GOOD URBAN LIFE Actions – Taking Care of the Careless

The deadline for students application is extended until Tuesday, 17th of May!!!

This year’s GOOD URBAN LIFE project encounters action. Within 17. Belgrade International Architecture Week (BINA), through performances and workshops in public spaces, images of urban interventions are carried out.   

Faculty of Architecture – University of Belgrade and  

The Vienna University of Technology (TU Vienna)  

Students’ Workshop  

Taking Care of the Careless  

Hybrid Format:  

May 2022 – Online Sessions  

14th and 15th June 2022 at Velike Stepenice (Grand Staircase) at Kosančićev Venac, Belgrade, Serbia 

Key words: 

Careless spaces, good urban life ingredients, actions for good urban life 

Workshop Outline 

In cooperation between BINA (Belgrade International Architecture Week), University of Belgrade – Faculty of Architecture, TU Vienna and Österreichisches Kulturforum Belgrad, a joint Students’ Workshop (UB FoA and TU Vienna) will take place online and in Belgrade on 14th and 15th of June 2022.  

The workshop and related activities foresee a stepwise investigation and experience around the topic “Good Urban Life Actions” between two architecture and spatial planning faculties. Approximately 35 students from the Technical University Vienna and Faculty of Architecture – University of Belgrade will work together transdisciplinary in order to create a meaningful impact on the selected site of the Velike stepenice (Grand Staircase) in close proximity to the Austrian Embassy in Belgrade at Kosančićev Venac. 

The main aim is to create actions through interdisciplinary knowledge and international collaboration. Therefore, students along with supervisors from the two faculties embrace the 5 topics and related triggering questions of the curatorial program to imagine possible scenarios for Good Urban Life.  

Starting with a general analysis about the qualities of Good Urban Life, students are asked to capture the ingredients of Good Urban Life in their respective everyday environment with videos, images, objects and any media they choose. This individual and personal introductory exercise will reveal students’ perception regarding the topic and the personal imaginary, thus contributing to the creation of the Good Urban Life ingredients repository as an initial space of discourse. On this basis, the group-matching process starts between the two faculties. Groups of Belgrade and Viennese students start exchanging concepts about the topic and the given site by engaging with the repository. Students will engage in the process of creative interpretation and use of the ingredients in the open public space of Belgrade through embodied exercises of the Good Urban Life Actions.  

The gathered and collaboratively gained knowledge subsequently will be transformed into a manifesto for action during a 24h workshop performance in Belgrade. The manifesto symbolises the imaginary of a Day of Care for the Careless – a space, in both social and material terms that manifests itself through embodied ingredients in the selected location.  

During two days and a 24h performance the students will take action on the given site. The outcome is open, encounters will happen and the glimpse of the site could improve through action. This necessary action triggers awareness by raising an ongoing process in regard to the Good Urban Life that will be collectively discussed with the audience of the festival and workshop participants. How the students will take care of the careless space and which kind of spatial qualities and experiences – literal, social and relational they will achieve through proposed ingredients at the site, is part of the open-end process that will unfold during the workshop.    

Workshop Application 

All interested students should apply by sending one page application (text: motivation and comment of the topic + one visual) by Tuesday 10th (midnight) of May to the email jelena.brajkovic@arh.bg.ac.rs.  

Application is open to students of all level courses. All students participating in the Workshop are eligible to apply for extra-curricular credits. Number of students participating is limited to 12. 

Workshop will be held in English language. 

Workshop Realisation  

(SRB)   Jelena Brajković, Pavle Stamenović (University of Belgrade – Faculty of Architecture) 

(AT)   David Calas (Studio Calas Vienna – GIU Berlin), Sabine Knierbein, Dragana Damjanović, Emanuela Semlitsch, Stefan Mayr, Predrag Milić (TU Vienna)  

Organisation and Support 

University of Belgrade – Faculty of Architecture, BINA, The Vienna University of Technology (TU Vienna), Österreichisches Kulturforum Belgrad