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Integrated habitats - matripolis

This work took 2nd place amongst 73 international entries to ‘Integrated Habitats’ (2010) competition run by the charity RESET (who research and promote 'ecological adaptation, resilience and health within the built environment’) in cooperation with Natural England, the Environment Agency, the Green Building Council and the RSPB. The brief was for original proposals for urban living that is integrated with the biosphere. The authors considered political, economic and social philosophies that challenge existing neo-Liberal and capitalist economies (including neo-anarchy, ecological economics, and participatory economics advocated by Chomsky, Daly, and Albert, respectively) and share the argument that national power and wealth should be locally devolved. The work’s critical synthesis drew from urban design theories of ‘smart growth’ and ‘urban ecology’. The result is an original proposal for living ‘off grid’: expanding upon limited conceptualisations of this term by encompassing local governance, resource generation and waste management. The local terraced topography curves around the practical and symbolic commons plaza. Housing facades face one other to engender community, security and co-operation, and each terrace provides apportioned space for allotments and planting. Natural and manmade technologies were researched and applied, creating sustainable ‘pollution free’ proposals. The work was exhibited at the Building Centre (Nov.- Dec., 2010), Eco Build, 2011 (NEC Birmingham), Museum of London (18 -30 Oct. 2011), Natural History Museum (Oct. 8th-20th, 2012). It has been presented as an exemplary study of sustainable urban design in Grant, G. (2012) Ecosystem Services Come To Town, Chichester: Wiley Blackwell (pp.142-143). It has been disseminated via architectural digital media sites (Building Design, Death by Architecture, Architecture Room, ArchDaily, Bustler, world architecture.org, and Sustainable Cities Collective). In email correspondence, Noam Chomsky referred to the research as… ‘interesting and important’. It was reviewed by Journalist Kelly Brenner for the Metropolitan Field Guide and remains accessible at http://ihdc.org.uk/#/matripolis/4562069684.