Newsletter September 2021

permaCRISIS
Contemporary societies are faced with multiple crises, including climate change, biodiversity loss, social injustice and turmoil, geopolitical conflict and war, humanitarian crises, energy emergency and food insecurity.

Newsletter, @ Hybrid Space Lab, 10 June 2022

The COVID-19 pandemic forces us to develop visions for future hybrid (combined physical and digital) public cultural spaces.

Amidst increasing digitalization of cities, alternative social and urban approaches and inputs at play open up room for possibility for shaping urban-tech.

Ubiquitous digitalization pervades urban environments at an accelerating pace. So is climate change, with increasingly frequent threatening episodes of extreme weather conditions worldwide, urging us to rethink our cities, and rapidly.

Even without the remains of the dictator, the symbolic value of Valle de los Caídos retains its controversial force. What transformations are needed at Valle de los Caídos (“Valley of the Fallen”) so as not to create a cenotaph – an empty burial monument?

What would Alexander von Humboldt’s 250th birthday wish have been?
This last summer brought again burning questions to the fore: Are extreme hot temperatures established as the new norm? Is the burning of the earth’s lungs and biodiversity ark becoming everyday news?

Ubiquitous digitization is increasingly transforming urban life in all its aspects and Smart City technologies promise unlimited efficiency to urban mobility solutions. It is however worth reflecting on why digitally supported and automated negotiation concerning, amongst others, mobility does not necessarily equal objective and fair decision-making.

Digitalization transforms our cities, with far-reaching efforts towards technology-powered increased efficiency, sustainability and at times participation.
This raises new questions on privacy, data governance and (digital) design, historically unaddressed by city planning, architecture, civil society and governance.With cities worldwide striving to earn a “Smart City” reputation, it is however disputed who exactly benefits from these concepts.

Possible futures are not set in stone. Today’s creativity and breakthrough sustainability-oriented and socially-inclusive thinking have the capacity to shape them.

As technology, the digital and the physical intersect, affecting our lives and societies in ways previously unthought-of, our thinking and approach to reality must be future-proof, too. 
Here is an upshot of an increasingly digitally networked and co-created prospect, ranging from fashion to heritage, to diplomacy.

The etymology of recordar, Spanish for “to remember”, is “to go back to one’s heart”, as memory was once thought to reside there and, even today, processes of memory making are immersed within affective landscapes.
Valle de los Caídos (Valley of the Fallen), the Francoist monument built between 1940 and 1959 close to Madrid, will soon be emptied of Franco’s remains.
As it risks becoming a cenotaph – an empty burial monument – and it is at the center of heated public discourses surrounding its future, Valle de los Caídos is paradigmatic of the difficult processes of re-signifying controversial monuments.

With the words “Die heiße Asche des Diktators”, the Hot Ashes of the Dictator, in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ) of November 1^st 2018, journalist Paul Ingendaay captures the toxicity of the highly divisive Francoist Memorial at Valle de los Caídos, as well as the urgency of Hybrid Space Lab’s workshop “Deep Space: Re-signifying Valle de los Caídos”.

Valle de  los Caídos (Valley of the Fallen), the Francoist monument built between 1940 and 1959 close to Madrid, will soon be emptied of Franco’s remains.
As it risks becoming a cenotaph – an empty burial monument – and it is at the center of heated public discourses surrounding its future, Valle de los Caídos is paradigmatic of the difficult processes of re-signifying controversial monuments.

The past summer brought several burning questions to the fore. We hope you had a cool place to ponder over them. Are extreme hot temperatures worldwide the new norm? How fast does the ice melt at 32°? This was the alarming high temperature measured this summer above the Arctic Circle!
The effects of climate change are showing up faster and sooner than forecasted – increases in average temperatures, rising sea levels, ever more frequent extreme weather conditions, and accelerated rates of biodiversity loss are becoming defining features of the Anthropocene, the human-made geological era. Today, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) presents its “Summary for Policymakers” report developed by the representatives of the IPCC’s 195 members’ governments in collaboration with international scientists, addressing these dramatic challenges.

Embassy Lab GRÜNtopia addresses a range of aspects of integrating green in dense urban spaces such as livability of cities, climate adaptation, mitigating of the heat island effect, water sensitive urban design, biodiversity, and urban food production.

Hybrid Space Lab is curating Embassy Lab GRÜNtopia which takes place in Berlin on 22 June 2018 and focuses on innovative solutions for integrating green in dense urban situations. Embassy Lab GRÜNtopia is part of the MakeCity Festival 2018.

Hybrid Space Lab co-organized together with the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs The Hague Digital Diplomacy Camp 2018 Un-Conference on February 2^nd 2018.
Hybrid Space Lab organized Hybrid Diplomacy Lab “A Reset Button for the Debate over Migration” on January 18^th 2018 at the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs, The Hague.
The Swiss architectural magazine “archithese” published Humboldt Jungle on January 16^th 2018.