BUILDING BLOCKS FOR SOCIAL SUSTAINABILITY CATALYST / March 2013-November 2015 / [A.R.C.] (original) (raw)

The workshop addresses the issue of social sustainability within a humanistic and cultural context, set on the platform of the built environment. Participants are called to consider matters of formal and informal urban structure, sense of community, social identity and ethics as those pertain to societal development in a diverse, multicultural setting. Operating under the premise that social sustainability can be attained through means of collaboration and common awareness, the workshop’s findings aim to activate urban spaces in a three-dimensional and temporal manner in order to induce values of social and egalitarian participation. At demanding times such as these, when we are called upon as a nation to withstand the turbulence of the financial crisis and the challenges of the energy potential, issues of community and social cohesion become pivotal to our global survival. The time has come to look beyond skin colour, religion and social order and to employ architecture as a means of creating living spaces that transcend racial division and micro-politics. With this in mind, a group of instructors and dedicated students gathered around three specific areas in Nicosia and invented a world where social problems are tackled with urban proposals: 1. Walled City of Nicosia 2. State Refugee Estates, Agios Mamas, Nicosia 3. Ledra Palace Crossing , Buffer Zone, Nicosia This initiative came forth under the umbrella of Buildings Blocks for Social Sustainability (ARCH-392 Catalyst I and ARCH-491 Catalyst II). Participants consider issues of spatial form and are called upon to present cognitive and experiential plans and maps that interpret their site’s conditions. Discussion addresses the dynamic relationship between the profile and demographics of a community and its host environment, i.e. whether the built environment defines the social character of the community or whether community is, in fact, the influencing force that shapes and forms constructed urban environment.

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