Re-imagining the collective space

Reproduction can be perceived in two opposite ways from the urban planning point of view, both as a driving force and as a braking weight. Driving force because urban phenomena are precisely produced by re-producing, and especially by reproducing the fundamental relation between public space and private volumes. Strength and longevity of traditional cities usually come from continuities, and peculiarly from this elementary one. The renunciation of this substantial quality is undoubtedly one of the main criticisms addressed to the modern movement. Rediscovered at the end of the 20th century, it could again be underestimated at the dawn of this new century, characterized by reinvention, rupture and search for alternatives. Nowadays, reproduction is widely associated to a deep negative connotation: as an obstacle to personal overtaking, or a resistance to collective innovation. But according to sustainability perspectives, there are probably still lessons to be learned from the urban capacity to cross time with the same intensity. Even to support alternatives, part of continuity can be useful, by imputing historical thickness in vulnerable innovations. While keeping a critical attention, it may be appropriate, even today, to consider reproduction as an urban potentiality. As Bernardo Secchi noted in La ville des riches et la ville des pauvres, urban planning - but also architecture in the largest sense - should take advantage of the capacity of space to oppose the resistance of its own inertia to social change (SECCHI, 2013). He also attributes to space the capacity of proposing an oriented trajectory, linked to this pre-existing form. In this context, the ambiguous trajectory given by the powerful relationship between public and private space deserves to be attentively studied. A careful reading of the evolution of this central dualism reveals the relatively silent presence of a third entity: the collective space. In comparison with the importance of a third way in economic and political fields (OSTROM, 1990), architecture seems to suffer from a significant gap. This transdisciplinary approach brings to light, in the architectural domain, the theoretical discontinuity that has long been given to intermediate space, between public space and private property. The architectural challenge around its own third way has long been reduced to the gradual register, without asserting itself as a status, necessary and complementary to the other two components of urbanity. As a very ancient urban element, and relatively recurrent in the formation of cities, collective space presents both all the transcendent abilities of reproduction, but also a precious flexibility mainly linked to its absence of theoretical formulation. Let's give a new emancipated orientation to this underestimated component, overshadowed by a rooted binary reading of the city.

Valentin Daniel Maurice Bourdon

A careful reading of the evolution of the central dualism opposing public and private domains reveals the relatively silent presence of a third entity: the collective space. In comparison with the importance of a third way in economic and political fields, architecture seems to suffer from a significant gap. This transdisciplinary approach brings to light, in the architectural domain, the theoretical discontinuity that has long been given to intermediate space, between public space and private property. The architectural challenge around its own third way has long been reduced to the gradual register, without asserting itself as a status, necessary and complementary to the other two components of urbanity. As a very ancient urban element, and relatively recurrent in the formation of cities, collective space presents both all the transcendent abilities of reproduction, but also a precious flexibility mainly linked to its absence of theoretical formulation. Let’s give a new emancipated orientation to this underestimated component, overshadowed by a rooted binary reading of the city.

2018

Métropolisation, habitat précaire et relogement forcé: entre phénomènes d'exclusion et tactiques populaires d'intégration

Sébastien Wust

This work was carried out within the interdisciplinary scientific program named "Sustainable Development, Metropolisation and Pollution of Natural Resources in Ho Chi Minh-City, Vietnam". This program, launched in 1994, is financed by the Swiss National Science Foundation (Priority Program Environment, Module 7 "Environment and development"). The main goal of this thesis is to grasp the social, economic and spatial dimensions at stake of involuntary resettlement of precarious settlements. in the context of developing countries' metropolisation. One of the approach selected fits within a thorough study of southern metropolis evolution dynamics, more precisely that of disadvantaged neighbourhoods. Moreover, we decided to develop a specific approach of involuntary resettlement, which is constructed using mainly two dialectical and interdependent concepts: exclusion and integration. In this way, this work differs from the most frequently used theoretical models, which are based on impoverishment or stress dimensions. In third world metropolis, government forces have an increasing tendency to turn to involuntary resettlement in order to implement or promote urban planning. Every year, approximately 6 million people are forced to move into an urban environment. This concerns mainly the most underprivileged sections of the population corning from precarious settlements. In recent times, this phenomenon has grown to such a point that some international institutions have even talked about the century of involuntary resettlement. The theoretical framework of this thesis refers to three different fields of knowledge, which nevertheless are linked to one another. The first field concerns developing countries metropolisation. Closely associated with the globalisation and polarisation of international trade, this process leads not only to the rise of exclusion but also to the dualisation of economic, social and political spheres and the fragmentation of urban spaces. The second theoretical field of study is based on questions raised by precarious settlements in southern metropolis. We analyse the way vulnerable populations living in disadvantaged neighbourhoods develop urban integration tactics in order to counter metropolitan exclusion forces and to alleviate precariousness. Finally, the third field is part of involuntary resettlement problematic. While it shares a close link to public policy evaluation, this problematic analyses the institutional values, norms, and practices underlying relocation policies of the people living in disadvantaged neighbourhoods. Our goal is also to develop a better understanding of the consequences associated to this kind of urban program and the way they might contribute to strengthening living conditions as well as residential situation precariousness for those who have been forced to move, leading them to develop defence mechanisms in order to guaranty their integration in the metropolis. In this analysis, we will focus on Ho Chi Minh-City and on the relocation program concerning the populations living in Nhieu Loc-Thi Nghe canal's precarious settlements. In the empirical part of this work, we will analyse and measure the consequences of this policy on their living conditions as well as on their behaviour. We will try to analyse to what extent those consequences tend to increase exclusion of underprivileged populations, limit their integration capacity, and enhances their residential mobility towards new precarious settlements that fit more to the aspirations, and above all, to the means of the underprivileged. Given the complexity of the topic covered in this work, we opted for an interdisciplinary approach. It appeals to different fields of social sciences: sociology, economics, geography, political sciences, but also architecture and urban planning. Moreover, we chose a quantitative as well as a qualitative method. Based on a multidimensional analysis of Nhieu Loc-Thi Nghe canal's population living in precarious settlements, we will be able to grasp the discriminating dimension of involuntary resettlement policy set up by metropolitan authorities as well as its severe impact on the population at a residential, social and economical level. Restrictive economic criteria or in some cases insufficient compensations offered by public authorities are such that a number of persons are excluded from the program. But on top of that, part of the families relocated in modern and salubrious apartments suffer from exclusion. As regards housing, the new apartments are characterised by their limited residential functions. This is mainly due to constraints linked to high rise housing, which acts as an economic and social barrier. In terms of social organisation, involuntary resettlement leads to a family nuclearisation process, and traditional sociability tends to turn to a more individualistic way of life, a phenomenon which results in a partial deconstruction of solidarity and protection networks. Finally, at the domestic economy level, resettled populations have to deal with an increase in service charges as well as working conditions deterioration which involve decreasing incomes. Although this modern way of life appeals to resettled families, most of them are brought to develop new integration tactics in order to limit involuntary resettlement exclusion effects. These tactics are to a large extent conservative inasmuch as they tend to reproduce ways of life and space habits characteristic of the former residential areas. To a large extent, they are characterised by palliative measures of space utilisation, professional insertion, income improvement and domestic means reallocation. Despite their willingness, families have a hard time fighting against resettlement exclusion forces. Residential mobility as well as subsidised apartments resale then become the way for some families to minimise precarious living conditions. Nevertheless, the benefits they gain from these illegal practices are often insufficient for them to buy or build an accommodation close to the center of the metropolis. The only possibility left to the reseller is then to rent a dwelling unit in a disadvantaged neighbourhoods or to move on the outskirts. While residential mobility leads to the creation of new precarious settlements in Ho Chi Minh-City, some families living conditions as well as residential situation keep on deteriorating, a decline which might bring some of them to experience a kind of urban nomadism. While the results of our study confirm the hypothesis stated at the beginning of this work, they also point out how hard it is to fulfill the housing aspirations of the most underprivileged considering the precariousness of their living conditions. The inadequacy of precarious settlements relocation policy is even worse when based on a modernist and standardised approach of the housing problem which favours typological and technical dimensions of residential space to the detriment of social, economic and ecological dimensions. What is at stake in involuntary resettlement concerns mainly the multidimensional mechanisms of exclusion and integration of which depends the subsistence of the most underprivileged in Ho Chi Minh-City. Urban authorities need to make political adjustments if they want resettlement impacts to fit the goals of sustainable development. In order to achieve this objective, popular participation and exchange between involved actors is the first condition they need to fulfill for the implementation of any policy in order to fight against exclusion and promote the integration of the most underprivileged as well as for any policy which aims to take into account the capacity of urban ecosystems.

EPFL2001

Resistance & Compromise

Letícia Cabeçadas Do Carmo

Contemporary architecture and urbanism concern everyday life in multiple contradictory ways. Floating between alienation and hope, post-industrial and other interstices often hold beautiful and poetic aesthetics of decay, attracting people driven by curiosity or political causes, stimulating the creativity of these spatial environments. Driven by struggles against standardised and authoritarian urban contexts, a search for Alternative Cultural Spaces (ACS) as concrete contemporary examples of spatial, convivial, creative and political experiences is the main objective of this research. Case studies selected in Lisbon, Ljubljana and Geneva (cities affected by different physical conditions, particular histories and general urban and economic contexts) focus on the years 2005-2015, but also look back to the 1970s. Based on participant observation and other qualitative methods, such as photography, sketching or mapping, the research gives a big importance to visual and spatial production and analysis, in order to reflect social and political engagement as part of wider urban contexts. Considering that the "aesthetics of resistance" of the ACS are influenced by practices of counter-cultures and avant-gardes (DIY, collage, site-specific), we believe that these "re-architectures" (re-use, re-habilitation, re-conversion) are also architectures of resistance (to mainstream, standardised and normalised spatial practices and to abandonment and negligence). However, these alternative aesthetics have become trendy over the last few years, becoming no longer exclusively used by leading resistance or subversive actions but being object of recuperation and consequently of instrumentalisation by neoliberal strategies. Culture and creativity are now at the core of urban planning, based on competitive processes and aiming at economic profit. Three kinds of aestheticisation processes were identified: alternative experiences born from grassroots projects, built over time; top-down processes that force the projects and their spaces to adopt restricted norms in order to assure survival; processes born with the projects designed, recreated and guided by a for-profit concern. The last two cases contributively reduce the diversity of urban experience and control creativity, through annihilation or a forced ambiance. This thesis shows that the visual expression of Ljubljana's alternative aesthetics of resistance is stronger than Lisbon's, and that Geneva's is suffocated by normalisation processes over recent years. The way a spatial ambiance is perceived by the user of a particular space depends largely on the mode of production of that same space, and on the primary intentions existing behind the creation of a particular design or construction, varying from mainstream and institutional approaches to the most subversive ones. Compromise is present and visible through the aesthetics of an ACS. Logics of urban-spatial occupation highlight the importance of the squat movement in Geneva, of the counter-cultures in Ljubljana, and of the fragmented networks of ACS in Lisbon. They also show how ACS propose a cultural network that is complementary to the mainstream one. Besides, either ACS move in the city or they experience a process of aestheticisation. One and another are directly related with survival strategies. Assuming a dialectic perspective of resistance and compromise, this thesis exposes the complex, hybrid and ambiguous dimensions of ACS.