Precedent – Studio Basel

For precedent and concepts as to how to consolidate and present the material, especially to assist in the presentations next week look at Studio Basel

http://www.studio-basel.arch.ethz.ch/
click on Projects
click on Nairobi
click on Students Work
and you’ll find the following themes:

• A City without a Masterplan
• Architectural Legacy of the 70s
• The Industrial Area
• Waste Network
• Pentecostal Churches
• The Identity of Kibera
• Slum Upgrading
• Somalian Community in Eastleigh
• UN & NGOs in Nairobi
• Matatu Culture
• Green Nairobi: Urban Nature

which, if you download the pdf’s, they might help in structuring your arguments. below i have set up what themes, that you are exploring, might help with the themes articulated in Studio Basel

whitecity | masterplan/ architectural legacy. A useful catalyst is also South Africa’s Group Areas Act and post 1994 urban projects development

soccer booster | take a look at UN & NGO's in Nairobi as foreign entity. Focus on the before and after, what has been done, why and for whom. Explore the following:
• infrastructure
• public space
• accommodation
• destruction
• removals
take Mphethi Morojele’s presentation + the reality of what you saw on site and continue to see and make comparisons

streetlife | Greening the city in the sun/ waste network

rooms | spatial economies, no specific reference, but you may explore the subrenting of spaces, growing densities close to migrant neighbours and also look at slum upgrading in kibera/ structure/ themes/ graphics

migrant neighbours | Somali refugees as Urban Catalyst
edge conditions | industrial area and kibera as a city (informal versus formal)

ponte tower | no precedent, but scan the architectural legacy, since it concerns the history of the building – ultimately what ponte will be about

public transport | Matatu culture

the atlas is also helpful in unpacking issues relating to urbanity
to summarise:
# Colonial History of Africa – white city
# Kenya and its History – white city, migrant neighbours
# Kenya and its Demography – white city, migrant neighbours
# Kenya and its Political History – white city
# History-of-Urban-Planning of Nairobi – white city, streetlife
# Population Growth and Housing in Nairobi – rooms
# Informal Settlements in Nairobi – rooms
# The Transport System and Infrastructures – public transport
# Tourism and International Events – soccer booster
# Sport Recreation and Leisure – soccer booster

paper sizes

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f6/A_size_illustration2_with_letter_and_legal.svg

Tues 10.15-12 and Wed 12.30-1.15,

are the times i wil see you next week after our lesson at 08:00
on wednesday 04.03.09 all groups shall prepare a 10 minute (2 -- 5 minute) powerpoint presentation to present to the class. a 5 minute discussion will follow each presentation

presentations
12:30 -- 12:45 group 1: white city + soccer booster
12:50 -- 13:05 group 2: migrant neighbours + edge conditions
13:10 -- 13:25 group 3: ponte tower + public transport

i suggest that you read dewar and uytenbogaardt's creating vibrant urban spaces to live -- cape town 1995, which i am sure is available in the library

template

i have set up the following template. the end result will result in all the data collected and wire bound for research and precedent purposes. each group will be expected to submit a minimum of 10 pages. come up with proposals next week for the outcome | result. please let me know where your problems| shortcomings are in terms of production. my suggestion would be that you make a stab at it before consulting me.

we have 3 lessons next week. 2 on tuesday and 1 on wednesday. so we should be able to take a slight giant leap.

the storyboard may appear like this with text

blacklinesonwhitepaper@gmail.com

do not forget to drop me a mail so i may forward you material.
groups are:

whitecity | soccer booster | streetlife
geoffrey -- collator
mawabo
putsiso
eulenda
yasmin

rooms | migrant neighbours | edge conditions
abdul -- collator
ofentse
eugene
mitchel

ponte tower | public transport | 24h/ 7days/ week
jarred -- collator
kabelo
londeka
lerato
siphiwe
richard

i suggest you collate your images, set up a storyboard and start drawing. you may also do this with pencils on paper. i will sit with you after the seminar next week and help with the graphics. but i will need to see something. gather any information (of value) you can around your themes.

they might need different kinds of research,
some themes have a very rich history which is documented in numerous articles and books. some themes are linked to recent developments (transport for example) which you get from offices, jda etc.
some themes might need some fieldwork, bottom up research: walking the streets (24h/7days/week).

do not get confused, divide the work into parts for each of you and just do it. good luck!

land ownership

study area

Please read the following text and we will discuss it in the 24 February Seminar Presentation 2

CITY SYNTHESIS
Dennis Crompton – A Guide to Archigram 1961 - 74

The city is a living organism – pulsating – expanding and contracting, diving and multiplying.
The complex functioning of the city is integrated by its natural computer mechanism. This mechanism is at once digital and biological, producing rational and random actions, reactions and counter-reactions. The computer programme is a conglomeration of logical reasoning, intuitive assumption, personal preference, chance, sentiment and bloody-mindedness which is assimilated and interpreted. The solutions follow automatically.

The trigger to the computer programme is social man. He creates the City Scene at conscious and subconscious reaction levels by his own complexity. He is identified with the natural computer and is an integral part of its dataprocessing operation – but they are NOT ONE -- each has an individual nature which functions independently. At its logical (or illogical?) limit this division of nature causes the DEATH of both. The city is ascendant when they are in unison, in decay when they divide.

The feed-in for city synthesis has three stages:
1. Primary information about population: birth rate, death rate, unit size and habits. Also city site data: location, topography, geological and geographical conditions, the inter-relation with other urban complexes. The overall network is formed from this information and then absorbs it, processes it, and throws out the subsequent stages.
2. Secondary information: health, housing, marriages, fertility rate, crime rate, journey to work, wages and salaries. Rates of development and obsolescence, density, communications, land values. At this stage the network is modified and amplified, and the substance of the city created.
3. Trends, conditioning of the city and population caused by problems and solutions resulting from stages 1 and 2. Movement within the complex; personal action, shopping, entertainment (personal and mass), recreation, market survey, bus timetables, etc.

The last stage is a continuing feed-back in which every facet of city life is relevant to the whole, values are relative to the observer. The absolute ceases to exist after stage 1. The expansion and contraction of centres and suburbs, the dead ends, the exciting and the mundane – all are now an integral part of the city scene, enveloped in a net of inter-relationships ultimately controlled by the Natural Computer.

SITUATION
This thing we call Living City contains many associative ideas and emotions and can mean many things to many people: liking it or not liking it, understanding it or no understanding it, depends on these personal associations. There is no desire to communicate with everybody, only with those whose thoughts and feelings are related to our own. What we feel and think about the city is not new in the sense that it was unthought of before, but only in that the idea of the Living City has not been acted upon before by our generation. In the second half of the 20th century, the old idols are crumbling, the old precepts strangely irrelevant, the old dogmas no longer valid. We are in pursuit of an idea, a new vernacular, something to stand alongside the space capsules, computers and throw-away packages of an atomic/electronic age. Situation concerns the state of change within the city environment caused by the fluctuating come/go of people and things over a time scale. All of us find the Living City in Situation. An awareness of the city is necessary before we can move forward.

Situation is concerned with environment changes and activity within the Living City context, giving characteristics to defined areas. Important in this is the precept of Situation as an ideas-generator in creating the Living City. Cities should generate, reflect and activate life, their environment organized to precipitate life and movement. Situation – the happenings within spaces in the city, the transient throw-away objects, the passing presence of cars and people – is as important, possibly more important, than built demarcation of space. Situation can be caused by a single individual, by groups or a crowd. Situation can be traffic, its speed, direction, classification. Situation may occur with a change of weather, the time of day or night. As the spectator changes, the moving eye sees. Situation is related to individual perception, and the place of the individual in the environment. This time/movement/situation thing is important in determining our whole future attitude to the visualization and realization of city; it can give a clue, a key, in our effort to escape the brittle ingratiating world of the architect/aesthete, to break away into the real world and take in the scene