jakarta :: evolution (informal, formal)

a bemo in front of warungs                                                                                                                                                                     

streetscape
on neighborhood spine streets, "chaos" results from more informal activities playing out along the street. sidewalks are rare, and the roadside is occupied by a host of vendor carts, parked cars, or scooters. warungs (less formal family restaurants and shops) often line the street. all space on the street is used and if a parked car needs to back out of a spot to get back into the flow of traffic, it requires the service of a spotter to direct them. in one instance, cars were parked so closely in front of a restaurant that the only way I could get by was to climb over a car or two.

midtown manhattan still evolving                                                                                                                                                       

informal --> formal
food carts are an example of the informal activities that begin in the street and over time acquire architectural space. the activity acquires a cart and a little space, in time a shed is built, then rebuilt with sturdier construction, then a full building is built to multiple levels. these are the stages of typology that can be seen in any city (above image shows continued evolution in midtown manhattan, where older form-types give way to bigger and taller types.

formal --> informal
but new activities will always pop up, because the city is dynamic. for example mexican laborers are now manning the corners of already formalized west berkeley. how long before they begin to get a cart for coffee and food while they wait to get picked up for work? over time maybe they’ll move into shops, with fussball and pool tables, as well as coffee and food service, while they wait for work. architect liz ogbu had already caught on to this and speculatively designed a center for the laborers where they could learn english while they wait for work, among other productive activities. an example of an architect inserting ideals into the natural evolution of the city. 

cyclical urbanism

a road is lined with opportunistic informal activity that uses carts. as the activities evolve, the carts are replaced with shacks. over time, the shacks are replaced by more formal shop/restaurant, perhaps with a level of residence above (the shophouse). as the neighborhood further evolves, the shophouse might be replaced with a shop with three or four levels of residences above (the insula). At some point sidewalks were introduced to handle the pedestrian flows and keep autos separate. this is another insertion of ideals - we assume it is safer and more logical to separate traffic modes. but this assumption is being challenged in parts of european cities, where some streets mix all traffic modes again. order can be found in each case.   

optimization or entropy?

policy can always intervene into natural systems and create breakage. consider this alternative to the natural evolution process: corporate developers raze all the piecemeal and construct gigantic shopping centers with office and residential towers on superblocks. more is being controlled now by fewer players, but what does this mean for naturally evolving street life?

form follows finance                                                                                                                                                                                

jakarta :: (im)pression

two urban orders
on the one hand social relationships are established in the street where information can easily be exchanged. this is the driving social order behind a dense pattern of low-rise live/work form-types, where the street is heavily populated by pedestrians, bicycles, tricycle trucks, scooters, and donkeys - the old town.

on the other hand modern urban life is characterized by “increasing individualization by way of social relationships established through various networked media and dispersed work careers. so people can now lead functional urban lives without ever having to take others with whom they nominally share living and public spaces into any substantial consideration.” (abdoumaliq) this is a social order conducive to high-rise and suburban living - the new town.

evolution
the former urban order has been around as long as cities have been around. the latter has been around since the automobile and the telephone. the former is dying - perceived as impoverished, dirty, and backward, while the latter is growing, and becoming our global culture of space. finding the designer of the former is like trying to find the chef that created the hamburger, while the latter is financed by developers and designed by architects.

*Simone, Abdoumaliq. City Life from Jakarta to Dakar. New York: Routledge, 2010.