Assembling high-rise: The uneven agencies of air in suburban densification in the Anthropocene

Nicole T Cook and Sophie-May Kerr
Additional contact information
Nicole T Cook: University of Wollongong, Australia
Sophie-May Kerr: University of New South Wales, Australia

Urban Studies, 2024, vol. 61, issue 7, 1308-1326

Abstract: The COVID-19 pandemic brought to the surface the critical qualities of air – airflow, ventilation, particulates etc. – in relation to the well-being of people living in high-rise. Engineering and architectural research has burgeoned in response. However, in focusing on models of airflow, ventilation and particulates as discrete variables, engineering and architectural discourse fails to capture the diverse ways that air enters into and shapes the everyday lived experience of high-rise dwelling. Drawing on research in Sydney’s Southwestern suburbs, we reveal high-rise as an assemblage that links apartment dwelling with air, via car-dependent suburbanisation, pollution and climate-change induced temperature extremes in the Anthropocene. In addition to viruses, air teems with carbon, insects, noise and pollutants, while viscerally mediating human encounters with fluctuating temperatures. Multiple relations between people, buildings and air unfold simultaneously, confounding attempts to account for air’s elemental milieu through single variables like greenhouse gas or COVID-19. While embedded in relations of power, high-rise assemblages unleash vernacular adaptation that through low-tech and low-cost technologies work to connect suburban high-rise with evolving ecological systems. Recognising the pharmacological quality of air, as both ‘poison’ and ‘cure’, we contrast models of high-rise as encapsulated environments with resident (and other) experiments that orient high-rise to the elements, and the interlinked challenges of urban living in the Anthropocene.

Keywords: air; Anthropocene; assemblage; elemental; high-rise; 空气; 人类世; ç»„å ˆä½“; å…ƒç´; 高层建筑 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/00420980231205026 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:urbstu:v:61:y:2024:i:7:p:1308-1326

DOI: 10.1177/00420980231205026

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Urban Studies from Urban Studies Journal Limited
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().