CreSP

02/09/2019

Viva Roberta Soller!!!!

Il cast di "Effetto Domino" contro le grandi navi! Marco Paolini, Lucia Mascino, Angelica Leo, Maria Roveran, Mirko Artuso, Diego Ribon, Nicoletta Maragno, Roberta Da Soller e tutti i protagonisti del film in presentazione nella sezione Orizzonti della 76esima mostra del cinema oggi ci hanno mandato la loro solidarietà!

05/06/2019

04/11/2015

THE VALUE OF COLLABORATION
The collaboration between the School of Architecture and One Stop Centre represents a pioneering way to design the urban space in Rwanda. It unifies the academic expertise with that of people dealing daily with the urban problems; it provides the City of Kigali with cost-effective high level of knowledge and expertise and it offers to the students the opportunity to develop their skills on real situations. For professionals is also a chance to learn how to mediate between technical aspirations and feasible solutions, between ideal concepts of spaces and what people really need. For teachers is an opportunity to experiment or get acquainted with new pedagogic methods, to go beyond lecturing and bring action into teaching and learning and help to mediate theory and practice
Students are also important mediating actors, they facilitate the dialogue with the population as they are not yet the professional, but have already more knowledge. The help to ensure that what is done is understood and make sense for non technical people and to bring in the perspective of youth, which is often forgotten.

04/11/2015

RETHINKING PUBLIC SPACES IN KIGALI
Every city and community has its own public spaces, sometimes they are not planned or design, and they are the result of the spontaneous doing of people. These spaces often identify with the streets, with small open spaces at the corners of road junctions, with pockets of greenery among the buildings, or with the yard or lawn of a representative building, such as the church, the city hall and the school.
If they are planned and well designed, public spaces can contribute to the environmental and socio-spatial qualities of the city, to the wellbeing of citizens and visitors, and have positive spinoffs to the security, local economy, community engagement, and vibrancy of the urban space.
In the implementation of the Local District Plans, the Kigali One Stop Centre of has teamed up with the School of Architecture of the University of Rwanda in order to provide Kigali with well designed public spaces. For creating successful spaces, it is essential to respond to the needs of the residents and visitors, balancing the widest range of interests and lifestyles. It is important that these places are accessible to everyone without restrictions, are used daily, provide comfort, safety and visual pleasure for welcoming people and allow them to carry out a wide range of recreating activities.
Since last year, students, lecturers and researchers of the School of Architecture have been engaged in a number of important initiatives related to public spaces. During the 2014-15 academic year the former Senior Lecturer Dr Ilaria Boniburini led an architectural design course and an industrial attachment program on mapping and re-thinking public spaces in Kigali. They involved the fourth year architecture students, international scholars and students, artists, Un-Habitat experts and Enan Habiyambere, architect at the Kigali One Stop Centre, who closely followed up the progress of these experiences. The results of this work provided the basic knowledge and inputs for starting a collaborative work between the School and the City of Kigali. Following the signing of MoU between the College of Science and Technology (CST) and the City of Kigali-One Stop centre, in June a team of six people was formed to support the One Stop Centre in designing public spaces in Kigali. Four architecture students are part of this team: Symphorien Gasana, Irene Izere, Eric Kaiyjuka Mutabazi and Renzaho Youssouf. They are supervised by Anna Breda, architect and former officer of the City of Kigali and coordinated by Dr Boniburini, on behalf of the School of Architecture.

14/10/2015

It starts as a bad move in the eyes of the businessmen, grows as an unthinkable action to take from a society that has no familiarity with the concept of reserved and designed public streets (public space), and is perceived as an opportunity to bring something new to the city, something important for its growth and something vital for its society by designers. All said, is is still a space for the people, and the new KN AV 4 street in the city of Kigali is starting to really feel public, there are street vendors, people walking freely and enjoying a car-free street. The best is yet to come.

01/10/2015

RETHINKING PUBLIC SPACES IN KIGALI
Another article from Josephine Malonza on some ideas architecture students are developing for their final year thesis and on the work of the City of Kigali and the School of Architecture (from which CreSP was formed) are carrying out in the city (see below draft concept)
http://www.newtimes.co.rw/section/article/2015-10-01/193077/.

18/09/2015

WHAT IS A PUBLIC SPACE?
A shower along the foreshore, because the beach is a common good too, like a park, where all inhabitants can go to get some refreshment during the hot summers, or to take a walk during all the other seasons looking at the immensity of the sea. Beauty of nature is for all. Below Barcola, Trieste, Italy.
And what is a public space for you?

15/09/2015

Interesting article from the Rwanda University Assistant Lecturer Josephine Malonza on Avenue 4 and the importance of public spaces in the city.
http://www.newtimes.co.rw/section/article/2015-09-15/192569/

Paraphrasing the title of the collaborative project (RE-THINKING PUBLIC SPACES IN KIGALI) between the Department of Architecture and the City of Kigali, Malonza highlights the necessity of "Re-thinking Avenue 4" as pedestrian street and incorporate a multeplicity of activities, suggesting to look at Jan Gehl ' approach and life time work.
CRESP is actively working since June in observing, analysing and preparing design options for the street and its integration in the city network of public spaces that the City of Kigali is planning to implement in the next years.
SUCCESSFUL PUBLIC SPACE=
CONNECTIVITY + LIVELINESS + IDENTITY

12/09/2015

What does it mean to understand the city and its inhabitants?
Knowledge comes in many forms and through different means. By observing reality we can grasp phenomenon; studying histories, social, political, economic and environmental histories, we can make sense of reality and explain why things are the way they are.
Listening to others, to their stories and perceptions remind us that what we see, the reality we live in every day, is both an ensemble of undeniable facts but also the result of preconceptions, expectations and projections of our values and beliefs.
A city for the people is a city capable of embracing the differences, the incredible richness of diversity of thoughts and way of living. None of us, as individuals, hold the truth.
As designers we need to open our mind, expand the horizons of our beliefs, and help the others to have the courage to abandon the safety of their convictions and enjoy the excitement of moving into unchartered waters. In this way we will be able to build our cities not only reflecting what we are as individuals, but also what we are as a society, and project in it what we want (would like to be ) to be in the future as better human beings.

11/09/2015

The ability to transform a city depends on the willingness of the officials to collaborate with professionals, students and the communities. It is a form of participatory design process that requires design teams that works on various projects that have a physical and social impact in the city to have an awareness of the primary beneficiaries of the projects, the primary targets of the projects. Any change that takes place in the city is a change that impacts people's lives, hence we need to have designers that profoundly understands that the city is for the people.

02/09/2015

RETHINKING PUBLIC SPACES IN KIGALI

Which urban furniture (particularly seating) for Kigali city centre?

Soon we will share some sketches and ideas...

02/09/2015

RETHINKING PUBLIC SPACES IN KIGALI
Selfie after the meeting... Without me (IB)