BERLIN: on the 6th of March there will be a public lecture at the DAZ: German Architectural Institute (Deutsches Architectur Zentrum). The exact time and title of the lecture will be announced soon

BERLIN: on the 7th of March Architectuul and OpenSimSim are organizing a public bike tour in Berlin from 9am till 2pm. So if you want to get out your bicycle again for spring and see some cool architecture with a group of people don´t miss the date. For more info please email to be@opensimsim.net

OMSK (Russia): on the 20th and 21st of March there will be several events in Omsk during a design festival. Amongst others there will be a public lecture and masterclass.

SAMARA (Russia): In March or April there will be also a public lecture at the university of Samara – the date still needs to be confirmed.

PHILADELPHIA (USA): on the 3rd / 4th of April and the 2rd / 4th of May I will join the jury panel at the UPenn university. I will be guest critic at the mid- and final review of the class of Prof. Martin Haas (Behnisch Architects). On this trip I will pass through New York as well so lets get in touch if there are any interesting events going on in NYC as well.

My article on augmented culture is discussing the influence of my work for the Kyme furniture and also OpenSimSim on the practice of anOtherArchitect.

Here is the table of content:

Less Is More Intense
Magnus Larsson

Revolutions of Choice
Frank Barkow

Hand Drawing in a Digital Age
Alan Dunlop

Shared Transformation
Lisa Iwamoto

Measurement, Uncertainty, and the Dataspace
Nathan Miller

Augmented Culture
Daniel Dendra

Illustrating Ecologies
Bradley Cantrell

Augmenting Architecture through Algorithmic Modeling
Nathan Howe

More. Better. Integrated.
Ryan Gedney

Ordering Complexity
Patrick Schumacher

Digital Craft
Monica Ponce de Leon

On Intimacy and Design
Ramona Albert and Christopher Johnson

If you are interested to read more you can order the magazine on the OZ website:

http://www.ozjournal.org/journals/tocs/v33.html

You can still hand in your projects fitting the three categories until the 30th of March. The best works will be presented at ArchMoscow (Moscow Architecture Biennale 2012). It´s great to see that many of my Russian architects and designer friends are also in the jury this year: Sergei Tchoban, Totan Kuzembaev, Boris Leviant and Vladimir Kuzmin (who was moderating our OpenJapan event at Strelka last year).

The prize is by the way sponsored by NAYADA, the company who is also producing the HEDRONIC chair.

More information about the competition and the jury can be found (only in Russian) on the following website: http://archchallenge.com/object-2012/jury

It was a great pleasure and honor to be asked to contribute to a new chapter on Parametric Design. Basically it´s like someone asking you to set a standard for a topic. We just finished the last corrections and I must admit that it is a hard way and difficult to break down such a complex topic on one A4 page in the Neufert specific informative and dry language and simplistic black and white diagrams. The task was to give a quick insight into the topic for beginners – so if you are a pro do not expect too much. Together with some Cad-Logic students we prepared the first drafts and a small booklet on the topic spanning over several pages. After several reviews we managed together with the great Neufert team to extract the most valid and important information.

I keep you updated on the progress and  when the new edition will be published. Usually it takes some time until the latest German edition will be translated.

Below you see a typical page from the Bauentwurfslehre explaining standards in Bathrooms …

As you can see in the movie the weather in Berlin was not ideal this winter for filming. At the day of the shooting it was 5degrees, rainy and very windy. I guess you can see it in my eyes ..

In case you are not familiar with the FutureCityLab project you can read a short description below.

We wish for you to join the open-source platform Future City Lab and collectively THINK THE UNTHINKABLE. Participate, share knowledge, establish synergies and create a sustainable roadmap to give rise to the future city 2.0 by 2050.

Climate Change, rapidly growing megacities and the need for new energy sources are challenges we can leverage to develop cities that are vibrant, energy-efficient and sustainable. In the spirit of TED, ftr.ct.lb is a platform for open discussion; using the power of collective ideas to shape a future vision of the city 2.0.

Future City Lab is an open-source initiative created by a worldwide collaboration of leading engineers, universities and scientists using crowd sourcing in order to launch a sustainable future by 2050.

Cities all over the world are facing the biggest challenge in history to immediately and drastically reduce CO2 emissions to combat climate change. Cities need to respond to increasing temperatures, frequency of storms and limited resources. The trend of people moving from rural to urban areas makes cities the focal point in the search for solutions.

City 2.0 adapts to the climate, is built sustainably realizing a CO2 neutral building stock, and is liveable for 2 billion new inhabitants. Increased density is addressed through the optimized use of façades as vertical parks or for energy generation.

This requires a massive change within a short time. To meet these challenges leading engineers, universities and scientists worldwide collaborate to initiate the Future City Lab. By sharing their knowledge and leading discussions about possible solutions, a comprehensive roadmap takes shape. This roadmap will function as a springboard for planners to find solutions and establish the planning directives needed today.

Future City Lab is aiming to revolutionise the design of our future living and city environment. Visions, research results and specialized knowledge are made public for students and experts. By using a web-based platform everyone in the world can participate to investigate, design and illustrate visions in selected cities solving their specific problems. The visions are created for a real site in a city; first the current conditions are shown and then transformed to a sustainable concept of the site. Users may comment and contribute to the visions as a starting point for professional discourse within a mosaic of ideas accessible to everyone.

Urban planning is the design of the unfinished; it is a process that is driven by change. Focusing on collective participation all authors and web users may participate in the development of City 2.0. Take part in shaping the future – join ftr.ct.lb

Universities already in the ftr.ct.lb network: Alghero Italy, ESA Paris, ETH Zürich, UPenn, TU Delft, Syracuse NY, Ryerson Toronto, IUAV Venezia, ANCB Berlin.

I was invited as a guest critic at a presentation of student work on the topic INSTRUCTABLE VIDEOS for a new logo for human rights.

The logo is the result of a crowd sourcing competition at Jovoto and was financed by the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs. It is representing a mix between a dove and a human hand. The task of the students is to create a viral video that is spreading the logo worldwide or that is instructing them to re-draw, re-construct, re-play the logo.

It was very interesting to discuss about viral videos and the needs of a logo for such a precious goods such as human rights.

The workshop is led by Prof. Axel Kufus (UDK Berlin) and media artist Daniel Schulze (bitsbeauty).

find out more information on human rights and on the logo competition

see the student work here:

http://anotherarchitect.tumblr.com/post/15422077602/here-is-one-of-the-first-results-of-the-udk

HAPPY NEW YEAR ….

We will probably not move all our old posts to here so please have a look at our archive for any news prior to December 2011: http://anotherarchitect.tumblr.com/tagged/aaberlin