Community Building and Placemaking have recently emerged as two essential themes in architecture and urban planning. Prior to the Covid19 pandemic, facilitating the creation of communities related mainly to the workplace and the shared (living) economy, and was principally focused on co-creation, innovation, and productivity.

Recent events have however highlighted the human need for connectedness on a broader scale and as an essential facet of human health. Placemaking, on the other hand, is understood by designers as a facilitator of community building and has therefore become an essential and increasingly important facet of any design.

IE School of Architecture and Design welcomes Ben van Berkel, Founder and Principal Architect of UNStudio in this hybrid lecture, in which he will discuss why communities can make our lives healthier. He will talk about designing communities that have little impact on the planet, but a lasting impact on our cities and people.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER

Ben van Berkel studied architecture at the Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam and the Architectural Association in London, receiving the AA Diploma with Honours in 1987.

In 1988 Ben van Berkel and Caroline Bos founded UN Studio, an international network specializing in architecture, interior architecture, product design, urban development, and infrastructural projects. Today, the firm, with its home base in Amsterdam,  has five more offices around the world and about 200 employees.  Well-known works by the firm include the Mercedes-Benz Museum in Stuttgart, Arnhem Central Station in the Netherlands, Raffles City mixed-use development in Hangzhou, the Canaletto Tower in London, and the Singapore University of Technology and Design, among many others.

Believing that the key to 'future-proofing the future' is knowledge. For the last decade, the firm has focused on expanding its understanding of trends and practices in architecture and beyond. By establishing UNSx and UNSFutures teams, research is undertaken on new forms of culture, methodologies, materials, and technology that are reshaping the world.

In 2018 UNSense was created as an architecture-technology start-up using technology as a design tool to create humane cities that are safe healthy and futureproof.

Ben van Berkel has lectured and taught at many architectural schools around the world. He is a member of the Taskforce Team / Advisory Board Construction Industry for the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs.

"BEYOND SCALE" LECTURE SERIES

Recognizing that scale is a fundamental concept in architecture and design, this series includes speakers who look at the world from the macroscale of infrastructural and territorial dynamics to the microscale of the pixel component.  However, we also want to extend the conversation beyond the normal concepts of scale to include other topics such as energy consumption and the impact of the built environment at all scales or the transformation and reuse versus production from scratch (of objects, buildings, fashion, software, etc.) or questions of inclusivity and  diversity in the professional and academic environment

Lectures in this series will take place on our Segovia or Madrid campuses and also be transmitted via zoom at 18h  (CET).