City Space Architecture is proud to present the shortlisted films from "Urban Visions - Beyond the Ideal City", a brand new section that was included for the first time in 2014 as part of the 21° Italian Festival Visioni Italiane, promoted by Cineteca di Bologna, that took place on February 25 - March 1, 2015. Visioni Italiane was born in 1994 in order to give space to all those works that are made by young authors and that remain largely invisible, such as short films, documentaries and experimental films, in search of a distribution.
On April 9, 2015, 5.00pm, at Urban Center Bologna, Sala Atelier, Gianluca Abbate, Chiara Zevi, Maria Laura Del Tento and Fabian Ribezzo, film makers awarded during the ceremony at Cinema Lumiere on March 1 will present their work during a conversation with Giovanni Ginocchini, Director of the Urban Center Bologna, Anna Di Martino, Director of Festival Visioni Italiane, Claudio Sgarbi, architect and professor at Carleton University, Honorary member of City Space Architecture, our President Luisa Bravo and our charter members Simone Garagnani and Valerio Francia. The jury composed by Antonio Iascone, Fabio Mantovani, Pierluigi Molteni, Piero Orlandi, Mario Piccinini and Francesco Satta will contribute to the discussion.
The shortlisted films are:
"Panorama" by Gianluca Abbate - Winner
"Io li ho visti" by Chiara Zevi and Maria Laura Del Tento - Honourable mention
"A Tropical Sunday" by Fabian Ribezzo - Honourable mention
Urban Visions is a project of communication, through films, of the contemporary urban complexity.
Urban Visions is included in the list of collateral events of the Biennale Spazio Pubblico, that will take place in Rome, May 21-24, 2015. 

Follow #UrbanVisions on Facebook.

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After the success of our "The urban lounge and a green view" presented during the Art City White Night 2014, City Space Architecture is proud to promote the artistic initiative "Parking Night 2015", curated by Valerio Francia, to be held in Bologna during the Art City White Night 2015, as part of the national art fair Arte Fiera 2015.
On Saturday January 24, 2015, ten parking spots located along Strada Maggiore in Bologna, just in the shade of the Two Towers, will be transformed into ten different chances for creative thinking and use, from 5.00pm to midnight. Through the community involvement, by means of interviews and other public activities, City Space Architecture, in collaboration with other partners, will promote a discussion mainly related to the city and public spaces for community life.

[To download the program of the event, click on the image on top left]

Last week, January 12-16, our President Luisa Bravo co-directed an intensive workshop at Escola Técnica Superior de Arquitectura de Barcelona (ETSAB), Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, Spain. Working with sixty students from University of Parma (Italy), from the International Master Program in Architecture, Architectural Design Studio course, taught by Prof. Marco Maretto and Prof. Luisa Bravo, and ten students from ETSAB, we were investigating the city centre of Barcelona and the suburban area of the Eixample, along the waterfront to the Forum of Cultures till the river Besos in Sant Adria.

After a guided city tour on foot, a meeting with city managers from the Municipality of Barcelona and a fun long-distance urban experience by bicycle, students were organized in five groups of about fifteen poeple and they had to propose an urban design project for five different locations: a redesign of Placa Catalunya, on two different levels in order to accomodate all flows and connections related to pedestrian use on the ground floor and on the underground metro line level; a redesign of two blocks from the Eixample adjacent to Sagrada Familia in order to create a new pedestrian path as a public space from the Diagonal; a new entrance for the Poblenou Central Park designed by Jean Nouvel at 22@ neighborhood; the creation of new public spaces in a superblock on the Eixample, close to the Gran Via; a new residential mixed-use block in Sant Adria, as a replacement of a large shopping mall and a parking lot.

[To download the program of the workshop, click on the image on top left]

City Space Architecture is proud to announce "MaPS. Mastering Public Space" a new, three-years term, international research project intended to investigate relevant cities and geographical contexts, all around the world. 

Maps are what everyone uses to find a place, to understand or to explain the morphology and geography of the urban experience. Maps are a tool and a resource. They are made of cities and people, buildings and public spaces. The aim of the MaPS project is to deliver open-minded maps, filling the voids with intangible meanings and unpredictable urban experiences, telling the story of the contemporary public life in cities, all around the world. 

MaPS is made of a large network of scholars, devoted to urban and architectural studies, and also architects, professionals, artists, private and public institutions, non-profit organizations and citizens. Those scholars will investigate a specific city, developing research activities, involving students, professionals and public/private institutions, thus establishing a small Lab able to promote a local debate on specific issues, to be reported to the network.

All affiliated members of the MaPS project will meet in person at least once every year, in the occasion of public conferences or events, in Italy and abroad.

City Space Architecture will serve as the leading coordinating Lab in the city of Bologna and will developed several research projects related to contemporary architecture and public space. Click on the image on top left to discover the cities that already are part of the MaPS project.

A CALL FOR INTEREST IS NOW OPEN!

Deadline December 31, 2014.

Pop-up City @ Tin Shui Wai

8-15 Nov 2014

Tin Sau Bazaar, Hong Kong

Opening Reception: 18:00-21:00, 8 Nov 2014, Saturday

Exhibition: 8:00-20:00, 9-15 Nov 2014

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Tung Wah Group of Hospitals (TWGHs) Tin Sau Bazaar will be turned into a Pop-up City – an open gallery of public space – for a week in November, where local residents and the general public can gather, interact and envision public life in an existing place in the new town.

Pop-up City is an ongoing photographic research project investigating public space.  It is initiated by Luisa Bravo, our President, together with Italian photographer Fabio Mantovani. Pop-up City documents suburban places in Bologna, usually with no identity and continuity with the historic environment.  The photos intend to highlight existing places with a potential for public life, searching for an “ordinary magic” along everyday street spaces.

The Magic Carpet project team at the Chinese University of Hong Kong and Tung Wah Group of Hospitals Tin Sau Bazaar see that Pop-up City resonates the situation of Tin Shui Wai: It locates at the margin of Hong Kong; its space has no identity; it lacks street spaces for communal encounters and micro-economic activities.  All these result in the stigmatisation of Tin Shui Wai with problems such as social isolation and a high unemployment rate.