25. Slowdown landscapes: Building blocks for care and repair of the city
Retrofit and repair, in a Slowdown neighbourhood; a colourful patchwork city of loosely-joined building blocks; collaboratives, participatives, cooperatives, and plain old social housing
The second set of Slowdown Papers looked at some of the aspects of architecture and planning at the scale of the building, the block. They concerned themselves with the environmental aspects of buildings, their design and politics, as well as their shared services and spaces.
Yet the dynamics of the Slowdown alters more than simply the distribution of buildings. It also opens up different ideas about time spent, value created, and engagement with buildings, particularly housing. At some fundamental level, Slowdown dynamics like decelerating population growth undercuts the idea of property as speculative asset, and of working away from home, or the neighbourhood for the bulk of the week. This means that there is greater impetus for exploring different models for building, owning, occupying, and maintaining and caring for buildings and their surrounds. In fact, an engaged dynamic between people and their housing which requires maintenance and care may no longer be something to avoid, but to…
