Amazing end of 2018!
Skyline of Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
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After our successul 'Past Present and Future of Public Space. Knowledge sharing toward implementation of the New Urban Agenda' international symposium and workshop held at the Venice Architecture Biennale on September 22-23, attended by 100 participants from more than 25 international University and Institutions, we spent the last three months of the 2018 in expanding our knowledge on public space, through engagement and participation in networking and research events, and in consolidating our projects and initiatives.
Our President Luisa Bravo was engaged in several activities:
- she was invited to participate in the Expert Group Meeting on 'City-wide Public Space Strategies', promoted by UN-Habitat, the United Nations Human Settlements Programme, in collaboration with KTH Centre for the Future of Places, that took place in Stockholm and Angelsberg, Sweden, on September 24-26;
- she was invited to serve as keynote speaker at the 2nd Saudi Urban Forum, promoted by the Ministry of Municipal and Rural Affairs of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (MOMRA), in collaboration with UN-Habitat, within the framework of the technical cooperation of the “Future Saudi Cities Program", that took place in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, on October 15-17. The 2nd Saudi Urban Forum was opened by a speech from the UN-Habitat's Executive Director Maimunah Mohd Sharif;
- she was invited to participate in the SkypeLab SympoLab, a symposium and laboratory dialogue between a multidisciplinary group of academics, artists, PhD candidates and urban thinkers on the impact of digital screen mediation on contemporary identity and spatial knowledge, promoted by RMIT Europe, that took place at the Media-TIC located in the 22@ Innovation District in Barcelona, on November 21-22;
- she was invited to teach the course 'Advanced Urbanism Studio' in the Master's Programme in Urbanism Studies at KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm (October 2018 - January 2019). For the first week of the studio she organized the workshop 'Everyday geographies of public space. Imaginations and practices in Florence', that took place in Florence, in collaboration with the Master Programme in Geography, Spatial Management, Heritage for International Cooperation and the LaGeS Laboratory of the University of Florence, on November 5-8, followed by a public seminar on November 9 (the poster and the programme are available here). The workshop and the public seminar engaged several renowned academic scholars, such as Richard Ingersoll from Syracuse University in Florence (USA), Eamonn Canniffe from Manchester School of Architecture (UK), Orla McKeever from Cork Center for Architectural Education (Ireland), Sabine Knierbein from TU Vienna (Austria), and engaged also the free lance architect Chiara Fanigliulo, architect Rossella Ferorelli from SMALL Soft Metropolitan Architecture and Landscape Lab (Italy) and Toby Neve from The Florence Academy of Arts (Italy);
- she was invited to participate in 'Le Giornate del Territorio' promoted by Ecomuseo Casilino, that took place in Rome on November 10-11, where she presented our proposal for the regeneration of the abandoned butcher shop known as 'Centro Carni' in the Porto-Saragozza neighbourhood in Bologna;
- she was invited to serve as keynote speaker at the International Conference on Urban Conservation promoted by Centre for Built Environment, a registered non-profit professional society in India, that took place in Kolkata on November 26-27 (she could not attend but she sent a pdf presentation that was displayed during the conference).
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At the beginning of November we completed the domain transfer of The Journal of Public Space: the journal has moved from Australia to Italy, City Space Architecture is currently the new publisher! We would like to thank the Queensland University of Technology that helped us to establish the journal, back in 2015, and also supported the domain transfer, under the technical supervision of our Vice President Simone Garagnani. Right after the completion of the transfer our President and Editor in Chief of the Journal Luisa Bravo published a new issue (Vol. 3, n. 2), co-curated with Maggie McCormick, on 'Art and Activism in Public Space'. She engaged several artists and activists: BoaMistura from Spain, Plastique Fantastique from Germany, InCommons from Kenya and limeSHIFT from USA, Angelica Dass from Brasil with Humanae, Richard Briggs and Fiona Hillary from Australia. This issue also includes projects from Planning Institute of Australia and our art installation 'Urban lounge and a green view' during the Art City White Night in Bologna in 2014, in the context of Arte Fiera, the International Fair of Modern and Contemporary Art that takes place every year in Bologna. Our President Luisa Bravo launched the new issue of The Journal of Public Space in Barcelona, as part of the SkypeLab Sympolab at RMIT Europe, introduced by a special guest, Estanislau Roca Blanch, Vice Rector of Infrastructure and Architecture at Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya - UPC. The launch was twitted by the UPC Rector with a picture of our President Luisa Bravo, co-curator of the issue Maggie McCormick and Estanislau Roca.
We are starting a new very exciting phase of our journal with several special issues in 2019 and 2020! Subscribe to the Newsletter of The Journal of Public Space to be always informed about new issues, call for papers and events.
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Finally, in October our co-founder Valerio Francia started a 6-months post graduate internship programme at Fondazione Snam in Milan, as one of the awarded recipients of 2018 “Youth in Action for Sustainable Development Goals” competition, promoted by Fondazione Italiana Accenture, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei and Fondazione Giangiacomo Feltrinelli. Valerio has been also selected to serve as 2018-19 Local Pathways Fellow of SDSN Youth, a programme intended to educate young people about the Sustainable Development Goals and to provide opportunities for them to pioneer innovative solutions to address the world's biggest challenges. Congratulations Valerio!
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City Space Architecture has been included as a partner in the 2018 Annual Report of UN-Habitat's Global Public Space Programme, after being included also last year. So we are very happy to continue our work with UN-Habitat for the implementation of the New Urban Agenda adopted at the Habitat III conference in Quito in 2016. Recently we also received an endorsement on Facebook from UN-Habitat's Executive Director Maimunah Mohd Sharif!
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After a very successful 2018 we would like to extend to all our members and friends our best wishes for a fruitful 2019! And don't forget to Stand up for Public Space!
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