Lucas Lerchs. Intertwining Productive Landscapes, Ma'ajeen, Nablus

INTERTWINING PRODUCTIVE LANDSCAPES, MA’AJEEN, NABLUS

AN URBAN DESIGN EXPLORATION INTO AN EMERGING NEIGHBOURHOOD

MA’AJEEN

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INTERTWINING PRODUCTIVE LANDSCAPES, MA’AJEEN, NABLUS

AN URBAN DESIGN EXPLORATION INTO AN EMERGING NEIGHBOURHOOD

Lucas Lerchs Matthias Lamberts

Thesis submitted to obtain the degree of Master of science in Urbanism and Strategic Planning Promotor: Bruno De Meulder Tutor: Abed Kittana

Academic Year 2017-2018

Abstract Nablus’ built tissue has rapidly expanded over the past decades. A shift in the perception of the land value, from an asset for (agricultural) production, to a valorisation of the parcel as a scarce commodity, have ultimately resulted in a rapid expansion of the built tissue of Nablus. A tenacious real estate market, vigorous speculation, a scattered land parcellation due to an inheritance system that divides over the heirs, and a lack of adequate planning tools result in an ad-hoc development of the landscape. The fringes of the expanded city have become a miscellaneous infill of the landscape by a broad array of building typologies and occupancies, vacant plots and oversized car-based infrastructures. In the developments that aim more comfortable living conditions, nature is dis-considered or even opposed to construction. This results in massive land consumption, nature degradation and erosion.

Focusing on Ma’ajeen, a neighbourhood developed over the past three decades at the limits of the city, this thesis will investigate these new neighbourhoods as spaces continuously negotiating between old and new, built and open, productive and consumptive, inclusive and exclusive, invisible and exposed, marginal and central. The case study ‘designerly’ explores a possible planned and well considered consolidation of the ‘neighbourhood’ that; assembles anyhow a community gathered of people of different backgrounds, with different financial means, and various life styles affiliated to their own sub-culture; integrates the remaining productive landscape as a main and indismissable asset into the neightbourhood.

A reading over different scales allows for a thorough understanding of the inner mechanisms of the neighbourhood as well as of the complex interaction between the neighbourhood and the city. Each scale provides different perspectives that single out specific features and potentials of the seemingly banal suburban landscape. Fieldwork and literature study are processed carthoand photographically and the resulting interpretation subsequently supports design explorations that aim to develop a more considered and integrated development that balances old and new, urban and landscape, city and nature.

Methodology This research-by-design project was preceded by fieldwork over six weeks in February and March 2018 (17/02/2018 – 27/03/2018). A zooming in-approach combines a general understanding of Nablus and a close reading of the Ma’ajeen neighbourhood, allowing for a better understanding of both the inner mechanism of the neighbourhood and the complex interaction between the neighbourhood and the city. Per scale level, different perspectives –urban, agricultural and social – offer a refreshing view to a seemingly monotonous built landscape.

The neighbourhood Ma’ajeen was allocated by professor De Meulder, professor at Department of Architecture of KULeuven and head of the OSA-research group. Due to its relatively young age and its location at the fringe of the expanding tissue, Ma’ajeens form an interesting laboratory for the observation of a developing neighbourhood in Nablus.

Besides observation through immersion, surveying , interviews, ethnographic notation and documentation, fieldwork consisted mainly of map-making, allowing for a better understanding of the inner-workings and occupancies of Ma’ajeen, its direct surroundings and other point of interest all over Nablus.. Interviews were as well semi-structured, structured as casual and included both residents as professionals affiliated to the neighbourhood – city planners, representatives of the municipality, politicians and urbanists and architects - such as employees and professors of the planning department of An-Najah University.

Backed by literature study and public data assessment, fieldwork is presented and interpreted in urban analysis and cartography. Interpretations on the bigger scales were based on public data, such as GIS. Photography was made by the authors.

We are thankful for the many people who contributed to this project. To start, we would like to thank professor Bruno De Meulder for his educative insights and guidance in analysis and design. Also, we owe great gratitude to Abed Kittana and Alessandra Gola for introducing us to their social network in Nablus and Birzeit University. We also thank them for sharing crucial documentation – such as historic maps and literature. We are grateful for their enthusiasm and support and guidance in content and output, both during the field study and afterwards.

Also, we want to mention our gratitude towards dr.ir. Mokarram Abbas, dean at the Faculty of Engineering and Technology of the Palestine Technical University-kadoorie (PTUK), Tulkarm, Palestine and city council member, and towards Abdelafo Aker, public relations officer at Nablus’ municipality, for the assistance during our stay in Nablus and introduction to the municipality. A special thanks to the many people who aided us during fieldwork, their aid in establishing a social network, connections and translation was vital for the well going of this research. Finally a warm thank you to all the Tarabeesh’s coffee friends for welcoming us with open arms and sharing their reality with us.

WEST BANK SHAVEI SHOMRON SETTLEMENT

ASIRA

ZAWATA BEIT WAZAN

MIL. CAMP

NABLUS

ELON MORE SETTLEMENT

MIL. CAMP

TELL BRACHA SETTLEMENT

The Oslo Accords are a set of agreements between the government of Israel and the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO). The accords initiated a fluctuating Peace Process, aimed at fullfilling among others the “right of the Palestinian people to self-determination”. The Accords developed two outcomes; the Oslo I Accord, signed in Washington D.C.,United States, in 1993; and the Oslo II Accord, signed in Taba, Egypt, in 1995.

The Oslo II Accords divided the West Bank into three administrative divisions: Areas A, B and C. Palestinian settlements Israeli (illegal) settlements, checkpoints & military camps Cities within Israel Road, used and controled by both Israeli and Palestinian Israeli bypass roads, for Israeli only Area A - 18% of the area of the West Bank: administered exclusively by the Palestinian Authority (PNA). Contains the main Palestinian cities.

Area B - 22% of the area of the West Bank: administered by both the Palestinian Authority as Israeli government Area C - 59% of the area of the West Bank: administered solely by Israeli government. Contains the Israeli settlements.

Sea of Galilea, Jordan river & Dead Sea

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HAIFA

JENIN

TULKARM TUBAS

HERZLIYA

QALQILIYA

NABLUS

TEL AVIV SALFIT

JAFFA

RAMALLAH JERICHO WEST JERUSALEM

EAST JERUSALEM

BETHLEHEM

HEBRON

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Mount Ebal

New downtown

Photo of Central Nablus and its historic centre, taken from Mount Gerizim.

ISRAELI MILITARY BASE C AREA

A AREA

Shopping mall & taxi service hub

Kasbah - historic centre

NABLUS

‘ASIRA ASH SHAMALIYA VILLAGE

ZAWATA VILLAGE

AL QUDS UNIVERSITY AN NAJAH UNIVERSITY HOSPITAL

BEIT IBA VILLAGE BEIT WAZAN VILLAGE

AN NAJAH NATIONAL UNIVERSITY

EIN BEIT AL-MA’ REFUGEE CAMP

MA’AJEEN

AN-NASR PARQUE COMMERCIAL DOWNTOWN

RAFIDIYA CHRISTIAN VILLAGE

AN-NASR MOSQUE

CASBAH HISTORIC CENTRE

MOUNT GERIZIM TELL VILLAGE

Areal photograph from Nablus, West Bank and its surroundings.

Taken from Palestine Ministry of Local Government,sd.

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TO DO MAP ON LARGER SCALE: CONNECTION OTHER CITIES, MOUNTAINS, JORDAN VALLEY ETC ETC TO DO ADD ABC REGION BOUNDARIES

MOUNT EBAL ‘AZMUT VILLAGE ISRAELI MILITARY BASE

PNA HEADQUARTER FORMER BRITISH

OLD ‘ASKAR REFUGEE CAMP

ARCHEOLOGICAL SITE OF SHECHEM

ISRAELI MILITARY BASE

JOSEPH’S TOMB

JACOB’S WELL

‘ASKAR REFUGEE CAMP

NABLUS MAIN MARKET

BALATA REFUGEE CAMP

ABATTOIR

IRAQ BURIN VILLAGE

BRACHA ISRAELI SETTLEMENT RUJEIB VILLAGE HUWWARA HUWWARA CHECKPOINT CHECKPOINT

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MA’AJEEN

Areal photograph from Nablus, West Bank and its surroundings.

Taken from MOLG,sd.

SHIFTING REALITIES

1800 1850

1958: OTTOMAN LAND CODE

REQUIRED THE LAND OWNERS TO REGISTER OWNERSHIP OF THE LAND. THIS CREATED A CLASS OF PEASENTS WRKING ON THE LAND AND A CLASS OF ABSENTEE OWNERS. COMMON LAND WAS PRIVATIZED.

1900

1910

1920 1940

1927: JERICHO EARTHQUAKE

THE EARTHQUAKE TOOK ITS NAME FROM THE CITY JERICHO CLOSE TO ITS EPICENTER. AT LEAST 287 PEOPLE WERE KILLED AND SEVERAL CITIES IN THE WEST BANK SUFFERED GREAT DAMMAGE.

1930

1940 1948: ARAB-ISRAELI WAR

ISRAEL IS BORN

THE 1948 WAR RAGED BETWEEN THE STATE OF ISRAEL AND THE MILITARY COALITIONS OF ARAB STATES OVER THE CONTROL OF PALESTINE. THE VICTORY FROM THE ISRAELI’S WAS IMMEDIATELY FOLLOWED BY ISRAEL’S INDEPENDENCE ON MAY 14, 1948. REFUGEES FLEE FROM CURRENT ISRAELI TERRITORY TO NEIGHBOURING COUNTRIES, THE WEST BANK AND GAZA.

1948-1967: JORDANIAN PERIOD

THE JORDANIAN ANNEXATION OF THE WEST BANK FOLLOWED THE 1948 ARAB–ISRAELI WAR. THE OCCUPATION ENHANCED PALESTINIAN INDUSTRIALIZATION.

1950 1960 1960

1967: SIX-DAY-WAR 1970

1980

1988: PALESTINIAN DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE 14

1980

1987-1991: FIRST INTIFADA 1990

THE FIRST INTIFADA, IS AN UPRISING OF THE PALESTINIAN POPULATION AGAINST ISRAEL THAT ENDED WITH THE SIGNING OF THE OSLO ACCORDS.

1993: OSLO AGREEMENTS

1990

1995

SET OF AGREEMENTS BETWEEN THE GOVERNMENT OF ISRAEL AND THE PALESTINE LIBERATION ORGANIZATION (PLO), MARKING THE START OF A FLUCTUATING PEACE PROCESS. ABC ZONING

2000

2000-2005: SECOND INTIFADA

THE SECOND INTIFADA REFERS TO ALL THE EVENTS THAT MARKED THE PALESTINIAN REVOLT BETWEEN SEPTEMBER 2000 AND 2005.

2002: NON-MEMBER CONSTRUCTION OF THE OBSERVER STATE SEPARATION WALL IN THE UN 2005

2000

2005: OPEN LIBERAL MARKET

2010

2015

2020 2010

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SIEGE OF NABLUS

Located in between two mountains - Mount Ebal and Mount Gerizim - the city of Nablus developed as the main economic city of Palestine. Labelled as the ‘natural capital of Palestine’ (Palmer et al., 1881), the city feeds on the surrounding productive land of the valley and the many springs for irrigation. Several Roman and Turkish water infrastructures - such as mills, tanks and aqueducts - witness the former agricultural cultivation of the valley.

Functioning as a gate between the productive Jordan Valley and the trade roads of the coast, while feeding of the surrounding productive land and villages, the city managed to establish a prominent position in trade for centuries. Several industries managed to partake in the flourishing trade, with the Nablusi soap and Kunafa as world-known outcomes.

As a consequence of the growing Israeli control over the market - due to a vast network of road checkpoints and increasing isolation of Palestine - the economic motor of Nablus sputtered, with the years-long Israeli siege of Nablus as its deathblow.

The downfall of the Palestinian market forced a shift from a production-led to a service-led economy. With employment rates at an all-time high, and productive land inaccessible, workers are forced in cheap labour in intensive agriculture and as guest labourers in Israel. They instituted an extraction flow, from Palestine to Israel, of raw resources such as minerals, water and human labour force. In parallel, they generated a reverse flow where the processed materials were transformed into products and exported back to Palestine to be sold at high prices with heavy taxes to the population (King, 1989). Meanwhile, also the construction sector profits from high competition between independent labourers, with speculation profiting from increasing ground pressures.

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MA’AJEEN

Map showing Nablus and its surrounding villages in 1940 on scale 1:20.000.

Ma’ajeen used to be an area of major olive production.

Taken from: Visualizing Palestine, 2018.

Aereal photograph from the histric centre and its direct surroundings, 1918.

Taken from: PalestineRemebered, 2016

CENTRALITIES OF NABLUS NABLUS - PALIMPSEST OF CENTRALITIES ZAWATA VILAGE

MA’AJEEN

EIN BEIT AL-MA’ REFUGEE CAMP

KASBAH - THE OLD CENTRE

The city of Nablus has been rapidly expanding, creating different centralities.

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‘NEW COMMERCIAL DOWNTOWN’

A NEW INDUSTRIAL POLE

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NABLUS - MORPHOLOGY - CENTRE NABLUS HISTORIC CENTRE

KASBAH - THE OLD CENTRE The Kasbah, the old centre, hides an intricate mobility network of dense alleys and squares of distinct sizes. Their scope ranges over a wide degree from public to private.

Within the Kasbah, the souq refers to the main commercial streets; vibrant markets in compact inner-city streets.

Tareeq as well refers to main streets, but without significant commercial activity. Finally, the zuqaq comprises the culde-sac inner-alleys and small courts. Their perception is semi-private, as to serve solely the houses adjoining them. Generally, these alleyways are shielded off from the main streets. Noteworthy are the many inner-courtyards, clustering several houses and solely accessible through thresshold spaces.

This great array of public to private serves the strict notions of privacy and gender spaces, deeply embedded within the Arab culture. The markets and commercial streets, as well as shops and businesses are the fields of men. Coffee- and shisha-shops are the most obvious examples of these male places. Meanwhile, the rooftops and living rooms are the spaces where women meet, and it is the inner courtyards and alleys that offer spaces for sharing and incidental meetings.

A dense maze of alleys and inter-connected houses form two parallel mobility networks, which have developed as essential networks for resistance.

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The historical centre witnesses traces of the numerous successive eras of adjusting and transforming its past uses in order to meet contemporary needs. Creeping change due to socio-economic and demographic changes, as well as drastic events such as earthquakes and war, have left their marks on the historic tissue.

Nowadays, many dwellings of the historic centre stand vacated as many of the richer families move to the suburbs. What is left is an impoverished population lured by low rent prices. Vacancy, desinvestment, occasional strikes by the Israeli army and earthquakes have increasingly led to a deterioration of the inner-city.

Housing groups, such as here represented organised around an inner-courtyard, result from an added development over many generations, ever adjusting to changing necessities.

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‘THE COMMON(S)’

“In the dualism between public – owned and controlled by the State – and private – the property of a real or juridical person – the common became the excluded third.” (De Cauter) The common here represents the resources shared by a defined population. These resources and the populations that share them evolve over time. Today, in a context as Nablus, their disappearance warns against their necessity in the face of an increasingly critical social situation. When a population is aware of the existence and potential of these resources, they can become tools of resistance in order to be preserved as a civic good.

Destroy data In Nablus, the first places with this characteristic are the coffeeshops (cafès). Although these spaces are private, they have occupied, since their creation, a function of sharing spaces. For centuries, these spaces have been reserved for men, but in the recent years, these circles have evolved and opened to the feminine community. These spaces of social encounters and cultural performance have always generated enclaves of exchange that constellate the city.

In these places, the 'common' is not the space itself, but the resource to which it offers shared access, where it is practiced together and which it is maintain in our collective memory: the common knowledge.

Here, it is the exchange of knowledge, stories, experiences and multiple eruditions that take place as a common resource. This shared knowledge, to which everyone contributes through their own experience, is omnipresent in the coffeeshops of Nablus. These ‘artificial commons’, which are becoming more and more difficult to access in most cities, in particular, due to the privatisation of universities or 26

media censorship, are preserved as vital wealth. Each individual present in these cafès shares, critically, and contributes to the propagation of knowledge as a means of resistance, as a means of keeping alive the present and past lessons. These practices are opposed to the limitation of information carried out by Israeli restricted access to the Internet or practicing methods of dissuasion with researchers or journalists wishing to study the Palestinian territories.

Survival talks A second place of resistance where the ‘common’ takes a major role is the commercial streets. In the labyrinthine streets of the Kasbah, each dwelling has on its ground floor a shop opening onto the street. This environment is a socio-economic tool used by all inhabitants. Here, although the first function is to generate an economic activity, the main strength of this place is not about selling. Here, hundreds of merchants rub shoulders, selling mostly the same products. This does not cause them any competition problems because the strength of this place is the social networks continuously active. Every day the need to forge new friendships and maintain existing ones takes place, as an essential protection process in occupied territory.

In these places, the private space becomes public space, and the public becomes the support of the common.

The market becomes an engine for social life, it creates a civic realm with penetrable borders, where shops open completely and connect with the networks of alleys becoming integrally part of it.

Here, the strength lies in the capacity of this place to allow everyone to weave social bonds. These social networks become the common.

They allow everyone to find a loyal clientele, while ensuring others their own as well thanks to the small scale of the businesses. Finally, thanks to

these networks, strong solidarities are guaranteed between the inhabitants and users of these places who are there to help each other in everyday difficult situations.

Political Act Finally, in the context of occupied Nablus, another definition of the term ‘common’, in singular, may be interesting to question the importance of this notion. This refers to the Greek etymological roots of the term being ‘co-munus’, shared duty (Dardot & Laval, 2014). This other definition no longer refers to the resource, the essence shared by a group of humans, or to the nature of this shared resource, but to the activity, the action of these humans.

The practice they share and how they decide what they have in common.

In the Palestinian context, such a practice is seen during clashes where resistance fighters come together to oppose the occupation of their territory, the struggle for a redistribution of spaces, resources and control over their lives.

By coming together in this way, these groups of humans find what Jacques Rancière describes as a place where their voices can be heard. Through their action they make space speak.

Their actions, their resistance and performance redistributes the common use of such places to carry out political actions, exchanges and confusion (Rancière).

Unfortunately, confronted to repression such places of visibility, demonstration that could host these performances have become almost non-existent in Nablus. Their presence in the city ensures the maintenance of a dispute in the order, a contestation to obtain a guarantee access to coexistence and to the commons.

VILLAGE CLOTHING STORE spice store POULTRY BUTCHER

COFFEE STORE FOOD STAND

COFFEEBAR

CLOTHING STORE

Inner-city markets Ancestrally, the ground floor was reserved for animals. Over time however, the stables transformed into stores of several kinds. These typologies stay open to the street, reducing the transition between inside and outside.

This characteristic generates a major interaction between passers-by and vendors, whose social network is a major asset to survive the competition.

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The main souq, inner city market, is closely interlinked with the An-nasr mosque, the major mosque within the old centre. the complex brings together two pillars of daily life of the men.

ZAWATA VILLAGE

ZAWATA VILLAGE In the village, residential spaces and agriculture are strongly entangled, with all available area efficiently used.

As the city is associated with consumption, so is the village with production. Where the market developes in the streets of the old centre, so is the agricultural interwoven with the built form of the village. Open spaces grow fruit and olive trees and the ground floors of many dwellings house livestock. Surplus is shipped to the city and traded in one of its many markets.

More than in the city, life develops outdoors. Dwellings share common courtyards and gardens, and it is these, rather than the indoor, that are the gathering spaces of both women and men.

The villages have often been inhabited by the few families for generations. These strong familial bonds and a strong living and producing together is what constitutes the village a stronghold of resistance. Where the village misses the labyrinth of alleyways and hiding spots of the old city, it compensates with the strong reciprocity between the inhabitants.

The city comes to town Clearly, the village does not follow the same development logics as the city, nor is planning regulated by the city.

However, the villages closely located to Nablus, such as Zawata, are increasingly influenced by the advancing city. More and more pressure is exerted by the city to annex these village, willing to place them under the same legislation and feed on its resources.

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NABLUS - MORPHOLOGY - IND TISSUE

DWELLINGS SHARE COMMON COURTYARDS AND GARDENS, AND EXACLTY THESE ARE THE GATHERING SPACES OF BOTH WOMEN AND MEN.

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Zawata’s historic core witnesses its strong connection to the hilly landscape. Also the villages are prone to urban expansion, feeding on its productive land.

A VENDOR OF FRUITS AND VEGETABLES VISITS DAILY THE CAMP, FORMING A BRIEF MARKET HAPPENING.

EIN BEIT AL-MA’

REFUGEE CAMP EIN BEIT AL-MA’ Ein Beit Al-Ma’ refugee camp, often referred to as camp no. 1, was established in 1950, as the first refugee camp after the Nakba or disaster. In comparison with the other refugee camps, camp no 1. is the smallest in area, as well as the most dense.

In a context of prolonged emergency, tent camps developed into overly dense built forms. A continuous incremental growth, based on a ruling belief in temporality, has consumed all available space. Alleys of less than a metre wide and enormous occupancy rates are the result.

The refugees’ little integration in the city - even after more than half a decade - is perceived as a token of the Israeli occupation. Their status as refugee means living without a fixed land, stuck in temporality. This is strongly exemplified by the refugee families holding on to the keys of their ancestral homes - even symbolically - percevering the fight for the ‘right to return’. Valid solutions on the precarious living circumstances are scarce as long as the refugees remain locked in temporality.

A parallel circuit on the roofs circumvents the obstacles of the small streets. Just as in the kasbah, parallel mobility networks and narrow alleyways form a strong asset in the resilience of the camps. Even more so, the camp’s existence as a direct and tangible result of the Israeli presence render the refugee camps as strongholds and incubators in the resistance against the Israeli occupation.

Occasionally, armed stand offs between refugees and Israeli military take hold in the refugee camps.

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The imposed way of living together forced the adaption of the notion of privacy for those living in the refugee camp.

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The high density has generated the presence of many (informal) street traders at the camp entrances and along the main roads.

A NEW DOWNTOWN Within only a couple of decades, a new commercial downtown was born, just next to the souqs of the old centre. Several high-rises of offices and commercial ground floors are still in construction. These impressive developments materialize the transition from an agricultural to a service-, technology- and construction - oriented economy.

The hardened and open areas of the metropolitan part of the city offer an alternative to the overly dense and narrow streets of the centres. These wide streets and squares at the heart of the city may form the new centres of political exposure and visibility.

While land prices raise further to the highest of the city, scarce fertile land is further consumed. Nowadays, the proud new developments lie awkward alongside small agricultural plots, which stubbornly remain to grow crops.

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REAL ESTATE DEVELOPMENT PUSHES FORWARD AT THE EXPENSE OF SCARCE FERTILE LAND.

THE HARDENED AND OPEN AREAS OF THE METROPOLITAN PART OF THE CITY OFFERS SPACES NOWHERE ELSE IN THE CITY CAN BE FOUND. THESE OVERSIZED STREETS AND SQUARES MAY FORM THE NEW CENTRE OF POLITICAL EXPOSURE AND VISIBILITY FOR DEMONSTRATIONS OR OTHER EVENTS.

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High rise office towers, indoor shopping malls, billboards and signboards, virtines, wide streets and car traffic give a metropolitan alternative to the traditional markets of the Kasbah.

A NEW INDUSTRIAL POLE The strong market and a flourishing soap and olive oil facture, along with delicacies such as Kunafa, have attributed Nablus with a reputation of productive city. This came to an abrupt stop during the five-yearlong siege during the second intifada – the second uprising. Once the siege ended in 2005, most inner city factories had closed or were bombed. The siege triggered a decentralization of industrial activities to the outskirts of the city. Segregation of uses and sectors has become emblematic of future development in general.

Commercial, leisure, industrial, governmental and legislative sectors - to name a few - become ousted form suburban residential areas.

As such, municipal zoning envisions a new hub for crafts and industrial activities in the East periphery of the city. However, despite attempts from the municipality to encourage industrial development, most activities remain marginal such as car-oriented body shops and garages, as well as small metal industries.

At the same time, irrigated agriculture gets a strong grip of the interstitial spaces. In this sense, we currently find the co-habitation of all types of scales of activities.

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Municipal zoning envisions a new hub for crafts and industrial activities in the East periphery of the city. Public lands have been designated for craft initiatives and larger industries. The seperation of sectors increase car traffic from the East to the West of the city.

COUNTERFIGURES

to terrains vague. However, here and there these parcels remain in use.

On these small, but manageable parcels, irrigated agriculture is on the rise, with a production per area that exceeds rainfed agriculture by large. Especially because of this far greater productivity, these smaller land plots should not be underestimated. For example, ARIJ, The Applied Research Institute – Jerusalem, estimated on the basis of satellite images the total area of agricultural land in the Creeping along the valley, parcel per West Bank in 2010 at 2,150,800 parcel of the fertile land becomes dunum. A great difference with the built. Olive trees are uprooted, and estimation of 1.207.061 dunum by pieces of agricultural land degrade In just over a generation, the rapid expansion of the urban tissue of Nablus led to a the construction on agricultural lands. The most fertile land at the bottom of the valley becomes built first, as the land is easily accessible and managed. The development of the land happens ad hoc, based on the opportunity of land released to the real estate market. As a result, plots of built land alternate with tracts of open land.

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the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS) (ARIJ, 2015) due to different accounting by size of the productive parcels.

Accessibility to infrastructures, such as access roads, have a great influence on the development of land.

Topography and parcellization - and the heritance system - play a grand role. Major developments sprout at the lowest part of the valley, where major access roads catalyse ribbon development. However, also where no roads are yet laid out, pioneers share the cost of road constructions with the municipality.

Olive trees - 47.1% of total productive land* in the West Bank Harvest during: October, November, and December Nablus has a high production of olives among other Palestinian governates, especially purposed for olive oil and soap production.

Fruit trees - 9.9% of total productive land, 16% of total production* in the West Bank Harvest during: August, September, October, and November The governate of Nablus has a moderate production of fruit trees among other governates, with almonds (27%), citrus (14%), guava (3%) and dates (1%). & Forests Vegetables - 8.1% of total productive land, 65% of total production in the Westbank; Harvest during: February, March, April, May, June, and December The governate of Nablus represents little production of vegetables in respect to other Palestinian governates (among others Jenin, Tubas and Hebron) More and more farmers shift to vegetables’ production for to its higher profitability, and shorter production cycle & Field Crops - 17.4% of total productive land, 5% of total production in the West Bank Harvest during: January February, May, and June The governate of Nablus has a moderate production of field crops among other governates, with potatoes (25%), onions (13%) and wheat (11%) Grass land is crucial for the grazing of livestock. Mainly the hilltops further away from villages are used for livestock, mainly sheep and goats. 10% of agricultural holdings in the West Bank (85,885 in 2010) are livestock holdings. *Total productive land indicates all cultivated land by olive trees, fruit trees, vegetables and field crops of the West Bank.

The total production is the sum total of aformentioned crops.

Source: ARIJ, 2015

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MA’AJEEN

48

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ROOTED WITHIN THE PALESTINIAN CULTURE

Burning

Agricultural production is an important aspect of the Palestinian economy. The sector serves as a main source of income for many Palestinian households. However, the sector has been facing many challenges. ARIJ, the Applied Research Institute – Jerusalem, indicated three major challenges of the agricultural sector, namely (1) the Israeli occupation, (2) a shift towards different sectors such as services and construction, and (3) pressures from climate change (ARIJ, 2015).

If no longer cultivated, the land is more easily confiscated by Israeli authorities. As such, the destruction of olive trees has become a powerful act to expel Palestinians from their lands.

Poisoning

THREE RECURRENT WAYS OF OLIVE GROVE ATTACKS

Uprooting

Land confiscation and restriciton to enter the land, destruction of trees, control over resources such as water, and restrictions on accessibility to markets are custom Israeli practices targeting the Palestinian agricultural economy. As described in a report by ARIJ; “The last 10 years have witnessed the uprooting and destruction of 2.5 million trees by the Israeli occupying forces with a total value of $55.3 million, and the isolation of 184,899 dunum of agricultural land by the apartheid wall” (ARIJ, 2011, p. 9).

During harvest, olive groves have become spaces of gathering, where invested families aid on the fields. It is often during these short annual periods that access to the land is denied or settler attacks take place. Besides intimidation, the attacks result in the loss of a long-term economic investment.

Besides control over land, Israeli-imposed restrictions control water availability. While the Israelis control 82% of the Mountain Aquifer, Palestinians are restricted in pumping new water sources. The stark contrast of daily water usage per capita is a poignantly illustrated by a daily consummation of 70 litres per capita per day of Palestinians versus 300 and 369 litres of Israel and Israeli Settlements respectively (Bridges, 2016).

“It feels like bringing up a child, and then losing him. Those trees are our base and roots. We felt we were burying a family member. Every week the settlers try to come down to our land. Our men try to stop them and fight them” (Bowen, 2014)

We used to take the kids and the old people out with us to the harvest, but we don't anymore. We worry about the settlers coming and attacking us. (...)

The connection goes back to my father and grandfather. I feel so connected to this tree, it's as if it's part of my body and soul.

(Bowen, 2014)

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The olive tree has become a symbol of Palestinian identity.

For millennia, olive groves have been transmitted from generation to generation. Cultivating the olive tree has established itself not only as a productive and economic activity, but has rooted itself within the Palestinian culture.

The Ottoman land law of 1858 redefined the notion of property on the basis of five categories.One of these five categories, the so-called miri, stipulated that an individual can conditionally acquire the right over a state owned land by cultivating it and paying taxes. Cultivation became a means of land ownership. In the case of Nablus, at the peak of olive production between 1700 and 1900, olive oil was even used as monetary system (Doumani, 1995).

51

MA’AJEEN: AT THE FRINGES OF AN EXPLODING CITY

Ma’ajeen is located on the hillside of Mount Ebal, on the outskirts of Nablus. The ‘Ma’ajeen’ neighbours Ein Beit Al-Ma’ refugee camp in the East and the unfinished ring road in the West. Major developments, such as An-Najah University Hospital and Al-Quds University Campus, have profited from lower land prices remote from the centre.

The main surge in the development of Al Ma’ajeen was caused by the construction of the housing complex related to An-Najah University, over 30 years ago. A collective of employees of An-Najah would withhold a part of their monthly salary, to fund the construction of the residential complex. The complex of apartment buildings piecemeal enlarged up to eleven buildings today.

Arguably, the actual kickstart entailed the lay-out of water, electricity and road infrastructures, all initiated by the collective. For the latter, the collective bargained a funding from the municipality up to 50 per cent, a practice still common nowadays. The laid-out infrastructures would facilitate new developments to settle in the Ma’ajeen area.

Over the years to come, the collective would fund a mosque, a room for events, and a minimarket, principally serving the complex, but open to the wider surroundings.

Thirty years later, with a revenue from the inhabitants and an income from renting out its facilities, two new projects are currently in the pipeline, namely a library above the mosque and a playground. In the outskirts of Nablus - if not for the entire city - municipal funding for qualitative space is limited, if existing. By opening up their facilities to the surroundings, collectives such as the one from AnNajah take on the development of collective space on themselves.

52

AL-QUDS UNIVERSITY ‘PORTUGAL BUILDINGS’

AN-NAJAH RESIDENTIAL COMPLEX

AN-NAJAH UNIVERSITY HOSPITAL.

THE ORIGINAL LAY-OUT OF THE ROAD WAS FUNDED PARTIALLY BY THE AN-NAJAH COLLECTIVE, PARTIALLY BY THE MUNICIPALITY (50/50).

EIN BEIT AL-MA’ REFUGEE CAMP

53

‘PORTUGAL BUILDINGS’ AL-QUDS UNIVERSITY

Photograph taken from Mount Gerizim, giving an idea of the expanse of the Ma’ajeen ‘neighbourhood’.

AN-NAJAH RESIDENTIA

AL COMPLEX

AN-NAJAH UNIVERSITY HOSPITAL.

EIN BEIT AL-MA’ REFUGEE CAMP

SAMA’ NABLUS PARK VIEWPOINT

LIVING APART TOGETHER AL-BIRWA VILLAGE

ZAWATA VILLAGE

JENIN ACRE

HAIFA

AL QUDS

AL-BIRWA VILLAGE

BEIT IBA VILLAGE

TULKARM

MA’AJEEN

BEIT WAZAN VILLAGE

NABLUS TEL AVIV

JAFFA

BURQA VILLAGE

RAFIDIYA

RAMALLAH JERICHO

BETHLEHEM HEBRON

Ma’ajeen collects people from a great array of origins and backgrounds. These people of different statuses and with different financial means form micro-communities on themselves, some more apparent than others - think of the housing complex accommodating solely for employees of An-Najah University; or the people with refugee status and UNRWA workers seduced by the proximity of the Ein Beit Al-Ma’ camp. Other such ‘groups’ include villagers, students, young adults just moved out their parents’ house, and families looking for an own place to settle. All these sub-clusters form distinctive social patterns, however all – in various degrees - making use of the same facilities.

This diagram is based on 14 surveys conducted in Ma’ajeen

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TELL VILLAGE

EIN BEIT AL-MA’ REFUGEE CAMP

COMMERCIAL DOWNTOWN

OLD ‘ASKAR REFUGEE CAMP

CASBAH HISTORIC CENTRE

‘ASKAR REFUGEE CAMP BALATA REFUGEE CAMP

57

The development at the outskirts of the city enhance car dependency. Roads are oversized, while soft mobilities are suppressed. Due to lack of qualitative open space, children play on the road.

TRACING BACK Al Ma'ajeen has developed in several waves over the last 30 years.

AL-QUDS UNIVERSITY

‘PORTUGA

1997 The development of Ma’ajeen - before short a virgin landscape of olive tree-terraces - kick-started with a residential building complex paid by a collective of employees of AnNajah University. The lay out of road-, water- and electricity infrastructures were funded partially by the collective and partially by the municipality, a collaboration that would continue for the development of new land.

2007 After the second Intifada, Ma’ajeen experienced a significant urban densification due to new policies and legislation supporting urban expansion. Building became a safer way to invest. Major public projects complemented the urban development.

2017 The new neighbourhoods transform too fast for the legislative planning body to keep up. Consequently, the new infrastructures progress organically, connecting newly carved pieces of land for construction.

60

A CO

AL BUILDINGS’

AN-NAJAH UNIVERSITY HOSPITAL.

AN-NAJAH RESIDENTIAL OMPLEX

EIN BEIT AL-MA’ REFUGEE CAMP

61

MISCELLANEOUS STRUCTURES OF SINGLE-USE RESIDENTIAL DEVELOPMENT

AL-QUDS UNIVERSITY

‘PORTUGA

20 FAMILIES 100 PEOPLE

High-rise apartment buildings that can reach up to fourteen floors aim to optimize the occupation potential. Per floor several spacious apartments - generally up to 140m² - accommodate entire families.

A CO

Villas have a large footprint in relation to the occupancy potential.

These luxurious and spacious houses are generally the first to settle at unbuilt land. Once the development has increased, it is only the affluent class that can stomach the high land prices.

2 FAMILIES 8 PEOPLE

12 FAMILIES 60 PEOPLE

Apartments buildings of four to seven floors make the majority of buildings in Ma’ajeen. The number of floors allow for spacious apartments for the collective of families to cope with the high land prices, Municipal zoning demands new constructions to meet a similar footprint-occupation ratio.

3 FAMILIES 30 PEOPLE

The permanent-temporal status of the refugees does not allow longterm planning. Organically developed from a camp site, the footprint of each building is reduced to the bare minimum, resulting in small alleys and small living space. Densification has been manifested in lack of open space rather than number of floors.

62

AL BUILDINGS’

AN-NAJAH UNIVERSITY HOSPITAL.

AN-NAJAH RESIDENTIAL OMPLEX

EIN BEIT AL-MA’ REFUGEE CAMP

63

LOW DENSITY & LEAPFROG DEVELOPMENT Ma’ajeen shows a remarkable variety in occupation rates.

The close mixture of several typologies with diverse occupation rates result in a varied appropriation of available space by people of different backgrounds and of different financial means. Families living in extreme proximity - up to fifty inhabitants per house in the refugee camp (Jaber, 2017) - neighbour families in monumental mansions.

The construction as a mode of investment and safeguarding money consolidates the ground rather than finding the immediate occupancy rate. The rapid construction rate seems to outrun its occupancy, leaving a grand amount of buildings vacant. Less common, but on a similar notion, is the buying of neighbouring land to ensure privacy.

These different occupancies lead to paradoxal situations where the population residing in the small refugee camps can equal the population of the sprawled tissue of Ma’ajeen. Clearly, such low-density development enhances car-dependency.

OCCUPANCY RATE (PEOPLE PER AREA) VACANT

VILLA VACANT APARTMENT BUILDING

FAMILY APARTMENT BUILDING

REFUGEE DWELLING HIGH OCCUPATION RATE 64

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CUT & FILL The man-made interventions on the landscape emanate a hybrid artificial and natural environment. The shift from an agricultural landscape - where the natural is inevitably included - to a residential environment - where the natural is neglected or even oppossed - has profoundly disturbed natural processes and entails environmental degradation.

Strong human alterations remodel the landscape towards a more hospitable living environment. Modifications on the topography result in a terraced system of hardened platforms and retaining walls. The former olive terraces lie abandoned.

These retaining walls and hardened platforms reguide and block water flows, increase water speeds and enhance erosion of fertile top soil.

Vice versa does the topography have a major influence on the way of construction.

Depending on the inclination and the soil stability, the number of floors is respective to the investment. The large size allows to connect to two streets, one upper and one down from the hillside.

The retaining walls create residual spaces between the walls and the building. Although crucial for ventilation and light, the floorplane are often unused and collect waste.

Excavated soil is dumped in landfills at the bundaries of the city. However, in a context of little availability of fertile ground, this soil could be better destined.

66

67

The rapid construction is modelled by several actors and mechanisms, and brings together people of different backgrounds, with different financial means and of various life styles. This great variety translates in a built environment that is a coming together of different typologies, occupancies and densities. The man-made landscape of cut and fill is one of consumption, and entails nature degradation and erosion.

PARALLEL ECOLOGIES

The remaining productive spaces have taken on a social and leisure function. Meanwhile, many gardens - a direct result of surplus of space - have taken on a productive function.

The remaining olive fields have taken on a social function. Where usually the olive groves gather families working to harvest in an annual event, the terraces see now this social role intensified. Forming an escape from the pressing heat and the hustle and bustle of the built forms – in extremis the historic centre and the refugee camps - the olive fields offer repose in the protection against the sun of the olive trees. Objects such as mattresses, blankets, even chairs and sofas point to the intensive use of these green spaces.

TO DO SHORT TEXT Some gardens serve no more than an aesthetic addition to the building, or shield passers-by from looking in. However, in many cases, also the gardens have taken on a productive function. Fruit trees, such as almonds, citrus, vegetables and crops for individual use offer a nonnegligible addition to the main agricultural production as discussed above. Field research showed some families storing rainwater with whatever means possible to reuse as irrigation for the plants.

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PRIVACY BARRIER HEDGES AND TREES FORM A VISUAL BARRIER TO NCREASE PRIVACY.

RE-STRUCTURING

PRODUCTIVE

ROOT STRUCTURE AND PROPERTIES CAN BE USED TO RESTRUCTURE SOILS WHERE GARDENS BUILT ON STEEP SLOPES ARE PRONE TO EROSION.

PRODUCTIVE GARDENS WITH FRUIT TREES AND CROPS FORM A NON-NEGLIGIBLE ADDITION TO THE MAIN AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTION

IMAGE / STATUS LUSH PLANTS, NOT SELFOM EXOTIC SPECIES AND RICH GARDEN DESIGN FORM AN AESTHETIC ADDITION TO THE BUILDING. SIMILTANEOUSLY, THEY DEMONSTRATE A SOCIAL STATUS. AFTER ALL, THESE GARDEN ARE OFTEN FOR THE RICHER LAYER OF THE POPULATION.

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CONSOLIDATED SUB-CULTURES

AL QUDS UNIVERSITY

Tracing the usage of the public spaces – by surveying pedestrians for instance - reveals a strong fragmentation of the so-called Ma’ajeen neighbourhood into several dense, self-providing hubs, connected by no more than hard infrastructures.

SOCIAL HOUSING COMPLEX

MOSQUE MM KG

Image: Representation of the the quantity of pedestrians

FRUIT

The micro-communities of several groups of people of different origins and backgrounds consolidate in the built tissue. The denser built cores collect facilities and services and as such form the embryonic germs of a cityness. Mostly, each core becomes self-providing with its own basic facilities of daily living, within the comfort of walking and simply meeting supply and demand; the own mosque, school, improvised football field, minimarket, kindergarten et cetera. As such, Ma’ajeen can be regarded as an accumulation of hubs, linked through infrastructures and mobility, but in a way very distinctive on themselves.

Roads are laid out along the topography, and the hubs grow alongside these roads, Ma’ajeen is layered accordingly. Up Ma’ajeen has little to do with down Ma’ajeen and vice versa and this shows in both the road network as pedestrian tracing. Only the young generation breaks this pattern, using-creating more direct elephant paths rather than the road infrastructure.

MM - minimarket

PHAR - pharmacy

SM - supermarket

LIBR - library

CAF - cafè

OFF - office supplies

EAT - foodstand

PR - party room

REST - restaurant

CL PR

MM

GAR

Children walking back from school at the main street.

BUILD - construction store

FRUIT - fruit store

FURN - furniture shop

MEAT - butcher shop

AS - appliance store

HD - hairdresser

TAXI - private taxi hub

KG - kindergarten

METAL - metalworker

CL - clothing store

GAR - garage / body shop

BAK - bakery

GAS - gas vendor

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Children playing football in the street.

TO DO COLOUR FACILITIES & NAME CLUSTERS (ASK AMIR)

AN-NAJAH UNIVERSITY HOSPITAL

SOCIAL HOUSING COMPLEX

SM

MM

PHAR

GAR GAS

SCHOOL

MM FURN GAR CL ACC

MM LIBR

GAR PR

PLAYGARDEN

EAT

SCHOOL MOSQUEGAR

MM

EAT MM

MM

WM

CAF BUILD HD MM EAT

GAR FURN

MOSQUE

MM

CAF

GAR

SCHOOL

MM

PARK

MM TAXI

OFF MEAT

MOSQUE

CAF

TAXI CL

MM MM

GAS

MM

SCHOOL

METAL

CA

REST MM

SCHOOL

SCHOOL

M CAF

GAR

GAR

CD

CD

MEAT GAR GAR GAS

MM MM MEAT

MM MM

FRUIT

MM BAK FRUIT

GAR METAL GAR

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MM

CL

INTERTWINED ECOLOGIES The coexistence of the rapidly expanding city with the left-overs of a former agricultural landscape results in a temporary hybrid of the urban and the rural. Where both worlds meet, productive new opportunities can be discovered.

AL QUDS UNIVERSITY

SOCIAL HOUSING COMPLEX

MOSQUE Image: Representation of the quantity of car passage The main roads organised along the topography divide Ma’ajeen roughly in an upper and lower ‘city’. This division is all the more accentuated by two different shared taxi networks and little direct connection by roads, the many elephant paths as silent witnesses of the latter. A green open figure crosses and scatters the ‘neighbourhood’.

Shopkeeper keeping an eye on the street.

Image: tracing the movement space of a shepherd

This open green space carries left-overs from a previous time, not yet ousted by the advancing urban tissue. The terraced hills grown with olive trees provide shadow for people looking for rest and playing children, a shepherd with his flock crosses regularly the terrain grateful of the kept connections between pieces of land.

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People on the balcony observing the street.

AN-NAJAH UNIVERSITY HOSPITAL

SOCIAL HOUSING COMPLEX

PLAYGARDEN

SCHOOL MOSQUE

MOSQUE

SCHOOL

SCHOOL

SCHOOL

MOSQUE SCHOOL EIN BEIT AL-MA’ REFUGEE CAMP

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A shepherd guides his livestock from parcel to parcel of yet undeveloped land. Rapid suburban development abundantly consumes fertile productive land and prompts a fragmented landscape. However, for the time-being, a temporary hybrid of the urban and the rural coexist in a fragile equilibrium. Where both worlds meet, tensions arise, but also new potentials show.

3 INHABITAN OLDER COUP UNEMPLOYE

2 FAMILIES 8 PEOPLE

3 FAMILIES, 3 FLOORS BOUGHT THE PROPERTY WITH SHARED FUNDING BETWEEN THREE BROTHERS. SEWING WORKSHOP ON THE GROUND FLOOR, WHICH SERVES A GATHERING SPACE. CONSTRUCTING NEIGHBOURING APARTMENT BUILDING OF 3 FLOORS, WITH IN BASEMENT KANAFA FACTORY.

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NTS, 1 FLOORS PLE AND YOUNG DAUGHTER ED DUE TO HANDICAP AFTER ACCIDENT

3 INHABITANTS, 3 FLOORS WORKS AS SECURITY OFFICER, CULTIVATES PRODUCTIVE GARDEN AND STORES RAINWATER.

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2 FLOORS, 4 INHABITANTS, HYDROLOGIC ENGINEER, WORKED IN GERMANY, DOUBTING TO BUY ADJACENT LAND TO ENSURE PRIVACY.

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12 FAMILIES 60 PEOPLE

3 FLOORS 15 INHABITANTS - 2 FAMILIES WITH 2 WIVES (UNDER SAME ROOF) - GRANDCHILDREN SON STUDIES MEDICIN AT BIRZEIT UNIVERSITY. HE GOES BACK AND FORTH EVERY DAY. HE CULTIVATES PRODUCTIVE GARDEN AND STORES RAINWATER TO ENSURE FOOD AND WATER SECURITY. HE REFERS TO HUNGER AND WATER SCARCITY DURING SECOND INTIFADA.

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SOCIAL STRUCTURES Social unit The family in Palestinian society represents the basic social unit. Traditionally organized in a patriarchal and hierarchical form, it often determines an individual's social status and membership of a certain subculture.

Social environment Strongly linked to the economic development of its members, the family is also an important economic unit. The commercial activities, whether they are a trade, a cultivated land or an industry, are mainly issued and maintained as family business.

This condition provides some resilience to adapt when geopolitical conditions or demands vary.

The interdependence of the family unit as an economic unit also influences the organization of social life. The man, responsible for ensuring the economic prosperity of the household spends an important part of his day outside the home, and develops a social network more related to his professional activity. Beside that, the woman remains in the housing environment and establishes social connections by gathering with other women from the neighbourhood.

CAMILIA WOMAN, 55 Camilia Women, 55 years old

07h30

07h00

WORK

15h30

The other side of transition

0

07h30

15h30

Today, however, the sociological transformations of Palestinian society also have a great influence on the internal family organization. Influenced by a notion of western modernization combined with a real economic need, women gain access to education and become employed (Barakat, 1987).

TAXI

TAXI

16h00

This change, while bringing many positive aspects, has a direct influence on the social structure of families. This absence from the family nucleus loses an important social bond, hitherto maintained by women, with people from the neighbourhood.

16h30

A modern women isolation

18h00

In addition, this wave of modernisation also has an influence on the living space of families and their social space. New neighbourhoods like Maajeen are evidence variety’s loss of meeting spaces.

1

In this sense, the new family housing models, based on western typologies, are losing the usual diversity of traditional Arab spaces with a gradual sequence between the private and public spheres.

2

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SALEK MAN, 29

06h00

03h00

Salek Men, 29 years old

TAXI

06h00 WORK

08h00

WORK

WORK

18h00

16h30

TAXI

21h00 MOSQUE

18h30

21h30

18h00

RAFYDIA

CAFE

21h00

23h00

23h30

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Wallah, Women, 26 years old

WALLAH, WOMAN, 26

If this loss has a minimal influence on men’s social life present in public places such as cafés, shops, streets... - it contributes to a loss of women’s social dynamics outside of work. Usually the use of these semi-public spaces allowed women to establish and maintain their social networks.

This is illustrated by the current disuse of roofs, which until then was an important feminine social space. This transition contributes to generating a new form of isolation of the woman in her habitat (Mokarram, 2014).

Legitimacy under threat In Nablus, this relationship between living space and social ties is also undergoing a period of transformation in the use and symbolism of the public and private sphere.

In this context of occupation and living under daily struggles, the Israelis are carrying out actions aimed at delegitimizing the Palestinian public and private space. Intimidation in private spaces perceived as strategic or potentially harbouring resistance fighters drives the Israeli military to destroy, invade or occupy homes in the name of “security measures” (Falah & Flint, 2004).

On the other hand, scenes of violence or the destruction of public places - schools, museums, mosques... - contribute to a destruction campaign of the Palestinian heritage but also a denial of a viable state (Falah & Flint, 2004).

These multiple mechanisms of oppression against private and public spaces have led to a weakening the distinction between them, making them permeable, contributing to an omnipresent feeling of insecurity and exposition.

Finally, these interventions oppose the emergence of new public spaces where political actions can take place and where their voices can be heard.

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13h00

15h00

18h00

20h00

SAMEH, Sameh MAN, 16 Men, 09h00

07h00

WALK

09h30

16 years old

07h15

07h30

SCHOOL

07h30

12h00

13h00

13h30

TAXI

15h30

CAFE

RAFYDIA

18h00

21h00

23h00

23h30

05h00

85

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CONCLUSION

A shift in capital and valorisation of the landscape have ultimately resulted in a rapid expansion of the built tissue to the expense of agricultural land. A tenacious market, vigorous speculation, complex land parcellation and a lack of adequate planning on their turn have contributed in an adhoc construction of the built environment, more and more visible in a miscellaneous aggregation of different building typologies and occupancies, vacant plots and oversized infrastructures.

Just as the built, the social tissue is a greatly varied gathering-together of people from different backgrounds and financial weights. ‘The Ma’ajeen’ is lesser a neighbourhood than an accumulation of clusters, inhabited by people who identify more with their sub-cultures and status, than being part of this new ‘neighbourhood’.

Developed in no more than a generation, the nebular tissue witnesses traces of the former productive landscape and still embodies the quality of their productive features. Although fragmented and often deteriorated, the pieces of unbuilt land hold olive and crop and host social groups originally affiliated to cultivating the land or herding livestock. The expanding city result in a – possibly temporary - hybrid of the urban and the rural. Clearly, the non-committal expansion ignores or even opposes nature and fragments of the landscape, resulting in increased water speeds, flooding, erosion and land degradation to name a few.

However, by exploring specific potentials of the landscapes and combining specific features of both ‘worlds’ – the old and the new – design can attribute to the making of a more integrated landscape.

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AN URBAN DESIGN EXPLORATION IN AN EMERGING NEIGHBOURHOOD: MA’AJEEN, NABLUS 88

89

LAYERED LANDSCAPES An increasing car-dependancy shouts the urgent need to rethink modes of transit. The landscape has been modified to serve an infrastructural web. Modifying the llatter can become the base to rethink different modes of mobility.

The two main streets, respectively at the lower and the upper part of the ‘neighbourhood’, remain car-based. They host the shared taxi system from and to the city. These main roads develop an urban character, with the development of commerce, leisure and possibly craft industries.

Downsizing the surplus of the inbetween roads liberates elongated platforms from its former car-oriented use. These platforms generate horizontal corridors that aim to support soft mobility and to reconnect ecologies, both on a local as on a metropolitan scale.

Smaller and steep roads that used to connect the parallel roads, remain to connect the different platforms of different uses. By redefining the horizontal, it interrogates the function of these vertical steets.

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91

New roads are laid out ad hoc and incrementally according to the needs of inhabitants and new development. Accumulation of small initiatives result in an overload of road infrastructures, artificializing and expanding the concrete web.

GREEN COUNTERFIGURES Today, the remaining open spaces and clusters of olive trees form a green figure that hosts different ecologies and social groups. On the other hand does it divide.

The former productive landscape lies scattered. However, the grand quantity of the open spaces offers rare potential. In this regard, Ma’ajeen is a one of a kind in Nablus that still carries the natural capital. Its quantity forms a loaded counterfigure to the expanding urban tissue.

Looking at the productive entity of the green structures, a fragmented figure appears. What used to be covered by extensive olive groves, now only few clusters of olive trees persist.

The majority of olive trees stand desolate. The remaining productive patches are a counterfigure to the quantity of the open green space.

The pine trees are the left-over of former extensive forests.

Its specific quality preserved this ecological heritage.

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95

THE GREEN FIGURE IS PIECEMEAL DISAPPEARING. BUT IT HAS STILL ENOUGH POTENTIAL TO ACT. BY REACTIVATING ITS PRODUCTIVITY AND OFFERING USAGE TO THE OPEN NATURAL SPACES, THE GREEN FIGURE CAN PROTECT AND BE PROTECTED.

EMBRYONIC GERMS OF SPATIAL DEVELOPMENT

Commercial embryonic germs form along the main roads, over time developing in centralities that profit of the public character of the transit of the road. Nevertheless, facilities within a certain degree of isolation, can become centralities on themselves.

Ma’ajeen is an uttermost suburban residential neighbourhood and this monofunctionality has become envisioned as such, to the point of legislation.

A neighbourhood that is ousting its centralities drive the mimimum provisional spaces to willy-nilly become local centralities.

The expansion of these centralities enforce their central position.

People attracted from similar sub-cultures settle and develop connections to these centralities. Over time, they become in charge to define the new access road and by doing so, they naturally enforce the links with existing centralities.

The increasing influence of the centralities may become the drivers of the road netwerks to develop a diversity of functions and publicness.

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INTERSTITIAL NETWORKS

Implementing a system of squares that is an interpretation of the cull-de sac alleys and courts or Zuqaq of the historic centre. Recycling the surfaces of the former roads serve a redefinition of the social spaces.

The continuum spaces between the public and the private allow to diversify the users to reinforce the local social networks.

Transforming the notion of centralities and its mechanisms of expansion from an ad hoc, incremental development, to a designed network of squares, in which new developments can be plugged in.

The building of these interstitial spaces rather than the buildings, would drive towards densification instead of urban expansion.

100

101

102

The complementarity of the open spaces with built spaces forms a system of relationships at different scales. These new squares emerge a social space that allows inhabitants of the same centrality to appropriate these interstitial spaces.

103

development of the built tissue generates a constellation of platforms. However, the ad hoc development results in interstitial waste spaces. the proposed interstitial square system can offer an hierarchical structure that contributes to the positioning of new developments as well as to the creation of common spaces.

RESTRUCTURING WADIS

The wadi - ephemeral streams - collect rainwater, and are the places of most enhanced erosion. The wadi are perceived as the natural common, collecting the surplus of the water run-off.

Design explorations in this context aim to rethink resource allocation, by exploring specific potentials of the landscape.

The creation of underground dam systems store water for productive vegetations and consolidation of the ground.

In a second approach, reforestation of productive fruit trees and olive trees come to densify the green figure.

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107

108

The valorisation of water resource makes possible to trigger an awareness process of the valuable resource. Inspiring by the old reservoirs city systems, the damns allows this natural flows to become available for the inhabitants.

This underground network establishes at the surface a planted canopy. This green densification offers new vegetal veins to the districts replacing the old artificial roads.

109

SEQUENCE OF HAPPENINGS The vertical streets are confronting topography. The connecting systems provide a sequence of successive platforms of different height, sizes and textures. The platforms can host reed-bed systems filtering grey water, cultivation, or serve leisure or social activities.

110

111

112

The productivity of these sequential spaces can vary according to their context and the investment that the inhabitants want to produce there. These places can become a sequence of thresholds that rediscover and the notion of transition from the natural to the urban, from public space to the private housing.

113

THE MAIN WADI REMAINS UNBUILT. HOWEVER, THE LAND FACES DEGRADATION DUE TO DUMPING OF CONSTRUCTION AND HOUSEHOLD WASTE.

SUTURING STRUCTURES

Structures inserted into the landscape offer indespensible links to an alternative soft-mobility. The implementation of the infrastructures come to combine a reuse of the waste spaces inbetween the buildings and an a bridging of height difference of the hillside.

The structure and the building to which it connects influence one another in a potential change in uses and quality.

The structure of the most common typology can easily be extended in number of floors.

Potentially doubled number of floors in regard to the original building.

Empty structures or buildings in construction can potentially be entirely rethought.

Villas have little potential to connect and thus are left alone.

Dense buildings can get added value through connection to the structures.

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117

118

MARKET The densification of the existing fabric is intended to re-establish qualities that are being lost in these emerging neighbourhoods. The suturing infrastructures provide a new typological space that re-insert productive life into the monofunctional housing neighbourhood. The erasure of the corridors offers a continuous space where each trade can develop its activities by collaborating with the whole. The non-existent of limits re-establishes this intertwining of the commercial place into the public realm. The infrastructure becomes a layered vertical bazar connecting household rooftops and public platforms.

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120

EDU The presence in the neighbourhood of a university and a primary school near the new infrastructures provide the possibility to imagine a complementary use of these structures. By offering a diversity of spaces, by deconstructing the grid, the infrastructure can host a variation of educational programs, entirely public, becoming places of exchange perpetuating the oral tradition of transmitting knowledge.

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122

VERTICAL FARMING The typology generated by these new infrastructures can be optimized by a vertical farm function. The need to ensure food security and the reduction of food transportation allows rethinking this structure as places of productivity via a shared system. Vertical farming methods do not necessarily require the presence of advanced technologies, simply by their vertical development, relationships between vegetal waste, wastewater recycling and food production can form an efficient and most cost-effective system.

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CONCLUSION

Design explorations questions the notion of Ma’ajeen as a neighbourhood and pulls it out of its self-evidence. Even more, Ma’ajeen is increasingly presented as a non-neighbourhood. Rather, it is a coming together of people of different backgrounds and sub-cultures.

In a first stage, these multiple identities are expressed into the development of distinctive typologies and occupancies in the ‘neighbourhood’. Interestingly, these series of multiple heritages cluster into centralities and territorialities. Ma’ajeen is as a coming together of these intertwining co-existences on a limited.

Through these integration processes, these sub-communities are strengthened while disconnecting from each other. However, by having to share limited area and proximity - Ma’ajeen becomes a living apart together. Today Ma’ajeen can be understood as a set of expanding centralities.

In this context, the design intervenes by questioning these relationships and identifying them as opportunities. The external position of the researchers has made possible to establish a more integral understanding. The not-belonging to any of these entities became an asset to propose a possible mutual base where new relations can be built.

To achieve that, the design initially aims produce a densification process as an alternative to the current urban expansion. This process of densification allows strengthening these subcommunities while safeguarding the remaining natural spaces.

In a second approach, design exploration revisits the co-presence of all these internal mechanisms.

At the neighbourhood scale, the design proposal reconsiders, re-questions and redefines the relationships between these different natural, social and urban landscapes.

These multiple design interventions offer the opportunity to provide a new perspective for Ma’ajeen population towards a more integrated coexistence. By introducing alternative movement systems, re-allocating resources and strengthening social ties, Al Ma’ajeen’s inhabitants can reactivate their existing resources and give meaning to the need of sharing a neighbourhood. The living apart reinforcing the living together, where each entity contributes to the production these integrated landscapes.

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