Forest and the Fast Lane

When it comes to transition, it seems there is a lot to learn in Moscow. I'm currently writing from there, after a day of walking around and taking a few pictures. The things that really stand out are the lasting marks left on the city from very different governing ideas: ornate metro stations, trees everywhere, aging apartment blocks, modernist masterworks, cars racing down streets that take an incredibly long time to cross. Everything Stalinist is gigantic.

Many public works have aged remarkably well. The metro stations are efficient and well maintained. The ones in the center of town have all kinds of architectural touches usually reserved for mansions, theaters, monuments, city halls, and museums. There is a basic sturdiness that prevents them from seeming too extravagant. Public green space lines the streets and fills the insides of apartment blocks. It’s very refreshing on summer days. Parks are full of young couples, new families, and elders reading or just watching people pass by. The ones I’ve seen so far have been clean but not highly manicured, which gives them a kind of wilderness atmosphere.

The trains and parks seem like lasting gifts from the past, although they’re surely changing with today’s frenetic market experimentation. The giant streets are much less successful from a pedestrian’s point of view -- like highways running through city neighborhoods. If they were narrowed and filled in with plantings, spacious sidewalks, and small businesses, the improvement for walkers would be significant. I can’t quite see this happening, as the young and wealthy seem to really love these roadways. They're good for drag races at night and 360 skids in the middle of the day. It all makes Moscow an interesting mix of values and ideas, like any city, but multiplied by something extreme.

(Photos by Peter Sigrist)

Transition States

Development, use, abandonment, reuse, demolition, redevelopment. Transition states. It seems that everything is in transition, but here I'd like to focus on the span of time between clearly defined places like factories and forests.

Development includes combining separate elements into new forms, like making something out of legos. Materials are assembled into buildings, which in turn form cities. This may fulfill a need or function based on reactions to things that came before. In this sense, new things embody the past.

When a thing no longer serves its purpose, it is often abandoned. At this point it can be reused in its current form, reassembled into something new, or destroyed. But it can never really be destroyed. Nearly imperceptible parts remain in circulation. They integrate with other things. They may haunt us in ways more tangible than the ways we haunt places. Smoke can be like a ghost that haunts us.

If left abandoned, things are said to return to nature. Not that they ever left, but they can again be transformed into something else. There is a period of transition. For a building, this may be when weeds start to grow around and within it, or when other life forms make it their home. Eventually it may be enveloped by a forest.

Plants are often considered therapeutic, like Mandela's prison garden. They are also zoned and regulated. We put them in our cubicles, malls, streets, airports, and they represent healthier locations. Why are the places we work not healthy in their own right? How did the real or perceived separation between healthy environments and work environments come about? What was the transition like? And how do we alter the resulting state?

We might consider what happens to the things we develop and abandon. Ideally they are reclaimed, reassembled, or disposed of with care. This is how we prevent a haunted world. Maybe this will help us improve the quality of work sites, or even change the nature of our work. As unhealthy places are abandoned, there is hope for transition. What will this transition be like?

In animation, creating a transition requires a momentary destination state. Maybe we can learn from this. If we envision a solution to each problem that confronts us, clearly defining our origin and destination, we should find improved transitions. Many people are doing this through ecologically oriented design, entrepreneurship, policy, architecture, education, activism, engineering, and other pursuits. Inclusive planning can help us work towards well conceived destination states. We'll still face the unexpected, but we can keep experimenting and solving problems as we move closer to where we hope to be.

(Credits: Photo of transitional space in Harlem by Camilo Jose Vergara of Invincible Cities. Photo of plants growing on an abandoned house from Houses of Tung Ping Chau. Photo of Nelson Mandela in his prison garden from City Farmer News.)