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Rebel Architecture

United Kingdom Architecture News - Aug 16, 2014 - 18:23 7573 views

Rebel Architecture

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Rebel Architecture is a six-part documentary series profiling architects who are using design as a form of activism and resistance to tackle the world's urban, environmental and social crises.

The series follows architects from Vietnam, Nigeria, Spain, Pakistan, Israel/Occupied West Bank and Brazil who believe architecture can do more than iconic towers and luxury flats - turning away from elite "starchitecture" to design for the majority.

Guerrilla architect

Can Spanish self-build legend Santiago Cirugeda turn an abandoned factory into a vibrant cultural centre?

Rebel Architecture

Santiago Cirugeda is a subversive architect from Seville who has dedicated his career to reclaiming urban spaces for the public.

In austerity-hit Spain where the state has retreated and around 500,000 new buildings lie empty, "people are doing things their own way," says Cirugeda. "In times of crisis, people come together to find collective solutions."

With his expert knowledge of urban planning legislation, Santiago is not afraid to "occupy", or squat, abandoned space and to use his knowledge of the law to enable community building.

"Self-building hasn't been legalised in Spain, so any architect taking on this problem has to take on civil and criminal liability," he says, referring to the logistical issues he faces whilst working on the edges of the law.

"Sometimes we do things that are illegal, but we're not doing anyone any harm. On the contrary, we're doing it to benefit more people. The decision to work illegally means a different approach."

His buildings are often fast-build, mobile structures made from recycled materials. Design for Cirugeda is about matching available materials with the skills of those keen to build it. The key is that they serve a social function, which Santiago thinks contemporary architecture has lost sight of in its obsession with the aesthetic.

We follow him as he takes on his biggest task yet, saving a huge abandoned cement factory, and negotiating with the authorities to let his National Architects' Collective turn it into a vibrant cultural centre.

A traditional future

Pakistani architect Yasmeen Lari uses local building techniques to rebuild villages in the flood-stricken Sindh region.

Yasmeen Lari is Pakistan's first female architect and one of the most successful providers of disaster relief shelters in the world. She has built over 36,000 houses for victims of floods and earthquakes in Pakistan since 2010.

Shunning the structurally weak, mass-produced houses offered by international organisations, Lari uses vernacular techniques and local materials such as lime and bamboo. Her houses have a tiny carbon footprint and are simple enough for people to build themselves. With this, she hopes to demonstrate the role that architecture can play in humanitarian aid.

"I often tell my colleagues, let us not treat disaster-affected households as destitute, needing handouts ... but with dignity," she says.

Lari once built giant concrete and steel buildings for clients like the Pakistani State Oil company. But when disaster struck in 2005, she turned to traditional techniques to design flood and earthquake proof buildings for people in remote regions.

She returns to the Sindh region to see how her homes survived the 2013 floods and helps villagers in Awaran after the 2013 Balochistan earthquake.

The architecture of violence

Eyal Weizman explains architecture's key role in the Israeli occupation of Palestine and the evolution of urban warfare.

Rebel Architecture

Filmmaker: Ana Naomi de Sousa

On a journey across the settlements and roads of the West Bank and along the Separation Wall, Israeli architect Eyal Weizman demonstrates how architecture is central to the Israeli occupation of Palestine.

"Architecture and the built environment is a kind of a slow violence. The occupation is an environment that was conceived to strangulate Palestinian communities, villages and towns, to create an environment that would be unliveable for the people there," says Weizman.

Local Israelis and Palestinians explain how it feels to live in a landscape where everything, from walls and roads, terraces and sewage, to settlements and surveillance are designed to ensure the separation of the two peoples, while simultaneously maintaining control.

Eyal's work on the architecture of occupation has led him to understand the discipline's role in modern urban warfare. Visiting Nablus and Jenin, he explains how the Israeli army pioneered a new kind of modern urban warfare through its deep understanding of architecture.

But Weizman has found a way for architecture to resist. His latest project, Forensic Architecture, is way of turning a building's military wounds into evidence to be used against the state for the investigation of war crimes, with the aid of innovative architectural and visual technologies.

Greening the city

Vo Trong Nghia attempts to return greenery to Vietnam's choking cities and design affordable homes for poor communities.

House for Trees is one of Vo Trong Nghia's projects bringing back green spaces to Ho Chi Minh City [Al Jazeera]

Filmmaker: Nick Ahlmark

Award-winning architect Vo Trong Nghia is on a mission to transform Vietnam's attitudes towards architecture and urban spaces through his environmentally sustainable buildings.

"Population explosion is a big problem in all Asian countries, especially when these countries have a tropical climate. But these countries don't have the knowledge to create architecture that suits their climate," he says.

As Vietnam makes a mad dash for growth and development, Nghia is defending the need for open spaces, trying to bring scatterings of greenery to the concrete, glass and steel that dominate the cityscapes. His buildings incorporate plants and trees, and include design elements such as natural air flow ventilation in the place of costly and environmentally damaging air conditioning.

This film follows Nghia as he tries to find support for his vision to create a vertical farming city; and at the same time to implement low-cost housing solutions for those left behind by Vietnam's economic boom.

"Green architecture helps people live harmoniously with nature and elevates human life by embracing the powers of the sun, wind and water into living space. If the current way of thinking does not change, sooner or later citizens will actually live in concrete jungles. For a modern architect, the most important mission is to bring green spaces back to the earth."

Working on water

Architect Kunle Adeyemi sets out to solve the issues of flooding and overcrowding in Nigeria's waterside slums

In the waterside slum of Makoko, Lagos, Kunle Adeyemi's first floating building is a primary school [NLE]

Filmmaker: Riaan Hendricks

Nigerian architect Kunle Adeyemi is pioneering floating buildings to solve the issues of flooding and land occupation that affect hundreds of thousands in African coastal cities, including the 85,000 residents of the Makoko slum in Nigeria's capital Lagos.

Adeyemi envisages a city of floating buildings that, safe from rising tides, would allow the slum's residents to remain within their community, while at the same time improving the quality of their lives.

His studio have come up with an easy-to-build, low-cost sustainable prototype for a floating building, one of which is already being coveted by an overcrowded school in the area.

But despite winning numerous awards, he is still struggling to get approval from the authorities to roll out the prototype.

Several hundred kilometres away in Port Hartcourt, a similar landscape, Adeyemi is working on a floating radio station for a community NGO, but the regional government is keen on redeveloping the area, and has a multi-billion dollar plan that favours displacing its current residents over improving living conditions in the slums.

So can Adeyemi get his plans afloat in time?

The pedreiro and the master planner

Informal builder Ricardo de Oliviera struggles with the government's plan for the future of Rio's Rocinha favela.

Filmmaker: May Abdalla

Ricardo de Olivera is a Brazilian 'pedreiro', a real rebel architect. He has built over 100 houses with no formal training while utilising the most basic tools, all within his local community of Rocinha, Brazil's largest favela, situated right in the centre of Rio de Janeiro.

Working on a variety of projects across the favela, including his own house, Ricardo explains how these simple buildings meet the social and budgetary needs of their clients. But as the city gears up for the World Cup and Olympic Games, life in Rocinha is changing and even Ricardo cannot escape the violence spilling over from the government's favela 'pacification' programme.

Whilst Ricardo struggles to provide a better life for his own family, Brazil's new profile on the world stage has also led to an influx of urban planners, NGOs and well-meaning architects, all hoping to improve the physical conditions of the favela – and bringing with them the very real threat of gentrification.

Luis Carlos Toledo, the architect behind the master plan for the government's regeneration of Rocinha, was considered a radical for working on favela urbanisation long before it became fashionable and says living conditions can and must be improved.

However, even he starts to question the benefits of an attention-grabbing cable-car system, whilst thousands of residents are still without access to education or healthcare. The battle for the future of Brazil's favelas is on.

Follow:https://twitter.com/RebelArchitects

> via aljazeera.com

Submitted by WA Contents

Rebel Architecture

United Kingdom Architecture News - Aug 16, 2014 - 18:23 7573 views

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