Minimum space? – Joey

Everyone needs space.

Reduce that space to a minimum, a small room with a bed and a toilet bowl, that would equate to a prison cell. Is it justifiable to house citizens in such miserable housing conditions due to lack of land space, and escalating house prices? Are citizens living in jail cells without committing any crime?

I am from Singapore, and I have seen flat size reduce gradually as the population increases, and demands for more housing. Maybe that might be the story for many other nations suffering from housing woes too. It is no wonder why we hear stories of people breaking the law just to have a spot in a jail cell, for there, they are being fed and have a shelter over their heads.

Thus far, it is safe to establish that everyone needs space, and more space than just a jail cell, yes?

Look at the link below to have an idea what inspired this post:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2084971/Hong-Kongs-cage-homes-Tens-thousands-living-6ft-2ft-rabbit-hutches.html

Where to build those unwelcomed but necessary facilities? – Ming

When plan of waste is built in a city, people nearby may feel uncomfortable, worrying about the possible pollution. This worry could be increased especially by people’s mistrust of the government. But when such facility is necessary, how should the construction place be chosen, or how should the people who are supposed to suffer from the potential danger be compensated? The latter question actually appears to be a rather political one, but the origin of the problem is still concerning the city planning and spatial justice.

Sweden has come up with its highly efficient “waste to energy” system, which improves the problem from a novel perspective. They are even buying waste from other countries for they have been recycling their owns too fast.. However, the cost and technique requirement should also be taken into account. May there be no perfect but best solution, that’s exactly what we are looking for.

In Southern China, Residents Wary of the Government Protest a Plan to Burn Waste

Sweden is a Model of Sustainable Waste Management

http://greenconduct.com/news/2013/08/01/sweden-is-a-model-of-sustainable-waste-management/

Towards a Green Future with Swedish Waste-To-Energy: The World’s Best Example

Click to access forbranning_eng.pdf

BRAZIL’S WORLD CUP x HOSPITALS & EDUCATION

The last World Cup, which was realized in Brazil, gave visibility to a complex and large discussion about the interactions between the brazilian society and space. Nowadays, we must acknowledge the importance of the politic’s role in the urban development.

A good way to let the politics interact with the population and to understand the needs of each person is participating in the design and planning studies – all of it is crucial to avoid the irrational belief that some professionals seem to have on the effectiveness of architectural and urban designs to solve social conflict by themselves.

We have to keep in mind that urban space is (essentially) the space of politics, as Plato have said. It’s the space of dispute and conflict. In Brazil, we have movements from two crucial urban demands: the demand for public space and the nature in the city and the other demand for mobilty.

In my native Brazil, there are many movements and the last ones were about the better public transportation – which was repressed by the authorities. Those multiple movements give space for better democracies, effective government, tansparency and accountability.

But, the question is: why are people so angry about what they want? Firstly, we want a good public transportation. But not only this, we want to spend the public money with focus. Mobility is only one of the multiple serious issues in brazilian metropolises.

The reason why we were out in the streets in a great numbers asking for effective transparent and democratic governments is that the country’s prosperity isn’t reflected in the quality of the services that we get.

Designers and planners must understand the socio-political context where their plans and designs will take place. It’s necessary to understand legal systems and existing forms of partnership and financing. Enough said, if they don’t understand the necessities we have, they won’t be able to deliver infrastructures that work in the real world.

Playgrounds. Reinventing the Square

“Playgrounds. Reinventing the Square” was an exhibition in Museo Nacional Reina Sofía open during the summer. Although what I would like to share is the content of that exhibition I could only find the description. This exhibition is one of the main reasons why I chose to do this course, so I hope you find it as inspiring as I did.

Since the exhibition I couldn’t really stop thinking about the playgrounds that I went to as a child and how they might have influenced my upbringing. Also, I have been thinking about how your social environment conditions the parks you have access to (I haven’t seen many people from the 18eme going to Park du Luxembourg), even if they are considered public spaces. It got me thinking on what playground design might be more challenging (but fun) to children and I thought it could be interesting to share the thought with you and see if we can all get a bit creative and think of the perfect playground.

Avaliable in: http://www.museoreinasofia.es/en/exhibitions/playgrounds

Through a selection of works from different time periods and in different mediums (paintings, sculptures, installations, videos, photographs, archive devices…), this exhibition analyses the socialising, transgressive and political potential of play when it appears linked to public space. The premise of Playgrounds is twofold: on one side, the popular tradition of carnival shows how the possibility of using recreational logic to subvert, reinvent and transcend exists, if only temporarily. On the other side, there has been two fundamental constants in utopian imagery throughout history: the vindication of the need for free time (countering work time, productive time) and the acknowledged existence of a community of shared property, with a main sphere of materialisation in public space.

Sad Playground, as found by Peter Fischli on the World Wide Web

The historical-artistic approach to the political and collective dimension of spaces of play, on view in this exhibition, gets under way in the second half of the 19th century, a time that signals the start of the process of free time becoming consumption time; a process that threw the concept of public space into crisis as it started to be conceived not only as an element for exercising (political) control, but also one for financial gain. Thus, cities started to become the objects of rational and utilitarian planning, where the field of architecture was redefined, providing spaces for play with new values, built as one of the key points of the modern ideology of the public.

Violette Cornelius, Belleville-Ménilmontant, 1960. © Violette Cornelius / Nederlands Fotomuseum

This ideology was reshaped in the early decades of the 20th century; for instance, during this time projects were implemented that allowed the recovery and increased value of land that had been completely torn apart by war, turning it into areas of play aimed at nurturing children’s independence. The significant turning point in this process of restructuring took place during the 1960s, when, as demonstrated by numerous artistic and activist experiences and practices in recent decades, the festive subversion and anti-authoritarian outbursts from carnivalesque logic started to be employed as political tools attempting to generate other ways of making and contemplating the city, as well as organising community life.

 

Exhibition view Playgrounds. Reinventing the square, 2014

 

With some 300 works, the exhibition recounts a different history of art, from the end of the 19th century to the present day, whereby the artwork plays a part in redefining public space by exploring the city as a game board, questioning modern-day carnival, vindicating the right to laziness, reinventing the square as a place of revolt and discovering the possibilities of a new world through its waste. The exhibit takes the playground model as an ideological interrogation of an alienated and consumerist present.