Friday, 27 April 2012

Disposable Cities


Back in January I submitted an article to an open call for literary pieces of a political nature for a Liverpool Creative Writing student magazine. My piece was selected, the only non-fiction essay to be included. The magazine was launched on Wednesday night. Below is the article I wrote; "Disposable Cities". Initially I was disappointed with the article, I'd struggled with the 1000 word limit to say everything need to make a point and I'd have dearly liked to have gone into more depth on certain points but reading it back in the context of the magazine I think it sits quite well (if I say so myself). The editors have done a great job compiling a set of disparate pieces into a collection of well pitched pieces and I'm proud my contribution was included in the final product.


We recently heard in the news that after the Toxteth riots in 1981 Margaret Thatcher was advised to “abandon” Liverpool. Whilst Liverpool, and our other towns and cities, haven’t literally been abandoned in the years since they have slowly been abused and then handed over to private developers. The private developers hegemony over our urban areas displays a devastating erosion of democracy and citizenship that affects us all.

Urbanisations capacity to offer a means of investing surplus has led to a cycle of destruction and reconstruction in our city centres in the pursuit of profits and regardless of the repercussions for the local populous. The architect Adam Caruso has pointed out that the capitalisation of cities has created the requirement for urban areas and buildings to offer a return on their investments year on year.[1] Even when an area is popular and profitable developers see it as grist to the mill, a profit extracted only by demolition and the subsequent construction of ever larger, more efficient and newer buildings. Before the recession hit, a huge number of bland buildings were constructed which is not only depressing aesthetically but it is also disorientating to local people. Cities act as repositories of cultural memory and by flattening them and returning to a tabla rasa condition we lose our ability to relate to our surroundings and position ourselves in the world.[2] Whilst the preservation of buildings that no longer have any use out of sentimental attachment can create a city of mausoleums the destruction of buildings that play an active role is damaging to the living culture of a city that takes years to develop.

One example of this in Liverpool is Quiggins, the home of alternative shops, artists and a music venue which was demolished to make way for Liverpool One despite being hugely popular with locals and residents as was proven by a petition signed by tens of thousands to save it. Liverpool One and its generic counterparts which can be found all across British cities are another feature of the detrimental slide of urban areas; the privatisation of public-spaces. As Anna Minton explains, ‘the rules that govern the rest of the city do not apply [to privatised spaces]. Rather than being unconditionally open to the public, like the rest of the city, it is up to the owner to decide who is allowed in and what they are allowed to do there.’[3] Liverpool One is one of the largest privatised public-spaces in this country and demonstrated even before it was built how these areas fall outside of the normal democratic process and pay no heed to local demands. Tyranny is not too strong a word to use, the rules are decided by the owners and enforced by private police. These areas are like private city states and do not operate for the benefit of the host city and its people but solely for the creation of profit.

It is partly because of this singular aim that these areas are so banal. The lack of functional diversity has created a lack of architectural diversity. During the 60’s it was suggested that freeing up planning restrictions would lead to exciting buildings and places being created as the British people would be able to build what they wanted and needed, where and when they needed it. But as Minton points out, ‘this is not what happened. The lack of local government involvement and planning controls…resulted in the creation of remarkably similar places…removing planning does not free up people to make choice; it allows the market to make choices.’[4] One of the results of this sterile environment and the draconian laws established by the owners are events such as flashmobbing which have emerged because “people do not want to spend twenty four hours a day in the same type of designed environment.”[5]

It is reported that Geoffrey Howe didn’t want his suggestions to abandon Liverpool to be made public suggesting he was uncomfortable with the idea. But by handing over our democratic control and large areas of our cities the local authorities have abandoned our right to the city. Deyan Sudjic has suggested that the worrying thing about this is that the private developers will not be so uncomfortable when the time comes for them to abandon our cities. When there is no more profit to be squeezed out of a city or it becomes too expensive to make redevelopment worthwhile they will simply desert our cities and move on to new ones, ‘leaving behind the wreckage of their occupation. Treating cities as disposable in this way is the most wasteful use of resources imaginable.’[6]

It is naïve to imagine that a city can exist without creating waste as it is a living organism. No one can predict what the circumstances of change will be. The demise of industry in Britain has created vast swathes of derelict land and buildings. Even the introduction of the humble shipping container has caused profound changes to many traditional ports like Liverpool and the dockers who worked there.[7] But even these derelict sites are resources, we can reimagine these wastelands and they can offer us a way to reclaim the city.
Rather than seeing the brownfield site or the derelict building we can instead observe the latent potential of these scraps. These spaces can be reprogrammed for adaptive reuse by active citizens of the city who become urban-scavengers.[8] Where this has happened in the past decade derelict areas have seen an explosion of culture, repopulation, and land values have soared. To be able to shape the city in which we live is to be able to re-shape ourselves and therefore it should be seen as a right, not a privilege.[9] Unlike the flashmobbers who only temporarily reclaim space these scavengers would permanently occupy, repatriate and shape these spaces democratically for the benefit of the citizens of the city.

Minton refers to research conducted by Urban Catalyst that ‘confirmed what had long been suspected: areas which may appear empty and abandoned often provide the most fertile ground for artistic subcultures which begin organically to nurture creative and exciting places...’[10] With this in mind perhaps Thatcher would have done Liverpool a favour by abandoning it to the citizens.


[1] Caruso, A. (2008: 39) The Feeling of Things, Barcelona: Ediciones Poligrafa
[2] Virilio, P. (2005: 6) City of Panic, English Edition, Oxford: Berg
[3] Minton, A. (2009: 4) Ground Control: fear and happiness in the twenty-first-century city, London: Penguin Books Ltd.
[4] Minton, A. (2009: 184-186) Ground Control: fear and happiness in the twenty-first-century city, London: Penguin Books Ltd.
[5] Berger, A. (2006: 30) Drosscapes: Wasting Land in Urban America, New York: Princeton Architectural
[6] Sudjic, D. (1992: 235) 100 Mile City, London: Andre Deutsch
[7] Sudjic, D. (1992: 96) 100 Mile City, London: Andre Deutsch
[8] Berger, A. (2006: 12) Drosscapes: Wasting Land in Urban America, New York: Princeton Architectural
[9] Harvey, D. (2008: 1) The Right to the City, New Left Review
[10] Minton, A. (2009: 188) Ground Control: fear and happiness in the twenty-first-century city, London: Penguin Books Ltd.



Brilliant


I'm on the look out for any pointless road markings that become brilliant through the un-relenting logic of the highway engineer, saw these double yellow's on a trip to Norwich recently...the funny thing is that shortly after this photo someone actually did pull up there.

Tuesday, 24 April 2012

Playground


This was a first very quick attempt at editing a bit of video that Lee and I made a while back. Whilst it quickly becomes apparent that we didn’t really know what we were doing that is kind of the point. The leftover wasted parts of cities are great places to play, experiment, do whatever the hell you want in. For budding film makers it is the perfect place to go and try things out without needing to book fancy equipment or recording facilities/studios, seek permissions for filming in “public” areas, or feel intimidated by the fact that people can watch you being shit and clueless, hapless and hopeless. 


Tuesday, 17 April 2012

ReActive/InterActive Façades

Whilst the activities and functions within buildings form an areas characteristic, culture and ambiance it is arguably the facades of buildings that contribute the most to an areas visual appearance. Architects concern themselves immensely over the appearance of their buildings which can reduce the design of building to two dimensional design creating stage set towns and projection screens. In ‘The Eyes of the Skin” Juhanni Pallasmaa bemoans the hegemony of the eye and architecture that is built for the image.
“The ocular bias has never been more apparent in the art of architecture than in the past 30 years, as a type of architecture, aimed at a striking and memorable visual image, has predominated …architecture has adopted the psychological strategy of advertising and instant persuasion.”
But facades can be more generous and give something back to the street and the passerby, or they can communicate with the street to change the ambience. 
Jan Gehl talks extensively about how architecture, urban form and the relationships between the street and the buildings edge (ie. facade) affect how people feel within spaces. Recently I have come across several surface treatments for façades which have the potential to turn the face into a ‘re-active, inter-active’ surface that can be tuned by the buildings users and the streets users.
The first examples of this are the growing number of pixel buildings that use LED technologies to turn their façade into night time light shows. Most of these examples are fairly weak, and if anything they just further fetishisize the surface appearance of architecture but undeniably they do create an ambience for the street. If this is linked up to some sort of interactive technology where passersby can affect the display it begins to transform the building from an inanimate block for those who don’t have reason to use it into a plaything for the public.


A couple of better versions I’ve seen of this react directly by leaving a trace where people have just walked past them using aperture to open up creating a silhouette of the passerby.  Admittedly even these more advanced examples smack of being a bit gimmicky and whilst they are cool on their own a whole city of buildings using these systems would be pretty bland and the street-building interaction through the façade would be little improved. Once the initial novelty has worn off the system offers little to the street and the people occupying the building receive no benefit except perhaps increased attention if that is desirable.

As Jan Gehl says
“If life between buildings is given favorable conditions through sensible planning…many costly and often stilted and strained attempts to make buildings “interesting” and rich by using dramatic architectural effects can be spared.”
There are other ways of creating a dynamic street façade though that both improve the building for their users and visually enhance their appearance to the street. Various solar shading systems are being developed that can automatically react to the intensity of light and change the size of their coverage accordingly to keep constant levels of light within. Solar shading systems have traditionally been ways for buildings facades to adapt and give an indication to the street of the activities going on within. For example if someone sees shutters rolled down or closed on a building early in the morning chances are that the building occupants are either asleep or not on the premises, in the same way that the flag at Buckingham Palace indicates whether the Queen is home or not. Famously Mies was so concerned that blinds could be so easily adapted by the buildings occupants that the building would appear messy…he was scared that he would loose control of the buildings appearance. Accordingly he designed the blinds so that they could only be fully open, half closed or fully closed to keep the appearance uniform.
Olson Kundig does quite a lot with shuttering that can open a building right up or close it down very easily changing the visual appearance and occasionally the surrounding spaces as planes slide out forming enclosures etc.

The ‘Dynamic Façade” of the Kiefer Technic Showroom is a good example of a simple shuttering system that can be used in quite an extravagant way. The sheer amount of variability means that the building can appear totally differently day to day, potentially changing the dynamic of the surrounding street.

Justin Goodyre’s project ‘Adaptive Bloom’ is a really exciting way that buildings could potentially change their façade to maintain constant light levels in the future. If there is some way to utilize the blooms to have a use in their own right apart from shading the building then this could be awesome. Maybe the open petals could collect sun and create energy for the building like chloroplasts in leaves or they could open when it is raining to collect water to flush the toilets or maybe there could be organic elements as well so passersby in the street could pick and eat the fruits of the building. Mental.       

Another way that a façade can traditionally relate to the street is through transparency and/or permeability. Buildings with large areas of glass frontages might allow people passing by to see what is going on inside but they add very little to the street dynamic and in many cases the plate glass just reflects back the world outside. Juhani Pallasmaa talks about this phenomenon in ‘The Eyes of the Skin.’
“The increasing use of reflective glass in architecture reinforces the dreamlike sense of unreality and alienation. The contradictory opaque transparency of these buildings reflects the gaze back unaffected and unmoved; we are unable to see or imagine behind these walls. The architectural mirror, that returns our gaze and doubles the world, is an enigmatic and frightening device.”
Not only does the glass façade give little to the street but it’s own reflection but it doesn’t benefit the users of the building much either. Regardless of the environmental comfort concerns being within a large well lit glass building can be quite an isolating experience. At first glance you’d think that being inside a glass building would be quite an extroverted experience. I’m thinking again of Mies and his Farnsworth House; when I first saw images of it and considered it in plan I thought you must be a real exhibitionist to live in there as it is so open to its surrounding landscape. But then it’s surrounding landscape insulates it from the world, it is isolated in space like a temple and only relates to the site it is situated in through the terrace outside. Really it is a self-obsessed building and the ideal retreat for an introvert. Paradoxically, buildings that are darker with less glass openings can be more extrovert and better connected with their landscapes. I was lucky enough to visit a few of Frank Lloyd Wright’s early prairie style buildings when I was in Chicago. The Robie House in particular was a good example of a dark building that felt really quite extrovert. The low long windows enabled a great view of the outdoors and the various patios, terraces and balconies allowed the occupiers to move into the intermediate zone between inside and outside. Valerio Olgiati talks specifically about this in “The Significance of the Idea.”
“What do I admire about Wright’s architecture? I am intrigued by its darkness, Frank Lloyd Wright’s dark buildings…I have come to realize that dark space, rather than very lit space, presents more possibility to experience the outside from within. The inside of a building disappears and the world outside unfolds more powerfully. One can see the landscape and nature very clearly because the inside of the building becomes a dark, non recognisable frame for what you see outside. I have gained the understanding that dark building have a more public character then very brightly lit buildings.
A good example of this phenomenon is the architecture of Richard Meier. I would argue that one actually inhabits a very introverted space if one occupies one of Richard Meier’s buildings. It does not matter how much glass Meier uses in his buildings and how large the openings of his buildings are…Despite all the glass in his buildings, there are no relationships that are built with the surrounding world…these very lit spaces are very isolating.”
So to occupy a darker building maybe give the occupier a great connection with the street outside. Having said that though, the Robie House gave little to the passerby in the street except for the potential to stop and chat to someone sitting out on one of the terraces. Perhaps what a building needs to be able to relate to the street is the ‘transparency’ to allow people passing by know what is going on in the building, what mood it is in perhaps, whilst allowing the occupiers not feel over exposed.
There is some pretty exciting stuff going on in the world of fashion at the moment along this line. Studio Roosegaarde have been developing a line called ‘Intimacy’. These clothes are made from intelligent materials that can turn transparent when someone approaches, or in ‘Intimacy 2.0’ the clothes would turn transparent as the wearer became excited/aroused, betraying their emotions but also signaling their interest. The smart e-foils in the materials detect the wearer’s heartbeat or proximity to others to enable this. Perhaps this is something that sentient buildings could utilize in the future changing their transparency to the street when the collective mood in the building was relaxed or stressed and so on. Studio Roosegaarde have also been experimenting with changing transparency to façades of building in similar ways to the aperture and adaptive bloom examples above.



Permeability is in some ways similar to transparency but allows for people from the street to actually penetrate the building physically or for the buildings activities to spill out into the surrounding area. Many buildings do this is some way and many successful streets have facades that exhibit permeable attributes. Colonnades, stoas and public foyers offer traditional typologies for how this can be done. Schinkel’s Altes Museum has a series of increasing enclosure as the visitors enter first the stoa and then ascend the open staircase, allowing for views in and out for visitors and creating a series of intermediate transition zones between inside and outside. These methods remain fairly inanimate though, how can a façade be tuned to become more or less permeable to suit the needs of the buildings occupiers and/or activities on the street.     

There are a few really cool examples I have come across that allow the façade to open right up to let people flow between inside and outside. OMA/REX’s ‘Wyly Theatre’ project and Olson Kundig’s ‘Chicken Point Cabin’ are immense precedence. There are also projects like Stephen Holl’s ‘Storefront’ where the façade opens up to allow light in and at the same time as doing so creates furniture for the street user. This is really exciting as suddenly the passerby can actually tune a façade to allow them to interact with the building without having to ‘use’ the building directly. Maybe the greatest thing a building can offer a street is simple, a place to sit, a table to eat on maybe and perhaps some connection with what is happening behind the façade.