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en // POST+Capitalist City

Launching date: 15th of October 2012 Questions Deadline: 15th of November 2012 Submission Dead Line: 15th of January 2013 Results announced: 15th of February 2013

LIVE

Submission / Registration deadline: 15.01.2013 Early birds registration deadline: 01.12.2012 Entry fee: 30 / 50

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POST+ CAPITALIST CITY

en // POST+Capitalist City

call for ideas

POST+Capitalist City

With successive declines on the financial markets, recent times have seen a growing interest in the theoretical debate about alternatives to the ongoing capitalist system. Gathering international thinkers from all walks of political life, the diagnosis on the ongoing economic crisis situation tends to demonstrate that the system as it is nowadays needs to be rethought and perhaps re-established globally. The recent Wall Street protests and the associated developing movements around the world indicates the depth to which the inequality generated by the economic system and the demand for global change has penetrated the popular consciousness. The financial crisis is no longer a matter for the decision makers and having reached the masses is transforming the political and national or transnational spheres. At the same time creative alternatives in trying to deal with the growth of poverty amongst the population propose new ways of living, celebrating an ideology based on trust, solidarity, community and action. Cities Their attractiveness was originally based on the economic opportunities they provided to their inhabitants: job opportunities created a massive influx from the countryside, contributing actively to their spatial transformation by means of increasing population density and growth. However, in a prospective future if attractiveness is no longer necessarily related to profit making as the symbolic 99% idealized by the Occupy movements around the world claim the question of the future of existing cities is wide open. WHAT IF ? What if the change was tomorrow? What would be the characteristics of a system not based on profit making? What would be the consequences of a new system for the way in which we use urban spaces? Would cities enter a transformation process, becoming specialized centres in a globalized system? Would the global network of cities tend to erase borders or to affirm and reinforce them? What is (could be) the scale (the impact) of the change?

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collage competitions is a cycle of competitions / call for ideas for prospective thinking in terms of urban planning, architecture, political, social and economical spaces in a global scale. Students, architects, urban planners, designers, artists and all active thinkers are invited to submit their ideas and share their visions to the world. // 1 // 10/12

#3
LIVE

en // POST+Capitalist City

LIVE
POST+ CAPITALIST CITY

If consuming is not a main motto anymore and producing is reduced to satisfying basic needs, then daily life would be totally transformed: how to spend extra free time in a post-capitalist city? What is the scale of inhabiting? How are public institutions organized? A new balance between public and private has to be defined: what about ownership? Everything is valuable from small interventions up to global concepts.

[be, inhabit, subsist, experience] Mans relation to locations, and through locations to spaces, inheres in his dwelling. The relationship between man and space is none other than dwelling, strictly thought and spoken. ~ Martin Heidegger, Building Dwelling Thinking 1951

According to the last report of the United Nations Population Fund, we have reached 7 billion people with 7 billion possibilities (1). Nonetheless, those 7 billion possibilities dont correspond to 7 billion of equal possibilities. There are as many ways of living as people on the planet. The increasing demographic changes - due to the combination of medical and technological progress leading to the growth of aging population and the decrease of birth mortality - tend to generate fast informal expansion of urban territories: whereas demographics in Europe announces a limited growth for the future, the prognostic numbers concerning Asia and Africa are alarming. Studies prove that education level, birth rate and average income are intrinsically linked and that by facilitating education in the countries in situation of high poverty, we could reach a necessary state of balance (2). But the question induced behind those numbers is the question of how. The worries seem to focus on space: we can observe the horizontal development of slums and shanty towns - which Robert Neuwirth proposes to stop considering as informal or a-normal but instead, to recognize as an acknowledged architectural typology as it is one of the most common - if not the most - around the world (3) while, at the same time, ex-industrial towns see their population shrinking. Also the mortgage crisis of 2008 in U.S. lead to the non-desired abandonment of thousands of houses nowadays, that organizations like Take Back the Land (4) are trying to get back to use by claiming the right to housing. If it is not a question of space available, what is it about? But the right to housing is not only a question of global scale or global balance. The access to private space - for rent as for sale - and the evolution and diversification of the ways of living took an unlikely direction over the last years: the personal guarantees one has to insure in order to have a roof, and the non-proportional raise of the prices of the real estate market against average salaries drove to trivialize shared living spaces, irrespectively of the personal situation, age or family status. Even more, the criteria of admission for getting an apartment do not stop reinforcing whereas the working policies tend contrarily to liberalize: the seeker is submitted to high competition where the perfect concurrent has something which is about to disappear: the perfect job for life and the good reputation in some countries directly ranked through your bank account data. Could we think about an alternative society in which we could perceive space as part of a fourdimensional system in which the inhabitants, the use and the occupation can alter in time? If consuming were not the main motto anymore, if production and distribution would be reduced to the satisfaction of
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en // POST+Capitalist City

our global basic needs, wouldnt we have more free time to live? Where would personal creativity and action find its place? How could a post+capitalist society affect our daily lives and the way we envision housing? Would we still own and if yes, what would we own? Compulsory, the heritage to our kids would be a different one. Assuming that our cities can provide everything we need, how could an after crisis scenario look like?

What would happen to real estate if there were no speculation on living? What would be the scale of inhabiting: will there be controlled islands or open spaces for free evolving community structures? Will we live close or enclosed from nature? Will we occupy even more space or will we switch to minimal standards of living? How would it change the structure of the megacities and their infinite expansion? ..... >>> Now its your turn: Show us your ideas for a city with another culture of living and dwelling!

POST+ CAPITALIST CITY

(1) State of the world population 2011: http://www.unfpa.org/webdav/site/global/shared/documents/ publications/2011/EN-SWOP2011-FINAL.pdf (2) Hans Rosling: Global population growth, box by box, Ted@Cannes 2010: http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_on_ global_population_growth.html (3) Robert Neuwirth on our shadow cities, TedGlobal 2005: http://www.ted.com/talks/robert_neuwirth_on_our_shadow_ cities.html (4) http://takebacktheland.org/ // 3 // 10/12

Submission requirements

en // POST+Capitalist City

The scale of the project is up to you! One can think about a global solution for urban conditions on a world scale whereas others would rather talk about their own street corner! Both are interesting! The only rule: it must be urban and prospective, according to the main thesis. The selection criteria will consider the final design proposal as the hypothesis taken by the entrants. As this competition tries to develop critical and concrete ideas to a hypothetical situation, the entrants are invited to define the context (political, economical and geographical, including if needed a time schedule) in which their proposal has to be related to be credible and optimized. Utopias as dystopias can be considered, as long as the proposals permit to bring original ideas and thoughts according to the statement. Third competition: LIVE Launching date: 15th of October 2012 Questions Deadline: 15th of November 2012 Early Birds Registration Deadline: 1st of December 2012 Submission Dead Line: 15th of January 2013, 23:59 pm, European time (CET) Results announced: 15th of February 2013 The participants are asked to provide: - up to 5 single A3 images (horizontal 300 dpi jpg) representing their ideas in the most efficient way. These images can be collages, maps, plans, pictures, diagrams, 3D representations or any other graphical tool. Each of them must be a unique document, independent and self-explanatory. No special layout is demanded, each sheet contains one scheme / image only. - a simple text (up to 800 words) has to be attached, in .txt format, explaining the choices and the particularities of the specific site chosen if needed, the prospective context in term of time and space (economically, politically, socially), and the concept of the related project. This text can be in English, French or German. This text will include the title of the project. - an abstract / resume of the text (up to 200 words), in .txt format, resuming your main idea and concept in ENGLISH. This abstract will include the title of the project. Each document shall not exceed the size limit of 5 Mo. The submissions are due digitally through the link provided to the participants by email after registration and payment of the registration fees. Jury

POST+ CAPITALIST CITY

The Jury is composed by the editorial board of Collage Lab and at least one additional invited personality (architect, artist, curator or philosopher) with significant influence on architecture and urbanism and specific interest on the current topic reliable to their current work. The invited jury is to be determined. Prizes Entry fee Early Birds (until 01.12.2012): 30 Euros / submission Entry fee (after 01.12.2012): 50 Euros / submission One group can submit more than one entry. The entry fee is to be paid per project. A selection of entries will be featured on the website and published by our media partners, online magazines and other publications.

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The amount of the prizes is depending on the amount of participants. The more participants you are, the more you can win. 2 different prizes will be distinguished and the repartition operated as following: 1st prize: 65% of the final amount 2nd prize: 35% of the final amount The final amount is the total amount minus taxes and administrative expenses for CollageLab. Honorable mentions may be provided as special prizes depending on our generous partners and sponsors. Rules

en // POST+Capitalist City

All submissions must respect strictly the anonymity and not contain any names, symbols, logos or any signs permitting to recognize the identity of the entrant. Any submission not respecting this basic rule will not be considered as a valid proposal and therefore be excluded from the competition. The submitted files must be named after the registration code chosen by the entrants (2 Letters 3 Numbers. Example: AA000) as following: code_text.txt code_resume.txt code_image1.jpg code_image2.jpg code_image3.jpg code_image4.jpg code_image5.jpg

POST+ CAPITALIST CITY

Entries must not have been published or proposed previously to any other competition. Participants guarantee to own all copyrights for their proposal including all the single documents of their submission (such as pictures, datas, texts). By participating, the entrants accept the publication of their proposal without any further authorization: Entrants keep the authorship and the including intellectual rights and will always be named in every publication. Any further indemnity would be given for the eventual future publication or exhibition of the proposals submitted. Collage Lab reserves the right to modify the submission requirements at any time.

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Emerging from the association of Joanne Pouzenc and Philine Schneider, CollageLab was born in 2011 as a collective for research in architecture and urbanism. Transdisciplinary it investigates past and future space strategies as well as on-going developments of the built and non-built ideas, that represent society in time and space. The chosen topics of the research include cultural characteristics, economic developments and political circumstances. CollageLab is grounded in theoretical and practical experiments and the will to discuss and to combine fields of knowledge. The on-going ideas come to life by exhibitions, competitions, workshops and other publications. CONTACT for further information collagelab - competition web | www.collagelab.org/en/contact email | [email protected] // 5 // 10/12