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As a result of the pressing environmental and technological conditions dominant today, new frontiers for architectural production are emerging. Fueled by accelerated change and increased connectivity, these trajectories operate across multiple scales and domains. The evolving relationship between place, technology, and occupancy formulates a complex active structure that tends to have fluctuating levels of activity and impact. These conditions are giving way to hybridized settings where the interdependence of digital and analog is altering the very politics of place and identity. In response to the prevalence of amalgamated settings, the paradigm of “Dynamic Landscapes, Emerging Territories” is presented. Dynamic Landscapes have definitions and presence in multiple locations simultaneously, requiring new methods of documentation and assessment in order to conceive appropriate design responses. The paper uses the Syrian Refugee Crisis as a case study for deciphering the implications inherent in displacement in the context of dynamic landscapes. Furthermore, it presents an opportunity to think of new architectural trajectories rooted and driven by the animation of such sites. Inherently dynamic, forced displacement presents rich emerging territories where design carries significant impact and facilitates a tangible reassessment of a refugee’s narrative. Supported by robust information networks and active feedback loops, displaced landscapes as such can learn from their residents and inform their imminent futures specifically, as well as our collective human occupancy at large. Within constantly changing milieus, architecture’s premises and processes are being challenged to respond to fluctuating contexts and provide for transient occupancies. While some may see this as a loss of spatial agency when it comes to design, these conditions present an opportunity to think of new architectural trajectories that are rooted and driven by the dynamism of multilayered landscapes and new approaches towards practice.
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1 College of Architecture and Design, University of Tennessee, USA
Architecture_MPS
Dynamic Landscapes, Emerging Territories
Rana Abudayyeh 1
How to cite: Abudayyeh, R. Dynamic Landscapes, Emerging Territories
Architecture_MPS, 2019, 15(4): 4, pp. 124. DOI:
https://doi.org/10.14324/111.444.amps.2019v15i4.001.
Published: 06 May 2019
Peer Review:
This article has been peer reviewed through the journal’s standard Editorial double blind peer review.
Copyright:
© [2019], The Author(s). This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative
Commons Attribution License (CC-BY) 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/, which permits
re-use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are
credited • DOI: https://doi.org/10.14324/111.444.amps.2019v15i4.001
Open Access:
Architecture_MPS is a peer-reviewed open access journal.
Amps
ARCHITECTURE_MEDIA_POLITICS_SOCIETY Vol. 15 No. 4 May 2019
DOI: 10.14324/111.444.amps.2019v15i4.001, © 2019, The Authors. This is an Open Access article
distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted
use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Title: Dynamic Landscapes,
Emerging Territories
Author: Rana Abudayyeh
Architecture_media_politics_society. vol. 15, no. 4.
May 2019
Affiliation: College of Architecture and Design, University of
Tennessee, USA
Abstract
As a result of the pressing environmental and technological conditions dom-
inant today, new frontiers for architectural production are emerging. Fueled
by accelerated change and increased connectivity, these trajectories operate
across multiple scales and domains. The evolving relationship between place,
technology, and occupancy formulates a complex active structure that tends
to have fluctuating levels of activity and impact. These conditions are giving
way to hybridized settings where the interdependence of digital and analog is
altering the very politics of place and identity. In response to the prevalence
of amalgamated settings, the paradigm of “Dynamic Landscapes, Emerging
Territories” is presented.
Dynamic Landscapes have definitions and presence in multiple locations
simultaneously, requiring new methods of documentation and assessment
in order to conceive appropriate design responses. The paper uses the Syrian
Refugee Crisis as a case study for deciphering the implications inherent in dis-
placement in the context of dynamic landscapes. Furthermore, it presents an
opportunity to think of new architectural trajectories rooted and driven by the
animation of such sites. Inherently dynamic, forced displacement presents rich
emerging territories where design carries significant impact and facilitates a
tangible reassessment of a refugee’s narrative. Supported by robust information
Amps
ARCHITECTURE_MEDIA_POLITICS_SOCIETY Vol. 15 No. 4 May 2019
DOI: 10.14324/111.444.amps.2019v15i4.001, © 2019, The Authors. This is an Open Access article
distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted
use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
networks and active feedback loops, displaced landscapes as such can learn
from their residents and inform their imminent futures specifically, as well as
our collective human occupancy at large.
Within constantly changing milieus, architecture’s premises and processes
are being challenged to respond to fluctuating contexts and provide for tran-
sient occupancies. While some may see this as a loss of spatial agency when
it comes to design, these conditions present an opportunity to think of new
architectural trajectories that are rooted and driven by the dynamism of multi-
layered landscapes and new approaches towards practice.
ARCHITECTURE_MEDIA_POLITICS_SOCIETY Vol. 15 No. 4 May 2019 1
Amps
DOI: 10.14324/111.444.amps.2019v15i4.001
Title: Dynamic Landscapes, Emerging
Territories
Author: Rana Abudayyeh
Architecture_media_politics_society. vol. 15, no. 4.
May 2019
Introduction
As our living is becoming increasingly dependent on hyper-data and our sur-
roundings defined by binary codes, a liminal area is emerging where the stark
distinction between the real and virtual ceases to exist. The overlap of these
two contexts is giving way to hybridized settings where the interdependence of
digital and analog is altering the very politics of place and identity. In response
to the prevalence of amalgamated settings, the paradigm of “Dynamic
Landscapes, Emerging Territories” is presented. Impacted by technology and
displacement, landscapes acquire a dynamism that is maintained by the docu-
mentation and dissemination of data flows. Previously, proximity has defined
territories. Now, within this dynamic modality, territories emerge based on
common technological parameters and collective displacement patterns.
The human influence on the environment, both physically and conceptu-
ally, frames the dynamic landscape. The Syrian refugee crisis is a real-time
example of this influence, illustrating how displacement and technological
channels redefine the physical and abstract parameters of a given region. They
give rise to territories whose commonality is not characterized by adjacen-
cies, but rather by virtual connectivity. As such, the definition of landscape
is being questioned; it is no longer static, nor is it local. It can be both virtual
and physical; it is dynamic. This paper uses the Syrian refugee crisis as a case
study for deciphering the implications inherent in displacement in the context
of dynamic landscapes. Furthermore, it presents an opportunity to think of
new architectural trajectories rooted and driven by the animation of such sites.
Here and now, architecture’s premises and processes are being challenged to
respond to fluctuating contexts and provide for transient occupancies.
Fueled by high levels of instability, accelerated change, and increased con-
nectivity, new frontiers for architectural production are emerging. These fron-
tiers operate across multiple scales and domains. Heretofore, architectural
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practice has had the luxury of overlooking some distant parameters if they
did not directly interfere with the physical implementation of built constructs.
However, technological advances and pressing contextual realities are changing
proximities, and realms of impact. As architects and global citizens, we are no
longer afforded such privileges, as localized issues are continually becoming
global concerns. The situational ubiquity enacted by technological advances
demands we address new complex settings and layered contextual parameters.
Due to the intricacies of these conditions, the individualistic approach to archi-
tecture becomes ineffective. As a result, we see the development of collective
design sensibilities facilitated by emerging patterns of collaborative practice
that rely on unprecedented access to shared knowledge. Straddling the inter-
face between the virtual and actual, such design approaches are redefining tol-
erances of authorship and singularity, while advocating for collective voices
and cumulative making.
Dynamic Landscapes between Technology and Displacement
In recent years, population displacement reflected by an unequivocal surge
in refugee numbers has emerged as a significant global force. In its Annual
Global Trend report released in 2018, the UN Refugee Agency states that
68.5 million people were displaced by the end of 2017.1 While crises both
natural and manmade have triggered mass relocations in the past, the cur-
rent patterns of forced displacement are very different. They are transgress-
ing regional boundaries, simultaneously affecting local and global narratives.
These recent patterns are not only testing the resilience of our resources, but
also our humanity as they unearth deep biases, fears, claims to place, and
definitions of identity.
While the causes of population displacement vary, the commonality of such
factors lies in the patterns of landscape occupancy and their ultimate manifes-
tations in the built environment. The built environment reflects our relation-
ship to place and the agency of our claim to where we are from and ultimately
who we are. And while design is not at the forefront of policy negotiations
when it comes to displacement, it directly impacts the perception of place and
reading of identity. This is especially relevant among displaced populations.2
Adding to the existing complexities of the politics and logistics of displace-
ment is a new layer of unprecedented access to and dependence on technology,
especially information and communication technologies (ICTs). Amidst this
new-found connectivity, the rise of a “networked population” occurs, a popula-
tion well connected through digital media structures, and via personal commu-
nication devices. According to the Global System for Mobile Communications
Association originally Groupe Spécial Mobile (GSMA), as of June 2017, five
billion people (two-thirds of the world’s population) have a mobile phone con-
nection. The trend is showing no sign of decline. On the contrary, it is projected
that the number of unique mobile subscribers will reach 5.9 billion by 2025.3
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In an article published in Foreign Affairs titled, “The Political Power of
Social Media: Technology, The Public Sphere, and Political Change,” Clay
Shirky argues, “As the communications landscape gets denser, more complex,
and more participatory, the networked population is gaining greater access to
information, more opportunities to engage in public speech, and an enhanced
ability to undertake collective action.”4 The prevalence of technological medi-
ums and the rise of the networked entity demarks a substantial change in power
structures. Here, the emphasis shifts from the physical to the nonphysical: while
land and territory were the measures of domination in the old world, the new
world’s currency is connectivity.5
The evolving relationship between place, technology, and occupancies for-
mulates a complex and dynamic structure that tends to have fluctuating levels
of activity and impact. The Syrian refugee crisis has been one of many emerg-
ing territories where this dynamism is evident. The Syrian War engendered
a massive population displacement, creating the world’s fifth largest refugee
camp,6 Al-Zaatari Camp, in a matter of months (Figure 1). The sudden shift
induced by this event has carried vast implications, socially, politically, and eco-
nomically. In coming years, the massive population displacement of the Syrian
people is bound to redefine the physical and abstract parameters of the region
and beyond. However, unlike former relocations, the Syrian scenario involves
new parameters (Figure 2). Not only did the Syrian War engender a massive
population displacement that occurred at an unprecedented rate, it also dis-
played a heavy virtual presence characterized by the constant circulation of
raw footage on newsfeeds and social media outlets. The new era of techno-
logical connectivity facilitated common extensions to the localities of familiar
refugee circuits, while allowing for new patterns of migration to occur beyond
the expected regional boundaries.
This technological connectivity demarks a shift in the region’s power struc-
ture. It uncovers new narrative sources, as traditional mainstream media outlets
no longer control the propagation of information, and consequently, no longer
control the regions global image. The narrative shift is induced and sustained via
the continually circulating accounts of the refugees that are being collected and
disseminated on portable cellular devices carried by an overwhelming majority
of them. Penn State University research done by the College of Information
Sciences and Technology surveyed the use of mobile devices in Al-Zaatari
Refugee Camp, Jordan.7 A report of the findings stated, “Increasingly, the lives
of refugees are affected by the use of information and communication technol-
ogies (ICTs).”8 The findings noted that refugees, like many technologically lit-
erate individuals are more frequently arriving at the camp with mobile phones.
Further, many are coming with computing and internet skills; the phones have
provided an important lifeline of information and communication with loved
ones.9 The ICTs catered to transient archival fragments of memories, informa-
tion, and subjective maps (Figure 2). These tokens of an ever-changing geopo-
litical and cultural landscape operate under continual shifts that will affect the
regional and global narratives for years to come.
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Within such reconfigured terrains where conventional notions of physical
and abstract bearings no longer apply, what becomes of identity when asso-
ciations with place/placement degrade? How will this affect modes of spatial
production and landscape interventions? Can emerging architectural attitudes
within the context of such extremes negotiate disputed limits and perform in
such states of instability? Even though we are not able to immediately draw clear
conclusions from the implications of these amalgamated settings, if assessed
properly, and at times improperly, their survey will yield a unique premise for
understanding emerging norms in a global culture where conventional notions
of anchoring and even relevance are being redefined.
Figure 1: Top: a series of satellite images showing the rapid growth of AL-Zaatari
Refugee Camp across a period of seven months. Source: www.nytimes.com/
interactive/2013/05/09/world/middleeast/zaatari.html. Bottom: Google Earth aerial
images showing the transformation of Al Zaatari’s organization. The refugees
reordered the shelter units, clustering them in various formations as to facilitate
living near extended family in some cases, and to house businesses in others.
Source: by author via Google Earth.
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Figure 2: Top: cellular signals’ strength and density in Al-Zaatari Refugee Camp
as reported by OpenSignal app users in the camp, 2017. Source: https://opensignal.
com/networks. Bottom left: Still from the documentary film, “District Zero,” 2015.
Source: www.districtzero.org/. The movie documents the role mobile devices play in
connecting Al-Zaatari residents to their homelands. Bottom right: A still from the
documentary shorts: Syria after Syria. Filmed by young refugees living in Al-Zaatari,
the shorts depict life in the camp. The image above shows the interior of one of the
shelter units, modified to accommodate the physical and psychological needs of
families. Source: www.wvi.org/stories-after-syria.
Dynamic Landscapes and the Politics of Containment
We are beings linked to states of containment. We seek to define ourselves by
our built constructs (their presence and absence alike). We build as an expres-
sion of civility; and with the same token, destruct in an exposition of power.
We determine territories and claim settlements within landscapes that define
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and are defined by us. Occupants, stewards, nomads, settlers, pilgrims, immi-
grants, indigenes, pioneers, sojourners, and refugees are various identities
annexed by our relationship to place. Such are our histories, stories of our
engagements with containment and context. Architecture is seldom assessed
as a condition of containment, perhaps due to the fact that the term “con-
tainer” may evoke negative connotations. However, negotiating containment
its composition, psychology, and thereafter its politics – is at the heart of the
built environment. Working at once to create enclosures and break away from
them, remains the practical and conceptual premise of making space.
Assessing this containment as it relates to displacement in its various scales,
iterations, and manifestations in our present era of technological ubiquity is
vital to the practice of design within dynamic settings. Understanding the pol-
itics of making enclosure must acknowledge, not only the physical parameters,
but also the virtual. Technology in its vast meaning and respective digital pro-
cesses of thinking and making space has political dimensions that play a signif-
icant role in our present cultural and social makeup. The provocations inherent
in the coupling of technology and social identity are a pressing reality that
design must acknowledge and even embrace. Virtual space is now part of our
daily syntax and metabolism, integrated fully within our built constructs and
social fabrics, ushering in new geographies of place and information.10 As such,
the refugee camp is understood as an instant, hybrid city mediated through
substantial physical and virtual networks. In a traditional city, an occupant
is still able to draw relevance from its physical places that also define virtual
markers. If someone lives in London, he/she is a Londoner. Once regional terri-
tories are crossed, virtual media assumes the identity of the place as well, tuned
via the Global Positioning System (GPS) to one’s devices.
Settings of rapid change ushered in by displacement do not adhere to those
terms, and in a conspicuous way give us a foretaste of a near future where the
physical setting is bound to lose its locational agency. For a refugee, being in a
particular place does not imply belonging to that place. Here, the faculty of the
physical place seizes, giving way to fragments of memories, oral histories, and
cultural rituals that find support in a robust virtual database and ever-changing
newsfeeds. Such circumstances offer a rich testing ground for designs aptitude
to assert identity, as they offer freedom from the obligations to regional loy-
alties. However, in the wake of dire need and emergency responses, design is
dismissed in favor of modularization.11 This often transpires due to practicality
and efficiency. Yet, there is another factor at play: design is associated with per-
manence and is a calculated investment in the collective identity and claim to
place. If the host country invests in the design of a displacement camp, a refugee
camp, will this engender an invitation to settle, rather than temporally occupy?
Architecture’s aptitude for substantiating identity is well established; we see it
articulated in the writings of Edmund Husserl, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, and
Henri Lefebvre, for example. French sociologist Pierre Felix Bourdieu draws a
clear correlation between built space and social identity. His writings postulate
that a relationship between self and identity is foregrounded in built space.12
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Yet, the built environment’s capability to ground identity by its literal anchor-
ing to site, is the same aspect that prematurely curbs its capacity to negotiate
disputed limits.
A study published in Epidemiology and Psychiatric Sciences Journal, assess-
ing distress factors among refugees, found that the lack of residential stabil-
ity provokes a sense of perpetual homelessness. This affects a refugee’s mental
and physical health.13 Furthermore, the generic shelters often used in refu-
gee camps purposefully deter a displaced person from formulating a sense of
belonging to the area where she/he relocates. As a result of displacement, one’s
identity shifts from the common anchoring that design provides to the insta-
bility implied by transience and what ensues with regards to discriminatory
perception. Often, displacement is rendered unworthy of design investments,
but what if we change our design approach towards refugee camps and in turn,
external and internal attitudes towards a displaced group of people? Achieving
this task will depend on employing technological advances in the more familiar
streams of crowdsourcing and feedback loops that increase connectivity and
are integral factors in improving standards of living.14 More importantly, it
will require using technology outside the normative means to implement novel
design agendas that support varied affiliations and are compatible with the
camp’s dynamics and demands.
The narrative that drove the formation of the Al-Zaatari is familiar: it fol-
lows the pattern of conflict-driven displacement that is very common in the
region. However, Al-Zaatari quickly differentiated itself from other surround-
ing camps by changing its approach to planning and design while utilizing
technological advances, many of them so new that they did not even make it
to the mainstream. In early 2017, Al-Zaatari began using blockchain techno-
logy, Building Blocks, for various transactions demarking the technology’s first
employment in humanitarian aid.15 While the integration of this technology
catered to an increased logistical efficiency in distributing aid, its main drive
was more empathic. According to World Food Programme (WFP) executive
Houman Haddad, this technology enables a refugee to own his/her identity
during a time of crisis where traditional government identity documents are
absent. Haddad imagines “a so-called digital wallet, filled with [a refugee’s]
camp transaction history, his government ID, and access to financial accounts,
all linked through a blockchain-based identity system.”16 Such records stored
and accessed via smartphones possessed by the majority of the camp’s resi-
dents provide the means to not only regain legal identity, but also forge a fluid
virtual presence that transcends borders. Such an identity is resilient to para-
metric instability and is compatible with the ever-changing dynamic landscapes
of the region specifically and the world at large.
Also, in 2017, Al-Zaatari became the first solar-powered refugee camp in
the world, providing clean and sustainable power to its residents.17 Today, con-
nected to Jordan’s national grid, the solar plant routes unused power back into
the national network to support the energy needs of local communities, helping
the country meet its renewable energy goals.18 These design investments paid off.
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They enabled residents to take ownership of the camp’s governance and security,
and allowed them to open businesses within the camp. The businesses generate
significant incomes for owners and even contribute to the host country’s econ-
om y. 19 People from outside the camp are coming to buy goods provided and
made by the Al-Zaatari residents. This not only produced a substantial impact
on the quality of the refugees’ lives, but also allowed a sense of normality to
resume. Beyond that, the design initiatives restored dignity and purpose to the
occupants, and perhaps supplied a measure of healing. A displaced populace
is often regarded as a burden on a new location. However, the precedent of
Al-Zaatari suggests that when afforded the design and technological premises
on which they can base new identities, displaced individuals become active com-
munities able to contribute to social structures, locally and globally.
The differential factor in the successes of Al-Zaatari in comparison to other
similar sites was an understanding of its parameters as an active dynamic land-
scape in a continuous state of visceral emergence. In an article for the New York
Times titled “Refugee Camp for Syrians in Jordan Evolves as a Do-It-Yourself
City,” Michael Kimmelman notes that the camp “has grown according to its
own ad hoc, populist urban logic, which includes a degree of social mobility.”20
Further, he indicates that the vast forced migrations were the catalysts for much
needed discussions about the image of the camp, and what that image conveys
to its occupants and hosts. He writes:
These vast forced migrations have accelerated discussions about the need to treat
camps as more than transitional population centers, more than human holding
pens with tents for transients. A number of forward-thinking aid workers and
others are looking at refugee camps as potential urban incubators, places that
can grow and develop and even benefit the host countries – places devised from
the get-go to address those countries’ long-term needs – rather than become
drags on those nations.21
By its predisposition to image, design influences how we think of ourselves
and others. Hence, through design, a tangible reassessment of a refugee’s nar-
rative is facilitated, and a shift that favors assimilation as opposed to aliena-
tion is possible.
Interiority and the Politics of Containment
Displacement is becoming a prevalent contextual modality that redefines
tolerances of boundaries and identities. Within the shifting parameters
that ensues population displacement, it is important to evaluate the role of
interiority, assessing it at the scale of the refugee shelter unit and that of the
refugee camp. While buildings’ predisposition to permanence restrict archi-
tecture’s ability to actively operate in the extremes of sudden occupancy flux,
and respond to the states of instability such environments entail, interiority
offers an alternate design trajectory towards spatial production. Interior
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spaces carry the code of everyday life and formulate the backdrop for spatial
memories that in turn play an integral role in foregrounding identity. In an
article titled “Architecture in Everyday Life,” Dell Upton examines contem-
porary theories of the everyday and its impact on social practices and collec-
tive presence. Upton acknowledges a certain rigidity in architecture’s ability
to respond effectively to the everyday that is due to an intrinsic bifurcation
between the two.22 Further, he notes:
The navigation of everyday spaces, the ordinary, unexceptional sites of most of
our sensory and intellectual experiences, is the primary arena within which self-
hood and personhood are forged. In the give and take of everyday life we learn
the personal and social meanings of our agency. Repeated individual actions
become practices and clusters of practices become social formations.23
The transferability of such native patterns of occupancy offers a common
denominator in the midst of changing typologies of dwelling, community, and
culture.
Under the continual instability of displacement, interior patterns and their
spatial memories have a proven fidelity that is particularly valuable when negoti-
ating disputed limits and addressing contextual shifts. The resilience of interior
spaces stems from their haptic nature that is often tied to cultural practices and
domestic habits. Unlike buildings, interiors or their traces and reproductions
are easily transferred from one geographic location to another. This agility is
often the only assertion of identity a refugee can carry through the relocation
process. Composed of fragments of memories and impositions of necessity, a
hybrid interiority emerges within the refugee camp (Figure 2). It assumes an
autonomous registry while asserting a territorial agency. It offers comfort and
familiarity yet blurs the line between the unit and the camp as the domestic
experience now depends on the provisions of the collective setting. Here, inside
and outside designations degrade, and a fertile elasticity between interior and
exterior forms, ushering a liminal domain that demands the designer’s atten-
tion and imagination. The assessment of interiority under such light is essential
to the premise of dynamic landscapes, as interior spaces (emerging territories
in their own right) contribute to the activation of these landscapes and to reg-
ulating their mobility.
Forked between hospitality and hostility, the shelters formulate the proto
modular of the refugee city. Operating within the domestic and urban scales,
the shelter units that were once distinct entities now inter-connect, creating
new social fabrics in which individual comfort and collective wellbeing take
place simultaneously. This is illustrated in the manner in which occupants of
Al Zaatari reconfigure their allocated shelter units (dubbed “caravans”). The
initial camp layout was in a grid with the caravans placed in rows, the residents
altered this layout favoring clustering (Figure 1) a number of units in U-shaped
formations.24 This order allowed the introduction of interior courtyards within
the unit clusters and catered for communal living setups with extended family
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members.25 As such, the shelter units induced a recursive collective domestic-
ity, reallocating various programmatic functions to the single interior volume,
and communal interactions to the unit cluster. However, the shelter unit does
not only function in the aforementioned contexts, but also becomes the main
currency in the camp as the residents sell and trade these units to better living
arrangements and to house businesses.26
With an average life of seventeen years,27 a refugee camp/city represents the
complexities, challenges, and opportunities inherent in dynamic landscapes. In
the July 2017 issue of the publication, Forced Migration Review, titled Shelter
in Displacement, flux is recognized as the operative modality within migrant
settlements. However, despite the uncertainty of circumstances, displaced peo-
ple are able to establish themselves and achieve a semblance of normalcy when
appropriate design considerations are taken into account.28 In another article
in the same publication, Parrack et al. argue that while the physical resources
are invaluable, the key to successful migration settlements hinges on under-
standing the temporality and spatial dimensions of the conflict setting.29 They
write, “With improved tools to analyze the specific local context in its relation-
ship to shelter provision, humanitarians can develop better understandings of
what is both realistic and possible in a given situation.”30 Such findings support
the need for fluid information structures, active networks mediating exchanges
between actual and virtual.
With a clear understanding of this need, and in order to rethink refugee
settlements, Ennead Lab, partnering with the United Nations and Stanford
University, developed what they called the Toolkit: “The Toolkit is a systematic
framework for integrating information, design, technical tools and the exper-
tise of multiple disciplines and stakeholders to better plan settlements.”31 A
hybrid of digital planning tools and databases, the Toolkit facilitates operating
under the emergency conditions that surround the advent of refugee settle-
ments. Taking into account local conditions and ecologies, the Toolkit ensures
the efficiently and sustainability of the camps while fostering ties to existing
local communities and working with the governance of host countries. Despite
its clear ability to improve the processes of planning and designing refugee
settlement, the strength of this medium lies in its archival capacities. As such,
the hybridity of this system not only informs the condition of new emerging
refugee territories, but also learns from the challenges, successes, and failures
the implementation of the design entails, and readjusts its parameters accord-
ingly. Even though the deployment of the Toolkit was born out of the desper-
ate realites of a refugee’s conditions and the speed at which the settlements
emerge, it presents a valuable precedent that can be applied to the larger design
context. Most notable of Toolkit’s paradigms is its operative premise that is in
sharp contrast to mainstream channels of design practice. Still reliant on dated
systems of codes and standards, conventional design practices fail to take into
account the dynamic conditions which define contemporary environments
that are heavily intermediated by technology and controlled by immediate and
remote forces and contingencies.
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Dynamic Landscapes between Documentaton and Dissemination
Dynamic landscapes function at multiple temporal and spatial scales simulta-
neously. This distinguishes their operative patterns (both systemic and impet-
uous) and their often multi-locational physical presences. It is only through
such quasi logic that territories between phenomena and technology can
emerge and have an equivocal impact on the more traditional factors that
define place. Herein, geographical boundaries and borders are no longer the
sole markers of landscapes. As landscapes are reacquiring presence in multiple
locations simultaneously, their parameters become malleable and controlled
by ephemeral forces.
In her article, “From Site to Territory,” Lola Sheppard, co-director of
InfraNet Lab, addresses the extensive human influence on the environment on
both the physical and conceptual fronts and calls for the necessity of evaluating
“site” as a “palimpsest of forces”.32 The Syrian refugee case study illustrates a
palimpsest of forces that are both abstract and physical, traced and retraced
from one location to many others. Examples of abstract forces are of a polit-
ical, cultural and technological nature, while physical forces are the physical
location and access to natural resources, resources that are in fact not plentiful
Figure 3: Preliminary proposal for a workflow diagram. Categories and connections
are continuously subject to extension and modification based on predominant
trends and emerging topics. Middle and bottom diagrams reflect its use referencing
certain projects. Middle: PetaJakarta.org is a research project led by the
SMART Infrastructure Facility. Bottom: MAX IV Laboratory Landscape – Snøhetta
Source: by author (image generated by Paul Bamson, graduate research assistance,
University of Tennessee, 2017).
12 ARCHITECTURE_MEDIA_POLITICS_SOCIETY Vol. 15 No. 4 May 2019
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in Jordan. At the Al-Zaatari Refugee Camp site itself, no such infrastructure
for provisions existed, and the formations of supply networks were based on
emerging needs. Water, like many other necessities, is brought in daily to supply
the refugee population.33 Like most emerging territories, such forces tend to
challenge the primary appropriations of site and their assumptions of exclu-
siveness and neutrality. Augmented by networks of information and commu-
nication, these forces acquire an accelerated level of dynamism that challenges
the fundamentals of time and place.34 Recursively occurring, expanding and
contracting, based on population density, it is extremely difficult to survey and
Figure 4: Enlarged segments of the workflow diagram. 1/5 outlines common sources
of documentation streams. 2/5 outlines common output trajectories based on initial
collected data. 3/5 maps common design visualization streams essential to generating
design objectives. 4/5 maps popular digital tools used in formulating design iterations.
ARCHITECTURE_MEDIA_POLITICS_SOCIETY Vol. 15 No. 4 May 2019 13
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register the parameter of the forces affecting dynamic landscapes using tradi-
tional means. As exemplified by the Al-Zaatari Refugee Camp, such forces can
appear in a matter of months and significantly change the locality of place and
region. Furthermore, providing for such territories under the mandate of static
authority structures is not feasible. For instance, although Jordan is the physi-
cal location of Al Zaatari, the country cannot take ownership of the camp or
exert absolute authority over it. The camp is managed by multiple agencies and
is provided for by many entities. In addition to the many parties involved in
managing Al-Zaatari, the residents also have a significant agency in the camp,
stemming from their ability to network digitally and communicate globally.
Figure 5: Enlarged segments of the workflow diagram (5/5). The segment shows a
few examples of emerging territories such as refugee camps as it establishes a link to
assess their impact and gauge paths to their documentation.
14 ARCHITECTURE_MEDIA_POLITICS_SOCIETY Vol. 15 No. 4 May 2019
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In his book, Militarizing the Environment: Climate Change and the Security
State, Robert P. Marzec describes the human impact on the environment that
developed in tandem with technological advances.35 Unprecedented access
to computational power propelled a new era of enhanced visualization that
is redefining our relationship to the landscape; surveillance and militarization
are but a few issues of what he labels “technological domination” over the
environment.36 Although Marzec paints a bleak picture of the impact of such
dominion – or at the very least the aspiration for one – it is worth noting that
he makes it clear that, driven by the allowances of technology, our modern-day
landscape is one of multiple definitions, and to a large degree is overexposed
both figuratively and literally.37 Under either scenario, whether the effects
ushered in by a reign of technological dependency are dubbed “dynamic” or
“overexposed,” the reality remains as such: technology, its accessibility and
dominance in the narrative of our living and resultant identity, is demarking
an integral shift in our attitudes towards the landscape and built environment.
As the realities and implications of this overlap are actively unfolding, the syn-
thesis of both collected and projective data is essential to understanding the
nature of such emerging contexts, particularly when the existence of many,
hinges entirely on documentation and representation. The speed, duration,
and complexity of these landscapes render traditional data agglomeration
structures and documentation channels incompatible. This is due not only to
registration inefficiency, but also to a dissemination disjunction that limits the
monitoring and assessment of such landscapes. Furthermore, the documented
and projected definitions of dynamic landscapes are sensitive to variances and
mutations that develop upon their deployment into various venues. This condi-
tion is represented in the workflow diagram in Figure 3. Devising a documenta-
tion and dissemination matrix, the diagram attempts to highlight the channels
that affect dynamic landscapes and underlie the emergence of their various
territories. It also registers the data, which is often the only remnant of these
contextual phenomena. The workflow diagram functions on three platforms.
Firstly, a conceptual platform that examines the dynamic forces integral to the
formation (whether temporal, constant, or cyclical) of emerging landscapes.
Second, a quasi-database that archives various projects that investigate similar
issues and employ relevant workflows/processes (these could be digital, con-
ceptual, or hybrid workflows). Last, a practical platform that suggests software
interfaces and work logics specific to the scope of landscape dynamics.
This multilateral deployment of data, research, and design concurrently dif-
fers from current practice structures that often delaminate the three. It is an
informative tool for assessing the impact of various forces and repetitive use
on the documented content. Such deployment yields tentative mutations in the
documentation structure that are indicative of emergent landscape patterns and
telling of implicit territorial logics. Accordingly, will the processing of dynamic
landscapes begin to provoke distinct jurisdictions that transcend proximity in
favor of more novel commonalities? This interrogation formulates the specu-
lative framework for understanding Emerging Territories. As such, Emerging
ARCHITECTURE_MEDIA_POLITICS_SOCIETY Vol. 15 No. 4 May 2019 15
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Territories are subsystems that, once established, operate under new derivative
logics, logics that are subject to physical properties and virtual handling.
The Collective Patterns of Emerging Practice
The shifting of contextual layers, their ambiguous boundaries and constantly
emerging territories accelerated by technological advancements is progres-
sively acquiring agency in everyday life. These parameters are challenging the
fundamental concepts of architecture (such as program and context), and in
effect, demand a renegotiation of the processes of design practice. Until now,
practice has been reliant on prescribed workflows and predictable channels
that governed the making of space from its conceptualization to actualization.
In most instances, design tethers to computational logics. As a result, it often
veers towards homogeneity, both in reaction to an impetuous context and in
submission to the impact of technological accessibility and ease. The present
computational trajectories of design and their impact on formal language are
persistent. They are telling of trends that are likely to continue. Rather than
accepting static workflows imposed by the commonality of tools and ease
of access, it is imperative that we challenge those in response to the dynamic
natures of contemporary settings and contextual criteria, while considering
the collective patterns of emerging practice. Emerging patterns of practice
tend to rely on unprecedented access to shared formal and analytical digital
scripts and open-source information. They progressively evolve based on dis-
semination and use (example in Figure 6). Building on these patterns, tradi-
tional practice is bound to undergo a significant transformation as more and
more designers choose this work modality, favoring communal sourcing over
the conventional single-design approach and its absolute authorship.
The transition from the singular to the collective structure of practice that
is dependent on open-sources of data and fluid communications mirrors the
nature of dynamic landscapes. Both informed by robust user exchanges, the
intersection of the two will be one of interesting implications. Furthermore,
it will devise a lucid computational ecology while highlighting underutilized
design paths that propel new design investigations and solutions (an illustra-
tion of this is seen in the Toolkit and Al-Zaatari Camp examples). While the
issue of such hybrid processes is not fully known, they are an attempt to begin
employing digital technologies beyond tooling, and advance a more contextu-
ally responsive and active approach to design.
In the article titled “We Will Be Making Active Form,” architect and urban-
ist Keller Easterling, advocates for the implementation of what she calls “active
form.”38 According to Easterling:
Active forms establish a set of parameters or capacities for what the organi-
zation will be doing over time. Active forms might describe the way that some
alteration performs within a group, multiplies across a field, reconditions a
population, or generates a network. The designer of active forms is designing
16 ARCHITECTURE_MEDIA_POLITICS_SOCIETY Vol. 15 No. 4 May 2019
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not the field in its entirety, but rather the delta or the means by which the field
changes – not only the shape or contour of the game piece, but also a repertoire
for how it plays39
It is precisely this activation as it relates to the dynamic formation of land-
scapes and their requisite active forms that this research seeks to enable.
Figure 6: Top: work by a graduate landscape architecture student that focused
on using visual coding platforms to define and analyze soniferous site properties.
Bottom: student work by 3rd year interior architecture student. The design of an
acoustical interior topography utilizing the same sound visualization script developed
by Graduate Landscape Architecture student in left image. (Upper images by Paul
Bamson, University of Tennessee Graduate Student, 2017. Lower images by Heather
Shine, University of Tennessee Undergraduate Student, 2017.)
ARCHITECTURE_MEDIA_POLITICS_SOCIETY Vol. 15 No. 4 May 2019 17
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Dynamic Landscapes require active forms, and active forms are the organic
product of a fluid practice. This necessitates an expansion of the designer’s
jurisdiction and a modification in the role she/he plays, from that of a maker
to activator. When makers generate, the result is a multiplication (even over-
population) of form, while activators prompt an intensification of impact, an
intensification that is at once reactive and accommodating to evolving tech-
nologies and dynamic settings.
Using technology as a platform and medium to usher in big change is not
new or unprecedented; we witnessed it happening in recent history in the Arab
Spring movement, where data feeds played an integral role in altering the polit-
ical structure of the region. We are seeing it architecturally today with a noted
shift from a singularity of discipline to integration with areas such as film,
virtual reality, and material science, for example. Demonstrated by practition-
ers (albeit not in the old sense of the word) such as Liam Young (Unknown
Fields), David Benjamin (the Living), Nataly Gattegno (Future City Labs),
architectural practice is acquiring a multiplicity of concentrations. We see
similar trends in education as well. Many leading architecture and design col-
leges are integrating multidisciplinary platforms and crossover trajectories into
their curricula. For example, Sci-Arc recently established SCI-Arc EDGE,
Center for Advanced Studies in Architecture, and is currently offering many
postgraduate degree programs “all devoted to investigations of architecture’s
twenty-first-century frontiers.”40 For years tactical shifts existed tangential to
the mainstreams of practice. However, it is only now that we are seeing this
trajectory come to fruition and begin to formulate a strategic change in design
education and inevitably in the profession.
Conclusion
The overlap of digital and analog realities is giving way to hybridized settings,
redefining the very politics of place and identity, and in turn, architecture.
As association with the physical place degrades and conventional notions of
tangible bearings no longer apply, displacement (and/or multi-placement)
is steadily emerging as an operative contextual modality, demanding design
responses that challenge one of the most fundamental parameters of archi-
tecture: context.
Today, contextual realities encompass an active structure linking places and
people through complex reciprocal networks and technologies, which give
rise to networked communities and smart localities. While the physical sem-
blance of site has remained seemingly unchanged, the virtual layers of place
are in constant evolution, rendering the state of our settings dynamic. Within
such settings, territories emerge, having definitions and presence in multiple
locations simultaneously, requiring new methods of documentation and assess-
ment in order to conceive appropriate design responses. Under these circum-
stances, the conventional approaches towards architecture are in question.
While some may see this as a loss of spatial agency when it comes to design,
18 ARCHITECTURE_MEDIA_POLITICS_SOCIETY Vol. 15 No. 4 May 2019
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these conditions present an opportunity to think of new architectural trajec-
tories that are rooted and driven by the dynamism of multilayered landscapes
and new approaches to practice.
Inherently dynamic, forced displacement presents rich emerging territories
where design carries significant impact and facilitates a tangible reassessment
of a refugee’s narrative. Supported by robust information networks and active
feedback loops, displaced landscapes as such can learn and inform the immi-
nent futures of their residents specifically, as well as our collective human
occupancy at large. Dynamic landscapes inevitably predicate the need for new
modalities of practice that rethink the static nature of the built environment.
Intertwined with direct implications for planning, policies, and development,
dynamic landscapes are vital for a new architectural paradigm.
Notes
1 “Global Trends – Forced Displacement 2017.” UNHCR, accessed March 13,
2019, www.unhcr.org/globaltrends2017/.
2 Irit Katz, “Pre-Fabricated or Freely Fabricated,” Forced Migration Review 55
(2017): 18.
3 GSMA Intelligence. “GSMA Intelligence – Research – The Mobile Economy
2018.” GSMA Intelligence, Feb. 2018, accessed March 14, 2019, www.
gsmaintelligence.com/research/2018/02/the-mobile-economy-2018/660/.
4 Clay Shirky, “The Political Power of Social Media: Technology, the Public Sphere,
and Political Change,” Foreign Affairs 90, no. 1 (2011): 28.
5 Anne-Marie Slaughter, “America’s Edge: Power in the Networked Century,”
Foreign Affairs 88, no. 1 (2009): 94, accessed March 14, 2019, www.jstor.org/
stable/20699436.
6 “Biggest Refugee Camps in the World,” TimesLive South Africa Website, accessed
February 17, 2018, https://www.timeslive.co.za/news/world/2017-10-17-biggest-
refugee-camps-in-the-world/.
7 C. Maitland, B. Tomaszewski, K. E. Fisher, et al. Youth Mobile Phone and
Internet Use, January 2015, Za’atari Camp, Mafraq, Jordan (Penn State College
of Information Sciences and Technology, 2015), 5.
8 Ibid., 5.
9 Ibid., 5.
10 A. Fard and T. Meshkani. “Geographies of Information,” in New Geographies 07,
ed. A. Fard, and T. Meshkani (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2015), 5.
11 Irit Katz, “Pre-Fabricated or Freely Fabricated,” 18.
12 John Archer, “Social Theory of Space: Architecture and the Production of Self,
Culture, and Society,” Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 64, no. 4
(2005): 431.
13 K.E. Miller and A. Rasmussen, “The Mental Health of Civilians Displaced
by Armed Conflict: An Ecological Model of Refugee Distress,Epidemiology
and Psychiatric Sciences 26, no. 02 (2016): 129–138, accessed March 14, 2019,
doi:10.1017/s2045796016000172.
ARCHITECTURE_MEDIA_POLITICS_SOCIETY Vol. 15 No. 4 May 2019 19
Amps
14 Marco Zilvettii, Matteo Conti, Fausto Brevi, “Innovative Urban Mobility Shaped
by Users through Pervasive Information and Communication Technologies,”
in Digital Futures and The City of Today, ed. Glenda Amayo Caldwell et al.
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2016), 217.
15 Russ Juskalian, “Inside the Jordan Refugee Camp That Runs on Blockchain,”
MIT Technology Review May/June (2018), accessed June 11, 2018, accessed
March 14, 2019, www.technologyreview.com/s/610806/inside-the-jordan-refugee-
camp-that-runs-on-blockchain/.
16 Ibid.
17 United Nations, “Jordan’s Za’atari Camp Goes Green with New Solar
Plant,” UNHCR, accessed March 14, 2019, www.unhcr.org/en-us/news/
latest/2017/11/5a0ab9854/jordans-zaatari-camp-green-new-solar-plant.html.
18 Ibid.
19 Sean D. Thomas, Mays Abdel Aziz, Erica Harper, Forging New Strategies in Protracted
Refugee Crises: Syrian Refugees and the Host State Economy (Amman: Wana Institute,
2015), accessed March 14, 2019, wanainstitute.org/en/blog/hrh-prince-el-hassan-
bin-talals-quarterly-address-forging-new-strategies-protracted-refugee.
20 Michael Kimmelman, “Refugee Camp for Syrians in Jordan Evolves as a Do-It-
Yourself City,The New York Times, July 4, 2014, accessed March 14, 2019,
www.nytimes.com/2014/07/05/world/middleeast/zaatari-refugee-camp-in-jordan-
evolves-as-a-do-it-yourself-city.html.
21 Ibid.
22 Dell Upton, “Architecture in Everyday Life,” New Literary History 33, no. 4
(2002): 710, accessed March 14, 2019, www.jstor.org/stable/20057752.
23 Ibid, 710.
24 Alison Ledwith, Zaatari: The Instant City (Boston: Affordable Housing
Institute, 2014), 24, accessed March 14, 2019, http://www.affordablehousingin-
stitute.org/storage/images/AHI-Publication-Zaatari-The-Instant-City-Low-Res-
PDF-141120.pdf.
25 Ibid., 24.
26 Ibid., 34.
27 Brett Moore, “Refugee Settlements and Sustainable Planning,” Forced Migration
Review – Shelter in Displacement 55 (2017): 6.
28 Marion Couldrey and Maurice Herson, “From the Editors,Forced Migration
Review – Shelter in Displacement 55 (2017): 2.
29 Charles Parrack, Brigitte Piquard, Catherine Brun, “Shelter in Flux,” Forced
Migration Review – Shelter in Displacement 55 (2017): 7.
30 Ibid, 9.
31 “Rethinking Refugee Communities,” Ennead Lab, 2015, accessed January 16,
2019, http://www.enneadlab.org/projects/rethinking-refugee-communities.
32 Lola Sheppard, “From Site to Territory,” in Bracket 2: Goes Soft, ed. N. Bhatia
and L. Sheppard (New York: Actar Publishers, 2013), 179.
33 Alma Hassoun, “In Jordan, Huge Water Delivery and Testing Operation Meets
the Life-Saving Water and Sanitation Needs of Syrian Refugees,” updated
October 10, 2012. https://www.unicef.org/wash/jordan_66157.html.
20 ARCHITECTURE_MEDIA_POLITICS_SOCIETY Vol. 15 No. 4 May 2019
Amps
34 Ali Fard and Taraneh Meshkani,, 2015. “Geographies of Information,” in New
Geographies 07, ed. Ali Fard and Taraneh Meshkani (Cambridge: Harvard
University Press, 2015), 5.
35 Robert P. Marzec, Militarizing the Environment: Climate Change and the Security
State (Minnesota: The University of Minnesota Press, 2016), 35.
36 Ibid., 37.
37 Ibid., 39.
38 Keller Easterling, “We Will Be Making Active Form,Architectural Design 82,
no. 5 (2012): 58.
39 Ibid., 61.
40 “Postgraduate,” SCI-ARC, accessed February 17, 2018, https://sciarc.edu/
academics/.
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The growing popularity of the World Wide Web as a source of news raises questions about the future of traditional news media. Is the Web likely to become a supplement to newspapers and television news, or a substitute for these media? Among people who have access to newspapers, television, and the World Wide Web, why do some prefer to use the Web as a source of news, while others prefer traditional news media? Drawing from a survey of 520 undergraduate students at a large public university where Internet use is woven into the fabric of daily life, this study suggests that use of the Web as a news source is positively related with reading newspapers but has no relationship with viewing television news. Members of this community use the Web mainly as a source of entertainment. Patterns of Web and traditional media exposure are examined in light of computer anxiety, desire for control, and political knowledge. This study suggests that even when computer skills and Internet access become more widespread in the general population, use of the World Wide Web as a news source seems unlikely to diminish substantially use of traditional news media.
Book
As the seriousness of climate change becomes more and more obvious, military institutions are responding by taking a prominent role in the governing of environmental concerns, engaging in "climate change war games," and preparing for the effects of climate change-from conflicts due to loss of food, water, and energy to the mass migration of millions of people displaced by rising sea levels. This combat-oriented stance stems from a self-destructive pattern of thought that Robert P. Marzec names "environmentality," an attitude that has been affecting human-environmental relations since the seventeenth century. Militarizing the Environment traces the rise of this influential mindset in America and other nations that threatens to supplant ideas of sustainability with demands for adaptation. In this extensive historical study of scientific, military, political, and economic formations across five centuries, Marzec reveals how environmentality has been instrumental in the development of today’s security society-informing the creation of the military-industrial complex during World War II and the National Security Act that established the CIA during the Cold War. Now embedded in contemporary Western thought, environmentality has even infiltrated scientific thinking-transforming Darwinian insights into a quasi-theology that makes security the biological basis of existence. Marzec exposes the self-destructive nature of this increasingly accepted worldview and offers alternatives that counter the blind alleys of national and global security. © 2015 by the Regents of the University of Minnesota. All rights reserved.
Book
Ground Rules in Humanitarian Design establishes essential foundations for thinking about humanitarian design and its role in global change. Outlining a vital framework for designing for impoverished and disaster-stricken communities, this informative guide explores the integration of culture, art, architecture, economy, ecology, health, and education. Experts on land, health, water, housing, education, and planning weigh in with best practices and critical considerations during the design process, and discussion of the environmental considerations and local materials/skills will broaden your understanding of this nuanced specialty. Richly illustrated, this guide combines graphic documentation of projects, maps, and data-tracking developments from Asia, Africa, and the Americas to underscore the complexities of this emerging and evolving field. The ambition to provide humanitarian architecture for areas in acute need is driving design innovation worldwide among both practitioners and educators. This book provides an indispensable resource for those engaged in the search for the sustainable inclusion of cultural code and compassion as a technology for design innovation. Learn how to approach the problem of humanitarian design Understand the cultural factors that play into development Develop a new framework for planning post-disaster design See how humanitarian design is pushing the industry forward While still in college, students are being given the opportunity to directly participate in programmes that provide vital facilities for communities abroad. While these international initiatives remain largely ad hoc, this book provides parameters for engagement and establishes best practices for approaching these projects with a global perspective. With expert insight and practical strategies on the ground, Ground Rules in Humanitarian Design is an essential resource for architects at any level.
Article
Article Summary Discussion of the political impact of social media has focused on the power of mass protests to topple governments. In fact, social media's real potential lies in supporting civil society and the public sphere — which will produce change over years and decades, not weeks or months. On January 17, 2001, during the impeachment trial of Philippine President Joseph Estrada, loyalists in the Philippine Congress voted to set aside key evidence against him. Less than two hours after the decision was announced, thousands of Filipinos, angry that their corrupt president might be let off the hook, converged on Epifanio de los Santos Avenue, a major crossroads in Manila. The protest was arranged, in part, by forwarded text messages reading, "Go 2 EDSA. Wear blk." The crowd quickly swelled, and in the next few days, over a million people arrived, choking traffic in downtown Manila. The public's ability to coordinate such a massive and rapid response — close to seven million text messages were sent that week — so alarmed the country's legislators that they reversed course and allowed the evidence to be presented. Estrada's fate was sealed; by January 20, he was gone. The event marked the first time that social media had helped force out a national leader. Estrada himself blamed "the text-messaging generation" for his downfall. Since the rise of the Internet in the early 1990s, the world's networked population has grown from the low millions to the low billions. Over the same period, social media have become a fact of life for civil society worldwide, involving many actors — regular citizens, activists, nongovernmental organizations, telecommunications firms, software providers, governments. This raises an obvious question for the U.S.