URBAN PHENOMENA ACTUATOR – MIGRATION:

Migration, whether internal or international, has always been one of the forces driving the growth of urbanization and bringing opportunities and challenges to cities, migrants and governments.With a high volume of migrants arriving in cities, city leaders are faced with the challenge of providing vital urban infrastructure and services to meet the needs of the migrant population. Are we prepared for the integration of migrants?

ANTARCTICA AS A PETRI DISH:

The group reflected on Antarctica as “a spatial model for the understanding of contemporary global interactions”, reflecting on recent development which challenges the city’s conventional boundaries, forms, and social configurations

  • The first time humans set foot in Antarctica was in 1895. Since then, the story of our interaction with this continent gives us a perfect case study in analyzing the effects of human occupancy. 
  • The time frame between the discovery of Antarctica and today where we often refer to this continent as the epitome of global collaboration is extremely short. This allows us to look in detail taking Antarctica as a petri dish example to study human migration.

THE PROTOCOL:

To project compensatory relationships between endangered natural territories and the necessity to welcome migrants in growing urban areas in the proximity of the natural territories through dynamic relationships of global indicators, with positive and negative values, where the outcome is to be null.

The impacts of human occupancy on each territory can be analyzed by evaluating the quantitative unit of each indicator against the number of humans that inhabit the territory.

  • Development: The value of resources generated.
  • Economy: The cost of operating per capita.
  • Environment: The impact on the environment.
  • Quality of Life: The expense of providing logistical support.
  • Politics: The political presence.
  • Culture: The density of people. 
  • Security: The feasibility of rescue and providing security.

RULES:

Each of the below categories is associated with a series of actions, evaluated positively or negatively. The players win by creating a combination where the result is 0.

  • Development: It is only permitted to occupy the territory if the resources generated help in the development of the community. The value generated from the extraction of resources must be shared as a community and compensate for the restoration and environmental protection actions. The extraction of resources can only be done using technology and systems that have a minimal ecological impact.
  • Economy: Every state/country must provide economic resources for the protection of endangered natural territories. The network of resource distribution required to host the migrants should be managed in the proximity of the region and the resources be produced locally.
  • Environment: The ecological footprint i.e., the quantity of nature it takes to support migrants should not exceed the biocapacity of the territory i.e., the estimate of production of required biological materials and the absorption and filtering of byproducts and waste. If the ratio of biocapacity against ecological footprint reduces below 1, the overshoot has to be compensated by reducing the number of migrants or by limiting the ecological footprint.
  • Quality of Life: The resources required for the health, comfort, and happiness of the inhabitants have to be developed in a way that does not disturb the sensitive equilibrium of the ecology in the region.
  • Politics: The migrants cannot obtain a permanent residence in the territory and therefore it is required to have political institutes from the sending and the receiving region to correspond with a global institute that comprises members from countries both with and without interest in the specified territory. This global institute allows people to be in the territory.
  • Culture: The net migration flow in the territory should be equal, to generate an environment of common culture-specific to the region i.e., all allocated regions have a diverse population. If the criteria are not met, the region has to be combined or subdivided for the purpose of equilibrium.
  • Security: Contingency planning should take place at a bilateral and organizational level to ensure effective cooperation between two or more territories to develop standard operating procedures on protecting and evacuating the inhabitants. Should ensure ecological security i.e. the security in terms of well being of plants and animals. Developing protection areas around the human settlement.

 

CONCLUSIÓN:

The role of all stakeholders and city authorities in a city is fundamental to ensure integration and to accommodate all migrants within the urban context, migrants should also be included within the urban planning agenda. Nowadays, immigration still carries negative perception, but from the research, the impact of migration is more inclined to give positive benefits to overall society. In the case of Antarctica, we can see that global collaboration is working positively in one space, for science, and ultimately for the whole world. The application of mitigation protocol to impede effects caused by global migration is necessary, especially in sensitive regions. If a place such as Antarctica could administer the protocol, through the very same approach, sustainable living while accommodating migrants should also be possible anywhere.

Mitigating the impacts of Migration is a project of IaaC, Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia
developed at Master in City & Technology in (2019/2020) by:
Students: Aryo Dhaneswara, Byron Cadena, Kushal Saraiya, Michelle Rodriguez
Faculties: Mathilde Marengo, Edouard Cabay