IAAC at The Next Economy IABR 2016

How should we design and govern our cities? Although we are not prophets, we can investigate and imagine tomorrow’s city, research it by design. IABR 2016 – THE NEXT ECONOMY takes the main challenges of the twenty-first century as its starting point. The exhibition explores the Next Economy and imagine the city of the future: the healthy and socially inclusive city, the productive city, and the sustainable green city. The city in which public space once again takes center stage.

The Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia, the Graduated School of Urbanism in Moskou, together with Habidatum and Guallart Architects have been working on a new distributed urban model for the future city which has been presented at the Biennale: The New Distributed Economy in Barcelona.

Prototyping the Future City: the New Distributed Economy in Barcelona

Prototyping the Future City: the New Distributed Economy in Barcelona

While some economists and urban planners discern a trend towards greater centralisation, others see more opportunities in developing a new distributed urban model. In Barcelona an experimental system of productive and connected neighbourhoods is already in place.

Multiple projects using smart technologies are being employed in an effort to make the city self sufficient in 2050, and show the potential of the distributed model: public and shared transportation instead of privately owned vehicles; the implementation of distributed networks of energy; boosting re-industrialisation through new digital technologies and FabLabs; developing new formats for social housing based on shared space, and building trustworthy networks around the older population instead of isolating them in the confined space of a nursing home.

With these interventions, the city aims to enable its inhabitants to take charge of their own destiny, to share resources and collectively envision the future of Barcelona.

IABR 2016 – THE NEXT ECONOMY, the seventh edition of the International Architecture Biennale Rotterdam, will be open to the public from 23 April until 10 July 2016.