Practicing the world, practicing the city - Urban explorations in Beijing

Since the beginning of the reforms three decades ago, Beijing has progressively become more urban and more global. With the economic reforms and the gaige kaifang (the opening of the country), the city has been steadily growing in both size and population and an important part of this urbanization process can be observed in the changes of its very own urbanity, as it allows more choices and possibilities for its inhabitants. During Mao’s era, urban life and daily rhythms were essentially defined by work and family activities; similarly, urban spaces were loosely differentiated and mobility, almost inexistent. Along with the reforms came an increasing urban diversity – spatial, social, cultural and functional – that results in a change of city rhythms and urban practices. Hence, social and urban transformations are giving opportunities to individuals to experience different spaces, activities and lifestyles through their daily activities. One of the objectives of this research project is to make visible the transformation of space carried out by citizens. This aspect of urbanization, which is part of day-to-day practices and choices, has indeed a great importance in shaping contemporary Beijing. The first question that I would like to explore in this project is: how, in a rapidly changing environment, do Beijing residents practice the city? How do they get informed about and how do they grasp – or not – the increasing possibilities that the city is offering? In fact, there is an important difference between being aware of the “potential” and actually realising it: this is the reason why I am trying to understand not only how Beijingers perceive their city but also how they actually practice it: which places do they go to? What kind of activities do they do? What are their daily rhythms?

Made by China: the transformation of an African city

Alexandra Belinesh Thorer

Over the past two decades China has become increasingly involved in Africa. From rising trade and investment capital to a rapid climb in industrial and construction activity, a new foundation has been laid for Africaâs development. While Africaâs economy is growing and its cities urbanizing rapidly, many African leaders follow the Chinese Model in order to modernize and develop its cities. This thesis studies the continentâs diplomatic capital, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, where China plays a significant role in construction and development, notably in the much-needed transportation sector. China is involved in numerous road and rail projects and now Addis Ababa is equipped with the first modern Light Rail Transit (LRT) network in Sub-Saharan Africa. An urban superstructure such as this not only changes the cityâs primary mode of transportation, but also affects Addis Ababaâs urban fabrication. Perhaps most importantly, however, the LRT serves as an icon of Africaâs rapid modernization and development. Addis Ababa is transforming rapidly. The government introduces modern master plans for its large-scale urban renewal approach and tackles the challenges of transportation through top-down planning and the implementation of new transportation systems. This construction leads to a fundamental transformation of Addis Ababaâs public spaces, which impacts the accessibility of its users as well as physical changes within the built environment. On a secondary level, this thesis explores Chinaâs financial and technological assistance to Ethiopia and questions in what manner Addis Ababa may develop into a city âmade by China.â Only little existing literature concerns Chinaâs impact on architecture, urban, and social spaces in Africaâs transformation. Inspired by the Grounded Theory Methodology, this research accumulates empirical data gathered in Addis Ababa by using photographic studies throughout the LRT construction phase. This visual exploration method occurs along the North-South and East-West corridors of the Addis Ababa LRT and is strengthened by a detailed study of five selected public spaces, which showcase a historic, cultural and political importance to the city. These studies reveal the LRT impact onto Addis Ababaâs urban as well as social transformation. The first evidence â spatiality - shows that the two LRT lines create a physical barrier and consequently fragments the city. This spatial transformation leads to the transformation of urban movement, thus mobility. By introducing a modern transport technology, existing movement patterns change in both spatial as well as temporal means. In addition, the LRT furthers the hierarchization of transportation and favors the countryâs rapid development and modernization. But this growth also leads to a disproportionate development. Referred to as an emerging global city, Addis Ababaâs path to modernization is successively neglecting its long and omnipresent history, its locality. The phenomenon of radical transformation, rapid urbanization, development, economic growth and industrialization, has more prominently been observed in China after the post-Mao market reform. Since Chinaâs presence in Africa is increasing substantially, this thesis proposes a theoretical concept described as the âChinaizationâ of urban Africa, which indicates fundamental dynamics and tendencies of Chinaâs recent development and questions the extent to which this impacts Africaâs current urbanization.

EPFL2015

Entre ville et campagne

Sophie Lufkin

Environmental, social and economic concerns linked to the sustainable development of the built-up environment are increasingly calling into question models of territorial development based on urban sprawl. This is because the process of dispersed urbanization generates social inequalities; it is based on the extensive use of automobiles, and leads to increased spending on infrastructure networks. This phenomenon tends to be explained by the search for a combination of life in the city and life in the wide-open which creates new life-styles based on the extensive use of transportation and communication systems. The analysis of these emerging practices indicates that they arise from a double pressure exerted on the population: on one hand, attraction to rural and mountain areas, and on the other hand the economic and cultural dependency vis-à-vis the large urban centers. In this context, the regeneration of urban wasteland areas appears to be a strategy capable of favoring a better anchoring between urbanization and public transport. The dynamics of off-shoring enterprises has freed up a large number of plots that are however connected to existing networks, and benefit from good accessibility and sometimes enviable centrality. The requalification of industrial wasteland has been the object of much research in the nineties, which has led to establish as principles density, mixed use and the preservation of the industrial heritage (for instance Escher-Wyss in Zurich-West, Sulzer in Winterthur, ABB in Baden, SIP in Plainpalais-Geneva). In the same way, following the abandonment of some mobility structures, research has started to focus on the fate of urban railroad wastelands. These are considered to be strategic locations to develop "compact cities", attractive for habitat and favorable for the development of social and cultural activities. Several examples in Switzerland illustrate these attempts: Ecoparc in Neuchâtel, Zurich HB, La Praille in Geneva, etc. Today, in order to offer alternatives to the urban paradigm of the compact city we focus our attention on a different type of railroad wasteland. By regional railroad wasteland we refer to areas located close to a train station, either abandoned or in the process of being abandoned, and situated in suburban or periurban zones. Though these regional railroad wastelands present advantages similar to those of the urban wastelands in terms of accessibility to public transport, they are very different by their relationship to the landscape and nature. In addition, much more affordable land prices than in city centers allow more flexibility in the choice of programs and target users. In line with the thinking led by Thomas Sieverts among others, we attempt to go beyond the antagonisms between city and country, by formulating the hypothesis that these regional railroad wastelands bring an answer that is able to reconcile the aspirations to life in the country with the requirements of sustainable territorial development. The present research aims to explore a series of urbanism strategies induced by the simultaneous and inseparable presence of the railroad and natural dimensions, which constitutes the specificity of these periurban and suburban sites. In a first phase, in order to reveal these specific characteristics we conducted a typology exercise on a sample of thirty railroad sites located on the Geneva to Sankt-Gallen axis. It extends the whole length of the country from Lake Geneva in the southwest to Lake Constance in the northeast and goes through the main city areas of the country as well as several so-called calm areas. These thirty wastelands were measured, photographed, described, analyzed and finally represented according to an innovative methodology that combines architectural, urbanism and sociological approaches. This first phase concludes with the construction of the "face" of each site; beyond the fundamental distinction between urban and regional wastelands, it leads to the identification of six individual types. In a second phase, the focus moves to the project process. In order to understand precisely the mechanisms and the stakes at play, we have analyzed several case studies of urban wastelands in various stages of advancement, going from construction finished (Zurich-West), to the beginnings of the launch of a project (Fribourg), the first stages of construction (Zurich Stadtraum-HB) and planning in the course of development (Lausanne-Malley). We thus show the main obstacles to development, then the levers, triggers or planning instruments capable of surmounting them. Finally, in the last part, we elaborate development scenarios up to 2025 for three regional wastelands of the Lake Geneva urban hub, which come from a distinct group within the typology: Versoix, La Plaine and Palézieux. The project recognizes two scales of intervention: the train station and its immediate surroundings on one hand, and the extended perimeter on the other hand, which includes land within a 500 meter radius around the station. The developments of these two perimeters are intimately linked: the creation of a pole of urbanization may induce an improvement of the rail service and vice-versa. These two embedded scales thus constitute a complex dynamic system, within which specific, though coordinated urbanism strategies are implemented, and the stakes proper to each perimeter dictate these. For the station and its immediate surroundings, the goal is primarily to increase the hospitability of the site, that is principally to increase the symbolic role of the station, to plan the equipment and infrastructure necessary in view of the increased flows of travelers, and arranging the external space by accentuating the presence of vegetation, in agreement with the local character. All of these interventions lead to the creation of a "railroad landscape" which is the regional counterpart to the urban public space. Within the extended perimeter, the project strategy rests upon the recognition of five complementary qualities: inhabited, equipped, wild, productive, to be contemplated, whose proportions vary according to the territorial insertion of the wasteland. Densification is then effected in a punctual and targeted manner, in coherence with the logic resulting from the encounter between rail and nature.

EPFL2010

Penser (par) la carte

Carole Thérèse Lanoix

What do Marine Drive and Shibuya have in common? Both the long promenade at the southern end of Mumbai, and the gigantic pedestrian crossing in the heart of the Japanese capital, are places where one walks. This thesis discusses places of convergence and of “seizing the world”, which are solely a product of walking. In their encounters through their presence in these places, individuals share this specific sensation of being urban and, by the virtue of it, belonging to the ever changing global society. If a pedestrian generates substance itself, unique for each city - its urbanity - this happens by the simple act of walking. He shapes space by crossing it. Walking is thus not a trivial act, but an enacted knowledge that is performed in a particular way and culturally determined. There is not one way of walking but different gaits, which we are questioning as profiles of walking through a novel cartographic approach. How can we map urbanity? How can we represent the intangible, the ephemeral, the singular? At the moment of global urbanisation, it is convenient to question oneself about the ways to inhabit this urbanity, and our modes of cohabitation. We propose new images to transform the map into a thought on urban space. By looking at walking as one of the necessary, as well as satisfying conditions for the publicness of space to occur, take the act of walking as a true metric to measure urbanity of global cities. The aim of this thesis is to propose cartographic alternatives to represent spaces of walking by liberating ourselves from euclidian cartography. Its language, unsuitable, would struggle with its incapacity of invention. The hypothesis at the basis of this intuition drifts from the “normal” map, searching for alternative paths of reinventing cartography. By relying on an anachronistic rereading of the history of cartography, three cosmographies - alike three cartographic othernesses - have been identified: that of Before (ancient maps), that of Elsewhere (non-Western maps) and that of contemporary artworks. We are assuming that an approach relying on an atlas - understood in the sense of Aby Warburg’s Mnemosyne and developed in our web application @tlas - can be an appropriate method to create a space of comparison between these cartographies. From this heuristic process, we wish to reinvent cartography in order to bring movement into the map, if not put the map in movement. Inspired by the proxemic turn in cartography, with the help of chôrographies - seen as “maps of spatialities” - we reconsider the individual and privilege the chôros rather than the topos of use. From ethnographic observations of three profiles of mobility - the stroller, the passer by and the motile - in Mumbai and in Tokyo, the translation of these variations of walking into a map offers a view of Indian and Japanese urbanities, which underlines the volatility of public space and the contemporary reality of urban inhabiting modes. If production of images seems inherent to all sciences, we seek to make effective the possibility of thinking (by) the image through an iterative movement. From one side, it is about rethinking the map in order to map differently, in the light of contemporary cartographic challenges. On the other side, it is about mapping differently in order to rethink space, in urban circumstances that welcome its own challenges. By these images - witnesses of space as effectively lived - new urban readings are born. They serve to invent other inhabitable horizons. From the necessity to think up a cartography that is consistent with a new geographic reading of the world - ready to inform about the space of individuals and as much as to give shape to it - we are brought to ask ourselves about the cartographic process we initiated: how will these images enable us to conceive space, now?

EPFL2017