DS3.2
Tutors
Maria Kramer
Roberto Bottazzi
"‘The city is now everywhere, and the world is a hybridized, denatured, co-evolving ecology of our own making. The global city, spread across vast landscapes of resource extraction and waste, is the new nature, and this new nature is suicidal unless we transition cities from their basis in 19th-century engineering and move them toward 21st century understandings.’ Richard Weller
We investigated the societal, contextual and psychological aspects at our site in Waltham Forest, focusing on developing a local hub in Semester I and sustainable Co-Living in Semester II in collaboration with the council.
Our aim was to develop ideas about how we can raise awareness and have a positive influence, with an intervention based on wellbeing and connectedness to our environment, linked to programmatic invention. We invited local community leaders to our crits and it was insightful to understand the complex local issues close up.
In term II students explored and learned from their individual ecology, integrated with the idea of co-living and co-housing. There were ideas to provide habitats for biodiversity such as birds and bees and living in a way that is inspired by ant colonies; also growing your own vegetables, with the root depth defining the roof scape or via hydroponic gardens acting as an additional night time light source.
Human body clocks are in line with the circadian rhythm and we are interlinked. How can we reconnect to the Earth so we can act with environmental responsibility exploring this on an intellectual, experiential, emotional and spiritual level. How do we prioritise a sustainable planet over economic growth? How can we live without depleting our resources?
Understanding that the urban and the domestic, the public and the private, the individual and the collective, the political and the personal, are not opposing concepts, but constructs that are linked to the spatiality of the city was part of our investigation.
Wilfred Achille , Hanna Benihoud, Dr. William McLean, Alex Onufriev, Alicia Pivaro, Peter Silver, Maciej Sobieraj, , Sam and Joanna Vasanth, We'd like to thanks to Paolo Cascone, Harry Charrington, Paul Dwyer, François Girardin, Dr. William McLean, MVP Workshops, Pawel Pietraszek, Julian Williams
