Top-Down Bottom-Up Dialogues
Lecture series by space&designstrategiesOctober 2024 - June 2025Chaired by Lorenzo RomitoInvited lecturers: Philip Ursprung (ETH Zurich), Samia Henni (McGill Univ.), Lucia Babina (Cohabitation Strategies), Teddy Cruz and Fonna Forman (UC San Diego), Sandi Hilal (DAAR), Peter Lang, Lieven De Cauter (KU Leuven)
Where do changes come from?According with the I-Ching changes come from the bottom.According with the mainstream western culture changes come from the top, achieved by plans, imposed by elites, designed by professionals.Could top down and bottom up practices coop instead of conflict? This year Space and Design Strategies at KunstuniLinz proposes a series of lectures that are also part of a course open to all students of Kunstuni.Along with the 2025 Austrian Pavilion at Venice Biennale of Architecture, that this year will hold the discussion on possible collaboration in between Top-Down and Bottom-Up practices through the confrontation in between Vienna planning practices and Rome self-organization practices, the lectures will explore how and if spontaneous creativity and planning and architectural practices could cooperate to achieve a “better living”.The invited artists and architects are all well known academics and practitioner dealing with the issue in different ways.The courseBefore the public lectures, which will take place at 18.00, the guests will hold a seminar with the students from 14.30 to 17.30. Through the seminars and the lectures the students will be invited to both produce a written reflection on the practices presented and to make an artistic intervention related to those.
Who hosts who?A dialogue with Sandi Hilal on hospitality and citizenship
November 28thSeminar: 14:30–17:30 | 1st Floor, Seminarroom H60137Lecture: 18:00 | 5th Floor, Hörsaal D OST H60504Hauptplatz 6, 4020 Linz
Sandi Hilal is an architect and a researcher. She was the head of the Infrastructure and Camp Improvement Program in the West Bank at UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East) from 2008 to 2014. Together with Alessandro Petti, she founded Campus in Camps, an experimental educational program hosted in Dheisheh Refugee Camp in Bethlehem. In 2007, together with Alessandro Petti and Eyal Weizman, she founded DAAR (Decolonizing Architecture Art Residency) in Beit Sahour, Palestine, with the aim to combine an architectural studio and an art residency to be able to bring together architects, artists, activists, urbanists, film-makers and curators to work collectively on the subjects of politics and architecture. Sandi Hilal is a visiting professor at Lund University.
Other lectures in series
October 3rdIntroduction with Lorenzo Romito October 17th How to teach, how to learn about cities?on education in art and architecture dialogue with Philip Ursprung Philip Ursprung is an art historian specializing in late 20th- and 21st-century European and North American art and architecture. His research and teaching focus on the interrelation between architecture and art in a political and economic framework. Active as a historian, critic, and curator, Ursprung has taught at the University of Zurich, Hochschule der Künste Berlin, Columbia University, and Barcelona Institute of Architecture. After studying in Geneva, Vienna, and Berlin, he earned his Ph.D. in art history at Freie Universität Berlin. He is a professor of history of art and architecture at the Department of Architecture at ETH Zurich, Switzerland, where he was dean of the department from 2017-19. November 28thWho hosts who?on hospitality and citizenship dialogue with Sandi Hilal Sandi Hilal (DAAR - Decolonizing Architecture) architect and researcher, was the head of the Infrastructure and Camp Improvement Program in the West Bank at UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East) from 2008 to 2014. Together with Alessandro Petti, she founded Campus in Camps (www. campusincamps.ps), an experimental educational program hosted in Dheisheh Refugee Camp in Bethlehem. In 2007, together with Alessandro Petti and Eyal Weizman, she founded DAAR (Decolonizing Architecture Art Residency) (www.decolonizing.ps) in Beit Sahour, Palestine, with the aim to combine an architectural studio and an art residency able to gather together architects, artists, activists, urbanists, film-makers and curators to work collectively on the subjects of politics and architecture. Sandi Hilal is a visiting professor at Lund University.January 30thWho cares?on non economical social practices dialogue with Lucia BabinaLucia Babina is a social designer, artist activist, free writer, and seeker, focusing on research and reactivation of sustainable forms of cohabitation and coexistence. Her aim is to reflect on the injustices attributed to uneven resource distribution by means of collective and artistic process. She is the co-founder of iStrike in Rotterdam, an environmental organization aimed at creating multidisciplinary platforms of research and international exchange. She is also the co-founder of Cohabitation Strategies (CohStra) based in Rotterdam, whose practice is rooted in socio-spatial investigations leading to transformative urban projects. Together with CohStra she participated in the Venice Architecture Biennale 2021.
