T23/1 Can we be directly overt?

‘Lovely-bubbly tomato growing projects.’ -v- Masterplans.
1:1 projects often have a very limited audience, mainly architects. Temporary use projects are often very expensive and again have a narrow audience. Alternatively, both can have more influence on the public consciousness than an expensive, lengthy, immediately out of date and little consulted Masterplan.
Some of the projects shown in the first presentation I thought probably failed to engage a worthy audience. Most architecture does. Who is to decide what a worthy audience is-we are.
Another 1:1 projects didn’t just engage the architect visitors, it engaged their children as well… Progress.
One of the projects shown I was involved with-the ‘Lovely-bubbly’ one. A method to make use of abandoned bits of land, to small or undesirable to sell to a profiteering developer, yet set within an extremely deprived community living in flat blocks with no private amenity space, and surrounded by fenced of public amenity. How dangerous can a patch of grass be that it needs a 6-foot fence? This project was set up to engage a community with their surroundings but more importantly each other. It has worked.
The project in question is being rolled out to 20 new deprived estates across London, the idea has spread across the country to other local authorities and is being exhibited in New York and Berlin. For the equivalent Masterplan, such as the Shoreditch LAP’s what has been the take up or immediate benefit to those who live and work in Shoreditch now and are undermined by the planning process. That’s not to say that encouraging development is bad, but during supposed times of economic strife isn’t it better to look at what you have, try to support it and improve and better communities to be in a better position to take advantage of eventual improved circumstance. At any point the poor cannot be shelved or ignored.
Anyway, its not just the value added of a Masterplan that should be questioned, as we have seen recently, Masterplans have different purposes at different points in time. One plan can be directly propositional, another can be overtly propositional. Perhaps we are at a point where the overt is more appropriate, where proposals don’t get to the built stage, but seeds of ideas are planted. Can we be directly overt? Not in the English language we can’t, but as planners we can.

‘Ensure that development positively benefits the local communities.’ A vision for the Royal Docks. How, who, what and why. Why should you care who lives there, especially if you don’t agree with them or the program has no relation. I can think of no program that bears no relation to its surroundings, even if that’s just the person who delivers the milk. Maybe you are next to a neo-Nazi encampment, but still you need milk. In the main, sites are chosen for programs because of the people who live nearby-not always solely positive reasons either. For instance, a call centre, you would think the program could be sited anywhere. Ring Thames Water or British Gas or Bt and you will most likely talk to someone in the Dearne Valley, South Yorkshire. Tax breaks and cheapest labour, and lots of land means call centres. You wouldn’t build a Tesco megasuperdupa store on the Scilly Isles-or would you-would be interesting to see a Tesco where you go round the isles by boat for convenience. Brings a whole new meaning when you see a trolley in a stream.
Anyway, this is a wider conversation.

How great it is to celebrate a pipeline carrying clean water. (I sound like a bit of a something here.) I like infrastructure, it is continuous, or it doesn’t work. There’s scope for adaption, alteration, maintenance and it could offer more to our built environment, but in the mean time it does its job. This is quite different to worshipping architecture, or architecture of worship, both floored. How can we make architecture that is continuous and floorless? Knock down the churches first.
Going back to the first comment about Masterplanning, ownership is one of the main difficulties, why would you think about who might buy the building after you have used it for your purpose? (A purpose can include building houses and selling them on.) Why would you pay for a new playground unless it benefited your clients or was a good press opportunity or you were forced to? Masterplanning seems to encourage this system, parcelling land and promoting gain, mainly financial. Masterplanners have a choice in how to promote development, I like the idea of advanced infrastructure, perhaps this is a new step in building strong identities to encourage growth. Localism anyone? Self sufficiency. This relies on strong, not weakened government and better overarching institutions.

Starting with the large scale, the built (or in process), the pinnacle and pride of the planning system is another approach and equally applicable to test the process compared to starting with the un-planable, the pop-up. Working down in built scale, document dependence, capital value. It will be interesting to see how provocative these projects have become at the end of the year. I disagreed with the suggestion that projects should be more pragmatic, they should be more idealistic. People don’t know what they want until you tell them! Just a provocation.

Does the world economy have a site? I quite like the CHORA approach. Why would you want to look at one site in isolation? The context of a site is not just the colour of the mud, the local brick, the people who live their and their lives, the local planning process and land ownership. The wider context affects a site more than any other, that’s why skyscrapers get built in the city-there’s little relation to the people who live in the block next door. Good in one way, because otherwise society wouldn’t exist; but perhaps the best way to improve/change the way a Masterplan is considered, proposed and implemented is to change society.
David Ricardo’s, Comparative Advantage can be used to describe certain aspects of a site, for example its location to transport or its relation to local workforce. A holistic spatial plan would set out to define areas of Absolute Advantage but relative to Absolute Advantage of community needs. This is impossible and advantage would be lost. Just like Ricardo argues against protectionism, developer brochures as Masterplanning is not only wrong but inefficient.