Dynamic Land-Use
Rewriting land-use for emergent development and resource sharing in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia
Land Use Planning Doesn’t Work in Unplanned Neighborhoods
Land Use Planning allows governments to manage the development and use of land in an efficient and ethical way across many stakeholders like citizens, policy-makers and developers. Its particularly useful in creating a set of agreed upon guidelines well in advance of district’s development.
However, land use planning doesn’t work for unplanned communities — where almost 3 billion of the world’s population lives.
However, land use planning doesn’t work for unplanned communities — where almost 3 billion of the world’s population lives. Why is this a problem? Settlers in unplanned neighborhoods do-what-they-will with the land without holistic for-sight for the entire district. Without centralized infrastructure, residents lack access to plumbing and electricity. On top of this pollution makes life in these unplanned communities difficult: millions of homes are individually heated creating waste, or electricity is run on coal-fed generators making air unbreathable, while millions of off-the-grid bathrooms allow sewage to pollute local waterways that locals rely on for drinking.
In cities with strict planning guidelines, shared plans map out the city with all of the most recent developments so that decisions can be made with holistic knowledge of how a new plan impacts a district. In unplanned neighborhoods there is little central record on what has been or is being developed, thus making coordinated planning next to impossible.
Working with Locals
Columbia’s graduate architecture studio worked with a local nonprofit, GerHub, to develop innovative solutions to their land planning. Through workshops with locals and extensive in person interviews, we developed an understanding of the complexities and uniqueness of problems faced by residents.
Creating Dynamic Land Use for the Ger Districts
Rewriting land-use for emergent development and resource sharing.
Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia is a city transitioning from a nomadic to sedentary lifestyle. The country evolved from a period of economic hardship immediately following Soviet withdrawal in 1989, to a democratic electoral system and free-market economy. Fast and unplanned growth has led to resource scarcity and pollution in ger districts. Loose building codes and a lack of boundaries has intensified poor resource management at an exceedingly dense scale.
The following investigates how a dynamic land-use process could incentivize holistically planned land-uses in the unplanned Ger Districts of Ulaanbaatar. By evaluating the placement of buildings via satellite or self reported data, neighborhoods would be regularly incentivized to share strategically placed infrastructure based on proximate walking distances.
Using a new method of quantitative land use analysis, recommendations can be made for strategic placement of the shared typology based not on a static masterplan, but made dynamically and continually as plots develop and based on existing latrines best suited to serve multiple families. Satellite imagery together with female neighborhood leaders on the ground can validate existing conditions and enact better resource management — by involving community members in this process of site selection. This method can save a district hundreds of thousands of dollars collectively as resources are pooled and used more optimally. The neighborhood fund could incentivize these new typologies, and help with organizing overhead costs.
Strong winds strip house perimeters of heat, but when their construction forms a barrier, winds are broken, and houses can share the cost of constructing flue walls. Placement of new houses would be scored by distance to the kaasha boundary and proximity to neighboring houses flanking walls. Within these predetermined optimal build sites residents will be incentivized through neighborhood funds to build within these zones.
Lying in wait to care for children, parents are unable to work or raise themselves out of poverty, and burning coal to heat a house for one person. Meanwhile on the other side of their fence another parent could easily share the responsibility of caring for children and reduce coal usage by consolidating occupied space. Strategically placed, gers can host daycares during the daytime to consolidate occupancy and share childcare workloads. Daycare siting will be scored for the number of families in proximity to gers, the number of adjacent gers to rotate in childcare, and the amount of free land so that children can roam safely.
As pressure for resources increases on our planet current planning will need to evolve beyond its simplistic mechanisms that understand land as solely owned sub sectioning it as if it was eternally guarded by its owner.
