MITTELMEERLAND ALEXANDRIA – EGYPT LECTURE 04.04.13

MAPPING GAME PLANS: EURO-MEDITERRANEAN URBAN VOIDS ECOLOGY (EMUVE)

MITTELMEERLAND ALEXANDRIA - EGYPT LECTURE: 4TH of April 2013 TIME: 17.00-18.00 VENUE: Department of Architecture, Faculty of Fine Arts,

University of Alexandria LECTURER: Dr Cristian Suau

Cardiff University, Welsh School of Architecture ECOFABRICA www.ecofab.org

TITLE: MAPPING GAME PLANS:

EURO-MEDITERRANEAN URBAN VOIDS ECOLOGY (EMUVE)

SUMMARY ‘A map is not the territory it represents, but if correct, it has a similar structure to the territory, which accounts for its usefulness’, Alfred Korzybski (1994) The Euro-Mediterranean Urban Voids Ecology (EMUVE) is an EU funded research1 project focus on the study and recovering of existing voids produced by current shrinking cities at the Euro-Mediterranean coastline. These vacant borderlands or frontiers could be reactivated with radical eco-urban strategies as complex systems of social, environmental, economic, topological and symbolical relationships. EMUVE intends to develop a comparative research on several case studies along the Euro-Mediterranean littoral. The recycling of these Post‐industrial spaces could contribute as future cultural and economic catalysts to the regeneration of degraded lands into socio-productive and ecological landscapes. New recovering strategies should be found for the post-economic crisis at the Mediterranean landscape in order to offer new alternatives of human development in harmony with the environment. Landscape and Ecology Urbanism offers useful guides to understand and explore radical urban reinventions and ecologic empowerment. Dr Cristian Suau, EMUVE scientist in charge Dr Federico Wulff, EMUVE senior post-doctoral research

1 Marie Curie Actions: Intra-European Fellowships (IEF), FP7-PEOPLE-2012-IEF, Proposal No 331084 and acronym: EMUVE