During the VOLUME 67 launch on June 26th, you will be able to play FALSEWORK‘s Urban Design Tarot – a playful tool to reawaken creative thinking about cities and complexity. We asked Tim Peeters of the Rotterdam-based studio to introduce their project.

Tim Peeters: “Urban design, especially in challenging locations, is a complex and therefore to some extent mysterious activity. Oftentimes an opaque tangle of interests, actors, preconditions and ambitions obfuscates the relationship between causes and effects – or indeed whether something is a cause or an effect at all. The urge to manage complexity, an endeavour which inevitably involves enormous amounts of meetings and e-mails, may lead to greater clarity yet also generates results that do not really spark the imagination. Bureaucracy and risk management paralyse our creativity: the more knowledge is being accumulated, the harder it seems to become to come up with powerful or surprising solutions. That makes perfect sense, actually: those who have charted every obstacle on the road take the safest route home – or won’t leave the house at all.

This deck of Tarot cards offers a solution by revealing unexpected paths through the swamp of dullness.

Since most urban projects carry enormous potential for positive change, it is crucial not to let risk aversion hamper creativity too much. This deck of Tarot cards offers a solution by revealing unexpected paths through the swamp of dullness. The discourse of city development is condensed into 78 illustrated playing cards – actors, tools, concepts, themes – through which an infinite spectrum of strategies for urban development can be divined. By drawing a number of cards, and carefully interpreting their meaning, ways to jolt a stagnant thought process back to life will make themselves known.

This deck of cards does not offer ready-made solutions. Almost nothing in life ever does. Instead, it provides provoking surprises and reflections, especially when consulted during a group session. Through the cards, those involved can explore the possibilities – and impossibilities – of certain lines of thought within a particular case.”

Join us for the V67 launch!

Date: Thursday June 26
Time: 17.00 – 19.00
Location: Athenaeum Nieuwscentrum, Spui 14-16, 1012 XA Amsterdam
Language: English
Tickets: Entry is free. Register via Nieuwe Instituut to let us know you´re joining.
Program:

• 17.00 – 17.30: Walk-in
• 17.30 – 17.50: Talks by Stephan Petermann, Iwan Baan, and Falsework
• 17.50 – 19.00: Snacks and drinks, opportunity to play Urban Design Tarot