Learning from Ahmedabad is HP Architects’ third project, in which the firm collaborates with local partners to explore sustainable and innovative solutions for spatial briefs in Indian cities. After Mumbai and Delhi, it is focusing on the rapidly developing city of Ahmedabad. The issues that are central include: poor mobility, water management and liveability. Designers from the Netherlands and India will focus on these problems by means of workshop programmes and lectures, with CEPT University and Delft University acting as partners. The project also seeks to promote knowledge exchange and experience relating to urbanism. Ten architects and urban designers who work in Ahmedabad or have a relationship with the city have been asked to define the spatial and architectonic qualities of the city from the standpoint of their own expertise. These contributions will be gathered together with the results of the workshop and published in an English-language edition.

‘Summer Sessions’ is an international development project of V2_ for talent development. It offers young artists and designers the opportunity to develop new projects abroad supervised by curators, theoreticians and technicians. During the summer months V2_ sends out talent and V2_Lab welcomes a number of foreign makers. At different times and within their own institutions, every partner showcases its progress. This might entail, for instance, a presentation moment of work-in-progress and a prototype. In addition projects are presented jointly at Ars Electronica Festival in Linz. During the festival the applicant is organizing a network moment in order to widen the scope of the network even further. V2_ is applying for a grant for the Dutch artists who are taking up a residency with partner organizations outside the Netherlands. The artists can apply via an open call given out by V2_. This edition’s project partners include PNEK, Norway, Arquivo 237, Portugal, Kitchen Budapest, Hungary and Metamedia, Croatia. In the long term V2_ and partners intend to submit an application to the Creative Europe Programme for the Summer Sessions.

Biodesigner Sarah Daher and social-design researcher Markus Wernli are launching the project Harboring Organisms, Sharing Tensions (H.0.S.T). H.O.S.T. is a research project exploring the interface of bio and social design. The research focuses on recycling urine into a source of nutrients to grow plants. The organizers intend this research to push out the boundaries between nutrients, poisons, waste, food and the human and non-human domain. During the research, human test subjects will be encouraged and enabled, by means of fermentation techniques, to purify their urine into a source of nutrients to grow plants. The designers’ intention is to break down the taboos surrounding human waste. Part of the research will be carried out during a residency at Utopiana in Switzerland. The Korea Research Institute of Chemical Technology, among others, is to host a number of test demonstrations with test subjects. The organizers are collaborating with microbiologists from Hong Kong and TU Delft, biologists and other experts in the fields of science and design. H.O.S.T. is to result in a so-called ‘Anthroponics Plant Cultivating Kit’, a DIY package allowing people to purify their urine at home and grow plants, a touring ‘H.O.S.T. Demo Lab’ targeting activation workshops in the Netherlands, and an anthropological film about the project, thus making the knowledge accessible worldwide. Finally the applicant intends to collaborate with Mediamatic and CASCO on events over the results of the research.

In collaboration with the Rotterdam-based curator Angela Rui and Slovenian curator Maja Verdjan, the Museum of Architecture and Design in Ljubljana (Slovenia) is organizing the 25th Biennial of Design ‘BIO 25’, which takes place in May 2017 in Ljubljana. As with the previous two editions, the focus will be on finding an alternative structure for the traditional biennial format. Taking the theme ‘Faraway, So Close’, 7 duos have been invited to develop 7 interventions for non-urban areas in Slovenia. The duos are made up of an international maker or design firm and a Slovenian professional from outside the design world. Together they will act as the mentors of over 50 participants divided over 7 projects. The teams will be challenged to place local issues in the context of large-scale social issues, such as climate change. In so doing, the curators aim not just to promote a dialogue between different nationalities, but also between disciplines, locations and levels. The organization recognizes the added value of Dutch designers (or designers who have trained in the Netherlands) who with their forward-thinking ideas, openness and innovative vision can be instrumental in generating integral solutions. The 7 selected makers include Formafantasma and Point Supreme, both of which are established in the Netherlands. The organization is working in collaboration with more than 48 makers from 12 European countries, many of whom trained in the Netherlands. In addition to the 7 interventions, there will be more than 50 events and a main exhibition in MAO accompanied by the publication of an exhibition catalogue.

The International New Town Institute (INTI) is launching the programme ‘New Towns, why we need to rethink the city of tomorrow today’, which consists of a series of research-by-design workshops in a number of New Towns. The applicant intends to use the programme to generate new models for urban and regional growth, which he maintains will lead to safe, social and inclusive environments for new city dwellers. The method that is central to the project combines design, residents’ participation and cultural entrepreneurship in the transformation of systematically built cities. To achieve this INTI specifically focuses on the qualitative approach to urbanization, for example by looking at how people form a community. INTI’s aim is to bring about actual transformation. The programme targets four cities: Alamar (Cuba), Curtiba (Brazil), Nairobi (Kenya) and Shenzhen (China). The central themes are food production, water management and participation. Each city will use research-by-design-workshops to work on a specific theme within the overall coordinating themes. The aim of the workshops is to devise an integral strategic plan that the cities can subsequently put into effect themselves. Local and Dutch institutions and designers will be involved in the workshops. The results of the workshops will be mutually shared with the other New Towns and with the public during the next International New Town Day, June 2017.