Design Exchange (DX) presents Vertical Urban Factory, on view Sept 13 – Dec 16, 2012.
Can factories be re-integrated into urban centres and present sustainable solutions for future self-sufficient cities? A timeline will show the evolution of factory design from its beginnings through the 20th century. More than 30 projects will be on display, 200 photographs, diagrams, drawings, models, films. Contemporary examples of urban factories – American Apparel facility in Los Angeles, The VW “Transparent Factory” in Dreseden Germany (designed as marketing tool – you can see the cars being manufactured), vertically integrated skyscraper factories that published New York’s major newspapers (Times, World, Daily News). If entrepreneurs and urban planners reconsider the potential for building vertically in cities, this will in turn reinforce and reinvest in a natural feedback loop leading to a new sustainable urban industrial paradigm. Visitors can imagine how the city would be if we brough factories back into urban centres – think jobs, lifestyle, greener factories, FUTURE! Local manufacturing is a hot topic in today’s economy – this is the ultimate step in that direction. Cleaner, greener production could make vertical urban factories the new engines of urban revitalization.
Curated by architectural historian and critic, Nina Rappaport. – www.dx.org