Adaptive space(s)
Adaptations exhibition - curated by Craig Buckley
If architecture and urbanism, as means of planning, have been the traditional sites for utopian projection in imagining ideal cities, the work in Adaptations draws attention to processes that fit within neither the plan nor the ideal: the flourishing of the black market and its impact on built space, the establishment and failure of experimental communities, randomized construction, and the necessity of makeshift solutions. Although at the margins of planned space, and at the narrowing end of modernity’s long shadow, these works do not give up on the prospect or project of articulating a utopian horizon. Rather, they shift the discussion away from traditions of development based on the tabula rasa, and toward processes of adaptive transformation. The frictions between centralized controls and autonomous initiatives, between regulated frameworks and dispersed systems, are not approached with ready-made design solutions, but are engaged as forces enabling an analysis and rethinking of both lived and built space. (via doorsofperception)
See also:
STEALTH group - “genetics of uncontrolled urban processes”
Templace - supporting “activity in spaces currently unsuitable or undesireable in mainstream economic cycles”
The Derive in Terje Nicolaisen’s Practice by Gardar Eide Einarsson
Urbanist utopias and critisism with the art of Nils Norman - Interview by Knut Asdam
Michael Rakowitz’s paraSITE - “the appropriation of the exterior ventilation systems on existing architecture as a means for providing temporary shelter for homeless people”
And last, but not least, Elizabeth Goodman on repairing the city.