Triennale Brugge 2015 Nicolas Grenier Vertically Integrated Socialism Nicolas Grenier
Nicolas Grenier

Vertically Integrated Socialism

This experimental housing concept integrates the social class pyramid into one single building. Tenants who live off state support are housed free of charge on the ground floor and above them increasingly better-off social classes are placed, each time paying the rent of the class below them. It provides opportunities for social integration and upward mobility.

Population growth, immigration and the growing gap between rich and poor are major challenges for housing and urban planning in large cities. Vertically Integrated Socialism suggests a pragmatic system that incorporates the conflicting needs, interests and aspirations of different social classes.

Nicolas Grenier placed a studio in the church of the Grootseminarie and a model of the entire building. A video explained the concept of the social integration model.

Vertically Integrated Socialism is an architectural template that is designed to concentrate and organise the economic, political and social inequalities of the modern metropolis. Residents themselves choose how they participate in this microcosm and whether it results in order and stability or unrest and revolution.

Nicolas Grenier

Nicolas Grenier

Nicolas Grenier (b. 1982, Montreal, CA) is interested in the skewed relationships between political, economic, cultural and social systems that we endure and in the principles – or lack thereof – that underlie them.