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.

Hello, you probably know me, not necessarily me (Edwin Gardner), but at least you've been confronted with me one way or another. Through the Archis/Volume newsletter, posts on the Volume blog, bookmarks, tweets and facebook updates, in other words the whole social media arsenal which is at every web-editor's disposal these days. But alas, it is also Goodbye. In 2005 I started at Archis/Volume with a summer internship, and by making my first contribution to the Broadcasting Architecture issue (#3), and surely that won't be my last contribution to the magazine, I'll stay on the team as editorial consultant, I'll stay blogging on the Action! blog (together with mr. Hyde), and dumping the occasional link through one of the before mentioned channels. Beside that you can follow my ongoings @edwingardner. Then there is another Hello! A hello i'm proud and pleased to give. I would like to introduce you to Jeroen Beekmans and Joop de Boer from Golfstromen who will take over the helm of the Archis/Volume web-machine. Perhaps you know them from their prolific blog The Pop-Up City or Amsterdam's Pecha Kucha night, If not you will become very ambiently aware and digitally intimate with them soon enough. For now, adieu!

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)

About Solar Decathlon For three weeks in October 2009, the U.S. Department of Energy will host the Solar Decathlon—a competition in which 20 teams of college and university students compete to design, build, and operate the most attractive, effective, and energy-efficient solar-powered house. The Solar Decathlon is also an event to which the public is invited to observe the powerful combination of solar energy, energy efficiency, and the best in home design. Exact dates of the 2009 event are: Oct. 8-16—Teams compete in 10 contests Oct. 9-13—Houses are open to the public Oct. 15-18—Houses are open to the public Oct. 19-21—Teams disassemble their houses. The Solar Decathlon houses will be open for public tours 11 a.m. –3 p.m. Monday–Friday and 10 a.m.–5 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays. Please note that all homes will be closed Wed., Oct. 14.

Subtopia's Bryan Finoki is doing some pioneering in terms of architectural education. He got invited to "teach his blog." In a series of guest posts on the Volume blog, he will share his personal experiences as a first time teacher, leading a seminar on 'military urbanism' and 'spatial justice', in which he hopes to help architecture students become 'spatial interrogators'. Already a month has passed since I officially started teaching here at Woodbury University’s School of Architecture in San Diego and it’s been incredibly exciting! I was more than flattered a few months ago to have been invited. After all, I’m not exactly a seasoned vet. In fact, this is the first time I’ve ever officially taught anything. Better, I’m no architect, nor do I have anything resembling one of those highfalutin backgrounds architects tend to flaunt, or really any formal connection to the discipline whatsoever. Yet, I’m teaching both a seminar framed around my blog—Subtopia—(by myself) and an urban design studio with my friend Rene Peralta.

Saturday, 19 September, 7-9 pm Studio-X, New York Please join us for the launch of "Volume 20: Storytelling," edited by C-Lab on Saturday, 9/19 from 7-9pm at Studio-X. Mark Wigley will offer an introduction and comments on the occasion of Volume's milestone 20th issue. Drinks and music to follow. Sponsored by Studio-X. With Contributions by: Lewis Lapham, Tom McCarthy, Bjarke Ingels, Neil Denari, Nicholas Lemann, Roger Dean Catherine Hardwicke, Smiljan Radic and more... Studio-X 180 Varick Street, Suite 1610 Between King and Charleton Streets 1 train to Houston Street 212 989 2398

23 to 25 September, Westergasfabriek, Amsterdam PICNIC 2009 PICNIC is a cross-discipline platform for creative conversation and collaboration. It's a unique festival featuring a strategic conference, complimented by hands-on workshops and matchmaking sessions. One of the themes sounds especially interesting when considering the built environment: Exploding Media Exploding Media will showcase the latest changes in media technologies impacting user interaction, engagement, and communications with a special focus on gaming, connectivity and real-time social media. This is the story of the extraordinary transformation of Media from all the creative and technological aspects. From traditional storytelling to the impact of gaming on education, from city interaction and augmented reality to the Metaverse, this narrative will feature the latest innovations and disruptions that the media industry is facing. We will look at the emerging opportunities and business implications for the creative industry that these changes will bring. Speakers will be the creative geniuses pushing the envelope on these new developments. For a more elaborate analysis of what this years PICNIC has to offer those interested in the spatial implication of technology check out The Mobile City

1 & 2 October 2009, Westergasfabriek Amsterdam Tommorrow, International Urban Planning Congress Amsterdam Metropoles - world cities - are lead players in the global economy. Though they cover just 2 percent of the earth’s surface, cities consume 75 percent of the resources utilized by humankind. In the early 20th century, when Alderman F.M. ‘Floor’ Wibaut (1859-1936), a pioneering steersman of Amsterdam’s urban development and social housing policy, was politically and professionally active, the growth of major cities around the world seemed to attain an absolute peak. Endeavouring to steer the city’s ongoing development was therefore an exercise as urgent as it was logical. It was at this time that town and regional planning emerged in a fruitful interchange of knowledge and experience between administrators and specialists. Half the world’s population now resides in cities. Metropolises are sprouting up in Asia, Africa and South America at an unprecedented rate. Within 20 to 30 years some three quarters of the world’s population will be living in cities, giving rise to new issues. Cities elsewhere will over that same time-span need to find a response to population growth that is levelling off or even shrinking populations. The fields of urban development and spatial planning, now a century old, are faced with new challenges. ‘The future governance of Amsterdam will be focused on the material prosperity and mental welfare of the great mass of workers. Tomorrow the meaning of the word “prosperity” will be something quite different to what this word meant to Amsterdam in bygone times as chronicled by our historians and eulogized by our poets …. The advancement of prosperity as a responsibility of governments will in future entail the implementation of governmental provision of collective amenities across an ever-broader range of that great multitude’s collective needs, in every domain where collective services prove to be more efficient than individual provision. … ‘We are seeing the emergence of the view that the promotion of welfare – as far as this can nowadays be a task assumed by government – must be based on the exertion of governmental powers to introduce collective amenities for acknowledged needs wherever social expediency requires it.’ Dr F.M. Wibaut in his ‘Tomorrow’ speech (1925) With: Ken Livingstone, Maarten Hajer, Hermann Scheer, Tim Lang, Eric Corijn, Dieter Läpple, LaDonna Redmond, Michael Madison, Kees Christiaanse, Irina Ivashkina, P.K. Das, Edi Rama more info can be found here and in this PDF

This is the first of the FWD series, which summarizes hand picked content I find elsewhere on the web and would like to share with you. from the In the Shadow of Progress a picture show on the GOOD website. The stark reality of this moment in time is that many people are losing their jobs, their homes, and their ways of life. Yet amid what can seem like ceaseless news of loss, there are those who refuse to surrender hope. Nowhere is this more apparent than in Tent City, a temporary encampment below a freeway in Nashville, Tennessee, where hard-pressed and otherwise homeless strangers have come together to form a community. - see the entire picture show on GOOD From the harsh reality of Tent Cities we move to how the instruments with which we engage these problems are changing. In his piece The End to Movements on arthurmag.com(via Burak Arikan) Douglas Rushkoff poses a theory that the phenomenon of 'movements' as a means of civil activism has reached its limits. (Also check out the recent interview with Ruskhkoff and Kurt Andersen on Design Observer)

First of all, I must make a warning: I will not recur to airing a quick succession of 140 characters tweets, nor will I use the latest live-feed technology to try and let you understand how Beyond Media felt to me like a festival haunted by its very initial premises. Nope. Instead, I’ll go back to the very old means of putting up one word after the other, and one paragraph after the other, and try to telescope you into the heart of that simple argument by means of a very personal interpretation. When I say that this Festival is “haunted by its very initial premises” I do not mean that showing the audiovisual media which are today quintessential to architecture representation should bear any special problem. On the contrary, it is only natural and logical that someone should be doing it. At its 9th edition, the Florence festival also has it in its curriculum to be one of the first to do so. The ghosts I am referring to, instead, are those of the so-called digital culture. When Beyond Media was initiated by multitasking Marco Brizzi in 1997, it was only too obvious to a given few that digital tools were there to change the way we worked, the way we designed reality, the way we represented it and also thought about it. By then, it was also acceptable to let yourself immerge in the fascination that is due to the enormous possibilities granted by these new tools.