أرشيف الوسم: Kuwait_City

يعتبر الإسكان من أهم أولويات الأسرة الكويتية. ونظراً لطبيعة النظام القانوني، وسعي الدولة لتحمل على عاتقها توفير المساكن للمواطنين، أصبحت كل أسرة كويتية تسعى لتملك سكن، واعتبر امتلاك السكن حق لكافة المواطنين. وفي النتيجة، أدى هذا المنظور اليوم إلى بلوغ عدد طلبات الإسكان لدى المؤسسة العامة للرعاية السكنية حوالي 90,000 طلب. ويتضاعف هذا العدد سنوياً على المسكن أو الأرض السكنية بين 7000 و 8000 طلب جديد.

وعلى الرغم من تخصيص مساحات كبيرة للأراضي السكنية، إلا أن تطوير هذه الأراضي وتزويدها بالخدمات والبنى التحتية يتطلب جهداً وفترات زمنية طويلة، مما يؤدي إلى إطالة أمد انتظار المسكن الحكومي. كامل الموضوع

بعد فوز إنريكي بينالوسا  (Enrique Penalosa)بمنصب عمدة مدينة باجوتا، عاصمة كولومبيا، (Bagota) بين عامي 1998م و2001م، تمكن من إحداث تغييرات جذرية خلال مدة قصيرة نسبياً لم تتجاوز ثلاثة سنوات. كانت باجوتا مدينة فاسدة، وملوثة، وخطرة، وفاشلة. ولكن، أصبحت بفضل توجهات بينالوسا مدينة آمنة، وحيوية، وناجحة نسبياً.

تمكن بينالوسا خلال فترة إدارته من إنشاء بنك الأرض لدعم المحتاجين وتشييد أكثر من ألف ومائتين حديقة عامة، ومائة حضانة، وخمسين مدرسة، وعشرات المكتبات العامة، وشبكة للدراجات الهوائية، ومشروع حافلات النقل العام الاستثنائي.

وبدأ بطرح السؤال التالي حين أدرك شح الموارد التي تمتلكها مدينته وبلده “كولومبيا”: “هل تُنقذ المدينة العاطلة من خلال إصلاح مكوناتها المادية (Hardware) أم بإصلاح مكوناتها غير الملموسة (Software)؟ ”

كامل الموضوع

After Enrique Peñalosa won the election and became the mayor of Bogotá, Columbia in 2003, he was able to transform the city within a short three-year period. Beforehand, Bogotá was a corrupt, polluted, and dangerous place. Thanks to Peñalosa’s leadership, the capital became safe, livable, and relatively successful.

During Peñalosa’s term, he established the land bank to support those in need. Further, he completed more than 1,200 public parks, 100 nurseries, 50 schools as well as many public libraries, bicycle lane networks, and his landmark public bus project.

Peñalosa was aware of the challenges that faced his city and acknowledged its lack of resources. Thus, he started by posing the following question, “Do you save a broken city by fixing its hardware or software?”

Cities are created from hardware elements: material components, such as public places, infrastructure, buildings, and others. Also, they are made from software, which are intangible components, like citizens’ attitudes, planning policies, management procedures, buildings, and urban design codes.

In Kuwait, we prided ourselves as one of the first countries in the region to have modern urban planning policies. However, we focused on the development of our hardware and neglected the software.

Financial abundance allowed us to spend unwisely. Sometimes, wealth becomes a burden. It can lead to laziness, carelessness, waste, and bad planning! We notice that we spend generously on large infrastructure and building projects, yet the values of these projects do not fit with its returns. Shortly after completion, they degrade due to misuse or vandalism.

This must lead us to rethink the redistribution of spending and the rearrangement of development efforts. We need to update our software and systems by:

– Establishing modern and smart and dynamic plans based on clear priorities

– Enhancing citizenship, which will lead to higher levels of participation in decision making, care for public amenities, and public spaces

– Developing better building and urban planning regulations, as these intangible systems guide all our decisions and determine our lifestyle

– Developing maintenance management systems that protect huge public investments in buildings and infrastructure

In cities, the development of software and hardware must go hand in hand, and a careful balance needs to be reached. If it is shaken, the result would be damaging. In Kuwait’s case, it is evident that our software is outdated, broken, and incompatible.

As a result of climate change, we are witnessing a crisis that cannot be ignored. Our environment is rapidly degrading as we fail to battle climate change by any meaningful measures. Scientists worldwide agree that humans and urban developments are heading in the wrong direction. In this respect, Kuwait and other GCC countries’ urbanism faces two major challenges: lack of public transportation and rising temperatures.

Sudden wealth led to the rapid development and expansion of Kuwait’s urbanism in an attempt to fulfil the demand for larger single-family housing and other amenities. And, as the city grows and attracts more residence, the urban fabric sprawled outward — supported by wide networks of streets that encourage the population to rely on private vehicle travel. With severely limited transportation alternatives, we are trapped in an endless loop of cars, networks, and sprawl.

The wealth of the country and its residents resulted in the reliance on technology to address the harsh weather of Kuwait and other GCC countries in the design and construction of buildings. Further, conventional technologies have a high financial and environmental cost. We spend substantial money to make our buildings habitable, even though we cannot survive in them for two hours or more without electricity and HVAC systems.

In Kuwait and other Gulf countries, we have had an exceptional circumstance, whereby we feel that energy is cheap, as we enjoy high government subsidies for electricity and oil. This level of government support misleads the market and the general public and gradually influences our lifestyle and commercial practices.

Throughout the last fifty years, we have witnessed a strand of buildings that ignore any reference to the local environment and/or energy consumption. We see buildings in Kuwait and other Gulf countries that do not belong and can be erected anywhere in the world. Buildings are responsible for 72% of electricity consumption, and carbon emissions mostly come from the use of private cars and building energy consumption.

Our role as architects and planners shall be to focus on raising awareness. Architects should promote developments and buildings that aim to reduce carbon emission. We must demonstrate that saving energy is cheaper than buying it. For future sustainability, passive design approaches, high quality envelops, proper insulation, and smart responsive buildings technologies are key. Additionally, climate should shape our developments and buildings, not the other way around. Governments need to take steps to limit sprawl and make the general public realize the actual cost of energy and environmental consumption. Otherwise, we will never escape this loop, facing a catastrophic result.