HUMAN FACTORS: SUSTAINABILITY AND HABITABILITY

Demis Roussos Bhargava

Master of Architecture (Design stream), UNSW Student ID 3108479

WORKBOOK # 10: Compact

cities
Cities:
“Homo sapiens make buildings—this is a part of their process of synchronisation, their territorialization within the
body of this earth. A City-Machine puts to test this simple statement: Architecture Maps the City, and architecture
mimics the city: it is in turn mapped by the city. It is the instrument par excellence wielded necessarily by the
central powers as they come to form the city. A machine constructed of flows, and architecture shaped by the
energies latent in the flow: by itself. The place already has the energy and the material for architecture—gravity,
viscosity, gradient, deposition and forces of nature. The urban question concerns, then, the mashing of the Homo
sapiens into this machine, the body of earth itself. Homo Sapiens with his urban motives, separated from the body of
the earth: standing upright as a number of modern
mythologies would have it. In any case, separated from
the body of earth and wrapped in a shell of articulated
space, made symbolic and meaningful. A City Machine
exists in the City like Water in water. It creates series of
articulations that come about as organs form within the
media, the City as we know it, as its forces constitute a
Flexion, a City-Machine is no more than a diagramme of
these forces: contained within and shaped by—at once
shaping its armatures, the city as is seen and experienced.

www.emsah.uq.edu.au

The resulting condition: we see a ruptured body of the city, if the city was considered a corporate entity; this is a
new organism sprouting organs extracted from multiple origins. Organs existent in a state of constant provocation. It
is by provocation that they propel themselves and change. Urban systems are generated of this antagonism. One
sees the beginning of a vast locational logic, a dispersed system of pseudo places. The bricks of a new city.
The city will then be understood as a vast process of decoding-encoding. Values embedded into its structure [the
proximities, exposures: the whole logic of location in relation to the system of flows in-themselves] are decoded, and
buildings actuated—representing this decoding. Buildings formalise the de-coded. They come into existence as they
represent values decoded and thus exploited: brought into light. Into the domain of exchanges.
The decoding-encoding brings tangible shapes to the form of the city: its’ structures, signification and other
identifiable attributes. The city, in other words, becomes a product of uprooting. Of fluid masses of the uprooted, ’I’
is placed within the tensions, the provocations. ‘I’ must constantly adapt, camouflage oneself [mimesis]: one takes a
stand, or takes flight. People mirror, buildings mirror. Ephemeral ‘conventions’ come into existence.

Bereft of motives beyond itself the city represents only itself. To itself. Like an animal it constantly endeavours to
reproduce itself. And devouring itself in order to reproduce. It contains, is contained and even consumes it’s own
excrement. At times, we witness the twilight of the city. It copulates with itself. It computes and becomes a City-
Machine.
It is an ethereal city. We inhabit it, wraithlike. We, the dream walkers.”

Text from a city-Machine, web article by Anand Bhatt

What is a City?

Movement through a city plays an important role in defining

the structure of a city – it’s legibility and transparency.
Transportation systems are a very tangible layer of the city-
Machine: in many ways they are indicators of a city’s
relationship with its environment. Initial settlements grew
around rivers, the flows of the river (floods, droughts, silt
depositions and erosions) determining the pace of life. For
example, the city of Old Delhi was built along the banks of
the Yamuna River, the fort wall running parallel to it with a
“maidan”, or large open ground, between the two. This
maidan would host a variety of functions like sports, weekly
markets, and festival celebrations. The river has since shifted
course, moving about a kilometre further away from the fort
wall. More importantly, the powers that be built a Ring Road
for the city of Delhi about 50 years ago, said road circling the
city and effectively cutting it off from the river. Instead of
being a part of city life – much as the Seine and the Thames
are fro Paris and London respectively – the Yamuna is now
more or less a filthy sewer during most of the year. The only
time we even realize we have a river on our doorstep is when
we wrinkle our noses and roll up the windows as we zoom by.

There are plans for redeveloping the river edge and they should improve the situation, but as long as
vehicular transport is the fundamental driving force behind city planning, monumental goof-ups like this
will continue to happen. Maybe it’s easy to speak in hindsight, but the important thing is to learn from
past mistakes rather than blithely repeat them.
Because cities are more than their transportation
(especially vehicular) systems. They are places
that are significant to the people who live there…
we’re Indians (and proud of it), but we are also
proud of our cities, calling ourselves Dilliwalas or
Mumbaiwalas. In a few years (who knows?) I may
even be calling myself a Sydneywala. And when
our cities are clean, safe and healthy
environments, then we have good reason to be
proud of them.

Images on this page: Suptendu Biswas

Many people see the 20th century city model with it’s high rise vehicle-centric pattern as an anomaly,
the Modern Architect’s way of imposing spatial order on an otherwise messy existence. In Richard
Bolton’s “Architecture and Cognac”, the Architect is portrayed as an all-knowing entity looking down on
the city from inside his high-rise office, ordering chaos to his will with set square and parallel bar. The
grid city concept (epitomised by New York City) originated in Roman city planning, based on its original
use in military camps. It became popular again during the start of the Renaissance, with Mannheim in
Germany the first of the Renaissance cities laid out on the grid plan. Many new towns in Australia, the
United States, and the United Kingdom were built on the same principles. This is the result:

Most town planning is based on the notion of separating functions: businesses set up shop in the heart
of the city or the CBD (Central Business District), while the actual residences are mostly located in
suburbs that radiate out from the business centre. This separation of functions obviously causes
problems in that people have to travel large distances to commute between their homes and places of
work, which means they have to rely on vehicular transport. As the city grows, the only option is for
suburbs to spread out into the countryside while the CBD, constrained as it is within a limited area,
expands vertically. Delhi city is actually composed of at least 7 separate organic settlements along the
Yamuna, that over time have grown into each other. The city of New Delhi with its hexagonal grid was
proposed by Edwin Lutyens as a way of formalising the “haphazard” character of Delhi, while
simultaneously highlighting the imperial power of the British Empire. Compared to the high density, low
rise character of the old cities, New Delhi is extremely low density, with wide vistas and the
Government buildings at its centre, and plotted bungalow development around it. Since development
controls don’t allow for any additional development in New Delhi, most of the new construction is
illegally done in the older parts, which already have very high densities. The rest of it is pushed out to
the satellite towns of Gurgaon and Noida, especially commercial development. Which basically means a
whole lot of traffic issues and haphazard construction.
Gridlock

Image source: J.O. Simonds Image source: N. Cohen

Image source: J.O. Simonds

The grid doesn’t work: functionally it’s inefficient and it doesn’t exactly foster a sense of community. So
the grid pattern is out. In terms of density, what should we aim for? In Delhi, development controls call
for 150 – 200 DUs/ ha. While I don’t really appreciate the use of the term DU (dwelling units) to
describe where people live, I believe this probably is the ideal mix, as long as the quality of open space
complements the density. This means active public space – nodes around which community activities
can happen. In Sydney that just doesn’t happen. There are rows after rows of houses, with a park
plonked somewhere at the end. And with the shift towards very low densities (to the order of 30 people
per hectare) in the new urbanism movement, you have to wonder whether we can really recreate an
idealistic image of life pre-Industrial Revolution. The car is a reality, burgeoning population is a reality,
and environmental degradation is a reality: the trick is to find the ideal balance and create places that
acknowledge this and deal with it in a sensitive and practical way. Compact cities are sustainable and
habitable, based on precedents in European cities that seem to have stood the test of time. The concept
is also based on the recognition that vernacular architecture around the world possesses qualities that
respond to climate and culture, something that perhaps Modern architecture failed to acknowledge
when applied at large scales. The overemphasis given to vehicular transportation above the pedestrian
has obviously not worked as well, which is why more and more developments across the globe attempt
to incorporate mass-transit systems to reduce the burden on the urban infrastructure, and create
conditions where the pedestrian and the vehicular coexist. In the case of Curitiba public transport is
assigned dedicated roads, segregating the two. However, it might also be possible to have the two
coexist on the same street (as opposed to road) as in the European context. In Delhi, we probably have
the perfect setup in the older parts of the city, with scooters, auto-rickshaws, people and cars jammed
together in narrow winding streets. These streets probably don’t function as well as they did before the
motor vehicles invaded Old Delhi, but people still manage quite well. And they seem to have more fun.

Image source: B. Hakim

Image source: Architecture + Design
Case Study – Redevelopment of Jaipuria Mills at Kamla Nagar, New Delhi

Images source: Moi

In an earlier journal entry I talked about how design in the city should be about coding “machine seeds”
that are generated by, inserted into, and modify the urban matrix. One of the projects I worked on
while at Ashok B. Lall Architects was the proposed redevelopment of an abandoned industrial site in the
heart of Old Delhi. We proposed a design strategy that uses principles typical of the compact city:

PRINCIPLES OF COMPACT CITY DESIGN (from the lecture notes)

First principles of the Compact City

Concentration/Consolidation
Co-Incidence/Connectivity
Contiguity/Containment
Culturally-Appropriate
Climatically-Adaptive
Complex Grids

Specific principles of the Compact City

Humane-scale
Medium-density/medium-rise
Nodal-format
Streets are for people
Shared zones & transit-oriented nodes
Grid-adapted mobility-modes
Infill/adaptive-re-use
Multi-functionality/mixed-use/diversity

Note: Please turn Journal 90 degrees clockwise. The inconvenience is regretted.

The City of Delhi
Our proposed restructuring of Delhi on the principles of decentralization: an original idea, honest!
Urban context: The Kamla Nagar neighbourhood
Spontaneous transformations: Residential to mixed land use in Delhi
Spontaneous transformations: Residential to mixed land use in Kamla Nagar
The site: Existing industrial mills as an “asset” for possible reuse
Pedestrian prioritization and city linkages
Climate and urban form
Mixed-use master planning
Conclusion

Where are you going?

Where do you go?
Lyrics from “Where are you going?” by Dave Matthews Band

He doesn’t seem too happy does he?

source: email forwarded by Niti Kapoor, original source unknown

References

A City Machine, Bhatt A., www.ab-a.com

Arabic – Islamic Cities: Building and Planning Principles, Hakim B., Kegan Paul International 1979

Environmental Planning Unit, Malhotra J., Architecture + Design Jan – Feb 2000

Experiencing Space, Mass and Surface, Biswas S., Architecture + Design Jan – Feb 1998

Fusion of Landscape and Architecture, Kukreja D., Architecture + Design Jan – Feb 2000

Garden Cities 21: Creating a Livable Urban Environment, Simonds J.O., McGraw-Hill Inc. 1994

Planning by Objectives, Patel S., Architecture + Design Jan – Feb 1998

Rainwater Harvesting, Kundoo A., ARCHITECTURE – Time Space & People September 2003

Sustainable Cities for the Twenty-First Century, Jain A.K., Architecture + Design Jan – Feb 2000

Urban Conservation, Cohen N., The MIT Press 1999