Wednesday 23 November 23, 8 pm, De Verdieping, Amsterdam. With Peter Luscuere and Hielkje Zijlstra. Entrance: € 2.50. Click here for more information. Failed Architecture shows buildings and urban environments that are malfunctioning, displeasing or have failed to stand the test of time and are currently neglected, abandoned or even vandalized or demolished, because of changing economic, social, political and/or physical circumstances. In the sixth edition of Failed Architecture, the focus will be on the more concrete, technical and practical failures of architecture. Which seemingly clever building technologies or materials have turned out to have unforeseen negative implications for the inhabitants, users, repairmen and janitors? Which types of buildings are more often subject to failure or usage problems? When can we speak of just unforeseen complications and when are architects or contractors to blame? Which cases are exemplary and what lessons can be learned for future architecture?

By Usman Haque and Ed Borden. Published in 'Volume #28: Internet of Things'. Pachube, a data brokerage platform for (sensory) data, positions itself at the fore of what is emerging as a global network of millions of exchangeable data sets. Such a platform, in combination with the emergent technological landscape, then raises questions about a very slippery topology of relations to data. The slipperiness of the current times can be seen as rooted in the novelty of our current state on both individual and corporate fronts. As the US Bill of Rights provided a reassurance of the rights to human liberty, Usman Haque and Ed Borden have crafted a new Bill of Rights for our emerging state of Things. Pachube Internet of Things Bill of Rights 1. People own the data they (or their ‘things’) create. 2. People own the data someone else creates about them. 3. People have the right to access data gathered from public space. 4. People have the right to access their data in full resolution in real-time. 5. People have the right to access their data in a standard format. 6. People have the right to delete or backup data they own. 7. People have the right to use and share their data however they want. 8. People have the right to keep their data private.

Two decades ago, an architecture magazine would be swamped with invitations for previews, tours and photo opportunities for projects ‘just finished’. A decade ago more and more press releases on prize winning competition entries would be added as part of the info mix. A little later the special mentions would get circulation; even entering a competition was seen as a publicity opportunity. It seemed only a matter of time before press releases announcing “we’ve started in the office this morning at 8.30 am, another great day in front of us, full of promise and opportunity” would surface. Publicity equaled economy. Maybe it still does, but not in the form where profiling projects, clearly identifiable as ‘someone’s’ work will necessarily result in a direct connection to new assignment. We know it is not like that anymore, not in most western countries, not for a lot of offices. In the late 90s, shrinkage was discovered as an interesting urban phenomenon, a new challenge for the profession; today this theme has reached the profession in the most unexpected way: no clients what so ever.

Volume #29: The Urban Conspiracy will be previewed Sunday 23 October 2011 at the Dutch Design Week in Eindhoven. The occasion is the launch of the third edition of the TRUST Design series, a collaborative project by Premsela and Archis. All editions are inserted in Volume Magazine and presented at special Trust Design breakfast events at several venues all over the world. This time we focus on TRUST Design and Faith. Faith and trust are the underpinnings of almost all our sociological and personal constructs, yet both are allusive and largely intangible qualities. What role does faith have in our relationship with design? Can the mechanisms of faith be used to enable trust through design? Apple has created an almost quasi-religion around its products through design, while contemporary faith-based organisations are turning to design as a way to increase and strengthen their role in society. In addition to discussing Trust Design’s central exploration of the relationship between trust and design, we extend the conversation to debate the role of faith - spiritual or otherwise - within trust and design. Starring: Scott Burnham (researcher and writer), Mathieu Frossard (designer), Corien Pompe (Chief Designer Colour & Material from Volvo), Matthijs van Dijk (Professor of Industrial Design and author of Vision in Design) and Tim Vermeulen (program manager at Premsela). Premsela Design Breakfast Trust Design, Faith Date: Sunday 23 October 2011 Time: 10.00 - 12.00 Location: Designhuis Tickets: 5 euro (including entrance Designhuis)

Vienna-based creative studio Atelier Olschinsky merges the worlds of digital illustration and architecture. Under the names 'Cities' and 'Plants', Peter Olschinsky and Verena Weiss created a series of stunningly detailed graphics. Providing a look into the fictional machine rooms of today's cities, the creators tend to represent the urban beauty as well as complexity and brutality. Check out Atelier Olschinsky's Behance profile for more pictures of the 'Cities' and 'Plants' series.

Wednesday 5 October 2011, 2:30 pm, Goldsmiths College, London. In collaboration with Christian von Wissel and CUCR, Sociology Post-Graduate Research and Graduate School. With Lilet Breddels and Arjen Oosterman. Volume magazine presents itself as a 'project to go beyond architecture'. The ambition to research the potential of and opportunities for architecture in society, and to approach this from a social point of view lead to a unique practice of research, reflection, speculation and action. Two very different projects demonstrate method and result: 'Architecture of Peace', and 'Internet of Things'. Both were titles of two issues of Volume, both are longer term projects in different stages of development and implementation - research-based, action driven.

[A Dutch version of this review can be read at Archined] For once it is nice to be on a biennale that is not exclusively visited by a cynical art-crowd and intellectuals only. The Korean Gwangju biennale is visited by people from all strata of society, and with its half a million visitors in two months the best visited biennale in the world. It is heart warming to see the school classes shuffle by following the guide of the educational program who patiently explains the biennale. The biennale was once established as a living monument to remember the hundreds who have fallen in the democratization movement of 18 May 1980. The biennale is truly a festival of the people. The thesis this biennale poses is that: Everything is design and everybody is a designer. Designers are those that draw and write a D.I.Y instruction for peaceful protests in Egypt, those that supply the screens of stock traders with numbers and graphs, and they are those athletes that submit their body to very specific training programs.

Sunday 2 October 2011, 1 pm. MoMA PS1, 22-25 Jackson Ave. at the intersection of 46th Ave. Long Island City, NY 11101. Click here to attend the event on Facebook. When things start talking back to you… Literally everything is getting connected these days, your children, dog, car, fridge, even the trees in the park. Data production and data collecting is key here. It has huge potential for creation, and likewise for control. Artists and designers are discovering new fields for exploration, commerce sees new potential and new markets, and governments take further steps in monitoring, mapping and ruling. So what is the role of the designer here? And how should we approach the tension between creation and control? A discussion with Mark Shepard, Lilet Breddels and Arjen Oosterman, plus our mystery guest...

30 September-2 October, MoMA PS1, Long Island City, Queens. Click here for more information. [nyc art book fair] Printed Matter, the world’s largest non-profit organization dedicated to publications by artists, presents the sixth annual NY Art Book Fair, September 30–October 2 at MoMA PS1, Long Island City, Queens. A preview will be held on the evening of Thursday, September 29th. Free and open to the public, and featuring more than 200 exhibitors, the NY Art Book Fair is the world’s premier event for artists’ books, contemporary art catalogs and monographs, art periodicals, and artist zines. Exhibitors include international presses, booksellers, antiquarian dealers, artists and independent publishers from twenty countries. We're proud to be part of the NYC Art Book Fair! The NY Art Book Fair 2011 will include special projects, screenings, book signings, and performances, throughout the weekend. The Classroom—a curated series of artist-led workshops, readings, and discussions—and the fifth annual Contemporary Artists’ Books Conference—a dynamic, two-day symposium on emerging practices and debates within art-book culture—will engage visitors in lively conversation all weekend long.

Thursday April 14, 9:30-11:00 am. Studio Zeta Milano, Via Friuli 26, Milan, Italy, free entrance (first served). With Gijs Bakker, Scott Burnham, Alfredo Meda and Lilet Breddels. With the Western world heading towards a life expectancy of 100 years, and the rest of the world soon to follow, the question is: with the realm of architectural invention on the issue ready for the taking, are you ready to face getting old? And are you ready to talk about it over breakfast? Volume 27 launches its issue on aging during breakfast at the Milan Design Fair. This issue of Volume explores the question of aging through current architectural typologies and institutional approaches over vast territory – from the nuclear industry that builds until One Billon AD to the top-down and bottom-up growth of New York, Tehran, Berlin and Newcastle – and is a necessary compendium for those who wish to design into the future by understanding the immediate challenges of today. Included in the issue is a 40-page insert on trust, design and aging, presented by both Archis and Premsela. Over breakfast, Gijs Bakker, Scott Burnham, Alfredo Meda and Lilet Breddels will be on hand to discuss the importance of designing trust throughout the ages. They ask: after the breakdown of trust in the functioning of society, can design win back the public's confidence? This event is hosted by Archis, Premsela: the Dutch Institute for Design and Fashion, and Design Academy Eindhoven.

Volume has a vacancy for a managing editor! He or she will be responsible for the textual quality of the magazine and all related text production. This includes editing and finalizing author contributions, proof reading and taking care of the textual integrity and consistency of Volume. Dealing with deadlines and timeframes is part of the job, and so is communicating with contributors from different cultural and language backgrounds. A potential second element of the position is contributing to Volume’s content in editorial meetings and with own contributions. Volume offers a prestigious platform and network to contribute to and work with. Candidates must be native English, fluent in speech and writing, have serious editorial experience, be precise and deadline aware. To be able to participate in content production candidates should be open, curious, internationally aware and research minded. A degree in architecture is considered as positive. The position is on a freelance basis and (depending on editorial involvement) can add up to 3 days a week at our offices in the vibrant surroundings of the Tolhuistuin in Amsterdam-Noord. Please send your resume and motivation to Lilet Breddels (lb@archis.org) before August 1. Volume is an independent quarterly magazine that sets the agenda for design. With going beyond architecture’s definition of ‘making buildings’ it reaches out for global views on designing environments, advocates broader attitudes to social structures, and reclaims the cultural and political significance of architecture. Volume is a project by Archis (Amsterdam), AMO (Rotterdam) and C-Lab (Columbia University, New York).

Summer 2011 Trajectory Public Forum. Chernobyl Exclusion Zone to Baikonur Cosmodrome. Architectural Association Gallery, 11 July, 2011, 11 am - 4 pm. 36 Bedford Square, London. Free for all. Click here for more information. This year, on the 50th anniversary of Yuri Gagarin’s first manned space flight and the 25th anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster, we will pack our Geiger counters and space Suits and chart a course from the atomic to the cosmic to investigate the strange natures that stretch from the exclusion zone of the Chernobyl Nuclear Reactor in the Ukraine and Gagarin’s launchpad at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Before we leave on our research trip we will be joined in London by an ensemble of artists, authors, scientists and designers to present a series of projects and thoughts motivated by the sites we will be visiting. Through the lens of these 2 events we will re-examine our contemporary attitudes toward the natural world and discuss our cross section through the haunting landscapes of the ecologically fragile and the technologically obsolete. We will explore the ‘Unknown Fields’ between cultivation and nature, between utopian projections and dystopian ruins as we spin cautionary tales of a new kind of wilderness.

Last Thursday I attended the first edition of the Cognitive Cities Salon in Amsterdam. Here are some notes on two of the lectures. What I found interesting was that both were addressing urban design not as primarily an aesthetic discipline but as a social and cultural one. Caro van Dijk discussed the design of urban and virtual objects around which urban publics can form and thus bring about an urban public sphere. Edwin Gardner looked at the use of computer algorithms to make urban design more adaptive to the needs of citizens.

Thursday 30 June, 2011, 19:00-22:30. De Verdieping, Wibautstraat 127, Amsterdam. Entrance: €10. This first Cognitive Cities Salon Amsterdam will deal with the synthesis of architecture and network technologies. We hope to see many of you at our first iteration of the Cognitive Cities Salon in Amsterdam. It is our combined pleasure to introduce you to the speakers that will engage the conversation about the future of cities at De Verdieping on the evening of June 30th. Edwin Gardner, architect and theorist. Design researcher at the Jan van Eyck Acadamie and editorial consultant to Volume Katalin Galayas, Policy Advisor to the City of Amsterdam James Burke, interaction designer, user experience architect and co-founder of VURB Kars Alfrink, 'Chief Agent’ of Hubbub The four of them will present their thoughts on urbanity, technology and how we are in the middle of it all. But the Salons are not intended to give only the speakers the stage. While sometimes it is important to only receive curated information, we are very much hoping for a lively debate at the event. Be challenged by the speakers, but also do your best to challenge them. A special call for participation for the next IoT workshop by Volume and VURB will be delivered by Vincent Schippers, Alexander Zeh and Caro van Dijk. The workshop is for architects, planners, coders and others interested in prototyping applications for a more writeable city. The evening will be moderated by Juha van 't Zelfde, host of Visible Cities.