Final graduation project at the Faculty of Architecture, Delft University of Technology, as part of the Urban Asymmetries Master Program, July 2009. This individual architecture project worked together as part of a bigger urban strategy, a communal project led by a group of ten Architecture and Urbanism students: Levan Asabashvili [GE], Bai Yan [CN], Silvia Bizzarri [IT], Carlos GarciÌa-Sancho [ES], Tania Guerrero [MX], Tomi Jaskari [FI], Tom Kolnaar [NL], Phillip LuÌhl [NA], Willem van de Ven [NL], Siebe M Voogt [NL], Taufan ter Weel [NL] and Idan Zveibil [IS].
All these projects were published in the book âUrban Asymmetries. Studies and Projects on Neoliberal Urbanizationâ, Ed. Tahl Kaminer, Miguel Robles-DĂșran, Heidi Sohn, 010 Publishers, Rotterdam, 2011.
The Eastminster Palace | Kieran Thomas Wardle | Tumblr | Socks Studio
Kieran Thomas Wardle is a former student at Bartlett school of Architecture. The project for the Eastminster Palace, completed during Wardleâs studies at the schoolâs Unit 12, is a proposal for a new British parliament to be located in the Essex.
Located in east harlem, âeidosâ conceived by manhattan-based carlo bailey is an architect-free, prototypical self-sufficient community based sometime in the near future. the project is about managing difference and desire within a collective spatial condition. additive manufacturing technologies (seven axis robot â 3D printers) are employed to facilitate a housing complex that is the physical manifestation of its inhabitants wants. executed within a rigid rule-set of constraints, the design allows for maximum autonomy and expression. the rule-set consists of a series of algorithms, a DNA structure that is programmed into the robots, which feeds both environmental and human goals to enable the construction of units and infrastructure.
The organization of the complex aims to be as generic and uniform as possible. through analyzing the sunâs movement across the site, it helped to define the optimum placement of light wells and breaks in the grid â minimizing shadows and bringing light to the ground plane. cuts in the massing and grid are introduced to provide connections through to adjacent city blocks and extend manhattanâs layout. the market-place is located on the ground floor with the school lying on the two levels above. communal areas are strategically positioned adjacent to four vertical circulation cores and are intertwined with the housing units throughout the remaining complex.
Detroit has taken much flak for their inhumane decision to disconnect water in mass to its citizens. Most of them are poor and disabled in a failing city. Detroit is one of those cities that corporations abandoned after extracting most of the human capital from its soul. Those that are ultimately responsible for the decay of the city moved on to scavenge other cities and countries.
Hank Winchesterâs narrative is simple. It is always easy to attack the poor, the minorities, the others. It is easy to make it all their fault all of the times. âSome of these people have a desperate need,â reporterHank Winchester said. âThey need help from state agencies âŠ. But there are other people and this is where it gets controversial who simply donât want to pay the water bill, whoâd rather spend money on cable.â
Hank Winchester then pivots into a defense of the water department stating that they want to work with people. Did he do his journalistic duty to find out if actual citizens received that message? Is it even true?
Maureen Taylor would have none of it. Though she did not say it, she understands that Black, Brown, and poor communities are often maligned by the supposedly fair and balanced media. A few stereotypes from these communities are generally projected on the whole. As such America generally gets a poor impression of these communities that is then reflected as a lack of empathy from otherwise good decent people.
âBefore I answer that let me say, shame on Hank, shame on him,â Maureen Taylor said. âfor putting that lie and that mis and that disinformation out on the air. To suggest that people donât want to pay for a water bill is scandalous. What is at stake here is that there are tens of thousands of low income families who cannot pay rising water bill costs. The cost of living is going up. The chances of living is going down. And weâve got these reporters out here, like this guy, thatâs just standing on the side of the people that have money.â
Maureen Taylor then brought up all the corporations that have owed tens of thousands and hundreds of thousands whose water was not shutoff. Somehow the payment delinquency of the rich and affluent is different than the generally forced payment delinquency of the poor.
Maureen Taylorâs final statement in the interview was epic and bold. âThe next time you invite me to be here, Maureen Taylor said. âLetâs have some truth and a fair exchange as opposed to Hank who doesnât know what the hell heâs talking about. Gobble up all the time. Iâll talk to you later.â
The Los Angeles Times has one of the most balanced account of the water crisis in Detroit.
In April, the city set a target of cutting service to 3,000 customers a week who were more than $150 behind on their bills. In May, the water department sent out 46,000 warnings and cut off service to 4,531. The city says that cutting off water is the only way to get people to pay their bills as Detroit tries to emerge from bankruptcy â the utility is currently owed $90 million from customers, and nearly half the cityâs 300,000 or so accounts are past due.
But cutting off water to people already living in poverty came under criticism last week from the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, whose experts said that Detroit was violating international standards by cutting off access to water. âWhen there is genuine inability to pay, human rights simply forbids disconnections,â Catarina de Albuquerque, the officeâs expert on the human right to water and sanitation, said in the communique.
âAre we the kind of people that resort to shutting water off when there are disabled people and seniors?â said Maureen Taylor, chair of the Michigan Welfare Rights Organization. âWe live near the Great Lakes, we have the greatest source of fresh water on Earth, and we still canât get water here.â
Construction for the Packard Plant began in 1903 and was completed in 1911. Auto manufacturing stopped in 1958, other businesses operated into the 1990s.
Now, enter Fernando Palazuelo. He paid Wayne County $405,000 in December for the 3,500,000-square-foot property.
Along with talented still photographer, Sal Rodriguez, I met up with Palazuelo at the Packard to tour the former automotive manufacturing hub. I wanted to hear from the owner, in his own words, what his vision is for this property was and how it fits in with the future of the city of Detroit.
"Desperate calls for help from the United Nations arenât just for war-torn and developing nations anymore. The city of Detroitâa city that has been on the brink in many waysâin an effort to balance its books, has begun shutting off water access to city residents behind on their payments. While that may seem like what happens to anyone when they donât pay their bills, Detroit is a unique caseânearly half of the 323,900 residents who use the utility are delinquent, according to the Detroit Free Press. To make matters worse, Al Jazeera America reports, Detroitâs average monthly water bill is nearly double the national average of $40. The Detroit City Council approved a 9 percent hike last week."
"The ongoing decline has left its mark on the city, most notably in severe urban decay and thousands of empty homes, apartment buildings and commercial buildings around the city. Some parts of Detroit are sparsely populated resulting in the city having difficulty providing municipal services. The city has sought and considered various solutions such as demolition of abandoned homes and buildings; removal of street lighting from large portions of the city; and encouraging the small population in certain areas to move to more populated locations as there may not be a quick response for city services such as police in depopulated areas."
Detroit doesn't have much these days, but it does have its masterpieces.
Now, one of the city's biggest creditors says the city needs to sell its art collection -- likely Detroit's most prized asset -- in order to pay off its debts in bankruptcy court. And they've found several investors who are willing to pay top dollar.
Financial Guaranty Insurance Co. (FGIC) is asking Detroit's bankruptcy judge to force the city to negotiate with private investors, some foreign, who have made tentative offers to purchase city-owned treasures from the Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA).
The offers, which include a $2 billion loan for the art, could tempt Judge Stephen Rhodes, who has previously called one-time influxes of cash "unsustainable."
The City of Detroit has at least $18 billion in debt, and pensions for retired city workers are underfunded by at least $3.5 billion. As Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr grapples with creating a plan to exit bankruptcy court that will satisfy all debtors, a fierce public debate rages over the fate of the DIA's collection.
Orr has negotiated a deal, dubbed "The Grand Bargain," which would transfer the city's art holdings to a separate nonprofit in exchange for $816 million pooled from state funds, the DIA's own money and donations from foundations. That $816 million would be applied to offset pension cuts for retirees, and the art would be kept in the public trust.
The three-bed, one-and-a-half-bath colonial on Bishop Street in Detroitâs East English Village â a sturdy home otherwise in need of a new furnace and water heater â went on the online auction block this past Monday at 9 a.m. for $1,000.
Two hours into the day, the price was up to $12,100. By lunchtime, it was at $17,000. Then $22,000. Finally, at 6 p.m., the Detroit Land Bank Authority closed the bidding for its first property in a new program designed to turn over long-abandoned but durable homes to local residents who must vow to rehabilitate them. The house at 4148 Bishop Street drew 88 bids (including a few from people who tried to skirt the auctionâs strict eligibility rules). The winning bid: $34,100.
Tuesday, the Land Bank moved on to another home in the same neighborhood, and it has auctioned online a new house there each day since, with dozens more to come across the city as the program expands into other neighborhoods.
As housing auctions go, this one is as much about offloading vacant properties as trying to control what happens to them once theyâre off the Land Bankâs rolls. No absentee landlords or faraway investors allowed. Only Michigan residents and businesses can bid on these homes. The next two provisions set the program apart from typical housing auctions: Within 30 days of closing on a property, winners must show an executed contract to rehab the home (or evidence that theyâve purchased supplies to do the work themselves). Within six months, they must produce a certificate of occupancy.
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