Tuesday 21 April 2015 | Lively Infrastructures
18.30-20.00, Sheikh Zayed Theatre, New Academic Building, 54 Lincoln’s Inn Fields, London WC2A 3LJ
Speaker: Professor Ash Amin, 1931 Chair in Geography and Fellow of Christ’s College; University of Cambridge
Chair: Professor Richard Sennett, Director, Theatrum Mundi; Chair of the Advisory Board, LSE Cities; Professor of Sociology, London School of Economics and Political Science
As part of the diverse program accompanying ideas competition Designing the Urban Commons, Theatrum Mundi welcomes Professor Ash Amin for a Public Lecture at LSE.
In this lecture on the intersections of urban design and urban identity, Ash Amin will present research from the Brazilian city of Belo Horizonte, where inhabitants of favelas deprived of formal infrastructure communally co-construct supplies of water, electricity and sanitation. As people work together and the fruits of their collective labour become visible, he argues that these infrastructures become deeply implicated in the making of community and social identity. In turn, as informal settlements become incorporated and these infrastructures rationalised and made invisible, individual lives and the experience of solidarity and struggle subtly shift in both positive and negative ways.
This compelling case study offers a vital perspective on the themes of Designing the Urban Commons, which asks how design could create new ways for the social act of commoning to take shape in London, enabling citizens to work together to generate and use urban resources.
Event twitter hashtag: #urbancommons
Free and open to the public with no booking necessary.
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