Beyond Architecture Imaginative Buildings and Fictional Cities Beyond Architecture is the first publication of its kind to document the creative exploration of architecture and urban propositions in the contemporary arts. The projects collected in this book demonstrate how not only architects and designers, but also artists are taking architecture as a starting point for experimentation. They range from performance, installation art and crafted sculptures to architectural models, alternative ideas for living spaces and furniture, as well as illustration, painting, collage and photography. Through stunning photography, visuals and complementary texts, these visionary concepts reveal the hidden creative potential for architecture and urban environments in inventive ways. Editors: R. Klanten, L. Feireiss Release: February 2009 Price: € 44,00 / $ 65,00 / £ 40,00 Format: 24 x30 cm Features: 208 pages, full colour, hardcover ISBN: 978-3-89955-235-5 get Beyond Architecture

16 June 2009 – 26 June 2009 at Berlage Institute - Botersloot 25, Rotterdam Imagining Recovery is an exhibition based on an international competition charging designers to collectively imagine innovation recovery through design. Designers were asked to offer their expertise in designing a means of getting from the present to the image of recovery. On 20 January 2009, the first day of the Obama presidency, began the current administration’s commitment to transparency, participation and collaboration in government. On 17 February, President Obama signed the Recovery Act into law and launched Recovery.gov, a website publishing the spending of recovery funds in the name of transparency, offering “maps, charts, and graphics” to illustrate the distribution of funds. The exhibition calls upon designers of all types to imagine the futures these maps, charts, graphics and accounting figures serve to anticipate, and to interpret for the public the lived experience of this future by producing an image of recovery. This moment of change offers an opportunity for designers to rethink their role in our society. Imagining Recovery promotes collaboration by pairing designers with policy makers to collectively write the competition brief, proposing a model wherein designers can actively participate in the initial imaginings of the policies they will be called upon to implement.

the Masters of Intervention event with a lecture by Nader Vossoughian, titled Happy City the next issue of Volume 'Architecture of Hope' will be presented at Felix Meritis (Amsterdam): Sunday 5 april 2009 14.00 - 17.00 Teekenzaal - Felix Meritis, Amsterdam Special Masterclass at P!ONEER Can we build a happy city? Can we engineer happiness? A Masterclass on creative industry, social cohesion, participatory planning and creating new worlds What is left of the highmodernist ideals? How do they translate into the Wijkaanpak,the national push to uplift the Dutch ghettos? And what instruments have we got to engineer society and change people in their beliefs and behavior? Nader Vossoughian wrote on the global polis and its engineer of happiness Otto Neurath. He has a strong vision on the knowledge economy, how it creates ignorance and intelligence. Is ignorance bliss? Or do we set course to develop a responsible participatory community? What is the ethics of urban transformation? Free entry for applicants for this program, reservation is necessary: maakbaarheid@partizanpublik.nl For more information on the Masters of Intervention go to engineeringsociety.wordpress.com [NL]

Al Manakh launches its website at Art Dubai and Sharjah Biennial 9 16-21 March 2009 The team responsible for Al Manakh 2 is expanding its network in the Gulf with researchers, correspondents and photographers. Yesterday, March 16, Rem Koolhaas one of the editors of Al Manakh gave a lecture at the Sharjah Biennial 9, sharing his experiences in the Gulf region over the last five years. Koolhaas touched upon his respect for the region and how his insights to the Gulf have developed through professional experience. He approached the Gulf as a mirror for the Western mind set, as the ultimate extravaganza that architecture worldwide suffered from. Largely developed with Western stakeholders, Dubai heard its first dismissal from those same sources. Now when the credit crisis -generated by the West- is hitting the Gulf region, that same Western world that hugely profited from the wealth is now the first to proclaim its decline.

Last week(end) Volume has been present in an exposé of magazine culture around the world. Tokyo and Luxembourg to be precise. In Tokyo, Volume was exhibited in the We ♥ Magazines Library which opened last week in Omotesando Hills, Tokyo. Colophon2009 - Luxembourg (see slideshow full screen) Another celebration of the independent periodical took place in Colophon2009 in Luxembourg. Magazine makers from all over the world gathered in a congregation discussing, lecturing and networking in concert with publishers, distributors, designers and other magazine enthusiasts. Volume was invited as one of the ten Magazines to outfit an exhibition space, capturing some of the spirit of the our publication. Volume's exhibit was titled "The Situation Room," referring to the crisis management space under the White House, and evoking imagery of Ken Adam's War Room he designed for Dr. Strangelove. On the 7 meter high walls of the Volume situation room two windows on the world were projected, one with imagery of the various RSVP events that were organized since 2004, on the other textual commentary and analysis of the RSVP events. A dialogue between image and text. Between these two projections an eight seat conference table where the agenda's for architecture that emerged from these events be discussed. Surfacing one of the central drives of the Volume project: uncovering new urgencies an opportunities for architecture.

Volume Bootleg Edition by C-Lab for Urban China As the second installment in an ongoing editorial project between Urban China and Volume, we have produced this limited edition publication on the occasion of the exhibition Informal Cities at the New Museum. Inspired by the unofficial compilations sold by fans at music concerts, we offer a bootleg issue of Urban China. The bootleg is a DIY format for assembling and disseminating work within a circle of hardcore fans, typically consisting of live work recorded, sequenced and edited by the concertgoer. Unlike a pirated copy or fake which tries to assume the identity of an authorized product and is motivated by a desire for profit, a bootleg announces itself as an improvised, illegitimate work and is largely motivated by a wish to share. Given the urgency of the topic, C-Lab has borrowed the bootleg format to quickly distribute observations, initiated in dialogue with Urban China, on the crisis and its management.