Un mapa psicodélico de Buenos Aires. Por Franz Ackermann

Fotos y texto compartidos desde la nota de Ana María Battistozzi:

 Después de caminar por las calles de la ciudad durante días, el alemán Franz Ackermann pintó en el Faena Arts Center un mural que representa su experiencia del paisaje porteño. (...)

El gran mural de 260 metros cuadrados que concibió específicamente para el FAC y llamó “Walking South” por sus caminatas en este remoto lugar del Sur, fue realizado entre Buenos Aires y Berlín a partir de diversos recorridos por la ciudad. Fotografías, pinturas y un equipo de asistentes fueron la piedra de toque en esta realización a gran escala que ocupa con despliegue de recursos, color y forma el generoso espacio de la Sala Molinos, en Puerto Madero. “Durante diez días hice caminatas diarias desde La Boca hasta Palermo –reveló el artista–, anduve en bicicleta junto al Río de la Plata. Tomé el tren hasta el final de la estación y volví caminando hasta donde me resultó interesante. No es que haya encontrado grandes cosas a cada momento: sólo la vida cotidiana –destacó de esa gimnasia diaria que le permitió ingresar en el paisaje–, me gusta esta forma de urbanismo en la que uno es sólo una parte de una situación muy compleja.” Justamente el carácter complejo de esa situación es lo que plasman sus pinturas concebidas como collages, violentas fugas espaciales, tramas y texturas que alimentan diversas estructuras formales a pleno color y sobre todo a gran escala. La situación, desde ya, no puede ser contenida en el formato cuadro y lo desborda en un impulso que caracteriza a una parte importante de la pintura contemporánea. (...)

La travesía en pos de situaciones de interés es parte esencial al proceso de producción de este artista, que ha sido vinculado con la deriva “situacionista” y la “psicogeografía”, dos instancias del vagabundeo sin rumbo fijo que proponen una síntesis entre lo que pasa afuera y el mundo de las emociones y los afectos.

Lea la nota completa:

http://www.revistaenie.clarin.com/arte/Franz-Ackermann-Walking-South_0_812318799.html

Lea sobre psicogeografía: (texto en inglés, por favor use el traductor a la derecha del blog)

http://myriammahiques.blogspot.com/2009/11/city-perception-through-psychogeography.html

What is Biophilic Urbanism?

Image from biophiliccities.org

¨For Professor Heerwagen, biophilia is best defined by the amazing biologist E.O. Wilson, who came up with the actual concept. It relates to the “innate emotional connection of humans to all living things.” In cities, for example, this means that people are attracted to trees and will pay more to live in areas with them. People will pay more for hotel rooms with views of nature. “These are things we intuitively know. We chose places that are greener.” Dr. Richard Jackson, former head of environmental health at the CDC, also made a similar point but connected nature with physical and mental health. Heerwagen quoted him: “In medicine, where the body is really matters.” Health is essentially place-based.

Research on the Benefits of Nature

Heerwagen outlined some fascinating recent research: In a recent study that examined the impact of exercising in nature vs. working out in areas devoid of nature, researchers found that “green exercise” in natural spaces “lowered tension, anxiety, and blood pressure,” beyond the benefits of exercise itself.

For kids, playing out in nature also has big benefits: “nature play is more imaginative.” Kids playing in nature play longer and more collaboratively. In contrast, in a closed-off playground, the play was “more aggressive and shorter.” While playing in nature, kids are “particularly attracted to spaces that offer protection and safety,” or “prospect and refuge.”

Researchers in the Netherlands recently looked at the benefits of what they call “Vitamin G.” Examining 10,000 residents in a massive study, the researchers found that the amount of green space in a 5-km zone around a person really impacts their health. “A 20 percent increase in nearby green space was effectively equivalent to another 5 years of life.”

Nature, said Heerwagen, also promotes positive emotions, psychological resilience, and wellbeing. Pleasant environments, researchers have demonstrated, stimulate opioid receptors so we actually feel a sense of pleasure.

Excerpt from: 

http://dirt.asla.org/2012/11/22/why-we-need-cities-in-tune-with-nature/

Image from biophiliccities.org

THE POWER OF NATURE

Edward 0. Wilson, a Harvard myrmecologist and conservationist, in popularizing the term "biophilia," suggested that we need daily contact with nature to be healthy, productive individuals, partly because we have co-evolved with nature.  Specifically, Wilson describes biophilia as "the innately emotional affiliation of human beings to other living organisms. Innate means hereditary, and hence, part of ultimate human nature."  To Wilson, biophilia is a "complex of learning rules" developed over thousands of years of evolution and human-environment interaction:

For more than 99 percent of human history people have lived in hunter-gatherer bands totally and intimately involved with other organisms. During this period of deep history, and still farther back ... they depended on an exact learned knowledge of crucial aspects of natural history... In short, the brain evolved in a biocentric world, not a machine-regulated world. It would be therefore quite  extraordinary to find that all learning rules related to that world have been erased in a few thousand years, even in the tiny minority of peoples who have existed for more than one or two generations in wholly urban environments.

The empirical evidence of biophilia, and of social, psychological, pedagogical, and other benefits from direct and indirect exposure to nature, is mounting and impressive. Research has shown that a connection with nature has the ability to reduce stress, aid recovery from illness, enhance cognitive skills and academic performance, and aid in moderating the effects of ADHD, autism and other child illnesses. A recent study by MIND, a British mental health charity, compared the effects on mood of a walk in nature with a walk in a shopping mall."' The differences in the effects of these two walks are remarkable, though not unexpected. The study concluded that "green exercise has particular benefits for people experiencing mental distress. It directly benefits mental health (lowering stress and boosting self-esteem), improves physical health (lowering blood pressure and helping to tackle obesity), provides a source of meaning and purpose, and helps to develop skills and form social connections."' The results showed marked improvements in selfesteem following the outdoor nature walk (ninety percent improved), compared to much smaller improvements for those walking in the shopping center (seventeen percent improved).'" Indeed, a large percentage of the indoor walkers actually reported a decline in self-esteem (forty-four percent declined). Similarly, the green outdoor walk resulted in significant improvements in mood. (....)

Ideally, biophilic urbanism requires action on multiple geographic scales in a "rooftop to region" or "room to region" approach. Access to nature can occur in many different ways and through access to a range and variety of natural features. The type and extent of these features will vary in part depending on the scale of attention. Ideally, multi-scalar attention results in a nested set of natural features that move from building and site to region and bioregion, creating the conditions for biophilic living. This, in turn, results in an extensive biophilic design palette.

Excerpt from:

Biophilic Urbanism: Inviting Nature Back to Our Communities and Into Our Lives

Repository Citation

Timothy Beatley, Biophilic Urbanism: Inviting Nature Back to Our Communities and Into Our Lives, 34 Wm. & Mary Envtl. L. & Pol'y Rev. 209 (2009), http://scholarship.law.wm.edu/wmelpr/vol34/ iss1/6

http://scholarship.law.wm.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1005&context=wmelpr

A more specific definition:

• Biophilic cities are cities of abundant nature in close proximity to large numbers of urbanites; biophilic cities are biodiverse cities, that value, protect and actively restore this biodiversity; biophilic cities are green and growing cities, organic and natureful;
• In biophilic cities, residents feel a deep affinity with the unique flora, fauna and fungi found there, and with the climate, topography, and other special qualities of place and environment that serve to define the urban home; In biophilic cities citizens can easily recognize common species of trees, flowers, insects and birds (and in turn care deeply about them);
• Biophilic cities are cities that provide abundant opportunities to be outside and to enjoy nature through strolling, hiking, bicycling, exploring; biophilic cities nudge us to spend more time amongst the trees, birds and sunlight.
• Biophilic cities are rich multisensory environments, the where the sounds of nature (and other sensory experiences) are as appreciated as much as the visual or ocular experience; biophilic cities celebrate natural forms, shapes, and materials;
• Biophilic cities place importance on education about nature and biodiversity, and on providing many and varied opportunities to learn about and directly experience nature; In biophilic cities there are many opportunities to join with others in learning about, enjoying, deeply connecting with, and helping to steward over nature, whether though a nature club, organized hikes, camping in city parks, or volunteering for nature restoration projects.
• Biophilic cities invest in the social and physical infrastructure that helps to bring urbanites in closer connection and understanding of nature, whether through natural history museums, wildlife centers, school-based nature initiatives, or parks and recreation programs and projects, among many others;
• Biophilic cities are globally responsible cities that recognize the importance of actions to limit the impact of resource use on nature and biodiversity beyond their urban borders; biophilic cities take steps to actively support the conservation global nature;

Excerpt from

http://biophiliccities.org/what-are-biophilic-cities/

Image from biophiliccities.org

The urban sprawl of Istanbul

From http://www.51n4e.com/publication/test-site-istanbul-iabr-2012

Priorities in Conserving Community Murals

Excerpt from Priorities in Conserving Community Murals. By Timothy W. Drescher. 2003

Compilation of papers 2004. The J. Paul Getty Trust

http://www.getty.edu/conservation/publications_resources/pdf_publications/drescher.pdf

The crucial point has nothing to do with the technical aspects of materials, surfaces, and exposure; nor is it a matter of incorporating the visual field, especially architecture, into the design; nor is it a matter of size, but of the “social field.” 

I have seen community “dance murals,” heard “word murals,” and witnessed artists holding up postcard-sized paintings that they called murals. What is going on here? It is this: community murals are primarily social. They exist at the interface of the social and the artistic, but insofar as conservation is concerned, the key fact is to recognize that they are part of an ongoing social process. We use the word community for this social field in which community murals exist. It refers to the daily audience of the mural as well as to its producers and to the painting itself. This combination, whose interests generated the mural (otherwise it is not a community mural), is the most important aspect of any conservation project. However, the fact is that over time people in communities, including artists, change their attitudes, their likes and dislikes. Their murals reflect this variability, this dynamism. This changeability presents unique problems for conservators. So for community mural conservation, the most important factors are the determinant social contexts surrounding each mural, the complex social field of which the mural is a dynamic acrylic symbol. 

Many murals preserve marginalized or devalued histories specific to particular locations that have become recognized as significant to the broader society. It is unclear to me whether or not civic and government agencies, other institutional bureaucracies, or, indeed, the conservation community itself fully understand and share this priority. This situation is one reason that collaboration is essential in the conservation of community murals. For conservators, conservation of murals requires a different approach than usual. The traditional conservator’s job has been to conserve a static object, but community murals are not static—or they are, but only in a very limited sense. 

This observation does not mean that conservators have no role in the restoration of community works. Conservators bring vast technical knowledge to any project, expertise that is invaluable to any successful conservation. The fact is, many muralists and communities would like a conservator to do the work with no changes in imagery. If there are no problems, fine. Obviously, collaboration among “the community” and its artists and conservators (and others) is the optimum basis of successful community mural preservation. But problems can arise. Differences between accepted conservators’ practices and a community muralist can be determined and then resolved only in conjunction with the community, as described below. The roles of the several participants in a proposed conservation project must be reconceived in light of a community mural’s distinctive characteristics—that is, considered not merely as an art object but, most importantly, as part of a social process. The conservation of a painted surface must conserve the social, creative process of the original work as well as the painting itself. I will use a new word for this: sociocreative. With community murals, the goal of conservation is to preserve the entire sociocreative project.

Read more essays, proceedings, research about conservation at the Getty Conservation Institute:
http://www.getty.edu/conservation/publications_resources/pdf_publications/index.html

La leyenda del Palacio Chrysler o actual Palacio Alcorta-Museo Renault

El Palacio Chrysler antes de los grandes desarrollos urbanos. Bajada de http://www.dodge-tech.com.ar/vb/showthread.php?t=31909

Postal del Palacio Chrysler en 1920. Imagen bajada de http://www.testdelayer.com.ar/Imagenes/palacio-chrysler.htm

Los boxes en el Palacio Chrysler. Imagen bajada de http://www.testdelayer.com.ar/Imagenes/palacio-chrysler.htm

He paseado por el Palacio Alcorta o Chrysler reciclado en algunas oportunidades, también he visitado  el bar del Museo Renault. Una obra impresionante. Sin embargo, no conocía la leyenda que lo envuelve, y, a pesar que el artículo es criticado por algunos errores (por ejemplo, no queda claro lo de la extensión de la pista y hay quienes dicen que la cifra se refiere a m2), les comparto el texto de Eduardo Parise para el diario Clarín on line:

¨En Buenos Aires, cuando se habla de palacios, la asociación inmediata pasa por recordar los que enmarcan a la avenida Alvear, o los que están junto a la plaza San Martín. También, algunos de la zona de Palermo Chico. Sin embargo, en este último sector, hay uno de esos edificios majestuosos al que no se suele contabilizar: es el que ahora se conoce como Palacio Alcorta, una construcción que en 1994 se transformó en la sede de costosos lofts. Pero no siempre fue así.

Proyectado en 1927 e inaugurado el 1 de diciembre de 1928, aquel palacio tuvo como destino original ser la sede de una concesionaria de autos que, como representante autorizado de una empresa estadounidense, armaba y comercializaba la marca Chrysler en la Argentina. Se llamaba Resta Hermanos y su edificio símbolo era ese que, a la altura del 3300 de la avenida Figueroa Alcorta, ocupaba y aún ocupa toda una manzana.

Se lo conocía como Edificio Chrysler, aunque aquella empresa nunca fue su dueña. En la planta baja, sobre la avenida, estaban el salón de venta y las oficinas y detrás, el área de montaje y fabricación de repuestos. En el primer piso, se ubicaban los talleres de retoque, terminación y depósito de vehículos. Pero la mayor curiosidad estaba en la gran terraza: una pista circular, de más de 1.700 metros de extensión y curvas peraltadas, que se usaba para probar los autos a alta velocidad. Inclusive, alguna vez se la usó para hacer carreras de motos, ya que tenía tribunas con capacidad para hasta 3.000 espectadores.

Dicen que aquella empresa dueña del lugar tuvo un duro final, a raíz de una jugada que hábiles estafadores le realizaron en 1931. Cuentan que todo empezó cuando en la tardecita de un viernes, un hombre llegó, compró un 0 kilómetro que pagó con un cheque y se fue con el auto. A la mañana siguiente, sábado, un hombre pidió un servicio de auxilio y, cuando lo asistieron, vieron que era el auto comprado el día anterior, pero con otro dueño. Lo había adquirido en efectivo, casi por la mitad de su valor.

Lo primero que se pensó era que el cheque aquel no tenía fondos y había que detener al presunto estafador. Lo encontraron a bordo del Vapor de la Carrera, el barco que, viajando toda la noche, hacía el cruce hacia Montevideo. El hombre alegó que había “reventado” el auto porque necesitaba juntar dinero que apostaría al día siguiente en el hipódromo de Maroñas a un caballo de gran sport. Como no le creían, hizo labrar un acta con el capitán del barco diciendo a qué caballo y qué cantidad importante iba a apostar. Después, lo bajaron del barco y lo detuvieron.

La leyenda dice que el domingo el caballo no sólo ganó, sino que pagó una fortuna. Y que el lunes, cuando fueron a la ventanilla a cobrar el cheque emitido el viernes, el cajero también pagó el importe sin problemas. Dicen que la concesionaria tuvo que afrontar peso sobre peso lo que hubiera ganado aquel apostador. Y que por eso la empresa fue absorbida por otra llamada Fevre y Basset, que se hizo cargo del edificio. Después, el palacio pasó a manos del Comando de Arsenales del Ejército y fue sede del Registro Nacional de Armas. Hasta que en 1994 lo reciclaron y se convirtió en sede de esos lujosos departamentos actuales.

El majestuoso Palacio Alcorta es obra de Mario Palanti, un famoso arquitecto milanés que vivió entre 1885 y 1979. Había llegado a la Argentina en 1909 y su talento está presente en muchos de los edificios que diseñó. Obviamente, el más famoso es uno que fue y es un símbolo de la Ciudad: el Palacio Barolo, de la gran Avenida de Mayo. Pero esa es otra historia.¨

http://www.clarin.com/ciudades/palacio-estafa-leyenda_0_813518704.html

Palacio Alcorta. Vista aérea del reciclaje. Imagen de Palermo-buenos aires.com

Palacio Alcorta. Imagen bajada de http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=475862

Do cities make us sick?

See the pictures gallery at

http://www.cnbc.com/id/46043926/Most_Stressful_Cities?slide=1

I have no doubt that living in big cities is really stressful. You walk pushing all the people and feel the fear somebody could steal anything from you; everyday listening to vehicles´ horns, the sounds of cars and buses, vendors everywhere, homeless, shouts and so on. I have an architect friend who at noon gets out of the office and goes to the park, and for at least half an hour, sitting on the grass, eating a sandwich, she forgets about the city. I never could imitate her example. It seems there´s a pretty serious research about this issue, let´s read from the article by Brian Merchant at treehugger.com: 

¨ In 1965, health authorities in Camberwell, a bustling quarter of London's southward sprawl, began an unusual tally. They started to keep case records for every person in the area who was diagnosed with schizophrenia, depression, bipolar disorder or any other psychiatric condition. Decades later, when psychiatrists looked back across the data, they saw a surprising trend: the incidence of schizophrenia had more or less doubled, from around 11 per 100,000 inhabitants per year in 1965 to 23 per 100,000 in 1997 — a period when there was no such rise in the general population. 

One possible explanation was that exposure to the city itself, and its myriad stresses, was driving the decline in mental health. Statistics collected in the United States and Germany seem to corroborate the finding. Nature notes that "In Germany, the number of sick days taken for psychiatric ailments doubled between 2000 and 2010; in North America, up to 40% of disability claims for work absence are related to depression, according to some estimates." 

But nobody's making any conclusions — cities are vast, complex human ecosystems, and it's extremely difficult to pinpoint how, if, or why living in them may give rise to mental health problems. There's still a ton of study to be done, and there may be more specific reasons that city residents are suffering from mental health woes. So, scientists have embarked on ambitious projects to map entire metropolises, follow citizens with mobile app tech as they go to work, and to better understand how the urban environment causes stress. One thing seems to be certain; better-planned cities, with ample green spaces and areas in which residents can find relief from the bustle are preferable to the concrete jungle. Research in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health found that city dwellers who lived closer to green spaces exhibited better mental health; they were less likely to be stressed or to suffer from more serious ailments.¨

http://www.treehugger.com/urban-design/living-cities-may-literally-be-driving-us-insane.html

See the list of the most stressful cities in USA:

http://www.bestplaces.net/docs/studies/stressful_cities_2012_list.aspx

An eloquent picture of urban sprawl. Wikimedia/IDuke/CC BY 2.0

And from Melissa Breyer´s article at treehugger.com:

Newly developed areas characterized by urban sprawl are wreaking havoc on the environment by any number of reasons, one of which is an integral piece of suburban design – a reliance on cars. But neighborhood design also influences the health of human populations, according to a new study from St. Michael's Hospital and the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences.

The researchers found that the less walkable one’s neighborhood is, the higher risk its inhabitants have of developing diabetes.

The study looked at data from the population of Toronto aged 30-64 and identified those without diabetes. For five years the participants were tracked to see who developed diabetes, which was compared to where they lived and analyzed against data on neighborhood walkabiliy.

To figure out how walkable each neighborhood is, the researchers created an index looking at factors such as population density, street connectivity and the availability of walkable destinations such as retail stores and service within a 10-minute walk.

The results were surprising, with up to a 50 percent increase in the risk of developing diabetes for those living in a less walkable neighborhood, when compared to long-term residents living in the most walkable areas, results were regardless of neighborhood income. Within these findings, the team found that the risk was especially high for new immigrants living in low-income neighborhoods. As noted in the study, past research has demonstrated a precipitated risk of obesity-related issues for new immigrants within the first 10 years of arrival to Canada.

http://www.treehugger.com/health/how-neighborhood-design-can-make-us-sick.html

How to protect New York from future storms?

¨With the incredible destruction in New Jersey and New York, talk is now heating up about how to invest billions to make cities and coastal communities climate resilient and protect them from future storms. The innovative ideas of Dland studio to create wetlands around the city and landscape architect Kate Orff, ASLA, SCAPE, to mitigate storms with man-made oyster reefs were even just featured in a cover story in The New York Times, while the case for using green infrastructure to deal with heavy rain has now gotten more attention thanks to Kaid Benfield’s excellent piece. However, will policymakers now see the value of putting natural systems in place to address flooding and storm risks, or will New York City and others invest in expensive, “hard” infrastructure like sea walls that often fail to do the job of protecting people and property?

A 2009 report by the Army Corps of Engineer and Port Authority of New York and New Jersey looked at the feasibility of recreating 18,000 acres of tidal wetlands “on the margins of the islands and the coastline, [which] act like sponges, slowing and baffling tidal forces,” to replace the massive sea walls, which had actually taken the place of the original 300,000-acre wetlands in the outer boroughs of New York City. The problem the engineers were looking at: sea walls don’t actually function that well when protecting areas below sea level (see New Orleans and Katrina). The original perceived benefit of the sea walls was that they would enable more land to be developed closer to the water.

A proposal by Dland Studio and Architecture Research Office would put a set of wetlands around lower Manhattan and we would hope all the other boroughs. The New York Times writes: “To prevent incursions by water, Mr. Cassell and his planners imagined ringing Lower Manhattan with a grassy network of land-based parks accompanied by watery patches of wetlands and tidal salt marshes. At Battery Park, for instance, the marshes would weave through a series of breakwater islands made of geo-textile tubes and covered with marine plantings. On the Lower East Side of the island, Mr. Cassell and his team envisioned extending Manhattan by a block or two — with additional landfill — to create space for another new park and a salt marsh.” A complementary set of green streets would also boost absorptive capacity within the city.

Another exciting proposal by Orff would use oysters to create decentralized storm mitigation infrastructure in the low-lying Buttermilk Channel and Gowanus Bay that swelled and severely flooded some neighborhoods during the storm. Orff’s argument is that “the era of big infrastructure is over” and needs to be neighborhood-centric and actually embedded into daily life. The New York Timeswrites: “Ms. Orff’s proposal [...] envisions a system of artificial reefs in the channel and the bay built out of rocks, shells and fuzzy rope that is intended to nurture the growth of oysters (she calls them ‘nature’s wave attenuators’).” The reefs would also help clean the water: each oyster purifies an amazing 50 gallons of water a day. Students at a local NYC school have also picked up on the oysters idea and area doing their own experiments to see how they would work.¨

REFERENCE

http://dirt.asla.org/2012/11/12/with-hurricane-sandy-climate-change-is-back-on-the-agenda/#comment-19172

Three pictures from Venice flood

 People dressed in rain gear sit on chairs in a flooded St. Mark's Square in Venice earlier this month. Photograph by Manuel Silvestri, Reuters

 High floodwaters in Venice this weekend made the water levels in the city's canals and on the streets about even. Photograph by Manuel Silvestri, Reuters

 Venice flood. Photograph by Luigi Costantini, Associated Press

Shared from National Geographic.com 

Though the flood must be problematic, I think the pictures are beautiful. And it must be a great experience to walk the flooded streets, while it´s not dangerous.