“After six months of conversations, expositions and events taking visitors to explore projects from all around the world, the exhibition Time Space Existence closes its doors and says farewell to an interactive and unique edition, one that, despite the disconnection the world has experienced, has brought us even closer together.”

The European Cultural Centre (ECC) hosted the Closing Event of the fifth edition of the extensive biennial architecture exhibition Time Space Existence, which ran between May 22^nd and November 21^st, 2021, at Palazzo Bembo,  Palazzo Moraand Giardini della Marinaressa in Venice, Italy. The exhibition welcomed a total of212 architects, artists, academics, and creative professionals from over 51 countries who showcased projects that tackled issues of our time such as the effects of climate change, the role of technology and the responsibility of architects towards the places we live.

The ECC Awards were carefully selected by the European Cultural Centre curatorial team and cultural mediators upon feedback from visitors.

 NANO Architecture | Interiors won the Architecture award for their exhibit, SUBMERGED EXPERIENCE. Their exhibit highlights the immediate global action needed to cope with the climate crisis, focusing on two liminal cities such as Venice and New Orleans, two geographically distant areas which are linked by an exclusive relationship with water, that remain resilient by embracing their unique identity both on a cultural and topographic level.

Click here to watch NANO’s Award thank you video

In December of 2021, The European Cultural Centre hosted the firstChicago edition of Shaping the City: A Forum for Sustainable Cities & Communities, in tandem with the 2021 Chicago Architecture Biennial.

Broken out into two themes of conversation, “Shaping the CityChicago discussed the significant role that urban planning and design plays in molding the interaction of people with their cities and their wellbeing. The forum set forward new thoughts around the rights to the city, through a spatial, pragmatic, yet inclusive and sustainable approach. The forum tackled these themes by comparing completely different approaches in international cities, namely in Europe and the Americas.”

As an extension to their similar presentation in Venice a few months prior, NANO’s Founders Terri and Ian Dreyer presented “Existing, Surviving, Thriving: Bridging the Edge”, which was part of the “Re-Imagining the City” subtheme. 

ABOUT THE PRESENTATION:

“Existing, Surviving, Thriving: Bridging the Edge”

Within the current crisis of global climate change, we are being forced to evaluate, reflect, and ask ourselves, “Are the geographies, economies, infrastructures, and societies of yesterday and today adaptable for the environments of tomorrow?” There is an ever more clear and urgent call to action, as our future is tied to one that moves beyond the sustainable to the regenerative. Sustaining being the attempt to survive, but as a species we are driven to move past mere surviving to thriving.

In the past the typical model of thriving was advancement in a capitalistic model. More, and bigger most often replaced better. As architects, engineers, and planners the design that layer’s solutions within the single project is understood to be intrinsically of greatest value. The question then is what the desired solutions are and how might they be most effectively combined into placemaking that is worthy of investiture.

Only a hundred years ago, this country invested massive amounts of capital in the creation of transport systems. Unpublicized at the time was that a layer of that investiture was driven by a desire by some to divide the country along racial lines and create hardened boundaries to define the edges of communities. At this very moment, we stand at the threshold of another period of massive infrastructure investment. What are the imperative program requirements, the layers of priorities, that will be our children’s future?

Click here to learn more about the Shaping the City Symposium.

In October of 2021, The European Cultural Centre hosted the third edition of Shaping the City: A Forum for Sustainable Cities & Communities, in tandem with the Venice Architecture Biennial 2021 titled Time, Space, Existence.

Broken out into four themes of conversation, “Shaping the City tackles contemporary urbanization and key issues in the city, presented and debated through the perspectives of a group of academics, urban planners and designers, architects, policy makers, and scholars.”, that bring forth a unique, global perspective.

Among the 212 architecture firms that were invited to present at the 2021 Time Space Existence Exhibit, and as the first and only architecture firm from the State of Louisiana, NANO’s Founders Terri and Ian Dreyer were one of the panelists at Shaping the City; their presentation, “Existing, Surviving, and Thriving on the Edge” was part of the“Climate Change and Resilient Cities” subtheme.

ABOUT THE PRESENTATION:

“Existing, Surviving, and Thriving on the edge”

Historically, Architecture has shifted in reaction to environmental risks, for example, New Orleans had to embrace a mixture of native and Afro Caribbean-based architecture to weather storms and the tropical environments more successfully than the European structures, altering building methods that were brought across the Atlantic.

Today’s world brings with it increased foresight through a combination of scientific understanding and technological advances, pushing Architecture and design to the cusp of proactive and preventative, working with nature rather than against it, but more needs to be done.

We must position ourselves, however precariously on the precipice of reason by challenging societal norms, existing geographical and economic limitations, to usher in solutions of a renewed age of design based upon intention and performance. New Orleans is a uniquely sited city, bounded by various bodies of water – Lake Pontchartrain to the north, the Mississippi River to the south and west, Lake Borgne to the east fed from the Gulf of Mexico – a geographical and cultural edge that is a catalyst for renewed design initiatives thwarting climate change.

Shelter, health, and safety are inherent to a prosperous city. Architecture is limitless and is necessary for the existence of our civilization, but reflection and existence can only be tested in that liminal space of the unknown. We are in the liminal.

Click here to learn more about the Shaping the City Symposium in Venice.