about
HIGHRISE
PROJECT
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What capacity is left to produce an inclusive city, in the context of an accelerated verticalization of contemporary metropolises? At first sight, promoting a denser city would help accommodate further growth, providing housing for the people while limiting urban sprawl. That is how densification is justified in many cities across the world. But in a context where regulatory capitalism and entrepreneurial municipalities are participating in the creation of the most favorable conditions for developers to control the urban space, verticalization, and particularly residential verticalization is questionable. If office towers have gained attention recently, the vast majority of vertical developments are residential, a phenomenon having far reaching consequences on the daily life of residents and urban communities.
Verticalization, if not new, is currently happening in a very different context than after 1945, when Charte d’Athènes and modernism where the dominant planning principles. Today, residential high-rises are more than architectural solutions, as much as office towers, they are commodities in a global market where capital flows are fixed by developers and municipalities. By shedding a light on the making and the experience of residential high-rises, we assess the contemporary transformation of the city and test it against inclusiveness. Aiming at the construction of a transdisciplinary theoretical framework (architecture, geography, sociology, anthropology and others), we intend to critically question the inclusiveness of contemporary urban production, through the residential high-rise phenomenon. Inclusiveness, as defined by the UN (economic; social; political; cultural and symbolical) is one of our benchmarks, both a state and a process; it is a result and a condition for an egalitarian/equitable urban environment.
Framed by the above theoretical framework, the project is rooted in case studies, enabling to reveal different types of local-global negotiations in the making of the neo-liberal city. In order to deliver the most, Lyon and Sao Paulo have been selected as the core case studies, because of their differences, singularities and specific residential high-rise history. A Franco-Brazilian research project, led by researchers from USP and Université Lyon2 - with collaborations of other international researchers and practitioners from Municipal Agencies of both cities -, as well as on secondary sources, the Highrise project is both international and deeply locally rooted.
Our position is that a « dewesternized gaze », a more diachronic view that lies in the making and experiencing the city, and hypotheses based on case studies are necessary to investigate questions like: are we witnessing new forms of build-in, build-high gentrification, of all-enclosed buildings signs of a growing exclusion in the so called ‘neoliberal’ entrepreneurial city? Can we be assertive considering residential highrises as a lever for municipalities to achieve a more inclusive compact city model ? Real estate and property developers have recently taken a great part in the dissemination, reproduction and maintenance of some urban practices, thus, one wonders, is this process representative of an attempt to create and reinforce specific urban lifestyles? In what ways do specific residential high-rise housing typologies dialogue with the spaces of public life, inducing or suppressing specific activities?
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HIGHRISE Symposium Poster
