URBALIZE

Normally in media there are just “noise” debates about traffic, (club) music, neighborhoods, construction sites and chaotic urban lifestyle etc. but not in the sense which sounds they are creating more in the way of saying how to reduce them. Well it is of course a fact that unwanted sounds are perceived as noise but noise is not just only noise. Sometimes it is more that we have forgotten how to…

© Dylan Perrenoud

Behind the project named Shelter is the Geneva office of architecture Bureau A. The shelter has a bar, a DJ desk, a dance floor and furniture, all inflatable. For example, the construction could be used not only at the party of architects, which took place in Geneva on the third of June, but as a bouncy castle from location to location – a dark techno-cellar bouncy castle, so to speak. 

Further Information:

Bureau A – Project Shelter

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© Dylan Perrenoud

© Dylan Perrenoud

© Dylan Perrenoud

© Dylan Perrenoud

© Bureau A

© Bureau A

Active community work and the renewal of the Old velvet weaving as impulse for the district

© Montag Stiftung

The development of buildings and urban spaces is a joint task. After all, builders, planners, administrators and many others must work closely together to achieve good results. Often, however, this community task is reserved for only a few, who have specialist competencies, professional legitimation or financial resources. The rest is left out. But that changes. More and more, non professional stakeholders are taking their commitment and competencies to the development of their built environment.

The city of Krefeld and the Montag Foundation Urban Spaces is setting off on a joint journey, the Krefeld Südstadt – and here in particular the district around the old velvet weaving – to one Viable and vibrant urban building of the entire city. The aim is to interlink the development of the velvet weaver quarter and the investment in the old velvet weaving industry in such a way that in the medium term a socially, economically and town-ally heterogeneous, open-minded community emerges which does not require any separate support from the public authorities.

© Montag Stiftung

In their experience of social urban renewal, the Montag Foundation Urban Spaces repeatedly asked themselves the following question: How can the community and the diversity of an unstable district be strengthened beyond short-term impulses and public support?

Can not be developed?

In 2013 the Foundation sought a suitable object. In the southwest town in Krefeld she found it. After the departure of the municipal administration in 2008, the former weaving mill stood empty. There was no investor for the multi-storey building with an area of 4500 square meters and a hall in the courtyard. The district is considered to be structurally “difficult”: too much vacancy, bad construction material, a comparatively high proportion of “transfer-money recipients”. From the point of view of classical investors and real estate developers, the velvet weaving was “not developable”, not least because of the protected part.

© Montag Stiftung

A program of action jointly developed by the city and the Montag Foundation Urban Spaces came to a different conclusion: they discovered a lot of space for creative, freelancers, students, reintegrates into the profession and opportunities for good inner-city living. This also provides space for encounters in a multicultural environment with many active clubs and initiatives.

Half-Rent and “district-hours”

After the residents of the Südweststadt had signaled approval for the project in a citizen information, the project was launched in April 2014 with the founding of the “Urban Neighborhood Samtweberei GmbH (UNS)”. It is responsible for the reconstruction of the building and is responsible for the work of the community and the development of diverse participations for all the population groups of the district. The city has provided the real estate for 60 years in the hereditary building rights to the UNS gmbh. It waives so long on the hereditary lease (around 34,000 euros per year) as the surpluses from the rent in not-for-profit work for the quarter are invested. The Montag Foundation supports the US with the necessary equity for the construction measures and also for five years with subsidies for neighborhood management, including public relations work, personnel and above all for civic projects.

© Montag Stiftung

Plus there is the model “district hours”. For a very cheap cold rent, the commercial tenants of the Samtweberei UNS gmbh do an hour of community work per square meter for the district. The users of the Old Velvet Weaving have initiated a neighborhood newspaper, offer courses for children and young people, such as a recycling art workshop, provide emergency tuition and language support, help clubs and initiatives in professional communication and organize events.

Further information:

Heinrich Böll Architects

Montag Foundation – Urban Space (available only in German)

Nachbarschaft Samtweberei (availabale only in German) Magzine “Auf gute Nachbarschaft im Samtweberviertel Krefeld” (available only in German)

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© Montag Stiftung

© Montag Stiftung

© Montag Stiftung

© Montag Stiftung

© Montag Stiftung

© Montag Stiftung

© Montag Stiftung

© Montag Stiftung

© Montag Stiftung

© Montag Stiftung

© Montag Stiftung

The housing project of the cooperative “Wagnis”  is located on the site of the former funk barracks, the “Domagk” area in the north of Munich. After the barracks were abandoned, artists from all over the world settled here for years, and at times they formed Europe’s largest artistic colony.

© bauchplan

Since 2012, a residential complex consisting of five residential buildings has been built west of the remaining “Kunsthof”, with a particular demand for art and culture. The project combines living and working in a community with experimental living forms and an active contribution to the emerging quarter.

The project was planned by the offices “bogevischs buero architekten & stadtplaner GmbH”, “SHAG Schindler Hable Architekten GbR” in cooperation with “bauchplan” & “auböck/kárász”. The architecture and open space design are beyond the usual degrees of freedom and openness. Due to the fact that they are the key factors in this project. Five polygonal buildings containing 138 housing units as well as a variety of possibilities and public utilities are connected on the third and fourth floors of the building.

© bauchplan

The target of specific possibilities are achieved with basic open-space typologies, which define a design framework. Within this scaffold, there are many opportunities for the inhabitants to interact and develop a flexibly usable open space.

The future residents will be active take self action for the furniture and the future planting. The planning process, which has also succeeded in integrating parts of the artists of the former colony, leads an independent identity of the site from an intermediate use into a city block.

© bauchplan

Together, the inhabitants determine the individual identity of the “Wagnisart” type project, which carry them into the entire barracks area.

The project has already been awarded with German urban development award 2016 (Deutscher Städtebaupreis 2016 ) before completion.

Further information:

www.wagnis.org (WagnisART) (only available in German) bauchplan.de (Projekt Wagnis) (only available in German)

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© bauchplan

© bauchplan

© bauchplan

Who owns the city?!

  Saskia Sassen is a Dutch-American sociologist working on the issues of globalization and international human migration. The question of who owns the city is a very essential one if it is about who change be a contributor or being an active part in involvements on the urban level. The urban globalization expert Saskia Sassen writes that “Space and opportunity for the powerless in cities is…

The Future Architecture Platform is to become the first pan-European platform of architecture museums, festivals and producers, bringing ideas on the future of cities and architecture closer to the wider public. The goals are focusing on the exchange and potential of raising awareness to bind the different ideas and visions. Think Future. We will highlight the emerging generation of talents in…

Rising Architecture Week 2015

RISING is an international architecture event every year in in the Nordic countries. In 2015 the host city is Copenhagen. https://vimeo.com/129431647 The topic of this years event is the growing city and its implications and challenges. Followed up by a conference, there is also the chance for more spontaneous urbanists for visiting city discovery tours (f.ex. Why we love trees Tour) or movie…

Nextland – Next Step forward for Austrian Landscape Architects

Austria has a rich history of arts and music but what about the international and national awareness of the Austrian Landscape Architecture scene? © Birkhäuser This question has also been raised in the recently published book titled nextland – Contemporary Architecture in Austria. Despite the history of garden design, it had not always been very easy to get the discipline of landscape…

© BASE

The project “Aire de Jeux” in “Parc de Belleville” in Paris is a fine example that planning a playground for children should not be afraid letting the kids go for discovering places instead of being to narrow in the design process only about the question of safety. Through the process of children and adult workshops the project got its “fine-tuning”, to implement the  wishes and concerns of the local population.

This adventure playground has in its own context in a long history, starting in 1943 at Emdrup, Denmark. This first adventure playground was created by the  danish landscape architect C. T. Sorensen. He had mentioned the idea of a ‘junk playground’ several years earlier in his book “Open Spaces for Town and Country”. He was working in collaboration with a local housing association to realize the playground close to a recent developed housing estate, for providing recreation for the children who lived on the estate.

The first “playground leader” in Emdrup, John Bertelsen (quote from the book ‘Adventure Playgrounds’ by Arvid Bengtsson)

“The adventure playground is an attempt to give the city child a substitute for the play and development potential it has lost as the city has become a place where there is no space for the child’s imagination and play. Access to all building sites is forbidden to unauthorized persons, there are no trees where the children can climb and play Tarzan. The railway station grounds and the common, where they used to be able to fight great battles and have strange adventures, do not exist any more. No! It is now not easy to be a child in the city when you feel the urge to be a caveman or a bushman”.

John Bertelsen (1946)

This idea of having adventure and roughness on playground got lost over its year due to the fact that safety issues were becoming more and more important by law. Nevertheless “safe” playgrounds are not less harmful than “rough” ones because children like to test their limits.

Back to the park in Paris, it is a good example that rough concrete and a ship like space on a playground can test the ability of kids in many ways.  It is not a cookie cutter playground which can be found all over other places.

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© BASE

© BASE

© BASE

© BASE

© BASE

© BASE

© BASE

© BASE

Further information:

http://www.baseland.fr/

Urban development as a process of participation

Next Hamburg is an independent think-tank for future urban development in Hamburg. The project relies on the voluntary cooperation of citizens and local experts and work through cooperation mechanisms of Internet community, such as “crowdsourcing” or “Crowd Wisdom”. The ideas of the citizens here give a stimulus to be held in Hamburg urban…

In the upcoming years  the trend of a stronger urbanization will take place world wide. That will lead to different social, environmental and economical issues and will also increase the pressure on cities. Another circumstance was that the progress of the globalisation has deepen its impacts also on the scale of local politics. Cities got more and more in direct competition in contesting for…

The unbridled capital, Berlin holds a reputation of a city where everything is possible, where its own scars and voids become a playground for creativity and experimentation for everything from the arts to politics and from architecture to philosophy; a carte blanche of unlimited possibilities.

The new urban art festival Berlin Unlimited ( a project by Urban Transcripts, collagelab and Guerilla…

MIETREBELLEN | RENT REBELS

The financial crisis had led to one effect. The capital flows are looking for new commodities which are promising a higher interest rate than offered in the normal business sectors right now. The most visible results can be seen when this capital is investing in real estate. Those effects can be experienced recently all over the industrialized countries. The film is picturing the situation in…