Regeneration by Micronomics - CityMine(d)

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Uploaded by micronomics. - News videos from around the world.

Local people leading processes of urban regeneration - some organisations and their methods presented by CityMine(d)

In this video, groups and activists including 'Media Spree Versenken' (Sink Media Spree, Berlin) explain how they are working on urban regeneration; for example to replace the (Media Spree-driven form of) 'city planning' and to enable a better built - and also non-built - set of uses for the Spree River area. (About Sink Media Spree)

Kings Cross residents are currently discussing what could be done with this troubled central London area (map) to make it work - is it all to be left to Transport for London and the Railway companies?

please comment!

Careers across borders

Recent graduate Zaira Iudice found the architects without borders discussion page on facebook and was looking for entry points into architectural humanitarian work.

I introduced her to the Humanitarian Information Pack, an extensive working guide which I initially developed with a practitioner Elizabeth Babister when I was at RIBA Education, and which is now maintained by Article 25.

It outlines major players in the disaster recovery and international development field and provides many contacts and websites to enable those with interest and passion for emergency relief and development architecture to become more active.

Bare House

2. guur
Originally uploaded by nomadologist

28 May - 20 June 2010
Pori, Finland
PORI ART MUSEUM;
PORIGINAL GALLERY SCULPTURE GARDEN,
AALTO UNIVERSITY / DEPARTMENT OF ART AND MEDIA PORI / OLD COTTON MILL, ART GENERATION SPACE, DYEHOUSE
29.5. -20.6. 2010

ULAANBAATAR MONGOLIA 2011

ARTISTS / ARCHITECTS:
GREGORY COWAN, AUS/GB
ALETTA DE JONG, NL
MICHAEL FÜRST, AUT
KATRIN HORNEK, AUT
SONIA LEIMER, ITA/AUT
CHRISITAN MAYER,GER/AUT
ANA REWAKOWICZ, PL/CAN
CHRISTINE SAALFELD, GER/NL
OULA SALOKANNEL, FIN
SER-ODIN DOLGOR, MN
SEDBAZARIN GANZUG, MN
TOGMIDSHIIREVIN ENKHBOLD, MN
ANNU WILENIUS,FIN
YO.DALKH-OCHIR, MN

AUTHORS:
B. DAAJAV, MN
GREGORY COWAN, AUS/GB
SAARA HACKLIN, FIN
TAINA RAJANTI, FIN
ANNU WILENIUS, FIN
Curator / Organiser: ANNU WILENIUS

Bare House Project looks into the possibilities of a personal relation to architecture in a world, which still mainly arranges life according to ideals inherited from modernist thinking. Also, the so called third world societies are being ”updated” to these ideals without much consideration of climate or cultural contexts of other kinds. Mongolia – where nomadism and soviet city planning is changing with disorganized ger districts and staggering tower blocks – functions as a reference point in the project, alongside the cities of Rotterdam and Pori.

Adaptapartment, Coventry

The Independent Living model apartment with Eleanor Lisney is now complete, and features in this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rCsodgg0iKg

http://www.flickr.com/groups/beauchamp/pool/show/

more at http://adaptappartment.wordpress.com/

Building

After the experience of hands-on construction in Mongolia, where the architecture school to which I contributed marginally has now been sold on in light of the economic situation there, I now find myself supervising a construction site in Germany, as part of a project within a project. The general construction and tiling contractors nominated by our Berlin-based contacts do not seem to have much experience dealing with the fine italian glass mosaics we are using. We want to produce two beautifully but simply detailed model bathrooms in connection with our project for about 80 Loft Apartments in Frankfurt's East Harbour. Although detailed 1:20 drawings were provided, the workers need to be guided through the placement of the tiles, especially the need to begin tiling strategically by aligning the sheet edges in the most conspicuous places, so that any adjustments can be made unnoticeably in less prominent areas. The oversight of entire elements of the building planned -such as a bath podium discussed early in the construction - suggests that drawings alone are not enough, and the exercise of pencilling everything to be constructed onto the walls and floors becomes both meaningful and necessary.

Along The Great Wall

In late May, I presented a paper on developing architecture teaching in Ulaanbaatar at a conference on Architecture and Identity in China and Mongolia. I reflected on the methods of participation used in the development work in peri-urban Ulaanbaatar - sharing and workshopping some of the outcomes from the blog with UK students. Sheffield PhD researcher Supreeya Wunpatcharapon helped to compile the responses from the 'Lines of Flight' seminar, and these were presented at the conference. A shorter report is in preparation for the proceedings publication.

The conference was an excellent opportunity to meet with Purev-Erdene Ershuu and Gonchigbat, visiting from the Mongolian University of Science and Technology (MUST) and to be introduced to OTSCHIR, the Mongolia-Austria society there. It was an opportunity to work with colleagues and develop inspiration for projects like a book about the Mongolian city.

Volunteer Sees Disunity Hampering Mongolia

Nickson Kakiri, my oft-mentioned VSO colleague and collaborator, who recently returned to Kenya, on the development work in Mongolia;

Volunteer Sees Disunity Hampering Mongolia's Disabled
William Kennedy, UB Post, Thursday, March 12, 2009.

Many obstacles stand between disabled people and a comfortable life in Mongolia, but one of the biggest may be a lack of cooperation between the various groups representing them. Recently, the aid organization Voluntary Service Overseas (VSO) arranged a meeting of several Disabled Persons Organizations (DPOs) in Ulaanbaatar’s Puma Hotel, with the express purpose of promoting exchange and collaboration. It’s a necessary step for groups of marginalized people hoping to advance their causes, according to Nickson Kakiri, a VSO volunteer working with Mongolia’s Federation of the Deaf as a Mainstreaming Disability Adviser.

“Organizations or individuals, if they don’t speak as a group, they’re not strong, “he said. “If they don’t involve other groups, they’re not as trusted.”

more..