Urban plan workshops

Researching public and semi public spaces in relation to a specific question or need. The research defines the culture of a place before the actual process of the final design by architects or urban planners starts. The research can take the shape of a workshop for professionals for example - cityplanners / architects / policy-makers, in which  - the way people use their  neighbourhood - is taken as the startingpoint for design.
Below are three examples:

1. Designing Public space in Delft
2. Walkman choreography
3.Mediamatic workshops

The research can also take the shape of an exchange between the professionals and the actual inhabitants - see bus tour Merry Nomad
(read more)

Designing Public space in Delft

A three day intensive for architecture students: designing public space.
Special design method: creating space by organising human activity.
We used the above mentioned steps for the assignment. The assignment was 'Design a place for two people to meet at the Rotterdam Central Station'. Not the final results but the aknowledgement of the method was the main aim of this workshop, organised by the students themselves. Although a lot of idea's for concrete objects/environments emerged; we decided to stick to performancelike designs for this workshop.

Student reactions:

Jeffrey: I liked the very (inter) active way of analyzing the situation and making a design. I learned another way of looking at a built environment; to see how people interact with and influence a place. A more abstract way of looking and thinking about design. I could very well use it as an idea/beginning for a more concrete design.

Coraline: Looking back, working with Lino has been a real experience. Especially the way we observed people and their activities has changed the way I look at design projects. Of course one always looks at the building in terms of how people are going to use it, but from now on, I'm sure I'll be more inclined to actually study people's behaviour in similar buildings, before embarking on a new project. Another thing I learned is to look for the so-called unwritten rules in society.

Walkman choreography

A presentation form of urban research can be a choreography for a group of untrained people. The partakers follow instructions on tape or a live audio connection. By moving as a group in a public area they experience the space in a new way. In Station Amsterdam Sloterdijk, I received 70 - to me unknown - people who carried out a group choreography via tape. Unanimously the partakers experienced the space as if they had never been there before.

Every hour during two days, 7 people get the instruction on the audiotape to collect a bunch of flowers at the flowershop. (See picture right) The station hall is filled with people waiting expectantly, holding a bunch of flowers for a person who will never arrive

Mediamatic workshops, Holiday design, 2003
Lecture in three day workshop for the tourist industry and healthcare organisations. Topic is ‘how to organize a holiday feeling (break with dailylife) without necessarily travel any distance’

Mediamatic workshops, May 1999/Nov 2000

Space and behaviour, the playfield and topology of experience. Experiments in the real world with computer designers to reveal the hidden scripts of the so called non-places (stations, town centers etc) in order to design scripts for building envirnoments the virtual world.

workshops.mediamatic.nl