Any message has (in general) a meaning. Can architecture communicate something? Has it a meaning? A meaning architects and Designer put into it? How? Has architecture at all to be sense- and meaningful? Can it communicate - as Dunk would claim - FUPSEY or sustainability?

Just trying to open a discussion:) Have fun there in Vikings'Land and greetz to all alx

ladies and gentlemen we are living on a planet that is floating in a bizarre and beautiful universe. “A sustainable society is one which satisfies its needs without diminishing the prospects of future generations.” Is how Lester Brown defines things. It is only recently that we started to live unsustainably, we must learn how to simply work with nature again. If we don’t we end life for humans and possibly the planet, that’s it. http://easa.antville.org/stories/429639/ was posted 25th June because I felt then that we could and should do more to work for a more sustainable world. What are we? We are EASA, the body that makes up the architectural students of Europe. What have we been saying to the world? We want to have fun and don’t care about what goes on in the world. Why do I say this; EASA came about from a need for radical change when students got together in Liverpool city in 1981 to challenge things and improve the city but this quickly (d)evolved to what was the EASA experience of the last few years, mainly 100´s of students going to an island and doing arty farty workshops while having a lovely fun holiday in the sun (which is always important). Thankfully though things have changed, Danish students have made us focus on “sustainable living”, this is a major progressive step. Perhaps this old apolitical and uncaring view was a reflection of the wider architectural world?

So what can we do? I feel we are going through a massive step in world history; that we are living in the network age. We have the technology to communicate like we never could before and with this some amazing things are happening. Concerned people around the world are starting to question what way this world is being used, with this they are finding that there are some unhealthy social, economic and political systems that are not making our world more peaceful and sustainable. More people are becoming informed and with that more are starting to take action- “another world is possible” one that is sustainable, peaceful and fun

Communication is the key to all this, spreading the ideas. Unfortunately though, EASA so far, has not embraced these changes.

We could communicate more, we could be more creative; we could do more exciting things. It is great that we come together for the 2 weeks of the summer, but wouldn’t it be great if we did things all year?

http://easa.antville.org/stories/150465/ EASA`s first european architectural event, was an attempt to get us to DO something positive for European car free day, to recognise that it is a major issue we have to deal with. In Dublin we “reclaimed the streets” and partied. These can be major fun events In 1989, 150 people in berlin danced FOR tolerance, respect and communication between nations, 10 years later and there was 1.5million people dancing on the streets of berlin, and it fu**ing rocked, bigtime http://easa.antville.org/stories/223027/ a European Baraka screening, was attempted on tuesday the 10th of December, whereby we would all show the film in our own universities at sunset and communicate after on the website. It did not happen

How progressive is EASA? easa.antville.org “EASA should become a network” was the advice Don Foresta gave us last year, did we listen? A network is a community that lives, evolves, creates, plays, and communicates both in the real and the virtual worlds together. By utilizing today’s technology there is no end to what we could do, its there for us to play with, why are we so slow to experiment with what we can do and push things to their limits

“sustainable living” what will be our findings, will we want to improve things? How will we improve things? Fun is a very powerful force, so to is money, if its cheaper to build eco and its greener, then why are so few doing it?

http://easa.antville.org/stories/348675/ The most important issue to address in this eco discussion is- people and cities. Mankind is moving into the urban like never before, cities are sprouting up in south east asia. There has never been a more important time to explore and make real the idea of “eco cities”

Last Easter some Bosnian students had the vision to develop a workshop around this question. Workshops were done, an exhibition was put into the state art gallery and an the initial steps of an going process were put into place. We are not sure how well things have progressed but expect to hear from the Bosnian team tonight.

http://easa.antville.org/stories/426195/ personally I am very excited living in the world today, there are great challenges, but in facing them comes great experiences, great people, great memories. Some of us are doing what we can do to make this world more sustainable, peaceful and fun

We ask you to get involved and do what you can.

We all experience life on this world in a different way, make yours whatever you want it to be…

Well, if he is, then so am I! And I’m proud. I really wanted to write something about this lecture because I was quite appalled that people were so rude, and unwelcoming, and that they thought it was okay to talk and snigger whilst somebody else was talking. For me, sustainability begins with people, and a respect for one another. I am aware this may not be the general view, but if we are ‘saving the planet’, and ‘trying to decrease our ecological footprint’ then who are we doing this for, I suggest that it is for future generations, for people, and so perhaps ‘saving the planet’ should begin with saving our awareness of one another (refer to Heidegger) and showing some respect, in the here and now. I was interested to gather other people’s views on the lecture, unfortunately most opinions seemed to focus upon the lecturer, rather than the content, which is a pity. One comment was that Anton showed the most opposition to what Rolf was saying, that Anton “tried to break down the wall”. I disagree, I think perhaps this was just misunderstanding. I agree with Anton that building a mud house, or a straw bale house is not intrinsically linked with being a hippy, and doing folk dancing. In Europe I think it is perfectly possible to build these houses in a suburban neighbourhood, or in a rural area, miles from anywhere. However Rolf came to talk on eco-villages. Eco-villages by their nature are communities. People who chose to live in communities are making a statement about what they value – this is usually people, (the ‘glue’ of community) and frequently the earth and nature as well. As a result of caring for the people, this warmth gets extended to the environment that sustains the people, and hence these people turn to a vernacular architecture - an architecture that works in harmony with its locality. The architecture they build happens to be ‘sustainable’, but I would suspect that few communities gather to build architecture (apart from crazy architecture-smitten students) but rather to form a network of people. And now I agree with Rolf, spirituality is intrinsic to community, but not in the sense of religion. I have friends who have lived and grown a family at Findhorn, the Scottish community pictured in the lecture, and I am a meditator. These people are not ‘followers’, these centres are not freaky cults. People are free to choose whether and what to participate in, and many people find their individual spirituality expressed in many different ways. The connection of the community comes from the fact that they all do respect one another, and are interested in growth – this is the spirituality, just simple being and letting others be. Now please can we try that next time one of these ‘freaks’ comes to very kindly offer us their knowledge?

Here is a profile of one of our tutors, Michael Prytula, a person who came to share his sustainable experience with EASA people through the “Autonomous structure” workshop. Michael is a full time teacher in Berlin Technical University lecturing about sustainable issues through seminars and in design studios. He heard about EASA003 – Sustainable Living – from our German NC Jost and became interested enough to ask, “Can I do a workshop?” and ended up here with us to tutor his one week workshop. Michael started to answer the question of what an autonomous structure is, by mentioning the German word “Autarkie”, which actually was often used by fascist groups in 1930’s. “Autarkie”, meaning “physically independent” is a keyword of Michael’s workshop and doesn’t have a direct translation in English. The word we use in English for it is “autonomy” which in German means “being self deciding and master of your own”. Clearing this point we’ll go on with the word autonomous in our article. The aim of the workshop and an autonomous structure is about decentralizing of infrastructure and to improve the city, suburbs and landscape. Michael is considering designing cell structures that imitate the principle of their function, as if in a town of eco-system. He is talking about copying the principles of nature. To him the “concept for sustainable city” should present results. The needs for this in such a city can be taken in two main points: first as “resource productivity” which is mainly about recycling, and circulating systems and the second is “resource efficiency” which is about the benefits received from them. About the present situation, Michael says “People are getting better and better but sustainable living is not as high as it could be and must improve a lot. Education is needed for this”. He pauses to contemplate the question of what an example of a sustainable city could be today, and says that the examples differ a lot. “Indians can have quite a poor consuming pattern. There it is a closed system. Friberg on the other hand can be mentioned with its transportation, and here in Denmark a lot of bikes are used for transportation which is also pretty sustainable.” Coming back to EASA003, we asked Michael his opinion of how EASA is progressing about the sustainable living issue and he said “workshops are disappointing, as I see. There’s so much to do, so much to do after. Participants don’t have a long-term perspective or maybe political and social experience, because they are young. With this they are free and open-minded. People are sincere here, but more branches should have come together: geologists, biologists, ecologists, maybe economists. Something to publish would be good to reach more people and to get responses in all countries.” Lastly we asked him “if you had only one wish what would that be?” Michael replied “making people happy” and we asked whether he is succeeding and finally he said he is quite good with his life, with his girlfriend, he is now in Denmark, with nice people, the sun is shining…

welcome to our first online steps of recording .. that was my initial approach for this article to let you know what happens in easa003 in denmark .. but right now, duty calls and i have to journalisticly approach danish beaches, the surprisingly warm water and those danish natural beauties. Paraply will inform you on the everything going on here, though and we will try to post all Umbrellas / Paraplys online as well for your reading pleasure .. meanwhile enjoy pictures of this years EASA on www.freigeist.info/easa003 ... enjoy .. you know we do here !

wwwwwwwwwaaaaaaaayyyyyyyhhhhhhhaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyy

we are here 450 crazy people on for work, party, making, messing, dancing, drinking, loving???

umbrella is (y)our "communication tool"

use it, tell each other and the world what amazing, funny, crazy, odd, life changing things are going on here in denmark

what´s the objective of this UMBRELLA? to be as creative as possible, develop new ways of communicating to ourselves and the world what exactly we are doing here

"sustainable living" what is it? we will discover some new stuff over these upcoming days. tell us things as they happen. we will do our best to tell that to the world.

Hi to all lovely EASA people.

I'm enjoying Pula right now, probably go to the Vis island after that. This is just to wish you great EASA! Hope to see you in Slovenia or somewhere.

Hugs,

Hrvoje

• will there be an internet-access at the site? i know anton, you think i should be able to live 2 weeks unplugged, but as i need to organize some important stuff for my term abroad i need to get online from time to time
• are organizers reading this blog?