Urban Acupuncture and Better Cities

URBAN ACUPUNCTU A URE

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U R B A N

A C U P U N C T U R E A N D

B E T T E R

K A N I S H K

C I T I E S

J A I N 03917316066

FIFTH YEAR

USAP P

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Urban Acupuncture and Better Cities Kanishk Jain Dissertation (Bachelor of Architecture) V Year (Batch of 2010 - 11) May 2011 University School of Architecture and Planning Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University

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 Abstract The dissertation is a study on how small and precise architectonic interventions can act as catalysts to bring about major urban transformations. Cities today are facing an unprecedented mix of complex and unique challenges, which are being sought out through various levels of interventions. To understand how the approach to these challenges work, the dissertation investigates a design principle called urban acupuncture. The method is seen as a response to the time consuming urban planning process, where the idea is to create energy with quick design solutions. It focuses solely on the place and how the emerging public use will further spread to the surrounding area and live it up!

Keywords: Urban Acupuncture, Catalyst, Better Cities.

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Dissertation Title Urban Acupuncture and Better Cities Declaration The work submitted in this dissertation is the result of my own investigation, except where otherwise stated.

Kanishk Jain 0391731606 V Year (Batch of 2010-11) University School of Architecture and Planning

Prof. Vijay Matange Dissertation Guide

Prof. Ashok B. Lall Dissertation Coordinator

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Acknowledgements The writing of this dissertation has been one of the most significant academic challenges I have ever had to face. Without the support and guidance of certain people and resources, this study would not have been completed. I owe them my deepest gratitude.

First of all I would like to thank my guide, Professor Vijay Matange, for his great insights, perspectives and guidance during this study and my architectural education.

I’d also like to thank my dissertation coordinator, Professor Ashok B. Lall, for his guidance and support in this research during the semester.

I would like to thank people like Jaime Lerner and Marco Casagrande, among others for having worked in the field of Urban Acupuncture; it was their work and studies which arouse my interest in the field.

I am also grateful to resources such as the internet and google.com for being the basic and the most important resource in the study.

I would also thank my friends and family for their constant support throughout the study.

Lastly, I am thankful to my college, USAP, for making me who I am.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract

3

Declaration

4

Acknowledgements

5

Table of Contents

6

List of Figures

8

Preface

9

Methodology

9

1.

Types and Nature of CITY INTERVENTIONS

10

1.1.

Background of City Interventions

10

1.2.

Precursors and Connections of Acupuncture

10

1.3.

Why Urban Acupuncture?

11

2.

Understanding Urban Acupuncture through examination of various THEORIES 13

2.1.

Manuel de Sola Morales

13

2.2.

Jaime Lerner

13

2.3.

Maurizio Marzi and Nicoletta Ancona

14

2.4.

Marco Casagrande

15

2.5.

Ecosistema Urbano

16

3.

Understanding Urban Acupuncture through CASE STUDIES

17

3.1. Bus Rapid Transit System, Curitiba, Brazil

17

3.2. Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao, Spain

21

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3.3. Treasure Hill, Taipei City, Taiwan

25

3.4. Ring Road, Milan, Italy:

28

3.5. Brief Case Studies:

35

3.5.1. ‘Urban Voids’, Philadelphia, USA:

35

3.5.2. Revitalization of Public Spaces, Barcelona, Spain

36

3.5.3. ‘Ecoboulevard’ [Repaired], Madrid, Spain

37

3.5.4. Wire Opera House, Curitiba, Brazil

38

4. CRITIQUE

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4.1.

Urban Acupuncture in India

40

4.2.

Lessons for Delhi

41

References

44

Bibliography

44

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LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1: Curitiba, the seventh largest city of Brazil during 1960s.

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Figure 2 : Street in Curitiba during 1960s before the introduction of BRT system.

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Figure 3: Proposed transit system to be integrated with socio-economic planning of Curitiba by Jaime Lerner

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Figure 4: A Trinary Road Corridor for BRT System in Curitiba

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Figure 5: High capacity buses 'Speedybus' at a BRT bus stop.

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Figure 6: Port of Bilbao and its shipbuilding industry

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Figure 7: Street in Bilbao leading to Guggenheim Museum designed by Frank O. Gehry

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Figure 8: View of Guggenheim Museum along the bank of River Nervión in Bilbao

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Figure 9: Settlement of Treasure Hill in Taipei City

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Figure 10: Parade at Treasure post intervention by Casagrande

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Figure 11: The master plan of Cesare Beruto, 1884

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Figure 12: Current use of the external ring road

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Figure 13: (a) Resources of the system; (b) radius walking distance; (c) underground limits

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Figure 14: Photographic simulation of the Milan Ring Road project

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Figure 15: Section of existing situation(left) and project situation(right).

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Figure 16: (a) Background; (b) Vision; and (c) Tool.

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Figure 17: (a) Background; (b) Vision; (c) Tool; and (d) Transformation.

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Figure 18: (a) Background; (b) Vision; (c) Tool; and (d) Transformation.

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Figure 19: (a) Background; (b) Vision; (c) Tool; and (d) Transformation.

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Preface While dealing with the impact of growth on the city core of Delhi in my seminar paper last semester, I got interested in issues of Urban Voids and Regeneration. Going through various texts on Regeneration, I bumped into the dynamic concept of Urban Acupuncture. I understood that old city fabrics are complex and sometimes loose. We need not intervene and change them completely but deal with certain aspects of them to trigger chain reactions by introducing an urban catalyst. This catalyst may be a part of a holistic scheme and serve as a source of creating energy while the whole system takes shape. Urban Acupuncture does not challenge or negate other prospects of development; it is merely the starting point of it.

This dissertation will look at various theories and cases where precise interventions can heal its problems. It hopes to understand how various situations have come up with precise small time bound solutions to help follow and apply the process to benefits of other affected fabrics.

Methodology This dissertation is an exploration of different ideas, theories, interpretations, projects and inspirational ideas. They all are closely linked to each other. It was complex task to assimilate them together and form an opinion about the topic. Starting with reading of brief studies on Acupuncture to various discussions on the topic, an idea of contemplation was formed. The steps that defined the study are mentioned below.

Background to Urban Acupuncture

Why Urban Acupuncture?

Theories to understand the concept better

Looking at prevailing cases for better comprehension

Critique of the concept and cases

Implication and relevance in Delhi

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 1. Types and Nature of City Interventions 1.1.

Background of City Interventions Creation of towns and cities around the world took place as a result of economic, political, military or technological bearings since past centuries. To meet certain demands of space for various uses, actions were taken to achieve some short and long term goals with mostly superficial and less of detailed planning, which has led to long lasting effects on the fabric of cities till date. The primary function of space was to be provided for work, habitation and recreation. Transportation as a concern arrived later in the time-line of development of events as the habitable domain increased.

Today, decades after the first setting up of structures, modernist and industrial, in cities world over, a considerable number of these have died out because of no viable use or other economic issues. These belong to past era of building and thus primarily occupy large chunks of prime land in the city.

Some of these man-made structures are now a part of the nature, posing questions if heritage is to be maintained.

Owing to dynamics of the world today, like growing cities, constrained spaces and economics, these spaces must get a new identity or provide certain utilization of space. Some of them become redundant spaces and some form voids in the existing fabric. These voids may be adjusted with a certain change to be retro fitted to today’s city or buildings be pulled down in part or whole to provide effective solutions for our spatial needs. To meet with the immense pressure, we try to seek answers through the practices of Urban Regeneration or Renewal. The level of complexity of cities is beyond our imagination even as architects, therefore unless we want to complicate and go for large scale destruction and construction, the idea suggested here is that the intervention be light in application but dynamic in output. This ensures less trouble to city experiencing the physical change but ensures more relief.

1.2.

Precursors and Connections of Acupuncture Here comes in, the theory and practice of Urban Acupuncture, which is based on small catalytic interventions throughout a city to provide certain desired result. Through time, practices like Conservative Surgery which was

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practised by planner Patrick Geddes, which was an holistic one, concerned with built heritage as part of a broader vision of ‘civic evolution’. Conservative surgery takes into account the existing physical, social and symbolic landscape of a place in order to allow its most favourable future development (Haworth, 2000).

The current practice of Urban Regeneration involves public, private and community sectors to work together towards a single aim to improve quality of life for all. To achieve real and lasting change in our towns and cities, we must make the best use of all our present resources and achieve it by holistic planning.

Radical transformation processes are changing our cities and landscapes. Traditional tools of architecture and urban planning are then fewer and fewer answers. Urban Catalyst is an interdisciplinary platform for research and projects that has set itself the goal of promoting public discourse on contemporary urban problems and new holistic thinking and action for architects and planners to create better cities.

1.3.

Why Urban Acupuncture?

Acupuncture concept is a small catalytic intervention strategy. The main idea was that these projects had to be realized within a short period of time and give a maximum impact to the surrounding. It is used to achieve sensitive effects in a quicker way, but still following the overall planning scheme and operating principally within a structured context (Marzi & Ancona, 2004). Thus, it is a helping device to achieve immediate visible changes in the holistic activity such as Regeneration or Renewal.

European cities have been experiencing de-industrialisation and emptying of the city core since past few decades, whereas Asian and South American cities have seen large scale immigration into the city boundaries from rural zones. Both of these opposing scenarios requires the city to intervene at many levels, starting from building to settlement level and in different nature from fields of transport to environmental planning.

Cities like any functioning body are made up of smaller fragments. So interventions can be performed top-down or vice versa. A bottom up

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 approach guarantees a firm foundation of the system and systematic development. Urban acupuncture is one such system which through a single development scheme sponsors a radical uplift for the whole city. The rest of the larger level schemes can follow this catalyst reaction started by the Urban Catalyst or Urban Acupuncture.

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2. Understanding Urban Acupuncture through examination of various Theories Through time, people have performed operations on city and devised their methods to deal with various situations. The following work and theory pertains to the field of Urban Acupuncture. Let us understand how various individuals have become institutions for the theory to take shape, in its current form.

2.1.

Manuel de Sola Morales: British architect and critic Kenneth Frampton states that Barcelona urbanist Manuel de Sola Morales has coined the term URBAN ACUPUNCTURE (Frampton, 2000). This concept refers to the reparative potential of compact catalytic urban interventions, with the proviso that these should be realizable within a fairly short period of time and be capable of spontaneously restructuring their immediate surroundings. Sola Morales’ contribution in Barcelona’s process was through architectural interventions. It was formulated during the Barcelona revitalization in 1980s when the city rejected the General Metropolitan Plan after Franco dictatorship. The idea was to transform the city through small urban projects.

The focus was on small public spaces in the neighbourhood and in the city that needed to be redone (Talviste, 2010).

2.2.

Jaime Lerner: Architect and Urban Planner Jaime Lerner through his works as the City Mayor of Curitiba, Brazil presents the idea of Urban Acupuncture, it is to focus on urban pressure points to create positive ripple effects that affect the entire community. According to the very principles of acupuncture, the lines of action must be simple, produce an immediate effect, at reasonable cost and applicable to any situation to facilitate the daily life of citizens as well as to cope with urgent needs, be it in the heart of cities or in peripheral areas. These principles express the difficulty to conceive city utopias and, in the action for the city, they look for something completely different from the past because they imply near and present perspectives. In order to better clarify the concept, Lerner explains that if the city is hit, but of it, it benefits all the Country. Sting the park with a needle and of it benefits the whole metropolis (Marzi et al, 2004). His style of successful urban planning which was time bound and economical producing immediate effects has been adopted by cities world over such as Kabul, New Orleans, Bogotá and Seoul.

Los Angeles and Detroit also want to adopt it. Lerner defends the globalization of solidarity and he believes that change is most likely to come

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at the municipal level. The city is the last refuge of solidarity and not much is to be expected from central governments as this is going to be the century of the city. Many global problems, like the depletion of the ozone layer, can be addressed in large part by the widespread adoption of policies at the local level to reduce automobile use and encourage recycling. Lerner’s approach to the revitalization of cities depends on the relative agility of local policymakers.

Certain successful examples according to him are: the demolition of San Francisco’s Embarcadero Freeway, the renewal of Puerto Madera in Buenos Aires and the construction of Curitiba’s Opera de Arame theatre at the site of an abandoned rock quarry. Urban acupuncture need not be limited to physical interventions. Policies to reduce noise pollution or that encourage nightlife in otherwise desolate areas also qualify.

Lerner is working world over with local teams on effective ideas to create better cities. Using techniques like bus rapid transit (BRT), designing multiuse buildings, and encouraging residents to live closer to their workplaces, it is possible to improve quality life in cities within a short span of 2 to 3 years (Hinchberger, 2006).

2.3.

Maurizio Marzi and Nicoletta Ancona: Urban acupuncture is neither a discipline, nor a project technique, but a philosophy of approach to a few territorial and societal problems. They do not see it as a manner that could be used on its own, but as a helping device.

It is seen from various viewpoints as a possible answer to the requirements of the bettering of the urban environment. By nature it does not contrast with urban planning in the traditional sense, as it is the latter that governs the territory, as well as having the shared necessity of adjusting planning instruments to the times. But urban planning is a process that, even at its best, cannot produce immediate change; by its very own nature it requires extremely complex decisional processes and long time frames.

Urban acupuncture, is spawned by the necessity to achieve sensitive effects in shorter time periods with respect to planning, and operates principally within structured contexts (Marzi et al, 2004).

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 2.4.

Marco Casagrande: According to Finnish Architect Professor Marco Casagrande, Urban Acupuncture is an urban environmentalism theory which combines urban design with traditional Chinese medical theory of acupuncture. Casagrande views cities as complex energy organisms in which different overlapping layers of energy flows are determining the actions of the citizens as well as the development of the city. By mixing environmentalism and urban design Casagrande is developing methods of punctual manipulation of the urban energy flows in order to create an ecologically sustainable urban development towards the so-called 3rd Generation City (Post Industrial City). Casagrande has developed the theory in the Tamkang University of Taiwan.

Urban acupuncture aims into a touch with the collective psyche of the city which is reflected through collective conscious which is striving towards the absolute, the real reality. The theory of the urban acupuncture celebrates the possibility of a light-weight touch with a total impact. Total is a fragment of the absolute. Through urban acupuncture the absolute finds a way to reflect in the city.

The collective mind generates the social drama that keeps the city alive. People are ruining their build human environment by being themselves.

The third generation city is the ruin of the industrial city. The third generation city is part of nature. Urban acupuncture is aiming to the third generation city.

Urban acupuncture can be applied to an existing city through art which in the urban context is architecture. Things that are real are valuable, what is not real is not valuable. Urban acupuncture connects the public to the real reality through small scale interventions. Nothing is taken away and nothing heavy is added to the city organism, but the present state of being is realized as part of the process of rottening and being ruined. Ruin is not a product, it is a process. City must be like compost. Urban acupuncture is turning the urban compost to fruitful top-soil (Casagrande, 2003).

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2.5.

Ecosistema Urbano: Madrid based studio Ecosistema Urbano is an open system that is dedicated to architectural research and design. They put a lot emphasis on ecology, which is the basis for sustainable cities and sustainable planet. Their concept is to act, based on the actual needs, and not based on future utopias. In two of their key projects: ‘Ecoboulevard [Repaired]’ in Madrid and ‘Urban Voids’ in Philadelphia, they have used the concept of city acupuncture. In these projects, they have used the method as an ‘emergency’ action that could operate while the other urban dynamics are catching up. The quick solutions are made to primary support urban active life and the recently established young greenery. The pinpoint projects are the ones that activate the place and are the main focus points at the beginning of the longer process. The goal is to support the surroundings while it is growing stronger in its character. This means that the initial projects could be moved or they merge into a process and develop into something new in the future (Talviste, 2010).

Extensions to this theory can change places and give us many other diverse examples of how cities can use this kind of strategy. Starting from Sola Morales’ thought of action through static architectural interventions to Ecosistema Urbano, who see it as a dynamic process. They see urban acupuncture as a starting point but nothing stable.

Therefore, the attitude and the idea behind the project are decisive. It is not seen only as a project that fulfils the set requirements for a place as a goal. The small intervention of urban acupuncture is about a solution that tries to comprehend a broader surrounding.

In the following chapter, are presented some of the projects mostly by the persons and teams that were discussed in the previous section to illustrate their visions how urban acupuncture could be used (Talviste, 2010).

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 3.

Understanding Urban Acupuncture through Case Studies To understand how urban settings have dealt with various problems and situations in

their context, let us look at some cases of varied vision and scale, to understand the light applications that created dynamic outputs, making successful cases of Urban Acupuncture.

Now it is for the world to see and learn.

In order to understand the aim of the process and core of the idea the study has been divided the projects into four parts: background, vision, tool, and transformation.

Through this a better understanding of what is the starting point and end goal for different projects will be achieved. It has given me a possibility to define the tools (acupuncture method) that is used to give an energy injection to the system, space, and place or to the vision.

3.1. Bus Rapid Transit System, Curitiba, Brazil Case Type: Transport Oriented Intervention Architect: Jaime Lerner Year: 1970

Curitiba is the seventh largest city in Brazil and capital of state Parana (see Figure 1).

One of the biggest problems in this growing city was its inoperative traffic system. Cars were taking over the city streets and citizens were hardly using city for spending leisure time. The quick change had to make city pedestrian friendly and restore confidence Figure 1: Curitiba, the seventh largest city of Brazil during 1960s.

about functioning urban fabric (Talviste, 2010).

Background: In the 1940s, Curitiba was experiencing rapid growth due to a thriving agriculture industry which attracted new settlers from overseas. With increasing population and increasing demands for

Figure 2 : Street in Curitiba during 1960s before the introduction of BRT system.

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improved services, housing and transportation, the city hired French planner and architect Alfred Agache to help ease the growing pains with sweeping arc-like patterns radiating out from the core to better manage the flow of cars and buses that were clogging city streets (see Figure 2). Rights of way for the boulevards were acquired, but many other parts of the plan never materialized.

Curitiba's population swelled in 1960 and French architect Agache's plan from the 1940s hadn't considered future waves of newcomers and economic growth. Then in 1965, prompted by fears among city planners, that Curitiba’s rapid growth would lead to fewer green spaces, unchecked development and congested and pedestrian-unfriendly streets that characterized their neighbour city, São Paulo, and many other Brazilian cities to the north; they adopted a new Master Plan which would change the layout of the city dramatically (Gnatek, 2003).

Vision: Curitiba’s Master Plan created by Jaime Lerner integrated transportation with land use planning, calling for a cultural, social, and economic transformation of the city. It limited central area growth, while encouraging commercial growth along the transport arteries radiating out from the city centre. The city centre was partly closed to vehicular traffic, and pedestrian streets were created. Linear development along the arteries spurred by zoning and land use policies promoting high density industrial and residential development along the corridors reduced the traditional importance of the downtown area as the primary focus of day-to-day transport activity, thereby minimizing congestion and the typical morning and afternoon flows of traffic.

Instead, in rush hours

Curitiba

has

heavy

commuter

movements

in

both

along

the

directions public arteries.

transportation Downtown

Curitiba is no longer the primary destination of travel, but a hub and terminus. Mass transit Figure 3: Proposed transit system to be integrated with socio-economic planning of Curitiba by Jaime Lerner (Source: wikipedia.com)

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 would replace the car as the primary means of transport within the city, and the development along the corridors would produce a high volume of transit ridership (see Figure 3). The Master Plan established the guiding principle that mobility and land use can not be disassociated with each other if the city's future design is to succeed (Gnatek, 2003).

Tool (Acupuncture): Curitiba is a city with 660,000 as total number of private vehicles; current car ownership is at a relatively high level of 410 cars per 1000 persons. In the 70s, Curitiba’s forward-thinking and cost-conscious planners integrated public transportation into all the other elements of the urban planning system. They initiated a system that focused on meeting the transportation needs of all people - rather than those using private automobiles and consistently followed through with a staged implementation of their plan. They avoided large-scale and expensive projects in favour of hundreds of modest initiatives. Their proposal laid out plans to minimize urban sprawl, reduce downtown traffic, preserve Curitiba's historic district, and provide easily accessible and affordable public transit. Mayor of Curitiba Architect Jaime Lerner was the mind behind this ambitious project. His team proposed main linear transit arteries to Curitiba to provide direct, high-speed routes in and out of the city.

Their proposal was adopted and eventually came to be known as the Curitiba Master Plan.

When the debate began in Curitiba over which type of transportation system to implement, a major deciding factor was construction costs.

The cost of a new subway system was estimated ten times a light rail metro system (tramways), which in turn was ten times the cost of a Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) System. They opted for an Figure 4: A Trinary Road Corridor for efficient BRT system (see Figure 4) (Gnatek,

BRT System in Curitiba

2003).

Transformation: Curitiba evolved its bus system in stages over the years in phases to arrive at its current form. It is composed of a hierarchical system of services. From small minibuses

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 routed through residential neighbourhoods that feed passengers to conventional buses on circumferential routes around the central city and on inter-district routes. The backbone of the bus system is composed of the express buses operating on five main arteries leading into the centre of the city much as spokes on a wheel lead to its hub.

This backbone service, aptly described as Bus Rapid Transit,

is

characterized

by

several features that enable Curitiba’s

bus

service

to

approach the speed, efficiency, and reliability of a subway system; exclusive

integrated bus

planning,

lanes,

signal

priority for buses, pre-boarding fare

collection,

level

bus Figure 5: High capacity buses 'Speedybus' at a BRT bus

boarding from raised platforms

stop. (Source: planum.net)

in tube stations, free transfers between lines (single entry), large capacity articulated and biarticulated wide-door buses, and overlapping system of bus services.

The plan had a new road design to minimise traffic: the Trinary Road System. Each artery consists of three parallel routes, a block apart. The middle route is a wide avenue with Express bus service running down dedicated high-capacity express bus ways in the centre two lanes, offering frequent stop service using standard, articulated and bi-articulated buses carrying up to 270 passengers apiece. The outer lanes are for local access and parking. The two outer routes are one-way streets with mixed vehicle traffic lanes next to exclusive bus lanes running direct high-speed bus service with limited stops. Since the implementation of the BRT system, travel time throughout the city has lowered, total harmful emissions have dropped, and total street congestion has decreased. In the 1980s, the Rede Integrada de Transporte was created, allowing transit between any points in the city by paying just one fare (Gnatek, 2003).

Corollary: Five of the arterial roads of the Trinary System form a star that converges to the city centre. . Land within two blocks of the transit arteries is zoned for high density.

Beyond the two blocks, zoned residential densities taper in proportion to distance from transitways, to reduce traffic away from the main roads. Planners discourage auto-oriented centres and channel new retail growth to transit corridors. Very limited public parking is

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available in the downtown area and most employers offer transportation subsidies. BRT system is designed to help attain an image of comfort along speed, reliability, good bus stop locations and environmental friendliness. Over time, BRT has removed the negative image that people have of bus systems, and increased the use of public transportation.

The Bus Rapid Transit system is the most widely used form of transportation in Curitiba, used by approximately 75% of travellers. In 1992, almost 40 percent of Curitiba’s population resided within three blocks of the major transit arteries. Transit system has had its impact on both the local community and economy. Public spaces where people come together are areas where local businesses and entrepreneurship thrive. BRT stops have functioned as destination points for commercial activities such as shopping and social activities, and as catalysts for building and rebuilding surrounding communities and business sectors.

3.2. Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao, Spain Case Type: Intervention by single Iconic Building Architect: Frank Owen Gehry Year: 1997

Bilbao is the principal city of Spain's Basque Country with a population of 400,000 but encompassing a metropolitan area of about 1 million people The Metropolitan Bilbao area is the fifth most populous in Spain. Bilbao is a city in Spain that was unknown before the invention of urban acupuncture. It was an unpopular place to live at even for local people.

The urban structure was decayed and did not offer much experiences and opportunities for inhabitants. It was about getting a new image to the city. It was achieved through fascinating architecture, establishing a new art centre (Badescu, 2008).

Background: Bilbao has been one of Spain's major ports and centre for industries like fishing, coal mining, chemicals, metallurgy and shipbuilding for last 100 years attracting large influx of population and making Bilbao the wealthiest part of the country until 1970s, till it suffered a major blow in the late 1980s when its big downtown shipyard closed because of low-wage competition from Eastern Europe and Asia.

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The city of Bilbao underwent a deep decline in the 1970s-1980s and the regeneration process in the 1990s-2000s.

Nevertheless, relocated economies,

when

from the

steel

Western city

production

industrialized

experienced

a

significant loss of its industries. The Greater Bilbao metropolitan area lost 56,000 jobs between 1970 and 2001 which was followed by a population outflow, later in 1980s.Bilbao also saw additional

problems,

including

serious

Figure 6: Port of Bilbao and its shipbuilding industry

environmental degradation, substandard housing, ethnic tensions, and social-political unrest, bleak industrial landscapes, tremendous pollution, poor public transport system and terrorism. But beyond the image that the outsiders had there was also the issue of the negative image that residents themselves had about the cities. Most of the local population did not exhibit a sense of pride in being Bilbainos (Badescu, 2008).

Vision: In 1992, Bilbao missed being part of the Spanish regeneration wave, when Barcelona hosted the Olympics; Seville the World Exposition, and Madrid became the European Capital of Culture. The economy of the region was severely depressed in the eighties by the decline of the steel industry and the emerging competition in heavy manufacturing from Southeast Asian Tiger Economies. The city which had pockets of 35% unemployment and had grown used to seeing riot police was hardly known as a centre of the leisure industry, except perhaps by merchant seamen.

The primary aim for Bilbao’s facelift was to increase the quality of life for the citizens by creating better urban conditions and attracting people to the city. Cultural regeneration as a solution to the decay of industry-based urban economies as well as to image problems was already applied in cities in North America and Europe. This approach included an array of actions, ranging from organizing cultural events of national and international recognition, to financing iconic architecture and the creation of new cultural venues, such as museums, opera houses, performing arts centres etc. The approach stems from the belief that cultural policies can lead to the economic regeneration of an area, through the improvement of the city image and attractiveness. According to this view, design can lead to removing constraints to economic development and correcting market failures. In situations when

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 costs are high and market demand is weak, such as derelict, abandoned, industrial sites, redesigning the site reappropriates the space to the city and to economic activities (Badescu, 2008).

Tool: The city determined to tackle these problems through a holistic plan. It created a new a subway line, new drainage and water/air clean-up systems and

an

airport;

residential,

leisure and business complexes were built in town, while new river and sea waterfronts, a seaport

and

technology

industrial

parks

were

and built

away from the urban centre, designed

by

renowned

architects. The icing on the cake was the construction of the Guggenheim

Museum

Bilbao Figure 7: Street in Bilbao leading to Guggenheim Museum which would be built in a strict designed by Frank O. Gehry time frame of four years and become the urban catalyst for the city.

The epitome of this approach for Bilbao was the Guggenheim Museum, to be designed by celebrated architect Frank O. Gehry by the year 1997. The city wanted the building to have a similar effect for the city as the Opera House did for Sydney. Bilbao identified from the start, the formation of a knowledge based high-tech sector as a priority.

Bilbao did want not construct the museum simply for the sake of having an iconic building; this was to be an answer in a quest to address a number of serious problems (Badescu, 2008).

Transformation: The making of Guggenheim Museum was seen as a miracle, Bilbao became a pilgrimage town in various circles. It was not the building that was miraculous, but the miraculous occurrence was the extravagant optimism that entered into the outlook of those who made the pilgrimage. People from world over started flocking to Bilbao even to watch the building's skeleton take shape.

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With

the

opening

of

the

Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao in 1997, it succeeded to become an important tourist

destination

in

Spain

with

thousands of local and international visitors coming in every year. The new Guggenheim Museum has boosted the local

economy

by

attracting

new

investments, helping to create 3,800 jobs and new tourism based revenue.

The museum has brought hope to Figure 8: View of Guggenheim Museum along the citizens and city officials and has united bank of River Nervión in Bilbao political parties, trade unions and civic associations in a gigantic urban regeneration still under way (Badescu, 2008).

Although some of the jobs are informal in nature, the city also achieved the national employment rate. It is argued that while the development of the tourism and the business services sectors has really been a success for Bilbao. In fact, the city transformed its economic base from production-oriented activities to consumption-oriented activities like the Guggenheim museum and tourism (Badescu, 2008).

One last concern with regards to city design is that some of these new public spaces are designed in such a way that they appeal more to affluent groups and fail to create the feeling of inclusion to everyone. But, if we take into consideration the representational criterion, Bilbao is definitely a success story. Before 1997, few people outside Spain had heard of the city, it was the Guggenheim Museum definitely that put the city on the world map. Bringing the Guggenheim to Bilbao was not without its critics. Some connect it with the industrial background of the city but some criticize its ‘placeless-ness’, and some comment on the lack of connection of activity with local culture. Yet the museum became an uncontested symbol of the city, both for outsiders and insiders. It is the new innovative design schemes that create a distinct urban landscape in Bilbao rather than the cultural heritage of the city. For her, innovative design schemes create new urban identities. The Guggenheim Museum in central Bilbao instilled a new sense of place and of pride in the city, new urban identities (Badescu, 2008).

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3.3. Treasure Hill, Taipei City, Taiwan Case Type: Old Settlement Intervention Architect: Marco Casagrande Year: 2002

Taiwan is on the threshold of an urban ecological awakening. Much of its heavy industry has already moved to the surrounding countries and the citizens are looking forward to the cleanup and environmental rehabilitation of the post-industrial cities. Taiwan can look towards an artificial Western urban face-lift or the Japanese – Singapore–style eco-fascism or it can realize and use its own original Taiwanese – Chinese hidden social values and energies and develop new compost like organic way of environmentally sustainable urban living (Casagrande, 2003).

Background: In the 1950s, 30 percent of Taipei City was organic squatter villages hastily constructed to accommodate the almost immediate doubling of the local population by mainlanders who fled the communist army. While most of those communities have since been turned into parks or been replaced with modern buildings, one of these villages, Treasure Hill remains as both a reminder of the past and present. This high density squatter community has enjoyed relative peace for five decades after it was first settled by Chinese Nationalist Party soldiers from China, who in spite of diversity built a hive of houses from salvaged materials on the hill. It will be Taipei's last example of organic architecture which will go away after the city begins renovations here (Casagrande, 2003).

Vision: Finnish

Architect

Professor Marco Casagrande who first visited the city in 2002 was touched by the city, where he saw humanistic energies at the street level but the city also made him wonder why the soft core of the humanistic city did not meet with the official one.

For him, it was almost like Figure 9: Settlement of Treasure Hill in Taipei City

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 analyzing two different cities when reading the official data and maps about Taipei and to walk the streets. He realised that the city will die of ecological reasons. When the modern man loses his connection to the nature, he dies.

The data given by the authorities to save the city was useless as Taipei on the streets was very different to this official information. The people on the streets were very humane, alive and active. They seemed to keep the industrial machine of the city alive - they were ruining it and balancing the official pollution. He felt the data was not worth saving at all, on the contrary - it should die (Casagrande, 2003).

Tool: Casagrande was shocked to see Treasure Hill on his first visit in 2002. It was an urban farming matriarchal community enclave inside the modern city. By the time he saw Treasure Hill, it was dying. The official city had given to this illegal settlement a death penalty and the first three levels of the terraced houses were already bulldozed away. The farms were turned into lawns and the farmers were moved into apartment houses. Everywhere in the air was the smell of a slow death. But Casagrande felt, its energy had not left the place.

Professor Casagrande felt the human energy very strong but it was directed towards death and destruction. He needed to make a plan how to tune this same energy towards construction, to manipulate these hidden energy flows and introduce small elements to Treasure Hill that can be compared to the needles in acupuncture. He defines it as Urban Acupuncture (Casagrande, 2003).

Transformation: To work on the environmentalist theory of Urban Acupuncture, Casagrande became the Cleaner Man of the Settlement. There were no garbage bins in Treasure Hill and the small snaky allies were full of filth. He found old people hiding behind their windows and green grass instead of houses that were bulldozed away as the settlement was officially a park zone. The people living there for the past 50 years were gardeners. But now the city had stepped in their village and they had to go. Casagrande then intervened and stopped the demolition process of Treasure Hill and actually started to rebuild the destroyed connections.

Casagrande started cleaning the trash from their streets to be taken away and after three days found the people cleaning the streets too. Soon he was joined by a large number of architecture students from Tamkang University and National Taiwan University as it

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became a cause celebre for them as they saw this community as representative of the city's past. After cleaning up the settlement of Treasure Hill from the garbage, he started to build up stairs to connect the remained stairways of the torn down houses. Later in the process he addressed the fact that Treasure Hill had a dead end and there was a need to create a loop for circular movement.

By the end of 3 weeks of Casagrande’s work at Treasure Hill, he was joined by 200 students and Taiwanese architect Shieih Yin-Jun in the project. They together built and stopped the bulldozing of Treasure Hill. In the place of the lawn where once the houses had stood was now a vegetable garden, and the inhabitants were eager to cultivate the land. City learned to appreciate this small sustainable settlement – a small urban poem.

A striking fact about this illegal settlement was that it had many of the values, for which the official city had commissioned Casagrande to introduce in the modern Taipei. The urban farmers were filtering their grey waters, cultivating passive solar houses like their gardens on the hill side, composted their organic waste, used a minimal amount of electricity with no TVs but a collective small cinema and had no cars. The urban nomads produced their own food and harvested the surrounding city from what from what it called waste.

According

to

Casagrande,

saving

Treasure Hill was important because he felt that the place was very real and the city around it was too fictive. Many external powers in the city dominated the humanistic energy

but

in

Treasure

Hill,

Figure 10: Parade at Treasure post intervention

none by Casagrande

(Casagrande, 2003).

Subsequent Transformation: Treasure Hill changed into a laboratory of environmentally sustainable urban living in Taipei. Officially the settlement became legalized as part of a public environmental art work. The same city government that was destroying the illegal settlement of Treasure Hill a couple of weeks later high-lighted the area as a mustsee location in Taiwan and as an example of urban future.

From being less of an embarrassment to a city bent on modernizing Treasure Hill become the stomping ground for culturati who saw it as an organic community. Treasure Hill

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 now endorses an artist residency program, a small bookstore and a crafts market, among other tasks. Casagrande feels that the artists working at the Hill maybe injecting new energy, but there is the danger of the real settlement becoming a background for art pieces. Instead of exploiting the place people must appreciate it.

Marco Casagrande points out that Treasure Hill holds many of the future possibilities of environmentally sustainable urban living. It is like the attic of a house that contains objects of the times once lived, narrative objects, objects with memories. Attic is the most subconscious space of a house and attic is the memory of a house; here Treasure Hill is the attic of Taipei. It is the memory and the link between modern man and nature where human nature as part of nature (Casagrande, 2003).

3.4. Ring Road, Milan, Italy: Case Type: Intervention by Connecting Spaces Architects: Maurizio Marzi and Nicoletta Ancona Year of Conception: 2004

Milan is a city whose industrial and commercial vocation is emphasized by its strategic territorial position in the region, country and European Union. The industrial city changed gears and moved into tertiary sector resulting in many abandoned sites. Isolated urban interventions at these sites shows that the city is considered in different parts, that the interventions respond to separate logics and to an episodic procedure in which it is difficult to find a uniting thread, and to distinguish a public project. It denotes the absence of an orientation for urban development in the coming years. City needs to interpret the present and delineate a planning hypothesis for the future (Marzi et al, 2004).

Background: Since past few decades the city has shown a countertendency with respect to other urban conglomerations. The city emptied from 1.8 million inhabitants during the seventies to 1.3 million today corresponded by a constant increase of the population of the city’s hinterland from 2.2 million inhabitants to 3.5 million in the Greater Milan area.

The reasons for this phenomenon are numerous and complex. One particular reason is the opportunity of life, not outside the city but near to it, thus enjoying both; the best environment quality offered by country life and the cultural and economic advantages of the city areas. A result linked to this phenomenon is the excessive territorial consumption by

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building and contrastingly, the large amount of movement that attracts approximately eight hundred thousand cars to the city on a daily basis, in addition to approximately eight hundred thousand already present, priming a continuous worsening of both the sanitary and aesthetic conditions of the city (Marzi et al, 2004).

Vision: The progressive deterioration of urban environmental quality has surely been one of the main causes of the exodus described above, and the challenge for the future of this city, as for other large cities, is to be able to unite the services, facilities, and opportunities offered, with a good level of environmental quality and public spaces, which act as the physical container to social life. The principle of the economic sustainability of the choices must be followed that guide the territorial transformations, creating projects that are feasible, so that the city of the future is not just a “paper city”, consisting of large projects that are destined to stay on paper (Marzi et al, 2004).

This city is the main engine of the Italian economy. Starting from the beginning of the eighties, the economic conversion from the industrial system to the tertiary sector led to the abandonment, and the consequent availability, of large urban sites, both in proximity of the city centre and the periphery. Subsequently extensive re-enhancement programs have allowed the building of residential quarters, and the establishment of precious institutions, such as universities and theatres and new urban parks. Nineties onwards, a season of city fabric renewal has taken place, involving, in particular, ten urban environments for a total surface area of 1.7 million square metres of abandoned sites, including a consistent contribution on the part of the private sector (Marzi et al, 2004).

However, these interventions are isolated; they are lonely episodes that have surely yielded many advantages in the immediate surroundings, but that lack the force of a system, and that do not constitute points of a useful network. They follow separate logics and do not create a holistic scheme for the city. The re-enhancement process of ex-industrial areas cannot be considered completely finished and a further margin of improvement exists. The city has to look at the future of this development (Marzi et al, 2004).

The chronic lack of public spaces which are adequate for the dimension of the city reflects on the unexpressed potentialities of wide and empty city spaces. The External Ring Road, of the city road network now exclusively used by automobiles, is a partially forgotten resource. Nevertheless it represents a great opportunity.

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 The town planning scheme of Milan is of a radial shape, referring to a circular configuration of medieval origin. The street structure is composed of concentric rings that correspond to subsequent developmental phases, and by radial axes, starting at the city centre and branching off along the main territorial routes (Marzi et al, 2004).

Outlined Resource: The extreme border of the city, before reaching the countryside, was imagined by the planner, Cesare Beruto in the nineteenth century, as a continuous sequence of urban avenues surrounding the city centre, with a linear extension of twenty kilometres maintaining almost always a constant section of forty meters. A monumental double line of plane trees was located on a central parterre of fifteen meters, and placed as a separation between the two different roads for cars. The initial intentions of the planner for these avenues represented a place for city walks along side the countryside (Marzi et al, 2004).

The

Outer

Ring

that

is

conserved till date constitutes a barrier between two portions of the city born in successive

stages,

limiting

and

excluding the contact between the two parts. To the inside, the city of blocks, characterized by closed elements; and to the outside, starting mainly in the fifties, a city with a more open structure was

developed,

where

sometimes

buildings leave the street curb.

Back then nobody could have imagined that the spaces destined to streets would have been a new curtain Figure 11: The master plan of Cesare Beruto, 1884 wall, whose parts are built, instead of with bricks and stone, with the metal of running cars; one of the most unwelcoming places of the city(Marzi et al, 2004).

Ring road is principally characterized by three different uses: firstly, dedicated to private vehicular mobility, located on the two lateral tracks. Secondly the tree lined central parterre which now accommodates either a space dedicated to the parking of cars and thirdly for the service of public transport; buses or tramways, without any real continuity.

Light traffic, pedestrians and bicycles, where possible, move on the two lateral paths.

Not withstanding, this space represents a great opportunity (Marzi et al, 2004).

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The territory being a limited resource; it requires intervention with regards to issues such as the quality of the environment, sustainable choices and recycling. In addition to the outer ring's innate use as a vehicular movement route, new conditions of mobility that should be created, amplifying the possibilities of use of the ring road. It is therefore re-thought as a connecting public space, a continuous link between the centre and the peripheral quarters, as a stimulus for their regeneration (Marzi et al, 2004).

Figure 12: Current use of the external ring road

Tool (Acupuncture): At Celebration of Cities, an international competition by the UIA – International Union of Architects, the proposal for revival of Milan’s Ring Road as connector for the whole city

turned out to be the winner.

The competition considered the crisis of a city centre, and required the formulation of an easily realizable project, able to improve the relationship between man and his environment, while capturing the imagination of the city. The project proposed a type of action which enabled the city to react, involving the improvement of entire districts, while creating chain reactions; a real urban acupuncture (Marzi et al, 2004).

Passing through parts of the city that differ in history and character, the outer ring meets areas of recent interest to new projects such as urban gardens and large squares, sports and cultural facilities and unused industrial areas which represent many occasions for

Figure 13: (a) Resources of the system; (b) radius walking distance; (c) underground limits

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potential recovery: these are the resources of the system, the infrastructure. The ring road is a barycentric place for the city; it is placed exactly in the middle between the centre and the urban periphery, therefore a notion of equidistance and of equivalence, introduces a second aspect strictly connected with the shape of this infrastructure. A renewal will be able to bring the same benefits to the central districts and the periphery, according to a direct relationship of proportion with distance, in a democratic way (Marzi et al, 2004).

With high demographic density and 500 meters as the maximum distance for pedestrian accessibility to a place about ten percent of the whole urban territory is accessible to twenty percent of the people of the city. In concrete terms, there are four different kinds of benefits strictly connected to this operation:

a) Urban and Architectonic: The renewal of this “never ending” sequence of avenues, spaced out with squares and gardens as hypothetical centres of the middle peripheral districts. Creating a new urban gate to historical centre of the city with substitution of old buildings with new architectonic expression of the city. b) Environmental and Transportation: Better acoustic and visual comfort with improved traffic regulation; and better organisation of the street space can bring about an improvement of the urban landscape. The possibility of creating a generously dimensioned pedestrian corridor improves the environmental quality of the city. Thus the completion of the circle line of public transport with a single, ecological and modern system can also improve the use of the whole urban net of public transport with a clear and undeniable benefit for the environment. c) Social: The regeneration of the outer ring road stimulates the participation of people in finding the space for the expression of new ideas and possibilities and to fight the phenomenon of social alienation. d) Economical: The possibility of building new underground parking areas and the opportunity of a commercial exploitation of the space above the ground (Marzi et al, 2004).

Transformation: The idea of a surrounding centre for the city of Milan is based on the attractive potential of the outer ring road. The expression centre is synonymous of urban quality, a new central area, offering the characteristic of new centrality to the peripheral district, which is generally not involved in environmental renewal programs. Firstly, a symbolic image was chosen to represent the project and the obvious difficulties connected to the gap in scale between the urban dimension of the project and the drawing scale, were eliminated. A zip,

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 enormously out of scale, crawls along the avenues to symbolize the main aim of the plan: the linking of different urban districts.

The real target is to formulate a typological and theoretical scheme that underlines a solution which is easily adaptable to all different contexts. The project proposes a new distribution of the street section, while making an effort to keep all the different and existing characteristics. The theme of feasibility is linked to the theme of the conservation of the historical image of the ring road, to be transmitted to future generations, by protecting and enriching it, by the principles of sustainable development (Marzi et al, 2004).

The plan aims to maintain, the lines of trees, the position of the roads and the sidewalks. The central parterre is left to the complete disposal of pedestrian mobility, free of cars and of public transport vehicles. These elements are maintained and integrated without substantial modifications to the ring road skeleton, but now expressing a new powerful force of the City. Beside the parterre, there are two protected lanes, ensuring the free circulation of vehicles for public transport and for taxis; this way obtaining the double effect of regaining space for benches and distancing cars from the pedestrian area; all this for questions of acoustic comfort and the safety of the circulation.

 Figure 14: Photographic simulation of the Milan Ring Road project

An abacus of project elements, used from time to time according to a functional mix, and depending on the specific section being addressed: kiosks for commercial activities and sitting spaces, green areas and water features, internet connections and artworks. The abacus is theoretically unlimited and the urban environment, with its continuous modifications and its different characters, suggests a precise use. The effect produced by the transformation on the urban landscape is charming and offers a completely new perception of the urban space.

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 To implement this project, cars must be eliminated from the ground level. Underground parks under the central parterre must be created, firstly, to permit better accessibility for vehicles coming from both sides and; secondly, to permit the building of such structures with minimum interference to traffic circulation. The economic sustainability of the project is strictly linked to the opportunity to build underground, and make it productive; in paradoxical terms, Figure 15: Section of existing situation(left) and we could assert that the presence of

project situation(right).

cars is the real economic resource in this system, as they offer the possibility of enticing financial investment on the part of private entrepreneurs, whose presence is ever more requested in the transformation of the city (Marzi et al, 2004).

Corollary: The city is a place for life and relationships, and public spaces are where these relationships develop under everybody's view. The quality of this space, independently from the quality of the built environment, somehow influences the quality of relationships.

Likewise the street space is not only a connecting space or a space for mobility. A wider and more complete definition is represented by a sequence of concepts such as mobility communication - information - culture, to emphasize the strong existing relationship between the opportunity to grow, offered to the individual person, and the possibility of movement through the territory.

In the future, the city will be ever more constituted of a collection of vital quarters representing, on a small scale, the image of the whole; quarters distinguished by a good level of environment quality, with a wide diversification of activities, and where better social integration will be possible. From this point of view, the quality of the street space has a fundamental role (Marzi et al, 2004).

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3.5. Brief Case Studies: A few more examples of how small interventions produced dramatic results for the whole city discussed in brief are presented below.

3.5.1. ‘Urban Voids’, Philadelphia, USA: Case Type: Restructuring the City Fabric Architects: Ecosistema Urbano Year: 2005

‘Urban Voids’ was a competition to get ideas how to reconstruct Philadelphia city in USA. The main question was how to respond to the crisis of vacancy? The aim was to suggest ideas for Philadelphia’s loose structure and imagine fantastic long-term solutions. The proposal had to provide an idea how to change and reshape the urban and natural forms throughout the city (Talviste, 2010).

Background:

Vacant urban places.

People are leaving the city.

There is existing street structure that is not functioning in the best way.

Vision:

Greenery

Urban self-reparation by starting discussion with locals

New green network

Public life on the street

Ecological mobility and public life

Tool (Acupuncture):

Ecological corridors

Adding green layer to the already existing networks

Urban catalysts - Light building structures that can accommodate different activities.

Figure 16: (a) Background; (b) Vision; and (c) Tool. (Source: Talviste, 2010)

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Transformation:

A self sustainable city structure that is combination of public life and ecological aims.

3.5.2. Revitalization of Public Spaces, Barcelona, Spain: Case Type: Intervention of Small Spaces Architect: Manuela de Sola Morales Year: 1987

The project focussed on different public spaces in the city. There was a lack of connection between them and in their quality. The goal was to work on a small scale to make a change.

These improvements were made to encourage people to use outdoor space again. These neighbourhood development projects had to turn Barcelona into a city that could accommodate big celebrations during the 1992 Olympic Games (Talviste, 2010).

Background:

Master plan can not solve the local problems.

Public spaces (squares) are in a bad condition.

There is no functioning public space network.

People do not use the city much.

Vision:

Bring people back to the outdoors.

Make public life Enjoyable

Liveability, meeting places, socializing

Olympic Games - The city should be able to offer a quality space for all the participants.

Tool (Acupuncture):

Abandon the master plan

Focus on a small scale - The squares that are central points in urban fabric and public meeting place.

Functioning network system between the squares.

Investing money in good materials to build up these spaces.

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Transformation:

Barcelona has become one of the well-known examples of functioning public space system.

City is loved by tourists and its citizens.

The city has became very liveable.

Successful Olympic Games in 1992.

Figure 17: (a) Background; (b) Vision; (c) Tool; and (d) Transformation.

(Source: Talviste, 2010)

3.5.3. ‘Ecoboulevard’ [Repaired], Madrid, Spain: Case Type: Industrial Revitalisation Architects: Ecosistema Urbano Year: 2008

‘Ecoboulevard’ Industrial Revitalization is an industrial revitalization in Madrid, Spain. The idea of the project was to find a temporal design solution to support existing renewed public space. It was a question how to deal with the time gap, while the newly settled structure is too weak to function on its own. The solution is offering activity and socializing possibilities, combined with environmental education (Talviste, 2010).

Background:

A vacant place

A new public space with greenery

A problem: the greenery takes time before it looks and functions as it should be.

Vision:

To bring people and green elements to the city streets.

To offer substitution while the surrounding trees are growing.

Public activity and sustainable outdoor life.

Bring more green elements to the city, that is important but ecological and also for the people.

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Tool (Acupuncture):

‘Air trees’ (covered with greenery)

Temporary structures

‘Air trees’ are functioning as pavilions

Adding modern technology that could provide new knowledge and also offer something to the city environment (solar energy)

Transformation:

Transform from built structures to mature greenery.

Giving a meaning to the place.

Leaving behind a flourishing green way.

Better urban environmental conditions.

Figure 18: (a) Background; (b) Vision; (c) Tool; and (d) Transformation.

(Source: Talviste, 2010)

3.5.4. Wire Opera House, Curitiba, Brazil: Case Type: Transformation of Industrial Site Architect: Jaime Lerner Year: 1992

The Ópera de Arame, or the Wire Opera House in southern Brazil was a project to transform an old industrial area into a new public space. It was a question how to create a meaningful place and at the same time introduce environmental knowledge (Talviste, 2010).

Background:

Former rock quarry.

Unused space.

It was forbidden to enter, because of its dangerous setting.

Need for new attractions in the urban life.

Vision:

Open the place to citizens.

Place to meet and memorize.

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Part of a green urban park.

To promote urban environmental education.

Raise the awareness of sustainable practice.

Tool (Acupuncture):

Theme : music and performances

Material: steel tubes

Light construction that is easy to build and does not require so many resources

Transformation:

One of the major tourist attractions in the city.

Known by the locals.

Landmark Figure 19: (a) Background; (b) Vision; (c) Tool; and (d) Transformation. (Source: Talviste, 2010)

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4. Critique While analyzing the theory and the projects it becomes clear how urban acupuncture is focusing on a goal. It is to solve a specific situation connected with the place on its own and to gain maximum effect from the energy injection. The main meaning was not to design an aesthetic space, but the core is how to invite people to occupy the space and at the same time make it easier to use. It could be achieved through a good traffic connection, interesting way of using materials, encouraging green corridors and, most importantly, through offering an activity at the place on its own (Talviste, 2010).

There are two main ways how the tool is approaching the space. On many occasions, the urban structure was too scattered to support the public life activity. As found in the theory, the complexity is what attracts people and can offer various options of using the space. To liven up the place, urban acupuncture often adds a structure to intensify the already existing loose structure. Through that action, it provides a new meeting place, encourages movement or constructs a new activity place. Another possibility is to create a strong focus point that catches one’s interest. It brings people there and makes this place their new target point. There may occur, a chain reaction where people attract more people and engage also the surroundings (Talviste, 2010).

4.1.

Urban Acupuncture in India: Indian cities are centuries old and have seen the different phases of development at par with other world cities. They have grown large in sizes so that three of the top ten populated cities of the world are Indian cities. The second most populous city is the National Capital Region of Delhi with 13 million inhabitants within the city limits as of the year 2001.Due to the fast rate of urbanisation and migration rate of 8% into the city, this figure is expected to rise to 23 million by the year 2021 (MPD 2021).

Today a city faces extreme urban pressures ranging from environmental degradation, public transport integration to degrading and decreasing housing stock. To address the physical and spatial demands of such pressures we indulge in planning and execution of certain processes to improve our cities and address its problems.

Due to a number of reasons many projects in the country fall short of desired results due to overshooting of time and budget or insufficient pace or

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insufficient planning. This leads to rejection or critical scrutiny of the project.

This furthers prevents to believe and conceive ambitious projects or do realtime planning in future.

Urban acupuncture with its basic principle of precise small catalytic architectonic interventions creates opportunities within a bigger structural framework of planning and execution to do these ambitious and real-time projects. This intervention proposes to bring in the desired energy in the scheme by being the catalyst. A major requisite for this process to achieve success is that the intervention must be small in nature.

4.2.

Lessons for Delhi: Delhi has become the epicentre of activity of the 21st century in India surpassing Mumbai. Construction of the Delhi Metro and Delhi Transit (BRT) as a part of the Delhi Integrated Multi Modal Transit System Ltd. (DIMTS) have characterised the development of the city’s transport infrastructure.

Although the timely planning and execution of the metro has resulted in its success but the failure of the BRT to achieve its targets on time and within budget along with superficial planning has resulted in widespread criticism and abandonment of the system in between, creating a greater disorder. If timely and precise output was provided, the BRT would have also been successful and added to the city’s building value.

The city also faces a fierce competition from the satellite towns of the NCR in terms of shifting of economic base and decaying and expensive house stock in the Capital to new, easily available and inexpensive housing in the suburbs. Delhi can also look towards successful examples such as Milan Ring Road project to strike a successful balance between its peripheries and the historical centre.

Delhi has a physical advantage of being located in the North Indian plains and thus exploits the adjoining zones and has been expanding horizontally without any check unlike other metropolis such as Mumbai or Kolkata who have a constraint of space available to them. A horizontal city is always a less sustainable city. Traffic jams, due to large size and exclusive land-use planning of the city, are a common site in the city leading to unhappy citizens and an unsustainable city. Curitiba is a city that rejected its land use

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 master plan to create a mixed land use socio-economic development integrated with a BRT system. We can also look at mixed land use plans rather than rigid land use boundaries creating increased travelling distances between travel and work.

Delhi built its Metro system on a timely basis with critical placement of the lines but it failed to combine it with the cohesive development happening throughout the city. Unlike Curitiba which functions on a mixed land use, it did not reap the benefits from an efficient system of public transport. The city could have bought the land around the stations to be developed at higher F.A.R. (Floor Area Ratio) and extracted its investments into the system.

Development in Delhi has always been characterised by individual chapters of development with no common uniting thread. This results in a competition between various services instead of complementing and working with each other.

Delhi has always been characterised by it built heritage. Certain parts of Delhi attract millions of visitors from all across the country due to this built heritage such as Qutub Minar, Red Fort and Lotus Temple. But in this phenomenon, other parts of the city go neglected and may fall pray to slow development. A catalyst can be helpful in this case to make the desired change in those environments. One such example is the Akshardham Temple which brought the eastern part of Delhi to its tourist map which was earlier devoid of any such interesting landmarks.

The city has lost out on various opportunities through various times.

The last missed opportunity being the massive developmental process for the Commonwealth Games of 2010. Projects for such events require time based precise interventions to create positive ripple effects for the city. In a similar scenario, the city of Barcelona realised its short comings of the city not being used by the citizens very much and it went ahead to overcome the problem by re-inventing small spaces over a desired time to recover and host a successful games. The criterion of site selection of our interventions during the Games was arbitrary such as the site of the Games Village. Instead of a site that would merge and become a part of the city by providing it relief, we opted for a fortified development which will never be really a part of the city.

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Time was also a major factor in the failure the other development to be catalytic for its precinct.

Built environment is created and altered in cities every day, they can look towards successful and efficient methods such as Urban Acupuncture which though small, precise, economical and time based reforms stir the total environment providing positive ripple effects to the whole community.

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References Badescu, Gruia (2008): Steel-Town Makeover: Evaluating Urban Regeneration Policy in Sheffield and Bilbao, URL: http://www.evropskemesto.cz/cms/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=59 6 Casagrande, Marco (2003): Urban Acupuncture; URL: http://helsinkiacupuncture.blogspot.com/ Casagrande, Marco (2003): Urban Acupuncture: Published Paper Frampton, Kenneth (2000): Seven Points for the Millennium: An untimely manifesto Gnatek, Tim (2003): Curitiba’s Urban Experiment; URL: http://www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/fellows/brazil1203/ Haworth, Rachel (2000): Architectural Heritage, Volume 11 Marzi, Maurizio & Ancona, Nicoletta (2004): Urban Acupuncture, Renewal of a Milan's Urban Ring Road: 40th ISoCaRP Congress 2004 Talviste, Merle (2010): A Thought of a New Place to Interact; Master Thesis in Landscape Architecture, Department of Landscape Architecture, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences Hinchberger, Bill (2006): Curitiba: Jaime Lerner’s Urban Acupuncture; Newspaper Article, URL: http://www.brazilmax.com/news.cfm/tborigem/pl_south/id/10

Bibliography Badescu, Gruia (2008): Steel-Town Makeover: Evaluating Urban Regeneration Policy in Sheffield and Bilbao, URL: http://www.evropskemesto.cz/cms/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=59 6 Casagrande, Marco (2003): Urban Acupuncture: Published Paper Casagrande, Marco (2003): Urban Acupuncture; URL: http://helsinkiacupuncture.blogspot.com/ Casagrande, Marco (2003): Treasure Hill Taiwan: Architecture Information; URL: http://www.e-architect.co.uk/taiwan/treasure_hill_taipei.htm Dismantle.org: Curitiba, Brazil: Three decades of thoughtful city planning, URL: http://www.dismantle.org/curitiba.htm Gnatek, Tim (2003): Curitiba’s Urban Experiment; URL: http://www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/fellows/brazil1203/ Kang, Min Jay (2006): Altered Space: Squatting and Legitimizing Treasure Hill, Taipei

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Marzi, Maurizio & Ancona, Nicoletta (2004): Urban Acupuncture, Renewal of a Milan's Urban Ring Road: 40th ISoCaRP Congress 2004 Plaza, Beatriz (1999): The Guggenheim-Bilbao Museum Effect: A Reply to Maria V. Gomez’ ‘Reflective Images: The Case of Urban Regeneration in Glasgow and Bilbao’ Shieh, Leonardo (2006): Urban Acupuncture as a strategy for São Paulo: Master of Science in Architecture Studies Thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Talviste, Merle (2010): A Thought of a New Place to Interact; Master Thesis in Landscape Architecture, Department of Landscape Architecture, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences Wikipedia.com: Curitiba: Public Transport, URL: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curitiba#Transportation Wikipedia.com: Rede Integrada de Transporte, URL: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rede_Integrada_de_Transporte