TRAVELLING STUDIO ZANZIBAR_THE SWAHILI ARCHITECTURE

Join us for a public lecture as the third year Architecture students present their findings and experiences of their research trip to Tanzania as part of the Department’s annual traveling design studio.  The aim of this studio is to learn the importance of the context in the development of an architectural design, in all the stages of the process.

To learn and to teach architecture, to understand it and design it, it should be first experienced; that is the reason why a trip has been organized and performed to the neighboring country. In Tanzania the students and lecturers have learnt from cities, landscapes, flavors, climate and other teaching experiences. Specifically in Stone town, where the project will be based, the students have researched and learnt from the richness and complexity of the Swahili culture and its architecture. The importance of history, culture and traditions to build up for the future can be also applied in the Rwandan building experience.

Swahili architecture and the entire trip is the center of this public lecture and exhibition, where the third year students will guide us trough their findings and experiences.

ARCHITECT OF THE MONTH: ANTONI FOLKERS

“We are not looking into Africa anymore as the poor place where they need our help but as the place where there is people who can be our business partners, with whom we can work together, and from whom we can learn certain things.” Antoni Folkers

Antoni Folkers is a Dutch architect who is working in Africa for almost 30 years, in the field of architecture.
Graduated in 1986 as an architect and urban planner at Delft University, his engagement to African architecture started in the eighties when he was living and working as an architect in Tanzania and Uganda and has never left him ever since, now he is a resident Architect for East Africa.

He has been a cofounder of various offices and foundations: in 1992 FBW Architects with offices in the UK, the Netherlands, and Uganda; in 2001 ArchiAfrika; and recently, in 2010, he cofounded African Architecture Matters. The main aim of these organizations is the promotion of African architecture and the conservation of it.

The aim of ArchiAfrika, where he is the director, is to give more attention to African architecture as a whole and of course in promoting and improving African architecture through academic exchange, education, and through professional input. The target of ArchiAfrika is to put (modern) African architectural culture on the world map.

He wrote the renowned book “MODERN ARCHITECTURE IN AFRICA”, one of the few studies on modern African architecture. The work raises the discussion about the place of the often moralizing and simplified period of western modernism, while also providing a wide-ranging survey of the many-sided and colorful architecture from different regions in Africa. Using practical, illustrated examples, Folkers documents and describes the different hybrid architectural forms that have arisen out of a confrontation with western architecture and city planning and in so-doing tells an alternative history of African architecture.

Retrieved from http://www.archiafrika.org & http://www.africanews.it

PUBLIC LECTURE: RWANDA_THE VERNACULAR MATERIALS

It is our pleasure to invite you to the next arctalk of the department of Architecture in FAED. This Wednesday March 28th the arctalks will present the lecture Rwanda_The vernacular materials presented by Alice Tasca.

“Vernacular” in the architectural context is a term used to categorize methods of construction which use locally available resources.

The lecture tries to define classify and explain which are the materials that can be called “vernacular” in Rwanda. We will describe which are the techniques used locally to build with them and how can they be interpreted and adapted to answer the contemporary needs.

Bamboo, wood and earth as materials are only some of the topics: lots of different fibers and common used techniques can be translated and applied to build small and useful structures.

The lecture will use a design example that used vernacular techniques to improve the existing.
The talk will take place this Wednesday March 28th at 4.30pm at FAED building.
We hope to find you all there.

SECRET CINEMA: SHANGAI SPACE

Welcome to a SECRET CINEMA event.

OK you are suffering from deja vu. Cinestar have assured me that the projector is finally working.If the projector breaks down again we can gather around a laptop. So with that.......we're back with the rescheduled screening of 'Shanghai space' We hope you'll join us again.


Cities on Speed, GLOBAL VISIONS FOR an urban FUTURE is a documentary project commissioned by The Danish Film Institute and the national broadcaster DR . The project is a series of four films – Bogotà Change, Mumbai Disconnected, Cairo Garbage, Shanghai Space-, selected through a call for submissions, directed by four different filmmakers who tell character-based stories on four of the world’s largest megacities: Bogotá, Cairo, Mumbai and Shanghai.

We started with Cairo, looking at the disparties between the cities waste management plan and its increasing population. We then moved onto Mumbai , focusing on the cities choked transport network and the various actors which moved along with, inbetween and at the edges of the stifling flow of traffic.

Shanghai will be the second last of this series titled 'Shanghai Space'. This will be shown on 8th May at 8pm , at CINESTAR cinema in Nyamirambo. (Running time is 60 minutes). The following week (15th May) I will screen the final of the series 'Bogotà Change' with a special suprise short screening from Beirut.

'Shanghai is an explosion of transformation. Every other day a new building is completed, and every year the city's population grows by half a million people. Authorities are desperately seeking out more space, while the city's inhabitants must adapt to constantly changing surroundings. In an office on the 20th floor, government advisor Professor Shu prepares the next generation of young urban planners for Shanghai's future. In order to find the space needed for Shanghai's millions of inhabitants, planners are now looking underground.' Danish Film Institute

These films are in conjunction with KIST Urban Design Studio Year 4 and there will be a short introduction by tutor Killian Doherty. The future intention is that this film series relating to architecture and urban design will be screened to the public at KIST.

Free entry for the KIST Students. ALL STUDENTS AT KIST SHOULD BE ATTENDING THESE
FREE CINEMA EVENTS.

MODERN ARCHITECTURE IN AFRICA: the exploration and the question of modernity in architecture

The exploration, as an example of a research process, is my personal journey on how I came to frame research into the book ‘Modern Architecture in Africa’.  It follows -- perhaps not too conventionally -- the escape from the dungeons of Western Modernism at the TUDelft, via the practice as a missionary-cowboy-architect  in Africa, to reflections that formed the basis of the book.

It may seem a ‘do before we think’ process, but that is not altogether the case. The leading research question of ‘what is modernism in architecture’ has been the red thread in my work and thinking, still is the red thread today and probably will remain so until my demise. Possibly without being answered to satisfaction.  But that is not so much a problem.

This question accompanied me on the journey and will do remain so for the remainder of the road. It is of such strength that if continuously fuels my thinking and practice, and forces me to move. There is, of course, a reason behind this question, which is the driver of my professional career.

Organizing the thinking process, framing the research and finding answers also commenced at an early date on my journey, but were only seriously gaining momentum with the establishment of ArchiAfrika and the projects that followed. These projects can be seen as cases on how architectural research can be organized and carried out, without twenty-odd years of working until coming to retrospective insight as seems to have happened to me.

Public Lecture: ENGINEERS AND ARCHITECTS IN COLLABORATION.

This next Wednesday February 22nd the arcbox lecture series will present the public lecture  ENGINEERS AND ARCHITECTS IN COLLABORATION.

presented by our Guest Silla Chow.

Silla Chow is a construction consultant working on school construction projects with the Rwanda Education Board.  She has over 20 years experience in the construction industry, working on various public and private sector projects.  She will share her experience of collaborating with architects as a structural engineer and as a project manager.

The lecture will take place next Wednesday February 22nd at 4.30 pm at FAED building.

PUBLIC LECTURE_Venezia: a city born from the water

Arcbox cultural committee is pleased to present to you Edoardo Salzano.

Former Professor in Urban and Regional Planning and Dean of the School of Urban, Regional and Environmental Planning at the University IUAV of Venice, he also worked as a planning consultant in many Italian local governments. Author and editor of several books, journal articles, he collaborated with newspapers and magazines, and funded two planning journals and an online journal. He is founder and director of www.eddyburg.it, an Italian website concerning urban planning, society and political issues. Edoardo works, actively supports and provide technical assistance to a number of the progressive organisations and urban movements in Italy, but also participating to international forums.

SECRET CINEMA: MUMBAI DISCONNECTED

Welcome to a SECRET CINEMA event.

Cities on Speed, GLOBAL VISIONS FOR an urban FUTURE is a documentary project commissioned by The Danish Film Institute and the national broadcaster DR . The project is a series of four films – Bogotà Change, Mumbai Disconnected, Cairo Garbage, Shanghai Space-, selected through a call for submissions, directed by four different filmmakers who tell character-based stories on four of the world’s largest megacities: Bogotá, Cairo, Mumbai and Shanghai.

Starting with 'Cairo Garbage' ,which looked at systemic disparties between the cities waste management plan and its increasing population, I will now screen the second , of the four movies, titled 'Mumbai Disconnected. This will be shown on 21st February at 8pm , at CINESTAR cinema in Nyamirambo. (Running time is 58 minutes).

'Like a city on steroids, Mumbai is rapidly becoming one of the world's biggest megacities. But it's all happening on a narrow peninsula with an infrastructure on the verge of complete collapse. Every day, 10-12 people die from falling off the overcrowded public trains. On the roads, cars come to a stand-still in serial traffic jams. To make matters worse, the Nano, India's new popular and affordable mini car, has just been launched. Through three interwoven human stories, we meet the people at the frontline of Mumbai's infrastructural battle. One thing is certain: urban planning is not easy in the world's largest democracy!' Danish Film Institute.

These films are in conjunction with KIST Urban Design Studio Year 4 and there will be a short introduction by tutor Killian Doherty. The future intention is that this film series relating to architecture and urban design will be screened to the public at KIST.

Entry is now 1500 RWF per person to subsidise free entry for the KIST Students. Your support is enabling these students exposure to resources not readily available at KIST and we thank you for your patronage.

PUBLIC LECTURE_ Architecture and Authorship

FILM: BLADE RUNNER

It’s our pleasure to invite you to the projection of the film: BLADE RUNNER

In a cyberpunk vision of the future, man has developed the technology to create replicants, human clones used to serve in the colonies outside Earth but with fixed life spans. In Los Angeles, 2019, Deckard is a Blade Runner, a cop who specializes in terminating replicants. Originally in retirement, he is forced to re-enter the force when six replicants escape from an offworld colony to Earth.

The movie show will take place on Friday Feb 03rd at 4:00pm, in KIST FAED building, KIST campus, 1^st floor classroom 2

PUBLIC LECTURE/ BUMBOGO TOPONYMIC URBANISM

It’s our pleasure to invite you to the public lecture: Bumbogo Toponymic Urbanism by Guillaume Sardin

Africa is currently building its Urban Culture, in a global context of clusterized cities, of insularized space.

Urbanism shouldn’t be just about numbers. Although Africa is currently strongly lacking infrastructures, its needs cannot always be quantified. Urbanism should reflect culture, history and create a sense of belonging.

What if, instead of importing Beaux Arts Urbanism, we tried to reinterpret the archipelago city to propose an enhanced and adapted version of it? A city made to separate and join at the same time, a city of islands, imagination and exploration.

In a country of oral culture, toponymy (the study of place names) could help bonding the new urban society to its roots. Cities can make use of the meaning of places, and toponymy could be a tool for urban development all over Africa.

Bumbogo is a hill located in Kigali, Rwanda. Kigali is a dormant archipelago city, full of potential.

Bumbogo will be a manifest, a pragmatic utopia. By using the meaning of Rwanda and Kigali as a matrix, this project generates an ultra site-specific masterplan setting an example of fair urbanism."

The lecture will take place on Friday Feb 03rd at 2:00pm, in KIST FAED building,KIST campus,1st floor classroom 2