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Urban Actions

After viewing the "Streets belong to all of us!" exhibition organized by the Paris-based IVM at the Faculty of Architecture at University of Toronto, I was mostly struck by a single image. Denis Darzacq's photographs feature agile figures in mid-leap, or mid-fall, or even mid-flight. The space between this figure and their urban context even more charged by the fact that they are not in contact with it in any way. Levitating above the hardscape, each figure remains poised for a graceful fall. The ground appears all the more hard with the suggestion of impact.





In a similar manner but with context erased Robert Longo's Men in the Cities series documents well-dressed figures in a contorted position, caught mid-dance or mid-reflex of some kind, ties a-flailing.



Bernard Tschumi's 1978 advertisement for Architecture featured a figure in mid-fall with architecture its background. This was the site of a murder. Architecture was its first witness. Tschumi writes that "Architecture is defined as much by the actions it witnesses as much as by the enclosure of its walls."

Mossscape

[David Benner in his lawn in Solebury, PA (via NYTimes)]
Mr. Benner, 78, a retired professor of ornamental horticulture, is also a longtime practitioner and advocate of what he calls “the moss approach” to lawn maintenance. “Every time I give a lecture, I go into this spiel: get rid of your grass, and grow moss,” he said. “And now it’s finally gaining momentum.”

(more here)


According to one estimate, 40 million acres of land is devoted to turfgrass in the United States with nearly 75 percent in home lawns and more than 30 billion dollars spent on annual lawn maintenance

http://www.sustland.umn.edu/maint/maint.htm#foot1

Terror Town®, Disaster City®, and now MoD City

[Disaster City in College Station, TX]

A playground for military and urban search-and-rescue teams called Disaster City® is located in College Station, Texas. At 52 acres, the mock community contains full-scale, collapsible structures designed to simulate various levels of disaster and wreckage which can be customized for specific training needs.
It is "a place where tragedy and training meet."



The Texas Task Force 1 is a principal user of Disaster City which contains sections for mock emergency events, such as building collapse and passenger train derailment.


[Terror Town in Playas, NM]
The entire village of Playas, New Mexico, was purchased by New Mexico Tech and coverted into a training facility for anti-terrorism training. Known now as Terror Town, it is mostly fenced-off. Visitors must check in at a main gate. From there, only the residential area, a conference center and the business park are accessible to outsiders, and only with an escort.


[Playas, NM]

Rows of suburban-style homes make up other parts of town, which are designated for scenarios involving explosives, and chemical or biological training. Red lights flash atop locked gates, and a siren wails just before training sessions start.
One section of town has video cameras mounted on street poles and inside every room in every house.
(more here)


In Copehill Down, Wiltshire (UK), 11 teams of robots will compete to locate and identify four different threats hidden around a simulated East German village used for urban warfare training. The Ministry of Defense's challenge is designed to boost development of teams of small robots able to scout out hidden dangers in hostile urban areas.


["Quadrotor" robots

Some of the selected participating teams include Silicone Valley, Swarm Systems, and Stellar Consortium. Teams have elected to incorporate ground- and aerial-based robots. The event exists somewhere between a 1:1 live video game complete with points and a technology accelerator. (more at New Scientist)

Food City

[The increase of grain prices and the decrease of crop yields as displayed in a recent feature in the Economist.]
With the recent food crisis, one need look no further than Vancouver ... and Cuba for responses.

Vancouver's Olympic Village is set to include urban agriculture; rainwater management systems; green roofs; and neighbourhood energy system. The urban agriculture prompted an in depth report outlining urban agriculture and its trajectory. Within this document is a useful definition of urban agriculture:

The term urban agriculture, as it is commonly used, refers to any agricultural production that takes place within the urban and peri-urban region. This could include the growing of food (vegetables, grains, mushrooms, even meat and dairy products), medicinal plants, herbs, and ornamental plants. It includes a diverse array of techniques and approaches ranging from backyard growing to large-scale urban market gardening, hydroponic greenhouses and aquaculture. It is not just community gardening although this is an important component in many cities. Food is of paramount importance because of its primary contribution to survival, health, culture and impact on the environment. This study primarily focuses on food rather than some of the other agricultural/horticultural products.
The study of urban agriculture is often focused on food production within a City, which predominantly means the growing of soft fruits, salad crops, herbs and vegetables. However, in a high-density community like SEFC some of the opportunities for food production are limited compared with neighbourhoods with a higher proportion of open space. The potential for addressing the issues of sustainability is likely to be greatly enhanced by examining other aspects of the food system such as how and where food is processed, and the manner in which it is distributed...

Get the Southeast False Creek Urban Agriculture (207 page!) report as a full PDF here.

Cuba's story is more complex. It developed the organoponicos, organic urban farms, in the 1990s as a response to the collapse of the Soviet Union. Cuba's intensive monoculture approach to farming was dependent upon Soviet agrochemicals. Cuba was heavily dependent on imports and this event threatened food security. To gain greater independence, the government launched a nationwide organic urban agriculture movement. Organoponicos made Cuba one of the only countries to develop state-sponsored urban farms.

[A downtown Havana organoponico.]

This practice has also been taken up in Caracas since Hugo Chavez came into power in 1999. Chavez promotes urban agriculture as a form of 'endogenous development.' An inward-looking self-sufficiency.

[Organoponico Bolivar I garden occupies 1.2 acres in the center of Caracas.]

related: Fritz Haeg's Edible Estates

Cubiclopia

In a 2006 article on the decline of the cubicle, Julie Schlosser, reminds us of Robert Propst's earnest regret at having invented the cubicled workspace. Propst, just before his death in 2000, called the modern cubicled office "monolithic insanity."

David Franz in the New Atlantis picks up on this critique citing the quick steady decline of the cubicle from its social utopian origins. Franz writes: “The cubicle, once a cutting edge statement of corporate identity, has become an embarrassment, even for its makers.” Maybe it was simply that utopia was not for those that worked in the cubicles but more for those that supervised those that worked in the cubicles. From the outside, it looked as though everyone had their piece of the office, yet the openness of it meant that they were unified. It is a human hive. Linked together yet each worker maintains some perceived privacy.


[Johnson Wax Headquarters' Great Workroom]
Frank Lloyd Wright’s Johnson Wax Headquarters (1936-39) presents a central space containing a sea of secretaries while administrators occupied the mezzanine level. Preceding the cubicle by about 15 years, the Johnson Wax space was called the “Great Workroom.” The furniture was manufactured by Steelcase Inc, who would later rise to be a major manufacturer alongside Hermann Miller of cubicles.


[Tati's Playtime, where M Hulot confronts the labyrinth of cubiclopia]
Jacques Tati’s Playtime riffed on the disorienting qualities of the modern workplace of the 1960s.


[Steelcase Inc's Topo workspace]


[Steelcase Inc's Topo workspace]
The cubicle today maintains a consistent place in interior urbanism. Manufacturers downplay its hermetic quality by asserting a more open enclosure.

Project Genesis

[image: via truecruise.com]
Royal Caribbean International has launched a new $700 million cruise vessel called "Genesis" scheduled to sail in 2009 able to accommodate 6,400 passengers and will include on its roof the largest seaworthy mobile park. The green space, surrounded by restaurants for alfresco dining, will be the length of a football field and feature lush, tropical grounds with trees which will grow more than two decks tall. Another of its features will be a 'moving bar' spanning three decks. Residing somewhere between Smithson's Floating Island and the "golf carrier" (author unknown).


[image: unknown]


[Comparison of Royal Caribbean mega-cruiseliners.]


[Pool atop Freedom of the Seas cruiseliner.]