October - November - December 2000

Beware! The links in past news articles are not maintained.

Archis goes on!
December 14, 2000
Archis found a new publisher and will still appear next year though in a slightly different form

Archiprix International launched
December 8, 2000
The organisation Archiprix initiates a world-wide contest for the best graduation plans in architecture, urban design and landscape architecture. This contest, with the name Archiprix International, will be held in the first half of 2001. The winning plans will be presented in June in a general exhibition in the Van Nelle Factory in Rotterdam, on the web site www.archiprix.org and in a book. Part of the website is a database with the addresses of all schools for architecture, urbanism and landscape throughout the world.

Villa E.1027 saved
December 7, 2000
Around two years ago Herman and Hans Hertzberger launched a plea for help in a number of professional journals and on ArchiNed. On visiting Eileen Gray's Villa E.1027 in Roquebrune in France, they discovered it was in deplorable condition. Their plea aimed to draw the world's attention to the pending disaster in the hope of turning the tide. Those efforts were not in vain.

DataCloud by ArchiNed and V2_Lab winner Dutch National Millennium Competition
November 27, 2000
The Datacloud version 2.0 has won the Dutch National Millennium Competition in the class 'Science' for Architecture and Industrial Design. Receiving an amount of 100 000, - guilders, the prize will assist in/boost the future development of the 'knowledge map/browser Datacloud'. The datacloud is a follow-up of the '1.0: Data Cloud Hoeksche Waard' project, developed by ArchiNed and V2_Lab in 1998/99. It was devised within the scope of the project AIR - Architecture International Rotterdam, Southbound.

Doors 6 - A Heavy Day with the 'L' Word
November 17, 2000
We broke the news last month: with two top events, November promised to be a month for the real digital die-hards - first there was the DOORS conference last weekend (November 11, 12 and 13) and then the opening of the DEAF festival this evening in Rotterdam. ArchiNed was among those attending the second part of the Doors of Perception conference.

All is super in Holland
November 07, 2000
Launched recently, with by Dutch standards a great deal of fanfare, were two architecture books that attempt to explain and illustrate that Dutch architecture, urban design and landscape architecture is among the best in the world at the start of the twenty-first century. Internationally recognised architecture, but with a definitely Dutch flavour, that is the claim of both books, Superdutch and The Artificial Landscape.

Bionic Territories in Ljubljana
October 27, 2000
A festival under the title 'Bionic Territories' was held October 19th - 22nd in Ljubljana, Slovenia. In the words of its organizers - the Faculty of Architecture and the Museum of Modern Art, Ljubljana - it was aimed at exploring 'bionic territories': new biotopes, dynamic spaces in motion, made of digital and mechanic devices.

Towards Totalscape
October 27, 2000
On Saturday October 20, the exhibition Towards Totalscape: Contemporary Architecture, Urban Design and Landscape Architecture went on show at the NAI. Centrepiece of the exhibition is a five-by-five-metre model, scale 1:1000, of the Minato district of Tokyo.

DEAF00 and DOORS 6
October 17, 2000
November promises to be a month for the more digital die-hards among designers with Machine Times (DEAF00) and Lightness (Doors of Perception 6). A total of around 50 speakers will explore the latest ideas about the reality of time and the concept of de-materialization in the two events, which are accompanied by workshops, performances, exhibitions, films, etc. Both DEAF and DOORS will focus on the possibilities the digital domain has to offer for designers.

Dutch Government Policy Document on Architecture - Designing the Netherlands
October 10, 2000
State Secretary for Culture Rick van der Ploeg and Government Architect Wytze Patijn on October 5th presented the third Dutch Policy Document on Architecture at a press conference at the NAI. In contrast to previous policy documents, it is a remarkably concrete proposal, its most significant features being the implementation of nine 'Major Projects' and the involvement of citizens in the debate on architecture. Moreover, the announcement that in the period 2005-2010 one third of the Vinex housing production will consist of individually commissioned dwellings can be seen as a radical turnabout in Dutch housing policy.

Survival of Archis threatened
October 03, 2000
Questions concerning periodicals are not often raised in the Dutch parliament, but last week that was exactly what happened. The reason was the fact that the survival of the Dutch periodical Archis was rather unexpectedly, yet very seriously, under discussion.