Past Present and Future of Public Space

September 22, 2016
By City Space Architecture

2016-09/qut_ppf-publicspace_venice-72.pngWe are delighted to be partners of QUT - Queensland University of Technology in the 'Past Present and Future of Public Space' international seminar that will take place in Venice on September 23, 2016, in the frame of Biennale Sessions, a special educational project of La Biennale di Venezia. This seminar is the first meeting of the research group focused on public space, cities and urbanity that we started after the successful three-day conference held in Bologna in 2014.
During the seminar we will present a new academic journal, ‘The Journal of Public Space’, that we founded in collaboration of the Queensland University of Technology and in partnership with UN-Habitat, the United Nations Human Settlements Programme. Through the exploration of research projects and site-specific interventions, participants will seek answers to questions about how public space in cities is nowadays lived, used, appropriated or neglected. The seminar is an opportunity to share knowledge and discuss with researchers and students around the importance of public space in our cities.
Two relevant institutions are project partners of the 'Past Present and Future of Public Space' research group: the Biennale dello Spazio Pubblico, an international event promoted by INU | Italian National Institute of Urban Planners,  that takes place in Rome - the next one will be on May 2017 - and The Chinese University of Hong Kong, MSC in Urban Design Programme. We already worked with both of them and we are happy to establish this partnership, that we are sure will be fruitful and inspiring.

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City Space Architecture announces the results of the first year participation in New paradigm / New tools Carleton's program

August 12, 2016
By City Space Architecture

 

We are happy to announce that our participation in the first year of the New Paradigm / New Tools internship program was very satisfying and successful. New Paradigm / New Tools is an innovative training program, under the direction of Carleton University’s Immersive Media Studio (CIMS), which addresses the theoretical, practical and ethical imperatives surrounding the use of new and emerging digital technologies for the conservation and rehabilitation of our built heritage. The research is supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
The internship at City Space Architecture aimed at a deep study of the European city, with specific attention to Bologna’s historic center. The three-months long work, a first step in this research, explored the gap in the intangible and living heritage of many squares and public spaces in Bologna, connected by social issues, historical events and citizens' emotional perceptions and feelings. Piazza Verdi, Piazza Rossini, the whole Zamboni street until the "Due Torri", iconic symbol of Bologna, were documented and investigated through photo-modeling and laser scanning, in order to prepare a digital framework oriented to collaborative processes that the private and public sectors could use to produce innovative outcomes on the understanding of urban spaces.
James Arteaga, the brilliant intern who participated to the program at our office in Bologna, actively helped to develop our last challenging project on the image of the city, expressed through sophisticated morphological, spatial and architectural representations.
This research project has a wider perspective, since it is oriented to the authoring of datasets that will be the starting point for the discussion on the contemporary urban space, linking to digital models intangible information about the city. We hope that our promising, preliminary results will foster future achievements and even more fruitful collaborations.

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The Journal of Public Space

June 23, 2016
By City Space Architecture

After one year of very intensive work, made of international meetings, networking events and working papers, we are proud to announce that City Space Architecture founded a brand new journal, The Journal of Public Space, in collaboration with QUT - Queensland University of Technology, based in Australia, and in partnership with UN Habitat, the United Nations Agency for Cities and Human Settlements.
Our President Luisa Bravo and Mirko Guaralda from QUT are founding editors of the journal and they are working with a number of international distinguished scholars all over the world, whose aim is to contribute to the discussion and expand current scholarship on public space. 
The Journal of Public Space is the first, international, interdisciplinary, academic, open access journal entirely dedicated to public space. It speaks different languages and is open to embrace diversity, inconvenient dialogues and untold stories, from multidisciplinary fields and all countries, especially from those that usually do not have voice, overcoming the Western-oriented approach that is leading the current discourse.
As a proper public space, The Journal of Public Space is free, accessible and inclusive, providing a platform for emerging and consolidated researchers; it is intended to foster research, showcase best practices and inform discussion about the more and more important issues related to public spaces in our changing and evolving societies.
The first issue of the journal will be published in September and will include several full papers from our successful "Past Present and Future of Public Space" International Conference on Art, Architecture and Urban Design that took place in Bologna, on June 25-27, 2014.
We will launch The Journal of Public Space during a special event at the Venice Architecture Biennale, on September 23 (Friday) in the afternoon. Follow our Facebook page for updates. All our members are invited to join!

 

 

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City Space Architecture meets Venice Architecture Biennale 2016

May 26, 2016
By City Space Architecture

Biennale SessionsWe are very glad to announce that City Space Architecture has signed an agreement with La Biennale di Venezia in order to be included in the "Biennale Sessions", a special program promoted by the Venice Architecture Biennale for Universities, Academies of Fine Arts and Higher Education Institutions in order to be actively involved in the visit of the exhibition and promote special events and meetings, as part of our educational activities.
The 15th International Architecture Exhibition, titled REPORTING FROM THE FRONT, is curated by Alejandro Aravena and chaired by Paolo Baratta. The exhibition will be open to the public from Saturday May 28th to Sunday November 27th 2016 at the Giardini and the Arsenale.

“In his trip to South America – related Alejandro Aravena - Bruce Chatwin encountered an old lady walking the desert carrying an aluminium ladder on her shoulder. It was German archaeologist Maria Reiche studying the Nazca lines. Standing on the ground, the stones did not make any sense; they were just random gravel. But from the height of the stair those stones became a bird, a jaguar, a tree or a flower."
Aravena thus expressed his hope that the Biennale Architettura 2016 might “offer a new point of view like the one Maria Reiche has on the ladder. Given the complexity and variety of challenges that architecture has to respond to, REPORTING FROM THE FRONT will be about listening to those that were able to gain some perspective and consequently are in the position to share some knowledge and experiences with those of us standing on the ground.”
“We believe  - explained Aravena - that the advancement of architecture is not a goal in itself but a way to improve people’s quality of life. Given that life ranges from very basic physical needs to the most intangible dimensions of the human condition, consequently, improving the quality of the built environment is an endeavour that has to tackle many fronts: from guaranteeing very concrete, down-to-earth living standards to interpreting and fulfilling human desires, from respecting the single individual to taking care of the common good, from efficiently hosting daily activities to expanding the frontiers of civilization. The curator’s proposal is therefore twofold: “on the one hand we would like to widen the range of issues to which architecture is expected to respond, adding explicitly to the cultural and artistic dimensions that already belong to our scope, those that are on the social, political, economical and environmental end of the spectrum. On the other hand, we would like to highlight the fact that architecture is called to respond to more than one dimension at a time, integrating a variety of fields instead of choosing one or another.
REPORTING FROM THE FRONT will be about sharing with a broader audience, the work of people who are scrutinizing the horizon looking for new fields of action, facing issues like segregation, inequalities, peripheries, access to sanitation, natural disasters, housing shortage, migration, informality, crime, traffic, waste, pollution and the participation of communities. And simultaneously it will be about presenting examples where different dimensions are synthesized, integrating the pragmatic with the existential, pertinence and boldness, creativity and common sense."
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City Space Architecture is partner of Carleton University

May 19, 2016
By City Space Architecture

2016-05/csa_intern.jpgWe are delighted to announce that City Space Architecture is partner of Carleton University (Ottawa, Canada) in the research project called "New Paradigm / New Tools for Architectural Heritage in Canada", funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) Partnership Program.

New Paradigm / New Tools is intended to explore the implications for architectural practice and pedagogy in what Gustavo Araoz characterizes as a “new paradigm” for heritage conservation. Araoz, president of the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS), observes that, while the parameters that guide theories of conservation have gradually moved toward intangible heritage, the practice of heritage conservation remains doggedly preoccupied with monuments. To address this, Araoz argues that we must separate the heritage values associated with cultural objects from the objects themselves. The role of the heritage architect, then, is not as a guardian of buildings per se — but as an agent for “managing change” through negotiation with competing cultural voices. 

"New Paradigm / New Tools for Architectural Heritage in Canada" is coordinated by CIMS - Carleton Immersive Media Studio and it is involving leading international institutions and universities.

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