Urban Development Congress “SMART CITY”

Last week, Kharkov hosted the event - Urban Development Congress "SMART CITY" to discuss issues relating urban infrastructure, improving the quality of life and making Kharkov more attractive to foreign investors.

Did anyone get a chance to attend this event? Or hear about it at all?

life is like a play

I thought this is interesting...
http://vimeo.com/9553622

Urban voids. 1. Courtyards

During the post revolution period, the courtyard spaces were planned by the state. They complied the needs of all three generations, but mainly it was the space for children's leisure. The reason of this primary function was the lack of accommodation, that excluded the possibility of active loud games at home.

The standart sovietian courtyard consisted of:
- the playground for preschool age
- the playground for school age
- sport zone (usually volleyball, football and skating rink)
- small public garden (the most distant from sport zone) – for the elder generation.

Often on the first floors were located the different creative studios for children (theatre, art, handicraft)

Since that time the improvement of housing conditions were not considerable. That’s why the preservation of the children’s leisure function is very important. First of all it is necessary for the oppressed class of our population.

Of course, the courtyard was the place for the elder generation – the benches near the doorways, the tables for dominoes, the small public garden.

Also the courtyard was the place for the ”adult” household activities (the sheds for keeping different equipment, workshops, cellars, clothes drying)
In contemporary city structure and lifestyle, of course, the last function faded.

The handicraft primitive small structures are the standard for our courtyards, but now it indured the class changes.

The stalls, which appeared in courtyards as a result of appearance of free economic and impoverishment of state stores, are the stable demonstration of small private business and are popular among the inhabitans because of convenient location and round-the-clock operating mode. That’s why they continue to fill the courtyard spaces.

The parkings and garages in the courtyards is the unavoidable disaster.
This new function in the space, that was not adopted for it, needs our (and your) answer.

At the same time the courtyard spaces still belong to the city. During the last time it’s fashionable to renovate the playgrounds and pedestrian ways in the election period. All the rest time it is the problem of the citizens.

The reason is in the change of minds after the collapse of the USSR. The attitude of people to this public space was more thrifty, it was a public zone, that provided the possibility of neighborhood relationships, everyone was taking care of it’s safety and sociality.
Now this traditions are preserved only in periphery industrial regions.
In the inner ring the courtyards are the spotty-private territories, that provide comfort for the prosperous class, but displeasures the middle class.
 

Liberation Squares

Columbia's own Vishaan Chakrabarti recently published a fascinating piece on public space in Urban Omnibus; check it out here.

From the article:

"And perhaps this is the primary lesson about public space. That beyond our day-to-day needs for it be clean, amenable, and safe, it also has to allow for the expression of instability, for the expression of a world ever in need of change. Change is the essence of urbanity, and Egypt has reminded us that urban space can drive us towards a changed, perhaps unstable, but in the end better world."

What is wrong with this picture?

Ksenia, Arina, Vitaliy, Nastia this is a call to action! The urban design team in New York has started to identify elements of 'free space' in Kharkov that simply do not belong. These elements are often private uses of a public 'place'. (e.g. garages for cars in a courtyard, informal market vendors outside the metro stop, taxi on the sidewalk)

But we do not want to stop with these simple accusations...flagging, and finger pointing. These intruders of  'free space' are not the problem facing the public places of Kharkov, they are simply the indicators of a problem. Removing the taxi cab from the sidewalk will not correct the flaws in civic engagement or presence of rule and law that have allowed the taxi cab to park there un challenged.

Unless the people of Kharkov say that it is wrong for a car to park in the middle of a public sidewalk, than it is not wrong.

We are asking for those in Kharkov to contribute to this effort. What are the problems you see on the street, in the park? Who are the unwelcome inhabitants of your free and public places? If you can help us assemble these seemingly small problems we can present the symptoms of the bigger political, economic, and societal crisis that permits these medieval acts of occupation.

Please add your thoughts as a comment to this post...

Redefining the ideology of public space

To understand what public means in the Western world/United States, let us look at the definitions of "public" provided in the American Heritage Dictionary:

pub-lic

[puhb-lik]

-adjective

1. of, pertaining to, or affecting a population or a community as a whole: public funds; a public nuisance.

2. done, made, acting, etc., for the community as a whole: public prosecution.

3. open to all persons: a public meeting.

4. of, pertaining to, or being in the service of a community ornation, especially as a government officer: public official.

5. maintained at the public expense and under public control: a public library; a public road.

6. generally known: The fact became public.

7. familiar to the public; prominent: public figures.

8. open to the view of all; existing or conducted in public: a public dispute.

9. pertaining or devoted to the welfare or well-being of the community: public spirit.

10. of or pertaining to all humankind; universal.

Then, private would be that which is "not" public. However, "one is hard pressed to find a direct translation of the term public space in Russian where it does not carry the same weight and meaning as in many of the Western languages. In Soviet planning literature, this term was rarely used since no distinction was made between private and public open spaces. After all, all urban land was owned by the state and thus, all open spaces in the Soviet city were considered public by default. Russuan planners used instead the terms 'free space' or 'open space' to designate urban areas wihtout buildings. The term 'social space' was also in use, its meaning focused on the importance of these areas in the urban structure as centers of social life." (The post-socialist city by Kiri Stanilov)

In its post-socialist transformation, Kharkov has seen a major shift in the public/private (as we understand in the US) space usage and its alignment. With market liberalism inundating the city, privatization of public space has given rise to spontaneous urbanization, shrinking public spaces and various informal economies sprouting in the public spaces.

Walking along the streets and through the courtyards in the residential areas in the inner ring of Kharkov and being able to freely access these courtyards makes one wonder where the boundary of private and public lies. Seeing many small free-standing shacks (serving as mini-convenience stores) emerge on sidewalks or inside the courtyards brings up issue of public/private once again. Is something public because it belongs to everybody? Or is it because it belongs to nobody? Why does the person who owns and runs the shack choose that particular spot? Is it a matter of maintenance?

Kharkov still has a strong nostalgia for the Soviet past. How does a Kharkovian citizen for whom the public/private concept has been so blurred adapt to the changes in the way he lives and works in the city? How does Kharkov itself move forward - socially, economically and culturally? Perhaps it is about redefining the ideology of public space. If so, what then is "public" and what is "private" and why does it matter? How does the appropriation of public spaces alter the attitude towards ownership, citizenship, trust amongst the Kharkovians, the state and the civic?

These are some of the questions that we ask as we move on with our development for the studio. We plan to investigate how the interactions between Kharkovian public and private spaces can be used to repair the urban structure and trigger transformation of the urban fabric.

The redefining of the ideology of public space through our urban internvention can occur in one place at a time such that each of these places plays its own role to create impulses to form a larger social, cultural and economic network.

New York Update 01

Hello everyone, here are a few updates from NYC.

First of all, this blog is intended to be a tool for starting conversations on design ideas and research topics between our studio design group and our friends in the Ukraine. Our studio design group consists of Austin, Nick, Lalima and me, (Dan). We will be the only Columbia students directly contributing to this blog, but it will be able to be viewed by everyone.

As of now, I believe Ksenia, Arina, and Nastia have access and are able to post to the blog. Please feel free to comment on posts or create new posts of your own. We only ask that you always include an image, since it is easier to look for an image than it is for text entries. Images are not necessary for comments unless, of course, you want to include one.


As a group, the four of us are researching/studying four different topics.

Austin is looking at the practices of maintenance,
Lalima is looking at the definition and relation between public and private spaces,
Nick is looking at citizenship and the ideas of belonging and identity
I am looking at the formal arrangement of the city; districts, nodes, landmarks, typologies, and armatures. I am also looking into contemporary art, artists and art movements.

As we research, we are going to periodically post information and sources we find interesting, as well as questions and observations we have. Austin has already posted once on his topic.

When we post, we would really like it to start a small conversation in which you can share your own opinions and observations as well as maybe help point us to additional information and sources.

This is the first time we are trying to use a blog like this so it will most likely be an evolving concept. The role of the blog may change completely by the end of the semester, so have fun with it!

Making a Claim

What are the consequences when a city experiences a sudden and severe retraction of the public sphere? What characterizes the ‘void’ that results between a shrunken public sphere and a newly emergent private sphere?

Examples of such ‘voids’ that have surfaced in many post-soviet cities include spaces on an urban scale (ground-floor spaces, courtyards, sidewalks, plazas, parks) as well as spaces on an domestic scale (residential building stairwells, hallways, balconies). In the absence of public funding and enforcement, private and institutional entities have begun to encroach into these voids; the character and content of huge territories in the city (both physical and psychological territories) have become vulnerable for appropriation. Where such appropriations have occurred, some have been necessary (commercial armatures adding to street life), and some have been detrimental (innumerable private garages and shacks sprouting up inside courtyards). But where such appropriations have not yet occurred, those territories remain unclaimed and therefore unmaintained.

Right now, the ‘Inner Ring’ of Kharkov is just such a territory: it remains mostly uncontested, and as a result, is unmaintained. Yet, despite the disrepair and disarray, it retains a strong heterogeneous character: it can be understood and occupied in multiple ways by multiple types of people, providing a place for those parts, people, and programs which are excluded from the more normative spaces of the city. The danger, then, is that when the Inner Ring becomes a contested space (when the ‘void’ is inevitably claimed), this heterogeneity is lost, subsumed into the spectacle of commodity.

David Harvey’s notion of the spectacle, which he illustrated with the example of Haussmann’s Parisian boulevards, is relevant here: when a public space becomes a commodity for private consumption, it precludes the possibility for a diverse, pluralistic city; instead, it offers an ‘image’ or spectacle, a totalizing version (a caricature?) of itself to be understood in only one way, for one kind of citizen (the bourgeoisie), and pushes out all others (the poor, the alienated, the non-native).

So: Who should maintain what? As designers, who should we be enabling, empowering? The public, private, or institutional sector? Are there other options? And in determining this, how in fact does Kharkov maintain its heterogeneity? Is there an economic, cultural, or political cost associated with this maintenance?

Welcome

 

Hello friends in Kharkov and New York. This blog is an attempt to prompt and archive an exchange between our brains. Our two cities have asked alot from us; this conversation will be the attempt to clarify those questions and perhaps offer some answers.  We can add images, write descriptions, exchange links and files, and then comment on each others posting. This blog is not meant to replace our skypes and emails, but it is nice to know we have a home for our collective process. So come on in...