Category: General

Young Balkan Designers 2022 Call: Life Hacks for Health and Wellbeing

Mikser Association proudly announces the new edition of its signature design competition Young Balkan Designers whose theme for 2022 – “Life Hacks for Health & Wellbeing” calls for design projects, objects, concepts, services, scenarios and inventions which create a “shortcut” between sustainable living and wellbeing, provoking conversation on alternative re-imagining healthier everyday worlds: at home, at school or work, in public, in our intimate and community spaces, urban and rural environments, in our physical and digital realms.

The competition is open from 8 December 2021 till 20 January 2022 to teams and individuals up to 35 years of age, from the following countries: Albania, Austria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Greece, Hungary, Macedonia, Montenegro, Romania, Slovenia, Serbia, and Turkey. Applicants may be individuals or groups of creators. Each applicant may submit more than one entry.

The competition challenges young designers to emerge positively from the pandemic and come up with unconventional, witty interventions and “fixes” that contribute to life-promoting environments and use nature-based solutions to address physical health, but also enhance the experiences of human-nature interactions, social connections, belonging and multitude of other positive emotions through engagement of all senses, addressing neglected needs, or introducing quite surprising and unexpected functionalities, etc.

We encourage young creators to surpass limitations and dependency on massive, industrial production and lead the way towards self-sustenance and easily personalized solutions, an increase of inclusion and equality by creating a choice & flexibility for different needs and supporting members of families, teams, communities, and social networks to develop and maintain healthy lifestyles and come together to help each other.

The proposed projects should not necessarily have the ambition to “leave a mark” but, instead attempt to minimize their carbon footprint and embody thoughts on the circularity of the materials used, implementation of local skills and resources, involvement of local actors in problem-solving and production, creating a positive environmental, economic, cultural and social impact.

Designers can apply with innovative solutions for products – furniture, lighting, interior elements, everyday objects, urban gardening inventions, didactic toys and tools, aid products, shelters, home accessories, textile and fashion garments, stationary; etc. urban services; digital solutions; innovative design and production scenarios that offer economically and socially sustainable solutions to local problems, both in urban and rural environments, etc. 

The international Jury that will evaluate the innovation and of design solutions submitted to the competition consists of Marcus Fairs, founder and editor-in-chief of one of the world’s most relevant design portals Dezeen.com from Great Britain, Ana Kras, multiple talented artists and designers from Serbia who works and lives in the USA, Vasso Asfi & Loukas Angelou, design tandem StudioLav from Greece who successfully builds a career in the UK, Jovana Zhang Bogdanovic, co-founder of the award-winning design team Pinwu in China that combines traditional crafts with modern experimental designy, Denis Leo Hegic, designer and curator, founder of Supermarket Lab / Unblock Art Fair / Museum of Now, Germany

The selected winners of the Young Balkan Designers 2022 competition will participate in the international talent ehibition “Salone Satellite” at the world’s most prominent design event – the International Furniture Fair in Milan 2022, which will be held from 5 to 10 April 2022. After its world premiere, the awarded works will be presented to the regional audience in Belgrade in October 2022, at the Mikser Festival, one of the Balkan’s most relevant regional festivals of creativity and social innovation.

Competition link: https://ybd.mikser.rs/

Application form: https://ybd.mikser.rs/form/

Open call for temporary architectural installation in 700 Market

“Privește orașul” is launching an open call for ideas for a temporary architectural installation in 700 Market from Timișoara.

Architecture represents a cultural act of public interest, with urbanistic, economic, social and environmental implications. In order to intensify and consolidate the cultural dimensions of architecture, adapting the architecture education to the trends of the socio-economic and cultural environment is essential, along with promoting the regional cultural identity at both national and international levels.

Considering all of these, The Timiș Territorial Branch of the Romanian Order of Architects proposes a call for ideas for 700 Market (Timișoara), in which people from Romania, Serbia and Hungary can participate. The main aim of the competition is choosing a solution for a temporary architectural installation that would vitalize and regenerate the 700 Market, while enhancing the valences of public space. Thus, it is desirable to change the perception of the 700 Market through an intervention that would allow a positive interaction of its users with the space. The open call is launched on June 25th, and the deadline for submitting projects is August 1st 2021, at 16:00- Romanian hour.

Contrary to its position in the city and in the proximity of the center of Timișoara, the current state of the market, both physically and in terms of perception, is one of anonymity. The spatial complexity, the historical value and the commercial structure that formed – allow and guarantee more than that.  The number of people that pass through it daily, also demand more. It only requires a minimal exercise of imagination to realize the potential that the 700 Market has as a “meeting place”, as a breathing public space – with significance for the community and for the city.

The maximum budget for the implementation of the winning project is 30.000 euro. This amount includes exhaustively all production costs, including assembly and installation. 

Three prizes will be awarded, as follows: the first prize worth 5000 euro, awarded to the winning project and two mentions worth 500 euro each.

The following criteria will be taken into account: coherence and strength of the concept, creativity and expressiveness of the design and of the proposed scenario of use, congruence with the competition brief, capacity to adapt to the competition brief requirements, constructive feasibility of the concept, rationality and justification of the estimated budget.

The entire competition regulations can be consulted here: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1s6ZPQV9tLISNgv6-fw0t-cH8WRAp7svP

“Privește orașul” open call is being organized by The Timiș Territorial Branch of the Romanian Order of Architects in collaboration with Timișoara European Capital of Culture Association.

Outdoors Architecture tours Postponed

Due to the epidemiologic context we live in, we are forced to postpone some of our events. We strongly believe we should be responsible not only towards the built/unbuild environment or recycling matters, but also responsible through our actions inside the society and communities we live in.

Therefore, we decided to postpone the last 3 guided tours from this edition. Our partners from Tur de Arhitectură will come back with more details when the context will allow us to organize guided tour again.

Future Architecture Rooms

The challenges the entire world has faced recently have also become challenges for designers, architects and urbanists. Calls for new models that would transform decades of self-complacency into practices dealing with the politics of relations, neighbourhood, energy flows, and ever changing urban dynamics have merged with calls for political commitments that demand care, empathy and awareness of the other.

The current state of affairs has also brought changes into the functioning of numerous institutions in the field of architecture. Among them is the Future Architecture Platform, and its twenty-seven architecture museums, festivals, publishing houses and other organizations were forced to find other ways to reach out to their audiences.

How are they adapting to the consequences of immediate health crysis? How are they going to work in the coming months? And how are they approaching their audiences?

From rooms

In this pandemic era, we have become hyper-aware of the materiality and dimensions of our rooms. During periods of self-isolation, it is likely a room where you will while the time away.

The era of video conferencing has exposed our private rooms online. These days, we glimpse each other’s decorated walls or books on shelves in call after call. The fragments of these rooms become part of our own spaces, blurring the boundaries of public and private spheres, of what is tangible inside and what is immaterial elsewhere. The opportunity to peek into these unfamiliar spaces of the others — and have our own projected outwards — is at once entertaining and unsettling. Such was the mindset of twenty-seven leading European architectural institutions when they opened their doors virtually through the Future Architecture Rooms platform.

Peek behind the scenes

So far, more than 130.000 people have visited the rooms where the members of the Future Architecture platform, led by Anastassia Smirnova, concept curator, have constructed a context for exchange, knowledge transfer, discussion, education, and presentation. A space that can respond to the effects of the pandemic, without being disrupted by them. In the rooms the curators and producers, directors and managers as well as their collaborating architects, critics and publics are free to communicate as they wish. Every room features a short video allowing us to peek behind the scenes of some of the most interesting critical projects in Europe, joined under the common theme Landscapes of Care.

Help to shape the most groundbreaking architectural happenings through Europe

FA platform leader and director of MAO, Matevž Čelik, believes that the virtual sphere can function as a place to temporarily fill the void caused by this emerging situation and help stakeholders in architecture maintain genuine contact as well as exchange knowledge and ideas with each other.  

“Since everyone involved in international coalitions like Future Architecture has been chained to the screens by the pandemic, we wanted to provide a more enjoyable way to meet online and connect. I want the platform as a building to remain constantly open to everyone and I hope that in Future Architecture Rooms people will always find new potential partners, friends and inspirations.”

The identification of new potentials is also the theme of the platform’s upcoming annual open call.

Where emerging designers and architects with their ideas can help to shape the most groundbreaking architectural happenings and events that form the core of the European Architecture Program. Titled Landscapes of Care, this year’s open call will provide a broader space for reflection, debates and proposals about the future of architecture. Applications will be open from November this year.

Future Architecture Rooms

Landscapes of Care: 2021 Call for Ideas

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Future Architecture Rooms is a project by Museum of Architecture and Design in Ljubljana.

Director: Matevž Čelik

Creators

Anastassia Smirnova (SVESMI), concept curator

Milan Dinevski (MAO), executive curator

Anna Kulachek, graphic designer

Maksim Karalevich, digital designer

With the participation of James Taylor-Foster (ArkDes) and Bika Rebek (Some Place) and Ana Dana Beroš (DAISAI).