As organic entities, cities are born, thrive, and die, sometimes only to rise again later, or in a different form, therefore understanding cities only as entities that grow, is not understanding the cycles of human settlements and groupings. Yet, this is the overruling paradigm today in urbanism, master planning in particular, which in itself is designed for catering to growing population numbers; but how do you strategize the future of a territory whose population is declining?
Far from understanding population decline as a negative, The DeGrowth Institute suggests a coming together of city dwellers in order to develop new tools for degrowth strategies. What to preserve. What is to let go. How to do it.
The DeGrowth Institute proposes a series of workshops to reflect on the past, acknowledge the present and imagine the future of those urban settlements.
The DeGrowth Institute workshop set-up. The workshops would unfold during the three day process, based on the following themes: My land, your land, our land; Archaeology of the Future; and Future Telling. They would mobilize the civil society, government actors, urbanists and planners to come together to think how to plan for degrowth.
Day 1: MY LAND, YOUR LAND, OUR LAND: A CARTOGRAPHY OF LOVE, MEMORY AND RITUAL
Starting a conversation about the relationship to the territory by establishing points of importance, for love, ritual and memory. Understanding the urban fabric of the city.
Day 2: ARCHAEOLOGY OF THE FUTURE: COLLECTING HERITAGE OF THE NOW FOR THE US OF TOMORROW
The workshop will explore the notion of heritage and record personal memories related to the industrial space in order to address the elements that should be preserved during the process of shrinking. It will be done with a ready-made diary that invites participants to think of the characteristics of the area to preserve. A sample of urban DNA will be materialized and preserved as a 3D scanned element.
Day 3: FUTURE TELLING: WHERE WE ARE, WHERE WE ARE GOING, WHAT WE ARE GOING TO DO
Using a custom-made set of ‘tarot cards’ as a tool that help describing situations and structure a conversation on how to imagine the future of shrinking city beyond established master planning templates and strategies.
