How can a simple steel box of 20 by 8 by 8 feet in size transform cities all over the world and change the way people live, work and consume? The modern shipping container, originating in the mid-20th century, has not only been a driving force in the development of international trade but also in urban progress and decline. When it comes to the world economy’s widespread adoption of the shipping container in terms of mutation, one might wonder whether it is an outcome of capitalism or simply human nature. In any case – the box itself has undergone a mutation, too. Like organisms that adapt and mutate in order to survive mass extinction, new technology, such as the IoT-enabled smart container, has come to the fore to once again change patterns of human behaviour.
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Few people have much reason to pass through Amsterdam’s Westhaven district. Too far out of town and too industrial, it doesn’t hold a candle to the city’s captivating Grachtengordel, with its famous old canals and all the pretty architecture from the so-called Dutch Golden Age. But if you want to get the whole truth about Amsterdam, or any city for that matter, you have to go to places like Westhaven. Among other things, it’s here that you’ll find the OBA Bulk Terminal, which contains several great mounds of coal, along with other piles of agricultural products, minerals and biomass.
“An image of urban progress which almost completely denies the underlying environmental and human costs”
This is the dirty stuff that keeps the Dutch economy ticking over. Everyone thinks modern cities like Amsterdam long ago dispensed with the need for this kind of economic activity, but not all this stuff could be shipped off to China. Some of it had to remain close by, even if it was pushed to the margins. The invisibility of such areas is essential to our image of the modern city. Ordered, hightech, and most of all, clean, this image would be impossible without the intermodal shipping container, a form of cargo container that allows goods to be transferred from one mode of transport to another without the costly process of unpacking and repacking. With this one simple innovation in the management of goods, we were finally able to close our eyes to the wildly complex material processes that are required to reproduce the city, and in the process create an image of urban progress which almost completely denies the underlying environmental and human costs.
The modern shipping container has its origins in 1955, when trucking magnate Malcom McLean teamed up with engineer Keith Tantlinger to hammer out the container’s essential design, which remains practically the same to this day: 8 feet wide, 8 feet tall, 20 feet long, with 20 mm-thick corrugated steel walls that can, amazingly, hold a weight of 25,000 kg. The design’s persistence, ubiquity and overall success was not only due to its simplicity, however, it was also thanks to McLean encouraging Tantlinger to give away the patents to the industry for free, so that the same standard could be replicated on trucks, ships, cranes and ports across the world.
“Port-side areas turned into ghost towns”
The shipping container quickly and drastically cut the number of dock workers needed to handle goods at ports. In Britain, for instance, the number of people employed in the port industry declined by 72 per cent between 1961 and 2001, while the number of people employed as dock workers declined by 90 per cent. With no need to have so many people present on the docks, what followed was the mass abandonment of inner-city ports, with large swathes of warehouses left empty (and ripe for redevelopment). At the same time, with no need to have a large pool of labour on-hand in nearby neighbourhoods, the port-side areas of these cities turned into ghost towns.
We see the first effects of this in the port cities along America’s East Coast: Boston, New York City, Philadelphia and Baltimore. But the effects also spread to other historic port cities elsewhere in the world like London and Amsterdam, where the warehouses along the Oostelijk Havengebied (Eastern Docklands) were first squatted and then, in many cases, turned into cultural venues like Pakhuis de Zwijger. In London, after hundreds of years as the beating heart of international trade, the Docklands closed completely, leaving eight square miles of derelict land which was quickly redeveloped and given a big boost by the creation of the Canary Wharf financial district.
“The shipping container took the city’s dirt elsewhere”
It was not just port cities that were affected, either. In America, cities like Detroit went from being the centre of the world’s car industry to a hollow shell in a matter of decades. The reason for this: not only did the shipping container make dock work redundant, it also made it possible to displace manufacturing work to other parts of the world where labour costs were lower and workers less unionised. Eventually, many of these cities found a way to bounce back from the desolation, converting the abandoned warehouses or demolishing them and putting luxury condos in their place. They slowly managed to draw people back in with the promise of various sorts of service work, instead of the dirty work of processing and manufacturing goods that had fuelled their economic growth in the first place. In more ways than one, the shipping container took the city’s dirt elsewhere.
“One of the most important boats in the history of canals”
All this occurred because of one simple 8’ by 8’ by 20’ feet steel box. But why did this occur, and could it have happened sooner? Precursors to the intermodal cargo container have existed since at least the early Industrial Revolution. In 1766 James Brindley signed the “Starvationer”, a ship that could navigate the underground waterways of the Bridgewater Canal from the Duke of Bridgewater’s coal mine at Worsley to Manchester, and whose skeletal ribs inspired its peculiar name. The box boat had ten wooden containers that allowed coal to be transported by boat and then be transferred to horse-drawn carriage. Waterfront, the magazine of The Canal & River Trust describes it as “one of the most important boats in the history of canals”.
“Tetrapods that finally went on to conquer the land”
Much like McLean’s container, it helped usher in a new industrial age by cutting the cost of coal in half, almost overnight, thereby enabling the rapid expansion of industry in booming Manchester. But the Starvationer never captured the true potential of the intermodal container. Nor did the handful of other increasingly sophisticated examples that followed in its wake. These were the amphibians that ventured further outside the water but never left it altogether. McLean’s containers are the tetrapods that finally went on to conquer the land. But explaining all these transformations with the analogy of mutation is too easy.
“Tendency to describe socio-economic processes by way of nature metaphors”
There’s an intention to these changes which belies the nature metaphor. In his book Uneven Development, geographer Neil Smith explains that this tendency to describe socio-economic processes by way of nature metaphors has a very specific ideological function: to make these processes seem “normal, God-given, unchangeable”. By talking about the world economy’s widespread adoption of the shipping container in terms of mutation, “nature, not human history, is made responsible”, and as Smith says, “capitalism is treated not as historically contingent but as an inevitable and universal product of nature which, while it may be in full bloom today, can be found in ancient Rome or among bands of marauding monkeys where survival of the fittest is the rule. Capitalism is natural; to fight it is to fight human nature.”
Which is to say, this elegant metaphor for the sweeping and highly complex changes to our global economy obscures the human-made tragedy that followed as a result of, among many other things, destroying the industrial power of dock workers and factory workers in cities like Liverpool and Detroit, or allowing the decades-long emptying-out of cities like New York and Amsterdam, leading both places to buckle under the pressure of lost tax revenue for decades. All this was anything but natural. It depended on ideological choices that were made for very particular reasons. (…)
Read the entire article in topos 113 on urban mutations.
When it comes to air pollution, cities are fighting a permanent pandemic. In light of the magnitude of the problem, Barcelona architect and curator Olga Subirós recognised the urgency of addressing the climate crisis and public health emergency from an urbanistic point of view. Using Barcelona as a case study, the project Air/Aria/Aire analyses data sets to showcase the impact of air pollution from the urban scale down to the street level. An exhibition about Air/Aria/Aire, curated by Olga Subirós, will be presented at the International Architecture Exhibition 2021 in Venice, exploring the notion of air as a common good that is vital to people’s health and striving to respond to the Biennale’s theme of ‘How will we live together?’ – an even more vital question in times of coronavirus.
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Air pollution is the second leading cause of death from non-communicable diseases after tobacco smoking, according to the WHO. Worldwide, nine out of ten people breathe air that exceeds the safe limits set by the WHO guidelines. Last year’s EU report on air quality in Europe stated that air pollution “…is currently the most important environmental risk to human health”. In Europe alone, an estimated 400,000 people die every year from exposure to fine particulate matter in polluted air.
Air as a common good
In light of the magnitude of the problem, Barcelona architect and curator Olga Subirós recognised the urgency of addressing the climate crisis and public health emergency from an urbanistic point of view. Noticing the absence of any major exhibitions with a focus on these issues at the previous Venice Architecture Biennale in 2018 she decided to enter the competition to represent Catalonia in Venice in the latest edition, curated by Hashim Sarkis, which has now been postponed until 2021. A unique interpretation of the Biennale’s theme “How will we live together?”, Air/Aria/Aire acknowledges and explores the notion of air as a common good that is vital not only to live but to survive together. The spotlight has been shifted from the built environment to the void that surrounds it, a space often neglected by architects.
Urban analytics and data curation to examine complex environments
Using Barcelona as a case study, Air/Aria/Aire meticulously analyses large data sets in order to showcase the impact air pollution has on the city, from the urban scale down to street level. With 6000 cars/km2, Barcelona has the highest vehicle density in Europe. Around 500,000 cars enter and leave the city every day. Streets and parking lots occupy 60 per cent of public space. Like Madrid, the city consistently breaches EU rules on nitrogen dioxide values and has been referred to the Court of Justice because of poor air quality. To map the city for Air/Aria/Aire, Olga Subirós teamed up with the award-winning local firm 300.000 Km/s, an architecture studio specialising in the use of digital technologies to harness open data and citizen-generated data. With projects such as their Land Use Plan for Barcelona’s old city centre, they reinvented the traditional master plan with new methodologies of spatial analysis. According to the firm’s directors Mar Santamaria and Pablo Martínez, “The city will belong to those who map it”.
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Citizen participation is crucial
Traditional urban planning tools are no longer adequate for investigating and describing the complexity of our fast-changing urban landscapes. “This is why studying the city using big data and the models derived from it is invaluable to improving knowledge and, most of all, empowering citizens and allowing people to make collective decisions about their urban environments.” Data sets from the European Space Agency and weather stations as well as models established by Catalan research groups, such as an air pollution simulation by the Barcelona Super-computing Centre, Lobelia Earth’s predictive air pollution model and health impact studies by ISGlobal and the Barcelona City Council’s Public Health Agency were all used to produce the maps. Big data doesn’t necessarily tell you who uses the city. This is why the inclusion of qualitative individual data obtained through citizen participation is crucial. In addition, Air/Aria/ Aire used information gathered through initiatives such as the citizen science project xAire, where air pollution data was collected by Barcelona school children. Subirós also mentions the importance of grassroots movements such as Recuperem la Ciutat (Let’s Reclaim the City) and Eixample Respira (Eixample Breathes) to raise public awareness.
The unequal distribution of vulnerability and impact
Air pollution and public health in general have been subject to an intense public debate since the coronavirus outbreak forced us to reconsider how we inhabit our cities. A recent scientific study published in Cardiovascular Research estimates that about 15 per cent of deaths worldwide from coronavirus could be attributed to long-term exposure to air pollution. The current pandemic has been described as the crisis that exposed the fragility of marginalised groups, the social and economic divide within our society and the climate emergency. Air/Aria/Aire visualises correlations between the environmental crisis and social and spatial inequalities.
In their maps and cartographies, 300.000 Km/soverlaid the physical features of the urban fabric with the invisible characteristics of the city. “A closer look at the distribution of health data with regard to space shows us how equal levels of exposure, lead to different levels of mortality,” they explain. This phenomenon can be observed due to the different levels of vulnerability among citizen groups, depending on demographics, social and housing conditions and the urban environment. Air pollution is neither evenly distributed nor stagnant: it can disperse and shift. Nitrogen dioxide emitted in the Barcelona metropolitan area is transformed into ozone, which in turn is dispersed and can be found on the outskirts of the city and even in the Catalan countryside.
40 m2 of living space and 6 m3 of air per inhabitant
There is, of course, a long history of public health and hygiene as driving factors of urban planning. Indeed, Ildefons Cerdà’s pioneering concept for Eixample, Barcelona’s 19th century urban extension, envisaged a green city full of fresh air and light. But the district fell victim to an unregulated housing market and property speculation. Now one of the neighbourhoods most affected by air pollution, Eixample’s percentage of green spaces decreased from 30 per cent to 0.6 per cent over time. Its original planning principles, set by Cerdà to optimise the size and proportions of housing blocks and units, envisaged a minimum provision of 40 m2 of living space and 6 m3 of air per inhabitant.
Designing space, and specifically public space, using the concept of three-dimensional volumes measured in m3 instead of m2 is an important shift in perspective, required to successfully design the urban environment and guarantee the essential right to breath clean air, stresses Subirós. So, how exactly can we redefine the relationship between urban design and public health? In recent months, we have seen pop-up bike lanes appearing in cities all over the world. Parking spaces have been converted to outdoor terraces, and streets closed to traffic. Paris has introduced the concept of the 15-Min-City, while Barcelona is accelerating the implementation of its Superblocks. The research institute ISGlobal predicts that a rollout of all 503 of the initially planned Superblocks could prevent 667 premature deaths every year and lead to an annual economic savings of 1.7 billion euros. Ambient Nitrogen Dioxide pollution could be reduced by up to 24 per cent. Yet, Subirós argues, “We need more ambitious measures that include congestion charges and traffic-free zones and a faster implementation of other measures described in our research.”
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“Modify the relationships that the city has with its urban area in order to ensure an environmental balance”
Though Barcelona has just launched a 10-year-plan to introduce new green spaces and turn one in three streets in the Eixample district into green zones, the proposal will neither sufficiently alleviate the public health crisis nor reduce traffic significantly, Subirós suggests. Moreover, factors of urban morphology like the street canyon effect or the radical need of a mixture of uses have not been taken into account. Air/Aria/Aire introduces twelve measures to help reorganise the city and “modify the relationships that the city has with its urban area in order to ensure an environmental balance”. These measures include the elimination of traffic, the expansion of the public transport network and promotion of sustainable mobility, the reduction of parking spaces and the creation of new public green spaces to mitigate heat island effects. Another key factor is the creation of mixed-use neighbourhoods to counteract the decentralisation of workplaces.
Urban density and the control of new uses is up for discussion
Urban density and the control of new uses – also a hot topic since the current pandemic started – is up for discussion, as some areas will have to be deurbanised and desaturated, while others can still be densified. Last-mile delivery is another aspect that will play an important role. The demand for home delivery is increasing rapidly and much of the traffic on our streets is generated by the supply of goods, which can be addressed through a consolidation of the distribution within the city and public management of the system. The last measure reacts to the housing crisis Barcelona is experiencing, which often exacerbates inequality and health issues. Poorly ventilated flats, ill-fitting, leaky windows, bad insulation and furnishings can all harm the health of people inhabiting such spaces. The upgrading of flats and provision of equal access to high-quality housing are therefore two of the most signification actions to undertake.
Bringing health to the forefront
Air/Aria/Aire presents a vision of a more citizen-centred, equal city. Due to its focus on public health and local action, it delivers a more tangible strategy for combating climate change while at the same time creating a sense of urgency. The coronavirus pandemic has demonstrated that quick and radical action is possible. Olga Subirós hopes the maps and planning tools created with Air/ Aria/Aire can be a catalyst for change both within the architecture community and the local administration.
Through the exhibition, she aims to reach the wider public on a more emotional level with a multi-sensory installation. “The longer you work on this project,” she concludes, “the more activist you become.”
Read the full text in topos 113 – urban mutations.
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Digital Talk on Air Pollution vs. Healthy City
Join our digital talk on 1 Feb 2021 on “Air Pollution vs. Healthy City – Urban data for new challenges: The project Air/Aria/Aire”
What kind of solutions do the project Air/Aria/Aire offer in regard to the climate emergency and public health crisis? What role do architecture and urban planning play in this context? How can we use Big Data to improve city life, empower citizen and make our cities more liveable, healthier, greener and more equal? Join the talk on 1 Feb at 6.30 p.m. and learn from architect and curator Olga Subirós; Co-founder of 300,000 Km/s and urban planner Mar Santamaria; Carolyn Daher from ISGlobal and landscape architect Sigrid Ehrmann.
How to join? Click here to register.
At 1.2 people per square mile, New Jersey has one of the highest population densities of the United States, comparable to the Netherlands. It is called the Garden State, although its green agricultural heart is just one side of the coin. New Jersey is a poly-centric urbanized region, too and the poster child of suburban sprawl: a continuous carpet of suburban homes, malls, office parks and distribution centers; all knit together by a dense highway network and the occasional open space.
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Now, during the coronavirus crisis, many Manhattanites find the prospect of larger living spaces, a private yard and accessible public open space increasingly attractive, motivating them to consider moving across the Hudson to New Jersey, joining the ranks of the “bridge and tunnel people.” However, the Garden State still suffers a rather questionable reputation. Older folks will remember the smell of New Jersey when they crossed the large Meadowlands garbage dumps on the Turnpike, or their fear of the riots in Newark. Although the landfills are closed and Newark is back as a dynamic urban community, New Jersey is still not considered the place to go.
The face of New Jersey has changed
Most of New Jersey is a polycentric urbanized region with two core economic hubs outside the State. The North-East is a suburb of New York, the South-West is linked to Philadelphia. Only the most southern section still resembles the agricultural landscape that once defined the Garden State. Since 1857, when Llewellyn Park, America’s first planned suburb was established, the face of New Jersey has changed. Once its rural landscapes had been destinations for urban dwellers seeking a better life in a healthy environment. Government subsidies and a dense highway network further supported suburban sprawl after World War II.
New Jersey is the poster child of suburban sprawl
Today, most of New Jersey is ‘built out’ and has one of the highest population densities in the US, comparable to the Netherlands. The “corona move” further enhances existing development pressure. New high-rises emerge in Jersey City, just one subway stop away from Manhattan’s World Trade Center. “Transit Villages” with high density residential development and neo-colonial style townhouses pop up along the regional train lines providing easy commute to New York City. Today, New Jersey is the poster child of suburban sprawl, a continuous carpet of suburban homes, malls, office parks and distribution centers; all knit together by a dense highway network and the occasional open space.
The car makes New Jersey work
The car makes New Jersey work. Although people spend many hours in traffic jams, following the bike use example of Philadelphia and New York is unthinkable. New Jerseyans may ride a bike in a park but will use the car to get there. It is a challenge that the American ideology of independence and freedom, having worked well while conquering a vast continent, does not match the reality of a population density equivalent to the Netherlands.
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New Jersey’s “home rule”
Washington’s Revolutionary War was also a fight for independence from British feudal landownership. High property values make it difficult to contain sprawl through planning. Farmland preservation means that the State must acquire the development rights from the farmer and preserving remaining pockets of open space in suburbia requires local governments to outright buy the land. Further, New Jersey’s “home rule” gives independence to municipalities, which hold power over land use and other governance issues. Because property tax is the main source of municipal and school funding revenues, municipalities compete for wealthy residents, further exacerbating to the ongoing building boom.
A patchwork of ethnicities
The immigration waves of the last 25 years add to the cultural diversity of the state, forming a patchwork of ethnicities: New Brunswick in central New Jersey, once the hub for Hungarian immigrants, now has a large LatinX population, neighboring Highland Park holds a thriving Orthodox Jewish community. Adjacent Edison is home to residents of Indian and Pakistani descent. Crossing from Edison into Woodbridge, Oak Tree Road is a cultural and economic hub for the south-eastern Asian community, well known even beyond the State’s borders.
The aftermath of racist planning through redlining
It would be an illusion to believe that all people are living happily together. Since colonial times, various groups have held animosities and were jealous of each other. When an 1878 New Jersey state law allowed the breakup of towns into small boroughs, the number of municipalities in New Jersey increased from 94 to 564. The aftermath of racist planning through redlining (withholding government-backed mortgages from African Americans) and efforts to prevent lower income residents from moving into wealthier towns with better schools still results in extreme income disparities throughout the state. But with all its challenges, New Jersey is a fascinating place that deserves a better reputation.
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WOLFRAM HOEFER is Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Landscape Architecture at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey. He also serves as Director of the Rutgers Center for Urban Environmental Sustainability. He holds a doctoral degree from the TU München 2000 and is a licensed landscape architect in the state of North-Rhine Westphalia, Germany. He is interested in the role of urban plazas, neighborhood parks, or community gardens as places where people of diverse backgrounds can meet, interact, and possibly learn from each other.
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Read this article in topos 113.
Why architecture? What kind of design principles? What’s the formula for success? What’s architecture’s future role? topos had the opportunity to ask seven questions to mastermind Denise Scott Brown – architect, planner, urban designer, theorist, writer – and to Dan McCoubrey and Seth Cohen, the next generation of Venturi, Scott Brown and Associates, who carry on the firm’s tradition of creating places that enhance their contexts – from sensitive adaptations and additions to new buildings in historic areas.
Mastermind
Denise Scott Brown
Denise Scott Brown is an architect, planner, urban designer, theorist, writer and educator whose projects and ideas have influenced designers and thinkers worldwide. Working in collaboration with Robert Venturi over the last half century, she has guided the course
of Venturi, Scott Brown and Associates by serving on the broad range of the firm’s projects in architecture, and as Principal-in-Charge of urban planning, urban design and campus planning. Her experience in interdisciplinary work, teaching and research has
contributed to VSBA’s breadth and depth in architectural design.
- INSPIRED BY
I’m influenced and inspired by the landscape, architecture and social life of the South Africa I grew up in, and the America I have lived in. By a wide range of people, architects and non-architects equally. And by Robert Venturi, my creative partner. He and I greatly influenced each other. - WHY ARCHITECTURE?
My mom had studied architecture! In successive grades in school, I wanted to teach, write, study languages, travel and design buildings. At the age of 40 I realized I had done them all. - DESIGN PRINCIPLES?
Already as an 11-year-old child I was inspired by “greening the world”. - WHAT IS YOUR SPECIAL FOCUS?
My particular role involves bringing things together – tying architecture and urbanism into more interesting combinations – to make beautiful and beautifully usable places. - FORMULA FOR SUCCESS?
I think holistically, learn from the environment and use my ingenuity in conjunction with others through joint creativity, which can be a great success or hell on wheels. In the process, I hope for a life of fun and challenge. - OBSTACLES FOR THE PROFESSION?
Architects say how much they love Jane Jacobs and Little Italy, but when designing they think, “What did Le Corbusier do”? Then they impose their misunderstanding of Ville Radieuse on cities all over the world. - ARCHITECTURE’S FUTURE ROLE?
Many people, not only architects, make cities and towns, which is a process spanning social questions, urban economics
and sustainability. Architecture must deal with forces that form the city and must be a labor of love.
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Talents
Dan McCoubrey and Seth Cohen, VSBA
VSBA Architects & Planners is the next generation of Venturi, Scott Brown and Associates. The firm is now led by president and principal Dan McCoubrey and principal Seth Cohen. Dan was with Venturi, Scott Brown and Associates for 31 years and founded VSBA in 2012 after the retirement of Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown. Seth is an expert in the design and renovation of academic, civic and cultural facilities, and was with Venturi, Scott Brown & Associates for 14 years. VSBA strives to create healthy, sustainable places for living, learning and working.
- INFLUENCED BY
We’re fascinated by what’s come before and the variables that have shaped it, so it’s no surprise that Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown’s inclusionary approach resonates with us. - WHY ARCHITECTURE?
Architecture is a creative and collaborative undertaking that addresses real-world needs. It starts in the abstract and becomes a concrete part of something much larger. - DESIGN PRINCIPLES?
We discover our parameters by exploring different variables and bringing a hierarchy to them. We let the design evolve as parameters reveal themselves, and we look for purpose and meaning in every design decision. - WHAT IS YOUR SPECIAL FOCUS?
We love working in layered contexts where the new can have a rich dialogue with the existing. - FORMULA FOR SUCCESS?
Be good listeners, pay attention to details, be self-critical and have fun. - OBSTACLES FOR THE PROFESSION?
Expectations of immediate visualization, the speed of communication and the desire for instant responses all threaten the reflective percolation of ideas that enriches design. - ARCHITECTURE’S FUTURE ROLE?
Successful architecture must embrace many important roles while fulfilling identified needs, but it should also be readily adaptable in order to deal with future change.
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Find this article in topos 113.
