This is the first post in a new series called ‘The Consequences of Modernity’. In this series we will try to shed light on several large-scale, comprehensive social engineering practices and the related key figures which lay at the foundation of modernist urban planning. We will further try to use this practices as windows for…
Category: Theory
2059 Speculative Peculiars
Futureology is going strong lately. 2059 Speculative Peculiars is initiated by Femke Lutgerink en Partizan Publik Urgestein Christiaan Fruneaux. The series is an imaginary and visionary glance at the future of urban landscapes. It is an interdisciplinary program about the possible and the impossible, the politics, subcultures, developments and conventions that will govern and shape…
Interview with James C. Scott at Masters of Intervention IV
This seasons’ Masters of Intervention series culminated in the last lecture hosted by Yale sterling professor James C. Scott. The lecture focused on his recent research on the hill people of Zomia in South East Asia. Scott presented the argument that the practice of living dispersed and mobilised, which historically was all coded as being…
Power through asset mapping
In a recent article in commarts, John Emerson is describing how asset mapping and visual media can help in building stronger communities and establishing a solid foundation for challenging the status quo. What is power? It’s an abstract dynamic, an engine behind the visible world. Power can be found in relationships, in the flow of…
Horticulture in basements and on rooftops
UvA professor for sustainable development Louise Fresco on low-scale mechanisation and fish ponds and horticulture in basements and on rooftops. Seen on TED2009. via nextnature
Online Publication: Escape the Overcode
Escape the Overcode: Activist art in the Control Society is part of the open-ended research project conducted by Brian Holmes. The book comprises four major sections, with articles ranging from the underlying technoscientific principles of cybernetics, to cognitive psychology and complexity theory. Holmes asks: How does art become subversive of the social order? How does…
Publication ‘Ruimte maken voor krimp’
Laatst week the results of the research conducted by Ontwerplab Krimp in three different areas in the Netherlands have been presented at NAi. The research was focused on shrinking cities and, in contrast to the most research on the topic until today, on the opportunities and chances these developments bring with them. You can download…
New York City Street Design Approach
The New York City Department of Transportation has recently published a street design manual, which in essence is a collection of patterns intended to be implemented throughout the city state in similar ways. Under the lead of transportation commissioner and traffic anti-planner Janette Sadik-Khan, who the NY Magazine describes as a mixture in equal parts…
Masters of Intervention # 4 with James C. Scott
The University of Amsterdam, the Amsterdam Municipality, Ymere and the Office for Social Engineering present: Masters of Intervention Social Engineering in the Amsterdam Metropolis Thursday June 11 2009 20.00, drinks afterwards Grote Zaal, De Balie Just City James C. Scott To what extent do rules and standards lead to a just society? Planned utopias proved…
Velocommerce: bike based trade
I just came across a great idea which was part of the City Eco Lab at the Biennale internatinale design 2008 in Saint Etienne. John Thackara from doors of perception was the curator of the exibition. He asked the guys from velowala from the Walhalla of bike-based commerce, India, to contribute with an installation to…
Project: 49 cities
More control, more monumental, more effective or taller, denser, greener. Throughout history architects and planners have dreamed of ‘better’ and ‘different’ cities. The 49 cities project is reviewing the history of utopian urbanism, all the way from the Roman City up to the great utopian projects of the 20th century. What if these radical plans…
Engineering Society 