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urban_corridors [2013/12/12 09:35] – [practice, fieldnotes and dissemination] amiurban_corridors [2016/01/13 17:48] (current) – external edit 127.0.0.1
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 =====the edible city===== =====the edible city=====
-A third of the world population (regardless of geopgraphic location or nationality) is moving from rural areas to the cities, within one generation the global urban population is expected to double. Today, almost 80% of europeans live and work inurban agglomerations. This raises a great deal of social, economical and environmental issues. How do cities deal with these facts, now and for the future?+A third of the world population (regardless of geopgraphic location or nationality) is moving from rural areas to the cities, within one generation the global urban population is expected to double. Today, almost 80% of europeans live and work in urban agglomerations. This raises a great deal of social, economical and environmental issues. How do cities deal with these facts, now and for the future?
 Growing Food for the Hungry City is an OpenGreens project that researches the possibilities of Urban Agriculture and the green zones in the future city. Can cities secure their food security? How participative are the citizens? What is the motivation of the do-ers, the collectives of citizens? How do collectives, families and individuals organize their temporary green zones in OpenGreen networks, autonomous and bottom up? Do these sustainable cities thrive on new food politics, supported by a democratic and eco-minded community engagement? Growing Food for the Hungry City is an OpenGreens project that researches the possibilities of Urban Agriculture and the green zones in the future city. Can cities secure their food security? How participative are the citizens? What is the motivation of the do-ers, the collectives of citizens? How do collectives, families and individuals organize their temporary green zones in OpenGreen networks, autonomous and bottom up? Do these sustainable cities thrive on new food politics, supported by a democratic and eco-minded community engagement?
-The thread of this project is the creation of OpenGreen cpuls-strip (cpuls – continuous productive urban landscapes) along the canal, a biological corridor that is connected by the flightroutes and foraging areas of city honeybees.+The thread of this project is the creation of an OpenGreen track along the canal, a biological corridor that is connected by the flightroutes and foraging areas of city honeybees.
  
 =====TAZ: urban voids, temporary autonomous zones===== =====TAZ: urban voids, temporary autonomous zones=====
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 Re-appropriation and reincorporation of these spaces is time-consuming. First of all our society doesn’t always have well-defined purposes for these places. But even if there is a clear plan, the realization of any spatial redevelopment project is always preceded by a (sometimes very lengthy) phase of conceptualization, negotiation, planning and preparation, before the actual realization on site can start. On top of that implementation of plans can easily be delayed due to financial, social or other reasons. Re-appropriation and reincorporation of these spaces is time-consuming. First of all our society doesn’t always have well-defined purposes for these places. But even if there is a clear plan, the realization of any spatial redevelopment project is always preceded by a (sometimes very lengthy) phase of conceptualization, negotiation, planning and preparation, before the actual realization on site can start. On top of that implementation of plans can easily be delayed due to financial, social or other reasons.
 This is why there will always be a number of urban spaces that are temporarily ‘in transition’. These are the places we are focusing on: abandoned by their previous users and not adapted to the demands of the current society, these places seem unsuitable or undesirable in the mainstream economic cycle. Because of this, they often (temporarily) slip out of the main urban actors’ notice and are left behind with little or no use - we could therefore say that they are ‘temporary out of use’. They consist of large or small scale places, public or private and built or un-built, which are in some kind of in-between phase - a pause - in functionality. Therefore these spaces can be described as ‘pause-land/spaces’.  This is why there will always be a number of urban spaces that are temporarily ‘in transition’. These are the places we are focusing on: abandoned by their previous users and not adapted to the demands of the current society, these places seem unsuitable or undesirable in the mainstream economic cycle. Because of this, they often (temporarily) slip out of the main urban actors’ notice and are left behind with little or no use - we could therefore say that they are ‘temporary out of use’. They consist of large or small scale places, public or private and built or un-built, which are in some kind of in-between phase - a pause - in functionality. Therefore these spaces can be described as ‘pause-land/spaces’. 
- +{{:ua:urban-voids.pdf|Learning form tactical approaches to urban voids, 02 april 2012 - Aurelie De Smet - K.U. Leuven, Faculty of Architecture - Campus Sint-Lucas (LUCA)}} 
-=====tactical urbanism and temporary use=====+{{:urban_corridors:scanning-roofscapes2.jpg?700x123|}} 
 +=====tactical urbanism: reclaim the rooftops!=====
 As mentioned earlier, quite recently we observed the emergence of a broad range of urban activism emerging worldwide. These civil initiatives oriented towards spatial planning and urban redevelopment, aim at ‘re-conquering’ the city from institutional and economical organizations by mobilizing the bottom-up energy of the city and enabling citizens to take part in the shaping of their daily environment. They believe that the dynamism created by this network of weak and everyday users, might be able contribute to the reconstitution of urban life in areas, where official (traditional) planning strategies do not seem to offer adequate solutions anymore. To refer to this broad range of alternative urban interventions arsing worldwide today that are attempting at answering the need for more contemporary, flexible and spontaneous ways of developing we will use the term ’tactical urbanism’. The use of this term is inspired by a piece of writing by Rebar (2010) saying that ’In contrast to technocratic urbanism, there exists a set of people, processes, and places that we would characterize as user-generated urbanism. This is the urbanism of the tactician, those devising temporal and interim uses, and seeking voids, niches, and loopholes in the socio-spatial fabric. These processes are made evident in circular, hybridized, and overlapping patterns of resource consumption and tend to foster a diverse, resilient, social ecology.’ It also follows the distinction between tactics and strategy as applied by Michel de Certeau to describe the behaviour of people and institutions. A tactician, unlike a strategist, depends not power or financial resources to achieve his goal, but instead makes use of external forces (visitors, media, …) and specific circumstances, manipulating them in order to achieve his goal. He is motivated and wants to work hard, even with limited resources, for the realization of his plans. As mentioned earlier, quite recently we observed the emergence of a broad range of urban activism emerging worldwide. These civil initiatives oriented towards spatial planning and urban redevelopment, aim at ‘re-conquering’ the city from institutional and economical organizations by mobilizing the bottom-up energy of the city and enabling citizens to take part in the shaping of their daily environment. They believe that the dynamism created by this network of weak and everyday users, might be able contribute to the reconstitution of urban life in areas, where official (traditional) planning strategies do not seem to offer adequate solutions anymore. To refer to this broad range of alternative urban interventions arsing worldwide today that are attempting at answering the need for more contemporary, flexible and spontaneous ways of developing we will use the term ’tactical urbanism’. The use of this term is inspired by a piece of writing by Rebar (2010) saying that ’In contrast to technocratic urbanism, there exists a set of people, processes, and places that we would characterize as user-generated urbanism. This is the urbanism of the tactician, those devising temporal and interim uses, and seeking voids, niches, and loopholes in the socio-spatial fabric. These processes are made evident in circular, hybridized, and overlapping patterns of resource consumption and tend to foster a diverse, resilient, social ecology.’ It also follows the distinction between tactics and strategy as applied by Michel de Certeau to describe the behaviour of people and institutions. A tactician, unlike a strategist, depends not power or financial resources to achieve his goal, but instead makes use of external forces (visitors, media, …) and specific circumstances, manipulating them in order to achieve his goal. He is motivated and wants to work hard, even with limited resources, for the realization of his plans.
 An investigation into the approaches and methods employed by these actors, that we then could call ’tactical urbanists’, reveals that ‘temporary use of urban voids’ is one of the tools that is commonly adopted by them. The potential of voids to act as ‘heterotopia’, ‘liminal places’, ‘thirdspaces’ and/or ‘terrains vagues’ is then exactly what they are taking advantage of.  An investigation into the approaches and methods employed by these actors, that we then could call ’tactical urbanists’, reveals that ‘temporary use of urban voids’ is one of the tools that is commonly adopted by them. The potential of voids to act as ‘heterotopia’, ‘liminal places’, ‘thirdspaces’ and/or ‘terrains vagues’ is then exactly what they are taking advantage of. 
-{{::ua:urban-voids.pdf|Learning form tactical approaches to urban voids, Aurelie De Smet}}+
  
  
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 There are many different types of habitat that are suitable for these pathways: natural, semi-natural and artificial. There are many different types of habitat that are suitable for these pathways: natural, semi-natural and artificial.
  
 +Cpul - Katrin Bohn and Andre Viljoen, architects : {{:research:the_edible_city_katrin_bohn_and_andre_viljoen.pdf|the edible city}}   - continuous productive urbanlandscapes
 +London 2045 - Katrin Bohn and Andre Viljoen, architects : {{:research:cpuls_viljoen.pdf|Cpuls, London 2045}}
  
 +=====biological corridors, an ICT approach=====
 +Art and ICT. Citizens and Sustainability.
 +The project will develop the ICT components necessary to support the bottom-up emergence of ecological corridors in urban areas. Ecological corridors are ephemeral living structures in the form of green spaces connected through animal life (such as bee colonies), that are set up and maintained by communities to regenerate areas of the city, particularly areas which are undergoing social and urban stress. These corridors can contribute to social cohesion and sustainability by raising awareness and minimizing resource waste. Several ICT technologies are crucial to achieve such corridors: Embedded systems, novel sensors, low energy computing, and sensor networks are needed for monitoring soil quality, plant growth processes, animal activity, pollution and the movement and interaction of people within the local environment. Mobile communication and geoinformatics are needed for aggregating sensory data and projecting it in real time onto maps. Complex systems analysis, low energy computing, and machine learning are needed for detecting patterns to allow prediction and the shaping of ongoing social and biological processes, and novel user interfaces are needed to make embedded technologies accessible and usable without requiring sophisticated background or training. The project will be highly innovative because it opens up a new application area for a whole range of ICT technologies and because it generates deep challenges that will push the state of the art for each technology as well as their integration into a complex distributed system. The project will also innovate by putting artistic methodologies at the heart of the project. Ecological corridors require disruptive action in the city and intense participation of citizens which will not happen by itself. The role of artists is to help create a safe space for the needed disruptive action and to develop effective representations that would increase participation and help to dissiminate the results of the project. 
 =====artistic research methodologies===== =====artistic research methodologies=====
 More than ever today, nature has become inseparable from culture. If we are to understand the interactions between ecosystems, the mecanosphere, and the social and individual universes of reference, we have to think tranversality. (Guattari) More than ever today, nature has become inseparable from culture. If we are to understand the interactions between ecosystems, the mecanosphere, and the social and individual universes of reference, we have to think tranversality. (Guattari)
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-  .=====practice, fieldnotes and dissemination=====+=====practice, fieldnotes and dissemination=====
   * hardware ICT : sensornetworks for data gathering   * hardware ICT : sensornetworks for data gathering
   * data storage in databases   * data storage in databases
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 {{:research:bees.jpg?300x225|}} {{:research:diacenter_ext.jpg?169x225|}} {{:research:bees.jpg?300x225|}} {{:research:diacenter_ext.jpg?169x225|}}
-//bees from brussels, real time// ........................... //Joseph Beuys - 7.000 oaks, dia foundation NYC//+//bees from brussels, real time// ............................. //Joseph Beuys - 7.000 oaks, dia foundation NYC// 
 + 
 + 
 +=====corridors: study topics===== 
 +How can we study, measure, monitor, store and compare the differences between an urban corridor and the rest of the city? 
 +What are the levels, domains, areas, ... we have to look into? 
 +What sustainable technology do we have to develop to monitor the (changes in) environmental urban layers? 
 + 
 +We can work with TIME CAPSULES, showing //slices in time// of a specific OpenGreen in the Corridor, represented by its environmental data. What data do we add to the Time Capsule? 
 +  * Plant diversity 
 +  * air quality 
 +  * degree of pollution / small particles 
 +  * soil quality 
 +  * all meteo elements (rain/wind/sun) 
 +activity patterns 
 +  * economic 
 +  * social 
 +  * cultural 
 +  * historical 
 +  * representation: the ecological Time Capsule 
 +we can compose a capsule with different items, and repeat this for the different participating OpenGreens: 
 +  * pollen (and plant determination through the pollen)  
 +  * dried plants with a description of the active constituents and a representation of the % 
 +  * strips of paper colored by the degree of air pollution on a specific timeslot,  
 +  * dead bees with their descriptions 
 +We can compare the data of the different Time Capsules and check and compare the emergent patterns: 
 +{{:research:emergent-pattern.jpg|}} 
 + 
 +Emerging is an interdisciplinary dialogue whereby philosophy and literature would learn from each other to think about, imagine, and describe, vegetal life with critical awareness, conceptual rigor, and ethical sensitivity. Literary works featuring plant imagery may be analyzed with reference to philosophical frameworks, while philosophical discussions of the meanings of vegetal life may be enriched and supported with the tools of literary criticism. Another dialogic dimension of the series entails a sustained engagement between Western and non-Western philosophies and religious traditions, representative of the human attitudes to plants. This “cross-pollination” of different fields of knowledge and experience will become possible thanks to the fundamental role plants play in human life, regardless of their backgrounding or neglect. 
 +http://www.rodopi.nl/senj.asp?SerieId=PLANT 
 + 
 +A biomarker, or biological marker, is an indicator of a biological state. It is a characteristic that is objectively measured and evaluated as an indicator of normal biological processes, pathogenic processes, or pharmacologic responses to a therapeutic intervention. It is used in many scientific fields. 
 +In cell biology, a biomarker is a molecule that allows for the detection and isolation of a particular cell type. 
 +In medicine, a biomarker can be a traceable substance that is introduced into an organism as a means to examine organ function or other aspects of health. 
  
 =====corridors at the salon of the critical art ensemble - documenta 13 kassel===== =====corridors at the salon of the critical art ensemble - documenta 13 kassel=====
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   * participating gardens => active creative expressions of the participating inhabitants, communities, neighborhoods   * participating gardens => active creative expressions of the participating inhabitants, communities, neighborhoods
   * social awareness raising : human activity that strives to (re)structure and (re)shape society and the environment   * social awareness raising : human activity that strives to (re)structure and (re)shape society and the environment
-  * knowledger building of cities as complex ecosystems+  * knowledge building of cities as complex ecosystems
  
 corridors as artworks corridors as artworks
urban_corridors.1386840934.txt.gz · Last modified: 2016/01/13 17:46 (external edit)