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| "We must face up to an inescapable reality: the challenges of sustainability simply overwhelm the adequacy of our responses. With some honorable exceptions, our responses are too few, too little and too late." |
| Kofi A. Annan, 2000 |
| Challenges linked to sustainability and social cohesion have become an integral part of contemporary daily life. These are collective concerns, and design and architecture can play a key role in the development of innovative solutions to mediate the impacts of climate change and social asymmetries. It is in cities that most of the human population will be concentrated during this Century, making it urgent that these be updated and redesigned. |
| City Cortex is a research and action programme created by experimentadesign, following an invitation addressed in 2018 by Corticeira Amorim. Beginning in 2019, it explores the vast array of characteristics of one of the most natural, versatile and sustainable materials available: cork, as well as its potential application in urban spaces. |
| The architecture and design studios Diller Scofidio + Renfro, Gabriel Calatrava, Leong Leong, Sagmeister & Walsh and the creator Philippe Starck, have been invited to bring their creative vision to the programme through cutting-edge cork-based urban interventions, designed especially for public and semi-public spaces in New York city. |
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| City Cortex perceives urban centres as living and dynamic systems, similar to those of biological organisms, and encompasses the unavoidable challenges of the 21st Century, in which themes such as mobility, security, happiness, comfort, protection, sustainability and the management of raw-materials are absolutely essential. It looks into the various dimensions of cities, striving to transform them into collective spaces that promote happiness, social cohesion and well-being, thus contributing towards the quality of life of their inhabitants. |
| Alongside the production of innovative pieces and interventions in Portuguese cork, the programme also embodies an important research and investigation component around the historical bonds that connect Portugal to the United States of America – especially regarding the use of cork, in its several applications, during the 20th Century. |
| The results will be presented in New York during the first semester of 2020, and the information produced within the scope of the City Cortex research programme will be available on the official website. The projects of each participant will be revealed in two moments: an exhibition presenting drawings, models and development components of the creative process; and full scale interventions in public or semi-public spaces throughout Manhattan. |
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| © Ricardo Gonçalves |
| "We have no time to lose. We are in a battle for our lives." |
| António Guterres, 2019 |
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