Working at the intersection of architecture and other fields related to spatial culture, LINA is a Europe-wide network of institutions; its fellowship programme promotes emerging thinkers and practitioners who would address the environmental crisis and its ethical and social implications. In this conversation, we gather reflections from LINA fellows Spolka, Ewa Effiom, METASITU, Soundcamp and Alberto Roncelli, who explore the implications of potentially progressive cityscapes.

This article is one of a series featuring reflections from the current cohort of LINA Fellows. You can learn more about the LINA community here.

KOOZ What features and services characterise a progressive cityscape?

SPOLKA For us, to think about cities is to think about relationships and actors – space included. The progressivity lies in navigating, understanding, and speculating within this complex mess through intertwining social sciences with architecture and other expertise, shifting (spatial) politics towards more caring planning – inclusive and non-extractive planning beyond the human.

EWA EFFIOM Without delving into the minefield that is utopian thinking, a truly progressive cityscape is one that is characterised by a dedication to sustainable development, social equity, innovation, and quality of life for all residents. One where the demographic agglomeration isn’t tainted by markets; which, I understand, is an oxymoron, but one can dream…

METASITU A lot of the conversation around progress in urbanism is centred around the idea of the ‘smart’ city: data points obtained from a variety of sensors around the city, which, when compounded, gives us a sense of ‘the city’, and thus we are able to plan and react accordingly. However, whereas this can prove to be a practical approach in emergencies, or seeing how certain areas are used, it tells us little about feelings, dreams and aspirations that its inhabitants, human and non-human alike have. We need to find ways to add these insights to our settlement systems along with the environmental consciousness. We feel that a progressive cityscape gives space for these conversations to emerge, for different synergies of its constituents and their respective realities to coalesce. Progress, to us, is about empathy, holding space, and sharing.

ALBERTO RONCELLI A progressive cityscape is characterised by a constant proliferation of experimentations. Relentless use and reuse of its spatial assets. Proximity to natural ecosystems. Access to local resources. Qualitative public spaces. Variety. Cyclical reconsideration of its values.

SOUNDCAMP Flat, collective and critical listening, out of hours and between spaces, reveals a plural, dissonant, polyrhythmic urban soundworld, which otherwise can escape attention, be masked or overwhelmed. As an urban tactic, acoustic commoning gathers ways of listening and transmission to shift who and what can listen and be heard.

KOOZ Soil continues to be urbanised at an alarming rate within the European context, yet our cities are full of unused and neglected sites. The Grafted City Project offers a critical reading of such nameless spaces. What are the most common residual spaces in European cities — and what kind of interventions could aid their reintegration?

ALBERTO RONCELLI The results of last year’s research show that ‘residual’ spaces can vary significantly depending on the context and urban fabric, but generally emerge from some form of urban growth. So far, the research has analysed two European cases: the Nordvest neighbourhood on the outskirts of Copenhagen, Denmark, and a modernist district of New Belgrade, Serbia. In Copenhagen, the presence of residual spaces seems to be clearly linked to a continuous transformation of the neighbourhood and a progressive extension of the city centre outwards, with juxtapositions of typologies, densification, changes of use, unplanned growth and changes in building regulations. Here, the catalogue of leftovers presents small-scale elements such as gaps between buildings, blank walls and unused corners.

KOOZ The Degrowth Institute challenges traditional urban planning and its centering on perpetual growth, exploring participatory planning processes in post-industrial shrinking cities. What participatory processes does your project use to think of non-growth urban futures?

METASITU At university, we learned about zoning, transport systems, and planning tools, but none of these frameworks seemed to be enough for discussing the future in the post-industrial shrinking cities where we were working. The way planning practice had been taught to us had an implicit notion of expansionism and growth, and a ‘tabula rasa’ approach. However, landscapes are never ‘tabula rasa’, and this is particularly evident in shrinking cities: these built environments are full of memories, attachments and other intangible aspects that are extremely important to consider in planning, but that current planning processes cannot accommodate successfully. More importantly, how could we think of a planning process that was not about growth but rather accepted a shrinking population?

KOOZ Transcending the traditional boundaries of education based on the hierarchies of teacher-student or expert-layperson, Never Never School uses design as a tool for investigation, imagination and as a means of dialogue about the futures of the city — specifically in Kosice, in Slovakia. Can more progressive cityscapes be realised through new pedagogical frameworks?

SPOLKA Pedagogy plays a central role in shifting towards more progressive cityscapes. The ambition is twofold. On the one hand, non-formal education is a space for supporting motivation and reflection of its participants, taking responsibility, and having a space to reimagine the way things are. We often claim that to create pedagogical space is already a future in the making — a tiny niche reflecting how we want the world to be: inclusive and fair, imaginative and playful. Learning methodologies reshape how we think, act, and communicate with each other, facilitating inclusive and sensitive approaches, beyond the safe space of the pedagogical realm.

On the other hand, such educational realms also serve as frameworks for change. Through embedding and creating knowledge specific to Kosice, we have the ambition to shift the mindset of local politicians and changemakers. Hence, pedagogy can have an impact especially when situated – influencing local discourses, and opening up the imagination for many, serving as an activism method towards supporting caring planning. To balance the two, though, is a difficult and ever-changing process.

KOOZ The French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu framed the concept of habitus as “the way society becomes deposited in persons in the form of lasting dispositions, or trained capacities and structured propensities to think, feel and act in determinant ways, which then guide them.” Your work draws on this concept to illustrate the veneer that is regionalism and questions the fundamental association of identity to a specific environment. How does the project seek to build a more generous and inclusive city?

EWA EFFIOM These projects attempt to highlight the absurdity of the idea of “coming from somewhere,” a concept that’s fundamentally tied to geography, as a notion that’s been rendered obsolete thanks to a little thing called globalisation. Bourdieu's concept of habitus refers to the ingrained habits and skills that individuals acquire through their socialisation and experiences within a particular social context. But what happens when these dispositions are made hybrid because of migration? My projects aim to document and portray an image of the city that is a rich tapestry of experience in spite of the cartesian limits that some would erroneously attribute to them.

KOOZ In his seminal work, The Three Ecologies, the French psychoanalyst Félix Guattari argued that the ecologies of persons, institutions and environments are inseparable. As if radio (AIR) draws on this premise to build an alternative to conventional media representations of moments, like the United Nations Framework for Climate Change’s Conference of the parties (UNFCC/COP). How does the AIR project continue to nurture these counter conversations and acts of resistance and resilience?

SOUNDCAMP For Soundcamp, ecological radio combines ideas and practices of transmission ecologies — as the infrastructures, networks and exchanges that enable sounds to be exchanged — and the concept of the transmission community, as the group that sets up a station or stream, enabling their own sounds to be heard back (after Anna Friz and Kolar).

As a set of non-hierarchical, live networks, operating across scales and more-than-human assemblies, ecological radio reflects Guattari’s experiences with the free radio movement and his insistence in The Three Ecologies (1989) that ecologies of environments, organisations and subjects/persons are inseparable and need to be addressed together.

Following As if radio.., during COP26 in Glasgow 2021, Soundcamp have been working on a series of ‘experiments in ecological activist radio’. Recurring themes include:

- Flat listening / ontologies as anti-hierarchical practice (Flat Out for LIAF);
- Open microphone networks as useful things for thinking with through workshops and knowledge exchanges (as with l a g with Kate Donovan for Sonic Acts);
- DIY radio as a way to bring and keep fragile projects and artist run spaces in contact (Spree~Channelsea Radio Group with Radio Otherwise, Blanc Sceol and Archipel Stations);
- Listening critically and collectively, as in the PITCH portable auditorium with public works and Michael Speers;
- Amplifying and sharing less heard or under-reported sounds of protest and resistance, (Radio With Palestine in collaboration with Radio al Hara).

Bios

Ewa Effiom is a London-based Belgo-Nigerian architect, writer and producer. He is a practising architect and was a member of the Architecture Foundation’s New Architecture Writers’ second cohort. Mythology, collective identity, popular culture and their inextricable links to the built environment are recurring themes in his work with a focus on the mythology and folklore that different subcultures instate. He was awarded the 2022 How To Residency at the Canadian Centre for Architecture entitled How Not To Be A Developer; also in 2022 his second film Beck Road screened at the Open City festival. He is a visiting critic at the Estonian Institute of Technology and London Metropolitan University.

METASITU was conceived to explore the ways in which people relate to the built environment across times and disciplines, to usher in a queerer tomorrow. Established in 2014 by Liva Dudareva & Eduardo Cassina, METASITU is a collective practice based in Kyiv and Athens, centred around non-hierarchical symbiotic pedagogies. Their work spans a wide range of territories and approaches, from Donetsk to Dubai, from organising encounters to building large-scale installations. Since 2015, METASITU has been developing different facets of The Degrowth Institute, a long-term project exploring how to masterplan for degrowth in post-industrial cities.

Alberto Roncelli is an Italian architect based in Copenhagen. After studying in Milan, Madrid and Malta, he graduated at Polytechnic of Milan in Architecture & Built Environment in 2021. In the same year he joined the Copenhagen-based innovation firm GXN, where he works as an architect and circular design specialist. In parallel, Alberto pursues design research with a focus on urban transformation and architecture. In recent years, his projects have been recognised in international competitions and awards such as Europan 16, Superscape, Ethical Design Award, Prix Wilmotte and the Prix de Genève for Experimental Architecture.

Soundcamp is an arts cooperative with members in Ireland, Germany, Greece and the UK. Their work is developed through collaborations and appears as broadcasts, workshops, publications, sound devices and events. As part of the Acoustic Commons network, they coordinate the long-form radio broadcast Reveil (2014–), and a series of sound and ecology events on Dawn Chorus day each year. Recent projects include: Spree~Channelsea Radio Group – a transmission project between rivers in London and Berlin (2023); l a g – a residency with Kate Donovan for Sonic Acts’ Inner ear(th) programme (2022); and As if radio.. (AIR): An experiment in ecological activist radio at COP26 Glasgow (2021).

Spolka forms sustainable cities for all. It’s a team of experts in the field of architecture and sociology, involving the public in innovative urban development, mainly based in Košice, Bratislava, and Berlin. Spolka was founded in 2016 in Košice as an informal collective of young women united by their interest in their hometown, and has successfully established itself in projects with the themes of planning with care, participatory planning and education in Central Europe. In 2022, the organisation expanded its scope to include Spolka Studio, which implements the values of care and sustainability in projects in collaboration with various NGOs and municipalities.

Federica Zambeletti is the founder and managing director of KoozArch. She is an architect, researcher and digital curator whose interests lie at the intersection between art, architecture and regenerative practices. In 2015 Federica founded KoozArch with the ambition of creating a space where to research, explore and discuss architecture beyond the limits of its built form. Parallel to her work at KoozArch, Federica is Architect at the architecture studio UNA and researcher at the non-profit agency for change UNLESS where she is project manager of the research "Antarctic Resolution". Federica is an Architectural Association School of Architecture in London alumni.