Auteur archieven: martinpot

Architecture depends

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Sometimes one reads a book and wonders why one has not seen/read this before. To me, this is now the case with a book written by Prof. Jeremy Till, ‘Architecture Depends‘; with its intriguing photograph on the cover of a man dressed as a bear, with in the background the ‘Neue Nationalgalerie’ in Berlin designed by Mies van der Rohe. Architecture, Till argues, “cannot help itself; it is dependent for its very existence on things outside itself“. Given the critics Koolhaas received on his curatorship on the current Architecture Biennale,I believe this is a book to be read by all architects concerned with their profession, as well all concerned with our build environment.

Additionally: Till gave a lecture on March 17th 2011 at the Berlage Institute in Delft; introduced by Roemer van Toorn.

internet of things & philosophy

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Next to many technologically focused and/or business-case driven meetings there was this much needed recent conference in York: IoT-Philosophy, from 3rd.-5th. of July 2014. Initiated/organised by Rob van Kranenburg (Sociotal), Justin McKeown (Univ.York St.John) and Joachim Walewski. It provided the framework for a thorough thinking: from the website’s homepage: “do we want to simply leave market forces to shape our reality? Or is there a deeper need, given the significance of this technology, to consider its ramifications within a philosophical context?”.

 

Conference IoT, Build Environment & Smart Cities

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Last April 9th. 2014 on WW-IoT-day, the 3rd. IoT & Build Environment Conference was held; once again in Rotterdam, this time at ‘the Gouvernestraat’.

This location, with its history of over a hundred years of music, dance, theatre, poetry and meetings provided an excellent venue in the city-centre for both conference and parallel Hackaton, organised by Hogeschool Rotterdam, section Media & Communication. Additional theme for 2014 was Smart Cities; with some fine presentations/lectures which illustrated the sometimes contemporary values of earlier projects and visions. Lees verder →

microtopia

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On April 24th. 2013, the Dutch television showed a documentary about other forms of dwelling/living. Many of them tend to a originate from a form of escapism; they concern small units of housing which will be difficult to create and organise on a larger scale. That does not imply that the results, based on inventivity and creativity, are useless of course; mostly however they do not offer achievable solutions for growing cities and large populations but provide options for an – assumed – increasingly nomadic life.

art and/or architecture

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Yesterday, Sunday March 16th. an interesting exhibition was opened at RAM-Galeries in Rotterdam. Works of Luc Deleu (TOP-Office), Kas Oosterhuis (ONL/Hyperbody), Tomasz Jaskiewicz and others illustrate the possibilties for an adaptable and ‘interactive’ architecture; an architecture as interface. Especially revealing is the fact that part of Deleu’ work was already actual 20 years ago and is maybe more relevant today. the same evening the ‘Canvas Connection‘ showed Deleu’s work and personal choices on tv.

dreams and science

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Dreams or science?

For many people a new year tends to set off with dreams, expectations and good intentions. Just before the turn of the year, on Dec. 14th.2013, the Dutch writer/columnist Bas Heijne read his so called ‘Huizinga’-lecture; a yearly presented text based on the works of the Dutch historian Johan Huizinga who lived from 1872 till 1945. The title of his fine and thoughtful lecture was “the Enchantment of the World” and is – so far, alas – only available in Dutch. (http://uitgeverijprometheus.nl/index.php?option=com_pac&view=boek_detail&isbn=9789044626377) Lees verder →