DAN HILL on EMERGENT URBANISM

In response to DAN HILL on EMERGENT URBANISM on the City of Sound Blog I wrote the following, relating to where I want my thesis to be directed towards this year.

Ground Up communities can be exclusive without the interventions of top down planning. Natural organisms do not develop into complete homogenity. The contestation of space - in Derridean thought as in nature - is essential for the development of community, and it's character, and will exist, weather we enter into a techno-driven planing model, the traditional authoritarian model, or a grass roots evolutionary/system theory model.

I too find the trend in the last 20 years to limit the discourse of emergent urbanism to 'apps' and input driven parametric designs frustrating.
I find recent projects like SenseableCity's work and even the GRL; clever and entertaining and they do provoke further dialogue... but since Cedric Price's Fun Palace, I am still struggling to find significant haptic enabling of urban community beyond the constraints of the configurable home or the exclusive efforts of various sub-cultures, which require either the circumvention or peaceful disobedience of restrictive stereotypes/policy to enable them to express ownership or appropriation of space.

Surely we can develop methods for 'exploiting' (I hate that term, I hope you can understand it in this context) these placemaking practices for the development of new urban models. There's 20 years of literature and experiements to support it and there's plenty of precedent that we can use to 'market' it (again, a sensitive term - please take it out of it's contemporary context) to both authorities and corporate administrators of public space alike.

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Urban Wilderness Action Center » Blog Archive » Quiet Within the Noise

I noticed this event through a freinds' facebook page and thought I'd contribute to the debate.
My own contribution (consisting of a surprisingly unbalanced anti-social approach) is awaiting approval from site admin but my comments regarding divergent assumptions on the part of a small collection of participants of the event are here:

Urban Wilderness Action Center » Blog Archive » Quiet Within the Noise: "It is interesting to observe the different culturo-social definitions which people are placing on the term ‘wilderness’. An interesting read on the divergent attitudes to ‘landscape’ is IMAGINED COUNTRY; SOCIETY CULTURE AND ENVIRONMENT by John Rennie Short. In it he addresses the concepts of Wilderness versus City versus Landscape, and then conducts Historo-cultural case studies in ‘English Novels’, The ‘American “Western”, and Australian Landscape Painting.
The qualitative and political connotations we attached to our definitions of an Urban Wilderness will greatly effect the outcome and methods we pursue to achieve it."

The Eclectic Alliance

Jane Jacob and Christopher Alexander had quite revolutionary views of the city, similar to the new urbanism movement that is developing more momentum now. In this Planteizen article (here on planetizen) the link is discussed between the social views and ideals of 3 groups are discussed:
*western films depicting the urban hero
*the ideals of Jane Jacobs in the 60's
*and New Urbanists in the turn of the millenia.

I point out that there are other groups which perform active roles that run parrallel and conplimentary to Jane Jocobs' and New Urbanist thought. The KravMaga movement, and some other martial arts movements through history have arisen out of a desire for social justice, peaceful streets and safe neighbourhods. Many other sub-cultural cliches also have extremely open and interactive adgenda's despite the negative stereotypes which they so often seem to attract.

Jane Jacobs', Christopher Alexander, New Urbanists, Martial Artists and Fringe-Sub-Cultural Groups make a Beautiful Eclectic Alliance.

While you are there, be sure to read many of the other interesting articles on Planetizen. I recommend subscribing to their newsletters :)

Recycled Public Space Architecture

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2010/02/ruins-of-electric-train-turned-into-terribly-cool-amusement-park-in-lima-photos.php?campaign=th_rss#ch01

CAVE CLAN EXPOSITION 2009

Finally! After 3 years waiting for the call... I was finally able to meet the Cave Clan. We met at a non-descript pub and then proceeded to explore 3 venues; Barfut's bat cave, The Lake and Pink House.

I first became interested in the CaveClan in 2006 whilst studying the effects situationalism could possibly have on architectural iterations in an attempt to more fully engage people with their surrounding built environment... I began to explore 'topside' (above ground), photographing back alleys, fireescapes and rooftops in the Brisbane CBD. Topside urban exploration, although if unenclosed is somewhat less clandestine, is also notably safer than urban spurlunking and draining, so I had opted to wait for a 'cave clan' expo before I started out on my own.

Barfut's Bat Cave started out below a trainline and contained a mix of both concrete, brick and blasted rock tunnels, exiting with a magnificent view of Brisbane. There were Bat's, and Roaches and Rats, and 8-bit music blarring out of a ghetto blaster :) It was amazing seeing the layers and weathering caused by stormwater continually moving over the surfaces, beneath restaurants whose smells wafted down to us, and beneath roads, whose traffic we heard, and past other bends in the tunnels, whose breeze we felt gratefully, being blessed with a good draft the entire journey.

The Lake began with a decent through a manhole and we walked through mostly concrete tunnel. We passed through an open air vent/overflow which provided a nice rest spot, the water below us bright red with oxidization. We then passed further along, coming to a large expansion chamber of Brick. The beautiful brick arches were somewhat spoilt by graffiti, consisting of some relics from the 80's punk movement, but many others more recent. Our journey was stopped prematurely by a high tide as we came to a junction, so we returned via a known manhole.

Our final exploration was of what is known as the 'Pink House'. The Pink House was absolutely filled with Graffiti and looked like it was under renovation. Evidence existed that it was still under occupation by squatters, but the overall effect was beautiful in the evening light. Not much remained of it's original fitout save for an old kitchen hood and some wiring. So we shortly left to rest and talk about what it is that makes the cave clan.

In our discussions about the 'dis'-organisation that is the cave clan, certain characteristics that define the brisbane Clan were discussed. The need for subtelty was important. Prime motivations for the effort it takes to remain below the radar include both avoiding the wrong type of people in attendance and avoiding the over-exuberant attentions of too-well-meaning-public-servants or Howard-era-fridge-magnet-waving-terrorist-hotline-regulars.

It is evident through the efforts taken to avoid collective attention, that the Cave Clan exists for the enjoyment of these forgotten urban spaces as they exist, in the rough. The entire time in attendance there was the subtle feeling of being under observation from within the group. They have been approached before by Writers seeking new places for their work, and other various characters. The Cave Clan appears to take pains to avoid these characters in order to protect both the integrity of their dis-orginaisation as will as the integrity of the drains and forgotten places for future generations of Urban Explorers. We spoke as well for the need for dis-orginizations to recruit new members and talent. There needs to be a future in all endeavours or else they become redundant and stagnant. In this respect the Cave Clan is no different. It requires it's participants to seek out new places of interest and bring them back to the group for their shared benefit.

Most of all... dis-organisations need to be enjoyable and without burden. Too much time spent on management (and worse still; micro-management) not only defeats the purpose of participants taking personal intiative in the group and contributing, but also removes the attraction for those that are committed to enjoying their clandestine activities. It needs to flow.

Beureucratic responses to The Cave Clan have been varied in the past. At one point senior members of the group were approached by Governments Agencies to provide information on potentially sensitive targets after 911. Then later was recommended for inquest because of it's apparent 'counter-culture' shadowy characters after the accidental drownings of two graffiti writer's in a popular drain named "Fortress" at sydney.

Finally: here is a link to the TED talk video of Miru Kim who does self-portraits in forgotten corners of the urban organism that is our forgotten places.

And here is a link to one of Brisbane's premiere' urban explorer's WEBSITE which is a Massive Mostache beyond Awesome.

To Build A Castle

A quote from Vladimir Bukovsky's 1977 auto-biographical account of Krushev's Russia and the The Krushev Thaw and his sufferance under the iron curtain for basic human-rights entitled; To Build a Castle: My Life as a Dissenter. (Viking Press NY, 1979)

A people, nation, class, party, or simply crowd cannot go
beyond a certain limit in a crisis: the instinct of self preservation proves too
strong. They can sacrifice a part in the hope of saving the rest, they can break
up into smaller groups and seek salvation that way. But this is their
downfall.
To be alone is an enormous responsibility. With his back
to the wall a man understands: "I am th people, I am the nation, I am the class,
and there is nothing at all." He cannot sacrifice part of himself, cannot split
himself up or divide into parts and still live. There is nowhere for him to
retreat to, and the instinct of self-preservation drives him to extremes - he
prefers physical death to spiritual death.
And an astonishing thing happens. In fighting to preserve
his integrity he is simultaneously fighting for his people, his class, his
party. It is such individuals who win the right for their comminuties to live -
even, perhaps, if they are not thingking of it at the time.
"Why should I do it?" asks each man in the crowd. "I can
do nothing alone"
And they are all lost.
"If I don't do it, who will?" asks the man with his back
to the wall.
And everyone is saved.
That is how man begins building his
castle.