A week of seminars, lectures and presentations organised and hosted by Projective Cities MPhil in Architecture and Urban Design. 

13-17 DECEMBER 2021 

Athens as a case study, and specifically the neighbourhood of Kaisariani, is the focus of the programme term 2 design exercise. A series of collaborations with the local municipality and various stakeholders, academic institutions, practitioners and activists, present and expose AA students in the city’s complex urban and social history, aiming to rethink urban and architectural design practices within the context of 21^st century ecological, social, economic and political challenges.

The city and the neighbourhood of Kaisariani serve as sites of research and design experimentation, focusing on the development of new housing typologies, renovation projects and various public and collective equipments, while rethinking and promoting the legacy of the refugee population and its social, cultural and political histories and their registry in spatial and design protocols.

This third field trip is part of the three-year, model research and design project developed as a collaboration between Projective Cities MPhil in Architecture and Urban Design (Architectural Association, School of Architecture) and the Faculty of Architecture of University of Cyprus, and is focused on studies of renovation, adaptation, and promotion of the historic and the current urban and building fabric of Kaisariani.

The programme will conclude with an exhibition, a publication, and a conference, with the overall title ‘1922-2022: Refugee Neighbourhoods. Sustainability, and Cultural Heritage: The Case of Kaisariani’ due in September and December 2022 respectively.

Sessions:

Mon      DEC 13:          

Introduction, Athens as a case study. 10am, Platon Issaias (AA/PC).

Parasitic [Infra]structures: The Kaisariani Case. 11am, Konstantinos Avramidis (UCY).

zoom link, Meeting ID: 825 2750 4967, Passcode: 831334

Contemporary Urbanism and Planning in Athens: Key Trends and Challenges. 12pm, Loukas Triantis (School of Architecture, Technical University, Chania).

zoom link, Meeting ID: 899 4819 0751, Passcode: 230615

Agrarian Hinterlands: The Humanitarian Garden, the Self-help House, and the Resettlement of Refugees in South Macedonia, 1923-1030. 4pm

Theodossis Issaias (Heinz Architectural Center, Carnegie Museum of Art).

zoom link, Meeting ID: 834 7400 9614, Passcode: 519399

Tue      DEC 14:          

Kaisariani: An Urban Community in the City of Athens. 4pm, Olga Balaoura (NTUA/DUTh).

zoom link, Meeting ID: 846 5709 3843, Passcode: 387898

Wed     DEC 15:          

Co-designing in the City of Multiple Crises. 10am, Thanos Andritsos, Dimitris Poulios, Sofia Tsadari (Commonspace/Participatory Lab).

zoom link, Meeting ID: 831 1738 3138, Passcode: 118488

Builders, Housewives, and the Construction of Modern Athens. 4pm, Ioanna Theocharopoulou (Cornell), Tassos Langis, Yiannis Gaitanidis.       

zoom link, Meeting ID: 828 8404 1236, Passcode: 474585

Thu      DEC 16:          

The Filmed Apartment. 10am, Panos Dragonas (University of Patras).

zoom link, Meeting ID: 860 8398 1514, Passcode: 666528

Fri        DEC 17:          

Towards an Urban Typology: Concept, Structure, Form. 10am, Sofia Tsiraki (NTUA).

zoom link, Meeting ID: 826 2030 9352, Passcode: 761347

Making Neighbors. 6pm, AREA, Architecture Research Athens.

zoom link, Meeting ID: 839 4005 3435, Passcode: 098945

– NOTE: times above are GMT.

– In English, via Zoom, follow Projective Cities website and social media for more information.

Detailed Schedule, Seminars/Lectures:

Mon      DEC 13:          

Parasitic [Infra]structures: The Kaisariani Case. 11am, Konstantinos Avramidis (UCY).

This talk critically re-examines a series of student projects produced around Michel Serres’s concept of ‘parasite’ in the context of a diploma design unit organised at the University of Cyprus in collaboration with the Projective Cities Programme at the Architectural Association. The studio focuses on social subjects and groups considered ‘parasitic’ and designs their [infra]structures. The goal is for these parasitic [infra]structures to act as catalysts for the cultivation of complex forms of social relations in the historic neighbourhood of Kaisariani in Athens. Special emphasis is given to the overview and promotion of the unique refugee heritage in the social, cultural and political history of the district, as well as its registration in spatial and design protocols. By taking the parasite as a starting point, the talk aims to rethink the relationship between social and spatial structures. The so considered social parasitism becomes an opportunity to reflect on innovative housing models, new forms of care and welfare in the community.

Konstantinos Avramidis is a Lecturer in Architecture and Landscapes at the University of Cyprus. He holds a DipArch from the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, an MSc in Architecture and Spatial Design from the National Technical University of Athens with distinction, and a PhD in Architecture by Design from the University of Edinburgh, where he was awarded the Edinburgh College of Art scholarship. He has taught extensively at various institutions in Greece and the UK, most recently at Drury University and the University of Portsmouth. He co-founded the architectural design research journal Drawing On and is the principal editor of Graffiti and Street Art: Reading, Writing and Representing the City (Routledge, 2017).

Mon      DEC 13:          

Contemporary Urbanism and Planning in Athens: Key Trends and Challenges. 12pm, Loukas Triantis (School of Architecture, Technical University, Chania).

The presentation gives an overview of Athens’s contemporary urbanism and planning. It brings together path dependencies, formal and informal modes of urban development, with current trends and challenges. The city’s social geography links to urban morphology, patterns of mixed uses and social and spatial divisions. Key challenges in the aftermath of Greece’s debt crisis involve housing affordability, urban tourism and short-term rentals, greening and public space, new urban infrastructures, and mega-projects underway. Urban planning forms troubled relations to current urban transformation and development trends, which open up various fields of intervention.

Loukas Triantis is an architect-planner based in Athens. He currently teaches urban theory and planning in the School of Architecture, Technical University of Crete. He also coordinates a research initiative of LSE Cities about Athens in collaboration with the City of Athens. He has practiced urban and regional planning in the private and the public sectors in Greece and is a board member of the Greek Association of Urban and Regional Planners. His interests touch upon the social, political, and institutional aspects of planning, development, and governance.

Mon      DEC 13:          

Agrarian Hinterlands: The Humanitarian Garden, the Self-help House, and the Resettlement of Refugees in South Macedonia, 1923-1030. 4pm, Theodossis Issaias (Heinz Architectural Center, Carnegie Museum of Art).

The presentation charts the precarious refugee and minority regime put in place by the League of Nations and the humanitarian response to the violent uprooting and resettlement of populations in the aftermath of the 1923 Lausanne Convention on the Exchange of Population between Turkey and Greece. It focuses on the extraterritorial Refugee Settlement Commission of the League, which operated as humanitarian-cum-development agency responsible for the resettlement of 1.22 million refugees in Greece, and pays particular attention to its rural rehabilitation program in South Macedonia. As a spatial program par excellence, this rural settlement utilized land reform and mass homeownership – the smallholding and the rural house – as its primary instruments. In this process, humanitarian relief and nation-building as well as the imperatives of the post-war international peace system converged and at times conflicted. Farm sizes, construction materials, manure types, food ratios, and seed varieties that were suspended between peace treaties and ethnostates, international loans and national debt, native antagonism and refugee dissent.

Theodossis (Theo) Issaias is an architect and educator, and recently joined the Heinz Architectural Center at the Carnegie Museum of Art as Associate Curator. He earned his diploma of Architecture at the National Technical University of Athens and an SMarchS degree from MIT. Since 2009, he has been practicing as a founding member of Fatura Collaborative, an architecture and research collective. His PhD dissertation, “Architectures of the Humanitarian Front” (Yale University), explores the nexus of humanitarian organizations and architecture and their relation to conflict, displacement and the provision of shelter.

Tue      DEC 14:          

Kaisariani: An Urban Community in the City of Athens. 4pm, Olga Balaoura (NTUA/DUTh).

The lecture focuses on the urban and residential development of Kesariani from 1922 to the present, examining its architectural, spatial and social characteristics that led to its current urban identity. Through the analysis of the urban trajectory of the area, it investigates the spatial and typological characteristics, as well as its human geography, as these are constantly enriched by changes that take place over time. Kaisariani is an urban community, in which special urban, social and cultural characteristics may be identified within the wider geography of the city of Athens. The area comprises a cultural and historic urban landscape due to the tangible expressions of its urban environment composed by several historical layers of public and private interventions and the intangible values and ways of life of its residents distinct and relatively common to other neighborhoods in Athens that embody such a condensed political history.

Olga Balaoura is an architect and an urban planner. He holds a diploma in architecture from the School of Architecture of the Democritus University of Thrace, a Master’s degree (MSc Post-graduate Master in Urbanism) from TU Delft in the Netherlands and a PhD from IUAV in Venice. She has systematically dealt with issues of urban and spatial planning and the economic and social geography of the cities, on issues regarding the urban development, sustainability and social and environmental justice, at different scales and various spatial realities in Greece and abroad. She is teaching at the School of Architecture of NTUA and at Democritus University of Thrace, School of Architecture.

Wed     DEC 15:          

Co-designing in the City of Multiple Crises. 10am, Thanos Andritsos, Dimitris Poulios, Sofia Tsadari (Commonspace/Participatory Lab).

Thanos Andritsos studied Architecture at the University of Thessaly and Urban and Regional Planning at the National Technical University of Athens. He has more than ten years of experience in studies and projects related to Urban Design, Sustainable Urban Development, Integrated Territorial Investments, Project Management and Planning Legislation. As a researcher, he is interested in socio-spatial inequalities, sustainable urban development and the challenges of climate breakdown.

Dimitris Poulios is an Architect-Urban Designer with studies in Greece (University of Thessaly) and UK (Cardiff University). Since 2021 he holds a PhD in Urban Planning and Urban Geography form the National Technical University of Athens. His scientific interests lie in the field of Geography, Urban Studies, Political Economy and Architecture. He has won Architectural and Urban Planning competitions and has experience working in Greece and abroad.

Sofia Tsadari a qualified Architect / Urban and Regional Planner (MEng, MSc, PHD – National Technical University of Athens), with 15-year experience in multi-scale architectural / urban design and planning, which also includes site / project management and awards in architectural competitions. She was worked on several participatory planning projects, integrated urban strategies, and studies related to climate change adaptation. Her academic interest focuses on the aftermath of crisis upon urban landscapes.

Sofia, Dimitris and Thanos are founding members of Commonspace and Participatory Lab. They have more than a decade of experience in participatory planning and community engagement/ development projects in Greece.

Commonspace is a collaborative – interdisciplinary planning and design group operating since 2012. It provides high quality services in the fields of Spatial Strategies, Architecture, Social Research, Urban and Environmental Design and Participatory Planning. It seeks to be a link between citizens, social institutions and public authorities, a hub for the exchange of knowledge, ideas and practices among citizens, experts and decision-makers.

Participatory Lab (Laboratory of Spatial, Urban and Environmental Participatory Planning for Climate Change Adaptation) is an initiative of Commonspace funded by the Greek Green Fund.  It aims to create an active, interdisciplinary community that studies, documents, learns, disseminates, and implements participatory planning processes for the climate change adaptation of cities.

Wed     DEC 15:          

Builders, Housewives, and the Construction of Modern Athens. 4pm, Ioanna Theocharopoulou (Cornell), Tassos Langis, Yiannis Gaitanidis.

A documentary exploring the particular history of the Athenian “polykatoikia” [a small-scale multi-story apartment block] and the city’s reconstruction through the anonymous lives of everyday people in the time of “antiparochí” [an apartments-for-land exchange system]. The work is based on Ioanna Theocharopoulou’s book of the same title. The film is an Onassis Culture production.

Who were the rural men that came to Athens with their wives after the Greek Civil War and “swamped” the city in cement? Who “tore down” all the neoclassical buildings and why did they flood the Attic basin with apartment blocks? How did they learn and develop their craft? Where did they come from? What know-how and techniques did they bring with them?

Athens lies at the heart of everything the Onassis Foundation does. Culture that reaches out to journey through the urban fabric, descending on the city center to champion Athens as a time-honored place still very much alive – a space of great ferment where ideas are exchanged. The Onassis Foundation is pursuing lasting investment in Greek cinema and playing an active role in artistic creation. It is supporting established filmmakers and rising talents through screenplay development and the production of both shorts and features, and embracing creative processes, research approaches, and artistic development by offering scholarships and fellowships.

Athens is our city – where we were born, where we live – and we love it like its “our ancestral village”. It is, however, a contradictory and almost anonymous place, the repetitive textures of the apartment blocks extending out in all directions like clones. A space like a text, impenetrable in its generality, unintelligible, and lacking clear historical references besides the landmark that is the Acropolis and a smattering of unconnected monuments. You might ask yourself: “How did all this get built?” It certainly wasn’t put together by architects and urban planners.

Motivated and guided by Ioanna Theocharopoulou’s book, we sought out the cracks in our modern urban history to find out who these rural migrant men and women were – the co-creators of our built environment. And set out with all the standard preconceived notions – that they were the ones who destroyed Athens, that the Karamanlis administration’s “antiparochí” system was to blame, and so on.

We don’t know if these biases and myths about Athens will ever cease to exist. It’s just that now, yet another story has been added to the mix – about the creation of the oldest new capital in Europe.

Ioanna Theocharopoulou is an architect and architectural historian whose research focuses on cities and the histories, theories, and evolving concepts of post-carbon architecture and society. Her writing has appeared in numerous journals as well as book chapters, and she has collaborated on curating and chairing several academic conferences, including “Ecogram: The Question of Sustainability at Columbia University” (2008–11), and “Cities and Citizenship” (2014) with the Goethe-Institut and New York University. She is the author of Builders, Housewives and the Construction of Modern Athens (Artifice, 2017). Theocharopoulou is currently preparing a new edition of the book with the support of the Onassis Foundation and Cultural Center in Athens. She has taught at the Cooper-Hewitt Master’s Program for Design and Curatorial Studies, at Columbia University Graduate School for Architecture, Planning and Preservation, and at Parsons School of Design at the New School in New York City. Theocharopoulou studied at the Architectural Association in London and holds a master’s degree in advanced architectural design and a Ph.D in architecture from Columbia University.

Tassos Langis studied film at Long Island University in New York and the Hellenic Film and Television School Stavrakos in Athens. In 2008, he was selected to take part in the Berlinale Talent Campus in Berlin. His research focuses on symbiotic narrative forms in various media.

Yiannis Gaitanidis lives in Athens, Greece. His work and creative output shares between short films, documentaries, tv commercials, and street photography. His four short films and some of his TV documentaries have participated and been awarded in several international film festivals. Αt the moment he works in the development of a script for a feature film.

Thu      DEC 16:          

The Filmed Apartment. 10am, Panos Dragonas (University of Patras).

Urbanization in Greece was not based on top-down urban planning but on the ad-hoc repetition of a single building type. The polykatoikia had a significant contribution in the urban and economic development of the country. Moreover, it had a dominant role in the formation of modern subjectivity in Greece. The lecture focuses on the development of Greek modernism through the architecture of middle class housing and the representations of urban dwelling in cinema. The urban analysis takes into consideration the layout of the typical apartment and the way that the repetition of a single building type has produced the city. The film analysis takes place in three ways: As a cinematic archaeology that renders visible social and urban transformations of the past; through the understanding of the methods that cinema has promoted, or put into question, specific lifestyles and ideologies; and finally, through film form and the analysis of its cultural significance.

Panos Dragonas is an architect and professor of architecture and urban design at the University of Patras. In 2012 he was joint commissioner of the Greek participation entitled “Made in Athens” at the Venice Biennale of architecture. He has also co-curated the exhibitions “Adhocracy [Athens]” (2015) and “Tomorrows – Urban fictions for possible futures” (Athens, 2017 & Nantes-FR, 2019). He has published extensively on issues of Greek city and architecture. His research and design activities focus on the transformations of the Greek cities during the economic and social crisis, and the connections between cinema, architecture and the modern city. His design work in “dragonas architecture studio” has been published in international reviews and exhibitions.

Fri        DEC 17:          

Towards an Urban Typology: Concept, Structure, Form. 10am, Sofia Tsiraki (NTUA).

I believe that establishing correlation between practicing and teaching architecture is difficult and complex. Is it important that the work of an architect (theoretical, tutorial and practical) must be traced, analyzed and evaluated in reference to a common ethical and methodological basis?

Is it also significant that different projects of an architect follow a common path concerning compositional process, syntactic systems or morphological vocabulary which constitute architecture an aesthetic, scientific, structural and essentially, social entity?  

In an attempt to approach the aforementioned matters, I will present part of our work, in particular projects mostly located in the center of Athens in characteristic neighborhoods, within the dense tissue. These examples, negotiate the concept, structure and form of habitable space as an “archetype life container” aiming to constitute an urban typology.

Sofia Tsiraki is Associate Professor of Architectural Compositions (School of Architecture, NTUA). Architect Engineer NTUA and permanent member of Anastasios Biris Architectural Office& Associates. She is co-author of three collective books and has edited various publications. She has participated in architectural exhibitions. She has been awarded first prizes in Panhellenic Architectural competitions and has collective and individual architectural work. Her completed projects have won awards, while others, such as the project “The house-box: Residence and space for cultural activities in Koukaki” had been nominated for the Mies Van der Rohe Awards 2013. The project “The dissolution of the box: Apartment building in Gazi” was honored with the A’ award 2009-2013 of the Hellenic Institute of Architecture, while the “Industrial Building in Kifissia” was awarded in 2016 by “Domes”. She was recently awarded the first prize in the Panhellenic Architectural Competition for the “PEDA Services Building”, in Eleufsina.

Fri        DEC 17:          

Making Neighbors. 6pm, AREA, Architecture Research Athens.

In the aftermath of the social state, and no less in the age of Covid-19, ‘crisis’ within the contemporary city is necessarily a social crisis, where various forms of human collectivity emerge in response to the lack of available resources. The question of context becomes a question of ‘neighbors’, transcending the digital era, while the desire for [or fear of] physical proximity redefines the concept of human density in cultural terms. The implications for architecture of “making neighbors” is thus as much about projecting a politics of cohabitation as it is about the renegotiation of physical form through an ongoing dialectic of public and private space. “Neighboring”, in this sense, can be seen not only as an evaluative criterion of successful design, but also as a strategy for the design process itself.

AREA (Architecture Research Athens) is an award winning design practice established in Athens by architects Styliani Daouti, Giorgos Mitroulias and Michaeljohn Raftopoulos. The team’s approach actively engages experimental design methodologies in pursuit of the relationship between culture, form and context, with a particular interest in public space. AREA’s theoretical and built work ranges across multiple scales, from furniture to urban design, and has been published and exhibited in Greece, Europe, Asia and North America, with numerous prizes in competitions for public and private projects. AREA teaches architecture at the University of Thessaly and the University of Patras Schools of Architecture. 

A week of seminars, lectures and presentations organised and hosted by Projective Cities MPhil in Architecture and Urban Design. 

1-5 NOVEMBER 2021 

After 2019 studio trip, this third (second virtual) edition will deepen in the understanding of the city’s current problems and challenges derived from both contextual matters and historic claims. Organized around a number of daily topics (Introduction, models and governance for affordable housing, resilience, urban subjectivities and designing Barcelona), local guests from different profiles and backgrounds will enable a number of discussions for which the understanding of multiple stakeholders’ approaches become fundamental.  
    
Sessions:  

Mon, NOV 1 Barcelona, a brief introduction. Raül Avilla | Zaida Muxí. 

Tue, NOV 2 Arquitectos de Cabecera (Tonet Font) | Straddle 3 (David Juárez). 

Wed, NOV 3 Arqbag (Bernat Colomé, Júlia Dubois) | La Dinamo Foundation (Daniela Idrovo)  | Raons Publiques (Anna de Torróntegui, Andrés Martínez). 

Thu, NOV 4 DPR Barcelona (Ethel Baraona) | Celobert (Diego Carrillo). 

Fri, NOV 5 Vicente Guallard | MAIO Architects (Public Lecture, 7pm).  
 
 Note: hours in CET time zone (Barcelona local time).  

• 

Monday November 1: BARCELONA: A BRIEF INTRODUCTION 

11:00-12:30,  Seminar: “Barcelona, Plans and Challenges” | Raül Avilla-Royo | Barcelona’s urban structure and architecture allows a transparent reading of the urban morphology as a result of different historical society structures, political strategies, power deployment forms and city struggles. From ancient roman times, through medieval city, industrial extension (Eixample) and implementation of modern ideas, each moment spatialized socio-political ideas in specific city patterns, while transforming previous ones at its convenience. Exemplified in Barcelona, this seminar will navigate through the relevant urban episodes that made the city of Barcelona, ending up in the 1992s’ so-called “Barcelona Model”, broadly exported, and as much celebrated as criticized. Lecturer: Raül Avilla. 

12:30-14:00, Seminar: “Community Architecture” | Raül Avilla-Royo | The 2008 real estate bubble burst caused an unprecedented economic crisis, that soon turned into a social and political one. In 2011, the 15M Indignados (Outraged) movement became a spontaneous social movement that politicised society at all levels, producing significant changes in city governance, particularly after 2015 with the rise of the municipalist movement Barcelona in Common, whose members are former activists. This seminar will analyse how a young generation of architects assumed political commitment and social responsibility as their own agenda, shifting their disciplinary tools and protocols, and becoming mediators between administration, technicians and social movements. Closely linked, it will address the new scenario produced by the emergence of cooperative housing and a number of self-managed community facilities. Lecturer: Raül Avilla. 

 16:00-17:00, Zaida Muxí | Zaida is an Architect by the University of Buenos Aires and obtained her PhD from the School of Architecture of the University of Seville. She had been Director of Urban Planning, Housing, Public Space, Ecology and Environment in Santa Coloma de Gramenet (Catalonia.Spain). She is professor of Urban Planning at the School of Architecture of Barcelona (ETSAB) at the Polytechnic University of Barcelona. Former co-director with Josep Maria Montaner of the Master of the XXIst century Sustainable Housing Lab from 2004 till 2014. Formerly Deputy Director of ETSAB (2009-2012). Her last book is “Beyond the Threshold. Women, Houses and Cities” (dpr-barcelona, 2021). She is co-founder and member of research network “Un dia una arquitecta” (undiaunaarquitecta.wordpress.com) and was co-founder and member (till 2015) of Col·lectiu Punt 6, a group of women that advocate for and conduct research on gender inclusive planning (punt6.wordpress.com ). 

 

Tuesday Nov 2 

11:00-12:00, Arquitectos de Cabecera | Tonet Font | Architect and urban planner. He teaches at the ETSAB and at the URL schools of architecture of Barcelona. Since 2001 his work has been dedicated to social housing, urban regeneration and local development. Previously responsible for the Pla de Barris (Neighbourhoods Plan) in Barcelona and in charge of Social Innovation as an advisor to the mayor’s office. He is a member of Arquitectos de Cabecera (Community Architects association), a Barcelona-based collective that inquiries in community-led city urban processes through architecture pedagogy as a tool for social transformation. Focusing on collective housing and collaborative practices, AC addresses the existing city by questioning the role of architecture amid an economic, social and disciplinary crisis. AC has been recognized nationally and internationally, including the City of Barcelona Architecture Award in 2015, 2017 nomination to Mies van der Rohe awards, and a commendation in the 2021 Innovation in Architectural Education Award by the International Union of Architects. AC was exhibited in the Spanish Pavilion of the 2018 Biennale of Architecture in Venice and in Piso Piloto Exhibition in Centre de Cultura Contemporànea de Barcelona (CCCB) and Museo de Antioquia de Medellín in 2015. www.arquitectosdecabecera.org. 

12:30-13:30, Straddle 3 | David Juarez. Author | Architect and founding member of Straddle3. Since the late 1990s has developed citizen participation projects on the recovery of abandoned or obsolete industrial and cultural facilities, collaborative transformations of public spaces and focused on research and development in the field of social housing. He has given lectures, courses and workshops in universities throughout Europe and America. He has promoted and co-designed different open-source digital tools for projects related to participatory urbanism, in addition to participating in several specialized publications. He is a founding member of the ATRI collective and the international networks Arquitecturas Colectivas (southern Europe & Latin America) and CitizensLab (Europe). www. straddle3.net, www.atri.city, arquitecturascolectivas.net. 

Wednesday Nov 3 

11:00-12:00, Arqbag | Bernat Colomé i la Júlia Dubois | Arqbag is a young architecture studio that began its activity in 2013, and was formalized as a non-profit cooperative in 2017. It promotes new models of relationship between people, habitability and the territory. We understand architecture as an open process, in constant change, that identifies an architecture with low environmental impact, through the management of environmental and material resources, and participation. We highlight and value the process and not just the result. This process is based on detecting indicators, collecting data, generating content, parameterizing and socializing the goals, to propose strategies based on an objective, transversal and collective vision. From the beginning we have maintained a strong bond with the university (ETSAV – UPC), establishing our workspace on the same campus where we were trained. www. arqbag.coop. 

12:30-13:30, La Dinamo Foundation | Daniela Idrovo | Dinamo is a foundation born with the aim of encouraging and promoting the implementation of the cooperative housing model ‘in transfer of use’ as an alternative to conventional housing model. We want to become a support tool for those initiatives that contribute in some way to the extension of cooperative housing projects, and collaborate with them to make possible the replication of experiences in the territory. We work to make turn the model into a reference in the field of the social and solidarity economy, contributing to the generation of autonomous and self-sufficient cooperatives. We encouraging intercooperation and promote networking in order to collectively build an alternative model of non-speculative, inclusive and sustainable housing and collective ownership. http://ladinamofundacio.org.  

17:30-18:30, Raons Publiques | Anna de Torróntegui + Andrés Martínez |  Raons is an urban social innovation project started in 2009. From the beginning, Raons has sought to create a co-operative start-up project with social enterprise values, which allows them to offer quality services to think, build and/or transform collectively the environments in which we live, work and enjoy ourselves. Raons team is the key element that has enabled the cooperative to get where it is today and continue projecting it into the future. It is made up of professionals from various disciplines with long work experience in fields ranging from architecture, urban planning, sociology, www.raonspubliques.org 

Thursday Nov 4 

11:00-12:00, DPR Barcelona | Ethel Baraona | Critic, writer and curator. Critical observer of the real world. dpr-barcelona is an architectural research practice based in Barcelona, dealing with three main lines: publishing, criticism and curating. Their work explore how architecture as discipline reacts in the intersection with politics, technology, economy and social issues. Their publications, both digital and printed, transcend the boundaries of conventional publications, approaching to those which are probably the titles of architecture in the future, exploring the limits between printed matters and new media, transforming traditional publishing practice [as we know it] into a live exchange of knowledge. Their [net]work is a real hub linking several publications and actors on architecture and theory. www.dpr-barcelona.com. 

12:30-13:30, Celobert | Diego Carrillo | Architect, ETSAB UPC (2003). International Studies in Vernacular Architecture at Oxford Brookes University, 2002. Master’s Degree in Urban and Territorial Development from the UPC 2005. AJAC VI Young Architects Award (2008) for the essay “Basic Materials for the Integral Habitat Project. Proposal for El Salvador, CA” published by the UPC, 2007. Between 2003 and 2005 he began his professional career at Pich-Aguilera Architects, in industrialization and ecology projects applied to multi-family housing. By those years he cofounded SostreCívic housing cooperatives, based on the danish Andel model. Between 2005 and 2010 he worked in Morocco on industrialized social housing projects and in housing and urban upgrading project management. Since 2010 he is a founding partner of the architecture and engineering cooperative Celobert, in which he has mainly dedicated himself to the development of cooperative housing projects, ecological, healthy and energetically efficient, both new construction and rehabilitation. www.celobert.coop. 

Friday Nov 5 

11:00-12:00, Vicente Guallard | Vicente Guallart is an architect from Barcelona who works in the development of projects for ecological cities and buildings across the globe with his company Guallart Architects. He has won numerous international competitions including Housing post-COVID in Xiong’an (2020), or Xianmi hu Master Plan in Shenzhen (2018). He was chief architect of the city of Barcelona (2011-15) leading major transformations in the city, which was named European Capital of Innovation in 2014. He was also founder of the Institute of Advanced Architecture of Catalonia (2001) from where he currently works in the development of Biocities, from the Valldaura Labs center. He is the author of numerous books, such as “ The self-sufficient city”, “Geologics” and “Plans and Projects for Barcelona”. He has recently won a competition to make the tallest wooden dwelling building in Barcelona. www.guallart.com 

19:00-20:30, MAIO Architects | MAIO is an architectural office based in Barcelona and New York that works on spatial systems which allow variation and change through time. MAIO’s projects embrace the ever-changing complexity of everyday-life while providing a resilient, compromised and clear architectural response. MAIO’s members combine professional activities with academic, research and editorial ones. They have been in charge of the magazine Quaderns d’Arquitectura i Urbanisme (2011-16), and currently teach at Columbia GSAPP (New York), the Architectural Association (London), the Escola d’Arquitectura de Barcelona ETSAB/ETSAV, and Elisava – Escola de Disseny i Enginyeria. MAIO has lectured at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Barbican Center, GSAPP-Columbia University, RIBA, UC Berkeley, Yale School of Architecture and Piet Zwart Institute among other places. MAIO’s work has been published in magazines such as Domus, AIT, Volume, Blueprint, A10 and Detail, and exhibited at the MOMA of New York, the Guggenheim Bilbao, the Art Institute of Chicago and Storefront for Art and Architecture. Lately MAIO has participated at Venice Biennial 2016 in the Spanish Pavillion, awarded with the golden Lion, at Chicago Architecture Biennial (2015 & 2017 editions) and co-curated a Weekend Special at the Biennale di Venezia 2014 together with SPACE CAVIAR and DPR-Barcelona.  

Early Applications deadline: Friday, January 29, 2021.

BURSARIES AND FULL SCHOLARSHIPS available.

More information about how to apply in the following link:

https://www.aaschool.ac.uk/admissions/postgraduate

More information about our programme:

https://www.aaschool.ac.uk/academicprogrammes/postgraduate/projective-cities

The MPhil in Architecture and Urban Design (Projective Cities) is a 18-month, interdisciplinary research and design programme that examines multi-scalar questions arising at the intersection of architecture, urban design and planning.

Projective Cities is a critical forum to engage with questions of governance and development in the context of global challenges of urbanisation. Its objective is to respond to current urban, environmental and social crises by rethinking the agency of spatial design and development within specific political, economic, social and cultural contexts.

Projective Cities prepares its candidates for independent research through a framework of rigorous design and research methodologies. The first year of the programme is taught, introducing students to research methods, academic writing, architectural and urban histories and theories, advanced analytical techniques and computational design in preparation for a substantial dissertation project. At the end of the first year, students submit a research proposal. This is developed in the second year, leading to an integrated design and written dissertation.

Projective Cities seeks candidates with a desire to develop substantial and original research. It seeks exceptional thinkers, gifted designers and critical writers with an interest in the future of our cities.

Recent and ongoing research projects in London, Athens, Barcelona, Bangkok, Beijing, Wuhan, the region of Silesia in Poland, Berlin, Jakarta, Leipzig, Shanghai, among others. Collaborations with academic institutions, municipalities, collectives, cooperatives, multi- and interdisciplinary practices.

image captions:

Wojciech Mazan, ‘Proximal Relations: Forms of Settlement, Dwelling and Territory in Opole-Silesia, Poland’. 2019-20.

Dimitris Chatziioakeimidis, ‘Renovation as a Project: Athenian Post-war Office Buildings as Social Infrastructure’. 2019-20.

Tanapol Kositsurungkakul, ‘Revitalising the Urban Block, Kaisariani, Athens – Greece’. 2019-20.

A WEEK OF SEMINARS, LECTURES AND PRESENTATION ORGANISED AND HOSTED BY PROJECTIVE CITIES MPHIL IN ARCHITECTURE AND URBAN DESIGN

14-18 DECEMBER 2020

Athens as a case study, and specifically the neighborhood of Kaisariani, is the focus of the programme term 2 design exercise. A series of collaborations with the local municipality and various stakeholders, academic institutions, practitioners and activists, present and expose AA students in the city’s complex urban and social history, aiming to rethink urban and architectural design practices within the context of 21^st century ecological, social, economic and political challenges.

The city and the neighborhood of Kaisariani serve as sites of research and design experimentation, focusing on the development of new housing typologies, renovation projects and various public and collective equipments, while rethinking and promoting the legacy of the refugee population and its social, cultural and political histories and their registry in spatial and design protocols.

Sessions:

Mon      DEC 14:           Introduction, Athens as a case study and Kaisariani Project. 3pm

Platon Issaias, Ioanna Piniara.

                                    Urban Environment Laboratory. 4pm

                                    Nikos Belavilas, Katerina Christoforaki, Polina Prentou.

Tue      DEC 15:           Athens Urban Plans. 11am

                                    Panagiotis Tournikiotis

Renovation as a project: the Athenian office building. 6pm

Dimitris Chatziioakeimidis.

Hellinikon Neighborhoods. 6.30pm

                                    Maria Marlanti, Thanos Pagonis, Kostantinos Serraos.

Wed     DEC 16:           Decentralised interiorities and Athens ‘Long Walk’. 5pm

                                    Olga Balaoura, Elisavet Hasa.                           

Thu      DEC 17:           A Compact City facing Covid-19, Athens Social Atlas. 5pm

                                    Lila Leontidou, Thomas Maloutas.

Fri        DEC 18:           2008-16. Athens Remembered. 5pm

                                    Iris Lykourioti.

– NOTE: times above are local in Athens (GMT +2hrs)

– In English, via Zoom/Teams, follow Projective Cities website and social media.

Public Lectures:

Tue      DEC 15:            Pandemics, the City, a Crystal -plus two Competitions. 8pm

Pandemics and its relation to the City will serve as a short prélude to the presentation of two first Prize competition proposals for Athens -with a time difference of 60 years: Jan Despo’s project for the Athens Cultural Centre (1959) and tense architecture network’s project for the Regeneration of the Athens City Centre (2019).

Tilemachos Andrianopoulos.

Born in Athens (1974). Diploma in Architecture, National Technical University of Athens (2001), Metropolis Msc in Architecture and Urban Culture, CCCB- Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (2006). Founder of Tense Architecture Network_TAN (2004). Public space and private environments are constantly researched in TAN’S work; the two fields are purposely interconnected. The practice’s portfolio includes several first prize competition proposals as well as awarded residences: ‘Residence in Megara’ received a Häuser Award (2016), Residence in Heraklion was nominated for the Mies van der Rohe award (2017) and ‘Residence in Sikamino’ was shortlisted for the same award (2013), while TAN participated in the Architecture Biennale of Venice twice (2012 and 2014). 1st Prize Competition Proposals: Regeneration of the Athens City Center (2019), Six Star Resort in Mykonos, invited Competition_1^st Prize (2019), ‘Kastraki’ Urban Park in Piraeus (2016), Rehabilitation of Venetian Arsenali and their wider surrounding space in Heraklion (2009), Arkalos Town Hall, Crete (2007). Selective architectural competition distinctions: New Passenger Terminal in Souda_3rd Prize (2017), New Cyprus Archaelogical Museum_6th Prize (2017), Museum for Argo in Volos_2nd Prize (2014), Pylaia Cultural Center_2nd Prize (2002). Receiver of the Greek Architecture Award (2020) by domA.archi for the Restoration of the Upper Concert Hall of the Athens Conservatory in collaboration with atelier66. Member of the multidisciplinary group Greenproject (2010), of the Hellenic Institute of Architects (2015), and of do.co.momo international (2015). Associate Professor in the School of Architecture of the National Technical University of Athens. 

Image caption: Michiel Sweerts, ‘Plague in an ancient City’.

Thu      DEC 17:            The law of withdrawal, 8pm

The idea of protocols of withdrawal seems to refer to the condition of the pandemics but it is not so. On the contrary it leads here to a definition of  the city’s normality pre-existing the pandemics and addressing  the future after it; through an investigation about urban withdrawal we are oriented towards a systematic theory of the infrastructure; an updated concept of infrastructure -including the realm of the post digital extensions of it- becomes increasingly visible as a mechanism of withdrawal. Providing services and goods from a distance, this infrastructure can settle a form of “life from a distance”; in the same way it automatically silences all possible technical malfunctions operated in its realm, it glorifies a concept of permanent maintenance as the core of its rationale. By tele-operation this silencing effect of the infrastructure becomes even stronger as a permanent possibility for the gratification of all possible urban or post-urban needs. In this sense the infrastructure seems to not only be the technical support of urban life but the unifying spine of its multiple faces. Any concept of the political has to deal now with the automatisms of infrastructure. 

The law of withdrawal is presented in two chapters: the theory of the cockpit and the status of invisible community, both extended to an architectural practice. Both showcase the double bind between the public and the private sphere of the post network world.

Aristide Antonas’ work spans philosophy, art, literature and architecture. He published novels, short stories, theatre scripts and essays. His art and architecture work has been featured among other places in documenta 14, Istanbul biennial, Venice biennale, and had solo institutional presentations in the Swiss Architecture Museum, in Austria’s Vorarlberger Architektur Institut and in the French FRAC, Orleans.

Image caption: Aristide Antonas, ‘Protocols of withdrawal’.

A week of seminars, lectures and presentations organised and hosted by Projective Cities MPhil in Architecture and Urban Design.

2-6 November 2020.

After 2019 studio trip, this second edition (first virtual) will deepen in the understanding of the city’s current problems and challenges derived from both contextual matters and historic claims. Organized around a number of daily topics (Introduction, models and governance for affordable housing, resilience, urban subjectivities and designing Barcelona), local guests from different profiles and backgrounds will enable a number of discussions for which the understanding of multiple stakeholders approaches becomes fundamental.

Sessions:

Mon   NOV 2: Barcelona, a brief introduction

Tue     NOV 3: Affordable housing: models and governance

Wed  NOV 4. Resilience

Thu     NOV 5. Urban subjectivities

Fri       NOV 6. Designing Barcelona

_3-6pm. NOTE: times are local times in Barcelona (London +1h).

_ 2 sessions per day, 1h total time. 30’ lecture + 30’ conversation led by students.

_ In English, via zoom/teams.

NOV 2.  – BARCELONA, A BRIEF INTRODUCTION:

15-16:00h Seminar: “Barcelona, Plans and Challenges”. Barcelona’s urban structure and architecture allows a transparent reading of the urban morphology as a result of different historical society structures, political strategies, power deployment forms and city struggles. From ancient roman times, through medieval city, industrial extension (Eixample) and implementation of modern ideas, each moment spatialized socio-political ideas in specific city patterns, while transforming previous ones at its convenience. Exemplified in Barcelona, this seminar will navigate through the relevant urban episodes that made the city of Barcelona, ending up in the 1992s’ so-called “Barcelona Model”, broadly exported, and as much celebrated as criticized. Lecturer: Raül Avilla.

16:15-16:30 break

16:15-17:30h Seminar: “Community Architecture” (1 session, lecturer: Raül). The 2008 real estate bubble burst caused an unprecedented economic crisis, that soon turned into a social and political one. In 2011, the 15M Indignados (Outraged) movement became a spontaneous social movement that politicised society at all levels, producing significant changes in city governance, particularly after 2015 with the rise of the municipalist movement Barcelona in Common, whose members are former activists. This seminar will analyse how a young generation of architects assumed political commitment and social responsibility as their own agenda, shifting their disciplinary tools and protocols, and becoming mediators between administration, technicians and social movements. Closely linked, it will address the new scenario produced by the emergence of cooperative housing and a number of self-managed community facilities. Lecturer: Raül Avilla.

NOV 3: AFFORDABLE HOUSING: MODELS AND GOVERNANCE:

15-16h Josep Maria Borrell |IMPSOL| “NEW PARADIGM IN SOCIAL HOUSING” | Architect, Technical coordinator, IMPSOL-AMB. IMPSOL is the public metropolitan procurement agency in Barcelona, in charge of defining procurement and tenureship models, organizing competitions and coordinating the whole process, from conversations with different municipalities to dwellers, ensuring economic, technical and social feasibility of housing projects. In 2020, a development in Sant Boi won the prestigious FAD award for design (architects: Herreros & MIM). Ongoing projects: shorturl.at/wFRZ8 (usually more information in architect’s website).

16:30-17:30h Clara Triviño  | Sostre Civic Housing Cooperative |. Sostre Civic is one of the most active housing cooperatives in Catalonia, pioneer with the model in Barcelona with c/Princesa housing project. Futher projects include Cirerers (arqs: Celobert), La Balma (arqs: Lacol+la Boqueria), or senior housing cooperative (Walden XXI). https://sostrecivic.coop/projectes

NOV 4.  – RESILIENCE:

15-16:30h Elba Mansilla | “Coòpolis at Can Batlló: a laboratory for public-cooperative-communitarian managment in Barcelona city” |  Elba Mansilla is a graduate Jounalist (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona) and a founding partner of the cooperative La Ciutat Invisible, where works as a researcher and teacher in Feminist Economy and the Solidarity Economy, is the coordinator of the trainnig area of Coopolis – Barcelona’s Cooperative Center and a regular collaborator of the Feminist Economy Commission of the Solidarity Economy Network of Catalonia (XES). Her work has focused on the power and challenges of the Social Solidarity Economy for the self-organization of women and the feminist social transformation; and in collecting, systematizing and spreading the organizational culture for the formation of no-patriarchal groups and gender mainstreaming in cooperatives.

16:30-17:30h David Bravo Bordas | Architect, activist and educator. Co-author of ATRI strategy (Tactical Accommodations of Inclusive Repopulation, www.atri.city). Co-curator of the exhibition “Piso Piloto” in 2015. Former designer of Barcelona City Council’s strategy against gentrification.

Documentaries to watch in preparation for the seminar:

On urban struggle:

“To Green or not to Green: Four stories of urban (in)justice in Barcelona”. BCNUEJ & Alberto Bougleux, 2020.  Available online:  http://www.bcnuej.org/2020/10/20/to-green-or-not-to-green-four-stories-of-urban-injustice-in-barcelona (with English subtitles).

 “Like an invisible giant: Can Batlló and the Imaginary Cities” [Com un Gegant Invisible. Can Batlló i les Ciutats Imaginàries]. Panóptica & Lacol, 2013. Available online: https://vimeo.com/82442928. (with English subtitles).

On touristification and gentrification:

“Bye Bye Barcelona”. Eduardo Chibás Fernández, 2014.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kdXcFChRpmI. (with English subtitles).

On the right to housing:

“SI SE PUEDE: Seven Days At PAH Barcelona”. Tony Macías, 2018. Available online: https://vimeo.com/323297000. (with English subtitles).

NOV 5.  – URBAN SUBJECTIVITIES:

15-16:30h conversation between:

Sara Ortiz Escalante |Col·lectiu Punt 6. | “Feminist Urban Planning: Towards a Radical Transformation of Everyday life Spaces” | Collective of urban designers and activists, with focus on everyday life experiences and a feminist approach to the city. www.punt6.org. Authors of the book: Urbanismo Feminista [Feminist Urbanism], Virus Editorial, 2019.

Dafne Saldaña |Equal Saree| “Space, Gender, Education” | Equal Saree is a team of architects and researchers who study the impact of spatial configuration on the (re)production of social inequalities. With a feminist approach, our goal is to design inclusive spaces through participation and co-creation with users. We use participatory and innovative methodologies to put people at the center of urban transformations and give a voice to generally neutralized groups. Following these principles, we develop architecture and urban design projects, we design and facilitate community participation processes, and carry out training and awareness-raising actions.

17h Dr. Manuel Bailo Esteve | “Public Catalyst: Against Indiference” | PhD architect and Associate Tenured Professor of Architecture, University of Virginia. Bailo Esteve’s research explores how the public space is activated by Urban Catalysts  – energy and informal agents. Manuel Bailo Esteve has been teaching and lecturing at several different universities  around the world (Harvard, Arizona, Barcelona, etc are the last universities). He founded BAILORULL in Barcelona in 1995 with Rosa Rull; BAILORULL projects crystallize a process of investigation that looks for the balance  between assimilation of new ways of reading landscape taken from extra-architectural  disciplines and focus implementation through a close-to-manufacture technology.

NOV 6. – DESIGNING BARCELONA.

16h H Arquitectes | “The Nature of Building” |HARQUITECTES is an architecture studio established in 2000 and based in Barcelona. It is managed by four partner architects: David Lorente Ibáñez, Josep Ricart Ulldemolins, Xavier Ros Majó and Roger Tudó Galí, who count on an ample team of collaborators, such as architects, interior designers and students. All of them licensed between 1998 and 2000 in ETSAV (UPC), where Josep and Roger teach in the Department of Architectural Projects and Technology. Xavier also teaches Projects in the ETSA Barcelona. Their work has received many awards – for built works and also in architectural ideas competitions – and it has been published in many national and international media. They have also been selected in various exhibitions and invited as teachers and lecturers in Europe and America.