Volume #24: Counterculture
Editorial by Jeffrey Inaba

Few people are out protesting in the street or tripping on acid in America these days, yet many of the social principles of its hippie generation are now mainstream. The most celebrated example of the continuing influence of 60s alternative values is in the world of technology. In his book From Counterculture to Cyberculture, media historian Fred Turner describes a group of 60s figures who did not revolt against a menacing, out of touch ‘establishment’ as the familiar narrative tells us, but took a seemingly contradictory interest in defense technologies developing within the military­industrial complex. Turner observes that the countercultural ethos of demanding access to knowledge invoked by Stewart Brand and others influenced the development of the personal computer products and network tools that popularized the web and initiated our shift to a society that thrives on information.

At first glance, what appears prescient about the 60s when looking at current American culture is the preoccupation then and now with computer technology, the natural environment and alternative forms of community; but today each is disconnected from the radical political action and oppositional ideologies of the earlier era. For instance, concern for the planet, which was cast as flaky and indulgent, is shared by the majority of people despite the ideological differences between the counterculture and popular American opinion now. Sustainability is so much a part of our collective economic consciousness that its importance is cited in business sectors – like real estate development – which once ardently resisted entertaining pro­environmental stances. Similarly, the communal principles of the counterculture – such as participation, sharing information, erring on the side of social inclusion, networking and identifying areas of agreement with others in order to form collaborations – are the basic axioms for building social capital now.

With the help of countercultural figures, historians and architects, this issue of Volume examines the popularized characteristics of the 60s that have influenced our beliefs about technology, the environment and community. Fred Turner describes the transfer of countercultural ideals to the uses of computer interfaces; Stewart Brand, Kevin Kelly and Sim Van der Ryn discuss their countercultural roots in relation to their current projects addressing the environment; and Richard Doyle and John Markoff tell us that the 60s notion of shared consciousness has a lot to do with our current understanding of community. These accounts and others construct an improbable bridge between far out Back­to­the­Land ideologies and the more close­to­home, familiar norms of contemporary life. As the countercultural sensibility was codified and gained greater acceptance, some attitudes and techniques fell by the wayside, yet still persist as alternative forms of cultural participation: hacking technology, the perspective of environmental wholeness and personal consciousness as an agent of collective improvement are all countercultural remnants which are discussed to provide relief to the contemporary mainstream values described in this issue.

Together, the compiled essays and interviews do not judge whether the US counterculture was indeed a counterculture, or whether its protagonists ‘sold out’ by abandoning their alternative ideals for conventional beliefs. Instead, it is a preliminary appraisal of mainstream America considered through the lens of its counterculture. Some contend there is currently no alternative movement because there is no monolithic mainstream culture to counter. In contrast, we suspect that there indeed is a mainstream, and that it is so deeply imbued with countercultural values like sharing, concern for the environment and forming new communities that such a dominant logic of niceness is paradoxically difficult to resist or oppose. Because the prevailing values of nicety are beyond repute, does the current mainstream limit itself to the critical contributions of a future counterculture? In these pages Volume attempts to reckon with the legacy of the 60s as a pervasive ethos of positivity.

The issue is structured in three parts – technology, environment and community – each of which lays out comparisons between widely influential countercultural tendencies and those that remain latent. The first section maps out two interfaces with technology that eventually synthesize with mainstream culture, namely the drive to access information and the formation of knowledge­based networks. In their essay, Christina Cogdell and Simon Sadler draw our attention to our proclivity to ’fully embrace‘ the use of new machines and applications; Felicity Scott writes reflectively about three early examples of knowledge­centered networks; and Cyrus Mody describes the spectrum of varying opacities adopted by research organizations within the post­war scientific community. At the same time, this section refers to direct descendents from the counterculture – such as hacking – that still remain well on the periphery of accept ability by today’s standards. In different ways, the interviews with Scott Burnham, Otto von Busch, Daniel Grushkin, Stewart Brand, as well as the C­Lab feature, foreground the dissonance between popular depictions of hacking as a disruptive, destructive act and its relevance as a productive technique that is still currently evolving.

The environment section acknowledges continuities between the 60s ecological worldview and the largely popular adoption of sustainable strategies today, while also shedding light on the earlier period’s holistic attitude. In comparison with the 60s totalizing definition of ‘ecological’, today’s notion of sustainability is narrower in purpose. For that reason, among others, a commitment to the environment now enjoys endorsements across ideologically varied lines. As such, formulating a finite scope for environmentalism in order to build a broad political constituency merits recognition as a legitimate tactic. But such specification runs counter to the sensibility of holistic, inclusive thought characteristic of the era. Brand and Van der Ryn remind us that the sensitive balancing act between advancing a specific cause and awareness of the whole earth was a constant source of tension within the countercultural debate about the environment. They believed that narrowly focused action and esoteric karmic holism could be resolved through a particular form of participation neither devoid of ideological purpose, nor rendered ineffective by it. In Brand’s view, caring for the wellbeing of the whole earth requires a pragmatic strategy that involves individuals taking specific but comprehensively informed actions. Now that the environmental agenda is set within the terms of sustainability, C­Lab’s feature, Expanding Environment goes on to contend that there isn’t enough academic and public discussion regarding its methods that is sufficiently distanced from its limited scope of political and environmental engagement. In this regard, what counterculture may ultimately have to offer architects are the DIY tactics demonstrated by figures like Brand and Van der Ryn – which could be used to ‘hack’ the terms of the environmental discourse as the circumstances require.

If the countercultural legacy of community is the pursuit of a collective consciousness of consensus, then Francesco Bonami posits, by way of his manifesto, that we are at risk of dismantling collective thought. The Back­to­the­Land sense of community asserts itself in the contemporary ethos of sharing, agreement and cooperation – in what is in essence a ‘Nice Economy’ set of protocols for social networking. In contrast, Jay Stevens tells us that the sense of collectivity centered around 60s psychedelia had a different key tenet to it, namely that the exploration of personal consciousness was necessary for more meaningful interactions with others. In his account, as well as that by Richard Doyle and by C­Lab in Neuropolitics, the place and function of individual thought are considered in light of our increasingly totalizing involvement in a multiplicity of ‘communities’. The implications of the politics of collective and individual agency, for architecture specifically, are taken up in several pieces: Winy Maas discusses an alternative methodology for urban planning via the aggregated collective; Jason Payne meditates on a generational tendency toward an extroverted discourse that is based upon interpreting architecture through individual sensory experience; Scott’s piece treats communities that were built based on a common interest to refuse social conventions of cooperation; and Jorge Otero­Pailos describes the phenomenological movement in architecture and the expansion of the mental space of its users.

Because it is embedded in what we as architects are assumed to do, it is important to look closer into what the counterculture is purported to be. Todd Gitlin stresses that during the 60s there was no such thing as a counterculture. There wasn’t a single term to describe the many alternative experiments taking place in this period of tremendous social upheaval. As he says, people were living ‘lively’, with disregard for what might have been perceived as contradictory beliefs. Stevens and Doyle reiterate this point in suggesting that it was difficult to develop a lexicon descriptive of all the new kinds of experiences and states of consciousness. Yet, we have come to know what is now called the counterculture through coherent terms and tendencies which are the pretext for architecture. Its sensibility is assumed in the basic responsibilities we have as designers: we are supposed to thoroughly process the latest technical knowledge in our field, design buildings that are environmentally conscious and form a sense of community around our projects. So while it is the modus operandi for Volume to go beyond the boundaries of architecture to tap into areas of external knowledge that can be imported to invigorate the thinking about design, here we examine what has already made its way inside. We explore the influence of the ‘nice’ culture on our decisions and goals, be it the encouragement to collaborate on grand policy visions (Brand, Kevin Kelly), plan for a general winding down of US society (McKenzie Wark) or reconsider individual consciousness as a way to advance collective intelligence (Doyle). In other words, given the imperatives presented to us, how in architecture can we question the authority of counterculture?

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.

Former Volume-er Simon Pennec gives a round up of his highlights of the Architecture Film Festival Rotterdam (AFFR) that ran from October 29 to November 1 2009.

The 5th edition of the AFFR gathered an eclectic crowd of architects, artists, film-makers, curators and designers for three days of intense programming of shorts, documentaries, long features and arthouse videos. This year, the festival promised to frame the city and its architecture in the midst of the financial crisis; with the selection reflecting on potential urban and architectural futures.

The themes presented explored the highs and lows of architecture: West Coast modernism, Russian Avant-Garde and Architecture of Hope, the legacy of Jane Jacobs and a rich series of city documentaries exploring the ‘Great Planning Disasters’. The vast number of films turned the weekend into a challenge, and the need to strategize and tailor a programme quickly became everyone’s motto. I managed to watch 26 films including 18 shorts, most of them connected to the ‘crisis’ headline of the festival and the collective city.

Starting off with one of the first cinematographic reports on the effects of the mortgage crisis, Fresno is a documentary about how a group of Skateboarders have made new uses for the growing number of empty homes and swimming pools in this city just North of Los Angeles. Mixed with interviews of politicians, real estate brokers and property investors, the result is a rich account of the rapid changes that transformed American suburbia making it a new site for urban exploration. The problem does not stop at the individual home or the residential community; in Malls R Us, the film makers depict a much broader concern for American Suburbia, filming shopping malls closing down and leaving behind huge footprints of closed and gated spaces.

However, the intention here is not only to document the changes, as it is to suggest possible alternatives. In highlighting the growing gap between architecture and construction, the Festival has intended to make bridges between the presentation of the plan and the complexities of its realization. In a special screening, the London-based design practice Squint Opera presented their work turning documents and planning proposals into cinematic experiences. Large-scale projects such as London Olympics and Abu Dhabi 2030 are proposed in the form of hyper-real images so to communicate architecture and urban developments. For the architectural audience, the visual rendering comes as an innovative design, which ‘brings to life’ the complexities of the architectural drawings and models. The use of text placed over the images replaces a spoken narrative, presenting key features of the urban plan. In one or two occasions, the quotes highlight the “authentic and progressive character” of Abu Dhabi, but the simulated environments are imaginary places, representing the city as a series of slick, safe and ordered spaces. These contradictions turn both the urban plan and the film itself into an animated parody. Animation here becomes a crucial element not only in place-making but also in selling the image of a city to prospective clients and developers, though arguably a very generic city. This is cinema as a political tool at its best.

Squint Opera, Abu Dhabi 2030

In presenting Squint Opera’s video montages, the festival programmers question the nature and definition of the architecture film. Indeed, their selections span across all genres of architectural cinema. There are, however a few classics, including the architect tribute-documentary which reads just like a monograph; a page after page, project after project, survey of the architect’s work replacing the subjective photographic eye with pleasing slow camera tracking, as in Infinite Space: The Architecture of John Lautner. Another classic has to be the sci-fi approach, framing the future of the city built either from sets and backdrops or fragments of the existing city such as the modernist residential houses in Woody Allen’s Sleepers.

Amongst the variety of screenings and topics explored, one of the highlights for me was the Shorts program, which showcased films not only connected to the themes of this year’s festival, but also resonated with the ’Collective City’ exhibition at the International Architecture Biennale at the NAi in Rotterdam. The programs ‘Modernist Architecture of Hope’, ‘Pre Architecture’ and the ‘Block’ all open another rear window, looking at some of the larger architectural manifestations of the 20th Century and their contemporary everyday use. Whilst the West Coast Modernist Architecture screenings idealized an image of architecture (as in Infinite Space, or Visual Acoustics, on the photography of Julius Shulman), European and Asian modernist architecture is embedded in ideas of failed utopias, disillusions and decaying urbanism framed in the XL housing blocks.

Chris Chong Chan Fui, still from Block B, 2008

In Block B, we are immediately immersed in a frontal view of a housing block which becomes a living photograph. The enormity of the building is examined closely through quotidian stories, trivial actions, dialogues, and sounds, animating the uniform and rigid structure. The stillness of the camera reflects on the stillness of the building, demanding that we contemplate its complexities and its residents, “being connected but distant”.

Jean-Louis Schuller’s contrasting lens in Chungking Dream walks into another mass housing development, where 10,000 people – immigrants from all over the world – squeeze into 5 blocks of 17 stories high. Chungking Mansions, a cheap accommodation in Hong Kong, houses a paradise of multiculturalism and low-end globalization, turning the residential building into a fully functional city with its labyrinth of informal guesthouses, curry restaurants, African bistros, clothing shops and foreign exchange offices.

Jean-Louis Schuller, Chungking Dream

In Quadro, Lotte Schreiber portrays the monumentality of a 1960’s apartment block built in the Italian coastal city of Trieste. Sitting atop a hill, the building appears to be floating in space, disconnected from the surrounding city. Her other film Borgate, recomposes a declining neighbourhood of Rome with tight and slow-tracking shots surveying the topography of the urban landscape composed of facades, wide streets and small architectural details. The black and white film provides a dramatic contrast between a nostalgic look back to neo-realism, highlighted by references from Fellini to Pasolini, and the violent intrusion of almost subliminal and abstract sequences.

Lotte Schreiber, still from Quadro

In both films, the dramatic intensity created between the cinematography and powerful music, serve as a reminder that housing projects and post-war blocks still bear the dystopic stigmas of our contemporary urban fabric. In reference to the spaces she documents, Schreiber states that “this is where the city ends and no-man’s-land begins.”

Unfortunately, it was quite difficult to see how the other two features fit into the “Block” program, simply because they did not use the housing block as a backdrop. However, in Tallagh, a 25 minute maybe-too-long feature, a group of kids take over the empty streets of one of Dublin residential suburbs and gather urban residue in preparation of a bonfire finale. Although the point of ‘collectivity’ in these uniform housing estates is made through the engagement of the youngest residents, the film’s seemingly endless narrative felt a little out of context. At that point, the audience seemed to resent the next film in the screening, which presented yet another abstract sequence of shots of windows and facades of apartment buildings merged into a backdrop of film clippings. Thankfully, the soothing music of Franz Schubert made the whole experience much more pleasurable.

As filmic experience, the short features have an evocative way of representing the city and its many fragments as the central protagonist of the narrative. Thom Andersen claims that “movies aren’t about places, they’re about stories”. However, the films selected for the weekend – particularly in the Shorts program – essentially trace stories of buildings and neighborhoods, from the context in which they emerged and how they change overtime. They are framed not only as a backdrop on which to project a narrative, but also as a means to position architecture and the urban condition as a protagonist of the filmic experience. And so, architecture film festivals, however loose in their selections, come as much needed reminders of this.

Simon Pennec is a photographer and urban researcher. He contributed to the ‘Collective’ section of the IABR and his survey of collective housing as depicted in film is included in Volume #21: The Block. Simon is currently at OMA/AMO in Rotterdam.

Friday November 20, 5 pm, The Forum, NAI. Admission is free.

Every Friday afternoon during the Open City Event Program, a local “cultural ambassador” hosts a performance, presentation or discussion related to the theme of the week. Tomorrow evening, Lilet Breddels of VOLUME magazine will present artist Thomas Kilpper and his project/competition for A Lighthouse for Lampedusa! Following a film and short lecture by Kilpper, a discussion with curator Marina Sorbello will explore the possible role of art and architecture in socio-political issues.

A Lighthouse for Lampedusa!
Almost every day there are news reports of refugees arriving at Europe’s southern shores. In 2008, about 30,000 refugees reached Europe via the Italian island of Lampedusa. Thousands drown in the sea—aid organizations estimate that one out of ten migrants die during this dangerous crossing. For the relatively small island of Lampedusa, with about 4,000 inhabitants, the endless stream of arriving migrants causes a lot of practical problems, bringing the administration to the brink of collapse. In 2008, the refugee center reached breaking point when up to 2,000 people were held in confinement under cramped conditions, in a space designed for a maximum of 700 people. Instead of helping Lampedusa to ease the situation on the ground and to relocate the migrants to the mainland like in the past, the Italian government further escalated the problem when it insisted that the detained migrants be kept on the island, and to erect a second detention- and deportation-center for them. In January 2009, the islanders went on a general strike against these plans, using the slogan: “No Alcatras in Lampedusa.” Participants expressed their desire to live on an open island: “To live from tourism and to welcome the poorest of the poor if they arrive…” (quotation of the Mayor of Lampedusa, 2009)

So far there is no end of the stream of refugees in sight. What can be done to prevent these tragic deaths? Efforts to improve and sustain living conditions in the immigrants’ country of origin would, if successful, last for decades, if not generations. Since 2007, the Berlin based artist Thomas Kilpper has pursued the idea of constructing a “Lighthouse for Lampedusa,” which is to have a double function: to provide essential orientation at sea and help to navigate refugee boats into safety, and to house a museum and cultural center, which the island still lacks. The Lighthouse is conceived as a tower and a landmark building, capable of hosting a diverse and trans-national program of communication, negotiation, exhibitions, concerts and other cultural events on its ground floor. It would serve as a place that attracts not only new visitors to the island but also local people—making Lampedusa not just a location to talk about, but also a place to learn from and listen to the ideas of others.

The refugee crisis of Lampedusa cannot be solved via military protection of the coastline or the declaration of a “state of emergency.” An international ideas competition will be launched in collaboration with the 4th International Architecture Biennale Rotterdam—“Open City: Designing Coexistence” — and Volume Magazine, calling for architects, planners, artists, and activists to develop imaginative architectural solutions for a lighthouse, museum and cultural center situated on the island. “Lighthouse for Lampedusa” calls for a humanitarian and fair immigration and integration policy in Europe based on the respect of a refugee’s human rights. Since Alexandria’s magnificent structure from 300 BC, lighthouses have been associated with welcoming strangers: Can 21st century Europe afford a different “wonder” of welcome—this time at its own shore?

4th International Architecture Biennale Rotterdam IABR
Open City: Designing Coexistence
www.iabr.nl/en/opencity

Only two years after the pioneering, arty visions of food production in cities featured in 2007 exhibition Edible cities at NAi-Maastricht, we can say that today urban agriculture is considered as an important feature in architecture design and urban planning. And that it’s a fashionable topic too. 
’In the past if you were proposing to put gardens on top of your buildings, you were considered as crazy. Now you’re considered crazy if you don’t’, said architect Andre Viljoen, one of the speakers at the Foodprint symposium, hosted by Stroom, Den Haag on June 26.

Carolyn Steel

Integrating food production with urban activities might sound strange, but in fact cities are always shaped after the type of food system feeding them. 
Author of the influential book Hungry City, Carolyn Steele explained that the first cities were born in the so-called ‘fertile crescent’ in order to manage the surplus of food production in the surrounding countryside. In pre-industrial cities the wealth of the city was linked directly to the wealth of its countryside: Ambrogio Lorenzetti’s fresco ‘Allegoria del Buon Governo’ represents the ‘good government’ as a balance of city and countryside. 
In pre-industrial cities food production had to be located in proximity to urban settlements – as German economist Heinrich von Thuenen formalized in his 1826 model. But after the introduction of railroad transportation, and the introduction of industrial processes in agriculture, food production started to progressively disconnect from cities, which in turn could explode in size and population.

The consequences of this phenomenon were summarized by John Thackara, culture critic and ‘collaborative innovation’ promoter. The so-called ‘green revolution’ – i.e. the application of industrial methods in food production, massive use of chemicals in production, preservation and transportation, and a concentration in the retail model – had destructive consequences on health, energy consumption, water management, etc. Interestingly, Thackara’s point of view on what has to be done tries to divert from the mainstream discourse on sustainability. Instead of focusing on purely technological equipment (solar panels, windmills, hybrid automobiles, etc.), Thackara believes that 95% of future ‘green’ economy will be occupied by different ways of social organization. 

Furthermore, Thackara added that we don’t have to invent anything: these different types of organization and business models are already here. For instance, in the US there are many successful examples of community-led urban farms.

Will Allen

One of them is Growing Power Inc. promoted by former professional basketball player Will Allen. Started in 1993 to help African American teenagers in a poor area of Milwaukee to find jobs producing food for their community, today Growing Food Inc. is a flourishing business with 36 full-time employers, many farms across the US and 2 million dollar/year revenue. 
Allen uses low-tech organic farming techniques easily accessible to any community in the US, even the poorest. But his farms are nevertheless very productive. ‘Everyone can have really high yields’, explained Allen, ‘all you have to do is grow your soil’. So composting and vermicomposting are the most important activities of Growing Food Inc. 
Apart from the impressive techniques used by Allen’s farms, it’s important to point out the impact of such activities on poor communities in the US: every year more than 2500 people volunteer in these farms. 

In the US urban agriculture is somehow helped by different concurring factors. Lower urban densities, the real-estate crisis, and a lack of public control make it relatively easy to access land and self-organize (and sometimes even necessary to do so).

Debra Solomon, Katrin Bohn and Andre Viljoen

In Europe urban agriculture is a different story. Higher densities, hyper-organized and hyper-controlled spaces, and high land values make growing food in cities more difficult. Architects and artists engaged in food systems are nevertheless finding new spaces. 

Debra Solomon is an artist whose practice is focused on ‘food, food culture, and cultures that grow our food’. Her works use food as a way to produce and share knowledge on food processes and connect cultures through the collective practices of growing food, selling products and cooking. 

Solomon’s practice meets its spatial dimension in the work of architects Katrin Bohn and Andre Viljoen. The London-based architects started working on the concept of urban agriculture 15 years ago, when the idea of growing food in cities may still have looked crazy. Analyzing the experience of the Cuban ‘periodo especial’, they developed the idea of Continuous Productive Urban Landscapes (CPULs): urban green infrastructures bringing together spaces for leisure, production, oil-free transportation and wild areas. 

Bohn, Viljoen and Solomon are now starting a project in Schilderswijk, a multi-cultural area in The Hague. Their goal is to map opportunities the area has to offer in terms of food production and food-based social cohesion, and to intervene on urban space to facilitate social and productive flows.

Similarly, artist and professor Nils Norman and permaculture expert Menno Swaak are intervening in a park in The Hague. They apply permaculture techniques in bringing together food production, ecological intensification and education. 

Urban agriculture is not anymore a niche idea. Techniques and solutions are now widespread among the design community, and the city council’s planning departments started to show interest in these topics too. Will urban agriculture maintain its grassroots and self-organized character while becoming an ‘official’ practice?

(all photo’s via Stroom’s Foodprint blog)

Thursday 19 March

From wacko hippy-esk ideology, ‘sustainability’, or ‘eco-friendly’, or ‘green’ has now become globally accepted. But, as what? As an environmental urgency, as a political issue, as a technical problem, as a historical destiny, or as a new world order? And with which consequences?

The sustainability consensus is dangerous, since the concept has no political content and can be used for any cause. Carbon neutrality and zero emissions are like magic formulas, cover ups for complicated ethical questions about the inequalities in our societies. Architecture is called to rescue the planets future with eco-cities and sustainable design but what is this future is rarely discussed.

We invite you to join us in the examination of sustainability, and answer questions as: whose, what kind of and sustainability in which way? Help us setting the zero point, and let’s search for the strategies after zero and plan more sustainable furtures.

Program
Afternoon
An expert meeting
Experts design Zero Point Manifesto for Sustainability
With Stefano Boeri, Arjen Oosterman, Piet Vollaard, Marjetica Portc and others

10.30 – 12.00 Discussion session
12.00 – 13.00 Lunch
13.00 – 14.30 Writing session

Evening
A public debateBy host Ole Bouman

20.10 – 20.30
‘Planning Sustainability after Zero’
Stefano Boeri on Sustainable Utopias and Dystopias
Moving away from the anthropocentric observation of the urban condition, Stefano Boeri understands non-growth and human retreat as producing valuable urban eco-systems. Reforestation protects natural zones and green corridors shelter animals from the anthropocentric world. These potentially create new ways of exchange between wildlife and human beings.

20.30 – 20.50
‘Searching Sustainability after Zero’
Marjetica Potrc on Sustainable strategies after urban crisis
Places where 20th century modernism failed have articulated new dialog
between rural and urban. New rural – urban coexistence is at the core of the existential concerns of contemporary society. Marjetica Potrc will give examples from her research projects in Amazonia, New Orleans, Detroit and the Nieuw West neighborhood of Amsterdam.

20.50 – 21.00
Break

21.00 – 21.15
Commentary

21.15 – 21.45
Debate

21.45 – 22.00
‘Manifesto presentation’
Arjen Oosterman

Marjetica Potrc
Marjetica Potrc is a Ljubljana-based artist and architect. She is best
known for her on-site projects using participatory design, her drawing
series, and her architectural case studies. Her work has been
exhibited extensively throughout Europe and the Americas.

Stefano Boeri
Stefano Boeri is an architect and director of Boeri Studio and editor in chief of the magazine Abitare. Boeri teaches urban design at the Milan Polytechnic, he is visiting professor at the Harvard Design School and he is the founder of the research agency Multiplicity. Previously he worked as editor in chief of Domus magazine.

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.

Author: Volume

Did you know that the term Sustainability first appeared in a German forestry manual in the 1700s?
Did you know that some people feel paranoid about an alleged conspiracy plan of world domination behind global warming?
What did French philosophers in the Seventies think about ecology?

Discover all the different attitudes of humans towards Nature throughout history. Learn more on the architect’s approach to environmental design and get inspiration from a wide utopian fiction bibliography!  Impress your friends with a full set of fresh notions!

The Complex History of Sustainability is a timeline of trends, authors, projects and fiction made by Amir Djalali, with Piet Vollaard. originally published in Volume #18 -  After Zero, the timeline has been converted to an interactive website using mashing-up Google maps, using it as a way to navigate this extensive timeline. The technology to do this, Google Maps Image Cutter, has been developed by CASA Go to: The Complex History of Sustainability

Author: Volume

Originally a wacko, hippy-esque ideology, ‘sustainability’ – aka ‘eco-friendly’ or ‘green’ – has now become globally accepted. But as what – an environmental urgency, a political issue, a technical problem, a historic destiny, a new world order? And what are the consequences of this acceptance? The sustainability consensus is dangerous since the concept has no political content and can be used for any cause. Carbon neutrality and zero emissions are like magic formulas, cover-ups for complicated ethical questions about the inequalities in our societies.Yet striving for zeros or hiding in neutrality does not lead to a better life in a more desirable house in a superior city for everyone.After Zero is not about design inspired by the fear of tsunamis or Katrinas. Volume proposes an understanding of our society beyond zero. To kick off we discuss two perspectives: sustainability in a post-capitalist city and the potential of urban agriculture.

Editorial by Arjen Oosterman

Counter-Histories of Sustainability by Panayota Pyla

Author: Volume

The research on the ‘Post Capitalist City‘ goes on, with a series of lectures at the Dutch Art Institute. Friday 12th Mireille Roddier (University of Michigan) will address DAI students with a lecture on Three forms of contemporary practices: Puppets, Vanguardistas & Guerillas – on various modes of creative operations in the city, and the various forms of occupation they attempt to resist.

Next workshops will include public lectures by Marjetica Potrc, and Design 99.

Further Reading
Urban Resistance 101 – By Mireille Roddier

[via: Detroit Unreal Estates Agency]

Author: Volume

As announced, here are some notes on the Food and The City expert meeting held at the Amsterdam’s Academy of Architecture.

Our purpose was to collect ideas and data on the impact of food production on the environment and society, and to provide possible strategies to overcome the ongoing food crisis for VOLUME’s issue on Sustainability.

Three different models and ways of thinking the present and the future of agriculture were confronted, but some initial points were shared among our guests:

• The era of the Green Revolution has come to an end: our agricultural model – as it is based on massive use of fossil fuel, – is today economically inefficient, and noxious for the environment
• For this reason, the Green Revolution food system is no longer able to feed a growing world population and to deal with poverty and social inequalities
• New models of food production, processing, retail and consumption are needed to overcome the present crisis
• All the possible new models must get food production back to the urban environment

Peter Smeets from Wageningen University presented data and future projection on agricultural markets and techniques, showing advanced technologies able to reduce energy and chemical inputs, improving yields and profitability of agriculture enterprises. Food production, especially high added value crops, should be integrated in the metropolitan areas, taking advantage from transporation, cognitive and technological networks. Forms of international horizontal and vertical labour division are welcome in this model, taking advantage of comparative production costs.

On the contrary, artist and designer Debra Solomon criticized this position, claiming that hi-tech developments require a further centralization of the food industry in few, big corporations, threatening the delicate balance of local food systems and expropriating communities from their right to food sovreignity.
For this reason, she advocates the development of light technologies designed around communities, seeking integration with other urban activities.

Architect Jago van Bergen, presented a totally different approach.
A future crisis scenario – the rising sea level and the salinization of agricultural land in the Randstad area – is taken as an opportunity to re-think agricultural production, giving the possibility to design for the first time a true, genuine “Dutch cuisine”, generated by the specificities of the Randstad territory.

Contributions from Debra Solomon, Jago van Bergen and from the Alterra department of Wageningen Universities will be featured in VOLUME 18.