#specially the first time it's done

[hmantegazzi]

hi! i think you meant well but also i don’t think it’s realistic that the renovated warehouses are anywhere near as accessible to homeless people as you’ve suggested. any housing of the homeless project is the EXCEPTION 9.9/10 times the renovated places are not accessible and exclusively marketed towards people of higher class. it is a fact that real estate developers have the interest of the market, not the general people in mind

also,, housing projects are almost always government funded while re developed d warehouses and the like are renovated by private companies who are only for profit. I think you also made quite a few assumptions in your line of thinking as well .

Sure enough, the exercise was to make *different* assumptions, while keeping them realistic, to show that there are more than two possible alternatives: market-oriented development that ends in gentrification and a fragile status quo.

Given that we aren't talking about a concrete case, I cannot say for sure what would be the most credible way to campaign for some sort of social housing, and just mentioned alternatives that I know have been tried successfully in cities around the world, but I guess that showcasing at least one of those concrete cases could drive the point more clearly.

This photo is super fun because it showcases how weird this whole housing project is, so I wanted to put it even before showing what it's about. The guy in the middle with the big carboard key is Felipe Ward, a far-right Chilean politician that was Minister of Housing and Urbanism in 2020, and most of the people surrounding him are members of a radical left-libertarian homeless activist movement called Ukamau, who were receiving their newly built apartments in a warehouse district in Santiago, a housing complex that they don't only fought for but literally helped to design, and the right-wing government had no other option than to follow through, finance and built it.

The place on which the project was built was a corner of the San Eugenio railyard, the main maintenance workshop for the trains serving the city, which was already under heavy stress because of dual plans to expand commuter rail operations from the neighbouring station (I should write about that some day!), and to sell to private businesses and redevelop parts of the lot that were in disuse, to help finance the aforementioned expansion. Their bet was to ride the wave of gentrification caused by the construction of the Line 6 of the Metro across the southern side of the railyard (which ultimately was displaced about half a kilometre more to the south, to a more populated avenue).

The Ukamau movement, formed in 2011 on the basis of many organisations that went back as far as 1987 anti-dictatorship fighters, and comprised of 'pobladores' (people that occupied empty plots of land and built precarious sheds there) and 'allegados' (people that live precariously in spare rooms of neighbours or family), decided to make their bet on the railyard plot, under the premise of building there a project that actually satisfied the needs of their inhabitants without requiring them to migrate to the periphery of the city, which is where most social building development was happening at the time. The proposal was soundly rejected on the basis that the space was required for the trains, but they insisted, for years, facing continuous acts of repression by the police every time they protested the decision.

Meanwhile, in the same neighbourhood surrounding the Central Station of the city, huge apartment towers with terrible building standards started to be constructed, abusing a legal loop, so that some towers are comprised of cruelly tiny apartments of 21 sq metres and have no access to sunlight at all:

The contrast between this monstrous prison-like buildings that were being sold as an "investment" for prospective landlords and the proposal of Ukamau made the latter more palatable every time the first protagonised the news because of the inherent clash with their environment, and lately, because of the living conditions of their residents.

One of the key ingredients of their success is that Ukamau didn't just demanded housing, but presented a concrete project to be built, something that was aided by their early collaboration with the architect Fernando Castillo Velasco (I really have to write about him as well!), one of the biggest figures of the modernist movement in the country and lately famous for his "communities", little collective housing projects designed and built for his students and friends. Even if Castillo died in 2013, just a few meetings after their initial encounter, his son Cristián, also architect and a former member of the Revolutionary Left Movement that fought the dictatorship on its earliest days in clandestinity, took the post under the same premise: letting the future residents have the last word on the design of their residences and their environment.

Aided by the government change in 2014, Ukamau and their architects managed to convince the Ministry of obtaining the plot from the State Railway Company (EFE), granting their members funding of the order of 38,000 USD (of the time) per family, and letting the movement act as the main contractor of the building process to control the assigned times, let their members work in some of the stages of the construction, and reinvest the profits into the provision of community amenities and the fabrication of furniture. This, of course, meant as well that EFE had to absorb the extra costs of not counting with the space in their railyard anymore (which is being a little of an issue right now).

Their project was presented in 2016, comprises 424 apartments, and looked like this:

Even then, the construction process wasn't without their complications: in one episode in 2019, the company tasked with the main edification works tried to delay their deadline talking directly with the Ministry (now in hands of the right-wing government elected in 2017), and instead of getting themselves trapped in a legal battle, the members of Ukamau went and occupied the central offices of the Ministry to demand the full compilance with the original terms.

Eventually, in october of 2020, just days after the first anniversary of the Estallido Social protests, the Maestranza Ukamau Neighbourhood was finally received by their residents, and it looks like this (you might notice that the colour palette is obviously their favourite):

But maybe the most important result of this project was that it proved that such a thing was possible to do. It didn't require lengthy legislative discussions or the full attention of a government, just a very clever strategy, tons of decision and insistence by an organised movement, and a bit of help from people in the know. So successful was this model that, by the end of 2021, twenty housing projects modelled after this one were already being presented for financing and construction.

[xxplastic-cubexx]

oh boy 2AM !!!!!!

[catmask]

it is insane how normal i am medicated like. you mean this was an option the whole time. what

[epiclad]

"Miquella the Kind… is a monster. Pure and radiant, he wields love to shrive clean the hearts of men. There is nothing more terrifying." [Process vid]

[imminent-danger-came]

“I felt the red-winged man gaze, I heard him speaking. I know who you are, he said, there are two ways this can go, no, three ways. I don’t want to count the ways, I said, I just want to finish it. I need to get to the end. His wings lifted and sanked. Oh my darling, he said, you’re a long way from the end.”

— Anne Carson, H of H Playbook

[canon-gabriel-quotes]

Transcript:

I'd like to congratulate you on getting your CPR certification.

Now remember, when you’re going in for compressions, it should sound like somebody is standing behind you with the worlds largest Dorito and cracking it open!

Go in firm and hard and snap as many ribs as you can on the way down, that means you’re doing it right.

You save that life. Good luck.

Or... Or... Or kill them, I don’t fucking care.

Audio source

[anna-scribbles]

thirteen update ☀️🥀🪰🏚️

chapter 6: march

summary:

(“Be here. For Adrien.”  “Emilie, I can’t…” “For me, then. Love him for my sake.”)  A sob cracked open Adrien’s chest. He ripped away from the wall, clapping a hand over his mouth to try and stifle himself. His lungs wheezed, a crumpled can, and the world slipped off its axis. She was dying. She was dying. She was dying, for real, and soon, and this was what they hadn’t wanted to tell him. 

excerpt:

Time barrelled on after that, like a ground speeding toward him in freefall. 

Lessons slipped through his head and smiles stretched over his mouth and Adrien’s life became, more than ever before, defined by the moment he would next see Maman. It was like his brain couldn’t catch hold of anything else, couldn’t grasp it. Even when he was out doing other things, in other places, he wasn’t really. He was always back with her.  

The shift happened sometime in the beginning of March.

A change in the air, the bones. The house held its breath. Walls stood cleaner and quieter and bigger than before. Or maybe Adrien just got smaller. Maybe it was like a vacuum, like he’d learned about in physics. All the air sucked out of his lungs, crumpled up like a can. 

The silence was the worst. When Adrien was gone, he could lose himself a little. Turn his brain off at photoshoots and fall into the monotony of fabric on his body, skin on his face, hands all over, fixing him and fixing him and fixing him. Dissolve into the rhythm of fencing, blocking and thrusting and parrying and sweating and not thinking not thinking not thinking. But being inside the house was different. He couldn’t do anything but think, couldn’t be anyone but himself. Even his shows started to fall flat; Adrien found himself restarting the same Ouran episode ten times because he hadn’t absorbed a thing. The house was so quiet, his brain so loud. The world was transparent and he wasn’t quite sure he was real. 

And then he would see Maman. 

read on ao3

[starset-sarsaparilla]

fun fact: when i first went to the fort to kill caesar i completely forgot about the bunker. it was a stressful return trip

[aurorangen]

No longer was I going to hide

Transcript:

[I talked about my heart condition, on how I wanted to be a doctor at first. Then about all the emotional scars from my past and how that changed to a lawyer. She reached out to me and whispered comforting words into my ear. I didn't want to dwell on it any longer and asked the same thing back, already knowing what it'd be]

Nancy: [gently taps his knuckle] What is your dream job, Vincent?

[Contemplating how to answer, I averted my gaze, so my cap covered my eyes. A lawyer, but then I'd have to tell her why. I wanted to open my heart to her: I didn't want to hide. She would learn about my family…today]

[We just talked about cooking after. We'd spent so much time in the kitchen together. I saw all her passion for it: the way her eyes lit up while talking about her grandma's special recipes, how her brows furrowed in concentration when picking ingredients. I fell in love with cooking and even more in love with her]

Vincent: What are your dreams for the future?

Nancy: A chef! I dream of opening a restaurant one day…somewhere that feels like home to everyone. A place with lots of happiness and chatter and where people are brought together through good food!

Nancy: And I want to spend my future with the one I love [gazes lovingly into his eyes]

[I raised my hand to caress her cheek and kissed her…to tell her she was the one for me too…]

[lavalamphoarder]

Nasty DOG‼️‼️ goodness gracious this took forever

[coccinelle-claire]

Antithesis

Miles: Listen, our Dad is in-

Earth-42 Miles: Your Dad

Adrien: If my mother came back-

Claw Noir: Our mother

[sunderwight]

imagining Byleth in FE3H silently building a shelf while their students are just like "oh hey professor I didn't know you liked woodworking"

and Byleth is like, it's not really their usual hobby, but they needed a shelf. what's the shelf for? holding things, obviously. well okay then

Byleth finishes the shelf within a day (despite numerous distractions) and then installs it in the classroom. still not a big deal but most were expecting it to go in Byleth's room, obviously, so there are some curious looks

Byleth then carefully sets the first trophy that one of their students has won in a tournament on top of it

they have heard that trophies are to be displayed, after all

Byleth is subsequently confused but not displeased when suddenly most of their class is pouring over the tournament schedules and signing up for all of them

[babymorte]

last night was really needed. i miss just doing things with people and having people wanting to do things with me.

it was honestly nice not doomscrolling my phone for once waiting for something interesting to happen.

now i know what they mean by do more things that make you not check your phone. at this point that’s the only goal im working towards.

[schnaf]

22 days until hyeongjun's 22nd birthday

day 22 aka THE COUNTDOWN IS OVER - hyeongjun's past birthday brrrr ppoppos

bonus: 🤫

[murdleandmarot]

The gang’s all here!! They’re on the case!! And there’s no ghost that they wouldn’t chase!!!!!

@mysticalcats’s Foxglove, @toki-toro’s Chaumet, @emimii’s Clownaire, and my own Bluebelle :)

[mrs-gauche]

~Happy Dragon Age Day~