arch-peace: latest news

German kids in Isfahan-Iran:a cultural experience

Wed, 23 Apr 2008 23:36 GMT

Hi, my task, as an Iranian member of the site is to make you more familiar with Iran, its hospitable people and its rich culture , so today I have some news about Isfahan, a must be seen city at the central parts of Iran, Pearl of Persia!

A group of German kids including 10 students along with their teachers from Berlin have their first excursion to Isfahan, the city of architecture and blue domes .They want to know more about Iranian people, their culture and beauties of Iran. In this excursion German students along with their Iranian friends performed the snow white story in a play in Naghshe-Jahan square ,one of the greatest squares of the world(11-12th century A.C).

Students will also visit different artcrafts, carpet and pottery workshops during their 10 days visit to Iran. I am sure that there would be more of these multi-cultural events in the future if we spread the message of peace.

To know more about Isfahan, read this book by Wilfrid Blunt: isfahan, Pearl of Persia

More on Isfahan:
http://www.persiatours.com/cities_sightseeing_iran_isfahan.htm

http://www.dejkam.com/iran/isfahan/

development architecture, Mongolian style

Wed, 23 Apr 2008 03:07 GMT

Draft
Now in the ninth month of a placement in a Mongolian Construction College in a poor peri-urban area, my May editorial is comprised of reflections on development work which may be of interest to - and prompt discussion among - AfP readers.

My role as 'architect teacher trainer' in Ulaanbaatar is to develop the architecture staff, curriculum and profession. The work is part of a VSO project to develop secure livelihoods, and aims to develop construction jobs, which would help more Mongolians to live above the poverty line. (see UNESCO report).

Mongolia

’s economy, in transition since 1992 from socialism, is developing, but environmental problems, unemployment, poor literacy, alcohol abuse, and often inadequate sanitation and infrastructure all remain as large problems for the construction sector. Construction professionals and teachers however, seem ill-prepared - or disinclined - to tackle these medium and long-term issues.

There are very few resources for architectural education available in the Mongolian language, while literacy problems and poor teaching facilities also provide barriers to teaching and learning. The Russian materials and teaching methods commonly used between 1924 and 1989 are now particularly outdated, and English and German language materials (Chinese language materials seem to be culturally taboo) are often even more inaccessible, both financially and linguistically. A quotation from 1989 I read today was a sobering reminder of the after-effects of the Soviet 20th century.

"'They told us we lived in a socialist paradise', the worker said bitterly. 'But the soviets dumped their obsolete equipment on us, and every one of them lorded it over us as experts. Even the Russian truck drivers were experts - who got paid three times more.'" ('Ulan Bator May 1989' (sic) in Jasper Becker 1992 The Lost Country; Mongolia Revealed )

Becker's report of conditions of gaols in 1989 was horrifying. But also the demotivation and aid dependency of organisation still in transition, remains worrying. As a 'foreign expert' and volunteer, I constantly feel I need to draw attention to the developing capacity of local people; teachers, architects, students. Not just "telling about my experience" but trying to develop with people in collaboration.

Yesterday, with a translator, I asked a second year group what they had learned in first year. "The column, the corinthian column." Was it relevant in Mongolia? Students need to learn about art and design, they said. Later, some students expressed concern about the calculations necessary in building technology lessons, and the lack of 'artistic freedom'. They also wanted to know about the pathways to qualification in foreign countries. I assured them that some concerns about the ability of their teachers to "deliver" were also percieved by students in other countries. We discussed some projects, drawn, surrounded by lush vegetation in empty landscapes, but actually meant to be in cities.

The architectural community of this country, which has been in transition from communism since 1992, seems somewhat disconnected from world standards and communication. The elusive Arkitektorjdiin Kholboo (Mongolian Association of Architects) seems to be “dormant”. Gradually the Mongolian Architecture page on Wikipedia is being improved. It is in English, inaccessible to those students mentioned above.

Yet I believe some of the work I have undertaken (what VSO calls skill sharing) has developed the confidence and literacy of architecture teaching staff. Since I have been training here, two teachers have moved on to better-paid jobs. The curriculum is rarely referred to consciously; although it remains on file “at the Ministry”, teachers apparently measure student progress largely by perseverance. I try to demystify the odea of curriculum development.

Soon, the first cohort of diploma students will complete their fourth year. Of these, none to whom I have spoken seems to have been remotely aware of 'the' one Mongolian architecture textbook (Bat-Od, 2005, 2007), let alone basic texts used internationally, like FDK Ching’s ‘Form, Space and Order’, the US Architectural Graphic Standards, or Neufert’s ‘Architects’ Data’ (in 18 languages). Building and planning codes may exist, but are only vaguely known, and seem to be poorly controlled. Physical accessibility to buildings and streets for people without disabilities is difficult enough, but independent living for people with disabilities is almost unheard-of. I have worked with the Mongolian Wheelchairs Citizens, but the teachers have no time or interest. Small steps.

On the other hand, potential exists for future development in the secondary and tertiary Ger districts, (informal settlements beyond those scheduled for replacement by apartments), as well as in the much anticipated new social housing, and in commercial development, so often 'outsourced' to foreign experts and cheap Chinese labour.

On the positive side, there is life in Mongolia beyond work. The apparently barren and dirty environment is not yet as badly polluted as many places, and there are some freedoms in the nomadic tradition. Many people seem to enjoy more time with their families and better access to locally grown food than in the UK. Teachers work long hours, but do not seem stressed. They are concerned about air quality - comparable with London's before the Clean Air Act of 1956 - and about transport congestion, in the oversubscribed capital. Many people I meet would like to contribute to Mongolia’s development without having to go abroad, as so many young people and absent fathers have done in order to earn more money. Mongolians love their culture and customs, and many are rediscovering indigenous music, history, arts, medicine and even calligraphy.

As I prepare for the final few months of the placement and set objectives for the remaining work, I am increasingly comparing this place with others. My young Australian niece, on seeing my photo of a Ger on a verge, asked, "What happens if you put your house on the footpath? No-one can get past.." As I walk to work I see people collecting their water and I think of her comment upon seeing the Ger district with its urbanscape of felt rooves. "What is that, a circus or something?"

Urban Spaces and Cultures of Tokyo: May 1, 2008

Mon, 21 Apr 2008 05:03 GMT

7pm Thursday 1st May
RMIT BUILDING 50
(Orr Street, off Victoria Street)
Gold coin donation

Presentation by Darko Radovic

This talk will give an visual overview of some of the well-known parts of Tokyo, and spaces and activities which make those precincts vibrant and distinctive. A particular focus will be at Nezu and Yanaka, two largely residential parts of the Japanese capital city which were lucky enough to survive both the catastrophic post-earthquake conflagration in 1923 and fires which followed American bombing in 1945. As such, Nezu and Yanaka - provide the most valuable ‘vertical’ connection with the past, places with patina which pre-dates the drama of the Japanese encounter with the West. In terms of urban design and architecture, they exemplify a number of spatial qualities which can be seen as peculiar, or even unique to the Japanese city.

The starting position of the research behind this talk (which was conducted at the University of Tokyo 2006-2008) is that environmental sustainability and cultural sustainability can never be separated, that built spaces which truly respond to the environmental condition always belong to culture of the place in and for which they were created. That position will frame the conclusion- that Nezu and Yanaka in Tokyo, and similar living historic environments worldwide, contain messages of critical importance for sustainable urban development.

Darko Radovic is Associate Professor at the Faculty of Architecture, Building and Planning at the University of Melbourne. He received his doctorate in Architecture and Urbanism from the University of Belgrade, Yugoslavia, and taught, researched and practised architecture and urbanism in Europe, Australia and Asia. Most recently (2006-2008), he was a Professor of Architecture and Urban Design for the Centre for Sustainable Urban Regeneration at the University of Tokyo.

Darko’s investigation of the concepts of urbanity and sustainable development focuses at culturally and environmentally diverse contexts, which exemplify and expose difference and offer encounter with the other. He is the co-author of Green City: Sustainable Homes, Sustainable Suburbs (UNSW Press/Routledge 2005), Cross-Cultural Urban Design: Global or Local Practice? (Routledge 2007), and the author of Urbophilia (the University of Belgrade, 2007) and Another Tokyo (University of Tokyo, 2008).

Download poster: here

From Urban Acupuncture to the Megapolis

Sun, 20 Apr 2008 00:51 GMT

For some time I have been interested in the notion of ‘urban acupuncture’. To my knowledge there is no specific body of literature that defines this concept. It is a term that I first heard used at a conference concerning a design approach for a project in India and I regret to say that I have now forgotten the name of the presenter and the details of project. A few years later I find myself returning to this concept in both my practice and teaching in relation to the design of urban environments. My simple definition of urban acupuncture is a design approach that proposes minimum intervention for maximum gain and focuses on connections and settings of social interaction rather than objects. For me it is very much grounded in earlier seminal works such as Rowe and Koetter’s (1978) ‘Collage City’ and Christopher Alexander’s (1975) ‘The Oregon Experiment’.

Rowe and Koetter position themselves in opposition to the grand vision of the ‘master plan’ arguing, “total design can only mean total control” (1978:283). They believe that a ‘final’ and ‘complete’ solution cannot be identified; everything is conjecture, a hypothesis based on particular value judgments and the available ‘facts’ to hand. The danger is that grand utopian visions of urban planning are presented as value-neutral and ‘true’. They suggest that there is never ‘sufficient information’ available to construct an ideal formulation of the future, but we must still act. Our best course of action is to approach urban design as a form of ‘bricolage’ or the recycling of meanings and forms through multiple and diverse means. Urban design thus requires imperfect and incomplete visions created from within rather than grand visions transplanted from without.

Christopher Alexander also argues that urban design should be conceived as a slow process of evolutionary change rather than as a totalitarian ‘quick fix’. In the ‘Oregon Experiment’ he sets out a series of six principles that comprise a generic approach to urban design as a series of ‘local acts’ based on ‘patterns’ derived from participatory design. The implementation of the design is focussed on principles of ‘piecemeal growth’ and ‘coordination’ combined with a process of ‘diagnosis’ in which the health of the built environment is continually assessed on an annual basis.

Urban acupuncture adopts a similar premise. It seeks out the ‘diseased’ places of high urban capacity and inserts catalytic ‘needles’ to stimulate (not dictate) the development of diverse activity. Teddy Cruz, an architect working in the border towns of San Diego and Tijuana employs the concept in his work to create hybrid programs of community housing and services in under-utilised and leftover pockets of the city. As he describes it, “The goal has been to achieve maximum effect with minimal gestures, to take existing patterns of use as a point of departure, and to develop urban solutions with enough persuasive force to change obsolete planning policy and zoning regulations” (Cruz 2005). One of his projects, ‘Living Rooms at the Border’ for Casa Familiar, a local advocacy group, integrates 12 flexible affordable housing units, a community centre and offices, a productive garden and shared communal space. On a site originally zoned for three housing units, Cruz has negotiated the increased density by framing it as ‘social choreography’ rather than ‘bulk’.

Perhaps the most well known exponent of the concept of urban acupuncture, however, is Jaime Lerner, ex mayor of Curitiba in Brazil. For Lerner, the focus of urban acupuncture is on small-scale interventions that can be undertaken within short time frames, producing an immediate and catalytic effect. Under his leadership, Curitiba saw the implementation of a series of highly successful social, educative and urban infrastructure initiatives, many of which have inspired further initiatives in other cities.

At a recent conference in Melbourne, Eco-Edge 2, the former mayor of Bogota in Columbia, Enrique Penalosa, spoke passionately about the transformation of his city through the implementation of initiatives such as the ‘Transmilenio’ bus service based on the Curitiba model, pedestrian streets and urban greenways. At the same conference a series of speakers discussed the urban transformation of China where the Government plans to construct 400 new cities by 2020. The scale of this urbanisation is unprecedented. As Neville Mars, Director of the Dynamic City Foundation in Beijing, noted, it is equivalent to the construction of Europe within 20 years.

In this context, what models of urban design are appropriate? Do principles of evolution, local acts, piecemeal growth and diagnosis have any place in such situations? Frankly, this physical and temporal scale of urbanisation terrifies me. I have no answers, and yet immediate consideration of this issue seems paramount. The consequences for global sustainability are potentially enormous. Indeed, in answer to the question ‘what is the biggest contribution Australia can make to sustainability?’ posed in a discussion session on Government initiatives at the conference, Peter Davidson of LAB Architects simply stated ‘help China’.

Many of the architects and urban designers speaking at the conference proposed alternatives to the mono-functional thinking and urban sprawl that seems to underpin much of the urbanisation in China. Xuemei Bai, Senior Scientist at CSIRO Sustainable Ecosystems, also noted how the wide-reaching control and influence of the Chinese Government can quickly be turned towards more sustainable practices in a way that is inconceivable in Australia. The interest in environmental initiatives certainly exists as demonstrated by the proposed construction of the world’s first ‘eco-city’ with a zero emission target on an island offshore from Shanghai. Nevertheless, I think the complexities of social sustainability in the city will be harder to come to terms with. As Neville Mars noted, the physical transformation in China is a consequence of an equally fast-paced cultural shift from the ‘collective dream’ of communism to the ‘scattered dream’ of the market. The dreams have barely had time to take root in the mind before they are becoming a physical reality.

Maybe the slow evolutionary process of transformation of these urban environments will take place as the dust begins to settle and the megapolis has been constructed and occupied. New patterns of social networks and spatial practices will emerge and the city will adapt and be adapted to accommodate them. Whether the modern ‘planned’ city is flexible enough to adjust to these shifts is more questionable. Furthermore, the constructed urban fabric will inevitably influence this process of social transformation since both places and people exist in a state of dialectical tension. It seems therefore that some tentative, imperfect and incomplete visions need to be put on the table now.

References

Alexander, C. (1975) The Oregon Experiment, New York, Oxford University Press

Cruz, T. (2005) “Urban acupuncture: a San Diego firm sees new possibilities for healing the housing crisis”, Residential Architect, Jan-Feb 2005. Viewed 05/04/08 at http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0NTE/is_1_9/ai_n15956823

Rowe, C. & Koetter, F. (1978) Collage City, Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press

Ceridwen Owen

Architects for Peace, April 2008

IDP Camps in East Timor

Thu, 13 Mar 2008 23:00 GMT

Those who have followed the fortunes of independent East Timor in the years since its violent separation from Indonesia in 1999 will no doubt have been dismayed by events of the last eighteen months. Tensions within the armed forces escalated into several violent confrontations including the murder of a group of unarmed police by renegade members of the East Timorese army. Civil society all but collapsed. Police disappeared from the streets, schools and universities shut down, entire government departments were deserted, shops were boarded up and the nights were filled with looting and arson. Shocking as these events were in themselves, they gave rise to an even greater calamity as a dramatic rift was opened in Timorese society, splitting communities along ethnic lines and resulting in 100,000 people fleeing into rural areas and makeshift internally displaced person (IDP) camps.

Camps sprang up all over Dili, East Timor’s capital. There was a clear preference for institutions operated by the Catholic Church—schools, convents, seminaries and churches themselves. In one convent school 13,000 people crammed inside the gates each night, sleeping along corridors and porches, under trees and tarpaulins and occupying every conceivable space. Another 10,000 people squeezed into the car park opposite the main United Nations (UN) compound, a camp sheltering many families of Timorese UN staff. In the days following the arrival of Malaysian and Australian peacekeeping forces in late May 2006, informal camps were established wherever facilities were being protected by soldiers. Tens of thousands of people set up temporary shelter in the park across the road from the port, in the grounds of the national hospital and in open fields adjacent to the airport. A month after the commencement of the ‘crisis’ (as the events were known locally), more than 60 camps had been formally registered by the Timorese government.

Conditions within all the camps were very difficult. There was insufficient space; shelter was improvised and inadequate; food was in short supply because all the shops were closed; people were required to carry water; and toilets were generally shared by several hundred people and regularly broke down. A sense of despair accompanied the physical conditions. People were unable to go to work and children were no longer attending school. Those sheltering in camps spent each night in fear of attack by violent gangs and often woke to learn that their house had been burnt or looted. The camps appeared to be such a difficult environment in which to live that those of us supporting the humanitarian response expected them to disperse as rapidly as they had appeared. We expected that restoration of order by the international peacekeepers would facilitate people returning home in a matter of weeks and that all the major camps would be emptied by the onset of the wet season in November. Although most of the smaller camps have now closed, the larger camps have not. Now, eighteen months after they were spontaneously established these camps are firmly entrenched in Dili’s urban landscape.

Several government proposals to close or relocate camps have faltered in the face of complex motivations for families to remain. Humanitarian agencies continue to provide food to registered IDPs encouraging ongoing involvement with IDP camps; government efforts to rebuild homes burnt during the violence have replaced only a small number of the houses lost; ethnic tensions remain in many communities preventing families returning to their homes even if they were not destroyed; and insecurity of title to land discourages many families from carrying out their own rebuilding efforts (most land title records were destroyed in 1999 and their are often disputes over conflicting Portuguese and Indonesian era titles). The camps present a seemingly intractable problem for the government and it would not be surprising to see people living in tents in the hospital grounds or in the park across the road from the port a generation from now.

From an outsider’s perspective (in my case, that of a foreign humanitarian assistance worker) the camps appear such depressing and unpleasant places to live that one might expect them to have closed long ago without any government prompting. I worked with Oxfam in a dozen of the camps for several months, helping to improve access to water and sanitation, so I knew the physical condition in many camps well. I worked extensively with Timorese camp managers and liaison staff and so also knew something of the management and political structures in operation. I had never spent the night in an IDP camp, however, nor visited one socially so I knew next to nothing of how a resident might view their life there.

An Australian colleague provided me with an insight into the residents’ point of view. She lived with a Timorese family in the Metinaro IDP camp for several days at a time and invited me for a visit. Her host family’s house in Dili had been destroyed and they had built a small palm-leaf hut in the Metinaro camp along with thousands of other families. The roof and walls were constructed from woven palm leaves and the floor was compacted earth. In contrast to nearby Dili, there was no electricity or running water. Up to ten people lived in the family’s two small rooms. When I arrived I was welcomed in and offered coffee. Chairs were improvised from up-turned tins, formerly full of UN-funded protein biscuits. As we drank our coffee and chatted away, life for this family went on around us and they explained why they remained in the Metinaro camp rather than return to Dili. A friend had offered them accommodation in a spare house in Dili but the family was unsure how they might be received in the neighbourhood. Having had their house and possessions destroyed in 1999 and then again in 2006, they were very reluctant to put at risk the few things they had managed to save or acquire again. They also noted that it had been expensive to buy the palm leaves used to build their hut in the IDP camp. They felt they had built up a stake in the camp that they didn’t want to walk out on. I was surprised to see the family living reasonably happily in what I had thought were the wretched condition in the Metinaro IDP camp. It had been difficult to see past my urban Australian perceptions of ‘home’ and understand why this family might choose to crowd into the dirt-floored, windswept, palm leaf hut instead of the modest comfort of their friend’s house in Dili. My visits to IDP camps to ‘help’ people had not provided me with any insight. Only by visiting the camp residents socially, on their terms, had I began to understand why people might chose to remain in the camp.

My Australian colleague has been living in remote parts of East Timor for several years. As in the Metinaro IDP camp, this often requires living in close quarters with a family, sharing a bed with two or three others, living without a toilet, running water and electricity—all the things that those of us living in places like urban Australia might consider basic necessities. Despite that, she says that she feels better/happier/more at ease/more connected living in close communities in East Timor than she does at home in Sydney or Melbourne. As we discussed this concept, we struggled to find just the right adjective for the quality of life she experienced. I might have chosen ‘more at peace’—peace in a broad sense and entirely relevant to those of us at Architects for Peace. The built environment in the Metinaro IDP camp is an important element in providing ‘peace’ for the families still living there. Not for what it so clearly lacks—running water, electricity, roads, sanitation, services—but for what it boasts—security, ownership, self reliance, opportunities for hospitality. This experience demonstrated that for those of us looking to build peace, and not just structures, there are lessons to be learnt and experience to be drawn upon wherever people are living.

Matthew Bond

Architects for Peace, March 2008

join the arch-peace team: volunteer positions

Thu, 13 Mar 2008 18:48 GMT

Join the arch-peace team: new volunteer positions
(arch-peace's members only)

Architects for Peace is looking for arch-peace members to join the team and to take on the following volunteer responsibilities:

1. Members’ person (Melbourne):
This is a core role and one that has the capacity to greatly improve our stance as a professional organisation. This role requires someone confident, outgoing, friendly and with a good knowledge of the activities undertaken by arch-peace. Good computer and writing skills are important.

This role is required to:

• Greet the new member
• Respond to all specific queries and comments in the registration form
• Get in touch with the new member and explore ways for their involvement
• If the opportunities for involvement exist, invite the new member to participate
• Follow up with a call or email
• Record the experiences and inform arch-peace team about the learning
• Be proactive in regards to ways to involve new international members in activities over the internet (website) or by assisting them to establish their own local group (e.g. Sydney has a large number of members, however, they are not currently organised as a group)
• Gather, organise and maintain a record of members’ possible contributions (e.g. writing articles, presenting to seminars, volunteering pro bono service, organising, campaigning, fundraising…)

Note: this volunteer position involves attending one committee meeting per month and to be in touch with what all the teams are doing. It may require a commitment of 3-4 hours a month for the above tasks.

2. Website geek (Melbourne + other places):
Do you enjoy designing cool webpages? Please come and see us. We are looking for someone who can spend a few hours per month (around 4-5 hours), to improve our website interactive communication.

So far, Frederico (our member in Brazil) has created a great website to discuss local issues. This can be done by you wherever you live and in English or your own language
This position requires:
• Someone with very good internet/html/PHP… skills, very familiar with Blogger or other free services and with great graphic design skill and people skills.
• Capacity to involve members in an interactive communication around their interests

Note: this volunteer position involves a commitment of 3-4 hours a month.

3. Pro bono (Melbourne):
If you are interested in assisting the community with pro bono services, join our team. We are looking for people who can facilitate and manage our large volume of pro bono requests.
The work involves:
• working with the pro bono team to assess new project requests
• communicating with clients, organising the match between client and service provider
• updating the project information on the website.

Note: this volunteer position requires a commitment to attend one pro bono meeting per month and 3-4 hours per month to undertake the above tasks.

4. News team (anywhere in the world!):
Our website forum provides a space for discussing news that affect the built environment. This forum requires a team of members that can commit to contribute with one news and one comment per week—this is 4 news and 4 comments per month. This can be done all at once, one each week or in any way you want—this is entirely up to you.
This international team will focus on news discussing urban developments (the god, the bad and the ugly) of architectural, planning, urban, ecological, engineering, development… sort. Part of the objective is to bring to light all the important work done by local professionals, work that does not make it to ‘glossy magazines’.

Placing news in the forum is very easy and we will give instructions to ensure we comply with some simple norms. Depending on your area of interest, comments can be very short, or as long as you want. For an example of what we have donme in the past polease refer to the website under ‘forum’.

Our forum (http://www.architectsforpeace.org/news0.html) has the following headings and you can contribute to any of those. Note that under the ‘urban world’ you can place news in English or any other language.

After two months of ongoing contribution (8 news + 8 comments), your name will be added to our new ‘news team’ and your name will be listed on the website and linked to your arch-peace profile (see sample: http://www.architectsforpeace.org/profiles/beatriz.html ). We will set up a ‘news team’ group in which we can discuss any issue or question you have.

The position involves:
• Adding 4 news per months
• Adding 4 comments per month
• Participating in the ‘news team’ group discussion.

Note: this volunteer position requires a commitment of 2-3 hours per month.

5. Representative in your city or country (anywhere in the world!):
We would welcome members who would like to become arch-peace representatives. This role can only be defined by the local possibilities in your city/country. However, a good starting point is to create your own internet presence as arch-peace (please refer to http://archpeace.blogspot.com/2008/02/world-filled-with-peace.html for an example). Organising discussions around topical urban issues is also a good first step. Please send us your CV and we will get in touch with you as soon as possible.

On going discussions and campaigns

6. Indigenous issues (anywhere in Australia):
In the past, Architects for Peace has provided a platform for discussing issue of land right and housing for aboriginal communities. We hope that the ‘apology’ will bring a new era in the relationship between aborigines and non-indigenous people in Australia. This step should be accompanied by new collaborations and we believe that arch-peace can play an important role in promoting the discussion and contribution to the next stage.

Unfortunately and because of our small group of core members, our work in this area has not had the continuity needed to make it effective.

We are looking for a member that can take this work to the next level. A member with good knowledge of aboriginal issues in the area of the built environment and who would like to pursue this work further. The member’s interest can be in either research or a practical approach to the improvement of aboriginal living conditions and opportunities and who can communicate these to arch-peace.

This work requires a member who is self motivated and who can organise an arch-peace team around these issues, who can initiate campaigns, write and/or assist others to produce news or articles and who can keep the arch-peace membership up-to-date on this work.

Note: this volunteer position requires a commitment of approximately 4-5 hours per month.

7. Public transport or collective forms of transport (anywhere in Australia and other countries/cities facing similar issue):
Architects for Peace has been pro-active in undertaking the issue of public transport as one of the core problems facing our cities today. Last year arch-peace focused its annual forum around this issue Transported. For transported we had the participation of experts from all areas affected by public transport—from social, political and economic to the fields of urban design and infrastructure. This work has continued and just last Sunday we had the opportunity to present at the Sustainable Living Festival in Melbourne on arch-peace’s views of public transport, (find article o the website under arch-peace news).
Transported is also an ongoing issue that needs to be taken seriously if we are to reduce our contribution to greenhouse gas emissions and the quality of our cities (particularly its periphery).

We are looking for a member who has interest in the topic of public transport and who can oversee the continuity of our work, organise presentations and discussions, liaise with other organisations with the aim of effectively promote public transport among our authorities. This work requires a member who knows about transport issues and who is motivated by this issue. It requires very good interpersonal skills, good communication skills, self motivated, able to form an arch-peace team to work and assist with the work.

Note: this volunteer position requires a commitment of approximately 4-5 hours per month.

To apply please send us an email with your CV and the name of the position applying for to “arch-peace at architectsforpeace dot org”.

Please copy and paste the following on your email:

I would like to join the arch-peace team,
• Name:
• Gender: male/female
• Address:
• Telephone number:
• Country:
• Your profession/area of study:
• Position applying for:
• Your interests and/or previous experience (only if relevant to the position)

Going Underground in Santiago: March 6, 2008

Tue, 19 Feb 2008 16:48 GMT

Going Underground in Santiago
Presented by Beatriz C. Maturana (B.Arch M.Urb.Des. PhD candidate University of Melbourne)

The city of Santiago has undergone incessant transformation in the last twenty years. However, perhaps the most noticeable and unexpected change has been its surrounding geography. The magnificent mountains, the Andes that until only fifteen years ago were perpetually covered in snow and ice cap glaciers, lay bare in today’s summers as a reminder of our recklessness.

While many of the urban transformations follow on a relatively stable trajectory of modernisation and improvement of the social conditions, this course was interrupted during the period of the Pinochet’s dictatorship. The dictatorship’s rejection of urban planning, in favour of the ideology of the ‘free market’ and left a damaging legacy of urban sprawl and inequity. This has presented a challenge to the governments of the last twenty years. In redressing the urban ills, these governments claim that they have placed society, culture and sustainable ‘quality of life’ above all other concerns.
This presentation will show some projects that illustrate how Santiago deals with the issue of densification and pedestrianisation of the city. The three projects are the extension of the Metro lines, the new library in the Faculty of Architecture (PUC), and the Centro Cultural Palacio de La Moneda. The presentation is based on a series of observations collected over three weeks of 'walking the city'.

About Beatriz C. Maturana (B.Arch M.Urb.Des.)
Architects for Peace president and founder
Beatriz was born in Santiago, Chile and she left for Australia in the mid eighties. She completed her architectural degree at RMIT, Australia in 1992 and a Masters of Urban Design at the University of Melbourne where she is currently a PhD candidate focusing on architectural education. She runs her own practice and teaches at RMIT and the University of Melbourne. Beatriz founded Architects for Peace in 2003 in response to the silence around the unjustifiable war on Iraq.

(Click on image to download the poster)

see powerpoint:

| View | Upload your own

Thursday March 6, 7pm, RMIT bldg 50 (entry: gold coin donation)

Melbourne CBD, its close neighbours and its greater rest: a question about public transport, equity and urban quality

Tue, 19 Feb 2008 03:33 GMT

The following notes were written for the presentation delivered at the Sustainable Living Festival, under the title of Sustainable Transport – Visions for Victoria in 2010. It contains all what I didn’t say and some bits of what I actually spoke about. Public transport is an ongoing issue for cities in Australia and it is one that we hope will drive all the professions of the built environment to jointly address it as a critical urban issue. I would appreciate comments or questions that could assist to further develop these ideas.

Melbourne CBD, its close neighbours and its greater rest: a question about public transport, equity and urban quality

Beatriz C. Maturana
Architects for Peace

Melbourne is a city fractioned not only spatially but also in our perception of what Melbourne involves. Think for a moment about the dichotomy between the notions of ‘city’ and suburbs as opposed to city and its centre—the first referring to what the city is and the suburbs are not, with the latter referring to an entire city with a centre. This fractioned notion of Melbourne coincides—whether by mere chance or design—with the delimitations defined the extent of its public transport. Quality public transport means a transport service that offers at least two reliable transport modes (underground, buses, perhaps although less efficient for a large metropolis, trains and trams), frequent, direct, affordable, available day and night (including weekends) and accessible by a five minutes walk.

When we think of Melbourne, we tend to think of the CBD (central business district), and areas such as Richmond, Prahran, Fitzroy, Brunswick…. What all these areas have in common is that they display the best in urban qualities. There is an energy due to the multiplicity of activities, (universities, work, commerce, markets, services, schools and child care centres, proximity to hospitals, amenities, entertainment)—all relatively close by, and accessible by a variety of means: bicycle, tram, buses, train, walking. Most would agree that these conditions are optimal—the property market agrees too, tagging properties in these areas the highest. So, do the above mentioned areas represent Melbourne, or is this idea a misconception? Perhaps these areas represent only half of Melbourne or a third of Melbourne—and that would be serious, because the rest is not like what I have just described. Are these areas just one tenth of the real Melbourne? No, unfortunately Melbourne’s CBD, Richmond, Prahran, Fitzroy, Brunswick…. represent only one 20th of Melbourne—let’s say one 15th for good measure. The rest—the large majority of suburbs—in different degrees, do not enjoy closeness to amenities and services, multiplicity of activities, diversity of people and culture. Nor do these suburbs of Melbourne enjoy public transport choices, often no public transport at all.

Whereas wealth and heritage assist some suburbs to foster an urban character of their own (for example Malvern, Surrey Hills or Heidelberg), the ‘rest’, is defined by what is left when major road connectors, freeways and ‘one mile’ warehouse shopping strips (with their equally large street level carparks) are accommodated. Add some pieces of bushland reserves and this is the real Melbourne where most people live. The city’s centre, the CBD and surrounding suburbs, makes Melbourne a quality city, but metropolitan Melbourne involves places as far as St Albans, Laverton, -Cranbourne and Craigieburn. The lack of connectivity between periphery and centre or around its periphery, casts a question regarding Melbourne’s equity in the distribution of services and amenity. The following example illustrates how access to public transport affects people in different urban areas: a household in inner Melbourne, or the City of Yarra, will undertake and average of 5.4 walk trips per day. However, a household in Wyndham or Melton will undertake an average of 1.9 walk trips per day. For those not familiar with Melbourne suburbs, Melton and Wyndham are further away form Melbourne CBD.[1]

The role that public transport has in reducing or increasing the social exclusion is well documented, not least by Dr Jane Stanley who presented at Architects for Peace 2007 forum, Transported.[2] The following statement shows that the government is also well aware of the social inequity resulting from this situation.
Limited public transport services have the most impact on communities that are experiencing a range of other disadvantages, such as higher unemployment and reliance on social services. Lack of transport services can exacerbate isolation and limit access to opportunities.[3] At a risk of repeating what you may already know, walking patterns have health, economic, social and urban consequences. Car dependency makes people walk less, makes the viability of corner shops almost impossible (for example try to find a corner shop in new developments such as Caroline Springs where people drive to the supermarket, drive children to schools etc). It makes the streets more deserted, so the perception of danger increases. Suburbs not serviced by quality public transport, no matter how neat and manicured they may be (or how many awards the developers may accumulate for their landscaping), are no longer the pedestrian domains but the domain of the car. Subsequently, houses begin to turn their backs toward the roads. In roads with heavier traffic, large warehouse style businesses settle in. We have the McDonalds in one corner and KFC in the other—repeating regularly across Melbourne’s suburbs—perhaps this is the real Melbourne. Is this the fault of these businesses, the housing industry, or is this a problem with our government, at all levels?

Somewhere in Melbourne's periphery, the landscaped desolated streets.

There is no doubt that increase density justifies and assists the delivery of transport services, but what comes first? Housing—naturally, organically and as experience demonstrates—congregates and increase in density close to where good transport services are provided. It is therefore misleading to place the responsibility of opting for denser housing options and use of public transport services on people. People cannot opt for an underdeveloped transport service, nor can they (us) be expected to opt for density, if this does not deliver the advantages those denser areas around the CBD enjoy—human urban scale, comparatively good public transport, multiplicity of services and amenities. I suggest that it is time to cease shifting the responsibility on individual citizens and to lobby the government (or work with the government), to implement changes that will radically transform our underdeveloped public transport—only governments can do this. Half measures are domed to fail. The public will not opt for public transport when they become more educated on the ecological advantages of it, but when in practice it proves useful. For decades the public in Stockholm, Santiago in Chile, Vancouver, Barcelona and many other cities, has not failed to recognise the advantage offered by their public transport, and this has not been due to their knowledge on sustainable options—although this of course can augment the interest.

On the outskirts of Stockholm, bus and metro services.

These days some councils in the outskirts of Melbourne are also embarking on large and ambitious urban projects, some do better than others, but the challenge is how to build ‘city’ rather than a series of disconnected urban events. Building city relies on overlapping and interaction, movement and connectivity in a manner that is ecologically and socially responsible. Transport in this sense must allow multiple options, multiple ways of living and different living aspirations. For example, access to public transport in the outskirts of Melbourne should provide everyone, including the teenager and the elderly citizen with the options to come and go to anywhere in the city anytime, any day with a maximum waiting time of five minutes, with a maximum walking distance to transport services of 5 minutes walking, and at an affordable cost. Most cities within rich nations have this, why can’t Melbourne have this? Why can each city and town in Victoria be connected by a bus service every 5, 10 or 15 minutes? Barcelona has this, Santiago, Berlin, why doesn’t our government see public transport as a priority? Note that all the cities I have mentioned have an element that makes all excuses as to why Melbourne cannot enjoy a quality public transport meaningless. Some of these cities have a similar population (Barcelona, Santiago), some smaller populations (Stockholm), similar density (Vancouver), some are located in poorer countries some in wealthier countries—what all have in common is that they enjoy a cheaper and efficient public transport that involves at least buses, and underground, in some cases also trams, and with waiting times that vary from 90 sec average for the underground to 5 minutes for buses. There are no outdated level crossings, no prescribed times and variable weekdays service.

Melbourne's underdeveloped public transport says much about the will, ideology and priorities of our governments, as about the professionals of the built environment. A few years ago, Donald Schön, discussing the crisis faced by the professions, suggested that professionals pay much attention to problem solving and little attention to understand and identify the nature of the problem.[4] To follow on his example, the problem may not be how to resolve the cost of the freeway, or its look, or whether the level crossing has been nicely landscaped and the handrails comply with the regulations. The question might be whether these ‘solutions’ are providing the answer to our current transport needs or just reinforcing a pattern of obsolete ideas about transport—and it is in this area in which the professionals of the built environment have been complacent.

Governments (at all levels) and professional experts allow important sites within and around the city to be use as carparks—not for public housing, not for clinics or schools, but for carparks. And in the suburbs experts allows the creation of large street level carparks, in other words, large deserts of bitumen and steel. How socially, or environmentally sustainable are these practices? However, we continue to allow financial resources to support these ‘solutions’.

I suggest that we have done well in providing answers to detailed problems set in an already prescribed agenda, but is this agenda addressing the real problem? And what is exactly the nature of the problem? Shouldn’t the urban professions, in the fulfilment of their pledge to the public interest be more pro-active in demanding investment in a real public transport? A public transport that could solve more than a need to get between A and B but that would also assist to diminish our embarrassingly high contribution to greenhouse gases per capita, while adding urban vitality between A and B.

In sum, the professions of the built environment can and should be directly and actively involved on issues that affect the city. Transport is key aspect that defines the quality and health of our urban space.

Cities are complex and rich systems and solutions cannot be approached in an isolated manner. It is essential to understand that public transport play a crucial role in the urban quality of the city, and this responsibility and implications go beyond the realm of what one discipline can do, in this case beyond the realm of traffic engineers. It is essential for the professions of the built environment to work in collaboration. It is also essential for these professions to play an active role and together with the politicians, develop an agenda that is inclusive of all the issues involved. What we would like to see:

Transport is not a traffic issue, it is an urban issue. A collective transport solution that is an integral part of the city, its social, urban and environmental fabric. The quality of the city (the entire city) cannot be separated from the quality of its transport. Good quality urban spaces are not isolated events. They work in connection with its surrounding neighbourhoods and municipalities—together they form the city.

Transport must connect the entire city, be time efficient and affordable. It must run frequently and be available anytime, any day. In a city like Melbourne, transport should not determine the way in which people live, but rather offer people real choices. The public deserves a good collective transport system and the environment cannot afford any less.

We need to find an inclusive a holistic and a collaborative way to address the quality of our cities and with this its transport. Quality depends on approaches that are encompassing of human and non-human beasts, buildings, roads, traffic, vegetations, commerce (of all scales), and services. We hope that government (at all levels) begin to trust the professions and the community, not as recipients of set agendas, but as partners. This requires openness to criticism, openness to question the premises. It requires trust in collaborative processes.

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References:

[1] While this data was obtained in 1999 and things may have changed since, what can be inferred from the information is the correlation between access to public transport and propensity to walk. Refer to Victorian Activity and Travel Survey, “Trip Rates per Household on the Average Weekday by LGA”, RMIT University, 1999. In article by David Sykes, "Vats Has the Facts," Local Connections March 2004.
[2] Refer for example to: John Stanley and Janet Stanley, "Public Transport and Social Exclusion: An Operator's Perspective," No Way to Go 1, no. 1 (2007).
[3] Integrated Transport in Department of Infrastructure. "Melbourne 2030: Planning for Sustainable Growth - October 2002." (Place Published: Victorian Government Department of Sustainability and Environment Melbourne, 2003), http://www.dse.vic.gov.au/melbourne2030online/downloads/2030_complete.pdf.
[4] See Donald A. Schön, The Design Studio : An Exploration of Its Traditions and Potentials, Architecture and the Higher Learning. (London: RIBA Publications for RIBA Building Industry Trust, 1985).

* Note that the public transport in Santiago has undergone an extremely difficult period under the new TranSantiago. Much remain to be said about this bold move, but this belong to another discussion...perhaps somewhere under the role of the 'experts'.

"What's War/Peace - Construction/Destruction got to do with Architecture?"

Tue, 12 Feb 2008 21:17 GMT

"What's War/Peace - Construction/Destruction got to do with Architecture?"
Watch any news channel or listen to any news station you will find floods of issues and concerns that refer to human-made destruction caused by conflict and war. Architects and Urbanists seem to join the public in just watching or listening…! Can they have a say? I doubt it. Can they intervene? I am not sure! Can they play a positive role? I hope they do!

This editorial is deeply rooted in the mission of Architects for Peace that simply involves the promotion of peace from architectural, cross-cultural, sociopolitical and socio-economic perspectives. While it might be seen as an article more than an editorial, it attempts to consolidate a number of issues typically oversimplified by the global professional community. In very recent discussions, however, the issues of War, Peace, Destruction, Post War Recovery and their correlation to architecture and urbanism are starting to gain momentum toward shaping a new body of theories or cases on destruction and their underlying applications in terms of recovery efforts. While this is not new, it indicates that architects and planners have important roles to play in this context. Here, I reflect on such a relationship within the scope of some selected writings.

Is Destruction Needed?
The history of architecture and urbanism tells us much about how to design and erect buildings; it typically exhibits the way in which specific cultures lived, expressed their identity, and mediated their environment. However, if we blindly and slavishly followed its basic assumptions, there would be such a huge number of temples, mosques, churches, houses, and all types of buildings that it would be almost impossible to find a place for one more building on earth after millions of years of building buildings and of accumulation of civilizations. In recent years, a new assumption is emerging to shape some new understanding that is "that history of architecture should involve the destruction of buildings as it involves the building of buildings." Some argue that building requires a preceding incident of destruction, a spatial void without which it would not be possible to build new buildings. Interrogating this assumption might be an exhaustive task that needs in-depth investigation.

The Syndrome of Celebrating Destruction!
The preceding assumption goes along the recent issue of VOLUME magazine, where issues of migration and displacement, ‘warchitecture’ and ‘post-warchitecture’, 'counter-heritage', 'cultural interventions' and 'post-conflict reconstruction' strategies are debated. On the basis of what is displayed in terms of construction efforts in different cities such as Kosovo and the southern part of Beirut one would infer that such an assumption is tested and proven valid as Ole Bouman in the introductory statement of VOLUME puts it "…there is a strong correlation between destruction—the unbuilding of cities—and the construction of buildings." Strikingly, Bouman introduces the issue by saying that "…Volume explores the less discussed creative sides of destruction, a realm where architecture and design play an important part…" Here one would wonder if destruction has a creative side, and in what terms. While this issue of VOLUME addresses reconstruction efforts …again one would wonder why destruction is emphasized. And why don't we say 'creative reconstruction efforts.'… Is this for marketability or publicity purposes? Or is it meant just for introducing a new term or buzzword that increases the confusion of the public on the value of architecture and of what architects do? It is bothering to see how the term 'destruction' is ‘celebrated' and very irritating to see its mere acceptance as the 'price of progress.'

Is this 'price of progress' a new face of an old coin? In the wake of the industrial revolution, humankind developed destruction tools and techniques in parallel to the development of different means of industrial production, transportation, simply for progress, civility, and for raising living standards. True, the result was a new way of life. Sadly, it had its severe negatives because while industrial workers lived and died in poor conditions, mines, and slums, the political elite prospered...lived and died in palaces. Many countries were not satisfied with their own growth and needed more resources…, in the process of satisfying those needs…wars were a deterministic result…some were escalated to world wars while others were regional or local. In all cases, architecture…the ultimate form of human material culture was the victim, apart from the sad reality… the loss of millions of lives.

The current claim that societies are now more civilized led to accepting the preceding facts as part of our daily discourses is surely believable. Yet, celebrating 'destruction' leads one to confidently say that many are enticed by the ethics and aesthetics of destruction as a source of regeneration and inspiration, while the enduring values of human culture are oversimplified. And so, the basic fact that human civilization has evolved over time is forgotten and under the slogans of progress, wealth, advancement, quality of life… you name it, many traditional towns are destroyed, many cities are losing their identity, and environments are continuously damaged/degraded. These are not necessarily the results of wars, but of human actions and choices, in essence—of violent actions against architecture and cities' built form. This is not all — the tale of human evolution is being interpreted by many as a deterministic violent history without which human race cannot progress. However, some hopes exist where anthropological research shows that human evolution has essentially to do with creative, constructive, and peaceful activities. In this respect, I refer to the great Arab historian—Ibn Khaldun—the founder of urban sociology—who says "History is the story of human achievements in construction."

A word of caution arises in this context as wars and conflicts involve not only destruction but building too… nevertheless, not all building acts are positive. This is manifested by highway blocks, fences to segregate, isolate, contain… Perhaps East-West Beirut blocks, Bosnia-Serbia-Croatia blocked borders, the segregation wall between Palestinian Territories and Israel, the famous Berlin wall, and even the walls enclosing gated communities around the globe, those are all negative building acts. Robert Frost, the American Poet, in his famous Poem: Mending Wall reminds us of offensive building acts when he says: Before I built a wall I'd ask to know... What I was walling in or walling out... And to whom I was like to give offence.

Wars and Architecture/Reconstruction: 6 Decades of Efforts and Discourses
Reflecting on some correlations between wars and architecture, I refer to three publications that have received very little attention, if any at all. They—while remarkably delineating the amount of reconstruction efforts that have taken and are now taking place around the globe—dramatically indicate a strong correlation between the acts of wars and violence and the acts of building and reconstruction. Notably, while these three publications were developed over a little more than a decade ago, it is evident that they reflect reconstruction efforts since the end of the WWII.

An important publication titled: Reconstruction of War-Torn Cities, edited by Jad Tabet was a result of an international conference organized jointly by the Order of Engineers and Architects in Lebanon and the UIA-International Union of Architects, and took place in 1997. Reconstruction of War Torn Cities encompasses a considerable number of articles that analyze and debate different experiments and experiences in reconstructing cities and villages. Evidently, the correlation of war and architecture is not new, as exhibited in those articles that articulate the experiences of rebuilding London, French cities, Russian cities, and Warsaw after WWII. Other articles delineate that such a correlation was sustained over the past sixty years, those that address reconstruction efforts in Vietnam, the Greek part of Cyprus during mid 1970s and Mostar and Kampala/Uganda during the late 1990s. A common feature in all cases is that all of these efforts are basically preceded by colonial or civil wars.

Another important publication is entitled At War with the City, edited by Paola Somma, 2004. This book assembles a collection of essays that investigate the relationship between war and the city in a comprehensive manner. It goes beyond the case study logic and aims at improving planners’ and designers’ ability to look at and interpret different reconstruction scenarios. Presenting reconstruction as a sociopolitical planning activity, several planning schemes are presented with reference to the economic and social contexts within which they are developed. Notably, reconstruction of Saigon south is linked to emerging new housing typologies; the reconstruction of Sarajevo's Town Hall and library is linked to issues that pertain to memory and identity; the metaphor of looking at Beirut as 'Hearth' is questioned; the strategic urban planning of the Gaza strip is analyzed within the limits of blocked roads; Fragmentation, commodification, and reintegration, are socio-physical aspects explored within the scope of reconstruction efforts in South Africa, Mozambique, and Rwanda. Again, this round of articles in At War with the City, which is published seven years after Reconstruction of War Torn Cities, corroborates that there is a sustained interest in investigating the relationship between war and architecture/reconstruction.

Addressing the specific case of Kabul, Babar Mumtaz and Kaj Noschis have co-edited the seminar book of proceedings on 'Development of Kabul: Reconstruction and Planning Issues.' The book addresses how decisions about housing, transportation, and infrastructure needs are made in an ad-hoc and urgent manner. Discussing the necessity of a consolidated urban planning approach toward the development of the city led to the belief that a typical master planning approach seems not to be favored by the majority of the contributors to the book. The editors argue that the idea of a general Master Plan seemed too much "a reminder of planning practices issued from offices that do not dare nor want to be in contact with the realities of a fast-moving urban fabric such as that of Kabul today." The existing Master Plan of Kabul-developed by the Russians during and after the Soviet Union’s Invasion of Afghanistan has a somewhat ambiguous status, but is currently utilized by the Municipality in considering building permissions and spatial decisions.

Some Lessons Learned – Issues for Continuous Investigation
In light of the above three publications some important issues arise in connection to the roles architects, urbanists and planners could play; some can be looked at in terms of open-ended questions that truly need continuous investigation, while others may allow us to openly debate the re-construction delivery after catastrophes. I briefly reflect in the following context on four major issues.

The first issue concerns itself with 'constructing' and 're-constructing.' Should we reconstruct a destroyed city exactly as it was in order to keep its image in the memory of its inhabitants? Should we build a better environment conceived on the basis of new planning standards? There are specific choices that can be addressed in practical terms. For example: whether to preserve the traces of old transportation routes and land parcels or develop new ones more suited to a city's developmental needs. These choices are often dictated by the pressure of events, urgency or the pace of development. They can be governed by reference to specific urban models, value systems, or cultural codes that reflect the general interest and the prevailing social conditions.

Another issue pertains to the element of utopianism inherited in mass reconstruction of cities. Can we still see destruction caused by war, violence or conflicts as an opportunity that enables new aesthetic values or planning standards to emerge? If we have to preserve the memory of the past of a city, which past should we refer to? In this respect, one may assert that many of the destroyed cities represent an accumulation of different historical eras. The third issue is a terminology related one. Reconstruction can be seen as an ambiguous term which Paola Somma sees as a pretext for struggle and the settlement of scores between local power bases. As well, one would add, it can be manipulated by external interests that typically ignore the needs of those who are most seriously affected, or address them only superficially. In many cases, such interests deal with reconstruction as an exercise in financial techniques utilizing cost/benefit analysis methods.

The fourth issue is social in nature where, after wars, emphasis is placed upon reconstructing the physical environment. However, the transition from the state of war to that of peace involves political, social, economic and cultural processes. Here, the question of whether reconstruction is just getting society—as it was before the war—going again. How are the upheavals of social disorder caused by war perceived? Underlying this issue 'participation' comes in as a determining factor in healing the social organization, creating dialogue between different actors: politicians, decision makers, architects and planners, and the people they are to serve typically in an urgent manner.

Warchitecture! Theorizing War and Architecture
Evidently, the six decades of debating war recovery construction efforts addressed cases, experiments and experiences, and practical solutions; recently however, the relationship between war and architecture is theorized. In a very recent article entitled "Warchitectural Theory" by Andrew Herscher an attempt is made to introduce a new term 'Warchitecture' where such a relationship is addressed in theoretical terms. In drawing relationships between war, architecture, and culture, Herscher states that "The foundational opposition organizing most discourse on war and architecture is that between violence and culture. Before it is targeted by violence, architecture is located within the domain of culture…violence, by contrast tends to be located outside the domain of culture and defined as a phenomenon that destroys that culture…" Perhaps, this reminds us of what happened and still is happening in Iraq where destruction of cultural artifacts is manifested as a result of sectarian conflict produced by war. One would refer here to architecture as a cultural index that takes different forms in different civilizations and political settings. Again, how to protect that index from destruction is in essence a crucial question. Herscher ends his article by suggesting that warchitectural theory accommodates the work of those actors called architects and the product of those activities called constructive, and the range of actors and processes involved with architecture. By this only we "…can do justice to the social facts that could or should concern us."

Final Word
In closing, I argue that wars followed by immediate recovery construction efforts have a lot to do with architecture. Going beyond the very physical world, there are multiple roles architects and planners could play, including mediation, interpretation, and collective decision making on reconstructing war-torn cities. The questions of war and peace, social equity and disruptive justice in war-torn countries should not be seen as abstract concerns anymore. It is not about seizing business opportunities, it is not about seeking opportunities for establishing new sets of planning standards, it is not about introducing new physical masks for expressing power, it is not about establishing means for covering up the harsh realities of inequity and injustice that plague war-torn societies. It is simply about healing the processes of human, societal, and cultural evolution.

Ashraf M. Salama
Architects for Peace, February 2008

Notes

1. My reflection here is partly based on two visits, the first was to Beirut in November 1999 to speak at a regional conference on Recent Architectural Trends in Societies in Change organized by the AUB-American University of Beirut, and the second was to Bosnia and Herzegovina in October 2000 to take part in the International Jury of the UN/UIA Urban Planning Competition on Revitalization of Sarajevo. As well, recent responsive publications on the topic are utilized where indicated in the text.
2. Please refer to these sites for a complete table of contents of VOLUME titled "Un-built Cities" April 2007
http://www.archis.org/email/newsletter_Volume11apr07.html
http://www.archis.org/volume/Volume+%2311/?id=4
3. Ibn Khaldun on Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ibn_Khaldun
4. Tabet, J. (ed.) (1997). Reconstruction of War Torn Cities, UIA and the Order of Engineers and Architects, Beirut, Lebanon.
5. Somma, P. (ed.) (2004). At War with the City. The Urban International Press, Gateshead, UK.
6. Mumtaz, B. and Noschis, K (eds.) (2004). Development of Kabul: Reconstruction and Planning Issues. Comportements, Lausanne, Switzerland.
7. Herscher, A. (2008). Warchitectural Theory, Journal of Architectural Education, Vol. 61 (1), pp. 35-43.

A World Filled with Peace

Mon, 04 Feb 2008 17:51 GMT

A World Filled with Peace is the name of our new arch-peace Brazilian website. The website is designed and maintained by Frederico Zaidan Soro Araujo, who is also our arch-peace coordinator in the region.

This new webpage will give us the opportunity to share and learn directly from our colleagues in Brazil, about their work, their concerns and views--in the process, who knows, we may learn some Portuguese too!

We will soon link the new page to arch-peace website, in the meantime please visit the arch-peace Brazilian blog!

Thanks so much Frederico, muito obrigada!

Abraços fraternais,

Beatriz and the arch-peace team

sustainable-living-festival: transport

Wed, 30 Jan 2008 00:30 GMT

sustainablelivingfestival

Presents: Sustainable Transport–Visions for Victoria in 2010
Sun 17th Feb. 10:00am-12:00pm, Fed. Square, The Edge, Melbourne

Following up on our 2007 Transported Forum, Architects for Peace, along with a range of sustainable transport organisations, will take part in the Sustainable Living Festival. The aim is to present a vision on where Victoria could be in 2010. This two hour event is part of the 2008 Sustainable Living Festival. The organisations and speakers include:

Australasian Centre for the Governance And Management of Urban Transport (Gamut) - John Stone
Architects for Peace - Beatriz C. Maturana
Blind Citizens Australia - Jessica Zammit
Department of Infrastructure - Jim Betts
Metropolitan Transport Forum - Jackie Fristacky
Planning Institute of Australia - Jason Black
Public Transport Users Association (Victoria) - Kerryn Wilmot
Tourism & Transport Forum - Stewart Prins
Victorian Local Governance Association - Greg Thomas

Find more: http://www.slf.org.au/festival/program/talks/1361

We hope to see you all there. Architects for Peace will have an information table and we would welcome your assistance.

(image by: sustainablelivingfestival)