Tag: Louise Mozingo

Connecting Cairo to the Nile

Renewing Life and Heritage on the River

In 2010, we conceived a plan to craft a collaborative learning experience and to catalyze a new understanding of the Nile as a public resource for the people of Cairo.

With a population of over eleven million, Cairo is one of the densest cities in the world, supporting an urban population underserved by parks and other public open space. Yet the city holds remarkable opportunities to reconnect its people with the river that was historically its heart.

Cairo struggles with the impacts of population growth and urbanization on traffic, air pollution, and informal housing settlements.
Connecting Cairo Enlarge [+]Cairo struggles with the impacts of population growth and urbanization on traffic, air pollution, and informal housing settlements.

In January of 2011 in Cairo, in an intensive workshop involving 23 students and seven faculty from Cairo University (CU), The American University in Cairo (AUC), and the University of California, Berkeley (UCB), interdisciplinary teams systematically inventoried existing conditions along a 12-km reach of the Nile from Maadi to Tahrir Square. The details of this workshop and its results were compiled in a report available online.

The first day of the workshop included student introductions at the recently designed Al-Azhar Park, site of a former landfill.
Connecting Cairo Enlarge [+]The first day of the workshop included student introductions at the recently designed Al-Azhar Park, site of a former landfill.

Based on this fieldwork the student teams identified specific opportunities for ecological restoration and better open space connectivity with the rest of the city. The presence of historic landmarks and excellent views along the Nile also provide significant prospects for urban revitalization and economic development.

Challenges were pin-pointed relating to the existence of incongruent public and private land-uses along the Nile Corniche, and to urban waste management along the waterfront.

Following their investigations, workshop participants developed a strategic plan for a continuous trail network along the Nile with connectivity to important nodes in Cairo. They also developed detailed plans for the revitalization of two key zones: Athur El Nabi and Old Cairo.

The workshop ended just one week before demonstrations erupted in the streets of Cairo, highlighting public desires, expectations, and demands for major change. Bringing the people to the riverbanks could be an important step in improving daily life for millions, and could strengthen the city’s social fabric, and contribute to the democratization of Egyptian society.

UC Berkeley Department of Landscape Architecture and Environmental Faculty Advisors and Coordinators:

  • Matt Kondolf
  • Louise Mozingo
  • Linda Jewell
  • Amir Gohar

Cairo Advisors and Coordinators:

  • Ahmed Sherif
  • Khalid Z. El Adli
  • Abbas el-Zafarany
  • Aboulfetouh S. Shalaby
  • Sami Shaker
  • Mohamed Nagib Abou-Zeid

Student Participants:

  • Noha Abbassy (AUC)
  • Krishnachandran Balakrishnan (UC Berkeley)
  • Tami Church (UC Berkeley)
  • Richard Crockett (UC Berkeley)
  • Nada Abd El-Aziz (CU)
  • Fekria El- Bialy (CU)
  • Ali Abd El Gawad (CU)
  • Momen El-Husseiny (AUC/UC Berkeley)
  • Mohamed El Kharbotly (AUC)
  • Heba Ezzat (CU)
  • Salsabil Fahmy (AUC)
  • Ahmed Farouk (CU)
  • Erene Kamal (CU)
  • Michal Kapitulnik (UC Berkeley)
  • Mirette Khorshed (AUC)
  • Madonna Maher (CU)
  • Malak Maher (AUC)
  • Rachael Marzion (UC Berkeley)
  • Nada Nafeh (AUC)
  • Adrienne Smith (UC Berkeley)
  • Bahaa Stephanos (AUC)
  • Mohamed Tarek (CU)
  • Rob Tidmore (UC Berkeley)
Student introductions at Al-Azhar Park
Connecting Cairo Enlarge [+]Student introductions at Al-Azhar Park
CU, AUC, and UCB workshop students and faculty at Al-Azhar Park in January, 2011
Connecting Cairo Enlarge [+]CU, AUC, and UCB workshop students and faculty at Al-Azhar Park in January, 2011
Cairo university faculty lead workshop participants on a tour of Al-Azhar Park and Old Cairo’s Al-Darb Al-Ahmar district.
Connecting Cairo Enlarge [+]Cairo university faculty lead workshop participants on a tour of Al-Azhar Park and Old Cairo’s Al-Darb Al-Ahmar district.
Ahmed and Malak survey bankside conditions in the suburb of Maadi.
Connecting Cairo Enlarge [+]Ahmed and Malak survey bankside conditions in the suburb of Maadi.
Old Cairo survey team on the Manasterly Pedestrian Bridge (from left to right: Adrienne, Professor Mozingo, Ahmed, Nada, Krishna, Salsabil, Rachael, Nada, Aly, Noha)
Connecting Cairo Enlarge [+]Old Cairo survey team on the Manasterly Pedestrian Bridge (from left to right: Adrienne, Professor Mozingo, Ahmed, Nada, Krishna, Salsabil, Rachael, Nada, Aly, Noha)
View of the Nile’s east bank in CBD from the Marriott Hotel. Landmarks visible on the east bank include (from left to right) the Ministry of Foreign Affairs building, the radio and TV building, the Ramses Hilton Hotel, and the 6th of October Bridge.
Connecting Cairo Enlarge [+]View of the Nile’s east bank in CBD from the Marriott Hotel. Landmarks visible on the east bank include (from left to right) the Ministry of Foreign Affairs building, the radio and TV building, the Ramses Hilton Hotel, and the 6th of October Bridge.
Students observe steep concrete banks, unused terraces, and informal settlements along the water’s edge
Connecting Cairo Enlarge [+]Students observe steep concrete banks, unused terraces, and informal settlements along the water’s edge
Unused vegetated terraces along the floodplain in Maadi.
Connecting Cairo Enlarge [+]Unused vegetated terraces along the floodplain in Maadi.
Low wide flood plains in Maadi could be used for cafes, food stands, outdoor seating, and a ferry plaza.
Connecting Cairo Enlarge [+]Low wide flood plains in Maadi could be used for cafes, food stands, outdoor seating, and a ferry plaza.
Overcrowded ferries arriving at Maadi’s ferry landing demonstrate the need for a more robust and efficient ferry system.
Connecting Cairo Enlarge [+]Overcrowded ferries arriving at Maadi’s ferry landing demonstrate the need for a more robust and efficient ferry system.
Students and faculty compile and discuss fieldwork data during the workshop held on the campus of The American University in Cairo.
Connecting Cairo Enlarge [+]Students and faculty compile and discuss fieldwork data during the workshop held on the campus of The American University in Cairo.
Students sketch cross-sections of the Nile to assess constraints and opportunities for each study site (sketches by Krishna Balakrishnan).
Connecting Cairo Enlarge [+]Students sketch cross-sections of the Nile to assess constraints and opportunities for each study site (sketches by Krishna Balakrishnan).
One of the small collaborative student groups discusses a strategic plan for the four study reaches along the Nile.
Connecting Cairo Enlarge [+]One of the small collaborative student groups discusses a strategic plan for the four study reaches along the Nile.
Ali, Professor Mozingo, and Krishna evaluate proposed designs for a continuous river trail along the Nile.
Connecting Cairo Enlarge [+]Ali, Professor Mozingo, and Krishna evaluate proposed designs for a continuous river trail along the Nile.
Berkeley students visit the Giza Pyramids during a break from the workshop.
Connecting Cairo Enlarge [+]Berkeley students visit the Giza Pyramids during a break from the workshop.

How Pastoral Capitalism Reshaped the Metropolitan Landscape

Site plan of the 1956 General Motors Technical Center in Warren, Michigan, an early and influential corporate campus. The essential site plan components of the corporate campus are the central open space surrounded by laboratory buildings circumscribed by peripheral parking and driveways. Corporations built corporate campuses to house middle management research and development divisions comprised of prized corporate scientists and engineers.
Pastoral Capitalism Enlarge [+]Site plan of the 1956 General Motors Technical Center in Warren, Michigan, an early and influential corporate campus. The essential site plan components of the corporate campus are the central open space surrounded by laboratory buildings circumscribed by peripheral parking and driveways. Corporations built corporate campuses to house middle management research and development divisions comprised of prized corporate scientists and engineers.

At first glance, the shimmering, suburban rim of the American metropolis might seem haphazard compared to the tightly organized urbanism of the center city. Nonetheless, all landscapes, once closely examined, present a deliberate logic. Among those seemingly baffling yet actually decipherable suburban scenes are the offices of corporate management.

Large-scale corporate offices were the last of the center city land uses to emerge in the suburbs, in the 1940s, after housing, manufacturing, and retail commerce. Constructed by the most powerful global entities, these new suburban corporate landscapes displayed a preference for the pastoral. Pastoral Capitalism: A History of Suburban Corporate Landscapes examines the evolution and consequences of this form of postwar American urbanism.

Pastoral capitalism results from the intersection of three forces: the structure of corporate management; decentralization of American cities; and the dominance of a pastoral aesthetic. These forces convened to produce three interrelated suburban forms: the corporate campus, the corporate estate, and the office park. These landscape types, with their distinct layout of buildings, parking, driveways, and surround, materialized to serve a particular stratum of the corporate hierarchy.

The Stanford Research Park, a speculative, for-profit office park development of Stanford University built for tenant corporations. The Hewlett Packard facility is at the top of the photograph, the canted foursquare of buildings surrounding an interior courtyard.
Pastoral Capitalism Enlarge [+]The Stanford Research Park, a speculative, for-profit office park development of Stanford University built for tenant corporations. The Hewlett Packard facility is at the top of the photograph, the canted foursquare of buildings surrounding an interior courtyard.
Cornell Oaks Corporate Center, Beaverton, Oregon outside of Portland first developed in the 1990s. A typical office park found at the periphery of most American metropolitan areas. Individual buildings and surrounding parking lots are encircled by narrow pastoral landscape verges; interior “parkways” provide circulation. As is customary with most office parks, an adjacent freeway provides easy access for users and visibility to passing motorists.
Pastoral Capitalism Enlarge [+]Cornell Oaks Corporate Center, Beaverton, Oregon outside of Portland first developed in the 1990s. A typical office park found at the periphery of most American metropolitan areas. Individual buildings and surrounding parking lots are encircled by narrow pastoral landscape verges; interior “parkways” provide circulation. As is customary with most office parks, an adjacent freeway provides easy access for users and visibility to passing motorists.

In the 1940s and 1950s, corporations such as AT&T, General Electric, and General Motors devised the corporate campus to valorize the industrial scientist and validate the use of science for profit. The corporate campus became a strategic management tool, attracting scientists and facilitating technological discovery. Modeled on the American university landscape, it contained office and laboratory facilities surrounding a green space or quadrangle, encircled by a drive, and peripheral parking. The corporate campus spearheaded the move of white-collar work out from the city center. It is a genre of corporate building that persists to the present day.

A view of the GE Electronics Park that appeared in the July 1951 edition of Architectural Record. Note the cluster on men in shirts and ties lying on the lawn slope by the lake—an unimaginable sight before the corporate campus. A new vision of corporate work, General Electric expected that the campus context would be conducive to creativity and collaboration among their scientists, engineers, and managers.
Pastoral Capitalism Enlarge [+]A view of the GE Electronics Park that appeared in the July 1951 edition of Architectural Record. Note the cluster of men in shirts and ties lying on the lawn slope by the lake—an unimaginable sight before the corporate campus. A new vision of corporate work, General Electric expected that the campus context would be conducive to creativity and collaboration among their scientists, engineers, and managers.

In the wake of corporate campuses, large firms built the corporate estate for top management. Such suburban headquarters evolved through three canonical projects: the 1954 General Foods headquarters, the 1957 Connecticut General Life Insurance Company headquarters, and the definitive 1964 Deere & Company Administrative Center. These sites, and those that followed, testified to the prestige of executive status and acted as a stand-in for the myriad dispersed properties of global corporations. With 200 or more scenically designed acres and a sweeping entrance drive culminating at a central building complex, the sites were broadly appealing. Corporations used the image of suburban headquarters as public relations tools in communicating with employees, local residents, stockholders, competitors, and bankers.

Site plan of the Connecticut General Life Insurance Company headquarters that opened in 1956 in Bloomfield, Connecticut, outside of Hartford. A suburban office for top executives, it typifies the corporate estate. An approach drive culminates at the central building complex and two blocks of parking flank the building providing parking for hundreds of employees. Two hundred and eighty acres of carefully composed pastoral scenery envelope both the structure and parking, to be viewed both from the interior of the office structure and from the outside, as a bucolic frame for the corporate facility.
Pastoral Capitalism Enlarge [+]Site plan of the Connecticut General Life Insurance Company headquarters that opened in 1956 in Bloomfield, Connecticut, outside of Hartford. A suburban office for top executives, it typifies the corporate estate. An approach drive culminates at the central building complex and two blocks of parking flank the building providing parking for hundreds of employees. Two hundred and eighty acres of carefully composed pastoral scenery envelope both the structure and parking, to be viewed both from the interior of the office structure and from the outside, as a bucolic frame for the corporate facility.
The entry view of the Deere & Company Administrative Center, the quintessential corporate estate. Used on countless publications including annual reports, corporate brochures, and now websites, the Administrative Center became the icon of the global corporation for both internal and external audiences.
Pastoral Capitalism Enlarge [+]The entry view of the Deere & Company Administrative Center, the quintessential corporate estate. Used on countless publications including annual reports, corporate brochures, and now websites, the Administrative Center became the icon of the global corporation for both internal and external audiences.

Created by speculative real estate developers in the 1950s, the office park provided a lower cost, flexible alternative to the corporate campus and estate. The office park housed third-tier corporate management, “back office” functions, small local and corporate service businesses, and start-up technology corporations, particularly in a specific version of the office park, the research park. Besides market pressures, office parks appeared because of shifts in the fiscal management of suburbs, new zoning regulations in suburban jurisdictions, and the construction of federally funded transportation corridors. Office parks provided building facilities surrounding by ample parking and framed by a concise scheme of parkways, parking lot berms, and landscape frontages. As the most widespread and large-scale type of suburban corporate landscape, they proved particularly useful to corporations in volatile economic times, as they could easily expand and contract personnel and offices.

Pastoral capitalism restructured the metropolitan landscape of American cities and accounts for well over half the office space in the U.S. Corporate campuses, estates, and office parks became American norms and as companies moved overseas, they replicated these homegrown patterns. Eventually international corporations imitated their American counterparts and occupied places such as Silicon Fens in the United Kingdom, Telecom Valley in Southern France, and the Singapore Science Park. Now, Indian software companies attempt to keep the brainy in Bangalore by building corporate campuses.

Because landscapes of pastoral capitalism are engrained in the fabric of low-density, auto-dependent suburbs, they present an obvious target of re-design as we confront the challenge of a post-peak oil metropolis. Rethinking sprawl might begin most effectively with the forms and uses of corporate campuses, estates, and office parks, especially their vast parking lots, roadways, and bucolic greenspaces. In so doing, they can be transformed into places that are both dense and connected, an essential step in building sustainable metropolitan regions.