Publications Exhibitions Ecology.Design.Synergy:Asia Beirut

The Stuttgart-based practices Behnisch Architekten and TransSolar ClimateEngineering have been collaborating for many years in an endeavour to develop solutions for a sustainable and responsible architecture. This collaboration has extended to both international competitions and realised projects in Germany and abroad.The common foundation of this collaboration is the confidence that high-quality built enviroments can be realized with less consumption of natural resources.

The media provide us with reports every day about the imminent climate disaster, melting ice-caps and the ever-increasing hole in the ozone layer. The problems we are about to face are overwhelmingly large; we cannot offer correspondingly all-embracing solutions. Despite this, we must work on linking future economic development and the exploration of the enviroment and nature in such a way that coming generations are not deprived of opportunities in their lives and development. This cours of action is defined as sustainability. It is one of our most important task for the future, and it presents contemporary architecture with a particular challenge:what we build today, and the way we build it, will help to determine the future.

The exhibition, which is a cooperation with the ifa- Institut for foreign culture relations and the forum of architecture Aedes attempts to detach the term "sustainability" from the common quantitative understanding and to highlight the multiple aspects of sustainability which constitute qualities in themselves. Both common and company-specific projects are presented in an attempt to assess the results of previous collaboration, as well as perspectives for the future. Among other projects it will be schown the RiverParc Development in Pittsburgh, the Senscity Paradise Universe in Las Vegas/Nevada and the Norddeutsche Landesbank in Hannover.

By orientating the arragment to the sensous perception of mankind the curator Frank Ockert illustrates that a sensitive and responsible approach to the built environment is not only a matter for experts, but for each individual person.