Symposium «The City as a Sphere for Action» 1/2

The City as a Sphere for Action 1/2
«New collective space | Process based planning strategies»

Thursday, July 24 | 9 a.m.
Osthang campus: hall
symposium
please register

with Astrid Schmeing (Darmstadt), Raoul Bunschoten / chora (London), Ana Méndez de Andés (Madrid), Dennis Crompton / Archigram (London), Mauricio Corbalán (Buenos Aires), collectif etc (Straßburg), Bernd Kniess (Hamburg), Urs Kumberger and Marius Gantert / Teleinternetcafé (Berlin), Markus Bader (Berlin) & Nikolaus Heiss (Darmstadt)

The focus of the first day of the symposium is on the search for new, open, social spaces, the experimental handling of materials and on an alternative culture of designing and building. We want to engage all participants in this discourse, emphasizing the following questions:

How can we generate sustainable change for our cities from this emancipatory movement in the future? How can we achieve conjunction with our formal planning platform and develop a process-oriented concept of planning?

With the symposium at the end of our Summer School the recently completed Osthang campus will be placed in a larger context. The ‘functional change’ of public space has evolved a key issue in architecture and urban planning discourses over the past 20 years. Therefore all citizens of Darmstadt – along with the participants of Summer School and international experts – are invited to discuss the potentials of public spaces and to talk about alternative, experimental planning and building methods.
The topics of the two day symposium are divided into two ‘dimensions’: Thursday 24th will give an idea of developments on an urban scale, Friday 25th will focus on the alternative practices and actors behind the 1:1 experimental building projects.

» get more informationen about ‘The city as a sphere of action’

Application
The symposium is in English, accessible to the public and free of charge. Please register at
» info@osthang-project.org
» Tel. +49 (0) 6151 787 61 80

Program Symposium Thursday | July, 24

moderation: Jan Liesegang, Christian Holl and Inari Virkkala
‘graphic documentation’: Thomas Rustemeyer

» 9 a.m. coffee | exploration Osthang | first keynotes & questions
» 10 a.m. welcome address Kerstin Schultz, Thomas Schäfer, artistic direction Osthang Project

» 10:15 a.m. introduction Jan Liesegang, curator ‘Summer School für experimentelles Bauen’

» 10:30 a.m. Nikolaus Heiss (Darmstadt): Collective space in the Mathildenhöhe Artists’ colony
» 11:00 a.m. Astrid Schmeing (Darmstadt): What is aesthetically motivated participation? What does citizen’s activism mean for urban planning? How should planning react?
» 11:20 a.m. Martin Kaltwasser (Berlin): What does it mean to be radical today? Reacting to the consumer society.
» discussion

» 12:20 m. Ana Méndez de Andés (Madrid): What do we do if they turn off the light? New commons, political strategies and public spaces in Madrid. What can we learn from the new social movements?
» 12:40 m. Mauricio Corbalan, m7red (Buenos Aires): Empowerment through the internet! Can we negotiate the common in the virtual sphere?
» discussion

» 1:30 p.m. lunch break

» 2:30 p.m. Bernd Kniess (Hamburg): Is real participation in the planning process possible?
» 3:00 p.m. Raoul Bunschoten, Chora (London): How can we handle the complexity of today’s cities? Where does the smart city meet the everyday?
» discussion

» 4:00 p.m. coffee

» 4:20 p.m. Teleinternetcafé (Berlin): How can we plan in open processes? Is there something like slow urbanism? Can we plan the informal?
» 4:40 p.m. Markus Bader, raumlaborberlin (Berlin): How we make the making of the city more joyful and inclusive? Which tool do wee need to support diversity in our cities?
» discussion

» 7:00 p.m. dinner
» 7:00 p.m. Dinner Talk: Dennis Crompton, Archigram (London): What happened to the big idea on the city? Are we still able to really think visionary about the city? How do we initiate open design processes? Are we still able to imagine a better future society, better places and better cities?
» 8:00 p.m. Collectif Etc (Strasbourg)