[Applause]
what architecture and urban space could
change with your life I’m an architect a
professor a mother a wife a sister and a
daughter
I’m all of these things and a whole lot
of other labels that evolve over a life
along with this change comes uncertainty
life is unpredictable at the scale of
the individuals lives as people move
they change countries their health
changes their children mature and their
relationships evolve but also at the
scale of cities as they’re continually
made and remade as politics economics
and technology develop army Lefebre in
the production of space claims that
urban space is a social product that’s
composed of overlapping and
contradictory criteria that evolve over
time and these include the form of the
city and also the activities experiences
and encounters that happen within it so
how does architecture deal with this
constant change how does it understand
uncertainty we certainly cannot
alleviate it we can only work with it
creatively so I would like to talk to
you about two very different projects
that do just that one is a building I
designed here in Halifax and the other
is a garden in Havana Cuba that I’ve
been visiting with students from the
School of Architecture for several years
the first is located in an eclectic
community in the north end of Halifax
now this community has recently seen a
great deal of change
mmm it’s seen innovative ventures such
as micro breweries there’s a flotation
center there’s a gym there’s various
automobile shops and and all of these
create very diverse networks in the
neighborhood the area has also had large
land amalgamations and they’ve been a
lot of houses that have been demolished
in this process and this has the effect
of reducing the community networks so
the intention for this project is to
creatively anticipate change both in the
life of my family and also in the city’s
future within its 25 foot by a hundred
foot lot is a house that changes with
our life and also increases the density
diversity community of the neighborhood
so how does a project do this well
currently there’s an office space for my
contractor partner and myself there’s a
dwelling for our family of four and then
there’s also a live work there’s a live
work rental apartment it’s as
programmatic and spatial flexibility for
the commercial spaces and the
residential spaces to contract and
expand based upon the viability of the
business and our ever-changing family
circumstances as our children mature and
also our parents age and potentially
come to live with us rather than
offering one size that fits all for the
life of the project it morphs as our
circumstances change so conventional
spaces in the house are we considered
children’s bedrooms are currently
conceived as tiny little cubbies but
they could open into live-work areas
that can open into the courtyard so my
university age son can now potentially
go and come and go as he pleases and not
wake up to the whole household likewise
the courtyard space can be used for
children’s play area
parking area and also a workspace now
this part of the city has almost no
vegetation in it so the whole project
all the spaces are used for the
cultivation on the rooftops are used for
the cultivation of vegetables and
flowers so on a macro level this project
we imagines the site conditions
typically found in Halifax and if you
look around there all narrow long lots
and this creates a new mixed use urban
typology based on a modern rendition of
a side hall plan you stretched this form
across the site you you can increase the
density at the site without greatly
increasing the scale and you can allow
the spaces the work space is the living
spaces and the cultivation spaces to air
band flow so now we’re going to go to
Havana Cuba and the area of particular
interest is a garden there’s no
architect involved in this project just
a resilient community and it occupies
the space where a house collapsed
building collapse is very common in Cuba
it still experiences extreme scarcity
and consequently has very few materials
for the maintenance of buildings
according to burka Meyer and Whitfield
there’s one two three full or partial
collapses a day and the special period
was a time of intense hardship in the
early 1990s so during this time the
garden was used for food cultivation in
the community however one day six years
ago the municipality were undertaking
repair work in the street and they cut
off the water supply immediately the
producer had to transition to different
types of crops requiring less irrigation
the plants currently cultivated are used
in Santeria religious ceremonies and
also homeopathic remedies for their
healing properties
according to the producer these dry
shady conditions support these
particular plants and so customers come
from all over the city to purchase the
products and seek medical advice now
from this garden the producer has a view
of the street dumpsters and he collects
valuable items that he feels could could
be used for the ongoing maintenance of
his site and the community from these
resources he’s constructed planting beds
out of bottles and tires so this
practice is called invent are in Cuba
and it’s essentially inventing from
nothing everyday life in the Western
world is defined by forced consumption
and built-in obsolescence and this
inventor has very different rhythms with
its daily social interactions the
sourcing of materials and products and
reimagining use of these it also has in
negotiations with the community to make
the necessary acquisitions so invent our
feeds on change and uncertainty and it
uses them creatively now that the city
provides no water to the site again the
producer has had to innovate he collects
rainwater from all the adjacent rooftops
and feeds it into his site via gutters
and pipes into barrels on his property
this access to irrigation water is
absolutely essential for his operation
and prior to the threat of a hurricane
the community helped him clear the
debris out the gutters so so – so it can
get ready for the onslaught while the
producer currently has the use of this
land the community actually controls the
future of it he has us effect status and
it regard acquires an understanding that
the garden has to contribute to the
neighborhood so far from being just the
site of production the owner appears to
be motivated by operating within the
public good he invites local schools and
colleges to
site to learn about green medicine most
days of the week they learn about these
medicinal plants and how to tend for a
garden and due to the shade of the site
it is also a place of socializing and
street commerce to the site and the
surrounding neighborhood display
cooperation creativity and
resourcefulness as they adapt to
everyday struggles relationships Stitch
this fragile environment together as
resources land water waste and crops are
shared and redistributed this creates a
type of community symbiosis so rather
than focusing solely on the formal
language of architecture both of these
designs one by the hand of an architect
and the other by the hand of a community
consider evolving lives activities and
experiences the boundaries adjacent to
both are blurred and shared across some
work knowledge and conviviality of
exchange change within life and cities
of inevitable change that does not
involve engage the existing community
invariably causes uncertainty and
distress it is usually it is important
to use the present to construct the
future not by replicating the present
but to work with it creatively much can
be learned from going into a
neighborhood and listening carefully to
the rhythms the rhythms of everyday life
rather than attending for a moment
prescribing a treatment to correct a
perceived problem and leaving this type
of listening requires continual
continual visits engagement with the
community and understanding the nuances
and the networks of the plays
comprehending these attributes within a
community holds far more promise than
for the future city than the formal
static and economic indicators that we
typically use to measure the success of
our cities it seems as though many
answer
for understanding uncertainty exists
within the community they are found
within the polyrhythmic layers that
include the natural cultural and social
in a resilient ecology that includes
people and their everyday activities
that together form a transformative and
creative view of changing cities and
evolving lives thank you
[Applause]
what architecture and urban space could
change with your life I’m an architect a
professor a mother a wife a sister and a
daughter
I’m all of these things and a whole lot
of other labels that evolve over a life
along with this change comes uncertainty
life is unpredictable at the scale of
the individuals lives as people move
they change countries their health
changes their children mature and their
relationships evolve but also at the
scale of cities as they’re continually
made and remade as politics economics
and technology develop army Lefebre in
the production of space claims that
urban space is a social product that’s
composed of overlapping and
contradictory criteria that evolve over
time and these include the form of the
city and also the activities experiences
and encounters that happen within it so
how does architecture deal with this
constant change how does it understand
uncertainty we certainly cannot
alleviate it we can only work with it
creatively so I would like to talk to
you about two very different projects
that do just that one is a building I
designed here in Halifax and the other
is a garden in Havana Cuba that I’ve
been visiting with students from the
School of Architecture for several years
the first is located in an eclectic
community in the north end of Halifax
now this community has recently seen a
great deal of change
mmm it’s seen innovative ventures such
as micro breweries there’s a flotation
center there’s a gym there’s various
automobile shops and and all of these
create very diverse networks in the
neighborhood the area has also had large
land amalgamations and they’ve been a
lot of houses that have been demolished
in this process and this has the effect
of reducing the community networks so
the intention for this project is to
creatively anticipate change both in the
life of my family and also in the city’s
future within its 25 foot by a hundred
foot lot is a house that changes with
our life and also increases the density
diversity community of the neighborhood
so how does a project do this well
currently there’s an office space for my
contractor partner and myself there’s a
dwelling for our family of four and then
there’s also a live work there’s a live
work rental apartment it’s as
programmatic and spatial flexibility for
the commercial spaces and the
residential spaces to contract and
expand based upon the viability of the
business and our ever-changing family
circumstances as our children mature and
also our parents age and potentially
come to live with us rather than
offering one size that fits all for the
life of the project it morphs as our
circumstances change so conventional
spaces in the house are we considered
children’s bedrooms are currently
conceived as tiny little cubbies but
they could open into live-work areas
that can open into the courtyard so my
university age son can now potentially
go and come and go as he pleases and not
wake up to the whole household likewise
the courtyard space can be used for
children’s play area
parking area and also a workspace now
this part of the city has almost no
vegetation in it so the whole project
all the spaces are used for the
cultivation on the rooftops are used for
the cultivation of vegetables and
flowers so on a macro level this project
we imagines the site conditions
typically found in Halifax and if you
look around there all narrow long lots
and this creates a new mixed use urban
typology based on a modern rendition of
a side hall plan you stretched this form
across the site you you can increase the
density at the site without greatly
increasing the scale and you can allow
the spaces the work space is the living
spaces and the cultivation spaces to air
band flow so now we’re going to go to
Havana Cuba and the area of particular
interest is a garden there’s no
architect involved in this project just
a resilient community and it occupies
the space where a house collapsed
building collapse is very common in Cuba
it still experiences extreme scarcity
and consequently has very few materials
for the maintenance of buildings
according to burka Meyer and Whitfield
there’s one two three full or partial
collapses a day and the special period
was a time of intense hardship in the
early 1990s so during this time the
garden was used for food cultivation in
the community however one day six years
ago the municipality were undertaking
repair work in the street and they cut
off the water supply immediately the
producer had to transition to different
types of crops requiring less irrigation
the plants currently cultivated are used
in Santeria religious ceremonies and
also homeopathic remedies for their
healing properties
according to the producer these dry
shady conditions support these
particular plants and so customers come
from all over the city to purchase the
products and seek medical advice now
from this garden the producer has a view
of the street dumpsters and he collects
valuable items that he feels could could
be used for the ongoing maintenance of
his site and the community from these
resources he’s constructed planting beds
out of bottles and tires so this
practice is called invent are in Cuba
and it’s essentially inventing from
nothing everyday life in the Western
world is defined by forced consumption
and built-in obsolescence and this
inventor has very different rhythms with
its daily social interactions the
sourcing of materials and products and
reimagining use of these it also has in
negotiations with the community to make
the necessary acquisitions so invent our
feeds on change and uncertainty and it
uses them creatively now that the city
provides no water to the site again the
producer has had to innovate he collects
rainwater from all the adjacent rooftops
and feeds it into his site via gutters
and pipes into barrels on his property
this access to irrigation water is
absolutely essential for his operation
and prior to the threat of a hurricane
the community helped him clear the
debris out the gutters so so – so it can
get ready for the onslaught while the
producer currently has the use of this
land the community actually controls the
future of it he has us effect status and
it regard acquires an understanding that
the garden has to contribute to the
neighborhood so far from being just the
site of production the owner appears to
be motivated by operating within the
public good he invites local schools and
colleges to
site to learn about green medicine most
days of the week they learn about these
medicinal plants and how to tend for a
garden and due to the shade of the site
it is also a place of socializing and
street commerce to the site and the
surrounding neighborhood display
cooperation creativity and
resourcefulness as they adapt to
everyday struggles relationships Stitch
this fragile environment together as
resources land water waste and crops are
shared and redistributed this creates a
type of community symbiosis so rather
than focusing solely on the formal
language of architecture both of these
designs one by the hand of an architect
and the other by the hand of a community
consider evolving lives activities and
experiences the boundaries adjacent to
both are blurred and shared across some
work knowledge and conviviality of
exchange change within life and cities
of inevitable change that does not
involve engage the existing community
invariably causes uncertainty and
distress it is usually it is important
to use the present to construct the
future not by replicating the present
but to work with it creatively much can
be learned from going into a
neighborhood and listening carefully to
the rhythms the rhythms of everyday life
rather than attending for a moment
prescribing a treatment to correct a
perceived problem and leaving this type
of listening requires continual
continual visits engagement with the
community and understanding the nuances
and the networks of the plays
comprehending these attributes within a
community holds far more promise than
for the future city than the formal
static and economic indicators that we
typically use to measure the success of
our cities it seems as though many
answer
for understanding uncertainty exists
within the community they are found
within the polyrhythmic layers that
include the natural cultural and social
in a resilient ecology that includes
people and their everyday activities
that together form a transformative and
creative view of changing cities and
evolving lives thank you
[Applause]
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