Cities for People—Built Environment and Human Behavior

Lecture / discussion

02/18/2015, 6:30 pm

Alfred Herrhausen Society, Unter den Linden 13–15, entrance through Charlottenstraße 37, 10117 Berlin

The Alfred Herrhausen Society and JOVIS Publishers invite to an evening with the architect and planner Jan Gehl on occasion of the first German edition of Cities for People.

For more than 40 years, the architect and city planner Jan Gehl has been involved in redesigning or creating new designs for squares, streets, even entire city districts, for the benefit of the residents. By observing megacities in detail himself, Gehl develops methods and strategies for bringing significant positive change to dysfunctional and inhospitable urban landscapes. The most important principle behind Jan Gehl’s urban planning on a human scale is that the urban space has to be experienced at the speed of a pedestrian, instead of from a vehicle. This is the only way to succeed in making both traditional metropolises and rapidly growing cities in developing and emerging countries into “cities for people”.

The book presentation will take place in English.

The Alfred Herrhausen Society and JOVIS Publishers invite to an evening with the architect and city planner Jan Gehl on occasion of the first German edition of Cities for People.

 
 

Future Living

Symposium / book presentation

01/15/2015, 6:00 pm

Faculty of Architecture at TU Berlin, Room A053, Straße des 17. Juni 153, 10623 Berlin

Housing is a basic need that, for many all over the world, remains unmet or inadequate. In order to ensure the availability of quality living space for everyone, architecture and urban development can contribute significantly to finding new solutions. The challenge of affordable housing lies in achieving an optimum relationship between costs and the “home quality“ value, which is dependent on many local parameters and cultural preferences.

The symposium ”Zukunft Wohnen” (Future Living) asks for spatial and strategic parameters for creating affordable living spaces. With Arno Brandlhuber, Hans Drexler, Ralf Pasing, Christian Schöningh, Joachim Schultz-Granberg.

Using exemplary projects from international architects like Gaupenraub +/-, Lacaton & Vassal or Urbanus, the book Affordable Living (edited by Klaus Dömer, Hans Drexler. Joachim Schultz-Granberg) shows the problems, potentials, and dependencies that different approaches bring with them and how these impact our reality of living.

The symposium ”Zukunft Wohnen” (Future Living) asks for spatial and strategic parameters for creating affordable living spaces. With Arno Brandlhuber, Hans Drexler, Ralf Pasing, Christian Schöningh, Joachim Schultz-Granberg.

 
 

Transforming Cities—Urban Interventions in Public Space

Book presentation / discussion

12/15/2014, 7:00 pm

ANCB The Aedes Metropolitan Laboratory,  Christinenstr. 18–19 (Pfefferberg), 10119 Berlin

In certain parts of the world, the founding of new towns and extensive urban development are still going ahead rapidly at the beginning of the twenty-first century. In Europe, however, which already has a high degree of urbanization, more cautious interventions into the urban structure are required. By means of both permanent and temporary interventions, attempts are being made to meet the complex requirements of a changing modern society. The interdisciplinary cooperation of partners from different fields-—such as culture, architecture, and economics—, and the participation and initiatives of citizens play an important role in this.

This volume pursues the question of how individual projects not only stand out within the complexity of urban structures but can also bring about long-lasting change. This book presents fortyseven European examples from the Urban Intervention Award Berlin that showed quite surprising solutions, and which received awards from the Senate Department for Urban Development and the Environment in 2010 and 2013. 

PROGRAM

Introduction
Kristin Feireiss, director, ANCB The Aedes Metropolitan Laboratory, Berlin; co-editor of Transforming Cities.

 
Short lectures by

Regula Lüscher, State Senate Department Director of Berlin
Andreas Ruby, Ruby Press, Berlin

Lukas Feireiss, Studio Lukas Feireiss, Berlin

Jürgen Mayer H., J. MAYER H. and Partners, Architects, Berlin

Leonie Baumann, director, Kunsthochschule Weißensee, Berlin


 
Discussion

with the participants, moderated by Oliver G. Hamm, author, journalist, and curator, Berlin; co-editor of Transforming Cities.

Book presentation and discussion on interventions in public space and their role in urban planning. With Regula Lüscher, Andreas Ruby, Lukas Feireiss, Jürgen Meyer H., and Leonie Baumann; moderated by Oliver G. Hamm, co-editor of the publication Transforming Cities.

 
 

nps tchoban voss: Cultural Continuity – Design Progression

Book presentation

09/25/2014, 7:00 pm

Werkbund Gallery, Goethestraße 13, 10623 Berlin

Book presentation at the Werkbund Gallery in Berlin with Sergei Tchoban and Falk Jaeger:

The origins of the architecture office nps tchoban voss go back as far as 1931. Founded in Hamburg, the group practice now also has offices in Berlin and Dresden and is one of the most active and successful offices in each of the three cities.

Quality living and work environments and attractive and stimulating urban and personal surroundings can only be created by taking a holistic approach to planning that encompasses the entire spectrum of environmental design, from urban design to the building details. For the architects, the principle of sustainability applies not only to construction but must also be seen as an aesthetic category. This book shows examples of the office’s recent projects that reveal how nps tchoban voss applies their notion of quality from the scale of the local neighborhood to the design of interiors, and how at a formal level, they continue to create modern architecture that eschews short-lived architectural fashions in favor of creating economic architecture of lasting aesthetic value.

The origins of the architecture office nps tchoban voss go back as far as 1931. Founded in Hamburg, the group practice now also has offices in Berlin and Dresden and is one of the most active and successful offices in each of the three cities. The book shows examples of the office’s recent projects and its work philosophy. Presentation with Sergei Tchoban and Falk Jaeger.

 
 

Jan Gehl—Kölner Perspektiven zum öffentlichen Raum

Lecture / discussion

09/08/2014, 7:30 pm

Rautenstrauch-Joest-Museum, Forum Volkshochschule (lecture room), Cologne

“Kölner Perspektiven zum öffentlichen Raum” is a series which focuses on the need for a better quality of public spaces. The city Cologne and its partners present excellent European examples of well-planned cities and invite internationally well-known planners to talk about their visions for public spaces. The question is: how can we make our cities more attractive, as well as change current open spaces and design future-oriented?

With Jan Gehl, Gehl Architects. Author of the book Cities for People (Städte für Menschen)

Jan Gehl talks about attractive cities, open space design, and urban planning for the future. This event is part of the series “Kölner Perspektiven zum öffentlichen Raum”.

 
 

This is Modern

Exhibition

06/08/2014 – 08/01/2014

Palazzo Ca‘Tron am Canal Grande, Santa Croce 1957, 30135 Venice, Italy

 

With This Is modern, the German Werkbund Berlin presents the status of contemporary architecture in Germany: 22 renowned architecture firms show their designs for a German exhibition pavilion on the Biennale site in the Giardini in Venice. The existing pavilion, built in 1909 and modified in 1938, was hypothetically stated as needing renewal, reopening the question of a contemporary national exhibition building for the whole world to see.

The fact that the Werkbund is questioning its status specifically in the year 2014 and in the context of this year’s Architecture Biennale— which is concerned with the Fundamentals of architecture and with 100 years of Absorbing Modernity— is of course linked to the emblematic event of the Werkbund exhibition of 1914 in Cologne. 100 years after this first large-scale exhibition, the German Werkbund Berlin also addresses the question of what insights have been gained by the experience of 100 years of modernity, in the search for an appropriate approach to architectural creation.

Curators: Kai Gehrmann, Paul Kahlfeldt, Claudia Kromrei, Dieter Nägelke

Due to the 14th Venice Architecture Biennale the German Werkbund Berlin presents an exhibition that analyzes the status of contemporary architecture and design.

 
 

Goool! Stadia for the Soccer World Championship 2014

Exhibition

05/23/2014 – 06/27/2014

Architekturpreis Berlin e.V., KutscherHaus, Kurfürstendamm 50a, 10707 Berlin

The architects von Gerkan, Marg and Partners are leading stadium builders worldwide. They were significantly involved in the building of three new stadia for the soccer world championship 2014. The restructuring and renovation of two legendary arenas and a completely new stadium will be presented in this exhibition.

The concentration on the essential served as the basis for planning the three stadia—the Brasília national stadium, the Arena Amazônia in Manaus, and the Mineirão in Belo Horizonte. This meant a highly efficient interaction of architecture and construction. Integrated in a dialogue with the cultural background of the country and the identities of the places, all three stadia can be seen as exemplary architectures.

Large images of the well-known architectural photographer Marcus Bredt will be shown; models, plans, and texts elaborate the projects.

All three stadia are presented in the publication 3+1 Stadia for Brazil. Belo Horizonte – Manaus – Brasília – Rio de Janeiro.

The architects von Gerkan, Marg and Partners are leading stadium builders worldwide. They were significantly involved in the building of three new stadia for the soccer world championship 2014. Images, models, and plans of the stadia will be presented in this exhibition.

 
 

Make_Shift City—Renegotiating the Urban Commons

Book presentation

03/19/2014, 7:00 pm

AEDES on Pfefferberg, Christinenstraße 18, 10119 Berlin

Can architects and planners renegotiate the ”urban commons”—shared spaces and shared resources? Can temporary actions or urban interventions in public space serve as the basis for another kind of planning? Which civil economy follows from such an urbanism of small acts?

Makeshift implies a temporary or expedient substitute for something else, something missing. Make-Shift City extends the term to embrace urban design strategies. “Make-Shift City” implies a condition of insecurity: the inconstant, the imperfect, and the indeterminate. It also implies the designing act of shifting or reinterpretation as a form of urban détournement. Austerity urbanism and the increasing scarcity of resources among the cities and boroughs of Europe in particular has far-reaching consequences for civic space. Where there is a lack of regular planning processes, gaps arise as open spaces that enable an ad-hoc informal urban design. What often results is a process of urban commoning: the renegotiation of shared spaces and shared resources. This urbanism of small acts is an emancipatory practice; a re-imagining of the city space and its potentialities.

Lectures and discussion:

Regula Lüscher, State Senate Department Director of Berlin

Leonie Baumann, director, Kunsthochschule Berlin-Weißensee

Indy Johar, architect and political scientist, founder of 00:/

Markus Bader, architect, raumlabor Berlin

Moderation:

Francesca Ferguson, editor, curator for architecture and urban planning, Urban Drift Projects

Can architects and planners renegotiate the ”urban commons”: shared spaces and shared resources? Can temporary actions or urban interventions in public space serve as the basis for another kind of planning? Which civil economy follows from such an urbanism of small acts?