Today I want to share an article that was previously published in Studio Magazine. On this occasion, I would like to thank their coordination team for inviting me to join their first release.

Summary /Overview

 
Traditional media don’t broadcast what the citizens are debating or organizing on a daily basis. Nevertheless, thanks to Social Networks, people can receive information and interact in real time with others, taking part in debates and social movements; and the 15th of May in Spain is an example of this.

This new information ecosystem reduces the influence of the mass media and slowly forces local authorities to relate to citizens in a more direct and horizontal way.

This is a great opportunity to generate a new “social control” model, pushing local authorities to take public opinion into account.

The digital media offers a broad environment for communication so that the organisation of any given action is greatly improved; everything becomes decentralized while simultaneously connected and synchronized.

On the urban scale, we speak of the “Sentient City”, a model based on a technological/social ecosystem, where knowledge, collective actions, and interactions between individuals and groups are encouraged, taking advantage of the new possibilities offered by hybridizing physical and digital layers.

In reversing the supremacy of centralisation over individual actions, citizens can become aware of their power and organize themselves on the web.
We have the necessary technology, knowledge and dynamics to put in place more open processes of urban administration and management. Citizens have already started to move; and although public administration could take advantage of such independent and autonomous processes to deal with complex situations, it appears that a clear political will is still lacking.

The fragmented city

 
Today, the dimensions of time and space, which were historically strongly linked in a space-time continuum, are increasingly growing apart and becoming independent, in a fragmented spatial perception. Nowadays a large number of people are moving from one point to another of the city to reach their workplace, and go back home. The distance between these two points (spatial dimension) and what happens between them does not affect or interest these people in any way. Indeed, the only thing people are concerned with is the duration of the trip (time dimension).
The city is no longer a continuous place, but a structure of nodes connected in a network (network city). These nodes become increasingly more defined, organised and efficient and, the journeys between them shorter and faster thanks to technical progress. The spaces of a city that have no particular characteristics and a unique function, that is to say everything that is not a node, loose significance, including public spaces.

In such city – the “fragmented city” – we use low cost technologies (internet, telephone and transport) to move, to manage our social relationships, and to communicate with people with whom we don’t necesarilly share a common physical space like a neighbourhood.

Very often the complexity of one point exclusively consists in giving access to other points, hence the importance that movement has acquired today. Instead of living in a continuous space, we continuously move between discontinuous spaces (points or nodes).

This networked structure, unlike a continuous structure, reduces diversity and complexity. The less diversity and complexity, the greater the need to move. Every point has its function and identity. Everything seems more organised and easier to find. However, to find what we are looking for, we are compelled to move constantly to other nodes.

The majority of these journeys are done by means of transport, at a speed that does not allow any relationship with the surroundings. There is a starting point and a finishing point, with little opportunity for a surprise or a change. All this implies an impoverishment of the intermediate spaces, spaces that link different points: places are consequently public spaces.

In order to transform these kinds of cities, it is essential to intervene in everyday aspects of life which might appear to have no relationship with the design of public spaces in urban areas.

Our lifestyles are two dimensional: in situ and virtual. Now we are able to intervene in the new dimension, what we commonly call “virtual” or “digital”, . As the sociologist Manuel Castells says “Everything we do, from when the day begins until it is over, we do it with internet […] the connexion between in-situ (not real because reality is virtual and in situ at the same time) and virtual is established by us. There are not two different societies, there are two kinds of social activities and relations within ourselves. We are the ones that have to search the best way to arrange and adapt them.

Image by Francesco Cingolani | francescocingolani.info

Public Space, Sentient Space

 
According to Daniel Innerarty, in the city the homogeneous and non changing area is nothing more than an extreme case within a global area of connected local multiplicities. Instead of neighbourhoods, local networks are developed, and public debate takes place in a virtual area. In this scenario, streets and squares have ceased to be the main meeting areas.

Internet seems to offer an alternative “space” for social relationships as compared to “traditional” spaces. This can be seen as a problem leading to empty public spaces; or on the contrary, it can be considered an extraordinary opportunity to strengthen social relationships by creating the necessary budgets to improve the vitality of public spaces. Today the Internet is the “place” where community models of management are being experimented.

I believe it is important to reconsider the city as something built by everyone, and to see public areas as the ground where this process can take place. Today we have tools available that are able to act as a catalyst for participatory dynamics that were previously impossible to coordinate. There are increasing examples of processes of creation by citizens, linked to the use of new technologies. It is undeniable that Internet is a key factor contributing to changing the society. That being said I believe it is obvious that we cannot think of public space without taking into consideration the potentialities of these technologies, how they are used and how they can be an added value.

We should begin to talk about a new type of public space, a hybrid space, where technology could become a catalyst for hybridising dynamics between activities that are not traditionally connected or that are located in other (private) spaces.

Juan Freire explains this clearly: “The differentiation between spaces and physical and virtual communities is outdated. We are witnessing a hybridising process which modifies our individual identities, communitarian and territorial. Internet has contributed to the development of global networks, but paradoxically it has had a less noticeable influence in local spheres. However, digital technologies modify radically the way in which we are organised and we relate to our environment so we are already living in territories where the digital realm is as important as the physical. The hyper-local networks and hybrid public spaces are the new realities which we confront with the advent of Internet and digital culture in our local environment”.

According to Juan Freire the crisis of public (physical) spaces in urban areas is also due to the lack of (open) design, giving the citizens, once more, the opportunity to take a real interest in its use. It has also brought into debate concepts such as “hybrid spaces”, to refer to the opportunities that the hybridising of the physical with the digital sphere offers in public spaces.
We can grant the assumption of the existence of a digital skin that characterizes public spaces and devote ourselves to defining its qualities and characteristics. Instead of “hybrid” I like to use the concept of “sensitive”. “Sensitive space” refers to the “living” character of these spaces; to their capacity to promote a two-way relationship with its users, to catalyse hyper-local social networks and to visualise information related to the environment in a transparent manner.

Image by Francesco Cingolani | francescocingolani.info

Social networks and Self-organization

 
If we analyze the increase in the use of social networks on the Internet we realize that we are witnessing a process of change that will lead to the disappearance of the current dissociation between digital and in-situ identity.
Most people can continue living in complete normality without having to take care of their digital (identity) presence in social networks. Nevertheless, it is highly probable that in a few years time the concept of identity will inevitably integrate both the digital and the physical dimension. Consequently, each person will be forced to take as much care of their digital identity as of their physical identity, something that many people have been doing for some time already.

We must take several specific factors of this new kind of identity into consideration such as its peculiar time dimension. The building process of the digital identity over time leaves a footprint on the web, a visible footprint that is accessible to any user. The end result is an identity that is perceived as a sum of the past (footprint) and present identity.

Generally we control our public image by showing at each time only what we wish. However, when our identity leaves a footprint on the internet, we no longer have exclusive control over it but it is shared amongst friends and acquaintances (namely the peer group).

Each person that knows me can publish information (photographs, texts, etc…) that are directly or indirectly related to my identity without the need of my approval. This is what happens in most of the social networks.

Certainly, my digital identity will be entirely integrated in the learning process and will be increasingly associated to a physical space; that is, the idea we had about a parallel digital identity that is detached from reality does not, I think, interest anyone: in fact we do not even have time to create parallel identities.

Our identity is not only formed by way of the information that my friends and I have published, but also through the information that my devices publish. An example could be the use of services like Foursquare that allows me to upload posts in my social networks about my location at any time, taking advantage of the internet connection of our mobile phones.

To explain this phenomenon Tim Berners-Lee mentions Giant Global Graph, this means, the future Semantic Web with which we shall go from gathering the relationship between people to focus on the relationship between people and their interests (documents). Thus, if the “Internet” has allowed us to connect computers and the “Web” has allowed us to connect documents, then the “Graph” will allow us to link the documents (places, objects, etc.) and the people. So we could define the Graph as the third level of abstraction, taking into account that in each layer (Internet, Web, or Graph) we have handed over some control only in order to reach bigger benefits. A direct consequence of these dynamics is the definite statement of a (unique) identity on the web that can be recognized by any agent, person or application.

This unmistakable digital identity facilitates the development of innovative social hardware projects based on participation of a non-collective nature, where the dynamics of collaboration are the result of individual action and interaction. We are progressively discovering the self-organisation of informed societies that are capable of revolutionizing their own structures taking advantage of the virtual mirror phenomenon that enables the association of information on a given situation with individual decisions.

Image by Francesco Cingolani | francescocingolani.info based on flickr images by garpa.net & See-ming Lee

Control and decentralization

 
Social networks reinforce a new type of control: a decentralized control operated by a diversity of independent individuals that collaborate, using shared and mobile capacities of calculation and communication. Information and Communication Technologies do not present a solution, but an opportunity to improve our ability to manage territories. ICT’s can be used for many different purposes. On the one hand their enormous capacity for processing data can be used to centralize all the information and try to “solve” urban complexity; but they can also be used to open and decentralize decision-making.

The aim is to research on how ICT’s allow us to define an urban administration structure where discontinued points of control exist in an environment of self-determination (appropriation) and liberty. This is an idea that is close to the definition of tensegrity that Buckminster Fuller mentions: “islands in compression inside a tense ocean“.

The introduction of digital technologies within the physical space enables the development of new communication dynamics and relations between neighbours that improves the cohesion of local communities and their quality of life, offering a feeling of greater security.

Thanks to new technologies and to some cultural “mutations”, systems and worlds that were previously closed and not very transparent, are now open to the participation of agents (and people) who are external to their organisational structures. Citizens become more available to participate and collaborate because they are better informed and they are finally considered as useful partners for the urban administration. Architects and urban planners can reasonably begin to work keeping in touch constantly with citizens, “sharing” their decision-making “powers”.

To explain this phenomenon we can refer to the concept of “long tail” coined by Cris Anderson. The Internet and the digital environment have changed the (power) distribution laws and the market rules. The present political and economic system is based on a pyramid structure where the power (or the economic or creative potential) of many is considered inferior to the power of those that stand on the highest part of the pyramid. There is a new system based on the addition or accumulation of all the small potentials (or powers) of the mass of citizens that, thanks to the systems of communication on the internet, can equal or exceed the power (or potential) of those who are in a privileged position today. These are the old markets of masses and the new niche of markets that are pictured at the top and the bottom of the well known graph of statistical distribution.

The presence of a centralized identity is not needed when the control and feedback devices allow the actors to visualize or to become aware of the consequence of their actions. The unconscious self-organisation phenomenon becomes conscious and intended control when the individuals are allowed to understand the effects of their actions. The concept of tensegrity comes in here when it refers to an administration model where decentralized and centralized decisions are joined, avoiding the appearance of any closed and omnipresent control dynamics.

Reversing the supremacy of centralization over individual decisions, citizens can become aware of their actions and intentionally coordinate them. This process may help to restore the necessary legitimacy and credibility to the interventions that take place in degraded urban areas.

Image by Francesco Cingolani | francescocingolani.info

Towards participation: Accountability and open data

 
“Participation demands an information system, an observatory and indicators that will regularly reflect the situation of what we consider as key variables to establish our evolution, that should be accessible and comprehensible for citizens” (Agustín Hernández Aja, 2002)

In 2002, Hernández Aja, Urban planning professor at the Universidad Politécnica in Madrid, describes the essential assumptions for citizen participation. A decade later, communication models and administration dynamics that bring us close to these assumptions start to become popular.

I would like to highlight (point out) accountability and the Open Data movement.

Approaching the term accountability we can create an ecosystem of communication and transparency that can enable citizens to demand responsibilities from governing bodies. This would help us to reach the objective of decentralizing control, which is necessary for a true democracy.

Open Parlamento (openparlamento.it) is a great example of how to work to achieve accountability. It is a web-based tool that enables distributed monitoring of the work of the members of parliament in the Italian parliament.

The web page offers lots of information on draft legislation, and in general, about all the activities in the Parliament. Most interesting of all is the distributed monitoring system that allows for control of every Member of Parliament’s political activities. Every citizen can “adopt” a member and publish all their declarations and confront them with their parliamentary activity.

We can imagine this same system applied on a local scale, where citizens have greater organization capacities and power to exert pressure. The control to which all the local administrators would be subject to, would be so intense that they would nearly be obliged to start up a transformation of the administrative structures towards a more open and participatory model.

The Open Data movement is an important drive towards achieving transparency over public administration. Open Data consists of making Public Administration data available for the public, such as data related to projects that are financed with public money or managed by public institutions.

The aim is to take advantage of the data that the public administrations do not want or do not have the capacity to analyze. Releasing this data enables any person or organization to build new consultation and visualization formulas, to simplify, diversify and even to enrich the initial information.

In Spain, within this new tendency, the Open Data Euskadi project should be highlighted. It is part of the Open Government initiative of the Bask Government: a website dedicated to the exhibition of public data in a re-usable format, under open licenses. On an urban scale, two projects stand out that have been activated by two Spanish cities; Zaragoza and Córdoba. They are beginning to take their first steps in the world of Open Data.

I am convinced that citizen pressure will force all the big cities to join this process of openness and transparency.

Image by Francesco Cingolani | francescocingolani.info REAL-TIME CITY | a proposal for Smart Turin by HDA | Hugh Dutton Associés.

Open source and Network Awareness

 
As we mentioned previously, reversing the supremacy of centralization over individual actions, citizens can become aware of their “power” and begin to organize in networks.
We have the technology the knowledge and the dynamics available to introduce more open urban administration processes. Citizens have begun to move; the administrations could take advantage of these autonomous and independent processes, to manage very complex situations. However, a clear political will is still lacking.

Probably the administrators have managed to delay the transition towards a new participatory administration model, thanks to the indirect or even direct support of what is known as the “fourth power”: the media. The current information system still offers the administrators and the “powerful” a wide opportunity to manipulate and control certain processes.
The emergence of a more distributed information model is beginning to offer to any citizen the possibility to produce relevant local information. A communication ecosystem based on social media is born.
This new information ecosystem can reduce the influence of the mass media and therefore force the local administrators to enforce accountability regarding the decisions that are taken. The administrators will be compelled to relate to this new, more horizontal and distributed form of communication: an opportunity to generate “social control” that can improve transparency and force the local administrators to take the public opinion into account.

A clear example of what is being presented here, are the latest citizen mobilizations that are happening in Spain. After the 15M demonstration, an organized and authorized event, many occupations took place in numerous squares in the whole of Spain. These camps were organized in a matter of hours using Twitter and Facebook. It is impossible to exert control over these information flows and action catalysts like the occupations. Steps have been taken towards a model in which governors and administrators are going to have to understand that they cannot continue to ignore the citizens while they defend the interests of others.

We are witnessing an innovative construction process of a new communal and public sphere; the development of a new model of public space that we have called “sensitive space”. Traditional media don’t communicate what we the people are debating on a daily basis, nonetheless, thanks to Social Networks, people can receive information and interact in real time with others taking part in debates and social movements, the example of the occupation of public squares is an example of this.

It is interesting to note that the in-situ (on-site) realm is absolutely essential and how the digital media is simply offering a wider environment for communication so that the organisation of any given action is greatly improved; everything becomes decentralized while at the same time connected and synchronized.

These processes seem to be nearly inevitable. Once they are established as natural local administration processes then we will be speaking about a more favorable environment, for an Open Source City, that is, a city open to everyone’s participation.

Flickr image by Julio Albarrán

This article was originally published in urbanohumano.org and Studio Magazine.

picture of the roofgarden at Blågård School by DYRK Nørrebro

DYRK Nørrebro |  an urban agricultural initiative in Copenhagen, Denmark

Urban agriculture, or agriculture in the city, is an ‘umbrella term’ that covers activities related to production of food in or on the outskirts of cities. A definition used by UN, UN-Habitat, FAO and other important international research institutions explains it as following:

“Urban agriculture is an industry located within (intra-urban) or on the fringe (peri-urban) of a town, a city or a metropolis, which grows and raises, processes and distributes a diversity of food and non-food products, (re-)using largely human and material resources, products and services found in and around that urban area, and in turn supplying human and material resources, products and services largely to that urban area.” (Luc J.A. Mougeot Growing Cities, Growing Food)

The most interesting thing about agriculture in the city is that it is integrated into the city’s own system. It means that it makes use of city resources such as composted waste as fertilizer, excess heat from buildings, a large variety of surrounding actors and their capacities. But most interesting is, that it has a direct contact with customers. Urban agriculture most effectively shortens the path from farm to table, bringing food and people closer together.

pictures of the roofgarden with its mobile raised beds as part of Copenhagens skyline by DYRK

DYRK Nørrebro is an urban farming initiative that works to expand vegetable cultivation in Nørrebro, Copenhagen and creates new urban communities. Nørrebro is one of Copenhagens 10 districts and is a multiethnic society, inhabited by people from all parts of the world. DYRK Nørrebro is a big opportunity for this multi-cultural and some times very devided and troubled district to connect and strengthen the community spirit. It is not only activating the area sustainably and connect with people, but also turns the ‘former conflicted’ image of Nørrebro into positive collective spirit.

Normally we all buy our groceries in supermarkets or other shops and often the goods are produced a long way from where you are living. By using the cityspace of your neighboorhood you shorten the way from farm to table significantly and this is one of the aims of DYRK Nørrebro. Most important for them is, that through vegetable cultivation in town, you can take active action in the long discussions about bad conditions for climate worldwide and they encourage everyone to attend.

Through mobile raised beds and an urban garden DYRK Nørrebro is giving access to kitchen gardens to create local production of vegetables and also focus on sustainability according to the idea of “thinking globally and acting locally”.

DYRK Nørrebros practical work has its roots in a garden center which is currently being established on the roof of Blågård School. Eventually they want to provide a framework for kitchen and flower gardens, beekeeping, soup kitchen, teaching growing lessons, workshops, lectures and harvest festivals and more.

pictures of the growing ‘DYRK community’ at Blågård School by DYRK

The mobile raised beds can be loaned to interested citizens, associations, institutions, cafes and cultural centers in Nørrebro. This way everyone can get started in a small home production of vegetables and herbs at their doorstep or in the backyard but also join the new community on the roof.

Since the initiative has been established in 2010 they have proved that realization of the ideas of food production and urban communities is possible and can have a future. Not only are they providing a local platform for Copenhagens citizens to act “green” and be conscious about the Earth in a scale that is possible and “manageable”, but they also invite you to join the platform as an active part of forming its future and aims.

DYRK Nørrebro is a good example for the growing communities of urban agriculture  worldwide and in the future, we will hopefully all enjoy a more desirable, cheaper and healthier lifestyle within sustainable associations with a high priority of socializing and solidarity within people.

a yard at Vesterbro, Copenhagen by DYRK

More about urban agriculture in Copenhagen:

http://urbanagriculture.dk/ |  A local danish blog telling and sharing all information about urban agriculture in Copenhagen, where to find it and how to be part of the action.

After few months of intensive work at Ecosistema Urbano, we are pleased to announce the launch of dreamhamar, a network design process around Stortorget square in Hamar, Norway.

Network Design is a process of open and transparent design allowing both local and international contributors to work and propose solutions for the same project. For more information about dreamhamar and network design process you can visit the ABOUT page.

Since one of the main purposes of dreamhamar is to encourage people’s participation in the project, please don’t hesitate to share with us your opinions and ideas by commenting this post or just through the CONTACT page.

One of the tools we will be using to communicate the progress of the project is the HAMAR EXPERIENCE, a weekly video broadcasting in which the Local Lab Team and Ecosistema Urbano will describe the project in progress. We will share reports about activities, challenges encountered during the process along with the every day life of the Local Lab Team. HAMAR EXPERIENCE aims to make the process a shared and learning architecture experience.

Join us by watching and commenting the launching session (live from Madrid!) of Hamar Experience next Monday 18th of July at 6 pm on dreamhamar livestream channel at livestream.com/dreamhamar

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images above based on a photo by Jon Kristian Fjellestad

You can also stay tuned by visiting our web dreamhamar.org or following us on twitter at twitter.com/dreamhamar

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Hamar Experience, launching session : next Monday 18th of July at 6 pm at livestream.com/dreamhamar

CONFLICT, el décimo número de la publicación trimestral MAS Context, ya está disponible. Los colaboradores de este número son Jonathan Andrew, Christopher Baker, Vladimir Belogolovsky, David Garcia Studio, dpr-barcelona (@dpr_barcelona), Peter Eisenman, Thomas Hillier, Alex Lehnerer, Nora Niasari, OMNIBUS, Mika Savela, Simon Scheithauer, Cameron Sinclair y Urban-Think Tank.

La revista acaba de estrenar un nuevo diseño web para facilitar el acceso a todos los artículos publicados en estos diez números (más de 100) y permitir comentarios para continuar la conversación. Podéis ver todo el contenido en www.mascontext.com.

Any analysis of today’s reality of European or Spanish cities and their current urban trends will entail placing them in a context of crisis that globally implies, among other structural issues to be taken into account: climate change –with unforeseeable characteristics and demanding modifications to be made to energy and consumption models- or the enormous concerns for the collapse of world economy and the crisis of financial systems and their direct or indirect impact on urban ways of life. This very complex moment forces us to be more conscious of our limits and announces the end of an era of apparent safety and the beginning of another that ranges between the unforeseen and the uncertain.

The current crisis is particularly serious in Spain due to the economic model of preceding years, strongly based on building construction and exploitation of resources, in particular the resource of land. In this context of required change it is necessary to try to focus on a fixed reference point or frame where the basic axis for urban interventions can be set. The current scenario is a complex one, there are few certainties and time and processes are key characters. However, this crisis, like any other crisis, is not only useful for correcting trends but mainly for detecting opportunities. A time of large changes and few certainties is probably when the greatest demand for creativity, innovation and prospecting for opportunities for the future should occur, as well as when time should be taken for thinking before acting, making the most of a moment of lesser economic acceleration.

An adequate reference frame places urbanism as a paradigm of urban sustainability. Since recent years, a broad theory has been developed, with larger or lesser success, based on different principles for urban actions, many of which are focused on sustainable town-planning. Among these we find mainly the peremptory defence of land as a resource in the face of the pressure the city or metropolis exerts on the land in the broad sense. Arguments such as that of raising the density on built urban land, or the defence of the compact city versus the wide-spread city, the increase of complexity of urban uses versus the distribution of mono-functional areas (usually residential areas) and the resulting decrease of mobility or the defence of public transport versus private mobility; these are broadly developed concepts that are all going in the same direction. In general, these arguments are of a global nature and pursue the control of the land, the use of materials or the efficiency of energy processes or consumption.

But these arguments place us in scenarios of growth and development even though they may present themselves as sustainable development. After the past years of construction elation, it may be that the work to be done or the trends with the largest capacity for innovation are not only those belonging to the field of large-scale urban-planning and its developments. It is possible that other more experimental trends acting at a more humble scale may now have a greater projection and capacity for innovation. We could refer to these trends as micro-urbanism.

But, how can we move from macro- to micro-urbanism? How can we reach quality objectives with few resources? After the large strategic operations, copied here and there by all governments and demanding an enormous amount of resources, a reality appears bringing us back to a much more humble condition. This new reality requires greater doses of imagination and much lower budgets.

The strategies directly pursuing the improvement of the citizens’ quality of life are key players in the integration of macro- and micro-urbanism. In the current perspective, the objective of improving quality of life and habitability depends on many factors. Certain strategies would need to be directed towards the improvement of urban design and conditions, while others will probably represent, within the crisis context presented earlier on, important modifications in the ways or styles of living.

With regards to the former strategies and within a domestic scale, we would find those improving the urban quality of existing neighbourhoods, for example by increasing the variety of the public space, prioritizing pedestrian areas, introducing bicycle carriages, developing different outdoors sports, increasing the number or size of green areas and the biodiversity, refurbishing neighbourhoods and buildings, integrating or renovating open spaces on the basis of a broad flexibility of use, etc. These actions aim to re-think or recycle the existing city and to overcome the social perception of excessive abstraction and opacity in the town-planning. Many of these actions, in particular at this scale, will also have to be flexible for dealing with the unstable conditions of the physical and social environment. In some ways, the success will also depend on their capacity to integrate the unforeseen or even to integrate conflicts.

The social and technological context enables and demands progressive experimentation with different ways of acting and different urban designs that enable setting up open processes. Many are the examples of innovative urban actions; they happen spontaneously in public spaces, places or spaces that frequently act as catalysers for social relationships and where heterodoxy sometimes wins.

We are moving from a post-industrial society to a society organised as a network. A current hot issue is how to enable a participative urbanism, open and flexible for any user, by taking advantage of the possibilities offered by technology. How to enable city, suburb or neighbours digital associations.

Talking about quality of life nowadays is becoming more and more connected with collaborative social behaviours that truly imply important changes in the lifestyle. Furthermore, they could, thanks to the technical development, become powerful tools for making citizens share the responsibility of key decisions about their own habitat. This way, work could be done on environmental education from an assumption of active social participation, with the objective of producing a real shared conscience of eco-community. Thinking globally and acting locally could have a great impact based on these education and interaction initiatives.

In brief, along these lines that are perhaps still under-explored in the urban network context, a number of opportunities and expectations of improvement of the urban quality of life are opening up. Using them in an active and non-cosmetic way can produce powerful tools to be used in opaque situations to unveil the transparency of processes, to introduce the flexibility in rigid situation, to stimulate real inter-dependence and social cooperation as opposed to an individualistic ethic.

Text by Flora Pescador for Urbact.

We are pleased to announce the first Call for Paper for the first issue of Urbain trop Urbain magazine: a ”No City Guide for Shanghai”.

The main idea is to develop a digital “no city guide” for the pleasure of the “flâneur urbain”. The review is edited in French language, but English and Spanish Papers are allowed, so most authors will be able to write in their mother tongue. You can find more details (in French) on our web page

Architects, planners, photographers, artists, etc. who visited Shanghai or worked in this town can easily contribute. For the 10th of May we are only expecting an email with an idea, a thematic purpose and the technical mode of expression (just text, or picture, video, sound, etc.). The further definitive contribution is expected in July. All details in our call for contribution below (in French).

Urbain trop Urbain is one of the most influent web-magazine in France in the field of urban culture, with a very interdisciplinary approach to the subject of contemporary citites, mixing urbanism with literature, sociology and philosophy.
The name “Urbain trop Urbain” refers to Human, All Too Human, the book by the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche.

Planetizen.com: An urban planning news website, featuring articles, op-eds, jobs, courses and information for the urban planning, design and development. (@Planetizen)

PriceTags: Gordon Price is a former Vancouver city councillor and the Director of the City Program at Simon Fraser University. His blog gives readers an insider’s perspective of urban issues. While it with a focus on Vancouver, he cover topics of interest to anybody interested in urbanism.

Urbanophile: Aaron M. Renn’s blog focusing on helping America’s cities thrive and find success in the 21st century. He offers unique perspectives and innovative strategies for cities and their residents. (@Urbanophile).

Rebuilding Place in the Urban Space:Richard Layman blog on placemaking, historic preservation and urban design. His emphasis in on Washington, DC but his posts contain useful “lessons for all cities.

All About Cities: This blog by Wendy Waters explores the economy, society, communities, people, businesses, organizations, infrastructure, civil society and government of cities—and the tensions and connections between them. I have a natural affinity for Wendy and her writing as she has lived in both Arizona and British Columbia ☺(@Wendy_Waters)

CEO for Cities: A civic laboratory of today’s urban leaders catalyzing a movement to advance the next generation of great American cities. Posts by Carol Colletta (@CColetta) and Julia Klaiber (@JuliaKlaiber).

Creative Class Exchange: Richard Florida and his Creative Class team write about urbanism, economic competitiveness, demographic trends, and cultural and technological innovation. (@Richard_Florida)

Walkable DFW: The ‘thought laboratory’ of Patrick Kennedy, a professional urban planner and designer based in Dallas. The blog explores how bionomics relate to self-organizing, emergent urbanism. (@WalkableDFW)

PSFK: “The go-to source for new ideas for creative business.” While urbanism isn’t this blogs major focus, it regularly touches on several issues related to cities. (@PSFK)

Next American City: A national magazine created for and by a new generation of urban thinkers and leaders. Their Buzz blog features constantly good content on all aspects of urbanism. (@NextAmCity)

The City Fix: A global blog and social network devoted to news, advocacy and “best practice” solutions for sustainable cities around the world. (@TheCityFix)

source: http://yuriartibise.com/blog/11-blogs-urbanists/

Detroit is known by many as the birthplace of techno, a reputation that has preceded the shrinking city among music-savvy youth for 20+ years. Like most twenty-something Americans,  I have never really considered visiting the city of Detroit – that’s why, when i was asked “what Detroit is like” while living in the other techno-capital, Berlin, I didn’t have much of anything to say – except for something along the lines of “i hear it’s pretty cold”.

Other than to be credited for its music history, Detroit is not one of those U.S. cities that makes contemporary culture news too often. It doesn’t boast notable American monuments (unless you count the first headquarters of auto Industry which, admittedly, unfortunately have shaped our nation quite significantly). It is not, either, one of those U.S. cities that generates tourism like New York, Los Angeles, Miami or Boston.

In fact, the most recent U.S. census report shows that people are migrating away from Detroit at a higher rate than ever before. It’s now estimated to hold 18th place for the largest U.S. City, and Detroit’s population loss has made Michigan (Detroit’s state) the only state to register a net population loss since 2000. While recent census data shows that the total U.S. population has grown 9.7 percent, Michigan’s has fallen by 0.6 percent.

It wasn’t always like this.  Before 1920, Detroit was a modest, compact city that situated its manufacturing along the river, taking advantage of water provided transportation for incoming supplies and outgoing goods. Most of its population lived within a few mile radius of downtown and no one industry dominated-  until the 1920s, when the booming auto industry settled into Detroit.

1914 announcement of Ford’s $5 day sent hordes of job-seekers to the company’s factory in Highland Park (images from the Collections of Henry Ford via. www.autolife.umd)

This initiated a growth spurt for the city, making Detroit, also known as Motor City, the fourth-largest city in the country.  At the cities peak in the 1950’s, it held the title of 5th place.

Ford’s Ford’s Highland Park Plant. (Image from the Collections of Henry Ford via. www.autolife.umd)

Some attribute Detroit’s population loss over the last decade to the travails of the auto industry and the collapse of the industrial-based economy. Others blame a Michigan brain-drain due to a low-quality of life in Detroit. The educated and financially stable residents of Michigan are migrating to other, more attractive cities for work, leaving Detroit-based companies at a loss for qualified employees. Eventually, these companies are forced to move themselves – and unemployment ensues.

A recent New York Times article titled “Detroit Population Down 25 Percent, Census Finds”, quotes 32-year-old Samantha Howell who expresses concern about Detroit’s population decline, “Yes, the city feels empty physically, empty of people, empty of ambition, drive. It feels empty.”. The dramatic scale of population loss (237,500 people in one decade) that the 2010 census has revealed seems to finally be pushing Michigan’s need of an urban face-lift onto the wider radar.

Andrew Basile, Jr, owner of a growing Michigan-based law firm recently shared his story with Rustwire, a blogging site dedicated to consolidating thoughtful, constructive stories about post-industrial cities across the Rust Belt. “We have a lot to learn from each other”, the blog reads.

Basile ‘s essay thoughtfully explains recent migration statistics, the lack of shared developmental values between older governmental officials and younger residents, Michigan’s population’s growing poverty, and the “lack of quality living options other than tract suburbia” – what he calls “poor quality of space”

“The fundamental problem it seems to me”, he writes,“ is that our region has gone
berserk on suburbia to the expense of having any type of nearby open
space or viable urban communities, which are the two primary spatial
assets that attract and retain the best human capital.”

Basile ‘s Images of Metro Detroit, “we have built a very bad physical place”.

As the first region with a automobile freeway, Detroit has adopted an automobile culture and produced Michigan leaders who support urban sprawl rather than work to curb it. As I mentioned in my last Ecological Design Fundamentals post, American cities have been severely influenced by automobile-accommodating design. Michigan is a very good example of the problems that automobile-focused sprawl can bring to space.

Despite Basile’s admitting that he doesn’t see any forward progress or even a meaningful attempt at forward progress to reclaim Detroit’s brain-drained population and better develop urban areas, his term, “poor quality of space”, is still hopeful. With this word choice, Basile is acknowledging the potential that a more ecological re-design of the city space has to re-attract workforce, mitigate poverty problems, and stop environmentally damaging urban sprawl. The problem isn’t Detroit, it’s the special spacial planning, or lack thereof, that has made this urban space undesirable.

Of course, creative efforts to call attention to the the need to improve the under-resourced and intensely blighted Detroit community have been hatching for years. In the 1980s, artist Tyree Guyton and his grandfather began transforming vacant lots and abandoned houses into gigantic art sculptures, integrating the street, sidewalks and trees. This work become known as the Heidelberg Project.

This year marks the Art initiative´s 25th year anniversary. Set in one of the most economically depressed zip codes in the country, with over  90% of people living below the poverty level, the Heidelberg Project has developed as a engine for social and economic change. HP’s goal is to inspire people to appreciate and use artistic expression to enrich their lives and to improve the social and economic health of the greater community. HP’s Beautifying of Heidelberg Street has made it one of the safest places in the area, not to mention one of the best quality spaces in the city.

The city of Detroit is experiencing a low point, Basile has gone so far as to say that the city is approaching the point of no return “where the constituency for reform dwindles below a critical threshold and the region’s path of self destruction becomes unalterable”. Still, that point hasn’t been reached- just yet. And initiatives like the Heidelberg Project prove that it doesn’t take much for individuals to bring great change with creative efforts and re-design.

Detroit will likely present the biggest American urban planning challenge of the next decade. But, i believe, that clever re-design and a few more hands up for Detroit, as Basile and Guyton have proved, could revitalize the city dramatically.

And that’s what I plan to tell people when I get back to techno-pumping Berlin.

However, Chicago deserves more recognition for its architecture, which has, in recent years, boasted some of the greenest (and I mean this quite literally) initiatives in the country. Like many U.S. city Mayors, Richard M. Daley announced his intention to make Chicago the greenest city in America. He began this transformation by transforming the Chicago City Hall rooftop into a green garden. Other Chicago dwellers followed suit, greening up businesses and homes with vertical and rooftop gardens.By 2009, Chicago was the city with the most LEED certified buildings in the country.

This week though,  we’ve learned that Chicago is taking its environmentally friendly architectural history one step further. The Willis Tower, formally known as the sears center, will be adding a vertical solar farm on the 56th floor.

The Willis tower is tall – really tall. In fact this ¨planting¨ means there will soon be a vertical solar farm on the tallest building in America!

While Chicago is definitely not the most environmentally conscious city in America, as it lacks the extent of aggressive sustainable development policies and pro-active citizen initiatives that Portland owns, Chicago’s leadership in promoting ¨green¨ architecture is really something special.

Chicago is the city of the arts – it’s a visual city. Adorning the tallest building in the country with solar panels represents and promotes sustainable development  as a partner of the American city.

The 1.3 million tourists who come to gape at the willis building each year will now have a bit greener of an image of what 21^st century urbanism can be. I propose the addition of a vertical  garden next…

(Vertical garden at Caixa Forum, Madrid)

Ecosistema Urbano is participating in the urban development competition From Streetscape to Cityscape: remodelling Thomas B. Thriges Gade in a team together with the two Danish agencies Schmidt Hammer Lassen Architects and Kristine Jensens Tegnestue.

Among 25 teams 7 teams have been selected to make their proposal for the remodelling of the street Thomas B. Thriges Gade in the historical city center of Odense, the third largest city of Denmark.

Since the 1960′s the city center of Odense has been divided into two parts by the 4 lane street of Thomas B. Thriges Gade, which was established as an effort to modernize Odense. On a daily basis 35,000 cars are passing the street. Having served as an thoroughfare for many years, the street is now being remodelled as a step in the sustainable development of the city. When the new bridge Odins Bro will be finished in 2014, the main car traffic will be led around the city center as part of the Planning Strategy for Odense.

When Thomas B. Thriges Gade was established, it cut through the existing neighbourhoods, which left the area appear inharmonious with many different building styles and heights.

The purpose of the remodelling competition of Thomas B. Thriges Gade is to create a dense, diverse urban environment, reconnecting the surrounding neighbourhoods and creating an accessible and attractive district  for the pedestrians and many bicyclists of the city.

The final winning proposal will be announced in November 2011.

The 7 selected teams are:

Schmidt Hammer Lassen Architects, (DK)
Kristine Jensens Tegnestue, Landscape Architects (DK)
Ecosistema Urbano Architects, (ES)
Tyréns AB (SE)
WS Green Technologies (D)
PriceWaterhouseCoopers

Henning Larsen Architects (DK)
Polyform (DK)
Jonathan Speirs + Major (UK)
Dress & Sommer (DK)
WTM Engineers International (D)
Argus (D)

3XN Architects (DK)
NORD Architects (DK)
Jeppe Aagaard Andersen Landscape Architects (DK)
Ove Arup and Partners International Ltd (UK)
Søren Jensen Rådgivende Ingeniørfirma (DK)

Entasis (DK)
SWECO Architects (SE)
Grontmij | Carl Bro (DK)
sbs rådgivning (DK)
MOMENTUM Research & Development

Lundgaard & Tranberg Architects (DK)
Kragh&Berglund Landscape Architecture & Urban Design (DK)
Lemming & Eriksson Rådgivende Ingeniører (DK)
Reinertsen Sverige AB – Stefan Krii
Gielstrup Therkelsen Aps

Sleth (DK)
Schul + Okra Landscaping Architects (NL/DK)
Christensen & Co architects (DK)

Peter Brett Associates LLP (GB)
Colliers Hans Vestergaard (DK)

ADEPT (DK)
MVRDV (NL)
Thing & Wainø Landscape Architects (DK)
U:R:D Urban:design:research (DK)
Slot Møller Rådgivende Ingeniører (DK)
Esbensen Consulting Engineers (DK)
Via Trafik (DK)
EMCON AS
ACT
Capacent Management Consulting (DK)

More information about the competition in the competition brief here.

KONKURRENCE- PROGRAM SÆRLIGE FORUDSÆTNINGER COMPETITION BRIEF SPECIAL CONSTRAINTS