朱瑄文 Shiuan-Wen Chu's Architecture and Design

Publication on Interior Magazine

2011-12-13T09:19:00.003+01:00

Shiuan-Wen's journalism on Dutch Design Week 2011 in Eindhoven. Just published in Taiwan.

Rain or Shine

2011-09-26T11:37:00.001+02:00

A graphic novel by Shiuan-Wen Chu

SYNOPSIS

Rain or Shine is autobiographical. It is about my son, his autistic disorder and my struggles.

Lennert was diagnosed with autistic disorder when he was four. Needless to say, his condition has brought big changes to our family life. In this book, I try to describe autism through drawings and words, through a mother’s desperate and fascinated eyes.

In a person’s life (in this case, my life), one never expects someday to give birth to a special child who needs extra care or has physical or mental limitations. It comes first as a shock. One needs to learn to accept it. I had to learn to accept what life has in for me. Meanwhile I needed to learn to understand autism (in general) and Lennert’s conditions. And teaching Lennert mundane living skills such as dressing, washing and eating was a long and tiring everyday struggle.

I was a trained and certified architect. When we found out about Lennert’s autism, I had three jobs- practicing in an architectural bureau, teaching in TU Delft and writing magazine columns. I pushed my architect-and motherly-self to the ultimate limit and hoped that all the efforts will make everything OK.

Autism crushes me down but Lennert brought me light and enjoy. He always shows me the important things which I started forgetting as I grew older. When Lennert was five, he was transferred to a special school for children with communication handicaps, where he was able to develop and learn. He started to flourish. At this turning point, my physical and mental health started to crumble. I could no longer pretend to be the super woman I wished to be.

With great pain and struggles, I came to terms with my new reality and stopped my career as an architect so I can focus on my family. I don’t know what my future will be but I know if I am always there for Lennert, he will have a chance.

Is Lennert ever going to be OK? I will do anything and go anywhere he needs- rain or shine. And maybe someday, my little boy will find a place of his own in this big unknown world.

Rain or Shine

2011-09-25T22:30:00.001+02:00

Rain or Shine

2011-09-25T22:28:00.000+02:00

Rain or Shine

2011-09-25T22:25:00.001+02:00

Rain or Shine

2011-09-25T22:02:00.000+02:00

Chu Cat Chronicle, Number 1, full content

2011-08-29T16:31:00.006+02:00

Chu Cat Chronicle, Number 1 (September 2011)

2011-08-29T16:20:00.007+02:00

Chu Cat Chronicle

2011-08-19T00:09:00.001+02:00

Garden Harvest

2011-07-19T11:00:00.001+02:00

The beans were planted this summer by Ruurd and the kids. The tomato, paprika, rosemary, tijm, basilican and spring onions were planted by my mother and me. They were made into a fish stew for dinner this evening.

Rain or Shine

2011-01-14T11:14:00.000+01:00

SW is currently working on her debut graphic novel Rain or Shine. This is SW's real life story- about her son Lennert with severe communication handicap, about how her daughter Nina finds her place in this family and in the world, about her husband who always performs the perfect balancing act, and SW herself, as a mother facinated by her son's problem but also as an architect who searches her place in her profession and in the world, where woman are under the pressure to compete with man while still carry the responsibility and, most of the time, the traditional role as mother and wife.

Married in Holland

2011-01-14T11:10:00.002+01:00

SW is currently working on her second graphic novel Married in Holland. "MIH" is based on SW's real life in Holland since 1998. MIH is a compilation of dialogues about living in Holland as a female foreigner, about being married to a Dutch man, about being a Dutch wife and having a Dutch family, and about observing life, marriage, sex and love with the cool eyes of a stranger.

Documentary "Stayin' Alive in Jo'Burg" on Dutch National TV Channel

2010-06-18T23:21:00.007+02:00

Holland Doc on Ned 2, 17 Juni 2010
Stayin' Alive in Jo'Burg
Director: Rob Schröder
Production: VPRO, 2009
Researcher: SW Chu

Exhibition: Wits University Architecture Faculty Alumni Exhibition

2009-10-19T21:31:00.001+02:00

SW is exhibited in her former university, Department of Architecture and Planning, University of the Witwatersrand, from the 18th-24th October. This exhibition is part of the celebration of the faculty building, John Moffat Building's 50th anniversary. SW feels very privileged to be selected to participate at the exhibition.

POST-IT CITY Occasional Cities (Travelling exhibition)

2009-05-25T12:15:00.012+02:00

In the next months the exhibition Post-it City starts a traveling tour to South America. In collaboration with Ana Dzokic, our project, Tokyo Voids, has been chosen to participate in this new edition.

The venues and the dates will be as follow:

Museo de Arte Contemporáneo, Santiago de Chile (Chile), 11th June – 9th August 2009

Centro Cultural de São Paulo (Brazil), 28th September – 22th November 2009

Sala La Prensa, Buenos Aires (Argentina), January 2010

The curators and exhibition organizer CCCB are very happy with the successful presentation in Barcelona as well as with the interest that this exhibition has awakened abroad.

Check CCCB: http://www.cccb.org/en/exposicio-post_it_city_occasional_urbanities-16445

Check Tokyo Voids: http://swchuarchitect.blogspot.com/1999/02/berlage-institute-amsterdam-studio.html

SW's Graphic Novel: Rain or Shine

2009-05-14T22:11:00.004+02:00

SW is currently working on her first graphic novel.

Drawing Exercise 5

2009-03-16T12:12:00.011+01:00

Time Table for Children

2009-03-12T14:44:00.000+01:00

Drawing Exercise 4

2009-03-12T14:30:00.001+01:00

Drawing Exercise 3

2009-03-02T14:37:00.005+01:00

Note: This is not a sad story. Just two people changing postures.

SW in school advisory board (MR)

2009-02-20T12:00:00.003+01:00

Since February 2009, SW is officially one of the three parents at school's advisory board (MR/Medezeggenschapraad) at Lennert's school, LW Hildernisse School.

Drawing Exercise 2

2009-02-16T09:59:00.001+01:00

Drawing Exercise 1

2009-02-16T09:58:00.000+01:00

Dutchman's Wife

2009-02-15T09:33:00.000+01:00

Stampot andijvie with sausage

Steak, red cabbage, spruitjes, potato with appelmoes

Steak, spruitjes, potato, appelmoes and gravy

Grilled pork steak with onion and black pepper; grilled chicken fillet with courgette, tomato and thyme

Stampot boerenkool with sausage and bacon

Rotterdam Stadium Park on all papers

2008-12-18T12:27:00.002+01:00

Volkskrant pg.3

Trouw, pg.4

Rotterdam Dagblad, pg.7

NRC Next, pg. 14, 15

Metro, pg. 20

The New Rotterdam Stadium Park

2008-12-17T21:57:00.009+01:00

I was at the press conference for the new De Kuip- Rotterdam Soccer Stadium this morning as Mrs. Gietema. Ruurd (http://www.kcap.eu/) is the master planner of the project. The project has national- and city-scale significance and is a total vision on the area around De Kuip and Rotterdam South. The "Sports City" embodies:
- landmark stadium situated ON THE MAAS RIVER;
- integrated and multifucntional sports, cultural, leisure and other public facilities for the city of Rotterdam;
- public transport strategy which accelerates Rotterdam's metro network development. This proposal envisages a metro ring connecting De Kuip with Zuidplein, Schiedam, Rotterdam North, Kralingezoom, ie. the pheripheries of Rotterdam;
- education "sport campus" for talents, youth and physical education for schools of all levels;
- integration of Rotterdam South area with entire metropolitan development;
- catalyst for development of surrounding areas- mixed use, living, working, commerce.
While Rotterdam gets herself ready for World Cup 2018, Rotterdam becomes a real Sports City. This projects is a total "infrastructure project".

Mayor Opstelten introduces Rotterdam's ambition and the Stadium Park. Scroll down for the video clip of Mayor's speech.

Model: stadium on the Maas River

Three of the most important Rotterdam politicians for the Stadium Park
Rotterdam politician explaining the project to the press

Press

Press

Lennert's Sketch Book

2008-11-16T12:51:00.001+01:00

Window painting at Lennert's school

2008-10-16T10:37:00.001+02:00

One sunny autumn day I painted the windows at the entrance of my son Lennert's school, LW Hildrenisseschool. This is a special school for children with communication handicap. There are only 2 such schools in the whole of Rotterdam metro region. Many children go to school by buses organised by the municipality. Therefore, few parents get involved in school's activities. A couple of parents work very hard on school's festivals, art and cultural activities. I am one of the parents. We think it is crucial for parents to support school activities, espcially for children with special problems or handicap. It is important for children's self-esteem, as well as parent's esteem.

Shirt Design

2008-10-03T12:08:00.000+02:00

Medium: black shirt, acylic paint, textile paint

Too Scared To Care

2008-09-30T13:38:00.000+02:00

Exhibition: Post-It City

2008-07-15T00:15:00.006+02:00

13 March - 25 May 2008, CCCB, Barcelona.
For this exhibition Shiuan-Wen Chu and Ana Dzokic revisited their project Tokyo Houseless made in 1999 at the Berlage Institute. See label 'study', Tokyo Houseless.

The exhibition “POST-IT City” looks at different overlapping uses of urban territory, focusing on the viewpoints offered by architecture, town planning and the visual arts. It seeks to explore the phenomenon by means of the ephemeral cities that infect the everyday city with uncoded, temporary, anonymous uses, with an implicitly critical approach.

This project brings together a series of parameters that provide particularly interesting themes for contemporary culture: the need to create available spaces, the versatility of the recycling concept, the emergence of new forms of subjectivity, etc.

POST-IT City presents the cases of 78 cities as varied as Tel Aviv, Buenos Aires, Hanoi, Santiago de Chile, Bologna and Barcelona. POST-IT City seeks to explore the phenomenon of occasional urbanities like: an industrial estate that becomes a car racing track at weekends, the use of the city “under construction” for the adventures of explorer nerds, the squatter phenomenon, the use of waste land for occasional meetings (a traveller’s camp or a rave), the conversion of the daytime university city into an area for sexual transactions by night, etc.

POST-IT City exhibition is curated by Giovanni La Varra, Martí Peran, Filippo Poli and Federico Zanfi.

Lennert's Learning Progress

2008-07-03T19:44:00.009+02:00

Lennert Gietema is qualified to go up to 3rd grade in academic year 2008/9. Thanks to Ms. Joleen and Ms. Lizette. Well done Lennert!

Nina's 4 Year Party

2008-05-28T12:36:00.000+02:00

TU Delft architecture faculty burned to ashes

2008-05-14T15:06:00.012+02:00

We are totally devastated. This happened on 13 May Tuesday from 9 o'clock in the morning. It started on the 7th floor due to leakage of water pipe causing electricity short circuit of a coffee machine.
All the books, manuscripts, achiefs, documents, models, collections... are burned to ashes. I used to teach on the 2nd and 5th floor during year 2004-2007.

Kids Drawings

2008-03-15T23:35:00.003+01:00

Lennert's Drawing: ski (we went skiing on my birthday)

Nina's Drawing: Rocket

Nina's Drawing: Bokito (the gorilla who lives in Rotterdam Zoo)

Happy New Rat Year

2008-02-04T22:42:00.001+01:00

Lennert & Nina's Drawings

2008-01-13T22:32:00.000+01:00

Nina's bird house

Nina's Drawings: family

2008-01-10T22:07:00.000+01:00

These are Nina's first line drawings. She is 3 years 7 months.

Strange Things Seen from Above

2008-01-03T12:58:00.000+01:00

Beijing, pattern on a construction site

Beijing, Siheyuan giving way to new gated community. Notice the walls and fragmentation.

Beijing, clash of morphology

Cape Town, 'public space'

Johannesburg, Modernism and new users

Johannesburg, Modernism and new users

Mumbai, clash of morphology

Mumbai, views to a small slum

Mumbai, clash of morphology

Rotterdam, colony of anarchists

Rotterdam, archaeological site

Rotterdam, car crash

Views to Cul-de-sacs

2008-01-03T12:37:00.000+01:00

Lennert's Drawing: Train

2007-12-20T22:05:00.000+01:00

Diary: Joburg is not my home any more

2007-12-14T16:26:00.002+01:00

Between 1991 and 1998, I lived with my family in Johannesburg. In 2001 we sold our house on Bryanston Drive to a retired British pilot, and since then I never returned to Joburg until August this year. When I saw it this time, 'our house' has been bulldozed, garden and trees erased, and swimming pool filled, to give way to new development of gated community.

Lennert's Drawing: Family Portrait

2007-12-13T07:50:00.000+01:00

So Said Uncle George #3

2007-11-27T21:30:00.002+01:00

' “Only the paranoid survive”, so there’s only one kind of research that’s good: the kind of research that checks and counterchecks, beyond prejudice, beyond allegiances, beyond what you already know, beyond what you think you see and trust. We need facts and figures, hard dates. We torture the data until they confess.'

Mumbai: Aftertaste

2007-11-21T14:10:00.000+01:00

In the most conspicuous sign yet of India's unprecedented prosperity, the country's richest man, Mukesh Ambani, is building a new home in the financial hub of Mumbai: a 60-storey palace with helipad, health club and six floors of car parking. The building, named Antilla after a mythical island, will have a total floor area greater than Versailles and be home for Mr Ambani, his mother, wife, three children and 600 full-time staff.

Draped in hanging gardens, the building will have a floor for a home theatre, a glass-fronted apartment for guests, and a two-storey health club. As the ceilings are three times as high as a normal building's, the 173m tower will only have 27 floors. With property prices rocketing, the building is already worth more than £500m. It is expected to ready for the Ambanis to move in next year. The family currently live in a 14-storey building, Sea Wind. Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Group is India's largest private company, with interests in oil, retail and biotechnology. The 50-year-old became the country's first rupee trillionaire this week, taking his net worth to £14bn.

Urban planners say Mr Mukesh's home is part of a global rush for tall buildings that has seen skyscrapers spring up in Dubai, Shanghai and Seoul. In India, planning rules and a historic antipathy to unrestrained materialism has meant that this race to touch the sky has largely bypassed the cities, which are more notable for their shanty towns and dilapidated housing stock. But experts say the next wave of skyscraper proposals could come in India. (source: India's richest man builds 60-storey home, Thursday May 31, 2007, The Guardian, UK)

During my visit in Mumbai, at the entrance of a newly renovated shopping mall, a teenager was wearing a T-shirt with swastika sign. I asked him if he knows what that symbol means. He replied ‘yes, Hitler; we have democracy in India so I can do whatever I want’.

This is Mumbai today. Well-off citizens disrespect and abuse democracy. And Mumbai is a city that allows this to happen.

Mumbai: Mothers at night

2007-11-20T01:12:00.000+01:00

What is it about Mumbai that makes me so sad? It is not about slums or it is run-down. It is about the mothers.

Mumbai is a city that lets her mothers beg on streets, sleep unprotected with her babies. Johannesburg is a city that lets her mothers raped and killed. When I finally could tell my mother something about Mumbai, I told her this, and I told her about Paris too. A Chinese prostitute in Paris worths 7 euros an hour; she is also a mother; she comes from Tieling. I thought about mothers and cities at night.

Mumbai: Sleep

2007-11-05T10:40:00.000+01:00

Mumbai: Pride

2007-11-05T10:39:00.000+01:00

Mumbai: Lock

2007-11-05T10:38:00.000+01:00

Mumbai: People

2007-11-05T10:37:00.000+01:00

Nina's writing: Chinese 'de'

2007-10-28T22:12:00.000+01:00

This is Nina's first writing. She was 3.5 years old.

Lennert's Writing: Chinese 'te'

2007-10-28T22:09:00.000+01:00

T-shirt Design

2007-10-03T12:47:00.000+02:00

So Said Uncle George #2

2007-10-01T16:38:00.001+02:00

'Rules are for breaking.'

Aspiration

2007-09-27T10:46:00.000+02:00

Erick van Egeraat designs artificlial islands in the shape of Russia in the Black Sea

I want to say this is sick but I know I AM WRONG. If it can be made and lived in a sustainable way, why not? Architecture has always been the expression of patron's fantasy of the world. Emperor Hadrian has done that with his villa in Tivoli; Japanese have built a Holland Village in Nagasaki... Aspiration drives us; sometimes it is not creative, not tasteful, and not intelligent. But hopefully responsible.

Our cities and architecture manifest how human species relates to its environment. Ultimately our cities and architecture manifest whether our species is worthy of existence. ‘You don’t shit where you eat’. It is basic, it is self-respect, and it is our responsibility.

* Joburg story: Failing to plan is planning to fail

2007-09-14T17:17:00.000+02:00

Premise

13 years after abolition of Apartheid, places like Diepsloot continues to 滋生 on South African landscape. Why are the symptoms of Apartheid planning continuing in Post-Apartheid era?
There is no other story about Johannesburg more urgent than examining the cause of continuation of spatial apartheid in the Post-Apartheid era.

Personal narratives are not interesting. Most Johannesburgers are lost anyway- lost in greed, lost in complacency; lost in apathy. Few have the ability to see above and beyond; even fewer are trying to make changes. Lives take place in many parallel places and spaces, as scattered, dispersed experiences (notion of parallel cities).

Architects and urban planners have not taken the opportunity or the responsibility to overcome spatial apartheid. There is no other discourse more poignant than counteracting the consequence of apartheid on an engineered landscape. What are the strategies?

Architecture is caught on as an instrument of urban and social warfare. Yet architecture and urbanism’s ultimate task is provide better and critical alternatives to existing spatial, programmatic, aesthetic and management setups. Can architecture, as a discipline, survive in Johannesburg?

Actors and Agents

1) What are the remaining planning regulations from Apartheid era which perpetuate spatial segregation and programmatic segregation?

2) What is the governmental urban planning departments doing?
How ‘planned’ is Johannesburg in Poat-Apartheid era? What are the underlying planning principles? Programmatic, density, plot size, building height, comprehensive infrastructure, transport-related facilities, public facilities, green ratio guidelines?
What does urban renewal mean in Joburg? Making more precincts. Compartmentalizing areas and concentrate activities. What are the advantage and disadvantage? Does it work? How does it work? Research area: New Town and inner city. New Town cleaned up, money comes in, gentrification.
How is Sandton and Midrand planned? Why are the developments unchecked?

3) What are practicing architects and urban planners doing?
Eg. MMA’s 2010 FIFA masterplan can manage the crowd? The plan is truly catalyst for urban re-generation? Can Joburg be saved by FIFA?
Eg. San Souci project illustrate how top-down and bottom-up have no intersection.) (Individual architectural efforts and moments do not add up; ad hoc; no substantial or accumulative output. This refers to governmental planning strategy.
4) What is the architectural and planning education doing?

5) What are the developers doing?

6) What are the community leaders doing?
Eg. Kliptown, Bolo talking about project here, project here. All the projects are in phase 0.1; nice fantasy and imagination. There is no method or framework to channel governmental planning process , ie. Community participation without comprehensive framework or structure.

7) What are people doing?
Who are the residents of Diepsloot? Why do they settle in Diepsloot? Where do they work? Where are they from? How do they live (salary R1000 per month)? How do they build? How do they move around the city? What does local government do about this settlement?
Who are the residents of Dainfern? How is the property acquired? How do they relate to Diepsloot and its residents?
(interview and analysis in scale)

Radical Intervention

Zoning concept, such as using terminologies like precinct, is outdated. It is the old cliché of modernism, garden city planning principles, which fundamentally rendered spatial apartheid. What are the strategies?

1) Abolish zoning plans: need radical planning strategy which maximize mixture of programmes, density, users, 24hour programme, time share, building heights, mobility devices etc.

2) Radical re-zoning: conceptually and physically perpendicular to Apartheid divisions.
Existing city is compartmentalized into enclaves of sameness. Ie. Each sub-city, such as Midand, Sandton or CBD, has the same ingredients within itself , but each sub-city is zoned for different purposes. This is essentially the spirit of spatial apartheid. The old zones or compartments have to be completely subverted and re-divided for maximum mixture of ingredients. So that municipalities have to deal with all realities of a city- rich, poor, density, centre, periphery, main roads, commerce, social facilities, etc.

New Civic Life

What are the new forms of public/civic life?
New civic space is open or limited? New rules of inclusion and exclusion?
Measure and map the physical, visual and tangible
Evaluate spatial typology, location: Constitutional Hills (civil), Braamfontein (street), Zoo Lake (park), Walter Sisulu Square (monument), etc.
Management mechanism behind the spaces and events (research)
How social lives take places in new civic spaces (observation)
Commercial porgrammes: casino, shopping mall are where all races go for entertainment and consumerism, but this does not provide basis to formulate a community. After leaving commercial enclaves, people no longer communicate; lives deviate. (illusions of Post-Modern life)

Limited Access

Road closure map

Ladder diagram: omnipresence of cul-de-sac

Privatization: schools, sports, security, road (how can these civil rights be private!!!?)
Access = civil rights. One can access places and spaces by freedom, under the protection of laws.
Making things public = making life public

2010 FIFA opening the City?

Opening and securing the city for once 2010 FIFA for all time afterwards
What should be the positive input of FIFA for Joburg?
How does FIFA Johannesburg master plan work?
How will visitors be moved around the city?
Crowd management before and after a game
Celebration, drinking, hangout
Security measurement, policing, patrol route, barrier fence
The effort to guarantee an open city is to confine small areas of openness?
How open is this openness and to whom? Outside this open zone is less open than before FIFA? (more open inside = less open outside, because unpleasant things will be excluded to the outside?)
How to measure inside and outside?
How will inner city react to FIFA effect? Ground level programmes and activities will be squeezed upwards into vertical setup? Is this an opportunity to formalize different ‘tribes’ in vertical compartments?

Need research source:

1) Government road plans and road closure maps
2) Johannesburg Metropolitan Region master planning blue prints
3) 2010 FIFA master plan

Architect- a Public Intellectual

2007-09-14T17:02:00.001+02:00

The new architect is a public Intellectual. Being public is as important is being intellectual. The days of working in one’s nice little studio on nice little projects are over.

This role is to bring the agenda of architecture forward to the public and to call for involvement of the discipline in the public realm.

As an intellectual, he/she stands for and is the guardian of certain nonnegotiable values.

As a public figure, he/she communicates the message and moderate the debate, with the purpose to realize certain vision.

As an instructor, he/she identifies the collection of issues and concerns, and translates his/her response through design and strategy and finally intervenes with real matters. He/she directs the design team members to represent the proposal with appropriate medium.

As an organizer, he/she arranges the collection of representation and relationships to achieve an intended and calculated effect.

* From Banham to Joburg

2007-09-14T16:54:00.000+02:00

Reyner Banham is definitely one of the most influential architectural/urban theorist for me. The book on 4 ecologies of LA is particularly brilliant.

The starting point is to see the city as systems, for him, ecologies. He sees how landscape (nature) sets the datum for the city, and how artificial interventions (man-made) interpret and explore that landscape. From the urban systems, architecture is not singular incidents but a part of that ecology. It’s quite simple really.

What is important is this way of thinking ‘city as ecologies’ makes situations and mechanisms of the city ‘mappable’ and identifiable. Seemingly dispersed incidents start to connect visually, physically or conceptually. This method is particularly significant in its time. In 1971, Paris still taught beaux-arts and London AA students were drawings timetables for revolutions. Koolhaas’ AA graduation project ‘Exodus’ was made the year after (1972). Exodus was one of the few architectural projects at the time which wanted to address architecture and the world through design and scenario. Banham’s take on LA was comparatively way more advanced and liberated from European’s old schools. Above all, the entry of ‘ecology’ is the entry of urban discourse in architecture discipline. Banham’s 4 ecologies were ‘still’ the guidelines when I researched in LA in 1998 with Stan Allen (now dean in Princeton). I guess after Banham there have not been better didactic methods in understanding urban systems of LA.

I think about cities in systems, ie. ecologies. But when it goes with Joburg, suddenly one lacks nature to set the datum. In Joburg, my datum is mining belt, Apartheid and architectural/urban theoretical backbones of Apartheid’s spatial organizations (garden city, modernist functional zoning etc). This is evident in my thesis at the Berlage Institute.

It is very interesting to compare Cape Town to Joburg in ecological terms. Cape Town’s racial, social and economic divides have not changed as visibly/physically as in Joburg. My assumption is that nature (sea and Table Mt) sets too strong of a datum for Cape Town’s urbanization to mutate substantially. Whereas in Joburg, datum is artificial; rules can be bent and re-interpreted. It’s very interesting.

So in the way, from this way of reading the ecologies of these 2 cities, I am assuming this: Joburg has more potential to overcome spatial apartheid than Cape Town. And the next hypothesis is: so if Joburg’s datum is Apartheid’s design tactics (garden city, zoning etc), in order to undermine spatial apartheid, these datum’s have to be intervened or destroyed. This hypothesis is in my Joburg text to you. This is a thesis, which can take at least 4 years to pursue, and for a city, definitely will take more than decade(s) to overcome. I hope for an open Joburg, but if the enemy is not identified, it will be hard to propose the right strategy, especially for a city of such a scale.

Now think again, who will be able to make a difference in such a big scale? Politicians. Not architects. Those who have the instruments do not have the knowledge and courage; those who have the vision do not have the power. What’s new? If architectural proposals are too implicit and indirect, maybe other medium could be more expressive and efficient. This is why architects have to be public intellectuals. Being ‘public’ is as important as being ‘intellectual’. The days of making nice little projects in one’s little studio is over. Architects have to have public voices especially when the scale of problem is urban.

Johannesburg: Inner city and migration

2007-09-05T11:00:00.000+02:00

The migration of Chinese has immense impact on local economies. We saw how cheap Chinese goods shaking South African informal trade sector. We also witness how Chinese informal (and formal) economy and people trafficking rendering European cities. I am thinking about Paris, Rotterdam, London, Belgrade... And Joburg, downtown's main language is now Portuguese. It is cosmopolitan African. But the entire inner city is territorialized. Zimbabweans are swamping into South Africa and eventually into Joburg downtown, 1000 people a day, meanwhile 2010 FIFA is under preparation. Rumor says Mozambican women are sold for 500Rand per head.

Where do we go from here?

Hillbrow, looking from Ponte Tower

Fashion Precinct near Jogubert Park, looking from a flat inhabited by Zimbabwean immigrants

Modernist flat inhabited by new users

Mothballed 'Johannesburg Sun Hotel' for sale

Ethopian restaurant on 7th floor in a inner city flat. The entire building is occupied by Ethiopian traders

Photographs taken on 17 August 2007 by SW Chu

Johannesburg: Panoramas

2007-09-05T10:54:00.000+02:00

Kliptown, Soweto

Dainfern, Midrand

Photographs taken in August 2007 by SW Chu

Johannesburg: Limited access

2007-09-05T10:36:00.000+02:00

Northcliff: road, fence, barbed wire and cactus

Northcliff: road, palisade fence, barbed wire and bush

New Town: old Potato Shed behind Museum Africa

Dainfern: surveillance camera

Dainfern: entry and exit security codes

Dainfern: gatehouse and security check point

Dainfern: patrol route map

Dainfern: gatekeeper taking down visitor's name, vehicle registration number, time of entry and exit

Dainfern: secutiry check point and servant

Dainfern: high security outside secluded lifestyle

Photographes taken on 18 August 2007 by SW Chu

Johannesburg: Trash and Sewage

2007-09-04T19:40:00.001+02:00

Photographes taken on 19 August 2007 by SW Chu

Johannesburg: Trash and Sewage 2

2007-09-04T19:21:00.000+02:00

Beijing before Olympics 2008

2007-09-02T10:03:00.000+02:00

Bird nest and swimming pool

Bird nest from 4th ring road
Steven Holl's MOMA

CCTV trouser pipes

CCTV's first curtain walls

Photographs taken on 09 September 2007 by Ruurd Gietema

So Said Uncle George #1

2007-09-01T17:53:00.002+02:00

'Heads are for spinning.'

* Illegal Chinese Immigrant

2007-09-01T12:09:00.000+02:00

Outline
Illegal Chinese immigrants are everywhere. They are the food we eat; they are the clothes we wear. They walk the same streets we walk and inhabit the same city we live. They do not live in the prison, but they are imprisoned. They are not a slave class, but they are exploited. Illegal Chinese immigrants live in a parallel world to ours. Sometimes they are our infrastructure. The aim of the research is as follows:
To reveal the parallel world of illegal Chinese immigrants in our local context.
To understand when/where these two parallel worlds meet.
To understand the spatial implication of human (Chinese) trafficking.
To map the use of city by illegal Chinese immigrants in urban context.
To map the spatial configuration of legal-illegal networks.
To document the use of space by illegal Chinese immigrants.

Relevance
To raise awareness. Even if we cannot know whether what we wear and what we eat comes out of a Chinese sweatshop, we should not pretend that it is not possible.
Not knowing is a form of self-imprisonment.
To be the architect-witness for people of no face and no voice.

Key Words
Globalisation and sweatshop
Forced economic exploitation (EE)
Modern slavery
Voluntary or forced
Underground ethnic economy
Invisible and visible
Fear
Parallel worlds

Related Words
Xenophobia
Ethnocentrism
Eurocentrism
Aspiration

Locations
Paris, Brussels, Belgrade, Rotterdam

Research Chapters:

A. General Research on Chinese Emigration in historic and contemporary conditions

01 History:
Chinese movement towards west started with Zhangqian. First exploration in 139BC; second exploration in 119 BC.
02 Recent History:
Why do Chinese people leave China? China is modernising and getting wealthier, but why are so many people leaving China? The reasons are complicated. For example, difficulty in domestic economic restructuring in China. Most immigrants come from Wenzhou City in Zhejiang Province and Fuqing City in Fujian Province.
Fujian provinces, being the home of many illegal immigrants, is actually not the poorest regions in China. However, youngsters still hope to find better jobs with handsome income elsewhere. So their family’s living conditions can be improved. They are driven by complex economic and social motive.
Starting 10 to 15 years ago, most immigrants are from rural areas from Fujian or Zhejiang Provinces (RMB 200,000 to immigrate).
In recent years many immigrants are from areas in serious recession in north-east of China/Manchuria, where the restructuring of local industry, such as Tieling, led to drastic unemployment (under RMB 100,000 to immigrate).
Immigrants with little education, former farmers or small vendors.
03 How Chinese society and network is transplanted overseas?
How do these networks mutate in legal and illegal spheres?
How is this tight and non-penetrable network constructed?
Legal networks vs. illegal networks (underground ethnic economy)

B. E/Im-migration Policies in EU and China
01 Immigration policy in EU (for example, France or the Netherlands)
Rules of inclusion and exclusion
NL’s foreign policy in relation to China
Official estimation of legal and illegal Chinese (e.g. in Rotterdam or Paris)
Recently, the first destination for Chinese immigrants has shifted to Europe from the US, simply because the cost of smuggling Chinese immigrants to the US is twice higher than that to Europe. Additional, it is believed that applicants for refuge-seeking will receive more generous treatment in European countries.
The most popular destination in EU is France and England.
France: 50,000 people (70% in Paris, the remaining in the eastern and northern France), according to International Labour Organisation study.
30,000 to 50,000 people according to Ministry of Internal Affairs in France.
6,000 people Arriving in Paris and surrounding region each year.
02 China’s policy towards emigration
03 Detention facilities in EU (architectural device)
Merwehaven in Rotterdam
Steenokkerzeel near Brussels
De Gaulle Airport in Paris

C. Research on People Smuggling and Trafficking
01 Trafficking of human being across trans-national borders as enterprise. (Scale: China to EU)
Snakeheads (illegal immigration organisations including criminal gangsters) exploit tourism, conference or study as channel to traffic people in disguise of tourists or students.
02 Study of trafficking routes through sea-way. Case study: Dover case. On 20 June 2000, 58 Chinese stowaways suffocated to death in an airtight truck of tomatoes AT Dover, England.
03 Study of trafficking routes through air-way. Case study.
04 Study of trafficking routes by train, car and by foot. Case study: cross China-Russia border, via Eastern Europe and arrive in France. Interview: people walked from Russia to France across mountains. During the journey they were abandoned by snakeheads. People got ill and died in the mountains. Women got raped…
05 comparison of various routes: fast one month, slow one year.

D. Working and Living Condition in Local Context
01 Economic Chain of Illegal Immigration
The journey to Europe: people smugglers charging 14,500 to 24,000 US dollars for the journey and the immigrants need to spend 2 to 10 years to pay it off. (According to ILO study 75 per cent of Chinese migrants who have illegally entered France owe debts ranging from 12,000 to 20,000 euros to their traffickers.)
Sweatshop: cloth-manufacturing, restaurants and construction.
Salary: 300 to 500 euros a month for 15 to 18 hours a day, 40% is confiscated by employer (ILO study). Some employers continue to exploit the workers (by blackmail) even after the debt is paid off. To avoid the exposure to the French inspectors, employers divide the workers into hundreds of home-based units, separating them from the outside world.
People-smugglers take the ID cards away from the illegal immigrants at the beginning of the voyage and hand them to their employers in Paris. The traffickers will take part of immigrants’ salary as their rewards.
‘Home-made’ food workshops for restaurants employers to avoid police inspection and social and fiscal obligations- Chinese ravioli, fish kebab, Japanese sushi are produced in small room and large quantity. One piece of ravioli is bought by restaurant at 50 eurocent and sold for at least 3 euro.
It is exploitation every step of the way.
02 After journey paid off: minimum wedge
Cleaning EUR 8/hour (Rotterdam)
Prostitution EUR 7 to 10/hour (Paris)
03 Social Aspects
Consequence of lack of language
Isolation and poverty
Fear of being caught by police
Abuse without complaint
(ILO study: The migrants have little recourse to the assistance provided by the destination society, the study notes. Labour inspectors find that, unlike other nationalities, they hardly ever receive complaints from the Chinese regarding working conditions. In addition to the language barrier, there is also the fear of questioning and being forced to return to China.)
04 How illegal immigrants work and live in local context? (Urban scale: Rotterdam or Paris)
Ecology if life
Underground networks
Service sector inhabiting in inner city and reply on public infrastructure.
Sweatshop and restaurants
Daily route (front door and back doors)
Mapping the trajectories and urban signifiers
05 Working and living environment
Mapping the space (Architectural scale)
For example, 10m2 (family Li, outskirt Paris) for work and living of 3 people (sewing clothes).

Sources:
‘International Day for the Remembrance of the Slave Trade and its Abolition. Invisible prisoners: The trafficking and exploitation of Chinese immigrants in France’, Internet source: International Labour Organisation http://www.ilo.org/public/english/bureau/inf/features/05/chinese_immigrants.htm, last update 18 Aug. 2005, last visited 12 December. 2006

‘50,000 illegal Chinese immigrants miserable in Paris’, Internet source: People's Daily Online, http://english.people.com.cn/200506/24/eng20050624_192189.htm, last update 24 June 2005, last visited 12 December 2006

F. Wang王芳, ‘中国非法移民在法现状:已为人母大嫂街头卖身’, Internet source: www.people.com.cn, last update 20 Feb 2004, last visited 02 May 2006

SW's new start at Rotterdam Biennale

2007-09-01T11:38:00.000+02:00

On 1 September 2007, SW officially starts her new job at the International Architectural Biennale Rotterdam. She will be working closely with biennale director George Brugmans on conceptualizing and realizing the next biennale in 2009.

In order to give her full attention and energy to this new position and direction, SW will temporarily put her involvement in teaching, writing and practice to hibernation. SW believes that through this new position her talents will converge. And the biennale is the best platform to pursue her ultimate goal as a public intellectual.

See http://www.iabr.nl for the Third International Architectural Biennale Rotterdam.

Nina's Drawings: dinosaurus

2007-07-23T22:16:00.000+02:00

Johannesburg: Emerging / Diverging Metropolis

2007-07-13T14:06:00.000+02:00

2007

Lennert's Writing: 1234

2007-07-13T14:05:00.000+02:00

Lennert's Drawing: Trein 1, 2

2007-07-13T14:04:00.001+02:00

Keyword: We

2007-07-13T14:02:00.001+02:00

Key words
Assemblage
Shared concern
Love and care
Amateurism
Power
Nomad Citizenship
Community
Improvisation

Assemblage (G. Deleuze, On the Superiority of Anglo-American Literature)
Assemblage is the minimum real unit. Collective and multiple. The proper name does not designate a subject, but agents, elements. Proper names are not names of persons, but of peoples and tribes, collectives, companies etc.

To assemble is to become something else we are sympathetic with. It is madness without lunatics, drunkenness without alcohol.

Henry Miller, Sexus: the only benefit, I reflected, which the act of writing could offer me was to remove the difference which separated me from my fellow man.

Lawrence: we only have sympathy to struggle and to write. Sympathy is something to be reckoned with, it is a bodily struggle, hating what threatens and infects life, loving where it proliferates.

Amateurism (E. Said, Representations of the Intellectual)
The desire to be moved not by profit or reward but by love for and interest in the larger picture, in making connections across lines and barriers, in refusing to be tied down to a specialty, in caring for ideas and values despite the restrictions of a profession.

Four pressure which challenge the intellectual’s ingenuity and will:
1) Specialization which limits one to a relatively narrow area of knowledge.
2) Expertise and the cult of certified expert; to be an expert you have to be certified by the proper authorities. Problems: conformity and political correctness.
3) Inevitable drift towards power and authority in its adherents, towards the requirements and prerogatives of power, and towards being directly employed by it.
4) Being absorbed by political parties, industry or commerce to further commercial or political agendas. Systems which rewards intellectual conformity, as well as willing participation in goals that have been set not by science but by the government or market.

Amateurism is an activity that is fueled by care and affection rather than by profit and selfish, narrow specialization. The intellectual today ought to be an amateur, someone who considers that to be a thinking and concerned member of a society one is entitled to raise moral issues at the heart of even the most technical and professionalized activity as it involves one’s country, its power, its mode of interacting with its citizens as well as with other societies. In addition, the intellectual’s spirit as an amateur can enter and transform the merely professional routine most of us go through into something much more lively and radical; instead of doing what one is supposed to do one can ask why one does it, who benefits from it, how can it reconnects with a personal project and original thought.

Every intellectual has an audience and a constituency. The issue is whether that audience is there to be satisfied, and hence a client to be kept happy, or whether it is there to be challenged, and hence stirred into outright opposition or mobilized into greater democratic participation in the society. But in either case, there is no getting around authority and power, and no getting around the intellectual’s relationship to them. How does the intellectual address authority: as a professional supplicant or as its unrewarded, amateurish conscience?

Deleuze’s concept of Power (Claire Colebrook)
Deleuze’s concept of power is the positive idea of power to.
Deleuze’s antecedents in this tradition are Spinoza and Nietzsche.

For Spinoza a being is defined by its power, its striving or its potential to maintain itself (SW: survival).
Rather than seeing human life as having a proper form which it then ought to realize, so that potential would be properly oriented towards actualization, Spinoza regards potentiality as creative and expressive; if all life is the striving to express substance in all its different potentials then the fulfillment or joy of human life is the expansion of power.
Joy, as the realization of power, is therefore different from the moral opposition of good and evil, and opposition that impedes power by constraining it within some already given norm.

Nietzsche’s ‘Will to Power’ , for Deleuze, is an affirmation of life. Powers or forces from which beings are effected.
A master does not have power because he is a master; rather, it is the exercise of a certain power which produces masters and slaves.

Powers, in their encounters or connections with other powers, produce relations. But nothing in the power itself determines how it will be actualized, and any power has the potential to be actualized differently.
Relations are external to terms:
1) powers to be, powers actualized only in their relations to other powers.
2) If powers are actualized in a certain way, through the particular relations, it is also possible for different relations to produce different worlds; powers might be actualized through other relations.

Power is positive; a being is its power or what it can do.
Active power: maximizes it potential, pushes itself to its limit and affirms the life of which it is but one expression.
Reactive power: by contrast, turns back upon itself. Political power is reactive.

We imagine- from the image of individuals who exist together in a possible community- that we then need to form some form of political relation or system. But there can only be a polity or individual beings if there has already been an active power that has created such a community or assemblage of persons; once we realize this then we might think of politics as the recreation or reactivation of power, not as the redistribution or management of power.

Deleuze’s concept of Nomad Citizenship (Eugene Holland)
Groups organization is immanent to the relations composing them.
The organization is not imposed from above by a transcendent command.
An improvised jazz band forms a nomadic group, in contrast with a symphony orchestra; in the jazz band, group coherence arises immanently from the activity of improvising itself. Horizontal allegiance.

Nomad citizenship is a utopian concept created to re-articulate and suggest solutions to the problem posed by the lethal nature of modern nation-state citizenship.
Nomad citizenship is created to break the monopoly exercised by the State over conceptions and practices of citizenship, and to add or substitute alternative forms of belonging and allegiance.

Nina's Drawings

2007-06-12T12:30:00.000+02:00

Lennert's Drawing: Castle

2007-06-12T12:28:00.000+02:00

Review of debate at the Berlage Institute, 27 march 2007

2007-05-30T13:31:00.000+02:00

‘Gated Communities in the Age of Extreme Individualism’ by Stéphane Degoutin, Rients Dijkstra and Lars Lerup

The debate at the Berlage Institute on 27 march was one more of these useless debates. Very boring and very disappointing. Difference on European and American positions and the whole saga about American trying to realize European’s utopia dreams is also an outdated story belonging to the modern history. The discussion hardly extends outside LA and a bit of NL. South Africa was only briefly mentioned. I would like to add a few pointed with South African and Chinese references.

Rients Dijkstra talked about cars, as if automobile is synonymous as mobility. Mobility takes many levels and dimensions. Mobility has its price too- energy consumption, pollution, environmental crisis, etc.

In South Africa, gated community is so desirable, not only because fear plays a major factor in the mechanism, but also because of traffic congestions. People prefer to live in a secured and ‘complete’ surrounding, where they never have to get out anymore. They work online- a gift of mobility, so they can reduce traveling and ‘getting out’.

Maybe to find some clues of how to ‘re-fabricate’ gated community, what defines/makes gated community should have been outlined in the lectures:
Is gated community defined by the organizational diagram?
Is gated community defined by architectural style and dream-like environment, so people perpetually feel they are somewhere else and sometime else?
Is gated community defined by the mechanism of in-/ex-clusion?
Who governs gated community?
Who is keeping the demand of gated community going?
What really is the problem of gated community? What is ok and what is not?

One of the better points of Lars Lerup was to point out that overcoming and making distance at the same time is the ultimate art of gated community. To distant oneself from the undesirable, and to include all the desirables- the alike, facilities, golf course, etc- in one little world. In Chinese gated communities club houses are very crucial.; they are social centers of a ‘un-spontaneous/passive community’.

Lars Lerup made a point that walls and fences expel differences and include sameness. Behind walls there is a sort of commonality. I find examples in post-Apartheid South Africa very interesting. The enclave of Apartheid explodes into micro enclaves. Behind walls similar income brackets sort themselves out. Gated community does not know colors of skin. Gated community knows only have’s and have-not’s. Behind walls, difference of skin color is less important. Their collective enemy is who is outside. In order the perpetuate the speculative security development, fears has to be perpetually produced and propagated to maintain the demand for a secured environment.

St.Francis Bay, South Africa

What is also interesting is to understand gated community in a large economic dynamics. For example, Lars Lerup pointed out that land acquisition depends on land cost, which also dominates density and planning/design criteria. I would just say that this point does go very far, just think about a game of monopoly as example, one can have an initial idea of what the speculation is about. What I would like to add is that the phenomenon of gated community never exists alone. It is only symptomatic of a larger social illness. And gated communities never exist without the barrios, townships, or ghettos. Only focusing on the gated community is to ignore the complete ecology of have-havenot dynamics. It is the eternal struggle between master and servant.

Lars Lerup said that the problems against gated community is a European problem and architects need to invent grammar of life. Building has to be intelligent and it is architects’ job to re-fabricate the whole old idea of gated community, make it nice and livable and remodel gated community, make it richer and deeper. He pointed out that the problem of gated community stays a problem of practice. Research and books can put issues on the table but practice holds the key to better alternatives. I agree with this. But how can gated community be remodeled if the organizational diagram defines planning strategy and performance?

Saying ‘remodeling gated community into a nice and livable environment’ is as if gated community is not fundamentally problematic and discriminating. Stéphane Degoutin talked about gated community as part of the globalization and inter-infection process. I find gated community extremely problematic when places like China copies from the U.S. as a sort of lifestyle aspiration without further ‘re-fabrication’, editing or customizing to the Chinese context. The copy of a copy of a dumb American gated community does not produce something new and will never produce anything good. It is too easy to say that the problem against gated community is a European problem and all we need to do is to make good gated communities.

Shanghai, China

As a conclusion, Lars Lerup went on about how rhetoric is important; architects need to sharpen up our representation, provocation. Peter Trummer made it sound like the whole big answer lies in the technique. Rients Dijkstra simply concluded that architects should not take on all the issues, time management is very important. This to me is just a total surrender to the difficulty facing our profession and environment.

In comparison, the debate on 13 march had a much more polemic edge. Kees Christiaanse made a statement that out of gated community is down and out. In the future, people will look back on the modern history and say that was a brief moment in history without gated community. I wonder if gated community is maybe the true manifestation of humanity. And I just won’t believe that it is.

Becoming less

2007-05-21T13:41:00.000+02:00

Is becoming-less in the process to become the 3rd other-an active outsider who passionately participates in all the events?
Becoming-less is not an escape but to leave the existing position and acquire a different point of view (reference: the top of walls in SW’s masters thesis project) and explore this point of view.
One becomes less of a citizen of this country in order to become a citizen of another country. In a broader perspective, this person is more active and engaging in the world than ever before.

This is then a process of becoming more of a ‘world citizen’.

Neutrality and Isolation

2007-05-21T13:40:00.000+02:00

The notion of a neutral, isolated place (fault line) (in the middle) can be linked to the 3rd position. As the author/writer is the carrier of neutrality and isolation. I.e. 3rd position offers neutrality, isolation, in which the divide can be put into debate/discussion and be pronounced.
Reference: Icelandic parliament is called Althing. Congressmen are called thingmen. Meeting in the middle of fault line that marks the meeting place of the Atlantic and European tectonic plates. Here the middle line is a literal one. But architecture is pretty literal, isn’t it?

The 3rd other / 在兩個世界的外部

2007-05-21T13:39:00.000+02:00

因爲個人閲歷
跳出來看
站在中國
也站在西方的角度來看

臺北日記

2007-05-19T11:27:00.000+02:00

The last day in Taipei I was very sad. Sitting in the metro I could cry.
Taiwan is the way it is, not because people want things better.
If people have wanted better, they have not wanted it badly enough.
It is like it is because people leave it like it is.
I am even more sad because before I turned an adult, I decided to leave Taiwan.
I have no right to criticize. I am just sad.

評圖日記

2007-05-09T13:57:00.000+02:00

這次在淡江大學評圖的是5年級的畢業設計
第二個來評圖的同學，在我問了兩個簡單的問題後竟然哭了
我很同情，但是我也嚇了一大跳，我也受到很大的打擊啊
從來未曾有學生在我評圖的時候哭的
通常學生都說我的意見‘很有用’

年輕人們很脆弱很急躁很憂鬱啊
前三個同學們關心的課題是回憶，消失，不見
才20嵗出頭的年輕人
應該是關心如何建立和創造的年紀啊

是我太直接了嗎？
在臺灣，對學生講話要能幽默、拐彎抹角、又說出重點才是藝術
我可能是荷蘭化了，直接了當，一點不留情，但是本意絕對是好的

SW in Tamkang University Taipei

2007-05-08T03:42:00.000+02:00

SW reviewed 5th year students in TamKang University, Damshui, Taipei on 7 May 2007 Monday. She gave a lecture titled 'SuperDutch is over; let's get on with reality'.

TU Delft 2007 Msc4 Studio: Beijing Prototype Presentation

2007-04-23T10:59:00.001+02:00

Exhibition: Em/Div-erging Metropolis, Post-Apartheid Johannesburg

2007-04-22T10:52:00.002+02:00

Shiuan-Wen's research project, Paraniod Urbanism, is exhibited in School of Architecture in Mendrisio (accadamia di architettura di mendrisio, dell'universita della svizzera italiana). The tile of the exhibition is 'Em/Div - erging Metropolis: Post-Apartheid Johannesburg'. Opening of the exhibition will be held on 03 April 2007. See label 'research 00' for full content of the project. School of Architecture, Mendrisio

Nina's Drawings

2007-04-19T14:50:00.000+02:00

Lennert's Drawing: Tram

2007-04-17T12:06:00.000+02:00

Lennert's Drawing: Train over the hill

2007-04-17T12:05:00.000+02:00

Lennert's Drawing: Steamtrain

2007-04-17T12:02:00.000+02:00

TU Delft 2007 Spring Term

2007-03-01T13:21:00.001+01:00

Shiuan-Wen is co-tutoring with Bart Reuser (Next Architects) for Msc4 design studio in 2007 Spring Term at TU Delft. The studio searches for new 'Beijing prototype'. Studio takes place at Bouwkunde building 2nd floor, south wing, every Friday 10:00 - 16:00.

Local Celebrity

2007-03-01T00:19:00.000+01:00

Shiuan-Wen and Lennert are on local newpaper.
Isn't that sweet (and hilarious)?

Lennert's Drawing: Steamtrain

2007-02-27T21:21:00.000+01:00

Lennert's Drawing: Airplane Fell in the Water

2007-02-27T21:20:00.001+01:00

Lennert's Drawing: Racket

2007-02-27T21:12:00.000+01:00

Freedom, Collective

2007-02-26T11:39:00.000+01:00

To liberate oneself and achieve individual freedom is to recognize the struggle of the collective. And this works the other way around too, ie. the struggle of the collective enables individual freedom.
If we are imprisoned, then I am imprisoned.
But if I am free, this does not mean we are free.
Only if we are free, I am free.
The individual is to struggle for the collective.
But who are we?

Keyword: assemblage; middle and neutral place

2007-02-26T11:30:00.001+01:00

‘we don’t assemble because we agree, look alike, feel good, are socially compatible or wish to fuse together but because we are brought by divisive matters of concern into some neutral, isolated place (fault line) in order to come to some sort of provisional makeshift (dis)agreement.’
Bruno Latour ‘From Realpolitik to Dingpolitik’, Pg 23

Keyword: Sympathy

2007-02-26T11:16:00.001+01:00

The only benefit, I reflected, which the act of writing could offer me was to remove the differences which separated me from my fellow man.
Henry Miller, ‘Sexus’

Diary: Motherhood

2007-02-21T21:48:00.000+01:00

architect?
amateur activist?
teacher?
writer?
researcher?

MOTHER!!!!! yes!

HapPIG New Year

2007-02-21T21:36:00.001+01:00

爆竹聲中除舊歲，新年到！
佳節愉快！
千祥雲集，百福駢臻。
豐足度新歲，新春添喜慶。
萬事圓滿，大吉大利！
平安康健，諸事順遂。
財運亨通。好運旺旺來。
也祈禱宇宙有序，世界和平。
風調雨順，國泰民安。

Paranoid Urbanism: Enclaves in Johannesburg

2007-02-02T08:45:00.000+01:00

South Africa. The first free elections in 1994 turned the whites’ political, social and economic position upside-down. This challenge to white status was accompanied by insecurity about the future. In Johannesburg, the increasing crime rate across the city prompted an exodus of major first-world investors. Africans, previously confined to living outside the city proper in townships or ‘homelands’ started to move into the rest of the city. In response to this black ‘invasion’ the whites fled north in a spatial exodus that only the developers could keep up with. Most businesses migrated from downtown to the northern suburbs so as to be far away from ‘deteriorating’ downtown and ‘dangerous’ Soweto. Within seven years, a whole new suburban city – Standton – had been built in the north by speculators with new office blocks, a new financial centre, new malls, and new houses. Most of the developers’ plans consisted of walled and themed environments.

In Johannesburg, crime is the common topic of conversation among all races and classes. Stories, hearsay, anecdotes, mass media reports, even jokes amplify the threat of crime. Especially amongst the middle class, insecurity about the future, phobia about being the object of hostility and fear of losing possessions has grown into absolute intolerance of the ‘others’ and dramatic magnification of the need for self-defence. Paranoia about the unknown ‘others’, long suppressed under the protection of Apartheid, broke out with a vengeance once that protection was removed. Architecturally, the excessive self-defensiveness, the urge to counterattack, the desire to re-assume power and the longing for temporary mental escape from the unpleasant context, resulted in one logical solution: the fortified enclave.

The violent situation was skilfully exploited by the speculative development sector; high security ‘cluster homes’ and ‘office parks’ were launched, replete with extreme measures for combating crime. The enclave’s strategy for physical security can be summed up in one word, ‘fortification’. This fortification manifests itself in automatic gates operated by remote control, gatehouses manned by security guards, electrified fencing, surveillance cameras, rapid armed response by private security armies, lighting throughout the property, panic buttons, burglar-proof bars, built-in sirens, watch dogs, and spikes, broken glass, razor wire on top of walls, et cetera. Most of the enclaves have a single entry point; every time someone wants to enter, their personal details and the reason for their visit are recorded by security guards.

The characteristics of the enclaves – mono-functional, enclosed by walls and introverted – allow them to be built anywhere regardless of context. These walled and armed environments, filled with an array of programmes, both public and private, are located randomly in Johannesburg’s dry and boring landscape, like oases in the desert. Traditional public spaces, such as parks and squares, are less and less used since they are more likely to be exposed to crime. Emerging semi-public spaces like casinos, shopping malls, entertainment centres, gyms, golf clubs, have fully embraced the enclave principle by controlling access and so securing the commercial and communal environment.

While fortification provides physical protection, the demand for psychological security is satisfied by the architectural styles of the enclaves. Behind walls, all building typologies are European and historically styled; Victorian, Tudor, Mediterranean, Medieval and Georgian themed backdrops allude to safety and moral rectitude, allowing an unpleasant context to be psychologically denied. The theme park is the unconscious architectural strategy; super-reality and idyllic settings serve to replace the real world with an imaginary one. This escapism steers the mental image of reality to an interface between ‘somewhere else’ and ‘here and now’. Given the barren landscape and violent context, architecture in Johannesburg is obliged to provide an enhanced lifestyle in order to keep its inhabitants from emigrating. Every house has a lush garden, barbecue, swimming pool, or even tennis court. Dainfern, the biggest estate enclave in Sandton even has a golf course and clubhouse at the centre of the estate.

Johannesburg’s ‘bad’ taste is, however, fairly tame compared with that of Los Angeles. It is marked not by exuberance but by a mediocrity inspired by embarrassment and fear. Parading one’s wealth can have undesirable and predictable consequences such as kidnapping and robbery. This embarrassment and fear leads to the repressed desire for hedonism and that in turn results in mediocre vulgarity. Architecture best reflects this embarrassment: one lives in a Mediterranean villa, goes shopping in an Italian mall, works in a Tudor Mansion, relaxes in Caesar’s Palace, but all styles and gestures are hidden behind fortifications.

Paranoia is a significant determinant of new developments in Johannesburg. The enclaves are the spaces where middle-class Johannesburgers live, work and play nowadays. Fortification of the enclaves in the interests of physical safety is turning Johannesburg into a landscape of surveillance; the historic and European styles of enclave architecture – a form of psychological escape – are rapidly transforming the city into a giant theme park. Unless one is aware of that fear and paranoia, large parts of present-day Johannesburg do not make sense. But how will this evolve in the future?

Five scenarios for the future of paranoid Johannesburg

The following 5 scenarios are reflections of the nightmare images of what is currently happening or desired. The extreme prejudices and paranoia vis à vis ‘the others’ is manifested in the way the city is organized. In these scenarios, the Have-nots are represented by their movements and aspirations. The Haves are represented by their tools and tactics for modifying and defending their spaces. These 5 scenarios should serve as negative models and as metaphors that also apply outside the context of Johannesburg.

Paranoid Urbanism: Enclaves in Johannesburg: Scenario 1

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Scenario 1: Berlin Wall Model
Haves immediately erect a huge wall between themselves and the Have-nots.

Consequence
Absolutely no interaction between the two.
Resurrection of Apartheid, only cruder this time.

Paranoid Urbanism: Enclaves in Johannesburg: Scenario 2

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Scenario 2: Chinese Wall Model
Rows of walls are erected in the north. Located at openings in the walls, along the Highway of Emulation, are check points to control the entry of former Have-nots. But the Hotbed for Emulators is the only route by which Have-nots can acquire a different status.

Consequence
If entering the enclaves is the only aspiration for Have-nots, the Hotbed is crucial to their prospects of empowerment. Competition in the Hotbed will be fierce and the examination strict, but because of this whoever passes through the check points will be treated as an equal in the north. This system suggests that if one wants to become a member of Haves, there is no short cut. There is at least a sense of fairness. The landscape is divided into hierarchical layers with very strict caste system.