Academic research developed at DIA
Directed by Alexander Kalachev & Karim Soliman
Observing a rapid change in the behavior of human society in the second decade of 21st century, looking at the rise of participatory desires and rights of individuals as well as the inevitable need in redesigning and re-articulating structures and institutions of both governmental and public sector, we are seeking to introduce novel design framework that will respond to this demands. A framework, that creates participatory models for contemporary city spaces and their components. It will give the citizens the opportunity to shape and articulate the city according to their needs, desires and dynamics. In this sense we propose the creation of an interactive interface that will question the existing hierarchies concerning the State letting individuals foster their personal notion of justice and control over the environment.
Interaction and theuse of robotics and cybernetics in everyday life of human society, evolution of personal communication devices in their application for design purposes, mapping of information streams and flows as well as their materialization, development of prototypical entities and building blocks that will allow to bridge everyday activity in both cyberspaces within city contexts and city life flows, are going to be the main objectives of this studio. By means of these mechanisms we will encourage the critical thinking regarding the contemporary city and its society and the use of contemporary technological improvement that can be brought into architecture and design practices.
Our goal here is to create a platform and environment that will foster the notion of digital materialization and its effect onto structures of urban lifestyle. We are not seeking for a concrete building or physical object, rather challenging students to create an event based architectural entity within the given space-time frame. And explore the shape-shifting powers of interactive communication and collaborative design.