Learning Development: Green Concrete Sarah Browne
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Green Concrete Ireland’s mythological, unspoilt, green landscape has been somewhat altered in recent years, as traditional smallholdings have been almost eliminated for the benefit of large-scale, intensive agricultural, or commercial, development. As a post-colonial nation, historically preoccupied with land ownership, our anxiety/ desire to own all we survey has manifested itself in a watered-down, contemporary version of the ‘big houses’ of old: those pseudo-mansions that have sprung up in rural areas, and their suburban substitute: the detached house with a front and back lawn. On the other hand, Ballymun, Ireland’s great hope for a successful modernist housing project (built in the 1960s) has had to give up the ghost and admit defeat. (At the time of writing, the Ballymun towers are being demolished and its residents rehoused). It is becoming increasingly clear that we are struggling to find solutions whereby some combination of housing, and our beloved green spaces, can be incorporated into a framework for social, liveable, communities. Born in postwar America, the idea of a country-life-in-the-city that is suburbia, offers the illusion of space, affordability, and a sense of autonomy, ironically symbolised in the form of a car. Serious questions are beginning to emerge about the sustainability of this suburban lifestyle, particularly in a global context, as we face the inevitable decline of fossil fuels and the imminent peak in world oil production. 1 We have become dependent on cars to transport us to our workplaces and our contemporary leisure spaces: the sports complexes, and the suburban shopping centres like Blanchardstown and Liffey Valley (which so closely resemble the American ‘mall’ model). These ‘centres’ have often replaced actual town centres and parks as sites of leisure, recreation and personal interaction. Similarly in cities, there are few public spaces accessed, or personal encounters enacted, except through practices of consumption: in Dublin, public seating is scarce, and usually to sit down and enjoy a conversation it is necessary to ‘rent’ a space by buying some overpriced caffeinated beverage or sugary pastry somewhere. Dara McGrath’s series of photographs, By the Way (2003), are revealing social documents, communicating some of the changes we have been experiencing. They focus on the margins of Ireland’s growing transportation network, and examine the ‘geography of nowhere’. The suburban landscape, uncanny in its familiarity is shown to induce a kind of trompe l’oeil effect. Green spaces are revealed as being artificially, and often insensitively, constructed, depopulated and socially defunct (see, for example, palm trees at an intersection in N6/ M50 Liffey Valley, N11 Wyatville Junction; and Site 108, from Plantation, a new public commission for Sligo County Council). McGrath’s images impart an implicit critique of the alienating effects of this suburban sprawl. Their impact is by turns depressing, hopeful and poignant as Ireland’s new topography struggles to come into identifiable, placeable focus. Meanwhile, the idealised notion of ‘country life’ is represented in suburbia through private ownership and manicured lawns. These lawns retain their connotations of status and prestige that originated with their cultivation by the French and English upper classes; spaces that are strictly ornamental and non-functional by design. The lawn acts as a buffer between public and private, essentially a distancing tactic that effectively minimises social interaction. Yet as Ireland’s population increases, and as social groupings become progressively more diverse, these homogenous suburban houses (with gardens-front-and-back) are simply no longer viable living solutions. In effect, they act as a kind of ‘spatial template’ for living that dictates a particular social living arrangement (i.e. parents and children) that is simply no longer always appropriate. The effective separation of each house and lawn actually also an identity that is essentially anti-community as well as anti-diversity.2 Given all these factors, it is grim that the idea of suburbia seems to have taken root in the public imagination. Community consultation for the regeneration of St. Michael’s Estate in Inchicore, and the Ballymun regeneration programme, showed a majority of people opting for the own door, garden-front-and-back, suburban model.3 Perhaps the reason for this is that in Ireland, we have few examples of socially successful high-density housing. However, higher density neighbourhoods, in both urban and rural areas, remain the realistic alternative to our current trend of suburban housing developments that are inadequately supported by infrastructure and amenities. The challenge is to find ways of making these developments work, and be acceptable (for communities) in the long term. This is all the more imperative as critics have predicted that the suburbs will be ‘the ghettos of the future’, serving to ‘reverse globalisation’, placing new emphasis on a sense of place enacted through networks on a local and personal scale.4 One thing that all planning strategies (including the suburban model, in its own warped way) do recognise, however, is that green space in any housing development is somehow intrinsically linked with what is perceived to be the quality of life in that area. For what used to be a predominantly agricultural country, we have a very poor understanding and appreciation of what this actually means, and a very distanced relationship with these ‘green spaces’. Unlike other European cities, in Ireland there is little sense of collective ownership over public spaces and parks. Even though it is true that parks, such as St Stephen’s Green in Dublin, are well-used and loved, other public parks and gardens are sometimes perceived (at best) as uninteresting or uninviting. At worst they are seen as unsafe places in which to be, for example pockets of Dublin’s Phoenix, and Fairview, Parks, where serious violence has taken place in recent years. Tensions between public/ private ownership in regard to green spaces, (for example in suburban areas and gated communities) are often manifested as anxieties over ‘security’, and the expressed need to make clear distinctions (physical and social) between these territories. An artistic intervention exploring these issues is Cultivated Wilderness, which has been created as part of the Gorbals regeneration project in Glasgow, by the art/ architecture collective Sans façon, and sculptor, Matt Baker. The brief was to come up with an effective barrier between new housing and a public park. They responded with a ‘barrier’ that was created by planting native species of trees, shrubs and climbers, held within a trellis. The structure, part wall, part hedge, part fence, weaves back and forth along the wall, creating seating areas on each side: love seats between public and private. It subverts the idea of impassable boundary, of strict public/ private divisions, and questions the authority of gated communities. The trellis and the planting are designed for the plants to grow within the structure and take it over, perverting the idea of neat limitations between different design-elements; between the man-made and the natural. Weaving over and around the old wall, Cultivated Wilderness transforms it into a series of spaces, changing the role of the barrier into a social and inviting place. Other examples of socially-successful green spaces include, for example, the ‘community garden’ that has its origins in the 'commons'; communally owned spaces in urban and rural areas where people could graze their livestock, grow crops and pick produce from fruit and nut trees. Communal gardens and city farms have been a traditional way of using, and sharing, land in Europe and the United Kingdom. While the wealthy and powerful had enclosed common lands in Britain in the nineteenth century, the development of allotments for the working classes still recognised the importance of making urban land available for growing produce. In America there are over 10,000 community gardens. These are particularly successful in New York and Philadelphia, where residents have reclaimed neglected and empty lots of land, turning burnt-out rubble into some of the attractive, productive and socially active spaces. Community gardening has been seen to improve the quality of life for people by providing a catalyst for neighbourhood and community development, stimulating social interaction, encouraging self-reliance, beautifying neighbourhoods, producing nutritious food, reducing family food budgets, conserving resources and creating opportunities for recreation, exercise, therapy and education. Landscape designer Eric Van Lennep recounts how, in Berkeley, California, the city ran out of the maintenance budget for a particular strip of trees, so the residents started gardening it themselves. They put in fruit trees, opting for a use of green space that is productive as well as attractive. In British Columbia, another initiative sees trees in private homes tended in return for 75% of the profits. The trees are fed, pruned, harvested and generally tidied up. A basket of fruit or two is given to the homeowner, with the rest going to homeless shelters, clinics, schools; wherever its needed.5 Agnes Denes’ Wheatfield: a Confrontation was an artwork made in a similar spirit, but on a much larger scale. In 1982, Denes, planted and harvested two acres of wheat in Battery Park, New York. As Denes notes “Planting and harvesting a field of wheat on land worth $4.5 billion created a powerful paradox… The harvested grain travelled to twenty-eight cities around the world in an exhibition called The International Art Show for the End of World Hunger, organized by the Minnesota Museum of Art (l987-90)”6 That green-space projects are successful (in social terms) in urban areas is undoubted. In all of the areas where community gardens have been built, or trees planted, crime rates tend to drop and the area is generally seen as safer and more desirable. Van Lennep points to research in the area: “There was a study done, I think between Boston and London, and they were looking at relationships between street-tree-planting and crime. And they discovered that within twenty minutes of planting, the crime dropped! [laughs] It was phenomenal what was what happening… people were starting to sit in the fronts of their houses, it was no longer an anonymous space… of course as soon as that happened property values soared. Then gentrification can take over…” 7 In Ireland there tends to be a short sightedness in this respect: trees that are in planted civic and urban spaces often resemble a 3D version of an architect’s generic ‘tree-representation’. There is, however, an unwillingness from city authorities to plant unprotected trees, or create public greens, in poorer areas for fear of vandalism. But the representation, and the use, of nature in urban areas can’t be reduced to that of mere ‘green concrete’8. Sustainable Ireland, based in the Cultivate Centre in Temple Bar, is involved in this long-term discussion about city planning. When they moved in originally, they were asked for a number of suggestions for ‘greening up’ Temple Bar, and the City Council was somewhat surprised when they went beyond such token gestures as window boxes and hanging baskets. Both van Lennep, and artist Jochen Gerz speak of a ‘leap of faith’ that is needed in relation to these kinds of projects involving green urban spaces. Gerz’s work, amaptocare, has been commissioned as the result of such a leap by Ballymun Regeneration Ltd. People are being asked to donate trees (the cheapest at €50, a donation that is matched by the City Council). A text, written by the donor, is placed on a lectern beside each tree, responding to the question: if this tree could speak, what would it say for you? The names of the donors will be inscribed on the new Civic Plaza in Ballymun, and the location of each tree will be selected by its donor (this is a sensitive stage, and is yet to come). Practically speaking, it is crucial to instil an idea of the rights, but also the responsibilities, that go along with a sense of ownership of public spaces. Gerz sees vandalism as a desire to participate in a society from which one feels marginalised. The hope is that through donating the tree (paying for it) people will not feel as if they are being gratified by a handout that is somehow unearned (and therefore unvalued). There is a kind of beautiful ephemerality to the work, despite its echoes of (organic) monumentalism. As Gerz puts it, “art doesn’t need to be recognised [as art], aspirin doesn’t need to be recognised in the water. It needs to be recognised in the body, and that is where art should be recognised too.”9 It’s pretty obvious that these kind of art interventions necessitate and thrive by collaborations between different fields. Gerz points out that “art today is so accepted and surrounded by infrastructure… we said in the sixties it should be spreading out, communicating everywhere, and now it is. Today we have so many opportunities, art can be reaching out, really going further into the social fabric”.10 The Ballymun towers, soon to be no more, are an icon of Ireland’s failure to find viable urban high density living solutions. Cultural workers and organisations continue to address this issue and its social implications, often in challenging and positive ways such as Gerz’s amaptocare project, or similarly Cultivated Wilderness in Glasgow. While art initiatives such as these are of immense value to social and community development, they are no substitute for intelligent and community-oriented planning decisions in the first place. What is most worrying about the Ballymun consultation process, and planning developments around the country, is that the suburban dream is still seen as being so attractive, when it is clearly socially and economically demanding to the point of being unsustainable. This article has discussed some of the issues surrounding the relationships between green spaces and urban living, taking for granted that these issues are not only environmental, but also social, political and cultural. With this in mind, artists are important players in the articulation of these questions, but no more so than other professionals; and a certain level of collaboration, or at the least a sharing of information and networks, is vital to the development of viable solutions. Too often the ‘networking’ and ‘cross disciplinary’ rhetoric of the artworld becomes defunct beyond the context of the artworld. Cultivate, for example are eager to collaborate with artists on every level, although, in practice, they didn’t know about the Gerz project, and have had few dealings with cultural organisations. And yet cross-disciplinary dialogue is a key part of their agenda, in order to, as they say “get the artists back into Temple Bar, where they were kicked out of in the first place”.11 Massive communication gaps and missed opportunities exist here. The issues surrounding planning in Ireland are reaching a crisis stage, and sometimes it seems as if there is no end to the irresponsible and insensitive decisions that are being made. Dara McGrath sees the change in the physicality of the Irish landscape (a country ‘bursting at the seams’) as a serious problem for the long-term, likening the current rash of suburban housing estates to the quick-fix solution that Ballymun offered in the 60s.12 These links between the short-sighted utopian vision of Ballymun, and our current suburban solutions are also made by architect Sean Kearns (working on the regeneration development), who comments, “Wait until you see the future of the vast housing estates of Dublin’s satellite towns. They are the time bombs.” 13 It has been admitted that Ballymun’s tower blocks weren’t The Answer, but it seems that endless suburbia isn’t either. There is an urgency in the need to identify and develop planning solutions that are investments into the future of sustainable urban communities: alternatives must be found, and these include the creation of green spaces that go beyond ‘green concrete’.www.angelfire.com/pro/musicmaker/newurban.html Excellent links to articles and studies on New Urbanist principles and developments.
www.brl.ie/
www.cityfarmer.org/Phillyurbag9.html#Philly
www.communitygarden.org/links.php#Studies
www.endofsuburbia.com
www.southernnecropolis.com/page19.html
www.sustainable.ie
www.thalandfoundation.org
www.thevillage.ie
www.theholliesonline.com
www.theorganiccentre.ie
www.feasta.org
1 see The End of Suburbia: Oil Depletion and the End of the American Dream; written and directed by Gregory Greene, Toronto; 2003.
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