Revisiting The Radiant City

A note accompanies this photo in Le Corbusier’s The Radiant City (1933):

“outside our apartments in the Radiant City: we come home from work and change; our friends are there waiting. High spirits, physical activity. And then we can go on to think about the 'serious' things afterwards."

I can see myself now, coming home after a long day's work and running the steeplechase with my neighbors. :) Le Corbusier’s plans, while at times charmingly unrealistic, are also blamed for inspiring the spread of giant housing projects in cities around the world. But is there enduring value in his thinking?

Two possibilities come to mind: 1) his embrace of new technology to improve living conditions, and 2) his use of space to minimize the ground cover of buildings.

As for technology, Le Corbusier tended to adopt ideas of mass production uncritically. However, his thoughts on prefabricated structures have great potential. As evident in the recent exhibition Home Delivery: Fabricating the Modern Dwelling, the featured houses in Dwell Magazine, and the assembly of LivingHomes, prefab architecture is coming into its own. What if we could design our own houses from components displayed online? Would this result in monstrosities or homes well-adapted to our needs? Could this be a way of realizing some of the building ideas in Christopher Alexander’s Pattern Language?

While Le Corbusier's use of space wouldn't work for everyone, tall buildings on pilotis with roof gardens would minimize the acreage occupied by our homes. This could bring benefits associated with energy efficiency, biodiversity, carbon sequestration, and (provided that amenities are within walking distance) reduced dependence on automobiles. I don't suggest that everyone should live in this kind of building, and the architecture could use rethinking; still the idea of freeing up space for agriculture, forests, and recreation sounds promising.

Although we might not find spontaneous track meets in our yards, I think Le Corbusier was on to something.

(Photo of runners scanned from The Radiant City. Photo of the Swiss Pavillion from www.culture.gouv.fr)

Human Nature

“[It] appears that we must recognise at least two principal meanings in the word 'nature.' In one sense, it means all the powers existing in either the outer or the inner world and everything which takes place by means of those powers. In another sense, it means, not everything which happens, but only what takes place without the agency, or without the voluntary and intentional agency, of man. This distinction is far from exhausting the ambiguities of the word; but it is the key to most of those on which important consequences depend.” John Stuart Mill, On Nature, 1874

Nature as a term can be inclusive and exclusive. It may include everything in existence or exclude products of human agency (e.g. cities, corn fields, art, technology, pollution) from the rest of the world (e.g. old-growth forest, boulders, elephants, fire, snowfall). The distinction is blurred when we think of tree farms, artificial lungs, and cloned sheep. Many words have dual meanings, but perceptions of nature can influence our place in the world. When nature is viewed exclusively, where does this leave humans?

The city is often considered separate from the natural world. As a remedy, some call for the integration of nature (usually trees) into urban settings. While I consider this a good thing, the terms imply that cities are not already part of nature. When people use these terms, they don't necessarily intend to be exclusive. It just reflects a deeply ingrained idea of nature without a clear alternative. According to inclusive views, cities are no less natural than birds' nests. Both are constructed by animals with material derived from the Earth. This is not a justification for environmental abuse, but simply an understanding of human activity as within the scope of nature.

I like the idea that we are arrangements of atoms -- the same atoms that constitute the world around us. Some arrangements result from human action while others may result from the actions of bears, rain, or geological faults. Fortunately we are capable of conscious decisions, which can and should include a sense of responsibility for environmental well-being.

Perhaps it is enough to refer to streams, flowers, jets, and sculptures individually, reserving nature to describe the whole. All of the examples above are human concepts, and all are composed of material from the (natural) world. If this view of nature is too inclusive to be useful, is there a simple way to distinguish beehives from buildings, ponds from swimming pools, sunsets from street lights ... ?

(Photo of Portland from Adrian's Photo Blog; Photo of Dolly from Next Nature; Photo of Earth from Wikimedia Commons)

A Tall Order for Poverty

I've been hearing a lot lately about the increasing density of our cities, especially in developing countries like India, Nigeria, and China. It's a sort of conundrum because when we think about dense cities, we tend to think of tall cities. Lagos and Mumbai are far from tall cities and their populations are set to exceed record numbers in the next 5 to 10 years. With huge amounts of impoverished citizens living in 3rd world conditions, and density going through the roof, some suggest building tall is the answer. It's really a quite interesting notion that brings to mind a lot of interesting questions regardless of how realistic the situation may be.

How would it work? Social housing has long been an issue for big cities and rarely have we found extremely successful models. So how do you take a problem, we already don't know how to solve, and try to apply it to the high-rise? It's a really complex issue, though Ken Yeang has some interesting theories about tall buildings and how they work. Though not directly related, he speaks of tall building design as urban design, flipped vertical, which might be an appropriate approach to a problem such as this.

Also, What implications might this have on the tall building typologies? What sort of social hierarchy would a project like this create? I mean, in today's high rise condo markets, everyone knows the higher up you go, the more you pay. Well how does that work when people can barely afford to live? Who gets the top floor? Perhaps the upper levels could be dedicated to community activities, or communal spaces, and the bottom floors committed to food services and shopping, with the middle strictly residential. Or would we have mixed income high rises, similar to the overwhelmingly successful Lafayette Park by Mies van der Rohe in Detroit?

And what would a project like this do for the social status associated with living in tall buildings? Furthermore, what happens if these high-rises that seem to be going up like hot cakes suddenly aren't selling? I mean, in an economy like ours right now this doesn't sound so unreasonable. The idea of social high-rise may not be realistic or eminent, however it may be in the future if it could be done right.

What are your thoughts?.


(Photo from Flickr user mihir. The original full-sized color version can be viewed by clicking the photo.)
(Photo from Flickr user ChicagoEye. The original full-sized color version can be viewed by clicking the photo.)

Cooper-Hewitt Features Tulou Affordable Housing Design

The Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum is currently showing an exhibition on Tulou, an affordable-housing prototype designed by Chinese architecture firm Urbanus for the city of Guangzhou, China. The Tulou prototype includes 245 apartments, an inn, exercise facilities, a library, storefronts, and varied public space. The exhibition will feature two bedrooms at actual size, as well as images, models, and project information. It runs from October 3, 2008 to April 5, 2009 at 2 East 91st Street in New York.

In a recent review, New York Times architecture critic Nicolai Ouroussoff praises Tulou as a thoughtfully designed solution to the urgent need for low-income housing in China's rapidly growing cities. Tulou, which means “little kingdom,” is a centuries-old term for structures once used to protect villagers from invaders in the Fujian Province. Dwellings were centered around an interior courtyard and surrounded by walls of mud. Urbanus has adapted this idea for contemporary use in urban settings. Ouroussoff notes a symbolic connection between original Tulous and the new models, which “suggest fortifications against a contemporary marauder: speculators who have so often forced the poor out of urban neighborhoods to make way for new development.” Urbanus maintains a sense of openness by arranging stores around the base and allowing entry portals, courtyards, restaurants, inns, and housing units to break the continuity of the exterior walls.

While Ouroussoff praises Urbanus's “graceful balancing act between historical and contemporary values,” some of his terms (such as monks' cells, Le Corbusier, and Communist-era housing projects) call to mind inhospitable housing schemes of the past. It is not clear how the recently completed Tulou in Guangzhou has altered the existing urban fabric, how it has been received by residents, or how the architects have learned from housing projects that failed in other settings. It seems the design might create islands of poverty instead of integrating residents into mixed-income neighborhoods. Low-income housing requires more than graceful adaptations of historical building types. It must provide a healthy environment that allows people to meet their daily needs and escape cycles of poverty. With hope, the Tulou design will contribute to a renaissance in affordable housing that improves living conditions for China's urban poor.

(Photos of the new Tulou plan are from the Urbanus website. The original full-sized versions can be viewed by clicking the photo.)

(The photo of the traditional Tulou is from Kit's Hakka Earthen Houses (Tulou) album on Picasa. The original full-sized version can be viewed by clicking the photo.)