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Perry Jones, J. (2023) 255 Green Lane, Traffic Lights.

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Perry Jones, J. (2023) 255 Green Lane, Bus Stop.

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National Cycle Route 5 is a successful cycle infrastructure and made me feel more confident using my bicycle for the first time in Birmingham. It is important to acknowledge that a contributing factor to my confidence in cycling in and around Cannon Hill Park is familiarity: I live near this area and I frequently visit the park.

More frequent visits to the canal near Bordesley Green, and my chosen site on Green Lane would increase familiarity and I could feel more confident navigating the area without relying on google maps.

The implementation of cycling infrastructure with clear signage in Bordesley Green, and an increase in cycling as a mode of transport could have a positive effect on how confident people are to cycle in and around their neighbourhood, and perhaps in the future Birmingham.

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Cycling through Cannon Hill Park was a highly pleasant experience, there are wide roads which allow a generous amount of room to be shared with pedestrians and cyclists. I would imagine this space would make a great setting for learning how to ride a bicycle.
The markers and signs to show that this space was National Cycle Route 5 provided assurance that I was in the right place to cycle through, and it alerts pedestrians to anticipate cyclists through the area too.
The day I cycled through this park was a sunny day in April, which certainly improved my experience.

Leaving Cannon Hill Park, the National Cycle Route 5 signs were still present along my journey for a while. Even though there was not a dedicated cycle path on a few roads, seeing other cyclists on the road boosted my confidence in the space I was occupying.

Once I reached Belgrave Middleway, there was no safe space for cyclists and I was very close to a main road. A railing or barrier alternative between the pavement and the road would have made me feel much safer to cycle on this road; because there was not I decided to walk with my bicycle.

Reaching the canal brought such a relief: I was only sharing the space with occasional pedestrians and a stretch of water. Despite the lack of signage for where I was along the canal, I managed to find my way to Small Heath. I had to cross a bridge over a very busy road, which seemed to only have an accessibility ramp on one side: which sees redundant as it means there is not an accessible option for ramp users to reach the canal.

Small Heath Park was pleasant to cycle through; the widths of the pathways were not as generous as those in Cannon Hill Park but it was still a possibility to share the space with pedestrians.

Coventry Road and Muntz Street were highly populated with both pedestrians and vehicles; I did not see any cyclists which made me nervous and I chose to walk on the pavement with my bicycle.

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Perry Jones, J. (2023) National Cycle Route 5, Canal.

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Perry Jones, J. (2023) National Cycle Route 5, Canal.

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Perry Jones, J. (2023) National Cycle Route 5, Canal.

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Perry Jones, J. (2023) National Cycle Route 5.

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Perry Jones, J. (2023) National Cycle Route 5.

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Perry Jones, J. (2023) National Cycle Route 5.

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Perry Jones, J. (2023) National Cycle Route 5.

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Perry Jones, J. (2023) National Cycle Route 5, Cannon Hill Park.

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Perry Jones, J. (2023) National Cycle Route 5, Cannon Hill Park.

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At all West Midlands travel stops; such as bus stations, train stations, and tram stops there are bicycle lockers and stands that are free to use. At certain train stations in Birmingham (Rowley Regis, Longbridge, New Street, Selly Oak, and Stourbridge Junction) there are Cycle Hubs which allow 24-hour access to fully-covered storage.

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Through my project Carless Bordesley Green? I aim to increase the quality of links and connections between public transport in Bordesley Green; a cycle infrastructure will connect all bus routes and train stations and encourage use of bicycles as a sustainable alternative to other modes of transport. As of the 2011 Census, cars per household in Bordesley Green was an average 0.82: this figure is higher than other Wards within the vicinity of the city centre such as Ladywood (0.56) and Nechells (0.51).

This cycle route will provide the opportunity for learning how to ride a bicycle, hiring a bicycle, storing bicycles to further a journey using a different mode of transport, storing bicycles to use amenities on-site, and repair services for different types of bicycles.

There are currently no cycle hire opportunities, cycle repair amenities, or cycle infrastructure in Bordesley Green; cycling is not encouraged or supported in this ward. My intervention will address the inequalities of access to cycling those in Bordesley Green face.

The cycle route directs cyclists through the site, which currently stands vacant and disused, aside from pedestrians using it as a transition space and desire path. By dividing the building in two, the east building will be used for cycling lessons and proficiency, and the west building will be used for cycle maintenance and repair.

To utilise adaptive re-use throughout my design, I will inhibit sustainable choices in every scale of the proposal: from reducing embodied carbon by retaining parts of the structure of the existing building, to promoting cycling and public transport as an alternative to carbon-intensive modes of transport like cars. Embodying the art of maintenance is crucial to my sustainability initiative.

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Perry Jones, J. (2023) Synthesis Map: Phase 4.

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Perry Jones, J. (2023) Synthesis Map: Phase 3.

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Perry Jones, J. (2023) Synthesis Map: Phase 2.

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Perry Jones, J. (2023) Synthesis Map: Phase 1.

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The extension to the museum provides a roof to the previously open-air top floor. New exhibition areas are created on a floor suspended from the roof addition, to avoid adding new structural columns into the main gallery.

The design intends to celebrate the existing gothic military architecture, which was common in 15th century Germany. Damage occurred from a war in the 17th century, but before the art museum extension there had been no alterations to the building since 1904.

The angular metallic forms of the new roof and entrance contrast with the romantic ruins of the castle, and could be seen as a response to Feininger’s paintings which are displayed within.

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Castle Bruneck, located in the mountains in Italy, has been converted into a museum: the architects left the exterior untouched and constructed new spaces and circulation within.

A permanent exhibition hosted in the museum depicts information about people who live in mountain regions across the world. The project focussed on conservation and maintaining the cultural significance of the architecture: showing respect to the past, present, and future of those who occupy the space. A large part of the architectural intent was to make the newer architecture clearly distinguishable from the old.

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Kettle’s Yard originally existed as four run-down 19th century cottages, and was converted into a large, harmonious space where art collections could be displayed.
The house is a still space, filled with natural light and carefully arranged displays of artwork. The gallery is alive when people are present, and when they interact with the space. Kettle’s Yard is open and relaxed.

Neill, R. (2021) The timeless interioers of Kettle’s Yard. Available at: https://www.houseandgarden.co.uk/gallery/inside-kettles-yard [Accessed 23rd March 2023].

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Witherford Watson Mann (n/d) Astley Castle. Available at: http://www.wwmarchitects.co.uk/projects/astley [Accessed 23rd March 2023].

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Witherford Watson Mann (2013) The brick and concrete armature.

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Witherford Watson Mann (2013) Carpentry and joinery.

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Witherford Watson Mann (2013) Concept model in cast plaster: the ruin, the brick and concrete armature, carpentry and joinery.

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The practice of preserving the front of buildings that have elegant architectural designs; the construction of a modern building behind its old or original front.
It can be a strategy to preserve cultural or historical significance whilst balancing changes to a building's structure. It is a type of adaptive re-use; to partially conserve.

It can provide a bridge between old and new. Modern building practices have updated building regulations to adhere to, and security measures to introduce. Retaining the façade whilst updating structures are a good way to partially conserve a space.

The façade of a building is the part that is more interacted with by the public.

Adaptive reuse reduces the wasteful processes through demolition and reconstruction: building waste often goes straight to landfill. New construction uses a large amount of fossil fuels and releases more harmful emissions.
However, using certain parts of an existing structure can increase energy usage and operational carbon. Facadism seems to be a compromise of cost, energy usage, and preservation.

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Astley Castle was renovated by Witherford Watson Mann in 2013: they inserted a contemporary dwelling between the crumbling walls of the Astley Estate. In the 1970s it was left as a ruin following a fire that destroyed the existing hotel.

The clay infill and wooden accents contrast elegantly to the castle's sandstone exterior walls.

Astley Castle was renovated between 2007 and 2012 by Witherford Watson Mann Architects, following a competition to design a holiday house that would could sit within the crumbling structure. Previously, the castle served as a hotel before it succumbed to a fire in 1978. A contemporary dwelling was inserted between the crumbling walls of the estate, which established a stability that Astley Castle was missing.

The new addition supports the structure with new walls, lintels, and roofs. Some rooms that date back to the 15th and 17th century have been left open to the elements, leaving ‘a fresco of clouds on their ceiling’.

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Høyrup Christensen, T. (n/d) The Bicycle Snake.

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The Bicycle Snake is a curved bridge to allow cycle access across the harbour. Cycling above the water allows cyclists to take in the scenery along their journey.

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DISSING+WEITLING (2019) A 7.6-kilometer elevated bicycle path has joined the city of Xiamen’s highways.

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In Xiamen, the Bike Skyway allows cyclists to move around above streets that are congested with traffic and pedestrians. The route travels alongside the bus rapid transit system and has frequent intervals of rest areas and access points.

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Wikipedia (2011) Lloyd's building in 2011, with the preserved entrance from the 1928 building clearly visible on the right.

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The Lloyd's building in London was designed by Richard Rogers' Architects and honoured the existing building by keeping the entrance façade as part of the new structure. The new building replaced Lloyd's headquarters which was originally built in 1928.

To honour the existing building on my site, it could be a thoughtful strategy to use reclaimed materials of the existing structure, or keep aspects of it as part of my design.

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Spaces to encourage loitering:
bus stop, train station
outdoor infrastructure (bench, flowerbed, information board, trees)
space for prayer/worship
café
library, mini library, book swap station

Increasing safety for women:
Increased street lighting, wider pavements, improved pedestrian access

Increasing safety for cyclists:
2m wide cycle lane
raised cycle path, street furnishings to act as a buffer between road and cycle lane, painted symbols on surface, coloured paint surface

Increasing use of bicycles:
more frequent cycle hire stations, cycle route, designated cycle access/path, cycle repair stations and pumps, cycle proficiency
cycle hire/storage without human interaction
free cycle hire for women

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draft of site plan, with construction lines

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Why Loiter? Women and Risk on Mumbai Streets is a book written by Shilpe Phadke about women occupying public space in Mumbai, India. Women do not loiter in Indian cities, it is an unfamiliar sight. There is an underlying assumption that oitering women are up to no good, that women are dangerous to society.

“Of course, no one actually says this out loud. But every little girl is brought up to know that she must walk a straight line between home and school, home and office, home and her friend or relative’s home, from one ‘sheltered’ space to another.”
Why is it that these expectations are not spoken about out loud, what could happen if they were uttered aloud? Would an argument ensue? Are women not expected to be quiet too, if loitering is disallowed? Not seen and not heard. If it only indoors that are considered shelters that women should occupy, what is dangerous about outdoors? Is there some perceived threat we are not addressing? If women are not outside, it cannot be women that pose this threat, it must be men. Why is it that the responsibility of women to keep themselves out of harm’s way, and not the responsibility of men to remove the harm?

Women have the right to loiter.
“Even in Urban India, women do not share equal access to public space with men. Women in Mumbai have, at best, conditional access to public space.”
“We argued that what women need in order to access public space is not safety—which is inevitably conditional upon women being respectable—but rather the right to take risks without their presence being questioned.” (Phadke, S. 2020).

“Feminism in India and elsewhere in the world has often been accused of a lack of joy – the terms of description our undergraduate participants in workshops used were inevitably negative – man-hating, anti-beauty, anti-family. While we disagree with these negative stereotypes, it is not untrue that even after decades of struggle, women cannot claim the right to fun.”

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Birmingham’s Mobility Action Plan
50% of journeys in Birmingham each day are with cars (average 1.4 million). As predicated in 2013, they believed 80’000 more cars will be on the road by 2031, which would result in 200’000 more daily car trips.

As of the 2011 Census, cars per household in Bordesley Green was an average 0.82: higher than other Wards around the city centre like Ladywood (0.56) and Nechells (0.51).

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E-Scooters
E-scooters emit six times more CO2 than the metro/subway train, but three times less than a car. Only 13% of scooter journeys are made in alternative to cars, taxis, and buses. Therefore, e-scooters mainly replace means of transport that are less polluting. Despite low usage emissions, the aluminium frame has an extremely high-carbon footprint that is not justifiable: it is not a sustainable enough alternative.

Many e-scooters are also dumped in bodies of water after use. The batteries within the scooters are insulated in a waterproof case, but it does not protect the scooter completely from corrosion out in the environment. Regardless of the rising popularity within recent years, e-scooters do not seem to be as innovative as they could be for reducing transport pollution. With many alternatives that are less polluting, use of e-scooters should not be encouraged as a sustainable option.

A study in Finland claims that people are more likely to be injured by riding an e-scooter than a motorbike, bicycle, car, or pedestrian. It is reported that over half of people admitted to Accident and Emergency were under the influence of alcohol or other substances and were admitted between midnight and 6 AM. E-scooters are highly accessible and become most dangerous to users and nearby pedestrians during a time where behaviour is less regulated. Banning e-scooter rentals after midnight on weekends could aid in reducing the number of injuries caused when people are under the influence.

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What if Bordesley Green became a car-less place? Where roads are only used by buses and emergency vehicles. Where all roads are just bus lanes and cycle lanes. What could this look like?

There could be cycle hire stations on every street corner, governmental initiatives to provide free cycle hire and free bicycles, and mandatory cycling lessons through school and community centres.

Disability badge holders (and the family of) can still use cars around Bordesley Green as they may not find cycling accessible.

How could e-bikes and e-scooters fit into the proposed infrastructure?

How to phase out car-usage? Begin with promoting cycling, then reduce access to residential streets (only main roads), then limit this usage, then refuse access?

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Phase 1
Introduce cycle route, semester one intervention, begin planting green corridor, installation of initial cycle hire stations

Phase 2
Semester two intervention, cycle proficiency, green corridor progression, more cycle hire stations, beginning of car-less Bordesley Green

Phase 3
Another two interventions along route (WHERE?), green corridor in full bloom, all cycle hire stations installed

Phase 4
Car-less Bordesley Green !!!, just bus lanes and cycle lanes, emergency vehicles and disabled badge holders are only motor vehicles on the road, cycle hire stations on every corner and in every park, cycling lessons are mandatory through school and community centres

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Nesta talks to Pablo Sendra and Richard Sennett.

The public spaces of our cities are under siege from planners, privatisation and increased surveillance. Our streets are becoming ever more lifeless and ordered. What is to be done? Can disorder be designed?
In this conversation, Sendra and Sennett propose a reorganisation of how we think and plan the social life of our cities. ‘Infrastructures of disorder’ combine architecture, politics, urban planning and activism in order to develop places that nurture rather than stifle, bring together rather than divide up, remain open to change rather than closed off.

Citizens shape our own future, participating in shaping what is to come

Over-simplification of environments, ending up all looking the same, disallowing a community to thrive

Cities around the world are beginning to look homogenous, international style?privatisation of green spaces, public spaces

RICHARD SENNETT:

Planning cities: paralysing people’s experiences, segregating people into class and racial ghettos, planning decided where/when people should do things

Complex beings need a more complex and uncontrolled environment

Nehru, Delhi
least violent spot in Delhi – mixed groups of Muslim and Hindu, all in a space that is undefined, they are forced to interact, openness brought into being by physical design
Space of informal economy, edges are open and amorphous, porous instead of well-defined, no rigid definitions, traffic patterns are overlaid and complex/contradictory, bike lanes in the garage, people must be alert to avoid traffic
VALUABLE SPACE; DISORDER IS CREATED, ATTENTIVENESS/OPENNESS/COMPLEXITY, results in people being able to live with each-other

The collaboration between authors intended to invite complexity, multiplicity, and contradiction

Theory: open systems, system complexity
A way of alternatives, coming out of the COVID pandemic where closed systems were the norm
Theoretical underpinnings for designing disorder can be found in open systems theory

PABLO SENDRA:

Great for supporting social movements

Can architects and planners design disorder (a contestation of posed orders)?

Urban planning should not erase what came before it and what exists

Re-claiming land for opportunities for community, combatting gentrification and real estate urbanism.

Unregulated public space that encourages interactions
CYCLING PROFICIENCY AND A CYCLE LANE ENCOURAGES SOCIAL INTERACTION AND UNPLANNED ACTIVITY

Create conditions, provide possibilities.

BELOW
Turning a closed system into an open system, through re-assembling the infrastructure and re-arranging the elements (more visible and more accessible/open), making structure collectively managed, promoting collective awareness (negotiations, co-operations, relations of solidarity and social interaction.

Making an infrastructure that has the capacity to grow and change.

ABOVE
Explore what happens above the surface, once the infrastructure is provided, what interactions emerge from this infrastructure?
Creating a flexible public space that can be continuously modified and changed (different spaces that provide different infrastructure), foundations to provide future interventions and possibilities

DISORDER IN SECTION, LONGITUDINAL SECTION

Turn the closed system into an open system
First step is through longitudinal section: eliminate divisions, create hierarchy of experiences (introduce certain disruptions in the street in a way to break boundaries), then look into detail of how to introduce disruptions in section (cross section) by assembling different elements in section (taking both from below and above)
Through light structures, building construction, leaving a space for growing and more activities

PROCESS IN FLUX
Process of how to build these infrastructures for disorder

Two processes:
1: INTRODUCE DISRUPTIONS THAT PROMOTE NEGOTIATIONS/INTERACTIONS (look at social processes, social relationships, history of place, then provoking negotiations with what is already there)
2: DESIGNING WITH UNCERTAINTY (unpredictable outputs, understand the interventions of an open system that can continuously change and adapt)

Provide spaces (big trees for shade, electricity/water), allow users to decide how they will use the space

Leave open possibilities.

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Undervalued craft of maintenance supports framework of addressing climate change
It takes work for things to last, but the future has to last with the resources we have now

“Maintenance has to be valued outside of austerity, and right now it’s unclear if our current economic system is capable of that”.
REPAIR IS FIXING SOMETHING BROKEN, MAINTENANCE IS ABOUT MAKING SOMETHING LAST

Those that can afford brand new things can simply discard what breaks or is no longer useful
Those who cannot afford the durable, sometimes more expensive thing, will opt for the cheaper but less durable and less sustainable option (although it is rarely a choice).

Reduction and restraint are the new pillars of reduce, reuse, recycle.

The right-to-repair movement focuses on consumer rights and demands corporations to make their products easier to repair (so that they do not have one option for repair – the manufacturer – and another option to replace).
Maintain is missing from the 3 Rs.

Labour dynamics are fundamentally opposed to maintenance: labour costs are higher than material costs (so there is an incentive to use fresh material instead of investing in labour). Material is then used less efficiently (steel costs more when it is cut into bespoke pieces, even though bespoke pieces result in reduces waste).

Maintenance mostly happens out of sight, and when it doesn’t it becomes a nuisance to the running of everyday life.