OBSERVE | CHANGE
the countryside & declining monoculture societies
Rossitza D. Kotelova
Harvard Graduate School of Design • QUery On Inc.

CONTENTS
Table of Content
Acknowledgements
Introduction
Tobacco
Bulgaria
EAFRD
Inspiration
Rem Koolhaas on the Countryside
Urban-Think Tank
Innovator’s Practice
Winchcombe, England
The Quilts of Gee’s Bend
Potteries Thinkbelt
Laufen Manifesto
Site Analysis
Gotse Delchev Region, Blagoevgrad
The Rhodope Mountain-Dwellers
Literature Review
The New Rural Paradigm
The Gutenberg Galaxy
Switzerland: An Urban Portrait
Implosions/Explosions
Industrial Policy and Development
Concluding Remarks
Photo Collection
Thesis Statement
Bibliography

Table of Content
Acknowledgements
Introduction
Tobacco
Bulgaria
EAFRD
Inspiration
Rem Koolhaas on the Countryside
Urban-Think Tank
Innovator’s Practice
Winchcombe, England
The Quilts of Gee’s Bend
Potteries Thinkbelt
Laufen Manifesto
Site Analysis
Gotse Delchev Region, Blagoevgrad
The Rhodope Mountain-Dwellers
Literature Review
The New Rural Paradigm
The Gutenberg Galaxy
Switzerland: An Urban Portrait
Implosions/Explosions
Industrial Policy and Development
Concluding Remarks
Photo Collection
Thesis Statement
Bibliography
CONTENTS

4

55
I would like to thank a number of people for their advice
and support. First and foremost, Mark S.Thompson and
Nicolas Jofre from QUery On Inc. (QUOI) for their
continuous support and sponsorship of this research from
its very initial conception.Their belief in what I was
doing encouraged an in-depth process of discovery that I
doubt I could have achieved on my own. In particular, I
thank Carles Muro from the Harvard GSD for agreeing
to be my thesis advisor and providing amazing inspiration,
unfiltered criticism, and constant and continuous support
in the transition from research to design. I thank Mack
Scogin and Neil Brenner from the Harvard GSD for
their incredible willingness to meet with me and provide
additional perspectives to bounce ideas off of.
I also warmly thank Richard Wakeford from
Winchcombe, England for providing tremendously
valuable advice on rural strategy and numerous other
resources. I particularly would like to thank Richard
for his willingness to meet with me and for taking me
on the insightful tour of the beautiful Winchcombe.
I also thank Stephan Petermann from OMA and
Alfredo Brillembourg from Urban-Think Tank for their
indispensable feedback on my research in its early stages.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

6
I would also like to thank a number of people from
Bulgaria who have guide my research and provided
invaluable resources. Zyulkera Arifova for her continuous
encouragement and enthusias.Yulian Shishmanov for
sharing an incredible amount of information with me
that I probably would not have been able to source
without him.Arben Mimenov, Emin Kumbarov, Ilhan
Karagyozov, and Rumen Orachev for their willingness
to meet with me and tell me about all the work they are
doing from a political standpoint to improve conditions
in the Gotse Delchev region. Martin Kostenarov for the
tour of a number of his projects. Ibish Ibishev,Ayrola
Amzov, and Hyusein Ibishev for their kind willingness to
be my guides in my field explorations.
I would specially like to thank my dad, Dimitre Kotelov,
for being my personal encyclopedia on all things
Bulgaria. I also thank my mom, Irina Kotelova, my sisters,
Mel Kotelova and Gergana Kotelova, and Patrick Smith
for their tireless and amazing support throughout this
adventure.

77

8

99
Monocultures have been destroying the Earth by creating
unfavorable environments for diverse ecosystems.The
Earth’s soil is depleting at more than 13 percent the
rate it can be replaced.We have lost about 75 percent of
the world’s crop varieties over the last century. Insects
essential to our food security are dying, particularly
the bee colonies and butterflies. Bees pollinate about
130 different crops in the U.S. alone, including fruits,
vegetables and tree nuts. In addition to the environmental
damages, market demand for monocultures drastically
affect economic conditions of numerous communities
around the world that partake primarily in monoculture
production.The term has also evolved to include
economic monocultures: manufacturing of a single
product in large quantities to achieve economies of scale.
Such products could include coal mining and refining,
oil mining and refining, apparel production, automobile
production, and so on.This paper, however, focuses
on tobacco production as a monoculture which has
had dramatic effects on entire regions that have been
involved in its production.Virginia in the United States,
as an example, grew and processed tobacco for over
three centuries but today, you can find only traces of the
leaf empire that once was. Several regions in Bulgaria,
however, are still trying to hold on to the leaf that has
supported their cultures for the past six decades.
INTRODUCTION

10

1111
NOTES:
Photo by
Rocco Rorandelli
The leaf guided the mountain seasons.As the villages
bloomed in the spring, the garden of each house was
lined with stretched lanes of clear plastic.The plastic
was taut on semicircular-shaped metal rods, buried
in the thawing soil for tension. Each seedbed had its
personal greenhouse and underneath the plastic grew the
crisp, humid smell of a new season. In the summer, the
seedlings were transferred to neat rows of staked, equally
spaced holes, tracing the curves of the hills outside
the villages. Each small plot of land was measured in
decares and tended by individual families.The summer
harvesting, though, was no individual process.The village
clusters woke together before sunrise and headed to
the fields in waves of motorcycles followed by mules.
Summer days had two distinct parts: picking leafs before
the heat and stringing leafs post-heat.While picking the
harvest was generally a young adult task, the entire family
did their share in the stringing -- mom, dad, grandma,
grandpa, and children alike. Harvesting proceeded late
into the fall with timing largely dependent on the
amount of leaf a family had planted.The winter months
were bundled in the dried leaf. It brought the snow and
ignited the wood-burning stoves. It made its way into
TOBACCO

12
NOTES:
1. Goodman, Jordan.
Tobacco in History and
Culture:An Encyclopedia.
Detroit:Thomson Gale,
2005.
every home, where the leaf was stacked into neat hands
that were then combined into bundles.When the leaf
left, dust lingered between floorboards and underneath
fingernails for weeks. Unforgettable yet, the wintry cedar-
cigar aroma resides in my memory to this day.
The history of tobacco is fascinating.While my memories
of tobacco begin in Bulgaria sometime in the early 1990s,
tobacco was first cultivated in the Americas dating back
to 1400–1000 B.C.1
Tobacco was introduced to Europe
and subsequently to the rest of the world following the
arrival of the Europeans to the Americas in the early
16th century AD. Historians credit the plant with being
a primary reason for colonization in the Americas and
an instigator leading to African slave labor. Jamestown,
Virginia was the first settlement to successfully raise
tobacco and export it to England. In 1616, Jamestown
was producing 2,500 pounds (1,100 kg) of tobacco.
Once the first black slaves were imported in 1619, the
tobacco production in Jamestown shot to 119,000
pounds (54,000 kg) by 1620. Unsurprisingly, the plant
was commonly referred to as “brown gold.” In his book
My Lady Nicotine”A Study in Smoke, J.M. Barrie wrote
that,“with the introduction of tobacco England woke up
from a long sleep. Suddenly a new zest had been given
to life.The glory of existence became a thing to speak

1313
NOTES:
2.Wikepedia article on
Tobacco Production,
source Taxbook.
3. Edward Eigen, Log,
No. 9 (Winter/Spring
2007),”[F]rom so simple a
beginning...“
of. Men who had hitherto only concerned themselves
with the narrow things of home put a pipe into their
mouths and became philosophers.”2
The United States
continued to benefit from tobacco production late into
the 20th century. Data collected from Internal Revenue
Service between 1879-1880 show tobacco tax receipts
amounting to $38.9 million in comparison to a total of
$116.8 million.2
On September 4, 1880, the Cigarette Machine was
patented by James A. Bonsack.The Cigarette Machine
“not only delivered a perfectly rolled smoke, but also
did so at a rate to replace the work of 48 hand rollers.”3
The industrialization of the cigarette production became
the American Tobacco Company which led to a the
revolutionization of the cigarette business.“The cigarette
was something of a symbol of a new age wherein the
culminating industrial revolution merged with the
advancing mechanical civilization. Only the cigarette
provided the need for a transient, pleasurable nervene
in an age of great activity and among people who had
grown impatient with the past.”3
Thereafter, the cigarette
enjoyedVIP access to every cafe, every lounge, every club,
and even every home for over a century.

14

1515
NOTES:
Anti-smoking ad, 1905.
Photo derived from
Photohound (talk)
Smoking Dangers - 1905
In the mid 1990’s, the tobacco industry in the United
States began to suffer greatly due to several successful
lawsuits issued by U.S. states.The lawsuits claimed that
cigarette companies knew that tobacco causes cancer
and purposefully understated the dangers of their
products which led to illness and death to many of
the their citizens. On May 11, 2004, the U.S. signed
the World Health Organization’s Global Treaty on
Tobacco Control, placing broad restrictions on the sale,
advertising, shipment, and taxation of tobacco products.
The Global Treaty on Tobacco Control had the greatest
impact on transforming public spaces in the U.S. in
regards to smoking.That dim, cloudy aura that had lived
comfortably in restaurants, bars, cafes and offices for over
a century was all of a sudden banished.The decline of
tobacco was thereafter inevitable.The smoke that was
once associated with class, philosophy, western modernity,
coolness and even sexappeal has become an outcast, a
contagious disease that everyone looks down upon, that
doesn’t belong anywhere except for the backstreet allies
where the rats roam.
Anti-smoking campaigns have also played a major role in
the decline of cigarette smoking in the United States and
around the world.The first anti-smoking ad was actually
ran in 1905, with an image of a skull smoking and
stating “Wisconsin, Nebraska and Indiana will make it a
misdemeanor to sell cigarettes or to have them in one’s
possession. Let every other state do likewise.” In the late
1990’s and 2000’s in particular, anti-smoking campaigns

16
NOTES:
Anti-smoking campaign
ad by the truth.com
have become much more elaborate and visually powerful,
portraying the effects of smoking through real people
examples.The FDA states that,“Every day in the United
States, more than 3,200 youth under age 18 smoke
their first cigarette —and more than 700 youth under
age 18 become daily smokers—highlighting a critical
need for stronger, targeted youth tobacco prevention
efforts.”4
The FDA launched their first youth targeted
anti-smoking campaign in 2014, following the lead
of the American Legacy Foundation with TheTruth.
com, the United States Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention, and the Foundation for a Smokefree America,
to name a few.The combination of the Global Treaty on

1717
NOTES:
4. FDA website.
Tobacco Control and the Anti-Smoking campaigns have
transformed U.S. public spaces into smoke free zones
and continue to encourage people to “kick the habit.”
As a non-smoker living in the United States, it appears as
though cigarettes and tobacco are actually disappearing.
Across the Atlantic, however, is a completely different
story. Most of Europe is still a heavy smoker and Bulgaria
is leading in the frontline.

18

1919
NOTES:
5. Mary Neuburger, Bal-
kan Smoke, 1-10.
BULGARIA
Bulgarian tobacco story is in fact tightly interconnected
with the history of Bulgarian modernization, as well as
the “Muslim question” of late 20th century Bulgaria. In
her book Balkan Smoke:Tobacco and the Making of
Modern Bulgaria, Mary Neuburger depicts a detailed
account of tobacco’s role in politics, economics,
culture and ultimately the modernization of Bulgaria.5
Neuburger describes the cafes during Ottoman times
filled with smoke, elite Turks, and Bulgarian writers.The
cafe culture was brought from Turkey. Even though coffee
shops are now considered part of western culture, they
were adapted from the east.The cafes taught Bulgarians
to drink coffee, smoke and ponder about life.The smoke
filled spaces became the places to see and be seen within
the elite class. The cafes and cigarette culture nurtured
some of Bulgaria’s most influential writers, housed the
uprising that eventually brought down the Ottoman
Empire and provided the space for communism to
unravel in Bulgaria.
Tobacco has been grown on Bulgaria’s soils since the
seventeenth century, when it was first brought to the Old
World from the Americas.The plant underwent a variety

20
NOTES:
6. Mary Neuburger,
Balkan Smoke, 5.
Photo from the Regional
State Archive in Plovdiv.
Camels with tobacco
bales on their backs, circa
1914.
of transformations on the Balkans, the core province of
the Ottoman Empire at the time, leading to a subgenus
of “Oriental tobacco.”The American varieties tended to
be higher in nicotine but significantly less flavorful than
the Oriental, giving both types a place in the nineteenth
and twentieth century global marketplace.“Capitalism in
Bulgaria smells like tobacco,”6
claimed the Soviet author
Ilya Ehrenburg.The tobacco industry had a presence in
Bulgaria during the Ottoman days but demand for the
product increased after World War I and especially during
World War II.Troops had acquired a taste for “Bulgarian
gold” as cigarette rations were distributed during the
war period while emancipated women began to smoke

2121
NOTES:
7. Mary Neuburger,
Balkan Smoke, 6.
Photo from the Regional
State Archive in Plovdiv.
A kafene and biraria
(beer hall) with all male
clientele.
as a symbol of equality.The tightly interwoven tobacco
trade with Germany even drew Bulgaria into World
War II on the side of the Axis despite Bulgarian public
protests against the Nazi regime. In the fall of 1944, as
the Red Army settled in Bulgaria after the war and the
Communist Party took power, tobacco-filled “trains that
had once headed northwest were redirected eastward as
the Soviet Bloc became an all-but-captive market for
Bulgaria’s most valuable export.”7
In the late 1960s and
1970s, Slavic Christians migrated from the rural areas of
the Rhodope Mountains to the urban centers, leaving
the Bulgarian Muslims to fulfill the continually increasing
quotas for tobacco export to the Soviet Bloc.While

22

2323
NOTES:
8. Mary Neuburger,
Balkan Smoke.
Map - The Distribution
of Turks and Pomaks in
Postwar Bulgaria.
In the late 1960s and 1970s,
Slavic Christians migrated from
the rural areas of the Rhodope
Mountains to the urban centers,
leaving the Bulgarian Muslims to
fulfill the continually increasing
quotas for tobacco export to the
Soviet Bloc.8

24
NOTES:
9. Mary Neuburger,
Balkan Smoke, 219.
the Communist Party was attempting to integrate this
population into a “homogeneous and loyal labor force,”9
the Muslim minority chose to stay in the mountainous
regions in an effort to protect themselves from that very
integration.The tobacco industry and more importantly
the economy of the Bulgarian nation became increasingly
dependent on the Muslim growers in meeting their
tobacco production quotas, resulting in numerous
compromises made by the socialist state in the integration
process. In the 1950’s, the socialist state attempted to
collectivize agriculture production but was unable to do
so in the Muslim mountain districts where most tobacco
was grown.Village-based cooperative farms were created,
termed under a family accord rubric that allowed the
Muslims to keep ownership of small scale family farms
and draw resources from a village cooperative center.
This agreement protected and isolated the Bulgarian
Muslims from the socialist movement and allowed them
to preserve their culture.
Tobacco thrives in the Blagoevgrad Province due to the
region’s sandy, alkaline soils.9
The Gotse Delchev region
occupies the southeast area of the Blagoevgrad Province,
landlocked and isolated from the rest of Bulgaria between
the southwestern range of the Rhodope Mountains on
the east, the Pirin Mountains to the west, Rila Mountains

2525
NOTES:
10.Wikipedia on Bulgar-
ian Muslims
11. Mary Neuburger,
Balkan Smoke, 200-201.
to the North and the Greek border to the South.The
region is mainly populated with Bulgaria’s Muslim
minority, referred to as the Pomaks.The Bulgarian
Muslim population accounts for 127,350 people of
Bulgaria’s total population of 7,265,115.About 50% of
the Bulgarian Muslims, or 62,431 people, live in the
Blagoevgrad Province.10
In many ways this region is
“behind” the urbanized areas of greater Bulgaria.The
Bulgarian Muslims have managed to resist western
modernization and have preserved their culture, clothing
and even Islamic name system.As a result, however, the
region has been neglected by the Bulgarian Parliament
and the Muslim people have been left behind to live
peasant-like lifestyles to this day. The main source of
income for this population is family-run tobacco farming.
Between 1966 and 1988, Bulgaria was the largest
exporter of cigarettes in the world, exporting roughly 80
percent of production.The Soviet Bloc was Bulgaria’s
biggest trading partner, accounting for 90 percent of the
tobacco industry’s cigarette exports.11
The Iron Curtain
played a major role in protecting Bulgaria’s tobacco
markets from the West thus placing Bulgaria in a position
of global leadership.At the same time, the industry was
able to reach out to the West for technologies, resources
and business models.This combination was particularly

26

2727
NOTES:
11. Mary Neuburger,
Balkan Smoke, 200-201.
Photo by Erolish
In Bulgaria tobacco is king.
Between 1966 and 1988 during
the Soviet era, Bulgaria was the
largest exporter of cigarettes or
“Bulgarian gold” in the world11

28
AGRICULTURE
Bulgaria
NOTES:
12. Bulgarian Agriculture
Realities and
Opportunities by Mrs.
Slavova. Brussels, October
2012

2929
In 2010, tobacco production
contributed 20% to the value
of agricultural goods and
involved about 10% of the active
population in its cultivation12
AGRICULTURE
Gotse Delchev Region

30
NOTES:
13. Mary Neuburger,
Balkan Smoke, 200-201.
14. Mary Neuburger,
Balkan Smoke, 226-228.
important to Bulgaria’s success in the tobacco industry.13
The fall of the Iron Curtain in 1989 marked the first
year that Bulgaria was not able to fulfill its quota and did
not make the top of the tobacco export list, resulting in
a trickling effect leading to Bulgaria’s economic crash
between 1996 and 1997 and the continuous decline
of Bulgaria’s tobacco industry since.14
The Muslim
population living in the Rhodope Mountains continue
to grow tobacco as their main source of income to
this day.The resources, subsidies and other incentives,
however, have decreased exponentially since the 1980s
and the price of tobacco is continuously dropping. In
the past year, demonstrations such as burning tobacco in
Bulgaria’s capital Sofia have brought together Bulgarian
tobacco growers from all over the country in an effort
to protest the absurdly low tobacco prices.The EU has
even gone as far as voting on discontinuing subsidies for
tobacco farming because funding the tobacco industry is
counterintuitive to the increasing resources being poured
into anti-smoking campaigns. In other words, there is
more effort being placed into eliminating the tobacco
industry in Europe as opposed to supporting it.

3131
NOTES:
Photo depicts a Greek
tobacco trading company
which travels to villages
to buy out tobacco from
farmers.
The cigarette industry is dying.Tobacco harvest collected
from the 2014 season in Bulgaria is currently being
traded for 3 leva (BGN) per kilogram, equivalent to $1.82
USD.That’s equivalent to a 5,000 BGN
yearly income, compared to the Bulgarian salary
average at 10,000 BGN.The question to consider is
what is happening to rural regions that have supported
themselves solely on the tobacco industry for decades?
How does a society transition from one type of economy
to another without destroying the cultural dynamics that
the industry has preserved, enhanced and even created
having been part of that community for decades?

32

3333
NOTES:
Photo depicts dry tobacco
bailes and farmers waiting
to sell their crop to the
buyer company.
Tobacco harvest collected
from the 2014 season in Bulgaria
is currently being traded for
3 leva (BGN) per kilogram,
equivalent to $1.82 (USD).
That’s equivalent to a 5,000 BGN
yearly income, compared to the
Bulgarian salary average at
10,000 BGN

34

3535
NOTES:
Photo depicts Martin
Kostenarov’s Guest House
project in Leshten
In the summer of 2013, I visited my family in Tuhovishta,
Bulgaria. During my visit I met with Martin, the son
of a family friend who is practicing architecture in
Gotse Delchev, the nearest city to my hometown. He
drove up to the village center to pick up Zyulkera
and me for a tour of his built projects. Zyulkera is my
childhood friend. She graduated with a degree in Public
Administration from the Sofia University and returned
to the village to work for the Mayor’s office in hopes
of improving the living conditions in our hometown.
Zyulkera insisted that I needed to meet Martin because
at the age of 24 he had built a successful practice using
funding from European Agricultural Fund for Rural
Development (EAFRD). EAFRD is a fund housed under
the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) of the European
Commision that finances the EU’s contribution to rural
development programs.At the time, she was working
with Martin on one of her own projects and applying for
EAFRD funding.
Martin drove 45 kilometers on a narrow, winding
mountain road to our first destination in Leshten,
awarded the title of EcoVillage Leshten in an initiative
EAFRD

36
NOTES:
Photo depicts Martin
Kostenarov’s Hotel
Complex project in
Leshten
to attract Eco Tourism to the historic village. Martin had
three projects in Leshten for three different clients. Given
that Leshten’s recorded population is 11 people, the
three projects are relatively significant.Two were recently
completed, both small scale guest houses emulating the
historic Bulgarian house aesthetic.The third was under
construction, a medium scale hotel complex with three
separate structures and a pool.All three projects are on
hillside sites with gorgeous mountain views and were all
funded through EAFRD.Though the village is actively
trying to attract tourism, at this time the amount of
activity is not significant enough for full occupancy of all
three projects.

3737

38
NOTES:
Photo depicts Martin
Kostenarov’s private guest
house in Hotel Complex
near Ognyanovo.
Our next stop was just outside Ognyanovo, a village
with an abundance of natural hot water springs that were
transformed into a bath and spa complex.The baths are
one of the main attractions in the region: populations
from all surrounding villages and the nearest city, Gotse
Delchev, visit the baths at least once a year. Martin had
another set of projects in the area, again programmed as
hotels and funded by EAFRD.The first one was located
at the entry to the bath complex, designed in a modern
style but using local materials to relate to the regional
vernacular architecture.The second was just outside the
village, a two structure complex designed to emulate the
historic Bulgarian house. Landscaping was a big part of
these projects, as fountains and picnic tables were planned
for the guests and local community. Both projects were
nearing completion, leaving mainly interior finishes to be
applied.
Seeing the projects in their context gave rise to the
thought that maybe EAFRD funding was not used to its
fullest potential.That particular area around Ognyanovo
does attract more tourism than any of the other villages
in the Southern Rhodope region, but most of the visitors
come from the surrounding region for a spa day and
return home in the evening.The demand did not exist as
of yet for the number of constructed and planned hotel

3939

40

4141
NOTES:
Photo depicts a rammed
earth construction Eco
Villa in Leshten.
structures in the area. Ognyanovo certainly did not need
any more hotels.This observation surfaced the thought
that EAFRD funding could potentially be directed
towards economic reform on a regional scale, reform
which the Gotse Delchev region so desperately needs.
In an effort to alleviate the dire situation in agricultural
villages, a large number of the population from the
Rhodope Mountains, predominantly men, have become
seasonal immigrants to Greece, Spain, England, Finland,
and Germany, to name a few.They leave their families
behind for months at a time to work in various farms
around Europe, living in unbearable conditions in order
to save the money they make and send it back to their
families in Bulgaria.While these situations may appear as
an opportunity to settle in a more economically stable
place, they are unsustainable for a number of reasons.
Some of the most important cultural aspects for these
societies are family and community which are damaged
by seasonal immigration, families are separated leaving
mainly the elderly and children behind to tend after
the villages.While the immigrants live in miserable
conditions abroad, the host countries object to the
invasion of immigrants from Eastern Europe who are
draining their resources and taking capital out of their
countries instead of circulating it within.

42
NOTES:
Infographic by EIP-AGRI
Service Point,
Innovation Support
Services, March 2014.
More productive solutions to questions of industry
transitions can be addressed using funding from
organizations such as the European Network for Rural
Development (ENRD).The effects of economic
instability within a single Member States can be felt
throughout the European Union as a whole, providing
incentive for such organizations to take action on
initiating improvements that will benefit people on
an international scale. Currently, over half of the
population of the EU’s 25 Member States live in rural
areas, accounting for 90 percent of the territory. Rural
Development (RD) has become a priority in overall
EU policies since “The European Conference on Rural
i

4343
NOTES:
15.The Cork Declaration
- A living countryside
16. EU Rural
Development Policy
2007-2013, 4.
Development” in Cork, Ireland in November 1996.
“The Cork Declaration - A Living Countryside” was
agreed upon at the conference, setting the stance of the
European Union on RD for years to come.15
In 2003
during the Salzburg Conference, three core objectives
set under EAFRD that drive RD policy today are
“increasing the competitiveness of the agricultural
sector, supporting land management and enhancing
the environment, and enhancing the quality of life in
rural areas and promoting diversification of economic
activities.”16
In addition, the 2003 Salzburg Conference
narrowed down a list of areas that needed particular
consideration in RD policy. In addition to agriculture
12

44
NOTES:
17. EU Rural Develop-
ment Policy 2007-2013,
6-7.
and forestry, and food quality and safety, a number of
areas should be given more specific attention.Wider
rural world addresses the concern that agriculture
can no longer be the sole economic sector in rural
regions. Diversification is crucial in creating viable and
sustainable communities. Poor access to public services
reduces development potential, inhibits employment
opportunities, and needs to be addressed in order to
create desirable living communities.17
Stakeholder
participation is also particularly important as participants
with an active interest are more likely to ensure economic
and environmental sustainability of devised policies. More
importantly, bottom-up local participation is crucial
since no one understands the existing conditions and
potential needs of a particular region better than the local
community.
Regulations under the European Network for Rural
Development take on a strategic approach that provides
a menu of measures from which Member States can
choose and for which they can receive Community
financial support within the context of integrated rural
development.A thematic axis corresponds to each core
objective commonly agreed upon and formalized at the
2003 Salzburg Conference:Axis 1 - Competitiveness,
Axis 2 - Environment and Land Management, and

4545
Axis 3 - Economic Diversity and Quality of life.The
three thematic Axes are also complemented by the
LEADER Axis, a methodological axis dedicated to the
LEADER approach.Axis 1 addresses the core objective
of improving competitiveness of the agriculture and
forestry sector. Economic performance is a key measure
within this axis, focusing on reducing production costs,
increasing the economic size of holdings, and promoting
innovation and market orientation.Axis 2 focuses
on improving the environment and the countryside.
Environmental sustainability is the driving measure in
this axis, promoting delivery of environmental services by
agri-environment measures in rural areas and preserving
land management.The main actors of rural regions,
farmers and foresters, are targeted and encouraged to
preserve the natural landscapes and enhance natural
space.Axis 3 measures address quality of life in rural areas
and diversification of rural economy. Creating a “living
countryside” is the main objective of this axis, attempting
to strengthen the social and economic fabric of remote
areas facing depopulation.The Leader Axis is designed
for supporting long-term development initiatives by
rural actors in a community. It aims to encourage high-
quality, original and innovative strategies for long-term
sustainable rural development initiated by broad-based
local partnerships called Local Action Groups (LAGs). In

46
NOTES:
18. EU Rural Develop-
ment Policy 2007-2013,
10-16.
order to qualify for Leader Axis funding, at least two of
the thematic Axes measures need to be met.18
The numerous reports written by the European Network
for Rural Development, describing the admirational
intentions of the organization to improve economic,
social, and living conditions of rural regions are extremely
respectable. Unfortunately, areas facing economic
despair and depopulation such as the Bulgarian Muslim
populated villages in the Rhodope Mountains currently
don’t have the support of LAGs or even the local
government to use the funding provided by EAFRD to
it’s fullest potential.A highly effective strategy focusing
on diversification and competitiveness along with being
implemented on a regional scale would be necessary in
order to spur economic development. In order to enforce
implementation of project initiatives, a proper monitoring
and evaluation system is needed. Furthermore, such
regions can no longer be sustained under the traditional
rural settlement as technology has infiltrated these
communities and they are no longer satisfied living in
these remote isolated areas.At the same time, family and
community are very important to these societies, on the
social and cultural level, making the urban conditions
unsuitable as well. It is worth exploring a new type of

4747
NOTES:
Photo derived from
The Washington Post
article The steep decline
of Bulgaria’s population
in its post-Soviet era by
Nicole Crowder. Photo of
Georgi Petrov, 59, holds
his face in his hands in
Sinagovtsi, a village of
declining population in
Bulgaria. Petrov, who used
to work at a local mill but
is now unemployed, hasn’t
been able to afford plaster
for his home for several
decades.
built environment for social and economic interaction
derived from the community qualities of the rural
lifestyle and intended to enhance economic stability.

48

4949
Village, rural region, farmland, agriculture, vast landscapes,
countryside: a place of nothingness where there’s nothing
to see and nothing to do,“empty land that can be laid
out according to the needs of the urban consumer.”19
The
stereotypical urbanite view of the countryside within the
broad architectural profession, including urban design and
landscape architecture, disregards the presence of rural
settlements.The preoccupation with the urban condition
has led to an architecture for which the countryside does
not exist. Simultaneously, in the countryside, architecture
does not exist. Built environments, enclosed spaces, and
structures are present but they are generally not planned,
designed or executed by architects but rather built in a
vernacular manner out of necessity. Can architecture take
on a new form in the countryside that would encourage
growth and development while simultaneously transform
living conditions for half of the world’s population which
still resides in rural regions by incorporating the rural
into the architectural profession?
INSPIRATION

50

5151
NOTES:
Diagram of size of Swiss
village 20 years ago, com-
pared to today. <http://
www.iconeye.com/
architecture/features/
item/11031-rem-kool-
haas-in-the-country>
19.Willemijn Lofvers and
Marcel Musch, OASE:
The Countryside, 2.
20. Rem Koolhaas,
Countryside and Hinterland.
REM KOOLHAAS ON THE COUNTRYSIDE
The word “countryside” became markedly more
prevalent in architectural publications since 2012 when
Rem Koolhaas announced that he was writing a book
on the countryside.After obsessively exploring the urban
throughout his career in the form of books, exhibitions
and real and theoretical architectural projects, at the age
of 67 Koolhaas has provocatively turned to studying
the countryside. Koolhaas asks the question,“What did
those billions who left for the city leave behind?” He
argues that “the countryside is now the frontline of
transformation.A world formerly dictated by the seasons
and the organization of agriculture is now a toxic mix of
genetic experiment, science, industrial nostalgia, seasonal
immigration, territorial buying sprees, massive subsidies,
incidental inhabitation, tax incentives, investment,
political turmoil, spill overdevelopment, terminal class
warfare, in other words more volatile than the most
accelerated city.”20
A village in the Swiss Engadin valley
inspired the countryside research for Rem Koolhaas.The
village grew two to three times in size as he visited the
village over a period of 20 years.The interesting part is
that it has become completely depopulated.To define this
condition, he uses a theory on the process of “thinning”

52
NOTES:
Diagram: Intermedi-stan,
a land of the in-between.
<http://www.iconeye.
com/architecture/fea-
tures/item/11031-rem-
koolhaas-in-the-country>
which means that the area of coverage increases alongside
a diminishing intensity in its use. His interpretation
takes our typical understanding of the rural condition as
peaceful, quiet and maybe even boring and transforms
them into settlements with vibrant centers of production
and activity in areas with sparse population.
The statistics we are presented with on urbanization
are constantly shifting depending on the conditions
under which the data was taken.Yes, urbanization is
happening at a significant rate, however, about half of
the world’s population is still living in rural area.“The
countryside is an amalgamation of tendencies that

5353

54
NOTES:
Photo top: Prokudin-
Gorsky’s three women in
the Russian countryside
from 1909.
Photo bottom:Three
women from south Asia
in a Swiss village square
today who are imported
to look after the pets, the
kids, and the houses.
21. Rem Koolhaas,
Countryside and Hinterland.
are outside our overview and outside our awareness.
Our current obsession with only the city is highly
irresponsible because you cannot understand the city
without understanding the countryside.”21
Architecture
has been primarily focused on the city but a significantly
larger portion of the world falls under neglect. Cities
cover about 3% of the Earth’s land area while humans
directly influence about 83% of the Earth.22
As people
are migrating to urban areas, Koolhaas suggests that the
question we should be asking is what did those who leave
the country, leave behind? The countryside functions
under the same economic principles as the city. More
people urbanizing requires the country to reinvent itself

5555
NOTES:
Ad:The countryside as a
place where people are
disappearing from. In
this void new processes
are taking place and
new experiments and
developments are being
made.
22.Vishaan Chakrabarti,
A Country of Cities:A
Manifesto for an Urban
America
and new processes, experiments, and developments are
taking place. Koolhaas uses Clark’s Economic Model
from 1987 to represent the state of agricultural societies
in the world today.The decline of Agriculture is directly
connected to the economy as the Service industry
increases. However as this model was developed in in
1987, that condition may change in the future and
another may very well occur.

OF. BRILLEMBOURG | PROF. KLUMPNER
EY SHERMAN | MICHAEL CONTENTO | LEA RUEFENACHT
ING 2013 | START 19.02.2013 | ONA
output.
For more information, please vis
the chair website:
http://u-tt.arch.ethz.ch
56

5757
NOTES:
Photo depicts informal
settlements in East Port of
Spain. By Urban-Think
Tank
23.Alfredo Brillembourg
and Hubert Klumpner,
Informal City, 16-23.
Urban-Think Tank was founded by Alfredo Brillembourg
in Caracas,Venezuela with Hubert Klumpner joining as
co-director.Their work focuses on urban conditions at
the threshold of where formal and informal settlements
meet. Urban-Think Tank seeks theoretical and
practical architectural solutions that address the issue of
“placelessness” among millions of people who reside
in informal settlements within and on the outskirts of
major metropolitan centers.23
In their book Towards
an Informal City, Urban-Think Tank defends that their,
“intention is to broaden the limited view of squatter
settlements around the world.The use of the term
‘informal city’ is our way of summarizing a lifestyle
that has become a global phenomenon in recent years
and explaining why architects should understand this
particular urban practice.‘What you call a barrio, I call
my home,’ said Francisco Perez, Community Leader from
Las Casitas Barrio, LaVega. Informality is not a school
of thought; there is a whole spectrum of views, based
upon a dialogue about the city between architects and
non-architects, between the ‘First’ and ‘Third’Worlds, and
between barrio and city. Our premise is that the informal
city will serve as a base and a frame of reference for
evaluating the fundamental problems of cities today.”
URBAN-THINK TANK

58
NOTES:
Photo at Final Review for
Emerging and Sustainable
Cities: Port of Spain,
Trinidad and Tobago
studio at ETH-Zurich.
I spent the Spring of 2013 at ETH in Zurich as part of
an exchange program between the Harvard GSD and
ETH Architecture schools. I took at studio led by Hubert
Klumpner and Alfredo Brillembourg which explored
the condition of the East Dry River Canal separating
Port of Spain and East Port of Spain in Trinidad and
Tobago.The studio was split into two semesters, the
first took place in Fall 2012 and the students worked to
develop conceptual urban design proposals. I took part
in the second semester in Spring 2013 and we used the
strategic frameworks set by the first studio to develop
new architectural prototypes within them. Our designs
needed to serve as an urban toolbox of operational

5959

60
NOTES:
Rendering of Learning
Park project by Miriam
Maurer
instruments with transformative qualities, occupying
the critical territory between the formal and informal.
Port of Spain is an urban conglomeration of constantly
changing demographic and economic conditions,
reflecting in its fragmented urban fabric.As a leading oil
and gas producer, the modernization process and rapid
urbanization of the city have created marginalized zones.
East Port of Spain contains many of these marginalized
and isolated communities.The former quarries in the area
are occupied today by informal housing settlements and
inadequate infrastructure, environmental degradation, and
deficiencies in the provision of social facilities.

6161
NOTES:
Plan of Growing Bridges
project by Rossitza
Kotelova
During the course of the studio, each of us took on a
specific topic as part of a collaborative project: Education,
Sports, Performance, Microbusiness, Sanitation, and
Agriculture. Education in the form of a Learning Park
supplemented the current educational system in Port
of Spain by providing programs such as after-school
activities and kindergarden spaces.The Learning Park
became a transformable space in different times of
day, providing vocational training spaces and night
classes to the general public. Sports are used for their
social qualities to create a more attractive environment
along the river-side park. Performance spaces are used
to celebrate and maintain the rich artistic and multi-

62
NOTES:
Urban Plan of
development proposal for
Dry Rive Canal between
East Port of Spain and
Port of Spain.
cultural heritage of Port of Spain.A main cultural hub
works as a school, where all generations from both sides
of the river can learn and work together in the form
of performing arts. Infrastructure for micro-businesses
transforms the flood-prone Sea Lots at the end of the
East Dry River into an attractive public space complete
with sea-side restaurants. Dry toilets became the central
focus of the Sanitation topic, encouraging sustainability
and conservation practices on the isolated twin-island
country. Lastly, my own topic on Agriculture became the
joints of the project through the design of the Growing
Bridges.The Growing Bridges created an accessible and
interactive connection over the East Dry River Canal
between Port of Spain and East Port of Spain. Evoking a
commentary on the country’s current import consumer
culture, the Growing Bridges became urban farms for
the community to participate in nurturing together and
learn to produce their own food.Throughout this process,
social and economic development were the underlying
factors that guided each individual project and the
collective as a whole.The East Dry River project in Port
of Spain sparked the idea that thoughtful architectural
interventions can spark social and economic development
in rural areas as well.

6363

Leaders agree that
innovation is essential
to economic
competitiveness
64

6565
NOTES:
Image by Dr. Beth
Altringer from Innovator’s
Practice class lecture
During the Fall 2014 Semester, I took Dr. Beth
Altringer’s Innovator’s Practice class at the School of
Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) at Harvard.
The intention of the course was to use a modified
version of the human-centered design process to explore
problems worth solving and develop solutions that have
the potential to improve the lives of their users.We
worked in groups with diverse backgrounds from across
the Harvard student body and naturally, the combination
of different knowledge and personalities created an
environment that required constant negotiation. Dr. Beth
Altringer taught us how to apply behavioral research and
human-centered design to stimulate innovation regardless
of our backgrounds. Using the fieldwork research
methods through interviews and studying human
behavior, we were able to identify a pain-point in our
chosen topic of research.
Human-Centered Design (HCD) is a process intended
to help innovators hear the needs of their constituents
in new ways, create innovative solutions to meet those
needs, and deliver solutions with financial sustainability
in mind. IDEO developed the Human-Centered Design
THE INNOVATOR’S PRACTICE

© 2014-2015 Altringer
adds problem and context understanding
mitigates risk of failing for preventable reasons
lessens opportunity costs of bad design (for creators & users)
encourages work on problems that matter to people
explicit multi-disciplinary method is inclusive;
helps align multi-disciplinary teams
why use human centered design?
Wednesday, December 10, 14
66
NOTES:
Image by Dr. Beth
Altringer from Innovator’s
Practice class lecture
Toolkit to offer techniques, methods, tips and worksheets
to guide innovators through a process that gives the
local people an opportunity to take control of their
futures and allows their desires to guide the creation
and implementation of solutions. HCD uses three
lenses as techniques for discovering innovative solutions:
Desirability, Feasibility, andViability. Desirability stands
for,“What do people desire?” People are at the core of
the “human-centered” design process and evaluating the
needs, dreams and behaviors of the people we’re trying
to affect comes first. It is necessary to engage people
in their own context to truly understand what they
need most.This form of qualitative research is used to

The solutions that emerge at the
end of the Human-Centered Design
should hit the overlap of these
three lenses; they need to be
Desirable, Feasible, and Viable.
DesirABilit y
FeAsiBilit y ViABilit y
Start Here
6767
NOTES:
Diagram from IDEO’s
Human-Centered Design
Toolkit.
develop empathy towards the people you’re designing
for, to inspire imagination, and question assumptions. By
mapping relational dynamics between social, political,
economic, and cultural influences, we can uncover
intrinsic influences that may be central to the core
problems. By translating the research acquired into high-
level insights about the larger population, we can create a
set of strategic directions and tangible solution that have
the potential of meeting concrete needs of individuals.
Furthermore, the Feasibility andViability lenses provide
capabilities and financial models for the delivered solution
to ensure that it is implemented well, can be sustained for
a long time, and contains a plan for ongoing learning and

68
NOTES:
Photo depicting
Tribewanted Monestevole
in Italy. Filippo Bozotti
on the left.Tribewanted
<http://www.
monestevole.it/>
iteration. Implementing new ideas is risky and requires
numerous iterations and testing.The HCD process is
intended to encourage innovation through controlled
methods of discovery, creation and implementation.
Dr.Altringer invited Filippo Bozotti to give a talk on
Tribewanted Monestevole in Italy.Tribewanted is an
authentic type of holiday destination, empowering an
off-the-grid travel experience that allows the visitors to
connect with the place and its people in an authentic
way. Filippo Bozotti is one of the founding members
of Tribewanted and currently heads the Monestevole
operation.Tribewanted Monestevole is located in the

6969

70
NOTES:
Image from Tribewanted
<http://www.
monestevole.it/>
Perugia Province in Umbria, Italy.A small community
resides in a 15th Century hamlet overlooking 38
hectares of olive-groves, farm and woodlands. His talk
was quite inspiring because he described living a simple,
sustainable lifestyle, being truly happy and sharing that
happiness with people who visit from all over the world.
Tribewanted creates a sustainable community that could
create positive impact on the local people.Through its
membership program, participants become part of the
community.They can visit the locations at any time, stay
with the locals, take part in the farm-work and support
sustainable growth and development in remote villages.
About 30% of the membership fees go towards overhead

7171
NOTES:
Photo retrieved from
Fogo Island Inn <http://
www.fogoislandinn.ca/>
costs, the remaining 70% of the revenue is invested
into the local community.The local community takes
ownership of this system from day one by designing a
sustainable strategy that adapts to the local culture. By
creating an economy that is supported by Tribewanted’s
11,000 members and inviting them to participate in
the everyday life of a rural society, the system makes it
possible and desirable to live a highly sustainable lifestyle.
One of Dr.Altringer’s favorite examples was The Fogo
Island Inn located in Newfoundland, Canada.As part
of her own research, Dr.Altringer is interested in the
question, how might we make it possible for people

72
NOTES:
Photo retrieved from
Fogo Island Inn <http://
www.fogoislandinn.ca/>
24. Dezeen Magazine,
<http://www.dezeen.
com/2013/10/29/fogo-
island-inn-by-saunders-
architecture/>,
Fogo Island Inn by
Saunders Architecture
to work at the top of their field from anywhere in the
world. Fogo Island Inn is an example of how design can
be used to attract attention to a remote location and
stimulate economic growth in a traditional society.As
part of the National Geographic Unique Lodges of the
World curated collection, Fogo Island Inn provides an
authentic, meaningful, and engaging travel experience. It
is committed to sustaining tradition by finding new ways
to to apply traditional, local knowledge.The Inn is owned
by the Shorefast Foundation, a Canadian charitable
organisation established by Zita Cobb and her brothers.
Fogo Island Inn takes on design as a method for cultural
resilience and economic revival in a traditional fishing
community.The stunning white avant-garde architecture
was design by the Norwegian based office Saunders
Architecture.The design takes on a modern look but the
details are a subtle exploration of traditional crafts and
techniques. Sustainability was another one of the driving
forces behind the design of the Inn.The saltbox houses
on site that were once used by fisherman have been
transformed into artists’ residences.The site also includes
new restaurants, an art gallery and a cinema, all intended
to support local ecology and industry.24

7373

74

7575
NOTES:
Photo depicting
Winchcombe with St.
Peter’s Church on the
right.
Richard Wakeford resides in the village Winchcombe,
England located in the Cotswolds Area,Tewkesbury
District. He specializes in Rural Strategy, considering
the inherent qualities of rural regions and creating
methods for development and growth. During several
email exchanges, Richard was very willing to give me
feedback and his thoughts on this thesis endeavor that I
had blindly taken on. He was interested in the fact that an
Architecture student was researching rural development
and I was incredibly excited to be able to talk to an
expert in the field.
In October 2014, I took a trip to England and visited
Richard in Winchcombe. It was quite apparent through
the tour that Richard gave and through the way he spoke
about the village that he loves living in Winchcombe.
He lives in an incredible mansion built during the
Restoration period using the beautiful Cotswold stone.
House was part of a tobacco plantation in 1600’s.
Tobacco was planted by the local people as a cash crop
even though the practice had been outlawed since the
Commonwealth.The house now sat on a hill with a
beautiful forest growing on its grounds.The barn in the
WINCHCOMBE, ENGLAND

76
NOTES:
Photo depicting
Winchcombe and Sudeley
Hill from late 19th
Century. Retrieved from
Around Bishop’s Cleeve
and Winchcombe in Old
Photographs by David H.
Aldred.
back had been restored and was now a rather expensive
guest house.
We left Richards home on foot to explore the village by
starting with Winchcombe’s new Riverside Path along
River Isbourne.The Path, offered incredible views of
Winchcombe given the River’s low point and the village
being situated up on the hills.The original Cotswold
town as well as new development was visible on the
right side of the path and on the left were the ancient
pastureland. Fluffy white sheep grazed on the grasses
and the Cotswolds hills stacked up in the distance.The
pastureland was marked by its agricultural past with

7777
NOTES:
Photo from October 2014
of Sudeley Hill ancient
pastureland hills and
valleys.
long, straight hills and valleys that stretched vertically as
far as the eye can distinguish up the hill. Richard talked
about the paper mill down the river that supported the
town for centuries and was still in use today, just not to
its historic extent. He pointed at the hill past the grazing
sheep and said that one of the few agricultural activities
that were performed today for economic gain was raising
race horses.
England as a whole is completely urbanized that while
the countryside retains its natural beauty, the rural
settlements are entirely connected with their urban
counterparts making it possible for people to work in

78
NOTES:
Photo top: Hailes Streed
from late 19th Century.
Retrieved from Around
Bishop’s Cleeve and
Winchcombe in Old
Photographs by David H.
Aldred.
Photo bottom: Hailes
Street in Winchcombe
from October 2014.
the cities and live in villages. One of the most interesting
things that Richard said that day was that rural regions in
England actually experienced population gain as opposed
to the common depopulation of rural areas all over the
world.This phenomenon was also true for Winchcombe
and the reason was that England’s aging population
preferred to retire in the countryside.And why not?
Winchcombe is truly beautiful. It’s well connected to
the rest of England with a rail line and well-kept smooth
roads for a two hour drive to London and a one hour
drive to Birmingham.Winchcombe has a wonderful
shopping district on Hailes Street with boutique stores
hidden behind Cotswold facades.Winchcombe even has a
Michelin Star restaurant.
Sudeley Castle with its beautiful gardens in another
great attraction. Queen Katherine Parr is entombed
there; the only private castle in England to have a queen
buried within its grounds.We didn’t get a chance to
see inside the Castle and its gardens on our tour with
Richard but surrounding grounds were also quite
astonishing.A peaceful place up on the hill with views
out to Winchcombe’s old town and the Cotswold
hills. Richard noted that several of the cottages on the
Castle’s grounds were transformed into guesthouses for
visitors to experience the royal life during their stay in
Winchcombe.

7979

80
NOTES:
Photos depict Cotswold
stone building from
October 2014.
We continued onto our tour through the old town of
traditional medieval architecture where Richard noted
the facade of a Cotswold stone building which had seven
windows on its front facade, three on its side facade
and only one very small window on its back facade. He
explained that the siting of the building could have very
well dictated the expression of the building’s facades.
The front was facing a plaza and the side was along the
edge of the street, insinuating the building’s relationship
to the public space. Up the street stood St. Peters church
which was built in 1465. St. Peters church is guarded by
forty beautifully sculpted grotesque gargoyles.The main
space inside the church was lined with a clearstory for

8181
NOTES:
Photos depict St. Peters
Church from October
2014.
ample light and a double height ceiling.The pews were
arranged in a pattern I hadn’t seen in a church before.
A table stood in the middle and the pews formed an
octogonal shape in plan with four alternating sides of
pews projecting outward and four alternating sides of
aisle space for walking.The attendant from parish team
who came to greet us explained that the church was
trying out a new type of congregation, in an attempt to
foster a more intimate service experience through the
spatial configuration of the church’s pews.

82

8383
NOTES:
Photo by Arthur
Rothstein of Quiltmaker
Annie Bendolph in 1937.
25.William Arnett, Gee’s
bend :The architecture of the
quilt, 17.
Gee’s bend is located along the fifteen-mile-long bend
of the Alabama River in Wilcox County,Alabama. It is
a census-designated community of primarily African
American residents.The Bend was named after Joseph
Gee who settled there in 1816 and brought 18 African
American slaves with him to start a cotton plantation.
After slavery was abolished and the plantation was no
longer profitable, the lands were left but the African
Americans remained in the isolated hamlet of Gee’s Bend.
In the mid-1920’s life in Gee’s Bend took a downturn as
cotton market lost nearly 90 percent of its value. For the
Gee’s Bend tenants who depended on the cotton crop
for their livelihood, the cotton price drop was disastrous.
In the mid-1930s, the times of the Great Depression, it
is estimated that the net worth of the people of Gee’s
Bend was about four dollars per person. Reverend
Renwick Kennedy wrote a series of articles in the
Christian Century dedicated to the people of Gee’s Bend,
describing them as,“strong, healthy, sturdy, intelligent, and
resourceful.”25
Roy Stryker from the Resettlement Administration took
on Gee’s Bend as a social experiment under the New
THE QUILTS OF GEE’S BEND

84
NOTES:
26.William Arnett, Gee’s
bend :The architecture of the
quilt, 17.
Photo by Roland
Freeman of Annie Mae
Young with quilts and
her great-granddaughter
Shaquetta, Rehoboth in
1993.
Deal, purchasing farmland and adjacent property from
plantation owners and selling homesteads to the Gee’s
Bend residents. Ninety-five “Roosevelt” homes were also
built and sold to residents with low-interest mortgages
and were paid off in full by most.The “Roosevelt” houses
made the most significant impact on Gee’s Bend. Even
though most of the programs initiated during the New
Deal fell through, the “Roosevelt” houses allowed for the
residents of Gee’s Bend to become homeowners instead
of tenants, ensuring that the people would remain in
the region long after its agricultural economy ceased to
support small farmers.26
“Because of the New Deal, Gee’s
Bend surely became unique, and its quilt tradition was

8585
The “Roosevelt” houses allowed
for the residents of Gee’s Bend
to become homeowners instead
of tenants, ensuring that the
people would remain in the
region long after its agricultural
economy ceased to support
small farmers.26

86

8787
NOTES:
Map - Gee’s Bend in
Wilcox County,Alabama.
Photo:Work-clothes quilt
with center medallion
of strips by Annie Mae
Young.
27.William Arnett, Gee’s
bend :The architecture of the
quilt, 18.
able to remain substantially intact.”27
Today, about seven hundred people reside in this area,
primarily African American.The activities in Gee’s Bend
are almost entirely influenced by the region’s geographic
isolation.The river service was cancelled in 1960, the
one direct connection of Gee’s Bend to the rest of the
world, further ensuring the area’s isolation. Dinah Miller
founded the first significant quiltmaking family tree.
“The compositions of these quilts contrast dramatically
with the ordered regularity associated with many styles
of Euro-American quiltmaking.There’s a brilliant,
improvisational range of approaches to composition that

88
NOTES:
28.Wikepedia article on
The Quilts of Gee’s Bend.
Photo:“Lazy Gal”
(“Bars”) from 1965 by
Loretta Pettaway. Denim
and cotton.
is more often associated with the inventiveness and power
of the leading 20th-century abstract painters than it is
with textile-making,”28
writes Alvia Wardlaw, curator of
Modern and Contemporary Art at the Museum of Fine
Arts. Subsequently, the civil rights movement ushered
the founding of the Freedom Quilting Bee in Rehoboth
as a part of cooperative for women to support their
families. In 1965, Father Francis X.Walter discovered
the quilts produced in Gee’s Bend and began to help the
women sell their quilts. He gathered them and sent them
to NewYork to take part in informal auctions and raised
money for the needy women.The Freedom Quilting Bee
got publicity through the NewYork Times and fashion
magazines and eventually began to produce bedcovers
for department stores such as Bonwit Teller, Saks Fifth
Avenue and Bloomingdales.
Only about a thousand of the tens of thousands of quilts
made in Gee’s Bend during the nineteenth and twentieth
centuries still survive. Documentation of the quilts
was initiated in the late 1990s and the Quilts of Gee’s
Bend were first exhibited in 2002 in Houston,Texas
at the Museum of Fine Arts.The exhibition captured
the totality of the community’s tradition through the
quilts, considering the social roles quiltmaking played
in women’s lives through the generations.The Quilts

8989

90

9191
NOTES:
29.William Arnett, Gee’s
bend :The architecture of the
quilt, 37.
Photo:“Broken Star”
variation from 1925
by Magdalene Wilson.
Cotton, wool, and silk.
of Gee’s Bend are assemblages of perfectly bounded
arrangements of elements. Gee’s Bend quiltmakers favor
the magnification of small elements and characteristics of
high abstraction.Their inspiration comes from a mix of
“other quilts” and “the world.” For the black women of
Gee’s Bend, oppressed by race and gender inequalities, the
quilts served as a tool for self-expression within their built
environment.“We was taught there’s so many different
ways to build a quilt.You can start with a bedroom over
there, or a den over here, and just add on until you get
what you want. Ought not two quilts ever be the same.
You might use the same material, but you would do it
different.A lot of people make quilts just for your bed
for to keep you warm. But a quilt is more. It represents
safekeeping, it represents beauty, and you could say it
represents family history.”29

92

9393
NOTES:
30. Supercrit #1: Cedric
Price: Potteries thinkbelt, 17.
Potteries Thinkbelt
project illustration.
“When the next round of university building starts,
perhaps we should treat education less as a polite
cathedraltown amenity.We print here an architectural
project for a 20,000 student campus in North
Staffordshire which is built around a road and rail
network, emphasises temporary housing, and ties in the
students to the community.”30
Cedric Price’s Potteries
Thinkbelt is an incredible undertaking of using a derelict
and abandoned industry and transforming it into a new
program.The project also makes a commentary on
the state of education in the 1960s and is still relevant
today. Higher education is mainly available for the few
nurtured ones while the world population at large
is still undereducated.The needs of a university are
conceived as separate from that of the community.The
Potteries Thinkbelt breaks down the separation between
the institution and the surrounding community.The
Thinkbelt is a vast triangle, enclosing the area around
Stoke and Newcastle and is intimately tied to the local
community through housing. It attempts to initiate
a way of thinking about progress by distributing the
educational institution on a regional scale. It incorporated
modern technologies, methods of communication,
POTTERIES THINKBELT
Cedric Price

94
NOTES:
31. Supercrit #1: Cedric
Price: Potteries thinkbelt, 17
Potteries Thinkbelt
project illustration of
Stoke and Newcastle-
under-Lyme area map.
and existing infrastructure to make use of mobile and
variable physical enclosures like a railway car as a lecture
room.The Thinkbelt takes advantage of existing rail
lines that were in excess of the British Rail’s passenger
carrying requirements. Short distances between existing
stations create a perfect scenario for frequent movement
between institutions for students. The Potteries Thinkbelt
generates “cities caused by learning.”31
The site chosen for the project is based on the
underdeveloped condition of the area.About half a
million people live in that part of North Staffordshire
but the area has been “unchanged and uncared for since

9595

96

9797
NOTES:
Potteries Thinkbelt
project illustration of
Madeley transfer area.
32. Supercrit #1: Cedric
Price: Potteries thinkbelt, 17.
33. Supercrit #1: Cedric
Price: Potteries thinkbelt, 20.
its industrial expansion throughout the 19th century.”32
The area is well connected with existing national routes
and movement patterns, however, these are significantly
underutilized.The Thinkbelt is spread over 100 square
miles and takes advantage of mobility. It allows students
to move easily between the different institutions.The
Thinkbelt focuses on technology, engineering and the
applied sciences but fundamentally changes the university
culture. Rigid requirements set in place for classifying
who is allowed to attend university are completely
disregarded and part time and refresher courses are
completely integrated into the curriculum. Furthermore,
university housing is integrated into the local community
so that students become part of the community they’re
spending 4-5 years of their lives in.
“The Thinkbelt housing will not just be something
external that is unsuccessfully grafted on to the Potteries.
It will be a catalyst, encouraged in its action by the
educational side of the Thinkbelt. People will begin to
demand an even bigger improvement in their socio-civic
environment; and the entrepreneurial instinct will be
awakened by the demand. Over time, the whole of the
Potteries will be revolutionized. Not only will derelict
land be used again, and the old eyesores go: there will also
be a major national industry to replace what they will
inevitably lose.”33

98

9999
NOTES:
Photo from Laufen
Manifesto writing session
<http://laufenmanifesto.
org/>
Initiatives such as the Laufen Manifesto have created an
effort to promote a humane design culture. Initiated by
Anna Heringer, Honorary Professor of the UNESCO
Chair for Earthen Architecture in Germany, the Laufen
Manifesto does not draw a distinction between the rural
and urban condition instead, the group reaches out to
all professionals to encourage taking responsibility for
production and inspire a collective culture of working
towards improving living conditions for all people.
“Too many people worldwide subsist in undeserving
living conditions, and their ranks are growing by the day.
As representatives of the professions collectively shaping
the built environment, it is our responsibility to resist
this intolerable situation.We are speaking out to define
an alternative position.We must produce spaces that
counter exploitation, control alienation, whether in urban
or rural landscapes.With all our expertise, creativity and
power, we need to contribute more dynamically and
consequentially to the global quest for equality.
Across a range of pilot projects, we have begun to initi-
ate a more humane design culture, working with a robust
LAUFEN MANIFESTO

100
network of communities, craftsmen, planners, builders
and organizations.These alternative practices demand not
only further development, but also substantial scaling-up.
Guided by a deeper understanding of individual needs
and aspirations as our fundamental concern, we must ur-
gently multiply our efforts to improve the ecological, so-
cial, and aesthetic quality of the built environment, while
developing more effective design strategies to anticipate
predicted future growth on a global scale.
01 COLLABORATING EYE TO EYE
We must commit ourselves to respectful communication
and cooperation with residents and communities as key
partners in achieving positive, measurable change.The
impact of a participatory process extends beyond actual
design outcomes – it should empower individuals and
cultivate a constructive atmosphere with lasting effects.
The process should allow sufficient time to facilitate a
dialogue striving for respect, curiosity, flexibility and care.
02 DESIGNING WORK
Projects must be conceived in a way that creates mean-
ingful work.A thoughtful approach to designing build-
ings, places, landscapes and products can nurture small-
scale enterprises like construction, farming and crafts. By
opting for labor-based techniques and non-standardized

101101
materials, we can foster a decentralized form of construc-
tion and production. Creating an atmosphere of entre-
preneurship and innovation is essential in forming value
chains connecting local craftsmanship and global indus-
tries. New models of self construction for low-income
populations must be explored, combining education,
training and long-term income generation.The creation
of work is foundational for greater equality and peace.
03 UNFURLING BEAUTY
We believe that beauty is an essential human need, linked
strongly to dignity.We must strive for an authentic har-
mony that resonates with people, the genius loci and their
territory.The longing for beauty can be stronger than fear
and thus a crucial catalyst for humane development.
04 IDENTIFYING THE LOCAL
Modernization has levelled cultural differences globally
and hampered context specific design. Individual projects
must be based on careful observation of geophysical
conditions, local building traditions and space hierarchies.
Global knowledge on building techniques must be
adapted to the local climate, available materials, skill base
and energy sources. Site and culturally sensitive design
contributes to self-sufficiency and more sustainable local
economies.

102
NOTES:
34.Anna Heringer and
others, In Search of a
Process: Laufen Manifesto for
a Humane Design Culture
05 UNDERSTANDING THE TERRITORY
While designers and policy-makers devote significant
attention to mega-cities and high density environments,
larger agglomerations are deeply dependent on smaller
living units and their landscapes.Truly humane design
projects understand zones of impact and influence on
many scales.They operate between the local, the regional,
the continental, and the global, thereby revealing a rich
network of dynamic social, economic, and ecological re-
lations that must be respected, adjusted for, and improved
as needed.
06 EDUCATING DESIGNERS
Designers are not trained sufficiently to achieve positive
change for people living in undeserving conditions.
Design education has to evolve radically to ensure young
designers have the capacity to bridge the gap between
design and construction, understand the nuances of
diverse sites and territories, and communicate more
profoundly with local communities and stakeholders. In
short, instil a greater social empathy. Manual skills must be
developed on the same footing as digital and intellectual
skills. Designing the right process must be equally
important as the outcome.

103103
NOTES:
Photo from Laufen
Manifesto writing session
<http://laufenmanifesto.
org/>
07 SHAPING POLICY
Integrated infrastructure, new collaborations, and
innovative approaches to project development and
financing must be translated into a global policy strategy.
A vast change is necessary in the way we conceive,
distribute and construct human habitats.We must connect
top-down and bottom-up processes, with a view to
fostering more productive exchanges between residents,
policy-makers, financial institutions, the design profession
and executing bodies.This will require the mobilization
of both human and financial resources.We need broader
and better solutions, at a lower cost, for a larger number
of people.”34

104

Blagoevgrad Province
RILA
PIRIN RHODOPE
105105
SITEANALYSIS
blagoevgradprovince

106
ALTITUDE
Bulgaria

Sources: Esri, HERE, DeLorme, TomTom, Intermap, increment P Corp., GEBCO, USGS, FAO, NPS, NRCA
107107
TOPOGRAPHY
Gotse Delchev Region

108
AIRPORTS
Bulgaria

109109
AIRPORT
Gotse Delchev Region
SATOVCHA
GOTSE DELCHEV
HADZHIDIMOVO
GARMEN

110
SETTLEMENTS
Bulgaria

111111
SETTLEMENTS
Gotse Delchev Region

112
ROADS
Bulgaria

113113
ROADS
Gotse Delchev Region

114
RAILROADS
Bulgaria

115115
INDUSTRY
Gotse Delchev Region

116
RIVERS
Bulgaria

117117
RIVERS
Gotse Delchev Region

118
FORESTS
Bulgaria

119119
FORESTS
Gotse Delchev Region

120
AGRICULTURE
Bulgaria

121121
AGRICULTURE
Gotse Delchev Region

122

123123
NOTES:
Photo of Patrick Smith
with a herd of sheep and
goats outside Godeshevo
in December 2014.
Godeshevo is located in
the Dabrash Massif and
the Pirin Mountains can
be seen in the distance.
35. Gergana Toncheva,
Expedition to the
Municipality of Satovcha.
GOTSE DELCHEV REGION
The Gotse Delchev Region in the Blagoevgrad Province
in Bulgaria will be the focus area of study. It is located in
the Dabrash Massif of the western Rhodope Mountains
along the Dospat RiverValley to the east and the Mesta
RiverValley continuing into the Pirin Mountains to
the west.The Gotse Delchev Region consists of four
municipalities: Gotse Delchev, Garmen, Hadzhidimovo,
and Satovcha.The Rhodope are a magical place of life,
joy and beauty where mountain, human and music
become one and the same. On her Expedition to the
Municipality of Satovcha, Gergana Toncheva wrote,“The
mountain gives birth to man, the man gives birth to a
song, the song is the soul of the mountain.An endless
circle, an individual and incomparable belonging.”35
The place has a very specific identity with a deep sense
of culture and craft. It’s part of the Chech region, a
historical and geographical area divided between Bulgaria
and Greece. Historically the region was divided into
Nevrokopi Chech and Drama Chech, Drama falling
entirely on Greek property and Nevrokopi split between

124
NOTES:
Photo of Dabrash Massif
in the summer by Erolish.
the two countries. In Bulgaria, the Chech region is
comprised of all the villages in the Satovcha Municipality
and those in the eastern part of the Garmen Municipality
along the Dospat River and the Bistritsa River.
The Gotse Delchev Region has a mountainous and hilly
terrain.The average height above sea level is about 1000
m, with the highest point at Ungen peak at 1668 m. In
1936 the local Bulgarian population requested that the
peak be named after the Swedish Minister of Foreign
Affairs Prof. Josten Ungen (1896 - 1974) for resolving
a boundary conflict between Bulgaria and Greece that
declared the southern range of the Rhodopes a property
of Bulgaria.A bronze plaques mounted on granite rock
sits at the top of the peak commemorating Prof. Josten
Ungen.
The Region experiences a Continental Mediterranean
climate with an average annual temperature of about
11.5C.Winters are moderately cold with an average
temperature range in January of 0C to 7C. Summers are
warm and sunny with an average temperature of 32C to
36C along the Mesta River valley and average of 23C
to 28C in the mountains.The seasons in the Rhodopes
are clearly distinguishable with hot summers, moderately
cold winters and prevailing autumn-winter and spring-

125125

126
NOTES:
Photo of vernacular stone
wall.
summer precipitation.The Mediterranean climate
influences the region up to 1200 meters above sea level.
From a geological perspective, the municipality land is
comprised mostly out of stone such as granite, gneiss,
rhyolite, river stone, hewn stone and sandstone. Deposits
of asbestos and mica in the Kochan and Pletena villages
have been found as well as magnesium in Zhizhevo, and
talc in Pletena but the quantities in those findings have
no industrial significance. In Pletena, Dolen and Kribul,
the gneiss extraction and production is active because the
stone found there is particularly good for its decorative
properties, its grindability and weather resistance.The

127127
NOTES:
Photo of wild boar.
Dabrash massif of the Rhodope mountain range also
supports magnificent coniferous and mixed forests, some
of which are preserved in the Konski Dol Reserve and
the State Game-breeding Station Dikchan.The Law
on Protected Territories of 1998 protects a number
of endangered plants and animals: echium russicum,
gladiolus palustris, soldanella rhodopaea, forty-one
medical plants, sixty-three types of birds, and thirty-three
types of mammals.The Game-breeding stations have two
breeding facilities: Dikchan with an area of 800 hectares
breeds red deer, and wild boar, while Osinski Kolibi
breeds moufflon and deer.

128

129129
NOTES:
Photo of village
Tuhovishta from
December 2014.
The fourteen villages part of the municipality have a
600 hundred year old history with surviving buildings
up to 200 years old. Rich and spacious houses from the
time of the Bulgarian revival period are all equipped
with a poton (attic), big chardak (veranda) and an amam
(bathroom).The authentic hewn stone and river stone
houses are difficult to maintain by an economically
struggling society, so most have been abandoned, allowing
history to crumble with them.The Pletena village
has a large number of abandoned historic houses and
Tuhovishta and Godeshevo, famous for their stonework
masters, have several hamlets with houses needing repair
and restoration.The village Dolen has been designated
as the architectural reserve with historic houses that have
withstood the test of time and stand tall with stories of
events and destinies from the past.
The people of the Gotse Delchev Region have a
special relationship with water, to a large extent due
to their Muslim culture.An Assyrian fountain dating
back 5000 years was found in the Komel River canyon
in Mesopotamia.The fountain consisted of individual
basins cut directly into the ground rock, descending like
steps down to the stream. Just like the Romans and the
Greeks, the Muslims also worship water with cult-like
rituals for its life-giving, life-maintaining, and purifying

130
NOTES:
Photo of Roman bronze
rings datin back to the
10th century. Retrieved
from Wikipedia article on
Tuhovishta.
properties.A tradition of building drinking fountains
began during the time of the Ottoman Empire.The
fountains were built within the town properties and
along roads between settlements so that all people would
have access to fresh water. In the Satovcha Municipality,
many of these fountains were built to commemorate a
loved one who had passed away and it is the only region
in Bulgaria where most of the fountains are accompanied
by some type of pavilion or gazebo.The pavilions are
equipped with a wood crafted table and benches and a
stone fireplace made specifically for grilling on stone.
The municipality is home to over 1,300 fountains.A
collection of the fountains has been submitted for a
Guinness World Record evaluation for largest number of
fountains in one administrative region and is on display
at Museum Satovcha.The Museum Satovcha is curated
and ran by Kiril Karakolev, history teacher and a talented
local historian.
The historical heritage of the municipality is incredibly
rich.Archeological surveys and excavations in multiple
areas around the region show that the municipality was
inhabited as far back as 430 B.C. Necropolis remains
have been found in village Kochan with traces of
inhabitants from the Iron and Roman Epoch. In Satovcha
a Necropolis dating back to 430 B.C. was found along

131131
NOTES:
36. Gergana Toncheva,
Expedition to the
Municipality of Satovcha.
with a bronze helmet, a spear, fibulae, bronze vessels and
coins from the Alexander the Great era.Throughout
southern Bulgaria, ten Thracian helmets have been found,
six of which were in the Satovcha and Pletena villages.A
Necropolis was also found in village Tuhovishta, dating
back to the 10th and 11th century. Some of the findings
include ritual vessels, tokens, gold earrings and necklaces,
and a Roman bronze ring. Furthermore, Roman bridges
are located near villages Slashten, Kribul and Satovcha.36

132

133133
NOTES:
37. IEC Project 2008,
Plan for Municipality
Satovcha.
THE RHODOPE MOUNTAIN-DWELLERS
The most valuable resources of the municipality are
the people.The Rhodope people are natural, friendly,
and hospitable mountain-dwellers.They are proud of
their cultural traditions, the songs, dances and customs,
and they work hard to protect and develop their native
lands.The people live incredibly sustainable lifestyles,
improvising for their necessities, and living from the
land they nurture. Data from the 2011 census shows a
population of 15,444 people residing in the Satovcha
Municipality. Compared to the 2003 census of 17,500
people, the decreasing trend is due to low birth-rates and
immigration.37
An estimate of 400 to 500 people native
to the municipality are seasonal immigrants abroad in
Spain, England, Greece, France, Germany, and Finland.
Demographics of the municipality show interesting
trend of employability in the population.About 19% are
under the employable age, ranging from 0 to 16 years
old.The at employable age population, makes about
63% between the ages of 16 and 63.About 13% of the
population are above the employable age of 63.The
percentage of the population rated at employable age is
quite high in comparison to the average data in Bulgaria.
Unfortunately, since tobacco farming is currently the

134
NOTES:
Photo depicts hand
making process of
traditional pasta by
Bulgarian Muslim
women.
main occupation available for the people of the Satovcha
Municipality, many of the educated young adults leave
the region for either the cities or opportunities abroad.
The immigration trend of the Satovcha Municipality
people was very apparent during my second visit to
Bulgaria in December 2014. German engineered vehicles
lined the narrow roads. I can guarantee that none of those
were acquired on a tobacco farming salary.The cafes,
bars and restaurants were filled with people celebrating
the holidays.The village plazas gathered the mountain-
dwellers almost every day for weddings, traditionally held
in the winter season due to logistics of an agricultural

135135
NOTES:
Photo of Strawberry
farms in Scottland tended
by Bulgarian boys.
society, dancing in celebration of the newlyweds. But
if you listen closely to the chatter, you soon begin to
realize that about 1 in 5 people permanently lives abroad
or has lived abroad for an extended period of time.To
take my mother’s immediate family, for example, she has
two brothers, Mohammed and Isen. Mohammed lived
in Pamplona, Spain for 5 years and his wife Aishe spent
two winters there with him.They worked in the fields,
picking peppers and then preserving them. Mohammed
and Aishe’s son Iro is currently living in Scotland working
on the strawberry fields and has been there for a year.
Iro also spent the two winters with Aishe working on
the pepper fields in Spain.Their son-in-law Miro is also

136

137137
NOTES:
Photo depicts Nadzife
Halimova and Adem
Dzhindzhi, a Bulgarian
couple with their
Spanish-born daughter in
Barcelona.
currently in Scotland on the strawberry fields with Iro,
but he has lived in Spain, Germany, Finland and Denmark
working various agricultural and construction jobs.The
second brother, Isen and his wife Fatme live in Gazaros,
Greece and have been there for the past 4 years.They
work on the tobacco fields in the summer and pick
olives in the winter. Both of their daughters, Gergana
and Suzan, have joined them there for the summers in
between school. Gergana’s husband Halim has also lived
in Spain for an extended period of time and his entire
immediate family lives there permanently.
This scenario is common for the majority of families
from the Rhodope Mountain region.The mountain-
dwellers that hid in the Rhodope Mountains for
decades to preserve their homeland, their culture, and
their traditions are no longer threatened and are now
exploring and acquiring new knowledge and experiences.
As tobacco prices in Bulgaria continued to decrease and
Bulgaria’s EU membership opened up new opportunities,
the people searched for alternatives.The jobs they
work abroad are by no means glamorous and the living
conditions are less favorable than their newly renovated
houses in Bulgaria, but there are jobs and they do pay. Of
course, the economic crisis in Spain and Greece had an
effect on the seasonal immigrants as well.The Bulgarians

138
NOTES:
Photo ofVladi Chaushev,
MarioVladimirov, Halim
Halimov, Daniel Nikolov,
Ivo Kenaliev, Kire Ineto,
Dimitar Zaimov and
friends in Spain with
Bulgarian flag.
that had developed great relationships with their
employers remained abroad but many were forced to
return.Those that return bring back new technical skills,
new techniques, new cuisines and more importantly new
language skills.There is one thing, however, that hasn’t
changed: when asked whether they would prefer to live
abroad or return home, every person without exception
has said they would prefer to live in the Rhodope
Mountains if the same job opportunities were available.

139139

140

141141
The literature review includes texts from several
organizations, theorists and architects who have thought
about and have written on the issues of the countryside’s
critical state in the continuing phenomenon of rapid
urbanization and population decline in rural areas.The
New Rural Paradigm examines the current situation
of rural areas in Europe and other OECD countries
and propoces a new approach to rural development. In
the Gutenberg Galaxy, Marshall McLuhan presents his
understanding of globalization in the 1960’s as “a global
village.” Christian Schmid and ETH Studio Basel take
an in depth look at the urban situation in Switzerland
which happens to blur the difference between rural and
urban. In Implosions/Explosions, Neil Brenner presents
an Urban Theory Without an Outside, inspired by Henri
Lefebvre’s theory on urbanization. Roberto Mazzoleni
and Richard R. Nelson create an argument for the
necessity of social technologies in developing countries
as a foundation for economic development and succesful
integration of physical technologies.
LITERATUREREVIEW

142

143143
NOTES:
Graphic from The New
Rural Paradigm: Policies and
Governance.
38. Nicola Crosta,An-
drew Davies and Karen
Maguire. The New Rural
Paradigm: Policies and
Governance
The New Rural Paradigm is part of the Rural Policy
Reviews series published by the Organization for
Economic Co-operation & Development (OECD),
a unique forum where the governments of thirty
democracies work together to address the economic,
social and environmental challenges of globalization. The
Organization’s findings argue for a new approach to rural
policy which focuses on places instead of sectors and
investments instead of subsidies.The goal is to develop
a multi-sectoral, place based approach to identify and
exploit development potential of rural areas. Rural policy
priorities should focus on transport and information
and communication technology (ICT) infrastructure,
public services, valorisation of rural amenities (natural
and cultural) and rural enterprise promotion. By
acknowledging multiple objectives in rural policy, rural
communities can develop a culture of cross-sectoral co-
operation, foster public-private partnerships and mobilize
new resources at the local level.38
Currently, predominantly rural regions in OECD
countries contain about 75% of the land and 25% of the
population. Rapid changes in international economy are
NEW RURAL PARADIGM
Policies and Governance

144
NOTES:
Graphic from The New
Rural Paradigm: Policies and
Governance.
presenting rural regions with significant challenges but
these challenges can also be moments of opportunity.
Changes include globalization, improved communication,
reduced transportation costs, changing trade patterns for
commodities and emergence of non-farm activity in
rural regions. GDP per capita in rural regions has been
in decline, about 86% of that compared to the national
average. Some of the factors that have driven this weaker
economic performance are out-migration, aging, lower
educational attainment, lower average labor productivity,
and low level of public service.
Agriculture has historically had an important role in
shaping rural landscapes but in recent years, agriculture’s
weight in rural economies has been steadily declining.
Currently, less than 10% of the rural workforce is
employed in agriculture.Agriculture’s gross value added
(GVA) is declining due to productivity increase in the
agricultural industry. Furthermore, rural policies in the
past have focused on agricultural subsidies which are
not specifically intended to trigger rural development
directly. Pressure to reform agricultural policy has focused
on reform of farm subsidies. In an effort to provide
alternative use of public resources, policies need to direct
resources to investments instead of subsidies.

145145

146

147147
NOTES:
Image from Arthur Kro-
ker, Digital Humanism,The
ProcessedWorld of Marshall
McLuhan. < http://fac-
ulty.dwc.edu/wellman/
Global.JPG>
39. Marshall McLuhan,
The Gutenberg Galaxy: the
making of typographic man.
The Gutenberg Galaxy written by Marshall McLuhan
in 1962 intended to trace the effects of mass media - the
interplay of the contrasting cultures of print and oral
expression - on European culture and modern human
consciousness.The text is a philosophical exploration
well-known for popularizing the term global village
which refers to the idea that mass communication allows
a village-like mindset to apply to the entire world. “We
can now live, not just amphibiously in divided and
distinguished worlds, but pluralistically in many worlds
and cultures simultaneously.We are no more committed
to one culture--to a single ratio among the human
senses--any more than to one book or to one language
or to one technology...the electromagnetic discoveries
have recreated the simultaneous field in all human affairs
so that the human family now exists under conditions
of a global village.We live in a single constricted space
resonant with tribal drums.”39
“The externalization of our senses creates what
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin calls the ‘noosphere’ or a
technological brain for the world.‘The human elements
infiltrated more and more into each other, their minds
THE GUTENBERG GALAXY
The Making of Typographic Man

148
NOTES:
Image from McLuhan
Galaxy < https://
mcluhangalaxy.
files.wordpress.
com/2014/10/1f4fd-
marshallmcluhancanada.
jpg >
40. Marshall McLuhan,
The Gutenberg Galaxy: the
making of typographic man
(mysterious coincidence) were mutually stimulated by
proximity.And as though dilated upon themselves, they
each extended little by little the radius of their influence
upon this earth which, by the same token, shrank steadily.
Through the discovery yesterday of the railway, the motor
car and the aeroplane, the physical influence of each
man, formerly restricted to a few miles, now extends to
hundreds of leagues or more. Better still: thanks to the
prodigious biological events represented by discovery
of electromagnetic waves, each individual finds himself
henceforth (actively and passively) simultaneously present,
over land and sea, in every corner of the earth.’”40

149149

150

151151
NOTES:
Photo from ( n d ks )
<http://www.indechs.
org/2013/06/sunday-
reads-switzerland-ur-
ban-portrait.html#.
VNRWri4qIZw>
41. Roger Diener, Jacques
Bernard Herzog, Marcel
Meili, Pierre de de Meu-
ron, Christian Schmid.
Switzerland : an urban
portrait, 17.
The book was produced by the ETH Studio Basel with
an in depth look at the urban situation in Switzerland.
Switzerland’s case is interesting in regards to this research
because even though Switzerland is a developed country,
it is very well known for its “proverbial slowness and
resistance to change of all kinds...Switzerland’s specific
urbanism proves to be a kind of culture of refusal and
prevention of density, of height, of mass, of concentration,
of chance, and of nearly all the other characteristics that
are desirable in a city, and which the Swiss love with a
passion -- just not in their own backyard.”41
The book
is a project studying five typologies: the metropolitan
regions, the networks of cities, the quiet zones, the alpine
fallow lands, and the resorts. Chosen Switzerland as an
area of study for an urban project when urbanism in
Switzerland has historically been suppressed is interesting
because then the project becomes about an exploration
of different kinds of urbanism.As a result of technological
advancements, increase in communication and ease of
movement, what was once defined as urban areas can
no longer be the same.The influence of globalization
have changed the way people interact but also the way
settlements interact and the distinction between urban
and rural has become somewhat of a grey area.
SWITZERLAND
An Urban Portrait

152
NOTES:
Map of Switzerland and
Alpine fallow lands from
Switzerland : an urban
portrait, 217.
First, Switzerland is presented in terms of Networks,
Borders, and Differences. Networks are systems of
exchange that can be viewed either in a physical nature
or in the immaterial one.The density or concentration
of networks represent density of settlements: cities are
located in areas where the networks are at a higher, more
concentrated density. Borders are linkages of exchange
that characterize urban areas.Autonomous entities that
may have been separated in the past are now relying on
their differences for productive exchange. How these
borders are exploited defines the quality of progress in
urbanization. Cities are built upon differences: different
zones, cultures, and contexts; but the key characteristics

153153
NOTES:
Aerial photo of a Swiss
village from Switzerland :
an urban portrait, 19.
42. Roger Diener, Jacques
Bernard Herzog, Marcel
Meili, Pierre de de Meu-
ron, Christian Schmid.
Switzerland : an urban
portrait, 165.
that make cities are the in-between zones of exchange
that generate productive energy based on the differences.
Christian Schmid follows-up on Switzerland’s
presentation in terms of Networks, Borders, and
Differences with a theoretical account on the urban.
Schmid draws upon the theories of French philosopher
Henri Lefebvre and his thesis of the complete
urbanization of society. Lefebvre states that for the most
part,“the whole world is caught up in a comprehensive
process of urbanization.Today’s reality can no longer be
grasped using the categories of ‘city’ and ‘country’ but
must be analyzed using the concept of urban society.”42

154
NOTES:
43. Roger Diener, Jacques
Bernard Herzog, Marcel
Meili, Pierre de de Meu-
ron, Christian Schmid.
Switzerland : an urban
portrait, 166.
Schmid acknowledges the pioneering thinking of
Lefebvre’s thesis and urges urban theorists to reinvent
the language with which urbanization is studied.
Urbanization should no longer merely refer to the
conception of the old city borders, but should analyze
“city” and “space” within the context of social theory.
Lefebvre associated urbanization with industrialization.
Urbanization is the migration from the country to the
city as a consequence of industrialization and industrial
production that is spreading across the globe. In this sense,
urbanization has resulted in the break-up of agrarian
societies and the disappearance of rural life in terms of
trade, handicrafts, and small local centers.“An urban
fabric is spreading across the country”42
and is absorbing
rural hubs into its fibers. It is a phenomenon that is
placing generating dominance of cities over villages,
resulting in the decline and return to “nature” for entire
rural regions.This phenomenon not only changes the
countryside but it also transforms the cities.“The big
city is exploding, scattering countless urban fragments
throughout its surroundings.”43
Lefebvre’s theory
redefines the historical conception of the city.Within the
context of urbanization, the historical category of the city
is broken down.The focus on interest is then directed
towards the process of transformation and the potential in
the creation of an urban society.