In Paris (France) from 15 February to 23 June Lieu du Design presents the exhibition Sous les pavés, le design, showing the key role of designers in the process of creation of public spaces, assigning them to a function as well as a social and a cultural value.
For more information: here.
Next April Makerlab will be back in Milan for Public Design Festival with a new project of creative collaboration: if you’re young students or professionals of any disciplines, join in the MakerLab Residency, a temporary hub where to share perspectives about urban issues and tools. The objective of the residency will be the creation of a public action held at Cascina Cuccagna during Public Design Festival.
To learn more: open@makerlab.info
As its creator Cho Neulhae says, the Swingers chair helps people to get closer with a smile, taking them back to the childhood.
We’ve been working on the next edition of Public Design Festival that will be in Milan, from 17 to 22 April. With our magnifying glass we’re studying creative solutions for a new type of public space: it is less urban than an overpass but it’s undoubtedly a gathering point. In the meantime you can join our new community in Facebook.
Domusweb, the online expression of Domus magazine, has explored the streetscapes and irregular pattern of Dharavi, one of Mumbai’s districts, where urbz enhances and supports the self-organisational and pragmatic approach to urban design of its inhabitans.
In Christchurch (New Zealand) and Hanoi (Vietnam) Wittner Fabrice has created a poetic intervention. It’s Enlightened Souls, a lightpainting project, still in progress, to disclose the wounds of modern cities.
From 15th to 30th March Brussels will host the second edition of Human Cities Festival with installations, workshops, urban walks and a symposium. Citizens, artists, professionals and cultural associations will gather and discuss about strategies and tools to shape public spaces.
Copenhagen X is an open platform born to discuss about topics such as sustainability and architecture, to tell the deep transformation the Danish capital city has been undergoing and to get to know the new public spaces created in the urban fabric.
AMAGER ARK by Alfio Bonanno, COPENHAGEN, DENMARK, 2004
The Amager Ark is one component of Bonanno’s Himmelhøj (Sky High), a four piece installation commissioned by the Danish Ministry of the Environment.There is a touch of wildness here. Occasionally, deer can be found grazing in the overgrown grass. Sometimes large puddles collect on the ground’s surface. They act as mirrors reflecting earth and sky until the water is slowly absorbed by the clay strata beneath. We can almost believe that the 60 metre oaken vessel might be floated away with a crew of children at the helm. In reality, civilization is encroaching on this playful enclave. Himmelhøj is just over a 10 minute walk from the West Amager metro station.
Place: a parking lot. Tools: white tape, shopping carts and different balls.
It’s Don’t pay, play by Florian Rivière.
Strategy and Tactics in Public Space by a + t is a new interesting catalogue, that collects projects conceived for vacant lots, urban voids and forgotten piazza. Whether the projects are bottom-up approaches or initiatives led by enlightened decision makers, the book shows how urban design and architecture can actually be the tools to build community hubs, tailored to serve flexible uses and functions.
The book includes projects by Basurama, Cascoland and Topotek, featured in Public Design Festival previous editions.
Yesterday during the official ceremony The City 2.0 delivered its “wish to change the world” as TED Prize 2012 Winner. This is an extract:
I am the crucible of the future.
I am where humanity will either flourish or fade.
I am being built and rebuilt every day.
I am inevitable. but I am not yet determined.
I wish to be inclusive, innovative, healthy, soulful, thriving. But my potential can only be reached through you.
The brand-new website is a platform of ideas and projects to improve the quality of life open to everybody. Join in.
In 2010 Art Pit turned an abandoned fountain of Soviet Union time in Jaunas (Lithuania) into Art Square, a temporary community pool for recreational activities. The furniture and lighting by Justina Balčiūnaitė and Jonas Juozas Rudzinskas were made of repurposed old baths and waterproof materials.
Luz nas Vielas is the new collaborative project by BoaMistura in Vila Brâsilandia, one of the favelas in São Paulo (Brasil). The Spanish artists have involved the inhabitants in the colorful makeover of vecos and vielas, its typical winding and narrow streets.
Via Vigevano is a narrow street of Milan with a town-looking aspect, where people still greet each other. esterni knows all its shopkeepers, from the barman with black glasses to the nice stationer. We have worked on a new way to make this network of friendships visible and to spread a socializing behaviour. At 19.30 we meet the shopkeepers. Will they like our idea?
A new concept of playground by Auburn University Rural Studio at the Lions Park in Greensboro, Alabama (USA).
When you are walking in Tampa Bay (USA), you may come across with colorful swings, hung on trees, random structures and even inside a pedestrian overpass. It’s a project by Swings Tampa Bay, a spontaneous community building organization, that uses swings as tools to spark curiosity, refresh the ordinary perception of the landscape and encourage immediate interaction.
Taking inspiration from the 1950’s Human Roulette at Coney Island, Amy Franceschini and Dan Allende from Futurefarmers have created a temporary public sculpture for Shenzhen & Hong Kong Bi-City Biennale Of Urbanism\Architecture. It’s The People’s Roulette, an over-sized wooden structure conceived for children and curious adults, that have fun while it rotates faster and faster.
