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DESIGNING S USTAIN
AB
BIRKHÄUSER
BASEL
LE CITIES
MANAGEABLE
APPROACHES TO MAKE
URBAN SPACES BETTER
SIGRID BÜRSTMAYR / KARL STOCKER (EDS.)

“Design for sustainability is no
longer a future prospect; it is
already under way in thousands
of projects around the world.
These transformative actions
are changing design itself.”
( T H A K A R A 2013)
FO R E W O R D
For some years now, we at the Institute of Design and Commu-

nication of the FH JOANNEUM—University of Applied Sciences, in Graz
have increasingly shifted our content-related orientation towards an
understanding of Design as a means to improve, repair and save the world.
In this context, we have continuously integrated these topics
into our curricula, we have planned and organized symposia, exhibitions
and workshops, and published the anthology “Socio-Design. Relevant
Projects: Designed for Society” in Birkhäuser. The confrontation with
societal and social issues cannot take place without considering
sustainable design, environment and nature, therefore we promptly
agreed to get to work on a new publication.
When Istanbul became part of the UNESCO City of Design
Network in 2017, this offered a good opportunity for the realization of
an anthology featuring best practice examples of the use of Design
for positive urban development from different UNESCO Design Cities.
We managed to recruit three authors from Istanbul and one author
each from Detroit, Mexico City, Puebla and Graz for collaboration in our
anthology. Thus, a book was created that will hopefully attract inter
national interest and will also serve as basis for further discussion about
current and future Design strategies.
Sigrid Bürstmayr, Karl Stocker

8
D E S I G N I N G T H E W O R L D FO R T H E B E T T E R
Sigrid Bürstmayr, Karl Stocker
24
I N C LU S I V E D E S I G N I N C O N T E M P O R A RY D E T R O I T
Paul Draus
42
U R B A N OA S E S . C A N C I T I E S O F T H E F U T U R E
F U N C T I O N L I K E FO R E STS ?
Breathe Earth Collective
54
I N T E R I O R A R C H I T EC T U R E I N S U STA I N A B L E C I T I E S
Burçin Cem Arabacıoğlu
78
T H E P OT E N T I A L O F A LT E R N AT I V E A R C H I T EC T U R E
FO R A N EC O LO G I C A L LY D R I V E N A N D S O C I A L LY
E N G A G E D I STA N B U L
Ayşen Ciravoğlu
94
S U STA I N A B L E I STA N B U L :
ST U D I E S FO R A N U R B A N D E S I G N G U I D E ;
PA RT I C I PAT I O N — P O L I C Y— S C O P E
Çiğdem Polatoğlu
116
M E X I C O C I T Y:
N E W C O L L EC T I V E A P P R OAC H E S TO F I X A B R O K E N C I T Y
Paulina Cornejo Moreno Valle
128
D E S I G N FO R S U STA I N A B I L I T Y:
Q U E ST I O N I N G O U R M AT E R I A L C U LT U R E
Sylwia Ulicka
144
BIOGRAPHIES
Designing
the World for
the Better
8 Sigrid Bürstmayr, Karl Stocker

INTRODUCTION
Let us begin with a personal

approach. We are very different
from each other.
One contributor is Sigrid Bürstmayr who works and teaches
at the FH JOANNEUM—University of Applied Sciences, in Graz. Her
professional interests and skills include product management, exhibi-
tion design, sustainable design and design activism. She has presented
the results of her research at several conferences and universities,
including recently in Seoul, Montreal, Wuhan, Istanbul and Mexico City.
She is a designer.
The other is Karl Stocker who was educated as a historian, but
has for many years been the head of the Institute of Design & Com-
munication at the FH JOANNEUM—University of Applied Sciences,
in Graz. In 1989 he founded the exhibition agency BISDATO, which
has been led by him ever since. Stocker is the author and publisher of
numerous publications, as well as the director of research and exhi-
bition projects. He is not a designer.
As you can see, we are quite different: one is a woman, one is a
man, one is younger, the other older, one comes from design, the other
from humanities, one is a sustainable designer, one is a social designer,
etc. So, what do we have in common? We both believe that design
should be able to shape whole environments and processes, including
ways of thinking and acting. Therefore, designers should try to change
society and the world for the better, at least to some extent.
Designing the World for the Better. Sigrid Bürstmayr, Karl Stocker 9
A WORLD IN TRANSITION
Our world is in the middle of an unprecedented period of change.
Of course in the post-industrial consumer societies, materialism is still
very popular. However, for several years now there have been clear
indications of a shift in values among certain segments of the popula-
tion. Above all, young people are aware of the negative impacts of our
current economic model, and are discussing new approaches to the
world: they are critical of the inequality which exists between the 1st, 2nd
and 3rd world, they demand action against the increasing destruction of
our environment, and they get involved with social initiatives as well as
work to improve the world in their local areas.
Already in the year 2000 Paul H. Ray and Sherry R. Anderson
described the so-called LOHAS group of people (cf. RAY / ANDERSON
2000). LOHAS people value a lifestyle of health and sustainability, and
are some of the consumers of organic and fair trade products. Other
recent movements which are based on a fundamental change in values
are DIY, Slow Food, Vegetarianism, Veganism and Pescetarianism. Zero
Waste, plastic free, minimalism, micro housing and social engagement
are all buzzwords which characterize this new way of thinking.
In addition, concepts such as eco-friendly, biodegradable or products
made out of trash, as well as packaging-free shops, etc., demonstrate
the enormous spectrum these movements have now achieved.
According to Manzini, we will in any case still live between two
worlds for some time: “So today, we must expect to be living this turbu-
lence for a long time, in a double world where two realities live together in
conflict: the old ‘limitless’ world that does not acknowledge the planet’s
limits, and another that recognizes these limits and experiments with
ways of transforming them into opportunities.” (MANZINI 2015, 2f.)
Manzini continues as follows: “Now these worlds look very dif
ferent. The first is the dominant world, still the reference for many, that
shapes the main economic and institutional structures and that draws
from its history of success the conviction that its continuity in time is
inevitable. The second, on the other hand, looks like a group of islands
where people think and act in ways that are different. What the future of
this archipelago of new microworlds will be like is as yet too early to tell.
It may stay the same for a long time, or it may disappear, submerged by
the sea of other unsustainable ways of being and doing these things. Or
it may reveal itself to be the already visible part of a submerged conti-
nent: the new continent of sustainable civilization that will emerge from
the transition.” (MANZINI 2015, 2f.)
10
WHAT DESIGN CAN DO …
However, what does this have to do with design? Nowadays the
profession “designer” means a lot more than it meant 30, 20, or even
10 years ago, and includes a wide range of approaches, accesses and
definitions. While designers used to simply create products or carry out
graphic tasks, they have now become design strategists who are able to
find creative solutions to the most diverse societal and ecological prob-
lems thanks to their different skills and interdisciplinary approach.
D E S I G N E R S H AV E TO B E R E S E A R C H E R S
In order to be a good designer, you have to do research. Research

is the foundation of excellent design work. Designers have to use scientific
methodologies, they have to detect the needs and emotions of the users,
they have to consider the needs of society, they have to deal with the envi-
ronmental contexts, and they also have to be aware of new technologies.
Today, in the age of information overflow, the main approach to research
is to bring structure, order and reduction to this jungle of information.
Designers must decide which information and/or data is important.
D E S I G N E R S H AV E TO B E T E A M P L AY E R S
In order to carry out good projects, designers have to work

in interdisciplinary teams. They need to be able to integrate people
with different competencies and approaches to the world. These days
design research also “takes place” very often in collaborative net
works, and a high priority is placed on sharing. The so-called open source
community, which shares software programs, instructions and ideas, is
continually growing. In coworking spaces, know-how is shared along
with work space. Startups—and not only those active in the design
field—know that success is only possible through cooperation. In this
way the common ground is brought to the fore and not the differences,
and the result is rather amazing. Today “net culture”, viewed more broad
ly as a term which characterizes digital relationships in a “culturally
optimistic” way, no longer merely refers to the digital realm. Since espe-
cially the young creative scene, which comes together around projects
and self-founded agencies, is often guided by these principles of the
sharing economy.
D E S I G N E R S H AV E TO B E STO RY T E L L E R S
The expert knowledge has to be filtered and reduced to narratable

stories. Designers are virtual translators of complicated circumstances in
that they transfer the information in easily digestible morsels. They have
to decide which information is important to share. They have to contex-
tualize this information and transform it into messages. Messages rule.
D E S I G N E R S H AV E TO B E V I S UA L C O M M U N I C ATO R S
The task is to transform these stories using a strong visual

impact and approach. We live in a world dominated by pictures,
graphics and icons (cf. BAUDRILLARD 1982, BÖHME 2016). Therefore,
designers use aesthetic methods and languages as a powerful tool
which helps them to understand the world. In general, designers know
how to manage signs, symbols, images and moving pictures.
D E S I G N E R S H AV E TO B E S O C I O - D E S I G N E R S
50 years after Victor Papanek published his famous book Design

for the Real World, it is clear that designers should take human needs
into consideration, and use design as a tool in order to improve the
lives of everyone. There are information design projects which sup-
port people after tsunamis and earthquakes. Graphic design is used in
hospitals and schools, and it’s all about improving people’s lives through
the use of visual methods. “The common factor linking them is service,
and designers are engaged in a service profession in which the results
of their work meet human needs.” (MANZINI 2015, Series Foreword)
This kind of ‘social design’ concept appears to focus on the social
element in a charitable-altruistic sense, but in our ‘socio-design’
approach the social element is used in a social-structural sense.
‘Socio-Design’ goes far beyond the charitable-altruistic aspects.
‘Socio-Design’ is therefore the blueprint and realization of the organiza-
tion of forms of life for individual and group members of our s ociety.
Socio-Designers do not just help and support people, they try to
change society (cf. STOCKER 2017 16f.). Nowadays many designers
engage in social initiatives. There are so many opportunities to improve
people’s lives, starting in one’s private life, in the neighborhood, or in
society in general.
12
D E S I G N E R S H AV E TO B E S U STA I N A B L E D E S I G N E R S
In addition, a designer also has to focus on sustainable design

aspects. But why is this so important? Why should we care about it?
Because of course it all influences our health, our lives, our environment
and our whole society.
Ideally designers are involved from the beginning of the product
development. They can have an influence on the choice of materials
and the manufacturing process. And in many cases designers act as a
link, connecting people from engineers all the way to the target group.
Therefore designers have the power to exert a positive influence on the
use of resources, as well as on waste prevention.
Sustainable design solutions need creativity in order to in order
to develop alternative approaches which respect the environment by
using less energy and materials. Estimates indicate that in climate-
damaging countries, climate-changing emissions have to be reduced by
up to 97 % per inhabitant in order to avoid a dangerous rise in tempera-
ture (cf. WALKER / GIARD 2013, 5f.).
“The sheer scale of such reductions signifies a massive change in
lifestyles—in the types of food we eat, the clothes we wear, the products
we use, our modes of transportation, our frequency and extent of travel,
our recreational activities and so on. If we maintain our present expecta-
tions and priorities and our current worldview, such changes will be seen
solely as unwelcome deprivations.” (WALKER / GIARD 2013, 5f.)
We have to start to accept these changes, and see them as a
potential for positive development. This will in turn cause us to focus on
the essential requirements for living, as well as the personal and social
requirements. A reduction in traveling and products, and the renuncia-
tion of daily imported fruits and flowers will develop an awareness of
people’s needs. (cf. WALKER / GIARD 2013, 5f.)
“The mentality that consumerism and economic growth are
cure-alls is one of the biggest obstacles to real sustainability, but any
change seems impossible, unthinkable.” (THORPE 2012)
The goal of sustainability is of course not new in the field of
design. It is commonly believed that good designers always take the
environment into consideration during their work. One need only think
of Victor Papanek’s radio—built for Africa out of an old tin can. Stuart
Walker described sustainable design in many publications—both as
an author and a publisher (cf. WALKER / GIARD 2013, WALKER 2017,
WALKER 2019). In particular, his handbook summarizes very well
what designers should do in this regard, as well as what has already
been done.
The following are the guiding principles for
sustainable design established by Shashank Metha
(cf. METHA 2013, 343f.):
O Encourage use of local resources. O Encourage cooperation/sharing and a

O Incorporate ecological aspects of the region collaborative approach.
and environmentally friendly methods. O Encourage a participatory approach to
O Utilize and develop available skills; product development.
avoid de-skilling. O Work towards improving quality of life by
O Help generate new employment opportunities adopting people-centric approaches.
by designing for and encouraging production O Develop empathic, holistic and systematic
by the masses. understanding.
O Create employment opportunities at people’s O Use design as a catalyst to handhold the
doorsteps through the constructive and creative O entire process linking product development,
utilization and engagement of human resources. production, marketing and distribution.
O Design for product affordability by integrating O Take design expertise to the doorsteps of
the scope for product customization and industries, crafts and social sectors, with a view
adaptability; the product must be affordable to connecting the available/local skills and
for the local masses and markets. resources with the market/users.
O Design for product optimization and refinement, O Encourage local and indigenous innovation,
process improvements, product quality and the enterprises and businesses.
addition of value. O Ensure integrated and continuous education and
O Encourage decentralized fabrication/manu exposure to sustainability, nature and society.
facturing methods. O Create a platform for the constant and contin
O Design for technology-intensive but low-capital uous interaction of industries and craft sectors
investment solutions. with designers and experts.
O Design for product reparability, serviceability,
reusability and recyclability.
O Understand and respect local tradition,
culture and the social fabric of the society.
O Encourage services; integrate service compo-
nents; create opportunities for self-employment.
14
THE FUTURE IS NOW:
EXAMPLES OF WHERE
DESIGN CAN MAKE A
DIFFERENCE, MODELS
OF THE FUTURE
Downcycling
D E A L I N G W I T H R E S O U R C E S A N D WA ST E
Braungart/McDonough hit the nail on the head by calling on

designers to take responsibility. If products, houses and even cities had
been developed in a more intelligent way, we would not have to worry
about a waste problem or lack of resources—we could live in an affluent
Recycling society (cf. BRAUNGART / MCDONOUGH 2013, 23).
Materials such as glass, metal, paper and cardboard can be
recycled and continuously reused. However, the material often loses
quality, which highlights the fact that recycling often means to down-
cycle a material (cf. BRAUNGART / MCDONOUGH 2008, 20f.). The
opposite process is upcycling, which is when waste material is used to
create a new product with a higher quality and value than the original
material. Upcycling gives an unwanted item a second life and a new
Upcycling purpose (cf. HIPCYCLE 2019).
Well-known upcycling products currently on the market are the
bags of the Swiss company Freitag, which are made from used truck
tarps. A Detroit fashion designer developed a coat which can be trans-
formed into a sleeping bag for homeless people. Among other materials
it uses upcycled automotive insulation. The German company 2nd Flight
deals with old fabrics from the sports industry, and uses ripped and per-
forated parachutes to create windproof and water-resistant jackets.
Upcycling design is not a new topic, however it is now more up-
to-date due to the waste problem and the lack of resources. Upcycling
seems to be a great opportunity to expand the life of a material/pro-
duct, but in reality it is merely a band-aid solution which will not solve
our waste problems, since how we use our resources, how we produce
products, and how we consume is not future-oriented.
TA K E M AT E R I A L O U T O F T H E C I T Y I N ST E A D O F
G E T T I N G I T F R O M N AT U R E
Urban mining is another important topic which should be men-

tioned in the context of a social and sustainable way of living. Resources
are not endless, and there are already shortages of some raw materials.
Therefore we have to look for alternative solutions. Urban mining is
one of them, which means extracting materials from cities instead of
from mines. It looks at the unused materials in landfills, and the leftover
materials in buildings or under the streets. There are metals in and
under our cities which are not being used anymore, especially iron from
construction and copper from electric cables. There is enormous poten-
tial, especially in managing demolition sites and re-using materials right
at the source (cf. URBANMINING 2019).
The conventional mining of raw materials is associated with
high financial costs, long transport distances from other continents,
and mostly unfair working conditions. Therefore, the use of the city as
a supplier of raw materials is essential for the future. Not only should the
materials in buildings be used again, but also those in vehicles and any of
the other products we already have (cf. SMARTCITYWIEN 2019).
In Vienna about 4,500 kgs of iron, 340 kgs of aluminum,
200 kgs of copper, 40 kgs of zinc, and 210 kgs of lead is hidden under
each inhabitant (cf. SMARTCITYWIEN 2019).
There are companies such as “BauKarussell” in Vienna, which offer
reuse-oriented deconstruction as a service for building owners. Or there
is the platform “Bauteilnetz” (cf. BAUTEILNETZ 2019) in Germany, which
is an online shop for 2nd hand construction materials such as windows,
bricks, tiles and wood.
Reusing existing materials, products or even places is indis
putable. For example the High Line in New York, a former railway track
which was turned into a very popular public area for doing sports, having
a coffee and bringing people together. This new area is also beautiful as
well. According to the talk given by Stefan Sagmeister at the Istanbul
Design Summit on March 2nd, 2019, one of the key factors is that the
crime rate is very low, and consequently people feel comfortable there.
16
C I R C U L A R D E S I G N I N ST E A D O F L I N E A R D E S I G N
Actually, it is all about designing for a closed loop. Inspired by

nature, the circular economy concept is built on the idea that all of the
materials are used in a circle. There is the biological cycle, in which
100 % of the materials return to nature, for example in the form of com-
post. Out of this, new materials and new biodegradable products can be
created. During the technical cycle, products are disassembled and the
raw materials are used to create a new product. Therefore, it has to be
possible to separate the materials according to their different types
(cf. BRAUNGART / MCDONOUGH 2008, 31). This concept will replace
the linear economy, and when applied to all products and buildings it
will get rid of all the waste. Furthermore, the circular design includes
developments for long-life, repairable, modular and dismountable products.
The creation of incentives for high customer product loyalty, as well as
the use of local resources, local production and fair working conditions
are the responsibility of designers—every action has an impact on the
environment and society (cf. DESIGNAUSTRIA 2019, 2).
LINEAR ECONOMY
PRODUCE USE WASTE
100 %
BIOLOGICAL/
CIRCULAR ECONOMY
PRODUCE TECHNOLOGICAL USE
CYCLE
When speaking about sustainability we often use the terms

“reduce”, “reuse” and “recycle”. Without a doubt the focus has to be on
“reduce”. As mentioned above, the amount of waste can be influenced
by various factors such as upcycling, the circular economy, sharing,
repairing, recycling, etc. But let’s go one step further—the reduction
of products in general. All of this can be summarized—as the Circular
Design Guide puts it so well—with the following: “A radical, restorative,
regenerative approach to business” (CIRCULAR DESIGN GUIDE 2019).
F E W E R B U T B E T T E R P R O D U C TS
From the perspective of people who grew up in a consumer

society and have never experienced want, the question arises: Do we
really need all these products? (We are aware that this question seems
absurd to the approximately 40 million people in Mexico who suffer
from hunger every day.)
Although more than 70 % of American households own a drilling
machine, a recent study reports that on average the machine is only in
use for 13 minutes (cf. WELZER 2013). It doesn’t make any sense for
everyone to own one, but due to the still dominant materialist culture
and the promises of the consumer goods industry, the average European
owns 10,000 possessions.
On the one hand products are becoming more efficient and
electronic goods now use less power. However, on the other hand in
2018 a lot of people still bought more and more products, and most of
them were non-durable products. Cars are now more fuel efficient, but
are becoming bigger and bigger. A trend towards more sustainable
products can be seen, but unfortunately the execution of these products
is becoming less sustainable. Sustainable or fair trade products are
mostly bought online, and the logistic expenditure is increasing. Cus
tomers want a fast delivery time, even same-day delivery, and often 2 or
3 shipments and returns are needed in order to get the right size or color
of the desired product (cf. WELZER 2018, chap. 5).
As a result of the immense waste problem and lack of resources,
it is now possible to see numerous counter initiatives such as repair
cafés, reuse centers, loan shops, second-hand shops and upcycling
design, as well as initiatives such as open book shelves, no cost shops
and swapping parties.
It is up to consumers to decide which products they need or want
to buy. This fact is now influencing the economy and forcing compa-
nies to rethink their products—including the manufacturing process,
the choice of materials, and the ecological aspects (cf. MAATS 2016).
In addition, companies now have to take the social aspect of their pro-
ducts into account, such as fair working conditions for their employees.
Harald Welzer, a German sociologist and social psychologist, has
been talking about the design of reduction, and is one of the pioneers
in this field. His approach is transformation design, which is finding a
18
solution by starting with the question of the need. Furthermore, it is
about questioning the target. Maybe the solution is not a product,
maybe it would be better to provide a new service, or even not act at
all (cf. SOMMER / WELZER 2014, 114ff.). In any case, the meaningful-
ness of the product, design or purchase must be questioned, in addition
to being aware of its impact on the environment and society (cf. DESIGN
AUSTRIA 2019, 4f.).
“Transformationsdesign setzt nicht bei Produkten an, sondern
bei der kulturellen Produktion und Reproduktion”. (SOMMER /
WELZER 2014, 115)
The pre-consumer recycling method also uses a similar approach.
This includes testing the market relevance of a product during the
development phase. In the event of a negative assessment the product
development phase is ended, and no valuable raw materials are
wasted (cf. BARBERO / COZZO / TAMBORRINI 2012, 26ff.).
During the last London marathon in 2019, for instance, there
was a reduction of 200,000 plastic water bottles due to a startup idea
of providing water in edible packaging (cf. OHOO 2019).
FOCUSING CITIES
It is no coincidence that the case studies of the present publication
are focused on cities. “The urban population is predicted to increase from
3.9 billion today, to nearly 7 billion by 2050, which means our cities are
projected to almost double.” (IMAGINE 2018). By that year about 70 % of
the world’s people will live in cities, which will lead to a lot of megacities
(cf. SACHS 2018).
So, how can we deal with this? According to the Danish urban
planner Jan Gehl, we should create small-scale neighborhoods. This
redesign will provide car-free public spaces which can be used as meeting
points for relaxing and doing sports, and will transform streets into
important areas for social interaction (cf. SACHS 2018).
Or should we listen to Joseph Beuys? In 1982 the German artist
Joseph Beuys was involved with the topic of changing cities, and the
idea that every single person has an impact on their society. He com-
pleted a project for the Documenta 7 in Kassel which was called “7.000
Eichen – Stadtverwaldung statt Stadtverwaltung” (7,000 Oak Trees—
City Forestation instead of City Administration) (cf. SACHS 2018).
There are a lot of new challenges for the design industry, as well
as for design education (cf. THORPE 2007). In light of this, perhaps we
need to get a better grasp of sustainability design for cities: “We need to lead
the way in redefining what urban life can mean. We need to expand the tool set,
invent new models, increase our technological abilities, provide case studies
and proofs-of-concepts, and ultimately, show positive evidence that bright
green urbanism works so that these emerging cities can adopt it as they grow.
The urban future demands trailblazers.” (WORLD CHANGING 2000, 24f.)
Ultimately it is clear that green cities are economically competitive, as
well as more innovative, healthier, and safer for their inhabitants. They are
also more resistant to climate change (cf. WORLD CHANGING 2000, 24f.).
“We won’t just live more virtuously in a bright green city, we’ll live
better.” (WORLD CHANGING 2000, 24f.)
In conclusion, an important aspect needs to be mentioned here.
As Richard Florida writes in his new publication The New Urban Crisis, the
ever widening gap between rich and poor represents a serious problem in
terms of the evolution of cities. Florida states in O-Ton: “The only way to
build prosperous cities is to invest in people and empower communities”
(cf. FLORIDA 2017, 185ff).
A SUMMARY OF THE ARTICLES

This book focuses on Istanbul, as well as other UNESCO Cities of
Design such as Detroit, Graz, Mexico City and Puebla. In essence, the arti-
cles demonstrate that designers should take sustainability and social issues
into consideration during their work. Design should try to change society and
the world for the better, at least to some extent.
The article “Inclusive Design in Contemporary Detroit” was written by Paul
Draus, a professor of sociology at the University of Michigan-Dearborn, in
Michigan, USA. Draus’s article focuses on the urban issues of poverty, race,
inequality, drug abuse, crime and incarceration. Through two examples Draus
demonstrates how design projects help to promote inclusion and sustainability.
In the article “Urban Oases. Can Cities of the Future function like
Forests?”, the Austrian Breathe Earth Collective demonstrates that a critical
state has now been reached in architectural design and urban planning. Using
the example of the Austrian pavilion designed for EXPO 2015 in Milan, as
well as the following Breathe Earth Collective projects called “Airships”, they
demonstrate how climate installations act as hybrids between “nature” and
“technology” in order to showcase new models for urban spaces.
In his article “Interior Architecture in Sustainable Cities”, Burçin
Cem Arabacıoğlu, an architect and professor at the Mimar Sinan Fine Arts
University in Istanbul, Turkey, quotes that the construction and interior
20
design sectors account for a significant share of the resources
used. Despite the large number of certification systems related
to sustainability in interior design, their realization is still severely
lacking because they are too complex. Arabacıoğlu exemplifies his
approach through the presentation of recent projects in Istanbul
which have a sustainable perspective.
In her article “The Potential of Alternative Architecture for an
Ecologically Driven and Socially Engaged Istanbul”, Ayşen Ciravoğlu,
a professor at the Yildiz Technical University in Istanbul, Turkey,
demonstrates the potentials and problems of ecological and social
sustainability within the 16-million-person megapolis of Istanbul. A
great emphasis is now being placed on the social and environmental
aspects of architectural construction, demolition and disposal.
Ciravoğlu shows how this city has reached its limits in terms of the
environment and nature, but she ends optimistically by giving some
examples of how new architectural thinking can improve the situation.
In her article “Sustainable Istanbul: Studies for an Urban Design
Guide; Participation—Policy—Scope”, Çiğdem Polatoğlu, a professor at
the Yildiz Technical University in Istanbul, Turkey, describes the ideas
and desired impacts of the “Istanbul Urban Design Guide”. With its
vision of a “Sustainable Istanbul”, the “Istanbul Urban Design Guide”
aims to evaluate the current situation in the city, control its physical
development, and establish and improve the future in a healthy way
within the next 20 years.
The article “Mexico City: New Collective Approaches to Fix
a Broken City” was written by Paulina Cornejo Moreno Valle, the
coordinator of the Social Design study program at the Centro de
Diseño, Cine y Televisión in Mexico City, Mexico. Her article begins
by focusing on the various and contradictory transformations of
Mexico City during the past decades, and continues by describing
recent changes to public spaces, social housing, public transport,
and the water supply. In conclusion she provides examples of new
ways of understanding reality.
In her article “Design for Sustainability: Questioning our Material
Culture”, Sylwia Ulicka, an international design researcher in Puebla,
Mexico, explains that the desire to achieve sustainable development
provides both the road map for the development of humanity, and the
focal point of all global efforts. Ulicka describes the outcome of her col-
laboration with Mexican design students, in which she created “objects
of discomfort” in order to provoke an intense discussion between the
students. This discussion then led to some new points of view regarding
Mexico’s social and environmental problems.
F U T U R E P R O S P EC TS
These contributions not only demonstrate the intensity, but also

the variations in the effectiveness of the efforts to create a more sustain
able and socially equal future for the inhabitants of the various cities. The
authors impressively describe how grassroots initiatives, as well as design
and cultural activists in all of these cities, are trying to make pending issues
a subject of discussion, and how they sometimes—but not always—succeed
in finding solutions. A strong commitment which can lead to answers as
well as to failure manifests itself here. Therefore we should not merely
rely on these activists if we want to “save the world”. Instead, everyone
should be a part of this movement that will change the world.
In any case we designers share a big responsibility, but we also
have great opportunities—as described at the beginning. It is due to the
modern age that the livelihood of mankind is massively threatened by
climate change, a shortage of resources, global migration, etc. Friedrich
von Borries, when making a reference to Harald Welzer (SOMMER /
WELZER 2014), establishes that there are only two ways to escape from
this state of “comprehensive devastation of the world by the prevailing
system”, either “by disaster” or “by design”. The former means waiting
until everything collapses, and then trying to build something new from
the ruins; “by design” implies the preemptive transformation of the existing
into something new through planned and targeted action. The present
publication demonstrates how design can be used to “repair“ the environ
ment and society in cities, as well as to create something new. All of the
examples share a common idea of combining design expertise with knowl
edge of and interest for the environment and society.
Yes, we believe in the motto “The power of design and creativity
to transform society” of the “What Design Can Do” festival. And we are
convinced that “money, governments and science can’t solve complex
global issues on their own”. However, we don’t know whether the “fresh
ideas, alternative strategies and provocative thoughts” of a critical design
community will be enough to change the planet. (cf. WDCD 2019) This will
hardly be possible without substantial measures. With its 17 sustainable
development goals, the UN has taken a clear position on what needs to hap-
pen worldwide, and how the world should be transformed by 2030 (cf. SDG
2015). Nevertheless, we know that there are strong economic (and related
political) interests which are currently blocking the substantial reforms that
are necessary. This is why it all depends on collaboration—between politics,
science, the economy, designers, activists and people—in order to find
solutions and achieve and implement these goals in the near future.
22
BIBLIOGRAPHY
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Umweltfreundliches für den Alltag, Potsdam: Ullmann Publishing
BAUDRILLARD 1982 = Baudrillard, Jean (1982) Der symbolische Tausch und der Tod, München: Matthes & Seitz (Orig. 1976)
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BORRIES 2016 = von Borries, Friedrich (2016) Weltentwerfen. Eine politische Designtheorie. Berlin: Suhrkamp
BRAUNGART / MCDONOUGH 2013 = Braungart, Michael/McDonough, William (2013) Intelligente Verschwendung.
The Upcycle: Auf dem Weg in eine neue Überflussgesellschaft. München: Oekom Verlag
BRAUNGART / MCDONOUGH 2008 = Braungart, Michael/ McDonough, William (2008) Die nächste industrielle Revolution.
Die Cradle to Cradle-Community. Hamburg: Europäische Verlagsanstalt
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Gestaltungskriterien für eine nachhaltige Entwicklung
HIPCYCLE 2019 = www.hipcycle.com [15/05/2019]
FLORIDA 2017 = Florida, Richard (2017) The New Urban Crisis. How Our Cities Are Increasing Inequality, Deepening
Segregation, and Failing the Middle Class-and What We Can Do About It. New York: Hachette Book Group
IMAGINE 2018 = Imagine, Issue 2, Exploring the brave new world of shared living, SPACE10 & Urgent.Agency
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in: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZqeA_psKn2E [21/07/2019]
MANZINI 2015 = Manzini, Ezio (2015) Design, When Everybody Designs. Cambridge, London: MIT Press
METHA 2013 = Metha, Shashank (2013) “Sustainability: Context and Design”, in: Stuart Walker, Jacques Giard (ed.),
The Handbook of Design for Sustainability. London, New Delhi, New York, S idney: Bloomsbury, 334–345
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Vienna: Springer (Orig. 1973)
RAY / ANDERSON 2000 = Ray, Paul H./ Anderson, Sherry R. (2000) The Cultural Creatives: How 50 million are changing
the World. New York City: Harmony Books
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Zürich: Lars Müller
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SOMMER / WELZER 2014 = Sommer, Bernd/ Welzer, Harald (2014) Transformationsdesign. Wege in eine zukunftsfähige
Moderne. München: oekom verlag
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Basel: Birkhäuser
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WORLD CHANGING 2000 = Steffen, Alex (ed.) (2000) World Changing. A User’s Guide For The 21st Century. New York: Abrams
23
Inclusive Design
in Contemporary
Detroit
24 Paul Draus
This article looks at contemporary Detroit, Michigan (USA), at a
time when the city seems to be on the verge of a wholesale reinvention.
I consider how the trauma of the city’s past is layered into both bodies
and environments, partly as a product of Detroit’s design history;
as well as how local neighborhood ecology reflects the necessities
of survival and adaptation to these environments; and how future-
oriented inclusive design processes may be confounded by this history
of division, and the segmented landscape and wounded population it
has produced. The model of inclusive design, recently adopted by the
Detroit Design Core as a central piece of its City of Design Action Plan,
represents an important step in this direction. I contend that truly sus-
tainable design must be conscious of the burden of trauma, cognizant
of the local ecology, and welcome these dynamics of conflict and
complexity into its processes and products. I briefly examine tensions
between inclusion, sustainability and design through the lens of two
place-based projects in contemporary Detroit; one located in a rapidly
gentrifying area, the other in a heavily industrialized region of the city.
One project seeks to honor the legacy of the 1932 Hunger March, a
seminal but nearly forgotten event in the city’s labor history, while the
other seeks to demonstrate the potential of upcycling and green energy
to generate more inclusive local economies. Finally, I contend that the
goal of sustainable and inclusive design may find its true test in the
proposed development of the Joe Louis Greenway in Detroit.
INTRODUCTION
Before I begin an apology is needed, for I am neither a Designer

nor a Detroiter, and my inclusion in this collection might imply that I am
both. As my family name, roughly translated into German (draußen, or
“outside”) might suggest, I am a perpetual outsider, which perhaps has
something to do with my identity as a sociologist. Sociologists are, in a
certain sense, perpetual strangers, a position first articulated by the great
German-Jewish sociologist Georg Simmel. The story I am going to tell
is a story of the city of Detroit, to which I have a very real devotion, but I
cannot claim to be its representative. At best I can hope to speak for those
FIGURE 1: Oakland Street Detroit Flag Mural people who make Detroit what it is: a city defined by hope and struggle.
Inclusive Design in Contemporary Detroit. Paul Draus 25

“It shall rise from the ashes” is the city’s apt slogan (FIGURE 1), but what
this means can vary quite a lot depending on who you talk to.1 Today the
question being asked is “The city shall rise, but for who?”.
A recent photo essay from The New York Times was entitled:
“Detroit was crumbling. Here’s how it’s Reviving.”2 This essay
represents a new narrative of Detroit, and a very different one from the
trope of decline which predominated just a few years ago. The latter is
reflected on a TIME Magazine cover from 2009, bearing the dramatic
heading “The Tragedy of Detroit”, and features a beautiful photograph
of urban ruin by French photographers Yves Marchand and Romain
Meffre.3 The “New Detroit” narrative is one of rebirth and redevelop-
ment, but this process is being contested very actively on the grounds
of social equity and racial inclusion. The sustainability of the city hinges FIGURE 1
directly on this question. Two other key issues facing the city are the
provision of green public spaces, and the preservation of the wealth of
spontaneous nature that Detroit’s history of trauma and division has
paradoxically produced.
In the pages that follow, I approach the field of design from the
perspective of a sociologist engaged with urban issues of poverty, race,
inequality, substance abuse, crime and incarceration. I then discuss two
examples of design projects in Detroit with which I am directly involved,
that illustrate some of the tensions between inclusion and sustainability
that reflect the city’s traumatized past, and its hopeful but uncertain
future. Finally, I consider how Detroit’s current revitalization and
stated commitment to inclusive design could make the city a model
of sustainability in both social and environmental terms—although
this is far from guaranteed. One development project, the Joe Louis
Greenway, promises to link all of these issues, but much depends on
the design and implementation.
DETROIT’S OPEN WOUNDS
In the late summer of 2005 I moved to Detroit from D ayton,

Ohio, with my wife and my one-year-old son. Our little caravan of
beings and belongings was accompanied by sweeping rains that
represented the last gasps of Hurricane Katrina. During the subsequent 1
Please see: http://www.dailydetroit.com/
days we witnessed the crisis unfolding in New Orleans through various 2016/08/18/detroits-motto-mean-anyway-still-
news media, and this inevitably informed my thinking about Detroit— relevant-today/
2
Please see: https://www.nytimes.com/
another majority—Black city with French roots—as I began to explore interactive/ 2018/04/30/us/detroit-
come-back-budget.html
the neighborhoods and learn my way around. Two things immediately 3
Please see: http://content.time.com/time/
struck me about the city, as they have many others: the first was the covers/0,16641,20091005,00.html
26
sheer level of physical destruction and abandonment, making Detroit
visually similar to a disaster or war zone; and second, the abundance of
green space and growing things. On one of our first forays to the East
Side I commented on this vegetative vitality, to a man who we randomly
met on one of the streets located just off the Detroit River. He laughed
and said, “Yes, Detroit has always been a green city.” His laughter was
heartfelt and generous, and it was an early indication of another dimen-
sion of Detroit: its resilient, uplifting and inclusive humanity.
As I immersed myself in both the literature and lived reality
of structural inequality, I also tired of its dreary conclusions. Vicious
cycles abounded and fed each other. It was a very old story, and Detroit
provided abundant evidence of how the winners made more money,
while the losers lost what little they had left. In 2009 I published my
first paper focused on Detroit. It was (I thought) an ambitious think
piece entitled, “Substance abuse and slow-motion disasters: the case
of Detroit”. It laid out a historical-theoretical case for how Detroit got
to where it was in the early 2000s, and what role substance abuse
epidemics played in that evolution. In the summer of 2012 I presented
on a panel of researchers at the American Sociological Association
annual meetings in Denver, Colorado, which were focused on the topic
of “Communities in Disaster.” My contribution was a paper-in-progress
with the ambitious title, “We Don’t Have No Neighborhood: Advanced
Marginality and the Utopian Future of Postindustrial Detroit”. This
paper was based on my own early ethnographic research, carried out in
one stubbornly persistent but struggling Detroit community.
Two of the other presenters focused on New Orleans in the
wake of Hurricane Katrina; another looked at post-civil war Sarajevo.
The discussant, a disaster researcher from Colorado State University,
identified several themes which were present in all of the papers: a
movement from an event-centric to an effects-centric perspective
on disasters; the idea that disasters may be viewed as opportunities
for transformation, but also that they might be used to entrench old
inequalities and produce new ones. She concluded by saying that there
was a theme missing that she wanted to see, and that was the theme
of possibility: she wanted to see “glimmers of hope”. My own paper had
started with the idea of hope, expressed through Arcadian dreams of a
flowering post-industrial Detroit, but had then run aground, as socio-
logical research often does, on the reality of peoples’ daily lives, which
were mostly hard and grim day-to-day survival stories.
Through my engagement with various projects across the city,
from urban agriculture and green energy on the East Side, to neighbor
hood and green space development efforts on the West and Southwest

sides, I began to think more about the ways in which creativity and
dedication could leverage changes in local dynamics, and I started looking
for examples of how this might be done. This evolving interest, along
with my own meandering journeys in Detroit, led me to the field of
design. In the summer of 2017 I organized a small symposium in Detroit
organized around the concept of Socio-Design, in collaboration with
visitors from Graz, Austria, who were connected to the Creative Cities
network. As a sociologist, I was first more interested in the “Socio”
than the “Design”, but I found the word useful because it pointed in
the direction of solutions, as opposed to the description and analysis of
problems. Socio-Design exemplified the contention that well-designed
places, programs and practices can enhance local well-being and
resilience. Projects such as the “Fort Street Bridge Park”, “Dequindre
Cut” and “Joe Louis Greenway”, for example, could be viewed as
place-making efforts which not only seek to enhance Detroit residents’
access to recreational and shopping opportunities, but also attempt to
promote social equity and inclusion. This concept is also linked to the
idea of environmental justice: as a matter of equity, what role do places
and processes play in compensating for the penalty of past harms, or
accumulated historical trauma?
Design represents the dream that there can be an escape, that
redemption and transcendence are possible through imagination and
effort. Like Daedalus of Greek mythology, the designer imagines that
human beings can improve upon their situation, and even take flight, with
the assistance of technological ingenuity. Of course the Daedalus myth
also contains a warning: that humans should not seek to exceed the limits
imposed by nature, that hubris has its consequences. The history of
20th century urban planning and design might be another illustration of
that mythic story, as housing projects raised to the sky were dynamited
back to rubble a decade later, and highways plowed through poor, mostly
Black communities, wreaking havoc for decades to come. Today’s design-
ers are definitely more modest in their claims, but even inclusive design,
which is cognizant of past exclusion, is not without its problems. The buried
scars of the city’s past trauma reassert themselves, and if unaddressed
may contribute to their own perpetuation. I offer two examples of contem
porary Detroit design projects that seek to address issues of sustainability
and inclusion, but which also illustrate tensions present throughout the
city. In the “Joe Louis Greenway”, an aspirational design project currently
in development, I see a test case for the concept of inclusive design, as well
as an analytical device for connecting neighborhood-specific projects in
very different sections of the city, from the urban prairies of the Lower East
Side to the industrial riverscapes of Southwest Detroit.
28
CITIES AND THE DREAM OF DESIGN:
A B R I E F I D I O SY N C R AT I C OV E R V I E W
John Rennie Short’s Alabaster Cities (cf. SHORT 2006) is a book

about the design of cities, and especially the role of the federal govern
ment in shaping the distinct form of contemporary American cities,
characterized as they are by sprawl, racial segregation and political
fragmentation. This was not only a design failure, but a kind of design
crime. Jonathan Barnett, in his City Design: Modernist, Traditional,
Green, and Systems Perspectives (cf. BARNETT 2011), likewise critiques
the products of 20th century urban design: “The modernist vision of
a city of towers linked by expressways has become in many places a
city of traffic jams and difficult searches for parking space.” (p. 106).
Barnett provides an overview of four different approaches/perspectives
on city design: traditional, modernist, green and systems perspectives.
In his discussion of systems perspectives Barnett cites Steven Johnson’s
book Emergence (cf. JOHNSON 2001), providing a link to the field of
ecology with its emphasis on complexity and collective intelligence.
Matt Hern, in his Common Ground in a Liquid City: Essays in
Defense of an Urban Future (cf. HERN 2010), also links urban design with
ecology, using his home city of Vancouver as the main reference point.
The term “liquid cities” refers to Castells’ concept of the city as a “space
of flows”, defined by instantaneous movements of capital and information,
as opposed to “spaces of places”, the much slower and concrete settings
where most people actually live and breathe: “In a liquid era when people,
goods and capital are sloshing all over the globe, we have to turn cities
into comprehensible places that everyday people can actually inhabit”
(p. 9). Regarding the theme of the theme of sustainability Hern contends
that “An ecological and an ethical city is one and the same thing—we
can’t have a ‘green’ city without reimagining our social institutions” (p. 17).
He continues:
Cities can be designed a lot better and vastly more ecologically.
And Vancouver, as much as any city on the continent, has embraced
some of the right kinds of planning priorities. In many ways, though, I
think placing our faith in good design and master planning is exactly
wrong. Maybe it’s a good place to start from, but really, that’s it. We’re
dreaming if we believe that central planning and design is going to save
us from urban sterility, car culture and unfettered capital. Urban flavor is
a lot more than ‘good’ aesthetics (HERN 2010, p. 17).
Hern sees everyday people as the real drivers of good places, and
so he advocates a participatory process: “A participatory city—where
all kinds of people are out creating the city socially, culturally and

physically—is the unfolding of the city as the project of thousands and
thousands of people” (p. 74). He talks about this as a kind of “stewing”
process: “You can’t manufacture it. The flavor has to stew: let it come
and let people build the city” (p. 80). Here we can see a potential con-
vergence emerging between Hern’s grassroots urbanism and Barnett’s
more professional approach: both of them speak in ecological terms,
and both reference Christopher Alexander’s concept of ‘generated com-
plexity’, or design by accretion. However, the planning process which
Barnett describes is still professionally driven, with the public taking
part near the very end. In Detroit we can see abundant examples of
modernist “design crimes” and their legacy of trauma, as well as traces
of traditional urbanism, grassroots emergence and ecological creativity.
The big question is how contemporary urban designers, with their
current embrace of inclusion, will confront that legacy and engage with
those emergent realities in order to shape Detroit’s next century.
D E T R O I T ’ S D E S I G N ( E D) P R O B L E M
Throughout the history of cities design has been used to address

social inequality, while also often reinforcing it. In American cities the
designs of parks, housing projects and highways have all been viewed in
contrasting ways, either as a means to reduce poverty, or as a means to
isolate poor people. This conflicted legacy is contrasted with a current
focus on “inclusive design” that emphasizes accessibility for all categories
of people. In her book Mismatch (cf. HOLMES 2018), Kat Holmes argues
that the template for social relations is actively shaped by the spaces,
objects and systems which we encounter. How can sensibilities of design,
informed by values of social justice and equity, shift the dynamics of cities
at the local level? How does the aesthetic dimension of design both aid
and hinder this effort? How can design efforts led by community residents
serve as a counterforce to investor-driven redevelopment?
The dream of inclusive, sustainable design is articulated in books
such as SynergiCity (cf. KAPP AND ARMSTRONG 2012), an edited
volume subtitled “Reinventing the Postindustrial City” which reports on
a series of projects intended to balance “competing economic, social,
and political forces in which the result is greater than the sum of its
parts”. “SynergiCity”, they write, “is more than merely a master plan
proposal. It is a visionary concept for the wholesale redevelopment of the
postindustrial city” (KAPP AND ARMSTRONG 2012, IXf.). They develop
this idea of a win-win vision by highlighting the multiple overlapping
priorities which are served by the types of design they advocate:
30
Socially, redeveloping the postindustrial districts in ways that
nurture creative contributions from all citizens can have the potential to
reverse embedded cultural and educational inequalities, while at the same
time providing environments for better economic production...postindus-
trial can be a convergence and a synergy of the innovation economy with
the natural and humanmade resources of the existing built environment.
(KAPP AND ARMSTRONG 2012, Xf.)
One might read this statement a little more closely and ask
the reasonable question: “How did these inequalities become embed-
ded?” However, this requires recognizing the role of design in doing so.
As stated by David Maraniss (cf. MARANISS 2015) in his book about
Detroit in the 1960s, “Detroit was being threatened by its own design
and metal and fuel and movement, and also by the American dilemma
of race” (MARANISS 2015, 92f.). Maraniss’ comment, and the rest of
his narrative, points to a conclusion which others have shared—Detroit
built its decline into the design of the city, perhaps unwittingly but
nonetheless deliberately, with racism as a major influence, even if it
wasn’t the sole driving force.
As chronicled in Alabaster Cities (cf. SHORT 2006), central cities
and the urban fabric which composed them were deliberate targets of
design, planning and public policy throughout the second half of the
20th century. Focusing on Detroit, Short writes:
The postwar master plan for the city, devised before the federal
legislation, was for the destruction of low-income ‘blighted’ housing
and the construction of middle-class housing. Slum clearance, it was
hoped, would revitalize the urban core and hence increase the tax-
revenue base. The 1949 Housing Act gave federal assistance to these
plans. The bulldozer and the wrecking ball were used to knock down
densely populated black neighborhoods. During one of the six schemes,
the Gratiot redevelopment site on the city’s Lower East Side, 129 acres
of land were condemned, and almost 2,000 families were evicted. The
initial plans called for 3,600 units of public housing on the site, but by
1958 no housing was built… The end result was the ‘confinement of
blacks to densely packed, run-down and overpriced housing’
(SHORT 2006, 23f.).
Across the urban United States neighborhoods designated as
“slums”, regardless of their social cohesion or housing stock, were
targeted for such wholesale redevelopment, which in turn entailed
wholesale destruction of community infrastructure both physical and
social. Highway construction took a similar path and in Short’s words,
“exacerbated urban clearance” (SHORT 2006, 26f.). The federal govern-
ment subsidized the process to the tune of billions of dollars per year.

As Short states, “The postwar suburbs did not just happen”
(SHORT 2006, 30f.), any more than did the impoverishment, social
isolation and physical devastation of the inner city. They were in fact
design features, and designers need to acknowledge this as they go to
offer new visions of “wholesale redevelopment.” Given this history, it
is entirely justified to approach the contemporary visions of designers
to remake these cities with at least a dash of suspicion, in addition to
a healthy dose of skepticism. Nowhere is this skepticism more evi
dent than in Detroit, where community engagement meetings are
often sidelined by discussions of the city’s racist past and the need for
appropriation compensation to long-suffering residents. As expressed
by Orlando Bailey in an online article posted on Model D Media:
You cannot go into a neighborhood and plan to engage people
around big, new, shiny things when trauma exists. Homes that have
been demolished, schools closed, neighborhood institutions closed.
When people get an opportunity to express themselves, you have to find
a way to facilitate that in a productive way (cf. BAILEY 2018).
Others view the current changes taking place in the city as a clear
continuation of the tradition of segregation through design. According
to Detroit minister and activist Bill Wylie-Kellerman (cf. WYLIE-KELLER-
MAN 2017), Detroit is being downsized and restructured geographically,
as well as financially. The plug is being pulled on certain neighborhoods
where poor black folks live (WYLIE-KELLERMAN 2017, 115f.).
In a landscape as traumatized and contested as that of Detroit,
designers clearly cannot be blind to this surrounding community context,
and the underlying power relations which inform every discussion.
UNESCO AND THE DESIGN CORE VISION
With its selection as a UNESCO City of Design in December 2015,

Detroit set out to build upon its rich legacy of industrial and architectural
design. As the birthplace of the modern automotive industry (itself made
possible by previous design-based industries such as ship-building and
cast-iron stove manufacture), and its rich heritage of Albert Kahn build-
ings, Corrado Paraducci ornamentation, Marshall Fredericks sculptures,
Harley Earl car bodies, the collection of the Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA)
and numerous other treasures, Detroit certainly has much to offer the
world. However, its present status as a city defined by poverty, population
loss and municipal bankruptcy seems to cloud this vision. When making
its application for UNESCO designation the Detroit Creative Corridor
Center (DC3) chose to embrace the challenges of the 21st century, and use
32
design as a mechanism to not only celebrate the past, but position the
city for the future. This also meant confronting the social and economic
challenges which the city faced, as well as adopting an inclusive ethic.
Throughout five months in 2017, DC3 engaged in outreach to
more than five hundred Detroiters in order to identify a set of three
values which would “foster inclusive growth”: 1) diverse experiences;
2) collaborative relationships; and 3) accessible opportunities. In 2018,
under the new, less cumbersome title “Design Core Detroit”, the group
FIGURE 2 released an Action Plan (cf. DETROIT DESIGN CORE 2018). In addi-
tion, they began to implement their strategy for promoting inclusive
design, or “design for all,” by creating a network of Design Partners
throughout the city, and facilitating collaborative projects which cut
across multiple dimensions of design, from landscape architecture to
ornamental metalwork (FIGURE 2).
At a Design Core workshop held at the College for Creative
Studies (CCS) in Detroit in September 2018, designer Kat Holmes
described how “The spaces that we live in have design in them” and
mismatches between designers and users are “the building block of
exclusion.” Mismatch (cf. HOLMES 2018) is Holmes’ term for design
that neglects the very people it would seek to serve, excluding all users
who fall outside a narrowly defined norm, especially people of color,
people of differing physical sizes and ability, age, and so on. To guide
inclusive design, she proposes three basic principles:
O Recognize exclusion
O Learn from diversity
O Solve for one, extend to many
In her hometown of Oakland California, Holmes explained at the

workshop, “we prided ourselves on diversity; diversity was built into
my life, along with lots of other multiracial families.” In Detroit, she
found a city with a lot of similarities to Oakland, with a majority Black
population, a history of political militancy and issues of disinvestment,
concentrated poverty, and abandonment which has been accompanied
by accelerating gentrification and associated displacement. “Imagine
you are a child born into a low-income family,” she proposed, “and you
confront a city that looks like this one”, showing images of burned-out,
boarded-up buildings and overgrown fields, “as opposed to this one”,
showing pictures of the orderly, well-maintained parks of Ann Arbor,
Michigan. “What life chances are you likely to have?” Following this,
she asks, “How can a local environment modify the potentially disabling
effects of identity or social position?”.

These questions succinctly summarize both the challenge and
the opportunity presented by Detroit: as a model of social and spatial
exclusion, evident in its built environment and physical landscape as
well as its social statistics, it also offers the greatest potential gains
if such environmental enhancements are successful. In other words,
it offers the possibility of testing the thesis: does good design make
people’s lives better? In the next section, I consider three projects
which have the potential to offer this opportunity, and discuss some
of the tensions evident in each of them.
A G R E E N R E F U G E I N T H E H E A RT O F I N D U ST RY:
T H E FO RT ST R E E T B R I D G E PA R K
Around 2012 a small group of people began to meet regularly at

my university. This group, representing administration staff and faculty,
community organizations, labor unions and government agencies, met
to discuss the possibility of redeveloping a small parcel of land next
to the Rouge River into a transformative green space. The impetus
for this conversation was the replacement of the historic Fort Street
Bridge, which was the gathering site for protestors participating in
the 1932 Hunger March in Detroit. The Hunger March (also known as
the “Ford Massacre”), which took place on March 7, 1932 was a pivotal
event in Detroit’s labor movement involving thousands of unemployed
workers who sought to deliver a set of demands to the Ford Motor
Company. Sixty people were injured by bullets fired into the crowd by
Ford security and Dearborn police. Four men were killed that day, and
another died a week later from his wounds. While the marchers were
disparaged as Communists in the press, the Hunger March catalyzed
the organization of the United Auto Workers and the unionization of the
Rouge Plant less than a decade later. Generations of Detroit citizens
prospered during the following decades from the wages and benefits
set up by those unions. The Hunger March also helped to bring about
the creation of the famous Detroit Industry murals. Painted in 1933 at
the Detroit Institute of Arts by known communist Diego Rivera, they
were commissioned by Edsel Ford to help repair his company’s tar-
nished image in wake of the “Ford Massacre.” By the 1980s, however,
the event had been largely forgotten.
In addition to the establishment of a memorial honoring the
Ford Hunger March, we sought to reimagine the relationship between
community, industry and the natural environment in this region. With-
out the water and wood naturally abundant here, there would have been
34
no settlement, no city, no industry, and likely no art. The contemporary
idea of “ecosystem services”, used as a means to assign economic value
to all the services that natural systems provide, might also be seen as a
form of invisible labor. Likewise, the work of women, the maintenance
of households, the establishment of communities with their sustaining
relationships of fellowship and spirituality, all served to maintain human
life and return people to the factories every day. If our small property on
the Rouge River could honor that history of struggle, celebrate human
FIGURE 3 and natural resilience, and provide respite and reflection in this most
unlikely of places, it would fulfill its promise.
The park needed to bring these stories together in way that both
honored the past and looked forward to the future. The harms of the
past included the sacrifices of people and the environmental damage
inflicted, both of which contributed directly to the city’s industrial might
and the region’s prosperity, and needed to be acknowledged. However,
the park also had to look forward to a rebalancing and a restoration,
celebrating the resilience of labor and justice movements as well as the
natural systems that have persisted in spite of intense pressures. As
more partners came to the table including representatives of private
industry, environmental organizations and local residents, the vision
broadened to include a model installation of green infrastructure and
accessibility for bicyclists, pedestrians and boaters.
The core group, under the name of Fort-Rouge Gateway (FRoG)
Partnership, launched an official fundraising campaign for the p roject
in 2016 (FIGURE 3). The FRoG Partnership joined the Detroit Design
network in 2018, and the park’s landscape design earned awards and
recognition for its synthesis of environmental, cultural, and recreational
elements. In 2019, it was included as a key piece of a larger proposal,
ultimately funded by the Ralph Wilson Foundation, which would con-
nect bike trails and waterways in the city of Detroit, western Wayne
County and downriver communities, effectively linking the region
through greenways designed to enhance mobility and access to recre-
ational green space. The project has been featured in numerous local
and national publications including a feature article in Landscape
Architecture Magazine (cf. BARASH 2019). With support from the
Detroit-Windsor Bridge Authority, FRoG has commissioned a central
public sculpture that will unify the themes of labor, industry, ecology
and community that are present in the park design; a synthesis of the
city’s narrative of struggle with that of harmony (FIGURE 4).
On one level, this transformative, placemaking project clearly
illustrates the values of inclusive design. It was a product of intensive
FIGURE 4 collaboration; the design seeks to create new opportunities for local

residents, especially for recreation and mobility. As well, the park’s ele-
ments celebrate diverse experiences related to the use of the river, the
evolution of industry, and the labor struggle. On the other hand there
are unavoidable tensions built into the project. The entire surrounding
community is designated as an environmental area of concern (AOC)
by the United States Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA), and
struggles for environmental justice and against environmental racism are
very active. The park project represents a collaboration between commu-
nity, government and industry, and as such it is also inevitably defined by
compromise. The construction of the park began in late 2019, after this
chapter was written, so its potential to influence further environmental
restoration, quality recreation opportunities and enhanced green infra-
structure along the heavily industrialized Rouge River remains to be seen.
Its real success will be determined by the individuals and groups who
use the park: from local fisher-folk to bicyclists, kayakers and workers on
their lunch breaks. Nonetheless, the park represents an example of the
fusion of values of inclusion and sustainability in design.
P O W E R TO T H E P EO P L E :
THE PROMISE OF DETROIT WINDMILL
Detroit-based master metalworker Carlos Nielbock began building

windmills in his backyard during the Great Recession, as a response to
the combined economic and energy crisis and the turn towards sustain-
ability in the city of Detroit. He was inspired by the vision, reflected in the
Detroit Future City (DFC) Framework (cf. DETROIT FUTURE CITY 2012)
and other planning efforts from this era, that sought to turn Detroit’s
perceived deficits into assets. Many people confronting this problem
have focused on the abundance of vacant or underutilized land. How
ever, Nielbock looked at the city’s discarded materials, especially its
metal assets and its human ingenuity. He saw discarded light poles,
for example, as historic treasures thoughtlessly relegated to the waste
stream. Outdated satellite dishes, ubiquitous in the urban environment,
became incorporated into a visually striking and functional windmill
design. What if every neighborhood or household could harvest the
wind for energy while also taking these materials out of the scrap heap?
He saw Detroit residents, unable to find work in the regular economy,
turning their attention to dismantling buildings and selling the parts for
cash to the numerous metal scrap dealers located throughout the city.
What if these individuals could be re-trained to create useful objects
out of the metal scrap that would otherwise be shipped overseas?
36
These questions, and the interconnected themes of green
energy, upcycling and skilled trades development, became the heart of
Nielbock’s “CAN Art Wind Turbine Project”, later renamed the “Detroit
Windmill Project”. The son of a German mother and an African American
father, Nielbock spent the first twenty years of his life in Germany and
learned his metalworking trade from Catholic monks, who he calls “the
old guys, in the old days, with the old ways.” He was an enthusiastic
proponent of the UNESCO Cities of Design network and participated
in Design Month Graz in 2017. His windmill project, in partnership with
Eastern Market, received a matching grant from the Knight Foundation4
in late 2016. By the end of 2018, after months of fundraising to earn the
match and continued research and development, two windmills had
been installed in public locations within Detroit’s Eastern Market dis-
trict (FIGURE 5). One of the windmills, located next to large vendor sheds
on a high-traffic street, featured loudspeakers, WiFi and Bluetooth™
capability, and plugs for electronic devices. The other, located in the
middle of an urban farm, was designed to simply produce off-grid power
for localized use (FIGURE 6).
At a community engagement session conducted in February 2019,
representatives of communities and organizations from across Detroit
shared ideas for potential uses of the windmills in their own neigh-
borhoods or institutions. The opportunities included: to power homes
using old car batteries charged by the windmill; to provide power for
event infrastructure such as air compressors for bouncy houses, pop-
corn machines, and loudspeakers; and to provide power for localized
security and wireless communications systems. The representatives
also discussed how to make the devices more inclusive and accessible.
Methods proposed included conducting windmill workshops throughout
the city; creating cost-sharing options for communities; and developing
a windmill-based skilled trades curriculum and certificate that could be
transferred to other job opportunities.
This project represents another fusion of the values of sustain-
ability and inclusion. Although the windmill project holds much promise,
it remains plagued by issues that also affect other new entrants into the
Detroit design space. As a small, family-run firm without a professional
FIGURE 5 & 6
staff trained in nonprofit project management, CAN Art Handworks
sometimes struggles to meet the criteria of funders while also managing
a project from concept to implementation. Though the Knight Foundation
matching grant was a big boost, raising the money for the match was
also a major burden. The trials and errors of research and development,
especially for the electrical system and electronic components that the
4
Please see: https://knightfoundation.org/
grants/7815 design demanded, contributed to time delays and additional costs. Even

after the initial installation, adjustments and modifications needed to
be made and much of this cost was absorbed by CAN Art Handworks
itself, using earnings from commercial work.
Apart from these internal challenges, the external environment also
presented obstacles. The improving economy of Detroit, while making
an evident impact on the city’s physical and social landscape, tends to
encourage participation by those with connections and capacity. African
American owned businesses5 like CAN Art Handworks are especially
sensitive to this economic exclusion in the “new Detroit.” Some reports
have noted, for example, the “whitewashing” of the restaurant scene6 in
a majority-Black city. Nonprofit funders and foundations are attempting
to fill the gap by providing access to resources for capacity building, but
this access often has its own costs in terms of money and effort. With
projects launching around every corner and major companies entering the
market, local entrepreneurs may begin to feel as though the new Detroit is
leaving them behind. In one of my many conversations with him, Nielbock
stated that he didn’t want to go in that “polarizing direction, of pitting one
against the other. That’s how Detroit got to this point in the first place.”
He added, “My protest is for inclusion. I must be included in any economy
that’s going on in my community where there is billions of dollars of
investment happening.”
C O N C LU S I O N : T H E O P P O RT U N I T Y A N D
C H A L L E N G E O F T H E J O E LO U I S G R E E N WAY
The development of the Joe Louis G reenway

(JLG) is the outcome of years of advocacy by
cyclists and others invested in a greener, less auto
dependent city. This project will create a system of
interconnected greenways to connect the whole city
(cf. MONDRY 2019) (FIGURE 7). As described by the
Detroit Greenways Coalition, the JLG will be an
inclusive, unifying project for the city: “When com-
pleted, it will provide a place for people of all abilities
FIGURE 7
to safely walk, bike, and run while connecting neighborhoods, parks,
schools, jobs, historic sites, commercial corridors and public transit.”7
Geographically and thematically, the JLG connects the FRoG and 5
Please see: https://www.crainsdetroit.com/
Windmill projects as the planned trail will originate at the riverfront, node/756721/printable/print
6
Please see: https://www.citylab.com/life/
run through the Eastern Market district and circle the city, passing 2017/11/tunde-wey-detroits-white-
culinary-scene/542571/
through the Fort Street Bridge area before completing a loop on 7
Please see: https://detroitgreenways.org/
the west riverfront. joe-louis-greenway/
38
FIGURE 8
While some see this project as simply the creation of a bicycle

and walking trail, others see the potential for a truly transformative
intervention in Detroit’s neighborhoods (FIGURE 8). The oft-referenced
model is New York City’s High Line, which has become an iconic urban
park since its opening in 2009. The formerly abandoned rail lane, con-
verted into a landscaped greenway above street level, is now a major
tourist attraction and a ready-made template that other cities wish
to emulate. However, it has also been roundly criticized regarding its
ability to promote sustainability and inclusion. In terms of sustainability,
while it emulates the wild urban ecology that previously occupied the
rail line, it relies on costly inputs of water and soil to do so. Some have
referred to this as “The High Line Problem” (cf. MARRIS 2017). Secondly,
although the project promised a new green space in a densely inhabited
city, the High Line also fanned the flames of gentrification and added
to the problem of displacement. Kevin Loughran (cf. LOUGHRAN 2014)
identifies it as a classic example of neoliberal public space, ostensibly
intended for the general population but appealing especially to “tourists,
wealthy white people, and the ‘creative class’” (p. 4).

Like the High Line, Detroit’s Dequindre Cut Greenway (DCG) also
opened to the public in 2009, with a half mile extension in 2016. DCG
is part of the High Line Network and it resembles that project in some
key respects; it retains elements from its industrial origins as a rail
line, though it is submerged rather than elevated. In its wilder days, it
was overgrown with urban vegetation and known as a haunt for graffiti
taggers and the site of homeless encampments. It is now a well-cared
for strip of green space that is designed to be inviting to everyone, and
does indeed attract a widely varied population, especially on warm
weekends during the spring, summer and fall (FIGURE 9). One of the red
Detroit Windmills currently overlooks the greenway from its site inside
an urban farm, at the Wilkins Street entrance, and a beer garden built
from shipping containers operates a few hundred yards away. Needless FIGURE 9
to say, many residents and leaders consider it a great success and the
JLG will build directly off this model, extending through a much larger
territory. Once completed, the JLG will extend almost thirty linear miles.
Named after world boxing champion Joe Louis, an African American
icon and Detroit resident during the era of segregation, the JLG trail
will traverse areas traumatized by that history and the upheavals that
occurred along the way. These include the racial redlining of the 1930s8
and the block-by-block battles over housing integration that took place
throughout the 1940s and 1950s, to the construction of freeway ramps
and the disinvestment and abandonment of once thriving communities as
well as the rebellion of 1967. It is therefore fitting to identify racial equity
and economic inclusion as central goals of the JLG. This project offers
the opportunity to greatly expand local access to green space and incor-
porate history, culture, ecological biodiversity, and ecosystem services.
All of these themes can be tracked, and the inclusive goals espoused by
the planners measured against the reality of what occurs.
At the early engagement sessions which began in May of 2019,
facilitators engaged residents from across the city on the green-
way’s potential and their priorities for its outcomes (see FIGURE 7). When
responses were summarized, a few primary ones were noted, including
“Jobs”, “Gathering Spaces”, “More Black Businesses”, and “Environ-
mental Sustainability.” Similar to the other two projects discussed in
this paper, the JLG clearly touches on multiple aspects of inclusion and
sustainability. The success of these projects in achieving Design Core’s 8
Detailed redlining maps of Detroit, including
stated value of inclusive growth, evaluated over time, will be a critical the data sheets explaining why each area was
measure of Detroit’s success in becoming “a better city for everyone.” rated as it was, may be found at “Mapping
Inequality: Redlining in New Deal America”,
https://dsl.richmond.edu/panorama/redlining/
#loc=14/42.4180/-83.0901&opacity=0.8&sort=
71&city=detroit-mi&area=D13&adimage=
3/75/-120 (accessed on 5 November 2019)
40
BIBLIOGRAPHY
BARBERO / COZZO / TAMBORRINI 2012 = Barbero, Silvia/ Cozzo, Brunella/ Tamborrini,

Paolo (2012) ecodesign. BAILEY 2018 = Bailey, Orlando “What is ‘true’ community engagement?
Exploring the trendiest term in Detroit today”, Model D Media, 30 October 2018,
https://www.modeldmedia.com/features/community-engagement-exploring-103018.aspx
BARASH 2019 = Barash, F. Philip “Into Detroit’s Backwater”, Landscape Architecture Magazine
2019, pp. 112–125.
BARNETT 2011 = Barnett, Jonathan (2011) City Design: Modernist, Traditional, Green, and Systems
Perspectives. London: Routledge.
DETROIT FUTURE CITY 2012 = Detroit Future City (DFC) “Detroit Future City Strategic
Framework”, 2012, https://detroitfuturecity.com/strategic-framework/
DETROIT DESIGN CORE 2018 = Detroit Design Core “Detroit City of Design Action Plan”, 2018,
https://designcore.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/OG-Detroit_ActionPlan_Exo_180410_
final_web.pdf
HERN 2010 = Hern, Matt (2010) Common Ground in a Liquid City: Essays in Defense of
an Urban Future. Oakland: AK Press.
HOLMES 2018 = Holmes, Kat (2018) Mismatch: How Inclusion Shapes Design, Boston: MIT Press.
JOHNSON 2001 = Johnson, Steven (2001) Emergence: The Connected Lives of Ants, Brains,
Cities, and Software. New York: Penguin.
KAPP AND ARMSTRONG 2015 = Kapp, Paul H. and Armstrong, Paul J. (eds), SynergiCity:
Reinventing the Postindustrial City. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.
LOUGHRAN 2014 = Loughran, Kevin (2014) “Parks for Profit: The High Line, Growth Machines,
and the Uneven Development of Urban Public Spaces.” City & Community 13(1): 49–68.
MARANISS 2015 = Maraniss, David (2015) Once in a Great City: A Detroit Story. New York:
Simon & Schuster.
MARRIS 2017= Marris, Emma “Urban Wilderness and the ‘High Line Problem’”, The last word on
nothing, 1 May 2017, https://www.lastwordonnothing.com/2017/05/01/urban-wilderness-and-the-
high-line-problem/
MONDRY 2019 = Mondry, Aaron “The latest updates on the Joe Louis Greenway as the end
of planning phase nears”, Curbed Detroit, 12 December 2019, https://detroit.curbed.com/
2019/12/12/21013056/joe-louis-greenway-update-detroit-transit-biking
SHORT 2006 = Short, John Rennie (2006) Alabaster Cities. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press.
WYLIE-KELLERMAN 2017 = Wylie-Kellerman, Bill (2017) Where the Water Goes Round.
Eugene: Cascade.
41
Urban Oases.
Can Cities of the
Future Function
like Forests?
42 Breathe Earth Collective

INTRODUCTION
For many decades our society has thrived in the relatively stable
climatic conditions of the Holocene. Only in recent years has our impact
extended to and beyond every part of this planet. The so-called Anthro-
pocene is a new epoch in which no earthly entity, place, form, process, or
system escapes the reach and influence of human activity1. The human
being has become one of the most significant factors influencing the
biological and atmospheric processes on Earth, and has changed the
environment to such an extent that the planet’s future is at stake due to
1
Crutzen, Paul J./Stoermer, Eugene F.
“The Anthropocene”, IGBP Newsletter, human use of resources and interventions in the biosphere’s cycles2.
no. 41, May 2000, http://www.igbp.net/ Man’s influence on the planet has become obvious, not least
dowload/18.316f1832132347017758000
1401/1376383088452/NL41.pdf because since 1960 the human population has doubled to nearly
Subramanian, Meera “Anthropocene Now:
seven billion people, and will increase to about 10 billion by 20503.
2
influential panel votes to recognize Earth’s

new epoch”, Nature—International Journal The human being in itself does not represent a problem, it is rather
of Science, 21 May 2019,
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-
the way in which humans act. In addition to the constantly increas-
019-01641-5 ing CO2 emissions in the atmosphere, and the atmospheric changes
3
United Nations, Department of Economic
and Social Affairs, Population Dynamics associated with them, the most serious human induced changes to
“World Population Prospects 2019”, the planet are probably urban sprawl and the massive use of land for
https://population.un.org/wpp/Graphs/
Probabilistic/POP/TOT/900 (accessed agricultural production4. Almost 40 % of the non-ice-covered surface
in August 2019) of our planet is now used to grow crop plants5.
4
Campbell, B. M./Beare, D. J./Bennett, E. M./
Hall-Spencer, J. M./Ingram, J. S. I./Jaramillo It is these changes in the use of our natural habitat, and above all
F./Ortiz, R.,/Ramankutty, N./Sayer, J. A./
greed for profit which are so radically endangering our planet and result-
Shindell, D. “Agriculture production as a major
driver of the Earth system exceeding planetary ing in deficient ecosystems. Not least the young generation, who have
boundaries”, Ecology and Society, vol. 22,
no. 4, 2017, art. 8,
found their figurehead in Greta Thunberg6, is becoming ever more aware
https://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol22/ that it needs to bring about a change in the way in which we live together
iss4/art8/ (accessed in August 2019)
5
Owen, James “Farming Claims Almost on our planet if future generations are to find reasonably acceptable
Half Earth’s Land, New Maps Show”, conditions for a healthy, sustainable and peaceful life together.
National Geographic, 9 December 2005,
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/ The following text is an attempt to roughly outline the complex
news/2005/12/agriculture-food-crops-land/ context of this global task in which urban planners, architects and
(accessed in August 2019)
6
Greta Thunberg Facebook Profile, designers must find their way. At the same time it is an attempt to
https://www.facebook.com/
sketch and initiate a strategy, since a plan for action is conceivable
gretathunbergsweden/ (accessed in
August 2019) at a local level.
Urban Oases. Can Cities of the Future Function like Forests? Breathe Earth Collective 43
U R B A N I Z AT I O N A N D I TS C H A L L E N G E S
It is widely predicted that urban agglomerations and cities will

continue to grow in the future. As early as 2020, urbanization will
result in more than 80 % of the world’s population living and working
in cities and urban areas7. This process not only causes resource and
service depletion in rural areas, but also results in stress and over-
crowding in megacities, as can now be seen in Asia, Africa and Latin
America, for instance. Even in Europe, this trend is now clearly visible
in terms of withering rural regions and the parallel growth of urban
settlements. Urbanization and climate change are the most serious
challenges of our time, and they are forcing city planners, architects
and policymakers to deal with the resulting problems and changes.
An intelligent and sustainable consolidation of our cities as an
alternative to urban sprawl is therefore increasingly the focus of
discussion, alongside a much-needed resource turnaround. In
addition to the megacities, the so-called “second cities” are also
subject to increasing development pressure due to still moderate
land prices, as well as the prospect of even higher profits for in
vestors. When facing the pressing issues caused by climate change,
cities will have to develop new strategies about how to deal with
urbanization and the growth of urban agglomerations and metropoli
tan areas in an ecological way. Strategies now need to be devised
in order to confront the issue of how existing urban spaces can be
eco-socially restructured and improved for the coming centuries.
One example of ongoing changes and potential spatial resources in
the near future is the change from individual mobility to autonomous
mobility. This shift will lead to discourse about how to reuse the
large quantity of vehicle infrastructure as high-quality public space
in which citizens should be involved.
A S H OTS P OTS , U R B A N A G G LO M E R AT I O N S
AC C E L E R AT E C L I M AT E C H A N G E
The climate has changed noticeably in recent decades, and as

an Alpine region Austria is particularly affected. By 2050 the mean
temperature in Austria will have risen by 1.4°C relative to the period
1971–2000. Depending on how successfully we can implement
7
United Nations, Department of Economic
and Social Affairs, Population Division “World
climate protection measures, the average temperature increase may Urbanization Prospects 2018”, 2018,
https://population.un.org/wup/Country-
be as high as 2.3–4°C by the end of the century8. Due to their struc-
Profiles/ (accessed in August 2019)
tural compaction and high degree of sealing, urban areas will be more 8
cf. BMNT, 2016
44
intensively affected by this trend. Due to the so-called urban heat
island effect, which is caused by the aspects described above, the
average temperature in Austrian cities will rise by a further 2°C in the
future9. This development is already noticeable today. In 2018 there
were 42 heat days in the center of Vienna, and in 2015 there were
46. During the reference period 1981–2010 there were an average of
21 heat days10. An increase in heat days and a lack of night cooling
in urban structures represent an enormous health burden for all city
dwellers, but particularly affect the elderly, the chronically ill, children
and the socially weak. According to studies, in 2018 more people died
from the aftermath of heat in Austria than in road accidents11.
In the future the temperature in Vienna could rise to over 42°C
in a hot summer. This means that the effects of a warming climate
will be even more intense in very densely populated areas. As a result,
even more energy will be used in these areas in order to cool living
spaces to a tolerable level. However, this trend will ultimately only
accelerate the fatal cycle of climate change. During the hot summer
months buildings behave similarly to radiators, absorbing heat during
the day and radiating it during the night.
In these urban agglomerations the inhabitants are currently
being exposed to more and more health dangers. Today we can already
detect an increase in the mortality rate of people in urban centers as a
result of permanent air pollution and overheating12. In order for cities
and metropolitan areas to be able to maintain or improve their quality
of life and prevent health deterioration in the future, it is necessary to
counteract the overheating and air pollution at the city-system level
with the involvement of all stakeholders and population groups.
C I T I E S A S A H Y B R I D O F A R C H I T EC T U R E ,
T EC HN OLO GY A N D N AT U R E
Strategies for dealing with climate change and its challenges

therefore play a crucial role in the future of cities, both globally and
locally. New methods of cooling, air-conditioning and improving the
air quality in both older and newer cities must be developed in order
to reduce the “urban heat islands effect”. The design and develop-
9
cf. MA 22, CITY VIENNA, 2015
10
cf. ZAMG, 2018 ment of effective prototypes for “cooling architectures” and “climate-
cf. AGES 2018 and STATISTICS AUSTRIA 2018 resilient open spaces” as flagship projects is therefore crucial in
11
12
See also, World Health Organization “How air
pollution is destroying our health”, order to make ideas and visions palpable, as well as instigate public
https://www.who.int/air-pollution/news-and-
discourse. We should aim to redesign our cities in a way that will
events/how-air-pollution-is-destroying-our-
health (accessed in August 2019) reduce the impact of climate change to zero, or even turn our cities
Urban Oases. Can Cities of the Future Function like Forests? Breathe Earth Collective 45
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no related content on Scribd:
“What a horrid shame!” said Claire. And then they began to talk
about the organs and bands that used to come to their old home in
Bloomsbury.
“Do you remember the Italian woman in the yellow handkerchief on
Thursday mornings during French?” said Christopher.
“Yes,” said Betty, “and the monkey boy with the accordion on
Mondays.”
“And the Punch and Judy on Wednesday afternoons,” said Claire.
“And ‘Fresh wallflowers,’ ‘Nice wallflowers!’ at eleven o’clock every
day in spring,” said Christopher.
“And the band that always played ‘Poppies’ on Tuesday evenings at
bedtime,” said Claire.
“And the organ with the panorama on Friday mornings,” said Betty.
“And the best organ of all, that had one new tune every week, on
Saturdays,” said Christopher.
“It must be a great day for the organists when they have a new tune,”
said Claire.
“Yes,” said Betty; “but you have forgotten the funniest of all—the old
man with a wooden leg on Tuesday and Friday.”
“But he had only one tune,” said Christopher
“It was a very nice tune,” said Betty. “But why I liked him was
because he always nodded and smiled at me.”
“That was only his trick,” said Christopher. “They all do that if they
think you have a penny.”
“I don’t care,” said Betty stoutly; “he did it as if he meant it.”
That night, just after Claire had undressed, Christopher came in and
sat on her bed. “I’ve got an idea,” he said. “Let’s have a new notice-
board painted with
ORGANS AND STREET CRIES

INVITED
on it, and have it fixed on our railings. Then we shall get some music
again. I reckon that Mr. Randall’s son would make it just like the
other for about four shillings, and that’s what we’ve got.”
Mr. Randall’s son was the family carpenter, and he was called that
because his father had been the family carpenter before him for
many years. When his father, Mr. Randall, was alive, the son had no
name, but was always referred to as Mr. Randall’s son, and now that
the old man was dead he was still spoken of in that way, although he
was a man of fifty and had sons of his own. (But what they would be
called it makes my head ache to think.)
Mr. Randall’s son smiled when he was asked if he could and would
make a notice-board. “I will, Master Christopher,” he said; “but I’m
thinking you had better spend your money on something else. A nice
boat, now, for the Round Pond. Or a pair of stilts—I could make you
a pair of stilts in about an hour.” Poor Christopher looked wistful, and
then bravely said that he would rather have the notice-board. After
giving careful instructions as to the style of painting the words, he
impressed upon Mr. Randall’s son the importance of wrapping the
board very carefully in paper when he brought it back, because it
was a surprise.
“A surprise!” said Mr. Randall’s son with a great hearty laugh; “I
should think it will be a surprise to some of ’em. I’d like to be there to
see the copper’s face when he reads it.”
Mr. Randall’s son was not there to see the copper’s face; but the
copper—by which Mr. Randall’s son meant the policeman—did read
it in the company of about forty other persons, chiefly errand-boys
and cabmen, in front of the Morgans’ house on the morning after
Christopher had skilfully fixed it to the area railings; and having read
it he walked off quickly to the nearest police-station to take advice.
The result was that just as Mr. Morgan was leaving for the city the
policeman knocked at the door and asked to see him.
Mr. Morgan soon afterwards came from the study and showed the
policeman out, and then he sent for Christopher. After Christopher
had confessed, “My dear boy,” he said, “this won’t do at all. That
notice-board at the end of this street means either that the owners of
Westerham Gardens or a large number of the tenants wish the
neighbourhood to be free from street music. If we, who are new-
comers, set up notice-boards to a contrary effect, we are doing a
very rude and improper thing. I quite understand that you miss the
organs that we used to have, but the only way to get them back
would be to obtain the permission of every one in the Gardens; and
that, of course, is absurd.” With these words, which he afterwards
wished he had never used, Mr. Morgan hurried off to the nearest
Tube to make money in the city, which was how he spent his days.
Christopher carried the news to Claire, who at once said, “Then we
must go to every house to get leave.”
“Of course,” said Christopher. “How ripping!”
And they started immediately.
It would take too long to tell you how they got on at each house.
From some they were sent away; at others they met with sympathy.
Their words to the servant who opened the door were: “Please give
your mistress the compliments of No. 23, and ask if she really wants
street music to be prohibited.”
“Of course we don’t, my dears,” said an old lady at No. 14. “We
should love to have a nice pianoforte organ every now and then, or
even a band; but it would never do to say so. Every one is so select
about here. Why, in that house opposite lives the widow of a Lord
Mayor.”
Claire made a note of the number to tell Betty, who loved rank and
grandeur, and then they ascended the next steps, where they found
the most useful person of all, a gentleman who came down to see
them, smoking a pipe and wearing carpet slippers. “In reply to your
question,” he said, “I should welcome street music; but the matter
has nothing to do either with me or with you. It is all settled by the old
lady at the corner, the house to which the notice-board is fixed. It is
she who owns the property, and it is she who stops the organs. If
you want to do any good you must see her. Her name is Miss
Seaton, and as you will want a little cake and lemonade to give you
strength for the interview, you had better come in here for a
moment.” So saying he led them into the dining-room, which was
hung with coloured pictures of hunting and racing, and made them
very comfortable, and then sent them on with best wishes for good
luck.
Telling Claire to wait a moment, Christopher ran off to their own
house for the board, and returned quickly with it wrapped up under
his arm. He rang the bell of the corner house boldly, and then,
seeing a notice which ran, “Do not knock unless an answer is
required,” knocked boldly, too. It was opened by an elderly butler.
“Please tell Miss Seaton that Mr. and Miss Morgan from No. 23
would like to see her,” said Christopher.
“On what business?” asked the butler.
“On important business to Westerham Gardens,” said Christopher.
“Wait here a moment,” said the butler, and creaked slowly upstairs.
“Here” was the hall, and they sat on a polished mahogany form, with
a little wooden roller at each end, exactly opposite a stuffed dancing
bear with his arms hungry for umbrellas. Upstairs they heard a door
open and a muttered conversation, and then the door shut and the
butler creaked slowly down again.
“Will you come this way?” he said, and creaked slowly up once
more, followed by the children, who had great difficulty in finding the
steps at that pace, and showed them into a room in which was sitting
an old lady in a high-backed arm-chair near the fire. On the
hearthrug were five cats, and there was one in her lap and one on
the table. “Oh!” thought Claire, “if only Betty was here!” For Betty not
only loved rank and grandeur but adored cats.
“Well,” said the old lady, “what is it?”
“If you please,” said Christopher, “we have come about the notice-
board outside, which says, ‘Organs and street cries prohibited.’”
“Yes,” Claire broke in; “you see, we have just moved to No. 23, and
at our old home—in Bloomsbury, you know—there was such a lot of
music, and a Punch and Judy, and there’s none here, and we
wondered if it really meant it.”
“WE HAD IT MADE ON PURPOSE.”
“Because,” Christopher went on, “it seemed to us that this notice-
board”—and here he unwrapped the new one—“could just as easily
be put up as the one you have. We had it made on purpose.” And he
held it up before Miss Seaton’s astonished eyes.
“‘Organs and street cries invited!’” she exclaimed. “Why, I never
heard such a thing in my life. They drive me frantic.”
“Couldn’t you put cotton-wool in your ears?” Claire asked.
“Or ask them to move a little further on—nearer No. 23?” said
Christopher.
“But, my dear children,” said the old lady, “you really are very wilful. I
hope your father and mother don’t know what you are doing.”
“No,” said Christopher.
“Well, sit down, both of you,” said Miss Seaton, “and let us talk it
over.” So they sat down, and Claire took up one of the cats and
stroked it behind the ears, and Miss Seaton asked them a number of
questions.
After a while she rang the bell for the butler, who creaked in and out
and then in again with cake and a rather good syrup to mix with
water; and they gradually became quite friendly, not only with Miss
Seaton, but with each of the cats in turn.
“Are there any more?” Claire asked.
“No, only seven,” said Miss Seaton. “I never have more and I never
have fewer.”
“Do you give them all names?” said Claire.
“Of course,” said Miss Seaton. “That is partly why there are only
seven. I name them after the days of the week.”
“Oh!” thought Claire again, “if only Betty were here!”
“The black one there, with the white front, is Sunday,” Miss Seaton
continued. “That all black one is Monday—black Monday, you know.
The tortoiseshell is Friday. The sandy one is Saturday.”
“It was on Saturday,” said Christopher, “that the best organ of all
used to come, the one with a new tune every week.”
“The blue Persian is Wednesday,” said Miss Seaton, not taking any
notice of his remark. “The white Persian is Tuesday, and the grey
Iceland cat is Thursday. And now,” she added, “you must go home,
and I will think over your request and let you have the answer.”
That evening, just after the children had finished their supper, a ring
came at the door, followed, after it was opened, by scuffling feet and
a mysterious thud. Then the front door banged, and Annie the maid
came in to say that there was a heavy box in the hall, addressed to
Master and Miss Morgan. The children tore out, and found a large
case with, just as Annie had said, Christopher and Claire’s name
upon it. Christopher rushed off for a hammer and screw-driver, and
in a few minutes the case was opened. Inside was a note and a very
weighty square thing in brown paper. Christopher began to undo the
paper, while Claire read the note aloud:
“1, Westerham Gardens, W.
“Dear Miss and Master Morgan,
“I have been thinking about your request all the
afternoon, as I promised I would, and have been
compelled to decide against it in the interests not only of
the property but of several of my old tenants, whose
nerves cannot bear noise. But as I feel that your father,
when he made inquiries about your new house, was not
sufficiently informed as to the want of entertainment in the
neighbourhood, I wish to make it up in so far as I can to
you all for your disappointment, and therefore beg your
acceptance of a musical box which was a great pleasure
to me when I was much younger, and may, I trust, do
something to amuse you, although the tunes are, I fear,
not of the newest.
“Believe me yours sincerely,
“Victoria Seaton.”
“There, father,” said Christopher, “you see she wasn’t really cross at
all.”
“No,” said Mr. Morgan; “but, all the same, this must be the last of
such escapades.”
Then he opened the musical box, and they found from the piece of
paper inside the lid, written in violet ink in a thin, upright, rather curly
foreign hand, that it had twelve tunes. Mr. Morgan wound it up, and
they all stood round watching the great brass barrel, with the little
spikes on it, slowly revolve, while the teeth of the comb were caught
up one by one by the spikes to make the notes. There was also a
little drum and a peal of silver bells. Although old, it was in excellent
order, and very gentle and ripply in tone; and I wish I had been there
too, for it is a long time since I heard a musical box, every one now
having gramaphones with sore throats.
The first tune was “The Last Rose of Summer” and the second the
beautiful prison song from “Il Trovatore.” When it came to the
seventh the children looked at each other and smiled.
“Why,” said Betty, “that’s the tune the nice man with the wooden leg
on Tuesdays and Fridays always played.”
And what do you think it was? It was “Home, sweet Home.”
THE MISS BANNISTERS’
BROTHER
THE MISS BANNISTERS’
BROTHER
I
Christina’s father was as good as his word—the doll came, by post,
in a long wooden box, only three days after he had left for Paris. All
the best dolls come from Paris, but you have to call them “poupées”
there when you ask the young ladies in the shops for them.
Christina had been in the garden ever since she got up, waiting for
the postman—there was a little gap in the trees where you could see
him coming up the road—and she and Roy had run to meet him
across the hay-field directly they spied him in the distance. Running
across the hay-field was forbidden until after hay-making; but when a
doll is expected from Paris...!
Christina’s father was better than his word, for it was the most
beautiful doll ever made, with a whole wardrobe of clothes, too.
Also a tiny tortoiseshell comb and a powder puff. Also an extra pair
of bronzed boots. Her eyes opened and shut, and even her
eyebrows were real hair. This, as you know, is unusual in dolls, their
hair, as a rule, being made of other materials and far too yellow, and
their eyebrows being just paint. “She shall be called Diana,” said
Christina, who had always loved the name from afar.
Christina took Diana to her mother at once, Roy running behind her
with the box and the brown paper and the string and the wardrobe,
and Chrissie calling back every minute, “Don’t drop the powder puff
whatever you do!” “Hold tight to the hand-glass!” and things like that.
“It’s splendid!” Mrs. Tiverton said. “There isn’t a better doll in the
world; only, Chrissie dear, be very careful with it. I don’t know but
that father would have done better to have got something stronger—
this is so very fragile. I think perhaps you had better have it only
indoors. Yes, that’s the best way; after to-day you must play with
Diana only indoors.”
It was thus that Diana came to Mapleton.
How Christina loved her that first day! She carried her everywhere
and showed her everything—all over the house, right into the attics;
all over the garden, right into the little black stove-place under the
greenhouse, where Pedder, the gardener, read last Sunday’s paper
over his lunch; into the village, to the general shop, to introduce her
to the postmistress, who lived behind a brass railing in the odour of
bacon and calico; into the stables, to kiss Lord Roberts, the old white
horse. Jim, who groomed the General, was the only person who did
not admire the doll properly; but how could you expect a nice feeling
from a boy who sets dogs on rats?
II
It was two or three days after this that Roy went down to the river to
fish. He had to go alone, because Christina wanted to play with
Diana in the nursery; but not more than half an hour had passed
when he heard feet swishing through the long grass behind him,
and, looking up, there was Christina. Now, as Christina had refused
so bluntly to have anything to do with his fishing, Roy was surprised
to see her, but more surprised still to see that Diana had come too.
“Why, surely mother never said you might bring Diana?” he
exclaimed.
THERE WAS CHRISTINA.
“No,” said Christina, rather sulkily, “but I didn’t think she’d mind.
Besides, she’s gone to the village, and I couldn’t ask her.”
Roy looked troubled; his mother did not often make rules to interfere
with their play, and when she did she liked to be obeyed. She had
certainly forbidden Christina to take Diana out of the house. He did
not say anything. Christina sat down and began to play. She was not
really at all happy, because she knew it was wrong of her to have
disobeyed, and she was really a very good girl. Roy went on fishing.
“Oh, do do something else,” Christina cried pettishly, after a few
minutes. “It’s so cold sitting here waiting for you to catch stupid fish
that never come. Let’s go to the cave.” The cave was an old disused
lime-kiln, where robbers might easily have lived.
“All right,” Roy said.
“I’ll get there first,” Christina called out, beginning to run.
“Bah!” said Roy, and ran after. They had raced for a hundred yards,
when, with a cry, Christina fell. Roy, who was still some distance
behind, having had to pack up his rod, hastened to Christina’s side.
He found her looking anxiously into Diana’s face.
“Oh, Roy,” she wailed, “her eyes have gone!”
It was too true. Diana, lately so radiantly observant, now turned to
the world the blankest of empty sockets. Roy took her poor head in
his hand and shook it. A melancholy rattle told that a pair of once
serviceable blue eyes were now at large. Christina sank on the grass
in an agony of grief—due partly, also, to the knowledge that if she
had not been naughty this would never have happened. Roy stood
by, feeling hardly less unhappy. After a while he took her arm. “Come
along,” he said; “let’s see if Jim can mend her.”
“Jim!” Christina cried in a fury, shaking off his hand.
“But come along, anyway,” Roy said.
Christina continued sobbing. After a while she moved to rise, but
suddenly fell back again. Her sobbing as suddenly ceased. “Roy!”
she exclaimed fearfully, “I can’t walk.”
Christina had sprained her ankle.
Roy ran to the house as fast as he could to find help, and very soon
old Pedder, the gardener, and Jim were carrying Christina between
them, with mother, who had just come back, and nurse, walking by
her side. Christina was put to bed and her foot wrapped in
bandages, but she cried almost incessantly, no matter how often she
was assured that she was forgiven. “Her sobs,” the cook said,
coming downstairs after her twentieth visit to the nursery—“her sobs
are that heartrending I couldn’t stand it; and all the while she asks for
that blessed doll, which its eyes is rattling in its head like marbles,
through falling on the ground, and Master Roy and Jim’s trying to
catch them with a skewer.”
Cook was quite right. Roy and Jim, with Diana between them, were
seated in the harness-room, probing tenderly the depths of that poor
Parisienne’s skull. A housemaid was looking on without enthusiasm.
“You won’t do it,” she said every now and then; “you can’t catch dolls’
eyes with skewers. No one can. It’s impossible. The King himself
couldn’t. The Primest Minister couldn’t. No,” she went on, “no one
could do it. No one but the Miss Bannisters’ Brother near where I live
at Dormstaple. He could. You ought to take it to him. He’d mend it in
a jiffy—there’s nothing he can’t do in that way.”
Roy said nothing, but went on prodding and probing. At last he gave
up in despair. “All right, I’ll take it to the Miss Bannisters’ Brother,” he
said. “Dormstaple’s only six miles.” But a sudden swoop from a
figure in the doorway interrupted his bold plan.
“You’ll do nothing of the kind,” cried nurse, seizing the doll, “with that
angel upstairs crying for it every minute, and the doctor saying she’s
in a high fever with lying on the wet grass”; and with a swirl of white
skirts and apron, nurse and Diana were gone.
Roy put his hands in his pockets and wandered moodily into the
garden. The world seemed to have no sun in it any more.
III
The next day Christina was really ill. It was not only the ankle, but
she had caught a chill, the doctor said, and they must be very careful
with her. Roy went about with a sad and sadder face, for Christina
was his only playmate, and he loved her more than anything else;
besides, there was now no one to bowl to him, and also it seemed so
silly not to be able to mend a doll’s eyes. He moped in the house all
the morning, and was continually being sent away from Christina’s
door, because she was too ill to bear anyone in the room except
nurse. She was wandering in her mind, nurse said, and kept on
saying that she had blinded her doll, and crying to have its eyes
made right again; but she would not let a hand be laid upon her, so
that to have Diana mended seemed impossible. Nurse cried too, as
she said it, and Roy joined with her. He could not remember ever
having been so miserable.
The doctor looked very grave when he was going away. “That doll
ought to be put right,” he said to Mrs. Tiverton. “She’s a sensitive
little thing, evidently, and this feeling of disobeying you and treating
her father’s present lightly is doing her a lot of harm, apart altogether
from the chill and the sprain. If we could get those eyes in again
she’d be better in no time, I believe.”
Roy and his mother heard this with a sinking heart, for they knew
that Christina’s arms locked Diana to her side almost as if they were
bars of iron.
“Anyway,” the doctor said, “I’ve left some medicine that ought to give
her some sleep, and I shall come again this afternoon.” So saying,
he touched up his horse, and Mrs. Tiverton walked into the house
again.
Roy stood still pondering.
Suddenly his mind was made up, and he set off for the high road at a
good swinging pace. At the gate he passed Jim. “If they want to
know where I am,” he called, “say I’ve gone to Dormstaple, to the
Miss Bannisters’ Brother.”
IV
Miss Sarah Bannister and Miss Selina Bannister had lived in
Dormstaple as long almost as anyone could remember, although
they were by no means old. They had the red house with white
windows, the kind of house which one can see only in old English
market-towns. There was a gravel drive before it, in the shape of a
banana, the carriages going in at one end and out at the other,
stopping at the front doorsteps in the middle. A china cockatoo hung
in the window. The door knocker was of the brightest brass; it was a
pleasure to knock it.
Behind the house was a very large garden, with a cedar in the midst,
and a very soft lawn, on which the same birds settled every morning
in winter for the breakfast that the Miss Bannisters provided. The
cedar and the other trees had cigar-boxes nailed to them, for tits or
wrens to build in, and half cocoa-nuts and lumps of fat were always
hung just outside the windows. In September button mushrooms
grew on the lawn—enough for breakfast every morning. At one side
of the house was the stable and coach-house, on the other side a
billiard-room, now used as a workshop. And this workshop brings us
to the Miss Bannisters’ Brother.
The Miss Bannisters’ Brother was an invalid, and he was also what
is called eccentric. “Eccentric, that’s what he is,” Mr. Stallabrass, who
kept the King’s Arms, had said, and there could be no doubt of it
after that. This meant that he wore rather shabby clothes, and took
no interest in the town, and was rarely seen outside the house or the
garden.
Rumour said, however, that he was very clever with his hands, and
could make anything. What was the matter with the Miss Bannisters’
Brother no one seemed to know, but it gradually kept him more and
more indoors.
No one ever spoke of him as Mr. Bannister; they always said the
Miss Bannisters’ Brother. If you could see the Miss Bannisters,
especially Miss Selina, you would understand this; but although they
had deep, gruff voices, they were really very kind.
As time went on, and the Miss Bannisters’ Brother did not seem to
grow any better, or to be likely to take up his gardening and his
pigeons again, the Miss Bannisters had racked their brains to think
of some employment for him other than reading, which is not good
for anyone all day long. One evening, some years before this story,
while the three were at tea, Miss Selina cried suddenly, “I have it!”—
so suddenly, indeed, that Miss Sarah spilt her cup, and her brother
took three lumps of sugar instead of two.
“Have what?” they both exclaimed.
“Why,” she said, “I was talking to-day with Mrs. Boniface, and she
was saying how nice it would be if there was some one in the town
who could mend toys—poor Miss Piper at the Bazaar being so
useless, and all the carpenters understanding nothing but making
book-shelves and cucumber-frames, and London being so far away
—and I said, ‘Yes,’ never thinking of Theodore here. And, of course,
it’s the very thing for him.”
“Of course,” said Miss Sarah. “He could take the old billiard-room.”
“And have a gas-stove put in it,” said Miss Selina.
“An oil-stove,” said Miss Sarah; “it’s more economical.”
“A gas-stove,” said Miss Selina; “it’s more trustworthy.”
“And put up a bench,” said Miss Sarah.
“And some cocoa-nut-matting on the floor,” said Miss Selina.
“Linoleum,” said Miss Sarah; “it’s cheaper.”
“Cocoa-nut-matting,” said Miss Selina; “it’s better and warmer for his
feet.”
“And we could call it the Dolls’ Hospital,” said Miss Sarah.
“Infirmary,” said Miss Selina.
“I prefer Hospital,” said Miss Sarah.
“Infirmary,” said Miss Selina. “Dr. Bannister, house-surgeon, attends
daily from ten till one.”
“It would be the prettiest and kindliest occupation,” said Miss Sarah,
“as well as a useful one.”
“That’s the whole point of it,” said Miss Selina.
And that is how—five or six years ago—the Miss Bannisters’ Brother
came to open the Dolls’ Infirmary. But he did not stop short at
mending dolls. He mended all kinds of other things too; he advised
on the length of tails for kites; he built ships; he had even made
fireworks.
V
Roy walked into Dormstaple at about one o’clock, very tired and hot
and dusty and hungry. With the exception of a lift for a mile and a
half in the baker’s cart, he had had to walk or run all the way. A little
later, after asking his way more than once, he stood on the doorstep
of the Miss Bannisters’ house. The door was opened by old Eliza,
and as the flavour of roast fowl rushed out, Roy knew how hungry he
was. “I want to see the Miss Bannisters’ Brother,” he said, “please.”
“You’re too late,” was the answer, “and it’s the wrong door. Come to-
morrow morning, and go to the Hinfirmary. Mr. Theodore never sees
children in the afternoon.”
“Oh, but I must,” Roy almost sobbed.
“Chut, chut!” said old Eliza, “little boys shouldn’t say must.”
“But when they must, what else is there for them to say?” Roy asked.
“Chut, chut!” said old Eliza again. “That’s himperent! Now run away,
and come to-morrow morning.”
This was too much for Roy. He covered his face with his hands, and
really and truly cried—a thing he would scorn to do on his own
account.
While he stood there in this distress a hand was placed on his arm
and he was drawn gently into the house. He heard the door shut
behind him. The hand then guided him along passages into a great
room, and there he was liberated. Roy looked round; it was the most
fascinating room he had ever seen. There was a long bench at the
window, with a comfortable chair before it, and on the bench were
hammers and chisels and all kinds of tools. A ship nearly finished lay
in one place, a clockwork steamer in another, a pair of rails wound
about the floor on the cocoa-nut matting—in and out like a snake—
on which a toy train probably ran, and here and there were signals.
On the shelves were coloured papers, bottles, boxes, and wire. In
one corner was a huge kite, as high as a man, with a great face
painted on it. Several dolls, more or less broken, lay on the table.
All this he saw in a moment. Then he looked at the owner of the
hand, who had been standing beside him all the while with an
amused expression on his delicate, kind face. Roy knew in an instant
it was the Miss Bannisters’ Brother.
“Well,” said the Miss Bannisters’ Brother; “so when one must, one
must?”
“Yes,” Roy said half timidly.
“Quite right too,” said the Miss Bannisters’ Brother. “‘Must’ is a very
good word, if one has the character to back it up. And now tell me,
quickly, what is the trouble? Something very small, I should think, or
you wouldn’t be able to carry it in your pocket.”
“It’s not in my pocket,” Roy said; “it’s not here at all. I want—I want a
lesson.”
“A lesson?” the Miss Bannisters’ Brother asked in surprise.
“Yes, in eye-mending. When eyes fall inside and rattle, you know.”
The Miss Bannisters’ Brother sat down, and took Roy between his
knees. There was something about this little dusty, nervous boy that
his clients (often tearful enough) had never displayed before, and he
wished to understand it. “Now tell me all about it,” he said.
Roy told him everything, right from the first.
“And what is your father’s name?” was the only question that had to
be asked. When he heard this, the Miss Bannisters’ Brother rose.
“You must stay here a minute,” he said.
“But—but the lesson?” Roy exclaimed. “You know I ought to be
getting back again. Christina——”

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Designing Sustainable Cities

Manageable Approaches to Make Urban

Cities Beyond Borders Comparative and Transnational

Urban Biodiversity and Ecological Design for

Reimagining Sustainable Cities Strategies for Designing

Designing Data Spaces: The Ecosystem Approach to

Smart, Resilient and Transition Cities: Emerging

Everyday Streets Inclusive Approaches to Understanding

Better Law for a Better World: New Approaches to Law

Designing Cities Basics Principles Projects 2nd Edition

SIGRID BÜRSTMAYR / KARL STOCKER (EDS.)

For some years now, we at the Institute of Design and Commu­-

Sigrid Bürstmayr, Karl Stocker

8 Sigrid Bürstmayr, Karl Stocker

Let us begin with a personal

In order to be a good designer, you have to do research. Research

In order to carry out good projects, designers have to work

The expert knowledge has to be filtered and reduced to narratable

The task is to transform these stories using a strong visual

50 years after Victor Papanek published his famous book Design

In addition, a designer also has to focus on sustainable design

O Encourage use of local resources. O Encourage cooperation/sharing and a

Braungart/McDonough hit the nail on the head by calling on

Urban mining is another important topic which should be men-

Actually, it is all about designing for a closed loop. Inspired by

When speaking about sustainability we often use the terms

From the perspective of people who grew up in a consumer

A SUMMARY OF THE ARTICLES

These contributions not only demonstrate the intensity, but also

Before I begin an apology is needed, for I am neither a Designer

Inclusive Design in Contemporary Detroit. Paul Draus 25

DETROIT’S OPEN WOUNDS

In the late summer of 2005 I moved to Detroit from D­ ayton,

Inclusive Design in Contemporary Detroit. Paul Draus 27

John Rennie Short’s Alabaster Cities (cf. SHORT 2006) is a book

Inclusive Design in Contemporary Detroit. Paul Draus 29

Throughout the history of cities design has been used to address

Inclusive Design in Contemporary Detroit. Paul Draus 31

UNESCO AND THE DESIGN CORE VISION

With its selection as a UNESCO City of Design in December 2015,

In her hometown of Oakland California, Holmes explained at the

Inclusive Design in Contemporary Detroit. Paul Draus 33

Around 2012 a small group of people began to meet regularly at

Inclusive Design in Contemporary Detroit. Paul Draus 35

Detroit-based master metalworker Carlos Nielbock began building

Inclusive Design in Contemporary Detroit. Paul Draus 37

The development of the Joe Louis G ­ reenway

While some see this project as simply the creation of a bicycle

Inclusive Design in Contemporary Detroit. Paul Draus 39

BARBERO / COZZO / TAMBORRINI 2012 = Barbero, Silvia/ Cozzo, Brunella/ Tamborrini,

42 Breathe Earth Collective

influential panel votes to recognize Earth’s

It is widely predicted that urban agglomerations and cities will

The climate has changed noticeably in recent decades, and as

Strategies for dealing with climate change and its challenges

ORGANS AND STREET CRIES

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For some years now, we at the Institute of Design and Commu-

In the late summer of 2005 I moved to Detroit from D ayton,

The development of the Joe Louis G reenway