From Highgate to Wholesale

This timeline starts to zoom into our overall programme. The diagram shows how the camp develops it's initial camp at Highgate park, the alliances formed with other site inhabitants, the response of authorities and subsequent riots and the final reoccupation at the vacant wholesale site. This will be the first of a series of timelines looking at the development. The key conclusion to this timeline is the development of the movement into a not for profit organisation on a nation scale, 'Occupy NPO'.

M

Transition Sequence

The idea of this drawing is to outline the development from a small camp on highgate park, to a fully accepted part of the city:  from protest to habitation.  Its still fairly loose and it would be good on Tuesday to work on the area where the wholesale markets currently stand but I think it will give us a good grounding for the main mater plan and will serve as a useful explanatory tool when it comes to presenting.

D

Alliances

This post discusses the site alliances that will need to be established for the occupation to survive. The camp already fills a social role, looking after homeless people and unemployed youths and therefore forms alliances with the local charities that are dealing with these issues. The camp will also use the local market place for its food and, as such will form a economic alliance which will be succeeded by a political alliance. The church will also engage with the camp, on a moral level, offering its facilities as a forum of debate.

Highgate Park Occupation

This image shows how the occupy movement could evolve and migrate towards the southern gateway. The city wide map shows the potential sites that could be occupied by the movement. The nomadic nature of the camps would then allow the movement to gain resources, people and media coverage. The highgate park map then shows how the occupy camp forms a micro city within the southern gateway site.

Occupy Bristol

Hi Matt

Is this where you spent last weekend?  I notice that once again there is a religious building at the heart of the camp.  I wonder whether we could make a bit more of that in our scheme?

Re-tooling [manufacturing]

Finally done the re-tooling diagram.  Have added the time element too as suggested by Sophie.  The diagram shows the transition from an economy based on raw materials and waste, in which the industrial tycoons exploit the labour force, to a post capitalist economy based on ethnical and biological nutrients and a closed system in which there is no such thing as waste.  This is an amalgamation of Guattari's and McDonough's ideas.

Having done it, I'm not sure whether it would work with general roles of the protesters but I will take a look.  It might be that a different kind of diagram is needed for that.

Anyway, let me know what you think.  Hopefully there aren't too many gaping holes or spelling mistakes!

Cheers

D

Figure Ground Inversion [precedent]

In their master plan for new york 2106, Terreform One propose an inversion of figure and ground to create a city that is self-sufficient.

Here I have taken the same idea and applied it to a typical block in the Southern Gateway, except there is the additional factor of temporary occupation weaved into it.  The idea is that the area is car free, and the green productive space works simultaneously as public space and as productive green space.  I don't think I am proposing this as a final solution, but rather just a diagram of how a process can transform the urban fabric.  Let me have your thoughts!

D

Re-skilling

Hi Matt

Manufacturing is a huge part of Birmingham's past and I think Guattari's idea about re-skilling the workforce could provide another dimension to the project.

In recent history, the car industry has suffered massive decline in Birmingham and there are a lot of people with valuable skills with no jobs.  In the future scenario this problem would only get worse.  I think this reskilling of the car manufacturing workforce could be another valid way of tying this into the wider Birmingham context.

Perhaps I'm getting too hung up on this reskilling thing, but I think it works well alongside the more politically driven stuff and gives us a bit more meat for designing the 'master plan'.  I've also read a bit more of the cradle-to-cradle text and I think this could feed into whatever industry we decide to create.   DO you have any thoughts?

Dave

City Occupation

The map below shows the nomadic nature of the occupy movement within Birmingham and the sites that it may, over time, occupy. Three of the sites have already been occupied by the movement (St Phillips Cathedral, Victoria Square and City Garden) whilst the others are chosen because they are space in which, as david harvey describes, "The results [of neoliberalism upon urbanisation] are  indelibly etched". 

Our scenario predicts that the occupation movement, after developing momentum and resources through its nomadic movements, will occupy the southern gateway site and begin to evolve from occupation to habitation. 

Occupy Birmingham Interviews

On 1st November we interviewed members of Occupy Birmingham to find out more about the protest.  This video gives short summary of our discussions and serves as a 'prologue' to this project:

Occupy Europe Occupy UK

Here's a couple of maps looking at how the occupy movement has spread on a national scale and on a European scale (still need to do the map for global) . I've also drawn a nexus map showing the potential for these movements to interconnect be it virtually or physically.

Protest in motion

The map below depicts the migration of the occupy Birmingham protest camp. The camp originally tried to set up outside the city cathedral but were told by the church dean that they were not allowed. They then moved to Victoria Square where they were able to occupy for 14days. This prominent location got the protest into local media and encouraged debate and discussion on a daily basis. After being evicted to make way for the German Market the occupy camp is now located behind the Symphony Hall In the City Centre Garden.

Although the protesters are struggling to occupy public space for a prolonged period the nomadic nature of the camp may be advantageous. They continue to occupy the city without breaking any laws or getting on the wrong side of the police/council and therefore have a constant voice. The nomadic nature of the protest may also give it chance to grow organically, raising  numbers and capital to finally develop a more permanent occupation.

Public Place

This is a bit of a tenuous link but I thought I'd throw it in anyway. For my BA final year project I set up a stall giving out free alcohol at Wolverhampton train station, during the rush hour. The work was related to the loss of public houses as places of social interaction. The idea was that, even though the architecture was temporary, the relationships formed between commuters during the intervention might encourage them to talk during the commute the following day.

It was interesting when we went to the occupy camp in Victoria square on Tuesday how the camp formed a hub for discussion and debate between the general public. These types of space seem to be disappearing from the public realm thus creating a state of apathy. This could be one of the issues we address in our master plan.

David Harvey- Rebels on the Street and The Right to the City.

I have recently been reading two different articles by author and distinguished professor of anthropology, David Harvey.

The first, ' the right to the city' was published in the New Left Review in September 2008. The article is written before the current occupy movement but its rhetoric is very apt for our project.  A couple of quotes from the text are as follows:

'The results [of neoliberalism upon urbanisation] are  indelibly etched on the spatial forms of our cities, which increasingly consist of fortified fragments, gated communities and privatised public spaced kept under constant surveillance."

"[Under these conditions] [e]ven the idea that the city might function as a collective body politic, a site within and from which progressive social movements might emanate, appears implausible. there are, however, urban social movements seeking to overcome isolation and reshape the city in a different image from that put forward by the developers, who are backed by finance, corporate capital sand an increasingly entrepreneurial minded local state apparatus."

http://newleftreview.org/?view=2740.

The second article is taken directly from david harvey's website. The article 'rebels on the street' discusses the current occupation of Wall Street. He begins with a thorough criticism of the Wall Street Party and its implications both nationally within the US and globally. He then begins to discuss the future of the movement. One particularly pertinent  point is quoted as follows. 

"All this has to be democratically assembled into a coherent opposition, which must also freely contemplate what an alternative city, an alternative political system and, ultimately, an alternative way of organizing production, distribution and consumption for the benefit of the people, might look like. Otherwise, a future for the young that points to spiraling private indebtedness and deepening public austerity, all for the benefit of the one percent, is no future at all."

http://davidharvey.org/2011/10/rebels-on-the-street-the-party-of-wall-street-meets-its-nemesis/

I think this backs up and can give some legitimacy to our master plan proposals

Matt