Thursday 10th April 2014
9.45am – 6.00pm

• Howe Lecture Theatre [QA080]
• Greenwich Maritime Campus
• Old Royal Naval College
• London SE10 9LS

Much of our current urban view is characterised by a swingeing human fall-back position that values sophism, tardiness and economic stringency. This view is predicated on a concern, and a commercialisation of this concern, that we have finite resources and runs hand in hand with a distrust of exuberance, creativity, for its own sake and “out of the box” thinking. This Future Cities 3 conference is themed “Abundance”. It will posit new ways to find abundance in the city, whether through synthetic technology, augmented reality, Utopian thinking or the digitally fabricated Baroque.

The conference will be an antidote to architectural urban Methodist-ism and worthy nothingness. It will be a tsunami of ideas, images and speculations facilitated by a timely optimism – an optimism founded on new materials, new ways of thinking, new tactics and protocols of space, and finally the syncretic opportunities of architecture in the 21st Century.

Keynote speaker:

EVAN DOUGLIS 
Evan Douglis Studio

Speakers:

NEIL SPILLER
University of Greenwich

MARK MORRIS
Cornell University

RACHEL ARMSTRONG
University of Greenwich

FLEAFOLLYARCHITECTS
University of Greenwich / The Bartlett UCL

MARK GARCIA
University of Greenwich

ED WALL
University of Greenwich

NIC CLEAR
University of Greenwich

MAX DEWDNEY
University of Greenwich

ELIZABETH ANNE WILLIAMS
University of Greenwich / Louisiana State University

SIMON HERRON
University of Greenwich

An accompanying exhibition is open from Monday 7th April – Friday 11th April in the Stephen Lawrence Gallery, Queen Anne Building, Greenwich Maritime Campus.

Exhibition Private View – Thursday 10th April 6pm (following the conference).

To reserve a place at the conference, please contact: as71@gre.ac.uk.

Admission is free.

LECTURE@ MARITIME

Interesting story about a potential 'second White House'

 'US Senate actually voted $300,000 to build a second White House, a second one, a sanitary one, free of filth, right next door to the original White House. And the idea was for his family to just move right in there.'

http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/112/ladies-and-germs?act=0#play

The Exbury Egg

Stephen Turner's Exbury Egg is addressing the meaning of place at a time of great environmental change. In the guise of The Beaulieu Beadle, he will work on, in and around the Egg for twelve months from July 15th 2013 – July 14th 2014.

Video on the Beeb here

His blog here

    NEIL DENARI - LECTURE

    TUESDAY 29th OCTOBER 18:00 - AVERY HILL

                                                            ALAN-VOO House 2007

                                           Keelung Harbor Taiwan 2012-17

   For more information on please see Neil M Denari Architects
    

Bulitan No1

Dear all,

Following the tutorials on Wednesday we were concerned at the lack of analysis, proposition and quantity of work that has been produced so far.

For next week we will have another pin up and expect to see the following from all of you:

1. Rigorous analysis of the three utopian master plans through the 'lens' of your individual section of the Whole Earth Catalogue.

•    Use architectural tools to represent and describe your findings i.e. maps, plans, sections, diagrams, axonometric, graphs. Think about the information you are trying to convey and how you might do this most effectively. Be precise and use appropriate scales and notation systems where necessary. 

•    Remember this is not just a fact finding exercise. We expect you to take a position on the work and be propositional. What is your attitude?

•    The act of drawing is an opportunity to speculate, filter and uncover. Drawings should reveal unexpected scenarios, they may suggest half-truths, and myths unseen narratives which could be imagined to exist deep within the ideological tissue of the three master plans. 

•    What did the architects / authors not reveal in their original master plans? What is the view that we never saw? Consider the paintings of Constable; images of a romanticized rustic agrarian society in stasis, whilst behind each were the intrusion of the new industrial age. The paintings documented the end of an era.

•    What would be the implications of implementing the three master-planning ideologies in the context (social, political, environmental, cultural, topographical etc) of the present? What would they look like? 

•    Be specific about your interests. 

PART 2 [In Parallel to the above]

Create a hypothetical city by taking aspects of the three utopian cities.

•    Produce 1 plan and 1 other form of architectural projection (elevation, axonometric, perspective, section etc) to describe your new city.

•    Be particular and critical about the scale of your drawings. 

•    You may use fragments, components to describe your city. You may create a holistic view. It is up to you.

•    Be analytical and critical of the juxtapositions that occur.

•    Collage may be a useful tool to assemble your city. Cut up drawings of the three master-plans and reconfigure them to create your new city. 

REMEMBER . . .

This is not a definitive list, you need to individually take charge of your work. We have been discussing additional, constructions, experiments which go beyond those suggested here.

Useful references: Rem Koolhaas - Exodus, or the Voluntary Prisoners of Architecture, Piranesi -  ‘Ichnographia’ - Plan of the Campus Maritus of the Ancient City.

It’s important you consider how you pin up your work. What is the scale of the work? Is there a hierarchy between sheets? (not all sheets have to be the same size). Which are your most important drawings? What is the order of the presentation? Use the work on the wall to help you present your ideas. 

We understand there is a lot to do for next week but believe it is possible if you are determined and work hard. It is important at this stage in the year to experiment and take risks. 

SSN

China’s abandoned cities

China's building boom has created a ton of abandoned cities and massive ruins — most of which are brand new, and have never had people living in them. Here are the deserted Chinese cities, mostly built in the last 10 years

Click here for more

New South China Mall, Living City from Grégoire Basdevant on Vimeo.