West 104th Street Garden

I recently have moved to a new apartment in the city of New York, right next to Central Park, in 104^th St. I didn’t even realize when I was within the insanity involved in apartment hunting in Manhattan (something worth an entire investigation, not only for the prizes, but for the typologies), but right across the street there is a Community Garden.

MAKING CITY_The Exhibition 3

To conclude the review of the main exhibition of the 5th IABR, and with it the series of blog posts dedicated to the event, is time to visit the last group of projects that throw ideas, strategies and doubts about the future of cities.

This time they are focused on issues directly related to the nature of the city; as boundaries, housing mass and density:

MAKING CITY_The Exhibition 2

Following the review of the exhibition “Making city”, it’s time for visiting the selected projects by the organization to explain other three approaches to the term making city.

This time they deal with social status (newcomers to the city’s population) and environmental issues (the case of cities in relationship with the water and agriculture as part of urban life):

MAKING CITY_The Exhibition 1

These are the last weeks of my time living in Rotterdam. To conclude the review of the 5th IABR I’ve been doing until now in the blog, I’d like to make a review of the main event (In content and duration) that is taking place at the NAi.

Is the exhibition “Making City”, which opened on April 20^th 2012 and will be available until August 12^th on the main floor of the NAi. It presents a series of stages, of “Living Environments” through nine approaches to the term “Making City”, each one of them starting with a premise and ending with a conclusion applicable to the city.

Urbanists Talk 1: Jeffrey Inaba

Within the series of lectures “Urbanists Talk”, part of the program of the International Architecture Biennale Rotterdam 2012; on May 3 came to visit the NAi Jeffrey Inaba, founding director of the Columbia Laboratory for Architectural Broadcasting (C-Lab) in which is also editor of Volume magazine, and founder of the architecture firm INABA (Los Angeles).

His speech was preceded by a presentation in the media that highlighted the term city 2.0, and how it is formed by the convergence of technology, automobiles, higher education and political strategies.

International Architecture Biennale Rotterdam 2012 Review

From April to August 2012 is taking place in Rotterdam the 5th International Architecture Biennale (IABR) under the motto “Making City “.

Trying to give answers to the question “How do we make city? ” the Biennale proposes a series of exhibitions, lectures, debates and events during these months. IABR is organized based on their own research program, through their own projects and collaborations with the Dutch government and a selection of best practices worldwide, exploring different ways to act in the city.

The projects exhibited take place in cities like New York, Paris, São Paulo, Delhi, Rotterdam, The Hague, Groningen and Almere, showing that standard solutions are not enough anymore, the development of cities in the future will involve much more interaction between disciplines (and of them with their users).

Since I currently live in Rotterdam I will dedicate a category in this blog to explain and analyze the various proposals for the future of Urbanism into the 5th IABR.