Midsummer Evening Lecture

vrijdag 05 juli 2024
Academie van Bouwkunst
Waterlooplein 211-213
1011 PG Amsterdam

On Friday 5 July, we host our annual Midsummer Evening to mark the end of our academic year. This festive event features a lecture and the launch of our Annual Review.

The celebration starts at 17:00 with drinks, a pop-up mocktail bar and bites. At 18:00, Alastair Parvin from Open Systems Lab will give the annual lecture. The Annual Review will be presented at 19:00, followed by more excellent drinks & bites.

Lecture: Rewiring Systems
As we stare down the barrel of the next decade – housing crises, economic stagnation, an ageing society, climate collapse, food insecurity, ageing infrastructure, the rise of nationalism cities and places are facing a scale and complexity of design challenges that our current institutions and industries clearly aren't ready for. The problem is that we are trying to meet the challenges of the 21st century with the same 19th century systems that created them. The challenge that falls on us is to work out how to redesign these systems. This is the focus of Open Systems Lab: working on how we can redesign some of the basic operating systems that underpin places. In this talk, Alastair Parvin takes a dive through some of those systems, and suggests some ideas for how we can rewire the way we build, the way plan, the way we own. It will also be a call to think about new ways that, as designers, architects, urbanists, and landscape architects we can help contribute to the big challenges of our time.

About the speaker
Alastair Parvin is a systems designer and civic entrepreneur. He is co-founder of Open Systems Lab, a non-profit R&D company developing digital technologies to transform housing, planning, construction and development in the 21st century. Their current projects include WikiHouse, Plan✕ and Fairhold. He also writes, speaks and advises widely on housing, property, digital innovation, and role of design and innovation in overcoming social and economic challenges, including 'A Right to Build' (RIBA Award for research 2011) and 'Scaling the Citizen Sector' (2016), and sits on the Scottish Government Task force for Digital Planning.

Advance registration is not required. We hope we may welcome the entire Academy community this evening, as we look back on the academic year (and forward to the next!).
 

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