The right to housing in Kuwait: an urban injustice in a socially just system

This work examines the extent to which land-use policies and social housing laws have contributed to the demise of the urbanisation process of a city. It is set in the context of Kuwait – a city-state that has undergone a short but rapid urbanisation history that only started in the 1950’s after the discovery of oil. It traces the methods of housing welfare distribution and questions their role in promoting justice in an environment of increasing housing application backlog, endless sprawl and continually rising housing property values. This paper challenges the current cultural attestations for the lack of fundamental redress of the present state legislation and supports this view through tracing of historical precedents and exploration within on-going changes in urban ways of life in Kuwait. Instead, it identifies the effect of urban policy on society which has induced an entitlement notion framed from a ‘rights’ perspective, through a set of semi-structured interviews conducted with both state officials and local citizens. In an environment of unsustainable wealth distribution methods that not only treat the city as a flat landscape but are also open for abuse, this paper calls for an absolute need for re-evaluation of the current practice that not only raises the quality of life for citizens today, but grants justice for generations to come

Hacking Kuwaitscapes

by Alexandra Gomes, Sharifa Alshalfan, Asseel Al-Ragam & Tanushree AgarwalGames can be great tools for promoting learning and behaviour change through their ability to engage interest, motivate effort, encourage task persistence and problem-based learning opportunities. These types of games are known as ‘serious games’. One example is ‘Kuwaitscapes’, a card game created with the goal of raising awareness about the potential of Kuwait’s public space use and encouraging players to reflect on different user experiences. However, initial feedback from players revealed that the game fell short of this goal, as it was seen as more of a fun, competitive game rather than a tool for learning and reflection. This was important feedback provided by players from en.v, a women-led, culturally diverse and interdisciplinary organisation working in Kuwait

Using games for inclusive research and policy design – the case of Kuwaitscapes

Academic research is predominantly communicated via the written word in reports, research articles, social media and blogposts. Here, Alexandra Gomes, Tanushree Agarwal, Asseel Al-Ragam and Sharifa Alshalfan, describe the development of ‘Kuwaitscapes’ a card based game designed to communicate the findings of their research into sustainable development in Kuwait and as way of raising awareness of the policy choices available to make urban environments less car-dependent

Reordered publics: re-imagining the City of London

In the unrelenting wake of the global recession has intensified pressure on the public realm to mediate between different actors vying to assert political rights, economic claims and social expression. Multi-disciplinary frameworks for reading economic systems as integral to the design and lived experience of the public realm have shaped our conceptualisation of the financial crisis as a city design problem. The following images and narrative offer a socio-spatial and political analysis of the City of London as a 'business as usual' city in which private interests trump public good. Through a design-based proposal for policy intervention and physical restructuring that radically alters the City's socio-spatial realities, we re-imagine the City of London as a true public city for the 21st century, where 'productivity' stems from the residential diversity, urban intensity and inclusive public spaces produced by significantly increasing the number of people living in the City