Japan

In Obara village, Fukui Prefecture, Japan, just one elderly individual persists. Once thriving local industries are now mere history, their absence highlighted by the harsh natural environment that hinders a modern lifestyle. The intricate relationship between humans and nature, often seeming like a conflict between the natural and artificial, becomes even more complex when we consider the role of 'weeds'. This is a glimpse into the intricate entanglements of symbiosis within the Satoyama - the gradually disappearing ancient Japanese rural landscapes.

Nepal

Open space plays very important role in dense urban areas for maintaining health and wellbeing of people and the environment of the city. Due to rapid urbanization, haphazard development is seen without adequate open spaces. In other hand, the existing open spaces are being encroached and neglected. This video is about the revitalization of one of the open spaces of traditional city, Bagaicha of Lubhoo, Mahalaxmi Municipality, Nepal. The community collaborated with local government and Lumanti (NGO) for participatory process from designing to operation of the garden.

Georgia

Chance encounter with the residents of Baratashvili bridge, who are transforming a very public traffic node into an art space.

USA

The assumption that all people are able to actualize the rights, benefits, and responsibilities of citizenship within the built environment is misleading. African Americans’ ownership of property and use of public space for personal enjoyment has been historically perceived as transgressive behavior, and often met with punitive legal action, violence, and, at times, death. Given this context, the ability of African Americans to successfully navigate and shape the physical spaces within their lives has amounted to de facto survival strategies. Addressing this fraught social-spatial condition and its impact at the scale of the citizen, Thrival Geographies (In My Mind I See a Line), an intervention in the courtyard of the US Pavilion, is rooted in the historical spatial practices of African Americans, yet speculates upon new spatial strategies that support the most precarious of populations. We foreground these practices as manifestations of civic agency and freedom that move all citizens beyond mere survival toward thrival and full participation in the democratic ideal.

Portugal

MuBE portrays the “Museu Brasileiro da Escultura” built in 1987 by the Architect Paulo Mendes da Rocha. The short movie invites the spectator for a slow journey through the museum, enlightening the relation among the building, the cityscape and the nature, blurring the boundaries between private and public space. His attitude towards architecture was not just to make aesthetic and solitary architecture, but first of all he strived to change the thinking of the people, living, visiting or working in his buildings. In his architecture, rooms act like public spaces, where no divisions and privacy nor segregation take place. People are forced to interact and live together. In his mind, a house should not be more than a place to sleep. And all the rest of the functions are happening in the city itself. MuBE was designed as an introverted, restrained building, carved into stone, it does evolve all the necessary functions in the subterranean layers of São Paulo without disturbing the visual aspect of the surrounding landscape. The portico, the roof over the communal spaces, shelters sculptures and visitors from rain and sunlight, like a stone in the sky. The short movie emphasizes the stone in the sky, through the infinite palette of degradation, weathering patinas and the ever aging construction materials in opposition to contemporary forms of fast architecture and unsustainable resources. Paulo Mendes da Rocha's architecture transcends time and social limits of an inhospitable and inhuman society. Through the use of materials in their most legitimate aspects, Brutalism reveals itself in essence, thus echoing the meaning of architecture: to develop spaces that link city and people.

Georgia