The Boston Society for Architects recently asked me to write a series of articles for them outlining strategies for “The Resourceful City” by reprogramming existing urban infrastructure to serve new urban functions. The four-part series runs this month, and the first two installments are up now.

The overall arc of the four parts is about urban resourcefulness and exploring alternative potentials for the city through the reuse and reprogramming of its existing buildings, objects and spaces instead of tearing things down and starting over again. As urban citizens, we are dealing with two realities. We have come to terms with the fact that our resources are finite, whether material, financial, or spatial. We also live in agile times – our cultural, economic and political relationships are in a constant state of flux, and often the physicality of our structures and cities are not able to respond to these shifting dynamics. Reprogramming the City introduces agile and malleable responses to a usually rigid urban environment. The existing city is the infrastructure we have inherited; it is our shared hardware. Strategies to reprogram what we already have is the software.

The four parts of the series are below (linked pages are the articles already up; others will appear in the BSA’s Ideas section later this month).

+ The Resourceful City, Part 1: Reprogramming Buildings

+ The Resourceful City, Part 2: Reprogramming Space

+ The Resourceful City, Part 3: Reprogramming Infrastructure

+ The Resourceful City, Part 4: Reprogramming Possibilities

I hope you enjoy the series.

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Over the next two weeks I will be speaking at two public symposiums which explore important aspects of the future design of our cities, so I wanted to spread the word here and recommend that anyone in the respective cities of London or Linz come along and join in.

On Wednesday 13 October I will be speaking about Urban Play and my “City as Platform” approach to design in the city at the Interactive Architecture symposium, held at Metropolitan Works, 166-220 Holloway Road, London N7 8DB. Joining me will be Jason Bruges of Jason Bruges Studios, Michael Spencer of Sound Strategies, Usman Haque of Haque Design and research, Alexandros Tsolakis of UnitedVisualArtists, Eva Rucki of Troika and many others. Full details can be found here.

The following week I will be in Linz, Austria, speaking at the SuperStadt2010 symposium on Wednesday, 20 October. I will be delivering a talk titled “Open Strategies for Designing the Urban,” describing, well, I suppose the title says it all. Full Details of my talk can be found on the SuperStadt site here.

Unfortunately, my time in Linz will prevent me from being able to be in Berlin on the same day for the Exchange Radical Moments Congress, at which my Urban Guide for Alternate Use project will be launched. This kills me, but I recommend anyone in Berlin check out the Exchange Radical Moments Congress, and for everyone else, please visit the Urban Guide for Alternate Use site and join my exploration of “re-use and resourcefulness in the city through alternate uses for urban objects and areas.”

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Mader Stublic Wiermann lighting display, Uniqa tower, Vienna. Image from cityofsound.com

On Thursday 24 June 2010 I will be giving a talk at the Interactive Architecture 2010 conference, as part of the London Festival of Architecture.

Featuring an impressive lineup of speakers ranging from Duncan Wilson of Arup Foresight to Usman Haque of Haque Design and Research, and chaired by Fiddian Warman of Soda Creative, the conference will be: “A forum for the building design community to gather and share ideas and experiences around exploiting new technologies to enable the built environment to dynamically respond to people in or around it.” Here is an overview of the conference themes and speakers:

• Sensory: Sound and light
  • Michael Spencer of Sound Strategies
  • Usman Haque of Haque Design and Research
  • UVA
• Metaphysical: Materials and structures
  • Armand Terrulli of Vector Foiltec
  • Duncan Wilson of Arup Foresight and
  • Alexandra Deschamps-Sonsino of TinkerLondon
• Art and Play: Community and interaction
  • Ghislaine Boddington of B>D>S
  • Matt Adams of Blast Theory
  • Eva Rucki of Troika
  • Scott Burnham of Urban Play
• Experiential architecture
  • Alex Haw of Atmos
  • Andrew Whiting of Hut

For more information and to get tickets for the event, please go here.

For an excellent overview and image resource of Interactive Architecture in general, interactivearchitecture.org is a great starting point. Another excellent angle on expressive, performative and responsive facades and architecture, this article by the prolific and inspiring Dan Hill of cityofsound.com is well worth a visit.

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For most people with even a passing interest in innovative urban problem-solving, the words Jaime Lerner and Curitiba, Brazil will hold special reverence. Lerner is the urban planner and three-times mayor of Curitiba who transformed the once traffic-congested, economically and environmentally challenged city into one of the world’s most livable urban spaces. This Wednesday at the British Film Institute, London, a documentary exploring his innovative approaches for “transforming problems into solutions” in the city will be shown, and following the screening I will be joining Jaime Lerner on stage to discuss his approach and visionary techniques.

The talk will be hosted by Peter Jenkinson OBE, an exceptional individual himself for his work with creative solutions in the face of limited resources. For those of you in London Wednesday 4 November, please come join us at the BFI for this exceptional opportunity. More information on the evening can be found here. For those unable to attend, please watch the trailer above and go see the film as soon as you can. It is a game-changer for urban strategies.

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One of the buildings that has really stood out for me is the iconic Marina City, designed by Bertrand Goldberg. Film buffs may remember the building as the site of the classic scene in the Steven McQueen film The Hunter, in which a car chase comes to an unexpected end as the car careens off the 10th floor of the underlying parking garage. This feet was repeated for an Allstate insurance add several years ago, so if anyone has a desire to launch a car out of a building in the downtown of a major city, this is your place.

The reason it stands out for me however, is the framework it provides for the residents to have a hand in the external design of the building. An unintentional aspect of the architecture perhaps, but as the top image shows, it is wonderful to be able to view the building from a distance and be able to read the colours, the collaborative spirit as lines of lights stretch across several units, and the chosen colours of those living inside. And it’s not even Christmas. As always, I find these moments to be examples of the potential which exists for people to have a more direct role in the external visuals of their buildings.

I’ll miss this city, and my lofty view of the Tribune building and plaza, but my talk in Riga awaits, and I am in hopes of more architectural treats there.

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