“Today we are throwing a new rule into the game of urban development – together.” Wolfgang Rossbauer, architect and co-initiator of ‘crowdplanning’, which was presented on Monday evening, October 30, 2023, at the Zurich Architecture Center, opened the event emphatically. The ZAZ was fully occupied. What is at stake is urgent: “How do you green a city where every square meter has a function?” The urban climate is getting hotter every year. So we need more “green”, that means more shade and more cool air, that was the credo, and we need it as quickly as possible. “The greening and re-greening of our cities is one of the great challenges of our time.”
In order to promote the greening of the city, the initiators of crowdplanning suggest two steps. First: Find the gap. Second: correct what is already there. And: the cooperation of many – the “crowd”.
First: basic work
Before the crowd was involved, Rossbauer’s group, which emerged from the umverkehR association and the Architekturforum Zürich, carried out the basic work. To do this, she overlaid city maps of Zurich. First, the development with the factory pipes in order to find the “gaps” between the above-ground and underground worlds – Where is there any ground from which something can grow? Next, the heat hotspots – where is the greatest need for action?
Plant island plan (detail)
The ‘plant island plan’ that emerges from the overlays indicates, on the one hand, where planting is possible and, on the other hand, where it is urgent (Rossbauer calls this ‘double coding’). Where the two meet, you can start immediately.
Then: the “crowd”
When the planting island plan was presented, the crowd got involved. You could also have run an algorithm that would have planted trees wherever possible and urgent, Rossbauer explained to the assembled crowd at ZAZ. Most of those present are planners and were probably wondering at that moment whether they were still needed. However, it was quickly noticed that such a blanket planting was quantitatively interesting, but not spatially differentiated enough. In addition, they wanted to declare the street space a bargaining chip and place it in the hands of the city residents. A subordinate sentence made one sit up and take notice: “A city that grows out of a common goal may one day also have common spaces.” The basis was published and people were invited to participate in the planning via an open call.
44 teams responded to the call and each submitted a project. All projects are in a commented Documentation gathered.
The following have been invested in the common areas so far:
2513 hours
from CHF 135 not SIA
= CHF 369,883.95 including VAT.
The work of the initiators is not included.
The projects
The authors presented ten projects live on ZAZ. These were not the “best” projects. Rather, it was about diversifying the variety of possible projects. The scale of the projects presented was diverse.
One project dealt with Brauerstrasse, where “street space” is to be transformed into living space. On Rötelstrasse, another project proposes planting 35 trees – even more if the parking spaces were taken away and private individuals were involved. The suggestion for Rigiplatz is “tree roof”. The Rigiblick cable car should also become a square, a small center with a clipping stop. On Schaffhauserstrasse in Oerlikon-Ost, a long stretch of street is intended to help achieve 25% tree cover in the city of Zurich and Langstrasse is shown as a “tree-lined boulevard without motorized traffic”. Is this just about beautification? Or is it “time for a departure” – in the truest sense of the word? At Hardplatz, a project proposes breaking up the surface so that ruderal vegetation can emerge. The team worked with the caretaker of the school building on the proposal for greening the Ilgen school site. A stream is dug near Trottenstrasse. Seebahnstrasse becomes the “Boulevard Seebahnquai” – “Away with the image of the motorways in the middle of the city!” – and the Wiedikon railway cut is covered over and the “Aussersihl leisure park” is being built there.
The replica
Following the quick panoramic view, the director of the civil engineering department of the city of Zurich, Simone Rangosch, and the director of Grün Stadt Zurich, Christine Bräm, were given the opportunity to comment on crowd planning. It is already the declared goal of the city of Zurich to redistribute the street space and strengthen greenery and biodiversity. Crowd planning is therefore heading in the right direction. They would also like this goal to be achieved more quickly, but there would be braking effects: the factory pipes would have to be replaced, the district heating and sewerage systems would have to be expanded for the growing city, the freedom from obstacles would have to be ensured and the requirements of the rescue organizations would have to be met. They also often have to deal with objections from residents. All of this slows down the planning of the green city. Nevertheless, they do everything in their power.
Central Park – large-scale projects were also submitted, here with track covering
In their reply, Simone Rangosch and Christine Bräm classified the projects presented according to scales and implementation horizons. They started with the largest and ended with the smallest projects. It was only with these that they realized it was feasible. They are “open to input if there is no change to the road layout”. This was met with incomprehension by those present at the ZAZ.
The discussion
An open discussion rounded off the evening and gave it further urgency. Simone Brander, SP city councilor, and Harald Welzer, sociologist and social psychologist and professor of transformation design at the University of Flensburg were invited to the discussion. The first question, why planning sometimes takes so long, went to Simone Brandner. “It takes too long for me too sometimes,” she said. “That’s why we implement many projects with a shortened schedule.” But if you want to achieve the district heating goal, for example, you can only open and close the streets and leave the surface unchanged, otherwise you won’t be able to do it.
Harald Welzer offered his outside perspective on this argument. Many of the projects that emerged from crowd planning seemed “obvious” to him. There is a historical reason why the city doesn’t look like this for a long time: the prevailing planning paradigm has long been geared towards the car. And in general: “Our planning culture was developed for a future that is similar to the present – that is over.” The year 2023 has shown in every respect that the present is volatile. Since we are stumbling behind the speed of change, it is now important to dare to undertake shared learning processes. Welzer proposed two new categories for our planning culture: the “temporary” and the “reversible”. City councilor Simone Brander also agreed that in the future not everything will have to be planned and built with a “Züri finish”.
Requests to speak
At the end there were numerous, sometimes angry, comments from the audience:
Why was there only a “lousy” counter-proposal from the administration to the urban climate initiative and no “more generous” counter-proposal?
Private individuals also have to get involved… We can’t do it without them…
What did the participation process achieve at Hardplatz?
Individualized interests in urban space are “horrible”.
Why can’t the trees simply be planted in the district heating trenches – even illegally?
The event also left people feeling discouraged:
If only the simple projects are found to be feasible, how do we tackle the big changes?
And the Zurich pedestrian association declared the Hardplatz to be a place for a paradigm shift:
The western bypass has already been dug there!
Crowdplanning – to be continued.
2023-11-01 17:02:05
#Raised #ground #floor #crowd #planning #green #Zurich
