URBANOLOGY AND MOBILITY

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JULY/AUGUST 2015A MAGAZINE ON CONTEMPORARY CULTURE

Special file:Urbanologyand Mobility

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1939 New York World's FairFuturama exhibit/ride designed by Norman Bel Geddes and sponsored by the General Motors CorporationPhoto courtesy of General Motors Media Archive

VIEWS ON THE CITY When Dirty Boulevard becomes Lucky Lane…

DAMN°51 magazine / URBANOLOGY AND MOBILITY

Those were the days, when even car manufacturers dared to stage grandiloquent exhibitions with neologistic names like Futurama… reimagining the city has been attempted in each and every era, but today we see more events than ever about the livability of our urban environment. Migration, population growth (or shrinkage), housing issues, mobility matters, environmental concerns, you name it… in this section of the magazine, dAMnº takes you out into the streets to consider different sorts of urbanology, from dirty Boulevard via Lucky Lane, all the way to Love Avenue.

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What a marvellous concept, to design an ideal city. Certainly a turn-on for any architect invited to do so. But perhaps a concept is all such a project can successfully be, for how could such a place ever be devised in reality? Alas, it has, on occasion been tried. In Chandigarh, Le Corbusier fully engaged himself and all of his proclivities in conjuring the perfect city. In truth, he rather got away with it, as the result fairly satisfied the expectations of its commissioner, and seemed to please the populace. At least, at first. Chandigarh has proven exceptional in certain categories, such as wealth and cleanliness. But a utopia it is not.

DAMN°51 magazine / CHANDIGARH REDUX

Ideal cities like Chandigarh are 1:1 models of a bet-ter world – they represent a political programme that came true, and then, over time, failed. What makes such cities interesting from today’s standpoint is the way they deal with visions and illusions. Werner Feiersinger’s photographic explorations of daily life in this Indian city show what the political and ideo-logical will executed, and how people are dealing with the results 50 years later.

Wide, straight boulevards, multi-storey structures, standardised building types, and rows and clusters of residential blocks: Werner Feiersinger’s photo-graphic essay focuses on the architecture, public space, and interiors in the city of Chandigarh, the iconic capital of Punjab and Haryana. But the Austri-an artist is not interested in a devout view. His works does not celebrate the myth of India’s famous, arti-ficially planned city by Le Corbusier known as The City Beautiful. Instead, the images reveal everyday life at the present time, in all its detail. Thus, obser-vations such as promotional signs on façades, crum-bling concrete surfaces, and nature growing wild are not hidden or blurred, but constitute part of the

atmosphere conveyed by the pictures. Through the photographer’s camera lens, Chandigarh becomes a relic of a former dream – a dream dreamt a long time ago and that at certain moments can be retraced, from a distance. So it can be observed that the cin-ema is now abandoned, while other public buildings are spirited ruins that still function. All in all, this city near the foothills of the Himalayas belongs to a former architectural and political dream that condi-tions an often-inconvenient reality nowadays.

PIE IN THE SKY

In 1950, Le Corbusier and Pierre Jeanneret where invited, together with English architects Maxwell Fry and Jane Drew, to work on a new design for Chandigarh, a young city founded shortly before-hand as India’s first post-independence city. “And I tell you, this will be my lifework, in the Indian nation; an extraordinary, civilised nation”, wrote Le Corbusier in a letter from 1951. According to his ideology, the planning of Chandigarh was synony-mous with a better world, full of vitality and posi-tive simplicity. The matrix for the urban area of 80

Everyday Life in a Former Utopia Revisiting Chandigarh

SANDRA HOFMEISTERPHOTOS: WERNER FEIERSINGER

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square kilometres was held together by Corb’s strict ideals of rhythm and expression, scale and function. Grids and clusters were the leitmotif for the better life the architect was planning; he was commis-sioned by Nehru, India’s first Prime Minister, who wanted the future vision for India to come true.

Ideal cities like Chandigarh, Brasilia, or Putrajaya, the ultra-modern administrative centre in the south-west of Malaysia, deal with future expectations and with the utopic potential of political visions. Similar to the absolutistic or renaissance ideal for cities, they are arranged as perfect societies without mistakes, with no place remaining for unforeseen develop-ments. Compared to open city structures that can grow according to the needs of the people, those 1:1 models of cities are totalitarian, in a certain sense. They categorically exclude other ideas, with no place for the unexpected; they do not respond to diverse political opinions or historical changes that might arise unplanned. And they do not respond to individual requirements other than the ones that had been surmised in the overall planning.

STRICTLY ELEMENTARY

Le Corbusier’s master plan for Chandigarh is no ex-ception. The strict grid for the urban site was ar-ranged according to a system of hierarchic building types. For government employees, there were thir-teen types and subtypes of housing. And of course there were also clear rules for private upper and middle class housing, for dormitories, and so on. But in the end, the houses and the planning pos-sessed much too little individuality from today’s point of view. There was no desire to avoid cater-ing to the class system in India; rather, the archi-tecture and the master plan strengthened it. “In the end, the caste system was latently inscribed into the order of the city”, emphasises Andreas Vass in his essay accompanying the photographs in the book Chandigarh Redux. Everything in Corbusier’s plan-ning was classified and quantified, from the whole of the city to the 17 single sectors to each housing type and architectural form. Cylinders and cuboids,


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Chandigargh Redux: Le Corbusier, Pierre Jeanneret, Jane B. Drew, E. Maxwell Fry, ed. by Martin and Werner Feiersinger, with photographs by Werner Feiersinger and an essay by Andreas Cass; 416 pages, Scheidegger & Spiess, Zurich, 2015, ISBN 978-85881-762-4


round columns… the elementary vocabulary of the city centre is typical of modernity and reminiscent of Corbusier’s architectural language in his European projects. But how shall we deal with an architecture that obviously followed strict ideals and later failed?

Werner Feiersinger’s photographs can provide an answer to this question. The 17 different sectors of the city are documented through a large collection of images. The photos respect the buildings and spaces, but the contemporary surroundings attest to the distance. ‹

The book contains more than300 photographs.its title is reminiscent ofFrancis Ford coppola’sApocalypse now redux.

The book also pays homageto another book, chandigarh 1956, by Swiss photographer ernst Scheidegger, who took pictures on the construction site in chandigarh.

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DAMN°51 magazine / VIENNA BIENNALE

Ferdinand GT3 rS Bicycle-porsche, for deceleration and ecologically gentle mobility, by hannes Langeder, 2010© hannes Langeder

Prompting its creative contributors to ponder the future, the Vienna Biennale has assembled many exhibitions both indoors and outdoors around the city, under the theme of Ideas for Change. Of all of these exhibitions, 2051: Smart Life in the City is of particular interest, as it rather cuts to the quick in its attempt to determine what the city might realistically become. Through the means of individual installations devised by 10 different project teams, it describes a sensible, manageable evolution that involves the citizens and a certain amount of technology, where design is solely employed as a tool to engender an agreeable sort of transformation.

The 2015 Vienna Biennale blasted off with a quest for the new utopia, a better future for the city ranked 1st in the world for quality of life*.

Under the motto Ideas for Change, and with a pio-neering multidisciplinary approach interconnecting the creative fields of architecture, design, and art, the Vienna Biennale has harnessed its creative im-pulses to promote positive change. Inspired by the Secessionists as well as 1900 Vienna modernism and its tradition of interweaving the creative fields, this very first Vienna Biennale claims to differ from all other biennales in the world, and to offer us a utopic glimpse of the future.

How to design the future? For thousands of years, human beings have tried to predict what is to come,

and, for better or worse, it is one of the favourite pastimes of our species. Occasionally we stop to en-vision the future. Depending on the context of the moment, and with the help of science fiction films, literature, architecture, and design, we dream-up perfect worlds or post-apocalyptic realities.

The first Utopia was devised by Sir Thomas More in his book of 1516. According to the British Library, More actually coined the term, borrowing from the Greek ou-topos meaning ‘no place’ or ‘nowhere’. But this was a pun – the almost identical Greek word eutopos means ‘a good place’. So, at the very heart of the word is a vital question: can a perfect world ever be realised?” Every major advance, like the Tech-nological Revolution that spanned into the 1900s, the space race of the 1960s, or the so-called Digital

Back to the FutureThe Vienna Biennale plays it cool

ALINE LARA REZENDE 2051: Smart Life in the City, The hotel (demonstrator) / in the lobby of the magdas hoTeL, travellers are welcomed by portraits of the employees and furniture finds© AllesWirdGut Architektur/Guilherme Silva da rosa

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BEING SOCIAL

These Demonstrators invite visitors, ‘smart citizens’ – defined by Thomas Gleiser as people who are re-sponsible for their environment, including urban planning – to participate in projects such as the one at magdas Hotel by AllesWirdGut Architektur, which brings together tourists, asylum seekers, and refugees to tackle the problem of migration; or the #openschool by Van Bo Le-Mentzel and Jakob Lista-barth & crowd at Alois-Drasche-Park, to rethink educational tools and direction. These ideas are pre-sented together in a central exhibition at the MAK, while the Demonstrators are positioned in the streets for the duration of the biennale.

The whole exhibition screams social design, but, cu-riously, it is not labelled as such. Social Design is used to define design processes that focus on im-proving well being and living conditions. It is gener-ally associated with equality, a response to social-po-litical and humanitarian issues. However, the term is deliberately avoided in any texts about this ex-hibition. Thomas Gleiser elaborates, “Social design should be an underlying idea, not a label. Sustain-able or social design should be implied in any kind of design. Every design is social.” Of course, we all want a better world! We want the ultimate utopian society – freedom, safety, high technology, and easy mobility; unbiased gender and race systems, and un-limited resources. But what is the catch?

FIRST PLACE

Paola Antonelli (Senior Curator of Architecture & Design as well as Director of R&D, at MoMA), in her article for Domus Magazine, States of Design 10: So-cial Design*, points out the potential dangers associ-ated with grand ideals of social design. “It suggests a type of design that is not conceived for the benefit of individuals, but rather for idealised and averaged groupings thereof, with the intent of improving their conditions. It also suggests outside-intervention and, indeed, a teacher-pupil relationship.” 2051: Smart Life in the City cleverly avoids this bias by being lo-cal. The 10 Demonstrator projects are springboards for designers, in collaboration with the community, to rethink their situation. All stakeholders are local, working within their own context. This isn’t a colo-nising mission to show less economically developed societies how to do it better; this is the best city in the world trying to surpass itself.

There is nothing radical about the utopian vision of Vienna in 2051 proposed by this exhibition. It does not resemble an unbearable Mad Max scenario, nor does it depict hoverboards, flying cars, or trips to outer space, as our future has previously been imag-ined. The Vienna of the future is still fundamentally rooted in the present. Less aesthetically provocative, likely disappointing sci-fi fans along the way, it is nonetheless more graspable. It thinks of the future not as an end-result or a scenic proposal, but as a collaborative journey to be achieved. In its simplic-ity and humbleness, Viennese designers, thinkers, and change-makers are empowering their popula-tion to maintain its lead in the world’s quality-of-life rankings. ‹

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ViennA BiennALe 2015: ideAS For chAnGe2051: Smart Life in the City, MAK exhibition hall (1)© peter Kainz/MAK

2051: Smart Life in the City, The hospital (demonstrator); industrial design 2 – Fiona raby: human-plant symbiosis, 2015 (2)© SYMBioSiS

2051: Smart Life in the City, The School (demonstrator); The flying classroom – Van Bo Le-Mentzel and the first attempts at a flying classroom as part of the #openschoool, 2015 (3)© daniela Gellner

Modernity of our current time, unravels fears and hopes, causing us to question our future. The theme of this biennale compels us to go back to the future, to design it anew.

TESTING, TESTING

An ambitious, overarching project, the presenta-tions take place in multiple settings across the city, including the MAK – Museum of Applied Arts/Con-temporary Art, Kunsthalle Wien, University of Ap-plied Arts Vienna’s Applied Innovation Laboratory, Architekturzentrum Wien, and various public spac-es. The main concerns of the biennale are: the fast and pervasive implications of Digital Modernity on society – the process of digitalisation in our every-day lives, and its consequences – already considered as socially and culturally disruptive as the industrial revolution; the social responsibility for the overex-ploitation of our planet’s resources; and urban de-velopment.

“How do we want to live in the future?” is the cen-tral question posed by 2051: Smart Life in the City, an exhibition focused on improvements in urban life. Curators Harald Gruendl (Co-partner at EOOS and Director at IDRV – Institute of Design Research Vienna) and Thomas Geisler (Curator of the MAK Design Collection) examine this question through 10 commissioned proposals intended to develop and test possible alternatives to life in the city; called Demonstrators, these are spread around Vienna. In these proposals, design is repositioned as a strategic tool for change rather than as a discipline. The main goal is to instigate collective practice and accounta-bility throughout the process of transformation, and to design of the city of the future.

DAMN°51 magazine / VIENNA BIENNALE

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3*Mercer survey, 4 March 2015, London, UK / uk.mercer.com

Vienna Biennale: Ideas for Change runs until 4 October 2015. viennabiennale.org

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2051: Smart Life in the City, The home (demonstrator); housing project with a flexible floor plan / The red apartment towers, designed and realised by Klaus Kada, are located in the newly constructed Sonnwendviertel near the hauptbahnhof, Vienna’s main railway station. (1)© Gerhard hagen/gerhard-hagen.de

2051: Smart Life in the City, The Street (demonstrator); future.lab, TU Wienas far as work goes, 2015 (2)© ekaterina Timinacybernetic city Map 2051cybernetic system design, 4-care model, © Mariapruckner.comGraphic design: buero bauer

2051: Smart Life in the City, The Shopping Mall (demonstrator); Julia Landsiedl/jeplus, Shopping Spotting, 2015 (3)© MAK/nathan Murrell

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So is the future of cities all about looking at the dark matter, the inner workings of administrative, political, and social systems, or is it about civic appropriation and the renegotiation of public spaces and shared resources? Or, indeed is it about transforming the growing culture of civic participation into innovative, sustainable architecture and urban planning agendas? Or maybe it’s about new flexible workspaces, affordable residential housing, and factory halls in the middle of the city. At the Make City festival in Berlin this year there was much discussed and reflected upon. Having mustered a gamut of support, from professionals to private individuals, the event engendered the wholehearted involvement of the masses.

DAMN°51 magazine / MAKE CITY BERLIN

Reinventing the ModelBerlin’s festival for urban alternatives

JULIA ALBANI

This past June, Berlin celebrated the debut of its very own architecture festival, far behind other Eu-ropean capitals that for decades have rocked an-nual, biennial, or triennial architecture gatherings, such as London, Copenhagen, Rotterdam, and even Montpellier, Oslo, and Lisbon. The kick-off of the Berlin edition took the form of a bazar for urban al-ternatives, with over 200 events, exhibitions, tours, and talks on offer. During the three-week stretch, a citywide conversation penetrated the German capital – a place exceptionally rich in terms of free spaces and opportunities, as well as in makers and pioneers, where one still can think and make city differently, as festival director and initiator Franc-esca Ferguson put it. The idea for the Make City festival was established following the Senate of Ber-lin’s decision to cancel the International Building Exhibition (IBA) in the summer of 2013, while at the same time the discussion on a referendum for the 100% Tempelhofer Feld (the former Tempelhof airport) initiative was still in full swing. When the referendum finally happened, over a million citi-zens became involved in opposing the land sales policy. By then it became clear that Berlin needed

an inclusive discussion about new participation processes that encompasses architecture, politics, investors, and citizens.

Berlin has proven itself to be an exception – few other cities in Europe still have such a quantity of free ar-eas and public spaces. No other city can lay claim to this much creative potential while at the same time having so little in the way of capital, also in terms of possible investors. Berlin suffered a rise in property prices of nearly 40% between 2003 and 2011, far more than in the rest of Germany, and rents have risen by 28% since 2007, with the former ‘poor but sexy’ model alerting a shortage of some 500,000 af-fordable homes. When money is scarce and govern-ance fails, people are compelled to become active. Multiple extraordinary examples of this principle have fuelled exhibitions worldwide in recent years, and it has become fashionable to celebrate sprout-ing new prototypes that break traditional bounda-ries and question entire professions and processes, donning labels like Actions: What You Can Do With the City, Small Scale / Big Change, and We-Traders / Swapping Crisis for City.

Allmende Kontor: community garden, Tempelhofer Feld (1)photo © Michael Jungblut

park am Gleisdreieck (2)photo © Julien Lanoo

hives in the city: urban rooftop beekeeping (3)photo © Stiftung für Mensch und Umwelt

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DAMN°51 magazine / MAKE CITY BERLIN

ALL FOR ONE AND ONE FOR ALL

Ferguson set three key themes for the inaugural con-cept of the festival, subtitled Re_Sourcing the Ur-ban: Urban Commons, that were focused on civic appropriation and the renegotiation of public spaces and shared resources; Urban Open Source, which asked how the growing culture of civic participa-tion could be transformed into innovative, sustain-able architecture and urban planning agendas. And Urban Living/Working, which featured new flexible workspaces, affordable residential housing, and fac-tory halls in the middle of the city.

Since the festival could not count on public fund-ing, it was supported by over 120 partners, ranging from architecture and landscape studios to individu-als, collectives, and institutions, who co-designed the festival, and instead of opening-up their spaces

in the usual way to show their latest projects, cu-rated special studio talks and tours enabling unu-sual encounters to occur. Among these were David Chipperfield Architects, Holzer Kobler Architek-turen, Ortner & Ortner, sauerbruch hutton, Staab Architekten, as well as Atelier Loidl, Robertneun, Flussbad Berlin, DAZ German Centre for Architec-ture, AA Projects, and the Berlinische Galerie. Un-der the self-organisation principle, each of them co-financed the festival to the tune of 1500 euros, on average. “They embraced the platform because they felt a political urgency and wanted to use the festival framework in which to take a stand on vari-ous issues”, says Ferguson. “Make City developed its own dynamics. Rather than being an event where people had to pay to take part, certain people paid to support others who could not afford their founding partnership fee.”

DELIGHTFUL, SURPRISING, PRECISE

Amid the numerous events, Berliners could ex-change their perceptions of the urban fabric with one another in the Chipperfield Kantine, or discuss how to combine awareness with pragmatism by fol-lowing Arno Brandlhuber’s survey that unfolded the future potential of 58 optional plots of land within the vicinity of his studio. The architect registered narrow, wedge-shaped pieces of unused land situ-ated in-between existing buildings that are devoid of any real estate value. During a single festival day, one could start at atelier le balto’s Wo-ist-der-Garten

makecity.berlin

(Where is the garden) – a project about making ne-glected urban areas into recreational spaces, joining the garden party to celebrate its 10th anniversary, and then head to art collector Axel Haubrok’s FAHR-BEREITSCHAFT – a project that is turning GDR buildings in Berlin-Lichtenberg into new work-spaces, and from there climb up the neighbouring San Gimignano towers near the Vietnamese market, a project by Arno Brandlhuber, afterwards heading to a studio talk at ludloff + ludloff Architekten, in which heredity leasing versus ownership was dis-cussed with theorist and provocateur Andrej Holm, finally ending up at Olivia Reynolds’ LoBe (a con-temporary art residency), where a solstice bonfire invited architects to burn their useless models and plans, as a happening.

In the festival centre, nestled inside the Czech Cen-tre’s Brutalist 1970s building close to the Branden-burg Gate, an extensive international discourse took place that went well beyond borders, thus it was much more than Berlin patting itself on the back. International guests like Indy Johar (Architecture 00) and Dan Hill (Future Cities Catapult) stressed the fact that the future of cities is all about looking at the dark matter, the inner workings of administra-tive, political, and social systems. And Fran Tonk-iss (Professor of Sociology at the London School of Economics and Director of the Cities Programme) warned Berliners about heavily idealised urban com-mons.

A rousing cry by the partners, who felt they were caught short by this first venture, have called for a next edition, which is envisioned to be held in two years’ time. ‹

Mediaspree vs. Spreeufer for All?cc BY-SA 2.0 - creative commons

Technische Universität Berlin: Beware of Smart people! occupy central, hong Kong photo © Marc Latzel

david chipperfield Architects: canteen (1)photo © david chipperfield Architects

rumänisches Kulturinstitut: cardboard shelter (2)photo © des châteaux en l’air

Luchtsingel, a crowd-fundedpedestrian bridge in rotterdam (3)photo © Zones Urbaines Sensibles

heinrich Böll Stiftung: Top down vs. Bottom Up? Learning from Germany’s most famous building site (4)photo © diana Muschiol

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Architect Liam Young is keen to develop projects that elucidate mankind’s current way of life, with a strong belief that this will naturally open up the prospect of living differently. Positioning himself in an art and design context, Young, in collaborations with others, looks at the spaces between design, fiction, and futures, exploring the possibilities of fantastic, speculative, imaginary urbanisms. He also runs a nomadic studio that makes annual expeditions to the ends of the earth in order to investigate unreal and forgotten landscapes, alien terrains, and industrial ecologies, to survey the consequences of emerging environmental and technological scenarios.

Liam Young reveals the reals

LÉOPOLD LAMBERT

GEO-TECHNO WONDERLAND

Samsung city, 2015new city series4K animated video still

Since 2008, architects Liam Young and Kate Davies, founders of Unknown Fields Division, have organ-ised 11 trips in which they have taken their students at the Architectural Association in London, as well as a few other creative colleagues (filmmakers, art-ists, novelists, designers, architects, etc.) to various extreme geological sites, such as the sapphire mines in Madagascar, the frozen sea ice in the Arctic Circle, and the corrupted earth in Chernobyl. The idea be-hind these frequent expeditions is to rethink the way we imagine (and thus design) our cities, by consid-ering a geological and technological approach.

While many architects and urban designers con-tinue to think of the city as a singular point on the map, Young and Davies argue for a vision of the city as “a networked object casting shadows that stretch across the planet”. In other words, the infrastructure

of a city is to be found as much in its underground and direct geographical surroundings as in vari-ous places across the globe that feed it with various products and goods, and extract its different forms of waste after consumption.

In this regard, the 2014 expedition was arranged as a trip from the streets of London, where the latest versions of smartphones and laptops are sold, to their geological source in Inner Mongolia. Entitled A World Adrift, this specific journey took the Un-known Fields Division group on a container ship in the South China Sea, following in the tracks of the boxes on those containers – to where the objects themselves are assembled, their electronic chips inserted, the rare earth metal that composes them refined, as well as to the lake of radioactive waste resulting from the process.

DAMN°51 magazine / LIAM YOUNG

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Young and Davies’s agenda is not a moralising one. They acknowledge that the documentation of a po-lar bear on a drifting piece of ice, despite the emo-tional affect it creates, does not crucially impact the way we organise our way of life. Instead, Unknown Fields Division prefers to position itself as a group of designers and artists. As its Rare Earthenware project attests: three ceramic vessels (exhibited at the Victoria and Albert Museum) were shaped by Kevin Callaghan using the exact quantity of radioactive waste created by the production of a smartphone, a featherweight laptop, and an electric car battery cell, brought back from Inner Mongolia by Young and Davies.

Their manifesto consists of no longer thinking of the architectural practice as a punctual, site-oriented entity, but rather, “constructing stories and fictions that imagine new ways of intervening within the conditions [that they study], as well as designing networks”. Thus, the projects that the students cre-ate subsequent to the expeditions are often oriented towards a science-fictive approach, in order to de-scribe the complexity of the reciprocal geographic relations that compose these networks without con-sidering the latter through a moralising reading.

The other part of Young’s practice, assembled un-der the name Tomorrow’s Thoughts Today (founded with Darryl Chen), fully investigates this speculative architectural and technological approach. Drones, in particular, are at the core of two projects with various collaborators: Electronic Countermeasures (2011) with security consultant Eleanor Saitta and designer Oliviu Lugojan-Ghenciu, and LOOP>>60 Hz: Transmissions from the Drone Orchestra (2014) with renowned musician John Cale. This technol-ogy, just like many others (computers and the In-ternet are obvious examples), contains a military essence in its very function, but Young is interested in how such an essence can be repurposed for more democratic and/or creative aims.

A World Adrift (1)Unknown Fields division projectchina, 2013From the deck of the Maersk cargo ship, the vast container fields of Ningbo Port stretch to the horizonphoto © Liam Young/Unknown Fields

The end of the World and other Bedtime Stories (2)Unknown Fields division projectArctic circle, 2009

Baotou Toxic Lake (1)Unknown Fields division projectinner Mongolia, 2014

Loop>>60 hz: Transmissions from the drone orchestra, 2014 (2)by Liam Young & John caleFilm still

electronic countermeasures eindhoven, 2011 (3)

Vases / rare earthenware: radioactive ceramics (4)Unknown Fields division project Asia, 2014 commissioned by the Victoria and Albert Museum, LondonWith ceramics assistance from KevinKevin callaghan and animationassistance from christina Varvia Film still © Toby Smith/Unknown Fields

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DAMN°51 magazine / LIAM YOUNG

Electronic Countermeasures was inspired by the shutdown of the Internet in the entire territory of Egypt by the Hosni Mubarak administration dur-ing the two last weeks of the Revolution in January-February 2011: this series of small quadcopter drones provides a Wi-Fi connection independent of national networks, to the devices situated in their proximity, as well as a pirate file-sharing network. This project also accidentally reflected on the perverse security context in which the West currently lives, since Young and Lugojan-Ghenciu were placed on the terrorist watch-list when they travelled with drones in their luggage at around the time of the London Olympics in 2012.LOOP>>60 Hz: Transmissions from the Drone Or-chestra comprises of two improvised performances between Cale, his band, and Young’s drones, which occurred in the Barbican Hall in London in Septem-ber 2014. In the 1960s, Cale was interested in how the operating sound of a ubiquitous novel technol-ogy like the electric refrigerator would constitute the sound of an era. The continuous sound of our time might be that of the drone (a noise that actually gave its name to the object itself), which is at the core of this orchestra. The speculative notion of technol-ogy’s emancipation is also at work in this project, as it aims at the drone’s own improvisation.

Young’s work, both with Unknown Fields Division and Tomorrow's Thoughts Today is profoundly contemporaneous in the way it engages the infra-structural (geological) and technological conditions that form the world at this specific moment, and it is also fundamentally speculative in its continuous effort to broaden our creative and critical imagina-tions through (science) fiction and other inventive networked practices. ‹

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unknownfieldsdivision.com / tomorrowsthoughtstoday.com / cityofdrones.io

The Rare Earthenware radioactive ceramic vessels can be seen in the What is Luxury? exhibition at the V&A in London until 27 September 2015. vam.ac.uk

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Bruges is perhaps one of the most suitable places on the planet in which to hold a contemporary Art and Architecture Triennial, in that it comprises of an unusually well preserved centuries-old urban context, and thus provides physical contrast. Those that have contributed works, many of whom are from the world’s fastest expanding metropolises, have imagined this small city should its millions of tourists become inhabitants. With projects that succinctly confront the issues of public and private space, the message resounds: through the increasing privatisation of common property, the public environment is being systematically torn away from the citizens it is meant to serve, here in this picturesque setting and in all the world’s cities.

WHO OWNS THE CITY?

Renegotiating the urban commons in Bruges

VEERLE DEVOS

DAMN°51 magazine / TRIENNIAL BRUGES

Tree Huts in the courtyard of the Béguinage by Japanese artist Tadashi Kawamata, who has installed similar wooden structures in New York, Paris, and BerlinPhoto: Tim Theo Deceuninck

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3Mass tourism. According the curators: “Every year, over five million tourists visit Bruges. What if they all decided to stay? What if a small, well preserved, historic city suddenly became a megalopolis?” This is the premise held by the artists and architects par-ticipating in the 2015 Art and Architecture Trien-nial, and a mental exercise for the 22,000 inhabit-ants of the old town centre as well as the millions of international visitors.

Those tourists, let’s face it, visit for a legitimate rea-son, which is to enjoy the glorious city as it was during the 13th to 15th centuries: “Everything at that time happened either here or in Florence”, says Till-Holger Borchert. Bruges was the most impor-tant trading centre in North-western Europe; the very first stock market was also created here. “Some scholars call it the cradle of capitalism.” Entrepre-neurial business people, innovative artists, scien-tists, and architects from all across Europe have set-tled in Bruges. “Painting as we know it was shaped here, when the revolutionary master, Jan Van Eyck, moved to the city and inspired others to follow.” At the end of the 15th century, though, Bruges fell into disrepair. Then, in around 1870, a romantic interest for the mediaeval past arose, whence the city was promptly restored in the neo-Gothic style, albeit with a touch of artistic liberty (i.e. not necessarily based on historical research). All that did not fit the neo-Gothic image was demolished. The result was an imaginary mediaeval city that has withstood the test of time, partly because Bruges was spared dur-ing the World Wars. And in 2000, the entire city centre became a UNESCO World Heritage Site. An excellent place to experiment with contemporary urban ideas in art and architecture!

REIMAGINING THE NOISE

That is, in theory. If one organises a Triennial in a UNESCO protected location, one is confronted with regulations, prohibitions, and bureaucratic

procedures. Not allowing a light-projection on the Belfry because “it would disturb the Gothic character of the building” makes perfect sense in Bruges… Sadly, bureaucratic rules are not the only obstacles: there are also reluctant local politicians and certain inhabitants who for decades have re-jected everything that smells of contemporaneity. Thus, even the totally innocuous aural landscapes by Bruce Odland and Sam Auinger were received with indignation. The artists had sampled the noise in Bruges for inclusion in an artwork called Quiet is the New Loud, and in an interview dared to comment on how “shockingly quiet” Bruges is. “You still hear birds chirping in the centre of town!” This, in sharp contrast with their home cities of New York and Berlin. They even called it “the capi-tal of quietness”. You might think this is great pub-licity for Bruges as a liveable city, but some of the residents where angry: for them, it is not yet quiet enough. Curiously, the 55,000 inhabitants of me-diaeval Bruges would probably not recognise their own town in its time – it is likely to have been a lot noisier then, when Bruges was a cosmopolitan, bustling, innovative world city.

ASSESSING THE FUTURE

But it’s not just a significant per cent of those born and bred in Bruges who are sniffy towards the Trien-nial. “When you all of a sudden bring five million people into a city, you also have to ask the ques-tion: what is private and what is public”, remarks Michel Dewilde. Japanese architect Yoshiharu Tsu-kamoto and his Atelier Bow-Wow do precisely that, by way of a wooden platform situated on one of the Reien canals, a sanctuary where the inhabitants can meet. It is in a part of the city that’s rarely frequent-ed by tourists (the tour boats make a U-turn here) and where UNESCO has no hold. Still, protests

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Where should citizens meet one another in Bruges? There are tourists everywhere… In the city’s most public, touristic, commercial square, Norwegian artist Vibeke Jensen created a mirror sculpture where residents can rendezvous in private amid the bustle. (1)Photo: Veerle Devos

co-curator Till-holger Borchert, who is originally from hamburg, Germany – a city that was heavily bombed during World War ii: “Some perceive Bruges as an open-air-mediaeval-disney-World-for-tourists; i enjoy the fact that this is a european city preserving its heritage very well.” (2) photo: Veerle devos

Word sculpture A Place Beyond Belief by Nathan Coley, made in reference to 9/11 / The English artist likes to place this work in cities across the world in order to connect them. (3)Photo: Peter De Bruyne

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Atelier Bow-Wow built the Canal Swimmer’s Club on the Reien canal: a platform for relaxation, encounters, and picnics, and from which you can jump into the water. (1)Photo: Sarah Bauwens

Curator Michel Dewilde at the Canal Swimmer’s Club (2)

Undercurrent by HeHe: Helen Evans (UK) & Heiko Hansen (DE) (3)Photo: Veerle Devos


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The Triennial challenges all of us to reconsider the identity of our cities. In Bruges, the ‘cradle of capi-talism’ that since 1870 has been committed to the reconstruction of its mediaeval self, this mission is largely accomplished: everyone, from participat-ing artists to the tourism board to local politicians and residents to supranational administrations, has been addressing the subject with much passion. This is greatly needed, as apart from the side ef-fects of mass tourism and the privatisation of the public domain, there are extra challenges hidden behind those perfectly restored façades. For in-stance, Bruges tops the list of Belgian’s shrinking and ageing cities, with less than half of the original population now living in the centre. Generations of young creatives have been relocating to more hap-pening places, not least because of the high real estate prices – even though there’s quite a lot of va-cant property, including churches and monasteries. The questions raised by the Triennial are therefore pertinent. What kind of future does Bruges have in mind – to become a gated community for wealthy senior citizens? Or to open itself up and become a living city where people of various backgrounds and ages have the opportunity to practice their skills amidst an attitude of tolerance?

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arose from neighbouring homeowners. “I bought this house along with the landscape”, claimed one proud proprietor of a mediaeval building with view on the canal. Those wealthy (often foreign) residents seem to consider the public environment their own and are reluctant to share it. This would merely be a sad story were it not that what is hap-pening in Bruges is exemplary of what is currently occurring in the rest of the world. Michel Dewilde: “Many cities today no longer belong to the average citizen, but rather to large institutions and to the affluent. Bruges is not unique in that respect – for example, in Shanghai you can legally buy parts of urban landscapes. Common property is becoming increasingly privatised.” This all started ages ago with the enclosure of the commons. Thomas More wrote about it back in 1516 in his book Utopia: wealthy individuals who just put a fence around the public good, which is thus no longer accessible to everyone. Et voilà.


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Gold Guides Me by norwegian artist Anne K. Senstad, at the pakhuizen, a popular hangout among Triennial-goers (1)photo: Veerle devos

Vertically integrated Socialism, an installation in a disused church by canadian artist nicolas Grenier / his idea is that the poor would live for free on the ground floor, with their rent covered by the middle class residents that live above them, who, in their turn, pay less than the millionaires in the penthouse. (2)photo: Sarah Bauwens

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With his passage room, Belgian artist daniel dewaele tackles the Triennial’s hypothetical question about what would happen if Bruges’ five million visitors should suddenly decide to stay. (3)photo: Sarah Bauwens

Bridge by the canal, byindian architect Bijoy Jain ofStudio Mumbai / Jain made an architectural trompe-l’oeil: an artisanal bridge with no function whatsoever, situated next to the canal, serving as a meeting point for those who wish to contemplate the city. (1)photo: piet Goethals

israeli artist romy Achituv installed his cataract Gorge piece – a wooden reconstruction of a typical Bruges Gothic brick house – in the canal basin, where the city is linked to the sea. in the Middle Ages, goods and wealth flowed into the city along these canals. (2)photo: Sarah Bauwens

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ADDRESSING THE VOID

On the other hand, if Bruges symbolises the museu-mification of cities throughout Europe, with tourism becoming the most important sector of the economy, this may well be the only opportunity for the old continent to survive the future. In this sense, the people who decided to restore Bruges back in 1870 might have had it right, providing the city with a unique selling proposition for its economic future. This is rather how Chinese artist Song Dong sees it. His installation of windows from demolished hutongs positioned at the feet of Sint-Salvator Ca-thedral confronts us with daily reality in his home-town of Beijing, where the patrimony is being de-stroyed at a furious pace to make way for new mega buildings. Then give us Bruges! We spotted a lot of work by Asian artists at the Triennial. Michel Dewil-de: “We determinedly invited artists and architects from Mumbai, Beijing, Tokyo, and Seoul. People who know from experience what it feels like to live in a rapidly growing city, who have long since been rethinking their heritage and urban identity, who have to act to preserve their rights as residents and their quality of life.”

This Triennial is proving to be a very interesting exercise, forcing Bruges to question its own myths and to reflect on its future and identity. A Triennial can reshape a city, even after 41 years of inactiv-ity. But could this effect not simply disappear as soon as all the temporary works of art and archi-tecture have been removed, with everything falling back into the old folds? “After the installations are gone, people will realise the void. That is where the magic starts”, Till-Holger Borchert concludes, on a hopeful note. ‹

Triennial Bruges, a free art and architecture event in the historical city of Bruges, runs until 18 October 2015. triennalebrugge.be


Wu Wei er Wei by Song dong, made from the windows of demolished chinese buildings, with Wu Wei, a concept of Taoism that means ‘inaction’ written above the sculpture in neon letters (2)photo: Veerle devos

chinese artist Song dong, whose work reflects upon the instability of existence and the transience of human contribution / his family history, the politico-cultural history of china, and the profound changes that urban Beijing is undergoing, are all recurring themes in his work. (1)photo: Tim Theo deceuninck

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If the mountain will not come to Mohammed, then Mohammed must go to the mountain. Which is a bit like what Julien de Casabianca enacted with his Outings Project: if people don’t go into museums, let the paintings go out into the streets and come to life among human beings. “I was at the Louvre and saw a forgotten painting of a young lady”, the French artist tells DAMN°, referring to the portrait of Mademoiselle Caroline Rivière by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres. “I had a kind of Prince Charming impulse: free her from the castle! So I took a photo of the picture and pasted it all over Paris, and it im-mediately became something obvious. I then felt as though I had to do this everywhere in the world, and to ask others to do the same, because it is really easy!”

This was the start of a participative project that went viral and brought thousands of images of ‘painted people’ from the past out of the museum and into the streets. “The reactions I get when I stick the por-traits up outside are always amazing: both young and old people love it; we don’t hide, or put them up at night when it’s dark, we do it during the day, in front of everybody, and it is never a problem. Lots of people even say thanks.” Women especially love the project. “We cannot understand why, but it’s mostly women who support us. On Facebook, for instance, 70% of our fans are women.”

The project has spread all across Europe, from Bar-celona to London, from Riga to Rome. The warmest reactions have come from Poland. “The feedback in

GETTING OUTRe-visioning museum art

It may be obvious, but as is often the case, it’s the obvious ideas that are usually late to arrive. Julien de Casabianca had the inkling to place posters of a painting he saw in the Louvre throughout the city of Paris, and as a result, a trend was set. He promoted the activity in other places, and very soon it took on a life of its own, with other individuals in other European cities following suit. A website about the project became the basis for the action, and it is now happening worldwide. Perhaps its most notable aspect is the fact that it has received virtually no negative criticism.

SYLVIA ANNA BARRILÀ IMAGES: OUTINGS PROJECT, COURTESY OF OUTINGS PROJECT

dijon, France

Gdansk, poland (1)rome, italy (2)Gdansk, poland (3)riga, Latvia (4)Asunción, paraguay (5)

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DAMN°51 magazine / OUTINGS PROJECT

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Warsaw was incredible! 700,000 visits on our Face-book page, 45,000 likes on Facebook links, a ton of beautiful messages. It made us feel like the Out-ings Project was necessary!” Julien de Casabianca’s project is now stretching beyond European borders, reaching other parts of the world, places like Belo Horizonte in Brazil, Islamabad in Pakistan, Cotonou in Benin, and Shah Alam in Malaysia.

THIS WAY OR THAT WAY

On the Outings Project website, people interested in taking part will find all the necessary information on how to realise the posters. Few indications are given about which kinds of paintings to choose: any cen-tury is welcome – to date, de Casabianca has focused on the 15th and 17th centuries – and anonymous paintings are preferred. But there is one rule: people must only choose paintings from museums in the city in which the posters are to be displayed! Fur-ther helpful instructions are given on how to take the photograph, how to prepare it for print, how to print it, and how to mount it. An important part of the project is the documentation: after putting up the poster, participants are asked to take three pho-tographs (panoramic, mid-distance, and close-up), also trying to catch passers-by in the shot, in order to record the encounter between the anonymous people in the paintings and the anonymous people in the streets.

DAMN°51 magazine / OUTINGS PROJECT

Both images:Asunción, paraguay

1 But is the whole thing legal? “To be prosecuted, the wall must have suffered ‘significant damage’. Our wallpapers and transparent glue remain on the sur-face and come off without causing harm. There is a copyright on contemporary and modern art, but we are not making art to trade or sell. There are rules to defend fair use and there is freedom of expres-sion, above all.” Julien de Casabianca has even or-ganised workshops for schools in collaboration with museums: a way to diversify the museum audience, create a relationship between the institution and youngsters, and provide an opportunity for people to discover classical art in an active way, appropriat-ing it for themselves. ‹

outing-projects.com

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dijon, France (1)Madrid, Spain (2/3)

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When walking through the streets of Cairo, it is dif-ficult to ignore the multitude of chairs ubiquitously populating them. We could see these as simple, generic objects, but if we take a moment, maybe even sit in one of them, we might come to under-stand the intriguing layers of the city itself. This is the ambition of the Sidewalk Salon project under-taken by Cairo-based designer-artist Manar Moursi and photographer David Puig in 2010. They have

compiled dozens of Polaroid photographs of both generic and idiosyncratic chairs encountered in Cai-ro, along with interviews with their owners, various poetic contributions, and an analysis of the politics recounted by the objects.

Before addressing the chairs themselves, however, it would be worth pondering the very act of sitting in the city. In the centre of many Western metropolises, sitting outside of allocated areas like café terraces, is mostly confined to a population suffering from economic precariousness. Sitting elsewhere then be-comes an act of non-participation, if not an obstacle, to the flux of goods, bodies, and capital, and thus a potentially reprehensible activity. Cities in the Global South tend to have a different approach vis-à-vis the act of sitting in the street. Forms of sociability devel-oped through the semi-sedentary characteristics of sitting outside, are created. Nevertheless, one does not just sit anywhere; one tends to sit in a territory one considers one’s own. In other words, there is a form of local familiarity that needs to be achieved before one sits down, and some forms of architec-ture or urban planning favour this more than others. The entrance steps to Brooklyn’s brownstones, for instance, provide the ideal conditions for this kind of neighbourhood sociality.

TAKE A SEATCairo street furniture

Back in 2010, Manar Moursi and David Puig began taking Polaroid photographs of the chairs dotted about the streets of Cairo, additionally gathering insightful contributions from the owners, as the duo found the phenomenon at once poetic and socially significant. Most of the chairs populating outdoor Cairo have been repaired and repaired again, with the new version often more remarkable than the original, and certainly more ingenious – witness plastic bits attached to the remains of a metal structure, or chunks of wood added onto an iron stool. The project website is appealing but doesn’t do the project justice; thankfully a book is now in the making. LÉOPOLD LAMBERT

DAMN°51 magazine / SIDEWALK SALON

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DAMN°51 magazine / SIDEWALK SALON

CURBSIDE VIEW

We should not think of sociability too candidly, however. In a conversation with Manar Moursi, she described how part of her fascination for the chairs of Cairo had been triggered by her noticing that both her doorman and the plumber sitting outside her building knew a disturbing amount of detail about her personal life, which was unfolding in front of their eyes. As she describes it herself, the fact of being a single woman navigating a space ‘guarded’ by panoptical men rendered the very act of sitting non-innocent at the political level. It is also difficult not to notice that most people sitting in the streets of Cairo happen to be men, and that the sociality described above tends to be of the exclusively male sort. In this sense, the act of sitting often equals the reach for a position of power in regard to oth-er bodies navigating the city. Moursi and Puig cite the ‘chair of God’ described in the Quran, which in Egypt resonates with the one of the Pharaoh and the subsequent kings. They note that, during and after the revolution, one graffito, in particular, started to appear in many of the streets in Cairo; it represents an empty throne with ‘the people’ written on it. Who gets to sit within the city boundaries, and where, is thus far from being an innocent political question.

HUMAN + OBJECT

One particular aspect described by the Sidewalk Sa-lon project consists of the immanent design modi-fication of these chairs. Of course, the recognis-able monobloc plastic chair is everywhere in Cairo. Originally costing $60, mass production allowed the price to plummet to $3 per chair, and thus we now find them everywhere in the world. Nevertheless, many of the chairs populating the streets of Cairo have known many lives, which eventually erode and break them. But successive repairs continue to restore to them an effective function, and the new versions are often remarkable for their simultaneous roughness and sophistication. Some plastic chair pieces come to accommodate another chair, which might have only its metal structure left. Wooden parts are often added to consolidate a tired iron stool. Hybrids are infinite, with unique models dis-playing a creativity purely dictated by functionality and local materials.

The very specific care that prevents the owners of these chairs from throwing them away once they no longer fulfil their need, is likely to be motivated by financial reasons; yet, we cannot escape the fact that there is a relationship created between the human and the object that is worth examining. Think of the work of French philosopher Gilbert Simondon (1924-1989), who was advocating for an ethic by which to organise human behaviour in relation to technical ob-jects, similar to the way rights are granted to animals or to nature itself. Cairo’s street chairs are examples of such ethics, where objects are respected for their usefulness, and inscribed in the political cogs of their immediate environment; in this case, the city. ‹

sidewalksaloncairo.com

Sidewalk Salon: 1001 Street Chairs of Cairo, by Manar Moursi and David Puig, is due to be published later this year.

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All Roads Lead to SchengenPummelling the immigration issue

DAMN°51 magazine / FRAC

Addressing the far-from-petite topic of European immigration, FRAC Lorraine has dared to mount an entire exhibition dedicated to the situation as it is. The selection of works includes installations and videos by artists with roots in Luxembourg, Morocco, France, Switzerland, Algeria, Germany, Portugal, Italy, UK, Burkina Faso, and Kosovo, along with the stories of citizens from many other countries featuring in the various presentations. Interspersed with these is a significant amount of paper documentation, apparently conceived by the director/curator to justify the theme. It could well be, however, that the works of art speak strongest.

Forever immigrant, 2012, (+detail), by Marco Godinhocollection 49 nord 6 est – FrAc Lorraine, Metz, Franceexhibition view, Medellín, colombia, 2013© M. Godinho

ANNA SANSOM

Just over 40km northeast of Metz (France) is the vil-lage of Schengen in Luxembourg. To mark the 30th anniversary of the Schengen agreement, and in par-ticular the Schengen Area – created 10 years later – whereby passport and immigration controls were eliminated at the joint borders of its 26 member states, a group exhibition at FRAC Lorraine in Metz explores the issue of immigration.

Opening the show is an installation by Justine Blau, an artist from Luxembourg, about how Schengen has become a popular tourist destination. Propped up on shelves like souvenirs for sale, are commemorative plates, mugs, and pairs of flip-flops with Schengen-land stamped on them. In a compelling video called Mapping Journey #4 (2010) by Bouchra Khalili, in-dividual immigrants narrate their clandestine jour-ney from Africa or the Middle East to Europe. With a black marker pen in hand, each person draws their route on a map, pausing everywhere they stopped to work, apply for documents, or meet people. The speaker ends the narrative at the place they are cur-rently based, before saying where they would like to go next. One young woman maps-out her voyage

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DAMN°51 magazine / FRAC

from Mogadishu in Somalia to Bari in southern Italy where she has been learning Italian, explaining that she doesn’t like Italy and wants to go to Norway or England. In another video, a young Palestinian man describes his complicated journey from Ramallah in the West Bank to East Jerusalem, something that would take less than half an hour were it not for the numerous Israeli checkpoints.

Upstairs, Béatrice Josse, director of the FRAC and the exhibition’s curator, has juxtaposed artworks with her own research and documentation on various topics pertaining to immigration. This results in the impression that the selected works of art are serving

an illustrative purpose. Le dernier voyage, 2007, by Mathieu Pernot, is based on the internment of Roma people in the French concentration camps set up by the Vichy regime during World War II. On sheets of graph paper, Pernot has made cartographic drawings of what he imagines to have been the movements of certain Roma inmates in the Saliers camp near Arles in the south of France the year preceding their arrest by means of anthropometric files. In a table display next to Pernot’s work are internment documents with photos and fingerprints of some of the Roma inmates, data collected by Josse herself.

Then, next to Beat Lippert’s Duplication #11, 2012 – an installation of 4,500 identical resin stones evoking the Jewish tradition of placing stones on graves – is a display of 19th century newspaper articles about Le Juif Errant (the Wandering Jew) that feature the por-trait of a lonesome male figure carrying a boat. In a display text, From the Wandering Jew to Women Mi-grants, Josse makes a comparison between 19th cen-tury anti-Semitism and present-day attitudes towards immigrants. “This xenophobic rhetoric has found a new figure to exploit today – that of the migrant that is increasingly female”, it reads. Given how, in reality,

male migrants far outnumber their female counter-parts, this conclusion seems confusing. Yet it enables Josse to segue to her next exhibit, Les Femmes Pieds-Rouges (1962-1969), about left-wing French women who immigrated to Algeria after the Algerian War of Independence. Josse has put up short profiles of sever-al of these, such as Emilie Busquant (1901-1953), the wife of Messali Hadj, founder of the Algerian Nation-alist Movement. According to Josse’s text, Busquant, who came from the Lorraine region, designed the Al-gerian flag and sewed the first one with her own hands. (However, there is some dispute as to whether she ac-tually designed the flag or just sewed the initial one, the design of which may have subsequently changed).

In the same room is Zineb Sedira’s video, Gardiennes d'images (Image Keepers), 2010, in which an elderly widow describes the arduous task of maintaining and exhibiting the archive of her deceased husband, Mo-hamed Kouaci. Kouaci had worked for the Provisional Government of the Algerian Republic (the government-in-exile of the Algerian National Liberation Front dur-ing the latter part of the Algerian War of Independence) in Tunis, and as a photographer for the Algerian news-paper El Moudjahid. Another aspect of Algerian history is examined by Marta Caradec in her project, Metz en Algérie, Akbou, 2012-2015. The title refers to how the Algerian town of Akbou was temporarily renamed Metz by French colonisers who had fled Metz after Germany seized Alsace and Lorraine in 1871. (France regained the two provinces in World War I). Caradec has made five maps adorned with ornamental themes; the cul-tural crossover between Metz and Algeria is expressed through combining mediaeval motifs from the Musée de La Cour d’Or in Metz and traditional motifs from Algerian ceramics, paintings, and embroideries.

Elsewhere, Ursula Biemann’s video installation Sahara Chronicle (2006-2009), about the migration system in the Sahara desert, shows sub-Saharan migrants

preparing to cross the desert towards Europe. On the staircase leading back to the ground floor is Marco Godinho’s installation Forever Immigrant (produced with Issaka Koanda from Burkina Faso and Erdzam Estani from Kosovo), featuring those two words stamped in black over and over again in a cloud-like pattern. It captures the idea of migration and the sense of non-belonging.

Upon leaving, the thought lingers that the exhibition could have benefited from more artworks and less di-dactic documentation. ‹

Sahara panels, 2005, by Ursula Biemann (1)collection 49 nord 6 est – FrAc Lorraine, Metz, France© the artist

Sahara chronicle, 2006-2009 (detail), by Ursula Biemann (2)collection 49 nord 6 est – FrAc Lorraine, Metz, Franceexhibition view, 49 nord 6 est, 2015photo: e. chenal, © U. Biemann

Schengenland, 2011, by Justine Blau (3)photo: roger Wagner, © the artist

hcYS?, 2005, by Tania Mouraud (1)collection 49 nord 6 est – FrAc Lorraine, Metz, Francephoto: rémi Villaggi, © Adagp, paris, 2015

Background: Gardiennes d’images, 2010 by Zineb Sedira (2)FnAc 2011-166, centre national des arts plastiques,© Zineb Sedira / cnApForeground: Metz en Algérie, Akbou, 2, 2013 by Marta caradec, © Marta caradecexhibition view, 49 nord 6 est, 2015photo: e. chenal

Metz en Algérie, Akbou, 3, 2013, by Marta caradec (3)collection 49 nord 6 est – FrAc Lorraine, Metz, Francephoto: r. Villaggi, © M. caradec

Mapping Journey #6, 2010, by Bouchra Khalili (4)collection FrAc provence-Alpes-côte d’Azur © Adagp, paris, 2015

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Tous Les Chemins Mênent à Schengen is at FRAC Lorraine in Metz, Franceuntil 4 October 2015. fraclorraine.org

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Traffic jam in São PauloPhoto © Marcio Kogan / mk27


CAR CRAZYPetrolheads on the pedestrian beat

And then there’s the car: an amazing 19th century invention that soon became a 20th century dream defined by velocity, personal freedom, and driving pleasure, all the while serving as a status symbol. But has our white horse on four wheels turned into somewhat of a nightmare of inertia and congestion in the 21st century? Whether it still belongs in an urban context nowadays is a question on lots of people’s lips. So we asked a few experts… in the meantime, have a look at at the things that can occur anyplace, anytime, on a daily basis in the streets of São paulo – as snapped by architect Marcio Kogan.

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Urban mobility is experiencing an upheaval. With the advent of car sharing, automobile manufacturers have needed to adjust their previous strategies. This implies significant changes for car companies, car owners, and the city itself. DAMN° questioned five experts about the developments, and obtained and insight on how we will be traversing our cities in the very near future.

DAMN°51 magazine / CARS

Tyres burned on the roads of Paris in June. The mo-torways leading to the airports were blocked. Cars were attacked with metal bars. There was a state of emergency that the police had to dispel with tear-gas. This was not a political manifestation; it was an urban mobility issue forcibly held in public. Taxi drivers in the French capital are rebelling against a private taxi service that in their eyes threatens their existence: Uber. And Paris isn’t alone. Protests have been activated in many other European cities as well.

But as understandable as the concerns of taxi drivers may be, it is a fact that urban mobility is changing. The proportion of cyclists – who are also using more hired bikes than purchased ones – continues to increase, and fewer motor vehicles are owned by those sitting behind the wheel. Sharing instead of owning is a solu-tion that applies not only to autonomous driving. Even Uber utilises a form of sharing. Private individuals can slip into the role of taxi driver for a certain time, and offer their services at significantly lower rates.

In Vienna today, seven per cent of traffic is bicycles and 26 per cent is cars. Forecasts predict that the pro-

portion of cars will fall to 15 per cent by 2025 – in-cluding both shared and owned vehicles. At the same time, Dublin and other major cities are considering completely banishing the car from the city centre. “The crucial question is whether we want to continue to accept that our cities are used as car parks”, says Florian Lorenz of the initiative Smarter Than Car. Founded in 2010 in Beijing, the non-profit organisa-tion is committed to a massive expansion of cycling, and is currently running a competition for future ur-ban mobility, the results of which will be presented during Vienna Design Week at the end of September.

EMERGING MARKETS

But despite the rise in various sharing models: “This development is clearly limited to industrialised countries. Contrarily, in other parts of the world we are witnessing an increase in car driven mobility”, adds Florian Lorenz. According to a study by the Asian Development Bank, over the upcoming two years the share of motorised vehicles in relation to total mobility will exceed the 50-per cent mark for the first time. While in Europe’s cities compact and

BYE-BYE TO THE PERSONAL CAR?The uptake of other options

NORMAN KIETZMANN

rented vehicles will be dominating the roads, in the emerging markets of Asia, Central and South Amer-ica, and Africa, the proportion of owned vehicles will increase. “We must not only understand mo-bility from the European point of view and develop exclusively in that direction. We must also keep an eye on the demands of other markets”, emphasises Steffen Köhl, director of Global Advanced Design at Mercedes-Benz.

The Stuttgart automaker introduced the car-sharing service car2go in 2009. Using models driven by electric or combustion engines, smart fortwo is now the market leader, with 13,500 vehicles and more than one million customers in North America and Europe. That not every vehicle is suitable for sharing is obvious. “Of course, it is important for a shared car to possess a certain robustness. That is why at smart we are working with flexible plastics, to avoid injuries. In the interior, we use more robust materi-als that do not easily pollute by frequently changing drivers”, Köhl informs. “Also the user interface log-ics have to be designed perfectly so that they can be immediately understood.”

But even the prestige factor inevitably takes a back seat in a shared car: “This does not mean that the car will be downgraded. It must provide the same level of comfort and quality as a private car”, underlines Adrian van Hooydonk, director of BMW Design. In 2011, the Munich-based carmaker started working with car rental company Sixt on the sharing serv-ice DriveNow, where customers can choose between different BMW and Mini models. “My impression is

democratic or unjust? The private taxi service, Uber

cyclist in Beijing (1)photo: Smarter Than car

Steffen Köhl, director of Global Advanced design at Mercedes-Benz (2)

Mercedes-Benz introduced the sharing service car2Go together with car rental company europcar in 2009. (3/4)

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that the DriveNow customers don’t want it to be ap-parent that they are driving a shared car. That’s why we are considering making the label more discreet”, van Hooydonk injects. Car sharing has become a natural part of urban mobility, so it doesn’t need to be communicated externally.

A few weeks ago, German carmaker Opel caused a stir with its new sharing system called CarUnity. Its special feature is that, unlike other services, custom-ers are not tied to a single brand. In addition to ve-hicles from Opel, individuals can also register their private cars – regardless of brand or type. As a result, even vintage and ‘exotic’ vehicles will soon fall under the definition of car sharing. “Everyone wants to be on the platform now, because the platform is becom-ing more important than the physical means”, claims Matthijs van Dijk, founder of Dutch design and con-sultancy firm Reframing Studio. In his opinion, the advent of various sharing models doesn’t mean the end of the private car. “We should never see a new solution as monochromic. If something new is in-vented, it is an alternative to how we look at mobility today. A diversity of means lends value and creates

completely new business models”, he affirms. What is currently changing in regard to urban mo-bility is not only ownership, but also a stronger con-nection between the driver and the city. “Today, cars are designed to move at high speeds in a safe way. If we think about driverless vehicles that move at slow speeds and are only used in city centres, we can cre-ate very different shapes of cars”, effuses Lowie Ver-meersch, founder of granstudio, a team of mobility designers based in Turin. His PubliPod concept car, designed in 2012, shows how driverless cars might look. The vehicle itself has a gently rounded, unim-posing shape, and the interior is open to the urban

environment through a generous amount of glazing.

“We imagine slow-moving cars becoming more transparent. When you are sitting in them you can better enjoy the surroundings, and when other vehi-cles pass by, you can look through them”, continues Vermeersch. The car is not approached as a single object but as a system that creates possible interac-tions between the vehicle and the environment. In the interior, interfaces will offer different possibilities for personalisation. Screens will be able to upload your own seat settings as well as your preferences for the graphics and colours. “I expect that many brands will develop their own skin software while others will follow the Apple approach whereby hardware and software come together”, opines the Belgian de-signer.

Another foretaste of autonomous driving has been presented by Mercedes-Benz via its F 015 Luxury in Motion study. The interior of the electric car appears as a flat surface, since a transmission tunnel or drive-shaft is no longer needed. Lightweight structures also allow for driver and passenger seats that can rotate around their own axis and lock into a loung-ing position. The transition between the floor and sidewalls is fluid and creates a cocoon-like impres-sion of space. Furthermore, a relationship between the passengers and the city is achieved through multiple glass screens that provide information on


driverless pods concept by granstudio, Turin (1)

Lowie Vermeersch, founder of granstudio in Turin, designed the publipod concept car in 2012. (2/3/4)

Adrian van hooydonk, director of BMW design (1)

BMW, together with car rental company Sixt, devised the sharing service drivenow. (2/3)

The sharing system carUnity was launched by German carmaker opel in June 2015. (4)

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nearby restaurants, shops, etcetera, along with in-puts and views. “Even though the vehicle can travel independently, the driver can still intervene within seconds. We did not want to give up the active com-ponent”, says Steffen Koehl, was also in lead for the development of the F 015.

A combination of human-controlled and automatic driving is also targeted by BMW. “It may be that in future you get out of the car on arrival at a parking garage and the vehicle automatically searches and locates a parking place, coming back to you when you are ready to depart. These are things that we can well imagine and are working on”, explains chief de-signer Adrian van Hooydonk. Already today, BMW offers ConnectedDrive, the digital application that allow vehicles to find parking spaces, show the way, or make reservations at restaurants. What unites these applications is their shift of precedence. The city does not serve the car, but vice versa, regardless of whether or not the vehicle is owned by or steered by the driver. ‹


uber.com / smarterthancar.com / car2go.com / int.smart.com / drive-now.comcarunity.com / granstudio.com / mercedes-benz.com / bmw.com

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Mercedes-Benz's F 015 Luxury in Motion study (all images)

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DAMN°51 magazine / URBAN FURNITURE

Modified Social Bench nY #06 by Jeppe hein, 2015powder-coated aluminium46.5 x 218.5 x 103.5 inchescourtesy of König Galerie, Berlin; 303 Gallery, new York; and Galleri nicolai Wallner, copenhagenphoto: James ewing; courtesyof the public Art Fund, nY

Interventions in the urban space have an effect on all who encounter them, whether it concerns outdoor benches or playground equipment, shelters or multifunctional sculptures – temporary or permanent, practical or playful. Individual reactions can range from love to hate, with the object instantly eliciting joy or repulsion. Contemporary urban furniture tends toward showing off, or at least toward not appearing neutral or modest, rather like the museum architecture of our time. DAMN° cites several examples of such pieces, each of a different ilk and all of which demand notice.

Urban furniture can enhance our appreciation of pub-lic space, stimulate interactions between strangers, and provide for moments of leisure during busy workdays. Artists as well as designers are delivering impactful ideas that alter the notion of a traditional park bench, creating pieces that may make us smile with surprise.

As part of his exhibition in Brooklyn Bridge Park called Please Touch the Art, Danish artist Jeppe Hein has installed a series of bright red Modified Social Benches. Hybrids of sculptures and functional ob-jects, one of them loops into a figure eight, acting as a social playground for children to slide on or clamber over; another integrates a circle that some-body could stretch their legs out in. Hein, who has exhibited similar pieces in cities such as Helsinki, Liverpool, and Auckland, has talked about how he

is trying to lift people out of their everyday lives and open their eyes to something new. His intention is to try and create a dialogue between people of different ages and cultural backgrounds.

Earlier this year, the Public Art Fund in New York also commissioned American artist Sam Falls to make an exhibition at MetroTech Commons, an of-fice campus in Brooklyn. A Donald Judd-like bench made of temperature-sensitive glass tiles changed colour whenever a visitor touched the surface or sat down on it. A seesaw with minimalist blocks that children could lean against, rocked back and forth, and a multi-coloured wind chime could be activated by passers-by. This kind of participative art is an engaging way of introducing non-museum-goers to artists they might not otherwise have come across.

Perking up the Public Space

Projects that aim to please

ANNA SANSOM

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Untitled (Scales) by Sam Falls, 2014 (1)powder-coated steel, aluminiumcourtesy of the artist, Galerie eva presenhuber, and hannah hoffman Galleryphoto: James ewing; courtesyof the public Art Fund, nY

Untitled (Thermochromic bench) by Sam Falls, 2014 (2)Liquid crystal heatsensitive glass tiles, steelcourtesy of the artist, Galerie eva presenhuber, and hannah hoffman Galleryphoto: James ewing; courtesyof the public Art Fund, nY

reef Benches by rené Veenhuizen for therooftop of the picasso Lyceum (secondaryschool) in Zoetermeer in the westernnetherlands, 2009 (3)photo: herbert Wiggerman

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this initiative enables artworks to be commissioned for a social purpose.

How good design can play a role in the lives of stu-dents is also a concern of Dutch designers Tejo Remy and René Veenhuizen. In 2009, the duo made a series of Reef Benches for the rooftop of the Picasso Lyc-eum (secondary school) in Zoetermeer in the western Netherlands. The elongated benches have rippling, zigzagging, freeform shapes made of endless slats of light-coloured Accoya wood. The Dutch pair said they wanted to give students their own ‘escape area’ from the nearby housing estate, a place where they could sit, lie down, hang out, eat, or read.

ALL THINGS TO ALL PEOPLE

Design initiatives can supply functional proposals for how to better utilise public space. For the second edition of the Biennale de création de mobilier ur-bain, an event held at La Défense in Paris (June 2014 – June 2015) that focuses on urban furniture, eight young designers were selected to make projects that would be dotted around the financial district. Four themes, all beginning with the term Plug-in defined this year’s biennale. How to graft new elements onto existing ones was the main gist. One contribution was Alexandre Moronnoz’s Slides – an installation of playground slides flanked either side by a vast blue carpet that covered the steps and concrete terraces, which was readily appropriated by skateboarders and youngsters with scooters. “Children and adoles-cents have completely adopted it, and it has served as a place for a coffee break or as a meeting point for employees”, enthuses Moronnoz. Esther Bacot cre-ated En aparté, 11 modular wooden structures that could be ‘plugged in’ to an environmental surface,

providing privacy, shelter from the wind, or an ef-fective telephone booth. Nicolas Grun and Pierre Laurent made L’Établi, a series of mobile, shelter-like elements made of wood, with red metal accessories functioning as shelves, armrests, or magazine racks, while Nicolas Thevenot added ledges, extra seating, or protective sides to existing benches.

Industrial designers who make furniture for outdoor spaces include Jangir Maddadi, who presented his latest work, Space, in the Swedish Pavilion at the Sa-lone del Mobile in April. Space is a circular arrange-ment that contains eight built-in seats, all equipped with power outlets, so enabling users to charge their electronic devices. “This bench interacts with its us-ers by decreasing the surrounding volume of sound. Once seated, a personal space is automatically creat-ed, even in the busiest environment”, as proclaimed by the Jangir Maddadi Design Bureau. “Each seat is enveloped on both sides, offering the privacy and re-laxation you crave in airports, shopping malls, train stations, and hotel lounges.” ‹

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niche centrale, 2011-2013 (1)Steel22.38 x 2.80 x 3 mcollection of Ville de Lyonphoto: pablo reinoso Studio

L’école Le Blé en herbe in Trébédan by Matali crasset (2)photo © philippe piron

croco de Ville by pablo reinoso, 2014 (3)84.9 x 53.2 x 86.1 cm; 260 kgcommissioned by the city of Bordeauxphoto: o. panier des Touches / dolce vita

L’Établi by Les nouveaux Voisins (nicolas Grun and pierre Laurent), 2014 (1)Forme publique 2014, Urban Furniture design Biennialdefacto / La défense, paris; photo © LnV

cod, complément d'objet direct by nicolas Thevenot, 2014 (2)Forme publique 2014, Urban Furniture design Biennialdefacto / La défense, paris

en aparté by esther Bacot, 2014 (3); photo © 11h45

Space by Jangir Maddadi, 2015 (4)

playground Slides by Alexandre Moronnoz (5)Forme publique 2014, Urban Furniture design Biennialdefacto / La défense, paris

MADE TO LAST

In contrast to temporary projects such as those, the Argentine-French artist and designer Pablo Reinoso installed four permanent benches along the banks of the river Saône in Greater Lyon. For the 2013 public art commission, he created Nouages (Waves), large-scale, spaghetti-style benches inspired by nature that possess elaborate flourishes of sensual twists and spirals. Reinoso was also commissioned by the city of Bordeaux to make nomadic chairs, Fauteuils cro-co de ville, for the 2014 Agora Biennale of architec-ture, urbanism, and design. The chairs, conceived as pieces to be moved around, are now being used on diverse building sites in the French city.

Other kinds of interventions are happening in schools. Matali Crasset has redesigned L’école Le Blé en Herbe, an infant and primary school in Trébédan, northwest France, creating four pieces of micro-architecture that she describes as Extensions de générosité. Positioned at the outside entrance are two gigantic climbing frames. Inside the school, Crasset has designed pod-like structures for reading and studying. The entire project will be inaugurated in September. Part of the Nouveaux commanditaires, a programme launched by the Fondation de France,


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jeppehein.net / pabloreinoso.com / matalicrasset.com / remyveenhuizen.nlunquidesigners.com / jangirmaddadi.se

Jeppe Hein: Please Touch the Art is at Brooklyn Bridge Park, New York, until 17 April 2016. jeppehein.net

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MARCIO KOGAN VENTS HIS SPLEEN…This is São Paulo, maybe the largest neglected urban agglomeration anywhere, and yet the city is reasonably wealthy. Here, tactile surfaces will lead a blind man into a wall or into a lamppost or to where public money has been spent on mini-gardens that make no sense, or to the 152 different vases that I counted on only one street near our studio. Happily, the blind man already knows that he shouldn’t trust the signs and that these green areas will not be used for picnics with the family on Sunday morning. I get totally bent out of shape about this. Architects and urban developers are completely ignored, with quite funny results.

Urbanism with Humour

Photos: Marcio Kogan

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A smart city is one that reduces costs, minimises the consumption of resources, and engages more effectively and actively with its citizens, adopting digital technologies or ICT to enhance the quality and performance of urban areas. Given the aged infrastructure of most of the world’s cities, it is no mean feat to incorporate changes at that level, either economically or practicably. However, small urban interventions in the way of well-considered, progressive furniture offer a manageable approach with which to evolve, as smart technologies and/or interactive capacities can be incorporated therein, effecting modernisation and social involvement. DAMN° provides an overview of such healthy efforts.


In trying to future-proof our cities, we become chal-lenged by existing constraints on their infrastructure. It seems like only a gargantuan amount of funding and effort could tackle the complexity of such an update. Ideal visions about the city of tomorrow evoke a silent, digital, super-high-speed, hyper-con-nected, sensor-equipped Smart City, coupled with a far slower, pedestrian, reforested, noiseless pace of living that follows the rhythm of culture, conversa-tion, and leisure. The countryside is brought back into the city and urban elements provide it with a human scale, identity, and collective meaning.

The motivation behind developing smart cities stems from a combination of economic, environ-mental, and social factors like climate change, eco-nomic restructuring, the move to online retail and entertainment, ageing populations, and pressures on public finances.

Urban space is no longer only defined by bench-es on which to pause for a rest, street lamps that light up at night, and handrails that organise and secure urban routes. For instance, LED lighting now comes equipped with an array of sensors that can reduce energy usage, optimise traffic and park-ing, even deal with emergency response situations.

Energy efficient retrofitting is possible, too, in the way of innovative district heating and cooling net-works, or smart grids, as is happening in Amster-dam’s City-zen project.

But still, it seems that for the majority of cities, change is rather black-or-white: either you do noth-ing or you spend billions on making it ‘smart’. Vari-ous attempts by cities to install widespread munici-pal Wi-Fi, for example, have come against physical problems in the form of buildings and office towers that block signals. In the USA, few major metropoli-tan areas are new in any sense of the word. For the most part, big cities are those that have been big for a long time. European cities are also constrained by existing infrastructures in their quest to become ‘smart’. In this panorama, startup projects often ap-pear to be the best option for creating small inter-ventions, both in terms of cost and size. Individuals working with limited resources and funding find themselves getting quite creative with their solutions for smart technologies. We need a discussion about new participation processes; we need an exchange of ideas that encompasses architecture, politics, in-vestors, and citizens. Only then can the culture of sharing and commoning become an obvious part of urban development.

Tomorrow’s Cities Today

Soaring ahead

PATRIZIA COGGIOLA

MAKe ciTYThanks to the culture of urban gardening, the countryside is being invited into the city. A project like Bauhütte, presented during the Make City pro-gramme in Berlin in June, is a perfect example of the disappearance of boundaries between local res-idents, planners, and stakeholders. Architects and residents were able meet each other on an equal footing, thereby improving the understanding of the architect’s role and of the profession as a whole. Make City was a festival for architectural and urban alternatives, three days of panel discussions on the future of our cities.makecity.berlin

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ALVAr AALTo MUSeUMAre we going to build (and live) in cemeteries? Maybe it would be useful to consider some major reflections on the past, like those on view at the Al-var Aalto Museum this past spring: Città dei morti – City of the Dead was a presentation of Aalto’s un-realised projects for cemeteries and funeral chap-els. Through his designs for Jyväskylä, Lyngby-Taarbæk and Malmi, something of a lesser-known Aalto was exposed.alvaraalto.fi

ThornWith illumination accounting for up to 50% of electricity consumption in cities, lighting plays a central role in the drive to become smarter. As part of the Year of Light event, Thorn Lighting (a division of Zumtobel Group), unveiled a 3D live version of their online Smart City experience. De-signed to make it easy for customers to visualise urban lighting, it incorporates real case studies and recommends the most energy efficient products for each application. Iain Macrae, Head of Global Lighting Applications at Thorn states, “Lighting doesn’t change a space into a place unless there is something worth seeing. LEDs create the possibili-ties for cities, inhabitants, and managers to con-nect devices: with the integration of sensors that respond to live traffic and road conditions, report-ing back via open protocols to other city systems.” thornlighting.com

Urba, a versatile LED urban lantern designed by Wilmotte & Industries

SAnTA & coLeSanta & Cole focuses on the slow-paced, live-able city, for which they offer ergonomic furniture made from recycled and recyclable materials. These pieces are valued across the world because their language is intercultural and they meet emotional needs. Smart urban features such as adjustable LED lighting and multifunctional poles with sensor-con-trolled functions, channel data and service flows for more efficient management. Santa & Cole’s Low speed city and High speed city catalogues, were enriched this year with Skyline urban lighting de-signed by Antoni Roselló, and Harpo, designed by Gonzalo Milá and Miguel Milá, father and son.santacole.com

noLAThomas Bernstrand’s new Korg furniture group for Swedish brand Nola has a strong graphic profile. Made of steel thread, the collection is characterised by sharp, parallel lines. Bernstrand also designed another group called Bollnäs, which includes an armchair, a side chair, and a child’s chair. Each is made in an individualistic style seldom seen in the realm of public furniture. nola.se

VeSTreLink Landskap Arkitektur was given the task of making Stranden, the first of a multi-stage rede-velopment of the precinct known as Aker Brygge in Oslo, to enliven this post-industrial waterfront. With its BLOC benches, tables, and litterbins, the team created a recognisable identity for the place. The aim behind restoring the promenade was to increase visual and physical contact with Oslo’s magnificent fjord, while also encouraging social in-teraction and diversity along the waterfront. The site-specific concept for street furniture was de-veloped in cooperation with Vestre – a Norwegian company specialising in street furniture design and manufacture, and furniture designers Lars Tornøe and Atle Tveit. The concept is based on diversity of activity and flexibility of use. Aker Brygge as a whole will be completed by the end of 2015.vestre.co.uk

linkarkitektur.com

finnishdesignshop.com

SooFASponsored by Cisco, the Soofa is a dream startup dealing with activated urban furniture. Founded by a team of female engineers and designers from Harvard and MIT, it leads the Smart City applica-tions space. Their most recent product, the Soofa Bench was piloted in the City of Boston in 2014. The bonus: these benches are solar-powered and can charge your cell phone. Now, Austin, Los An-geles, and Cambridge have been selected to join Soofa’s Early Adopter Program, leading the effort to make public spaces smart, social, and sustain-able with eco-friendly furniture for the digital age. These Soofa smart benches are utilised every day by city dwellers to charge their electronic devices using solar energy. Sandra Richter, founder and CEO of Soofa says, “There was a need for some-thing beyond large, male-run corporations trying to play into this hot new field. Companies like IBM and Cisco are placing a ton of money into large, smart infrastructure projects, which is a waste when a smaller team can make a small intervention with an equally large impact.” soofa.co


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BiGBeLLYEvery single time a rubbish bin is emptied, it incurs labour costs, fuel costs, and vehicle wear-and-tear. Cities either collect too often, wasting fuel and la-bour while creating CO2 emissions, or are not able to keep up with the demands on health and safety issues. The Bigbelly Smart Waste & Recycling Sys-tem works by combining increased on-site capac-ity with compaction, implementing a public space recycling programme that actually works, using real-time data and analytics to drive operational planning and resource allocation. At the core of the Bigbelly system is a Management Console that pro-vides both real-time and historical collection data that can help reduce the cost of collecting rubbish. Bigbelly is recognised as a best practice in the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group, and also won the People’s Choice as the Top Smart City Application in the 2014/15 Internet of Things Awards. bigbelly.com

FLYinG ciTieSInspired by the image of the Flying City apartment building by Georgy Krutikov (his 1928 doctoral thesis at the Higher Institute of Arts and Technol-ogy in Moscow), 18 students in the Master’s of Ar-chitecture programme at the University of Italian Switzerland, together with Atelier Blumer, Mario Botta, David Chipperfield Architects, and Milan and Alessandro Scandurra, have designed and built flying buildings that utilise Parrot AR.Drone 2.0 technology. These were presented and flown dur-ing the month of May at Milan gallery CASABELLA laboratorio. The work originates from the study of human movement in the environment, including the new possibilities of collective flocks of drones. These assumptions have led to the design of new buildings without a façade, foundations, or orien-tation, in the human attempt to imagine, through the act of architecture, a new course of history.casabellaweb.eu

MAKinG The pArK“What comes from the Earth returns to the Earth.” Springing from this principle, Fabrica, the Benetton Group’s communication research centre, accepted the invitation to take part in Expo Milano 2015’s core debate, with You Make the Park, an outdoor furnishing range of some 60 items – benches, tables, stools, and daybeds – that are gradually populating a public space in the city from June to October 2015.

During this year of the Expo, the city of Milan has become a meeting place for millions of travellers from across the world, thereby fostering an interna-tional debate on the future of our planet and its re-sources. As part of this, Fabrica created a democrat-ic, ever-changing space that varies according to the visitors and seasons. Designed by an international team of creatives, the furniture in the You Make the Park series is made out of cork, Galestro terracotta, and wood, materials that are 100% natural and re-cyclable. The individual items are modular and can be used in different ways or moved about to encour-age interaction, with visitors invited to create their own personal area on the exhibition site. The pieces are easily disassembled, too, since no glue is used in their construction. This offers a welcoming seat-ing experience for relaxing, chatting, or socialising in the open air.

The idea arose from Fabrica’s own vision of Feeding the Planet, Energy for Life, the main theme of the Expo. Sam Baron, creative director of the commu-nication research centre, explains the process: “As designers, we asked ourselves how visitors might gather in terms of functionality, customs, and cul-tures, as well as considering the production, materi-als, fixtures, and shapes. We came up with a single

and particular form that is very minimal, so that its function – seating, resting, eating, chatting – can be understood straightaway.

“Then we adjusted the details, to make the furni-ture more comfortable, while also stable and mov-able. We’ve also taken care that no varnishes or glues are used, only materials that can safely return to the earth, like terracotta, cork, aluminium (in the case of the hidden screw), and wood. We enjoyed hav-ing discovered materials that will evolve throughout the duration of the expo along with the natural sea-sonal cycle.” The Galestro terracotta (Deroma), cork (Amorim), and wood (Prosign) are going to contin-ue changing colour. “We wanted these elements to be more than just another seat; to truly generate a physical and a digital platform for the exchange of wishes and thoughts, using the online participatory site.” In fact, the public can take part in the discus-sion in any language, posting comments, sugges-tions, and photographs on Twitter and Instagram. ‹

youmakethepark.com / amorim.com / deroma.it / prosign.it

Expo Milano 2015 / Feeding the Planet, Energy for Life runs until 31 October 2015. expo2015.org

photos: Marco Furio Magliani 2015 FABricA

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