MED.NET3 Reading – ka-au

Multiramblas by Bianchini, Falcon, Gausa

Marite Guevara — Mon, 20 Feb 2017 12:00:31 +0000

Multiramblas, 6TS Barcelona is a research produced by a “Intelligent Coast” for DHUB – Design Hub of Barcelona, Institute of Culture of City of Barcelona.

The research aims to re-think, first, the role of Las Ramblas in Barcelona as “trademark” of space and of urban tourism in the city. The analysis of Las Ramblas as a great public space, a paradigm of Mediterranean travel, the crossroads of streams, events – and of interests – locals and globals and focal point between the central city and the sea, enabling, the same time, to create a reading of second level with the new role of public space in the contemporary city, as a system on “network” of relations and articulation.

– GAUSA, Manuel, BANCHINI, Silvia, FALCÓN, Luis: Libro Multirambles – BCN 6T Ed. List, Roma-Trento, 2011. ISBN 978-88-956-2339-9 D.L.: B 44160-201

http://www.listlab.eu/en/shop/libri/multiramblas/

Hiper-Catalunya. Estrategias para una nueva Geo-Urbanidad by Manuel Gausa

Marite Guevara — Mon, 20 Feb 2017 11:59:27 +0000

Manuel Gausa, keeps on, in this new book, his sensitive work of considering themes regarding contemporary project, endeavoring once again the complex and uninterrupted research on Barcelona and Catalunya. The book, enriched with more drawings, pictures and innovative proposals, presents projects and theoretical issues, as results from a meaningfull and constant crossing of conceiving and enquiring the contemporary project, thanks to an original and new approach to different scales ranging from territory, city, landscape till to architecture. The book is therefore split into two wide and unbroken sequences. This is for devoting the first part to Barcelona conceived as multicity, beyond the administration’s borders, through the several chances given by experimental projects, competitions and architectures. The second part devoted to Catalunya and to the size of a network of territories, to the potencial value of both present and future strategies. A collection of texts, resulting from a civil engagement always careful at the changing of society and at the role of architecture. Moreover the book ends with outlooks of future and critical interpretations of the transformation of sites and of the requirements of projects.

– GAUSA, Manuel: Libro Multi-Barcelona, Hiper-Catalunya. Estrategias para una nueva Geo-Urbanidad, Ed. List, Roma-Trento, 2009, ISBN 978-88-95623-07- 8

http://www.listlab.eu/en/shop/libri/multi-barcelonahiper-catalunya/

Hicat Research Territiories by Gausa, Guallart, Muller

Marite Guevara — Mon, 20 Feb 2017 11:49:10 +0000

HiperCatalunya analyzes every component of a territory, using Catalonia as a case study but saying as much or more about the entire world. Part one of this dynamically-designed two-volume set (which holds together magnetically) takes a statistical approach to territorial research. Bursting with inventive charts and graphics, it makes use of statistics on population, climate, gross national product, surface area, flora and fauna, economic fluctuation, airplane flights in vs. flights out, transportation infrastructure, construction, energy resources, energy consumption, student migration, libraries per capita, etc., to compare the facts of Catalonia to those of territories around the world, from Djakarta to Chicago to Finland. Variables are cross-referenced with others to form suggestive connections between, for instance, education and cultural consumption. Part two takes an architectural and urban planning tack, inviting a world of innovative designers to propose projects and strategies, specifically for application in Catalonia, but with obvious relevance to anywhere and everywhere. Participants include Actar Arquitectura, FOA, Xaveer de Geyter, Abalos & Herreros, MVRDV, NL Architects, NO.mad Arquitectura, Javier Peia, Roche & Sie…, UN Studio, and West 8, among others. Proposed scenarios consider such issues as senior tourism, sport cities, university campuses, industrial parks, airports, and suburbia.

– GAUSA, Manuel, GUALLART, Vicente, MULLER, Willy,: Hicat Research Territiories (Edición en inglés) Actar, Generalitat de Catalunya, GENCAT, Barcelona 2003 ISBN-10: 8495951401

https://www.amazon.com/hiCat-Research-Territories-Willy-Muller/dp/8495951401

The Limits to Capital by David Harvey

Marite Guevara — Mon, 20 Feb 2017 11:48:01 +0000

The Limits to Capital provides one of the best theoretical guides to the history and geography of capitalist development. In this new edition, Harvey updates his classic text with a substantial discussion of the turmoil in world markets today.

In his analyses of ‘fictitious capital’ and ‘uneven geographical development’ Harvey takes the reader step by step through layers of crisis formation, beginning with Marx’s controversial argument concerning the falling rate of profit, moving through crises of credit and finance, and closing with a timely analysis geopolitical and geographical considerations.

– HARVEY, David 2006 – The Limits to Capital New Edition.

https://www.amazon.com/Limits-Capital-David-Harvey/dp/1844670953

Losing Control?: Sovereignty in the Age of Globalization by Saskia Sassen

Marite Guevara — Mon, 20 Feb 2017 11:46:52 +0000

What determines the flow of labor and capital in this new global information economy? Who has the capacity to coordinate this new system, to create some measure of order? What happens to territoriality and sovereignty, two fundamental principles of the modern state? And who gains rights and who loses rights? Losing Control? examines the rise of private transnational legal codes and supranational institutions, such as the World Trade Organization and universal human rights covenants, and shows that though sovereignty remains an important feature of the international system, it is no longer confined to the nation-state. Other actors gain rights and a kind of sovereignty by setting some of the rules that used to be within the exclusive domain of states. Saskia Sassen tracks the emergence and the making of the transformations that mark our world today, among which is the partial denationalizing of national territory. Two arenas in particular stand out in the new spatial and economic order by their capacity to set their own rules: the global capital market and the series of codes and institutions that have mushroomed into an international human rights regime. As Sassen shows, these two quasi-legal realms now have the power and legitimacy to demand action and accountability from national governments, with the ironic twist that both depend upon the state to enforce their goals. From the economic policy shifts forced by the Mexico debt crisis to the recurring battles over immigration and refugees around the world, Losing Control? incisively analyzes the events that have radically altered the landscape of governance in an era of increasing globalization.

– SASSEN, Saskia : 2001 – ¿Perdiendo el control? La soberanía en la era de la globalización, Edicions Bellaterra, Barcelona, 2001. ISBN 978-84-7290-169-8

https://www.amazon.it/Losing-Control-Sovereignty-Age-Globalization/dp/0231106092/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_2?s=english-books&ie=UTF8&qid=1485791652&sr=1-2-fkmr0&keywords=Losing+Control%3F%3A+Sovereignty+in+an+Age+of+Globalization+2001

Real Virtuality: Meshworks and Hierarchies in the Digital Domain by Manuel de Landa

Marite Guevara — Mon, 20 Feb 2017 11:45:14 +0000

With the development of the Internet, a way of thinking once reserved for philosophical and scientific study has become applicable to our daily lives–Real Virtuality considers the self-organizing capacity of matter and its potential applications. Just as cooling fluids form into geometrically shaped ice crystals, other things that appear to be inert may be able to organize and shape themselves. And as distant computers have congealed into the Internet, it’s become clearer that self-organization enters wherever processes can find an organizational structure. How can we can activate and utilize these processes? How they can be controlled? How do they control us? In Real Virtuality Manuel DeLanda, of the Columbia University School of Architecture, introduces this exciting way of thinking and opens up its development and application. This guidebook to a novel form of interrelationship will be indispensable for students, designers, developers and anyone with their eye on the zeitgeist.

– de LANDA, Manuel: Real Virtuality: Meshworks and Hierarchies in the Digital Domain, 2006

https://books.google.es/books/about/Real_Virtuality.html?id=NUxukgEACAAJ&redir_esc=y

Open Source Architecture Manifesto by Carlo Ratti, Joseph Grima

Marite Guevara — Mon, 20 Feb 2017 11:43:53 +0000

As part of the special report on open-source design published in issue 948, Domus approached Carlo Ratti to write an op-ed on the theme of open-source architecture. He responded with an unusual suggestion: why not write it collaboratively, as an open-source document? Within a few hours a page was started on Wikipedia, and an invitation sent to an initial network of contributor.

The Wikipedia page remains online as an open canvas—a 21st-century manifesto of sorts, which by definition is in permanent evolution.

– RATTI, Carlo, GRIMA Joseph, Open Source Architecture Manifesto, 2012

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open-source_architecture

http://www.domusweb.it/en/op-ed/2011/06/15/open-source-architecture-osarc-.html

Cities and the creative class by Richard Florida

Marite Guevara — Mon, 20 Feb 2017 11:28:41 +0000

In the seven essays of Cities and the Creative Class – four of which have been previously published – Richard Florida outlines how certain cities succeed in attracting members of the creative class. This class, roughly speaking, is composed of the millions of people who work in information-age economic sectors and in industries driven by innovation and talent. Cities that succeed, Florida argues, are those that are able to attract and retain creative class members. They don’t do this through the traditional strategies of tax incentives, suburban housing developments, and loose regulation, though – creative class members don’t care about that. Rather, they care about amenities and tolerance and are hence drawn to cities with thriving bohemias and large gay populations. It is no coincidence, Florida argues, that places like Austin and San Francisco are at the forefront of the new US economy – they play up their bohemian edge and their tolerance. Cities like Detroit, in contrast, won’t stand a chance unless they can become a magnet for the new class. To prove his point, Florida has amassed a wealth of data, including gay and bohemian indices for cities. economy and the presence of these subcultures. In contrast to Florida’s earlier book, Cities and the Creative Class provides a more academic explanation of why this has occurred, focusing in particular on the economic geography of place. It also lays out what cities need to do to have a chance at success.

– FLORIDA, Richard: Cities and the Creative Class, Routledge 2005

https://www.amazon.de/Cities-Creative-Class-Richard-Florida/dp/0415948878

Self-sufficient City: envisioning the habitat of the future by Vicente Guallart

Marite Guevara — Mon, 20 Feb 2017 11:08:42 +0000

“ The internet has changed our lives, but it hasn’t changed our cities, yet.

In the wake of the 20th century worker-consumer, the 21st century belongs to the entrepreneur-producer.

The challenge for the cities of the 21st century has to do with a return to productivity.

We live in a world of cities.

Cities are the actual places where people live and they are the locus of the real economy.”

– GUALLART, Vicente: Self-sufficient City: envisioning the habitat of the future, Barcelona: Actar 2010/2012

The third industrial revolution by Jeremy Rifkin

Marite Guevara — Mon, 20 Feb 2017 11:06:46 +0000

The price of energy and food is climbing, unemployment remains high, the housing market has tanked, consumer and government debt is soaring, and the recovery is slowing. Facing the prospect of a second collapse of the global economy, humanity is desperate for a sustainable economic game plan to take us into the future.

Here, Jeremy Rifkin explores how Internet technology and renewable energy are merging to create a powerful “Third Industrial Revolution.” He asks us to imagine hundreds of millions of people producing their own green energy in their homes, offices, and factories, and sharing it with each other in an “energy internet,” just like we now create and share information online.

– RIFKIN, Jeremy, La Tercera Revolución Industrial, Barcelona: Paidós, 2011

http://www.thethirdindustrialrevolution.com