deconcrete

The following photo series, Gardens and Shelter, both by Henk Wildschut, illustrate the construction of domestic space for a limited and uncertain time lapse. Its fate at a micro-scale relies not on personal choice but on international law being applied to these extraterritorial settlements. These spaces are constructed by dwellers who know that they will leave them behind sooner or later.

The authors of the temporary gardens outside the tents of the Shousha Refugee Camp await for a decision by the UNHCR that prolongs their stay in the camp or returns them back to their country of origin. The authors of the temporary shelters in an area of Calais, France, known as The Jungle, await for the great crossing of the strait to make a life in Britain. If dwellers of the ‘formal’ tents use blue UN corporate plastics and empty bottles of water as available building materials, the ‘invisible’ dwellers of the tents in the French woods resort to urban waste, such as old clothes and market-plastics. The former scape from war and are housed in a military settlement. The latter seek to enter the consumerist dream and have to house themselves with the remnants of Lidl carrier bags. Both seem to be trapped in the materiality of the conflict they are trying to scape.

How should the UN deal with domesticity in the camps?  Could the ‘irregular’ waiting camps at European border crossings become humanized?

How comfortable or uncomfortable needs to be a transitory place to legitimize its permanence?

[images via Obsessive Collectors]

^ Gardens Photo Series, by Henk Wildschut 2011. Shousha Refugee Camp, Tunisian-Lybian border.

^ Shelter Photo Series, by Henk Wildschut 2006-2009. Tents built by dwellers awaiting to get to Britain in Calais, France.

^ Skyscraper Index. Booms and Crises throughout highrise buildings. Art After Democratism, Installation by Jonas Staal at Traffic, Dubai. Image by deconcrete2013.

^ Traditional masonry wall with coral stones. Sharjah, UAE. Image by deconcrete2013.

^ Urbanizing the desert, Dubai. Image by deconcrete2013.

^ Reconstruction of Traditional Architecture with palm branches. Bed for sleeping outside in the summer. Indian visitors at Dubai Museum. Image by deconcrete2013.

^ Reconstruction of a Wind-Tower (Yawani type) divided diagonally in four sectors for natural ventilation of the sleeping area to catch breeze at night. Dubai Museum. Image by deconcrete2013.

^ Reconstruction of a Wind-Tower (Yawani type). Dubai Museum. Image by deconcrete2013.

^ Cross-section of  a Wind-Tower. Heritage Architecture Museum, Dubai. Image by deconcrete2013.

^ How to Inhabit a Wind-Tower. Heritage Architecture Museum, Dubai. Image by deconcrete2013.

^ Reconstruction of ancient wind-towers (Barajeel type) in old city of Dubai. A/C inside? Image by deconcrete2013.

^ Traditional games for boys to ‘test their strength and endurance’ and games for girls ‘which reflect home life’. Dubai Museum. Image by deconcrete2013.

^ The origin of Dubai economy: Pearl divers at the seashore, a job traditionally carried out by African slaves, when the Gulf Peninsula was a key site of the slave trade route between East Africa and West India (6th-15th centuries). Dubai Museum. Image by deconcrete2013.

^ Turtle-shell nose clips for pearl divers. Dubai Museum. Image by deconcrete2013.

^ Pearl divers in Dubai, a job traditionally carried out by African slaves. Dubai Museum. Children born from enslaved women, concubines of Arab citizens, were ‘born free’. Any trace of their mother’s heritage became obliterated as they took on Arab identities from their fathers. They constituted the Afro-Emirati society. [source> J.D.]. Image by deconcrete2013.

^ Pearl diving areas in the Gulf. Sheikh Shaeed Al-Maktoum House Museum, Dubai. Image by deconcrete2013.

^  Divers. The Waterfall at The Dubai Mall. Image by deconcrete2013.

^ Traditional Palm branches Architecture. Heritage Architecture Museum, Dubai. Image by deconcrete2013.

^ Traditional Architecture of nomadic tribes. Heritage Architecture Museum, Dubai. Image by deconcrete2013.

^ ‘Musical instrument made from goats hooves and worn around the waist’. Dubai Museum. Image by deconcrete2013.

^ Traditional Courtyard house. Heritage Architecture Museum, Dubai. Image by deconcrete2013.

^ 3D collage of traditional Emirati architectures. Heritage Architecture Museum, Dubai. Image by deconcrete2013.

^ Traditional House Elevation. Heritage Architecture Museum, Dubai. Image by deconcrete2013.

^ Emirati man standing in front of a traditional house. Heritage Architecture Museum, Dubai. Image by deconcrete2013.

^ Traditional Building techniques. Heritage Architecture Museum, Dubai. Image by deconcrete2013.

^ Traditional Building techniques. Heritage Architecture Museum, Dubai. Image by deconcrete2013.

^ Traditional Building techniques. Heritage Architecture Museum, Dubai. Image by deconcrete2013.

^ Traditional Building techniques. Heritage Architecture Museum, Dubai. Image by deconcrete2013.

^ Old scheme for a staircase hidden under another staircase. Sheikh Shaeed Al-Maktoum House Museum, Dubai. Image by deconcrete2013.

^ Indoor Ski Slope, Mall of the Emirates, Dubai. Image by deconcrete2013.

^ Indoor Ski Slope, Mall of the Emirates, Dubai. Image by deconcrete2013.

^ Indoor Ski Slope, Mall of the Emirates, Dubai. Image by deconcrete2013.

^ Indoor Ski Slope, Mall of the Emirates, Dubai. Image by deconcrete2013.

^ Mall of the Emirates, Dubai. Image by deconcrete2013.

^ Dubai Aquarium with the largest acrylic panel in the world (32.88 m wide × 8.3 m high × 750 mm thick and weighing 245,614 kg). The Dubai Mall. Image by deconcrete2013.

^ Traditional Water tank, camouflaged A/C and vernacular masonry wall. Dubai Museum. Image by deconcrete2013.

^ Power in Dubai. Image by deconcrete2013.

^ Man rushing to a pop-up Mosque during prayer time in the Labour Camps Area, Dubai. Image by deconcrete2013

^ Contemporary barracks at the Labour Camps for migrant workers, Dubai. Image by deconcrete2013.

^ Alphabetically-named barracks at the Labour Camps for migrant workers, Dubai. Image by deconcrete2013.

^ Downtown Dubai. Image by deconcrete2013.

^ Telecom Palm Trees. Dubai. Image by deconcrete2013.

^ Dragon-shaped floorplan of the Dragon Mart for Chinese goods, Dubai. Image by deconcrete2013.

^ Dragon Mart, Dubai. Image by deconcrete2013.

^ Dragon Mart, Dubai. Image by deconcrete2013.

^ Restored/Reconstructed remnants of the 50-cm-thick Wall of Old Dubai. ‘City walls are one of the prominent architectural features of the urban context of old cities’. Image by deconcrete2013.

^ Historic Tree in Old Dubai. Planting Date: 1960.  Image by deconcrete2013.

^ Rulers of the UAE. Image by deconcrete2013.

^ ‘The government is not a power on the people but the power to serve the people, so the success of the government is to what extend the people satisfy with the government’. In the United Arab Emirates, less than 20% of the population are ‘citizens’. Less than 1% of that 20% is allowed to vote. [source> Human Rights Watch, 2009]. Image by deconcrete2013.

^ Where Dubai ends. Image by deconcrete2013.

^ Monument built with whale bones in Alaska. Image via bloomberg tv

If we look at two types of traditional dwellings in the North Arctic area, whalebone structures and snow houses, we can read a whole ecology and economy on their floorplans. Material structures and spatial configurations blend together in a necessary adaptation of the soil into human habitation.

The most impressive form of the house according to available raw materials is the one resulting out of the waste coming from whaling activity: the lack of trees in the landscape makes whalebones be used as beams for dome-shaped structures. These used to be later covered with turf, snow or already worn-out sealskins for isolation.  Each Inuit whalebone structure was usually composed out of 15-20 jawbones from bowhead whales. They were seasonal shelters used following different hunting patterns throughout the year. In a recent study, Infranet Lab visualizes time in an arctic environment by tracking the nomadic hunting activity that makes settlements still count on an itinerant use of the landscape. Unfortunately, today more and more poorly isolated prefab houses are clashing with seasonal inhabitation of eskimo territories.

^ Bowhead whalebone structure via myriammahiques

^  Alaskan eskimo house (skins and whalebone) ca. 1906 via University of Washington

^ Engraving of a house made with whalebones, Olaus Magnus 1555. Image via sciencephoto

^ Thule Winter house – Whalebone structure. Image via the canadian encyclopedia 

^  Image via Indigenous Architecture of the Americas.

^  Whalebone structure in Point Hope, Alaska. Image via virtual tourist Point Hope.

Snow houses have traditionally followed a pattern of co-residency through clusters of connected or disconnected igloos. The dwellers of each cluster were determined by alliances between families and household organizations, leadership or kinship. Composite snow houses could therefore mutate with the years. They included indoor public space for festivals, feasts and games, singing, drumming or dancing, for the members of the cluster. Spaces were shared according to respect-obedience relationships between different male members of the alliance/family.

The three cases below correspond to houses from 1922, 1866 and 1915, as published in Space Syntax Analysis of Central Inuit Snow Houses, by Peter C. Dawson. Journal of Archaelogical Anthropology, Dec 2002.

^ Snow House Longitudinal section. Image via the canadian encyclopedia

^ Holcim Awards Gold 2011 for Food Arctic Networks, by InfraNet Lab. Images by  via detail-online.

^ The idea of enclosure of common ground within a household graphically reminds also of the brilliant organization of traditional farms in Cameroon, where the intimate areas configure the boundary of the public realm.  Image via zkfound

^ Mobile stalls and devices to let the train pass through. Rom Hoob Market, Thailand. images via othermarkets

Rom Hoob Market / Mae Klong Railway Market Thailand

[Phenomena of Transition. read full text by Soranart Sinuraibhan at othermarkets]

[...] There is no definite entrance to Rom-Hoob market. People can, and do, access it at the beginning of the market (next to Mae-Klong station) or through small passageways which are situated at oblique angles through the market and connect the main road with the central market. All stalls are set up next to the railway track with out-stretching sun-shades that informally establish a defined corridor through the whole market. The track is then transformed in this manner into a footpath. The sun-shade is simply improvised from a tent sheet, ropes, a bamboo pole, a steel post and whatever else locals can find at the site. The entire structure is simply designed and constructed by locals. It is easy to operate and can be collapsed by just one to two people. After assembly, the tent sheet can be stretched out up to 2 meters in length and lifted up to 2-3 meters high. Interestingly, the sun-shade attached to each stall and its stands are designed to be able to close and move each time the train passes through (6 times daily). 

Through critical examination of each stall, the relationship between the everyday architecture (occupied by its inhabitants) and the flows of space is revealed. The stalls can be categorized into several forms according to different foods and products. Vegetables and fruits are put in baskets and placed next to or immediately on top of the track. There is no need to move these baskets when the train comes as the space between the wheels allows it to pass completely over the baskets. Seafood, chili paste, or light weight products are laid on small tables, which are readily assembled from a piece of wood and metal stands. These can be easily dismantled, lifted up and moved. Heavier products, such as meats or household items, are placed on bigger and stronger stainless-steel tables with wheels attached. These tables are custom made and come in different sizes. They can slide in and out when the train passes through and are simply operated by hand. Most sellers, however, prefer to sit on the floor or existing railings, as in one view, it is more convenient and easier to move when the train comes.

[...]

By looking at the urban context of Rom-Hoob market, we see that it is not only shaped by the movement of trains and users, but in fact by the flows of capital and economics themselves. The form of the market is squeezed and stretched along the railway track because of the space limited within the city which is in turn affected by the flows and growth of the capital. Moreover, the utilized spaces within the market are similarly defined by the particular flows of transportations and goods. The language of this colloquial architecture which emerges within this context is then constructed by the everyday lives and needs of the community; and in particular the energy of flows. This suggests that the existence of Rom-Hoob Market (excludes street markets) disprove Castells’ historical claim, namely that flows displace spaces of places. Today’s architecture seems to survive only when it reflects what the society or culture expects of it and particularly when our society and (architectural) culture rely on the flows. But Rom-Hoob Market offers a way in which places are perceived and appropriated across the internal space of time and culture. This suggests that it may not be necessary to search for emergent possibilities in constructing architecture in our fluid world. Perhaps by looking back to the local and the everyday discourses, an idea or alternative conception of what architecture in the space of flows can be will emerge.

^ Cartography of of the migrant boat tragedy within NATO maritime surveillance areas (early Spring 2011). Source: Charles Heller, Lorenzo Pezzani and SITU Studio, Forensic Architecture (ERC) via the guardian.

A group of 72 sub-Saharan men, women (some pregnant) and children boarded a small inflatable rubber dinghy to scape from Gaddafi’s Libya. They departed from Tripoli on 26 March 2011. Smugglers had been organising migrants to Lampedusa for a theoretical 18-hours trip. After one day, panic rose amongst migrants for running out of fuel and water. They contacted a priest in Rome (Father Zerai) with their satellite phone, who contacted Italian Maritime Rescue and Co-ordination Centre, informing about the situation. He provided the number of the phone to locate them with precision via GPS. A helicopter came and lowered down water bottles and biscuits with a rope from above. Other fishing boats and Nato military vessels were in the area without assisting them. The boat drifted away until it reached back Libyan coast 16 days after their departure with only 11 people on board.

This research is part of Forensic Oceanography, an investigation into the conditions which have caused the death of more than 1500 persons (estimate by UNHCR) in the Central Mediterranean in the Spring of 2011.

Read further:

Migrants left to die after catalogue of failures

Nato ‘failed to aid’ Lybian migrant boat

^ Monument of Sugar, 2007 by Van Brummelen & De Haan. 304 sugar blocks installed at Argos, Brussels.

<Following the discovery that a large amount of European sugar ends up outside of Europe, we embarked on a research trip to investigate the European subsidized sugar trade. We travelled to Nigeria to purchase European excess sugar cheaply and to ship it back home. To elude the European trade barrier for sugar imports we made use of a minimal artistic intervention and transformed the sugar in situ into a monument. In this way we could submit our import application under the Uniform Commercial Code Law 9703, which applies to all monuments and original artworks regardless of the material in which they are produced. The material result of this research, two groups of sugar modules, is shown together with a film essay, which charts our travels and investigations into the sugar trade. Slowly running titles narrate the obstacles we faced to find out more about the sugar trade as well as the difficulties we encountered in the production of the monument. These running titles are intersected by documentary footage exploring, in long slow takes, hidden production landscapes of global trade, like crop fields, sugar refineries, flow-bands, harbors, and the different sites where we performed our drifting studio practice.>

^^ ‘Encampments’ in Europe and around the Mediterranean Sea (waiting areas for admission or deportation of migrants). By Migreurop, 2009.

vs.

^ Irregular Migrant routes, by ICMPD.

^ Map by Bill Rankin, 2005, 2006.

After discovering RadicalCartography online archive through StudioMagazine, I felt really anxious by looking at this map on the urban mass transit systems in North America. There are no borders, no seashore, no mountains. It’s all about connections. Or rather missed connections, since one cannot avoid wondering why discontinuous lines do not touch each other and allow people commute from Ciudad de México straight to Ottawa. Or from San Diego to LA. As Alexis Bhagat and Lize Mogel state, radical cartography defines the practice of mapmaking that subverts conventional notions in order to actively promote social change. The extension of the rhizomes of every city reveals on one hand hidden connections to the hinterland, but the other, the unserviced gaps between those urban regions that are excluded from the network.

Geographical distances are clearly replaced by duration of commuting journeys. And space is superseded by time.

^ [images & text by Slavs and Tatars. Drafting Defeat: 10th Century Roadmaps, 21st Century Disasters, 2007.

Maps of The Arabian Peninsula, Egypt, Syria, The Persian Gulf, The Caspian Sea and Iraq by Abu Ishaq Ibrahim Ibn Muhammad Al-Farsi al-Istakhri aka Abu’l Qasim Ubaid’Allah Ibn Khordadbeh aka Al Farsi aka Istakhri.]

< We have always had an aesthetic weakness for the merciless and brutal banality of bureaucracy. Little did we know that such a weakness would extend to the bureaucrats themselves. The following are reproductions of 10th-century maps by Al-Istakhri (aka Ibn Khordadbeh or Al Farsi) found in a 1933 Soviet edition of Nasser Khosrow’s Safarnameh, or Book of Travels. Both Istakhri and Khosrow were Persian bureaucrats whose legacy was a paper trail of the very antithesis of administration: a regime of curiosity that attempted to describe and map out the Middle East as a coherent geographic and cultural region. Khosrow, an 11th-century Persian poet and philosopher, had led an uneventful life as a tax collector in present day Turkemenistan when one night, in his sleep, a voice told him to leave behind his life of worldly pleasures. Khosrow dropped his avowed weakness for the medieval Merlot and began immediately to plan a seven-year trip through the Caucases and the Caspian to the holy cities of Medina and Mecca. Khosrow was, to some extent, the millenary Muslim equivalent of a 21st-century born-again Christian. Except where the former asked questions, the latter offers only solutions. Where the former travelled extensively, the other is unlikely to have a passport.

Academia, the publisher of Safarnameh, was itself an unorthodox outfit in the Soviet landscape of the early 20th century with a reputation for smart, unexpected titles on relatively limited runs. These maps were drafted during a period when Islamic geography rekindled an interest in Roman and Greek scholarship abandoned by the Christian West. Early draftsmen including Istakhri contributed to An Atlas of Islam, with a visible bias for the Farsi-speaking peoples in the Middle East, where a boundless taste for geometric shapes and symmetry belongs today more to the world of fantasy than fact. Later cartographers such as Al-Idrisi went on to craft intricate maps on improbably luxurious materials (e.g. a 400-pound tablet of silver) with even more improbable names (such as The Gardens of Humanity and the Amusement of the Soul) that would serve for centuries to follow. When Christopher Columbus studied these maps, before setting out to sea, we wonder: did it occur to him that his future would be no less unpredictable than our past? >

With hungry predators hovering nearby, the little birds must converge, flocking together, in an attempt to confuse the sparrowhawks, buzzards and peregrine falcons. [...] Each starling tracks seven other birds – irrespective of distance – which produces the group’s aerial ballet.

[all images> "Murmurations" of starlings at Gretna, Anglo-Scottish border_November 2011 via dailymail]

How to visualize Neo-Agrosophy and the hypothetical reterritorialization of a field when living off-grid:

< FieldMachine 1.0 [developed by FieldClub] is an interactive webtool which you can use to design your own self-sufficiency ‘unit’ based on what you would like to eat in a Britain without imports, and what kind of fuel you would like to burn for heating and cooking. The FieldMachine 1.0 allows the individual to plan and achieve recommended daily levels of essential nutrients. As your chosen options are entered, the FieldMachine 1.0 determines how much land is needed to produce each chosen food/fuel item, and also how many other humans could live in Britain if everyone did the same.

Step 1: Use the sliders in the Daily Food Values table below to achieve a daily balanced diet (Blue = too little,Red = too much, Green = balanced).
Step 2: Choose your strawbale house size and renewable fuel type.

Tips:

Daily Kcals will be affected the most by high carbohydrate foods such as Wheat, Potato, and Butter.

Daily Proteins – by Meat, Egg, Beans and Nuts. Daily fats – by Cheese, Butter and Nuts.

The fuel type you choose can radically affect the area of timber required (for example Native Broadleaf Woodland yields at 3 tonnes per hectare, whereas Short Rotation Coppice Red Alder yields at 15 tonnes per hectare).
The equations in this calculator use data from the USDA, the CIA, the World Health Organisation, Department of Environment Food and Rural Affairs (UK gov), and the Organic Farm Management Handbook – (Organic Farming Research Unit, Institute of Rural Studies, University of Wales).
The ‘Population Discriminator’ calculation uses the current usable agricultural land (including woodland) in the UK (22,205,000Ha – DEFRA), and the current UK population (60,600,000 – CIA). >

[TRY DEMO to calculate your sef-sufficiency unit]

Dale Farm is a territory of contradiction, where a legal border divides a community. Two adjoining sites, 30-min-train away from London, used to be scrapyards that were turned into living quarters. The first estate was self-established as a nomad settlement for Irish Travellers and Gypsy and Roma families some sixty years ago (45 plots). The other one is an extension that dates back to 2000 and is composed of 52 plots. The former is authorised, but the latter is not. These ethnic minorities purchased both sites and legally own them. Prefab-houses and caravans are scattered along the lanes. However, after many applications, the most recent one still lacks any building permission, whereas the neighbouring one was built in a formal way in past decades.

Consequently, conservative-run Basildon District Council decided to carry out the demolition of the second settlement, the largest eviction in UK history, with a total cost of £18 million for the clearance and without providing any other site for the resident families. Today, the Court should have decided the final fate for the settlement. Activists had already started a protest camp inside (“Camp Constant”), and built several barricades across the inner lanes of this community together with the residents by applying the wittiest military resistance tactics. But the verdict has been postponed till Monday, so dwellers are returning some of the caravans that were brought to the legal site in case of eviction back to the illegal one.

Irish Travellers minority used to share with gypsies a nomad lifestyle. Today what remains is still their seasonal working schedule. Activists have referred to the eviction as “ethnic cleansing”. But personally, I do not think it is a matter of cultural identities, but aporophobia and fear to the unstable. The contemporary spatial habits of Irish Travellers are just a direct result of social exclusion. Their cultural identity is very much influenced by the fact of being “out of established society”. That’s what joins them and makes them configure a strongly tied community. Unfortunately, it is the society that they cannot belong to what eventually gives meaning to their identity.

Dale Farm is located in the middle of the countryside, about 10 km away from the nearest village. One can only wonder why it is so important for authorities to evict the settlers living in that remote site lacking building permission.

Why did the Council even provide the needy families on-site with tax benefits if their dwellings were not legal?

If their mere existence makes villagers feel so uncomfortable, why not directly promote the eviction of both sites?

Why has their application for allowance to build on the site they legally own been constantly denied?

Authorities argument that the illegal site lies on a green belt land, but at the same time, there used to be a scrapyard in the same area only 10 years ago.

The only way for us to reach Dale Farm from the nearby railway station was by taxi. And maybe the only explanation to these questions, as absurd as coherent, was revealed to us in a conversation with the extremely prejudiced driver, who took us to the nearest crossroads to the site from the station (he refused to drop us off at the very entrance):

You will understand it when you grow older.

[1-8>Dale Farm Protests by deconcrete2011][9> Dale Farm_aerial view via bbc]

Pfand is a magic and highly used German word for deposit; it functions as a sort of informal contract between two parties or even a contemporary form of barter. Usually involving small valuables, it is largely used for returnable bottles. In Germany there are three official prices for empties:

*Standard beer bottles: 0,08 € / unit

*Other glass bottles and special ones: 0,15 € / unit

*Aluminium cans and most hard plastic bottles: 0,25 € / unit

Supermarket machines scan returned empties and one gets the value of the goods back.

Pfandgeben.de is a non-profit platform to bring people together. It puts empties’ holders (Pfandbesitzern) and collectors (Pfandsammlern) simply in contact. By means of a website, it is possible to search a list of available collectors in one’s neighbourhood, call or text to their cell phone numbers, so that they pick up the empties for free. Depending on the amount of bottles that one needs to get rid of, different names appear to be willing to pick them up: under 20 bottles, around 20, around 30, around 40 or more than 40. Jonas Kakoschke, assisted by Corinna Northe and Mareike Geiling, started the initiative within his communication design studies at HTW in Berlin. However, the list of service providers is growing out of town; the network is expanding already to other German cities like Augsburg, Essen or Cologne. The website provides also the possibility to enter new phone numbers from potential collectors, as well as accept donations of old cell phones and SIM cards for collectors even lacking this basic infrastructure.

The returnable bottles system has basically an ecological and energetic aspiration to reduce pollution and human waste. But the bottom-up network launched by Kakoschke implements it with a social plus: a mutual benefit for both holder and collector in form of a Win-Win typical situation. The empties’ holder does not need to take them back to the supermarket and the nomad collector becomes extra earnings for the job, without wandering around the streets for so long.

Trash collection is regarded as something natural and logic in developing countries, making informal networks recycle as many materials as formal systems provided by Governments. But it makes even more sense that this phenomenon takes place in the developed consumption world. Communication development and Internet politics build a parallel virtual city of negotiations, which can facilitate the exchange of super specific products and services.

The Mediterranean Sea is not a sea; it is Southern Europe’s border wall.

The Maghreb is literally any territory west from Egypt; Cairo functioned as the georeference for a Greenwich-like system in the Arab world.

The Sahara Desert was traditionally perceived as a vast sea; the Maghreb was referred to as an island surrounded by Mediterranean, Atlantic and Sahara “waters”.

Tuareg former free territories belong to five different countries today.

Western Sahrawi are deprived from their nomadic life in the desert by a 2,000 km long artificial wall of sand, dug out from their very same desert.

Ancient nomad trans-Sahara trade tracks are the new highways for work migrants.

Tangier-Med is a key mega-port for global mobility of goods. It lies just opposite Bel Younech informal camp, where migrants wait for a chance to cross over to the global consumption dream.

How much I love my family is measured according to how much money I send them.

Migrant boats have to be built clandestinely in the desert and brought to the coast at the moment of launching them into the sea.

A prison in Italy is better than freedom at home.

Chinese migrants struggling to survive in Cairo have taken over the role of traditional door-to-door female vendors, the Dallala.

The poorest and driest region in Almeria, Southern Spain, has been turned into one of the most fertile and wealthiest, thanks to the labour of irregular Maghreb migrants.

Doctors and engineers are bricklayers and fruit pickers.

The Maghreb Connection is a compilation of essays and research projects that assemble everyday reality in this part of Northern Africa. Edited by Ursula Biemann and Brian Holmes, The Maghreb Connection charts counter-geography through various contributions, apart from their own: Armin Linke, Yto Barrada and Hala Elkoussey among others. As the editors define the term: counter-geography is where the subversive, informal and irregular practices of space take place, the ones that happen despite state forces and supranational regulations.

The desert acts as a sort of waiting room for millions of desperate souls awaiting the chance to be crossed over the border to an idealized world. This post-colonial migration movement relies upon an extensive network of alliances to reach their final goal. Ali Bensaâd outlines also the fact of being unconditionally mobile people. This is the common feature to all this floating population in African coasts, who wants to venture into the other side: The individuals with the most resources in terms of opennesss to the outside are the most susceptible to becoming mobile. They are entrepreneurs in a way, in our era where the “entrepreneur” is promoted as the social ideal-type. Every migrant leaves everything behind: belongings, family and life.

European sealed borders delimit an area of free mobility after Schengen Agreement; but at the same time, they enhance the desire to start a real exodus and be inside them.  Either if it is the Strait of Gibraltar, Canary Islands’ or Lampedusa’s waters, a never-ending flow of irregular boats keep on trying to touch European ground. The Maghreb works as the departure point to bridge the gap between two continents. Florian Schneider points out that (i)n the nineteenth century, people had no problems crossing borders, while goods and products were taxed. Now it is the opposite: goods and money are supposed to flow freely, while people face more and more obstacles.

The Maghreb Connection throws a light into the kind of ambitions that move humans to start such a journey to Europe, as well as the mechanisms and strategies that make it feasible. We usually only hear in the media of the ones who are caught in their attempt and those who perish. However, the successful are already victorious somewhere at the other side of the Maghreb, where another hard journey begins for them.

[1,2,3> Biemann, U. / Holmes, B. (eds.): The Maghreb Connection – Movements of Life Across North Africa. Actar 2006]

[4> Informal Migrant Camp Bel Younech, Morocco_Eduardo del Campo 2009] [5> La Canoa by El Roto]

Last week diverse media have been announcing ultimate aircraft prototypes for the future; from fully see-through fuselage, making contemplation of sunset, clouds and storms feasible, to hypersonic speeds covering Paris-Tokyo in 2,5 hours. This made me wonder how the Air Force One, the flying White House, looks like. How to modify a standard aircraft into one of the main centres of itinerant global power? The Boeing 747, used since 1990, has three decks; the upper level reserved for pilots, crew and communication centre; the main deck for the mobile headquarters, Presidential quarters, security and press; the lowest for equipment cargo. However, the most striking feature concerning the interior spatial organisation is that it could literally be a mansion in solid ground. Conventional codes of comfort are directly transposed into the air: cushions, handcrafted furniture by master carpenters, thick carpets, office blinds, living-room lamps, leather sofas, oak tables… Almost 1:1 scale reproductions of items that could perfectly be on earth. The flying Oval Office is nonetheless prepared to stay up in the air indefinitely. Its in-flight refuelling system, allows the aeroplane avoid touching ground in case of emergency.

Although every Air Force One flight is classified as a military operation and handled as such, it does not differ from a social meeting at the earthly White House. The furbishing is closely linked to every mandate, making the President always feel at home. When Ronald Reagan’s body was flown inside the Air Force One to Washington, the front of the aircraft was changed exactly the way it was when he was President. Original crew jackets, chairs, books and even candies replaced the present ones to make widow Nancy Reagan feel at home during the flight.

Presidents, Kings, Prime Ministers and important leaders unveil their way of understanding politics and representing the country through their personal aircraft. In the graphic below Poor Country, Wealthy Aircraft (2008), some of the most prominent jets are related to the GDP per capita of the country. Citizens’ taxes support their leader’s plane.

Being detached satellites from the mother ship, embassies dining halls are also carefully conceived to present and represent a country to its guests; presidential aircrafts go a step further in the same line by being both temporary homes and ephemeral offices.

[1> Air Force One Floor Plan 2009 via How Stuff Works][2-4> Interiors of Obama's Air Force One by Pete Souza][5>Poor Country, Wealthy Aircraft by Rafa Salas/La Vanguardia, 2008] [6> Russian Air Force One interiors via home-designing]