Arab villages

EVOLUTION, NOT REVOLUTION:
A paradigm of urban upgrading in Arab villages and refugees' cores in Israel


PROLOGUE

Like most of Arab localities in Israel, Kabul village has its unique history since Canaanite period. It is located fifteen kilometers to the east of Acre at north Israel. After the 1948 war, refugees from the neighbor villages such as Damon and Mia'ar, which were depopulated, immigrated to Kabul. Those refugees were known as "interior refugees". They didn't leave Israel, but were displaced from their homes and lands to the neighboring villages. Originally, the outline contour of the village land was 1,100 hectares, but in the 70's it was reduced to 700 hectares where as the rest had expropriated by the state of Israel for the sake of its Jewish population. This is for almost, the profile in which all of Arab villages are identical.

In 1948 the refugees were forty percent of the population of Kabul which was then about 600 persons. The living standard of the majority of residents was very low and quite difficult, since more than sixty percent of the population did not own any land for cultivation. Today, the population of Kabul is a bout ten thousand, and by the year 2020 it is expected to be sixteen thousand. For these people, there is only one way of making their living; to work as hired labours in the Jewish sector for a very low income relative to the national average [1]. The situation is getting even worse now as the country is going though a period of recession. Therefore, hundreds of young providers cannot find jobs and are considered unemployed.
The last statistics showed these proportions; the labours are about forty percents of the population, the unemployment rate is twenty percents and the rate of working women only about ten percents. The whole urban system of Kabul suffers from many difficulties [2] as do most other villages, which are due to many deficiencies and limitations in so many fields and various aspects as a consequence of lack of financial supports from the governments of Israel for many decades [3].
The Arab villages and their refugees' cores as urban and architectural issues still generate a vital debate about their political, social, environmental and economical aspects of urbanism. The war of 1948 and its consequences were a "dramatic urban event", which influenced and affected the way that residents lived. Its impact was dramatic change in the physical, spatial, social, economical and environmental structures in the village leading to dramatic changes in construction and residential patterns.
For centuries, the morphology of Arab village developed in a gradual and spontaneous process as an intelligent organism. One of the consequences of the "urban event" is that this urban morphology evolved into hybrid; it stills a homogenous but simultaneously contains a slow, peaceful and primitive process of urbanization. After 1948, the Arab villages became more dependent economically and more receptive in their architectural and urban landscape; from an autarchic economy and traditional-rural life with primitive agriculture to post-event' dependent economy and conformative life with full consumer norms. Eventually, during the last decades the Arab villages had revolutionized by a sequence of planning regulations which were formed by the central planning authorities of Israel. Those regulations were infected with a total misunderstanding of the essence of the village, and the villages were treated with no encouragement of maintaining the traditional-social values of urban preservation. So the ministries interventions forced indirectly the village to a development against its nature and characteristics thus causing a brutal demolition of the historic cores, emptying and "suburbing" the village centre. In place of those old houses, new structures were raised horizontally and vertically, which did not bring or ensure any sustained improvement in the quality of life for individuals and for the community. Consequently, and in some cases, many architectural elements were vanished such as the courtyards and the orchards, at the time that they must be preserved for their traditional values.
Against those many interventions, there is one experiment that stands and highlights a new paradigm of intervention in the urban system of the Arab village with all its components; an inspiration precedent from the refugees experiment and their way of upgrading their urban environment in Kabul.



URBAN MODEL + URBAN MUTATION = URBAN SELECTION OF HUMAN NATURE

At 1951 the refugee flow to Arab villages came to end. These interior refugees were seeking shelter and security, some in the urban cores of existing villages. The majority was settled in slums opposite the indigenous existing core (the old village) as an urban mutation, on a land which classified as a state land. Apparently, such concentric tendency is close to the geographers' definition of "human focality" [4]. Maybe it was the result of the social process and cognitive perception which the refugees absorbed from their home villages. Anyway, for these villages and for their indigenous population the absorption of the refugees was an uncontrolled proliferation and uncontrolled social burden. They were settled as families far from their lands, homes and properties.
In the first decades of the state of Israel, these slums came to be known as "refugee cores" which were built and shaped by the refugees themselves. The majority of the houses were built from temporary materials; tin and waste woods. In addition to the fact that these cores do not appear on any outline contour map they are classified as illegal and informal neighborhoods, thus they were an unplanned and under served neighborhoods for many decades. At that time the original population was more fortunate and acted as an urban model in the whole space. Firstly, the mandatory building law 0f 1936 was valid at that time, and the people knew how to deal with improving their houses. Secondly, the majority of the lands were private property so the population could obtain building permits for their houses. Thirdly, the original core was more secure due to its inward urban organization in the village space and more authentic due to its homogenous and picturesque self-built houses.
The two cores were situated one opposite the other; the original (historic) core and the refugees' core. The first one realized in a freezing moment that the refugee core will not remain a guest but an essential part in the village, and simultaneously, the second core realized ultimately that the indigenous core will not be host from now on, but a big urban model for imitation.
The evolution process started; in the first decade, an urban equilibrium had nearly been achieved within the existing urban tissue, between the model (original core) and the mutation (the refugees' core). Since the mutation suffers more from needs in different areas, its inhabitants generated a process of reproduction, in which the model influences and impacts their way of organization, their architecture and their urban design. So it was a spatial phase in the whole narrative which informed us the evolution story.

URBAN SELECTION OF HUMAN NATURE + TIME =URBAN UPGRADING

The fact that these cores acted like two biological cells in one body, immediately after the 60's and the end of the military rule, they tried to evolve their environment. A new commercial array was appeared in the refugees' core which organized as a primitive imitation of the one in the old core. At this stage, only individuals were turned their slums to concrete mass houses those days, because the arrangement on land ownership still not achieved and any costly improvement will be risky. Consequently, individuals were developed their conditions for almost by minor actions.

Among the seeking for urban equilibrium, amid simplicity and order the vernacular urban upgrading was born. Between risk and trust, "mending" began to design the parting line of the two cores. Consequently, the first education system built in the cores overlap to stitch the two sides of Kabul under social and economical improvements. As a response, new primitive facilities born in the parting line like clinic and post office. Slowly this parting line transformed to seam line and for meanwhile this paradox allowed seemingly dissimilar things to exist side by side as a kind of truth.

At this social-economical phase, the vernacular upgrading of the urban environment was made in sequential grades with no leaps by the people themselves. From now on the time is an essential factor in order to guarantee success in the process, especially when the central governments and the absence of their political will made the amount of spending resources fewer from year to another [5]. In general, this was the official guide line policy of the central authorities; it was a heavy shadow on the urban village development for many decades. During that social and economical organization, the population stills lack the most governmental services, such as electricity and infrastructures. But that didn't prevent the village urban environment to be evolved.


URBAN UPGRADING + URBAN ACTIVITIES = URBAN PROGRESS

At the 70's, the vernacular urban upgrading went on, small businesses and workshops had started to accrue in the village which employed labours from the village. These workshops formed only six percent of the working hands. It wasn't a big improvement relative to the proportion of the labours who worked outside the village. However, it was another important grade in this sequential process.

At that time, if we spot the zoom in, we will explore an organic interaction that didn't reach yet its top performance in the evolution process. It contains urban dialogue, urban inspiration and even urban adoration between the two cores. Each of those cores is a self-contained urban organism with a distinctive and viable community and urban structure. This leaded to maintaining the evolutionary momentum, for example; at the 80's, the refugees tried to retain their core identity by urging the central authorities of Israel to confirm an arrangement in that settled lands. By doing so, they achieved their target in order to continue to function in their environment as well as participate in additional functions and responsibilities of the next higher evolved village, a world where systems moved towards higher organization and complexities-higher order.

This land arrangement was the biggest contribution to the process that ever made by the authorities. Consequently, the reproduction process in the refugees' core brought the urban upgrading to highly performance, for example, the slums vanished totally and were replaced with new concrete and stone houses. Apparently, we can recognize a lot of traditional elements highly reproduced from the indigenous core into urban and architectural design of the refugees' core.

In this physical phase the refugees' core completed the reproduction process which was shaped by urban activities. In order to predetermine space and time of changing urban requirements, a full knowledge of the process of urban life and its daily activities is essential. A space-time concept can produce real urban progress by relating the present-day component requirements to those of the future. So the upgrading architecture and urbanism need full mutual urban activities between the elements of the urban system, while the collective and the individual memories of the refugees are part of this process.


CRITICISM AND FEEDBACK +TIME = SUSTAINABLE OPTIMIZATION

Certain events formed this mental or metaphoric phase which generated by full performance of the urban system elements, the first element was the built up mass which shaped the urban texture grid; for instance, the land arrangement was an event which encouraged the refugees to obtain building permits thus renewal of the neighborhood.
The second element was the urban activities of the quotidian life which shaped the tension grid; for instance, wedding in Arab village its kind of ritual performance in which all the villagers participate with respect to traditional event thus revitalization of the open yards.
The third element was the mutual motion between people and themselves, between urban texture and the urban activities. This element shaped the flux grid; for instance, vertical and horizontal accessibilities paths and traffic axes.
The fourth element was the memory archive. This archive can be an undeleted memory between events which occurred in the host village or in the home village and have been rediscovered for the creation of a new architectural and urban image. Some is a physical and some is a visual and maybe it is an event of place or an event of time-place; for an instance, personal experiences have become the medium through which architecture is produced, promoted, and evaluated [6].
Full performance of the urban system elements is nearly a natural process of evolving, self operating and irreversible but reiterative, which in its course generates novelty, greater variety, more complex organization and eventually higher levels of mental and metaphoric activities. To obtain sustainable optimization it requires a "sensible layout". But in the meanwhile the Arab villages are in the middle of transformation process which was shaped by compound of exterior and interior impacts. From the 80's the village was forced by the central planning authorities to be developed as a big one centre canceling all polycentric heritage, consequently all the master plans just supplied answers to "what to be build?" queries, But the problem is how to build?. The typical planning is suggesting rings areas around one centre. Unfortunately, recent plans and physical changes in many Arab localities illustrate the way that this planning tendency is reshaping the urban condition in which they live.


EPILOGUE

Urban upgrading consists of physical, social, economic, organizational and environmental improvements undertaken cooperatively and locally among citizens, community groups, businesses and local authorities to ensure sustained improvements in the quality of life for individuals [7]. The Architecture of upgrading is concerned only with the built-up mass and it includes all existing buildings whether residential or nonresidential, public or private. Urban upgrading is a sequential process that could not tolerate any leaps. And it has to be planned and based upon the evolution idea and the evolution concept with full public participating. Only Then, the urban system of Arab villages with the refugees' cores will turn to web of terms, associations and themes, which must be undertaken and brought as a base of any debate when architects or urbanists asked to intervene in urban tissues of Arab villages. Consequently, the whole context will desire to be a metaphor in the process of the evolution. And the evolution will come to end.


[1] Israeli Official statistics [1998], Israel. [2] Israeli Official statistics [2002], Israel. [3] Al-haj, M., Rosenfeld, H., [1990], Arab Local Government in Israel, Givaat Haviva, Israel. [4] Embacher, E., [1966], The Urban Evolution Theory. [5] Al-haj, M., Rosenfeld, H., [1990], Arab Local Government in Israel, Givaat Haviva, Israel. [6] Tidwell, P.[2003], Place, Memory, and the Problem of the Architectural Image, winner essay in Berkely prize competition 2003, USA. [7] http://web.mit.edu/urbanupgrading/