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.

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.

Where Do I Sit?

William Whyte, in his book ‘The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces’, explains why some public spaces work and others don’t. The example in the previous post of AlRaya made me wonder how we can adapt his ideas for Kuwait. I highly recommend, if you haven’t already, for everyone to see the video. We obviously don’t have the same density as Manhattan, but in a few years Kuwait City will hopefully be a lot denser than it is today. Here is what Whyte had to say:

Crowds:

What attracts people most, it would appear, is other people. If I belabor the point, it is because many urban spaces are being designed as though the opposite were true, and that what people liked best were the places they stay away from. People often do talk along such lines; this is why their responses to questionnaires can be so misleading. How many people would say they like to sit in the middle of a crowd? Instead, they speak of getting away from it all, and use words like “escape”, “oasis”, “retreat”. What people do, however, reveals a different priority.

This is because of both a desire for safety and is a method of peer-approval. People naturally feel safer in crowds. You see the opposite in our public parks. Most of them are fenced off and gated. The intent was to ensure safety and security, but in reality what this does is put people off from going in. It becomes a ‘destination’ instead of an impulse. If the walls weren’t there you’ll start to see kids playing inside, which in turn attracts more kids and families, which attracts more action. It’s sort of counter-intuitive, but the walls actually make the parks less safe. The only people who feel safer because of them are the people hiding inside, doing things they’re not supposed to be doing. I say we tear down the walls. I know, that seems like my solution to every problem.

Benches:

Benches are artifacts the purpose of which is to punctuate architectural photographs. They’re not so good for sitting. There are too few of them; they are too small; they are often isolated from other benches or from whatever action there is on the plaza. Worse yet, architects tend to repeat the same module in plaza after plaza, unaware that it didn’t work very well in the first place.

Benches are useless. They force strangers to sit unnaturally close together. A better solution is to have a long ‘decha’ or built mass all around the space that is easy and comfortable to sit on. The more options people have to organize themselves as a couple, or a group, the more accepting they will be of that space. In Kuwait, as with most places, we see far too many benches that have just been plopped on the edge of the sidewalk, facing the street, and away from the shade. Instead of benches everywhere, why not have trash bins? There are too few of those, and I often find myself needing to throw something but not finding anywhere to put it.

Distrust and “Undesirables”:

Many corporation executives who make the key decisions about the city have surprisingly little acquaintance with the life of its streets and open spaces. … To them, the unknown city is a place of danger. If their building has a plaza, it is likely to be a defensive one that they will rarely use themselves. Few others will either. Places designed with distrust get what they were looking for and it is in them, ironically, that you will most likely find a wino.

The ‘courtyard’ space of AlRaya is a great example of this (though i’ve only rarely seen a wino). The space is so controlled and isolated that it is simply rejected. The fear of ‘letting it go’ and allowing anyone to use it has condemned the space to being cold and neglected (no matter how clean and well maintained it is). There is never anyone there, so people aren’t attracted to it. The fear of attracting laborers or loud youth often sanitizes the space to a point where it becomes boring and forced, like AlRaya.

Guards and Plaza mayors:

…it is characteristic of well-used places to have a “mayor”. He may be a building guard, a newsstand operator, or a food vendor. Watch him, and you’ll notice people checking in during the day. … One of the best mayors I’ve seen is Joe Hardy of the Exxon Building. He is an actor, as well as the building guard, and was originally hired by Rockefeller Center Inc. to play Santa Claus, whom he resembles. Ordinarily, guards are not supposed to initiate conversations, but Joe Hardy is gregarious and curious and has a nice sense of situations. … Joe is quite tolerant of winos and odd people, as long as they don’t bother anybody. He is very quick to spot real trouble, however.

We sort of have those in Kuwait, but in the private malls. They’re those serious guys in dishdashas with the walkie talkies. I think the way they usually go about their job is counterproductive as they seem more interested in breaking up groups than in creating a pleasant atmosphere. Their primary job should be to facilitate a free, happy and safe environment. Every major public space should also have it’s own little mayor. They’re not really police, but a cross between security and a tour guide. The best ones are those that feel a sense of pride, ownership and responsibility for the place that they control. They should also have authority to demand that shop owners and such are well regulated and everything is clean and tidy. They will also be held responsible if things aren’t safe, clean and busy. It should be a well paid job, because the results are very important and the only way to ensure accountability is if the person is well compensated.

Megastructures:

The ultimate development in the flight from the street is the urban fortress. In the form of megastructures more and more of these things are being put up – huge, multipurpose complexes combining offices, hotels, and shops… Their distinguishing characteristic is self-containment. While they are supposed to be the salvation of downtown, they are often some distance from the center of downtown, and in any event tend to be quite independent of their surroundings, which are most usually parking lots. The megastructures are wholly internalized environments, with their own life-support systems. Their enclosing walls are blank, windowless, and to the street they turn an almost solid face of concrete or brick.

Again, AlRaya is a perfect example of this, but almost every other mall is guilty of the same sin. The only exception is probably Marina Mall. They attempt a sort of public space at the Salem alMubarak end, but the lack of any real pedestrian activity softens the impact. Hopefully once Salmiya Park is finished (and isn’t fenced) things will be different. Marina Crescent is very successful. It’s a great example of a public (kind of) space that works really well. There just aren’t enough places to sit (where you’re not expected to buy something). I don’t know how comfortable those giant bumps are, but they seem pretty useless. The point is that successful projects are not the inward-looking ‘megastructures’, but the ones that engage and interact with their context. There really isn’t anything to fear, and if done right, all parties benefit; the developer, the city and the citizens.

coluombo- Flickr