City Of The Future?
Posted: 30 Jan 2014, 17:35
I've just got back from Marrakech. After a very busy Autumn we needed a break and some extra daylight, and we're both interested in the handcrafts that are an integral part of Berber culture. So we went there.
We stayed in the heart of the Medina (the old walled city) in a B&B and spent our days wandering around and enjoying the change of scene.
It struck me that, old as Marrakech's Medina is, it may represent a good model for energy-descent city-living. It's easy to imagine energy-descent living in a low population density, rural or village context. But, for me, I've always struggled with the idea of how a highly populous city could operate with relatively low energy requirements and a consequently lower emissions footprint.
The Medina is not large (you can cross it on foot in about half an hour) but it is incredibly dense. As you'd expect in a hot climate, many of the buildings are designed around internal courtyards, with the external walls abutting other buildings, often on three sides.
The Medina was traditionally organised as a series of communities (villages within a city). It still functions largely like this today. Typically, each community has a communal water fountain, a Hammam (steam bath / wash house), a communal bakery and a mosque. People bring their bread dough to the bakery where it is baked for free. The bakery oven and the water for the Hammam are heated by the same wood-burning furnace. One fire, providing for the multiple needs of several families.
Each community has artisans specialising in one or more crafts, including tinsmithing, blacksmithing, tanning, dying, leatherwork, tailoring and woodwork. There is a kind of internal market in the city, in which raw materials are traded and turned into progressively more useful or value-added end-products. Of course, tourists at the moment represent a large part of the top of this food-chain, but one can imagine trade going on between the city and outlying villages, exchanging food for such things. A lot of manufacture was being done by hand, or using hand-powered machinery. I came back with a design for a hand powered wood-turning lathe, far smaller and less complex than the pole-lathes you see in Britain.
Transport of choice in the narrow lanes and alleys is foot, bicycle, moped or donkey. There are some truly imaginative conversions of mopeds and bikes into cargo-carrying machines. Cars are a rarity.
Looking across the roofline, the city is a sea of solar thermal water heaters (though, interestingly, not very much solar PV - maybe they just don't need much electricity). Our B&B was in one of the courtyard houses. I imagine it must be relatively cool in summer. In January, evening temps were around 4 degrees. The house had a removable polythene cover over the courtyard to keep heat in and rain out, and a wood fire in the evening which provided ample heat.
We went to a photography museum (my passion!) which had images of street scenes in the Medina from as early as 1875. Things haven't really changed much.
I know this city is functioning in a wider context of Tourist Wealth and the larger New Town surrounding it, but one gets the feeing that, if all of this was taken away, and what remained was the Medina and the villages and the agricultural land surrounding it, it could function with little fossil-fuel input. The overall impression for me was one of human endeavour. Virtually everyone you saw was engaged in some form of practical activity; sorting, making, finishing, selling, cooking, moving stuff, chores, etc. Doing stuff!
One of the most interesting things was the little hole-in-the-wall garages with folks stripping down, cleaning and sorting old engine components for re-sale. I'm sure we'll see these kinds of scavenging/harvesting operations springing up in our own cities as resources become ever more scarce and expensive.
Could I live there? Well, yes, I think I could. It had a great feel.
We stayed in the heart of the Medina (the old walled city) in a B&B and spent our days wandering around and enjoying the change of scene.
It struck me that, old as Marrakech's Medina is, it may represent a good model for energy-descent city-living. It's easy to imagine energy-descent living in a low population density, rural or village context. But, for me, I've always struggled with the idea of how a highly populous city could operate with relatively low energy requirements and a consequently lower emissions footprint.
The Medina is not large (you can cross it on foot in about half an hour) but it is incredibly dense. As you'd expect in a hot climate, many of the buildings are designed around internal courtyards, with the external walls abutting other buildings, often on three sides.
The Medina was traditionally organised as a series of communities (villages within a city). It still functions largely like this today. Typically, each community has a communal water fountain, a Hammam (steam bath / wash house), a communal bakery and a mosque. People bring their bread dough to the bakery where it is baked for free. The bakery oven and the water for the Hammam are heated by the same wood-burning furnace. One fire, providing for the multiple needs of several families.
Each community has artisans specialising in one or more crafts, including tinsmithing, blacksmithing, tanning, dying, leatherwork, tailoring and woodwork. There is a kind of internal market in the city, in which raw materials are traded and turned into progressively more useful or value-added end-products. Of course, tourists at the moment represent a large part of the top of this food-chain, but one can imagine trade going on between the city and outlying villages, exchanging food for such things. A lot of manufacture was being done by hand, or using hand-powered machinery. I came back with a design for a hand powered wood-turning lathe, far smaller and less complex than the pole-lathes you see in Britain.
Transport of choice in the narrow lanes and alleys is foot, bicycle, moped or donkey. There are some truly imaginative conversions of mopeds and bikes into cargo-carrying machines. Cars are a rarity.
Looking across the roofline, the city is a sea of solar thermal water heaters (though, interestingly, not very much solar PV - maybe they just don't need much electricity). Our B&B was in one of the courtyard houses. I imagine it must be relatively cool in summer. In January, evening temps were around 4 degrees. The house had a removable polythene cover over the courtyard to keep heat in and rain out, and a wood fire in the evening which provided ample heat.
We went to a photography museum (my passion!) which had images of street scenes in the Medina from as early as 1875. Things haven't really changed much.
I know this city is functioning in a wider context of Tourist Wealth and the larger New Town surrounding it, but one gets the feeing that, if all of this was taken away, and what remained was the Medina and the villages and the agricultural land surrounding it, it could function with little fossil-fuel input. The overall impression for me was one of human endeavour. Virtually everyone you saw was engaged in some form of practical activity; sorting, making, finishing, selling, cooking, moving stuff, chores, etc. Doing stuff!
One of the most interesting things was the little hole-in-the-wall garages with folks stripping down, cleaning and sorting old engine components for re-sale. I'm sure we'll see these kinds of scavenging/harvesting operations springing up in our own cities as resources become ever more scarce and expensive.
Could I live there? Well, yes, I think I could. It had a great feel.
Still, never mind.