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Peter
Rowe
Professor Department of Urban Planning and Design |
Studio Options
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A Lo Que Vinimos: Revitalization of Central San Jose, Costa Rica
Paradoxically, perhaps, as the economic fortunes of Costa Rica have rebounded from the downturn and regional political crises of the late 1970s and 80s, the life and vitality of the central area of San Jose—its capital and largest metropolitan area—have declined appreciably. Propelled by accelerated outward peripheral expansion, the now sprawling greater metropolitan area in the country's central region has risen in population to around 2.2 million people, accounting for 57 percent of Costa Rica's total, up significantly from 42 percent in 1973. By contrast, the resident population of San Jose's central area has declined from around 180,000 inhabitants to about 65,000. Similarly, many employment opportunities in Costa Rica's now more diversified economy have been deployed to locations largely on San Jose's periphery. Commercial activities have also followed, with, for instance, the recent establishment of over 20 malls and retail outlets, eroding the significance of the traditional city center. These phenomena are, of course, not uncommon elsewhere in the world where automobile oriented urban decentralization has taken its toll on central areas. In San Jose, however, they have arrived relatively late, or are still in the process of occurring, placing severe strains on the metropolitan area's under-developed infrastructure, relative lack of planning and environmental carrying capacity—a sensitivity to which the nation as a whole has otherwise become a world renowned. Moreover, concentration of public institutions, banking, cultural facilities and urban tourism remain predominantly in the city center, despite its declining security, relatively neglected public amenity, lack of quality services, traffic congestion, and deteriorating housing choices. In aspiration, most in public office and many within the private sector appear to decry the central city's decline and espouse a desire for orderly compact city development. Nevertheless, the profound and recent shift in needed policy emphasis from largely rural to urban development has caught many up short, as municipal and regional authorities strive for better balanced solutions to urban growth. Tokyo's 'New Order' from a Local Perspective: Redevelopment of the Chuo-ku Waterfront In the aftermath of the bursting of the "bubble economy," which beset Tokyo and much of Japan during the past 15 years, the city is making concerted efforts to regain its competitive advantage, internationally, and to revitalize inner-city neighborhoods and commercial districts at a local level. By the late 1990s, Tokyo saw its international ranking as a business center plummet from number one to number 18, its share of conferences and conventions fall by 30 percent, its prominence as a site for tourism, leisure and cultural activities decline by a similar amount, and the dissatisfaction of many of its economically-strapped and service-deprived citizenry rise appreciably. In effect, the rather narrowly defined production-oriented trajectory of Tokyo's lengthy first round of post-war urban development had come to a less than satisfactory end. Moreover, among the consequences of this period were the needs for re-balanced metropolitan development; more amenable living and working environments; higher degrees of integration among urban functions, including infrastructure improvements; and better and more appropriately placed facilities for hosting both national and international events. Nowhere were these consequences more evident than within the 23 wards of central Tokyo, of which Chuo-ku, at the very center, is one, with a population of around 100,000 people and notable commercial districts like Ginza and Nihonbashi, historic areas like Tsukishima and Tsukiji, and reclaimed waterfront sites, now ripe for redevelopment, like Harumi and parts of Kachidoki. Among the efforts to revitalize inner-city Tokyo and to regain the city's international prominence are the recently designated "Special Districts for Urgent Urban Revitalization," emanating from the Prime Minister's office through the Tokyo Metropolitan Government; the new "2010 Vision Plan;" the "Landscape Law" of 2004 and, even more recently, the announcement by Tokyo's Governor that the city will compete for the 2016 Olympic Games. Essentially, the designated "Special Districts" are legal and administrative overlay zones, supplanting local authority in an attempt to provide greater flexibility and capacity for economically-productive and amenable environments. The "Landscape Law" aims to better control the shape and appearance of urban development—the "townscape" as it is called—especially in relationship to sites of historical cultural importance. The "2010 Vision Plan," while giving up on prior efforts of continued decentralization, aims to orient the city towards more balanced and strategically coherent redevelopment and urban growth; and the early thinking about the Olympic bid aims to confine all of the necessary facilities within a 10km radius of central Tokyo and to subsequently use these sites as catalysts for both renewal and new development. In effect a new kind of "order," including planning and revitalization, is being brought to bear, on inner-city Tokyo, from various quarters. However, the likely outcome of these efforts remains to be thoroughly tested, especially in combination and from a local perspective. Moreover, the broader waterfront area of Chuo-ku, roughly from Ginza to the southeast, is an excellent location for such a test, or demonstration, as it is simultaneously affected by all the new initiatives. It at once lies within one of the seven designated "Special Districts" of the city. It has a conspicuous potential role within the "2010 Vision Plan," including major planned infrastructure improvements. It has reasons to thoroughly employ the "Landscape Law" in conjunction with sites of historic and environmental significance, and it is slated to be the site of two potential Olympic facilities - the stadium and the media center. Therefore, the aim of the urban design and planning studio is to generate, test and demonstrate an urban strategy, or strategies, that conform to the "new order" being brought to bear on areas of inner-city Tokyo and to do so from a local governmental perspective, including satisfaction of local aims and ambitions. Based on short exploratory exercises and analyses, urban structure plans are prepared involving at least three prominent components: infrastructure, capital facilities and redevelopment. Approaches for implementing the urban structure plans are also investigated and a general analysis conducted of the implications of the urban strategy, or strategies, for broader policy purposes, i.e., an evaluation in the light of the broader new planning initiatives. Throughout, a local perspective is pursued, guided by Chuo-ku, for the purpose of illuminating likely local response to what are essentially "top-down" mandates. The work is conducted in collaboration with Keio University in Tokyo (SF Campus) and sponsorship is provided by the government of Chuo-ku through Keio University. The studio is open to eligible urban planning, urban design and architecture students at the Graduate School of Design, Harvard University, and findings are presented formally to Chuo-ku in January of 2007. Redevelopment and Restructuring Relationships
Between Parks and Stations in Tokyo
Most major older cities in the world are served by rail transit and commuter systems. Indeed, during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the railroad and especially the station were palpable symbols of modernization, subsequently becoming transformed and acquiring other meanings commensurate with the evolving needs and cultures of the cities in which they were a part. In Tokyo, although the underlying physical structure of much of the city reflects its feudal predecessor — Edo — the process of modernization was strongly influenced by an expanding rail transit system and the location of large stations. In fact, more than in most other places, real estate interests were inextricably bound up with early rail development as a means to an end, rather than the other way around. Moreover, during this process there was an almost inevitable juxtaposition of old and new, as Edo and Tokyo cohered together. One outcome was the close proximity of railroad and transit stations to remnants of aristocratic precincts and estates, now incorporated within Tokyo’s public open space system. In this regard, Tokyo Station and the Imperial Outer Garden, Ueno Station and Ueno Park, Shinjuku Station and Shinjuku Gyoen and Shibuya Station and Yoyogi Park, immediately come to mind. Furthermore, beyond these juxtapositions, the role of stations and areas immediately around them has changed, often dramatically. They are no longer simply stops on a transit system, if that ever was the case, but have become broader foci for a wide variety of commercial transactions, information interchanges, leisure activities, public displays, chance encounters and cultural reproduction. The aim of the studio is to imagine, explore and cultivate possible meanings and imports that station core precincts and adjacent public open space might have in twenty-first century Tokyo city life. Three sites have been selected. They are: 1) Shinjuku Station and areas designated for redevelopment to the south in the direction of and including Shinjuku Gyoen, a former Imperial garden; 2) Shibuya Station and its valley and plateau surroundings, including Yoyogi Park, as well as redevelopment of Shibuya River; and 3) Shimokitazawa Station, on the fringes of Tokyo, a relatively new kind of development circumstance, characteristic of expansion across the Yamanote Plain. Work in the studio is conducted in groups, as well as through individual exercises, and require input from a variety of disciplinary perspectives with the Design School. The studio is sponsored by the Japanese Ministry of Transportation and Environment, the Kajima Foundation and the River Front Center, working in collaboration with Keio University in Tokyo. There is a field trip during the course of the semester, and the studio meets on Tuesdays and Wednesdays between 2:00 pm and 6:00 pm. A Cross Section through the
City: Redevelopment of the Han Jiang Riverfront in Wuhan, China
Large tracts of valuable urban property have often been opened up for redevelopment adjacent to the centers of contemporary cities, as waterfront industries and port facilities of the earlier modern period have declined or moved away. This has certainly been the case in most well-developed western cities like Boston, Barcelona and Rotterdam, to name but a few, and is now the case in contemporary China, where urbanization has picked up rapidly and where cities are taking on a more profoundly service orientation. The issues to be faced usually require orchestration of competing claims among larger-scale entrepreneurs, local residents and businesses and various public authorities, often with very different views about how waterfront properties should be redeveloped. There is also intrinsic competition among different functions, including recreation, business enterprises of one kind or another, flood control and environmental management, as well as residential and associated living environments. Recognition of the past is also frequently an issue raising the question of what to preserve and how to balance the scope of that preservation, or conservation, with new development opportunities. In addition, waterfronts are parts of the broader natural system and places where environmental quality often comes to the public forefront, as well as being potential sites for public leisure-time activities. Furthermore, as marginal areas prior to redevelopment, waterfront properties often house populations who risk displacement, as new plans and projects are pushed ahead. Then too, waterfronts in their older modern guise typically cut the city behind off from the water, whereas, again with new plans and projects, they offer a potential vantage point to reconceptualize the city in a broader and more inclusive manner. Redevelopment of the Hanjiang — Han River — raises all these issues, plus the inevitably complex context of China in transition. The specific site for consideration is located at the confluence of the Han with the Changjiang — Yangtze River — around which the city of Wuhan is centered, incorporating Hankou to the north of the Han; Hanyang to the south and Wuchang to the east, across the Changjiang. About 20 kilometers in length, the site stretches through Wuhan from the Jianghan No. 3 Bridge, beside the confluence of the two rivers, westwards to the No. 5 bridge, with four river crossings in between. Today the cross-section of the Han incorporates both structural and non-structural approaches to flood control, always a dangerous matter of concern, especially during seasonal heavy rains. Adjacent uses vary along the length of the river, including a lot of old industry and perfunctory residential development, as well as agriculture. For redevelopment purposes, there are at least three general sections—one, immediately adjacent to Old Hankou and Old Hanyang, requiring substantial and dense urban reconsideration; another providing opportunities for better residential district making; and a third presenting the possibility for both recreation and intensive agriculture. Work in the studio commences with an overall master-planning exercise for Wuhan, in order to place the site in a better context. This is followed by an iterative process involving redevelopment strategies with both urban planning and urban-architectural dimensions, followed by development of specific proposals within the ambit of each particular redevelopment strategy. The studio is offered primarily for students from urban design, urban planning and architecture, although there is some scope for students from landscape architecture. A site visit is made to Wuhan in October, with external sponsorship paying expenses for travel and accommodation, as well for a final studio publication. Backward and Forward in Time: Urban
Rehabilitation in the Xicheng District of Beijing
Today, unlike earlier periods when the proverbial "urban bulldozer" was encouraged to move through dilapidated innercity areas with a certain alacrity, making way for new modern projects, urban redevelopment has become a far more complex undertaking. Sustaining and promoting economic development and the "highest and best use" of urban property must now include conservation and even preservation of historically or culturally significant areas and actively take on the social dimensions of population displacement and provision of local livelihoods. While commonplace in Europe and America, this more complex view is also being applied in cities in the East Asian region, like Beijing,China — albeit against a background of rapid and otherwise wholesale modernization. There, in the historic innercity, issues involved in urban redevelopment have become severely exacerbated by decades of official neglect, excessive overcrowding, blight, an appalling lack of basic services, and substantial informal settlement. According to one report in 1991, some 38 percent of families living in the West City District of inner Beijing (Xicheng) had serious housing problems, with almost 10 percent of them dwelling in living space of less than 2 square meters per person. Moreover, of the single-story housing common throughout the innercity, 48 percent (10.19 million square meters) was classified as structurally unsuitable or unsafe—much of it provided through informal "self-help" building practices. Although these circumstances have begun to change recently, under concerted municipal action—housing renewal areas and neighborhood rehabilitation programs—the situation is still far from uniformly satisfactory, with many of the innercity's roughly 1.7 million people (excluding floating populations) living in less than 10 square meters per person and often in the appalling dwelling conditions depicted in earlier surveys.
In stark contrast to these scenes of urban blight and deteriorating housing conditions, the inner-city of Beijing has also become rife with substantial commercial investment, accompanied by massive new building projects and infrastructure improvements. Indeed, during the past two decades the service or "tertiary sector" has expanded significantly, now accounting for more that 54 percent of the city's Gross Domestic Product, up from well below 20 percent, making it the highest among China's major cities, and further illustrating the rate and degree to which modernization has been occurring. One consequence, however, has been a skyrocketing of land rent in Beijing's fledgling property market, involving, at times, wholesale speculation and official (as well as unofficial) acquiescence. In spite of attempts by the municipal government to concentrate substantial amounts of this new development in more or less coherent commercial centers, pressures and pent-up demands for massive new redevelopment can still be felt. Finally, historic conservation and preservation have recently loomed large on Chinese municipal agendas, as elsewhere in East Asia, in Beijing not the least because of the realization, in at least some official quarters, that one of the very essences of the city is intimately bound up with lane life, the hutongs and the low-lying, intricate fabric of local neighborhoods. In l982 the State Council — China's governing body — designated Beijing as an "important cultural city," and indeed, many literary works, both old and contemporary, that use Beijing as a setting, are suffused with copious descriptions of life amid the horizontal walls and adjacent low-lying courtyards of the hutongs, where time often seems to have stood still for an interminable period. Ironically, perhaps, it has been the very lack of modernization, up until recently, that has saved extensive areas of this incomparable cultural environment from almost sure destruction — their sheer dilapidation notwithstanding. Today, when preservation must be ruled out for a variety of reasons — unsafe buildings, blight beyond repair, the impossibility of adequate service provision, etc. — conservation of the intricate character of courtyard dwellings, lanes, and gateways is both encouraged and increasingly practiced. Put simply, the aim of the studio is to devise and illustrate comprehensive urban-architectural strategies for remaking and managing a representative area of Beijing's innercity urban environment, that preserves its cultural and social value while simultaneously improving its environmental quality and economic viability. The studio is open to all eligible students — particularly those in architecture, urban design and urban planning. A sponsored field trip is made to Beijing during the term, and the studio is conducted in collaboration with the Xicheng District Planning Bureau and the School of Architecture at Tsinghua University in Beijing. Tokyo- Inner-City Revitalization
Among the prominent cities in the world, international status is no longer a matter of economic power per se, especially when it is purchased at the cost of tiny living spaces, long commutes, traffic congestion, a lack of common open space, high costs of living, and dilapidation in many urban areas. In spite of Tokyo's significant role in advancing Japan forward to become the second largest economy in the world, it no longer enjoys the international status, nor the local amenity, that it once had. According to several sources, the city's competitiveness ranking has dropped from number one in 1990, to number 18 in 1998, falling behind both Singapore and Hong Kong in the Asian sphere. New listings on the stock exchange, which were on a par with New York in 1992, are now one third as many, and the number of international conferences held in Tokyo has slipped 30 percent since 1993 and is now half as many as are held in Singapore. The residential floor area per dwelling unit, always low in Tokyo, is now only 55 square meters, on average, compared to a national standard of 86 square meters and similar standards in Manhattan, Singapore and Paris. Roadway infrastructure, sometimes a dubious measure of quality, is also low in Tokyo, at around 13 percent compared to 37 percent in Manhattan, and the area of public park per person, probably a better measure of environmental amenity, is very low in Tokyo, with 5.3 square meters, compared to London and New York with 27 square meters and 29 square meters, respectively. Behind these symptoms of decline, Tokyo's recent problems are: 1) a pattern of urban development with an over centralization and specialization of commercial uses in the inner city; 2) the negative effects of an overly speculative real estate boom — the so-called bubble economy that burst; 3) a lack of local municipal authority and self determination; and 4) no clear sense of an urban design direction or even tradition, especially again at the local level where it probably counts most. One clear measure of the centralizing commercial influence of central Tokyo is the massive daily influx of people that occurs from outside. Between 1975 and 2000, during which time Tokyo's population has remained relatively stable at 12 million inhabitants, there has been a 28 percent rise in daytime employment, 65 percent of which has come from outside, totaling on the order of 2.2 million workers. The overall population effects of this centralizing influence are even more dramatic, with a 74 percent increase, numbering 2.8 million people, coming daily from the outside. Despite substantial mass transit improvements, with ridership around 44 percent of daily trips, peak-hour congestion runs at 230 percent of capacity and there has been a 50 percent increase in private vehicular travel over the past 30 years, adding further to traffic congestion. The real estate boom, which began around 1985, fueled by pent-up demand for better living and working space, as well as an annual growth in local GDP that reached as high as 8 percent in 1989, prompted substantial increases in building construction activity, peaking at 72 percent above normal levels in 1989-90, and massive upward speculation in the buying and selling of existing residential and commercial property. Amid substantial overhangs in the supply of property, the net effect of this real estate boom was a precipitous downward spiral, which saw residential prices drop by 68 percent of their prior peak value and commercial prices by 82 percent, and which left property owners, many of them older people in the residential market, with high mortgage payments and little prospect of re-sale at competitive prices. In the commercial property sector, bankruptcies and foreclosures were quick in coming, adding substantially to Japan's mounting and debilitating domestic debt burden. Moreover, with a long planning tradition of highly centralized authority and regulatory standards that are uniform regardless of local conditions, municipal authorities have been relatively powerless to act on behalf of local and neighborhood interests. Nowadays, many of these issues are becoming more clearly defined and more widely known. Indeed, on a metropolitan and city-wide level, plans are persistently being drafted to improve the overall situation. Furthermore, various levels of municipal government are beginning to view each other differently, and probably the worst effects of the bubble economy have already passed. Beyond these generalities, however, there remains the need, in inner-city Tokyo, for urban design speculation about possible future living and working conditions involving higher densities of urban development; a more substantial mixing of uses and particularly the reintroduction of residential space; and greater open-space amenity. In fact, it is doubtful that current master-planning can proceed appropriately in the absence of such urban design speculation, as clearly more of the same will not successfully resolve the situation. To this end, four urban sites have been chosen, each representing an otherwise generic set of issues and constraints that will be encountered elsewhere in inner-city Tokyo. They are: 1) the soon to be vacated Ministry of Defense compound near Roppongi in Minato-ku; 2) a section of Akasaka, also in Minato-ku; 3) the environs of Nihonbashi in Chiyoda-ku, where depression of the overhead expressway is planned and; 4) a poorer neighborhood on the eastern side of the Sumida River, near the location of a new subway station. Work in the studio focused primarily on three aspects of these sites simultaneously. They are: 1) site-specific design proposals; 2) neighborhood or sub-area structured plans; and 3) frameworks for providing improved local design guidance and governance. Some work was conducted in groups, although individual assignments, within the class-wide exercise, predominated. The studio was sponsored by a consortium of Japanese construction companies and development interests and included participation and assistance from government officials. There was a field trip to Tokyo for one week in October, the travel and accommodation costs of which were covered by the studio budget. Throughout, work was conducted in collaboration with a counterpart group at Keio University in Tokyo. A prerequisite for the studio was eligibility to take part in the options studio lottery. It was of particular interest to urban design students, architecture students interested in an urban scale, and urban planning students. Shan Shui City: Urban Development in
Wenzhou, China
Almost without exception, cities throughout the modernizing and developing world confront the issue of when to shift emphasis from economic development, by whatever means, toward a more balanced approach. The City of Wenzhou, in the Peoples Republic of China, is currently facing several important issues in this regard including reconciling old with new development, promoting environmental sustainability and amenity, matching urban development plans with economic expansion and accommodating rapid urban and population growth. Since 1992, when the City began its open-market experiment, considerable social and economic progress has been made. Nevertheless, the quality of the physical environmental is relatively low, certainly by international standards and even in comparison to some of Chinas better developed cities like Dalian and Shanghai.
Located on the Oujiang, a river in Zhejiang Province on the East coast of China south of Shanghai, Wenzhou encompasses a large area roughly the size of several U.S. counties with a predominately rural and small-town population of 7.8 million inhabitants. The City of Wenzhou proper, located on the south bank of the Oujiang, has a population of 1.2 million people of which the contiguous urban area the Lucheng and Longwan districts accounts for about 600,000 inhabitants. Rural-urban migration and immigration from neighboring areas is high, at around 35,000 people per year, and the rate of urbanization is also high, with the expectation of 500,000 inhabitants over the next 15 to 20 years. With an average household income of ¥30,000 ($US 3,850), Wenzhou is now comparatively well off by Chinese standards, and with an annual GDP of ¥25,000 per person ($US 3,200), it has enjoyed sustained economic growth of around 9 to 10 percent. Housing standards, a useful benchmark of the material standard of living, have risen dramatically from 3.9 square meters per person in 1976 to 15.7 square meters per person in 2000, with the expectation of increasing to around 20 or 25 square meters per person in the not too distant future.
Recently, the concept of the Shan Shui City has been invoked to give local urban design efforts a special character with regard to the surrounding mountains and rivers of the Citys national setting, and the style of master planning has been shifting in the direction of more flexible plans with more definitive district-wide and project proposals. Generally, a concern for the quality of the constructed environment has risen appreciably in official circles, especially as the City prepares itself for an expected substantial increase in tertiary sector employment and higher levels of tourism. There is, however, substantial room for improvement in current urban design plans and practices. For instance, the Shan Shui City concept — literally mountain and river — needs further articulation as an operational vision. A more coherent image for the citys rapidly evolving urban structure requires clarification. District-wide planning and design needs to be both more flexible and yet memorable, especially in particular areas like the wetlands and the riverfront, and the urban landscape and public open-space aspects of the City need substantial improvement and greater conceptual design attention. In short, the City of Wenzhou presents an interesting and challenging case for the investigation of urban design, landscape architectural and planning principles, applicable to rapidly modernizing environments like those in contemporary China.
More, specifically, the Shan Shui City concept dates from the admonition by Qian Xue Sen, China's prominent nuclear scientist, who advocated the idea that cities and surrounding agricultural areas should form a harmonious relationship with mountains and rivers (i.e., nature) in the classical sense of Tiandiren or the philosophy of sky, earth and man. Here, both the term and concept make an obvious reference to Shan Shui Hwa, or the painterly depictions in the art of the Song Dynasty and the Southern Song in particular, although nowadays it is used as a slogan for more generally defining attitudes toward urban planning in several parts of China. In Wenzhou, for instance, with its abundant geography, the concept can have at least three interpretations. First, it proscribes a conceptual relationship between urban development and natural surroundings that carries with it the implication of conservation and preservation practices, along with the establishment of sustainable development. Second, it provides a painterly or formal depiction of 'parts' and 'wholes' in an ensemble of urban and natural features, where the latter move up in importance and becomes an integral aspect of the overall image of the city. Third, especially in the case of Wenzhou, it points to the genius loci of the place. Historically, the Oujiang valley and tributaries, like the Nanxi River from the north, have been the inspiration for Shan Shui Hwa and notable for the manner in which the habitation has conformed with dramatic natural surroundings. The vast artificially-created wetlands Shui Wang immediately to the south of the city, now famous for the Ou orange production, is a clear case in point, not to mention the five hills inside Wenzhou itself and the surrounding mountain and riverine terrain.
The studio focussed on two specific aspects. The first was to demonstrate how master planning and urban design might be conceptualized to better address local circumstances, accommodate economic shifts, guide rapid urban growth, foster a Shan Shui interpretation and provide a more coherent urban image. The second was to prepare schematic design proposals, within the framework of more general urban planning and design considerations, for specific project areas within the City and for systematic components of the urban landscape. Throughout, the study area for these exercises was the City of Wenzhou proper and its surrounding areas. The studio was sponsored by the City of Wenzhou and a site visit was made to China in October, 2000. Environments of Opportunity: Redevelopment
on the Waterfront of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Spain
Among the many consequences of the globalization of capital, products and information are technological changeslargely in favor of higher levels of contact and more throughputas well as competition over relatively scarce resources in order to secure advantageous or simply better positions in emerging global markets. Over the last several decades, for instance, the technology of shipping and related transshipment has changed appreciably, particularly with larger ships and increased port-side capacities to handle bulk cargoes. Consequently many viable port functions have become displaced towards larger and larger handling areas, usually on the periphery of earlier established ports, where more extensive land areas and deeper-water facilities are available. The corresponding downturn in traditional ports has rendered many of these now under-used sites (often close to the core of the city) vacant and ripe for redevelopment. At much the same time, many of the self-same cities are competing with one another for sojourners and tourists and, therefore, as communities with a particular lifestyle amenity and attraction. Rather than simply offering decent housing, accessible commercial areas and well-run services, most of today's sought-after developments have to have something extra and be able to be readily portrayed as distinct 'environments' along particular lines or according to specific themes. Moreover, this is usually less of an issue for big, well-established global metropolises like New York, London, Tokyo and Paris, as it is for the myriad of smaller-sized cities in various ports around the world. Furthermore, in this context, they are often seen as behaving 'opportunistically' both in terms of exploiting their sheer potential for future development and in their entrepreneurial marketing appeals to outside investors.
The waterfront and port of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, in Spain, epitomizes both the transformation that is occurring with older port facilities and the opportunity to create an alternative environment that allows for reconciliation with existing urban conditions and a radical reshaping of the waterfront. Part of this reshaping is a matter of programmatic invention and economic incentives, while part is a matter of poetic imagination and creation of a new urban-architectural context. Las Palmas itself is neither a tourist haven nor a residential resort for the well-to-do, further adding to the relative vagueness of future waterfront development potentials, although in this regard not appreciably more tan in other mid-sized port cities.
Nowadays, the city of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria has a population of 370,000 inhabitants and was walled until the nineteenth century and the separate establishment of a new port in 1883. The first plan for the city was created in sixteenth century by Torriani, largely incorporating what are today the two old neighborhoods of Vegueta and Triana along the Atlantic coast. Lauren Arroyo's plan followed in the nineteenth century, establishing the port, to be followed by Miguel Martin's plan of the 1920s, really the first modern plan for the emerging city. Secundino Zuazo's plan of the 1940s proposed to modernize Las Palmas still further and, indeed, the expansive residential sector of the landward side of the Avenida Maritinia of Today epitomizes the concept of the 'modern city' in the Canary Islands. In the 1960s vast socio-economic changes occurred largely because of the blossoming tourist industry, especially from Northern Europe, made possible by high-speed air travel. Today Las Palmas receives around 2.7 million tourists per year, although less than a quarter of the Canaries' total influx. With a median household income above $US14,000 per year, Las Palmas is also neither a wealthy community nor one that is very poor, further adding to the impression of a place somewhere in the middle of prevailing socio-economic, political and entrepreneurial circumstances of the region of which it is a part.
The specific site for the studio extended northward from the present private marina (El Puerto Deportivo) to the Port Authority docks in the vicinity of the La Luz wharf. It included part of Las Alcaravaneras Beach, the Naval Base in front of the city and on axis with avenida de Jose Mesa y Lopes, the Santa Catalina pier with its jetfoil and bus terminals, and the quayside and wharves extending around to the new port facilities jutting out into Atlantic Ocean. As such, this site is part of an extensive waterfront development, including public beaches, like La Playa de Laja, and a linear part in front of the present downtown area of Las Palmas and along the Avenida Maritima. The areas immediately adjacent to the studio site are well-established urban districts with a variety of uses, including middle-income and working-class residential neighborhoods.
A number of proposals have already been made for the area. These include a marina extension; redevelopment of the naval base, primarily for shopping; the construction (underway) of multi-modal transportation facilities; and other commercial opportunities. A park has also been envisaged, although it would undoubtedly prove to be very expensive, particularly given limited public resources. However, no cohesive and convincing vision or plan for the entire site area had yet been developed, including linkages to tourism and a reconciliation of the port and its waterfront with the fabric of the city and its civic sensibilities. To provide such a plan was the aim of this studio. The studio was sponsored by the City Government of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, the Port Authority and the Island Government of Gran Canaria. A site visit was made during March, 2000. Attraversare la Città: Redevelopment
around the Via Appia Nuova in Rome
As cultural artifacts, cities embody many of our aims and aspirations with regard to day-to-day life, help guide many of our civilizing tendencies, provide the backdrop for many of our extraordinary celebrations, and encapsulate much of our history. They are determined by what we ask of them as well as in turn they determine our own lives within them. They change over time as we change, while also serving as change agents and marking both events by their very existence and continuing evolution. Over time, memories fade, past events are forgotten and the parts of a city that once played host to those experiences take on altered meanings, new associations and support different livelihoods. The area along and in the vicinity of the Via Appia Nuova in Rome stretching from San Giovanni in Laterano, inside the old wall, to Parco Santo Stefano, well outside the wall in the southeast, is an urban quarter embodying many of these characteristics. Some parts are old and some are new. Indeed, areas along the Via Appia Nuova and several of its major cross-streets and intersections represent a veritable transect through Roman urban history, especially since the turn of the century, and a rich reservoir of specific urban experiences. It remains, nevertheless, an under-recognized and poorly understood section of the city, especially in comparison to many other areas. The aim of the studio was twofold. The first was to demonstrate how a substantial urban area in Rome might acquire a greater sense of local identity, recover both greater day-to-day life and contact with its own history, and develop a broader range of viable public open spaces and operative cultural venues. The second was to propose specific redevelopment projects for the area, addressing issues such as improved circulation and access, economic revitalization, improved visibility of major historic and recreation areas, and greater general coordination among potential infrastructure improvements and adjacent building projects and land uses. The studio was sponsored and performed in collaboration with ACER (Associazione Costruttori Edili di Roma) and INArch (Istituto Nationale Architettura). A site visit was made to Rome during the spring break and special assistance was provided throughout the term by Professor Rosario Pavia from Rome. Open City, Rebuilding Downtown Beirut's Waterfront
Isopolis: Addressing the Scales of Urban Life in Athens
The result is that a balancing of claims usually ensues between the public interest and private gains. Moreover, these claims normally operate simultaneously at different scales of redevelopment and publicly-minded or individually-promoted entrepreneurial activity. Rarely, if ever, does the sheer scale of redevelopment allow comparatively singular and well-defined use of a site. In effect, redevelopment becomes an exercise in city building at all levels of activity. Furthermore, the relative prominence of these sites for redevelopment seems to automatically require a large regional facility and yet the amount of land available, together with neighboring uses, almost just as automatically requires development of many smaller scale, local facilities.
The site for this urban design studio investigation was Hellinikon-the existing airport in Athens, Greece-after the present airport function is moved to the east of the city on the other side of Mt. Hymettos, in the relatively expansive plain around Spata. Currently, the airport and the adjacent former military base are located reasonably close to the center of Athens, parallel to and close by the sea. Areas to the north and south of the existing airport, between Mt. Hymettos and the coast, are well established and likely to continue to be valuable sites for residential and commercial development. Presently, the southern municipalities of Glyfada, Voula, Kavouri, and Vouliagmeni have something of the character of resorts and house many of the Athenian well-to-do. By contrast, areas to the east and north-east house lower-income communities.
Transit improvements to this part of the city have also been planned, vastly increasing potential overall access. Athens' fixed-rail mass transit system-now in the initial stages of development-will eventually reach south to the edge of the site, and a tramway system has been planned to run along the coast. Although the airport, technically speaking, is under one political jurisdiction, the general area is shared among three municipalities, potentially complicating matters of implementation. However, returning to a central theme of the study, the appeal of Hellinikon lay in its potential interest as an extensive site for redevelopment and city building. The big question, though, was what to do with such a large site and how to put it constructively to another productive use? The publication, Isopolis, produced from this studio,
summarizes individual and group design investigations concluded
by twelve students, as a part of their regular academic program
at Harvard's Graduate School of Design.
Yi-Ti-Liang-Yi Zhi Jian: Redevelopment in Suzhou, Chin
The subject of this design studio, at the Graduate School of Design, were some of the urban design implications of the Changjiang Delta Region's planning policies and Suzhou's master plan, especially where distinctive parts of Suzhou's physical environment come together spatially. Historically, the town of Suzhou dates back about 2,500 years to the reign of King Wu. Originally the settlement was made some 30 kilometers inland from Lake Tai - Taihi - to the south and west, separated from the lake, for defensive purposes, by a range of fortified hills. The name Su-zhou comes form Minister Su and zhou refers to a particular category or type of town. During imperial times Suzhou was a relatively important provincial center but never a capital or city of similar rank. For a period of time during the Song dynasty the town was called Pingjiang, with a district in the old town of the same name still existing today. The name later reverted to Suzhou during the Ming dynasty in the fourteenth century A.D. and has remained ever since. The town of Suzhou came into prominence with the Grand Canal and other systems of waterways, linking Beijing in the north with Hangzhou in the south. It was traditionally both a center of trade in its region and a major center for silk production. The present population of Suzhou is 1.05 million inhabitants with a further 'floating population' of workers coming in to town, from neighboring rural villages and hamlets, on the order of 100,000 people. Between now and the year 2010, the population is expected to rise to around 1.8 million, making Suzhou a medium-sized Chinese city.
In order to explicitly address competing claims placed on traditional areas and the productive land around them, the City of Suzhou has developed a master plan which seeks to develop two new satellite communities to the east and west of the old town. With the overall aspects of the body of the old town and the two wings of new development accounted for adequately, what remains less well attended to is primarily the areas in between. These in-between zones are precisely where the clarity of the city's master plan of one body and two wings can be obscured by untimely or indiscriminate development. This is especially the case with respect to the ideas of open space inherent in the plan. In short, redevelopment of many existing areas, including historical conservation and renewal of older areas, is an emerging and, one could say, pressing need in Suzhou, alongside the ongoing redevelopment of its historic core and the new development of its two suburban satellites.
An initial site visit was made to Suzhou in January 1997, followed by another including students in March of 1997, for the purposes of field reconnaissance and firsthand acquaintance with prevailing cultural and developmental circumstances. A one-day charrette was also conducted on-site, with the participation of young local Chinese design professionals from the planning bureau, resulting in a conceptual plan for redevelopment of the Shantang Canal from the old moat to Tiger Hill in the west. This plan was presented, in turn, to the mayor and the heads of relevant bureaus and committees. The publication, Yi-Ti-Liang-Yi Zhi Jian, produced from this studio, summarizes individual and group design investigations concluded by twelve students, as a part of their regular academic program at Harvard's Graduate School of Design. |
