Dencity 2015
An overview of projects, products and exclusive articles about dencity 2015
Project • By Shelter • Townscapes
Agua Común-ity: Common Water
Introduction
Agua Común-ity seeks to address both access and efficiency of water infrastructure, which in turn gives form to private greenscapes and becomes social class identifiers in the municipality of Manchay in Lima, Perú. Manchay, similar to other informal settlements in Lima, was settled via mass migration and land invasions in the 1980s by people driven from their rural villages and poor urban districts because of political conflict – referred to as the years of terrorism in Perú. It was in the 1980s that the Communist Party of Perú, Sendero Luminoso (Shinig Path), a Maoist rebel organization, began ‘campaigning’ throughout rural villages in the Andes, gaining control of the villages and districts they passed through with violence... More
The Agency of Mapping: Social Empowerment in Rio de Janeiro
Introduction
It can no longer be said the internet has no form… today and tomorrow it is a weapon of marginalization, whose figure can be seen in the shadows of urbanization. As our cities become crowded, there are those that exist outside of our technological infrastructures, those who are exempt from our own global networks of communications. The occupants of our world’s densest cities too often live without a voice, silent amongst the chorus of political discourse. Unmapped and unchartered, the informal settlements of our cities too often lie dis-empowered, misunderstood and miss-represented.
Throughout history cartography has been the primary agent in the construction of our social and political infrastructure. Through the agency of... More
Project • By Shelter • Housing
Urukundo: Slum Factory
INTRODUCTION
Rwanda in recent years is experiencing a surge in population growth. This is mainly concentrated in large towns and cities such as Kigali, its capital, which has become the center of a strong migration from a population once almost exclusively rural. Over the past 50 years its population increased a hundredfold. Environmental degradation, uncontrolled deforestation, exploitation of wetlands for residential, industrial and agricultural purposes are just some of the effects of this unplanned expansion.
The project focuses on an informal neighborhood, located in the north hills of Kigali, particularly affected by these changes. On top of the hill there are newly constructed governmental and institutional buildings. Those a... More