City Bird

A Birds Nest.

Some birds to create shelter to protect and warm the growing family make nests that are created out of things collected from the locality and placed together to form a whole space. The cup nest: Straw, grass, mud...woven together. They choose the location deliberately; safe from predators, sheltered from rains and winds, not too far from food. Family-sized spaces in the gaps between elements in the natural landscape.

What about a nest for the city bird, would they collect trash, compost, recycling, shards of man-made materials, all found in the locality, situated in an out-of-the-way underpass corner not seen from the street, or on the roof of a high rise, between the roof door space and the satellites? Family-sized spaces in the gaps between elements in the built landscape.

Hook into Systems

To measure a civilization:

Arrive at a city, a new city, with nothing...how to survive? Urban bush craft. Try to hook into the systems - the systems of life that are the veins and arteries of a surviving citizen. And by citizen meaning the true - a member of the city. First the fresh water systems - the pipes that steal the water from mountains far away and quench the multiplying population. Then the food, imported from the rest of the world, preserved and distributed, the first water and food must be found without money - you arrived with nothing - there are systems for these.

The systems then get more complex, more culturally bent, you must find shelter, this begins with clothing and ends with a house, there are various systems for this. You must find places to wash.

PRIMARY SYSTEMS:
        Water systems
        Food systems
        Shelter systems

Then the systems that organize the citizens must be infiltrated. You must find a way to gain relative worth, in order to trade. Money. A job, work for food and shelter directly or for a wage...play the money game.

SECONDARY SYSTEMS:
        Relative Worth
        Information systems
        Transport systems
        Communication systems

How quickly and easily can this be achieved? What is the value of the city to the citizen for life...everything if you are to live within it. And this is defined, labeled and enabled by architecture.

Sustainable Marathon...The Booklet

Here's the upload for the booklet handed out at the Sustainable Open Weekend in Marathon - talked about in another post - We compiled all the information to be discussed and places to visit during the event. The pages are added as jpeg's so click on them to view larger.