“the bondsmen set themselves free in the end by a show of indifference to the rules”

Book argues that the DNA for unresolved, liberating spaces can be designed

Ideas of disordered, unstable, direct social life

Proposal of an Open City, could release rigidity of prescriptive environments

Encouragement of unplanned use of public space and provoking social interaction

Suggestions of how design can be more open-ended in scope and more collective in practice.

Where is life found in a community?
First looked for in the centre, life should be more intense there
Edge is seen to be more inert
Modern planning practices see rigid boundaries created around the edges of perceived communities (highways).
By placing importance only in the centre of communities, complex interactions are weakened around the edge


To orchestrate an open city, make walls porous and make edges a border; creates liminal space (space at the limits of control?)

a transition between two other locations; between two states of being
on the precipice of something new but not quite there yet

originates from the Latin word ‘limen’ meaning ‘threshold’

intermediate: coming between two things in time, place

e.g. corridor, airport, hallway, doorway, train, airplane, bridge

Their core beliefs are that cycling is an empowering activity, which plays a large part in challenging Birmingham's transport and health issues. They aim to create and support a healthy, fun, affordable and environmentally friendly mode of transport; and they aim to make it available to as many people as we can, at a reasonable price.

Birmingham Bike Foundry (2023) What we do. Available at: https://birminghambikefoundry.org/about/ [Accessed 2nd February 2023].

References to urban theories – designing disorder (Pablo Sendra vas. Jane Jacobs)

Make Bordesley Green safer for pedestrians and cyclists.

Provide public bike repair stations (with bike pumps), and bike hire stations to encourage more people to use bicycles

This designated cycle route will make Bordesley Green a safer place for pedestrians and cyclists: by providing amenities such as public cycle repair stations and public cycle pumps, it will encourage the community to cycle more often. There are currently no cycle hire stations or cycle repair shops present in Bordesley Green, resulting in a lower access to cycling than the majority of Birmingham. To combat this social injustice, a cycle-hire station and cycle repair shop located on-site will be a central part of my design.

Taking inspiration from Designing Disorder by Richard Sennett and Pablo Sendra, planning for disorder is necessary. The book proposes urban design experiments for places where spontaneous activities and social interactions do not occur; changing existing spaces should take priority over creating spaces.

This paper concluded that active transports, such as cycling and walking, have a positive impact on health, environment, and quality of life. It may even contribute to a decreased risk of disease.

BANGLADESH
Cycling in rural Bangladesh is one of the most popular modes of transport, especially amongst students in large cities. There are many options for cycle tours around Bangladesh – for tourists it is widely promoted as an opportunity to see the sights.
Bangladeshi Cyclists is an organised group of cyclists who host three cycle rides each week. They also held the Guinness World Record between 2016 and 2019 for ‘Longest single line of bicycles (moving)’ when 1186 cyclists rode in a continuous line in Dhaka, Bangladesh.

Some say it is popular amongst the youth, some say it is considered an amateur pursuit. It is considered by some just an option for commuting or exercise.
A lack of cycling promotion in Bangladesh in recent years may have arisen due to shortages in funding and a lack of infrastructure.

PAKISTAN
Cycling in Pakistan, is also promoted to tourists, but there is conservative views on women and young girls cycling.
In north Pakistan, women using a bicycle is a rare sight in Pakistan: female passengers on motorbikes ride with their legs on one side, which increases the danger of falling off. They face a lot of restrictions to their lifestyle: riding a bicycle, swimming, and talking about menstruation with men in their family. These restrictions are taught from a young age.

This view on cycling creates a gender inequality; women and young girls are discouraged from learning to cycle, and therefore cycling to commute, enjoyment, or exercise. It is essential that any gender has equal access to cycling; it is important to develop healthy bodies as a child. Cycling promotes better health and lifestyles, reduces carbon emissions, and reduces time for commuting.
Conservative views on gender norms, and the associated expectations that follow are a barrier to the opportunities provided by cycling. The attitude that women should not cycle poses a challenge to women’s health and freedom.

In December of 2018, a group of women and young girls cycled through the streets of Karachi, Pakistan. Religious conservatives objected to this movement by calling it vulgar and threatening to religion and culture. The camp was organised by a Pakistani cyclist and international adventurer called Samar Khan, aiming to provide women and young girls with bicycles and the training to encourage themselves and others to join in. “We will not let such indecent activities take place in our area which would threaten our religion and culture. This was a Western agenda applied in Landi Kotal,” – Muqtader Shah. Some consider it to be un-Islamic, perhaps they have “outdated ideas about protecting symbols of female virginity”, as proposed by Munaza Shaheed.

This Women’s Cycle Camp began with seven or eight girls, and quickly increased to thirty. It came in response to a lower access to extracurricular for girls: “If [boys] can ride, why shouldn’t we?” (Dawood, Z., 2018). The first time they cycled in public, they faced verbal and physical abuse from a group of male students. The girls were kicked and commanded to cover up and get out of sight: “Why don’t your brothers stop you? Cover yourself and go pray! Go home!”.

Women are seen as the responsibility of men, not themselves. This abuse resulted in the cycle route being directed away from the school to prevent the attack from happening again. Why should women have to change their behaviour in order to feel and be safer? Why is it not the responsibility of men to respect women and not make it an unsafe place for women?

Differences in access to cycling exist between neighbourhoods: the cycle group in Karachi is run by working-class women who have less access to vehicles. A cycle group in Lyari are run by wealthier women but they face tighter constraints and expectations in their behaviour.
 It can be empowering to learnt how to cycle, at any age; it enables a unique sense of freedom that everyone should have the opportunity to experience.

In Lyari, women and girls cycling is considered ‘offensive’ by some. Some even believe women belong at home. Pakistan is a conservative country, cycling is considered by some as a ‘vulgar and sexlike act because a woman must straddle a seat’. This view is not shared for men riding a bicycle so a gender inequality is created. Women occupying public space is seen as a threat to public morality.

It is important to recognise that barriers to equality still exist for women today: all British women over the age of 21 were awarded the right to vote in 1928, but that was only white women. (INSERT VOTE STATISTICS HERE).
 Women of colour and women in non-European countries still face barriers to freedom and equality. 48.7% of the population in Pakistan is women, of which only 25% are employed.

Nawaz, Suddiyas & Ali, Yousaf. (2020). Analyzing the influence of social, cultural, behavioral traits on cycling and walking in Pakistan. Transportation Research Interdisciplinary Perspectives. 7. 100182. 10.1016/j.trip.2020.100182.

Shaheed, M. (2022) Religious Conservatives Object to Women’s Cycling Camp in Pakistan. Available at: https://www.voanews.com/a/religious-conservatives-object-to-women-s-cycling-camp-in-pakistan/6880057.html [Accessed 14th February].

Depending on the speed limit of a road before a junction, bike lanes are required to come closer to traffic and increase visibility to cars, or curve away from traffic.
Where bike lanes have the right of way (e.g. when a vehicle turns off a main road into a side street) the cycle lane is raised.

The whole week led up to Car-Free Day on February 2^nd to encourage sustainable alternatives to transport such as bicycles and buses. The mayor of Bogotá, Claudia Lopez, has announced goals to improve mobility after decades of demands from the public for better transport infrastructure. Their response is to promote sustainable lifestyles and reduce travel times and congestion throughout the city. Expanding cycle paths and pedestrian walkways will improve mobility for citizens and encourage sustainable alternatives to travel by discouraging use of cars.

By 2025, there will be a green corridor throughout the city centre; the city already has 100% inventory of electric buses.

To make a larger impact in combatting climate change, Birmingham must adapt immediately. The emissions in 2020 alone were equivalent to the emissions of Iceland. The minimum reduction needed to make enough impact is 10% per year. Birmingham’s clean air zone is not enough of a strategy.
Transport contributed 34% of total greenhouse gas emissions in 2020.

Bogotá’s efforts towards a sustainable future has placed it amongst the top 100 most sustainable cities in the world. The study analysed factors of the Sustainable Cities Index (SCI), which assessed green spaces, transportation, low air pollution, ad energy consumption. Bogotá was commended on cycling infrastructure, waste management, and reduced air pollution.

a transition between two other locations; between two states of being
 on the precipice of something new but not quite there yet

originates from the Latin word ‘limen’ meaning ‘threshold’

intermediate: coming between two things in time, place

e.g. corridor, airport, hallway, doorway, train, airplane, bridge

Desire Paths are also referred to as a desire line in transportation planning, desire lines, and a social trail
Informal pathways created by pedestrians, cyclists, and animals
Illustrates tension between native environment and built environment, and our relationship to both
An unplanned or preferred route or path

Illicit trails that defy urban planning, unofficial shortcuts, others before you have forged this path, paths that have made themselves, feedback created by feet, the endless human desire to have a choice

Raised cycle lanes could be a safe solution: it would differentiate the space of vehicles with the space for cyclists, and prevent vehicles from driving close enough to become a hazard. It could also encourage people to cycle, as it provides a designated and safe place to cycle (instead of on the road or pavement). It is also reduces the potential of conflicts in a bus lane.
Planters or street furnishings can provide a buffer between cycle lanes and roads.
Mountable curbs can allow cycle lanes to be at the level of the pedestrian walkway.

Painted symbols must be placed at the beginning and end of a cycle lane, and periodically at intervals where necessary.

“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.

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.

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

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.”

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

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 15^th and 17^th century have been left open to the elements, leaving ‘a fresco of clouds on their ceiling’.

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.

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. 

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.