Politics of the Barter Block. A network of home-swapping in Havana grid
AA 2019-20 : https://pr2020.aaschool.ac.uk/EXP-08
Book: https://pr2020.aaschool.ac.uk/EXP-08
In Havana, more than fifty years of economic embargo makes any heroism to fade away into an agonic expression of survival at the outskirts of hegemonic globalisation. However, although peripheral, Havana also demonstrates its otherness within the global status quo -a different vantage point from which to redefine the Western capitalist idea of the contemporary city. From this alternative context, Experimental Unit 8 will speculate on new temporary housing models by revisiting Cuban tradition of home-swapping. Framed as a timely opportunity to discuss contemporary collective domestic models, the unit will question not only how different intensities and times of usage can reshape the arrangement of the domestic realm, but also how distinct articulations of spatial qualities can permit flexibility over long term constraints; such as material, climate and scale. Adopting a collective perspective, the block is understood as the basic unit to provide interpersonal relations between temporary occupants.
In order to explore these ideas, students worked in an area of approximately 100×100 metres, consistent with base dimensions of Havana’s urban grids. These interventions redensified, infiltrated and rearticulated independent blocks of the city to feed a speculative network of home-swapping. They will act as architectures awaiting to be appropriated, as well as negotiating relations at both a micro and macro scale. As a unit, we will continue our interests in the architectural form and its ability to articulate relationships and how form resilience can be supported by a locally driven materialization seeking more sustainable long-term construction approaches.
Students: Kamal El Kharrat, Isabel Gonzalez, Solveig Lola Audrey Jappy, Laetitia Khachwajian, Mathilda Mazkour, Lana Atef Nsouli, Nikitas Papadopoulos, Malgorzata Tchorzewska, Tommaso Tugnoli, Iren Turkkan, Carlos Uribe and Marine Marie Zovighian.