Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Handmade Urbanism
Handmade Urbanism
ngin
architect, designer, and activist. She works in various elds
such as design, architecture, city, production and artwith
a focus on social, cultural, and economic aspects. She is also
active in the city where urban regeneration or gentrication
developments take place, by advocating sustainable and partic-
ipatory models for the alternative visions. She is the president
of the NGO, Human Settlement Association; and also developed
the concept of the Made in S is hane project and initiative, as
well as participatory and sustainable practices in order to stop
the demolishment of Sulukule.
Chapter author and interviewer
Demet Mutman
is an architect who focuses on cities, urban development strat-
egies, and possibilities of alternative spatial transformations
by using short-term activities. She has a PhD from Istanbul
Technical University, where she researched alternative models
of urban transformation by examining short-term activities
and designs as spatial catalysts. In 2009, she was responsible
for the management of the Deutsche Bank Urban Age Award
Istanbul. She is part of the Archis Interventions Divided Cities
Network, which concentrates on the politics of space within
divided regions that do not necessarily have visible borderlines.
Mutman currently works at T.C. Maltepe University Faculty of
Architecture in Istanbul and focuses on architectural and urban
design, alternative readings of the city, and public spaces.
Members of the Jury for the Award in Istanbul:
Richard Burdett
Director, Urban Age & Centennial Professor in Architecture and
Urbanism, London School of Economics
Arzuhan Dog an Yalindag
Chair, Turkish Industrialists and Businessmens Association
(TUSIAD)
ag lar Keyder
Professor of Sociology, Bosphorus University
Behi Ak
Cartoonist, author, architect
Enrique Norten
Founder, TEN Arquitectos, New York and Mexico City & Miler
Chair of Architecture, University of Pennsylvania
Anthony Williams
Former Mayor of Washington, DC and is the Executive Director
of the Global Government
Han Tmertekin
Architect, Mimarlar Design, & Visiting Professor, Harvard
Graduate School of Design
128 MEXICO CITY PROFILE Average density [metro/city]
9,300
Inhabitants/km
2
5,937
Inhabitants/km
2
Diversity
Indigenous, Spanish, British,
Irish, Italian,German, French,
Dutch, Syria, Lebanon, Chinese,
Korean, South and Central
American, Mexican
Population [metro/city]
20.4
million
11.2
million
Area occupied [metro/city]
7,854
km
2
1,495
km
2
Gross domestic product (GDP)
390
[$bn at PPPs]
144 MEXICO CITY INITIATIVES
Santa Fe is a neighborhood on the west side of Mexico
City characterized by extreme socioeconomic contrasts:
one can nd an edge city with ofce towers that em-
body Mexicos participation in the global economy and
shanty towns over ravines existing side by side.
In 2005, Iberoamericana Universitya private insti-
tution located in Santa Fecreated the Coordination of
Social Responsibility to build a bridge of cooperation
between the different university departments and the
marginalized areas of the surroundings. Among other
initiatives, they fostered the project Recovering Spaces
for Life, which focuses on the recovery of public spaces
in the neighboring ravines, through different activities
that create a sense of belonging in dwellers and pro-
motes the leadership of community members.
Under the guidance of the university, different lo-
cal groups worked together to recover the riverbank,
which was previously used as a sewer. They xed the
faades of houses along one kilometer of the river
and built a green pedestrian corridor that goes from
the riverbank to a formerly abandoned alley uphill,
now accessible to disabled people and featuring a
playground. They also built a greenhouse for grow-
ing tomatoes in what used to be a garbage dump, and
transformed a residual space in a corner street with
stairs into an open cultural forum. They also run pro-
grams for psychosocial risks prevention, technological
literacy, job training; and they created a network that
allows the people from those marginalized neighbor-
hoods to nd jobs at the business area of Santa Fe.
Recovering Spaces for Life shows how in highly seg-
regated societies, such as Mexico City, bridges among
apparently untouchable sectors can be built and used
to transform reality.
Recovering Spaces for Life
need to have exible tools to adapt. I am quite self-
critical about most of the borough and partial pro-
grams because they become so rigid that they tend to
complicate rather than rationalize the problems, often
pushing people towards informality. I think we need
to become more porous in those programs to allow
grassroots initiatives to nd their place in ofcial plan-
ning. On the other hand, the authority has missed the
opportunity to communicate its vision for urban de-
velopment. And for better or worse, it is the authority
that has the panoramic vision and technical knowledge.
Local projects can greatly enrich urban development
with their timely and deeper sight, but they might not
have the complete overview.
How do you see the development of local
bottom-up initiatives in the long term? What
possible development scenarios might be envis-
aged for the future?
All of these initiativesMiravalle, Codecosuggest
that Mexico City is like an hydraulic system with many
rusty closed valves, which only need to be oiled and
opened for an amazing ow to come. We have to use
the local culture and look at the everyday citythe
little square, the garden, the remaining corner, the bas-
ketball courtto dignify them and create activities.
I think we need to work on that scale.
Public infrastructure is gaining a new role in how we
design and envision the future of our city. I think that his-
torically, Mexico City has been a place of neighborhoods
and we should move back to that. For instance, something
we have lost and should try to recover, are the markets.
We have 325 public markets built during the nineteen-six-
ties and nineteen-seventies, which were created for many
reasons; of course economic and supply reasons, but also
to build community. These are big opportunities: 325 mar-
kets organized all around the territory. These spaces have
an amazing potential to be transformed into real public
spaces, they can be more permeable, grow, have parallel
services. That is the kind of infrastructure that brings
communities together, because those are places where
many things happen.
Laura Janka is an Advisor for the Department of Housing and
Urban Development.
150 MEXICO CITY INTERVIEW GOVERNMENT
Can you summarize the current attitude/policy
of the municipality towards urban improve-
ment and the redressing of inequality?
Stop the city expansion over conservation land and
give all the normative elements to make it grow in-
ward. We are working for a compact, vertical, shared,
inclusive, and extroverted city, improving the existing
infrastructure and offering social housing in the central
city to take people out of risk zones and give them
property certainty. We are also broadening the concept
of the public realm, looking at it in a more holistic way,
with high-quality infrastructure as a priority.
Do you think grassroots can complement the
efforts of the public sector to integrate the city
and improve livability in all areas? If so, how?
I think we should overcome the extremely formal
vision about public policies connected with urban plan-
ning. Almost all cities have their urban development
departments and programs, but in most cases, they
are a set of charters and norms consolidated within
the institutional policies and the limits of government
action. That is not bad, but we shouldnt miss the other
perspective that comes from a more rened observer,
which is the specic citizen. The problem with those
general programs is that they standardize the physical
and social conditions of cities, when it is really not like
that, not even in developed cities. And those who live
in physical or social marginalization are in many cases
the ones who nd new non-formal or non-traditional
ways of organizing space.
In Mexico City we have incorporated roundtables or
committees that serve local proposals from all kinds
of organizations. It all has to be based on dialogue, on
understanding the other side, on acknowledging that
there is a degree of specicity that doesnt allow us to
do things mechanically.
Which governmental agencies/programs recog-
nize the importance of community-led initia-
tives?
At the borough level it varies a lot, for it depends to a
great extent on the sensibility of the authorities. But at
the citys central government level, there are several
entities: the Social Development Department, which
supports initiatives from vulnerable groups; the Insti-
tute of Housing serves many such initiatives, because
there is a lot of housing in risk zones; and nally us,
the Department of Housing and Urban Development,
which in many cases has to legalize or relocate infor-
mal settlements.
How does this recognition affect the planning
process in these areas? Can you give an ex-
ample?
Citizens proposed to us a very interesting legal status
of family condominium. In Mexico City, the condo-
minium generally consists of a building divided into
clearly dened spaces with several owners. However,
it is common to have a property for a family of fteen
members with three or four couples and where each
uses a room or set of rooms. Land use would say it
is single-family property, but it is not, because it is
a subdivided family. So now family condominium is
recognized as a subdivided property and this helps in
services and credits for house improvements.
Do you see scope for change to current plan-
ning methods based on the experiences of such
projects? Do you think that there is a move in
government towards integrating bottom-up
with top-down planning initiatives?
Most of the urban planning is still based on the nine-
teen-eighties urban zoning, without an understanding
of social problems. But it is not enough to draw things
on a map, because reality always surpasses us and we
Reality Surpasses Us:
We Need to Be more Flexible and Porous
Felipe Leal is Head of the Department of Housing and Urban Development
a broadening of the stakeholders, but also a broadening
of topicsunderstanding that urbanity and the experi-
ence of the city happen in many arenas.
When one looks at these successful grass-
roots initiatives it is inevitable to think about
replicating them. How should replicability be
understood?
I believe that replicability can mean many things. It
can mean the enthusiasm for social engagement and
the possibility of transformation. It is also about nd-
ing the way in which the scale of different programs
gets played out physically. And it is not a matter of
just identifying a successful formulathink of el Faro
de Orienteand sort of using it as a cookie-cutter but
about actually nding the specic contingencies of
groups, site, geographies, and problems and redening
what an urban action and urban intervention means to-
day. The other issue of replicability has to do with the
rapport of different stakeholders. I would say the form
social projects take in the next few years will have to
do with ingenuity in nding new social relationships. Many of these projects are in the fringes of the margin-
alized areas of the cityin suburbs with severe access
restrictions. So if they were able to develop themselves
separately from the center, I think their potential is
very large; they have a great power. And the problems
throughout the city are similar, so solutions can also be
similar, however they must be created within communi-
ties; they cannot come or be imposed from the outside.
Expansion cannot come from the top, because horizontal
structures are what make these projects deeply rooted in
communities. In fact, the most consolidated projects, the
ones that have been able to expand beyond basic needs
and open the social tissue to incorporate other actors, are
the projects with long trajectories, but also with horizon-
tal and open structures.
Betsabe Romero is a visual artist and jury member Deutsche Bank
Urban Age AwardMexico City 2012
156 MEXICO CITY INTERVIEW MEDIATION
Did the set of grassroots projects compiled by
the award open another perspective over the
city?
I think that the range, scope, and geography of the pro-
posals showed the multiplicities of the city: multiple
geographies, topics, and groupsboth highly organized
and sometimes less organizedbut above all multiple
stakeholders involved in the denition and production
of what an urban project means. In a way, the award
showed how many Mexico Cities there are and this
diversity talks about a vitality that was not present
twenty or thirty years ago.
What was the most remarkable thing about the
award process?
When one goes below the radar, one nds and discov-
ers that there are many narratives already taking place
in the city, some of them supported by social programs
of the local governments and in some cases by the fed-
eral government, but also other narratives taking place
by NGOs that we do not necessarily associate with the
visible urban actions. I nd this incredibly refreshing in
the context of Mexico. It is fundamental to assume that
the production of politics, the production of citizen-
ship, the production of the polis, of the discussion of
conicts and resolutions in the city can involve many
diverse agents, and not only traditional ones. The other
remarkable thing is that all these projects have strong
physical componentsa school over here, a set of steps
going down to a ravine, a shed that it is used to cover
a plaza and next to a communal kitchenthat produce
social relationships. And I dont mean to minimize
other forms of social transformation, but to go back to
some of the arguments of the Urban Age project: space
matters and sometimes it matters more than we give
credit for.
To what extent do these grassroots initiatives
have a role in creating new citizenship besides
having physical impact?
I think that as much as space produces new kind of
citizenship, new citizens produce a different kind of
space, and it is not a causality. It is not a chicken or
egg dilemma, it is truly a correlation between how
new, informed citizens can create new and better
forms of city. And in that regard, those kind of new
spaces of the citylet us think of a community kitchen,
of a PET recycling facilities, of a plaza that is now
used for dancing lessonsthose forms of occupation
empower citizens in different ways: from nutrition and
tness to social and leisure activities, from economic
retribution to learning. And I like this relationship in
which it is not the physical that precedes the social, but
is actually more of a braid. In braiding the two is that a
new kind of citizenship is being created.
Mexico City has a strong tradition of bottom-up
initiatives, partly because it is pretty much a
self-made city, but also because after the 1985
earthquake civil society became very active.
What was new about the projects compiled in
2010?
I would say there is a new social contract when it
comes to urban projects and this social contract
involves different forms of resistance but also differ-
ent forms of engagement. If I have to say, the big shift
from the nineteen-sixties, seventies, and eighties to
the transformation of the city today has to do with
when the stakeholders have determined it is important
to resist, and when it is important to engage. I think
it was quite emblematic that the nal projects were
not projects created in absolute autonomy. They were
projects that shift from autonomy to engagement. They
showed different levels of maturity, but the oldest
projects have a learning curve, which includes not only
Braiding the Physical and the Social:
A New Social Contract for the City
Jose Castillo is an architect, principal of Arquitectura 911SC, and visiting professor at Harvard Graduate
School of Design
Cape Town
Lindsay Bush
160 MEXICO CITY BIOGRAPHIES
Francisco Javier Conde Gonzlez
Doctorate in Education from the National Autonomous Universi-
ty of Mexico. Conde has been working for the Miravalles Marist
School for thirteen years and has promoted educational environ-
ment programs and social development in the area. Founding
member of Miravalle Community Council, created in 2007.
Felipe Leal
Degree in Architecture from the National Autonomous Univer-
sity of Mexico (UNAM). Head of the Department of Housing
and Urban Development in Mexico City. First Public Space
Authority in the Federal District. Honorary member of the Na-
tional Academy of Architecture. Coordinator of Special Projects
at UNAM, an area that fostered the inclusion of the Central
University Campus in UNESCOs World Heritage List and that
created a new transport system within the university campus.
Principal of the School of Architecture at the National Autono-
mous University of Mexico from 19972005. Broadcaster of the
radio program Architecture in Space and Time.
Arturo Mier y Tern
Degree in Architecture from the National Autonomous Univer-
sity of Mexico (UNAM) with a Masters in Urban Design and
Regional Planning from the University of Edinburgh, and PhD
candidate in urban planning at UNAM. Researcher, professor,
and lecturer at different national and international universi-
ties. Since 1990, Director of Technology and Habitat in Large
Cities, HABITEC. He is currently a technical advisor on various
projects of the Federal District Government Housing Improve-
ment Program and Community Program for Neighborhood
Improvement.
Argel Gmez
Visual artist, graphic designer, and cultural promoter. Current
coordinator of Central del Pueblo, a new cultural space in down-
town Mexico City. He managed the arts and handcrafts work-
shops at Faro de Oriente, a cultural center in Mexico City, which
has become a referent for cultural public policies. At the Faro,
Gmez edited six books about cultural policies and teaching
experiences in the art eld. He studied a postgraduate curse of
cultural policies given by Organization of Ibero-American States.
Benjamn Gonzlez
Cultural manager. Cofounder and former principal of Faro
de Oriente Cultural Center. Former director of Culture at the
Greater Metropolitan Municipality of Ecatepec and current
principal of Central del Pueblo Cultural Center.
Jose Castillo
Degree in Architecture from the Universidad Iberoamericana
and Doctorate in Design from Harvard University. With Saidee
Springall, he is the principal of Arquitectura 911sc, a practice
based in Mexico City. His writings have been published exten-
sively in international journals and publications. He is a profes-
sor at the Universidad Iberoamericanas School of Architecture
in Mexico City and visiting professor at Harvard Universitys
Graduate School of Design. Since 2005, Castillo has been cura-
tor of various international exhibitions. He is a member of the
Advisory board of SCIFI at SCI-Arc and of the advisory board of
Urban Age.
Chapter Author and Interviewer:
Ana lvarez
Researcher, editor, curator, and manager of interdisciplinary
projects, focusing on the urban and cultural contemporary
life of Mexico City. She graduated with a degree in Mathemat-
ics from the National Autonomous University of Mexico, but
since 2003 has been engaged in exploring, portraying, and
narrating her hometown. Founding member of Citmbulos,
an interdisciplinary collective of urban researchers formed by
Fionn Petch, Valentina Rojas Loa, Christian von Wissel. With a
special focus on daily life and street-level urban phenomena,
the collective rst published Citamblers: the Incidence of the
Remarkable, Guide to the Marvels of Mexico City and has since
then produced several national and international publications,
exhibitions, workshops, drives, urban interventions, reaching
a wide variety of audiences and spacesincluding the National
Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City, the German Center of
Architecture in Berlin, and the Swiss Museum of Architecture
in Basel. She also worked as coordinator and curatorial advi-
sor in Mexico City for the international exhibition Our Cities,
Ourselves, which was sponsored by the Institute of Transporta-
tion and Development Policy. She was the coordinator of the
Deutsche Bank Urban Age Award in Mexico City.
Members of the Jury for the Award in Mexico City:
Vanessa Bauche
Actress and social activist
Richard Burdett
Director, Urban Age & Centennial Professor in Architecture and
Urbanism, London School of Economics
Jose Castillo
Architect, co-founder of arquitectura 911sc, professor at School
of Architecture, Universidad Iberoamericana
Denise Dresser
Writer, political anaylist and academic, professor of political
science at Instituto Tecnolgico Autnomo de Mxico
Enrique Norten
Founder, TEN Arquitectos, New York and Mexico City & Miler
Chair of Architecture, University of Pennsylvania
Betsabe Romero
Visual artist
Anthony Williams
Former Mayor of Washington, DC and is the Executive Director
of the Global Government
Han Tmertekin
Architect, Mimarlar Design, & Visiting Professor, Harvard
Graduate School of Design
162 CAPE TOWN PROFILE Population [city]
3.74
million
Area occupied [city]
2,454
km
2
Gross domestic product (GDP)
103
[$bn at PPPs]
Average density [metro/city]
1,425
Inhabitants/km
2
Diversity
Khoisan, Dutch, English, French,
Madagascar, Mauritius, Ceylon,
India, Malaysia, Indonesia,
Germans, Portuguese, Italians,
Chinese, Xhosa, Zulu, Other
Africans, South Africans,
1652
Jan van Riebeeck estab-
lishes a way-station for
ships. Town laid out on
a Dutch grid pattern and
farmlands established.
1688
French Huguenots ar-
rive.
16601806
40,000 slaves are
imported from West
Africa, Madagascar,
India, Ceylon, Malaya,
and Indonesia to work
on farms.
1814
Capital of the British
Cape Colony. Urban
growth continues hap-
hazardly at the hands of
developers.
1836
The Great Trek: 10,000
Dutch families leave the
Colony to travel north.
18651905
Immigration: working-
class immigrants arrive
from all over Europe to
settle in the city.
German farmers de-
velop Philippi for market
gardening.
1870s80s
Trade to the port is
increased by Highveld
gold rush.
Segregation begins,
as native Africans are
moved to Ndabeni.
1910
Legislative capital of the
Union of South Africa is
Cape Town.
19101941
Suburban development
along racial lines is
inuenced by the British
garden city movement,
and the oversized, zoned
planning of Modernism.
1924
Growth of planned
townships on the Cape
Flats: slums Act allows
for forced removals in
the inner city.
1930s-40s
Foreshore reclamation
begins, linking harbor to
the central city.
1948
Urban planning aims
for complete separate
development: National
Party elected on a plat-
form of Apartheid,
leading to the Group
Areas Act.
1950s
Slum clearance acceler-
ates, forcing thousands
into hostels and tented
emergency camps.
1960s
Large industrial areas
grow up on the outskirts
of the city. Railway lines
and roads are used to
strategically separate
areas.
1965
District Six declared
a whites-only region
and 60,000 forcibly
removed, many to Lav-
ender Hill and surround-
ings.
1970s80s
Steady growth of Cape
Flats townships and
informal settlements,
most notably Khayelit-
sha and Mitchells
Plain. Violent clashes
and forced removals
continue.
1988
Touristic development
of the V&A Waterfront.
It becomes the countrys
most popular tourist
destination with 1.5 mil-
lion visitors monthly.
1990
Abolishment of the last
of the Apartheid laws by
President F.W. De Klerk.
1990s
Urban sprawl: end of
inux control leads to
rural migration and
rapid growth of under-
serviced, overcrowded
Cape Flats settlements.
Informal economy and
violence levels boom
due to unemployment
and inequality.
Gated communities for
the rich spring up in
response to widespread
lawlessness.
1994
First democratic elec-
tion in South Africa sees
Nelson Mandela elected
president.
2000s
Central City Improve-
ment District (CCID)
established with a focus
on safety and urban
maintenance.
Integrated Development
Plan (IDP), a 5-year gov-
ernment plan, lays solid
framework for urban
improvement.
201011
Soccer World Cup builds
on infrastructure and
public space improve-
ments underway in
the city. World Design
Capital 2014 bid won by
Cape Town.
168 CAPE TOWN TIME LINE AND POPULATION GROWTH
1600 1700 1800 1900 2000
2
10
20
170 CAPE TOWN INITIATIVES
Born in a mothers home in 2007, Mothers Unite pro-
vides an alternative for children aged three to fteen: a
safe haven from the gangs, drugs, and violence charac-
terizing street and home environments in the Lavender
Hill area.
A core volunteer staff of six mothers from the
neighborhood provides 120 kids with educational
programs and healthy meals, three afternoons a week.
Programs include storytelling, literacy, computers, and
art therapy.
Operating on the grounds of the municipal Sea-
winds Multipurpose Hall, they have built an infra-
structure village from donated shipping containers,
arranged around the perimeter to create an oasis-like
space. Facilities include a number of activity rooms, a
library, kitchen, ofce, sheltered area, playground, and
vegetable gardens. Mothers Unite have partnered with
a range of organizations: securing donations-in-kind
from international aid agencies, corporations, and the
Church; working with other NGOs to train gardeners
and plant trees, and with universities to start training
in emergency rst aid response. Their newest addi-
tions are a wendy house training and yoga center, and
a retrotted container with toilets.
In an area suffering from high levels of unemploy-
ment, poverty, and domestic violence, the projects
success lies in the way it addresses the family unit.
Through providing a safe place for children to play, ex-
plore, and develop, the mothers reach out to families to
encourage a commitment to community development,
and children have shown great improvements in both
social interaction and school performance.
Mothers Unite
In Cape Town, most of the land occupied by
projects belongs to the public sector. Many who
take the initiative to just do it start out as
lawbreakers, yet support from the government
has generally followed. What is your opinion
on this?
With nearly a third of people living in informal settle-
ments, its almost the norm that you have to begin as
a lawbreaker. Within any government framework, it
is very difcult to move change, so you need to have
those champions change always requires action.
Government is realizing that their policies are not
always applicable on the ground and that people have
needed to embark on a detour to get things done,
however criminal or violent activities cannot be seen
as a solution to our current problems.
Government organizations face grave difcultiessuch
as lack of capacity and nance, politicization of service
delivery, vexed inter-governmental relations, cumbersome
decision-making processes, and lack of exibilitywhich
inhibit cross-cutting analysis and decision making. While
there is a strong argument for civil society organizations
to become more involved in local development processes,
many have been demobilized, have few resources, or are
themselves divided. Private sector organizations have re-
sources, but are often out of touch with the complexities
of community and city needs. In many cities, cross-sector
partnerships are becoming increasingly popular in areas
of policy making and implementation that were previ-
ously the primary domain of the state. Partnerships, it is
argued, can be seen as a new model of governance.
Andrew Boraine, CEO of the Cape Town Partnership and DBUAA
2012 jury member
184 CAPE TOWN INTERVIEW GOVERNMENT
Can you summarize the current attitude/policy
of the municipality towards urban improve-
ment and the redressing of inequality?
We are seeing a big shift from a sectoral focus to an
area-based focus. Most of the project entries were
around people making a change in a particular small
area in their neighborhood. The city has understood
this as a positive thing, and it becomes apparent in
their strategy document, the IDP. The VPUU is a good
example as its neighborhoods are still manageable for
the city, yet the level of detail makes it possible for
people to understand and inuence the process.
Do you think grassroots can complement the
efforts of the public sector to integrate the city
and improve livability in all areas? If so, how?
From my perspective certainly, grassroots initiatives
are important. Again its a question of a scale that
people understand and feel comfortable working with.
Most of these programs have tried to combine strategy
with implementation, and thats often the missing link
within the City: the IDP tries to do it, but its often very
difcult because line departments work in sectoral ar-
eas. We have to recognize the value of cross-pollinating
between strategy and local knowledge.
Which governmental agencies/programs re-
cognize the importance of community-led
initiatives? How does this affect the planning
process in these areas? Can you give an example?
With the shift in approach, funding is increasingly
allocated on a local-area basis according to need. The
city has gained the support of Province and National
Treasury to work in transversal teams and follow
proper methodology, so they begin with a baseline
survey followed by a Community Action Plan, and then
seek funding accordinglythats a positive move. An
example is the Neighborhood Development Partnership
grantswhere the city seeks national funding for focus
areasand international funding as with the VPUU.
We need to establish who the intermediary is between
government, the public sector, and the community,
because in practice they are often unable to communi-
cate. A forum where different stakeholders can talk to
each other is key to any development strategy.
Do you see scope for change to current plan-
ning methods based on the experience of such
projects? Do you think there is a move towards
integrating bottom-up with top-down planning
initiatives?
A current international trend is the peoples budget,
translated in Cape Town as Ward allocations. VPUU,
for example, uses a Social Development Fund thats
linked to a local development strategy (the Community
Action Plan) and to the broader IDP, opening up many
more possibilities. Again, it is about scale. Govern-
ment favors large-scale projects, and bottom-up initia-
tives require small, localized interventions and invest-
ments. That vehicle needs to be found and the Ward
allocation is a good start. As 99% of these projects sit
within the framework of the IDP, they certainly play
an important role.
How do you see the development of local
bottom-up initiatives in the long term? What
possible development scenarios might be envis-
aged for the future?
I believe the bottom-up approach is the best way to
embed democracy in South Africa and fulll the man-
date of the Constitution. We are moving from a closed
system in the past into a society that is much more
open and equal, and the bottom-up approach is part of
this shift. What is difcult is for the public sector to
be open enough to allow these initiatives to ourish.
However, I do think there are many opportunities to be
found in the IDP, especially if we focus on that inter-
mediary between government and grassroots.
Breaking it Down to Build it Up
Michael Krause is team leader of the Violence Prevention through Urban Upgrading (VPUU) program
Common
Points
194 CAPE TOWN BIOGRAPHIES
Carol Jacobs
Carol is a proud single mother of three who lives in an RDP
house in Seawinds, a neighborhood in the Lavender Hill area.
She nished grade seven and went on to initiate Mothers
Unite, an inspiring, award-winning organization that is gaining
increasing recognition for rebuilding a community through the
hearts and minds of its children.
Michael Krause
Michael is a place-maker who believes in negotiating solutions
to shape urban environments. He grew up in East Germany,
studied Urban Design and Spatial Planning, and relocated to
South Africa in 1995. Since 2006, he has led a highly dedicated
transversal team of people to implement and develop the VPUU
program, which has had signicant impact on crime in parts of
Khayelitsha, creating safe, vibrant public spaces in one of the
citys poorest areas.
Edgar Pieterse
Director of the African Center for Cities at UCT, Edgar is a na-
tive Capetonian whose research and publications cover such
themes as African urbanism, cultural planning, regional and
macro development, and governance. He lls several teaching
and advisory roles and holds the DST/NRF SA Chair in Urban
Policy.
Malika Ndlovu
Malika is an internationally published South African poet, play-
wright, performer, and arts activist. She has lived most of her
adult life in Cape Town, has wide range of experience in arts
management and currently operates as an independent artist
under the brand New Moon Ventures, working towards healing
through creativity.
Councilor Shaun August
Shaun August grew up playing on the streets of Lavender Hill.
His strong organizational skills, discipline, and familiarity
with the criminal element come from ten years as a warden at
Pollsmoor prison. A committed family man, he is well known
in the community and was elected as the Democratic Alliance
Councilor for his very own Ward 67.
Chapter Author and Interviewer:
Lindsay Bush
Lindsay is an architect and urban designer who recently
relocated to Cape Town to manage the 2012 DBUA Award.
Born, raised, and educated in Durban, her family emigrated
to Australia in the mid-nineteen-nineties and she chose to
stay behind. She has traveled widely, working and studying in
numerous places around the world. Her professional interests
include urban regeneration, housing, community and educa-
tional spaces, and the in-situ upgrade of informal settlements.
Lindsays work has been proled in several local publications
and her most recent contribution was to the book Building
Brazil compiled by the MAS Urban Design researchers at the
ETH in Zrich. Since the award, she has been living in Cape
Town, setting up a legacy network called Urban Agents, and in
the coming years will be applying her skillset to the facilita-
tion of the World Design Capital 2014 Ward projects. Lindsay
is passionate, energetic, and ercely optimistic about the
future of her beloved country.
Members of the Jury for the Award in Cape Town
Andrew Boraine
Chief executive of the Cape Town Partnership, adjunct profes-
sor at African Centre for Cities, University of Cape Town
Richard Burdett
Director Urban Age & Centennial Professor in Architecture and
Urbanism, London School of Economics
Malika Ndlovu
Poet, playwright, performer and arts consultant
Enrique Norten
Founder, TEN Arquitectos, New York and Mexico City & Miler
Chair of Architecture, University of Pennsylvania
Edgar Pieterse
Director of African Centre for Cities, University of Cape Town
Nonfundo Walaza
Civil rights campaigner and clinical psychologist, chief execu-
tive of Desmond Tutu Peace Center
Anthony Williams
Former Mayor of Washington, DC and is the Executive Director
of the Global Government
202 COMMON POINTS INTERVIEW
Towns Mothers Unite, for example. It could become
an aourishing, fantastic center for that area, which is
secure, inviting, and has something to offer through an
educational project hosted in a civic space. That is the
vision of one center, which would also be connected to
other centers throughout that city.
In your view, what do the projects associated
with the DBUA Award achieve? What simi-
larities and differences stood out between the
projects in different cities?
These projects are very similar. There is always a
meeting place, a garden, a kitchen, an educational
facility; a place where people come together to learn,
to teach, to share and exchange experiences and ideas,
and to be citizens. In most of the cities, we found these
similar formations. In my opinion, the only difference
was in Istanbul, where these spaces seemed to be
introverted; there we found a music school for young
students that learn how to play an instrument.
If we look back to the rst settlements in human
history, it has always been about providing residents
with safety, food, a spiritual center; and one might also
notice the similarity of their plans. I think cities are the
expression of human needs and that we have a plan
of what a city should be inside us.
Overall, do you think these initiatives have
been successful? If so, what key lessons might
we learn from them?
Cities are no longer built for humans, they are built
for investors. They have become like machines, not to
house people and to create an environment that en-
ables them to live a better quality of life. They consist
of iconic buildings designed by star architects but are
in the danger of becoming as boring as shopping malls.
Every mayor seems to be happy to have these super-
stars designing cities, but they are only designing sky-
lines. Instead of concentrating on skylines, we should
be building cities thinking of human needs and ground
realities. It is not only the investor and the architect
who should participate in planning. It is important to
engage and involve the people who live there as well.
Finally, we should have an assessment of what is being
built by the inhabitants themselves. We should ask: is
this environment enabling people to have a better life
or is it only creating static monument-like buildings
and urban environments? This is the lesson learned
from these initiatives, the tremendous power and
capability of what local residents and ordinary people
can do and achieve.
How do you see the potential for the develop-
ment of such projects impacting cities in the
future? Are they scalable and/or replicable?
Or, which features that you recognize as being
specic to the nature of these projects have the
potential to develop further?
We should not replicate them. (We have replicated
shopping malls!) I imagine we should have a thousand
different centers, like in the jungle where we nd a
diversity of beautiful new plants. These initiatives are
a great experiment of people nding out what a better
city can be. They imply the argument that we should
enable people to initiate and build something, not ex-
actly replicating them, but encouraging their participa-
tion within a framework.
I think we should protect those community initia-
tives, which keep cities livable and enrich them. We
should protect them from investors. We should take
these initiatives as a reference and learn from them.
Can you envision possible future scenarios re-
sulting from the pioneerism displayed in these
projects?
If we want to be successful, the city of the twenty-rst
century cannot, for instance, have only one center.
These cities can be enriched by having multiple, dif-
ferent centers built by a multitude of people with
different backgrounds. I dont mean to build ghettos,
but many centers where different communities and
ethnicities can mix and thus foster diversity. In this
scenario, we should have a multitude of city centers
created by citizens. This could look a bit like the dif-
ferent markets in different neighborhoodswhich are
all very attractive, as we know from London, Paris,
Berlin or So Paulothat greatly enrich a city. See Cape
Cities Are an Expression of Human Needs
Wolfgang Nowak was the initiator of the Deutsche Bank Urban Age Award
Wolfgang Nowak
is Director of the Alfred Herrhausen Society, the International
Forum of Deutsche Bank. Wolfgang Nowak initiated the Urban
Age program, an international investigation into the future of the
worlds mega-cities in the twenty-rst century jointly organized
with the London School of Economics. He has held various
senior positions in Germanys state and federal governments,
Frances Centre national de la recherche scientique (French
National Center for Scientic Research) in Paris, and UNESCO.
After unication, he was State Secretary of Education in Saxony
from 1990 to 1994. In addition, he was Director-General for
Political Analysis and Planning at the German Federal Chancel-
lery from 1999 to 2002. He lectures and publishes widely on
academic issues and is a regular commentator for German
television and newspapers. He is honorary Vice President of the
British think tank Policy Network, Senior Fellow of the Brookings
Institution in Washington, and Fellow at the NRW-School of
Governance at the University of Duisburg-Essen.
and facilities. The social mechanisms behind these
initiatives reveal new modes of negotiation, participa-
tion, and cooperation. Spatially, they reveal elds: the
spaces they occupy, in which they install or take place.
Their tactical nature produces operational knowledge
through the design of strategies that change specic
spots, applied over short or longer timeframes. They
rarely design to determine, tending rather to arrange
open, exible frameworks that can evolve over time
and accommodate several overlapping programs. These
three aspects introduce perspectives that give us clues
as to how we may begin to approach modifying the
planning status quo.
Making Community Initiatives Visible
A marked improvement can be seen to result from
each of the initiatives proled in this book. They re-
move garbage, plant new trees and gardens, organize
community meeting places, upgrade open spaces for
activities, construct clean toilets, build playgrounds,
libraries, and classrooms for workshops and skills
training. They have added value to the built environ-
ment, whether by conscious acts or by experimental
evolution over time. They upgrade derelict spaces
into more harmonious and beautiful places, creating
qualities that forge encounters and coexistence, and
transform residents perceptions of everyday life. We
are interested in understanding how these processes
take place, how the operative notion of the common
is generated. It is our intention to make the processes
visible, document them and share the compiled
knowledge.
The community initiatives showcased in this book
present enormous potential to catalyze urban change,
based not only on their accomplishments, but also
on what they can teach us. Their mechanisms and
operational models have the potential to feed back
into the architecture and urban planning disciplines,
augmenting the palette of tools with which they shape
the city. A new culture of planning and design informed
by grassroots initiatives would involve assembling a
more inclusive, transversal, transparent, and porous
framework inside which these projects could ourish.
These initiatives also have potential to impact upon
urban policy, and can provide valuable lessons for
governance, not least around strategies for community
engagement.
Based on the material compiled for each of the ve
cities, we would like to draft some conclusions that
might point out pathways towards the planning and
construction of this open, inclusive, participatory city.
We aim to identify and pull together common threads,
assess the potential of their combined efforts and nd-
ings, and indicate actors that might lead the way in
developing possible new scenarios.
1. The Social Mechanisms and Operational
Modes of Community Initiatives
Recognizing Problems, Unveiling Potential,
Inspiring Solutions
Projects start in response to issues that directly affect
peoples lives. The nature and intensity of problems
varies from city to city, as do the projects and pro-
grams implemented to solve them.
In Mumbai, the lack of sanitation, the prevalence
of disease, and the lack of communal space and
services in slums are the sort of problems that act
as strong motivators for community projects. As ob-
served, sanitation and recovery programs often start
by cleaning an area with the help of a community, an
important step as it tackles not only the problem of
waste, but also the culture of littering and dumping
on the citys streets and vacant lots. Jeff Anderson
who started Biourban (p. 76) in So Paulo explains
how the cleaning of those garbage dumps repre-
sents a sudden change in attitude towards collective
space; a change that fosters community organization
and further translates into physical improvements
such as the addition of plants, urban furniture and
playgroundsnew meeting spaces that are used by
residents like small, open-air living rooms.
In Cape Town, Carol Jacobs of Mothers Unite (p. 182)
explains how the reality of hungry kids playing in the
street with nowhere to do homework or research,
inspired her to make the rst move. A high number of
education and skills training programs, often combined
with urban farming, address the citys most pressing
issues. Problems of similar nature have inspired action
in Mexico City. Communities realized they were los-
ing areas for much-needed public space and services,
and reacted by defending and appropriating existing
derelict land to create facilities for health, food, work,
Participation
The discussion around participatory processes in urban
planning is by no means a new one. In recent decades
however, we notice an increasingly humanistic ap-
proach towards the revindication of cities.
It can be seen in the work of art collectives with
local communities during the nineteen-nineties (Bour-
riaud, 1998; Kester, 2004; Bishop, 2006), and more
pronouncedly in the last decade in architecture, urban
design, and urbanism: community initiatives, Do-it-
yourself building, and other means by which tactical
knowledge is implemented and tested on site (Smith,
2007; Borasi and Zardini, 2008; Christiaanse, 2010; Seji-
ma, 2010; Lepik, 2010; Ho, 2012). These processes allow
for direct and proactive participation in the construc-
tion and adaptation of cities according to local needs.
For a whole host of reasons, governments have been
unable to provide for large portions of their cities
inhabitants. Imbalances are rife: some have too much,
while others have too little, and the latter can justi-
ably become distrustful of or lose faith in governance,
its policies, and plans.
Does this motivate people to participate, to make
their voices heard and be actively involved in the inher-
ently political process of city-making? Both in spite of
poor relationships, and because of sound partnerships
with municipal governments, citizens are becoming
active.
When we talk about active participation, civil soci-
ety is becoming increasingly engaged in actions that
aim to improve the common urban environment. The
nineteen-sixties was a decade in which a participa-
tory culture was marked by radical political moments
and demonstrations that made a call for participation
(Debord, 1961), focused in the everyday (Lefebvre,
1947, 1961,1981; de Certeau, 1980), and this gave rise
to participatory urban design and planning. Concepts
of open frameworks that invite interaction have been
translated in visions such as Constant Nieuwenhuys
New Babylon (195954), and in Yona Friedmans La Ville
Spatiale (1960), among many others. Authors such as
Jane Jacobs were dedicated to the study of the neigh-
borhood scale and diversity in local design (1961). Jan
Gehls work in Copenhagen demonstrates the success
of cities designed for people, (1987, 2010) and par-
ticipatory experiences and processes have also found
fertile ground in developing countries such as Brazil
(Lagnado, 2006; Frana, 2012). Yet, with a few excep-
tions, participatory planning has, to a great extent,
remained in the realm of theory. In light of a growing
culture of participation, could we then propose that we
are moving from a theoretical discourse to a practical
approach?
Small-scale, self-driven community initiatives
provide immediate solutions to urgent, everyday
problems, in the form of social innovation. Do they also
contribute towards a better scenario? Can they effect
positive transformation? Will these initiatives remain
local, or will they be incorporated by governmental
frameworks and policies? Should these innovations
inuence the rules that determine the way we act in,
educate, govern, plan, and build our cities?
The innovation here is not necessarily about a
nal product, or about physical built space. These are
important pioneer testing grounds, where process is
paramount. They uncover inventive ways of reading
and responding to urban realities, and present learning
opportunities by way of exchange in observing other
cultures, experiences, and cities. They reveal the fragil-
ity of a deterministic urban model that relies on aged
instruments and regulations that fail to respond to the
complexity inherent in our cities. What kind of plan-
ning knowledge might we draft from these projects?
We might start by questioning the importance of
these initiatives to the adaptation of urban space.
Politically, they are fundamental to unveil real demands
and make legible aws in current policy, a prereq-
uisite to moving forward. Socially, they act as soft
infrastructure, working with the city at a local level
to provide neighborhoods with much-needed services
Final Considerations
Marcos L. Rosa and Ute E. Weiland, editors
212 COMMON POINTS
4 NAVIGATION X
Headline
AUThORs Name
Authors position in the project etc.