[Oberlist] SE* call/edu/arch: Post-graduate course in Architecture and Urban Planning

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---------------------------- Original Message ----------------------------
Subject: Artinfo Digest, Vol 5, Issue 26
From:    artinfo-request la lists.c3.hu
Date:    Sat, May 30, 2009 13:00
To:      artinfo la lists.c3.hu
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Message: 2
Date: Mon, 1 Jan 2001 12:18:29 +0100
From: Cs?ka Edina <ecsoka la mucsarnok.hu>
Subject: [artinfo] Apply Now: Post-graduate course in Architecture and
Urban Planning


Royal University College of Fine Arts
School of Architecture
Box 16315
103 26 Stockholm
Sweden
Phone: +46 8 614 40 23
Fax:  +46 8 611 21 13
Contact: Michael Dudley
michael.dudley la kkh.se

http://www.kkh.se/utbArkitektur.html

Final date for submission of applications: June 15th, 2009


What inherent possibilities reside in the diversity of the Indian city?
What urban innovations are now being generated from India's thriving
creativity? With a basis in the specific Indian context, can the concept
of sustainable urban development be redefined?

Is the global economy, just as the world's other resources, limited? In
light of today's financial situation, the relations between economics,
growth and limitations becomes obvious. Do the rules of economic
development dictate a system limit that permits certain economies to grow
while others stagnate? What does growth really mean? Perhaps it is
symptomatic that while the economies of the west are contracting, India's
continues to expand.

The eyes of the world are now on India. At the upcoming U.N. Climate
Change Conference in Copenhagen this fall, Indian leaders will have to
take a position on how their nation will assume its responsibility as one
of the planet's three largest economic players. Today India is heavily
dependent on fossil fuels, but the possibilities for alternative energy
sources are enormous and awareness about the consequences of climate
change on their own geography is high. Even if the average Indian citizen
is responsible for just 1/28 of the CO2 emissions compared with his
American counterpart, the burgeoning pocketbooks of a rapidly growing
middle class in a country which is soon to be the most populous in the
world will have extreme consequences for our global environment and for
India itself. A change in course for the world's largest democracy would
set a new international agenda. Can the Indian city reinvent itself and
thereby present us with an alternative Development?

Cities and Energy
Resources.09 continues its program series Cities and Energy ? a three-year
investigation of how necessary changes in energy consumption and
production influence and inform our cities and our ways of life. Looking
at the world's three most energy consuming nations, we shift focus from
Shanghai's explosive growth and the American crisis-burdened motopia to
the urban-agrarian duality of the Indian continent. We believe that
studying the differing physical and cultural conditions of varying
economies can lead to new insights into our urban futures.

Urban India
The independence of the young nation was founded on Gandhi's anti-urban
ideology and modern India bears witness to its agrarian traditions. One
quarter of the population lives in cities. Many of these are migrants from
the countryside and live under unbearable conditions. While India has
seven megacities, it is the so-called metro cities, with up to 4 million
inhabitants, that are now growing the fastest. It is here that major
state-funded investments are being made in infrastructure and slum
upgrading. To quote MIT based architect Rahul Mehrotra: The city here is
not about grand design ? but about grand adjustments. If Bombay is already
deadlocked in the dilemmas inherent to a megacity, can we find potentials
in the metro city Pune, where local possibilities still exist?

Pune and the politics of the local
The university city of Pune is located 2,5 hours southeast of Bombay in
the country's largest state ? Maharashtra. For centuries Pune has been
considered to be the cultural capital of Maharashtra and this urban
region, with its 4,5 million inhabitants, is growing more quickly than
Bombay. Pune has become a viable alternative for Bombay's expanding middle
class and The Oxford of the East attracts students from all of Asia. Its
IT-sector and car industry, including Tata Motors and the 2,000 dollar
Nano, are flourishing, while the city's slums continue to grow, the
traffic becomes ever more chaotic and electrical demand necessitates
planned blackouts.
How will Pune deal with the challenges now facing India? Will these forces
lead to a physical and social homogenization? Or conversely, could the
heterogeneity of the local and its social networks be a basis for
development? Could the Indian adaptability in the face of drastic events
be reformulated into a more comprehensive strategy? The citizens of Pune
are actively engaged in the changes they see taking place in their city,
which begs the question: For who is the city and who gains from its
development?

Working partners
With each Cities and Energy project we establish local working
partnerships. The Urban Design Research Institute and KRVIA (Kamla Raheja
Vidyanidhi Institute for Architecture and environment studies) are two
interesting institutions located in Bombay. We will also have a running
dialogue with Ramboll Natura in Stockholm, who, through a SIDA-financed
initiative act as advisers for the Pune Municipal Corporation in their
work with a new Development Plan. On site in Pune we will work with the
Swedish-Portuguese architecture office Urban Nouveau, who are working for
the grass-roots organization SPARC and have initiated a program for
incremental housing for the city's slum-dwellers. KKH has a
well-established partnership with SPARC through the course Art &
Architecture and its project Informal Cities (www.informalcities.org)

Perspectives
The course is structured in sections each with a specific theme. We will
find a foundation in relevant architectural and urban planning theories,
as well as sociology, philosophy, resource- and economic theory. We will
discuss the concept of Development and its philosophical, economical and
ecological implications. We will study the architects Charles Correa,
Balkrishna Doshi, Raj Rewal, Laurie Baker, Namita Singh and Rahul
Mehrotra, as well as follow the traces left by Le Corbusier and Louis Kahn
on Indian architecture. We will explore systems-theory from an individual
to a global scale. Scenario-methodology and radical mapping are used as
tools to investigate new urban possibilities. We meet architects, urban
planners, geographers, natural scientists, sociologists, economists,
anthropologists, artists and engineers in a cross-disciplinary discourse.
Underlying all aspects of the course is a focus on visualization and
communication.


Are you an architect, urban planner, artist, designer, or just simply
interested in architecture and urban issues? Would you like to investigate
these issues and develop proposals in a cross-disciplinary team? Send in
an application for the coming academic year, 09/10. The course lasts one
year, beginning September, 2009 and ending June, 2010.



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