Stadsleven en internationaal platform What Design Can Do hebben de handen ineengeslagen en op 6 maart 2019 een live talkshow samengesteld over nieuwe ideeën voor schone energie in 5 wereldsteden op 5 continenten. WDCD had in samenwerking met de IKEA Foundation de Clean Energy Challenge uitgeschreven, waar meer dan 450 inzendingen op kwamen.
America’s ‘Automotive City’, Detroit, has suffered its share of setbacks: the demise of car manufacturing, white flight, black flight, the economic crisis and a huge mountain of debt. Thousands of houses still stand derelict, inhabited by drugdealers or with trees growing through the roof. The city went bankrupt in 2013 – a blessing in disguise, as its 18 billion dollars of debt were erased. The city is on its way back up: downtown is undergoing a marked renaissance and Ford Motor Company, believe it or not, is actually returning to Detroit. Ford will be setting up a new mobility research center in Detroit’s beautiful old train station, which stood empty for decades.
In Detroit I made a video interview with the head of urban planning, Maurice Cox, about Detroit’s upturn – and what still remains to be done.
Het is een jaarlijks ritueel: het eindejaarslijstje. Voor NRC heb ik mijn top 5 genoemd in de architectuur en design, met een brede en hopelijk verrassende keuze aan kapellen en paviljoens, boeken en stoelen die vrouwen dwingen wijdbeens te gaan zitten. Lees hieronder, met foto’s en video’s, wat ik heb gekozen.
The Design Academy Eindhoven has moved its 2018 graduation show to the former Campina milk factory on the edge of town.. There’s lots of space not only for the objects, but also for the ideas behind them. I chose four that address both the physical and the digital domains, from morphed office chairs to the way women sit in public, with their knees together… but not on Anna Jensen’s chairs!
What does it mean to be human in a time when man and machine merge? The exhibition Robot Love, curated by Ine Gevers, asks whether our capacity for love still distinguishes us from robots, now that robots – thanks to artificial intelligence – have the ability to learn. Can robots learn to love? Ine Gevers is also a guest in my talkshow Cinema Stadsleven in EYE Film Institute on Oct. 24th.
At first sight, the flat Dutch landscape under gray skies would seem to be lacking in drama. Photographer Saskia Boelsums has found a way to make the landscape look truly dramatic: with color, with clouds, with patience and of course with the computer. And rather than having Instagram crop her images into squares, she decided to photograph in a square format herself. “It’s difficult. I like that.” She has a solo show now at Eduard Planting Gallery.