New York City’s trail in the global pandemic has developed from a hotspot for Covid-19 infection-rates in the beginning of 2020, to significantly lower numbers towards the second half of the year. Density has implicitly been declared as one factor of rising infection rates in urban agglomerations worldwide. We want to take a look at another world metropolis – Berlin.
In May 2020, the New York Citizens Housing & Planning Council (CHPC) described an inherent correlation between density patterns in New York City and numbers of Covid-19 infections. When investigating a bit deeper into the “meaning” ofdensity and its importance to urban life, answering the question which role urban density patterns occupy in the characteristics and expressions of infection-rates remains complex.
Density in New York City
Looking at the official renderings by the CHPC, the picture remains unclear in terms of deriving numbers of infection rates to urban density pat-terns. Population density, measured by the num-ber of people per square mile living in an area, seems not to be associated with higher rates of Covid-19 in New York City, the surrounding area, or the U.S. but rather simplifying the term density to a mathematical scheme, not catching many aspects of urban and social life and contextualizes high infectionrates as an urban problem.
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Rather than seeing high rates of Covid-19 in denser neighborhoods and lower rates of the virus in less dense neighborhoods, lower density areas have some of the highest case rates in the city of New York. Some of the lowest rates, meanwhile, are present in the city’s densest neighborhoods in Manhattan. Another example of this “behavior” can be found in other countries, like Germany as well, where the highest infection-rates are not generally to be found in cities, but occur rural areas as well (March, 2021). While it is generally difficult to elaborate on why some places have been impacted more than others, there seems to be a clear lack of association between population density, as it is commonly defined and measured.
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Dreaded density?
The assumption that greater density in the sense of greater numbers of people in an absolute or relative sense, is to be equated with increased numbers of infections could lead to consequences in the form of a changing relationship towards cities and their inhabitants. For instance an increased degree of respect or even fear of dense places such as cities themselves, but also of public or social spaces and thus a changing behavior or perception of urban areas. This could lead to problems in the network of our highly interconnected and interdependent coexistence of cities, such as more individual traffic, a change in the use of urban infrastructures, changing social habits (e.g. „Social Distancing“ or the „Hand-Shake“) as well as physical and mental illnesses. It is very important to have this discourse, since in planning sciences, density is considered as an important factor for successful and well-designed cities – as it seems very important to keep the ability of human interaction and exchange through public and urban life.
A simplified derivation of the events of Covid-19, could lead to a general change in discourse in urban design, especially when considering the “healing” process of urban areas after the pandemic including the distribution of open and public spaces, urban infrastructure, medical care, cultural life and all aspects of how we live in the city. Not to forget: still trusting the cities as places to live.
Density in Berlin
Let’s have a look at the situation in another world metropolis, Berlin, Germany.
As Berlin is a large city-, when it comes to pure size in distance/area and slightly bigger than New York City (only considering the city boundaries of Berlin/5 boroughs of NYC, not the metropolitan area: Berlin ca. 870 mi2, NYC: ca. 780 mi2), it is considered to be a comparatively green city. This is particularly due to the fact that Berlin, while growing into the outskirts and reshaping former low-density villages and settlements in the past, ultimately was growing into large areas of landscape and rural settlements, also keeping some of these green places alive.
But there is a hook attached to the story: -like population density measurement, the green-factor of the city is relative and another mathematical expression since this also includes that Berlin’ s inner city areas are lacking a good amount of open and public-green spaces for high population density areas, which could be an important factor in the spread of a disease – but definately is crucial in a “pandemic lifestyle”, which often means beeing limited to the extents of the own flat. Berlin is counting 4 118 Inh/km² in 2019, New York’ s 5 Boroughs more than double this number, listing about 10.000 inhabitants per square kilometer in average. As mentioned before, these numbers can vary and rise up to 15.000 Inh/km² in some areas.
The desease affects everyone – but not everyone equally
The Corona virus is basically a danger to the general public, but figures suggest that certain groups among the (urban) population are more at risk than others. For instance, the age of a population seems to be a crucial aspect in this regard. This could therefore also be an indication of how the infection-figures and rates are distributed spatially in the urban context, considering “older” and “younger” places in the cities.
People beyond age 70, for example, are more than 40 times likely to die from Corona-infections than people under 40 worldwide. While this seems obvious, there is an indication of higher risks of infections among certain ethnic groups.
In the U.S., African Americans and Latinos are about three times more likely to contract the virus than white people. African Americans, Indians, Bangladeshis and Pakistanis are significantly more likely to die than whites in the UK. In an interview with the British „Guardian,“ an expert described the situation as follows: “We are all going through the same storm – but we are not in the same boat.”
This could be an indication that individual groups have a disadvantageous disposition with regard to spatial and density aspects within the socio-spatial fabric of cities.
Covid-19 distribution – a question of size?
If we take a step back, the search for explanations is complicated. The numerical material is thin and not particularly detailed. The amount of data points within Berlin’ s twelve districts is not sufficient for statistical analysis and full of “zeros”. It is also very likely that several factors play a role at the same time. Thus, it is difficult to establish a context, which data should be considered and which not.
Which data correlates with each other and ultimately provides information about spatial distribution patterns? Accordingly, it is only possible to look for reasons very roughly and with a great deal of caution. But there are probably factors that are more or less suitable as explanations.
In this regard, the population density factor is difficult to read. There is supposedly an obvious connection between population density and the number of infections. More people in less space is, of course, a conditions that makes it easier for the virus to jump from one person to the next. But, as already illustrated by the New York-example, there is growing indication that spatial density alone is not sufficient to adequately describe the distribution of infection-numbers. As spatial density in Berlin’ s districts does not explicitly correlate to the highest infection-numbers.
Initial studies also show that more people become ill on average in urban centers and that the phase of high infection-rates lasts longer. Here, different spatial aspects and set-ups can influence the occurrence of infections. Denser structures seem to promote the occurrence of infections through increased mobility and higher numbers of contacts.
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This can be demonstrated (using the example of certain cities in Asia and Italy) by means of concrete measures that were implemented in the study areas. Restricting mobility led to lower incidence rates, but population density still seems to be an independent factor when looking at the incidence of infection between dense and less dense areas. High density areas seem to develop higher incidence rates over a longer period of time, while lower density areas show high rates at a given time. This suggests that single events are “responsible” for high incidences in less populated areas. Thus, in less densely populated areas (study areas in China – Prefectures), more spiky and shorter outbreaks confined to specific neighbourhoods were often observed, while in more densely populated prefectures, protracted outbreaks of larger definitive size could occur, spilling over to more connected neighbourhoods.
Adding to this, certain properties of infectious diseases (respiratory diseases) themselves, also lead to different outcomes in terms of density. For certain infectious diseases (of the respiratory tract), the temporal clustering of cases in an epidemic (i.e. the shortest period of time in which most cases are observed) varies with increasing indoor population and socioeconomic and climatic factors.
Berlin‘s Covid-19 distribution in districts – a question of size?
For the example of Berlin, higher numbers over time in more dense areas seem to be true, but not linear. The district of Reinickendorf for instance is much more sparsely populated than the district of Pankow and yet much more affected, although not a specific event for supporting higher numbers is known. Berlin’ s “incidence leader” Neukölln has only almost half as many people per district area as Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg and yet is clearly ahead. This is not to say that population density does not matter at all. But at least with district-level data available, there is no indication of a trend. However, this may also be due to the fact that there are, of course, already huge differences within the districts.
In terms of spatial qualities, income patterns and presumably availability to work and stay at home and therefore individual mobility patterns, residential aspects like internal residential density among many other indicators.
A question of age?
As we have glimpsed on earlier, different age groups are affected by the virus at different levels. Berlin is not a specifically old or young city, but the spatial distribution of different age-groups might be a hint.It seems likely that the younger people in a society tend to have a larger radius of mobility, which (as we mentioned earlier) might support the danger to suffer or pass an infection.
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In addition, one often assumes a more carefree relationship with the virus, as well as certain age groups in Germany and thus also in Berlin (especially cities with a high number of students) tend to support types of housing (e.g.”Wohngemeinschaften”) that show a higher occupancy of apartments and thus a higher internal residential density. Another explanation for the pattern of nine infections is the age distribution in the city.
Age groups with the highest incidences here were, in descending order, the 15- to 19-year-olds, followed by the 20- to 24-year-olds and finally the 25- to 29-year-olds. Spatially, the districts of Mitte, Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg and Neukölln emerge as the districts with the highest incidences in these age groups. Here, too, it cannot be deduced that increased infection-figures are promoted by younger age groups, since the most severely affected districts show a different order. Here, too, we can conclude that there are more dynamic reasons for the incidence of infection.
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In the end, there is a lack of data for further analyses. Berlin’ s Senate carefully indicated a correlation between “the young” and rising infection-rates which seems to be rather insufficient to explain the incidence of infection in Berlin. Protecting the old and vulnerable in a society seems to be common ground. However, it has hardly been possible to protect these often called „vulnerable groups“ from being infected with the virus. Incidentally, this is not a significant problem for cities but is also strongly reflected in the distribution of the number of infections in rural areas. The reasons for this are complex, and here, too, the data-availability is not sufficient.
If one proceeds from the point of spatial distribution, the old people‘s and nursing homes as well as other day care facilities/institutions provide an obvious disadvantage. Although the residents of these facilities have the smallest mobility framework, they are still at great risk of contracting the Corona Virus, which is extremely tragic.
Whatever reasons lead to a lack of shield, perhaps because of their internal density, these types of facilities have been and will be hotspots of the Corona Virus spatially.
A data-crisis?
The crisis around Covid-19 shows that we are not yet able to understand the dynamics and processes that determine our cities and, while the ability to collect large amounts of data is an achievement, its correct interpretation, application and interdependencies need to be further refined. But, it also reveals a disparity, not only in a lack of data or methods, but in how we are living together considering quality and equality in economic, spatial and social aspects.
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More information is needed for a variety of aspects, perspectives need to redefined and refocused. What is the role of the ability to collect large amounts of data, which is usually not complete and how will it develop? What does this mean for interdependencies and follow-up decisions? How can cross-cutting data sets be selected and interrelated, and does working with mono-informatic data automatically imply a wrong “decision-chain”? Is this even dangerous? Which role does the living and working situation of the resident’s play? What role do places of social infrastructure, such as schools and nursing homes, play and how are they to be protected? Why do certain groups seem to be at higher risk than others and how can all be put on an equal footing in an urban context?
We must dig deeper to understand and address the elements of our urban environment that have contributed to the spread of Covid-19. Density seems to play a certain role, but it is definately not linear. The highest numbers of infections are not always found where the most people congregate. Neither in the example of New York, nor in the example of Berlin. This can be seen as a good sign for cities, especially in crisis management and urban recovery. It would be fatal for the development of cities and our society if they were to be perceived as places of danger and uncertanty in the public eye of the future.
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All images (without further information): © Tim Nebert, shortcutsstudio
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Bibliography and sources
Data availability:
All data was collected from publicly available data sources (news articles, press releases and published reports from public health agencies)
Epidemiological and spatial data used in this study are available via Github (https://github.com/Emergent-Epidemics/Covid_crowding). All Data-Sets in regard to Covid-19 numbers in Berlinhas been processed from an official sources as of January 2021.
Data: Covid-19 erkrankungen | Offene Daten Berlin (o. J.): in: Open Data Portal Berlin, [online] https://daten.berlin.de/tags/Covid-19-erkrankungen [20.01.2021].
With the United Kingdom’s Brexit, Northern Ireland will also have to leave the EU – although most people here want to stay in the European Union. There is great concern that a hard border could revive the Northern Ireland conflict. Especially as the border region already offers few prospects. Toby Binder’s photo series “Wee Muckers” accompanies teenagers from six different Protestant and Catholic neighbourhoods of Belfast and offers a glimpse into the everyday life of a whole generation.
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»If I had been born at the top of my street, behind the corrugated-iron border, I would have been British. Incredible to think. My whole idea of myself, the attachments made to a culture, heritage, religion, nationalism and politics are all an accident of birth. I was one street away from being born my ‘enemy’«. Paul McVeigh, Belfast-born writer and author of the novel ‘The Good Son’.
Old conflicts may recur, compromising the youth’s future prospects
Photographer Toby Binder has been documenting the daily life of teenagers in British working-class communities for more than a decade. After the Brexit referendum he focussed his work on Belfast in Northern Ireland. There is a serious concern that Brexit will threaten the Peace Agreement of 1998 that ended the armed conflict between Protestant Unionists and Catholic Nationalists who live in homogeneous neighborhoods that are divided by walls till today. Old conflicts may recur, compromising the youth’s future prospects.
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Nevertheless, being underage, most teenagers were not allowed to vote in the referendum. Problems they struggle with are similar – no matter which side they live on. And whatever the effects of Brexit will be, it‘s very likely that they will strike especially young people from both communities.
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Whatever comes of Brexit, the ramifications will be felt by communities on both sides
The images of the project “Youth of Belfast” were photographed in six different neighborhoods of Belfast. Binder’s photo essay depicts the ubiquity of unemployment, drug crime, and violence afflicting Belfast’s youth, whether they live on one side of the “Peace Wall” or the other. Whatever comes of Brexit, the ramifications will be felt by communities on both sides. The project accompanies teenagers in six different Protestant and Catholic neighborhoods, providing an intimate and immediate insight into the daily lives of a whole generation.
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“Wee Muckers – Youth of Belfast” is a long term photography work by Toby Binder. The hard cover book is published by German Kehrer Verlag.
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The topos issue 104 deals with the topic “border” from different perspectives and sheds light on the impact borders have on people, political processes, landscapes and urban space.
Germany’s first solo exhibition of works by Syd Mead, the visionary of utopian film worlds and futuristic designs, will be on view at the O&O Depot Gallery in Berlin from 14 November 2019.
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Since the 1970s, Syd Mead, who created groundbreaking designs for companies such as Ford, Chrysler, Philips Electronics and Sony, has worked for Hollywood. For legendary science fiction films, he created trend-setting and breathtaking worlds that continue to influence film, industrial and game designers as well as architects and urban planners to this day.
When O&O Baukunst won the competition for the Urbane Mitte Am Gleisdreieck in Berlin against international competition, it was clear to the project architect Markus Penell (O&O Baukunst) that he wanted to make inspiring concepts of visionary urban development tangible beyond architectural means. The idea arose to win Syd Mead, one of the most important visionaries for the city of the future, for an exclusive presentation of his works in Berlin. In cooperation with entrepreneur Marc F. Kimmich (COPRO) and curator Boris Hars-Tschachotin, O&O Baukunst was able to realize a representative exhibition entitled Syd Mead – Future Cities.
Syd Mead: fiction overlaps with the present
Star Trek: The Motion Picture, Tron, Blade Runner or Aliens, Mission to Mars and Elysium belong to Syd Mead’s best-known productions, for which he developed entire cities and mobility concepts with flying cars, autonomous vehicles, space ships. His visions continue to shape the popular image of the future to this day. In his designs he has foreseen many technical achievements that have become reality or are about to become reality.
Syd Meads picture worlds are always characterized by functionality and mostly a positive idea of the future. But for the dystopian cult film Blade Runner, Syd Mead created the vision of a bold and apocalyptic city in which huge skyscrapers dominate the skyline. Now, in November 2019, fiction overlaps with the present, for the 1982 film is set in Los Angeles 2019.
The Exhibition
In the exhibition Syd Mead – Future Cities, O&O Depot brings together a selection of his iconic drawings and gouaches with a focus on urban spaces, including motifs for Blade Runner. A total of 33 originals invite an exclusive look into the creative world of Syd Mead. Furthermore, Syd Mead talks about his works, his inspiration and his career in a brand-new short documentary.
SYD MEAD – FUTURE CITIES
14. November 2019 till 30. January 2020
Opening hours: Mon – Fri 3 – 7 pm and by arrangement
O&O Depot
Leibnizstr. 60, 10629 Berlin-Charlottenburg
Vernissage
Thursday, 14. November 2019, 7 pm
Skanderbeg Square, the economic centre of Tirana and a place of great symbolic value for the whole of Albania, is the result of the 1939 urban renewal plan under the occupation of Italy. During the dictatorship Enver Hoxhas, it was a parade ground and a busy traffic square in the 1990s. Its name goes back to the national hero Gjergj Kastri, who still today represents identity, integrity and national independence for many Albanians against the background of centuries of oppression in the country. Its redesign also has a long history, accompanied by controversial discussions.
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“A ‘no’ in many countries signals the end of a discussion. In Albania it can herald the start of a negotiation.” (Alan Andoni in The Xenophobe’s Guide to the Albanians)
What does it mean today, to make a 15 million euro project in the center of a country where an experienced construction worker earns around 25 euro per day? If the duty of the state is to offer its citizens security, would it not be better to invest in a welfare system, in social housing, in infrastructure in peripheral areas … instead of investing in such a symbolic space? Although it is hard to argue against these claims—who could be against a welfare state?—the recent history of Europe makes a case for not neglecting the power of symbolism, for a clear narrative of togetherness, for the need to represent, in a tangible way, what we aspire to be. If we look at Belgium, we see that similar investments—I think for instance about the Stadshal in Ghent—have raised similar discussions, with similar arguments. It only goes to show that this debate—all differences considered—goes beyond Albania.
Redefine community relations by confronting them
The question of Skanderbeg Square is a political and a personal one: it is not about what Albania is today; it is a project about what the people who will use the square would like to become. And it is exactly in this “becoming” that the physical aspect of Skanderbeg plays its role: as a space where the tensions between “what is” and “what could be” are played out. It is about making spaces that make it possible to organize the big events in life, as well as to perform daily, in many small ways. Spaces that are not reduced to a set of predefined functions but focus on producing a broad range of possible situations that invite you to relate to people, to redefine community relations by confronting them, even just through contemplation while watching how people react and connect in such a wide-open emptiness and its multiple borders.
Architecture not as a spectacle, but as a stage
Skanderbeg Square is a place to be, to become aware of yourself, and also to look back and reflect. It creates a ground, as a background, a common ground. Its openness generates a tension, with a center that is not occupied yet, but that issues an invitation, even a challenge, to be occupied. An empty center, creating a sense of infinity. A sense of belonging, as a choice. Architecture not as a spectacle, but as a stage, creating conditions to perform public life. A common space, with a multiplicity of situations, of possible actions. This range of spatial situations is necessary to produce a common world, whether on the scale of a house, a building, a square, a city.
Context as a resource
Designing a space with this ambition starts with acknowledging the fact that Skanderbeg Square—in its 2008 state—already contained these qualities. It was a place that inspired a sense of awe, and that had a lack of definition that inspired a feeling of openness. In this sense, the task at hand was to look closely at what was already there, and to do so with the eyes of the foreigner, who can look beyond what things have ended up meaning. To discover how things were put together, what remains of them when you take them apart, and then to put them back together again, in a new set of relationships, appealing to evolving sensibilities.
Designing in such a space, laden with history and aspirations, is to reframe and reveal, like creating a new image that contains the previous ones. It is about not placing yourself in a binary opposition of old versus new, but about seeing history and the heritage that it has produced as a long sequence of ideas and interventions, and seeing the current intervention as simply one of many, which have come and which are still to come. Inscribing yourself in this long history is also considering context as a resource. Like a palimpsest, it contains a story that has been written and will be rewritten many times. It is a living thing that needs to transform to stay alive.
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Contrast between timeless frame and chaos and proliferation of life
In the case of Skanderbeg Square, the intervention consists of inserting a new form—a square that is also a pyramid—and surrounding it with a green belt. These two together create a frame that is also a spatial sequence, and a decision on how things relate to each other. Setting the frame is setting the stage, the general hierarchy; deciding what can be dominant, and what cannot be; deciding what is changeable and what is not. The decision to see the center as empty is also to see it as a civic space, not serving a commercial logic, instead allowing all remnants of history to be equally present, together creating a pantheon of beliefs and ideologies. The decision to access this center through a dense belt that equalizes buildings and nature, is also to imagine how people will go through that sequence, and how it will structure their experience, affect their bodies and mind. To set the frame implies to structure life and to use the autonomy of architecture to create a sense of timelessness, a structure that will survive in time. The project derives its character from the contrast between this timeless frame and the chaos and proliferation of life.
Creating a frame
This is a quality that architecture can offer, a quality that is so easily forgotten: to step out of a permanent present. It is something that we deeply crave, that we long for: to live with a reference to the past and an outlook towards the future. A society where this time horizon is not created, where nothing is institutionalized, is scary and gives rise to fear and populism. It is this frame that creates the possibility for engagement, as a starting point for a negotiation, an activation. The goal of this frame is not to give a definite order: it should just give enough structure for freedom to cling onto. The frame is only an opportunity to reset or to unsettle, not an end in itself. Fixing the frame is indeed dealing with things past, but is equally looking towards the future, and taking the responsibility to prescribe it, acknowledging that fixing something is the necessary condition to structure the future. By offering resistance, new liberties appear. In that sense, creating a frame is also to claim a certain safety, a safety that gives us the comfort to feel connected and be free.
Paradoxically, to design such a frame only works if the focus is not on the frame itself. It is a concept that has to be liberated from an all too aesthetical debate. It is important to realize that the project does not stop with setting the frame. The project is not in the form, more in the tension it creates. Especially with a project on such a scale, the decision to “let life arrange itself” would not amount to much. With the frame, a new set of rules also has to be set; opening up to and inventing “new ways to play.” After setting that frame and making the decision as to what is negotiable and what is not, the afterlife of the project and the conditions and practices that make it bloom, can and should be actively shaped.
Shape the afterlife in two different ways
In hindsight, the huge opportunity we had was that the process of designing the square was interrupted due to municipal elections. When we picked the design back up five years later, we saw to our own astonishment that the gardens we had imagined were actually very sterile: they were conceived only to support the idea of framing the void, but did not have a real quality and logic of their own. Also, the ease with which the design had been cancelled made us realize that the design had no real ownership beyond the closed circle of politicians and municipal technicians we had been dealing with. It was a wake-up call, to start thinking beyond the frame and to organize and design the tension it generates. When the project restarted, we took up to shape the afterlife in roughly two different ways.
First of all, we started seeing the design of the square as an opportunity to intervene in the metabolism of the context: to look at the conditions that shape it, and to set up the conditions that will allow it to stay alive. In the case of the square, this meant caring as much about the car traffic that has been expelled from the square as about the pedestrian zone that was freed up by this move. It also meant getting deeply involved in the resource management: how and where to get the stones, the plants – what kind of stones, what kind of plants? This resource management is an approach in which interdependencies come to play a big role: imagining how the plants will stand changing climate conditions, and how they can start to become a system of their own, both functional and resilient.
The space as an urban ecosystem
We designed the space as an urban ecosystem: something that protects us from the climate by creating a new climate, fusing natural and artificial elements, and beyond that, to also see human beings as part of the equation, which in turn puts the focus on creating an ecology of practices. Designing these systems comes with setting up new ways of doing things, even if it is as simple as avoiding pesticides. These mentality shifts are challenges that are, by default, complex and multidisciplinary, requiring a discussion between fields that use vastly different vocabularies. Here, the frame merely serves as a starting point. It is the beginning that is set to generate an open-ended system that has economic and cultural impact, and that can grow beyond what the project is today.
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Designing for empowerment
A second way we started to activate the frame is by imagining how it will allow others to contribute. We could call this designing for empowerment, be it in the dialogue process during the design or in the opportunities for appropriation generated on site.
We organized an intense three-month period of interaction, activating different stakeholders who in previous conditions would only have heard about the square once the elections came up. Setting up the space and the time to discuss, critique and intervene in the project was a very rewarding experience. New ideas came out of it, and new investments were also triggered. The idea to thematize a garden and link it with the rehabilitation of the national library is just one example that is a direct result of opening up the design process to so many different voices. One of the new investments that was triggered was the integration of the entry zone of the Tirana International Hotel.
A place for appropriation
The energy that we felt during these discussions inspired us to design the square even more than before as a place for appropriation. We developed the architecture so that limits provoke productive moments. Designing a chair that is 80 centimeters wide produces a proximity that can be annoying or comfortable, depending on the person you are sitting with. In providing that “obstacle,” using something suddenly provokes a choice, a choice that makes an encounter meaningful. Designing for empowerment also means that you become aware that these things make a difference, because what they reveal (or enable) touches on every single person in an equal way. Seeing the square as this multitude of touch points is seeing the frame as a system that produces a rich and complex environment with a very simple set of basic elements. And to produce with those elements a space that produces a memory because of all the actions that it has triggered, the encounters that have happened, that have been performed. What we can wish for is that this type of space will go beyond the symbolic with its infinite capacity to trigger new practices. This is what we imagine when we talk about frame.
Multiple-design approach
During a learning curve that took us nine years, designing the frame has come to stand for managing different design logics at once, from designing the form over designing the metabolism to designing for empowerment. By now, the combination of these three logics allows us to manage the often contradictory forces a project is dealing with. This approach helps to structure complexity, while still allowing it to remain fully and forcefully present.
We have learned to use the tension between these different logics as enriching rather than limiting; this multiple-design approach allows us to conceptualize the multiple ways needed to produce a common world. It requires a process with points where one needs to say no—as architects have been trained to do—but even more points where it is much more interesting to say “yes, but.” It is an attitude that sees tension or conflict as an opportunity to provoke different realities, and to see these realities not as something that should be reduced, but as situations that can be revealed and can even surpass themselves. Like in a good improvisation, a “yes but” attitude is a way to deal with conflict as a source of innovation, or as a provocation for more creativity and imagination. The Skanderbeg Square project has thought us to see “a good plan” as a way to structure our awareness to be able to react to different circumstances in a diversified way; design as a method to prepare ourselves for the opportunities hidden in the process.
Intentions that go beyond the square
Skanderbeg Square acts as a proof that we—everyone involved in the process—can go for results that are very rich, engaging, and qualitative. Overall it also shows that the Albanian context can be “taken seriously.” In that sense, it is a display of the capabilities of the context, of its capacity to make things happen and produce excellent results when activated in the right way, when people work together as they did for the square. The result of Skanderbeg should not be presented as an end or a conclusion, but rather as the start of a new dynamic, a first step inaugurating a string of projects aiming at improving the urban condition of Tirana. The project was a first attempt at defining leading intentions that go beyond the square, that have a longer time span.
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An opportunity to produce themselves
During the opening ceremony, the point of reference was still the statue of Skanderbeg. Let us hope for Albania that it will eventually be the openness of the square. This is also how we can imagine the role of architecture and public space today: not as the confirmation of a solid identity, but as the frame to investigate and offer means to construct an open and fluid one, offering the test zone for the citizens we would like to become. Public space can be a space for potential, a platform.
In the end, the project has delivered not a fixed frame, but a set of situations, potentially there, ready to be embodied. With boundaries as places, as possible point of connections that generate openness, at once orchestrated and by chance. The goal is that this openness will invite others to take over: to use the stage as an opportunity to produce themselves. But the truth is: this is something that one cannot really plan, but only hope for.
The inherent problem of a space is indeed that it is nothing but space. The potential it offers only exists when brought to life: performed and used by the people that believe in it, that make it happen every day. Witnessing the beginning of a renewed ecosystem grow in the heart of your city. Looking at historical buildings you cannot relate to, but still accept as part of your history. Walking barefoot in the center of the capital, using space as if it were private. Creating this possibility is a strong sign that an institution, a city, a state can give.
It is a striking fact that 25 percent of Albania’s population lives in a 2.5 km radius of this square. If they decide to, they can use Skanderbeg Square as part of their daily urban system. If they do so, it will not be the space, but their common practices that can have a lasting impact.
A green learning oasis in Berlin-Kreuzberg by Gruppe F offers the students of Galilei primary school an interactive space for learning and playing in the open. In 2015, Gruppe F won the ideas competition for the green classroom and realized the project between fall 2017 and spring 2018.
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Wild grass, huge plants, and colorful blossoms adorn the raised flower beds around the Green Classroom of the Gailei Schule in Berlin-Kreuzberg. When walking through the school’s entrance, one would not expect such a green retreat on the school premises amidst the hustle and bustle of the city. After wriggling through the building and crossing the second part of the courtyard, one reach the school garden. Here it is obvious that the concept of the Green Classroom is used and embraced even one year after its introduction.
In 2015, an ideas competition for the Green Classroom was held. Back then, the site contained a small pond. When landscape designers Gruppe F won said competition, the pond and a wall were removed and the green learning venue for the students of the Galilei primary school was realized between fall 2017 and spring 2018.
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Outdoor Classes
On an area of 0.3 hectare, classes can take place here in the fresh air. Instead of chairs, students use sitting steps and wooden beams that are shaded by two willow trees and offer space for an entire class. The raised beds in the sun house a variety of different plants and those in the shade contain berry fields. A gardening shed and compost patch complete the green learning learning oasis.
Urban Space as an Interactive Learning Venue
In the Green Classroom, theory meets practice. Subjects discussed in class can be illustrated with real examples and put into practice.
In addition, students can pitch in themselves and learn how to take care of plants. The beds are assigned to different classes, so that a variety of colorful flower boxes has grown.
This way, the Green Classroom not only is an alternative classroom but also an interactive and social learning venue for the students.
Especially for cities like Berlin that offer little room for private gardening, the Galilei School’s project is the perfect opportunity to teach young students about nature and spark their interest in gardening.
MakeCity is an international festival for architecture in Berlin. The event has derived from the current situation: Berlin as a young and stimulating European metropolis that changes constantly – with regard to politics, civil society, space and architecture.
More than 120 exhibitions, wokshops, guided tours and oral presentations take place within 18 days and discuss perspectives and projects on urban and civic alternatives. For a nine-day conference, experts on urban redevelopment meet at the festival center.
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Showing Alternatives And Opening Discussions
In all of Europe, the financial crisis has led to a fundamental and conceptual mind shift towards the role of the general public. Austerity has pruned social and public services, which then led to a new level of public engagement and the rise of alternative economic models for urban redevelopment and urban resilience.
Berlin’s new governing coalition has put down a precise social agenda – including extensive goals for subsidized housing and the reanimation of the so-called Berliner Mischung (Berlin mixture) where different cultures and subcultures exist in close vicinity. To battle the real estate speculation in the city, district administrations have started to rebuy and protect tenements, construction sites are now planned in cooperation with initiatives from civil society.
Those are contributions for more social and cultural interaction and participative production and design processes. MakeCity is set to become a platform for international exchange and to establish contacts between urban inhabitants, local authorities, architecture and progressive urban management. The festival offers ways to drawing a social contract for urban change. The goal is to build bridges between points of view that often have become polarized and rigid.
The festival takes place from June 14 to July 1, 2018. For more information visit makecity.berlin.
Time never stands still. It proceeds, unstoppably, second after second, drawing people with it in its wake. Taking a moment to pause seems impossible. You can feel this rush most of all in the urban space of big cities. But what happens if someone decides to take a break anyway, stands still, becomes attuned to the surrounding? The artwork created by André Lemmens achieves this and shows how valuable deceleration is. It comprises snapshots of urban life that seem frozen in time. They allow viewers to experience and relive their everyday surrounding in all its particularity.
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Less is more
The artist creates an impression of depth by computer-based separation of photographic information. He first prints color information on one plexiglass panel and then black-and-white information on another panel before putting them together. Viewed at an angle, this creates an impression of spatial depth, with colors in the background and black silhouettes in the foreground. „I create an abstraction of the urban situation“, André Lemmens explains. „Reality is different from what I show in my work: In a real-life situation, people are often in the background. However, I draw them to the foreground by placing the black-and-white panel on top.”
One of his compositions, titled „Hamburg Hafen City“, shows how the configuration and delineation of architectural objects structures space. A group of five individuals is situated in the lower center of the image. They are represented as silhouettes, similar to the surrounding space. Through this act of reduction, Lemmens retraces the structure of the city. All of a sudden, parallels, symmetries and grids emerge in the viewer’s field of vision – design elements that are often overlooked in the hustle and bustle of everyday life. André Lemmens’ interest in urban space isn’t accidental. The artist, 51 years of age, is actually an architect. „The whole art thing developed back when I studied architecture“, Lemmens explains. He owns an office in Kleve and studied at the Düsseldorf University of Applied Sciences. The design-oriented courses there awakened a passion for art, and as a result, André Lemmens sees himself as both: architect and artist. In his case, one cannot exist without the other. He states that „there are parallels between my images and my work as an architect. What I do as an artist finds a way into my architecture: A certain feeling, spirit and depth that can be found in my art is also visible in my buildings. I’m sure of that.“
Hitting the pause button
He never intended to create photographs in a classical sense, they merely serve as the basis for the development of art. Even mobile phone pictures are sufficient for this approach. Should an appealing urban situation appear on TV, André Lemmens simply hits the pause button and takes a picture of the scene. „Hitting the pause button“ aptly paraphrases his artwork. It represents vibrant cities that suddenly stand still. Background sounds fade into silence, only static noise can be heard. This noise conveys the actual image by use of blur as a stylistic device. In some of his works Lemmens increases the impression of vagueness by covering the panels with a layer of white emulsion.
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Social criticism, in a low voice
Lemmens emphasizes architectural structures and characteristics of urban space, for instance a significant element of a building, horizontal and vertical lines or colored surfaces. „The realistic image is often merely gray and ugly. By reducing it the way I do, something new and beautiful can emerge.“ Lemmens refrains from criticizing particular urban spaces. Rather, his point of view is: „I want to capture places at a particular moment in time. Places that people pass through every day without actually taking notice of them.“ By capturing these places, a situation receives a new meaning: „I assume a critical perspective in my work only indirectly.
People have such a short attention span, they hardly hold on to something – and hardly reflect on cities, places or architecture.“
Lemmens’ photographic work shows abstracted places and situations in New York as well as German cities such as Frankfurt, Munich, Stuttgart, Augsburg or Bremen. As Lemmens says, „along the way I developed a keen sense for particular situations or architecture, for diagonal lines, for surfaces, and for people.“ His photographic work matured in a way similar to his architecture: „with time, one’s work becomes richer in terms of density and experience. The houses that we are currently building are more mature than ten, twenty years ago.“ They appear more self-aware, possess a less ambiguous canon of forms, and have a signature quality.
Good things come to those who wait
Lemmens’ art develops within a process. Sometimes a project remains in a digital folder for a number of years, gains patina, until Lemmens blows away the dust and rediscovers something, sees something that he hadn’t noticed earlier. He quickly develops a feeling for an interesting aspect of a photo – not so much regarding the composition of the image, but rather how the photo changes over the course of time. Lemmens wasn’t always as confident about his work as he is today. “In the first fifteen years of creating art I worked myself to death. I never arrived at a point where I could have stopped searching for something, over and over again.” But this work in itself eventually became a source of tranquility. As the architect admits, “it relaxes my mind.” Without effort, observers can feel this sense of calm, making them pause for a moment. André Lemmens creates worthwhile moments of deceleration in turbulent times.
From May 10th to 13th the Kleve-based architect/artist’s works will be on display in Munich at the upcoming ARTMUC art fair.
In Moscow the territory around the Polytechnic Museum will be transformed into “Museum Park” – a well thought out public space, whose structure answers the needs of the Museum and its visitors, as well as intensive transport and pedestrian flows.
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How to turn the forecourt of a museum into a vibrant and busy place of urban life? Think of a place that competes on equal terms with parks, cinemas and restaurants. The new Museum Park (‘Muzeiny Park’) – based on a concept of the award winning Japanese architect Junya Ishigami – is a pedestrian zone and public space that will help to draw city dwellers into the Polytechnic Museum. The concept connects Metro exits, Museum building entrances, routes followed by both Polytechnic Museum visitors and regular pedestrians, transport flows and the logistical requirements of the Museum.
The new Museum Park
The idea itself is simple and groundbreaking at the same time: Ishigami’s proposal is based on activating the semi-subterranean basement level of the Museum by inclining the ground level around the building and planting the slopes and courtyard spaces with trees. As a result, a park would be formed both within and around the Museum, increasing the total area to 12 000 m².
An amphitheatre for urban life
In 2017 on this basis the architectural bureau Wowhause and therewith the development team directors Dmitry Likin and Oleg Shapiro will create a park-amphitheatre, an open-air foyer that will become an extension of the spaces inside the building, to which it will form a prologue. The concept aims to unite the new pedestrian zone in the building’s basement level with the outdoor area alongside Lubyanka Square, attracting pedestrians and providing them with a convenient and pleasant route into the Museum complex. During winter time the entire subterranean level will be covered with a roof and provided with heating to ensure that Museum Park will be used all year long frequently as a place that invites both museum visitors and strollers to stay.
Over the last 15 years, London has witnessed the revival of a distinctive element in its spatial matrix – the urban square – as a place of encounter, exchange, and civic identity. There are lessons to be learnt from recently realized urban projects.
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Were the homebound students of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry to arrive at King’s Cross – amongst the buzz created by the 140.000 passengers using the station each day – they would be enchanted by the scale of recent change outside. Over the last 15 years, London has witnessed the revival of a distinctive element in its spatial matrix, the urban square, as the place of encounter, exchange, and civic identity. London’s urban garden square, of which there are more than 600, has shaped the city’s distinctive layout since the 17th century, and with it, to some extent, the image of public space today. Yet in a dynamic city like London, there are many facets to the way public space manifests.
Since the mid-1990s, London’s population has again been booming: In February 2015, the city became home to more people than at any time in its history. More than 8.6 million now live in London, and it’s estimated it will be home to 11 million by 2050. This growth, however, is constrained by the green belt, resulting in higher densities and increased demand on public space to perform harder. Triggered by the success of Royal de Luxe’s The Sultan’s Elephant spectacle in 2006 and, of course, the Olympics of 2012, Londoners and visitors share increasing expectations that streets and spaces will play a more prominent part in everyday life. The transformation of Trafalgar Square illustrates this point: The number of people using the square has increased 13 times since its redevelopment in 2003.
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Many more spaces have seen intensification of use with support from the Mayor of London’s office, be it through Ken Livingstone’s 100 Public Spaces programme or the incumbent Boris Johnson’s Great Outdoors, mostly in areas with good public transport connections and high footfall.
Following an international competition, architects Stanton Williams were announced in 2010 as winners to design the new square as the final part of Network Rail’s £500 million redevelopment of King’s Cross and St. Pancras stations. A triangular space opens up the area previously occupied by a rather nondescript concourse extension and reveals Lewis Cubitt’s stark, double-arched brick station façade from 1852 for the very first time. Measuring more than 7.000 square metres, the granite-paved area acts predominantly as an open-air extension of the King’s Cross arrivals concourse that, together with John McAslan’s semi-circular station annex, has transformed how people access rail and underground services.
Read more in Topos 91 – Urban Squares and Promenades.
