Forum

Michelle Provoost

Michelle Provoost, Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), is an author, researcher and curator specialiсed in urban planning history, postwar architecture and contemporary urban development. She co-founded the office of Crimson Architectural Historians in 1994.

Provoost has served as Director of the International New Town Institute (INTI) in Almere, the Netherlands. Under her direction, INTI has grown from a small institute into an internationally known centrе for education and research relating to New Towns. INTI has realized extensive lecture and conference series, a global network of researchers, and considerable publications. Dr. Provoost is also the head editor of the INTI publications, including Rising in the East. Contemporary New Towns in Asia (2011), New Towns for the 21st Century: Planned vs. Unplanned Cities (2010), and Modeltown: Using Urban Simulation in New Town Planning (2009).

Dr. Provoost worked as Curator at the Dutch Architecture Institute (Nederlands Architectuur Instituut, NAi) between 1998 and 2001. Currently she teaches at various universities, including TU Delft, Central Saint Martins in London and the University of Amsterdam.

Dr. Provoost comes to Bulgaria thanks to the support of Creative Industries fund NL.

Meglena Zlatkova

Meglena Zlatkova teaches Social anthropology in the Ethnology department of the Plovdiv University “Paisiy Hilendarski”. Her scientific research and academic interests are in the fields of urban anthropology, visual anthropology, ethno-sociology. She has taken part in research on topics such as urban space dynamics, migration and borders, heritage and local development. She has participated at numerous scientific conferences and has been a lecturer at the universities of Ljubljana, Lyon, Prague, Bochum and Budapest.

Her interest in the urban environment and urban communities has led her to take part in projects, which combine architecture, urban planning, anthropology, urban space visualisation, exhibitions and multimedia presentations. She is a regular leader of student assignments and projects, which deal with different aspects of urban culture and urban lifestyle.

She has authored “Ethnosociology of the city. The example of Plovdiv” (2012), in which the focus falls on the city in transition and the transformations of the spaces of Trakiya. Another book of hers is “Urban heritage and borders. Edirne and Tsarevo” (2016), which presents a research on spaces of migration on both sides of the Bulgarian-Turkish border.

http://en.logos.uni-plovdiv.net/maeglena-zlatkova

Marc Neelen & Ana Džokić

STEALTH.unlimited is the practice founded by Ana Džokić and Marc Neelen. For over 15 years now their work has been equally based in the context of architecture, as well as contemporary art and culture. Through intensive collaboration with individuals, organisations and institutions, STEALTH connect urban research, visual arts, spatial interventions and activism.

STEALTH’s has curatorial experience with Kunstverein Munich, Venice Architecture Biennale, Evento biennale in Bordeaux, Vienna Biennale, Tirana International Contemporary Art Biennale, amongst others. Ana and Marc have also realised numerous spatial interventions at places such as Museum Boijmans van Beuningen in Rotterdam, Röda Sten Konsthall in Gothenburg, a slum neighbourhood in Medellin (Colombia), etc.

Since 2010, in collaboration with Cultural Center Rex, Belgrade, STEALTH initiated the platform Ko Gradi Grad (Who Builds the City). In 2013 they co-initiated Stad in de Maak (City in the Making) in Rotterdam. Both initiatives explore modes of citizen engagement in the urban environment.

The academic experience of STEALTH ranges from practice based research at the Royal Institute of Arts in Stockholm to teaching at the Willem de Kooning Academy in Rotterdam and MaHKU in Utrecht. STEALTH has also contributed to numerous books and publications.

Marc Neelen & Ana Džokić comes to Bulgaria thanks to the support of Creative Industries fund NL.

Lukáš Kordík & Stefan Polakovic

GutGut is a Slovakia based architecture practice founded by Stefan Polakovic and Lukáš Kordík. In the public domain GutGut acts as a co-organiser of the Days of Architecture and Design (DAAD) festival. Taking place in Bratislava, the festival serves as a platform for critical debate on local issues with participants from both home and abroad. Lukáš and Stefan have also worked together on projects of panelki transformations in Slovakia.

Stefan Polakovic is an architect and head of Institute of Public Buildings at Slovak University of Technology in Bratislava.

Lukáš Kordík is an architect and urbanist. He graduated from Slovak University of Technology. He is also a co-founder of OFCA – Office for Collaborative Architects. OFCA is an informal collective of architects sharing their knowledge and expertise and was founded as a continuation of City Visions Europe exchange programme.

http://www.gutgut.sk

Stefan Rettich

Stefan Rettich is architect and partner at KARO* architects. He has taught at the Bauhaus Kolleg in Dessau from 2007-2011 and has been since then Professor for Theory and Design at the School of Architecture Bremen. In 2016 he was appointed as Professor for Urban Design at the University of Kassel.

KARO* is a conceptual platform for communication, architecture and spatial tactics based in Leipzig and Hamburg since 1999. The members Stefan Rettich, Antje Heuer and Bert Hafermalz work as architects, artists, critics and journalists, as well as teachers. The main focus of KARO* is on social relations and their impact on the built environment. KARO* has been invited to various exhibitions, e.g. the XI. and the XII. Architecture Biennale in Venice and has been awarded with the European Prize for Urban Public Space in 2010, the Brit Insurance Design Award in 2011 and was shortlisted for the Mies van der Rohe Award in 2011.

http://www.karo-architekten.de/

Tor Lindstrand

Tor Lindstrand is an Associate Professor at the KTH School of Architecture (Stockholm, Sweden) and a co-owner of the office of Larsson Lindstrand Palme arkitektkontor AB. His practice oscillate between education, architecture, art and performance in numerous cultural contexts with projects presented in institutions like, TATE Liverpool, Venice Architecture Biennale 2008, 2010 and 2014, Steirischer Herbst, Shenzhen and Hong Kong Bi-city Biennale of Urbanism/Architecture, Van Abbe Museum, VOLTA Basel, Performa New York, Royal Dramatic Theatre Copenhagen, NAI Rotterdam, Stockholm Architecture Museum, Tensta Art centre, Botkyrka Art centre and Storefront for Art and Architecture.

Together with choreographer Marten Spangberg he initiated International Festival (2003–2010), a practice working on context specific projects spanning from buildings, publications, films, installations, public interventions and situations. In 2010 he founded Economy together with art director Jessica Watson-Galbraith, a practice working with architecture, art, education and performance.

Tor has been involved for many years in the research of the Fittja neighbourhood in Stockholm. The area was part of the Million Homes Programme, a social housing programme launched by the Swedish government with the intention of creating a million dwellings between 1965 and 1975.

http://this-is-economy.com/

Tor Lindstrand comes in Bulgaria thanks to the support of the National Culture Fund.

Anna-Laura Bourguignon

Anna-Laura Bourguignon represents the French office aaa/atelier d’architecture autogérée. AAA is an urban research collective platform in Paris, established in 2001. The collective, co-founded by architects Constantin Petcou and Doina Petrescu, involves specialists, artists, researchers, and institutional partners from universities, arts organizations, and local organisations. In their projects AAA often experiment with unused spaces and encourage the involvement of local residents. Selected projects include: Ecobox, a series of gardens made from recycled materials active from 2001 to 2006; and Passage 56, the transformation of a disused passageway in a culturally diverse Parisian neighborhood into a productive and eco-friendly garden and cultural space in 2006. Currently AAA develops R-Urban (r-urban.net) a participative strategy of urban resilience in the Parisian Region. AAA’s work has received numerous international prizes including Zumtobel, Curry Stone, EIB Social Innovation, European Public Space Prize.

http://www.urbantactics.org/

Anna-Laura Bourguignon comes to Bulgaria with the support of the French Institute in Bulgaria.

Vitalie Sprinceana & Vladimir Us

Vitalie Sprinceana is a sociologist and public intellectual, co-founder of the platform of critical thinking PLATYFORMA. He obtained a Bachelor degree in Political Sciences from Sofia University, a Master in Philosophy in Chisinau (USM) and is currently working on his PhD at George Mason University, USA. He has interests in urban sociology, sociology of religion, political sociology.

Vladimir Us is an artist and curator based in Chisinau, Moldova, founding member of Oberliht Young Artists Association. He studied art, curating, cultural management and cultural policy in Chisinau, Grenoble and Belgrade. Through his recent works and projects he examines the processes of transformation of public space in post-Soviet cities along with the need for conceptualizing an alternative network of public spaces in Chisinau.

http://www.oberliht.com/

David Juarez

David Juarez is an architect and founding member of Straddle3, a multidisciplinary collective that works on urban- related projects based on an open source philosophy. Completed projects include the transformation of vacant lots and buildings into community spaces, houses built out of recycled materials, public parks co-designed and built with their future users, participatory cultural centres in Spain and Latin America, and digital platforms and software tools for collaborative urban development. David is a co-founder and active member of the Arquitecturas Colectivas network, and has conducted courses and workshops in Spain and internationally, at centres such as Universidad Javeriana in Bogota, Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona, Universitat International de Catalunya, and Delft University of Technology. He has contributed to several publications including Collective Architectures (Vibok, 2010), Wikiplaza: Request for Comments (Hackitectura/dpr-Barcelona, 2011) and Handbook for activating the Public Space (AACC, 2014).

http://straddle3.net

David Juarez comes in Bulgaria thanks to the support of the Institute Cervantes and the Embassy of Kingdom of Spain in Sofia.

Cristina Ungureanu

Cristina Ungureanu comes originally from Romania, but for many years she has been living and working in the US. Cristina has a background in urban design, strategic planning

and community engagement. She is currently a senior partner at WXY Studio in New York.

WXY is a multi-disciplinary practice specialising in the realisation of urban design, planning and architectural solutions in challenging contexts. Focused on innovative approaches to public space, structures and urban issues, the firm’s work engages both site-specific design and planning at multiple scales. The firm’s commissions are in collaboration with community-based, public authority, and private clients.

Cristina has graduated in Development Studies from the University of California, Berkeley, US, as well as in City Planning from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, US.

http://wxystudio.com

Cristina Ungureanu comes to Bulgaria thanks to the support of the Embassy of the U.S. in Sofia.

Laura Panait & Silviu Medesan

Laura and Silviu are part of the Romanian collective La Terenuri. This is an initiative in the panelki neighbourhood of Mănăştur in the city of Cluj-Napoca. Through various types of events of collective nature La Terenuri aims at empowering citizens and at developing active citizenship in Mănăştur. One such example is the integration of local residents productions in the cultural programming, part of an initiative for refurbishment of a former communist cinema in Mănăştur.

Silviu is an architect, while Laura is a Cultural Manager and Urban Anthropology Researcher. They have participated or led numerous interventions in Romanian public spaces. Laura and Silviu have worked in various formats: workshops, exhibitions, lectures, debates, interventions. Their projects are interdisciplinary and different forms of art, landscape architecture, socio-anthropological analysis and architecture.

https://www.facebook.com/LaTerenuriSpatiuComunInManastur/

Photo by Ștefan Capbun

Hanne van Reusel

Hanne van Reusel comes from Belgium and is part of the Brussels initiative Commons Josephat. The Josephat terrain is an area of 24 ha in the Schaarbeek area of Brussels. For years the terrain has been waiting for a new use. A group of citizens, amongst whom Hanne, has gathered to think about, propose and act on the transformation of Josaphat into an active part of the city, open to all. The group has been developing strategies, which take into account various legal, economic and social aspects in consideration.

Hanne is a PhD researcher at the KU in Leuven. Her field of interest is Performative urbanism in the margins of the city; Research-by-design on collective visioning and place-making in Brussels. Hanne is also part of the Récup’Kitchen initiative. That is a mobile kitchen that collects at the end each day unsold products from the Brussels markets and gives them a second life.

https://commonsjosaphat.wordpress.com/

http://www.recupkitchen.be

Hanne van Reusel comes to Bulgaria thanks to the support of the Embassy of Belgium in Sofia.

Jiří Sulženko

Jiří Sulženko comes from the Czech Republic and is a former programme director of Plzeň 2015, European Capital of Culture. Jiří is currently busy with the DEPO2015 creative zone, again in Plzeň. He was also one of the founders of the Street for Art Festival in the panelki neighbourhood of Černý Most in Prague, where he worked extensively with the infrastructure built in socialist times.

Jiří has studied Theatre management at the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague. He has previously worked at the Cultural centre Kulturní Jižní Město and the Archa Theatre, both in Prague.

http://www.depo2015.cz/en/

Momoyo Kaijima

Momoyo Kaijima is one of the founding partners of Atelier BOW-WOW from Tokyo, Japan. She has studied at the Tokyo Institute of Technology and the ETH in Zurich. Momoyo is an associate professor at the University of Tsukuba, as well as a visiting professor at the Harvard GSD, the ETH, the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, Rice University and the Delft University of Technology.

Atelier Bow-Wow is an architecture firm, founded in 1992 by Yoshiharu Tsukamoto and Momoyo Kajima. The office constantly pushes the limits between private and public space, to create environments that fosters human interaction. Atelier Bow-Wow is said to be among the most innovative practices working today and their work inspires designers around the world.

http://www.bow-wow.jp

Momoyo Kaijima comes in Bulgaria thanks to the support of EU JAPAN FEST and in partnership of Municipal foundation Plovdiv 2019.

Jan Gehl

Jan Gehl is a Danish architect and former professor at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts. He is a founding Partner of Gehl Architects – Urban Quality Consultants. Gehl’s focus is on creating cities for people. In his work he advocates an improvement of the quality of urban life by re-orienting city design towards the pedestrian and cyclist. He is a loud advocate of designing not for the sake of capital or form, but around human behaviour.

Jan Gehl is author of numerous books, amongst which are Life between Buildings, New City Spaces, Public Spaces – Public Life, New City Life and Cities for people. His city improvement projects include Copenhagen, Stockholm, Rotterdam, London, Amman, Muscat, Melbourne, Sydney, San Francisco, Seattle and New York. He is an honorary fellow of RIBA, AIA, RAIC, and PIA.

http://gehlpeople.com

Jan Gehl comes to Bulgaria thanks to the support of the Embassy of the Kingdom of Denmark and the Danish Agency for Culture and Palaces.