Shrinking Cities

When I first heard about this phenomenon in America and some other parts of world, it was quite unbelievable as we are quite used to concept of cities growing and constantly pushing their boundaries out. But, some cities are shrinking and there's a need to find a solution to the problems they are facing. These are mostly triggered by a setback in local economy giving way to abandoned homes, empty lots and further to a loss of social fabric with people moving out and crime making neighborhoods unsafe and dreaded places to live. Rather than taking a route of bringing back the economy and people, the solutions proposed admit the fact of shrinking and focus on making it a safe and viable place to live in for the existing population.
We discussed its possible solutions and one of the most fitting was to bring back nature into the neighborhoods. The empty lots present a good opportunity to be converted into community gardens and parks or just to be restored back into forests. These could also be used  for farming by the local people and therefore be a source of fresh food and outdoor recreation activity. If the produce is sold, it can bring economic benefit to the community. But these would require careful planning and a way to acquire the empty/abandoned homes; 'land banking' in this case. The challenges to implementing this 'rightsizing' strategy are many a times political where its hard for politicians to accept the reality. Nevertheless, if these solutions are accepted i see the neighborhoods developing a unique identity of their own, with a new healthy image. This could lead to a different genre of people being attracted towards these places , who love nature and want to live close to it and engage themselves with it. They would buy land here, which would not be expensive and build their homes. This would revitalize neighborhoods again and bring back a sense of community and belonging. Hence, the rightsizing might seem to be a notion devoid of hope, but it is potent of serving as a tool of revitalization.

Post Disaster

This week we attended a presentation by Rzey, from Urbanxyz on redeveloping Louisiana, after it got devastated by hurricane Katrina.
It was very helpful to note how they addressed the design at different scales, from a building to entire region, for various issues ranging from landscape and natural features, to infrastructure and social equity.
A striking feature of the presentation was its sensitivity to context. Louisiana is home to two different ethnic groups who have a very different culture. They have developed a unique style of architecture over a period of time. The redevelopment proposal didn't give a hasty design solution; one size fits all, rather took into account this diversity; carefully studying elements of each style and taking community responses to refine it further. One community cherished the open nature of their houses which look on to street, and make a rich social life as well as their close connection to nature and food. These were mostly farmers.  The other community liked the class and elegance of their houses which were richly decorated, and luxuriant, which the farmers found frivolous. The design respected both the communities and gave them houses that they desired.
Another achievement of design was its sensitivity to natural systems, which echoed with the community's concerns. Since most of people in Louisiana were born within a mile of where they lived,they know their land and knew what the solutions were to the problems city faced, like of natural drainage. The design proposal was congruent to local wisdom and aimed to restoration of nature.
I took back a design solution , to a city which was wholesome in its approach and therefore very sustainable in social, environmental and economic spheres.

That's How It Goes

Meeting with public officials

We went downtown this week to meet members of SWPC towards our studio design which is a transit oriented design (TOD) for the county.

We were seeking some answers:

What is the vision of SPC for transit for Allegheny County?
How is the project realized? Who gives the money?                                           
What does the growth demands? What do the county people really need?

The answers we got hit us with reality, were not very optimistic. Nevertheless, we got some parameters to make our design proposal legible.

To start with, they said given their position they are not allowed to have a vision(irony!). It’s really hard to get money for a development(another irony!). Our proposed TOD needs to fulfill certain criteria before government decides to invest over it. Government says: show us the density then we'll send the line. But can’t it be other way?  We can lay the line first which attracts the people to the place. From their perspective this is a risk, when billions of dollars are involved. They need to make the transit line legitimate, for them density makes it so.
But there can be other reasons to justify the line, which are equally legitimate:

• From the perspective of economic growth and investment in the area-- which will attract more workforce.  More people will want to live near where they work.
• Controlling sprawl for ecological reasons, to stop further deterioration of nature.
• Decreasing traffic on roads- saving limited fuel. Increased benefits of decreased air pollution.
• Creating a sustainable society
  

I am myself a light rail rider in my home city, Delhi and I know how convenient light rail makes commuting. It saves time because they have their own corridor and don’t get caught up in traffic jams. It Saves money as it is much cheaper than using a car.

Moreover, all the important nodes of city are connected, so we can reach any place and take on a Feeder bus that runs to and fro the stations to our destination. The transit line connects bus terminals, train stations and airport making it all an interconnected web of transit over the city. Since it offers safe, affordable and convenient commute, people use it extensively.  

Lastly they asked us ; students who were from outside US, will it be successful and will people use it?
We concluded its success will depend on:  frequency, reliability, optimum density, design -- how convenient we make it for people to access it.  A Design which promotes walkability, bikeability and frequent shuttle/feeder service and connected destinations, a transit line that takes me where I want to go.

It was a meaningful interaction, helpful in understanding the real world scenario of our design proposal. 

The Nature of Cities

This week we saw a movie called the nature of cities.Cities by their very character are very active ,dynamic and full of energy. According to a study by US census The average urban dweller will spend an hour traveling to work each day ,about 9 hours of work,7 hours of sleep, and rest in miscellaneous activities and recreation which is mostly indoors.Ironically,'Urban life' has become highly introverted, in terms of physical environment.

As shared in the movie by the Yale University professor Stephen Kellert , relation between efficiency of a person and physical environment is very deep. Studies prove that a person feels less motivated, less energetic, has less attention span when made to work in a windowless, air conditioned environment over a long period of time. Our cities have been designed to compete with nature, in a effort to prove the might and control of man over nature. This mindset helped man , achieve great innovations. But now, we find ourselves at a deadend where our cities, and the structures have being designed to be so independent, that they have no relation to natural environment whatsoever.The movie introduced a very intriguing concept of Biophilia. I searched online and found the term literally means "love of life or living systems." Introduced by Edward O Wilsonm,The biophilia hypothesis suggests that there is an instinctive bond between human beings and other living systems. Wilson describes it as "the connections that human beings subconsciously seek with the rest of life.” He speculates that this affection is part of our biology. It is in our microcosm. It follows that to achieve harmony, it should be present in our macrocosm as well,Where our physical environments are designed to reflect this.

I know how sometimes, i just want to get away from all crowd and find my solace, to refresh myself and get a break from the daily routine. That's a tendency of  life i guess, that we seek a pleasant change, where we are just being.When we see on a collective level,majority of people who live in Cities live very busy lives.A connection with nature will make them to be efficient, get refreshed and rejuvenated. This can be established by the presence of nature in our physical environment. It will be a source of energy for the people and ultimately not only help build a fine quality of life for an individual but also a healthy and progressive society and further ripple into the world at large.

Design with Nature

This week we read chapters from the landmark book; 'Design with nature' by Ian McHarg for our discussion this week. In this book he recollects his childhood memories, where he was struck by the contrast between a city and wilderness. He loathes the grey city in comparison to the green wilderness.

We started the discussion by sharing our personal experiences with nature. For Lance, it was the memory of his childhood years where he played with the neighborhood kids on the lawn by his grandma's house and ran wild but safe on the tree sheltered sidewalk. Now, those trees are gone. For Ian, the wide open desert by his home was his ground to enjoy ride with his friends but it was taken to build new homes, for Pin the sweet memory of the lilies in the lake in palm of the mountain valley was a treasure, for Cai the open countryside, and for Rambha the peaceful streets of European villages at night was a memoir seldom found in a city. For me, our journey to north Himalayas was discovering a lost paradise which I was so unaware of in my city Delhi. It was like coming back to home, where I belong. I was particularly impressed by simple yet joyous life of people there.

Modern cities have made us lose this connection with nature and with oneself. All noise, crowd, congestion, haste, hurry, pollution of the city has seeped inside us. It puts a vacuum around us, keeping us away from all that's real, true and natural.  Ian McHarg very strongly criticizes planners, designers and engineers for this folly. He argues that cities will continue to grow and expand with the needs of humanity but that doesn't mean that it has to be at cost of nature. With a deep concern for natural environment, he gives us a method to extract areas worth urbanization from ecologically sensitive areas. In today's times of rapid growth, where more than 2/3rd of the world is predicted to live in cities by 2050, we can’t afford to continue the endless sprawl lest it should leave us with a earth void of all nature and beauty. McHarg's call for designers and planners to design with nature is the need of the age, to be heeded seriously for a safe future.

I would like to end with few lines, which come to my mind as I recollect today's discussion;

nature creates memories

nature evokes emotion 
nature is connection to oneself
deep inside, we are one with nature

Movement Systems

Our seminar this week was focused on city design and transit. Just as our body needs a complex network of veins and arteries to circulate blood that helps keep the body alive, active and sustain various complex mechanisms, our cities need a well designed network of transport lines to sustain them and their various functions. Commuting needs of human society are natural and synonymous with their lives, for each activity we do requires movement from one place to another. The commuting needs of the society are varied; we need to travel to school, work, shopping,socialize or for entertainment. People visit churches, temples or mosques, they visit hospitals and institutions. Our industries are fed by trucks, railways or  sometimes airplanes. 

                    To sustain this complex network of activities, we need a well integrated transit system in our cities. Looking back at history, ancient cities developed along waterways, as they facilitated trade and movement.The cities during the industrial era developed around railway lines. Hence,the cities have grown around and along transit. Our guest speaker this week, a colleague of Don at urbanxyz discussed with us the transit oriented design. Through a digital presentation, he gave us examples of  how TOD designs are helping develop beautiful viable urban environments. A transit oriented development on a city level facilitates the use of public transit. It focuses dense growth around the transit stop and makes way for walkable urban environments.

                    The reading for this week, The Next American metropolis by Peter Calthrope clearly describes that transit exists to serve a city and make it a healthier place to live in and not the other way round. As he says " A healthy walking environment can succeed without transit, but a transit cannot exist without the pedestrian." Next principle which Peter highlights is that a TOD makes development affordable. Affordable for communities ; as it provides various housing options, reduces auto dependence and for environment as it preserves open space and controls air pollution. This lays out some of the most important principles, that we can use in our urban lab. I will try to incorporate them into my design proposal.  

Planning Evolution

This week we discussed how city planning came into origin. The dawn of the industrial era brought with it new towns and urban settlements as people started moving out of villages to work in areas in close proximity to industries and coal mines. As more and more people migrated into these towns they started to expand without required infrastructure. This led these new cities to face challenges never known before; of health and sanitation, traffic,over crowding,and erosion of nature, very similar to the problems our modern cities face.
         To manage the growth effectively, or rather as a solution to these problems, new planning principles were laid.Its interesting to note that Europe where the industrial towns first appeared was conscious of the fact the the uncontrolled growth of its cities will someday engulf all  the rural landscape.Hence,to protect the nature,laws were established. This is where America is getting to today and the world is awakening to. But a century of uncontrolled spread of our cities has affected nature in ways hard to reverse or replenish.
         Its sad that some of the theories of leading architects, like Corbusier and  Frank Lyold wright contributed to this pattern. Their visions though utopian in their ideology and modern in their embrace of automobile, led to creation of cities which are car dependent, lack 'street life'  and a cohesive fabric. Most of the cities reflect this model today.
        Our discussion from here turned its course towards future. Based on the reading of Peter Calthorpe,we discussed principals of regional planning. Congruent with smart growth, we zoomed into the planning of a region, to a city,to a neighborhood and down to street. key points that came out were conservation and restoration of what exists;of nature, culture and communities.The community is defined as made up of civic places, commercial , residential and natural systems. This very beautifully translated a concept into a picture.
        

Reviews

This week we started off with brief presentations by Ian and Lance. Ian presented the book life between buildings which is about how the space between buildings hold life, about the public , semi private, private realms and their gradual transition from public to private. its about our level of interaction with people in these spaces and how distances between people, affect their perception of individuals. This gave me a clue that when we design how can we facilitate interaction and how to provide a healthy social environment - one which provides good opportunities for interaction.

Lance, shared with us the importance of policy and how it promotes welfare in communities. He showed us a pyramid diagram with people at the base, the policy in the middle and design at peak. To me it means a policy affects people's life more closely than design and the design is shaped by a broad policy. The policy can be focused on children,education, public health, and other welfare issues. But i am not sure if the planners are in first place aware of such issues while planning because these might be developed at later stages when the community is already in function  and the role played by them gets limited there. They at the best can start with an altruistic design concept. However,as we studied in earlier classes the planners can be advocates for the community's good and help in shaping a healthy community life. 

After this we discussed who are the implementors of the design. They can be the various profit - oriented developers and non- profit oriented groups like education, research, medical services & cultural organisations. The government is another major implementor and  it many a times combines with private sector to develop projects. They provide the money for the development. So, if there is a situation where a community needs a health center in its neighborhood, we can approach a non - profit medical organisation to establish its center there.In this way, we can effectively realize the design.

With this today we covered all stages of a design process. This ends the semester and we look forward to the surprises Don promised for the last class!

It's a Team Work

This week we zoomed into the roles of various stakeholders in the planning and design process. Two speakers , Allan ; a real estate developer and Cindy; a transit designer introduced to us their spheres of activity. Any development is carried on for returns, only the nature of expected returns varies. If the private sector wants monetary returns, the government seeks the goodwill of people. They are the fount of capital for the project and therefore its essential that they are convinced of the value of the project.

The designers need to know their demands and stakes to make a project feasible. To the government, enhancing quality of life, creating employment opportunities might be top priority and the project needs to support these. As a student, this introduces me to the real world where the design is much more than its 'aesthetics', its attributes much wider than what we often address in the studio.

One good piece of advice we got from Allan was to be very blunt with our clients in communicating the viability of the project . The market is studied to know whats legally, physically and financially feasible and the project aims to maximize their value . However, if after the analysis, the project doesn't make sense then it got to be communicated to avoid any complications later. Its all about making sense of the work we do and to check that nothing goes without a good reason for its execution.

Cindy further elaborated on this by highlighting the importance of conducting our case studies in a scientific manner and approach our design based on these. She explained that since we don't work in a vacuum we need to know the preexisting conditions and problems to address them when we design. Listing various methods of study, she explained how the proposal is a pure product of analysis, identification of issues and resulting solutions. One major challenge of urban design i see these days is to achieve a pedestrian friendly environment and yet to allow for a smooth flow of vehicular movement. The various layers of movement exists in a city and its a challenge of the designer to coordinate to achieve the maximum functionality and synchronize them to achieve a unified system. Its here that we need to bank on the expertise of the transit designers to help solve this effectively and creatively.

The seminar this week left me feeling very connected to the actual design process and comforted in the knowledge that we have the support of such experts to ensure that design is taken care to the last detail.

The City is For Everybody

This week's class was an eye-opener to what happens when the authorities become dictators and force themselves upon people; how they make them suffer by being deaf to their voices. The city of Pittsburgh saw this when the black population was displaced out of their neighborhoods against their wishes. Their homes were taken away and culture robbed. Sala Udin, a civil right activist and a political figure came to our class to share with us the real story of the black people in Pittsburgh, how they were discriminated against. Individuality of the black people was suppressed and they were given a fake identity with a 'white' environment where streets had english names to 'beautify' the city of Pittsburgh.

The civil rights movement of America brought in a giant wave against discrimination. It’s when the black people stood up for themselves and said 'no more'! The people united against the discrimination halted this cruel assault. The bulldozing of the houses stopped immediately but unfortunately what was left behind was a district devoid of culture and a large spread of vacant land in the center of the city, the development of which is still on debate.

The lessons to be learnt from this:

The city did not grow in sync with the life and aspirations of its residents but was laid out by a bunch of people with a racial and discriminative mindset.

A preconceived image was tried to put upon the city, ignoring the distinct culture and identity of the black people. The city is a place for everybody; its image is a collective whole of culture of its residents. An attempt to create a fake image, brought about the black people to loose their 'naturally evolved environment thereby choking their life. 

A sensitive approach was missing. The plan of the city is therefore racially divided, interrupted and, non- cohesive. It very clearly mirrors the ruthless process of its growth.

Planning Advocacy

     

This week we started off by discussing a very penetrating insight of the author Robert Goodman on the how people's participation in the planning process is controlled by larger players in the political and economic arena. Goodman pointed out how the desires of the people are easily rubbed under the shoe in preference to selfish interests. Calling planners as 'soft cops' , he noticed we add to people's oppression by building what the politicians and businessmen dictate. Herein the concept of planning advocacy comes to light where the planners themselves become the representatives of community and put an end to this cycle. It was interesting to note how the opinions of the youth are heard for its own sake and not actually considered. The arrogant and high headed politicians and bureaucrats simply please the public by communicating with them but in the end, they take decisions independently. The designation of a week for communication by president Nixon was hilarious! The class later moved on to discuss all the participants in the planning process. We learned that designing requires expertise from professionals of various fields and the designers need to involve each person who can give them a better understanding of site conditions, infrastructure, finances, social and historical context, engineering expertise as well as artistic inputs. There is a whole matrix of people and professionals out there who can aid the design and its crucial to the success of the design that they get involved. I recently read the case of love canal where the site filled with chemical intoxicants was bought by real estate developers knowingly that it contains chemicals that are dangerous for human beings. The warnings of the scientists and chemical factory were unheeded and the site was developed to house an entire neighborhood. what followed was a series of health problems ranging from birth defects to tumors, serious enough to effect an entire generation. This incident is an clear example of how greedy developers go about their business numb to public health and welfare and what can happen if the planners go oblivious to the opinions and warnings of the experts.

Day Out

We had pretty exciting class to look up to this week. Don took us all, the urban design students to his office, a splendid space some 30 floors high in a skyscraper that once boasted of being the tallest building around. Rising up the elevator, we made our way through a corridor flashing by pictures of building projects done by his esteemed firm urbanxyz. The office space was  'justly' designed with circulation on the periphery to give everybody who works in there a view of the city around. 

We looked out of the windows to the river, bridges,roads, buildings both historic and modern, that make the cityscape of Pittsburgh. It was a fantastic view to look at with the golden triangle defined by the vertical highrise buildings as well as horizontal bridges. Only, the large stretches of grey parking lots disrupted the fabric of the city below.

Some of the employees presented us the design process followed in the firm. There are different teams for different tasks; project management, design, presentation, construction and they coordinate together to work on a project. It was interesting to know that a design handbook is prepared for every project studying the contextual architectural characteristics of the site.  Since the projects are on different locations all around the world, it becomes important that each site is studied in detail to recognize its unique qualities and designed accordingly. The handbook introduces this layer of sensitivity in the design. we saw few project presentations highlighting this process.

Later, We moved a few blocks further from the office to a grand historic building, which was once a gateway to the city of Pittsburgh. Amtrak, an old railway station is now conserved and reused as residential apartments and here is where Don lives. We went to his lively, cozy house where we all chatted over some delicious sandwiches and drinks. It was wonderful to share some time this way out of our busy schedules.