Desde ecosistema urbano os deseamos…
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December 19, 2012
Today we introduce Blanca Abramek, an architecture student who did an internship with us last spring/summer. She did a great work actively helping us with the design and selection of contents for a book about Dreamhamar that we are now (finally!) finishing.
In her own words:
I’m in my final year of Architecture and Graphic Design at University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, USA. As researcher at the Positive Psychology Center, I am investigating the relationship between urban design and well- being.
Because of my interest in fine arts, cultural anthropology, psychology and film I like to look at design from a holistic perspective. In my opinion architecture relies on an interdisciplinary exchange in which lies the opportunity for architects to seek broader strategies for impact. I believe that in today’s world we, architects and urban designers, need to seek radical new channels of influence that move design away from focusing only on providing professional services and toward a more ambitious role of cultural leadership in the built and social environments.
Here is a short summary about Blanca:
Occupation: Student
Interests: Dance, travel
City/country: Warsaw, PL
Social profiles: @tendrebarbare
Related posts on this blog
Both photos were taken at our office in Madrid. The first –amazing– one is by Emilio P. Doiztúa.
November 28, 2012
The trans-disciplinary research initiative “Low-Budget Urbanity. Frugal Practices Transforming the City” invites PhD and post-doctoral researchers to their first Early Career Laboratory from March 25th to 28th 2013 at HafenCity University in Hamburg.
Low-Budget Urbanity is a research programme that explores contemporary urban phenomena such as ridesharing and online hospitality networks, water-saving infrastructures and DIY-practices of house owners, and second-hand consumer cooperatives as saving practices that transform the urban setting. These self-organized saving practices all involve “complex encounters, connections and mixtures of diverse hybrid networks of humans and animals, objects and information, commodities and waste“ (Sheller and Urry 2006:2).
Public budgets are slashed, many cities are burdened with near-paralysing debt, and for private households, too, saving money often is less a virtue than the order of the day. As a search term of an exploratory and multidisciplinary research project, “low-budget urbanity” provides a relational perspective on those seemingly disparate austerity phenomena. The research focuses on the question of how these phenomena are transforming cities.
What is new is not that saving money constitutes a principle of individual practices (rationalized building, economic or political action, individual budget planning, etc.), but that the austerity imperative for the assemblage, i.e. the confluence and interaction of these principles has become a force that shapes and defines cities.
Next you can find a call for papers that many of you may find interesting, with the topic “What is the value of saving costs? The urban economics and politics of everyday saving practices”.
More info:
Official website: low-budget-urbanity.de
Research group funding programme
November 22, 2012
Today, Thursday Nov. 22nd is the official opening of the exhibition Importing Architecture at the NasjonalMuseet of Art, Architecture and Design in Oslo. The exhibition will be open to the public from tomorrow until April 2013.
Ecosistema Urbano team is pleased to be part of this exhibition with Dreamhamar project, a collective dream to redesign Hamar’s main public space, Stortorget. Other architecture offices included in the selection are: Steven Holl, MVDRV, Peter Zumthor, Renzo Piano, Vandkunsten, JDS, etc…
Here is the introduction by the curator of the exhibition, Eva Elisabeth Madshus:
An increasing number of foreign architects are winning competitions or receiving commissions in Norway. The exhibition takes up this relatively new and interesting development, which is primarily due to the introduction of the EU directive on competitions and more building activity in Norway than the rest of Europe.
This exhibition presents a selection of foreign architectural firms with projects in Norway. It also provides the basis for examining what this increasing internationalization means for Norwegian architecture’s identity and quality.
– Are foreign architects reinforcing the trend toward a type of globalization that is dissolving national and cultural differences? Or are they even more concerned with formulating a Nordic or Norwegian identity than their Norwegian counterparts?
– Is it possible for an architect to create exceptional architecture in Norway without firsthand experience of Norwegian society, building traditions, climate or the natural environment? Or on the contrary, do foreign architects bring new ideas and ways of thinking that enrich the quality of Norwegian architecture?
– Do the EU’s competition regulations, with their criteria for participation and ranking, ensure that the best architectural projects win? Or are foreign architects displacing their Norwegian counterparts in today’s highly competitive building market?
Debate about foreign influences on architecture is not entirely new. Craftsmen from the continent were involved in building Norwegian mediaeval churches, and after the dissolution of the union in 1814 the country’s new institutions were by and large designed by Danish and German architects. But since the beginning of the 1900s, once architecture was an established course of study at NTH (Norwegian Institute of Technology; today the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim), Norwegian architects have been responsible for the vast majority of building works in the country. It was not until the EU competition regulations were adopted in 1994 that foreign architects began to make inroads in the Norwegian market, and the trend has been sustained by the country’s strong oil-driven economy and numerous public sector building projects. In 2012 the results of these factors are striking: a dozen public building projects designed by foreign architects are either in preparation, under construction, or completed.
The architects included in this exhibition are consummate professionals. Their projects reflect exceptional quality at every stage – planning, design, choice of materials, execution – and many of them will become important sources of inspiration. Norwegian architecture is well served by intensified international competition. Every good architect can acquire competence about the particular context that a building project is always a part of, regardless of national origin. Thus, increasing globalization need not lead to uniformity in architecture.
More info about the exhibition: Oslo Nasjonalmuseet
Photos and details of the projects: Nasjonalmuseet at MyNewsDesk
November 13, 2012
Today we introduce Serena Chiacchiari, an Italian architect who’s doing right now an internship with us, being mainly involved in our proposal for the competition in Kiruna. Enjoy her introduction and the great photos from her trips around the world!
In November 2010 after graduating in Architecture in Rome I decided to go to Australia and New Zealand for a period. I was there 2 months, trying to visit as much as I could, from big cities to wild nature. When I came back I decided that what I had studied wasn’t enough so I started a professional master about sustainable architecture in IED Torino. The trip around Australia, where everything is so extreme, inspired me. I started asking myself “Is it possible to live without wasting what nature gives us?”, “Can we as architects help not to waste it?”. So I moved to Turin where I started studying the main elements of sustainable architecture.
Apart from theory, we had 3 workshops, one of which was held by “Arcò”, a young group of Italian architects, who helped us to understand how to build in extreme conditions with poor materials like earth, sand and tires. This workshop was awe-inspiring for me and I decided that I would like to start my architectural career in a young and active studio. I was very happy when I knew that I could have my internship in Ecosistema Urbano, which reflects perfectly my idea of what architecture should be: FUNNY, SUSTAINABLE AND PEOPLE’S.
This experience is very important for me because my passion has always been to travel and meet different cultures and this is the best way to do it!
Here is a short summary about Serena:
Occupation: Architect
Interests: Architecture, photography, travel, sports
City/country: Rome/Italy
Web: www.serenachiacchiari.com
Online profiles: Facebook, Linkedin
November 7, 2012
Belinda Tato and Jose Luis Vallejo will be teaching at the Master in Work Space Design organized by the IE School of Architecture and Design, which will take place next year. They will be conducting the Design and Technology Lab with attended sessions in London and Madrid and on line sessions during winter 2013.
‘The Master in Work Space Design is a pioneering program based on analyses, skills and strategies for understanding and proposing creative ideas for the changing work place. The complex issues affecting the work environment, business and the individual today must take into account changes in technology, new forms of communication, increasing globalization, sustainability and of course, stakeholders’ expectations. Within the Master of Work Space Design all these issues will be explored and the most innovative solutions will be developed’.
Next you can see the prospectus of the Master:
There will be a roundtable next November 23 at RIBA, London, with the topic ‘What’s next in workspaces; designing with change‘.
More information:
Master in Work Space Design: Official site
Roundtable: Registration
November 5, 2012
On November 15th-17th leading architects, artists, scholars, and industry from all over the Globe will meet up in Aarhus, Denmark to shape the media architecture of the future, and to discuss how media architecture is about to change cities.
What happens when heat sensitive concrete ‘freezes’ the shadows of passers-by, or when a façade turns into a screen by means of thousands of tiny LED lights? What happens to architecture, people, and cities, when buildings turn into a type of digital media and allows citizens to communicate with each other in completely new ways?
Questions like these are increasingly relevant, as media architecture gains ground in cities all over the world. And they will be top of the agenda when media architecture experts meet up in Aarhus in November. Among the speakers will be media artists Ben Rubin, architect and designer Jason Bruges, Bjarke Ingels Group, Gehl Architects, professor of architecture Antonio Saggio, professor of media archaeology Erkki Huhtamo – and many more.
The biennale also features an exhibition, awards, industry sessions, workshops, an iPad compendium, and a gala dinner.
You can still register until 8 November 2012. Just a couple of days left!
More information:
Official website: mab12.mediaarchitecture.org
Social media: Facebook + Twitter
October 15, 2012
Tomorrow October 16 José Luis Vallejo and Belinda Tato –Harvard GSD Design Critics in Urban Planning and Design– will be speaking on the design of environments, spaces and dynamics in order to improve the self-organization of citizens, social interaction within communities and their relationship with the environment.
Looking forward to meeting you there!
Tuesday, October 16, from 12:00 pm to 02:00 pm
ecosistema urbano lecture – Harvard GSD website
October 2, 2012
¡Ya hemos comenzado el curso en Harvard! @jlvmateo y @belindatato somos este cuatrimestre de otoño profesores invitados en el máster del GSD de Harvard. Nuestro studio se llama “Networked Urbanism“.
El pasado día 30 de agosto fue la presentación del curso, el llamado “lottery day” donde todos los estudiantes de la escuela asisten a las presentaciones de los profesores invitados cada cuatrimestre y después eligen su grupo favorito. Esta vez, compitiendo por el favor de los estudiantes, podíamos encontrarnos con estrellas del firmamento arquitectónico de las últimas décadas (Nathalie de Vries de MVRDV, Christian Kerez, Ben van Berkel, …).
Esta es una foto del momento de la presentación del curso #networkedurbanism que nos hizo Blanca Abramek (@tendrebarbare) desde el auditorio:
Finalmente nos eligieron un grupo de estudiantes con perfiles muy distintos e interesantes, una mezcla de arquitectos, landscape architects y planners.
Si queréis estar al tanto de la producción de los estudiantes podéis seguir el curso en el blog del studio www.networkedurbanism.com donde estamos compartiendo enlaces y referencias. En Twitter podéis seguir #networkedurbanism donde estamos compartiendo información permanentemente.
Os dejamos con el brief del curso y la presentación. Enjoy it!
Course Description
The boundary between public and private is shifting. The one between personal and professional is becoming increasingly blurred. This rapid evolution has led us to conceive and experience physical space differently than in the past. Real-time connectivity, ubiquity, unlimited access to large flows of information and knowledge, have also altered the way we relate to and work with each other. However, despite those rapid social and technological changes, city planning processes worldwide remain dull, bureaucratic and insensitive to how humans experience the city.
This studio will bring an alternative to the traditional way of designing cities from a bird’s eye view, and a single designer’s perspective. It will not only examine the physical dimension of the city, but also its social processes and fluxes.
Students will be encouraged to use this data to develop individual and collective initiatives that generate spontaneous transformations and set up conditions for change instead of delivering a completely finished product.
In a connected world, an urban design should be the result of an open and multilayered network of creative designers, technical experts, citizens and stakeholders. The studio will challenge the students to develop designs that reconcile the existing physical conditions—that respond to lifestyles from the past—with the emerging needs of the citizens through network design thinking.
We will also explore the new role of a designer as an activator, mediator and curator of social processes in a networked reality in which citizens have shifted from being passive receivers or consumers to active producers or prosumers.
Main topics will include: communication and information technology, open data, mobility, open source, transparency/mapping, activism, design thinking and environment awareness.
La presentación original consta de una serie de GIFs animados que se reproducen en bucle mientras se explica cada apartado. Aquí, por facilidad de comprensión, hemos puesto cada animación por separado, acompañada del texto correspondiente de la presentación (en inglés).
00 #networkedurbanism
We are presenting our option studio called Networked Urbanism:
01 What?
Urbanism is the mirror where other aspects of society and layers of information reflect. Architects, Sociologists, economists, geographers, seem to be cloistered in their specificconceptual worlds and focus on developing only certain aspects of the problem linked to their interests and profession:
We believe that in today’s connected world, an urban design should be the result of an openand multilayered network of creative designers, technical experts, citizens andstakeholders, combining design with data, needs, inputs. As David Harvey states in his article The Right to the City:
“The right to the city is not merely a right of access to what already exists, but a right tochange it after our heart’s desire”
Within this new context, it is necessary to explore the new role of the designer as an activator,mediator and curator of social processes in a networked reality in which citizens haveshifted from being passive receivers or consumers to active producers or prosumers:
In addition, Internet is the “space” where the most successful models of collective creationand self-organization are taking place. Internet is the most democratic space, the platformwhere every citizen can express him/herself freely and horizontally, the space where ideasflow in every direction.This studio will bring an alternative to the traditional way of designing cities from a bird’s eyeview, and a single designer’s perspective. It will, not only examine the physical dimension of the city, but also its social processes.Students will be challenged to develop designs that reconcile the existing physical conditions-that respond to lifestyles from the past- with the emerging needs of the citizens throughnetwork design thinking.
02 How?
In contrast with a more traditional way of teaching in which information goes unidirectionally from ‘knowledge-owners’ to ‘knowledge receivers’. We do apply the concepts of active learning, which focuses the responsibility of learning, on learners; learning by doing, an active constructive learning process, and networked learning, a process of developing and maintaining connections with people, information and communicating in such a way so as to support one another’s learning. The central term in this definition is connections. Connections among students as well as connections between students and information:
We will become a networked group using a studio Twitter network for sharing knowledge,experiences, references and comments throughout the whole process.
This course is for active, curious, versatile, open minded and creative people regardless their previous background, experience or computer skills.
We understand our role as designers is challenging since one has to overcome all kind of obstacles. So we want to make of this studio a training experience.
You could either be a MacGyver type of personality, being able to implement amazing devices from a piece of cardboard, a chip and chewing gum; or a computer geeky updated version of NEO in the movie Matrix, working on his own individually in a room but actively connected to the network community. You are all welcome.
From all the possible /fascinating cities worldwide, we decided to explore the city that surrounds us: Boston.
04 Where?
Students will be encouraged to explore and discover its community, economy, social networks, environmental challenges, digital layer, physical infrastructure, public space, and more. Creating connections and links between existing initiatives and their own projects.
Instead of experiencing just the physical sphere of the city, we will arrange an anthropological tour to meet interesting professionals who are dealing with urban issues in different ways and by different means. This will give us a different perception of Boston, revealing layers which are currently invisible to us.
05 When?
Instead of air-commuting, parachuting and landing every two weeks, we decided to camp this time.
We will be based in Boston to share the experience with you and make the most out of it, so we will be available every week with studio meetings on Tuesdays and Thursdays. There will be both collective and individual sessions.
In addition the group will be real-time connected with Twitter.
06 So what?
Outcomes from our different teaching experiences are diverse: from socially engaged projects working with the community to designing a responsive interactive façade and building a prototype of it. From working with Arduino electronics, to instantly transforming a deprived corner of the city by hand work getting new reactions from people.
From creating a digital interface to enhance community networking to building a mobile kitchen as a catalyst for the activation of a central city square.Spain, Norway, Denmark, France, Italy, Bahrein, US … different environments and different cultures but always a lot of shared energy and enthusiasm. We are very happy to say that some of these projects developed within the studios grew beyond the academic boundaries becoming professional investigations and businesses:
ecosistema urbano is a Madrid based group of architects and urban designers operating within the fields of urbanism, architecture, engineering and sociology. We define our approach as urban social design by which we understand the design of environments, spaces and dynamics in order to improve self-organization of citizens, social interaction within communities and their relationship with the environment. We have used this philosophy to design and implement projects in Norway, Denmark, Spain, Italy, France and China.We have a background in architecture and urban design and we build buildings, we organize demonstrations, we design urban strategies, working in both the physical and digital spheres. We are currently exploring new ways of engaging citizens into urban design matters.
DREAM YOUR CITY is our latest project, developed for the city of Hamar in Norway. It was officially presented short before at the opening of the Biennale of Architecture in Venice:
We hope you enjoy it and get some inspiration for the Fall! We are thrilled to be back here at the GSD and we are looking forward to start!
September 27, 2012
Today we introduce Francesco Cingolani, one of our closest collaborators in the past couple of years. In the following post he explains some of his projects and interests, and his experience in Ecosistema Urbano.
Photo above by urban sociologist Andres Walliser, good friend and collaborator.
I have studied architecture and engineering and I’ve always been interested in the relationship between creativity and new technologies, more than in building. For the last 3 years I’ve been payed to work as an architect, professional blogger and creative project manager. Since 2012 I’ve been teaching parametric design in Paris at “École d’architecture de la ville et des territoires” in Marne-la-Vallée.
I recently started my first projects as entrepreneur: one is a creative cohousing in Madrid and the other is about going into Parisian apartments and create handmade Italian pasta; the project is called farine00 and I’m in this with Valentina, in the photo below. At the moment, people are just crazy about those projects but we still don’t get any income from them. Old story.
Photo above by flo – flickr.com
I am 34, Italian and I have been living in Paris for 9 years. 3 years ago I quit my job at Hugh Dutton Associates to move to Madrid and work with Ecosistema Urbano, Basurama, Meipi and other amazing people from Spain.
In Ecosistema Urbano, I was in charge of the DIGITAL COORDINATION of dreamhamar, a network design and participation process in Norway. It was the most interesting project I participated since I am working. It was also the most stressful one. Old story.
Thanks to dreamhamar I’ve learnt more about complex systems and emergency phenomena.
I think that the most interesting shift in recent design experience is that we have passed from designing object to designing networks and processes. That’s why for dreamhamar we’ve developed a network design methodology. As a project manager, I also applied minimalism as a management tool for highly complex processes which often tend to information overload.
At Ecosistema Urbano I also was in charge of the development of Urban Social Design Experience, a network learning experience focused on participatory processes and sustainability.
Before that, I took part in some more architectural projects. I especially like this one with Ecosistema Urbano and Koz and the new Louvre in Paris with Hugh Dutton Associates, that is opening in September (photo below).
Département des Arts de l’Islam, musée du Louvre, Paris
Client: Etablissement Public du Musée du Louvre
Architects: Rudy Ricciotti et Mario Bellini
Muséography: Renaud Piérard and Mario Bellini
Facade and Structure Consultants: HDA | Hugh Dutton Associés
Photo: “La couverture de la cour Visconti, département des Arts de l’Islam, musée du Louvre”
© R. Ricciotti – M. Bellini / Musée du Louvre
© photo 2011 Musée du Louvre / Olivier Ouadah
Since january 2012, I am trying to work no more than 3 hours per day and check my email box only 3 times a week. The italian newspaper “Il Corriere della Sera” featured my story as an example of downshifting in its magazine “Sette”.
I am a walker, and last year I realised intraverso, a slowlife and storytelling project in collaboration with the Italian magazine whymarche. The project included a slow, walking trip through Italian countryside and a digital journal.
Since 4 months ago I am moving through Europe and working remotely without a unique location, even if I consider Paris as my principal home. I don’t have a clear idea of what I am doing in the next future. Looking for new stories.
When writing for the Internet like this, I like sharing details of my physical location:
Montecanepino, (Italy), 11.47 AM August 8th 2012.
Here is a photo of my window right now.
