Urban Life Corridors

6 months of Rosengård on an A1

Roberto Ovalle A1

View more documents from Roberto Ovalle.

Urban Life Corridors

What I heard. What I saw. What can be.

Urban Life Corridors

View more presentations from Roberto Ovalle.

Caught In A Web

Caught In A Web

View more presentations from Roberto Ovalle.

Case study: the bricks of urban life

1. The basic unit

This 9-second high speed footage corresponds to a shop across the street from aaa's project in Eastern Paris. As we can see, shops are multifunctional places in many cultures: they serve as business and income source for one or two families, while at the same time being the place where friends and strangers alike meet.

Here, the youths can meet their peers; the lady of the family can meet other housewives and discuss community issues, or the old men can sit in front of the shop and play a game of backgammon or chess.

A good share of urban life takes places in the vecinity of the shop. Shops are often businesses, but also they are reasons for people to see other people, and to be seen by others. There was a café just in the corner in front of where this video was taken, and several of us visited this café, which in turn served as a scenario for the locals to ask us where we came from, what we were doing there, etc., and for us to inquire about the local life.

Hence, different shops conform commercial (and unquestionably cultural) the threads that constitute the fabric of social life in communities across the world.

2. More than the sum of its parts

In many cultures around the world, shops of different character size and character come together. This situation takes different names around the world: "tianguis" in Mexico, "bazaar" in countries of muslim tradition, etc. While each variety has its distinctive characteristic, I would like to point out that they all tend to stage a very rich urban life. Tianguis tend to be highly self-organized, and the people that live and work in them often tend to develop stronger social and emotional bonds. In bazaars, for example, one can find anything from food to tin works, and they often occupy several blocks or streets, but they can also travel to other towns and function in open spaces.

The internal organization of these market-like structures tends to be non-linear, and it is actually quite rhyzomatic: a used book shop can stand next to a cartoon artist selling their work. Food products are found easily, but not confined to a specific space.

Besides places for making a living, these market places also stage a great deal of cultural life: the Mercado Central de Guatemala is a good place for finding typical foods such as fiambre or cocido, while in the Bazaar of Tabriz in Iran one can actually find mosques.

3. Useful concepts

Mosaïc-like spatial and activity structure: the more you zoom in, the more details you find. Bazaars and other similar structures are organized like patchwork, where any part can be replaced by any other and movement is fluid in all directions.

Self-organization: trusting people is basic in any kind of group effort. Only when people feel trusted to do their best, will they perform at their prime. These kind of social structures are self-organizing, and while at first it may seem like they live in anarchy, it's what people don't see, that makes the whole organization work finely tuned.

Versatility: new functions can be adapted to the spaces, according to what's necessary. During harvest season it's possible to find more vegetables, while during the wintertime other situations take place. Additionally, every person is entitled to their share of the space, rendering the concept a very inclusive one (this point is strongly related to the mosaïc structure, mentioned before). Hence, the space can adapt to each and every person, and every person can adapt to the space.

Multifunctionalism: it is a place for commerce. It is a place for culture. It is a place for social life. It is a place for...

If you wanna know more:
Tianguis
Bazaar

From liminal zones to urban-life corridors and beyond

Post... it?

So far...

View more presentations from Roberto Ovalle.

Of vulnerability and complexity

entropic rhyzomes

Vulnerability

View more presentations from Roberto Ovalle.

Urban-life corridors

It's just 8 slides...

Urban-life corridors

View more presentations from Roberto Ovalle.

Urban-life corridors: an explanation

1.

I have been studying Rosengård and its interaction with Malmö, and to some degree, the rest of the world. So far, I have found a perception wall that affects how people perceive Rosengård. A vast majority of the people I have talked to, don't want to arrive in Rosengård, and those who live there, want to move out. It is not a place for arrival. As a next step for my research, I would like to introduce the concept of the Urban-life corridor.

2.

The urban-life corridor is based on the wildlife corridor. Here's a wildlife corridor definition from Wikipedia:


"A wildlife corridor or green corridor is an area of habitat connecting (...) populations separated by human activities (...) This allows an exchange of individuals between populations..."


Therefore, according to an old diagram I made some weeks ago, I will try to establish such a corridor between inside and outside (the currently separated populations) of Rosengård.



3., 4. & 5.
I provide my own definition for the Urban-life corridor, which takes as an important element the results of the encounter of these previously separated geographical areas. I found several areas with the potential to serve as corridors.
I divided these areas into 5 categories, according to its characteristics:


- Rosengård Center, which holds commerce, services and administration.
- Roads: streets and highways connecting and dividing Rosengård.
- Sports areas: they hold a great potential, offering residents a healthy way of entertainment and interaction with neighboring communities.
- Parks: they offer a free, democratic space, which can be used and transformed in endless ways.
- Religious space: it consists mainly of 2 areas, the graveyard in the North and the Mosque in the South.



6.
I found this space to be ideal for my project. Many roads cross here (pedestrian and vehicles), and it connects the mosque with RoCen through open spaces. Since it comes across the main road and has the potential of connecting Rosengård with other populations, it complies with the criteria to be an Urban-life corridor.



7. & 8.
A functional experiment: drawing from Doina Petrescu's text, I want to explore the possibility of introducing new functions to an old space with the intentions of causing new, unexpected consequences.


What new functions? People in Rosengård have a number of assets brought from their homelands: cooking, traditions, skills, and a large etcétera. Hence, this Urban-life corridor can serve as a stage for these activities, and many more.

The walk as a method and an artistic practice: A DAV workshop with Publik

By Zlatan Ðikić / Mo, Kuo-Chen / Roberto Ovalle / Teng, Miao

Site: Rosengård, Malmö

We arrived in Rosengård in mid September. We heard it’s a sketchy place where no one should go at night, where there are bombs and guns… in short, “a failed experiment in multiculturalism”

(as stated in http://www.cbn.com/CBNnews/556299.aspx).

One cloudy morning, we decided to meet in Rosengård. Mo, Teng and Roberto were staying about 2km away from the center of Rosengård, so we decided to walk and approach the place on foot. Four or five hours later, we left Rosengård.

This DAV project intends to show what we found to be the great potential of visiting and walking in Rosengård: the possible outcome of the mixture of Swedish culture and the cultures of the many immigrants.

We want to show what could be an original Rosengård experience.

Dav Project Final 20091115

View more documents from Kuo-Chen Mo.

DAV Project Film Final-20091115

DAV Project Film Final-20091115

By Zlatan Ðikić / Mo, Kuo-Chen / Roberto Ovalle / Teng, Miao

DAV Project Film Final-20091115

Green architecture for the human body

A way to make things healthier for human beings...

Knitting the web

Time to depart. But... where do I depart from?
Let's go over Rosengård one more time:

1. Rosengård is mostly defined by heavy transportation circuits around it, namely highways and the railroad. However, these arteries don't bring life to Rosengård, and actually, they serve as a safe-conduct to exit Rosengård as quickly as possible.

2. There is a great social potential in Rosengård. There are plenty of countries represented in its inhabitant roster (the most present being Iraq and former Yugoslavian countries), who bring to Sweden an important cultural baggage, which, as of today, remains mostly under-explored.

3. Rosengård is a limbo between Sweden and the rest of the world. It is the place where a number of migrants come to, when they start a new life in Sweden. A vast majority of the newcomers to Rosengård will eventually leave for other neighbourhoods or cities, depriving Rosengård of a sense of permanence.

4. Inside its limits, the people of Rosengård coexist peacefully. However, there have been clashes with "the outside", rendering Rosengård to resemble a "city within a city". Except for the ocassional food-shopper, most people from the rest of Malmö have little to do with Rosengård.

Point of departure
How to tear down this (psychological? architectural?) wall, and make people WANT to arrive in Rosengård?

What Is Paris?

After a week in Paris and a week in Malmö, I tried to draw common lines between the two cities. What is it that defines a place? Is it the buildings, its history, its reputation? Is there a concept that contains all of the previous ideas (and more)?

Paris and Malmö belong in (mostly) different contexts, but they are both defined by the actions that take place in them. Actions follow desires, and to quote the rhyzhome text:

"Desire is a production; it creates situations..."

It is the people that define space.

What makes each city a unique experience is the culture, stories, values or experiences of those who inhabit them. An interesting thought-experiment, would be to try to picture a scenario where Malmö has 12 million inhabitants.

How alike or how different would they be?

What Is Paris?

View more presentations from Roberto Ovalle.

Elasticity in Rosengård

A tale of urban osmosis.

Elasticity in Rosengård

View more presentations from Roberto Ovalle.

Plurality makes the difference

I intend to work in Rosengård, a site with great (under-appreciated) potential. Its strong point is the diversity that it offers when it comes to human landscapes and stories, which could be a source of endless exchange with the Swedish context.


Today Rosengård is a question mark on the map. A kind of empty quarter.
However, by reinforcing the local identity, we also reinforce the "Swedishness" in it, and activate the intercultural exchange between the local and the universal.


How can we transform Rosengård from an area of exclusion into an area of inclusion?

Check out this SlideShare Presentation:

2009.10.03 Elasticity Preview

View more presentations from Roberto Ovalle.

Scribbling on Rosengård

Some questions regarding an approach to Rosengård

Is there such thing as an imbedded city?
A city within a city?
The transition between Malmö and Rosengård (the "liminal zone") can be thought of as a kind of limbo: a place in between places / an idea in between ideas.
A lot of action takes places in this liminal zone.
This liminal zone is neither a here, nor a there.
But is this zone a permeable area? Is it a solid wall?
Is Rosengård a microcosm inside Malmö, related to countless other microcosms in different cities?
In this respect, is it part of a rhyzome-like cultural pattern?

Additionally, what are the visible codes that are expressed in Rosengård's walls? What does this "voice" sound like? As presented in my post about new hierarchies, I regard graffiti as a rhyzome-like means of expression, re-claimed by anonymous people in communities around the globe. What does the street art (stickers, stencil, graffiti, etc.) communicate about Rosengård and its relation to Malmö?

Of Malmö and religious proselitism

The original report:
http://www.cbn.com/CBNnews/556299.aspx


I came across this point of view (which I neither support nor antagonize), which stems from CBN (Christian Broadcasting Network; based in Virginia, USA). It makes me wonder:

1. How do different biotopes interact with each other?
2. Are different cultures overlapping, clashing or intermingling?
3. What happens in the spaces in between cultures?
4. How does an architect go about being caught in between contexts?
5. How do you map liminal human behaviour?
   

Graffiti: redefining the official channels

Graffiti

View more presentations from Roberto Ovalle.

welcome

"Every schoolboy knows"

This is a phrase from the anthropologist Gregory Bateson who you may meet as a reference in our master studio.
This expression can be interpreted in such a way as every architect, every taxi driver, every kid now knows that global challenges has to be met with full innovative force on every local level, including the smallest biotope. Its an awareness in the air. This involves rethinking, research and new kinds of explorations in the urban field, thus conceived as both built up structures and the landscape. The city is under pressure and has to be redefined continuosly.
Yesterday we read and article by the researcher Maria Hellström, SLU/Alnarp/Malmø, titled The deverging common (Den avvikende allmenning) where she discusses Christiania in Copenhagen as representative of the urban non-ownership as a creative disturbance.
An eye and an ear to deviations, divergence and that you me see as important undercurants should inform our studio and enter the blog.
When the studio is going to explore change as opposed to limitless growth this joint blog for you students, us teachers and invited guests can bee conceived as a library, a library of change. This library of change is then formed by the participants and will act as a common Idea Universe, with a reference too the mosaic reading.
So the moral of this blog is to launch your findings here. The expression visualising change can be fine to have in mind. We look forward to meet you on the blog and in Bergen.

Forever yours
Kjerstin and Knut Eirik