We curated and co-edited a publication for the ‘Celebrate Bandra’ Festival 2011 that focused on cultural and environmental Diversity in Bandra. The publication was designed by ‘Idea Spice’ and contained contributions by writers, bloggers, designers, artists, urbanists, and other enthusiasts from across the community in Bandra.

Cover by Nash Paul

What Man by Manish Sehrawat

The following text was published by Zameer Basrai:

The idea of Bandra

I went to school in Bandra. I never knew the religion of my classmates in school, nor their place of origin, nor their regional or occupational affiliations and surely not their family income. I never needed to. I barely realized my school was Arya Samaji. Then I went to college in Gujarat and sometime in 2002 finally realized I was Muslim. Maybe its just part of growing up, I reassured myself. But nothing was the same again. For example, peoples’ names started to mean so much. I found myself analyzing surnames. Every one was categorized instantly in my mind. Maybe its just part of growing up, we tend to flatten identities, put people in their place. I conjectured everything from these names, where they lived, where they came from, how they might behave. It didn’t make for good conversation. I just jumped to conclusions: Conservative bah! Valsad dismissed! Which village @>!!@$pur? Oh Delhi, that’s why! Ah, you’ve recently moved, why? North Indians! South Indians! Gujaratis! Bhaiya! Bihari! Hindu! Muslim! Easy categories. Flat and easy.

And then I returned to Bandra. And I realized it wasn’t only about growing up.

In our times, what you do, and what you believe in defines you much better than your religion, region or income. But there are still plenty of societies that tend to encourage traditional categories. We must be very fearful of any society that makes you realize you’re no more than what you were born as. These societies don’t allow you to affiliate again, to evolve your tastes and preferences, to re-identify. And this is an indicator of a society that has nothing larger than details to fight for.

Identities must be fluid. This is what I have realized upon my return to Bandra. Names don’t mean anything. Bandra is built to defy categories. Anyone who identifies with any idea of Bandra still has some room to re-define themselves. That is the success of the idea of Bandra. We all buy into it knowing well enough that Bandra is a colossal distraction! It distracts us from mundane categories. It defies singular identities. A wise man once said about Bandra ‘even the women distract you’. You could be religious, you could be a successful businesswoman, and a Bandra-ite all at once (but if you’re a Bandra-ite frankly nothing else matters). A number of places in Mumbai identify themselves through a function (market/office district/tourism), or a religion, or political affiliation or even an ethnicity or are defined as such by outsiders. Contemporary Bandra has begun to defy even these categories. There is no fixed function, no particular resident group, definitely no political affiliations – just a lingering idea of itself as being above all of this. Everyone here is comfortable with layered, multiple identities because everyone here has the Bandra-ite label right above/next to their other identifiable characteristics.

This attitude builds resilience – not only the Bombay resilience that comes from mercantile inter-dependency, but also one that comes from a sustained attitude. Mercantile inter-dependence is something we find across the city of Bombay. It builds immunities and naturalizes communities, and in turn fights xenophobia. A simple example: You could be buying your bread from a Parsi bakery, your mince roll from a Muslim bakery, your Chicken Biryani from a Catholic bakery, your mutton from a Muslim butchery, your fish from a koli village street, your cold-cuts from a catholic cold storage, your wines from a Punjabi shop owner, your sweets from a Bengali shop owner, your fried fish from a Sardar caterer, your vada pao from a Maharashtrian street vendor, and attending New Year’s Mass each year irrespective of religious affiliations. How do you suppose you could severe these intimate relationships for a little unrest. This is the reason why Bombay bounces back each time after its communal riots. But it is disconcerting, relying only on mercantile relations to remain resilient.

Bandra is resilient at another level. A very significant aspect to the resilience of Bandra is in its diversity. Diversity is a celebrated idea across the contemporary world. Its time we celebrate it here, in Bandra. Where else is every religion, every caste, every ethnicity, every age group, and every income group so well represented? There’s the sky-rises and then beside them the quaintest of villages; the quietest of residential streets alongside the busy, commercial ones and a myriad of cuisines, fashions, music flooding the streets. A short walk on the Bandra promenades and one can easily perceive the diverse nature of this society. Bandra is large enough an idea to accommodate this diversity. And since it is an inclusive idea everyone who believes in it, can be part of it.

At one time, Bandra consisted of small fishing and farming villages. Today, these villages remain sanctuaries amidst the jostle of a bustling suburb. Change is inevitable. But isn’t the idea of Bandra resilient to change? Don’t we sustain that same quintessential idea of Bandra today that was once formed by small villages hundreds of years ago? If so, it’s our generation that decides what happens to Bandra – what happens to its culture, its environment, and every other thing that makes Bandra the place we cherish. The idea of Bandra is a project in sustainability. Simply said, the question is: “We love our life in Bandra, how can we keep it that way?” We must buy into the idea of Bandra, whatever it might be and whole-heartedly invest in sustaining this idea for generations to come. So lets celebrate Bandra like we are the golden era!

Following is an edited transcript of a live discussion, Zameer Basrai in conversation with Nandita Patel (Of Thinking Mumbai), ‘Why should Bandra care: Does conserving and regenerating Ranwar make a difference to our lives?’ held on Sunday, 15 May, 2011 at the Carter Road Amphitheatre, Bandra (W).  The event was hosted by Thinking Mumbai: The foundation for building community through the arts and literature and Marico Evenings. The event was free and open to the public.

Acknowledgements: Nandita Patel for hosting the show, asking the right questions and discussing every little thing in detail beforehand. The Martha’s Vineyard Commision, for providing an invaluable precedent to the project. Vivek Sheth for his meticulous research on Ranwar and everything surrounding it. TheBusride Design Studio for sponsoring and guiding Vivek’s research. Aldo Van Eyck and Kevin Lynch for producing remarkable ideas for a better city.

NP: Why should Ranwar or any other heritage precinct in Mumbai—or across India—be conserved and regenerated?

ZB: I assume you ask this question in a rhetorical sense so I’ll answer it in the abstract followed by a personal account. Conserving heritage always raises questions of value and meaning. What and how much value do we assign to heritage in the city? First the British Fort, then the mills, the chawls, now villages. What do all these precincts mean to us today? Are they just relics of the city’s past? At some point after independence Fort, Bombay was going to be torn down to make way for the city’s new financial district. It was perceived as a symbol of oppression, of British imperialism. Now can you imagine Bombay without the fort? It has become so intrinsic to the character of the city.

We need to understand that the city is an organism. It grows. People grow with it. Value and meanings change, they aren’t undone. The city doesn’t start from zero each time. That’s because poeple’s associations with places have very deep roots. Conservation is a method for mediating change. In fact it delays change, so that we get a chance to re-assess if change is good or bad. We do realize that Bandra is changing. And we also realize that we are steadily losing some things precious in Bandra. I am sure the urgency is felt unanimously. Simply put, the question is: “We love our life in Bandra, how can we keep it that way?” We aren’t only saving the buildings here, we are saving a quality of life that we have come to cherish. We do believe, very strongly, that the architecture of Ranwar is intrinsically bound to life in Ranwar. And that places like Ranwar are microcosms of the idea of bandra.

At a personal level, Ranwar for us is simply about immediacy. We have sensed an urgency to act. Mediocre buildings have replaced beautiful cottages. A certain sense of street, and a pedestrian scale is lost. High compound walls  restrict views from the streets. Bandra has always taken pride in its environment. We feel that if nothing is done now bandra will be any other suburb in no time.

NP: Who are Ranwar’s stakeholders? Please list them. What’s in it for each of them if Ranwar is conserved and regenerated? Please list every perspective.

ZB: We are new to these processes. There are stakeholders we know and many we are going to find out about. Each time you try to do something, you find out a few more stakeholders in the project. We cleaned up a small vacant patch of land  (with a toilet on it) outside our studio, painted it, put a few potted plants and a bench to create a small public sitout. Within 12 days of its making, it was demolished and a small single-room building was built in its place. Its as though we had unlocked the true potential of the toilet. We concluded: The primary stakeholders are the residents of Ranwar. A few weeks after the demolition, we set out to design a public garden on an existing dumping ground and this time with complete support from the residents. We cleaned up the site. Within half a day, the police came and stopped work, threatening to put the workers away. It has become a dumping ground ever since. We concluded: You cant just go around making public gardens without the proper permissions from the government and the police.

To list the stakeholders we know: the primary stakeholders are the residents of Ranwar, land-owners, their children, and their future generations. Next in line, the developers investing in the area. The government, who is largely responsible for the welfare of the people, their safety, and maintaining infrastructure. We must also include the larger community of Bandra in this list, since Ranwar is an important part of the character of the suburb.

Whats in it? In this case we cant be myopic. If its a monetary ‘whats in it’, I am afraid there’s not much in it. In fact conserving Ranwar would only mean added responsibility for each stakeholder. The govt. needs to recognize precincts like Ranwar as distinct from the rest, have a progressive set of agendas. Builders and developers need to be sensitive toward the user, and the environment. And ofcourse, residents need to take an active part in forming what becomes of Ranwar in the near future.

We do not realize how delicate the situation is at the moment. Bandra is on the verge of losing character. There are certain elements of each building, each streetscape, each demographic that lend heavily to this character. Places like Ranwar need to be conserved to keep Bandra unique. Imagine a worst case scenario at Ranwar Square: Demolish the three cottages surrounding the square, build an immaculate tower at the centre of the square that commands views in all directions, and build a high compound wall along Veronica street. Where residents once prayed rosaries, there would be a tower. In place of the cottages, a parking lot. Tell me, how can there be anything in it for anyone? The characterless, odourless, environment cant appeal to residents much longer. Nor can it appeal to developers or the government. We all have to realize that the reason Bandra is such a cherished place is because there is still something (like Ranwar) left from the past, that is influencing our contemporary life for the better. Once that is gone, this life is gone and so is every real estate deal. Whats in the conservation of Ranwar is a list of intangibles: a suburb where there is respect for a way of life, a unique character, goodwill and most importantly community pride (because pride is a highly sustainable emotion).

NP: When stakeholder interests are in conflict in a democracy, how must we arrive at a consensus?  Or, put another way, if the residents of Ranwar are to be included in decisions about Ranwar’s future, how can the government empower their participating and decision-making ability?

ZB: We all know that a single, clear voice is more likely to be heard by people in power, decision makers rather than individual attempts. Consensus is everything. And consensus is built up through dialogue, much like what we are doing here, today. And dialogue between all the stakeholders is essential. These days, mega-politics have obscured a very important relationship between the individual and the government, politicians, and people in power. ‘Us’ and ‘Them’. Somehow our conception of this relationship is completely lost. Is anything i want ever implemented? Can i affect change? Will they even listen?

Bandra has successfully implemented a very significant bottom-up decision making process. Bandra pioneered the ALM (Area/Advanced Locality Management) movement in the sixties and has an active community that takes its own decisions about the environment. Different ALMs have worked in unison to produce projects of great magnitude and complexity. Whether fighting for the Bandra Fort, or against the road widening schemes, and especially with building the promenades, Bandra has used the ALM model in its entirety. Decisions are taken by these de-centralized bodies, and forwarded methodically to the government. We need to use the ALMs to the fullest to make sure we are a united voice.

Another significant method for consensus is public exhibitions. All decisions must be put out for comment, critique and suggestions from the public. The government or any other invested organization must follow this method to build consensus.

But producing a single, clear voice isn’t everything. There needs to be a suitable body formed in the government as well, a commission of sorts that has regulatory powers on par with the planning dept, the public works, housing and development boards etc much like the Urban Arts Commission in Delhi. This body would be committed to the welfare of all the stakeholders, but with a larger, sustainable vision in mind. I have had the privilege of working at one such organization: The Martha’s Vineyard Commission, which as a government institution, audited builder proposals, heard and moderated resident appeals, and advised the planning depts, public works dept, housing and development boards for the benefit of all concerned.

NP: On a broader level, what is the role of the government with regards to policies related to sustainable development in the city? How far along are they towards achieving the goal of sustainability in Mumbai?

ZB: Sustainability has many aspects and can be defined in many ways, for example:

1. Technical, Technological, Infrastructural solutions which the government implements every now and then

2. Resource-based sustainability (that includes issues of heritage), be it natural, built or intangible (community based). The government has been sensitized to this kind of sustainability because almost all resources are becoming scarce.

3. Social sustainability where happiness and quality of life are at the forefront. Pride included. This is obviously resident-driven and not a government initiative.

4. Economic sustainability we are all familiar with. It is the most crucial kind. Somehow, the entire approach to conservation is contradicted by economics. This is something we want to change. We need to start viewing conservation as an economically sustainable practice. Market forces cannot be combated by nostalgia, economically sustainable models have to be developed.

The government (in fact any political organization) recognizes each of the above individually. Where it sometimes fails is to co-relate them. The govt. recognizes technical problems the easiest. It is committed to ‘standards’ of living whether safety, health and sanitation, mobility, communication and access. But there are immediate shortcomings to the technical (non-aesthetic, non-social) approach to sustainability. It is a technical outlook on things that will make an old building a ‘dilapidated or decripit’ structure rather than a ‘heritage’ bldg. So if a roof caves in, we bring the entire building down, and not simply fix it! Another shortcoming of the technical standards approach is in judging happiness or quality of life arguments. A family of 10 living in one of the houses in Ranwar insisting to live in it all together in spite of owning houses all over the city simply because “What better life than this, all our friends are here, we meet every evening for drinks.” Location is everything, because lifestyle depends on it. It doesn’t matter then if you’re squeezed into a small room at night.

At a larger level, there must be form-based rules and design guidelines in place for developing properties in Bandra. So much of Bandra is about the beautiful balconies, about the stylish compound walls, the front gardens, setbacks from the street. With a blanket by-law about balconies being included in FSI calculations, no one in Bandra makes balconies any more. This is just to illustrate how a small technical change impacts the aesthetic of a place.

Sustainability is co-ordination. There are plenty of well-wishing government organizations that are doing good by themselves but aren’t co-ordinated to have maximum impact. I had mentioned the Martha’s Vineyard Commission as a government organization of professionals committed to organizing the various agencies within the government itself. Common direction is required. Heritage, Public works, planning depts, housing, neighborhood management: Far from working with each other they often work in spite of each other. This is the government’s responsibility, to co-ordinate itself.

NP: Please outline some potential win-win solutions for Ranwar, so that if this development model succeeds, it can be replicated elsewhere in the city and country.

ZB: Win-Win. We’ve got a bunch. A couple of years ago we had sponsored a student from NID, Vivek Sheth, to study Ranwar and everything related. His research culminated in a matrix that co-ordinated various needs to produce common solutions. He mentions various scales of intervention from the level of the household to the suburb. I’ll explain two that represent the micro and the macro perspective:

Micro: A significant amount of money is spent on the general upkeep of heritage properties. Many of the houses in Ranwar can afford to rent out a room or are already renting out a room. There are some stunning living rooms and terraces in these houses. One option is to upgrade the space, utilize it completely, rig it up with some technological solutions and then rent it out for much more. Here certain designed elements could help. Our studio designed a 160 sq. ft. apartment with a double bed, a study, a walk-in wardrobe and a walk-in library. Now why wouldn’t someone pay a higher rent for these amenities. It’s what anyone owns in an apartment simply compacted into one room. The second option was to use the space of the house for an event – like a Gypsy Kitchen where a household cooks a home-style meal for some guests (interested in the authentic) and earns a good amount of money either once or twice a week. This way the entire house is not used but spaces accommodate the event when required.

In both cases, there is a small intervention made such that a household benefits monetarily and can afford to maintain a heritage property.

Macro: The macro is Bandra. Ranwar needs Bandra as much as Bandra needs Ranwar. We cannot solve Ranwar’s issues without locating it in Bandra. This is the biggest problem with Khotachiwadi. There is no one around Khotachiwadi that is invested in the place as much as its residents. Ranwar and all the other pakhadis are intrinsic to the character of Bandra. And Bandra must be invested in its sustenance. What we suggest is an area plan, with priority areas, grading and zoning re-assessed. Together with this, an elaborate localized TDR (Transfer Development Rights) system that works only at the scale of Bandra. We decide where we want tall buildings, we decide where we want old cottages, we decide where the commercial areas are, where we want mixed land use, and the clues are already there, we just need to formalize them together. Some things are preserved, some are restored, some are kept in essence, the city is allowed to grow, and people change for the better. What is most important is that life in bandra stays the same.

Nandita Patel is a Mumbai-based opinion columnist who writes about social, political, and environmental issues.

Zameer Basrai is an architect living and working in Bandra. He has been an associate to TheBusride Design Studio since 2006.

All Photography and mapping courtesy: Vivek Sheth

Age of Buildings_Ranwar

Unchanged Built-Scape_Ranwar Village

Built-Scape 2010

Aerial view_Waroda Road

Ranwar Square

Oratory at the Trellis

Grotto

Competition entry for Spiretec, Noida 2011.

Project team (Workgroup 10-A): Ameya Athavankar, Ipsit Patel, Rika Chaudhry, Sagarika Suri, Zameer Basrai

Configuring Ground

Configuring Ground

“Rapid expansion of the IT industry to parts of rural India, as SEZs or extra-urban themed destinations, is a matter of contemporary concern. Such developments result in ad-hoc and often arbitrary changes to Land-use patterns. Large tracts of agricultural land are unabashedly acquired from farmers, cleaned, leveled, made accessible through highways; and then re-developed into mostly unremarkable work and living environments that lack both the character and intensity of urban space.

Spiretec, Greater Noida, to us is not merely about creating an iconic building with low energy consumption. The challenge, as we see it lies in responding to the larger framework of sustainable growth in the Greater Noida region. The proposal therefore chooses to view Spiretec, Greater Noida as a laboratory for the discovery of a new urbanity, an open architectural system rather than an isolated work of architecture. Configuring Ground re-imagines the scope of sustainable design by addressing issues of place, identity, type, form, flexibility, community and civic pride alongside the more conventional energy-efficiency, technology, ecology and climate approach.

These various aspects of design come together in a compact building that forms the backdrop to a large, open forecourt. This can be most clearly ‘read’ in the stark figure-ground diagram of the site. The existing embankment, is an insufficient response to the river with the flood being perceived as a technical problem. This embankment is broken and the flood plain is extended into the site, agriculture is re-introduced, farmers are re-employed, the IT development gets a heightened sense of place, built space and agricultural land are intrinsically bound (or woven) together through relations of ownership and responsibility, the proposed building assumes a linear form that contains a number of living and working types providing various levels of bottom-up flexibility. Furthermore, the orientation and form of the building as well as the double-skin façade system allows for natural ventilation while modulating solar heat gain round the year.

The entire project, from master plan to façade details is a combination of intents. It does not hint towards any singular ideology or approach but rather celebrates the pluralism of urban, architectural and social concerns. Configuring Ground presents itself in hybrid images of inclusive and sustainable development that are not only iconic but also relevant to the future of the Greater Noida area.”

Proposed Zoning

The River Experience: Land along the river is largely occupied by industries (left). Industry not only significantly contributes to the pollution of the river but also locks up a large part of the river edge and makes it inaccessible to the public. The master plan (right) proposes to reserve land along the river edge primarily for green, cultural, leisure spaces and non-polluting industry.

Proposed linear spines

Modulating the Flood Plain: The embankment as it exists is at best an inadequate response to the river. The master plan proposes contextual articulation of the embankment to extend parts of the flood plain as well as the experience of the river. The canals are seen as open spaces that will host a variety of activities ranging from organic agriculture to farmer’s markets or water sports.

Figure-Ground

Figure-Ground Dynamic: The building was conceived as a cut-away where a compact form and ground compete as positive figures. The building is located on the north end of the site so as to allow light into the open space. The embankment and the flood plain are pulled into the site as a canal system with sluice gates.

Site Plan

A Slender and compact building creates a positive ground which can be used for activities ranging from farmers’ markets, agriculture to water sports. A series of terraced spaces extend the ground onto the terrace of the existing IT Blocks creating a ‘new ground’ at +27m.

Schematic Diagram

Program resolution

The ‘new ground’ creates an open system with differential levels of public spaces moving away from the conventional sense of a gated community in an IT park.

Foster farms

In the last twenty years, large tracts of agricultural lands have been replaced by commercial or (soft) industrial developments. Landlords have received a fair deal for their land while farmers are often displaced. In a booming economy like ours, it is easy to leave many behind. On the other hand, the agricultural industry seems sluggish and reluctant to re-invent itself. Will the farmers be left behind? What is the worth of development if only for a few? Is a more inclusive development model possible? How does ‘community’ relate to ideas of sustainability?

Our proposal ensures that both the IT industry and the farmers can benefit from an inclusive development model. We felt very strongly that the IT industry has been most receptive to ideas of these kind. It has been emblematic of change, technological innovations and the assimilation of new values and ethics. When we refer to the IT industry, we refer mostly to a new consciousness shared by a group of educated, informed, highly sensitized people where this kind of inclusive development can actually find an environment of nurture. The profile of people have been associated with cool, hip and especially so with societal change. Corporate identity, has in the recent past, also been promoting environmental movements in a big way. In fact, what we propose has been practiced across the globe albeit in a piecemeal way. At Spiretec we wanted to consolidate individual (piecemeal) effort to create a commons, a community space maintained (in every sense of the word) by each individual.

A larger portion of the available land is reserved for agricultural activities. A terraced spine is also introduced into the building form. By reducing the footprint of the building and moving it to the edge of the land, we are able to create an iconic landscape for it. The space is public and essentially farmland. This also helps reabsorb a significant number of farmers who may have lost their land or their livelihood in the course of this development. Each IT firm is allotted an agricultural plot. While the plot is the responsibility of the firm, the firms will also receive incentives to foster them. The identity of each firm buying space at Spiretec will be expressed through a single plot of land. It is quintessentially an environmentally friendly billboard for the firm.

Section through ramp

Section through tower

Residential module

IT module

Regulating solar heat gain

The Southern inclination of the the building keeps a large part of its facade in shade during summer months (top left) and allows light to penetrate during the winter months (top right). A second skin on the south end of the face of the building cuts off glare letting in indirect light.

Canal View

Being highly subject to temporal changes, the extension of the flood plain can host a large range of seasonal events such as farmers’ markets, concerts, fairs or charettes. The institution can have IT booths providing information for farmers. The canal can also serve as a setting for water sports. The extension of the flood plain provides a fertile ground for cultivation and will be used for organic farming. The produce may be commercially sold as well as consumed by the community. This is seen as a first step towards achieving a self-sustained community.

Canal view

‘Los Angeles: Urbanism Alone’ is a mixed-media art work which can be categorized loosely within the disciplines of art, architecture and urbanism.  It is a visual comment addressing the perceived fragmentation of the physical and social environment in the city of Los Angeles.

While fragmentation has been a common theme for criticism of the city since the sixties, it assumes an overly abstract scale for an individual today. It has become a part of living in the city, part of the collective imagination of the people, and so has been effectively put to rest. In short, Angelenos have made peace with the idea of a fragmented city. A status quo has developed between the people, the built city, the city-state and the larger abstract, monumental forces of racism, communalism, gentrification, social and economic marginalization, citizenship, civic dissociation from public life, even elusive concepts like nature and community in the city. And these forces are often kept at rest through the formation of boundaries, edges, and restricted spaces; sometimes manifest as physical barriers but more often than not, ingrained into the collective imagination of the people. These imagined boundaries are as strictly enforced and practiced as any wall or fence in the city, formed and sustained by the simultaneous physical and social fragmentation of the city-scape.

Usually artistic practices celebrate the informal to reveal the arbitrariness of the formal. As a divergence to this norm, ‘Urbanism Alone’ seeks places in the city that are located at the coincidence of top-down, formal boundaries formed by the city-state and those bottom-up, informal boundaries formed by individuals in the city. These boundaries are formed by consensus. Critical of these boundary conditions and necessarily disruptive of the status quo maintained in the city, the project strives to make the abstract, incomprehensible forces playing out in the city more personable, within grasp of an individual. It explores how certain places in the city become modes of associating with the larger politic. The body makes visceral connections with these places. It promotes the understanding of the city through smaller instances, to create points of access and comprehensibility. This has been the central theme for developing the mixed-media work.

The first part of the project was developing various boundary devices that were disruptive of the chosen boundary conditions. This exercise evolved into designing a prosthetic device as an extension to the artist himself. The prosthesis developed for this project is a simple device that allows the artist to look over a boundary about the height of a human. It is worn as a rear view mirror. The ‘extended’ body of the artist brings into existence, a boundary that does not physically exist simply by ‘being’ at a certain location. What is the artist looking over? What kind of boundary is this? And what does he see? The extended body of the artist then makes literal and symbolic references to the various abstract forces playing themselves out at the chosen locations.

The final art work included the prosthesis (on display) built solely for the project in the form of an extendable arm with a light fixture and a convex mirror fitted at its end and rises to a height of approximately 9 feet. Accompanying the prosthesis on display, were three curated, photographic compositions/assemblies of the prosthesis worn by the artist at the three specific locations in the city: The Los Angeles River near downtown, the Iranian Jewish-Muslim neighborhood in Westwood LA and the 5^th and Main Streets crossing at the edge of Skid Row in downtown LA.

Urbanism Alone

As a disclaimer, the ideas presented in the following document aren’t particular to Los Angeles. ‘Fragmentation’ of the social and physical fabric can be studied in any city. Los Angeles is really ‘any’ city. In fact, every city is ‘any’ city. So Los Angeles can be ‘read’ like any other city. This is not to be dismissive of the peculiarities of different cities. It is to assert that there are no outsiders to the idea of cities. Each and every city around the world has the same set of issues that it must deal with. And these issues lie naked, exposed for anyone to see, and understand. Their type, scale, and locations might differ from city to city but their mode of appearance remains comparable. This project has really been about developing a conceptual apparatus to read any city. Los Angeles will not be presented in any special way, and most ideas presented about the city will resonate across time and space.

Urbanism Alone

“I don’t have a body of work that I can consolidate, no ideological approach toward anything that I can sharpen in time, and no utopian vision for the world that I can begin implementing right now. In fact, I don’t believe in anything so strongly so as to create works (art or architecture) of a standalone kind. So I decided instead to loiter, walk to places with no sidewalks, scrounge around for clues, ponder, and wait to be inspired by the city itself. I am alone in Los Angeles, an unfamiliar landscape, even less familiar people, with a large part of the city inaccessible due to all kinds of reasons; committed to make sense of, react to and then create a project in the city. Los Angeles: I am free to roam wherever and whenever, I am neither obliged to conform nor committed to perform; but I am constantly reminded that I am restricted and limited to my own individual access to places and information in the city.”

Imagining Los Angeles

You dont need to visit LA to actually know LA. It has been derided in every form of media and scholarship. In the critics’ imagination, Los Angeles is flat, sprawled across an enormous region, consists of unending characterless suburbia, gated neighborhoods, exclusive enclaves formed along economic, ethnic and racial lines; crime is rampant, security a concern, the LAPD famous. And then there is Hollywood. 10 feet high walls ripping through the city scape, forbidding quantities of barbwire, long lengths of wire-mesh fences with sheet metal gates, warning signs and a nagging consciousness of being under surveillance. One would have to cross a physical boundary every few minutes in the city, whether by car or on foot, to experience the city as a whole. These are some of the first and most significant pre-conceptions about the city, accurate on most counts. As a result, ‘fragmentation’ in the city seems like an acceptable area to explore. And people in the city take to it quite easily too, ‘yah, yah social fragmentation, there’s a lot of that’ or ‘you’re in the right city’. It is as though Los Angeles has a completely irrefutable case of social (and physical) fragmentation and everyone, including Angelenos, now seem to have made their peace with it.

Neighborhoods in LA are neatly divided along economic, ethnic and racial lines, and often these boundaries coincide. Rich-Black, Poor-Black, Poor-Latino, Rich-White, Homeless-Black, Middle class-Asian-American, Rich-Iranian-Jewish, Rich-Orthodox-Jewish. Every neighborhood can be identified such. These boundaries have even been enforced by the city police, whether in the case of Alameda street (also called the white curtain and the burning wall) or more recently with the different district police patrols in downtown LA. Often areas are re-named arbitrarily by the city authorities in the hope to consolidate a population or ousting another, like the toy, art, and fashion districts in downtown or even the ‘Historic Fillipino Town’ which are hard to identify except for their names. Official land-use boundaries have further been drawn so as to reinforce these divisions. The most intriguing of all is Homeless-Black-Warehouse District. It’s as though the high walls and barbed-wire fences of the warehouse district have become officially associated with the homeless on the street. At one level, the city has been divided into three distinct parts, the brown neighborhoods to the east, the black neighborhoods to the south and the predominantly white neighborhoods to the west (For all the fuss about racial and ethnic differences – colors manifest themselves most clearly). At another level, ethnic enclaves like Chinatown, Historic Filipinotown, Koreatown, Little Armenia, Little Ethiopia, Tehrangeles, Little Tokyo, Thai town house the rest of the minority populations. This is most alarming. Los Angeles sometimes feels like being in a zoo. Different enclosures for different animals, similar species kept in close proximity to each other, and a beautifully landscaped path to see each of them in their ‘natural’ surroundings; venturing off this path is dangerous, and so there are prescribed routes throughout the city and you stick to them.

Routes are prescribed so as to avoid any  inter-dependency. One can live their entire life in Los Angeles without seeing a larger part of the city and never even needing to. People get more involved in developing their own neighborhoods, keeping the unwanted out, encouraging self-sufficiency, and in the bargain creating deeper and deeper notions of inside-outside relations. There are few formats that facilitate contact between different groups in the city. This is how the status quo is maintained, by avoiding contact.

But this social fragmentation doesn’t literally manifest itself in the physical realm of the city. Sure there are plenty of boundaries, edges and restricted areas in Los Angeles. But not as many as one imagines there are and definitely not at those locations one expects them to be. In fact, there are no walls between neighborhoods, however different they might be. Movement in the city is not physically restricted. But not every one is equally welcome everywhere. The space of the neighborhood is non-descript, homogeneous. The consciousness of being in a neighborhood is wholely dependent on the people occupying it. The physical environment in LA does not suggest if one is welcome or not. Usually commercial developments, shop fronts, or street life are direct indicators as to the type of neighborhood. But since most of LA is scenic (residential) suburbia, it is quite a task to ‘read’ the city. Most boundaries are only spoken about. There is a constant buzz about personal security in the city, especially where not to go. And this information gets updated (or distorted) as it travels around the city. Everyone is aware of this. This is no insider information. Alameda street shows no sign of being a boundary (although the railway tracks restrict movement to an extent). And even still the magnitude of this boundary instilled in the minds of the people in the city cannot be fathomed. Even though the Los Angeles river is only just a large drain, it makes a huge difference which side of the river one is from. Smaller ethnic neighborhoods are only defined by their commercial street serving ethnic foods, authentic spices and ornamental windows. Behind the commerce, neighborhoods extend facelessly into others. Skid Row has been an area for the containment of homeless populations in the city until the late 80′s and remains to this under the epithet ‘Central City East’ and yet there are no physical boundaries. In July 2010, LA Times (online) caused quite a stir with the ‘LA’s Westside’ mapping exercise. Readers were invited to map out their notional extent of the Westside on a map of LA. People aligned themselves along freeways and streets, named landmarks, re-oriented with respect to downtown LA,  and then there were those who spoke of it as being defined by a change of demographic, affluence, etc.

The boundaries are imagined. There are no walls, no fences and no gates visible at these places. The boundaries are practical, notional, discussed, agreed upon, and then collectively imagined by individuals in the city. They may vary a bit in people’s minds until finally recognized and enforced by the state. There are larger, invisible, abstract, monumental forces playing themselves out at these boundaries. This kind of fragmentation was a concern, a point of criticism and unfortunately an accepted social phenomenon from back in the sixties. In 1968, Reyner Banham, author of Los Angeles: The Architecture of Four Ecologies, wrote a short piece titled “Beverly Hills, Too, Is a Ghetto” for BBC’s The Listener series, August 22-September 12. He described the neighborhood as “an exclusive community self-incorporated specifically to prevent the schools from being invaded by other classes and ethnicities, the “most defensive suburb in the world”.” (From Anthony Widler’s Foreword to the 2000 edition of Los Angeles: The Architecture of Four Ecologies). Banham, in his book, describes the neighborhoods in Los Angeles as ‘self-contained’, ‘specialized area[s]’ nurturing a kind of ‘monoculture’ where people “live restricted and parochial lives that never engage the totality of Los Angeles.” These are soft boundaries, invisible to the eye, but are felt viscerally by every individual. The extent of the everyday city differs from individual to individual. Boundaries are constantly re-imagined based on individual status.

Suburb City

The zoo

Official Map of Downtown Los Angeles

Pershing Square: Downtown Los Angeles

Santa Monica Beach

The Hollywood movie ‘Crash’ portrayed a number of Angelenos who were forced to deal with each other. For all the over-dramatization, the movie does make a point. Confrontations between different groups are always extreme, always at breaking point because there are no formats for everyday interaction. Public space in the city facilitates contact, an acknowledgment of difference and so softens or averts extreme contact and xenophobic attacks between communities, and also eases racial and ethnic tensions. It is a space for naturalization.

And Los Angeles has a complex set of racial and ethnic tensions with a horrifying history of confrontations between resident groups. Black-white, black-brown, white-yellow, white-brown, brown-brown, black-yellow, black-black. The status of each of the resident groups with respect to others, is in constant flux. People traveling on public transport let out some steam every now and again. But for the most part, the city remains separated. All this at a time when the city is experiencing the overwhelming forces of globalization. Alongside the expansion of finance and tourism in the past twenty years, globalization has caused a sizeable increase in immigrant populations. Los Angeles is now officially a multi-ethnic, multi-racial, culturally diverse city with majority-minority populations. In 1960, the city consisted of a more than 80% Non-Hispanic White population. Following the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, and with subsequent immigration to the region in the seventies and eighties, Los Angeles has developed a truly global demographic.

What does a global demographic demand? How does the city become more inclusive? Ideally, the city must facilitate social integration, ‘where every person is encouraged into the mainstream by giving full access to opportunities, rights and services (a variant to pluralist and assimilationist attitudes). The status of each individual must gradually be alleviated by offering an equitable society with respect to socio-economic status, geographic distribution, language attainment and inter-marriage’ (Wikipedia). The idea is not to maintain difference or to completely homogenize society, but only to provide a framework for either. Here, each individual would defy clear categorization, possess multiple identities, and would not be identified through geographical locations in the city. Neighborhoods would be interdependent, composed of diverse people, identified through ambiguous geographies; where boundaries are constantly changing, places are constantly being re-imagined, and the city keeps shifting. The project is rooted in the belief that a first stage to achieve these ideals is the advancement of a multi-cultural, democratic public sphere and a systematic identification and ‘contestation’ of the boundaries that have begun to define life in the city of Los Angeles.

Boundaries are assembled

‘Urbanism Alone’ uses familiar locations from the city to make a statement. These locations make direct physical and symbolic connections with larger urban forces that comprise the contemporary city. The significance of these kinds of locations is their implicit potential to expose the processes of fragmentation in the city. Monumental concepts can be located and so made intelligible to any individual in the city. The space of the city-conglomerate must be condensed into a form directly relate-able and comprehend-able to an individual. With precise locations in the city, these concepts cannot be dismissed for their abstractness any longer. The connections this time are visceral.

Since the project is necessarily disruptive of the status quo (as embodied in boundary conditions) maintained in the city, it attempts to re-signify familiar parts of the city by ‘making visible’ the invisible boundaries that define them. And by locating ‘devices’ at these boundary conditions the boundaries are revealed. The boundary device then, is any kind of installation or object that contests the very boundary that it has made visible. Acts of looking over, moving across, ascending, descending, using, supporting or subverting are embodied as gestures through the device/installation. They provide new accesses, new positions, newer vistas and most importantly the possibility of re-creation. In lieu of their temporary nature, they provide an agility and criticality towards everything established and well-formed. This is at the core of the project (From Project Vienna: Please refer to Design Projects section).

The boundary device developed for this project would facilitate ‘looking over’ a boundary about as high as a human. These boundaries are constructed by us, proliferated by our prejudices and stereotypes. We often assume that such boundaries in the city are imposed in a top-down kind of way and that big moves are required to mobilize things and to affect change. ‘Urbanism Alone’ is hopeful that even small moves can affect changes in society since they mobilize the individual. These small moves are also capable of actually contesting the larger balance of power in the city.

Small moves

The Watts Towers

This is not a Curio

This is not a Curio

As a parallel project, the curio (or souvenir, memento, bric a brac) has also been explored as a boundary device. A small object that summarizes or captures an experience (place or event), the curio has great potential in reviving memories. I was there, I want to remember that, I want a part of that in my house, I want to own it, I want people to know I was there. The curio is personal. It can sometimes have greater impact than a monument. Because in as much as the monument reminds us of an event, it also brings closure and finality to it. A person associates with public monuments through the rest of humanity. The monument represents the achievements or the shortcomings of humanity. In a way, they are intentionally not personal.

The Watts Towers in the Watts District have assumed the status of a monument. Even though they are the work of one man, Simon Rodia, they have today come to represent the renewal of an entire community in South Central. After the riots of 1965, Watts became an important location for cultural and political activity and the towers have assumed an important position in the minds of the people. A monument to those who lost their lives in the riots. Edgar Arceneaux, as part of his Watts House project, made and sold jewellery (pendants) in the form of the Watts Towers miniatures. Even though the impact of this project is too open-ended and also dismissed as kitsch, wearing the watts towers has a certain effect on the individual. One might say that making curios of monuments brings a different kind of closure to the issue, trivializing it to a certain extent. Buying a miniature of the Eiffel Tower at the Eiffel Tower and keeping it on the mantle completes the whole process of visitation. But one cannot discount the memories it brings back simply by being a personal and personable object. There is something always left open.

As a sub-project, ‘This is not a Curio’ contributes to making the idea of the river more personable, to keep the idea of the river open in the imaginations of the city.

LA Downtown (right) up to LA River (left)

The Los Angeles River, near the Artists District, Downtown LA

The Los Angeles River is by far the most intriguing feature of the city. It doesn’t feature in any tourist guide and might also be completely omitted from some maps of Los Angeles, but its presence cannot be overlooked. While traveling through the city, it appears for a moment and then it’s gone; only its sharp edges leave a lasting image. Then days go by before you see it again, again from above while crossing a bridge. Confined to a concrete trough, the river is in fact an oversized drain locked in on both sides by railway tracks or by freeways and an impossible industrial land-use. In its complete abandon, it becomes the quintessential image of early modernization and development processes in the city. Hard, straight-lined and neatly cordoned off, it also points to a much larger conception of ‘public space’ in the city.

It’s hard to sense the relationship of the river to any part of the city it traverses, and these are significant parts: Canoga Park, the San Fernando Valley, Hollywood, Downtown, South Central, and Long Beach. The river is the single continuous ‘natural’ feature that connects almost every part of the city (if we consider the freeways as unnatural). Bill Deverell (USC), at a forum on the ‘History of the LA River’ said that the “…renewal of the LA river would also be the renewal of the city” (Reinventing Los Angeles). Robert Gottlieb, in his book Reinventing Los Angeles, asserts that the reinvention of the LA river is intrinsically linked to social change. Its reinvention cannot be divorced from the need to provide green-scapes and public space in the heart of the city, that transcend the scale of the neighborhood. How the river is developed has the potential to re-establish the ‘right to the city’. Who will benefit from a re-imagined river? How do we re-conceptualize nature and community in the city? Gottlieb challenges the reader to imagine a new ecology closely related to nature and community in the city. His conviction about the river stems from the idea that there are two ways that nature has been imagined in the contemporary city,  “a primarily nature-focused (the ocean and mountains) and a people-focused (home and community) urban environmental politics. Both converge on the question of open space in the heart of the city.”

The river today has the gaping potential to re-imagine city-life. The first stage to re-inventing the river is to stop thinking of it as a boundary. The river is a space, not a boundary. It has already been pronounced ‘navigable’, it isn’t too long before its spatiality is discovered. And these moves toward the river will begin slowly in places where it is most needed. There will be a day when neighborhoods and districts will straddle both sides of the river. Until then, the Artists District will end at the railway tracks (amongst the industrial land-use) and not acknowledge the space beyond.

The LA River: Locked in by the railway tracks and an impossible land-use

The Warehouse District: Downtown LA

The LA River at Long Beach

Imagining the river

A possible ecology

A possible ecology

Planning to sell the Los Angeles River water

The LA river water has healing properties

Westwood Boulevard, Westwood LA

Los Angeles has been home to some of the largest populations of immigrants from Asia, and the Middle East outside of their home country. The seventies and eighties were witness to major global changes. And with the reforms in America’s immigration policies, the region of Los Angeles saw unprecedented growth in immigrant populations. The Iranian neighborhood, also called Tehrangeles or Little Persia, in Beverly Hills/Westwood LA mostly comprises a population that immigrated to California in the wake of and during the Islamic Revolution in Iran. They are mostly Jewish, with a sizeable Muslim population and smaller Zoroastrian and Baha’i groups. Approximately 500,000-600,000 former Iranian nationals reside in the area. Westwood is an affluent neighborhood with a majority Non-Hispanic White population.

The initial impulse was to capture this movement across the globe in the form of an immigration sculpture that visualized data (demographic or other).

The Islamic Revolution in Iran

Data visualization: Immigration to Los Angeles

Google Earth sculpture: Immigration to LA (Impression only)

But data seemed too hard an interpretation. It is after all the softer aspects of immigration that sustain academic interests. What is it like to be disillusioned with your own society? What are the expectations from a new society? How does one assimilate into a new culture while also being attached to their roots? What is kept, what is forgotten? How does contemporary America provide for a new life? How does living in an ‘ethnic’ or ‘racial’ enclave in Los Angeles affect life in the city? How is the new generation coping with life in America?

The Iranian community is a relatively affluent community as compared to other ethnic communities in the city. But their presence in Los Angeles is not without its complications. Doesn’t the slightest suggestion of Westwood raise a hundred questions about social integration, citizenship, contemporary Islam, Israel, communalism, the Iranian Revolution, international terrorism, America’s war on terror, 9-11? Isn’t being from Iran very easily associated with being Muslim? The Iranian community has to deal with being typecast as Muslim (and Arab as portrayed in the movie ‘Crash’). How the Iranian community combats these stereotypical views, is by having a vociferous media front. Their criticism of contemporary Iranian leadership ensures their loyalty to the United States. Their support for Israel does too. They have even formed radical groups and secret organizations against the current political regime in Iran, that are allegedly located in Los Angeles. The boundary that is created is better explained as a ‘front’ or a ‘performance’. It embodies the nagging responsibility of a Muslim today to prove his or her compatibility with the nation of residence. How do Muslims around the world deal with the idea of a non-Islamic nation? How do they perform as citizens loyal to a nation? In the case of Los Angeles, Iranian Muslims stand side by side with their other Iranian friends. This requires a level of de-culturation in the public realm, as Ayaan Hirsi Ali has asserted. She says that Islam has big obstacles in the way of modernizing and being compatible with secular, western cultures. Iranian Muslims in LA seem to have found a way around this.

Iranian Muslims are spread across the region from Beverly Hills, Westwood and Culver City in West Los Angeles to Orange County but wherever they might live, their ‘front’ or the extent of their neighborhood must necessarily be defined at Westwood Boulevard. Because this is where the otherwise dispersed Iranian community must return, to the Federal building on Wilshire Boulevard, to swear their allegiance to the American nation.

5th and Main Streets, Downtown LA, at the edge of Skid Row

“Skid row exists because we’ve created it — although until now, with the downtown renaissance approaching its borders, we’ve mostly been able to ignore it.” Steve Lopez, LA Times, Demons Are Winning on Skid Row.

This is a boundary most familiar to Angelenos, one that has changed drastically over the years, and ever more reified in the contemporary city. There were 17,740 residents in Skid Row (now called Central City East) according to the 2000 census. The area contains the largest stable population of homeless people in all of America which is approximately 7000-8000. It is a predominantly black community (Wikipedia). In the late 70’s Bradley administration redevelopment of downtown, the city followed a policy of containment of the homeless population. Skid Row was where it became legal to sleep on the street. There were definite boundaries to Skid Row.

5th and Main: Skid Row

Today, the revitalization programs in downtown are pressing against the boundaries of Skid Row. 5th and Main Streets is one such boundary. For most part of the year, Skid Row remains in the dark, impenetrable. But every morning the boundary fades to allow people into the warehouse and shopping districts. Special district police patrol the streets on bike. By night, the boundary is up again. 5th and Main is not too far from the center of Skid Row activities at these times. On weekends the streets are activated by shop fronts selling cheap clothes and accessories. The homeless seem to disappear completely during the two day carnival. Sunday night they’re back. And then once a month, the art walk reaches its edges. Hordes of art enthusiasts press against the boundary but none dares cross it. The message is clear.  Small, regular intrusions into the space will soon become larger occupations. Commerce is turning the corner at 5th and Main. The need for security has increased. The contained area of Central City East will soon be over-run by the revitalization of downtown. Revitalization (in the form of a clean up) is inevitable and a first stage in creating liveability, but would the problem of Skid Row be addressed in the bargain? How will the city deal with the occupants of Skid Row?

5th and Main: Mapping daily, weekly and monthly changes in boundary condition

The original extents of Skid Row coincide with those drawn out by the city-state for Central City East on the north, west and south. Toward the east, it extends into the warehouse district. Central City East has regional services for the homeless that provide food and shelter to many. These social services have been kept out of every neighborhood and so are limited to Skid Row. It becomes imperative to acknowledge racism, gentrification, and unequal development in the city when the location of 5^th and Main Streets is opened up to question. Furthermore, one realizes how art can be appropriated as an instrument of the state. The art walk, Gallery Row and the newly formed Artists District indicate how art can be used as the softer, in-between phase for the gentrification of areas. The art walk is but one of many processes that naturalizes the boundary formed at 5th and Main between two groups in the city with drastically different and often antagonistic modes of living. How will the city deal with one of its weakest populations?

The Prosthesis

The Prosthesis

The prosthesis is an exploration in ephemeral boundary devices. The ‘extended’ body of the artist is capable of assigning meaning to any place. In as much as the prosthesis embodies the act of looking over, it also becomes a spectacle. Both actions demand an extra-human ability. At a symbolic level, the rear view mirror stand for all things that have been missed on the onward journey. It provides a view that augments our understanding of the environment. Furthermore, the convex mirror is a symbol of active surveillance. ‘Watching your back’ in a city like LA has become a mode of living.

The Mirror as Prosthesis: Augmented vision

The Mirror as Boundary Device: Surveillance

Light and Mirror: Making boundaries visible

Assigning meaning to any place

More often than not, our research doesn’t lead us directly into design, and rightly so (we’re split labs). Even still we remain optimistic about realizing direct or indirect connections between both our interests. We are committed to testing and re-working ideas in design and striving to broaden the scope of architecture through research. Please follow the individual links to view our design and research projects.

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