Dignity in design

Today is World Habitat Day. A day to reflect on the state of our villages, towns and cities, and ultimately the realities associated with inadequate shelter throughout the world.

But what does this really mean and how can we as individuals make a difference to the 1.6 billion who are without access to this basic human right?

You may not see yourself as living in luxury, but let’s consider the alternative:

• When your alarm sounds in the morning, you (gracefully?) tumble out of bed and turn on the lights.

In Jorgen Babur Mart, an urban slum in northwest Bangladesh more than five individuals reside in single room dwellings no bigger than 12.5sqm. Living, working and sleeping within those four walls. No privacy, limited comfort. Barely half of the entire country (an estimated 166 million people) have access to electricity and this in unreliable at best. Without electricity a working day is bound by the dawn to dusk cycle, reducing efficiency and productivity - key to escaping the poverty trap.

(Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics / Central Intelligence Agency)

• You make your way to the kitchen and fill up the kettle.

Access to clean, safe water is certainly not a given in many parts of the world. In fact one in ten (748 million) don’t have it. A staggering 1,400 children die every day due to water related diseases.

(WaterAid)

• You open the fridge, grab a pint of milk and an array of goodies for your signature dish – the English fry-up!

Without refrigeration shopping for essentials becomes a daily chore, taking precious time away from an already jam-packed schedule. All these luxuries which we take for granted... central heating (we don’t have to search for firewood), access to water (we don’t have to walk for miles to fill a jerrycan to wash our clothes), food deliveries (we don’t depend on a good crop to ensure we have enough rice on the table)... mean we can dedicate out time to other pursuits.

(Women’s Refugee Commission)

• With the stove lit, it’ll only take a few minutes until you’re sat down, tucking into your breakfast.

Reliance on inefficient cookstoves and poor ventilation leads to chronic and acute health concerns - child pneumonia, lung cancer, pulmonary disease, heart disease, cataracts... In Lesotho alone, nearly 2,000 people die every year from household air pollution. This should simply not be the case.

(Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves)

• A quick run to the toilet and you’ll be out the door and on your way to work.

Sanitation and everything that this conjures in the mind is often a taboo subject - 2.4 billion are living without access to any type of improved facility, please don’t blush. It’s hard to imagine 2 million dying every year from diarrhoeal diseases, most of them less than the age of 5, but it’s true.

(World Health Organization)

• Did I say you were just about to leave? Hold on, there are a few more considerations...

You may not live in a malaria-risk zone, but this disease affects nearly half the world’s population. Without improved housing measures, mosquito nets, insecticide, testing and medical intervention, 627,000 die every year. Malaria is both preventable and treatable

(Malaria No More UK)

• Apart from the odd snow day, do you ever give a thought to extreme weather events?

The poorest section of society is commonly the most vulnerable to the effects of natural disasters (rising water levels, river bed erosion, environmental degradation, the spread of infectious disease, building / infrastructure damage, disruption to livelihoods, civil conflicts...) Many of these, if not all, are exacerbated by poor housing conditions and lack of access to basic services and infrastructure.

(Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change / UN-Habitat)

• At least your voice is heard!

Democratic elections, thorough census procedures and public consultation are just some of the systems in place to ensure your rights and protection. However the reality is too many people live without secure land tenure and too many are without identity papers, which mean they are deliberately left out of official surveys and maps. They are denied access to systems such as piped water supplies or sewerage, to services such as household waste collections, local policing, schooling and healthcare. Without such recognition one cannot open a bank account, obtain insurance or vote.

(International Institute for Environment and Development)

• A place to call home.

We have also assumed have we not, that at the very least people have a roof over their head. I’m writing to you from Mumbai, the commercial capital of India. A city bursting at the seams with an ever growing population. Over the past few decades there has been an international focus on the city’s informal settlements; a drive to create a ‘slum-free’ environment. But how can this possibly be achieved if there is a refusal to acknowledge those at the very bottom of the economic ladder? Pavement dwellers reside under simple tarpaulin sheets, occupying a 2 - 3m stretch of sidewalk, at the mercy of ongoing cruelty, daily threat of eviction and the painful reality of a life without recognition. Enumeration - a simple but powerful tool.

(Shack Slum Dwellers International)

Perhaps you’d now consider yourself as living in luxury? You shouldn't. 

Access to adequate shelter in all its facets should not be a luxury, afforded only to those who live and reside in developed regions. The world today is not an equitable place. It is our responsibility both as individuals and as a collective intelligence to effect positive change.

How can you help? How can you make any inroads into the enormity of these issues?

For starters you can make your mark. Today I’d encourage you to sign the petition to the UN to make sustainable cities and human settlements a global priority.

Secondly, AzuKo believes that housing equality is much more than simply provision of units, systems and services. It is about dignity - empowering communities to positively impact upon their own environments.

So, on this global day of reflection, join us in our campaign to raise awareness of our ethos ‘dignity in design’. We are hosting an eBay for Charity Challenge over the next eight weeks as part of the #GivingTuesday movement. We’re asking people to give differently over the holiday season and consider recycling, reuse and redistribution. We’re asking you to think of those without access to adequate shelter and reflect upon the elements in our lives which we take for granted.

(Image: AzuKo)

What difference can you make? Well, you could support an organisation that works to improve lives through a dignified design process. Mahatma Gandhi said, “be the change that you wish to see in the world” - now imagine the impact we could make if we all embodied this belief.

Join us.

 

Author: J. Ashbridge

A statistical nightmare

Some days statistics weigh heavy on my heart. The scale and complexity of such concrete data leaves me feeling dizzy. It’s difficult to know which avenue to pursue or where our research efforts should lie. Take a breath.

One statistic in particular has driven many of our discussions:

“The world urban population is expected to increase by 84% by 2050, from 3.4 billion in 2009 to 6.3 billion in 2050.”

— UN / Dept of Economic and Social Affairs

It is a nod to all those other facts and figures with which we are bombarded. For the first time in history we live in a world where the number of those living in urban areas surpasses the rural. The urban growth is concentrated in less developed regions... the number of slum dwellers continues to increase.

This combination of natural population growth and urbanisation poses huge challenges. Is it something to fear? Should urbanisation be discouraged or is it a key building block of sustainable development? What are the implications for our cities and our citizens?

AzuKo operates within the realm of international development, holding strong the belief that there is a real need for architectural analysis. A humane critique.

In the face of adversity we see ingenuity.

So, over the next year we will be examining environments under enormous pressure - urban, high-density, low-income areas. We will focus on what it means to achieve a sense of place in settings on the frontline. How do individuals, families, units and communities cope under such strain and how do they come together to create genius loci, that distinctive atmosphere which elevates a simple street?

We have much to learn.

Author: J. Ashbridge

The paradox of urban street art

“Society has been completely urbanized… the street is a place to play and learn. The street is disorder… this disorder is alive. It informs. It surprises…

The urban space of the street is a place for talk, given over as much to the exchange of words and signs as it is to the exchange of things. A place where speech becomes writing. A place where speech can become ‘savage’ and, by escaping the rules and institutions, inscribe itself on the walls.”

— Henri LeFebvre

You have a home in a building; four walls and a door. You use public transport; tap in - tap out. You shop in a supermarket; please scan your first item. You are not aware of where the food is produced. You walk along a road; ipod in - headphones on. There are billboards for washing up liquid, weight loss and cars. You cycle to a park. You stop at a red light, yawn. A bus passes, advertising a film. Go Green. These are a few moments captured within the daily existence of urban life, encompassed by a physical framework of walls and streets, structures and predetermined routes. These influence our daily lives to the point that we become unaware, passive about our very existence. Long before we are born, conditions already in place impact our lives; before we can shape the world, the world shapes us. And yet the space opened up by the street is an open playing field; accessible as much to the constant slew of advertising and consumerism, as to its anti-capitalist artistic retorts.

Art, in whatever guise it takes, allows for a sociability unique to it; fostering an encounter which allows the viewer to perceive, react and respond. It allows them to take away from the experience as little or as much as they desire. While not confined to the private space, urban street art has a similar effect,

“Street artists are distinguished by a reactive stance vis-à-vis their spatial, political and social environment. Their great attention to traditions and to certain types of popular knowledge, the bridges they build between various disciplines, [broaden] the access of populations to culture.”

— Floch

(Photo: C. Tunnacliffe)

The positioning of the urban street artist can no longer be stereotyped as a covered face, spray paint at hand, rushed movements made, before trainers hit tarmac as sirens approach. Herein lies Graffiti’s younger sister. The mediums and messages have expanded, explored and pushed the boundaries, they have moved away from territorialism. Today, urban street art has evolved into a multi-dimensional hybrid of street art, graffiti and fine art, adapting methods of graffiti, as well as the street in which it is exposed, all the while stressing the conceptual idea behind the work. Now, sculpture, yarn bombing, stickers, mosaic tiling, wheat pasting, wood blocking, stencils, as well as the ever present spray can, are some of the wide range of mediums used to leave messages across some of the world’s most vibrant cities.

The visual messages open the street to becoming a place for dialogue and retort. The visual encounter is changing, considering the multidisciplinary nature of urban street art and the economic, political and cultural contexts of their placement. By adopting new mediums and techniques, urban street art is manipulating the urban space, not solely by adding layers, but by altering and also removing elements of the surroundings, awakening unconscious repetition, "its relationship to the public via interactivity and the questioning of the spectator remains an essential springboard for the creation of Urban Street Art" (Floch).  

“Left to an audience to be liked or loved, hated or loathed, judged or simply ignored, it is between the walls and the street, the predetermined routes of everyday life, open to individual interpretation, that the public chooses their response.”

— Mathieson

Representative of a sub culture, often hushed with fines, prison, street cleaners, and poor reputation, urban street art simply uses walls as canvas: as an unclaimed margin for change. With its underlying message of rebellion, anti capitalism and anti consumerism, it is not only an artistic movement, but a social movement. 

“Anyone who doubts that street art is one of the most, if not the most significant art movements of our times, need only take a walk through London, New York or São Paolo and pause to look at the work that has been created on its walls”

— Mathieson

It is a viable tool for social re-awakening; re-connecting urbanites with their urban dwellings.  It is between the walls and the street of the city, that a social interstice opens, creating a space for dialogue. In this space, urban street art reacts, a fluid responsive art form, media, forms and messages evolve continuously, remixing culture as a retort to an existing, equally unfixed, society. 

Cities are seen as spaces of transformative possibilities, and urban street art as the window of opportunity for re-defining urban culture - one in which the individual realises their place within the whole, and raising the unconscious repetition of daily existence and life to the conscious level. At the intersection between private and public, producer and consumer, and people and place, this margin for change is opened up, as the viewer moves from being a passive element to a re-engaged active participant of society.

There is a power behind envisioning art as a tool for re-awakening individuals to their surroundings, and by bringing the actions of unconscious repetition into the conscious, re-engage people with place. Viewing is an action that confirms or transforms our position, and emancipation begins when the barrier between passivity and action is disrupted.

Author: C. Tunnacliffe