Exhibition space 'The Ruin'. It literally is a ruin used for exhibitions. Before the Soviet time it used to be part of an Usadba that belonged to a well off Russian family.

Hereby a short post to let you know that we are working on updating the blog. At the moment we are working on processing all the work produced by the participants during the week in Moscow.

If you have the chance to be in Moscow, we are exhibiting the results of the workshop until the 31st of July in ‘The Ruin’ of the Schusev State Museum of Architecture Moscow (MUAR).

We put up the Artifact in Cheremushki, a busy public area full with micro rayons. Everyone's idea was on top of one of the wooden boxes. Some people stopped to check them out others just marched on.

Please read the text on ‘Artifact’ theme provided by ARCHPOLE and think about possible proposals for the Friday evening session.

Also included is additional reading material from the book ‘In Search of New Public Domain’,
YOU DON’T need to read it completely but it would be good to get a general overview of different definitions on public space that the text provides.

To all the Russian participants, thank you for helping accommodate the Dutch participants!

Looking forward to seeing you on Thursday 9th at British Higher School of Art and Design (Moscow)

If you have any questions please do not hesitate to contact us 8 926 230 82 78 or at info@futurefaculty.org

Many thanks to Dimitrij Zadorin (Architect/Microrayon expert) who provided us with the information on the selected Microrayon districts.

In this meeting Gerrit Oorthuys would like to share his historical expertise on Moscow and St.Petersburg with us. Gerrit will talk about how both cities developed and how you can divide Moscow in several layers of time and also will give us insight in important architectural places. For this he will show dia’s from his personal archive that he collected during several visits to Russia.

Gerrit Oorthuys (architect and historian), in the 80’s he taught at the TU Delft and Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam. During the Khrushchev period, Gerrit was able to do research on Constructivist in the Russian archives. This resulted in several exhibitions, trips to Russia and further research. Together with Rem Koolhaas he did a research project on the work of Ivan Leonidov.* He was one of the founders of the chair collection at the Faculty of Architecture in Delft. (article and clip are in Dutch). His photo archive has collections from microrayons in Russia and the Bijlmer (a Dutch Micro Rayon), to constructivist buildings in Russia.

Round table discussion will take place this Wednesday, June 24! | 19:00 – 22:00 | Auditorium U | Faculty of Architecture in Delft. We will start a bit earlier as Gerrit would like to spend more time on sharing his expertise with us than to focus too much on the discussion.

* From: Lessons: Tupker-Risselada : a double portrait of Dutch architectural education, 1953/

What can urban planners, architects and designers learn from the Efteling (a Dutch themepark)?

‘A lot’, says Jan Konings, an industrial designer. ‘Because the Efteling knows exactly how to tie the visitor to the park. With musical mushrooms for example and Holle Bolle Gijs, a caricature trash bin ‘PAPIER HIER!’. These sort of simple attractions should be part of cities, says Konings, to freshen up the boring, monotonous and impersonal new suburbia.

The evening will centre around the margins that architect, planners and designers forget in public space. We will focus on new ways/methods to interpret public space, Jan Konings calls them ‘infiltrations’  in order to have a more dynamic collective space. Jan and Timo will show examples of micro urban projects that they conducted and plan to develop in the future.

Jan Konings is an industrial designer. He is co-founder of the office Ral2005, that specializes in design for public space. Previously he co-founded the office Schie 2.0 and together with Jurgen Bey he had the design office Konings.

Timo De Rijk is a design-historian at the Faculty of Industrial Design at the TU Delft. Next to that he is a guest-lecturer at the Design Academy Eindhoven. He is editor of the Dutch Design Annual and has published several other books such as ‘Under Cover’ (with Ed van Hinte) and ‘The World According to Concrete’ (editor).

The round table discussion will take place June 22, this Monday!!! | 19:30 – 22:00 | Auditorium U | Faculty of Architecture in Delft.

Before the meeting please think about intermediates that could stimulates the connection of:

- People with other people

- People with products

- People with public space

Images © copyright Jan Konings, Droog Design, RAL2005

Hereby we would like to invite you for the coming round round table discussion this Thursday with Bart Goldhoorn and Axel Kilian. We will focusses on the question:
“How can architects and industrial designers adapt mass production and pref-fab techniques in order to design a sustainable collective living space?”

Bart Goldhoorn will talk about the Biennale project that he is currently preparing for September 2009. It will focus on the so-called Micro Rayon 2.0; new microrayons whereby architects use pre-fabrication and mass production techniques to create non standard buildings versus the existing principles of building a microrayon. Also he will show the condition, conflicts and possible additions for existing micro rayons in Russia.

Next to this Axel Kilian will show his unorthodox design approach on architecture and design.
Axel Kilian currently is an Assistant Professor at the TU Delft and holds a PhD and SMArchS in Design and Computation at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His research focuses on Design Exploration in Architecture and Design based on computational models.

The round table discussion will take place This Thursday!!! | 19:30 – 22:00 | Auditorium U | the Faculty of Architecture in Delft.

Please try to read the Biennale text and the ’secret’ speech of Nikita Krushchev on pre-fabrication from December 7, 1954 and published in Project Russia #25

Images © copyright Project Russia originally from Soviet catalogues for building sector

Hereby we have posted a preliminary program and description of the workshop in Moscow.
It will take place from July 9 till July 16 and centered around selected Microrayon districts in Moscow.

We have limited place for 5 Russian architecture students and 5 Russian design students. Also interested professionals are invited to send a mail. To sign up for the workshop we ask you to send us one A4 containing selections from your portfolio with your name and contactinformation. English speaking is required! Please send the material and questions to info@futurefaculty.org (Deadline 20 June)

The images are an example of a micro-intervention by Sophie Panzer (architect). It was part of her graduation project at the TU Delft, that focussed on Microrayon districts in Kaliningrad.

Program and activities Moscow
• Explorative and observational research in the Microrayon
• Interviews with local residents and users of collective space
• Micro interventions through involving inhabitant of the Microrayon
• Developing ideas and concept designs based on exploration in the MicroRayon
• Round table discussions on collective space with experts from several disciplines
• Lectures on new approaches towards generating collective space and interaction
• Documenting process by using film and photography
• Public presentation and exhibiting work in Moscow

Summaries of recent activities of the round table discussion at the TU Delft will be updated soon on the blog. Interested to join this project mail to info@futurefaculty.org

Dear interested participant for the “Post-Socialist Russian City” project,

Find included the general framework of the project organized by Future Faculty.

Meetings will take place Wednesdays, from 19:30-22:00. The first meeting is scheduled for April 8th, Auditorium U at the Faculty of Architecture in Delft. We will be discussing the meaning of “the Collective” (see: round table discussion 8 April). Architect and Russian expert, Bastiaan Kwast will be giving a short presentation on the context of the project and we will answer any questions you might have.

The deadline for enrollment for the international workshop in Moscow will be the 30th of April.

For further questions please let us know info@futurefaculty.org

Hope to hear from you soon,

Organizing team Future Faculty
Claudia Runge (Student Industrial Design)
Jean-Paul Willemse (Student Architecture)
Shauna Jin (Msc Industrial Design)
Yulia Kryazheva (Architect)