Note: I'll have the great pleasure to be in discussion tomorrow with Fabio Gramazio, Prof. & Head for Digital fabrication at ETHZ and partner at Gramazio Kohler, during the much-awaited symposium "Research in Art and Design", at ECAL.
If you can attend, please do so! As we're expecting great presentations from the likes of Xavier Veilhan, Roel Wouters, Skylar Tibbits, Catherine Ince and several others... including Fabio Gramazio of course, who will speak about their rescent researches at the Swiss Institute of Technology / Department of Architecture in Zürich.
10+10 Research in Art & Design at ECAL
A symposium celebrating 10 years of Research in Art and Design
Tuesday 10 October 2017, 8.00–18.30
IKEA Auditorium, ECAL, Renens www.researchday.ch
On the occasion of the 10 years since the moving of ECAL/University of Art and Design Lausanne to its current premises in Renens and marking the 10th anniversary of the foundation of EPFL+ECAL Lab, ECAL is hosting a symposium on Research in Art and Design, featuring artists, designers and scholars in these fields from all over the world, in conversation with ECAL faculty members.
Admission is free upon registration through the online RSVP form at www.researchday.ch
Due to the limited number of seats in the auditorium, the maximum number of participants is 350.
Introductory notes on Research in Art and Design in Switzerland
Davide Fornari professor, ECAL
Moderation
Vera Sacchetti design critic, Basel
Design Research: from Academia to the Real World
9.00–9.45 Alba Cappellieri professor, Politecnico di Milano, Milan
in conversation with Nicolas Henchoz director, EPFL+ECAL Lab
9.45–10.30 Sophie Pène vice president, Conseil National du Numérique, Paris
in conversation with Davide Fornari professor, ECAL
10.30–11.00 Coffee break
Research Through Art and Design: Materials and Forms
11.00–11.45 Xavier Veilhan artist, Paris
in conversation with Stéphanie Moisdon professor, ECAL
11.45–12.30 Fabio Gramazio co-founder, Gramazio + Kohler Architects, Zurich
in conversation with Patrick Keller professor, ECAL
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12.30–13.30 Lunch
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Research Practices in Curating Art and Design
13.30–14.15 Catherine Ince senior curator, Victoria and Albert Museum, London
in conversation with Anniina Koivu professor, ECAL
14.15–15.00 Astrid Welter head of programs, Fondazione Prada, Milan/Venice
in conversation with Federico Nicolao professor, ECAL
15.00–15.15 Coffee break
The Future of Art and Design Research
15.15–16.00 Roel Wouters co-founder, Moniker, Amsterdam
in conversation with Vincent Jacquier professor, ECAL
16.00–16.45 Skylar Tibbits co-founder, MIT Self-Assembly Lab, Cambridge (MA)
in conversation with Christophe Guberan professor, ECAL
Note: I'll be pleased to be in Paris next Friday and Saturday (02-03.12) at the Centre Culturel Suisse and in the company of an excellent line up (!Mediengruppe Bitnik, Nicolas Nova, Yves Citton, Tobias Revell & Nathalie Kane, Rybn, Joël Vacheron and many others) for the conference and event "Bot Like Me" curated by Sophie Lamparter and Luc Meier.
A l’occasion de l’exposition de !MedienGruppe Bitnik, et avec la complicité du duo d’artistes zurichois, Sophie Lamparter (directrice associée de swissnex San Francisco) et Luc Meier (directeur des contenus de l’EPFL ArtLab, Lausanne) ont concocté pour le CCS un événement de deux jours composé de conférences, tables rondes et concerts, réunissant scientifiques, artistes, écrivains, journalistes et musiciens pour examiner les dynamiques tourmentées des liens homme-machine. Conçues comme une plateforme d’échange à configuration souple, ces soirées interrogeront nos rapports complexes, à la fois familiers et malaisés, avec les bots qui se multiplient dans nos environnements ultra-connectés.
Vendredi 2 décembre / dès 19h30
conférence, 19h30-21h : Bot Like Me kick-off
avec Rolf Pfeifer (AI Lab de l’Université de Zurich / Osaka University), Carmen Weisskopf et Domagoj Smoljo ( !Mediengruppe Bitnik). Modération : Luc Meier et Sophie Lamparter
performance musicale live, 21h30 : Not Waving
Samedi 3 décembre / dès 14h30
tables rondes
-14h30-16h : Data Manifestos
avec Hannes Grassegger (auteur de Das Kapital bin ich), Hannes Gassert (Open Knowledge Network) et le collectif RYBN. Modération : Sophie Lamparter et Luc Meier
-16h30-18h : Cloud Labor, Petty Bot Jobs
avec Nicolas Nova (HEAD-Genève, Near Future Laboratory), Yves Citton (Université de Grenoble) et Patrick Keller (ECAL, fabric | ch). Modération : Marie Lechner
-18h30-20h : Botocene & Algoghosts
avec Tobias Revell et Natalie Kane (Haunted Machines), Gwenola Wagon et Jeff Guess (artistes). Modération : Joël Vacheron et Nicolas Nova
concert 21h : performance live de Low Jack et carte blanche au label Antinote
Note: j'aurai le plaisir d'être en entretien --en français-- ce vendredi 26.02 à 20h avec le journaliste Frédéric Pfyffer, de la Radio Télévision Suisse Romande, dans le cadre du programme Histoire Vivante qui traite cette semaine du sujet des "Big Data".
Cet entretien, qui a été enregistré en fin de semaine passée, nous verra évoquer la façon dont les artistes ou designers abordent aujourd'hui --mais aussi un peu hier-- cette question des données. En contrepoint ou complément peut-être des approches scientifiques. Pour ma part, aussi bien dans le contexte de ma pratique indépendante (fabric | ch où de nombreux projets réalisés ou en développement s'appuient sur des données) qu'académique (projet de recherche interdisciplinaire en cours autour des "nuages"... entre autres).
À noter encore qu'au terme de la semaine d'émissions thématiques sera diffusé sur la TSR (dimanche 28.02) le documentaire Citizenfour, qui relate toute l'aventure d'Edward Snowden et du journaliste Glenn Greenwald.
Une semaine d’Histoire Vivante consacrée à l’histoire de la recherche scientifique à la lumière de l’émergence de l’internet et des big data.
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Dimanche 28 février 2016, vous pouvez découvrir sur RTS Deux: CitizenFour, un documentaire de Laura Poitras (Allemagne-USA/2014):
"Citizenfour est le pseudonyme utilisé par Edward Snowden pour contacter la réalisatrice de ce documentaire lorsqu'il décide de révéler les méthodes de surveillance de la NSA. Accompagnée d'un journaliste d'investigation, elle le rejoint dans une chambre d'hôtel à Hong Kong. La suite est un huis-clos digne des meilleurs thrillers."
Note: I'll move this afternoon to Grandhotel Giessbach (sounds like a Wes Anderson movie) to present later tonight the temporary results of the research I'm jointly leading with Nicolas Nova for ECAL & HEAD - Genève, in partnership with EPFL-ECAL Lab & EPFL: Inhabiting and Interfacing the Cloud(s). Looking forward to meet the Swiss design research community (mainly) at the hotel...
Christophe Guignard and myself will have the pleasure to present the temporary results of the design researchInhabiting & Interfacing the Cloud(s) next Thursday (28.01.2016) at theSwiss Design Networkconference.
The conference will happen at Grandhotel Giessbach over the lake Brienz, where we'll focus on the research process fully articulated around the practice of design (with the participation of students in the case of I&IC) and the process of project.
This will apparently happen between "dinner" and "bar", as we'll present a "Fireside Talk" at 9pm. Can't wait to do and see that...
The full program and proceedings (pdf) of the conference can be accessedHERE.
As for previous events, we'll try to make a short "follow up" on this documentary blog after the event.
Christophe Guignard will introduce the participants to the stakes and the progresses of our ongoing experimental work. There will be profiled and inspiring speakers such as Lev Manovitch, John Thackara, Andreas Brockmann, etc.
Christophe Guignard will make a short “follow up” about the conference on this blog once he’ll be back from Riga.
Note: Following my recent posts about the research project "Inhabiting & Intercacing the Cloud(s)" I'm leading for ECAL, Nicolas Nova and I will be present during next Lift Conference in Geneva (Feb. 4-6 2015) for a talk combined with a workshop and a skype session with EPFL (a workshop related to the I&IC research project will be on the finish line at EPFL –Prof. Dieter Dietz’s ALICE Laboratory– on the day we’ll present in Geneva). If you plan to take part to Lift 15, please come say "hello" and exchange about the project.
Principal at Near Future Laboratory and Professor at HEAD Geneva
Workshop description : Since the end of the 20th century, we have been seeing the rapid emergence of “Cloud Computing”, a new constructed entity that combines extensively information technologies, massive storage of individual or collective data, distributed computational power, distributed access interfaces, security and functionalism.
In a joint design research that connects the works of interaction designers from ECAL & HEAD with the spatial and territorial approaches of architects from EPFL, we’re interested in exploring the creation of alternatives to the current expression of “Cloud Computing”, particularly in its forms intended for private individuals and end users (“Personal Cloud”). It is to offer a critical appraisal of this “iconic” infrastructure of our modern age and its user interfaces, because to date their implementation has followed a logic chiefly of technical development, governed by the commercial interests of large corporations, and continues to be seen partly as a purely functional,centralized setup. However, the Personal Cloud holds a potential that is largely untapped in terms of design, novel uses and territorial strategies.
The workshop will be an opportunity to discuss these alternatives and work on potential scenarios for the near future. More specifically, we will address the following topics:
How to combine the material part with the immaterial, mediatized part? Can we imagine the geographical fragmentation of these setups?
Might new interfaces with access to ubiquitous data be envisioned that take nomadic lifestyles into account and let us offer alternatives to approaches based on a “universal” design? Might these interfaces also partake of some kind of repossession of the data by the end users?
What setups and new combinations of functions need devising for a partly nomadic lifestyle? Can the Cloud/Data Center itself be mobile?
Might symbioses also be developed at the energy and climate levels (e.g. using the need to cool the machines, which themselves produce heat, in order to develop living strategies there)? If so, with what users (humans, animals, plants)?
Interactivity : The workshop will start with a general introduction about the project, and moves to a discussion of its implications, opportunities and limits. Then a series of activities will enable break-out groups to sketch potential solutions.
I'm still trying to make sense of the whirlwind that was Postopolis! LA. The event provided the most wonderful kind of sensory overload and reveled in variety, contradiction and cognitive dissonance. Between jetlag, academic administration and a nasty fever I've been tied up since arriving back in Toronto late Sunday night but my mind still hasn't stopped racing. What follows is a personal highlight reel from the multitude of architects, interface designers, geographers, activists and vampire fiction/gentrification experts (!!) that presented during the first half of the event. I'll share my notes for the remainder of the proceedings sometime over the next several days.
fabric | ch / Atmospheric Relations / 2008
Fritz Haeg of Fritz Haeg Studio gave an overview of his landscape architecture, and park and garden design. Haeg highlighted his Gardenlab project and positioned garden design as a "counterpoint to the spectacle of architecture". Over the last several years Haeg has produced a series of Edible Estates that reconsider "green" space in both public and private contexts. Thus far eight prototype gardens have been developed in cities including Salina, Kansas, Los Angeles and London (as part of the Tate Modern's Global Cities exhibit in 2007).
Patrick Keller of fabric | ch delivered a fascinating presentation on their work in developing and considering micro-climates. Fabric | ch describes itself as an "architecture, interaction & research" based practice and browsing their portfolio reveals some very exciting thinking (I'm definitely going to investigate and post about one of their earlier projects in the coming weeks). Keller discussed design projects such as their "informatic facade" for Atmospheric Relations and the interface for Philippe Rahm'sMétéorologie d'intérieur which was exhibited at the Canadian Centre for Architecture in 2006. A large portion of the presentation revolved around Real Rooms, a 2005 proposal that breaks down climates into discrete, modular units that play out across a larger "programmable" complex. Fabric | ch is an edgy, precise practice experimenting on archi-fundamentals (time, space) with very sophisticated considerations of the environment and information systems - exciting stuff! [See Dan Hill's detailed summary of this presentation]
Next up was Yo-Ichiro Hakomori of wHY Architecture who was interviewed by David Basulto and David Assael. This meandering conversation touched on a number of projects by the firm including the Grand Rapids Arts Museum and an Art Bridge. The latter project is an infrastructural intervention that provides pedestrian movement across the L.A. River while framing views of the water below and an expansive public mural. Midway through the discussion Hakomori mentioned that he considered Louis Kahn's Salk Institute one of his favourite project and this makes sense as wHY Architecture has developed a similar restrained monumentality.
The next session featured Dwayne Oyler and Jenny Wu of Oyler Collaborative, also fielding questions from Basulto and Assael. This experimental practice has executed some stunning installation work and the studio was commissioned by Ai Wei Wei to produce a residence as part of the Ordos 100 Villa project. As evidenced by projects like their 2008 Live Wire exhibit at SCI-Arc, it wasn't too surprising to learn that Oyler has collaborated with Lebbeus Woods in the past.
Mary-Ann Ray of StudioWorks kicked off the second day of talks with a presentation on Chinese urbanism entitled "Towards Ruralpolitanism". Ray is working on an illustrated lexicon that indexes the intersection of massive Chinese cities with villages as there is no North American or European point of reference for understanding how cities and villages engage and interpenetrate one another in China. This research also extended into the cultural realm as Ray discussed a variety of principles pertaining to land ownership and management that roughly translated as "stir fried land" or "illegal mess" - she's trying to catalog these phenomena and engage them critically. Since there is no "suburbia" in Urban China, how do rural and urban systems respond to industrialism and agriculture? How does the population float back and forth between these urban typologies?
The next presenter was David Gissen of the excellent HTC Experiments blog. A historian and theorist at the California College of the Arts, Gissen expressed frustration with the gap between theory and and the practice of everyday life. He highlighted work such as Michael Caratzas' proposed preservation of the Cross-Bronx Expressways as being emblematic of ways that architectural historians might more directly engage the systemic nature of the city rather than just cordoning off specific buildings. Urban Ice Core - Indoor Air Archive, 2003-2008 is a "fantasy archive" in which Gissen proposed to collect and store indoor air for future analysis. Gissen closed his presentation with an utterly fascinating anecdote about his neighbour's parrot, and how it functioned as a mimetic device and imitated the ambient soundscape of the city - perhaps historians need to operate in a similar manner?
Robert Miles Kemp of Variate Labs presented a stellar body of work that blurred the lines between interface design, robotics and architecture. Kemp highlighted the impending fusion of physical and informational systems and identified an interest in thinking of software as "artifact" rather than control and robots as "systems" rather than anthropomorphic entities. Kemp showed a flurry of interfaces, dashboards and a homebrew multitouch display but what struck me the most was his 2006 thesis project Meta-morphic Architecture which proposed not just parametric design, but parametric space. Kemp maintains a research blog Spatial Robots - interactive systems fans take note.
Next up was an overview of Polar Intertia, the self described "journal of nomadic and popular culture" as edited by Ted Kane. Los Angeles is an idiosyncratic city full of storefront churches, mobile taco trucks, cell towers masquerading as palm trees and the like. Rather than homogenize discourse about the city (and urbanism in general) Kane parses the logic of these networks and phenomena. He presented an exciting overview of the politics of RV parked residences in Santa Monica and Venice and detailed how local legislation was creating a migrant population within these municipalities. Kane's journal looks quite exciting and I look forward to digging into it further.
The final presentation on Tuesday was Stephanie Smith of Ecoshack. Smith presented Wanna Start a Commune? which, by my reading, applies a veneer of revolutionary thinking and social activism from the 1960s (she identified The Diggers as a key influence) on top of a generic technology startup. The project aspires to monetize the toolkit required for microcommunity building, but I couldn't get past Smith's marketing rhetoric and ascertain a tangible position on what community was, let alone any kind of political stance. I wasn't at all surprised to learn she studied under Rem Koolhaas but her take on the intersection of capital, space and utopia seemed more crass than nuanced.
Stay tuned for my notes on the second half of Postpolis! LA. I'm also planning to provide some commentary on the organization and context of the event in relation to online media.
Patrick Keller’s talk was so up my strasse it’s ridiculous. Keller is from the Swiss architecture practice Fabric, originally from Geneva and now in Lausanne (I’m not sure why he was in LA.) He’s interested in the collaboration between information designers and architect, and works in the space between these disciplines, interested in creating responsive architectures (As am I.) He notes wryly that most of his projects are as yet un-built, “like most architecture”. (As are mine.)
He runs through a few projects in quick succession, each a progression of the other. There’s a lot more to his projects than we were able to get through in 30 minutes. All concern the interplay between the environmental characteristics of spaces, in terms of the idea of conditioned environments (somewhat apposite, given Banham’s ideas of Architecture of the Well-Tempered Environment (see my own spin on that) and as LA must be home to as much air conditioning as anywhere.)
The first project is from a few years back as evidenced by the title. ‘Real Rooms’ (2005) takes its name from Real Player, then one of the de rigeur streaming media players. The idea being that instead of streaming media you could stream actual environments into spaces. This project, for Swiss giant Néstle, was situated in the world HQ of Néstle, a late-modern building with large areas of transparent glass on the outside but an almost hermetically sealed series of interior spaces (corridors, offices, cubicles, boxes etc.) which had precisely controlled environments in terms of internal artificial climates, artificial lighting etc.
So given the building had lost a relationship with climate, at least on the interior, Fabric proposed a series of container-like interior ‘boxes’ which could be altered in terms of temperature and lighting to ‘stream’ artificial climates into those spaces, representative of climates and time zones from across the world (playing up Néstle’s global reach, perhaps) - that you could “invite a climate into the box” in Keller’s words. So you could make one environment always 8am, staying on the same latitude. Some could be “always dark, some always daytime - some very cold and some very hot”.
The building looked particularly beautiful at night, when only some part of it is lit, forming the shape of daylight across the globe. This shape would then change slightly varying with season.
The second project Keller showed also concerns internal atmospheres, but instead of controlling, this is about “letting climate go by itself”. A competition entry for a tower in San Jose, containing a huge volume of air. This building would also communicates climate around the globe, but using the natural processes of convection, albedo effect and so on within the volume of air. As opposed to the former project, this would just enable a climate within the structure, articulated by the volume of air, and then communicate the performance of that air volume via boxes with sensors on the exterior, linking it to climates worldwide.
The tower enables a kind of “porosity in vertical axis” so the air can ascend or descend, but with no porosity on the sides, it is trapped, in order to manifest the daily patterns within that volume.
Keller says it’s a sort of test tube environment for climatic variation: “In the morning you’d have cold air at bottom and warmer air at the top remaining from the day before … During the day, it gets warmer, and goes to the top, then cooler air is present at the bottom. Humidity collects at the top, condensates on the facade and runs down. Pollution particles are more dense at the bottom than at the top (as they’re heavier)”. And so on …
So the form triggers a natural atmospheric variation into building, which is then captured by the sensors. These sensors then feed information displays on part of building (essentially on each floor), enabling a comparison at each moment of the performance of the building itself, and then “related atmospheres” to other places on the globe. (A fascinating idea, and really close to my own ideas of building as urban dashboard.)
The third and final project was ‘Environ(ne)ment’ for the CCA, working with Philippe Rahm. This was both a form of “test environment and representation“ concerning an ‘artificial sun’ (as per Eliasson's Weather Project?) triggering differences in heat, light etc. within the gallery space. These phenomena then sampled by sensors, and feed projections about what’s going on in the space. Moving the ideas forward, Keller described how this exhibit then offered suggestions about how you could inhabit these spaces with differing climates - “propositions generated through software”, such as cooking on floor, sleeping on carpet, wearing clothes or not, furniture, activity and relationships all changing function in response to the different environmental characteristics. (This is an intriguing step forward for the ideas, moving into behavioural relationships as a result of changing environments quite directly, rather than the previous two projects with their more subtle but potentially ignorable approach of prompting.)
So Keller sums up by noting how the first project concerned a “conditioned environment” which is then questioned and reopened. The second was a “let go” environment, which is “more natural and costs nothing to trigger variation”. The third concerns “some new way of inhabiting those climates”. He believes this third is interesting as neither totally conditioned nor totally free, but somewhere in between …
Geoff asks a question concerning moving beyond the building into urban and landscape design through temperature gradients. “Could you engineer microclimates through LA? Could you bring different climates to the city?”
Keller responds that it could theoretically “go large scale, though it is hard to trigger it at this scale. At urban scale you have to deal with natural conditions as well”. Having said that, in a sense the cities have already changed our climate at this planetary scale of course - and we could do so again, he suggests, say by “painting the cities all white and replace polar caps” accordingly.
(There are many more fascinating projects at Fabric’s website, as well as details of the projects noted above, and it’ll be worth watching the work of this practice. This kind of work is at the most interesting junction with architecture and urbanism, to my mind, and perhaps the most potentially fruitful.)
This was a really great and challenging event with sharp interventions. I hope we'll be able to organize one in Europe sooner or later (but rather sooner).
Well, this has been one of the most intense weeks I´ve had in quite so time. Postopolis! LA has turned to be an amazing event: An incredible venue at the rooftop of The Standard Hotel in downtown, a very interesting group of speakers, very proactive attendants, networking and drinks. And of course, the presence of our friends from BLDGBLOG (Geoff), City of Sound (Dan), Subtopia (Bryan), Mudd Up! (Jayce, a.k.a. dj/Rupture), We Make Money Not Art (Regina), The Storefront Gallery (Joseph, Cesar) and ForYouArt (Bettina, Devin).
During these days we had the chance to conduct live interviews with wHY Architectura (Yo Hakomori), Oyler Wu Collective (Dwayne Oyler, Jenny Wu), Sander Architects (Whitney Sander) and JohnstonMarkLee (Sharon Johnston, Mark Lee). These have turned to be very interesting, as you saw on the live streaming. Also, the audience has been participating making questions to the architects. And i have good news for this, as we got a new microphone and the audio recording is great! So expect the edited interviews to be posted soon.
Today we are going to interview Austin Kelly from XTEN Architecture, so if you´ve got any questions write a comment and i´ll try to get him to answer them. You can see the interview via Ustream at 5PM Pacific time.
As for the rest of the speakers, I´ve been impressed for the variety of architecture related topics discussed… urbanism, communes, sustainability… i really liked the presentations by Jeffrey Inaba (Inaba Projects), Patrick Keller (Fabric) and Stephanie Smith (Ecoshack, check her awesome project Wanna Start a Commune?). And there´s more to come, so be sure to check the full schedule. The quality of the Ustream feed is very good, so be sure to check it out.
The first day of Postopolis is over. It went way better than i expected (and expectations were high.) We are on the rooftop of The Standard hotel which means looking at each other with a smug smile on our face that says "we're so lucky to be here". Problem is that the smile literally freezes as soon as the sun goes down: it gets cold beyond my worst nightmare of a night sleeping rough in Tobolsk (only slightly kidding here.) Bring your blanket and moon boots tonight or follow us on the webcast! Don't expect full reports as days are pretty busy but here are a few highlights of Day One on Postopolis planet:
I had the immense pleasure of kicking off the series of talks by introducing Fritz Haeg (how can anyone be both laid-back and so stylish?) whom i had invited precisely for his dedication to engage with everything but architecture. You might remember that i had interviewed him briefly two years ago about Edible Estates, a project that challenges the lawn, this "carpet of conformity", by inviting families to replace their front lawn with food-producing vegetable gardens. Fritz discussed Edible Estates (look out for his next garden in New York in June), gave an overview of the performances and various education activities he organizes but he also explained us briefly another of his projects: Animal Estates.
Launched at the 2008 Whitney Biennial, the project that attempts to integrate animals in our landscape, in particular indigenous species that have disappeared because of human habitats and settlements. The customized dwellings are designed to encourage the resettlement of wildlife in urban neighbourhoods.
Next came a presentation of the work of experimental architecture group fabric by Patrick Keller who proved once again that Swiss architecture rocks (check out this other talk by his colleague Christophe Guignard) and a live interview of Yo-Ichiro Hakomori of wHY Architecture by the two David from ArchDaily & Plataforma Arquitectura. Been very impressed by the thought-provoking and quiet answers of the Americano-Japanese architect and blown away by the picture of one of the most striking building he designed: Royal/T, LA's first Japanese-style cosplay café.
Bryan from Subtopia had had the great idea to invite Michael Dear Professor of Geography, USC and author of the book Postborder City (must get my hands on that one asap). A few noteworthy observation Dear made: the future of the city is already at work in L.A., there is no urban center, just a big sprawl and several urban centers here and there, the population is in majority latino; even if the U.S. managed to close their borders, the latininization of the country would still be unstoppable because of natural birth; diversity is the strongest feature of this society and we should embrace it instead of looking for questionable ways to avoid it; the border is everywhere we go, that's the frontera portatil, the border to go, etc.
Geoff presenting Jeffrey Inaba (photo Storefront)
Geoff Manaugh invited Jeffrey Inaba who commented the shift architects must face because of the current crisis: going from private commissions to public ones, accepting a part of blame for the ambitions of their previous clients and reassessing the actions and strategies to undertake in this new climate. Sounds heavy? The talk was actually very witty, not particularly on the optimistic side but still energizing and sprinkled with ironic observations that went from gums on the pavement to extreme temperatures in Kazakhstan.
This blog is the survey website of fabric | ch - studio for architecture, interaction and research.
We curate and reblog articles, researches, writings, exhibitions and projects that we notice and find interesting during our everyday practice and readings.
Most articles concern the intertwined fields of architecture, territory, art, interaction design, thinking and science. From time to time, we also publish documentation about our own work and research, immersed among these related resources and inspirations.
This website is used by fabric | ch as archive, references and resources. It is shared with all those interested in the same topics as we are, in the hope that they will also find valuable references and content in it.
