Jacobs, Newman and the Orgone Accumulator

Secured by Design: The Practitioner’s View The Long View or Jane Jacobs, Oscar Newman and The Orgone Accumulator Rob Annable – December 07

Secured by Design Partnership input:
Secured by design application form is a game of two halves:
SECTION 1: THE DEVELOPMENT – LAYOUT & DESIGN
SECTION 2: PHYSICAL SECURITY
Primary concern as an architect is with section 1 – without good layout and design the
physical security will be ineffective.

Jane Jacobs Oscar Newman The Death and Life of Great American Cities (1961) Defensible Space (1972)

Jane Jacobs Oscar Newman ‘ legibility?’ The Death and Life of Great American Cities (1961) Defensible Space (1972)

Jane Jacobs Oscar Newman The Death and Life of Great American Cities (1961) Defensible Space (1972) Paul Ritter Planning for Man and Motor (1964)

“… All Defensible Space programs have a common purpose: They restructure the physical layout of communities to allow residents to control the areas around their homes. This includes the streets and grounds outside their buildings and the lobbies and corridors within them.. . ” “… A family’s claim to a territory diminishes proportionally as the number of families who share that claim increases. The larger the number of people who share a territory, the less each individual feels rights to it…” - Creating Defensible Space (1996) Oscar Newman Defensible Space (1972)
different building types create spaces outside the dwelling unit that affect residents’ ability to control them
grouping of units in different types of building configurations creates indoor and outdoor spaces of different character.

“… Police arguments which say that paths cannot be controlled by vehicle, that criminals cannot be properly pursued if they run on to path systems , and that paths plus roads necessitate a doubling up of police duties, must be analysed. It emerges then that paths planned as an integral part of housing are much more the concern of the inhabitants than the normal road in front of houses so that policing becomes unnecessary. Emergency phone boxes are all that is required…” Paul Ritter Planning for Man and Motor (1964)
Homes must have direct access to a footpath system
This footpath system must lead to all the gathering places of the inhabitants
The motor vehicles will be completely separate from the path system

Jane Jacobs The Death and Life of Great American Cities “… First there must be clear demarcation between what is public space and what is private space. Second, there must be eyes upon the street, eyes belonging to those we might call natural proprietors of the street. The buildings on a street equipped to handle strangers and to ensure the safety of both residents and strangers must be oriented to the street. They cannot turn their backs or blank sides on it and leave it blind. And third, the sidewalk must have users on it fairly continuously… ”
Jacobs led the way in advocating for a place-based, community-centered approach to urban planning, decades before such approaches were considered sensible
2. Jacobs argued for:
Cities as Ecosystems
Mixed-Use Development
Bottom-Up Community Planning
The Case for Higher Density

Space! People!

Clear demarcation between what is public space and what is private space. Allow residents to control the areas around their homes.

They cannot turn their backs or blank sides on it and leave it blind. This includes the streets and grounds outside their buildings

The domain of the house encompasses the street There must be eyes upon the street. Territory!

Wilhelm Reich (March 24, 1897 – November 3, 1957) was an Austrian-American psychiatrist and psychoanalyst. “ His work on the link between human sexuality and neuroses emphasized "orgastic potency" as the foremost criterion for psycho-physical health. He said he had discovered a form of energy, which he called “orgone“, that permeated the atmosphere and all living matter, and he built “orgone accumulators”, which his patients sat inside to harness the energy for its reputed health benefits.” Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilhelm_Reich
‘ Radburn Idea’
Homes must have direct access to a footpath system
This footpath system must lead to all the gathering places of the inhabitants
The motor vehicles will be completely separate from the path system
“ As the Radburn Idea sprang from considerations of living conditions in the motor age it is really not surprising that it lends itself better to the satisfaction of the needs listed. Why the needs listed are the real criteria of livability is explained in the work of Wilhelm Reich…” - Paul Ritter

The Orgone Accumulator!

The Orgone Shooter!

Reich's examples of orgonomic functionalism usually involved "antithetical functional pairs" of concepts. Reich would usually draw a symbol that looked something like this: Source: http://pw1.netcom.com/~rogermw/Reich/functionalism.html and then label the two curving arrows on top with two opposing ideas, and the big dot at the bottom with those two ideas' "common functioning principle." mechanist mystic CFP Orgonomic functionalism – a thought technique:

motor man path

Is this legible?

Orgone Accumulator – Hawkwind 1973 I've got an Orgone Accumulator It makes me feel greater I'll see you sometime later When I'm through with my Accumulator It's no social integrator It's a one man isolator It's a back brain stimulator It's a cerebral vibrator

Summary:
How do we build in long term legibility?
Long term success of urban design legibility depends on the creation of diverse, flexible territory between public and private spaces
This territory should be robust enough to resist cultural, economic and environmental change – it should not be a single gesture or idea
The quality (both visual and functional) of the semi-private and semi-public boundaries should imbue the territory with ‘place-based’ meaning
Creating meaning ensures that residents and visitors alike understand the purpose of the territory
Successful territory requires successful landscape

Item 2.5 A clearly defined environment means one in which there is no ambiguity as to which areas are private, which are public, and how the two relate to one another. There may be transitional zones of semi-public or semi-private space [often referred to as buffer zones], or there may be strong physical demarcation between public and private areas by means of a wall, fence or hedge. The critical point is that the environment should be capable of being easily understood by those experiencing it. http://www.securedbydesign.com/pdfs/SBD-principles.pdf Secured By Design Principles document says:

bibliography
Planning for Man and Motor - Paul Ritter 1964
Death and Life of Great American Cities – Jane Jacobs 1961
Defensible Space – Oscar Newman 1972
Creating Defensible Space – Oscar Newman 1996
Eric Lyons and Span – RIBA Publishing 2007
Ether God and Devil: Cosmic Superimposition – Wilhelm Reich 1951
Orgone Accumulator – Hawkwind 1973

Jacobs, Newman and the Orgone Accumulator

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