Pop-Up City

A great blog about public space and alternative practices in the city.
Frequent, fresh and coherent. They have a reccomendable selection of books, with the download links.
http://popupcity.net

fantastic.space_Made in Norway

Fantastic Norway is a group of architects-performers whose pro is explained well enough by the name. They take all the unconventional means to bring the architecture to the people - they dressed up by buildings [pictures], invited the visitors of Nordic Pavillone in Venice [blog] to work and eat wafers with them, they have the unusual show about architecture in norwish television. They seem to go everywhere with their fantastic red caravan (whis is their trademark) spreading their ideas among the dispersed popullation of norwegians. What inspires me a lot about them is how they try to reinvent and re-activate the public space with really modest means [high tide fire/movie] and against unfriendly norwegian clima [Polar Night Daylight/video] .



Space Group, another studio from Oslo they is more theorical that literally practical Fantastic guys.
The idea behind the studio is expressed in this statement from their [website]: (And before you go through tis long text I reccomend you the [talk] of Gary Bates where I found inspiring phrases about public space and courious statements about norwegians.)

Space Group (est. 1999) is an architecture and design office based in Oslo, Norway. The office is directed by partners Gro Bonesmo (NO), Adam Kurdahl (DK), and Gary Bates (USA). With a team of architects from around the world (Portugal, Germany, Colombia, Japan, USA, Australia, Denmark, Finland and Norway).

Space Group is an actor in the dynamic critical system of SPACE. Our approach to Architecture and Urbanism is straightforward and effective; process oriented. An open system for change and feedback, research and development – social, architectural, and programmatic.

Space Group is a “network based” office – a broad international intelligence base and compact core that attacks both small and large projects with similar ambition – strategic and inventive, flexible and specific. Space Group represents a collective intelligence where the whole is greater than the sum of parts.

More to come on norwegian new wave in architecture to come as I go on discovering it...

Full in Cadiz

We proudly announce that our workshop on public space EMERGing SPACE at EASA011 in Cadiz, Spain was selected and will HAPPEN in four months!

Fell free to check it out!

And join EASA011 ...h
ttp://www.easa011.es/

Melancholic inventor

::: Animaris Umerus

Theo Jansen is Dutch artist, scientist and a dreamer. He uses his imagination to create sophisticated structures which are simmilar to animals. Those organic- looking creatures or beach-animals as Jansen calles them are designed precisely on a computer and construced from wood and pcv tubes. moving Animaris Umerus

Artist's next dream is to create an animal with a brain. Since now they only have stomach consists of recycled plastic bottles containing air that can be pumped up to a high pressure by the wind so that they can move. "The brains are something, which they really need. Right now, I can only leave them alone for 5 minutes and if I want to extend that period they really must learn to think for themselves" said Theo.

an interview with Jansen

Theo Jansen's web site

Wooden disobedience

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Tadashi Kawamata makes wooden parasites, arguing, establishing dialogue with the places they attack. It’s an apparent disorder but poetically beautiful, daring with its temporariness.

dutch PUBLIC ARCHITECTURE

DUS is an architectural office from Amsterdam experimenting with public space. Their materials are casual enough to shock in unconventional contexts. Check out what they make surprising spaces with umbrellas, bags, mirrors, tables and flour:

//DUS website//

Alternative practices awarded

This is a proof that alternative, low budget practices can be noticed, awarded and mentioned next to as famous buildings as Norwegian Opera and Ballet in Oslo.

//text and pictures//

The special mention of the European Prize for Urban Public Space 2010 went to Passage 56 / espace culturel écologique – collectively managed ecological garden organized in an abandoned passageway of rue Saint Blaise as a result of a popular initiative.

//text and pictures//

Parasitten of Bureau Detours i Århus was a finalist in 2008. It’s an extra-legal construction of three terraces with panoramic views set into a colonnaded structure of a dockyard in the port.

KontenerART

/text in polish/ /pictures/

KontenerART is a mobile space for artists functioning every summer, each time in a different spot of Poznań. It Was used as a model of a revitalization prototype, gave a different face to the main square, brought the beach to the inner-land city and for sure will surprise with the new ideas next year.

Anywhere it lands, it seems to provoke a “Bilbao effect”, but with much less money, and with the constant involvement of people shaping it all the time.