Atlantis Magazine 29.1 Constructed Geographies

ATLANTIS MAGAZINE FOR URBANISM & LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE

territor[e]alities

#29.1 November 2018

Constructed Geographies

COMMITTEES 2018

FROM THE BOARD

ATLANTIS VOL # 29

We could not be as visible as we are without the great effort of a lot of active students.

With the help of them we can organise excursions, lectures, workshops, drinks and events. The Polis board wants to thank all the people involved for their great efforts and positive input!

Dear Polis Members,

In keeping with the latest advances in our disciplines’ discourse and building upon last year’s theme of “Action/Reaction: Exploring Challenges in Practice”, we are now shifting our focus to the ‘object’.

The object, though, is understood not as a ‘thing’, but rather as a ‘field’: the area where actions and actors come together in a unity and, in essence, is created by and through that unity. An abstract and absolute space is constructed and transformed through activities, actions and practices that give it shape, content and meaning into a ‘territory’. Is this ‘real’ or ‘imaginary’, small or big? Does it conform with pre-existing conceptual and concrete borders? Do they pertain solely to human activities or to the untamable natural forces? Or both?

These questions are, of course, relative.

The important issue is that we are talking about the kind of processes that form the very notion which guides us in our understanding, approach and intervention.

We are always looking for enthusiastic people to join. Interested in one of the Polis committees? Do not hesitate to contact us at our Polis office (01.west.350) or by e-mail: contact@polistudelft.nl

URBAN AND LANDSCAPE WEEK ATLANTIS EDUCATION PR COMMITTEE BIG TRIP & SMALL TRIP

POLIS BOARD Anna Myllymäki - Chairman Sebastian Gschanes - Vice Chairman Ninad Sansare- Secretary Mark Slierings - Treasurer Adithya Athreya Rao - Public Relations Sindhuja Janakiraman - Atlantis

JOIN US Not yet a member of Polis? For only €12.50 a year as a student of TU Delft, €30 for individual professional membership, or €80 for organizations you can join our network!

You will receive our Atlantis Magazine (for free) four times a year, a monthly newsletter and access to all events organized by Polis.

E-mail contact@polistudelft.nl to find out more.

It has been a fantastic set of months for Polis, from welcoming new members to bringing people from around the world to interact with us on landscape and urbanism.

Moving on from our previous volume ‘Action & Reaction’, the Polis Board is proud to present the next issue of Atlantis from our new Volume 29, ‘territor(e)alities’. We hope you enjoy the interesting articles lined your way!

The UL Week 2018, ‘Floworld’ was a great success with renowned academicians and practitioners from the field talking on topics ranging from decolonization of design, affordable housing to film direction on the theme of flows. Parallelly, preparation for Big Trip is almost done, be ready to pack your bags and join us. Our other committees, Education and PR have achieved in their own way in bringing the students closer to the staff and the outside world!

Do any of this interest you? Our committees are on the look-out for new team members to join us on this exciting journey. For more information send us an e-mail or feel free to join us for a quick chat or coffee at our Polis Office!

Warm Regards from the Polis Board 2018, Anna Myllymäki, Sebastian Gschanes, Adithya Athreya Rao, Mark Slierings, Ninad Sansare and Sindhuja Janakiraman

Hence the word: “territor(e)alities”. This year, “Atlantis | Magazine for Urbanism and Landscape Architecture” will try to explore the concept of spatiality, focusing on the network of processes that give rise to places: what actions and which networks of them makes a piece of land, however small or big, appear and act (or, at least, according to our view of it) as one. Territories are understood as spaces that are conceptually constructed by an agglomeration of practices (or, even, a single dominating action) and, in effect, become concrete and real. We will be zooming in and zooming out, we will be isolating and unifying, all for an investigation of the content and meaning of Urbanism and Landscape Architecture in the 21st century and beyond.

Interested in contributing?

Email us at: atlantismagazinetudelft@gmail.com

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Editorial This issue marks the foray of “Atlantis Magazine” into the blurry and variegated realms of ‘territory’. Under the general title “Constructed Geographies”, we aim to begin this exploration from the perspective of the physical construction of the terrain, as a first step in approaching this complex phenomenon.

Embarking from multiple viewpoints, the articles of this issue are centered around the general idea that specific actions in response to specific conditions or in pursuit of specific outcomes engrave themselves on the land and, as a result, engender landscapes and narratives that are further appropriated by their respective and corresponding users and actors. Therefore, we start this journey from the planet itself as a whole, getting a glimpse of its terrain and its underground and over-ground strata. We make a stop at the Greek island of Lesvos to have a look at how the conditioning of the provision of energy interacts with the living conditions of refugees. A major station in this journey, India, gives us the opportunity to experience simultaneously the effects of a major geographical force and the more point- or area-bound patterns of urbanization, all through an appreciation of the influence of the historical narratives that have so far been accumulated. A small detour to Venice brings to our attention the extremely layered territory of the venetian lagoon, while another in Amsterdam brings us face to face with our relationship with nature from the ‘policy’ point of view. Finally, through Japan and its walls against the sea, we reach our final destination, Venezuela, where we are confronted with the politics of extraction.

This issue marks another first for “Atlantis Magazine”. Our commitment towards providing content that combines academia, research and practice led us to the establishment of a new column: “Showcase”. Each issue will feature a selection of student projects, undertaken within the Urbanism and Landscape Architecture Master’s tracks of the Department of Urbanism of Delft University of Technology. Dedicating this space for this, we aim to have the work produced reach even larger audiences and expand our academic, research and practice related networks.

Editors-in-Chief Sarantis Georgiou (content) Felipe Gonzalez (layout) Polis Board Representative Sindhuja Janakiraman

Contents p.14

p.24

p.34 p.44

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00 Atlantis News by Sindhuja Janakiraman ............................................................................ 6

01 Transcalar and Stratified by Sarantis Georgiou .................................................................. 10 02 The Guayana Region by Ricardo Avella .............................................................................. 14 03 Engineered SuperSurface by Kavya Suresh ...................................................................... 18

04 Practices of Controlling Urban Sprawl by Sofia Kravari .................................................. 20 05 The Sea Walls of Tohoku and a new divide by Aditya Rao ............................................ 24 06 La Serenissima by Catalina Rey and Mark Slierings ........................................................ 28

07 Composite Landscapes by Catalina Rey ............................................................................ 32

08 Framing History by Shoonya Rameshkumar .................................................................... 34 09 The Paradigm Shift: Indian Streets by Tapasya Mukkamala ......................................... 38 Interview

10 Providing sustainable energy for those in need by Melinda Marjรกn

with Anurag Bhambhani and Manolis Tsioukanis .................................................................. 42 MSc Graduation projects 2017-18

Urbanism and Landscape Architecture - TU Delft

11 Rising Out of the Wrath by Vanshika Bharaj ...................................................................... 44

12 Machinic Utopias, Automated Futures by Grace Abou Jaoude ..................................... 46 13 Renatured Economy by Aikaterina Myserli ......................................................................... 48

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ATLANTIS 29.1

Archiprix

2019 architecture project titled "Erosion for Betterment", displayed maps with sliders to show different water levels along with intricate hand carved pop-up collages displaying different landscapes.

ecological and cultural landscapes of the Dutch Southwest Delta" (fig. 3) addresses the issue of a planned and designed 'renaturalization' of the highly managed Dutch coasts.

Two Landscape Architecture and six Urbanism master's level projects, among many other Architecture projects, were exhibited in BK Expo, showcasing the high level of work carried out within the Department of Urbanism and its two master's tracks.

In Reza Ambardi’s project (fig. 2), two opposing ideas are being juxtaposed: Gehl’s (2013) ‘cities for people’ and Le Corbusier’s (1947) ‘the city of tomorrow’, exploring the question, “how to create cities for people (as Gehl proposed) from scratch (in new town form as Le Corbusier proposed), in the context of Hanoi?”.

Each project addresses interesting spatial quests, deserving their special as preselections for Archiprix 2019.

Some of the projects took extra effort towards their presentation in the exhibition such as Evan Ventura (fig. 1), her landscape

Finally, Neill Moncrieff's project titled "A non-straightforward archipelago: speculative strategies for enriching the

Every year, the Dutch design schools select their best graduation projects from to participate in the Archiprix competition.

Unlike most competitions, the diversity in projects is characteristic and varies in scale, approach and presentation.

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Ambardi's and Moncrieff's projects have been selected to participate in the finals for the competition. Atlantis Magazine wishes them both the best of luck.•

NEWS

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November 2018

References 1. Retrieved from https://www.tudelft.nl/bk/studeren/studentenwerk/archiprix-preselection-2019/ 2. Retrieved from http://www.archiprix.nl/national/index. php?m=9

1. Evan Ventura's"Erosion for Betterment".

Source: Author 2. Reza Ambardi’s "Cities for People of Tomorrow". Source: Author 3. Neil Moncrieff's "A non-straightforward archipelago: speculative strategies for enriching the ecological and cultural landscapes of the Dutch Southwest Delta".

Retrieved from https://repository.tudelft.nl/ islandora/object/uuid%3A10e532a4-7bee41fb-a239-d1a505c9fbf0?collection=education

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ATLANTIS 29.1

Floworld Urban and Landscape Week 2018, true to its title, achieved a reflection on and an exploration of the current global challenges on varied flows pertaining our environment and socio-political uncertainties. Talks and panel discussions were lined up for three days, together with a students competition running along them.

The event began with the inaugural lecture

by Steffen Nijhuis on the importance of designing and working within the urban landscape infrastructures. It was followed by the movie-lecture ‘From Where the City Can’t See’ by Liam Young, Founder of ‘Tomorrow’s Thoughts Today’ that was narrating the story of the Anthropocene across unknown territories, a mix between documentary and fiction. A workshop was held by Placemaking Plus, an organization aimed towards making meaningful public spaces through community engagement, giving our participants a kickstart into the students competition. The discussion panel on ‘Globalisation of material flows, interdependency and fragility’ featured Ben Kuipers, who spoke on pressing landcape ecology topics especially in technology and circularity in agriculture and Taneha Kuzniecow Bacchin, who spoke on the notion of ‘extremes’, pointing at architecture as an environmental agent and of how learning from physical conditions can inform our approaches. The third speaker in line - Alexander Wandl - discussed urban metabolism, resources and systems; he based his discussion on the large research project REPAiR (REsource Management in Peri-urban Areas: Going Beyond Urban Metabolism) addressing a more sustainable and inclusive growth.

After these activities, day one was wrapped up with the first networking session.

Day two began with the participants getting hands on their ideas for the competition.

After the working in session, the second discussion panel included speakers as interesting as the previous one. Robert Kloosterman - with urban migration and urban landscapes, Elise Misao Hunchuck - delivering a poetic narration on tsunami

Global dynamics beyond boundaries Urban and Landscape Week 2018 warning stones, describing geographies of Japan, Ricardo de Ostos - instead, captured the audience through examples of cultural and mythical values in the forefront of land reclaiming. Last but not least, Lei Qu discussed the challenges in the context of industrial upgrading and migration in Shenzhan, China, along with a set of Complex City Studio graduation projects.

In the competition, participants compiled their ideas into a short-film finally presented on the third day, receiving applause for their effort in expressing prominent cons, but also the pros of globalization. The event came to an end with the keynote lecture held

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by Pierre Bélanger on "Decolonization of Design". A stunning insight on forces and politics shaping our physical world.

Overall, the event managed to incorporate a wide range of topics on landscape and territories, as a platform for knowledge should be, exchanging and boosting interaction between students, teachers and practitioners.

Kudos to the UL week team, the speakers and the participants for making it happen!• 1. Keynote Lecture: Pierre Bélanger, Orange Hall BK City, TU Delft. Source: Author

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NEWS

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November 2018

REALISING REGIONAL IDENTITY BIG TRIP 2019

VALENCIA & BARCELONA

Pro-independence protesters demonstrate against the Spanish government’s move to suspend Catalonian autonomy this month. Photograph: Sean Gallup/Getty Images

FEBRUARY 3rd to 9th 2019 SUBSCRIBE NOW AT

polistudelft@gmail.com or via facebook @TUDelftBigTrip

OPEN CALL FOR ALL BK TRACKS Join our next BIG TRIP! Don’t miss the opportunity to explore the spatial dynamics of conflict between regional identity & centralist nationalism. Also witness the Catalan modernist genre of Architecture. Visit Valencia & Barcelona!

Transcalar and

Stratified Introduction Critical geographer Stuart Elden (2013) suggests that the etymological roots of the term ‘territory’ may not come merely from the Latin word for the earth and the ground, but also from the Latin verb ‘terrere’, translated to mean ‘to frighten, to terrorize’. To ‘territorialize’ can be seen, therefore, as an act of violently imposing the establishment of an order. The Greek equivalent ‘epikrateia’ is similarly indicative of such an act, highlighting, primarily, the extents of the exercise of authority and power of someone or something. Thus, it becomes apparent that when one speaks of a ‘territory’ they refer to a spatio-temporal act of constructing and maintaining boundaries, within which a specific kind of force is executed and for the survival of which a specific relation with the ‘outside’ is asserted.

Claude Raffestin (2012) suggests that we view the concept of ‘territory’ through the lens of an act of “projection of labor (…) composed of energy and information”. Through the sequences of societal formations, successive acts of ‘territorialization’ are projected unto a terrain transforming it into a project akin to Henri Lefebvre’s conception of space: the creation through (the inscription of) a set of relations. This article is concerned with precisely the physical manifestation of these 1

acts of ‘territorialization’: the ways through which these operate and their outcome on the face of the Earth.

Archaeology of an apparatus Viewed as a process of constructing a possible past, an archaeology of the design of the apparatuses and the tools employed by humanity throughout its vast past reveals the extents in which the production of ‘territories’ has taken place and the nature of transformations of the terrain induced (Colomina and Wigle, 2016). Territory is for-ever produced and reproduced again and anew through political technologies, that is, technologies of management and control, employed in conflict and contest. One of the primary facets of this technological apparatus is that of the (re-) production of the material conditions for life: primary production and systems of support together form the constellation of the infrastructure the Earth is equipped with in order to allow for humans’ existence.

Scholars and practitioners concerned with the nature of space have traditionally overlooked what lies beyond the (rather blurred to be sure) boundaries of what we traditionally call ‘the city’. What this approach has, therefore, resulted into is a neglect towards understanding the inter-relation between infrastructural

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gradients of composite landscapes and networks by

Sarantis Georgiou MSc Urbanism TUDelft

systems and patterns of economic activity.

More presisely, on the one hand, the different aspects under and towards which infrastructure operates and is oriented, and, on the other, the system of managing the material conditions of social (re-) production, meaning, the structures within which actors come together to perform actions toward a set of material goals and their spatio-temporal constituents.

With the term ‘infrastructure’ I mean the totality of the apparatuses “that equip the earth, and all geographic areas accessible and operationalized by humanity” (Katsikis, 2018), including, for example, but not limited to, “connectivity infrastructures, productive and extractive landscapes” as well as protective infrastructure and ‘operational landscapes’ in general; overall, all those structures that ‘provide the possibility of ’. It is important to highlight the (although rather broad) contents of this term because, within this line of reasoning, infrastructure is presupposed to condition human habitation.

Borrowing from Paola Viganò (2018), the infrastructural system is understood as a “rationalization” of the land, meaning a system of constructing the ground in such a way so that it performs according to a specific set of needs and desires. The emphasis, here, lies on three notions: first, it is an act of ‘construction’, an act of altering natural geography, second, it is an act of ‘response’ both toward the specificity of said geography as well as the internal logics of some sort of cultural activity, and, finally, the outcome of this operation ‘performs’.

The most important issue that arises, though, is that these three facets operate in synthesis. This is precisely the theoretical assumption that has progressively eluded (consciously or not) the scholarly approach towards the ‘territory’. In other words, a “crystallization of artificial geography merging with natural geography”(Katsikis, 2014). Emphasizing the materiality of this geographical object, the particularities of culture are as defining of territorialization as the particularities of natural geography and territories emerge through their mutual interrelation.

atlantis The uncovering of this synthetic operation through the stratigraphic processes of archaeologists and geologists has led to the emergence of the concept of the ‘athropocene’. A compound word comprised from the Greek words ‘anthropos’ (meaning ‘human’ as in ‘he who consciously observes’) and ‘cene’ (from ‘kainos’, meaning ‘new’), the term denotes a new geological era where the effects of human behavior are so profound that they deserve to attain the status of the prevalent force that structures planetary conditions. Able to be traced as yet another layer within the Earth’s crust, the effects of this era should have to be acknowledged “from the underground to the orbital (…) at new altitudes, and across alternative latitudes”(Bélanger, 2013).

+35.000 m

+20.000 m

Altered States and Altered Natures The radicality of the approach of not separating human activity from the nonand extra-human environments becomes evident when one looks at its connotations.

It is the idea that human processes and the logics of non- and extra-human environments are bound by a dialectic manner of co-creation (crystallized in the notion of ‘altered natures/states). This approach gives the adequate importance to non- or extra-human processes in shaping human activity through understanding that they are in turn shaped by it themselves in an endless cycle of co-generation.

+10.000 m

The areas that evidently emerge from this discussion are, mainly, primary production (cultivation and food production, waste management, resource extraction and energy production, water management and extraction and production of raw materials) and the various processes and flows within these operate. Therefore, the project inferred and implied here is one where what is explored is the programme and the form that emerges in the moment and the place where these instances (human and nonand/or extra-human processes) converge.

0.00 m

The synthetic approach described above leads to the understanding of “[territorialization] as the outcome of ever-changing interrelations between socio-ecological systems” and “the everchanging interrelations between natural processes, societal practices, and (geo) political projects” ("DELTA URBANISM TUDelft," n. d.). This, however, needs further elaboration.

To speak of ‘socio-ecological systems’ and ‘(geo-)political projects’ implies three (3) things: 1. The landscapes and geographies of contemporary urbanization are viewed as ‘constructed’, that is, the varying criteria,

-10,000 m

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parametres and variables intended to approach and classify landforms consist, primarily, of the degree and patterns through which these are created as a result of human interventions and operations.

2. The ‘natural’ in its pure sense is obsolete: environment, both as space and as process, is continuously being altered by this act of construction.

3. The construction of land is an outcome of human activity responding both to its internal logics (economic, societal, political, ideological) as well to the logics of the natural processes (geography, climate e.t.c.) underlying each specific place.

4. The primacy in the metabolism of ‘humanity-in-nature’ lies in the managing of the use of resources.

5. Territorialization is the process through which political economy instrumentalizes the land (political economy is used vaguely so as not to refer to a single socio-economic and political model) and propagates its territory.

and social (re-)production. However, this dialectical dissolution does not operate on the realm of the spirit, the mental and the imaginary (at least not only there), but on the realm of the ‘praxis’. Nature and culture come into a dialectic unity and transcend their duality through an act of inter-directional construction: that is, of an infrastructural landscape that ‘performs’.

Establishing that this project is concerned with the mode and direction of ‘altered natures’ is, of course, ahistorical and apolitical: it is nothing more than placing disciplines relating with physical construction in a relation with the ground, with human habitation and with themselves.

However, it is crucial to develop an approach of territorialization in its generic dimensions before asking the question ‘what to do with it’. That is precisely the moment when the project has to stop being ahistorical and apolitical and ask both ‘what kind of alteration’ and ‘towards what condition’.

Operationalized Terrains

With the assertion that “capitalism is a way organizing nature” (Moore, 2014), Jason Moore speaks of “metabolism as a process of life making within the biosphere”. In this sense, ‘life-making’ means the construction of the apparatus performing the necessary material actions for the provision of the necessary material conditions of existence

Following Marx and his direction that what has to be explained is precisely “the separation between these organic conditions of human existence [active humanity with the natural, inorganic conditions of their metabolic exchange with nature]” (Foster, 2000), a growing number of thinkers and practitioners, like Jason Moore mentioned previously, are trying to challenge the concept of the Anthropocene. According to their reasoning, it is not human alteration in general that acquires the status of a geological force, but the specific modalities of capitalist production: the Capitalocene.

It becomes, thus, clear, that the issue at hand is one of geography. Having advocated that a ‘territory’ is a constructed space that conforms to the material needs imposed by instances of political economy through an infrastructural equipment, what remains is to observe the actual manifestation of this phenomenon and the patterns it creates.

In order to challenge the original assumption of urbanization as a process that creates cities, thinkers like David Harvey suggest that they be approached as only one face and aspect of this process of appropriation of the land.

Neil Brenner (2014), following Henri Lefebvre’s hypothesis that “society has been completely urbanized” (2003), proposes the terms ‘concentrated’ and ‘extended’ urbanization. This theoretical development has opened channels to look at the earth not 12

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from within what we would traditionally call ‘the city’ but through the lens of the “open, vast variegated terrain of urban(ized) conditions that include yet progressively extend beyond the zones of agglomeration that have long monopolized the attention of urban researchers”.

Indeed, to look at the Earth, one does not only see that the reaches of urban conditions extend far and wide, but, most prominently, that “urbanization structures the human occupation of the earth through the conjuncture of ‘agglomeration landscapes’ with ‘operational landscapes’” (Katsikis, 2014). We are, thus, bearing witness to an ever-increasing in intensity and extensivity operationalization and instrumentalization of the Earth, together with the forever-imploding/exploding interdependence between the concentrations of humans and the landscapes that sustain them: capitalist territorialization is a planet-wide project of operationalization.

Agriculture, pastures, forestry, extraction, circulation, energy grids and information infrastructures, together with a web of commerce: that is the contemporary territory of capitalism.

Conclusion To question the notion of ‘territory’ is to question the act of ‘territorialization’. To question the act of ‘territorialization’ is to question the elements and the phenomena towards which it is directed and to which it responds. It is not merely a physical construction that “establishe[s] an order around the surrounding chaos of nature” (Gregotti, 1983). It is, first and foremost, a manner through which the political underpinnings of material production are engraved unto the land, within its crust and through the atmosphere that surrounds it.

Starting with this issue and throughout the entire Volume 29, “Atlantis Magazine” will seek to unravel the processes of this act.

atlantis References 1. Elden, S. (2013). The Birth of Territory. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

2. Raffestin, C. (2012). Space, Territory, and territoriality.

Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 30(1), 121141. doi:10.1068/d21311 3. Colomina, B., & Wigley, M. (2016). Are We Human?

Notes on an Archaeology of Design. Zürich, CH: Lars Müller Publishers.

4. Katsikis, N. (2018). The 'Other' Horizontal Metropolis: Landscapes of Urban Interdependence. In P. Viganò, Cavalieri, C., & Barcelloni, C. M. (Ed.), The horizontal metropolis between urbanism and urbanization Springer Nature 2018 (pp.

23-45): Springer International Publishing AG. Retrieved from https://ebookcentral-proquest-com.tudelft.idm.oclc.org.

5. Viganò, P. (2008). Water and Asphalt The Projection of Isotropy in the Metropolitan Region of Venice. Architectural

Design, 78(1), 34-39.

6. Katsikis, N. (2014, 2014). On the Geographical Organization of World Urbanization. MONU, 4-11.

7. Bélanger, P. (2013). Pierre Bélanger: Landscape Infrastructure: Urbanism beyond Engineering. Wageningen: Wageningen University and Research.

8. DELTA URBANISM TUDelft. (n. d.). Transitional Territories Graduation Studio. Retrieved from https://deltaurbanismtudelft.org/2015/04/23/ttstudio/ 9. Moore, J. W. (2014). Toward a Singular Metabolism: Epistemic Rifts and Environment-Making in the Capitalist WorldEcology. In N. K. Daniel Ibañez (Ed.), Grounding Metabolism (pp. 010-019). Cambridge, MA: Universal Wilde.

10. Foster, J. B. (2000). Marx's Ecology: Materialism and Nature. New York, NY: Monthly Review Press.

11. Implosions/Explosions: Towards a Study of Planetary Urbanization. (2014). (N. Brenner Ed.). Berlin, DE: jovis Verlag GmbH.

1. Aquaculture and Salt Production_Bo Hai Coast_China_2000. Source:NASA 2. Deforestation_Mato Grosso_Brazil_2006.

Source: NASA 3. Altitudes of Urbanization. Source: Bélanger (2016).

4. Agricultural Operations_Wadi As-Sirhan Basin_Saudi Arabia_2012, Source: NASA 5. Deforestation_Mato Grosso_Brazil_2006.

Source: NASA 6. Phosphate Mines_near Tampa, Florida_ USA_2011. Source: NASA 7. Agglomeration Landscapes and Operational Landscapes (Agricultural Production). Source: http://terraurbis.com/?page_id=206 8. The global transportation system. Source: Katsikis, N. (2018)

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The Guayana Region Resource extraction and urbanization processes in the Venezuelan periphery This essay is the starting point of my graduation

consequences of this decision have been

project for the EMU program, and the impulse

loudly questioned by many experts, but the

to work in this region comes from a desire to

government will go forward with their intentions

understand the spatial implications of a recent

nevertheless. For this reason I believe it is crucial

decision taken by the national government,

to understand the range of consequences that

which aims to open up an immense surface of

will derive from this mining project, its impact on

the tropical forest in the south of the country for

the natural system and on the few cities that exist

the extraction of natural resources. This decision

in the region, and the strategies we can speculate

has taken place in the middle of the ongoing

with to see how these issues may be addressed

crisis, mainly because Venezuela is on the verge of an economic default. The environmental

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by

Ricardo Avella

European Post-master in Urbanism (EMU) TU Delft

atlantis The problem of extreme dependency on natural resources The decision to work on this topic is also born from the sadness and frustration that comes to my mind every time I think how a country like Venezuela, so rich in natural resources and until very recently a point of reference in Latin America, has ended up with its productive capacity completely destroyed and with its people impoverished and surviving in critical conditions. The country has collapsed in all possible ways, and in its decline it has brought the Venezuelan society into a humanitarian crisis that many deemed impossible. To understand how this came to happen we need to talk about politics and economics, about failed institutions and the desire of a group to remain in power by all means necessary. But we would also need to talk about the long Venezuelan tradition of relying on oil exports and not much else to support the national economy, a tradition that was particularly strengthened over the last two decades with the destruction of the private industries –but paradoxically not only those, since the productive capacity of the oil, steel and aluminum stateowned industries has also been ruined in different ways– during the governments of Hugo Chávez and Nicolás Maduro. This national policy has made Venezuelans very dependent on the prices of crude oil in the international market, creating an illusion of wealth whilst oil prices are high when in truth it has only condemned its people to live in a very fragile and vulnerable nation.

Already in 1936, an important Venezuelan intellectual called Arturo Uslar Pietri wrote an article in a local newspaper calling for the ‘sowing of the oil’. Back then he thought that the oil boom couldn’t last forever, and that the wisest thing the central government could do was to reinvest the oil revenues in the creation of national industries and agriculture to create a productive and healthy economy (Uslar Pietri, 1936). This vision was taken forward

by President Rómulo Betancourt when democracy was installed in Venezuela in 1959, and I would dare to say it has been the only time such an attempt has been made. The main policy of his government was to overcome the import dependency by strengthening and diversifying the national economy, placing a particular interest in the industrialization of the country (Almandoz 2016; Angotti 2001). This is why the iron and bauxite deposits of Guayana, along with the incredible potential for hydroelectric power provided by the Caroní River and the ease of accessibility to the Atlantic Ocean through the Orinoco and its delta, made the largest and least populated region of Venezuela a desirable location for the state-owned investments (Snyder 1963: 405) (fig. 2).

could help relieve the growth pressures of the north (Angotti 2001: 331), there were at least two small company towns already built by the American corporations, along with the first of a series of hydroelectric dams over the course of the Caroní River.

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But it must be said that the ‘extractive vocation’ of Guayana was much older. Its vast territory – with 458,344 km², almost as big as Spain – is incredibly rich in biodiversity but also in rare and valuable natural resources. Ever since the 16th Century, Europeans have navigated the wide Orinoco River and its tributaries hoping to find the golden city of El Dorado (Correa, 2016; Brillembourg, 2013). Centuries have passed and not gold, but large iron ore deposits were found in the region by Americans in the 1940s.

In accordance with the national policy of exploiting natural resources by giving concessions to foreign companies, the government allowed Bethlehem Steel and U.S. Steel to open the mines of the Cerro Bolívar and El Pao in the beginning of the 1950s (Snyder 1963: 405), and a story of extraction and urbanization began in a territory that had nothing but unspoiled nature and a few fishing villages inhabited by indigenous tribes. Indeed, when the democratic government decided to create a planned urban growth pole in Guayana that

The government of Rómulo Betancourt nationalized the American mining companies and created the CVG – Corporación Venezolana de Guayana –, a regional authority modelled after the Tennessee Valley Authority (Almandoz 2016: 44-45). Its mission was not only to manage the state-owned industries and the extraction of natural resources, but also to plan, build and manage a new industrial city, where the American company town of Puerto Ordaz had been settled ten years before. Rafael Alfonzo Ravard, a respected general and civil engineer, was appointed as the first president of the CVG. He had graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and this prompted him to hire the services of the Joint Center for Urban Studies of MIT and Harvard University to develop the plan for the new industrial city. The team was led by Lloyd Rodwin, and among the professionals that came to work in Venezuela with him were Donald Appleyard, John Friedmann, Lisa Peattie and Willo von Moltke. All of them had a Venezuelan counterpart in the planning team, and their task was to link the potential of the region and the new industrial city that they were planning with the national economic strategy (Rodwin, 1969; Appleyard, 1976). The plan proposed a central spine that stretched from east to west and crossed the Caroní River with a new bridge, integrating the town of San Félix with Puerto Ordaz and boosting the development of the western bank with a CBD called Alta Vista, close to the expansion of the industrial area (fig. 6).

But the growth pole they planned was not as strong as everybody thought it would be, and this is reflected in the comparison between the population growth that was projected in the 1960s (over 650.000 inhabitants by 1980) and the one that

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atlantis the energy produced by these large and distant infrastructures (fig. 6). This energy crisis has forced Venezuelans to get used to continuous and weekly blackouts for more than a decade, and the lack of investments in alternative forms of energy production in the last 15 years has made these dams extremely important in a highly centralized national grid.

for them a way to get hold of immense revenues from the mining concessions and a strategy to remain in power. But this will be done at the expense of the destruction of a legally-protected territory with a huge environmental value.

The opening of the forest for the extraction of more natural resources keeps our nation depending on the availability of nonrenewable minerals located in the subsoil, instead of fostering a sustainable and productive economy. After almost a century of solely relying on oil, the opening the Orinoco Mining Arc means to keep doing business as usual. But oil will disappear one day, and the non-renewable minerals that are to be extracted in the Guayana region will be depleted as well. We will be condemning our country to become even more fragile and dependent than ever. But in addition, one of the largest and most biodiverse regions of the country will be left destroyed and polluted.

The extensive process of deforestation that will be caused by the extraction of natural resources in this area will reduce the rate of evapotranspiration of the forest, diminishing the volume of water of the tributaries that flow into the Caroní River and compromising the capacity of the five hydroelectric dams that have been built over its course (fig. 5). Evidently, this extraction project will have a great and damaging impact on the environment, but it will also aggravate the energy crisis that Venezuela has been experiencing since 2009, as most of the country depends on

The future of the Guayana Region is an issue that needs to be addressed. There, a new-town was planned and born many decades ago to support the extraction of natural resources and to diversify the national economy (Almandoz 2016; Angotti 2001), creating an urban growth pole that would probably have not existed otherwise.

But the productivity of the state-owned iron, steel and aluminum companies has been destroyed over the last two decades (Prat, 2012), making us wonder what will be the fate of this place. Is there a future for Ciudad Guayana without extraction? Is it

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occurred (around 350.000 inhabitants in 1980). Regarding the diversification of the national economy (one of the main goals of the regional plan), Ciudad Guayana was a partial success at least until the beginning of the 2000s. The industries were very healthy and productive for more than 40 years, but they never became what the government had aimed for and they certainly never generated as much revenue as the national oil industry. Still, it managed to produce enough iron, steel and aluminum to supply the demand of the internal market while also generating profit from exports. These basic industries produced high-quality metals in finished or semi-finished forms until the current government destroyed their capacity with corruption, abandonment, lack of maintenance and investments, inefficient management, and with the excessive centralization of the new economic and political model imposed by Hugo Chávez (Prat, 2012). Today, these industries are simply unrecognizable.

A wicked problem: the entwinement of extraction, production, urbanization and ecology

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In Guayana we can spatialize most of the greatest challenges that Venezuela faces, while posing important contemporary issues that could determine the future of many generations to come. In this fascinating region it is evident how water, natural resources, infrastructure, industry and urbanization are deeply intertwined; and the balance between them – if it is reached – will depend on which scenario finally unfolds. On February 2016, the government of Nicolás Maduro allowed with an official decree the opening of a 110 thousand square kilometers of forests, in what is known as the largest mining project in Venezuelan history (Gallardo, 2018) (fig.

4). The area, branded by the government as the ‘Orinoco Mining Arc’, represents 16

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possible to stir alternative and sustainable economies in this region? But one also wonders what will happen if the Orinoco Mining Arc promoted by the national government goes forward. In that case, what will be the role of Ciudad Guayana over the constellation of small cities and villages in the region? Will the process of urbanization be accelerated along with the process of deforestation and extraction? And finally, we should ask ourselves if there is such thing as sustainable mining. The mining sector evokes a bad environmental image all over the world, but this is a wicked problem that should be explored in depth to fully understand its challenges and opportunities.

Certainly, a vision for a region that promotes sustainable mining could help in the creation of an identity for Ciudad Guayana. But the problem is much more complex, and there may very well be other possible paths in such a rich and fascinating territory that remains unexplored.

References 1. Angotti, T. (2001). ‘Ciudad Guayana: From growth pole to metropolis, central planning to participation’. Journal of Planning Education and Research, 20(3), 329-338.

2. Snyder, D. (1963). ‘Ciudad Guayana: A planned metropolis on the Orinoco’. Journal of Inter-American Studies, 5(3), 405-412.

3. Almandoz, A. (2016). ‘Towards Brasilia and Ciudad Guayana. Development, urbanization and regional planning in Latin America, 1940s-1960s’. Planning Perspectives, 31(1), 31-53.

4. Uslar Pietri, A. (1936, Jul 14). Sembrar el Petróleo. Diario Ahora, Caracas.

5. Appleyard, D. (1976). Planning a pluralist city: Conflicting realities in Ciudad Guayana. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

6. Rodwin, L. (1969). Planning urban growth and regional development: The experience of the Guayana program in Venezuela. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

7. Correa, F. (2016). Beyond the City: Resource Extraction Urbanism in South America. Austin, University of Texas Press.

8. Brillembourg, C. (2013). Sowing the Oil: Brutalist Urbanism - Ciudad Guayana, Venezuela 1951-2012. Paper presented at ‘Arquitetura Moderna e Internacional: conexões brutalistas 1955-75’. X Seminário Docomomo Brasil, Curitiba.

9. Prat, D. (2012). Guayana: el milagro al revés. El fin de la soberanía productiva. Caracas, Editorial Alfa.

10. Gallardo, A. (2018). ‘El Arco Minero del Orinoco: tres visiones, un mismo proyecto’. Explora, 1(1), 35-40.

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1. One of the industrial ports of Ciudad Guayana, where the Caroní merges with the Orinoco River. Source: https://yandex.com/ collections/card/59af854b2321f2a3ea801785/.

2. The Guayana Region is incredibly rich in natural resources, with large deposits of iron and bauxite ore, but also with oil and natural gas fields at close distance. Source: Rodwin,1969: 10.

3. Comprehensive physical concept for Ciudad Guayana, drawn by Willo von Moltke in 1964.

Source: Appleyard, 1976: 139.

4. A map of Venezuela highlighting the vast extension of the ‘Orinoco Mining Arc’ promoted by the national government, which opens up 110.000 square kilometers of tropical forest in one of the most biodiverse regions of the world. Source: https://venezuelanalysis. com/analysis/14092.

5. Loss of biodiversity and very fragile ecosystems due to the extraction of natural resources in the Guayana Region. Photograph taken by Javier Mesa. Source: Explora Magazine, 1.

6. Aerial view of Ciudad Guayana. The Macagua II and Macagua III dams can be seen to the left. Their construction triggered other projects, such as the park of La Llovizna, the Eco-Museum, and the Plaza del Agua.

A scenic road that connected both sides of the river was also built in the 1990’s. Source: https://saladeinfo.wordpress.com/category/ empresas-de-guayana/.

SuperSurface The Ganges river by

Kavya Suresh MSc Urbanism TU Delft

Nearly four thousand metres up the foothills of the Himalayas, originates the holy and sacred Ganges river. A fundamental character of the Indian cultural landscape, the river sustains most of the fertile north Indian regions on its floodplains. Providing food for a tenth of the world’s population, it is the most densely occupied river basin in the world. The complexities of the Ganges reflect those of India itself, as its ever changing and volatile course traverses’ different geographies, geologies and urban centres. It is a superimposition of religion, human rituals, politics, cultivation and infrastructure (fig. 1). While the Ganges is predominantly known for its cultural significance and its hold on people’s imagination as the mythological symbol of purity, the importance of its engineered territory has not been studied widely. The story of the engineered Ganges is the story of India, as they both go through the period of colonisation under the British, the struggle for freedom and the establishment of democracy, ever changing and transforming through the process.

Monsoon The season of monsoon (June-September) sees the south-west wind blowing down

the Indian subcontinent, which brings in the rain that feeds most of the agricultural areas of the country. This rain also feeds the Ganges river. The volatile nature of the monsoon rains results in great transformations of the territory through the year. The river can vary in width from just forty metres before monsoon up to more than a kilometre during the rainy season. The ebb and flow of the river result in vastly different activities on its banks at different points in time, from dry sand hills used for concrete manufacture, cultivation of crops and creation of temporary cities (fig. 2). The unpredictability of this season has created a need to engineer the river, in order to ensure successful agriculture every year.

Machine The Ganges river has been territorialised for the past 160 years, by actors with different motivations, operating at various locations and scales. The British, the Indian government, local families and farmers have all played roles in shaping this region through time. This has resulted in the river basin transforming into a highly mechanised super surface that has constructed a territory that is rural, urban, suburban and a megapolis all at once. The first step to mechanise the Ganges river was taken in the year 1854, when India was still a British colony. Due to a great famine in 1837, a study had been commissioned

to look into the possibility of creating an artificial canal system to irrigate a large portion of land between the Ganges and Yamuna river – the Ganga-Yamuna Doab.

Despite the challenging terrain and steep slopes along the course of the river, the British managed to complete the project, resulting in the construction of the longest spanning canal at that time. The British engineers realised that artificial irrigation, when applied correctly, was the right tool to protect a suffering population from the 1 wrath of the south-west monsoon. Further, they even felt that nature had designed the region to be artificially irrigated and that they were merely furthering her plan. The actors of this age very strongly believed that, rather than living with a machine, we must live in the machine.

They had a vision to transform the entire Ganges plain into one large interconnected system. While the construction of largescale infrastructure was advertised as “a sacrifice of revenue to ensure the livelihood of a starving population”, certain policy changes indicated a larger motive.

Previously, farmers and local families had a decentralised control over small wells that were used for irrigation. After the construction of the canal, this process was shifted to a centralised system, controlled by the East India Company, owned by the British Crown. Later known as the “peaceful conquest”, this practice enabled the Empire to establish much deeper territorial control over the Indian lands,

"A symbol of India's age-long culture and civilization, ever changing, ever flowing, and yet ever the same Ganga" Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru

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atlantis while ensuring continual revenue from them in the form of crop taxes and conversion of uncultivated land to fertile ones. In the following years, the success of the “peaceful conquest� resulted in an unprecedented rate of infrastructure development on the Ganges basin. A complex northern system, central system and southern system were built over fifty years, consisting of aqueducts, canals, dams and super passages.

Conflict There are two faces to the Ganges, the river as a source of water for irrigation that is state owned and the river as a religious and cultural symbol, that belongs to the people.

During the early twentieth century, through a period of rising Indian nationalism, there were many conflicts between these two sides. The British engineers had proposed to alter the course of the river at certain holy locations which led to wide spread protests amongst the Indians, particularly the Hindus. Eventually a compromise was reached, where certain agreements were set concerning the course of the river and the opening of certain canals at important locations. These agreements are still in place and followed by today's Indian government, while trying to navigate the different interests and needs of the stakeholders.

Transition During the final few years of the British rule in India, there was a shift in focus from the large-scale infrastructure works to small-scale irrigation. As a result of yet another famine, a study found that irrigation at a smaller scale was required to augment the infrastructure put in place.

This led to the privatisation of wells and tanks. In 1946, a few months before the Indian independence, a handover of the irrigation systems took place, where engineers predicted large famines in the future, as the rate of irrigation was not keeping up with the population growth. An engineering solution offered to this problem was the tubewell, a piece of machinery that bores below the ground to extract water from an aquifer. This proved to be very effective as the installation cost of tubewells was nothing compared to construction of massive infrastructure and it required not more than a few hours of man power of unskilled labour.

to a decentralised network where every farmer holds power and can reshape his own territory as protection from a failing monsoon. Today, there are 3.5 million privately owned tubewells on the Ganges plain, extracting 230 km3 of water from the ground, the largest in the world. With no policy in place to dictate the ownership of tubewells or the extent of their usage, the only limit is the economic capability of the farmers. The Ganges supersurface consists of two systems, working at two different scales and dimensions. The canals and dams transfer water in the horizontal plain, while the tubewells transfer water in the vertical plain. These two components working together, have revolutionised the irrigation of land in the Ganges plain.

While major infrastructure work on the basin still continues, the system of tubewells have far reaching effects with a much easier implementation process. The tubewell is the final conquest of the Ganges plain, by the individuals and the people.

system, that sustains several co-dependant urban centres and mechanisations that range from monumental infrastructure to human scale interventions, needs to be understood in its entirety, as we imagine and create a new South Asian future. From a broader perspective, understanding Ganges as both a machine and a natural river helps blur the line between natural and man-made territory. This perspective is very important today, when too often, manmade is seen to be at odds with nature. In the age of the Anthropocene, it is important to look at human interventions as a part of natural systems, as they have the ability to make a lasting impact.

Living in the anthropocene

1. Acciavatti, A. (2015). Ganges water machine: Designing New Indias ancient river. San Francisco: Applied Research and Design 2. Mallet, V. (2017). River of life, river of death: The Ganges and Indias future. Oxford, United Kingdom: Oxford University Press.

3. Misra, A. K. (2010). Impact of Urbanization on the Hydrology of Ganga Basin (India). Water Resources Management,25(2), 705-719. doi:10.1007/s11269-0109722-9 4. Dhillon, A. (2014, August 06). The Ganges: Holy river from hell. Retrieved from https://www.smh.com.au/ national/the-ganges-holy-river-from-hell-20140806-100xz9. html 5. Kress, W. J., Stine, J. K., Kolbert, E., & Wilson, E. O. (2018). Living in the Anthropocene: Earth in the age of humans. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Books.

Today, the Ganges is severely polluted due to various cultural and industrial activities, initiating several clean-up programmes that have ended in varying degrees of failure.

Lack of infrastructure in the urban areas along the river results in increasing amounts of untreated sewage waste being dumped into the river everyday: this is the largest cause for the pollution. In addition to this, untreated waste from various industries such as tanneries, textile mills and hospitals are directly dumped into the river. Furthermore cremated remains of the dead are released into the river as part of long-standing religious customs. All these activities add to the pollution of the river. The massive number of tubewells has resulted in ground water being used faster than recharge rate, causing regular droughts. In order to intervene, a nuanced analysis of the ecological and geographical dimensions of the territory is required. This complex

References

1. Ganges river near Trehri Dam, Uttarakhand Source: Peter McBride, National Geographic Creative 2. Worshippers on the bank of the Ganges at the Kumbh Mela festival, Haridwar Source: Kevin Frayer, AP

Supersurface and scales Six metres below ground level, a vast aquifer exists, for the entirety of the Ganges alluvial plane. The tubewell is a means of puncturing an access to this reservoir.

The tubewell is a symbol of liberty and democracy. It has resulted in a shift from the autonomous water control systems

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PRACTICES OF CONTROLLING

URBAN SPRAWL

The metropolitan green belt and the green heart 6

by

Sofia Kravari

MSc Urban Regeneration, University College of London

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Are green zones such as

Introduction

London’s green belt and the

Both in the United Kingdom and the Netherlands, restraining the process of urban sprawl has been a critical planning concern (Couch & Karecha, 2006). The compact city model combined with the protection of green zones have been implemented as a way to control the physical development of a city beyond the designated limits. In the UK, the metropolitan green belt was introduced at the beginning of the 20th century but it was only after 1942 that its main purpose became the urban containment of London (Sturzaker & Mell, 2017).

In the Netherlands, the green heart was established in the 1950s as a green zone in the centre of the region to prevent the cities of the Randstad from expanding uncontrollably, following the example of London (De Vries, 2012). The continuous development of the neighbouring urban structures has recently become more pressing than ever, threatening the green zones’ future and intensifying the debates about their dual purpose (control urban sprawl and to provide open and green space to urban residents) and the success of associated policies.

This research aims to establish the extent to which the metropolitan green belt and the green heart address the urban sprawl of the surrounding cities. Specifically, it focuses on the level that housing supply can be restricted by the protection of the green zones and how sustainable are the proposed development patterns that aim to meet the housing needs. Furthermore, it examines how the two mechanisms differ, even though originally they have the same purpose.

Randstad’s green heart still seen to be an effective mechanism for containing urban sprawl? Why?

Literature review

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In the case of the metropolitan green belt (fig. 1), the discussion is focused on the high demand for affordable housing and the argument that allowing development on the protected land would provide a solution. Furthermore, the green belt has been associated with long commuting distances (Sturzaker & Mell, 2017), while its quality and value is disputed, as 37% of it is intensively agricultural land (Andrews, 2015). There is a significant number of reports using these arguments to propose development on specific locations of the green belt (Jones, 2016) (Cheshire, 2013) (Elledge, 2017). However, the long term value of these proposals can be challenged as they could fail to provide a dynamic solution adaptable to social needs or they could cause urban and environmental fragmentation. Alternative solutions are described by many, such as CPRE (2017) that proposes intensifying existing developed areas following the compact

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city theory, or by the Landscape Architects Association (Turner, 2016) that supports building on every brownfield site in Greater London.

Examining the Dutch case, the argumentations of the debate are similar to the British ones, concerning pressing housing needs and the questionable value of the protected land (Geurs & Van Wee, 2006). There is however a key difference since the discussion involves also the green heart’s (fig. 2) contradictory purpose, as it is expected to be the separator of rural and urban land and at the same time the integrator of a metropolitan area, the Randstad region (Fazal, et al., 2012).

Additionally, in this case there are many that challenge its very existence arguing that the green heart has a higher population density than the national average, an element that is used to question the success of related policies (Van Eeten & Roe, 2007). In the Netherlands, the proposed solutions to meet the housing needs tend to have a more national range, such as the one suggesting the navigation of development away from the Randstad and towards the rest of the country (De Vries, 2012). Furthermore, the supporters of the fictionality argument claim that it is time to abolish the restrictive policies altogether and introduce new ones that would navigate the urban growth in designated locations (Van Eeten & Roe, 2007). Moreover, both zones are under threat as in the UK the flexibility of the planning system provides a significant margin for development, while in the Netherlands the recent shifts in regulations, and specifically the abolition of the national policy about the green heart, create an environment of great uncertainty for its future.

Methodology The chosen method was qualitative analysis and specifically an interpretive research was adopted, since it allowed the examination of various interpretations by different viewers (Merriam & Tisdell, 2015). Initially, a comprehensive review of existing academic literature took place and the primary tool for collecting the required data was interviewing. As the research was exploratory, a semi-structured approach was followed and person to person encounters were adopted with a guide of six openended questions. Interviews were conducted by choosing experts purposefully in order to collect opinions of people that have special experience on the topic. In the UK, a landscape architect, an urban planner and an analyst were interviewed, while in the Netherlands an architect/urbanist and two urban planners.

Findings and analysis Following the literature review, the key theories that the analysis will be based on are the compact city, urban sprawl and the polycentric urban region. These notions comprise the conceptual framework that will challenge the sustainability of the proposed plans that aim to meet the housing needs.

During the interviews, it was considered essential to identify each expert’s opinion towards the current situation of the green zones. In both countries, a variety of positive outcomes of preserving them came up, such as maintaining an open area for recreation or ensuring the existence of land for agricultural uses. As a negative impact of the current legislations the majority

of the interviewees characterised the fact that areas of unequal environmental value are equally protected, a factor that was identified also in the literature review. Some of the interviewees in the Netherlands recognised the contradictory role of the green heart that is mentioned before, focusing though on the infrastructure that connects the cities of the Randstad, characterising it as a barrier that prevents the green heart from being accessible.

Concerning the green zones’ effect on urban sprawl and the related planning legislation there was a level of disagreement between each individual’s views, a fact that can be considered an evidence that the debate is still on going. In London, two experts claimed that the current policy is quite rigid, suggesting that it should be

more flexible, while the third expert argued exactly the opposite. In the Netherlands though, most of the interviewees claimed that the policy related to the limits of each city is quite strict, since, as one expert explained, there is a red line on the map beyond which the urban structure cannot expand. In fact an individual stated that ‘the green heart is not a topic in Amsterdam’.

He was aware of the green heart policy, but in the context of his professional life he operates respecting the designated red line and focusing on what is happening inside the city rather than considering also the other part of that line, an approach that he identified as a weakness of the planning system. In addition, the majority of the experts confirmed that there is no national policy about the green heart anymore.

Concerning their effectiveness, most of the

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atlantis experts mentioned that the green zones have been successful in controlling urban sprawl, even if their success has not been absolute or that the level of success varies.

As for the development patterns presented by the interviewees, there was a variety that reflected the one identified in the literature review. The first interviewee in the UK, drawn on the compact city theory, presented a way forward that combined the densification of existing urban areas and the protection of the green belt. He suggested to densify land owned by the public sector and gradually to introduce the private sector in these areas to create a mixed tenure system. In theory, the compact city intends to address any undesired consequence of urban sprawl, however, the actual sustainability of this model is questioned and the fact that many urban residents prefer low-density housing can be a significant obstacle to its implementation.

In another interview, the expert focused on changes in the related policies, rather than a possible development option, arguing that even though the green belt is not responsible for the shortage of housing, it should play a key part in addressing it.

Finally, a concrete development pattern is proposed by the next expert who suggested a systematic reform of the green belt and the development of specific locations.

Even though, as the expert mentioned, this process would add a level of predictability in the housing market, a comment mentioned by another interviewee raises concerns. The previous individual stated that the positive environmental impact of the green belt is directly related to its quantity that should be maintained as it is. This assumption challenges as well the proposed development pattern that promotes a transit-oriented development by releasing 12.5% of the green belt, specifically around train stations. On the other hand, the transit-oriented development presents similarities with the polycentric urban region model that has been identified to provide a competitive advantage compared to the monocentric form (Batten, 1995).

During the interviews about the Dutch case it became obvious that the experts there were more concerned about raising questions about sustainability and competitiveness, rather than presenting a concrete plan about the green heart. They focused on the future of the cities and their relationship with the open space as an area for possible development and recreation, but they did not mention any plan that will ensure the protection of the green heart as a whole. The compact model dominated the conceptual framework of their proposals using arguments about sustainability and the limited environmental impact to support

their views, similar to the ones that the expert in London presented to support his. The difference here is that the experts presented also arguments that disputed the success of the compact model, like the negative effect that it has on the green space of the city (Haaland & Van den Bosch, 2015), to argue that densification cannot by itself be a viable solution. Following their point of view, the interviewees suggested the abolition of the red lines that limit the city, disputing the usefulness of their absoluteness. Combined with a level of densification, they proposed that the city should have the possibility to expand in designated open space.

Conclusion This research proved that the debate about the future of the green zones is still contemporary. Through interviewing, it managed to challenge the proposed development options and contribute to the discussions about cities and sustainability.

Initially, the literature review has demonstrated that similar issues concern the experts about the two green zones in question, such as the housing shortage. As for the proposed plans, there is a variety in both countries. In the UK, the ones that promote building on the protected land are disputed mainly because it is argued that they fail to present a dynamic solution while in the Netherlands are accused of threatening the future of the green heart or the competitiveness of the Randstad region.

This research has been important because it has raised several issues that have not been mentioned in the literature review.

Most significantly, it is evident that there is a substantial difference in the nature of the debate in the two countries in question.

In the UK the experts focused on the question build or not to build on the green belt, while in the Netherlands the debate is broader. Some similarities between the two case studies have also been revealed such as the fact that the green zones are mostly characterised effective in controlling the urban sprawl. Nevertheless, the majority of the interviewees presented plans that promote building on the protected land as they argued that this way forward would meet the current housing needs. The plans proposed by the experts in London are more concrete and diverse than the ones in Amsterdam. In general though, it is clear that the compact city model dominates the conceptual framework of the majority of the development options. Finally, this research proved that the dual purpose of the green zones is still considered essential.

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References 1. Andrews, K. (2015). Press Release: Free up 3.7 percent of London’s Green Belt to build one million new homes, says new report. Retrieved May 10, 2018, from https://www.adamsmith.org/news/press-release-free-up-3-7-percent-of-londonsgreen-belt-to-build-one-million-new-homes-says-new-report/ 2. Batten, D. (1995). Network Cities: Creative Urban Agglomerations for the 21st Century. Urban Studies, 32(2), 313-327.

Campaign to Protect Rural England. (2017). Straegic Plan 2017-2019. London.

3. Cheshire, P. (2013). Greenbelt myth is the driving force behind the housing crisis. Retrieved June 16, 2018, from http:// blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/greenbelt-myth-is-the-drivingforce-behind-housing-crisis/ 4. Couch, C., & Karecha, J. (2006). Controlling urban sprawl: Some experiences from Liverpool. Cities, 23(5), 353–363.

De Vries, J. (2012). The Randstad in search of a metropolis for Netherlands. Bulletin de l'Association de géographes français, 89(4), 534-546.

5. Elledge, J. (2017). Loosen Britain’s green belt. It is stunting our young people. Retrieved May 15, 2018, from https://www. theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/sep/22/green-belthousing-crisis-planning-policy 6. Fazal, S., Geertman, S., & Toppen, F. (2012). Interpretation of Trends in Land Transformations—A Case of Green Heart Region (The Netherlands). Natural Resources, 3(3), 107-117.

7. Geurs, K., & Van Wee, B. (2006). Ex-post Evaluation of Thirty Years of Compact Urban Development in the Netherlands. Urban Studies, 43(1), 139– 160.

5 8. Haaland, C., & Van den Bosch, C. (2015). Challenges and strategies for urban green-space planning in cities undergoing densification: A review. Urban Forestry & Urban Greening, 14(4), 760-771.

9. Jones, A. (2016). Boris Johnson has failed to take vital decisions, like building on the green belt. Retrieved May 08, 2018, from https://www.theguardian.com/housing-network/2016/ mar/24/boris-johnson-build-green-belt-london-housing Merriam, S., & Tisdell, E. (2015). Qualitative Research : A Guide to Design and Implementation (4th ed.). San Fransisco: Wiley .

10. Sturzaker, J., & Mell, I. (2017). Green belts : past, present, future? London: Routledge.

11. Turner, T. (2016). The Metropolitan Green Belt and sustainable landscape planning for a greener 21st century London.

Retrieved May 08, 2018, from http://www.landscapearchitecture.org.uk/the-metropolitan-green-belt-and-londons-landscapeplanning/ 12. Van Eeten, M., & Roe, E. (2007). When Fiction Conveys Truth and Authority, The Netherlands Green Heart Planning Controversy. Journal of the American Planning Association, 66(1), 58-67.

Notes This research is part of the dissertation submitted to the faculty of The Built Environment as part of the requirements for the award of the MSc Urban Regeneration at UCL. 1. The metropolitan green belt of London.

Drawn by the author. Source: Campaign to Protect Rural England (2018).

2. The green heart of the Randstad. Drawn by the author. Source: Pim Kooij (2010).

The Sea Walls of Tohoku and a new divide

by

Aditya Rao

MSc Landscape Architecture TU Delft

Tohoku 2011 It is 4:20 pm on a Monday afternoon in March. Grandparents in the calm seaside fishing village of Otsuchi are taking a nap on their tatamis. Elder children are mostly in school, while the youngest ones are at home and most of the parents are out at work in different villages when there is a loud buzz from the public speakers that sounds very much like the alarm of a Tsunami. But the confusing thing is it lasts only for a second, due to a malfunction.

When such a disaster strikes, do you run up the surrounding hills with your grandmother who has an arthritis that affects her knee? There is a black wall of water coming through after sweeping across the small dyke at the foot of the village which is about 14m high and there is no escape. And your family is not together at the moment. Just visualizing these images can be somewhat of a horror.

It is no wonder that there was a knee-jerk reaction to building sea walls by Shinto’s government, to say that the standard sea walls that must be built along these beautiful bays must be of 25 m height.

Can you imagine a 25 m high sea wall outside your house? Can the villagers of Otsuchi imagine this as they rebuilt their lives and the village at the same time?

The engineering solutions that came up along Tohoku’s bay and Iwate’s coastline spanning a distance of 280 km will be seen forever in the future as the sea walls of Tohoku. They will be inscribed in memory much alike to its distant cousin the Great Wall of China. This will be the identity of Tohoku and yet they are to be a necessary intervention by the new laws prescribed by the prefecture. Only these brilliantly white concrete sea walls can protect the citizens

of Japan against the sea which lies at the foot of the mountains they live in.

This is the new landscape of Tohoku. The sea walls have changed everything for the citizens, including the way the fishing cities on the san-riku coast interact, live and survive with the spatial landscape around it.

To put it simply, observing how the new city is defined by one change (a wall), and how the city has reacted to these changes, it has come to be heavily dominated by an urban and spatial model that does not particularly play to any context, and creates a grid of plots and land that now remains partially empty.

To the present day and the trip It is 2018 and a warm sunny afternoon in what is Japan's summer and as we enter Otsuchi for the first time, the first thing

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atlantis I notice as we arrive are the beautiful mountains that surround the city, blanketed by a group of fresh clouds that conceal the thick pine forests that lie inside the blanket.

The city looked like we guessed it would: unfinished and empty with a very clear grid iron of houses that describes any city without a particular character. At first glance it looked to have a lot of open space, but at the same time it seemed to have no public space that caters to the people. We could not see any children playing out in playgrounds or people sitting and chatting and there was not much presence of life besides the new concrete homes. It was also very noticeable that most of the people decided not to come back to Otsuchi, seen from the numerous empty plots and un-built residential areas that are present in the city.

If you looked on the other side, the graves of their ancestors stand ominously in the surrounding slopes of the hills which also happens to be the evacuation routes for the citizens. To the viewers it seemed like a cruel joke to run up the routes of graves as the tsunami approached. What we could not see from the eye level was the sea. It was almost the feeling at ground level that we were in a hilly terrain devoid of any sea landscape nearby. What was obvious though was a lot of ready-mix concrete trucks and huge scaffoldings surrounding the majestic white sea wall.

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To imagining the view from the city as if there was no sea wall What we saw in Tohoku and on the San-Riku coastline were these vast and numerous bays and stone outcrops filled with pine trees. The bays carried this sense of stillness and landscape of the past and the inward curve of the bay had the city overlooking into the pacific waters. One could just see the bay-mouth and the blue Pacific ocean at the horizon. From the city, one could look onto numerous such surrounding hilly bays, where the small villages of Iwate were busy with fishing activities. But this is sadly not the case. For the good and the bad we have a vast engineering structure changing this landscape.

To understanding the context A Tsu-nami is a Japanese word that translates to 'Harbor wave' (Tsu meaning harbor, and Nami meaning wave). The tsunami of 2011 was one of a kind as it describes an L1 tsunami. To give a basic idea of what this terminology mean (for the example of Otsuchi, Iwate ) - an L2 tsunami is considered to occur once in hundred years, and the advisory says a height of 14m run-up is probable in Otsuchi. Whereas an L1 tsunami means a run-up of 20m or even higher and an area

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atlantis of inundation which is almost inescapable for a city in most conditions. In this context, it is also important to note the specific conditions of coasts like Otsuchi where the ocean is 12-30m deep almost immediately off the coast, making the kind of wave very different from the ones on a sandy beach that lowers much more gradually. Thus due to the depth of the ocean off the San-riku coast a tsunami affects more like a gradual rise in water level than a wave that comes in at once.There is also usually a time gap of at-least 30 minutes between the earthquake and the visual sight of the Tsu-nami. The run-up and inundation area of the tsunami in 2011 was around 14 m and the city’s new wall was a meager 0.5 m higher than that run-up. It is also important to know the

inhabitants were supposedly given a choice about the height of the sea wall and many cities chose various different solutions.

An intriguing thing we noticed was one surrounding village called Akahama, chose to raise the height of the land compared to the sea walls. Another thing I would like the readers to consider is that in Otsuchi, compared to most cities, the planning of the city and the wall was considered to be a “Bottom-up” process in a sense that citizens had a number of meetings and discussions to consider the new city and what it would be like. With all these things considered and the figures given by the government that 92% of public housing, 97% of medical facilities and 98% of schools in the Tohoku region have reached completion, it is easy to

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believe the work by the government based on the sea walls and the reconstruction is a great solution for the r-urban (rural+urban) situation of Tohoku.

However, ground studies show that when the citizens were asked “How do you feel about the current state of the community after the disaster and about the reconstruction after the disaster?" only 2.5% agreed on the process in the affirmative while nearly 80% of the victims answered “ I somewhat disagree and I fully disagree” (Tsuda, 2018, p.39). It is here that the question of space and abstractness, and the understanding of the land’s spatial character comes in: its connection to the past and people’s representation. The

atlantis space, the landscape, the urban space, its morphology and the city have all been affected by this engineering solution. While I don’t agree that it is negative to have these solutions, we have to raise the question: What can protect the city, the community and the industry and at the same time hold off a disaster? As said by Kengo Kuma “ An architect needs to advertise oneself as an excessively moral being, and when disaster strikes like these the architect or the designer makes himself look even more ethical in what may be otherwise an unjustifiable and sinful profession” (Kuma, 2018, p.20 ) It is very important in this piece of writing to not seem unreasonably ethical with

abstract notions of space without thinking of protection. And therein also lay the conflict we were confronted with when we went there, therein lies the difficulty of the site being different from other disaster sites.

We were with the faculties of Hydrological Engineering, Water management, GeoTechnical Engineering, Structural and Transport Planning where the solutions came with quantifiable reasoning and the sea walls were not only justified but required in certain regards. But the fact of the matter is they affect the quality of the space. As we try to raise safety through spatial planning, we may stray away from the city life and we forget the individual requirements of the people in the city and the future residents of this shrinking town

with an over 60% aged population and a lack of any new economies.How do we move back a step?

This is one of the questions for my thesis but I look at it with an open mind to see how one can unravel this problem or work with the existing constraints to provide the citizens a home. So they can say it is not just protected but also alive and brimming with the energy of the landscape around it.

References Kuma, K., Tsuda, D., Kainuma, H., Kubota, A., Houdart, Sophie., Yamamato, S., Nakamura, K. (2018). Kengo Kuma Lab in Tohoku. Kengo Kuma + Kengo Kuma Lab, Department of Architecture, The university of Tokyo University of Tokyo Press, ISBN978-4-13-061137-4.

1. Sea Wall at Miyako, Japan Mainichi, Shimbun. Source: “https://www.theguardian. com/world/gallery/2018/mar/09/after-thetsunami-japan-sea-walls-in-pictures”.

2. The new city of Otsuchi being constructed.

Source: Author.

3. The evacuation route of Otsuchi, running uphill next to the graves. Source: Author.

4. The devastation in Rikuzentakata days after the tsunami in 2011. Source: “https://www. theguardian.com/world/gallery/2018/mar/09/ after-the-tsunami-japan-sea-walls-in-pictures”.

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La Serenissima Socio-economic pressures on the morphology and sedimentation processes in the Venetian Lagoon

by

Catalina Rey

MSc Landscape Architecture TU Delft

and

Mark Slierings MSc Urbanism TU Delft

The Venetian Lagoon on the north side of the Adriatic Sea is the largest lagoon in Italy with an area of 550 km². Delimited by the Sile River in the North and the Brenta River in the South, the lagoon has an oblong and arched shape; it spans about 50 km in lenght and 8 to 14 km in width. It is one of the most important remains of the system of lagoons which used to span the area from Ravenna to Trieste in the Roman times (Brambati et al., 2003). Its shallow coastal micro tidal basin is characterized by a tidal range of about 1 m (Carniello et al., 2009). It is defined as a typical ecotone located between land and sea, where its morphology consists of shallow tidal flats, salt marshes, islands and a network of channels. The coastal border of the lagoon is interrupted by three natural inlets: Lido,

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Malamocco and Chioggia, that allow water exchange with the Adriatic Sea (Brambati et al., 2003).

Thanks to this condition, it exchanges material and energy with both the biomes: the sea and the rivers. In this process, the physical, chemical and biological characteristics continuously vary over time (Ravera, 2000). Since the lagoon has an average depth of around 1 meter there is a tight relationship between benthic and pelagic environments (Solidoro, et al., 2010), hence it is vulnerable for lagoon bed subsidence and sea-level rise.

At the beginning of the renaissance in the 14th century the lagoon was part of a larger coastal belt along the coast (Bondesan and Furlanetto, 2012). The present-day state of the lagoon is mainly the result of multiple anthropogenic interventions since around 1400 AD. These interventions started out of a necessity to keep the port of Venice and the rich fishing areas around Chioggia functioning. To counteract sedimentary infilling of the lagoon, rivers which naturally ended up in the lagoon were diverted. A second period of socioeconomic pressures started with Italy’s industrial age bringing prosperity to the region, thereby strongly modifying the condition of the lagoon. During this period, the lagoon has been affected by factors such as land reclamation and dredging for ship 28

canals, generating an acceleration on the erosion process and consequently affecting the morphology of the lagoon through the degradation of salt marshes and tidal flats.

The question for the future of the lagoon can not be defined in a single project.

The complexity of the issues the lagoon is facing, the multi-scale of the systems at stake and the possible unwanted effects of socio-economic pressures show that there is a need for a project on a bigger scale, which needs to be multidisciplinary, multifaceted and coherent.

Origin Studies complied in Amos et al. (2010) demonstrate that the lagoon in a primitive state existed around 8000 years before present. Nonetheless, the approximate shape of the lagoon as seen today was formed 6000 years BC during the maximum Holocene transgression. The increment in the sea level flooded the Upper Adriatic and generated the coastal line in approximately the shape and position it has today.

Originally the lagoon was smaller than it is now. However, exchange of waters with the sea consisted through eight tidal inlets, against the three that it has now. Two natural factors were affecting the basin of the lagoon: 1. the sediment supply from five different rivers - the Adige, Bacchiglione, Brenta, Sile and Piave rivers - outweighed

atlantis its natural subsidence, and 2. the eustatic sea level rise. These processes would naturally have led to the disappearance of the lagoon basin (Brambati et al., 2003).

Lagoon morphology Lagoons - being a stepping stone between marine and coastal ecosystems - are normally places of high biotic interactions. Fluxes of tides, salination and sedimentation naturally provide a suitable habitat for a wide variety of species. The morphology of the lagoon is mainly formed by tidal flats, salt marshes, channels and islands. Tidal flats are soft land areas without vegetation, normally in an underwater state, emerging only during particular low tidal conditions. Salt marshes are ground areas usually above water that submerge under high tidal conditions (figure 2). These areas enhance the water exchange regulating the lagoon's hydrodynamics and act as lessen filters for wave motion, providing a brackish environment colonized by halophytic vegetation.

Channels depending on the length, width and depth of the water can be divided into manmade and natural channels. The manmade channels have been dug over the years in order to allow ships to move in the lagoon during low tide. The natural channels refer to tidal creeks that branch off from three main channels to become smaller and winding, crossing salt marshes to finish in rainwater ponds of brackish water. Islands are either the remains of dunes (residual areas of old coastal strips from the early years of the formation of the lagoon) or areas created by the deposition and accumulation of sediments transported by the rivers.

As any natural environment, the morphology has been subjected to

numerous transformations due to natural processes and the associated responses from the lagoon. However, because of intensive human interaction with the area, the morphology of the lagoon has been strongly altered.

Fluvial Diversions The city of Venice was during the late Middle Ages at the height of its power, being the center of many trade routes overland and overseas. The city was one of the most important merchant cities in the Mediterranean Sea (Cecchini and Pezzolo, 2012). Therefore, the lagoon was of vital importance to the city and the mainland.

Under the power of the Venetian Republic – which was also called La Serenissima (the serenest) – a major operation of fluvial diversions took place to prevent the lagoon from silting up. During the 16th century, the tidal inlets silted up as a result of sedimentary infilling from the main rivers.

This diversion of the major tributaries into the sea prevented it to transform into a marshland. The program lasted for two centuries in which the paths of Po, Brenta (figure 3), Bacchiglione, Marzenego, Sile, Piave, Livenza and some minor rivers were severely altered (Bondesan and Furlanetto, 2012).

The consequences of the diversions of the river have been severe. The reduced solid discharge lowered the sedimentation, triggering erosive processes by tidal currents and reducing the amount of emerging lands and salt marshes in the lagoon.

Furthermore, because of the re-routing the fluvial ridges inside the lagoon eroded.

Erosion also took place on the inner deltas with huge consequences: 1. the Brenta mouth generated a large delta when the mouth was situated at Conche in 1507-1540 and in 1840- 1896; 2. the mouth was moved

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to the south resulting the lagoon to partly silt up splitting the lagoon southwards of Chioggia; 3. the excavation of the Brenta Nova in 1507 lowered the longitudinal slope causing floods in the upstream; 4. the Taglio Nuovissimo created a straight boundary for the lagoon preventing natural margin fluctuation and reclaiming the inner land; 5. extensive land reclamation redefined the hydrographic conditions of the plain triggering subsidence (Carbognin and Tosi, 2003; Bondesan and Furlanetto, 2012).

These processes resulted in an abrupt reversal in the natural evolution of the lagoon and consequently, the sea properties began to prevail, further enhanced by the following human interventions.

Industrialization Since 1797 Venice was no longer an independent city (after more than 1000 years of independence). Napoleon captured the region and after his fall, Venice became a part of the kingdom of LombardyVenetia until the formation of the state of Italy in 1866.

Meanwhile, another period of severe alteration of the lagoon and the river system started around 1800, when the Veneto region reached a population of 2,196,000 and the lagoon was transformed in a strategic point for the industrial development of the country. This led to the digging of new and deeper canals, modifications to the tidal inlets, occupation of tidal flats for new industrial and urban centers,

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the closing of areas for fish farms all induced new anthropogenic trends led to severe influences on the lagoon and its surroundings. This caused accelerated erosion and the modification of many of the flora and fauna habitats (figure 4) (Gatto and Carbognin, 1981).

The growing industrial activities after the Second world war also caused over-usage of water, exploiting the aquifer, eventually causing subsidence (Brambati et al., 2003).

The consequences were a weakening off the littoral system (Brambati, 1987), the deepening of the lagoon was a side effect (Carbognin et al., 1995; Carbognin et al, 2004; Fagherazzi et al., 2006; Sarretta et al., 2010).

Other anthropogenic disturbances consisted of pollution and nutrients input from the industrial sector, waste input from the city of Venice, exploitation of biological resources (e.g. fishing activities) and dredging of channels for bigger ships. All of

these was due to the demand of a growing population which reached 4,907,529 inhabitants in 2017 in the Veneto region, contributing to the lagoon's instability and fragility seen today. As Sarretta et al.

(2010) stated, this impacted the structure and processes in the morphodynamics of the Venetian lagoon, specifically leading to a continuous and gradual degradation of tidal flats and salt marshes.

Lagoon Responses Because of the mentioned anthropogenic actions, the morphology of the lagoon has been experiencing a gradual degradation that consists of lagoon bed subsidence, erosion and the reduction of salt marsh areas (Carniello et al., 2009). Between 1927 and 2002, there was an increment in the subsidence of the ground of the lagoon of almost 10 meters of difference in an area of approximately 50 percent of the total area 30

of the lagoon basin (figure 5). During the same period the increment in the erosion of the lagoon bottom was evident (figure 6).

The dredging processes have altered the morphological balance between the channels and tidal flats. This permanently modified a large part of the central part of the basin. The dredging process has also resulted in an increase in the rate of the lagoon subsidence and consequent increment in the seawater that enters through the inlets. The increase of salt water input makes that lagoon at risk to be transformed into a marine bay, resulting in succession of marine species over brackish species, directly threatening the ecosystem and the fishing industries.

La nuova Serenissima Behind the cover of the serene city, that nestled in its natural environment, lie numerous amounts of socio-economic

atlantis pressures directly threatening the current condition. Continous port activities and tourism, pollutants and nutrients input, subsidence, eustatic sea level rise, a lack of fluvial sediments and salination as opposed to fresh water influx are all making that the risks the lagoon is facing are extremely high. All these factors interconnected in their own ways, may shift the lagoon in the future towards a state of no return. Ravera (2000) stated that there is a need for a new type of socio-economic development which is in symbiosis with the environment and the tradition of Venice. To get to this point a multifaceted and cross disciplinary strategy is needed. Only after this is achieved, Venice will function in harmony with its natural environment. The city can then justly call itself serene.

1. Porto Marghera. Source: http:// atlanteitaliano.cdca.it/conflitto/petrolchimicodi-porto-marghera-stoccaggio-e-trattamentodi-rifiuti-tossici.

2. Ecology and tidal variations in salt marshes areas. Source: Author.

3. Artificial fluvial diversions in the Low Brenta Plain during the 16th and 17th century. A: 1550. B: 1599. C: 1650. D: 1699. 1: hydrography; 2: fluvial delta inside the lagoon; 3: mainland; 4: lake; 5: swamp; 6: old flow direction; 7 present coastline. Source: Bondesan and Furlanetto (2012).

4. Map of the Venice Lagoon showing the man-made changes from 1800 until 1981.

Source: Gatto and Carbognin (1981).

5. Changes in the bathymetry of the Venice Lagoon. Source: Solidoro et al. (2010) 6. Acceleration of erosion process in the Venice Lagoon.Source: Solidoro et al. (2010)

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References 1. Amos, C., Umgiesser, G., Tosi, L., and Townend, I. (2010).

The coastal morphodynamics of venice lagoon, Italy: An introduction. Continental Shelf Research, 30(8):837–846.

2. Brambati, A., Carbognin, L., Quaia, T., Teatini, P., and Tosi, L. (2003). The lagoon of Venice: Geological setting, evolution and land subsidence. 26.

3. Brambati, A. (1987). Regime, bilancio sedimentologico ed ipotesi di ripascimento dei lidi di Venezia. Venice: Atti del VI Congresso Nazionale dell’O.N.G., Fondazione Cini.

4. Cecchini, I. and Pezzolo, L. (2012) ‘Merchants and institutions in early-modern Venice’, The Journal of European Economic History. doi: 10.1017/CBO9781107415324.004.

5. Carbognin, L., Marabini, F., & Tosi, L. (1995). Land subsidence and degradation of the Venice littoral zone, Italy.

Land Subsidence, Barends, J.F., Brouwer F.J.J. and Schroeder, F.H., eds, IAHS Publ. no. 234.

6. Carbognin, L., & Tosi, L. (2003). Il progetto ISES per

l’analisi dei processi di intrusione salina e subsidenza nei territori meridionali delle province di Padova e Venezia. Venice.

7. Carbognin, L., Teatini, P. and Tosi, L. (2004) ‘Eustacy and land subsidence in the Venice Lagoon at the beginning of the new millennium’, Journal of Marine Systems. doi: 10.1016/j. jmarsys.2004.05.021.

8. Carniello, L., Defina, A., and D’Alpaos, L. (2009). Morphological evolution of the Venice lagoon: Evidence from the past and trend for the future. Journal of Geophysical Research: Earth Surface, 114(F4).

9. Fagherazzi, S. et al. (2006) ‘Critical bifurcation of shallow microtidal landforms in tidal flats and salt marshes’, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. doi: 10.1073/ pnas.0508379103.

10. Gatto, P. and Carbognin, L. (1981) ‘The lagoon of venice: Natural environmental trend and man- induced modification’, Hydrological Sciences Bulletin.doi:

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10.1080/02626668109490902.

11. Ravera, O. (2000) ‘The lagoon of Venice: The result of both natural factors and human influence’, Journal of Limnology. doi: 10.4081/ jlimnol.2000.19.

12. Sarretta, A., Pillon, S., Molinaroli, E., Guerzoni, S., and Fontolan, G. (2010). Sediment budget in the lagoon of Venice, Italy. Continental Shelf Research, 30(8):934 – 949. The Coastal Morphodynamics of Venice Lagoon and its Inlets.

13. Solidoro, C., Bandelj, V., Bernardi, F. A., Camatti, E., Ciavatta, S., Cossarini, G., Facca, C., Franzoi, P., Libralato, S., Canu, D. M., Pastres, R., Pranovi, F., Raicevich, S., Socal, G., Sfriso, A., Sigovini, M., Tagliapietra, D., and Torricelli, P. (2010). Response of Venice Lagoon ecosystem to natural and anthropogenic pressures over the last 50 years, chapter 19, pages 483–512. CRC Press, Boca Raton, FL.

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Composite Landscapes photomontages of the future of Porto Marghera

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by Catalina Rey, Sindhuja Janakiraman MSc Landscape Architecture TU Delft

and

Mark Slierings, Yue Song, Anne-wil Min, Diego Moya Marcel de Groot Sulenur Kilic Jingxuan Xie Anubhuti Chandna Osman Ural MSc Urbanism TU Delft

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Framing History Crucifying past versus Haunting Modernity

“We cannot get rid of the body of tradition, murder it as we may.

Tradition to me consist in our inherited sense of structural fitness, In the evolution of rhythmic forms by a sense synthesis of needs and materials And in the avoidance of arbitrary faults by the excuse of common sense, Coupled with sensibility�

Edward Lutyens

by

Shoonya Rameshkumar

Associate Professor of Architecture MEASI Academy of Architecture, India

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In search Architecture is a matter of transformation.

Transformation of unfavourable conditions to favourable ones. And it should be physical and metaphysical taking into consideration every minute detail or change without disrupting the larger harmony of things which existed in time.

Most Indian cities are associated with roots of the past, reminiscing the associations of Hindu or Islamic architecture or the glorified colonial architecture of the British era, who ruled the country for more than a century. Identity has always been an issue in the context of Indian architecture, and we have been grappling with the question of ‘how do you seek your root and yet be modern?' And as we progress towards the beginning of smart cities and Artificial Intelligence, architecture is at a cross-road where choosing to bury the past seems to be simpler than bridging the gap. It is necessary to initiate a dialogue to pave way for a contemporary cultural transformation.

The roots of a place should not hinder the idea of development, but we need to question the idea and the process behind development and the repercussions that follow.

Every region and boundary between a city and a town or a district in the country expresses its own identity in terms of language, food, lifestyles and one needs to be sensitive towards this cross-cultural environment. Cities like Varnasi (Benaras), Jodhpur etc. exuberate a language of the past and modern territories are defined in the midst of this existing architectural language. While most of the newly defined territories struggle to adapt the old, people have adapted, with subtle interventions, and reassigned their existence with the past. Reinvention is a social phenomenon, harnessing the current ways of living and technology, therefore defining ‘development’ subjectively across regions.

It's a complex system consisting of living traditions, vernacular lifestyles, and native language versus adaptability of technology, acceptance of the change in the social and political milieu. It is challenging for an architect in India to take a stand provided these complex layers and anthropological notion of spaces.

how certain (architectural) contexts were resolved with resilience and sustainability.

As an example, to understand these complexities, I would cite an example of Jodhpur, a city located in Rajasthan in the North-Western region of India. The old city of Jodhpur is a fortified town and in the middle raises the daunting citadel of Mehrangarh, an invincible fortress carved out of stone. The city then spreads out as a compact and densely organized space, causing the streets to take an interesting organic pattern. These streets and house forms are a resultant of a cultural and social pattern, reflecting a unique way of living.

Climatic and the geographical terrain play a vital role in this disordered pattern.

Buildings evolved with exquisitely carved stone facades, beautiful inner courtyards and Zharookhas (balcony like projections).

Narrow streets blending with the topography, have bazaars tightly tucked in, creating a maze like pattern. Chowks are open spaces of climatic and socio-cultural significance performing different functions based on the location. Narrow stone paved streets are of a unique character constantly twisting and turning making it impossible to approach a building directly. This makes the central vision less important and allows the peripheral vision to overpower the senses, subtly allowing one to feel the complexities involved.

was the primary material used by local craftsmen, who depicted myths based on religion, carving stone like wax. The houses are painted blue or white giving the entire city a unique visual character.

Once a year the houses are painted with a tint of blue. Since this colour is a strong reflector of sunlight, it keeps the interiors cool. The houses are 2-3 storeys with terraces, courtyards, Otlas (platforms) and Zharookhas. Courtyards became important spaces and the houses were organised in and around this open space acting as breathing spaces for each dwelling unit. These spaces were crucial considering the harsh climatic (hot and dry) region and majority of the houses shared common walls, making them densely packed. Wall to wall construction was a very common technique in these places and the ‘sense of togetherness’ was a part of their architectural solution.

Materiality & Elements

Elements like Otlas or small platforms acted like semi-public spaces of the streets.

These stone platforms that can be seen outside the houses became very important interaction spaces for the people to interact, and reflected the occupant’s life towards the street. Zharookhas formed another important element of the house form; it actually became a symbol of the traditional architecture of Rajasthan. All these various elements were actually a resultant of the extreme climatic conditions. Zharookhas are projections of the upper floor over the streets, and were also used as a private space for the women who can view the street, being indoors.

The choice of materials was mostly stone and wood. Ornamentation was an integral part of their architectural language. Stone

The narrative of this place is still intact, without having undergone any change in the way of living, the built form and the

Reflection in space “Our generation has been trying to discover the common thread with which the fabric of Indian Architecture has been woven in the past; and its significance for our times” (Rewal, Raj., 1985).

While the study of the cultural past might not provide solutions to the current day issues, it can certainly throw some light on

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culture. It was a result of strong sentiments and history, which is of acceptance even today and will be in the future.

This rooted territory unharmed and unchanged for centuries is a classic example of architecture as a perception of experience that thrives on the relationship between space and people. Architecture then becomes a reflection of the society - a society which is an ensemble of various communities from different religious backgrounds. There is an intangible emotion attached to these places.

The narrative changes as one moves towards the city centre. Governed by the dynamics of modern economics, these places then transform into a completely new (architectural) language resulting in a new notion of spaces. To cite another example, driving across the town of Basni, a small village near Jodhpur, one can come across a very interesting structure consisting of a metal shed supported by steel columns for a saria (a traditional Indian wear) dyeing workshop. The idea of place-making then changes with respect to needs in time. The dynamics of space, culture, tradition – architecture assemblage has fragmented into something interesting and unique. It is an interesting way to look at architecture, where this simplicity in spatial tectonics can define a traditional work.

The road ahead Limitations exist everywhere. In a way, these aid people in problem solving by

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giving them a structure to resolve issues in a disciplined manner and it’s perhaps one of the ways to avoid confusion. But is tradition now limited in a country like India where almost everything can be served in one platter? Right from tradition to culture, everything is almost mixed yet there always exists a thin line. And that thin line needs to be understood. People in the past have had their own culture and lifestyle which reflected in their architecture too. Traditional architecture has faced problems because it is easily forgotten, and being a part of the native, it is always overlooked. The fear of being repetitive, providing architectural solutions that may not address the global scenario (current ‘modern/postmodern/contemporary' architectural language) are some of the challenges that a contemporary architect faces today. Understanding a region and its people becomes very crucial in a country where every state and region shows multiple variations in climate, topography, culture and people. Hence, it becomes extremely necessary to understand a particular region and its people, their associated lifestyle and the tradition they follow. Tradition and cultural reflections could serve a very important factor in deciding a region’s architectural language. While some in the fraternity feel that the only way to go ahead is to take the past, there are also people who believe that carrying the baggage of the past is only a hindrance to the idea to development. If so, what is our legacy and are we defining a history for the future?

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There has always been an urge to understand traditional architecture, and the term becomes very difficult to be defined, sometimes because of its complexity.

We can use traditional architecture as a precedent to inform our design ideas in form, material and spaces, because one cannot detach from tradition. It will keep existing, and one cannot ignore it. With an urge to do something different, one must try to understand that the past has always been a good teacher, because of the experimentation that was done, which probably only lacked greater awareness.

The primary notion is to understand the fact that there existed an urban fabric enriched by reasoning and context. Using these as a basic framework, there was room for exploration and expression, leading to diverse solutions. And every community needs to understand that architecture needs to survive for a long term, and it should be equally flexible to take the pressures of a society which constantly keeps changing in time in terms of lifestyle and people.

Traditional architecture was a very democratic practice, which was of the people, by the people (the craftsmen) and for the people. This process of reason and context based design is key to a developing country like India, which is a great mix of traditions and cultures, and by and large has also accepted the global outlook.

Traditions never ignored people, and spaces revolved around people. This close knit method of design process should be the method for contemporary architecture too.

atlantis The design process should be governed by context (culture) and people. Traditional architectural allowed this understanding as a standard procedure. Following certain traditions is not a step backward but a move to understand the way ahead and how one can actually apply the simple and sensitive ideas of the past. A part of the architectural realm today lacks this mundane reasoning in their design process. We need to re-think rather than think! This process of context oriented design that revolves around people should encourage the current generation of designers to be rooted and yet set stage for a modernistic outlook.

Post-independence era gave birth to modern architecture and spatial planning in India through Le Corbusier’s ideas. This was followed by trails of Louis Kahn, B. V. Doshi, Charles Correa etc. who had their own versions of the same in the country.

One cannot deny that Le Corbusier’s modular proportions were a resultant of his ideas of humanising architecture, and it was his radical ideas that gave birth to modernism in India. These initial beginnings were important because they were defining the language of architecture

and shaping the cities in the country. So what is the current architectural language of the country? How does one define the contemporary context and its relation to space? Has architecture in the country surrendered to the ideas of the west?

Or have we moved towards form based architecture, ignoring context and people?

Architecture and spatial planning in the country allows you to understand it in fragments. It would be a magnanimous task to look at Indian architecture in one panorama, and we do not need to burden ourselves to look for a singular language of the same. Fragmentation in terms of region, materials and climate (from micro to macro), results in the transformation, which is inevitable and crucial. It is a process, and it can be understood if it is treated as one – an on-going exercise in observation (crucial dialogues between the tangible and intangibles), representation (manifestation of the process in a neutral manner) and analysis (the sense of responsibility to accept change and criticism).

We are currently a land of opportunities and we need to celebrate the fact that there is so much to do as the profession faces

challenges. It is now that we need to take a bold step and define architecture as a communicative system. Though there is no apparatus to understand this, a dialogue is what is needed. As ambitious and radical we are as a nation, this change should pass the test of space and time by acknowledging humanness in these territorial boundaries.

References Rewal, R. (1985). "Architecture in India" École Nationale des Beaux Arts Nationale Superieure Des Beaux - Arts de Paris from 27th Nov., 1985 to 19th Jan., 1986. Paris: Association Française D'Action Artiquiste with the help and cooperation of Eletronic Serge Dessault.

1. View of the old city from the fort. Source: Author.

2. View of the old city, overlooking the Mehrangarh fort. Source: Author.

3. A street view showing the Otla. Source: Author.

4. Zharooka element. Source: Author.

5. Sari workshop in Basni Jodhpur. Source: Author.

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The Paradigm Shift

The study of the changing social and physical morphology

Indian Streets Idea of public spaces in Indian context Indian cities have grown rapidly and organically over centuries. The pattern of growth and expansion of the cities is inclusive of its people, practices,social life,the economic development and the climatic conditions which vary from region to region.

India is a treasure trove of varied culture, heritage, and beliefs and one can find the presence of these in day to day life of its people. These beliefs are pervading and surface everywhere be it in the spiritual sense or in the practical form.With diversity in cultures, beliefs, climate and social life, there is a continuous presence of different layers leading to the creation of pluralism in public spaces (Mehrotra, 2011). The same space can be used simultaneously for daily social encounters or large congregations of different

of Indian streets: The case of Bangalore City

communities,they all coexist. However, one of the most important open spaces within urban and rural India has always been - the streets.

by

Tapasya Mukkamala

MSc Landscape Architecture, TU Delft

Streets as public spaces Streets in cities have many purposes besides carrying vehicles and city sidewalks have some purpose beside carrying pedestrians.

Streets are the most vital organs of the cities.

They form the bases on how the locals as well as the visitors percieve Indian cities.

Apart from being thoroughfares for vehicles and conduits for infrastructure, they also cater to a wide range of activities from day to day encounters to congregations, festivals etc. Streets in India have always had the tradition to be the in-between spaces that negotiate between the private and the public. They transform into bazaars during the weekends, a place for processions

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during festivals, marriages, funerals- they are multifunctional and always bustle with activities.

Transition over period of time With the invasion of the British, the massive interventions in various fields, especially in administration,transportation, and communication, initiated a great change in the public realm. Hierarchy in the road network was introduced and the characteristics and functions of each were predominant and varying.

Boulevard of trees articulated wide streets leading to prominent building or focal point. The building facades were more European and Victorian in architecture.

This changed the face of Indian streets.

They transform into bazaars during the weekends, a place for processions during festivals, marriages, funerals- they are multifunctional and always bustle with activities.

Streets in modern India Urbanization in India began to accelerate after independence, due to the country's adoption of a mixed economy, which gave

rise to the development of the private sector. With rapid urbanization and population surge in the urban regions, there is high demand for land. In order to cater to the growing demand, the master plans are rezoned and updated from time to time and the most common areas that are rezoned are the open spaces. Therefore leading to a drastic reduction in open space per person in every Indian metropolitan city.

and the present modernisation and innovation with the help of the present developments especially in the Bangalore streetscapes.

Methodology and approach

Bangalore is the Capital city of Karnataka, a state in the southern part of India.

Bangalore is also popularly known as the Silicon valley of India as it is the IT capital of the country. It is one of the Indian cities that is witnessing a rapid growth in terms of urbanization, population and industry.

The city is home to many industries which include textile mills, public sector industries to the most recent information technology and electronic industries. In less than 5 decades Bangalore transformed from a small town to an internationally known new age metropolis (Nair, 2005).

By studying the streets with different characteristics from different periods, the intent is to develop cases that differentiates -the characters of these street scapes- in terms of their social cycle as well as the patterns and design. This will help to analyse the shift in the streetscape as well as their usability as a public space. It will further strengthen the ideas of approach to find common ground to create balance between the typical Indian street character

1. The typical street view of a pre 1800's street with low height building, verandahs and narrow lanes.

Source: Author.

2. The location selected neighbourhoods for the study (Marked in red) within the city. The street network of each neighbourhood and a detailed area of the selected street or road within the neighbourhood.

Source: Author.

The Transformations in the spatial structure of cities and the lifestyle of the people have changed the way public spaces especially streets are planned and perceived. Streets now have predominantly become carriage ways that transport traffic.

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The way the public spaces are perceived has changed due to the shift in lifestyle and lack of public spaces in the newly developed areas of the city, this shift has led to a depletion of open spaces. Streets too saw a major shift. This is clearly visible through the study conducted in various pockets of the city that have evolved over the years.

The selected areas of study are streets within the mixed-use neighbourhood dvelopments from different periods of Bangalore's history.

The main commercial street are selected from each of these neighbourhoods and are analysed at micro level, limited to the context of street space like social pattern, built form, building articulation and the street design.

Inference The street patterns are more organic than organised systems. They regulate the social life and the interactions among the people using the space. This plays a major role in analysis the essence of the streets.

The analysis is based on the survey and reconnaissance study carried out in the selected streets and neighbourhoods in the months of June to September 2016 at various times of a day. It is a comparative analysis of residential and commercial streets in order to study the shift in their physical and social pattern.

space for social interactions and provision for parking are the parameters on basis of which each selected street is evaluated.

Initiatives taken to make Bangalore street active public network Several initiatives are being implemented actively by the Bangalore local governing body with the help of several organisations in transforming the streets through design in order to change the perception of the people about streets and encourage them to use streets as social corridors.

Tender SURE (Specifications for Urban Road Execution); vol1&2 formulated by Jana Urban Space foundation (India) in 2011 are publications of guidelines for urban road specification and procurement contract for execution. The design ideology is to prioritise road design to accommodate all the classes of streets users like pedestrians and cyclists by ensuring safe and unhindered movement corridor along with sufficient carriage way for vehicular movement with organised spaces for vending, street hawkers and street parking to prevent them from further encroachment of the footpaths. This specification also looks into fixing the infrastructure network that run under and above the road network

The comparative study is based on the physical elements and social interactions observed in each setup. Streets selected are the major commercial stretches with varying character. The streets selected have similar activities happening throughout the day but widely differ in the physical form. This often dictates the social character, therefore the streets studies would be analysed using the physical qualities that define the user density and experience. The scale with respect to users, the flexibility of space, pedestrian comfort/safety, availability of

like water, sewage, storm water and power networks into organised conduits that are easy to maintain without excavating the roads in later stages.

This has been implemented on some major roads within the CBD of the city, of which seven roads were taken up by the JUSP. The design approach of the roads is mostly based on the physical and social context of the surroundings, encouraging people to walk and cycle from one point to another.

The plazas near the intersections and institutional places like schools encourage people to gather and socialize.

This intervention has changed the face of the street shops, restaurants now open up their shop fronts onto the street. Some properties create beautiful landscape in the front, vendors find sufficient designated spaces for selling their goods and people interact, walk and cycle without any fear of getting run over by fast moving vehicles.

Conclusion There is a need to identify the multiple layers on which the streetscape works in order to formulate design guidelines to accommodate these layers without losing the context and the image they form.

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3. The shift in the character of the streets in the 4 streets studied.

Source: Author.

4. The Tender SURE road view, which aim at designing roads for all.

Source: Author 5. Infograph showing the shift from a pedestrian oriented street to a vehicle oriented street.

Source: Author 6. The aerial view of a designed public square.

Source: Jana Urban space foundation http:// www.janausp.org/.

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The design of streets should be proposed based on the scale and the hierarchy and usage of the street. In the case of Bellandur main road which is a major road witness’s heavy traffic flow throughout the day, which is unavoidable, but it is also important to consider the secondary activities coexisting on the road along with the footfall.

Therefore streets and areas which are undergoing rapid development can be advocated with better neighbourhood design and street designs which still allow context and related activities to take place.

Through the study and the comparative analysis done on streets of Bangalore, one can conclude that there has been a transformation of streets and the activities that they cater to. There has been a significant shift from being social intimate

spaces to major carriage ways for vehicles which is also due to the need to cater to the extensive usage of automobiles.

The streets character and liveability quotient depends on several physical and social patterns which are different for each street because of the socio-economic character of the people using the space, the time at which it has been developed, location of the street and the purpose of the street.

But there are some common elements that were identified in terms of the movement and layering of activities throughout the day. Using these elements identified and the principles and urban road design guide, there is a possibility to achieve a balance between the traditional context and the present reality.

References 1. Bardwaj, A. (2015). The Hindu. Retrieved August 25, 2016, from http://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/bangalore/ per-capita-open-space-shrinks-from-8-sq-m-in-1983-to-19-sqm-today/article7322679.ece 2. Correa, C. (2010). A place in the shade, The new landscapes and other essays. Penguin books.

3. Jacobs, J. (1961). The Death and Life of Great American cities. New York: Random House.

4. Mandhan, S. (2016). Academia. Retrieved August 18, 2016, from https://www.academia.edu/19655191/Masters_Thesis_Designing_Indian_Streets_as_Social_Public_Spaces_Contextual_design_and_planning_in_Bangalore 5. Mehrotra, R. (2011). Architecture in India since 1990.

Pictor publishings.

6. Nair, J. (2005). The promise of the Metropolis; Bangalore's twentieth century. Oxford Press.

7. Tender SURE roads , from http://www.janausp.org/

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Providing sustainable energy for those in need TU Delft engineering students bringing their academic knowledge to the field 1

The project of Energy for Refugees was originally started by TU Delft Energy Club, a

interview by

student-led association facilitating opportunities for students interested in sustainable

MSc Landscape architecture student, TU Delft

energy. Seven students of the University from different backgrounds partnered up to design and build a sustainable energy system that could be used as an auxiliary backup power for a refugee camp’s power problems. Atlantis met with two members of the team, Manolis Tsioukanis and Anurag Bhambhani for an interview to talk about the project and its outcomes.

How did the project of Energy for Refugees begin?

A: The TU Delft Energy Club started a campaign in December 2017, looking for people who would be interested in working on a project for a refugee camp. The previous board of the club held interviews and recruited the current team of seven students, us, who started the preparation in January 2018. Three of us are from Sustainable Energy Technology, one from Civil Engineering, one from Management of Technology, one from Complex Systems Engineering and Management, and one from Industrial Ecology.

We started looking for cases where a smaller system, within our capabilities, could have a positive impact on the users. We searched for refugee camps in the first month and finally chose one on the island of Lesvos,

Melinda Marján

with

Anurag Bhambhani Industrial ecology TU Delft

Manolis Tsioukanis

MSc Sustainable Energy Technology TU Delft

Greece named PIKPA refugee camp.

The place used to be a summer camp for children, therefore its spatial arrangement and infrastructure was adequate for a refugee camp. The transformation was initiated as a local action to help the ones who need it the most. At the beginning, the place was used to host refugees and provide them with temporary accommodation. But, as the migration conditions turned worse, with more and more people having nowhere to go, it became an informal permanent refugee camp. We contacted the camp and started working with the mind-set of helping them provide sustainable energy.

The donations came from organizations, companies and through crowd funding.

Besides this, TU Delft also provided huge financial support and help. The Healing Lesvos Foundation and locals of the island donated money for the project of Energy for Refugees. The solar panels were a donation from EXASUN, a local company in The Hague. They gave us 42 solar panels, of which 15 were used by the team for this year’s mission and the rest will be available for future projects.

How did you get the funding you needed?

A: Well... During the first month of the project our contact person with PIKPA camp informed us that they may not get the permit to install the on-grid system we planned to build, since the camp was in the phase of getting formal acknowledgement.

M: Our finance team worked wonders as we calculated we needed 30 000€ and they managed to get it in only four months.

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Did the preparation of the project go as planned?

atlantis The local government wanted to close it due to the negative effect it had on the island’s tourism. They tried everything they could to close the camp: all agencies – fire, forest, energy department – were sent there to find a reason to do so. Finally, one week before we left to go to the site and after we had shipped everything, we got an update from the camp, telling us that the local government had ordered the police to close it. This meant that we wouldn't be able to work there, as we would provoke them.

Still, the team went to Lesvos and started searching for alternative locations where we could implement the system we had previously shipped there. We visited one of the biggest refugee camps, Moria and the mobile clinic of MSF (Doctors Without Borders). MSF was renting a field outside of Moria, as they did not want to be part of the camp. They operated a paediatric and psychological clinic serving 150 people a day and were in need of electricity.

Unfortunately, they needed a permit to put solar panels on their facility which could have taken anywhere from two weeks to three months to get and we did not have the time.

After looking for other possibilities, we decided to help the Kara Tepe camp. This refugee camp had a school and a digital learning lab, but they unfortunately had power outages and were in need of backup.

On Kara Tepe camp we were welcomed with open arms both by the people living and the ones working there. From the very first moment we felt like there was no boundary between us, like we did not come from another place.

M: Our original plan was to establish our system in eighteen days but due to the upcoming challenges we only had four days left to install the solar panel system.

We started measuring the buildings we were working on and looked for people in and around the camp who had practical and technical skills to help us. That is how we met and collaborated with Viron, an engineer from Lesvos, who was of great help. Without him we wouldn’t have managed to finish on time. He showed us how to build the connections for the system and ways to adjust the panels on the roofs.

Currently, Viron is the person who will maintain the system and repair it if needed.

Our initial plan was to build an on-grid energy system but that was not possible on this site. That is why we ended up redesigning the plan to an off-grid system and bought batteries that could be charged by the panels and be used when needed.

we will be there to help them as we already have many contacts with various other organizations and camps. We also have 27 solar panels that can be used in the coming projects.

We managed to build and install the system just in time, which was incredible. We gave all the information needed on how it works. Now the panels are operated and maintained entirely by the locals of the camp.

M: It was a great journey and we learned a lot during these six months of preparing and building the solar panel system.

Applying skills and knowledge acquired in TU Delft in the real world, to help people was very rewarding. We received a great amount of help that we are thankful for.

I couldn’t imagine our group without any of the seven members. Everyone did their best to create something that could help the refugee camp.

What are your plans with Energy for Refugees?

M: We are now in the process of registering Energy for Refugees as a separate entity. In October, 2018 we are organizing interest meetings and interviews to find a new team to start working on the next project. Our plan is to let them have a chance to find their own interests in specific places, to help within the organization. Of course,

We believe being a member of Energy for Refugees is a great opportunity for TU Delft students as they will be able to implement their studies into actual and physical field work. Besides that, there is a lot more to learn. For example, communicating with professionals, organizations of the locals, or just handling tasks that seem to be easy but actually turn out to be not that simple, like cutting tables, packaging and transporting part of the system are skills learnt only by doing and working.

How would you sum up your experience?

1. Part of the Energy for Refugees group with the solar panel system. Source: Intreviewees.

2. The team constracting the panels. Source: Intreviewees.

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Rising out of the wrath An investigation of the post-disaster religious landscape of Kedarnath, India In the midst of economic and biospheric crisis, we have a unique opportunity to

MSc Graduation Project Graduation studio Flowscapes - MSc Landscape Architecture TU Delft

redirect the course of development unfolding within our global natural reserves.

Many religious and sacred sites exist in such culturally diverse natural reserves which are now facing the biggest issue of climate change. New approaches are needed to

by

Vanshika Bharaj

MSc Landscape Architecture TU Delft

combat the assault on this diversity, which is caught in a tide of contestations, driven by the unregulated influences of globalisation.

One such sensitive spot on the map is the valley of Kedarnath in Uttarakhand (Northern India) which is situated on the banks of the River Ganges. The Ganges is one of the most sacred rivers to Hindus and is the embodiment of all sacred waters in Hindu mythology as well (Acciavatti, Bierig & Corrigall, 2015). It is addressed as a living

organism with millions of people dependent on it for their survival. Near its source, in the northern state of Uttarakhand, it flows through the pristine valley of the 3000-yearold KedarnathTemple which is one of the four spots of the Hindu pilgrim circuit, ‘The Char Dham’, (“God’s four abodes”).

It is considered highly sacred by Hindus to

visit the Char Dham during one’s lifetime as it is believed that it could cleanse people of their sins. Situated in the lap of the majestic Himalayas and revered by many Hindus in the country, The Char Dham attracts many pilgrims to the four temple sites in Uttarakhand each year, constantly posing a threat to its pristine environment.

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atlantis The bleeding wound In June 2013, Kedarnath faced an unusual heavy rainfall: series of cloudbursts and glacial outbursts, all within 4 days, left the sacred valley completely ravaged. The flooded holy river swept with it pilgrims, inhabitants, houses and its flora/fauna, creating an havoc in the valley, leaving thousands stranded in forests without food, water and appropriate clothing for days (Singh, 2013). The 3000-year-old Temple shrine at Kedarnath, survived to the major event without any damage. However, the unchecked tourism and unregulated urban sprawl of the valley aggravated the calamity towards an apocalypse causing severe damage to the infrastructure and the religious landscape of the valley. The Genius loci of the place was so affected that the pristine aura of the valley was transformed into a chaotic construction site; with silt, boulders, and dilapidated structures, with a serious need to re-strengthen after deluge’s effects.

The sacred nature of this pristine land dominated its functioning and more importantly, its economy. With over 50,000 people involved in small scale and largescale businesses operating from various nearby villages and cities, the pilgrimage is the state’s biggest employment generating industry each year. The deluge not only affected the victims but also snatched away the bread and butter of half the state’s population. However, the faith of god kept bringing the pilgrims back to the valley and the numbers kept increasing day by the day. Hence, the post-disaster landscape was a challenge for physical reconstruction in order to appropriate for the growing number of pilgrims as well as restoring the sacred sense of place of the valley.

valley's sustainability by including concepts of harvesting energy through the use of traditional techniques, like watermills and multi-crop plantation. Awareness and education were also a major part of the design and hence, plugging in the religious backdrop of the valley, a larger audience could be reached to spread the word for climate change and global warming. This could act as a starting point not only geographically but also to start a ripple effect of sustainability for the 3000 km to follow downstream. Lastly, the most important aspect of restoring the lost ‘sense of place’ was ultimately achieved as commercialization was reduced, by limiting accommodation on the island and regulating the retail activities and by defining new spatial developments for alternate employment generation.

Conclusion This project sought to mitigate the effects of natural disasters by capitalizing on the hydrological flows and pristine aura of valley of Kedarnath to establish the framework for restructuring the landscape.

Acknowledging the region as a sacred landscape and wanting to preserve the religious connection that the cultures

present in the area share with the land, the overall organization of the infrastructural framework was redefined. The idea of providing spaces in order to make places in such a landscape was the challenge in order to respect yet prevent the recurring of such events in future. The project aimed to provide flood resilience structure and stability to the landscape whilst also reinvigorating the cultural, economic and social life of the communities.

References 1. Acciavatti, A., Bierig, A. and Corrigall, D. (2015). Ganges Water Machine: Designing New India’s Ancient River. Applied Research + Design Publishing, 2015.

2. Singh, J. (2013). What really happened in Uttarakhand.

Retrieved from http://www.downtoearth.org.in/

1. Before and after visualizations of Kedarnath.

Source: Author.

2. Onsite development and construction stages. Source: Author.

The road ahead India has a major population with different religions, beliefs, and cultures. Due to the strong spiritual, social and political identity of the site, this project aimed to have a sensitive approach towards the holy river and the religious landscape of the valley. The government’s efforts turned a blind eye towards the situation of the eroding ridges of the valley. Hence, the design focused consciously on the aspect of strengthening the landscape by adopting strategies to tap into the dynamic processes of sedimentation and erosion that take place in the valley. The spaces on the island are carved out of the existing site material (debris) with provision for safe access routes, public facilities and religious elements. The seasonal economy was also a major challenge and therefore, the design included community participation in the construction process as well. All these design developments combine together to achieve spatial enhancements for the

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Machinic Utopias, Automated Futures

atlantis

MSc Graduation Project Graduation studio Urban Fabric - MSc Urbanism TU Delft

Scenarios of automated futures in Westland, NL Machinic Utopias, Automated Futures addresses the potential spatial and social implications of automated technologies on urban space and planning in the specific

by

Grace Abou Jaoude MSc Urbanism TU Delft

context of the horticultural production center in Westland.

Hybrid Production At Ter Laak Greenhouses, a renowned producer of orchids in Westland, freshly

planted shoots travel on a conveyor belt to a phenotyping machine that assigns a code to each pot and checks the plant’s viability. Upon exiting, viable plants are

transferred by potting robots onto growth trays that are lifted mechanically to climate-controlled compartments where automated guided vehicles and cranes

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atlantis shuttle and organize trays at different levels. The substitution of robots for human labor inside growth compartments at Ter Laak Greenhouses eliminates the need for aisles between the large plant trays. The successive technological upgrading at the production firm triggered internal spatial rearrangements of human and non-human labor and contributed to the scaling up of the company’s production capacity and greenhouse which started as a five hectares production firm and scaled up in 2009 to an eight hectares greenhouse.

As the displacement of labor by automated machines escalates in the horticultural cluster, an increasing number of automated technologies compensate for the shortages of labor while reducing production costs. Apart from the rhetoric debate on automation’s socio-economic implications, the spatial affordances and territorial expressions of the automated technologies transcend the internal spatial rearrangements to impact the shape and structure of the city. Current visions set by the municipality and the Province of South Holland failed to acknowledge the growing phenomenon of automation in Westland’s horticultural cluster. With the highest concentration of greenhouses in the Netherlands (Compendium voor de Leefomgeving, 2016), the economic monoculture houses an increasing number of companies that seek to continuously expand and optimize their production to maintain their competitive advantage.

Recent shifts to sustainable production processes, rising labor costs and shortages of specialized workforce and unskilled laborers ‒ who are mostly employed as temporary or flex-workers – have prompted many production firms to further embrace automated technologies.

Ongoing technological shifts in Westland have conditioned urban form and the social dynamics, while the integration of automated technologies within organizational processes abetted the accretion of production firms and the consolidation of land to produce larger commercial production units. These continuous territorial transformations urge urban designers to address resulting externalities and urban complexities and to design spaces that respond to new territorial conditions afforded by automation.

New Hybridity: Engaging Urbanism with Horticultural Production through Automation In this regard, Machinic Utopias, Automated Futures envisioned four scenarios for Westland set in the context of automation where an integrated scenario, that proposed hybridizing productive, commercial and residential premises to

enhance the area’s livability and quality of life, was deemed desirable. Scenarios revealed new spatial outcomes that ensued from altering certain ‒ urban, productive and landscape ‒ parameters, reorganizing similar automated technologies and considering social as well as economic trends. Yet, spatial challenges in Westland hamper the clusters growth, impede greenhouse owners from expanding their production firms, and result in a deficiency of housing stock and open spaces. From an economic perspective, the lack of space risks Westland losing productive companies that are vital to maintaining its leading position. Taking into consideration the area’s diverse challenges and the social and spatial implications of automation, a series of voids or enclaves were derived forming the basis of the area’s transformation.

Currently housing productive firms, the voids were platforms of change that triggered the transition of Westland to sustainable hybrid urbanization by reducing the spatial and ecological footprint of greenhouses and synthesizing different uses.

by values and goals set to mitigate the ramifications of automation. The design reengaged residential, commercial, and open spaces as integral programs in the city’s structure and fabric through a grid of varying block sizes. The densification of uses enhanced accessibility and the flow of products by rethinking the public transportation network and introducing an underground cargo tram. When intensified and multiplied, the proximity of domestic and work modules and the diversity at the building scale are expected to catalyze the growth of the area into a sustainable city with a dynamic fabric. New open spaces and green corridors connected to larger ecological networks through surrounding polders while contributing to different lifestyles.

Automation-Driven Urbanism When the growth, design, and concentration of production at the horticultural cluster are conditioned by the utilitarianism of capital and engineering, “Machinic Utopias, Automated Futures” reclaims the role of urban designers as active agents envisaging spaces of collaboration of human and non-human labor and embracing an automationdriven urbanism that favors a symbiosis of uses at the building and the city scale.

The project shifted the debate beyond the socio-economic implications of automation by engaging with technologies to stir development in Westland and conduce the area to sustainable modes of urbanization.

The proposed spatial imaginations unraveled new territorial organizations and hybrid sustainable paradigms ‒ afforded by automation ‒ to address socio-economic and ecological challenges and improve livability and the quality of life in Westland.

Shifting productive voids from the north of the cluster to the south, as an overall strategy, was tested through two pilot projects. In that respect, Ter Heijde ‒ an area with old greenhouses facing the dunes ‒ and ABC Westland ‒ the farthest packaging and distribution auction facility ‒ in the north were selected and shifted to Maasdijk, an area with many deteriorating greenhouses and a “Polen Hotel” (Engbersen et al., 2018) and to Honderland, an auction site and a future agri-business area in the south. Mixed-use typologies that merged productive, residential, commercial, and recreational uses were developed and assessed. The programmatic mix was supported by automated technologies as conditions that enabled these new spatial forms and hybrid vertical prototypes. The vertical paradigms were devised to meet the production requirements of hosting and shifted sites while equally catering for different users. Ground floors, which consisted of large façades offered a view into the horticultural production process and accommodated a packaging area with loading docks, a lobby for residents and a commercial or retail space that faced the primary streets. Middle levels housed vertical growth compartments enabled by automated vertical growth systems while upper floors were leased as housing units with communal green roofs and open spaces. Below-ground parking was provided for residents and visitors along with an underground floor for mechanical, water-purification and ventilation systems supporting horticultural production.

1. Compendium voor de Leefomgeving, CLO. (2016). Glastuinbouw, 1980-2015. Retrieved from https://www.clo.nl/ indicatoren/nl2123-glastuinbouw 2. Engbersen, G., van de Pol, S., Burgers, J., Snel, E., Ilies, M., van der Meij, R., & Rusinovic, K. (2012). Poolse arbeidsmigranten in het Westland Sociale leefsituatie, arbeidspositie en toekomstperspectief. Den Haag, The Netherlands: NICIS Institute.

Creating sustainable livable urban environments in hosting sites required a vigorous iterative design approach guided

1. Where does the Netherlands export Bulbs and Roots to? Source: Author

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References

Renatured Economy

MSc Graduation Project

From pollutants to productive landscapes It is becoming evident that human/ environment interplays throughout centuries have been complex and dynamic, ranging from relatively stable states to moments of vast transformations.

Historically speaking, urban areas and the economies they entailed were constantly determined by a social and ecological interdependence with their geographical context. This is greatly illustrated in Jason Moore’s statement: '[..] nature is not “just there.” It is historical' (2015, p.12). What appears to be unprecedented for humanity today is that, for the first time, the majority of human population lives in urban areas, a proportion that is expected to reach 66% of the world’s population by 2050 (UN, 2014).

As urban agglomerations keep increasing, cities seem to be better linked to the planetary system of production and trade than to their surrounding context. This abrupt socio-metabolic upscaling towards global supply chains reduces nature to an extensive operational landscape and poses the primary question of this article:

Could capitalism unfold within nature instead of invariably exhausting it?

The demise of dualisms Tracing the roots of today’s rupture between Ecology and Economy, one inevitably goes back to modernity and the illusory, blind faith in the capability of technology to generate a much better world.

The modern paradigm, originating largely from the techno-scientific developments of the late sixteenth century and onwards (Enlightenment, Cartesian thinking), was built upon binary oppositions, separating the ecosystems from anthropogenic activities. Critical political economy seems to be forever caught in the dualistic character of modernity; an example of this tendency is that every natural catastrophe is considered nature’s revenge and too rarely a ricochet of capitalistic practices.

The key problem today is that environmental consequences (and certain societal stresses) are still seen as ontologically secondary or subsequent to capitalism’s quest for resources.

Nonetheless, Nature is not simply a variable to be added to the equation. Echoing Moore again, if “capitalism is a way of organising nature” (2015, p.2), it should be a way of historically co-evolving with resource flows, landscape processes and time. If we really have to insist on dualism to frame a discussion, I would prefer a two Janus-faced framework, where Economy and Ecology are two sides of the same coin rather than opposing notions; a concept of defining humans as custodians of nature’s ecological and cultural heritage - simply put, a double human-nature re-coupling.

Based on Moore’s initial statement, I would boldly add that pollution now becomes historical.

Instead of being trapped in the false perception of Nature’s primacy towards Anthropocene errors, it is high time we considered pollution as a resource, not as a simple input, but as part of our history, of humanity’s cultural evolution.

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Graduation studio Delta Urbanism - MSc Urbanism TU Delft

by

Aikaterina Myserli

MSc Architecture & Engineering AUTh MSc Urbanism TU Delft

Learning from the Dutch-Flemish Delta The extreme separation of city and hinterland (or countryside) that took place under capitalism’s dogma resulted in the division of the world into developed and underdeveloped areas, with the latter being occupied mostly by agriculture. This same division has nurtured the binary Economy versus Ecology, and the rupture between urban populations and nature; therefore, its re-examination may be the key to investigate the spatial dimensions of working with new metabolic flows and to frame the transition between our growthoriented economy and the sustainable economy we envisage for the future.

I wish to illustrate this transition with a simple example from my own thesis: in the last decades, industrial and agricultural discharges in the Dutch-Flemish Delta have contained increased nitrogen and phosphorus loads which alter the nutrient composition of the local rivers and cause an excessive growth of plankton algae. This

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algae, when blooming, de-oxygenates the water and causes local fish and shellfish to die or migrate. This local disruption decreases dramatically the food resources for various species of birds that cross the deltaic territory on their migratory path to the South and, in the end, imperils a global ecological chain of species migratory paths from Europe to Africa. In this case, instead of addressing pollution as a negative yet inevitable side-effect of current economic activities in the Delta, there might be a positive alternative: to capture the pollutants causing eutrophication (nitrogen, phosphorus, CO2, algae) and facilitate processes that generate value out of them (food production, energy). These processes could trigger a shift in economy that will both re-instrumentalise the deltaic landscape as well as set the foundations for a bio-based economy in the future. Along this line, given that water could be the main medium for the new bio-based activities (aquacultures, wetlands, depoldering tactics), it is possible to introduce more space for the rivers and hence, build up more flexible and adaptable solutions towards future flood risk or the expected sea-level rise.

At the core of this proposal lies the transformation of underperforming crops (mainly arable farming, grasslands and flowers) into algae crops in enclosed tubular systems that do not require fresh water but contribute to wastewater treatment and convert discharged nutrients into valuable (bio)products. This is a huge advantage over traditional agriculture, which uses vast quantities of fresh drinking water and releases, through the extensive use of fertilisers, huge amounts of phosphorus and nitrogen in the water. Apart from enclosed algal systems, the proposal investigates the

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creation of new wetlands by re-flooding polders with high saline soil and nonprofitable crops. Establishing macroalgae ponds in their place may function as a model of filtration for agricultural and industrial discharges which would highly reduce the level of pollutants in the water and bring back benthic and pelagic species that are forced to migrate at the moment.

In general, the temporal dimension is of utmost importance; if we take into consideration the fact that fossil fuel depletion is becoming a reality and a shift in economy towards renewable sources will take place in the years to come, pollution will (hopefully) be reduced and pollutants might not constitute a considerable input for a bio-based economy anymore.

(new material ecology) as well as to job growth, new economic clusters and new socio-spatial constructs (new material economy).

For lack of a new political or economic model at the moment, a final thing to acknowledge is that humanity has yet to experience this kind of paradigm shift; therefore, it will almost inevitably be discussed as either post-capitalistic, romanticising or simply naĂŻve. This is why I choose to close this paper by simply encouraging the reader to see it as a first attempt to investigate theories on the actual socio-economic and environmental transformations, and to lay the groundwork for this potential shift to appear.

Conclusions

References

There is no doubt that climate change and its consequences constitute a reality for all the coastal zones of the North Sea, with the Dutch coast being at the most vulnerable position. Given that almost one million people live in the studied area, it is extremely relevant to propose adaptive protection measures to these scenarios. Taking it one step further, the proposal contributes to the socio-economic resilience of the area by generating new productive landscapes, enriching the local economies and harnessing the maximum potential of its metabolic flows and existing infrastructural systems. Since the project considers the pollutants causing eutrophication as a major input and incorporates de facto the current petroleumbased port infrastructure as the key field of processing all these flows, it shall largely contribute to the restoration of environmental stability and eco-services

1. Moore, J., Capitalism in the Web of Life: Ecology and the Accumulation of Capital. Verso, London, UK, 2015 2. UNITED NATIONS (UN), World’s population increasingly urban with more than half living in urban areas.

Retrieved on November 15, 2017 from http://www.un.org/ en/development/desa/news/population/world-urbanizationprospects-2014.html

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1. Reflooded polder. Source: Author.

2. Microalgae tubular crops. Source: Author.

3. Above: Water discharge remediation-Moderate scenario.

Below: Full systems expansion-Complete scenario. Source: Author.

4. Floating processing hub & algae collection point zoom-in. Source: Author.

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ATLANTIS Magazine by Polis | Platform for Urbanism and Landscape Architecture Faculty of Architecture, TU Delft Volume 29, Issue 1, November 2018 Editors-in-Chief Felipe Gonzalez, Sarantis Georgiou Public relations Melinda Marjan Board Representative Sindhuja Janakiraman Editorial Team Dhushyanth Ravi, Dora Hegyi, Ingrid Staps, Kavya Kalyan, Kavya Suresh, Laura Lijdsman, Leonardo Cannizzo, Melinda Marjan, Oumkaltoum Boudouaya, Tapasya Mukkamala Printer Drukkerij Teeuwen

Cover Felipe Gonzalez Editorial Address Polis, Platform for Urbanism Julianalaan 134, 2628 BL Delft Office: 01 West 350 tel. +31 (0)15-2784093 www.polistudelft.nl atlantismagazinetudelft@gmail.com Atlantis appears four times a year.

Number of copies: 450 This issue has been made with great care; authors and redaction hold no liability for incorrect/ incomplete information. All images are the property of their respective owners. We have tried as hard as we can to honour their copyrights.

ISSN 1387-3679

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