound impacts on people’s mental and emotional well-being leading to changes in their everyday public space mobilities. While the scope of this study is relatively small given the number of participants, it is feasible to suggest that similar shared mobility breakages have rippled through the city for shared social activities outside the home space. Aisling’s experience also highlights the emotional toll that COVID-19 has had on people transitioning out of lockdown and into a post-lockdown city with changed circumstances.

Self-imposed mobility restrictions

As highlighted in the preceding experience of Aisling losing her friend as a walking partner, other participants had concerns which lingered from the COVID-19 restrictions and impacted their mobilities in public space. These concerns particularly emerged in Focus Group 2 (age range 40-59). During that focus group participants shared insights into the impact that COVID-19 restrictions have had emotionally, in particular regarding self confidence in venturing into public space. We can gain an appreciation for how challenging this has been based on the comments from Nuala, with support from Catriona, regarding going out into public space from her home:

(Nuala, 59): Somehow, I think I lost some courage, maybe courage is the wrong word though. (pauses)
(Catriona, 47): Confidence?
(Nuala, 59): Thanks yeah, confidence. I think my confidence got dented during the lockdowns. Going out seems more daunting now than before. I need to prepare myself more and sometimes I just don’t have the energy for it. I used to but I don’t now.

This dent in confidence which Nuala reflects upon above demonstrates how uncertainty and a form of fear about venturing out into public space compared to pre-pandemic times is present. Nuala’s reflection suggests that the lockdowns have had a meaningful emotional/psychological impact on some individuals, causing them to be more cautious. This loss of confidence or form of self-doubt may also be related to changes in energy levels as Nuala stated that she now needs to prepare herself more and sometimes lacks the required energy to do so.

Nuala’s reflection provides some insight into the mental health aspect of the pandemic, as well as the ongoing complications people are facing in adjusting to a new normal regarding their sense of routine in re/entering public space. However, the loss of shared mobilities and internal psychological struggles with oneself were not the only problems regarding public space for the participants in Dublin 6, as fear of men and teenage boys arose as a significant thread of concern.

Groups of men/teenage boys in public space

A strong theme emerged where a fear of groups of men in public was present amongst the participants. This fear was centred on passing groups of pedestrians who were men, primarily young men and teenage boys, while out walking or exercising on streets. This was rooted in negative experiences which occurred during unsought interactions with such groups. The nature of those interactions included a sense of intimidating behaviour and inappropriate comments. This concern regarding groups of men and teenage boys was strong enough for some participants to consider changing their own mobility and in one case to even feel physically ill when facing such street interactions. This was exemplified in Anna’s experience of returning home while out on a jog.

The canal in Dublin 6. Source: William Murphy, CC License.

(Anna, 26): If I’m coming around the corner and I see a bunch of lads there I feel sick in my stomach. It’s such a sick feeling, like how do I make myself as unnoticeable as possible? Should I turn around and jog back or will they notice that more?

A second important theme arose regarding intimidating behaviour from men which had occurred towards a majority of the participants in public space. Eight of the 11 women who participated in the study said they had experienced intimidating behaviour in public space from men. Teenage boys were identified as the main source of such behaviour. Christine, an experienced teacher, expressed her fear in relation to an experience while out walking when her path was blocked and she had to divert her route forward to avoid potential aggression.

(Christine, 31): I thought I had become a bit of an expert in managing bad behaviour from work. The typical stuff you know? But on the street it’s way different. Two young fellas intentionally blocked my way with their bicycles near the canal a few weeks ago, and I thought, how do I damn well manage them? It was scary, definitely scary. They were laughing, having a right great time. I went around them but it felt like Russian roulette.

Temporally, time of day played a part in the levels of concern participants felt regarding using public space. Night was considered to be more fearful than day time. This concern over nighttime usage caused a reduction in the amount of time spent using public space as Maeve noted:

(Maeve, 43): I used to go for a stroll after dinner every night but I’ve switched to a lunchtime walk on weekends instead. It stopped being enjoyable when I had to constantly consider things after dark, I’m always thinking who’s near me? Who am I near? I’d better take out my headphones here

Road adjacent footpath in Dublin 6. Source: William Murphy, CC License.

One of the younger participants, Grainne, had experienced homophobic comments while holding hands with her partner in public space. The comments were shouted from a car full of young men driving past while they walked down a major and popular shopping street in Dublin 6. In this way negative interactions were not limited solely to inter-pedestrian interactions but also occurred from drivers of vehicles towards women. This means the spatial areas of concern are not limited solely to a street footpath, but also include the actual roads that run beside them.

(Grainne, 25) We heard them shouting at us before we could see them. I was just staring at the traffic lights ahead and praying, please stay green, please stay green, so they couldn’t stop as we crossed the zebra crossing. Thank God they stayed green. I told Sadie (Grainne’s partner), don’t even look at them, it was disgusting. Who does that to people?

One particularly interesting strand that emerged in the study was that many of participants felt that fearful encounters could occur anywhere in their area. Furthermore, the traditional improvement measures to improve women’s safety, such as improving the design features of public space, were not very applicable in this area, but rather a desire for something deeper at a societal level to shift. This aspect was highlighted by Elaine’s perspective:

(Elaine, 52) There aren’t any abandoned buildings or dark paths or dodgy parks near me, it’s a pretty place. So, it’s not about that. It’s really not. It’s about not having to worry about my safety, or my daughters if they are out and about down the shops here, coming home late, that type of thing. I don’t want to have to worry anymore. That’s a big thing to fix? How do you fix that?

When the preceding participant experiences are analysed from a wide perspective there are clear and serious compounding issues regarding women’s mobilities in the wake of COVID-19 across a range of ages and a common problematic factor regarding interactions with certain men of varying ages in public space. One key aspect of the study was seeking the opinion of participants regarding potential solutions they saw in countering the aforementioned issues.

Roadscape example in Dublin 6. Source: William Murphy, CC License.

Participant solutions

Two primary solutions were proposed by the participants to make public space feel safer and more enjoyable. Those being, 1. Increased education, and, 2. Restorative community activities.

Increasing the amount of formally integrated education men/teenagers receive regarding respecting women in public space emerged as a popular solution. Participants mentioned that schools in Dublin need to include more civic education specifically regarding aggression from men and appropriate behaviour in public space. It was proposed that this may help to address the issue from a young age and act as a preventative measure through awareness. This school based solution can be considered an insider perspective given the backgrounds of all the study participants as educators. Regarding adult men who are no longer involved in education, government produced home delivered leaflets were suggested to act as a campaign method to raise awareness and to initiate home based conversations about equality in public space and the need for mindfulness around the tone of interactions and behaviours.

Secondly, restorative community activities backed by the local authority, where women can easily find partners/groups for walking or exercise in the wake of COVID-19, was raised. It was strongly suggested by several participants that the local authority should initiate a technological platform, such as a smart phone application, to encourage women to connect with those specifically looking to use public space more and overcome feelings of being homebound following COVID-19, or to assist those women that got stuck in the ‘individual exercise only’ mode required in the Level 5 lockdown periods. It was suggested that such shared activities would simultaneously serve to decrease levels of anxiety surrounding negative experiences with users who were men of public space in Dublin 6.

While this study was concerned with giving voice to the aforementioned participant solutions it should be noted that the onus should not be placed on the participants to mitigate the problems which have been presented in this article, but that their opinion and insights are valuable and should be given serious consideration by the appropriate authorities.

Conclusion

This article has shown that the COVID-19 pandemic and related restrictions have had a significant impact on women’s mobility experiences and perceptions of public space in Dublin 6. The prolonged lockdowns and restrictions on social gatherings have led to increased feelings of anxiety among women in public spaces, and have made it more difficult for them to access the restorative and recuperative benefits that public spaces can provide. The research also highlighted the importance of considering the specific needs and experiences of women in relation to their negative experiences with both men and teenage boys in public space. Considering this study in tandem with preceding studies (Bourke et al., 2015; McMahon, 2020) regarding women and public space in Dublin, it can be strongly proposed that Dublin has an ongoing and geographically widespread problem with public space. This study also showed that COVID-19 has negatively impacted usage of public space in a lingering way. This adds another layer for consideration in formulating remedies to this issue. There is a long way to go for public space in Dublin to become restorative, equitable, safe and enjoyable for women but it is certainly something worthy of striving for. Without serious investments from the state and local authorities in education and socially restorative communal activities, such as those suggested by the participants, it will be a slower process and issues connected to fear in different forms will persist.

John Guy Perrem is an urban geographer and educator. He attained his PhD from the Department of Social and Economic Geography at Uppsala University, Sweden. He established the Urban Space Initiative in a voluntary capacity to undertake diverse small scale research and activism for championing urban public space. He is a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society (RGS) and currently an Associate Professor at Muroran Institute of Technology.

You can check the reference of this article from here

After 1.5 months in Yaoundé, Cameroon, I moved to Keyna the other day. I didn't know what to expect from the eastern part of Africa, but it's been a pleasant surprise. Maybe the fresh and crisp mornings, maybe the easiess of being able to do anything in English, maybe the easy access to nature, I don't know, but I have been loving and absorbing everything I encounter here in Nairobi.

As I always do, I stared composing some useful information to understand urbanism and arhchiecture scene here in Nairobi. This is a personal archive, so I'll keep updating the list as I learn more.

Things to do, places to go

• Nairobi hosts the headquaters of UN-Habitat and United Nations Environment Programme, thus there are many urban & environmental expats in the city. Nairobi feels like a showcase of urban issues — heavy traffic, un-walkability, segregation etc. — and it's also very inspiring to have discussions if you bump into these UN people.

• Parklands is a neighbourhood in Nairobi, located in northern-west from the central business district, and it's traditionally known as an Indian/Asian zone. The area is dotted with mosques and Hindu temples, and there are many shops and markets that sell Indian products. Before I came to Nairobi, I wasn't even aware that Keyna still hosts a large population of people who are originally from India. As many as 30,000 Indians are said to have arrived in Kenya in the late 1890s to help build the Kenya-Uganda railway under the British power. Many have stayed even after the independence, and Kenyans of Indian descendants built thier lives around this area. It's very interesting area to walk around, and thinki about its history.

• There are many art space here in Nairobi! One Off Contemporary Art Gallery, Red Hill Gallery. Circle Art Agency just to name a few.

• Karen Blixen Museum was once the centre piece of a farm at the foot of the Ngong Hills owned by Danish Author Karen and her Swedish Husband, Baron Bror von Blixen Fincke. Located 10km from the city centre, the Museum belongs to a different time period in the history of Kenya. The farm house gained international fame with the release of the movie ‘Out of Africa’ an Oscar winning film based on Karen’s an autobiography by the same title.

• Pallet Cafe is a unique restaurant where all the waiters are deaf and you need to use a sign language to communicate with them. The cafe was born out of the vision to provide great food and amazing service while promoting the training and employment of the disabled in the food service community.

Read and watch

• Nairobi Noir is a collection of short stories edited by Peter Kimani, and it as been helping me to understand this massive city better through stories. A story, to me, is the best way to get to know & relate to a place, and I have been learning about varios areas of the city of which I wouldn't know much otherwise. I especially enjoyed the work by Winfred Kiunga about Eastleigh, where many Somali people live. I learned how Somali regugees are mistreated here in Nairobi, especially by the polices, through this story. Definitely worth a read.

• Until Everyone is Free is a podcast about Pio Gama Pinto: socialist, political detainee, Member of Parliament, and martyr. Only two years after independence, Kenya began killing its own freedom fighters. The first: a man who knew what freedom was—and how to get it. Pio Gama Pinto.

• The City Makers of Nairobi: An African Urban History

• Out of Africa, The Constant Gardener, The Ghost and the Darkness, Nowhere in Africa, the first grader watch was the movies I think are worth watching if you want to grasp the mood of Kenya and learn a bit about the history.

Organization / initiative

• Sound of Nairobi is an open-access digital archive of Nairobi’s soundscapes, as well as an initiative by Brian Muhia, Kamwangi Njue, Sophia Bauer and Raphael Kariuki that explores the relationship between the city and sound.

• Hydroponics Africa is a pioneer of hydroponic farming in East and Central Africa.They developed affordable and efficient systems of vertial farming to feed growing cities.

As a third chapter of the African urban exploration of Traveling Circus of Urbanism, I came to the capital city of Cameroon, Yaundé! The city spreads over 7 hills, and after being a geographically flat city like Lomé, it feels refreshing to observe the wavy patterns of the landscapes. There is something mysterious and appealing about hilly cities.

Here, we're collaborating with geo.sm, an open data platform and local social network establishing digital maps and GIS in Africa, creating the infrastructure for the interaction of inhabitants by geo-locations. I'll report more about geo.sm and their wonderful initiatives, but for now, as always, I'm archiving my basic research on the urban happenings of Yaundé here.

Some of the reccomenddaion were from a local creative writer, Nfor E. Njinyoh from Bakwa Magazine. Nfor, you have my full respect.

Things to do, places to go

• Monument de la réunification du Cameroun was constructed in the 1970s to memorialize the post-colonial merging of British and French Cameroon. Commissioned by President Ahmadou Ahidjo and designed by the architects Gedeon Mpondo and Engelbert Mveng, the spiral structure of the monument represents the political reunification of the “two Cameroons". There are still conflicts and armed insurgencies in the North-West and South-West of Cameroon, and the socio-political crisis that is known as the "Anglophone crisis" has shown that unity is still unstable. Yet, the monument surely adds a powerful image to the landscape of Yaoundé.

• The architectre of Marché Central de Yaoundé (the central market hall) of Yaoundé is absolutely gorgeous. The bare concrete, circular structure, and bold decorations fit perfectly in the chaotic scene of the market, fully packed with the stream of people, items, colors, and smell.

• Yaounde Immeuble CNPS is a 12-story high-rise building in the city center of Yaoundé. The building has a very futuristic design, as a giant yellow bubble sits on top of the lower building structure. I'd love to dig more into the design and history behind it.

• Bibliolibrairie de la Cène littéraire is run in a mission to promote African literature. It's a library-cum-bookshop, as well as an art space.

• When I saw the municipal lake with hardly no water left in it, I thought at first that it's because of a dry season. It turns out that the city is pumping the water out from there, as past of a long awaited rehabilitation of the site. The project will involve the construction of a five star hotel, restaurants and bars, leasure parks. The reason why they chose this site for these construction despite the oviously difficulty of pumping out the entire water first, I'm looking forward to see how the reneal of the site comes to be.

• Contemporary Art Gallery looks like a nice to place to visit to check out the current art scene.

• There is a nice alley in downtown covered in some murals. It's sponsoured by a French Institute of Cameroon located next to it.

• I highly recommened to visit the Centre International de L'artisanat. Full of shops and galleries of local art & craft, you can spend a whole afternoon there. The building is also worth seeing.

Read and watch

• Listen to an episode of AFRICA GEOCONVO PODCAST, where Willy Franck, the founder of the GeOSM platform, shares about the first open location intelligence platform in Africa. It's also worth checking out the other episodes of the podcast, if you are curious about geospatial innovations and technology in Africa.

• Bakwa Magazine is a Cameroon-based Literary Magazine. I discovered this initiative through the article, which explains how literary production of both English and French increased and a conscious community was formed even in the aftermath of the Anglophone Crisis.

• Africa is a country looks like an interesting media — I like the provocative title and minimalistic design.

Organization / initiative

• geo.sm is an open data platform and local social network establishing digital maps and GIS in Africa, creating the infrastructure for the interaction of inhabitants by geo-locations.

Other parts of Cameroon

• the Warka village is under construction in the tropical rainforest of Cameroon, and it is an integrated space for the Pygmy community, an isolated society located in the Mvoumagomi area. Constructed using only natural materials and ancient local construction techniques, the project, created by Warka Water and Italian architect Arturo Vittori, is currently operational, and expected to be completed in 2022.

Last year, Julien Carbonnell from the Democracy Studio and I had organized an open call to form a team of international urbanists of different skill sets to explore the African urban development and digital transformation. The idea is to join various local projects that are open to collaboration, providing a temporary workforce as well as developing our original projects with them.

Our circus has visited South Africa and Togo already, and as a third chapter, we've arrived in the capital city of Cameroon, Yaoudé at the beginning of February. Two new members join us from Russia, and we've started our collaboration with a local startup called Geo.sm.

Our collaboration in Cameroon

Geo.sm is an open data platform and local social network establishing digital maps and GIS in Africa, creating the infrastructure for the interaction of inhabitants by geo-locations.

By spreading the message of “Map is the power”, Geo.sm addresses the lack of mapping and addressing system in Cameroon, stating that more widely in all 50% of the countries are not benefiting from an official cadastral system.

With maps and location, land ownership issues can be addressed, regular building authorization delivered, tax collected to invest in public services, a business can develop and scale outside of a word-of-mouth traction boundary.

What we'll work on

We'll be mainly working on the following things during the 2 months of collaboration.

• Machine learning

• Business model

• Design research

I'll be in charge of conducting user interviews as well as ex-pats interviews to conduct design research, to understand more of the digital exosystem of Cameroon and how geo-spatial data can contribute to social innovation in the African context. Research findings will be archived on a website in a storytelling manner.

• Organizing 3 days Hackathon

Organized by Pépinière Nationale pilote enterprise — national business incubator, driven by ministry of SMEs, online/in-person we're planning 3 days hackathon in the city of Edea. As mentors, We'll encourage participants to work on specific challenges of the municipalities in teams. The successful teams will be selected and incubated in a 6-month program, benefiting from mentors, courses, and co-working spaces with resources. It is also possible to apply with their own ideas, outside of the challenges proposed.

Meet the team

Through Traveling Circus of Urbanism, Julien and I have made an open call for participants to join our African exploration trip. Around 30 urbanists with different skillset from across the world have applied, and among the successful candidates, two members from Russia have joined our team. Here is the list of our international team of Traveling Circus of Urbanism.

Here are the team!

Mariia Malaskkovets (Teya)

Teya is an executive coach with entrepreneurial background. She has a Master's degree in international law and started her career as a tax consultant for oil&gas in Big-4. Being fascinated by global projects and opportunities provided by technologies, She has built her own data science company and had a chance to help businesses from different industries in their growth by making data-driven decisions. That experience helped her to build a burnout-preventing product which brought me to the US where I also represented electric cars startup as a CPO/COO. Currently, her main occupation is coaching for startup founders and product consulting. Having broad experience in product development and worldwide collaborations, I'm deeply interested in creating new product decisions and implementing international best practices into the African business landscape.

Mariko Sugita
Mariko is an independent editor, journalist, and researcher on architecture and urbanism. She graduated from 4CITIES’ Euromaster in Urban Studies, which brought her to 4 cities in various countries across Europe (Brussels, Vienna, Copenhagen, and Madrid). After graduation, she has cultivated a trajectory completing connections between journalism and the fields of architecture and urban design. After a few years of working as an Urban Project Director in Loftwork.inc in Tokyo, she struck out as an independent agent. She owns the website Traveling Circus of Urbanism, and manages the cultural space Bridge To in Kyoto where she hosts an “urbanist in residence” program, and co-founded "for Cities", a new urban experience design studio based in Tokyo, Kyoto, and Amsterdam in 2021. She also organizes various workshops and educational programs and works as a curator. She is passionate about exploring and documenting stories of cities and the people who make them, in all parts of the world.

Julien Carbonnell

Julien is an urban scientist who focuses on civic technologies and smart cities, He started his career as a real estate developer in the south of France, after graduation in psychology. Early attracted by the potential of the internet to co-design urban projects with neighboring inhabitants, he built my experience of citizen engagement by participating in many local projects from various perspectives: business, non-profits, innovation, think tanks. He finally joined an academic research laboratory to strengthen his field observations with a scientific establishment and data analysis. He used this opportunity to build predictive models in Python, including machine learning and computer simulations. He keeps traveling as a digital nomad, confronts his theories to new case studies, grows my international network, and challenge my knowledge with new experiences.

Elizaveta Belyakova

Elizaveta is an urbanist and GIS analyst. Her work involves conducting a complex urban analysis for master planning of urban development projects, the creation of new public spaces or parks. Most often, such an analysis includes the creation of population density heat maps, determination of the main urban planning restrictions along with analysis of the current territory use, and modeling or forecasting of pedestrian routes. This analysis is used by the city administration and architectural bureaus to better understand the territory in the context of the whole city and make informed decisions on the development of the territory.

the HubCitizen project is like Humans of New York. I spent time photographing people on the streets and highlighted their short stories and their lives alongside their portraits, creating a catalogue of the city’s inhabitants.

I built a website by uding a new CMS system called Helix, which allows us to do a content management easily via Google Drive. It is such a powerful tool to build experiences through Google Drive with little-to-no training required, so that website can be edited and updated easily by anyone at WoeLab even after I leave. I have chosen the vertical column structure for easy view. All the codes are publicly shared and accessible on my Github.

You can watch a summary of what the HubCitizen project is about on the presentation video.

Here is the presentation slide I used during the presentation.

Here are some of the portlait of people I managed to talk to. Most of them kindly invited me in their houses, telling me their stories — what their everyday is like, what they are passionate about, their dreams, their complains.

We've also conducted an area analysis based on survey and interviews, togther with a local urban planner.

To see more portlaits and read their stories, please check out the website.

You can watch what Julien and I have been doing in collaboration with WoeLab during the two months here.

It's hard to summarize everything — but I'll share some of the highlights from the pictures.

A typical landscape around WoeLab. The whole suburban neighborhoods of Lomé look a bit like this — bare ground, trees, piles of plastic trash on the side, small shops attached to homes, and little shacks made of wood with DIY kind of structures, animals walking around. The suburbs of Lomé thus have a village feel.

The team had organized a week-long design thinking workshop as a training session for the startup owners of WoeLab. By using the example of SCoPe, an initiative to collect plastic waste to fight against pollution, they have mapped out the various social, economical, and cultural contexts, including understanding persona, and future strategies.

In WoeLab, there are always young, ambitious startup owners pitching their ideas and brushing up their business models. It was very inspiring to exchange ideas with them, learning from their practices.

In the complex of WoeLab, there are several urban gardens, where they grow local cabbages and peppers. There are people watering the farms every day, and digital sensors are installed to measure soil conditions such as humidity and temperate.

It was great to see all the edible plants around the cities. Most of the households have large open spaces within their house complex, which often include banana, mango, and palm trees — sometimes avocado or noni. It makes so much sense to have plants at your home that produces delicious food, as well as gently provide shadows to protect us from the harsh sunlight during the daytime.

Another example of DIY structure in the city. This is a shower or bathroom made of galvanized iron sheets, and it is nicely secluded from a street thanks to the bushes around.

I've spent a lot of time visiting neighbors, especially the users of SCoPE — one of the initiatives of WoeLab — by interviewing them and collecting plastic waste from their households. They have a little device that they can beep with when the trash bag is full, and a team from WoeLab goes out and get the bag. By doing so, I had many opportunities to visit various households and see a glimpse of their everyday lives.

We've visited a local architecture school and had the opportunity to speak with ambitious new talents, who are eager to change their cities in the future.

At an event organized by SysWoe, an app to provide a local digital currency, I managed to meet many local and young designers and craftsmen!

Made in Lome is a local clothing brand, which introduces the beauty of traditional Togolese textiles.

In the past few weeks, I've been trying to gather resources that help me understand the architecture & cities of Africa. For many, the mention of Africa conjures images of poverty, mysterious tribes, thick jungles, and colossal Savannahs. While that remains true, according to this article, it's been more and more clear that Africa will be the next economic hub as its cities, and its population is rapidly growing. Urban centers in Africa are projected to house nearly 60 percent of the population by 2050.

I've been also concerned that the urban theories, discourses, ways of thinking, architectural practices are still pretty much dominated by Western perspectives. This note is the memorandum of my still-not-organized thoughts, discoveries, and reflection on African urbanism, and related design fields. It will be constantly updated.

*I'll make another post to summarise the growing smart city projects across Africa!

Understanding Africa by data

• First of all, to get a big picture of how important it is to think about cities in Africa nowadays, please check out this great data visualization on Urban Africa

• Africapolis is great research and data visualization tool used to map, analyze and understand urbanization and urban growth in Africa.

Introduction to African architecture and urbanism

• African Cities Magazine published by African Cities Network was also a great introduction to understand the happenings in the field of architecture and urbanism.

• A TED talk by Christian Benimana

Alternative narratives

• I came across the concept of Afrofuturism, a term coined in 1994 by Mark Dery, which is about creating alternative narratives for the past and future to create better conditions for Black people through the use of technology.

• I highly recommend following QUARTZ Africa to learn from the stories of innovation across the continent.

• Stories matter. Bird: Africanofilter supports the development of nuanced and contemporary stories that shift stereotypical and harmful narratives within and about Africa. I'm especially curious about the work of Conrad Onyango, who has been contributed to QUARTZ Africa for a long time.

• Doek! Literary Magazine is a magazine from Namibia publishing fiction + nonfiction + poetry + visual art from Africa and the African diaspora. It's organized by a talented writer Troy Onyango. Check out LOLWE, the beautiful piece of writing, The Things We Remember by Troy Onyango.

• Imagi-nation nwar – genealogies of the black radical imagination in the francophone world – is a beautifully printed paper with full of inspirations.

Key figures & initiatives to know

• Ruhehe Primary School designed by MASS Design Group in RWANDA. MASS Design Group created African Design Centre (ADC) to encourage designers of Africa's future through their fellowship program.

• Francis Kéré was born in 1965 in Burkina Faso and is one of the leading architects from Africa right now with an afro-futurist vision. I recommend you to watch his talk at Design Inbaba, in which he claims that African architecture should stop copying the West. As architecture should be determined by its weather conditions, natural resources, habits of people, Francis Kéré claims that the key is to learn from traditional knowledge from the regions.

Art

• Archive of Forgetfulness — Remapping borders in Africa

History & Traditional knowledge

• A great, informatic video about the Ingenuity Of Traditional African Architecture and A History Of Classical African Cities

• Gurunsi earth houses of Burkina faso are made of a sun-dried mix of clay, soil, straw, and cow droppings mixed by foot to create strong pottery-like structures, and one of the most beautiful examples of African indigenous architecture.

New, emerging urban initiatives

• WoeLab, a tech & entrepreneurial hub in West Africa. They've been working to create a bottom-up smart city driven by local citizens and democratic digitalization; called HubCity.

• So-called 'Mushroom Queen in Ghanna', Fafape Ama Etsa Foe, created a farm in a suburb of Accra, Ghana, using sawdust to grow mushrooms to provide more affordable, nutritious food for people.

It was in Amsterdam last year when my friend, a french urbanist Julien Carbonnell, and I have decided to organize an exploration journey throughout the multiple African cities. Living in the Netherlands, I was becoming more and more curious about the important part of the world which I had been so mentally distant from — Africa. African cities are growing, and in near future, many of the mega-cities in the world will be located in Africa. When we think about it, it's a very strange thing that we don't know much of their cities — not only about its history per se — but its happenings, its ambitions, its future.

Almost all the media I'm following are in favor of covering the western, developed part of the world, so I knew that I would never understand African cities unless I drive into them. That's how we have come up with a self-funded exploration trip that is not so much about sightseeing but about researching, collaborating, and doing some short-term projects in various cities in Africa.

First stop, Togo.

Julien found a local initiative L’Africaine d’architecture founded by a Togolese architect Sénamé Koffi A., a platform to promote and document African perspective of architecture and urbanism. L’Africaine d’architecture has founded an incubation hub called WoeLab in the capital city of Togo, Lomé. It is a community-based incubation hub that encourages smart-city development in a local context and educates the local community with digital technology.

A first "made in Africa" 3D printer made of e-waste, developed by WoeLab

WoeLab offers education for kids for new technology and digital literacy

WoeLab is surrounded by a community of young entrepreneurs, designers, and engineers from Africa.

Urbanattic, an urban farming project to utilize unused spaces in Lomé, grows some amazing organic vegetables for a community.

Since July 2012, the association has been testing its urban utopia in Lomé; "HubCité Africaines", which triggered the establishment of the WoeLab incubator network, which has become the center of the Togolese tech-scene.

The HubCity project is about building a smart city from below with city dwellers. It includes various programs and startup initiatives within a radius of 1 km around WoeLab, addressing different urban issues; waste management (SCoPE), food and energy resources (Urbanattic), digital currency (Sys'Woe), etc. All of the projects are managed and owned collectively, making it possible to foreshadow pioneering digital collectivism in the critique of digital capitalism.

One of the important concepts here is "Low-High Tech" — an hommage of High-Low Tech Lab, led by Assistant Professor Leah Buechley at MIT Media Lab. While High-Low Tech Lab freely creates objects by blending technologically-sophisticated items with craftsy materials beyond real-world applicability, "Low-High Tech", a concept developed by Sénamé Koffi, brings the idea into everyday needs of people in Africa, where there is a high demand for basic infrastructure and services. "Low-High Tech" puts forward a contentious concept, namely, the need for creating things anew for everyday people with minimum available resources. Their project, HubCity, is conducted based on the idea — creating a bottom-up smart city with minimum resources, instead of spending billions of dollars to build it like many of the other smart city projects.

They're now preparing for a new stage of their project — creating a tech hub using multiple containers to offer various digital services for the emerging creative community in Togo. We'll be staying here until the end of January 2022, to help them document their projects and fund-raising. I'll keep you posted to introduce more about their projects!

Here I am. I moved to Lomé, the capital city of Togo, Africa!

I'll be working and exploring some of the cities of Africa until the next summer with a talented urbanist and a fantastic co-worker, Julien Carbonnell. The initiative I've joined in Togo is called WɔɛLab, created by Sénamé Koffi A., a community-based incubation hub that encourages smart-city development in a local context and educates the local community with digital technology. It's eye-opening to learn what they have achieved here, from creating the first "Made in Africa" 3D printer from e-waste, to tackling plastic-waste issues, to creating a local digital currency system, and urban farming, and beyond. I'll be here until the end of January 2022, until I moved to the next destination, Cameroon.

This is a list of urbanism-related happenings in Lomé. I'm still trying to understand the city and its culture, so the list will be constantly updated as I discover more. You can also listen to the everyday sound of Lomé that I've gathered on Soundcloud, which will be updated along the way also.

Things to do, places to go

• First of all, I need to of course mention WoeLab, a tech & entrepreneurial hub in West Africa. They've been working to create a bottom-up smart city driven by local citizens and democratic digitalization; called HubCity. To understand the whole picture, watch this video for an introduction!

• I've learned that Onomo hotel is a hub for the creative-minded. I went there to see a pop-up store by a Togolese brand Marché noir Lomé Paris. Amah Ayivi, the founder, was born in Togo and came to live in Paris as a teenager, and he sells vintage clothes that he finds on the Togolese markets. Read his interview here.

• I couldn't help but notice the ruin of Hotel de la Paix next to Onomo hotel. The building is abandoned and looks a little ghosty at night, but I was astonished by its beautiful shape. In 1975, the Togolese government promoted the tourism industry, and Hôtel de la Paix was amongst one of the four competing international class hotels on the coast to serve wealthy international travelers and upper class Togolese. Unfortunately, because of funds mismanagement, the hotel needed to close, but the hotel ruin has become a place for artists and musicians who rent the space for events and art exhibitions. Someday I'd love to see how it looks inside!

• Living in Lomé, you can't help but notice a giant road Boulevard Du 30 Aout because you always use it. As long as I heard, it's a new development by the government, that made the travel to downtown a lot faster but changed the whole landscape of the city, It also has greatly affected the real estate prices around the Boulevard. I don't have further information about this, but I'd love to know more since this is one of the biggest, most prominent public infrastructures of the city.

• Monument de l'independance was built as a tribute to Togo’s independence from France on April 27, 1960.

• I feel that the beach Plage de Lomé has a lot of stories to unpack. I'm digging more into it along with the history of the famous ruin Of Disused Jetty

Read and watch

• Watch a Togolese architect Sénamé Koffi's presentation about Maker’s Brunch, Innovation and Fundamental Science in Africa, Vernicular Architecture and Future Cities, Exploring Critical Making.

Organization / initiative

• L'Africaine d'architecture is an organization to encourage a democratic process of architecture in a local African context, established by Sénamé Koffi.

• Afro architecture Corporation is a center to promote and document the knowledge of African indigenous architecture and its knowledge.

• For music lovers, I love the work of a designer and filmmaker Elom 20ce, and a rapper fofo skarfo. Their creations are the representation of their pan-African identities and critical approach towards the existing paradigm.

This post was originally published in Bootcamp, a living collection of resources and case studies for designers starting in Design, UX, and UI by Nivedhitha Venkatakrishnan.

Storytelling and stories are an integral part of humankind since the beginning of time. Every culture, person, the place has a story that, they are a part-to tell, see and experience. Do you even think as a student of Architecture & Design storytelling is relevant to you?. It is essential. What is the need for you to tell a story as a designer?. The need for you to tell a story arises in your design as you deal with People, Purpose, and Place in other words User-Function-Space-Experience. Each Architectural design ideas are prototypes that convey a story involving the user who uses, lives, interacts and experience the space. These ideas when built becomes conceptual possibility and reality in the physical engagement of a user and their experience. So as a Student how can your design story, generate a series of narratives and relation between User-Function-Space “script to the Architecture& Experience and vice versa”.

When you talk about a story there are four parts to it. The facts are associated with emotions taking place in a particular moment in space. Let us take a simple well-known example “…and they lived happily ever after”. Sounds familiar right? most of the bedtime stories or the fairy tales that we know ends like this. Now try to breakdown understand this they — user(mostly the main characters), lived — function and Place(the fact that they lived in someplace doing something), happily — emotion(conveys how the characters/ users lived), ever after — time(gives us a temporal sense to relate). If we try to relate this to the design that we are working on currently. We design a particular space for people to where they engage — socially, personally, privately, physically, virtually, psychologically. Throughout a day or during a particular time of the day or week or month or year. But this space impacts what they do, how they do, and why they do the things that they do. The space that you created now turns into a living organism in itself with the lives in that space.

“Narrative imagining — story — is the fundamental instrument of thought. Rational capacities depend upon it. It is our chief means of looking into the future, or predicting, of planning, and of explaining”. — Mark Tuner (cognitive scientist, linguist, and author).

Hmmm, well how do we do that? Let’s break down your design into smaller understandable portions, — it has a number of potential Users-Function-Space-Experience that you would have identified. Now, try to categorize based on importance come with a hierarchy listing of User-Function-Space-Experience. This gives you the primary target user — “the protagonist” of your design story. Also, there are other users in your design some play the role of supporting characters, some a cameo and some are in the background of the scene you create. Next, what does your protagonist do in the space that you are designing — we could call that “purpose/motive”. That is the function for your user to do in the space based on place and time. How they carry out a different function in one or more spaces would give the sequencing pattern a setting for your design — “User activity mapping”.

Along with these scenarios you have created for your user, as a designer, you have an understanding of what the user wants to experience and how they want to experience in that space?. And their interactions with People-Function-Space would give you the insight and guide you to — “Dialogues & Composition of design”, that creates the magic you, expect your user to Experience. While you do all of this, the theme that your design revolves around and demands gives rise to — “Concept”, which evolves by itself.

Storytelling in Architecture is not just physical interaction but a permanent one. It helps us connect to events with a holistic experience through time. This unique nature of stories makes it one of the essential tools during the design process. Previously, we have explored approaching the design, Architecture as human experience, and storytelling as a tool and how it aims to understand problems from the user perspective to address them with a human-centric approach. Each design, communicates a tale of value, identity, faith, belief, place, people, culture, time, knitting together with an understanding of all these, the situation within the set context of the design using the spatial language through an interactive tale. This solely depends on the ability of the design in guiding and shaping the user experience.

Okay, having said all that how do you tell your design story? When you design a building and imagine it is built you can’t always hang around the building to tell the user the story. Your work needs to tell the speak for itself.

“Art is not what you see, it is what you make others see” — Edgar Degas

The stories that you as a designer perceive in your mind don’t exist unless they are translated on paper. So, the perception of the space is portrayed as a story. This approach takes the circumstances that makeup space, and adds a certain bend to space this solely depends on the ability of the design in guiding and shaping the user experience. This could be:

• Action-based storytelling where, the user(protagonist) through whose point of view, the entire design is driven.
• Metaphorical storytelling — an idea conveyed in the form of a story, where the design is expressed by the quality of meaning associated.
• Impressionistic storytelling — where the user and the experience are communicated through perceived interpretations to make sense.
• Instructive storytelling — direct establishment of communication conveyed through the purpose.
• Value-based storytelling — Scenarios based out of certain deep-rooted faith and believes.

The stories could also be a combination of the styles but comprise of four parts basic. For our understanding, we can be categorized as;

• Backstory — a setting that needs to be studied based on which the story development happens. In the case of design, we are given a design problem based on which we arrive at a context development for the design.
• Narrative overlay — basically how you attempt to present the story to your audience. In design, initially, we come with an understanding of our users, functions, and space. This helps in prioritizing and emphasizing certain things in the design that are of greater significance.
• Theme — the genre on which a story mainly focuses, but there could be minor components of another genre that comes in between and could exist in the story without conflict and reducing the essence of the main focus. In design, the conceptual idea evolves based on the demands of design as a whole. Also, we try to work on minor concepts in certain spaces in cohesion with the main concept or in complete contrast but could coexist within the design in harmony.
• Experience & Interaction — the exact feel that a story invokes in its audience while rending a scenario. In design, based on the context, analysis and concept perceived and induce the users’ experience. Where the design carefully crafts these using form, color, light, material, spatial language to transform the meaning of elements to embodied values & experience.

These forms of approaches to design, open up possibilities for many analytical approaches. The patterns derived from these analyses, with qualitative and quantitative data, values human needs as authentic. When you try to write down these interpretations of yours into a creative design brief- the script of your design story, that guides you through the project and not as a story for you to juries but a real one that helps you throughout the design process.

Nivedhitha Venkatakrishnan

Nivedhitha Venkatakrishnan is a design Enthusiast, Architect & Urban Designer with a passion for Academic Research & writing. Exploring Human centric approaches to design.

Part I: Melbourne

Into the Library

Photo by David Iliff on Wikimedia Commons.

In The Image of the City (1960), urban theorist Kevin Lynch concluded that people orient themselves in cities by forming “mental maps,” which consist of five elements: paths, edges, districts, nodes, and landmarks. These five elements intertwine and overlap with each other to create a “city image” that’s embedded in the minds of its beholders.

Landmarks, in particular, are an interesting element to observe. That’s because, by their very nature, landmarks are unique and easily distinguishable from their surroundings. What do people think about when they think of Paris? The Eiffel Tower, of course. London? Big Ben. New York City? The Statue of Liberty.

When people ask me about an iconic landmark in Melbourne, the first place that comes into my mind is State Library Victoria (SLV).

Melbourne’s Landmarks

Sure, Melbourne has other iconic landmarks like Flinders Street Station or the St. Patrick’s Cathedral, but SLV is especially meaningful to me.

It is Australia’s oldest public library and one of the first free public libraries in the world. The SLV’s La Trobe Reading Room, shown in the picture above, is my #1 favorite writing spot in Greater Melbourne (#2 is a cafe called Guild, which technically is also within the library’s precinct). I go there at least once a week, even though it’s not particularly close to where I live.

The library’s architecture is distinctive, which makes it a perceivable landmark. But it’s not just an architectural exhibit. It’s also a building with a function — a public space designed for the purpose of reading, writing, and exchanging ideas. And I think it does its job quite well.

Unintended Usage

That being said, I found it interesting and funny that it also attracts other forms of usage.

In the library’s courtyard, for example, there are two sets of human-sized chess boards. Every other afternoon, you can see some older men engaged in an intense chess match, and somehow they always have spectators watching.

On a staircase not too far from the chess boards, you can often see a bunch of kids doing ollies and pop shuvits with their skateboards. Not sure why they chose to skate there, but that stark contrast between “library” and “skateboarding” makes you wonder, doesn’t it?

Further down, on the sidewalk, some days you’ll find street musicians playing their tunes. And on the grass and benches scattered around there, ordinary citizens like you and me are chatting, having snacks, feeding birds, or whatever activity it is people do in public spaces.

People Vote with Their Feet

Renowned urbanist Holly Whyte once said that people vote with their feet. They use places that are comfortable and easy to use — and that’s not always in line with the place’s intended function.

Sure, a library’s primary users might be readers and writers. But being a public space, it is available to all sorts of people, and each one of them views the library differently. To a skater, it looks like a skatepark; and to a musician, it’s a stage.

Is that a bad thing? On paper, maybe it is. With all the planning and investment that goes into building the library, of course, they want it to be used as it’s intended to.

But in reality, all these activities add color to the library’s atmosphere. As long as they are managed, and don’t disturb the library’s primary function, I think they’re fine. It is a renowned landmark in the city’s center, after all, no wonder it attracts such a vibrant and diverse demographic.

Image vs Experience

After a long day of reading and writing, I like to wind down in the library’s courtyard and watch people do their thing. The chess players, the skaters, the musicians, even the bystanders and passers-by. People-watching is Holly Whyte’s favorite pastime, and as an aspiring urbanist, I do have a predisposition towards it as well.

By watching how people use public spaces, we can understand how to design them better — not just to design how it looks like as an iconic landmark, but how it’s actually used as a space. When designed correctly, a landmark can be more than an element in a city’s image, but also a seamless part of a city’s experience. To me, that’s what State Library Victoria embodies.

Part II: Istanbul

Humble Connections, Good Bread

The pillowy scent of yeast and bread billows out from the wooden frame of Cihangir Tarihi Fırını in Istanbul, Turkey. "Cihangir Historical Oven," as the name translates, began in 1920 as a family business of Rum minorities. Although the bakery has since changed hands, it's original-built stone oven is still in continuous use today.

Photo by Ann Guo

The bakery is tucked away in a quiet residential roundabout of a city that slumbers with one eye open--that is to say, a city conscious at all hours of the day or night. Cihangir Historical Oven is an example of such liveliness in this multifarious district. Nearby the bakery are vegan cafes, key cutters, coffee shops, vegetable markets, and even a mosque. The bakery is the only business in the area open twenty-four hours a day, attracting ebbs and flows of hungry patrons with its ceaseless activity.

Gentle Universalities

Those who come to Cihangir Historical Oven arrive with the same goal in mind: to fill their bellies with the warmth of fresh baked goods. The universality of hunger, of a midnight craving, is validated by the accessibility of a 2-lira treat, regardless of time. Biscuits, simit (sesame-covered bagels), rolls, cookies, and loaves are fresh-made to fill bellies inclusive of gender, class, race, sexuality, ethnicity, and religion. Delicious.

An elderly man sits at the closest table from the door. He is the midnight supervisor, and distributes sugar biscuits or cheese-and-olive twists to paying customers. At other tables, people sit and chat with paper cups of dark Turkish tea. A person nearby munches on poğaça, an herbed butter biscuit. The roll crumbles in their mouth and bits of it drift down onto the ground.

Photo by Ann Guo

Home in the Urban Familiar

It's 2 AM on a Friday night, and I've found my way through Istanbul's labyrinthine streets to Cihangir Tarihi Fırını. People are stumbling towards the bakery after a humid night of cramped bars and techno clubs. Those in taxis blare music from their loudspeakers as they ride home. The synthetic heartbeat of trance fills the small neighborhood square; a passenger claps their hands to the sinuous rhythm. Cigarette smoke clings to the breeze like a deathly lover.

Within the largeness of Istanbul is many small multitudes of diversity. Cihangir Tarihi Fırını is one such example of a unique service contributing to an urban environment's kaleidoscopic whole. An intensely single-use space, the bakery's accessibility and ubiquity draws in a variety of visitors at a range of imaginable hours. As Jane Jacobs summarizes in The Death and Life of Great American Cities, such small enterprises contribute to a "lively city scene," combating "neighborhood monotony" by providing the "physical, social, and economic continuities" necessary for a well-integrated public street life.

Aushaf is an aspiring Urbanist, Writer, and Cultural Researcher based in Melbourne, Australia. Having studied Urban & Regional Planning at Institut Teknologi Bandung and Cultural & Creative Industries at Monash University, he combines these two disciplines to specialize in Creative City Planning, Placemaking, and Arts/Culture-led Regeneration. Ultimately, his goal is to leverage arts and culture to create better cities and communities. Some of Aushaf’s work can be found on his Medium page, where he also manages an urbanism publication called The Urban Condition.

Ann Guo (she/they) is an urban anthropologist based in Seattle and Istanbul. When Ann isn’t roaming around on foot or ferry, they are usually exploring mountains, forests, and canyons with their dog, Seaweed.

This is a post by a talented urban designer and architect Prisca Arosio from MELITA STUDIO.

“Amsterdam is in demand, increasing in size by around 11,000 inhabitants per year. The City of Amsterdam wants to facilitate this growth and at the same time reduce pressure on the housing market. By 2025, its goal is to enable the construction of 52,500 homes within the city boundaries” — City of Amsterdam official website.

This article lists some very unique but interesting residential developments along the waterfront which were built only in the last 50 years in the city of Amsterdam. Explore the “new” city development and have a break for a coffee or lunch. It would make you feel like you are part of Amsterdam's upcoming eye opening attractions.

Places to go, projects to check out

• Borneo Island: A harbour and a docking area have been transformed by urban designers West 8 into a low-rise residential district (1993-2000). Take a walk around the town’s distinctive urban landmark. Check out exciting home facades in Stokerkade street and visit the BAC Borneo Architectuur Centrum where you will learn about the history of the district and its transition.

• Java Island: This district is another harbour renovation project which was turned into a residential area too (1991-2000). You can find multiple small pedestrian bridges stitching the neighbourhood together over the canals full of compact boats. Complete your visit with the viewing of the newly built Hotel Jakarta designed by Amsterdam based architectural office called Search. Read more about the urban design of Java Island here.

• Funenpark: The neighborhood was a former railway station marshalling yard that was transformed into a new urban quartier in 2011. It is interesting to see how the urban masterplan integrates the landscape design (by Landlab) and housing blocks and villas by 6 different architectural offices. Take a walk in Czaar Peterbuurt, a small street full of boutiques and coffee places.

• Houthavens: The former port area is being developed into a residential quartier that is formed by low rise buildings including an iconic high rise building called Pontsteiger. Most of the residential blocks have canal views that resemble traditional Amsterdam house typologies. You can view the site plan at the district's official website. You can stop by at Vessel cafe to observe the waterfront and the ever changing skyline of the “new” Amsterdam.

• NDSM: Although it is still under construction, the neighborhood is accessible by ferry from Pontsteiger and Central station. During the 19th century, this area was one of the biggest shipyards in the world. It is now being developed into a dense residential area with mixed-use functions. What makes this district unique is the amount of large towers and wide streets profiles. Have a walk in the old shipyard NDSM-werf where you can find many creative local studios. At last, check out the coffee place Noorderlicht, a greenhouse turned into a café with a nice panoramic view over the city!

Read

• Visit Arcam (Architecture centre of Amsterdam) to see architecture’ exhibitions and get more information about the urban history of Amsterdam.

• Listen to the urban design and social history of the Bijlmer district. This district was designed by modernist architects to be a “city of the future” in the 1960. Now, it's one of the most diverse areas in The Netherlands: Episode 01 and Episode 02.

• Have a look at the Dewarren which is the first cooperative housing project in Amsterdam that designs and builds its own real-estate by the residents. The dewarren project aims to realize 36 apartments that are sustainable at affordable prices.

Organizations

Dutch urban design offices:

• Karres en Brands; This office focuses on sustainable master planning mostly in the Netherlands, Germany and Russia.

• Bura; Bura is an upcoming urban design and research office from Amsterdam. According to their website, BURA stands for Designing sustainable urban environments alongside research and design that promotes Urban craftsmanship and collaboration.

• Urhahn; Urhahb focuses on urban strategy and urban design works in the netherlands and dutch speaking cities in belgium.

• FABRICations; Fabrications office works on Architectural design, Urban Plans and Regional strategies for Resilient Cities. The office focuses on innovative design solutions for the relevant issues of our current society.

Organizations:

• Pakhuis de zwijger; This Amsterdam ‘public meeting place’ holds conferences, lectures, discussions about cities and many more topics (Designing cities for all).

• Archined; Check this Archined website to view updates about the latest dutch projects, local competitions, conferences, exhibitions and much more (Available only in Dutch language).

• Architour; Architour organizes architecture tours for groups in Amsterdam including other cities in the Netherlands such as Rotterdam.

MELITA STUDIO

Melita studio is an open office that works in the field of architecture, urban design and architecture. It is distinguished for a research-driven process.

Melita studio is founded by Prisca Arosio and she collaborates with numerous people and entities. Prisca Arosio is an urban designer, researcher and Dutch registered architect. Her interest in urban strategy focuses on public spaces and their social interaction. Prisca holds a MSc in Architecture, Building and Planning from the Technical University of Eindhoven and a BSc in Architecture from Politecnico di Milano. She worked in diverse Amsterdam-based offices. She got experienced in landscape architecture and architecture projects at Kettinghuls office and urban design approach at Basta urbanism. In addition, she participated in the organization of the AA visiting school, the house of politics 2018 and she was part of the jury panel ‘Tamayouz award’ (architecture competition) in 2018/2019/2020.

Density – Urban Dimension – Post COVID-19

Density is never just a number but is used as a parameter around which transport, energy, water, and waste infrastructures are planned. (Stephen Cairns for The Straits Times, n.d.) The viral outbreak of COVID-19 cases in the dense urban environment, slums at the sprawling cities of Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Ahmedabad, and many other factors forces us to rethink the norms of urban form, planning, and design. While it is true that a largely populated zone provides the city with the scale that ensures the economic viability of capital-intensive infrastructure, it is becoming apparent that when densities breach their critical mass, they have negative consequences on economic, environmental, health, and social sustainability.

The importance of the human scale should be considered more for the cities in the current pandemic situation, concerning psychological aspects. This means density might be physically sustainable, but it must be accompanied by a quality living environment and green spaces. The need for green space became so clear during the lockdown when many urban dwellers had no quality space for refreshment within their neighborhoods. It will be interesting to see how the planning system and construction industry responds.

Due to the pandemic, people commuting and traveling to their workplaces has reduced. Thus, introducing a new normal for people traveling to their work to stay back home, thus making the urban population reside at their dwelling. This created a diversified, urban core and suburban area. Diversification will be a major challenge for the construction industries to respond to certain suburb’s planning strategies. This is also an opportunity to develop and implement better living conditions in the suburbs.

Density – as an urban attribute

According to author Colin McFarlane in his paper De/re-densification: A relational geography of urban density, he talks about the relationship between Densification, De- Densification, and Re-densification based on urban transformations and the future of the place. He is also talking about three inter-related processes of Urban transformation, socio-spatial inequality, and ecological crisis. He took the example of Glasgow city in Europe to explain post-industrialization concerning the population density and how lack of housing & sanitation made administrative or political authorities decide to de-densify the town. As a result, people move from the dense inner city to new suburban housing estates in a new satellite town called Pollok. To promote these opportunities for corporators made the film also on it which says that from 'gloomy,' 'smoke-filled,' 'congested' 'mean streets' in and around the center, to new modern and highly gendered suburban housing, where 'trees are everywhere' – the area was on the suburban-rural edge of the city-and where original provision was promised, including facilities. (McFarlane, 2020)

After a few years again, despite having all facilities, Pollak faced health and social problems, and a large area of Pollok & the surrounding area was demolished. With the help of these examples, the author started the argument and highlighted four points.

• First, how density transforms over time and is a fundamental expression of the geographical transformation of urbanization.
• Second, de/re-densification are relational processes driven by political, economic, and social change and conditions.
• Third, de/re-densification are both temporal and spatial: they are shaped by history and place, and in turn, are productive of space and time, and they bring together different temporal trajectories and locations across the city, region, and world.
• And fourth, these transformations are ecological, carrying significant environmental impacts that connect sites in and beyond the city.

View of cities and urbanization through the geographies of de/re-densification. In this article, he also talks about the Roger Keil argument, which states that 'do not conform to any easy categorization of center=high density and suburb=low-density. It is vital to rethink both density and sprawl.' Densification – they occupy approximately 3% of the planet's surface. Urbanization, as a process of making and remaking urban and non-urban spaces. He also mentioned city thinking in French philosopher Deleuzian words that focus on the Framing and operations of de/re-densification of the town and the focus on territoriality processes, deterritorialization, and reterritorialization. From the Delauzian position, the movement between deterritorialization and reterritorialization coexist formation but are not equal, 'they do not balance out.'(McFarlane, 2020)

According to the paper, Relationships between form, morphology, density, and energy in urban environments; Urban energy consumption, when linked to urban form addressing climate change at the locality concerning urban density and morphology. The mitigating aspect acts as a catalyst for urban sustainability. Thus, climate change must be considered for improved planning, urban design, and management so that adaptive methods can be taken if there is any direct or indirect impact of climate on the metropolitan area. The paper examines the interaction and relationship between the built environment, spatial pattern, and the energy consumed between the residential typologies. The study is primarily based on urban configuration and operational energy, specifically density, which affects both urban morphology and transport energy about urban form.

For greater urban density to reduce transport energy, sustainability is compromised. Moreover, in high density, the density pattern has a major impact on existing social networks and public interaction. The more vibrant spatial approach quantifies the energy consumption including many other factors (multiple factors – environment, surroundings, occupants, density, etc.)(Doherty et al., 2009)

Urban Premium and Penalty concerning Density with health and infrastructure

Post-industrialization, the expansion in density inside the urban region, disinfection, and food security were necessary to live continuously with premium life in a metropolitan area. (Mullen et al., 2016) There is proof that urban dwellers' height was fundamentally beneath individuals dwelling in urban territories during the beginning phases of industrialization of society's economy and modernization. Like this, they experienced an urban penalty. (Groote & Tassenaar, 2020) In the past 50 years, the departure of the middle class and jobs to the surrounding suburbs in the United States, other developed countries have led to intense urban poverty and increased racial segregation, leaving the cities with diminished capacity to meet the needs of increasingly impoverished populations. These disparities led to a resurrection of the earlier concept of the "urban health penalty." The "urban health penalty" rubric draws specific attention to the poor health conditions that persist in many inner cities that describe the resulting inequalities in health and point to the necessity of improving health conditions, particularly among disadvantaged urban populations. However, this approach tends to equate "urbanness" with disadvantages, and urban health becomes synonymous with diseases among the poor minority of the inner cities. The idea of an urban penalty or urban premium is related to the effect that living in a high-density urban environment has a standard of living, which includes physical infrastructures, social infrastructures, and health facilities. In growing cities, the government provides public health facilities and sanitation facilities to improve the premium living in an urban area. Health services in urban areas, particularly hospital services available to the urban elite and middle class, were evident in the current COVID-19 scenario. (Reis, 2009)

Similarly, private-sector health services are concentrated in cities so that overall, urban populations have significantly greater access to health services than rural people. The urban penalty approach posits that cities focusing on poor people and expose them to unhealthy physical and social environments. For an urban area to contribute to the urban premium, it should be situated within a broader city-wide development strategy, with density, connectivity, and diversity as core objectives. (Mullen et al., 2016)

Density Comparison – Walled city area, Ahmedabad & Dharavi, Mumbai

To understand the density as an urban attribute relating to the COVID-19 pandemic, the two cities, the Walled City area, Ahmedabad, and Dharavi, Mumbai is considered to critically analyze the current scenario.

"The health problem is not related to urban density but rather to structural inequalities and the quality of urbanization, and the urban premium will likely not turn into an urban penalty as agglomeration benefits continues to prevail." — OECD Policy Responses to Coronavirus (COVID-19) Cities policy responses Updated July 23, 2020.

The walled city was found in 1411AD, on the eastern bank of the river Sabarmati. Which is also known as a Kot-Vistar in the regional language. Also, walled city Ahmedabad is India's first World Heritage city. Ahmedabad walled city area is a highly populated dense urban core of the city. More than 600 pols are there within the Kot-Vistar. Every house in this area has two sharing walls with adjacent structures. The high density and character of this settlement in this area, the people, inhabit nearby were 7 to 8 people are living in one house or more than 30 people in one Khadaki (Enclosed unit of settlement guarded by a single gateway used by a large number of families). Khadaki is also known as a pol. Pol house is a vernacular structure of this place. The traditional city center within the fort walls has a large concentration of commercial activities and narrow streets—the eastern sector accommodating large, small industries and low-income group families.

Image source

In the second week of March, the first COVID – 19 positive cases were reported in Ahmedabad. By the end of the month, the city had 225 confirmed cases with 3 deaths; by April 13, the town had 282 confirmed cases, out of which 27 were domestic, and 15 were from international travelers. The rest of the patients were affected by local transmissions within Ahmedabad's walled city, directly/ indirectly linked to the Tablighi Jamaat Markaz held in Delhi's Nizamuddin. By the time identifying the people who attended Tablighi Jamaat, the coronavirus spread was at its peak. Patients with asymptomatic & L-type coronavirus cases were detected in the area, which resulted in a high mortality rate (6.7%) in the central zone of the walled city area.

Looking into the current scenario at the walled city area, 120 people per hectare population density (Census of India 2011) must be considered when recommending social distancing and home isolation. The Centre's guidelines for home isolation clearly states the need for a ventilated room. The walled city is spread over roughly
8.7 sq km and is densely populated. In such a situation, home quarantine is not advisable despite the conversion of the Huj house and community hostels, into a transitional shelter for people, which was not adequate for the population of Kot-vistar. There is much uncertainty around the policy measures implemented and the on-ground reality. The increase in confirmed cases and fatality rate exhibit a contrasting picture, policy measures, and late implementation thus, the outcomes contradict policy adherence and efficacy.

On the other hand, Dharavi, which is situated in the Mumbai metropolitan area, one of Asia's largest slums, spread over 2.1 sq km, has about 10 lakhs of 2,77,136 per sq km density. On April 1, the first case was recorded positive for COVID — 19, posing a threat to the city's large hotspot. On June 12, Dharavi recorded 2,013 coronavirus cases, but its daily growth rate was 1.57 percent against the city's 3 percent and 5 percent at other wards. From June 10 to 14, six deaths have been reported, taking the count to 77. With houses just 10 feet × 12 feet, providing shelter to large families of seven to eight members, transmission through the community was inevitable. Since home quarantine was never an option in Dharavi, the focus was always on setting up maximum institutional quarantine facilities like the Rajiv Gandhi sports complex, schools, and community halls.

Image source

"A densely packed area in the megacity of Mumbai, a strong focus on community engagement and the basics of testing, tracing, isolating, and treating all those that are sick is key to breaking the chains of transmission and suppressing the virus." — Source

The Walled area of Ahmedabad city is renowned as India's first world heritage city. While Dharavi being Asia's largest slum area, significantly has an annual turnover of US$ 1 billion in GDP of the country. These urban cores remain the best opportunity for the citizens to live in. During the COVID-19 Pandemic, Dharavi's survival rate, which has a higher density than the walled city area, was efficiently maintained with the minimum impact from the vulnerable COVID-19 situation. The walled city area faced a higher mortality rate because of inadequate social infrastructure concerning density, transitional space for health care facilities.

Hence, the walled city area has lesser accountancy of the existing resources converted to healthcare centers. The rigor policy's late implication puts the residents' inhabitants at this place to pay their penalty in the urban trend. The urban core having attributes of urban premium is left open to a platform of urban penalty. Density creates congestion, and that congestion makes mismanagement in the contagious pandemic of the COVID-19 situation. Here, congestion is measured as proximity between people, which is the classic definition of density.

Image source

From the table mentioned above, it is seen that density is a minor factor that affects the urban area. For instance, Ahmedabad has a much less population density of 8362 and a mortality rate of 87.1 per million. The rest of the urban areas having higher density and fluctuating mortality rates. The more relevant factor affecting the people during the pandemic spread at a higher rate is people's age group as old people are more prone to disease, economic and social conditions, adequate, frequent health facilities, the government implemented guidelines & policies, planning strategies for city, etc.

Reimagining Urban Density Post-COVID

As we discussed earlier, Ahmedabad's core city area has different characteristics in terms of spatial identity. The site includes the famous Bhadra Palace, Hindu temple, informal commercial market, street vendor areas, formal commercial shops, open vegetables, fruits, and flower markets where everyday casual and dense traditional activities were used to happen before the pandemic. Earlier, no one was worried about social distancing and social gatherings for a long time but, the COVID-19 pandemic situation, brought in changes to the usual happenings, where, the formal spaces are forced to be used by maintaining social distancing to prevent the virus's spread. The local informal vendors cannot stay within the area to earn their daily wedges. They do not have the facilities to reside within the space.

Existing infrastructure and services in Ahmedabad should compromise people for giving a premium life as it has all the necessary health and sanitation facilities. Still, the current COVID-19 scenario proved that rather than creating the premium experience, it has been a penalty to the people. Whereas in Dharavi, it was blamed as an urban penalty in terms of sanitation and health facilities, eventually became an urban premium in the COVID – 19 scenarios.

Due to high urban density, there is much close vulnerable cause for the pandemic to reach the dense urban areas. Still, on the contrary, the recent study about the COVID-19 cases by the US researchers at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, London School of economics, and IZA – Institute of Labor Economics has analyzed that the pandemic spread, and the hike is not related to the population density. (Bhadra et al., 2020)

Upon strategizing to contain the pandemic, the foreseen structure is through physical distancing and lockdown. The factors that influence the spread of the epidemic are temperature, humidity, wind speed, etc. For example, beneath 3° C, the effect of COVID-19 in China was found to have vulnerable conditions towards the people who were affected by the pandemic. The higher density hotspots, because of the better available healthcare facilities and the climatic condition achieve inverse mortality with density. Few other factors which relate more to area/site-specific are geographical & economic condition, prevailing health issues in the locality, genetic factors, availability of health infrastructures, locations of market spaces, government policies, age of the inhabitants, number of testing per million during the pandemic, etc. (Bhadra et al., 2020)

Density additionally has significant advantages for human livelihood and financial success. Worries about densely packed working places have provoked huge organizations to re-evaluate the requirement for unified workplaces, scatter staff to more modest rural hubs, or permit work from home. The density of structures is not similar to the density of the populations. A region's population density fluctuates broadly whenever estimated at the size of the plot, the square, the area, or the city. To improvise the condition of the current scenario, facilitating the combined effort of citizens civil societies, and local authorities to gain trust, improvise interaction within communities, and empowering social responsibilities for the locals which foreseen the task to recover from the pandemic. (Turok, 2020)

First, we analyze and explain differences in living standards over time and space in an integrated analysis. Urban penalty or urban premium existed at a specific moment in time in a particular area. We can assess how large (or small) it was and how it developed over time and space.

"The infrastructure of a city is a reflection of the government's priorities and shows what they care about." – Esra Lemmens, Design consultant.

Post-Covid, all government bodies, private developers, designers, and planners should come together on one platform and think of the new normal in terms of experiencing spaces, densely populated informal markets in an organized manner with the same experience in public, semi-public, private areas that can be redesigned with new changes correlating to the COVID-19 pandemic situation. But Should this New-normal compromise a premium life? To implement this New-normal, it is necessary to identify the strengths of the place. For example, in Netherland, the province Fryslan had a transition from premium to penalty, from the premodern to modern from the middle of the 19th century. This transition seems to have caused a lack of care and cure factors in urban areas, which the author explained. This care and cure scale should be improved in urban areas to tackle the effects of population density. These care and cure scales may vary based on different cities and towns regarding clustering and population density. (Groote & Tassenaar, 2020)

The pandemic's health and economic consequences worsened due to the variation in establishing an adequate policy response. Population densities are not arbitrarily allotted; instead, they may be related to surreptitiously mystifying factors. For instance, population densities can be influenced by locational productive advantages, regardless of whether natural or man-made, which affects financial conditions. These factors confuse the severity of disease spread with density. The difference in timing at the beginning of the infection can produce cross-sectional contrasts in the flare-up's seriousness at one point as expected. (Provenzano et al., 2020)

Three studies have inspected the connection between density and COVID-19 rate in the United States. The first study done by Wheaton and Kinsella Thompson utilized information from 351 cities and towns in Massachusetts to give a cross-segment examination of the per capita disease rate. Population density has a financial and factual critical constructive outcome on the percentage of the infection. The positive connection between population density and the portion of positive tests, however, this relationship appears to decrease after some time. The second study was done by Almagro and Orane-Hutchinson, also look at this connection yet useful information on the number of tests and positive results across NYC zip codes. A third study was done by Hamidi, Sabouri, and Ewing to archive a level relationship among density and prevalence at the regional level control population. Critically, these investigations elucidate the connection between density and the pandemic's spread, yet do not endeavor to recognize a form. They also found a causal relationship, nor did they talk about the timing of the outbreak. Density has influenced the flare-up's timing in every area, with denser areas bound to have an early explosion. Variation in density may affect the conduct reactions to the pandemic, which would influence the outbreak, spread, and seriousness. (Provenzano et al., 2020)

Urban areas are regular places for social communications, dense living, and close contact. Eventually, these dense urban areas became illness hotspots. Density is related to an unexpected appearance of the COVID-19 pandemic, so urban areas get a head start on the spread of the infection when the COVID-19 pandemic has shown up. It was not quicker or deadlier in smaller towns and at populated peripheries. These cities are vulnerable to the COVID-19 pandemic situation because of the crowding that happens in these dense areas. The aspects that can contain this vulnerable sound situation are taking precautionary measures — access to the healthcare and demographics. Understanding and predicting the dynamics of future waves of viral outbreaks in urban areas help policymakers to better plan and execute steps for the densified urban regions in the future. (Provenzano et al., 2020)

Post-COVID communities should look into the possibilities of redesigning the open green spaces, public formal and informal markets, recreational spaces, and all other amenities. How can we decentralize the services and health facilities in dense communities? By keeping social distancing and staying behind the mask, how can we have more spontaneous meetups and diversity in the dense community?

Pooja Mehta

A spatial expression of society and its culture have a huge impact on cities' growth. Architecture and Urban Design are for Pooja to experience & exploration a different culture. She is from Ahmedabad, India. She recently completed her M.Arch. course from the Manipal school of architecture & planning, MAHE, Karnataka India. She has developed her interest in culture & heritage, socio-ecological, socio-spatial & people-centric design.

R. P. Harini

R.P.Harini is an architect and an urban designer, who works towards creating innovative design with eco-friendly practices both on a small and large scale. She is more interested in, the research that scrutinizes to a derivate and re-solves an issue that exists in the city/ in a community, with creative design innovation but wholly orienting towards the context and surrounding environment. She likes to understand community-based design, its need, evolution through time. Her ideology is towards learning and exploring the natural aspects of the urban environment to bring them as the solution for many disastrous problems that are evolving through time.

Sidhartha Dutt

Sidhartha Dutt is a solutionary architect and urbanist who believes in smart work and is always enthusiastic to create and implement innovative high-quality solutions for projects. She also likes to learn and explore contextual responses of different places around the world by understanding design ideas and new technologies. Her area of interest includes people-centric design, heritage development, and urban conservation of historic cities.

Prof. Purushottam Kesar
Purushottam Kesar is interested in urban studies, with a focus on bringing practice closer to theory building. He teaches at Manipal School of Architecture and Planning, Manipal.

Call for participants

Democracy Studio & for Cities collaborating with Traveling Circus of Urbanism on urban exploration trip in Africa from October 2021 to July 2022

The African continent will host one-third of the world population in the next generation and went these last years through social, economical, and environmental transformations at a spectacular size and speed. Julien Carbonnell (Democracy Studio) and Mariko Sugita (for Cities) collaborate through the Traveling Circus of Urbanism to explore the African urban development and digital transformation by joining different local projects and providing a temporary workforce to accelerate their achievements.

To do so, we are gathering a small team of international urban practitioners with complementary skills willing to experience the urban practices in Africa from the field, in a trip of 8 to 10 months (flexible). Our mission aims to showcase what makes African cities vibrant nowadays and will be directly exploited by the participants in a free collaboration fashion through book(s), video documentary, educational programs, digital content, and other independent opportunities to build together…

PROGRAM (flexible: no need to be part of all, can participate on shorter-term):

• Oct/Nov ’21: Cape Town, South Africa. Collaboration with The Civic Tech Innovation Network a platform wiling to index, organise and boost the African civic technologies and civil participation in decision-making for the future of the continent.
• Dec/Jan ’22: Lomé, Togo. Collaboration with L'africaine d'architecture on the project HubCité. Fab-lab in Lomé organizing a food waste collection to compost it and redistribute it in family gardens in the neighborhood. The gardens are equipped with sensors of the soil moisture which are shared on a digital map, giving the state of dryness/water in the city. The mission will consist in creating educational support (video tutorials and craft books) to educate the population in handling the issue.
• Fev/Mar ’22: Yaounde, Cameroon. Collaboration with geo.sm an open data platform and local social network establishing digital maps and GIS in Africa, creating the infrastructure for interaction of inhabitants by geo-locations. In interaction with the new urban innovation lab DiverCity, we will work on existing datasets, both on the analysis and the valorisation of it to a mainstream audience.
• Avr/May ’22: Nairobi, Kenya. Program to be determined. Target collaboration with UN-Habitat.
• Jun/Jul ’22: Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. To be determined. Wrap up the work done these last months. Finalise the book, presentations, etc. Start to exploit all material collection for conference, services…

The project does not offer direct remuneration, but we are collecting grants from different development banks. Housing and working facilities will be provided.

APPLICATION FORM:
https://forms.gle/Z6P2wkkTNk3GYhUx8

“A city is more than a place in space, it is a drama in time.” ― Patrick Geddes

In 2007, the world’s urban population surpassed its rural counterpart. This occurrence marked a major turning point in the history of human civilization. More than half of the entire human species — that’s approximately 4 billion people — now lives in urban areas.

Cities are now, officially, the most human place on earth.

This knowledge then poses a crucial question: What should we do with our cities? The flow of urbanization shows no sign of halting. Cities will continue to grow, and that unceasing growth can work for or against us. It doesn’t take a lively imagination to understand that the future of humanity, and perhaps that of planet earth, depends on how we shape our cities.

Shaping cities to accommodate human life — this is by no means an easy task. Fortunately, we have just the toolkit to address it.

It’s called urban planning.

About Urban Planning

Urban planning, sometimes also “city planning” or “town planning,” is an interdisciplinary field that studies urban areas and how we can purposefully direct their development, to create cities that are organized, attractive, and — most importantly — livable.

American Planning Association defined it as follows:
“[…] a dynamic profession that works to improve the welfare of people and their communities by creating more convenient, equitable, healthful, efficient, and attractive places for present and future generations.”

McGill University in Canada proposed a more pragmatic definition, which perhaps is more relevant to the present-day context:
“[…] a technical and political process concerned with the welfare of people, control of the use of land, design of the urban environment including transportation and communication networks, and protection and enhancement of the natural environment.”

As mentioned, this intricate field combines a multitude of aspects, from the technical and tangible ones like land use, infrastructure, and transportation systems, all the way to their more abstract counterparts like socio-cultural demographics, regional economy, and public policy.

Cities are complex entities, and thus urban planners must consider all these elements to accommodate the interests of various stakeholders, public and private alike. When planning cities, simpler is rarely (if ever) better, as the answer to every problem tends to be multilayered and multifaceted.

Moreover, while urban planning is considered a distinct field, it is closely related to urban design, placemaking, architecture, landscape architecture, and other fields cognate to urban studies or spatial sciences. Experts from these fields often collaborate on the same projects, as their skill-sets closely intersect with each other and therefore work to solve the same problems.

Across history, notable figures in the urban planning field (who aren’t all necessarily urban planners by trade) include Patrick Geddes, Georges-Eugène Haussmann, Ebenezer Howard, Jane Jacobs, and William H. Whyte.

Why (and How to) Plan Cities?

“There is no logic that can be superimposed on the city; people make it, and it is to them, not buildings, that we must fit our plans.”— Jane Jacobs

In the beginning, we’ve established the reason why we need to plan cities: Because their importance in our lives will only grow as time progresses. The way civilization develops will influence and be influenced by the cities we live in, and our fate as a species will inevitably go along with it.

Urban planning gives us a way to affect this process in a way that benefits us. As Jane Jacobs said, humans make cities, and it is humans that cities must cater to — because, as we shape our cities, they will shape us in return. And we want to make sure they’ll shape us the right way.

This human-centric approach to urban planning seems obvious at first, but it really isn’t. If we only look at the recent history of human civilization, we’ll see that often the central subject in urban planning is not humans. Instead, it’s tall buildings and automobiles. The evidence for this is clear in many places: Capitalistic interests often outweigh humanistic interests.

Granted, things are starting to change. But it took us several decades to see the wrong in our ways, and therefore, often the most challenging problem that urban planners need to solve — to put bluntly — is “fixing the mistakes of our predecessors” instead of “starting from the ground-up.”

Planning for expedience doesn’t work anymore. It’s like trading the future for the present. Instead, we must plan for sustainability, as advocated by the UN through their 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) — so we can leave boons, not banes, for our successors.

Plan residential areas so everyone has access to housing. Plan commercial zones so economic activities benefit all parties. Plan transportation networks so people can traverse their city with ease. Plan green spaces so the environment and humans can thrive in coexistence.

Plan everything. Bring utopia as close to reality as possible.

That is the raison d’être of urban planning — oversimplified. As we’ve established before, urban planning solutions are rarely simple. Reality is always more complicated than we’d like it to be, even more so with gargantuan entities like cities. There will always be compromises to make. There will always be imperfections we have to live with.

Is the task futile, then? No, not exactly. Urban planning is not a fool’s errand. If it is, we wouldn’t have beautiful urbanscapes like London and Paris. We wouldn’t have majestic metropolises like Tokyo, Sydney, and New York. Not even peaceful capitals like Oslo and Copenhagen.

These cities are by no means perfect. They have flaws, both slight and striking — but still, in their existence, we can observe tangible proof that urban planning works, and that it is a fight worth getting into.

Conclusion: Humanity vs Urbanity

Cities are now the most human place on earth. The statistics don’t lie, and yet, some people may argue that cities are humane in numbers only, not in character. Urban dwellers are materialistic and individualistic, they say — but that’s oversimplifying, and again, anything oversimplified is seldom true.

Despite all the negative traits associated with cities, humans are drawn to them. We keep marching toward cities, settle down in their corners, and call them home. This is a worldwide and species-specific trend. Humankind and cities go hand-in-hand. Or, at least, they’re supposed to.

And that’s the mission: Making sure they go hand-in-hand.

Therefore, the importance of urban planning cannot be overstated. In the beginning, we shape cities. We plan, design, and develop them to fit our image. But in the long run, our cities shape us. Our houses decide how we live. Our streets affect how we walk. Our parks influence how we play.

Over time, our cities form who we are: Our identity, personality, even our emotions. As long as humankind lives in cities, they will become part of us, both as individuals and as a species. The relationship between humanity and urbanity doesn’t have to be antagonistic. We can make it symbiotic instead.

Planning cities means planning the fate of our species, and it takes tremendous wisdom to carry out that Herculean (or even Sisyphean) task.

As said by Socrates the philosopher:
“By far the greatest and most admirable form of wisdom is that needed to plan and beautify cities and human communities.”

Urban planners, your work matters. Do it wisely.

Aushaf is an aspiring Urbanist, Writer, and Cultural Researcher based in Melbourne, Australia. Having studied Urban & Regional Planning at Institut Teknologi Bandung and Cultural & Creative Industries at Monash University, he combines these two disciplines to specialize in Creative City Planning, Placemaking, and Arts/Culture-led Regeneration. Ultimately, his goal is to leverage arts and culture to create better cities and communities. Some of Aushaf’s work can be found on his Medium page, where he also manages an urbanism publication called The Urban Condition.

• The Urban Knowledge Collective is an international network of urban actors across cities in Europe and beyond. It is a non-profit association founded by students of urban research programs, and they want to open up and perpetuate the exchange of city-specific knowledge pools. It's somehow similar to my own initiative, for cities, and I'm looking forward to seeing how the project would evolve.

• I attended an online talk event initiated by Tokyo Photographic research, which is a project founded by the photographer Taisuke Koyama and the curator Junya Yamamine. The research involves a series of projects revolving around the theme of Tokyo led by artists who render each of their multifaceted studies on various relevant matters of today — including cultures engendered by the progress of contemporary technology and media environment — via photography and video will continue to be released on its website up to autumn 2020.

• I found such a beautiful space in the countryside of Japan! HÏSOM is a Japanese villa in a small village in rural Shimane, Japan, surrounded by the sea and the mountains. It is inspired by the Nordic-Finnish way of living, embracing the natural environment and spiritually fulfilling life. A lot of people wrongly assume that Japan is all urbanized and hyper-dense (which is a total myth!), and I'd love people to come and experience the beauty of rural Japan in a place like here.

• My good architect friend from Pakistan told me about Cluster Cairo. It was founded in 2011 in Downtown Cairo, as a platform for urban research, architecture, art, and design initiatives. CLUSTER engages critical discourse while being grounded in professional practice, with an emphasis on participatory design processes.

• Strolling Cities unveils the naked, materially seductive form of 9 Italian cities – Milan, Como, Bergamo, Venice, Genoa, Rome, Catania, Palermo – using millions of photos taken during the recent lockdowns (’20/’21) that show the urban space as an unfiltered landscape of walls, streets, and buildings. I love bringing a poetic approach into urbanism, and this project does that marvelously.

• I admire Helsinki Design System, an open-source design system for digital products and experiences with the City of Helsinki Design Language. The Helsinki Design System is focused on usability and accessibility and aims to improve the quality and consistency of the City of Helsinki digital services – making the user experience better for everyone. What a great idea.

On the first weekend of January, starting on Friday, a historic snowstorm baptized Filomena fell upon Madrid as well as a very large part of central and north-eastern Spain. Her name sounded like the name of a frilly old lady, an opera singer, like the Castafiore. Filomena was gentle, silent, but implacable. For hours and hours, two days in a row, it snowed. Without a minute’s respite, flakes fell from the sky. We watched them through the window, fascinated. It was like a film scene that kept repeating itself, an almost artificial image, a snow globe larger than life. When we closed our eyes, the image of the snowflakes remained engraved in our pupils. And the snow kept piling up.

Almudena Cathedral on sunset viewed from the Río Manzanares

Argüelles metro station on Alberto Aguilera street

On Friday evening, when it all started, we went out to play in the snow at the park. Many people like us had decided to brave the incessant stream of snowflakes that filled our eyes if we faced the wind. It was dark and cold, the yellow reverberations made the whole thing look eerie, an uncanny scene of a mystery novel. It was beautiful all the same. The sky was unleashing its power in a calculated, inexorable slowness; the flakes were twirling in its wide darkness. In a clearing between the trees in the park, at the foot of a cast-iron statue of an unknown lieutenant, a couple was working hard on making a giant snowman. In a coordinated effort, they rolled a huge ball that reached their waist and seemed to weigh as much as they did. We had brought hot chocolate from the subway station next door. Under the freezing cold and the falling crystals, we had a great time. We formed small mounds of snow just for the joy of being able to crush them with our feet, enjoying our new status of implacable giants. We threw snowballs at the trunks of trees, the traffic signposts, and the statue of the unknown lieutenant (a man named Manuel according to the carved inscription, “take that, Manuel!”). The tip of our nose and toes were frozen, but it was beautiful all the same.

Giant snowman in the middle of Alberto Aguilera street

Nayla at the Templo de Debod park

Saturday morning, when we woke up, the city was white. Unbelievably, inconceivably white. Where did it all come from? How could the sky produce such a marvel? How could so much purity accumulate and form a layer of sixty centimeters (more than an adult leg from ankle to knee), covering the city with a layer of powdered sugar like a gigantic and immaculate wedding cake? That morning was magical. Everything, absolutely everything, was buried under the snow. The boundaries between all objects had disappeared, everything was united in an infinite surface. It was impossible to drive, the silence was deafening. Only the intermittent, shrill noise of the traffic light signaling the pedestrian crossing time vaguely reminded us of a time when vehicles were invading the city. In the street, under the dazzling midday sun, people were everywhere at once, astonished. From time to time a person on skis would pass by, the most naturally in the world. The children were in snowsuits, overjoyed.

The adults had become children too. We wanted to touch everything, sweep everything with our hands, leave a trace in the surrounding beauty. Feel this powdery snow so light under our gloved fingers disappear to the touch and leave a magical trace before crumbling. We wanted to catch the snow in bundles, hugging and lifting those impressive mounds that had formed on everything that existed, from the roofs of cars to the garbage cans, benches, ramps, and ATM machines. The snowmen, those amorphous jolly creatures with carrots in their faces, had colonized the place, quiet works of art left by unknown authors. These proud little beings stood where, the day before, everything was grey and dirty, where the wheels of the vehicles squealed nastily, in a hurry to reach their destination. For a moment, these snowmen were the guardians of the joy of life, this childlike and universal joy in front of the white and majestic beauty of the snow. People walked freely, in the middle of these spaces that were once roads. Those times seemed so far away. Suddenly, everything seemed clear: let’s abolish cars forever! How much better we were without them! We could finally move around the whole city without restriction or worries. The city was ours.

Person in skis on the street

Río Manzanares, Madrid_s river

However, this euphoria was tainted with nostalgia: today the city was ours; tomorrow, everything will begin again as if nothing had happened, as always. We had to enjoy it before the snow disappeared and everything faded away. “Happy birthday to you,” we heard singing in Italian in the only open cafe on the street. The ambient cheerfulness hid a certain desolation. Everything was locked down, all the shops and restaurants were closed. People were queuing for bread in the only supermarket open that day. We tried to get in, to no avail. Everything was sold out, the cash registers were closing just then. Luckily we had food at home, so we spent the rest of the day in the warmth of the apartment, watching from the window the inexorable march of time suspended in these little snowflakes.

Shared bicycles covered in snow

In the evening, we went out for a walk again, wanting to live and capture these historical moments as much as we could. To see the snow, touch it, feel it. The streets swarmed with people doing the same. While we were strolling through the Puerta del Sol, Spain’s “kilometer zero” and Madrid’s quintessential central plaza, a giant snow battle suddenly erupted. In the midst of the crowd, an incredible energy was swiftly transmitted, seemingly springing out of nowhere (or rather, out of some agitating elements subsumed into the multitude of people, waiting for the right moment to start a fight), and all of a sudden the snowballs began to fall in a shower of projectiles. Twenty, thirty, maybe a hundred people went wild without any warning, rushing to throw snowballs at unknown targets in an epic scene at the heart of the open square, between the majestic buildings covered in neon Christmas lights. Everyone against everyone, clans formed spontaneously within seconds. Energy circulated, spreading like wildfire. An invisible hand seemed to guide this impromptu war we found ourselves caught in. Quickly, we too started taking handfuls of snow from the ground, forming balls and throwing them into the air, somewhere, towards the enemy. In the excitement of the moment, between the nervous laughter and the missed targets, we had an existential enlightenment: that is how wars begin. A geography in space, some tension, a few agitators. An awareness of the enemy clan, whatever it is. And the battlefield gives way to massacre. At the very beginning, it seemed fun. But we could clearly see how this battle could degenerate into a stampede. Crowd energies, you never know. In fact, the next day, we came across a news story about how later that night, the “snowball throwers” gang had directed their forces to several police cars before being arrested. Far from the innocent game we had been playing. In any case, at the moment, the game was almost addictive. We tried several times to turn our backs on the roaring crowd, but there was always the urge to throw one last ball, to be part of the generalized exhilaration. Come on, this time we’re going home. A few steps later in the opposite direction, a new rush of several dozen screaming people surrounded us and attracted us again to the core of the action. Surrounded by hundreds of strangers in the street, we could hear the screams of those who, splashed by the snow, were taken by a desire for revenge. At the heart of the battle, during a particularly intense rush, a young man stepped forward into the crowd, carrying a vintage radio on his shoulder and slowly walking like a savior among his people, his speakers blasting the sound of epic music, exciting the crowd more than ever. We all felt like we were in a movie.

Trash accumulating on the street

Trash accumulating on the street

After a few failed attempts to leave the game, we finally managed to get away from the crowd and, without looking back, we finally headed for home. Passing through Gran Via, Madrid’s emblematic shopping avenue, we could already glimpse the future: the asphalt lanes reserved for cars were already somewhat cleared. Dirty snow piled up on the sidewalks, revealing the hideous asphalt of the road, like a snake that had shed its beautiful white skin. Already, the beauty of the morning was being smeared. The flakes were no longer falling. After so much exaltation, such a vision filled us with nostalgia: all of this was ephemeral. Soon, the white would turn gray, soiled by the boots of pedestrians, the wheels of vehicles, the piss of dogs. Garbage would accumulate next to the garbage cans which, until then, had been buried under the sixty centimeters of snow. Blue, yellow, purple, the shapeless and grotesque plastic bags full of trash would be lying on the sidewalk. People would drop their cigarette butts everywhere. The snow would have done its damage: many trees would be broken, uprooted, decapitated. Whole branches would be strewn all over the ground. Large blocks of snow would slide dangerously off the roofs, imperceptible as the melting of glaciers, before crashing into the ground with an appalling noise twenty meters below, threatening at any moment to fall on a pedestrian. People would be on the lookout, we would slip on the ice. The sewers would be overloaded, overflowing with more water than they could handle. Soon, the desolation of the broken trees, majestic inhabitants of the city, would appear in all its sad splendor, like a trench-warfare scene. Soon the ugly would replace the beautiful. So ephemeral had this sweet breach been in our existence. By the time we got home through Gran Via after the snow fight, we could already sense all of this. We could only indulge in the nostalgia for that moment in time, that crystalline, powdery, cold and light magic snow, a pure layer above all our human defects, which had come to remind us of how small and insignificant we were on this earth.

Tree fallen across the street due to the storm

Nayla Saniour

Nayla grew up in Beirut, where she graduated in architecture with high distinction from the American University of Beirut. She currently works in Madrid as an urban consultant on public spaces strategies in cities across the world. Nayla is also co-editor of the “Stories of Young Urbanists” interview series at All Things Urban, which explores the journeys of young professionals in urbanism. In her blog Urraca Urbana, she writes about her experiences in Madrid, focusing on the extraordinary ordinary things, the little stuff of everyday life.

Nayla's blog: Urraca Urbana
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/naylasaniour/

On March 31st, 2019, Osaka City closed the Airin Labour Welfare Center — displacing, separating, and diminishing the provision of housing, employment, and socio-medical support in Kamagasaki. For half a century, the Center has tended to some of the 30,000 day-labourers of the district which is notorious for having the largest concentration of poverty, homelessness, and welfare recipients in all of Japan. While the decision claimed to be triggered by the facility's dilapidated condition facing important seismic risks, local dwellers and citizens seeing in this venture another step towards the gentrification of the historical blue collar “ghetto”, decided to occupy the Center.

Residents of the districts queueing to receive a free ration of soup in front of the Airin Labour Welfare Center — the very same place they used to queue for daily work not so long ago (December 2020, Porte Leo)

Within twenty-four days after the closure, over two hundred policemen were deployed to expel the hundred occupants. Yet, far from being discouraged, most of them re-settled in the streets surrounding the facility. Among the mosaic of displaced individuals finding a new space nearby, a dozen people gathered informally to form the “Action for the Opening of the Kamagasaki Center Group” (AOKC). In addition to publicly revealing their current struggle by their occupation of the space, members of the group supplement the functions of the Center by assisting the everyday life of the hundreds of homeless people through the provision of warm meals, clothes, temporary shelters, cultural activities, and administrative and legal procedures.

The latter of these has proved crucial following the city authorities’ decision to sue twenty-two occupants of the center in April 2020 after collecting their names through questionable methods. Homeless residents who gave their names, believing to answer a simple municipal survey, were indeed far from understanding that by doing so they would be dragged defenseless in front of the Osaka Prefectural Court under the grounds of illegal occupation. The ongoing trial has since been joined by five more occupants, volunteering to be in the docket as a pledge of solidarity to the twenty-two accused.

Members of the AOKC group setting up a tent to host a movie festival and warm beds under the walls of the Center (December 2020) — Homeless occupation of the Center surroundings (May 2021)

On national holidays, welfare municipal services are interrupted and the AOKC group, among other NGOs, fully replaces them. On such occasions the amount of support they provide can be considerable and extra hands are always welcomed. Some of my friends began to volunteer during the new year holidays to support the group’s actions rather than following the custom of going back to their hometowns to spend time with their families. I first decided to follow their example in December 2019. Since then, I have stayed in Kamagasaki a couple of times per year to lend a hand. The relative indifference of traditional media and the public for this struggle, in addition to the rampant clichés inhabitants of the district are associated with, triggered me to speak up about the AOKC group’s actions and, more generally, Kamagaski’s current situation.

An historical shelter for precarious populations

Kamagasaki finds its origin in 1903, when the holding of the 5th National Industrial Exhibition in Osaka — the last and largest demonstration of its time, showcasing Japan’s efforts of modernization closing the Meiji period — forced the population of Nago Town slum, known for its daily labourers or yoseba since the early Edo period, to seek refuge in the neighbouring district of Kamagasaki.

After vanishing once under the US bombs of 1945 air raids, the area was resurrected around an emerging outdoor black market. The needs for the daily labours were supplied by the constant flow of homecoming veterans and unfortunate overseas settlers of the fallen Japanese Empire.

The 1960’s, under the rule of the US occupation forces, saw the first tentative attempts from local authorities to partially dismantle the area and the maze-like streets surrounding the black market. This was achieved by the widening of streets like the Imamiya road, which now faces the Airin Welfare Center, and by the construction of cheap lodging in adjacent areas to drag families out of Kamagasaki. This resulted in a demographic singularity — to this day, the district is dominated by households comprising only one single man.

The arrival of young men from rural areas following the collapse of mining and forest industries reinforced this tendency and supported Osaka’s constant urban development — the materialization of the so-called “Japanese Economic Miracle.” The mobilization of this labour reservoir culminated in 1970 with the Osaka World Expo, the first international event held in the archipelago since the 1903 Industrial Exhibition that gave birth to the district.

Pauperization and control

The opening of the Airin Welfare Center in the same year of the World Expo is another marker of the city government to organize and control this increasing mass of workable men after the eruption of a large riot in 1961 triggered by police brutality. The name of the new facility itself reveals the intention — the new name of the district “Airin-chiku” was decided by the city in 1966 to clean up Kamagasaki’s infamous image, which was associated with violence, organized crime, and drugs. A gap is still visible today between old residents continuing to call the district by its old name while media and officials exclusively refer to the new one.

“Welcome to Kamagasaki”

Ironically, following the “Progress and Harmony for Mankind” 1970 expo, the decade saw the beginning of a persistent period of unemployment. In the aftermath of the 1973 oil shock and the collapse of the bubble economy, workers in precarious financial positions accumulated in the district streets. Despite the lack of employment, the rural population, pauperized by the country's economic situation, continued to flow in from the impoverished prefectures of Okinawa, Shikoku, and Kyushu islands. This trend worsened in the 90s with a resurgence of large riots and the emergence of NGOs of all kinds to support the growing mass of aging and proletarianized labourers.

A crowd throwing stones and empty bottles at the anti-riot police (back right) and burning cars in 1990 (Asahi Shimbun)

Planification of an urban gentrification

The interest of the city towards the district drastically changed over recent years amid the 2012 Nishinari Special Zone Project initiated by mayor Tōru Hashimoto intending to turn Kamagasaki into a shopping and tourist hub by taking advantage of its central location in the city as well as the multitude of train lines that connect it to neighbouring prefectures and the Kansai International Airport. The urban landscape is already showing evidence of these changes, as local services historically bound to the district’s day-labourer activities such as storage and lodging have now adapted their offers to target foreign backpackers. Displaying the cheapest prices of the city (if not the country), the district is now featured in numerous online travel blogs, all unaware that the demand they create in this “underground” Japanese district, fed by international venues (Rugby World Cup 2019, Osaka World Expo 2025), is dramatically raising prices and forcing residents out.

More directly, the hundreds of street vendors that used to enliven the district lanes have all but disappeared in fear of repression by the omnipresent police patrols, systematic since 2013. In the same period, access to spaces under elevated train tracks, which offer shelter to many homeless against harsh weather, has continuously been forbidden by barbed wire and security cameras.

Under the elevated train tracks of Shin-Imamiya station

The brand new FP Hotel facing the Airin Welfare Center, with lights out due to Covid-19

Tents, cardboards and futons in front of the center shutted gates, the car of a middle man looking for labour and a police patrol

To everyone’s surprise, however, the court decided on December 1st, 2020 to reject the “Order of Provisional Disposition Prohibiting Transfer of Possession,” which is a legal procedure attempted by Osaka Prefecture to evict all occupants of the Airin Welfare Center’s surroundings even before the trial’s final verdict. This rare decision of the court to deny a procedure commonly used in Japan to forbid the emergence of squatters, heartened the members of the AOKC group already struggling to reduce the winter death toll and the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic among the district population.
Although none are naive about the coming trial's final outcome, any additional time gained can be put to the service of Kamagasaki’s last historical and marginalized inhabitants.

Weekly talking session of the AOKC group with local dwellers reporting past actions and announcing ones to come

A hut in Sankaku Park with Abeno Harukas — tallest skyscraper in Japan — in the background, a symbol of the local landscape evolution project and sardonically called “Hashimoto’s desk” by local dwellers (December 2020) — Construction of a new hotel north of Shin-Imamiya station (May 2021)

As locker service that adapted its offer in English, Chinese and Korea and a typical working equipments shop

Leo Porte

Leo is a student of the graduate school of Global Environmental Studies of Kyoto university. Focusing his research on the revitalisation of a marginal village in the mountainous areas of Shikoku he is also involved in two community projects in Kyoto city.

In July 2020 CITYMAKERS China – Europe had an open call for short videos called Virtual Walks Project. The call asks to “investigate fundamental themes of life in cities and on the countryside that are as relevant for people living in China as for those living in Berlin or any other European city.”

CITYMAKERS team was asking for short-walking movie ideas with an analytical aspect of a city or the countryside. They write “Outdoor urban walking is an opportunity not only to ask what the immediate impact of the coronavirus pandemic on urban and social space is, but also more substantially: What dysfunctions, blind spots, and paradoxes do it bring to the surface?”

Melita Studio in collaboration with Bornagraphique was selected to make a short movie about Amsterdam, The Netherlands. The movie analyses the cultural effect of walking and its relation with contemporary urban design.

For the last 40 years, Dutch urban planners are involved in several urban projects in China and South Korea in the fields of landscape design, urban design, tourism planning, among other high profile initiatives. We have conducted four distinctive walking journeys during the pandemic in Amsterdam. The walks have been in two long-standing areas and two new districts. The film features the city-walks and discussions with experts about how the culture of walking is influencing urban planning in the Netherlands and Asia and urban design ‘adaptation’.

The narrative of the movie is composed of a combination of videos and interviews with experts.

Concept and production: MELITA STUDIO / PRISCA AROSIO
Director and editing: BORNAGRAPHIQUE / BOBBY BORN
Location: AMSTERDAM, THE NETHERLANDS
Organizer: CITYMAKERS CHINA — EUROPE

Screenings
Sep 2020: CITYMAKERS China – Europe, Berlin, Germany
Mar 2021: Architecture design art film festival (Adaff 2021), Palm Springs, California, US

Here below you can find short speakers' bios:
Davide Ponzini is associate professor of urban planning at Politecnico di Milano and the director of the tau-lab. His research activity focuses on planning theory, urban and cultural policy, and contemporary architecture. His last book is titled: transnational architecture and urbanism: rethinking how cities plan, transform and learn (Routledge, 2020).

Daniel Casas Valle is an urbanist with broad experience based on urban planning practices and academic activities. He is 20 years connected to urbanism, as a designer and researcher. He works in various urban projects and studies at his office urban dynamics and at the mdt/ceau/faup as a researcher. He holds a master's in urbanism (Amsterdam, NL) and, a Ph.D. at the faculty of architecture, Porto university.

Weijie Hu is a Ph.D. researcher in architecture and urbanism at the school of architecture, design, and planning, the University of Sydney. His research concerns urbanization, social housing, the politics of land, and architectural design in china. He holds MSc in architecture at technical university/Eindhoven (NL), he is a dutch registered architect. Weijie has international work experience in France and China, and academic experience in Australia, Hong Kong, and Japan.

Bas Horsting is a Dutch architect and urban planner, living and working in Amsterdam. Bas specializes in the field of urban design and urban strategy, addressing the challenges of cities of today to create healthy, vibrant, and sustainable communities. Bas has experience working on urban projects in Europe, Russia, the middle east, Asia, and Australia.

MELITA STUDIO

Melita studio is an open office that works in the field of architecture, urban design and architecture. It is distinguished for a research-driven process.

Melita studio is founded by Prisca Arosio and she collaborates with numerous people and entities. Prisca Arosio is an urban designer, researcher and Dutch registered architect. Her interest in urban strategy focuses on public spaces and their social interaction. Prisca holds a MSc in Architecture, Building and Planning from the Technical University of Eindhoven and a BSc in Architecture from Politecnico di Milano. She worked in diverse Amsterdam-based offices. She got experienced in landscape architecture and architecture projects at Kettinghuls office and urban design approach at Basta urbanism. In addition, she participated in the organization of the AA visiting school, the house of politics 2018 and she was part of the jury panel ‘Tamayouz award’ (architecture competition) in 2018/2019/2020.

Gas lamps in Belfast, Northern Ireland (Credit — Wikipedia).jpg

How would you react if you were told that the wooden bench in your city is assigned for strict preservation? And will it surprise you that there is a proposal to turn the city's garbage bins into a city icon? You would probably have smiled and thought it was some kind of joke. After all, only one-of-a-kind buildings are meant for preservation, so what does that have to do with a street bench and a trash bin?

Preservation in the context of cities is usually focused on historical buildings and sites, those that contain within them cultural, historical and architectural values. In relation to them, the preservation of the heritage of street furniture may be portrayed as a somewhat esoteric matter, which may even contradict the essence of preservation, which is associated with exclusivity. Whereas urban furniture and objects are scattered throughout the city, replicated, and most of them, most likely, are transparent to us. We take them for granted. Nevertheless, despite their prevalence, and perhaps precisely because of it, these objects and furniture play an important role in city life and are worthy of complex thought as to how they are preserved and to their heritage. The first question that is asked, then, is what is the importance of street furniture and why should it be preserved in the urban space?

Each city is unique in its own way. The uniqueness can be expressed in a specific building style, history and local heritage, in a particular climate or in a unique topography. Each city has its own characteristics, on which its reputation is based. The buildings in Jodhpur in northwestern India, for example, are all painted blue; In Jerusalem, the buildings are required to be covered with ‘Jerusalem stone’ as part of the city's historical master plan; In Porto, painted ceramic tiles called Azulejo cover the facade of many buildings. Along with these special characteristics, which make a city a tourist attraction, every urban landscape also includes street furniture and various objects that even if they do not get to be mentioned in tourist guides, are an integral part of the city. In the main streets, squares and parks, and in fact, in all areas defined as public, there are light poles, bus stops, benches or trash bins. A city without street furniture is not a city; Or in other words: what is urbanity without benches, trash bins and street pillars?

Capela de Santa Catarina, Porto, Portugal (Credit — Nelson Rocha, 2009)

The definition of street furniture applies to a system of fixed objects located throughout the city for various purposes — these are the everyday products of urban life. The term was first formally defined in the 1950s: "Street furniture is all the elements that are placed in public spaces by the authorities and serve the public. They can be permanent or temporary, functional or for ornamental purposes”. The definition includes a very wide range of furniture and useful aids, for example, benches, traffic barriers, mailboxes, telephone booths, street lights, traffic lights, traffic signs, tables, street signs, bus stops, and more. The design and location of street furniture take into account functionality, visual identity, pedestrian mobility and road safety. Street furniture is created for the purpose of rest, sitting and eating, all of which are functions of great importance for the elderly, the disabled or people with children. But in addition to their functional aspect, urban furniture items, such as benches and tables in parks, can be socially significant for a wider audience as well: they provide comfort and create a leisure atmosphere. Properly designed furniture in the right places motivates people to leave the house and makes them feel welcome and relaxed.

The history and development of street furniture from ancient history to the modern era

It is difficult to produce a sufficient material history in the field of street furniture precisely because of the properties of urban furniture: as they are portable and replaceable, and perhaps also because they were never considered worthy of preservation, few remains are left. The earliest examples of street furniture were identified in stone samples in excavations carried out in areas belonging to ancient cultures such as the Maya in Mesoamerica, the ancient city of Mohenjo-Daro in Pakistan and the ancient city of Pompeii in southern Italy. Among this ancient street furniture were elements that direct the movement of people in public areas such as signs made of stone, buildings intended for sitting, manure pits and signs made by carved on stone slabs. Simultaneously with the changes that took place in the physical form of the cities — from antiquity, through the Middle Ages and the Renaissance and later from the turning point of the Industrial Revolution — urban furniture and design have also developed.

The Industrial Revolution led to the growth of existing cities and a significant increase in the number of cities, and with the urban populations growing rapidly from the beginning of the 20th century, the need for street furniture has grown and has been developed accordingly. The first example of street furniture as an industrial off the shelf product is the gas lamps which were used to illuminate the docks and streets throughout England in 1870. The same elements of lighting were designed from cast iron and represented the classic line of the period with intricate Gothic shapes. Another street furniture that became significant during that period is benches, mailboxes and traffic guides.

Small-scale generic monuments: the case of London, Berlin and Tel-Aviv

Despite their being of less importance than buildings, there are quite a few examples of street furniture which over the years have become an urban symbol. Unlike buildings, they were privileged to become a symbol not necessarily because of the monumentality, but just the opposite, because of their generic and replicated nature. These have become so popular that they even became a tourist attraction and a must-see "selfie" destination. One well-known example in western cities is the Red Telephone Box in Britain — public telephone stands set up as public service in central Britain and the former colonies of the British Empire from the 1920s, designed by architect Sir Giles Gilbert Scott. They soon became popular and even a symbol associated with British culture. In 2006 the Red Telephone Box was selected as one of the top ten design icons in the UK, and in 2017 it was even added to the UK National Heritage List.

Five K2 Red Telephone Box, Broad Court, London WC2, England (Credit — Nelson Rocha, 2009)

Naturally, the number of Red Telephone Boxes across the UK is declining due to the increasing use of cell phones. However, many of them continue to serve the public in other ways, and some are even undergoing restoration and preservation, due to their high popularity among the British public. In a world where globalization has dominated, there is a special rationale in elements that are identified with only certain cities, elements that mark the uniqueness of the city compared to countless other western cities which are more or less similar in their characteristics. In the western capitalist world, the uniqueness of Red Telephone Box also translates into a tourist value and therefore an economic value. Some of the Red Telephone Box have been converted for other uses, such as devices for selling postal items, public libraries and even ATMs. There may no longer be a need for phone booths but they are an icon and their heritage is just as important.

Another example of iconic street furniture is the 'traffic light man' from Berlin known as Ampelmännchen. This is a figure that was common at pedestrian traffic lights in East Germany in the 1970s. After the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the unification of Germany it became a common symbol in the west as well, and one of the positive symbols identified with the former communist state. The figure was designed by the traffic psychologist Karl Peglau following his investigation of road accident deaths in East Germany from 1955-1960. He concluded that the accidents were often caused because pedestrians were unable to see the traffic light properly, especially in wintry weather. His solution was the design of the Ampelmännchen, which has a wider and more prominent cut than the one that had appeared in traffic lights until then. Today it is one of Berlin's most recognizable emblems and Ampelmännchen memorabilia can be purchased in souvenir shops around the city.

Tel-Aviv: a young city without respect for its heritage

From a historical perspective, Tel-Aviv is a baby, only 111 years old. Since the early 20th century, when it was nothing more than a small neighborhood with a few streets and boulevards, street furniture already was placed in it. In the spirit of the time in Israel, the design of the furniture was minimal, simple and inexpensive. Over the years the city has grown to become the largest metropolis in Israel, and in recent decades, the municipality has decided on a new policy of street language — from uniform sidewalks, through a specific color palette in street design to the use of uniform street furniture throughout the city.

Ampelmaenchen in Berlin (Credit — Wikipedia)

Despite the positive attitude towards the treatment of public space in the city, the most unfortunate decision of the municipality recently, was their decision to replace the old street sign of Tel Aviv with a new model. For decades, those awkward and funny lightboxes, designed with the David font, is one of Tel Aviv's most recognizable icons — these street signs have become platforms for social protests, they were a cultural and artistic symbol and more than anything they were a symbol identified with the city's heritage. I am not claiming that these street signs are necessarily beautiful or sophisticated in their design, not at all, but they have always been there, engraved in the municipal DNA, and even enjoyed a renewed recognition, becoming an urban monument. Today, when these street signs are disappearing in favor of minimalist black and white signs, they can, in retrospect, be appreciated for their charm and their uniqueness: they have architectural qualities, and each sign looks like a miniature of a small Bauhaus building, befitting the White City.

A pile of the old street signs in Tel Aviv, Israel (Credit —Gil Harbagio Cohen, 2019)

The new street signs are like posters installed on existing lighting poles, without personality and any uniqueness in their design. The main reason for replacing the old street signs is the tendency to reduce the number of elements in the public space, which in itself is a positive idea, but the concern is that in this case, it is one of the wrong moves the municipality has made in recent years. Why? Because in an instant it has destroyed a long-standing heritage, a symbol and an urban icon in a relatively young city. The old street signs created continuity in the life of the city, they gained the patina of time and blended into the character of the city. In a world where everything is constantly changing, not everything needs to change, at any cost. Israel is a young society with little respect for its short history, and it seems that the dominant ethos is that everything is interchangeable. It can be done differently: renewal without erasing or ignoring the past, even if it is a bench and a trash bin.

Conclusion: Every bench has a name

The first step in preserving street furniture is the recognition of its importance, the identification of it as an essential, even if not spectacular, element in the design of the urban being. The second step is an examination of the street furniture that has become iconic, are identifiable with the city, are a tier in the urban heritage and are therefore worthy of preservation. The last step is to crack the way conservation should be done. Street furniture is inherently built from durable materials, well anchored to the ground to prevent theft and vandalism. They are inexpensive to build and the materials are usually easy to maintain. Similar to home furniture, street furniture is designed to address different functions and to create a certain aesthetic experience or atmosphere as well.

Preserving the street furniture is different from preserving buildings. There is no need to preserve all benches or bus stops, as this may be an absurd and ridiculous operation, but instead create conservation plans and general guidelines taking into consideration the past and the local heritage. Buildings are the main heroes of the city, no doubt. But between them are placed smaller, modest and almost imperceptible objects, and they play the role of supporting actors within the great urban narrative. These lightweight and often neglected objects affect our daily lives no less than the big building projects.

Illustrations of street furniture in Tel Aviv, Israel (Credit — Amnon Direktor, 2020)

The role of street furniture is first and foremost functional, but it is also a tool for creating an identity within the vast and sometimes chaotic organism called a city. As mentioned, of all the components of the urban landscape, street furniture is the one that maintains the closest contact and interaction with people, thus efficient and quality furniture in the public space creates an organic relationship between people and the urban landscape. It produces belonging and contributes to a sense of harmony within the urban chaos. Proper design, planning and preservation of street furniture are based on an in-depth reading of the urban history and local atmosphere, and at their best they make the life of the resident more comfortable. Similar to the feelings people develop towards certain buildings in the cities — the magnificent town hall, the building where they were raised, the school they went to, so do they develop an affinity for street furniture — the bench they sat on with their lover, the street sign with amusing graffiti.

The 21st century presents new requirements and challenges to our urban landscape. Influenced by the rapid urbanization and globalization processes, global warming and the COVID-19 pandemic, there is a greater importance to designing quality and healthy urban space. More than ever, cities around the world are investing a lot of resources in designing a quality design language that is also reflected thanks to its furniture. The future of street furniture includes complex designs and modern technologies, ecological and environmental thinking and no less important — the creation of objects that are comfortable to use and pleasing to the eye, that offers a safe and comfortable stay in the public space.

Amnon Direktor is an architect and journalist originally from Tel Aviv, Israel. He graduated in architecture from the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design in Jerusalem. These days he is starting a master's degree in urban studies at the Free University of Brussels in Belgium. In recent years he has worked at Bar-Orian architecture office and Moria-Sekely landscape office. In addition, Amnon has been writing regularly in a number of magazines and journals on topics about architecture, urbanism, and city life.

I've moved to Amsterdam from Kyoto last year, in midst of the pandemic. It's been an interesting journey with ups and downs, but I've still managed to encounter some initiatives and places that I love to share. Hopefully the world would get back to normal in the near future, where we can start enjoying strolling cities again.

Things to do, places to go

• De Cuevel is an urban 'playground' for the exploration and testing of new green technologies and social enterprises adjacent to the van Hasselt kanaal off the river IJ in Amsterdam North. The site was formerly a derelict and polluted shipyard, which then renovated into a regenerative urban oasis. You see many small, creative offices using the old, recycled ships and boat here, and it's always fun to walk around here.

• De School used to be a technical school, and is famous for a nightclub — it also has a concert venue, a restaurant, a café, an exhibition space and a gym. It hosts a lot of events there too.

• I had an oppotunity to have a chat with Martijn de Waal, a lecturer of Play and Civic Media at the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences and a director of Hackable City. The Hackable City is a research project that explores the potential for new modes of collaborative citymaking, set in Buiksloterham, a brownfield regeneration project in Amsterdam North. He also runs Media Architecture Institute, which is worth checking out.

• I've been always curious about A City Made By People. They are a creative platform for city enthusiasts, and they organize various events, workshops, talks and publications to encourage people to become better citizens.

• Who doesn't wanna taste the flavour of Amsterdam? I found Chateau Amsterdam right next to Studio KU+, an architectural model workshop based in Amsterdam. Chateau Amsterdam produces some great 'urban' wine, by collaboration with farmers from all over Europe. Wine made in the city, for the city.

• Speaking of a beverage, BRET is a great restaurant & club all about beer, sustainability and good music. Don't forget to take a look at PIT Lab next door — the container building structure is creative and playful.

• Mediamatic is an art centre dedicated to new developments in the arts since 1983. They organize lectures, workshops and art projects, focusing on nature, biotechnology and art+science in a strong international network.

Read

• Volume is an independent magazine that sets the agenda for architecture and design. It's fairly famous in Japan, and I've been a fan for a long time.

• Aside from Valume, my favorite is Failed Architecture. "Architecture continues to fail because we are stuck in a global economic system which puts profit above everything else" they say, thus the name Failed Architecture. Their Podcast is worth listening to as well.

Organization / initiative

• Amsterdam-based CASCOLANDis an international network of artists, architects, designers and performers. They organize various interdisciplinary interventions in public space, aiming at the development of an ecological and socially sustainable society.

• A strategic think tankStudio Monnik inspired me a lot when they published the book Tokyo Totem. Nowadays they focus on future scenario making.

• I visited a beautiful community garden run by I can change the world with my two hands in the western part of Amsterdam. I even became a member, and I bring my organic waste once in a while to their compost station, There are many urban gardening initiative out there in Amsterdam, but I believe this is one of the most open, participatory projects run by a strong, highky motivated community.

• Waag operates at the intersection of science, technology and the arts, and one of their initiative Smart Citizens Lab works with citizens, scientists and designers to tackle environmental issues.

• Placemakers is an interdisciplinary and creative team for urban activation.

• What Design Can Do is an international platform that uses design as a tool for ecological and social change.

• Pop Up City is an agency for urban transformation based in Amsterdam. They are good at branding, content creation, and concept development.

• I live in a boathouse in the Amsterdam West, so I observe the canal water everyday — and it makes me feel deeply sad to see that there are often a lot of plastic trash floating. This is how I discovered Plastic Whale, the first plastic fishing company in the world. They collect plastic from the canal with boats, and recycle them to make the products with them. They offer various packages for companies to organise a plastic finishing, and 450 different companies have already gone plastic fishing with then.

Other cities in the Netherlands

• Independent School for the City is a Rotterdam based one-year educational program for post-graduate students from all over the world, and offers a range of classes, lectures, and programs all about cities and urbanism.

▼ Link to the article:
https://worldarchitecture.org/architecture-news/efzcc/shikiami-concon-a-mix-of-container-architecture-and-japanese-traditional-townhouse.html

▼ World Architecture Community
http://worldarchitecture.org/

▼ Link to the article:
https://worldarchitecture.org/architecture-news/efzce/unknown-kyoto-a-new-multipurpose-building-in-kyoto-japan.html

▼ World Architecture Community
http://worldarchitecture.org/

The response to COVID-19 has seen a sharp decrease in the everyday urban mobility of children and young people throughout Japan, combined with reduced opportunities for them to socialize in public spaces. Mandatory school closures along with concerns over contracting COVID-19 in communal city spaces such as parks have been the driving forces behind curtailing mobility beyond the domestic sphere. While the steps taken to reduce the risk of infection are rooted in good intentions, it raises questions about the daily experiences of children and young people during the crisis who now find themselves in an existence with significantly reduced mobility. Additionally, children’s own perceptions of the virus and its impact on their lives have been underexplored and largely underrepresented in the media.

Due to both the high number of days spent in school throughout the year and the long hours each day, schools are a crucial social space as well as educational platform for children living in cities in Japan. The sudden national closure of schools in an effort to curtail the spread of COVID-19 has consequently rapidly removed this social hub from students’ lives.

Beyond the closure of schools, children in Japan have also been impacted by a loss of available public space, and by official, institutional, and parental barriers. In Kanagawa, parents, schools, and the police band together to set boundaries for children, creating restrictions on mobility which are self-reinforcing and complex. Parents think that society was safer in the past, and so concepts like fear of outsiders — i.e. “stranger danger” — kept kids locked down even before the outbreak of the virus. I found that what public space ‘is’ and who it is ‘for’ could become hegemonic and that systems of protection can ultimately serve to exclude and act as barriers to the very subjects they sought to guard: children.

As an educator currently working in Japan who undertook PhD fieldwork in Kanagawa, I was able to draw upon a parental network to interview students and their family members. The interviews were conducted to explore the impact COVID-19 had on their daily mobility and their feelings about it in an effort to shed some light on their experiences.

Nana, a 14 year old student whose grandmother lives with her family stated that,
“I feel trapped inside because everyone is saying that the virus is so dangerous. And I don’t want to make my grandmother sick. I can call my friends but it’s different, I miss seeing them in person and going to the park,”

The park in question is a large seaside amenity in Fujisawa, Kanagawa Prefecture, one in which I had previously conducted observational research. Kanagawa, and its famous capital Yokohama, sit directly south of Tokyo and form part of the Greater Tokyo Area through largely unbroken urban development. My rationale for the selection of the fieldwork site in Kanagawa was due to the park being identified as an important platform within interviews previously conducted with parents, teachers and students at a school in the area. The interviews in this article substantiate the argument of how important urban public space mobilites are for young people and the sense of loss and confinement they feel when that option is removed. The scale of this removal poses a unique challenge for young people and public space in the face of COVID-19. The experiences presented herein therefore represent new perspectives in unknown territory and the unfolding relationships between people and public space at an exceptionally challenging time.

Part of this fieldwork included trajectory mapping, which showed the varied paths taken through the space in both independent and accompanied mobilities. The absence of children and young people, and thus an absence of mobilities, was very striking when I returned there during the COVID-19 outbreak.

Nana’s mother Yuko expounded that, “I’ve asked Nana to stay home as much as possible. I don’t feel guilty about it. We have to stop the virus and it’s a small sacrifice for her to make, but I am concerned about her education. I don’t know when she can return to classes.”

Figure 1: Park trajectories for two teenagers engaged in exploratory mobilities.

This feeling of being trapped was shared by another student named Sei. ‘‘My favorite café is right across the street from our house, but father said I can’t go there. I can’t get much fresh air outside; I’m starting to hate my house. I hope it will all end soon so I can do normal things again’’.

Sei’s father, Shunsuke, took a sympathetic view of his daughter’s regulated situation, yet he was firm that until the COVID-19 threat had passed, her movements would continue to be restricted. ‘‘I’m worried about Sei; I can see she is very unhappy when I come home from work each night. If she gets sick I would not forgive myself, so I can accept that she is angry with me about it. It makes life at home quite difficult’’.

Figure 2: Park trajectories for a mother and daughter indicating more logical loop mobility.

Beyond only mobility, COVID-19 has also provoked unfounded spikes in racism against people from Asia or who are Asian in appearance in multiple countries as fears mount over the spreading virus and its current status as a pandemic. The geographical spread of this racism is wide-reaching and has encompassed cities such as London and New York. The process of viewing minorities as responsible or as ‘other’ in times of crisis is an unfortunately common occurrence and Japan is not completely immune to this phenomenon.

Ryusei, a 15 year old student who has a Chinese mother and Japanese father described his experience in relation to reading racist comments online. His experience went beyond feelings of confinement and into something more painful and personal. ‘‘Recently I saw many bad things written about Chinese people online and when I went to the convenience store near the train station people were talking about it. I don’t think it’s fair. This isn’t just a Chinese problem. We should help each other. I feel angry if someone thinks my mother is responsible just because she is Chinese. It’s crazy’’. Ryusei’s mother didn’t wish to comment on the current situation.

Figure 3: Park without trajectories of park users showing the absence of social usage.

From the preceding accounts, it is clear that the response to COVID-19 has meaningful implications for children, young people and their parents living in cities in Japan across a host of issues. These should not be discounted, because if the situation continues to deteriorate and schools remain closed, millions of students will have to manage a diminished social life in the city, plus strictly curtailed mobility. Others, like Ryusei, will have to navigate the additional challenges of identity and belonging in sometimes socially challenging environments. To combat the potential negative consequences of school closures beyond education, a proactive approach is required, placing the needs of social contact and inclusive urban community bonding as a priority.

A concrete suggestion I propose is establishing new neighborhood support networks throughout urban areas to enable children and young people to have access to parks via a block rota system. This system could be used inclusively throughout each day in tandem with proper social distancing to provide mobility and a degree of freedom through independent trajectories within designated park areas, playgrounds or outdoor school sports grounds. This ability to roam within a set time frame could counteract the emerging unhealthy sense of enclosure. The block rota system would have the added benefit of staggering park usage and thus reduce the density of users to an even flow. I propose a second proactive communal layer could also be added where young people then communicate and share their daily experiences of using the public spaces. This could be accomplished through using a class or school network via online platforms and allow for connecitons and interactions to be consistently maintained with diverse individuals outside the family unit.

COVID-19 has the potential to alter relations between people and public spaces in fundamental ways. My research has already seen elements of this shift in ongoing work with guerilla gardeners whose activties are taking on new and inventive forms for example. The future of research on urban public space as well as the activities of the general public will necessitate evolution in unforseen ways but with some ingenuity public spaces don't need to be abandoned yet.

Dr John Guy Perrem is an urban geographer and educator. He attained his PhD from the Dept. of Social and Economic Geography at Uppsala University in 2016. Prior to that he obtained an MPhil from the Dept. of Geography at Univeristy College Cork and a Postgraduate Diploma in Education from University College Dublin. He is currently an affiliate member of the Education, Migration and Segregation (EMS) interdisciplinary research network led by Dr Håkan Forsberg of the Dept. of Education at Uppsala University. Outside of the academy he has worked in a planning and architectural firm and as an educator. Additionally, he established the Urban Space Initiative in a voluntary capacity to undertake diverse small scale research and activism for championing urban public space. He is a Fellow of the Royal Geographic Society (RGS) with the Institute of British Geographers.

Abandoned houses slowly collapsing as conquered by vegetation, bamboo groves taking over the man-shaped woods, wild boars devastating the very last paddy fields, and hordes of monkeys constantly raiding the precious tomato greenhouse of M. Ito, the sixty-eight-year-old youngest inhabitant of the area. At first, the village of Senjo might look like any Japanese marginal village of the 21th century.

Located in the mountainous area of Saijo in Ehime Prefecture on the island of Shikoku, the village presents rare singularities and a unique history. Established by descendants of the Heike clan seeking refuge after their defeat at the battle of Dan-no-ura in the 12th century, the village was originally composed of 2,500 stonewall terrace paddy fields erected five hundred years ago. Spreading over one thousand hectares, from which the name of the village 千町 ("One thousand hectares") originates, this manmade landscape might be the largest example of its kind in Japan. Regardless of its uniqueness, the village remains largely unknown even to the very inhabitants of Saijo city located no more than 10 kilometers away, as if the descendants of the exiled Heikei warriors are still in hiding.

A view of Senjo in 1962 (Showa 37).

Cities, towns and villages are disappearing in Japan

Successive municipal merges and dissolutions from the Meiji (1867 to 1912) to the Heisei (1989 to 2019) eras, combined with the collapse of mountain-based industries in the second half of the 20th century have consecutively dragged the rural population to new urban centers, and gradually increased the isolation of rural communities which lack infrastructure and public facilities in the contexts of national rural depopulation and an aging society. These factors have brutally cut the total population of a village that counted more than a thousand souls not even fifty years ago to... nineteen.

According to a concept developed by the professor Akira Ohno of Nagano University, the next and final stage of villages like Senjo is the category of "shoumetsu shuraku" or "extinct village," which is defined by the total extinction of the village population.

Far from being an isolated case, the compilation of reports published by former minister and prefectural governor Hiroya Masuda in 2014 entitled Local Extinctions predicts the extinction of 896 cities, towns and villages across the country by 2040.

This national tendency leads to a tremendous number of issues, not only for the last remaining inhabitants of rural communities, but for the surrounding environment and consequentially neighboring urban centers too, because of a complex interdependence that Senjo perfectly reflects.

Outside and inside views of abandoned houses in the village.

What does it mean for the environment?

Far from the fairy-like scenario of a Hayao Miyazaki movie that could inspire the old scenery of the village, nature is not conveniently going to self-regenerate itself, erasing the marks of mankind and the responsibilities that they imply.

From the original 2,500 paddy fields, only 15 were still dedicated to the cultivation of rice in the last seeding season. This threatens the habitat of over 5000 species that directly or indirectly rely on paddy fields and that are now endangered by the loss of this manmade environment.

The postwar secondary forests of cedars surrounding the village, meant to be logged decades ago, are now depriving boars, monkeys, and deer of their natural subsistence. The thick canopies of cedars forbid vital access to sunlight needed by new saplings, and acidify the soil of their needles, inevitably forcing a growing wildlife population to come towards human settlements in order to find food, exposing rural communities at first and more recently urban areas which had depended on the vanishing buffer zone of villages.

Terrace paddy fields replaced by unlogged cedar trees.

For the last inhabitants of the village, left aged and isolated in this forefront, the situation is also rapidly worsening. Beyond the physical exposure to wildlife and its possible tragic outcomes, constant damage — for example, the crumbling of stone walls, pathways and complex irrigation canals — caused by rummaging wild boars deteriorates an ancestral landscape, and through it the local pride that the community has identified itself by for centuries.

A collapsed house in the foreground and the last paddy fields of the village in the background.

A rising vulnerability to natural disasters in a global context of climate change is another threat to the marginal rural community. With a third of the village population incapable of moving by themselves due to poor physical condition or the absence of a vehicle (both criteria particularly affecting widows), the traditional local-scale social network of mutual assistance is reaching its limits. This network is, according to past reports, of vital importance in the aftermath of natural disasters. A majority of victims are rescued by relatives, friends or neighbors rather than dedicated emergency services — with access being difficult and the effective identification of potential victims laborious in villages where the number of uninhabited houses exceeds the number of inhabited ones.

The community house in Senjo, traditionally used as a shelter, is also well known for being in the most hazardous area of the mountain. The duty is left to the local leader, seventy-eight years old, to drive from house to house in order to secure each villager in the event of a disaster.

Mrs. Ito, 87 years old, in one of her greenhouses.

Typhoons have become more violent and frequent over the years; the nearby city of Saijo was hit by six in 2004, a first in existing records, resulting in the death of 5 people and 5.9 billion yen in damages. But unexpectedly, the solution to avoid such tragedies in the future might be the revitalization of these marginal villages. In a country composed of 70% mountains in which urban centers are located in the lower plains or coastal areas, the environmental condition of the mountainous upstream zones indeed has a direct impact on these downstream cities, towns, and villages. In conditions like these, the village of Senjo also has the capacity to reveal through its location and unique landscape the possible positive outcomes of successful rural revitalizations.

Urban-rural interdependence

The extinction of small cities, towns and villages is not something that happens in a distant place that we can ignore — this national trend inevitably has an effect on how we live in cities.

Paddy fields, like other water bodies, have the capacity to retain water and thus reduce the risk of possible landslides and floods resulting from heavy precipitation. Therefore, Senjo, with its 2,500 paddy fields spread over one thousand hectares, could enhance the security of the downstream urban areas through a passive design approach that would also preserve a fading ecosystem. If the cedars that cover over 20% of Japanese forests were at last logged to build the cities that they were meant to (despite global mercantile logic), they could also reduce the exposure of urban residents to natural disasters since the poor water absorption capacity of their roots increases the risk of floods nationwide.

The standard structures against floods have shown their limits in Nagano Prefecture last year after the terrible damage of typhoon Hagibis. A new law was passed by the National Diet in the Fall to promote the restoration of the last terrace paddy fields in the country, giving the opportunity to develop sustainable approaches over the systematized input of concrete. An occasion for the revitalization of Senjo's village may have come.

But despite the extraordinary vigor of Japan's elderly population living in the countryside, with 91.62% of the country population living in cities — 70% of it being concentrated on only 3% of the land — it's unrealistic to think that the situation will change until urban residents become aware of their dependence on the condition of rural areas and decide to support these isolated communities. This support must be based on social, agricultural and environmental approaches, and be materialized by acts beyond the usual legislative body, which seems unable to prevent the upcoming tragedies of losing marginal villages, the furies of climate change, and the issues of food security — all of which, in one way or another, have an increasing impact on urban areas and are triggered by the abandonment of rural ones.

Abandoned graves, car, and household goods, illustrating the end of a multigenerational territorial anchorage and a future challenge for waste and contaminated soil management.

Leo Porte

Leo is a student of the graduate school of Global Environmental Studies of Kyoto university. Focusing his research on the revitalisation of a marginal village in the mountainous areas of Shikoku he is also involved in two community projects in Kyoto city.

On top of being gracious enough to connect me with many urban practitioners in Taipei, she invited me to her office to tell me what Way to Community is all about.

Sake Days was held in 2017 in Taipei, as a part of “An Eye for Community” that aimed to bridge Taipei and Tokyo. “An Eye for Community” was organized by SHIBAURA HOUSE. Photo credit: Collaborative O

"In Chinese, 社區交往 (the Chinese name for Way to Community) means "dating with the community," which uses a double meaning to highlight people’s interrelations," said Pei Pei, when we sat down at her office in the Yonghe District in Taipei.

Way to Community started as an initiative to cherish and encourage community relationships and engagements, and thus to co-create alternative urban spaces. A few years ago she collaborated with SHIBAURA HOUSE, a citizen-driven cultural space in Tokyo, and there she was inspired by their community-driven approach and international perspective in developing better local practices. In her words, "citizen participation, for us, guides the way to the community."

What she describes as part of the problem in Taipei sounds oddly familiar to me. "Usually, the government used to spend money to invite international urban experts to give a one-day, one-way kind of lecture, and they leave soon after, without really knowing the context of the city and the community's needs," Pei Pei says. "That's why we started to invite some urbanists or practitioners to stay in Taipei and develop community events and workshops together in a Taiwanese context, with local practitioners and citizens — it's important for us to do things locally with a global frame of mind."

“An Eye for Community” brought sake culture from Japan in Taipei's community space to make friends and form communities. Photo credit: C.C Wu

Ryan Reynolds from Gap Filler used a street in Daqiaotou to gather people to express thier ideas. Photo credit: Collaborative O

Amsterdam-based city maker Floor Ziegler created a space to share information and hold activities with the locals. This photo shows how they used a designed-bench in a street to interview citizens’ needs. Photo credit: Collaborative O

Floor shared her experience and working methods with local placemaking practitioners, by opening up a “POPUP SHOP’ in the Datong District, Taipei. Photo credit: Collaborative O

To continue the international conversations, they organized six workshops to promote localized place-making with community empowerment practitioners from Japan, Indonesia, Thailand, the Netherlands, America, and New Zealand, with the collaboration of Taipei City Urban Regeneration Office. All were about exploring urban issues, sharing action methods, and learning about successful private-public cooperation. Community relationship and engagements became the foundation for networking, and subsequently built a pathway into the community.

Informed by the key issues in the global community, Way to Community reviewed local planning topics in Taipei. They designed and carried out six different community engagement experiences exploring the possibilities of cocreating a new place. Their approach revealed the value of methods unattainable through typical urban planning.

Alex Gilliam from Public Workshop collaborated with 30 students from a junior high school and local community. His aim is to unpack young generations’ potential in the neighborhoods. Photo credit: Collaborative O

"We're still behind in terms of urban practices — the government and developers still have short term goals with a top-down planning approach. What we need is to have more trans-disciplinary collaboration and to keep things consistently local, field-based, and participatory."

I've seen so many mistakes in cities where decision makers and activists alike worship the international 'best practices,' and try to copy and paste them onto their own city while completely neglecting the local character and citizens' everyday lives. Projects I learned about from Pei Pei strike an impeccable balance between being global and local at the same time.

Way to Community has been supported by public funds, but she is preparing to challenge the initiative to be self-supporting with diverse resources. I can't wait to see how Way to Community continues to develop, and how passionate, down-to-earth, and talented practitioners like her can make more impact on our cities.

The talk event 'The French Night', where she shared her research gathered during her visit to France. I appreciated how the spirit of Way to Community is really about mutual learning, which is often neglected in favor of more tangible and visible results in the field of urbanism.

Pei-Yin Shih has master degree of the institute of Building and Planning at Taiwan University, and has been developing community design works for 10 years. She has participated in and led public-private partnership policy projects, including Open Green: Projects of Placemaking (2018 Good Design Award), Space Share, Taipei, Wenshan Oasis, Way to Community, etc. She specializes in community design and urban strategic planning, and is chief editor of the book “Way to Community: Placemaking and Collaboration (2019)”, and currently holds the position of Vice Executive Officer of Collaborative O. Company.

"What makes Taipei Taipei?" is the question that Paritosh Goel — one of the most talented and passionate architects and urbanists I know — and I had in mind when we met up this Fall in the capital of Taiwan.

I first met Paritosh two years ago in Kuala Lumpur during the 9th edition of World Urban Forum. We bonded over our shared passion for cities and urban exploration, and we've kept in touch ever since. When we decided to reunite in Taipei, we wanted to take action together — and that was the beginning of the idea of Taipei Ephemera.

Things collected from everywhere and anywhere

We both were new to Taipei and we wanted to acquire a deeper understanding of the city — not only spatially, but emotionally and culturally. This is why we came up with the idea of making a subjective, temporal map of Taipei that somehow depicts the city that exists in our heads.

Humans don’t understand a city rationally as a journey from point A to point B. We understand and make sense of a city not only through our knowledge of the place, but also through our emotions, experiences, memories, and perceptions.

Each person has a unique mental map based on their own perception of the city, and we thought it would be enlightening to exchange our relative perceptions through making a collective map, using ephemeral objects.

"Ephemera" are collectible memorabilia that are, or were, meant for a short term purpose. They can be plane tickets, printed paper bags for street food, postcards, and more. They can be anything, from all backgrounds, cultures, places — things found, or bought, or received. Ephemera might not be normally considered something to collect, save, or cherish, but oftentimes we do keep them, either physically or in our memories.

Dialogue through Collective Mapping

The map we made was 2.5 meters by 2.4 meters. we used eight A0 papers and taped together. Around 20 participants including artists, designers and some random locals who were walking by and decided to join us when we called them in.

We asked them two questions: "What makes Taipei Taipei?" and "Where (or what element) makes you feel at home in Taipei?" We prepared worksheets to help participants answer these questions.

We prepared a generous stockpile of ephemera, but also we asked the participants to bring their own if needed. Some participants brought personal objects representing their idea of Taipei, and some went out on excursions during the 6 hours-long workshops to pick up more found objects from the city. They cut, piled, or connected them with other materials, and with markers, stickers, or watercolors they collectively created a collage of Taipei — the Taipei in their hearts, the Taipei in their memories or imaginations, the Taipei they treasure.

During the workshop, we also spent time to talk to individual participants to collect thier stories about Taipei. Some of them talked about cycling culture in the city, some of them expressed the idea of how Taipei 101 does NOT define the uniqueness of the city, and so on. These stories helped us understand more of the city, and to betray (in a good way) our expectations so we could update and strengthen our "ephemeral" mental image of Taipei.

Ephemerality is the concept of things being transitory, existing only briefly. However, just as we sometimes keep some ephemera to cherish and embed in our memory, certain things are eternal and boundless.

We are planning to document the map in the form of a book, so that anyone can read our participants' thoughts about what makes Taipei Taipei. We'll continue hosting collective map-making workshops in other parts of the world — we're currently considering Japan, India, Indonesia, and Germany. Through this process, we hope to be able to promote urbanism beyond the boundaries of nation-states and achieve a new level of mutual learning. Please contact us if you are interested in being part of this project.

Co-organizer of the workshop:

Paritosh Goel
Graduated as an Architect and completed his post-graduation as an Urban Regional Planner from the School of Planning and Architecture in India. Having traveled extensively in his own country and around the world, his keen interest is in determining the urban issues of cities and in the exploration of innovative ideas on city planning. These led him to his National award Shortlisted thesis “Reincarnation of Left-over Spaces of the City” for his capstone project in Graduation. Currently, He is working with Central, State and local/City Governments in India on projects related to Urban Planning, Smart Cities and Sustainable Urbanism.
(Photos Courtesy of Paritosh Goel)

Check it out!

▼ A Huge Small Place: an Urbanist’s Guide to Tokyo
http://everybodyworks.jp/urbanists-guide-to-tokyo/

Interviewer, Editor: David Willoughby

Rome, the Eternal City. Our experience in Rome in the heatwave insanity in the middle of July had some ups and downs. But, it's Rome after all. It's hard not to be impressed by its ten-meter-thick subsoil of human history reaching back more than two and a half millennia.

Here are some of the things we found in Rome that might be helpful for other urbanists, who visit Rome for the first time.

Things to do, places to go

• EUR, Rome's guilty pleasure. EUR is a district located on the edge of Rome’s historic downtown, and it was originally planned in the 1930s as the site for the 1942 world's fair to celebrate twenty years of fascist dictatorship in Italy. Now the district has developed as a modern heart of the city.

• We stayed in Pigneto, one of the up-coming neighborhoods in the city. Immidiately we fell for its charms, and now Pigneto is our absolute favorite more than any other neighborhoods in Rome. Once a working-class suburb, Pigneto has grown as one of the most popular hangout neighborhoods for young people. Lots of local cafes, restaurant, maker's space, gelato shops. The recently opened Metro C station connects the neighborhood to the rest of the city.

• Garbatella district was founded in the late 1920s as part of the English Garden city movement. It took us some time to find this specific district, but nostalgic style architectures and their beautiful semi-public courtyards are worth seeing. If you are looking for a non-touristic place to explore, this is the one.

• We were positively surprised by the liveliness of waterfront around Tiber Island at night. Lungo il Tevere is a night market from June and August, and the long series of white tents lining the Tiber River at night is truly mesmerizing. When we were there, we could spot some outdoor cinemas as well.

Read

• For a general hangout spot and event schedule, I think Romeing is the best English resources for visitors.

• I am not much into archaeology and historical buildings, but this illustrated book City: A Story of Roman Planning and Construction was a great introduction to grasp the basic of efficient and rational Roman city planning. The author David Macaulay seems to be prolific — he has published many other illustrated architectural books with similar topics such as castles and cathedrals. I slowly started collecting his books — fun!

• I traveled to Rome with Rome Tales in hand. When planning a trip to a new city, there are a few things I do to make sure that I can get the best out my time there, and one of my favorite ways to connect with a new place is through its stories: fiction and nonfiction. Rome tales, in the series of City Tales, contains a collection of twenty stories, all set in Rome.

• I found this turbulent modern metropolis beautiful, but also undeniably filthy. During our exploration in the city, we needed to frown quite often by seeing so many overflowing dustbins on the sidewalks with an odious smell. As this article from the New York Times summarises, there’s trash almost everywhere in Rome, and it's an interesting contrast between well maintenanced roman statues and clean fountains.

• On the same topic of dumpsters and other badly maintained public infrastructure — the website Roma Fa Schifo (which means “Rome Sucks”) might be worth visiting if you are curious about this topic. It is a community board to post pictures and collect complaints about these bad situation in the city that citizens need to face every day.

Organization, initiative

• Baobab is an immigrant community in Rome, and their website helped me to understand what immigrants experience in their journey to a foreign land and their lives.

• Architect Tom Rankin, the author of Rome Works: An Architect Explores the World's Most Resilient City, offers some private tours and workshop about Rome. I didn't get a chance to meet him this time, but his blog posts helped me a lot to get a more holistic understanding of the city.

I know I shouldn't dare to say, but after visiting a sea of ancient ruins and historical monuments in Rome, I was getting a little bit burned out about old Roman stuff. A simple question came to my mind — the significance of ancient Roman architecture and city planning needs no reiterating, but what are Rome's contemporary practice of urban developments looks like?

We've heard from a local urbanist that there is an interesting district to visit, away from ancient city center and a crowd of tourists, which might help us understand at least a part of their contemporary urban realities.

We visited EUR, a district located in the south-west part of the city. EUR stands for Esposizione Universale Roma; it was originally planned in the 1930s as the site for the 1942 world's fair to showcase twenty years of Fascism in Italy. It was initiated by Benito Mussolini.

The world fair never happened and the district had left uncompleted though, due to the intervening of World War II. After the war, the site has been redeveloped as the basis of an out-of-town business district, and now, EUR functions as Rome's new city center. The unfinished Fascist-era buildings were completed and other contemporary buildings were built during the 1950s and 1960s.

The district is well-connected from the historical downtown by metro, so it wasn't so hard to reach there. The district has a perfectly symmetrical shape — at the very center, there is a big boulevard from which neighborhoods spread out to opposite direction. We started our walk from Parco Centrale del Lago and continued on the inner neighborhoods to visit Palazzo Della Civiltà Italiana and other landmarks.

Although it doesn’t quite feel right to enjoy them, the district is full of Fascist-era architecture and urban design, which take a reference from Roman classical, Renaissance style and imperial town planning. There is also an influence of Italian rationalism as well, which created buildings of limestone, tuff and marble, and other traditional materials associated with Roman Empire architecture.

The district has also been successful to attract new housings, educational and government facilities to meet the need of ever-expanding modern capital. EUR is basically a site where you can enjoy a blend of fascist architecture and contemporary highrises in one place.

In the back, there is Palazzo dei Congressi — a modern interpretation of the Pantheon by architect Adalberto Libera.

Palazzo Della Civiltà Italiana, perhaps the most famous Fascist architecture in this district. Its neo-classic style is worth seeing.

Despite its unforgettable connection with Italy's dark history, in this article, the author takes a favorable position toward EUR.

It doesn’t quite feel right to enjoy architecture and urban design that both departs from Rome’s classical and Renaissance icons and has its genesis in a totalitarian state. Like many examples of early 20th-century design in Italy, one must separate the form from the ideology. However, there is solace in that many of the buildings were completed after WWII, that the site was home to 1960 Olympics events, and the district became a natural place to expand housing, educational and government facilities for the new democracy.

To be honest, it was hard for me to find "the new democracy" in EUR — during our short visit, what I saw was rather a nostalgic imitation of what they had in the past.

We've noticed the uncomfortable number of cars, too. Some of the articles about EUR we found on Google boldly state that EUR is walkable. Let me tell you, it is NOT. It felt like Parco Centrale del Lago was surrendered by expressways and multitude of cars. Most of the landmarks we've visited managed to spoil themselves by having large parking lots in front of them.

Though, it is surely compelling and educational to see how this district stands on the complex layers of history and ideologies that travel over time. A visit to EUR would surely make your trip to Rome a little more special and unique.

The district is located in the northwestern part of the city, and the development covers an overall area of 366,000 square meters. At first, we weren't ready to embrace the completely modern face of Milan, whose old historical city center attracts thousands of people with its European classical outlook. Though, aside from its lack of identity and neoliberal commercialism that create the foundation of this project, we found CityLife almost uncomfortably enjoyable.

The three commercial skyscrapers are designed by three big names; Zaha Hadid, Arata Isozaki and Daniel Libeskind.

The project involves the construction of three commercial skyscrapers, located at the center of the site, shopping & business facilities surrounded by residential buildings and public green spaces. Most of the buildings there were completed in the early 2000s, and when we were there, one of the skyscrapers were still under construction. It covers an area of 36.6 hectares (90 acres), and development is being carried out by a company controlled by Generali Group,

The large green space is neatly taken care of. The complex is car-free and friendly for pedestrians.

citylife apartments by zaha hadid

As most of the recent urban development do, CityLife is also carefully managing the sustainability factor and smart mobility. We're not sure how this development evolves in the future, but if you are tired of old buildings and want to check out a new urban development of Italy, we recommend you to explore the CityLife neighborhood.

We couldn't ignore a huge gate to an army base, right next to the amusement park, when we started walking around the complex. 53.5% of the land in Chatan, a town where Mihama American Village is located, is still taken up by military camps and facilities.

A little bit about American military bases in Okinawa

Yes, after World War II, there is still a persistent presence of American army forces in Japan. 70% of them is concentrated in Okinawa, a southernmost Japanese prefecture comprising more than 150 islands located between Taiwan and Japan's mainland.

Born in the main island of Japan, my impressions of Okinawa has always been a little bit bitter — Okinawa is where the worst battle of the Pacific War happened during World War II, by United States Marine and Army forces against the Imperial Japanese Army. A QUARTER of innocent civilians were killed. More than 70 years after the war, the suffering continues. American army forces are here to allow the U.S. to conduct regional security cooperation activities in Japan and in the Far East, and that inevitably involved constant friction with the locals.

If you are curious to know the size of the bases in Okinawa, this is the map. It covers nearly 15% of the Okinawa main island — if this number doesn't mean much to you, this is more than half of the size of Tokyo (and Tokyo is so fricking huge!).

The Dragon Palace, a famous game center in the American Village

Almost dystopian interiors of The Dragon Palace

Birth of Mihama American Village

From an urbanism perspective, we're interested in the impact of army bases in the urban environment and everyday life in Okinawa. We're especially curious about what happens to the land that has been recently returned to Okinawan autonomy, such as Chatan and Mihama American Village.

Inside of the entertainment complex and the iconic Ferris wheel.


American import shop right next to the army base.

It's hard to believe by seeing the current sate, but Chatan used to be beautiful farmland. In 1945, the United States Navy landed at the port of Chatan, and residents needed to flee. When they came back after the war, the land has drastically transformed with military-related facilities. After the long years of struggles, this part of the land has been returned to the city, and this is when the development that shaped today's Mishima American Village started.

American village was planned to regenerate local business, by installing commercial and resort facilities with direct access to a beach and a public park. Based on the great location that faces the east china sea and its short distance from the city of Naha, and
the unique mix of Japanese and American culture that is specific to this place, their answer was creating an American themed resort and amusement complex.

Urban development of Okinawa on the land formerly occupied by the U.S. military

Isn't it ironic that the local government decided to develop an American theme, their long-lasted enemy? Mihama American Village is commonly considered as a successful development on the formerly occupied land by the U.S. military. This amusement facility did indeed contribute to attract more visitors and create more local businesses, but I couldn't help but wonder the historical irony behind this whole development.

Again, 53.5% of the city of Chatan is still occupied by different types of army facilities, and most of them are located on the convenient, level ground around the highway Route 58. Local residential neighborhoods are divided and the residents have suffered numerous incidents involving aircraft accidents and crimes by US military personnel.

Japan and the US have agreed to advance the reorganization and scaling down of 11 US military bases in Okinawa, which include the relocation of the Futenma Air Base in Ginowan City to a coastal area of Henoko. The new location is situated right next to a residential area, and they seem to feel no compunction about destroying the beautiful natural environment there.

If you ever visit Okinawa, aside from all the beautiful beaches and breathtaking nature, please also pay attention to the continuous battle of Okinawan people against U.S. military bases, and how it affects the urban structure and their everyday lives.

Above all, we've been impressed by the way that Honmachi Escola helps us reconceive our relationship with communities in cities and our way of living.

Honmachi Escola is a project utilizing a complex of 8 unused buildings and a 350m² open square in the Honmachi neighborhood close to Sanjusangendo shrine. Currently, three buildings of the complex are used for accommodations, and the rest are studios and offices. It's hard to explain what Honmachi Escola is about in one word, though.That’s likely the point, though — it might be less about the definition, but rather what this place might mean at the deepest level for those who live and visit here.

The complex of Honmachi Escola and its garden, hidden in the back of narrow alleyways.

"Escola" — a Place to Learn

This area is known for its aging population and high ratio of vacant houses. Old buildings in narrow alleyways (typical for an old neighborhood like this) are usually quite hard to renovate or reconstruct, both legally and functionally. The complex now known as Honmachi Escola used to be one such abandoned property.

Inside of one of their shared studios. Tenants have customized their space by themselves.

The project was born in 2014 with the support of HAPS, a non-profit organization supporting Kyoto-based artists, along with public funding from the city of Kyoto. Sasaki, an artist specializing in Brazilian music, started with the idea of creating a gathering place to invite music lovers like himself. With the help of Jun Yamaguchi, an architectural researcher at the time enrolled at Ritsumei University, as well as other community members, the project has evolved from there. They named the place "Escola" — the Portuguese word for "school". The name is apt: Honmachi Escola is surely a place people can learn from each other.

DIY Spirit and Art of Self-Building

Sasaki, Yamaguchi, and the other community members designed a whole renovation plan and slowly started updating & customizing the space based on their needs. Now there are approximately10 people in the community who are actively living and using the studios there, all contributing to the ever-updating self-building process in the Escola.

"Human creativity can't play its role in the fixed, given condition. That's why it's important that we do it by ourselves"

says Jun Yamaguchi, who participated in an interview with us.

A tea room in the garden that was built by community members.

Outdoor space that stretches out from the kitchen.

There is even a composting toilet (!) they built by themselves in the garden.

They are aiming to create a strong community along with sustainable buildings and infrastructures in the heart of the city. The tenants have their own unique skills and expertise, varying from architecture to ecology. "When we bring everyone's skills together, we can make almost anything that we use in our everyday lives," I was passionately told by Leo, one of the residents in Escola.

The first thing that greeted me at the entrance was this sign which was used at a workshop they organized a few weeks ago. I'd love to live in a community where such an interesting workshop as this would be held.


Leo, who studies ecology, explains how they grow vegetables and herbs in their garden.They get ready-to-use natural manure (elephant, giraffe, and zebra) from the Kyoto City Zoo, where Leo studied for a year, and use it as fertilizer as well as for improving their homemade compost.

What's next?

They are open to the public a few times a year, hosting events, fairs, and workshops to invite people into their community. They have various programs where they invite students and artists to hold field work, stay for short-term artist residencies, and so on.

Residents' passion for do-it-youselfism never stops. too. They are continuously developing ideas, such as installing a sustainable energy system, updating their water system, raising chickens and bees, and more.

They are also working to develop a more meaningful relationship with their neighborhood.

"This neighborhood is one of the oldest neighborhoods in Kyoto. We are witnessing a new wave of redevelopment around here, but we try to sustain & deepen our relationship with the neighborhoods. I am from Paris, and I know what happens to cities through gentrification. I don't want it to happen here, and we try our best to play our role to fight against the homogenization of our cities and consumerism." says Leo.

Jun Yamaguchi, Leo, Keisuke Sumida

Recently, interest has surged in the idea of small-scale, incremental, do-it-yourself urban improvement. A self-building project that is resident-generated, low budget, and substantially bottom-up like Honmachi Escola has the potential to encourage people to try out alternative urban ways of living.

Japan's contemporary art scene used to be dominated by Tokyo until recently and there wasn't even enough information about art communities in the other part of the country. Things have changed, and now Japan's best art destinations include smaller cities and the countryside as well. Kyoto's art community recently started burgeoning and is uniquely updating the cultural landscape of the city.

We recently got a chance to visit Vostok Kyoto, one of the shared studios and art residencies that are organized by Basement Kyoto. During the interview with the members of Basement Kyoto, we learned their methodology for breathing new life into abandon buildings to support the artist communities in Kyoto.

Providing a white canvas to artists

"In Kyoto, artists are always in need of finding a good place to stay and work. There are actually many artists here, but we don't have enough creative spaces in the heart of the city," says Yoshitaka Yazu, an artist and one of the organizers of Basement Kyoto.

Yoshitaka Yazu, an artist and the owner of the art hostel Kumagusuku

We've already written here about how strict Japanese rent regulations are and how hard it is to freely customize a place you rent. It could easily be suffocating for people with a creative mind, who need to personalize their space based on their specific needs.

Here, Basement Kyoto acts as a mediator between artists and homeowners, by renovating and subleasing unused properties to artists. The space functions as a foundation and base material for artists to work on, just like a white canvas. The spaces they rent are customized freely by artists themselves — again, this is quite rare in Japan.

On top of that, Japan has recently been facing the increasing number of vacant homes, stores and abandoned infrastructure. Urban flight, depopulation has left millions of homes vacant in their cities. According to a report by the Nomura Research Institute nearly a third of all homes in the country – 21.7 million – could be abandoned by 2033. To tackle this issue, a project called Kariage started to rent some old buildings from the owners, renovate them, and pass them on to those who appreciate their values. Basement Kyoto is a project that applis this methodology in the context of art in Kyoto.

Yuki Kosai from TANK.inc.

Mitsuhiro Sakakibara, a member of RAD (Research For Architectural Domain)

"Just like a white canvas, our spaces complete once artists move in and started making them their own. we have multiple locations in different parts of the city, and all of them have different characters and functionality. Eventually, we want to connect all of them like underground water to create a more meaningful impact on the city." says Yuki Kosai, a member of Basement Kyoto from TANK.inc.

The key is to find house owners with a creative mind and cultural literacy

Once the foundation structure is established, artists can create their own space almost from scratch. This kitchen in Vostok Kyoto, for instance, was created by the members together with the artists.

How do they manage to find good real estate properties in the city, though? In Kyoto, where the traditional real estate model still prevails, there are many properties that are not officially on a market. "Interestingly, it's usually building owners who approach us first, not the opposite. They are often interested in arts and want to be surrounded by arts. They are always very supportive to our project — people in Kyoto are culturally well educated and we are always impressed by it." says Mitsuhiro Sakakibara, a member of Basement Kyoto.

"We always go around a neighborhood to say hello to neighbors before starting construction. Kyoto is historically a place where artists, sculptors, carpenters, and artisans in various fields were employed by the shrines and temples. That might be the reason why they have no aversion to art studios and workshop spaces."

Kyoto has seen the development of great artists over its history of more than 1,200 years. They will keep expanding their network and build more locations in the different parts of Kyoto, contributing both the future development of the artist community and urban metabolism of Kyoto.

You might have no idea how hard it is to paint walls, reupholster floors and build your own wall shelves at home in Japanese apartments — even to put your favorite posters on a wall. If you are renting a regular apartment through a regular realtor, chances are high that there should not be even a single nail hole on your wall when you move out — that means there is a very little room to play with your creative mind and customize your dream nest in Japan unless you actually own a place.

However, there has been gradually more and more interesting spots that allow residents and renters to explore new possibilities in where they live and work.

We found this listing site called DIYP during our research which allows you to check out some DIY-able homes (both for buying and renting). In Kyoto, we got a chance to talk to a director of DIYP Kyoto, who is updating a real estate scene of this former capital of Japan.

Chika Kishimoto — a real estate planner

One of the real estate properties she is currently working on. A complex of old traditional Japanese houses will be renewed as a mix of residential and working place for creatives.

"House owners and landowners themselves don't often know what to do with their properties. My job is to find potential and make a proposal of what these places could be, and help them to implement the plan." says Chika Kishimoto, a real estate "planner" and the founder of addSPICE(http://addspice.jp/).

"There has been a recent movement of renovation and adaptive reuses all over Japan especially in Tokyo, allowing some unused properties in the city to be recreated to something anew. In Kyoto, however, there aren't many players to connect owners and renters & buyers in a non-conventional way. It's also hard to find all the available listenings online in Kyoto — most of them are hidden due to various concerns of the owners. I found a need to develop the market here."

Kishimoto took a degree in architecture and decided to pursue her career as a realtor instead. Most of the realtors wouldn't want to stay involved after they find renters, and architects tend to walk away from responsibility after construction is finished and buildings are done, she says. Her job, however, doesn't stop there. "I am interested in how things would evolve even after a lease is signed." That is why her title is a real estate "planner", who is not merely an agent for the sale, but as a producer and dreamer to help the potentials to grow in the city.

Why Kyoto and what's special about it?

In a historical city like Kyoto, neighborhood ties and local communities are more noticeable than in big cities like Tokyo. It takes time to gain trust from owners and build a relationship with local communities, thus all the processes take more time. "I've realized that it's important to think about Kyoto-ness to develop a meaningful proposal that works well in a community."

"In Kyoto, house owners and landowners tend to have long term perspective on their projects. That's another thing that makes this city special compared to Tokyo — consideration for time and next generation."
Thus, she is not keen on just following a trend, and trying to propose long term value for a community.

Kishimoto also organizes a program and a website called "Kyoto Iju Keikaku (means ’Let's move to Kyoto program’)". The program encourages people to move into this former capital of Japan, helping them find new jobs and immerse themselves in a new lifestyle in Kyoto. She has just published a book too, about her career as a real estate planner. I can't wait to see what's more to come in Kyoto!

Walking around Kyoto, I've noticed a number of new guesthouses and hostels popping up every so often. The city of Kyoto saw record levels of tourists in 2018, with 15.57 million foreign and Japanese visitors spending at least one night in the former capital of Japan. The number is continuously rising, marking 2,604,300 visits sorely in a month in February 2019. There is no doubt about a reason behind the boost of new guesthouses.

At the same time, I can't help but noticing posters and signs that say "No more guesthouse!", which are clearly written by long-time residents in Kyoto. It is not hard to believe the friction between local everyday life and a wave of tourists who themselves don't always know what's good in an unfamiliar land.

Should the relationship between these travel accommodations and local residents be so bad, though? Moreover, could travel accommodation such as a guesthouse and hotel be more than a mere place to sleep?

I asked Tatsuya Iwasaki from MAGASINN KYOTO, a unique hostel in the area just north of Nijo Castle. MAGASINN KYOTO is an experimental space that proposes an alternative of a sleeping accommodation as a social and cultural hub, that is closely connected to a local community while inviting a number of creatives from all over the world.

Space to stay, to visit, to buy, and to edit

There is a select shop space just next to a guest room.

Even in the hallway towards the bathroom, guests can enjoy well-curated exhibitions and artistic items.

Iwasaki used to work as a creative director and owned a select shop, and was looking for an inspiration of space for people to gather. He came up with the idea of creating a travel accommodation, but his imagination didn't stop there.

"I thought it would be fun to highlight a certain theme or topic every month and exhibit it in this space — that leads to our concept of "lodging magazine". says Iwasaki. In 2016, he turned this idea to reality by renovating a 100 years old Japanese house and converting it into a guesthouse that is also an exhibition & event space and a shop.

The entrance resembles a magazine cover — every now and then they pick a specific theme, which corresponds to exhibitions and items in the curated select shop. Anyone can walk in to check out their exhibitions and events freely, and guests can enjoy these while actually staying there in a same space. I mean, haven't you ever dreamed of spending a night in a museum or a gallery? I have.

On top of that, Iwasaki can connect guests with local creatives too.

Connecting global and local

"One might think that people are exclusive and conservative in a historic city like Kyoto. But I am always surprised by the beautiful mix of cultures and genres, old and new in Kyoto. I am trying to make this place a cultural hub, where people from all over the world can gather and exchange dialogues." says Iwasaki.

"I have worked in Tokyo for years before moving into Kyoto. You can often find neighborly ties and small communities in Kyoto, which I find very unique and interesting."

One might think that these neighborly ties could be a barrier for outsiders to come in and share their space. MAGASINN KYOTO, though, try to bridge them in a sensitive manner.

"We once had an American couple on honeymoon stayed with us. During their stay, there was a local festival in our neighborhood, so we invited them there. I wasn't sure how the local community would react, but I was pleasantly surprised how open and welcoming they are — this is something I would like to keep aiming." says Iwasaki.

"We were, in a way, outsiders for the local community too. That's why we let ourselves be really present in the community — we joined the neighborhood association, helped them with community bulletin board, and just talk to them on a daily basis. This is a traditional neighborhood where a lot of seniors live, and we noticed that facebook and twitter are not the best way to communicate with them. We thus wrote them a greeting letter in a local newspaper — I was moved when some of them responded and sent us a letter back."

Everyone is an outsider at the beginning. The key is not to stay as an outsider and keep everything another person's affairs. We need to stay there, live there, experience there, and gain their trust. Once we stop situating ourselves outside of a circle and act upon it, there are a lot more potentials in a community.

Thier creative exhibition space.

"I still don't know how to describe this space in one word — it could be an art space, Airbnb, or a shop and event space and more.", says Iwasaki with a smile. "I believe it is an actually good thing that it's hard to name it in one word, letting imagination wondering and potentials to grow."

Come to think of it, I still haven't seen many critical studies or experiments on the topic of hotels, hostels and guesthouses and other touristic facilities in our city, and their impact on local cultures and communities. There are undoubtedly more and more creative initiatives in a traditional city like Kyoto though, such as an art hostel Kumagusuku, and I'd love to see more dialogues before jumping into a conclusion of saying "no more guest house."

Profile / Tatsuya Iwasaki

Tatsuya Iwasaki was born in Japan in 1985 and currently live in Kyoto. He is working as a lecturer at the department of Service MBA at Kyoto University, as well as at the Kyoto Seika University. He had worked in Recruit Communications and Rakuten as a director in Tokyo until he moved to Kyoto in 2014 and started working in Loftwork.inc. He became independent and started Magasinn Kyoto in 2016, and founded EDIIT Inc. in the following year.

There is absolutely no better way to relax after a long day than soaking in a hot good sento — Japanese traditional public bath. While hundreds of sento have closed their business in the past decades due to deterioration and lack of successors, there is still a good chance to stumble across a local sento in Kyoto's neighrbouhoods. They are often small, absolutely local, and (I personally think) architecturally beautiful.

Fortunately, there have recently been people who are putting much effort into the conservation of Sento — thanks to them, some of the sento still maintain to be a social hub even after the closure of their business. In the past, a sento was simply a place to bathe — these days, however, there are some intriguing renovation projects in favor of preserving their architectural, cultural values while injecting new life and function into it.

Amongst some interesting sento in Kyoto (Such as Ume-yu), I've recently come across Kujoyu and fell in love with it.

Kujoyu had been in business since mid-1920 as sento until they closed down 10 years ago. Unlike many other public baths that were out of business, the owner of the buildings saw value in a traditional wooden building and decided to renovate it as an open event space.

It is located in a residential neighborhood in the southern part of Kyoto, which has long been considered as a run-down, "out of proper-Kyoto" area. It is rather hard to find, but it is definitely worth visiting to experience how new spirits and culture can live in an old structure.

Some parts are still in the same shape as it was back then — bathtubs, a weighing machine, sinks and fans, and a clerk counter. There is just no water in the bathtubs, but you can still enjoy its nostalgic feeling.

It simply breaks my heart that sento is a disappearing species, but it is also true that there are a considerable amount of projects all over Japan to develop and update the tradition by adding new values while preserving the original structure. I also like this book that has countless illustrations of different sento to capture the magical charm of this Japanese tradition.

▼ Link to the article:
https://worldarchitecture.org/architecture-news/eczge/urban-typography-a-glimpse-into-a-world-of-local-typefaces-in-japanese-cities-and-their-survival.html

▼ World Architecture Community
http://worldarchitecture.org/

I watched Cities on Speed: Bogota Change (2009) a long time ago and got to know a little bit about the famous mayor Enrique Peñalosa in the capital of Columbia. My knowledge about Bogota was although not nearly enough to make sense of the city during my short stay there. Luckily I have a local architect friend who was kind enough to walk through the city with me with a full of local tips. Here are the list of things I learned from the talented Columbian architect Ricardo Torres Gomez, as well as things I found by myself about the capital of Columbia.

Things to do, places to go

• Parque Bicentenario is an urban park in the heart of Bogota, which was one of our first spots to stop with Ricardo. Designed by a Columbian architect Giancarlo Mazzanti and inaugurated in 2016, Parque Bicentenario passes over Avenida El Dorado, one of the major vehicular arteries in Bogota. The city was (and still is) divided between the north part and the south, creating serious polarization and social inequality — this park was thus designed in a hope to create natural connectivities and revitalize downtown.

• I personally think Biblioteca Virgilio is, without a doubt, one of the most beautiful libraries in the world. It was designed by a famous Colombian architect Rogelio Salmona. The building has a fascinating circular structure, carefully designed to create a seamless landscape with the surrounding park and fountains.

• Every Sunday in Bogota, you can enjoy car-free Ciclovía. 112km of roads that stretches from the south to the north are closed up for cars, allowing cyclists and runners to take over the streets. The program was created and promoted in the 1990s and early 2000s, under Bogotá Mayor Enrique Peñalosa and his brother Gil Peñalosa. Gil Peñalosa now has a non-profit organization called 880cities that is entirely dedicated to the topic of urban mobility.

• I usually avoid taking tours when I travel, but Bogota Graffiti Tour was incredibly informative and definitely worth the time and money. They explain not only about the artistic elements of Bogota's Graffiti, but also their politics. Take a tour and visit Parque de la Candelaria to study the richness of their art. By the way, there are various theories about the Graffities culture in this city, but it is ABSOLUTELY NOT true that Justin Bieber's visit to Bogota opened doors for Colombian graffiti artists.

• In downtown, you can walk past the spot where Jorge Eliécer Gaitán was assassinated in 1948 on April 9 — when at same afternoon he had had a meeting scheduled with young Fidel Castro. You might notice his still strong presence, on graffiti in the street or on the thousand-peso note in your pocket.

• BD Bacatá is the world's first crowdfunded skyscraper that sticks out in downtown Bogota, and also Colombia’s tallest building. They started the construction in 2011, and 8 years later in 2019, this tower is somehow still far from completion due to a financial situation of a stakeholder. The building has a pensive look, waiting for investors and residents to move in in the possible future.

Read

• Mike's Bogota Blog might be a great introduction to the city from an urbanist's perspective. Bogota Times is also a good English resources to get a gist of the city.

• Before visiting Bogota by myself, I always thought Enrique Peñalosa was the coolest hero who saved Bogota from being "the most dangerous city in the world". However, after talking to some local urbanists, I found out that it's not as black and white as that. It might be time to Rethink the Legacy of Enrique Peñalosa?, including his creation TransMilenio.
  → Watch his TED talk again: Why buses represent democracy in action

• Pictures of Bogotá’s architecture from the sky captured by a drone are surprisingly beautiful.

• Did you know that Le Corbusier came to Bogotá in 1947, and had a master plan for Columbia's capital city? It might be questionable if we could call Bogota as "Le Corbusier City", but it is surely interesting to look at the contrast between the urban development proposal of Le Corbusier to the current layout and reality of the city.

• La Playa DC is an interesting movie that illustrates a life of Afro-Colombian teenager, whose family fled from the country's Pacific coast to Bogota due to the violence. I personally think the movie did a great job to depict exclusion and racism in the city.

CICLO is a Mexico-based organization that conducts artistic interventions to provoke memories and local identities in urban public spaces. By collaborating with artists, CICLO has made several public arts in the streets, as well as organized workshops, tours, and art exhibitions all over the world. Laura Reséndiz, CICLO´s director has shared her concept and approach of CICLO with us during our stay in México.

Using art and culture for reappropriating our cities

The main objective of CICLO is to reappropriate our cities and public spaces with art and culture. It also means community engagement and collective research through retaking identity, memories, and histories of our cities. By these processes, CICLO aims to make art more accessible to the general public outside of the exclusive art industry. “We try to decipher arts into the simple languages for everyone to understand and enjoy.” Laura says.

For this purpose, the streets are their stages.

“Public space is a reflection of our society, and these are the places that have the potential to accommodate precious human encounters to make everyone richer. If you give a little bit of love and some care in our space, everything re-accommodates organically. There are many ways of doing it — I happen to know art, so I naturally started using arts in the streets.”

Tepito, a neighborhood of “barrio”

CICLO has recently been organizing some collaborative activities in a neighborhood called Tepito — one of the oldest neighborhoods in México City, dating back from pre-Hispanic times. This neighborhood has long been characterized as one of the most dangerous neighborhoods in the city, and many of the locals are reluctant to give a visit.

“There is still a “barrio” feeling in Tepito — no international chains, and the neighborhood still maintains its local, pre-Hispanic atmospheres. However, despite its cultural richness, it is also true that Tepito is physically and culturally excluded from the rest of the city. ” Laura explains.

“A common narrative about Tepito as being dangerous fosters stereotypes and grows distance between communities. When I was invited by the cultural center, Casa Barrio Tepito to make an artistic intervention here, the goal was to change this narrative by using the power of art. We spent a whole year just to get to know the barrio by ourselves, and building relationship with the local inhabitants.“

Jacobo Noe loeza, a director from Casa barrio Tepito, and an architect Mauricio Vergara gave us a tour in Tepito to visit some of the important art works in Tepito.

Currently CICLO is working on transforming this pedestrian bridge to make the space more pleasant and safe with an artist.

You can always find some impressive public art pieces in the streets in Tepito.

"Art teaches us that all humans are equal in our diversity. this is why humans must be with everyone, not against everyone" — Daniel Manrique, who started a cultural movement in Tepito called 'Tepito Arte Acá'

“I started working with sociologist, anthropologist, and historians, to learn all the guideline and methodologies from them. I am always trying to open myself up to listen and learn local spaces I am working on, and think about what kind of message I am giving to the streets. ” Laura said.

Art of international collaboration, and QiPO

Laura is also part of the international curatorial organization QiPO. QiPO is a team of international curators, artists, and producers with the purpose of promoting dialogue and social engagement. They had their first art exhibit during the Art Fair Week in Mexico City.

“International exchange of ideas becomes nutrition for arts.” said Laura.

“Being in an international team like this can provide me with more perspectives about how art can be created, distributed, and consumed by people in the streets. Arts in a street, in a city — these are my motivation and inspiration for my work, including QiPO.”

Their first exhibit QiPO01 took place in an empty building in the heart of Mexico City. Some of the unoccupied rooms were converted to art spaces by QiPO and they opened up the exhibit to the public.

The exibition took place in one of the abandoned buildings in Mexico City

They created the exibition space from zero.

Ichiro Irie and Laura.

“We wanted to make a different kind of story and narrative in arts — with our international nature and diversity.” Ichiro Irie, a founding member of QiPO, told us during the Art Fair Week. “Especially in Mexico City, museums and galleries are very protective, and there are many barriers for people to walk in. That’s why we decided to have this exhibit in a pedestrian area. Anybody walking down the street can walk in freely, without being intimidated by a ticket booth, guardsmen, and prestigious hallways like most of the museums.“

CICLO means “cycle” in English. CICLO doesn’t stay in a neighborhood forever to supervise and maintain everything. “We just need to start a cycle and pass it on to the people in a neighborhood, who start another cycle by themselves. Repeat the cycle, break the cycle, begin another cycle. It's always changing and renewing.”

CICLO and Laura will continue working to shorten the distance between the art galleries and the public, making the arts accessible to everyone and creating art in the streets.

Laura Reséndiz

Born and raised in Mexico City, Laura Resendiz received her BA in Art History at Universidad Iberoamericana, and studied abroad at University of Salamanca, Spain. Laura Reséndiz is intersted in the processes of artistic production that create dialogue not only through gallery or museum exhibitions, but in greater societal environments as well. She firmly believes that Art as an educational and well driven tool can create positive urban-emotional transformations. With the organization she founded, CICLO, Reséndiz generates alternative platforms and opportunities for artists and other creative professionals to collaborate with people from diverse communities that integrate and include local history and interests in public spaces. Her multidisciplinary nature includes the founding of Anonymous Gallery in Mexico city which she co-directed until 2016; and her work with Omninbus, a cultural television program, as producer and interviewer, Rim Magazine as editor, and ARCO DATA España as writer, among others. As a teacher she has taught at Casa del lago, Royal Academy of San Carlos, UNAM National University (CdMx) and UDLA University (Pue).

The ninth session of the World Urban Forum (WUF9) in 2018 that took place in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia was one of the most fruitful conferences I've ever attended in my life. I've met a number of quite interesting practitioners and researchers from all over the world, which helped me to expand my perspective to see cities with a global set of mind in different contexts.

During my stay in Bogota, one of the Colombian urbanists I met during WUF9 introduced me to the local artist called Don Popo. Don Popo, a founder of an innovative organization La Familia Ayara, invited me with his whole team to share how they use hip-hop culture to empower people living in violence and oppression in Colombia.

Use hip hop culture to give everyone a voice

Jeffer Renteria, known artistically as Don Popo, founded the organization La Familia Ayara more than 23 years ago, in order to use the culture of hip hop to encourage inclusive participation and create social change in Colombia. They work closely with kids and women especially from poor, socially excluded "barrios" — neighborhoods in Bogota, as well as other cities in the country. They provide free classes, workshops and cultural events of breakdance, rap, photography and beyond to give them a voice.

In burritos, some of the poor neighborhoods in suburban Colombia, there are issues of conflicts, poverty, and violence — sexual abuse is also one of them, and kids and woman without voices are in need to have a safe place to express themselves.

"Instead of teaching mere skills, our aim is to change how they think about themselves and gradually shift their life to a better direction with confidence, with the help of hip-hop culture," I was told by directors and cultural class teachers of La Familia Ayara.

So far, La Familia Ayara has managed to provide activities for about 17,000 young children in some of the most vulnerable areas in Colombia, including prisons, where they are in critical situations of abuse and neglect.

Directors and teachers of la Familia Ayara gathered and kindly shared their ideas about their impressive work.

Rap debate is one of their key activities, where they mix the act of debating with rap. Participants get to talk about various topics including some of the most sensitive themes like poverty, social exclusion, violence.

Don Popo was one of the young leaders of the Safest Cities Program of UN-Habitat, and his work seems to always have a connection with urban conditions and how people live in a city.

"Rap lets them interpret their relationship with the community, with the city, with the institutions and all the problems that affect them. They talk about what happens at home, in the neighborhood, in the street." says Don Popo.

"The Ayara family works for the prevention of all types of violence. We use a language of Hip Hop to encourage children and adolescents, in order to strengthen their personal skills to face the challenges of this century in a country in the process of reconciliation. It is through Hip Hop, that children learn about recognizing their rights, and from there they can take actions." One of Don Popo's colleagues summerises.

Through their work in local neighborhoods and prisons, they hold out their hands to some of the most forgotten members of Colombian society, welcoming them into their "family".

For a city without limits — from culture to politics

Although Don Popo already left the responsibility of the organization to the successors, his challenge continues.

This year at March 4, Don Popo officially pre-registered his candidacy for the Bogota City Hall in the Cambio Radical Party. During the pre-registration, he addressed his core plan to make Bogota a "City Without Limits".

"Politics is closely connected to a social, cultural aspect of our society and vice versa. For me, thus, it is a natural choice to be politically active." said Don Popo during the interview.

He is an active artist, too. With more than 30 years of artistic life, he became one of the founding leaders of the urban movement in the city — through La Familia Ayara's work that catered for a vulnerable population, with children and women in protection for physical, sexual and psychological abuse, including young people in jails and drug rehabilitation sites.

”It's time to give a radical change to Bogotá. It is time to put a greater level of creativity at the service of the city. It is time to free Bogota and its inhabitants from the limits that have been blocking our ability to innovate and grow the city further." — Por una ciudad sin límites (For the city without limit) by Don Popo

La Familia Ayara's crew

La Familia Ayara's methodologies could be applied in other cities and contexts as well, which opens up the potential of international collaboration. They are constantly learning through participating children too, and letting themselves grow even more. Meanwhile, I can not wait to see the radical future transformation of Bogota with his innovative vision that combines city, culture and people together.

While the story itself is quite intriguing, I got so hooked on the looks of the housing complex where the movie is set, and the main characters live. The gigantic social housing complex and their middle-class apartment units left an interesting impression on me. I soon found out that this neighborhood is called The Conjunto Urbano Nonoalco Tlatelolco, located in the north part of Mexico City. Tlatelolco neighborhood is the largest apartment complex in whole Mexico — and second largest in North America.

Once I started to dig deeper into the story and history behind the housing complex, I discovered that this neighborhood is famous not only for its size, but also its complex, and quite tragic history.

Tlatelolco, a site of three cultures.

When you check a map, you would notice that there is a sizable plaza in the middle of the Tlatelolco neighborhood. The plaza is called the Plaza de las Tres Culturas, where three major tragedies in Mexico occurred, including Mexico’s pre-Hispanic and colonial pasts.

First tragedy: the massacre of Aztecs

Tlatelolco was established as a city-state by the ascendant Aztecs and their empire. During the Spanish conquest of Mexico in the early 1500s, Tlatelolco was the site of the last battle between the Aztecs and the Spanish conquistadors. We all know who triumphed the battle — around 40,000 Aztecs were killed in this site. In the Plaza de las Tres Culturas today, there are still the remains of Aztec temples that you can visit, as well as the Catholic church of Santiago de Tlatelolco.

Second tragedy: the massacre of protesters ahead of the 1968 Olympic Games

After the country's independence in 1810 and followed industrialization and urbanization resulted in a serious housing shortage in Mexico City. During the 1950s this site had turned into a site of a modern housing project, as we know today. Here, former Aztec temple and the Spanish church were converted into a plaza, named Plaza de las Tres Culturas, after the Aztecs, Spain, and Mexico).

1968, the student movement was at its peak in Mexico — and this is when the second tragedy happened. In 1986, just 10 days before the first Olympic game in the country, protesters gathered in Tlatelolco for a rally — then, police officers and military troops shot into a crowd of unarmed students, leaving 350 people dead. The event is considered part of the Mexican Dirty War.

Third tragedy: 1985 Mexico City earthquake

Two decades later, 9 September 1985, Mexico was hit by an 8.1 magnitude earthquake — two segments of the Nuevo León building in Tlatelolco collapsed, killing 200 — 300 residents inside. With a poor reconstruction plan, many residents eventually undersold or abandoned their apartments after the event.

Life in Tlatelolco today

Tlatelolco was built in the 1960s by architect Mario Pani, who became the biggest proponents of the modernist ideas of Le Corbusier in the country.

Having its own schools, hospitals, stores, and other facilities inside, Tlatelolco was seen as a city within a city, and being considered as the most innovative building design of the time in Mexico.

Unfortunately, this modernism dream ended up setting the stage for another installment in Tlatelolco’s tragic history. Just as Pruitt-Igoe in St Louis in Missouri had demonstrated the “death of modernism”, Tlatelolco embodied a failure of modern urban planning in Mexico.

Today, Tlatelolco remains as the largest vertical apartments complex in Mexico. Roughly 55,000 people live there, with 40% being senior citizens and retired. The complex and surrounding neighborhoods such as Tepito, which are considered to be poor, dangerous areas and culturally & physically excluded from the other part of the city.

If you visit Tlatelolco, you can unavoidably learn about some of the important histories in Mexico with different layers — It's definitely worth a visit!

• Reference: The tragedies of Mexico City’s Tlatelolco housing complex – a history of cities in 50 buildings, day 31
• Tlatelolco, antes y después del 2 de octubre de 1968

Chapultepec is one of the most important landmarks of Mexico City since the Pre-Columbian era. This large, over 686 hectares forest park is where Mexicans want to visit to enjoy a comfortable weekend together with the family. The wooden landscapes and the lake create a perfect environment to enjoy a walk or a picnic — there are also many museums and historical monuments (including a castle!) to embrace the charm of Mexico city.

One of its most attractive spaces in Chapultepec is, in my opinion, Audiorama. Located in a small corner of Chapultepec since 1972, it is a place for people to rest in the company of nothing but trees and music. It is an open-air concert auditorium, and there are several colorful benches surrounded by speakers that play the music all day long — the type of music differs by the day of the week, from classical, Jazz to Mexican. There are some books for you to borrow and read on the spot, too.

Chapultepec is lovely — but it’s also true that it’s surrounded by major highways. Unless you are at the very heart of the park, it’s hard not to forget the presence of cars around it, because you can simply hear the noise of traffic all the time. Audiorama, however, offers nothing but the exquisite music and the shade & sounds of the trees. Its compact, naturally-shaped hidden position with trees and rocks makes it perfect to block out noise outside, and provide a comfortable cocoon-like space that is also perfect for a quick meditation.

Preservation of natural soundscape and acoustic ecology have been an important park management issue too. In Audiorama, you can enjoy the harmoney of music and sounds of trees.

Within urban settings, artificially created sounds like street traffic and aircraft overflights can negatively affect the character of public spaces and even prevent the intended use of an outdoor facility. When it comes to designing public space, one can easily focus on visual aesthetics. Yet, a multisensorial perception of space including auditory sense is a crucial element in the human experience in our urban daily life. That’s why a concept of soundscape is crucial to pay attention to quality and diversity of sounds & music as one of the neglected areas of urban design.

“what should a public space sound like?” is a fundamental question in urban soundscape planning and design. I personally believe that Audiorama drops a great hint for it.

To visit, to do

• It's a cliche, but architect Luis Barragán's former residence Casa Estudio Luis Barragán is a must visit for architecture lovers.

• Founded by Mexican architect Fernando Romero, Archivo dieno y architectrie is a creative space dedicated to exhibiting, researching and rethinking design and architecture. It is free, and I love their quiet courtyard that has a creative, hidden vibe.

• Located next to National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), Especio escultorico is a site for large-scale sculptural works. It was initiated by the sculptor Federico Silva in 1977, as part of the geometric sculptural movement at the time. It is a perfect site to enjoy the harmony of the natural landscape and human artistry.

• Ruta de la aistad — torre de los vientos, meaning "The Route of Friendship", was created as a result of the Olympic in Mexico City 1968. It has several sculptural works by some of the most prominent artists from all over the world, and has been said to be the largest sculptural corridor in the world with 17 km in length. After the Olympic, due to the rapid unorganized urban growth, the route was in total abandonment for more than two decades — which raised some discussion about preservation of the artworks and alternative urban development.

• You can have a geometric adventure at Biblioteca Vasconcelos. Transparent glass walls, floating-looking bookshelves, mismatched floors that connect to numbers of balconies and paths between stacks — everything is perfectly designed.

• Cycling in Mexico City sounds scary, but I enjoyed a free Sunday morning bike ride down Paseo de la Reforma. The city shut down one of its biggest streets every Sunday, and let cyclists, joggers, kids and dogs take over space where the cars consistently dominate. The street looks so different and vibrant without the constant noise of traffic and aggressive drivers.

To read

• If you know Spanish, MXCity seem to be one of the best city-guide media to follow.

• Watch Roma(2018) by Alfonso Cuarón, a film that won the Golden Lion. The story is set in 1970 — 1971 in Roma neighborhood in Mexico City, and the film depicts Roma as a prosperous middle-class neighborhood. While it's interesting to see what has happened to the neighborhood up until now (became a ghost of its form of self as a result of the 1985 earthquake, recent reborn and a wave of gentrification etc..), I was amazed to see Nezahualcóyotl neighborhood in the film. Located in the west part of the city near the airport, it was developed on top of the swampy remains of Lake Texoco after World War II and has been a massive slum for a long time. Read this arcticle to get to know more about how Nezahualcóyotl neighborhood turned itself from a mega-slum to a city.

Organizations

• Ciclo is an organization that uses art and culture for urban intervention. Their activity in the pre-hispanic neighborhood Tapito is quite interesting and inspiring — check more about their project here

• Mexico City is in the midst of water crisis. Isla urbana is a non-profit organization that seeks to detonate a large-scale adoption of rainwater harvesting systems in Mexican urban and rural households, schools, and health clinics.

• Lanoratorio para ciudad was a six-year social experiment project with the purpose of reimagining Mexico City. Unfortunately it's not active anymore, but we can check the detailed archive of their experiments here, which involves a series of workshops, interventions, civic tech & data science projects, etc.

In Mexico, a growing number of deportees from the United States are beginning to affect Mexico City's urban landscape.

A small slice of downtown Mexico City is becoming known as "Little L.A." — it is located around a historical Plaza Revolucion. Although the nickname “Little L.A” is not by any means official, the nature of the neighborhood is undoubtedly changing due to the rising population of returnees from the United States.

According to The Wall Street Journal, Mexicans who grew up in the U.S. and recently returned to Mexico began gathering here when a massive bilingual call center opened a few years ago in the neighborhood. These returnees speak fluent English, and they were the perfect match for the bilingual call canter. Over a few years, more and more Mexicans raised in the United States gradually started hanging out in the neighborhood.

People like to be around with those who have a similar cultural background and lifestyles. Although they are Mexicans, they are accustomed to live in the U.S. They way they speak, taste for fashion, cuisine preferences, etc. are different from the locals. some of the deported returnees no longer have a family there, no place to go. Many of them don't speak fluent Spanish, and some have troubles getting into public school.

Adapting a new life isn't easy for those who are stuck in between two countries. Just imagine — many of them got deported from the United States, being discriminated and pushed out. Now they are even discriminated in their own countries, which they don't even know much about.

That is why Little L.A. has gradually established its presence. At first glance, Little L.A. does not look significantly different from other Mexico City neighborhoods, but there’s a good chance that you hear many people speaking English, or spot shops that sell hamburgers, hotdogs, burritos — those that aren't eaten by locals that often. It feels like a piece of the United States. There are some organizations and businesses to help each other and rebuild their lives. Poch@ House, for instance, is a center for deportees and returnees to help to start over their lives in Mexico.

Again, adapting a new life isn't easy for those who are stuck in between. Yet, many cities are still failing to account for this influx of people, the urban communities of recent arrivals who became trapped and excluded. With the current political climate, the number of deportees may still rise sharply, and the pattern of global migration has become even more complex.

I recently encountered a notion of Diasporic Urbanism, which shed light on the urban communities of people who are caught in transition — those who are displaced and cannot simply ”go back”. While social science and related fields have provided rich contributions to the subject of increasing urban diversity and migration, their intersection with the disciplines of design, urban planning, and architecture remains to be fully cultivated.

What services and spaces are/should be designed in cities to better accommodate those who are stuck in between? What factors exacerbate stratification, prevent migrants from participating fully in the life of the city, or provoke isolation and displacement? Little L.A. might give us a hint for those urgent questions.

I looked up famous temples and markets on Google and in guidebooks, but none of them really resonated with me.

The real everyday life and chaos of the city were missing. I felt like I was floating above the city and couldn’t grasp the sense of truly being there.

After spending a few days feeling frustrated, I found a very peculiar map at a local bookstore. I still remember the feeling of "This is it!" when I discovered it.

The map was created by a designer named Nancy Chandler, who hand-drew Bangkok. It recreated even the minor streets with illustrations, filled with handwritten text. Not only did it include the names of shops, restaurants, and historical buildings, but it also had her personal opinions and advice, often humorous.

For example, there was a note on a store selling firearms that said, "Hmm, the world would be a better place if they didn’t sell these." This might be irrelevant information for a tourist looking for sights, but the personal, slightly meddlesome nature of the map immediately endeared me to it.

The next day, I walked around Bangkok with that map in hand. Following her directions, I sometimes found myself wandering into narrow alleys.

“Is this the right way?” I remember feeling like I was chatting with her.

"Subjective Maps" that personalize the city

Since my experience in Bangkok, I have been interested in "subjective maps" created by people who live in the city.

Most maps we use, like Google Maps, guidebooks, and tourist maps, are edited neutrally. They contain "information" but not the "emotions" or "thoughts" of the people living there.

However, our brains do not comprehend cities in their pure form. We don't perceive a city as merely moving from point A to point B; we construct and understand its image by connecting it with our emotions and thoughts.

Kevin Lynch, an American urban planner, discussed this in his book "The Image of the City," published in 1960.

Often, our image of a city is intermittent and mixed with other factors. Here, all senses are fully operational (Lynch, 1960, p 2).

Trivial impressions, experiences, and memories we feel while living in a city. Many fragments obtained through our five senses will eventually disappear without being recorded on a map.

But if we could document and share such subjectivity with others, might we not be able to reinterpret urban spaces from a new perspective? Might we not be able to bring ourselves closer to the city?

For instance, the "USE-it MAP," a tourist map for young people in Europe, is created based on the daily lives and experiences of locals. Instead of famous tourist spots and hotel information, these maps are based on trivial impressions, experiences, and memories felt while living in the city, reflecting the locals' pride and affection for their city. The reader can experience the city from the locals' perspective, and the creators can feel pride in their city. With such accumulation, each person might begin to perceive urban issues as their own.

After studying urban design at a graduate school in Europe and returning to work in Shibuya, Tokyo, I wanted to recreate this sense of "personalizing the city" in Tokyo as well, building a model while referencing other initiatives.

In 2018, I held a workshop in Shibuya, Tokyo, to create "subjective maps" expressing personal experiences, memories, and sensory impressions. Seeing the unique and wonderfully strange maps created by participants, I reaffirmed the importance of understanding the city through one's own emotions and thoughts.

At the same time, I thought this model of creating "subjective maps" could be applied not only in Shibuya but also in other cities.

Personal lenses for understanding the city

Last month, I had the opportunity to hold a "subjective map" workshop for seminar students at Monterrey Tech's School of Architecture, sponsored by the Mexico-Japan Cultural Center.

Monterrey Tech, a prestigious school in Mexico. The workshop was held on the Puebla campus, a mid-sized city about two hours by car from Mexico City.

The gathered students were 14 undergraduates majoring in architecture. Their seminar instructor was Toshiharu Kawai, a first-class architect based in Kyoto.

The historic downtown of Puebla, damaged by an earthquake a few years ago, has seen little redevelopment and remains deserted. According to the local coordinator, "Recently, no one wants to live there."

So, in the workshop, we attempted to discover and describe the charm of this downtown that no one wants to live in. The students did not analyze the city based on architectural engineering or design theory but reinterpreted the city from personal emotions and memories to create their own prototype of a subjective map.

First, as an icebreaker, we discussed what kind of maps we usually use for what purposes, our favorite maps, and personal episodes related to maps.

Then, we analyzed maps of the downtown area distributed at hotels and tourist information centers in groups. While information about souvenir shops and hotels for tourists was prominent, there was no information about parks, local shops, or walkable streets. Many students pointed out that the presence of pedestrians and residents and the real daily lives of people were missing from official maps.

After the analysis, each student determined their own "perspective" and then went out into the field to create a prototype of a subjective map. The information collected varied among students, such as "the way shadows fall," "my own chill space," "spots where I feel safe," and "the architectural styles and materials of buildings I like."

For example,

• I was interested in the city’s soundscape. The atmosphere changes drastically where there are cars and where there aren’t.
• I realized that the comfort of walking places and uncomfortable streets differ greatly. Thinking about the difference, I found that I am attracted to streets with lots of greenery and just the right amount of shade.
• I unconsciously looked for Instagram-worthy spots while walking.
• Even though it was a short prototype, each student brought their own

Even though it was a short-term prototype, each student brought their unique perspective, and we delved deeply into discussions about "why do we think this way?"

Maps Tell "Stories"

When I tried applying the workshop from Shibuya in the context of Mexico, I was pleasantly surprised by how "similar" it felt.

Of course, the focus varies: in Mexico, many people are concerned with "safety," while in Shibuya, the emphasis is often on "public spaces." However, both contexts demonstrated that creating subjective maps can change how we view the city and reweave the relationship between individuals and their surroundings.

There was also a new realization: what matters is not "what is written" on the maps, but rather training ourselves to cultivate a "critical eye" towards existing spatial representations and experiences.

For example, the French non-profit organization Nomadways which conducts international creative workshops for artists and educators, emphasizes the importance of critical and subjective map-making for social change in their workshop "Subjective Mapping For Social Change."

The maps we usually see are often thought to represent the "truth" of the world, but in reality, they do not. Maps are socially constructed images. Every map has a purpose and tells its own story. Dominant images and discourses significantly influence our perceptions and understandings. This is why the act of creating subjective maps is a method to challenge existing spatial representations and tell different stories (Nomadways 2017).

Researcher Monica Stephens similarly warns that the maps we use daily, believing them to be objective and rational, are actually quite biased.

For example, the Mercator projection maps we commonly see have been criticized for being Eurocentric because they significantly distort the sizes of countries like Africa, South America, and China. Digital maps, which can be updated in real-time, also exhibit significant disparities in accuracy and the information displayed depending on the region. Even Google Maps does not present information rationally; it selectively displays information such as shops based on an individual's past search results.

All maps are edited, and in the process, much is left out. Our perceptions, images, and experiences are heavily influenced by these spatial representations constructed by media and other sources.

Therefore, creating subjective maps that tell our own stories can foster an attachment to the city and serve as a tool to provide alternatives that confront existing spatial representations.

Architecture of decadence

In Havana, I felt confused with the blend of different architectural types, and beautiful yet overwhelming architecture of decadence. Cuba: Architecture and the Social Order helped me to get a gist of Cuban architecture, and understand how they speak of the essence of society from the different time of the history.

Parque Coppelia — the cathedral of ice-cream

If you want to see truly local Cuban architecture, rather than Soviet-influenced concrete boxes, you need to visit Parque Coppelia, Cuba’s socialist ice-cream cathedral. In the 1960s, Fidel Castro created this a state-run ice‑cream parlor as "architecture for people" that came to embody Cuba’s revolutionary ideology.

Beyond Soviet architecture — New identity

We all know what has influenced Cuba the most — the Soviet Union and its communist ideology — and Architecture was not an exception. During 1960-1990, Soviet-style symmetrical concrete buildings spread throughout Cuba allowing for quick and massive constructions. On the other hand, most of the buildings didn't match the requirement of the extreme heat and humidity that is specific to the climate of the island. Also, the style wasn't exactly adapted to the local traditions and identity.

That is why a new wave of local Cuban architecture, which tries to preserve the essence of Cuban design and still maintain the communist ideology of equal society, started to emerge.

Parlor Coppelia, also known as the Cathedral of Ice-cream (what a great name!) is one of the great examples of this new populist ideology of Cuban architecture. The article explains the populist ideology as to “support the rights of the masses and to give power to the people in the struggle against the favored upper class.” Ice-cream is the best way to do so, isn't it??

The Cuban modern architecture is characterized by circular structures and curvilinear forms. Based on this new style, Parlor Coppelia also has a striking circular structure with arched roofs. There are also many window openings to let the natural light and breath in, and its entire structure is quite permeable — everyone would feel welcome in the space.

It is designed as the expression of the Cuban identity and cultural tradition. I like how the interior spaces are connected to the exterior spaces, which makes more sense in the tropical climate of the island and its architectural requirements.

In Parque Coppelia, there are black-and-white pictures of Fidel Castro and architect Mario Girona.

The Cuban architecture might be unsung, but it's interesting to see how architecture is mirrored to its society. The exhibition Cuban Architects at Home and in Exile might be interesting if you want to know more about Cuban architecture.

The impact of global tourism (tourists are now the missing "upper-class" in Cuba) and the effects of aging are gradually but surely testing Cuba's architecture and its identity. That's why we need to hurry up and take a deep look at what they have.

Callejon de Hamel is a moderate size street that is hidden in Cayo Hueso neighborhood, and is one of the main centers of Afro-Cuban culture in Havana. The street is full of open-air galleries and public art pieces, which let you immerse yourself in the Afro-Cuban creativity.

Callejon de Hamel cannot be understood without Salvador González Escalona, the Cuban sculptor and muralist who started transforming this small alley in around 1989. It was very simple how it started — one of the neighbors in the alley asked him to paint the facade of his house. The project then started involving locals and visitors, which eventually turned this street from a slum into a current form — one of the most vibrant destinations to enjoy Afro-Cuban culture. Now, there are many workshops and educational programs for local kids to participate.

The surrounding Cayo Hueso neighborhood once had a notorious reputation due to its poverty. The neighborhood was named after Fernando Belleau Hamel, a US citizen of Franco-German origin, who bought lands there at the early 20th century — he started a business of foundry and hire a large black and Chinese population. Today, it has become a place where the Afro Cuban art is practiced and presented. I highly recommend a visit!

Things to do, places to go

• Obviously High Line — one of New York's finest urban parks and urban planner's dream.

• There’s no place better to appreciate all things Jane Jacobs than New York City! Definitely visit Washington square park and her neighborhood Greenwich Village. In addition, Jane Jacobs’ home still stands today at 555 Hudson Street.

• Open House New York weekend is an annual event to give people access to the extraordinary architecture of New York. Open House New York was founded in 2001 to engage New Yorkers in the city’s architecture, public space, and the future of urban life.

• Domino Park is a 6-acre public park built on the site of the former Domino Sugar Refinery, and it's a great place to hang out.

• Brooklyn Army Terminal was built during World War II, and it used to be the largest military supply base in the country. Now, it's a large renovated warehouse complex in Sunset Park.

• Brooklyn Waterfront Artists is Brooklyn's largest, artist-run organization, and they have an exhibition space you can visit.

• Center for Architecture offers various events and workshops about architecture, city and design. Some of them are even free!

• New York has countless art museums. However, if you want to know more about the city itself (which itself is the most impressive part of all times), visit Museum of the City of New York.

• Walks of New York seem to have some interesting information about self-guided walking tour ideas. I used it when I walked Brooklyn Heights and it worked great.

• The Hole is one of the New York's forgotten neighborhood that is 12 Feet Below Street Level. This is a great article for you to understand more about this neglected neighborhood. Or watch this short video if you are curious how it looks like.

• Brooklyn Navy Yard is a former shipyard and industrial complex located in Brooklyn, which is now used to fuel New York City's economic vitality by supporting modern industrial sector of the city. building 92 is a museum featuring the history & innovation of the Brooklyn Navy Yard. New Lab is a coworking space inside of this facility and is for forward-thinking entrepreneurs.

Read

• Jackson Heights is known to be the most ethnically and culturally diverse neighborhood in the world. The documentary In Jackson Heights depicts the everyday life of people in Jackson Heights, their community, and also their struggle.

• CurbedNY is always very informative.

• Do the Right Thing by Spike Lee is set in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, and the story is about the neighborhood's simmering racial tension. Bed-Stuy street has re-Named 'Do The Right Thing Way' to honor the movie.

• Forgotten New York seems like an interesting website if you are seeking sources to understand the city that is NOT about famous museums and the statue of Liberty.

• Open City by Teju Cole is a great urban novel. The main character walks around the city like "flaneur" — I am quite sure that this book makes you want to walk everywhere in New York.

Organization and initiative

• NYCurbanism explores architecture, urbanism, history, planning and real estate in New York City.

• The Center for Urban Pedagogy (CUP) is a nonprofit organization that uses the power of design and art to increase meaningful civic engagement. It's quite inspiring to see how they collaborate with artists, designers, students, and citizens to increase awareness around urban issues and build communities.

• BMW Guggenheim Lab is a 'traveling' urban think tank/laboratory and community center. Unfortunately, it's not active anymore, but this idea of having a mobile laboratory focusing on urban life inspires me so much!

• youarethecity is an urban research, design and planning practice. I like their bottom-up approach arguing that everybody has an agency in designing cities and urban space.

• Van Alen Institute is an organization that believes design can transform cities, landscapes, and regions to improve people’s lives. Their projects and website are full of inspiration.

• URBAN-X supports startups working with reimagining cities and urban life. It is interesting to see an acceleration program that is specific to urban initiatives. I learned a concept of "urbanist in residence" from here, too.

• Urban Design Forum is an independent membership organization that advances bold solutions to urban challenges.

• Brooklyn Grange farms rooftops is an interesting urban farm project that uses the rooftops.

• A/D/O is a design and creative institute you can visit in Greenpoint, Brooklyn.

• The Lot Radio
  An independent online radio station live streaming 24/7 from a reclaimed shipping container on an empty lot in NYC.

• Collosal Media does hand painted outdoor advertisings. It's interesting to see the relationship between mural arts, urban infrastructure, and industries.

Industry City is the century-old industrial complex located on the waterfront in Sunset Park, Brooklyn. Industry City used to be historic intermodal shipping and manufacturing complex, and it is Brooklyn's another interesting adaptive re-use project.

You can walk through Innovation Alley to check out the various shops, restaurants, and vibrant public spaces in between.

An up-zoning project has recently proposed to create 1.3 million more square feet of new commercial and industrial space. The locals of Sunset Park hope that the neighborhood may not become another gentrified area like SoHo, Dumbo and countless other New York neighborhoods.

A little bit about the history

Founded in the early 1900s, Industry City was once called Bush Terminal, the largest multi-tenant industrial property in the United States back then. Bush Terminal was even used as a United States Navy base during World War I, until it returned back to private ownership after the war.

Today, Industry City comprises roughly 35 acres (14 ha) of the former Bush Terminal. It's comprised of 16 former factory buildings with a mix of the industrial, educational and commercial spaces, and has been under large-scale renovation since 2011.

Fear of gentrification in Sunset Park

Industry City is the largest privately owned industrial complex in New York City, and it keeps expanding.

Each building and alley has different themes and design.

Jamestown, the developer that owns Chelsea Market, bought a 50 percent stake in the 16-building complex in 2013. Subsequently, it has been announced in 2017 that Industry City will be upzoning its campus as well as having $1 billion plan to reshape the property. When I was there, some of the buildings look still empty and under construction — but there will be more hotels, offices, shops to be built for the next few years.

This proposed expansion seem to make the local residents fearful that Sunset Park will be another example of gentrification, which is already engulfing many neighborhoods in New York City.

It's easy to drink the Kool-Aid when you visit those "innovative" spots. Cool, affordable, low-key vibe, young and vibrant — these places are surely impressive and fun to be at. Though, I believe it's always important to be a little bit more critical and pay attention to what locals have to say.

• Reference: As Industry City gears up for rezoning, locals question who will benefit

Jackson Heights is a neighborhood in the northwestern part of Queens, New York. It is known to be the most culturally diverse neighborhood in the United State, where 167 languages are spoken.

I've always been curious about the concept of "diversity" and how it affects our cities. Naturally, I became interested in Jackson Heights and people's everyday lives there, especially after I watched the documentary about this neighborhood.

Frederick Wiseman's documentary In Jackson Heights (2015) depicts the various everyday lives and conflicts within the neighbourhood — from a Muslim school, a Jewish cultural center, LGBT communities, a City Council office, to the local headquarters of Make the Road New York, an organization to empower immigrants and working class communities.

You can find all kinds of cuisine from all over the world in Roosevelt Avenue.

In 1916, Jackson Heights was originally developed as a place for middle- to upper-middle income workers from Manhattan to raise their families. After the Great Depression, however, the apartments became more affordable and various types of people started moving in.

LGBT communities from Broadway theaters started to move into the area, and in the 1960s, newly immigrated residents came into Jackson Heights. Many of the original residents left the area for suburbs due to white flight. During the 1980s, Jackson Heights was heavily Colombian, but other immigrant groups have settled, such as Mexican, Indian, and Pakistanis.

Jackson Heights is now home to various immigrant groups including Colombian, Ecuadorian, Argentinian, Indians, Pakistanis, Tibetans, Nepalese, and Bangladeshis. It's quite fascinating to see the depth of the historical layers of Jackson Heights, and how different communities have moved to Jackson Heights throughout the history and change the cultures and demographics of the neighborhood. And it keeps changing even now.

"Keep Jackson Heights Beautiful"

The documentary In Jackson Heights also captures dynamic local politics, where a new wave of investments and newcomers gradually started to take over the neighborhood, "amid creeping gentrification."

Jackson Heights enjoys its great location — reasonable access to Manhattan — and the rich diverse culture and affordable housing price offer great potential for new development in the future. It's worth paying attention to who is moving in and who suffer from displacement during the new wave of gentrification. I recommend you to visit there to experience the chaotic, yet beautiful mix of cultures, ethnicities, languages, and people's everyday lives.

▼ Link to the article:
https://worldarchitecture.org/architecture-news/epepn/this-japanese-architecture-studio-is-planning-the-urban-mobility-revolution-of-housings.htmlsampo

▼ World Architecture Community
http://worldarchitecture.org/

Things to do, places to go

• It's been said that Chicago's Neighborhood Parks is one of the 10 parks that changed America. In the late 19C, the two designers Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux executed that vision in a system of smaller neighborhood parks that serve better for immigrants and working-class people in Chicago.

• Downtown Chicago is beautiful — but once you take the stairs to go down to the ground, you see the completely different landscape of underground space of the city. There are hidden restaurants and bars & clubs, and it's quite fun for urban adventurers.

• It's quite interesting to learn how Chicago sold one of its skyways to the private sector. Chicago sold the Chicago Skyway for $1.8 billion

Read

• Curbed Chicago has great maps to get the gist of the city.

• This essay depicts a personal sense of place in a beautiful and delicate manner, and it's about Chicago.
  Where I’m (Not) From Becoming and un-becoming in a city that defies definition

Overall, I think these videos are the best introduction for urbanists;

Chicago and St. Louis Compared by Mr. Beat

▼ Link to the article:
https://worldarchitecture.org/architecture-news/epeff/chidoribunka-a-new-community-space-by-dot-architects.html

▼ World Architecture Community
http://worldarchitecture.org/

In August 2018, the Indonesian island of Lombok has been shaken by two strong earthquakes. After weeks of tremors, it was reported that hundreds of people got killed during the disaster. After the event, I talked with Puspitaningtyas Sulistyowati, a community architect who is based in Indonesia. With ARKOM Jogja, she is currently working on building shelters for the victims of the earthquake.

First of all, could you explain your background a little bit?

Puspitaningtyas: I did my BA in architecture and MA in urban design at ITS (Institut Teknologi Sepuluh Nopember) in Surabaya, Indonesia. When I was in the third year of my bachelor degree, I got to know a concept and practice of “Community Architecture” by ARKOM Jogja, which leads to my current career. I had worked in an architectural studio for 2 years after graduation, and afterward, I started to focus more seriously on Community Architecture.

What exactly is Community Architecture?

Puspitaningtyas: Community Architecture is not only about making buildings as physical forms but also about “building communities”. Architecture, in this process, is just one of the mediums to communicate with people, especially marginalized ones.

We do various things to understand and work together with communities, such as organizing events and workshops. We invite people from a community to participate, and often we ask them to sketch & take photos of their community — their houses, streets, their everyday lives, and things they care about... We select these sketches & photos, and eventually exhibit them to the public. Through these activities, by focusing on a positive aspect and values of communities, we help them to build their own Kampong* (*Kampong means ‘a village’ in Indonesia*)

Could you tell me why urban sketch is important?

Puspitaningtyas: In 2016, I got involved in an urban research program by an independent library and coworking community in Surabaya called C2O library & collabtive. We decided to use sketches as a tool to present my research data that was about the space of women's activities inside kampung Ampel.

Knowing how useful sketches could be to communicate with others and deliver information, I used urban sketch methodology in my community architecture practice called “ARKOM Jatim” in Railway Settlement in Sidotopo, Surabaya. We invited people from a community in Surabaya to create sketches and take pictures that represent their kampung. After that, all sketches and photographs were exhibited and used as tools for a community to define and understand their kampung. I do urban sketching for myself, too. It is like a letter for me. It is about documenting, and deeply understanding what is around us in cities.

What kind of project are you working on at the moment?

Puspitaningtyas: Two months ago, two earthquakes struck Lombok. There are still aftershocks, and a lot of people are suffering from this disaster. We’ve been working on creating temporary shelters for those who lost their homes. Through the method of community architecture with a people-driven approach, we’ve built 8 — 10 shelters so far together with people within a community.

During this project, we don’t make everything FOR them. Rather, we build things WITH them. We only make architectural models by consulting with local communities and understanding their needs. Based on the models we create, we build together with people from a community. In this way, they can learn how to make these shelters, and eventually be able to duplicate them by themselves without our help.

We also learn from how they make these buildings — so that we can constantly update our models for further improvement. We also use materials that are sustainable and accessible within a community. For instance, in the current project, we try to get the best use of local timber and bamboo.

Of course, building shelters is just a beginning of our goal. After the earthquakes, they eventually need to have permanent houses and rebuild the community. Currently We are also working in a city of Palu which was attacked by multiple disasters: earthquakes, tsunami, and liquefaction.

What is the challenges of working with communities?

Puspitaningtyas: Working with them is like being on a roller coaster. They are humans! It’s not like working with PC, so there are a lot of things that we wouldn’t expect. We need to learn how to communicate with them and understand them, understanding their own situation and background.

Sometimes they don’t see that there is a problem in their community. Sometimes it’s just part of their normal everyday lives — It’s hard to make them realize that they are facing some problems.

But it’s not only us telling them what’s right and what’s wrong. We also learn a lot from them too! Their local knowledge, culture and lifestyle patterns are very rich resources for architects to understand what kind of places people need and desire. Communities always have a lot to say — so just talk to them, and become their friend!

Thank you for sharing your thoughts!

Puspitaningtyas Sulistyowati is a community architect based in Indonesia. She is also passionate about urban sketch. You can check her illustrations here and instagram

You simply can't leave Montréal without checking out Habitat 67. This famous apartment buildings of the 1960s were ambitious, a government-sponsored attempt at reimagining the future of apartment living. It was designed by the Israeli-Canadian architect Moshe Safdie for Montréal’s world Expo in 1967.

A functioning icon of 1960s utopianism

Until the visit, I didn't realize that Habitat 67 echoes with Metabolism — Japanese post-war architectural movement. Of course, it has some similarities with Tokyo’s Nakagin Capsule Tower, for instance, that are constructed with 140 removable capsules. These buildings are designed with interconnected webs of prefabricated cells of concrete.

Habitat 67 is coming back as Habitat 2.0

Now, there is not so much more to say about HHabitat 67 here, it is interesting to know that we are expecting its comeback very soon in Toronto. After the 50th anniversary of Habitat 67, Bjarke Ingels of BIG is planning Habitat 2.0 in downtown Toronto — King Street West. The project is currently is now going through the city’s approval process.

A model of Habitat 2.0 is being exhibited at Unzipped Toronto, Bjarke Ingels’s Serpentine Pavilion, at Kings Street in Toronto.

Although the resemblance is obvious with pixelated-looking blocks, instead of being an experimental utopia in an isolated island that is far from downtown Montréal (it is true, it is rather hard to get there), a proposed site for Habitat 2.0 is in the heart of downtown Toronto.

Instead of cherishing the old masterpieces as static, never-updating artifacts, it is always fascinating to see how architectural visions and philosophy (or we can even call it "ideology") sometimes unexpectedly come back to the present.

You can check the detailed plan and images of Habitat 2.0 here.

Is it permitted to take photos of Habitat 67 for personal and non-commercial use. However Habitat 67 is a private property, so respect its residents.

Reference

• Habitat 2.0: Moshe Safdie’s iconic Canadian complex makes a comeback

Although Toronto has many great examples of making the best use of old industrial buildings, such as 401 Richmond and the Distillery District, I feel like Evergreen Brick Works stands out the most with its scale and vision for cities of the future.

"The skyline of Toronto spells Don Valley Product"

Evergreen Brick Works is located in the Don River Valley, and as the name suggests, it used to be a brickworks factory. Opened in 1889, the brickworks operated for almost 100 years. It is not too much to say that most of the well-known Toronto landmarks are constructed by using the brinks that were created here.

After the closure of the factory, the site has been converted into a community and cultural center by non-profit organization Evergreen, surrounded by a large, beautiful city park. Opened its doors in 2010, It is a place to learn & experience green, environmentally sustainable design and practices for cities in the future.

Children's Garden in Evergreen Brick Works

Ravines define Toronto

During the early 20th century, this area was largely neglected, and adjacent ravines were used as landfills for garbage and industrial refuse. Now, the city of Toronto has been working on revitalizing the area, putting the focus on the city's neglected ravine spaces.

Description panel that explains how important ravines are to Toronto. Evergreen Brick Works is like a museum — you can walk around and read these stories everywhere on the site.

In Toronto, ravine system is undoubtly one of the most distinctive geographical features that characterises the city, and it is also the site of the city's recent strategic focus to create ecological services and recreation opportunities. So of course, it is not a coincidence that they have the low carbon hub for green design in this location in Don Valley.

The park section of the Brick Works is managed by the City of Toronto, and you can take a walk and embrace the nature of the city. This lookout is only about 20 mins away from the Welcome Centre by foot. Check out a map here

There are always events and workshops you can participate throughout a week

Just Imagine Toronto coexisting with a great diversity of wildlife species. Cities are getting bigger worldwide, but it doesn't mean that we can stop thinking about the nature — in fact, it is very crucial, and obviously Toronto seems to know that. If you're an urbanist who is curious about ecological sustainability and biodiversity in/with cities, I'd recommend to check out Evergreen Brick Works immediately.

Pointe-Saint-Charles is historically a working-class area. By the 1860s the neighborhood became busy with industrial works — numerous working-class families moved in, including Irish immigrants and French-Canadians.

The neighborhood went into a long decline in the 1960s. However, it has recently regained its popularity and they have been various new construction of housing units and condominiums, including renovation projects of industrial buildings like Bâtiment 7.

Building 7 is located on the former grounds of the Canadian National Railway Company, and was acquired by the neighborhood community after years of struggle. In 2005, the railway company sold the land to a developer as a part of a project that involves the relocation of Casino de Montréal. As a result, there was a huge counter movement organized by the local community to fight against the project. After long years of counteraction, they finally managed to take over the building for a major makeover, that is now self-managed by the community and open to the public.

Their goal is to address the absence of some very basic services in the neighborhood. In Bâtiment 7, there are offices, project spaces, workshops and event spaces that are open to the community — all of them to encourage social interaction and collaboration. I especially liked a not-for-profit neighborhood grocery store Le Détour in the building, which is run by volunteers to provide affordable food in a neighborhood often called "food desert".

If you ever visit Montreal and are curious about self-managed community space in the city, don't hesitate to spend some time to give them a visit!

The Distillery District is one of the most popular sites of Toronto to visit, both for tourists and locals. This district comprises more than 40 heritage buildings of the former Gooderham and Worts Distillery, and it is known as the largest collection of Victorian-era industrial architecture in North America.

Now, after the very recent urban renewal project, it has transformed into a mix of a commercial and residential district. How to preserve heritage sites while making it livable and suitable for today's needs is a kind of question that all planners and architects need to face anywhere in the world. Just like other heritage sites, revitalization of the Distillery District stirs up a debate.

The national historic site, Toronto's heritage treasure

In the 1860s, the Distillery District was home to the Gooderham and Worts distillery, which was the largest distillery in the world by the late 1860s.

Just imagine a ton of whiskey being produced and exported to the world from here back in the days. The area was not only an industrial center but also an important transshipping hub, having a connection to the rest of Canada and the world.

Of course, the district got left derelict after the deindustrialization — but has been protected under the Ontario Heritage Act since 1976.

So here's what happened.

Even though it has been protected by the Heritage act, the economic recession of the early 1990s resulted in the construction of two residential condominium buildings on the periphery of the district during the late 1990s. In 2001, the site was purchased by Cityscape Holdings Inc., and there are more condominium buildings coming in. You can read the recent debates over the new development here.

Personally, this is not the most harmonious combination in terms of design and density. But how would I know what's right or not.

Aside from the condominiums, the land use has changed a lot since the industrial age. Now it is mixed-use land, including a combination of land uses such as commercial, residential, entertainment facilities, and art galleries; it is now a place to live, work, play and consume, rather than industrial.

What is a right way?

Any revitalization development on an industrial site raises a question about how to balance heritage preservation with our 21 century needs — density, mixed-use, etc. It is obviously always a never-ending question and there is no absolute solution for it. But at least we can visit these sites and good examples to feel, experience, and keep questioning to ourselves how we want past and present to coexist.

"Jane and Finch may not be the best-planned community. Blame the ’crats who put pen to paper back in the 60s." — ENZO DIMATTEO, 9 things we love about Jane-Finch

Jane and Finch is a neighborhood located in the northwest end of Toronto, Ontario. The neighborhood is known as the most ethnoculturally diverse neighborhood in Canada, and it has often been stigmatized as a ghetto.
A few months ago Minister Michael Tibollo visited the neighborhood and made comments which they believe "perpetuate negative stereotypes about the community"(see this newsreport).

I am personally interested in culturally diverse neighborhoods in cities and how many of them suffer from spatial discrimination, stereotypes, and stigmatization. I couldn't take many pictures there, but if you are an urbanist, take a moment to visit Jane and Finch — it is not the best-planned neighborhood, but it has its charm. You can take a look at the inside of Jane and Finch mall, which is very vibrant. Other visitor information can be found here Jane-Finch.com.

Moreover, if you are serious about knowing more about this kind of diverse, multicultural communities and its challenges, I'd recommend watching a documentary about Jane and Finch: Home Feeling: Struggle for a Community by Jennifer Hodge & Roger McTair.

It is an urgent planning concern, too — In Toronto, there are some similar neighborhoods such as Regent Park, which went through massive revitalization recently. What do these communities want and how can planners tackle the issue of spatial discrimination and stigmatization, without applying a top-down revitalization approach? Prof. Mohammed Abdul Qadeer from Queen University wrote a book about Multicultural Planning. We can start visiting these neighborhoods instead of talking about them, and see the everyday life of local inhabitant.

If you are an urbanist who is especially into technologies, smart cities, and citizen participation, you probably would have heard of Sidewalk Lab already. This increasingly famous urban innovation hub is part of Google's parent company Alphabet, and has been working on Toronto’s Eastern Waterfront to tackle the challenges of urban growth.

They just launched a new experimental hub and office space that is also open to the public, so of course, I went there to take a look.

Place to experiment, and gather feedback from local citizens

307, named simply after the address of the building, used to be a parking lot and fish processing plant. The design is made by Lebel and Bouliane, and a Montréal-based interaction design studio Daily tous les jours (I've been a fan of this studio for a long time!) for the identity of the space.

They explain that fundamental to their process is co-creation. It feels like this philosophy is spatially represented everywhere in 307 — there are many feedback boards and sticky notes in the space that you can leave your comments behind.

One of the staffs explained to me that they are eagerly collaborating with local organizations and citizens. Sidewalk Lab is in American tech company after all — being an "outsider" and non-architecture professional makes it more important to work together with local brains and make itself accessible to everyone in Toronto.

Place to prototype, in collaboration with local organizations

The first thing to notice when you walk into 307 is the Dynamic Street Prototype design by Carlo Ratti Associati and The Plan Your Neighbourhood prototype by KPFUI, which you can be part of and walk through with an iPad. There are many other models and data analyses tools that have been developed to help to tackle the local challenges of Waterfront.

Visitors can explore these tools and prototype exhibitions to understand various design choices and evaluate planning practices. It's definitely worth exploring these tangible prototypes to have more clear imagination about the future of waterfront and give them feedback.

Toronto's Waterfront is changing dynamically, as many of the major cities in the world are. There have been various development plans that include a lot of condominiums and business infrastructure, such as Sugar Wharf Condos that aims to attract tech/creative start-ups and incubators to the city. What is always challenging and often neglected in these developments is an ability to listen to local citizens, and carefully tackle local challenges in collaboration with various organizations from different sectors. I'm very excited to see how the future of Waterfront Toronto would look like, and what role Sidewalk Lab would play.

Sidewalk Toronto has various public lectures, open programs, and workshops that you can take part in. I would highly recommend to visit 307 on those occasions, or simply drop by to see what is up during opening hours.

There are some successful urban projects that turned ugly urban underpasses into fun, functioning public parks in North America. The Bentway in Toronto is a brand new 1.75 km linear park underneath the Gardiner Expressway through Toronto's Fort York neighborhood, and it's worth visiting!

Elevated highways and rail lines for adaptive reuse

Many North American cities are now facing a question of what to do with their ugly wasted space regarding highways and rail lines — some created urban parks, some completely removed/ing freeways entirely. Since High Line opened in Manhattan in 2009, industrial reuse of highways and rail lines became one of the hottest topics for creative development.

It is amazing to check out how cities are converting their much-hated past into something positive — The Bentway is now a community gathering place, with occasional community events and activities. It's also great for just taking a walk with your dog and have an urban picnic. Who would have thought that we would be enjoying Sunday beer garden at ugly underpasses someday?

The Bentway is located in a historically important neighborhood in Toronto — Fort York National Historic Site. This is where the British Army and Canadian militia troops built the fort in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, in order to defend the new settlement and capital of the Upper Canada region from the threat of a military attack. It was designated a National Historic Site in 1923.

The Bentway successfully integrates this historic site to the rest of the city, inviting people to walk through and giving them space to organize multiple activities. Usually, these large scale projects are highly complex and deal with different stakeholders, different sources of funding, and a variety of interests. Yet, seems like they've done a successful job for the Bentway and I can't wait to see how the future involves for this site.

“Old ideas can sometimes use new buildings. New ideas must use old buildings.” – Jane Jacobs, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, 1961.

I don't know how to describe the joy I felt when I found the entrance to 401 Richmond Building for the first time during my late afternoon walk in the Fashion district in Toronto.

With a very modest, hidden look of the entrance, 401 Richmond Building is definitely heaven for people with creative, artistic spirits. This building of 4 stories at the corner of Spadina and Richmond in the heart of the Fashion District is full of galleries, offices for small startups, studio space, and other creativity-inspiring nooks. Most importantly, it's open to the public. You can just walk in and explore the building and get the inspiration battery charged right away.

At the entrance, you can check the number of artists, designers, social innovators, and non-profit organizations at 401 Richmond

A renovated historical warehouse

According to their detailed history description on their webpage, this 200,000 square foot structure was originally the site of the Macdonald Manufacturing Company, widely known as the first and finest manufacturer of tin lithography in Canada. Opened in 1884, the factory served well for the company even during the stock market crash and following the depression years. Later in 1944, The Continental Can Company of Canada took over the company —a lot of cans were produced with the work of expert craftsmen at 401 Richmond!

Each floor has a different character, and you can find art pieces and small exhibitions on the corridors.

Shortly after the takeover though, there was a strike which eventually brought about the closure of the factory in 1967. The manufacturer moved to different locations in the suburbs, and up until 1994, the building was neglected. It was a hard time for the neighborhood itself, when most of the industry moved out to the suburbs and building vacancy increased.

There is a beautiful courtyard in the middle, and rooftop terrace on top. Thier gardens is an oasis.

And of course, the spirits of Jane Jacobs is here.

Then what happened? A gamechanger was Margie Zeidler — who studied architecture at the University of Toronto and was influenced by our hero Jane Jacobs, an extraordinary urban thinker and visionary, during her student years. Thanks to Zeidler and people who shared the vision with her, 401 Richmond was purchased and saved from demolition.

One of the major obstacles for renovating old buildings is zoning. However, by 1996, parts of the prohibitive zoning restrictions were lifted, which permits some new developments and investments to happen in the area. They then gradually moved their way towards the current shape of 401 Richmond, inviting small organizations and companies with a focus on arts, culture, social innovations, and other creative initiatives. The tenants are carefully curated to create vibrant, diverse environment that fosters both business and creativity.

When you walk around 401 Richmond of today, you can feel the spirit of Jane Jacobs everywhere, in every detail. She fought for the need for diversity within a community, and places for people. What would Jane Jacobs do? is still accurate, and even urgent question to ask in our time today.

Places to go, projects to check out

• The project initiatives by Waterfront Toronto and Sidewalk Lab is probably one of the hottest urban issues in Toronto right now. They are testing some of the Google-affiliate’s plans to develop a long list of futuristic “smart city” innovations with some new urban technologies.

• The Bentway is an interesting & innovative public space project under the Gardiner Expressway in Toronto. Monocle’s podcast The Urbanist has an episode about this place — check it out!

• You can check Urban Toronto Development Map and see all the development plans on a map. You can filter the map by buiidling status, building type and developer. It's a great tool to imagine what the future of Toronto would like.

Read

• blogTO is a great daily source for local news and culture, restaurant reviews, event. They have great neighbourhood guide, too.

• The Exposed City: Mapping the Urban Invisibles is a book for all the map lovers. The author is from the University of Toronto, and it focuses on urban elements that are invisible to the human eye.

• The very unique Canadian magazine Spacing that covers urban affairs in the country, of course, has a brunch in Toronto. Spacing Toronto is a great introducing and a daily information resource for urbanists.

• If you love arts — Canadian Art is the preeminent platform for journalism and criticism about art and culture in Canada.

• OldTO (Old Toronto) is an open-source map tool created by above mentioned Sidewalk Labs. It provides block-by-block browsing of historic Toronto photographs. It's a great way to gather scattered memories to a communal platform.

Organization

• Global Cities Institute is initiated by the University of Toronto in the Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape and Design. It deals with various urban data to calculate, analyze and visualize in order to seek for alternative and progressive forms of urbanization.

• A non-profit applied research organization The Canadian Urban Institute has a variety of programs and educational events to join, with is developed around the theme of healthy urban development.

• If you have graduated from a Masters, LLB, JD or Ph.D. program within the last three years,Toronto Urban Fellows by the city of Toronto could be your next very interesting career path.

• Myseum of Toronto is not like a regular museum — it’s every place in the city. You can participate Myseum programs all year long at exhibits, online, and at pop-up events around the city. I like it when they say "You are the “my” in Myseum", meaning that we can share our own stories, ideas, arts and music with them!

The other day I've participated in a walking tour which had a quite unique catchphrase — "Vancouver's Worst Zoning?". The event was organized by Abundant Housing Vancouver, which is a pro-housing group that supports additional housing of all types in Metro Vancouver.

I live in an area called Kitsilano, which is a relatively low-density residential neighborhood with a fantastic location bonus of being close to the beaches and parks, UBC, and even downtown. According to this zoning map, this area I currently live in is largely zoned as the Two-Family Dwelling Districts. However, recently the landlady and my roommates have passionately started talking about the city's re-zoning plan which might hugely effect this peaceful neighborhood. Why does zoning matter that much?

The thing is, zoning explains a lot about how our cities work and how urban planning affects our everyday living. that's why the event was quite successful, in a way that lets people pay attention to statistics, demography and the density, city regulations, and understand why certain forms of urban environment are created in specific ways.

One of the abandoned lots

We gathered at West Point Grey neighborhood, where the members of Abundant Housing Vancouver claim as one of the places of "Vancouver's worst zoning". This area is zoned RS-1, One-Family Dwelling, which itself is not uncommon. However, according to them, the city requires a minimum lot area to be 12,000 to 18,000 square feet in this area, which is more than 4 times larger than the medium lot size for a house in Vancouver.

Housing crisis is real in Vancouver.

A new survey finds that 90% of residents agree there’s a housing crisis in Metro Vancouver. Housing affordability is at a critical level, which makes Vancouver the most expensive housing market in the country.

On the other hand, I was quite surprised when I learned that multiple dwelling apartments are illegal on 76% of Vancouver's residential land. It means that the MAJOR parts of the city have the potential to supply relatively affordable, multi-family housings for more people, but the city is simply failing it.

Construction of another single-house family housing

On the tour, they explained that they believe building more housing is part of the solution to the housing crisis in Vancouver, and zoning for expensive, low-density housing (cough — such as the West Point Grey neighborhood) is part of the problem. If we can build more multiple dwelling apartments on 76% of Vancouver's residential land, we have more affordable space for everyone.

Check the statistics and maps!

Let's look at more statistics. According to 2016 Census, there are only 402 people living in West Point Grey neighborhood — Land per person is app. 16,362 square feet in West Point Grey neighborhood, and app. 465 square feet in West End. Wow.

Moreover, they told us about this interactive map by MountainMath Maps(this website is AWESOME by the way, if you're interested in data and spatial analytics of Vancouver in general) is quite informative with a variety of visualization of Metro Vancouver's housing data. Just check the relative land value of each residential blocks in the city, and then change the map type to tax density — and wow, you should notice that there are some discrepancies. West Point Grey neighborhood, especially, has very low tax revenues per square meter of land, which is also part of a problem. The city is not even making the best out of it.

(This map shows tax density by heights, not by colors, so it might be easier to compare)

How can we deal with re-zoning better?

Rezoning changes how urban properties can be used or developed. Property owners can apply for rezoning, and they have the power to support development objectives. Of course, upzoning and building more and more apartments do not simply solve the deep‐rooted housing crisis of the city, and there are many concerns by current residents that upzoning might destroy a character and charm of a neighborhood.

That's why we can't jump to a simple, short-term solution. However, as the walking tour by Abundant Housing Vancouver taught us, there are many lessons to be learned by understanding zoning, and how problematic it can be when a city is not doing anything to make it better.

Additional resources to check out:

• VanMap is an online map provided by the city in which you can check property lines and assessed values, zoning districts, amenities, and services etc.

• If you are curious about how the West Point Grey neighborhood would look like, Corbie Fieldwalker Studio made some short films about abandoned multi-million housings in the area — such as Belmont Avenue | $25.8 Million

It is a series profiling interesting urban projects, reading lists, initiatives, and places for urbanists to get the gist of what is happening in a city at a glance. Email me if you, or someone you know, wants to introduce about your city!

The content of this post was curated and written by a talented architect Puspitaningtyas Sulistyowati with deep local knowledge and passion. Follow her website here and instagram

Places to go, projects to check out

• Kota Gede is an old town settlement area and the former-Mataram Kingdom. Here, you can find an old mosque built in Mataram era, called Great Mosque Kotagede Mataram. There is a mix of many types of building here, from Kalang House to Colonial style. Check out some workshop by a talented silversmith from Selaka Kota Gede and take your chance to buy or (if you lucky) make a beautiful silver-craft by yourself.

• Malioboro street is famous for street markets. Along this street, there are also many old buildings and attractions — I highly recommend a visit.

• You can find many interesting cafés and bars along the Prawirotaman street. This is a popular place not only for locals, but for foreigners, too.

• Taman sari is a complex of old royal bathing place surrounded by old kampung, where the royal servant families used to live.

• Artjog is a big art event that happens everywhere in Yogyakarta to feature talented artists. This event held yearly, and the next event will be 25 July — 25 August 2019. Don't miss it!

• YATS.Colony is a new unique hotel designed by a local architect. Try to spend at least a night here.

• Bumi Pemuda Rahayu is a cultural and community center, located in Gunung Kidul area, close to Pinus forest and Bukit Bintang. Every program or event supports community development of this area, and there is also a community bamboo crafter group. Check more information on Bumi Pemuda Rahayu Projects

• Meet this inspirational barista whose name is Mas Pepeng, the owner of Klinik kopi. He supports local coffee farmers to develop better quality products and sell their products in his shop. This coffee shop has a unique style of service — manual brew and direct service with a barista. No wifi connection here, so you can spend the time chatting and meeting with people. Follow their Instagram here.

Read

• Find interesting contemporary art events and places around Yogyakarta here — Yogyakarta Contemporary Art Map is easy to read and fun to use!

• Read this article and learn more about lively Kota Gede.

Organization

• Arkom jogja is a community architect network in Yogyakarta. They build not only physical things but also focus on building the community. Follow their instagram and learn more about their projects such as reconstruction acts after a disaster, community urban planning, community heritage conservation, and developing local techniques and materials.

• Paguyuban Kalijawi is a grassroots organization that lives along the riverside of Winongo river and Gajah Wong river. They have built some bamboo-made community centers and infrastructure for their members’ kampung. Follow their Instagram here.

• KUNCI is an organization center with a focus on art and cultural studies.

• Via Via focuses on cultural and tourism issue in Yogyakarta.

• YYAF is Yogyakarta's Young Architect Forum.

Komagata Maru incident

The monument made by steel panels blends well into its green surrounding landscape. It simulates the ships hull, and it includes the curved names of all the passengers denied entry

The Komagata Maru incident was one of the most notorious incidents in the history of early 20th century Canada, which is part of exclusionary laws that were designed to keep out immigrants of Asian origin from the country.

Komagata Maru was a 55 steam liner — it arrived at Vancouver port with 376 passengers from Punjab, India, seeking to immigrate to Canada.

Most of the passengers were not allowed to land in Canada and the ship was forced to return. It has been argued and recognized as the epitome of Canada's racist past. In the memorial, you can get a historical narrative of the incident, and imagine their despair with the cascading waves of Vancouver’s harbor.

History comes along

More than a full century after the incident, Komagata Maru's story is still relevant though. A friend of mine who was with me at the memorial told me about [MV Sun Sea incident](MV Sun Sea incident) — MV Sun Sea is a cargo ship that brought 492 Sri Lankan Tamils into British Columbia in 2010. They escaped from Sri Lankan Civil War, but the Conservative government at the time took an aggressive stance, in order to prevent future “irregular arrivals".

Today, the vessel is still afloat alongside moored on the Fraser River across from Fisheries & Oceans Canada in BC. History does come along in a very harsh way, that's why it matters that we remember.

Lord Strathcona School, built in 1897

The Principal's House

Every summer, Regulatory Authority The Architectural Institute of British Columbia (AIBC) offers Architectural Walking Tours featuring six Vancouver and three Victoria neighborhoods, to engage and educate participants about the value of architecture and built environment and its integral role within society.

With a knowledgeable guide from AIBC, I joined a tour that featured Strathcona neighborhood to learn about its historical
value.

Strathcona is a neighborhood of residential houses and apartment buildings, bordered by Chinatown to the west, and Canadian National Railway and Great Northern Railway classification yards to the south.

Since the city's founding in 1886 until 1920, the population of Strathcona grew significantly, as its convenient location as a railway terminus. Strathcona has always been a working-class neighborhood, and it has been known by its diverse residents from many ethnic backgrounds. For instance, Hogan’s Alley, the nucleus of Vancouver’s first concentrated black community, was located at the southwestern edge of Strathcona (Watch this video to learn more).

In Strathcona, the majority of residents speak Chinese

Fight against a massive redevelopment scheme of public housing

In the 1950s, City planners earmarked Strathcona for demolition as part of a massive urban renewal program to build public housing — the redevelopment would have wiped out most of the historical unique buildings in the neighborhood, introducing new block upon block of identical apartments buildings and townhouses. It also included a plan for creating an inner city freeway, which would have destructed some parts of Gastown and Chinatown. (I am glad that the plan was ultimately stopped — However, construction of the first phase demolished part of Hogan’s Alley — a heart of black community (check Black Strathcona).

One of the residential house that was featured during the tour

Strathcona residents mobilized in opposition. They argued for the retention and renovation of the area's eclectic mix of housing but by the time the redevelopment proposals were shelved 15 blocks of the neighborhood had already been demolished. In 1968, the community convinced federal, provincial and municipal governments to support a $5 million rehabilitation project that included homes, street and sidewalk repairs, and the creation of new parks.

They managed to demolish some blocks of the neighborhood — however, the massive renewal plan itself was called off thanks to opposition from the community, led by residents.

Restoration and heritage registration created a beautiful eclectic mix of housings

In 1968, they succeeded to convince the government to a $5 million rehabilitation project, in order to restore homes, street, sidewalk, and parks.

Now, Strathcona has one of the largest concentrations of 19th and early 20th century buildings in Vancouver, with a unique mix of architectural styles. Some of them are almost 100 years old and are registered as heritage buildings.

You can take a walk in the neighborhood, observing some unique old houses. There is usually a sign if a building is registered as a heritage, which in some cases has been supported by grants from the "Restore It!" program from Vancouver Heritage Foundation.

One of the restored buildings — it has decorative garages in respect of its original shape and feature

Styles range from famous Vancouver special to large "Queen Anne" homes decorated with elaborate brackets and shingle work.

It's been said that Strathcona has been subjected to a significant gentrification process in recent years, due to housing stock restoration is raising property values. This process might completely change the demography of residents in the neighborhood, attracting wealthier house owners. Strathcona is still in the process of change — that is why it is very interesting to go a little bit further than downtown, to check out one of the unique neighborhoods in Vancouver now.

Reference:

• City of Vancouver

I visited Friends of Waterfront in Seattle last month to learn about the future of Seattle's waterfront. They are already in a phase of implementing their concrete action plan, explaining it to citizens and having them involved.

It seems like Seattle is not the only one in the game of reimagining its urban waterfront though. While it is still a phase of calling for a comprehensive plan, Vancouver also has been talking about the future of their waterfront.

The other day, there was SFU City Conversations by SFU Public Square to have a conversation about the Waterfront with citizens.

The Georgia Strait Alliance recently published a report that summarizes the current state/potential of the Waterfront.
The report is a great piece of work, and, in my opinion, worth reading.

The Waterfront Initiative has been an exercise since 2013 — they have been spending 5 years in facilitating broad stakeholder conversation and networking. Their goal is to manage the interface between land and sea and have a great waterfront like in the New York City and other cities. The report focuses on five key themes — working, living, access to nature, ecosystems, and transportation.

At the open-air conversation that took place in a public park just steps away from the Burrard inlet, the expats spoke only about 20 mins — the rest of the time was dedicated to participants; citizens. The conversation went from swim-ability of the water, the leadership of the redevelopment initiative, and ironically, lack of conversation between expats and citizens to create a big vision together.

If you are interested in Waterfront development in other cities, I would recommend keeping an eye on the process of how the discussion would develop in Vancouver from now on. All the waterfront is different, obviously, but we can learn from a process itself about how we build a comprehensive plan from scratch with help of citizens.

• Read the report summary

• Read the full report

Industrial heritage and a place for people

Up until the late 1970s, Granville Island was a mere industrial wasteland, nestled under the Granville Street Bridge on False Creek.

Granville Island was completed in 1916, using material dredged from False Creek. It was to create 41 acres of land to be used by industry, and over 40 years various factories thrived on the island while the city of Vancouver grew around it.

Old pictures from the past, spotted on a building window

What happened then? A same old story —in the 1960s, many of the industries began to move out due to changing market. The remaining were left dirty, and the land was heavily contaminated. You can check some pictures from the old days here.

In 1973, The Canadian government assigned the Island to the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) for the management and redevelopment of the land, and this is when all the urban development started that shapes the island as it is now.

It was agreed between The Canadian government and CMHC that the Granville Island would become a "people place", accessible to everyone. At the same time, it should stay reflective of its industrial maritime heritage, by re-using existing buildings as much as possible.

The Public Market opened in 1979

Unique, organic development

Granville Island is federal land, that is why there was unique (rather loose) zoning and other criteria were applied during the development — they broke so many of the accepted rules of public space. This is how the current beautifully-messy(!) urban space was shaped.

I would end with this quote — which accurately depicts how it is like to be in Granville Island today.

Under federal control, the result was a mishmash of vehicle and pedestrian traffic that creates an urban space unlike anything else in the city — to say nothing of the mixed-use zoning that saw an active public market almost next door to a still-operating nail factory. — Matt Meuse

I highly recommend a visit!

Reference:

• HOW GRANVILLE ISLAND CAME TO BE
• How Granville Island changed the course of Vancouver urban design history

Sankar Raman, a founder of the project and a Northwest digital art photographer, believes that “The Immigrant Story is the American story.”

Photo by Kim Nguyen

I’ve been always curious about the everyday life of immigrants in cities and how they experience cities. I interviewed Mr. Raman to learn more about the project and to hear what he thinks about the topic of city and migration.

Background — rising wave of racism

Thank you so much for the time today. First, could you tell me a little bit about the background of the project?

Mr. Sankar: The first idea of the project was born right after the elections in 2017. During this time, the immigrants are increasingly becoming a scapegoat — and there is a growing tension and a divisive political rhetoric that makes us divided with “us versus them” mindset. I was not politically active and am not a political person, but I felt an urge to do something about it.

Let me tell you a real example that happened here in Portland. There was a little girl called Fatemah, she was from Iran and she was supposed to come to Oregon Health & Science University to go through her heart surgery. She and her family came from Iran to Dubai and were on their way to here in Portland, and it was exactly the time the Muslim ban went into effect. Because of the ban, she could not travel to Portland.

It became a big issue here; everybody was protesting. And it was then I realized that it is not just political rhetoric but real people (who) are getting affected by changes in policies made against immigrants. That has come to affect people in our community here in Portland.

Creating the counter-narratives

Photo by Nitish Meena on Unsplash

Mr. Sankar: I was not a storyteller or a writer, but I decided to start producing a counter-narrative against the dominant political rhetoric, which was portraying the immigrants as murderers, rapists and from shithole countries.

When you really look at the history of this country, everybody here came from somewhere else. Some of us came recently, some of us came years ago, some of us came (on the) Mayflower, some of us came 10,000 years ago. The fact remains that the country is built on the people who come here from the outside, and so it is rightfully called a nation of immigrants.

I agree

So how do we create change? I thought the way to do this is making the human connection by telling the real stories of immigrants. These stories are short form human interest narratives, and published with close-up portraits. We also make very large prints and showcase these stories as a gallery exhibition to create conversations.

When I first started writing stories and sharing these stories, my wife was the editor, so for the first few months we did all the publishing work by ourselves. After a few trials, I was really fortunate that so many high-quality journalists started to help us out.

Today, there are more than 20 volunteers sharing their talents and skills to create a very high quality content for our project. These folks are talented journalists, writers, photographers. Some of them worked for local newspapers or other big media outlets like the Los Angeles Times or Washington Post. We also have graphic designers, web developers and visual artists volunteering with us. More information about their site can be found here.

The art of listening

Reference: Sankar Raman/The Immigrant Story

I’ve been curious why you picked storytelling as your methodology to tackle the challenge. So it is about the human connection, creating empathy among people, isn’t it?

Mr. Sankar: Yes, exactly. I mean, when I hear about your personal story, for instance, there’s no way I can hate you, right?

We spend about two hours with each interviewee and learn about their life — where the person was born, what the person does, how was the life before coming to (the) U.S. etc. We also spend a lot of time and energy in crafting the story so that it comes out really authentic.

How do you find these people to interview with?

Mr. Sankar: I really enjoy meeting people, and whenever I meet people, I am always curious about the stories behind them. When they have an interesting story to tell I write it down and ask them if they want to be part of this project to share their stories. That is my main way of finding people to interview,.

I am very curious to gather all these stories of diaspora, refugees and human displacements due to conflicts. These are very important stories to be documented.

Urban narratives and immigrant’s relationship with cities

I am curious about the relationship between the city of Portland and The Immigrant Story. How does the city affect your idea?

Mr.Sankar: Portland is a very progressive city. However, it still acts like a white city, and we still have problems.

In this part of town (Northwest), most of them are tech workers like me, working in Nike and Intel etc., and people are very diverse. This diversity, for some reason for me, I could navigate through that. I have not experienced any issues racially from my experience living in this part of the town.

However, when I started this project, I started going to the other parts of the city such as Southeast Portland. Different parts of the city have (their) own different cultural mix. There I see different elements of racial undercurrent at play at different levels.

For example, about a year ago, there was a stabbing incident in the MAX Train and two people were stabbed to death here in Portland. This kind of thing happens in Portland. Not often, but it happens.

I’m always curious about how immigrants experience the city, how they move here and interact with other communities, and how they experience discrimination and challenges. That’s why it’s really important to listen to personal stories, because they can only be truly understood by personal experiences.

Mr.Sankar: Exactly. Right now, we have an exhibition, that is been shown at the Oregon Jewish Museum in downtown. We call it “Who We Are.” It is a collection of stories of six muslim women from Portland that we designed to explore their emotions.

In these stories we profile the immigrant experience, a sort of oral history of our community. It is kind of a indicator of how the community was feeling at that time. In some of the these stories, you could see the raw emotions, the intensity of their feelings in these stories. It is through their personal experiences, through that lens so to speak, we explore race, identity and culture.

Place to celebrate diversity

What is your next step?

Mr. Sankar: I have a big vision.

There are museums and memorials for many things, but we don’t have one to signify the achievements and accomplishments of immigrants in this country. I want to change that.

My goal is to create a museum that explores the immigration and their accomplishments. Just imagine a museum that has a floor that talks about Irish immigrants, another floor about Eastern European immigrants, etc.
These are all different people who came from different continents, and we should display their accomplishments.

I want to have a place where we celebrate it. I think it’s important to have an actual place where you can bring people in and explore visually. When you do that, you won't be able to speak ill of immigrants then.

We all travel

Photo by Barth Bailey on Unsplash. We all travel

I like the way you interchangeably use the term “immigrants” to represent everyone. To you it implies everyone; it’s not only the people who arrived recently!

Mr. Sankar: Yeah, everybody! Basically, we are all immigrants. We all migrate continuously for some reason or the other.

Let me tell you one story of myself, which is very personal to me. I came from a very small village in India — a very small community, and nobody knows how long our community has been there in that village.

But then, when I do my DNA, it says I traveled through the spice route — meaning that I came from somewhere from the Middle East, and they have traveled over the years through that spice route to the Indian subcontinent through Iran, Afghanistan, through Pakistan to India, and then came down to south of India.

My point is that the path my ancestors took is a true way to understand human beings. Humans travel — and not only humans but their cultures, languages, food, etc., with them. We have to keep it that way!

I agree. I can’t wait to see a place that celebrates diversity and migration. Thank you so much for the time today!

Photo by Wellington Rodrigues on Unsplash

Things to do, places/project to check out

• UBC Vantage Walking Tour is an educational app to learn the history of Downtown Vancouver.

• Affordable housing projects in Gastown.
  Read: Co-op Housing In Vancouver Is The Affordable Option You Didn't Know About

Read

• This City Life is a city blog by urbanist, freelance writer and city lover Jillian Glover. The blog was nominated as one of the best city blogs by the Guardian.

• Spacing Vancouver is a magazine, store, and blog network to think critically about how they can shape the public spaces that surround their everyday lives.

• Vancouver Is Awesome is a online publication that shares everything about Vancouver, discussing about greatness and things to make people stay here. They have various architecture-related articles, which are worth reading.

• A friend of mine recommended me this amazing infographic that summaries 100 years of amazing architecture in Vancouver. This Illustrations of Vancouver’s Architectural Landmarks are great to check out as well!

Organization, initiative

• City Studio launched in 2011 with collaboration of City of Vancouver and Simon Fraser University. It has some experimental projects toco-created solutions for the city together with City staff and community,

• Established in 1926, The Vancouver City Planning Commission is an advisory body of volunteers appointed by Council and the City’s oldest citizens’ body.

• Happy Cityuses lessons from psychology and public health to design happiness into neighborhoods and cities. This TED talk by Charles Montgomery is helpful to understand what happy city is really about.

• Modacity by Chris and Melissa Bruntlett, co-authors of the book “Building the Cycling City: The Dutch Blueprint for Urban Vitality”. This might be interesting for bike lovers!

• Urbanarium is a group of the most committed urbanites in Vancouver, including architects, planners and other citizens who are passionate about city making. They have various events such as city debateS and bike tours!

Like all the other major cities in the world, Seattle is rapidly changing and growing, and unfortunately, becoming increasingly unaffordable. That is why it is crucial to discuss the importance of affordable housing for lower-income residents at risk of displacement.

We took the Link light rail and visited South Seattle to learn more about affordable housing projects that have been invested by the city government for many years.

Photo by Tom Rumble on Unsplash

First all — what is 'affordable housing' anyway? Many people assume that it means low-cost housings. There are many definitions of affordable housing, but the answer is No — at least it's more complicated than that. There are many poorly constructed low-valued housings out there, but if there is no rent regulation, an owner can charge serious price from tenants, and it is not 'affordable' anymore. Instead, affordable housing should involve some public subsidy or other kind of non-profit investment, as well as rent control to cater to a certain section of society whose income is below the median household income.

• Plaza Roberto Maestas

First, we visited Plaza Roberto Maestas, which is a landmark of equitable, community-inspired, transit-oriented development project in the heart of the Beacon Hill neighborhood of Seattle. There are the Beacon Hill Light Rail Station and the El Centro de la Raza schoolhouse right next to the housing block.

Completed in September 2016, this affordable housing consists of two six-story buildings that have an outdoor plaza, a multicultural community center, and office spaces. This is a great example of mixed-use development in a rapidly gentrifying neighborhood, historically occupied by Hispanic population.

There are some murals in the plaza, designed by local artists. All the signs and posters in the school have multiple languages that indicate that the multicultural nature of its community.

• Othello Square

The last visit was about Othello Square. The site is currently vacant and formerly known as the Southeast Economic Opportunity Center — once completed, Othello Square is going to be a welcoming mix-use shared space to invite people in Southeast Seattle (and beyond) to provide opportunities for higher education, jobs, and support to start and keep a business. There will be 265 apartments and for-sale homes, affordable retail and commercial space and community support services to help stabilize communities at risk of displacement.

Behind it, there is HomeSight, which has worked to preserve and promote economically and culturally-diverse communities through affordable homeownership, business development, and community advocacy.

Photo by chuttersnap on Unsplash

Perhaps the crucial factor of success is not only focusing on the housing itself but people's actual lives around it — we need not only housings but also decent access to other social services. Along with affordable rental and ownership housing, other facilities are needed such as cultural/community centers, educational institutions such as schools, low-income medical clinics, childcare, offices/commercial space to support local economic growth.

In that way, we can learn a lot from these projects in Seattle who focus on their 'communities' and their real lives there.

Freeway Park in downtown Seattle has a unique form as it bridges over Interstate 5 (one of the major highways in the U.S.) and a large city-owned parking lot. Designed by landscape architect Lawrence Halprin and Angela Danadjieva, this park opened in 1976, and it is widely considered to be one of the modernist masterpieces.

This is, in my opinion, one of the most beautiful 'urban' parks in the U.S. Instead of letting people escape from their tiring urban life to reconnect nature, it doesn't hide its beauty/ugliness of the city. It's over highway after all — meaning that you can hear roaring traffic and the squawk of car horns underneath the park, and you also can't help but catch a glimpse of the surrounding buildings. To me this is a very 'honest' approach — also, when we define park as a place where people can freely gather and mingle, this Freeway Park should be the one that does that.

Over five acres in size, you can never get bored in Freeway Park with a maze of unique architectural forms — such as concrete fountains, small plazas and winding small pathways as well as green lawns and various type of trees. Every block offers you a different feeling and experience that individually very unique, so it is fun to go there to find your own favorite spot.

Community activities are active and there are always events happening. Freeway Park Association is community driven non-profit organization, and it has been working alongside the Seattle Parks Department since 1993, to activate and advocate for Freeway Park. There are some boards on the site to check out the event schedule, as well as leaving your comment and idea on how to improve the park. What a lovely place!

I love the Urbanist, a Seattle-based non-profit organization who believes in cities as a unique platform for addressing many of the most difficult problems we face. They focus on writing and researching, as well as organizing educational events and Meetup to engage with citizens to discuss the future of cities.

I've been following their work and reading some of the most helpful articles by them, and this time I finally got a chance to join one of their event called Urbanist Walking Tour. This time the theme was about The Waterfront Seattle, where there is a massive urban renewal project going on.

Background

Completed map of the development plan from here

We visited Friends of Waterfront Seattle, part of the City of Seattle's Office of the Waterfront, which is working closely with civic leaders, stakeholders, and the broader Seattle public to create a "Waterfront for All." You can check out their Documents Library, and this presentation is particularly helpful to understand the project broadly.

The City of Seattle released a Concept Design, Framework / Strategic Plan in July 2012 to announce the overall vision for the waterfront. The Waterfront Seattle Program is transforming the area from Pioneer Square to Belltown, trying to (re)connect downtown Seattle and Elliott Bay.

Once Alaskan Way Viaduct is removed this year in 2018, the project will be working to create twenty acres of new and improved public space, multimodal surface streets along Alaskan Way and Elliott Way to serve all modes of travel, and better connections between center city neighborhoods and Elliott Bay.

When you walk along the waterfront, you see a lot of construction, as well as the beautifully dense urban scenery of downtown.

This Waterfront Park (pictures below) will also be rebuilt with an urban plaza and a children's playground.

Harbor Steps is not exactly part of the Waterfront development, but I highly recommend to visit this great public space and sit down on the stairs. The view that overlooks the waterfront is now blocked by the highway, but it will be more vibrant after the improvement of Alaskan Way — which is going to have new traffic links to downtown, transit pathway and waterfront cycle track.

If you want to engage in this project or just curious about the future of waterfront holds — you can check out Community Engagement page by Friends of Waterfront Seattle to sign up for the email list, follow them on social media etc. I'm very much looking forward to coming back here after the project is done.

This video is also very helpful to understand the Alaskan Way Viaduct "The Alaskan Way Viaduct: How Seattle chose the Bertha tunnel alternative" — by City Beautiful

Things to do, places/project to check out

• If you are an urbanist you would love maps too. Metsker Maps of Seattle is considered to be the largest map store in the U.S.

• Visit Friends of Waterfront Seattle to learn more about the waterfront urban development in Seattle.

• Homelessness is one of the serious issues that all cities can relate to. Since 2008, Path with Art has been working to transform the lives of people recovering from homelessness, addiction, and other trauma by the power of art and creative engagement. I visited one of their exhibitions Unpacking Homelessness: A PATH WITH ART & PEARL JAM COLLABORATION during my stay there, and saw the posters that are designed by the artists who experiences homelessness. All the staffs there are so kind and warm — I highly recommend to visit there and have conversation with them.

Read

• Curbed Seattle is always informative fun platform to check out.

• Watch 10 parks that changed America and two of them are in Seattle!

Organization, initiative

• Space.City is an independent, not-for-profit organization dedicated to the discussion of art, architecture and urbanism. I participated one of their event during the stay in Seattle, in which they invited Maurice Cox from Detroit to discuss the urban dynamics that is happening in Detroit.

• The Urbanist is a non-profit organization that serves to examine and influence urban policies, and they have a bunch of quite interesting articles to read online. They also organize educational events / workshops to invite everyone to discuss the future of cities.

• AIA Seattle is the architecture community based in Seattle.

Gas Works Park in Seattle is one of the most influential public parks in the United States. Located on the shores of Lake Union, opposite side of downtown Seattle, this park opened to the public in 1975 on the location of a former coal gasification plant.

When you visit this 19-acre wide park, the first thing you notice is the giant remnants of the sole remaining coal gasification plant — which operated from 1906 to 1956. Now, nature took over the iconic ruin and it creates somehow mysterious and dynamic landscape that tells the history of the city.

Landscape architect Richard Haag's controversial idea

The park was designed by Seattle landscape architect Richard Haag, who proposed to the city to keep some of the remains of the gasification plant. According to his interview on the documentary 10 Parks that Changed America (by the way this documentary series is awesome. You can learn more about architecture and urbanism in the United States.), people found the idea crazy — and some still do. However, instead of ignoring/erasing the past, he pursued his idea of respecting the city's history and its iconic value.

The soil and groundwater of the site were contaminated during operation as a gasification plant, but after cleaning through bio-phytoremediation and other measures, this park is now the safe and joyful place to be in. Now you can get the breathtaking view over downtown Seattle from this park, as well as learning the history of its place through the ruins of the gas plant.

This park is a great reminder for the importance of public park in the heart of the city, where people can gather and connect without being worried about the safety or pollution. I highly recommend the visit to this park and praise the city's decision to convert one of the most neglected, contaminated land to the vibrant gathering space for citizens.

Things to do, places/project to check out

• I love The ReBuilding Center is Portland nonprofit organization, closely working with local communities through creative reuse of reclaimed materials — Similar concept with Austin's Creative Reuse

• Alberta Main Street has a unique history and seems to have some very active community associations. It would be very interesting to join some of the events by Neighborhood Association.

• Portland is a cycle capital in the United States and no one should leave the city without experiencing biking. BikeTown is a great sharing bike service and EVERYBODY'S BIKE RENTALS & TOURS is the one I got reccomended by a trustworthy local. Join the occasional Sunday Parkways to bike around the city without being interrupted by cars!

• Mcmenamins is a great example in the field of adaptive reuse and the company has variety of beautiful buildings that you can visit, such as Kennedy School and Bagdad Theater

• Portland Night Market

• Movies in the park is great for summer evening — the events are completely free and you can enjoy the quality of urban life.

Read

• I enjoyed reading some articles recommended by one of my local friend, that explain rich history of North Williams Ave — once the vibrant heart of Portland’s Black community.

  • Black Williams Project
  • Portland Gentrification: The North Williams Avenue that Was -- 1956

• Portlandness: A Cultural Atlas includes 150 infographic maps of Portland, explaining the city from various angles — highly recommended for map lovers!

• I can't stop loving this introduction document about Portland's Central East district published by bureau of planning and sustainability Portland — very informative and has great design.

• This academic thesis analyses Alberta district and explain how it transformed into arts district: RE-IMAGING A NEIGHBORHOOD:THE CREATION OF THE ALBERTA ARTS DISTRICT, PORTLAND, OREGON

Organization, initiative

• I can't stop admiring this initiative: Immigrant Story. They are based in Portland, collecting stories from immigrants who live in the city.

Started in 1974 by the McMenamins brothers, the Oregon-based company McMenamins has been reusing old buildings that once served as schools, churches, theaters and homes.Their properties include historic hotels, pubs, concert venues and movie theaters, and all of them are whimsical and wonderfully special.

They recognized the local values and potentials of these abandoned buildings, as well as the environmental responsibility in restoring old buildings — they also use recycled materials wherever possible in new construction. Thus, McMenamins is a great example for adaptive reuse, adding new vales to the old buildings for the future while paying respect to their histories.

The other day, I visited one of their venues in Portland called Kennedy School — which includes hotels, pubs, an event venue and a swimming pool, dining and movie theater.

Kennedy School

Opened in 1915, The Kennedy School is a historic elementary school in northeast Portland. After it lost its function as a elementary school, it has been transformed into a 57-room hotel with a restaurant, multiple small bars, a movie theater, a swimming pool and a brewery.

It is also part of BikeTown area and has 4 racks

It is open for public and you can enter the building for free — it is very interesting to see the remaining structure of a elementary school and all the whimsical/fun art pieces on the walls.

I highly recommend for a visit, and watch a cheap movie / get drinks here, and enjoy how they breathe new life into this old building without failing to appreciate the beauty of the past.

References:

• McMenamins is a pioneer in the adaptive reuse field
• VISION AND VERSATILITY: THE STORY OF MCMENAMINS
• McMenamins Renovations: Modernizing for the Future while Honoring the Past

I got lucky enough to be around in Portland when Sunday Parkways was happening around downtown & Inner SE. I know, Car-Free Sundays are not sooo uncommon nowadays especially in the big western cities, but it doesn't make it any less enjoyable and delightful every time I get to be part of it.

Nonetheless I've participated in several Car-Free Sundays in the past in some different cities, the one in Portland felt very special and engaging — especially when the route provided me an idea of the Green Loop — a bold new concept of the Central City 2035 Plan — that envisions a linear Park that connects several districts in downtown. It is such a great idea that people get to experience the gist of a future plan.

Portland's Sunday Parkways is about opening the streets back to the citizens and promote healthy active living. You can walk, bike, roll, use public transportation while participating in free public activities and events. I biked in the loop counterclockwise from the Rose Quarter to the West End to Lloyd to South Waterfront -- and stopped by countless interesting spots and stalls along the way.

I used BikeTown (which is affordable and works great!), but this one looks super cool too. It looks like there is a bunch of other options too — while biking on the route today I found several cycling shops with workshops/tours, cyclist organizations, and several other services that make it easier/more enjoyable to use a bicycle.

I am not a bicycle expert, but I love being independent by using bikes and other forms of public transportation in Portland, the most bike friendly city in the United States and I can't wait to come back here after 2035, when the Green Loop Plan will be (hopefully) realized.

What do you expect in a Welcome to San Francisco Kit? You can find a beautiful map illustrated by a local designer (I'm a map maniac and I'm quite sure that you can't find this kind of map in a regular bookstore or souvenir shops), a handmade slim wallet made out of a map, a reusable water bottle to enjoy the delicious tap water in San Francisco, delicious almond snacks from a local market... and a lot more! The kit is filled with local charm, and you can listen to the background of each item and the story of the creators while walking around the city and paying attention to the daily life of a neighborhood with Nate Mahoney, a great urbanist.

Nate Mahoney, the founder of The Urbanist SF

Nate Mahoney is an urbanist and UX researcher who focuses on Human-Centric design and the experience of cities.

Having grown up in the suburbs and traveling everywhere by car, he started to walk intensely when he made a move to San Francisco. In grad school, he encountered the concept of Flâneur and immediately fell in love with it. It made so much sense to him because he was already doing it — walking around the city to experience, to learn, to be... not necessarily to get point A from point B.

As a pedestrian, he also started talking with people — fellow pedestrians and locals — and started to look at their lives and their stories. This is how the prototype of ​​this project was born. Each item within the kit is created in collaboration with local designers and brands whom he encountered during his Flâneuring, and each item is the crystallization of their stories, their beauty.

I've always been fascinated by the concept of Flâneur — a literary concept developed by Baudelaire in 19th-century Paris. It's been my secret guide whenever I want to immerse myself in cities. Thus, it is very special to meet a fellow urbanist and flâneurian from different cities, because in my opinion they are the most tremendous guides, helping you deeply touch the texture of a city.

Walking in the Mission, with special items

Highlighted in an hour's tour is the Mission district, originally known as "the Mission lands". San Francisco was founded on that spot by a Spanish Franciscan monk in 1776, which makes it the oldest district in San Francisco.

It's also famous for many artists living in the neighborhood and beautiful murals that can be found everywhere in the district. While the cost of living is relatively cheaper compared to the other partd of San Francisco, this district has not been an exception to all the urban development and gentrification. However, the district still manages to keep its local charm and dynamics.

Below, I will walk through some of the highlights from the tour. It all felt special, especially when I was holding the items from the kit and listening to the great stories told by Nate.

• Philz coffee
  Philz coffee, opened in 2002, is an important local café that made a major contribution to the Bay Area's third wave coffee boom. They have built a very strong relationship with the local community. Currently, it expanded its brand throughout the city, but the original store in the Mission district still has an important meaning.

• Murals
  You can find a lot of murals at Balmy Alley, Clarion Alley, and the Women's building. If you're lucky, you can also find an artist on that spot, live painting.

• Colpa press
  A local print shop that publishes independent magazines and books. They also have galleries and hold workshops as a platform to support local artists.
  I highly recommend to check out Nate's interview at the print shop.

The illustration map contained from the Kit was printed in this print shop. It was designed by a local artist Carissa Potter and I fell in love with her project People I've loved.

• Timbuk2
  Nate's favorite! Timbuk2, a local bag brand founded in 1989, has great, high-quality products, and I enjoyed visiting their factory shop.

• The Women's building
  Founded in 1971, The Women's building is the first community center operated by women in San Francisco. All the exterior of the building is covered with murals.

• Dolores Park
  The final spot of the tour was Dolores Park — everyone's favorite! From this small hilly park between the Mission district and Neu Valley district, you can overlook the cityscape of San Francisco.

Human-centric design for cities, and the beauty of walking around

Small for such a dynamic city, San Francisco's irreverent spirit is threaded into every neighborhood. Rich in history, the culture of San Francisco has always been a reflection of its pride, its fearlessness and its need to be seen and heard. San Francisco has a kaleidoscope of urban appeal, a place for adventure, delicacy and creature comforts. — from official website

Nate cares a lot about the experience and livability of our cities — cities for people. It takes a lot of time and effort to prepare a tour like this, because it requires a ton of research about how people live in cities and how they interact with their urban environment. The most important thing is to walk around the city and listen to the stories from people, and to discover the charm of the place and find collaborators on your own two feet. This tour teaches us that.

In the future, he is planning to spread this project to the other big cities in the U.S. such as Los Angeles and New York. I highly recommend The Urbanist SF to all city lovers.

courtesy of the California Office of Historic Preservation

Frank Ocean's song Sweet life depicts the life in "the black Beverly Hills" and its beauty (in this context Ladera Heights, a neighborhood that is next to View Park). Its residents are historically mostly African-American professionals — Musician Ray Charles, dancer Debbie Allen had a home in this neighborhood, just to name a few.

I participated an event during my stay in Los Angeles, which was about the new wave of gentrification in View Park that is happening right now. I thought I needed to do some research on the history of the place for deeper understanding — so here we go.

View Park has long been a symbol of African American success and a stronghold of black culture. According to this article, the neighborhood changed dramatically after 1948, when the Supreme Court declared racial covenants unconstitutional, when white residents started moving out. By the 1980s, black residents outnumbered whites. However, the neighborhood started to change again recently.

In 2015, a group of View Park homeowners nominated the neighborhood for inclusion on the National Register of Historic Places, and as of this month, their wish was granted. However, as a Los Angeles Times feature from last July makes clear, a number of residents won’t be cheering this news, fearing the historic designation will serve as a, "marketing tool to attract a new—and largely white—crop of buyers to View Park's historic homes," that will push longtime black residents out. -- Pauline O'Connor, Jul 23, 2016, Curbed

Gentrification, race and community value

courtesy of CLARICHA EXPLAINS IT ALL

Gentrification is a process of renewal/revitalization of urban neighborhoods, by means of the influx of more affluent residents. Current residents are pushed out from neighborhoods in the gentrification process, because the rents and housing costs get higher — so it is linked with displacement.

The people who gathered to the event discussed how we can fight against displacement and keep the community value in View Park.

LA has a number of programs in regard to affordable housing and a set of public policies, such as prop JJJ or Metro Equity Platform Framework, and they acknowledge the importance of using these resources wisely to fight against displacement.

Black identity and rights

While the discussion about policies for affordable housing quite was the focus of discussion there, the topic of black identity and their historical value/rights were the big part of the arguments.

One of the statements from the participants has quite rich implication;

"This is not about race, but it is"

When we think about who's moving in and who's moving out,where do they go and the quality of education system and social benefits — there is always a factor of race involved. Of course, we can't argue gentrification by purely the means of race and ethnicity, but it is surely part of it.

I'll end it here, but I'll have to keep thinking about gentrification in the whole spectrum of race, ethnicity and class — and also other political factors like gender, identity, the value of community.

More to read:

• 'Black Beverly Hills' debates historic status vs. white gentrification
• View Park, the Neighborhood Nicknamed 'the Black Beverly Hills,' Now on the National Register of Historic Places
• Residents Grapple With Change Coming To View Park, LA's 'Black Beverly Hills'

Things to do, places/project to check out

1. The Urbanist SF has a super exiting San Francisco Kit, which is everything we need to explore the city. I love the idea of having a starter kit for newcomers to the city, which is packed with all the passion/knowledge/love of the urbanist!

2. The Women’s Building is a women-led community space that advocates self-determination, gender equality and social justice. It has such a beautiful building and interesting history!

3. Creative Growth Art Center is a non-profit art center that serves artists with developmental, mental and physical disabilities. I found their office in Oakland — it's a bit far from San Francisco proper,but it might be an interesting place to visit.

Read

3. TraceSF is an online journal that critically explores San Francisco Bay Area design, culture, and urbanism.

4. Curbed SF has great mapping project that you can spend hours browsing!
   My Favorite:

• San Francisco’s 21 best privately-owned public open spaces (POPOS)
• Mapping 16 Chinatown landmarks and their history
• Mapping ten crucial street redesigns around the Hub
  Julia Morgan's design masterpieces, mapped
• Offensive SF map shows what people really think of city neighborhoods

5. A beautiful story about Unbuilt San Francisco

6. Streetblog SF, a daily news source connecting people to information about sustainable transportation and livable communities.

7. Read Cool Gray City of Love: 49 Views of San Francisco, a book with personal insights, history, reporting and analysis that portraits San Francisco.

8. OldSF is a great tool for you to discover the history behind the places you see every day.

Organization

7. Walk San Francisco is SF's only pedestrian advocacy organization to make the city more livable, walkable.

8. YIMBY Action (Yes in my back yard, as opposed to Not in my back yard) is Empowering community stakeholders to advocate for MORE housing in the San Francisco Bay Area.

9. SPUR, San Francisco Bay Area Planning and Urban Research Association, is a leading civic planning organization to develop solutions to the big problems our cities face.

It featured Sekou Cooke, who is a Jamaican-born architect, researcher and a professor at Syracuse University. He has been focusing on the emergent field of hip-hop architecture.

I found this topic interesting and decided to write a short post about it in order to digest this still-new information for me.

What is Hip-Hop Architecture?

According to Sekou Cooke, Hip-Hop Architecture is a practice of architecture, urban planning, creative place making and economic development through the lens of hip hop culture, to create a meaningful impact on the built environment and to propose the alternatives.

He started his presentation by talking about Kanye West — Read Keep Talking Kanye: An Architect's Defense of Kanye West. There are still not so many in U.S. who identify themselves both black and architect, and Kanye —as a black man, an architect, and of course, a hip-hop star — is very rare and important figure. Why? Because when he talks, people listen.

Now black architects have a fighting chance at influencing the public consciousness in the way black artists, musicians, politicians and athletes have. Now the architecture of the hip-hop generation can take its rightful place alongside hip-hop music, dance, art and design. — Sekou Cooke, 2013.

Sekou Cooke's defense for Kanye ended eventually, but nonetheless, it's important to keep talking about hip-hop architecture itself.

Practices and Hip-Hop Urbanism

Filip Dujardin’s ‘Fictions’ — a series of photographic plates of fictional architectural spaces. Image Courtesy of Highlight Gallery

According to this article, Brandnu Design has started free architecture camps across the the U.S. that teach disadvantaged kids about design and urban planning through the lens of hip-hop.

"Rap has structure. The way you put together a song has a structure. And it's very easy to draw the parallel between the structure of a song and the structure of a building." Nikki Jean

I believe this is an extremely helpful approach to invite not only kids but anyone who has been excluded from the traditional sphere of architecture and urban design and their privileged professionalism.

In this way, hip-hop architecture and urbanism help us to ask what kind of architecture/city and physical environment at large can be realized from the bottom up, outside of traditional strategies and approaches.

Soleri’s life-long pursuit of “arcology”

It felt almost surreal to visit this experimental town in the middle of nowhere — our car suddenly veered off the highway and went to the unpaved gravel path. After a few minutes, a mysterious building complex emerged in front of our eyes.

48 years after the Soleri's first construction in 1970, this 25 acres-wide land has developed as an independent 'town' with a community of architects and urban designers who are influenced by Soleri's legacy — there are still around 80 people living in Arcosanti, actively engaging in the realization of the plan.

The goal of Arcosanti is to explore the concept of 'arcology' — which combines architecture and ecology — as a way to pursue the improvement of urban conditions while minimizing the destructive impact on the earth.

Soleri, got tired and sick of American car culture and urban sprawl (which I wholeheartedly understand), proposed to provide space for a variety of residential, commercial, and agricultural facilitieies within in the vicinity so that people can enjoy walkable urban environment while minimizing individual human environmental impact and economically self-sufficient.

Living urban laboratory — still a long way to go

During the tour within Arcosanti, we are informed that this desert “utopia” still attracts many curious architects, designers and artists from all over the world — even after Soleri’s alleged sexual abuse on his own daughter and the whole plan had suspended. The community currently represents over 10 nationalities. The requirement for residency includes participation on a serious of workshops and active engagement of the community. It was quite interesting to see how people live and engage with their neighbors — some of them got jobs inside of Arcosanti and some of them work outside/online. The whole community is controlled by a community council that represents the residents.

What I could see during my visit there is only 5% of the whole plan. Once it's completed (still 95% to go!), Arcosanti will be a dense, complex urban space that can host 5,000 people.

Photo by Cory Doctorow, flickr
Photo by Cory Doctorow, flickr

Controversy on sexual abuse and #metoo

While the idea of arcology seems amazing and the community there seems to be well-functioning, I couldn't stop thinking about Soleri's sexual abuse to his own daughter and its controversy. In fact, the community of Arcosanti (not Soleri himself, obviously) has their official statement for #metoo and it's quite interesting to see their argument on this issue.

With Paolo Soleri's creative intelligence and contribution to urban theory can not be denied — however, I'm still struggling whether I can appreciate an art piece no matter who created it (kind of similar argument with Wagner controversies — can we love Wagner's music even after knowing his Nazi fascination?).

This living urban laboratory makes us think of a lot of issues. I highly recommend a visit!

By letting you play with their simulation and explaining the theory step by step along with it, it walks you through how a small demand for diversity can desegregate a neighborhood. I realized how much it helps me to understand the rhetoric if I get to be ‘involved’ and actively being part of a process.

This leads me to the beauty of playability in the field of games, especially video games. The authors of the website were inspired by Ian Bogost’s book Persuasive Games: The Expressive Power of Videogames and I, inspired, decided to read it.

Why video games are not as bad as we think

This book is an analysis of how video games can influence players, even their fundamental attitudes and beliefs about the world.

Of course, video games have suffered from a negative social connotation and are often not taken seriously.

Despite their commercial success, video games still struggle for acceptance as a cultural form. They are perceived to serve no cultural or social function save distraction at best, moral baseness at worst. (Bogost, 2010, p15)

However, according to this book, video games can be a great storytelling medium that have significant impact on players (if they're used well, of course).

I’m saying that this is a mature storytelling medium that has enormous power to shape the debates within our culture. (…) this book suggests that video games open a new domain for persuasion, thanks to their core representational mode, procedurally.(…) I call this new form procedural rhetoric, the art of persuasion through rule-based representations and interactions rather than the spoken word, writing, images, or moving pictures. (Bogost, 2010, p21)

With that in mind, I started digging into the games that have a close relationship with the fields of urban design and architecture. Some of them are amazing tools for urban simulation or education, and even for citizen participation.

Here are three video games I have been playing and loving so far.

Video games that are great for city lovers

1. Block’hood

Photo from the official website: https://www.plethora-project.com/blockhood/

I only started to play Block’hood recently but this city building simulator video game hasn’t let me down so far. You get to build a city vertically and experience the unique ecosystems within. If you play in story mode, it walks you through the basic principles of urban design (such as connectivity, energy sufficiency, necessary resources and so on) and I think it’s quite helpful for educational purposes.

2. Cities: Skylines

Cities: Skylines is my absolute favorite. I love this TED talk shown below as much as I do the game itself. It is a quite advanced and realistic game and I’m quite sure that you'll need to use your urban planning knowledge to succeed.

It's also quite fun to look at all the imaginary cities created by other players, and get to know how/why they built it and how it works in the game.

Photo from Steam
Photo from Cities:Skylines Review

3. Block by Block (Minecraft)

Minecraft is an older, famous video game, but what I want to highlight is not Minecraft itself but the initiative called Block by Block. Block by Block uses Minecraft to engage with challenged communities through a range of workshops, and raises funds for implementation of public spaces.

I mean, it’s a super easy and fun game and you can create anything by hand — it’s a brilliant idea to use Minecraft to encourage citizen participation, and to raise awareness that everyone, including non-professionals, can and should engage in our cities and public spaces.

Photo from the official website: Block by Block

Thanks for reading and please contact me if you have any recommendations!

It is a series profiling interesting urban projects, reading lists, initiatives, and places for urbanists to get the gist of what is happening in a city at a glance. Email me if you, or someone you know, wants to introduce about your city!

Things to do, places/project to check out

1. Downtown Los Angeles's Art Walk

2. A public program that lets people to build a community parklet easily: People St program

3. A 10-year economic development and revitalization initiative to get an identity back to the city. Bringing Back Broadway

4. An interesting project that brought the nature back to the former-industrial, challenged area. Augustus F. Hawkins natural park

5. Famous art spaces like HAUSER & WIRTH and Art Share L.A. are also worth visiting.

6. 18 places in LA where black architects left their mark — this is a ultimate list and mapping.

7. A world-renowned independent architecture schools, and it often has exhibition that is open to the public. GALLERIES AT SCI-ARC

8. A famous architecture designed by Frank Lloyd Wright — Hollyhock House

9. A residential dwelling design by Frank Lloyd Wright — Ennis House

Read

10. I found this beautiful book at a book store in Art Share L.A.:Sidewalking: Coming to Terms with Los Angeles written by David L. Ulin — it is his journey of trying to 'make sense' of the city. His another book of L.A. looks equaly interesting too: Writing Los Angeles: A Literary Anthology

11. Get to know the overall picture of what is happening in LA

12. Very helpful resources to understand urban design principals in LA

13. I spent hours to check out Curbed's all mapping projects — it's a great way to get to know LA from various perspective. Especially these urban-renewal related mapping projects are helpful to check a slew of new developments that's is coming/happening to some neighborhood.

• Mapping the changes on Westlake’s horizon
• Changes underway in Chinatown, mapped
• Mapping the Arts District's never-ending parade of development

14. Watch Chinatown (1974) and read this interesting article about the movie, arguing about white supremacy and gentrification in L.A.

15. Activist and journalist Alissa Walker's blog is a great introduction to the city and it makes wanna walk L.A.

Organization

15. Skid Row Housing Trust is a great initiative that provides permanent supportive housing for people who need supports. For those who are not familiar with Skid Row area, watch this short documentary.

16. Do ArT Foundation, a non-profit social enterprise created to produce publicArt programs, projects and exhibitions.

17. L.A. Forum for Architecture and Urban Design is an independent nonprofit organization and organizes public programming, exhibitions, and publications. I went to one of their event "TRANSFORMING THE CITY FROM INSIDE OUT // L.A. & TAIPEI CITY" and it was quite interesting.

I'm from Japan, and Tokyo is the city I used to live for years and still keep coming back for work and some fun!

I occationally update a list of urbanism-related things in Tokyo, but know that the city is constantly changing though, and I can't always update the list.

For those who need more advice on discovering places and conneting with local creatives, you can DM me on email or instagram. I have a lot of inquries on this matter these days, and since it always takes considerable amount of energy and time to tackle each request, a little support is always appriciated. You can donate through the link below.

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Things to do, places/project to check out

• Participate URBANING_U which is a two day camp, that let you learn more about Tokyo thorough urbanist's perspective.

• If you're an cyclist and want to experience biking in Tokyo, I absolutely recommend TOKYO BY BIKE — this is a very helpful introduction to Japan's bike scene.

• I love the art center ongoing, which is a special art space / gallery that is very accessible to any artists, including un-famous, fledgling ones.

• 11-1

• 100BANCH

Read

• Follow BeingTokyo, which is a rotation curation account on Twitter.

• Check out the books by Flick Studio, which is a publishing company specialized in Architecture and urban design.

• I like watching NHK's project Tokyo Miracle City — fragments of everyday lives by Tokyoists.

• Tokyo's life history (東京の生活史)

Organization

• mi-rimeter is a great team that practice bottom-up urban intervention and tactical urbanism. They also have a design farm

• Shibuya Hack Project believes in the citizen's power and right to cities.

• Urbanist Meetup is an online community of people who love city, architecture, urban design, real estate and community development.

• If you love gardening, you'd love Tokyo Green Space andthis facebook community Urban Farming Tokyo

Seaholm EcoDistrict looks quite relaxed and surprisingly walkable (even within the heat!), with a vibrant hub of residential, office, and community gathering spaces.

It is quite interesting to see an environmentally considerate project like Seaholm EcoDistrict in Texas, where car ownership and private property are close to a religion.

You can easily access there from the new central library (which is also worth a visit) if you want to see how Austin's sustainable green urban renewal looks like. You can chill at one of their public chairs, or it's ok to charge your phone for free at one of the solar-panel installed benches.

I found this little place called Austin Creative Reuse, which is run by a nonprofit organization that collects, sells, and distributes donated articles. They focus on a community building for smarter purchase and consumption decisions.

They've got everything — from old playing cards to used textiles — and you can get almost everything under 1$. It's not the affordable price that makes this place special and fun though — what's fun for me is the fact that I could see the random 'materials' and texture of the city in this place.

All the used objects that are collected by the locals tell a lot about the previous owners, their tastes and trends of that time. It is also fun to see how these objects are creatively reused by school children and artists etc.

I highly recommend a visit!

Things to do, places to go

1. Austin’s “new urbanist enclave”, Mueller
   Read: How One City Turned Industrial Zones Into Green Enclaves

2. Fostering conservation and reuse through creativity, education and community building. There are also some volunteer opportunities available for all! — Austin Creative Reuse

3. creative hub for DIY crafting, workshops, and events. — CRAFT

4. Hack the commute by using bicycle and other alternative transportation in this very car-centric city. — AustinBcycle and Bird Scooters

Read

5. For the better understanding of the political dimension of Austin’s urbanism — Andrew Dobbs, Activist, organizer, and writer based in Austin, Texas.

6. Get a general view of the city — The Texas way of Urbanism

7. On racial diversity:
   ・Does New Urbanism Have a Racial Problem?
   ・With Porches And Parks, A Texas Community Aims For Urban Utopia
   ・A Texas Community Takes On Racial Tensions Once Hidden Under The Surface

8. Great book recommendation to know more about the history and identity of Austin by The librarians at Austin Public.

Organization

9. Open Austin

10. CNU Central Texas

11. The voice for this region’s architecture community — AIA Austin

12. A partnership of downtown property owners, individuals, and businesses devoted to preserving and enhancing the value and vitality of downtown Austin. — The Downtown Austin Alliance

13. Central Texas’ first and only Transportation Management Association. — Movability

14. Austin Permaculture Grid

15. Foralternative transportation and smart trips, check out Bike Austin andSmart Trips Austin

During my stay in Austin, I had a chance to visit a neighborhood called Mueller — Austin's 700-acre wide 'showplace' of new urbanism and enlightened sustainable living.

The neighborhood looks lovely, with the beautifully designed houses and green street trees etc. It is hard to believe that this area used to be an industrial site not so long time ago — it was an outdated municipal airport, which closed in 1999.

Now it turned into a vibrant neighborhood, with the residential houses and shops, open space and parks, communal summing pools and other necessary facilities. This is a city's effort to bring new residents into the central part of Austin to this greener, more sustainable neighborhood.

Austin as “carbon neutral”city

In recent years, many cities are pledging to become “carbon neutral” by 2050 — Austin, where car ownership and car-dependent lifestyle seem to be still highly valued, is not the exception. According to this article, Austin adopted a new legislation to make"all new homes are to be rated net-zero capable, meaning they produce as much electricity as they consume."

Mueller is one of the pioneers of this green buildings movement, aiming to invite the residents back to the city core to live in the sustainable, eco-friendly designed neighborhood.

Of course, there is a downside too — once a low-income industrial neighborhood, the prices and development have increased rapidly in recent years. According to this well-written article, a market study showed a shortage of nearly 50,000 affordable apartments in 2014.

On racial diversity and 'a meaningful community'

Aside from the gentrification issue, it's easy to praise this neighborhood — sustainable, well maintained and functioning central city neighborhood. However, Mueller also struggles with other urban problems like the other neighborhoods in the city.I found the article that talks about the racial tension of Mueller and I found it more interesting.

Mueller is created based on the idea of "new urbanism", in which a meaningful community plays a great rule. However, there have been some issues with African-American residents who don't feel so welcomed in this neighborhood.

It is quite interesting to know that Austin is one of the nation's fastest-growing metropolis but the only fast-growing city in America with a declining black population (University of Texas report). According to this report, Austin's general population jumped 20 percent from 2000 to 2010, but the number of African-Americans shrank by 5 percent.

Racial tension and everyday racism are of course not limited in Mueller, but while walking around this beautiful neighborhood, I couldn't stop but thinking what 'a meaningful community' is about and how we can create one in our cities in diversity.

Here are my 9 favorite books that show you the beauty of getting deeper knowledge of your city. Each of them have their own unique perspectives and methodologies to approach the urban realities (or non-realities), and they all invite you to observe your cities with different angles, rather than ‘teaching’ what they are.

1. Tokyo Totem

More about Tokyo Totem

It was created by Amsterdam-based research lab Monnik, based on the workshop they did while staying Tokyo .Tokyo Totem is an ultimate subjective guide to Tokyo — it doesn't tell you where to go and what to see (like Lonely Planet), but rather, gives you an idea of “how” to see, and experience Tokyo in your personal way, and make it your own.

2. FARE MAGAZINE

More about FARE

Fare is all about food and cities! It’s it the best combination? Each issue focuses on one specific city, and by telling the immersive stories of its food and local culture, it explores and discovers the complexity and richness of the neighborhoods.

3. Measuring The Non-measurable 06: Subjectivities In Investigation Of The Urban

More about this book

Darko Radovic is one of the best urban researchers I know, who is a professor of Architecture and Urban Design at Keio University, an initiator and a founding co-Director of International Keio Institute for Architecture and Urbanism. This book contains the research output from three cities, Tokyo, Bangkok and Singapore by his student, which beautifully depicts the urban texture of each city.

4. Migropolis

More about Migropolis

Incredibly thick and rich analysis and archive of Venice, as the prototypical city confronting the forces of globalization and mobility in the 21st century. You can get drunk by the tens of thousands of photographs, case studies, movement profiles and statistic data in this book!

5. City Tales series by Helen Constantine

More about the City Tales

An editor Helen Constantine from Oxford press published a series of the collections of short stories about cities. Each stories from a different century and genre is set in a specific city, and after reading an entire stories from a book, I bet you feel like you just traveled the city from corners to corners, from time to time.

6. MONU

More about MONU

MONU is a magazine on urbanism and I love their unique perspective — such as ‘interior urbanism’ and ‘decentralized urbanism’. Their comparative analysis helps us to make sense of our cities from a variety of perspectives.

7. From here to there

More about From here to there

A Curious Collection from the Hand Drawn Map Association, and it’s all about maps! The interesting thing about a hand draw map is that it always delivers a writer’s subjective spacial understanding. The book is not exactly focused on research or analysis, but it surely makes you explore the hundreds of differently ways of understanding space/place.

8. BEIRUT

More about the book

Presented by Monnik, an Amsterdam-based research lab (same as Tokyo Totem). This book also doesn’t quite tell you its sightseeing spots and places to eat, but after reading it, you can feel like you just finished a very long/deep conversation with locals — and understand the city in a unique way.

9. 思考都市 — A city of thinking

More about the book

This book is available only in Japanese at the moment, but dozens of detailed illustrations by Kyohei Sakaguchi is definitely worth checking. Most of them are the sketches from his fieldwork on homeless people living in Tokyo.

Intrigued?

Last but not least, I recently came across RAD (Research for Architecture Domain), Japanese collaborative research-based practices, and I love what one of the co-founder Kawakatsu says at DOMUS;

we specifically think of research as a performative act that always operates in connection to practice. Although it may at times be similar, we do not position the research as being academic, nor as a preliminary step for making something. What is important is that it is inductive, engaged with the field, and evidential.

Let me know your recommendation as well!

Have you ever heard of the “Renovation School” in Japan?

You might already know that Japan is experiencing a rapid degeneration due to the declining population. This decline raises a lot of social issues such as daycare, taxation and a critical labor shortage — and remarkably the increasing number of vacant homes, stores and abandoned infrastructure is part of the problem we are facing.

In recent years, people have gradually started to realize that not using these vacant buildings in order to create something valuable for their communities is a waste. This is the reason why renovation is becoming increasingly popular as a way of urban intervention. It is an act of appreciating what we already have, and updating it to add new value so that it can fit the needs of our contemporary life and future.

What is the “renovation school” in Japan?

The Renovation School, originally started in Kyushu in 2011, is a d/4 days “place of practice” into which participants are divided into small units and come up with action plans to reuse the targeted vacant houses. Participants also need to think about business models to make the plans realistic and feasible. At the end, the participants then propose these plans to the real estate owners, aiming to bring these plans to fruition after school. Although it is called “school”, it’s not about the “learning”, but rather the “doing”.

I heard about this movement when I lived in Copenhagen, and I’d been wanting to be part of it ever since. In 2017, I finally had an opportunity to participate in a 3-day Renovation School, which at this time focused on the Ikegami area, the south part of Tokyo. The school was under the sponsorship of the Tokyu Corporation — one of the major private railway companies and land developers in Japan — which I found it a little ironic, but I’ll talk more about that later in this post.

In this blog post, I try to explain what Renovation School in Japan is like, and how it (even though they never really articulate it as it is) uses a great design sprint method within the 3 days. I hope it also helps you understand a little bit where Japanese urbanism is heading.

3 day design sprint to come up with the future of abandoned buildings in Tokyo

At the beginning of the School, participants (by the way, even though it’s called “school”, most of us were not students but full time workers) were divided into small teams. Each team got to meet a house owner who owns a vacant building — they don’t know what to do with it. Our mission is to come up with a renovation plan and business model for that vacant building in order to give it a new life. I will quickly summarise what we have done in 3 days at the Renovation School.

Day 1: UNDERSTANDING — Area Analysis & Field work

This little building was our team’s assignment

The first day is all about input and developing an understanding of the area — these buildings are empty for a reason, right? It’s not like we can make WHATEVER in WHENEVER. No one wants to build a Disneyland in the middle of nowhere. If we don’t create shared knowledge and explore the problem from all angles under a shared brain, it’s extremely difficult to come up with a realistic plan — that’s why this first day of understanding is crucial during the Renovation School, we were told.

Doing an interview with a local shop owner

This time’s focus area is called Ikegami, which is known as the last stop of the Tokyu Ikegami railway Line. The area has attracted many people since ancient times, as it is part of the path to the famous Ikegami Honmonji Temple. However, Ikegami is not an exception to the sad Japanese urban reality, that faces the population decline and the rising rate of vacancy.

We spend the first day doing field work and intense desktop analysis, observing the people in the area and physical environment, as well as gathering data such as demography and learning about histories. We also conducted a lot of interviews with shop owners around our targeted vacant buildings.

Day 2: SKETCH & DECIDE — Brainstorming & Synthesis / Idea Sketch

We gathered the memos of interviews, new findings obtained from field work,documents/materials to explain the history, demographic data etc — time for synthesis. The question to be asked is, of course, what is needed in this place? We had an intense brainstorming session to come up with the solicitations and we chose which ideas should be prototyped.

Although there were countless ideas to reuse the vacant houses — such as making it a coworking space, cafe, private residence, etc…, it is likely that some of these ideas just don’t quite fit in certain places. We also need to think about the users and stakeholders, management and management systems too!

Day 3: PROTOTYPE AND VALIDATE

Finally we presented our idea in front of the building owners, landowner and developer, and of course, the locals and see how they interact with our ideas and get direct feedback from the target audience. Even though we had a great idea, we knew that the presentation for them is as important as coming up with solution ideas themselves — otherwise, who will give our ideas a chance?

That was a rough summary of what we did during the 3 days, and below, I will share the three things that I learned from the renovation school.

1. Always think about the actual actors — we don’t need “faceless” proposals anymore

The purpose of the renovation school is to make the ACTION plan, not the proposal itself. That is why the business model and the feasibility of the management system are quite important — otherwise, what’s the point of having a proposal?

Our team members were full of ideas — renovating an empty building into a community center and inviting more people / would be amazing to have an bar inside so that people could gather and chill.But, then, who can proceed? When the question was returned, silence often spreads fast.

When the question “who will do it?” remains ambiguous, only ideas are kept scattered, and at the end of all the good ideas just melt into air. It is necessary to thoroughly discuss the proposals that you really want to realize, a proposal that specifies actual actors.

….but of course, it doesn’t mean that we can’t “dream” about all the nonsense.

2. The importance of interdisciplinality

Traditionally, specific experts such as urban planning experts, architects, real estate agents and developers have stipulated the way the city is. However, as society became more complicated nowadays, our citizens are responsible for the way the town is. I believe it is through interdisciplinary cooperation that we can unbind ourselves from the framework of specialised fields. I always find it very suggestive that Jane Jacobs is neither an architect nor an academic researcher.

The second thing I learned at the renovation school was exactly this interdisciplinary collaboration. In my team (there were 9 of us in total), there was a designer, banker (!), architects, researcher, and media expert as well as a public officials, all different genders and ages. Everybody had different background and beliefs, and for that reason, there were some moments of conflicts and disagreement, I wouldn’t say it was easy — but isn’t this “chaos” itself is what we have in cities?

3. Tell the “story” of a place

I love these small details of everyday life inTokyo

In the Renovation School, as mentioned above, each team gets one existing empty house/building to work on a proposal for. I was taught at the school that we need to add “personality” or, let’s say, “story” to the place, instead of calling it a property — which sounds too static and impersonal.

If there is no concept or a story that people can sympathise with, as a place where there is nothing to be changed anywhere, new values ​​and the like are not born from there. If you want to create a place that you want to carry your feet, you should scoop out features like characters and characters that stand out from that place and languages ​​together with stories that everyone can sympathise.

So…after those intense 3 days, I still ask myself — what is my role in making cities more livable and sustainable? What will happen to Japanese cities in the future? Even though the rate of vacant houses are still rising, most of the big developers in Japan, including Tokyu-Corporation (the organizer of the renovation school for this time), keep constructing new fancy buildings for urban redevelopment. I see an irony here. After spending 3 days of very intense design sprint, I couldn’t stop but hope to see more of those collective actions in Japan, especially NOW when urban development is booming before the Tokyo Olympic Games in 2020.

Let’s just hope that these new urban movements, such as the Renovation School, could shift the direction of Japanese urban development a little bit towards a better tommorow.

The event was hosted by Shibuya Hack Project and the theme of the day was “from XS to XL — the methodology of urban development to think across the scales”.

Shibuya Hack Project is a bottom-up urban initiative in Shibuya that uses the methodology of tactical urbanism, encouraging the citizens to “own” the city and use the urban space freely. This is an attempt to give a long-term effect ( XL) in a short-term small practice (XS).

The project has been doing various activities since 2013,from making street furniture to organising an art exhibition ; however, there has been a clear distance between it and the mainstream urban regeneration that is happening in Shibuya.

Thus, we wanted to tackle the question of how we can connect the small-scaled bottom-up citizen initiatives with large-scale urban developments, which tend to leave the grassroots initiatives behind. It also involves the question of how we can make sense of the distance between our everyday lives and actions and the meta-scaled narrative and representation of Tokyo.

This post briefly covers the discussion we had that day.

※This post is based on: https://loftwork.com/jp/event/20180313_hmc_report

https://loftwork.com/jp/event/20180313_hmc_report

What if there is the opposite to “broken window theory?”

I know that “connecting various urban practices across scales” sounds a bit ambitious , so let me break it down a little bit more to show you what we had in mind.

We started from the image of “*Powers of Ten*” , a film by Charles and Ray Eames. It illustrates the world — from everyday picnics to cosmic mystery and even to the level of a carbon atom — as an arena of continuity. It is a work that travels from the viewpoint of XL to that of XS, and has exponential powers to emphasize the importance of scale.

Another example; the broken windows theory was proposed by James Q. Wilson and George Kelling in 1982. Iit is the theory that uses broken windows as a metaphor/indicator showing disorder and the decay of neighborhoods. If there is one broken window in the town, this will lead to another being broken and another, which ultimately leads to arise in the crime rate of the town as a whole, and finally linking to urban disorder and incivility within a community.

The broken window theory is a negative example, but it certainly highlights the importance of scales — the world as an arena of continuity. What if we can design the opposite phenomenon to the broken window theory by connecting various urban practices to achieve abigger effect?

Below are some of the quotes from the guest speakers on this topic.

Citizens who use and update their cities — Yukako Ishikawa

Yukako Ishikawa, a director of Shibuya Hack Project, said that the “broken window theory” has a lot in common with tactical urbanism , which is the approach that this project is taking.

Our motivation is to encourage the XS size bottom-up approach by citizens, who are often disconnected by large scale urban development by the administration or private companies. We need a common language to find a familiar arena between the two different scales.

Citizens’ everyday lives (XS) in the urban community — Jun Aoki (Nest.inc)

Mr. Aoki, a famous landlord in Japan, believes that the smallest unit of our urban space is the residents’ everyday lives and their living space. In Aoki’s rental housings, the residents can make home gardens and organize events by themselves or create shared offices and customize their homes as they want — something that is quite rare in Japan.

He has also devoted himself to revitalizing Minami-Ikebukuro Park, which was re-opened in spring 2016 after five years of renovations. This park is now a popular hangout and lunch spot for locals with various activities such as Marche, film screenings, and weddings.

The place of living should be connected to a community and its surroundings — we can scale up from XS to S by letting people have freedom to use their living space and sort of encroach towards their urban surroundings.

https://loftwork.com/jp/event/20180313_hmc_report

“Urban management” as a way to connect the various urban scales — Atsumi Hayashi (Tokyo R Real Estate)

Mr. Hayashi, co-chairman of Tokyo R Real Estate and the architecture firm SPEAC argues the importance of applying the concept of management into cities as a way to include the industrial strategies and human resources and other manageable factors to establish a creative place in microscopic thinking.

It is important to have strategies and management skills to concern the large-scaled regional socio-economic sustainability while putting people first and believing in the power of smallness led by the citizens.

https://loftwork.com/jp/event/20180313_hmc_report

Workshop

The event also involved fieldwork to the riverside in Shibuya and a subsequent workshop. This served to re-discover regional assets from the viewpoint of individuals and to think about their own public space, namely “personal stalls”.

https://loftwork.com/jp/event/20180313_hmc_report3

If you want to know more about the event, check out the event reports (available only in Japanese).

Part1: https://loftwork.com/jp/event/20180313_hmc_report
Part2: https://loftwork.com/jp/event/20180313_hmc_report2
Part3: https://loftwork.com/jp/event/20180313_hmc_report3

I liked the author’s unique eyes, to find the “alternative” — which, in my understanding, challenges the conventional idea of what Asian cities are about and show us the emerging wave of cultural movement created by the locals.

With that in mind, I tried to find the alternative spots in Kuala Lumpur, when I visited there in February 2018. I believe that we all share the same problems of lacking decent public space in our cities, isolation of young creatives due to the rapid urban/economic transformation that is turning our city to the place of consumption. Kuala Lumpur is definitely part of the Karma, that’s why it’s valuable to know what’s there to be against it.

This post is to introduce two alternative spaces you can visit.

1. Fab Space

I firstly got to know Fab Space through Loftwork, a deign hub I used to work in Tokyo. Fab Space is a creative space where your ideas can become a tangible reality and innovation and new ideas are birthed.

This is a digital innovation lab where you can have access to machines, such as laser cutter, 3d printer, UV printer, latex printer, CNC milling machine, which are not commonly accessible to the public.

Not only that — it focuses on building a community of creatives and innovative people to exchange their ideas and create something anew.

2. APW Bangstar

An old printing factory APW Bangstar was renovated to become a creative hub where arts, culture, business and technology converge. Within its big industrial area, APW Bangstar hosts collaborative workspace, F&B outlets, event venues and pocket parks — and everyone is welcome to hangout!

It has one of the hippest coffee shop in Kuala Lumpur

Urban farming laboratory

Urbanist MeetUp Tokyo

Cities are formed/imagined/lived and used by people from various backgrounds and with interests. The increasingly popular Japanese concept of “machi-zukuri” (community/neighborhood planning — check out this article here), for instance, means a departure from the traditional form of top-down planning and covers variety of fields, such as community development, renovation, regional branding, town development, real estate, geography, architecture, and more. Yes, there are tons of professions that are closely related to cities, not only architects and planners — so what is the meaning of connecting all these activities and professions on the horizontal axis?

2017 December in Tokyo; approximately 150 urbanists showed up to the meetup. The meetup was originally initiated by a few young architects from the renovation industry, who have been gathering and holding a party every year for the past 4 years in order to extend the narrow frame of the industry.

Since then, the concept has spread not only among the renovation industry but also to real estate, architectural design, town planning and other areas. This time, we expanded the frame further and gathered a wide variety of people who were related to cities in various ways in order to create a more inviting and strong community — we decided to name it “Urbanist MeetUp”.

In this meetup, the word “urbanist” was widely defined as “people who make/use/live cities”, and we invited 23 urbanists to give a short pitch about their activities — their approach and passion for cities. A small game followed to elicit conversation among participants.

The beauty of this meetup was that there was a variety of professions involved — not only architects and planners, but also people from community development, writers and editors from the media covering a variety of urban issues, and IT engineers who are developing apps about cities. All the speakers and participants were able to meet others who are equally passionate about cities, but had totally different professions and approaches. If that doesn’t trigger a conversation towards brand-new ideas and inspiration, what will?

Fireside Chat for cities@Tokyo

As another example , a few months ago my colleague and I organized a meetup called “Fireside Chat for Cities” . This was a meetup for urbanists to discuss various topics related to cities in an interactive manner. We gathered in a small bar on Shinjuku Golden Street, and the focus was a discussion of the subjective, personal stories of the participants.

We came up with some random city-related themes such as “noise, crowded trains, staircases, drinking companions, convenience stores, windows, romance, smell, gender” , whereby each participant selected one of the themes and talked about what they had experienced regarding that topic in cities. The aim was to grasp our cities through the complexity of how one experiences and lives in a city and gets to know the others’ different approaches and opinions.

Most of the participants were not architects or urban planners, but when they talked about their subjective memories and experiences of the cities, it really didn’t matter who “knew” the city better.

Who is the “urbanist”?

In Japan, the word urbanism is often translated in association with urban planning and civil engineering skills, and in many cases it is considered that urbanist = urban planner. However, if the urbanist is grasped broadly as those people who “make” cities and “use/live” cities, we can bring together people from a wide variety of specialized fields, like those gathered in this meetup under the same term — even the citizens.

The term urbanist is also becoming more and more acknowledged.

Scott Bonjukian, a writer in The Urbanist, published an article in 2016 called “Why I call myself an urbanist” in which he said that the English words “urbanism” and “urbanist” have recently become popular. He summaries that “urbanists want more people (of all types) to have equal access to housing variety (apartments, townhouse, backyard cottages, houses, duplexes, etc.), more ways to get around (transit, walking, bicycling, ride-share, vanpool, etc.), more to see and do (parks, cafes, bars, museums, shops, etc.), and to have more grassroots influence on city government.” He defines himself as one of them.

In response to this article, Brandon Donnelly, an architectural blogger and creator, said: *“If you look it up in the dictionary, you’ll likely get something along the lines of: someone who is a specialist in city planning. But I bet that there are many people out there who would self-identity as being an urbanist, but who would also not consider themselves specialists in the field. The term has evolved to imply other things.“ *(Brandon Donnelly, What is an urbanist?)

In addition, Christian Dimmer, who teaches urban studies at Waseda University in Tokyo, uses the word “citizen urbanists”, arguing that we citizens as the urban dwellers are the essence of the urbanist.

Urbanist in Tokyo

To sum up, I believe that those we call urbanists should not only be the “specialists” who make the physical environment of cities (like architects and city planners) but also other specialists and, most importantly, the citizens , who are participating in the urbanity.

Japan is a country undergoing profound socio-economic and demographic transformation. Tokyo, specifically, is experiencing massive transformation with the very clear goal of hosting the Olympic Games in 2020. Looking at a map of prospective urban development of the whole city, you would be surprised at how many constructions are going on and how similar all these buildings are — all are concrete skyscrapers for fancy offices and hotels.

While some are taking advantage of this economic boom, there have also been some very concerned voices about citizens’ rights to cities and urban commons. Some say that Tokyo is increasingly changing without the citizens’ will — its changes are based on developers’ money games.

(If you want to know more about what’s happening, you can check out such research papers as “The need for rebuilding Tokyo with the 2020 Tokyo Olympics as impetus”.)

I want to see more encouraging stories of people who participate and act in Japanese cities, not just of those who are imagined to be the stakeholders and responsible for making them.

The idea started from this beautiful map

A few months before the workshop, I traveled to Bangkok, Thailand, for a holiday with some of my best friends. It was my first journey to Thailand and I didn’t have any prior knowledge about the city. For the first few days we visited the major famous temples and markets etc., all the touristic spots for which you can easily find information on Google or in guidebooks. However, I knew that something was missing.

I appreciate local culture and the daily life that is lived and constantly being updated by the people who live there. For me. it is far more meaningful to visit a local community center than to over-spend in an expensive restaurant in a touristic city center.

Unfortunately, Google Maps couldn’t give me what I wanted, even with intensive research. What changed my stay in Bangkok was this beautiful map, which I found by change at a local creative space called the Jam Factory Bangkok.

Image by Nancy Chandler’s Thailand

Image by Nancy Chandler’s Thailand

What’s so special about this map, with its excellent hand-drawing, is that it appears very… let’s say “biased” in a good way. Sure, there are some objective facts written on it, such as the names of the temples and so on, but you can really feel the presence of a map maker who has walked through and “felt” specific parts of the city in their own way. It talks about all the seemingly “useless” small things that you never read on Google Maps.

It even reminds me of USE-It Map Europe, which is an alternative map making movement for young travelers that I can never stop loving.

USE-it Map Europe: https://use-it.travel/home

No map is neutral

Maps tell stories.

We see maps on a daily bases: On our phones, in the stations, in guidebooks etc… to get from point A to B. People tend to think that the maps we see/use every day — especially digital maps like Google Maps — are something very logical and objective. We simply don’t question them. On the other hand, something like Nancy Chandler’s map of Bangkok, which contains personal opinions, feelings, and memories, might be judged as “illogical”.

But is it really so black and white?

In fact, we can’t trust these “logical maps” as a pure “fact” either.

This brilliant talk by Monica Stephens teaches us to be more critical about what digital maps (and analogue maps, even though they aren’t mentioned in the talk) are showing us. I won’t summarize her argument here in detail, but her message is clear — our maps are different based on our world view. And we should wonder whose world view and whose perception we are seeing on the maps, and whose perspective has been left out.

For instance, the Mercator projection has famously been criticized for spreading a western-oriented world view, and there is an extreme inequality of the distribution of spatial information/data that covers the Earth’ surface.

This is why Henk van Houtum in his TED talk powerfully calls for the need to make new maps, to free the map from politics and emancipate it from the dominant world view — and make it our own.

Subjective Map Workshop

What if we each had our OWN map, one that didn’t get filtered by Google Maps and someone else’s world view? What if we had maps that talked about the small, local details that are otherwise left out by mainstream map making?

With this motivation, some of my colleagues and I decided to throw a subjective map workshop in different parts of Tokyo — and we chose Shibuya as the first location.

The idea was to collect multiple ideas and combine them together, and to make it sharable with others!

At the beginning, we learned map making techniques and the storytelling power of maps. Afterwards we just simply went out onto the streets for individual fieldwork, and wrote down our personal stories or opinions through own perspectives. For those who didn’t know what to do, I advised them to pay attention to personal memories and any attachments to a specific part of the city as well as sense of belonging, tips to enjoy favorite spots, even smell, sense of security, light and darkness, and so on.

This is the result. And what’s next?

In the end we had some incredibly fun and creative maps that were directly related to their creators’ personal ways of making sense of the urban surroundings.

This is just one of the examples from the participants. She is someone who always pays attention to trashcans when she walks in Shibuya, and is always trying to discern the personalities of each of them. This highlights the hidden parts of our everyday life, something that is not widely discussed but definitely part of our urban life at an unconscious level.

I’m in the process of synthesizing all the maps into one single map (this is the tough part…) and it should soon be ready for distribution to involve more people in this subjective map movement. Wouldn’t it be fun to think about a subjective map#Paris or a subjective map#Toronto?

It would be nice to have more critical map lovers who understand and are careful about how much our minds and spatial understanding are influenced by the dominant existing maps and other forms of spatial information.

Thanks for reading!

I manage to have an interview with Vanessa Carpenter and Nikolaj Dzl Mobius — the co-founders of ILLUTRON, which is a maker space that is anchored at the port in Copenhagen, Denmark. It is a renovated 400-ton old ship and now used as a project space for artists, entrepreneurs, and creators. I decided to ask Vanessa and Nikolaj how they pushed their idea of creating a maker space here in Copenhagen.

Would you tell me about your background? I heard Vanessa went to Malmo University in Sweden majoring in interactive design. How did you go from there to ILLUTRON?

Vanessa: I am originally from Canada, at Vancouver University where I majored in interactive art and technology. I was introduced by a classmate who was at Malmo University to do my masters in Sweden and ended up staying there for two years.

The encounter with ILLUTRON is shortly after moving to Sweden. During the firs week of my masters, one of my Danish classmates said to me, “There is an interesting boat in Copenhagen, come and have a look.”

I still remember that day very well. It was very foggy evening. After a party we decided to go have a look at boat on the harbor and I was amazed by the size of the boat.

When I got told a boat I imagined something small, but when I saw I didn’t expect the boat to be so big. It was surrounded by electronic devices, robots and other junk, I feel in love with that mysterious feel straight away.

It’s like one scene out of a movie! What sort of boat was it?

Vanessa: ILLUTRON was once called* a half-machine* and was used to dig cables and wiring when building bridges around Denmark. After fulfilling his role, a friend of us bought the boat that had been neglected for a long time at the port in the Christiania district of Copenhagen. The encounter with the boat that night was the start up and operation of ILLUTRON.

Dzl, you are also one of the core members of ILLUTRON, and also FabLab in Roskilde city. Could you tell me about your background?

Dzl: I am from Copenhagen and I have always been involved with technology and art. I have created art work myself, taught various skills in the technology.

FabLab, which I am part of, is located on the campus of Roskilde University and puts emphasis on education. Since it is an open space, it isn’t just for students but also for the general public. We teach them how to use various machines such as 3D printers and laser cutters and also run tutorials according to their needs regarding technology in general.

In many Fab Spaces, they are told “You can use 3D printers and laser cutters freely, good luck!,” and they are left to figure it out on their own. But, in FabLab, the staff looks at the materials together and gives advice for their projects so that amateurs can use and understand it easily.

Vanessa: In Copenhagen, there is currently a big movement in terms of technology and art, therefore we put a huge emphasis the educating part.

ILLUTRON was born from the desire to create “our own place.”

Why did you decide to reconstruct it into a maker space, not anything else?

Dzl: In Denmark, there were several small maker space, mainly in the Christiania district and Vestabro district, and it was the experiment site of various projects. These spaces were scattered in low-priced areas such as closed down industrial areas.

However, in recent years, it was swallowed by the swell of re-development. With the population of Copenhagen increasing dramatically, building offices and apartments were built in in areas that didn’t have many developments.

The artists and creators who gathered ins mall maker space areas had been driven away. It is those who had created new places and have made the area interesting, but they were kicked out as soon as the area became required for re-development. Due to this, artists and creators felt that they needed a their, ‘own place,’ which could never be driven out.

One of the performances at ILLUTRON.See: ILLUTRON facebook

It is related to the issue of gentrification in Copenhagen.

Dzl: Yes indeed. That is why it was important that “ILLUTRON can never be kicked out no matter what happens”. For example, the Vestablo district, which was originally a very low rent area, has become a popular spot in recent years for tourists and investors which means artists living there originally have been forced out.

Vanessa:ILLUTRON floats in the water and can move anywhere so nothing can be kicked out!

Dzl:That’s why the representatives of the maker space cooperated and gathered funds and bought a ship together. Because it is a used ship, we repaired it together. There are still a few places that have not been repaired yet …. But this boat is ours so no one can take over!

Involving locals while moving

Vanessa: After the repairs of the ship and the official opening of ILLUTRON we have set up various projects such as large scale crafts which many could participate in and a number of small projects.

Is there anything you are particular about while doing these projects?

Vanessa: ILLUTRON is constantly moving from port to port of Copenhagen and we are trying to connect with the community in that area when we do the project. I think a good example is when it was anchored in Sydhavnen.

This area used to be an industrial area, but recently the influx of wealthy families means many new apartments are being built. It was interesting that the residents here were initially distant from us. I think the thought it was a gathering of weird people. Various experiments and work were done in ILLUTRON, and sometimes blow a fire from a ship as part of the performance (laughs), I guess that would make people wary!

We started to think it was hopeless and then we decided to do engineering workshops for kids in the area. By involving kids we were able to get more people involved and families in the area to join the workshops, art events and performances.

It was very pleasant to see the “odd-ballers” who ride around second-hand ships and the wealthy families in this area working on the same project. Currently, instead of Sydhavnen we are anchored at the other ports of Copenhagen, but the way we involve locals has not changed.

What does it mean to involve the locals of the area?

Dzl: ILLUTRON is a public space. No matter where it is anchored anyone can come in freely and do whatever they want to do.

Vanessa: We do various activities such as large-scale cultural events named “KulturHavn” (cultural port) and anyone can participate easily. We don’t just do performances, we also hang screens up to show movies and experiments showing robots.

Dzl: In particular, “access to waterside” is one of the most important topics. The port of Copenhagen is operated by private companies there are actually very few places where people can enjoy the waterside. That is why ILLUTRON often does projects with waterfront as a theme.

Vanessa: There are definitely many projects that use boats or something floating on water. Having a small orchestra on a small boat and go along the port, and in Christmas we do a floating tree.

How do you get the staffs and expenses?

Vanessa: We have 20 main members, but we constantly have new members who bring new ideas to the table. Now the original members are completely hands off and it has be handed down to the younger generations. It has become an autonomous ecosystem.

Usually it is necessary to pay to have your boat on the port but as long as we are doing cultural events we have been told by the Copenhangen city council that we can have out boat on the port for free. We also manage by getting funding for each project and the membership free from the members.

Dzl: ILLUTRON is a physical space as well as an area for networking It is used by various organizations and individuals who have a range of ideas and skills and it has also become a very active community on SNS.

If you think of something, give it ago- ‘Do-ocracy’

I’d love to hear your key tips for running a community!

Vanessa: For myself I am more of a provider of facility than a creator. For example, ‘Idemo Lab,’ is something we are currently setting up, and by organizing up workshops and events in this space, we create communities and you’re able to support the growth of a range of different people — this is the mission.

Dzl: That’s right. At events we are setting, it is important that it is not just interactivity but it is also participatory. There is no point to expect that people will just have fun automatically. What we cherish is the participation of the people from the ideas they have brought in and from there news ideas being born.

Vanessa: The mindset of lets give it shot! Is really important. For example, if you think you want to paint the boat pink, rather than discussing whether I should paint it pink you should just paint it pink! I feel there are a lot of people who just say their opinion but don’t really take that into action. So as long as there isn’t anyone strongly against what you want to do, you should take action and whoever paints the boat pink becomes a winner. Actually doing it is the determining factor.

Dzl: That is ‘Do-ocracy’!

Vanessa: Do-ocracy is a Copenhagen mentality — people tend to just do thing without really asking. In this city, new attempts and interesting events are always being done. This is done because people don’t waste time discussing. Because people are like in Copenhagen this there’re lots of interesting pop up events and initiatives all the time.

So people in Copenhagen not only say their opinions but they also take action. In Japan, there are people complaining about the way people treat the parks but there are very few people that actually take action and do something about it. This is where we should really look up to in terms of people in Copenhagen.

“Meaningful” experience is important

One day at Fablab. Reference: FabLab Official HP

Vanessa: We are also conscious about being, ‘meaningful.’ Since ILLUTRON is a maker space, it deals with technology a lot of the time, but in recent years it tends to be“technology for technology” — this means a type of technology being made where personal experiences are being ignored. This is something we are very conscious about.

I am studying the concept of “Meaningful Smart Product” with IdemoLab of DELTA. For example, you’re wearing a very nice watch today, you must have a lot of feelings towards and memories with that watch. Image that you have 5 more similar smart watches which may be useful. What if you don’t have the same feelings towards those watches? No matter how far technology goes, if something isn’t meaningful between the person and the object, could you say that it is something really good for us?

This is a very interesting issue. You can say something similar with the experiences in the city.

Dzl: Personal attachment is important. There are many forward thinking cities that function without any problems, but cities become something special only when there are individual experiences, thoughts and memories that are attached to the city.

An example of “Meaningful” experiene. In their wedding, Mr. Vanessa wore a bouquet with LED lights and a ring with a galvanic skin reaction device. It is a mechanism that allows Vanessa ‘s mood to be sensed by using the current using the current, blue when she feels calm, and when she is unsure the white in the bouquet changes. In this way, we value how to use technology that closely relates to our own experience and feelings. Reference: http://www.geekphysical.com/coldfeet_readmore.php

From this interview, I really think the people in Copenhagen must have a “meaningful” relationship with their city. I wonder if it is possible to do something similar with all the cities around the world.

Dzl: It is the people who make the city. If the people in the city want to do it, I think it can happen.

Vanessa: No matter how many workshops or events you do, like I mentioned earlier, nothing will happen if you just stand there waiting. This is something we have also experienced, where people come and say, ‘just tell us simply what you’re doing,’ or ‘tell me how to become creative.’ But if there are just people sitting there waiting for something to happen, life won’t be brought to the city.

No matter how much creative opportunities and space you provide, nothing will happen unless there is awareness or responsibility from the people involved. In other words, having a spirit of your own and having the spirit of Do-ocracy is important. I think this can be said not only just for Copenhagen but for cities in Japan like Tokyo.

Great point. Please tell me what are your ambition for the future?

Dzl: I would like to continue to focus on teaching about technology and manufacturing. I am really inspired by the educational system for creators and artists at MIT’s Fab Academy.

Vanessa: I want to get away from replying to emails and meetings and try ‘skunk work’. I would like to really focus on a project for about 3 months and from that I think I would be able to see what’s truly important and a vision for the future. I will also continue the research on the “Meaningful Smart Product”

We are looking forward to what the future hold for you! Thank you so much for today!

(※This article was originally posted on layout.net. Interview / Text are by myself)

ILLUTRON seen from the sky.
See also: Walter Hannemann

Official website: www.illutron.dk
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/illutron/Flicker: https://www.flickr.com/search/?w=all&q=illutron&m=text

On 16th-17th September 2017, I had the honor of hosting the first edition of the #GlobalGoalsJam in Tokyo at 100BANCH. Global Goals Jam #Tokyo was a two-day event with short design sprints, using the methods from MediaLAB Amsterdam — we invited various professionals, designers, creators, and students from more than 10 countries to share and develop our ideas.

During the 2015 Social Good Summit, 193 world leaders committed to achieving 17 Sustainable Development Goals by the year 2030. As an initiative of the United Nations Development Program and MediaLAB Amsterdam, the Global Goals Jam began to design realistic, actionable interventions for these goals. Right now, there are more than 30 cities from different parts of the world supporting the initiatives from the local action.

I met the co-founders Marco Van Hout and Gijs Gootjes when they came to Tokyo, and I had the honor of receiving an official invitation to be a local host for this incredible global event. This article invites you to get a glimpse at the first edition of the Global Goals Jam #Tokyo.

It’s actually very rare in Tokyo to have an event entirely in English, with people from various backgrounds.

One thing I wanted to make happen was to make the event truly international and diverse. That means: it should welcome anyone regardless of their age, nationality, gender…. And it should be held in English.

Tokyo is a big, global metropolis and — well, if you know OTHER big metropolises like New York and London, you might be surprised to know that the proportion of foreigners in Tokyo is surprisingly low. Thus, everyday contact with people from different cultural backgrounds is still a rare experience for most Japanese, especially for those who don’t feel comfortable speaking in English. In Global Goals Jam #Tokyo, I was pleased to see people from Japan, Canada, the USA, Mozambique, Tanzania, Madagascar, Mauritius, etc. One of the participants from Mauritius told me that she has been looking for this kind of event in Tokyo for a long time.

It doesn’t matter how well you speak English. What matters is working with someone from a different cultural background and exchanging opinions in a common language towards the same goal. Believe me, I know it can sometimes be very awkward and frustrating. But it’s worth it.

David Willoughby from Workers University joined the event as one of the facilitators

We learned the Design Sprints method from Amsterdam Media Lab.

***Sprint #1 Organize it, experience it / Sprint #2 Respond to it
*This was about identifying problems and organizing our ideas

Have you ever wondered what the heck a “design methodology” is? I know that it’s a fashionable thing to talk about “design” nowadays, but I always thought that many people didn’t really understand what it was, but just kinda wanted to talk bullshit about it.

That’s why it was very valuable to use the concrete methods established by Amsterdam Media Lab. While leaving out the very fine details that actually fit into the local contexts, Amsterdam Media Lab provides a common language of design methods for the design field (they call it a mission to fight “design waste”), which is open and accessible and where even the beginners can dive straight in.

Check out this toolkit — it has all the tools we can use, explaining each step that needs to be followed. It, of course, explains things like the process and for which purpose, how long it takes to complete a work, and so on.

Day 2: Build it and test it

The second day was all about developing prototypes. We first made concept sketches to represent our ideas in order to get feedback from the other teams. Afterward, we tried to bring the team’s idea to the physical world for a demonstration. The proto-tools were provided by Fabcafe — a fabulous cafe in Tokyo where you can enjoy all the fabrication tools!

Think BIG, start SMALL, act FAST! Can’t you do the same, Tokyo?

In the final presentations, we delivered various ideas, which were demonstrated as paper or cardboard prototypes, hand-made prototypes made with a laser cutter, video prototyping, and storyboards. Below are some of the prototypes we developed during the event.

Team 1. 「Midori no Heroes」: Goal # 4 Quality Education

『Midori no Heroes』Storyboard

Challenge: How to provide vocational education to encourage small farmers in Africa by sending them useful information via feature phones and smartphone?

Their idea:“Midori no Heroes”, as a social entrepreneur, will partner with local research institutes, such as universities, central government and local government, to gather appropriate information for the farmers to farm better and more efficiently and then offer it to local small farmers. The team assumes that basic information such as weather forecasting can be useful since most of the farmers work without planning. The information will be delivered and implemented in two ways, one is via a feature phone for each farmer and the other is via a smartphone at a community center or community church. Midori no Heroes will have workshops at those central places where people regularly get together in order to learn how to use the smartphones and the information and how to implement it in their farming.

Team 2.「Plan B: Shared eco-bags」: Goal # 11 Sustainable Cities and Communities

『Shared eco-bags』Video prototype

Challenge: 「Tackling the problem of shoppers consuming an excessive and unnecessary number of plastic bags at grocery stores and convenience stores in Tokyo.

Their idea：In Japan, 305 million plastic bags are used every year (300 bags/year for each person). Plastic bags take more than 1,000 years to decompose. Plan B is a reusable eco-bag that enables people to share / get benefit by using them.

Team 3. 「DiverCity」：Goal # 4 Quality Education

『DiverCity』website prototype： https://xd.adobe.com/view/7f7fb204-c645-4a24-99d8-d5487fe76871/

Challenge: How can we design a solution that promotes respect for diversity and individual differences in Japanese schools?

Their idea：DiverCity is a network of local people who have important life lessons they want to teach. Choosing a career, going your own way, learning from your mistakes, and finding your true self. Tayoubi means “diversity day” in Japanese. We encourage schools to set a specific day or time to think about diversity issues. They can make use of our “Diversity Bank” of local residents with interesting stories to tell. We also provide a “Diversity Pack” of lesson ideas and discussion topics for teachers introducing diversity education to their classrooms. Teachers and schools are free to decide how they implement Tayoubi, according to their available time and other resources.

Team 4. 「Sea You Soon」：Goal # 11 Sustainable Cities and Communities

『SEA you soon』Mockup for an app service

Challenge: How can we design a solution that turns Tokyo’s water resources into recreational community-building spaces while promoting awareness of the importance of water in our lives?

Their idea：We provide easy access to coastal journeys with experienced fishermen through an app called “SEA you soon’’. One can experience catching fish and eating and cooking them with the locals. The aim is to give people an attachment to the coastal environment for a more sustainable waterfront development.

Team 5. 「Smart Mirror Companion」：Goal # 3 Good Health and Well-Being

『Smart Mirror Companion』Video prototype

Challenge: Combating the world’s health problems by focusing on well-being and making sure everyone has the tools and resources to be healthy.

Their idea：A mirror powered by a digital personal assistant (like Siri) to be your partner when you need 1) medical assistance 2) or just a companion to be there for you.

Aren’t these ideas great and inspiring? I know that these are not PERFECT perfect — because they were done only in 2 days — but it is surely the beginning of something exciting. Marco, the co-founder of Global Goals Jam, told me that it’s all about “Think BIG, start SMALL, act FAST!”, and I think it could not be phrased any better.

As a person who ALWAYS thinks of things in the context of cities and urbanism, I can’t help but think how valuable it would be to use this structure for the re-development of Tokyo. At the moment, everything seems to be “Think SMALL, start BIG, act SLOW!”. I’d love to apply the design sprint method we’ve learned during the Global Goals Jam to some of the critical urban problems we are facing, such as a shortage of childcare facilities, a lack of safe bicycle infrastructure, an unaffordable housing market, and energy shortages, just to name a few.

I hope you can also come and join us for this year’s Global Goals Jam 2018 #Tokyo!

In Dima’s office at Waseda University. On the book shelves there were many books on cities, maps and plans.

Thank you very much for your time. First of all, please introduce yourself and what you’re currently doing.

Dimmer: Using Japan as a base, I have taught at the University of Tokyo and Waseda University for the past 15 years. As space and environment designer, we conduct research on Urban Studies with the theme of public space and city movement. Until recently, I had been mainly involved with the academic side, but since the Tohoku Earthquake in March 2011 a big opportunity came along for me to get involved to understand the changes in society. I‘ve been involved in Tokyo-based architectural office Frontoffice Tokyo, and Tohoku Planning Forum, a project run by an international organization Architecture For Humanity.

On the “Tohoku Planning Forum” website, you can check detailed information on who is doing what on the restoration in the Tohoku region using an interactive map.

Please tell me more about the events after the earthquake.What’s the goal of Tohoku Planning Forum?

Dimmer: As a designer, architect, urban planning expert, citizen mediator, facilitator, we’ve been coming up with ideas for forums and events. This has allowed the local citizens and specialists to discuss the restorations plans.

Architects are familiar with their areas, but it often ends there. City planners, engineers and artists are also the same — they communicate amongst themselves and not with other specialists.

Also there is still hierarchy in the field of city planning and architecture. Even if you do a talk event, people will say, “Oh, that great teacher will come.” When organizing these events I was very conscious about removing the hierarchy and letting anyone speak their opinion.

By doing so, I think that will increase the number of, ‘Citizen Urbanist’.

I am also currently planning on an art project using containers. The idea is to have a moveable exhibition that can go around the Tohoku region, but I’ll talk about this later on.

Urbanism is not boring.

You used the word facilitator to explain about your work. As a facilitator, it is important to involve a range of people from new and different industries.

Dimmer: That’s right, I think “translation”is what connects people.

Could you explain more what you mean by translation?

Dimmer: As an example, I often think of “translating city planning”. The material of the urban master plans in Japan look very boring and very hard to understand. If you have a network with creators, I think that you can “translate” these boring plans into more attractive things while creating a relationship between the specialists and the artists to get citizens involved a plan that is, ‘readable’ and ‘understandable’.

I was able to look at Dima’s planning of Shibuya that was published in 1996, it was easy to read even for non-specialists and the mapping was very attractive. Dima said, he was able to do this easily a long time ago but that skill seemed to disappear over time.

In addition to bird’s-eye views, the booklet also refers to urban dwellers in the area.

I see. I was very satisfied with the word “translation” in the context of the city. There are a number of projects that connect the specialists and citizens, and one of my favorite one is called Shibuya Hack Project. It focuses on connecting people from a range of different areas and local stake holders.

Dimmer: This is a very important activity. We did something similar at Tokyo Transitions in 2015. I feel these activities will increase the number of Citizen Urbanist.

A focus on connecting person to person — Transition Design

Would you please tell me a little more about ‘Tokyo Transitions?’ Was your main focus on connecting person to person?

Dimmer: Transition Design is a new area, recently Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh has made a program using this name. The climate is changing and the politics are unstable, I feel we are living in a period of ‘transition.’ In South East Asia and Africa a Neoliberal market is taking over the local markets and the refugees are crossing the Mediterranean. In this day of age, are the specialists and policymakers who don’t pay attention to these transitions allowed to make decisions on these grand designs?

Tokyo transition (Spring 2015) was a week-long project aimed at everyone who lived in the city. The aim was to portray what the city planners, facilitators and community were doing. ‘place/making’ photo by Egami Kenichiro.

Based on ‘transition design,’ last year we recruited people domestically and undergoing the program, ‘Tokyo transitions.’ We walked around the city did talk about events and workshops for a week inviting artists and administrators and not just specialists. A day may look like, discussions at midday based on a particular theme at the talk event and then walk around Minami-Senju and Muko island. It is similar to what the secret club did for the ‘Shibuya Hack Project,’ but for this project, we used the secret messages to help us communicate with the locals and see the hidden spots we’ve missed in the area. From the information gathered we were able to create a mapping, do an exhibition and was able to do a big discussion.

For Tokyo Transitions, we will be doing city walking, mapping, forums and three exhibitions. The people involved won’t be just specialists by local artists and administrators. ‘Place/making,’ photo by Egami Kennichiro.

The era when small experts make cities is over. Economists, psychologists, graphic designers, and citizens should collaborate with architects and planners to think of a design. The difficult part is specialists prefer specialists and they are creating a wall in their region to protect themselves.

That’s right. Many of the events can not be explained by just one particular field. You talked about facilitation, for an event like Tokyo Transitions the key seems to be creating connection across a range of fields.

Working towards the three ‘translations’

Dimmer: The way we are going to connect person to person is going to depend on who we connect with who. Therefore what I think is going to be important is a translator. A translator is going to be the key to this concept and there are 3 reasons why.

First, like I’ve said, the bridge between specialists such as architects and city planners is going to be translators. Usually we don’t really think about it architects are architectures, geographers are maps, businesses are businesses, I think specialists keep to themselves in their own area of expertise. What we need is current of age is interdisciplinary, a flexible collaboration between different specialists.

Second, translating among languages and cultures. Obviously it is important to overcome the difference in language but especially in Japan where the ‘top’ city planners, architects or developers are waiting for an answer from the West. Without ignoring it, instead of just copying and pasting the example of the West, I think it is important to combine the flexible application with the Japanese context.

Through translation he is trying to connect regional actors, and facilitating the importance of networking.

The third is a bridge between translation of the citizen’s community and specialists. Using difficult languages, designs and maps is a way of losing the locals, in order to increase Urbanist citizens is simplify and make the design and arts created by specialists accessible, this is something loft work is good at.

”New Urban Commons”

I understand the concept of translation, it is truly something embodied by Tokyo Transitions.

Dimmer: That’s right. On the last day of Tokyo Transition, Mr. Terai from Mad City and Mr. Itou from Shibaura House did the talks. Listening to the involvement of these people really gets me motivated. Telling people what to do, or this is the right way will not motivate people to take action. instead, listening to success stories I feel will create more of an impact.

For example, Mr. Ito of Shibaura House, he was the one that changed a typical advertisement company into something new, and I think his road to success was full of failures, trial and errors. I think the story told by Mr.Ito will reach out to people at a personal level, be encouraging and an inspiration.

I’ve also read your paper on ‘new urban commons’. Could you explain a bit more about it?

Dimmer There is a concept called “commons”. It is a shared resource that everyone can access, and many discussions are done in social relations. In Japanese it is translated as iriai, but what I’m interested in the new area is, ‘new urban commons.’ For example, Shibaura House or where I’m living (Kankan forest) there are new communities around.

What is distinctive about such urban new commons is that it is more open, unlike the traditional old closed community. It is necessary practice amongst new people coming and going. Shibaura House and Kankan forest communities are constantly evolving and performing, this won’t end and there is not final picture.

"Practice" is a perfect word to describe the commons, I think.

Dimmer: Yes it is. Commons and communities wasn’t statically built. It was practiced, the point that is changes may be a better verb. The important part is updating inner community, values and rules and continuously being new and dynamic. If this flow ends then the commons will die out.

Based on what we talked about what do you think is important for the cities in Japan? You being post growth society and doing lectures on building a place post Tohoku Earth quake.

Dimmer: I think we are heading toward a positive direction in terms of, ‘new urban commons,’ from new places being born like Shibaura House and Kankan forest. I am looking forward to the increasing strength of urban life, consideration towards the environment, DIY and share mentality in Japan which will create, new urban commons. However as stated, common is a living thing, through communication and workshops I feel we will need to continue these collaborative activities.

Thank you so much for sharing your ideas today!

Christian Dimmer
Assistant professor of the international education department at Waseda University/ Space and Environment designer, urban researcher.

(※This article was originally posted on layout.net. Interview / Text are by myself)

Things to do, places to go

1. An art & cultural center in the bread factory — Brotfabrik. Perfect example for an adaptive reuse without being too touristic.

2. Das Packhaus: The temporary use project and Vienna’s largest startup hub.

3. Between 1918 and 1934, Vienna was ruled by the Social Democrats government and they launched an extraordinary campaign to provide housing for working-class residents. Visit Karl Marx Hof and The museum in the laundry room!

Read

4. Get to know Vienna by reading the short novels and let your imagination wonder— Vienna tales

5. More about Red Vienna: RED VIENNA: A WORKER’S PARADISE

Organization

6. Space and Place — a non-profit group which uses social interventions to make important new connections across the city

7. Paradocks / Das Packhaus is a project to connect vacant spaces and city’s demands by finding creative potential in them. Paradocks stands for the “paradox” of demand and supply of space in a city.