Wolverhampton by Car, a poem by Anjna Farmah

Wolverhampton by car

 

In we got, all seated and prepared,

With only a map to guide through the urban sprawl,

We sit back and relax, and use the window as a t.v,

Watch the ride and let the Patriarch drive.

 

We see trees, animals and people crossing,

A mother ushers her young over a junction,

Navigating her family as the herds close in,

All a wildlife program of its own,

 

A never ending road that wound and wound,

Approach at speed, bodies pin back,

Turn the bend and a lorry sits before red lights,

Like an elephant bathing in the summer heat,

 

A ferocious roar that bellows and carries far,

All from a pipe emitting a dusty gas,

Its sleek body cuts through the traffic, leaving all behind,

A beautiful lion roaring past at full speed,

 

Cameras flash at the beautiful lion,

Sirens follow as the park ranger enforces law

Slow. Slow. Slow. He sits timid in the left hand lane,

He is unleashed with only a warning.

 

The lush green grassland grow to take over,

Birds twitter and overtake the roars of the lions,

Random intrusions of red grey blocks emerge,

The mountains of the urban savannah

 

Gazing across the now grey savannah,

The chugging locomotive dissects the peace,

Roaring louder than the herd, it commands attention,

The human eyes struggle to keep speed,

 

Patterns of animal life engrained on the city,

Approaching the watering hole, we are one of many

Ring roads created to direct and contain this migration,

The city centre the source of gold,

 

Coal to gold; a city of Transformation,

Organic green turns to the industrial red grey,

Lions and elephants transform to mobile metal shells,

Wolverhampton, the savannah belonging to the car.

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Since we're doing train station experience. SO i've tried to check out things that happend unexpectedly in train or train station.

Getting ready in the train! You're late to work and this is the fastest way!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-_2BrXv5LQ

Life's for Sharing. T-Mobile dance in Liverpool train station.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQ3d3KigPQM

X-Box 360 banned advert.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UF833-lpJDU

The Matrix Revolutions - Train Station Scene
I like when the guy said: "This is nowhere, it is between your world and my world." A train station as just a changing place.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lkFp7TGH754

Fun Theory (Chan)

This is what i've been looking for. Physical mobility = better way!
Fun Theory, something simple as fun is the easiest way to change people’s behaviour for the better.




http://www.thefuntheory.com/?q=expriment/pianotrappan

POLITICAL MOBILITY

Anjna Farmah
 
Similarly to Matt, I have been meaining to post a blog about political mobility.  After I concluded that to me, mobility meant displacement, I talked to my Dad about the word in general. The discussion took a political turn and he began retelling stories that were told to him about the Partition of India in 1947.  Not knowing a lot about it, apart from handed down stories, I decided to research. The internet has some great passages but the best research I found were documentaries and films.
 
For some context;
In 1947, India had been ruled by the British Empire for nearly two decades. They had decided to return India back to her people but split the country in two to produce two countries. Many believe it was a mistake and unneccessary. People were displaced dependent on their location and religion. Indians had to live in India and Muslims had to live in Pakistan. Millions had to make the journey to live in the designated country and many lost ther lives. The boundaries were set by C Radcliffe working with Viceroy Mountbatten and split Punjab and Bengal in two. The British phased their exit to coincide before the boundary was made public.
 
After talking to my Dad, it was clear that my family was affected by the partition. The stories were not enough research and so I watched the documentary linked below and also a Bollywood film called Pinjar, which both gave the perspective of the people.
 
This political act was not considerate to the people. Peace was the aim but the implementation of the Partition produced violence, brutality and death. A friction was produced that many still feel. It was great that two identities and countries were made but do many modern asians understand the pain that was felt by our ancestors?
 
What does it say about the people following the dominant politics? Many don't have a voice, but as Gandhi tried to demonstrate, their is always a voice and sometimes expressing it and knowing for yourself that you have aired your opinion and sometimes being heard isn't the point.
 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=91rhIyPU1z0
 
The documentary has been divided up in 9 parts, but it is fascinating to watch and for me made me ask questions about my identity and heritage.
 

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Re,Re: Political (Matthew Walker)

I know what you mean Chan about the passport control being a necessary form of control but i met people in Syria who were no different from myself but could not get a tourist visa to visit Britain. One of the main reasons we have passport control is because certain countries are more desirable than others and masses of people would want to migrate to these areas if there were no boundaries. However, in a utopian world, we could share all out wealth and resources equally and therefore have freedom to travel. In Europe Union the single market encourages the free movement of goods, capital, people and services (without tax). In terms of the human resources people are entitled to work anywhere in the continent and do not need visas. In a world developing a global economy could this same policy one day be applied on a global scale?

Below- European Single Market Cartoon

Re: Political (Kang)

Yes, we still do need passport to travel around to almost everywhere. But I look at passport as a mean of identification more than a restriction for people to travel around. Only places like the United State of America that extremely controlling their international border by restricting people from around the world to enter the states. Mobility is always being guided or guarded by rules. Physically or virtually, political such as government will affect the route of mobility. Physical mobility such as the highways, and the railroad were planned and built accordingly to city planning, by the government. While on the internet, such as the case of China where many of the international sites are being banned in the country such as Facebook. During the Stone Age, a group of human travelled within their own boundaries because they feel much safer being inside their own territory. Restriction means safety. Today, the boundaries go with greater distance caused by the invention of automobile transportation. And with greater and much improved way of transport, we able to travel to any place in the world with just a few hours of flight away; the world just seem smaller than before. And we feel much restriction instead of freedom to travel.
We always perceive what’s much important to ourselves. Everybody wants their own right of way, but when a community stay together, not everybody’s right of way is everybody’s right of way. Thus the government is needed to set rules and regulation on the transportation system. Imagine what would happen if there are no driving rules and regulation, accidents will happen. Politics restrict the human’s mobility but also to keep them safe, well most of them. That’s what i think. Cheers. See you all 2moro.

Matthew Walker - Political issues

Hi I’ve been meaning to post this blog for a while but only just remembered about it. Hopefully ill be able to spark some last minute discussion.

Not so long ago in the news was the story about the refugee camp in Calais, referred to as the ‘jungle’, being shut down. Here was a place where people had fled their own countries (most of the migrants came from Afghanistan) to try and seek a better way of life. They end up in the make shift shelters in Calais where they live in constant fear of being deported to their own war torn countries. Although the living conditions here are poor it is a temporary home for the migrants. Politics has brought war to these countries homelands, encourage them to go to the ‘jungle’ and now kicks them out.

The link below shows a report done by the bbc and links to various radio reports in the area.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/8262800.stm

The embedded Charlie Chaplin video, although taking a comical approach to the matter, highlights how free we actually are in our mobility and how government controls where we can or cant live. While travelling this year I asked many of the locals if they had been to Britain and they exclaimed how they were not allowed visas. While we in Britain are free to travel in many ways, we must note that it is not a universal right.

Mathhew Walker - Responce to Chan

Similarly to Chan’s post and the post entitled life between buildings (not sure who wrote this) I was also thinking about the way in which physical and virtual mobility must coexist. You both discuss how certain forms of mobility that are energy efficient are of greater value and therefore we could perhaps replace the unnecessary movement with virtual movement. So for example instead of every family in the country driving to out of town to shopping centres for their weekly groceries, they could be ordered online and transported by one vehicle taking the most efficient route. This would then give us more time for pleasurable mobility such as walking and socialising.

1Virtual + 1Physical = Mobility (Chan)

This is something that I have in mind of what happened when Virtual Mobility coexisting with Physical Mobility in a conceptual way. The more I think of how the both expects been affecting our daily life, guiding and being the way we interact with each other and the whole world; the more I realize how both of virtual and physical will always be our daily needs for mobility. You just can’t live with either any one of them. Much further, what I have in mind is that it’s just more than just man made marvels that making the future that we’re heading. But more of our future are being tied back to the natural world, the first place how everything was suppose to interact with each other that create this natural chain reaction between each and everything. Yes, we do invent the wheel that changes our way of physical mobility since the industrial age. But since then, human’s daily life are more and more lacking of physical movement or mobility that it starting to affect human’s health. Comparing the normal human life span of the people today and the people 20 or 30 years ago, humans nowadays tend to live a shorter life. The lack of physical exercise tends to be one of the causes. There’s 3 points that interest me.
1. Relying too much on petrol driven transportation system causes pollution to the natural environment.
2. Is virtual mobility the answer to cut down the existing polluting system?
3. Or it’s back to where we started where we depend more on physical mobility which was a much healthier and safer way?
An example of Human Powered Transportation - http://www.alternative-energy-news.info/human-powered-workout-gym-concept/

A little explanation about the sketches that I’ve done, it’s just a bare idea that just being put into shape. Made of recycle material, the design is made to be environmental sustainable. It not only being able to be mobile to be moves to any particular place, it also can be able to be change size to take any space in the urban cityscape. The electronics and digital technology inside will be naturally powered. Instead of moving around using technology, it will be powered by a horse. Weird but that’s the way of avoiding petrol transportation for now.

My idea is to incorporate virtual mobility and physical mobility. Not to just letting virtual mobility to take over physical mobility in every aspects of human lives. In UK, people are encouraged to walk. It’s a good value that should be maintained. My idea for this Friday presentation will most probably hitting on coexistence of Virtual and Physical mobility.
And can we all meet up 2moro, Thursday 15.10.2009 ? Sometime somewhere to prepare our presentation for Friday?

Food miles

There are 6.8 billion people in the world

Over 1 billion people are overweight

Over 1 billion people are staving

2/7 of the worlds population is unhealthy

Below is a table of world and the countries in which people are staving

19 million hectares of rainforest are lost every year to create

new arable land

20 million hectares of arable land is lost to degrading (become unusable)

Below is a map on food production levels, whether they have increased or decreased.

For every calorie we consume it requires ten times the amount of energy to put it on our plate

1/3 of all grain production goes to feed animals to create meat.

It takes 10 times the amount of grain to produce 1 meat, if feed through animal first, if animal is not free range or organic, that requires more

80% of all food trade are controlled by 5 multi national corporatisations

It is estimated that in 2050 there will be twice the amount of people living in cities.

They will require twice the amount of meat and diary products

The U.K. has around 61 million people.

95 % of fruit and 50% of vegetables we eat are shipped into the U.K.

Lamb travels into the U.K. as far as New Zealand travelling over 11,000 miles

U.K. food travels a total of 30 billion km each year

This adds 19 million tonnes of carbon dioxide each year

30% of all goods transported around the world are food

U.K. households spend on average £29.95 on food per person each week

U.K. households waste an estimated 6.7 million tonnes of food every year

That is around 1/3 of all food in the U.K. is thrown away

61% or 4.1 million tonnes of this waste are avoidable

This is better than U.S.A, which throws away 50% of produced food

Under half of all U.K. food was supplied domestically from within the U.K.

Africa with its warm climate supplies the U.K. with fresh fruit and vegetables all year round.

This is worth £200 million, supporting one million people

In 2008 world food imports top $1 trillion a year (£528 billion)

life between buildings

Life in between buildings

Outdoor activities in public spaces can be categorized into three

Necessary activities: what we need to do, everyday tasks like, go to work or school. These occur regardless or the weather type

Optional activities: tasks we do for enjoyment, like sun bathing or playing sports. These tasks occur a lot more during good weather

Social activities: this requires others, children playing or people talking. This happens spontaneously, as people move, more in better weather.

People need stimulation

=

get it from meeting other people

=

a lively city gives healthy psyche

People need people

If we look at children, they are happier playing with one toy with someone, than all the toys in the world and playing by themselves.

We look for interaction all the time, if there are two routes one shorter than the other, but the longer one is a lively street, we will walk down the lively street.

Dutch architect F Van Klingeren said

“one plus one is three” and

“ something happens because something happens because something happens”

These mean that if you get two people interacting, another interaction will pop up and then another and then another until a lot of people are involved.

Response to Digital District,

CHAN MIN KANG

It is a fact that today, everything that we do everyday related to digital information or what we called the internet. We can get the news, the show, our food, our clothes, just by sitting on a computer with connection to the internet. Even large businesses nowadays rely on internet of doing their business. A breakdown of internet can cause massive looses to some company that heavily rely on them. A digital district is a plan that most of the major developing cities are trying to imply. Even back in my country, Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur already has a digital district setting up in Cyberjaya.

A digital district doesn’t have to be newly built or looked different. The concept behind the digital district requires a massive complicating server system to support the internet or the digital information flow within the digital district. This system will be installed behind each building or a site, but still retain most of the existing architecture. This system will able to support more than just fast internet surfing, it will provide a playground for latest new technology. New technology that able to fully utilize the fast internet connection will changes the way the people in digital district interact. Socially, people will not be relying more on physical interaction anymore. A digital district will surely cut down physical interaction or physical mobility of human within that area; and there will be increase of information mobility, which is a much virtual thing. So do virtual mobility better than physical mobility? Or we need a stage where physical and virtual mobility are needed together to create the perfect environment cityscape.

Anjna Farmah

 

 

In response to Matt's digital district.

 

It sounds like turning the City centre into a digital district would be beneficial to the city. I think it could be an aid to regeneration in certain areas. For example, our last year's project shows that the Gun Quarter is littered with redundant buildings, some which are sound enough for use. The introduction of high speeds internet connections, art installations and other forms of virtual equipment would connect the area into the main city centre. Even whilst visiting the sites of last year, there was a clear visual and psychological disconnection.

 

I think the digital idea could really work for Birmingham. The successes of Berlin and Barcelona show this.  They have turned into metropolitan and fresh towns. Berlin has become one of such towns and even retained its character and history.  I'd like to see the digital district has a tool of regeneration and be applied to where it is needed.

 

Where and when is debate? I would like to attend, just to be clearer on the concept.

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Response to Matt and Chan

Anjna Farmah
 

Matt, the sketches were cool J

 

In response to the first entry, you spoke about Birmingham city streets and how we as a traveller move through them. I was reading through MAKE's promotional brochure and came across something that applies.

 

MAKE have a vision in Birmingham that landmarks or buildings of significance can be linked together in a logical sequence so that the visitors to Birmingham can follow a connective path to such buildings. I personally think that this applies to mobility. Our movement is so much easier when paths are highlighted for us. The markings on the pavement from New Street station to the Mailbox are one form of delineating pathways and directing foot flow.  The coloured lines are a conscious effort to move people a certain way. The same can be said of signage around the city centre. So what does this say about social control? These lines are consciously directing us one way, in this instance, towards a retail environment which has a higher average spend than others. Is this a conscious decision to direct visitors to the Mailbox to spend? To make Birmingham the ultimate shopping destination and fund our economy? More so, what does it say about the people who are following them?

 

After the last lecture on Friday, I began to reflect and apply it to Birmingham. Peter Larkham talked about the post war reconstruction and regeneration of the city. There are the obvious links to mobility egg. The ring road development. What I found interesting was the displacement of people to create regeneration.  Peter Larkham commented that "movement of society was a part of regeneration."

 

The more I think about it, mobility is about displacement, whether it is the journey of travel from A to B, the migration of society from old to new town to allow improvement, sending knowledge from one point to another or a ranking system in society and trying to move up it.

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Matthew Walker- Digital Districts

I went to a debate recently at the Icon Eastside building entitled ‘Digbeth: Past Present and Future’ and some interesting points were raised about how virtual mobility and connectivity can be a means of redeveloping and area both socially and economically. Members from the council were pitching their proposal to turn Birmingham into a ‘Digital City’ and Digbeth into a ‘Digital District’, in partnership with the big city plan. The idea is that by providing areas with state of the art information and communication technology, businesses are attracted into otherwise unappealing areas. So for example the buildings in Digbeth could be connected with the highest possible internet connections, which would attract businesses into the area, attract more footfall and kick start the development of an area that is, in the words of one of the audience members, ‘going down, down, down’. The appealing feature of this idea for me is that minimal physical intervention is needed and so with delicate design tweaks an area can be transformed. The historical fabric of the area remains yet it can be exploited to its full potential. The member from the council quoted other areas such as Amsterdam, Berlin and Barcelona where this method has been used successfully.

Do you think this works as a means of developing areas or is it simply a tool that needs to be applied to an area that is already developed?

A debate will also be taking place at fazeley studios next week discussing the potential of the ‘Digital City’ Some of the discussion topics are listed below

What are the critical success factors of a digital district.

What does a digital district look and feel like elsewhere?

How have digital districts been used to complement the success of established creative quarters?

What has been the experience of digital districts in the recession and what role do they play in boosting economic growth?

How have local authorities in Europe worked with stakeholders such as service providers, SMEs, universities and the local community?

How can Birmingham learn from, and use, the experiences of other European cities?

Matthew Walker - The Mobility of Architects

Chan I agree whole heartedly when you argue that mobility can be a disadvantage in term of architects working in different parts of the world and not understanding the country in which they are designing. In the last issue of soap magazine I wrote about Le Corbusier’s Chandigarh and how he did not understand the people he was designing for. There is an interesting quote in the book ‘Chandigarh forty years after Le Corbusier’ describing his interaction with the community. His stay in India was limited to ‘hobnobbing with the elite, visiting a few villages to find some decorative motifs that he would then use as tout symbols, and meditating under the azure sky’. As a result various parts of the city don’t work. In a more modern context a Norman Foster and Zaha Hadid are in the running to redevelop the pilgrimage site of Mecca. Mecca is a place where none Muslims are forbidden and as a result the architects would be designing blind, relying on flat images from computer to inform their designs.

However despite agreeing with your argument I wonder whether it is necessary for us as designers to live in a surrounding for a month or a year to understand it or whether it is possible to learn what we need to know through our clients? A good client, architect relationship could result in the production of buildings and spaces that understand their surroundings and the needs of its users.

Matthew Walker - Urban Design

In response to Anjna’s Blog I would like further discuss the point raised about city streets. It is interesting how the pattern of a city’s streets can determine the way in which we move. Anjna talks about how historically streets were used to direct people to buildings of great importance such as the agora. It is possible to see how modern urban design plans use these same methods to assist the mobility within a city. For example, the development of the bullring uses a pedestrianised street lead to lead people from the junction of New Street and High Street (next to the Rotunda) down towards St Martin’s Church and the Bullring Markets. The visual connection between the junction and the church encourages people to walk down the street, increases footfall in the area and therefore increases custom for its businesses. Because the street is on a slope the view only shows the top of the church, encouraging one to descend towards its front door and see the building in its entirety.

While this method works there is also evidence of streets affecting the mobility of a city in a detrimental manner. An example of this is the road junction at the top of Digbeth High Street. The prospect of crossing two busy roads discourages people, who had taken the previously mentioned route, from continuing into Digbeth. This in turn cuts a potential artery of footfall into the Digbeth area.