The architect's library: books, shelves, cases, collections, displays, exhibitions and READING.
on site culture urbanism art architecture
$9 display until october
Bombay Calgary Vancouver Rome São Paulo Paris
New Orleans Venice Inuvik Toronto Naramata Djienne
water
17
17 on
site
all sorts of people Zubin Singh Aniket Shahane Cecelia Chen Peter Osborne + Joylyn Teskey Shannon Harvey
Water and more water Surfing
00 01 04 08 10 12 14 18 24 28 30 34 36 40 44 48 52 54 56 59 61 64 66 68 70 74 76 77 81 82 88
photos thesis culture processes review geography research essay revista observation
Dhobi Ghats and laundromats Drinking water, thinking cities Branded: Calgary Water Building Condocity: the language of location North Atlantic Rim Research Collaborative Sub-Saharan Africa: the weight of wealth Harris Water Treatment Plant 1932-41 Roman fountains Aqua Branca, São Paulo Vancouver condos RFR-Paris footbridge Foundations and floods New Orleans after Katrina Island of Discarded Plastic (Leonia), Venice Tsunami memorial Inuvik Family Centre Restorative landscapes Roof garden water systems Reclaiming the Don River Sanya New Town, China Land/Scope at CCIW, Hamilton Okanagan vernacular Things you can do with swimming pools Garden of Light, Jamelie Hassan West coast driftwood the 200-word dash Prix de Rome in Architecture the 100-word dash vital information
Elizabeth Shotton Taymoore BAlbaa
Paul Whelan David Takacs Fernando de Mello Franco Joey Giaimo Henry Bardsley Paul Whelan Jason Sowell + Nichole Weidmann Charles Stankievech Adrian Benoit
infrastructure urban typology
engineering engineering infrastructure installation proposal project landscape building technology infrastructure urban order hybrid environments landscape performance review photodocumentary what are you reading ? book review what are you teaching ? masthead water photography
Wayne Guy Real Eguchi Owen Rose Yvonne Lam Eddie Wu
Jonah Humphrey Robert Mackenzie Christie Pearson Miriam Jordan + Julian Haladyn
Michael Leeb many readers Odile Henault some teachers us
Harriet Burdett-Moulton, Joey Giaimo, Monte Sobsischen, Greg Piccinni, Joe Kubic Stephanie White, Rafael Gomez Moriana, Karen Trask, Filiz Klassen, Jonah Humphrey, Brian Dyson, Lisa Hirmer, Florian Maurer, Miriam Jordan, Julian Haladyn, D Selden, Tanner Merkely, Paul Litherland, Arthur Allen, Daniel Thorp, Melissa Brown generally by the authors, plus Stephanie White, Brian Liston, Niamh Keene, Maire Costello, Fiona Carroll, Jacinta Curley, Roger Mullin, Nelson Koh, Lori Keisling, H+S+N, Winterstudio.NL, Hugo Arriojas, bREAL, Claire Frost, Ashok Charles, Ron Myanishi, Gwen MacGregor
photography in articles
As if the half-mile trek to class isn’t bad enough. Ithaca New York Melissa Brown
Ithaca Falls Joe Kubic
surfing the architecture of waves
master ’ s thesis extract | university of waterloo school of architecture by zubin singh
skateboarding surfing
surfboards mythology Huntington Beach Pier
1
Through the act of surfing, as no other human activ- ity, man enters the domain of the breaking wave, is contained by and participates in its broadcast, measures and is in turn measured, meets its rhythm and establishes his own, negotiates continuity and rupture at the scale of the body. What is the nature of this inhabitation? A bold proposition: surfing is an architectural act. Through it the surfbreak is drawn within the sphere of culture and the wave becomes an architectural domain. Geographically the surfbreak represents an actual threshold between environs, but historically it has also been a symbolic Porta between two overlapping and irreconcilable realms, two inimical elements: the land and the sea, earth and water. On the one hand, the stable and the familiar: the ground upon which humankind has built its civilizations and institutions, established its relation to space and time, defined cul- ture. On the other, the capricious and unknowable: the quintessential other, Nature at her most fecund and ruinous, that which is beyond, indeterminate. It is no accident that Hesiod’s Aphrodite was conceived in the spume, or that Botticelli’s Venus is borne ashore on the crest of a breaking wave: the surfbreak has always been a fertile territory in the human imagi- nation, a metaphor of paradox, of life.
2
on site review 17
1
As a point of departure: the pier; beginning with a comparison between surfing and skateboarding– an analogous relation between the surfer’s appropriation of the pier and the skateboarder’s appropriation of the urban environment. In Skateboarding, Space and the City (Berg, 2001) Iain Borden presents skateboarding as a ‘performative critique’ of the values associated with life in the modern capitalist city, specifically as they are manifest in architecture, as they order our relations with space and time. Skateboarding subverts the intended function of architecture (namely utility) by reducing architecture to a terrain– a composition of objects and planes to grind, jump or ride. ‘Skateboarders analyse archi- tecture not for historical, symbolic or authorial content but for how sur- faces present themselves as skateable’ ( p 218 ) ; ‘the city for skateboarders is not buildings but a set of ledges, window sills, walls, roofs, railings,... and so on’ ( p 219 ) . While skateboarding often rejects the commodifica- tion of space (frequently the skateboarder transgresses the boundary between public and private) it is also a rejection of time as a commodity: ‘Skateboarders are... more concerned with temporal distance as proxim- ity (temporal closeness of things, temporal locality), and its repetition, than with time as a valuable resource or measure of efficiency’ ( p 226 ) . The surfer appropriates the pier in a similar fashion. Ever since surfing emerged on the California Coast its adherents have congregated around the pier (the Huntington Beach Pier is perhaps the most famous example) because of the structure’s inadvertent tendency to create sandbars, whose presence enhances the shape and power of the breaking waves. The intended function of the pier, on the other hand, is primarily commercial. It exists as a simple structure built for fishermen (who pay to use them), or as a more elaborate commercial en- terprise designed to attract tourists (e.g. Santa Monica Pier). As skate- boarding does with the urban fabric, surfing subverts the intentions of the architectural object; the surfer rejects its commercial function, which she appropriates for her own purposes – free of charge. Surfing transforms this largely utilitarian artifact into an armature of the surf- break, the locus of an alternative social realm: the privileged refuge of the individual surfer, engaged in the solitary session; or a remote com- mons, where local surfers gather outside the spatial and social bounds of conventional society. In the end however, it is not the pier but the
3
on site review 17
2
4
1-4. The pier at Huntington Beach, California
wave itself to which the surfer is drawn; and it is ultimately the wave that determines not only the space of the surfbreak, but more profoundly the surfer’s relationship with time. In the water the surfer is constantly in motion, negotiating the ever-shifting regions of ‘inside’ and ‘outside,’ the areas shoreward and seaward of a breaking wave that each successive wave redefines. In surfing timing is everything: not only while riding, but in simply finding the evanescent wave, whose rhythms do not obey the constructed metres of modern society. Surfing is not something to be scheduled; rather, it must be scheduled around. Consequently, in order to surf on a regular basis, all surfers must inevitably submit to the wave– the spatial embodi- ment cyclical time. Waves are created by vast pelagic storms; they follow the paths of the seasons, respond to the pull of the sun and moon, to the alternations of night and day– to the rhythms that once defined our understanding of time’s passage. The practice reflects this reality: surfers tend to return to familiar breaks season after season, year after year; the surf-session is defined by elliptical orbits– surfers paddle outside, wait for and catch a wave, only to return outside and repeat the sequence again; there is no score, no tangible goal, no clear beginning or end. This stands in stark contrast to the linear conception of time upon which the idea of progress is founded, the imperative which drives the modern world. As a result, surfers are often caught between the demands of irreconcilable worlds as well as inimical elements. Even the surfboard spans two seemingly antithetical domains: the mass production of the foam ‘blank’ (the primary component of the modern surfboard) and the hand-craftsmanship of the board shaper; the impersonal and placeless nature of the industrial process, coupled with the fact that shapers often craft surfboards in collaboration with surfers in response to particular conditions and locations– the gently tapered lines of Malibu or the fast-breaking tubes of Pipeline. In the threshold between land and sea, between progress and nature’s incurable cycles, between the modern and the vernacular, dwells the surfer. In the shadow of the pier a wave swells, steepens, suddenly mortal; and on a thin blade of glass and foam a surfer strokes into the wave, rises to his feet and descends – at the moment of its collapse: a dialogue, an architectural dialogue, between permanence and change. D
on site review 17
3
drip-dry urbanism a laundry list for urban vibrancy In the laundromats of Bombay and New York, water and power go hand in hand. Not only do they com- prise the infrastructure required for the laundromats’ operation (water for washing and electricity for drying), but their availability as resources determines both how and how much space is claimed by this banal activ- ity. The architecture of the Bombay Dhobi Ghats — a generations-old Indian public laundry — and the New York City Laundromat unveils the impact of infrastruc- ture on people, activity, and architecture.
culture | dhobi ghats and laundromats by aniket shahane
laundry Bombay
New York water use labour urban visibility
Like many other Laundromats, Bombay’s Dhobi Ghat provides complete laundry services for its clientele including clothing pick- up/drop-off, washing, drying, and ironing. However, in contrast to Laundromats that have a stronger infrastructure at their disposal, the Ghat survives on a spartan attitude towards water and energy consumption. It works like this. Upon request, a courier from the Ghat is dispatched to a client’s home to pick up dirty laundry. The clothes are wrapped in a brightly colored sack and swiftly delivered to the Ghat by the courier, usually on a bicycle or other man-powered vehicle (water and electricity are not the only resources that are hard to come by in Bombay). Upon arrival at the Ghat, the clothes are
India’s infrastructure can be characterised as fragile at best. Although improving, the supply of both water and electricity are unreliable. Power outages are not uncommon and water is often unsanitary, if running at all. Low levels of water and electricity instill in Indians a frugal mindset towards the consumption of these resources. Water needs to be carefully allocated. Electrical loads must be at a mini- mum. But what India lacks in resources, it more than makes up for with resourcefulness. In Bombay, a city of 18 million individuals, the human hand is the best means to monitor the quantity of water that flows from a tap. Reliance on manpower is critical and is most evident in the architecture of the Dhobi Ghat.
on site review 17
4
feed the fragile Bombay water into each one of these pens through a spicket. Overhead, a web of clotheslines makes an ad-hoc trellis. In Bombay, where the act of washing and drying clothes can’t be trusted to resource-guzzling machines, a man inside a concrete pen and a clothesline suspended in open air are the best substitutes. The architecture of the New York Laundromat, in contrast, is far more subdued. The city’s robust infrastructure gives New Yorkers the li- cence to use as much water and energy as desired, even at a time when the word ‘sustainability’ is all the rage. This allows the demeanour of the New York City laundryman to be drastically different than his counterpart in Bombay. Like the Dhobi Ghat, the typical New York Laundromat also provides full laundry services for its clients. Once the clothes have been dropped off at the Laundromat, the laundryman empties the bag of clothes into a washing machine, usually separating whites from colors. A plastic dial is twisted to select water tempera- ture, while seven quarters are thrust into a metal tray in order to start the machine. After exactly twenty minutes, it stops, at which point the load is assumed to be clean. The clothes are then unloaded by the laundryman, transported in a cart a short distance to the drying machine, and tossed into a dryer. A fabric softener sheet is added, another dial is turned to select the desired level of heat (i.e. electric- ity) for the job, more coins are inserted to determine drying time (one quarter buys six minutes of hot air), and finally a button is pressed to begin the machine drying process. The only part of the New York City laundryman’s job that doesn’t involve the use of a machine is the folding of clothes, which has to be done by hand. If clothes are folded soon enough after drying, there is usually no ironing required. Because the laundry process in New York is not nearly as labour in- tensive as in Bombay, it enables many clients to come in and do their own laundry — an option not available at the Dhobi Ghat. Locals will arrive at all hours, unload a bag of clothes into a washer, return thirty minutes later to transfer the clothes to a dryer, then come back once again to take the clothes home. Compared to the Ghat, the New York Laundromat is an easy, tidy operation.
sorted, marked, and handed over to the laundrymen. Unlike wash- ing machines, which provide little flexibility in water usage, washing men can regulate the stream of water from a tap so as to use only the amount necessary for a given load of laundry minimizing wasteful wa- ter consumption. After the appropriate amount of water is released, soap is added and the washing man begins his job. Knee deep in sudsy water, he dunks a few articles of clothing at a time, pulls them out, smacks the garments on a flogging stone in order to beat out the dirt, and then wrings the clothes of excess water with his bare hands. This process is repeated until the washing man determines the load to be clean, at which point he carries the garments in his arms to one of many clotheslines strung from one side of the Ghat to another to begin the drying process. The clothes are hung to air-dry individually one article at a time; the occasional Bombay sea breeze is far more dependable than the Bombay electrical infrastructure. Finally, the dried, wrinkled clothes are hand-pressed using a heavy iron heated in a wood-burning oven. They are then folded, packed in another color- ful sack, and returned by courier to their rightful owner. The Dhobi Ghat is a place of messy, physical work that engages the entire human body and demands much from its architecture. Above all, the Dhobi Ghat needs to house men performing an ardu- ous job. Unlike the washing machine, a washing man requires more space and maintenance. He needs to be able to bend down, stand up, scrub and flail wet clothes. It’s necessary for him to be able to eat, drink, and communicate with other washing men. He is far less pre- dictable and productive than a machine. He can slip and fall, take ill, bear a bad mood, or demand better pay. Moreover, the washing man lacks the capacity to wash as many loads as one washing machine. Therefore, in order for the Dhobi Ghat to run as a legitimate business, it needs to house many washing men. With such a complicated pro- gram, it is no wonder the Ghats are designed the way they are: they are not enclosed at all. An open Laundromat — one with no walls — gives the washing men enough room to manoeuvre as required while allowing plenty of natural air circulation to mitigate the per- vasive dampness. In this open format, rows of concrete pens on the ground are sized to allow one laundryman to wash. Bundles of pipes
on site review 17
5
The architecture of the NYC Laundromat is a direct reflection of its resource abundant, labour deficient process. It requires space to ac- commodate a certain number of machines with identical dimensions and predictable behaviors. A rehabbed ground floor of a row house will do just fine. The Laundromat on Smith Street in Brooklyn is a typical example. Besides the overflow of glaring fluorescent light- ing from the large storefront window, there is very little that gives away the activities that occur inside. The interior contains two rows of machines with a centre aisle. Washing machines are towards the streetfront, while dryers occupy the back of the space. The floors, walls and ceiling are a ragtag composition of vinyl and acoustic tiles, in order to provide an economical and acoustically sound enclosure. The architecture of the New York Laundromat is, for the most part, fairly discreet. In both the Dhobi Ghat and the Smith Street Laundromat, space is generated not only by the physical form, dimensions, and organisa- tions of men and machines; it is also a direct result of varying degrees of access to water and energy. Because the Dhobi Ghat has to be a physically open space in order to function, it is possible for the aver- age passer-by to peer down on the space and witness the chaotic col- lection of people and clothes, wet and dry. The sound of laundrymen bellowing each other and the smell of dirty cloth and caustic soda
contribute to the public assault of one’s senses. The Ghat’s location next to the train line allows the activity of clothes-washing to be a landmark passed on the commute to and from work. In more ways than one, the Dhobi Ghat asserts itself onto its city. In fact, this kind of emphatic claim of urban space is typical of Bombay locals. When given scarce resources, countless Bombay residents take matters into their own hands. They claim the space of their city as their own, not just for washing and drying, but also for cooking, eating, sleeping, bathing, entertaining, defecating, urinating, and cremating. Bombay is a city of perpetual urban aggression — each individual carrying out in public what they cannot do in private. In New York, on the other hand, the introverted nature of the Smith Street Laundromat betrays its city’s tendency toward privatisation. The abundance of resources in New York affords a city that is luxu- rious enough to individualise almost everything, including access to a washer and dryer. Everyday mundane chores such as washing and drying clothes don’t require the effort they do in Bombay and are mostly kept out of the public realm. Why air dry outside when there is plenty of electricity to machine dry inside? In fact, it is so uncommon to see clothes hung out to dry in New York that on the rare occasion that it actually happens, it often induces outcries from neighbours. Hanging laundry in New York today is seen as a sign of a neighbour-
on site review 17
6
hood in decline. It devalues adjacent property. So even if New York- ers are tempted to air dry (to save on electric bills, for example), they will most likely opt to be good neighbours and use a drying machine instead. Alas, the price of living in a city with seemingly endless re- serves of water and electricity is the burden of propriety: please use a clothes dryer rather than a clothesline to dry your clothes so my prop- erty does not depreciate; please grill in your own backyard rather than on the sidewalk so I don’t smell your cooking; please play your music in your living room rather than on the street so my quiet evening at home isn’t disturbed. The affluence of New York infrastructure has instilled in New Yorkers something that currently does not and cannot exist in Bombay: a common sense of civic etiquette. It is a reminder that commodities as basic as water and electricity have the power to affect people, behaviour, and ultimately, space. Considering the impact of architectural spaces such as laundro- mats on cities like Bombay and New York begins to shed light on the possibility that seemingly naïve everyday acts such as cleaning clothes, washing dishes, or taking baths do much more than tap our collective infrastructure. They promote or sometimes impede urban vibrancy. A vibrant city is an arena for both celebration and conflict, a place that readily counteracts order and predictability with unanticipated spon- taneity. Now is a time when New York, despite — or perhaps because
of — all its resources, is in danger of becoming so bound by civic etiquette that there is less room left for New Yorkers to improvise on their streets. Conversely, if Bombay’s infrastructure doesn’t catch up to India’s charging global economy, it stands to marginalise millions of Bombayites, which could exacerbate — among other things — the city’s serious problem of shanty towns (a most extreme kind of urban improvisation). Sustainability and globalisation gurus have drilled into us the notion that we are one global village, inter-connected and networked; consuming resources in New York equates to depleting them elsewhere. But what if New Yorkers relied less on water and energy not only to slow down global warming, but also as an excuse to bring to New York some of Bombay’s penchant for spontaneous street intensity? What if the clothesline poles that stand in the back- yards of so many Brooklyn brownstones were activated with clean laundry once again, not just to help save the planet, but also to help keep Brooklynites from co-opting their borough’s air space? If the proponents of the Green movement are proven correct, then reducing the load on New York’s infrastructure might eventually have positive repercussions in other parts of the world. What is certain, however, is that it will almost immediately shift more activity from New York’s private to its public realm and help encourage a more free-spirited vigour on its streets. D
on site review 17
7
drinking water thinking cities death, life and drinking water
Water is the stuff of life. 1 In North America, drinking water each day is considered a healthful practice. How- ever, the recent death of a Californian is a disturbing case of drowning from the inside out. On the 12th of Janu- ary, 2007, Jennifer Lea Strange par- ticipated in a radio show competition and drank so much water so suddenly that she died of water intoxication. 2
processes | urban water by cecilia chen
water management life cycles climate change narrative paths water commodification
effluent that it absorbs. This water continues on, carrying material memories of the city to places downstream. Water moves between scales to blur the personal and the epic. Drinking from a tap brings my body water that has traveled endlessly in the hydrologi- cal cycle before undergoing the sanitizing process- es of a municipal water treatment plant. My body absorbs water to replenish and flush my innards. Eventually I urinate and then flush. Water that was within me is suddenly without – quickly moving downstream in shared waterways. We all contrib- ute to the landscape.
Cities and Water Almost all cities are founded near water: for drinking, washing, transport, agriculture, industry and pleasure. Oceans border Vancouver and Hali- fax. Winnipeg and Ottawa are located on rivers. Toronto sprawls on the shores of Lake Ontario. Montreal is an island in the Saint Lawrence. Yet un- derneath many cities there is another kind of water – an invisible infrastructure that supports urban life. The water in this buried network once fell from the sky, formed the current in lakes and rivers, and filtered slowly into underground aquifers. Our municipal waters are well-traveled. For example,
pesticides used in farming along the Ottawa River soon flow along the shores of Montreal and must be filtered out through water treatment facilities. The transgressive behaviour of water links cities to a much larger context. Metamorphosis and Transgression Water is always moving: waves endlessly morph into crest into trough into crest. Water changes form so radically that it easily becomes humidity, fog, rain, snow, slush, ice or an oil-slicked puddle. In its many shapes water flows from elsewhere, through and then past urban boundaries. It bears traces of the places through which it flows and the
on site review 17
8
tribe in the Broughton Archipelago. 8 On the shores of James Bay, the Cree people of Kashechewan suf- fered two years under a boil-water advisory before their beleaguered situation appeared in the media as a crisis in October 2005. 9 The panicked applica- tion of short-sighted solutions did not address the faulty design that had located the drinking water intake pipe downstream from the sewage lagoon over ten years ago. 10 Good Water is a Controlled Resource Water, as a utility, is only as good as it is con- trolled. When waters escape control problems en- sue. Consider the anxiety caused by a leaky roof or burst pipe; how a blocked sewer can flood a city intersection; and how the inadvertent contamina- tion of Walkerton’s water led to death and illness. Canadian regulations define safe drinking water through threshold quantities of contaminants known to threaten human health. 11 With about 700 new chemical substances patented each year, regulatory standards cannot keep pace. Water, as shared resource, is mostly publicly managed in Canada. However scarcity always excites the mar- kets and, through NAFTA, Canadian freshwater is at chronic risk of becoming a commercialised com-
Walkerton In the spring of 2000 a powerful storm in Walk- erton, Ontario, catalysed a series of events that introduced the deadly 0157:H7 strain of Escheria coli into the municipal water supply. 3 The pres- ence of these bacteria in the drinking water killed seven people outright and affected many with life-long Hemolitic Uremic Syndrome. The E. coli had its source in the cattle manure spread over Walkerton’s surrounding farms. Systems designed to control water quality failed: the technical and administrative equipment of purification did not purge water’s memory of manure-laden fields. Although triggered by a storm, it was a deadly in- tersection of standard farming practice, poor well design, inadequate privatized water management, and underfunded un-enforced testing regulations that precipitated the fatal contamination. 4 Human practices affect land and water. Water Rights Access to clean drinking water and adequate sanitation was declared a human right by the World Health Organisation in 2003. 5 These declarations crash into the difficult or missing access to these necessities in many parts of the world. Although Canada is a vast territory with 7% of the world’s re- newable freshwater, many here do not have access to clean water and sanitation. 6 The most poorly supplied settlements tend to be smaller communi- ties. 7 This autumn’s twelve-day boil-water advisory in BC may have seemed long to many, but it is short relative to the ten-years-and-counting advisory for the First Nations settlement of the Kwicksutaineuk
ter and sewerage are tied to these same variations in topography. Moreover, the water infrastructure of a large city cannot be the same as that of a smaller settlement. Is it actually possible to ensure equitable access to clean drinking water and good sewerage for communities of all kinds and sizes? This is where the design and planning of cities becomes very im-
portant. Ex-urbis
Imagine the water of a lake in Algonquin Park. Lapping up against a rocky shore of windblown pines and the hull of your canoe, this water evokes an ideal landscape of Canadian tourism advertise- ments. 13 Controlled use saves this park from the worst environmental desecrations of intense hu- man activity, but will this protected landscape survive airborne pollutants and global warming? Maybe the water that we conserve as ‘natural’ is re- ally not that distant from the cultured (treated) wa- ter of the cities. The eminent scientists of the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) 14 have stated the 90% likelihood that human activity has increased the rate of global warming. Should we be impressed by the power of our collective ac- tions? It is increasingly difficult to separately treat the natural environment and human culture. In this sense, current interdisciplinary strategies seem best equipped to embrace a far-sighted construc- tion of our world. Thinking about water, its sym- bolism, its materiality and its infrastructure joins the scales of personal ablutions, urbanity and en- vironment. Water holds a material memory of the shared world. D
modity instead of a public good. 12 Different Places and Access to Water:
Given that access to clean water is a basic neces- sity, how does the manner in which we manipulate water help or hinder equitable access? Drinkable freshwater is not evenly distributed within Canada. The locations of our towns and cities closely reflect this uneven geography. The infrastructures of wa-
1 See Ivan Illich’s book: H2O and the Waters of Forgetfulness: Reflections on the Historicity of ‘Stuff ’. Dallas: The Dallas Institute of Humanities and Culture. 1985. 2 Water intoxication is often a combination of hyperhydration and hyponatremia where the body’s cells lose their essential sodium levels in an attempt to equalize water within the body. The body drowns at the cellular level. The Sacramento radio station was KDND-FM. The morning show, “The End”, hosted a competition called “Hold your wee for Wii”. How can we distinguish between the need for water and the aesthetic and sensual pleasures of water in human culture? Which shaped the other? Or, put another way, pleasure and necessity are inseparable here. 3 Walkerton’s spring storm is called a ‘60-year’ storm in this online article: ‘Paying the Price for Safe Drinking Water: National Survey finds Canadians Willing to Accept Higher Water Bills’, on the Canadian Water Network website: http://www.cwn-rce. ca/index.php?fa=Media.showFeatureMay2006. 4 See Jody Berland’s article: ‘Walkerton: The Memory of Matter’. Topia: Canadian Journal of Cultural Studies . Fall.14 (2005): 93-108. 5 See WHO’s website: http://www.who.int/water_sanitation_health/rightowater/en/. The British Medical Journal survey of major medical innovations since 1840 lists sanita- tion as the most significant innovation: http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/334/ suppl_1/DC3. 6 See Environment Canada’s website: http://www.ec.gc.ca/water/en/info/misc/e_FAQ. htm 7 Walkerton has a population of about 4800; Kashechewan is 1700 people strong; and Kwicksutaneuk consists of 650 souls. 8 For BC and Vancouver see: http://www.cbc.ca/canada/british-columbia/sto- ry/2006/11/27/bc-boil-water.html#skip300x250. For the Kwicksutaineuk-ah-kwaw-ah- mish tribe see: http://www.cbc.ca/canada/british-columbia/story/2005/10/31/bc_wa- ter20051031.html.
9 Tidal movement is also an issue as described in Mike Krebs’ article: ‘The Crisis in Kashechewan: Water Contamination Exposes Canada’s Brutal Policies Against Indig- enous People’. Socialist Voice . 57. November 23, 2005. www.socialistvoice.com. 10 See Environment Canada’s website: http://www.ec.gc.ca/CEQG-RCQE/English/ Ceqg/Water/ or Health Canada’s webpage: http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/ewh-semt/water- eau/drink-potab/guide-recomm_e.html. 11 Muir, Derek: ‘Organic Pollution’. Water in Canada and the World: Rising Tensions in the 21st Century – Issues and Solutions . RSC: The Academies Conference. Canada Science and Technology Museum, Ottawa. 17 November 2006. 12 NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement) contains an aggressive clause in Chapter 11 that supports international exploitation of natural and national resources like freshwater. According to NAFTA once a resource has been exported commercially, it automatically falls under the rules of the free trade agreement. Under NAFTA rules a private company can sue a national government for fair market access to the now tradable and commercialised resource. This has a particular impact on the commer- cialization of freshwater resources in Canada and led to a February 1999 federal ban on the export of water from Lake Gisbourne in Newfoundland. Related stories are those of Sun Belt Water’s suit against BC and Canada for their failed water exportation invest- ment and the thwarted export of water from Lake Superior. See also Karen Bakker, Eau Canada , or Eric Reguly’s article: ‘Tories face rising water pressure’. Globe and Mail . Toronto, October 10, 2006: B2. 13 Algonquin Provincial Park was only established after the old-growth forests had already been completely logged. Most old-growth forests and ‘orginal’ landscapes are long since gone in many parts of Canada. 14 The IPCC used an interdisciplinary strategy that they term ‘Earth Systems Science’ to compile their research and conclusions on climate change. Various sustainable design approaches also promote interdisciplinary collaborations, for example: LEED, BREEAM, etc.
on site review 17
9
pushing the water agenda
review | city of calgary water building by peter osborne + joylyn teskey
The Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design program (LEED) rating system has standardised the green agenda, provided architects with a tool to rate and pro- mote sustainability and has given cities a way to quantify and describe sustainable design. Calgary’s Water Centre will meet or exceed the LEED silver standard.
metaphor civic branding expressionism sustainability calgary
branded
Everything in [architecture], from its fondness for certain shapes to the ap- proaches to specific building problems which it finds most natural, reflects the conditions of the age from which it springs. –Sigfried Giedion 1 Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth , Richard Branson’s $25,000,000 prize for greenhouse gas removal, and the highly publicised appointment of John Baird as Canada’s new environment minister have kept the environment front and centre on the 6 o’clock news. Sustainable de- velopment, green building and our environment are important issues these days. Environmental events such as Hurricane Katrina, 2006’s boil water order in Vancouver, and rapidly melting polar ice sheets have directed our focus onto water. Once thought of as a renewable resource, water is now perceived as a scarce commodity. Architects have long been contributors to the environmental problem; lately they are increasing- ly aware of a groundswell of consciousness about the environment. However there have always been some architects designing sustain- able buildings. Manasc Isaacs Architects and Sturgess Architecture have collaborated in a new sustainable architecture project for the City of Calgary, the Water Centre, currently under construction on the edge of Stampede Park in the Manchester industrial area. architects + public interest + our environment + LEED = sustainable build- ings The new Water Centre amalgamates four hundred waterworks and waste water department administrative staff from across the city. Although it is an office building, not a water treatment plant, the Centre’s functional design strategies and building systems make a one-to-one connection between the worker and water as a resource. Several LEED points come from water-related strategies — capturing water on site, and using it in low-flush toilets, waterless urinals and for irrigation, reduces water use by 59% and wastewater production by 72%. Architecturally, the building is detailed to reveal water. Rainwater downspouts, commonly hidden inside buildings or camouflaged on the façade, here are proudly freestanding, travelling in a straight, diagrammatic line from the curved roof to the xeriscape below. The building’s floor plan bends fluidly to the curve of the road. An arc of galvalum-clad roof starts at the street edge and curls over the build- ing, cresting over a south-facing courtyard. The wave continues out over the entrance as a thin arch of roof supported by a lone column. The shining silver wave of wall-come-roof is supported by a variegat- ed blue-green curtain wall which cants towards the courtyard — the aquamarine atrium is like looking through water to the outside world. The building narrows to the east like a travelling wave cresting over the courtyand. From the street however, the building appears to be a typical office building. Rectangular office spaces puncture the curve, distorting the reading of the wave.
global markets + branding + metaphor = Bilbao effect Giedion suggests that the zeitgeist inspires architecture. Although architects are being inspired to build ‘green’, our age is defined by more than just the quest for a sustainable future. The effects of a global market and its demand for unique branding, are shaping the built environment. Architects are commissioned to produce iconic buildings whose images can be reproduced and easily associated with a particular idea and place. Their buildings must convey a message, often in direct contrast to the their functional requirements. It is not news that architecture conveys a message. Gothic forms and ornament explained Christianity to illiterate masses; an extremely rational architecture articulated twentieth century fascism in Italy and Germany; more recently architects have used increasingly expressive, metaphoric and often irrelevant forms to create image and brand recognition for cities and corporations. Metaphor gives expression to forms; sometimes it relates to a message or brand and sometimes it does not. Frank Gehry describes his work, ‘I was looking for move- ment earlier, and found it in fish’. 2 Gehry’s metaphors of fish or luffing sails do not necessarily add meaning to the function of an art gallery, but they do bring identity to the building’s brand. In Sturgess Architecture and Manasc Isaac Architects’ first col- laboration, the 1990 Yukon Visitor Reception Centre in Whitehorse, metaphor both reflected the culture of the place and brought meaning to the building. Lisa Rochon described the structure as ‘arched glue- laminated beams to echo a skeleton of a whale or the curved ribbing of a kayak’. 3 Here, the metaphor gives the building an identifiable image and refers to the culture in which it resides, even if the visitor centre is neither a whale or a kayak. Metaphor is also a form generator in the Water Centre. Water, abstractly, gives the building its shape. From a distance, the rising wave form is the first and most obvious indication of the metaphor; it gives the builidng an easily understadable image, bringing atten- tion to the City of Calgary’s green agenda. As the scarcity of clean water increases, so will the legibility of the sustainability message. However, the Water Centre only metaphorically connects both observ- ers and users to the resource of which they are stewards: the building does not produce cleaner water for Calgary, it only represents cleaner water. Its metaphor brings attention to the greater issue but does not contribute directly to its solution. D 1 Sigfried Giedion. Space, Time and Architecture: The Growth of a New Tradition . 5th ed. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1982. p.19. 2 Mildred Friedman, editor. Gehry Talks: Architecture + Process . New York, New York: Riz- zoli International Publications Inc., 2005. p.42. ibid , p.43. 3 Lisa Rochon. Up North: Where Canada’s Architecture Meets the Land . Toronto, Ontario: Key Porter Books Ltd., 2005. p.239.
on site review 17
10
on site review 17
11
Branding 101: the language of location condocity
geography | maps of meaning by shannon harvey
branding mapping naming selling Vancouver
Marketing, history, and place are all determi- nants in the naming of what is momentarily the latest, greatest, future home of hundreds; the hi-rise condominium. This map surveys trends in development by taking an aerial snapshot of condo lingo in Vancouver. Neighbourhoods become branded by the lan- guage of location, be it local, international, royal, artistic, exotic... tapping into societal longings and creating a collective identity for the inhabitants within. The result is a map that linguistically identi- fies intended character and the era in which the neighbourhood developed (the West End uses more nautical and personal names, while Coal Harbour has a distincly tropical feeling, while the new area around Gastown/ Chinatown is taking on a much more global character). Due to Vancouver’s exceptional location, there is a seemingly endless list of geograph- ic descriptors that can connect a building to a place. This use of pacific northwest/coastal specific terminology is commonly believed to create a connection people will feel. Also evident however is a certain disconnect with these surroundings and yearning for a south- pacific or tropical breeze to be magically diverted our way. There is some question as to whether it is this city, this neighbourhood, or the place of our collective exotic imagina- tion that is being referenced. Once the name lures you in, do you ever con- sider it again? Does the inhabitant of Concor- dia I, II or III stop and ponder their creator, Concord-Pacific, as they walk through the front door? D
on site review 17
12
on site review 17
13
form and settlement the social construction of landscape
research | north atlantic rim research collaborative by elizabeth shotton
Ireland Nova Scotia Iceland Norway drawing culture architecture
1 Halten, Norway 2 Arnarstapi, Iceland 3 Lahinch, Ireland 4 Peggy’s Cove, Nova Scotia
landscape : topography, geology, vegetation, material resources, climate, and the culture that ensues from it. architecture : the built expression of both place and people. project: research the critical immediacy between building and landscape; how intimately architecture can be informed by place. four places : Nova Scotia, coastal Norway, Iceland and Ireland, with enough similarities in landscape and subtle differences in material resources, climate and culture to make comparisons across them invaluable. four architecture schools that form North Atlantic Rim [NAR] Research Collaborative: University of Science and Technology in Trondheim, Norway. Dalhousie University in Halifax. University College Dublin, Ireland. Academy of the Arts: Architecture and Design in Reykjavik, Iceland.
2
1
NAR’s series of cross-cultural studies of coastal settlements on the north Atlantic started in 2004 with initial drawing and documentation studies of coastal landscapes and settlements in Norway and Ireland. It continued the following year in Iceland, and concluded the first phase in Nova Scotia in 2006. The project has examined natural landscapes, altered landscapes, historic and contemporary building responses to these conditions, and the relationship between material resources and building form. North Atlantic coastal landscapes face significant development pres- sures and environmental threats to their fragile ecosystems, land- forms and settlements. Conte drawings from the scale of landscape to building form and detail [page 16], scaled aerial drawings of each region, and site photography have formed a basis for comparisons, identifying salient issues of culture and settlement patterns, land- scape and its relevance to built form. NAR’s project parallels Richard Saul Wurman’s work with design students at the University of North Carolina, later made into a small book called Cities: Comparisons of Form & Scale (1963). His representa- tion of city form in sand castings inspired NAR’s study of landscape and settlement in drawings. Wurman’s thesis was that ‘the healthy existence of cities is the degree to which the beginnings of a particular city is apparent’. NAR’s focus reaches further back to the primacy of landscape to understand its critical relevance in shaping the form
of human culture and settlement. While Wurman’s work responded to the underlying pressures on city development during the mid- to late-twentieth century, environment is key to our present and future evolution, allied to current issues of sustainability. Robert Thayer, in Gray World, Green Heart: Technology, Nature, and the Sustainable Landscape , proposes that ‘surface versus core’ is one of the most fundamental ways to understand landscape. Describing the ever widening dislocation between these two, he proposes that surface values are based on what is in front of us. As a visually-trained profes- sion we see the surface condition of landscape, and work to reveal its poetic beauty through our remaking of its surface through building. Difficult to achieve and admirable when realized, it is the manner in which young architects are trained and old architects work. However, it does not engage the core. Core values are those hidden conditions of the land, its ecological and material processes — the operative level of landscape. Re-linking those processes construed as natural and those construed as made, challenges the surface-core dichotomy with a more holistic picture of continuity and interdependence — landscape as the thing that holds us. Sustainability as a reading of core, of processes and interrelation- ships, was commonplace until technology and industry severed this understanding.
on site review 17
14
Nature is an enigmatic object, an object not entirely in front of us. Nature constitutes our ground, not what is in front of us, but what holds us. Maurice Merleau-Ponty La Nature; Notes , Cours du College de France, Paris: Editions du Seuil [1994]
3
4
However, recent ecological consequences have reached a crisis, revealing once again our interdependence with the land. This critical immediacy between landscape and building is the subject of NAR’s research — to understand how intimately architecture can be in- formed by its place by comparing four places of similar but unequal landscapes, with four similar but unequal legacies in building. Ireland, Norway, Iceland and Atlantic Canada share some supris- ing landscape alliances. Although Norway has steep mountain ranges and deep fjords, its habitable coastal lands strongly resemble the oth- ers. Each place is dominated by coastline, Iceland and Ireland as is- lands and Nova Scotia and Norway as peninsulas. The Atlantic Ocean tempers the environment of each, maintaining green landscapes of small valleys and hills interrupted by rock outcroppings and cliffs. It also informs the industry and culture of these regions. Subtle distinctions in form, built or unbuilt, the relationship to resources, climate and culture become manifest when studied through the discipline of drawing. When various research interests are brought to bear on the drawing project, from the relationship between perception, representation and design, to environmentally- driven focus on material resource management and use in architec- tural practice, a diversity of cultural, material and formal readings emerge. Excerpts from students’ notes demonstrate this vividly.
Cultural and personal backgrounds of the participants have en- riched these studies. Perceptual biases both influence the reading of the terrain under investigation, and recast one’s own culture in com- parison. Legacies of physical and cultural alteration to the landscape that come from inhabitation become not only explicit but also often poignant when coupled with the shared experiences of a cross-cul- tural research team. If limited only to the yearly exchange of ideas among students and staff, the project has value enough as it gives new insights into archi- tectural form, space making and cultural meanings. The final stage of work this past summer in Nova Scotia was not the end of the programme but rather an elaboration of its premise — the NAR Research Collaborative joined staff and students of Dalhou- sie University in their ongoing Design/Build project held annually in Cheticamp, Cape Breton. The building project, an approach to a previously completed theatre project [fig 7 & 8], was an extension of the drawing studies which had identified critical aspects of the timber building tradition of Nova Scotia, and allowed the team to experiment with this knowledge through building. The second phase of the NAR project will revisit the four countries, expanding its base of documentation and including built experiments.
on site review 17
15
1 Cape D’Or, Nova Scotia 2 Peggy’s Cove, Nova Scotia 3 Cheticamp concept 4 Cheticamp record
6
5
As the week developed I began to learn more about the history of ship building in Nova Scotia and its importance both past and present through the high regard for its legacy within each community that we visited. The spirit and production of the Nova Scotia shipyard was inseparable from the town with which it was associated, but over time this industry has dwindled to the extent that only traces of these ship- yards remain. The legacy, however, has been instilled in the archi- tecture of the towns and villages throughout. It had a clear influence on the timber buildings of Nova Scotia both historically and present. They are constructed somewhat like boats, their timber cladding fixed to lightweight framing. A minimum volume of material, derived from economic, renewable resources, is consumed.
Sketching for a number of hours along the harbour led to many obser- vations of the pulse of the community [Peggy’s Cove, NS]. A harbour is seen as a haven for vessels, giving shelter from sea and storm, and in a community which relies on the sea for the bulk of its resources this is clearly a focal point. The harbour is a shared resource and is an overlapping point of fisherman and tourist. The plans and sections of the small inlets and anchoring points we sketched began to tell the narrative of the place and the different scales examined the local material and resources used. The traditional buildings associated with fishing and lobster harvesting are constructed with tight, crisp timber-clad skins over simple, internal exposed structure. This re- sults in strong geometric forms that over time weather like the coastal landscape to greys and silver greys. These buildings are a clear con- necting form between the land and the waterway, often opening on two sides forming a through-space to allow the landscape to continue unimpeded.
Dierdre Keely, University College Dublin, 2006
on site review 17
16
Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 Page 4 Page 5 Page 6 Page 7 Page 8 Page 9 Page 10 Page 11 Page 12 Page 13 Page 14 Page 15 Page 16 Page 17 Page 18 Page 19 Page 20 Page 21 Page 22 Page 23 Page 24 Page 25 Page 26 Page 27 Page 28 Page 29 Page 30 Page 31 Page 32 Page 33 Page 34 Page 35 Page 36 Page 37 Page 38 Page 39 Page 40 Page 41 Page 42 Page 43 Page 44 Page 45 Page 46 Page 47 Page 48 Page 49 Page 50 Page 51 Page 52 Page 53 Page 54 Page 55 Page 56 Page 57 Page 58 Page 59 Page 60 Page 61 Page 62 Page 63 Page 64 Page 65 Page 66 Page 67 Page 68 Page 69 Page 70 Page 71 Page 72 Page 73 Page 74 Page 75 Page 76 Page 77 Page 78 Page 79 Page 80 Page 81 Page 82 Page 83 Page 84 Page 85 Page 86 Page 87 Page 88 Page 89 Page 90 Page 91 Page 92 Page 93 Page 94 Page 95 Page 96 Page 97 Page 98 Page 99 Page 100 Page 101 Page 102Made with FlippingBook interactive PDF creator