13 March 2010, Trouw/De Verdieping, Amsterdam.
More information here.

Nature has always been complete, and yet it is never finished. Technology can expand nature infinitely, but should learn to play by some of the same rules. At the Transnatural symposium acknowledged designers, scientists, artists and architects explore the philosophical, cultural and practical implications of the fusion between technology and nature.

Morning lectures

• Dr. Rachel Armstrong. Her research is aimed at developing metabolic materials to be applied in the built environment. Armstrong foresees a living architecture, capable of ‘healing’ the environment.
• Tobie Kerridge (Material Beliefs); Material Beliefs is a project of designers and scientists that research the implications of upcoming biomedical and cybernetic technologies. Together with non-specialists they make prototypes of new products and exhibition that bring scientific research from the labs into public space and debate.
• Elio Caccavale (Bioethics Futures); Drawing on Utility Pets, MyBio and Future Families, Caccavale presents his design practice. Caccavale makes speculative objects in which abstract issues and ethical questions that surround biotechnology are made tangible.
• Koert van Mensvoort (NextNature); Koert reports on the latest insights from the NextNature research - a highly inspiring Dutch initiative that explores and describes how our understanding of nature is changing. NextNature is the nature made by humans, that is more than ever wild and unpredictable.
• Jan Jongert (2012Architecten in SuperUse); The work of 2012Architects is a strong example of Superuse - a design approach in which clever aesthetics meet the pragmatics of recycling. Instead of designing new cradle-to-cradle products, 2012Architects develop grave-to-cradle methods, that do away with ‘waste’ as an economical and cultural category.

Afternoon masterclasses

• Protocells, living buildings and synthetic ecology; Architect, physicist and sciencefiction author Dr. Rachel Armstrong leads the participants along the conceptual and chemical steps of making an in-organic Traube Cell. Starting from current technologies, the participants develop scenario’s to implement metabolic materials in the built environment. How can archictecture literally come to live?
• Material Beliefs; Design researcher Tobie Kerridge and product designer Elio Caccavale together with the participants develop products and services to experience the social, cultural and ethical implications of upcoming nano-, bio- and info technologies. What is your most dangerous idea?
• Superusable materials; Architect Jan Jongert leads a design masterclass about superusable materials, that can live through two or more product cycles. The participants research material requirements, but also look into the necessary design attitudes, and they think about alternative product and waste cycles that can support Superusability.

What to do with the big hole in downtown Chicago? That essentially is what the Chicago Architectural Club wants to know. Therefore they announced the competition ‘Mine the Gap’.

“‘Mine the Gap’ is a single-stage international design ideas competition dedicated to examining one of the most visible scars left after the collapse of the real estate market in Chicago: the massive hole along the Lake Michigan shore that was to have been—and may yet be—the foundation for a singular 150-story condominium tower designed by an internationally-renowned Spanish architect, a tower which was to have become a new icon for the city and region. What to do with the gap? Whether or not the project is resuscitated, what else can we do with this strategic and highly-charged site? Once the motor of real-estate speculation has stalled, what can we use to propel ourselves, and the discipline, forward?”

More information about entry fee, jury, deadlines and registration can be found at the Chicago Architectural Club’s webpage. Competitors may submit material online anytime between March 22, 2010 and May 3, 2010. Registration is open, and may be completed anytime before the deadline. The first prize is $ 3,500, the second is prize $ 1,500 and the third prize is $ 750. Up to 3 Honorable Mentions will be awarded.

19 February - 16 May 2010, Netherlands Architecture Institute, Rotterdam.

24 Architecture designers take the lead, assessing what society needs now. Pursuing strategies the market is hesitant to explore. The designs that are presented are the fruits of an ambition to find sustainable designs for the future.

The international travelling exhibition ‘Architecture of Consequence’ highlights a changing selection of the same urban designers included in the accompanying book. After Sao Paulo and Moscow, the exhibition will travel to the NAi in Rotterdam in February. The designs that are presented are the fruits of an ambition to find sustainable designs for the future. The theme is expanded by exhibiting the selected designs in different scales.

With contributions by 2by4-architects, De Zwarte Hond, Doepel Strijkers Architecten, MVRDV, Studio Marco Vermeulen, West 8, CONCEPT0031, Anne Holtrop, Next Architects, seARCH, 2012 Architecten, Atelier Kempe Thill, Biq Stadsontwerp, MUST Urbanism, OMA/AMO, ONIX, Powerhouse Company, Rietveld Landscape, Stealth.ultd, Van Bergen Kolpa Architecten, Venhoeven CS, ZUS.

27 February 2010, Studio-X, New York City. 1 pm to 5:30 pm. (More information here.)

Foodprint NYC is the first in a series of international conversations about food and the city. From a cluster analysis of bodega inventories to the cultural impact of the ice-box, and from food deserts to peak phosphorus, panelists will examine the hidden corsetry that gives shape to urban foodscapes, and collaboratively speculate on how to feed New York in the future.

The free afternoon program will include designers, policy-makers, flavor scientists, culinary historians, food retailers, and others, for a wide-ranging discussion of New York’s food systems, past and present, as well as opportunities to transform our edible landscape through technology, architecture, legislation, and education.

Program Schedule:

• Zoning Diet: Sean Basinski, Joel Berg, Nevin Cohen, Stanley Fleishman
• Culinary Cartography: Jonathan Bogarín, Makalé Faber Cullen, David Haskell, Naa Oyo A. Kwate
• Edible Archaeology: Rebecca Federman, William Grimes, Annie Hauck-Lawson, David Sax
• Feast, Famine, and Other Scenarios: Amale Andraos, Marcelo Coelho, Natalie Jeremijenko, Beverly Tepper

In May 2009 the centre for architecture and arts in The Hague (Netherlands) started a manifestation about the same subject, which also called Foodprint. Check here the Dutch Foodprint program organized by Stroom.

19 February 2010, corner Witte de Withstraat/Schiedamse Vest, Rotterdam. Open: 10:00 pm.

Jay-Z and Rihanna get it straight, in times of crisis, we need to find shelter. The umbrella is the simplest form of shelter, a personal, private, and dry space in a soggy world. If one umbrella is a private space, what happens when we join 10 together, or 100?

Buckminster Fuller showed us how minimal energy domes could open a way to a more environmentally sustainable future, could an umbrella dome lead the way to a more socially sustainable future? The Bucky Bar is a full-scale model of such a future. A spontaneous public building made from the most common of materials, assembled with the resourcefulness of skill of architects. It shows the power of space for spontaneous gathering, for improvised shelters to host conversations, debates, games or even parties. The Bucky Bar launches the DUS/SUA unsolicited agenda for the City of Rotterdam as part of the Architecture of Consequence exhibit at the Netherlands Architecture Institute.

26 February 2010, the Building Centre, London. Start 9:00 am.

The one-day conference ‘Unconventional Computing & Architecture’ explores new materials for architectural practice in the 21st century. International architects and scientists will explore the decision-making properties of matter and how this may be applied to create increasingly life-like buildings.

Organised by The Bartlett’s Advanced Virtual and Technological Architecture Research (AVATAR) group, the conference aims to bring together architects and scientists who are working with new technologies that are capable of self-assembly and organization. Such technologies may form the basis for architecture generated by unconventional computing techniques which range from the actions of protocells, (entirely synthetic DNA-less agents), slime moulds (simple organisms with very complex behaviours), crystalline computing (using the organizing properties of molecules) and algae (that can be engineered to respond to environments in new ways). Neil Spiller founded the AVATAR Group in 2004, whose interdisciplinary research agenda explores all manner of digital and visceral terrain and considers the impact of advanced technology on architectural design, engaging with cybernetics, aesthetics, and philosophy to develop new ways of manipulating the built environment.

Speakers:
Neil Spiller (University College London), Rachel Armstrong (University College London), Evan Douglis (Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute), Paul Preissner (University of Illinois at Chicago), Lisa Iwamoto (University of California, Berkeley), Philip Beesley (University of Waterloo), Nic Clear (University College London), Martin Hanczyc (University of Southern Denmark), Ben de Lacy Costello (University of West England), Simon Park (University of Surrey), Lee Cronin (University of Glasgow).

—More information here.

3 March 2010, De Verdieping, Wibautstraat 127, Amsterdam. Start 20:00, entrance € 2,50
With Ole Bouman (NAi), Maurice Groenhart (Layar)

The widespread employment and adoption of ubiquitous computing, sensor networks and mobile media into the urban environment have unforeseen implications for how our cultures might come to use networked digital resources to change the way we understand, build, and inhabit cities. Visible Cities presents a revolving programme on how emerging technologies are changing the cities we live in.

After Euro Beinat and Ronald Lenz in the previous edition, Visible Cities #02 sees NAi director Ole Bouman and Maurice Groenhart of Layar talk about the opportunities of augmented reality. They have collaborated on a new application for the urban environment: SARA, an Augmented Reality layer that can show the design of a building in real-time in the city in your iPhone or Android browser long before construction has even started. They will talk about their particular ideas and experiences.

We invite you to join us for the launch of our latest issue, VOLUME #22 The Guide, and the special supplement publication Beyroutes: A guide to Beirut.

Athenaeum News Centre, Spui, Amsterdam, December 22, 5-7pm

Both publications come together in a single packet, and form part of your subscription.

About this issue

Guiding – as it is commonly understood – is not about creating; it’s about helping. The guide has no goal other than to lead someone safely to the destiny of their choice. The guide is skilled; he or she actually can lead the way, but does so without ambition beyond delivering quality service. The guide sells safety where risk is involved.

With The Guide, VOLUME presents a diverse collection of guides and attempts to guide. From strange maps, bike tours and magnetic navigation belts to the conception of Paris’ 13th arrondissement as a series of islands; here, the guide is understood as not simply a service or selling point, but as an exploratory tool, a generator for a proactive engagement with the city.

As a supplement to this issue of VOLUME, we also present the separate publication Beyroutes, a guidebook to Beirut, one of the grand capitals of the Middle East. Beyroutes presents an exploded view of a city which lives so many double lives and figures in so many truths, myths and historical falsifications. Visiting the city with this intimate book as your guide makes you feel disoriented, appreciative, judgmental and perhaps eventually reconciliatory. Beyroutes is the field manual for 21st century urban explorer.

Contributors

The Guide: Arjen Oosterman, Jan van Grunsven, Ole Bouman, Rory Hyde, Atelier Bow-Wow, Michael Kubo, Edwin Gardner, Filip Mischelwitsch, Jonathan Hanahan, Louisa Bufardeci, Sunny Bains, Anastassia Smirnova, Thomas Daniell, Kate Rhodes, Naomi Stead, Thomas Kilpper, Lucy Bullivant, Christian Ernsten, Charles Esche + The Detroit Unreal Estate Agency (Andrew Herscher a.o.)

VOLUME Magazine #22 was conceived and edited by Archis. Supported by the Mondriaan Foundation and the University of Michigan.

Beyroutes: With contributions by Maureen Abi Ghanem, Romy Assouad, Hisham Awad, Cleo Campert, Joane Chaker, Tony Chakar, Zinab Chahine, Steve Eid, Christian Ernsten, Christiaan Fruneaux, Edwin Gardner, David Habchy, Mona Harb, Pascale Harès, Jasper Harlaar, Janneke Hulshof, Hanane Kaï, Karen Klink, Niels Lestrade, Mona Merhi, Elias Moubarak, Tarek Moukaddem, Kamal Mouzawak, Joe Mounzer, Alex Nysten, Nienke Nauta, Ahmad Osman, Haig Papazian, Pieter Paul Pothoven, Rani al Rajji, Joost Janmaat, Jan Rothuizen, Ruben Schrameijer, Reem Saouma, Michael Stanton, George Zouein

Beyroutes was initiated by Studio Beirut in collaboration with Partizan Publik, Archis and the Pearl Foundation. Supported by Prince Claus Fund, Fund Working on the Quality of Living and the Netherlands Embassy in Lebanon.

The Prince Claus Fund and the Netherlands Foundation for Visual Arts, Design and Architecture invite you to a lunch lecture by Colombian architect and 2009 Principal Prince Claus Laureate Simón Vélez.

Simón Vélez’s aesthetic and technical innovations in bamboo have enhanced its construction potential and challenged mainstream architectural trends. He invented a new method to build foundations and roofs, which transformed one of the world’s oldest building materials, namely bamboo, into a modern resource that meets the strictest international construction regulations and can even outperform steel.

For this contribution, on the 16th of December Simón Vélez will receive the 2009 Principal Prince Claus Award.

What: Lunch lecture
When: Thursday 17 December 2009, 12.00 – 13.00 hrs
Where: Zuiderkerk, Zuiderkerkhof 72, Amsterdam, NL
Register: www.princeclausfund.org

This lecture is organised in cooperation with Dienst Ruimtelijk Ordening Amsterdam, Tolhuistuin en Archis/Volume.

Image: Simón Vélez, Crosswater Ecolodge, Nankun Mountains, China.

City as Heart(s)

“As a biologist, I see cities as living organisms. Pulsating bodies made up of new and dying cells and kept alive by the people flowing through their arteries. Cities grow, swell, change shape, absorb and eject. This is not about cities with a heart, but about cities as a heart; pumping oxygen and fresh blood into the greater metropolitan areas.”
- Jacqueline Cramer, minister of the Environment and Spatial Planning

Hearing these words at the closing speech of Morgen/Tomorrow - the International Urban Planning Congress held in Amsterdam – one may travel into the memory of “The Heart of the City”, theme of the 8th International Congress of Modern Architecture (CIAM VIII, 1951, Hoddesdon, England). Today, as then, it was an important moment where urban planners and architects from all around the world gathered to discuss the City as a living liveable centre (core/cuore/coeur). Still today it has a fundamental role in the balance of the expanded new (Open) City.
As an Open City enthusiast, Kees Christiaanse speech alerted to the present status of worldwide metropolises, dealing with the multiple layers of their multicultural heritage: “The enemies of the open city are the open city itself”. Thus, the coexistence of ethnic communities which do not communicate with one another (the favelas of São Paulo and the city of Jakarta were examples given) and rather just inhabit in the same metropolitan structure it is a phenomenon that must be surpassed by city government. Exploring deeper the Netherlands point of view on the Open City, Zef Hemel’s (Substituting the canceled speech of Anastasia Volynskaya’s) presented his “Free State of Amsterdam” speech in a cheerful tone of positive aura upon Planning, as described by his nine “Amsterdam Principles”. The focus on the city of Amsterdam continued in the afternoon workshop “Urban Governance and Liveable cities”, where Maarten van Poelgeest (Alderman of Amsterdam for Town and Country Planning) and Hessel Boerboom (Ministry of the Interior and Kingdom Relations) could reveal a bit of Amsterdam projects for the future.

City and Revolution
Nevertheless, the motivation for the congress was to pay a tribute to Floor Wibaut, Amsterdam’s alderman on the beginning of the 20th century and an important city enthusiast and city revolutionary. Inevitably, thinking on the city of tomorrow is also to respect and learn with the past and its examples. Is also to think how extraordinary events, like war and revolution, have such a great impact on the city. This link was made through the emotive love-liberty imagery of the streets of Amsterdam led by the Paris 1968 Uprising that were shown as an appetizer before the beginning of the speakers’ presentation. So the question was posed… Throughout the world of today, ”Who are the new Wibauts?”

As an attempt to answer this question at this second day of congress positive cases of city revolutions worldwide were presented, namely Chicago (USA), Pittsburg (USA), Mumbai (India) and Tirana (Albania) (There were presented more city study cases in the afternoon workshops (being held simultaneously): Helsinki (Finland), Malmö (Sweden), Hamburg (Germany) and Freiburg (Germany)).

On a Chicago community study case, La Donna Redmond presented a revolutionary project involving the Food System Movement. Following a personal motivation (On a very tender age, La Donna Redmond’s son was diagnosed with several food allergies), La Donna was involved and it is still fighting for the implementation of a Soul Food System, searching for a perfect agricultural policy (there is an easy access to all kinds of fast-food but the essential vegetables are not available, unlike what we’re used to in European grocery stores) that affects the values of her community: “Revitalizing Soil is revitalizing Community”.
Pittsburgh was presented as a former flourishing industrial city that faces an identity crisis that has its roots in the 70’s. To address the uncertainty and loss of value of his community, speaker Michael J. Madison pointed out the importance of finding icons for the future, in order to put citizens in love with their city again (’Let’s go Steelers!’ is the slogan for the Pittsburgh American football team, in a clear relation with the city’s past heritage).
The Mumbai case-study was presented by P. K. Das, an architect-activist that struggles against the shrinkage of open space, brought a vision of the City from a democratic planning perspective: “Open space is a metaphor for democracy.” His demand for designing collectivity was also part of the main CIAM agenda more than 60 years ago, in order to enhance public spaces and act in comprehensive planning. The positivism of this case relies on reclaiming public spaces performed by P.K. Das, a victory over the the total apathy of city government.
Tirana, the last example, gives us a completely different vision upon the citizen’s public space appropriation. Public space was a tangible expression of the communist and previous regime, that late fell in 1990. Ten years later, when Edi Rama became city major, the people of Tirana still had a strong negative feeling towards public space. This was leading to an abusive private appropriation of the City. Starting with a low-budget project, in a period where words were meaningless, Edi Rama used color as an instrument of politics, involving the community into refurbishing the (previously damaged) city façades (for more info visit T.I.C.A). Other projects that emerged where all led by a single leitmotiv: “Beauty intimidates (Albanian) people. (…) So the only answer is to build and invest with quality.”

The purpose of this congress was to review new factors of worldwide global urbanization. These were mentioned at the conference: waste, water, food, mobility and ICT. In the case-studies shown above there is a general conception of “the Revolution(ary)” as key to make cities go through deep change, into development and growth, into the future.