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.
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.
