Team

Yehuda_SafranYehuda Safran studied at Saint Martin’s School of Art, the Royal College of Art and University College, London. He taught at the Architectural Association, Goldsmith’s College, Chelsea School of Art and the Royal College of Art, London; as well as fine art and theory at the Janvan Eyck Academy, Maastricht, Holland. He has published essays on many aspects of the theory and practice of art, architecture and film – in Domus, Sight and Sound, Lotus, a+u, AA File, Springer etc. His book on Mies van der Rohe was published last year by Blau in Lisbon and Gustavo Gilli in Barcelona. He curated, inter alia, the British Arts Council touring exhibition ‘The Architecture of Adolf Loos’ and the ‘Fredrick Kiesler’ show at the Architecture Association. He was a trustee of the 9H Gallery and a founding  member of the Architecture Foundation in London and was a member of the College International de Philosophie, Paris. Currently he lives and works in Paris and teaches architecture and theory at the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation at Columbia University in the City of New York, where he directs the AARieL, Art & Architecture Research Lab. He is also visting Professor in Mendrisio Academy of architecture in Switzerland and at the Nanjing Institute of Architecture in China.

Asli-KiyakAslı Kıyak İngin graduated from Mimar Sinan University as an architect. She has post graduated from Istanbul Technical University “Developing a method for the analysis of formal and spatial structure of traditional cities: The Example of Ayvalık” and She has graduated Design Culture and Management Certificated Program in Istanbul Bilgi University. She works as a designer and design manager at The Celik Dizayn Lighting Company in Istanbul. She was vise president of Istanbul branch of Industrial Designers Society of Turkey. She is currently the head of Human Settlements Association. She is involved several projects in different fields in city, architecture, design, art and production.“Made in Şişhane” is one of her projects about Galata-Şişhane main and oldest lighting district of Istanbul, and an alternative approach for city transformation which is used district’s potential like dynamic network, design, creativity and small scale manufacturing. She has been working for an old Romany District named Sulukule in The Historical Peninsula for the last 4 years. She organized with a group of people 40 Days and 40 Nights Sulukule Events and established Sulukule Platform to protect the district and local people from the demolishes and removing the people and show the sustainable and participatory models for the neighborhood development.

Geeta-MehtaGeeta Mehta is an Adjunct Professor of Architecture and Urban Design at Columbia University in New York, and a co-founder of URBZ.  Geeta received her Ph.D. from the University of Tokyo, M.S. in Architecture and Urban Design from Columbia University, and B. Arch from the School of Planning and Architecture in Delhi. She has taught and practiced urban design in USA, Japan, India and Vietnam. Geeta is the co-author of several books including Japan Style, Japan House, Japan Living, Japan Gardens, and New Japan Architecture. Her upcoming books include “City Connect: Regeneration, Equity and Sustainability in the 21st Century”.

Ozlem-BeberOzlem Berber was born in Eskişehir, Turkey, 1975. She completed her B.Arch. in D.E.U., School of Architecture, Turkey, 1998 and MSci.Arch. in I.T.U., School of Architecture, Turkey, 2000 with her thesis of “An Investigation on Architectural Knowledge”. She has participated in various national and international projects like “Rotterdam Architecture Biennial” in 2005, “Istanbul City Ateliers” in 2005, “Archiprix International Exhibition & Workshop” in 2003, “Istanbul City Ateliers” in 2002, “Turkish Architecture Student’s Meeting, TMÖB” between 1995-2002; as organizer, tutor and/or participant. She has awards from architecture project competitions; applied graphic designs and publishing works as editor and/or writer. For now she is working as a research assistant and continues her Phd. in I.T.U. School of Architecture.

Didem Danis has been teaching sociology at Galatasaray University since 2005. She received her Ph. D.  degree at Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (EHESS) in Paris, in November 2008, with a thesis about the social networks of Iraqi transit migrants in Istanbul. Danis’ two main research areas are international relations and urban fragmentation, and she had published several articles on both topics.

rahul-srivastavaRahul Srivastava has studied Anthropology in Mumbai, Delhi and Cambridge (UK). He taught at Wilson College, Mumbai, worked as the first Director of PUKAR, Mumbai and subsequently was invited to be a research fellow at Nara University, Japan and New School University, New York. He writes fiction and commentaries on urban issues and new knowledge practices via airoots.org, organizes knowledge initiatives on urbanism around the world and is a founding partner of URBZ and Urbanology. He lives in Goa and Mumbai.

Ayca Ince She studied urban and regional planning at Mimar Sinan University, received her MSc (“the role of the cultural intermediaries in the Turkish Music Industry”) from “Cities, Space and Society Programme” in London School of Economics and Political Sciences (2001), and her MA (“spatial change in Istanbul with the support of the cultural Industry”) from Sociology Department in Mimar Sinan University (2003). She worked for 4 years as a research assistant in Management of Performing Arts Department in Istanbul Bilgi University. She became a member of Cultural Policy Initiative in 2005 and coordinated a project called “Promoting research and accumulation on cultural policy in Turkey” between 2006-2007.This project resulted with an introductory book on Turkish Cultural Policy that she was the co-editor of. Now she works as the project coordinator of “The Invisible Cities’: Building Capacities for Local Cultural (Policy) Transformation in Turkey” at Istanbul Bilgi University and teaches “Audience Development” and “Arts, Culture and Community” courses at Cultural Management Programme of the same university. Ayca Ince is currently a PhD Candidate in Sociology at Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University.

Matias-EchanoveMatias Echanove studied economics & government at the London School of Economics, urban planning at Columbia University in New York and urban information systems at the University of Tokyo. He has researched urban culture, participatory planning and information technology in New York, Tokyo and Mumbai, and has organized workshops, studios, seminars and conferences in various cities. He’s a contributor to airoots.org and a founding partner of URBZ and Urbanology

Evren-UzerDr. Evren Uzer is an urban planner & designer based in Istanbul, Turkey and Gothenburg, Sweden; working on disaster risk mitigation, participatory housing and interventions in the public space. She is working at ITU Housing Research and Education Center at Faculty of Architecture in Istanbul. She holds a PhD in Urban and Regional Planning from ITU. She, together with designer Otto von Busch, works on artistic research projects under the name “roomservices”. She is also co-founder and member of Istanbul-based public space interventions group, “imkanmekan”.

EbruEbru Erdonmez Born in Uşak (Turkey) in 1974, she studied Architecture at the University of Yildiz, and started her academic career as a research assistant at the same university. She finished her Master Thesis at Istanbul Technical University of Istanbul, with the topic “Transparency in Architecture”. She finished her doctoral thesis at Yıldız Technical University with “The Role of Open Public Spaces on Being Society”. She is working as Asst. Prof. Dr. since 2006 at Yildiz Technical University.
She worked as Guest Professor  at Siegen University, Germany in 2006-2007 Erdonmez has won prizes in a number of international and national architectural competition. (UIA- Unicef International Design Competition etc.) She has been organizing a number of international and national student workshops and scientific meetings .Some of her articles published in books are; Erdönmez E., Ökem S.,”Public Transformation Of The Bosphorus Facts and Opportunities”, Public Istanbul Spaces and Spheres of the Urban, (Ed. Eckardt, F., Wildner, K.), S: 187-205, Transcript Verlag, Bielefeld, 2008, ISBN: 978-3-89942-865-0, “Pseudo Utopias”, Le Cahiers de La MSHE Ledoux Autour de Ledoux: Architecture, Ville et Utopie, s: 345-360, Presses Universitaires de France- Comte ,ISBN: 978-2-84867-234-2-EAN, ISSN: 19560222, 2008, Erdönmez, E., Ökem S., “Affects Of Open Public Spaces On Socıety” Erdönmez E., Akı A., Megaron, Architectural Journal of Yıldız Technical University, Year:1, Issue:1, 2005. Her topics are  “Architectural Design”, “Urban Design” and “Environmental Design”.

TaraTara Kuruvilla is a currently a Junior at New York University, majoring in Art History.  She is happiest on museum and gallery crawls in different cities of the world and firmly believes art can make the world a better place. Her interest in Urban Planning and Arts Activism have led her to an internship at URBZ, where she is organizing the Istanbul Mashup 2010.

Ruya-SanerRuya Ipek Saner is a Turkish-American student in the Master of Science in Architecture and Urban Design program at Columbia University GSAPP.  She graduated with a B.Arch from Rice University in 2008. Aiding in coordination and translation, Ruya Saner will also participate in the presentation of the workshop output at Columbia University.

Cansu-Peltekci Cansu Peltekci was born and raised in Istanbul. Currently she is a third year undergraduate student in New York University in New York. She interned with Hurriyet Turkish Daily News as an editor last year, and has now joined URBZ as an intern. She is interested in Social Psychology and Photography.

Busra BagciBüşra Bağcı was born in Denizli, Turkey, where she attended Türk Eğitim Vakfı Anatolian High School. She is now continuing her education at the Izmir Institute of Technology, Faculty of Architecture.

Erdal-KondakciErdal Kondakcı 28.02.1989′da Bulgaristan’ ın Kırcaali kentinde doğdu.1990 yılından bu yana İstanbul,Küçükçekmece’de oturuyor. Pertevniyal Lisesi’nden mezun. İzmir Yüksek Teknoloji Enstitüsü, Mimarlık bölümünde bu dönem 1.sınıfı tamamladı.

Eser-YagciEser Yagci is an architect She is currently supervising the “Urban Dreams V/Kent Dusleri V” Workshop, Karakoy Group, and seeks to develop her Phd Dissertation on “Expressive Dynamics of Place: Architecture and Anarchism.”

Ola-NielsenOla Nielsen is a landscape artist who has worked in Denmark and Sweden, who most recently got involved in a one year studio focusing on Pune, India. His interest lies in a cities potential, and he is keen to contribute his expertise as a landscapist to the workshop in reimagining Sishane-Galata.

Alp RubenAlp Ruben is a graduate of Yıldız Teknik Üniversitesi, based in Istanbul, Turkey. He is currently completing his studies at Viyana Teknik Üniversitesi

Tolgay KeskinTolgay Keskin was born in Antalya, and is now living in Istanbul. He feels that his perspective as a latecomer to the city will offer contribute a fresh new outlook to the Istanbul Mashup. His talent lies in the artful capturing and presentation of life, and he hopes to develop this skill via the workshop.

Eléonore BoissinotEléonore Boissinot has been studying history and geography in France and India, and done fieldworks on the informal housing in Amman and Bombay. She is interested in mixing various disciplines, meeting inspiring people from all kind of backgrounds, and exploring urban spaces with photography and video, especially through documentary filmmaking.

Jeanne Jeanne Fouchet was born in Paris, where she is currently completing her Bachelor’s degree in Plastic Art in Paris 8 Saint Denis University. She enjoys working with photography, drawing, painting, and is especially fond of “mashing up” several mediums and disciplines in her productions.

Isil KaratasIşıl Karataş Orta Doğu Teknik Üniversitesi Endüstri Ürünleri Tasarımı 2008 mezunu. Şu anda Kadir Has Üniversitesi’nde yüksek lisans yapmakta, aynı zamanda yüksek lisans asistanı olarak çalışmakta.

Meram PienaruMeram Irina Pienaru is a recent graduate in Architecture at University of Architecture and Urbanism of Bucharest. She has lived in Italy for a year, and participated in workshops in Spain, Italy and Germany, in addition to a training program in Minsk. Istanbul holds great interest for Meram as it was the first city she ever visited abroad, and she looks forward to returning for the URBZ Mashup workshop.

vildanozturkVildan Öztürk is a graduate in Graphic Design from the Marmara University Faculty of Fine Arts, following which she worked as a graphic designer and art director at advertising agencies for 4 years. She is currently doing her masters degree in design at Kadir Has University, where she is a teaching assistant.

Zeynep GulsenZeynep Gülşen is a landscape architecture gradute working as the asistant event manager in Yapi-Endustri Merkezi [The Building Information Center] where she inputs her educational background and  personal skills to design and manage architecture/design/building/urban oriented events. She has completed her BLarch in Istanbul Technical University with the graduation project called as ‘Yedikule  Gazhouse Area-Urban Open Space Design’ proposing “Sinaai Yedikule” that aimed to create an interactive urban laboratory by giving back the area’s role of once the energy spreader, urban catalyst.  Than she has involved in Istanbul Bilgi University’s Design Culture and Management one-year certificate program. Following that year she went to Domus Academy, Rome, to continue her master degree  in Cultural Experience Design and Management where she completed the program with a conceptual project under the topic of “Urban Space as Medium for Sustainable Communication”. During her studies which took place in Turkey, U.S.A and Italy she had participated to many meetings and workshops while worked in different fields of design from an architectural office to a non-profit organizational film festival, from a communication agency to a culture&art foundation and an architectural publication. Having a passion to music and cinema, she is interested in pretty much everything that creates a participatory cultural dialogue within interdisciplinary design approach in the urban life and believes that this mash-up experience is going to create a strong collaborative production and awareness for the city.

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TEDxMumbai Article in HT Cafe

HT Cafe 2/3/2010

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Italian mafia taking over Dharavi?

URBZofficeview
View from the URBZ office. Photo taken by Stefano Boeri.

Suspect activity has been observed in Dharavi in the last days, particularly around New Transit Camp and the URBZ office. An unusual number of Italians have been seen walking around the neighbourhood, some of them taking pictures and even measuring a vacant plot on Mahatma Gandhi Road. Is the Italian mafia spreading its tentacles all the way to the most contested piece of real estate in the world?

It turns out that the visiting Italians comprised of many different groups, all related in one way or the other to URBZ’s activities. First came Francesco Strocchio and Alberto Bottero, two graduating architecture students from the Politecnico di Torino, who were sent by double-agent Subhash Mukerjee of Studio Marc, who, it turns out had participated in the Urban Typhoon workshop in Koliwada (2008). Francesco and Alberto have been working on the design of a Social Club for street children and elderly residents in New Transit Camp. This is a project for which URBZ is looking for funding at the moment (just in case you know someone willing to give for a good cause!)

Then came Marco Ferrario and Rakhi Mehra of Micro Home Solutions, a social housing initiative based in Delhi. Their approach is truly interesting in that they try to combine micro-finance with architectural solutions. We talked about a housing project for rickshawalas in Delhi. They also gave us some tips about how to make our own ideas fundable through micro-credit style investments.

microhome
Marco Ferrario, Francesco Strocchio, Rakhi Mehra, Matias Echanove, Alberto Bottero, Rahul Srivastava in URBZ office.

The same day we also had the magical visit of Neva Pedrazzini, a scholar of historical preservation who has worked in Milan, Lisbon, Barcelona, La Havana and Venice. She immediately recognized Dharavi as being part of the cultural heritage of Mumbai and India. Her notion of heritage involves change as a principle of conservation. Historical urban spaces and landscapes, she says, should be lived in a sustainable way. Preservation is about preserving life and culture, not just the physical structures.

Just when we thought that the Italian wave of Dharavi was over, the Don of architectural Dons knocked on the door ofour office. We had the honor to receive Stefano Boeri with his wife Maddalena Bregani in our humble office. Before we could even think of interviewing him, he had turned the camera on us and asked us to tell him all about URBZ and Urbanology. Fascinating discussions followed in which we agreed to collaborate on a theoretical platform for the 21st makeshift city.

Stefano declared the office as occupying a mythical space in the world of urban theory and practice. Myth is that special location in the world of imagination and practice that, more than anything else, opens new gateways. He left us with our minds bowling with new ideas and projects, which will soon fill these electronic pages.

stefanoboeriURBZ
“Mitico!”: Matias Echanove, Rahul Srivastava, Alberto Bottero, Maddalena Bregani, Stefano Boeri, Francesco Strocchio. Stefano was a co-author of the ground-breaking book Mutations, with Rem Koolhaas.

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Jaaga Proposal: Phase 1

larack2

Project: Jaaga a flexible, incremental, and portable office and living space for up to 100 people. This project was mandated by Freeman Murray, a Web guru who moved to India after making a killing in Silicon Valley as a dotcom programmer and entrepreneur. He now runs the iAccelerator initiative at IIM Ahmedabad. He now wants to move iAccelerator to where the talent is, i.e.: everywhere. For this purpose he asked URBZ to design a structure based on pallet racks. He has experimented with pallet racks structure in California and most recently in Bangalore. URBZ is proposing possible extensions to the Jaaga space. This is the first phase of this study. In the spirit of open source/open access, Freeman has asked URBZ to publish this work in progress online. Suggestions and contributions are welcome.

Jaaga System

Concept: The space is composed of cells that can be incrementally built and connected to each other, following the project’s own logic. The cells are connected to each other on the horizontal plan by walkways and vertically by stairs. Various patterns can emerge over time in response to the needs and means of the project. The conceptual influences of the project include the simply rules and complex outcomes of cellular automata models, the organic poetics of mathematics as represented in the movieπ, the go game and its strategical use of “void” and spatial relationships, and the architectural philosophy of Christopher Alexander, which evolved out of his observations of nature’s pattern language.

002-Theory

In the words of Freeman, Jaaga should be a mashup between “the Solitude farm at Auroville, the dreams of Paolo Soleri and his experiments at Arcosanti, the Silicon Valley and Dharavi.” The Dharavi part is what makes this utopia realizable. Jaaga must work on low budget and produce high quality output.

•   High-density living conditions minimize the footprint of the structure and its cost.

•   Low-height simplifies its construction and allows for an optimal exploitation of the ground space.

•   Total programmatic flexibility means that each part of the Jaaga can in a matter of minutes be converted from a workspace to a living space.

•   Modular structure of Jaaga means that it can be assembled incremental without following a predefined plan.

URBZ, which is based in Dharavi sharing physical and mental space with the Dharavi Institute of Urbanology, believes much can be learned from the innovative architectural solutions and user-generated logic of Dharavi. Injected with some resources, imagination, technology and humanity, the extreme living and working conditions of Indian slums, depicted in Charles Correa’s image below (right) can serve as inspiration for the production of creative and stimulating living and working environments.

003-WorkLiving-ConceptStrategy: Pallet racks are never thought of as possible elements for building large structure. Yet they are one of the cheapest and most commonly available material in the market. They are solid enough and easily replaceable. They also offer an infinity of possibilities. URBZ has explored various ways in which they could be assembled to produce different spaces. Here are different examples of simple structural elements that can be made with commercially available pallet racks.

004-Catalogo-Pallet-RackThe complete modularity of structures made of pallet rack means that they can be inserted in the most densely built urbanscape such as improvised settlements in Lima or Mumbai (below). They are good architectural solutions for emergency shelters and temporary structures. The shell formed with pallet racks can also easily be converted into permanent structures if consolidated with steel, wood, concrete, or other locally available material.

005-Photoshoping-LIMA 006-Photoshoping-Dharavi

Modules

For more details on each module, visit our flickr set. http://www.flickr.com/photos/urbzoo/sets/72157622386627766/

Stucture for 100 people

Ground Floor

016-Groundfloor-PLAN

First Floor

017-Second-Floor-PLAN

Second Floor

018-Rooftop-PLAN

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Using URBZ

Detailed Instructions for using the URBZ site.

One of the most important thing for the website to properly is to make sure that you have the latest browser on your system. We request you to download the latest copy of either ONE of the following browsers.

Mozilla Firefox: http://www.getfirefox.net (Recommended)
Opera: http://www.opera.com/
Google Chrome: http://www.google.com/chrome/
Apple Safari: http://www.apple.com/safari/
Internet Explorer: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/

1. The user must first register to be able to create and modify pages. You must have received your logging and password by email already. If that’s not the case, please let us know.

2. Once logged in to the account, you can create pages by clicking “Add new” under “Pages” To write blog posts, select “Add new” under “Posts”

NewPage1

3. You are then presented with a “Rich Text Editable Environment” to compose a post or a page. Adding media (images, videos, audio) is simple: Just use the “add media” menu and upload the image / video from the next screen that pops up.

Add-an-image

4. Insert the image / video in the post. Click on “insert into post” to add the image in the page. Using the rich text editor one can modify the text, layout and the image (size of the image / its alignment) etc. As you start working more with the system you will find it that it is almost as similar as using a word processor such as Microsoft Word.

5. Another option is to upload all the images to the URBZ flickr account and then insert them directly into the post. Click on the Flick button and then browse for the image among the photosets created that you want to insert into the post. . Click on “insert into post” to add the image in the page. Using the rich text editor one can modify the text, layout and the image (size of the image / its alignment) etc.

Newpage4

Picture 6

6. To add a flickr slideshow, click on the Flickr Slideshow icon as shown above, and enter the required details to add a slideshow. Make sure you keep the width less than 580px for ideal slideshow.

Picture 9Picture 7

7. You can either upload your video at Vimeo or at YouTube and directly embed the same on the site. Click on the corresponding icon to get a pop-up window to upload a video. Check the above images for the same. After uploading the video enter the URL at the corresponding places to embed it.

Add-a-map

8. As shown in the above image, just below the rich text editor, there is an option to geo-tag the post (i.e.: adding a geographical pointer on a google map). Just search the location of the place on the map and select click on the map to save that location. The most important thing then is to insert this exact line in your post/page: “wp_geo_map” This should be in bracket “[ ]“. This code automatically inserts the map in the desired location on the page.

9. Note that each and every page/posts should be “tagged”. Tags are nothing but keywords from the article written that distinguish it. This kind of metadata helps describe an item and allows it to be found again by browsing or searching. The item’s creator chooses tags informally and personally. Don’t think too much about it and just put the keywords that come to your mind when you think about the post/page you just created.

10. When you create a new “Page” it is important to put it at the right place. To place a page, click on the parent attribute on the right hand side.

The system is highly involving. We keep adding more features based on user recommendation and our own experience. Feel free to comment below for any doubts / queries or feature requests or alternatively contact us directly.

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