co+laboradović The Klis Case, days 5+6+7+8: new ways in collaborative workshopping 

The design of this entry in colaboradovic.blogspace.com was affected by changes 

introduced by blogger.com. The enforced changes forced the departure from our 

formatting which was established eleven years ago. We hope to be able to return, 

to our standard image soon. In the meantime - our apologies to regular viewers.

The Klis Case co+re workshop, one in which the sun never sets, continued with design crit sessions conducted in six parallel rooms, self-managed by six complex, international, interdisciplinary teams, and rich plenary interim presentation. 

Besides the quality of design work, The Klis Case projects which are in advanced stages of making, the process, the way in which this experimental workshop was conceptualised and in which it is being conducted was nothing short of exciting. Over the years, our workshops have always provided the intensity and quality of both work and its products; the initial fears about the effects of the imposed and sudden move online are proving to be largely unfounded. The impression is that the workshop produces an increase quantity of work and of its quality. That is still only perceived, and will be analysed by a separate co+re  research project (which unfolds in the background of The Klis Case. Tomorrow, on Sunday 20 September, the final review in front of the Mayor of Klis Mr Jakov Vetma and his team will add another important dimension, a touch of local passion and realism.

On Wednesday, 16 September Ms Maja Kovač-Levantin, a reporter from the regional station Televizija Jadran  met and interviewed organisers of The Klis Case, professors Darko Radović, Neno Kezić, Davisi Boontharm. 
You can access an extract from those interviews here (time: 14' 42" - 20' 42").
Although the report is in Croatian language, the background images and video clips provided by co+re provide a sense of The Klis Case atmosphere and how these new, challenging intercontinental ways in which the workshop operates are reframing but not damaging the team spirit, desire to learn and impress.

 

co+labo radović    The Klis Case days 3+4: fieldwork+lectures+design sessions intensify    

On Monday, 14 September The Klis Case continued with a series of inputs - Sidh Sintusingha and "Landscape Urbanism", Akira Mita's "Biofield Space and Interface", Chanyaporn Bstieler's "Creating Night-time Identity of a City with Lighting masterplan", and Gabriele Masera's "Reinventing Milan's Railway Yards", which were delivered live from Melbourne, Tokyo, Bangkok and Milano. The lectures were followed by discussion and, in the afternoon one of the co+re innovations in online teaching of design was introduced - simultaneous work in six "studio rooms", across four time-zones and continents. Professors from seven universities were "door knocking" on The Klis Case "Rooms" and joining student design teams, offering their comments and advice. The functioning of these experimental collaborative clusters, in which students from various universities meet in virtual space and jointly work on a single project is of fundamental importance for the Workshop. Although not surprising, it was still pleasant to the organisers to confirm that all four formats that were implemented by now and which constitute The Klis Case - the fieldwork, real-time lectures, plenary discussion sessions and these experimental "rooms" function as planned.
On Tuesday after the third final set of lectures (Davisi Boontharm's "On Requalification", Milica Muminović's "Place as Assemblage", Ana Medina's "XS Urban Life", and Alenka Fikfak's "Lie in Between"), it was time to test plenary presentation and discussion of student design ideas, concepts and, in some cases, already drafted concrete proposals. The progress was encouraging and 24 hours per day work in this co+re workshop in which the sun never sets continues ...

The Klis Case workshop student team members are:

Faculty of Engineering, Architecture and Geodesy, University of Split, Croatia: Niko Borković, Zdravka Đajić, Nora Dešković, Iva Grbavac, Bruno Janković, Ana Ljubić, Ivana Šatara. Faculty of Architecture, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia: Maša Blažič, Urška Jernej, Dylan Gubbels, Blaž Parežnik, Vladimir Tripkovič, Tadej Gregorič, Lovro Pintar, Ivana Gligorovska, Bojan Nikolovski; International Program in Architecture and Urban Design (I-AUD), Meiji University, Tokyo, Japan: Misa Aoki, Hiroya Himeno, Yuji Hirota, Mai Iiyama, Shohei Kosugi, Suguru Sasaki, Ryuji Tomiya; co+labo, Keio University, Tokyo, Japan: Amami Iwata, Jumpei Kawamot, Yuki Mori, Shinichi Nishibori, Yurino Oguri, Reiya Sasaki, Hiroki Shigemura; Politecnico di Milano: Daniele Bertuzzi (Italy), Paolo Del Duca (Italy), Mona Gaber (Iran), Islam Rihan (Egypt), Nur Yemisci (Germany); Universidad des Las Americas, Quito, Ecuador: Santiago Aguire, Arturo Cevallos, Emilia Romero, Ariana Urgiles, Andres Vergara; and University of Canberra: Viktoria Holmik

co+labo radović The Klis Case days 1+2: fieldwork+online sessions across four continents

The Klis Case  co+re workshop has started on Saturday, 12 September, in real spaces of Knežev Dvor of the Fort of Klis, with welcome and detailed introductions by coordinators, Professors Neno Kezić, Darko Radović and Davisi Boontharm. The opening lecture, "The Brief History of Klis" was delivered by Dr Ivan Alduk, an archeologist who specialises in history and excavations of the Fort and surrounding areas. 

The focus of the Workshop is on two strategic areas, as suggested by Mayor Jakov Vetma:

Markezina Greda (the Marquez’s Beam), located in the Northwestern section of the Klis area (with archeological remnants from to 5-7 century CE) which towers over the 339 m high Fort by 234 m. It became a popular challenge for experienced rock climbers, rewarding them with majestic views over the Fort, Klis, Solin, Split, Adriatic Sea and its many islands. 

Kamenolom Klis Kosa (the Klis Kosa Stone Quarry), located on the slopes of the Southeastern hill, covers a vast area 350m above the sea level. Controversial due to invasive mining which affected geological situation of the spring of Jadro River, the Quarry is likely to cease its operations in near future. That opens this huge and brutally scared site to planning and design imagination, to fine critical and creative, programmatic and formal investigations – from territorial to architectural scales. While themselves important, these two sites will also facilitate thinking about the Klis region as a whole, feed interdisciplinary explorations, and help the Klis Case identify other places and practices that could be addressed within the project. Topographically demanding, the sites of Klis provide an arena for innovative coordination of planning, territorialism, urbanism, urban and architectural design, civil and other engineering, and their creative and inspirational synthesis.

The rest of the day way led to further immersion into the new ways of work and use of resources of which we were reminded by Coronavirus - real-life communication between the on-cite and on-line team members, drone recording, live exchange of ideas across four continents.
On Sunday simultaneously in the morning (Japan and Australia), afternoon (Croatia, Italia, Slovenia) and in the middle of the night (Ecuador), the intensive programme of workshop inputs continued with mini-lectures by Darko Radović ("On Intangibles, and the rest"), Ray Lucas ("Why I Draw"), Bratislav Gaković ("Scar and Scale"), and Rafael Balboa ("On Connectivity, Metamorphology and Creative Thinking"), followed by discussions. After the break, students presented first results of their investigations, elements of analysis and initial ideas where all that could go. 

On Monday, co+re workshop continues with new set of lectures and intensive studio work.