City planning has been left to the collaborative efforts of city and county officials, architects, designers, urban planners and activists. However, today’s quickly-developed cities, such as Beijing, China, are struggling to counterbalance the eruption of non-collaborative development. Movements to organize cities more efficiently have been promoted in the past. Examples include “City Beautiful” and “Garden City Movements” both which failed due to a lack of positive user experience. These ideas were developed from top-down without enlisting alternate perspectives. Within the profession, a designer must think about usability in relation to pre-existing space in addition to gaining as many perspectives as possible. Often, while meandering along city streets, we forget that everything has been diligently designed. The height of the buildings, the use of the shops, the direction of traffic, landscaping, nothing is by accident. Governments put their money into what they most value. In the movie “Urbanized” the mayor of Bogota, Columbia believes in “…investing in the people.” He does this by investing in public transit, devoting a lane on all roads for only bus use. He also updates all cycling paths, therefore elevating the status of cyclists, saying that they are as important as the cars. Mayor Enrique Penalosa believes that cars are not important in cities, and therefore he discourages use of them by limiting parking and increasing width of sidewalks and improving bike lanes. His present thinking is relatable to many cities internationally, increasing ease of access by public transit and cycling, and decreasing parking. Bogota is a great example of positive collaboration within the government to produce ethical changes for the masses. How does designing a home, for instance, fit into city planning? Let’s pretend: You’ve just been hired by the government to design 40 single-family home-units for the impoverished in a prime lot in the most expensive part of the city. This lot was selected because of it’s proximity to buses and jobs and it’s function, to keep people out of the slums. Since 1/3rd of the world’s population live in slums, controlling the migration to the city (urbanization) into housing is essential. As you’re designing the homes, you have to design for functionality, usability and upkeep costs. These decisions all funnel into city planning. You are thinking about the user, and the relation of the city climate. You must figure out how to keep costs down, while presenting a finished design that supports the user. Perhaps even presenting options to the user, such as installing a water heater or a bath tub, is important. (For the Barechena Project in Chile, user pointed out that they would prefer a bathtub as they couldn’t afford to pay for the gas to heat the water.) Without collaborative efforts housing would not be possible. Not only would housing change without collaborative efforts, but public spaces might feel refracted, distant and uninviting. Zoning comes into play in the instance of NYC’s Highline Project by Diller and Scofidio. An disheveled, elevated, train track in downtown was on the brink of being torn down. However, during a public meeting two strangers shared an idea: to rezone and redesign the track into a public park, bringing community together. This idea ultimately prevailed, moving through new zoning, urban planning, committee meetings and public funding. The task at hand took an enormous amount of effort, but ultimately has become a community space where people feel comfortable, work-out in, meet-up, and hold concerts. The biggest idea to take is to understand that design is more about relationships than the physicality of what you’re creating. When you’re designing interiors for a public library in Seattle, you need to look at the social and economic environment and history of the space, not simply design and drop in a building. Design is about collaboration from different disciplines with different perspectives and needs. Collaboration infuses individual plans with creativity and dreams. Without these dreams we can’t move forward into more functional societies. “As a species we need things to power our imagination, that can get our passions going… It is not a brick, it is not a pipe, it’s an idea. That’s what drives cities forward.” (Edgar Pieterse)
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AuthorAs a student at Cornish College of the Arts in Seattle WA I entertain a variety of factors while designing space. Archives
August 2017
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