THE LAVENTILLE PROJECT

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THE EAST WEST LAVENTILLE URBAN REDESIGNING PROJECT.

Friday I went to a compilation of a week programme of design charrettes, community interventions and interaction between community and urban architects, planners, economists, traffic engineers.

Some were from Trinidad and Tobago- Jennifer Smith and ACLA Works, the main consultants where from Miami name? - YES!, DOVERKOHL

This thing is a brave undertaking of all things that any innovative person will like to be part of. There is so much, it almost overwhelming in the scale of the project. The generation that starts this will not see this finished, this is a two –three generation project.

The cost I will imagine is out there, one economist in the group mentioned the expensive nature of building in Laventille, that the new building will be out priced from the community and will need to be subsidized, to make it affordable, $30-$50U.S- per square foot. That is at

$6-7 conversion will be $350 per square foot.

I must say that this project is being speared headed by the EAST PORT OF SPAIN DEVELOPMENT COMPANY (EPOS).

The community intervention brought out from the community.

1.      Build up people

2.      Implementation.

3.      I am responsible.

4.      Make it last (enduring the political rivalry of tearing down ideas)

http://hum.iss.wisc.edu/hjdrewal/architecture.html

THERE IS THE WHAT IF SCENARIO.

WHAT IF? We do this or that, the outcome should be this and that.

§  There is a feeling of impossibility of the task a beat down, a defeatism in the people that things will not change.

§  There is a repeating of action- when someone starts something either negative or positive it repeats itself. The habit is to create more positive habits than negative.

§  One of the idea that was thrown out was rewarding good habits through rewards. This was problematic as a country that seems to bribe ourselves our people. We must on insisting that good habits are the consequence of good living and there is no reward for it, there should be none. Just the fact that the action will lead to a well being for children, family, friends, love making, that is the reward.

§  The setting up of Mobile Hot spot that will navigate the space, setting up in area for a limited time offering Internet service to children.

§  In the project there will be the need to bring and involve the necessary stake holder ministries that will take up the improvements that the community starts. There needs to be partnerships made.

ONE WHAT IF.........if we just add simple remedies of power-washing walls, paint, finish unfinished projects both private and public, sweep and dust out the communities these little task goes a long way making a place look and taste better.

WHAT IF.........where we put up barb wire we plant plants around them to make them look a little less fortified and harsh.

BAD THINGS HAPPEN IN SPACES THAT ARE NOT CLEARLY READ AS PUBLIC AND PRIVATE.

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CONFIDENCE BUILDERS

By creating a walking, transit community, by creating pathways, controlling traffic speed. There must be a design that will encourage this. As we know we have a space that isn’t easy to navigate. One of the reasons why we walk in the roads all the time.

But that isn’t the only reason one of the main reason is the undisciplined nature of us that is entrenched in our Calypso “THE ROAD IS MADE FOR WALKING” and the simple fact that we are still have the village DNA in us.

WHY WOULD SOMEONE DESIGN THE SPACE SO BAD? WHY...........HOW......EDUCATION!

There is mention of the history of the Architecture, the space and all the beautiful aspects of Laventille and there truth in that, a resilient people, with a history that is even more colourful when its read.

This is the problem will it be read, will it be seen, will our architects have the Jennifer and ACLA Works have the guts to design building that will look like the people have their history embedded in them. Creating the new dynamism that can be looked at by other architects and urban planners as a success story.

10,000 PEOPLE WILL BE ADDED TO THE POPULATION OF LAVENTILLE.

SEA LOTS.   

§  UNTANGLE THE HOUSING.

§  BUILD ANEW.

§  MIXING DIFFERENT INCOME PEOPLE IN THE AREA.

There must be a setting up of ownership that will see the future generation owning the land that will obviously be worth million of dollars for the next generation.

This will mean leasing, renting, owning the land, setting up corporations like the one for the Peoples Mall. But the idea will be to have that land in the future.

www.urbanrealm.com

HOW DO WE GET THERE.

§  Transportation must follow the character of the space.

§  There is movement throughout the day.

§  Finding unused spaces to get car of the Old St Joseph Road that will allow for easier flow

§  Control the speed of the traffic to allow for walk ability and riding.

It was here that our Priority Bus route system came into much praise, a working model for both public and private transport system that has created a efficient system that works for the Laventille community and the rest of the nation.

There were several proposal that were put on the table that will reduce waste driving and control speed that will allow for safer crossing of the streets.

GOOD STREETS DON'T HAVE WALK OVER BRIDGES!

http://www.chimpout.com

ARCHITECTURE.

Here our local ACLA and Jenifer Smiths Architects put forward their ideas which was sporting facility, park and ride facility that will be camouflaged by store front buildings.

Jenifer Smith presented low cost housing design that will be able to be expanded in the future.

It took into consideration.

§  Environment.

§  Space.

§  Nature.

http://videogames.desktopnexus.com
here we see a mixture of the old and the new.

PUBLIC PRIVATE PARTNERSHIP.

§  THE NGO SECTOR or the Third Estate, will have to be pulled in to draw on there resources.

§  Community needs to hold onto the dream.

§  Facilities- who will manage these facilities- training and education, job possibilities.

ECONOMICS.

§  Labour force is growing faster than the employed.

§  Business isn’t about providing jobs, it is about profit.

SO FOR COMMUNITY- IT IS ABOUT PROVIDING THE RIGHT CONDITIONS THAT WILL ALLOW FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF BUSINESS, IN THE END JOBS.

BUILDING COMMUNITY ASSETS WILL MAKE EVEN THE MOST UNFORTUNATE MEMBER OF THE COMMUNITY FEEL RICH.

§  PEOPLE WILL BE DRAWN FROM A WIDER ECONOMIC RADIUS.

§  GREAT NEIGHBOURHOODS – allow for parking – walking – shopping – eating – living.

§  WITH THIS PEOPLE WILL WANT TO INVEST IN COMMUNITY.

It was here around 8pm that the meeting was adjourned till the East Port of Spain Company will present a full design proposal by

May 2012

The answer question period

There was question...

§  Concerns about participation of the youth in the development of the space.

§  There was enthusiasm- one person putting forth that they are setting up for urban farming and trade.

§  Concerns about the cost of the project and the straight forwardness of the project.

§  Concerns that the state was obviously invisible in the project.

§  There was one person who made an exclamation of where is the TRADE SCHOOL!

SPORT LAST UP TO  WHEN A PERSON IS 30-35 OF AGE- A TRADE LAST A LIFE TIME!

THERE WAS ONE LAST MENTION THAT MUST BE GIVEN THOUGHT AND MENTIONED.

The man, took the mike mentioning that he had to say something, he was know by the moderator who called him by name, a tall slim straight forward man, confident and articulate in appearance, in voice, this man who mentioned that he brought his child. “She is tired and don’t want to be here, but he believes that she needs to understand this.

He further exclaims that he can afford to move out but chooses to live here (Laventille), this is him.

His voice is continuous; not breaking in tone and was very matter of fact when he put forward his most remarkable exclamation that this project would not be affordable by his people.

With much respect to the project and its claims.

Add caption

Detail of The Sculptural Playground Project 2012(C).
proposed for the Eddie Hart Grounds,
Tacarigua,
will open the discussion on indigenous driven aesthetics.
Animation by Terry Smith (c)

The idea is how can emotions, history unfold
before you, around you, in you.
Tapping that most private self into awareness,
of. 

PERSONAL REFLECTION

There comes along in the life time of artists a project that challenges our creative spirits, when we sit back into our memoirs we speak in found terms or in memories of distraught. This is one such project.

Here sits an opportune time for all on board the company, NGOs, urban planners, architects, economists, sociologist, Community Based Orgs, Cultural Organization to create a new and dynamic cultural urban design policy that have never existed before. Here lies an opportunity for a leap of faith. This is a project being lead by a black bourgeoisie and obvious middle class consultants with obvious skill and sympathies for their jobs, their clientele and space management and design.

Historically the black middle class have sold out working class values for political and economic gain or for instilling an aesthetic values mannerism of our colonial past. Here we are again at it with the social upheavals of a new century, the blood resting at our feet, oil and gas declining the urgency becomes even more imperative, that what is happening at #79 Eastern Main Road, Laventille hold our attention as artists, designers and as a people. This project will speak about us who we are and where our priorities are; social anthropologist, sociologist and cultural studies scholars will interpret us through this.

It will tell us if we have that creative possibility to develop new social systems that can work as us. To design building that will look like Rada, Orisha, Baptist Mother, Will have kinky hair and tell the story of tribes, of the Rada Bank and the fertile history that not being told even in our schools.

How can we design a space that teaches, tell stories, sing songs and lift our imagination into me, into the sky, blessing me with all my ancestors of Africa, India, and Syria.

Taking a leap of faith isn’t one that the black or the Indian middle class is know and here lies the situation at hand. The phrasing is right, the time is right, is the internal question right in the leaders to take that which is been there done and add the new self to the project.

This mean we must be able to challenge all that we know of our present self, we have to deconstruct and reconstruct our self. Presently when we look around tune into popular culture, look, listen, reach out Trinidad and Tobago is at its lowest ebb as a nation culture is struggling to keep up with a materialist agenda, that is about wipe out almost all that is indigenous about us. This is being driven by a middle class that will to impose assumptions of how we should address our socio-economic selves.

To interject into this is hard one of the most effective tools other than revolution is architecture and space planning, art and design.

In the economic presentation the presenter mentioned that artisans can be used to build the infrastructure that will be installed in the community. Here trades men, artists, designers have an opportunity to look at ethnic iconography, design with the proper mandate from community.

This means developing an iconography design template, a post-modern ethno rhythmic Caribbean design, what will that look like, what will it sound like.

This is the leap of faith.

The community orgs will have to insist what the design mandate will have to look like.

Sadly this isn’t there in the discourse, that does not mean that it can’t be there it just mean that we have to speak a little louder.

Sadly in my community of artist it isn’t even there. There are but a few that speaking this language of the open museum design plan.

Sadly I am not sure how many articulate this concept or understand this new move in post colonial spaces to bless our space with physical history. History,  that wraps our physical soul.

We have taken to marking our bodies, scratching, branding, piercing, creating new tribes that tells of individualism, rebellion, ignorance, lack of ritual meaning or other spaces.

But it tells me that people want more, than what they know, there is something more and tattooing our bodies are as much as young girls cutting themselves in their middle-class rooms, or a youth holding onto a tec9, or father caught in the bar till his eyes closes in on him, or the young men sweating it out on the block....they are all looking for the post modern tribe.

Architecture, design has the ability to bring this to them by readjusting the markings.

But sadly we are caught in our colonial past and global future that does not allow for the growth of indigenous expressions, sadly this is expressed by the very indigenous artists, designers, architects urban planners who stress modernism rather than post-modernism indigenous re-construction.

Dean Arlen

21 Jan. 12     

 P.S- Sometimes we make mistakes in the written word.