Glasgow Roots - Rooting, Growing, Thriving Communities in Glasgow
Glasgow is characterised by its deeply rooted industrial history which, through industrialisation and deindustrialisation, caused citizens displacements and uneven urban development. Its urban area is now peppered with plots of abandoned land which sometimes hold a dystopian aura of affliction, sometimes show a naturally regenerated habitat, and all together amount to 1100ha, roughly 11km2. Glasgow Roots focuses on tackling local and global issues through holistic placemaking. The site taken into consideration is a cluster of derelict land in neighbourhoods in the north of Glasgow, between Lambhill and Port Dundas. The primary intention of this design project is to activate underused land and reverse the anthropogenic damage caused by (de)industrialisation by creating a model that allows actors from all the kingdom of living species to safely coexist and thrive. This model, which could be used in other clusters of derelict land in the city, would let the now self-contained urban environment transform through the encounter with other living beings and through collaboration both within and across species.This proposal wants to start a transformative transition of the ruins of past developments into a regenerative network of retrofitted landscapes where dynamic interactions, multi-species and patchy habitats trump the alienation and disconnection caused by abandonment, un-bridled growth, and simplification. Different uses of the landscape and different habitats will lead to a post-carbon society and create an urban polyphony of living beings rooted in working landscape which are ecologically, socially and economically connected at all layers.
