Urban Education Live – August 25

Join us for a presentation and discussion of the UEL initiative in Venice.

August 25, 14:00, Turning Tables, Palazzo Mora, Strada Nuova 3659, Venezia, Italy

After some time working under the radar it is a good feeling to invite people to an event that marks a more public part of an initiative that started out with a quick idea – and an EU application – that hatched in the February darkness of Finland and turned into a initiative involving partners from Tampere, Sheffield, Ljubljana and Bucharest.

The project is in short a more integrated – super site specific – collaboration between universities and urban communities. Our EU application is now through to the final round and the discussion in Venice is a way to sharpen our arguments in a final project proposal. But it is also to look further and develop the initiative not least by getting involved in new networks.

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June Update

The past half year has been very interesting. I have begun to teach and more importantly develop new educational formats with the School of Architecture, Tampere University of Technology (TUT), Finland.

The first step in this process was the two week workshop: Mapping Urbanity with both lectures and talks on perception, appropriation, mapping and urbanity but most importantly a number of hands on exercises on the ground which is rather challenging in the dark Finnish winter. See pictures from the area – or the zone – here. Continue reading “June Update” →

Strong Healthy Communities Initiatives – SHCI

On the sunny day in November the city of Newark, New Jersey, was almost too clean and people who were looking after the central part of town was driving around on Segways. It was quite clear that an effort had gone into making the place look good but it was unclear for whom this tidiness was intended.

I met with the leader of Strong Healthy Communities Initiative, Monique Baptiste-Good, in their clean and beautiful offices on a square with remarkable many organisations addressing homelessness, alcoholism etc. One of them with a sign welcoming president Obama who was there the day before. Continue reading “Strong Healthy Communities Initiatives – SHCI” →

LiveMapping

LiveMapping – a work in progress (beta)

The problem with maps in an urban context is that they tend to simplify and fix a city that is complex and always changing.

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The screenshots of maps is taken from a workshop, Mapping Urbanity, with students of urban design in Tampere, Finland, February 2016. Link to map

Continue reading “LiveMapping” →

City Agency

We are working on setting up a City Agency in Hedehusene collaborating with universities in Copenhagen and engaging local citizens, municipalities, developers, media and businesses. The aim of such an agency is to strengthen the local community using methods that are locally relevant and especially trying to engage those citizens that feel alienated by the traditional consultation processes or local democracy in general.

We are looking into new ways researchers and students get down on to the streets and engage with local people. We are developing the City Agency bringing a mix of qualitative, quantitative and spatial methods into local communities involving both students, researchers, local stakeholders and local media. We want educational institutions to play a role in promoting local stewardship in a way where both the local community and students and researchers benefit.

A City Agency would be part of a emerging network of City Agencies that are mainly based in Architecture Schools in Europe – so far in Sheffield, Copenhagen, Hamburg, Berlin, Stockholm

Visit from Sheffield

Friday february 22nd was spent in good company with 26 students from Sheffield School of Architecture. Instead of a presentation that showed our work in Hedehusene we involved them in a live presentation of CiTyBee.

In just 2 hours we went through all 3 phases: telling the stories about the spaces; engaging in a dialogue with the aim of identifying the most important of these stories; and acting on the outcomes of the dialogue to answer the brief of the day – How to make the station in Hedehusene more visible.

The result was impressive and played well into the activities in the afternoon when we held an open house for the local community to come and share their thoughts and ideas.

See photos on Flickr here and here

Urban Mapping – Helsinki 2012

We were invited to Helsinki in april 2012 to talk about Supertanker as a part of the exhibition “Shorelines” (which again was a part of Helsinki being the “World Design Capital”) It was a good opportunity to go back and reflect on our early work in Supertanker – based in and focused on the Copenhagen Harbour.

Oslo Presentation

A blog – urbanizit.wordpress.com – went live in 2011 with stories in and about the city. Many of these stories was presented in Oslo in november 2011 and discussed in a masterclass under the theme “Activism in Architecture” along with Lisa Fior from MUF

(This presentation is with notes and maybe more interesting than the others…)

Urbane Brakzoner og Trøffelsvin

This Report from 2006 – in Danish – describes some of our earlier inspirations in Supertanker. Some became part of our network (Citymine(d)) others didnt live up to the expectations (Vauban). The title means: Urban Brackish Zones and Truffle Pigs.

Spatial Agency – Other Ways of Doing Architecture

Spatial Agency – Other Ways of Doing Architecture is the book based on the network of the same name. Supertankers contribution to the network was chosen to be part of the book.