Adaptive Design

Non sequitur: Is where we live, work, play and learn subordinate to where we Shop and Watch?

The world’s population is growing exponentially. This has far-reaching implications for architecture, urban and otherwise. The great thing about this class is that it raises a lot of questions that make you want to learn enough to answer those questions.  So, some questions:

1. With average human life expectancy increasing the average age of the world population is increasing as well. What can we do to make Architecture “user-friendly” for all age groups, and how do we balance this with the tricks of trade we use to create quality space (see left)?
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Images on this page from Thiis-Evensen

2. How safe does architecture need to be? I’m not saying we live in buildings with the constant stress/fear of walls falling in on themselves, but shouldn’t we balance stability and tension (eg. Deconstructivist architecture)? Because if constant thermal environments are monotonous, then maybe constant architectural environments are too. And I don’t mean to be politically incorrect, but by designing for people with disabilities aren’t we reverse-discriminating against “normal” people by denying them the joy of architectural discovery? Maybe the answer lies in allowing for possibilities of discovery for everyone – the steep flight of steps and the smell of the garden (of Eden) both leading up to salvation.

3. The increasing population puts pressure on architects, planners and policymakers to demolish buildings and erect mega monstrosities in their place, to accommodate the living, working and shopping requirements of the masses. What do we do with our old buildings – discard them like we would the disposable packages of our consumer culture? Treat them like Holy Cows, put them on a pedestal (or not) and classify them Untouchable? If not, what then?

Our design studio this semester is about proposing a master plan for redeveloping Newcastle City, and then detailing a building selected from the proposal (in my case a “museum” at the interface between rail, water, street and city, wrapping around an existing heritage building). I would like to explore these questions in my design. Identity, fantasy, heresy… hypocrite lunatic fanatic heretic (Static X – The Only)





















These are a few key phrases (below, not above) I’ve come up with for this design exploration. Hopefully in the next few weeks I can use this to generate meaningful architectural and urban (are they separate?) space.

1. Is where we live, work, play and learn subordinate to where we shop and watch?
2. Museum, railway station, retail mall – the street as urban interface.
3. What is a museum, a factory, a railway station, a retail mall – Industrial Revolution typologies during a purported Third Wave? What happens if we crash them into each other? Rules are meant to be broken… some of them at least.
4. Building as a showcase of ESD principles for the people of Newcastle.
5. Water land interface – aquarium at station and street level, pool puncturing station environment, the artificial harbour as social setting.
6. Blurring natural and built dualities – concrete and grass?
7. Past, present and future Newcastle.
8. HistoriCity: Wine society and other buildings.

10.5 billion people by the year 2050. Forget 2050, there are 6.5 billion (minus one) people sharing this planet with me right here and now. Besides the obvious issue of the physical limits to which the environment can support the requirements of all these people (carrying capacity?), there is also the issue of the attendant changing socio-political scenario. 

‘The more uniform the world culture becomes, the more differences between us we desire to have, whatever that may mean. While regional wars over territories are being waged to create homogeneous communities – whether ethnic, religious, or class-based – in people’s minds there is much more at stake. Population growth allows for the resurfacing of an old fear: becoming a people without space. At the same time, however, we continue to destroy the biosphere at an even greater speed than after the end of the Cold War, as many countries are using the tools of capitalism and new technologies to try to reach the living and development standards of the Western world; thus international ecological standards established by nations with globalizing economies are easily overlooked if they cannot be translated directly into money. Civilization leaves behind itself scorched earth and destroyed cities…Cities will no longer be geographical condensations of capital, power, culture, and knowledge. They will eventually become places where you are locked up in or try to escape from, where you erect sealed-off areas, apartheid zones, secure high-tech bunkers and closed spaces that are monitored by the same technologies that are used in the construction of cyberspace… apartments, houses, entire city areas, and new defensive settlements are cutting themselves off from the outside, and as substitutes we construct cities in cyberspace or build parallel cities in the form of theme parks. Instead of strolling around and working in public spaces in cities, members of the virtual class are doing so in cyberspace, permitting them to overlook the black holes and to form homogeneous communities that are eventually aimed at becoming autonomous islands with surveillance.’ (Roetzer)

I say Jeeves old chap this won’t do at all. Maybe stopping wars is beyond the grasp of us architects, as common men (gasp), but the urban environment isn’t. So we question physical boundaries that restrict access to “normal” people only, and we question the Holy Grail of Industrial Revolution typologies (and ideologies) that mutate and resurface under different guises in the so-called Information Age. This is a democracy after all. And come to think of it, we question why we think we can’t stop wars.
If we want to create urban environments that are democratic, we need to understand that we are all in this together – from black and white (and all the colours in between) humans to the birds and the bees.
Population growth pressurizes the environment, and there are limits to this growth imposed by feedback loops and carrying capacities of that environment, so when we create and modify urban environments we must understand the bigger picture: 

1. Human use of many essential resources and generation of many kinds of pollutants have already surpassed rates that are physically sustainable. Without significant reductions in material and energy flows, there will be in the coming decades an uncontrolled decline in per capita food output, energy use, and industrial production.

(So design to minimize material and energy flows, and the generation of pollutants)

2. This decline is not inevitable. To avoid it two changes are necessary. The first is a comprehensive revision of policies and practices that perpetuate growth in material consumption and in population. The second is a rapid, drastic increase in the efficiency with which materials and energy are used.

(So design to minimize material and energy flows, and the generation of pollutants)

3. A sustainable society is still technically and economically possible. It could be much more desirable than a society that tries to solve its problems by constant expansion. The transition to a sustainable society requires a careful balance between long-term and short-term goals and an emphasis on sufficiency, equity, and quality of life rather than on quantity of output. It requires more than productivity and more than technology; it also requires maturity, compassion, and wisdom.

(So design to minimize material and energy flows, and the generation of pollutants…

and always try to be mature, compassionate and wise – which is easier said than done: I know)

For a closer look at the demographic intricacies of this burgeoning population, I recommend the ‘Global Population Profile: 2002’ (www.census.gov/ipc/www/world.html). Some salient points: 

• Life expectancy worldwide has risen on average by 4 months each year since 1970. 
• Infant mortality rates fell from 80 per 1000 live births in 1980, to 54 per 1000 in 1998. 
• Proportion of singles in population increasing.
• Number of divorces increasing so split families means more households of less size.
• While the average household size is decreasing, the average house size is increasing.

This basically means our housing needs – and the footprint of those housing needs – is increasing as well. Most of these have to be accommodated in the cities because that’s where a lot of people are and where quite a few of the remaining are headed. And with all those people living together the standard of life and the urban environment must be high, or the Architect and the Powers That Be are going to have a lot of rather miffed people to answer to.

Towards creating a high standard of life and urban environment so that the Architect and the Powers That Be only have a few rather miffed people to answer to:

• Minimize physical effort in use
• Intuitive use that is readily understood or read
• Accessible services
• Humane scale 
• Pedestrian priority
• Opportunities for community participation

I’d like to talk about these points in the context of the design for Newcastle City I mentioned earlier, and some other projects I have been involved with. But first, some examples of barrier free design that I did not implement but would if I could travel two weeks back in time before the submission:

Street furniture should be located so as to allow for the free passage of all people without creating hazards. 

Textural changes in the footpath surface help sightless people to identify the location of public amenities.

Pedestrian routes in recreational areas and open spaces should be broken regularly by detectable obstructions such as plants.

Natural guidelines and guide strips are used to help identify travel routes.

Guide strips should have a colour that contrasts with the surrounding surface for the benefit of people with sight problems.

Where travel routes change direction, there should be a gradual change in the direction of the guiding strip.

Curbs should not obstruct the free passage of physically disabled people, mainly wheelchair users.

The slope of an accessible path should not exceed 1:20.

The surface of an accessible pathway should be smooth, continuous, non-slip and even.

This is obviously not an exhaustive list, but it does give a feel for the kind of design sensibilities we could incorporate in our thinking. After all, the stick men are symbols that act as sound(visual?)bytes but, lest we forget, they represent the people we are designing for.

Now, since I do have the opportunity of detailing the design, I guess there’s no excuse for implementing them now is there? And while I did write earlier about cyberspace reinforcing the formation of autonomous islands within the city in a rather negative way, I’m all for the technology being used in constructive ways to aid mobility (freeflow) of all people within that city. So in Sydney we have the chirping pedestrian crossing lights and auto doors and the possibility (as in all cities and homes) of technology enhancing and aiding in sensory perception of the urban environment. 

Picture this. You are walking down a street in a foreign city, wondering how to find a particular restaurant where you’ve arranged to meet an old friend. After entering a few commands on a small computer attached to your belt, you see a city map appear before you in the air, with the quickest route to the restaurant outlined in yellow. Having eventually found the right street, you can just make out a sign in the distance. A light touch to your glasses magnifies the image, confirming that this is indeed the place. You enter the restaurant and recognize your friend already seated at a table. And now picture one more thing: You are legally blind.
In her influential essay “A Cyborg Manifesto”, science historian Donna Haraway suggests that the severely disabled are often the first to appreciate the fruitful couplings of humans and machines. A brief conversation with anyone who has a pacemaker, a new hip, a (good) hearing aid, an artificial heart, or any one of a host of bionic devices will bear this out.

Using technology in smart ways could prove invaluable in building and urban design, ensuring safety and comfort of people from all user and age groups. 

A house or working environment, which includes the technology to allow for devices and systems to be controlled automatically, may be termed a Smart Home. Homes which can automatically adjust the temperature, the level of security and permit efficient communications to the outside world, are of obvious benefit to all, providing they do not go too far and affect the freedom of choice of the person living within them. 

www.smart-homes.nl

The following is an excellent case study that shows how technology integrated with the Built can help meet the requirements of people with particular needs, in this case dementia:

In Tönsberg, Norway, eight care flats have been designed to support the home lives of persons with dementia. The focus has been on choosing reliable technology that either has a preventive effect upon accidents or allows for quick notifications and rescue should accidents happen.

If, for example, a smoke detector is triggered an alarm siren sounds immediately, a video-connection opens to the responsible staff member’s computer screen, and the individual is alerted by pager. Lights in the corridor and bedrooms are turned on, all entrance doors to the flats are unlocked, and the main entrance and emergency exits are unlocked. Fall detectors can be useful too, as some persons with dementia have poor balance and others do not sleep well at night. Falls at night are one of the common accidents suffered by people with dementia. Technology can help to prevent them. A sensor placed under the bed leg reacts to the weight of the person in the bed. Should they get up in the middle of the night, lights are automatically switched on in the bedroom and the bathroom, and turned off again since the person returns to bed.

Exit doors in smart houses can be supplied with magnetic sensors that register when the doors are opened. A message can be sent to a service centre (or a staff member in the case of Tönsberg) to notify that someone has left the premises. This can be helpful in finding persons with dementia who tend to wander outside the home and become disoriented. 

www.smart-homes.nl

Of course, technology is no substitute for the First Line of Attack – designing path systems as structural organizers in the city: spatial constructs embedded in the minds of all citizens.
SOS Children’s Village at Bhopal

While working at Ashok B. Lall Architects, I worked on a campus design for physically and mentally disabled children. The design concept was the creation of clusters of “family homes” in which 7 to 8 children would live with an aunt figure, a vocational training institute where they would be taught skills to help them in the outside world, and a school on the campus. Some of the design principles I used were:

1. Restraining my architectural instincts and using the local building style the children grew up with and would be most comfortable with.
2. All paths and ramps wheelchair accessible with appropriate turning radii.
3. Plantation and animal husbandry used as part of the therapeutic process, so orchards and farms were integrated as spaces between the clusters and play areas.
4. Changing textures between different areas and at transition points – for instance clusters, entrances, level changes, changes of direction…
5. Each cluster would have a sculpture at the gate symbolizing the children living within, for example “the Lions”, “the Eagles” etc., for physical and personal identity.
6. Each cluster would tend to a particular fruit tree within their cluster for “smell as identity”.
7. Similarly, the orchards and flowering gardens on the sprawling site were located as indicators to help children orient themselves – the smell of roses and eucalyptus for example. 

Retirement Village at Dehra Dun

I used similar design principles for another design I did with my Dad in Dehra Dun, this time a retirement village for elderly people:

1. Maximizing the use of locally available materials in the hills: slates and other stones to reduce embodied energy and root the complex in its site.
2. Designing for the elderly: barrier free spaces, differences in materials, textures and colours at changes of levels and space usage.
3. Terraces on south side to maximize insolation and opening out of rooms with views to the north.
4. Semi-private spaces for interaction between neighbours fostering a sense of community.

(Non sequitur: I look forward to the day when something I design on my own actually gets built) 

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‍Non sequitur (my irrelevant phrase for the day): Urban journeys

“for this is how we experience this Sydney place; from oblique angles and in–between spaces; from the edges of Sydney’s ever–shifting shapes, shadows and moods. its palimpsest layers, fragments of the unbuilt and the unbuildable; its sensuous materiality of rich textures highlighted by the shifting patterns of Sydney light and shade; its strange wounded beauty of rawness, toughness and even carelessness about its fragile nature and the scars and stains of weathering past lives and tempests.”

[Dr. Peter Emmett ]

Universal design and barrier-free environments is one facet of the City. Another is the existing built fabric, the movement paths, the geography and the history: the identity of the Place in the minds of the people. When we design something new in the City, that something new has to have some referent in the past geographical and historical structures of the city, while carving out an identifiable character of its own. Like the Powerhouse Museum in Ultimo, a converted tram and electricity shed now hosting various seemingly incongruous exhibits such as “cyberworlds” and “Space – beyond this world”, and our very own Old Main Building courtyard with its curving green glass wall superimposed on the existing red brick wall, steel pipes and electronic access doors sitting comfortably with the Old.

Adaptive reuse

What is adaptive reuse? 

Old buildings often outlive their original purposes. Adaptive Reuse, or Re-use, is a process that adapts buildings for new uses while retaining their historic features. An old factory may become an apartment building. A rundown church may find new life as a restaurant... And a restaurant may become a church. 

(from www.architecture.about.com)

To successfully balance this blending of the old and the new, we should study the Existing and understand what we want to do to it and what it wants to do with us. The actual process isn’t as threatening as that last sounded – what I’m trying to say here is that we don’t just treat existing buildings as sacrosanct and force our spaces to warp around them (though they could) and we don’t discard them thoughtlessly either in our quest for the New. Possibilities:

Recycle materials
Reinterpret existing design principles
Integrate, envelope or reuse
Propose appropriate (or not) functions
Overpower
Coexist

Jaipuria Mills Redevelopment Proposal: Reusing the existing warehouse and chimney as foci for urban social activity by:

1. Understanding the physical and architectural structure of the existing
2. Understanding the historical context at site and neighbourhood level
3. Cutting into the warehouse and proposing a food court at ground and proposed mezzanine level
4. Reusing material from the structures to be demolished such as I sections and using them as part of the new building vocabulary

Some notes from the design presentation:

Existing physical and architectural structure –

Roshanara’s Tomb: wide central bay, flanking openings smaller in size, bilateral symmetry, independent structure set in large open space
Ganesh Oil Mill: coping defines linear silhouette, edges defined by vertical piers, I sections and brick sculptural system faced with yellow plaster
Warehouse: strong linear form, jack arched structure, alternating solid and void schema, changing degree of opacity with weathering of façade

Reuse of existing structures –
The warehouses will house a department store and a food court. Set in the centre of the plaza, its special nature is emphasized as a local counterpoint to Roshanara’s Tomb. New functions are reflected by the fenestration that acts as a separate frame added to modify the internal climate and respond to changing layouts flexibly.

Reusing material – 
The steel I section is a major structural element used in the existing buildings. Using it as a lief-motif throughout it would be a binding element tying the diverse functions together.
For example

• Element of shading devices
• In the fenestration
• As fixing detail for glazing

Retaining and modifying some of the existing structures on  the site is thus an important facet of the design process. We feel that evolving new developments in an evolving city need to have some referent with the past: the City grows by the incorporation of new structures into the existing matrix. The matrix? It is the mesh of the city within which we play out our lives.

References

Thiis-Evensen, T. (1987). Archetypes in Architecture. Oxford University Press.
Roetzer, Florian. Outer Space or Virtual Space? Utopias of the Digital Age
Mitchell, William J., Antitectonics: The Poetics of Virtuality
Global Population Profile: 2002