UNS Talks

Every few months we like to host a breakfast open to everyone in our office to discuss the issue of Gender in design in an informal way. This time around, we invited Afaina de Jong to join us.

Afaina is an architect, an academic and a cultural entrepreneur who works on the boundary of art and architecture. Having taught in both TU Delft and the Sandberg Institute, Afaina founded AFARAI in 2005: an Amsterdam based architectural agency that specializes in spatial design, taking an intersectional and interdisciplinary approach to design. In her talk, Afaina discusses her architectural practice, her work, her thoughts and her research, as related to otherness, gender and design.

UNS Talks about the Future of Mobility: The Cable Car

This is the second of two special edition podcast episodes of UNS Talks, in which we discuss the future of mobility, looking at three projects we are currently working on across two alternative forms of public transport. To discuss these themes, we've brought in the people who are behind the designs: Ben van Berkel, the founder of UNStudio and UNSense, Alice Haugh, Futurist, and Milou van Min, Junior Architectural Designer.

This episode focuses on the Cable Car, and its resurgence as a modern form of urban transport in Europe. Urban Density, flexibility, costs, barriers and the designs themselves will be discussed. To do this, we dissect two of our recently released designs for the Gothenburg Cable Car in Sweden, and the IJbaan Cable Car in Amsterdam.

To see our infrastructural designs for yourself be sure to check out our website here: https://www.unstudio.com/en/projects?qfilter=1011

UNS Talks about the Future of Mobility: the Hardt Hyperloop Hub

This is the first of two special edition podcast episodes in which we discuss the future of mobility, looking at three projects we are currently working on across two alternative forms of public transport. To discuss these themes, we've brought in the people who are behind the designs: Ben van Berkel, the founder of UNStudio and UNSense, Alice Haugh, Futurist, and Milou van Min, Junior Architectural Designer.

This episode focuses on the hyperloop as a form of transport, how the hyperloop can fit in with existing infrastructure and urban environments, and what it could mean for the future of Europe. To do this, we dissect our recently released designs for the Hardt Hyperloop Hub. To see our design for yourself be sure to check out our website here: https://www.unstudio.com/en/page/10319/hardt-hyperloop

UNS Talks with Mariana Pestana and Rory Hyde, Curators of Architecture at the Victoria & Albert Museum, London. "The Future Starts Here" is a blockbuster exhibition currently on show at the V&A Museum in London, exploring the power of design in shaping the world of tomorrow. Design is, of course, always about the future. Curators Rory Hyde and Mariana Pestana discuss the key technologies appearing on the horizon and how they could impact our lives. From smart appliances to satellites, artificial intelligence to internet culture, this exhibition brings together more than 100 objects as a landscape of possibilities for the near future.

Check out some videos from the exhibition on the UNStudio website here: https://www.unstudio.com/en/page/10229/podcast-the-future-starts-here-at-the-v-a-museum

For our fifth podcast, we asked Doma to speak at our annual UNStudio Summer Conference, held in Mediamatic in Amsterdam. Doma is a non-profit housing cooperative that attempts to address and overcome issues relating the housing crisis, and the gap between home ownership and rental. Unlike other housing cooperatives however, Doma has developed an equitable housing platform, turning its users into home owners, making use of block chain technology and availing of smart contracts.

For our fourth podcast, we asked Robert Rowland Smith to join us in Amsterdam for our annual UNStudio Summer Conference, held in Mediamatic. Robert is a British author and philosopher, whose books include Derrida and Autobiography, Breakfast with Socrates: The philosophy of everyday life, and AutoBioPhilosophy: An intimate story of what it means to be human.

For our summer conference on the theme of Ownership, Robert stepped away from architecture and design, and studied the theme from a philosophical perspective… Throughout his talk he asks two big questions. First: What would remain of our identity once everything we own is taken away from us? And second: Could ownership be seen as a radical form of openness and hospitality? He looks at the history of ownership and its roots in medieval Europe, the concept of ownership as related to self-identity, Marx, Freud, Derrida and Heidegger, and ownership in the modern world, in the context of Big Data.

For our third podcast, we were very happy to host Nicolay Boyadjiev, who spoke at our annual UNStudio Summer Conference in Amsterdam. Nicolai is a Design Tutor at the Strelka Institute, which is a non-governmental education institutions based in Moscow, that has an experimental approach to studying architecture and design, offering a famously multidisciplinary academic program. For our summer conference on the theme of Ownership, we asked Nicolai the following question: “In the future, will we all be jobless?”. Throughout his talk, Nicolai looked at the gig economy, co-working, platformization and the relationship between space and labor. He primarily takes from the example of We work, arguing that beyond its intention of becoming a “Capitalist Kibbutz”, We-Work could even be viewed as a speculative design project.

Will we be jobless in the future? Is there a role for designers in re-imagining public services? How can we get the most out of machines whilst unleashing human potential? How can we democratize city-making?

Enter Indy Johar. Indy is a London-based architect and co-founder of Architecture00, focusing on the role of design in complex system change and social investment. As well as this, he is Senior Innovation Associate with the Young Foundation and Visiting Professor at the University of Sheffield. Most of Indy’s day-to-day is occupied with Dark Matter Labs, which he founded a few years ago to apply complex systems science to urban & regional renewal, turning what is generally perceived as a threat of our time – spill-over effects across borders, boundaries and silos – into a resource to solve the wicked challenges society faces in the 21st century. Dark Matter Laboratories utilizes an experimentation method typical of a fieldwork scientific laboratory, undertaking real-world research and prototyping in order to seed the next generation of institutional infrastructure. The studio is currently working on a series of initiatives from developing a new class of System Change – Impact Funds, Town Halls for Social Innovation, a new generation of Polytechnics, and the transformation of numerous existing institutions.

Paul Skinner is Creative Director of Tellart, a design studio that combines computation (data, sensors, robotics, networks) with traditional materials (wood, metal, glass, textile and ceramics) to build immersive experiences for governments, museums and brands.

Paul's lecture at UNStudio in Amsterdam focusses on Tellart’s Museum of the Future in Dubai, using it as a base for exploring the future role of the museum in society, as well as that of government and public services more broadly, the commodification of culture and it’s increasingly entangled relationship with commerce. What challenges do museums face today and why is it important that they are sustained? How might digital way-finding and immersive experiences attract new audiences? We’ll explore the role of the designer in tomorrow’s world, the need for visualising and prototyping in order to make futures tangible.

To learn more about Tellart's future scenario toolset, visit our website here: https://www.unstudio.com/en/page/9863/the-tellart-future-scenario-toolset