SOFIA ARCHITECTURE WEEK is the largest international architecture forum in Bulgaria. Its second edition tol be held under the motto “Changing Urban Visions” is scheduled to run from October 30 through November 5.

The city we live in and the space we cross every day as we go through our everyday routines are of importance to us all. Therefore they need to be the subject of a large-scale discussion. And this is exactly what Sofia Architecture Week ’09 aims at, namely to encourage the citizens of Sofia to think about their city and enhance their everyday life, as well as to inspire architecture and urban planning professionals with fresh ideas and chances to meet some of their internationally-acclaimed counterparts.

Curators of the exhibition Oliver Elser (Germany) and Michael Rieper (Austria) present twelve housing projects, exploring the question of how experiments in architecture bearing upon everyday life might play out. In contrast to typical architectureexhibitions, it is not architects that are the focus of attention, but rather the dwellings and their inhabitants.

The exhibit features a variety of housing models ranging from social housing in Chile, through Vienna’s biggest self-governing community and cultural building, the Sargfabrik, to high-end market-rate housing in Tokyo.

Specially for the purpose of the exhibition social housing inhabitants have photographed their dwellings and their surrounding environment having added their comments to each photograph.

Each project is presented by anarchitectural model, some of them being built in full size so as to allow visitors to go inside.
The exhibition also features the presentation of a study giving an account of everyday life in Bulgaria, comparing current living conditions in the latter with those abroad.

A public discussion entitled “Typology of Housing Models in the 21st century”, to be moderated by Peter Torniov will be held on October 20 /Tuesday/ at 6pm within the framework of the exhibition.