Opening talk at Cultures of Assembly

Opening poster for Cultures of Assembly, in Esch-sur-Alzette

I was thrilled to speak at the opening of Cultures of Assembly, a project by the Chair of the City of Esch at the Department of Geography and Spatial Planning, University of Luxembourg (Markus Miessen, Marija Marić, César Reyes Nájera and Francelle Cane). This physical space in the heart of Esch-sur-Alzette seeks to engage in discussions with the local community and beyond, to think together about a fairer future open to political, economic, cultural, and environmental diversity.

The opening event featured talks by Jesko Fezer and myself, discussing the role and value of low threshold design discourses, the production and use of urban space, para-institutional approaches to (urban) design, models of embedded and immersive learning, as well as spaces for experimentation in cities that build on native knowledges. I was happy to revisit some of the work developed during the 4th Istanbul Design Biennial, A School of Schools, for the talk and debate that followed. Thanks for having me!

Getting Our Acts Together: Parity Activism Past, Present and Future

An impression of the closing roundtable of the 8th Parity Talks.

For the 8th edition of the Parity Talks, I was honored to moderate the concluding roundtable with Charlotte Malterre-Barthes, Torsten Lange, Amy Perkins, Zhu Qianer, Shriya Chaudhry, Khensani Jurczok-de Klerk, Blanka Major and Els Silvrants-Barclay. We talked about the history and milestones achieved by the Parity Group, as well as the dynamics of activism past and present in the framework of the Prix Meret Oppenheim, which was awarded to the group in 2023.

Vitra’s turn to sustainability

The Oudolf Garden at the Vitra Campus, Weil am Rhein.

I’ve written about Vitra’s turn to sustainability for Metropolis magazine, and the resulting piece looks at the new Oudolf Garden, just opened at the Vitra Campus, and at a more comprehensive set of steps the company is taking to effectively become more sustainable – in their practice and within the organization. Below an excerpt; the full piece is up at Metropolis!

“The attention given to the planning and execution of the Oudolf garden, however, signals a significant change of course. While its planning dates to the pre-pandemic times, the garden was planted in May 2020, when most of the world came to a standstill. In total, 32,000 perennial plants of 114 species were planted in small pots. When the garden was unveiled to the public one year later, they had matured to give way to a dazzling early summer landscape, a complex mix of perennial varieties of varying colors and fragrances. The various colors and textures changed over the course of the following months, and in typical Oudolf fashion, the garden continues to evolve and transform with the seasons. Its maintenance will now become a constant; and the gardening team will be complemented by a few beehives at the edge of the garden, looked after by two company employees that double as trained apiculturists. We might be looking at a future when Vitra honey becomes a reality.”

Making the Tambacounda Hospital

Manuel Herz’s Tambacounda Hospital in Senegal

I enjoyed writing about Manuel Herz’s Tambacounda Hospital for Metropolis magazine’s August issue. The full article can be read online here, and an excerpt of the text can be found below:

After bringing the first concept back to Tambacounda, Manuel Herz recalls hours of transformative discussions with detailed feedback from local authorities and hospital staff—from the director, Dr. Thérèse-Aida Ndiaye, to the doctors, midwives, and janitors—which helped round out the final design. Construction was conducted in close collaboration with local doctor and contractor Dr. Magueye Ba, who supervised the process, including the brickwork: Workers produced 50,000 bricks for the project, 100 per day, over 500 days, which follow the local typology of hollow bricks. The hospital expects to start receiving patients this summer.

Herz is now working on an additional project in the hospital complex for staff accommodation, allowing visiting doctors from the capital city of Dakar to extend their stays and bring their families. In the meantime, the signature brick pattern has taken on a life of its own, with Magueye Ba using it for other buildings in the surroundings. In this dynamic, Herz’s project begins to exist as part of a network—of stakeholders who become coauthors in the intervention, and of buildings themselves, as his extension touches upon existing structures and conditions new ones. “The project becomes not only an architectural intervention but a territorial intervention,” Herz says, noting the project’s economic impact in the area. “This kind of coherence is incredibly important to make sure the building really is accepted by the population.”

Parity Talks 6 – What’s Good?

For the 6th edition of the Parity Talks at the ETH Zurich, I was thrilled to moderate a roundtable on Tastemaking, with the participation of Meike Schalk, Katarina Bonnevier MYCKET, Cruz Garcia, Nathalie Frankowski, Els Silvrants-Barclay, Regine Keller, Marion Fonjallaz, Morgane Hofstetter, Dieter Dietz, Tom Emerson, Leonie Wagner and Olga Cobuscean. This conversation gathered deans, professors, and students from various institutions, and proposed a multigenerational encounter to discuss our current understanding of good practice, who decides what is good, and the problems of education based on ideas of excellence.

Archipelago: Architectures for the Multiverse

The Archipelago visual identity, by Mitch Paone / AATB based on a concept by Chloe Biocca

I’m thrilled to announce Archipelago: Architectures for the Multiverse, a 3-day hybrid format festival that seeks to interrogate and think through the present moment in contemporary architectural discourse. Taking take place 6-8 May 2021 in Geneva, it is jointly organized by the architecture schools HEAD and HEPIA, and it will be broadcast over the course of three days in a hybrid format combining live and online interventions.

Bringing together three disciplinary strands—architecture, interior architecture and landscape architecture—the festival seeks to offer a snapshot of the present moment, its intersections and overlaps. The three days of exchanges and reflection take place in a specially designed infrastructure at the heart of the Cube, a multifunctional space at HEAD that will double as a broadcast studio for the event. Manifesting in a variety of formats, from intimate conversations to performative interventions, and complemented by masterclasses, films and offsite projects, Archipelago creates multiple entry points for a discussion around contemporary architecture’s lines of inquiry.

We will announce the program soon – meanwhile, you can follow us on Instagram or register to get the latest news on the program and schedule!

Driving the Human: Seven Prototypes for Eco-social Renewal

Earlier this year I joined the team of the Driving the Human initiative as the program coordinator. Driving the Human is a catalyst for experimentation, shaping sustainable and collective futures that combine science, technology, and the arts in a transdisciplinary and collaborative approach. Running from 2020-2023, the project is jointly led by four partner institutions – acatech – National Academy of Science and Engineering, Forecast, the Karlsruhe University of Arts and Design and ZKM | Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe – and relies on the expert knowledge and skills of their combined networks.

Throughout 2023, the community of participants, experts, and the larger audience that Driving the Human brings together will explore diverse phenomena such as the social impact of global warming, energy cycles and technology-driven disruptions, the impact of collective decision making, and contemporary processes of exchanging values and objects.

The results of these explorations will be shared and communicated over the project’s three-year duration, and will deploy strategies for action in the form of physical experiences, with a strong individual and collective impact. Ultimately, they will create tools that enable new ways of envisioning and inhabiting the world.

I’m excited to be part of such an ambitious initiative and I invite you to learn more about the project and partners at the Driving the Human website, Instagram and Facebook channels.

Devices for Dreaming

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Presenting at “Architectural Models: Theory and practice in scale”. Photo courtesy HEAD-Genève.

I was in Geneva to discuss architectural models at the conference Architectural Models: Theory and practice in scale, organized by the Interior Architecture Department of the school. The two-day event was organized as an experimental stage for discussion, and it was great to talk to master students about recent architectural exhibitions and events and how the model embodies so many contradictions within. Below the talk abstract – I’ll post the presentation video when it’s online.

The architectural model is unparalleled as a device for dreaming. Its regular use in architectural exhibitions and events attests to its allure, but also to the paradoxical impossibility of exhibiting the discipline these devices embody and attempt to represent. This talk will cover the ways in which architectural models have been used in recent architectural exhibitions and events, with varying degrees of efficacy.

Balkrishna Doshi: Speaking urgently to our times

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Balkrishna Doshi, Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore, 1977, 1992 © Iwan Baan 2018

The excellent Balkrishna Doshi: Architecture for the People exhibition currently on display at the Vitra Design Museum offers a welcome and different take on what usually constitutes an architecture exhibition in our day and age. It is, in more than one sense, a breath of fresh air, and I was happy to review it for the June 2019 issue of Icon magazine – an excerpt can be found below. Thank you to Priya Khanchandani for the invitation!

Doshi’s architecture shows an urgency to address concerns that are more relevant than ever today, most notably his understanding of social spaces, of the necessity to create moments for encounters and conviviality. His most powerfully idealistic work – created in the early 1970s, a time of social and political transformation – manifests its utopian values in spaces that are inspiring and transformative. Faced with the impossible task of transporting visitors from Vitra’s museum on the German-Swiss border to these freewheeling triumphs of spirit, the exhibition nevertheless makes us dream.

Moving in: Das Verein

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This month marks the official move-in to the new office I’ll be sharing with a bunch of interesting people in Basel, and we’ve called in Das verein. Over the course of the next months, we hope that it will grow into much more than just a shared office space – becoming a platform for exchanges, sharing knowledge and opening up possibilities. I’ll share what we’ll be up to soon.

The birth of Foreign Legion

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A screenshot of the Foreign Legion website, designed by AnnerPerrin.

This year helped materialize the outcome of many months of conversations and discussions between Matylda Krzykowski and myself, and shaped into Foreign Legion, a new curatorial initiative we launched with the A Woman’s Work symposium. The Foreign Legion website documents our work on design, gender politics and other themes, and the several experimental formats we have developed and will continue to develop. You can also follow the initiative over on Instagram.

In Shenzhen, the urban village takes center stage

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Atelier Bow-Wow’s Fire Foodies Club. ©UABB, photograph by Zhang Chao.

Following my trip to Shenzhen last December, I had the chance to write a review of the UABB for The Architect’s Newspaper, which can be read fully on their website. Below, an excerpt:

As Yan says to a packed auditorium, “The real exhibition is the vibrant city life.” Much in sync with the biennale’s theme, “Cities Grow in Difference,” the auditorium where Yan is speaking is filled with an audience that ranges from architectural experts to local inhabitants of Nantou Old Town, the majority of whom are Chinese migrant workers.

For the curatorial team, the urban village is a model for the future. Against what Yan calls the “globalized, standardized, capitalized city” that has expanded to the global scale, the urban village is a hybrid, a wetland, a “breeding ground for a new city.” The biennale seeks to learn from it, and to emulate it in its search for possibilities.

The location of the biennale is a case in point. One of the oldest parts of Shenzhen, Nantou is an urban village, a specific Chinese typology of low-rise housing in the center or outskirts of the city, serving mostly migrant workers and temporary dwellers. Nantou is lively, crowded, and seems to be a place where everything is possible.

TEOK FORUM

A view of TEOK FORUM #1
A view of TEOK FORUM #1

Upon invitation by the curators of “Forum Basel”, the most recent exhibition at the S AM, TEOK Basel broke the fourth wall and occupied the streets of Basel for two guerrilla-style events. On 11 and 13 June, during the 2017 Art Basel week, we took to the streets for two performative occupations that brought our events – usually taking place in domestic settings – to the wider public. Thank you to S AM and the curators of the show, especially KOSMOS Architects, for the invitation!

Independent Thinking

Future+, Shenzhen. Photo © Adam Snow Frampton
Future+, Shenzhen. Photo © Adam Snow Frampton

The April 2017 issue of Metropolis Magazine includes my survey of independent groups blending research, activism and new approaches to practice in architecture – what a pleasure to work with the Metropolis team! I was also lucky to talk to many amazing individuals while researching for this piece, from L+CC to Parasite 2.0, and from The Funambulist to Migrant Journal. The full piece is  online at Metropolis, and a little excerpt can be found below.

The ways in which architects and designers are taking action attest to a future of the practice that will be multilayered and adaptable, responding to our intricate times with polyphonic vigor. However, the passion poured into these projects is tempered by the financial challenges of running many of these initiatives, and practitioners find themselves on a steep learning curve trying to reconcile their independence with a sustainable business model. For many, the uncertainty is constant, and there is no five-year plan. And yet it is precisely these challenging conditions that drive some of their best work: Why not risk everything when you have nothing to lose?

TEOK at the Lisbon Architecture Triennale

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An aspect of TEOK // PARALELO at the Mãe d’Agua, during the 2016 Lisbon Architecture Triennale – The Form of Form. Photo © Pedro Sadio

Invited by Cartha Magazine, one of the Associated Projects of the 2016 Lisbon Architecture Triennale, TEOK went to the Mãe D’Água in Lisbon to launch its Lisbon series and dwell on the theme of the Parallel. Speakers Andreia Garcia and Susana Oliveira took us on a journey to parallel architectural worlds, serenaded by the rumours of the water reservoir and peaceful ambiance of the Mãe D’Água. Thank you to Cartha for the invitation, it was a pleasure to bring TEOK to my hometown!

On Preservation and Activism in Venice: OMA’s Fondaco dei Tedeschi

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A view of the renovated interior of Fondaco dei Tedeschi, by OMA. Photo © Delfino Sisto Legnani and Marco Cappelletti. Courtesy of OMA.

I contributed to the The Avery Review 18 with a review of OMA’s project for the Fondaco dei Tedeschi, delving on the complex and loaded story of the commission and the many compromises that informed the fairly spectacular outcome. Many thanks to the wonderful editorial team at TAR, always a pleasure to work with. The piece can be read in its entirety here.

Small Revolutions

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A view of In Residence at the 2016 Oslo Architecture Triennale. Photo © Istvan Virag

In September 2016, I was lucky to attend the opening days of the 2016 Oslo Architecture Triennale – After Belonging. My thoughts on this extraordinary event can be found on Disegno Daily: a little snippet below.

the most dynamic aspect of this Triennale materialised in the myriad exchanges, conversations, and encounters that took place everywhere in the city during the opening days. Many were consciously provoked in the opening conference and the large-scale international student exchange program launched by The Academy, a forum organised by the Oslo School of Architecture and Design. Many more were unexpected and spontaneous, triggered in courtyards, parties, restaurant entrances and walks throughout the city. The opening weekend of After Belonging featured many personalities but little ego, and a larger interest in discussing and sharing ideas than in presenting solutions and absolute visions. There was plurality and tolerance, openness and exchange.

From Border to Threshold

Italian Limes. Photo by Delfino Sisto Legnani
Italian Limes. Photo © Delfino Sisto Legnani

When Disegno asked me to write about Italian Limes, a project of Italian design research studio Folder, I couldn’t believe my luck. Here is one of the most interesting projects done in design and architecture in recent years, and I tried my best to show its relevance in today’s world in a piece that made it to Disegno no. 12. An excerpt below, and the full piece available in the magazine.

Italian Limes’s greatest legacy is likely to be how it has contributed in a completely novel way to the fields of design and architecture, and helped carve out a path for a new generation of researchers. It has shown how design can meaningfully contribute to social and political discourse. In stark contrast to the postcard of the Brenner pass that initiated the project, a current Google maps rendition of Italy’s border shows desolation and emptiness. A bare road leads to the Alps, as if entering the country were nothing other than simple and objective. And yet, as Paasi writes, “borders are still with us,” their meanings “more and more complex in both social and political practice and academic research”. Borders are contested, transformed, permeable to different degrees, dematerialised, present – and as movable in their definition as the section of the Italian-Austrian frontier analysed by Folder. “Consequently, it is crucial to step beyond simple dichotomies dictating that spaces should be understood as either territorially bounded or open,” concludes Paasi. “Even the most thoroughly fixed borders transform, are crossed, and are partly ‘mobile’.”

On Relations in Architecture

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Cover detail of Cartha – On Relations in Architecture.

The essay I wrote with Juan Palencia on the inception and growth of TEOK for the inaugural issue of Cartha magazine has been included in their first book, titled On Relations in Architecture and published by Park Books. It was wonderful to see the essay come to life in the printed page! Congratulations to the Cartha team and all their other contributors.

Counter Borders

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The Counter Borders handout, designed by Raquel Pinto. Photo Superscript.

How important is belonging to emerging architectural practices today? The post-recession economy has brought to the fore a number of critical, nimble, and resourceful young architects, who enjoy an extraordinary level of mobility in where they practice, where they build, and where they draw their ideas from. This is one of the many reflections sparked by the theme of the 2016 Oslo Architecture Triennale — After Belonging, which Superscript integrates with “Counter Borders“, a project that is part of the Triennale’s Extended Program.

Continue reading Counter Borders

Unmanned: Drone Venice Book Launch

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The
Unmanned: Drone book launch in Venice.

It was under the blue hues of the Dutch Pavilion at the 2016 Venice Architecture Biennale that we presented the first e-book of the Unmanned: Architecture and Security series. Titled Drone, this first issue combines several essays on the topic with reports on two events that took place at Studio X and Het Nieuwe Instituut. I was thrilled to be able to assist the very talented team of editors – Ethel Baraona Pohl, Marina Otero Verzier and Malkit Shoshan – in the making of this volume with dpr.barcelona, and was happy to participate in the launch discussion, where the editorial team was complemented by respondents Anna Puigjaner and Tamar Shafrir.

The Two Towers: On High-Rises and Urban Densification in Basel

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The projected Roche campus in Basel, designed by Herzog & de Meuron and slated for completion in 2021.© F. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd.

I contributed to the latest issue of The Avery Review with an essay on the inevitable densification of Basel. As a resident of the city since 2013, I was keen in telling this story for a long time. I have to thank Jacob Moore at The Avery Review for the invitation to contribute; writing this piece was an exercise in telling a complex story in a compelling way, and I hope everyone that reads it gets a little bit more acquainted with the architectural reality of this small city tucked in a corner of Switzerland. For the full piece head on to the Review‘s excellent website.

TEOK for Cartha #0 — Worth Sharing

TEOK for Cartha #0
One of the diagrams drawn by Juan Palencia for Cartha #0 — Worth Sharing

Juan Palencia and I contributed an essay to Cartha, a new architectural magazine that doubles as an experimental editorial project. Living online during an initial run of six issues, the magazine privileges long-form, analytical writing. Each issue focuses on one single topic: appropriately open-ended, the themes allow for many different kinds of approaches. Cartha’s issue #0 combines striking imagery and thoughtful reflections; our essay draws from one year of TEOK and what we’ve learned from the experiment. The full essay can be read here.

Towards a New Avant-Garde at the Venice Biennale

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A view of the “Towards a New Avant-Garde” debate and installation. Photo Philippe Declerck /DEVspace

“Towards a New Avant-Garde”, the three-part conversation series I lead with Superscript during the opening weekend of the 14th International Architecture Exhibition— La Biennale di Venezia, brought together 40 talented young architects, writers, critics, to debate issues of identity, collaboration, and economics. Over the course of three 90-minute conversations, several key themes emerged, including the need of architects to engage the public directly, the importance of evolving new forms of communication and criticism, and the value of capitalizing on opportunities to be proactive. A recap of the discussion’s main topics can be read at ArchDaily. The event was also covered on Dezeen and Domusweb, among others.

Produced by Superscript with Catharine Rossi and Rossella Ferorelli, the conversations took place within  the main Monditalia exhibition at the Corderie dell’Arsenale. The live-edited installation, designed by Brussels-based architecture firm DEVspace and French-Swiss interaction designer Thibault Brevet with students from Basel’s Hyperwerk Institute, featured 18 Arduino-powered  open-source printers and standard marker pens. Provocations from the organizers, participant names and quotes, as well as contributions from online followers using the hashtag  #stayradical became part of dynamic backdrop that emerged over the course of each conversation.

The project was made possible through generous assistance from Hyperwerk Institute (Kevin Renz, Gabriel Meisel, Gabriel Kiefer, Fabian Ritzi, Ivo Ludwig, David Safranek, Matthias Maurer), and contributions by Amelie Klein, Niku Alex Mucaj, Becky Quintal, Elian Stefa, Fabrizia Vecchione, and Malte Ziegler. The project is supported by the Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia and WallonieBruxelles International (Belgium).