FORSCHUNG
INSTITUT FOR DESIGN RESEARCH
Design2context
CIVIC CITY. The Role of Design for a Social City
CIVIC CITY—DIE ROLLE DES DESIGNS IN DER SOZIALEN STADT␣ Ein neues Postgraduierten-Kursprogamm des Designforschungsinstitut Design2Context,␣ Zürcher Hochschule der Künste␣ in Zusammenarbeit mit der Ecole Superieure des Arts Décoratifs, Paris, Frankreich␣ Forschungspartner: MIT Visual Arts Program, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge USA und Merz Akademie, Stuttgart, Deutschland␣
CiviC City 2. DESIGNING iN CRISIS
Civic City 2 designing in crisis. Casestudy marseille north quarter
A postgraduate program with shared FOCUSES: graphic-design, architecture, landscape architecture, and urban design.
In Autumn 2010 Design2con- text, the Institute for Designre- search, runs for the second time the Postgraduate Programm Civic City. Civic City works as a laboratory, were practitioners and theorists from the fields of design, architecture, urban design, visual communication, sociology, anthropology and fu- turology cooperate in research- ing and developing, discussing and practicioning new perspec- tives on the design of urban spaces. The trans-disciplinary program will be accompanied by ten expert colloquia. In these three day modules professionals will offer a variety of perspec- tives on the theme. These inputs will be communicated, proc- essed and worked on through workshops, projects, lectures, exhibitions and the salons de recherch. Civic city will be open for all, interested to work of “another urban”. Guest will be David Harvey, Christine Breton, Sebastien Thiery, Andrea Gleiniger, Stefan Sagmeiser, Stealth, Elisabeth Blum, Erik Swyngedouw, Peter Neitzke and others…
Designing in Crisis
During the last 31 years of domination, the global success of the neoliberal regime has been characterized by its violent penetration into any existing urban order or disorder: acute peripheral poverty, the conver- sion of city centers to mono- functional shopping malls, forced displacement of poor central dwellers, the construc- tion of architectural spectacles, thematic neighborhoods and overall gentrification. Similar points can be made in regards to the environmental disasters produced by the imposition of such rapid changes; the social ache brought by the dissolution of collective relations and eco- nomic exchange forms; and the radical alterations of patterns of daily life along with the mental conceptions about the city. It is also important to note that the urban processes under industri- alization and the functionalist planning that normally came with it, had already produced deep class divisions in the city, capital spatial concentration, informal settlements and large infrastructural transforma- tions. Neoliberal urbanization multiplied these effects and introduced new and more effec- tive forms of penetration.
In 2010, after more than a year of severe economic crisis the city has become more than ever an unstable territory for speculation while the impact of the disaster only deepens in its effects to the general citizen, the idea of urban poverty is now a common denominator for most contemporary cities. The Civic City program 2010/2011 will focus in the urgencies created by such urban poverty by asking what responsibility does design has in these critical socio-spatial conditions by speculating for different design forms and strategies for after the neoliberal disaster.
Design plays an increasingly important role in shaping urban space. A City is no longer seen to comprise only buildings, streets, squares and parks. Text and images in public space, branding campaigns, street art, guidance systems, temporary installations, processual and interactive design and carto- graphic illustrations influence our use, experience and percep- tion of the city, as do signage, urban furnishings, vehicles, infrastructures and the appear- ance of public facades. Civic City addresses these design practices in the light of the es- calating crisis of neoliberalism. It looks for design potentials
for a social city.
Civic City will take as a platform of research the French city of Marseille, focusing in neighborhoods which took part of federal programs and that have experienced remarkable physical, economical and social transformations, Civic City will address the social and spa- tial exclusions that have been generated as consequence of the neoliberal shift in urban policy. The fieldwork will be performed to bring an understanding of how neoliberal urban restructure, policymaking, design and plan- ning are devised under different contexts and conditions.
Head of Programm:
Ruedi Baur (Designer), Miguel Robles- Duran (Urbanist), Jesko Fezer (Architect), Matthias Görlich (Designer), Stefanie-Vera Kockot (Cultural and Visual Studies) in Cooperation with Christine Breton (Conservateur du Patrimeune, Quartier Nord, Marseille)