DESIGNING
AN URBAN SPACE ... something i can be, ... within it.
I like the idea in the Book, The Image
of a City by Kevin Lynch that says, “the design of a City
is a temporal art” and that “its image is soaked in memories and meanings”. In
the point of view of a practicing architect like me, who is used to design and
construct buildings for the Client, i see my work as the one i can dream of,
while it is still on its design phase and the one i can touch while it is being
constructed. But after the project is
turned over, its already just a thing to
look at, to watch that building
deteriorates or to watch it being revived again, usually by other architects
already. This i realize that the sensorial effectivity of doing a building for a client is on the
eyes and the touch only.
But designing an Urban Space, like a City,
especially when You yourself as the designer is a Citizen of that place brings
you to the totality of your senses
including your 6th sense which are
the intuition-fear-anxiety-speculations
and guesses. As urban designers, we
are not just spectacles but we are a part of it. Inside it,...within it.
I never had this feeling before even
since i became a Contractor of a 30Million Palms Resort in Boracay, modesty aside. Because
though i consider it as my biggest
project so far, yet, its finished and already turned over, and i am in Manila
now. I may just feel it when i go back to Boracay again and stay in that
Resort. A little knowledge of Urban Design thru a one term subject Arc 213 had shifted my paradigm. It had given
me a wider and clearer mirror and see more meaning in the profession.
I lament on those audience composed of
architects several years ago when the famous Urban Planner Nathaniel von
Einsiedel was talking to them. It seems before they listened to those speeches,
they must had taken first this subject: Planning to easily relate to the
principles discussed. Now i see, it is only when you capture the Theory of
Planning where you can appreciate the meaning of it and relate to the
sentiments of many planners when they bombarded the Metro Manila situations and
other cities outside the country.
REFLECTION ON GOVERNANCE
Just a week ago, i was in close argument
with my previous college professor, Arch
Manuel Tingson of University of San Agustin. It was about the filling-in of
portions of Iloilo River named and awarded as the Longest Landscaped River
Esplanade in the Country. My professor advised as , “in Urban Design , work
with politicians” , this is a sour sound to me. All my life i did not ever
wanted to work with politicians, and even
go out labelling those designers as puppets of politicians.
Yet, the topics on
Governance in this subject had opened my eyes to realized and see the
difference. When an architect constructs a Mall, he will just deal with
construction crew and his budget to complete it. When designing a city and
constructing portions of it, you deal with human being as part of it. As what Peter
Webber says: “ the process of moulding the form of the city through time”.
BEING LOST IN
MY OWN CITY
It is said that a good environmental
image gives its possessor an important sense of emotional security. A well
planned community may easily direct people’s activity to its route and
destination . All these i agree, and that i also agree to the fact that cities needs revitalization, renewed and
shall be made economically sound and sustainable. But there is the reality in
its sentimental value of the matter. The permeability of the urban design, not
just in the artistic sense but on the economic-social condition. Cities whom the original inhabitants were used
to, and spent their years, are now, just
by the quick computer presentation and release of Infrastructure Funds are
scraped-off and changed to what all of us designers say Green Cities.
In a way, the time for acceptance of
the people of the design in the way they perceive it and react to the new
environment is so fast. With the saturation
of mass media, even the outskirts are reached with images of propaganda on how
your city will be as political promises. Personally, i had seen many images of
the bridge of the famous Architect Calatrava of Spain published in the net that
says, this will be your new bridge.. this and that.
And now that IT got its way, its vital
to consider if the legibility of the urban structure blends in same pace with
the mindset of the people. Reason why people cannot cooperate with the city
ordinances is because, ordinances are treated like “ posting a poster of Do
this..Do that.. or else..???...” It has
to be considered that still, the participation of the people in moulding ordinances
is its ticket to obedience and support.
The long and quite ( though i accept,
they are stagnant bushes and swamps) that were once builders of memories are now
changed into Esplanades, walk able parks and i am saddened of the piers and
river banks who still posses their natural curves and remains of piers posts,
are now changed to high-tech marina with resto –bars. Yes, this is gaining
taxes for the city and its good now.. the city is still clean. But had you
thought of all these developments after 5
or 10 years? Where will be the
wastes of these resto along the walk able parks will go?
It is not that we don’t like
developments. It is because there is that identity and harmonious relationship
between the man and the ecology of these places that now, in the strike of many
backhoe and bulldozers getting title recognitions
and DPWH Funds.
Sad to say, i feel lost in my city due
to the rapid modernization that had been useful for the economy but defeats the
inhabitants belongingness. I feel lost in my city because the state of mind of
the city administrators are now changed.
They become friends of the investors who are not Illongos but businessmen from
other places. And the most saddest part is, when you rise up and question, you
will be tagged as” kontra-partido” a political term baptized for those who seem
like does not like what the present political party is doing in handling the
city.
What else do we sacrifice to have a
good Urban Design other than facing-out our old and harmonious communion with our
sprawling community called now the “IS” term for illegal settlers and the continues educating
of the constituents. Are we fitting to what nature wants us to be? Or are we
the one now, traversing nature due to
our own greed for power and recognition. Is this saving for Human Survival? Or
building-up human quest for more satisfaction that later even the whole world
can no longer accommodate.
I am in the Island of Panay until i
age 25 years old and had witnessed how the island of Boracay is now, compared to 1975. Now, many Urban and
Environmental Planners flip-up their drafting table upside down. There is no
more land in Boracay Island to dramatize, all are already owned , if not
titled, by rights. Here, another meaning of being LOST in your city is clear. The old inhabitants now,
lost their city in its face because they were driven away.
MANIPULATORS
OF THE PHYSICAL ENVIRONMENT
Its surprising to read this line....”
As manipulators of the physical environment, city planners are primarily
interested in the external agent in the interaction which produces the
environmental image.” The definition of
the word manipulator as stated in www.yourdictionary.com says, “ is the person or machine that does a
job with skill or shrewdly manages something to their benefit.” Oftentimes we
hear and we wanted to believe, for the good of the people, to be sustainable,
for clean and Green.... hopefully and stand firm it is not for the politiceans
monetary benefit. At this point, the word “ manipulators” shall be referred to the Politiceans if they
are permitted to manipulate the physical environment and make urban designers
only as illustrators.
A town mayor had ordered for a design
of a covered court in front of an Old Historical Municipal Hall in one of the
towns in Visayas. The Architect in the municipal council contradicted to the
idea because it will defeat the historical image of the town, cover the
historical Municipal Hall. Still the
Mayor proceeded with, kick-out that contradicting architect by saying , “this
is my town “..and requested funds for the structurally sound monster court that
covered the ever graceful mementos of the town glorious past. The townfolks sigh..
this is not our town anymore.. this is Town of the Mayor.
Grant the people its belongingness
because the people are part of forming the city. Permit the people to own and
be proud of the image of their city and slowly blend them to the so- called
diversification leading to sustainability. These imageability hits my imagination of the simple
urban area of Marinduque and Bagiou, both are on mountain –like images of a
City which are very opposite to the City of Manila and Las Pinas, both in Flat
land.
In effect, going back again to my
City, Iloilo, it imageability is brought about by the rivers curving like
“tears on a woman’s face”. This made me anxious of up to what extent
modernization will occur, if they are now
able to fill-in portions of the kilometers of the rivers, time will come that
they will fully cover the rivers and convert it to the entirely land for use.
And i am looking forward to miss to see ...the Iloilo River that looks like ..”
tears on a woman’s face”.
URBAN ART IS ENTIRELY A DIFFERENT ART
My impression of Landscape design is like a small scale
of a city design. In landscape design, what your perspective now is not yet
there when you started because plants did not grow yet, and it will reach a
point when such perspective of yours will meet with what the status of the
actual, but wait a while and the plants will grow unmanageable and the image of
that Landscape you did will go beyond what
you expected.
This is because, in Landscape, we deal with the living
plants and elements. More with the city, we live with everything, not just
living humans, flora and fauna, but we live with the evolution of the mindsets
of every individual. And since the art of urban design has to deal with the
two-the observer and the observed, then, its image to the observer maybe
different depending on the evolution of mindsets of the observer at a given
time. Here now, i agree that the designers are like psychologists in this
tasks.
Flanagan said... there is such a thing as “the landscape
of our confusion” , yes there is and i feel that fear now after knowing what
urban design is all about. It is because, if the art ( city design) and the
audience ( the people) grows together, there are uncontrollable aspects that
not only one person can control but needs the designer (art) and the
administrators or governance ( the people) . In this sense, i feel “fear”
realizing how necessary education has to be for City Administrator.
How many of
our high Government officials took up urban designing. There are a few of them
and the effect of the knowledge such city administrator has is really visible
affecting good directions of public infrastructure. Considering governance as a
vital element in urban design, then the City Mayor becomes a city
architect on its own, relatively.
Let me end this reflection by the phrases from the Book:
Thermal Delight in Architecture by Lisa Hechong....
A sixteenth-century traveller furnished an eyewitness
description of the delights of a Persian garden during its golden age:
“The garden I shall describe was constructed in
such a way that two courses of crystal-clear water met before a building,
forming a large lake in which country swans, geese and ducks disposed
themselves. Below this lake were seven waterfalls – as many as there are
planets ... From the lake jets of water spouted up so high into the air that
the spray, as it descended, was like a rain of diamonds. How often was i moved
by the rippling of the fountains and the murmuring of the brook as it streamed
downhill, over the terraces of the garden, hemmed in by rose bushes, willows
and acacias. I cried with sheer joy until the exceeding beauty and the rucshing
of the water rocked me to sleep”
LET DEVELOPMENTS TAKE ITS PLACE BUT LEAVE US OUR HEARTS
Many books will still be written and
many theories in Planning will still be strengthened. The findings and
principles today may twist years from now, depending again on the global
community, the rise of political issues and the economy. Urbanism had been
defined since the times of the Romans in their own way of shaping it. And now
that many countries of the so-called 3rd world is on its height of
Urbanism, these are already unstoppable.
New
propaganda will emerge and new psycho wars will threaten the human race. Unnoticed
are the threatening of global warming and other famine as a weapon to
distract and destroy concentration and sway towards the
country’s ruler’s financial gain. In all these, my only wish is to let
developments take its place but please give a space for human senses, the
sensitivity of the designers shall remain to protect the human sense of living
on this earth be protected from the roaring concrete jungle of the hybrid city.
References:
· Image of the City by Kevin Lynch
· Thermal Delight in
Architecture by
Lisa Hechong
· Urban Design-Methods and
Techniques
by Cliff Moughtin, Rafael Cuesta,
Christine Sarris and Paola
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