New Old Architecture

thoughts on how design, the cities and the refugee situation come together, from Amman, Jordan

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Za’atari, 26/10/2016

The road to Za’atari started with ever-getting-more-desert and emptier landscapes. There is nothing to indicate that in a short while you’d arrive at a big, urban town— photo— Yet, soon after big UNHCR signs start appearing by the side of the road that makes it feel as if you are entering a protected national park for some kind of safari, sightseeing. Yet, the jungle of people start getting more tangled as you approach the entrance and remind you what you are there for.

The camp residents are returning with theirs cards and paper, which we were to later learn to be leave permits, with the produce and supplies they got from outside the camp. As we’re guided into the structure to get our brief I’m slightly surprised by the people who greet us. I guess I was expecting some foreign men who looked tough enough to work in this seemingly vast, wild place, but instead we met a young Jordanian woman dressed in a nice tank top who was the site planner of this new unusual town. In a way, this gave me hope as to what I can do, what I can be employed and encouraged to do.

Ghada Barakat, the site planner, along with a security director, I believe, gave us a short presentation, and in the rest of the remaining time we tried to pour as many of our never-ending questions as possible about this place so unknown to us. The camp started in the west and expanded towards the east. The western-most part does look like the most concentrated part from the big satellite image we had of the camp in front of us, maybe due to its initial unplanned construction. Right now, it looks like the camp extends everywhere at a population of 80,000 people, about half of which is under 18 years old.

With the expanding size of the camp they decentralized the services such as water distribution as the camp was divided into blocks, which make up the districts. There are no new arrivals anymore, but if family members outside want to join their relatives in the camp they can get in. Refugees can also get a maximum 2-week leave permits for family visits or for longer if it’s for study. And they are free to leave the camp for good with an application. (Or so we were told.)

We haven’t seen any inside, but apparently, there are some busses, and the main mode of transportation inside the camp is by pickups. Yet, we drove by many bus stops with lots of people waiting once we were inside. The market lane, “Champs Elysees”, started off the French hospital, thus the name. They get their supplies from their contacts outside. Schools are connected to the Ministry of Education, who commissions the teachers. Schools are prefabricated buildings with different dimensions. Kids go to the schools according to the district they live in, but hospitals are open to anyone. Everyone is provided with a certain amount of water, and electricity 8 hours a day at nighttime. Caravans do not have fixed dimensions. They do all have kitchen and the refugees are free to amend them as they wish. There is a protection unit at the camp, and a 24/7 hotline. There are centers for non-accompanied kids. Some centers have internet access. The refugees were informed of the benefits of this planning of the camp due to reasons such as electricity and water network, but as far as I stood other than that they are free to play around.

Although many hands were left up the presentation sessions ended, and we started driving into the camp along its paved main roads. We pass by ‘houses’ with verandas, caravans with laundry lines, cityscape murals with skyscrapers, the Maternity and Childhood Center, a barber shop. We stop at a point, and get out of the busses.

The initial impression is that this place is so vast. The metallic structures go on for kilometers on every side. And this place is a proper town, an urban area with roads and streets and a good demographic distribution; old men, young men, teenagers, women, kids. It’s even cleaner than outside with few trash on the ground. One thing I noticed was the very high number of bikes; there were also a couple of bike repair shops.

[newoldarchitecture]

teaching design #2

More, longer rant and thoughts from the University of Jordan studio visits

Architecture education is too structured and conventional (The alternatives that come up for ‘conventional’ are too all so fitting: conservative, conformist, predictable, straight, unadventurous). It does not allow much for differences or creativity – like the other things in the society- and most come up with similar solutions and designs.

I connect this to the broadness of the project brief, and the uniformity of the syllabus.

They are told to design a hospital. That is it. They do get a visit to the site, but this is not the most crucial thing anyway- I can learn all those things through Google Maps and a topography analysis through SketchUp anyway. They should instead visit hospitals, as many as they can, talk to doctors, patients, the families in the waiting rooms.  And then, after the site visit they dive directly into designing the hospital. They do start with sketching diagrams at first, not straight with the design of the form, but still all these small diagrams are so connected to the main assignment and practical aspects that they do not get a chance to dwell on the idea, space, the experience. The starting exercises we got in our design studios would seem so pointless and irrelevant to the main project at first, but almost always I ended up appreciating them in the end when I realized they opened up our creativity and guided us to better designs. Some students do want to make projects more ‘exciting’, think about ideas and concepts as opposed to just the practical aspects, but are they encouraged? I haven’t really felt that yet. They are not turned down per se but are engulfed by the practical expectations.

 Students do not know about prominent architectural theories, architects, and their works. These are the fourth year students in one of the most prominent schools of the country. Surely, they know the historically important ones such as Le Corbusier, but not the contemporary ones like Rem Koolhaas and Peter Eisenman. I also do not feel I was inspired by these names design-wise, but these are the people who have added a lot to the architectural recourse, and they are inspiring in the way that they reflect on the discipline. Maybe this is another reason why the students do not think about the concepts; the architecture they see is supposed to be a submission for a course that fulfills the requirements.  

 As far as I’ve learned from a lecturer it is the professors who decide on the curriculum; the teaching assistants don’t really have a say. Such exercises might be given in some classes, but the syllabus depends on the professors, who might not take in from more innovative ideas of the younger assistants.  Moreover, some professors might not even come to classes, just choose to look at final projects, not even asking for any models. So students don’t have an idea of the 3D, at the end of an architectural education, an area all about the space and the three-dimensional. Moreover, apparently, a lecturer has to give classes 15h/week. I’m not sure how many classes this is, but considering that they would need to prepare and mark the student work on each of their classes this probably does not give them much time to do readings, their own research or practice.

[newoldarchitecture]

teaching design, or teaching in general

An interesting misunderstanding (?) a couple of weeks ago made me find myself as a ‘teaching assistant assistant’ at a fourth year architecture studio at the University of Jordan. I just wanted to observe the class, but due to my ‘weird’ situation as someone who graduated (though I have only one more year of experience than the students) and is a foreigner I guess I’d stand out anyway. And I have to say it has been much more fun this way, and I’m learning more.

I had already been to the School of Architecture of the German Jordanian University a couple of times during the summer school, and have to say that the apparent differences were so many that they have been mostly what I noted down as opposed to the architectural ideas.

To start with: the low number of male architecture students at UJ as opposed to the balance (or maybe even the opposite) at GJU. When asked about the female majority in the class one of the girls at the studio answered that it is because the girls are discouraged from civil engineering as they would need to visit construction sites- which I guess would be a scandal in this male-dominated country (Wait, don’t, or shouldn’t, the architects visit the construction site too?) and boys also don’t want to do a profession so feminine as architecture. It’s interesting that the fact that the most famous Jordanian architects are male don’t help. As much as this doesn’t explain the discrepancy between two schools I’d like to visit the engineering departments in both.

I feel like my second observation might at least be a part of the answer: there is invariably a higher number of female students with headscarves at UJ than GJU. This would not matter considering that this is a majority Muslim and conservative country, but it does stand out because GJU, where the ratio is again almost the other way around, is in the same country. The University of Jordan undeniably feels more conservative in all the terms; faculty, student body, its administration and education. I wonder if that leads to the obvious separation of genders and professions, or if it attracts such-minded students to start with anyway, so it just goes on that way.

I had assumed GJU was private, but surprisingly both schools are public. It’s surprising because the buildings and the classes are in much better conditions. Surely, GJU is much newer, but you’d think Jordan would put more resources into its oldest and biggest school. So, the ‘issue’ probably is not about money, at least it is not the main thing. UJ seems to be the more prestigious school due to its longer history, but with its more interactive and international programs schools like GJU might be more preferred in the future (at least that’s what I’d do), especially in such creative fields. Even if someone who got into UJ might be ‘smarter’ it seemed like the students at GJU are being exposed to a more open-minded and global education that they would be more inclined to be ambitious and pursue more.

These observations are just over the comparison of two schools, yet many other schools in the region can’t be very different and they would have a lot to learn if only they looked at each other. I can’t believe I started to greatly appreciate my concept-oriented, theoretical education that we would always criticize to be unpractical as soon as I got out.

[newoldarchitecture]

a short rant on middle eastern architects

The thing with designers in the Middle East is that they only spare time for their own fields. For a city with an – unfortunate- small intellectual population I’d expect to see all those ubiquitous architects and designers that I have seen over the Amman Design Week at all the big art events, political (at least the Middle Eastern related) talks, science lectures, protests. Not just the designers, but all those people calling themselves researches, doctors, activists, artists should not be missing any essential event whether it is light years away from their area.

[newoldarchitecture]

Stairs of Amman

For me, the experience of a month long Amman is defined by the countless steps I took over the many stairs of central Amman and the breaks I took at the start, middle (more than once depending on the length) and the end of the stair to take a look at the distance I covered and the jabal I left behind.

Some of them are like portals to a new place where the head and the tail of the steps are two different worlds. Some are like mazes where you can't see what is coming up next, what is at the end. They are some of the few places where you can find shade and a bit of breeze from the midday sun.

I realized that one more reason I like them was because they were almost always empty when I was walking through. It was an escape from the looks on the street where it felt safer. They were my hide away.

Yet, this was the problem itself. The Ammanis don't walk much. Especially the low number of women, particularly alone, on the streets was noticeable since day one. Maybe it's the physical toughness of walking up and down those hills, the unbearable Middle Eastern heat, or the easiness and the affordability of taking a taxi. Or the lack of decent sidewalks, pedestrian crossings, the crazy traffic making it a life and death incident each time you want to cross the street. Ok, they do have many valid excuses for not walking. But since I got here I keep thinking what can be done to make them ‘cooler’. Some of them just needs a thorough cleaning, most needs some repairs. (Why the steel bars right at the corners? Not only it feels like they make it slippery, but also the concrete starts degrading under them and there have been times when I almost got stuck in that hole and fell.) And the common idea of painting them in lively colors (already implemented in some of the stairs) would definitely be a great start to make them noticeable in the sand-colored streets of Amman. The stairs, and subsequently walking at least the short distances, just need to be made into the new ‘hip’ thing to do, that worked on many movements, some very stupid, so far around the world.

If only I had the power, connections, the budget… This city has so much potential to be more exciting.

[newoldarchitecture]

constructing a new downtown

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Amman houses #1, Jabal al-Weibdeh

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Amman

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stairs of Amman

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elaborating on first impressions

This city feels safer than Istanbul. 

But it’s still surely not easy to be ‘weird’ here.

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day 1/ the first daylight

The looks; are they because I do look like a foreigner or the things I wear or walking alone on side streets at weird times of the day as a woman (as a foreign woman)?

[newoldarchitecture]

hello amman