co+labo radović    Davisi Boontharm - on the art of requalification+cultural sustainability     

As a part of her ongoing engagement with co+labo, Professor Davisi Boontharm (Meiji University I-AUD) has delivered - within Darko's graduate course in Advanced Sustainable Architecture and Urban Design - a lecture on one of her pet topics: the art of requalification and its roles in cultural sustainability, across architectural and urban scales. In her words, "the lecture started with criticism of the sectorial way of thinking about material objects and an inadequacy of instrumentalized ecological philosophy associated with such thinking. It established an argument about the need for transdisciplinary approaches in production of both knowledge and material objects and spaces. The key argument is that sensitive requalification of the existing resources and built environments generates novel and culturally attuned qualities.

The discussion of several cases of requalification across scales portrayed various degrees of complexity and demonstrated how those practices correspond to the more profound eco-cultural sensibility. Lastly, the lecture examined the crucial roles of art and design in requalification, which have the capacity to celebrate the non-measurable values of objects and spaces. Seen as an active synergy between the culture of reuse and local creativities, requalification provides a workable alternative to the practices driven by dominant global, capital-led development agendas, which generate the unsustainable sameness across the world." 
A big co+labo ありがとうございます !

co+labo radović Tuesday@co+labo 2: Dan Hill, The Battle for Infrastructure of everyday life

And, on 27 November co+labo hosted a very special guest from the UK, Dan Hill (below). Dan is an Associate Director at Arup, and Head of Arup Digital Studio, a multidisciplinary strategic design team.

A designer and urbanist, Dan’s previous leadership positions have produced innovative, influential projects and organisations, ranging across built environment (Arup, Future Cities Catapult), education and research (Fabrica), government and social innovation (the Finnish innovation fund, SITRA), and media (BBC and Monocle), each one transformed positively via digital technology and a holistic approach to design. He has lived and worked in the UK, Australia, Finland and Italy. Besides that, Dan is also a Visiting Professor at UCL Bartlett Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose in London and an Adjunct Professor at RMIT University in Melbourne and University of Technology Sydney. Dan is also one of the Mayor of London’s Design Advocates. Amidst much published work, in academic journals, books and media, he is the author of the influential book “Dark Matter & Trojan Horses: A Strategic Design Vocabulary” (Strelka Press, 2012) and since 2002 has written the groundbreaking blog, City of Sound. And ... more. What is truly exciting about Dan Hill is that he is an incarnation of co+labo's + ++ +  +++ principle.

The synopsis of his lecture, Dan says, could go "something like" this: "Our cities are paused in front of several different alternative futures. One we might describe as ‘business as usual’, which is actually a slow, unthinking drift from 20th century systems into those of shaped by 21st century ‘big tech', in which we are unprepared, ill-advised and increasingly subjugated by individualising technologies applied at urban scale. The other city we might describe as full of the possibilities of similar-looking but actually quite different 'networked urbanism', engaged with consciously, deliberately, and by working with the dynamics of systems for civic and public outcomes. It implies a quite different form of city-making, enabled by a convergence of contemporary approaches such as building fabrication, robotics for maintenance and construction, autonomous mobility and logistics systems, shared super-local energy systems, advanced manufacturing and AI, super-green safe streets and truly shared living spaces, all calibrated by carefully redesigned decision-making cultures. This is where the real invention is required, the true design agenda: how do we re-appropriate these technologies in a way that reinforces the idea of the city as a public good, not a mere collision of private ones? This richly illustrated talk will describe a diverse array of projects, techniques and approaches from projects and practices all over the world." (a poster was designed by Dan Hill)

co+labo radović  Tuesday@co+labo 1:  Alice Covatta: Tokyo Playground-urbanism of play   

Tuesdays are the most intensive of co+labo days, with activities ranging from regular laboratory meetings, research presentations and discussions to frequent guest research seminars and lectures. With two guest talks, Tuesday 27 November 2018 was arguably one of the richest. Alice Covatta, who first joined co+labo as an exchange PhD student from the University of Udine, Italy in 2014, continued as a Post Doctoral Fellow in 2016 and, finally, is with us as a Japan Foundation Research Fellow since 2017, presented her work on cities and play with a lecture "Tokyo Playground: the urbanism of play in everyday human experience".

Alice explains how "play moves between different realms and definitions, reality and unreality, space and time, collective and individual, freedom and rules. When translated into our cityscape it can be a powerful tool able to transform anonymous urban setting into "extraordinary" space where the activities, movements and uses are carried on by the player because he/she likes doing it, freely accepting the play limitation.

Playgrounds spread in our urban environment are the setting for playful activities such as fun, relaxation, exercise or escape becoming a qualitative manifestation for a healthy human experience. Inside the playground border, the rules of the game hold, but at the same time the free nature of play when is affected by the non-optimal urban/social conditions of the context can easily assume a fragile status and disappear. Therefore, both the protection and the promotion of playful spaces need careful attention, especially in the contemporary urban settlement. Hence, the aim of the lecture is firstly to add nuance to the understanding of urban design linked to playful activities in order to improve health conditions especially in children and teenagers. Secondly, it aims to give practical examples through a case study analysis of how urban planning and urban design can affect positively play creating new opportunities." (a poster was designed by Alice Covatta)