Phase I: Archival background
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| Figure (2) |
Kufr Aqab is the last village in the northeast side of the Jerusalem district, about three kilometers from the city of Al-Bireh, and 9 km north of the centre of Jerusalem. (figure 1) The closest two towns to Kufr Aqab are Qalandia and A-Rram. Since Kufr Aqab is located at the northeastern entrance to the city of Jerusalem, the battles and invasions of Jerusalem in the past have been reflected on the village and other neighboring towns. This village has a rich history, and was first inhabited by the Jebusites and Canaanites, which were few in number, and came from the clans, which were constantly on the move establishing new cities. (Kufr Aqab Village Council, 2012).
Kufr Aqab was named after an Ottoman-era man called Kafeer who stayed ('Aqab: ‘stay’) at a well in the region in his caravan whilst passing through. The two words later developed into the village’s current name (Kufr Aqab Village Council, 2012).
The village is thought to have been established around 1600 AD; some of its residents are descended from native residents and some are from other areas of the West Bank (Kufr 'Aqab Village Council, 2012).Furthermore, Kufur Aqab is divided into 5 parts; Kufor Aqab, Sameer Amees, Al-Zghayar, Al-Mattar, and Old Kufor Aqab (figure 2).
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| Figure (3) |
Phase II: Social Maps
While doing the analysis phase on Kufur Aqab, certain spaces were kind of unique in the area which gathered our attention. Therefore, due to their importance in our perception further studies on these sites were documented as shown below:
Phase III: Intervention"An attempt to revive what's lost"
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| Figure (3) |
Kufur Aqab as a district facing dual authorities
which both neglect it in providing good
planning and services (figure 3), it lacks open spaces and parks in spite of its rising
population; this in return has created a gated apartment system, where people tend to stay up home further away from the land that excluded them from the community, which is in a certain way un-common in our Palestinian society. These issues attracted our attention because of the anti-social community that this conflicted area has created. Therefore, our intervention aimed the younger generation so they could get out of their home, interact with other children and created a space for them where they can plant different kinds of trees, flowers and shrubs,
that can re-attach them to the land, give them a place to play and spend free time far away from streets (figure 4).
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| Figure (4) |
Intervention preparation
The first step was to provide a land for the intervention, so we talked to the communal council to help us searching for a land. Despite the crowd-ness of Kufur Aqab the council offered us the land besides the council (figure 5) which is a property of the council and futurely planned to be a small park.
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| Figure (5) |
The second step was to create an awareness for the event (figure 6). invitations were distributed randomly to different areas, homes, schools and organizations with the help of Kufur Aqab community center.
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| Figure (6) |
The third step was to gather variety of plants from Ramallah's plantations. We managed to get a very good amount of trees, shrubs and flowers; which were donated by:
Al-qaiqab plantation.
Al-raihan plantation.
Al-Bireh Plantation.
Finally, other tools were collected from our homes or bought by us, such as the planting tools, DJ system, food and drawing colors.
The Intervention:
On the 24th of November 2013 we started doing our preparations for the intervention early in the morning, gathering the plants and getting the tools to the site. Our arrival to the site was timed with the arrival of the truck which aided us in the cleaning of the site, and the intervention was almost ready to go.
Once the site cleaning was done, we started the intervention at 12:00 p.m and stayed till 4:30 p.m. We started with a small number of kids from neighboring resident buildings where they helped us gathering any useful stuff that we can re-use in planting such as small rocks and car tires.
After the arrival of more kids we gave a small introduction about ourselves and the process of the
event. We tried to leave the event as free as possible for kids that they could pick whichever tree, shrub or flower they want to plant and to design their own planting beds wherever they want, while planting them with our aid.
After the hard working planting we played with the kids for a while, painted what they love on their faces and finally ended the event with some snack.
People reflection about the intervention:
To start with the kids they told us that it was their first time they ever planted however they really enjoyed it, and 2 kids told us "I'm going to come every day water my flower". According to the parents, they told us that it was a very pleasant experience and it was nice for a change that their children would leave their I-pad or pc and interact with other kids and plant. Furthermore, it was a wonderful experience for us as well as it gave us a good felling to help the other and get appreciated and also this event surely bonded us deeper with the people of Kufur Aqab.
Finally we would like to give our many thanks and appretiation for everyone that helped us make this event possible starting with Dr. Yazid anani and arch. Dana the supervisors on our project as well ass the communal council, Kufur Aqab community center, Abu Ali Al-Dijani, Al-qaiqab, Alrihan, and Al-Bireh Plantation.
Phase IV: Documentary
Proceeding the archival analysis, it was time to document those data with the residents of Kufor Aqab, The idea of our video was to document the daily basis problem of Kufor Aqab residents by interviewing them inside their home and to visualise the huge contrast between the interior of the home and the exterior area "Kufor Aqab".
Our group
made a lot of interviews, talked with many people, and tried to sum up the
major problems that the region face, in order to come up with the most urgent
issues to document. The documentary did not focus on one problem, but rather,
it talked about many problems that are of a huge impact that affect the
lifestyle and subsequently, the social fabric that the region is built on.
The interviews
targeted different age groups,from random areas in Kufur Aqab.
Attached are the links for the documentary:
Phase V: legibility, Problem Maps & Community Interviews Analysis
The final phase was to come up with a creative design to solve some of the issues that crossed us from the archival research and the documentary. In-order to start with the final design process, legibility analysis, problem map, community interviews, workshop, site visiting and conceptual analysis were made to aid us through.
According to our previous analysis we concluded that a good idea would be to create a park which was financially supported by Kufor Aqab council.
Legibility
Analysis
Twenty interviews were made with Kufur Aqab
residents for the purpose of defining lynch’s five main elements of the city
(paths, edges, nodes, landmarks and districts). The outcome was in the form of
two maps; the first explained the main five elements of the region, the second
was the problem map that explained the problem of the five elements in relation to the design
sites.
Interviews and Workshop
Twenty five interviews were made in all over Kufur Aqab; the interviews were semi structured, which means that we started to ask questions about what the area needs and what do people miss in Kufur Aqab. These questions were like ice breaking to let people elaborate more about the area. This, in turn makes us rethink about what they are saying and reproduce their visions and dreams in an architectural way to meet their unspoken needs.
The workshop was held in the village council, people were invited to participate in the discussion and in decision making. People talked about what they like to see and have in Kufur Aqab, they also talked about the obstacles that may face us in the park design process.
One of the main outputs of the workshop is that some people wrote down their names as possible donors to help us in the implementation stage.
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| Intervention and Workshop analysis |
Pre-final Jury
In the pre-final jury we presented all of our work starting from the Legibility Analysis reaching our main concept. The jury witnessed prolonged discussion and we got worthy feedback.
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| Pre-final Jury Sheet |
Re-thinking:
According to the archival research and the documentary, it was found that one of the biggest issues in Kufur Aqab was the improper infrastructure and accumulation of garbage due to the lack of authority and conflict between the Palestinian Organization and Israeli authorities. This resulted in the loss of belonging and space for the residents of Kufor Aqab. Therefore, the main idea of the new design proposal was more of a behavioral orientation, as clearly due to the current Israeli-Palestinian conflict of authority there not much that can be done in the municipality work as fixing the infrastructure, to create a sense of belonging.
The idea was to create random pockets all over Kufor Aqab to design various functions and with the aid of the residents to implement those pockets which could be considered more of a common space where anyone could use and perform any activity.
These areas by time might be considered as a proper of that particular neighborhood, this could be considered as an accomplishment where in this place we have achieved to create a sort of belonging of outdoor space for the community which could be considered as a start.
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| New legibility analysis and problem map |
After evaluating and comparing both proposals, the pocket was the best choice. Therefore, we proceeded with the pockets idea and re-worked on the Legibility analysis and Community interviews with each pocket.
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| Master plan with the community interviews |
Phase VI: Design Phase
The sites when visited, inspired us to design the pockets to be communal spaces that gather the people of the neighborhood in the first place, to socialize and interact; in other words, our main goal was to initiate what is lost in Kufur Aqab daily life, and to create social hubs that gather the residents, make them socialize and grab their attention to take care of their surrounding area.
The following sketches represent the conceptual analysis for the three sites that we designed;. as for the other sites, we drew some sketches also to reflect our ideas in general, but the main focus was on the three sites which are #5 , #6, and #9.
The first idea was to create a small space planted with fruitful trees, these trees don't belong to any private owner, which in turn motivates people to come down the stairs and have their chance to grab and eat. In the middle of the site we created an open space to let people sit and socialize with each other, see the photo below:
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| conceptual analysis 1 |
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| conceptual analysis 2 |
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| shot inside the site |
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| Top View |
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| Perspective |
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| Elevation View |
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| Elevation View |
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Planting Plan for the fruitful trees
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the second idea was to create a kitchen garden between two closely buildings. see the 3Ds below:
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| Perspective for the kitchen garden |
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| Elevation View |
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| Top view: Kitchen Garden |
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planting plan for the kitchen garden
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The third idea (site #5) was to cover the whole existing path between two buildings with colored gravel; the path is already used by people but its very narrow and dirty. Our idea was to cover the path with colored gravel to illuminate this narrow space.
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| shot |
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| Top view |
The following sketches represent our ideas
for the rest of the sites; these ideas include kiosks, wooden panels to draw and paint, and spaces to sit.
These were our ideas, visions and even dreams for Kufur Aqab area; we can not deny that the area suffers a lot from; it is ignored from both the municipalities and its residents. Our attempt focused basically on the behavioral aspect and on the social relations inside the area. We believe that when people get along with each other, respect each others privacy and property, the situation of the area will totally be different for the good of the residents. This is the problem of many areas in Ramallah governorate but it reaches the peek in Kufur Aqab as we saw in the archival research before.
The following are some photos of the final jury
Signature:
Kufur Aqab team
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| from the left: Salam, Tarq, Mohammed, Amneh, Zozo, and Widad. |
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