Exper­i­menta Design is an exist­ing fes­ti­val from Lisbon that has been invited to Ams­ter­dam for the first time start­ing this Sep­tem­ber (2008). With a great line-​up of events and con­fer­ences, the fes­ti­val is very promis­ing. The Droof Event 2: Urban Play aims to attack the streets of Ams­ter­dam with urban inter­ven­tions. And of course, any reason to visit Ams­ter­dam is great.

About the festival:

After 4 suc­cess­ful edi­tions in its native Lisbon, Exper­i­men­taDe­sign, the inter­na­tional Bien­nale ded­i­cated to design, archi­tec­ture and con­tem­po­rary cul­ture, was invited by the City of Ams­ter­dam to branch out to the Dutch Cap­i­tal. As a result of this, Exper­i­men­taDe­sign will now take place in alter­nat­ing years in Lisbon and Ams­ter­dam, each with dif­fer­ent programmes.

In 2008, Ams­ter­dam hosts its first edi­tion of the Bien­nale, from 18 Sep­tem­ber to 2 Novem­ber, under the theme Space and Place – Design for the Urban Landscape.

Exper­i­men­taDe­sign Ams­ter­dam 2008 high­lights urban cul­ture as the play­ground for the global cit­i­zen. The world’s cities are not only home to over half of the world’s pop­u­la­tion, they are also a metaphor for today’s cul­tures and a test­ing ground for new forms of con­vivi­al­ity and inter­ac­tion. Through­out its three core exhi­bi­tions, the Bien­nale turns the spot­light on inno­v­a­tive urban design as a process of social action, exchanges and experiment.

As in pre­vi­ous edi­tions of the Bien­nale, Exper­i­men­taDe­sign Ams­ter­dam 2008 promises to set the city’s pulse racing with a chal­leng­ing, mul­ti­dis­ci­pli­nary pro­gramme that com­bines exhi­bi­tions, urban inter­ven­tions, lec­tures and debates. For over a month and a half, the Dutch Cap­i­tal will be host to a fresh selec­tion of inter­na­tional talent, buzzing with play­ful­ness, inter­ac­tiv­ity and cre­ative energy.

During the Open­ing Week – from 18 to 21 Sep­tem­ber – Ams­ter­dam is the ulti­mate place to be, as the Bien­nale launches with four days of lively exchange of ideas held in emblem­atic venues through­out the city.

About the theme – Space and Place: Design­ing for the Urban Landscape:

For the first time in his­tory the earth’s pop­u­la­tion is more urban than rural. This means that for most people on this planet, the city has become their nat­ural habi­tat. When in this con­text we speak of growth and blos­som, ter­rain and flow, or use other nat­ural metaphors, we speak in fact of engi­neer­ing, archi­tec­ture and design. We talk about the city as a land­scape, that we have cre­ated our­selves and con­tinue to shape.

Shap­ing a place is as much about imag­in­ing it as it is about build­ing. Look at a child play­ing and you can rec­og­nize an arch-​instinct shared by all living beings. Step­ping over an imag­i­nary line, and clos­ing a vir­tual door behind him, the child says: now I’m in my home. If he has only sticks and stones to play with, he will use these to demar­cate the dif­fer­ence between inside and out­side, between a place and its sur­round­ing space.

In design for the urban land­scape, such sym­bol­ism meets the exis­ten­tial needs of the city’s inhab­i­tants, who use it to define their habi­tat as a place to be. Exper­i­men­taDe­sign Ams­ter­dam 2008 focuses on the new urgency with which we con­sider urban public space. We high­light the latest strate­gies for enhanc­ing public places as the­ater of public con­vivi­al­ity. From infor­mal – and some­times ille­gal – inter­ven­tions which reclaim the street as the meet­ing place for inde­pen­dent cit­i­zens, to pro­pos­als by archi­tects and design­ers to develop the city’s public space as a play­ground for social inter­ac­tion. Plus reflec­tions on how to trans­form a neu­tral space into an indi­vid­ual place by an inter­na­tional range of cutting-​edge designers.

Exper­i­men­taDe­sign Ams­ter­dam 2008 invites design­ers, archi­tects and other cre­atives from all over the world to meet their audi­ences in one of the finest urban play­grounds of all: the city of Amsterdam.