International Winter School: ‘Multipli-Cities’ 2008

WORKSHOP

Computational Exploration of the Spatial City Tutor: Jeroen Coenders. www.jlcoenders.nl Introduction: Cities all over the world become every day denser as more people work, live and recreate on tiny amounts of land. Especially in cities with high-rise the density per square meter is large, leading to all kinds of problems, such as pollution, social problems, traffic congestion, etc. Especially the last problem is of our interest as creation of a spatial, three-dimensional city, where you cannot only move vertically in the buildings and horizontally on the ground level, but also horizontally between the buildings on higher or lower levels than the ground level. Perhaps even diagonal movement would be a possibility. Also structurally this could be beneficial as structural connected buildings could provide better structural properties and therefore buildings (perhaps we should see the entire city here as one large building) would be able to become higher. Three-dimensional transportation can also help in the solution of the problem that elevators are currently the limiting factor in high-rise design. These ideas are not completely new as many views of Utopia have already sketched this picture, but in this workshop the challenge is to forget what is not possible and to open yourself to the question: why wouldn’t this be possible? And what would it take to make it possible?

Challenge: The challenge for the workshop participants is to dream about, envision, design, engineer, investigate and research The Spatial City of the future while seriously considering aspects of design such as quality, aesthetics, sustainability, integration of disciplines, etc. Tasks could be to sketch the utopian view of such a city, to investigate of how high we can go with the proposal structural systems, to develop a philosophy about how people should live, recreate, communicate and transport in the spatial city, to engineer the foundation, to integrate other architectural and engineering ideas, to design the structural system, to design a three-dimensional transportation plan, to design places (houses, offices, etc.) in the spatial city, to design the three-dimensional transportation systems, etc. etc.

Technology: The technology used for the design of the spatial city will be the latest of digital design: generative and algorithmic design strategies to harness quick design iterations and fast communication.

Requirements: Ideally, the participants should have experience with parametric design, associative design, algorithmic design and/or scripting and/or programming. A short course of Generative Components and parametric structural model building can be given if required.

Biography: Jeroen Coenders is a structural engineer for Arup in Amsterdam, involved in geometrical complex projects and advanced computational design strategies, and a combination of researcher and lecturer at Delft University of Technology on the topic of new design tools for structural engineers. He leads the Structural Design Lab, which is a group involved in innovative topics in structural engineering research.

His main expertise lies in the combination of complex geometry, parametric associative technology, structural engineering and programming and his interests cover a wide field of innovative topics, science, architecture and technology.

Although he is usually not involved in architecture on a city scale, Jeroen is interested to explore the possibilities for the application of computational design strategies on the urban scale and would like to see if it is possible to un-utopify Utopia.

Keywords: Keywords of the workshop should be innovation, out-of-the-box thinking, Un-utopifying Utopia, design, integration of disciplines, quality, sustainability, generative and algorithmic design strategies.

WORKSHOP

Urban Interfaces / Inhabitable Interspaces Tutor: Marcos Cruz, Architect,www.bartlett.ucl.ac.uk/people/A_cruz_marcos.htm, www.marcosandmarjan.com Introduction: Our cities are embedded with a variety of different types of Urban Interfaces that are vital for the functioning of public life. They can be either conspicuously visible or hidden within the walls that surround us, yet they are in essence places where different conditions meet and have an effect on each other. They are thus a fundamental way to interact the body with architecture.

Interspaces can be understood as an extended meaning of walls, and accordingly Inhabitable Interspaces not just as an extension of Inhabitable Walls, but also Inhabitable Façades, Columns, Cubicles, and Voids. For the most part they create intramural spatialities where boundary negotiations take place. Although peripheral in spatial terms Inhabitable Interspaces are central to the programme and use of buildings. They are interfaces in which the notion of being inhabitable is a catalyst of both individual activity and social interaction, at the same time creating a receptacle of a projected life that is so critical to our sense of intimacy. In this context, inhabitable is a condition that is ever transient and implies the potential act of becoming inhabited, involving both a mental and physical action. It implies an embodied experience, which is the interplay between our body’s presence, its perceptual practice, and the engagement with the environment around it. Inhabitable Interspaces form part of a long history that has always promoted the reciprocate engagement of body and architecture, and hence a sense of ‘wallism’ in which the body is understood as an extension of buildings and vice-versa.

Challenge: The aim of the workshop is to predict different forms of interfacial inhabitation in future urban spaces, and to question a potential new relationship between body and urban walls we inhabit. During the five days of workshop the observation of existing Urban Interfaces will lead to the construction of a series of built Inhabitable Interspaces to be exhibited inside and outside the school of architecture. With the use of brushes, translucent latex rubber, plastic sheets, and shop window dummies among others, each member of the group will generate corporeal imprints and bodily formations that create visions of the future in which their bodies can merge with architecture.

WORKSHOP

Picturing the city Tutor: Regina Bittner, www.bauhaus-dessau.de Introduction: In the context of the European Cultural Capital and its resultant urban processes, many cities seek not only reinterpret and re-imagine local history and architecture but also to frame and communicate them effectively in order to contribute to the larger and ever-expanding idea of European city.

Challenge: The workshop is going to explore the patterns and visual codes of the “European city” that are constructing the Cultural Capital Liverpool 2008. By identifying the complexity of the urban visual strategies the workshops aims to develop a deeper understanding, how different visual languages operates in urban spaces. Based on the investigation of the diversity and complexity of visual practices in the city of Liverpool, that ranges from touristic images, to newspapers, local television, local marketing and informational systems to sub-cultural visual strategies the workshop seeks to initiate a critical and creative process of appropriation of visual techniques and strategies.

Biography: Regina Bittner is a cultural theoretist, art historian and coordinator of the Bauhaus Kolleg at the Bauhaus Dessau Foundation. She is also a curator of exhibitions on cultural history and urbanism. Amongst her academic and professional achievements are: • • • • •

Participation in international conferences and publications, Concept and organization of international colloquiums Concept, Organization and Teaching in the postgraduate program Bauhaus Kolleg “Event City” 2000/2001 and the Bauhaus Kolleg “Transit spaces” 2003/2004, Transnational Spaces 2004/2005, UN Urbanism 2005/2006, EU Urbanism 2006/2007 Curator of the exhibition: “Bauhausstyle: between international and lifestyle” Bauhaus Dessau Foundation May 2003- March 2004 Curator of the exhibition: “Paradises of the Modern” Bauhaus Dessau Foundation Mai 2001- October 2001 Working and research focus: urban anthropology, transition in Eastern Germany and the New Europe, consumption and culture in the postindustrial city, cultural modernity in the 20th century

Recent Publications: • “Kolonien des Eigensinns - Ethnografy of an east german region in transition“, Frankfurt a.M.1998, • “Urbane Paradiese”(as an editor) Frankfurt a.M. 2001 • “Die Stadt als Event - Event City“ (as an editor) Frankfurt a.M. 2002 • “Bauhausstil: Zwischen International Style und Lifestyle“ (as an editor) Berlin 2003 • „Transitspaces“ ed. together with Kai Voeckler and Wilfried Hackenbroich Berlin 2006

WORKSHOP

Cool city - Second city!

Tutor: Markus Jung + Maud Cassaignau, ETH Zürich XPACE Urbanists, www.xpace.cc Introduction: Presently the world is undergoing an almost unnoticed revolution: for the first time more people are living in cities than in the countryside. The 21st century is truly the first urban century in mankind. In Asia, due to the dramatic economic growth, old Mega-Cities such as Mumbai or Shanghai have re-emerged as cosmopolitan urban centres. At the same time, new Monster-Cities are sprawling in the Third World, totally uncontrolled. This is one noticeable trend, which considered in isolation might be misleading. Although the biggest cities are growing bigger, the middle-sized cities are growing faster. One in two urban inhabitants live in a city of around 500.000 people.

Thesis: Particularly in the western world, it is not the abused and overpopulated capitals that are booming, but the socalled “Second Cities”, which often are culturally more exciting: Barcelona instead of Madrid, San Francisco instead of Los Angeles, Hamburg instead of Berlin. In a globalized world increasingly focused on knowledge and technology, the Second Cities succeed better to flourish and to renew capitalism independently of the big capital centres. It is the Second Cities that attract innovative companies and young creative people. Urban studies show, that cities exceeding the critical population of 6 million inhabitants see a decrease in their economic productivity. This is due to a variety of factors: long commuting hours, unaffordable rents, decreasing life quality, urban pollution and general chaos. Only the inner-city centres still appeal – but only to a small privileged minority who can afford to live there.

The crisis of the Mega – Cities is the chance of the Second Cities. Cool are cities that have a human scale and offer security and career opportunities. Cool are cities that attract via their genius loci. They have recognizable elite that produces economic progress and prosperity. Cool is Barcelona, cool is Amsterdam. Cool are the cities where the creative class lives in a dynamic field of mutual inspiration. This heterogenic class is formed by designers, couturiers, computer–freaks, software producers, musicians, scientists, engineers, poets, analysts, journalists and actors – a colourful coalition that produces new ideas and generates innovation. Knowledge centres and high-tech industries settle around them. The creative class is the catalyst of the city transformation - from an age of post-industrialism to an age focused on knowledge.

So what do cities need to attract this demanding creative class beyond all practical issues? Cool cities have a special spirit, generated through atmosphere, creative culture, lifestyle, art de vivre…The genius loci, which is hard to define, is what makes a place special and desirable, which brings us to stay and enjoy the place, just more than any other. The genius loci makes the difference between any city and the cool Second City. It is founded on the history of the place as well as on its contemporary culture, on its topographical setting as well as on its architecture, on its cultural geist as well as on its cultural activities. The genius loci is something that can be found and strengthened, cultivated and reactivated but it cannot be created ex nihilo. Cool are cities that have an active genius loci.

Cool City – Second City! It is the Second Cities, who have the biggest future potential and offer the prospect of high quality work-life balance. The Second Cities have the capability to become the new centres of tomorrow. There is no ideal path for a city to become a Cool City. Every city has to find its own individual way based on its historical background, its geographical context and its cultural and political possibilities. To become a Cool City, cities need to identify and activate the heritage of their own genius loci.

Challenge: The objective of this workshop is to analyse Liverpool’s potentials as a future Second City. It aims to identify areas and key elements within Liverpool’s urban fabric and surroundings, which form its genius loci. Participants will have the opportunity to work out methods on how to (re-) activate these elements so that they could act as generators, envisioning Liverpool as a Second City. The workshop will work on strategies, on how to trace and transform them into new vectors of growth. Thereby Liverpool is thought as one example for testing the Second Cities strategy.

WORKSHOP

Liverpool in Motion: Symphony of a Great City Tutor: Monika Koeck , Dipl.-Ing.(FH), M.Phil (cantab), www.monikakoeck.com Course subject: Architecture and the Moving Image Introduction: this course will examine the relationship between architecture and moving images and will result in the production of a 2min moving image piece in which centre stands the city of Liverpool. At the end of the course, students will have produced not only a digital film about Liverpool, but will also have learned about film theoretical and practical implications involved to use video technology as a narrative means in architecture that can achieve more than simply record of what is perceived as urban reality.

Challenge: the course will begin by tracing Liverpool’s architectural and filmic heritage since the turn of the twentieth century, which will provide students with a contextual support of their moving image project. The project will then turn attention to the study of various so-called city symphonies, such as Walter Ruttmann’s Berlin, Symphony of a Great City (1927), Dziga Vertov’s Man with the Movie Camera (1929), and Jean Vigo’s À propos de Nice (1930), which will illustrate various technical and narrative strategies, but also the limitations with which filmmakers have tried to capture essential spatial characteristics of cities. In the centre of this intense course stands the production and post-production of a short city symphony of Liverpool. Before starting with the digital film project, students will develop a script and storyboard and as such identify key aspects of what lies in the centre of the narrative/expressive spatial treatment of their film. Using the newly acquired film historical and theoretical knowledge abovementioned as point of departure, each group will experiment with various video techniques that the digital domain has to offer to produce a unique architectural portrait of Liverpool.

Monday: film/architecture history and theory, lecture and screenings Tuesday: location scouting, script and storyboard development Wednesday: shooting on location, capture footage Thursday: video editing Friday: finalize edit, print to tape Course outcome: video project, 2min Group size: three students, 5 groups Requirement: Ideally students should bring a laptop (preference Mac iBook, Powerbook), editing software (preference Final Cut Xpress), digital video camera, tripod.

Biography: After a career as a professional ballet dancer, Monika Koeck studied and practiced Architecture in Germany. Monika completed her postgraduate studies at Cambridge University, where her attention shifted towards correlation of architecture and the moving image. She worked and taught in Germany, the United States, and the United Kingdom. Monika was Visiting Professor in architecture at that University of Oklahoma from 1999-2002. Over the years, she worked on a large number of academic and commercial moving image productions. Building on her stage experience, Monika’s work is characterized by a particular attention to the body in motion and the use of space and screen-space as a narrative expressive element. Her digital work was part of major international exhibitions, such as the Venice Biennale in Architecture (2000) and the German IBA Exhibition (International Building Exhibition 2004, 2005).

Since 2007, Monika is director and principle partner of CineTecture Ltd., a Liverpool based production company.

WORKSHOP

Re-Thinking The Gap Between Mega-Cities Tutor : Antonio O’Connell Introduction: As the world grows, cities become a more challenging place to live as a result of insufficient capacity and a complex morphologic aspect which is determined by the infinite variables that come to play in the constant transformation of the city’s space. Architecture in this sense has always played an important role in the conformation of the city’s space throughout history and has evolved hand by hand with technology. Even though our world has become “technologically advanced” and conceptually “united” with globalization, our world actually seems to be growing apart from each other not only in personal relationships but in our self conscious of people around us. As developed countries move forward with sophisticated and expensive technology underdeveloped countries fall behind with their focus on basic survival needs. How is architecture addressing to this? Furthermore, if architecture -considered an art form- is based on the human aspect of life and technology is developed to enhance the quality of our lives, why are cities actually deteriorating them? How can architecture impact the lives of those who struggle to make ends meet in underdeveloped countries? How can architecture address the need to fill in the gap between the developed and the underdeveloped? If there is a gap and a need between two worlds that means there is a space to be designed. This workshop will look into and reflect upon these questions and create an imaginary space between two distant realities.

Students will be challenged to design and build in an environment similar to those of impoverished sectors of the world, where imagination is not a luxury but a necessity. In an era where we have become dependent on technology what can we develop without it?

Challenge: This workshop will examine, question, explore and reflect upon the rapid growth and transformation of mega-cities around the world focusing in the gap between developed and underdeveloped countries and how architecture can address to this. Mexico City will be used as a case study of a mega-city with great social contrasts.

This mega-city as well as many other underdeveloped cities around the world characterizes by a contrasting morphologic aspect. On the other end of the technologically designed buildings are the irregular settlements of the impoverished self-built housings with improvised materials that seem to spawn with chaotic patterns. The workshop will challenge students to work together to redesign and re-think these settlements by creating conceptual models and a 1:1 scale installation with improvised materials of a self built housing.

Requirements: Ideally participants who like any kind of craftsmanship, willing to work with their hands and as a team.

They should bring basic modelling tools such as cutters, tweezers, tape measure, screwdrivers, etc.

WORKSHOP

Shrine-In Shrine.Shrine-In Shrine.

Tutor: Caoimhghin O Fraithile, Artist, www.sculpturespace.org/artist/Fraithile.html Introduction: the idea of this project is to work as a group in the creation of a temporary shrine that honors places of local interest. Just as communities in the past came together to dress 'Holy Wells' and Roadside Shrines it is my hope that we can create a series of spaces that address these concerns for our modern age. In a society that has paved over the landscape it is my hope that as artists/architects we can offer a sense of hope to the communities that that we serve.

Challenge: participants will use materials that have been discarded in the creation of this shrine such as bottles, cardboard, plastic, sticks, children's toys. etc. In this way we are connecting to the memory of materials and recognizing their value.

Requirements: Interest in the subjects of shrines, chapels and primitive structures, mud buildings, tree houses, and the like. Participants will be asked to bring discarded or recycled materials and natural found objects to work with during the workshop and basic tools such as cutters, tweezers, etc.