Open Lecture: CJ Lim; Studio 8 Architects – Smartcities and Eco-warriors November 21, 2011

• CITY + LANDSCAPE – 02
• Wednesday 23rd November at 17:00
• Lecture Theatre M055

What is a Smartcity? The lecture represents the culmination of CJ Lim’s ongoing explorations into sustainable city design that began with a proposal to revitalise the community landscape of Chicago’s DuSable Park and matured with Guangming Smartcity, a new town in Southern China for 200 000 inhabitants. The smartcity is a vision of an urban future from an architectural perspective as opposed to a planning, environmental engineering or socio-economic one. Current discourse on sustainability appears to focus either on the technical aspects of ecological design at the scale of individual buildings or establishes the general principles for planning urban environments; ‘Smartcities + Eco-warriors’ attempts to address what the spatial and phenomenological implications are when sustainable design is applied to a city, what new hybrid typologies of programme and landscape are birthed, and the role that we as citizens rather than designers will play in the production of a relevant social space. A central component of the smartcity is urban agriculture and the establishment of an ecological symbiosis between nature and built form. This lecture is structured around a series of international case studies, some commissioned by government organisations, others speculative and polemic.

Copies of his book “Smart-cities and Eco-warriors” for sale to students.  Books to sell at discounted price of £20 (normal retail price is £29.99) – cash only.