Living 2060

Preface

The publication you are holding in your hands presents a small selection of the numerous works that were created as part of the interdisciplinary architecture project LIVING 2060 and is intended to give you an insight into the various project activities.

This transnational project was submitted in 2018 by the Viennese association “X-CHANGE culture-science” as part of the EU programme CREATIVE EUROPE. There were several co-organisers: from Austria, the TU Wien; from Italy, Università Iuav di Venezia and University of Ferrara; and from Romania, Association Frontal. In addition to the European co-organisers, institutions from Indonesia and Thailand were also significantly involved in the project.

What were the goals of the project?
1. Audience engagement with a special focus on children and adolescents
2. Transnational mobility: the promotion of cultural exchange across national borders.

LIVING 2060 started in October 2019 and was supposed to be completed in September 2021. However, the Corona pandemic thwarted this plan; “transnational mobility” simply was not possible during those times, and neither was the planned implementation of workshops at schools and universities. As a result, the project’s timetable was thrown into disarray and its duration was extended from two years to a total of four years. In the first instance, all planned events had to be cancelled or postponed. Subsequently, some project components – such as the design workshops and expert forums – could be remodelled and carried out as online events. However, it was important to us that the creative workshops for children and young people were held in person, even though we had to postpone them repeatedly. Another crucial impact of the pandemic concerned the mode of exchange: meetings and working groups had to take place online instead of in-person. However, the online solution had the advantage that additional experts from all over the world could be invited to the presentations and contribute their expertise, which, for financial reasons, would not have been possible at face-to-face events.

The above-mentioned project goals were achieved through the following activities:

In order to sensitise children and young people to the topic of housing, creative workshops were held with the participation of about 400 pupils aged nine to seventeen. Architectural mediators and artists worked with the pupils on topics such as “What does housing mean in general?”, “What does housing mean to you?”, “How will we live in 2060?” etc. These topics were addressed partly in the form of discussions and input sessions, and partly in a creative form. You can see some examples of these discussions in this publication.

In order to achieve the second goal, design workshops were held, in which over 230 participants from Austria, Italy, Romania, Germany, Indonesia, Spain and several other countries took part. These were accompanied by input presentations from subject matter experts. As mentioned above, the original scheme was reworked into an online programme, and mixed intercultural groups were formed that met online almost weekly. The major overarching theme was “Affordable Housing” and this was accompanied by a different sub-theme for participants to work on each year. The two realworld planning areas on which the tasks were based were located in Vienna/Austria and in Yogyakarta/Indonesia. The planning area in Vienna is a very important social housing building project from the post-war period with over 1,700 housing units, namely the SIEMENSSTRASSE housing estate. It is by now somewhat outdated and tired and was to be given an “upgrade” by the students. The planning area in Yogyakarta was an undeveloped oil storage area in a special urban location.

These tasks resulted in some very special design work – some examples are presented in this publication.

Fortunately, in 2023, it was again possible to hold a “live” series of exhibitions, in which selected works were shown to a wider public in the project countries. These exhibitions made for a very gratifying and inspiring conclusion to the project; after the many virtual encounters there was now an opportunity for “real” exchange between experts, students and a public audience, and the way was paved for further joint projects on the topic of “housing”.

I hope the reader will find the selected works stimulating and will be inspired to engage further with the project topics. The project website provides a useful additional review of everything that happened during the course of the project.

Finally, I would like to thank all the project participants.

Daniela Mansouri
Chairlady
X-CHANGE culture-science