OPEN FORUM AT POLIS UNIVERSITY

Ftesë

FORUM URBAN NË  U_POLIS;  E HËNË, 13 SHKURT 2012  ora 17. 00 , AUDITORI A3. 

Të dashur miq dhe kolegë,

Universiteti POLIS, ka kënaqësinë  t’ju ftojë në Forumin Urban me temë: The Role of New Commons in Generating Community Values. Nga Ark. Ivan Kucina. - Fakulteti i Arkitekturës, Universiteti i Beogradit, Serbi.

Ju njoftojmë se pas forumit ju pret një autobus Polis për transportin.

Jeni të mirëpritur!

 

Invitation

URBAN  FORUM  AT U_POLIS;  MONDAY , FEBRUARY 13^th 2012  AT  5. 00 PM , A3 AUDITORIUM.  

Dear friends & colleagues,

POLIS University, has the pleasure yo invite you on the Urban Forum: The Role of New Commons in Generating Community Values. By Arch. Ivan Kucina.-Faculty of Architecture, University of belgrade, Serbia.

We inform you that after the forum, there will be a Polis bus for the transport.

Welcome!

Ivan Kucina is an assistant professor at the School of Architecture, University of Belgrade, Serbia and a Visiting Scholar at the School of Design Strategies, Parsons The New School for Design, New York and Polis University, Tirana, Albania. His research is focused on the informal building strategies and uncontrolled processes of transformation of urban structure of the Western Balkans. In bridging his research pursuits with his teaching, he has established collaborations with informal educational and research groups such as School of Missing Studies, New York and STEALTH group, Rotterdam. He published “15/3” (Univerzitet u Beogradu, Arhitektonski Fakultet, 2008) a textbook on the innovative methods of learning space-form dialectics within his Introduction to Architecture Design course. Ivan Kucina is a practicing architect and runs an interdisciplinary architectural and design practice together with architect Nenad Katic, with projects that range from urban design to residential buildings and exhibitions. In 2006, he co-founded the Belgrade International Architecture Week and currently serves as its Program Director.

The Role of New Commons in Generating Community Values

Speculative real estate market that has been declared in the last decades as the primal mechanism of urban development enabled massive constructions and simultaneously massive deconstruction of the urban space. Consumerism that has become the main determinant of the contemporary urbanity is ultimately transforming cities into competitive field where each entrepreneur has to fight for consumers by radiating more seductive presence to the public. As a result, urban space has been turned into privatized illuminated scene for seduction of the masses. Commercial urban spectacles have become the only form of public expression.

On the other side of the shinny spectacles, the major part of urban territory stays out of attention, excluded and abandoned. These are the neighborhoods where most of the people live and work, sheltering behind the crumbling facades, looking for chances on unfriendly streets. Being product of consumerism, they are trapped in the land of desires, having high demands with no resources, asking instant satisfaction with no ability to invest for the better future, staying greed with nothing to fulfill their hunger, fighting for predominance on wasted territories. Devastation of the neighborhoods is the most sustainable activity they are able to reproduce, transforming urban space into battlefield where everyone fights against everyone.

There is lot that must be done in a different way than what has been done until today in order to rebuild the common sense of empathy, compassion, and solidarity within society. It has to be an evolving process that engages all the parties, public administration, citizens associations, entrepreneurs and professionals. This process has to be placed in the heart of the problematic territories, adopting the spatial capacities that are already there, converting and upgrading them in order to facilitate social exchange and cooperation. New role of the public space has to be developed – it should not serve as decorative assemblage for daily breaks but as programmatic instrument for generating social exchange and collaboration.