about

…this blog

this is the blog of the Stories from the City project that Ileana initiated in 2005, collecting personal journeys and accounts on urban design and planning practices from around the world. Since then the focus of this collection of stories transformed in various ways, in the process of better understanding some of the collective needs of such global accounts, and their potential to catalyze local practice. The first materialization of this project was a 20min video, a conference presentation of stories and experiences developed in Los Angeles, Bucharest, Tallinn, Cardiff, Dortmund, Beirut, Chennai, Beijing, Santiago de Chile, and …, which has been shown at the July 2006 World Planners’ Congress in Vancouver, British Columbia. After building up some experience with participatory processes within urban projects and a clearer understanding of life in common, here the stories focus on the emergence of collective processes, on various manifestations of community and on possibilities of sustainable urban life.

ileana apostol

at present Ileana undertakes urban research informed by a lasting interest in the everyday life within the hybrid realm of contemporary cities; trained in spatial planning (PhD USC Los Angeles, MSc University of Stuttgart, MU UAUIM Bucharest), urban design and architecture (BArch UAUIM Bucharest, ENSA Paris-Belleville). Some of the research topics dear to her heart are the lived space shaped by artistic interpretations, in which memories and emotional associations play critical roles; rhythmanalyses as a manner to interpret the perceived reality while reinstating the sensible in contemporary thought; exploring ways through which life in common may manifest in space; and the expression of its diversity by providing people the right to the city, in particular for the right to difference. Since she completed the doctoral studies in planning at USC Los Angeles with the dissertation The Production of Public Spaces: Design Dialectics and Pedagogy Ileana has been collaborating with Panayotis Antoniadis on a project that they named NetHood –networks over the neighborhood– and that more recently became the non-profit organization providing the institutional framework for their professional activities.