Forthcoming Events
Bookshop Barnie Xmas Bash Balloon Debate
04 December 2008
Each contesteant has just two and a half minutes to defend their favourite book:
Particpants include: Ian McMillan (poet, northerner, defending Malcolm Lowry’s “Under the Volcano”); Peter Curran (journo, documentary-maker and presenter Radio 4's 'Saturday Live' on the "London A-Z"); Stella Duffy (novelist, playwright, performer defending "The King James' Bible" ); David Jones (professor of Bioethics on Schumacher's "Small is Beautiful"); Tony Curzon Price (Editor-in-Chief of openDemocracy on Conrad's "Heart of Darkness"); Tristran Quinn (producer, "Panorama") defending Baudrillard's "America"; and others
The Future of Community: Reports of a Death Greatly Exaggerated
 |
Martin Earnshaw, Dave Clements, Alastair Donald & Austin Williams (Pluto Press)We are constantly being told that we are losing a ‘sense of community’. This book shows that the notion of community is actually under threat from the very thing supposed to protect it: relentless government intervention. |
Read more on the Future of Community BLOG here
Previous Events
A Future Cities Project and ManTowNHuman-supported series of events by the Institute of Ideas, on architecture, planning and community.
Thursday
23 October 2008
INNOVATION IN ARCHITECTURE LATE-NITE REVIEW
Go on almost any architectural website today, and you'll find proclamations of how "innovative", "forward-thinking" and "experimental" they are. But what does it really mean? Here, two brave architects:
Sean Griffiths, director, Fashion Architecture Taste (FAT);
and
CJ Lim, director, Studio 8 Architects
explained their innovative projects...
…and were grilled by:
Helen Groves, architect director, Bristol, BDP
Kieran Long, editor, Architects' Journal
Jeremy Myerson, director, Helen Hamlyn Centre and InnovationRCA
Karl Sharro, KPF and co-founder, ManTowNHuman
Amin Taha, director, Amin Taha Architects
Benedict Zucchi, board director, BDP
Chair: Austin Williams, director, Future Cities Project
The point of the discussion was to see if the architects - as well as the panellists - can convey their ideas successfully, but also to see if those ideas themselves stand up to examination.
Saturday 1 November
THE FUTURE OF COMMUNITY: REPORTS OF A DEATH GREATLY EXAGGERATED
5.15pm - 6.15pm, Royal College of Art, Lecture Theatre 2
Sunday 2 November
THE BATTLE FOR PROGRESS
11.00am to 12.30pm, Royal College of Art, Upper Gulbenkian Gallery
Sunday 2 November
BUILDING THE FUTURE
2.00pm - 3.30pm, Royal College of Art, Café
ManTowNHuman
Manifesto: Towards a New Humanism in Architecture
"I love this manifesto - it has guts and irreverence and gusto. Almost every aspect of it is designed to upset and maybe that is the point. It is wilful and dangerous, with a strong tone of belligerence." Will Alsop
Visit: www.mantownhuman.org Email: info@mantownhuman.org
BBC "Newsnight" coverage of the Manifesto: WATCH HERE...
"The
Enemies of Progress:"
The Dangers of Sustainability
See Blog for more information and updates
1. THE NEW PAROCHIALISTS
Transport and mobility denied
2. THE OPT-OUTS
Energy and the end of universal provision
3. THE LIMIT-SETTERS
Architecture's loss of humanity
4. THE INDOCTRINATORS
Environmental educators' underhand tactics
5. THE PESSIMISTS [read
an edited sample]
Putting the brakes on China and India
6. THE NEW COLONIALISTS
The Developing World's sustainable underdevelopment
7. THE MISANTHROPISTS
America's unease with Modernity
CONCLUSION
Reclaiming the future
pp96, (Imprint Academic) ISBN-10: 1845400984
Visit the Enemies
of Progress blog site for further details, reviews and upcoming
events
Forthcoming Events
November 1-2, 2008
Battle of Ideas
Royal
College of Art, Kensington, London.
A Future Cities Project-supported series of events by the Institute
of Ideas, on architecture, planning and community:
The Future of Community
The Battle for Progress
Making Things Happen: Masterplanning in the 21st century
Comments from the previous Future Cities discussions at the Battle
of Ideas include:
'It was fantastically stimulating and I finished the weekend with lots to ponder.' Naresh Fernandes (editor, Time Out Mumbai); 'I enjoyed it very much... it would be good to investigate further.' Kieran Long (editor, Architects' Journal); 'It was actually all rather enjoyable.' Tristram Hunt (broadcaster); 'I really enjoyed taking part and will be happy to be involved again in some way.' Professor Michael Oxley (De Montfort University)
Previous Events
The Big Draw
The
Campaign for Drawing Launch Event, September 2007
The Bishopsgate Institute and Foundation
Austin
Williams' workshop Condensing Complexity
will get people thinking about how to take a range of complex
everyday instructions - from fire safety to the Highway Code -
simplify them, and convey them in graphic form.
Effectively, this is the visual equivalent of the "Plain English" campaign... The "Easy Graphics" campaign!
June2007:
Should We Build More Roads?
Shanghai Administration Institute Programme, University of Oxford
February 2007
The Human Footprint: Have we gone too far?
Austin Williams; Corey Powell, editor of Discover magazine; Ronald Bailey, science correspondent, Reason magazine; and Professor Emeritus Martin Hoffert at The New School, 55 West 13th Street, New York
For more information click here
January 2007
The Therapy Rooms - building esteem or housing discontent?
Nowadays, buildings are credited with changing our behaviour, promoting our welfare, and addressing intractable social problems. For instance, it has been argued that large windows in schools improve students' performance; natural ventilation increases productivity in offices; well designed homes and neighbourhoods prevent anti-social behaviour; healthy sports stadia reduce spectator obesity; and hospitals with soothing decor help people get better quicker.
This debate addressed the question of whether we have lost our ability to argue for better provision in its own terms and for its own sake. No doubt the way buildings are designed do make us feel good, but how transient is this response? In order to tick the right funding box, is it justifiable to over-claim for the immediate benefits of a project, or do we lose something in the process?
The Bartlett School of Architecture, London
Read Dave Clements' speech from the conference here
Other events
For more details, visit the Battle of Ideas website.
