Collaborative landscapes of growth and change : the case of Nicosia

Abstract

Continually changing information technologies and communication patterns have facilitated the spatial dispersal of production and consumption while, offering new affordances on physical and organizational structures. Within these new affordances, a larger social context encompassing aspects, of identity, self-expression , and human interaction, is in seek of redefinition. The new Europe is a direct result of both cultural and economic unification. As boundaries are beginning to blur, the role and definition of the public sphere ultimately leads us from a political to a social thus urban discourse. While this manifesto is not program, it nonetheless indicates a broadening of outlook. Instead of remaining inert architecture must react to the changes and renewal of the current developments emerging in other fields and capitalize on their dynamic nature. Architecture as a mediator, an activator of new situations. Places for new types of social integration. and trans-border integration. Collaborative landscapes, locates itself in a series of strategies as the primer for a possible future The project takes its cues from the new work affordances and collaborative settings and examines the concept of crossover and interdependencies for addressing the border situation in Cyprus. The project calls for radical if not utopian long-term solutions while placing new demands on the role of the architect, as an orchestrator and in the role of an active participator. By meshing political , urbanistic, and social issues new architectonic strategies and programs are developed whose virtual presence reaches beyond their locale, global yet intrinsically local.