This is great, Austin! Thank you! Everyone should take a look at this. "We form the city while the city forms us" (just what we were discussing 2 weeks ago!). Also, take a look at their graphics - how they diagram information, use colors, certain backgrounds, simple drawings in order to describe specific information. Too bad about the creepy female voice. :)
Haha, she is so articulate it is distracting. If you follow the link at the end of the video (http://www.urbaninform.net/) there is a lot of good material. The site is a bit hard to navigate, find the 2010 competition winners, all the submittals have really cool diagrams, plus the projects are interesting. They all have weird voices though, maybe its a Swiss thing
Wow that's good. as we begin to think ahead, this is a good time to question the program of construction training in the formal city vs informal. With that in mind, and if we are certain to maintain the project in Boston, it would be worth opening up to all of you to think about where a program such as that would have the most impact. Is Union square the most appropriate? Cambridge, Roxbury? Lynn? Or could this program me more beneficial in an informal settlement?
According to this 2011 measure of Poverty in Boston, Mattapan/Roxbury/Dorchester are the areas with the highest concentration of households living under the poverty line. Also the highest amount of children living in poverty (42% live under the poverty line, highest in the Commonwealth). Additionally, South Dorchester has the highest housing vacancy rate in the city (as of 2000).
These three areas top the list of all Poverty Indicators - between 20-40% of adults in these areas do not have a high school degree, and 74% of the areas' population qualifies for food stamps.
The report only covers Boston, so cambridge isn't represented in the data. Here is a newspaper clipping abridging that big report: http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2011/11/09/poverty-grip-tightens-boston-study-says/pUXW8N2DkeJg1TE73lG8mM/story.html
Those are certainly some alarming numbers presented in the video. In response to Dan, I would say that they are presenting some universal ideas, that could be interpreted and applied to any environment. We have already touched on this briefly in class discussions, but I think the biggest impedance to implementing some of these ideas is the formal construction tradition in the Northeast. Unionized labor has tremendous power, especially in the northeast, and it has driven our labor costs through the roof!! Instead of being able to allocate money toward solving the issues presented, we are preoccupied with paying the contractors.
With that said, I think the "informal" city has the most potential to address these issues and bring to fruition tangible, inhabitable projects. Lynch and Rossi have examined these issues from a design standpoint in the past, and its interesting to see in the video they acknowledge that the designer is only one part of these urban solution. It seems that governments and financiers are hesitant to jump in with both feet and try to make a difference. Instead, they dip a toe in and call it a day. In the informal cities, money can go much further, and if there was somebody willing to take on a social project of massive proportion, I think the initial path of least resistance would be to start with the informal city.
In response to all of this I think it's worth putting a few things on the table before monday:
Elements that will remain after case study project: + Focus on social interaction through education / design + Group design process until midreview
Elements up for discussion: 1) is the project we will collectively design going to be a single building, a small campus, an institution, or a distributed network? 2) will the site be singular and local? singular and located somewhere else? Haiti perhaps? will the site be multiplied or undefined by the group, leaving individuals to define specific sites? 3. Consider these phrases as you think about how you'd like to frame the next 10 weeks of your life: + urban acupuncture + medieval modernity + constructing training + Total {re]design
you are all welcome to voice opinions and continue the discussion. no decisions will be made until we all sit in a room together. in the mean time, we want to see some progress on your drawings!
Thank you for the link to the article on poverty in Boston. I always find the local stuff especially sobering. While it's important to think globally, it too easy to question our motives when our own back yards are in such disarray.
As a parent, and also as a first-generation American, I view both culture and education as key. And so quotes like this one from Paul Grogan, President of the Brookings Institute in Boston, hit home for me. “We have to have an education pipeline for people who come here in poverty,so they don’t get trapped there."
Unfortunately, I can't help but notice the phrase "people who come here." What about the ones who are already here?
This is great, Austin! Thank you! Everyone should take a look at this. "We form the city while the city forms us" (just what we were discussing 2 weeks ago!). Also, take a look at their graphics - how they diagram information, use colors, certain backgrounds, simple drawings in order to describe specific information. Too bad about the creepy female voice. :)
ReplyDeleteHaha, she is so articulate it is distracting. If you follow the link at the end of the video (http://www.urbaninform.net/) there is a lot of good material. The site is a bit hard to navigate, find the 2010 competition winners, all the submittals have really cool diagrams, plus the projects are interesting. They all have weird voices though, maybe its a Swiss thing
ReplyDeleteWow that's good. as we begin to think ahead, this is a good time to question the program of construction training in the formal city vs informal. With that in mind, and if we are certain to maintain the project in Boston, it would be worth opening up to all of you to think about where a program such as that would have the most impact. Is Union square the most appropriate? Cambridge, Roxbury? Lynn? Or could this program me more beneficial in an informal settlement?
ReplyDeleteAccording to this 2011 measure of Poverty in Boston, Mattapan/Roxbury/Dorchester are the areas with the highest concentration of households living under the poverty line. Also the highest amount of children living in poverty (42% live under the poverty line, highest in the Commonwealth). Additionally, South Dorchester has the highest housing vacancy rate in the city (as of 2000).
ReplyDeleteThese three areas top the list of all Poverty Indicators - between 20-40% of adults in these areas do not have a high school degree, and 74% of the areas' population qualifies for food stamps.
The report only covers Boston, so cambridge isn't represented in the data. Here is a newspaper clipping abridging that big report:
http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2011/11/09/poverty-grip-tightens-boston-study-says/pUXW8N2DkeJg1TE73lG8mM/story.html
Those are certainly some alarming numbers presented in the video. In response to Dan, I would say that they are presenting some universal ideas, that could be interpreted and applied to any environment. We have already touched on this briefly in class discussions, but I think the biggest impedance to implementing some of these ideas is the formal construction tradition in the Northeast. Unionized labor has tremendous power, especially in the northeast, and it has driven our labor costs through the roof!! Instead of being able to allocate money toward solving the issues presented, we are preoccupied with paying the contractors.
ReplyDeleteWith that said, I think the "informal" city has the most potential to address these issues and bring to fruition tangible, inhabitable projects. Lynch and Rossi have examined these issues from a design standpoint in the past, and its interesting to see in the video they acknowledge that the designer is only one part of these urban solution. It seems that governments and financiers are hesitant to jump in with both feet and try to make a difference. Instead, they dip a toe in and call it a day. In the informal cities, money can go much further, and if there was somebody willing to take on a social project of massive proportion, I think the initial path of least resistance would be to start with the informal city.
In response to all of this I think it's worth putting a few things on the table before monday:
ReplyDeleteElements that will remain after case study project:
+ Focus on social interaction through education / design
+ Group design process until midreview
Elements up for discussion:
1) is the project we will collectively design going to be a single building, a small campus, an institution, or a distributed network?
2) will the site be singular and local? singular and located somewhere else? Haiti perhaps? will the site be multiplied or undefined by the group, leaving individuals to define specific sites?
3. Consider these phrases as you think about how you'd like to frame the next 10 weeks of your life:
+ urban acupuncture
+ medieval modernity
+ constructing training
+ Total {re]design
you are all welcome to voice opinions and continue the discussion. no decisions will be made until we all sit in a room together. in the mean time, we want to see some progress on your drawings!
Austin,
ReplyDeleteThank you for the link to the article on poverty in Boston. I always find the local stuff especially sobering. While it's important to think globally, it too easy to question our motives when our own back yards are in such disarray.
As a parent, and also as a first-generation American, I view both culture and education as key. And so quotes like this one from Paul Grogan, President of the Brookings Institute in Boston, hit home for me. “We have to have an education pipeline for people who come here in poverty,so they don’t get trapped there."
Unfortunately, I can't help but notice the phrase "people who come here." What about the ones who are already here?
Tess