Seminar 12: In Search of Spatial Practice

16th December 2009, 15:00 – 17:00. Crookesmoor Building, top seminar room, 4th floor

Open seminar with: Can Altay.

Can Altay is an artist who works in relation to architecture and the idea of the city. This seminar will be focusing on notions of spatial practice, discussed through a range of projects that had observed situations of counter-spatialization, fleeting forms of “working” the city; along with more propositional, process oriented architectural actions that took place in the realm of art. The key question will be whether the hierarchies that define work and practice as in and out of disciplinary formations can be surpassed, while maintaining issues of responsibility and agency.

Altay will also be discussing his recent curatorial work with Philipp Misselwitz where they looked into the fragmented and segregated urban condition especially in the Middle East and proposed possible models of working for architects and planners, beyond disciplinary confinement yet using knowledge from within the field. Their work resulted in the “refuge” exhibition as part of the International Architecture Biennial of Rotterdam 2009.

Optional Reading:

Lefebvre, H. “Spectral Analysis” and “Right to the City” from Writings on Cities. Blackwell, 1996.
Guattari, F. “The Object of Ecosophy” from ECO-TEC (ed. A. Marras). Princeton Architectural Press, 1999.
Latour, B. “Making Things Public” from Making Things Public (eds. B.Latour and P.Weibel). MIT Press, 2005.
Altay, C. and D. Altay “Counter-Spatialization of Power in Istanbul” from Urban Makers (ed. E. Guidi) bbooks, 2008.

Seminar11: Co-operative Housing Design

18th March, 2009, 14.00-16.00,  Arts tower  Seminar room 14

Open seminar with Supitcha Tovivich, DPU, UCL.

Supitcha will be presenting co-operative housing programs conducted by CASE and CODI in Thailand, ranging from urban poor housing to middle-class housing projects, to facilitate our discussion around questions:

+ To what extend an architectural design process could be employed as a tool for community expowerment and what are challenges in architectural practice? + How can needs and desires of individual and community share and negotiate in co-operative design? + What is the ‘professionalism’ of architect working with others?

Ten Bangkok_note

Seminar 10: Spaces of Possibility

11th February 2009, 14:00 – 16:00. Arts Tower, Seminar Room 15D

Open seminar with Yara Sharif, University of Westmister.

What is an architecture of resistance? Can it be imagined as the spaces between people, lines, documents and maps? What spaces of possibility exist that can empower fragmented societies and bridge the gap between divided spaces, working against the Israeli project of marginalisation?

possibility_notes.pdf

Seminar 09: Informal Architectures and Participatory Practices

28th January 2009  15h00-18h00  seminar room 15D, the Arts Tower

An open seminar with guest Gregory Cowan. Gregory will be presenting his projects based in Mongolia, Senzai Eco houses and Yarmag children’s Camp, supported by an international agency VSO with Mongolian NGOs. We will be discussing around questions of Informal Architectures, Activism, Collaboration and Participatory methods in Architectural Practices and Education.

Seminar 08: Taking Care of Public Space

16th November 10h00-12h00, Meeting Room, Floor 14, School of Architecture, Sheffield University

Meike Schalk and Apolonija Sustersic will be presenting material from their projects to facilitate discussions around questions of “social space” (Lefebvre), “performance and performativity” (Butler), and “agonistic pluralism” (Mouffe)

taking-care_transcription.pdf

In order for a full discussion students are recommended to read the following:

Henri Lefebvre, The production of Space (Oxford: Blackwell, 1991),
from the chapter “Social Space”, XV, pp. 164-168; lefebvre01
and from the chapter “Contradictions of Space and Differential Space”, IV, pp. 356-357. lefebvre02

Judith Butler, “Excerpts from Subversive Bodily Acts”, in Jane Rendell, Barbara Penner, Ian Borden, Gender, Space, Architecture (London: Routledge, 2000), pp. 96-98. Excerpts from subversive bodily acts

Chantal Mouffe, “Deliberative Democracy or Agonistic Pluralism”, Political Science Series 72, edited by Christine Neuhold and Gertrud Hafner (Vienna: Institute for Advanced Studies, 2000), pp. 1-17.
http://www.ihs.ac.at/publications/pol/pw_72.pdf

Chantal Mouffe, “Politics and Passions. The stakes of democracy” CDS Perspectives (London: Centre for the Studies of Democracy, 2002), pp. 1-16.
http://www.wmin.ac.uk/sshl/pdf/Mouffe%20PDF%20.pdf

Grant H.Kester, ” Conversation Pieces, community + communication in modern art”, University of California Press, Barkeley and Los Angeles, 2004, pp. 82-123 dialogical_aesthetics

Seminar 07: Working with Magic

5th October 2008 11h00 – 13h00. 56 St Blaise, Paris 75020

An open seminar with Anne Querrian and Brian Holmes. We will be discussing: magic and economies of knowledge, history of magic as economy, gender and magic.

magic_transcription.pdf

Seminar 06: Resistance and Activist Research

An open seminar hosted by atelier d’architecture autogérée with guests Brian Holmes and Claire Pentecost

4th October 2008, Paris

How can we understand architecture and spatial practice, at all scales, as a site of social resistance against dominant “hegemonic spatial logic”?
How does the ‘capitalistic machine’ exert itself in terms of the production of subjectivities through dominant traditional architectural processes?
What conflicts can we identify with the apparatus’ of state (or market/developer) control that position architecture/spatial politics as a key site of resistance?

Seminar 05: Borders and Mobility

April 11th 2008

Open seminar with Diego Barajas.

What is the effect of ‘global mobility’ and ‘dispersed territories’ on the city-space? How can we map these migrant territories and fluid borders? What new tactics / strategies does urban practice require to include these new dynamics?

borders_notes.pdf

Seminar 04: Subjectivity

February 14th 2008

Why is subjectivity an important question for architecture? We will discuss: subjectivities in processes of self-organisation; Suely Rolnik’s analysis of ‘anthropophagic subjectivity’; the post-colonial as ‘quasi-subject’ (Latour); the ’synaptic subject’ and ‘gardening agency’.

subjectivity_notes.pdf

Seminar 03: Pedagogy and/as Practice

November 28th 2007

A critical understanding and development of learning processes is an integral part of any architectural and urban practice that seeks to be both empowering and sustainable. We are interested in opening up the discussion to allow for desire, collectivity, dialogue and organisation.How can these processes alter our ways of working with space? Presentation by Ruth Morrow in discussion with Nishat Awan; Dan Jary; Rosie Parnell; Ruben Parnell; Steve Parnell; Doina Petrescu; Kim Trogal; Supreeya Wungpatcharapon, James Brown, Beatrice Munby, Steffi Rhodes, John Sampson.

pedagogy-as-practice.pdf