Call for Papers: Reducing Urban Poverty

Urban poverty. Picture from blog.magnumphotos.com

Building on the success of last year’s paper competition, USAID’s Urban Programs Team, in cooperation with the International Housing Coalition (IHC), The World Bank, the Woodrow Wilson Center’s Comparative Urban Studies Project (CUSP), and Cities Alliance, is once again seeking paper submissions for an upcoming policy workshop and paper competition on urban poverty in the developing world. Winning papers will be published and selected authors will present their papers in a policy workshop to be held in Washington, D.C. in October 2011.

Papers should be linked to one of the following topical areas:

Land Markets & Security of Tenure

The absence of efficient land and housing markets and lack of secure tenure for both renters and home

owners are important impediments to urban and economic development in developing countries. Papers

on these topics should explore strategies and approaches that would enable property markets to function

better and would provide increased security of tenure and strengthened real property ownership rights.

Papers might examine such topics as: legal and regulatory policies and frameworks that facilitate the

functioning and efficiency of real estate markets; tenure security for tenants and homeowners; property

ownership in slums and informal settlements; the availability of land to house lower income households;

titling and registration systems; the availability of public information about property values and market

data; gender aspects of tenure security and property rights.

Health

The World Health Organization recognizes the rapid increase of people living in cities as one of the most

important global health issues of the 21st century. This issue is particularly important in Sub-Sahara

African, Asian, and Latin American cities struggling with persistently high disease rates and rapidly

urbanizing populations. Solutions lie in both improving health services and improving the living

environment of poor urban residents, especially their access to safe water and sanitation services. We

welcome papers analyzing approaches to identifying and addressing urban health challenges in

developing countries.

Livelihoods

The urban poor exhibit extraordinary innovation and resiliency in the face of extreme challenges and

marginalization. Papers on this sub-topic should explore the ways that the urban poor work themselves

out of poverty by adapting to the economic, political, social, and various other constraints that they face.

Papers might discuss: informal economy; enabling environment and regulatory policies; access to credit,

microenterprise development, and income generation.

Papers should be policy-based and solutions-oriented and should critically examine existing projects

and/or propose new strategies for tackling issues related to urban poverty. Papers from a variety of

disciplinary and/or interdisciplinary perspectives are appropriate, including (but not limited to) urban

planning, economics, political science, geography, public policy, sociology, public health, and

anthropology. For more information, please contact Nancy Leahy (nleahy@usaid.gov).

For more information on last year’s competition, please visit:

http://www.wilsoncenter.org/index.cfm?topic_id=1410&fuseaction=topics.ev...

http://www.planetizen.com/node/47876

Ayuda para la restauración de la Iglesia redonda de Belgrano

¨La redonda¨ de Belgrano. Foto de Wikipedia

Esta iglesia histórica es un hito en el Barrio de Belgrano; su nombre es Parroquia de la Inmaculada Concepción, pero los vecinos la conocemos como ¨la redonda de Belgrano¨. He vivido a unas dos o tres cuadras de ella, y me resultaba difícil pasar sin entrar. En su recinto, hemos celebrado el bautismo del hijo de una de mis más queridas amigas. Ahora leo que están restaurando y los fondos no alcanzan.

Reproduzco el texto publicado en mibelgrano.com.ar y debajo dejo otro link para que conozcan un poco de su historia:

Esta foto de skycraperscity.com muestra un Belgrano incipiente, y la construcción de la parroquia comenzada en 1876 http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?p=55634345

Ayudemos a la Iglesia

La Iglesia Inmaculada Concepción, "La Redonda", necesita $ 45.000 para realizar los arreglos más urgentes, para que no se derrumbe. Ya cedieron mamposterías y revoques por la humedad. Todo empeoró por la vibración del tránsito y la extensión del subte D.

La falta de mantenimiento está haciendo desprender buena parte de las molduras de su cúpula redonda. La parroquia no tiene plata para las obras, por eso salió a pedirle ayuda a la gente.

El 8 de diciembre la iglesia, que queda en Vuelta de Obligado y Juramento, festejará su cumpleaños número 125. Y los años se hacen sentir. El tiempo resintió su estructura, hecha —como se construía a principios del siglo XIX— de ladrillos de barro. Se levantó cuando Belgrano quedaba en el medio del campo. Ahora la rodean edificios, por la esquina pasan 18 líneas de colectivos y a una cuadra, por avenida Cabildo, el subte.

Hace unos 20 años empezó a tener filtraciones de humedad, pero dicen en la parroquia que todo empeoró con la extensión del subte D, en el 91. "Desviaron todo el tránsito de Cabildo por el frente de la iglesia, y esa vibración sumada a los cimbronazos de las excavaciones produjeron rajaduras en el techo y las paredes", contó el cura párroco, Rafael Morán Díaz.

Por ellas empezó a filtrarse humedad que terminó haciendo ceder mamposterías y revoques. En el verano se cayó una hilera de molduras del exterior de la cúpula, justo en el arenero que está al lado del templo. Hace más de un año tuvieron que techar el interior con una mediasombra negra para que el revoque y el cielorraso no cayeran sobre la gente.

"El peligro es que a la larga pierda estabilidad. Si esto sigue va a empezar a afectar los cimientos", explicó Ricardo Czapla, el arquitecto que está cargo de los trabajos de recuperación de La Redonda, como conocen a la iglesia en el barrio y aún más allá de sus límites.

Para parar la humedad necesitan hacer un tratamiento hidrófugo, es decir sellar todas las filtraciones. "Nos presupuestaron $ 45.000, una cantidad a la que lamentablemente no llegamos. El poco dinero que nos entra por donaciones lo usamos para pagar sueldos y para el trabajo social", se lamentó Morán. La iglesia tiene un merendero, que atiende con comida y ropa a más de 80 familias. Esa cifra, aclaran, es sólo para evitar que la estructura se siga deteriorando. La restauración de los frescos de su cúpula y de las más de cien molduras de su nave se llevará otros $ 600.000.

Echaron mano a los ahorros de la iglesia y lograron juntar $ 1.500. Con esa plata contrataron a tres obreros que están sacando los revoques flojos. Antes un grupo de voluntarios de la parroquia los fotografió para restaurarlos si consiguen el dinero. Hicieron lo mismo con el cielo raso cubierto de guardas. Están pintadas a estilo trompe l'oeil, una técnica que simula profundidad. También descolgaron la araña, agarrada a dos soportes demasiado oxidados para sostenerla.

Nadie sabe qué va a pasar cuando se acabe esa plata. Sólo hay una iglesia que depende del Gobierno porteña, la Santa Felicitas, en Barracas. Y, por ahora el apoyo oficial es sólo técnico. La directora de Patrimonio de la Ciudad, Nany Arias Incolla, lo explica: "Tenemos un equipo de arquitectos que ya asesoró a varias iglesias, pero, lamentablemente, no contamos con presupuesto para este tipo de trabajos". En el Arzobispado la situación no es demasiado distinta. "La gente cree que la Iglesia es una institución llena de dinero, pero la plata que entra siempre es menor que la que sale. Por eso, en estos casos , la única alternativa que tenemos es pedirle ayuda a la gente", explicó su vocero, Guillermo Marcó.

Y ya empezaron: habilitaron una línea telefónica para donaciones y prepararon una carpeta para salir a pedir ayuda a empresas. Además, reparten volantes en misa explicando los problemas a los vecinos. La Inmaculada Concepción no sólo es el símbolo de Belgrano, sino que forma parte del patrimonio histórico de los porteños. "En Buenos Aires sólo hay otras dos iglesias de una sola nave y de cúpula circular —explica Juan Carlos Poli, uno de los arquitectos que restauró la Catedral metropolitana— Fue un alarde constructivo para la época. Es una pena que nadie se dé cuenta de la importancia que eso tiene para la Ciudad".

La Inmaculada Concepción recibe donaciones en Obligado, de martes a viernes de 9 a 12 y de 16 a 19. El teléfono de la secretaría parroquial es 4784-3596. Precisan dinero y materiales.

http://www.mibelgrano.com.ar/laredonda.htm

http://www.lanacion.com.ar/1345908-renovado-esplendor-luce-la-iglesia-la-redonda-de-belgrano?origen=NLCult&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=titulares&utm_campaign=NLCult

Environment and feeling

Forest. Image from educacion2.com

¨The problem of how environment and feeling are related comes to a head with the question, can a sense of spaciousness be associated with the forest? From one viewpoint, the forest is a cluttered environment, the antithesis of open space. Distant views are nonexistent. A farmer has to cut down trees to create space for his farmstead and fields. Yet once the farm is established it becomes an ordered world of meaning -a place- and beyond it is the forest and space. The forest, no less than the bare plain, is a trackless region of possibility. Trees that clutter up space from one viewpoint are, from another, the means by stand one behind the other as far as the eyes can see, and they encourage the mind to extrapolate to infinity. The open plain, however large, comes visibly to an end at the horizon. The forest, although it may be small, appears boundless to one lost in its midst.¨

REFERENCE

Space and Place. By Yi-Fu Tuan. Spaciousness and Crowding, p. 56. Minnesota, 2007

El orgullo del arquitecto

Bones´wall. By Myriam B. Mahiques

Nosotras no hemos sido creadas, sino, como todo organismo, gestadas, desde el momento en que los esclavos arrastraron estas enormes piedras. Con ellas convinimos tomar la forma correspondiente a su tectonicidad; a cambio, les permitiríamos moverse libres en nuestro interior, para abrir y cerrar pasadizos a discreción. Con las enredaderas tortuosas acordamos nos escondieran, optando algunas por moldearse al laberinto vegetal, que desbarató su esqueleto pétreo, pero, en esencia, en lo oscuro de sus entrañas, aún permanecen allí.

No imaginó el arquitecto que seríamos muchas más en el mundo, atemporales, hermanadas en nuestros principios, distintas a la vista de quien permitimos nos descubra ocasionalmente; de lo contrario, no tendríamos razón de ser, ni gozaríamos de las opiniones de científicos y charlatanes, quienes nos han tildado de monumentos, observatorios, tumbas, y hasta de creaciones extraterrestres!

El arquitecto, desconocedor de nuestros acuerdos previos, creyó que sus planos eran respetados al detalle. Lo observamos disfrutar de la grandiosidad de ¨su obra¨, y el orgullo lo instó a contemplarnos desde afuera y desde adentro, incauto a nuestra estructura celosa que lo atrapó a él y sus trabajadores sin piedad; nos teñimos de su brillante rojo sanguíneo, devoramos sus huesos y los convertimos en parte de nuestros muros, dejando a los sarcófagos reales como excusa de nuestra existencia.

Escuche el microrrelato ilustrado con fotos:

The Neo-classic use of drapery

The architect´s dream. 1840. Thomas Cole. From google images

Panel 3 of The Course of the Empire. (Consummation). Thomas Cole, 1836. From google images

The phenomenon of life imitating art may be observed in the elaborately developed art of window draping in the early nineteenth century. Neo-classic taste required the use of drapery in clothes and for domestic interiors to carry the look of antiquity even into the usages of everyday life. The spell of Classical drapery, never entirely broken, was asserting itself yet again in cloth-conscious industrial Europe. Ultimately, in the late nineteenth century, it appeared in the draping of absolutely everything from bustles to banisters. (....) But once the High Renaissance convention was inaugurated for using ornamental drapery off the figure, either randomly or formally arranged, without any visible specific function, it became a universally useful element. (..) Reconstructed Classical scenes in the art of both periods, displaying great efforts at accuracy in costume and architecture, might also include a profusion of invented drapery to clothe columns and arches. An exaggerated example from early-nineteenth-century Romantic Classicism is the third panel, Consummation, of the set of five paintings entitled The Course of Empire (1836) by Thomas Cole. This shows an imaginary, more or less Roman triumph taking place in a harbor city glittering with riches celebrations. The procession occurs in the foreground under arches decked in huge, unimaginable and unmanageable lengths of bright-colored draped material. Indulging this grandiose fancy, Cole goes further with such colossal curtains in The Architect´s Dream, in which literally thousands of yards drape the architectural elements in the foreground, dwarfing the tiny figure.

REFERENCE

Seeing through clothes. By Anne Hollander. P. 32-35. USA 1980

An interview with Fumihiko Maki

Mihara Performing Arts Center. Photo by Toshiharu Kitajima

MIT Media Lab Complex. Photo by Anton Grassl

Annenberg Public Policy Center. Photo by Jeff Totaro

Spiral. Phto by Toshiharu Kitajima

During his many decades practicing architecture, Fumihiko Maki has accrued an impressive collection of awards, including the Pritzker Prize (1993) and Japan’s Praemium Imperiale (1999). Now, the American Institute of Architects has announced that this year’s Gold Medal will honor the esteemed architect, known for such projects as the Sam Fox School of Design and MIT Media Lab.

A graduate of both Tokyo University and the Harvard Graduate School of Design, Maki was one of the first Japanese architects to study and work in the United States after World War II. Following his graduation from Harvard in 1954, Maki worked and taught in the United States before opening his practice in Tokyo in 1965.

To date, Maki and Associates has completed a range of projects worldwide. The firm currently is working on Tower 4 of the World Trade Center redevelopment, in addition to a host of other buildings overseas.

Architectural Record's Tokyo Correspondent Naomi Pollock recently met with Maki to discuss the architect’s long-standing relationship with the United States.

Read it here:

http://archrecord.construction.com/news/newsmakers/1101fumihiko_maki.asp

Introduction from architectural record

The city and its symbols

Palmanova

Consecration cross, Norfolk, UK.

The city is a place, a center of meaning, par ecellence. It has many highly visible symbols. More important, the city itself is a symbol. The traditional city symbolized , first, trascendental and man-made order as against the chaotic forces of terrestrial and infernal nature. Second, it stood for an ideal human community: ¨What is the Citie, but the People?¨ True, the People are the Citie¨(Shakespeare, Coriolanus, act 3, scene 1). It was as transcendental order that ancient cities acquired their monumental aspect. Massive walls and portals demarcated sacred space. Fortifications defended a people against not only human enemies but also demons and the souls of the dead. In medieval Europe priests consecrated city walls so that they could ward oof the devil, sickness, and death -in other words, the threats of chaos.

Lotus garden, India

Masonic church

REFERENCE:

Space and Place. By Yi-Fu Tuan. P. 173. Visibility and Chaos. University of Minnesota. 2007

Pictures´references:

Palmanova http://www.fsgfort.com/DB/C083/30/19a.jpg

Consecration cross http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/1394962

Lotus garden http://debu7370.blogspot.com/2009/10/shri-shirdi-sai-speaks-2nd.html

Masonic church http://media.photobucket.com/image/city+and+symbols+/FangShen/

Taipei 101 Aims To Be World's Tallest Green Building

Taipei 101, Taiwan. Image from google images

TAIPEI, Jan 17 Asia Pulse - The Taipei 101 skyscraper, a landmark in Taiwan's capital, is expected to become the world's tallest green building by the third quarter of this year at the latest, its management said Saturday.

The company that manages Taipei 101, also known as the Taipei Financial Center, has filed an application with the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) for a platinum-degree certification so it can be recognized as the world's highest green building, Hsu Chao-fa, a manager of the building, said.

The building had been the world's highest building from 2004, when it was officially ranked as such, until the inauguration of the Burj Khalifa in Dubai last year.

Hsu said the building has invested NT$4.83 million (US$166,348) in energy conservation and the move has paid off by enabling the building to save about NT$12.42 million in electricity bills a year.

As early as 2008, the building's management had seriously considered how to make the building more energy efficient and it had taken a series of coordinating measures to achieve energy savings and carbon dioxide emission reductions, Hsu said.

In addition, Hsu said, the building also changed its lighting to energy efficient systems and began using ultra red ray sensor control equipment, which cut energy consumption by 9.6 per cent between 2008 and 2010.

The manager added that the building's management watches closely the temperature each day to adjust air conditioning systems, while adopting time control to manage lighting.

The owner of Taipei 101 is among the business operators in Taiwan to echo the Ministry of Economic Affairs' goal of cutting carbon dioxide emissions.

The ministry successfully convinced the local business sector to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 3.93 million tons last year, which created about NT$1.8 billion in economic value.

http://archrecord.construction.com/yb/ar/article.aspx?story_id=154720738