2nd workshop: FIND IT AND USE IT!

ANNOTATION: The workshop will focus on different uses of public space in relation with social, cultural, anthropological and environmental aspects. The participants will try to find facts about the evolution of public space in social contexts, and the role of people in public space development. It is a playful approach to explore how low-cost materials and tools and crafts can be used to manage public interests. The public space can be the result of a customary use along the time, or of urban planning as a given space with different functions. It also can be the outcome of a participation process – both top down (this is launched by the public administration), or bottom up, demanded by the RESIDENTS.
The workshop will be supplemented and animated with the lectures on international examples of similar issues – with examples reviewing both public spaces along history and recent relevant cases of innovation in urban and social design.

AIM: to find ways how to perceive, feel, understand and deal with public spaces, with neglected areas, hidden spots, desolate spots, how to turn them into the places overflowing with INSPIRATION and MOTIVATION, how to REVIVE it to attract the people to care about it, how to think progressively and SUSTAINABLY, how to engage community hospitality, the contribution to the DEVELOPMENT…

SUB-THEMES: how to use secondary materials – how to recycle, how to make the community feel the ownership of the public space, how to learn from the PUBLIC space, architecture as a contribution to the development, URBAN REGENERATION, finding focal points of public attention, phenomenons and archetypes, city as a place to live, presentation techniques…

NUMBER OF STUDENTS: 15 – 20 students will be divided into 5 groups by 3-4 participants

progress

2013_06______initial contact about research cooperation
2013_09______arrival to Ethiopia, 3-month long research in situ
2013_10-11______workshop “Think globally, act locally!” in Mekelle University
2014_02______booklet “SCHOOLdesignINNOVATIONS” , (in chapter Fresh Ideas)
2014_05______workshop “Find It and Use It” about public space in condominiums

in pictures