Flat buildings and the act of architecture

Presented by
Angelo Candalepas, Founding Director, Candalepas Associates

The repetition of discrete "spaces" in space is the central task in the design of a flat building; how artfully one is able to best perform the act of architecture with an economy of form. And "economy of form" is inextricably linked to economy in building.

And then there is the present now-familiar problem of an architect’s dexterity to ably apply themself to the concurrent issues of regulation and market, while ever attempting to produce a work that offers answers about our time. How boring are the works of residential flat buildings; now that the fundamentals of light and air are bedded down. And yet, this is the "architectural matter" our generation will leave for the next. We will be judged by future generations by how we perform this phenomenon we call urban consolidation.

What we leave behind as our legacy is questionable.

My view is that the present plaudits are implausible if we imagine what it will be like to look back to what was designed in our time.

Enjoy architecture: Searching for a relatable future

Presented by
Alison Von Glinow, Founding director, Kwong Von Glinow

As more and more people migrate to cities, as part of what Doug Saunders is calling “the last and greatest migration,” the demand for housing in cities is increasing dramatically. As such, it is not uncommon for architecture offices to receive the inquiry: does your office sell stock unit plans? As designers who are shaping the future built environment, now is a key moment to question a standardized housing formula and re-evaluate the elements that constitute the home.

Alison Von Glinow, founder of Kwong Von Glinow Design Office, will share the projects of her office which explore overlooked elements of what constitute a home: from storage, to circulation, to unit identity. With the belief that architecture is more powerful than the norm, her studio’s design approach “Enjoy Architecture” searches for the relatable to connect to its inhabitants and inspire new futures in housing.

The city is a complex but incomplete system

Presented by
Saskia Sassen, Robert S. Lynd Professor of Sociology and Member of the Committee on Global Thought at Columbia University,

Cities are living systems – systems where technology, buildings and people interact. A bit messy, a bit anarchic, the city is a space, historically, where people without power can execute a project, where they can make their own history. But what happens when technology becomes the “innards” of a city? Does the high-tech city, a system that is complex but closed, threaten the dynamism and evolution of cities as we know them? Can technology hack the city? Or can the city hack technology?

Saskia Sassen is a world-renowned sociologist and urban thinker who has, over more than three decades, been a key contributor to the evolving discourse around globalization, transnationalism and the idea of the “global city.” A recent area of interest has been the emergence of new kinds of high-tech cities characterized by pervasive surveillance and an increasing rate of technological obsolescence. She is also conducting research into the relationship between the urban and the biospheric, arguing that new buildings should be built as instruments for environmental sustainability.

Elastic space

Presented by
Go Hasegawa, Founder, Go Hasegawa & Associates

In Espèces d'espaces, Georges Perec wrote about the page, the bed, the bedroom, the apartment, the apartment building, the street, the neighbourhood, the town, the countryside, the country, Europe, old continent, new continent, world and space. We recognize various kinds of divisions between the spaces in our world, rather than those individual spaces. Housing, especially, has always emphasized such various kinds of divisions — scale, ownership, sale/rent, inside/outside, private/common/public — which were mostly produced by the economic capitalism in the twentieth century. But as we know, it’s almost impossible to divide our real life of spaces in such a way. Beyond the clear, transparent, static spaces that have been produced, I aim to make more ambiguous, translucent and elastic space in housing projects.