co+labo radović     Soft City book launch and lecture by David Sim@Reopening the Split Case 
A long-time co+labo associate, David Sim - Partner and Creative Director in Gehl, Copenhagen - has joined Reopening the Split Case Workshop with a very special contribution - the launch of his just published book, Soft City. 

Soft City is about ease and comfort, where density has a human dimension, adapting to our ever-changing needs, nurturing relationships, and accommodating the pleasures of everyday life. How do we move from the current reality in most cites—separated uses and lengthy commutes in single-occupancy vehicles that drain human, environmental, and community resources—to support a soft city approach? David draws from his vast design experience to make a case for a dense and diverse built environment at a human scale, which he presents through a series of observations of older and newer places, and a range of simple built phenomena, some traditional and some totally new inventions. As always, he offers inspiration, ideas, and guidance for anyone interested in cities. 

Hosting David, seeing his long-awaited book, and experiencing an energising presentation was a very special pleasure for all of us involved in co+re, and explorations of the pleasures of everyday life! After the lecture co+labo team has organised Japanese Party, and the following morning, David joined desk-top discussions.

co+labo radović      a regular co+labo late summer season of workshops reopened in Split     

In the city of Split the recently established collaborative platform co+re (Davisi Boontharm and Darko Radović) and University of Split (Neno Kezić et al.) have organised an architecture and urban design workshop - Reopening the Split Case. As the name suggests, the workshop follows a successful event The Split Case, which was conducted in this city in 2011, and resulted in a very well received book. While in 2011 we focused at centrality, the complexities of life in/of Diocletian’s Palace, in 2019 Reopening the Split Case explores the pleasures of everyday, urban life, sun, sea, body, mind. The workshop is conducted in the ancient, 1700 years old tower of Diocletian's Palace and the Rowing Club Gusar.

Reopening the Split Case seeks and values innovation in both discovery and creation of (pre)conditions for good urban life, equally seeking, finding, observing, exploring, understanding, (re)conceptualising and helping new qualities of life to emerge. The participants are both (re)searching the existing pleasures of everyday life and (re)imagining new kinds and levels of quality in Split, within the framework of the right to the city, the quality of life beyond the bounds of consumption. The rigour of critical and creative thinking will be employed to test the working hypotheses, discoveries and proposals.

The participating academics, experts and institutions are University of Split; Professor Neno Kezić, Ana Grgić, Jere Kuzmanić, Bruno Bartulović, Snježana Perojević  + local experts + Darko Radović Keio University co+labo, Mita Akira, Mita Lab. + Tadej Glažar University of Ljubljana + Davisi Boontharm and Ko Nakamura, Meiji University dbStudio + Piyalada Thaveeprungsriporn, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok + Ana Medina, Universidad de las Américas, Quito, Ecuador + Rafael Balboa, Kuma Lab, University of Tokyo +  David Sim, Gehl, Copenhagen + (as always when co+labo and now co+re are involved) + ++ MUCH more. The teams include students from Austria, China, Croatia, Ecuador, Iran, Japan, Singapore and Slovenia. co+labo team are Amami Iwata, Muxi Yang, Yuki Mori and Koki Suzuki.

The Workshop is one of the cases in which co+re tests its innovative, top-heavy workshop format, aiming to produce original, enjoyable and potent thinking about making and living cities, and to find ways of engagement in actual change. This workshop is a step towards the next stage in co+re activities, building upon previous stages, such as Theory and Practice at Politecnico di Milano, Singapore, University of Florence etc..