Vulnerability

"We know too little, and it does not exist. We know too much, and it does not exist. To write is to draw what exists out of the shadows of what we know."

(Translated from Karl Ove Knausgård's book Min Kamp - bok 1, page 192. "Man vet for lite, og det finnes ikke. Man vet for mye, og det finnes ikke. Å skrive er å trekke det som finnes ut fra skyggene av det vi vet." )

The following text is written with the possible vulnerability of the event taking place in Copenhagen in December, the United Nations Climate Conference in mind – be aware.

Architecture and planning interacts with a wide range of disciplines. As an architect you need to get an overlook, an understanding of the dynamics in fields far outside our own discipline. How to get there? We already, by keeping updated on the news, know too much about climate change, injustice, financial crisis, poverty and wars to be touched by it. Only rarely something floats up, an image, a story, and moves us. We know too much and it does not exist. But in the undercurrent of this flow of information it is possible to find people, experts on their field, researchers, humanitarian workers and artists that lend their eyes and voice to for us invisible people. Discoveries on the web, dialogue, observations and findings can bring the dynamics of wast theoretical fields and actions within range, opening up for a possible cartography of vulnerability – a discovery.
(read more)

Tandi with news from Sendai

Tandi just sent this beautiful picture from Naroko, she is studying at Sendai this year. And she sends the most beautiful update letters to friends and family. We miss her a lot and wish her all the best!

"Japan is a riddle; although we now have a foot inside the door I am not certain it will be enough time to resolve the mysteries that sometimes constitutes our new everyday life....... I can say for certain that autumn here is the most beautiful I’ve seen. The ephemeral character of this season reminds me that this stay is a once in a lifetime opportunity."

Vindstille eller storm i København?

Over lengre tid er det skapt et forventningsrom til COP 15 gjennom store internasjonale forskningsinnsatser, konstant mediedekning og et vibrerende internett.

– Akkurat nå er vi i de reduserte forventningers tid når det gjelder Københavnkonferansen.

– En uro kommer nå til uttrykk gjennom opprop i media fra kjente personer og organisasjoner om alt vi kan og bør gjøre selv som svar på den politiske maktesløsheten globalt, sier Knut Eirik i intervju med Jan Carlsen som kan leses i arkitektnytt.

For å sitere Naomi Klein (i Dagbladet 18. november): «Hvis klimaet var en bank ville det bli reddet – ikke overlatt til markedets brutalitet». Det betyr ifølge henne at en global ulydighet, en ny type motstand må vokse ut av en mulig København-tristesse.

D&U ONLINE PAPERS // mosaic::reading

mosaïc::reading - the city as biotope is a master studio at Bergen Arkitektskole run during the autumn term 2009 by Gisle Løkken, Magdalena Haggärde, Kjerstin Uhre and Knut Eirik Dahl. Under the themes of new hierarchies, imbedded information, elasticity, dynamic of small cultures, points of departure, vulnerability and charging the landscape with new energy different aspects, ideas and possibilities of planning have been discussed and discovered - at the school in Bergen, on study trips to Malmö and Paris and on the blog cityasbiotope. The blog have grown throghout the semester with the students’ work, the presentation of new themes and comments Here, in this little textbook: mosaic::reading, the collection, we have gathered the introduction texts for each theme.
GL, MH, KED and KEU

CONDITIONS

Our proposal for Nordhavnen is being discussed in the latest issue of Conditions magazine. Under the interesting label Dead or Alive the uncertain futures of winning competition proposals are being researched.

Encircling the Øresund dynamics

During 2008 the Tromsø based firms 70°N arkitektur and Dahl&Uhre architects were awarded 1.prizes in two important competitions in the Øresund region. In 2007 the cultural fund Realdania launched the two parted idea competion Öresund Visions 2040. 70°N and D&U’s concept Mosaïc::Region recieved one of two first prizes. The discoveries in this larger geographical and time scale made it mandatory for the team to take part in the Nordhavnen competition. Also in this ambitious idea and planning competition, 70°N and D&U received one of three first prizes with the concept Excentral Park – Edge Dynamics. The competition was organized by Copenhagen City and its institution City and Harbour (By og Havn). The timeline for realizing Nordhavnen is unto 2060.
The jury in Öresund Visions 2040 consisted of leading academics, artists and young architects. The jury in the Nordhavnen competion was more of a political stronghold including lord mayor of Copenhagen Ritt Bjerregaard and mayor Klaus Bondam among others.
So, it is possible to say that together the statements, signals and terminology of these two competions from the Norwegian team are accepted as highly relevant views on the future Öresund, in time to come. Both by the academic and the political environment in the
region – in theory.

The Nordhavnen experience
Nordhavnen is part of an extension strategy for Copenhagen with 40 000 residents and
40 000 workplaces on an industrial landfill out into the seascape of Öresund.
The competition program was ambitiuos on all levels of sustainability, bordering on images of the ideal city, as the political and planning forces of Copenhagen see it to day, prolonged into an unknown future. The fact that Copenhagen hosts the United Nations Climate Conference in December 2009 (COP15) informed the program with the ambition that Nordhavnen can be presented here as a world leading Copenhagen example.

The jury said this about Excentral Park – Edge Dynamics: “The jury believes that the entry presents, through its strategies, a genuinely new perception of a structure plan and consequently sets new horizons for urban development”.
With this enlightening jury comment the Norwegian firms entered a second phase with the two Danish winners as opponents. During three months, in continuos dialogues with a board of representatives from the Copenhagen authorities, City and Harbour and three former jury members, the concept was tested related to a series of questions from this board, and the jury.
After these explorations of the concept the Norwegian firms recieved a short note from the board that one of the Danish groups was chosen as advicers for the planning process in Nordhavnen. Up to now the Norwegian team has not seen any extensive response of any kind on this second step.

Uncertain futures and public debate
The team has lately been debating their concept in the context of both the Danish and Swedish associations of Landscape Architects. Before a very vibrant discussion on their Edge Dynamics concept took place at the conference World in Denmark this summer, the Norwegian team asked Kent Martinussen, leader of DAC and part of both the jury and the board in Nordhavnen, why this enormous extension of Copenhagen is nearly not visible in the media. He said that there are three reasons. The first is that COP15 is dominating all media, nothing else makes the headlines. The second is that nothing is discussed before the building cranes are in Nordhavnen, the third is that strong political forces goes for a freezing of the whole Nordhavnen concept, in a time of financial crisis.
An experience with both competitions in the region is that there to a very little extent is an offensive attitude from the inviting parties towards the media. No press conferences and debates of any importance, no debating arrangements around the exhibitions and so on.
If and when the team and the Edge Dynamics concept will reappear in the Nordhavnen context is yet unknown.

To be continued….
Conditions will present the Norwegian team’s Öresund findings in an upcoming issue. For the moment The Nordhavnen concept is exhibited in Hamburg, and the team, 70°N and D&U, is now following up their Öresund encircling in a master studio at BAS, possibly waiting for the next challenge in the Öresund Metropole.

Mind Field Lund // Mosaïc::Region // The Map Collection

When we in 2007 swept through the mosaic region we found that the city of Lund just had published its debate program for 2020. There they asked themselves about the future of speed networks, the growth direction, their regional and local importance - and so they became a part of 'everything that comes within our reach' in the mosaic. The urban area between Malmö and Lund is brimming with the region's research and landscape competence. With a local population in search of a sustainable future, we highlight Mind Field Lund as a proactive study of a landscape, going from one state to another - a possible new form of urbanity in the mosaic. In such an exploration of a new urban landscape potential, each farm can be regarded as a laboratory for a new urban topography - observation posts in dialogue with the latent information in the field's knowledge base. In the Metro Ring's availability network, this new urban landscape experiment platform becomes a possible attraction of the first order. The tentative statements in the map 'Thought Field Lund' is taken from the research fields of SLU.

First session of the Norwegian Europan 10 jury and Ellen van Loon in lecture

160 projects in three Norwegian cities is to be evaluated by a very interesting Norwegian Europan 10 jury, the 1.and 2. of October.
In the afternoon Friday the 2. the jury member Ellen van Loon, partner in OMA, will give a lecture at the 0047 gallery in Oslo, followed by a conversation with the president of Europan Norway, Knut Eirik Dahl.

Scandinavian conversations on the Malmö dynamics at SLU Alnarp

Last week we were revisiting the Øresund region with our mosaïc mindset and 19 architect- and landscape architect students from Bergen School of Architecture. After studying Malmö in the virtual world for two weeks, under the headlines of New Hierarchies and Imbedded Information, it was time for us and the students to enter this field of exploration, walk the streets, meet the people and hit the dynamics and the patterns that connects.... An in depth research into the imbedded information of Malmö.

On Thursday we had conversations with prof.Carola Wingren and her students from the landscape architect department at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences in Alnarp.

The journalist Peter Sylwan and the head of urban straties in Malmö, Johan Emanuelson, guided us through the possible future agricultural landscape and into the growing city.

Carola Wingren's master course is dealing with how Malmö can meet future challenges from sea level rise. SLU Alnarp is set in a large, old park with thousands of species plants and trees north of Malmö. We rounded up this fine day with a walk in this beautiful park.
The Malmö findings will be posted at city as biotope under the label Elasticity.

World Wide Views

I morgen, 26. september arrangeres verdens første globale borgerhøring. Da samles folk i 46 land på alle kontinenter for å uttale seg om klimautfordringer og aktuelle klimatiltak. World Wide Views

master studio and blog

mosaïc::reading - the city as biotope is a master studio at Bergen School of Architecture run during the autumn term 2009 by Gisle Løkken, Magdalena Haggärde, Kjerstin Uhre and Knut Eirik Dahl. Under the themes of new hierarchies, imbedded information, elasticity, dynamic of small cultures, points of departure, vulnerability and charging the landscape with new energy different aspects, ideas and possibilities of planning will be discussed and discovered - at the school in Bergen, on study trips to Malmö and Paris and on the blog city as biotope