How to establish urban systems that are adapted to the local climate and that are providing housing for those who cannot afford it? The provision of low-cost housing in Brazil represents an exemplary case as it shows how social technological innovation could have a significant impact on sustainable urban developments. After the construction of 2 million housing units the federal program for social housing Minha Casa — Minha Vida is now entering in its third phase. The question is whether low-cost housing production can contribute to a redefinition of sustainability as increased awareness for the natural-urban complex and as active involvement of the population in the collective project of city-making. How can future residents be turned into defenders of the appropriate use of resources? What has to be established in terms of infrastructure to guarantee sufficiency and adequate livelihoods?
As follow-up on the summer academy “Tropical Architecture in the Anthropocene” a block-seminar was held between May 11 and 15, 2015 in the Hybrid Lab investigating the relationship between social and technological innovation. On the backdrop of the man-made age of the Anthopocene concerns for a more sustainable future were addressed in project proposals aiming at redefining the human habitat as a place for the proliferation of commons—shared facilities for the management of natural and social resources.
The project “Tropical Architecture in the Anthropocene” is conceived as an ongoing transdisciplinary project involving students in participatory design methods and preparing a future generation of architects in a dialogue that reaches from social studies to sustainable technologies that can be self-organized and maintained by the users themselves.
– Rainer Hehl (ADIP, TU Berlin); Elena Schütz, Julian Schubert and Leonard Streich (all UdK Berlin)