Opening...

Dear All,

This is the FIRST message of HABITACTION*.
HABITACTION is a blog on housing ready-made, urban knowledge making, and city makers.
It aims to be an open table for researchers and professionals in the fields of the social and human sciences like history and sociology, applied sciences and art, and is more specialized in urban planning and politics, architecture, and environmental issues.
HABITACTION will start as an open diary, collecting articles, information, from three main countries of interests: the United States, France and Mexico.

This blog has started from past experiences and ideas. Some other 'short' blogs have been already created : one on New Orleans and its reconstruction called Urbankatrina, and two on teaching experiences in Mexico, one at the Tec de Monterrey, Campus Guadalajara, called Paisaje Urbano and one at the Escuela Superior de Arquitectura while teaching a 'taller urbano' on a central neighborhood of Guadalajara.
HABITACTION will try to combine all those interests in one and will be related to my PhD in sociology at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, EHESS, in France and some related works in my professional activities.

HABITACTION opens its first post as an homage to l'Abbe Pierre, a french priest and activist working for the homeless and the poor. HABITACTION seeks also to dream and navigate through utopias, urban and social realm far from the ones described by the reality of the Abbe Pierre.

To illustrate this last idea I will link two short videos from the sixties available on the web site of the Institut National de l'Audiovisuel [in France]. They both explain the desires of HABITACTION seeking and balancing between real news and utopias.
- "Apres sept ans de silence", ORTF, 1962.
- "et voilà les shadoks", ORTF, 1968.



* A special thanks to Yasmine Abbas and her neo nomad platform who motivated me to create this blog.