Unsolicited Architecture Program

This month at the Biennale in São Paulo an exhibition of the program Unsolicited Architecture.

The Studio for Unsolicited Architecture (SUA) creates opportunities for realising promising design ideas, bringing architects, policy-makers and the construction world together to create a better-organised world.

The Studio for Unsolicited Architecture is a new project of the Netherlands Architecture Institute. Acting as a connecting link between new forms of spatial design and practical realisation, the studio is dedicated to promoting designs focusing on urgent social issues but which, in the current construction climate and economic downturn, have very little chance of realisation. Nonetheless, by creating a nurturing environment, the Studio intends to capitalise upon the values these plans represent. By temporarily adopting promising projects, the Studio will improve the plans’ market readiness. The designer is directly connected to representatives of the financial, legal or governmental sectors.

The Studio considers projects that are mainly initiated and defined by designers; many of these ideas propose alternative ways of working, with each other, with time and energy, our food production methods, our health and our use of space. Or investigate different avenues for creating economic value.

As you have come to expect of the new NAI, the plans we adopt are all required to serve public interests rather than the latest trend. The Studio acts as incubator, stimulator and catalyst but – primarily – as intermediary. The Studio establishes dialogue between parties, and seeks to anchor the parties in society by means of presentations, debates and workshops. Moreover, the Studio supports the plans by generating political and financial momentum. This could be by active lobbying, attracting media attention or by helping to clarify and tighten the plan’s central concept.

In brief, the Studio for Unsolicited Architecture stimulates, lobbies on behalf of and proves architecture’s unfettered enthusiasm for embracing the opportunities presented by turbulent times.

The Studio is based in Schieblock, Rotterdam city laboratory. In the creative heart of cultural Rotterdam, the studio offers all partners a physical place where encounters, dialogue and exchange are central.

Retrieved from official website NAi)

See also the Unsolicited Studio website.