Letter to Birmingham
Tuesday, 23 February 2010 |   |  0 comment

The Birmingham Charter Movement
Birmingham
Alabama
United States of America

Monday, 14 September 2009

My Dear Friends,

I write this to you from my office in Pretoria, South Africa, acutely aware of the distance that separates us but equally aware of the purpose that unites us.

I am sorry that I could not be with you due to prior commitments, but wish you to know that I am with you in spirit as you deliberate on the issues that have brought you together, once again.

I am taking the liberty of sending this think-piece in the form of a letter: I do this in all humility so that we may reminded of two historic letters that have a bearing on the undertaking before us. The first was the letter written from a Birmingham Jail by Martin Luther King Jnr., while the second is a letter sent by Le Corbusier to the last meeting of CIAM in 1956. Both of these letters are pertinent to the challenges we face in this century.

At the green building conference held in Birmingham in July 2009, the ecological challenges facing the Earth gave rise to the notion of a charter – to be potentially known as the Charter of Birmingham – that would be a framework to guide future urban development. Having being party to that notion, I have reflected further on the intent proposed, and submit this to you in all humility as my contribution to your efforts.

We had decided earlier that a Charter would be an appropriate vehicle to drive the sustainable Birmingham initiative further. This was proposed in response to two issues: the first had to do with the intention of Charters generally, while the second has to do with the recognition of the influence of an earlier architectural Charter, namely the Charter of Athens.

Historically a charter, derived from the Latin word for ‘paper’, is a written grant of rights or privileges whereby the signatories to the charter recognise the prerogative of the recipient(s) to exercise the rights or privileges so granted. The earliest surviving charters date back to 670s, and include charters such as the one issued by Wihtred, King of Kent, in 697 or 712, and which still exists in its original form.

Charters have throughout the ages been used by sovereigns, ecclesiastical institutions, governments, and non-governmental organisations as a method of recognising a particular set of circumstances or institution.

The United Nations was established by virtue of the adoption of the United Nations Charter by governments of the world. Charters have more recently been used to extend rights beyond the narrow confines of property or human rights: the Earth Charter was launched in a special ceremony at The Peace Palace in The Hague, Netherlands, on 29 June 2000. The Earth Charter builds on sustainability concepts articulated by the United Nations World Commission on Environment and Development in 1987 and later formulised in the Earth Summit of 1992. The Earth Charter is a declaration of fundamental values and principles for building a just, sustainable, and peaceful global society in the 21st century. The Earth Charter’s inclusive ethical vision proposes that environmental protection, human rights, equitable human development, and peace are interdependent and indivisible. As such, it provides a new framework for thinking about and addressing these issues.

Central to the concept of a charter is the recognition by way of a declaration of the rights of an individual or of a group. Although the granting of rights was historically undertaken by a sovereign, church leader or a legislative body (the granter), in modern usage the concept has been extended to include non-legislative and non-governmental organisations, such as the United Nations. In addition, whereas historically the rights granted referred to land use rights for subjects of the granter, in modern usage the rights extend to recipients beyond the geographical and political territory of the granter and include all rights – such as the rights of all children in the world.

The Charter of Athens had its roots firmly embedded in the actions of a group of Modern architects of the early 20th Century. CIAM was founded in 1928 – one year before the building of the German Pavilion in Barcelona – at a conference of 28 notable architects and planners in Switzerland to advance the cause of functionalism in architecture. The group re-assembled in Frankfurt am Main, Germany the following year to focus on the rational housing work of Ernst May, and met in 1930 in Brussels. The fourth CIAM meeting was to have been held in Moscow, but with the rejection of Le Corbusier's competition entry for the Palace of the Soviets, it was instead held onboard a ship, the SS Patris II, which sailed from Marseilles to Athens.

Its foundation marks the determination of Modernist architects to promote and finesse their theories. For nearly thirty years the great questions of urban living, space, and belonging were discussed by CIAM members. The documents they produced, and the conclusions they reached, had a tremendous influence on the shape of cities and towns the world over.

The organisation's founding declaration was signed by twenty-four architects at La Sarraz, Switzerland, in 1928. The La Sarraz Declaration asserted that architecture could no longer exist in an isolated state separate from governments and politics, but that economic and social conditions would fundamentally affect the buildings of the future.

The Declaration also asserted that as society became more industrialised, it was vital that architects and the construction industry rationalise their methods, embrace new technologies and strive for greater efficiency. Le Corbusier, one of the movement's founders, often liked to compare the standardised efficiency of the motor industry with the inefficiency of the building trade.

CIAM's early attitudes towards town-planning were stark: "Urbanisation cannot be conditioned by the claims of a pre-existent aestheticism; its essence is of a functional order… the chaotic division of land, resulting from sales, speculations, inheritances, must be abolished by a collective and methodical land policy."

At this early stage the desire to re-shape cities and towns was clear. Out is the "chaotic" jumble of streets, shops, and houses which existed in European cities at the time; in is a zoned city, comprising of standardised dwellings and different areas for work, home, and leisure.

It didn't take long for architects to question the conclusions reached at Athens, and to worry publicly about the sterility of the city envisioned by CIAM. Chief among these doubters were young British architects Alison and Peter Smithson who led a breakaway from CIAM in 1956. Three years previously they had outlined their concerns; "Man may readily identify himself with his own hearth, but not easily with the town within which it is placed. 'Belonging' is a basic emotional need – its associations are of the simplest order. From 'belonging' – identity – come the enriching sense of neighbourliness.”

The Smithsons worried that CIAM's ideal city would lead to isolation and community breakdown, just as European governments were preparing to build tower blocks in their ruined cities. By the mid-1950s it was clear that the official acceptance of Modernism was stronger than ever, and yet the concerns voiced by the Smithson’s and their allies that the movement was in danger of creating an urban landscape which was hostile to social harmony, would rise to a crescendo in the decades to come.

The fourth CIAM Congress in 1933 with the theme of "The Functional City" consisted of an analysis of thirty-four cities and proposed solutions to urban problems and the conclusions were published as the "The Athens Charter". This document remains one of the most controversial ever produced by CIAM. The charter effectively committed CIAM to rigid functional cities, with citizens to be housed in high, widely-spaced apartment blocs. Green belts would separate each zone of the city. The Charter was not actually published until 1943, when Le Corbusier published them in heavily edited form, and its influence would be profound on public authorities in post-war Europe.

These concepts were widely adopted by urban planners in their efforts to rebuild European cities following World War II, for instance Mart Stam's plans for postwar Dresden, and for the construction of public housing worldwide; Brasilia, a fine example of the application of this charter, follows it virtually to the letter. But the Athens Charter was roundly criticized within the profession for its inflexible approach and its inhumane results, criticism which built up to Alison and Peter Smithson's break from CIAM in 1953 and their formation of Team X.

As later documented by Le Corbusier, CIAM IV laid out a 95-point program for planning and construction of rational cities, addressing topics such as high-rise residential blocks, strict zoning, the separation of residential areas and transportation arteries, and the preservation of historic districts and buildings. The key underlying concept was the creation of independent zones for the four 'functions': living, working, recreation, and circulation.

Some thirty years later the world was introduced to the concept of “sustainability”. The discourse around notions of sustainability has their origins in the recognition of the fragile relationship between human development and the Earth’s ability to support those development trajectories. As you know there is increasing evidence that current human development trajectories are exceeding the Earth’s resource base and its ability to replenish those resources; is leading to impacts which are altering the Earth’s systems; and is distributing the Earth’s resources in an inequitable manner.

Key challenges posed by this circumstance are:

• the negative impact of current developmental pathways on critical ecosystem services and the need to find alternative models and technologies for meeting basic needs, that reduces this negative impact;
• growing energy insecurity as a result of increased fossil fuel costs due partly to a demand-supply imbalance, coupled with the need to reduce fossil fuel use as a climate change mitigation measure;
• the risks associated with climate change in terms of food and water security and the need for both mitigation and adaptation measures; and
• the need to provide people with municipal services and a healthy environment within the context of rapid urbanisation and inadequate municipal capacity to provide these services.

Sustainable design specifically calls for an integrated and systemic approach to development which sees social-economic systems as embedded in, and dependent upon ecosystems, thus requiring that responses to infrastructure and economic development make efficient and sustainable use of resources. This is in line with international definitions of sustainable human settlements as “cities, towns, villages and their communities planned, designed & constructed to minimise ecological footprints and maximise human potential in order to repair, replenish and support the processes that maintain life” (Downton et al., 2006). One of the key principles of sustainable human settlements is an understanding of human settlements at whatever scale as interconnected systems of energy, resources and waste streams in which “outputs will also need to be inputs into the production system” (Girardet, 1999:34). This requires a rethink in terms of the technologies used and the design of settlements and their constituent buildings and municipal service infrastructure.

The concept of transformation and fundamental societal change on the one hand, and ecological accounting on the other, are central to the Brundtland definition. The following variation, derived from the transport section, on the conventional Brundtland definition for sustainable development, provides a useful and sophisticated insight into rethinking a sustainable construction orthodoxy, namely; “the ability to meet the needs of society to move freely, gain access, communicate, trade and establish relationships without sacrificing other essential human or ecological values today and in the future” (WBCSD, 2006). This definition significantly overcomes some of the shortfalls of the original definition inasmuch as it:

• Identifies the benefactors as the broader society;
• Describes the scope of the need within the context of development and mobility; and
• Establishes an oversight doctrine aimed at resolving the conflict between humanity and ecology (people/planet interface) by upholding the values of both systems.

The developmental agenda of the world, certainly as contained within the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), is aimed at overcoming the unequal distribution of resources between the world’s populations. The agenda recognises that to achieve equity in resource distribution alternative approaches based on preferably renewable resources are required. The developmental agenda therefore mirrors the primary intent of the Brundtland definition with regard to resource consumption and equity. However, the Brundtland definition, as we have seen, extends beyond the content of resource consumption: the definition additionally introduces the principle of legitimacy by compelling the current generation not to ‘compromise’ the ability of future generations.

Birmingham , the city in which you meet, is the largest city in the U.S. state of Alabama. The population of the city was 229,800 according to the 2007 estimate. The Birmingham-Hoover Metropolitan Area, as of the 2008 census estimates, has a population of 1,198,932. It is also the largest city in the Birmingham-Hoover-Cullman Combined Statistical Area, colloquially known as Greater Birmingham, which contains roughly one quarter of the population of Alabama.

Birmingham was founded in 1871, just after the U.S. Civil War, as an industrial enterprise in recognition of which it was named after Birmingham, one of the UK's major industrial cities. Through the middle of the 20th century, Birmingham was the primary industrial center of the Southern United States. The astonishing pace of Birmingham's growth through the turn of the century earned it the nicknames "The Magic City" and "The Pittsburgh of the South". Much like Pittsburgh in the north, Birmingham's major industries were iron and steel production.

Over the course of the 20th century, the city's economy diversified. Though the manufacturing industry maintains a strong presence in Birmingham, other industries such as banking, insurance, medicine, publishing, and biotechnology have risen in stature. Birmingham has been recognized as one of the top cities for income growth in the United States South with a significant increase in per capita income since 1990.

Today, Birmingham ranks as one of the most important business centers in the Southeastern United States and is also one of the largest banking centers in the U.S. In addition, the Birmingham area serves as headquarters to one Fortune 500 company: Regions Financial. Five Fortune 1000 companies are headquartered in Birmingham.

In the 1950s and ‘60s Birmingham received national and international attention as a center of the civil rights struggle for African-Americans. Locally the movement's activists were led by Fred Shuttlesworth, a fiery preacher who became legendary for his fearlessness in the face of violence, notably a string of racially motivated bombings that earned Birmingham the derisive nickname Bombingham.

A watershed in the civil rights movement occurred in 1963 when Shuttlesworth requested that Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), which Shuttlesworth had co-founded, come to Birmingham, where King had once been a pastor, to help end segregation. Together they launched "Project C" (for "Confrontation"), a massive assault on the Jim Crow system. During April and May daily sit-ins and mass marches organized and led by movement leader James Bevel were met with police repression, tear gas, attack dogs, fire hoses, and arrests. More than 3,000 people were arrested during these protests, almost all of them high-school age children. These protests were ultimately successful, leading not only to desegregation of public accommodations in Birmingham but also the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

While imprisoned for having taken part in a nonviolent protest, Dr. King wrote the now famous Letter from Birmingham Jail, a defining treatise in his cause against segregation. Birmingham is also known for a bombing which occurred later that year, in which four black girls were killed by a bomb planted at the 16th Street Baptist Church. The event would inspire the African-American poet Dudley Randall’s opus, “The Ballad of Birmingham,” as well as jazz musician John Coltrane’s song, "Alabama."

Today there is exists the Birmingham Pledge that undertakes to respect the rights of all people.

Given the above history and current circumstance, any attempt to construct a charter for the 21st century must acknowledge that the architecture that has dominated our education and our collective landscape began as one of the most ambitious social movements ever conceived. Modernism was not intended to erase history (although it did), but rather save the common worker from squalor and promote equality throughout the world. It can be argued that for all its permutations, a single, breathtaking ethos dominated modernism: it was the first, and hopefully not the last, movement to envision an idealised, everlasting future. Unfortunately a noble social experiment succumbed to fashion and the winds of change.

It behoves us as built environment professions to ensure that ‘sustainable building’ does not go the same way. The programmatic goals for the few days that are together are, as I see it, to deliver a charter framework that is so structured that it will identify the key issues that need to be addressed in the construction of a charter: these inputs must include economic, social, environmental, technological and ecological issues. To achieve this, certain basic research questions need to be answered, such as:

• What are the thresholds/tipping points of the natural environment?
• What are the thresholds/tipping points of the built environment?
• What is the ‘healing’ (transformative and restorative) role of buildings in extending the thresholds of both environments?

Arising out of the research methodology applied to this project (as captured in the sections below), the following programmatic goals for determining which technology options should be recommended is proposed.

Treat development holistically – Sustainability science suggests that any building projects be treated holistically, that is to say, that all building projects support a broad-based and common set of goals and objectives. In this regard, consideration must be given to addressing those economic, environmental, social, technological and ecological challenges facing current urban development. In particular, the granting of rights must address anticipated energy and water shortages facing the world.

Thus certain development strategies that are known to offer other benefits, such as job creation and entrepreneurship, should be favoured over those that do not.

Local authorities are increasingly unable to sustain the expansion of urban areas within their jurisdiction: thus, if any building project is to serve as a model development, it must demonstrate an ability to operate in a manner that will not further undermine the financial sustainability of local authorities. One of the ways it can do this is to reduce the dependence of the development on municipal services. This approach should be explored at the level of the entire community, and not just at the level of the building project.

Scaled-up technology applications – Different technologies operate optimally at different scales. It may well be that a range of scales of technologies are required in building projects: for example, community-scale wind generators in conjunction with individual solar collectors. The introduction and implementation of sustainable urban drainage systems (SUDS) may be considered together with a range of other grey, yellow and black water treatment technologies. Furthermore, attention should be given to the efficiency of the basic building project to ensure that the unit is operating optimally.

Assess the impacts – To accurately assess the impacts of the proposed building project a base performance level should be determined. As already stated, certain building projects are more effective at certain scales than others: thus, the overall building project must also be accessed for scale opportunities it offers within the built environment.

Reduce extreme poverty – Virtually all countries face critical decisions about the best strategies for managing urban transformation anticipated in the coming decades. Challenges that this presents are related to determining how urban growth can be made more effective for poverty reduction and how new forms or urban growth can be captured cost effectively.

Building projects that support short-and long-term job creation, are labour intensive, and create opportunities for skills development and training are among the strategies that can support sustainable economic growth within urban communities.

Birmingham Charter Principles

Two key notions arise out of the above: whereas the Charter of the Modern Movement sought to be transformative through its addressing of societal needs, a contemporary Charter needs to add to this the restoration of Earth Systems. Thus notions of Transformation and Restoration are key to a contemporary charter. Given all of the above the following observations must be noted:

• A Charter is a declaration of fundamental values and principles for building a just, sustainable, and peaceful global society.
• Based on the above a Charter’s inclusive ethical vision should propose that environmental protection, human rights, equitable human development, and peace are interdependent and indivisible.
• A Charter for the Built Environment should be in line with international definitions of sustainable human settlements as “cities, towns, villages and their communities planned, designed & constructed to minimise ecological footprints and maximise human potential in order to repair, replenish and support the processes that maintain life”.
• A Charter for the Built Environment should identify the benefactors as the broader society, describe the scope of the need within the context of development and mobility; and establish an oversight doctrine aimed at resolving the conflict between humanity and ecology (people/planet interface) by upholding the values of both systems.
• A Charter for the Built Environment should assert that architecture can no longer exist in an isolated state separate from governments and politics, but that economic and social conditions fundamentally affect the buildings of the future.
• A Charter for the Built Environment should create an urban landscape which is not hostile to social harmony.
• A Charter for the Built Environment must stress that architects and the construction industry rationalise their methods, embrace new technologies and strive for greater efficiency.
• The concept of transformation and fundamental societal change on the one hand, and ecological accounting on the other, should be central to a Charter for the Built Environment.

Fortunately these observations are captured in the Five Key Concepts of Sustainable Development, namely:

• Human settlements should be so designed, constructed and operated as to meet the needs and aspirations of society, and especially the poor;
• Human settlements should be so designed, constructed and operated that it recognises and responds to the limitations imposed on sustainability by society and technology;
• Human settlements should be so designed, constructed and operated that it demonstrates the acceptance of responsibility toward future current generations;
• Human settlements should be so designed, constructed and operated that it leads to a progressive transformation of economy and society; and
• Human settlements should account for its use of ecological resources, and address how it will replace those resources in the manner that it is designed, constructed and operated.

It is therefore my view that the work of the Birmingham Charter Movement is to identify and analyse precincts of Birmingham and propose solutions to urban problems using the principles announced above as the basis of analysis. Arising out of the analysis, key design, construction and operational principles will emerge that can be used to quantify and qualify the “rights” sought and in need of protection in the growth of human settlements of the 21st century.

The next green building conference in 2010 should be based on the theme of "The Transformative and Restorative City" and the results of the analysis described above be structured into a Charter and put up for adoption by the organisations represented there. I would be more than happy to assist in this drafting.

Please accept this as a sincere attempt to assist in completing the task we set out in July 2009. I wish you all well in your endeavours.

Yours truly,
Llewellyn van Wyk
Wednesday, 09 September 2009