The Fair Building project is about precisely those who are often forgotten when architects or public figures talk about spectacular new constructions or large-scale urban planning. In contrast to the film industry, where every role, no matter how small, is listed in the credit roll, architecture tends to keep a low profile when it comes to the work and the workers whose labor allows for buildings to emerge: workers who are employed in precarious conditions, workers who temporarily live far from home in inhospitable places, workers who ply their trade on unsecured building sites, and workers who toil away for days and weeks that are too long. These are the people who play the lead here.
The work of Rotor and Rotor Deconstruction (RotorDC) is not concerned with the construction of buildings or cities as we know them. Instead, the office develops strategies for the careful deconstruction of houses slated for demolition. Materials recovered through these processes of dismantling are re-claimed and offered for sale on a website. The spectrum is broad and ranges from cabinet handles to oak parquet, from lamps to porcelain washbasins, from glass blocks to floor tiles. Rotor’s general aim is to raise awareness of existing assets and create a legal framework for reuse. Many local authorities now use the collective’s handbook when considering new lives for existing public buildings.
In the 1980s, Toxteth is the setting for violent class struggles. People move to other parts of Liverpool; many of the Victorian row houses fall into disrepair. As a result, a group becomes active in the neighborhood. They clean up, plant flower beds, paint windows, and establish a market. A Community Land Trust is set up. The aim: to create affordable housing that is owned by the people from the neighborhood. The group convinces the municipality not to demolish the houses. Later, the architecture collective Assemble comes on board and develops a plan for the area. Although the work is still unfinished and many houses are still in need of further attention, the people’s goal of taking the future of their area into their own hands has been achieved for the time being.
Granby Four Streets CLT; Steve Biko Housing Association, supporting body; Ann O’Byrne, supporter, former Liverpool City Council Deputy Mayor and Cabinet Member for Housing; Assemble, architecture office
An increasing number of wild animals are living in our cities. The diversity of species in urban agglomerations is even greater than in the areas surrounding them. The photographic series by artist Tue Greenfort propels this coexistence of human and fox into plain sight. He points out that the abundant and growing diversity of animal life in cities confronts us with new challenges—because not everyone is happy about this cohabitation. As a result, planning faces significant challenges. It must not only take increasing and more comprehensive care of the diverse needs and desires of different people but also those creatures with no voices of their own in urban development processes.
The moving images show Bogotá and St. Petersburg, Rabat and Seoul, Naples and Tokyo, Doha and Shanghai, Kyoto and Venice. We are immersed in scenes of the everyday. There is fishing, cleaning, dancing, and laughing. What we see here is city. But it is not that city that shuffles from one mega project to another to claim its own in international competition. Rather, the spaces in this film speak of use. They show us that cities are, above and beyond, lived spaces that come alive only through us and our activities. We do not find the sameness of global cities here. Instead: plurality, heterogeneity, and again and again, site-specific being, making, and doing.
The large, up to seven-story residential and commercial building in Zurich’s Wiedikon district is anything but ordinary. The building is like a small town: complete with daycare center, doctor’s office, bank, art-house cinema, bars, restaurant, flower shop, and tram depot. Furthermore, Kalkbreite is a certified »2000 Watt site in operation«: Through active sustainability measures, those living and working there reduce their ecological footprint. People cook and eat together, workrooms are shared, an object library makes it possible to borrow equipment, and no one has their own car. The resulting savings are currently around 50% compared to average household usage in Zurich. The visionary approach of the Kalkbreite will, in the long term, be applied to the entire city in order to contribute markedly to climate justice.
Both works, Fenster (Window) and Teppich (Carpet), by Andreas Koch are frozen. They depict traces in a city’s existence, in the life of one or more people. Supposedly familiar things, the interface between inside and outside, are strangely distorted by this enlargement. Even the uncanny view of an apartment from above, which could not possibly be photographed in this way, changes the supposed familiarity of the interiors. It turns the private into the public without the occupants’ knowledge. As spectators, we take an observing, a distancing position; strangely foreign, soundless, passive, and entirely without participation. It is not long before this voyeuristic view of the lives of others becomes unpleasant. Quick, let’s get out of here and into the city!
All over the world, large housing estates like Cité du Parc rise upwards out of spacious park landscapes. They are often considered »social hotspots.« As is the case here. In the early 2000s, the French state decided to rethink the future of such housing estates. This is where the architecture firm Lacaton & Vassal with Druot comes in. The team had been working on this question for some time: How can spatial transformations be planned and implemented so that they do not lead to occupant displacement? The office’s work illustrates that alternatives to demolition and new construction do exist. And they define new qualities in buildings, which many believe cannot be improved.
Transformation de 530 Logements et création de 8 logements en toitures—Grand Parc Bordeaux
Contributors
Lacaton & Vassal Architects, Frédéric Druot Architecture, Christophe Hutin Architecture, architecture ofWices; Bernard Blanc, former General Director Aquitanis; Alain Juppé, former O.P.H. de la communauté Urbaine de Mayor of Bordeaux; Aquitanis O. P.H. de la communauté Urbaine de Bordeaux, commission
The work EUROPA was created in the aftermath of Britain’s referendum for withdrawal from the European Union. Europe, according to the architecture and planning office morePlatz, lacks visibility, public presence, and positive feedback. The huge luminous tubes, which have been on display in Berlin and many other locations across Germany and abroad since their first installation in November 2016, were conceptualized to address this articulated lack. But this notion of Europe that these letters and this light fixture are meant to represent is also viewed critically by many for Europe’s external borders are being increasingly sealed off and defended. The promise of an open and solidary Europe remains for many an unattainable goal. Radiant EUROPA does not shine equally for everyone.
morePlatz, co-initiators, design; Johann and Lena König, co-financing; St. Agnes Immobilien- und Verwaltungsgesellschaft mbH; Deutsches Architektur Zentrum, support; thirty-three individuals and architecture and culture offices, co-financing
The film Swim City shows us how vital rivers are for the well-being of the entire urban population. Whether in the Danube baths in Vienna, the botanical gardens of Tbilisi, or the rivers in Basel and Zurich—everywhere people are jumping into the water on warm and even cold days. In other cities, too, where rivers are only just being rediscovered as open spaces, initiatives are being formed to raise awareness of the value of water in the city. This, however, goes far beyond the mere popularizing of swimming. They are also movements that fight for public access to water against the background of increasing privatization of river banks. They make it clear that rivers must be taken seriously as important arteries in larger ecological structures.
Jürg Egli, artist and Wilmmaker; Lucı́a de Mosteyrı́n, photographer; Barbara Buser, Andreas Ruby, and Yuma Shinohara, co-curation; Swiss Architecture Museum Basel (S AM), commission
