Design and Landscape for People: New Approaches to Renewal
Cumberlidge, Clare and Musgrave, Lucy (2007).
New York: Thames & Hudson; 224 pages. $50. ISBN 9780500342336.
Twenty-three case studies representing best practices in renewal from 14 countries, spanning five continents and sharing 25 awards (among 12 of the showcased projects). That, in a nutshell, is Clare Cumberlidge and Lucy Musgrave’s new book. Besides the impressive numbers underpinning its range, surely should be added the outstanding 269 color illustrations. This book is an impressive exhibition of some excellent innovations in rural and urban renewal that redeveloped existing land and infrastructure, created new facilities including through reuse of old, used culture and place identity to further economic development, and through strategic work with local communities, including children and youth, brought in desired environmental change.
After a preface by Ralph Rugoff, who highlights the importance of the book, the introductory essay by the interdisciplinary author duo, Cumberlidge (curator, cultural planner and art consultant), and Musgrave (architect, planner, researcher) who founded the General Public Agency in London, provide a sweeping review of the emerging new practices in the field of renewal and cite several more examples from around the world in addition to the case studies included in the book.
Renewal is typically considered an urban phenomenon. “Urban Renewal” historically had a negative image, with James Baldwin famously dubbing this process “negro removal” highlighting the marginalization of minority groups and the poor in renewal of “slums” and blighted areas in post-World War II American cities. However, a shift in renewal thinking occurred in the later part of the twentieth century with community development underpinning renewal efforts—though the need to command and control populations and their use of land continue to drive renewal efforts in slums across the world, particularly in developing countries undergoing fast urbanization. Given this prevalent, inhumane image of renewal, this book helps to direct attention to emerging practices in both urban and rural contexts that have transformed people’s environments in a more people-friendly manner.
The book’s 23 case studies are organized into five sections: Utility, Citizenship, Rural, Identity, and Urban. The introduction does not explain why these five categories were chosen, nor does it explain the process of selection of case studies from around the world beyond stating, “[w]e identified and were in communication with many inspirational projects from around the world which for reasons of editorial focus have not made it to the final selection” (224). Each section is introduced by the authors with a review essay that again introduces many more examples from around the world while briefly discussing the achievements of the selected case studies. A fact sheet about each case study is included at the end under “Project Information,” though inclusion of these summaries in the case studies themselves would have facilitated smoother reading and comprehension.
The five case studies under “Utility,” from South Africa, Slovakia, Germany, Mexico, and India, demonstrate adaptive reuse of obsolete infrastructure as well as new infrastructural innovations to cater to multiple community needs. A wonderful example of this latter concept is the Playpump project in South Africa, where a merry-go-round for children enabled children to pump safe drinking water to an overhead tank while playing. Colorful advertising panels covered the overhead storage tanks and delivered public health messages to the water collectors, who were typically adolescent girls.
Critical perspectives are missing from the case studies. For example, the “Utility” case study of Slum Networking in India showcases a highly contested project—the largest slum upgrading project using the concept of Slum Networking in the Indian city of Indore—without any critical analysis. The project targeted development of individual household toilets, water supply, roads and soft landscaping across the city slums, but achieved only very limited coverage at the end of the project (Verma 2000). The tenant householders refused to make any investment in infrastructure, while others cited insufficient space within the house for a toilet, and still others who received toilets did not have private water supply. Further, a survey revealed that no water mains had been installed in ten slums, despite installation of sewage lines and toilets, and people were reluctant to use the water fetched from faraway places for flushing toilets (Verma 2000). This resulted in choked drainage, contaminated water and epidemics, which were reported by only some of the local newspapers. Though this is a multi-award winning project, it highlights the need of understanding the ground realities and feedback from people as well as inquiring into the politics of awards, which are often based on convincing staged photographs in limited coverage areas.
The projects discussed in this book have a common lack across them—there is no discussion about what the actual users of these renewal efforts have to say about these projects. Nor is there much discussion about the roles played by different actors and stakeholders or the dynamics of community participation in developing the projects. The book’s acknowledgements refer to commissioned photographers visiting the projects. If the researchers had done the same and talked to the users of the projects and the assorted stakeholders, the book might have taken on a richer, more critical texture with multiple voices discussing the “for people” adage about the projects in the book’s title.
The section under “Citizenship” has five case studies from the USA, India, Germany, Argentina, and The Netherlands. It showcases collective strategic work between creative practitioners and local communities, including young people, to make permanent or temporary improvements in different environments.
The section called “Rural” includes four case studies from South Africa, Spain (two), and the USA. This section is a robust contribution to understanding regeneration and renewal in rural contexts, which in the industrialized West are facing decline of traditional agriculture and loss of rural industries, and in the developing world, undergoing massive restructuring due to pressures of population and urbanization.
The section on “Identity” has four case studies from Japan, the USA, Croatia, and the UK. This categorization is problematic as almost every project in this book has a focus on building on some elements of local distinctiveness, whether through local culture, a local environmental attribute, the history of a place, or a special need particular to a population. Reinforcing identity is a common thread in most projects and is a confusing choice for a discrete section.
Finally, the section called “Urban” has five case studies, including South Africa, Chile,Italy, and two from the USA. Most of the projects in the book are from urban contexts, which leads to thematic overlaps, a common issue with the book. (For example Playpump, the innovative multi-dimensional rural infrastructure development project mentioned above, under the current categorization may as well have been presented under “Rural” instead of “Utility.”) Categories could have been developed according to the focus of intervention such as infrastructure, housing, place-making, community participation, cultural development, and the like. The Snow Culture Project, Japan, for example could well have fitted into a more focused “cultural development” category along with several others in the book such as Hotel Neustadt, Germany. Even within the current sections, the sorting of certain projects is questionable. For example, OASIS, in the USA and Invisible Zagreb, in Croatia, created new tools through mapping to allow larger public to access data typically used by specialists to make decisions about development. Both these examples under the current framework should have been included under “Citizenship” and not “Identity.”
There are five case studies that either involve children and youth as active actors in, and/or direct beneficiaries of the projects: Playpump, South Africa (discussed above); CLEAN-India, India (which empowered children to be environmental advocates and push for change in environmentally degraded sites by lobbying with local governments); Hotel Neustadt, Germany (which engaged young people to be active participants in temporary projects to change perceptions about deprived areas); Edible Schoolyard, USA (which engaged poor children in the activities of growing food and eating in an organic garden and a kitchen classroom at school which led to the School Lunch Initiative across all Berkeley Public Schools); and Play or Rewind, Italy (which created temporary interventions in historic environments to stimulate spontaneous play in unexpected locations); as well as one part of a case study—Nelson Mandela Youth and Heritage Center, South Africa (one component of this decentralized museum provides training facilities for young people); and references to offshoots of larger initiatives throughout the book such as Asthma Free School Zone, New York, USA (as an application of OASIS), educational projects to build awareness among young people by the Snowman Foundation as part of the Snow Culture Project in Japan. These projects encompassing a large global range and focus could have made a nice section on “Children, Youth and Renewal.”
In the final analysis, this book succeeds in creating a new humane identity for renewal projects. The vast range of post-1990 projects selected from around the globe showcase current renewal trends to improve people’s lives not only in urban but also in rural areas. The book is beautifully produced and will attract a large global audience of practitioners, students, researchers and those interested in the development process. Though the sorting of projects in the current categories is sometimes confusing, and user perceptions completely absent from the project narratives, this book should encourage others to break further ground and advance this important field.
Gita Dewan, Verma (2000). “Indore’s Habitat Improvement Project: Success or Failure?” Habitat International 24(1): 91-117.
Reviewer Information
Sudeshna Chatterjee has a Ph.D. in Community and Environmental Design from North Carolina State University, and is a principal at the architecture, urban design and design research practice of Kaimal Chatterjee & Associates, New Delhi. Sudeshna is adjunct faculty in the Urban Design department in the School of Planning and Architecture, New Delhi and is a research affiliate of the Children, Youth and Environments Center for Research and Design at the University of Colorado.