Smart Cities – Smart Technologies and Materials
Public Lecture by Dirk E. Hebel and Felix Heisel at the ‘Smart Cities’ Symposium AEDES East Gallery Berlin, June 8, 2013. The N.P.O. AEDES East, under the direction of the curator Ulla Giesler, presents an exhibition and symposium as part of the Asia-Pacific Weeks Berlin 2013, with the title ‘Smart City’. For the first time, the regional focus will be on South-East Asia with particular emphasis on the formative up-and-coming generation. The exhibition concentrates on the search for intelligent solutions within an urban context. Next to the exhibition, a symposium will discuss innovative “smart city” projects from South-East Asia: buildings, planning, urban interventions, initiatives and visions for the future from internationally known experts as well as young architects from Thailand, the Philippines, Cambodia, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia and Vietnam, who are making the cities more intelligent, effective and above all improving the quality of life for their citizens. Beyond that, the results of the student workshops, which Aedes initiated in Phnom Penh, Jakarta and Manila to generate the future city visions of the upcoming generation, will be shown. Particularly on a technological level, the fact that some emerging nations and developing countries are skipping certain development stages undergone by the classic industrialized nations, is reflected in form and utilization. However, the idea of an adaptable, integrated and networked ‘smart city’ holds opportunities and challenges for Europe too: old infrastructures, pre-existing networks and behavioral patterns, local services and governmental systems also need to be synchronized in order to retain future viability for them. The exhibition and symposium presents ideas that have relevance far beyond only South-East Asia and represent changed smart behavior in a globalized age.
