Designed as an ecosystem, District Shanghai evolves as a bottom-up R-Urban strategy that explores the possibilities of enhancing the capacity of urban resilience by introducing a network of community-run facilities to create complementarities between key fields of activity (economy, housing, urban agriculture, culture).
Self-initiated by the Architect, R-Urban Shanghai aims to initiate locally closed ecological cycles that will support the emergence of alternative models of living, producing and consuming between the urban and the rural.
To overcome the current crises (climate, resources, economic, demographic), we must, as philosopher Andre Gorz says, ‘produce what we consume and consume what we produce’. This balance between production and consumption through local sustainable sourcing can not occur without changes in the living and working lifestyles of citizens who must be involved in these changes through collaborative practices supporting each other through local networks. Flows, networks and circuits of production-consumption will be formed through these activities, with an emphasis on sustainability. (R-Urban, n.d.)
Developed as a phased experiment, District Shanghai aims to transform tactics into codes and actions – ultimately empower the community and help them achieve autonomy in their own neighbourhood.
Infrastructures of Autonomy 