Although it would be really interesting to literally send a letter to the error, I am instead writing this as a reply to my blogging friend Error. Upon a discussion held at that post.
When the government started planning for the new city back in the 50s and 60s, the applied theory was based on zoning and decentralizing. This approach made the result of a fragmented community, and thus disturbed the natural collaboration of profession. I agree with you about blaming the government in the way they assign jobs to the community as it needs to be really designed to make maximum use of skills, but I do think that we can give rebirth for a better standard of living on a scale wider than the government sector if we designed collaboration spatially. Yes there are attempts to bring many professions in one place, and there are examples of shared spaces, but the result is a "complex". A complex isn't a space that allows for conversion and diversion, but rather a random accumulation of different jobs, which with time ends up to be subject to zoning, producing terms such as residential complex, commercial street or mall, art district and industrial area.
Thus, what I'm trying to say is that since we're now contextually a fragmented city we need to identify and revive the different professions that every city should host, and then try to value and design our association.
5 comments:
if you have an electrical problem you do not hire a philosopher to to fix it, you hire a electrician.
therefore, a sociological problem cannot be viewed merely from an architectural perspective. in addition many professions are not inter-related.
during the 50s-60s people had greater access to automobiles, which as a result accommodated for a virtual collaborative setting that will subsidize for the old environment, for a city that was growing horizontally.
i think the real identifier of a profession, or in better words a "value proposer", is the financial reward for that produce or service.
error,
they cannot raise financial reward just like that, any text always needs an introduction.
all governmental decisions should start from the common interest, when people start an activity, the government responds and supports, unless there is an urgent governmental need for a particular common interest.
city problems are not singular to be identified objectively, they're inter-related in a way you cannot but deal with them in an interdisciplinary approach.
I'm explaining how important it is to introduce "time and space" in all the problems in the city, and how the problems are really emerging from the lack of consideration of both. we neither have a time scale, nor a space frame, I think this might be architectural, but not in the scale you're thinking about it, because it is on an urban operative scale rather than a simple problem solving design scale.
therefore for any city or community planning, you cannot seclude time and space from any of its "objective" problems, because it is an infra-structure that should allow all objects to finally collaborate. (simply you need maintenance, and you need access and circulation, that's a general rule)
let me tell you that i'm really happy with the way you think as i'm enjoying this small debate. i rarely find enlightened people identifying and tackling real problems.
i assume your motive is to revive perished professions by applying certain urbanization methods in order to influence the process of revivification.
its better if we can address the current theme of the cupcake revolution, many new home businesses, new professions so to speak, are coming up. the limited number of their success is due to lack of retail space, in other word no conversions are happening because of the lack of space.
i think we need to pay more attention for the cultural produce people are voluntarily doing. i have no faith in government, it will not do any of the common interest initiatives, not in survival mode.
on a different note.. let's have a small strip of streets in all of the urban ares with small shops/coffee shops/bakeries/walkways/exhibitions/ rather than craming them up in well-managed-and-ill-looking jam3iya malls!!
error,
yeah as you said, the small businesses are really flourishing in Kuwait, yet as you said "lack of space" which i want to rather call it lack of understanding, or engagement with space.
they're treating space just like an x factor, needed-pointed-used, full-stop. and if there is a design involved with it, it's a design within itself, meaning not having any contextual chemistry going on.
I really do value the "potentials" of the small businesses, but we really got to understand how the meet of such common interest collaborate in a perfect sense, coz it doesn't make sense to pass by a graphic designer next to a cupcake seller, there are even some booths are preferable to be outdoors, and you can stretch this evaluation to the urban scale, to give balance and a better flow of the city.
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Simper,
yeah I hope they don't put that street in the middle of the desert as they always do, or any synonymous to the desert metaphor, like an irrelevant place.
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