Edited by Gregory Henriquez & Patricia Tewfik
Henriquez Partners Architect’s publication explores an innovative housing solution for refugees in Vancouver
How can we live together? documents a fictional development model envisioning refugee housing funded by tourist timeshare condominiums, with essay by Kerry Gold and preface by Gregory Henriquez.
The book documents the GHETTO exhibition, which was displayed at the Museum of Vancouver between August 23, 2023 and January 1, 2024. GHETTO originally exhibited at the European Cultural Centre’s 2021 Venice Architecture Biennale and Art Gallery of Ontario (2022) before travelling to Vancouver.
Henriquez Partners’ exhibition, GHETTO, at the Museum of Vancouver was hosted in collaboration with the UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, European Cultural Centre, and Museum of Vancouver. The exhibition’s goal was to illustrate the leadership role that architects and all citizens can play in the creation of inclusive and engaged cities, as well as the power held by the development community in providing social benefits for those most in need.
GHETTO proposed a theoretical rezoning project in Vancouver’s False Creek and sought to encourage meaningful dialogue on our collective responsibility to care for one another through the creation of inclusive cities. How can we live together? highlights the public input in the form of a housing survey, which was gathered from over 15,000 visitors during the Vancouver exhibition.
“’The exhibit was meant to articulate to the world the potential of our CAC process and to transform it from condos into other things,’ says Henriquez. ‘But also, it was meant to generate talk about larger global issues of people in need around the world as well. And so that’s what the survey was trying to measure… to what extent are people self-interested, and to what extent are they altruistic in terms of their aspirations to help people who have less than them?’”
– excerpt from essay by Kerry Gold