EditorialMitchell, Maurice
2008 Open House International
doi: 10.1108/OHI-02-2008-B0001
Aside from the general anxieties (Vidler, A. 2000) inherent in modern competitive liberal capitalist democracies beset by climate change, war and tsunami, those surrounding the availability of domestic and public space, beset by uncertainty around land, shelter, drinking water and sanitation rights, are some of the most distressing for those affected.
Narrating The City: spaces Of Urban Change, South LondonHall, Suzanne M.
2008 Open House International
doi: 10.1108/OHI-02-2008-B0002
This paper explores the documentation of social and spatial transformation in the Walworth area, South London. Spatial narratives are the entry point for my exploration, where official and ‘unofficial’ representations of history are aligned to capture the nature of urban change. Looking at the city from street level provides a worldly view of social encounter and spaces that are expressive of how citizens experience and shape the city. A more distanced view of the city accessed from official data reveals different constructs. In overlaying near and far views and data and experience, correlations and contestations emerge. As a method of research, the narrative is the potential palimpsest, incorporating fragments of the immediate and historic without representing a comprehensive whole. In this paper Walworth is documented as a local and Inner City context where remnants and insertions are juxtaposed, where white working class culture and diverse ethnicities experience difference and change. A primary aim is to consider the diverse experiences of groups and individuals over time, through their relationship with their street, neighbourhood and city. In relating the Walworth area to London I use three spatial narratives to articulate the contemporary and historic relationship of people to place: the other side examines the physical discrimination between north and south London, the other half looks at distinctions of class and race and other histories explores the histories displaced from official accounts.
Studio Teaching For A Social PurposeRay, Nicholas
2008 Open House International
doi: 10.1108/OHI-02-2008-B0003
An EU Asia-Link grant offered the opportunity to examine the appropriate sequence of teaching and learning for architecture students working in developing countries. That process is more or less taken for granted wherever architecture is taught as a discipline, yet its premises are seldom examined in any detail. Following a suggestion by A. N. Whitehead, a sequence of learning is described, which gives a proper place to design. The thinking of the American philosopher Donald Schön is re-examined to see if it throws light on the practice of architecture and the principles to be adopted in teaching it. I argue that, properly constituted, a studio-based programme of architectural education remains an appropriate methodology for the teaching of design in the context of developing countries, even as it acts as a critique of the conventional pedagogic methodologies of parent institutions in both west and east.
Vaccinate Your Home Against the Storm - Reducing Vulnerability in VietnamNorton, John; Chantry, Guillaume
2008 Open House International
doi: 10.1108/OHI-02-2008-B0004
Vietnam's economic reforms have helped many poor families to replace fragile shelters with houses built using materials regarded as "solid". This substantial family investment remains at risk of damage or destruction by annual disaster events - storms, floods and typhoons - because basic principles of safe building are not applied, nor is preventive action taken by communities and individual families to safeguard the home and public buildings against unnecessary damage. Failure to do so puts people at much greater risk of loss and injury.Over two decades, Development Workshop France (DWF) has worked in Viet Nam to promote a culture of preventive action to reduce risk of damage. Based on ten key principles of storm-resistant construction, some of which have been drawn from traditional techniques, DWF trains local builders and technicians and undertakes a wide range of awareness raising actions in and with communities to promote hands on preventive safety in poor villages. Once sceptical, local governments now actively support the programme, which also strengthens local organizational and financial capacity.This paper reviews the approach and the lessons that can be learnt from the DWF Viet Nam experience and that of similar DWF preventive actions in other disaster contexts. It considers the opportunities and constraints to enable family and community preventive action to become a core and ongoing feature of disaster management practice at community and national level.
Response to Rapid Change: Post-Tsunami Shelter in Sri LankaAubrey, Dyfed
2008 Open House International
doi: 10.1108/OHI-02-2008-B0005
Through an overview of Goal's post tsunami shelter and reconstruction programme in Sri Lanka this study aims to highlight how design and implementation approaches had to continuously evolve in order to respond to changes in pace, priorities and policy as relief moved into recovery then permanent rehabilitation.The study begins by describing the Buffer Zone Policy that prohibited construction within a certain distance from the sea and how the policy impeded the construction of permanent housing in some areas through lack of suitable relocation sites. Then using transitional shelter as an example, the effects of the persistence of the policy when most actors anticipated change can be seen in modifications to shelters driven mainly by comfort criteria as their occupancy had to be extended from an initially predicted six month period to around two years.Following this, an overview of the permanent housing programme shows how an owner driven housing approach was chosen as an appropriate means of provision and how the process was developed through a local partnership. In this programme the owners' capacity to design and manage their own house construction was developed with the understanding that houses could be incrementally extended by the owner following the completion of the programme. Then, as the late change in the Buffer Zone Policy resulted in a sudden up-scaling of the project on a very limited time-frame, the study shows how, whilst still catering for individual aspirations and personal "ownership" in design and implementation, standardised designs were introduced to speed up the building process.The study concludes by emphasising the need for flexibility in design and implementation in order to provide the best service to affected people within the ever-changing environment of disaster response.
Dispersed Initiatives in Changing Urban LandscapesMitchell, Maurice
2008 Open House International
doi: 10.1108/OHI-02-2008-B0006
There is a growing desire amongst students of architecture to work, either in the UK or in developing countries, in situations where technical and cultural change is rapid and resources are scarce. At the same time self organizing local communities have become recognized as the most effective client and interlocutor for generating meaningful debate on the transformation of their everyday environment. Diploma Studio 6 at the Department of Architecture and Spatial Design of London Metropolitan University has worked with specifically local, low income and marginalized communities in Kosovo (2000 + 2001) and India: Gujarat (2002), Meerut (2003), Delhi (2004 +2005) and Agra (2006) to generate proposals for meaningful change and improvement. This paper seeks to draw out some of the major themes of debate which have emerged.
Duty of Care: Foregrounding The User in Design PracticeDodd, Melanie
2008 Open House International
doi: 10.1108/OHI-02-2008-B0007
In areas subject to social and economic disadvantage where resources are scarce, the physical environment of the public realm is often identified as a place for investment by governments - a place where infra-structural improvements to the built environment, funded through government, may reap wider social rewards. In addition, specific social policy ambitions in Australia, within both state government and other welfare agencies, focus on social capital building and community strengthening initiatives. Yet the relationship between these crucial areas of government action - social welfare and community development, and the design of the built environment -is often disconnected.This article describes an experimental pilot study for a prototype community engagement tool aimed at foregrounding the user in design for the public realm. The project, which will devise an innovative methodology for community consultation in areas of neighbourhood renewal and change, operates within the structure of a design studio at RMIT University School of Architecture + Design. The outcome - the Digital Map - is an interactive map website which acts as a mechanism for engaging people in the design of the built environment and the public realm, simultaneously providing a platform for social connected-ness and networking within the community. Embedded links to a repository of one-person film narratives, means that the map is an ongoing device for community participation: a transparent and open-ended alternative to the limitations of consultation through questionnaire, and a mechanism for building sustainable communities.
Integration or Separation? Refugee Camps in Southern ChadHerz, Manuel
2008 Open House International
doi: 10.1108/OHI-02-2008-B0008
The south of Chad has seen an influx of many tens of thousands of refugees within the last three years. After the president of the neighbouring Central African Republic (CAR), Felix Patasse, was overthrown in a coup d'etat in March 2003 more than 50.000 people fled to Chad, across the northern border. From the beginning of the refugee crisis, UNHCR has been present in the area to house and protect the refugees.Following a renewed influx of large numbers of refugees in autumn 2005, UNHCR adopted a new strategy of ‘integration’ for their newest camp ‘Gondje’. ‘Integration’ aims for a joint use of camp facilities, such as schools and clinics, by the refugee population as well as by the local Chadian population. It is meant to bring benefits to the underdeveloped region of southern Chad. On the other hand, this strategy can also lead to a permanent resettlement of the refugees from CAR in Chad. Based on recent fieldwork in the area and in the camp of ‘Gondje’, this paper traces the strategy of ‘integration’ through a number of narratives as well as spatial analyses, puts it into a context of the planning strategies of refugee camps followed by UNHCR, and speculates on the effects and repercussions of this strategy. As emergency situations and the field of developmental work are becoming the areas within which architects are increasingly practicing, the article also sheds light on the responsibilities and the dilemmas the profession faces when operating in these humanitarian contexts.
The Destruction of ParticipationWeizman, Ines
2008 Open House International
doi: 10.1108/OHI-02-2008-B0009
This article describes a current dilemma of urban planning in cities of the former German Democratic Republic (GDR). The process of demographic shrinking, and the increasing growth of the more privileged to suburbia since the early 1990s had dramatic consequences, especially on cities with large-scale settlements (Großsiedlungen) that once had been built especially for sites based on heavy industries. This paper argues that far from the banal, grey and depressing stigma attached to them at present, some of these housing projects, particularly the one for Leipzig-Grünau represented one of the most enthusiastic experiments to realise societal utopias. The study looks particularly at the role of residents' participation in the success and development of their estate. However, at the moment when buildings are being demolished public participation in determining the fate of their urban environment, seems futile and redundant. These often random and short-sighted demolitions undermine the housing estates' cohesiveness, which in turn helps to dilute the residents' sense of pride and privilege. It seems almost as though population ‘shrinking’ was part of a plan to re-appropriate the city by erasing the ‘unfamiliar’ fabric of a competing ideology. The paper investigates how this process is played out, what form it takes and how the configuration and coherence of the urban fabric is affected by a complicated sequence of chain reactions which degrade the attractiveness of the area to such a degree that demolition appears as the only possible solution. An intentional cultural-political policy of de-familiarisation takes place and demolition is made to appear all but unavoidable.
(Re-)Building Communities: A Case Study in Architectural EducationBerg, Hanne van den
2008 Open House International
doi: 10.1108/OHI-02-2008-B0010
Although recent years have seen a considerable increase in the number of people living in abominable conditions as well as a rapid increase in the incidence of natural disasters rendering thousands of people homeless, few architects are aware of the possible contribution they could make to both development and humanitarian relief. This paper focuses on a particular series of educational workshops for architects and architecture students interested in the field of development and participatory practice: the Summer Schools organised by Architecture Sans Frontières - UK, a not-for-profit organisation that focuses on both equitable and sustainable approaches to development. It looks at the observations from the participants on the workshops and building exercise of one particular ASF-UK Summer School focusing on ‘Vulnerability and Risk: Rebuilding Communities after Disaster’ held between the first and the sixth of September 2006, at the Eden Centre in Cornwall, in collaboration with International Development in Extreme Environments (IDEE), discussing the aims and setup of this workshop, the lessons it attempted to bring across as well as participants' experiences.