Via Yarbus, the new web project of former Volume/Archis web editor Edwin Gardner, we found this amazing presentation tool for architects and designers. Zebra Imaging 3D prints recently came up with a method to show virtual 3D models to a group of stakeholders. Zebra's holographic images enables architects and designers to show their 3D model without taking it. All sorts of architectural data can be transformed into a mind-blowing holographic animation. According to its makers, this method is much more rapid, much more accurate and less expensive than a real model. Interesting is the fact that the panel is a flat piece of plastic which is easy to transport, in contrary to regular 3D models. The times that we see an architect struggling in public transport while carrying unhandy models packed in wrapped garbage bag foil, are over soon. As the video explains we are not able to experience the whole effect as we are watching it on a 2D monitor. Nevertheless, this looks already amazing. All different perspectives can be shown — from street level to a bird's eye perspective. The models are available in different sizes and are full color. Next to architecture, this application finds a use in showing 3D maps for military operations.

"The city lets us know what they are up to by creating billboards that announce their projects. The Studio for Unsolicited Architecture and DUS Architects have pasted over five of these signs in Rotterdam with their own suggestions of how to make these projects more sustainable, more social and more exciting."

After buying a ghost town in the middle of nowhere, the new owner has to come up with a plan. The idea of privatizing property on this scale is a relatively new spatial phenomenon, which is exciting. Redeveloping a city that used to give home to 5,000 people with private money, is quite a job. According to the auction committee the new buyer can do whatever he or she wants with the area, as long as he will stick to the local environmental and building rules. Taking a close watch at the history of housing and the principles of human settlement, it will be immensely difficult to attract people to live here. There are no services and no other people, and there is no particular promise or story. Therefore I think housing will not work here. Pure recreation will not work either since there is no special attractor in the close environment, apart from a river and a small lake.

Yesterday we paid attention to Skrunda's auction and the new situation the east Latvian town has to deal with. A load of pictures of desolate cities and abandoned buildings inspired us to find out a little more about its history. A couple of professional news reports and home-made cinematic efforts, show a rather emotional situation. The Guardian reports about the rather mysterious history of Skundra-1: "Built in the 1980s, Skrunda-1 was a secret settlement not marked on Soviet maps because of the two enormous radar installations that listened to objects in space and monitored the skies for a U.S. nuclear missile attack. Like all clandestine towns in the Soviet Union, it was kept off maps and given a code-name — which usually consisted of a number and the name of a nearby city."

For three point one million dollar, in London, New York City or Moscow one buys a 300 square meters apartment in the city center, but on the grey Baltic country side one buys a complete city for this amount of money. A Russian investor bought the ghost town Skrunda-1 in Latvia at an auction in Riga, two weeks ago. The final price of 3.1 million dollars was far beyond expectation as the starting price was ten times less than that (310,000 dollars). Skundra-1 is an old military city that gave shelter to approximately 5,000 people during the Cold War. More than a decade ago the place was left as a consequence of the military and political collapse of the Soviet imperium. It's not clear yet which plans the buyer, Aleksejevskoje-Serviss, has for the property, which counts 45 hectares and is located in western Latvia, about 95 miles (150 kilometers) from Riga. The town consists of about 70 abandoned buildings including apartment blocks, a school, barracks, eateries, gyms and two night clubs.

26 February 2010, the Building Centre, London. Start 9:00 am. The one-day conference 'Unconventional Computing & Architecture' explores new materials for architectural practice in the 21st century. International architects and scientists will explore the decision-making properties of matter and how this may be applied to create increasingly life-like buildings. Organised by The Bartlett’s Advanced Virtual and Technological Architecture Research (AVATAR) group, the conference aims to bring together architects and scientists who are working with new technologies that are capable of self-assembly and organization. Such technologies may form the basis for architecture generated by unconventional computing techniques which range from the actions of protocells, (entirely synthetic DNA-less agents), slime moulds (simple organisms with very complex behaviours), crystalline computing (using the organizing properties of molecules) and algae (that can be engineered to respond to environments in new ways). Neil Spiller founded the AVATAR Group in 2004, whose interdisciplinary research agenda explores all manner of digital and visceral terrain and considers the impact of advanced technology on architectural design, engaging with cybernetics, aesthetics, and philosophy to develop new ways of manipulating the built environment. Speakers: Neil Spiller (University College London), Rachel Armstrong (University College London), Evan Douglis (Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute), Paul Preissner (University of Illinois at Chicago), Lisa Iwamoto (University of California, Berkeley), Philip Beesley (University of Waterloo), Nic Clear (University College London), Martin Hanczyc (University of Southern Denmark), Ben de Lacy Costello (University of West England), Simon Park (University of Surrey), Lee Cronin (University of Glasgow). —More information here.

On Wednesday 12:06 am EST, the astronauts on space shuttle Endeavour docked to the International Space Station. The STS-130 team will be delivering parts including the third connecting module known as 'the Tranquility node' to the station, as well as installing a seven-windowed cupola to be used as a control room for robotics. The mission will also feature three spacewalks. Under the name of Mission Control, online radio station SomaFM broadcasts live mission audio all this week, mixed with atmospherical ambient music. Mission Control Radio is an artistic interpretation of a space mission that expands the listener's imagination. SomaFM music director and DJ Rusty Hodge made a selection of the finest ambient tunes to musically reflect on the space mission. All live audio that comes right from the space station merges with music broadcasted from earth.

We invite you to join us for the launch of our latest issue, VOLUME #22 The Guide, and the special supplement publication Beyroutes: A guide to Beirut. Athenaeum News Centre, Spui, Amsterdam, December 22, 5-7pm Both publications come together in a single packet, and form part of your subscription. About this issue Guiding – as it is commonly understood – is not about creating; it’s about helping. The guide has no goal other than to lead someone safely to the destiny of their choice. The guide is skilled; he or she actually can lead the way, but does so without ambition beyond delivering quality service. The guide sells safety where risk is involved. With The Guide, VOLUME presents a diverse collection of guides and attempts to guide. From strange maps, bike tours and magnetic navigation belts to the conception of Paris’ 13th arrondissement as a series of islands; here, the guide is understood as not simply a service or selling point, but as an exploratory tool, a generator for a proactive engagement with the city. As a supplement to this issue of VOLUME, we also present the separate publication Beyroutes, a guidebook to Beirut, one of the grand capitals of the Middle East. Beyroutes presents an exploded view of a city which lives so many double lives and figures in so many truths, myths and historical falsifications. Visiting the city with this intimate book as your guide makes you feel disoriented, appreciative, judgmental and perhaps eventually reconciliatory. Beyroutes is the field manual for 21st century urban explorer. Contributors The Guide: Arjen Oosterman, Jan van Grunsven, Ole Bouman, Rory Hyde, Atelier Bow-Wow, Michael Kubo, Edwin Gardner, Filip Mischelwitsch, Jonathan Hanahan, Louisa Bufardeci, Sunny Bains, Anastassia Smirnova, Thomas Daniell, Kate Rhodes, Naomi Stead, Thomas Kilpper, Lucy Bullivant, Christian Ernsten, Charles Esche + The Detroit Unreal Estate Agency (Andrew Herscher a.o.) VOLUME Magazine #22 was conceived and edited by Archis. Supported by the Mondriaan Foundation and the University of Michigan. Beyroutes: With contributions by Maureen Abi Ghanem, Romy Assouad, Hisham Awad, Cleo Campert, Joane Chaker, Tony Chakar, Zinab Chahine, Steve Eid, Christian Ernsten, Christiaan Fruneaux, Edwin Gardner, David Habchy, Mona Harb, Pascale Harès, Jasper Harlaar, Janneke Hulshof, Hanane Kaï, Karen Klink, Niels Lestrade, Mona Merhi, Elias Moubarak, Tarek Moukaddem, Kamal Mouzawak, Joe Mounzer, Alex Nysten, Nienke Nauta, Ahmad Osman, Haig Papazian, Pieter Paul Pothoven, Rani al Rajji, Joost Janmaat, Jan Rothuizen, Ruben Schrameijer, Reem Saouma, Michael Stanton, George Zouein Beyroutes was initiated by Studio Beirut in collaboration with Partizan Publik, Archis and the Pearl Foundation. Supported by Prince Claus Fund, Fund Working on the Quality of Living and the Netherlands Embassy in Lebanon.

The Prince Claus Fund and the Netherlands Foundation for Visual Arts, Design and Architecture invite you to a lunch lecture by Colombian architect and 2009 Principal Prince Claus Laureate Simón Vélez. Simón Vélez’s aesthetic and technical innovations in bamboo have enhanced its construction potential and challenged mainstream architectural trends. He invented a new method to build foundations and roofs, which transformed one of the world’s oldest building materials, namely bamboo, into a modern resource that meets the strictest international construction regulations and can even outperform steel. For this contribution, on the 16th of December Simón Vélez will receive the 2009 Principal Prince Claus Award. What: Lunch lecture When: Thursday 17 December 2009, 12.00 – 13.00 hrs Where: Zuiderkerk, Zuiderkerkhof 72, Amsterdam, NL Register: www.princeclausfund.org This lecture is organised in cooperation with Dienst Ruimtelijk Ordening Amsterdam, Tolhuistuin en Archis/Volume. Image: Simón Vélez, Crosswater Ecolodge, Nankun Mountains, China.

Former Volume-er Simon Pennec gives a round up of his highlights of the Architecture Film Festival Rotterdam (AFFR) that ran from October 29 to November 1 2009. The 5th edition of the AFFR gathered an eclectic crowd of architects, artists, film-makers, curators and designers for three days of intense programming of shorts, documentaries, long features and arthouse videos. This year, the festival promised to frame the city and its architecture in the midst of the financial crisis; with the selection reflecting on potential urban and architectural futures. The themes presented explored the highs and lows of architecture: West Coast modernism, Russian Avant-Garde and Architecture of Hope, the legacy of Jane Jacobs and a rich series of city documentaries exploring the ‘Great Planning Disasters’. The vast number of films turned the weekend into a challenge, and the need to strategize and tailor a programme quickly became everyone’s motto. I managed to watch 26 films including 18 shorts, most of them connected to the ‘crisis’ headline of the festival and the collective city.

City as Heart(s) “As a biologist, I see cities as living organisms. Pulsating bodies made up of new and dying cells and kept alive by the people flowing through their arteries. Cities grow, swell, change shape, absorb and eject. This is not about cities with a heart, but about cities as a heart; pumping oxygen and fresh blood into the greater metropolitan areas.” - Jacqueline Cramer, minister of the Environment and Spatial Planning Hearing these words at the closing speech of Morgen/Tomorrow - the International Urban Planning Congress held in Amsterdam – one may travel into the memory of “The Heart of the City”, theme of the 8th International Congress of Modern Architecture (CIAM VIII, 1951, Hoddesdon, England). Today, as then, it was an important moment where urban planners and architects from all around the world gathered to discuss the City as a living liveable centre (core/cuore/coeur). Still today it has a fundamental role in the balance of the expanded new (Open) City. As an Open City enthusiast, Kees Christiaanse speech alerted to the present status of worldwide metropolises, dealing with the multiple layers of their multicultural heritage: “The enemies of the open city are the open city itself”. Thus, the coexistence of ethnic communities which do not communicate with one another (the favelas of São Paulo and the city of Jakarta were examples given) and rather just inhabit in the same metropolitan structure it is a phenomenon that must be surpassed by city government. Exploring deeper the Netherlands point of view on the Open City, Zef Hemel’s (Substituting the canceled speech of Anastasia Volynskaya’s) presented his “Free State of Amsterdam” speech in a cheerful tone of positive aura upon Planning, as described by his nine “Amsterdam Principles”. The focus on the city of Amsterdam continued in the afternoon workshop “Urban Governance and Liveable cities”, where Maarten van Poelgeest (Alderman of Amsterdam for Town and Country Planning) and Hessel Boerboom (Ministry of the Interior and Kingdom Relations) could reveal a bit of Amsterdam projects for the future.

Friday November 20, 5 pm, The Forum, NAI. Admission is free. Every Friday afternoon during the Open City Event Program, a local “cultural ambassador” hosts a performance, presentation or discussion related to the theme of the week. Tomorrow evening, Lilet Breddels of VOLUME magazine will present artist Thomas Kilpper and his project/competition for A Lighthouse for Lampedusa! Following a film and short lecture by Kilpper, a discussion with curator Marina Sorbello will explore the possible role of art and architecture in socio-political issues. A Lighthouse for Lampedusa! Almost every day there are news reports of refugees arriving at Europe’s southern shores. In 2008, about 30,000 refugees reached Europe via the Italian island of Lampedusa. Thousands drown in the sea—aid organizations estimate that one out of ten migrants die during this dangerous crossing. For the relatively small island of Lampedusa, with about 4,000 inhabitants, the endless stream of arriving migrants causes a lot of practical problems, bringing the administration to the brink of collapse. In 2008, the refugee center reached breaking point when up to 2,000 people were held in confinement under cramped conditions, in a space designed for a maximum of 700 people. Instead of helping Lampedusa to ease the situation on the ground and to relocate the migrants to the mainland like in the past, the Italian government further escalated the problem when it insisted that the detained migrants be kept on the island, and to erect a second detention- and deportation-center for them. In January 2009, the islanders went on a general strike against these plans, using the slogan: “No Alcatras in Lampedusa.” Participants expressed their desire to live on an open island: “To live from tourism and to welcome the poorest of the poor if they arrive...” (quotation of the Mayor of Lampedusa, 2009)