self developed area: the case of the southern part of tübingen & ebny betik projects

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Self-Developed Areas Mannoun. M, Salheen. Mahmoud

Self-Developed Areas

The Case of the Southern Part of Tübingen & Ebny Betik Projects

Mannoun. M, Salheen. M, Mahmoud, R., etc. 1 Ain Shams University, Department of Urban Planning

1 El-Sarayyat Street, Abbasyah, Egypt e-mail: [email protected]

2 Ain Shams University, Department of Urban Planning


3 Ain Shams University, Department of Urban Planning


Abstract: Self-developed and self-organized areas are becoming attraction spaces for urban planners and architects in the recent years. These areas follow different concepts and theories, such as Co-Housing and participatory design. These concepts are applied through different techniques and implementation processes. The main objective of this paper is to trace the process followed in order to reach a successful product of self-developed neighbourhood project. This process is scrutinized in the light of theories, concepts, and implementation stages as well as involved stakeholders in order to obtain an appreciated housing neighbourhood product. There have been some experiments in developed countries like Germany to recreate the traditional process and the resulting products are becoming appreciated by the users, the authorities as well as the professionals. In Egypt, for example the Ebny Betik “Built your own house” project was one of the most popular projects adopted by the government to offer suitable and affordable houses for the middle class based on citizens participation. The first section in the paper explains the concept of co-housing development by focusing on its characteristics. The second section based on a comparative analysis between Southern part of Tübingen project in Germany and Ebny Betik project in Egypt. The paper will present each project through introducing the main ideas and objectives of the development. Then explaining of the process and the product on relation with the co-housing characteristics. The final section a conclusion based on a comparison between the Tübingen project and the Ebny Betik project to help deduces a process to achieve a successful self-developed and self-sustained area. Keywords: Self-Developed area, Co-Housing, Participatory Design, Südstadt developing area

in Tübingen, Ebny Betik Project.

mailto:[email protected]

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1. INTRODUCTION

The process followed in creating the self- developed areas is a main factor in constructing the product. Most of the successful self-developed areas are based on the concept of co-housing. The author conducts a study on the co- housing concept, which is linked with the theory of participatory design. Both the concept and the theory have a main and an effective factor in reaching a strongly bonded community toward their living environment.

House-Building Cooperatives, “which means “Baugemeinschaft” in German” is a functional way of urban development that appeared after the World War II in Germany, based on cooperative principles and citizens’ collaboration to build their own neighbourhood. Applying the participatory design theory and identifying its rules as well as classifying the role of each stakeholder in the process are key factors in detecting the product. Freiburg and Tübingen in Germany played a pioneering role in spreading over the concept in the early 1990’s in Europe. According to Liese (2008) the reasons for generating this concept is the following:

1. Citizens cannot find their needs in the ordinary block design accommodations thus in

the cooperative housing they start implementing the individual and the group needs.

2. Creating community neighbourhoods that allow families to have social life and provide

walkable distances to the daily routine supplies and social facilities.

Building cooperatives communities concept can be a good model to apply in self-developed areas in Egypt that is based on community initiatives under the help of different authorities and responsible parties of the city.

2. LITERATURE REVIEW

This section of the paper explains the main idea of co-housing concept to implement a self-developed area and its initiation in the world and focusing on the concept main characteristics.

2.1. Co-Housing Concept Initiation and Definition

Lietaert (2009) mentions that this concept started in 1972 in Denmark, the project hosts 27 families by a Danish Architect who was influenced by a psychologist article arguing that children should have one hundred parents. The concept emerged from the Danish word “Bofællesskaber” translated as “living communities” in English. McCamant & Durrett Architects firm a pioneer in applying this concept in United States coined the term ‘co-housing: that is derived from the English word “cooperative”.

In 1987, McCamant & Durrett Architects firm was initiated in California to adopt the co-housing concept after doing several researches on the co-projects in Denmark. Their main concern is People, their interests and their quality of lives. They defined co-housing as:

“These communities cluster 12 to 35 homes around common facilities. Residents participate in the planning and design process from the very beginning, ensuring that their community meets their needs, both individual and collective. Each household owns a private residence—complete with kitchen—but also shares extensive common facilities with the larger group…. These common facilities, and particularly common dinners, are an important aspect of community life both for social and practical reasons.” McCamant & Durrett, 2013.

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Co-housing can be defined as: a group of people gather in one place, sharing main aim to build their own neighbourhood and create their living community. Each participant owns as apartment that offers the main living aspects while sharing the other public facilities with the community such as gardens, workshops and public services…etc. According to a study held by a centre for “cooperatives-Wisconsin University” with collaboration with “cooperative development services” states that the idea of co-housing ownership each one owns his apartment or through renting it. Also each participant has to pay a monthly amount of cash to develop and upgrade the public facilities in the neighbourhood.

2.2. Co-Housing Characteristics

Main characteristics of Co-housing according to Lietaert (2009) based on McCamant & Durrett Architects are six: first the concept of co-housing is totally managed by the community through the theory of participatory design process, in addition to have help from professionals, experts, facilitators. Second characteristic is to design the urban space and landscape of the area through identifying the entrances, paths, softscape and hardscape elements. These will direct to third characteristic that focuses on the community common facilities that give the place its spirit. The fourth characteristic mentioned is that a regular meeting has to be managed between representatives of the community people chosen by inhabitants through voting or random choice. Wisconsin University study added that co-op work is organized between the participants through identifying the role of each toward running the whole process to reach the final outcome. Through electing representatives and creating a board to operate the process and control the community participating. Then having constant meetings to be updated by the new developments and upgrade the ideas and on the other side solve any pop up problems. The fifth characteristic according to Lietaert is that all participants are equal and no hierarchical division all has his (each individual) right to state his opinion and needs. The sixth characteristic is each participant has a separate income.

Figure 1: Characteristics of co-housing (adapted from Lietaert 2009)

The above figure summarizes the co-housing characteristics on keywords. These keywords will be examined on the research case studies “Südstadt “Southern” developing area in Tübingen” and Ebny Betik Project to understand the relation of self-developed areas and co-housing.

3. RESEARCH CASE STUDIES

This section in the paper is descriptive and explanatory. It will discuss the initiation of the case studies, raising the main objectives of the development and then the implementation process and the challenges that face the involved parties and then the product of the areas. The paper

No Hierarchical Division/ Equality

Participatory Design

Urban & Landscape Designs

District Facilities

Meetings / Representatives

Characteristics of Co-housing

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will reflect the characteristics of co-housing concept in the two case studies: the Southern part of Tübingen in Germany and the Ebny Betik project in Egypt.

The methodology used in Southern part of Tübingen is an interactive method based on holding of different interviews with major representatives in the project. The author focused on choosing the interviewee who can help in feeding up the research with the role of the involved parties and the development process and the challenges that face the project. Interview held with City of Tübingen Senior Planning Officer and with another professional who works in the project team of the city and both lives in southern part of Tübingen. In addition to an interview with the urban planner who was in charge of the project. The author examined the product through visiting the area and having a tour in it with one of the city citizens who is interested in the project.

The other case is the Ebny Betik project. The research methodology used is based on studying the project Terms of references and the official documents of the project from the governmental authorities. In addition to holding of several interviewers with the project citizens to examine the potentials and the constrains of the project initiation, implementation and final product.

3.1. THE SOUTHERN PART OF TÜBINGEN PROJECT

3.1.1. Initiation

The development project of the Southern Part of Tübingen “Südstadt developing project” implemented the concept of “House-Building Cooperatives”. The project is located at Baden-Württemberg state in Germany and the idea of the project started in 1991. Schuster, (2005) mention that after the end of the World War II and after the cold war on the European countries and declaration of the withdrawal of the French troops from Germany, Tübingen City Council and the Regional development department of Baden Württemberg targeted reusing and development of southern part.( Palmer, 2011). “Andreas Feldtkeller” the head of Tübingen city at that time, took the initiative to redevelop the area in order for it to be adaptable for hosting a quite good number of inhabitants. The development includes four main quarters in Southern Part of as in figure (2). Referring to an interview with the Senior Planning Officer at the Municipality of Tübingen, (2011), he mentioned that the idea is simple: a group of citizens join together to implement their ideas about working and living in their own neighbourhood.

3.1.2. Project Objectives

According to the city of Tübingen, (2005) there are three main objectives which; the city and the urban planning office put in mind while drawing the main concepts to develop the southern part. These concepts are derived to perform satisfaction to both the city and the citizens. The first concept is to make the urban plan of the area while taking into consideration the idea of connectivity with the rest of the city. The second idea is to create an enclosed community where citizens can find their requirements and desires to obtain ecological and sustained houses integrated in a living environment that offers other commercial needs. The third concept assists in achieving the latter concept through creating mixed-use areas with small land parcel

Figure 2: Development Districts (Tübingen Universtätsstadt,2009)

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Figure 5: Diversity on the select the Citizens

(Tübingen city council archive, 2010)

in each district. Figure (3) illustrates the development objectives in regard to two main participants of the city of Tübingen and its citizens. The figure also shows the objectives of the development obtained through two main categories of stakeholders “Tübingen city” and “Tübingen citizens” each has a major role in the process of the development.

Figure 3: Development objectives

3.1.3. Development process versus product

This part of the paper now turns to discuss the process of the development and the product of the project of the Southern Part of Tübingen. In order to gain an in-depth analysis of Tübingen, it would be interesting to examine the process of self-development against the characteristics of co-housing discussed in the previous section. The following subsections would use these characteristics to examine the self-development in Tübingen project through figure (4).

Figure 4: Project process in respect to the co-housing process (adapted from Lietaert, 2009)


The theory of Participatory design has a major role in developing the district of Tübingen that depends mainly citizens’ participation. However the city had to set out some criteria to allocate the end users and select deserved citizens for the district. One of these criteria is people readiness to establish and generate different activities in the area so the concept of the “Mixed Use area” can be created and comes from different social standards.


Urban &Landscape Designs

District Facilities

Meetings/ Representatives

Defining Groups

Stakeholder role

LEHEN Three urban office

Tübingen City

Public open spaces

Mobility

Public Facilities

Adaptive Re-use

Mixed- Use

Tübingen City

Citizens

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The main group of stakeholder are the citizens. They participated in both the designing and implementation processes in order to have all their needs and to obtain the maximum satisfaction of their own living neighbourhood.

According to the interview with the Senior Planning Officer of the city (2011), he said that citizens have to come in groups and defined their required plot area and position. In order to form these groups, the role of the city was to introduce people to each other and to create an atmosphere that gives them the chance to meet each other. So they organized different meetings, platforms and events, etc. These gatherings provided the possibility of choosing the most matching and compatible people that would share common ideas and requirements. By this action the idea of self-developed started on ground. Then each group had to appoint an architect who played the role of the facilitator in order to direct them to the right path and to respect the concept of sustainability and the rules of the district. The appointed architect for each group was also in charge of implementing the requirements and demands of the people to attain their satisfaction. This was performed through having different meeting with the group. To follow up the process with the architect, the group had to choose representatives from them. After having reached a remarkable solution in designing process, another meeting was held to show the design to the rest of the group. Any modifications needed are suggested during this meeting. Afterwards they represented the final version of the design to the city to get an acceptance. Finally, they started implementing the design on ground. (Ferber, undated)

This kind of co-housing project led to a new result based on creating colourful facades and innovative self-developed area. The participation of several groups who assigned different architects led to a product of diversity and variety of designs, materials and colours, which is obvious from the facades of the buildings, figure (6)

One of the obstacles and the major challenges that face the city of Tübingen is to own the land and get the land from the Federal of Germany. In order to get the land and start the urban development the City of Tübingen is enforcing the rule by which it gains the ownership of the land. Urban Development Act §165 BauGB state that:

“Implementation of the measure is required in the public interest, in particular in order to meet an increased demand for housing and places of employment, for the construction of public facilities or consequential developments, or in order to return derelict land to productive use” Act §165, German Federal Building Code

According to this Act, the city can successfully take the land from the Federal of Germany and start the development of the area. Based on an interview with Senior Planning Officer (2011) the municipality plays major role in operating the project. It has the role of: a) designating responsible planners for the urban planning of the district; b) following the design procedure through adding the design principles and criteria and; c) addressing the responsibility and defining users criteria and formation of groups. All in all, the municipality is in charge of monitoring the whole project till nowadays.

Figure 6: Various buildings blocks

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A competition was held for the urban design and landscape of the Southern Part of Tübingen. Several proposals were submitted to the city council by various planning offices. However, “Stuttgart Planning LEHEN Three Office” won the project. This could be attributed to their respect of “Andreas Feldtkeller” criteria in addition to the concept of mobility and sustainability through applying the concept of Building communities. (Schuster, 2005)

The urban planning office parcelled the district into plots as seen in figure (7), and each group had to determine their needs and the size of the plot to build their required building (Schuster, 2005). The Senior Planning Officer, 2011, added

that the city had to control the heights of the building between three and five stories in order to have diversity in levels but with respect to the area scale.

Both “French quarter and Loretto Areal” follow the concept of having parking buildings at the borders of the districts where all the citizens can park their cars and then have a little walk to their home. (Ferber, undated).

Planners focused on landscaping of the district as shown in Figure (8); public spaces and courts are major elements in the urban design and landscape of the district. Each block of buildings contains a public court shared among the citizens of the block. To solve the problem of maintenance it is important to note that each group is responsible of designing, caring and monitoring this court.

District Facilities

Planning of the district started through the integration between the old and the new buildings. The city achieved this idea through adaptive reuse and renovation of the old barracks and buildings as shown in figure (9). (Kuhn, 2010)

It is a rule that the ground floor of the building host any kind of services available to the surrounding community. It varies between shops, nurseries, workshops, restaurants and cafes, etc. (Citizen, 2011)

This facilitates the existence of public amenities and most of the citizens’ needs in their neighbourhood. However among the obstacles are the non-existence of hospitals, universities, police or fire stations in the area. They depend on the main facilities of Tübingen city. Nonetheless, this may not be considered as a problem for the citizens of the area because they are well connected to the city. They have a bus trajectory connected with the main routes of Tübingen city.

Figure 8: Public courts between building blocks

Figure 9: Adaptive reuse building from horse stable to wood workshop

Figure 7: Main Building Blocks design in French quarter. (adapted from Tubingen city council archive, 2010)

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Meetings and Representatives

As discussed earlier in the participatory design section that each group has to choose a representative in the design phase. Senior Planning Officer, 2011, stated that the representative is just a communicator between the group, architect and city council to facilitate the process. The role of the architect is to compromise the different opinions and views and to direct them to the right and suitable decisions. (Scharf, 2011).

In figure (10) it shows the methodology used in participating of both the citizens and the city in having their own neighbourhood. First the city kicks-off the project through a collective meeting to find the interested groups. It is followed by group initiatives in designing their houses that takes several meetings from them. Representatives from the citizens gather with the city council to present the outcome design of the buildings and the public courts. The city makes modification on the design if required and then another meeting with all citizens to show the results. By that the city imposes its control but with a democratic way.

The city was concerned with the durability of the project so they had to think on a way of monitoring and management. The urban renewal office of Tübingen city performs as a coordinator and urban development office of Tübingen city as a project director. They have to supervise and control the whole process and evaluate the product and then to keep an eye on the district to make sure that no one break the rules and regulations and all respect neighbour property. (Schuster, 2005)

In order to control selling the apartments, Selina 2011 mentioned that the apartment’s owners can sell their own apartment at any time. The city added a price fixation for the first 10 years to stop fast price rising and extreme "money making". However, any change of ownership of land or apartment has to be cheeked by the urban development office of Tübingen city administration have the authority.

3.2. EBNY BETIK PROJECT

3.2.1. Initiation

Ebny Betik project means Built your own house in English. It is one of the National housing projects initiated by the previous president “Hosney Mubarak” in his election program in 2005. The project was planned by the Ministry of Housing of Egypt. It claimed that they will provide 89,000 housing units. Ebny Betik spreads along on 13 cities of Egypt; all have the same initiation time frame 6 years starting from 2005.

Figure 10: Project Implementation process (Feber, undated)

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The national project “Ebny Betik” initiated by the Egyptian Housing Government under the responsibility of The General Organization for Physical Planning (GOPP) and new urban communities Authority (NUCA).

3.2.2. Project Objectivise

The project was planned to implement the concept of self-development in order to fulfil the objectivise of the project. The first objective of the project is to afford an economical residential housing units for the Egyptian youth. The strategy of the project is the residence are responsible to build their houses while the government provide the project with all services and utilities according to the Egyptian standards. The second objective is to limit the urban sprawl to the main cities of Egypt and to create affordable residential projects in the new settlements.

Figure 11: Development objectives

3.2.3. Development process versus product

As explained previously the German case study in relation with the characteristic of the co-housing. The following figure will illustrate the same in relation with Ebny Betik project.

Figure 12: project process in respect to the co-housing process (adapted from Lietaert, 2009)


The main idea of the project is each owner has to build his own house. However specific architectural models and prototypes are designed by practitioners and given to the citizens to implement during the construction phase. The governmental authorities proposed different plots with an area 150 m2/ each. (AbdelHakem,2009). The government set a rule on the foot print area equals to 50% from the all area. The building height should not exceed the ground and maximum two typical floors. Also the government fixed specific phases that the citizen have to follow in order to get the land and in case of any delay he might lose the land. The government had to set out some criteria to select the users the main one is to be youth with an income not exceed 1000 EGP/month. (http://www.urban-comm.gov.eg/).

The citizens role is planned to have a major role in constructing their houses, however in fact most of the owners took the prototype designs and assigned external contractors to build the houses. (AbdelHakem, 2009). Figure(13) shows one of the buildings in the three phases

Government Citizens

Urban Sprawl

Services & utilities

Affordable houses

New Housing project

Government


Urban &Landscape Designs

District Facilities

Practitioners

Public Facilities

Government

Citizens

Government

Meetings/ Representatives

Citizens

Government

Infrastructure

Citizens

http://www.urban-comm.gov.eg/

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assigned by the government to get the land and the house. The construction phases are: excavation and foundation/columns, the walls and last phase is the external finishes.

Figure 13:Constructing phases (Building owner, captured 2009 Received 2013)

The obstacles that face the citizens are they have to depend on contractors that causes a drop on owner participation at the beginning of the project and the owner becomes an observer only. Based on the interviews with the citizens they said that they faced problems with the construction material as the price of steel increased during that time. They also complained from the small foot print area and the prototypes that does not accommodate their needs. Last but not least the problem of lack of safety in the area during construction phases. These problem were not solved the citizens has to accommodate with it or have to return back or sell their plots.

Based on the interview with the citizens, they said that some citizens do not respect the size of the foot print and they built on larger area without having a permission. The government action is to impose a fine and penalty to those who exceed the foot print limit.


The project spread in different areas in Egypt, the urban master plan of each project designed by different consultant offices related to the public universities in Egypt. (TOR). The urban designs aims to accommodate affordable living area to the citizens. No hierarchical division and equality between the citizens. The master plan of the project was planned to accommodate the residential buildings and other main public services buildings. The public buildings and spaces are the government responsibility to design and construct.

District Facilities

In this project the public facilities considered as a major problem. Through the scrutiny of the implemented current product compared to the planned urban fabric of the consultant other problems appeared. Lack of most of the service buildings of the district. The only provided service buildings is based on individuals initiatives without planning. That leads to odd shape in the project but helps the citizens to find their needs. This means that the citizens have to find their own way to accommodate their needs even if they have to do it themselves.

Meetings and Representatives

The governmental organization are in charge of monitoring and management of the project. They are responsible on following up with different consultants and to choose the end user. The system allocated to control the project construction is based on the three phases of construction that permit the citizens to finish their houses in the project duration.

Figure 14:Land use of 10th of Ramadan

project

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The problem comes with lack of coordination and communication between different stakeholders. No moderator, sessions or platforms that helps in creating an atmosphere of changing thoughts.

4. CONCLUSIONS

Comparing the two case studies; it is obvious that the authority in the German case is in charge of the project during the whole duration starting from initiation phase till the construction and the post occupancy. While in the Egyptian case the government was in charge in the initiation and the early phases while in construction it turned to be the citizens responsibility without the authority control that caused defection in the process. The way of participatory process in the Tubingen project was held by involvement of all the parties in different occasion which helped in transfer of ideas and opinions. The opposite was in Ebny Betik project with lack of communication and no moderator. Last but not least in Tubingen the citizen has right to design, create and construct his house while in Ebny Betik the prototype concept limit the users to achieve their goals and needs.

Successful self-developed neighbourhood area can be created upon similar characteristics of the co-housing concept. It mainly depends on the community participation on creating their living neighbourhood from early stages of the development. Furthermore, the authority has the role on determining of the main design principles of urban planning and landscape elements that helps in creating the main idea and character of the public spaces. In addition to the character of defining the main district facilities that helps on achieving a well sustained neighborhood through proposing different services and concepts to facilitate the process of development and to be accepted by the users. Last but not least periodical meetings among different stakeholders of the authorities and the community through choosing of representatives are major factors to perform a well self-developed project.

The last point shows that self-developed areas are based on a joint process between the community and the governmental authorities. This concept is highly needed to be implemented on the third world countries that suffer from lack of resources and authorities commitments. It provides dividing and sharing of the responsibilities and the tasks among different parties that facilitate the development process; though a good communication among all stakeholders. On the one hand, It gives the community its rights to participate in drawing their futuristic life, decision making, and implementation of the ideas. On the other hand, the authorities have the power to initiate and determine the main objectives of the development in addition of constructing of the main infrastructure of the project and the major role of management and control on the project.

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