That which is immeasurable

Perhaps the most challenging aspect of urban design is for me is to give expression to that which is difficult to quantify. How do you measure vulnerability, joy, claustrophobia or solitude? 
City spaces inscribe these into our very being, yet in order to make spaces that heighten and evoke, these concepts must be quantified, contained, described and ultimately scrutinized at a budget meeting usually so mundane, that it too cannot be measured.

So, here is some delicious poetry as a necessary departure from a pragmatic dogmatic systematic hepatic system where the heart of the city has been muted and those who inhabit its streets stand petrified by change. 
Written as one does of love. 


Oh city, my aching contradiction
Your beauty is a hushed sentiment I encourage 
every time I close my eyes
Your solitude overwhelms me with the stench of love unmade
You would have loved me if I were a soft spring rain, 
but I was born a hurricane, and I nearly died tying to be small.

Oh city, the kiss of water in my lungs
In creases and in dog-eared promises.
The night pressed in as though I alone was responsible for your shadow
How is it that you are composed of such absence

I searched the urban imagined to find respite from your charcoal gaze
Flawed celebrations invaded my quietest moments 
where your taste was most real
Walk with me. Speak to me of the ordinary
and whisper to me in the language of tormented cities

 

The Maker Place

I am so entirely inspired by the idea that a journey may be all-together too much to manage.  It will require an excavation, a creation and a fashioning of that which cannot be measured. 

It will become my maker place.

In two months time I will find myself in a place I fell in love with because it overflows an absence clutter by day and the primal magnificence of creation by night. The Karoo is one of South Africa’s treasures in its understated succulent diversity and hardship. It is essentially who we are. 

Elegant perseverance.

Photo and inspiration to ride by Stan Engelbrecht

Hundreds of kilometers of gnarled rock, gravel and time-hardened semi desert will roll out beneath the wheels of 40 vintage racing bicycles for the inaugural Tour of Arae. A 6-day stage race unveiling 730km of Karoo landscape and the antifragility of the South African frame.  This journey pays homage to the ‘Hero Era’ in cycling where participants in events were entirely responsible for their bikes, minds and strategy. En-route support was unknown and unwelcome. Jerseys were made of wool and riders were made of mettle.

This will be my first race. My first dance with machine and expectation.

On Arae, two things will become clear: the legacy of South African makers who have crafted machines of excellence, and the making of a steele of cycling camaraderie amongst participants that will add to the legacy of the sport.    

Preparation for what essentially amounts to 6 Argus tours ridden back-to-back is an unknown to me. I cannot waste energy wondering if it is even possible. I must set my mind to knowing that in its completion, I will be made. Taken apart, moulded and remade. As each component of my bicycle is being assessed, scuffed and reshaped in the workshop of a master frame builder, so too will I allow Arae to be my maker space.

When Francois du Toit and I ride alongside one another climbing up to Sutherland we will smile knowing that master building from racing machines to city streets are much the same – made with passion, to be fully enjoyed, entirely tested and then remade for new pleasures.

Can a journey ever be truly known?

It’s distance is but the skeleton upon which beauty is woven.


follow the making @contestedspaces 

Disrupt Yourself by Kirsten Wilkins [Pecha Kucha vol29]

PERMISSION GIVING

I’m Kirsten: urban designer and curious anarchist.

We live in a culture where anything out of the ordinary seems to require permission asking. At a dinner table it’s polite to ask May I have the salt. In the city it should be unnecessary to ask “may I feed the hungry” I’m here to ask you a simple question.

Why do you ask "MAY I ?"

 

DISRUPTION

What I am doing now is called disruption. I’m taking a commonly held idea or behavior (Business as Usual)  and questioning is validity, and application because its simply not serving us. I’m happy if you use the words disruption and rebellion interchangeably.

 

START HERE MAP

The reason I am standing here is because I drew a map. A colleague of mine was working on a project where the slew of permissions required are sure to tank the project before even begins. So I drew the start here map and we began looking spatially at where invitation to change the city outweighs the authorities ability to exact permission.

 

OPPRESSION

The opposite of permission is invitation and what our rather crude map revealed is that in areas of poverty inequality and injustice, the invitation to intervene is warm and unambiguous. Where the status quo is to be maintained, creative expression is kept docile by administrative burden. I am going to share with you two examples that makes this clear. 

 

IN THE CITY: NO ONE CARES

About a year ago, a Durban art critic and curator came to the city to understand what passers by thought of our public art. What better way to solicit conversation than that quintessential south African braai. And so food for thought was born. Of course once he sought permissions it all changedlets start with ‘open flame’!. Once permissions had been granted, this poor man found himself sufficiently far from any piece of art to neutralize the original idea, serving certified hallal sausages from a gas skottle only to be accosted by a passing protest because the only reason some man would randomly be serving free food in this manner would be to distract them from getting to parliament.

  

OUTSIDE THE CITY: EVERYONE DARES

Lets fast forward to a place of invitation. A place where those who are seen as agents of rebellion are now agents of change. The street artists, the skateboarders and a crazy botanist.  In a place of neglect, there is the desire to create a place of dignity and belonging.

A devastated river system every child’s playground, the city's backyard.

This is the Kuilsriver.

I’m involved in a rehabilitation project with local residents where we are looking to reorientation the manner in which this space is utilized and maintained. When I asked if they had permission, they pointed to the home of every surrounding resident explaining how much time and cost was being plowed in by each individual.  

ITS BEAUTIFUL HERE

             Albert Camus says this:

”The procedure of beauty, which is to contest reality while endowing it with unity is also the procedure of rebellion” 

             In not asking for permission, we disrupt dysfunctional structure. To serve people. To serve justice. 

             We design a Beautiful Rebellion.

SIYABULELA

And there was Siyabulela on the steps of City Hall.. As an aspiring film maker, he is traveling around South Africa pasting up this somewhat gaudy plastic backdrop at various venues inviting artists and passers by to use his impromptu stage.

CREATING A STAGE FOR OTHERS

I myself had arrived at on my bicycle in the midst of an unsanctioned group ride through the city. I asked him if he had permission to be there, His answer was simple: by the time someone says yes, the artists would have left.

 Ironically I had been followed by police while riding and when we came to a standstill at City Hall they said nothing of Sibulela's taped on pop culture defacement. Not their department.

The cops and I used his stage as a negotiation space for my defiance.

DON'T SLEEP HERE

The danger in inappropriately asking MAY I is exactly that. We will miss the moment where life happens. Rather than incessant intellectualization and justification. We need to move to implementation of ideas. No more prohibitively expensive conferences and gala dinners to talk about poverty alleviation.

Take out your tape and Start here.

WDC 2014. This stage.

I always thought if there was a World Design Capital fringe movement, Id be at the helm. Inspite of all the excellence that has emerged thus far. The question that no one seems to be asking is what happened to all the projects that weren’t selected. Over 1200 design interventions. Entrepreneurial opportuniies and moments for collaborative potential were submitted. 400 odd were chosen and now only a fraction of those remain

Their in lies my greatest criticism of the yellow monster..

WDC2014 subjected an otherwise creative and organic design community to asking MAY I ?.

 

WHAT IS YOUR PROJECT

      What is your creative idea. Here is free hashtag. Don’t ask MAY I?  Start here.

THIS RAINBOW NATION

       Because...when yellow is over, we are going to need to dig deep. Intervene and be involved not because the world is watching, or because yellow is cool, but because we simply must.

Lets waste no time in permission asking, and needlessly seeking validation.

This is the heart of disruption. To refuse to accept this human condition - serve justice without adding further injustice. Less “I am” and more “we are”

Get out there and get it done.

             This sounds a lot like anarchy..or a disruption of anarchy.

   

[THE MASK]

This is THE call to action. To disrupt through empathy.

While these masks for me evoke images of protest and revolt, they are an invitation to look through the eyes of another. The eyes of Everyother. 

THE STOMACH
             Spend less so that you can give more.

Talk less so you can listen more

Get out of you car. Get out of your life

Live in moderation

Stop asking May I ?

Ask how much, mow much more, how far, why not, who else?

TALKING FROM BOTH SIDES

       As I conclude I wanted to say something about authority. I’m a parent of 3 young children. I have often found myself saying ‘because I say so’. Expecting compliance and setting strict rules. The most disarming moment for me in this authority is when I am asked not about the rules I have set but by the compass that guides them.

THE WAITING

             Stop asking for permission. Look for invitations.  

             Stop allowing action to be hijacked by meaningless debate.

             Ask the right questions first of yourself and then of others.

             Visit our open source led hub @75 Harrington Street find a way to get plugged into making change real.

DISRUPT YOURSELF

Start here.

Spoken Words

The last time I arrived at City Hall on a bicycle, there was a man waiting with tulips. I took it as an exquisite picture of how Madiba had woo'ed the nation and how Freedom was his bride.

I was quietly expectant today as I rode to the steps of City Hall once again. Surely a second poignant moment of reflection on the legacy of Madiba and the bicycle was too much to ask for. Yet there he was.

Siyabulela (isiXhosa: Thank You) and his bicycle.

We spoke briefly while he taped images to the walls and door of the City Hall facade. To the authorites it would be viewed as a palpable act of defiance, but to Siya it is an invitation. He is a film maker and was busy pasting a stage background onto the walls of this architectural grand dame. The crude pop silhouettes unraveled from his backpack beckoning actors and artists to visit his self-made urban stage.

The unofficial Freedom Ride contingent arrived in his informal theater as he arranged the last of his props and occupied this most contested space. Neither of us had permission to be there, to ride, to display, to invite disarray. Yet there we were - in the shadow of the balcony where Madiba stood 20 years ago to give his first speech as a free man.

Today's unofficial Freedom Ride saw a growing number of riders join us as we moved from the leafy suburbs of Cape Town into and across a range of urban landscapes that we feel reflect the city we live in. The agility of the bicycle makes it possible to connect across physical infrastructural divides that hem in these enclaves of poverty and difference. We literally rode over and through these divisions that were too expansive to walk and are too expensive to reconsider.
The bicycle is becoming for me a vehicle of ecological as well as social sustainability.

My longing is to somehow overcome the devastation of apartheid spatial planning. Working on the Freedom Ride as an event to take thousands of wheels on this journey gives me such hope. To change a perspective is to change a landscape.

When my curious anarchist heart is weary, I have to ask: given that I am just one person, one designer on a bicycle, is this even possible. Is it worth trying?
Siyabulela was a gift to me today. When I asked him what his mission is, he replied: "I ride until my legs get tired to make a stage for others. The people will fill this place with what it needs."

Thank you Madiba that I could hear that in the shadow of your legacy.

Make a Stage: Tape and Plastic

Twitter comments @contestedspaces
Follow @FreedomRideCT

Why the Bicycle

For someone who tries to steer away from operating in an aura of linguistic aloofness to justify and present my design methods, I have to confess. I have found a profoundly complex description, which I will be using regularly.

Doxastic Commitment. That is a class of beliefs that go beyond talk and to which we are committed enough to take personal risks.

It is this commitment that converts objection into protest and opinions into advocacy. Its usage appears to be rare as its application in practice.  A comment made to me recently, “It is great to have an activist here..” is a reflection that policy is being guided by bureaucratic dogma rather than an understanding of life on the street. People who care because they risk what it is to know are in the minority.

I was offered this as a secondhand encouragement after a recent heated forum discussion on cycling and non-motorised transport infrastructure.

Translation: “Wow, you actually ride your bicycle on the road?”

Yes. I do.

It is precisely this methodology of Doxastic Commitment that has endeared me to the life and words of Nelson Mandela. The legacy he has left the design community (of which I am a part) is one that calls forth authenticity and commitment in action. The personal risk of saying no to high paying clients and environmental destruction. The personal risk of saying yes to pro-bono work and defending an unpopular opinion. And critically, the personal risk of being proven to be wrong either by allowing personal conviction or ones peers to do so. 

Adding cycling advocacy to my job description has proven in some ways to be a doxastic commitment (I used it again!). It’s a heated debate regarding one of the most contested of spaces. Mobility. The intensity of this debate is fueled by the realization that we have very limited choices of movement routes and so to share those routes, it is wrongly assumed, then that our decisions will then be further constrained. Gloves on.

The first major cycling advocacy project I am working on is confronting every obstacle and preconceived idea I’m likely to address in my burgeoning career in disruption and advocacy. All conveniently wrapped in one initiative. The 27km Cape Town Freedom Ride.

This social ride is a celebration of the legacy of Nelson Mandela. His choice to pursue freedom and reconciliation speak powerfully to the forward thinking strategic mobility decisions required to overcome our apartheid spatial legacy. One kilometer of cycling freedom for every year of Madiba’s incarceration is poetic as we plan to move (albeit it somewhat conceptually) from places of captivity to City Hall where Madiba spoke his first words as a free man. 

The route traverses neighborhoods in the city that are divided by infrastructure but have cycling lanes either established or planned, working perpendicular to that divisive heritage. It’s powerful moving both perception and bicycle. The trigger button for advocacy.

Ironically, the Freedom Ride experience has also given me the reason why my doxastic commitment will be worth it. Tireless discussions with authorities, revised management plans, revised dates, debating helmet laws, and the gathering of every conceivable hitch and snag have made clear in urban design terms why cycling matters. The Freedom Ride encapsulates the desire of people to move despite of, not because of what is before them.

And, as with the pursuit of freedom, the bicycle has proven itself to be antifragile.

My Curious Anarchy

Designers and planners really try an orchestrate the world around them more than they ought to.
When we shout criticism at others we are often whispering it to ourselves.
We cannot control time, chance meetings or intersection of events. They are the canvas on which we draw. They simply are.

This week is incredibly significant for me. 6 months ago almost to the day, I rode a bicycle on Cape Town's streets for the first time. A 6 month personal challenge to change the way I think. The way I design. Today I am presenting the fruit of this adventure at TedXCapeTown. A pitch to talk at the August event. Tonight's 2 minutes are equally important to me as August's potential 18 minutes.

Its all about timing, apparently. 

Here is my pitch.
[Pepper this written word with the bubbly enthusiasm and the full intensity of the intoxicating freedom to be found when you do what it is you are hardwired for..]

I'm Kirsten. I am an urban designer. I always have been.
At my first public participation meeting (gesture:many years ago) I presented a slick, glossy design to a community hall of 300 people on the government housing waiting list.
A 175 unit low income housing pilot project filled to the brim with innovative solutions and supportive jargon. Portfolio grade presentation. 
At the end of the meeting, an elderly lady slowly made her way toward me from the back of the hall. In a softly spoken voice she said to me that she hadnt understood what I had said or the pictures I had drawn. She wanted to know if they meant she would no longer be sleeping in a bathtub at night. Turns out she had been renting out the cramped bathroom of a nearby house. She was looking for hope.

I don't design like that anymore.

The question I asked myself was how can the majority of the inhabitants of this city participate in a system where the language of change is spoken by so few? This unapproachable democracy of city making.
This was the beginning of Open Source Urban Design.

Open Source method briefly is the breaking open of closed systems to reveal the design code. An invitation to collaborate and collectively improve it. Binary Marxism perhaps?
What if we applied this at the scale of the City? Really invited people in? Spoke a shared language?

Briefly, Open Source Urban Design is 3 things:
-Participants become collaborators in this shared language
-Designers move from 'creators' to translators of experience and empathy
-Local authorities move from the strangle hold of red tape and policy making to receivers of words, sentences and paragraphs of this spatial language.

In real terms it looks like this. 6 months ago I got on a bicycle for the first time. I simply could not design spaces for cyclists without understanding their world. I immersed myself in what it meant to commute, to race, to deliver. My incessant 'newbie' questions translated into advocacy..which in turn translated into a collaborative task team after I pitched the idea to City officials that perhaps mobility is not a line but a series of interconnected public spaces which cyclists pass through.
This is my happy space.
This is Open Source Urban Design

Tell me your story and let me help you to decode the city.

twitter@contestedspaces

Writing The City

The events of this weekend have proven to be an outworking of South Africa’s hard earned freedom, at a national level with the inauguration of the President and much more personally on a bicycle with an unsanctioned Freedom Ride through the streets of Cape Town. 

Freedom is an incredibly complex organism to me. It holds the fragility of history with the embellishment of hope, all the while being tied together in such a way that underscores the importance of stability and structure. An ‘anything goes’ approach usually paves the way for everything to go. Freedom to me is a coherent understanding of context and a firm foundation for dreaming.

The planned Cape Town Freedom Ride is a 27km bicycle ride that looks to understanding and overcoming the structure of our cities as frameworks which constrain social cohesion. It’s a social ride, moving a diverse grouping of cyclists through a diverse set of neighborhoods with each kilometer representative of Madiba’s years of incarceration.

Historically, the apartheid government in South Africa used infrastructure to intentionally separate, insulate and intimidate various race groups. Roads, rail and bulk service services carve the city into communities that can and should be reconciled. After 20 years of democracy, rhetoric and good intentions haven’t changed much on the ground. The bicycle however has proven to be the most noblest of inventions.

After the rejection of the Freedom Ride event application by the City of Cape Town (with the suggestion to postpone to a later date), our motley crew of organizers and cyclists rode the route today anyway. Discovering the joys, surprises and elevations to be enjoyed by thousands on the new date 16^th June. We set off as scheduled - a handful of cyclists attempting to bridge the divides. Within minutes, our bicycles soared over and under those structures meant to separate. Our compassion moved beyond where it was permitted before. We saw, we spoke, we were left speechless and we acknowledged all we took in.

We arrived at our destination, full of renewed enthusiasm to share this route with others. We stopped finally at City Hall, where Madiba had given his first speech after his release from prison in 1990. It is a fitting end to a ride that honors his legacy of knitting together difference with a time to reflect on what we will say of our ride once we have allowed ourselves to see our city with more compassion. I arrived just ahead of the other riders to quite an unexpected sight. A young man standing below Madiba’s balcony holding a bunch of orange tulips, his eyes darting around nervously, expectantly. A first date!

How fitting on a weekend that holds such promise for our country, to end this moving journey with the image of a young man hoping to find a future. Waiting. Looking. Knowing that when he has a chance he must be his best. 

Thank you Madiba for waiting, taking the chance you were given and giving us a future by giving us your best. We will honor you with thousands or riders on June 16th. I will bring tulips.

For more information on this unfolding story follow @contestedspaces and @FreedomRideCT 

Future Bridge