Design As Politics

Join the Independent School for the City for their yearly School Party! Expect Anthropocene-themed cocktails and bites, performances, an amazing punk-rock band, DJ's, cold drinks and many like-minded people. Also, we'll give you a glimpse of our upcoming activities.

Get your tickets here: https://schoolforthecity.stager.nl/web/tickets/111180447

The preparations for our School Party are in full swing! Expect Anthropocene-themed cocktails and bites, performances, an amazing punk-rock band, DJ's, cold drinks and many like-minded people. Also, we'll give you a glimpse of our upcoming activities. Get your tickets here: https://schoolforthecity.stager.nl/web/tickets/111180447

More info will follow soon!

Our friends at the Independent School for the City have invited the amazing Georgeen Theodore of Interboro Partners for a talk this Friday evening in Rotterdam.

Georgeen will provide a dispatch from Detroit, the ever-fascinating and always changing Motor City. Through presenting a number of recently completed Interboro projects, she will cover topics including, but not limited to, arrival suburbs, artists’ enclaves, Bangladeshi migration, blots, Black Bottom, burek, cottage industries, energy, ethnic enclaves, exclusion, factory vans, farmers’ markets, farming, foreclosure, goats, housing and economic development, ice cream trucks, inclusion, inclusive development, John Portman, land banks, Mies van der Rohe, neighborhood planning, one-way streets, participatory processes, post-fordism, public space, segregation, shrinking cities, signage ordinances, skate parks, snow piles, social resiliency, tactical preservation, temporary interventions, and uneven development.

Get your tickets now at School's Out! #6 - Georgeen Theodore (Interboro)

Check out www.interboropartners.com to learn more about their work.

From social media check-ins to government statistics, data is being weaponized by a new industry called 'PropTech' to predict which areas in our cities look ripe for new investment.

The Real Estate Sector is Using Algorithms to Work Out the Best Places to Gentrify - Failed Architecture From social media check-ins to government statistics, data is being weaponized by a new industry called 'PropTech' to predict which areas in our citie...

Great news! Design as Politics alumnus Serah Calitz has been shortlisted to compete in the Archiprix, the leading annual competition for upcoming design talent.

Her project Sino-African Counterpoints presents an alternative to the copy-paste deployment of China financed Special Economic Zones (SEZs) in Africa. In the business of creating urbanity ex nihilo the SEZ demands the emptying of context, of contingency. Thus, for every Special Economic Zone there exists a Special Sacrifice Zone: a messy prelude marked by environmental destruction and enforced resettlement.

Congratulations Serah!

Serah-Ingrid Calitz Serah-Ingrid Calitz Design as Politics Foothold implantation: negotiating Bagamoyo Sino-African CounterpointsSino-African Counterpoints presents an alternative to the copy-paste deployment of China financed Special Economic Zones (SEZs) in Africa. In the business of creating urbanity ex nihilo the S...

We're very proud that Design as Politics' PhD candidate Nurul Azlan is defending her dissertation ‘Seditious spaces: Protest in post-colonial Malaysia’ on Monday 29 October at 15:00h at the Aula of TU Delft.

In her thesis Nurul analyses the urban design and architecture of Malaysia. Her research shows that ‘colonial architecture’ did not disappear after the departure of the colonisers. In fact, the same building style was continued. In addition, she notes that ‘post-colonial amnesia’ provides selective choices in the design of public space. For example, it focuses on the formation of the Islamic identity of the new state - while the Malaysian population does not just consist of Muslims. Furthermore, there is ‘postcolonial mimicry’: the postcolonial society uses building styles of the former coloniser to organise the public space and to radiate modernity.

For her dissertation, Nurul also mapped out the digital space on the basis of Twitter behaviour at the Bersih 4 demonstration in Kuala Lumpur. Although websites are easy to block, it appears that communication in post-colonial Malaysia is easier in digital space than in Putrajaya's urban space. Azlan: "Of course communication in the physical space has more impact. It’s time to design it in a better way. "

Democratic design wanted for post-colonial Malaysia Democratic design wanted for post-colonial Malaysia News - 25 October 2018 - Communication BK Malaysia has not been a colony since 1957, but this is not reflected in public space. Just like the British time, urban planning is all about controlling the masses, says PhD candidate Nurul Azlan. It’s t...

‘The wrong side of the tracks’ - an interesting article by Julia Cornelissen about spatial segregation and infrastructure in the Dutch magazine Vrij Nederland with contributions by Design as Politics' Wouter Vanstiphout. Check it out here (in Dutch).

Aan de 'verkeerde kant' van het spoor wonen nog steeds armere mensen ‘The wrong side of the tracks’ is in de VS een metafoor met een letterlijke herkomst: Amerikaanse ontwerpers van infrastructuur gebruikten treinsporen en snelwegen om steden onder te verdelen in klasse en ras. Maar ook in Nederland bestaan ‘verkeerde kanten van het spoor’: onuitgesproken bar...