SeDUT, a Swiss-Cuban cooperative research project on urban development in Havana, was conducted from 2004 – 2007. The Chair of Sociology at the Department of Architecture from the ETH Zurich joined forces with the design offices of Metron AG to head up Switzerland’s contributions to the project, while the CEU-H (Centro de Estudios Urbanos de La Habana, Facultad de Arquitectura, CUJAE), the IPF (Instituto de Planificación Física) and the DPPF-CH (Dirección Provincial de Planificación Física de la Ciudad de La Habana) assumed key responsibility in Cuba. The project was financed in part by the State Secretariat for Education and Research (SER).
Central to the project was a five-workshop series held in Havana. Experts in urban planning and research from Havana worked together with Swiss experts to develop an analysis of the city’s urban development and mobility. A specific type of mapping served as the key method employed in the workshop, enabling new data and findings to be generated that have come to bear particular importance in light of the current uncertainty surrounding Havana’s future development. Since the findings have yet to become fully available to the public at large, a book is currently being prepared for publication.
Lead
Jorge Peña Díaz, Professor of Architecture, CUJAE in La Habana
Christian Schmid, Titular Professor of Sociology, ETH Zurich
A follow-up project is already in preparation, in cooperation with the Transdisciplinary Case Study Research Group (TCSR) of the Institute for Human-Environment-Systems (HES) at ETH Zurich. This project will provide a methodological basis for integrated planning in Cuba and allow the systematic validation of already developed strategies.
