Critical Care: Architecture and Urbanism for a Broken Planet (Book)
Book design — MIT Press 2019
Book design for ‘Critical Care: Architecture and Urbanism for a Broken Planet’.
MIT Press | ISBN: 9780262536837 | 304 pp. | April 2019
In ‘Critical Care: Architecture and Urbanism for a Broken Planet,’ editors Angelika Fitz, Elke Krasny, and the Architekturzentrum Wien (AzW), look at how architecture and urbanism can help to care for and repair a broken planet. This book was published on the occasion of the exhibition ‘Critical Care. Architecutre and Urbanism for a Broken Planet’ (April 24, 2019–Sept 9, 2019), Architekturzentrum Wien. The graphics for this exhibition were also created by Alexander Ach Schuh.
„Today, architecture and urbanism are capital-centric, speculation-driven and investment-dominated. Many cannot afford housing. Austerity measures have taken a disastrous toll on public infrastructure. Extreme weather events render the planet vulnerable, even uninhabitable. This book offers an alternative vision for architecture and urbanism that focuses on caring for the broken planet. Rooted in a radical care perspective anchored by the planetary environmental crisis, this edited collection of essays and illustrated case studies documents ideas and practices from an extraordinarily diverse group of contributors. Focusing on economy, ecology and labor, the book offers twenty-one case studies including a village reconstruction in China; irrigation in Spain; a community land trust in Puerto Rico; the revitalization of modernist public housing in France; new alliances in informal settlements in Nairobi; and a turn to traditional building techniques in flood-prone areas in Pakistan. Essays consider such topics as ethical architecture, land policy, creative ecologies, diverse economies, caring communities and the exploitation of labor. These case studies and essays provide evidence that architecture and urbanism seek to contribute to making the planet livable again.“
Preview Image: 100 Classrooms for Refugee Children. Za’atari Village, Jordan. By Emergency Architecture & Human Right (EAHR). Image by Martina Bo Rubiniom, EAHR. 2016-2017.
