We are living in the century of cities and urbanisation. Urban environments will become the main organisational form for almost all human societies, where almost all the future issues of humanity will be decided. The unstoppable progress of global urbanisation however raises more questions than we can currently answer. Does the process of urbanisation manifest itself in characteristic attributes, recognisable patterns in different parts of the world? Are the environmental effects comparable? Are the causes of migration comparable? And what are the downsides of the urbanisation process, i.e., what happens to the rural regions left behind? Urbanisation overturns all traditional structures, but is it in fact a process that is open to general analysis, which can be conceptually defined, or does it come in diverse singular movements that can only be interpreted empirically?
Submissions for the competition were received from 125 teams with a total of 386 participants from 31 countries. Through the selected 50 entries based on concrete empirical examples in the medium of information design, this publication demonstrates the framework conditions that change as a result of the urbanisation process and which account for the transformation of urban life. In order to present the highly heterogeneous projects in this issue, these framework conditions have been categorised and utilised as a structural concept:
- Globalisation, or the local effects of economic interdependence
- The interconnected city, or the influence of science and technology
- Neoliberal city politics, or the organisation of coexistence
- Informal structures, or self-organisation as a survival strategy
- The urban metabolism, or the relationship with nature and the environment
- Migration, or the promise of a better life
This publication also serves as the exhibition catalogue of the exhibition „Planetary Urbanism – The Transformative Power of Cities“ in the context of the UN-Habitat III Conference 2016 and further upcoming exhibitions in collaboration with M:AI Museum für Architektur und Ingenieurkunst NRW. “Planetary Urbanism” is supported by the German Federal Foreign Office, and in consultation with the German Advisory Council on Global Change (WBGU).
Source: ARCH+
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Source: ARCH+ 223
Planetary Urbanism – The Transformative Power of Cities in 50 Selected Works
“Planetary Urbanism – The Transformative Power of Cities” is the publication of the competition entitled “Planetary Urbanism”, which was launched in 2015 as the second „Critique of the Present“ competition after the first competition „Out of Balance“ in 2012 by the architecturial magazine ARCH+.