As part of a series on craftsmanship the Amsterdam Academy of Architecture has invited Joe Osae-Addo to give a lecture on craftmanship. Please click on FULL TEXT for further details.
In the first part of the lecture series “professional knowledge” or “craftsmanship” the Amsterdam Academy of Architecture will invite a fellow craftsman each week to talk about the craftsmanship of the architect.
The focus of the series are all the different perspectives and fields of forces in the craft. From these fields of forces, a discussion about the design (of the building) and the position and attitude of the architect will emerge.
A large portion of craftsmanship consists in undiscussed actions and intuition. These are what we are trying to get out on the table.
The government of Southern Sudan, which is autonomous from Sudan and will vote on a referendum for independence next year, has revealed a plan to build new urban centers in all ten of its state capitals. The $10.1 billion plan, which would take about 20 years to complete, proposes remaking cities in Sudan’s south into shapes of animals and fruits found on regional flags. The Undersecretary for Housing and Physical Planning, Daniel Wani, says he hopes the plans will demonstrate the housing ministry’s desire to think creatively about how to remake southern Sudan for the future.
The government of Southern Sudan, which is autonomous from Sudan and will vote on a referendum for independence next year, has revealed a plan to build new urban centers in all ten of its state capitals. The $10.1 billion plan, which would take about 20 years to complete, proposes remaking cities in Sudan’s south into shapes of animals and fruits found on regional flags.
The Undersecretary for Housing and Physical Planning, Daniel Wani, says he hopes the plans will demonstrate the housing ministry’s desire to think creatively about how to remake southern Sudan for the future.
David Slocum from the Berlin School of Creative Leadership attended ZIFF Literary Forum at Mtoni Palace, Zanzibar (Tanzania) July 2010. He has written a review of 'Mtoni: Palace, Sultan & Princess of Zanzibar' published by ArchiAfrika. Please see Full Text for an extract of the review on 'Mtoni: Palace, Sultan & Princess of Zanzibar'.
The 2010 Zanzibar International Film Festival (ZIFF) Literary Forum provided the occasion to launch two books that speak to various aspects of the island’s annual celebration of Zanzibari, African and Indian Ocean history and culture.
Antoni Folkers, with Anne-Katrien Denissen, Abdul Sheriff, Gerrot Smienk, and Frank Koopman, Mtoni: Palace, Sultan & Princess of Zanzibar (Utrecht: ArchiAfrika, 2010)
Abdul Sheriff, Dhow Cultures of the Indian Ocean: Cosmopolitanism, Commerce and Islam (London: Hurst/ZIORI and New York: Columbia UP/Hurst, 2010)
Blueprints of Paradise involves African architects, artists and visionaries in directing the presentation of contemporary Africa at a large scale. How do you think we could present contemporary and future Africa in terms of architecture? With this initiative, the Afrika Museum (www.afriakmuseum.nl) seeks to embody contemporary Africa, its vitality and its aspirations. The project has been developed in collaboration with African Architecture Matters (closely related to ArchiAfrika), an organization which has gained a significant position in the world of African architecture. Combining expertise, networks and capacity is vital to the success of this project.
AFRICA’S NEXT TOP MODEL?
You love your African roots, you are an architect or artist or a visionaire and have a future vision of Africa - sign up for the competition:
BLUEPRINTS OF PARADISE
We invite African architects, artists and visionaries to send in their presentations showing future visions for Africa.
Two Dutch organisations, the Afrika Museum (Berg en Dal) and African Architecture Matters
(Utrecht) have set up a competition in which African Architects can demonstrate their ideas
The Holcim Awards is an international competition of the Holcim Foundation for Sustainable Construction. The competition celebrates innovative, future-oriented and tangible sustainable construction projects and visions from around the globe and provides prize money of USD 2 million per three-year competition cycle. The third Holcim Awards competition cycle is currently open for entries until March 23, 2011.
The Holcim Awards (main) category of the competition is open to architects, planners, engineers, project owners, builders and construction firms that showcase sustainable responses to technological, environmental, socioeconomic and cultural issues affective contemporary building and construction. Projects are eligible for the competition if they have reached an advanced stage of design and construction (or commercial production in the case of materials, products and construction technologies) had not started before July 1, 2010.
An approach to an improved and sustainably affordable building system for emerging economy countries? The winners of the first Open Source House - Blaanc and Caeiro Capurso with the project 'Emerging Ghana' are announced. Please click on Full Text above for further details on the competition and winning project.
Enviu (Innovators in Sustainability) is an international network organisation for and by young entrepreneurial people based in the Netherlands. Their mission is to contribute to 'a sustainable world where innovative entrepreneurship creates value for people and planet by inspiring and involving young entrepreneurial people'.
Bukka [www.bukka.org] has organised a panel discussion to speculate on the urban future of the city of Lagos in Nigeria. 'Mega City or Crisis City?' [Please see ArchiAfrika's Agenda and News posting]. Lagos, often viewed as a city in crisis, its urban infrastructure barely able to support and add meaningfully to the lives of its citizens, is the fastest growing city in the world. In parallel, the city has attracted the attention of a wide range of international urban practitioners and thinkers as well as the international print and electronic media gaining a degree of notoriety for its supposedly anarchic and extreme urban condition. A documentary recently produced by the BBC 'Welcome to Lagos' set out, it claims, to explore the sheer energy and mass of people located in the city eking out a living. But, in a city where extremely wealthy districts like Victoria Garden City also exist does the choice to not include this other side in portraying Lagos' extreme urban condition just feed into the Western media's relentless portrayal of a poverty stricken Africa?
Will Anderson, the series producer of the BBC Three part documentary 'Welcome To Lagos', in an article titled 'Welcome to Lagos - It'll defy your expectations' published on the BBC TV Blog [http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/tv/2010/04/welcome-to-lagos-itll-defy-you.shtml] said he was driven to make the series by a belief that there was more to Lagos than the 'noisy, dirty, dangerous city' that most people in the West imagine 'probably because all we ever hear about it on the news is the corruption, religious violence, and dodgy email scams'.
Bukka was formed in 2003 with the intentions of understanding the built environment in 'non - occidental' societies at both the scale of the city and the building. The word Bukka was chosen as it symbolises an inclusivity which was drawn from the 'everymans' space of the roadside restaurant in Nigeria. Please see FULL TEXT for further details on Panel Discussion: LAGOS - Mega City or Crisis City?
Bukka invites you to a panel discussion on the urban future of Lagos titled;
Lagos ... Mega City or Crisis City?
Present:
Kaye Whiteman [Journalist and Former Editor of West Africa Magazine]
Dr Dayo Mobereola [MD LAMATA*]
Kunle Adeyemi [Offi ce for Metropolitan Architecture]
Simon Gusah [Planning Consultant, Nigeria]
Jaasper Moelker[Urban Detectives - Nederlands]
*Lagos Metropolitan Area Transport Authority
18th of June 2010
1800 - 2000 hrs
(followed by a short drinks reception)
Venue:
Brunei Gallery Lecture Theatre
School of Oriental and African Studies [SOAS]
Eritrea's liberation in 1991 started a re-exploration of the spacial and architectural qualities in the capital Asmara – a striking sample of European urban architecture in the early 20th century. Despite the turmoil that emerged from the 2nd World War and a 30 year lasting struggle for independence most of the modernist architecture hasn't been altered since the Italian forces withdrew in 1941 and remains intact to this day.
Exhibition opening and Round table
Asmara – Africa's Secret Modernist City
09.06.2010 | 7 p.m.
Venue: House of Architecture (HDA) in the Palais Thinnfeld, Mariahilferstraße 2, 8020 Graz
