Cities of care

Cities of Care

Professors

MSc. Urb Diana García Cejudo

Mtro. Arq. Psj. Rodrigo Pantoja Calderón

Arq. Daniela Cruz Naranjo

Arq. Pedro Mendoza Hernández

Arq. Roberto Cevada Martínez

Dra. Andrea María Parga Vázquez Ing. Miguel Anaya

Tutors

Dra. Itzia Barrera / Investigadora Centro Geo

Ana Gabriela Suárez Pastor

Denisse Huerta Solorio

Authors December 2023

Tecnológico de Monterrey Campus Querétaro Escuela de Arquitectura, Arte y Diseño

Global warming impacts lead us to question the systems in which we inhabit. Extreme heat caused by the Urban Heat Island phenomenon is the deadliest climate change effect and has unequal levels of impact in the population. Against the increasing frequency, duration, and intensity of extreme heat waves, the radical repair of our cities should be ushered in, aiming to adapt them to future conditions.

Through the analysis of the heat island effect in the Queretaro Metropolitan Area, it becomes evident that the morphologies, construction materials, programs and urban dynamics that shape the city and provoke higher temperatures within the urban sprawl have been designed to benefit only a minor percentage of the population. A change in our value system concerns the solution of the heat island effect, as well as to reparations towards those most vulnerable.

“What the world will become already exists in fragments and pieces, experiments and possibilities.”

-Ruth Wilson Gilmore

The Urban Heat Island in ZMQRO Market Driven City Care Work

The Site

Industry and the City of Care

Strategies of the project

Master Plan

Co-operative Childcare

Community Dining Hall

Vertical Farming Water strategies

Carpentry, blacksmith, and plastics workshops

Plaza, complete street and wi-fi / resting zone

Vegetation Palette Occupancy

The Querétaro Metropolitan Area has experienced accelerated urban growth since the end of the last century. In peri-urban areas, more than 90% of the housing supply is horizontal, which implies the continuous expansion of the urban sprawl and the heat island effect.

The Urban Heat Island (UHI) is a phenomenon that occurs in urban areas, mainly due to heat-absorbing building materials. This causes significant differences in ambient temperature between the urban environment and its peripheries.

For the human population, UHI causes increases in heat stroke mortality, aggravates and causes respiratory problems, sunstroke, dehydration and fatigue. These effects have an unequal impact on the community, as some populations are more vulnerable than others.

Market Driven City:

What does this model of city development imply about UHI?

Modern urban planning prioritizes neoliberal capitalist development, giving rise to infrastructures that maximize the efficiency of economic production and self-profit.

This leads to the existence of materials, morphologies, programs and urban dynamics that intensify heat absorption within the city, resulting in different levels of impact on the population, such as consecuences on health, nature, economy, utilities, and infraestructure.

City centers are the most affected by the intersection of the effects of the market-driven city and the UHI:

The human population in these areas is disproportionately disengaged from the processes of collaboration with nature, as there is less availability of green areas due to the prioritization of profitable spaces, mostly private and built spaces. This causes these urban spaces to have less capacity to mitigate the heat island effect.

In addition, the population with greater economic influence, which used to live in the center of the city, moves to the peripheries in search of something new. Abandoning existing spaces, generating speculation and gentrification.

The current development model of the city, which focuses on producing without restrictions or impact considerations, makes us face vulnerability within the city.

What needs to be recognized in order to initiate the process towards the new post-industrial city?

The market-driven city, governed by linear processes, generates an accelerated lifestyle, trend following, and monouse, invisibilizing and minimizing the care work of resources and the community.

It also causes people engaged in these occupations to be the most affected by the effects of UHI.

doing the shopping, cooking breakfast, cooking lunch, cooking dinner, setting the table, laundry, hanging out the clothes, ironing, making the bed, washing the dishes, taking out the trash, feeding the cat, washing the dog, walking the dog, watering the plants, washing the windows, vacuuming, sweeping the floors, raking the leaves, cutting the grass, dusting the floor, cleaning the bathroom, cleaning the toilet, teaching, health caring, caring for children, caring for elderly dependants, repairing, remending, maintenance, affective and community relationships...

Care work, which is disproportionately carried out by women, refers to those occupations responsible for offering services to help develop people’s capacities.

The invisibilization of these jobs supports the capitalist system, complicating the dynamics of the people who engage in them.

Therefore, a Market Driven City also implies: Not recognizing care work as essential work. Favoring productive activities, causing the segregation of living and production spaces. Not providing spaces for the collective support of care work, especially unpaid care work.

Given these conditions, caregivers have a double to triple workday, moving between spaces dedicated to paid work, domestic work and household management (Col·lectiu Punt 6, 2019.

This population suffers from a longer exposure time to the effects of the heat island, since they make more trips than a person who is only dedicated to productive work.

o 200 400 mts

The Site

The Tec District is a segment of the city center of Querétaro where the Market Driven City has given rise to private programs, such as industry and chain supermarkets, which need infrastructure for motorized vehicles. This results in large, heat-absorbing impervious areas, urban sprawl and the exemplification of patriarchal dynamics.

Own elaboration based on INEGI data

To change these patterns, we believe that care must govern development. Therefore, new spaces are needed to break with previously established hierarchies, giving rise to new forms of social organization.

Industrial areas within Tec District and their surroundings

Symbology

Industry and chain supermarkets

Coordinate system

EPSG 32614-WSG 854 UTM

Zone 14

From the obsolescence of the industrial sector to the beginning of the City of Care

The Tec District was analyzed in search of an intervention point to mitigate the heat island effect and establish the beginning of the City of Care.

For this reason, it was decided to choose a space that 1. will be disposable in the future,

2. its scale has the greatest impact on mitigating the heat island effect.

3. is close to spaces where reproductive and care activities are carried out.

4. Its infrastructure allows for flexibility of use.

5. Its position allows it to interact with potential stakeholders.

6. The owner can become a stakeholder for the change to new cities.

Based on the analysis, the Nestlé Fabrica Gerber site was selected for the following reasons:

1. Querétaro currently has a water shortage due to pollution, overexploitation, accelerated urbanization and hoarding, which is why in the future it will no longer be viable to produce food in that area, therefore the building would be obsolete.

2. The property area is of 21 hectares, therefore, it is a great point of intervention to create a great impact and mitigate the heat island effect in the Tec district.

3. It is located in a very strategic area for our City of Care program, it is very close to housing, where reproductive and care activities are carried out privately.

4. Because it is composed of several industrial buildings, its infrastructure allows for flexibility of use without having to make major modifications that could have a negative impact on the environment.

5. Around Gerber are located different stakeholders such as the academy and different industries that could contribute to change in the future.

6. Nestlé currently has several programs that are in line with our program. They have collection and recycling centers, regenerative agriculture, education and information dissemination centers, water treatment, and support for nonproductive people by providing them with entrepreneurship training.

It is for these reasons that we believe Nestlé can become a stakeholder in our project, collaborating with Gerber Factory to provide these programs together, restoring the factory once the building is obsolete.

Cities of Care: strategies of the project

1. Care work is made visible and rethought as a collective responsibility.

2. The processes of productive activities are made visible.

3. There is a place for the development of “non-productive” populations.

4. Circular productive processes are prioritized, such as the exchange of products and the repair of objects and infrastructures.

5. Collective learning is encouraged to create informed and participatory communities.

6. Community care and visibility are prioritized in the spaces.

Program

1. Co-operative childcare

2. Community Dining Hall

3. Vertical Farming

4. Carpentry Workshop

5. Blacksmith Workshop

6. Plastics Workshop

7. Productive landscape

8. Gerber administration and educational center

9. Wi-fi and resting zone

10. Complete street

11. Plaza

12. Climate shelter

Co-operative childcare

Care work is made visible and rethought as a collective responsibility.

The co-operative childcare allows the program to be collectively organized by the community, offering the opportunity for parents to contribute volunteer hours to the cooperative. Qualified staff offer a major portion of the care provided, but the parent involvement reduces a portion of the costs, allows them to interact with other parents and gives them an opportunity to have knowledge of their children´s out of home experiences.

Full day care is provided for children of 0 to 5 years old, allowing a major chance of inter-generational coexistence.

The architectural design principles took into account the Montessori methodology, applying strategies such as widening the corridors and turning them into learning streets, sliding glass doors to connect indoor and outdoor spaces and articulate larger and more flexible work areas, giving children the opportunity to personalize their environment, providing spaces for group and individual play, and anthropometric design.

Community Dining Hall

Care work is made visible and rethought as a collective responsibility.

The food processing is one of the main care and reproductive jobs. In the market driven cities, the elaboration processes are invisible because they are not considered relevant and it is believed that they should be done in a private space. However, this process is vital and undervalued. That is why the design of the community dinning hall was conceived with the objective of making visible the food elaboration processes, by placing the kitchen as the core of the program allowing it to be seen in all its angles.Additionally, it is a flexible space which can be adapted to the needs of the workshops implemented in the kitchen while it is not open to the public.

Vertical Farming

The processes of productive activities are made visible. There is a place for the development of “non-productive” populations.

Circular productive processes are prioritized, such as the exchange of products and the repair of objects and infrastructures.

Collective learning is encouraged to create informed and participatory communities.

Productive activities were also sought to be implemented in the project as a strategy to reduce the travel times of care workers. Job opportunities and trades training are offered for the development of these populations.

Vertical farming is a technology system that allows to grow food in the most sustainable way; it addresses major issues like water availability shortage, pollution due to chemicals used for crop production, and the maximization of available space. It is proposed to use a major portion of the area of the project to produce greens through hydroponics.

The community will have the chance to consume locally, exchange products, and learn to produce their own vertical farming systems at home, promoting urban agriculture as also a strategy to mitigate the UHI.

Carpentry, blacksmith, and plastics workshops

The processes of productive activities are made visible. There is a place for the development of “non-productive” populations.

Circular productive processes are prioritized, such as the exchange of products and the repair of objects and infrastructures.

Collective learning is encouraged to create informed and participatory communities.

The diversification of the economy is promoted by providing a space for small manufacturers to produce and sell their products.

Plaza, complete street, climate shelter and wi-fi / resting zone

Collective learning is encouraged to create informed and participatory communities.

Community care and visibility are prioritized in the spaces.

Urban and public space strategies were implemented in the project to make visibilization and security a priority, reinforcing the idea of care within the city. This resulted in the design of programs that could activate the public spaces in the project during different times of the day.

The multi-purpose Plaza is the core of the project; it can work as an independent space or as an extension of the adjacent established programs. It is adapted to contain diverse activities, such as public events. This enriches the possibilities of the area. Different activities can happen all the time and at various scales.

Complete street design that crosses the city block. Scale 1:500

References

Col·lectiu Punt 6. (2019). Urbanismo feminista: por una transformación radical de los espacios de vida.

Col·lectiu Punt 6. (2021). Movilidad cotidiana con perspectiva de género.

Chatzidakis, A., Hakim, J., Littler, J., Rottenberg, C., & Segal, L. (2020). The CARE Manifesto: The Politics of Interdependence. https://ci.nii.ac.jp/ncid/BC04931300 Clément, G. (2018). Manifiesto del tercer paisaje. Koolhaas, R. (2002). JunkSpace. October, 100, 175-190. https://doi.org/10.1162/016228702320218457

FRAC Nord-Pas de Calais // Lacaton & Vassal

YM Nursery // HIBINOSEKKEI + Youji no Shiro

Centre for Earth Architecture // Kere Architecture

Parc de la Villette // Rem Koolhas