Giant Aisles of Insecurity

One of the aisles in Sam's Club

Have you ever been to one of these department stores where you feel like an insignificant being in the midst of tall shelves filled with products that you can purchase? If you step into Sam's Club, Lowe's, Reasor's, Target, The Home Depot or any such similar store, you'll know exactly what I am talking about. These are designed as large warehouses divided by countless number of aisles, each marked by the different products available. Some of these stores are almost like mazes and you can imagine the exhaustion parents face when their kids have fun playing hide-and-seek! Most times these stores are as high as a two-storeyed building and the shelves on either sides of an aisle are stacked with products ranging from furniture, to kitchen appliances, to garden tools, to pet food, to clothes, to grocery, to anything under the sky! I often wonder why these shelves are as high as they are... did the designer originally imagine customers climbing up as high as two floors to pull out something they wanted to buy? One would merely be able to see what's there at the top of the shelf, so forget about climbing!

Another puzzling characteristic of such aisles is the unpleasant eeriness and insecurity one can experience within an 'empty' aisle. By 'empty' I mean an aisle that is certainly occupied by the tall and filled shelves but devoid of a single customer or store-keeper. It is not just out of mere coincidence that I have had, more than one, unpleasant approaches from men in such circumstances. There have been several incidents starting from illicit begging for money to that of sexual assaults, such as this one where Cameron Aulner, a disabled employee in Walmart, tackled a suspected child molester within Walmart. In such situations these aisles are almost similar to a silent, empty, bad lit, public street where there is a high probability for one to be mugged! The presence of doors through which the victim as well as the perpetrator would have to exit the store and surveillance cameras watching all aisles, are two physical differences from a public street. Even though surveillance cameras provide evidence for investigations, they are insufficient to help, protect or react at the moment of crime. Hence, surveillance cameras and exit doors are not insurers of security.

As a victim of such unexpected events within a department store, I was introspective and considered being humbly dressed the next time I went into one. But then I realized that, maybe, it was not my personality or actions that welcomed such approaches from anybody. I realized that the space within the 'empty' aisles was conducive to such perpetrators; the absence of people in the immediate environment encouraged them to get into their act! Well, it may not be always possible to shove a huge crowd into all of these stores everyday! But it is always possible to rearrange the layout of the shelves so as to create an illusion of surveillance. Minor changes like reducing the heights of the shelves, arranging the aisles radially to face a central cash counter, maybe using a second floor altogether than just increasing the heights of shelves, etc would increase visibility between aisles and hence discourage anybody from getting into 'their act'!

I have to admit that the availability of almost everything in one department store is such a blessing. However, the number of such unfortunate incidents is increasing everyday and they happen not out of bad luck! Ensuring security within department stores is as challenging as ensuring the same outside.

Friendly or frowning mothers!

Lady with a child stroller

Have you ever run into a lady with an adorable and cute child in a stroller? Have you tried to smile and show playful gestures to the child to get its attention? I have had many such encounters, especially when I used to travel on the Oxford Stagecoaches which are designed to accommodate the needs of wheelchair users, mothers with strollers and the like. May I mention this, my such encounters were never pleasant or remarkable and I wish I didn't have to learn my lesson the hard-way.

Children, in any culture, are innocent and are happy to get a lot of attention, even from strangers. They are usually unaware of who strangers are... they are only concerned about who plays with them and who doesn't. Parents are usually the ones who train their kids, as they grow, about the realities of 'stranger-danger'. This is one of the most important and essential lessons to be taught in this peculiar age of crime, abuse and what-not!

The Indian culture (like many other cultures) allows us to show affection, when it comes to a quiet child in a stroller or the hyper-active kid trying to sneak away when the mother/father is inattentive. This is socially acceptable and it reflects the hospitable nature of Indians. Unlike Indians, the English are more intense when it comes to a stranger showing affection to their child. I believe it is good to be alert but it's more than uncomfortable when you come across a frowning mother just because you smiled at her child! Many a times I have almost been embarrassed by the extreme stares from over-protective mothers. It is entirely different to be a victim of crime and to be a victim of fear of crime. Such behavior reflects their own insecurity in a public place. Apparently, these frowning mothers have gotten under my skin and thereafter, I've begun ignoring and stopped even looking at lovable children.

It all fades...

Curious George

Imagine what it was like when you moved to a new place. The first impressions of a place is so vital in shaping your perspective about it. It's so natural for all human beings to be as alert as 'alert' can be when they are in a new place for the first time. They tend to observe and notice not only buildings, trees, cars, people, etc. but also the minute details such as the paving on the road, clothes people wear, the games they play, the streets with or without light, people's laughter, frowns, yawns, and all other features that one can possibly grasp in. It is human tendency to become adventurous and to explore the new place. From some unknown source within ourselves we feel the urge to go through unknown territories and unclaimed routes in order to get more acquainted to our new wonderland!

I have been living in Tulsa, Oklahoma, for the past two months. My husband and I moved here in May, 2010. As much as the excitement was for moving, we were sensitized and stimulated to grasp in all about the new place. We became intoxicated with all the freshness the Arkansas river had to offer us when we moved into our new apartment by the Riverside Drive. We had our own adventures when we ventured out on our bikes, sometimes biking for over 12 miles a day! Our dog Roxy, not used to having flying things around her all the time, would frantically run to chase birds when we tried to walk her by the riverside.

Treasure Hunt

It really doesn't occur to us that whilst we are so engaged in such 'treasure-hunts' we are creating a mental map of this place inside our very brains, or that without any conscious effort our brain starts analyzing every bit of information that one can gather and it starts to instruct us on what's good or bad, what's safe or unsafe, what's ours or theirs! The most interesting thing about human behavior is that after a certain limit we stop exploring, we stop observing, we stop gathering any more information. Is this defined by how much time we venture out or is it defined by the amount of information we have gathered for us to sustain ourselves in this new place? Do you realize the time when the 'new' place becomes 'old' for you? When does it all stop becoming part of an adventure and then become just part of daily errands? When did Roxy stop chasing birds because she was no more delighted to see them 'fly'? Why are we programmed to lose novelty? Why does it all fade away?  

Form Follows Function or Function Follows Form??

Louis Sullivan's
Wain Wright Building

"Form ever Follows Function" was a phrase coined by the architect Louis Sullivan in 1896 and Frank Lloyd Wright, his assistant, adopted and professed this phrase. It became one of the strong principles associated with architecture and industrial design that revolutionized architectural thinking in its modern age. This inspired many renowned architects like Le Corbusier and Mies Van De Rohe. Essentially this principle stated that the shape of a building or object should be primarily based upon its intended function or purpose.

Years after the era of Le Corbusier and Frank Lloyd Wright, the architectural education at many of the schools in India still propagate this school of thought. During my architectural education, the design process I was mentored into started with creating the layout of the room, or 'plan' as it is in technical terms, and then designing the form of the building. As much as it sounds boring, even the products of such design processes were excruciating versions of match-boxes or donuts! Some rational thinkers among my classmates would try the other way around... they would design the form of the building first and then squeeze it with the layout or the plan. Deconstructivists like Frank O Gehry, Rem Koolhaas and Daniel Libeskind have followed this principle, "Function Follows Form" to create their iconic buildings.

Seattle Central Library
by Rem Koolhaas

In real practice, such thinkers often come up with magnificent buildings that stand out in any skyline. But there have been issues concerning their buildings' functional efficiency even in terms of the building's capability to cope with the climate of the area. More often, utility is compromised for aesthetic appeal.

It takes more than just one fundamentalist approach to actually create a successful building that has an interesting and aesthetically pleasing form with an efficient and functional layout. Honestly, there is no one way out!

Unlike architectural design, when it comes to designing efficient cities or urban landscapes, there is only one single rule of magic! "Function follows form". This is where Urban Design differs from Architecture. Urban design deals with a multitude of layers including human and natural systems, economic and political organization, social networking, mobility of humans, goods and services through the ecological and urban web of a city. It deals with the formal and informal, organized and chaotic systems of order which necessitates a design process that allows the product to be receptive of and responsive to changes in time.

An abandoned building in
Youngstown, Ohio

I distinctly remember a lecture by Prof. Ian Bentley, where he said, "the uniqueness of a street is that its constructive elements (the buildings, its functions, roads, pavements, people, etc.) change according to their relative life spans; people in the buildings change quicker than the building's function; the function changes quicker than the building; the building changes form quicker than the pavement or the roads." Hence, if the roads or pavements are rigid, it doesn't allow buildings to change; if the buildings are rigid, it doesn't allow functions to change; so on and so forth. It is imperative for urban design to follow the principle of 'function follows form' because if the form is inefficient, any function will cease to exist over time. This is the natural process.

Now, you know why stores, buildings, apartments, homes and sometimes even entire communities become completely abandoned. It is simply because they were not built to be receptive or responsive to such changes! It is simply the failure of design!

Being a Tulsana: the First Ten Days

We recently moved to Tulsa, Oklahoma. My husband, Sandeep's job brought us here to Tulsa, a region of the Oklahoma state known as 'Green Country'. Tulsa, the 46th largest city of the United States was known as the 'Oil capital of the world' for most of the 20th century and the success of the city at the time reflects in the Art Deco style architecture of the buildings in the downtown area. It is internationally acclaimed for the several permanent dance, theater and concert groups and centers constituting its performance arts milieu.

The downtown area of Tulsa, OK

During the first ten days of our stay here we lived at the Holiday Inn at the city center. For the first time during my stay in the United States I actually lived in the heart of a city and got to actually experience the truth about the decentralized American city. Streets, the backbone of every city, are part of the public realm that allow designated space for cars and people to move through the city without conflict. In Tulsa downtown, however, there were no chances of conflict between vehicles and pedestrians due to the lack of both, vehicles and pedestrians! However, I should say that that was a very convenient situation for me to cross the roads as slowly as I wanted or even dance on them without being noticed or being hit! I enjoyed being in the midst of the downtown architecture and my dog, Roxy, enjoyed her uninterrupted walk.

The point at which I was taken by surprise was when I found out that the restaurants and cafes in the downtown area are open only for lunch hour. These food outlets targeted the only sector of population that would bring them substantial profit: the working population of the downtown. Sandeep and I would have to drive to the nearest suburban food outlets for dinner to take a break from the food served at the Holiday Inn. The same would be the scenario if one had to do any kind of shopping including clothes, grocery, shoes, etc. The proliferation of the suburbs with their shopping mall prototype is a phenomenon that not only renders a city center homogeneous but also makes it close to impossible to accommodate such functions by attempts of revitalization of the city center.

One of the main factors that made our stay pleasurable was Sandeep's job; he could walk to work unlike his previous assignment in Memphis, Tennessee, where he had to drive for an hour to work from home. The close proximity between work and home not only saved travel time and energy but also increased his work efficiency. The conventional planning methodology of placing offices and homes close together was not bullocks after all. This is the element that goes missing in the suburban way of living. In short, even though Tulsa downtown had its disadvantages all three of us, Sandeep, Roxy and I, enjoyed being Tulsanas!!

To Aliens... Earth is the planet of Cars!

I've quite wondered about this while driving my Volkswagen on one of the roads in Memphis, TN. Imagine you are an alien on a spaceship, on a journey towards the planet Earth. Earth, the planet of life, the planet which has more than a million living species, the planet of the blue ocean waters and the green forests. The round globe against the blackness of the outer space would be an incredible sight to the eye, of even the alien.

If you are a well-read alien, you would obviously know about 'human beings' and wonder how they would look like, the species whose population has been smart and powerful enough to conquer not just the planet Earth, but also venture out into space. How do you think would the aliens perceive human beings as? Don't you think it is most likely that the aliens would misunderstand 'cars' as human beings?

Cars... An automobile, motor car or car is a wheeled motor vehicle used for transporting passengers or human beings, which also carries its own engine or motor. They come in all different shapes, sizes, colours and designs. Honestly, such confusion as to what humans look like, is quite possible. It is estimated that there are approximately 600 million motor vehicles being driven on the streets of earth. According to the United States Census Bureau the Earth's human population is estimated to be 6.821 billion. The ratio is one car per 11 people. That is quite a huge number which will confuse even the smartest alien of all. To aliens, the toughest task would be to spot the human species after all!

The Suburban American Dream!?!

Suburbanization and the American dream, after World War II, introduced the Americans into the world of owning a house in the suburbs, the so-called 'best of both worlds' allowing seclusion from the chaos of a city with proximity to nature. It not only encouraged planning of urban landscapes in favour of the 'automobile' but also drew hard lines on the landscape dividing societies in terms of income, colour, etc., for example, as Clinton termed the 'chocolate cities and its vanilla suburbs' for whites and blacks!! So why exactly did the Americans fall for suburbanization? How could they believe that they would have the harmonious balance between the city and the rural setting? Is it so hard to see that they are not just missing the life and action of the city but also being fooled by the fake facade of natural beauty? The people who develop and live in suburbs are essentially just intruders and destroyers of the natural ecosystems that would have otherwise existed on that land.

On a personal level, Cordova, Tennessee has been my first ever experience of living in a suburb. As a student of Urban Design I had read profusely about the downturn of the American cities due to suburbanization, and yet residing in one of these suburbs has been a meaningful experience. Four months of living in one of the 'luxurious' American neighbourhoods has rendered me isolated and devoid of all opportunities of exercising the social being in myself. Ironically, suburbs were designed and marketed as the best places for community living and social interaction! The truth is that one would have to either be walking a dog or getting robbed to have the least human interaction here. The lack of activity outside the four walls of your home leaves one wondering if there are any neighbours after all.

Camden Grove, one of the fenced residential neighbourhoods in Cordova, has an eerie silence to it all the time, be it morning, evening, summer or winter. The inner streets, designed big enough to hold huge fire trucks are more or less like one of the highway roads devoid of pedestrian pavements or cycle tracks. These streets are fairly monotonous with the mirrored/copied match-boxes-like residences lining them and are intended only to serve the automobile with the occasional stop signs and street name boards. Unlike in the city, even waste disposal or collecting one's post becomes a hard task without the service of an automobile. The design of the residential block is even more remarkable; one block has 8 residential apartments the entrances of which face eight different directions so much so that you would never have to cross your neighbours any day. This basic residential block is duplicated as many number of times as required creating copies arranged without any structure in the layout. Finding one's way for a first-timer is more than a horrendous experience combined with confusion between these same buildings just with different numbers.

So, why would one chose to live in a suburb? For a normal human being, a suburb offers only confusion, loneliness, insecurity and detachment. I would rather live in the midst of the noise and action of a city and go trekking or camping once in a while to re-establish my roots with nature, than live in a suburb. I would rather allow the natural ecosystems to exist in their natural habitats than destroy, threaten and endanger them. I would rather have a Black/Hispanic/Asian/American/European/poor/rich neighbour than have no neighbours at all. I would rather have small walkable streets where I can meet a few people than have no pedestrian pavements at all. I would rather hear cars honking, people shouting and children laughing on the streets than the prevailing silence within the suburb. I would rather be a social human being than the isolated privileged suburban dweller!