December 2011
1 post
March 2011
4 posts
WatchFrom Streetfilms, a look at the Bus Rapid Transit in Guangzhou, China (one of the fastest growing cities in the entire world).
The system looks clean, efficient and integrates into the city by creating enjoyable public spaces. I also love that the bike is still utilized for transportation, and you can even use their “tong” to rent them!
Living in a city that is SO against rapid...
February 2011
3 posts
Peru
Hey everybody! Been awhile since I’ve posted here. Just a slight follow-up to my thesis work, I’ve been in Peru for the last two weeks, traveling from Lima, through the Gringo Trail, just finishing now in Cusco before doing the Lares Trek to get to Machu Picchu.
Today we took a bus ride from Puno, a large city on the shores of Lake Titicaca. Like many Latin American cities,...
December 2010
3 posts
“…if left to its own devices, and deprived of access to the larger...”
– From: Arrival City: The final migration and our next world, by Doug Saunders (2010; pg 75).
November 2010
3 posts
Historical Research - WEM
So, the project has started a little slowly, but I managed to get a copy of a facts & figures booklet for the mall at the Library. Produced in 1988 it has a number of interesting facts that I wasn’t aware of:
The mall covers a piece of property equivalent to 24 city blocks or over 49 hectares (121 acres), is over a mile long, and with its two floors has a floor area of approximately...
New Research
Now that my thesis is over, it is time for me to move on to that pesky internship and finding out what I’m really interested in.
For my thesis I focused on global issues - how informal settlements can be developed using their own architecture as the basis. I studied the informality of spaces, how people use and adapt their own environment to support themselves, and how the informal...
September 2010
2 posts
“There is no romance in rural life. Rural living is the largest single killer...”
– Canadian journalist Doug Saunders has written a book called “Arrival City.” Like my thesis, it promotes the importance of informal settlements in urban centres, and their sophisticated networks that support new arrivals to the city as well as permanent residents who begin to change...
2 tags
“Providing modern energy to the very poor—the population that the United Nations...”
– The Solvable Problem of Energy Poverty
A side note from this quote: “The UN has called for nations to set aside 70 cents of every $100 generated by their economic activity to fight poverty. But only five European countries now meet that level of giving, and the United States, which has never...
July 2010
1 post
June 2010
6 posts
“In 2009, 327 Multifunctional Platform businesses generated $275,000 for rural...”
– Burkina Faso - Affording Women Opportunity through Simple Technology
How the simple installation of diesel-powered electricity in a community can transform the lives of many by giving them more time to pursue other interests in life.
Fixing a Road in Johannesburg: 26′10 Architects on...
This is a pretty relevant interview for me, and reveals some truths about attempting to work with informal settlements.
It’s a pretty long article, but this is a section about 26′10 Architects actually attempting to complete a project. I think it’s interesting because the ‘reuse’ of an existing building was actually one of the methods I proposed for providing space for...
Making room in the sky for families - thestar.com →
A strategy called “Inclusionary Zoning.” I haven’t heard of this before, but for a strategy that keeps people in the city, in units they can actually afford, I think this could be really great for reducing sprawl.
It’s a little un-architectural, but, something pro-city people have to think about.
BBC News - Dhaka: City of construction death traps... →
Exactly the reason why it’s important to look at the informal settlements within large cities. They provide housing, places for culture, and economy, but when disasters strike the density and proximity of uses can be deadly.
May 2010
8 posts
4 tags
New Intent
So everyone, in the name of honesty and updates, I’ll just talk about what happened last week.
I had what was supposed to be my substantial performance review, basically marking the end of my research and design phase. I presented, and it didn’t go as well as I thought. Perhaps unclear presenting on my part, or perhaps, a critic that was trying to say her point of view more than...
April 2010
7 posts
Slums: The Future By Whitney Eulich
I thought this was an interesting excerpt about Venezuela:
In Venezuela, the barrio of Petare emerged from the construction of a city highway, which took more than a decade to complete. The workers’ barracks in the Petare foothills quickly transformed into an ideal space for squatters. Today red-brick, tin-roof shelters, patched with cardboard and soil, cover the steep slopes. Like most...
March 2010
17 posts
Hello New Followers
Just wanted to maybe introduce myself, as it might not be clear exactly what this blog is.
My name is Rachel, and I am a graduate student at Ryerson University working towards a Masters of Architecture. These last 6 months (or so) I have been investigating informal settlements, or “slums.”
I’ve found that the perception of the “slum” is just a stereotype, many are...
Filipe Balestra & the Incremental Housing Strategy
Last semester I did some case studies from the work of Filipe Balestra. He did some housing projects he called “incremental housing” in the city of Pune, India. It basically looked at the idea of incrementally replacing a vernacular housing typology that presented many safety and sanitary problems with a more formal housing, but incrementally at the scale of the informal settlement...
1 tag
This just in...
Well all of you probably had a deadline in mind months ago, just today it was confirmed for me.
Presentations: Week of April 19th.
Leaves about 32 days to get everything done for a substantial performance review.
I’ve got to get this going.
New Direction
So, after many months of investigation and experimentation I think I’ve finally come to my conclusion.
The reality is, if architects are to engage in the informal built environment, normal design practices must adapt to their conditions. In a place with no formal rules, ownership or legality, but still needs that can be met through the modification of the built environment, the Architect...
