comments on sos

the comments will focus on the vision pages as they indicate how to move forward and develop the udf after the sapi student congress.

walking in chris’ shoes

vision: 24h city

not sure if the title fits the intervention proposed as nothing you elaborate on is related to time. if someone of the group wants to pursue this concept, you have to map and illustrate the day and night conditions in the retail district as they are at the moment. then you have to re-programme strategic areas or points of magnitude that are strong enough to trigger and facilitate valuable change.

the project seems to be more about ‘the supportive city’ or rather ‘supporting chris’. by offering public access to water and electricity which originates from the inside and top of buildings, you start to formulate a proposal on how merge the private and public realm. this is a rather interesting idea, however it needs more layers, more precision and detail that is directly related to the site, physically (design), legally (policy) and as a narrative (chris) . use your extended fieldwork and other research to weave past and present with sustainable future  urban development. define ‘sustainable space’ through your design in a physical, environmental, cultural, economical, political and personal way. identify buildings with usable rooftops, show where the tap and power points are located in the public space. do they create a new series of public spaces running through area? calculate how many solar panels you needs, how much food you can produce. are there any other energies you can distribute publicly? how do people from the street get onto the roof top? will you design public ladders that hang on the facades? how do you handle security? what role does the new network play on a larger city scale? don’t forget to offer the owners of the building something in exchange for subletting their roofs to the street, design a win-win situation . you might need to introduce of layers of intervention in your framework. didn’t you present a sketch plan with a route that you wanted to emphasize? if so, bring it back into the project. what about the empty buildings? always remember to walk in chris’ shoes.

frontiers

vision: green linkages

you need to develop an overall idea that does not stop in the retail district, which is an urban management boundary, not necessarily a physical one. you might want to look at a proposal for urban development in basel by mawan that ‘provides an overall view on quality of public realm in the city centre for the next decades, and focuses on creating a green and vibrant landscape city, providing spaces that create a ‘shared space 2.0’.’ like the designers in that project, you visualize the development of public space, work on urban scenographies and  propose a planting concept. you have to work in section, plan and elevation simultaneously. the project needs an open space audit that catalogues all open spaces in and around the area. they can be tiny and residual or well sized and planned as such. take another look at http://www.urbantactics.org/projects/ecobox/ecobox.html, the shipping pallets grow community in paris  link the formal and the informal in your urban landscape proposal. you must go beyond a line of trees along five streets, you have to create new and unexpected linkages that change the area and its surrounding to the better. maybe include some available courtyards? think about the timeline of the project, trees need time to grow…

traversing frontiers

vision: linkages between all transport facilities

upfront a general comment: avoid to present findings as stereotypes like ‘wealthier people do not live in the rid’. your conclusion is difficult to understand as a vision guiding an urban design framework. what linkages are you looking for? how do you intend to facilitate social inclusion? what role does the potato play, what is its significance? it should be more than an indicator of links and barriers. is your project about stimulating ‘the exchange of persons, goods and knowledge’ (open city, kees christianse)? could it be declared a special economic zone where you define the rules and include small businesses like crimson and maxwan did in rotterdam in the spatial economic blok proposal, a top-down strategy that allows for bottom up transformation? using empty buildings as temporary nurturing ground for economic development? making the rid a real centre of trade? Let’s see what you’ll come up with.