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THE DEFINITION OF URBAN HABITAT AS SAFETY TOOL AGAINST
GLOBAL RISK
Cristina Olga Gociman* and Elena Dinu
University of Architecture and Urbanisme “Ion Mincu”, Bucharest, Romania
Abstract
The objectives of this research are: 1) Implementation of a strategic
management of protection against global risk by developing the concept of
safety-bearer habitat as the support space, which presents a high risk-security
level, meaning that it is not liable to be destroyed, as well as the space
endowed with patrimonial values that create and identify individuals’ feeling of
belonging to a community and the social sentiment of the being and 2)
Formation of a poly-nuclear system of special safety centers, able to relocate
in the post-disaster stage the affected population, named emergency habitat
support system able to generate post-disaster reconstruction.
The results of this research is the implementation of a strategic system for
global risk protection through the development of the concept of secure
habitat, which has to involve the entire society, authorities, legal and physical
persons in implementing a multilevel safety system involving: the building -
object; vicinity - building assembly; town and territory.
The methodology employed is 1) investigation and mapping of the
characteristics specific for hazard of the location, the exposed risk elements,
their vulnerability and the resulted risk (direct and indirect loss), as well as
establishing the accepted risk and 2) the identification of the secure habitat
typology with patrimonial identity for urban development and post-disaster
reconstruction.
The project is proposing the scientific substantiation of some management
operations for the reduction of disaster risk of the built space and the space
under post-disaster reconstruction with keeping the continuity and specificity
of the urban habitat, in order for the feeling of civic affiliation to be preserved.
Keywords: safety; patrimonial habitat; post-disaster reconstruction
* Corresponding author’s email: criba_proiectare@yahoo.com. Author’s email: elena@iaim.ro
THE CONSTRUCTED ENVIRONMENT AND THE SUSTAINABLE
DEVELOPMENT CONCEPT
Bucharest – a capital exposed to earthquake
Bucharest – capital of Romania is one of the European towns exposed to
earthquakes. With an area of 228 km2 and a population of 2,021,000 people, a great
density in the central area, high buildings built between the 2 world wars, Bucharest
had during the earthquake from March 1977 over 1500 dead and damages of over
$ 1,000,000. In this context, the efforts of the specialists and central administrative
authorities are focused on the implementation of a risk reduction management
regarding disasters, by direct methods – consolidation, as well as by indirect
methods – of legal type, for developing and urban strategy.
Determination of the type of habitat necessary to solve a post-disaster residential
crisis is made on the basis of a complex investigation, based on criteria of urban
sociology statistics, which will determine: estimation of demographic growth,
structure of population by groups of age, family structure by sexes, family structure
by occupations, social and religious affiliation, economic context, local and national
specificity, traditions of geo conformation – climatic, ethnical, religious.
The intervention in the calamity-stricken areas must assure the population a climate
of security of life, renewal and stimulation of the economy and increase of the habitat
quality and implicitly of the quality of life by restructuring. Reconstruction of the
patrimonial reference marks, identification of the identity spatial strategies generating
psychosocial security by reference to the “mental map” memory.
Risk management by the fundamental principal of durable development
Entitled suggestively „Our common future”, the BRUNTLAND Report described very
clearly and for the first time the process of the environment degradation, both on a
local -regional level and on a global level, in close connection with the economic
development, underlining at the same time the systematic transfer of certain
degradations on to the future generations, substantiating the concept of durable
development.
The definition of durable development is followed, in the Brundtland Report by its
explanation through two integrated notions:
- the concept of need - in particular the essential needs of the least favored who
need to have priority;
- the concept of limits, imposed by the current state of technology and social
organization over the ability of the environment to respond to our current and future
needs.
The six components of sustainability are respected in order of:
- maintain and enhance quality of life
- enhance economic vitality
- ensure social and intergenerational equity
- maintain and enhance environmental quality
- incorporate disaster resilience and mitigation into actions and decisions
- use a consensus-building, participatory process when making decisions.
One of the principles on which the concept of durable development based is the
principle of the eco-systemic approach, which derives from the ecologist vision of
environment protection. According to its definition, the ecosystem is „ the aggregate
of the physical, chemical and biological conditions that the life of an animal or
vegetal species depends on”. An ecosystem is a living dynamic organism,
characterized by a circulation of fluxes in the interior or between the interior and the
exterior of the system, to which the system adapts itself through its own forces,
changing its characteristics and thus evolving. The ecosystem consists of two major
components – the living as an individual, populations, biocenosis (biomass) and the
non-living – the environment, the support space of the living. The ecosystem-based
approach within the framework of the durable development supposes, on the one
hand, that we should understand the environment that we must respect it by
understanding its constituting ecosystems and on the other hand, that we should
understand other non/natural systems by assimilating them as ecosystems.
The constructed existential space, given by the relation between the support
environments (defined as habitat), where the individual lives, the collectivity defined
as antropocenosis, are forming the architectural ecosystem – urban ecosystem.
Organization of the ecological system
ORGANISM
& INDIVIDUAL
ENVIRONMENT POPULATION
&
MONOTYPE BIOCENOSIS
+
BIOTOPE BIOSPHERE
&
TOPOSPHERE
Metabolic
Relations
Reproduction
Relations
Ecological
Relations
Biosphere
Metabolism
Individual
Ecological
System Collective
Ecological
System Ecosystem Ecosphere
Fig. 1. Biological System + Environment = Ecological System
(Gociman, 1999a)
The Ecosystemic Disasters are defined by the introduction of turbulences or strong
aggressions in and around the biotope provoking changes, which in turn destroy the
ecosystem’s equilibrium, forming an entropic ecosystem.
Fig. 2. Entropic ecosystem - Specific concepts for risk management
(Gociman, 1999b)
THE ARCHITECTURAL ECOSYSTEM – A CONSTRUCTED EXISTENTIAL
SPACE
In his book „Existence, Space & Architecture” C. Norberg-Schulz decodes the
hierarchy of the existential space levels as reported to man and to his actions. This
structure points out people’s specific operating scenes, created through the
interaction with the existing architectural space and it also illustrates the cognitive
theory of space. The six levels of the existential space decoded by the author can be
identified by three environments recognized by the population of a certain place and
develops on their own territory: the individual, the proximal and the global
environments which are in direct interaction with the architectural space as
constructed existential space.
Means of knowledge Space of knowledge
Hand Objects of direct
utilization - tools
Human body
Objects of indirect
utilization -furniture
Human body
movement House
Architectural
ecosystem
Individual environment
(man + architectural
space)
Social interactions Urban neighborhood
Ambient interactions Landscape
Urban ecosystem.
Proximate
environment.
Group of people + urban
space.
Cognitive interactions
Geographic space
Territorial ecosystem.
Global environment.
Populations + inhabited
territory
Fig.3. Organization of the architectural – urban ecosystem (Gociman, 2006a)
This perception of the space organization establishes a hierarchy of the relationship
of the individual - collectivity (the anthropogenesis) with the environment (the
biotope), fact that creates behavioral reference points that are fundamentally
necessary to reconstruct in case a disaster occurs.
HABITAT – SUPPORT SPACE
The habitat is a special-functional network in which the dwelling as a basic structure
coexists with the complementary public structures, commercial, educational, health
and leisure facilities. The configuration of the habitat is an expression of the geo-
climatic, social-political and religious determinations of each community as a result
of its organic development. This characteristic forms a historical as well as a cultural
dimension of the community. The brutal destruction of the habitat as a result of
natural or anthropical disasters represents one of the major losses of a
collectivity.
The patrimonial habitat
The patrimonial habitat is finite from a spatial point of view – by accumulation in the
territory, but infinite from a temporal point of view, by continuous selection during the
evolution of the collectivity, with certain specificity, expressing an energetic balance
between tradition and innovation. This mobility and power to adapt itself enable it to
assimilate in the contemporary world the true values, describing a mode of
functioning specific to the living organism – self-adjustment.
The evolution of the urban ecosystem both on
the level of the needs as well as on the level of
responses creates the premise of a
transgression of essences, able to open and to
incorporate any manifest gesture as a fiction of
a future tradition. The assimilation, the
sedimentation of constructed gesture will
create a conservative definition of the space,
which will interact with the future act of
construction, with the resistance of the
“tradition”. The impulse generated by the
couple architect-beneficiary and the response
of the biotope (natural environment,
architectural environment) will form a biunique relationship – one of self-adjustment.
Analyzing the result of this interaction, we find at the level of the biotope an
accumulative sedimentation, the one keeping with the patrimony, and at the level of
the anthropogenesis an essentialization of mentality – conceptualizing the identity
and the tradition.
PA TRI M O N Y
BIOTOP
IN OVATNION
USED
Fi
g
. 4. Evolution of the urban
p
atrimonial ecos
y
stem
(
Gociman, 2006b
)
The habitat – reference point
After the destructions caused by World War II, starting from the existing problem of
city reconstruction, the architect Kevin Lynch set on to demonstrate that existential
and architectural space as imagined by humans are the result of a mental process
by which the exterior world is perceived. According to Lynch, this image is the result
both of imediate sensations and of the memory of past experience.
In his study "Toward an Architectural Design Epistemiology Regard as a Place
Creation Activity" - John Muntanola Thornberg maintains that architecture, by
creating places that contain life, has a human value.
According to Lynch’s research on citizens and the perception of constructed
environment, he points out that each individual carries with himself an “image map”,
a mental projection of the reality marked by physical, cultural and psycho-social
components, by “places”.
Localization of space (of every space) is submitted to certain relations with certain
“places” – fundamental childhood reference points: home, church, school.
Identification of space is connected with its personalization: important routes in a
network, as reference marks – points on a route, materials, texture, color, light –
which can be identifiable.
Fig. 6. The “Patria” Inn, Bucharest – facade and
sidewalls (Joja C-tin., 1999a)
Fig. 7. The Melik Residence, Bucharest – facades (Joja C-tin., 1999b)
Localization is submitted to associations with certain events: cultural, religious. The
identification with a certain characteristic responds to a necessity of repeatability,
even to one historic information.
Localization is connected to the memory of certain emotions and feelings
experienced in a certain space. Identification of a spirit of the place – generator of
affinity, familiarity, sadness, joy etc.
The visual perception
The constructed space proposes to each
receptor a particular representation,
cognition of the perceptive images is
accomplished only through an analysis of
the individual spatial representations,
which are tightly connected with the
mental representation of the individual
with respect to his environment and with
the way in which he receives the
information as a message coming from
the constructed and social space.
The mental image of the city, structured
into a mental „map” is partially sequential
and sectorial, the known areas being
interconnected by linear visual flows
corresponding to the axes of movement
and in which an important role is
performed by speed of movement, the
clearest parts of the mental map being
those connected to the usual ones and to
the activities, that is those connected to
recognition and functional identification. In
the relationship of the individual with the
constructed space, the transfer and
reflection at the level of the subjective
image of the mental „map” is performed
through some main perceptive criteria,
more precisely through scale, reference
points, visual sequences, together with
distance, duration and speed of
perception. These criteria were identified
and pinted out as connecting elements
between the mental and the real space,
as constitutive components of the architectural space.
Marcel Proust described the difficulty of presenting a fixed image of the character of
a society or of a passion. In this universe in which the fragments of classical world
Fig.8. Houses group analysis in
Pferdemarkt, Hameln, Germany
are atomized different past present and future temporalities are mixed up in an
imperceptible way and in an unstable balance, decoding images and explored
spaces becomes an object of permanent reading again. “One of the functions of
architecture is to reveal the unconscious memory hidden in forms”, says Fumihiko
Maki.
Possible spatiality
The moment when the habitat gets de-structured pursuant to a calamity, the
collectivity loses its „orientation”, the affiliation to the space of „mental map” memory
requires a re-creation, a reconstruction of the former reference points now
disappeared, in order to give behavioral stability to the community.
a. The intermediary – Romanian Space
The indefinite japanese space, deriving from the Buddhist idea of vague, ambiguous,
floating frontiers specific to the Hara logic, the gray space defined by Kurokawa,
represents an area of coexistence.
The romanian space also pointed out by Constantin Joja as a space of shade, of the
porch and large eaves, which dematerialize the house, constitutes a point of
tangency of two different worlds. An intermediary space between the indoors and the
outdoors, between shade and light, monovalence and plurivalence, place of reverie
and meditation, the porch scrutinizes the horizon as a huge eye open to the world, in
a total assimilation with its best friend – the nature. Its resemblance to a circle that
closes and opens itself, as C.Noica remarked in his “The Romanian Feeling of
Being”, reminds us of the complementary conciliation of the antagonistic Ying and
Yang in the well-known Chinese symbol.
Revealing the dual character of existence in nature, Blaga shows that to the extent in
which knowledge implies ordination, the known environment is our creation. In this
Fig. 10. Visual sequences
Frankfurt – The Römerberg Front
Fig. 9. Linden Inn, Bucharest
(Joja C-tin., 1999c)
Fig.11. Present situation of the
Romanian Architectural
tradition (Joja C-tin., 1999d)
Fig. 13. The schematic representation of the Romanian
traditional intermediary space (Caffe M., 1987a) Fig.12. Church from
Maramures, Village
Museum, Bucharest
context, getting to know the nature by contemplating it means re-creating it
perpetually: people of different ethnical origins model space in a different way, some
of them incorporating it as a friend, others rejecting it as a virtual enemy.
b. Bipolarity / Adaptability
The Romanian stylistic field – appertaining to
the Carpathians-Danube geographic area –
is a bipolar field situated at the limit of the
active and dynamic Occidental world and of
the Oriental world of “passive resignation”
and acquires an intermediary and
conciliating value, that is adaptability.
Revealing the sinusoidal character of the
Romanian topos, character which is also
present in the existing architecture of the
antagonistic horizontal-vertical duality on a
system level (that is at the level of the
village) is also present at the level of the
object, that is of the house and of the porch.
The conciliation of the antagonistic duality
indoors-outdoors, shade-light, horizontal-
vertical in the intermediary area, the
transparency, the mobility of the Romanian
space, the essentializing purity, they all
start from the deep apprehension of the
measure of things, of the behavior of materials,
incorporating a serene cosmogonical vision of
being in harmony with the world.
The feeling of durability over the ephemeral by sacrifice has with the Romanians a
remote mythical root. Starting from the ancient Indo-European archetype of the
cosmic pillar, according to which at the very basement of the house a soul is laid, the
legend of Manole the Craftsman is illustrating, advocating the idea of sacrifice as a
condition of durable construction.
The safety-bearing habitat
Safe habitat with patrimonial identity = safety-bearing habitat.
Safe habitat
The development of the safe habitat concept must involve the entire society,
authorities, legal entities and individuals for the implementation of a multilevel safety
plan involving: the object submitted to the process; the neighborhood – the complex
of buildings; the settlement (village, town, city).
The safety-bearing building imposes: more efficient technical norms of protection
against different hazards, appliance of new technologies and diminution of the
object’s specific vulnerability. The safety-bearing complex of buildings is based on
the different behavior of the individual constructions of the ensemble, the
components of which can interact, which requires that the behavior of an
heterogeneous building ensemble be calculated in relationship with the entire
A
19th century street in Bucharest
Typical rental house
from Bucharest,
period 1846-1910
The Prodan house
from Ploiesti
The former
University of Jassy
The Palace of Potlogi
Typical rural house
Fig. 14. Transfer of traditional Romanian folk house plan into the plan of
aristocratic city houses and of palaces. (Caffe M., 1987b)
ensemble’s hazard. The safety-bearing place (village, town, city) must become a
secure polycentric network; the safety-bearing territory is a secure area of globality.
Multilevel safety system
A safety-system regarding the organization of the city areas towards which the
affected population of a zone can be evacuated creates a local safety system and
determines the area of evacuation to these centers. Formation of the– green areas
network with facilities and possible flexible connections for ensuring the necessary
supplies, which can become zones of linear evacuation, emergency transportation
lines or lines of fire stoppage in case of fire. The green knots are green areas, parks,
squares able to receive the population evacuated from the neighborhood or areas
associated to certain public functions, supplementary dimensioned and calculated
for risk situations (schools, hospitals), able to accommodate the evacuated persons.
These strategic knots will be equipped with water reserves or tanks with a double
supply system, both from the municipal network and from a well. They can be
equipped with electric generators (if possible), with toilets connected to a
biodegradable septic tank and will have the possibility to be connected to a
communication system.
Reconstruction of the destroyed areas must be based on a systemic analysis.
Criteria of approach such as:
- priority necessities of the population dislocated both from the dwelling space and
from the productive space regarding the reconstruction of the destroyed facilities.
- the development premises created by the need of reconstruction – named
premises of urban restructuring, which can be different from the provisions of the
projects of urbanism approved initially.
- functional remodeling of certain buildings – architectural monuments and social-
functional re-conversion modeling.
These criteria can generate a new general or zonal plan, which will orient differently
the development of the area estimated before the occurrence of the disaster. In
accordance with the international expertise, there are three different ways to produce
Fig. 16. Chart for creating a strategic
center– evacuation of more ilous
(
Gociman, 2006e
)
Fig. 15. Evacuation chart of a
strategic ilou – strategic knot
(Gociman, 2006d)
the habitat, which also generates a certain classification: the planned habitat, the
administered habitat and the sub-integrated habitat.
The planned habitat – is the simplest and fastest solution to solve the requirements
of a mass crisis and represents a coherent performance of project-execution for
residential and service ensembles. The planned habitat is the object of a big
investment supported from the budget or by big investors in order to satisfy: a rapid
demand of dwellings and services with a concentration of responsibilities and
components. It offers the possibility of a correct investment management and of
easy administration. It is obvious that the system has disadvantages in terms of
homogeneity that imposes monotony; a low degree of flexibility that does not allow
the special-functional evolution might generate social-urban pathologies.
At the same time, it requires large-surface empty plots of land, which are not always
available but only be urban extension or by eradication of some de-structured areas.
The administered habitat – is a moderate solution of intervention in the territory,
the initiative appertaining to the investor, the administration specifying only the
construction possibilities or interdictions resulting form the urbanism regulations –
R.L.O. (rate of land occupation); L.U.C (land utilization coefficient), alignments,
height standards. This type of habitat represents a permanent juxtaposition of the
individual initiative and the control/guidance of the administration, creating problems
in the relationship between private and public both from a managerial and financial
point of view and with respect to the property. Historical places and cities are an
eloquent example of this organic growth of such habitat.
Fig.17.
Formulation of a
new pattern of
global approach
(Gociman, 1999c)
The subintegrated habitat – appears under extraordinary demographic pressures
as a product of a construction made by one’s own means and built of different
materials by people of poor means. This type of habitat is not within the legal
boundaries, formally administered and cannot be submitted to any therapy.
Eradication of this proliferation is a problem of urban prophylaxis, but first of all it is a
social-economic problem.
All these three types of habitat coexist, the planned habitat being prevalent in the
periods of centralized planned economy (the plots of cheap-apartment blocks of flats
of a “social” type, the large dormitory areas of “modern” cities), the administered
habitat in the periods of liberal economic orientation and the sub-integrated is
recorded most often in developing countries or in the periods of post-disaster
relocation.
By the estimated duration of use, we have two types of habitat: permanent or
temporary.
The permanent habitat – is the one described hereinbefore as a modality of
permanent residency.
The temporary habitat – consists of residential units preserved in case of disasters or
minimum services able to take over for a period of a few months the accommodation of
the victims of the calamity and which can be then deactivated or maintained in
accordance with the existing demands. The temporary habitat is currently used in
“drawer”-type operations of substituting the sub-integrated habitat (the “slum” population
is transferred to a temporary lodging campus while the de-structured area is rebuilt).
Considering the degree of vulnerability of the habitat, we can have a safety-bearing urban
habitat or a habitat exposed to risk.
CONCLUSIONS
Urban strategies for risk reduction
1. Definition – formation and implementation of the concept of safe habitat at all
the levels of spatial organization: object, neighborhood, residential area,
town/city, territory.
2. Identification of the specific components of the patrimonial habitat – reference
points, routes, architectural, cultural, religious and affective sequences which
can be reconstituted and which can create the mental map of the community.
3. Zoning of the territory of the settlement by criteria of protection against
disasters, into strategic areas, dimensioning the area by considering the risk
class and especially the possible number of affected population which is likely
to be evacuated towards a given location, named security cluster and
independent from an energetic point of view and having medical, food and
equipment reserves.
4. Formation of a poly-nuclear system of secure zones able to protect and
relocate the affected population and to generate emergency habitat – support
for post-disaster reconstruction.
5. The management of rehabilitation as well as of that of reconstruction must be
based on the involvement of all those affected, individuals, collectivities,
institutions.
Ascertainment, interpretation and mythifying are stages of a non-implicated archaic
wisdom that we must now abandon, adopting an attitude of implication. By aggressing,
we become aggressed ourselves
and the contemplation becomes
an obsolete attitude, which
changes exactly by implication.
Our “cohabitation” with the hazard
modifies the reference points of
stability, compelling us to a
receptive and anticipative
permanent dynamic action,
represented by the new type of risk
managerial approach, a risk which
aggresses the architectural
ecosystem – a symbolic
expression of the existential space
potentiated towards a permanent
reconstruction.
REFERENCES
Brundtland Report – “Our common future”, 1987
Norberg-Schultz, Charles – “Existence, Space and Architecture”
Gociman, Cristina Olga – „The management – architectural ecosystem relationship
in the reduction of disaster risk”, Ion Mincu University Press, Bucharest, 2000
Gociman, Cristina Olga – „Habitat investigation – ecosystem approach”, Ion Mincu
University Press, Bucharest, 2006
Gociman, Cristina Olga – „Management of disaster risk reduction – architecture
and urbanism strategies”, Ion Mincu University Press, Bucharest, 2006
Joja, Constantin – „Glass facades”, Simetria Publishing House, 1999
Joja, Constantin – „The present condition of the Romanian architectural tradition”,
Technical Publishing House, Bucharest, 1984
Spengelin, Friedrich – „Stadtraume in Wendel”, Germany, 1998
Caffe, Mihail (coordinator) – „Contemporary house – issues and points of view”,
Technical Publishing House, Bucharest, 1987
Cockburn, Charles and Barakart Sultan – “Community property throught
reconstruction management”, Teheran, 1991
Noica, Constantin – “The Romanian Feeling of Being”, Bucharest
Lynch, Kevin – “Town image”, 1960
Muntanola Thornberg, John – “Toward an Architecture Design Epistemiology
Regard as a Place Creation Activity”
Aristotel – “Physics”, Book IV
Blaga, Lucian – “Spatiul mioritic”
Fig. 18. Arrangement proposal for temporary
habitat
(
Gociman, 2006e
)