Essay. ARC 6989 Reflections on Architectural Design Aknur Sengaliyeva MAAD. Sheffield School of Architecture, 2012

Transcription

1 Reflections on socially active architectural practice and contemplations about the potential influence of active participation on architectural design practice in Kazakhstan Essay ARC 6989 Reflections on Architectural Design Aknur Sengaliyeva MAAD Sheffield School of Architecture, 2012

2 If people are to feel a sense of belonging to the world in which they live, an involvement in the spaces they inhabit is a good starting point. Architecture and Participation.

3 Introduction. Personal interest in socially active architecture. During the last decades our world has experienced vast historical, environmental and aesthetic changes. It directly reflects to our society on different scales: from the cultural groups to the behaviour of individuals. These changes are tightly interrelated with the built environment. The relationship of architecture and society is being discussed widely in The Sheffield University School of Architecture and by a lot of contemporary architects. It made me shift my way of thinking of architecture. I have been brought up as a designer taking architecture as a set of functional and aesthetic qualities. The occupation stage and what happens to the building after it is built was not discussed a lot in my previous education. Here, in Sheffield, I have become interested in social effects of architecture and reflecting back on my country I can see the tight relationship of the social changes and the approach to urban design as a process of the local planners. I believe that the built environment exemplified by public spaces has also an effect on the behaviour of social groups. It relates not only to the physical qualities of spaces but also to the architectural design process. Is architecture able to address social issues and suggest solutions? This essay is going to investigate the strategies of architectural design of public spaces which can strengthen communities in Kazakhstan.

4 Why community is important? The word community is often used in Sheffield School of Architecture. However, sometimes it is difficult to understand the level or the type of the addressed community and its boundaries, whether it is local neighbourhood community or national or religious community. At the beginning for me, as for non-english speaker, it was difficult to compare to the networks forming in Kazakhstan. The translation of this word to Kazakh gives dozens of definitions from the national society level to a group of neighbours. That is why it is important to understand what kind of community architecture can have an influence on and why community strength is important.

5 Evaluating the social behaviour of people in Kazakhstan I would like to take into account my personal observations as a resident. It is generaly believed that the urban conditions have influence on citizen s social relations. This kind of trend is widely described by Claude S. Fischer s work To Dwell Among Friends. Being specialized on social psychology in relation to spaces the author explores problems of building personal networks in urban situations due to the vast psychological impact of the urbanisation. Taking that into account it to some extent answers the question why people in Almaty (the biggest city of Kazakhstan) might be so difficult to interact. There are also political, economic and ethnic reasons for that. There is a lack of the sense of belonging to the area; people feel responsible only for the dwelling, the space behind is considered to be under the duty of the government. The reason for that can be the high coefficient of migrations on the country level and at the scale of cities. Uneven development of cities and concentration of industrial sites lead to the migration of people seeking a better life. When people have no other choice and they have to leave to cities resisting their feelings and mentalities. There they feel disharmony both physical and psychological. It may bring firstly to everyday problems which can lead to social conflicts says Yekaterina Bolgert in her article about social consequences of urbanisation process (zakon.kz, 2010). Therefore the overall economic development of both urban and rural areas is highly essential for the social harmony. However, I believe that bottom-up approaches to the urban planning can address problems in a specific local scale.

6 What can architecture do to address social problems? First, I would like to describe in which ways particular approaches to the architectural design process can lead to different scale social changes. Urban open spaces themselves are important for communities as a venue for communication and a place connecting residents. However, only the presence of this kind of space does not create strong networks. The agenda should be taken during the architectural design process. User engagement to the design process can work in both ways: for architects helping to get locality specific knowledge and for the community to raise the sense of ownership and belonging to the site. It has been accepted for some years that user involvement improves overall facility facility satisfaction says Stephen A. Brown (Communication in the design process, 2001)The modern practice shows that there is a lack of communication between the end users and the architects. Usually architects work with the client who is not always the end user, who has the power and money and controls the flow of the project.

7 The desire of the end user in this case is being left disregarded and therefore, the overall satisfaction of the project by the user becomes lower. Users become more passive consumers rather than doers, public become fixated on a superficial and transient version of architecture says the author team of Architecture and Participation (2005). This is exactly what happens in my country. The lack of the communication between the end user of public spaces and the designers affects the success of the spaces and weakens the communities. User involvement is, therefore, the essential part of the architectural design process.

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9 Participation as a catalyst for new modes of architectural practice What kind of changes towards socially responsible architecture should be considered? The architectural design process should be entirely reconsidered in terms of stages of design. Kazakhstan architectural organisations as many other traditional companies usually stick to the standardised set of documentation. For example, according to the normative, the pre-design documentation includes technical and economic reports, scientific and engineering research, feasibility studies, measurements, sketches and other site survey documents. These all are undoubtedly necessary but the user need investigation, in my opinion, should be standardised procedure to encourage architectural practices to include it to their usual way of working. Architects should acknowledge their social responsibility and firstly identify the existing problem. In this process citizen involvement as experts with specific knowledge of space is essential. By this I mean active participation of citizen as users. However, I acknowledge that it wouldn t be easy to encourage people to participate. Moreover, people might be suspicious to the radical changes in planning strategies. In my opinion the changes into conventional way of working should be introduced slowly and organically with a gradual change in public awareness and the architects experience. Workshop as a part of our Live Project, where we share and develop ideas with the potential users of the compost urinal that we proposed.

10 Citizen-expert Ladder of Partcipation Sherry Arnstein, 1969 Participation requires careful approach and rethinking of traditional architectural methods. Jeremy Till describes pros and cons of participation explaining how it might be pre-determined and manipulated and what kind of danger it might have for architectural practice. He critically analyses Sherry Artsnein s ladder of participation which suggests several degrees of participation from token participation to the controlled by citizens. He argues that placatory participation which sits in the middle of the ladder is engaging enough for the participants. The author suggests a shift in architectural practice which might happen only through acceptance of the role of the architect as an active participant, of political aspects of space and of inevitable uncertainty of the outcomes (Architecture and Participation, 2005). In this process representational techniques and conventional methods of work should be rethought to make the process of investigaetion and design more interactive and understandable by non-professionals. For example, Op-Trek architectural practice, which we met during our field trip in Netherlands, in collaboration with TU students for their project on Binkhorst industrial area renovation made interactive model allowing public to move objects around and seek ideas through participation. This kind of change in the roles and responsibilities of both users and designers in architectural design process will help Kazakhstan to address the existing social problems described earlier. The evaluating of the citizens not only as users but as experts will help both architects to develop the design conception and the citizens to raise the sense of belonging to their surroundings.

11 And finally, if talk about sustainable development of architecture, participation is one of the critical components of this change. 2012Architecten, the practice which designs products and buildings with an idea of facilitating sustainable development in its broader term, takes participation as a key strategy for the project development process. In his interview to IBA-Talk No. 2: Going local, the forum discussing issues of recycled materials for temporary and permanent structures, he says: Particpation of people and existing organisations is a clue to make use of the potentials of your city because it s not only about the buildings and empty spaces and also about organisations that are already working in these buildings. If you give them possibilities to do what they want to do you connect them with each other and you get so much value and energy you don t have to put in because it s already there Interactive model to facilitate participation of people in the area reconstruction project. Children and their parents participating in the building process of the De Vlek Project by 2012Architecten (photo source:

12 Political aspects of participation. Participation will also make architects closer to people. Nowadays it seems that one of the reasons of people in Kazakhstan being detached from their environment is a political distrust. The desires of the state and people often diverse: vast structures and road knots come across to the people s will of safe streets. John Forester explores the response of planning practice to the conflicts of political parties. He insists that planners and planning analysts should negotiate the desires of different political parties at the same time deal with such problems as cultural and ethnical differences, distrust and suspicion, anger and indignation and etc. (The Deliberative Practitioner. Encouraging Participatory Planning Processes, 1999) I think the more planners will include participatory methods to the plan- Citizens conversation against the penthouse construction on the roofs of their apartment blocks

13 ning process the friendlier will become our environment. During our field trip to Netherlands we met architectural practices who put raising a wider discourse about the specific urban situation as their general aim. For example, Op-Trek architectural Practice initiated the project Hotel Transvaal which introduces a new understanding of the term hotel. The Transvaal Neighbourhood in The Hague was the subject to renewal due to gentrification process. Being a resident of the neighbourhood, Sabrina, the practice member, turned the whole neighbourhood into a hotel creating the network of hotel services all over the area. By doing this she tried to encourage people to come and experience the atmosphere of urban renewal and, at the same time, use local services. This example shows how very bottom-up approaches to architectural practice can address specific social problems. We also visited an exhibition organised to present stands of socially driven architectural projects in Holland. They were addressing such urban problems as gentrification, empty spaces, community networks and etc. Exploring some of the projects broadened my interest in socially active architecture. Citizen in this kind of project act as experts and are active participants. These examples of practices also show activist approach to the projects. Sketch illustrating the change in urban planning approach from top-down to bottom-up

14 Conclusion. What implementation can this knowledge have on my future Overall my essay reflects my personal interest towards the socially active architecture. Analysing the existing problems with communication between architects and public I tried to evaluate the potential benefits of introducing active participation into architectural design process at the same time tried to predict possible obstacles and challenges of the change. The lack of awareness of the planning process and different desire to what has been built make the public alienated to the spaces. In Kazakhstan the situation is detiorated by political distrust and suspicion. Communication problems are strong in urban areas due to the high coefficient of migrations and unfavorable urban layout. Acrhitecture is able to address specific social problems if it is carefully investigated with a help of public as experts and designed with participation of the users and after it has been built left a room for the further development. This approach will raise awareness of public of architecture as discipline and will build stronger communities through creating networks. Moreover, the negotiation of desires of different political parties can reduce growing social conflict. The interest on the influence of architecture on communities will have a further implementation in my thesis project. This will allow me to investigate the current issues of the architect-public relationship and test participation ideas with small communities. However, in my future practice it would be difficult to establish a socially active architectural approach due to the number of possible difficulties described in the essay such as public suspicion and political issues. In conclusion, I think participation should be motivated and supported by government allowing planning processes include bottom-up approaches.

15 Bibliography: John Forester. The Deliberative Practitioner. Encouraging Participatory Planning Processes The Community Planning Handbook. Edited by Nick Wates. Earthscan Shirley A White with K Sadanandan Nair and Joseph Ascroft. Participatory Communication Working for change and development Arnstein, S.R. (1969), A ladder of citizen participation, American Institute of Planners Journal, Vol. 35 Yekaterina Bolgert. Urbanisation of Kazakhstan residents may bring to serious social conflicts. Almaty Available Online at Stephen A. Brown, Communication in the design process, London : Spon Press, 2001 Peter Blundell Jones, Doina Petrescu, Jeremy Till, Architecture and Participation, London : Spon, IBA-Talk No. 2: Going local conference video footage. Available at Architecten, Available at