Wednesday, 28 November 2018 at 6:00 pm – Wednesday, 28 November 2018 at 7:30 pm

Ben Stringer - Planetary Villagisation

Date: Wednesday 28th November

Time: 6pm - 7.30pm

Location: LT33, Manchester Met Business School

Tickets: FREE - Available on Eventbrite here

Ben Stringer teaches architecture design, history and theory at the University of Westminster, London, where he leads the DS12 Masters design studio. He is also a trustee of the Oxford City Farm. He has recently edited the book ‘Rurality Re-imagined’, and guest edited a ‘Villages and Globalization’ issue of Architecture and Culture Journal. He was a principal organiser of the Re-Imagining Rurality conference and exhibition, held in London in 2015 and has lectured in the UK, Europe and Asia

In this lecture, Ben Stringer will explore alternative readings of rurality and focus on the vital economic and environmental role of rural villages. He will set this theme in the context of a dominant narrative of global urbanisation which simultaneously portrays the rural village as outdated, whilst branding artifically created urban communities as ‘villages’.

Part of the MLA Open Lecture Series. The MLA Open Lectures are an annual series of talks by invited guests around the core theme for the Master of Landscape Architecture, but opened up to the landscape profession and wider public. The theme this year is 'Hyper Rural' and all the speakers are leading researchers or practitioners in the field of rethinking rural identities. Lectures will examine the dynamic and contradictory condition of rural landscapes and communities behind the superficial appearance of stasis and tranquillity. Speakers will also consider the complex challenges faced in these areas and identify opportunities for reframing rurality.