DELHI NULLAHS: THE FRACTAL METROPOLITAN LAYER

www.delhinullahs.org

'The fractal metropolitan layer' is an endeavor in progress by Morphogenesis, that aims to reveal the hidden opportunity that lies within our organically evolved cities by establishing a green and sustainable network as an alternative source of engagement with the city for the common man. The initiative aims to reclaim the derelict, the forgotten, the recyclable, and the toxic by involving all stakeholders, thereby collapsing the boundaries of decades of non-systemic thinking which have generated unsustainable urban growth. The contiguous, sewage-laden nullahs, the greens, the alleyways and the river are viewed as the arteries of a city that can be linked to create an environmental network which integrates livability issues of air, water, sewerage, heritage and walkability. These ecological potentials and vestigial organs of planning can be modulated, transformed, and spatial strategies devised to optimize the ecological, social, cultural, and economic dynamic that can be created through them.

The Morphogenesis Delhi Nullahs installation live at the India Habitat Centre

The installation aims to create awareness by engaging people, to speculate on what is and what can be, by bridging the gap between the reality of our cities as perceived from the outside, and the virtual image of what Delhi potentially is. The tree has been used as a metaphor and a fractal insert into the fabric of the city; representative of our symbiotic relationship with Nature, and its omnipresence in Delhi.

IMAGES FROM la CHAPELLE : COMMUNITY PARK PROJECT IN PARIS

See also my paris experience blog-post from city as biotope

 "....the everyday park between the rail-lines of Gare de l´Est and Rue d´Aubervilliers, Jardins d´Eole that almost lost the 12 year long fight for its right to exist to the plans for extention of a storage hall. Now it is a beautiful addition in peoples life in this aera; people working out, playing, talking, growing vegetables and fruits in the parcel-garden, having coffe and crèpe and talking, and the children experience to see how a sunflower grow, or how a turnip they planted taste when it is finished (school project)."

rue d´Aubervilliers - Jardins d´Éole

Permeable surfaces, natural seeding straws and surface water management

Parcel gardens

Garden produce

MORE IMAGES FROM aaa PROJECT IN PARIS / Le 56 : Eco-interstice

Photos from aaa´s Urban gardening project in Paris : Le 56 / Eco-interstice

"This project explores the possibilities of an urban interstice to be transformed into a collectively self-managed space. Initiated in 2006 in St. Blaise area, in the East of Paris, the project engaged a partnership between local government structures, local organisations, inhabitants of the area and a professional association which run training programmes in eco-construction. The management of the project gives space and time to construction, the construction site becoming itself a social and cultural act.

Parallely with the construction of the physical space, different social and cultural networks and relationships between the users and the actors involved are emerging. The project has an important take on the notion of proximity and active borders. Neighborhood walls transform the boundaries of the site into interactive devices, which rather than separating, multiply exchange and connections. Another strong take is on the ecological aspect: energetic autonomy, recycling, minimal ecological footprint, a compost laboratory."
http://56stblaise.wordpress.com/

Entrance with small office on top.

The neighborhood garden

And sales of harvested products every Wednesday and Saturday

ARTICLE ABOUT FREIBURG - THE UNOFFICIAL GERMAN ECO-CITY

In the local paper of Bergen; BT I found this article from Freiburg that describes many of the aspects I imagine can develope at Wergeland, and many other stops along the light rail in Bergen.
No cars in the streets besides from utility transport (fire, ambulance, transport of goods, service cars / buses for elder, disabled etc).
Mixed housing with homes for elder within the community.
The city has been working with an holistic approach to city planning for 40 years and therefore many of the solutions are now well organized, and logic.
The light rail and the bike are main transportation.

URBAN STRATEGIES FOR DECREASING OUR ECO-FOOTPRINT

URBAN STRATEGIES FOR DECREASING OUR ECO-FOOTPRINT

INTERESTING PROJECTS ON TOWER AGRICULTURE

http://nightlybuilt.org/?p=1160

La Tour Vivante

Footprint 1200 sq m / 0.3 acres, height 30 stories, 130 apartments, 8700 sq m office floors, 7000 sq m / 1.7 acres of arable land, 650sq m nursery and library, 6800sq m supermarket, 475 parking places.

One of the most notable designs is made by Paris based Atelier SOA. In La Tour Vivante, The Living Tower, houses and offices are combined with farming in a tight and integrated relationship. This results in a considerable savings in energy use.

The footprint of the tower measures 25×48m and it counts 30 storeys. The net floor space for farming is 7000 sq m or 1.7 acres, which is about 15% of the total. SOA claims that per year about 63.000 kg of tomatoes and 9300 kg of strawberries can be produced. The outer skin of the building has been kept clear of structural elements. Therefore the tower has a massive structural core of 8×30m to carry all floors. The mass of the core is used to store heat in the summer that is used in the winter.

An important feature is the ventilation principle of the building, which is based on the Canadian Well principle. It means that air is sucked into the building through shafts that run underground for a while, allowing the air to heat up in winter or to cool down in summer. When the air reaches the building it will have a stable temperature of around 15 degrees. The chimney effect sucks the air into the building, through the interconnected greenhouses, all the way to the top of the tower. This principle is the main design driver for the building.

The Canadian Well principle is based on the way termite nests are ventilated. The outer skin of the nests is made of thick ground that absorbs the heat of the sun. Before air enters the nest it runs through the damp ground to cool down. Inside the nest the air rises as it gets warmer because of the thousands of termites present, and escapes through a hole at the top.
Energy is generated by photo voltaics and wind turbines on the roof.

Centre for Urban Agriculture

Footprint 2900 sq m / 0.72 acres, height 23 stories, 318 apartments, 4050 sq m / 1 acre of arable land in greenhouses and rooftop gardens and a café for organic food.

The design by Seattle based office Mithun for the Centre for Urban Agriculture is entirely driven by self sufficiency. It is said that the grains, vegetables and chickens that the farm produces should be able to feed 450 people annually, which equals the population of the building.

The building is independent from city water and provides its own drinking water. Grey water and rain are collected via the building’s 2900 sq m / 31.000 sq ft rooftop rainwater collection area. It gets filtered and purified by the biomembrane plants in the greenhouses. The energy is generated by 3200 sq m / 34.000 sq ft of photovoltaic cells, regulated over the seasons by storage as hydrogen gas in underground tanks. This matches 100 percent of the building’s energy consumption. This balance in provision and demand for food, electricity and water means that the building is self sufficient in all its aspects.

Easy to be skeptic to this type of projects but they can broaden the perspective on "how dense how?" and "dense what?"
see: WHAT? WHY? HOW?

INTERVIEW WITH M. CASAGRANDE ON URBAN ACUPUNTURE

Urban Acupuncture is an urban environmentalism theory of Finnish architect, Professor Marco Casagrande which combines urban design with traditional Chinese medical theory of acupuncture. Casagrande views cities as complex energy organisms in which different overlapping layers of energy flows are determining the actions of the citizens as well as the development of the city. By mixing environmentalism and urban design Casagrande is developing methods of punctual manipulation of the urban energy flows in order to create an ecologically sustainable urban development towards the so-called 3rd Generation City (post industrial city). Casagrande has developed the theory in the Tamkang University of Taiwan.

Laurits Elkjær / The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts - School of Architecture in Copenhagen interviewing Marco Casagrande.

I am currently working on a large paper dealing with urban acupuncture. I understand that urban acupuncture is a strategy You have developed and would in this context ask You a few questions. If You have the opportunity to answer these, I will be both happy and grateful.

How do you as an architect define urban acupuncture?
Urban Acupuncture is cross-over architectural manipulation of the collective sensuous intellect within a city. City is viewed as a complex sensitive energy-organism, a living environment. Urban acupuncture aims into a touch with this nature.

How do you use urban acupuncture to create architecture?
First you have to determine the sensitive flows of the built human environment. Based on those you have to determine the acupuncture points. The last is to determine what is the needle: architecture. The key to understand this is to be presents. To be truly present one has to give up, one has to be weak. To be present is the key of all art.

What are the benefits of using urban acupuncture?
Weakness and flexibility. Communicative action with the collective mind. Environmental sensitivity. Every grass growing through the concrete or asphalt pavement of an industrial city is urban acupuncture.

What requirements should an area meet if Urban acupuncture is to be used as a strategy?
Urban Acupuncture can be applied as networks to deal with a whole city or it can be used puctually in close quaters. If a city is undergoing some sort of an active process or transformation, UA is a good strategy to tune the direction. Acupuncture is good for hardness and industrial insensitivity. Hardness and strenght are death's companions. What has become hard will never survive. Urban Accupuncture can suggest the Dictatorship of Sensitivity.

What is your experience with the use of urban acupuncture? In what context? What were/are the expectations and what was the outcome?
A good case is the transformation process of the Treasure Hill settlement from an illegal urban farming community into a model example of ecologically sustainable urban living in Taipei. See: http://www.e-architect.co.uk/taiwan/treasure_hill_taipei.htm

The process locally was Urban Acupuncture tunning the direction of the collective Qi from destruction into construction and afterwards the whole legalized settlement acting as an acupuncture needle for the modern Taipei. I have been referring this process to the turning over of a compost - something that is considered to be the smelly and repulsive corner of the city suddenly becomes the most fertile top-soil and source of life.

Link: UA

See also; Projet insolite en bambou

And I strongly recommend reading this interview of MC,
teasers to keep you interested; "flesh is more", "in grandmothers we trust"...

FLESH IS MORE

Marco Casagrande inrerview by Jirawit Yamkleeb for ART4D, Thailand.


Marco Casagrande has been working with both Sami Riintala and prof. Chi which both is connected to BAS. Sami was our teacher under the shelter course in 2005, and in autumn 2007 I did a course with Chi on micro urbanism (www.microurbanism.net). (see the MICRO URBANISM BOOK" under other works on the left column of this page).

see also if you like;
Chamber of the Post-Urbanist

em Interior por Marco Casagrande

IT´S ABOUT CONNECTING THE DOTS

OK, so easter is finally over and kindergarten will again serve me and give me some space to think starting tomorrow. Finally!
March has been a slow month for the diploma work so april will have to work better and charge this head with some good and new energy.
In my achitecture history task I mention Paul Downton and the Eco-City Builders organisation. On this page www.ecocitybuilders.org/amendment you can read the amendment of the citizens of Berkley, their (political?) approach to a more sustainable life in the city (whole version little lower in this text).
I think this was a good kick start after to much holidays, and inspirational to read it as the voices of "the citizens".

Looking at the proposals for the "The Heart of the City and Strawberry Creek at Center Street Project", it might not be quite what I expect to be the solution for f.ex access-point:Wergeland, but some of the intentions for the development are worth mentioning;
#Create opportunities for people to gather and engage in civic life and activities
#Encourage and support buildings that utilize sustainable design principles, including solar energy, rain and stormwater catchment and treatment, and other “green” design practices
#Increase current City stormwater capacity through the employment of permeable paving, natural plantings, and an underground cistern that will also serve to reduce flashing and runoff impacts farther downstream

The project adresses:
#Automobile dependence and transportation alternatives
#Pedestrian streets, public space, and street design
#The need to demonstrate effective ecological design, materials, and methods
#Education and outreach to the community
#Advanced and innovative watershed and stormwater management models
#Sustainable public infrastructure improvements
#Linkages between environmental restoration and sustainable development

[Full text of the proposed Ecocity Amendment to the Berkeley General Plan]

" The Ecocity Amendment to the General Plan

We, the citizens of Berkeley, are prepared to take part in what we believe will be the most consequential ecological endeavor of the 21st century: the rebuilding of our cities and towns in balance with nature. We understand the extreme importance of this task and accept responsibility for contributing to this healthy co-evolution of future generations and the bioregion. We also acknowledge that we are part of larger systems, both natural and social. Guided by the principles of ecology as we make decisions regarding our built environment and social structures, we will place this city upon a shared path of health and well-being. By implementing the Ecocity Amendment to the General Plan, the City of Berkeley will take the following measures to proactively reverse wasteful and ecologically damaging practices and facilitate balanced co-existence with nature, now and into the future.

Policies

The Berkeley Planning Commission and the Berkeley City Council should include the following four (4) policies in the Land Use Element of the Berkeley General Plan:

Ecocity Policy #1: Ecological Design (To facilitate the ecologically healthy city, we must design and build structures that are in balance with people and nature.)

Require the highest quality architectural and ecological design for new development projects. Require environmentally sensitive and sustainable design in new buildings, such as solar accessibility and orientation, and energy efficiency. Encourage development of public spaces in higher density city centers with ecological features such as public plazas, creek and forest restored urban environments and other amenities that enhance the pedestrian environment.

Ecocity Policy #2: Centers (Distance requires time and energy to traverse. The greater the distance people have to travel, the higher the use of resources and the greater the ecological damage. Therefore, we should be rebuilding and reorganizing into relatively compact centers, connected to efficient public transit.)

Encourage pedestrian orientation and community building by establishing centers throughout the City, ranging from small neighborhoods such as the Elmwood, to larger centers, such as 4th Street, and the largest center: the Downtown. These centers should increase appropriately in density and connect to efficient mass transit options.

Ecocity Policy #3: Heart of the City (Berkeley's central downtown core offers a powerful opportunity for successful innovation and economic development, and restoration of nature at the same time.)

On the blocks between the Downtown BART Station, Oxford Street, University Avenue and Center Street, establish the Heart of the City District in which taller buildings may be allowed, but only if the development provides transit oriented housing for a variety of income groups, exhibits environmentally sustainable ecologically sensitive design features, and incorporates natural elements, such as Strawberry Creek.

Establish provisions in the zoning ordinance for a Heart of the City Planned Unit Development (PUD) or Ecological Demonstration Project (EDP) permit process to review and approve innovative and ecological design in the Downtown that may not conform to the setback, height, parking, or other requirements of the zoning ordinance.

Ecocity Policy #4: Funding Environmental Restoration (To ensure balance between the built environment and the natural environment requires mechanisms and linkages between land development and land restoration.)

To ensure that new development funds environmental restoration:

Establish an Environmental Improvement Density Bonus for downtown projects that will generate funds for environmental improvements, such as creek restoration, reforestation, and wetlands restoration. Establish provisions that would allow additional floor area in downtown development in return for financial contributions to a local environmental fund for environmental restoration through direct purchase, purchase of easements or purchase of Transfer of Development Rights.

Establish a Transfer of Development Rights Ordinance to facilitate and fund ecological design, open space enhancements, creek restoration, natural habitat restoration and expansion of community gardens and public parks. Consider provisions that would allow development rights from ecologically sensitive or environmentally important property throughout the City to be transferred to Downtown development. Encourage a multi-disciplinary group of experts to prepare draft provisions for community, Planning Commission, and City Council consideration in drafting a TDR ordinance. "

William McDonough on cradle to cradle design