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Maryanne Muthoni - Report

Before the summer school

Prior to the summer school, we were required to go through a few publications and do an assignment on an icon of spatial planning in our country. The publications were to give us proper context on how the Netherlands has dealt with flooding, planning in the Netherlands and to understand the just city. For the assignment, I did the Nairobi National Park which is the only National park in a capital city in the world.
SUMMER SCHOOL PLANNING AND DESIGN FOR THE JUST CITY 2023

To say my Travel fellowship was just a good experience would be an understatement, it changed my life, my whole view of the built environment and the architect I want to be. For granting me this opportunity, I am grateful to the Berkeley prize and to the organizers of the Summer school, Roberto Rocco and Caroline Newton. 

This was my first travel experience internationally and from the moment I stepped foot in the Netherlands I was in awe. The summer school takes place at Delft University of Technology in Delft town which to get from Schiphol airport in Amsterdam was a train ride. I remember sitting on the train taking in how intricately planned, especially in terms of infrastructure the country is and how they have managed to achieve order and harmony with water: working with water instead of against it.

Delft is a beautiful quaint town characterized by Dutch traditional architecture buildings(that are narrow and ornamented), with many canals and waterways within it. There are a few elements of differently styled modern buildings which are mainly the university buildings and modern apartments for student accommodation but the heart of the town retains the traditional style. 

The model of learning for the summer school was presentations,site visits and working in groups to develop a vision for the Maasterras area in Dordrecht. I have broken down these experiences below per day with activities and photos of what we did.

We started the day by registering from 9:30 -10a.m. at the Pulse building. Registration was confirming our names, country, showing our Covid vaccine certificate then they gave us badges and tote bags with welcome gifts.

The first session by Roberto Rocco was a presentation giving an introduction to the Summer school. Significant topics  mentioned include: environmental migrants, SDG 11, The Green Deal, what is justice?, insurgent planning, urbanism of care and successive systematic shocks. Important learning resources mentioned which discuss spatial justice in cities in depth include: the duty of care podcast, rethink the city course and https://just-city.org/. We then took a short break.

The next session, still by Roberto Rocco, discussed the Netherlands: how it is located on a delta and how they had to create land through reclamation using polders. 25% of the country is under sea level. They also talked about how urbanism of Amsterdam was contained so it wouldn't be too dense of a city like modern cities and instead development was pushed for other cities(Polycentric urbanization). The Randstan and Green Heart were also discussed. Randstad is a group of cities that sort of form a ring around the Green Heart which is a marshy green zone where farming is done. How development is eating it up was discussed and what is being done to stop it.

The third session by Remon Rooij discussed 'What is urbanism at TU Delft?'. Approaches such as transdisciplinary integration and collaboration were discussed. What really stuck with me was discussing how design and planning of the urban landscape should be dynamic. Solutionism which are short fixes will not work since problems keep evolving as time goes, population increases and today's problems are not yesterday's problems.

The fourth session by Marcin Dabrowski discussed ‘Just sustainability transitions’: What are they? How are cities culprits, victims but also how can they also be the solution? We also looked at what goes wrong with urban sustainability solutions where also solutionism came up again and how urban solutions should be place based and human centered.

The fifth session by Caroline Newton discussed spatial justice. Important resources discussed include: The right to the City and Seeking Spatial justice by Edward Soja. Concepts discussed include how space is socially produced, what is spatial justice and when space becomes a product.  The sixth session was by Juliana Goncalves who discussed how to put spatial justice in practice. She mainly talked about Energy poverty and research they did in the Netherlands on it and solutions they proposed. Energy poverty is not just about electricity but also transport, food, green energy and many more. After all the presentations, we went out for welcome drinks where I got to meet and talk to the other over ninety students that were taking part in the summer school from different countries. 

Day 2 (Tuesday July 4th 2023)

Day 2 was mainly presentations. The first one was by Martine Rutten, a civil engineer who spoke about water management in the Netherlands. He talked about Dordrecht(where the proposed site for our project would be) and how they are anticipating a rise in sea level and what they are doing to plan and mitigate it. Concepts discussed include making roof gardens for food during  flooding, making roof bridges to allow people to move from one building to another, having solar panels for energy, having lower levels of buildings unoccupied and open with temporary activities then residents live above incase of flooding and many more. 
The second presentation was by the DELTA program that spoke about Water governance in the Netherlands. The Delta program works to prevent flooding now and in the future in the Netherlands. 

The third presentation was about urban resilience by Carissa Champlin. This was my favourite session of the day. Concepts she mentioned include: what is urban resilience, permacrisis, three questions(resilience of what, resilience to what and resilience for whom) and how to deal with shocks/stresses. We then discussed a bit on the difference between government and governance. The fourth session was by Arcadis Shelter program. What I loved about this was they spoke about how they worked with UNEP and the Nairobi Rivers Commission to rehabilitate the Nairobi River, which is located in Nairobi city where I live. They discussed how the river goes through informal settlements like Korogocho and how people dump in it, how it's been rehabilitated before but it still keeps being ruined again, so they were looking for a permanent way to stop this. Even so many kilometers away from home I am glad I heard it mentioned.

The fifth session was by Charlotte Braat who talked about freeing our public spaces from fossil ads, basically ads by corporations that do green washing. She discussed how such ads were part of the threat to livability in cities. The sixth session was by Roberto Rocco who discussed Socio Technical transitions. He talked about Socio Technical systems, what is the need to transition and what is being transitioned to, carbon neutral economy and the Green deal.

Day 3 (Wednesday July 5th 2023)

Day 3 started with a presentation about Life Critical by Ellen Kelder. Life Critical stands for Climate Resilience Through Involvement of loCAL citizens and involves addressing problems neighbourhoods face with regard to climate adaptation by exploiting the potential of nearby parks and working with local communities. 

The second presentation was by Berry Gersonius who did an introduction to Dordrecht(our site) and the 2 islands it is on and the plans they have for them. The main thing he discussed was the plan they have to transform the area and flood risk innovations they have which include: open ground floor areas for easy evacuation, urban farming on roofs for food supply during floods, renewable sources of energy, prefabricated houses and many more. He also discussed the Maasterras which is planned to be accessible as a shelter location during floods, it could be more than a shelter- a coordination hub. Ideas that intrigued me were colour coded evacuation routes, public interconnected roof gardens that connect to form a bridge, create ways to direct water to rivers, evacuating upwards if it floods and many more.This was introduced to us because the vision we were creating would be in the Maasteras area.

We then went for a site visit to the  Life Critical site and to Maasteras in Dordrecht where we were working on a group project to come up with a vision and more ideas for the area in addition to what the municipality has. Problems in the area include: noise from roads and railway, toxic soil, dangerous explosives transported on train, poor walkability of area. The area has a replanning vision for 2040 to be done by the municipality to be green, have 6,000 houses, have amenities, transform the bridge in the area to a green park like the High line in New York and be sustainable and we were meant to examine it and also come up with our own which adds to what they have or is a completely new idea.

Day 4 (Thursday July 6th 2023)
 
This day was about governance and the first presentation was on 'what is governance?' by Marcin Dabrowski. He talked about how planning before was technocratic blueprint planning while now it is a democratic, flexible, interdisciplinary process with stake holder and citizen engagement. He added shifts from government to governance are being seen through going beyond the state for example through PPP (Public Private Partnerships) projects like the Expressway in Kenya. We discussed the dimensions of governance which are horizontal and vertical. We then had a ‘what is spatial planning?’ interactive session by Roberto Rocco and Caroline Newton. We examined our project in Maastteras in Dordrecht and what we are supposed to do. We discussed a vision in planning and how you need to start with a trigger project to kickstart things and attract people. After the trigger project you do the key projects.

After this we had a public goods workshop by Roberto Rocco. They are things for everyone and they do not reduce. They include: good air, bicycle lanes, street lights, sewerage, infrastructure, heritage spaces, open spaces and many more. We discussed how they can be privatized, excluding the public. We also talked about how they need to be created and how they are expensive to create. Afterwards we did 3 minute presentations of icons of spatial planning from our countries in groups. I presented Nairobi National Park. One icon that particularly stuck with me from the other student’s presentations was the Erasmusbrug bridge in Rotterdam which we got to see personally on week 2 of the summer school for our tour of Rotterdam.

Day 5 (Friday July 7th 2023)

Day 5 started with a presentation from Juliana Goncalves on Smart data for spatial justice where we discussed the use of data and AI in urban planning and policy. We discussed how AI is good in that there is a lot of big data collected which can be used for example to improve mobility in cities. However, AI has a disadvantage of perpetuating discrimination which can be solved through public participation and citizen engagement for example through design workshops and collective visioning with communities through art based methods. The next presentation was on Gender and Architecture by Maria Novas who mentioned aspects of trying to make streets and public spaces more inclusive for women.

The third presentation was by Gert van DER Merwe who discussed a project in Namibia for urine diversion dehydration toilets known as otji toilets. It is sort of a dry toilet that doesn't use water and separates the different human waste then they are reused/disposed of. The aim of the project is to provide proper affordable sanitation to informal settlements while saving water. The fourth presentation was by Titus Kaloki from FES (Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung) Kenya, who discussed a Transformative Change Methodology the organization has created to make cities just and how they implemented it in a project in Nakuru city in Kenya.

The fifth presentation was by Bas Kolen who discussed water safety for the Maasterras(our site) as a shelter location. He talked about how climate change is causing a rise in sea level & what they are considering in the Netherlands so as to make the Maasterras area a shelter for example multifunctional buildings. The last session of the day was presentations by students from the summer school. A few students presented their profiles and projects they have done in their countries.

What really stuck with me was presentations done by students on Ukraine: Russian influence on Architecture of public squares in countries that were once part of the USSR/neighbouring countries and how people from those countries are trying to reclaim those spaces and make them their own. After we had an AI workshop by Caroline Newton and Mert Akay where we used Adobe firefly and Microsoft bing image creator to generate images. 

Day 9, 10 and 11

Day 9 began with a discussion on how spatial justice can be measured. There was a presentation on what the triangle that makes up spatial justice: distributive justice, recognition justice and procedural justice. We then discussed the concept of utilitarianism, economic egalitarianism and libertarianism based on an example we had been given. The second session discussed gentrification by Audrey Esteban and specifically climate gentrification. Ideas that really stuck with me was one way to combat gentrification in neighbours and housing is to incorporate social and affordable housing into projects, at least 25-30%.

The third session was by Lizet Kuitert and discussed public values. She discussed the types which included: process, performance and product. We were supposed to identify which values the different stakeholders in our site in Dordrecht were mainly involved in and any conflicts they may have with other stakeholders affected by our project. Afterwards we began discussions on our vision and spatial strategy for our project in Dordrecht. 

From the 9th to the 11th day we mainly dealt with creating the vision through a presentation. There were a few presentations by students who came up with manifestos about the just city in 2022 and another segregation by design who examines how highways in the USA have displaced people and how they are used as a tool to tear down black communities/for 'urban renewal'.

Day 12

This was the final day of the summer school and mainly involved presentations of our visions of the Maasterras area in Dordrecht that we had been working on from the 9th day in our assigned groups. We received input on our ideas then were awarded for successfully completing the summer school.

Post summer school 

After the summer school I visited Paris. I went to the top of the Eiffel tower, to Notre Dame and to the Louvre.