Filed under: Ahmedabad
Indian Institute of Management
I didn’t spend enough time here so I’m planning a return trip. This is the older Louis Khan section of campus. The new campus addition (by Bimal Patel) has just been completed…and it looks a lot like the Salk Institute. This campus is sprawling, a marraige of architecture and public space. The changing quality of light and space constantly unfold before you.
Sarabhai House
Corbusier designed this private residence for an artist named Anand Sarabhai (who still resides there). The outside conceals the intimate and barrel vaulted spaces of the interior….but the structure is supporting roof gardens on multiple levels and a water slide to the pool below. Actually, from inside, the interior blends seamlessly with the outdoors, pivoting partitions are open and allow the breezes to flow through. Most buildings here incorporate electric ceiling fans to aid in cross-ventilation. This photo is actually the way no one actually experiences the building, see flickr for more.
Cept University (School of Architecture)
Been spending a lot of time at the school of architecture out here. I enjoy the campus, designed by Doshi…the buildings are not so different from Wurster Hall. Large, almost ‘brutalist’ and the windows and doors and partitions are operable. There are clumps of students always gathered around the courtyards, cafes, and working on laptops in the cool shade, under the buildings.
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A bit of a culture shock (although I’ve been to India once before) to say the least. The traffic, the noise, the dirt, the heat, the animals (cows, goats) the poverty (naked and hungry children on the street), the wedding celebrations, are a constant stimuli on the senses. The choas is back in full swing on these travels.
So, why Ahmedabad (I pose this question while asking myself at the same time)?
I think it’s necessary to see and live in some of the older parts of cities in order to truly understand what makes the new ones so different. Before I left Dubai, I spent a significant amount of time in Deira, the older, more livable/walkable, part of the city. It is the area that sprouted up around the old fishing village near the creek. Deira was described to me as the old area of the town where the workers live. I found it to be much more of a vibrant and egalitarian place to be. It was the closest thing to a city that I could find in Dubai. Comparably, Ahmedabad has much more going on, on so many more levels. Not surprisingly, it has a much longer and complex history.
I’m here for the architecture and the company. It’s good to get a break from the towers of glass and steel, and experience some architecture that is sensitive to local climate. In the past few days I’ve spent time exploring an old step-well, Corbusier’s Sarabhai house, and Louis Khan’s Indian Institute of Management (IIM). I am thankful for the opportunity to be able to travel to study buildings that are part of the original architectural cannon as well as those now built by architects who were influenced by that same set of canonical buildings.
I’m spending the day at HCP Design and Project Management (Berkeley CED Alum, Bimal Patel’s Architecture and Planning firm). The firm is involved in several city-wide projects that suggest some ‘new city thinking.’ There is a project to upgrade the (poor) infrastructure of the city. 140km of the city’s streets are being outfitted with plantings, curbs, and clearer divisions for 2,3, and 4 wheeled traffic. They call it Integrated Street Development. And…they are working on a project to make a large man-made lake on the city’s south side “foster entirely new uses.” It is a comprehensive plan that proposes “facilities for the informal sectior.” Anyway, more on the indian public after I meet with Patel.
Filed under: Ahmedabad
Safe in India now, arrived in the middle of the night. Internet won’t be as accessible/reliable as before. Bear with me as I try to settle in, adjust to the weather, and figure out how to flush the toilet. New contact info posted. Talk to you soon.
Filed under: Dubai
It was great to meet up with some familiar faces – both Eric Tomich and Mohamed Sheriff from my days at SOM Chicago. I originally started working in that office in 2004 for Burj Dubai and these guys have been on the project ever since. They are working on-site in Dubai to oversee all construction and any emerging design issues (I’d love to oversee the fabrication of the undulating atrium ceiling) . They really are the quintessential elements in operation for the realization of this building. They monitor the work on the ground and problem solve every conflict that comes up during the building phase. They are the quality control and Eric (another Berkeley Alum, I find out) says so far, they haven’t had to sacrifice any quality during construction.
And of course, it was great to meet Burj. I stood at it’s base, at the hotel atrium entrance facing Dubai Mall, where most of the construction activity was taking place, my camera unable to capture the height of the building in a single frame. Mo, basically single-handedly, is redesigning and coordinating the landscaping, it’s multi-tiers, infrastructure, and transitions dominating the construction scene. The climate was sweltering hot in Dubai when he came out to begin work last year; he still got chills when he saw the tower for the first time.
So much of this project is exactly how I remember it. Strangely, the real tower looks exactly like the models we built in the office. I realize that maybe I never truly understood the scale of this project. Photoshopping people and trees near the building’s base was never an easy assignment and our renderings were always viewed from a further-than-possible perspective or unnatural lens length. Parts of the building seemed smaller in real life (if you can believe it) and others really were larger (the office annex building grew by at least 3 floors since I worked on it).
Scott Cherney and Dennis Milam (who worked with Branner Alum Beau Trincia at Emergent, it’s a small world) took me through the Burj gallery of latest project renderings and material samples. Floor 154, the Chairman’s suite, is the tower’s uppermost occupiable floor, although the building has some 164, or so, levels. The suite measures roughly 25 meters (82 ft) across and is essentially the dimension of the building’s core. The majority of the plan consists of 3 elevator shafts, 1 service elevator, massive sheer walls, utility and service compartments, and one hollowed-out side for the office and home furnishings of the Chairman. Of course, his living space is a multi-floor event.
This building, when completed this year, will not fail to amaze. Even I will have to wait for the observation deck opening (floor 124) to get a new look at Dubai’s (urban) landscape.
Filed under: Uncategorized
So many unrelated things happened over the past week. Just wanted to jot them down before I forget.
Things I’ve grown accustomed to in Dubai:
-Nespresso tastings in Dubai Mall
-Discovering new neighborhoods in the world’s biggest malls. A mall is not complete without a food court. I found a second, less crowded, quieter one today in Dubai mall….lower level. Go there despite warnings from the information staff that it is not quite finished.
-Many people (on the street) answer “yes” to every question you ask regardless if they understand you or not.
-”Dew -baye”: The correct way to call the city by name.
-Mohd’s Arabic coffee and lessons on how to make it. (Nick, how is your caffeine fast going?)
-In spain, like the bay area, there were many dog-walkers. One day in Madrid, I actually stepped in crap twice. Here, there are almost no pets. A cleanliness culture thing?
-”Where are you from?:” The first thing everyone asks a person he or she has never seen before (precedes ‘hello’)
-This is a city of foreigners. This is not a city.
-Weekends are Friday and Saturday here.
-Why is the world obsessed with fried chicken?
Events:
-Abandoned cars at the airport. Everyone back home was super-intrigued by the NY Times article that mentioned thousands of cars were left at the airport by those fleeing the country. The Arabic Economist reports only 11 abandoned cars. Did the government clean up the mess? Went out to explore the long-term parking lot at the airport. Found a few cars with tickets, covered with dust, and one with windows left open. No notes….no thousands of cars, no real answers as to whether I was even looking in the right place.
-”We’re weaving humanity into the urban fabric:” Billboard on Sheikh Zayed Road by Limitless. I met with University of Michigan College of Architecture and Urban Planning Dean, Doug Kelbaugh who is currently Executive Director of Design and Planning for Limitless. Limitless is planning new cities in China, the UAE, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and beyond. The recession has slowed their work as well. Kelbaugh is interested in sustainability issues and is in touch with UC Berkeley CED former Dean Harrison Fraker.
-It is possible to accidentally hitch-hike for two consecutive days in a row.
-It is so hard to find routes here, but it’s because the roads are always changing. They call detours “diversions” and construction has forced so many alternate routes to confuse all drivers in the city. There are no real addresses here either.
People:
-’Film everything, you need the fourth dimension.’ (Veronica De La Rosa on traveling and documentation)
-’We don’t wait for events here, we create them.’ (Sheikh Mohammed on the concept of spectacle)
-’This city wasn’t designed, it was engineered’ (John Madden on Abu Dhabi)
-’It’s living, but it’s not life.’ (Anonymous, on living in Dubai)
-’Why not?’ (Sheikh Mohammed on 60 minutes, in response to the question, “Why are you doing all of this in Dubai?”, 2007)
Filed under: Uncategorized
I spent the morning with Dr. Yasser Elsheshtawy, Associate Professor of Architecture at UAE University, currently putting the finishing touches on a book documenting Dubai’s transformations. Professor, writer, photographer, architect, urbanist, owner of broken-in chuck taylors, this guy is basically the guru on public space in Dubai.
The day highlighted the many contrasts of the city. I saw residential towers at Jumeirah Beach, the the suburban tract homes at (Springs) Emirite’s Villas (enjoyed a BBQ there with some friends) and the poorest niches in Al Quoz (the worker housing compounds) and the neighborhood of Satwa. Satwa is interesting because it was slated to become the next mega-project out here (Jumeirah Gardens, largest in the world), complete with the world’s next tallest building. The city began demolition of homes there, cleared plots for new towers, and now they remain empty. I saw this neighborhood on the ground and then from the 30th story of a tower on Sheikh Zayed Road. It is on prime location for real estate…and prime location for living for the people who are there.
Other contrasts include the sheer height differential between the 230m+ towers on Sheikh Zayed road and the surrounding 1-6 story city fabric. The massive towers appear to have burst out of the ground.
The bus ride back to Dubai was quiet, it was a week day this time. Before barely tapping The Fountainhead, we were on Sheikh Zayed Road heading toward the bus stop in Bur Dubai (toward to center of the city). I was excited to finally see Burj in daylight…but the local weather had other plans. There was a thick haze in the air, a sort of sandstorm, that enveloped the city – Dubai’s version of San Francisco’s fog. The tower, when we passed, was nothing but a dark blur through the haze – a shadow representative of a brighter time in this city of speculation. That night was the coolest it’s been on my entire trip to the UAE, had to wear a jacket in the desert. The locals thought it was freezing. It reminded me of the Bay.
Article on the current state of Dubai:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/12/world/middleeast/12dubai.html?_r=1&em
Met an electrical engineer here who said his company lost all work in Dubai and now has projects in Qatar and Abu Dhabi….but they are slow. Another British expat just lost his construction job and is going home. The static cranes and uncompleted projects are the real showstoppers.
The roads are still congested as all hell, you would never guess it was a ghost town from the amount of traffic on the streets….or the number of people at The Global Village on a Friday evening, or the tourists at the Jumeirah Beach sheesha bars.
The apartments for expats (depending on what nationality possibly) are huge. Space is abundant here. I was just in Spain where the bedrooms were slightly larger than a full-size bed. Here, 3 or 4 king-sized beds could fit comfortably in one bedroom….you might have to cut one in half and rotate. The kitchen here is extraordinarily large and a weird, really long proportion, it makes you wonder who designed these residences. The thing here, is, that everything was designed and built at unprecedented speed, which means that a lot of bad architecture went up. On the flip-side, a lot of things we’ve never seen before, and a lot of new techniques, and a lot of experimentation was possible. Masdar, and it’s drums of peripheral parking, is being built.
I still have a lot of this city to see. More later this week.
Public space studies in Abu Dhabi
The most interesting and active public space networks I observed were super-block interiors (shaded alleys and passageways, parking, shops, markets), the public bus network, the corniche (network of parks and public waterfront promenade), the open (sometimes green) spaces around mosques, and the malls and hotel atriums. Practices surrounding public space in Abu Dhabi weren’t so related to formal place-making as they were to…spontaneity and immediate environmental conditions. Workers (men) would congregate in any sidewalk that was wide enough (no shortage of wide sidewalks here) or any open space. It was common to see them napping in any green area with shade.
Although I come at the most temperate time of the year, the heat of the majority of the year has dictated the schedule of public space usage here. Nights are when the real people of the city come out. The business day is later here, many shops opening from 10am to 10pm.
For more on this public space discussion, see this archinect thread.
On to Dubai….
Filed under: Uncategorized
Traditional Islamic Principles of Built Environment by Hisham Mortada
Instant cities: Emerging Trends in Architecture and Urbanism in the Arab World: E.M.
Urban Form in the Arab World by Stefano Bianca
Arabic-Islamic Cities: Building and Planning Principles by Besim S. Hakim
