CIB Working Group 84 Building Comfortable Environments for All Meeting ACCESSIBILITY AND SAFETY FOR ALL PTE-Expo Verona, Italy 22 March 2006

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1 PTE-Expo Verona, Italy SECOND SESSION TOWARDS A NEW URBAN METAMODERN CONSCIOUSNESS Doina Mira Dascalu, Faculty of Architecture G. M. Cantacuzino, Technical University of Iasi, Romania, doinamira@yahoo.com Key words: urban rehabilitation, urban deficiences, sharing streets, urban consciousness Abstract Nowadays we are facing a noticeable need of urban rehabilitation for the old and new spaces of our town, in order to correct many disfunctions. The space-street versus the space-square is an important urban contemporary dialog: the social importance of the city squares, or of the city public places, is transferred, at local level, to the street. The aim is to turn to the best account the space of the streets and squares: to re-think and designed these urban spaces as safety areas for larger users groups. For the people with different needs, but also for all the other inhabitants of our towns, we should find judicious ways to give back some residential streets. That means find such a manner to give it back the lively, personal and picturesque touch that it once have, but also to ensure the safety to move, to stay and to enjoy. The application of the new concept of streets for living-streets for all means that the street became a common space created to be shared by pedestrians, bicyclists, and low-speed motor vehicles. This kind of new urban space can bring also the end of the urban isolation. The mixing of the population with and without special needs, the mixing of the ages, is the means to bring back in our cities the tolerance, the inner peace, the unmediated inter-communication. The urban virtues of these reanimated places will educate people and will restore all citizen identity, whatever can be their degree of dependence, will restore their feeling of self-respect and also their responsibility towards the city and its aspects. These special spaces can constitute the beginning to open the way towards a new urban Metamodern Consciousness of human beings. Introduction We live into a fragmented world and we suffer from all the diseases and troubles of this break. We forgot our roots in the holistic primordial world where all the living beings were united. All we can remember and feel from this Golden Age come into our memory through a subtle and deep special consciousness, giving us the desire to be a Universal Being. In this context, I desire to underline the fact that, in the name of our working commission Building Comfortable Environment for All, for All means a special pure desire, spring out from the universal archetypal awareness of the human beings. Is the desire to create a safe and sane environment for all human beings, with or

2 without different needs. This pure desire can be the root and has the inner force to open the way towards a new urban metamodern consciousness of the future humanity. What does that mean? Inheriting all the polluted artificial ecosystems from the postmodern era, the metamodern urbanism, if we can say so, tries desperately to mend and solve all the shortcomings of our old or new human settlements. The environmental equilibrium of the urban space has become a vital problem. Among a lot of severest consequences, the psychological lack of balance is, nowadays of a great importance. The modern man s tensions find their origin in the perpetually crowded cities, where the natural green and blue of Mother Earth vanished in the noisy traffic blocks, in the polluting industrialized areas, which intoxicate large zones, generating noxious gas and neurosis neurasthenia. The aspect of our urban spaces and their architectural and urbanistic layout are generally full of visual, physical and psychological shocks. As urbanists, we should not confine ourselves only to spaces and materials, but our field must comprise also the human feelings, outlooks and subtle necessities. In the modern city, the ancient urban spaces, but also the modern urban public spaces, have been degraded, their environment and their layout being almost entirely subordinated to the needs of traffic. They became mainly utilitarian spaces, often unfriendly and contaminated, loosing the real contact with its inhabitants. On the other hand, it is important to rehabilitate the old urban areas without turning them into arid museums and also avoiding the mortification of the old urban tissue. These things remain ones of the big cultural problems of modern architecture: less aesthetics, more ethics. It is a common error restoring some urban areas without reintegrating them into a real urban life. This reintegration could be realised either by providing them with suitable urban functions, not artificially functional and by rehabilitating them from the environmental point of view. Visual perception of the city, of the urban spaces, varies from one person to another, from one culture to another and it is related to the significance that each individual assigns to physical and social environment. Every one of us needs a certain urban environment and a certain degree of urban comfort, his perception being related to his psycho-emotional personality and to the motivations of their activities in the urban environment dictate. In that context, the statistics revealed from many years a noticeable fact. Is the fact that for the urban and personal identity of the elderly people and of the inhabitants with different abilities or needs, the aspect of their living places and of their neighbourhood is very important. It is known, also, the attachement of elders and of the people with different needs to some old residential and public places, which can give them an important territorial feeling, urban identity and self respect. So, for them, but also for all the inhabitants of our towns, we should give back some residential streets, in such a manner as to give it back the lively, personal and

3 picturesque touch that it once had. Nowadays we are facing a noticeable need of urban rehabilitation. The social importance of the city squares, or of the city public places, is transferred, at local level, to the street. The space-street versus the spacesquare is an important urban contemporary dialog. The aim is to turn to the best account the space of the streets and squares: to re-think and designed these urban spaces as safety areas for larger users groups. 1 THE NEW CONCEPT OF STREETS FOR LIVING-STREETS FOR ALL Some cities have already implemented and experienced this useful concept. In Europe the dutch woonerf and the german verkehrberuhigung are the terms for this urban experience. Is the name of the streets for living. The street becames a common space created to be shared by pedestrians, bicyclists, and low-speed motor vehicles. The typically narrow streets are transformed into spaces without curbs and sidewalks, where vehicles are slowed by placing trees, flowers, urban-art objects, parking areas and other special obstacles in the street. These special obstacles are, in fact, special landscape arrangements, which can transform the space of the street into a place for self restoration where, all the people can socialize easier. Motorists become the intruders and must travel at very low speeds below 16 km/h. The identification sign for woonerf or the verkehrberuhigung is placed at each street entrance. Figure 1. Woonerf in Holland / from en.wikipedia.orgwikiliving_street. But how can we obtain these new kind of urban spaces without creating anarchy. How can the participants to the traffic pedestrians and drivers not disturb each other. These are the questions of some pedestrian and drivers in a public opinion test. We know all that the existence of this kind of space will be possible only trough a

4 new kind of urban awareness - will have the root in the changing of wrong urban behaviors both of pedestrian and drivers, of people without and with special needs. We can learn from all these urban experiences of woonerf and we can avoid the deficiencies, avoid the disfunctions, using their good results. So, here are some of the qualities that the new kind of urban metamodern spaces FOR ALL should have. We will name the proposal for these new urban spaces streets for living- streets for all. First of all, a connective urban system it will be difficult to realize, but the beginning can be done by selecting some residential areas with a significant percentage of elders and peoples with special needs. We should begin with an interactive urban morphological study of the selected urban tissue. After this study we will have some criterion for making judicious proposals for the rehabilitation and for urban interventions. The reinstatement of the selected areas could be made by creating adequate urban functions, not formal ones, which could give a specific urban life and a personal atmosphere. Using the science of urban rehabilitation we can transform the residential street into a new public space for social, cultural and possibly commercial activities. The most important point is the traffic problem. The selected areas should be protected from the traffic accidents creating a very low automobile volume. The car is not banished, but its circulation should be limited at the level of the pedestrian walking - below 16 km/h. This makes a street available for all kind of pedestrians, especially for the groups with different needs, not only for local residents. The aim being the creation of a space shared by pedestrians, bicyclists, and lowspeed motor vehicles, the question is how to manage and conduct the car circulation trough the street space. Through a judicious landscape design using trees, urban-art objects, flower stands, special pedestrian kerbs, decorative pottery, decorative poles, illuminating pillars, special decorative flagstones - we can keep vehicle speeds very low in order to make the streets safe especially for children, for the persons with special needs and for elders. In order to be accessible public areas for larger users groups, which should stay and move safety, all the proposals will be careful selected: the layout, the architectural design of details and all the equipments. Pedestrian will use all the surfaces of the public space square or street. The participants to the traffic pedestrians and drivers should not disturb each other. The design should take care of the pedestrian with special needs safety. That means proposals for a judicious design which will offer a subtle distribution ad management of the pedestrian circulation. That means the layout proposals will avoid dangerous obstacles or surfaces for people with reduced mobility capabilities. That means proposals for

5 surfaces with regular shape and homogeneous structure of pavements. Street furniture, plantings and other fixed items should not protrude into travel route. That means also proposals for areas with tactile materials or specific cordons in order to support the mobility of blind and visually impaired people. Particular care should be taken to locate temporary signage so that it does not impede pedestrian travel. Other pedestrian facilities on along sidewalks must be accessible. Signal actuating buttons, drinking fountains, telephones, kiosks and other pedestrian elements should meet accessibility criteria for approach and maneuvering space, reach range and operation. The safety must be guaranteed during day but also the night. Visible identification signs for the entrance in these places should be placed at each street entrance. Consideration must also be given to provide access in these areas for fire trucks, sanitation vehicles and other service vehicles (school buses and street sweepers), if needed. The parking for small special vehicles and for cars will be strictly regulated, parking places being exactly indicated. The presence, the design and the place of public lights for the evening and nocturnal circulation will improve the safety of the rehabilitated area. How to enjoy stay and socialize, stimulating different groups to use the facilities of these streets for living-streets for all : endowing the areas with adequate urban functions and equipments. Using the sustainable virtues of landscape architecture we can create multifunctional sustainable arrangements and we can restore the deteriorated urban life of the old streets. We can concretize one essential truth of life, the respect for the essential joy trough a real contact with Mother Nature. Using earth, water and vegetation, using the power of the blue sky contemplation, we can obtain important effects of relaxation, restfulness, or dynamism. We can transform some spaces into garden plots, providing close contact between others leisure spaces and the street. Such availability of space tries to stimulate the users with special needs, old or youg people, to move about and enjoy. Works of creative and applied art can be distributed for contemplation, but also as a visual therapy, stimulating leisure and playing activities. As a result, the urban space will acquire magnetism and will generate unmediated social contacts. The zonal magnetism will grow, attracting inhabitants of other town corners. It will be a favorable place for human communication, for different human activities, an escape of anonymity and isolation. The cost to create a streets for living-streets for all may be quite high, but there would be no extra cost if it is designed into the original environment, using all the existent qualities of the area, enhancing the potential of the existing built fund and of the spaces.

6 Figure 2. Image of GTZ project from Sibiu town in Romania In Romania the European project GTZ, developed in the historical town of Sibiu, which will be one of the cultural capital of Europe in This project invests funds, trying to stimulate the rehabilitation of the old historical and traditional tissue in residential areas of Sibiu. About 60% of the funds are invested in encouraging 10 private people to rehabilitate some interesting exterior details of their dwellings. It s only a beginning. We observed that a part of the interested people, which accepted to participate and to be involved in the project, was aged people, due to their attachment for the urban space where they live. Such projects, even not addressed to the aged people, prove that it is possible to stimulate elders participation to change the aspect of the town. And also, prove that is a possible way to stimulate and to develop a new life attitude, to enjoy, use and participate to the urban rehabilitation of the space of their residential streets. It is an active way to develop new urban behaviors, exchanging the old and anchylosed conscience with a new one: the metamodern consciousness.

7 Figure 3. Creation of a pedestrian urban space in Sibiu, Romania. Conclusions This new urban concept of urban space for all will enhance the social role of the old and new residential streets. The social importance of the city squares, or of the city public places, is transferred, at local level, to the residential street, through its transformation into public space. The goal of applying this new concept streets for living-streets for all is to create for larger users groups, adults and children, an escape from the pollution of city life. We could persuade and educate the inhabitants, old or young, with or without special needs, into enjoy the new urban spaces that we can offer to them, into stimulating their creativity and inspiration in these new spaces. The realizations of streets for living-streets for all can bring the end of the urban isolation through the mixing of the population with and without special needs, the mixing of the ages. It means to bring back in our cities the tolerance, the inner peace, the unmediated inter-communication. Is the means to restore all citizen identity, whatever can be their degree of dependences. These reanimated places will be able to educate people, the feeling of selfrespect and also their responsibility towards the city and its aspects. The rehabilitation of these city tissues with or without historical or architectural value can transform them into: -a significant and emotional presence, sometimes historical, offering the most complex prove of the continuity in the urban evolution, important for their territorial feeling, for their urban identity, giving them confidence; -an indispensable presence by their capacity of telling more about the city residential history, providing the power to educate, ethically and aesthetically;

8 -an economical and functional presence, enhancing the urban value of an important old built fund, that could be used in good conditions with proper activities. -a cultural presence; we should underline an important aspect of the application of this new urban concept: the cultural adaptation of all the users groups. It is a main element which will give strength penetration into the conscience of the all groups of inhabitants. Figure 4. Woonerf 2 in Montreal Canada / from en.wikipedia.orgwikiliving_street. The theory of trans-cultural archetypes, discovered grace to the genius of Garl Gustav Jung, explain and prove that there is a deep, ancestral consciousness inside of us which has an archetypal origin. It is the one which give us the desire to be a Universal Being, to be united. It is true that, nowadays, all of us can feel the huge desire of Universal Peace, of Universal Joy, of Universal Sustainability. And this desire spring out from the root of the future new human consciousness, which is the fruit of a long and inner development, which is the work of this deep archetypal awareness. Another great personality of humanity, Shri Nirmala Devi Mataji, doctor in medicine nominated to the Nobel Prize of Peace, named this future new human consciousness as Metamodern Consciousness, because she gave to our contemporary era the name of Metamodern Era. Through his theory, Jung explain also an ancient prevision: that this Millenium is the time when the humanity will be again rounded off, will be completed as a Whole, or as a Holos, like the ancient wise greeks philosophers said. Shri Nirmala Devi confirm the prediction and the explanations of Carl Gustav Jung, that indeed in this Era the world will be again a Whole, without

9 any discriminations, the human beings will develop all their qualities, they will have access to discover all the secrets of the Universe. I think that the most important secrets of our University is how to obtain the knowledge of living together in this world, united in peace, respect and forgiveness. And the existence of many urban spaces FOR ALL will help us to crystallize the new urban consciousness, the consciousness of sharing these new kind of urban spaces without disturbances, with the desire of peace, tolerance and mutual support: the Metamodern Consciousness. References Dascalu, D. (2005) Healing solutions for a sustainable urban landscape, to the International Conference of VSU, Sofia, Bulgaria. Dascalu, D. (2005) Recreating a safe urban environment using the sustainable virtues of landscape architecture, International scientific reunion of the special program of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation concerning the reconstruction of South- Eastern Europe Sustainability for humanity & environment in the extended connection field Science-Economy-Policy, Timisoara. Bica, S. (2005) The layout of streets and squares for more friendly and ecological urban environment, to the International scientific reunion of the special program of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation concerning the reconstruction of the South- Eastern Europe Sustainability for humanity & environment in the extended connection field Science-Economy-Policy, Timisoara. Gheorghiu, T. O. (2002) Locuire si Neasezare, ed. Paideia, Bucuresti. Radoslav, R. (2002) Topos comportamental, ed. Marineasa, Timisoara. Shri Mataji Nirmala, D. (1995) Meta Modern Era, Computex Graphics, Bombay, India.