Under the ironic title ‘Untergang des Abendlandes’ studio Border Conditions & Territories (BC&T) will visit the sites of monetary crisis within the European context, however not to investigate the onslaught of the monetary crisis nor to confirm a negative, fatalistic outlook on the economic turmoil and its spatial consequences (in other words the real Untergang), but precisely to look for alternatives in the existing urban and territorial conditions. Previous investigations into Rome’s and Madrid’s peripheries already show that 'other' spatial conditions exist or have emerged as the ones that are 'teeming with suggestive meanings and unexpected potential' but have hardly been analysed and discussed within the contemporary architectural discourse.

The studio will develop architectural research and design projects that are related to and situated in urban conditions as well as embedded in the larger scale of the territory. Interpreting the border as a ‘space of encounter', the studio’s investigations focus on the on-going colonization and appropriation of the landscape around European cities, which has resulted in a fragmented periphery where specific urban border conditions have emerged in a vast territorial setting. The contemporary debates involving both social, ethnic, religious, societal and economic (‘post-capitalist’) developments, will be analysed, as well as the specific forms of resistance that have an influence and effect on the spatial configuration of these cities.