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The board of the Jaap Bakema Foundation has awarded the fellowship 2009/2010 to German architect Dietmar Koering for his research project ‘Floating Permaculture – Constraints for European offshore-farming’. Koering focuses on the development of a ‘floating permaculture’, which combines energy and food production in a sustainable, floating farm in the North Sea. The project is a synthesis of cybernetics and autonomous agriculture.

The board of the Jaap Bakema Foundation selected the Koering proposal from a total of 40 submissions submitted from Europe and Asia, for its innovative and solution-focused approach to contemporary social issues such as energy and food production. ‘Floating permaculture’ provides an answer to the future and only too real scenario that, in the near future, current forms of agriculture will be made impossible due to flooding, overpopulation and other factors. Where different designers are already attempting to reintroduce agriculture into the urban environment, Koering goes one step further, endeavouring to create an autonomous system that is no longer dependent on fossil fuels.

Dietmar Koering received his Master of Architecture at the Barlett Faculty of Built Environment (University College of London) in 2007. He also completed a number of courses including Design and Fine Arts (Kiel, Germany) and 3D Visualization, Electric Arts, Animation Arts, Design Management (Sydney, Australia). Koering is currently working as project architect and researcher at Andrew Wright Associates in London.

Dietmar Koering will present the research project funded by the Jaap Bakema Foundation at the Netherlands Architecture Institute (NAI) in Rotterdam in 2010; it will also be published in A10 new European architecture.


Fellowship
The Jaap Bakema Fellowship is a grant of 10,000 euro for research at the cutting edge of architecture, technology and society. The main criterion in the evaluation of applications is the likely significance of the research for the development and understanding of contemporary architecture and the built environment. The board of the Jaap Bakema Foundation is made up of:

- Tom Avermaete (associate professor Architecture, TU Delft)
- Ole Bouman (director of the Netherlands Architecture Instituut, Rotterdam)
- Hans Ibelings (publisher of A10 new European architecture, Amsterdam)
- Madeleine Maaskant (founding architect and director of Maaskant en Van Velzen Architecten, Amsterdam)
- Frederieke Taylor (owner of the Frederieke Taylor Gallery, New York)
- Oliver Thill (founding architect and director of Atelier Kempe Thill, Rotterdam)


Previous winners

2006-2007 | Tim de Boer – ‘Spatial consequences of terrorism’: His work investigated the architectural effects of surveillance and security measures on buildings and activities that would not normally be sealed off or secured, such as railway stations, festivals and urban public space. De Boer’s research proposal was selected from 35 entries.
> Tim de Boer (PDF) (2005-2006)

2007-2008 | Ismae’l Sheikh Hassan – ‘Urban Exaggerations and Exceptions - Palestinian Refugee Camp’: The proposal, selected from 29 submissions, goes into the potential of architecture and urban planning to give a positive impulse to life in the Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon.
> Ismael Sheikh Hassan (PDF) (2006-2007), see also: video essay 'X-Mission' (2008)

2008-2009 | Thomas Kong – ‘Zero’: The research, selected from 68 submissions, explores the informal use of ‘empty’ urban sites. He tries to find an answer on the question: what can architects learn from the way in which individuals and groups appropriate empty sites in towns and cities?


For more information: bakemafoundation@nai.nl or contact Martine Zoeteman on: +31 (0)10 4401248.

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