multitude

Latest Posts

1. 28/05/2016

   Spritzker

   As archi­tects gath­er in Venice for the rit­u­al open­ing fren­zy, mul­ti­tude comes back and awards yet anoth­er prize to our man of the year.
   

    

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2. 10/11/2015

   new welfare, or not.

   On 26^th Octo­ber 2015 we have been invit­ed to express our anger at a con­fer­ence held at the Boc­coni uni­ver­si­ty in Milan, on the sub­ject of the uncer­tain, shift­ing world of free­lance work­ers. We are hap­py to report that our ideas have been dis­missed as ide­o­log­i­cal and provoca­tive by the pres­i­dent of INPS.

   We hope he did not mean it in a good way.

   read on…

    

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3. 10/06/2015

   Backstage

   

   On the 9^th of June 2015, the fierce team that man­ages Giz­mo organ­ised at Politec­ni­co in Milan a sym­po­sium with an ambi­tious title: Back­stage, Archi­tec­ture as con­crete practice.
   Incau­tious­ly they invit­ed Mul­ti­tude to present the find­ings pub­lished with On Work. And so we did, spark­ing what could only be described as the first sign of a quite revolution.

   read on…

    

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4. 01/04/2015

   Any other comments?

   All the spon­ta­neous respons­es to the last ques­tion of the sur­vey car­ried out in 2012.

   read on…

    

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5. 10/03/2015

   Forgive me Father

   

   for I have sinned.

   I have sinned of straight lines and flat roofs.
   I have sinned of strip win­dows and free plan.
   I have sinned of tak­ing this dis­ci­pline far too seri­ous­ly, when every­one else around me just isn’t.

   I have sinned of spend­ing the night at the office, of stay­ing in front of a screen for weeks,
   of not speak­ing to any­body. I have sinned because I had a com­pli­cate rela­tion­ship with a lay­er in Photoshop.

   I have sinned of think­ing the sal­va­tion of this world relies on our mice, on our shared fold­ers and 3D mod­els. I thought the key to suc­cess was some­where in the server.
   I have sinned because I gave up on my civ­il rights for the sake of design think­ing that, one day, it will pay back, with cred­its.

   I have sinned of miss­ing the oppor­tu­ni­ty of liv­ing, because I had to find the right gra­di­ent between two hatch­es. Their trans­paren­cy was also one of my concerns.
   I have sinned of grant­i­ng author­i­ty to self appoint­ed prophets of the idea, of believ­ing they were smart, when all they did was fill­ing the room with their voice. read on…

    

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6. 27/02/2015

   Rotterdam te huur

   

   ‘Vacant NL’ was the title of the exhi­bi­tion for the Dutch pavil­ion at the Venice Archi­tec­ture Bien­nale 2010.
   The exhi­bi­tion has con­cep­tu­al­ly sum­ma­rized a research high­light­ing unused and emp­ty pub­lic build­ings all over The Nether­lands, while propos­ing strate­gies for tem­po­rary reuse. After 5 years and two oth­er Bien­nales, the theme of vacant space is still of utmost impor­tance in The Nether­lands. Per­haps, Rot­ter­dam is the most afflict­ed city due to its post-indus­tri­al atti­tude. How­ev­er, vacant indus­tri­al spaces are cou­pled by a whole array of emp­ty office build­ings, which spread through­out the city center.

   In 2014, Rot­ter­dam was crowned best city in Europe at the Urban­ism Awards and a recent inter­est­ing online arti­cle describes Rotterdam’s post WWII renais­sance (Dafne​.com), while high­light­ing some major issues still affect­ing its urban environment.

   Dur­ing an after­noon of the last year, we crossed Rot­ter­dam city cen­ter col­lect­ing a series of pho­tos that clear­ly tes­ti­fies how much vacant space is out there. Our focus has been main­ly on office spaces to rent. read on…

    

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7. 22/10/2014

   Grand Rotterdam Hotel

   

   read on…

    

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8. 05/10/2014

   Amplifier #0000

   

   This first issue of Ampli­fi­er col­lects the hero­ic efforts of young archi­tects to ignite a rev­o­lu­tion dur­ing their spare hours.

   The author of the attempt is 18Oktoberdam, a tem­po­rary col­lec­tive of young archi­tects who met in Decem­ber 2011 in an attic apart­ment some­where in the West of Rotterdam.
   Most of them were work­ing for low salaries, despite, they claimed, their tal­ent and ded­i­ca­tion. They were, and still are, deter­mined to change things.

   18Oktoberdam orga­nized an online sur­vey to gath­er infor­ma­tion on work­ing con­di­tions in the field of Archi­tec­ture. The result (170+ entries) is a show­case of indi­vid­u­als who have strug­gled to find a way in a mutat­ing mar­ket. Their sto­ries come as a wake-up call to all work­ers in the field. read on…

    

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9. 01/10/2014

   Off-the-press

   

   On 22 and 23 of May 2014, mul­ti­tude was show­cased at Off the Press, dur­ing the inter­na­tion­al con­fer­ence Dig­i­tal Pub­lish­ing Toolk­it. The intru­sion was pos­si­ble thanks to the ten­tac­u­lar, effi­cient­ly reach­ing hands of the Insti­tute of Net­work Cul­tures. read on…

    

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10. 30/07/2014

    Fundamentals

    Fun­da­men­tals are necessary.
    Fun­da­men­tals are all an archi­tect needs and can afford.
    Fun­da­men­tals are not cool, they are cold and hard like the floor.
    They are a mat­tress on that floor, a lap­top on the mat­tress and a bot­tle of brown liq­uid, easy access to inspi­ra­tion, cure to insom­nia and, if you keep the emp­ty, meter of your career.
    Every­thing else is acces­si­ble thanks to the lit­tle hands that assem­bled the screen, vir­tu­al friend­ships, knowl­edge, enter­tain­ment for a month­ly fee and home deliv­ered meals.
    Fun­da­men­tal is to be light at heart and belong­ings, to pack quick­ly, to go to good­bye par­ties more than lec­tures, to write down pass­words and to speak anoth­er language.
    Fun­da­men­tal is a degree, just as fun­da­men­tal was the horse, before the inven­tion of the motor.
    Fun­da­men­tal is your bat­tery charger.

    

    read on…

     

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11. 04/07/2014

    Haze

    

    The ele­va­tor got stuck between the 32^nd and the 33^rd floor.
    35 min­utes had already passed. A voice from the speak­ers said that the per­son­nel was sor­ry for the incon­ve­nience and that he had just to keep calm and to kind­ly wait until the tech­ni­cians would have fixed the prob­lem, there was noth­ing to wor­ry about, “you-are-safe-sir”. There was a lit­tle beep and then the music start­ed over again: it was a nev­er end­ing loop of three Celine Dion’s songs of which he was unin­ten­tion­al­ly mem­o­riz­ing part of the lyrics.

    The ele­va­tor was one of those glass cap­sule designed in the 80s, with a dark gray moquette and some blue light spots in the false ceil­ing. From there he could look at the city sky­line and at the lit­tle white sails ran­dom­ly scat­tered between the island and the cost of the hazy bay.The air-con­di­tion­ing sys­tem had stopped work­ing with the black-out and it was start­ing to get warmer. He unknot­ted the tie and he sat on the floor look­ing down at the peo­ple walk­ing on the side­walks and at the cars start­ing and stop­ping at the cross­road. He could also see his fix­ie, that he had locked in front of the star­bucks at the cor­ner of the street. He was hap­py that it was still there.
    His iPhone start­ed vibrat­ing in his pock­et, it was his moth­er. He wait­ed a bit, star­ing at the screen, then he decid­ed to answer:

    read on…

     

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