The Berlage Institute is holding their final reviews for the first year studios today, from 10 to 21:30 (CEST). If you are quick, you can watch the live video stream here.

The first session is already over (When Economies Become Form: Micro-Economic Models as Spatial Prescriptions in Northeast Brazil, Tina DiCarlo and Markus Miessen). H2OBITAT (Freek Persyn, Laurence Tait, Nico Tillie) starts at 14:00 (CEST), and Bridging Untroubled Waters: The Ningbo Mall as a Quest for Alternative Strategies in Open Space Development (Rients Dijkstra, Thomas Stellmach) is scheduled for 18:30 (CEST). Teaching the latter studio has been one of the reason why it has been so quiet around here the during the last weeks…

The guest critics we’ve invited include Carson Chan, Director of Programs, Berlin; Filip Geerts, Assistant Professor of Architecture, TUDelft; Adrian Hornsby, editor, The Chinese Dream; Jorg Leeser, principal of BeL, Cologne; Hiroki Matsuura, architect, Maxwan, Rotterdam; Marc Ryan, architect, West8; Jan Nauta, researcher, nOffice, Berlin; Ralf Pflugfelder, partner of nOffice, Berlin; Caroline Rovers, Stadshavens Rotterdam; Jaap Wiedenhoff, principal, Arup, Amsterdam.

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Don’t let the poster mislead you! TU Delft’s U-Lab comes up with a daring conference breaking from its single-disciplinary conservatism. During 3 days from September 24th on mathematicians, physicists, urbanists and designers gather in Delft. They will explore the implications of complexity theories of cities to planning and urban design. Besides hotshot professors Juval Portugali, Bill Hillier, and Mike Batty, gonna-be’s, or maybe wanna-be’s like Egbert and me will take the floor.

The conference has a limited audience capacity, and is first-come, first served! For more information, you may see complexitytheoriesofcities.com, send an email to me and check out the other dates in our calendar of selected Rotterdam Architecture Events.

Three decades of research have established the field of complexity theories of cities as a dominant approach to cities. Now that the field has come of age, it is time to stop for a moment, look back at what has been achieved, with appreciation, but also with sober criticism and then look forward at potentials that have yet to be realized.

As for potentials yet to be realized, this conference will explore the implications of complexity theories of cities to planning and urban design. As examples to what we have in mind consider, firstly, Mike Batty’s (2008) recent observation that “In the past 25 years, our understanding of cities has slowly begun to reflect Jacobs’s message. Cities are no longer regarded as being disordered systems. Beneath the apparent chaos and diversity of physical form, there is strong order …”. Secondly, Portugali’s (2008) criticism that “in their search for statistical data to feed their models practitioners of USM tend to overlook the non-quantifiable urban phenomena” and as a consequence, some of the central questions of 21st Century cities and urbanism”. As for potentials yet to be realized we would like to emphasis in this workshop the implications of CTC to planning and urban design.

Monday 9 March (Room 5 auditorium) Membranes
12:00 – 13:00 Reception

13:00 – 13:15 Welcome (Jan Westra, Dean of the faculty of Architecture)

13:15 – 13:45 Opening, explanation of the workshop (Arno Pronk, TU/e)

13:45 – 14:30 Tensile structures in architectural design (Marijke Mollaert, VUB)

14:30 – 15:15 The detailing of Membrane structures (Rogier Houtman, TenTech)

15:15 – 15:45 Coffee

15:45 – 16:15 Instruction Rapid Prototyping (Bart van de Vorst, TNO)

16:15 – 17:15 Material behavior of membranes (Francoise Fourancier, Ferrari)

17:15 – 17:45 Climatic behavior of textile structures (Mark Cox, TU/e)

19:30 – 20:15 Research in membrane structures (Niels de Temmerman, VUB)

20:15 – 21:00 Research in membrane structures (Gerald Lindner, TU/e )

21:00 – 21:45 Textile projects by (Rogier Houtman, Tentech)

Tuesday 10 March (Room 2 auditorium) Design software
09:00 – 10:00 Tess3D Premier Introduction and overview (Erik Moncrieff, Kurvenbau)

10:00 – 10:30 Coffee

10:30 – 11:30 Rhino/Grasshopper Introduction and overview (Rinus Roelofs, Rhino)

11:30 – 12:30 “Processing”, introduction and overview (Axel Kilian, TUD)

12:00 – 13:30 Lunch

Parallel Workshop sessions: Matrix building

1) 13:30 – 17:00 Rhino/Grasshopper (Rinus Roelofs, Rhino)

2) 13:30 – 17:00 Tess 3D (Erik Moncrieff, Kurvenbau)

3) 13:30 – 17:00 “Processing” (Axel Kilian, TUD)

17:00 – 18:00 Drinks

Room 5 auditorium

19:30 – 20:15 Geometric art (Rinus Roelofs, Rhino)

20:15 – 21:00 scripting at NOX Architects (Thomas Wortmann)

21:00 – 21:45 Design exploration (Axel Kilian, TUD)

Wednesday 11 March (Room 5 auditorium) Tools
09:00 – 9:45 Shaping technology (Nedcam Erwin van Maaren)

9:45 – 10:30 Folding structures (Vinicius Raducanu)

10:30 – 11:00 Coffee

11:00 –11:45 Rapid prototyping and scanning (Bart van de Vorst, TNO)

11:45 –12:15 CNC laser cutter and workshop facilities (Ralf Brodruck, TU/e)

12:15 – 13:00 Mechanical behaviour of lightweight structures (Andrew Borgart, TUD)

13:00 – 14:00 Lunch

Parallel Workshop sessions: Matrix building

1) 14:00 – 17:00 Rhino/Grasshopper (Rinus Roelofs, Rhino)

2) 14:00 – 17:00 Tess 3D (Erik Moncrieff, Kurvenbau)

3) 14:00 – 17:00 Rhino drawing lessons (M.Dominicus / A.Mulderij, TU/e)

4) 14:00 – 15:30 Rapid Prototyping Instructions (Bart van de Vorst, TNO)

15:30 – 17:00 Excursion TNO, (Bart van de Vorst, TNO)

13:30 – 17:00 Workshop Lasercutter, Vertigo, (Ralf Brodruck, TU/e)

17:00 – 18:00 Drinks

Projects in practice Room 5 auditorium

19:30 – 20:15 Projects by Grohmann & Bollinger (Manfred Grohmann,)

20:15 – 21:00 The Works of Heinz Isler (John Chilton, Nottingham Trent)

Thursday 12 March (Room 5 auditorium) production technique and shell structures

9.00 Handing in your STL-file for Rapid prototyping. Only correct files handed in before 9.00 hr will be accepted

09:00 – 9:45 Exploform (H. Groeneveld)

09:45 – 10:30 Holland Composites – (Olivier Lauteslager)

10:30 – 11:00 Coffee

11:00 – 11:20 Adjustable mould (Sebastiaan Boers, TU/e)

11:20 – 11:45 Shell structures by BB-con (M. van der Ham)

11:45 – 12.30 Membrane Mould (Arno Pronk, TU/e)

12:30 – 13:30 Lunch

Parallel Workshop sessions: Matrix building

1) 13:30 – 17:00 Rhino/Grasshopper (Rinus Roelofs, Rhino)

2) 13:30 – 17:00 Tess 3D (Erik Moncrieff, Kurvenbau)

3) 13:30 – 15:30 Excursion to dome, (M van der Ham BB-con)

15:30 – 17:00 Excursion Bicycle cellar Eindhoven by Fuksas (Arno Pronk TU/e)

13:30 – 17:00 Workshop Lasercutter, Vertigo, (Ralf Brodruck, TU/e)

17:00 – 18:00 Drinks

Chamber of commerce

19:30 Banquet

Friday 13 March (Room 5 auditorium) workshop results and architectural experiments

09:00 – 9.30 Presentation of workshop results (Arno Pronk TU/e)

09:30 – 10:00 Formfinding of grid shell (Olivier Baverel)

10:00 – 10:30 Integration of software in architectural practice. (Erik Moncrieff Kurvenbau)

10:30 – 11:00 Coffee

11:00 – 11:45 Textile techniques/tectonics in architecture (Ivo Vrouwe, TU/e)

11:45 – 12:30 Slim building (Jos Lichtenberg, TU/e)

12:30 Closing and Collecting of the 3D printed parts

The highly reputed Jan Van Eyck Academie in Maastricht, Netherlands (Map) has sent out it’s call for applications (click on “Applications” on top), to be received by the 15 April, 2009. The research program mainly reaches out to Artists, Theoreticians and Designers, but their openness always for diversity of students. If you are one of the unfortunate former employees of a Dutch office, and want to stick around the Netherlands, here is a great chance. You can bet that the competition to get in will be stiff.

The Jan van Eyck Academie is an institute for research and production in the fields of fine art, design and theory. Every year, 48 international researchers realise their individual or collective projects in the artistic and critical environment that is the Jan van Eyck. In doing so, they are advised by a team of artists, designers and theoreticians who have won their spurs globally. All in all, the Jan van Eyck offers artists, designers and theoreticians time and space to do research and realise productions, either about topics of their own choosing or as part of a project formulated by the institute itself.

Multi-Disciplinary Research
Artists, designers and theoreticians at the Jan van Eyck Academie work alongside each other and establish cross-disciplinary exchange. The academy is not led by predetermined leitmotivs. Artists, designers and theoreticians can submit independently formulated proposals for research and/or production in the departments of Fine Art, Design and Theory. They can also participate in research projects formulated by the departments: After 1968. What is the political?; Circle for Lacanian ideology Critique; Design Negation; ExtraStateCraft; Imaginary Property; The Cross-Cultural and the Counter-Modern. The result is a very heterogeneous programme of research topics. The miscellaneous nature of its research projects and productions make the Jan van Eyck a multi-disciplinary institute. The crosslinks which can exist between individual and/or collective projects and the exchange between researchers with different cultural and intellectual interests result in a creative and challe nging working environment.

Programme
The multi-disciplinary research projects are the basis for the Jan van Eyck programme. Researchers, departments and the institute organise various weekly activities, to which special speakers are invited: lectures, seminars, workshops, screenings, exhibitions, discussions, … These activities are announced on the website and via email.

Since the Jan van Eyck also aims to initiate the debate on art, design and theory and make it public, some activities are regularly organised with partners on regional, national and international venues, such as galleries, museums, academies, universities, …

Departments

Fine Art
The Fine Art department offers a unique space for experimentation, production, reflection and debate. Fine Art researchers conduct high-quality research in an environment that encourages the questioning of the assumptions, forms, meanings and contexts that are tied in with the practice of making art today. The fine arts department welcomes artists, individuals and groups, without stipulating conditions regarding form, content and media.

Advising researchers:
Orla Barry, Hans-Christian Dany, Hinrich Sachs, Imogen Stidworthy, Nasrin Tabatabai & Babak Afrassiabi

Design
The Design department focuses on design as research, discourse and publishing. It initiates and supports research projects in the areas of cultural and corporate identity, mapping, print and new media publishing, urban and regional identity, and book design.

The department expressly solicits individual designers to propose and carry out their own research in exchange with the institute’s array of events and presentations. While, formerly, the department used to focus on graphic and communication design, it has since widened its scope to include spatial, product and service design.

Advising researchers:
Keller Easterling, Florian Schneider, Daniel van der Velden

Theory
The Theory department is an international platform for reflection and research. Its mission is to create the opportunity for outstanding researchers to explore alternative ways of shaping their intellectual horizons by providing a stimulating environment for critical inquiry and intense debate. The Theory department welcomes applications from researchers of unusual promise who pursue their artistic and/or intellectual view of the interface of critical theory, philosophy, aesthetics and psychoanalysis with the visual arts.

Advising researchers:
Katja Diefenbach, Dominiek Hoens, Kobena Mercer

The Berlage Institute Application Deadline has been announced a few days ago, 27th Feb 2009 (application forms here).

The Institute is renowned for their 2-year postgraduate program, which emphasises on research and knowledge (you can generally recognise a Berlager by his jargon). An interesting addition is their PhD programme in collaboration with TU Delft, which is undergoing some changes at the moment. Candidates completing dissertations include Roemer van Toorn, Peter Trummer and Sasha Zanko.

UPDATE –
The Berlage Institute 2009–2010 Postgraduate Prospectus is now online.
And the call for participation in the City Visions Europe European exchange program is now available for download: City Visions Europe Call for participation
–

The complete Berlage Team as on their site:

The Berlage Institute Research Board, consisting of Ben van Berkel, Winy Maas, Robert E. Somol, Alejandro Zaera-Polo and Elia Zenghelis, establishes the profile of the Institute by identifying new research trajectories. Each member of the Research Board is personally involved in one or more component of the program. Under the directorship of Vedran Mimica, the program is developed in collaboration with the faculty, Pier Vittorio Aureli, Joachim Declerck, Salomon Frausto, Roemer van Toorn and Peter Trummer, and visiting tutors to generate an unparalleled research environment.

Digital Materiality by Fabio Gramazio and Matthias Kohler
You may have seen their work at the Biennale this year. They did the installation at the Swiss Pavilion, using ETH’s famous brick laying robot. They also just published Digital Materiality in Architecture

Robots build! At their program in architecture and digital production at the Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule (ETH) Zürich (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich), the architects Gramazio and Kohler have installed a research facility that is unique in the world. It is based on a computer-controlled industrial robot that produces construction elements directly from design data. The robot works flexibly with a tremendous range of tools and materials. In this way Gramaio and Kohler probe the exciting potential of digital design, construction, and manufacturing techniques for architecture. In their projects they incorporate insights and discoveries from the field of computer-aided production into the architectonic design process, using computers to develop innovative construction techniques and architecture. First structures using robots have already been built, for exampe the much noted Gantenbein vineyard in Fläsch (CH) or the installation at the Swiss Pavilion at the 11th International Architecture Exhibition in Venice.

We’ve added the further lectures to our calendar, to which you can subscribe here

28 October 2008
The Model and Its Architecture
Patrick Healy

04 November 2008
Proposals for Decolonizing Architecture
Sandi Hilal, Alessandro Petti

18 November 2008
Architecture Model Shop
Vincent de Rijk
(also check out our previous post on Vincent de Rijk here)

25 November 2008
Towards a General Theory of the Building Envelope
Alejandro Zaera-Polo (you can see a previous lecture of AZP with a draft of the ‘envelope theory’ here)

02 December 2008
Visual Experience in Painting and Cinema
Hubert Damisch, Teri Wehn-Damisch

09 December 2008
This stands as a sketch for the future: Muriel Cooper and the Visual Language Workshop
David Reinfurt

16 December 2008
Heroes and Losers: Resolution and Definition in Architecture
Hans Werlemann

20 January 2009
Open-Source Urbanism and the Language of the Global Polis
Nader Vossoughian

27 January 2009
The Dictionary of Received Ideas
Enrique Walker

03 February 2009
Contemporary Architecture and the Question of (Architectural) History
Alan Colquhoun, Mary McLeod

Workshop announcements come in packs. Here is the third one, which I’d like to recommend especially. The INTI supported masterclass compares highly regulated planning strategies in the showcase newtown of the Netherlands, Almere, with the self-organised strategies employed in Gulensu, a clandestine city extension of Istanbul.

Planning is a messy, time and energy-consuming business of trial, error and failure. Success is not a certainty and even when the result is successful, it is often a surprise, not what was actually being sought. Jane Jacobs

THE RESPONSIVE CITY: ISTANBUL – RANDSTAD

Why?
The Responsive City: Istanbul-Randstad* focuses on new approaches to the 21st city. Theories of complexity and their application onto the field of urban design and architecture form its core. Here, the city is seen as a dynamic open system, constantly influenced by interacting bottom up and top down players.
Who?
The Responsive City is an interdisciplinary course offered as an once-only-elective for 16 participants with diverse backgrounds such as human geography, planning, sociology, architecture and urban design.
How?
The course requires a hands-on approach with two intense on-site masterclasses in Istanbul and Almere. Agent-based mapping and responsive design game are main tools of the course. Knowledge/interest in GIS mapping, informal city, Istanbul and/or Almere is highly appreciated.

The Deadline for Application is 5th of September 2008, Dates are 29 September – 3 October 2008 in Almere; 27 – 31 October 2008 in Istanbul. The Masterclasses are run by Prof. Arnold Reindorp, Prof. Juval Portugali & ir. Ekim Tan.

More at INTI, and soon at theresponsivecity.org.

From the 28th of August to 7th September, we will finalize the One Land Two Systems project with a series of public events, workshops, and spatial, social and cultural interventions in Ein Hawd. The project aims at exposing the situation of the unrecognized Palestinian villages in Israel, and at the same time finding alternative planning solutions.

Check the Press Release PDF, or read more at www.one-land.org.

Our friends from Supersudaca host an interesting workshop on tourism in post-castro Cuba in September. It’ll set you back 1000€, but scholarships to reduce the fee are available. The objective of the workshop is to find specualtive answers on questions as:

How will Cuba change its tourist branding in a SIN-EMBARGO scenario?
How will it mutate its current spatial segregation strategy between locals and tourist in a SIN-EMBARGO scheme?
What will be the territorial impacts in a Cuba SIN-EMBARGO that admits cruise ship tourism?
Will Cuba become a role model for next generation tourist developments in the Caribbean and worldwide in a SIN-EMBARGO condition?
What is the emerging territorial paradigm of Sun and Beach in the Cuba CON-EMBARGO? Will it change in a SIN-EMBARGO context?
Will the regulation culture and environmental management remain the same in a ‘liberalized’ Cuba SIN-EMBARGO?
How will Cuba react spatially to the opening of the massive market of second residences for American pensioners in a Cuba SIN-EMBARGO?

The inscription period ends on 15th of August. The (slightly disappointing) results of last years sudapan competition will be at display at RAS gallery in Barcelona from 4th September on.

More at sinembargo.org.

If you were thinking of applying to the Berlage Institute for the 2008-2009 school year (PDF), well, hopefully you’ve done it already. The deadline is for applications is the 29th February, 2008. The prospectus is as good as usual, and if you’re new to Berlage-Institute, it is the best place for post-graduate study in the Netherlands.

I just got news about the Berlage Institute’s lecture series this term. It’s starting rather late, but as always impresses with a highly profiled list of speakers. It’s the pattern we all know and love: A few well known names mixed with a bunch of people maybe less known but definitely worth noticing.

Here’s the details:

Practicing architect and Associate Professor at Ohio State University. Author of ‘Small Buildings’ and ‘Strange Details’, a ‘lively and unconventional appreciation of pivotal buildings by Carlo Scarpa, Frank Lloyd Wright, Mies van der Rohe, and Louis Kahn that reveals enough idiosyncrasies and conceits to make any rationalist shudder’ (MIT Press)

of the well known Rotterdam practice NeutelingsRiedijk

Founders of Mansilla + Tuñón Arquitectos, Madrid (check their design for the Museum of Automotion)

Founders of Grafton Architects, Dublin

of Abalos Herreros, Madrid. May we call him the thinker of this office? (No offense, Juan!)

of BevkPerovic, Ljubljana. One of the most interesting offices in balkan Switzerland.

Do we even have to link to UN Studio? Anyway, it will be interesting to hear what his idea of the future Berlage Institute is, now that he’s part of academias new boygroup.

Well, to be honest, I don’t know… Wikipedia list him as an American banker who served as the 70th United States Secretary of the Treasury during both the first and second Clinton Administrations. Apparently that same Robert Rubin has bought the Maison de Verre in Paris by Pierre Chareau and has renovated it in painstaking effort. Might be him….

Sorry for Wikipedia again: ‘Weiss/Manfredi, is an architectural firm headquartered in New York City, founded by Marion Weiss and Michael Manfredi. Weiss currently teaches at the University of Pennsylvania School of Design.’

We’ll find out more when the official poster including lecture titles will be out. Please note that this program is preliminary…
Lectures will usually start at 19:00.
For reservation contact Lenny at the reception one day before under: +31 (0) 104030399

See you there!

ps: the dates are corrected and now also in the calendar: subsrcibe your iCal to this.

The Delft School of Design PhD series ‘Architectural Engineering – Performance, Geometry and Materials’ has been launched. Themes are Complex Geometry Architecture and Performance Based Architecture. See our Calendar for allthe dates.

Last week I attended the presentations of the associative design 2nd year at the Berlage research studio synthetic vernacular. Led by Peter Trummer and assisted by our fellow dysturb evangelist Martin Sobota, the class investigated traditional chinese building typologies. The principles found in the analysis were used to create a set of rules to create a framework to parametrically derive urban structure and architecture of an exemplary plot in Shanghai: Deus ex Machina.

The research group divided up into for teams, each focussing on different base parameters as FAR, degrees of privacy, climate, internal room organisation, sun trajectories. The formal decisions of the teams also led to varying urban fabrics, from low-rise high-density urban mass not unsimilar to south-american favelas to a styled courtyard & slab network. The results are cutting edge and and visualisations of the process are breath-takingly beautiful. But watch the movie first, then proceed to the review.

The excellent critique acknowledged that the intricacy of the parametric modeling approach has vastly improved of the course of the last years at the Berlage classes. However, the models are still linear in structure, not spanning different scales or relating to larger scale configurations of the environment. From that perspective it was an interesting move to apply the method to an actual, real urban plot – the next task is to push things further, mix scales, create variety. The parameters now well emulate known existing realities and re-create desired qualities. The challenges lies in breaking these limitations, extending the ranges of the parameters to a point where the un-expected can happen, and surprising new qualities are generated. The outside influences, landscape, building limitations, real world effects, could also constitute the troubling element, which would introduce the tension, the catastrophies which the homogeneous plans miss.

Lars Spuybroek remarked that ‘when I studied, my fellow students presented quite similar projects, it was at the end of dutch structuralism. But interestingly, they presented it in a completely different way: the discourse wasn’t about shifting and re-configuring floor plans, but about grass root democracy, human interaction, all the 60′s idealism.’ This is visible when it comes to the eye-level renderings of the displayed projects: spaces of little programmatic definition, where the usual skaters and and happy couples photoshopped in look rather desolate. This is where a 2nd class could pick up the thread and evaluate the generated spaces, find the advantages and shortcomings and tweak the parameters accordingly, thus create a generate-test-feedback loop.

It is remarkable that even after looking at these points which need more investigation in this young methology, the results are convincing – even more so because ‘the market would solve the problem with four high rise towers’ as Zaera Polo noted.

Among the Critics were:

• Theodore Spyropoulos (Theodore is the co-director of the Architectural
  Association Design Research Lab in London)
• Ali Rahim (Ali is Assistant Professor in Pennsylvania, and is design director at C-A-P)
• Lars Spuybroek (of NOX Architects)
• Lawrence Barth (Consultant Urbanist for Zaha Hadid and Senior Lecturer at the AA)
• Alejandro Zaera Polo (Alejandro is head of FOA and former Dean of the Berlage)
• Bing Bu (principal of One Desing Inc.)
• Felix Claus (co-founder of Claus en Kaan)
• Kersten Geers (partner at Kersten Geers David van Severen)
• Jianfei Zhu (teaches at the University of Melbourne)
• Thal Kamener (co-director of 66east)
• Christopher Lee (unit master at the AA)
• Gabriele Mastrigli (architect and critic)
• Bert de Muynck (architect, writer and researcher)

Participants of the studio are: Nana Chen, Weijie Liu, Jiri Pavlicek, Shiyun Qian, Ming-Ying Tsai, Luming Wang, Zhenfei Wang and Sheng-Ming Wu.

Download the movie here: associative-design.mp4 (156MB, right-click to save)

Of the many end-of-year shows around Rotterdam, we are especially excited for this Thursday’s opening of Knowing Nothing of Agility at the Tent Gallery, Rotterdam. It is the graduating exhibition for Master of Fine Arts students from the Piet Zwart Institute, part of the Willem de Kooning Academie here in Rotterdam.

Opening Event: 12 July 2007 @ 20.00.
Exhibition Runs: 12 July 2007 – 19 August 2007

Students showing: Alexis Blake [US], Jérémie Boyard [FR], Ruth Buchanan [NZ], Angeline Dekker [NL], Deirdre M. Donoghue [FI/IE], Rafael F. Mendieta [PE], Ruth Legg [UK], Lieke Snellen [NL], Niels Vis [NL]

More info for the Tent Events here.

Press Release – Anke Bangma [course director MA Fine Art]:

Knowing Nothing of Agility presents the graduates of the Master of Fine Arts course at the Piet Zwart Institute, the post-graduate course of the Willem de Kooning Academy in Rotterdam.

Ruth Legg [UK] deliberately works with artistic materials or ideas that seem exhausted — used up, like a joke that has been told too often. She explores ways of restaging these cliché materials, such as cardboard boxes or newspaper images, and finding potential in their exhausted condition.

Ruth Buchanan [NZ] engages in intimate, often humorous, negotiations with the artistic legacies that also influence her own work and position as an artist. She searches for ways in which the works, documents and characters of a different era can be taken as a point of orientation, and inherited artistic approaches and meanings can be received and reanimated.

Deirdre M. Donoghue [FI/IE] is interested in memory, as an act that unfolds in the here and now of a social encounter. For her video work Becomings, she brought together family members that had not seen each other for over twenty years, and directed a setting that activated a process of remembering and negotiation of personal, collective and official histories, between three remarkable women.

By using different elements from hip-hop culture, such as sampling and breaking, Alexis Blake [US] engages with the ways in which people put forward and experience their selves within the structures of society. Working with hip-hop artists from the Rotterdam HipHopHouse, she explores the paradoxes of how one develops one’s own self-image and creates a space of one’s own in a subculture that has, by now, become commercialised and institutionalised.

The work of Rafael Freyre Mendieta [PE] springs from his experience of being a migrant. Moving between autobiography and fiction, he develops narratives of his journey of transition. There are narratives of nostalgia, where memories of home resonate in the landscape of his new environment, but there are also critical narratives, where Europe appears not to be the promised paradise of a free and nomadic subjectivity.

Over the past year, Jérémie Boyard [FR] has been roaming the city of Rotterdam, gathering a large collection of photographs. Persistently looking down, at the micro-level of the pavement, he finds leftovers, incidents, and accidents, with which he traces the utopian idea of a city under continuous de- and reconstruction, and speaks about its people without ever showing them directly.

Angeline Dekker [NL] sees buildings as organisms, subject to time and change, even to mortality. Often she works with abandoned buildings, wresting doors and floorboards from the already derelict architectural skeleton, with which to create a precarious sense of equilibrium; but she also manages to produce instability in seemingly stable settings, like in TENT..

Lieke Snellen [NL] is concerned with the relationships between the human body and functional objects and environments. She works on location in semi-public spaces, such as a school or an office, setting up exercises involving people and sculptural elements to explore how these spaces choreograph the movement of the people within them. She presents her findings through documentation as well as by translating them into interventions in the exhibition space.

Niels Vis [NL] has been fascinated by the technologies with which we produce images of reality, and by how these technologies expand our experience of time and space. While some of his works have explored the mechanisms of the camera obscura, his recent work is concerned with contemporary virtual spaces, like Second Life. How do we interrelate with physical and fictional spaces when the borders separating them seem to be disappearing?

Update: I have added some pictures of the exhibition to our photo section. Or use the flash Viewer below:

The Berlage Institute, postgraduate laboratory of architecture in Rotterdam, has installed a new Research Board. Until now, Alejandro Zaera Polo (director of FOA) has been the Dean of the Institute. He has been opening the Berlage to a more international field as to tutors, lecturers and new design strategies. Instead of appointing a single follower, the institute named a board of five established figures: Ben van Berkel, Winy Maas, Robert E. Somol, Elia Zenghelis and Alejandro Zaera Polo himself. Vedran Mimica (now Director of Studies) is named director and will be responsible for the management of the postgraduate program and the implementation of strategic advice provided by the Research Board. The idea is to create a new innovative platform, not so much dependent on a single person. One the one hand this model is very flexible and inspires discussion and critique, on the other hand there is the danger of loosing profile by not having a representative person, a champion. Who is responsible for what? How much time will the board members spend at the institute? Will they find a common course? I am curious to follow how this system works out. The openness of the system speaks for the flexibility of the Berlage Institute as an independent research laboratory.

Read the full press release (Source: Berlage):

“Berlage Institute sets a new course
The Berlage Institute is pleased to announce the installation of a new Research Board to set the future course of the postgraduate laboratory of architecture. This Research Board is composed of five established figures in the world of architecture and urbanism: Ben van Berkel, Winy Maas, Robert E. Somol, Alejandro Zaera Polo and Elia Zenghelis. Together they will strengthen the leading position of the Berlage Institute as a platform for innovative research and debate on architecture, urbanism and landscape. With the ending of Alejandro Zaera Polo’s term as dean, a new and diverse leadership structure is chosen to steer the content of the Berlage Institute. This change in structure is reflective of the wide-ranged research character the institute has acquired under Zaera Polo’s deanship. The Research Board is responsible for setting the general course and profile of the institute and identifying new insights and fields of research. Furthermore, the members of the Research Board will be personally engaged in one or more components of the program. In the coming years, the creation of new alliances between the Berlage Institute and leading universities, renowned and emerging professional practices and other research initiatives will expand the already international network of the institute. In particular, we aim to extend our affiliation with Dutch and European research programs in the fields of sustainability, urbanism and energy intelligent architecture and planning. The composition of the Research Board promotes innovative and experimental methods of research. Ben van Berkel is cofounder and Principal Architect of UN Studio in Amsterdam. He is presently Professor in Conceptual Design at the Städelschule in Frankfurt am Main. Winy Maas is partner of MVRDV in Rotterdam and recently appointed Professor in Architecture and Urbanism at the Delft University of Technology. Robert E. Somol is an architecture theorist, he teaches at Princeton University and is appointed Director of the School of Architecture at the University of Illinois, Chicago. Alejandro Zaera Polo is partner in Foreign Office Architects in London, was Dean of the Berlage Institute from 2002-2007 and is Professor at Delft University of Technology (Berlage Chair).Elia Zenghelis is an architect and educator based in Brussels. He currently teaches at the Accademia di Archittetura in Mendrisio, Switzerland. Vedran Mimica is named Director and will be responsible for the management of the postgraduate program and the implementation of strategic advice provided by the Research Board.

Further information can be obtained from Rob Docter, General Director of the Berlage Institute, at +31-10-403 0391.”

Hunch #11 from the Berlage Institute came out the past month. The annual books current theme is Rethinking Representation. Google Maps +

Hunch #11 – Berlage Institute
Editor: Penelope Dean
Published in February 2007
176 pages, 16.5 cm x 30 cm

The editor writes:
“This issue of hunch expands on the recent proliferation of the term ‘representation’ by distilling ten terms – figure, logo, image, icon, diagram, apply, enlarge, practice, politics and work – from the ten commissioned essays.

Peter Eisenman begins the anthology with an essay outlining his move away from the ‘index’ toward the ‘post-indexical, or the production of figures, which he finds necessary for today’s revised subjects and readers. In a reply to Eisenman’s question ‘How do you teach green dots?’ R. E. Somol puts forward the case for performative architecture, graphic expediency, and the logo.

Ben van Berkel and Caroline Bos revisit the role of image and offer the alternate concept of ‘after-image’ as a disciplinary means for architecture to continue its function as art.
In an essay excerpted from his recent book accompanied by the drawings of Madelon Vrisendorp, Charles Jencks lays out the case for the iconic building. John McMorrough historically recalls the architectural coverage of paint through 1960s Supergraphics.

Penelope Dean compares two Alessi Tea and Coffee moments, exposing emblematic episodes in the mobile relationships between architecture and design, representation and discipline.

Jeffrey Kipnis returns to the role of the diagram and its effect of re-origination as the basis for all medium specificity. Roemer van Toorn defines a ‘politics of aesthetics’ through the work of Gerrit Rietveld and Wiel Arets Architects. Sylvia Lavin calls for a shift away from representation and a return to building, promoting the ‘pet rock’ as a viable analogy for the return to practice.

Finally, in the closing essay, Stan Allen discards contemporary discussions of the critical and projective, representation and performance, to state that one’s focus can be on practices themselves, in other words on doing.

Despite the various positions and arguments implied in this issue – declarations either for or against contemporary modes of representation, claims that representation should not be about that but rather about this, or deployments of representation as simply the straw man for something else – hunch 11 stands as a demonstration of the topic’s ongoing resilience and centrality to architectural discourse. It’s simply the thing we’ll never get over.”