Browsing: Politics

During an election year in Sweden, public squares are filled with temporary bases to display the political parties.  Although only temporary structures, these “huts” play a vital role in the political networking system of  the country.  Such structures allow the politicians to meet and interact with the voters, answer any political questions and spread information, or even debate with those in neighbouring huts with different political ideas.  “In the best case, such a structure is a manifestation of a parties’ political identity and priorities. It is therefore ironic that campaign-structures are similar, independent of what party they represent,” explained Antman Gorsetman Architects. In an effort to redesign the huts and allow each structure to embody their individual parties’ ideals, Antman Gorsetman Architects approached the political parties during the election year of 2006.  The FI Party, the Feminist Initiative, was campaigning for the first time and decided to work with the architects to solidify their image in the public squares.

More about the election pavilion after the break.

read more »

Los Angeles is often portrayed as the example of the car-friendly city. The traditional image of the town is an endless pattern of single family dwellings, interconnected by traffic-clogged freeways, where transit is undeveloped and the air is choked with smog.

However, Los Angeles is changing. The city’s Transport Authority has planned in the last years a series of measures aiming to improve quality of life through improving transit and walking and providing alternative to car commuting.

read more »

The model #1: Napoli, quartieri Spagnoli (image: flickr)

If the mainstream view on the slums describes them as places to escape from and as to destroy as soon as possible, more and more people look at slums in a different way.

The first glances at slums were from some of the architects involved in urban renewal projects, who started to integrate in their projects some elements of the slums. Some of the recurrent features are:

• narrow courtyards and alleys
• division of the building into small blocks
• use of different colors and materials within the same building.

(part 1/2)

read more »

Peak oil is approaching. In the next future, most of the oil-dependent suburbs in which we live now will be abandoned and decay, turning into ruins, inhabited only by the few ones who where too fat and too car-dependent to escape back to the city. Little by little, nature will take over suburbs, but this process will be extremely slowly.

In order to give Mother Nature a hand, Andrew Maynard Architects have designed CV08, the suburb-eating robot.

read more »

“Slumdog Millionaire” is the movie of the year. Its story of a young guy from Mumbai’s slum of Dharavi, who manages to change its destiny through the “Who wants to be a Millionaire” game has charmed many people, including the Oscars’ jury, who awarded the movie with 8 prizes.

At the same time, the movie has created a debate around slums and how the movie portrays them. “Slumdog Millionaire” follows the mainstream vision of slums, described in the XIX century by writers like Daniel Defoe or Charles Dickens: dark, dirty places, with people packed in small rooms with no water facilities. In slums, riots are frequents, and police can hardly enter: the perfect place for criminals to hide and plan their threats to the society, and the perfect incubator for all sort of diseases.

read more »

In reaction to US President-elect Barack Obama’s Sunday’s declaration on CBS ‘60 minutes’ on 16.11.2008 (his first sit-down interview since winning the November 4 presidential election) where he has confirmed his intention to close Guantanamo’s Detention Center, zerOgroup made this proposal, called ‘I LOVE GITMO’ to upgrade the American enclave in Cuba into a mass tourism destination.

The ‘I LOVE GITMO’ proposal is one of the works that have been elaborated at the ‘Con Embargo Sin Embargo’ workshop organized by Supersudaca, supported by the Prins Claus Fund, and held at the IaaC Barcelona (Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalunya) in September 2008.

read more »