Paper short abstract:

Taichung's new smart city is partly occupied by a big public park, which was conceived to offer a comfortable outdoor space while respecting ecological concerns and anticipating future natural disasters. What kind of future does this urban renewal project outline?

Paper long abstract:

In Taichung (Taïwan), the new smart neighborhood currently under construction is occupied by a big urban park designed by two European architects. Their main goal is to propose a comfortable outdoor space by regulating the local climate while respecting some ecological concerns and anticipating potential future natural disasters. Thereby, it follows the ecological guidelines of the masterplan of this new district designed by a renowned American architect. The future envisioned in these projects appears to be seen as universally and globally threatened by environmental disasters, and some measures are taken in order to attenuate its main causes.

Doing so, some decisions related to urban planning shook up local habits, as well as the way of conceiving urban space. On the contrary, some other decisions are absolutely not questioned, such as the will to make this new district a smart city (for example, by integrating connected devices in the different infrastructures in order to save energy).

On the basis of an ethnography realised between 2017 and 2020, I propose to highlight some frictions between the way the international designers envision the future on one hand, and the way the locals (architects, users, workers, …) reacted on these adjustments on another one. What do these tensions illustrate? This will also allow me to examine how the ideas and logics conveyed in the making of metropolis on an international scale are imposed locally. Finally, what kind of common future do these projects outline, and how do they try to respond to it?