IABR

IABR–2014–project #28: INVERscapes (OficioColectivo) - Guatemala City

^{© OficioColectivo}

Strategies for the Urban Landscape–: How can we accurately portray and map the spatial, morphological, and functional form of this huge artifact that is the carpet metropolis? How can managers, planners, and designers wind and weave an urban carpet in the realization that complete control is an illusion?

Dharavi, Mumbai, India

^{© George Brugmans}

Dirk Sijmons:
"The urban landscape is a giant artifact composed of densely and sparsely built-up areas, residential areas, industrial complexes, airports, opencast mines, enclosed natural areas, scattered buildings, agriculturally cultivated areas, canals, and horticultural areas – and the infrastructure necessary to loosely connect this tissue. How can we control a planning object so large that it ignores administrative or national borders, so complex that any kind of forecasting or management ambition is illusory?"

IABR–2014–project #86: Hydrological Regimes Atlas (Somatic Collaborative) - Kumbh Mela, Allahabad, India

The beginning of an answer to this question is exhibited in STRATEGIES FOR THE URBAN LANDSCAPE–. Cartographic studies, observations on the relationship between city and countryside, strategic plans for entire deltas, practical ways to combat the fragmentation of the carpet metropolis, lessons to be learned in the American suburbs, and a parade of urban planning instruments to be used by designers and administrators. Many of these themes are reflected in the approach of the IABR–Project Atelier BrabantStad."

IABR–2014–Project Atelier BrabantStad: the challenges mapped

^{© IABR}

Play

The Mosaic Metropolis of Brabant

version with English subtitles

The film Het Mozaïek van Brabant (The Mosaic Metropolis of Brabant) documents the work of the IABR–PROJECT ATELIER BRABANTSTAD.

Strategy for an urban landscape
Brabant is a "mosaic metropolis". It is in essence a dispersed city, an urban landscape. It is an extensive and flexible mosaic, with different land use both in high and low densities, with smaller cities and many villages, intensive agriculture and small industry, and with an abundance of nature and water.
BrabantStad, an alliance between the cities of Eindhoven, Den Bosch, Breda, Tilburg, Helmond and the province North Brabant, is one of the most productive regions of Europe. But it has to battle the financial crisis and administrative change.
What would joining forces bring these cities more than what they cannot accomplish on their own? What are the opportunities and which are the obstacles? What would make BrabantStad a cohesive urban metabolism, and how exactly are agendas, ambitions and actors interconnected?

The results of the Projectatelier BrabantStad are presented at STRATEGIES FOR THE URBAN LANSCAPE–, part of the main exhibition of IABR–2014–URBAN BY NATURE– in the Kunsthal Rotterdam (29 May till 24 August, 2014).
After the biennale the results go back to Brabant to be implemented by the BrabantStad partners.

Director: Alexander Oey
 Producer: George Brugmans
The film was commissioned by Architectuur Lokaal, in the context of IABR–2014–URBAN BY NATURE– and produced by iabr/UP.

IABR-2014-

Strategies for the Urban Landscape

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The Mosaic Metropolis of Brabant