Graham Crist

The book departs from a reflection on contemporary issues of environmental and social sustainability. With buildings and cities being one of the primary accelerators of climate change, the tightening of urban environments is one of the mechanisms by which architects and urban planners can affect change. To date, models of urban densification and compact cities have been focused on sites of urban consumption — residential, commercial, civic and social spaces. Little thought has been given to the vast productive hinterlands around the world that support cities, through the growing of food, generation of power, production of goods and disposal of waste. Working through three scales of analysis, across three cities in the Asia Pacific Region, and deploying varying design research techniques ranging from critical observation to speculative scenario modelling, the book presents a series of projects that seek to retro-fit an existing urban environment with a productive program. The purpose of this project is to describe a series of models for the folding of production into our cities, with ambition of consolidating all components of human inhabitation within a smaller overall physical and environmental footprint.

Supertight is an exploration of high-density urban life and reducing the footprint of cites through adaptations in design and behavior. Tightness is a positive urban quality, examined through the observations of designers, with a focus on the cities of Asia. The rapidly growing large cities of Asia are critical to understanding our future footprint. Asian cities provide insights into new ways of being densely urbanised. The by-product of this unprecedented metropolitan convergence will be the emergence of new urbanisms and new architectures, new models for living and making culture. The Supertight refers to the small, intense, robust and hyper-condensed spaces that emerge as a by-product of extreme levels of urban density. Tightness arises as consequence of density, but tightness itself is not density. Tightness is a series of social, economic and cultural practices that have developed in cities as a response to the rapid growth and consolidation of cities. While architectural models of density have been heavily explored, this project investigates the culture of tightness that has emerged in Asian cities over the past thirty years, and the role that designers play in the material and social behaviours of tightness. To be tight is to be small and constrained, but also to be open to the economies and social intimacy of being close. Ultimately this project aims to unpack and convey both the delight and difficulty that emerges through the close occupation of large cities. With Contributions of Yoshiharu Tsukamoto / Atelier Bow-wow Atelierco Rafael A Balboa with Yasemin SahinerSanuki Daisuke Drawing Architecture Studio Desiree Grunewald Sue HajduTohru Horiguchi Alban Mannisi, Yazid Ninsalam, Charles Anderson Minsuk Cho / Mass StudiesNew Office Works Archie PizziniAndrew Stiff Superimpose Taishin Shiozaki / Shiozaki LabWOHA