Environmental and Infrastructural Features of High-Rise Public Housing Buildings and Their Impact on Resident’s Pro-environmental Practices

Abstract

Pro-environmental practices in urbanized areas have been explored extensively during the last decades. However, very little research has been undertaken to explore residents’ pro-environmental practices when living in high-rise buildings, and much less in the high-rise public housing contexts. In addition, extensive research has been limited to the buildings’ architectural-environmental performances relating to design and distribution, and their effects on residents. Furthermore, it is generally assumed that residents living in high-rise public housing do not consume considerable amounts of natural resources because of their ‘well-designed’ living spaces. However, interactions with external factors that compose the socio-physical context such as the high-rise sites’ infrastructure and social context can influence and shape residents’ pro-environmental practices. This cross-context ethnographic study between two high-rise sites, Collingwood in Melbourne, Australia and Tlatelolco in Mexico City, Mexico, explored whether some immediate external synergies played a decisive role when residents did or did not undertake pro-environmental practices. The results showed that synergies with the infrastructure and social context in both sites influenced to some extent residents’ pro-environmental practices and enhance environmental awareness. However, these external factors were not decisive in determining the execution of such practices.