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21 onsite 21: weather. It is all around us, increasingly angry. Is it changing the way we build?
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on site 21
WEather
Roni Horn, a New York artist who mostly works in Iceland, had a 30-year retrospec- tive at the Tate Modern this past winter, including a series of photographs called You Are The Weather, 110 straight-on por- traits of the same woman up to her chin in various Icelandic hot springs, her expres- sion slightly different with each shift in the weather. Horn’s work is austere, minimal, rather like northern weather, extravagant only in its limitations. Weather is never quite the same. Weather is always itself.
contents
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Terri Peters Emmanelle Viera Steve Sopinka Paul Whelan David Courville Tijen Roshko Gerald Forseth Jordan Ellis Christoper Roach Real Eguch + Paul Young Chris Hardwicke Gyungju Chyon + John Stanislav Sadar John Stanislav Sadar Carol Kleinfeldt Sandra Lester Andrew Lewthwaite Neeraj Bhatia + Jürgen Mayer H
HOT/COLD: Phillipe Rahm’s Digestible Gulfstream le Promenade Samuel-De Champlain, Québec Weather-Causing Architecture: fishing huts of Lake Nipissing Village Life: fishing huts of Lake Simcoe Allons au Camp! the fishing camps of the Atchafalaya Basin Hybrid Informal Vernaculars: Chong Kneas, Cambodia Oasis Strategies: Coachella Valley and the Fergana Valley The Great Leak: the Villa Savoye Weathervanes: everyday weather-control Dufferin Grove: sustaining a community’s health Velo-city Three projects by little wonder, Melbourne
Sun, Glass and Modernity Under Construction: weather Learning from New Orleans
Absent Bodies, Winnipeg -arium: exploiting weather Trans-image Rain Manifesto Hydraulic Pastoralism: the Ganga Canal, India Desert Tales from Iran Windy City: The Weathermen Conservatory, Tokyo and Rot, Vancouver Books and Journals: Document and Vancouver Matters Nootka Tautologies Loose Form Yukon Residency in Dawson City Books: Ron Benner’s Gardens of a Colonial Present A Winter’s Tale Subscriptions and the Call For Articles, issue 22: WAR
Reza Aliabadi Reza Aliabadi Anthony Acciavatti Shamim Alaei Dick Averns Eric Deis Stephanie White Michael Leeb Stephanie White Nicole Dextras Stephanie White Michael Barton
contributors
Carol Kleinfeldt little wonder
Front Cover: Under Construction #8 Back Cover: Light Pour on the Yarra
Canada Council Grant for Literary and Arts Magazines Government of Canada Canadian Heritage program for Postal Assistance to Publications
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weather matters: On Site review 21
hot cold Phillippe Rahm’s architecture as meteorology
technology | digestible gulfstream by terri peters
experience technology climate modification temperatuve
— architecture should no longer build spaces, but rather create temperatures and atmospheres
Paris-based Swiss architect Philippe Rahm proposes a new way of looking at architecture, beyond mere building, beyond modernist ideals that he claims have created ‘petrified narratives of social, political and moral conventions’. Atmosphere, weather, diet, climate and neurology are explored in Rahm’s pioneering and controversial installations, creating debate about new forms and purposes of architecture. At the 2008 Venice Architecture Biennale, curator Aaron Betsky argued that architecture is more than just building: ‘architecture is everything that is about building. It is how we think about building, how we draw buildings, how we organise buildings, how buildings present themselves, through façades or interiors’. Betsky selected Rahm’s Digestible Gulfstream for the Arsenale exhibition ‘Experimental Architectures’ because it highlights the architectural possibilities of taste, touch, smell, light and temperature. Digestible Gulfstream is composed of two metal plates at different heights and temperatures (the lower is heated to 28°C and the upper is cooled to 12°C) that naturally moves the air using convection to create a gulfstream effect. Rahm’s invisible landscape is heightened with taste and smell with mint on the cooler plate (menthol causes sensations in the brain as coolness, perceptible at a temperature of 15°C) and chili on the lower plate (capsaicin activates the neuro-receptor TRPV1, which is sensitive to temperatures over 44°C). Rahm calls this project ‘the prototype for architecture that works between the neuralgic and atmospheric, developing like a landscape that is simultaneously gastronomic and thermal’. Here Rahm links the body (diet) and the outside environment (atmosphere). Rahm’s concerns are the invisible parts of experiencing a building, and in bringing the invisible to the forefront. “After decades devoted to the visible, in which a subjective approach and “storytelling” shamelessly replaced the progressive and moral programs of modernity, we are now in a new and extremely interesting period.” he says. Currently, when architects speak of weather or climate it is about controlling, taming or blocking out interaction with it. Solar shading, thermal insulation, weather and moisture barriers, we try to protect building inhabitants from any non-standard environment that could be too hot or too cold, but are we really making people more comfortable? Rahm customises environments with weather, using it as a design tool — at the heart of his work is the questioning of the standard 20° temperature found in every modern building. Architects would rarely think that one standard lighting strategy or sectional relationship would be ideal for all parts of an environment, so why should temperature be any different? Perhaps it has to do with the fact that we can’t see temperature, like we can, say, light
or form, and it cannot really be drawn (except as blue arrows for cold air or red for hot). Temperature is rarely considered or communicated in architectural drawings and does not play a part in mainstream architectural design. Perhaps temperature is like acoustics, it is not part of the standard architects’ toolkit of space, light and form, so it is easily ignored, with design control passed off to engineers or worse, to chance. It only becomes part of architectural design when it needs to be dealt with after the fact, when retrofit solutions are necessary. Rahm is optimistic that change is required and that architects are going to experiment with new architectural solutions. ‘A slippage of the real, from the visible toward the invisible, is taking place — a shift of architecture toward the microscopic and the atmospheric, the biological and the meteorological’. Rahm’s ‘invisible’ architectures have been exhibited extensively, including at the CCA in Montreal, Centre Pompidou in Paris and Mori Art Museum in Tokyo. This year his work will be exhibited at the Milan Furniture Fair, FORCE DE L’ART 02 in the nave of the Grand Palais in Paris and Louisiana Museum in Denmark in their summer exhibition ‘The Future Has Arrived-Architecture for a sustainable world’. this page below and opposite: Gulfstream: temperature as a design criteria, like light, space and form, rather than an afterthought. Must every room be the same 20°? No. At the 2008 Venice Biennale, Philippe Rahm’s installation ‘Digestible Gulfstream’ created a micro-climate that relates temperature and gastronomy to spatial experience, with two glossy white temperature platforms providing setting for the opening night performance where naked people played saw and guitars to an amused audience (overleaf). The technology behind ‘Digestible Gulfstream’ is simple, the lower plate is heated to 28 degrees, sprinkled with chilli peppers and the top plate is cooled to 12 degrees with mint. The work challenges people to think differently about temperature, and consider it as a varying and dynamic part of spatial experience.
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language + temperature tp: How did you discover the tools for experimenting with temperature and bringing it into your design approach? You use colour and drawing as a tool, as well as thermal modelling (using colours for coding there as well). How do you creatively visualise this process of thermal modelling? Rahm: Architecture is a question of void. And of course the void is not empty. It’s full of chemical and physical particles, electromagnetic waves, vapour and temperature. I use a digital tool, physics software, to study the thermal landscape created by the placing heat sources. tp: So how do we begin to develop a visual language for temperature, humidity, and climate? Is a new visual language necessary? Rahm: Yes. For the moment, we use the tools of thermal and meteorological software. But more far from this, there is the fact that working on invisible parameters of space change the way of designing the plan and the section. I like this change of paradigm. tp: Your work is often about ephemeral experiential qualities as they relate to architecture and space — areas that we don’t really have a (verbal) language for as architects: taste, smell and temperature. Rahm: You are absolutely right. Sometimes it’s difficult because it’s so tiny and of course not so spectacular as image. But the most interesting for me is really to develop a new language, to be in this research of new tools and new sensation. We must create a kind of new dictionary, new codes, for projecting architecture as meteorology. comfort + architecture tp: How important is comfort? Rahm: Comfort is not the most important thing. I’m against the modern idea of a fixed state of comfort. I don’t want to get to a fixed continuous and homogeneous state of comfort. I’m working on a thermal concept, more related to sensuality. I like the idea that space is not defined only by walls, matter and color but also by temperature, relative humidity, and light. It’s open to a more sensual approach to space, where the body is completely immersed into architecture, through all senses. tp: With the Digestible Gulfstream project, how did you experiment with ideas of thermal comfort and what did you see as outcomes? Rahm: The thermodynamic imbalance created with the two thermal sources generates a complex and imbalanced thermal landscape between the two different temperatures. I like that people are free to change places as a natural migration inside the climate. tp: What do you think about how comfort is described and communicated in architecture? How do we currently measure comfort? How should we? Rahm: We have to reduce the energy consumed in buildings for heating and cooling because it’s one of the most important causes of global warming. This is why we are looking at the lowest level of comfort, to economize energy. We don’t have to think of the idea of comfort as a norm. Inside the building you could also create an uncomfortable space. This is also architecture.
tp: So you are seeking to challenge these notions of comfort at all costs? Rahm: All the new constraints related to global warming and sustainability do not have to stay as problems. They have to become tools for architecture. The goal of my architecture is not comfort. Architecture is a composition between, sustainability, physiology and meteorology. *
above: Digestible Gulfstream installed at the Venice Biennale: the hot and cold plates indicated in the temperature drawings are shown here. The hot plate is the low one with the people sitting on it, clearly happy to be naked in a perfectly tempered climate in the generally underheated air of the Arsenale! The gulfstream current is created from the temperature differential between the two plates. Image courtesy: Fondazione La Biennale di Venezia, Photo Giorgio Zucchiatti. This installation was part of the 11th International Architecture Exhibition of la Biennale di Venezia.
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weather poetry la Promenade Samuel-De Champlain, Quebec
landscape | jardins by emmanuelle viera and réal lestage
promenade metaphor urbanism river edges materiality
by the site. These thematic gardens give structure, coherence and rhythm to the linearity of a grey cycle track and a white concrete pedestrian path. This project revitalises an important section of the St. Lawrence River’s borders and brings both an equilibrium and economic benefit to the city. The project shifts Champlain Boulevard from a highway to a landscaped, permeable urban boulevard, and contributes to the restoration of a rich, diverse, albeit fragile, coastal eco-system. The re-established plantings frame views and trajectories, calibrating space and scale. It also brings, importantly, a contemporary face to la Ville de Québec. * La promenade Samuel-De Champlain is by the consortium of Daoust Lestage, Williams Asselin Ackaoui and Option Aménagement for the Commission de la Capitale nationale du Québec. The project was completed in June 2008. clockwise from top left: Quai-des-Flots, Quai-des-Brumes, Quai-des-Vents, Quai-des- Hommes, and again, Quai-des-Flots.
La Promenade Samuel-De Champlain was commissioned to celebrate the 400th anniversay of Quebec City in 2008. Four gardens are part of an extended project of waterfront restoration that reactivates Quebec City’s access to the St. Lawrence River and revitalises the coastal landscape. Four imaginary quays at the edge of the river bring a sequence of experiences and atmospheres, from the wide expanse of water — the macro-scale of this area, to the tactile sensory experiences at the scale of grasses and rain. The quays integrate the Champlain Boulevard that crosses the site, uniting the two sections of the linear park. Each quay captures and magnifies the material and poetic qualities of the local coastal environment. The Quai-des-
Vents – wind and flocks of birds through whirling, poetic light-weight wind sculptures. The Quai-des-Hommes – the need to tame by framing views across the water. The Quai-des-Flots – grey waves and ice floe patterns, water walls, springs and the rich textures and geometries of Quebec granite. The Quai-des-Brumes veils deep cross-river views in an ever-shifting mist. The layered textures of the St. Lawrence are materialised in stone boulders, timber assemblies and corten steel thresholds, by native plants and trees, and by vapour haze, thick shade, mellow light and water reflections. Familiar materials such as rough wood and local stones consolidate the existing shoreline vegetation in a landscape-architectured language, inspired
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Weather-causing architecture the ice huts of Lake Nipissing
vernacular | shelters by steve sopinka
transformation reclamation temporary
mobility pickerel ad hoc retreat
Lake Nipissing panorama, February 2009
Every winter, the waters of Lake Nipissing in North Bay, Ontario freeze solid. The result is a frozen icescape, 875 square kilometres transformed into new territory for snowmobilers, cross country skiers, snowshoers and ice fishers. There is something intriguing about the reclamation of the frozen water — even more captivating are the ice-fishing huts that begin to appear and evolve into an ad-hoc frozen shanty village. These structures capture the eye of the prefab enthusiast, the mobile-architecture buff, the Ministry of Natural Resources and, most importantly, ice fishers who are reminded that fishing comrades are ‘out there’ and they are not. On Lake Nipissing, weather defines an incidental, accidental architecture. If there is an architecture that has almost no cost, is void of conscious architectural style and exceeds the expectations of its dweller — the ice-fishing hut could very well be it. Depending on your need for comfort and your ideas of how to outfit an ice-hut, your hut may or may not begin to look like your neighbour’s. The list of materials used is both long and unconventional: used lithograph plates, recycled wood pallets, metal flashing (and lots of it), discarded road signs and $1 trouble lights. Rigid styrofoam SM insulation is an interior finish. A converted greenhouse and an old garden shed have been given second life as ice huts. Given their often slapped-together construction, their random assemblage of otherwise discarded materials into ad hoc shelter, does considering ice huts as architecture give them too much credit? Maybe the taxonomy isn’t important. It isn’t to the ice fishers – it’s all about the fishing – just ask any of the inhabitants. Try to talk architecture or even building, and the conversation inevitably ends up in a discussion about lures, ice augers and more importantly, the weather. Maybe it isn’t about the fish or the architecture. The most compelling aspect of experiencing these ice huts is the visual transformation of water into ice – to see the massive frozen expanse that begins underfoot and disappears into the horizon. The formation of this newly constructed icescape, brought on by the change in weather, is what is most fascinating.
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lone hut, Lake Nipissing, February 2009
We talk about buildings being connected to site, integrated with their surroundings, symbiotic with the landscape. An ice hut integrates directly with the snow-covered ice surface of the lake, literally freezing to the ‘site,’ as currents and wind shift the ice. There is something strangely indigenous about these huts. They have become something familiar — an icon, a symbol, a retreat, a weather vane, a black dot in an otherwise uninterrupted landscape. The heroic effort of constructing a small hut, transporting it out onto the ice by snowmobile, maintaining it and securing it from being blown away during a sustained wind storm lies in the larger idea of weather-causing architecture: an ephemeral building, upon a temporary landscape, within a unique season. The ice hut grows out of the collective phenomena of weather and architecture where these two entities meet in a typology of low-tech habitation full of simplicity and honesty. The idea of transformation, mobility, temporality and resourcefulness, combined with weather, over time, equals one ice-fishing season on Lake Nipissing. Land artist Andy Goldsworthy has said that ‘a landscape doesn’t have to involve land – time is a landscape’. Why does an ice-covered lake in Northern Ontario accommodate some of the most honest, dynamic, and vulnerable architecture to have evolved directly out of the weather? It is both out of necessity and functionality, but also is underpinned by the seasonal climate change that reclaims of a body of water and establishes static boundaries usually unassociated with such undefined and expansive territory. The ice huts demonstrate and reveal value as objects, as shelter, as a means to survive and simply as a way to connect with uncommon ‘ground’. The weather, the economy and current architecture trends all have something in common, but the ice hut has a life of its own. It is sustainable by default. It has the potential to weather the climate and recession with resilience. *
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ice fishing 2
vernacular | lake simcoe by paul whelan
recreation community ice fishing infrastructure settlement
village life
At first and even second glance, the settlement pattern villages appear completely random. These villages do not have to follow urban planning conventions. All the careful rules that Canadians construct to regulate every aspect of our built environment are abandoned on the ice. This is somewhat due to the lack of jurisdiction. The federal government regulates navigable bodies of water. When this water freezes, the local townships and villages do not have any power over activities on the ice. This regulatory vacuum sets up some unusual situations. Local restauranteurs complain to the City of Barrie about the unregulated food (and alcohol) businesses that supply the ice huts. Beer, rye whisky and high cholesterol foods are an important aspect of ice village life. Alas the local authorities have no jurisdiction so the ribs and rye continue to nourish the villagers.
As soon as Lake Simcoe starts to thaw, the fisher folk decamp their ice huts and wait out the summer heat until the next winter freeze. Not all the huts get transported to land in time and some poorly- timed hut removals end up in the water as boating hazards. The ice huts are extremely straightforward structures which directly reflect the simple requirements of ice fishing. Most importantly, the huts have to be light so they can easily be transported off and onto the ice. Even during the fishing season the ice huts get moved around as fishers tire of their location and chop other more alluring holes in the ice.
above: fishing hole, archaeological traces of abandoned hut sites. Traditional fishers jam pine boughs into aban- doned holes to prevent accidents when walking across the lake in the dark. right: official sanitation, delivery of services. below: a fishing hut with transportation sled, the ice village under the watchful eyes of Barrie.
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As always with humans settlements, there is an ordering pattern, but it is not based on the criteria that drive settlement on land. The ice is free and there is no shortage of prime real estate. Instead the first ordering principal is proximity to a public road so the huts can be dragged onto the ice. Public boat launches and marinas are perfectly suited. The second ordering principal is established by the fish themselves. While the idea of ice fishing may seem rustic, the fishers use sonar to locate fish which generally congregate in the deeper underwater valleys. This fish congregation is further encouraged by the release of live minnows
as ‘seeds’ for attracting even more fish. The huts are scattered in response to water depth and winter fish habitat. This critical settlement imperative creates an apparent random hut placement on the frozen lake. On the ice, sanitation is rudimentary. This particular ice village had a portable toilet. Ironically it is much cleaner than the more easily serviced toilet on shore. It might be possible that at minus 20°C and with a strong wind howling across the flat ice, the fishing holes may do double duty. *
top: a distinctive ice ‘shadow’ marks each hut location, packed snow provides draft protection at floor level. middle: self-expression and tall fish tales, extremely portable hut with a rare commodity – windows. bottom: strong winds de- mand good foundations, the perfect ice fishing form. Built-in benches and the hut can fit into a pickup truck.
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The huts themselves are tiny. They are designed to permit two or four people to sit in deck chairs huddled around one or two holes. There is often not enough headroom to stand. The design is driven by reducing the hut’s weight and heated volume. Even within these constraints there is some variety and opportunity for self expression. While ice fishing may seem a northern rural phenomenon, its popularity on Lake Simcoe, within walking distance of downtown Barrie, suggests ice fishing also has a powerful urban draw. Aside from an obvious love of fresh fish, what is the draw? Perhaps this is the ultimate thumbing of the nose at winter. The fisher people simultaneously experience the over-heated claustrophobia of an ice hut while floating on a wind-
swept field of frozen water. After all, it is impossible to forget that first needle-sharp intake of breath when stepping out from the fug of a dimly-lit hut into the blinding light of a sub-zero day. *
left: the alleged object of the exercise below top: two person hut interior below below: two person hut exterior
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In Louisiana, the coast and the river basins are hard to reach and hard to tolerate. There are very few miles of beachfront. Most of the rivers are in swampy bottomlands. The marshes, swamps, mosquitoes, snakes, hurricanes, floods, and other, milder forms of amusement have shaped the structures as surely as the elements have shaped the ice fishing huts. This article is about swamp camps, distinguished from the marsh or beachfront camp. These camps are all on the Atchafalaya River, shown in the Google Map below.
Allons au Camp!
vernacular | louisiana swamp camps by david courville
fishing building bayous invention bon temps
fishing the atchafalaya
Here in Louisiana, Spring happens early and quickly. By the beginning of April, the fig trees are leafed out, the peach and pear trees have set fruit, wild berries are ripe, irises are in full bloom, crawfish are cheap and we’re waiting for the flood, the annual flood of the Mississippi River. What we’re really waiting for is the flood’s recession…and the start of Camp season. 8,277 square miles of Louisiana are covered by water. There are 4000 miles of navigable waterway, 7,721 miles of tidal shoreline, 6000 square miles of marsh and a whole lot of swamp in Louisiana. There’s a lot of water here, but it’s not as accessible as you’d think it is. Once you’ve gotten to a place where you want to be in the marshes or the swamps, you can spend only a few hours there before you need to leave. There are 1800 square miles of swamp in the Atchafalaya River
Basin alone, the largest swamp in the United States, where most of the photos in this article were taken. The buildings in the photographs are called Camps. They are the solution to being able to spend longer periods of time on the water. Before the Basin was leveed after the 1927 Mississippi flood, there were communities in it occupied with logging, fishing, crawfishing, moss-gathering, trapping, frogging, crabbing, etc. If there were camps then, they were more than likely work camps. Leveeing raised the flood levels of the Basin to a point where the communities were flooded on a regular basis and the residents moved outside the levees. About that same time, the outboard motor became commonplace, World War II moved a lot of people from the farms into towns and the Basin, now more accessible, was the target of newfound leisure time.
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Camp Culture As one Cajun carpenter put it, when asked whether the impressive structure he was building on the Pecan Island cheniere was a house or a store, ‘Iss not a house; Iss not a sto’; Iss a Camp!!’ Camps aren’t houses; they’re not cabins; they’re not a place to go to get away from people. They allow people to get together in a setting where personal space is shared with bugs that bite, snakes that bite, alligators that really bite and lots of other creatures not that bad. There are different types of Camp, but they all have one thing in common: active, independent-minded people who want
to be ‘at the Camp’. Income level, for the swamp Camp builder has, until now, been a minor consideration. In the 1950s and 1960s, Camps were relatively primitive. Few had electricity. Some had cisterns. A few might have had generators by the 1970s. Now, you’ll see generators, electrical lines, water wells, air conditioning, TV antennas and even satellite dishes at the Camp. Typical activities include hunting, fishing, cooking, eating, gambling, water sports – nowadays, with the addition of more amenities, Camps are becoming more house-like and more family-oriented.
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Camp Etiquette It’s a job just getting to a camp, much less building one. Because they are remote and relatively small, being invited to a Camp borders on being bestowed with an award. You bring your best attitude and you make a contribution of effort to keep the Camp clean and organised. They’re a lot like small ships.
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Site There are two primary determining factors in situating a camp. If the camp is built to float, the site selection is more flexible. The Camp can be situated entirely on the surface of the water. Floating Camps tend to be placed in navigable areas outside the current of the river and its associated bayous. Man-made canals left over from oil-field activity are ideal because of the adjoining spoil bank which can be used for creating small yards, elevating generators, etc. If the Camp is land-based, the site selection is limited to those areas which allow the camp to be elevated to a height above flood stage and the outdoor components to be on the water. These sites tend to be near an intersection of a bayou with a lake or river, or on the bank of a chute between lakes, where the spoil from dredged channels has formed a mound. On a larger scale, more Camps are
situated in the lower Basin where flood levels are less extreme, or outside the levees, where the swamps are relatively protected from flooding. Access: the procession The procession from ordinary places to Camps defines the layout of Camps on-site, especially those that are land-based. Access is by boat, arriving at the dock of the Camp, from which there is a walkway to the Camp, often including a stair to the porch of the Camp. The walkway either traverses or bypasses the waterside pavilion, where most of the daytime activity at the Camp happens: fish fries, crawfish boils, swimming, fishing, crabbing and playing. On the water, there are fewer mosquitoes, there is usually a breeze, and there is the View.
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Construction The most difficult part of camp construction is building the foundation. It involves either the construction of a floating platform or the construction of a raised platform. This phase of construction requires the heaviest logistics: pontoons, poles, heavy timbers, etc. After the foundation is built, the remaining construction is accomplished with modular transportable materials (small pieces that fit in a boat): – sheet materials like plywood, and metal building components – roll materials like sheet metal and roll roofing – lumber and boards. Camps were and still are built from leftover or salvaged materials.
New weather Recent hurricanes – Katrina, Rita and Gustav – devastated Camp populations, especially in the marsh along the coast. The coastal Camps have sprung right back up, larger and stronger and with them, so have land prices and the Building Codes. On the other hand, the Basin Camps managed the storm surges from the hurricanes and were somewhat protected from the winds. Unfortunately, accessibility to coastal Camps has become a financial hurdle, rather than a physical one. But the Basin and other swamp areas are the holdout for the middle-income Camp. Building codes aren’t enforced in the swamp, yet, and the sites are generally leased from the State for a reasonable fee. *
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hybrid vernacular informalities the floating village of Chong Kneas
vernacular | cambodia by tijen roshko
Tonle Sap Lake is the largest fresh water lake in Southeast Asia, and lies in the central plains of Cambodia. The main tributary of the lake, the Tonle Sap River, displays a unique hydrological phenomenon. As the rainy season commences, the excess water from the Mekong River reverses the direction of flow of the Tonle Sap River and leads, as a consequence, to the inundation of 1.25 million hectares of forest and agricultural land for several months each year. During this period, the surface area of the lake more than quadruples and its depth increases by a factor of ten. 1 The Cambodian villages are predominantly located on the land surrounding the lake. However, a substantial population of Cambodians also resides in villages on the surface of the lake itself. One of these is a collection of floating villages known as Chong Kneas, which exhibits its own unique rhythm and harmony in response to the changing seasons and weather conditions. The villages have their own enclosed communities which encompass diverse cultural groups, including the majority ethnic Khmer, as well as Vietnamese, Cham Muslim and Chinese minorities. The urban migration that occurred in the Tonle Sap area following liberation from the Pol Pot regime in 1979 had an enormous impact on the fragile ecology of the region. The previously sparsely populated Tonle Sap region was overwhelmed with under-privileged and war-ravaged immigrants. Survivors of the regime, devoid of educational and financial resources, migrated to the great lake area to settle. The landless majority used the free resources offered by the lake as the main provider for their survival. Over the past 20 years, the settlement population has increased and house forms have begun to assume more unique shapes and to reflect the diversity of cultural backgrounds. The current settlement trends are attributed to a variety of causes, such as not owning land, family disputes, economic issues, and lack of education and skills. An estimated 80,000 people are living in floating villages around Tonle Sap, and the Khmer population makes up the majority. 2
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Like the other floating communities on the Tonle Sap Lake, Chong Kneas moves location with the seasonal water levels. The floating houses of the villages are of various sizes and types and move with the changing water levels. During the wet season, the residents of Chong Kneas cluster around the base of the elevated Phnom Kraom area while, during the dry season, a small inlet along the edge of the lake is favoured as an anchor point. Some of the floating houses are made of wood and have two levels. The construction materials are predominantly lightweight bamboo, mangrove, and wood poles, all of which are locally available. Some of the houses are built on platforms supported on stilts, while some are designed like rafts, which simply float when the water level rises. Others are designed as small boats, which reside permanently in the water, and which house the families and display the ingenious crafting skills of the locals. The exterior decorations of the structures reflect the imagination and the personality of the occupants. The buildings are simple timber post-and-beam structures. Exterior and interior non-load-bearing partitions are filled in with bamboo or light timber material. The flooring is made of timber plank or sheet. The roof structure is mostly bamboo leaf thatching, although corrugated metal applications can be seen as a replacement, and full length louvered windows provide much needed ventilation as a direct response to the tropical climate of the area. The village proper contains not only domestic enclosures, but also educational and recreational facilities. Most of the commercial and educational facilities display a form of permanence by utilizing timber plank exterior cladding, and corrugated metal and timber roofing materials. The commercial and retail activities are conducted in mobile stores, which float from house to house. Floating churches and mosques service the members belonging to the respective communities.
map opposite top: Tonle River leading to Tonle Sap Lake left: Aerial view of Chong Kneas from Phnom Kraom, Channel leading to Phnom Kraom, Chong Kneas on the flood plains of Tonle Sap Lake, dry season plans above: typical size and layout of a domestic dwelling below: Chong Kneas Main Street, village layout
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The constant threat of flood and varying water levels were common threads among the different cultures and, as a result, all the structures were similarly light in weight, mobile and showed great flexibility in construction. The weather as the primary physical factor constitutes the strongest modifying element in house form development in the area. The movement patterns of the village are directly associated with the changing flood levels. The data collected have indicated a minimum of twelve separate movements during which the entire village collectively relocates without any apparent organized resettlement pattern or grid system. The relative positioning of the houses and individual communities are maintained, and reverse movement commences as the flood level decreases at the beginning of the dry season. Amos Rapoport in his seminal work House Form and Culture has classified the built environments by the manner in which they were constructed and, in more general terms, categorised built environments into three distinct groups: primitive building forms which exhibit very little individual variation and which are built through a collective effort, pre-industrial vernacular which is characterized by limited building types and which are usually constructed by tradesman and, finally, high-style and modern built forms which encompass many different specialized building typologies and which are constructed and designed by a team of specialists. 3 However, it is now possible to identify a fourth new emergent typology defined by its building materials, forms and construction methodologies. Rapid urbanisation has resulted in a belt of shanty towns and squalid settlements around the peripheries of the urban centres. The term ‘Urban Informality’ has entered the architectural lexicon to describe the cultural poverty, marginality and the manifestations of informal building processes in urban built-environments. 4 These informalities take place mostly at the intersections of the rural-urban interface. The building forms tend to be freely flowing and organic, and the choice of materials reflects the availability of urban remnants, such as rubber tires and corrugated metal scraps. They are built by the user, and provide shelter and reflect most of the cultural trades of the migrants. They are mostly perceived as non-vernacular, and a debasement of skills and traditions, such as in the examples of Barriadas of Peru, Favelas of Brazil and Gece Kondus of Ankara. While the floating structures of Chong Kneas may indeed be regarded as a particular manifestation of urban informality, I believe that they are more accurately defined by the term Hybrid-Informal Pre-Industrial Vernacular architecture. 5 An urban network has been interjected into the rural setting, where the hybrid vernacular architecture provides a setting for a new way of seeing or transferring building knowledge. These new emerging structures, which were mainly built to respond to cyclic flooding and tropical weather conditions, can also be viewed as reflections of local culture and knowledge transfer, and as valuable vessels within which social interactions are cultivated and maintained within the multi-cultural fabric of Cambodian society.
this page, from the top: four typical domestic dwellings of Chong Kneas, a Vietnamese boat house in Chong Kneas,
opposite, from the top: house details
a floating retail store and a grocery store,
boats attached to each dwelling, a foot bridge leading to main docking area
gardening in Chong Kneas, the interior of a Khemer house
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On Site review 21: stormy weather
The hybrid-informal (pre-industrial) vernacular structures of Chong Kneas are characterised by individual building forms that manifest the distinct cultural and ethnic backgrounds and traditions while at the same time display certain similarities with the construction style of the urban informalities, such as the use of non-indigenous urban materials. As a result of the socio-economic and political development of the country, these new emerging hybrid-informal vernacular built environments at the rural and urban intersections represent the macrocosm of traditional architectural morphologies. Cultural integration of Cambodian ethnic groups over the last two centuries has reduced the diversity of house forms to two main types, the Rong and the Kantaing style. 6 Even though the expression of social status at a domestic built
environment level is still evident, it centres on the celebration of differences rather than on exclusion. Although the Rong and the Kantaing style wood house internal organisations have maintained their presence in the village of Chong Kneas, both of these internal organisations are strongly modified by environmental factors to accommodate the yearly physical movements of the dwellings and to reflect the merging ethnic variation and social status of the occupant. * 1 Keskinen, Marko. Socio-Economic Survey of the Tonle Sap Lake Cambodia , M.Sc.Thesis. Helsinki University of Technology, 2003 2 Bailleux,Renauld. The Tonle Sap Great Lake: a pulse of life . Bangkok: Asia Horizon Books, 2003 3 Rapoport, Amos. House Form and Culture . New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1969 4 Alsayyad, Nezar and Roy, Ananya. ‘Urban Informality: Crossing Borders’, in Ananya Roy and Nezar Alsayyad (eds), Urban Informality , Maryland: Lexington Books, 2003 pp 1-6 5 This term was coined by the author. 6 Definitions can be found in Vireak,Prak. ‘Wooden Houses of the Early Twentieth Century: Settlement Patterns, Social Distinction and Ethnicity’, in Francois Tainturier (ed), Wooden Architecture of Cambodia: A Disappearing Heritage . New York: Rockefeller Foundation, 2006 pp 66-8
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weather matters: On Site review 21
oasis strategies palm springs or the silk road?
infrastructure | desert agriculture by gerry forseth
desert farming sustainability land traditions
An examination of oasis valleys in two great deserts of the world yields important life and design lessons about man’s growth and development within an isolated perfect climate and a lush environment. One is the Coachella Valley oasis in southeast California with its symbolic and sybaritic oasis town known as Palm Springs, formerly settled over 2 000 years ago by clans of the Cahuilla tribe who spoke an Uto-Aztecan language. I have frequently travelled this valley over a span of thirty years. It is familiar to most of us in North America due to our absorption of it as pop culture. The other is the Fergana Valley oasis in east Uzbekistan on a major arm of the Silk Road in Central Asia, with its mythic and extant ancient oasis cities of Andijan and Marghelan, formerly settled over 5 000 years ago by Indo-Iranians who spoke an Indo-European dialect. This valley was been hidden from the world by the Soviets until recently. In Spring 2008 I toured the Fergana Valley oasis and was able to make comparative observations. The Coachella Valley oasis in southeast California is a small enough stage for its joys and sorrows to be presented with reasonable clarity. Its story involves weather, climate, topography, geology, aquifer, fauna, flora, agriculture, aboriginals, settlers, vacationers, town and country planning and built-form. It’s known for a near-constant warm and dry climate that naturally attracts holidayers and snowbirds. It includes a flaming landscape with a textural tapestry of colours that change from purples and yellows in Spring to grey-green (cacti and tamarisk) in Summer. It is ringed by plenty of cool remote canyons that shelter pools, odd-shaped boulders and palm groves. It has thousands of acres of fertile soil, yielding year-round fruits (figs, plums, mangos), vegetables, grains and livestock feed. And it has residents whose architects are motivated to create iconic but isolated private modern houses that successfully interpret a leisure life-style, the specific setting and the weather. While this suggests a valley of perfect luxurious liveablility, all is not well in this paradise! The valley has a population that has become mainly users and consumers, not producers. The residents and guests are trampling over the fragile environment, they are shitting on and fouling a scattered and wide-spread area, they are maxing-out the water resources and lowering the ground water table, and they
are relying on increasing electrical power to cool their interiors. Powerful interest groups have constructed expensive underground pipelines and wide concrete-lined canals that siphon off vast amounts of water from the Colorado River that then require electrical pumps to lift and spray the water onto exclusive golf resorts that, in themselves, compete with the water needs of the garden and grove agribusinesses. They are over-watering using unmetered irrigation systems which produce run-off water that leaches minerals from the soil and results in a poisonous salt water lake (aka the Salton Sea). Gigantic impersonal corporations control the land and production, the garden, orchard and livestock operations and also the land-hungry spa, recreation, hospitality, holiday, entertainment and shopping facilities. Large hierarchical agencies control vast and spread-out systems for domestic water, electricity, filtering, pumping, lifting, irrigating, insect spraying and fertilising. Building owners over-cool their interiors. Materials for screens that provide shade and catch the cool breezes are imported from elsewhere. Lastly, the ancient tribes of the valley, are inadequately featured by their archaeological and anthropological sites, their traditional objects and stories (bird songs) . The oasis valley feels like it is only 60 years old and dependent on high cost technology and new infrastructure for survival.
The 122-mile concrete-lined Coachella canal is one of many that diverts nearly all the water from the Colorado River into the valley.
left: Imported manufactured screens of concrete attempt to shade the sun and capture breezes in Palm Springs. This golf course green is one on more than 200 luxurious courses that requires vast quantities of water and labour-intensity to maintain the lush settings.
above, middle: Hundreds of wind turbines in Windy Valley north of Palm Springs provide electricity needed to operate air- conditioners and water pumps of sumptuous spas and resorts.
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On Site review 21: stormy weather
Coachella Valley can learn from the Fergana Valley of Central Asia. Coachella needs to make immediate planning changes in attitude, direction, control and form. The first is to move away from an economic emphasis on agricultural exports and to organically grow for the locals and slow-food practioners. The second is to re- plan valley agriculture putting production back into the lands and hands of the private residents and original native americans. The third is to re-adopt more natural systems, practices and methods with an emphasis on low-tech, manual and low-maintainance solutions for water distribution and conservation, for soil amelioration, for sunshading of public and private lands and for cooling inside buildings. The fourth is to reduce the isolation of residents spaced widely apart by constructing simple linked infill development along major roads. And the fifth is to convert the existing water-guzzling lawns of the golf courses to using only drought-resistant ground cover and plants for the rough and the fairways.
In reality, most of the problems of Coachella Valley would be solved if the entry points were restricted, population was capped, agriculture was handled more cooperatively, landscaped front yards were eliminated and spaces between buildings were filled and linked. But these solutions are probably considered un- American and socialistic, thus the fate of the Coachella Valley is likely to be continued degradation of the ecology, misuse of the soil, and eventual run out of water and electricity black-outs because of competing interests and poor land and building conservation techniques. The Fergana Valley oasis offers to the Coachella Valley oasis important lessons showing densely populated towns and cities co-existing with the natural assets and rhythms that keep the valley lush for all residents and visitors. The linear settlements linking the urban centres are ingeneous solutions to getting maximum productivity from the land, even with a high density of popula- tion, while simultaneously offering efficient public services to the residents themselves. Smallholder farms adjacent to the tree-shaded, evaporation-reduced ditches have fanciful waterwheels that lift water for animal and plant usage into the courtyard farms. The wheels are simple, individual- ized, manual, and hand-constructed from recycled-steel. They are almost maintenance-free. Household water comes from wells (some are artesian) drilled into the aquifer that has naturally filtered it for safe drinking.
The Fergana Valley oasis story is an ancient epic. Man and nature co-exist (excepting the recent pe- riod when soviet-ordered cotton-monoculture and military industrial plants threatened to destroy the balance). The current production techniques keep the soil fertile and the crops lush. Springtime sun melts the high snows that permit an extensive and tight grid of man-made clay-lined water ditches to traverse the valley. Slow seepage from the ditches replenishes the aquifer and keeps the water table high, thus reducing the need for above-ground spraying.
The Fergana Valley oasis is surrounded by the barren Tian Shan (aka Celestial Mountains) and a radiating arm of the Pamir Alay (aka Roof of the World). They divide the great Gobi (Shamo) desert into an eastern desert (Taklimakin Shamo in China) and a western desert (Kyzylkum in Uzbekistan). The Syr-Darya river flows westward through the valley toward the Caspian Sea. By 100 BC the valley was thoroughly settled, protected and productive, connected by the great Silk Road, and rapidly changing with the trade of different goods, ideas, peoples, religions, cultures and conquerors.
The Coachella Valley oasis is surrounded by the northern Sierra de Jaurez and the San Bernardino mountains that separate the Great California desert into a northern desert (Mojave) and a southern desert (Desierto de Altar in Mexico). The Colorado river basin provides water to the valley flowing southward to the Gulf of California. Around 1850 AD a railroad between Los Angeles and Yuma brought outsiders and changed the lives and power of the ancient Cahuilla tribes who had survived and flourished with simple agriculture, high quality tools and crafts, athletic games, florid body painting and large sand art.
An oasis becomes a travel destination or a place to settle, with all of man’s basic needs covered locally. Many oases become sanctuaries for study and contemplation like the Siwa Oasis in Egypt or the Nefta Oasis in Tunisia, giving them a mystical and spiritual reputation. The contrast between barren sand/ rock and hardy natural vegetation, between lush, nutrient-laden vertical fruit and nut groves and colourful horizontal floral and vegetable gardens offers a stunning environment that engages all the senses year-round. Add brilliant daytime sunlight and a clear magnified starry nighttime sky and the result is the closest one can come to being in a sensual and visual heavenly paradise, an earthly garden of eden, a shangri-la….
Deserts are regions in which few forms of life can exist owing to exceptional drought or cold. They are often crossed by great bare-rock mountain masses that split from temperature extremes of hot day and cold night. With help from the wind, the split rocks turn to sand, and the desert expands. An oasis is a fertile tract in the desert. The fertility is due to water found near the surface in the forms of aquifers, springs, percolations and artesian wells within depressions, at tectonic plate fault lines, or along the course of a river – all fed and recharged from the snow melt in the mountains. Man can make oases produce a wide range of crops using water diversion and simple cultivation techniques.
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weather matters: On Site review 21
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