whenlightswork

Spiro Kostof once wrote that there are two types of cities: one that is designed in accordance to regulations or authorities’ directives, and the other, which is shaped by people living within its spaces.  Indeed, although planning regulations provide the basis to the structure of urban spaces, it is the people who lived in these spaces that would lend vibrancy and character to them.

Today, critics lament the demise of distinctive cities. In fact, old city footprint, in the likes of Paris or Venice, might never reoccur again, with the emergence of architecture playgrounds like Dubai and Abu Dhabi. This is when we draw the line between planning visions and the need to relate the city spaces to its community. In the latter, economic agenda supersedes the need for community spaces and the need for a super city is more important than making places, simply, work.  So, now, we would need to ask, what makes a place click? Also, with the empowerment of individuals, people were more aware of how their decisions might change the directions of their city’s design and people were more involved in making their places work.  These suggested a departure in the conventional directions on how urban design had been approached, and adopting another view where the community has a greater share in the design of their physical spaces.

As pointed out by Lewis Mumford, urban design should relate to an organic relationship between people and their living spaces, and the city should not be a result of mere social, political or economical reasons. Therefore, spaces should relate to the people and not towards fulfilling agendas that aimed to create a utopia. It is the people who make the spaces and not vice versa. Yet from through the history of city planning or one’s fascination with the metropolis, the ideas of an ideal city often centred about the spaces that facilities certain ideologies and visions; whether it is originating from a person or relating to the perfect scenario as painted by a small community of authorities.  These resultant spaces may not be a true representation of the beliefs of the community residing within the pockets of spaces. However, with more academics and scholars documenting and advocating the advantages to urban design when community are involved in the design of their spaces, or lamenting the lost of community spaces due to designs that were governed by agendas instead of rational thoughts, it finally appeared that there is a potential answer to the new design directions for urban spaces, that lies in the hands of participatory design.

With community participating in the design of their spaces, or by prioritizing people in the design of urban spaces, the success of such design approach is being documented extensively by Project for Public Spaces (PPS), a non-profit organization based in New York. PPS’s starting agenda was simple, to understand the city’s dynamics and observe people’s behaviour in spaces, or in short, to know what turns a space into a place. Through extensive observations and recommendation that were based on simple agenda, PPS had an impressive portfolio of success stories, from Bryant Park to Grand Army Plaza. Therefore, from the experiences of PPS, we must understand that the starting point of design for places should commence from extensive observation, and applying conscious thoughts to design proposals. Also, other than transforming the physical forms of spaces, guerrilla lighting, a group of lighting designers based in UK, had been changing the appearance of the night-time environment, just by mere torches. These simple gestures relate to the increase in awareness of individual to make their spaces work, and the range of activities that could be done in various stages of implementation.

Also, through understanding the design approaches adopted by these groups, we could see how educating public on decisions they could make to their community better could change the outlook of city’s development. Certainly, these paralleled to the philosophy behind how re:act had conceptualized on Design my Place workshops and how local groups had volunteered their efforts to making their spaces better. Also, these workshops had emphasized on the importance of education and the empowerment of individuals of different ages to come together, and create their places, whilst responding to issues detected at the site. Although these steps are tiny in comparison to the huge planning visions that the authorities had in mind, but these are the results of people looking at issues from different perspectives and angles. These, perhaps, signalled to a new direction to which Urban Development Authorities could look into, listening to the voices of the community and adapting suggestions into the masterplans.

With all the focus on how community can shape their environment, through active exchanges with the authorities, we can also look at how active discussions between users and designers can help make design better. Through one of my many conversations with a colleague who had studied human anthropology and sociology, he remarked that although architects or urban designers have started looking at participatory design from the community standpoint, why is it still restricted to the building professionals, without collaborative exchanges with the sociologist? For that moment, it dawned upon me that somehow in urban design, it is not just a matter of the discussions between the urban designers and the users, but we should reflect on human behavior, and how these unique traits translate itself into space design.

During my preparation for the article abstract for the book for Parsons School of Design, I was reading up on a case-study in Hong Kong where the existing community were involved in an active exchange with the housing authority on the upgrading of their existing housing community. In Hong Kong, if you are familiar with how their public housing scheme works or the community who reside in their public housing, it is a scenario that is different from Singapore where a majority of our population are staying in public housing. In Hong Kong, the public housing is catered for people who are dependent on the subsidy provided by the government for housing, and public housing is catered to the population through a stringent selection process. Hence, to see their authorities to have this experimental project on including the community in the design of their environment, this is a huge leap forward towards the realm of community design. Hence, perhaps, this signal a new way forward for Singaporeans in their demand for housing, to be able to offer suggestions in the design of their environment, and this will make the upgrading program more relevant for the community who are living within the environment.

The idea of making places better, the idea started with a book by Jane Jacobs, The Death and Life of Great American Cities. A journalist who rebelled against the modernist city, the gleaming beacon of hope for most, but perceived as dreadful by Jacobs. She redefines how cities should be designed, instead of the preoccupation on vehicles and for the city to operate efficiently, she examines how cities should de defined by the community who resides within the pockets. Then, with her spearheading, to me ‘operation-people-make-spaces’, that inspires the other great urban designers, like Jan Gehl to examine how they are able to apply the ideas in their home country. The series of lectures I attended by Jan Gehl and Fred Kent inspired me to see how perhaps, it is time for Singapore’s design to change and re-orientate itself towards people-centric design.

Project for Public Spaces website

So, perhaps that defined the new direction urban design should adopt, in relation to the current obsession on sustainable design. But then again, lets reflect upon the idea of being sustainable. The idea of sustainable architecture emerged and interested some academics when I was in my final year at the architecture school. Yet, the masses have always interpreted the idea as being energy-friendly, with low wastage of materials. However, the idea of being sustainable is beyond the face value of energy consumption, but relates to a greater picture of how the community utilize and relate to the space, minimizing dependency on foreign resources.

Within our local heartlands, there is a gradual shift in building and retail typologies, where it relates to the current consumers’ lifestyle preference. Shopping is no longer intended to pick up some daily products at our friendly corner shops, but it is gradually being taken over by the new suburban malls. This new uprising of the heartland malls has resulted in a change of shopping experience and more corner shops are facing a new dilemma of to change or to go against the change. With this, there only exist a certain type of shops that existed around the neighborhood centers. The demise of the local Ma-ma shops have inspired me to see how perhaps, it is time to change the retail typologies that exist in the heartland shops, or maybe, there is a need to see how new life can be injected into the heartland centers, instead of fending off the competition of shopping malls with bare fists.

commes des garcons guerrilla shop

With the success of Comme des Garçons guerrilla shop, the boutique shops that are gradually taking over the shopfronts of Tiong Bahru, perhaps it is time for us to examine how and whether such avant garde concepts can work within our friendly neighborhood. The uniqueness of such concept is the blurring of line between the high-art or design, and making design accessible to all. So, imagine, if we will to allow a sector of heartland neighborhood center to be developed with the guerrilla concept in mind, will this change and excite our local community? This is perhaps a new directive we can look at in the area of urban design, and why should urban design be taken, constantly, from a regulative and strategical point of view?