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We are ready to announce a sixth studio visit to West 8.
This time it will be a guided 1.5 hours tour of West 8 projects with one of the directors of West8 Christian Dobrick and a lead landscape designer Nazar Dutko.
The tour will start from the Central station and follow west-south covering urban and landscape interventions we have made over the last 20 years in Rotterdam. West8 is looking forward to questions and active participation.

Please join us on Wednesday 13 December (time tbc) at Rotterdam.
Access is free and for everyone – capacity is limited to 20 individuals. Please RSVP via the form.

reservations

On the 6th of December, the UNUN network and the Independent School for the City will organize an event with David Gianotten, Michael den Otter (OMA) and Slava Balbek (balbek bureau) about their experiences in reinventing school buildings with innovative systems and technologies.
We will start the evening with an intro to the issue of the destruction of education infrastructure by Pavlo Gorokhovskyi (CRa and UNUN). Afterwards, David Gianotten and Michael den Otter (OMA) will explore further the topic of modular schools and the latest innovations in the field of education building. Slava Balbek from balbekbureau will join us online to discuss 3D-printed schools and the information needed to rebuild Ukraine's social infrastructure.
You can join either in the Independent School for the City or online!
YouTube Livestream

reservations

Russia’s full-scale invasion inflicted massive damage on Ukraine’s infrastructure. But what is needed to rebuild Ukraine? Why is it important to act now? And moreover, what role can young people play in these processes?

ABBA student association is organizing a Panel Discussion on Ukraine’s Reconstruction titled “Build Back Better” to try and answer these questions.

From the reconstructed heart of the city of Rotterdam, this seminar at the Independent School for the City will look at a variety of destroyed cities and how they have reinvented themselves or are in the process of doing so. From Rotterdam and Dresden, to Mariupol and Gaziantep, we will look at the historical form of these cities, and at the ideological questions their repair has posed or will pose. We will also try and put ourselves in the place of the politicians, engineers, planners and architects and formulate our own visions and maybe even tentative plans. Through lectures, excursions, workshops and conversations the seminar will cover a lot of ground in a short time and provoke an exchange of ideas across borders. Rotterdam will be the fitting background against which this seminar will play out.

Rebuilding cities in the aftermath of conflict and devastation presents significant challenges, but also unique opportunities for transformation and renewal. This evening, experts will share their views and experiences of post-war reconstruction and reform, with a particular focus on the situation in Ukraine.
Our three guests, exploring this topic tonight are Oleksandra Tkachenko, an urban planner at KuiperCompagnons and coordinator of the Ukraine Netherlands Urban Network (UNUN), Paul Groenendijk, a researcher and publicist and Fulco Treffers, an urban planner, architect, and project manager at 12N Urban Matters, co-founder of Ro3kvit, an urban coalition for Ukraine. The discussion will be moderated by Jan Willem Wesselink (NPO Radio 1).

We are excited to announce a fifth studio visit to KCAP. This time it will be a guided tour for Ukrainian colleges through Wijnhaveneiland and Laurenskwartier. Architect Ruurd Gietema plans to share insights and present his vision of urban development.
Please join us on Wednesday 4 October – 16:00 > 18:00h at Rotterdam.
Access is free and for everyone – capacity is limited to 20 individuals.
Please RSVP via the form.

In a discussion based on the exhibition Colonial Endurance: Detecting the Algorithm of Violence in Infrastructures, on display in Gallery 3, architect Ola Hassanain, writer Owen Hatherley, and architect and researcher Lesia Topolnyk will respond to the works presented at the exhibition.

They will speak about how their practices and projects are connected to colonial endurance and will discuss future principles of infrastructural relations and connections. The conversation moderated by Anna Bitkina and Maria Veits (TOK), the curators of Colonial Endurance exhibition, will also focus on political repercussions and manifestations of architecture.

Спільнота UNUN та Агентство міжнародного співробітництва асоціації муніципалітетів Королівства Нідерланди VNG International об’єднують свої зусилля в проведенні урбаністичних вебінарів для Українських громад.
Реєстрація для участі у вебінарах за посиланням.

Please join the 4th meet-up of Ukraine the Netherlands Urban Network (UNUN). It taking place at the Maassilo festivalhart, Rotterdam on Friday 14 June 2023 from 19:00-22:00. During this 4th meet-up we will look back and share what’s next. A moment to collectively reflect and explore how to move forward from here.

The pop-up exhibition “Re(dis)covering Ukraine” showcases 5 projects by Ukrainian professionals who are currently based in the Netherlands. The pop-up exhibition is hosted by Flokk (Blaak 28) from June 8-30 and is part of Rotterdam Architecture Month. From temporary housing solutions for displaced people to the transformation of libraries and former Soviet Houses of Culture, we invite you to come see and discuss the projects with their makers in June.

TU Delft in partnership with UNUN (Ukraine -The Netherlands Urban Network) and Ukrainian colleagues announced an online course on May-June 2023.

This course discusses spatial strategies for an integrated urban recovery in post-conflict settings. It investigates the process of reconstruction and what “building back better” implies: tackling inequalities, strengthening the capacities of local actors and pursuing a green, resilient and inclusive economic recovery anchored on sound spatial planning, design and policy.
This course is given by a team of academics & experts from several institutions.
For more information, visit

PBL the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency, with the support of the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in Ukraine and Ro3kvit Urban Coalition for Ukraine, invite you to the presentation of the report Rebuilding a Place to call home: Sharing Knowledge for the Recovery of Ukraine.
The event will be held online on Wednesday, May 10, at 11:00-12:30 CET (12:00-13:30 EET). To take part in the presentation, please register here

A UNUN Duo Lecture by Floris Alkemade & Lesia Topolnyk
On the 3rd of May, the Independent School for the City and the UNUN network will organize an evening with Floris Alkemade and Lesia Topolnyk about the reconstruction of Ukraine, the complexity of the situation as well as the power of imagination and the need for a collective longing.

The SURE Eurodelta network is preparing a common project on circular economy in the Eurodelta. On the 31st of March, Daan Groot (Natuurverdubbelaars) and Philomena van der Vliet (Boom Landscape), will give an online lecture about their research on landscapes producing bio-based building materials. What do these landscapes look like, how do they function and what are the value cases behind it?
To register, please contact info@sure-eurodelta.eu.

We are excited to announce a third studio visit to Orange Architects. This invitation is extended on behalf of Patrick Meijers and Jeroen Schipper (architect partner(s) and member of UNUN), who will be hosting this visit with members of the Orange Architects team. Participants to the visit will be in conversation with members of the studio and learn from each other's expertise and the studio environment.

Please join us on Thursday 2 March – 17:30 > 20:30h at Orange Architects, Rotterdam
Access is free and for everyone – capacity is limited to 18 individuals. Please RSVP via the form.

Sharing knowledge for action

The forum ‘Ukraine’s housing recovery - rebuilding a place to call home’ took place on February 15th 2023. The video of the forum is now placed online, as well as the slides of the powerpoints and some photos. You can find it by following the link below. Later, the organisers will add a report created on the insights that were shared during this afternoon.

For the first School's Out! of 2023, the Independent School for the City, has invited journalist, author and heritage consultant Robert Bevan, to talk about his latest book "Monumental Lies - Culture Wars and the Truth about the Past" on how statues, heritage and cities have become the battleground for the culture wars. Next to this talk, you can expect drinks, bites and a short movie handpicked by AFFR curator Jord den Hollander. Doors open at 18:00, lecture starts at 19:00. Tickets available for 5 euro.

Dr. Samaneh Moafi, Assistant Director of Research at Forensic Architecture (London, UK), discusses her work and converses with the audience about the use of architectural techniques and technologies to investigate cases of state violence, violations of human rights and environmental destruction. This event marks the opening of the Research Festival Making (in) the Unforeseen of Willem de Kooning Academy (WdKA) in Rotterdam. The event is hosted by WdKA and Het Nieuwe Instituut and will be moderated by Setareh Noorani, researcher at Het Nieuwe Instituut.

Designer, researcher and consultant Paul Gerretsen of the Deltametropolis Association discusses metropolitan development in the Netherlands and Ukraine with invited guests Nazar Kavalenko, director of Municipal Enterprise Institute for Urban Development, and Alexander Shevchenko, co-founder of ReStart Ukraine. What lessons learned since the reconstruction of Rotterdam and its region could inform the future reconstruction of metropolitan areas in Ukraine? How to build on an initial recovery to create a stable, sustainable and innovative spatial practice? For example, which policy reforms in the field of spatial planning could contribute to the prosperity, infrastructure and quality of life in Ukraine and the Netherlands?

This meeting is an initiative of UNUN.

In collaboration with OASE, journal for architecture, which is publishing an issue on ecology and aesthetics this autumn, de Dependance organises an evening to explore ways in which the built environment could become less, not more, dependent on sophisticated technological fixes. In what ways can we embed climate-oriented measures in architecture itself? What consequences does this have for how our buildings look? And should we also adjust our expectations regarding the comfort offered by our houses and offices?

Please join the 3rd meet-up of Ukraine the Netherlands Urban Network, taking place at the Timmerhuis on Wednesday 23 November 2022 from 18:00-21:00. A networking event where we will give an update on the developments of the UNUN initiative (previously known as REstart Ukraine x The Netherlands) and invite Dutch and Ukrainian professionals to share and connect.