Architects as urban storytellers…
Using participatory design to identify the question, not to get the answer.
“What is certain is that we can no longer tell ourselves the same old stories” (Latour, 2018)
In the opening article of the Free Market Newspaper the curators of the Irish Free Market pavilion at the 2018 Venice Biennale, say of small Irish towns:
“The public realm is key to the civic and social lives of these towns but is undermined by poor planning and fragmented decisions. People in towns know well the particular problems of their towns and are capable of proposing solutions. They need to be consulted. Design is the key to the future of our towns but is not valued. Architects must be more active in the design of the public spaces of towns.” (“Free Market,” 2018)
Here the curators acknowledge the role that both communities and architects can play in addressing the issues facing the small Irish town. The question of how to bring the two groups together though remains unanswered, as does the exact role of each and how the architect should or could operate as a community consultant. For this essay I want to focus on trying to answer these questions; by looking at the role of an architect as a community advocate, how this role asks for a different form of participatory practice to standard development models, and finally the benefits such a position can bring for architects and communities by creating a space of creative exchange. The essay is written as a reflection on a recent project entitled Reimagine Athenry, where we produced a community led vision for the County Galway town commissioned by Athenry Community Council.
Athenry shares similar problems with many small towns in rural Ireland. In the centre, derelict sites and shop fronts bring a feeling of disrepair while car-dominated streets and public spaces leave little room or comfort for the pedestrian or cyclist. Developments at the periphery have changed the traditional face of the town and the centre needs new investment to make it a local meeting point again. The problems facing the town are manifold. A local area plan (LAP) produced by Galway County Council exists, but it primarily deals with new car infrastructure at the edges and a zoning plan for the town centre and additional car based suburban areas. While this framework is much needed, the LAP lacks any spatial vision for this important heritage town. A place which needs a sensitive design led approach to its planning if it is to realise its full potential.
In 2016 Rebuilding Ireland ran the Homes for Smart Ageing — Design Competition, we gained second place with a proposal entitled Cairdeas to develop a lifetime community plan for Athenry, together with Athenry Community Council. While we were not successful with the competition Athenry Community Council have since managed to secure LEADER funding, allowing us to produce a vision document entitled Reimagine Athenry. This project structure and format falls outside the traditional planning model, as such it does not have any official statutory status. We do believe however that this project format can play an important role in opening a creative space for finding solutions to many of the local and global problems we currently face.
Let’s begin with looking at the role of the architect as community advocate. My practice Studio dmau is a small practice focusing on public space design and research (www.studiodmau.com). In this context we have come into contact with numerous community groups campaigning for better public spaces. In our experience working with a range of different campaigns, from skateboarding groups in Ballyfermot and Galway, to large advocacy groups in Hong Kong the core task remains the same, people are seeking better and more inclusive urban environments and need a mediator who can help them realise that vision. These projects have often begun through competition work and conversations, however as a small practice we have found this role — as advocate for a campaign group — an increasingly intriguing space for a creative practice. The projects are genuinely public in nature with a real public as client, however the projects require alternative forms of funding often difficult to find and involving a certain element of risk for individual architects and small practices. How could this gap be bridged to make these projects commonplace?
In an excellent article on Failed Architecture entitled “When Architects Work for People not Profit” (Pauperio and Rebelo, 2019) Joao Pauperio and Maria Rebelo look at the implementation of the SAAL programme ‘Serviço Ambulatório de Apoio Local’; translated as Mobile Local Support Service” developed by the Portuguese government in the 1970s. SAAL connected local communities with architects to design and build local housing, it allowed renowned architects such as Alvaro Siza to gain their first commissions. The authors set this creative public model in contrast to current options for forms of practice for young architects involving either working for commercial real estate developers or in dubious working conditions in a creative practice. This public model based around active participation is certainly one that could be easily adapted and implemented to an Irish context, especially if the focus is on the public realm and developing community visions for the many small Irish towns in need of such help.
Another more contemporary reference can be found in the Panaroma Lokaal (“Panorama Lokaal,” 2019) initiative in The Netherlands, organised by the state architect (De Rijksbouwmeester). This project sets up a competition to generate ideas for the rejuvenation of disadvantaged neighbourhoods located on the periphery of many Dutch Cities. Local authorities were asked to apply with neighbourhoods that matched the project criteria. Seven locations have been selected and in 2020 four teams per location will be paid to work out a future vision for the area, in collaboration with the local municipality and the communities themselves. This project recognises simultaneously the need for addressing issues in the built environment and providing support to younger and smaller architectural practices. Could a similar project format be set up in an Irish context by a state agency such as Rebuilding Ireland or the new Land Development Authority?
So what if we can imagine a context in which architects and communities are connected. What then is the role of the architect who now finds him or herself as a client of the community rather than a of a developer? What form should this non-traditional consultation and participation project take? The following evocative quote is from Jeremy Tills — The Negotiation of Hope essay from the Architecture and Participation Handbook provides a vision on this.:
“Stories have within them elements that are both personal and social, they become a means of describing ones place in the world of locating the individual within shared spaces…stories arise out of experience of the world and thus have a grounding in reality…The role of the architect becomes that of understanding and drawing out the spatial implications of urban storytelling.” (Blundell-Jones, 2009)
When I first read this description of the architect as an urban storyteller it helped me weave some separate threads together. I graduated from UCD architecture and have since completed a masters in documentary film at UAL London. While these may seem like separate professional paths, if we imagine the architect fulfilling a role as an urban storyteller then it becomes easy to weave the two together and define an approach to participatory design projects which emerges from the training received in both. Documentary film training has provided tools for participation and engagement with the world that I didn’t receive in architecture school or the design offices I worked in. While the traditional design training, drawing and visualisation skills of architectural practice help to create a vision which arises out of the time spent speaking with and listening to the community.
When such a project is set up and we find the creative space and time to work with communities, the next task is to unlock the ‘situated knowledge’ the community has of their neighbourhoods, towns and hinterlands. In Architecture Depends Jeremy Till (quoting Haraway) talks about the strength of situated knowledge, as a way of working with the particular “the only way to find a larger vision is to be somewhere in particular”. The task for the architect in a role
“as citizen-expert needs to listen to, draw out and be transformed by the knowledge of the user as expert citizen“ And he goes further to say “In this light one can see how participation through bringing the users’ knowledge into the design process at an early stage, far from presenting a threat to architectural production, actually presents an opportunity to reinvigorate it”(Till, 2013).
Bringing these voices in early to shape the project and process helps ensure the work becomes community-led, that the participation becomes active rather than reactive and the overall process is just as important as the final plan.
How does this differ from traditional participation? What is traditional participation?
“Community participation was a great danger to us, …. if any community organization discussed with the officials or their staff what they thought would be good for the community, no matter whether they were going to get it or not, the participation provision in the law was fulfilled” (Jacobs et al., 2016).
This quote outlining why community groups chose not to partake in organised participatory planning is not what one would expect from Jane Jacobs, the great advocate of community led urbanism. Jacobs was clear in explaining the merits of community-led development vs participatory community planning. Participatory community planning often takes place as a placatory consultation reactive to developments that are somewhat inevitable. A box ticking exercise. Unfortunately, this is the most prevalent form of participation in traditional urban development, planning and public space projects. The alternative is when the community becomes an active (rather than reactive) partner, shaping the process from the beginning. This alternative differs greatly from the traditional planning model in Ireland. Why is this the case? Is it actually really that radical for a community group to lead and commission a vision for their town? As it turns out, it actually is.
There are many advantages to community-led projects, occupying an alternative role outside of the traditional planning and development models. They allow a space for creative freedom where ideas and experimentation can emerge. This space for experimentation on a local level, has been recognised by Rob Hopkins as an essential to imagining alternative futures. Futures where we can begin to enable the solutions we have to tackling the climate emergency. Rob is the founder of the transition towns movement, he explains it as such
‘the beauty of Transition is that it’s all an experiment. I don’t know how to do it. Neither do you. In Totnes, we were just trying to spark something that might unlock a creative spirit, a renewed sense of possibility, a fresh and hopeful way to think about the future”.
Totnes is a small town in Cornwall whose population of 8,500 have embraced the transition to a zero carbon future. The town now has its own edible public spaces, a recommissioned mill, a community led transition homes development, a network of caregiving associations alongside local brewery’s and supermarkets where you can buy all your locally produced groceries with the local Totnes pound. (Hopkins, 2019) This experimental DIY approach has inspired similar towns around the world to adopt their own approaches to developing local resilience as a response to global issues. What if every Irish Town tried to do the same?
How do you start such an experiment? In his latest book Hopkins tries to outline this around a series of “What if…” questions. “What if things turned out OK? What if We Took Play Seriously? What if we became better storytellers?” etc. (Hopkins, 2019) these questions form the different chapter titles. The books central premise is about the collective need to create local spaces and events for imaginative and creative thinking as a way of finding answers to today’s global environmental challenges. Jeremy Till also sees this “What if…” approach as a way of starting a participatory storytelling process. “The process then develops the answers through forms of stories, two things happen. First the stories arise out of experience of the world and thus have a grounding in reality; second, the ‘what if?’ allows the stories to imagine and to project new spatial visions.” Till further outlines
“The role of the architect becomes that of understanding and drawing out the spatial implications of the urban storytelling. This role requires both knowledge and imagination, but in both cases these attributes are externalised and shared, rather than being internalised and exclusive as happens in non-participatory practice” (Blundell-Jones, 2009)
Externalised skills leading to the creation of a shared vision are the key concepts here, if we are to really understand how the role of the architect as an urban storyteller can differ from the consultant role defined by standard practice formats.
It now seems appropriate to begin a conclusion with a series of What if’s? What if an Irish governmental agency or public body set up a fund that sought to develop community led visions by connecting local communities with architects? What if these projects were set up as spaces of experiment, to provide visions for the future of Irish towns, which would arise from the situated knowledge of local residents? What if from these conversations the architect as urban storyteller produced a vision document for the local area? What if in every small town one vacant shop was turned into a community space that could accommodate these conversations, experimentations and visions produced? What if then, every statutory LAP Local Area Plan was embedded with these complementary community led visions? What would this then mean for the future of Irish towns? suddenly the scale of the challenge does not seem so great and the connection between the top-down planning structures and bottom-up community initiatives has been bridged. When faced with the climate emergency and manifold issues on the local level can alternative forms of town planning really be seen as risky for local councils? Or is business as usual planning the place where the real risk lies?
If we are to address both the problems facing Irish towns and a transition towards a zero-carbon future. We need to question the traditional urban development models. We need to find alternative participatory spaces and places to think and operate in a manner that encourages imagination and creativity. In a step towards achieving this, community-led plans, are the ideal places to start. This asks for an open and shared approach to knowledge and practice from architects. In this space visions and stories of the future can emerge which set a direction and open course for future developments. Operating in this inbetween may young architects may find a participatory design space to operate and simultaneously find questions and answers that address the many challenges facing Irish towns and thus urban areas, leading towards a reimagined form of practice and better built environment for all.
Daryl Mulvihill - Written in March 2020
Bibliography
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Free Market Newspaper, Free Market Exhibit, Irish Pavilion, Venice Biennale 2018.
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Hopkins, R., 2019. From what is to what if: unleashing the power of imagination to create the future we want. Chelsea Green Publishing, White River Junction.
Hwang, J., n.d. Architect as Advocate: New Frameworks for Practice. Architect as Advocate: New Frameworks for Practice. URL https://urbannext.net/architect-as-advocate/ (accessed 11.24.19).
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