On October 20th at the Dutch Design Week in Eindhoven: the Internet of Things and the role of Design.
– What is the Internet of Things?
– What are the trends and how is this impacting you?
– The role of Design – The need to think differently and why
– Facilitated discussion on the roles and ways that this can be done
facilitated by Rob van Kranenburg and Lorna Goulden.
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.
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?”.
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 meer
the Dutch Architecture website Archined has published a report/article by Paul van en Bergh about the recent IoT-Build Environment conference in Rotterdam; so far – alas – only in Dutch.
During the 3rd. Internet of Things conference and Hackaton several interviews were made with speakers/participants: see/listen to e.g. Korrie Louwes, Lara Schrijver, Ben van Lier, Rob van Kranenburg. Alas, only in Dutch……………
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.
At the IoT-conference on Build Environment & Smart City in Rotterdam on April 9th. we had a live-stream with Prof. Frans Vogelaar from hybridspacelab in Berlin; followed by a brief questioning from the conference audience.
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.
Today, March 6th.2014 , Prof. Hilde Heynen from University Leuven lectures at the Berlage Institute at TU-Delft: On Domesticity., Room K, 18.30 hrs.
