LINA Conference
21 → 22 October 2022

Architecture has the power to control space. It can enable its exploitation as a resource, carve it into usable surfaces and exploit the goods created from raw materials extracted from the earth's surface. These products, however, carry a definite expiration date. Once they are no longer deemed useful, the vast majority are discarded and replaced by new upon new volumes constructed from freshly extracted and processed raw materials. New construction occupies and exploits increasing areas of previously unused space.

The consequences of such practices have long been evident, reflecting in the increasing scarcity of raw materials and the rising property prices, their fallout made manifest in derelict urban areas and growing landfills of construction waste. Today, we know that construction contributes in large part to the climate and environmental crisis. It is also clear that the most sustainable form of construction is renovation and that the most sustainable materials are the ones that are left where they are or reused.

We at the LINA platform, along with participating emerging professionals and thinkers, are wondering: how will architecture co-create the future of our planet? How will it facilitate the establishment of rational balances in the use of resources in the management and construction of space? What priorities will it have to set? What will it have to give up? What will be its focus?

The 2022 LINA Conference will bring together 27 members and 25 featured emerging talents – LINA fellows – along with keynote speakers. The 2-day conference will present opportunities to connect and follow the latest developments and trends in architecture while presenting possible visions and revolutions for the future of the planet.

Focus Talks will address pressing contemporary issues in architecture and the environment at large with speakers Dr Janez Potočnik, Sarah Ichioka, Milica Topalović, Dr Florian Hertweck and Markus Krieger.

The roundtable will present successful sustainable practices in architecture, urbanism and beyond with Dr Lučka Kajfež Bogataj and Dr Florian Hertweck, joined by Milica Topalović, Matevž Čelik Vidmar and Dr Mateja Kurir.

The essay The State of Architecture by Milica Topalović will present an analysis of entries to the LINA Call for Projects and extrapolate findings relevant to the architectural field.

The 25 LINA fellows, selected at the Call for Projects, will present, discuss and argue their projects with both members of the platform and the audience on the second day of the conference. Selected projects from all over the European Union and partner countries vary from concrete architectural solutions to changes in mobility practices or awareness-raising actions. The 27 member organisations of the platform will select those with whom they would like to collaborate further and feature in their activities, carried out within the LINA Architecture Programme.

The Architecture Display, which takes place on both days of the conference, will present an array of players in architecture, from individual architects and architectural offices to institutions, organisers, curators and other experts.

On both days, the additional programme of the conference Plečnik 150, organised by the Faculty of Architecture of the University of Ljubljana, will take place and feature lectures by Andreas Ruby, Jonathan Sergison, Ákos Moravánszky and Kengo Kuma.

Janez Potočnik is an economist graduated from the Faculty of Economics at the University of Ljubljana, Slovenia. He served as Director of the Institute of Macroeconomic Analysis and Development in Ljubljana. He was appointed Head of Negotiating Team for Accession of Slovenia to the EU and served as Minister responsible for European Affairs. In 2004 he joined the European Commission as Commissioner responsible for Science and Research. In 2010 he became Commissioner for Environment. After the mandate, he was appointed Co-Chair of the UNEP Environment International Resource Panel. He is also Partner at SYSTEMIQ.

Sarah Mineko Ichioka is a strategist, urbanist, curator and writer. She is Founding Director of Desire Lines, a consultancy for environmental, cultural and social-impact organisations and initiatives. In previous roles, she has explored the intersections of cities, society and ecology within leading international institutions of culture, policy and research. She is co-author of Flourish: Design Paradigms for Our Planetary Emergency (2021) with Michael Pawlyn. Ichioka has been recognized as a World Cities Summit Young Leader, one of the Global Public Interest Design 100, and a British Council / Clore Duffield Cultural Leadership International Fellow. She holds degrees from Yale and the LSE.

Florian Hertweck is an architect and professor at the University of Luxembourg, where he chairs the Master’s programme in Architecture. Prior to this position, he was professor at ENSA Versailles and visiting professor at the Academy of Fine Arts Nuremberg at the chair of Arno Brandlhuber. He has been working from 2010 to 2015 in partnership with the French architect Pierre Alexandre Devernois, and since 2016 as associate of Studio Hertweck in Luxembourg. His research and planning activities include design strategies for metropolitan regions, such as Berlin, Paris, Shanghai, Casablanca, Istanbul, Geneva and the Greater Region. In 2018 he curated, together with Andrea Rumpf, the Luxembourg Pavilion for the 16th Architecture Biennial in Venice. He is currently preparing, together with Milica Topalovic and the team from ARCH+, an exhibition on the Great Repair at the Akademie der Künste in Berlin. His major publications include: Architecture on Common Ground. The Question of Land: Positions and Models (Lars Müller Publishers 2021); Dialogic City. Berlin wird Berlin (Walther König Verlag 2015, with Arno Brandlhuber and Thomas Mayfried).

Markus Krieger is editor at ARCH+ and co-curator of the exhibition and publication project The Great Repair. He is part of the ARCH+ editorial team since 2021. In 2020 he graduated with honours from the Department of Architecture at ETH Zurich. He lives in Berlin.

Milica Topalović is Associate Professor of Architecture and Territorial Planning at the Department of Architecture, ETH Zurich. Her work is concerned with territories beyond-the-city and transformation processes they are exposed to, through the movement of capital, social restructuring, and environmental change. With Architecture of Territory group she undertook a range of territorial studies around the world, in remote regions, resource hinterlands, and countrysides, in an effort to decenter and ecologize architect’s approaches to the city, the urban, and urbanization. Her work has been published in various international journals and books, including Harvard Design Magazine, New Geographies, and Architectural Design. She has coauthored (together with Roger Diener et al) Belgrade. Formal Informal (2012), The Inevitable Specificity of Cities (2015), and (together with Uta Hassler) Constructed Land. Singapore 1924–2012 (2014). A book Extended Urbanisation. Territories, Processes, Struggles coedited with Christian Schmid is forthcoming (2023).

Lučka Kajfež Bogataj is a full professor of climatology, employed by the University of Ljubljana (UL) since 1980. She holds a bachelor's (1980) degree in Meteorology and a phd (1989) in Biometeorology from UL. Her research is in the field of applied meteorology and climate change mitigation and adaptation. Her bibliography includes 142 original scientific articles, 19 chapters in scientific monographs, more than 50 lectures (20 invited) at international scientific symposia. She was IPCC bureau member and report editor (2002 – 2016), Board member of GWP and GCOS at WMO (2006 -2011) and Member of Unesco group for climate change ethics (2016 – 2017). Among awards she received are: Women Inspiring Europe - The European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE), 2012, Honorary Doctorate from the University of Primorska, 2011, Honorary Medal - Medalla al Mérito – University of Veracruz, Mexico, 2008, Nobel peace prize (IPCC - shared), 2007.