GLOBAL a ARD for Sustainable Architecturetm

Press pack GLOBAL A�ARD FOR SUSTAINABLe ARCHITECTUREtm SYMPOSIUM 2015 Monday 4th MAY 2015 14h00 – 19h00 Cité de l’architecture & du patrimoine Palais de Chaillot / Auditorium / 7, avenue Albert de Mun Paris 16e (M° Iéna ou Trocadéro) SUMMARY IXth edition of the Global Award for Sustainable Architecture™

5 Award-Winning Architects Founder Portraits by Marie-Hélène Contal LOCUS Foundation School of Architecture of Talca, Talca, Chile Santiago Cirugeda, Recetas Urbanas, Seville, Spain Partners Jan Gehl, Copenhagen, Denmark Cité de l’architecture & du patrimoine Rotor, Brussels, Belgium Fondation d’entreprise GDF Suez Marco Casagrande, Casagrande Laboratory, Helsinki, Bouygues Bâtiment International Finland, Taiwan * With a text on the School of Architecture of Talca by Miquel Adrià, director of the architectural review Arquire, Mexico Scientific Committee Translations: Rupert Hebblethwaite, Edith Ochs Cité de l’Architecture & du patrimoine, Paris

Centre International pour la Ville, l’Architecture et le Paysage, Bruxelles Bibiography Global Award 2015 Università IUAV Venezia, Venise Museum of Finnish Architecture, Helsinki International Architecture Biennale of Ljubljana LOCUS Foundation

CONTACTS Cité de l’architecture & du patrimoine Département du Développement Culturel Marie-Hélène Contal, directrice [email protected]

Press Contact Cité de l’architecture & du patrimoine Fabien Tison Le Roux 01 58 51 52 85 | [email protected] Caroline Loizel 01 58 51 52 82 | [email protected]

LOCUS Jana Revedin Prof arch PhD, Founding President 38 rue Copernic 75116 Paris 01 40 67 06 40 | [email protected] www.locus-foundation.org www.citechaillot.fr Cover page : Santiago Cirugeda, Recetas Urbanas – Self-building of the « Aula Abierta » on the site of La Carpa – Espacio Artistico, Sevilla, 2010 © Juan Gabriel Pelegrina Gabriel 2010 © Juan » on the site of La Carpa – Espacio Artistico, Abierta Sevilla, of the « Aula – Self-building Urbanas Cirugeda, Recetas page : Santiago Cover The Global Award for Sustainable Architecture 2015, annually explore one particular area in this complex chain was created in 2006 to foster the worldwide de- in which the debate should develop and the protagonists should bate on sustainable architecture and urban deve- be identified and supported. The theme selected for the Global lopment by the LOCUS Foundation, with the Award 2015 is “Freedom of Thought” which, in our profes- Cité de l’architecture & du patrimoine as cultural sion, refers to the definition of design as scientific research, partner. the self-critical transmission of knowledge and the humble art of dialogue. Every year, the Global Award rewards five architects who share the ethics of sustainable deve- Even if architects are broadly engaged in innovative design across the globe it is still necessary to decant and transmit their experience lopment and have constructed an innovative and and then to shake up teaching and objectify and capitalise upon holistic approach, whether in the West or in the the new knowledge. By honouring five rebels in the fields of emerging countries, in developed environments research and transmission, this year’s Global Award is sup- or on behalf of the planet’s most vulnerable popu- porting those driving a profound reform of the profession’s lations. profile. 2 The purpose of the Global Award for Sustai- nable Architecture is to create a community of « Where are our laboratories ? » these highly talented architects, to transmit their approach and to stimulate their exchange of In examining the five selected experiments one first notices the extent to which the building workshop model has spread. This demands knowledge and experience. Since 2007, forty-five the question, ‘why ?’ architects, great pioneers and young rebels of the Invented in the experimental Bauhütten of the Early German Mo- global scene, have won the award. derns, this teaching method was re-established twenty years ago by Samuel Mockbee1 in Auburn, Alabama. It consists of immersing Whereas the role of architecture as a commissioned activity – cru- students in reality: an urban analysis of needs and resources is carried cially intensified by the ongoing but questionably beneficial globa- out with inhabitants, a programme is developed, a project is studied lisation of the profession - leaves it limited scope to truly address and built. The very concrete fabrication of a project metabolises the the challenge of dwindling resources and unequal development, lessons learned in an experiment which is also a social experience the Global Award and its winners confirm that architects should and an act of self-realisation for the student. Auburn’s diplomas are challenge these realities of the contemporary inhabited world and awarded on the basis of the facility or house that a student has pro- seek to redefine the role of the architect and planner as a long-term duced within two years – from first sketch to final tile. At Bang- “companion” in the definition of programmes, design and produc- kok or Ceylon, Norwegian students supervised by TYIN 1 spend tion “with the people by the people”. two to three months on the ground. At Hangzhou, Professor Wang 1 The Global Award, which numbers Wang Shu, Carin Smuts, Ale- Shu presides over a nomadic school, whose students cross rural China jandro Aravena, Francis Kéré and Al Borde 1 amongst its discoveries, addressing the redevelopment of a much spoilt countryside. is slowly uniting the federative scene which engages in this global Carried out under the umbrella of universities, these actions are debate. The dialogue amongst experts in the fields of self-building also used to develop methods: participative design processes which and popular habitat, architect-geographers or anthropologists ... foster small-scale approaches in the face of large-scale planning. addresses the issue of the major demographic, ecological and urban The result is a form of teaching which disseminates new practices transitions which signal the dawning of the Anthropocene, the age such as tactical urbanism which addresses catalytic points. As a in which it is human activity that is transforming the climate and counter-proposal, the engagement of students initiates from a pro- global habitability. cess which shakes up rules and norms as a way of helping them One can see that this debate has evolved considerably since 2006. to evolve. In the area of precarious habitat, it compensates for the Then, one laughed at the term “ecology” but, in 2015, the archi- shortcomings of the state and the lack of rights and works with tectural climate has changed. Why ? A conscience has emerged and inhabitants on projects of self-development in order to realise their nobody dissents at talk of the challenge of today’s transitions. Even “right to the city”. if this talk includes an element of “green washing”, it has never- Hence, these workshops are also seen as a means of practical and theless mobilised a lot of political and social energy. ethical innovation in the name of what Jana Revedin calls “aca- Today, having cleared this new ground, the Global Award is deepe- demic social responsibility” 3 : universities should become enga- ning its work to address the new stage of the debate. The LOCUS ged in the true aim of social transformation through Design rather Foundation as its organiser, the Scientific Committee and the Cité than producing and reproducing self-referential, sterile knowledge de l’Architecture as its cultural partner have decided to take a the- enclosed within elitist “ivory towers”. Architects and urban and matic approach. As an observer, the Global Award will, starting in landscape designers can “walk down to the city”, as she puts it, and

1 Among the winners of the Global Award for Sustainable Architecture: Wang Shu (2007), Carin Smuts (2008), Francis Kéré (2009), Al Borde (2013), Rural Studio, established by Samuel Mockbee (2008), TYIN (2012) and Thomas Herzog (2009). 2 The Rebel City: Radicant Design through Civic Engagement (Francais: La Ville Rebelle: Processus Radicants par Engagement Civique), a collective work directed by Jana Revedin, contributions from Christopher Alexander, Al Borde, Marco Casagrande, Santiago Cirugeda, Marie-Hélène Contal, Salma Samar Damluji, Yona Friedman, Philippe Madec, Jana Revedin, Juan Román, Rotor, Wang Shu and Lu Wenyu, Gallimard Collection Manifesto, September 2015 3 In 2015 the Scientific Committee received more than 200 international dossiers, made up of both submissions from LOCUS’ network of experts and Global Award winners and direct submissions on the website from architects, architectural critics, universities, public institutions and associations. 3 hand over their findings to the communities and the responsible ment, Santiago Cirugeda always integrates students into his pro- city planners so that, once the transformation process has been ini- jects in order to train them in using a different approach – and also, tiated, they can take it to the next stage “on their own”. Academic without doubt, in order to ensure that they transmit this vision social responsibility also turns out to be economic social responsi- back to the teaching committees of their schools. The office Rece- bility because knowledge is transferred directly from young teams tas Urbanas publishes citizens’ self-development manuals (the reuse of future researchers and professionals to inhabitants and other of empty buildings, appropriation of empty public spaces, access to stakeholders. green energy …) which should be available in university libraries This year’s Global Award tables a question asked earlier by the due to the quality of their technical and legal content alone. great teacher and self-building expert Thomas Herzog: “where are the architects’ laboratories ?”: Where in our schools are the labo- If it is necessary to distinguish architects who want power from ratories of applied research – into the process, the organisation of those who prefer to influence, the Danish professor and consul- inhabited milieux and tactical urbanism ? Where are the structures tant Jan Gehl is a member of this second group. Since 1966, his for collecting and objectifying this knowledge ? The world of archi- research has developed out of a critique of urban functionalism. tecture, when compared with the worlds of science, engineering His quest has been to recreate urban savoir-faire by combining and industry, has little research tradition except in the German- human sciences with Pre-Functionalist urban culture and its speaking and Scandinavian countries – and this is a drawback in important texts while re-dimensioning urban space. He has also an age in which one must constantly up-date one’s knowledge and reshaped such knowledge by introducing the study of flux (“data is participate in a multidisciplinary approach to the inhabited world. the key”) into the diagnostic process. In addition to this – and this In the face of such problems, researchers find the means, the work- is the key point - he also draws up manuals which students can buy benches and discussions which they are missing in the laboratory and mayors and citizens can read. The global success of “Cities for of the building workshop. It is in these 1:1 scale “true-life” labo- people (2010)” justified the choice of this form of transmission. ratories that students discuss with agronomists and anthropolo- Since 2000, Jan Gehl has been carrying out a profession which gists, work with future engineers and geographers, design, test and he invented himself. An “urban quality consultant”, rather than redesign, verify with hindsight that their constructional or cultural digging earth or pouring concrete he uses data-diagnosis to develop theories are well founded. The building workshop is a means of metabolic interventions: creating fluidity, liberating a public place financing and modelling experimentation and applied research in or introducing pedestrian areas as on Broadway in New York, or in education. Copenhagen which he has transformed into the capital of urban ecology. Teaching and practice transform and complement each Commenting in 2013 on TYIN’s projects around the world, Pro- other. fessor Hans Skotte stated that its two founders hadn’t left for the South for reasons of altruism but because the South offered them a role and opportunities which were no longer available in Europe. Finland’s Marco Casagrande carries out theoretical research on Furthermore: much more than in search of opportunities, TYIN what he has named the “Third Generation City” by combining left in search of playgrounds for innovative education. human sciences, phenomenology and environmental sciences and linking these very skilfully with experimentation. The founder of the Casagrande Laboratory Center of Urban Research has spent 10 years accompanying his globe-trotting building workshop – or, Five experiments in 2015 more precisely, urban workshop – to universities around the world. It is worth mentioning that it is the University of Taipei, in Taiwan, which has truly given him the base and the means to carry out ap- In the case of Talca it is an entire architecture school which receives plied research over the long term. In other words, it is a University the Global Award. The Talca School, created in 1998 by Juan of the South which has taken the risk of integrating a laboratory Román, is sometimes called the Rural Studio of Chile. This cliché whose activities break down the barriers between the disciplines. isn’t wrong but it hides other sources of innovation. The political source: creating a school in a rural region which, though extremely In Brussels, the young Rotor team has defined its own object of ap- poor and isolated, has enormous cultural and natural capital, is plied research : the study of the entropy of the construction industry based on the gamble that it is possible to create a milieu for specific and the creation - and then the dissemination - of an alternative and exigent teaching. This is also about sustainable development: economy based on reuse. But following their first projects, Rotor the civic empowerment of human resources. The social source: hit the “glass ceiling” that separates experimental practice from its the idea of creating a school in a country in which the number of professionalisation. Hence they break down and finance every stage architects has doubled in 10 years (from 9,000 to 20,000), is a way of their approach. Their research into the entropy of the world of of addressing a new situation which “can lead in two directions : building is supported by a regional administration which com- towards the invention of new forms of professional practice or the missions them to carry out consultancy projects in the area of reuse devaluation of the profession due to surplus supply.” 4 (networks, economic models, procedures and laws) and then to train the actors. Their laboratories are their building sites, supplied In Spain, Santiago Cirugeda has spent 20 years leading an urban with materials which Rotor architects buy on a recycling market guerrilla campaign and, since the crisis of 2007, has established the whose companies and resources have been listed by Rotor consul- Architectures Collectives network, a professional counter-organisa- tants … the transmission is ensured by exhibitions and publications tion. His work, punctuated by projects “carried out on the street”, produced by Rotor curators. For the next step (professionalisation defends the rights of impoverished populations to public space, and dissemination), the experts in reuse have become resellers. public facilities, habitat and affordable solar energy. In a country in which it is young architects who are most affected by unemploy-

3 In 2015 the Scientific Committee received more than 200 international dossiers, made up of both submissions from LOCUS’ network of experts and Global Award winners and direct submissions on the website from architects, architectural critics, universities, public institutions and associations. 4 Francisco Diaz, revue SPAM_arq, article “We should talk about it: problems facing the next generation of Chilean architects”, 2013. The Chilean Architect, professor and critic, Francisco Diaz, is the director of éditions Arq. 4 45 winners since 2007

The Global Award for Sustainable Architecture was put under the patronage of UNESCO in 2011

The GDF SUEZ Corporate Foundation and BOUYGUES Bâtiment International supports the LOCUS FUND

5 FIVE ARCHITECTS, CHILE, SPAIN, DENMARK, FINLAND-TAIWAN, BELGIUM

SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE of university OF TALCA | Talca, Chili Juan Roman Perez, director-founder

Talca, Matter of Education The Gestation of the Discourse By Miquel Adriá, architect, director of the Arquine review, Mexico Beyond being the rigorous academic who shaped in 1998 the first study program for the newly-created architecture faculty at the Uni- versity of Talca, Juan Román Perez understood that it was going to There is something mythical about Talca. A priori it is the site find its identity in difference. Like Alvin Boyarsky at the Architectural of a utopia, preceded by images of archaic objects, occasional Association or Samuel Mockbee at the Rural Studio in Alabama, he glances, formal experiments that enter into dialogue with the crossed the desert only to reach a barren plain and realize that his landscape. If Chile is a far-flung country for most of the world, pedagogical tools, his ideological weapons, weren’t enough to esta- the remotely-sited objects created by the Talca school would blish a school with its own identity. He had the trust of the academic appear to be still more out-of-the-way than the first boxes authorities and the Valparaiso experience behind him, but he soon by Mathias Klotz and the disturbing room by Smiljan Radic realized he couldn’t repeat the model. It required a real city for it to — both on the island of Chiloé — that put Chile on the map work, and Talca didn’t meet this requirement as a city, either in terms of contemporary architecture. However, Talca turns out to be a of size, density or heterogeneity; it didn’t fit. place that could be almost anywhere : a small, anodyne provin- cial city. A forgettable city. Generic, interchangeable even. The Juan Román Perez drew up a minutely detailed study program. His campus, in turn, lacks attributes and character. The architecture students, however, didn’t represent the country’s elite, not by a long school itself, with its lopsided walls, may have some intent to stretch. They arrived with a meager education. Juan Román Perez it, though it is one that immediately recalls other schools in said that “the profile of the Chilean graduate should be that of the California or Europe. professional capable of serving, operating and innovating. To serve means to follow what the law says an architect should know about, that is, knowing how to make habitable spaces that don’t flood and A first encounter with Juan Román in Querétaro. He spoke don’t collapse, which means knowing how to draw and plan a pro- about what is natural, like the rest of the conference speakers, ject. To operate involves knowing how to deal with an adverse and though without resorting to the frequent Rousseau-inspired competitive environment. To innovate has to do with contributing defense of an amenable natural world; instead surprising the value, turning knowledge into wealth. To put it in less cryptic terms, audience with his recent experience of the earthquake that de- it is a question of using knowledge to add value.” vastated Chile. He spoke of the destructive force of the quake as the most natural experience he had ever undergone. His ideas, The study program was governed by an academic board that mentioned in passing, as if through gritted teeth, were surpri- allowed for plenty of room for maneuver. It was divided into 10 sing. They emerged lightly, innocently, but fell upon our ears semesters, and before graduating the future architects would have with their full weight. I recognized in him a beast apart from completed 10 projects. However, in a context where there was no the herd, one who shaped himself through the school he built, tradition of teaching architecture, a higher level of intensity and setting out guidelines, pointing the way ahead. faster progress was required. This led to intensive two-month

6 courses being inserted into the program, enabling qualified faculty The Construction of the Gaze to come from Santiago de Chile and Valparaíso, dramatically This approach, combined with a good academic program and improving the pedagogical potential. However, social capital the availability of malleable students, was only lacking the facul- was scarce. The capacity for abstract thought was limited, and ty. The guides who were to set the future architects on their path, Juan Román Perez focused on the most general themes, teaching who were to accompany their learning process, were not in Talca. students how to see, how to orient their gaze towards the values of architecture and to elucidate what it is we mean when we talk Juan Román Perez’s strategy consisted in recruiting very young about space. people, recent graduates who could still be trained, to shape his postgraduate programs after two years teaching, during which However, space as a concept remained remote. Juan Román Perez period other lecturers were trained. Key to this process was the recalls that “when I was at school we didn’t talk about space, but careful selection of graduates from several different schools. This about ‘spaaaace’, as if it were something of divine origin, and I was a delicate undertaking, requiring the meticulous choice of never saw it all the time I studied, not until I was about 44 years the right dosages of elements and faculty. There was a risk of the old. Maybe as a practicing architect I was deceiving people, because Talca school of architecture becoming a branch of other more I had never seen this ‘spaaaace’”. prestige and trajectory, like so many small peripheral schools A key step in the gestation process of this academic project was around the world, as the centrifugal result of the main centers the decision to approach architecture from the experience of mate- of knowledge. The route towards quality postgraduate teaching rials and not from the perception of space. The new school was for the school’s faculty had to be just as carefully planned and so, to focus more on the question of materials than on spatial issues. while some moved on to Barcelona, others went to Rotterdam, That is, to seek to teach architecture on the basis of materials, as London and Leuven. in other schools it is taught on the basis of space. Setting aside the Over the years, the academic team has grown and in a sense they spatial focus, which demands a serious capacity for abstraction and are the heirs to Juan Román Perez’s vision for the project – to the cultural awareness, opened up a path closer to the materiality of extent that it risks becoming a cliché, a question of style. Román objects, their tactile, manual, craft aspects. In this way, the material has played his part and passes on the baton. He hands the direc- aspect of architecture came to the fore and did not only replace, torship to other members of the faculty who occupy the position but improved on how other schools represented space. The mate- on a two-year basis, and is also emigrating in search of a postgra- rial aspect took on greater force.

7 © Claudio Urzùa Barraza

duate course to teach. His goal was a masters at the Universitat The Body Workshop, as a part of Materials Workshop, focuses on Politècnica de Catalunya, in Barcelona. However, a brief visit to generating enclosures based on the movement of the body, to make the Accademia di Architettura of Mendrisio in Switzerland offe- it visible in space. Frozen dynamics, understanding the human red him aglimpse of the model to follow. It was the antithesis of scale, ergonomics, to construct a container on the basis of one’s the dogmatism of schools like many others. In the idyllic school own movements. of Ticino, he understood the connection between architecture The August Workshop also know as the Building Workshop is and territory. an opportunity to experiment off-campus, usually held in August. Application in Workshops Students and faculty work as a team, engaging with local communities to build plazas and viewpoints. They create devices that Interwoven with the official academic program, the workshops can be put together in the school workshop and neatly inserted in give definition to the direction and rhythm of the Talca School the landscape, like an installation, regardless of the issue of per- of Architecture. Education is understood as a process of learning, manence or ephemerality. These devices open up fields of study, where knowledge is linked to the production of experiences. The in-voke projects with potential, and generate prototypes that focus School, more than an institution established to transfer knowledge, on the process, rather than on the built object. becomes a site for researching the potential of materials and the re- Finally, the Graduation Workshop is the end-of-degree project in sulting forms. Experimentation is based on uncertainty and is the which the student, having furnished himself with knowledge, must antithesis of academic teaching. The experimental nature of the leave the protective aura of the university and confront the real workshop makes them learning labo-ratories for exploring what is world. He must take on the requirements and programs of the not known, for trying out questions without fixed answers. community and manage them correctly, display his professional To think is to learn to doubt and to plan a project is to give shape abilities, and – eventually – show his ability to innovate. The future to doubt. Building the resulting object verifies thought processes, architects must work with the resources they have to hand, which turning the experience into learning. are not only financial but include “the intelligence, enthusiasm and solidarity of ordinary people.” At different scales and with increasing levels of difficulty, four consecutive workshops thread together this pedagogical experience based on experience and experimentation. The first is the Materials Workshop. Year after year, Juan Román Perez has run this workshop, which to a large degree guides the first steps of the students. Any available material is suitable for sha- ping into a cube.

8 © Louis Calquin

The projection of a model The way ahead has been marked out and the leadership of Juan Román Perez has left its mark. Gaston Bachelard’s Poetics of Space gave way to Michel Houellebecq’s The Map and the Territory, and the formation of the material. “It is poetics that connects materials and the territory”, Román recalls. Without a doubt, the project for the Talca School of Architecture has its place in the global academic firmament, however much its otherness is proclaimed at the other ends of the earth. Its future demands consolidating this model of success based on experience, on the leading role played by materials and on learning, the profession and the pragmatism of four consecutive workshops woven into an official study program. The inclusive character of the school should remain while it expands its frontiers, internationalizes its image and connects its experiences with other institutions whose objectives point in similar directions. The leadership of Juan Román Perez, who blazed the trail and fertilized the barren plain, should continue to be the guide, the figurehead for an exemplary project. The Talca School of Architecture’s students “should continue to design disturbing objects that bring the territory to the fore, that arouse the possibility of being there, of pausing and inhabiting it, of conversing, observing, operating.” They should continue to sow such devices across the Chilean landscape, whether in response to actual needs or to inspire the imagination of the chance wayfarer .

Juan Roman Perez, born in 1955 in Los Andes, Chile, graduated from the School of Architecture in Valparaiso in 1983. He worked until 1993 at the Nuclear Energy Commission and then at the National Copper Company. He taught from 1994 at the School of Architecture in Lagos and then, from 1996, at the School of Architecture of the Maritime University of Valpa- raiso. In 1998 he joined the University of Talca to participate in setting up the School of Architecture which he directed between 1999 and 2009. Since 2006, he has been teaching and addressing seminars and conferences about the Talca experiment around the world: at the University of Catalonia, the Catholic University of Santiago de Chile, the Faculty of Architecture of Uruguay, the Faculty of Architecture of Lima, the University of Kassel etc. The Talca experiment has also been presented in a number of exhibition such as “Eutopia: Chile, Arquitectura y desarollo”, at the Casa Brasi- leira in Sao Paulo in 2008 or the Ibero-American Architecture Biennale in Medellin in 2011. A work was published on the Talca experiment in 2013: Talca, cuestión de educación / Talca, Matter of Education, Editions Arquine, Mexico.

1. Comments by Juan Román expressed during a car journey (together with José Luis Uribe and Andrea Griborio) across the hills and valleys of Talca as far as the Pacific Ocean, following these devices that, like clues, had been left scattered across the landscape by the students of the architecture school.

10 Muñoz © Felipe 11 SANTIAGO CIRUGEDA, RECETAS URBANAS | Sevilla, Spain

“I am an architect born in 1971. I develop subversive projects with varying objectives in real urban situations, from the systematic occupation of public spaces using skips to the construction of prostheses in façades, courtyards, roofs and empty plots. I negotiate legal and illegal occupations, as a reminder of the pervasive control to which we are all subject. I am currently working with local authorities to implement new types of housing for the socially disadvantaged and alternative models for socio-cultural centres. I carry out this work every day with my office Recetas Urbanas (Urban Recipes), which was founded in 2004. I have also written © Santiago Cirugeda, Recetas Urbanas many articles and taken part in all manner of educational and cultural events such as workshops, lectures, seminars and courses the hostility of professional bodies and the global inertia of in schools and universities. I also participate in solo and group universities, all of which continue to defend the model of the exhibitions worldwide.”1 architect as a creative individual. The movement has evolved on the ground and is often coloured by national culture : in The author of this self-portrait is a graduate of ESARQ in Barcelona. Germany, for instance, alter-architecture was prematurely The school recruited him to direct building workshops although he participative and ecological whereas in France it takes on “State had never concluded his own studies due to his expulsion from the functionalism” and the industrialisation of housing. In Spain school of architecture in his home town of Seville, where he had the young Cirugeda challenged an administration which was started his degree. Already involved in the citizens’ actions which both authoritarian and seriously deficient in the fulfilment of have made him well-known, as a student, Cirugeda was busier its public service responsibilities, a weighty legacy which the questioning urban norms than being diligent in the classroom. young Spanish democracy struggled to change. Santiago Cirugeda’s first actions date back to 1996. The following decade saw many whirlwind projects designed to help people in areas which had yet to be reached by the economic boom. Public “I wanted to experiment, so I started to do spaces were occupied by skips remodelled as playthings. The act projects in the street.”2 of salvage (of materials, buildings, urban plots) became a means of creating facilities, illegal prostheses for cultural centres and Santiago Cirugeda was thus very young when he joined Europe’s universities, etc. vibrant alter-architecture movement which, in the wake of such figures as Ivan Illich and Henri Lefebvre, anticipated the This action is more complex than it appears. It has a mobilising shift in the historic cycle triggered by the crisis of 1974 and aspect: occupy a site and build using reclaimed materials, goodwill the resulting change in forms of development. Alter-architec- (including, always, that of many students) and a deep sense of ture seeks to redefine the role of the architect. It confronts the act of building. According to Cirugeda, this act is an alliance

12 © Santiago Cirugeda, Recetas Urbanas

between organisation and creative improvisation, a team which one trains, materials which one assesses and a collective process which is more important than the project itself. But the architect who allows himself to be photographed brandishing a handsaw has political convictions and has become as fastidious a challenger of the law as France’s Patrick Bouchain or the Belgians of Rotor. “We have advanced in our study of “legal loopholes”, through first reading and understanding and then interpreting laws and rules. This is how we have arrived at agreements with institutions and governments about changing norms. As a means of bringing acts of disobedience to a democratic conclusion.” 3 For the architect, these provisional projects are about rights – to housing, to land, the right to the city. “I visited Colombia in 1994. It was a shock. Illegal projects like ours are being carried out by everyone, every day, because the government doesn’t even provide the bare minimum of public services and everyone has to take care of themself. In Finland and Holland, on the other hand, I remind people that although they criticise their politicians at least they have real democracy ! I would like to combine these two things: citizens’ initiatives and democratic quality.”3

13 Singularísimo y peculiar many requests for intervention. He has become a true self-build (Very singular and particular) expert: Recetas Urbanas draws up believable estimates – which look like till receipts. Costs are trimmed to the bone and the office The epicentre of this activism is Seville : La Carpa – the artistic paid on a time basis. It helps in the search for financing but never space which Bifu (Jorge Barroso), director of the Varuma Teatro demands subsidies. The model works because of the engaged vo- troupe, opened in 2010 on a disused piece of public land covered luntary labour of the residents and, always, of students. by a renewable temporary four year lease. The architect installed a “spider”, a strange structure with high meccano-like legs and a body Recetas Urbanas is also a centre of resources which publishes tech- made from containers. Santiago Cirugeda conceived it as the Trojan nical and legal manuals and guides : how to self-build, install solar Horse of social reoccupation : “The spider combines the principle panels, reuse leftover plots or empty buildings. of the prosthetic building with the occupation of empty plots.” 2. Recetas Urbanas is also engaged in collective action. “In order to While the municipal authorities consider the ensemble very singular be more efficient and better able to influence inadequate Spanish and particular and take their time over granting the building per- public policy we decided in 2007 to work together with other mit, the arena continues to fill : two second-hand circus tents, one groups : architects, lawyers, hackers, citizens, etc. We formed the building made of piled-up containers, another one dismantled at “Architectures Collectives” network in order to share know-how, Grenada and reassembled at La Carpa, a café bar, etc. This popular collaborative methods (and a beer or two) and to reinforce the 3 cultural location welcomed hundreds of shows, concerts and works- actions of these Spanish and international collectives.” hops and tens of thousands of spectators before it closed in 2014 (because the city’s new political majority failed to renew the permit). La Carpa illustrates the Cirugeda method: gradual, playful and inventive, unifying. The Spanish press focusses on the political impact of the actions of this spectacular and excellent rhetorical architect. Architectural journals prefer to publish the (often splen- did) airports, stations or new towns which regional and central governments build across Spain. This won’t change him. “They say that my architecture is interesting but ugly. But tell me, who hasn’t got an ugly friend ? Architecture is obsessed by beautiful buildings and pretty projects – how stupid ! More important is that it is economical, functional and brings people together. That’s what we do.”2 In 2004, Santiago Cirugeda created Recetas Urbanas. There are

Above : "Trenches" – Self-building of two Class-rooms, Fine Arts Faculty, Malaga, 2006 © Recetas Urbanas

14 4

Ci-dessus : "The Spider" – Occupation of the site of La Carpa – Espacio Artistico, Sevilla, 2010-2014 © Recetas Urbanas

15 "Institutional prosthesis" – Museum Extension creating Co-workong Spaces, EACC, Castellan de la Plana, 2005 © Recetas Urbanas

“Rather design a beautiful process” An experiment – “build the city” – has been launched in Seville. Recetas Urbanas and the 17 collectives of the Red Creativa La Car- pa are to occupy the abandoned 15th century Pavilion from Expo In 2008, the sub-prime mortgage crisis reached Spain 1992. “The pedagogical and political experiment will be unique. where the speculative real estate bubble was huge. The We will use the recycling of the buildings to produce a model ur- social crisis became a tragedy: 500,000 half-built apart- ban project. Seville has no urban policy but this city should recreate ments were abandoned, hundreds of thousands of Spaniards a sense of citizenship – through self-organisation.” 3 went bankrupt and were thrown out of their homes. In this disaster-stricken landscape, the experience of Recetas Have these radicant methods resolved Spain’s social crisis ? Not Urbanas becomes a reference point. Spanish architecture hits yet. They are, by definition, disseminative, evolutionary and the ground with a bump and young architects are amongst those tactical rather than quantitative. most affected by unemployment. Cirugeda and “Architectures “My principal recipe is to create awareness and a critical mass, Collectives” continue to invent another approach. “For a number so that people train themselves better and better, feel more and of years – if not for ever – architects have lacked a sense of social more like protagonists and want to act. We have put into prac- responsibility and refused to critically examine the tasks they are tice a number of such “recipes” in the city. They work very well given. They have become the instrument of private companies and as long as we are around but after we have left they stop working public authorities who have found them to be ready accomplices because many people either don’t want them or are afraid of in building cities based on profit and social segregation. We work taking responsibility. We have to work on this question in order to develop strategies which combine the weapons of the law, archi- to find solutions. tecture and social mediation. This is starting to happen, but very slowly. The situation has encouraged many architects to become All these processes have been developed during 20 years of involved in situations which are new and unplanned by any public activism and projects. I have tried to avoid the burden of large body.” 3 scale projects in order to avoid wasting energy in negotiations which are too numerous and too long. I approach such lengthy Anyone who seeks to transform practice turns their attention to battles by winning people over with short, sharp actions which education. offer quick rewards and recharge the batteries for the battles to The former student rebel has always taught, taking students on site come.” 3 visits and organising workshops. He has his opinion about the system: “Schools offer little critical teaching and students rarely find themselves in true work situations. They should be engaged in current social processes, study their complexity and make contact with institutions and citizens in order to develop means of mediation. Perhaps architecture shouldn’t be taught at university at all but in an independent place, which could be a partner of a university, in the same way that associative networks are partners of government.” 3

1. Santiago Cirugeda, curriculum vitae - www.recetasurbanas.net 2. « Santiago Cirugeda, guerilla architect», in The Guardian, 18th August 2014 3. Discussion and interview with Marie-Hélène Contal, Madrid, 17-18th March 2015 http://www.theguardian.com/cities/2014/aug/18/santiago-cirugeda- guerrilla-architect-spain-seville-financial-crisis

16 "Proyectalab" – self-building of a multidisciplinary space, NAU de les Arts, Benicasim, with Collectives Architecture Network, 2011 © Recetas Urbanas © Sandra Henningsson © DOT

JAHN GEHL | Copenhagen, This text is also a self-portrait because it shows the two routes ta- Denmark ken by Jan Gehl’s work: on the one hand, the reestablishment of an urban grammar and vocabulary with which one can confront

the grammar and vocabulary of functionalism and, on the other “I received my architectural diploma in 1960, which means that hand, the enrichment of this through the integration of modern I have been observing and analysing the development of cities for knowledge. It is often mentioned that the work of Jan Gehl owes more than 50 years. Ways of planning and developing cities have much to anthropology and psycho-sociology. The fact that it also changed radically over the course of this half-century. Until around borrows much from contemporary information sciences is less 1960, cities across the globe were developed on the basis of experience obvious but central to his approach. . The life within the urban space was a fun- gathered over centuries These 50 years of work have made Jan Gehl one of the forerunners damental element of this treasure-chest of experience. (…) But as of urban ecology. He has principally devoted them to recreating soon as cities started to expand, their development was restricted to the body of theory and practice regarding the dense city which had professionals : to city planners. This is how theories and ideologies virtually disappeared from schools of architecture and urbanism took over from tradition as the basis of urban development. Mo- and which is based “not on the aerial view but on the measurement dernism, which conceived the city as a machine whose elements and perception of man” 2. Since 2000, Jan Gehl has ventured out- were distinguished from one another in functional terms, gained side his laboratory by applying his methods to invent, in the form considerable influence. A new group, transport engineers, became of Gehl Architects, a new profession of “Urban Quality Consul- important due to their theories about how to ensure favourable tant”. Applied research as a means of changing practice… conditions… for circulating vehicles. During all these years neither city planners nor engineers gave any importance to either urban space or the lives of citizens and the effect of physical structures on 1 Jan Gehl Linnad inimesteleJan Gehl human behaviour was practically ignored.” Jan Gehl on arhitekt ja endine Kuningliku Taani Kunstiakadeemia professor. Ta on linnaelu kvaliteedi konsultatsioonifirma Gehl Architects asutaja ja raamatute „Life between Buildings“, „New City Spaces“, „Public Spaces – Public Life“ ning „New City Life“ autor. Tema linnaarendusprojektid hõlmavad selliseid linnu nagu Kopenhaagen, Stockholm, Rotterdam, London, Amman, Muscat, Melbourne, Sydney, San Francisco, Seattle ja New York. Ta on ka RIBA, AIA, RAIC ja PIA auliige. Linnad „Jan Gehli „Linnad inimestele“ on linnaplaneerijate ja linnakultuuri huviliste n-ö piibel, mis selgitab väga lihtsas ja arusaadavas keeles Gehli teooria põhipunkte, kuidas linnad ja inimesed koos toimivad. Kuidas inimene kujundab linnaruumi ja kuidas linn seejärel kujundab inimesi. Raamatus on ohtralt head illustree- rivat materjali, uuringute kirjeldusi ja „tööriistu“, mis võimaldavad muuta linna inimsõbralikumaks.” — Arhitekt ja poliitik Yoko Alender inimestele „Jan Gehl on suurim linnade kvaliteedi mõtestaja ja asendamatu filosoof, kes näeb linnades lahendusi meie ees seisvatele keskkonna- ja tervisekriisidele. Praegu, kus juba rohkem kui pool maailma elanikkonnast elab linna-aladel, tasub kogu planeedil kuulda võtta, mida ta oma raamatus „Linnad inimestele“ õpetab.” — New York City Transpordiameti juhataja Janette Sadik-Khan Jan Gehl

„Selles raamatus on paljud Gehli ideed leidnud edasiarenduse. Ta on uurinud maailma linnu, kus elu kvaliteet on viimastel kümnenditel edukalt paranenud ja tutvustab, milliste probleemidega tuleb tulevikus hakkama saada. Mitmed põlvkonnad elaksid tunduvalt paremini ja linnad oleksid palju konkurentsi võimelisemad, kui nende juhid võtaksid tema nõu kuulda.“ — Colombia pealinna Bogotá endine linnapea, New Yorgi transpordi- ja arenduspoliitika instituudi nõukogu esimees Enrique Peńalosa

„Jan Gehl üllatab meid jätkuvalt oma taipamisega, mis on see, mis linnad tõesti toimima paneb. Selles raamatus väljendab ta oma globaalset lähenemist töö põhjal, mida ta on teinud Euroopas, Austraalias ja This text is taken from “Cities for People”. Published by Jan Gehl Ameerikas, koos võrreldavate andmetega, kuidas jalakäijad kasutavad avalikku linnaruumi. On hämmastav, kui kiiresti ta on suutnud aidata mõnel linnal muuta oma liikluskaoses tänavad inimeste rahusadamaks.“ — Austraalia Curtini ülikooli jätkusuutliku arengu professor, raamatu „Resilient Cities“ kaasautor Peter Newman in 2010, the work reached a global audience, undoubtedly because it has the clarity of a student handbook. A researcher and eminent professor, the Dane Jan Gehl has devoted his work to restoring the position of humans at the heart of the organisation of the city…

Jan Gehl is an Architect and former Professor at the Royal Danish πόλειςJan Gehl για τους ανθρώπους Academy of Fine Arts. He is founding Partner of Gehl Architects – Urban Quality Consultants and author of Life between Buildings, New City Spaces, Public Spaces - Public Life, and New City Life. His city improvement projects include Copenhagen, Stockholm, Rotterdam, London, Amman, Muscat, Melbourne, Sydney, San πόλεις Francisco, Seattle and New York. He is an honorary fellow of RIBA, AIA, RAIC, and PIA.

‘“Jan Gehl is our greatest observer of urban quality and an indispensable για τους philosopher of cities as solutions to the environmental and health crises that we face. With over half the world’s population now in urban areas, the entire planet needs to learn the lessons he offers in Cities for People.” and he has rendered this work directly accessible to these same —Janette Sadik-Khan, Commissioner of the New York City Department of Transportation “This book elaborates on many of Gehl’s seminal ideas, examines some of ανθρώπους the world’s cities that have successfully improved over the last few deca- des, and states the challenges for the future. Many generations will lead happier lives and cities will be more competitive if their leaders heed his advice.” —Enrique Peñalosa, former Mayor of Bogotá, Colombia and President of the Board of the Jan Gehl Institute for Transportation and Development Policy of New York

“Jan Gehl continues to astonish us with his insight into what really makes cities work. He has a global reach in this book based on work he has done in Europe, Australia, and America with comparative data on how pedestrians use public spaces. The deep appeal is how quickly he has been able to assist some cities in turning their traffic-riddled streets into havens for people.”

—Peter Newman, Professor of Sustainability, Curtin University, Australia, and coauthor of humans, citizens, which is extremely rare. Even if their approaches Resilient Cities (Island Press) are very different, Jan Gehl shares the objectives of Santiago Ciru- UPDATE LOGO? LOGO? geda – and these are political: the city and democracy are interde-

Jan Gehl es arquitecto y ha ejercido la docencia en la Academia Real Danesa de Bellas Artes. Es el socio fundador del estudio Gehl Architects – Urban Quality Consultants (Gehl Arquitectos – Consultores de Calidad Urbana) y ha escrito, entre otros, los libros La hu- manización del espacio, Nuevos espacios públicos y Nueva espacios urbanos, que se encuen- tran traducidos al castellano. Sus proyectos de mejora urbana se han implementado en Copenhague, Estocolmo, Rotterdam, Londres, Amman, Muscat, Melbourne, Sidney, San Francisco, Seattle y Nueva York. Es miembro honorario de RIBA (Instituto Real de Arquitectos Británicos), AIA (Instituto Americano de Arquitectos), RAIC (Instituto Real de Arquitectura de Canadá) y PIA (Instituto Ciudades de Arquitectura de Pretoria). Foto: Ashley Bristowe

“Jan Gehl es nuestro gran observador de la calidad urbana y un fi lósofo indispensable a la hora de pensar a las ciudades como portadores de soluiones para las crisis ambientales y sanitarias a las que nos enfrentamos. Si consideramos que más de la población mundial reside en áreas para la gente urbanas, el planeta entero necesita aprender las lecciones que ofrece Ciudades para la gente”. pendent, due to the quality of the spaces which one places at the—Janette Sadik-Khan, Comisionado del Departamento de Transporte de la Ciudad de Nueva York. “Este libro desarrolla muchas de las ideas de Gehl, examina algunas de las ciudades mundiales que han logrado mejoras urbanas en las últimas décadas y enuncia cuáles son los desafíos de cara al futuro. Numerosas generaciones disfrutarán de vidas más plenas y las ciudades se volverán Jan Gehl más competitivas si sus autoridades siguen estos consejos”. —Enrique Peñalosa, ex alcalde de Bogotá, Colombia, y Presidente de la Mesa de Directores del Instituto Ciudades para la gente de Políticas para el Transporte y el Desarrollo de Nueva York.

“Jan Gehl continúa asombrándonos con su pericia para detectar qué cosas son las que hacen que una ciudad sea vital. En este libro, basado en el trabajo que ha realizado en Europa, Australia y el continente americano, desarrolla una mirada global en base a datos comparativos sobre cómo los peatones usan el espacio público. El profundo atractivo que ejerce Gehl se sostiene en ver la manera en que ha logrado ayudar a transformar ciudades, que pasaron de estar dominadas por los autos a ser sitios seguros para la gente”. —Peter Newman, Profesor de Sostenibilidad, Universidad de Curtin, Australia, y coautor del libro disposition of the other, but this can only work if citizens have Resilient Cities (Island Press). Cities (Island Press) Jan Gehl

Ediciones Infinito access to the right knowledge. www.edicionesinfinito.com [email protected]

18 © DOT © DOT

19 Project in Moscow © Gehl

“First life, then spaces, then buildings – the other way round never works”

Jan Gehl never forgets to recall earlier critics of the modernist ideo- tion of pedestrian flows is also political. Is “being counted” not logy. These include Jane Jacobs, author in 1961 of “The Death the first step to raising citizens’ awareness ? Jan Gehl understood and Life of Great American Cities”, which underlined how the that the first ecological complaints against the domination of the combination of modernist planning and the car “were in the pro- supremacy of the car would not convince governments. By coun- cess of eradicating urban space, creating dead and deserted cities. ting pedestrians, Jan Gehl demonstrates their importance and She also convincingly described the quality of life in a busy city as re-establishes them as social actors in the city; by recording their she observed it in her own New York district of Greenwich Vil- journeys he highlights the variety and mix of their trajectories. It lage”. 1 is this recourse to data technologies which enables him to measure flows on the basis of which he can model analytical and diagnostic Perhaps it is also from Jane Jacobs, the banner-brandishing mili- methods: “Data is the key”2 tant who defended her city on the streets, and the anthropologist Edward Hall, who published “The Hidden Dimension” in 1966, Jan Gehl’s subsequent works trace the deepening of the work of that Jan Gehl also learnt that a researcher should get to know the a man who never loses sight of its pedagogic role: “Life between city on the ground. He used his own surveys to take Hall’s work on Buildings” in 1971, “Public Spaces and Public Life” in 1996, proximity further by seeking to verify and recreate the right scale “New City Spaces” in 2008, “Cities for People” in 2010. These and dimensions for urban space – the space which he calls “The propose a city from which the car has been ‘cleaned-up’ and which Space between Buildings”, the title of his 1971 thesis. At this point has been humanised by the treatment of public spaces, etc… In the young teacher at Copenhagen School of Architecture has alrea- his writings, Jan Gehl doesn’t just stick to general ideas. These are dy participated in the city’s first pedestrianisation projects but he actually concrete instructions. Remove the car ? Yes. Re-establish a dedicates himself to research – to a degree of intellectual isolation. graduation of scales, pedestrianize the city ? Yes, again. But how ? Broad principles for social interaction aren’t enough. It is necessary Applied research: in Copenhagen, in Venice, Jan Gehl measures - to equip urban ecology with arguments which convince politicians, the width of streets, the height of buildings, the perimeter of per- demonstrative methods and robust tools. Jan Gehl concludes every ception of a pedestrian… in order to recreate urban knowledge: work with what he calls his “toolboxes”: a series of principles and ergonomics, dimensioning, proximity, etc. The dimensions taught criteria, tables of dimensions, ways of laying-out, an urban gram- at the time in schools of architecture and engineering are governed mar which he illustrates with sketches – the architect’s irreplaceable by the requirements for good vehicular circulation in cities. role of collecting knowledge and synthesising it into clear diagrams. Jan Gehl’s innovation is to cross this admittedly classic approach to urban typology/morphology with a study of the immaterial flows within a city. The empirical researcher doesn’t only measure streets, Urban Quality Consultant he measures time, numbers, speed. He uses observations to deter- In 2000, Jan Gehl created Gehl Architects, a structure for carrying mine how a city can best assure the comfort of, movement of (at out studies which applies his methods to the fields of housing and every scale) and delivery of services to its citizens etc…, the average city planning. speed should not exceed 30km/h - in Venice it is 5km/h and in He devotes his own time to the role, partly invented by himself, Dubai 100km/h – a speed which makes this city impracticable… of Urban Quality Consultant – a role in which he works not While urban planning has been driven for years by the manage- through major projects but through inflections in the metabolism ment of traffic flows, this quantitative and qualitative considera- of existing cities.

20 Project in Amman © Gehl

The method is set out in the book “Public Spaces and Public In Stockholm, Oslo, Riga, Perth, Adelaide, Melbourne, Moscow, Life”. Jan Gehl proposes that cities are studied in three stages: an Jean Gehl, who is preceded by the fame of his handbooks, runs evaluation of the quality of public spaces, a diagnosis of the public comparable projects in city centres. The interventions are surprising life lived in those spaces based on a study of flow and friction points for their lightness as a result of which they are comparable, despite and then a list of recommendations. The study is founded on facts their very different appearance, with those of Marco Casagrande and data that the office has collected which give it a profound in Asian cities. Moreover, Jan Gehl considers that his methods, understanding of how the city works and, hence, the authority to conceived in the developed cities of the North, are capable of debate with politicians. being transposed to the megalopolises of the emerging countries: “the largest cities are always subdivided into small units, with local For example, a detailed analysis of Manhattan’s transport network identities, on sites of 1 or 2 km2 (always measure…). One can enables Jan Gehl to confirm to the Mayor of New York, Michael work at this scale to clean up existing systems.” 2 Bloomberg, in 2007 that the pedestrianisation of Broadway won’t lead to collapse and that the road network is sufficiently capillary to absorb the resulting flows around Times Square.

This diagnostic work is accompanied by the work of educating politicians and city planning departments: about the value of their public spaces, the quality of public life “between the buildings”. In order to convince these decision-makers, the teams from Gehl Born in Denmark in 1936, Jan Gehl graduated from the Architecture Architects also carry out pedagogic work with associations, schools School of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in 1960 where he subsequently looking at what is going to change and at the benefits for citizens spent his university career as a researcher and professor of urban design. that will result. In New York, the project should address the In 1966 a five year thesis grant to study the form and use of public space democratic requirements of the local councils of each district and, leads to a first book, Life between Buildings, in 1971. In 1998, he becomes Director of the new Centre for Public Space Research. His research into the to begin with, Jan Gehl only carries out one agreement as a “trial”. social use of public space feeds further works: Public Spaces and Public Life, The city rapidly creates terraces with café tables and chairs on the 1996, New City Spaces, 2008, Cities for People, 2010. In 2000, Jan Gehl triangular squares which run the length of Broadway. At the end of creates the office Gehl Architects, where he presides as an “Urban Qua- the trial New Yorkers have adopted the project and the city slowly lity Consultant”, a profession which he actually started to practice himself in 1962, when he studied the pedestrianisation of the Strøget district in takes the approach further by improving the floor material and, Copenhagen. later, adding greenery. For Jan Gehl, there is a very close connection between the rate of progress and the durability of an improvement 1. “Cities for people”; Editions Island Press, Washington D.C., 2010 scheme: it is necessary to give citizens the time to adapt their way of – “Pour des villes à l’échelle humaine”, Editions Ecosociété, Montreal, life and to experience the new possibilities. Implementing a process 2012 progressively gives it flexibility and facilitates public participation. 2. Jan Gehl, Lecture at the Maison du Danemark, 14th April 2015

21 © Benjamin Brolet

ROTOR | Brussels, Belgium space. The pavilion that we built, a stilted structure of 5 x 10m built against a party wall, became our office for a year’. It was built using two types of materials: reusable materials, whose use does “Founded in 2005, Rotor is an association of people whose mem- not destroy their intrinsic properties and whose lifecycles continue bers share an interest in material flows within industry, construc- after use, and consumable materials, which are extracted from the tion, design and architecture. Their activities take place on two flow of waste material as a way of prolonging their life for several different levels: on the one hand, they design and build structures, months.” 2 installations and exhibitions for various clients. Additionally, they carry out research, both in the field as well as in scientific literature dealing with issues of material resources, waste and reuse and so Without denying the fact that, like RDF181, most of its projects on. Their research results in written reports and recommendations play with the rules, Rotor does not position itself in the field of submitted to various public bodies.”1 urban activism but in another theatre of operations: as a contri- bution in the area of building to reducing our waste of resources.

Written in 2010, the above text requires only a light update. It was carefully drawn up by a young team which enjoys clear critical Nevertheless, this work has a clear political horizon: Rotor is fighting acclaim both for its projects and for the research which it translates consumerism in the construction industry, a sector that destroys into essays and exhibitions – including none other than the Usus/ energy and materials on a huge scale. Rotor’s defence of reusing Usures exhibition which was staged, also in 2010, in the Belgian also shares the theoretical horizon of research into the entropy pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale. of industrial systems – a cycle of destruction which it addresses from the perspective of building waste. But in order to fight Waste and Entropy, Rotor positions itself neither against nor outside the If the hundred words in this text (including, just once, architec- system. “We are not yet in the post-industrial age”, Maarten Gielen ture) appear so meticulously written, could this be because Rotor dares to say, “but still in the age of industrial dependency”3. Does wanted to redefine its position in response to the many, diffuse this mean that this pragmatic industrialism is a European variant of commentaries on its first projects ? RDF181, the temporary office cradle to cradle4 ? No: Rotor criticises McDonough’s thesis “which built on a vacant site in Brussels in 2006 which first put it in the exaggerates the possibility of a consumerist economy which is spotlight was, for example, referred to as an act of urban guerrilla in perfect harmony with ecology”1 and in which entropy slowly warfare. Rotor prefers to see it as much more of “a pragmatic deci- disappears just like the slow, mechanical reduction of the friction sion: ‘we needed an office while we searched for suitable lettable that stands in the way of the dream of perpetual motion.

22 9

9. and 11. "Usus, Usure" – Belgium Pavillion, International Biennale of Architecture of Venice, 2010 © Éric Mairiaux

10. and 12. "RDF 181", 2006 © Éric Mairiaux

23 “ If it touches the bottom of the container, a pro- “ Why should one extract the intelligence of the duct becomes waste ” 3. building site ? ” 3 This dual position on the building industry - accept/change – is We have spoken little of Rotor’s projects during these years. We a hypothesis which Rotor has confirmed through study, through have drawn our hypothesis from the spectrum of its activities exploring its processes by asking a question: when and how does a and the role of its realisations is (especially for the team) more product become waste ? demonstrative than conclusive. In 2008, the Ursula Blicke Foundation commissioned to the team Often ephemeral, these projects are still convincing. Because they an art installation. They prefer to propose a research on industrial must convince developers and architects that a suspended ceiling waste. It set out to study extrusion and assembly lines and to ana- from the 1970s remains useful and beautiful (as in the reusing and lyse how their stop-and-go approach and malfunctions led to scrap, reshaping of materials during the transformation of the abattoir seconds and other products which were usable but imperfect in the at Bomel into a Centre Culturel). Or because of Rotor’s obvious eyes of the market. A huge amount of waste which was melted empathy with bare industrial reality (as in the former gravel pits of down or shred. An exhibition and a publication played with the Ghent Docks, 160 metre long containers transformed in 2012 into codes of contemporary art in order to transmit the message – the an open-air promenade through oxidised concrete veils – a humble fascinating presence of raw waste (extruded plastic, piles of iron monument of industrialised Belgium, handed back to its people.) filings) juxtaposed with objective prose describing the process. Rotor embodies a weighty paradox. This removal, storage, Upon being questioned by Rotor about its policy on waste, the repositioning and refixing of materials … involves the movement Brussels Region commissioned a study in the same year into the of an impressive weight of material. But this incredibly “bricks flow of building waste. Rotor explored the network of reusing and mortar” approach feeds ephemeral projects and this frees companies which sold bricks, stone, timber and valuable materials. Rotor from the long-term responsibility which is a real weight This informal sector was in crisis due to the low value of the com- on the architectural profession. Rotor manages these heavy ponents (suspended ceilings, modular elements, plasterboard…) stocks but doesn’t become heavier itself. It sees itself more as of the towns built in the 1970s which were being demolished or an easily-manoeuvrable pool of consultants which introduces refurbished at the time. A fully-fledged recycling industry took innovation into slowly moving systems and which, today, trains the place of this informal sector but didn’t do any sorting before architects, tomorrow, convinces industry to change its ways, and, feeding its shredding machines and the entropy merely continued the day-after-tomorrow, convinces politicians to rewrite the rules under the “green” label: if the reusable wooden door fitted into the in order to promote an alternative economy. container it became waste and ended up as chipboard – a dual loss This alternative economy is less about a rupture than about a shift of value. between cycles. Rotor assumes that small reusing networks can complete/alter large industrial networks whose existence it doesn’t In 2012, this study led to Opalis1, “a project for activating the buil- question: “Even the production of such a ‘convivial’ object as a ding material reusing network”, through an on-line listing of the folding bicycle requires a multitude of operations which cannot be Region’s professional reusing sector. realised at the scale of the craftsperson. Hence, we need initiatives for transition which also incorporate elements of industrial In 2013, Opalis 2 paved the way for developing this network production …” 1 further. What if the Region was to draw up a book of rules for prescribing and using non-standardised reused materials in public In order to address this economy of transition, Rotor examines buildings ? (Here, Rotor was raising the huge problem of norms the processes and systems of all the actors to see how they create/ and efficiency in an industrialised society). What if recycling crea- destroy value (of use, of efficiency, market). The results are telling. ted jobs ? Rotor points, for example, to the entropic status of architects and The approach owes much to “scientific literature” - a wonderful to “fees calculated on the volume of resources that they mobilise term from the 19th century when a well-informed brain was still on behalf of the client. In this respect, they act as auxiliaries to able to master the chorus of art and science; This bygone possibility materials manufacturers.”1 In renovation projects, consumerism clearly remains the objective of Rotor who has steadily expanded seeks to demolish too much: “some requirements can be met by 6 its activities from the Place du Jeu de Balle via the creation of simple refitting, reorganising and repairing” 1. Projects show the ephemeral theatres to the great game of the construction industry. feasibility of such ideas: at Bomel, Benjamin Lasserre explains the In 2013 the team transmitted its message internationally via the Rotor-based economics behind a project based on reusing: “30% exhibition “Behind the green door – A Critical Look at Sustainable of the consultancy to define the needs of users and meet these at Architecture through 600 Objects by Rotor”, which positioned minimum cost, 20% on the design, 50% on the logistics”3 (the itself less as a manifesto than as a critical inventory of the contem- materials which Rotor finds, transports and transforms). porary ecological debate. (Rotor has a taste for lists, for facts and for Rotor also observes that reusing – whether the careful dismantling classifying facts, materials and processes.) or the refixing of reusable materials - reshapes skills. Trades can be reborn with the backing of industry and re-instil intelligence on the building site whereas the container and the shredder destroy knowledge: the knowledge embedded in products (the beautiful wooden door) and the knowledge of how to repair.

24 Tranformation of the former gravel pits of Ghent Docks, 2012 © Rotor Docks, pits of Ghent of the former gravel Tranformation 25 Stock areas and workshops of Rotor Deconstruction, Vilvorde, 2014 © Rotor

“To maintain his or her independence, the Rotor was founded in 2005 by Maarten Gielen, Tristan Boniver, and Lio- nel Devlieger, who were later joined by Michael Ghyoot, Melanie Tamm, designer’s fee can no longer be calculated as a Benjamin Lasserre, Lionel Billiet, Renaud Haerlingen and Adeline Van percentage of the total budget.” 1 Hoof. Rotor combines the skills of several architects, a scenographer, but also a bio- engineer and a jurist, who all live at the same time in permanent forma- Rotor is evolving in this direction. The team is happier acting as tion, on construction sites and through exchanges. The core membership is a consultant than as an architect. It also continues to manage a also heavily dependent on a network of friends experts, casual or permanent diverse stock of material for its projects which is fed by its contacts employees that enhance the skills of the group and share experiences. with the informal recycling sector. It has professionalised this side Main events: “Deutschland im Herbst”, Ursula Blicke Foundation, Kraich- of its work by creating Rotor Deconstruction, which specialises tal, 2008; “Usus/Usures, Belgian Pavilion at the Venice Biennale, 2010; “OMA / Progress”, Barbican Art Gallery, London, 2011; “Behind the green in recovering and reselling manufactured and semi-manufactured door”, exhibition at the Oslo Architecture Trienniale, 2013. products for architects and those involved in specifications and which Main projects : RDF181, temporary raised office on a vacant site in Brus- intervenes prior to demolition or refurbishment. sels, 2006; KFDA09, temporary creation of a festival centre at Brigittines, Brussels, 2009 ; Grindbakken, remodelling and opening to the public of the former gravel pits of Ghent Docks, 2012; Bomel, remodelling of the former It recruits dismantlers, repairers and polishers… and an architect to abattoir into a Social and Cultural Centre, 2014; Creation of the company identify the items that retain their value and organise the process of Rotor Deconstruction in 2014 removal. This idea of educating architects is risky and the business challenge less so – but if this finances innovation and safeguards 1 Rotor’s independence, it is a risk worth taking. The following – “Rotor – Coproduction”, Editions CIVA, collection Jeunes Archi- tectures/Young Architecture, Brussels, 2010 stage, to continue to gain widespread acceptance for reusing, will 2 – “La Ville rebelle”, collective work directed by Jana Revedin, Editions maybe be to design, with these materials, half-heavy projects. Alternatives, Paris, September 2015 3 - Maarten Gielen, interviews with Rotor by M.H. Contal – 12th & 13th March 2015 4 – “Cradle to cradle”, the work published in 2002 by Michael Braun- gart and William McDonough advocates an ecological approach to design which addresses the recycling of an object from the outset. It fights for “eco-efficiency” which doesn’t assume that economic growth and ecology are incompatible. 5 – “Deutschland im Herbst, A project by Rotor”, Ursula Blicke Foun- dation & Actar-D Distribution, Kraichtal, 2008 6 – “We all learned much on the market on the Place du Jeu de Balle, where you can resell everything on the pavement, a strong tradition in Brussels.” Lionel Devlieger, interviews with Rotor by M.H. Contal – 12th & 13th March 2015

26 Deconstruction SPI Val Benoît, Rotor Deconstruction © OPhoto Rotor Benoît, Val Deconstruction SPI 27 © Nikita Wu

MARCO CASAGRANDE, Casagrande Born in 1971 into a Finnish-Italian family, Marco Casagrande lived in Lapland before studying architecture in Helsinki. In 1998 Laboratory | Taiwan, Helsinki, he teams up with Sami Rintala2 (they both taught at Bergen in Finland Norway) to create performances and installations which reveal a powerful ecological conscience. At the Venice Architecture Bien- nale in 2000 they plant a grove of oak trees on a barge filled with “I am a Finnish architect. I belong more to the forest than to compost produced from the waste generated by Venice in one the city. I will continue working with architecture as a mediator hour. Their “Bird Hangar” at the 2001 Yokohama Triennale is a between modern man and nature, with nature as my co-architect. silo full of birds made from balsa wood attached to weather bal- Eventually we will be able to handle the biological constructional loons; they take off sowing the seeds of endemic plants. In 2002, elements of the Third Generation City. Local knowledge will over- they undertake a tour of the Nordic world, from Finland to Japan take industrial control. I will be there when these accidents happen. via Siberia and then from Halifax to Anchorage. The voyage ends Most of my works are as much environmental art as architecture. with the building of a Temple of Petrol made from containers and They are constructive accidents. I renounce my own control – filled with barrels of crude oil and oyster shells in front of Alaska’s design should not replace reality. Architecture is the art of reality. State Capitol. There is no other reality than nature. I need to be present on site In 2003 they go their separate ways. Sami Rintala uses projects when the accidents happen in order to react to them and build on around the globe to continue his phenomenological meditation on them. These works are totalitarian accidents ruled by the dictator- the relationship between man and nature. Marco Casagrande, more ship of sensitivity. They want to be out of control, find themselves concerned with the city and the future of urbanism after the post- and become alive. Sometimes the works are expressions of a larger industrial transition, creates the Casagrande Laboratory, a structure collective mind.” 1 of studies and projects partly carried out in cooperation with the The projects and writings of Marco Casagrande can be discon- universities with which he works, in Helsinki and, later, Taiwan. certing. They cut across the disciplines of architecture, urbanism, The architect who grew up in Lapland has a fairly Tarkovskyesque3 environmental art and social and natural sciences. From the outset, vision of the state of the inhabited world. The post-industrial city Marco Casagrande has combined the roles of architect-performer is, for him, a ruined machine except in the area of exercising cen- and teacher-researcher as he has developed his urban theory. The tralised control. His field of observation and action is Asia, whose two roles converge on the sites where Marco Casagrande works to cities provide a more visible summary of the post-industrial phe- produce these “constructional accidents”. The architect seeking a nomenon: demographic growth, massive migration and “illegal” flaw, an opportunity to trigger a transformation, in the same way habitat as he uses to say. He doesn’t draw from western urban that the acupuncturist heals a body by inserting fine needles into culture in order to transform these into “third generation cities”, precise points. considering that this has been hugely compromised, functionally and ethically, by its role as the culture of the industrial city.

28 Treasure Hill, Taipei © Nikita Wu

Urban acupuncture

The Casagrande Laboratory’s first project is carried out in Tai- pei in 2003 in cooperation with Taiwan’s Tamkang University. Treasure Hill is an informal district built by rural migrants. The workshop tests a method of urban acupuncture. The students ana- lyse the district and its shortcomings by recording the experiences and memories of the inhabitants before working with them to develop and build projects: roads, terraced allotments, consolidations. “An act of resistance and process of reconstruction in this unofficial settlement destined for demolition. We achieved the legalisation of the settlement and highlighted the power of its know-how.”4

This is the main point: “I was powerfully struck in the course of our research and findings by the extent to which organic local knowledge continues to survive in the industrial city. This knowledge preserves the essence of the biourbanism of the future. The preservation of local knowledge is, in most cases, unofficial. The official city tends to erase local knowledge. Treasure Hill was a great learning experience and the matriarch of the settlement, Mrs Chen, was a great tutor, anarchist and grandmother as well as our professor of local knowledge. Treasure Hill proved the validity of the concept of urban acupuncture – not as a theoretical invention produced by us, but as a form of fundamental, self-organised reaction by a common community seeking to resist industrial control.” 1

The consideration of complexity also plays a part in Marco Ca- sagrande’s thinking. Whether ruined or not, cities have become fragile multi-layered structures made up of networks and flows whose density and movement one cannot hope to master using the planning rules of the industrial age. Cities have become definitively complex milieux, organisms that he seeks to modify by identifying and activating their acupuncture points. “I am interested in organic, modular, self-regulated communities that reflect local knowledge rather than the centrally controlled city. I want to see these communities growing into the industrial urban machine like a positive cancer and starting to reverse their tectonics in the organic direction. Some big answers are “cooking away” inside these unofficial settlements – exemplified by the way they live in symbiosis with the surrounding city and treat flows of material.”3

The Third Generation City

Following this workshop, the Dean of the Department of Archi- In 2013, he transforms an abandoned farm into a house which tecture of Tamkang University, Chen Cheng-Chen, recruits Marco he baptises an ultra-ruin: “A new wooden architectural organism Casagrande as a visiting professor. The decision presents him with growing from the ruins of an abandoned red-brick farmhouse at a university framework for the pursuit of his theoretical work. This the meeting point between the terraced farms and the jungle.” The has European sources: open form theory, formulated by Oscar sections of brickwork and trees which have grown are preserved. Hansen and developed by Svein Hatløy, the teachings of Juhani The project grows up around these, formed of timber floors and Pallasmaa or even the urban sociology tradition of the Frankfurt screens. “Ultra-ruin is the phase of post-ruin in which humans school. At Taipei, Marco Casagrande studies the methodology of return to inhabit a place and share it with the jungle” 4. the micro-urbanism of the great Taiwanese architect Chi Nan-Ti and his Taoist interpretation of the local model of tactical auto- urbanism. “Urban acupuncture is an architectural manipulation of the collective sensory intelligence. The city is a multi-dimensional organism with sensitive energies, a living natural environment whose points of contact - the energy flows beneath the visual city – are sought out by urban acupuncture. Both architecture and environmental art are in a position to produce the needles. A weed which plants its roots in the smallest crack in the asphalt can eventually destroy the city. Urban acupuncture is the weed and the acupuncture point is the crack. The ruin, a man-made process, returns to being part of nature.” 5 Urban acupuncture leads us to the concept of the Third Genera- tion City. It advances by reintroducing nature and liberating local culture in a post-industrial city that these forces will help to destroy and upon which they will feed. "Sandworm" – Beaufond Art Triennale of Contemporary Art, Wenduine, Belgium, 2012 © Nikita Wu In 2010, Marco Casagrande transforms an abandoned building in Taipei into a post-ruin. The term describes a way of minimally occupying such remains without consuming resources. The “Ruin Academy” becomes a workplace for artists and architects (although nothing new in Europe this was a radical approach in Asia, where the turn-over of destruction/reconstruction is accelerated by real estate speculation). 30 Paracity and Biourbanism

The project with which Marco Casagrande is currently busy is known as Paracity, a term which simultaneous- ly describes a process, its instruments and its conclusion. Paracity is a three-dimensional laminated timber skeleton measu- ring 6 x 6 x 6m, an open system which one can place/transplant/ introduce into the gaps in the illegal habitat as a way of supporting self-development and encouraging flows. Marco Casagrande gives the name of biourbanism to this act of transplanting onto the ruined post-industrial city. Paracity is “a positive urban parasite following a symbiosis similar to that between slums and the surrounding city. Paracity is a sort of high-tech slum which can start to turn the industrial city in an ecologically more sustainable direction.” 4 The leap from micro-urbanism to this plug-in strategy raises questions. Perhaps the researcher has reached the limit of an urban acupuncture which, like other small system approaches preserves the autonomy of communities but doesn’t address such problems as access to water, energy or sanitation. And like other architects engaged in self-development (one thinks of Teddy Cruz6 and the steel skeletons whose production he studied in Tijuana in an attempt to enrich self-construction), Marco Casagrande is keen to avoid the big systems which divest inhabitants of their freedom to build and organise. He designed Paracity as a semi-system which is manipu- lable and transformable thanks to the small scale of its grid and the flexibility of timber. Even if Marco Casagrande doesn’t quote Yona Friedman amongst his references, this process of dissemination using gaps strongly recalls Spatial City, the infrastructure designed to be positioned 36 metres above the industrial city which is then open to the self-organisation of its inhabitants. Fifty years later, the propositions are close: “the only task which currently remains open to the architect is the development of temporary constructional techniques which bridge the gap between classic construction and the systems of the future with their abstract scientific tendencies. The role of these temporary techniques will be to increase the surface available for 7 habitation and agriculture as demanded by demographic growth.” "Paracity" – Casagrande's project, Laboratory Center of Urban Research CURE © Rights reserved

Because this grid (6 x 6 x 6m) is more realistic and because eve- Marco Casagrande, born in Turku, Finland in 1971, graduated from Hel- rything is possible in Asia it appears that Paracity doesn’t have to sinki University of Technology in 2001. An artist, theorist and militant remain a utopia. Prototypes have already been tested and a first ecologist he created the architectural offices Casagrande & Rintala in 1998 site launched on an island in the Danshui River in Taipei. The and Casagrande Laboratory in 2003. He taught at Bergen School of Architecture, Norway between 2001 and location is classic: prone to flooding and characterised by small- 2004, was a visiting professor at Tamkang University Department of Archi- holdings, subsistence crops and illegal habitat, the project is desi- tecture, Taiwan between 2004 and 2009 and has been invited to many gned for between 15 and 25,000 inhabitants. “Paracity Taipei is universities in the USA, Europe and Asia. He was a member of the Re- inspired by local knowledge, original Taiwanese urban elements search Group of Aalto University Sustainable Global Technologies, Finland between 2009 and 2012 and established the Ruin Academies at Taipei in that include the high quality of the “illegal” self-built architecture, 2010 and Artena in 2013. self-organised communities, community gardens and urban farms, He is Vice President of the International Society of Biourbanism. the fluid nomadic tradition, a collective consciousness at the scale of the community and the city and other forms of constructive anarchy. The Paracity provides no more than the primary structure 1 – Theoretical background – interview by Marie-Hélène Contal – 3rd and the three-dimensional landscape to which local knowledge can April 2015 2 – Sami Rintala, Winner of the Global Award for Sustainable Architec- attach itself and grow. ture, 2009 Paracity Taipei will develop itself through the creative collisions 3 – In Design Boom – interview with Marco Casagrande, principal of C- of a collective consciousness stirring like a nest of post-industrial Lab, 16th February 2015. Amongst his references, M. Casagrande quotes insects.”7 ‘nature, Andrei Tarkovsky, F.F. Coppola, Stanley Kubrick, Leon Tolstoy, "Sandworm" – Beaufond Art Triennale of Contemporary Art, Wenduine, Belgium, 2012 © Nikita Wu Sergei Eisenstein…’ 4 – Principal Projects – interview by Marie-Hélène Contal – 3rd April 2015 5 – In Paracity – Casagrande Laboratory Center of Urban Research www. paracity.fi 6 – Teddy Cruz, Winner of the Global Award for Sustainable Architecture, 2011 7 – Yona Friedman, L’Architecture Mobile, Paris-Tournai, Casterman, 1958

31 Bibliography

Global Award Jan Gehl for sustainable ArchitectureTM 2015 Livet mellem husene (first version, Danish) Danish Architectural Press, Copenhagen, 1971 Marco Casagrande Life Between Buildings : using public space (English versions) Superlight : lightness in contemporary houses... Van Nostrand Reinholdt, 1987, Danish Arch. Press, Phyllis Richardson, Ed. Thames & Hudson. London, 1996, Island Press 2011 2014 Public spaces, public life, Copenhagen Wood architecture now ! Holz Architektur The Danish Architectural Press. Copenhagen , 1996 Philip Jodidio, Ed. Taschen. Cologne, 2011 New city spaces Artscapes - Art as an approach to contemporary The Danish Architectural Press. Copenhagen , 2000 landscape L.Galofaro, Ed. Gustavo Gili. Spain. 2007 New city life Danish Architectural Press, Copenhagen , 2006 Installations By Architects: Experiments in Building and Design Cities for People S.Bonnemaison, R.Eisenbach, Island Press, Washington, London, 2010 Princeton Architectural Press, 2009 Pour des villes à échelle humaine Arcadia: Cross-Country Style, Architecture and Ed. Écosociété, Montréal, 2012 Design How to study public life L.Feireiss, R.Klanten, S.Ehmann, Ed. Gestalten. Island Press. Washington, London, 2013 Germany, 2009 My Green City: Back to Nature with Attitude and Style Rotor R. Klanten, S. Ehmann, K. Bolhöfer, Ed. Gestalten. Rotor : coproduction Germany, 2011 Ed. CIVA, Bruxelles, 2010 100 Contemporary Green Buildings Architectures Wallonie-Bruxelles : inventaire Philip Jodidio, Ed. Taschen. Germany. 2013 Ed. Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles, Cellule Architectural Theories of the Environment: architecture. Bruxelles, 2013 Posthuman Territory Behind the green door - A Critical Look at A.L.Harrison, Yale School of Architecture, Sustainable Architecture through 600 Objects Ed. Routledge, 2013 Ed. Oslo Architecture Triennale, Oslo.2013 Temporary architecture now ! Temporäre Santiago Cirugeda – Recetas Urbanas Architektur heute! Philip Jodidio, Ed. Taschen. Cologne, 2011 Situaciones urbanas Ed. Tenov, Barcelona, 2007 Urban Disobedience: The Work of Santiago School of Architecture Cirugeda of Talca Ed. New York Institute of Technology, Manhattan, Architecture of change 2 : sustainability 2007 and humanity in the built environment Architecture in Spain Ed. Die Gestalten Verlag. Berlin, 2009 Philip Jodidio, Ed. Taschen, Cologne, 2007 Zumtobel group award for sustainability Camiones, contenedores, colectivos and humanity in the built environment Ed. Vibok,Sevilla, 2010 Ed. Aedes. Berlin, 2010 Temporary architecture now ! Temporäre Talca, cuestión de educación Talca, Matter Architektur heute! of Education Philip Jodidio, Ed. Taschen. Cologne, 2011 Ed. Arquine S.A., Mexico, 2013 SMALL Architecture Now ! Philip Jodidio, Ed. Taschen, Cologne, 2014

32 Publications on Global Award for sustainable ArchitectureTM

Sustainable Design I Towards a new Ethics for Architecture and the City Marie-Hélène Contal and Jana Revedin, Ed. Birkhauser, 2009 Sustainable Design II Towards a new Ethics for Architecture and the City Marie-Hélène Contal and Jana Revedin, Ed. Actes Sud, 2012 Architecture in the Making: The gau:di student competition on Sustainable Architecture Jana Revedin, Gallimard, Ed. Alternatives, 2012 Sustainable Design III Towards a new Ethics for Architecture and the City Marie-Hélène Contal and Jana Revedin, Ed. Gallimard, 2014 Réenchanter le monde/reenchanting the World - Architecture, City, Transitions Marie Hélène Contal, Review Architecture d’Aujourd’hui, Special Issue, 2014 Réenchanter le monde – L’architecture et la ville face aux grandes transitions Anthology of texts directed by Marie Hélène Contal Contributions from Christopher Alexander, Alejandro Aravena, Barbara Aronson, Teddy Cruz, Gilles Debrun,, Andrew Freear and Elena Bartel, Jörn Frenzel, Kevin Low, Philippe Madec, Giancarlo Mazzanti, Jana Revedin, Sami Rintala and Daggur Eggertsson, Phlippe Samyn. Gallimard Ed. Alternatives, collection Manifestô, 2014 Living Urban Laboratories - Participatory Design for Circular Growth and Social Inclusion Jana Revedin, BTH Press 2015

33 the founder

The LOCUS Foundation : a community for change

The LOCUS Foundation was founded in 2009 to direct and organise the Global Award for Sustainable Architecture™ which researches and transmits notions of Sustainable Design in the ecological, social, economic and cultural fields. As a second mission, LOCUS coordinates research and urban analysis with interdisciplinary students and experts from worldwide partner universities, introducing academic social responsibility: LOCUS sets up living urban laboratories “with the people by the people”, following participatory “radicant” Design methods: LOCUS catalyses collective creativity and self- responsibility through the dialogue between inhabitants, users and stakeholders, local associations and NGOs. Despite their small scale and slow rhythm the results of these experimental interventions become emblematic signs of change and aim to lead to empowerment, self-development and civic rights.

Since 2009, LOCUS has realised the cultural renewal of the Fishing Harbour of Zhoushan (with Wang Shu, Global Award 2007), the street lighting of Garbage City in Cairo (with Bijoy Jain, Global Award 2009) and the community centre and museum of the Vale Encantado Favela in Rio de Janeiro (with Kevin Low, Global Award 2013). The latest urban renewal concept addresses Casablanca’s Sidi Moumen slum, where LOCUS powered the entry to the UN Habitat competition on the urban renewal of mass housing – which became a Global Winner in 2014.

LOCUS fosters scientific publications on sustainable design and the future of cities, the latest publication being “The Rebel City: Radicant Design through Civic Engagement”, which will appear in September 2015 (Gallimard).

The Global Award for Sustainable Architecture™ was put under the patronage of UNESCO in 2011.

www.locus-foundation.org

PARTNeRS

The Cité de l’architecture & du patrimoine guarantees the cultural presence of the Global Award for Sustainable Architecture through its European and international network of experts and architecture centres. Each spring, the Cité organises the annual symposium and presentation of the five award-winners and their work. It also works with LOCUS on publicising the work of the award through: - Travelling exhibitions about the nominated architects - Publications and conferences www.citechaillot.fr

The GDF SUEZ Foundation supports the LOCUS Foundation and its holistic approach to sustainability as demonstrated by the Global Award for Sustainable ArchitectureTM. www.fondation-gdfsuez.com

For the past forty years, Bouygues Bâtiment International (a subsidiary of Bouygues Construction) has been a bench- mark in the construction industry. Its many projects around the world demonstrate its varied skills and know-how. In 2013 Bouygues Bâtiment International became partner of the LOCUS foundation. This partnership is the result of the convergence of our shared concern over the twin issues of sustainable architecture and urban renewal. By supporting the Global Award for Sustainable Architecture™, Bouygues Bâtiment International promotes an ethically responsible image of the construction industry. Following the exemple of the LOCUS Foundation, Bouygues Bâtiment International has made cultural , respect for local environments and all aspects of innovation the basis of corporate philosophy. Supporting the Global Award is a way of demonstrating its commitment to and hands-on participation in the worldwide debate on sustainable development. For far from seeking merely a fashionable image, Bouygues Bâtiment International aims to contribute to building better lives for everyone everywhere in the world. Through its robust sustainable development strategy, Bouygues Bâtiment International designs and builds highly energy-efficient and environmentally-friendly projects which meet the expectations of all its stakeholders – clients, partners, staff, local authorities and civil society. The architect is often involved at the beginning of the construction process, whilst the contractor comes in at a later stage. By joining up these two links in the chain, this partnership will enable us to join forces in promoting environ- metally-friendly design and sustainable construction.

www.bouygues-construction.com

34 THE SCIENTIFIC COMMITEE

Composition . Benno Albrecht, architect, historian, professor at IUAV University – Venice . Marie-Hélène Contal, architect, Deputy Director of IFA - Cité de l’Architecture & du Patrimoine – Paris . Spela Hudnik, architect, professor, Director of the International Architecture Biennale of Ljubljana . Kristina Nivari, historian, Deputy Director of the Museum of Finnish Architecture – Helsinki . Christophe Pourtois, historian, Director of the International Centre for Urbanism, Architecture and Landscape – Brussels . Jana Revedin, architect PhD, professor at the Blekinge Institute of Technology, Sweden, Founding President of the LOCUS Foundation . Honorary Member 2015 : Salma Salar Damluji, architect PhD, professor at the American University Beirut, President of the Daw´An Foundation

Cité de l’architecture & du patrimoine Paris - www.citechaillot.fr The Cité de l’Architecture & du Patrimoine offers its visitors an ex- ceptionally diverse cultural experience organised in a single, unique IUAV University location occupying 22,000m² in the heart of Paris. From urban Venice - www.iuav.it renewal to the revitalisation of our cultural heritage, questions of Venice’s IUAV University is one of the world’s best known and the city occupy us daily. A public entity under the umbrella of the enjoys a particular reputation for the quality of its research labo- Ministry of Culture and Communications, the role of the Cité is to ratories in the areas of composition and the theory and history be a source of information and knowledge in all questions related of architecture and the city. Since 2005, IUAV University has to the quality of architecture, from the upgrading of our cultural created an international master’s degree in Sustainable Urban heritage to the preservation of the urban environment. Aimed at Planning as a centrepiece of its research programmes. both the general public and a more specialist audience, the programme of the Cité is highly diversified: permanent and temporary exhibitions, teaching and workshops, symposia, debates, pro- jections...Specialists in the areas of architecture and urbanism are invited to take advantage of the courses offered by the École de Chaillot as well as the library and the archives of the Cité. Museum of Finnish Architecture Helsinki - www.mfa.fi Created in 1956, the Museum of Finnish Architecture is the world’s oldest architecture museum. Since its creation, it has produced and sent out over 1,000 exhibitions. Today, MFA is home to valuable expertise in the area of sustainable architecture, in particular in International Centre for Urbanism, Architecture Scandinavia, the focus of the most advanced research in this area. and landscape The Museum of Finnish Architecture works in close collaboration with the GAU:DI network and the most important international Brussels - www.civa.be architectural institutions. The International Centre for Urbanism, Architecture and Land- scape (CIVA) contains a library, an archive and a documentation centre as well as a range of exhibition and meeting spaces. The mission of CIVA is to introduce architectural and environmental issues to as large a public as possible while breaking down the divi- sions between disciplines. The CIVA is also the coordinator of the European GAU:DI network which brings together the continent’s International Architecture Biennale principal architectural institutions. Ljubljana - www.architecturebiennaleljubljana.si The International Biennale of Architecture of Ljubljana was created in 2000 by Peter Vezjak and Špela Hudnik. This young biennale of contemporary architecture is one of the most dynamic players on the Eastern European architecture scene. Focussed on the exchange of information, the event organises an innovation competition and on-line activities of excellent quality. This intra-European platform allows local figures (from Slovenia, Italy and Austria) to come head-to-head with international names from the creative sectors of the contemporary architecture scene.

35 Cité de l’architecture & du p atrimoine Palais de Chaillot – 1, place du Trocadéro Paris 16e – Mo Trocadéro citechaillot.fr