Journal

Versione italiana

Auditorium, Service Center Milano Fair
4-5 February 2009

One of the few certainties we have today is that ‘cities’ will still be here in 2050. However, not much can be said about what they will look like, what kind of life they will foster, how people will move within them, think, grow, study, work, have fun, suffer and die. What sort of architecture, design and technology tools will be used?
We need ideas, vision, architecture, design, conceptual tools, and technologies for the future of cities. This is the debate that the Italian Association of Architectural Technology (SITdA) has started with a selected group of experts and scientists from all over the World, to explore the “vision” and the tools for the transition from the city today to the city in the year 2050 and beyond. The results of this debate will be presented in Milan at the MADE Expo 2009 during an international conference called CITYFUTURES.
The problems associated with large metropolitan regions: energy, environment, transportation, social pressure, quality of life are now well beyond sustainability. Answers must be devised and supplied in a short time. The whole complex industrial system that serves the settlement process is challenged. Given the continuity of the transition process towards possible futures, some of the answers to these problems are in some way already available today, though hidden, elusive and unreadable. Some of the problems have not yet been placed on the table. Some known unknowns and some unknown unknowns!
CITYFUTURES wants to offer a vision and suggest the tools for the transition, the “know-how”, in accordance with the attitude of the technology experts members of SITdA. The debate and the research that are proposed will be institutionalized: to achieve that cityfutures will have a permanent structure: an international committee of experts and scientists, an international award for significant projects and scholarships for young researcher active on critical topics. cityfutures will connect with formation and information of the professions through the Italian Association of Architectural Technology.

CITYFUTURES è il contributo che MADE expo intende dare al grande sforzo di visione e di impresa
che vede impegnata la città di Milano con Expo 2015.

CONFERENCE OPENING CITYFUTURES
SITdA e MADEexpo
4 Febbraio 2009, 11.30

Session 1 – 4 February 2009, 14:30
cityfutures: Governance

Speakers:
3 International keynote Speakers
4 discussants

Topics:
Local and Global in management of cities
Macroeconomics of the transition
The Possible City

Session 2 – 5 February 2009, 9:30
CityFutures: Vision

Speakers:
3 International keynote Speakers
4 discussants

Topics:
Global Energy Network
Urban Transformations in Emerging Megalopolies
Transition towards a Responsive City

Session 3 – 5 February 2009, 14:30
CityFutures: Technology

Keynote Speakers:
3 International keynote Speakers
4 discussants

Topics:
Biomimicry
Ecology of marginalized communities
Eco-technologies in Architecture Design

PROFILES KEYNOTE SPEAKER

Gary Lawrence (USA)
Gary Lawrence is an internationally recognized expert in urban strategies and sustainable development. He provides thought leadership for strategic urban development throughout Arup’s 92 offices in 37 countries. A significant milestone in Gary’s career was his leadership of “Toward A Sustainable Seattle”, the first sustainability-focused municipal comprehensive plan in the world. Gary’s speeches and lectures have formed the basis for the development of much of the current thinking on sustainable development and he is acknowledged by the former UN Secretary General of Habitat as having authored “the single most important contribution to the entire Habitat II process”. Gary’s senior advisory roles include service with the Clinton Administration’s Council on Sustainable Development, the US Delegation to Habitat II, the Global Environment Center, the US Agency for International Development, the Brazilian President’s Office, the British Prime Minister’s Office, the European Academy for the Urban Environment, and the Organization for Economic and Community Development (OECD). In the US he is actively involved with the Urban Land Institute, the American Planning Association, the US Smart Growth Leadership Council and he is a Senior Fellow of the Design Futures Council.

Lee Schipper (USA)
Lee Schipper is co-director of EMBARQ, the Center for Sustainable Transportation and the World Resources Institute, Washington DC. He was a guest researcher at the Development Centre of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development in Paris and at the Shell International Petroleum Company, London. From 1995-2001 he was senior scientist at the International Energy Agency, Paris. He was on leave from his post as a staff senior scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), University of California, Berkeley, from which he retired in 2001 after 24 years of service. He is also a member of the U.S. Transportation Research Board’s Committee on Sustainable Transport and a senior associate of Cambridge Energy Research Associates. Trained in both music and physics, Lee was a faculty member of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music (1971-1981). He is a jazz vibraphonist and pianist.

George Kunihiro (JP)
George Kunihiro is an architect-activist and Professor of Architecture at Kokushikan University in Tokyo, Japan. He was born in Tokyo and moved to the United States in 1964. He received his Bachelor of Arts degree in Architecture from the University of California, Berkeley in 1974, and his Master of Architecture degree from the Harvard Graduate School of Design in 1976. He has taught architectural design at the Universities of Yale, Columbia and Harvard and the New Jersey Institute of Technology. George Kunihiro had his private practice in Los Angeles and New York for 15 years before returning to Tokyo in 1997 to set up his practice in Asia. He has been invited to speak in Asia, Europe, the United States and Gulf Region. Currently, he is the Vice Chairman of the Architects Regional Council Asia, Vice Chairman of the modern Asian Architecture Network, a non-profit organization, and a member of the Board of Directors of the American Institute of Architects, Japan Chapter.

Eduardo de Oliveira Fernandes (PT)
Eduardo de Oliveira Fernandes, born in 1943, professor at the Faculty of Engineering, University of Porto, Portugal, PhD on Applied Sciences at the Federal Institute of Technology (Lausanne, Switzerland) in 1973. He was Secretary of State for Environment – Portuguese Government (1984-1985) and again in 2001-2002 Secretary of State to the Minister of Economy for Energy and Innovation in Portugal. Devoting the last 25 years of his career to teaching, research, consulting and public activities on various topics related to energy and environment, he was the founder of an RTD group on Building Thermal Physics with major pioneering activities in Europe on Passive Solar Technologies in Buildings, Indoor Air Quality, and Energy and Environment in the Urban Space. He was the author of the Energy concept for the EXPO’98 urban site and was consultant to several sustainable cities projects in Europe. He is a member of various international scientific organizations (ISES, ASHRAE, and ISIAQ). Since 2006, he has been President of the Energy Agency of the City of Porto.

Zheng Shiling (China)
Zheng Shiling is one of the leading Chinese architects and theorists. He was born in the city of Chengdu, Sichuan Province in 1941. He was promoted as a professor at Tongji University In 1993. He has been a member of the International Committee of Architecture Critics, UIA since 1994. In 1996 he was elected as the President of Shanghai Architectural Society and as the Vice President of Architectural Society of China. He was elected to be a Member of the Acadèmie d’Architecture of France (1998), of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (2001). Over the years he has been invited to lecture at universities and forums in the U.S.A., Canada, Italy, France, Germany, Greece, Spain, Korea, Hong Kong and Taiwan. In 1998, he was nominated by the Shanghai Municipality Government as the Director of the Urban Space and Environment Committee, Shanghai Urban Planning Commission and a Member of the Superior Consulting Committee of Science and Technology Association.

Jaime Lerner (BR)
Jaime Lerner is an architect and urban planner. As a three-time mayor of Curitiba (Brazil), Lerner led the urban revolution that made the city renowned for urban planning, mainly in public transportation, environment, and social programs. Lerner was also twice Governor of Parana State, and conducted an economic and social transformation that greatly improved the quality of life in the cities and in the country. Lerner has received several international awards, including the highest United Nations Environmental Award (1990), Child and Peace Award from UNICEF (1996), the 2001 World Technology Award for Transportation and the 2002 Sir Robert Mathew Prize for the Improvement of Quality of Human Settlements by the International Union of Architects. He has also lectured at important conferences including the 53rd Annual United Nations Conference (2000). When not in public office, Jaime Lerner is intensely engaged in architecture and urban planning work.

Denise DeLuca (USA)
Denise is a registered professional engineer in Montana and a LEED AP. Denise received her bachelor in Civil Engineering from the University of Wisconsin-Madison where she grew up, and her masters in Civil and Environmental Engineering from Montana State University in Bozeman. Denise has over 15 years of experience in both the public and private sectors in projects related to surface and groundwater quantity and quality modeling and analyses, environmental compliance, alternative waste management, and green building strategies. Most recently, Denise has been member of Emergent Solutions, an independent consulting service which focuses on strategies for sustainability. Denise is excited about her most recent project, developing The Biomimicry Resource Handbook, and her new position with The Biomimicry Institute developing outreach materials and programs, particularly targeted at engineers, architects, and designers.

Reena Tiwari (Australia)
Reena Tiwari is an urban designer, city-thinker and an academic in the Departments of Urban & Regional Planning and Architecture at Curtin University of Technology Perth, Western Australia, a member of the Royal Australian Institute of Architects, Urban Design Institute of Australia, Institute of Urban Designers, India and the Society of Architectural Historians, Australia and New Zealand. She is Course Coordinator for Masters Program in Urban Design and Chair for the Design Stream in the Planning Department. She has developed a framework of city-enquiry, underscoring a critical engagement with the embodied and expressive aspects of city life. Her work for marginalized communities both in India and Australia provides a ground for a comparative exploration of the needs, lifestyles, questions of identity and change for these communities. She has a PhD in the area of Urban Studies, a Masters in Urban Design and a Bachelor Degree in Architecture. She received Australian Award 2006 for her outstanding contribution to student learning.

Alexandros Tombazis (GR)
Born in India in 1939, Alexandros Tombazis spent his early childhood in India and England before moving permanently to Greece. As a child he wanted to be a painter, and it was his art teacher who first suggested the idea of his becoming an architect. Architecture was then something abstract for him and difficult to comprehend, but once the decision was taken, he never regretted it. His interest in technology and the first oil crisis made him turn towards the use of solar and alternative energy sources, which have become an integral part of his architectural design. Today, Alexandros Tombazis divides his time between his office, which employs about 60 people, and travelling. Alexandros Tombazis has been awarded prizes in more than 110 national, international or invited competitions. In 1991 he was elected honorary fellow of the American Institute of Architects, while in 2006 he was awarded an honorary PhD by the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki.

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