Hybrid Living: Emerging Out of the Crises and Divisions

Authors: Yiorgos Hadjichristou

Abstract:

The paper will focus on the hybrid living typologies which are brought about due to the Global Crisis. Mixing of the generations and the groups of people, mingling the functions of living with working and socializing, merging the act of living in synergy with the urban realm and its constituent elements will be the springboard of proposing an essential sustainable housing approach and the respective urban development. The thematic will be based on methodologies developed both on the academic, educational environment including participation of students’ research and on the practical aspect of architecture including case studies executed by the author in the island of Cyprus. Both paths of the research will deal with the explorative understanding of the hybrid ways of living, testing the limits of its autonomy. The evolution of the living typologies into substantial hybrid entities, will deal with the understanding of new ways of living which include among others: re-introduction of natural phenomena, accommodation of the activity of work and services in the living realm, interchange of public and private, injections of communal events into the individual living territories. The issues and the binary questions raised by what is natural and artificial, what is private and what public, what is ephemeral and what permanent and all the in-between conditions are eloquently traced in the everyday life in the island. Additionally, given the situation of Cyprus with the eminent scar of the dividing ‘Green line’ and the waiting of the ‘ghost city’ of Famagusta to be resurrected, the conventional way of understanding the limits and the definitions of the properties is irreversibly shaken. The situation is further aggravated by the unprecedented phenomenon of the crisis on the island. All these observations set the premises of reexamining the urban development and the respective sustainable housing in a synergy where their characteristics start exchanging positions, merge into each other, contemporarily emerge and vanish, changing from permanent to ephemeral. This fluidity of conditions will attempt to render a future of the built- and unbuilt realm where the main focusing point will be redirected to the human and the social. Weather and social ritual scenographies together with ‘spontaneous urban landscapes’ of ‘momentary relationships’ will suggest a recipe for emerging urban environments and sustainable living. Thus, the paper will aim at opening a discourse on the future of the sustainable living merged in a sustainable urban development in relation to the imminent solution of the division of island, where the issue of property became the main obstacle to be overcome. At the same time, it will attempt to link this approach to the global need for a sustainable evolution of the urban and living realms.

Keywords: Social ritual scenographies, spontaneous urban landscapes, substantial hybrid entities, re-introduction of natural phenomena.

Digital Object Identifier (DOI): doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.1127126

References:

[1] M. Wigley, Space in Crisis, in Jun Jiang, Mark Wigley, Jeffrey Inaba, Urban China Bootlegged for Volume by C-Lab, New York C-Lab, 2009.
[2] Y. Hadjichristou and M. Hadjichristou, Immaterial Matters in changing, resilient cities, Changing Cities II Spatial, Design, Landscape & Socio-economic Dimensions, p.49-58, 2015
[3] Y. Hadjichristou, V. Antoniou, R. Carraz, Inflating the Public: A Series of Urban Interventions, Kyoto ICSAUD Conference on Architecture and Urban Sustainability- ‘International Science Index / International Scholarly and Scientific Research and Innovation/ World Academy of Science, engineering and technology pp 992-998
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[5] H. Lefebvre, Toward Architecture of Enjoyment. Stanek (Ed.). University of Minnesota Press, 2014.
[6] Y. Hadjichristou, Courtyard Evolution in Contemporary Sustainable Living, Kyoto ICSAUD Conference on Architecture and Urban Sustainability, ‘International Science Index / International Scholarly and Scientific Research and Innovation/ World Academy of Science, engineering and technology article 252 pp 982-986
[7] Y. Hadjichristou, A. Swiny, M. Georgiou, Kyoto ICSAUD Conference on Architecture and Urban Sustainability, ‘International Science Index / International Scholarly and Scientific Research and Innovation/ World Academy of Science, engineering and technology article, article 253 pp 987-991
[8] Y. Hadjichristou, M Hadjicsoteriou, “Living where the immaterial matters” 09.14 - Eurau 14: COMPOSITE CITIES, European symposium on research in Architecture and Urban Design, Istanbul, pp 034:01-11, 2014
[9] Y. Hadjichristou, ‘Rediscovery of the courtyard, as a major intangible cultural heritage’, 4th International Conference. Progress in Cultural Heritage, Euromed, pp 362-367, 2012
[10] Y. Hadjichristou, ‘Malleable courtyards’, 7th International Conference on Innovation in Architecture, Engineering & Construction in Sao Paolo in Brasilia. 2012
[11] Y. Hadjichristou, A. Swiny, M. Georgiou, ‘In/Out Crisis’, Emergent and Adaptive Urbanities. EURAU I Composite Cities I, 2014
[12] Nicosia the divided capital, Famagusta, the ghost city, photos by Y. Hadjichristou and the ‘Porous Borders’ of the Cyprus Pavilion in the Venice Biennale 2006
[13] Refurbishment and extension of a traditional house in Kaimakli. Author: Y. Hadjichristou
[14] Student project by Rania Tollefson. Unit ‘Living Where the Immaterial Matters’ taught by Y. Hadjichristou and M. Hadjichristou, Architecture Department, University of Nicosia
[15] Student Project, “Trashformer” by Aristos Aristodemou. Unit ‘Crisis in & Out. Emrgent and Adaptive’ taught by Y. Hadjichristou, M. Georgiou and A. Swiny. Architecture Department, University of Nicosia
[16] ‘Pame Kaimakli’festival in 2015 organized by Y. Hadjichristou and Kaimakli neighbors with the participation of the NGO Urban Gorillas.
[17] ‘Agoraphobic storm’_ ‘Nicosia traces’ at Stoa Tarsi. Installation of the ‘Green Urban Lab’ project by the NGO ‘Urban Gorillas’ in collaboration with the University of Nicosia and the “Dendros Ltd’
[18] The ΦουσκόPolis and Inside-Outside a Bubble events, part of the ‘Green Urban Lab’ project by the NGO ‘Urban Gorillas’ in collaboration with the University of Nicosia and the “Dendros Ltd’