Dr. Siamak G. Shahneshin together with Dr. Lui Galati co-founded SHAGAL | iodaa, Interdisciplinary Office for Design Architecture & Arts, based in Zurich, a practice that believes urbanism growth is increasingly presenting new problems of land use, spatial and economic organization. In response SHAGAL | iodaa introduced the concept of "shrinkage" culture within the field of Ecological Landscape Urbanism.
Dr. Shahneshin acts as a consultant on a number of international architectural and urban projects, as well as advisor to the Inter- & Governmental Organisations and Private Development Agencies and NGOs worldwide in the area of green sustainable development. He has received numerous international recognitions and awards, including the American Academy of Arts and Letters' Awards and the European Union Young Architects Awards.
Shonagh Lindsay (SL) How can we create a "shrinkage" culture when our economies are based upon expansion - Gross National Product not Genuine Progress Indicators?
Siamak G. Shahneshin (SGS) Well, that’s the point, the economy is ill. We need sustainable economies. Shrinkage, however, is not about earning less or having fewer profits. There are technical and educational obstacles to overcome in the current design trend, but the real barriers seem to be cultural and political. Do we have the will to make it happen? We have to abandon the current mindset, and begin to think righteously towards everything around us so as to overcome both the current visible and invisible crisis as well as the “unknown” future to come.
Most designers excel at making the small changes that shape everyday life experiences, but we seek change in the Orwellian sense — paradigm-shifts, shrinkage culture through ecological landscape urbanism. When we proposed Ecological Landscape Urbanism in early 2003, it was born within the shrinkage [culture]. We developed Ecological Landscape Urbanism as a response to unanswered questions left from 70’s planning, then New Urbanist work, and lately Landscape Urbanism. It's an amazing moment for landscape architecture in building the history of civilisation.
Ultimately we need to make the built environment like an ecosystem – buildings like trees and cities like forests. A simple change in perception, which asks that we think more radically, and to be more idealistic in our visions of what a green sustainable built environment can look like.
If mainstream sustainable construction industry remains stuck in the energy-efficiency model of development, we will miss the small window of opportunity left in which to avoid system collapse. Existing models are not geared to encourage innovation outside the norms acceptable to the market. The sad thing is that to create the conditions favourable to such a fundamental change in the social system, we may very well need to have a systems collapse first, such as the current financial crisis.
SL How does a "shrinkage" culture relate to the imperative of resource use contraction not expansion? In the developing world we see many examples of using resources wisely - water, animals, energy - but that is because they have no choice, whereas in the developed world we talk about sustainability while continuing our consumer lifestyles.
SGS Believe it or not, we have crafted a culture bubble, and built an environ bubble, where mindsets are the XL-cultures. The challenge today is to deflate the bubble before it bursts. The most vulnerable sector may be the 'environ-ment' in the extended sense of the word. The wisely planned agricultural lands, forests, meadows, wetlands, in other words, all the green lands would offer a sort of guarantee to our survival.
It is a partially wise usage, but it is not planned. By planning, I mean planned action. Hand-in-hand action, togetherness is the winning key. Historically and socially, the notion of continual expansion was introduced in the Industrialisation Age, and only now we note its devastating consequences. If you follow our practice of shrinkage you will see that shrinkage goes very much further than just “contraction” in terms of the technical aspects. It is about wise-usage of resources. The current rates of urbanisation in the developing world are historically unprecedented. The biggest mistake would be to try and address this “growth” using conventional urban planning and management methods. Instead, it might be more useful to learn from how nature handles growth, ecological communities are allowed to self-organise in interlinked patches, making use of indigenous resources and adapting to local constraints.
We live in a closed system with finite boundaries, and so we must understand our inherent problems with over-consumption in relation to this closed system. Green-sustainable living, in concept, is not difficult to grasp. But, right now, we live in an environmental nightmare, where human actions are based on the perception that we are at the centre of the universe.
We can learn from the shrinkage concept, as a device for thinking in this wasteful age. The shrinkage concept now has multiple case studies where research has led to some built, some not yet built, projects. Our own business cards are a fantastically “simple” demonstration of shrinkage because of the significant ecological benefits they create. Our first question was what material should we use? This being the most important environmental question designers face regularly. By choosing 100 percent waste cardboard and paper (Post-consumer Waste) we reduce pressure on our remaining forests, save water and energy, and divert solid waste from our over-crowded landfills. Using vegetable-based inks and glues and wind-power in their printing adds to the environmental benefits. As you see even the seemingly little business-cards’ design and production has a great effect to land[scape] and its life.
SL Can you explain to me the “thinking-forward” of your Zurich Airport redesign master plan in terms of its main principles?
SGS It is “thinking-forward” as the first-ever example of shrinking an airport. We foresee the current practice of airport design being abandoned soon, because we will no longer need kilometres of runway area, as we now have manufactured prototypes of civic airplanes that take-off [and land] vertically.
We placed people and nature at the heart of our design with quality Shrinkage as the main programmatic theme, and call it the new “smart growth”, adding to the discourse surrounding urban landscape in Europe and beyond. This particular landscape intelligence is new, because there are no past references for such environments. Reinstating and maintaining the flora and fauna in this area – instead of expanding the airport – required a 'whole systems' design approach. We have offered a long(er)-term strategy based on natural processes and plant lifecycles (successional development) to rehabilitate the severely disconnected degraded landscape. Surprisingly, these areas provide a regionally significant wildlife sanctuary for diverse species of animals. We envision a rich reservoir, not only for wildlife, but also for cultural and social life. Our design would restore existing grasslands, patches and forests, and reinvigorate rare vegetation species while introducing new habitats and adding educational amenities.
The new master plan (the Naturpark) is based on facts: Zurich airport’s financial failures, functional and technical fiascos as well as the high number of accidents per year. Our data gathering included house-to-house visits and questionnaires, demonstrators’ resolutions, historical plans, flora and fauna along with statistics, and so-forth. We invited anyone with an interest in the issues surrounding neighbourhood, community, parks and their policy, planning, and sociology and new human geography to participate in our workshop conversations.
At SHAGAL | iodaa we have a tradition of involving public and private stakeholders in the planning and implementation of our projects, finding this to be instrumental in ensuring their long-term success. Through our design process, local residents become town-planning experts by planning their own space and talking it through with us. The new master plan is a cultural, ecological, economic, social as well as political programme that allows things to happen from the bottom up, which is how we enact Ecological Landscape Urbanism. It is a re-naturalisation of the territory placing priority on open space and natural systems rather than on buildings and infrastructure while allowing the airport to function efficiently at a high capacity within a smaller boundary. A multi-staged approach that evolves over time, allowing a slow [re]generation of degraded place as the quintessential eco-aesthetic, with a dynamic staging offering both indeterminacy and uncontrolled occupation in four major design phases. In short, this design is environmentally restorative, socially constructive and economically viable.
SL What do you see as the fundamental analysis tools necessary in designing for sustainability or carbon neutrality in any and every bioregion?
SGS We believe the most fundamental tool is self-consciousness and self-examination, of each and every aspect of our own everyday-lifestyles, first. Through this process of self-assessment we may discover, realise and learn the blueprints for carbon neutrality and green-sustainability. Much of this is about good design in the broadest sense, as our ancestors did, for example, in Tchogha-Zanbil (built 1250 B.C.) and Mesa-Verde (built A.D. 1200s), both UNESCO World Heritage Sites. Above of all, common sense doesn’t make mistakes.
SL In Victor Papanek's phrase: "Design has become the most powerful tool with which man shapes his tools and environments (and, by extension, society and himself)." How do you think landscape design and urban design can influence culture?
SGS Historically speaking the land[scape] has had a predominant influence over the art [at large] of a given culture. Contemporary designers need to draw on something as inspiration for their designs and often they turn back to the land[scape]. This would exemplify the importance of landscape [design and urban design]. I think that it is noteworthy to mention that there is an intense interlinked relationship between the wellbeing of people and their landscape(s), demonstrated in both the social science and medical fields. Landscape design and urban design historically and phenomenologically are culture! In my own experience I have seen this evidenced in Italian cities such as Firenze 59 B.C. in Tuscany and Vigevano 10th A.D. in Lombardy, testifying how city design [and urban landscape design] influenced the culture in these regions.
Many American university departments – architecture, sociology, political economy, and geography – have established permanent structures (in Italy) to host their graduate students in urban design studies in-situ from different angles. This is because the principles are [almost] the same; the language and tools may appear different, but what we “create” at the end is cultural. I believe landscape design [and urban design] can also influence the culture of ecology [both human and wildlife], and in doing this lead citizens in thinking environmentally, acting to curb carbon emissions.
SL How would you describe the culture pattern of a sustainable civilization?
SGS Culture is a critical piece of this puzzle. Ideally, we need to detach ourselves from the entanglements of existing social, political, economic and even scientific beliefs that have put distance between our natural surroundings and us. Our patterns of land use, transportation, and building [urban] design and renovation have major consequences for energy use and pollution generation, with the environmental and economic outfall felt most by the least privileged. Designers are obligated to search carefully, responsibly as well as creatively for a gamut of new materials and innovative ways to turn waste materials into healthy resources. However, education remains the top problem. Education must actively teach subsistence living, allowing for a deeper connection to the natural cycles and seasons of the earth. Educational institutions have often been more concerned with means than ends, and underlying this are cultural failures dating back, at least, to Galileo. We have come to see ourselves as lords and masters of creation, and education as mostly utilitarian and technical. The reality of our time was captured a long time ago by Herbert George Wells with his observation that we are in a race between education and catastrophe. Let me borrow from Great Asia a word of wisdom [a Chinese proverb 3rd c. B.C.] on education “If we plan for a year, it is necessary to sow some corn. If we plan for decades, it is necessary to set some trees. If we plan for a lifetime, it is necessary to educate a man.”
SL Can you show me progress in the concept of "sustainable development" through two of your community development projects - one at the beginning of your 20-year career in this area and one much more recent?
SGS In Italy, within our public [and community] services, we have designed a mixed-use community-orientated neighbourhood for former drug-dependent people as a place to live and work where we have employed shrinkage culture in terms of the reuse and recycling of existing building materials. The roofs are largely planted as green roofs where plants and flowers are grown for sale, and through this we reduced considerably the amount of land needed cultivation while also enhancing both the development and the neighbourhood's micro-climate. This was an early project employing sustainability in an extended sense: economic, social, environmental and construction.
One of our more recent projects is a tourist settlement in northern Khartoum (Sudan) – a very long story I now make very short. This is an archaeological site attracting worldwide visitors and scientists with the nearest urban setting 500 or so kilometres away. We enhanced the existing local definition of construction through defining viable, low-cost alternatives to “conventional” solutions. We created 'revised' native villages as hotel residency for visitors to the area alongside co-existing adjacent villages. Within this we integrated houses and community places for workers who run the hotel. This went beyond materials use and energy-efficiency as it provides social-sustainability – bringing life to the neighbouring villages economically, and introducing a clinic and health services to the hotel setting for indigenous people throughout this remote region. The developing world (two-third of the global population) cannot “develop” in the same way and, by implication, to the same levels of consumption and pollution as current “developed” countries. Decision-makers and designers must avoid such a mistake by adopting not just different technological alternatives, but also unique ways to meet both human and environmental needs.
SL What impact do you think you have made as advisor to Inter- & Governmental Organisations and Private Development Agencies as well as NGOs worldwide?
SGS We have had an active voice within the United Nations Environment Programme on urban sustainability, and the Agenda 21 Sustainable Construction. Unfortunately, we are measured only by our most recent achievement – last to-market, newest award-winner, and latest recognition by the AIA, RIBA and so on. We in our professions tend to believe: “A great building needs a great client!” Perhaps, but we extend this to Any Client Is Great! Our impact continues to be to demonstrate that you can build healthy environments with minimum land-use, minimum materials, minimum operational energy, and minimum maintenance costs. This is easier to achieve in developing countries than the so-called “developed” ones.
However, we didn’t set a series of rating systems “to control”, rather we suggested a series of ecological consciousness obligations – so far employed by few countries. For example, in the early 90’s we launched the Planted-Green-Roof concept (as well as Greening Facades) to deal with the Urban Heat Island, an issue for most cities. It took 20 years to be taken seriously, but now city administrators are implementing this very practical concept to deal with such problems. And if all the world's cities were to implement Planted-Green-Roofs it would alter the course of global climate change.
In the so-called “third world” we’ve introduced – after studies of demographic rates and income typologies – a specific square meter land-use per family, with this land now rented to the families free-of-charge by government to build houses. We have been marching, lecturing and advocating for the Incentive Programmes and Green Tax Relief for sustainable developments, which only now are some countries beginning to enact. One of the strategies we’ve crafted and introduced publicly was the sustain[ed] mass transit subsidy and low-income transit-passes. All of these programmes have been developed within the ecological landscape context under the shrinkage umbrella.
SL SHAGAL | iodaa embarked in the early 90s upon a hypothetical enactment of a city neutral carbon policy for the Cincinnati Park in Torino (Italy) 1994, Strategic Masterplan for Downtown Athens (Greece) 1998, the Geneva Region Riverfront Masterplan 2002 (Switzerland), Masterplan for a New City in Eastern region of China 2002, Trinity River Corridor Development in Dallas (USA) 2003, the New Masterplan for Zurich Airport (Switzerland) 2005 and for the Hobart Waterfront in Tasmania (Australia) 2006.
Have any of these cities enacted the carbon neutral policies you devised? Which do you think has been the most successful in doing this, and why to you think it has been successful?
SGS Unfortunately there has been much short-sightedness by focusing on the monetary benefits of making cities attractive through new buildings. However, in the long run, yes, we have been successful, as our projects have been partially accepted.
Large-scale planning projects require political negotiations [a sort of ping-pong] as well as the financing issues, so one needs much patience, perseverance, and the social-worker attitude of helping build community awareness. For example, our project entry for the Cincinnati Park in Torino won the competition yet remains in the hands of Italian politics while the city's green spaces - piazza and gardens - have been transformed into dry “islands” of asphalt and concrete-block, with a few “fortunate” areas paved in stone. We call this "mayors’ symptom" in Italy and the other less-fortunate European countries.
But then our projects involving rivers have now been acknowledged by the European Council for Environment, as well as several other environmental and social agencies and non-profit organisations, for the benefits they provide, and the benchmark they constitute for others to implement. Only now is there wide recognition of the vital role ecological landscape design can play in our environmental, social, financial, psychological and human well-being. Our job is to dream and to make those dreams happen; in this, time is a big factor. I recall a Downtown New York gallery running under the name “Time is always now”. Whenever I hesitate, I think of this slogan, let us not lose our time. This is our call.
