Small Scale, Big Change explores the following projects in depth: Primary School, Gando, Burkina Faso (Diébédo Francis Kéré, 1999–2001); Quinta Monroy Housing, Iquique, Chile (Elemental, 2003–05); Red Location Museum of Struggle, Port Elizabeth, South Africa (Noero Wolff Architects, 1998–2005); METI – Handmade School, Rudrapur, Bangladesh (Anna Heringer, 2004–06); Inner-City Arts, Los Angeles, California (Michael Maltzan Architecture, 1993–2008); Housing for the Fishermen, Tyre, Lebanon (Hashim Sarkis A.L.U.D., 1998–2008); $20K House VIII (Dave’s House), Hale County, Alabama (Rural Studio, 2009); Metro Cable, Caracas, Venezuela (Urban Think Tank, 2007–10); Manguinhos Complex, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (Jorge Mario Jáuregui, 2005–10); Transformation of Tour Bois le Prêtre, Paris, France (Frédéric Druot, Anne Lacaton, and Jean Philippe Vassal, 2006–11); and Casa Familiar: Living Rooms at the Border and Senior Housing with Childcare in San Ysidro, California (Estudio Teddy Cruz, 2001–present).

Three Internet-based networks, The 1%, Open Architecture Network, and Urbaninform, extend this survey beyond individual projects to the architecture community. These forums connect community leaders, architects, and nongovernmental organizations to share information and experience.
More info: http://www.moma.org/visit/calendar/exhibitions/1064

Hi,
I am an architecture student from Germany and would like to share my last semester\’s urban design project with you. It was a group work focusing on the revitalization of a city quarter in the UNESCO-listed Old Town of Damascus, Syria. We proposed up-to-date housing in the traditional courtyard houses and a new cultural center on what has been urban wasteland for centuries.

| check out the project here (urban) and here (housing). |

How do you feel about it? Is a new construction for culture and leisure in this context full of religious history thinkable? How about multi-family housing around a common courtyard in an islamic country?

After all, what is the most sustainable solution for this decaying but beautiful quarter – in all aspects of sustainability? What would have been your approach?

People

• Mustafa Ali, an artist living in the old city of Damascus.
• Meyar Al Roumi, a film producer
• Hekmat Chatta, a Damascene architect, one of the founders of batata group, well concerned about what is happening in the old town of Damascus.
• Ali Kaaf, a Syrian artist living in Berlin.
• Samer Kozah, an artist from old Damascus with a new vision of it.
• Friederike Stolleis, a German ethnologue with her dissertation “Öffentliches Leben in privaten Räumen – Muslimische Frauen in Damaskus“
• Stefan Weber, a specialist for Damascus in so many ways.

Books & Magazines

• Ross Burns with all his publications like “Damascus – a History” and “The Monuments of Syria“
• “Auf der Suche nach dem Orient” the February magazine of DU, a swiss cultural journal

Post autor: Leonie (Germany)

If you want to share your projects with our readers, contact us.

Here are some detailed instructions and a small introductory text:

Since we believe that many of the world’s most difficult environmental challenges can be addressed and solved by cities… the project “what if…?cities” will be a collection of ideas from people with different backgrounds from all over the world presenting their own visions for an alternative future urbanity.

We invite you to participate by sending your own idea to build up a myriad of fresh, creative and visionary urban solutions.

The material collected will be part of the exhibition and there will be credits for all external contributions. The exhibition will be on from June to October 2009.

If you are interested in taking part, please send an e-mail to:

whatifcities@ecosistemaurbano.com

With:
+ your visionary, but real idea briefly expressed in one sentence (max. 160 characters)
+ your name, profession and home city.

Some examples:

“WHAT IF…every commercial sign in the city was a shading device.”
(Darren Petrucci / Architect / Phoenix)
“WHAT IF…cities mimic ecosystems in nature as human-made urban ecosystems which contain a balance of biotic and abiotic constituents acting together to form a whole”
(Ken Yeang / Architect and Ecologist / London)
“WHAT IF…we can go through any ground floor of buildings”
(MASAtoshi Oka / Architect / Kyoto)

“WHAT IF… all new housing incorporated “useless” small commercial spaces on their ground level floors that could be rented or sold to individuals at ridiculous prices? (David Cohn / Architecture Critic / Madrid)

More info: http://www.ecosistemaurbano.org/whatifcities/

Shawn Frayne, a young inventor based in Mountain View, California, is the creator of Windbelt, a new device for wind-energy production based on an aerodynamic phenomenon known as aeroelastic flutter.

This phenomenon is a well-known destructive force and it caused, for example, the Washington’s Tacoma Narrows Bridge to collapse in 1940 (video). Researchers at Humdinger (this is the name of the company pushing forward the Windbelt technology) have discovered that it can also be a useful and powerful mechanism for ‘catching the wind’ at a variety of scales and costs beyond the reach of traditional turbines.

Prototypes generated 40 milliwatts in 10-mph slivers of wind, making this device 10 to 30 times as efficient as the best microturbines. A medium-size Windbelt™ building block has an initial target cost of $2 per rated watt. This is two to four times cheaper than photovoltaic systems and less than MW-size turbine wind harvesters, giving wind harvesting an unprecedented ability to power almost any application of any scale.

Frayne’s strategy consist in provide third-world distribution of his Windbelt with revenue from first-world applications.

One of the more interesting things in the company’s strategy is what we can call an open source approach to the development of this new device. Humdinger invite “Dummies and Rocjet Scientist” to review and experiment with a technical brief that anyone can download.

You can find a longer video conference on Google Tech Talk Channel.