Critical Care: Architecture and Urbanism for a Broken Planet (The MIT Press)

How architecture and urbanism can help to care for and repair a broken planet: essays and illustrated case studies. Today, architecture and urbanism are capital-centric, speculation-driven, and investment-dominated. Many cannot afford housing. Austerity measures have taken a disastrous toll on public infrastructures. The climate crisis has rendered the planet vulnerable, even uninhabitable. This book offers an alternative vision in architecture and urbanism that focuses on caring for a broken planet. Rooted in a radical care perspective that always starts from the given, in the midst of things, this edited collection of essays and illustrated case studies documents ideas and practices from an extraordinarily diverse group of contributors. Focusing on the three crisis areas of economy, ecology, and labor, the book describes projects including village reconstruction in China; irrigation in Spain; community land trust in Puerto Rico; revitalization of modernist public housing in France; new alliances in informal settlements in Nairobi; and the redevelopment of traditional building methods in flood areas in Pakistan. Essays consider such topics as ethical architecture, land policy, creative ecologies, diverse economies, caring communities, and the exploitation of labor. Taken together, these case studies and essays provide evidence that architecture and urbanism have the capacity to make the planet livable, again. Essays by Mauro Baracco, Sara Brolund de Carvalho, Jane Da Mosto, Angelika Fitz, Hélène Frichot, Katherine Gibson, Mauro Gil-Fournier Esquerra, Valeria Graziano, Gabu Heindl, Elke Krasny, Lisa Law, Ligia Nobre, Meike Schalk, Linda Tegg, Ana Carolina Tonetti, Kim Trogal, Joan C. Tronto, Theresa Williamson, Louise Wright Case studies aaa atelier d'architecture autogérée, Ayuntamiento BCN, Kashef Mahboob Chowdhury/Urbana, Cíclica [Space.Community.Ecology] + CAVAA arquitectes, Care+Repair Tandems Vienna (including Gabu Heindl, Zissis Kotionis + Phoebe Giannisi, rotor, Meike Schalk + Sara Brolund de Carvalho, Cristian Stefanescu, Rosario Talevi and many others), Colectivo 720, Estudio Teddy Cruz + Fonna Forman, EAHR Emergency Architecture & Human Rights, Fideicomiso de la Tierra del Caño Martín Peña CLT, Anna Heringer, Anupama Kundoo, KDI Kounkuey Design Initiative, Lacaton & Vassal, Yasmeen Lari, muf architecture/art, Paulo Mendes da Rocha + MMBB, RUF Rural Urban Framework, Studio Vlay Streeruwitz, De Vylder Vinck Taillieu, Xu Tiantian/DnA\_Design and Architecture, ZUsammenKUNFT Berlin Copublished with Architekturzentrum Wien Contents Introduction Critical Care. Architecture and Urbanism for a Broken Planet Care Caring Architecture Architecture and Care Ecology Seychelles Islands Idyll and the Planning of Eden: Speculating on Creative Ecologies Practicing Civic Ecology: Venice and the Lagoon Seeing and Acting Labor Counter-Conducts: Politics of Architecture and Labor in Brazil Affective Economy Transition to an Ecological Citizenship Handling Replacement: Tending to a Local Library and Repair Center Economy Speculations on Architecting Care Beyond the Anthropocene The Favela Community Land Trust: A Sustainable Housing Model for the Global South Towards a Radical Democratic Politics of Urban Land: The Case of (Red) Vienna The Changing Ways of Being in Common: From Collective to Common Spaces in Welfare Housing Case Studies Jintai Village Reconstruction Recovery of the Irrigation System at the Thermal Orchards Caño Martín Peña Community Land Trust Friendship Centre Unidad de Vida Articulada Orfelinato, Uva de La Imaginacíon Ruskin Square Superblock Model Freie Mitte Nordbahnhof Care+Repair Mexus Sindh Flood Rehabilitation 100 Classrooms for Refugee Children Volontariat Home for Homeless Children PC Caritas SESC 24 de Maio Transformation of 530 Dwellings, Cité du Grand Parc Haus der Statistik R-Urban Kibera Public Space Project Didi Textiles Tofu Factory Acknowledgments List of Photos Bibliography Index