‍CAFx Life Form 1–11 June
CAFx UIA 2–6 July

Humanity has passed through a long history of one-sidedness and of a social condition that has always contained the potential of destruction, despite its creative achievements in technology. The great project of our time must be to open the other eye: to see all-sidedly and wholly‍

— Murray Bookchin
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With over 100 events spread over eleven festival days from June 1st to 11th, 2023, we seek to rethink the relationship between form and life through new narratives, metaphors, and models for planning and architectural production.

Our contemporary wild and budding ideas are the guiding principles for this year's program: regenerative design, bio-inclusive biomimicry, symbiotic co-creation, and architectural asceticism. We aim to expand our domestic discussion on future urban planning, landscapes, and built environments; a necessary recalibration of our architectural imagination for the age of ecological crises.

We know the time is ripe for new ideas. We know we must establish new consumption patterns. We know the idea of the architect as a self-sufficient genius and master builder with universal solutions impedes the necessary reconsideration of our buildings as habitats, our cities as ecosystems, and our architects as facilitators and advisors.

We know we must become more empathetic towards other life forms and their processes of creation. In other words, we must dismantle our dualistic worldview; the ideas that maintain the tear that modernity has inflicted on our consciousness between culture and nature, style and substance, master and mastered, form and life.
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The symbiotic city is not a utopia, as many cities are becoming more symbiotic already. It is a story of hope about how we can restore social and ecological justice in our cities.

— Marian Stuiver

We must shift perspective and through new languages and narratives ask what it takes to make regenerative behaviors and forms of knowledge go viral, and how architecture can materialize ideals for a circular economy where more symbiotic communities can thrive. 

For what if we could change our architecture by changing our understanding of architecture? What if we introduced a concept of form that inspired us to learn from the formation of life instead of reshaping nature to fit our excessive consumption ideals? And what if architecture possessed the will and tools to lead the way in conveying a new understanding of humanity's position in the world? Can architecture make new worldviews concrete, tangible, and plausible realities?

Credits

CAFx Team: Josephine Michau, Søren Nørkjær Bang, Signe Sophie Boeggild, Valeria Granillo, Alexandra Wedderkopp Emelianov. Visual Identity: KIOSK Studio.