Блог
The chapter from the book.
Nowadays it’s typical for Belarusian cities almost not to have individual dwelling zones with developed civil engineering infrastructure. Although low-rise building quota is 40% of total input squares every year, this housing development is conducted fragmentary and far away from main urban parts. New house building in individual dwelling zone is not stylistic regulated, not equipped with engineering communications and it often looks chaotic. In low-rise building activity there are only a few big
development companies in Belarus.
Despite of pulling down and transformation of microdistricts in the cities of western Europe and the USA, the overwhelming territory of big cities is built up with dwelling formations of microdistrict type. Existing individual dwelling zones in the cities of Belarus, as a formation of the pre-microdistricts epoch, is endangered of settling. Because the city authorities are planning to build microdistricts almost everywhere, it’s forbidden for living in individual dwelling zones people to rebuild houses and that leads to total territory decay like this one. Nowadays Belarusian town-planning is advanced on the way of making big dwelling microdistricts which consist of multi-storey apartment buildings (9-25) and it doesn’t correspond not only with town-planning traditions of majority countries of the world, but also to traditions of pre-revolutionary Belarus. In spite of some advantages of microdistricts, it makes monotonous and high-density human medium (about 20000 people for one square kilometer) and logically it generates problems with parking near the houses and on the streets (because of the little density of trunk road network in microdistricts it’s about 8 kilometers for one square kilometer). Moreover, there is not such a thing in microdistricts like closed private space for tenants, feeling of the local community, on which developing it’s paid so much attention by the program of sustainable developing UN-HABITAT. No many in Belarus know that before the 1950s the town-planning USSR went on the way of developing of dwelling low-rise building. Owing to deep studies on this matter, the definition ’’One-storied USSR’’ is suggested by authors and examined in this paper.
At the end of the 19th century, Russian cities mainly were minor dwelling zones with one or two-storied individual dwellings. Russia was one of the most urban-weakest countries in Europe, there were a few big cities, but most people were rural in contrast to Europe where urbanism was systematic. In many respects, it’s explained with the late elimination of serfage.
But at the beginning of 20th century, because of the increased urbanism, the main migration flow has become immigration from rural living areas to the cities. Especially after the revolution, it he 1920-1990s, about 90 000 people in the USSR have moved to the cities. It is explained by the fact of the industrialization the 1920-1940s and the postwar urban expansion with the redistribution of the population to the eastern USSR regions.
During the 1920s housebuilding question was a primary goal for Soviet architecture in the discus-sions of urban development. It has reflected in the discussion on the matter of socialistic resettlement 1920-1930s. However, in light of the undeveloped constructional base, whilst these years urban people have built wooden off-the-grid houses in the uptown, according to the wooden architectural traditions.Therefore ’’one-storied USSR’’ was formed, but already including urban planning solutions such as an orthogonal grid of streets that was spread in Russian country towns since Catherine the Great. And alongside this, it is also central squares management accounted for fests and parades.
Closer to the beginning of 1930s there were built the first big municipal buildings, multistorey apartment buildings for party bosses and also communal buildings for workers. These buildings were built in the central part of the Soviet cities. After the Great Patriotic War, there were destroyed about 1710 cities and settlements, 70000 villages and 32000 industrial enterprises. One of the major and primary targets has become a provision of housing for a great number of people who had lost their houses and therefore lived in rough living conditions. With the advent of new industrial enterprises, energetic power improvement and transport development, there have begun to form workers settlements consisted of wooden barracks that were not corresponding with people’s needs. Some of these buildings were made by prisoners of war. Essentially it was a part of ’’One-
storied USSR’’.
The task of the quick and economical way of people’s resettlement from the barracks and ramshackle buildings with no utility system and also the development of constructional base in
USSR in the 1950-60s – it all helped the further extensive use of cheap panel housebuilding and it is allowed to build houses using the whole urban territory and providing housing for everyone who is in need. What worked well with this idea was the Athens Charter concept, in which one of the main changing was a move from building urban quarters with individual dwellings and a little number of multistorey houses to the building microdistricts only with multistorey houses. This method could be called hyper-quarter building. Quarters like this were understood as a unique dwelling unit that is possible to use and spread about.
The idea of microdistrict allowed placing all social objects in the quarter’s center by forming the core. Besides dwelling houses in the structure of a dwelling unit were added day nurseries, kindergartens, schools, shops and other services of a dwelling. But the main thing was a green garden disposing for communications of all who live in the hyper-quarter. The role of microdistrict was understood as the creation of local dwelling formation in social unity. The new conception was close to the ideology of socialistic country and that was a move for its quick spreading. This method helped with solving different problems. For instance, it’s a great help in the question of children’s safety, because they have to go to school by crossing busy streets. Taking into consideration the school capacity and is optimal accessibility for the children, it’s possible to count that an average number of people in the microdistrict is 5000-8000 people.
Microdistrict "Rysanovka", Kiev
By urban reconstruction, the microdistrict’s structure was based on the combination of a few existing quarters for the sake of placing new schools and kindergartens in a new-formed territory. The deal is that the definition of ’’microdistrict’’ has two conceptual directions:
— Social-economical: as a basis for microdistrict construction it was placed family life sceneries and its functional intension;
— Territorial: economical dwelling unit that forms the unified the whole one.
As the problem research shows it’s clear that the main reasons for choosing the way of microdistrict building in the 1950s are the following:
— Big territorial formation (microdistrict) has minimized and made easier the building of transport and engineering infrastructure that was a good corresponding with the economic policy in these years in the USSR;
— People has got a relatively level playing field with no kind of social differences that inevitably appears by living in individual dwelling houses.
But why does USSR not follow the American ’’suburbia’’ model by developing peripheries and providing every family with their own house, land property with developed engineering and
transport infrastructure? There are some reasons for it which are antipodes for reasons chosen by USSR in building microdistricts that was described above. During the cold war in 1946-1991s, there was an expansion rise in the USA. Fear before the spreading of communistic ideas has lead to spreading the anti-communistic idea. The country was ruled by authority and business on mutually agreed conditions. This idea of ’’suburbia’’ was a purely political move, because if a man has his own land and his own house – he wouldn’t be the communist, he just wouldn’t have time for it.
Suburbia has got an opportunity to fulfil all people needs in dwelling zones. It was comfortable located for an automobilist and has a minimal necessary infrastructure. ’’One-storied America’’ approach has begun not with building houses, but with building infrastructure: highways, providing utility system. In the second half of the 20th century, suburbia in West Europe has also territorially increased.
It’s typical almost for all American and European cities to have small-quarter town planning pattern with a lot of compact zones of dwelling zones which are connected with the historical ownership title and respect for private property. In the second half the 20th century in many West European cities, there was a small number of dwelling formations microdistrict type in pure form.
Nowadays in foreign town planning processes, incredible metamorphoses are happening: during the last 20 years, it’s clear that there’s a tendency of combination suburbia, historical town parts and microdistricts. In the town-planning, a pragmatic approach in creating design models is used. For example, in West Europe cities new town-planning methods are developed such as ’’Compact building’’ and ’’New urbanism’’. The ’’Compact building’’ conception is the following: it’s a creation of compact, but mainly mid-rise building by using a traditional urban quarter network. The ’’New Urbanism’’ is a combination of specific land rise. That is why in some of West Europe countries and the USA some definitions such as land rise, compact of building and number of stories are being criticized and watched over in some projects.
For example, the basis of planning solution by architect Jean Nouvel in the statement for the project of the general layout of the Paris conurbation – it’s an idea of double action which
involves using ’’New urbanism’’ and ’’Compact building’’, so it’s meant the renovation of existing quarters – in the uptaking, upperworks, impaction and development of urban functions. In manner, it’ll be a combination of functions of trade, dwelling, office and ecological pure manufactures. The development of every place in the city will be examined in particular, in the context of the existing situation. One way or another, whether it is suburbia or ’’New urbanism’’, objective town planning parameters are the most important for further comfort living. So in this manner, the average number of density of population in new dwelling parts in the cities of western Europe is 5000 people for one square kilometer, providing of primary highway system – till 15 kilometers of streets for one square kilometer. Moreover, in the European town planning, it´s always suggested a reserved private space for inhabitants what creates a feeling of the local community.
Using the graphical analytic method of analysis of cartographic documentation based on the aero- and satellite views (including information from the U.S. Geological Survey’s archive), it’s possible to look at the results of building microdistricts by the example of the Ufa city. Ufa was a center of the region in the USSR and one of the rapidly increasing cities in the 20th century among the others industrial centers in the Volga region, it was a typical Soviet city that enlarged after the Great Patriotic War,because of the drift of the industrial assets from the near-front zone. Before the war, the midpart of Ufa was built up individual dwelling houses of ’’One-storied USSR’’ from the 1920-1930s. Multistorey buildings and microdistricts have begun to appear here already in the 1950s, combining historical center and its wooden manors with northern industrial districts.
As the picture shows it was the process of ’’one-storied USSR’’ quarters unifying into united ’’hyper-quarters’’ (microdistricts). This example illustrates how 15 quarters, which had been formed in the 1920-1940s, were united into one microdistrict, old streets were transformed into passages in microdistrict or were destroyed. Only the main streets as microdistrict’s boundaries had been left without changing. The first nine-storied building in Ufa was built in 1962 and became a reason to begin the building of multistorey dwelling houses. In 1970s new microdistricts were formed – Aysky,
Telecenter, Green boscage, Enthusiasts etc. Nowadays almost the whole territory of Ufa is built up dwelling zones of microdistrict type with multistorey dwelling houses. An exception to this rule is
only the ’’historical’’ center that kept within itself a few historical manors, small-storied houses and small garden squares.
According to the text written above, the idea of microdistrict building had solved the following important problems in urban reconstruction: The boost of sanitary-hygienic standards by the rising the quality of existing dwelling houses, deconcentration, quarters vastness, building parks, square gardens and artificial lakes, and also city lightning.
— Management of modern highways furthering safety in mechanized movement, management of mass transport and infrastructure that is necessary for the city;
— Equipment of dwelling and municipal buildings with plumbing, hot water supply, electricity, canalization, heat and gas supply system;
— Creation of necessary social infrastructure: cultural, educational, medical and trade objects.
This problem was possible to solve only by the housebreaking of ’’one-storied USSR’’, built in the 1920-1940s, because of the fact these years all the edges were built up wooden houses that hadn’t any engineering communications. By this housebreaking, it was easy to create the infrastructure necessary for the city. The fact that the land was the national property, this housebreaking of existing dwelling houses didn’t make any troubles. We can conclude that the existing inertial type of microdistrict building
in Russia is an effect from two main reasons:
— Soviet building legacy – big existing microdistrict where all infrastructure of the periphery is made for a service of the formation like this, it leads to extensive tradition continuation in new dwelling placing;
— Low level of dwelling provision per capita (about 20 square kilometers per head that 2-3 times less than in European countries) because of the late urbanism in Belarus. Such dwelling provision creates a request for flats in dwelling groups of microdistrict types with 10/25-storied buildings, in spite of the building monotony and transport problems. It is also because the major part of the urban territory in Belarus is built up with microdistricts and these territories are not understood like
ghetto among the people.
As a matter of American and European experience, it’s possible to conclude that Belarusian town-planning needs to use a new approach, similar to ’’New urbanism’’ and ’’Compact building’’ – it’s meant to build mid-storied buildings till 6 floors in ’’historical’’ centers and actively combine functions. It’s also worth to do that in the case of small-quarter planning structure of the streets. In the the periphery, it’s possible to build microdistricts (5/12-storied houses) and also individual dwelling groups.
As practicing city planners by a research institution, authors mean that the problem of inertial microdistrict building and slow development of individual dwelling zones could be solved only by the strong political decision to create conditions for the development of these zones:
— Impact of land renting value for low-rise developers;
— National economic policy worthwhile for mass production of lite building elements for low-rise buildings;
— Changing the character of the academic program in architectural universities moving up in designing dwelling zones of not-microdistrict type;
— Experience exchange with developed countries in the field of town planning and changeover project organizations in creation general layouts of the cities with mix building;
— Liberalization of national town planning policy to the existing individual dwelling zones in the cities of Belarus – its housebreaking exception;
— Active awareness-building among the popula-tion, proving all the advantages of low quarter building.
For the replacement of some percent of developed individual dwelling zones, it’s necessary to have a complex economic approach. Among the others it’s needed to name the following actions:
— Changeover to the new technologies in low-rise construction that makes its price minimum 30-40% lower and provides its flexibility in architectural and planning urban solutions;
— Providing districts with necessary infrastructure: water and gas systems, canalization, electrification, communication lines; flexibility in architectural and planning urban solutions;
— Providing the territory with stable, guaranteed transport infrastructure with objects in the areas of health service, education, culture and all of it according to the urban development master plan.
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