Friday 20 March

The current real estate crisis is hitting communities all around the world hard, for example in the American mid-west, in Southern-Europe and in the Gulf region. The magnitude of this crisis will reshape our cities. Therefore, there is a desperate need to reframe the issues at stake so that they can be addressed in a creative and productive way.

In February, ARCHIS in cooperation with Abitare, Netherlands Architecture Institute and the College of Architecture and Design at Lawrence Tech held an RSVP event in Warren (USA), a city close to Detroit where 80 % of the population is depended on the automotive industry. The event focused on finding pragmatic answers to how we can move from crisis to project.

Join this practical discussion!!

A report-back and discussion meeting at the NAI on 20 March 2008 is aimed at providing cities in need with clues and concepts to revive the public domain, to re-energize its urban spirit and to revitalize its trust in dialogue as the essence of civic life.

Perspectives of the debate:
1. A concrete community-based bottom-up strategy to deal with the real estate crisis.
2. A clear example, from the top-down perspective of the global community of architects, urbanists and planners, as to how to approach the current real estate crisis.

Program:
Host: Arjen Oosterman, editor in chief Volume magazine

Proposals:
1. Toni Moceri, County Commissioner for the city of Warren introduces the real estate challenge in the US and the community DIY strategies developed during the RSVP in Warren. She maps out key questions.
2. Alexander d’Hooghe, head of the New Monumentality Studio at MIT reflects on the global real estate crisis and introduces his ideas on the rehabilitation of the suburb.
3. Lieuwe Conradie, AM concepts

Ole Bouman, NAi director, discusses the pros and cons of both approaches.

Discussion:
The host invites the audience to think through whether approaches are applicable and where additional creative thinking is needed.

Toni Moceri
Toni Moceri is a Macomb County commissioner representing the northwest portion of the City of Warren. She is also strategic development coordinator at the Michigan Suburbs Alliance. In the past, she has been a cultural researcher focusing on topics of urbanism. Her work includes research for Shrinking Cities, a project funded by the German Federal Cultural Foundation. She studied at the Bauhaus Kolleg in Dessau, Germany, and has a master of research degree in Humanities and Cultural Studies from the London Consortium.

Alexander D’Hooghe
Alexander D’Hooghe is assistant professor of architectural design at MIT Architecture. A founding member of the design firm ORG, with projects in the Netherlands and Belgium, D’Hooghe has also practiced as an urban designer and architect with the Chan Krieger firm of Boston and with Professor Marcel Smets in Belgium. He has taught at the Harvard Design School both as instructor and visiting critic.

Arjen Oosterman
Arjen Oosterman is editor-in-chief and publisher of Volume, an independent quarterly magazine that sets the agenda for design. By going beyond architecture’s definition of ‘making buildings,’ it reaches out for global views on designing environments, advocates broader attitudes to social structures, and reclaims the cultural and political significance of architecture. Created as a global idea platform to voice architecture any way, anywhere, anytime, it represents the expansion of architectural territories and the new mandate for design.