BDA Generations
Andreas Emminger studied Architecture in Dresden, Venice and Paris-Belleville. He now works and lives in Nuremberg, Bavaria.
BDA Generations
Waldzell is inspiration. The word inspiration in itself unfortunately has connotations of a certain esoteric spirituality which may make people feel uneasy. That was the way I felt when I was told that my application for the Architects of the Future 2006 had been accepted.
One of the projects I am working on, apart from my daily job as an architect, is BDA Generations. BDA is the abbreviation for Bund Deutscher Architekten, a non-profit organization of around 5,500 self-employed architects in Germany. Its standards and values are high; the organization aims at a steady improvement of the living conditions of our society, transparent procedures, free competition and (a consensus on) quality instead of price wars between architects.
The work of this organization is strictly non-profit in nature, and depends on the voluntary engagement of its members.
Together with a colleague from Munich, the architect Peter Bohn, in 2005, I started to develop a project of communication within the BDA to establish a link between members of all ages. This project, BDA Generations, aims at the mutual understanding between architects of all ages as well as at the public who learn the ways in which responsibly acting architects may regard and influence the development of our society. Architecture from our point of view, especially nowadays, does not consist of only planning buildings but creating a comfortable and sustainable environment for our rapidly changing society. The change in political systems, the shortening of energy resources, the increase of population and the continuous growing of the percentage of elderly people are only a few of the increasingly difficult challenges architects have to consider nowadays. So it seemed very important to us to establish new ways of communication between architects of different generations in order to be able to develop strategies to deal with the actual problems in our different societies. The second task is to inform the public about the social value of the architects' work.
Arriving at Waldzell, I was immediately confronted with projects of a much larger scale with a significant and direct impact on people throughout the world. I was also impressed by the young people who invest their time and energy in order to help underprivileged people in many parts of the world, very often putting their own lives in danger. This changed my attitude towards my own project considerably and immediately I started to pursue an idea which has already been germinating in my mind for some time: the project "Future Cities." This project proposes to restructure historic European cities in order to make them dynamic and flexible in the future. Sustainability is the word behind this idea, unifying many disciplines in the progress of this work. Walter Link, Alan Webber, and Seif El Rashidi, with his transformation of an ancient dump site in Cairo, were the really inspiring people who showed me a way of believing in the possibility of realizing this project.
Back in my hometown, I started to build up a group of architects in order to establish a four step program. The project will begin in April 2007 with an international students' workshop with the theme "City on the Water," the historic city of Nuremberg being the object of study. The workshop will demonstrate how to treat the historic remains and preserved environment with respect to our cultural heritage, but also develop propositions on how to adapt these traditional structures to our needs of today and tomorrow.
The second step is an international and interdisciplinary symposium in 2008 with experts from various fields of sociology, arts, architecture, urbanism, philosophy, etc., on the ways to achieve sustainable cities, preserving the cultural heritage of our society as well as developing sustainable living conditions that will meet the requirements of the future. The third step consists of an international interdisciplinary competition in the old town of Nuremberg, Germany, in 2009. The fourth, and most important, in founding an International Institute of Sustainability Research in Nuremberg which aims to integrate various domains and develop strategies to improve the living conditions in different parts of this world.
The way towards this goal is long and stony, but support has been great so far. The mayor of Nuremberg has already agreed to support our ideas as well as the many architects and people from other disciplines. I am quite confident now that it will be possible to realize the different steps of this project, thanks to my experience at Waldzell. Apart from this, many connections have been established and I am very grateful to have been given the opportunity to interact with such a variety of socially engaged people in such a short time.
Andreas Emminger studied Architecture in Dresden, Venice and Paris-Belleville. He now works and lives in Nuremberg, Bavaria.
BDA Generations
Waldzell is inspiration. The word inspiration in itself unfortunately has connotations of a certain esoteric spirituality which may make people feel uneasy. That was the way I felt when I was told that my application for the Architects of the Future 2006 had been accepted.
One of the projects I am working on, apart from my daily job as an architect, is BDA Generations. BDA is the abbreviation for Bund Deutscher Architekten, a non-profit organization of around 5,500 self-employed architects in Germany. Its standards and values are high; the organization aims at a steady improvement of the living conditions of our society, transparent procedures, free competition and (a consensus on) quality instead of price wars between architects.
The work of this organization is strictly non-profit in nature, and depends on the voluntary engagement of its members.
Together with a colleague from Munich, the architect Peter Bohn, in 2005, I started to develop a project of communication within the BDA to establish a link between members of all ages. This project, BDA Generations, aims at the mutual understanding between architects of all ages as well as at the public who learn the ways in which responsibly acting architects may regard and influence the development of our society. Architecture from our point of view, especially nowadays, does not consist of only planning buildings but creating a comfortable and sustainable environment for our rapidly changing society. The change in political systems, the shortening of energy resources, the increase of population and the continuous growing of the percentage of elderly people are only a few of the increasingly difficult challenges architects have to consider nowadays. So it seemed very important to us to establish new ways of communication between architects of different generations in order to be able to develop strategies to deal with the actual problems in our different societies. The second task is to inform the public about the social value of the architects' work.
Arriving at Waldzell, I was immediately confronted with projects of a much larger scale with a significant and direct impact on people throughout the world. I was also impressed by the young people who invest their time and energy in order to help underprivileged people in many parts of the world, very often putting their own lives in danger. This changed my attitude towards my own project considerably and immediately I started to pursue an idea which has already been germinating in my mind for some time: the project "Future Cities." This project proposes to restructure historic European cities in order to make them dynamic and flexible in the future. Sustainability is the word behind this idea, unifying many disciplines in the progress of this work. Walter Link, Alan Webber, and Seif El Rashidi, with his transformation of an ancient dump site in Cairo, were the really inspiring people who showed me a way of believing in the possibility of realizing this project.
Back in my hometown, I started to build up a group of architects in order to establish a four step program. The project will begin in April 2007 with an international students' workshop with the theme "City on the Water," the historic city of Nuremberg being the object of study. The workshop will demonstrate how to treat the historic remains and preserved environment with respect to our cultural heritage, but also develop propositions on how to adapt these traditional structures to our needs of today and tomorrow.
The second step is an international and interdisciplinary symposium in 2008 with experts from various fields of sociology, arts, architecture, urbanism, philosophy, etc., on the ways to achieve sustainable cities, preserving the cultural heritage of our society as well as developing sustainable living conditions that will meet the requirements of the future. The third step consists of an international interdisciplinary competition in the old town of Nuremberg, Germany, in 2009. The fourth, and most important, in founding an International Institute of Sustainability Research in Nuremberg which aims to integrate various domains and develop strategies to improve the living conditions in different parts of this world.
The way towards this goal is long and stony, but support has been great so far. The mayor of Nuremberg has already agreed to support our ideas as well as the many architects and people from other disciplines. I am quite confident now that it will be possible to realize the different steps of this project, thanks to my experience at Waldzell. Apart from this, many connections have been established and I am very grateful to have been given the opportunity to interact with such a variety of socially engaged people in such a short time.
