RIM: Newsletter of the Pacific Rim Community Design Network

Issue 1, Spring 2009 | Issue 2|Issue 3 | Issue 4 | Issue 5 | Issue6 | Issue 7

Network Happening: Proceedings from the 2004 Seattle Conference now available for free online at http://faculty.washington.edu/jhou/pacrim.htm.

ASCOM Network is starting international monthly e-mail news on Machizukuri, Maeul mandeulugi and She chu ying tsao. To receive the newsletter, email Prof. Shin AIBA -- aib@tmu.ac.jp.

Graeme BRISTROL: Since last June, together with KMUTT architecture students, CAHR has been working on the design and construction of a portable school for migrant construction workers. Undocumented workers and their children in Thailand have no practical access to education or health care. Where both parents work in construction their children have no access to daycare. This often results in children spending the day on construction sites with their parents. This pilot project is intended to provide a focal point for addressing some of education and health issues facing these migrant workers and their children – a multi-purpose centre having the potential to move with the residents from camp to camp. The funding for the construction of project has come from the Alberta Association of Architects, the Building and Woodworkers’ International and the Canadian Embassy in Thailand. The school will be run by a local community organization with funding from Thai service groups. The operation of the medical clinic will be funded by the BWI trade union. Graeme is Executive Director, Centre for Architecture & Human Rights.

Victoria CHANSE: The City of North Charleston, South Carolina, is facing dramatic shifts in its urban landscape with a series of large-scale redevelopment projects already underway. Simultaneously, the South Carolina Ports Authority’s groundbreaking community mitigation project will allow the seven neighborhoods belonging to the Low Country Alliance for Model Communities (LAMC) in North Charleston to begin thinking about how to use redevelopment as a means to revitalize the neighborhoods. Together, this provides an urgent need for civic engagement. Involving two classes this fall semester provides an important opportunity for contributing to planning and design for the LAMC neighborhoods while also providing students with a significant learning experience in working with and designing for low-income neighborhoods facing serious socioeconomic challenges in North Charleston. Research includes case study research about community mitigation (and comparative research with other Port approaches to Community Mitigation) and the role of LAMC in participatory design. Vikki is Assistant Professor at Clemson University.

Tim (Yeong-Tyi) DAY gave a talk on "The conservation and population ecology of Formosan Landlock salmon" at the Department of Architecture, University College Seydaya International, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. He has three recent articles: Day, Y. T. 2008. Biological species inventory system and association of symbiotic system: an example on the Archilife Symbiosphere I Center. Proceedings of the World Conference SB08, Vol. 2: 574-581. Day, Y. T. 2007. Symbiome: Association of biological species in a realistic symbiotic system. International Conference on Sustainable Building 2007 Taipei. Day, Y. T. 2007. Species inventory system for a symbiosis building: Application on the Archilife symbiosphere I Center. International Conference on Sustainable Building 2007 Taipei. Tim is Associate Professor at Chung Yuan University, Taiwan.

Taichi GOTO: As a general manager of a public private partnership organization for revitalization of the Tenjin district, a central business district in Fukuoka City, I managed a process of developing a vision and strategies in urban design and economic development. Citizens, stakeholders and international professionals will discuss them in a public forum next month. Taichi is Principal of Fukuoka Urban Laboratory LLC.

Jeff HOU was an invited speaker at the Unspoken Borders Symposium hosted by PennDesign Black Student Alliance at University of Pennsylvania on April 4. Jeff currently co-chairs the advisory committee for the newly founded ID2030 Design and Resource Center in Seattle’s International District where he and his students have carried out projects to engage local immigrant elders and youths in the improvement of neighborhood open space and streetscapes. He contributed an article in Expanding Architecture: Design as Activism, edited by Bryan Bell and Katie Wakeford (Metropolis Books 2008), reflecting on the community design process in Pongso-no-Ta’u more than a decade ago. He recently completed an edited manuscript, titled Insurgent Public Space: Contesting and Remaking the Contemporary Cities. Jeff is Associate Professor at University of Washington, Seattle.

Liling HUANG started her position at NTU from the fall of 2007. The classes she has taught included Practicum, Theories of Design and Planning, Globalization of Asian Cities, and Livable Cities. In the past 6 months, she has slowed down a bit, and spent more time to enjoy the company of her daughter and two over-active dogs. She has two recent articles: Liling Huang, 2009, ‘Foreign workers and spaces for community life: Taipei’s Little Philippines.’ In Amrita Daniere and Mike Douglass (eds.) The Politics of Civic Space in Asia: Building Urban Communities. (co-author Mike Douglass).London: Routledge . pp51-71. Liling Huang, 2008, ‘Against the Monster of Privatisation: Qing-Tien Community’s Actions for Urban Livability in Taipei’ International Development Planning Review, Vol. 30. pp293-306. Nov/Dec., Liverpool University Press. Liling is Assistant Professor at National Taiwan University.

Shumei HUANG is about to finish her course work and meanwhile preparing for field study in Hong Kong* and India in the coming summer. She is looking forward to develop a comparative study between Hong Kong and Taipei, with a focus on the terrain intersected by urban renewal and landscape conservation. Her goal is to interrogate contradictions embedded in the two realms theoretically and practically with intent to complicate understanding of “human agency” in planning and to map out possibilities for more innovative actions. Despite conceiving her research in urban context, she maintains her concern for the dynamics between the livelihood of rural community and the drastic change of the built environment. With practice experiences in mountainous area in Taiwan for several years, she is working with Manish Chalana in a format of UW exploration seminar in the Himalayas recently. Shumei is a doctoral student at University of Washington.

Isami KINOSHITA organized the UNICEF CFC (Child Friendly Cities) & UNESCO GUIC (Growing Up In Cities) Asian Pacific Conference held on 23-24 March in Chiba together with ACE(Association for Children's Environments) annual conference on 25-26 March. See http://web.me.com/kinoshita_apple/CFC&GUIC_ACE2009/Welcome.html. He has been preparing this conference as an executive director. Children's participation in community design is the empowerment of not only children but also adults and community. This conference we will talk about "power to the children", considering there is still opinion against children's participation and CRC. Besides this work he has been researching with Swiss Colleagues about sustainable urban redevelopment with area management comparing Swiss and Japanese cases. Slow development with area management and process-oriented development are the key topics from this study. Isami is Professor at Chiba University.

Scott MCCREARY and his CONCUR team remain active in facilitating and mediating agreements on complex environmental policy issues. Scott remains keenly interested in transboundary projects, and in the integration of environmental planning, policy, and democratic engagement in decision-making. In November 2007, he was one of two US contributors to an international workshop in Seoul, Korea entitled Comparative Public Conflict Resolution: Development of public policy consensus building in theory and practice in Asia. Participants included delegates from Japan, Korea, Singapore, and China. His current projects span marine biodiversity, sustainable fisheries, air quality, urban transportation infrastructure and climate change issues. CONCUR established has a New York office, which has helped us develop a portfolio of projects on the Eastern seaboard. Their course “Negotiating Effective Environmental Agreements” will meet May 13-14 at UC Berkeley: http://concurinc.com/courseone.html. For the past three years, Scott has taught the summer course “Mediating Water, Land Use and Marine Resource Disputes” at Vermont Law School. Scott is Principal and co-founder of CONCUR. He welcomes correspondence at scott@concurinc.net.

Leiko TOYODA has founded a non-profit called Fudo Keikaku "風土計画", literally meaning wind and earth planning, in Kyoto/Osaka , Japan. It will launch a wind energy project in a remote island in southern Japan. The project aims to build a sustainable community, starting from green energy and sustainability education, and then expanding to ecological community businesses, such as eco-tours and eco-trades. For the profit side of my business, though not yet making profits, she is working as a planning manager for a wind turbine manufacturer, which produces mid-size wind turbines for community use. They have interested customers from countries and regions all over the world.

Perry Pei-Ju YANG is currently teaching urban design at Georgia Tech. His professional practice and teaching focus on Sustainable Design and Development in Urban Settings. Recent awards include the 1st prize in international competitions of the 2009 World Games Park at Kaohsiung City of Taiwan in 2005, the Eco-city design at Maluan Bay in one of China's most important port cities Xiamen in 2007 and international competition of Suidong Bay Urban Design at Guangdong China in 2008. Since 2001, he has published more than 50 journal articles, conference papers, book chapters, reviews and design works that are related to issues of sustainability and ecological planning and design in urban environments. He is on the editorial boards of two academic journals, Progress in Industrial Ecology and Modern Urban Research. In January 2007, he was appointed the new board member of the International Urban Planning and Environment Association (UPE), an international academic community with a special interest in sustainable urban development. Perry is organizing UPE9 in Guangzhou China, August 2010.

Boting ZHANG has just returned from a study trip in Guatemala, where she worked with 15 classmates under Professor Daniel Winterbottom to design and build a garden for a community of schoolchildren there. She is now finishing her second year at the University of Washington, taking a light course load so that she can pursue her fledgling ideas for a mixed-income, mixed-ethnicity housing development in the International District of Seattle. Having had no experience in housing development before this project, she is relying almost exclusively on the knowledge and counsel of others. She is very open to making new contacts for this project: bz25 [at] u.washington.edu.

Tianxin ZHANG has been teaching Urban Design course in Peking University in late 2008. In the beginning of 2009, he came to Montreal as a visiting scholar in Concordia University. His recent research interest is on how urban space in reflected and represented in literary works. He is trying to do some experimental analysis based on some Japanese novels. Most of his recent articles are in Chinese, like "Three-lover city" in Beijing Planning Review. Tianxin is Associate Professor at Peking University.