Interview
City Makers New Europe
8 July 2015
@ Cities in Transition
University of Amsterdam
This summer we publish their articles and interviews weekly. Maarten Ketelaar is spending a semester in Berlin, Germany and interviewed Elizabeth Sikiaridi and Frans Vogelaar of Hybrid Space Lab.
âHybridâ stands for combining fields, âSpaceâ is our expertise, âLabâ means that we work experimentally, in an innovative way. Weâre architects-urbanists with a strong connection to media and design. Hybrid Space Labhas two components: the Think Tank that is about knowledge development, and the Design Lab that focuses on experimental architecture and urban design.
âHybridâ is also a strategy. We started by working on the combination and interaction of digital and analog space â and developed this into combining creative fields in general. Most of our work is connected to urban issues: from the redevelopment of the Beijing art district 798, to the DIY pavilion in Hong Kong or âCo-Creating the City : Athensâ.
We work with a network of professionals from different fields: from urbanism and architecture, from industrial and communication design, landscape planners, hardware- and software-engineersâŠ
Apart from working on assignments together with international clients we also initiate research-oriented projects.
We are not traditional architects focusing only on architecture. We also look at other developments: socio-cultural, scientific, technological developments⊠We think the challenges of today need to be addressed in an interdisciplinary way.
We work with a âhybridâ approach and use the crossover strategy as an innovation method: taking ideas from one field and trying them out in another in order to approach the issues we deal with from a new perspective, reframing the challenge.
Itâs really not about the âNewâ; we donât think that innovation in itself is a quality. But we do live in times of enormous technological developments, and need to find ways to deal with them, and to shape them in the way we want them to influence our lives.
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