Receiving us in her office in a former school building one afternoon at the end of July, Petra Blaisse proposes to first show us around. Most of the Inside Outside team is on holiday or working on site, but we catch a glimpse of some of her collaborators and the work atmosphere of the office. The office is distributed over two sides of the corridor, with an Inside side (renowned for their large-scale curtains) and an Outside side (dealing with gardens, parks, and urban planning). We meet her to discuss her assignment to ‘do’ the Rietveld pavilion in Venice on the occasion of the 13^th Architecture Biennale, but also to discuss her experiences as interior designer and how that relates to her outdoor work.

Less than sixty years ago, the battle for emancipation and class education was fought on private territory: inside the apartment. Today one’s house is supposed to be an expression of one’s individuality, but in those days the interior was subject to ideology and class struggle. During the first phase of the industrial city, newcomers in Western European cities had to be educated to behave like citizens: clean the house, manage waste, mind the children, in short conform to urban social rules. The right to live in a social rental apartment would be the reward for disciplined and confirmative behavior. After the Second World War, the focus of attention shifted to how to live a modern life: clean, healthy, and therefore happy, with simple, well-designed modern products in spartan, light, efficient spaces. One of Archis’ predecessors was dedicated to this very task. Inspired by social-democrat and modernist ideals, monthly magazine Goed Wonen [Good Living] showed what a good interior should look like as part of a program of education and emancipation.

Thanks to all who came out Friday to Mediamatic for the 'New Futures Adrift' combined book launch which included Volume's 32nd issue, 'Centers Adrift', as well as Rory Hyde's Future Practice, and Katja Novitskova and Rory Hyde's New Order. Thanks also to Wouter Vanstiphout, Reinier de Graaf and Sandra Kaji-O'Grady for speaking at the event, and Rory Hyde and Arjen Oosterman for moderating.

For the next issue of Volume we will be partnering with the International New Town Institute (INTI) to explore new players in urban planning. In addition INTI will be hosting a conference on September 27th in Rotterdam, exploring this topic through four case studies, with invited speakers from around the world.

To celebrate Volume's most recent issue 'Centers Adrift', the featured insert 'New Order' from Katja Novitskova and Rory Hyde, as well as Rory Hyde's new book Future Practice, Volume and Mediamatic will be throwing a very special launch party in Amsterdam. Speakers include: Reinier de Graaf, Wouter Vanstiphout, Sandra Kaji-O'Grady, Arjen Oosterman and Rory Hyde. Three publications, one event. Come one, come all.

Between 4 and 6 November, 2011, Amsterdam's NDSM Wharf will be the stage for the Storytelling Festival. The great stories about this remarkable place and its transformation from a shipping wharf into a creative and sustainable breeding place will have a prominent place in the program of the festival. Friday 4 November we'll dive into the past, present and future of this impressive place in North Amsterdam with a free program full of NDSM stories.

New Order is a catalogue of future visions for a post-carbon world. Like all future visions, they are by turns tentative, speculative, exaggerated, and subjective. But this is not to say they are mere fantasy. As in the context of today’s contemporary ideology, living patterns, and political priorities, the six visions presented here should be viewed as prototypes for a future we need to create, or will be forced to confront.

‘Where is the center?’ must be the most commonly asked question when tourists enter a city. The center is where the action is supposed to be, where life is vibrant and interesting, where there’s lots to see, where you simply want to go. It is a matter of gravity and (functional) density that attracts visitors to ‘the center’. This tourist gaze is defining for our understanding of the city, any city.