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12 min video- how to build with clay and community

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12 min video- how to build with clay and community

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Diébédo Francis Kéré: How to build with clay ... and community

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Diébédo Francis Kéré knew exactly what he wanted to do when he got his degree in architecture... He wanted to go home to Gando in Burkina Faso, to help his neighbors reap the benefit of his education.

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Community Architects Al Borde in Ecuador 

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Community Architects Al Borde in Ecuador 

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also on archdaily

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Lendager architects UN17 Village (Denmark)

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Lendager architects UN17 Village (Denmark)

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A 35,000-square-metre eco-village is going to be built in Copenhagen using recycled concrete, wood and glass.

Architecture studios Lendager Group and Årstiderne Arkitekter won a competition to design the UN17 Village, a housing development set to provide 400 new homes in Ørestad South, a district to the south of the Danish capital.

Their proposal is to create "the first building project in the world" to address all of the UN's Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), with particular focus on using sustainable resources and creating healthy, social communities.

"With the UN17 Village, we wanted to create not only an iconic and sustainable building from recycled materials, but also the opportunity for a sustainable lifestyle," said Anders Lendager, founder of Lendager Group.

"So far, the focus for sustainable buildings has mainly been on their carbon emissions," he explained. "Not only did we want to create an iconic building made from recycled materials, but also an opportunity for a sustainable lifestyle".

"UN17 Village therefore looks at the whole lifecycle of the building - including material use, health, and quality of life."

The design team was selected ahead of big-name studios including BIG and Henning Larsen, in a competition run by property developer NREP.

The proposal comprises five housing blocks built from recycled concrete and wood, as well as upcycled windows.

The structures will rely solely on sustainable energy. Each will be topped with a rooftop garden, to encourage biodiversity, and will also feature rainwater collection facilities capable of recycling 1.5 million litres of water every year.

There will be 37 different housing typologies, with a mix family dwellings, co-living spaces and senior accommodation. They will create homes for up to 800 people, as well as an estimated 100 job opportunities.

To further this, 3,000 square-metres of the complex is dedicated to communal spaces for use by both the residents and the people of Ørestad.

Lendager said the aim is to reduce inequality, by creating "a diverse and strong neighbourhood, where people can live regardless of family structure and age".

Other facilities will include a conference centre that hosts sustainability-focused events, an organic restaurant, greenhouses and food-sharing facilities, to encourage people to grow their own food and reduce waste.

The architects hope the scheme will set a precedent for the rest of the world, forming a sustainable building model that can be applied at any scale. According to Lendager, the project will address all 17 of the UN's SDGs.

"We have developed a scalable process that brings all the SDGs into focus. By translating these into solutions, we have created a tool that everyone in the industry can implement," he added.

The Ørestad South district of Copenhagen has been in development for the past 25 years. Other well-known projects in the areas include the award-winning 8 House by BIG and Street Hall Ørestad, a wooden sports centre by NORD Architects.

Visuals are by TMRW.
Project credits:
Contributing architects: Lendager Group, Årstiderne Arkitekter
Project leader: Philip Rufus Knauf
Client: NREP
Engineering: Moe and Arup
Project team: Jacob Blak, Sophie Daugaard Andersen, Majken Lynge Gribskjold, Kristian Knorr Jensen, Stephanie Levassor, Agata Marzec, Nicholas Ransome, Daniel Veenboer

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UN17 Village to be built in Copenhagen with recycled materials

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Lendager Group and Årstiderne Arkitekter will build a 35,000-square-metre eco-village in Copenhagen, called UN17 Village, using recycled materials

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UN Sustainable Development goals (SDGs and Social Development  

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UN Sustainable Development goals (SDGs and Social Development  

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Ageing
Civil Society
Cooperatives
Disability
Employment
Family
Indigenous Peoples
Poverty
Social Inclusion
Youth

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Anupama Kundoo - Building Knowledge- Building Community (1 hr video)

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Anupama Kundoo - Building Knowledge- Building Community (1 hr video)

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Anupama Kundoo - Building Knowledge | Building Community

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Helen & Hard community designed co-housing project(Norway)

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Helen & Hard community designed co-housing project(Norway)

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Initiated by us, the Vindmøllebakken co-living project is raised on our old office grounds. It is constructed entirely out of wood. Privately owned apartments are built around 500m2 shared space with different programs and a spacious indoor courtyard. Located in the centre of movement, the double height living room becomes the beating heart of the breathing, all-wooden complex.

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Initiated by us, the Vindmøllebakken co-living project is raised on our old office grounds. It is constructed entirely out of wood. Privately owned apartments are built around 500m2 shared space with different programs and a spacious indoor courtyard. Located in the centre of movement, the double height living room becomes the beating heart of the breathing, all-wooden complex.

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Architecture for the people by the people (video)

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Architecture for the people by the people (video)

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Alastair Parvin: Architecture for the people by the people

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Designer Alastair Parvin presents a simple but provocative idea: what if, instead of architects creating buildings for those who can afford to commission them, regular citizens could design and build their own houses? The concept is at the heart of WikiHouse, an open source construction kit that means just about anyone can build a house, anywhere.

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Helen & Hard write about 'gaining by sharing' - Norway

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Helen & Hard write about 'gaining by sharing' - Norway

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15 minute city principles: putting people at the heart of urban transformations 

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15 minute city principles: putting people at the heart of urban transformations 

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Website here with more info

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ockdown has given us a taste of how good it is to live in a more local way: walking to shops, working from home, spending less time commuting. Emissions have decreased, and the air we breathe has felt cleaner. But if we change the way we design our cities, in particular, we can hold on to this climate-friendly way of living.

The "15-minute city" is a vision of urban living where everything you need - house, job, supermarket, school, park, health centre, post office - is a quarter of an hour away, by foot or bike. Paris, Barcelona, Bogotá and many other cities are exploring this. It means making cities more pedestrian- and cyclist-friendly, and prioritising refurbishment over new construction, retrofitting buildings to include a greater mix of uses, such as retail, office space, education, small makers and housing.

If cities reduce the number of cars on the road, and with them the need for parking, we could free up 10% extra space in cities. That's a lot - and the best thing we can do with it is plant trees, creating green, low-emission urban areas. If we do that, natural species will follow, and biodiversity will increase.

But size matters: if these green spaces are small and scattered, they won't be as effective. Only 13% of urban trees in the UK are in areas bigger than 0.25 hectares; they need to be 10 to 35 hectares to support wildlife. We have to fight against the building of "hard squares" - the large, concrete public spaces seen in cities the world over. All public spaces need varied greenery and water-permeable paving. We can further green up our cities with green roofs, balconies and small gardens. We can promote urban laws, like in San Francisco, forcing green roofs in new constructions, or when significant refurbishment happens in existing buildings.

As temperatures rise, city centres are predicted to become "heat islands" - around 3C hotter than surrounding areas. Trees and greenery will combat this. What is beautiful about this plan is that it can reap financial benefits, too, by making cities more attractive to residents, businesses and tourists.

If our cities are designed in this way, we will be better able to weather climate change, but also future pandemics.

Izaskun Chinchilla is an architect who runs her practice in Madrid and London, and is a professor at the Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London

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Izaskun Chinchilla: 'If we free up space in cities, we can plant trees'

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ockdown has given us a taste of how good it is to live in a more local way: walking to shops, working from home, spending less time commuting. Emissions have decreased, and the air we breathe has felt cleaner. But if we change the way we design our cities, in particular, we can hold on to this climate-friendly way of living.

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Architects NONCONFORM talk about their participatory practices (Austria) 

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Architects NONCONFORM talk about their participatory practices (Austria) 

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Alejandro Aravena: My architectural philosophy? Bring the community into the process

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When asked to build housing for 100 families in Chile ten years ago, Alejandro Aravena looked to an unusual inspiration: the wisdom of favelas and slums. Rather than building a large building with small units, he built flexible half-homes that each family could expand on.

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NONCONFORM Ideas Workshops- how they co-create with  the community

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NONCONFORM Ideas Workshops- how they co-create with  the community

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Oder genauer gesagt: Wir entwickeln an Ort und Stelle in nur drei Tagen innovative, wertbeständige Raumkonzepte für Gemeinden, Städte und Schulen. Das nonconforme daran? Vor Ort bauen wir ein Pop-Up Büro auf und laden ganz nach unserem Motto „miteinander weiter denken" alle Bürger*innen herzlich ein, ihre Ideen und Visionen für ein geplantes Bauvorhaben einzubringen.

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AAA (Architecture Autogeree talk here about their R-Urban project and community engagement

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AAA (Architecture Autogeree talk here about their R-Urban project and community engagement

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R-Urban project by AAA (Architectyre Autogeree), Paris

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R-Urban project by AAA (Architectyre Autogeree), Paris

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Here also a summary.

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The implementation of the strategy R-Urban is accompanied by action research projects.

More particularly, aaa is conducting research funded by the Department of Ecology in close link with the implementation of the strategy in Colombes, to question, analyze and guide the implementation of significant process for the whole strategy: the involvement of local economic dynamics, the 'écolomiques' created dynamics, eco-benefit of short circuits, the transferability of the approach at different scales, etc..
A monitoring team will ensure the establishment of a database and updated regularly on all the processes in place: mechanisms, temporality, partners, results, conflicts, deadlocks, contradictions, steps, etc.. A joint publication and a symposium are planned at the end of the research project.

The research activity will continue with the implementation in the medium term of a residence and research in the longer term, a research center on civic resilience.

The research team:
Constantine Petcou - architect / semiotician, project manager, aaa
Doina Petrescu - architect, Professor University of Sheffield, aaa
Stéphane Tonnelat - urban planner, researcher CNRS
Anne Querrien - sociologist and urban planner, aaa

Research Associates:
Kathrin Bohn - architect, Professor TU Berlin, urban agriculture specialist, London
Kathrin Bohm - artist, co-fonder of public works and myvillages.org, specialist in local production and trade, London
Katherine Gibson - economist and geographer, Professor at Centre for Citizenship & Public Policy, Sydney
Fernando Garcia Dory - environmental artist, Madrid
Mathias Heyden - architect activist ISPARA, Assistant Professor TU Berlin
Fionn Stevenson - architect, Professor of Sustainability, University of Sheffield
Rotor - architects, specialists in recycling, Brussels

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The implementation of the strategy R-Urban is accompanied by action research projects. More particularly, aaa is conducting research funded by the Department of Ecology in close link with the implementation of the strategy in Colombes, to question, analyze and guide the implementation of significant process for the whole strategy: the involvement of local economic dynamics, the 'écolomiques' created dynamics, eco-benefit of short circuits, the transferability of the approach at different scales, etc..

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Peter Calthorpe: 7 principles for building better cities

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More than half of the world's population already lives in cities, and another 2.5 billion people are projected to move to urban areas by 2050. The way we build new cities will be at the heart of so much that matters, from climate change to economic vitality to our very well-being and sense of connectedness.

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The Big Playground is our response to the unique needs of 'Enfieldians'. The personae of the Enfieldians were developed through on site interviews and people we have known through our lived experiences as Londoners.

The Big Playground is a community sandbox designed for people from every generation to come together regardless of age or ability, in the belief that play and community are essential to wellbeing.

The Big Playground disrupts expectations of public housing by offering units in a range of different sizes and configurations to accommodate families large and small.

Modular, open-plan arrangements allow cohabitants to assist older loved ones without sacrificing autonomy or dignity, while making efficient use of space. Green spaces, community services, and energy-efficient technology will offer residents opportunities for creative, constructive play and healthy interactions with the community.

We created a high-density, low-rise development to justify a mix of uses that address the common needs of a diverse community. This includes a health centre to provide local care, a rooftop coworking space for young parents, live-work units that accommodate alternative living and retain a culture of making specific to the Lea Valley, a community-owned high street, and circular strategies such as a waste-fueled power station to generate affordable heat and energy; beekeeping spaces; and allotments to encourage activity and biodiversity.

Volume vs Area

Current housing is based on outdated minimum standards tailored for nuclear families.. However, people live not in 2d drawings, but in volumetric, three-dimensional spaces. It's only once we start to think about housing volumetrically that we can start to create culturally specific, needs-based housing that supports the wellbeing of its users.

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The Big Playground is our response to the unique needs of 'Enfieldians'. The personae of the Enfieldians were developed through on site interviews and people we have known through our lived experiences as Londoners. The Big Playground is a community sandbox designed for people from every generation to come together regardless of age or ability, in the belief that play and community are essential to wellbeing.

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For the Fragile Festival at the Pina Bausch Zentrum in Wuppertal, raumlabor and Raul Walch have created symbiotic structures and garments out of trash. Together with a group of participants, a pavilion was created out of old furniture and discarded wood. Inspired by the way the nature of Wuppertal encroaches on the built environment, the project aims to blur the boundaries between the living, the artificial and the discarded. With the help of the AWG trash company, we have been collecting old furniture, wood and textiles, to give them new life. Gradually, these materials have been transformed into new structures, as well as characters who inhabit this space - all while merging with both each other and the existing environment.

raumlabor arbeitet an der Zukunft von Stadt, an Räumen und Situationen, die etwas dazu sagen wollen, wie wir vielleicht besser zusammenleben können. raumlabor zeigt hier seinen empathischen Blick auf die Menschen und den Planeten.

Forms of assembly

collaboration and co-habitation are core conditions of all life. It's about being together, exchanging, producing, decaying, opening up and giving way. Life is about different dynamics coming together. We like to see the city as a form of assembly. Beyond that, our whole planet with its critical zone or biofilm surface, this the thin layer of life surrounding the planet is living together in a potentially unique way in the cosmos, therfore the biggest scale of assembly. If we zoom in, we find the city and if we zoom in more, we see individual living beings, zooming into one of us humans, we discover, that our bodies themselves are universes of cohabitation and exchange. We are no single, autonomous beings, but rather large assemblies of body cells that exchange DNA across from bacteria to human and back.

Die Ausstellung „Empowerment" war vom 10.09.2022- 8.01.2023 im Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg zu sehen. Weltweit finden, beeinflusst durch verschiedenste Bedingungen und Einflüsse, feministische Debatten, Forderungen und Kämpfe statt. Die Ausstellung stellt verschiedene feministische Ansätze und Theorien dar, indem sie über 100 Werke von Künstlerinnen aus 50 Ländern darstellt. Es wird ein Überblick über Kunst und Feminismen seit dem Beginn des 21.Jahrhunderts gegeben.
Common Ground_plan_with text_230715
The Brick Factory is Prishtina's largest post-industrial site. Having been placed under the administration of Kosovo's Privatisation Agency in 2007, it was returned to public ownership by the Municipality of Prishtina in 2021. The future of the site lies in the hands of the citizens. Will it become a new cultural hub, as foreseen by the municipality? What kind of culture would it support? Would such a hub follow existing models or pioneer new ones? The discussion is only just beginning.
Ein postfossiler Themenpark
Du musst dein Leben ändern. Einer drohenden Heisszeit bist du sonst nicht gewachsen. Deiner Einsicht steht nicht nur persönliche Bequemlichkeit entgegen: Auch kapitalstarke Lobbyverbände versuchen dich auf dem Pfad fossiler Abhängigkeit zu halten.

Doch ein Ausstieg ist möglich: 260 Jahre lang wirtschaftete das Japan der Edo-Zeit (1603-1868) auf Grundlage von Sonnenenergie und erlebte dabei eine beispiellose kulturelle Blüte. Aus der Notwendigkeit zur Reduktion entstanden neue Kulturtechniken und Alltagspraxen. Kunst und Kultur erlebten Höhepunkte, die wir zum Teil bis heute kennen: Haiku, Kabuki, No, Kalligraphie, Kintsugi, Sushi, Kimono.

19.10.2023, dinner

Haus Coburg, Delmenhorst, 18:00

4.-7.10.2023, research conference

with Florian Stirnemann, Benjamin Foerster-Baldenius, Barbara Ehnes, Stefanie Wenner, Katrin Dod und Arwed Schultze
Zentralwäscherei Zürich
20.09.2023, opening

Symbiosen

Performance der Ergebnisse vom Bau- und Textilworkshop als Auftakt vom Fragile Festival

Schauspielhaus Wuppertal/Pina Bausch Zentrum

23.09.2023, dinner

Haus Coburg, 18:00

22.09.2023, opening

exhibition at Haus Coburg, Delmenhorst, sept. 23- jan. 28

11.06.2023, open day

Art and About - Ideen zur Nachhaltigkeit

17:00 thematische Führung „Kunst & Nachhaltigkeit" durch den Spreepark
18:30 Kunstgespräch mit Jan Liesegang (raumlaborberlin), Susa Pop (Public Art Lab), Stefan Shankland, Hans J. Wiegner (Public Art Lab), Moderation: Katja Aßmann (Künstlerische Leitung Spreepark Art Space)
Anschließend Klangperformance Thomash & Luter @ Spreepark Cohabitation Discourse

Spreepark Berlin, Eingang über Uferweg, nahe Eierhäuschen, Eintritt frei, 16:00-22:00

The Hüttentalstraße (abbrev. HTS) is a city highway that was built in the 1970's and has had a decisive influence on the surrounding cityscape. Due to its topographical location, the HTS was built on massive, concrete stilts and extends over the entire city area. A large part of Siegen's population lives in the immediate vicinity of the HTS.

Eine neue Studie zum Thema gemeinwohlorientierter Liegenschaftspolitik in Berlin von raumlabor und dem Atelierbeauftragten für Berlin.
Die Studie befasst sich mit der Erkundung von sogenannten „Arrondierungs- und Splitterflächen". Dieses ist eine Flächenkategorie im Betrachtungsverfahren des Landes Berlins von öffentlichen Flächen und Gebäuden, die als nicht zu verwerten deklariert werden. Die Studie arbeitet die Verfahrensweisen des Landes Berlins bezüglich seiner Liegenschaftszuordnung, Clusterung, auf und erarbeitet eine neue Flächenkategorie, deren Nutzung und Vergabe. Das Ziel ist die Erschließung von neuen Flächen für gemeinwohlorientierte Nutzungen (für Kunst, Kultur, aber auch Soziales, Bildung und besonderes Wohnen). Im Zentrum der Studie steht ein transparenter und nachhaltiger Umgang mit den Berliner Liegenschaften. more

Soft Democracies hat vom 01.-09. Juli im Olympiapark München alle Besucher_innen dazu eingeladen, an Gedankengebäuden mitzubauen, Utopien zu spinnen und neue demokratische Strukturen zu errichten. Die Installation wurde so zur Werkstatt für Formen der Teilhabe und deren Präsentation in der Öffentlichkeit.

FAKE ESTATE was inspired by Gordon Matta Clark. It is an effective tool for urban practice, that reuses the platform of a damaged construction trailer. The new design was conceived to meet the definition of the Building Code for Berlin for buildings that do not require a permit (§61 BauOBerlin). It is a radical statement that Urban Practice is not based on property, we must think about it as agile and tactical. It is an active form that establishes a constant connection to its context and serves at the same time as protected space. more

RESIST! beleuchtet 500 Jahre antikolonialen Widerstand im Globalen Süden und erzählt über koloniale Unterdrückung und ihre Auswirkungen bis heute. Die Ausstellung ist eine Hommage an die Menschen, die auf unterschiedlichste Art und Weise Widerstand geleistet haben und deren Geschichten bis heute kaum erzählt oder gehört werden. Die Arbeiten von über 40 zeitgenössischen Künstler*innen aus dem Globalen Süden und der Diaspora, die Geschichten von Rebellion und Krieg, Gewalt und Trauma sowie Überleben und Resilienz. Ihre Erzählungen werden ergänzt von historischen Dokumenten und zahlreichen Objekten aus der Sammlung des RJM, stumme Zeugen von Momenten des Widerstands. Innerhalb des Labyrinths eröffnen vier autonom kuratierte Räume weitere Perspektiven. more

We are happy and honored and thankful to announce - raumlabor has been awarded the golden lion in the 17th architecture exhibition „how will we live together?" in the venice biennale.

The jury composed of Kazuyo Sejima (president, Japan), Sandra Barclay (Peru), Lamia Joreige (Lebanon), Lesley Lokko (Ghana-Scotland), Luca Molinari (Italy), elaborated: [...] for an inspiring collaborative approach that argues for participation, regeneration and collective responsibility, resulting in two projects that are a model for imaginative civic revitalization.

This award is for all the people that collaborated with us over the years, it's for a way of doing architecture. we like to send our biggest thanks to everybody that contributed and contributes to this fluid being we call raumlabor. together, we can change things.

ZUKUNFTSARBEIT FÜR DIE HALLEN KALK

In 2018, Floating University Berlin was initiated by raumlabor as a temporary inner-city laboratory for collective, experiential learning and transdisciplinary exchange.

The founding year of the Floating University saw a diverse breadth of visitors involved to varying degrees with the activity on site, creating a unique ecosystem. The program consolidated a network of practitioners, who towards the end of 2018 decided to continue the experiment by transitioning from a 'temporary' project into an association: Floating University e.V.

Der open space ist wieder auf im K20, am Grabbeplatz in Düsseldorf.

Zusätzlich zu den open days, an denen man mit freiem Eintritt und ohne Voranmeldung vorbeigucken kann, findet dort unter dem Titel „Nichts als Zukunft" ein umfangreiches Programm zu den zentralen Fragen zur Gegenwart und Zukunft unseres Planeten statt, das durch die Kunstsammlung NRW organisiert ist.
Hier mehr dazu: https://www.kunstsammlung.de/de/openspace/#zukunft

Over the course of two weeks, over 150 participants took part in a diverse curriculum convened by practitioners in the field of spatial practices. Acting as a non-disciplinary learning environment, the School proposes, designs, builds, negotiates, maintains, performs and celebrates an educational and convivial space in and around Haus der Statistik, Berlin. At the same time, it becomes a dynamic actor within a process of urban transformation, serving as a common sphere of action between participants, neighbors and civic society.

We are proud and exited to announce our new book: Floating University Berlin 2018 - an illustrated report

It is a chronological reflection, in pictures, of the first year of the Floating University. In it we tell the initial story of our visionary inner city offshore-laboratory for collective, experimental learning, knowledge transfer and the formation of trans-disciplinary networks to challenge the routines and habits of urban practices.

Kulturwerke des bbk berlin und raumlabor berlin, edited by Christof Mayer, Dr. Martin Schwegmann, Florian Stirnemann, Johannes E. Henschel, Tomma Suki Hinrichsen, Anna Pape

raumlabor berlin und Berliner Universität der Künste, edited by Markus Bader, George Kafka, Tatjana Schneider, Rosario Talevi

raumlabor berlin, edited by Florian Stirnemann, Benjamin Foerster-Baldenius

Triennale Brügge, edited by raumlabor berlin, Markus Bader, Shendy Gardin, Jan Liesegang

ZK/U press, von raumlabor berlin und Kulturwerk des bbk berlin GmbH

archive books, a.titolo and raumlabor berlin, edited by a.titolo

Urban School Ruhr, edited by raumlabor berlin, Katja Aßmann, Markus Bader, Rosario Talevi, Urbane Künste Ruhr

The Osthang Project, edited by raumlabor berlin

We are very happy to announce that "5×10" has been acquired by the Kunstmuseen Krefeld to form part of their permanent collection and is currently on show in the Kaiser Wilhelm Museum, from 07.05.2020, as part of their exhibit Highlights of the 21st Century.

Das „Haus Bastian - Zentrum für kulturelle Bildung" der Staatlichen Museen zu Berlin eröffnete am 31. August 2019 mit Konzept und Gestaltung von raumlaborberlin.

Es ein ist Modellprojekt dafür, wie ein Museum sich zukünftig als gesellschaftliche Schnittstelle für Bildung und Kunstvermittlung einsetzen kann.

We are very happy to announce that the sauna building, part of our Bathing Culture project in the former industrial harbor of Gothenburg, has won the SAVG Architecture Award 2015 (Swedish Association of Architects Gothenburg Region).

statement of the jury: The architects of Sweden Västra Götalands architecture prize 2015 has been assigned to the Sauna in Frihamnen (Bathing Culture Göteborg)
Like a stranded container it stands there. A slight unshaped figure with a corrugated surface, in the old basin of Frihamnen. The sauna gives vitality, contributes to new life and a new future. With its zest for life and will to create, the sauna becomes more than just a creative haven it also becomes a vitamin injection for the whole town.

The sauna building is also one of 4 nominees for the Kasper Salin-priset 2015 , the National Swedish Architecture Award.

We are excited to announce that the first edition in the Urban School Ruhr Series „EXPLORATIONS IN URBAN PRACTICE" is out!

Als Gewinner des Kunstwettbewerbs für das Gedenkortes Gütebahnhof Moabit wurde raumlabor mit der Realisierung beauftragt. Der Gedenkort wurde am 11 Juni 2017 eröffnet.

Im Rahmen des zehntägigen Festivals des Museum Judengasse brachte raumlabor berlin das Küchenmonument nach Frankfurt am Main.
For the ten-day festival of the Museum Judengasse raumlaborberlin brought the kitchenmonument to Frankfurt am Main.
Building the City Together explores the topic of action in public space, through the scope of a common space for living, working and thinking together designed and built on the Mathildenhöhe in Darmstadt in 2014. more

Munich beware! The legend strikes back:
Shabbyshabby Apartments!

Barca today is a modern suburb of Torino without any significant attractions for the young people living there. The project aims at promoting youth creativity in a place where the conditions of young people are difficult. The workshop "Cantiere Barca" established a space of commiunication, common activity and discussion with young people from Barca and Bertolla in their neighborhood. more

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For the Fragile Festival at the Pina Bausch Zentrum in Wuppertal, raumlabor and Raul Walch have created symbiotic structures and garments out of trash. Together with a group of participants, a pavilion was created out of old furniture and discarded wood.

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RAUMLABOR in Berlin talk about their architecture activism

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RAUMLABOR in Berlin talk about their architecture activism

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From the air, the (ex-) rural Belgian landscape looks like a carpet studded with a fine pattern of suburban houses. Their infinite and idiosyncratic variations on the theme of individual living reflect a variety without difference. Not expecting much, I glance through the airline's in-flight magazine handed out by the hostess. An article on the new museum in Brussels dedicated to Magritte closes with the image of a painting that I don't recognise. Yet it seems familiar: standing out against a Magrittesque sky are buildings (the suburban architectures of so many of his paintings) piled on top of each other in apparent disorder, similar in design but with subtle variations in the shades of colour and scale. The title is not given, but the caption wonders: "A comment on Belgian architecture?" A mental short circuit sparks a connection between Magritte's invention and a photo of the MéMé, the building I am about to visit. The cross-references between these images are notable, but conceptually the gap is wide. Magritte's painting embodies the possibility of a new figure, though it does not take shape; instead we get a mixture of juxtaposed but unrelated elements. The heterogeneous image of the MéMé, on the other hand, according to its architect Lucien Kroll, is the fruit of an assemblage by empathy of its diverse parts. An open process becomes the motivation for its form and complexity. This can't be reduced simply to the production of an architectural object or even to an aesthetic, but is if anything the prototype of a radical overturning of architecture. The MéMé would thus be a manifesto- building: recognised as an "icon of democratic architecture", it consecrated Kroll as the champion of participatory architecture. Its role, however, is not confined to the albeit relevant sphere of participation. An object of cult worship and fierce attacks, the building in the Woluwe- Saint-Lambert campus is a destabilising feature of 20th-century architecture. And as a veritable objet bouleversant, it reveals surprising analogies with practices more likely to occur in contemporary art.

L'invention collective
Participation is a complex matter, as Giancarlo De Carlo reminded us when he pointed out that the communicative attitude of architecture is potentially available to all. Communication through architecture is an eminently political act, Kroll maintains: the architect is the catalyst of a creative process and social dynamic, in respect to which they make their knowledge available for the translation of interpersonal relationships into a suitable space. The participatory process therefore has to be set in motion; or at least, architects must step out of themselves and put themselves in the shoes of future residents. Architecture must be saved from the architect's exclusive dominion, and redirected towards participation, with "an action open to new necessities and to decisions that are always provisional and incomplete". In short, an architecture-process (defined by Kroll as Incrementalism) occurs which is not all that different to Process Art. From 1966-'67, that movement had in fact rejected all seriality to highlight the process of the work's construction and its evolution in time, with the aid of assorted natural and industrial materials. The ramifications of that Process Art reached as far as Joseph Beuys, whose biography, along with his ecological commitment, contains an event curiously shared by that of Kroll. Almost simultaneously in fact, in 1972, Beuys was dismissed from his post as professor at the Düsseldorf Academy for having supported the occupation of the school by its students, while UCL (Université Catholique de Louvain) prevented the Belgian architect from completing his design of the campus, due to cultural incompatibility. Between 1970 and '72 the UCL's Social Zone was a theatre of experimentation, research and options, later explored by Kroll as he turned increasingly to an overview of living. Here the scale and complexity of the brief enabled him to envisage an action whose outcome would reach beyond the architectural object to an intricate dynamic entity. "Like a spongy living tissue", it is defined in a continuous exchange with its surroundings. In this light, the circulation layout assumes a crucial role. On the micro-urbanistic scale, a network of access points meticulously subverts the plan with the reduction of a sixlane highway to a minor connecting road. A decade later, the same logic of permeability underlies the Alma subway extension, for the only opensky station in Brussels, to a project by Kroll himself. But above all it is on the scale of the building that the logic of a continuous flow is to be seen, in a result somewhere between Escher and Piranesi: in the MéMé "everything communicates and opens, each element sees and can understand and meet the other. The floor slabs are open between one level and the next, the walls are cut out, the skylights are transparent everywhere, and the balconies are visible to one another. There are numerous entries, so people can come from anywhere, from the cellars to the attics and terrace staircases, from the walkways". This allows even what are often cumbersome restraints, such as fire escapes, to be dealt with in different ways. There is clearly a tribute here to the concept of community living and to a "transparent" society closely allied to the ideas of those years. However, the Maison Médicale also includes "opaque" zones, for "regular" accommodation: different but mitigated in the construction of a collective design - not the same thing as the "new subjectivism" which produces mass personalisations, hyperrequested by the market.

Le grand jeu
A highly original methodology is devised by stimulating an intuitive and spontaneous knowledge, "a game with a direct impact on reality". This enables a historical stratification of the work to be recreated in vitro, starting from a rejection of canonical unities (function, language, time). But what language? If after the modern, regularity and symmetry conveyed nothing but a sense of unnatural order, one might as well turn to "situationist" practices in architecture too: to consider the first element at random (as from a pack of playing cards); noting where it stands in the configuration and where its specific characteristics reside, so as to fit it into a general context without destroying or reducing it to an abstraction. A mosaic is thus completed, where the sign's motivation is aleatory. All this, in the case of the MéMé, is translated into the much discussed elevation with its mixture of windows and wood, aluminium and iron panels: a repertoire of constructional elements using the modular coordination of assorted elements. Here we have an extreme case of technologies explored for their creative scope, as an answer to much of the architecture of the same period which failed to achieve anything beyond bare prefabrication. "First of all classify the inhabited landscape within 'global' human knowledge, and then discuss the means of materialisation: everyone has something to contribute. Relations will also have to be reinvented with newly artistic techniques," remarked Lucien Kroll about his project for the French Pavilion at the 2006 Venice Biennale. One of these means of materialisation is certainly that of nature. The wild gardens planted on the artificial hillocks around the MéMé, under the pioneering guidance of Louis Le Roy, alluded to another open, autonomous and natural process, since nature contains every possible structure. The institution's fear of losing control over the process led to its botanical and other "normalisation", but did not wipe out every trace. Big trees today rise irregularly on the slopes, setting the measure of time past. It is not time that frightens this project, whose construction bears all the signs of its development, in a sort of preventive archaeology. But the years have witnessed a succession of incongruous and disrespectful alterations perpetrated by the university, which has never wanted to accept the value of this architecture. Paradoxically, the MéMé ought to be a listed "monument", not so much to freeze the process as to avoid its ruin. Like a haemostatic ligature, closed doors, blocked passages and unused walkways today obstruct the flow of life. Instead of imposing restraints, the legitimacy of decanting from one difference to another ought perhaps to be recognised: like the continuity in difference observed by Lucien Kroll precisely in the fragmented landscape of Belgium. Raffaella Poletti

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A visit to the MéMé 40 years on. An icon of participatory architecture, this generous, open and intentionally incomplete complex has always been resisted by the institutions.

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ESKE BRUUN's Democratic architecture in Denmark 

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ESKE BRUUN's Democratic architecture in Denmark 

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How architecture and urbanism can help to care for and repair a broken planet: essays and illustrated case studies.Today, architecture and urbanism are capit...

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Rural Studio is a design/build programme attached to the architecture department of Auburn University, Alabama. Founded in 1993 by the late Samuel Mockbee, the studio has built over sixty buildings in Hale County for some of the poorest communities of rural USA. Mockbee set up Rural Studio after fourteen years in private practice as Mockbee/Coker Architects, where he developed his particular style of vernacular architecture combined with modern techniques. Although one of their first projects was a design for three 'charity houses' for low-income families, after winning prestigious awards, the practice's commissions were for increasingly wealthy clients. Funding for the charity houses was never found and this inability to create architecture for those most in need led Mockbee to propose a design/build studio at the university where he had studied. The teaching and building programme gave him an opportunity to combine his particular design approach with a pedagogical agenda that is still embedded in the work of Rural Studio.

During this first phase of its existence, Rural Studio built homes in consultation with their future users, using salvaged and donated materials; everything from carpet tiles and paper for walls to car number plates for cladding were used. This was a product of a context-specific and sustainable approach to architecture as well as a response to extremely low budgets. Financial support from Auburn University was limited and erratic and the students were expected to find funding in the form of donations and materials for their projects. The houses were built by second year students, who spent a semester working on the project, with a second set of students completing the project by the end of the academic year. Students in their fifth year built larger, more complex projects, such as a chapel and community centre, spending the whole academic year on site. Under the direction of Mockbee, Rural Studio became one of the most celebrated and successful design/build studios, inspiring other universities to set up similar programmes, such as the BaSic Initiative, URBANbuild and Design Workshop.

Since Mockbee's death in 2001, the programme has changed somewhat and under the direction of Andrew Freear, with projects becoming larger and more complex. The studio is taking on more public projects, as well as developing a series of prototypes for a $20k house, whose design can later be given over to local builders in the hope that it will provide affordable housing and create jobs. The programme's success has meant that it now receives more regular funding from Auburn University, as well as donations from charitable foundations. The impact of the Rural Studio has been profound, not least on the students who attend it. Living and working in rural Alabama, Mockbee, and later Freear and their students, immerse themselves in the community. This exposure of mostly middle-class students to extreme poverty is also considered to be part of the learning experience-Mockbee called it the 'classroom of the community'. His pedagogical approach was in fact very similar to that developed by Charles Moore at the Yale Building Project during the 1960s, which manages to instil students with an understanding of the social responsibilities of the profession. It also teaches students valuable skills of working in teams, with real life situations, giving them a sense of agency.

Key Projects

Hay Bale House
Butterfly House
Yancey Chapel
Mason's Bend Community Centre
$20k House

References About

Andrea Oppenheimer Dean, Proceed and be Bold: Rural Studio after Samuel Mockbee. (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2005).

---, Rural Studio: Samuel Mockbee and an Architecture of Decency. (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2002).

David Moos and Gail Trechsel, Samuel Mockbee and the Rural Studio: Community Architecture. (Birmingham AL: Birmingham Museum of Art, 2003).

Chuck Schultz, The Rural Studio Film. (BluePrint Productions, 2002) www.ruralstudiofilm.com.

'Architecture is broad based but at the heart of architecture is a social order that has to exist, that architecture works with. And so in order to expose students to that social order that exists, at some point in their education, it becomes necessary for them to leave the classroom of the university and enter the classroom of the community. And to leave an abstract world to a world of reality.'
- Samuel Mockbee quoted in, Chuck Schultz, The Rural Studio Film. (BluePrint Productions, 2002) www.ruralstudiofilm.com.

Everyone, rich or poor, deserves a shelter for the soul, architects should lead in procuring social and environmental change. [...] If architecture is going to nudge, cajole, and inspire a community to challenge the status quo into making responsible changes, it will take the subversive leadership of academics and practitioners who keep reminding students of the profession's responsibilities."
- Samuel Mockbee quoted in, Andrea Oppenheimer Dean, Proceed and be Bold: Rural Studio after Samuel Mockbee. (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2005), p. 7.

Connections

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Rural Studio is a design/build programme attached to the architecture department of Auburn University, Alabama. Founded in 1993 by the late Samuel Mockbee, the studio has built over sixty buildings in Hale County for some of the poorest communities of rural USA.

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<DIV>A beautiful, full-color book showcasing 20 best practice designs from ecovillages around the world

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American culture is saturated with the idea that public housing is inevitably and uniformly grim - not so much a place to live as a place to lay your head while you plot your escape, or to simply resign yourself to paralyzing poverty and social invisibility forever.

The impression of public housing as dull, dilapidated, and dangerous has always worked in favor of those who would rather there be no public housing at all. Private real-estate developers, landlords, banks, and assorted wealthy people who don't like paying taxes benefit enormously from our pessimism and lack of imagination. It galls and frightens them that we might someday start to view public housing not as emergency aid for the most destitute, but as an ambitious long-term solution and preferable alternative to the atomization, insecurity, and relentless exploitation of the private housing market - that is, that we might build public housing so attractive that people wouldn't want to take out mortgages or pay market-rate rent anymore.

So they would rather we didn't find out about Red Vienna, or Le Lorrain in Brussels, or Sa Pobla in Mallorca, or even the heyday of British council housing. These projects past and present demonstrate that social housing can be vibrant, safe and beautiful, all while being affordable and reliable for ordinary working people.

To capitalists whose profits depend on extracting as much value from land and shelter as possible, raised expectations for what public housing can accomplish are an existential threat. And nothing raises those expectations quicker and higher than familiarity with Red Vienna, the paragon of social housing in modern history.

Unsurprisingly, the massive undertaking to build decommodified housing for the city's residents was spearheaded by socialists. A robust labor movement with socialist leadership had established itself in Austria during industrialization in the late ninteenth century, but socialism really came into its own after the First World War, when the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy created new political openings. In Vienna, the Social Democratic Workers Party came to power in 1919 and immediately set about implementing an ambitious reform program.

The socialist city government imposed heavy taxes on the wealthy and, starting in 1923, used new revenue to replace its overcrowded and drab working-class slums with modern public housing. Because these were built by socialists with a vision for decommodifying shelter entirely and with a political allegiance to the city's working class, they weren't begrudging bare-bones offerings. Far from it, they were high-concept, masterfully-built edifices, many of which have stood the test of time. Their construction doubled as a good unionized public jobs program, helping the economy recover after the war.

Red Vienna's social housing was designed not just as a place for workers to recharge between shifts - what Barbara Ehrenreich has aptly called "canned labor" - but as a place to live. The majestic apartment buildings featured leafy courtyards, copious open space, and plenty of natural light. They had well-equipped shared laundries and communal state-of-the-art kitchen facilities. They were connected to, and sometimes contained within them, public schools and cooperative stores. Many even had bathhouses and swimming pools, healthcare and childcare centers, pharmacies, post offices, and libraries on the premises.

The largest apartment block in Red Vienna, Karl Marx-Hof, was used as a fortress against militant fascists in the lead-up to the Second World War. The socialists put up a valiant resistance, but in time Red Vienna fell to the fascists. Even so, the city retained the memory of beautiful social housing: for residents of Vienna, the illusion that shelter had to be either private or subpar had been forever shattered. Vienna continued to build desirable social housing after the war, and today 62 percent of the city's residents live in social housing, compared to 5 percent in New York City.

"We have an old idea here that not only rich people should live in good conditions," says one 52-year-old social housing resident in Vienna. "It's an important idea and we should hold onto it."

In 1979, 42 percent of Brits lived in public housing. The big and bold postwar British public housing system wasn't a telltale sign or symptom of widespread immiseration. Instead it was the fruit of a century of reformers' visions and working-class struggles. Some council estates were modest, while others - like the charming, eccentric turn-of-the-century Boundary Street Estate, or the striking modernist buildings designed by communist architect Berthold Lubetkin - were carefully planned for maximum livability and architectural allure.

British social housing was funded through progressive taxation, an arrangement that social democrats justified by pointing out that public housing tenants performed the labor that made large personal fortunes possible. Naturally, this never sat well with the domestic ruling class. So when a global recession in 1973 caused a crack in the foundation of the economic system, capitalists and their political allies leapt at the opportunity. Deliberate underfunding of the housing projects - rationalized as a consequence of unavoidable recession-era belt-tightening - began in the 1970s, followed by a full-on privatization scheme in the 1980s.

When Thatcher came to power in 1979, she swiftly passed legislation allowing tenants to buy and eventually sell their council flats - a clever way of absorbing the publicly-furnished housing stock into the private sector and reestablishing the supremacy of capitalist markets. Low-income tenants have been subjected to steadily disappearing protections and increasing rents ever since.

As shelter costs creep up on earnings across the UK, many who grew up in public council housing are nostalgic for a time when working-class tenants were protected from the vagaries of the private rental market. They remember their council-house upbringings fondly. "You practically knew every kid that was here, and you always had someone to play with," recalls one woman who grew up in the Quaker Court Estate in London. "The parents got on brilliantly as well. If one of you was having a party, the whole lot of you would go."

"We had an idyllic childhood," says another, who grew up in the Boundary Street Estate in London - the city's oldest social housing project, born on the heels of the Housing of the Working Classes Act of 1885. "We really did. I mean, it seems strange to say that now."

A man who grew up in the Heygate Estate in London recalls that he "loved it here... I remember being dazzled by the whiteness of the fitted kitchens, and the stairwells seemed to head to heaven, and away from the slate-grey streets below. This was the modern world, and it was ours for the taking."

Austerity drove many estates into disrepair in the late twentieth century, and Thatcher's ongoing right-to-buy scheme continues to privatize what remains.

Only 8 percent of Brits live in public housing today, but they still have a stronger intuition about social housing than Americans do. Jeremy Corbyn's Labour Party has recently proposed an ambitious new social housing initiative, and it's been received with an enthusiasm that's difficult - though not impossible - to imagine in the United States.

Though privatization and austerity are on the march everywhere, the social-democratic legacy of high-quality public housing hasn't entirely evaporated. Particularly in Europe, there are a handful of recent developments that draw inspiration from the projects of the past - particularly their architectural legacy.

Spain has recently taken up the mantle, and has turned its public housing program into an opportunity for architectural experimentation. In Madrid, the Mirador housing project features a large open space in the middle of the vertical building that doubles as a communal plaza, while the Carabanchel Social Housing project is heavy on bamboo and the 120 Parla project has a retro-futuristic appearance. In Barcelona, the Torre Plaça Europa looks identical to a pricey condo building in London or New York City - same with the Parc Central Social Housing Building in Valencia. The Sa Pobla project in Mallorca looks like something a movie star would rent out for an Instagrammable vacation, and social housing for mineworkers in Asturias is a geometric novelty, inspired in color and shape by the coal that the miners extract.

But Spain is not run by socialists, and while the architecture of these new social housing projects upends the idea that poor people should live in ugly and boring buildings, the projects leave some things to be desired. These buildings are often located on the peripheries of cities, where land is cheaper - for a reason, since these areas are underdeveloped and remote. Building social housing on the outskirts tends to segregate working-class tenants and burden them with costly and time-consuming travel, a mistake also made by the otherwise relatively successful Swedish miljonprogrammet, or Million Program. Fashionable buildings are an improvement, but ultimately unsatisfactory if there aren't shops or schools nearby.

Imagine these buildings in vibrant city centers and you'll have an idea of what social housing can actually achieve. Better yet, imagine them in bustling neighborhoods and equipped with their own publicly-run pharmacies and daycares. Now you see why Red Vienna remains the social housing gold standard, in terms of real value to working-class tenants.

Brussels has given Spain a run for its money in recent years. Two developments in particular - Savonnerie Heymans and Le Lorrain - are shining examples of social housing architecture.

Savonnerie Heymans, named after the soap factory that used to occupy the site, is less than half a mile from Brussels' central square. It comprises dozens of units of varying types - studios, lofts, duplexes and apartments ranging from one to six bedrooms. The architecture is as varied as the units themselves: there are boxlike structures made from glass and slatted wood that have a modern Finnish-sauna feel, and white pitched-roof dwellings that resemble modern interpretations of Belgian cottages. In the middle is the old chimney from the soap factory, the kind of homage to industrial history that's usually cloying in bourgeois settings, less so in a social housing project.

The smaller Le Lorrain is designed by the same architects and is also a renovated industrial complex, this one an old iron dealer. The new estate is spotless and stylish, like something out of Kinfolk or Dwell. But what's remarkable about Savonnerie Heymans and Le Lorrain isn't just their pleasing architecture; it's that, unlike the Spanish projects, they're located on high-value lots in lively neighborhoods, avoiding the problem of working-class siloing. Their designs also encourage communal life to a greater extent: plenty of shared outdoor space, pavilions and gardens and "mini-forests," and Savonnerie Heymans even has a game library for kids.

The major downside to social housing in Belgium is that it's a complicated public-private affair, with a labyrinthine nexus of developers, providers, payers and categories of tenant. The system is decentralized, and while Brussels doesn't allow tenants to buy (or eventually sell) public housing as Britain does, other Belgian regions do - and there's a danger that Brussels could fall prey to this policy, as austerity and neoliberalism break the social-democratic commitments of municipal governments across Europe.

This is another area in which Red Vienna shines by contrast. The planning, construction, finance and maintenance of its social housing were highly centralized. The buildings were completely planned and administered by a democratically-elected body, and they were never intended to be privatized. They were provided by workers, for workers, ideally forever.

One of the most inventive social housing experiments of the last few decades is the Quinta Monroy Housing project in Iquique, Chile.

Rapid urbanization has led poor Chileans to build neighborhoods of informal housing in cities, far from their original homes in the countryside but close to desperately-needed work opportunities. In search of a solution to dangerous living conditions in unsanctioned dwellings, the Chilean state tapped architect Alejandro Aravena in 2004 to turn the slums into social housing.

Aravena came up with an idea: the state would provide half a house to each tenant, featuring a sturdy exterior shell and necessary interior infrastructure like bathrooms and kitchens. The residents could add onto them as they wished. Aravena calls this participatory housing.

The upsides to this approach are many. In Quinta Monroy as well as in subsequent developments - including one in Mexico - a major emphasis has been placed on proximity of the site to amenities and opportunities, so they're all situated close to city centers. And they also double as social services locations, with job training and childcare on site. Finally, as residents build out their units they get an opportunity to be creative and expressive of their unique sensibilities.

But while the housing developments are a huge and necessary step up from dangerous slums, and the final results are eclectic and unique, the project also glorifies thrift and reifies lack of state resources in a way that's at odds with a truly socialist vision of public housing. Aravena's idea is a clever solution to a problem - slender state budgets - that doesn't need to exist. Chile and Mexico boast the largest wealth gaps in the entire world. There is an underlying problem of resource distribution that participatory housing fails to address, and even affirms with its concessionary orientation to public-sector frugality.

Many of the people who live in Aravena's participatory housing developments work at lumber factories in Constitución, or on and around the port of Iquique where the copper mined from the region is loaded onto ships for global trade. The lumber and copper barons have made out like bandits in a nation that the Washington Post calls "a laboratory for a running experiment in free-market capitalism."

The attractive customizability of Chile's participatory housing could be retained while also providing more elegant and better-furnished units, if only Chile would redistribute its wealth the way Red Vienna did - or indeed the way that Chilean democratic socialist president Salvador Allende sought to, before the U.S.-backed coup cut short his life and his vision.

Though all these projects have their flaws and vulnerabilities, the British, Spanish, Belgian and Chilean social housing experiments all seriously trouble the idea that public housing must be ugly and uniform and ought to bear no markings of permanence or features of communal life.

But it's Red Vienna that takes the cake. It's a true testament to what social housing can actually accomplish: it can be wholly public, well-funded, simultaneously extravagant and convenient, a cozy individual home in a rich communal world, and ultimately a preferable alternative to private rental housing.

This is the socialist vision for public housing in a nutshell - housing not as an ultimatum between privatized commodity and public threadbare charity, but as a social good guaranteed by a state that sees quality shelter as a right of all people.

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American culture is saturated with the idea that public housing is inevitably and uniformly grim - not so much a place to live as a place to lay your head while you plot your escape, or to simply resign yourself to paralyzing poverty and social invisibility forever.