HomeGrown Cities Project // URBZ

A couple of days ago, I received an e-mail from the URBZ team, explaining the project “Homegrown cities” that they are developing in the city of Mumbai. Their thinking on the future of the cities is very much related with ideas treated in this blog, starting from the user to create a “user-generated city”.

I find their work really interesting and inspiring, so I asked them for an article to publish in the blog, changing the format of a usual entry at OSU and, hopefully, opening the blog to more extensive collaborations with outside the box urban thinkers:

Enchanting the Existing

Last March 25th took place at Columbia GSAPP’s Avery Hall a conference by Anne Lacaton, from the French Studio Lacaton & Vassal. With the name “Reinvent: Enchanting the Existing”, Lacaton went through some of the projects of her office since it started back in 1987.

She started treating the concept of Inhabiting in Architecture. The way they conceive it is major issue for their work, focused on building space from the inside, and not from the outside. For them, the idea of virgin territory no longer exists; the point is to exalt the capacities of the existing. An extremely interesting concept that they have been developing for 25 years and appears especially adequate in today’s Architectural scene.

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.

Who makes our future?

On June 12^th was held at the NAi an interesting debate within the activities of the 5th IABR, entitled:             “Who makes our future?“

Debate that served as the presentation of the book “Dutch New Worlds“, a PhD work by Christian Salewski for the ETH Zurich, with the participation of following panel of guests:

Urbanists Talk 2: Pablo Allard

On June 7^th took place at NAi the second (and last) lecture of the series “Urbanists Talk”, which this time included the participation of Pablo Allard and Gert Urhahn.

I have decided to separate their interventions to maintain the structure of short entries of the blog, so I will begin with the first of them, Pablo Allard (Gert Urhahn is one of the authors of “The Spontaneous City“, of which I spoke not long ago in an entry)

Pablo Allard is a Chilean Architect and Urban Planner, Dean of the Faculty of Architecture and Art at the “Universidad del Desarrollo de Santiago y Concepción” and Principal at URBANICA Consultants.

The Spontaneous City: Manifesto

Recently published, the book “The Spontaneous City” (Urhahn Urban Design, BIS Publishers) is a strong statement about the future of Urbanism. Though I am still going trough its pages, I think the interesting manifesto that opens the publication deserves a post, since in it I have found many ideas related to an open source urban design.

In the manifesto, the authors propose a change in the traditional urban planning, a new starting point by taking the city as a “marketplace” in which supply and demand from users sculpts urban form.

The TypEvolution

Is it possible to think about living in a home when you are young, another during your adulthood, and another when you grow old? I’m not talking about owning them, not even renting just one specific space; I am talking about a wider and more open housing system that enriches both the individuals and the city.

Our society is more diverse than ever, mobility is a concept increasingly present in our lives; it changes, evolves and creates very different profiles of citizens. Is Architecture, Urbanism or Real Estate Market responding to this situation?

Is it sustainable to buy a home when you are thirty years old, pay for it thirty more, and never move from it?

What does it mean for a person to grow older seeing how your needs are changing but the architectural space around stays still?

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.