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urban investigation
/ strategic approach
client: Municipality of Perm
project team: Jörn Schiemann, Otto Weyers, City
Project Bureau Perm
photography: schiemann weyers
status: commission (2012) |
Visiting the recent Perm suburban extensions, the public interest
seems to be reduced to the very basic infrastructural needs: Getting
to the individual property by car (4x4 recommended), electricity,
water supply and canalisation (assumption). There is no sign of inhabitants
showing any interest in the public realm or any kind of social activities.
As a result, there is a strong developed trait to protect oneself
and ones property. Streetscapes are dominated by high fences. There
seems to be a lack of social control and the public realm looks abandoned.
Although making these observations, we would like to postulate that
there must be a common need for a particular quality of the ‘living
environment’. Furthermore we allege that in case of up upgrading
the living environment - starting with the public realm - a social
participation on part of the inhabitants will certainly occur. In
a second step, when a common interest concerning the living environment
is developed, rules and regulations about the interaction between
public and private can be established, improving the environment and
protecting the public (=common) interest.
In a series of case studies, different urban concepts and diverse
living environments are introduced by projecting archetypical low
rise developments onto the Perm situation. Apart from demonstrating
a possible urban and typological diversity, it is a plea for a contextual
approach. This approach does not require a ‘special context’
- but considering the fact of colonizing the final parts of the city
and also building on the edge of the ‘green belt’, this
approach gets a striking relevancy. |
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