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Archive for the 'urbanism' Category

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Parlez-vous Francais? Don’t miss Métropolitains.

szacka, Thu 13 Mar 2008
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architecture, art + media and urbanism

I recently dis­cov­ered a radio pro­gram that is broad­cast by Radio France Cul­ture every Wednes­day from 10 to 11 am. Called Métropolitains, this show existed since 1999 and is hosted by the archi­tec­tural critic François Chaslin. Métropolitans is a pro­gram about archi­tec­ture and the city. With a smooth voice, François Chaslin and his guests talks about sev­eral sub­jects from land­scape archi­tec­ture to design, light­ing, scenog­ra­phy, exhi­bi­tions, the city and – of course – its build­ings. For exam­ple the show of Feb­ru­ary 27 was entirely ded­i­cated to the British archi­tect Richard Rogers, who is presently pre­sent­ing a mono­graphic show at the Centre Pom­pi­dou in Paris. Also have a look at the 5th of March show, which was ded­i­cated to the philoso­pher and archi­tect Wittgen­stein. Celine Pois­son, spe­cial­ist of the Wittgen­stein house and pro­fes­sor of design at the Université du Québec à Montréal, was guest of the show. On the 20th of Feb­ru­ary the roles were reversed: var­i­ous archi­tects and his­to­ri­ans chal­lenged François Chaslin on issues regard­ing the actual status of architecture.

You can down­load Pod­casts and archives of the show at the Métropolitains site.

The Dawn of Contemporary Dutch Architects

Darrel, Thu 15 Nov 2007
4 comments …
amsterdam, architecture and urbanism

Y-Oevers-06

Y-Oevers Col­lage ( © unknown)

Back in 1992, the young and aggres­sive Dutch archi­tects that we know so well today, came together to work on a large project in Ams­ter­dam. The Ruimtelijk Sce­nario Y-Oevers Ams­ter­dam (Trans­la­tion: Spa­tial Sce­nar­ios for the Y-Waterfront Ams­ter­dam) shows a long list of heavy-​hitting archi­tects and urban­ists that now largely con­trol the Euro­pean archi­tec­ture debate.

The project was car­ried out by the teams of: OMA, Neutel­ings, van Berkel & Bos (now UN Studio), Chris­ti­aanse (now KCAP) and West8. The model was built by De Rijk Parthe­sius (includ­ing Vin­cent de Rijk). Even more impres­sive was the line-​up of the teams and to see where each of the mem­bers went on to. At times, they started their own offices, as with the case of Ale­jan­dro Zaera (For­eign Office Archi­tects), Winy Maas (MVRDV) and Rients Dijk­stra (Maxwan). The final book­let for the project reads as a whos-​who of con­tem­po­rary Dutch archi­tec­ture, and the designs and pre­sen­ta­tion meth­ods within are absolute pre­cur­sors to the styles devel­oped by each of the offices through­out the rest of the 1990s until today. You can almost tell which archi­tects worked on which draw­ings, it’s an amaz­ing period just prior to the launch of the many offices we see today in Rotterdam.

Con­tinue read­ing ‘The Dawn of Con­tem­po­rary Dutch Architects’

Sudapan Competition Launched

Martin, Mon 8 Oct 2007
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architecture, competition + tender, theory + strategy and urbanism

sudapan

suda­pan flyer

Super­su­daca, a befriended south-​american think-​tank has launched Suda­pan – Endless(s)trips, an inter­na­tional com­pe­ti­tion about the urban poten­tials of mass-​tourism in the Caribbean. The com­pe­ti­tion focuses on the 140km resorts-​strip of Riv­iera Maya, on the Mex­i­can coast.

The com­pe­ti­tion tries to put for­ward of the key ter­ri­to­r­ial issues of Latin Amer­ica and the Caribbean for their inclu­sion in the con­tem­po­rary global agenda. Endless(s)trips is a com­pe­ti­tion of ideas about the urban­ism poten­tial of the mas­sive beach tourism in the Caribbean.

Endless(s)trips is a space of reflec­tion an pro­pos­als for rethink­ing the rela­tion between the local ele­ments, the tourists, the envi­ron­ment, tourism man­agers, the State, the infra­struc­ture and the land­scape. It is an oppor­tu­nity to imag­ine other cities, other ter­ri­to­ries and other ways of tourism management.

Due to its size, dynamism and com­plex­ity, the Mayan Riv­iera is an intense and urgent case of great poten­tial, an urban­ism lab­o­ra­tory in the Caribbean coast.

Endless(s)trips is sup­ported of the IAAC (Advanced Archi­tec­ture Insti­tute of Catalunya) and spon­sored by Prins Claus Fonds.

* Tourist strips are the mono func­tional strips of tourism activ­ity devel­oped along the coast line.

Jury

Vicente Gual­lart (Valen­cia, Spain, 1963)
Winy Maas (Schi­jn­del, The Nether­lands, 1959)
Prof. Carel Weeber (Nijmegen,The Nether­lands, 1937)
José Castillo (Mexico)
Bruno Stagno (San­ti­ago, Chile)

Full expla­na­tion is avail­able at www.​suda​pan.org. Feel free to con­tact info@supersudaca.org for more infor­ma­tion. Anyway, make sure you check out their slideshow on the type of ‘urbanism’, cre­ated by all-​inclusive tourism.

Rotterdam’s Skyscrapers

Thomas, Tue 2 Oct 2007
1 comment …
rotterdam and urbanism

 Golden Tulip Hotel: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download
 Euromast: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download
 Montevideo: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

For those who’ve missed the recent day of open doors, here are views from some of the high­est of Rotterdam’s rooftops (all cour­tesy of dak​van​rot​ter​dam.nl, © 2006 – Roelof de Vries). Click on the images to get started (quick­time required, ctrl and shift to zoom). The overview map and more panoramic views can be found here.

Plan 07 – City as Readymade

claudia, Wed 19 Sep 2007
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events + super design fun and urbanism

Painting action of ASTOC at the Buchheimer Weg

Paint­ing action of ASTOC at the Buch­heimer Weg (photo: Chris­t­ian Diekmann)

From 21st to 28th Sep­tem­ber the Forum for cur­rent archi­tec­ture is launch­ing the PLAN 07 in Cologne, Ger­many. It is the 9th archi­tec­ture fes­ti­val with venues all over the city fea­tur­ing diverse exhi­bi­tions, lec­tures and more. With public realm as a theme the city will become a stage for projects done by archi­tects, urban & land­scape design­ers, insti­tu­tions, artists and scientists.

For the full pro­gram and fur­ther infor­ma­tion please take a look under plan-​project.com.

Al Manakh – Listen to the Koolhaas, Wigley & Bouman Debate @ NAi

Darrel, Fri 14 Sep 2007
10 comments …
architecture, books + mags, lecture + review, movies, recordings, and more and urbanism

Wigley-Bouman-Koolhaas

Left to right: Mark Wigley, Ole Bouman, Rem Koolhaas

The NAi (new web­site) hosted the book launch and dis­cus­sion fea­tur­ing Rem Kool­haas, Mark Wigley and Ole Bouman Monday night in Rot­ter­dam (10-09-2007).

The three pre­sen­ters first out­lined their posi­tions about the gulf region con­text, before sit­ting down to take ques­tions about the book. As a pos­si­ble strat­egy to dif­fuse the poten­tial early judg­ments and crit­i­cisms of the crowd, Bouman asked the ques­tion, “Who has been to Dubai [or gulf] and seen it first hand?” Roughly not even 10% of the crowd raised their hands, and only half-​heartedly at that. It reflects one of the weaker themes of the evening that ‘we should not judge’ the sit­u­a­tion in the gulf region, espe­cially in the UAE. When it came to the ques­tions at the end of the evening, the pre­sen­ters were at times defen­sive, and repeated numer­ous times that the books aims to sus­pend judg­ment and rather present a detached overview/reading of the sit­u­a­tion. But this is not to say the evening wasn’t full of great ideas, polemics galore, and of course, the excit­ing sub­ject of Dubai and the Gulf Region itself.

 al manakh pre­sen­ta­tion: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

More Photos can be found in our photo section.

Con­tinue read­ing ‘Al Manakh – Listen to the Kool­haas, Wigley & Bouman Debate @ NAi’

The Future of European Urbanism? Part 2

Darrel, Sat 8 Sep 2007
1 comment …
events + super design fun, theory + strategy and urbanism

Permacity

The Delft School of Design at TU Delft will hold another con­fer­ence on urban­ism fol­low­ing on the heels of the first. Per­ma­c­ity is an inter­na­tional con­fer­ence on the 27th and 28th Novem­ber in Delft. The con­fer­ence theme con­cerns “the sus­tain­abil­ity of urban envi­ron­ments and urban soci­eties under the con­di­tions of glob­al­iza­tion and ongo­ing urbanization.”

The con­fer­ence applies Per­ma­cul­ture to urban­ism and urban design as a posi­tion for cre­at­ing sus­tain­able cities. It should be great for anyone inter­ested in Land­scape Urban­ism and who feels that design­ers share respon­si­bil­ity for the future of civilization.

Competition: van Nelle & Spangen

Thomas, Mon 3 Sep 2007
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competition + tender, rotterdam and urbanism

Spangen Aerial

Span­gen Aerial

Sticht­ing Spang­maker announced a small open com­pe­ti­tion to link the Rot­ter­dam neigh­bour­hood of Span­gen better to the van Nelle ‘Design Factory’ (a gem of mod­ernism, worth a closer look anyhow!). 1st prize: 10.000€, dead­line 18th october.

The Future of European Urbanism?

Darrel, Thu 30 Aug 2007
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events + super design fun, theory + strategy and urbanism

ISUU Poster

The TU Delft Fac­ulty of Archi­tec­ture will soon host the 4th Inter­na­tional Sem­i­nar on Urban­ism and Urban­iza­tion, with pro­fes­sors from around the the world dis­cussing the theme of: The Euro­pean Tra­di­tion in Urban­ism -and its Future. From the 24th to 26th Sep­tem­ber, many par­tic­i­pants will be at the school address­ing issues of per­ma­nence and change, and con­for­mi­tites and dif­fer­ences within urban prac­tices within both a Euro­pean and non-​European context.

The main speak­ers will be: Bernardo Secchi, Joaquim Sabate, Marcel Smets, Zdenek Zavrel, Heng Chye Kiang, Jurgen Rose­mann, Chris­tine Boyer and Han Meyer. This is mainly a con­fer­ence for PhD stu­dents, other sci­en­tists, and pro­fes­sion­als in the field of urban­ism; and is jointly orga­nized with KU Leuven, UPC Barcelona and IUAV Venice.

One of the main events will be a round table dis­cus­sion con­cern­ing Urban­ism after the Wel­fare State, and is prob­a­bly quite impor­tant for con­texts such as the Nether­lands, which has over the past 10 years totally shifted public policy con­cern­ing the hous­ing cor­po­ra­tions. I know, it sounds quite dry, but this is urban planning-​speak. I can imag­ine that the heart of the matter can be good con­tent. As for the future of (Euro­pean) Urban­ism, the task of urban­ists in gen­eral is to make the pro­fes­sion much more user-​friendly, ugh.

Al Manakh – A First Look

Darrel, Mon 27 Aug 2007
6 comments …
architecture, books + mags, lecture + review, marketing + pimping, theory + strategy and urbanism

Al Manakh 01

Cover, photo: Darrel Ronald

Since first seeing the AMO Gulf Cities study pre­sented at the 2006 Venice Archi­tec­ture Bien­nale, most of us have been anx­ious to hear more about the region, and get an in-​depth look at the eco­nomic processes at work. And so the wait is over with the release of Al Manakh, released through­out the Nether­lands this past week, and is widely avail­able, includ­ing at the NAi.

While the book was first released for the atten­dants at the May 2007 Inter­na­tional Design Forum (IDF) con­fer­ence in Dubai, it has been noto­ri­ously hard to get ahold of until now. The 495 page book was largely organ­ised by Mouta­ma­rat, a recently-​established pri­vate body that aims to “create busi­ness knowl­edge for the Arab world.”

Al Manakh serves as a barom­e­ter for the changes taking place in the region, and trans­lated, the title means “the climate”. As Kool­haas writes in the open­ing, the book is a form of “critical participation”. But when he writes that “The Gulf is not just recon­fig­ur­ing itself; it’s recon­fig­ur­ing the world”, I find it hard to believe this is entirely spe­cial. Can we not say this about China? How about New York and London?

If you have already heard, both Kool­haas and Bouman will present the book at the NAi on Sep­tem­ber 10th at 20.00. If you haven’t reserved tick­ets yet, you are prob­a­bly out-of-luck, since it has been sold out for some time. I don’t usu­ally see scalpers at the doors either.

Con­tinue read­ing ‘Al Manakh – A First Look’

AIR Foundation Conference

Thomas, Wed 15 Aug 2007
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architecture, events + super design fun, rotterdam, theory + strategy and urbanism

On Thurs­day, 11 Oct 2007, the AIR (Archi­tec­ture Insti­tute Rot­ter­dam) hosts a con­fer­ence about the state of Rotterdam’s archi­tec­ture in an inter­na­tional con­text. Three young pan­elists have been invited to review 25 build­ings of the city.

Jaime Salazar :

Why can’t Rot­ter­dam return to the fore­front in apply­ing imag­i­na­tion to design and pro­duc­tion, and lay the ground work for a truly sus­tain­able architecture?

Ange­lika Schnell:

No doubt Rotterdam’s wish is to be shame­less, modern, rad­i­cal and met­ro­pol­i­tan – the ‘city of archi­tec­ture’. But the real­ity is more modest, yet more complex.”

Michael Speaks :

Lloyd Quar­ter is the result of an approach to city devel­op­ment that treats archi­tec­ture and the city more like prod­ucts than producers.”

The Dutch Flyer after the break. Admis­sion for the con­fer­ence (13:00-18:00, De Doelen, Jur­ri­aanse Zaal, Kruis­plein 30, 3012 CC Rot­ter­dam) is 175€, and a more friendly 20€ for stu­dents. Con­tinue read­ing ‘AIR Foun­da­tion Conference’

Claudia Strahl at the TU Munich

claudia, Wed 15 Aug 2007
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lecture + review, theory + strategy and urbanism

I recently held a lec­ture at the TU MUNICH, Depart­ment for Land­scape Archi­tec­ture and Public Space, on the topic of public space in London, pre­sent­ing some of the work at maxwan archi­tects in Rot­ter­dam. Here’s is an excerpt of it:

Cross River Park, UK

Cross River Park in its final stage

“Cross River Park in its final stage”

Con­tinue read­ing ‘Claudia Strahl at the TU Munich’

documenta interview marathon

Martin, Thu 9 Aug 2007
1 comment …
architecture, art + media, books + mags, events + super design fun, lecture + review, theory + strategy and urbanism

mini-marathon.jpg

german archi­tec­ture & theory mag­a­zine arch+ put the first three videos or their inter­view marathon at the doc­u­menta online.

yes, its the same format as the ser­pen­tine gallery event and yes, its also Kool­haas and Obrist who are inter­view­ing.
The first online videos are with Marie-​Luise Scherer, former ‘der spiegel’ reporter (on jour­nal­ism and writ­ing), Karl Schloegel, his­to­rian (on bottom-​up europe) and Thomas Schütte, sculp­tor (on his archi-​scultures, life as an artist and many things more).

Unfor­tu­nately the inter­views are almost com­pletely in german. I didn’t know RK speaks such good german…

Look­ing for­ward for many more to come. The com­plete list should include:

Thomas Bayrle (*1937, Künstler, Frankfurt/Main)
Got­tfried Böhm (*1920, Architekt, Köln)
Hannes Böhringer (*1948, Philosoph, Berlin/Braunschweig) Con­tinue read­ing ‘documenta inter­view marathon’

Associative Design @ Berlage

Thomas, Fri 13 Jul 2007
47 comments …
architecture, movies, recordings, and more, process + technique, rotterdam, school tracker, theory + strategy and urbanism

 associative design III: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download
asso­cia­tive design III – berlage insti­tute second year studio (requires quick­time, turn sound on)

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.

Con­tinue read­ing ‘Associative Design @ Berlage’

Now Published: Power to the House – Powerhouse Company

Darrel, Fri 13 Jul 2007
1 comment …
architecture, books + mags and urbanism

Power To The House
Power To the House cover, source: Pow­er­house Company

The emerg­ing Rot­ter­dam archi­tec­ture and urban­ism office, The Pow­er­house Com­pany, has just pub­lished their first “autobiographical magazine”, Power to the House. The mag­a­zine is an excit­ing overview of their work over the past couple years, and fea­tures archi­tec­tural and urban projects, build­ings under con­struc­tion, com­pe­ti­tions, and research.

The Pow­er­house Com­pany is run by Nanne de Ru in Rot­ter­dam, and Charles Bessard in Copen­hagen. The two-​year old office is off to a good start with their strat­egy of work­ing across Europe. The young archi­tects have split their office in two cities from the start and exploit free online tools and cheap long-​distance net­work­ing tools such as Skype, Gmail, You Send It, Lulu and Transavia. They rep­re­sent a new gen­er­a­tion of ambi­tious archi­tects that know how to exploit the tools of glob­al­i­sa­tion to get things done.

The mag­a­zine is self-​published, and can be either down­loaded dig­i­tally for free, or bought and deliv­ered to you in print form, from Lulu online publishing.

Con­tinue read­ing ‘Now Pub­lished: Power to the House – Pow­er­house Company’

Hiroki Matsuura at the chocolate factory

claudia, Mon 2 Jul 2007
write a comment …
architecture, lecture + review, rotterdam and urbanism

From May 30th to June 5th 2007 Hiroki Mat­suura (maxwan a+u) held a work­shop on “public space” in the famous choco­late fac­tory “Red October” in Moscow. The work­shop was accom­pa­nied by a lec­ture fea­tur­ing some of the office’s projects. A sum­mary follows.

De Gasperi Hous­ing devel­op­ment, Italy
Masterplan “De Gasperi Housing development”

“Masterplan “De Gasperi Hous­ing development”

The “De Gasperi hous­ing devel­op­ment” was a com­pe­ti­tion held in 2005 by the city of Naples. After the 2nd phase of the com­pe­ti­tion, we were awarded first prize and are expect­ing the start of con­struc­tion next year. The loca­tion of the site is about 6km to the east from Naples city centre, in an adja­cent out­skirt of Mt. Vesvio. The size of the site is about 5ha and the aim of this project is to regen­er­ate the area, which was built as a high-​density post-​war res­i­den­tial area in 1950.

Con­tinue read­ing ‘Hiroki Mat­suura at the choco­late factory’

skating zaha

Martin, Wed 13 Jun 2007
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architecture, process + technique and urbanism

skate phaeno

a friend of mine just pointed me to one of the latest events in the Acces­sAl­lAr­eas pro­gram: skat­ing Zaha’s Phaeno in Wolfs­burg. Unfor­tu­nately the video of a

50-50 down a 15 stair rail with a mean kink at the end which reminds of that Pat Duffy kinkrail in SF by Mack McK­el­ton from Berlin.

is pretty unspec­tac­u­lar from an archi­tects point of view. …. apart from the six-​pack closeup for the girls maybe… There will be more cov­er­age soon under accessallareas

via DRMTM and skate​board.de and nillomatic

Al Manakh published by OMA

Thomas, Tue 29 May 2007
2 comments …
architecture and urbanism

Al Manakh Cover

Al Manakh, a archi­tec­tural guide for the Gulf area, has been pub­lished by OMA during the IDF. Read more at the IDF blog. If you don’t get the title of the book, read it again aloud.

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