LSE Cities’ Professor Ricky Burdett will curate one of the three Special Projects at the 15th Architecture Biennale to open in Venice on 28 May this year. This exhibition will help visitors understand some of the consequences of rapid urban growth that has taken place between 1990 and 2015, and what might be done to make cities more equitable and sustainable in future.

In view of the United Nations – Habitat III conference, to be held in Quito, Ecuador, during October 2016, and as part of the Urban Age programme, organised jointly by the London School of Economics and the Alfred Herrhausen Society, La Biennale will present a pavilion dedicated to the themes of urbanisation.

Reflecting on some of the challenges of the urban age, Paolo Baratta, President of La Biennale di Venezia, says “For some years we have been saying that the hallmark of our times is the mismatch between architecture and civil society.”

For over a decade, the Urban Age has investigated the relationship between the physical form of cities and the social dynamics within them. This special project will draw on this research. The programme’s next Urban Age conference will also be held in Venice in July.

Alajandra Aravena, curator of La Biennale, added, “The advancement of architecture is not a goal in itself but a way to improve people’s quality of life.”

The 15th International Exhibition of Architecture of La Biennale di Venezia will run from May 28 through November 27, 2016, in the Giardini, the Arsenale, and other venues around Venice.

Exhibition team:
Ricky Burdett, Professor of Urban Studies, LSE (curator)
Aron Bohmann, researcher, LSE Cities
Peter Griffiths, managing editor, LSE Cities
Emily Cruz, project manager, LSE Cities

The Theatrum Mundi programme, based at LSE Cities, is currently looking for a Part Time Projects Coordinator to provide support for an ambitious range of activities developing in the UK, the US, Brazil, and Europe. The work will entail broad-based project development, logistics, event coordination, communications and delivery. The appointment will be for an initial 1-year period, with immediate start (with potential to extend for a further fixed-term period). Applications close on 9 March 2016. Please see job spec and application details for  information on how to apply.

As part of our work supporting RAMSES, Hélia Costa and Graham Floater have authored a working paper on the Economic costs of climate change in European cities. The paper sets out a transferable economic cost methodology to assess the impact of specific climatic hazards affecting production in urban areas through various channels. While the impacts of heat on the urban economy are highly variable and depend on characteristics of production, under certain assumptions, in a warm year in the far future (2081-2100), the total losses to the urban economy could range between 0.4% of Gross Value Added (GVA) for London to 9.5% for Bilbao in the absence of adaptation.

The UK Government Office for Science has published an essay written by John Bingham-Hall as part of Future of Cities, a foresight project looking at the opportunities and challenges facing UK cities over the next 50 years. This Theatrum Mundi essay explores the possibilities of collective approaches to public space. Many public spaces in cities are privately owned; “Future of cities: urban commons and public spaces”  looks at the practice of ‘commoning’ – creating spaces in the city owned and maintained by the local community.

Philip Rode, Executive Director at LSE Cities, will be talking today at Design After Planning on “Strategic Planning and Policy Integration: Governance hierarchies and networks in London and Berlin”. This one-day interdisciplinary conference will explore the possibility of going beyond the limitations of liberal-modernist policy-making and urban planning, and the implications of doing so.

Recent data from our ‘Super-diverse Streets’ project highlighting Narborough Road in Leicester as the UK’s most diverse high street featured in several newspapers, including The Mirror, Daily Mail, Leicester Mercury, The Sun, and The Daily Express. Super-diverse Streets focuses on the intersections between city streets, ethnic diversity and economic adaptations in the context of accelerated migration.

Dr Adam Kaasa, Post-Doctoral Research Fellow in Architecture at The Royal College of Art , has been appointed Director of Theatrum Mundi (TM) at LSE Cities, a research centre at The London School of Economics. For 2016 TM’s core themes are ‘Writing Cities’ and ‘New Spaces for Culture’. Alongside these a third global ideas challenge will take place in Rio de Janeiro, following last year’s Designing the Urban Commons in London. Further information.