For different reasons, worldwide, the emergence of large indoor built spaces has created new opportunities for the development of the cities, but also challenged the way we understand the disciplines chiefly responsible for the urban space development. Boundaries between the disciplines of architecture, interior design and urban planning are blurred. Need for their genuine integration seems to be a logical field for exploration.
Linked article, written as the brief for [X]city, a core design studio [of MIARD (Master Interior Architecture and Retail Design) at Piet Zwart Institute in Rotterdam, aims at postulating and structuring all the relevant aspects of this situation.

Link: http://issuu.com/pietzwartinstitute/docs/the__x__city_e-publication_miard

We were invited to give a lecture at BINA, annual event that gathers together the key players in urban development of Belgrade. Our focus was put on widely discussed phenomenon of Third belgrade.
Idea of the third Belgrade is today seen in the context of the two previously identified periods in the city’s history: formation of the historic core south of the Sava river and emergence of the post WWII modernist New Belgrade in the north. In this regard Third Belgrade is normally understood as a chance to extend the city into the uninhabited north-east wetland. 

Instead of such an understanding we suggested that Third Belgrade is a new development context, rather than a spatial determinant. It is a general societal ambient, crucially shaped by an ever more prevailing neoliberal market economy, where the role of the government diminishes and moves to the background. Socioeconomic system resulting from this situation is highly inconsistent and in a constant need for optimizations and corrections. Further complicated by the inevitable exposure and sensitivity to changes on the global level, this instable situation brings about challenges that are particularly evident in the spatial development of Belgrade and other cities in Serbia. Existing planning tools and governing strategies are not sufficient in dealing with the situation as such. New methods are needed for discovering, appreciating, activating and orchestrating contemporary stakeholders in the city­ development.

We were invited to give a lecture at Tilburg Academy of Architecture and Urban Design. We used it to present BASIC CITY’s interests, work field and attitude, in order to get reflections from a very knowledgable audience.

Selection of our projects for the lecture emphasized our ambition to see the absence of the established strategies to deal with the complexity of the contemporary urban development ambient in the West as the unique opportunity for creation of viable critical approaches that aim at long term impacts of uncompromising relevance for the urban space.    

Economic depreciation, spatial scatteredness and complex market driven formulas in the background indicate the absence of a simple solution for regeneration of structurally vacant (especially office) space in the Netherlands. Yet again the obvious potential of this large stock of built space is undeniable.
In the linked article, we indicate necessity for reconfiguration of the existing alliances of stakeholders, multi scale and multidisciplinary approach and an adaptable framework for guidance of incremental urban development as possible directions in tackling the complexity of the task. We argue that simultaneous and synchronized pursuit of those actions could turn the vacant built structure into the ultimate opportunity for city regeneration.

We were invited to address the audience of 6th International Conference “City 2012” in Katowice that consisted of politician, policy makers, urban planners and academics.
Lecture was a chance to argue for the necessity to alter the common urban and city planning methods. Blueprint masterplans are already for some time inapplicable format for guiding of the urban development in the times of unprecedented socioeconomic volatility. At the same time, activist and participatory methods, despite their profoundness and intelligence, clearly display limits in essentially changing the course of the spatial development. A fresh approach is needed to guide the development of the cities. Spatial Development Frameworks that fix only the essential urban parameters, leaving a large field for interpretation through the time of their realization, seem to be worth exploring. They create good base for achieving wide consensus among the stakeholders in urban development, so critical for the implementation of urban plans. At the same time they stay flexible enough for fine-tuning and adapting to the reality through the time of their realization. However, the suggested method not only creates opportunities, but presents some weaknesses too. Possibility for misinterpretation and insufficient control over the development processes are some of them. Addressing those through perfecting the method becomes equally important.