Christine En Che Lie

Dutch Housing (Dwelling)

The Equitable City - How ethics can shape the residential high-rise of the future

The Equitable City - Amsterdam in the vanguard of the equitable city of the future

“Towers are boring, not sustainable and not conducive to a pleasant neighbourhood where a community can form.” - Richard Sennett, NRC, 10 January 2019

No building type has been so thoroughly vilified as the residential point block tower. Rejected as the result of ‘phallic competition’ by Richard Sennett, depicted as the epitome of social inequality by James Ballard (the rich at the top, the poor down below) and generally dismissed as impersonal, anti-social and mind-numbingly monotonous.
Nevertheless, high-rises also create density, alleviate pressure on open spaces and may be the only way to make city living available for all. With the lofty goal of creating an equitable city, I set out to make a high-rise do precisely what it is not supposed to be able to: to unite rather than to divide, to inspire rather than to dull down, to liberate rather than to stifle. To up the ante, I used Sennett’s own ‘open forms’ – deemed to be irreconcilable with high-rise typology – to achieve this.
The result is a high-rise residential building, that is conducive to a pleasant neighbourhood where a community can form.

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