Politics of a Strip Block
Communities beyond two Havanas
The gradual opening of Cuba to the global economy is raising important questions on how the future development of Havana City should be. Physically frozen for decades to reinforce its own myth, Havana have addressed its slow urban redevelopment with an eye always on tourism. A clear example of this tendency is the ongoing plan to build a 42-floors luxury hotel with mere Cuban capital as the highest building in town. However, while the Ministry of Tourism plans to build 7.500 new hotel rooms by 2025, 132.000 Cubans have no home and live in government homeless shelters as decay processes have continuously displaced Habaneros from their homes. All these conditions have reinforced the idea of two different, but co-existing Havanas: a visible and festive heaven for tourists and certain elites, and another more hidden and dense of local communities. Multiple borders separate these two worlds that need to be articulated by reimaging new forms of architecture.
Following these challenges, Intermediate Unit 8 proposeD to work on new building typologies in Havana able to imagine scenarios for a possible inclusion of these ‘two Havanas’ into specific strips of friction. Students will work on a linear urban block strategy for 3.000 inhabitants raging 300 to 500 metres long and 10 to 50 wide to negotiate these political tensions at their engagement in urban, social, cultural and material levels. Examples of linear buildings will be scrutinized to understand this urban typology and material experimentations will be conducted to challenge local prefabricated construction methods. In short, challenging the ‘two Havanas’ implies not only a deep understanding of local communities as particular forms of living, but also, as forms of knowledge that can challenge the global status quo, its technologies, economies and current exchanges.
Students: Carlo Alberto Campolo, Cheri Lee Yin Ning, Dana Wazni, Defne Cengic, Emily Zinselmeier, James Wallis, Jumana Mahrous, Laetitia Chauveau, Logan Paine, Mira Oktay, Sharifah Sonia Syed Mokhtar Shah, Carmen Maria Bisono & Marina Matinopoulou.