APCOM

Over 300 documentaries shot by 600 students from all over Europe, a free-press, a blog and two exhibitions: these are the main numbers of 'Check-in Architecture', a participatory research project supported by the International Union of Architects (UIA), Milano's City Council, Venezia's Biennale of Architecture and 2008 World Design Capital, Torino. The Italian universities involved in the initiative are ten, two of which from Milano, the Accademia Belle Arti New Media and the Politecnico.

Art, architecture, design and creativity students from the best European athenaeums are asked to film spaces and people in 19 cities of the continent in order to investigate how architecture weighs on their urban texture. Documentaries, online and offline videos, topographic images, photographs and written reports will form a unique media system whose aim is to go beyond the ordinary vision of metropolis and focus on their geography, their aggregation networks, their physical and digital spaces and the life styles they offer.

A cultural committee of curators, critics and researchers identifies the most relevant themes and plans spanning the European cultural scene which deserve to be dealt with by the young creative teams. All the videos will be uploaded on a special channel of Youtube and charted on Google Maps. A blog will daily discuss ideas, tales and news, while a 486-metre long screen in Piazza Duomo (the first and biggest media façade in Italy) will broadcast a preview of the best documentaries, which will be then shown in an exhibition during the XXII UIA World Congress in Torino, from June 29th to July 4th.