Highrise: Out My Window
November 4, 2010 8:23 AM   Subscribe

Out My Window (trailer) is the new web documentary from the Highrise project, one of the world's first interactive 360° documentaries. Delivered entirely on the web, it explores the state of our urban planet told by people who look out on the world from highrise windows. With more than 90 minutes of material, Out My Window features 49 stories from 13 cities, told in 13 languages.
posted by gman (2 comments total) 4 users marked this as a favorite
 
Though I am interested in this, it has some of the same breathless feel that many of the Metropolis articles do. "Architecture will save the world" and so on.

The experience also reminds me of a CD-Rom game from 15 years ago.

Still, the material is right up my alley, and I'll probably end up going out of my way to explore it.
posted by poe at 9:54 AM on November 4, 2010 [1 favorite]


Concrete residential highrise buildings are the most commonly built form of the last century.

On the outside, they all look the same. But inside these towers of concrete and glass, people create community, art and meaning.


Funny - just the other night I was watching Slumming It, a two-part doco on the Dharavi slum in Mumbai.

In one segment, the presenter visits some highrise projects where slum-dwellers are resettled to, and is completely scornful of the idea that you can have any kind of community in such buildings, as opposed to the (somewhat romanticised) community spirit he found in the slum.

This conclusion seemed to be mainly drawn from the awful, garbage-strewn state of the public spaces between the buildings, with no attempt at beautification or any evidence of public pride - in contrast to the attractive little squares & other public spaces found in the slums.

These are the kinds of depressing Stalinist-looking buildings I remember seeing endlessly from the train lines entering & leaving Mumbai: dismal, crumbling concrete blocks, where a resident could reach out with their arm & touch the balcony of the neigbouring building, and with nothing but alleys of crap (literally & metaphorically) between them.
posted by UbuRoivas at 1:36 PM on November 4, 2010 [1 favorite]


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