Representing Pasts – Visioning Futures
Abstract
When we talk about cities, the first thing that pops up in our minds is functional concrete blocks with vehicle-demarcating urban zoning. As humans yearn to be in nature, we could have other choices where citizens and trees demarcate city zoning instead of vehicles, a city that could be beautiful, natural, and sustainable, an alternative to the current polluted, noisy, exclusive, and alienating cities. Our ongoing research project looks into alternatives in Bolzano-Italy that we could have. Our research focuses on developing a visual narrative of city streets where citizens gain back their cities by endorsing healthy public spaces and by showing how streets could be safer for all. For this research, we used collages, AI aided technologies, and renderings to imagine a different outcome for our city streets.
Mustapha El Moussaoui is an architect, urbanist, and a researcher at Free University of Bolzano. In 2020 he obtained his doctorate from Universitat Politecnica de Valencia. After that, he did a post-doctorate at the University of Coimbra – Portugal. Having studied architecture and philosophy, Mustapha took part in teaching courses in Lebanon, China, and Italy. The focus of his research is on understanding the socio-cultural dynamics of the city and the existential well-being of its inhabitants. Moreover, he researches the effect of pandemics on our spaces and behavior from a phenomenological.
Kris is leading the MA Eco-Social Design at UNIBZ, coupled with research in this field. Before entering University, He worked as a designer at cross-sections of web and brand design, emerging technologies and tactical media. In parallel to his life on the market, teaching in various contexts and formats became an occasion for critical reflection and creative inquiry. Among other engagements, he worked as a substitute Professor for Foundations of Media Design at the Academy of Media Arts (2005-07). He studied Communication Design at the FH Augsburg and Editorial Graphics at the ISIA Urbino, followed by a postgraduate study of Audiovisual Media at the Academy of Media Arts in Cologne, where he stumbled into the digital revolution, which remained a source of inspiration and skepticism to him up to the current day.