built

“Today, in Venezuela, the uniformed Armed Forces build housing and infrastructure. It’s interesting; one of the key demands of the ‘opposition’ is to prohibit the army from building houses! The poor cheer when the military enters their neighborhoods, because they’re usually coming to build some houses. Not, like before, when they came to round up the dissidents and repress the social movements.”

This interview on Indymedia prompted me to do a little googling.

President Chavez’s Plan Bolivar 2000 is part public works administration, part poverty reduction plan, part fight against corruption. Despite Venezuela’s immense oil reserves, 80% of the population lives in poverty. To execute the plan, Chavez brought in military officers to bypass civilian agencies he considered corrupt. The military are working with communities and civilian engineers to build and repair roads, schools, housing, and medical centers around the country.

Critics charge that the plan has just shifted the corruption to the military. Chavez has acknowledged incidents of corruption and has ordered the Auditor-General of the Republic to investigate. Other internal investigations have taken place, though are staffed by military officers investigating other military officers. In response to charges, Chavez announced he will reduce ‘secret’ military spending and that more expenditures will be made public.

I’m having a hard time finding data on the status of the project, but one Captain estimates that Bolivar 2000 has already rebuilt or refurbished some 4,000 schools, clinics and hospitals.

Twin Towers steel set for US warship:

“Steel salvaged from the wreckage of the World Trade Center in New York has been sent to a Mississippi shipyard to be used in the construction of a new US warship.

According to reports, a massive structural beam which supported the south tower will be used to build USS New York, an amphibious vessel capable of carrying more than 1,000 soldiers.”

The $800-million vessel should be ready for active duty in 2007.

While browsing the DefenseLINK site looking for some good public domain photos, I found a bunch the Pentagon had recently released of the new U.S. detention center at Guantanamo Bay.

The United States was harshly criticized for the brutal, crude design of Camp X-Ray. Photos were widely circulated of prisoners at squatting in their chain-link cells in the blazing Cuban sun.

Five miles down the road, Camp Delta is now open for business. Photos of a detention block and spotless cells make it seem like an improvement. (Even the name “Camp Delta” reads like a hokey PR move.) Camp Delta has indoor plumbing, each unit its own flush toilet, metal bed-frame and a sink with running water. None of this was available at Camp X-Ray where buckets and portable toilets were used. No detainees in any of the new photos, though.

The $9.7 million dollar contract for the construction of the camps went to Brown and Root, a subsidiary of Halliburton. The contract could eventually total as much as $300 million if additional options are exercised. Vice President Dick Cheney is the former chief executive officer of Halliburton.

In addition to the new cells, Camp Delta has its own recreation and exercise area, library, outdoor shower, hospital and ward. “Comfort items” distributed to detainees including a prayer mat, cap, flip flops and two-piece suit.

And, dental care is provided at the detainee hospital.

Free dental care? It’s more then most Americans get.

But then another look at that chair and the skin starts to crawl. One suspects the U.S. isn’t terribly concerned with the beautiful smiles of its “enemy combatants.”

Indeed, this morning’s Washington Post describes secret overseas CIA interrogation facilities where detainees are being tortured. The same torture techniques are of course denounced by the U.S. State Department in its annual survey of human rights violations in other countries. In fact its in some of those very countries where the CIA is setting up shop. Says one U.S. official, “If you don’t violate someone’s human rights some of the time, you probably aren’t doing your job.”

Says Human Rights Watch:

“Direct involvement or complicity in torture, as well as the failure to prevent torture by subordinates, may subject U.S. officials to prosecution under international law. Such acts are ‘grave breaches,’ or war crimes, under the 1949 Geneva Conventions. In addition, the Convention against Torture [which the U.S. has ratified] obligates all countries to prosecute persons within their jurisdiction who are implicated or complicit in acts of torture. Any competent court anywhere in the world is required to prosecute violations of the prohibition against torture.”

According to U.S. officials, nearly 3,000 suspected al Qaeda members and their supporters have been detained worldwide since September 11, 2001.

The Yes Men, corporate trouble makers and designers of the WTO parody site, marked the 18th anniversary of the Bhopal disaster with the launch of Dow-Chemical.com, a straight-faced parody site using the design of the original, and a cheeky press release in the voice of the corpoation. Unfortunately, their cleverness got the best of them and the site was brought down in a matter of days. (Mirror sites are now up.)

While funny at first, in context the parody Web site feels a bit thin. Sure it’s fun to parody the public relations language used to bathe coroporations in the soft glow of environmental and corporate responsibiliy. But also marking the anniversary were thousands of people marching in the streets of Bhopal.

An estimated 500,000 people were affected when 40 tons of lethal gases leaked from Union Carbide Corporation’s pesticide factory in Bhopal in 1984. Today, the number of deaths stands at 20,000. Virtually nothing has been done to clean up the site, and the water used by people for everyday needs is still contaminated. And via Reuters:

“Former Union Carbide chairman Warren Anderson faces charges of culpable homicide and Indian courts have repeatedly asked New Delhi to seek his extradition from the United States where he now lives in retirement. Anderson, considered a fugitive from Indian law for refusing to face charges in its courts, could be jailed for 10 years and fined if found guilty.”

So what of design and social change? Well, a bit of design forensics determined that it was a failure of design that led to the disaster. On December 2, New Scientist published an article on their investigation of the accident and recently released documents that identify the reasons for the failure and show that the company that built and owned the Bhopal plant cut crucial corners and safety features from its design of the plant.

“Union Carbide was forced to release the documents last month by a court in New York state that was hearing a class action suit filed by Bhopal survivors in 1999. According to New Scientist, Carbide’s 1972 memo specified that the US headquarters would either perform all design work for the plant, or approve designs done elsewhere. The report said that on the basis of fresh evidence, the US Company could be tried for negligence only if the Indian government joined the campaigners in the US lawsuit.”

...

Further info via rtMark press release:

“Burson-Marsteller, the public relations company that helped to ‘spin’ Bhopal, has meanwhile sued college student Paul Hardwin for putting up a fake Burson-Marsteller site, http://www.bursonmarsteller.com/, which recounted how the PR giant helped to downplay the Bhopal disaster. Burson-Marsteller’s suit against Hardwin will be heard next week by the World Intellectual Property Organization.

Hardwin, unable to afford a lawyer, has composed a dryly humorous 57-page rebuttal to the PR giant’s lawsuit. On page 7, for instance, the student notes that Burson-Marsteller’s stated goal is

‘to ensure that the perceptions which surround our clients and influence their stakeholders are consistent with reality.’

Hardwin goes on to assert that his satirical domain is doing precisely that, by publicizing

‘academic and journalistic materials about Burson-Marsteller’s involvement with and relationship to, for example, Philip Morris and the National Smoker’s Alliance, a consumer front group designed to create the appearance of public support for big-tobacco policies; Union Carbide and the deaths of 20,000 people following the 1984 disaster in Bhopal; and political regimes such as that of Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu and more recently Saudi Arabia following the events of September 11; and to properly associate them with the relevant Trademark so that they may be understood accordingly by Internet users.’

In response to the suit’s claim that ‘a substantial degree of goodwill is associated with [the Burson-Marstellar Trademark]’ Hardwin offers much ‘evidence to the contrary’ including ‘a newspaper headline in which the Complainant is characterized as “the Devil.”’

The primary goal of RTMark is to publicize corporate subversion of the democratic process. Just like other corporations, it achieves its aims by any and all means at its disposal. RTMark has previously helped to publicize websites against political parties, political figures, and entities like the World Trade Organization and the World Economic Forum.

Blamed for an attack on America, non-white Americans and residents of foreign descent had become so hated that in February 1942 the President ordered their arrest and detention at “relocation centers” around the country. 110,000 men, women, and children were removed from their homes, rounded up at gun point, and locked up for the next three years.

From a Web site on Owens Valley History, the site of the Manzanar detention center:

“Two-thirds were first-generation American citizens. They lived in American cities, attended American schools, and thought of themselves as Americans... They were removed from their homes, schools, and businesses, and brought to Manzanar and nine other camps like it.... A few were second-generation Americans.... Neither they nor their parents had ever known any other life than their life in the United States.

Almost a third of the prisoners were Japanese citizens, resident aliens by definition of the U.S. immigration law.... All of this group had lived in the United States at least eighteen years, since American borders were closed to Japanese immigrants in 1924. All had been specifically barred from applying for American citizenship. The right to become an American citizen was not allowed to the Japanese until 1952, when quotas were introduced.”

The Library of Congress Web site features a collection of 244 photographs of Japanese-American internment at Manzanar taken by reknown landscape photographer Ansel Adams. Depicted are scenes of daily life, agricultural scenes, sports and leisure activities, and portraits of the detainees. Browse via the subject index or the thumbnail view.

From the Library page about the collection:

“In 1943, Ansel Adams photographed the Manzanar War Relocation Center at the suggestion of its director, his good friend and fellow Sierra Club member, Ralph Merritt. Adams wanted to contribute to the war effort while at the same time show the loyalty of the Japanese-Americans interned at Manzanar... In 1944, some of these images were published in Adams’ book Born Free and Equal. The book had a limited circulation, perhaps due to the political climate of war-time America. When offering the collection to the Library, Adams said in a letter, ‘All in all, I think this Manzanar Collection is an important historical document, and I trust it can be put to good use...The purpose of my work was to show how these people, suffering under a great injustice, and loss of property, businesses and professions, had overcome the sense of defeat and despair by building for themselves a vital community in an arid (but magnificent) environment.’”

The internment camps were small planned communities built with volunteer, contract, and forced labor on the site of a ghost town.

“The center was located at the former farm and orchard community of Manzanar. Founded in 1910, the town was abandoned when the city of Los Angeles purchased the land in the late 1920s for its water rights. The Los Angeles aqueduct, which carries Owens Valley water to Los Angeles, is a mile east of Manzanar.”

In addition to vital necessities of food and shelter, the camp had its own school, church, factories, hospital, and even a local paper. See this essay for details on the design and operations of the camp.

40 years after the closing of the camps, the United States government conceded that the relocation was based on racial bias rather than on any true threat to national security. 50 years later in 1992, President Bush offered reperations and an apology.

Congress established the Manzanar National Historic Site, containing 550 acres, on March 3, 1992. It is currently administered by the National Park Service, under the U.S. Department of Interior. See the Park Service Web site.

Nearly 60 years after the war, Yoshie Hagiya, age 77, Oxnard High class of 1942, received her school’s valedictorian honors.

Two years ago I spent my birthday in Nicaragua. I was traveling with a delegation organized by Peaceworks, meeting with local groups and learning about the country and its struggles. As the eight of us bounded along the dusty roads in the back of a white pickup truck, one could periodically spot these odd abstract murals along walls and fences. They were vertical, horizontal, and diagonal stripes in pastel colors. It turns out the stripes had been painted over Sandinista slogans and murals under orders from right-wing President Arnoldo Aléman. See Nicaraguan Murals 1930-2000 on the Stanford site for a hint of what was lost.

The painted stripes reminded me of Sol LeWitt and Sean Scully. A fizzy gallery world rhetoric of geometry instead of engagement with the world at large. And that’s just the way the CIA likes it. From the Monthly Review:

“[The] CIA and its allies in the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) poured vast sums of money into promoting Abstract Expressionist painting and painters... What the CIA saw in Abstract Expressionism was an ‘anti-Communist ideology, the ideology of freedom, of free enterprise. Non-figurative and politically silent it was the very antithesis of socialist realism’. They viewed Abstract Expressionism as the true expression of the national will. To bypass right-wing criticism, the CIA turned to the private sector (namely MOMA and its co-founder, Nelson Rockefeller, who referred to Abstract Expressionism as ‘free enterprise painting.’)”

See also articles in Salon and the New York Times.

Needless to say, the CIA also poured of money, weapons, and comics into toppling the Sandinistas.

We rode through the streets paved with hexagonal ‘Somoza bricks’ crumbling from the wear and tear. The Somoza government had laid the bricks, having purchased them from factories he also owned.

These stark blue billboards were everywhere. “Obras No Palabras” painted in the same yellow italic sans serif and listing some local government financed project. “Works not Words,” a kind of anti-propaganda propaganda promoting the good will of the State and attempting to short-circuit debate.

And indeed, Aléman’s works have spoken loudly. This past September, Nicaragua’s Attorney General charged Aléman and 13 members of his family and former administration “with money laundering, fraud and other crimes.”

I bet he never saw that coming from his own former vice-president.

Since the collapse of the bubble economy, the number of homeless in Japan has risen from 1,000 in 1992 to over 30,000 in 2002. The long recession means a severe shortage of unskilled day labor in construction and manufacturing. The average age of the homeless here is 55 and they are almost entirely men. What little day labor there is usually goes to younger men. With no work, no money, and no where to go, the men buid their own shelter on public land along the boardwalk by the river and along the edges of the few public parks near the employment brokers (both legal and illegal). The houses are neat and trim, built to fight the weather and cold and to provide some basic comfort. They are also collapsible. Once a month the government comes and sweeps the houses off the boardwalk. It’s usually the same day every month, so the guys dismantle their houses and haul the materials over the wall... to rebuild them later that afternoon.

The houses are tucked away behind fences and under bridges to be less visible, and are kept neat in a conscious effort not to disturb passersby. Unlike in the States, I’ve not encountered any panhandling. They may be hungry, they may be desperate, but some things are just not done.

Almost all the structures use the same blue vinyl tarp. The tents in the parks are looser and less constructed than along the river, presumably because the sweeps in the parks take place weekly.

The situation is utterly absurd... but not unlike that of my own neighborhood. There’s no place to go, says the City, you just can’t stay here.

After a mass eviction in 1993, the “Coalition of the Homeless in Shinjuku” was formed to provide mutual support, to seek livelihood and employment guarantees, and to stop the evictions, referred to by the government as “environmental cleaning.” After years of denying the problem, the national government passed a controversial law in August 2002 to provide some relief. Still, the evictions continue and the additional shelter has not yet been built. It remains to be seen how the new measures will proceed. The guys don’t want handouts, they just want work, affordable housing, and to be treated with respect.

Read more about the Movement of the Coalition of the Homeless on the Web site of the Resource Center for Homeless Rights.

Grooves in manhole covers are necessary to provide traction in all kinds of weather to the vehicles above. But there’s no reason those grooves can’t spell out fun. Japanese manhole cover designs range from sublimely patterned to the surreal and fully illustrative. I haven’t been able to find any background information in English, but it seems there are not only different designs for the different types of conduits they cover, but each city has its own designs celebrating some signature feature of the town. Some are even maps to the local landmarks. Here are some sites with pictures:

• 188 images with captions in English
• 70 illustrative manhole covers from around Japan organized by type of hole, text in Japanese
• 67 non-illustrative manhole covers from around Japan organized by type of hole, text in Japanese
• 221 pix from Japan, 51 from Europe, organized by city, text in Japanese
• 11 from Tokyo, text in English
• 14 from Japan, text in English
• images of 21 designs cast at this ironworks in Hokkaido, text in Japanese

There’s even an informal Japanese association of manhole cover watchers that organizes tours. The site highlights some of their favorite covers.

On a related note, see also this portable Japanese emergency toilet design that fits over a manhole in case a natural disaster. Screw that port-a-john business. When the City collapses, I want one of these handy.

I took the photo above near the main train station in Osaka.

“Save America’s Clocks is a not-for-profit 501(c)(3) organization dedicated to locating, inventorying and assisting in the preservation and maintenance of all of America’s public clocks. By public clocks we mean any and all clocks that the public sees. That includes street (post) clocks, tower and church clocks, digital clocks...you name it. Non-working clocks betray the public trust and send out a message that nobody’s home. When these clocks are left to deteriorate, we all lose part of our rich heritage.”

Not much on the site yet, but there are lots of pictures of public clocks.

Is this ‘Social Design’? More design in the public interest. I should do a more substantive entry on public clocks. In the meantime, three days of meetings in Tokyo and the jet lag is still killing me. Still haven’t quite shaken the grip of U.S. time.

Found via Ruavista.

“[In 1996,] the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Building Museum sponsored the first national search and collection of images showing examples of universal design excellence in the fields of architecture, graphic design, industrial design, interior design and landscape architecture. This collection was completed in September of 1996 and is intended to encourage and assist universal design by providing examples that can be used in design practice and education. The jury selected images feature and credit the work of designers who are reaching beyond compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act to create products and environments that are usable by people with the broadest possible range of abilities throughout their lifespan.”

The project was managed by Universal Designers and Consultants of Takoma Park, MD. The list of winners links to four project profiles:

• sidelight windows next to entrance ways
• the wayfinding system at The Lighthouse, Inc.
• an alternative to bench-type public seating
• and a uniquely detailed kitchen

adaptiveenvironments.org links to four others:

• the Hopedale Town Hall terrace and ramp in Massachusetts
• the Cuddle Tub for safely bathing babies
• the StorTrac modular kitchen storage system
• and a universally designed tent site at Rogue River National Forest in Oregon

Read the introduction for an overview of universal design principles and the project selection process.