In the last week of September, Amsterdam-based art institute Mediamatic organized a two-day event in order to explore the opportunities for using bamboo as building material. Around a wooden bicycle track, designed by DUS Architects, a massive bamboo-constructed city arised. In this very short interview, the people of DUS explain about the relevance of bamboo in architecture. What makes bamboo such an interesting buiding material? “Obviously, bamboo is a very interesting building material - green, lightweight and strong. It allows you to build large structures really fast, in a very easy manner. All one needs are bamboo stems and in this case, simple postal elastic bands- a technique carefully developed and engineered by collaborating artist Antoon Versteegde. (In the 70ies, Versteegde was unhappy with the elitist atmosphere inside the galleries that were exposing his paintings, and he searched for another way to show his work to a broader audience, truly located outdoors in the public domain. This led him to develop temporal bamboo structures, as an outdoor display for his paintings. While working on these bamboo structures in the open, he quickly came to realise that the bamboo structures themselves, and the spontaneous bamboo-constructing with random passer-bys on the street, were more interesting than his paintings! This led him to gradually develop the postal elastic band construction technique- anyone can do it.) One learns really fast how to make a strong construction that stays put. And one doesn’t need a permit either- as the construction can be taken down in a few minutes, without leaving a trace. Building with bamboo in this manner, allows one to design while doing. It’s architectural beta testing: and therefore particularly interesting to (d)us.” Could you tell us more about the Bamboo Building Bash? “The Bamboo Bash coincided with PICNIC’10 (new technology/media festival) that was themed ‘re-design the world’. We took this theme literal and invited people to come build a bamboo city. We’re fascinated by people taking up own initiative, and we’re highly intrigued in that sense by the democratic powers of digital / social media, but feel that these should always be linked to physical spaces for people to gather and act. So we offered all those individuals that were collectively twittering away at PICNIC, a Bamboo Bash with some real-time analogue action! It was telling to see that while building together, people construct much more than just a bamboo structure. On a more architectural level, the Bash relates for instance to our current role as supervisors of the ‘bottom up masterplan’ in Almere Haven de Wierden, where we’re implementing and testing rule-based d.i.y. urban transformation. In the case of the Bamboo Bash, we wanted to test the possibility to create one social superstructure with help of only one rule: this being that the bamboo should somehow be connected to the ‘bike-highway’ (a wooden ramp which we recycled from our Mediamatic fixed-gear exhibition interior.) The result: Bamboo madness. And a lot of fun!”

29-30 October, 2010, SKOR, Amsterdam. With Arjen Oosterman (Editor-in-Chief of Volume), a.o. More information here. The two-day symposium Speculations on the Cultural Organisation of Civility seeks to connect current debates about care and citizenship in contemporary art, philosophy and politics to realities of healthcare organisation in the Netherlands and internationally. With a focus on healthcare as a prime site of global market-driven transformation in governmental policies, this symposium brings together philosophers, artists, curators and politicians to question the role of art and its assumed ameliorative function. We ask: If art consensualises the increasingly capitalised infrastructures of public care, can it still act as a critical agent? The structure of this symposium stages theories and case studies to come hand in hand, providing a significant and radical overview of the field. Friday October 29, 2010 noon-9 pm Programme Day 1 What are we doing there? Politics and Philosophies of Publicness Official language: English Saturday October 30, 2010 10 am-6 pm Programme Day 2 Who Cares? Case studies of art, curating and healthcare. Official language: English Prologue (Extended programme) Leading to the symposium, a series of artistic events and activities will take place in the city. Two invited expert meetings, a film programme and a series of Artist Positions 'Speculations on the Cultural Organisation of Civility' is the first in the series of symposia Actors, Agents and Attendants that aims to discuss the role of art and the creative industries in the formation of contemporary civility. Specifically, it will question how the current infrastructural and aesthetic relation between art and our increasingly destabilised civic institutions can aid or abet critical forms of public acting. Along with radical shifts in governance and ideology, the concept of what it means to author acts of art in public has shifted dramatically. This series of symposia extends SKOR’s activities towards a more discursive arena in order to develop new strategies for commissioning art in public space.

This year’s Dutch pavilion at the Venice Biennale hosts ‘Vacant NL’, an inventory of empty buildings irrespective of their age or former function. Five thousand of these dormant shells, all government property, are shown as miniature models to indicate the millions of square meters vacant (floor) space in the Netherlands alone. Volume editors Rem Koolhaas, Mark Wigley, Jeffrey Inaba and myself gave a first reaction on the theme, and presented some ideas for further exploration during the opening weekend. In particular, Rem Koolhaas presented OMA’s experience with changing an old prison in the Netherlands in the early 1980s; Jeffrey Inaba connected VOLUME’s latest issue on counterculture as a mentality and socio-political experiment with respect to the task presented here; Mark Wigley stressed the normality and necessity of a certain percentage of empty building stock, pointing at the inspirational and stimulating aspects. My five remarks, presented while seated below the ‘low ceiling’ of the blue foam marquette in the Dutch pavilion, reappear below. 1. If AMO/OMA, in one of the rooms of this exhibition’s main pavilion, states that it ‘has been obsessed, from the beginning, with history’ (propagating an ‘almost doing nothing’ approach), I can also remark that VOLUME/Archis has been obsessed from its beginning with empty buildings. The reasons may in part have been banal – the need of cheap office space – but the engagement was and is sincere. Archis is currently housed in the former health service center of Shell in Amsterdam and is involved in the reuse of other buildings on this huge inner-city site. We are also addressing the issue of what to do with the larger part of the former Shell terrain that awaits redevelopment, after most of its abandoned laboratory buildings have been demolished although the projected residential buildings have been put on hold. The expected delay in redevelopment will be 5 to 10 years, leaving the site as a fenced-off, empty sand pit for years to come. So my first remark is: vacancy is not only about empty buildings, but also about empty land and vacant plots.

22 September-24 September, 2010, PICNIC Festival, Westergasfabriek, Amsterdam. More information here. Build architectural constructions of bamboo around a wooden bicycle track. The track, commissioned by Mediamatic, was designed by DUS Architects and will serve as the 'city-ring'. Around it we'll create an urban bamboo landscape. Every hour you'll see the structure grow, until it's a massive bamboo-constructed city. Antoon Versteegde is known for his immense installations constructed in the public space. DUS Architects specialize in social architecture. Please RSVP if you want to participate. The chance to work on such a project doesn't come around often, and the workshop will only set you back € 25. This is a three day event, so make sure you RSVP for the day of your choice.Wednesday September 22, Thursday September 23, or Friday September 24.

On FlowingData we found a map which provides insight in how the Mississippi river has evolved over the past. In 1944, cartographer Harold Fisk mapped the current Mississippi River — the white channel on the map. Besides that, he drew the river as it had been in earlier decades (all colored ribbons), based on old geological maps, and created a fascinating graphic for the Army Corps of Engineers. Click here to view a graphic of the entire Mississippi river.

15-19 September, Broedplaats Westerdok, Amsterdam. In response to economic and environmental pressures, innovative city administrations are actively seeking temporary land and building uses that support the city and its people physically, economically and socially. Urban agriculture projects can bring positive new life to the many unproductive urban voids that are mushrooming in our cities, leading to better living environments and stimulating local economies. Through Farming the City, CITIES and the dienst Ruimtelijke Ordening Proeftuin Amsterdam are bringing together farmers, local communities, policy makers, academics, students, architects, designers, technologists, engineers, city users, commuters and tourists to trigger imagination and share knowledge, skills and ideas about urban agriculture. By highlighting the range of innovative projects taking place around the world, it aims to promote existing projects and to explore creative new ways of taking city farming projects forward. CITIES proposes a collection of case studies and examples of urban agriculture projects from Amsterdam and all over the world. The examples of urban agriculture shown in this exhibition are divided into three groups. Community activism Typically, urban agriculture projects have been developed by local communities, for example produce markets, city farms and garden allotments. An emerging new public policy focus on community engagement and local partnership working is creating new opportunities for community-based projects to inspire, develop and prosper: Innovative public policy Local authorities recognise the benefits of encouraging urban agriculture through existing and future planning and land use policy. Supporting city farming delivers a range of benefits: providing locally-produced fresh food, greening the city, reducing waste, improving public health and enabling the growth of productive community partnerships. Design, technology and engineering As economic and environmental pressures rise up the political agenda, technological innovators, engineers, architects, landscape designers, planners and urban designers have responded to the need to develop more sustainable ways of living. New forms of vertical farms, green domes, roofs and walls, water gardens, green towers, green bridges and perfume jungles offer new scope and potential for the viability of urban agriculture. During the launching event, local actors, active in the urban agriculture field, will work together to define new strategies. Eight workshops, one each city district, will be hosted by city council representatives. For the city center, a selected group of professionals from different disciplines will work on the definition of new visions and plans, while in the other districts attention will be focused on the implementation of existing plans. The final results will be presented during the opening of the exhibition.

Spectacular architecture was one of the backbones of last Olympic Games organized in Beijing. Both the Bird's Nest and the Water Cube were meant to attract attention on the event and the city on a global level. This approach or discourse in architecture and city marketing provoked a lot of criticism worldwide. Questions were asked, such as what to do with a hugh mega stadium and an olympic swimming pool after the Olympics? And should buildings, this big and pretentious, be built to facilitate a four week event only? Since the end of the Olympics in 2008, the Bird's Nest hasn't found a significant use. According to Wikipedia only two events were planned, both on 8 August 2009, the one-year anniversary of the stadium's opening. One is a performance of the opera Turandot. The other is the final of the Supercoppa Italiana (Italian Super Cup). Football team the Beijing Guo was supposed to play at the stadium, but finally they didn't want to use a 80,000+ seat venue for games that routinely draw only slightly more than 10,000 people.

Volume #24: Counterculture Few people are out protesting in the street or tripping on acid in America these days, yet many of the social principles of its hippie generation are now mainstream. The most celebrated example of the continuing influence of 60s alternative values is in the world of technology. In his book From Counterculture to Cyberculture, media historian Fred Turner describes a group of 60s figures who did not revolt against a menacing, out of touch ‘establishment’ as the familiar narrative tells us, but took a seemingly contradictory interest in defense technologies developing within the military­industrial complex. Turner observes that the countercultural ethos of demanding access to knowledge invoked by Stewart Brand and others influenced the development of the personal computer products and network tools that popularized the web and initiated our shift to a society that thrives on information.

Saturday, July 31, 2010, 12.30–5.00 p.m., Artscape Wychwood Barns, Toronto. Click here for more information. Foodprint Toronto is the second in a series of international conversations about food and the city. When you look at the city through the lens of food, what do you see? Following on the success of its first event, Foodprint NYC, which was held in front of a packed house at Columbia University’s Studio-X earlier this year, the program for Foodprint Toronto will include four panel discussions: Zoning Diet, a conversation about the ways zoning, policy, and economics shape Toronto’s food systems; Culinary Cartography, an exploration of what can we learn when we map Toronto using food as the metric, Edible Archaeology, a look at Toronto’s food history in the context of the present; and Feast, Famine, and Other Scenarios — a chance to speculate on the opportunities and challenges of Toronto’s possible food futures.

The Radical Architecture of Little Magazines 196X–197X Maastricht The opening of the successful traveling exhibition Clip, Stamp, Fold in Maastricht marks a renewed interest in various forms of engagement in the field of architecture and urbanism. The exhibition, based on research by Beatriz Colomina and her Princeton students on so-called ‘little magazines’ in the 1960s and 70s, was initially staged at Storefront in New York, November 2006. (A part of this research was published in Volume 10). It has since traveled to several cities in the US and Europe, including the lesser-known architectural hubs of Oslo, Vancouver and Murcia. What is interesting about the exhibition is not only its content, but also that it is a growing archive; with every new installation, a local or regional addition is added to the core of the exhibition. In Maastricht, the extension (called ‘Staple’ so the full title becomes Clip/Stamp/Fold/Staple) is a series of Dutch magazines that fit the profile that were published from the 80s up to the present. Volume is represented in this section that was researched by Marina van Bergen.

The Barcelona Institute of Architecture (BIArch) is an international institution furthering interaction between research, practice and dissemination of contemporary architecture, BIArch is an open laboratory for professionals and researchers that promotes new ways of thinking and practicing architecture in face of technological, energy, and economic conditions in permanent change. The MBIAch is a post-professional Master's degree program for individuals holding a professional degree in architecture. The program requires one year of full-time study and covers 60 ECTS credits, with a degree awarded by the Institute and recognized by the Universitat Pompeu fabra. The MBIArch is offered entirely in English. Late application deadline is 15 July, 2010.

21-30 July, 2010, Bauhaus Dessau Foundation. More information here. Application deadline: 9 July, 2010. Click here to apply. The second international Summer School run by the Academy of the Bauhaus Dessau Foundation aims to organise an idea contest within the framework of a summer school, where, inspired by the ‘Growing House’ from 1932, fantasies for a multi-local living in today’s Dessau shall be thought up. In 1932, Martin Wagner organised the competition ‘The Growing House’ which was announced in several leading architectural magazines. The idea was conceived during a time of radical change in housing policy after ‘the Golden Twenties’: virtually over night the achievements made during this era in building and urban development seemed to have become worthless. The Great Depression had brought on a crisis in the building industry. Housing construction dropped down to a third of what it had been in the 1920s. The housing shortage drove people to the suburbs, into allotments and small summer houses. Some observers were talking about an ‘exodus from the cities’ which could cause cities to ‘die’. For others it was an expression of an emerging new form of settlement. The competition revisited a theme which had already been spreading virulently during the hardship of the post-war years: ‘Growing’ as a form of ‘natural building’ which would offer an adjustment strategy in times of abrupt swings from crisis to boom. 24 model houses were built to designs from the prize winners and members of the working party and were presented in the summer of 1932 in the exhibition ‘Sonne, Luft und Haus für alle’ (Sun, air and homes for all). Despite the crash of the building industry, one of the decisive criteria was the use of the most advanced construction technology, that is industrial prefabrication. Unlike the heydays of the ‘New Building’ in the 1920s, this exhibition presented solutions to those on a low-income who dreamed of their own home: houses which were flexible enough to adapt to shifting economic conditions and a constant change in family structures, and needed a minimum of resources to do so. Also living under difficult economic conditions had made the connection to the garden a prominent theme. What’s more, the exhibition title ‘Sun, air and homes for all’ put an emphasis on the recreational value of the garden. The Berlin exhibition made deliberate use of the metaphor of athletic sunbathing people and created an active link between home and leisure. The entries wanted to be understood as contributions to the emergence of a new type of settlement. But because they were reminiscent of bungalows they were criticised for being merely extendable weekend cottages or summer houses. For Wagner the economic crisis was heralding the end of the market economy and a shift towards socialism.

Through Blueprint Magazine we found out about the birth of a machine that is able to print entire buildings. The monster is located near Pisa, Italy, and its father is Enrico Dini, an engineer with a background in offline programming systems for six-axis robots. "Driven by CAD software installed on a dust-covered computer terminal, the armature moves just millimetres above a pile of sand, expressing a magnesium-based solution from hundreds of nozzles on its lower side. It makes four passes. The layer dries and Enrico Dini recalibrates the armature frame. The system deposits the sand and then inorganic binding ink. The exercise is repeated. The millennia-long process of laying down sedimentary rock is accelerated into a day. A building emerges. This machine could be used to construct anything."