shine through loose relations on place...critical edges of rem koolhaas..

if you haven't read about Rem Koolhaas's speach at the American University of Sharjah, let me share the following link for you:

http://www.thenational.ae/uae/heritage/dutch-architects-high-praise-for-dubai-developments

here are several keywords on the speach...
- sophistication of recent developments
- Dubai has escaped from its architectural caricatures
- involvement of the country’s rulers and the freedom they have given to designers to transform the landscape of the region

critical point of view in my opinion that highlights the so called potential of satellite developments of starchitecture, neglecting the context, place and society.

for a better understanding one can look more on koolhaas's abu dhabi or hadid's kartal projects..

Call for International Student Design Competition “Ontological Design in Future Housing and Space”

The competition is organized by the CSBE (Culture & Space in the Built Environment) and Housing networks of the International Association of People-Environment Studies (IAPS) under the framework of Joint International Symposium, 2011 entitled “Continuity and Change of Built Environments – Housing, Culture, and Space across Life Spans”. The competition offers students the opportunity to foster a broad understanding of designers’ contribution to human lives, encouraging students to consider critical social, cultural, and environmental issues facing contemporary civilization. The competition is open to all students in any field of design, technology or behavioral studies-architecture, urban planning, landscape architecture, interior design, industrial design, psychology, IT, communication, etc.

Website: www.iaps2011symposium.kr | Contact: odc.iaps2011@gmail.com
download the .pdf document

I received an invitation

Ensci, one of the most well known design school in Paris is having its 2008-2009 graduation series. well i write series since each representative to a final jury is preparing a whole session of exhibit. better not to miss! Here below is Alexandre Mussche's invitation for those who are interested in services, new media and new planning tools for an upgraded quality of life. French language is a must to follow up the discussions and presentation but i still believe design has a common language in most cases.



J'ai le plaisir de vous inviter à la soutenance de mon diplôme le Mercredi 3 juin 2008 à l'Ensci. La présentation commence à 9h et se déroulera sur la matinée :


- Book (série de projets réalisés depuis 2003)

- Images de la frontière linguistique (mémoire de fin d'étude) : histoire de la façon dont à été imagée la géographie des langues en Belgique accompagné d'une série d'expérimentations cartographiques (sous la direction de Marie-Haude Caraës). Expérimentations cartographiques et mémoire visibles sur http://frontiere.wordpress.com

- Micro-radio (projet de diplôme): en s'appuyant sur les usages des récepteurs radio, le projet expérimente sur le territoire, des services de diffusion de contenu sonore à l'échelle micro-locale (sous la direction de Jun Yasumoto).

SummerSchool "Mapping Urban Space - Alternative Strategies for Emergent Urban Forms"

Finland: August 10th - 22nd, 2009

The Centre for Urban and Regional Studies (YTK) at the Helsinki University of Technology (TKK) is hosting the fifteenth YTK/IFHP Urban Planning and Design Summer School in Finland in August 2009.

The Summer School will be organised in close cooperation with the cities of Turku and Jyväskylä, where the active field work of the course will take place.

The first days of the course will be spent in
the Helsinki region. This part of the course consists of lectures and excursions.

The core of the Summer School is the following ten days of workshops taking place in the partner cities.

The field work is based on actual town planning tasks. Participants will be assigned to analyse
the existing conditions of planning areas and to suggest innovative and realistic improvements to the environments.

This year's theme will be "Mapping Urban Space - Alternative Strategies for Emergent Urban Forms". The course will concentrate on one hand on alternative mapping of urban resources and on the other hand on alternative planning instruments. The lectures as well as the given projects will reflect the theme. Summer School also provides the participants with an opportunity to publish their writings in an official publication. The annual publication includes articles and essays written by the participants as well as summaries of the projects produced in the workshops.

The YTK/IFHP Summer School entitles participants five ECTS study credits.

This announcement is an invitation for applying to the YTK/IFHP Urban Planning and Design Summer School 2009 in Finland. It is addressed to students at all levels of studies, and young professionals, from all disciplines related to physical planning. We look forward to receiving applications, among others, from urban planners, architects, sociologists and geographers!

The course will be held 10-22 August 2009 and the application period will end at the end of March 2009. An electronic application form and further information on the course can be found on our website: http://ytksummerschool.tkk.fi