primary management team
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Havana
Implications of a "prosperity with equality" approach and participatory planning on urban equality
OVERVIEW
In Havana, the team are examining the implications of a 'prosperity with equality' approach and participatory planning on urban equality, across three policy levels (the national, civic, and local), and within four focus sites.
As the Cuban capital enters a new stage of the urbanisation process, characterised by the potential increase of urban inequalities, the team proposes a critical engagement within the debate of the current urban situation. There is a tremendous on-going effort to catch up with the mismatch between the evolution of the urban situation and the approaches, focuses, and contents of the tools dealing with it. To do so requires innovation and increasing the capabilities of institutions and many other actors influencing the production of the urban. The KNOW Havana team are making a modest contribution to these struggles, co-producing research-based outputs with a range of key actors and specific partnerships.
focus areas
Working closely with focus groups and partners, the KNOW Havana team are interrogating the delivery, the policy, the organisational, and the citizen spheres of research, across four key focus areas. Alamar, Central Havana, The Bay, and Revolution Plaza. Each of the four cases illustrates specific components of the general urban situation.
Alamar
This site represents the new towns that emerged fifty years ago as a urban typology to answer the increasing housing demand
Bahia de la Habana
This site deals with a large area undergoing rapid transformation. Because of its location within the urban structure, alongside a loaded symbolism and meaning within the cities collective meaning, its transformation will heavily determine how other parts of Havana develop in the near future. Consequently, the Bay area has the potential capacity to mitigate the current territorial imbalances.
Centro Habana
This site is representational of the old city and traditional historic centre
Plaza de la Revolución
The site engages with the accelerated ageing population within Cuban Society. The research recognises the challenges of this specifically vulnerable group and understanding what prosperity (and the tools to achieve it) will be different to other focus sites.
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Fórum Universitario Urbano #FU2N
The university as a forum
Between December 2021 - March 2022
Main event: 28 February - 01 March 2022
The university as a catalyst for urban transformation:
Prosperity with equity.
Fórum Urbano Universitario (FU2N) is a space for exchange between different actors of the Cuban urban scene involved in research and/or action processes that, from different disciplinary fields and substantive processes will develop actions and especially research, around multiple challenges of current urban development in Havana. The suite of forums and workshops will provide space for intensive discussion around the tensions between prosperity and urban equality. Key topics will include housing, infrastructure, and energy. Academics, practitioners, and government stakeholders will sit together to produce recommendations to urban policy.
Photos from the forum workshops
These seminars for part of the KNOW final conference
Presentation
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Making room to manoeuvre at the municipal level: Planning and quest for urban equality and prosperity in Havana
Prof Jorge Peña Díaz, Dr Joiselen Cazanave Macías, Ángel Junior Santana Caraballo, Dachelis Dobal Fonseca, Dayané Proenza, Adrian González González (Polytechnic José Antonio Echeverría, - CUJAE)
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GALLERY
resources
500 Years of Urban Diversity in Havana (exhibition video)
Addressing Urban Equality in Havana (Havana team present at UrbanARC 2020)
Dialogues in Urban Equality #7
(Havana, en español)
havana team
Jorge Peña
Díaz
City Partner Havana
Urban Research & Action Group, Instituto Superior Politécnico José Antonio Echeverria (CUJAE)
Joiselén
Cazanave Macías
City Partner Havana
Urban Research & Action Group, Instituto Superior Politécnico José Antonio Echeverria (CUJAE)
Our Investigators
KNOW Havana supports a cohort of young researchers formed under the principles of trans-disciplinary, coproduction-based research. As they take part on the different research tasks they will produce papers, articles and other publications. The team will also engage a cohort of four master students made of experienced planners inscribe in the Master on Planning (MOTU) ran by CUJAE. Around 20 diploma students will make their theses linked to the project.
Arq. Adrian González González
Ing. Alejandro Vallejo Delgado
Arq. Ruslan Muños Hernández
Arq. Dachelis Dobal Fonseca
Dr. Arq. Abel Tablada de la Torre
Arq. Angel Jr. Santana Caraballo
Arq.Yanamari Bancroft Pérez
Arq. Camila León Candelario
Profesor Emérito Dr. Arq. Rubén A. Bancrofft Hernández
Arq. Javier González Bejerano