Lecture: “Circular Futures. Architecture for a Post-Growth Society”
Nowadays, architects plan the life cycle of a building over a period of several years or even decades and must make assumptions about technological progress, future needs of the users, changing socioeconomic trends, possible shifts in political and legislative frameworks and climatic change. It is a difficult task that requires room for spontaneity in the planning process and flexibility in subsequent use. No building is planned for the present, every building for the future. The lecture examines architecture at the beginning of an adaptive ecology of construction.
Today, the speed of knowledge dissemination and ever more rapid changes in social dynamics are giving rise to a programmatic need for a more flexible approach to building. Architecture that can respond to rise of automation an on-demand society. The talk will examine architecture as an agile and flexible construct – not just in terms of usability and adaptability of the finished building but also in terms of the process by which it comes about and in the management of the planning and construction process.
Urban Beta’s work deals with social justice including co-creation processes, platforms and circular economy. The talk will examine the collaborative design approach at Urban Beta as well as our applied research in partnerships with universities, where technology acts as a accelerator for systematic social and ecological change. It will investigate how spatial innovation can enable greater democratization of the building industry and dive into architecture as a space on-demand solution, that is scalable and can grow and change with its users.
Urban Beta is a spatial innovation studio creating inclusive, innovative and transformative spaces. The studio develops spatial systems with a participatory approach. Our work deals with social justice, predictive planning, co-creation and the democratization of design. We are an interdisciplinary team of entrepreneurs, architects, urban planners and project developers, who aim for transformative projects.