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- [00:12]
Andrew Tuck
Hello and welcome to the Urbanist, Monocle's program all about the built environment. I'm your host, Andrew Tuck.
- [00:18]
Farrokh Darakshani
Coming up, something as simple as the mailboxes being in a place where everybody has to come to that mailbox, that is just the simplest thing. And yet you get to know your neighbors that way.
- [00:29]
Andrew Tuck
How does a utopia go from a grand idea to a functioning community? In this episode, we visit a utopian community in the United States that is making good on its lofty ambitions. And then we stay in the US to explore a project which is set to become Oregon's tallest mass timber building. And we cast our eyes further afield as we review the seven recently announced winners of the Aga Khan Award for Architecture. That's all ahead in the next 30 minutes right here on the Urbanist with me, Andrew Tuck. The idea of utopian style communities has always been attractive in the United States, with many seeing the land of opportunity as the perfect staging ground for these dream settlements. One such city that was planned As a utopia 60 years ago is Columbia, Maryland. It was the vision of US businessman James Rouse, who secretly bought up thousands of acres of land between Washington, D.C. and Baltimore for a city that would be, in his words, a garden for the growing of people. Decades later, Columbia is consistently voted one of the happiest and most livable cities in the U.S. monocle's Charlotte MacDonald Gibson visited the city to find out why, and she sent us this report.
- [01:52]
Charlotte MacDonald Gibson
When it comes to utopian ambitions, America is the place to be. Throughout the nation's history, visionaries and evangelists, romantics and eccentrics have taken advantage of the abundant land and resource and promise of spiritual freedom to create communities which strive to make heaven a place on earth. Many of the early European settlers came to America to escape religious persecution in their homelands, hoping to eke out an Eden in the land of the free. Today, there are many budding utopias making the headlines in the U.S. the digital first, crypto backed Praxis, whose investors include PayPal founder Peter Thiel, is scouting for a bricks and mortar location. California Forever. An idyllic Silicon Valley escape that the investors hope will soon rise from the scrub. Has the land but can't get the locals on board. Billionaire tech entrepreneur Mark Law's proposed Telosa Metropolis recently released futuristic architectural plans complete with flying cars and floating railways. But what if a real utopia was a little more down to earth? Perhaps a suburban town just between Washington, D.C. and Baltimore, where one man had a vision for an inclusive city where people from all socioeconomic, religious and Racial backgrounds could live side by side in a community where the aim was not just to live well, but but to grow well.
- [03:11]
Eric Payne
He used to call Columbia, Maryland a garden for growing people. He was interested in creating a city that enabled people to become the best versions of themselves.
- [03:21]
Charlotte MacDonald Gibson
Historian and author David Stebbin is telling me about James Rouse, the unlikely hero of this story. A balding businessman with a modest demeanor, Rous made a little bit of history in 1958 when he built America's second enclosed shopping mall, helping pioneer a revolution in US retail. But what he really wanted to do was create the perfect American city. And in 1962, Rousey's corporation started secretly buying up thousands of acres of land in Howard County, Maryland, in a project codenamed Shangri La by the locals. In 1968, he unveiled his design for Columbia. A place where shared community would be built into its bricks and mortar. Ten villages would be set around a town centre on a tranquil man made lake. Everything a person needed, a school, centre of worship, grocery shop would be within walking distance. All the villages would be connected by 114 miles of pedestrian paths, many of them meandering through the 3,600 acres of green space. Single family homes would sit alongside apartment blocks to ensure that people from all backgrounds were were accommodated together. Crucially, Columbia would actively work to welcome Americans of all racial backgrounds, a revolutionary idea at a time when the Civil Rights act ending segregation had yet to pass.
- [04:41]
Farrokh Darakshani
There was a segregated bar in Howard county when Columbia was being built. They also had to be forced to desegregate their schools. So, you know, this liberal and more progressive person is coming and building this city in this area.
- [05:02]
Charlotte MacDonald Gibson
I'm sitting with Erin Berry, the archivist for the Columbia Association. She is showing me some of the original marketing materials for Columbia, explaining how groundbreaking they were, depicting racially mixed families in everyday settings.
- [05:15]
Farrokh Darakshani
And then we start seeing more people like minorities, specifically African American or black individuals being utilized in the promotions. So, like, this is a beautiful little family, people playing basketball together that are different races and this is just to showcase things to do. He's not making a point of that, but I will say, even though he might not have said that out loud, he was doing it through his actions.
- [05:47]
Charlotte MacDonald Gibson
Columbia was part of the Newtown movement, which began in the 1940s as planners moved away from the chaotic organic growth of big cities and looked toward planned suburban communities to manage urban sprawl. These planned towns were springing up across America in the late 1960s. But Rouser's vision stood out in its unyielding commitment to social and racial harmony. He actively courted black owned businesses to come to Columbia and planted undercover families to expose any realtors who were discriminating against prospective African American buyers. To make sure people from different religious backgrounds were brought together in a social setting, he banned single use religious buildings instead. Jewish, Muslim and different Christian denominations share the space of interfaith centers in each of the villages. David Stebbin, whose book New City Upon a Hill is about Columbia, remembers growing up with no sense of tension between the religious communities.
- [06:40]
Eric Payne
They did various things together. There was a Thanksgiving service that was interdenominational, so I actually knew people in faith traditions. So I went to the first interfaith center as a kid and it was utterly natural to me that my mother in the supermarket would pass the local rabbi, we're not Jewish. And he would know who she was and say hello, and vice versa.
- [07:06]
Charlotte MacDonald Gibson
Rous's planning even went as far as the mailboxes. No one is allowed a private mailbox in Colombia. Each street has a communal one, forcing everyone out of their homes and into the social orbit of their neighbours. Shirley Harden, a retired school principal, moved to Columbia in 1973 and recalls how her initial surprise of innovations like the interfaith centres quickly morphed into deep appreciation of the thought that had gone into every aspect of the community.
- [07:33]
Farrokh Darakshani
Something as simple as the mailbox, as being in a place where everybody has to come to that mailbox, that is just the simplest thing. And yet you get to know your neighbors that way. Even now, I mean, we know when somebody new moves in because there's that mailbox sitting right up there.
- [07:51]
Charlotte MacDonald Gibson
Rous loved his creation. He lived there till his death aged 81. Today, Colombia is consistently voted one of the best places to live in America, including being named as one of the best places to raise a family and one of the happiest cities. It is also the victim of its own success. The transport infrastructure is struggling to cope with the population now at 106,000, much more than raus initially envisaged. And the soaring cost of real estate is pricing out young families and people from lower socioeconomic groups. But the utopian visionaries of today would be wise to note the relatively simple principles that have stood the test of time in creating livable plenty of green space, good walkability, well designed housing stock, and crucially, a shared sense of community purpose. Many of today's proposed utopias are based on exclusionary societies. Be that the ultra rich who can afford to live in a crypto first metropolis with Their self driving car or Christian nationalist enclaves being planned in swaths of the Appalachian Mountains. Colombia, however, proves that utopia becomes a reality when you let people in rather than shutting people out. For MONOCLE In Columbia, Maryland, I'm Charlotte MacDonald Gibson.
- [09:16]
Andrew Tuck
We head to Oregon now to look at a new mass timber building that is satisfying both social and climate needs. Community Development Partners are a planning and development organisation which aims to meet local housing needs while enriching the quality of life of residents. Next month they will celebrate the opening of Julia West House which is set to become Oregon's tallest mass timber building. Beyond the climate benefits the building material offers, the project also helps to meet the needs of a variety of marginalised groups in Portland through the partners that CDP have brought on board. To find out more, I'm joined now by Eric Payne, CEO of Community Development Partners. Eric, thank you for letting us call you up. Can we start with a little bit about your organization? What is your mission?
- [10:05]
Eric Payne
CDP or Community Development Partners? Sometimes when I'm talking or presenting a project or at an event, I'll say the name says it all. Community Development Partners. That really does say the gist of it, but CDP was founded in 2011 by my brother and me and kind of from the start our belief really was that affordable housing should transcend the fundamental goal of providing simply like low cost shelter. It should be transformative for residents and for the communities where we're building. When we started we didn't know exactly what we were getting into, but we've leaned really deeply into the mission over the last 14 years which is to develop life enhancing affordable housing with a focus on long term community engagement. So we're not developing things, buildings or structures, projects and then selling them or moving away from them. We have this long term mentality where we're planning on owning and operating the buildings for a minimum of 15 years. And I think we haven't really in the time, haven't strayed from that path. And one of the elements that we've loved, aside from all the partnerships that we work within, is the ability to integrate elements into our communities that we're developing, that we're really personally passionate about. So art was the first one and ecology behind that, that we leaned into and integrating those into our design. And I think just having a really intentional design process, there's this responsibility that I feel when you're working within the built environment and you look around you and structures that we're building from the ground up are going to be around for 50, 100 more years and So I feel like it's incumbent on us as the developers to take the time to have a really intentional and thoughtful design process so that what you're delivering is the best possible version of itself.
- [12:06]
Andrew Tuck
Now one of those projects is Julia West House. And this is going to be, I believe, the tallest timber building in the city. Just tell us a little bit about the design of this and also who it's for.
- [12:21]
Eric Payne
Yes, Julia West House, it's a brand new construction project for us. It's 12 story, 90 unit permanent supportive housing community. So permanent supportive housing community means that the project is focused on serving people who have been experiencing homelessness and it will be built as the tallest mass timber affordable housing building in Oregon. It's just about to finish construction and you know, within the mass timber category, this is a CLT or cross laminated timber building. It's a development that we've been working on for several years, since 2018, really. Obviously not that whole time in construction, most of it in pre development and financing. But it was in 2018 that the church who had owned the land previously, First Presbyterian, had put an RFP out that CDP was successful in winning. And since then we've been hard at work on bringing the project to fruition.
- [13:20]
Andrew Tuck
When I look at some of the partners who are working with you on this includes a Native American rehabilitation association. There is the Community for Positive Aging. What groups in particular are working with you on the development?
- [13:36]
Eric Payne
Yeah, so this kind of community development partners, like coming back to the name, this is what we do. And I feel like our niche where we specialize is bringing in multiple different partners into projects to like round out the team and again like focus on delivering the best possible version of the product. And so here when you're dealing with a population that's more sensitive or fragile, it was really important that we had the right partners from an operational perspective on property management side and then on the resident services side to deliver wraparound services to residents to ensure that they can be stable. And so Northwest Pilot Project was one of the groups. They have decades of experience serving low income seniors. And this is a senior project. They'll be providing case management for most of the units for about 69 of the 90 units. And then you mentioned Nara or the native American Rehabilitation association, which is a partnership that CDP has worked on in multiple projects in Portland in the past. You and for them they're delivering culturally specific services for 20 households. And that culturally specific meaning it's kind of like rooted in native traditions and wellness. Their focus is on serving Urban Natives and Community for Positive Aging. They were formerly known as Hollywood Senior center, so again focused on senior population and they'll lead wellness programs, programs focusing on social connection. You know, we see that a lot of times in senior projects, isolation is a major issue. And when focusing on social determinants of health, making these social connections and having a group that can help through like direct outreach and trying to create some organic connections between residents really helps to alleviate that isolation. And they also. Community for Positive Aging also has a strong component of technology support for older adults, which again is another factor that really helps impact quality of life when they can have some hands on training on the technology side.
- [15:41]
Andrew Tuck
So you're bringing in people who, as you say, many seniors, people from different communities, people from different cultural backgrounds into this space. But there's something about the design, it seems, that you feel it might help people who've had trauma, who've had tough moments in their lives, that actually being in a biophilic space, using this amazing timber, should in some small way help these people find their feet to feel that they're in a safe space.
- [16:09]
Eric Payne
We mentioned the partners on the operational resident services side, then on the design and construction side was so important to us to have the right team, especially when looking at an innovative project. So working with holstarchitecture and knowing that they have the background to help us focus on trauma informed, like you said, biophilic design approach. And I think when you look at the building and the interior spaces and know that you having a space that's beautiful and feels inspiring and welcoming and it has this trauma informed sensitivity to people who do have a background that in many cases includes trauma. And then on top of that you're adding this organic element of having exposed timber throughout the building and in their, the units that they're living in just adds an element of softness to their environment that they're going to be calling home. I mean, it's challenging for someone that's coming from a background of trauma or that has been houseless to come in off of the street. And we're trying to make them feel safe and secure. And so I think anything that you can do to have a space that's beautiful and soft and organic goes a long way to helping them find stability.
- [17:24]
Andrew Tuck
And just returning briefly to the top of our conversation, you said that one of the reasons you started this company was to think about environment. And so even while doing good or by making these amazing buildings, is your hope that you can hold on to this notion of being a sustainable Developer. A developer who cares a little bit about the environment as you make buildings.
- [17:44]
Eric Payne
Yeah, you know, as I said, we deep in this niche of affordable and supportive housing developments that go beyond, from a typical design perspective, go a little bit deeper and more intentional and contextual. And what we love about this business is that we're able to focus on what we're passionate about and so bringing in some of those climate forward elements and trying to be progressive on sustainability and design. This was a really exciting project to use a brand new to US construction typology in that mass timber and a high rise. So it was the first time we had used cross laminated timber in a multi story building and it was the tallest building that CDP has ever developed. And so other than that, with respect to the population we're serving, we've been able to build on all the lessons that we've learned over the last dozen years and building projects for similar populations, but here in a different setting.
- [18:39]
Andrew Tuck
Eric Payne of Community Development Partners, thank you for joining me. Finally today we look at the recently announced winners of the Aga Khan Award for Architecture, which was founded in 1977 by Prince Karim Aga Khan IV. The awards are handed out every three years and on Tuesday, seven winners were announced for this cycle with projects from Iran, Pakistan, Egypt, China, Palestine and Bangladesh. Farrokh Darakshani has been director of the Aga Khan Award for architecture since 2006, and he joined the organization all the way back in 1982. And I'm pleased to say that Farrokh joins me now down the line to discuss this cycle's winners and to explore the award's role in the industry today. Farrokh, thank you for joining me. Okay, for the uninitiated, perhaps we can start with a bit of background on the Aga Khan Award for Architecture. What is its remit?
- [19:35]
Farrokh Darakshani
The Aachen Ward for architecture is indeed one of the oldest awards because it was created in 1977 and in fact it was the first international architecture award because by that time all the awards were just by countries or by institute architects, et cetera. What it's done in the past almost 50 years is that it expanded the architecture discourse. It means that before the 1970s, the architecture was, you know, talking about a building or master plan and that was it. So all the social, which was not much appreciated then, which today is very normal. And we also included many other fields to architecture in those days, like slum upgrading was not considered architecture, engineering was not considered architecture, or restoration was not with archaeology. So that's where the award stands.
- [20:24]
Andrew Tuck
And tell me it's a triennial. How have you helped evolve and how have the awards evolved beyond these recognitions of different categories coming on, as you say, perhaps a few more competitors in the field these days. But how has the role of the award changed?
- [20:39]
Farrokh Darakshani
You know, there was one thing that's very important is in institutions that you don't change gears. It means that we've set a system which we've had follow the same system of recognizing projects through a very meticulous process. A number of anonymous nominators around the world, they submit projects. We present these projects, the ones which are eligible to the master jury, between 300 to 500 each trial cycle. And the way we just present it is just to compare apples and oranges, because there's skyscraper, there's a park, there's a small weekend house. All of them are considered architecture. We don't do it any by country or by typology. It's just, you know, just random. And then they choose shortlist of 20 projects. This is something which we have been doing for the past, is that we send someone to go and see the projects, and not from his own country, but someone who's a stranger to the country, but someone who knows very well the field, the project, the type project, and they come back to the jury and they report to the jury, and then the jury will choose five or six, or sometimes exceptionally seven of them, to share the $1 billion prizeman.
- [21:54]
Andrew Tuck
What's the connection these days of the award with the Aga Khan? Obviously a spiritual leader that many people will know about and a public figure, but what's the connection between the two?
- [22:07]
Farrokh Darakshani
Well, his late Highness, the Archon who created the world past earlier this year. Architecture was his passion because he knew that through architecture is one of the only ways that you can really change the people's quality of life. Economy and many other fields are very important, but architecture is really something which really touches all levels of societies. And that's why he chose architecture to, through architecture, address a number of issues. Because this is something, you know, politics, economy, et cetera, they change. But when you do a bad building, or any building, it stays there for hundreds of years. You cannot just erase it. So that is why the architecture is very important. And as I said, for his late Highness was very important architecture. And his successor, Prince Rahima Khan, is following his father's path, I mean it just to continue recognition. But he has got a very special also angle to it, which is areas like climate change, environmental issues and all what we're doing to ourselves, to our Earth is very important for him. So he's putting a lot of emphasis on recognizing projects which really do change our environment. They are very involved in the process. They don't decide. It's not the Aghan who chooses the projects, it's an independent master jury who choose.
- [23:28]
Andrew Tuck
Now that master jury, tell me how that functions. What's fascinating is, you know that there's no single overall winner. There are seven winners in this cycle. Two are in Iran, there's one in Pakistan, Egypt, China, Bangladesh, we have Palestine. Many of them from Asia or from the Middle east or the Near East. Tell me, how come that they were so focused in this area? The judges, what did they find about delivering quality of life in those regions?
- [23:59]
Farrokh Darakshani
The criteria for the Auckland architecture, there are two main eligibility criteria. One is that the project has to be completed and in use for at least one year and maximum six years. So we're just having. These are recent projects so we can go and evaluate it. The second important issue for His Highness was that it should be of service to Muslims. And that doesn't mean that it has to be in the Muslim world, because today, as you know, the world has changed a lot. I mean, people have been living in different areas and there's a very delicate way of how you can see that it's not a matter of faith. We're not giving projects because of the faith, we're just giving terms of the culture. That's why the Muslim societies have been, for His Highness, an important issue. That's why they're based on these countries. However, we have had in the past winners like in Copenhagen or in Austria, et cetera. So the world has changed.
- [24:57]
Andrew Tuck
You've made some very nice films about the projects which people can see and view on YouTube. I had a chance. You announced these awards a couple of days ago, but I had a chance to look at all those films and look at the projects. And it's funny, you talk about how they're about delivering quality of life and they definitely all are. But I think for the viewer, for the person maybe who's not from the Muslim world or from some of these countries, it had another impact on me, which was a gentle reminder, maybe, about your own prejudices about what people are making and doing around the world, because outsiders have a very set view maybe, of what Iran is like. For example, we imagine it to be purely conservative. And here the first thing you see is this Jahad Metro Plaza, a thing of beauty, an arched brick plaza for a Metro station. A Canopy of simplicity. And it just made me realize the complexity about all these places that we wear away to a simple idea when we see them in the news or when we read about current affairs and hear architects like anywhere else talking about beauty. Do you think there is this other part of the awards that they do remind us of? This the power of architecture, the differences and the diversity of these nations that you're putting the spotlight on the world.
- [26:16]
Farrokh Darakshani
Is much more complex than the view that you get from the media. Modernity, complexity is not something which comes from the west and it's been parachuted in the other parts of the world. There have been a constant evolution in most parts of the world. I totally understand that. That's what people see from the images and the media. And that's the purpose of the media. That's what the media does. It informs and disinforms people. What we see in these seven awards, maybe they are very localized, they are very contextualized. Maybe that's a better word to use. They belong to their context. Sense of belonging is very important. When you create an architectural project, you feel you belong to it and then also you feel some fight. That that sense of feeling is very important. That's why, as you mentioned very nicely, looking at the videos are much better than photographs. Usually architects and architectural, we just look at photos and it's just one second, one hundreds of seconds that something reached reality. The architecture has got movements, people live in it. So that's really. That you have to live in architecture. So films are very, very good way of expressing. So the metro in Tehran, for example, is a very good example because it's something that how you can, with a smell intervention, you can have an impact on the quality of the people who are there, maybe somehow making them become more fun, more easy. When you get into a metro station in London, you have got the same thing that, you know, sometimes you've got entrances which are. It's an interaction between the underground and the outside. And that interaction is very important. Some of these metro stations have been built many, many years ago, so maybe more difficult to change them. But in Tehran, which has got something 170 metro stations, so they have to do something with it. They've been built in the past 20 years. So yes, it's true that you can create a space and multifaceted spaces are more important. So you don't do something only for one thing. It's not only a metro station. It should be a place that, you know, people can hang around, see, and also visually just imagine all the people who pass by in the cars, stuck in the traffic jam, and they look at some building which looks a little bit different.
- [28:26]
Andrew Tuck
Of the other seven projects that have been named as winners this year, I'm sure it's difficult for you to single out any particular one, but were there one or two others that caught your attention for either ingenuity or this notion you talk about of representing place in their construction?
- [28:43]
Farrokh Darakshani
The project in Bangladesh, it's a simple approach, is kind of not an invention, it's just remaking something. You create a system and the system multiplies and that can help so many people. And that's the impact when Marina Tobassum, which is the winner of this cycle, I mean, everybody in London knows the Serfent and gallery, but she had the same prototype at the Royal Academy some years ago at the summer of the show. And it was very funny because building that structure in London was the equal of 10 or 15 of them in Bangladesh. But that is how you create a system which is done that it can be multiplied and used by many people. You've got projects in Egypt, for example, Esna, how you can change the city because tourism is very important. And that's how you can channel tourism in a way which becomes a catalyst for change. Same thing, tourism in another way. The Hormuz Islands that, you know, create a space which reminds you of the colors of that place. But tourism becomes also casus for change for the area. The project in Palestine is the works of two architects. I don't like the word activist architects, but the people who are engaged architects maybe is a better word. And here they've got an asses brothers. They create on Orlando space for people to get together for social and cultural activities. So, you know, we go back to China in the hot, in the Inner Mongolia and talking about Muslims. By the way, when you talk Muslims, for example, you don't say China Muslims you only talk about because of the media Uyghurs. But one forgets the. The 50 million hu which are Chinese, Chinese who are Muslims. So these are people that, you know, maybe we don't know, but they live there and they've created a space which is a multi. I don't like the word, maybe a multi faith. But it is somewhere that pluralism is seen and that's important. So each of these buildings have a story of their own.
- [30:44]
Andrew Tuck
Farrokh Dharakshani DIRECTOR of the Aga Khan Award for Architecture thank you for joining us on the Urbanist. You can learn more about this year's winners and view their projects online at the akdn. And that's all for this week's EP episode of the Urbanist. You can follow us for new editions of the show every week. And you can subscribe to Monacle magazine for reports on all things design, architecture and urbanism, too. Just visit monacle.com the Urbanist is produced by Carlo Trebello and by David Stevens, who also edits this show. I'm Andrew Tuck. Goodbye and thank you for listening. City lovers.
- [31:28]
Farrokh Darakshani
Sa.