Today, in many different artistic and aesthetically fields, – like movies, art or fashion -, we can see how things look like the same that in the ‘60s or the ‘80s, nothing it’s really changed, everything looks actual.

This perception affect also architecture and design as well. We can see similar projects through the year and detect analogies in different attitudes and space solutions. What does it means for us now?

The point is the way in which future is imagined and designed. As we can see, in many times, the future is very similar to our today, it is like a unique and continuous phase, always present.

In architecture, what we did after modernity is represent the future through the digital revolution and the devices that are connecting us to many networks. Nowadays, if you go in a metro in any city, everybody around you is completely absorbed by its cellphone, tablet or computer, everybody is in another space.

This is the only age in which the distance between ‘zeitgeist’, – the spirit of time -, and the art or form of architecture is so weak.

The repercussions of the digital revolution to our age are many and different, but I think that the most radical change for architecture and urbanism is that today we need less solid space to have connections and human relations.

We no longer need large surfaces even for storage informations and data, due to the cloud revolution and the consequent compression of hard disk for instance, and so, what we have to do with space?

To manage the emptiness we have to restart construction, not in a physical and real way, but in a more digital and ephemeral one.

In this sense, it is possibile to appreciate, for example, the digital reconstruction of the ancient Foro Romano made in Rome same years ago that recreate through lights, sounds and projections all the real components of the buildings, the paintings colors and the decorations. Walking inside its reconstruction and making direct experience of it, people become aware the past.

In this empty world, even emptier and emptier, the paradigm FORM FOLLOWS FUNCTION is not valid anymore and we have to find also temporary functions for already existing forms, we don’t need to build new forms.

In the end, what it is really changed for urban design in the light of all these issues and opportunities?

I’m proposing here to the debate three antinomies or differences from the time of Modernity to the time of the Eternal Present where solid forms never change. Three suggestions, three substitutions.

The first one is PERFORMANCE vs FUNCTION. If function never fits in our age, performance has to take space and importance to form architecture products. The is the work of IAAC and Carlo Ratti or the plan that STOSS developed for Detroit (Detroit Future City, 2013). The second one is SHARING vs PARTICIPATION. This is the ‘makers’ world that contribute to the regeneration of the city I’m referring to the ESTO NO ES UN SOLAR work, for example.

The last one is NARRATIVE vs DESCRIPTION. If we substitute the term ‘sense’ to ‘sign’, we can see there is a shift from form to sense.

Talking about present, future, history and memory of cities and spaces, I want to conclude my speech with the beautiful work of William Kentridge for Rome, ‘Triumphs and Laments’. A large-scale, 500 meter-long frieze, erased from the biological patina on the travertine embankment walls that line Rome’s urban waterfront. Exploring dominant tensions in the history of the Eternal City from past to present, a procession of figures, up to 10 meters high, will represent Rome’s greatest victories and defeats from mythological time to present, forming a silhouetted procession on Piazza Tevere, between Ponte Sisto and Ponte Mazzini.

MOSÈ RICCI

DICAM – UNITN

The Department of Civil, Environmental and Mechanical Engineering aims at developing research and teaching activities in the main fields of engineering and architecture. The research and teaching activities are developed in six main subject areas, focusing on the quality of the urban and natural environments, the enhancement of the quality of life, security and the harmonious development of society, through the innovation of products.  The work of DICAM in all these sectors pursues high level scientific objectives, regarding research and training, in line with the most important research-intensive universities. The Department also promotes significant interrelations with public authorities and private companies, at local, national and international level. The mission of the Department is laid down in the following specific targets:

–  The promotion of research in key areas of Engineering, Planning and Applied Sciences, such as Environmental Protection, Landscape, Architecture, Natural Renewable Resources, Energy etc.  

–  The training of professionals (engineers and architects) and researchers of the future generations.

CURRICULUM

Architect and Full Professor at the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Mechanical Engineering of Trento. Jurer Graduate School of Design, Harvard University, USA, 1997 Fulbright Scholar GSD Harvard University. Visiting Professor at the School of Environmental Design (1994-1997), University of Waterloo, Canada. Already Professor of Urban Planning at University of Genoa.

Since 1984 he worked with Philip Spaini and funded Ricci-Spini Architects Studio. Their work has been exhibited in several Italian architecture exhibitions (Milan, London, Munster) and in the Italian section of the VI International Architecture Exhibition of the Venice Biennale, 1996. Their projects were part of a traveling exhibition in several schools Architects in USA.  Adviser to the Ministry of Heritage Cultural Activities in the commission for drafting the ‘Risk Map’.

Resilience is the power or ability to return to the original form, position, etc, after being bent, compressed, or stretched; it’s a kind of elasticity.

The word changes its meaning a little bit moving from one language to another,  though, what I believe is that resilience is a psychological term that involves impacts, repercussions and, of course, the capability of people and territories to adapt. Obviously, we have to consider the cause, the Adversity. In our era, the main issue is water, but if we go back in time, we can find that fire was the main problem, for examples for the american cities (e.g. ’The Great Fire of Chicago’ in 1871). Many other adversities come from the war: one of the most terrible impact of the german attacks was in Rotterdam in 1940 when the city and a major part of the port were bombed from the air.  Basically all the historical centre was erased and this fact impacted the identity of the people of Rotterdam for presumably hundred years and even more.

A first effort from the city was to create a competition to build a memory for a place that no longer exists, for the next generation of citizens. So, we create a sort of ‘cinta’ or ‘perimetro’ with lights in order to highlight the boundary of the urban tissue that was destroyed. In this project, many efforts were done to communicate from one generation to another the memories and stories of the war with the intention to acknowledge what happens and are able to create a new identity.

Therefore, Adaptation has to do with Regulation, how do you regulate and control yourself not only on a psychological level but also in terms of facts and doing.  In Rotterdam, due to the war impacts, we had new plans and rules to manage the reconstruction of the city centre. In particular, we had the opportunity to create a new downtown that can compete in the international framework in terms of innovation, quality of architecture, public spaces and facilities.

One of the most important project that WEST8 developed in this contest was related to the reconstruction of the rail station back in 2008. A station is the place where the visitors are welcomed in a city, so it’s a very conflicting and complex space to design. In the particular case, the station has to work like a connector between the old part of the city and the new one. Indeed, a specific kind of adaptation was setting back the canopy of the station to allow the view to the last few ancient buildings, the only piece of history left in this area. Also, the new station wants to build physical and conceptual connection both with the old part of the city and with the new palaces that stand in from of it, like, for example, the Manhattan Tower.  An important choice was also to keep the old letters and the clock, which are belonged to the former station, and put them into the new design, allowing people to recognize them in the new shape and feel the continuity with the past. The inner space of the station is designed like a big plaza where everyone is passing, cycling or waiting. We decided to design a big vertical space whit natural illumination in which we brought a huge panoramic screen that is actually projecting images of the harbor for those who don’t understand what is the meaning and the narrative of Rotterdam. In the station we also tray to experiment solution that combine urbanism and landscape architecture building a green access  that links the main hall to the urban tissue.

In our idea of urban design, it is important create an Adaptable Space able to transmit a sense of arrival and welcome for those approaching the city.

Adaptation has also to do with a Multi-scalar approach, in particular in the Rotterdam framework, where many dynamics involve the local but also the regional scale. The port of Rotterdam is always looking for new land and, in the last years, is constantly moving west to the open water allowing the big ships to dock there, saving time and not coming down the river Maas near to the city centre. These strategies originated the Maaslavkte II, a new port terminal, realized with dykes and landfills in the North Sea. Obviously, these projects need a deep reflection about how long this growth can go forward and how much we can build yet. As a young practice based in the Netherlands, we are trying to establish a dialogue with the territorial traditions (e.g. I want to quote the polders practice and innovation of gaining land from open water for agriculture and housing) to find adaptable and resilient solutions in so complex system.

In WEST8 idea, Landscape Architecture is not about the tradition of the French Landscape, but, according to the Dutch School, is about engineers making new land.

DANIEL VASINI

WEST8

West 8 is an award-winning international office for urban design and landscape architecture, founded in 1987 with offices in Rotterdam, New York and Belgium. Over the last three decades West 8 has established itself as a leading practice with an international team of 70 architects, urban designers, landscape architects and industrial engineers. West 8’s New York office was established after winning an international design competition in 2006 for the design of Governors Island Park – a 172-acre island in the New York Harbor. With a multi-disciplinary approach to complex design issues, West 8 has extensive experience in large-scale urban master planning and design, landscape interventions, waterfront projects, parks, squares and gardens. We also develop concepts and visions for large-scale planning issues that address global warming, urbanization and infrastructure.

CURRICULUM

Adriaan Geuze is one of the founders of West 8 urban design & landscape architecture b.v., a leading urban design practice in Europe. Geuze attended the Agricultural University of Wageningen where he received a Masters degree in Landscape Architecture. After winning the prestigious Prix-de-Rome award in 1990, Geuze, with his office West 8 founded in 1987, established an enormous reputation on an international level with his unique approach to planning and design of the public environment. By founding the SLA Foundation (Surrealistic Landscape Architecture) in 1992, Geuze increased public awareness of his profession. With West 8, Adriaan Geuze has been honoured with the success of winning various international design competitions such as Governor’s Island in New York, Playa de Palma in Mallorca and Toronto’s New Central Waterfront design in Canada.

The city became ‘’smart, intelligent, creative city’’, because it is able to offer more services.

That change have a positive impact on the territory and the urban cities structure, in order to make a perfect harmony between the human and the city, in ecological and environmental way.  In Smart city society, communication and socialization are a necessity. The use of technologies in our contemporary era improves the community’s interaction making events in private or public spaces (cultural, social, architectural, sporting, ect.). In that way use and design become very important in public spaces. Those public spaces must be re-appropriating so people can find their own useful space.

The city is “smart” not because it is technological, but because it is able to offer more services better access to education, culture, and health thanks to technology.

The base of Resili(g)ence is the new social designing.

‘La communauté af-frontée’ of Jean-Luc Nancy is not just about “geopolitics” or “economy”, and it’s not just about “religion” or “culture”: the event engages all the forms of life and thought that is “globalized.”

So this is an invite to open our eyes:

• the community must have a common project and people wants to create:
• the community around project;
• the community speak about family like instead of sharing;
• the community of ‘with’ it in fact is with social media: we’re in the center and the community is around us;
• community and locality: the community in a specific space.

Individuals members of a community are remotely connected through mobiles and they don’t necessarily need or belong to a physical or defined locality.

The first thing of technology is phone: individual community connected remotely with a place of connection but people not connect with place are more individual. 

The passage of individual community to the connected individual making his own community.

The time goes fast and the sensation change faster but the only difference with connection is the consequence for the city.

We have to effect efficiency and sharing is the new way to create energy communication and data is new to share experience in the city, to play game like Pokemon Go. There is important on the public space:  we could reappropiriate the public space creating new type of division of the city.

The community that becomes a single thing. Necessarily loses the in of being-in-common.  Or, it loses the with or the together that defines it.  It yields its being-together to a being of togetherness. 

The truth of community, on the contrary, resides in the retreat of such a being.  (Preface, xxxix)

If you have a bit of imagination, every place could be used for every purpose, even for temporary cultural events: you can use your environment or the shape of the public space as an important part of the exhibition itself. Some examples could be “chairs out of stairs” or “squares like antlers”, or even find a way to create your own use of that space with the aid of different tools (Nike Laser Soccer Field). We can consider the example of Piazza del Campo in Siena: just with the use of a great amount of sand the entire shape of the square changes and it can be used for the Palio.

Technology is the node, not the finality: everybody is a dot in society and globality.

ENSAM de Montpellier

The School of Architecture of Montpellier and through it the study field ‘South Metropolises” aim to work on architecture and urban projects starting from a specific entrance point which is the interrogation of the locality as a vector of urban development. This strategic methodology deals with a continuous awakening of the Cultural heritage allied with the integration of paradigms such as “smart cities” and ITC integration in cities. Through the taking into account of the cultural heritage “South Métropolis” questions the massive contribution of new technologies and their impact in the city, new governance and Metropolis constitutions. Thus, what is called “smart cities” is a necessary though for architects in order that this new “intelligent city» can be able to build a “sensible” city where new shared experiences could take place.

CURRICULUM

Elodie Nourrigat is an architect and graduate of the Ecole Nationale Supérieure d’Architecture de Montpellier (ENSAM). In 2002, she was awarded a Master’s degree in Philosophy from Université de Lyon III, followed by a PhD in Architecture in 2011, at the Paris la Villette ENSA. She has worked as a professor at ENSAM since 2004. In 2000, she co-founded N+B Architectes with Jacques Brion in Montpellier. Nourrigat and Brion have won many awards for their work. In September 2008, they were invited to exhibit at the 11th Architecture Biennale in Venice as part of the French Pavilion. In June 2008, Elodie Nourrigat won the ‘Atkins Inspire Award’ in London. In 2013, Elodie Nourrigat was one of five nominees shortlisted for the Prix de la Femme Architecte (Women in Architecture Prize).

Resilience is the system’s capacity to cope with stresses and failures without collapsing and learning from the experience from an unknown threat.

In contemporary age events are often unpredictable. This implies the capacity of learning and coping with unexpected events. That’s why connections and relations in a complex context are crucial in resilience. In particular, processes of place making show that recreating a community or community building is fundamental to create a sense of place, even if it is a fact of complexity from a political point of view.

Resilience implies is a radical approach: socio-technical systems, to be resilient, must be radically changed, incorporating distributed systems and considering cosmopolitan localism.

Resilient systems are systems that are capable to learn from environment in diversity, redundancy, and feedbacks and to resist and efficiency produce solutions.

Fragility of human systems usually comes from a hyper-specialisation of functions, increasing the possibility of collapse after a change in the context. So, we should create a multiplicity of sense to help the system capability to learn and react.

‘Distributed systems’ are crucial. They are flexible, highly context-related units in socio-technical systems organized as networks of small scale. Governance have to generate new possibilities trough distributing knowledge, distributing energy, distributing production, distributing services, and distributing economies.

Design for Resilience means thinking distributed, thinking collaborative, and considering social innovation.

There are some interesting examples of social innovation in resilient cities, for example about neighbourhood care (in Norway, Chile, Brazil, Poland, France, and South Africa), community-supported agriculture (in China and Netherlands), and elderly mutual help (in China).

These examples generate social values and inclusion, though sharing and participation of communities, triggering new kind of scenarios.

We valued people are able to set solutions to intractable problems and social value production, including: collaborative neighbourhoods, social streets, neighbourhood care, street festivals,  community gardens, co-housing, collaborative housing, couch surfing, circles of care, elderly mutual-help, micro-nurseries, car pooling, car sharing, food coops, farmers markets, zero-miles food, community-supported agriculture, community-based tourism, co-working, fab-lab, social incubator, fair trade, time banks, local currencies, etc.…

Special emerging scenarios relate to local food and agriculture, open and distributed production, collaborative living, and collaborative welfare. An emergent a scenario of open, interconnected communities-in-place, with distributed systems as its infrastructure.

Design for cosmopolitan localism means that communities and places have to be consciously built as open, connected entities. This includes a design practice for community building and place making. Diversity of communities and places must be protected and increased, designing for enriching the socio-technical ecosystems diversity. Finally, design for cosmopolitan localism means that people who, initially, are mutually strangers can learn to live better, together.

This would mean designing “for cosmopolitan social commons”. It is not easy, but we can make it, and we have to try.

DESIS Network

DESIS Network originates from three main international activities in the 2006-2008 period: the European research EMUDE, 2005; the UNEP Program CCSL, 2008 and the international conference “Changing the Change, within the framework of Torino World Design Capital, 2008.

In different ways, these activities introduced the notions of creative community and social innovation in several design schools worldwide and created favourable conditions to start an international network on these topics. The main ideas behind it were that social innovation could be a powerful driver towards sustainability and that design schools could help in supporting and accelerating the process. In 2009, this network took the name of DESIS: Design for Social Innovation towards Sustainability. In the 2009-2011 period, DESIS spread in several regions of the world, establishing partnerships with other entities and evolving towards a network of Design Labs based in design schools and in other design-oriented universities and operating with local, regional and global partners to promote and support social change towards sustainability.”

CURRICULUM

Ezio Manzini, a leading thinker in design for sustainability, founded DESIS, an international network on design for social innovation and sustainability (www.desis-network.org).

He is Honorary Professor at the Politecnico di Milano, Chair Professor at University of the Arts London, and currently guest Professor at Tongji University, Shanghai, and Jiangnan University, Wuxi.

In this case resilience of landscape and geography are very intimately related.

The project area is in the heart of the city of Madrid. The project is focused on the hydrology of Madrid Rio. It is a typical Mediterranean river, almost dry in the summer and often at flooding risk in spring.

In origin, Madrid was a settlement built to defend the territory from Arab invasions. A fortified settlement was originally built on the top of the hills. The city developed on the opposite direction to the river, so that it was protected by it on one side, and by the ancient walls on the other side.  After the demolition of the walls, the city developed in a wider territory, and the modern city grew following a grid scheme, similarly to Barcelona. At the beginning of the XX century the river was still a natural territory, with only few and low-income houses built in that area, outside of the city.  During the beginning of the XX century the river was channelized. In 1940 the municipality delivered the new plan of the city of Madrid to cover the river and use the space to build a new highway.

So, in XX century, the river was hidden and became a grey infrastructure.

In 2005 for political reasons the mayor of Madrid decided to bury this section of the highway in order to recover the blue infrastructure that was running in the west side of the city. Engineers buried the highway in a tunnel, and the river reappeared as a water infrastructure. We decided to participate to the competition and as first we have discovered many different geographies and landscapes along the 20 km of the river. We won the competition because we had understood the whole river. We made a master plan with the main idea to reconnect the green areas from the north and the south of Madrid that had been cut by the city. The river thus was a new gate to make a new network that linked extremely valued areas of green. We have also developed many actions for the next 15 years in order to make the river an infrastructure to connect landscapes in every direction.  This is a new public space without private profit. The result is completely public.

It shows that the resilience of landscape in stronger than every other human action.

We have make 6 different landscapes, in a very wide project. But we only discovered the footprint of what already was there. Salon the Pinos, a 7 km-long park with 9000 pine trees on the top of the tunnel roof, is a space made mainly using trees of Central Spain forests. Forest pines are the same you can find in wilderness, planted with a very sophisticated technology to permit to fix the vegetation to the structure without any damage to the plant and to the rooftop.  Avenida de Portugal is a linear park, a new boulevard of cherry trees, as in the city of Lisbon. The third landscape is a new connection to some historical areas, to make a new gate that links the park to the royal palace of Madrid. In the park of Puente de Toledo, a famous historical bridge (XVII century), we made a new ‘baroque pattern’ that can relate to the ancient bridge. The biggest area is Parqueof  Arganzuela, a 23 ha park. The idea there was to reproduce the behaviour of the river, working with lines and paths along the river, with Mediterranean vegetation, dry creek vegetation, riverbank forest vegetation and Atlantic forest vegetation. The water here is very important, it appears and disappears, inspiring different activities.

There are an urban beach, some linear fountains and constellations of little water points, a wet footprint that is the main character of the river.

There are overall 15 children playgrounds that make an integrated system in the park. A cultural centre, Matadero, is located in the northern part of the park. Moreover, a system of little buildings, made in granite, the local material, is in the area to support the park activities. Finally, the bridges system includes the restoration of dams and the construction of new footbridges, especially designed for pedestrian use.

Fernando de Porras-Isla-Fernández

Porras La Casta arquitectos

Porras La Casta arquitectos

Office of architecture founded by Fernando de Porras-Isla and Arantxa La Casta. Among his works,

Recovery of the Historic Quarter of Island (Spain) that has won the prize Eden of the European Union and the Center Deportivo San Felices de Buelna (Spain) Awarded the biannual prize Of Architecture of the Association of Architects of Cantabria. They have alsoDirected magazines Architecture COAM (1991-1993) and BAU (1994-2003).

CURRICULUM

He is an architect and works in hisown office since 1984. For more than 25 yearshasbeendedicated to both the professional work within the classical discipline asresearch and teaching. He directed the magazine “Architecture” of the College of Architects of Madrid (1991-1993) and the magazine Bau , of the Association of Architects of Cantabria, Castilla León and Castilla La Mancha. (1994-2003). He iscoauthor Dictionary Metápolis Advanced Architecture (EditorialActar 2000). He hasdirected Associate Workshop Final Project at the University of Valladolid Professor and hasbeeninvited in differentschools of architectureamongwhich the International University of Catalonia professor, University Albert Einstein, Republic of El Salvador, the National University Pedro EnriquezUreña, Dominican Republic, or the EuropeanUniversity of Madrid. He received the Biannual Architecture Prize, awarded by the Association of Architects of Cantabria for his work building Polideportivo San Felices de Buelna, Cantabria (2010). Arquitectura of Madrid.

In a mix of rural/urban the city is an environmental/ecological connection.

This can push new connections and new models, new concepts: increasing regional productions; self-sufficiency of cities, productivity of energy in a small size, infrastructures to transport energy to the industry production. In the last years our society has changed, people moved from the rural areas to big cities and there the population is still growing. It is estimated that in 2040 75% of people will live in megacities. So, now more than ever, we need strategies to solve the problems connected with the high density of population, like food supplies and production of energy.

A solution can be what is usually called RUBURBAN. That consists in creating rural areas inside the cities.

An example is Munich. The mountains surround it, so it is placed in the nature, but it has an industrial area with many factories and infrastructures, meanwhile it has many rural areas with water that can produce food and electric energy. It also has agricultural fields inside the city.

Megacities usually need mega-infrastructures. In Brazil, on this topic, there is an example about how countryside has been integrated with the metropolitan city through the market of Sao Paulo. This commercial area is a huge covered market with many infrastructures. We worked on an infrastructure from the ’60, 500 metres-long, absolutely impressive. The transformation was focused on the connections to recreational public spaces and digitalisation.

Different countries, having in common their location, have created a cooperation to help each other with resources and trades. In Germany a net of connections between different regions has been created. Many metropolitan areas are involved, but they still keep their characteristic, this is what is called Regiobranding. Something similar has happened in the macro-region of the Alps, to develop territorial strategies within the EUSALP. To create this connection of infrastructures diagnosis and mapping is very important.

It’s very important for architects to do more for mapping.

There is a cycling planning process that includes: Plan and project, Evaluation and monitoring, Formulation objectives, Survey and analysis, and Concept building. On the Alps we did a lot of mappings to apply visualisation to new governance processes, about the region of Milano, for example. Graphic tools in these cases are useful to represent things, but also to introduce changes already in the representation in an abstract process, and also to connect political discussion.

Jörg Schröder

LeibnizUniversitat Hannover

LEIBNIZ Universität Hannover

The Institute for Regional Building and Urban Planning of Leibniz Universität Hannover concentrates research and teaching activities on architectural and urbanistic issues connected within a regional focus, and related to territorial balances, resiliences, and visions. The competences of the Institute address rural-urban interfaces, building culture, vernacular intelligence, and rural areas. The Institute is part of the department of Urban Design and Planning of the faculty of Architecture and Landscape, and of the research initiative TRUST transdisciplinary and historical, rural and urban, spatial transformation and development. The experience of the Institute’s researchers include projects with TechnischeUniversitätMünchen and for other international projects, as for the project AlpBC funded by the EU Alpine Space Programme, or the Italian PRIN Project Re-Cycle Italy. For RURBANCE the Institute works on the territorial system Bavarian Prealpine Arc together with the other German project partner Allgäu GmbH. Furthermore the Institute with the Technical Committee of RURBANCE provides scientific background for all project concepts and implementations.

CURRICULUM

Jörg Schröder is an architect and an urbanplanner. His works are focused on architecture and urban planning & design in ruralareas, suburbia, peripheries, new urbanconstellations, metropolitanregions.He’sinterested in projects for rural-urbancooperation, urban and ruraldevelopment, on spacesconnected to mobility, infrastructures and tourism.Jörgis a researcher in analysis and concepts for territoriesasbuiltenvironments of city and country.

International projects in reseach and develoment (RURBANCE, AlpBC, AlpHouse, Re-Cycle); design and concept of internationalconferences, workshops and exhibitions in Italy, Austria, Switzerland, Spain; 2010 with the sketch 2.040 m2 in the GermanPavilionSehnsuchtat the 10th International Architecture Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia.

Saying the contradictions of contemporary life, these are the key questions for the creation of something new in the 21th century. The most important of those may be ‘Consistency’.

The challenge is to give consistency to art.

The challenge of the fragmented world in which we live, with so many different options and opportunities, is to make something consistent.

We talked about urban form, land use and occupation, the issues of megacities. We talked about the metabolism of this huge urbanisation process can work, in term of renewal and circular economy. Also some of us mentioned resilience in relation of vulnerability of probability of accident.

Smart city may be ‘too much’ sometimes, meaning that today there are lots of disruptive technologies, including Information (Internet of Things, Artificial Intelligence); Energy (Renewal energies, Intelligent Grid); Mobility (Electric, Smart); Materials (Circular Economy); Production (Mass customisation); Living organisms (Nano/Molecular medicine). Fast transmission of data, energy and resources lead to the Society of Networks, where Place is no more only a ‘position’.

New values and behaviours from new generations of Millenials are emerging. Millenials are more collaborative, participative, and ecological oriented. The visions for 21th Century is the vision of  Advanced, Smart, Knowledge, Creative, and Cooperative/Talent ‘Cities’. But also of Transition and ‘Eco-cities’, Slow ‘Cities’ that have to be ‘Fertile Cities &  More Creative Countrysides’.

Project is becoming less conventional design process, and more strategic planning.

Strategies can include: the Regeneration and Sensing (of places-memory/traffics-expectations), the Reconciliation and sometimes the Renaturation (of urban an rural). Planning is focusing on Edges and on the concepts of Unfinish/Endlessness (of product/process), on Inclusion/Participation, and on Sustainability and Resilience.

Advanced Urbanism is the sensitive integration of emerging technologies on cities. It is about applying new technologies to make cities more fertile and countryside more creative, focusing on planning processes instead on just artefacts, and engaging citizens, business and government into more sustainable, resilient urbanism. It has a transdisciplinary nature, it requires changing traditional design and planning practices towards more open and collaborative practices.

“Making is thinking” as much as “Thinking is Making”.

We need more fertile cities, a smart countryside. A precise visible city, is in a good balance with the countryside. This kind of combination is a good balance, in a way closing the circle that Marx and Engels opened up when they discussed the different between urban and rural: urbanise the countryside and ruralise the city.

ANDREU ULIED

MCRIT

MCRIT

MCRIT is a consultancy company with deep experience assessing ICT impacts in the city of Barcelona, as well as carrying on research projects in the field, funded by the 7th European Framework Program, as well as the Spanish and Catalan research programs, especially in the area of smart mobility. MCRIT is investigating, together with the Local Council how to use information gathered from mobile phones to monitor mobility demand in the city. In a number of research projects funded by the 7th European Program MCRIT carried out benchmark analysis of new technologies being applied on transport and mobility, at urban and inter-urban scale, as well as advanced softwareand modelling tools able to assess their potential impacts. MCRIT have deep interest on education, and over the years, MCRIT experts have participated as invited professors in courses organized by IaaC. MCRIT created ERSILIA Foundation aiming to transfer to the educational community at all levels the know-how of MCRIT in the use of advancedtechnologies, as well scenario-centric and project-based resources facilitating new educational paradigm.

CURRICULUM

Expert in planning, foresight and policy evaluation.DoctorEngineer from the PolytechnicUniversityCatalonia (1996), and Master’s in Planning from the University of Harvard (1994), with internationalexperience in planning and foresightstudiesrelated to Europeanterritorialpolicies. MCRIT Partner since the foundation of the company in 1988, and MCRIT Directorsince 1994. At locallevel, he coordinatesparticipatory and scenario-building processes in the frame of urbandevelopment and mobilityplans in the region of Barcelonaaswellas in the rest of Europe (e.g. in Croatia), North Africa (e.g. Bizerte, Tunisia), Latinoamerica and the Caribbean (e.g. Blumenau and Palma, Brazil, Dominique Republic). He regularlygivesconferences and classes in strategic planning, foresight and project/policy evaluationatdifferentuniversities.He’s the Director of the professionalcourse on Economic and Financial Project evaluationorganisedannually by the Association of Engineers and Economists of Catalonia.

Earth is an architecture. It is our world and our heritage. You can see the world as a big building.

Mankind wanted to be a god on Earth. Sometimes a single gesture, a single idea has expressed its power all over a wide territory. How an idea could be so powerful? Different constructions, from the Ziggurat to the HKG airport, explain this. May be it’s no more the time for those huge transformations, but it is time to use what we have already built, to see what’s good in the previous generation of buildings. Moreover, it is important to see the signs of the history on the buildings as a preview of how they could be used in the future.

Let’s take for example a very banal building. What can be interesting in such a banal building? I think that if you achieve to make extraordinary a banal thing, then you make a step ahead.

If Earth is an infrastructure, because it contains time, I think it’s time for us to try to design and understand good infrastructures. A good infrastructure is a structure that contains time, where it is possible to see what was before. It’s at the same time something that precedes architecture and something that follows architecture. So it is imperative to show what preceded architecture and what will happen after. If we’re trying to design a good infrastructure, we need to think about the structure and about uses and people. It’s a social act: everything in this matter is a social act. This research crosses therefore essential topics, which are sometimes neglected in the contemporary city, such as the potential of architecture determined by other factors, the role of large modern infrastructures, the status of monumentality, or the environmental condition in the metropolitan context.

Before planning anything you must know very well the existing conditions.

The redevelopment of Place de la Republique is based on the concept of a scene open to multiple urban uses. The point was to keep the horizontality, the sight, creating meanwhile a pleasant place. The new square makes a large-scale landscape that transforms it into a metropolitan equipment: a ‘supesurface’ of evolution available and suitable. Generous by its dimensions and popular by its history, the Place de la Republique becomes a new center of attraction, exchanges, encounters. The southwest part hosts a pavilion, a unique building, entirely glazed, to keep a continuous reading of this singular space.

I think that landscape links together two aspects, site and program, and infrastructure can be both the two.

An infrastructure has the ability to destroy a site, but also to make new a site. We have been working on Péripherique de Paris for more than 15 years. As I used to tell my students: you have to know highway related to building and apartments, you have to understand the structure and the changing uses. Sometimes infrastructure remains but uses change. This was built in 1850, in the industrial era. Someday the cars won’t be the same, the uses will changes and we have to imagine how. We also worked on the E40 highway, one of the main entrances to Brussels (from ‘60-‘70). The project aims to upgrade the image of the eastern entrance of the city through its transformation and urban and landscape integration. Our strategy was working with scenarios.

A scenario is an evolving story.

Two principles guide the vision of the project. On the one hand, the metropolitan monument dimension of infrastructure invites to exploit this ‘supersurface’ as an extraordinary resource. On the other hand, this search for the potential of the highway goes with a desire for a radical economy of recycling. Once the highway and its mobility are transformed, its habitability conditions evolve. Rethinking the E40 as a truly public place accessible to all and reconfiguring its surroundings shows that an alliance is possible between infrastructure and nature. Public space is something that leads us to the essence of a place, of being somewhere and looking at not only what is built by man but what man is adding to this Earth.

Pierre Alain Trévelo

TVK

TVK – Trévelo& Viger-Kohler

Founded in Paris in 2003 and employingaround 35 people, TVK is a Paris-basedinternationalarchitecture and urban design practicecreated in 2003 by Pierre Alain Trévelo and Antoine Viger-Kohler.  TVK focusesprimarily on the question of building the city and the metropolis. “We are interested in the question of the construction in time. The construction of the city and of the metropolis in time. The aim of ourresearchis to seize the complexity and paradoxical nature of the contemporary city in order to continue itsconstruction. Thisresearchcrossesthereforeessentialtopics, which are sometimesneglected in the contemporary city; suchas the potential of architecture in locationsdetermined by otherfactors, the role of large moderninfrastructures, the status of monumentality, or the environmentalcondition in the metropolitancontext. Architects can no doubt play their part in the construction of a collective culture of metropolitanmetamorphoses. With no aesthetic or moral preconceptions, we are dailytrying to identify the transitions of adolescentcitiestowards a stillunknownurban era.”  

CURRICULUM

Educated in architecture and urbanismmainly in Paris and Harvard, Pierre Alain Trévelopursues a theoritical and build work throughprojects, research and writings. TVK bringstogether the twofoundingmembers of TOMATO Architectesgroupthatproduced the book, Paris, La Ville duPéripherique (Paris: The ring road city), published by Le Moniteur in 2003. Sincethen, the office hascontinueditseditorialactivity with the release of  No Limit. Etudeprospective de l’insertionurbaineduperipherique de Paris (No Limit. ProspectiveStudy of Urban Integration of the Paris Ring Road), published by Pavillon de l’Arsenal in 2008 and around self-publishededitorialprojectslike the book SystèmeOuvert, lesnouveauxmondesduGrand Paris for the Atelier International duGrand Paris or the monographiccollection TAKE.

Responsive environments are an outcome of all the technological tools that we have today and all the new means influencing not only the way that we interrelate with the physical world but, basically, how we design that physical world.

We are witnessing a radical design process shift closely related with performing rather than forming. Technology is becoming our tool to design behaviours and Living Machines oppose to any ‘Machines for Living In

So, it is better talk about performance regarding our buildings, rather than talking just about design. We have to know how they perform during time, how they interact, how they adapt to environmental conditions but also to the users’ needs.

Back in the ‘60s or ‘70s we were able to sketch ideas and visions about cities that can move, cities that can be like robots, things that are not static anymore. We were very intrigued by ways in which we can combine physical spaces with technology of motions and interactions. Today, the most radical change is that we have the technology to build almost everything we imagined in the past, also due to another relevant revolution: the almost total accessibility of information and knowledges.

If computer were once the size of a building, now buildings are becoming computers

In this sense, buildings are not only designed but programmed in a nano scale, which means that are being able to operate in input-output communication protocol. Therefore, they are no more static structures but are becoming living organisms, able to control their own performance by evolving and learning. Nowadays, the most important revolution is about information, so the change that I see coming is the one relate to the concept of connectivity. Connectivity in terms of social interactions that goes beyond any physical limitations and connectivity in relation with merging the virtual and the physical data.

Can machines think? Can buildings think? Can cities think?

Not only think, but also evolve which means learn and have an intelligence integrated into their structure. There is no doubt that today a trend about smart cities exist, but it is also true that the power of information and communication technologies are allowing us to see the urban design in a different way. Cities are dynamic ecosystems, but traditionally we have been designing based of approximated data. Those data are not approximated anymore now because we do have the technology for capturing it in real time and we as designers have the responsibility to project in a more dynamic manner.

On these topics, it is very important to understand which are the controllers of this dynamic behaviours, because it is clear that by now every one of us is able to use app and be more integrated in the public spaces as part of the urban complexity.

Technology inventions are affecting also the perception aspect. The physical space that we inhabit every day now can be seen through many augmented reality tools that are now allowing people to receive information from the urban environment and to program open spaces and systems according to their needs and willing. Augmented reality helps us to simulate conditions and, so, to understand the impact of particular factors or elements in the spaces in terms of contaminations and social interaction. This is clearly becoming a fundamental tool to design and to participate into the design process.

Talking about programming building with new technologies is very important to refer to the use of smart materials that are able to vary their properties as living organisms and to interact with the environment and the users over time. Regarding, for example, the structure of our buildings we can reflect about the concept of durability and about the capacity of a structure system to respond to impacts and shocks.  Working with the potentialities of bio materials, for example with plants, we are today allowed to realize more bio photovoltaic panels into north orientation, into humid and dark climate to generate energy. We need to pass from the digital to the physical interfaces. We don’t want to always have a screen as a mediator to interact with buildings or cities, but we want that all those new technologies are embedded into the nano scale of the buildings themselves. In this sense, it is important to work with a material such as a graphene.

ARETI MARKOPOULOU

IAAC Barcelona

IAAC – Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia

The Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia – IAAC is an international centre for Education, Fabrication and Research dedicated to the development of architecture capable of meeting the worldwide challenges in constructing 21st century habitability. Based in the 22@ district of Barcelona, one of the world’s capitals of architecture and urbanism, not to mention the European Capital for Innovation (2014), IAAC is a platform for the exchange of knowledge with researchers, faculty and students from over 60 countries around the world.

IAAC is Education, with the Master in Advanced Architecture and the Master in City & Technologygiving the next generation of architects the space to imagine, test and shape the future of cities, architecture and technology. This is possible through Open Thesis Fabrication, implementing of Applied Research and allowing learning by doing, as well as through short programs, implementing global agendas developed through local solutions, as the Global Summer School.

CURRICULUM

AretiMarkopoulouis a Greekarchitect,educator and urbantechnologistworking on the intersectionbetweenarchitecture and digitaltechnologies.Sheiscurrently the AcademicDirectorat IAAC in Barcelona, one of the leadinginternationalplatforms for education.Herresearch and practice design explores new architecturalmodelsthat incorporate the application of ICTs (Information and Communication Technologies), Material Intelligence and Fabrication, allowingbuilt and public space to dynamicallyadapt to behavioural and environmentalchanges over time.Shehasbeendevelopingurbanprojects and guidelines for the implementation of ICT in the public space and the implementation of renewable Energy technologies in buildings and open spaces.

Today our environments are facing different metamorphosis. The first is the one in which resilience is considered as design component. Another one is related with the makers’ phenomenon which transform the cities in real laboratories of fabrication, the Fab city, adding the productive component to the urban context. The latter is the metamorphosis of sharing, of the economy and circular society that change our relation with spaces in a radical way.

Any declinations of design we develop today, the main question is what is the impact of these solutions? But more, we are really able to detect those impacts? We have the adequate tools and knowledges to do that?

In the contemporary world, due to the occurrence of those different metamorphosis, we need a sensor to recognize the impacts of them within the new urban metabolism of cities and territories.

The first component of this sensor is the ‘Circular Land’s Horizon’. We know how works the circular economy, but we do need to comprehend and design also the circular territory and to do that we have to improve and update mostly the governance and planning factors.

Another relevant component is the ‘Protocol Matter’ which basically claims for a ‘no more masterplan!’ approach. The masterplan attitude was inspired by the idea of an external energy that would have bring life, prosperity, happiness when it was introduced into a neighbourhood or into a neglected urban area. All the past masterplan projects were basically moved by this rigid belief.

Today we do not have to totally avoid the planning method, but try to think which kind of plan we need to elaborate, which kind of protocol we have to look for.

I proposed to cultivate the ‘City Forming Protocol’ based on three steps: Colonization, Consolidation and Development.

Last component to understand the today world is a real ‘Challenge’, the challenge of the Augmented City. I’m not only talking about smart or intelligent cities, but I’m referring to the possibility to add to our cities a layer in which are condensed all those sensory and sensitive devices belonging to the new technologies. In this way, the city adds also many capabilities to her inhabitants giving them more awareness and power in everyday challenges.  

All the components collected so far are part of a growing ‘Manifesto’ for urbanism and urbanists. According to the Manifesto, our living and working spaces have to be open (and open-source), responsive, social and we would design it as entrepreneurial, fab (namely factory and productive), knowledge and interface cities.

We need to look for the wrong path in order to innovate. The right path no longer leads nowhere.

The final outcome of our work as urbanists and citizens have to be the Creative, Innovative and Knowledge Dividend, that must to be fed in a more collective and sharing way.

These strategies have been tested in two important Bootcamps in the past years: the City Forming Palermo Project (2011/2013) and the City Forming Favara project (ongoing).

MAURIZIO CARTA

unipa

SMART PLANNING LAB

The Smart Planning Lab is an operational tool that integrates applied research, communication and education in the i-NEXT Project (Innovation for greeN Energy and eXchange in Transportation), funded by the Italian Operative Program “Research and Competitiveness”. It carries out three main functions:

1) at an early stage as a producer of context and scenario analysis, and as a producer of solutions aimed at a new and more efficient regulation of life cycles and the localization of actractive urban functions (cultural, economic and social).

2) In the intermediate stage as “intelligent hub” that allows a constant connection with the needs of urban planning and management, using sectorial analysis or operational proposals and developing guidelines for urban governance and integrated planning for the sustainable development.

3)being permanent as a tool of communication and dissemination of methods and outcomes of the Project, contributing to the strengthening of the necessary “Smart Citizenship and Social Innovation”.

CURRICULUM

Maurizio Carta is an architect and PhD in urbanism and regional planning. He is full professor of urban and regional planning at the Department of Architecture of the University of Palermo.

In 1998 he wasamong the founders of the Degree in “Urbanism and Regional and Landscape Planning” of Palermo, whichwasinspired by the holisticvision of Adriano Olivetti and Giovanni Astengo abouturban planning as a discipline capable of integratingdifferentknowledge, interpretations and tools for planning and governingcities, rurallands and landscape. He’sPresident of the Polytechnic School of the University of Palermo and DeputyRector for Territorial Development and Cultural Affairs. He was the Coordinator of the B.Sc in “Urbanism, regional and landscape planning” and of the M.Sc in “Urban and Regional Planning”. He is the responsible of the “Smart Planning Lab” for improving the smartness of cities and communities and for elaborating innovative planning tools.