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Infrastructures such as roads, buildings or transit systems have historically been the focus for most planners, designers and public and private bodies that commission our built environment. They are also the entry point into the design process for most planners and architects.
Lifestyles, however, are seldom studied as part of the design process. They are often regarded as of secondary importance – a mere consequence of infrastructure design, rather than its trigger.
This year PG22 students have been rethinking and redesigning cities from one specific lifestyle perspective: friendship.
The emergence, continuity and intensity of friendships in cities strongly depend on their material features, such as:
Social and human factors such as citizens’ financial aspirations, the division of domestic labour or the age and ethnic makeup of the city are equally relevant.
City design and planning has evolved to cater for the needs of traditional families and business: housing is designed based on the model of the nuclear family and transport networks are optimised to take workers from their homes in the periphery to their jobs in the city centre. Other forms of organisation, activities or relationships, however, have been systematically marginalised. The work of the unit critically challenges this by designing urban pavilions, facilities, neighbourhoods and a visual manifesto of the ideal city driven by friendship.
We are conscious that by designing the city we are also configuring social networks, daily routines, meeting points and rituals. The unit has critically evaluated tools for design that go beyond the technological, geometric, visual or aesthetic, developing a common scale to measure the quality of architecture by how it is able to create inclusivity, civic culture, intimacy, soft normative values, social visibility, cultural mediation, ephemeral or long-term friendships.