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Netlab Talks in Lithuania
Network Architecture Lab Director Kazys Varnelis will be speaking about research at the Netlab and about GSAPP's Studio-X global network in Lithuania this May. At 6pm on the 19th, Professor Varnelis will be speaking in Vilnius, Lithuania as part of a series of talks organized by ARCHITEKTŪROS [pokalbių] FONDAS on the topic of recent developments in education. His talk will focus on the Netlab and the Studio-X Global Network. The talk will be held at 8pm at the Nacionalinėje dailės galerijoje (National Art Gallery, NDG), Konstitucijos pr. 22, Vilnius. At 11am on the 20th at Vytautas Magnus University in Kaunas, he will be speaking on the topic of "Network Culture and Space." The Network Architecture Lab is grateful to both the United States Embassy in Vilnius and KG Constructions for making this possible.
New City Reader at Columbia, 1/31/11
The New City Reader finishes its first run at an event at Columbia tonight, January 31, 2011, 6.30pm in Wood Auditorium of Avery Hall.
Richard Flood of the New Museum; Joseph Grima of Domus; Alan Rapp, Author / Editor; and Kazys Varnelis, Director of the Network Architecture Lab will discuss the brief life of the New City Reader, the first New York broadsheet to go under in 2011.
This closing event will be accompanied by the distribution of the last two sections, a front section and a local section, thus completing the New City Reader's run.
Announcing the New City Reader
The Network Architecture Lab announces the New City Reader, a newspaper on architecture, public space and the city, produced in collaboration with Joseph Grima and published as part of The Last Newspaper, an exhibition running at the New Museum from 6 October 2010‒9 January 2011.
The New City Reader will consist of one edition, published over the course of the project with a new section produced weekly by alternating guest editorial teams within the museum’s gallery space. These sections will be available free at the New Museum and—in emulation of a practice common in the nineteenth-century American city and still popular in parts of the world today—will be posted in public throughout the city for collective reading.
The New City Reader kicks off with a detailed graphic produced by the Netlab that recounts the 1977 New York City blackout and its effects on failing city to reveal the interdependence of infrastructure, information, and social stability. If the challenges of that era map to the difficulties facing both the country and the city today, the New City Reader will inquire into these parallels.
Conceived by Joseph Grima (Domus) and Kazys Varnelis (Netlab), this newspaper’s content derive- from a series of discussions, debates, interviews, and research into the spatial implications of epochal shifts in technology, economy, and society today. Each issue of the New City Reader will be guest edited by a contributing network of architects, theorists, and research groups who will bring their particular expertise to bear on the sections.
The guest contributing networks include:
| City | Network Architecture Lab |
| Editorial | New City Reader Editorial Staff |
| Culture | School of Visual Arts D-Crit Program |
| Sports | Jeannie Kim and Hunter Tura |
| Entertainment | Beatriz Colomina and Program for Media and Modernity |
| Food | Park (Will Prince, Krista Ninivaggi) and Nicola Twilley |
| Real Estate | Sideprojects (Mabel Wilson + Peter Tolkin) |
| Business | Frank Pasquale and Kevin Slavin |
| Legal | Eyal Weizman, Centre for Research Architecture, Goldsmiths, University of London |
| Local | Nugu (Gediminas and Nomeda Urbonas) and Saskia Sassen |
| Politics | common room |
| Style | Robert Sumrell and Andrea Ching |
| Music | DJ Enron and DJ Rupture |
| Science | David Benjamin and Livia Corona |
| Weather | C-Lab (Jeffrey Inaba) |
| Obituaries | MOS (Michael Meredith) |
| Classifieds | Leagues and Legions |
Joseph Grima is the current editorial director of Domus magazine and the former director of the Storefront for Art and Architecture in New York. Kazys Varnelis is an historian, the director of the Network Architecture Lab at the Columbia Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation and a co-founder of AUDC.
Sponsors include The New Museum, Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation, Joe and Nina Day, Anonymous Donors, and the Willametta K. Day Foundation.
Netlab Ties for First to Build a Better Burb
The Network Architecture Lab (in collaboration with Park) tied for first in the Build a Better Burb ideas competition with Long Division, its project to reimagine Long Island for the twenty-first century.
Sponsored by the Long Island Index, a project of the Rauch Foundation, Build a Better Burb set out to identify solutions for making suburbs better, more sustainable places to live. The Long Division entry began with the premise that a regional planning strategy—together with local architectural interventions in the form of new hybrid building types—is essential.
On a regional level, we sought to preserve Long Island's aquifer—a vast resource under threat from an over-developed environment—by suggesting that a regional planning authority might selectively void areas in the eastern part of the island that sit on top of the aquifer, are underserved by infrastructure, and are populated by an aging population. Here we proposed the long term use of eminent domain, tax incentives, and other prods to encourage individuals to move into denser housing in town centers while the resulting voids would be turned over to boutique organic agricultural production compatible with the aquifer together with nature preserves and other aquifer-friendly uses.
In the already-dense western part of the island we propose to further densify city centers, deploying a set of new hybrid building types based on demographic needs and interests. We drew inspiration for these large structures from architect Victor Gruen's development of the shopping mall, a product of the suburbs and perhaps the last genuinely new building type but incorporated a variety of uses for varied populations. To intensify the density in these city centers, we introduced new parkland in less dense residential areas through strategic voiding of less desirable properties so as to allow these overbuilt suburbs to have breathing room.
Please see the video at Vimeo below, together with a pdf booklet on our work here.
Netlab members contributing to this project were Kazys Varnelis, Netlab Director; Leigha Dennis, Project Lead; Momo Araki, Alexis Burson, and Kyle Hovenkotter. We would like to thank Will Prince of Park for his invaluable contributions.
Long Division from Kazys Varnelis on Vimeo.
Project lead Leigha Dennis speaks to a television news reporter at the awards ceremony.
Publish
As part of its Networked Publics project and in collaboration with Domus Web, the Network Architecture Lab announces Publish, a new (temporary) space for discourse on the role of architecture, the media, and the public. Read the entries on our aggregator blog: http://networkarchitecturelab.org/projects/publish and submit by sending a message via our contact form (please also tag with the hashtag #netdomus).
At a deliberately undetermined time in the future, we will chose entries for a special publication within Domus Web. If you don't have a blog, send your entry via the contact form and we will post it on the Netlab site. Comments are enabled so do join in the discourse here.
We received a great set of articles from around the world, and—well aware that other brilliant individuals haven't contributed because of time constraints—have reopened the call for papers. There is no closing date to this project at the moment although eventually one will be announced.
During the last fifteen years architecture and the media have been turned on their head as technologies of production and communication integrated into our daily lives. But instead of the delirious optimism of the last decade, we now also face panic and crisis. The media industry is in flux: as new media rise, old ones are victims of creative destruction. The tools of architectural production, meanwhile, have been thoroughly transformed; yet thanks to technological and legal innovations that made possible the securitization of buildings, architecture faces its greatest economic crisis since the Depression. If we can be certain of anything, it’s that as Karl Marx wrote, "all that is solid melts into air."
We invite brief submissions (under 1,500 words) addressing the consequences of these changes for the architectural community. What are the transformations taking place in the architectural profession, in architectural media, in criticism? How are these transformations interconnected? What do these mean to you? What do they mean to the future of architecture and cities?
We are keenly aware that it is the engagement with precisely these epochal transformations that will define the critical output of our generation, and that the legacy of the previous generation of critics and theorists is no longer able to deliver the kind of thinking necessary to help us address and catalyze these conditions. This publication is intended as forum for debate through which the accepted understanding of the word 'publication' itself can be challenged, redefined, dismantled and rebuilt. It will polemically frame our context, but it will also constitute a toolbox of ideas that outlines an agenda for criticism in network culture.
Domus, one of the earliest and historically most influential architecture magazines, sets itself as a case study for debate around the role of printed magazines in the contemporary era. If the magazine is no longer spontaneously embraced as a locus for debate, should the permanence of printed matter induce it to serve as a historical register for ideas developed elsewhere, e.g. on the Web (the magazine understood as an archive-in-progress of excellence)? Or, conversely, should it pursue agility, hybridizing across platforms? Does the notion of architectural criticism, understood in conventional terms, bear any relevance today? What forces designate the formal and conceptual frameworks of contemporary built architecture?
Advice for Robert Dudley
With BP's appointment of Robert Dudley as chief executive office of BP, the Network Architecture Lab thought it appropriate to give him some advice for rebranding the company. Click here to see a project by Caren Faye, a student in "Evil," a studio that the Netlab ran in the fall of 2009. The syllabus and more information about the studio can be found here.
Everything's Gone Green by Caren Faye
Networked Publics Publish CFP
The Network Architecture Lab and Domus announce Networked Publics: Publish, an open call for submissions to a new collaborative publication.
During the last fifteen years architecture and the media have been turned on their head as technologies of production and communication integrated into our daily lives. But instead of the delirious optimism of the last decade, we now also face panic and crisis. The media industry is in flux: as new media rise, old ones are victims of creative destruction. The tools of architectural production, meanwhile, have been thoroughly transformed; yet thanks to technological and legal innovations that made possible the securitization of buildings, architecture faces its greatest economic crisis since the Depression. If we can be certain of anything, it’s that as Karl Marx wrote, "all that is solid melts into air."
We invite brief submissions (under 1,500 words) addressing the consequences of these changes for the architectural community. What are the transformations taking place in the architectural profession, in architectural media, in criticism? How are these transformations interconnected? What do these mean to you? What do they mean to the future of architecture and cities?
We are keenly aware that it is the engagement with precisely these epochal transformations that will define the critical output of our generation, and that the legacy of the previous generation of critics and theorists is no longer able to deliver the kind of thinking necessary to help us address and catalyze these conditions. This publication is intended as forum for debate through which the accepted understanding of the word 'publication' itself can be challenged, redefined, dismantled and rebuilt. It will polemically frame our context, but it will also constitute a toolbox of ideas that outlines an agenda for criticism in network culture.
Domus, one of the earliest and historically most influential architecture magazines, sets itself as a case study for debate around the role of printed magazines in the contemporary era. If the magazine is no longer spontaneously embraced as a locus for debate, should the permanence of printed matter induce it to serve as a historical register for ideas developed elsewhere, e.g. on the Web (the magazine understood as an archive-in-progress of excellence)? Or, conversely, should it pursue agility, hybridizing across platforms? Does the notion of architectural criticism, understood in conventional terms, bear any relevance today? What forces designate the formal and conceptual frameworks of contemporary built architecture?
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Everyone who submitted to the publication should finish their piece and post it online, tagging it #netdomus and sending an e-mail to us (use the contact form on the left) to let me know that they've done so. Anyone interested in submitting who hasn't submitted yet should do the same.
Think of this as a newspaper or news magazine and conceive of appropriate sections, for example, sports, business, domestic, national, and international news, business, politics, weather, interviews, op-ed, entertainment, literature, society, tourism, automobiles, style, cooking, health, home decoration, real estate, family, and so on. All the while, keep in mind the original context of networked publics, which is outlined here.
One thing everyone should keep in mind is to write for a general readership. In other words, if you're going to employ theory, don't assume that anybody knows it. Explain it!
Final submissions are due on the 30h of July. That's a long way away in newspaper or magazine time. I encourage you to post your piece earlier as doing so will prevent you from being caught in the maelstrom of posts that we expect on the 30th (we had over 30 submissions to the first round). Once posted, all of these will be aggregated at the Netlab Web site. We will select from this list for work to publish on the Domus site and we have other plans too which we will announce later in the summer.
The original call is below (note that the dates are now superceeded):
There are three ways to submit.
The first way is to send in an abstract by 12 noon, EST June 24 pitching an article on the topic. This should be one brief paragraph on what you would like to write about although if you are inspired enough to submit your entry in full, you may also do so at this time.
An editorial team will meet to review submissions and send feedback to contributors on the 24th. At this meeting we will also discuss the gaps in the publication and post a call for submissions that specifically address such topics. A second way to submit an article is to respond to this call. Abstracts for projects responding to the call for submissions are due on July 2.
Final work for both submission tracks will be due on July 15.
A third way to submit is to join a conversation over the Internet by tagging a blog or twitter post #netdomus.
The publication will be available for free download at Domus's Web site. A launch event will be held at Columbia's Studio-X at the end of the summer but this conversation—and publication—will continue for some time to come.
Contributors may find potential references in Networked Publics, a book published by MIT Press in 2008 and produced in collaboration with the University of Southern California's Annenberg Center for Communication to examine how the social and cultural shifts centering around new technologies have transformed our relationships to (and definitions of) place, culture, politics, and infrastructure. This spring, the Netlab hosted “Discussions on Networked Publics” at Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation's Studio-X Soho facility, exploring the ramifications of these changes to architecture and cities through a set of four panels—culture, place, politics, and infrastructure. Discussions were recorded and are available here.
Please submit your proposals here.
Netpublics Video: Infrastructure Discussion @ Studio-X
The Network Architecture Lab continues “Discussions on Networked Publics,” a series of panels examining how technology and social changes are transforming the public realm, held at Columbia University's Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation's Studio-X Soho Facility with a panel on "infrastructure" that took place on May 4 at 6:30pm.
The panelists are: David Benjamin (GSAPP, Living Architecture Lab), Frank Pasquale (School of Law, Seton Hall), Molly Wright Steenson (Princeton University, Girlwonder blog), Mason C. White (University of Toronto, Lateral Office).
Kazys Varnelis, director of GSAPP's Network Architecture Lab moderated.
"Discussions on Networked Publics" extends the analysis of contemporary culture in the book Networked Publics, published in 2008 by the MIT Press and edited by Netlab Director Kazys Varnelis. More on the book at networkedpublics.org.
Netlab Lecture in CAC, Vilnius, Lithuania. 27 May
Director Kazys Varnelis will be speaking at the Contemporary Art Centre in Vilnius, Lithuania on Thursday 27 May at 6pm on three years of work at the Network Architecture Lab.
Contemporary Art Centre
Vokieciu 2, LT - 01130, Vilnius
tel: +3705 2121954, fax: +3705 2623954
email: info@cac.lt // www.cac.lt
Discussions on Networked Publics: Infrastructure, 5/04/2010
The Network Architecture Lab continues “Discussions on Networked Publics,” a series of panels examining how technology and social changes are transforming the public realm, held at Columbia University's Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation's [GSAPP's] Studio-X Soho Facility, 180 Varick Street, Suite 1610, New York City.
The fourth panel, on "infrastructure" will occur on May 4 at 6:30 pm.
The panelists are:
David Benjamin (GSAPP, Living Architecture Lab)
Frank Pasquale (School of Law, Seton Hall)
Molly Wright Steenson (Princeton University, Girlwonder blog)
Mason C. White (University of Toronto, Lateral Office)
Kazys Varnelis, director of GSAPP's Network Architecture Lab will moderate.
"Discussions on Networked Publics" extends the analysis of contemporary culture in the book Networked Publics, published in 2008 by the MIT Press and edited by Netlab Director Kazys Varnelis. More on the book at http://networkedpublics.org. Copies of the book will be for sale at the event.
The event will be broadcast live worldwide via ustream.tv at http://www.ustream.tv/channel/discussions-on-network-publics
Viewers who can't make it in person are encouraged to submit questions and comments live during the show to @Columbia_Netlab on Twitter.
Video from the event will be archived on Vimeo and iTunes.
Discussions on Networked Publics Series
Panel 1. Culture (archive)
9 February, 6.30
featuring: Michael Kubo, Michael Meredith, Will Prince, Enrique Ramirez, David Reinfurt, and Mimi Zeiger
Panel 2. Place
25 March, 6.30
featuring: Amanda McDonald Crowley, Douglas Gauthier, Christina Ray, Mark Shepard, Kevin Slavin, and Tim Ventimiglia
Panel 3. Politics
13 April, 6.30
featuring: Stephen Graham, Deborah Natsios, Enrique Ramirez
Panel 4. Infrastructure
4 May, 6.30
featuring: David Benjamin, Frank Pasquale, Molly Wright Steenson, Mason White
Free and open to the public
RSVP: gdb2106@columbia.edu
Events begin at 6:30 unless otherwise noted.
Studio-X New York
180 Varick Street, Suite 1610
1 train to Houston Street
[Studio-X is a downtown studio for experimental design and research run by the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation of Columbia University.]
Sponsored in part by the MIT Press