“A city is a place where people can learn to live with strangers.”
Does it matter who says such words, does it matter to which expert, planner, sociologist, novelist or statistician we turn? If architecture as a system of change implies known and unknown quantities, then a system of change invites architecture of known and unknown quantities. If you think data is just data think again. If you think design is a belief system think again. The Greenbelt Studio at the school of Architecture & Urbanism (Carleton University) offers a series of interrelated, collaborative research enquiries. Open-ended, even unformed, these attempt to negotiate the unused contemporary moment in the profession and discipline of architecture. Using what is known as Mr Teron’s Utopia as a departure, with no particular prejudice and preference for any solution, the students attempt to assess, define, re-define and re-script the urban options around Ottawa’s Greenbelt.