15 October
Lightning Talks

Respondent: Sebastiaan Loosen, ETH


Scaling technologies through collective design networks: global systems for the Canary Island of La Gomera (1970s)


GABRIEL HERNANDEZ
Universidad Politécnica de Madrid



View of Barranco Santiago, in La Gomera (1974) © courtesy of the Norman Foster Foundation Archive.

The remote island of La Gomera is one of the smallest of the Canary Islands, located in the margins of Africa and Europe. Half a century ago, during the 1970s, the island became a testing ground for experimental system approaches in the passage from an agrarian economy into an emerging tourism and services sector. Focused on this shifting context, this contribution explores the visionary aspects of two unrealized proposals that addressed the island's challenges, such as depopulation, lack of economic growth, and rapid desertification. One was developed by Greek architects and urban planners Doxiadis Associates (DA) in 1972, and the other by British practice by Foster Associates (FA) in 1975.
To unpack and compare their complexities, we must examine the design networks that generated them through the lens of environmental history and archival research. Konstantinos Doxiadis, the father of the ekistics theories, represented a highly modern urbanism approach through DA's experience in urban and master planning in the Middle East and the Indian subcontinent. Meanwhile, FA symbolised a techno-optimism approach fueled by their contact with Buckminster Fuller and collaboration with Kenneth Mellamby, one of the UK's first ecologists, who provided research experience in Nigeria and dry climates.
Through their proposals, we can capture different scales of technological application and environmental sensibilities in an insular system with limited resources. DA proposes an infrastructural plan endured on a perimetral ring road. In contrast, FA suggested an ecosystem of small interventions to generate clean energy and water regeneration, merging tourism in banana plantations. Five decades later, in the context of climate collapse, these antagonistic strategies make us rethink the importance of technology's adaptability between the high and low, the global and local.

***

The City in Crisis 2.0


İREM DOĞA AKGÜL, SELIN DOĞANER

UdK Berlin



Can Erok, A Man walks on the aftermath of the deadly earthquake, in Samandag town of the Hatay province, Turkey February 21, 2023.

Following the devastating earthquake of February 6th in southern Turkey and Syria, more than ten cities were destroyed, became uninhabitable, leading to the loss of cultural and architectural heritage spanning hundreds of years. Countless individuals were killed, leaving many without homes and in vulnerable conditions. Despite initial media coverage, it quickly faded from public attention.
In the SS 23, we, Irem Doğa Akgül and Selin Doğaner, with the help and support of Prof. Markus Bader and Silvia Gioberti, initiated a seminar in UdK Berlin: “The City in Crisis: Phases (Faces) of a Disaster”. It was a direct urge to act proactively as students who were one way or another affected by the Earthquake, aiming to understand the nature of disasters. It became apparent that disasters are disastrous when they hit already disadvantaged areas, as impoverished neighborhoods with minority populations. We understood our research in the scope of disaster management and relief methods, and addressed the challenges the cities face before, during and after disasters, on this specific earthquake, through zooming in and out to neighboring disciplines and examples.
The phases follow: Pre-crisis: Building Construction Industry and Sociopolitical Background: Corruption in the public sector and the state / Construction Politics; Gecekondu (Self-made, squatter’s house) / unplanned urbanization; Earthquake: K.Maraş, Lice, Gediz Earthquakes; Governmental Developments and Happenings in Turkey, Codes and Conducts. Crisis: Earthquake and Emergency Response: Importance of media; Temporary housing solutions in history; Emergency Response, Community Resilience. Community and Recovery: Community participation in reconstruction after disasters; Capitalism and Property Law, Right to Housing; Social capital: Post-Disaster Memoryscapes: Architectural Mediums as Practices of Care; The ongoing plans / reconstruction. Reviving the city (or not): Economics of space production; Loss of Heritage: Theories ofreconstruction; Democracy&Revival: top-down vs. bottom-up?; Excursion: Gibellina Case Study.
Throughout the seminar, we worked with the methodology of collecting, of case studies, readings, personal experiences, and various experts were invited. We produced a newspaper with the participant students, andpresented our work at the Rundgang of UdK. Despite the passing year, only those directly affected by it still  remember it. We aim to revive awareness, and recognise it lives on.


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