Sofia Architecture Week 2013

ABOUT

Sofia Architecture Week is an international festival for architecture, which in 2013 had its 6th edition. Launched in September 2008 as a two-day conference, the event expanded into a week-long meeting and idea exchange platform for architecture, interior design, landscape and urban environment. Through stimulating a broad professional and public debate the festival aims at initiating sustainable social and architectural practices. The diverse and intense program features presentations, exhibitions, discussions, workshops, screenings and urban interventions as well as architectural workshops for the youngest.

Every year Sofia Architecture Week focuses on a specific topic – in 2013 that is the "Future city"

MANIFESTO

Future City

What will the city of the future look like?

What problems will it solve?

Who will live there and how?

What are the utopias of today? The city is a complex system in search of balance among ecology, economics and social structures to solve its long-ago articulated issues. Even with technological advancement the city continues to undergo the destructive effects of human, natural and economic calamities. Its future will be such unless we remain critical of the present. Modernism and postmodernism shape the look of contemporary cities while thinking of the future makes us delve into the morals of the stories from the past and the possibilities of the future.

Humanity overcomes each crisis by expanding its imprint on nature. We take up more territory while leaving no future for the already used land. This attitude to our environment cannot last forever. The waves of political concern for nature prove fruitless. Ecology and sustainability are turning into misnomer clichés, oftentimes placed against the values of human development. The lack of creativity and dialog between the two radical camps deepens problems instead of finding solutions. Sustainable architecture is not a priority, but a restriction which finds its opponents in regions, such as Eastern Europe, Asia and Africa. In its place, ideas of dubious sustainability are practiced and with an even higher emission score. Construction continues to be the most energy-demanding industry in the world and to devour approximately 40% of energy production.

In this context, Sofia Architecture Week 2013:

explores the true and often misunderstood values of sustainable urban planning;
shows architecture and urban design that allow us to live in contemporary cities with low emission parameters;
attempts to rediscover and reuse the abandoned and exhausted urban landscapes inherited from the industrial revolution and modernism;
invites city-dwellers to be active participants in the process of forming and rediscovering the urban environment.

Sofia Architecture Week 2013 seeks out the future and sustainability of a city which pays respect to history, nature and its dwellers’ capabilities, stimulates the urban economy, and is open to innovative technologies and practices.