village underground

lately many people come and knock on our containers...most of them are just curious, others are planning to do some container related project and come looking for a good tip... sometimes though, we also get some very interesting people coming just to introduce themselves, like Patrick the other day.





Patrick is a very nice guy working for villageunderground, an incredible cultural project in east london. they basically provide affordable working spaces in converted london-underground carriages to freelancers working within the creative industries. very clever idea. we love it.










they also have a huge art gallery in a victorian warehouse where they expose the work of several urban artists, organise wicked events and i guess they also do a lot more.













Village Underground´s project director Auro Foxcroft, has put a lot of work into his vision, and managed to create an amazing platform for cultural development.







now Patrick has come to berlin to set up another village over here.

we wish them all the best and look forward to see what happens next.

CAN YOU READ THIS?

this is not korean:

fi yuo cna raed tihs, yuo hvae a sgtrane mnid

Cna yuo raed tihs? Olny 55 plepoe out of 100 can.


i cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid, aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it dseno't mtaetr in waht oerdr the ltteres in a wrod are, the olny iproamtnt tihng is taht the frsit and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset ca n be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it whotuit a pboerlm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Azanmig huh? yaeh! and I awlyas tghuhot slpeling was ipmorantt!

Mindestlohn tour 2008

after a week of hard work the minimumwage exhibition container is finally ready for departure. the mindestlohn tour 2008 will be led by DGB this time....and is going to be much more intensive in terms of cities that will be covered.









soon we´re also going to change some professions represented in the exhibition. meanwhile we gave a more fruity color to the outside and upgraded some of its features.













for more info about this topic check out our previous
posts or the official minimumwage blog.

PLATOON.ASIA UNDER CONSTRUCTION

this is the first step: the foundation or footing of our new PLATOON.tower here in seoul is now ready to hold the first 3 containers. they will arrive on the end of this week from shanghai. so stay tuned! we will report..

Berlin/New York Dialogues - Berlin session report

the BLN/NYC dialogues session here in berlin last friday wasnt really as we had expected....the atmosphere wasnt at all as it was in New York...BUT....it probably had more to do with the content of the exhibition itself.









the whole event had a bit of a conference feel and i guess this was actually the real intention of the organisers; afterall what happened in New York was more like a tipsy vernissage, a networking event which resembled more a party and had probably less to do with architecture then initially planned.












so we cant really get mad at this berlin session, besides people attending the opening at DAZ seemed like quite enjoying themselves, although in a much sober way.















the exhibition is still on show until the 4th of may and we warmly recommend to all of you to take your time and go there to have a look.















we at PLATOON are really glad to be featured in this exhibition for our container architecture and our involvement with the local community that somehow contributed to the urban regeneration of the spandauer vortadt (mitte).












so, a big Thank You goes to Lutz Knospe, curator of the exhibition, and to all the other people at DAZ who made this international event possible.

streik.tv on rbb

last wednesday a crew from RBB suddenly popped in our containers. like the other time with ZDF we were glad to observe how also television news channels are getting interested in streik.tv. especially in these days of heavy strikes, in fact the BVG (city transport) have been on strike since last week. BBC video







in the picture beside you can see Kathrin Bräuer and Matthias Ludwig, our two young and dynamic reporters, who together with Fanny Schmolke and a PLATOON task force are always ready to deliver the latest news from the strikers front.

freeze...!

about 200 people all of a sudden froze and turned grand central station in new york into something like madame tussauds, no matter what they were doing. after 5 minutes they moved on as if nothing had happened. it reminds of the flash mobs that were somehow popular in 2003 or mobile clubbers. while flash mobs were often used as a new protesting form especially in the anti-globalization movement and mobile clubbing looks like a reclaim-the-streets rave for the ipod-generation, "improv everywhere", the mind behind the "frozen grand central"-performance, seems to be more related to improvisation theater and sometimes "live action role playing" for a mobile tech-savy crowd. since this can be found almost anywhere in the world, it's no wonder, "improv everywhere" indeed has a global section ("global" meaning anywhere outside the united states)... check out events in singapore, berlin, budapest... well, not really but almost everywhere!

Berlin/New York Dialogues - Berlin session

the Berlin/New York dialogues exhibition is finally coming to berlin!
the opening will be at DAZ on the 7th of march, and will be running until the 4th of may.










the exhibition is aiming to present several different architectural projects in these two vibrant cities...and of course PLATOON is being featured under the themes: community activism, mobile architecture and urban regeneration.












the vernissage in NYC was amazing, now is time to see if it will rock also here in berlin.
rumor has it that there will be a very special line up....but it´s going to be kind of a surprise... some things are more spontaneous when organized at the last minute.


Exhibition:
Until 04 May 2008 at the DAZ_Scharoun Saal, Tuesday - Friday 12am - 7pm, Saturday + Sunday 2 - 7pm.
Admission is free.


for a review of the BLN/NYC dialogues in New York check:

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