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hibis   Curiosity.
  • Theme summary
    •  architecture, arts and technics
      frontages and houses - fountains, campaniles, sundials, wall paintngs.. - bildings, towers, other housing -
      ancient constructions, art objects- religious edifices and religions
      technics and materials, evolving - arts works, huge sizes
    •  surprising, funny (or not)
      city and nature, street signs and placards, shops, trade, humans, animals, foods, vehicules, arts, things, habits and faith.
    •  Science et Technics
      first things. numbers, percentages, slopes, angles - forces and composition - energy, mass, speed - liquids - pressure, temperature..    -    Life just visible or too tiny, complex and créatie world - birth.. - atoms - univers - to wonder ?    -    electricity batteries, lightings, electric current, (electro)magnetism, gigantism - électrostatic - dangers..  data technology..
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French
this page,   Habitat - minimal, naturel..

Dwelling. Where ecology and social meet.
Friendly and harmonious architecture tests in Holland, a country of a very small area. Here you leave your car on a Parking located at the entrance. What is much better than driving about for half an hour searching an empty slot. Additional green power are used. People are talking each other, what hadn't happened for a long time for new comers. This is just a small part of an established seting of 24 hectares, with offices, schools, buildings and even ultra modern retirement house. Individual houses are mostly grouped. Pleasure gardens Accreditation and leasure gardens, playgrounds, curves streets etc.. And everything for the cycling. "We believe It's like a natural park". Just 10 minutes from Utrecht, the third largest city of Holland. social mixity desired, but is it possible in the run ?
In a utopian world where everyone would respect each other, we would reserve more green spaces in urban centers, eliminating costly projects of prestige, in reality financial holes for the population. We would build friendly homes where the motto is not to isolate people, or to enclose them in cubes while our species continues to grow. In the Nordic countries this pattern is spreading rapidly. We park the car at the entrance, and we finish on foot. Having a nice balcony terrace should be a vital minimum, & nbsp; overlooking a natural area. This is what we can really call social, true. Far from the 100,000-euro private house of Mr. Brûlot (France) who left so many people cheated, except him, the profiteer. Ecotourism. In the Bahamas, "ecolodge" Tiamo has bet everything on the preservation of nature. Listen: "The luxurious bungalows are built of wood from a nearby forest". Find the mistake. If wood seems ecological, deforestation is not. For a small box in Ethiopia, among the Afars, they have to cut up to five hundred boxwood (used locally). In a country where water is so lacking, where vegetation is scarce and precious, it is catastrophic. They are now trying to build wih stones.



Social mix in Brasilia.
I must tell you the incredible story of Brasilia, the capital of Brazil entirely created back to the coast, in the freshness of altitude. The architect, director of the project, specified his intentions "We wanted to create a social mix, so that the poor can also be housed close to the center. And that's what has been achieved, with help. As time passed, prices for apartments and rents increased, especially in the center, as everywhere. What happened then? the modest people rented the apartment that had been allocated to them, and they went to the periphery in precarious housing, thus enjoying substantial income".
Like what, doing good is not so obvious as that. What we check for each discovery of misappropriation of aid and allowances. Business that goes to slavery since travelers have kidnapped RMIists (*) to force them to beg, leaving only the trash for their livelihood, but recovering their allowance.
(*)people who is granted by the RMI, French minimum income, now RSA.
Relocation . In New Orleans, Louisiana, some of the typical black houses or apartments, many of which were demolished or abandoned during a devastating hurricane, are said there "shot gun" for with a rifle shot on the facade, the bullet would cross all the rooms in a row. An optimized arrangement called in France "longère".  The dispossessed inhabitants regret this configuration which, they say, is very friendly and learns to live in community; indeed, you can not go to a room  contiguous without crossing at least one other.
In terms of conviviality, some family homes in Asia or tribal peoples would be models of the kind : a single large room in which a large family lives, family being understood in the old sense, with ascendants and descendants, possibly with a corner for women (Irian Jaya tribes).

Auroville.
In South India, under the impetus of a Frenchwoman, Mirra Richard, "the Mother", associated with an Indian yogi Sri Aurobino, an international city was born, Auroville, according to a plan conceived in 1977. A place of calm and harmony where money no longer reigns, replaced by fraternity and work. Nobody can own anything, in case of departure, even though he has built his house with his hands and maintained a garden.
As we approach, one feel the difference with any other Indian city:  low population, calm, no pollution, birdsong, vegetation. Paths separate the different neighborhoods without public lighting. The moped is queen, but some electric cars circulate there. About fifteen villages surrounding areas benefit from care, education and jobs thanks to Auroville. 850 Indian, 297 French, 228 German, 103 Italian two Belarusian, an Algerian, a Colombian, including about forty architects.. (July 2008).
Designed to accommodate 50,000 people over 20 square kilometers, the community includes only 2018, who vote however unanimously ! Support UNESCO, special approval of the Indian state. On a laterite desert were planted - in forty years - with "a completely crazy job" by 40 to 50 degrees, more than two million trees and shrubs; a tropical paradise. Because we have to work here - for little or nothing -, a lot of work .. solar, recycled water and the central solar oven of the collective restaurant - 15 meters in diameter - which produces steam for cooking 1,000 meals per day. To close the rumors, that amplifies the presence of a huge golden sphere surrounded by twelve petals - small pieces of meditation - there is a house guests, holidaymakers and journalists circulate there. And help on occasion.

We make money, we buy what we need outside Auroville. "Utopia has its limits". National Geographic, French edition, october 2008.


Nomadisme In both the USA and Canada in particular, very well-off people live in caravans, although the word is weak: what I saw sometimes exceeded the understanding; the car ? a luxury heavyweight tractor with berths; caravan ? a monster of 8/12 meters; for the rest, a boat was on the roof and the car (yes, for everyday use) hung behind (front wheels raised).
For poors who can't rent a flat, and who have to search small jobs despite their age, it's not the same, with a simple low cost motorhome. Another form of modern nomadism rests on the pleasure boat. In the tropics preferably, but not necessarily. That of "Gypsies" (bohemians, gypsies), as here in Greece is much more modest and natural. This is the canvas tent, as for the Berbers. The gypsies are believed to be from India.

Oddly enough, the elegance and lightness of the canvas, tent or sail, is rediscovered by architects who now cover small passages or huge surfaces of canvas stretched strongly by steel cables supported by pylons. hibis
Minimum mais pas sordide
hibis does not show desperate eyes, broken bodies or faces with no hope. After being hesitating, I put this picture here, with the necessary explanations.

Here in New Delhi, this family (already three very young children), seems to possess only a few light carpets and dishware. Even if it's very hard for us (there is much worse), they do not seem anything miserable (in the sense of behavior). They are not skinny and the children sleep quietly, do not cry.  How do they live, in this country where you buy water or tea by the glass to street vendors? Maybe are they going somewhere, after all.hibis


last explanation. 35 years after my shot, thanks to a reading, I learn that my hypothesis could be the good one, I quote: "The Indians travel in family, charged with all their goods:   pots, stoves, containers, mats, makeshift beds, baskets .. - "For Indian, the station is also the hotel; he can get there with an advance or   a considerable delay, as if life was for him only a waiting room, without any worries about schedules" - "The big Indian cities give the impression of being cities of homelessness.   The street is not a place of passage but an end in itself, where we eat, we wash, we sleep, where we work."

Back to Somalia.
I quote, "Soon I distinguished a tiny hut, a rudimentary shelter made of stakes joined by string and a tin roof. We stopped in front. There There was obviously no lock on the door, which was in fact a thin sheet of metal attached to the corners by wire; I had to shoot it and lift to open it; right now, I stumbled on mom's feet. There was only one room, so small that my mother touched the door once elongated";. "Desert Daw", by Waris Dirie, supermodel and UN ambassador for sexual mutilation.


magasine
Soweto exists in France, near Paris.
In the sad records, "our" Haiti "offers cesspools  even worse. In these areas there are mafia bosses who control  usually up to the drop of water.

Soweto, suburbs (black) of Johannesburg (South Africa), infamous under apartheid English who kept the inhabitants, mine miners    diamonds for the most part, under miserable conditions.    Notorious after apartheid, for the horrors perpetrated by the Zulus themselves in these shantytowns. Today, the calm restored, we visit the misery and the living conditions have improved. Less slums and wealthy villas. Today, some whites have gone into misery, although they still control the majority of property and capital.

Where is the truth ? in these rich neighborhoods, in the slums rehabilitated and open to tourists or to Johannesburg where, to renovate neighborhoods  which do bad effect, they have just expelled the inhabitants in full night manu militari. This on the background of an upcoming World Football Championship.

The townships of Cape Town, a point of view, a certain action:
Carin Smuts descends from a large family of Afrikaners; architect of the multi-purpose center, she built fighting against all cultural and social community centers, schools, markets that resist and remain for many, the only public facilities in their neighborhood. She is always angry : we spend the equivalent of 300 million euros in a football stadium while the townships are lacking everything . Me, for ten times less, I build something that will be useful to the community . It's about creating a social dynamic, giving a community the opportunity to take control of their destiny . I run hundreds of meetings so that future users define the program themselves, I give them work on the site and want them to take over the management of the site. No advanced technology or expensive materials in these areas of extreme poverty, ravaged by drugs and gangs; everything of value is stolen. It must be done with local materials. While the affluent population, mostly white, locks into secure housing estates, 1.2 million people do not have decent housing.
"Le Monde 2 ", January 2009.

Exotic tourism.   In Soweto, tourist coaches dump their passengers who also visit and buy local crafts. This tourism of a new kind is perhaps a real good idea despite the impression of voyeurism of bad taste that it suggests. Provided that the mafias do not racket the meager income it generates and that these neighborhoods really try to connect with the urban area. The same tourist exploitation occurs in Brazilian favelas, one of the most deadly places in the world. The mafia is watching and making a small profit. "Favela tour" also visit Mumbai (India) and its future is assured if we look passively to increase misery. So imitations were soon born. Although a share is repaid, the truly driving financial effect for these "shantytowns" remains in fact very limited. But it's better than nothing. Hope that they end up rejecting the principle if the influx and tourists become too insistent.

Tree huts. Nothing new, since the hotel business is there as well as some particular, sensing the call of a new charm. Dominate, feel safe from the dangers of the ground, see far away all around you, isnt'it wonderful ? &Nbsp; Somewhat swaying a bit, generate some disturbing noises, not to mention the rustling of the wind in the branches or a few cries of animals, but when we love ..   
The tree house must look as safe as a house. We are still far from the mountaineer who hangs his sleeping bag at a few pitons planted in the rock, in full blizzard, over a vertiginous void. And sleep ! It will be for later.
Here, we must hang on ! Near Atlanta (USA), Peter Jankin has two huge oak trees on his property. Nicknamed "Man Tree", he organizes original climbs. And also provides suspended beds, for couples if desired, provided they both get along very well. Most difficult is to get settled because there is no lift and it requires a little training ; in fact, these trees were the most climbed in the the world !   unfortunately, one of them has ended his life, vanquished by parasites. May be there is still this one, if you fancy swinging twenty meters above the ground, admiring the waters of a nearby lake.

Breathtaking. Hut at the top of the trees. Not yet built for tourists ! Huge amounts of work, work of artists and engineers for a minus two years life span. With disturbing noises of the forest, wind and swaying, what for nights ! And sometimes it is not closed around.. my god it's high.. Images according to a television report. Irian Jaya.
 
The cabin is surprisingly large, a very large room with women's quarters, in a corner.   Built by security at the highest of the "canopy" (top of the trees of primary forests). We do not cut the trunks here, so it must be at least 20 meters. Imagine the construction and its balance. All tied up branches and deployed siding peels.   Thatch-like cover.. Amazing; to say that they are savages.. who do not even do bodybuilding..

Here are just two who are climbing up..  

If that fancy you, after you . It's easy, there are notches cut into the trunk. Just don't miss them.  the whole jiggle a bit ; the most disturbing is all these trunks tied one after the other, to make the height!   there is one piece of   scale, for starting.

The reception is unforgettable, all long sharp pelvic holsters up..

Cooking in the trees.
Hospitality is good. They are preparing a fire. Imagine burning in these conditions, on wood surrounded by wood and without fire extinguisher. And that smokes..

Good bananas cooked .. with perhaps succulent roasted worms for dessert.



Report on Rio de Janeiro .  I quote: "The country is the world champion of violence, with more than 35,000 people shot every year   (36,000 in 2004).
The maps show where you are most likely to be attacked and the vehicles are driving in convoys.  moreover, it is especially in the poor neighborhoods that this happens, at 80%.   If you are tempted by the visit of a favela, that's what you need to know.

What is certain is that I do not enter a favela without the permission of the local boss. Neither without a bulletproof vest. In Rio, journalists can no longer enter slums.   Brazilian favelas, undermined by crime and   drugs, have become the meadow of traffickers. The reporters cover the events dressed in bullet-proof vests. death squads made up of police officers are not lacking. On March 31, the police massacred 29 people, many of them children, to send a message to the local boss.



   Futuristic, imaginary.



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