T34 - Cities Destroyed for Cash

01.02.2011 Damon Rich Lecture at the AA

‘You can’t have your own private built environment’

In this lecture, Damon Rich, currently the Urban Designer for the City of Newark, New Jersey, explained his methodology for changing the built environment, reforming relationships between people and their cities. In a cyclical exploration of architecture, the city, and economics, the lecture started and finished with notions of public and private, and for whom we design.

‘We, as architects, should resist the notion of serving up treats, but find our place in a coalition of public designers….by the end we might not be able to tell the difference between architecture and buildings.’

We, as architects, should be evaluating the social impact of our architecture, not only its face value and aesthetic, we do not just create floorplans. The question of whether architects are needed in creating buildings was posed In Dorota’s thesis presentation, as homeowners constantly add bits to their buildings, creating a collage of building typologies without hiring architects. But perhaps this is exactly what’s wrong with our city, in that people selfishly extend and build, without thinking about the surrounding neighbours or the people passing by everyday on the street. It seemed Rich was arguing that all buildings should be seen as architecture, where the public experiencing the building strongly influence how the architect approaches its design: their views and interest should be sought.

The first case study of the lecture was that of a ‘post apocalyptic settlement’ in Montreal. In a collaboration with students, a Montreal art gallery’s green space was filled with new living structures, catering for the hypothetical impending flood risks and climate change. Though seemingly ad hoc, the site was planned, and discussions with the students about regulations and rubric for the new settlement uncovered many issues, social and political, echoed in urban planning today ‘we shouldn’t isolate, we can’t privatise…’.

Consultation with students seems to be a key theme to Rich’s work, where he believes that children give ‘an alibi for what we want to do…’ a more honest take on how we should be designing without the constraints of finance. Quite a contrast to the stories illustrated in the film clips of puppets and how their strings were knotted by estate agents and developers.

Another theme is in the use of marketing as a tool to encourage good redevelopment. In an incremental approach, press events and the installation of a bright, if slightly surreal model of the riverside development in the entrance of the city hall draws people’s attention to areas of the city in need of redevelopment. Postcards proclaiming ‘Come down to the riverfront’ are an easy and accessible way of getting public attention.

This public participation is instrumental to the approach of the Centre for Urban Pedagogy (CUP), founded in 1997, a New York City non-profit organisation that uses the power of design and art to increase the impact of the public in urban planning and community development, where Damon Rich was the Creative Director for ten years.

It is interesting and useful to see how in creating a Centre for Urban Pedagogy, intentions of educating the public on architecture are being followed through. Owen Hatherley (in a lecture at the beginning of the Rip it Up Series), questioned how we can engage the public more in caring about their surroundings and architecture. This seems a feasible answer. By capturing the interest of local residents, a duty of care is created for their area, providing a deeper understanding to the process of public consultation.

Perhaps in an approach to redeveloping areas of the Upper Lea Valley, this stance should be taken. Rather than solely provide, for instance, a café and shop for the fishermen and school groups visiting the reservoirs, redevelopment of the entire area might be kickstarted by capturing the imagination of local people. There is a strong history of protection and conservation to the surrounding marshes, and many developments have been proposed in the areas surrounding Tottenham and Blackhorse Lane, yet residents have little idea about what they have on their doorstep, or how their area might be changed for the better. By simple measures of publicity campaigns in local and large stores (ie Tesco and IKEA), and schemes to promote the use of local amenities like the horse riding centre, the area will be improved without needing to build at all.

The Volkswagon site, ‘thefuntheory.com’ illustrates how small changes to ways of using objects or spaces can improve and influence their use immensely. This is the attitude the CUP is promoting, and one which could be adopted in Tottenham.

According to the Centre of Urban Pedagogy,

‘Our work grows from a belief that the power of imagination is central to the practice of democracy, and that the work of governing must engage the dreams and visions of citizens. CUP believes in the legibility of the world around us. What can we learn by investigation? By learning how to investigate, we train ourselves to change what we see.’