Maintenance and Joy: Ethical practice in times of crisis

19.09.23

Maintenance, Public Space and Communities

Ana Lopez & Arquitectura Expandida

In this session we will be asking: Who is public space really for? And, how can we maintain the value of existing practices of public space, while disrupting exclusive surveillance and control protocols? Presenting four key projects by Arquitectura Expandida, Ana Lopez will be sharing her broad experience working with urban communities in different cities of Colombia, including young hip hop bands from Bogota. Reflecting on the ethical challenges posed by collaborations between spatial practitioners, marginalised communities, governmental and private institutions.

@arquitectura_expandida is an activist collective based in Bogotá that collaborates with grassroots movements in the exploration and creation of alternative spaces for citizen participation and self-management in urban peripheral areas. These alliances seek to articulate diverse urban languages with those of urban planning and architecture as a way of bringing decisions about the city closer to those traditionally excluded from these debates. Their repertoires of action move between urban and urbanistic research, collective self-construction, data visualization, and activist art.

02.11.23

Maintenance, cities and infrastructure

Philipp Rode

In this session we will ask how we negotiate the conflicting demands for building more and new while sustaining the value of existing natural and built environments? Philipp Rode affirms that “Cities offer us unique levels of access to each other, to goods, services and ideas. While conventional thinking celebrates bigger infrastructures and faster speeds, better accessibility in the future will have to embrace the principles of good urbanism”. Philipp will be unpacking strategies offered by principles of good urbanism, in connection with urban governance and policy frameworks.

16.11.23

Maintenance, innovation and the ethics of housing

In this session we ask what are ethics of housing in the UK today and how do these relate with demands for innovation and change? Helena Rivera will be presenting a series of projects on housing by her studio, both in public and private sector contexts. These include the entry for the Venice Biennale British Pavilion of 2023 which, in the words of the studio, proposed to “unpack the themes of housing, social injustice, racial inequality and the role of the architect through the lens of the Grenfell tragedy”. Helena will be reflecting on the value and frequent marginalisation of lived experience in connection with design for housing.

About Dr Helena Rivera: Dr Helena Rivera is a visiting lecturer in Landscape Architecture and Urbanism at the University of Greenwich and a visiting External Examiner at the University of Plymouth for MA in Architecture. She was awarded her PhD in Regional Planning in 2015 at the Bartlett School of Planning, UCL, where her research focused on applying transferable lessons from British New Towns into contemporary housing policy. She was a guest at the UK All-Party Parliamentary Group on New Towns, 2018-2019. Rivera is a professionally qualified architect, chartered by the ARB and RIBA, and is founder and director of A Small Studio Ltd @a_small_studio.

30.11.23

Maintenance, the planet and AI

Stephanie Sherman

In this session we will be asking what are the ethical challenges and design opportunities posed by AI in the context of planetary melt-down? Stephanie Sherman will be presenting histories, frameworks and strategies for acting on planetary-scale platform automation, based on her extensive work in design, strategy and production which spans across urbanism, technology and culture. Challenging the role of designers shaping the built environment, Stephanie will offer her poignant insights about how the future might look like at the crossroads between nature and automation.

Narratives Lecture Series