Cities as a Canvas for Experimentation

Canvas of Experimentation

As architects and urban planners, we need to let go of the idea that we should have complete control. Instead of thinking of our work in terms of the final product, we should think about it as an ever-changing canvas onto which people are going to shape their lives.

Architecture is the infrastructure of life, within which users and their activities move, adapt and change. Architecture and urban planning should not be an autocratic linear process with a single vision of what is right. The source of what is right in architecture can’t be absolute, and should rather be an intuitive collaboration of many inspired individuals overlaying their visions in a shared community. We need to employ intuition and encourage participation in modifying and creating environments that perform and inspire.

A disconnected design process

The making of structures and cities has become a disconnected process. Very little of it is practised with intuition; instead, it is practised according to codes, regulations, minimum requirements, deadlines and budgets. These factors are important but shouldn’t ignore qualitative conversations and considerations. 

A property built by a developer is typically built to maximize revenue, which is an understandable requirement, however, its duty to society and contribution to the city shouldn’t be ignored. The process of city building should give the designer the opportunity to practice good intuition, and should give end-users the freedom to participate and modify their environment.

Hands-on growth

There is something charming about the organic formation of dense slums. Their hands-on growth develops out of need, with a close relationship to materials and highly conditioned by scale.

Slums can inspire cities to grow according to need, employing experimentation and improvisation to grow. They represent spaces that have been designed with human scale fundamentally considered.  Cities are for people to live in and should be spaces where people are encouraged to participate and pour their creativity into.

Opportunities

Imagine a design process that sees beauty in experimentation and seeks opportunity in everything; design that is heavily based on imagination and fully driven and supported to apply and experiment with its visions. Imagine a city that is a canvas of experimentation.

 

There are so many ideas to explore. We believe it would be enriching to see a city truly invest in realizing these ideas, not for advancing its self-image, but to advance its society. It is a city that has the right to organically grow, without the final product of its growth ever being fully known. The reality is, there is no end to it. Cities are everchanging organisms and inhabitants should be empowered to participate in their growth.