Dubai Bicycle Lanes

I was walking around Dhiyafa Street on a recent trip to Dubai when I noticed something very unexpected. In one short stroll I was passed by (and I counted them) 15 people on bicycles! It was a strange feeling. There were bike lanes. The pedestrian crossings were very safe and had traffic lights for cars and pedestrians, with those little buttons you push that tell you to wait.

Upon further investigation, I found a hidden building which apparently houses the labor force that is constructing this new part of town. You can’t really see them clearly in the photo but there are literally hundreds of bicycles there. This one labour camp is seeding a culture of pedestrian and bicycle activity in the whole area! Once the infrastructure is set up, and people see other people on bikes, they won’t hesitate to join. The idea is to give people as much choice in transportation as possible and not simply force one mode onto everyone.

I also got a chance to visit Masdar City in Abu Dhabi. I was pleasantly surprised to see that the people in charge there were incredibly competent and passionate about what they’re doing. Maybe the lethargic attitude in Kuwait lowered my expectations, but I really have changed my mind about Masdar. I have a good feeling now that they really know what they’re doing and that it’s not just some grand-scale publicity stunt for Abu Dhabi. There’s not much to see there yet, but they are pretty deep into the technical design phase. It was fun and a bit surreal seeing pedestrian urbanism ideas, passive cooling, smart grid technology and pricing incentives all come together in one city. The skeptic in me still thinks it’s all too good to be true, but I hope i’m wrong again.

Kuwait Metro Ridership

It seems the initial success and glow of Dubai Metro has breathed new life into our own national project. Let’s hope for their continued success so that the fires of envy burn brighter and ignite real action. I keep thinking about the people that will end up using the metro. Who are they? What do they want out of a well functioning mass transit system? How can we make the design better?

Kuwait has invited consultants to express interest in its 171-kilometre metro project, MEED magazine has reported. The estimated $7bn scheme will involve building four lanes, with 60km of the network underground. The successful developer will design, build, finance, operate and maintain the metro network for an undisclosed period of time.

-AMEinfo November 4th, 2009

So who rides the metro?

Hawalli residents:

There can be around 7 stops in Hawalli. That’s a fair number, but the great thing is that the Blue line and the Black line cross each other at right angles. This means that pedestrian development and density in Hawalli won’t be restricted to a linear path. The current design doesn’t make all of Hawalli entirely walkabl, but its close enough. Feeder buses can fill in the gaps. It’s important that Beirut and Tunis are well fed, but also creating a great node around Qadsiya Stadium and the new Sultan Center. I imagine that interchange would be underground and provide a subterranean link between alMuhallab, Sultan Center and the sports complex as it’s not that far between the three.

Farwaniya residents:

It’s very hard to do any better than simply following the existing road infrastructure here. The place really isn’t a destination and most of the stops are funnels for people to enter the network. The challenge and the potential here is to think of the nodes as a generator for development. Mixed use spaces at every stop can make this neglected part of the country more pleasant and livable. The area is far too big, so a network of feeder buses is definitely required to make the system functional. Seeing as how the lines follow the major roads, it won’t be hard to get that to work. It has to be cheap and easy for anyone living here to be a part of the network.

Salmiya residents:



The entire Salmiya line is underground. Several of the stops on the line are destinations as well as dense residential areas; Salmiya Park, Khansa (Restaurant Street), Amman (a hopefully pedestrianized Salem alMubarak street), Marina Mall, Scientific Center (and waterfront). This is really the jewel of the metro system. I’d add as many stops as possible, possible 4 or 5 more to the ones already on the map above. The density in Salmiya is already there and the metro will create a virtuous spiral; more people walking creates better safety and more investment, which leads to even more people walking and the cycle improves the experience indefinitely. Salmiya Park has its own private transit system, and this could be integrated with the metro to create a shortcut in the system between Marina and the southern end of the park. The good thing about Salmiya is that most of the buildings are fairly tall and shade a lot of the sidewalks, but there has to be a major investment in planting trees and cleaning up the sidewalks making them safe, pleasant and accessible to wheelchairs.

Students:

There are 5 stops at university campuses (including a stop at Mishref that can have feeder buses into the campuses there). A lot of students enjoy driving to college to show off their cars and drive around, but most people just want to get to class. Having the option of getting there without having to worry about parking is a great relief. Also, the commute allows for precious reading or relaxing time before class.

Mall hoppers:

The Avenues, Marina Mall, alMuhallab, 360, Souq Sharq and the airport all have dedicated stops. This would help weekend traffic because people would park their car at any metro stop and then hop from one mall to the next looking for where the action is. Part of the fun is in just driving around, but not everyone wants to do that and a lot of people don’t own cars. This is good for the malls and for people who want sanity on the weekend.

Office workers:

Once a significant density is achieved in the City we can talk about having people walk around from one building to the next. Every new metro stop will act as a node of development, because every building within walking distance to a stop is connected to the network; meaning office workers can walk from any building in the network to another one without having to worry about driving and parking. On the way, there can be cafes, news stands, restaurants… A real city.

Government employees:

All the major government complexes have a dedicated metro stop. This is critical for both the employees and the unfortunate souls that have to visit them. It’s common to have to from one complex to the other, and so having them all connected is better for everyone. Parking is usually a nightmare for these places, since working hours are so short and everyone is there at the same time. A metro will provide much needed relief.

Kuwaitis:

The Gray Line links Jahra with Fahaheel, and everything in between. Most of the stops along that line will be Park and Ride stations. However, I also suggest a completely new line that would wrap around the dense residential areas between the first and fifth ring road. The metro stop would be underground and accessible from the shopping center of every area. The parking infrastructure is already there and every area has the ‘Jam’eiyah’ conveniently located at the center. A lot of people can walk to that, and those that don’t can drive and park there. I think this makes a lot of sense as it will allow for a much greater density within the residential areas. People just don’t seem to want to live further away but we’ve reached a limit because of the number of cars that we squeeze in. If we can build densely without having to park more cars that means that more people can live closer to their families without sacrificing quality of life.

Ridership estimate is at around 70 million per year, which comes around 200,000 per day. I think this is a very conservative estimate and I expect a fully functional, well maintained system to attract 250,000-300,000 per day (around 15% of our labor force). The value of the metro isn’t simply to generate a profit. Rather, it is in the unquantifiable benefits such as:

• Rush hour traffic reduction
• Cheap transportation alternative
• Lower gasoline consumption (and more profitable exports)
• Less pollution
• Pedestrian culture will improve health standards
• Fewer parking headaches
• Create potential for greater density (more stuff in less space)
• Ability to explore the city and discover new places
• Greater potential for emergent nodes to flourish without the need for planned development

Neighborhood Identity

This is the final post discussing the 13 points of good neighborhood design as described by the Congress for the New Urbanism. All of these ideas aren’t meant to be a guide for how to build new neighborhoods. There is nothing in the list that we can’t really do now in our existing neighborhoods. All it takes is for us identify the problems and offer solutions for this change to happen.

12. Certain prominent sites at the termination of street vistas or in the neighborhood center are reserved for civic buildings. These provide sites for community meetings, education, and religious or cultural activities.

This makes sense also because it provides people with a frame of reference. Some neighborhoods look very similar and it’s easy to get lost or simply get bored with the lack of urban character. Having an easily definable building or space is great for quickly calibrating yourself and understanding where you are. The uniqueness also embeds a spatial character and identity onto the community that will grow with time and memory.

13. The neighborhood is organized to be self-governing. A formal association debates and decides matters of maintenance, security, and physical change. Taxation is the responsibility of the larger community.

This is very, very important. We have to harness the menacingly powerful Not In My Back Yard (NIMBY) mentality. Having the neighborhood be self-governing means that nobody feels powerless to change even the most minor thing. It would be fertile ground for grass-roots activism and provides a great opportunity for anyone to have their voice heard and participate. Today, the decision-makers don’t live with the consequences of their actions. If they do, they will have taken much more care in designing and maintaining our public spaces and urban character. Every neighborhood will, with time, begin to represent the values of the people who speak up. This in turn will attract people who think the same way and drive away the few that don’t.

We have to force accountability and the best way to do this is to delegate the local decision-making to the residents of the community. That’s really where democracy happens; not just the big national issues, but whether to build a wheelchair ramp to access the park toilets. If we don’t speak up, nobody will.

Streets

Our neighborhoods have gradually evolved to become almost exclusively dominated by the automobile. A neighborhood is more than a random collection of houses. We should strive to create rich, safe and healthy places to live. We need to create a strong framework that can help develop a robust social fabric and restore the feeling of a proud community.

8. Streets within the neighborhood form a connected network, which disperses traffic by providing a variety of pedestrian and vehicular routes to any destination.

I’m not sure how this can be retro-fit into our existing neighborhoods. Most of our inner streets are branches off a main 1st street that wraps around the neighborhood. The problem is that there is no overlaying pedestrian network to augment the streets.

People just don’t walk anymore. This means that there’s very little chance for an accidental meeting with neighbors. The space outside our homes used to be a lively social place, but now it’s an architectural afterthought; a place for mechanical process and service. There is no life outside the boundaries of our homes anymore. People have become anonymous strangers in their own neighborhoods because there is nothing that connects them with each other. The space between the home and street is where we can reintroduce this framework.

9. The streets are relatively narrow and shaded by rows of trees. This slows traffic, creating an environment suitable for pedestrians and bicycles.

I think we should experiment with the idea of a shared space; meaning a street that has none of the traditional means of dividing up the road into pedestrian/vehicle areas (no curb, only road markers). This seems counter-intuitive, but wherever it’s implemented it has improved pedestrian safety by slowing down cars. Of course, this might be asking too much of Kuwaitis, but it might be feasible in areas within the neighborhood center which might have a schedule whereby driving could be prohibited at weekends.

10. Buildings in the neighborhood center are placed close to the street, creating a well-defined outdoor room.

This is all about shading and creating a pleasant micro-climate. The courtyard cooling effect is our main weapon here; trapping a pool of cool air that is further cooled through mechanical and passive means. The center should have lots of seating and fountains. It’s the heart of the community and where the main mosque of the neighborhood is located where Friday, Qiam and Eid prayers are held.

11. Parking lots and garage doors rarely front the street. Parking is relegated to the rear of buildings, usually accessed by alleys.

This, of course, is a major part of the problem. Even when a pavement exists, it is usually filled entirely with cars. This forces people to walk on the street, which either makes them decide not to walk or exposes them to avoidable danger. This has to stop. There has to be a mechanism for punishing people for having more cars than they can handle. I would much rather have cars park on the street than on the sidewalk, actually. That would be a better solution, as it means that there is always a safe place to walk. To make this happen, new legislation would decree that a 2-3m wide sidewalk adjacent to the street on both sides of the road is public property and all cars parked on it will be fined.

Of course, you can still park your car on the street. Instead of having shading devices that used to cover the parked cars, we should plant trees that line every street. This looks a lot better than shades, and also filters dust from the air.

In places where the road is way too big, we could simply increase the size of the sidewalk so that you can both park your car and walk comfortably at the same time. I’m not sure if its feasible to have street fronts that are completely devoid of cars, but the current situation should not continue.

-A rare side alley in a Kuwaiti neighborhood

Kid-Friendly Neighborhood

Childhood obesity is an epidemic in Kuwait. Computer games and television has made it easy for kids to live a sedentary lifestyle. For some, the only exercise is the few hours of PE class in school every week. Neighborhoods have a social duty to provide children with a safe environment to play with other kids and have fun.

6. An elementary school is close enough so that most children can walk from their home.

Summer break means that kids are spared the worst months of summer, so a walk to school is mostly pleasant. Of course, the entire length should be shaded, and every morning there should be someone at each road crossing to stop traffic and allow the kids to safely cross the street. To do this, sidewalks have to be wide enough to allow people to walk. The problem with most neighborhoods in Kuwait is that the sidewalk is too narrow and each house has far too many cars; the cars park on the sidewalk filling the entire space. This forces people to walk on the street. If it was up to me this would be illegal. The public owns the sidewalk and nobody should force me to walk on the street.

7. There are small playgrounds accessible to every dwelling — not more than 150 meters away.

We have a unique opportunity to create a hybrid community center by merging a playground with a mosque. Both have to be within walking distance of every dwelling, so why not combine the two? The playground becomes part of the mosque infrastructure. During prayer time, adults using the mosque will create a feeling of safety through community policing. It can become a new hybrid community center; a mosque, playground, learning center and local library all in one seamless small urban space.

Open Air Library / KARO Architekten

Mixed-Use Neighborhoods

A decision was made a long time ago to divide Kuwait into distinct zones; residential, offices, industrial and commercial. At the time it seemed like a natural thing to do. I remember doing it all the time playing Sim City as a kid. This is where people work, this is where they live, and that’s where they play.

The problem with this is that you end up with very dedicated zones that serve a very specific purpose. People tend to work at the same time, sleep at night, and have fun at the weekend. This creates a lot of migration at predictable patterns which results in traffic from the evacuating masses, redundant spaces and a wasteful allocation of resources.

A good example of trying to break up this pattern is the location of The Avenues. Simply having a shopping mall located outside the designated ’shopping district’ allowed for a completely new pattern to emerge. We need to do more of this and break up the monolithic ‘zones’ into more mixed-use spaces where people live, work and play.

4. At the edge of the neighborhood, there are shops and offices of sufficiently varied types to supply the weekly needs of a household.

This is fairly self explanatory. A lot of areas in Kuwait already have this and they’re successful in reducing the number of car trips the residents around them make. The goal here is to have them in locations where it is easy and safe to approach them by foot. If more people walk to them and the stigma against walking is overcome, we’ll see the option of walking become safer and more pleasant. People feel safer when other people are around.

5. A small ancillary building or garage apartment is permitted within the backyard of each house. It may be used as a rental unit or place to work (for example, an office or craft workshop).

This would be very successful in Kuwait. Many young people have ambitions of starting a side-business or workshop, but don’t have the money to rent an office or don’t want to bother with another daily commute. This would provide a way for them to make that happen while also transforming our neighborhoods into a lively, mixed use live-work environment.

Residential Variety

Most of our residential neighborhoods can be described as a sprawl of very large houses packed fairly close to each other. Why is there such little variety in the type of dwelling? Even when people attempt to create a dense living arrangement, it is usually by refitting a house to become a mini apartment block. Are zoning laws and building codes the reason why this has happened?

3. There are a variety of dwelling types — usually houses, rowhouses, and apartments — so that younger and older people, singles, and families, the poor, and the wealthy may find places to live.

This is quickly becoming a critical issue for Kuwait. Young people really have nowhere to live. More and more people are having to renovate and reuse space in their homes to accommodate their grown children living with them. This should not be happening. Finding a place to live should not a privilege, it’s a right. Most young people don’t mind living in smaller spaces, but they would rather be closer to home. Why can’t there be a variety of dwelling types in, for example, Qortuba? Why can’t there be apartments and rowhouses that compliment the standard 500m2+ house? Heck, why not a tower? It’s not as if we have a timeless architectural history to protect. This simple issue of re-zoning would solve so many problems and all it takes is a signature.

Walking Distance

The heat in Kuwait in the summer is unbearable. Yet this is only a problem between June and September. The rest of the year is fairly pleasant, especially in the morning and evening. We have to design our spaces with that in mind and not be trapped because we fear the hot months. Scandinavia is basically frozen for half the year, yet they design knowing that for the other half the weather is very good. We should do the same.

2. Most of the dwellings are within a five-minute walk of the center, an average of roughly 400 meters.

In an ideal world, the Metro would criss-cross our radial residential areas and have stops in each neighborhood center. This would officially make Kuwait a walkable city, as it means that everyone has the option of living a car-free lifestyle. I’m sure this isn’t economically feasible, but as a public health initiative, it’s priceless.

The neighborhood centers don’t have to be physically connected to each other, of course. The point is that everyone can simply go outside and have a pleasant walk and arriving at a unique and exciting destination. This would also allow the residential areas to be exponentially denser without fear of the transportation system failing because every area is now mixed-use and self sufficient.

This would eventually lead to the collapse of the ‘mall mentality’. The neighborhood centers become a truly democratic and public space. Instead of going to The Avenues to hang out, you might go to the Shamiya center and have dinner, watch a show and have a nice stroll there meeting a friend who lives in Shamiya. You get all the amenities and advantages of a mall without the parking headache.

Every neighborhood center would grow to have its own distinct character. Malls are only as imaginative as the developers that built them. A public space is democratic in nature, meaning that it is up to the people to decide how the space should evolve. I know for a fact that young, creative Kuwaitis are far more imaginative than even the best developer. A subsidy for young Kuwaiti entrepreneurs will help encourage them to converge and all use the space together, focusing their creative energies into creating a wonderfully unique, distinctly Kuwaiti experience.

-A stupid idea, but I can’t think of a better way to waste money.

Edited: Slightly less stupid (fewer interchanges) but still wasteful.

Neighborhood Center

Neighborhoods in Kuwait have lost their charm and have become glorified parking lots. What can we do about it and are there any guidelines that can help us in designing better neighborhoods? According to Andrés Duany and Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk, a husband-wife team of town planners and two of the founders of the Congress for the New Urbanism, the design of neighborhoods can be defined by thirteen elements:

1. The neighborhood has a discernible center. This is often a square or a green and sometimes a busy or memorable street corner. A transit stop would be located at this center.

This neighborhood center would be a small urban space dominated by the main mosque and filled with dense shopping and landscape architecture. Shopping should be fragmented into smaller elements that serve specialized needs; a florist, a butcher, an electronics repair shop, etc. The main groceries shopping should be far smaller than the current tradition of building co-op ‘malls’ in the center of every residential area. The malls are so big and the only way to approach them is by car. Parking is usually shared with the central mosque which means that during prayer time the parking is cannibalized between the two and nobody benefits. We have to stop consolidating everything into one building but rather think of it as a town center similar to what it used to be in the old days.

The idea of a ‘jam’eyiah’ is very foreign and they’ve recently started to become bloated and have evolved into mini-malls. I don’t mind the fact that they now have a wide-ranging selection; cafes, restaurants, boutique shops, etc. It is the fact that they are all being crammed into one (usually badly designed) building. What if they are all part of a public, covered, pedestrian street? The shops will be available to rent for whoever wants to, and subsidies will be given to young people of the area so that they can do what they’ve always dreamed. If the space is given to them at an affordable price they will make sure the street is fun, clean and safe. This will attract more young people to the neighborhood center and it will have a very fun and young vibe.

-A Kuwaiti neighborhood center?

Edit: This was one very long post with around 13 points. I decided to cut it into smaller pieces with each number being it’s own post. I have a feeling this will better incite discussion and help us develop the points further. Sorry for the confusion. The list will be compiled into the new ‘Neighborhood’ category found on the right.

An Anti-Mall

Why do we have so many malls? People seem content to walk inside them in circles. Lots of people walking, but only a few with shopping bags. They’re there for the experience. People attracting people who attract people. The mall itself seems almost irrelevant in all this. It’s just the excuse, the agreed upon destination for this gathering to happen.

Without the crowd the mall is useless, but without the mall, can you still get the crowd? What’s wrong with malls anyway? They seem convenient; lots of shops, restaurants and girls. What more do you want? Well, a shopping mall is very efficient at serving itself by segregating and isolating spaces within the city. It is a self-sufficient island detached from its context.

flickr- Toomz

Let’s look at a successful mall such as The Avenues. So many people are attracted to it every day, yet the space beyond its border hasn’t changed at all. It’s as if you freeze a puddle of water and you get one shiny ice cube surrounded by dry nothing. If the city is filled with ice cubes, we all end up living in the dull emptiness between them.

What we need is a hip and trendy node that energizes and regenerates its context. A good example is that strip near Seif Palace with all those cool shops and restaurants. They’re not in a mall, nobody owns the street, yet people love it there. The problem is that it has a well defined boundary that confines the space, and that discourages exploration beyond it. Still, it is part of a public space. Someone can go there with a guitar and just play; no one will stop them. If three guys stand around in a mall, the man with the walkie-talkie will get them to move along. A public space means it is owned by the public. No one can tell you what to do.

Souq Waqif, Doha, Qatar

Kuwait, I think, has been recently blessed with a wonderfully innovative generation. We are all part of a burgeoning creative class. Artists, musicians, actors, designers, film-makers and architects. There is so much talent out there that is not fulfilling its potential. What we need to do is find a place that can welcome this burst of creativity and allow it to flourish into something special.

The only way for that to work is if you develop the density first. Maki proved with its first restaurant that you don’t need to be in a place with a built in customer base to succeed. It was in the middle of a dirty street with nothing near it, yet it was a great success. People will flock to good stuff no matter where it is. It won’t take much for this node to develop and organically grow into the cultural heart of Kuwait City.

I imagine the place to be a very dense, crowded and linear pedestrian-only promenade that has lots of very successful restaurants and cafes. Street performers fill the place, there’s always some kind of live music playing. Street vendors and artists everywhere too. There are little alleyways that lead to small nooks that have niche boutiques and art galleries. Theaters that house small productions of local plays. A small cinema that shows Kuwaiti films and has a drama school upstairs. People that go there love to explore the place, always discovering something new by accident. You meet people there, because the place induces conversation. I can imagine lots of marriages that trace their origin to an accidental meeting there.

This cannot happen at a mall. It’s too messy and unpredictable and they’ll never allow it. It has to be a publicly owned pedestrian promenade. People own the shops of course, but anything can happen in the street and alleyways. There will be security, the place has to be kept safe and clean at all times, but it has to allow for casual spontaneity. The place has to be as hip as the people that made it and the only way for that to happen is if it emerges naturally and free. Kuwait has the potential to be the creative capital of the region. Let’s not suffocate this opportunity because we fear the challenge. Kuwait deserves more than malls.