designSHIFT.org

New projects in behance.net profile

2011-05-04T08:58:00.000-07:00

100 MAJA/ HOUSES #La Biennale di Venezia

2010-08-31T04:21:00.000-07:00

ESTONIA
POPULATION 1 370 000
NUMBER OF UNIQUE DESIGN PRIVATE RESIDENCES FROM ALL PRIVATE RESIDENCES 90%

Architecture is encountered by people throughout the built environment. The experience of architecture is part of everyday life, divided between many spheres and contrasts: public/private, physical/virtual and modern/classical. One of the initial stages in the experience of architecture is the life environment, which provides personal impulses that affect everyone. The private residence has always been a favorite topic for modern architecture, illustrating in its compactness and simultaneous complexity, people’s relationships with their environment and the way to shape it. The creation of private residences is also one of the most intimate forms of architecture, in which the client’s relationship with that which is being created is indivisible. Private residential architecture with it multifaceted nature raises many questions by graphically reflecting the society and its operational mechanisms. (Karen Jagodin, editor and curator of the Estonian Exhibition in the 12th Venice Architecture Biennale)

Present-day professional residential architecture is highly valued in Estonia as it is in the Nordic countries. However, if factory-built standardized solutions are very popular in the Nordic countries and relatively few unique projects are commissioned from architects, in Estonia the construction of private residences based on unique projects has been relatively popular throughout the period of re-independence. In Estonia, the architectural and structural quality of catalogue houses is relatively mediocre, and therefore, the majority of local professional architects have received a large number of commissions for private residential projects. The new Estonian residential architecture provides a cross-section of the trends of local architectural practice since the restoration of independence. (Karl-Dag Liege)

Architecture – and private residences among them – create and shape the relationships between people, as well as people’s relationships with space. The quality of architecture is not hidden in the fact that it conveys reality, but rather in its ability to arouse our imagination. (Triin Ojari)

You can view selected projects or download full pdf-catalogue from Estonian Architects website.

[Photo by Tiit Trummal from catalogue 100 MAJA/ HOUSES ]

City of the Mind, City for the Mind

2010-08-04T13:56:00.000-07:00

The article "I walk in dreams and I can change them" by Tristan Priimägi, Estonian pop culture enthusiast as he calls himself, brought my attention to few of the recent discoveries and inspirations.

In this article he recalls that according to his friend there has always been an exception in the film production course in the audiovisual media department in the University of Tallinn - the sketch or a story can not take place either in the psychiatric clinic or in dreams, as in the above named places there is no need to seize the narrative structure. Indeed who of us does not remember that writing an essay on a free subject actually always turns out to be one of the most impossible tasks you have ever had to do in your life. As if some restrictions were always necessary...

Once Plato imagined a place where a group of people who had lived chained in a cave all of their lives, facing a blank wall, known as the Allegory of the Cave. The people watched shadows projected on the wall by things passing in front of a fire behind them, and began to ascribe forms to these shadows. The shadows were as close as the prisoners get to seeing reality. However in Plato´s vision, once the prisoners were freed from the cave, they would come to understand that the shadows on the wall were not constitutive of reality at all, a perceived true form of the reality, but rather the mere shadows seen by the prisoners.

We construct worlds daily whether we call them invisible, hidden, parallel societies, imagined landscapes or anything else. But what if there were no limits to our imaginations? How many of us would be able to construct completely unseen world not using and/or copying elements of the seen?

That´s something Christopher Nolan has pointed out, against some academics belief that narrative subject needs to be limiting, in his new film Inception. The description of the movie would seem shallow in the paper, the content incomplete and maybe even somewhat comical. But the movie has few angles that keep haunting and inspiring me : "(...) you gotta draw from stuff you know right? (...) never re-create from you memory, always imagine new places (...) it is pure creation."

Mapping a city in film has been exploring relationships between city, urban space, moving image and memory for centuries. Why am I inspired? Inception, one of the few latest blockbuster movies, does not describe cliche worlds, but rather tries to question the limits as well as ethics of our imagination and is therefore something intellectually challenging, at least for me...

Trafalgar pops green, again...

2010-08-02T14:03:00.000-07:00

Last night a hedge maze appeared in Trafalgar Square, London. According to the organisers (West End Partnership) this green labyrinth aims to encourage Londoners and visitors explore West End beyond their usual paths. The maze consists of hedges over 2 metres high with lanes within that 30 by 20-metres puzzle named after famous West End streets. Taking some time to get lost in a green labyrinth is worth an effort, however one would also expect local partnerships to take a step beyond of just creating another temporary art and advertising installation - to actually take time and study people and their behaviour in order to create better permanent open green (?) places for rest and play (see also intervention in Trafalgar in summer 2009).

Heightened Level of Realism

2010-08-01T05:26:00.000-07:00

"Our society tries to understand its own structure, and builds its physical extensions on the earth's surface, guided by blank slate hypothesis. City planners believe that people's taste for green, for functions, is just social construction. We do no not inhabit architectural space simply for shelter. We do so because we need the experience of space." (Salingaros; Jane Rendell "Critical Architecture")

When the space can understand what it is what we appreciate about it, that space can sustain, replicate or even enhance the aspects that make it special on a personal level. When architectural space has a true communicative capability, it can foster a heightened sense of attachment.

"It is a well known saying that you see your habitat anew through the eyes of a stranger. It's a cliche so it must be true. Take a guide of your own city. For once try to follow its instructions and become a tourist in your home town. Everything will be different. First of all, the aesthetic experience becomes central, instead of functional and emotional ones. One must keep in mind though that there are more reasons than one to keep on searching for characteristics and qualities that do not only conform the aesthetic tourist or commercially successful image." (Arjen Oosterman; Volume #4 2009)

A guide is not only a program or a manual for making decisions. It might also show realities that are influenced by design decisions and other interventions. Exploration of the city does not need to start from the idea of continuously aligned streets, but looking at the "blocks" behaving independently.

So what about taking Google Street View a step further and looking at those immersive spaces with panoramic video? Not only recording stills of streetscapes but exploring the interactive inner lives of city blocks? As Marshall McLuhan has once said: “We become what we behold. We shape our tools and then our tools shape us” - our experience of the space.

Spotted by Locals #1 alias In Response to Greed

2010-07-13T14:06:00.000-07:00

“There are many things that we would throw away if we were not afraid that others might pick them up.”

Hamburg

The real estate around downtown Hamburg is in some opinions some of the most expensive concrete you can walk on in Europe. Historically built around the harbour, Hamburg has greedily imbibed influences, ideas as well as investments arrived by the sea. However Gängeviertel is not necessarily a place where you share the footpath with suits and business types running late for networking lunches or glass towers and polished metal rods reaching towards the sky.

It is a district of 12 buildings that was bought by developers to sit down on and wait for the real estate prices to rise. Except that before the desired rise the district was squatted by locals who in collaboration with city officials have engaged themselves in the development of the area. Overseen plenty of bad developments in the city, locals had by that time become suspicious of the power of money. In short time some of the spaces have been transformed to parks, hostels, people´s kitchens (known also as volksküchen) and galleries. If the project (and the engagement with city council) works, the whole area would in the future become an inner-city for artists: "Awarded be the "developers" who are not only interested in the profit, but also in the welfare of those living in the developments."

Spotted by Locals is a sequel of thoughts and observations that has occupied my mind since the last blog post.Through the eyes of the locals I try sense how living in cities and dealing with city life in society is seen, imagined but also intervened with.

A return to the polis by Swyngedouw

2010-04-26T12:57:00.000-07:00

"What is at stake, then, is the practice of genuine democracy, of a return to the polis, the public space for the encounter and negotiation of disagreement, where those who have no place and are not counted or named, can acquire or, better still, appropriate voice."

Erik Swyngedouw, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 2009.

Designing for Patient Dignity

2010-03-23T14:39:00.000-07:00

For the last months our team (Slider Studio, Azhar Architects and manufacturer Grant Westfield) has been involved in the programme "Design for Patient Dignity" - the Department of Health asked the Design Council to bring designers, manufacturers and frontline NHS staff together to see if they could come up with new ideas that would help the NHS improve hospital environments and the experiences of patients.

Our brief:
Design a more dignifying toileting and washing experience in hospital.

Using the toilet and bathroom in hospital poses a particular set of problems and potential embarrassments for many patients, and is often cited as a key argument in the case for same-sex accommodation. If facilities are difficult to access or use, it can make patients feel that their dignity is compromised.

During various hospital visits we found that toilets and bathrooms in hospitals are extremely stressful places, contributing to an undignified experience. To name some of the problems: no mirror above the basin, but instead a visually cluttered space with various soaps, towels, bings etc, no place to put your personal things. Slider Studio developed a Mirror in parallel with ongoing research into ambient assisted living technologies while Azhar focused on prefabricated washrooms.

In short, the Smart Mirror reorganises the washbasin space in hospital bathrooms and toilets into one prefabricated product that can be retrofitted. It has a large mirror to bring domestic familiarity to the hospital environment, slimline wall- hung storage, integrated lighting, a shaver socket, a waste bin and a grab rail that can also function as a towel hanger. Storage for soap, conditioner and paper towels is integrated and an electronic indicator tells cleaning staff what needs refilling. The exhibited prototype marks our first step of the journey.

Capsule Washroom and Smart Mirror from Design Council on Vimeo.

Loose Space Encounters

2010-03-15T14:11:00.000-07:00

"In urban public spaces around the world people pursue a very rich variety of activities originally not intended for these locations. Sometimes these activities occur along with the primary, intended uses. Many of the activities that generate the looseness are neither productive nor reproductive - being instead a matter of leisure, entertainment, self expression or political expression, reflection and social interaction. Loose spaces allow for the chance encounter." (Franck, Stevens 2007)

Cities variety of public space extends the right to carry out one´s desired actions while recognizing the presence and rights of others (Lynch 1981; Carr 1992). Right to the city encompasses the right to freedom, individualisation. Different groups have various perspectives on the use of public space, sometimes resulting in tension and conflict. However tension is not always conflictive or necessarily bad while it provides an opportunity for awareness of the relationship between different groups concerning public space.

Qualities that define Public Space

2010-03-11T14:14:00.000-08:00

I am currently reading Ali Madanipour´s new book "Whose Public Space?" (2010, Routledge). The book in general investigates the making of public space through analysing the process of urban design and development. It is argued that public spaces should be accessible and developed through inclusive processes. Public spaces need to support certain qualities such as physical access, social access, access to activities and discussions, or inter-communications; and access to information. The first and second quality are most obvious - physical access refers to physical environment which everybody is entitled to be physically present; and second quality, social access, involves the presence, suggesting who is, and is not welcome in that space. The social image and ambient of the place can make the space more welcoming, less intimidating to wider range of groups. The third quality refers to place where the activities and discussions on its (public space) development and use processes are open to all. Thus it can be said that the "public space" is the place where public authorities are responsible for guaranteeing the existence of arena where citizens can express their attitudes, assert their claims etc.Through this function the arena enables the meaning of public space to express needs, interests, negotiate and understand. And finally the fourth quality - access to information - allows us to define the the public space as the place where information regarding its development and use processes is available to all members of society.

Monitoring Divison of Space

2010-03-09T04:47:00.000-08:00

"Have you ever felt the urge to look inside, when walking down a narrow street and passing in front of a door that is ajar or a window that is half-lit? Have you wondered what lies behind curtains that are drawn, gates that are shut, walls that are high? Have you thought about how objects, signs and symbols may invite you to one place and bar you from another? From inside the buildings, have you spent time standing in front of a window, watching the world go by from detached, safe distance, or wishing to go to the open spaces outside, meeting your friends in public spaces or just joining the crowd of strangers?" (Madanipour 2003)

If we monitor our individual everyday routines, one defining features of these routines is how we live in and pass through private and public spaces, feel and behave accordingly. If we monitor the spaces, we see how they are structured around a separation of public and private. One of the defining features of urban space is the movement divison and control. The way space is subdivided is a mirror of social relations between individuals and groups. In response the divison of space affects indviduals' mental states, regulates their behaviour. Why do we subdivide the city into public and private? Why to we tend to talk about private and public in binary terms: it is either or? Or are we labelling everything that is not private (privately owned) public...

Collaboration Cafe in use

2010-03-08T05:22:00.000-08:00

See the time-schedule to come and meet our team

Transforming Building Centre Cafe to Collaboration Cafe

2010-03-03T04:34:00.000-08:00

Last month I was busy designing the exhibition "Collaboration Cafe" in Building Centre Cafe, London. The exhibition marks the last month of 18-month long R&D program to develop StickyWorld - project review and exhibition platform for creative business and education. The basic idea of StickyWorld is to create virtual rooms where people can pin up work, present, mark-up and comment, all using virtual sticky notes.

My task as was to transform the daily Building Centre Cafe to Collaboration Cafe with vinyl graphics and user/function-centered table tops.

"Open for business throughout March, the Collaboration Café forms the final component of research and development led by Slider Studio and supported by Edward Cullinan Architects, HTA, Make, Scott Brownrigg and University of East London. The focus of the research, which is part funded by the Technology Strategy Board, has been to develop StickyWorld - a web based project review and exhibition platform for creative business and education. Through the Collaboration Café, the project opens its doors to the public, further enquiring about the nature of collaboration in education, practice, with clients and communities."

StickyWorld featured in:

thepolisblog
extranetevolution

Creative Regeneration

2010-02-04T14:40:00.000-08:00

"A boardwalk is a path made up of timber boards tied together, laid to give access to sensitive environments. They are most often found meandering across sandy beaches or wetlands. The simplest boardwalks, made of boards loosely tied together, are constructed around the existing environment: a run of boards resting gently on the sand, connecting the places along its way. Apollonius’ Theorem is a geometric method to construct a parabola from straight lines. Through a simple series of straight lines, sinuous flowing curves can be constructed.

To inspire and develop the Longest Bench, we worked with Connaught Junior School. The children showed us how they use the promenade, what they think of it, and what it means to them, giving us insights into the site we would never otherwise have. Two important incidents along the length of the site are the two shelters. The children told us they felt these were dirty and unsafe. They are dividing rather than connecting the green and the beach." Studio Weave

The Longest Bench has been granted CABE’s “Sea Change” funding, a capital grants programme for cultural and creative regeneration in seaside resorts.

Meaningful Connection in Urban Public Space

2010-02-01T00:00:00.000-08:00

"Islands of LA is an expression of the desire for meaningful connection in urban public space. This ideal is pursued through the seemingly absurd use of traffic islands as terrains for interaction and discussion among friends and strangers that is both creative and critically minded. This use is not unprecedented: a rigorous site analysis reveals a global history of the use of traffic islands for gathering and expression, in spite of the difficulties of the space. Extending this tradition through events, interactive maps, and an archive of stories, Islands of LA invites us to explore the desire, the fear, and the possibility for connection and voice in the urban landscape."

Islands of LA was conceived of as a project to investigate the use and availability of the marginalized yet highly visible public spaces of traffic islands. Islands of LA views the traffic islands as everyday spaces and venues with a complex history and environment. The project explores the dynamics of these spaces through various ways including experimenting with the use of them. The exploration and usage of these spaces examines questions about public land use, law, urbanism, art and other topics specific to traffic islands. The project began on 9/16/07 and was conceived of by artist Ari Kletzky.

Citizens´ Privatisation of Public Space

2010-01-31T09:40:00.000-08:00

One of the huge contrasts of the modern era has been between public and private. This contrast has become even greater in as cities grow and are transformed into metropolises. According to Lyn H Lofland, the city is a community made up of strangers, something that was not experienced in villages or towns. The individual therefore is seeking to reconcile the feeling of strangeness.* Privatisation of public space enables citizens to develop a feeling of belonging to a place within which they live.

A lively and constantly growing cities tend to define its parameters shaped by its citizens. Although local authorities attempt to impose legislation on the city, its citizens remain resistant to some regulation, developing their own tactics for taking the power open space. The informal creation of urban spaces, hybrid and continuously changing, are always full of people.

The way that citizens in these ways take advantage of unprogrammed public spaces and live the city as they want to, raises lot of questions for architects and planners. Can something in-between, which gives the citizens the opportunity to make their own decisions about their city, be designed and applied?

* LH Lofland, A World of Strangers, 1973

Unprogrammed spaces

2010-01-30T09:19:00.000-08:00

«When public spaces are successful […] they will increase opportunities to participate in communal activity. This fellowship in the open nurtures the growth of public life, which is stunted by the social isolation of ghettos and suburbs. In the parks, plazas, markets, waterfronts, and natural areas of our cities, people from different cultural groups can come together in a supportive context of mutual enjoyment. As these experiences are repeated, public spaces become vessels to carry positive communal meanings».(Carr, Francis, Rivlin and Stone, 1993)

A continually evolving city is like a living organism - it owes much of its vibrancy and heterogeneity to its unprogrammed spaces. These spaces create a blank canvas for citizens and their activities. If space is unprogrammed it means that a function has not yet been attributed to it, it can be transformed by its users. Unprogrammed space does not require people to come and create; it is just there waiting to be discovered and improvised. It is self-organising, unstable and variable. It is a public space that is open to being privatised by citizens themselves. The metamorphosis of unprogrammed spaces relies on their users. Whether its features are designed or not is a possibility.

Globalisation and advances in communication have all but eradicated the homogeneous metropolises of the past. City is mainly heterogeneous, both socially and economically, due to its population high rates of immigration from various rural areas of the country. Scaled down to urban space, this heterogeneity causes multiple uses of unprogrammed spaces. It provides citizens with opportunities to meet and interact.

The street life of Havana

2010-01-28T11:20:00.000-08:00

"If children playing in the streets is an indicator of the success of a city, then Havana's streets may be some of the most successful in the world." Ethan Kent, 2009

Interactions and Artifacts shape the City?

2010-01-19T15:26:00.000-08:00

Sidewalk Series is a series of proposals for New York sidewalk interventions inspired by Antenna´s observations in the city. The interventions, in the form of street furniture and fixtures, resonate with people´s obscure yearnings and facilitate odd actions and temporary relations amongst strangers. The presence of these objects in the particular context invites (inter)action and shifts the perception and experience of various places. They pick up on current habits, give a new spin and encourage encounters: Shrink Bench, Hugging Tree, Exercise Stop, Escape Loft, Gum Sculpture and Sidewalk Exchange.

"We love wandering through the city, sometimes without any particular destination or reason. Streets are usually filled with people busy going about their routine or immersed in their own world. The city consist of psyches as much as materials. From an observer´s point of view, it appears to be kind of continuous theater with everyone being a performer or amongst people mediated by the artifact. The interactions and artifacts shape the impression of the city and become part of the urban experience."

To wonder rather than answer

2010-01-18T15:37:00.000-08:00

"The stupidity of people comes from having an answer to everything. The wisdom of the novel comes from having a question for everything... it seems to me that all over the world people nowadays prefer to judge rather than to understand, to answer rather than to ask, so that the voice of the novel can hardly be heard over the noisy foolishness of human certainties."

Milan Kundera, Interview on the Book of Laughter and Forgetting

Urban Cursor - Social interaction and play

2010-01-12T14:42:00.000-08:00

Urban Cursor is a GPS enabled object by Sebastian Campion, designed to facilitate social interaction and play in public space.

The object, which is shaped as an oversized 3-dimensional computer cursor (pointer), was placed on a square in Figueres, Catalunya during the cultural festival Ingràvid. Here, people could touch it, move it around and sit on it as an alternative to the benches. Despite being removed from its normal screen based environment, the cursor was still in touch with the digital world. Via an embedded GPS device, the cursor transmitted its geographic coordinates to a website. At the website, the coordinates were mapped in Google Maps thereby documenting the cursor's movements in the physical world and making it possible for participants to see how they collectively helped move the object around.

Questioning the frontier of public spaces

2010-01-12T14:26:00.000-08:00

"My experiments are focused on the human presence in cities. How to appropriate public spaces with cheap medium and ephemeral action, questioning the frontier between public spaces and private spaces I use regularly with various techniques with tapes, sealing foil, inflatables and I propose new shaped spaces (which are grafted onto the existing urban furnitures) that become multifunctional by people uses, allowing passersby to take the time to sit, watch, children playing, then leave. "

Cedric Bernadotte

Cedric Bernadotte, Urban Interventions photo stream

Individual Borders

2010-01-07T15:05:00.000-08:00

"I approached people on the street and asked them to define their own personal border around themselves, while in front of the official one. I offered them a box full of different coloured chalk with which to draw their borders on the street. Most of the 40 participants instinctively defined their personal borders in a public space as a circle around themselves."

Iris Hoppe, Individual Borders (2003), the movie
Iris Hoppe, Interventions in Public Space

Spaces that could create communal dialogue

2010-01-07T13:44:00.000-08:00

"... It can be manifested with an architecture grounded in its use by people. One potent point of departure could be the boundaries and adaptation of space. It might be argued that contemporary architecture is a rethinking and perhaps softening of the borders: inside/ outside, individual and public, program and form, physical and virtual...

Perhaps the oxymoron can represent a productive paradigm; can these binaries (intersections of public/ private, global/ local, artificial/ natural, monumental/ mundane, complex/ simple, symbolic/ pragmatic, fake/ authentic, active/ passive, thickness/ thinness) lead to a duality capable of blurring the boundaries? How can the unexpected interdependency of extraordinary spaces create a communal/ symbiotic dialogue?"

Kazuyo Sejima has been appointed as Director for 12th Venice Architecture Biennale.

Empowering Everyday Civic Engagement

2010-01-06T14:08:00.000-08:00

Urban Atmospheres desires to move towards an improved understanding of the emotional experience of urban life. The single main research challenge is to understand how the future fabric of digital and wireless computing will influence, disrupt, expand, and be integrated into the social patterns existent within our public urban landscapes.

Use, Comfort and Accessibility of Public Space

2009-10-14T09:40:00.000-07:00

By thinking about where to put the money, given that it is scarce, and whom and how many people are going to get hold of it, is one of the questions public space has to face.

Hotly debated issue of the maintenance and management of the collective ensembles is in relation to the aspect of safety, but also privacy and comfort. Where these aspects are not properly attuned to one another, vandalism and crime are given a free hand.Therefore the intermediate space is a space or border area where individuals and groups are to flesh out their own relation to the larger whole. It is precisely these areas that intend to be sensitive to vandalism and neglect, intended originally for the emancipation and self-fulfillment of the modern individual.

"I believe the next challenge is public space as concerns of small and medium companies. I think the demand for design is no longer in the minimum operation of housing, but in questioning how to incorporate more resources without squandering them or spending them inappropriately."
Luis Eduardo Bresciani, Head of the Chilean Urban Development division of the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development.

Inbetween mass-housing - open spaces of identity?

2009-10-11T12:44:00.000-07:00

In spring 2010 Archis is publishing a book on mass housing by exploring the individual places and their social, political and cultural contexts: "There is something uncanny about traveling to places that continously evoke a common, everyday landscape. Art historian Mark Crimson describes traveling between two cities in the world as a 'means to return home as you inevitably pass through airport, ring roads and similar buildings'. The experience of travel today increasingly feels this way. Modern architecture is everywhere and mass housing, epitomizing the principles of modern architecture and urbanism, has truly become a global phenomenon. The prevailing sense of uniformity among global metropolises nowadays is due in part to continously encountering these large machines for living. Mass housing gained poor reputation in the latter half of the last century. A form of collective anxiety regarding the standardized, excessive character of such large scale structures stigmatized many of the projects. Yet mass produced buildings account for a vast production of the world's housing stock."

Over a billion people today live in the pre-fabricated housing and the number is expected to rise to 6 billion people by 2040. Cities are learning how to build faster, cheaper and higher. At the same time the social structure of these massive pre-fabricated environments shouldn't be left unnoticed. The quantity, quality and variety of areas to gather, meet and socialize - the open space inbetween the mass architecture becomes the key element for potential habitants. Not only does the open space provide place for gathering and meeting or greenery, it should also be a safe by breaking the tensions of the class system.

I am keen to digg deeper into the book next spring and find future potential for open space in the context of mass architecture by studying from existing housing examples all over the world.

The more people around, the less people around

2009-10-06T02:53:00.000-07:00

It has been discussed lately that human beings in nowadays society are not considered substance anymore, but a function. Human 'role' in life has become more important than his personality. How does it affect our perceptions of (public) space - space that we share with others? And the way we tend to think and name activities, spaces, people around us?

Man-is-not a tool by Paavo Piik

Man is not a tool.
He may not be.
He is not a tool for pleasure or intimacy

or respect or lightness or boredom
tool for making your work.

He is not for making money,
filling emptiness, teaching, viewing
for self-esteem and self-defence tool.
Because man is not a function.

He has no confessor or a prostitute
or a handhold or a domestic animal
or a wallet or a clown
or a workhorse or a babysitter,
non-critical role of a critic.
At least in it's own mind.

The more people around you,
the less they resemble the people
and the more they resemble functions.

Ergo,
The more people around you,
the less people around you.

source: free translation from Paavo Piik's poetry

Fixed Feature Life?

2009-10-05T14:06:00.000-07:00

Fixed feature space is one of the basic ways of organizing the activities of individuals and groups. It includes material manifestations as well as the hidden, internalized designs that govern behaviour of man. One common example of fixed feature space is spatially organised inside of the western house. Not only there are rooms for special functions - food, entertainment, socializing - even the artifacts associated with the activities are related to that specific space. In some standards people who live in a mess are those who fail to classify activities and artifacts according to a uniform, consistent and predictable spatial plan. The internal layout however is quite recent.

Philippe Aries points out in a book Centuries of Childhood that rooms had no fixed functions in European houses until the eighteenth century. Members of the family had no privacy as we know it today nor there were spaces that were sacred or specialized for one function only: "...strangers came at will, while beds and tables were set up and taken down according to the moods and appetites of the occupants". In the 18th century the house altered its form, rooms started to be arranged likely to street and named after its function - bedroom, living room, dining room etc.

Some aspects of the fixed-feature space however are not visible until one observes human behaviour. It is important to note that fixed feature space nowadays acts like a mold into which great deal of behaviour is cast. As Churchill has noted: "We shape our buildings and they shape us".

It has been discussed lately that people do not think of their relationships with other people by kinship or emotions any more, but they have also started to name people by functions.

Futuro house by Matti Kuusia, 1968

Proxemics of Space

2009-09-21T14:07:00.000-07:00

In 1957 a doctor named Humphrey Osmond began observing the effects of environmental change on the interactions of patients in a mental hospital in Saskatchewan. From that research he eventually identified two major systems for patterning space. Sociofugal space (gridlike) tends to keep people apart and suppress communication while sociopetal space (radial) does just the opposite. It brings people together and stimulates interaction as routes merge and overlap. Many other researchers followed in Osmond’s footsteps, developing a body of work known as “proxemics” to describe the cultural distinctions between intimate, personal, social and public space. The Hidden Dimension by Edward T. Hall is a classic reference on the spatial aspects of human interaction.

Democratic Design or Design Democracy

2009-09-18T04:43:00.000-07:00

Another brand leaflet...Open for comments and discussions...

The Trunk Test for Web Users

2009-09-18T04:32:00.000-07:00

People won't use your web site if they can't find their way around it. Whether you call it usability, ease-of-use, or just good design, companies staking their fortunes and their futures on their Web sites are starting to recognize that it's a bottom-line issue. In Don't Make Me Think, usability expert Steve Krug distills his years of experience and observation into clear, practical - and often amusing - common sense advice for the people in the trenches (the designers, programmers, writers, editors, and Webmasters), the people who tell them what to do (project managers, business planners, and marketing people), and even the people who sign the checks.

I find his method "The trunk test" rather useful and entertaining:

step 1 - choose a page anywhere in the site at random, and print it

step 2 - hold it at arm´s length or squint so you can't really study it

step 3 - As quickly as possible try to find: site ID, page name, sections/ subsections, navigation, search...

Although our designed youcanplan site already looked visually clear, it missed another important web function - call to action and feedback. By making the site ID/ brand stronger, changing the strap line and adding calls to action, I hope visitors find the site more clear and user friendly.

Something is missing?

2009-09-15T14:25:00.000-07:00

The telephone, television, video, home computers, and so forth have introduced new ways of interacting. Direct meetings in public spaces can now be replaced by indirect telecommunication. Active presence, participation, and experience can now be substituted with passive picture watching, seeing what others have experienced elsewhere. Or is that in the past already?

Abundant possibilities do exist for compensating for what has been lost. The demand for easily accessible social opportunities outside the home is growing, whether it is due to the change in family patterns, decreasing family size or great deal of free time, the spaces that are worth using, are being used. The public spaces are needed, even more now in the world of virtual communication. The city might not be a goal anymore, but a tool that will be formed by its use.

Necessary, Optional and Social?

2009-09-14T14:13:00.000-07:00

An ordinary day on an ordinary street. Pedestrians pass on the sidewalks, children play near front doors, people sit on benches and steps, two passersby greet on the sidewalk, groups engage in conversation. This mix of outdoor activities is influenced by a number of conditions. Greatly simplified though, these activities in public spaces can be divided into three categories, each of which places very different demands on physical environment.

Necessary activities include those that are more or less compulsory and in majority can be summed up as those related to walking. These activities are necessary, their incidence is influenced only slightly by the physical framework. These take place throughout the year, under nearly all circumstances.

Optional activities are participated if there is a wish to do so... if time and place make it possible. These take place only when conditions are optimal and place invites them. When outdoors are of high quality, activities take place with approximately the same sequence. However a wide range of optional activities will occur because place and situation invites people to stop, sit, eat, play etc.

Social activities depend on the presence of others in public spaces. The most widespread of social activities is a passive contact - simply seeing and hearing the other people.These activities can also be termed as a result of the above mentioned as they evolve from activities linked to each other. Social activities occur spontaneously as direct consequence of people moving about and being in the same space. The presence of others compromises one of the most important characters of public spaces - the subject of outdoor activities therefore does not begin with a single or limited category of activities - it is finely interwoven pattern.

The Social Life of Urban Spaces

2009-09-12T02:23:00.000-07:00

This witty and original film is about the open spaces of cities and why some of them work for people while others don't. Beginning at New York's Seagram Plaza, one of the most used open areas in the city, the film proceeds to analyze why this space is so popular and how other urban oases, both in New York and elsewhere, measure up. Based on direct observation of what people actually do, the film presents a remarkably engaging and informative tour of the urban landscape and looks at how it can be made more hospitable to those who live in it. The video was adapted from a book with the same name by William H. Whyte.

Meeting Place, Market Place and Connection Space = Public Space?

2009-09-11T07:39:00.000-07:00

Looking back into the history of cities, public spaces have traditionally had three important functions in relation to the life of the cities. The public spaces functioned as meeting place, market place and connection /traffic space. People were talking, exchanging merchandise or moving about. All functions were vital, and in traditional cities these three functions occurred side by side in the same spaces in a fine balance. In recent years we have seen how this balance in many cities has been greatly upset by a number of factors especially the expansion of car traffic.

Taking a closer look at present day life in public spaces it becomes evident that most of the activities seen today have an optional character. In the old days ―as seen in the medieval times or in less developed economies― most people on the streets and squares are present because they are forced to use these spaces. They hardly have any choice. In the present day situation nearly all the activities seen in public spaces are free-of-choice activities.When people use the cities today it is not because they have to, but because they like to. The public spaces can offer something attractive and meaningful to the citizens ―if not they would not come.

“The Reconquered City” refers to cities, which during the past 3-4 decades have striven to achieve a better balance between traffic, market and meeting place issues. (Examples: Barcelona, Strasbourg, Lyon, Freiburg and Copenhagen in Europe, and from other continents cities such as Portland [USA], Curitiba [Brazil] & Melbourne). In many of these cities can be found an impressive increase in the volumes of people activities in the improved public spaces.

source: Jan Gehl on "Winning back the Public Spaces" in Conference lectured at the symposium “(In)visible Cities. Spaces of Hope, Spaces of Citizenship”, Centre of Contemporary Culture of Barcelona, 25-27 July 2003)

Public Space - too abstract label?

2009-09-10T04:17:00.000-07:00

After some musings it has become clear to me that I am arguing about the use of "public space" as a word. Everything that is not private we label as public. In reality the space inbetween the buildings - the so called public space - is a mixture of interwoven socio-spatial processes in everyday use. Not only do I find the term "public space" too abstract, I also disagree with its ideology. In most cases the public space doesn´t belong to public and its use is regulated by higher authorities. So instead of calling it simply "public" we could define new words, segregate functions and meanings of these spaces. I have so far come up with 3 concepts - public space, open space and social space... If you have better words or examples in mind, or you agree/ disagree with me, post your opinion in the comments!

Space & Place - Action & Movement

2009-09-06T11:27:00.000-07:00

I came across a concise and well-written book by Tim Creswell - Place: A Short Introduction - a text that introduces the fundamental concept of place, marrying everyday uses of the term with the complex theoretical debates. It traces the development of the concept of place from 1950s through its subsequent appropriation by cultural geography and the linking of the place to politics. Below I listed out some of the key thoughts that could become useful for developing my own perceptions of space and its use. If you know any inspirational sources, list them in the comment box!

* Tuan defines space as an open arena of action and movement while place is about stopping and resting and becoming involved. He argues that through human perception and experience we get to know the world through places. The term 'topophilia' was developed to refer to the 'affective bond between people and places' (Tuan in Topophilia, 1974).

* "To live is to live locally, and know is the first of all to know the place one is in" (Casey, 1996).

* To say a place is socially constructed is to say that it is not natural and given that human forces made a place then human forces can equally importantly undo it. To say something is socially constructed is to say that it is within human power to change it - to change meaning and materiality (Creswell on Harvey).

* Thirdspace is lived space and it interrupts a distinction between perceived places and spatial practices. Thirdspace is practised and lived rather than simply being material (conceived) or mental (perceived). In these terms places are never established but produced and producing. (Soja, 1999)

* "To be inside a place is to belong to it and identify with it, and the more profoundly inside you are the stronger is the identity of the place" (Relph on placelessness - where someone goes is less important than the act and style of going...)

Amusing Ways of Design

2009-09-02T15:08:00.002-07:00

Mariscal's first presentation, in a new format that mixes diverse audiovisual technologies, relating to his work, to creativity, to design and even all about him and where he is heading. In a free, graphic, amusing way, he expresses himself in this atypical way which includes humour, colour, music and his scenic self-confidence, his own special way of understanding the world and design. www.designmuseum.org

Define, Create & Communicate

2009-09-01T08:00:00.000-07:00

Slider Studio´s previous fledgling site was developed in-house using Flash and ActionScript 2 about three years ago. It included a content management system, an interactive project filter and a little slider navigation feature to reinforce the brand. We have FINALLY retired this site, having outgrown its functionality and brand message. And have accordingly launched a new web 2.0 website with blog, RSS feeds, with clearer brand message.

I am currently working in SliderWeb that offers a wide variety of web development services to organisations across the creative industries and built environment. Our team specialises in defining, creating and communicating clear, compelling brand and marketing messages across interactive media. We work with our clients in the way that best meets their objectives within budget and timeframe, drawing upon fresh perspectives and hands-on practical experience.

Looking forward to your opinion: www.sliderstudio.co.uk

Temporarily Public?

2009-09-01T05:58:00.000-07:00

In the beginning of this summer the Manifesto Club tested the limits of public space in London. They carried out few experiments with deckchairs and picnic basket in Trafalgar Square, Paternoster Square and "Scoop". More than once they were asked to leave as ... it´s health and safety... Park is just around the corner... GLA (Greater London Authority) owns this area or 50 CCTV cameras covering this area. Click to see the original post...

Just a short month later Trafalgar square has been turned into a 2000sqm green area where you can: "...Laze the days away this summer, take a seat on a specially designed deckchair and enjoy a special set of Magic Performances..." Trafalgar Square hosts 100 deckchairs - free to use from 10am-8pm.

Supermall vs local high street

2009-08-16T09:36:00.000-07:00

It is found out by the LDC (Local Data Company) that Britain has the worst rate of shop closures this year, with one in four shops closing down. Three times more shops are now closing across the country´s town centres than did last year, with 19 000 shops shutting so far in 2009. Most of these were independent stores. While shopkeepers admit that the recession has not helped, the overwhelming feeling is that the town´s problems cannot be blamed on the financial crisis only. The impact of the new-out-of-town shopping complex is the principal gripe.

A stroll down the local high street currently might be a devastating view - clusters of empty shop facades outnumber the surviving businesses, an array of charity shops and pound stores that has filled some of the vacated units. Faint lettering leave the reminder of shops moved out. However there are attempts to try to counter the high street´s appearance. To lessen the visual impact of rows of vacant stores, some of the local councils have installed artworks in some windows and painted the shop fronts bright colours. It seems a temporary solution though.

A city, a local high street should be a living organism that contains more than one function. I admire the enthusiasm of local council workers in Margate who have come up with the idea "... to prepare the high street for an age in which it is not solely a shopping centre, but one in which former stores might be used as university classrooms, community centres or art installations..." The end of the retail-dominated high street looms in the horizon, finally...

Inside/out - De Grote Hof

2009-08-14T11:51:00.000-07:00

Rapp´s design for De Grote Hof is one of the housing ensemble examples that turns the traditional closed urban block inside-out. Five virtually square courtyards measuring 230x250m accommodate 246 homes. All of these homes face inwards, while the individual gardens are situated on the outside. The complex as a whole is framed by canal.

De Grote Hof has 5 courtyards. Four of them are square and roughly the same size, while the fifth is rectangular and much larger. The smaller courtyards have a completely different character then the rectangular one - something between a village green and an urban space. The difference in atmosphere derives not only from the difference in scale, but also from the transitional zone between the individual homes and the courtyard´s communal space. In the four small courtyards, this zone is marked out in the paving and partitioned off for each home with small fences. Residents can sit in front of their homes and make contact with neighbours. The informal architecture appears to complement the casual contact between the residents. The rectangular courtyard makes a more formal statement.

De Grote Hof in Ypenburg, Architectenbureau Rapp+Rapp

Public - Private Paradox in Housing

2009-08-13T10:57:00.000-07:00

The paradox of the new open space in housing ensembles is its ambiguity: it attempts to be both public and private. For what and for whom are these little squares intended? Who actually uses them and in what ways? Newcomers who stroll around these layouts feel slightly confused: Is this a public park? A private garden for the residents of the villas? Or is it other way around, and are passers-by invited to look at the residents on their terraces? Sometimes such paradoxical experiences are what makes these spaces so fascinating. The old meanings of private life and public domain shift and lose their unequivocalness. The new open space brings urban life into traditional housing block through visual links with the city and by permitting entry to other users.

At times private and public seem to seamlessly flow into one another. Crucial elements in the organization and experience of the public and private domains are the boundaries and transitions: entrances to the dwellings, back sides of the buildings, gardens and the place for cars. The logic of the perimeter block however gets reversed: the inner side becomes its formal side and front side to the entrances.

An important consequence in the reversal is that the "backs of the houses" are on the outer side and therefore eventually in a public area. The reversal of the block principle also means that the car cannot be parked right by the door and this in some opinions creates a feeling of belonging to the community. However the ambiguous status of the new open space is not a collective one: most of these kind of spaces created in the Netherlands for example are public property. These new ensembles can be seen as experiments. They are hybrids, the sense of public-private spaces is being sought anew.

City of Domains

2009-08-12T11:47:00.000-07:00

Traditional typology of urban design creates a strict division between private and public space - between the courtyard with private gardens and the street. The new open space according to DASH (Delft Architectural Studies on Housing) should open up the residential block. But the intervention is not aimed at creating room for a collective domain, but accommodating a new relationship between the public and private.

Parochial space according to American sociologist Lofland is a space that is indeed accessible to the public but clearly forms the territory of a particular group: those who walk in as strangers often feel themselves to be unwelcome guests. Public domain presumes on atmosphere of exchange and confrontation. The question then becomes: how open are these dominated domains, what relation do they have with other domains and to what extent can they be designed? Is the involvement of residents one of the main conditions for experiencing a space as public?

Physical mementoes?

2009-08-09T04:27:00.000-07:00

Here is a story of an artist Jasper Joffe...

"... last Christmas my girlfriend broke up with me. It was one of those times in life when you wake up 5am, wondering what are you going to do next; above anything else, you feel out of control... at almost exactly at the same time, I left the gallery where I´d been working as an artist for many years. It was going to be my 34th birthday two weeks later too, I suddenly realised that my entire personal and professional life was completely up in the air; it felt like I´ve reached an emotional Ground Zero...
I decided to gather together every single possession I owned - without exception - and place these all together in order to see how everything stood. I then planned to put on an exhibition of everything I had, inviting guests to come in, root around my belongings and buy whatever they wanted. Over the course of a few days, I enlisted a few friends who helped me work through my stuff - my clothes, my old toys, letters from friends at primary school and ex-girlfriends... Once we´d cleaned the place out, my flat was totally empty: no television, no kettle, no soap. The only things I had kept hold of were the clothes I am wearing now - a pair of trousers, a shirt, a jumper, some pants and a pair of flip flops - plus my wallet, house keys and passport. It was quite terrifying moment realising that this was all I had left to my name...
Finally I am free and unencumbered by my past. Now that the sale has just come to an end and I have nothing left, I´m going to head off travelling, somewhere I don´t need to think about things. From there, I will start to build my future, piece by piece. Any memories that I have, I hold in my head. I don´t need physical mementoes to remind me of me..."

Public is Claiming Space - Play

2009-08-02T00:00:00.000-07:00

Lately I was intrigued by Quentin Stevens article on "Why Berlin´s Holocaust Memorial is such a popular playground?". In the article he highlights the people´s need for proactive role in exploring landscapes and appropriating spaces to suit their varied desires. He argues that individuals´ needs and interests for remembrance (or self presentation?) are more varied and less understood and therefore harder to support or control through design.

Four basic forms that play takes - competition, simulation, chance and vertigo - emphasise different ways in which play provides escape from the seriousness, conventions and limits of everyday behaviour. The public realm presents spontaneous and dynamic configurations of place, events and people. Through various kinds of play, people develop themselves as individuals, and they test the limits of what public space can offer rather than merely receiving spaces as designers intend.

Peter Eisenman´s Memorial to the Murdered Jews, opened 2005 in Berlin, is 2 hectare field of 2711 concrete pillars. There has been a lot talk about the politics of its creation, but less talk about how visitors have appropriated the setting for many unanticipated activities. The Memorial lacks clear symbolism and obvious function and therefore invites free interpretation.

The MMJE´s scale and omni-directionality reduces formality: unlike many memorials, there is no focal axis or "front". Its pillars provide a multiplicity of audience seating and stages where people can meet their needs to see and be seen. Security staff only patrol the perimeter and act only to prevent dangerous uses, not uses which are merely undesirable. Eisenman intended this memorial to induce clautrophobia, disorientation, isolation, confinemet and unsteadiness. Without moral guidance such direct sensory arousal often instead stimulates play.

It is interesting to find out that not having been designed to suit particular functions or bodily gestures, this memorial´s abstract simplicity maximises usefulness. The expansive, complex field of pillars enables wide range of secondary, unplanned, yet-to-be-discovered uses. The MMJE illustrates ways public spaces can promote freedom and variety of public action beyond any definitions of function or meaning.

Design cannot necessarily enable or prevent play. Encouragement to free, playful behaviour can never be coersive. It is probably partly because playfulness was not among Eisenman´s intentions that people´s behaviour around this memorial is so creative and diverse. Designer´s role is to establish possibilities for meaning and use.

source:Quentin Stevens article on MMJE, 2009

Before Public is Claiming Space - Self Presentation

2009-08-01T08:44:00.000-07:00

Over the course of centuries we have seen a progressively stronger and subtler management of impulses and emotions within and between people. Spontaneous outbursts and behaviours such as spitting, drooling, vomiting, ranting and raging; pissing, shitting, sweating, screeching etc, have become increasingly embarrassing. This process started in courtly circles, followed by upper class and bourgeois, until finally by everyone else. Norbert Elias outlines that this process brought along an on-going privatisation of living quarters, a reduction of accessibility, not only physical but also reduction of visibility, audibility. From this fairly recent trend of privatisation people too quickly conclude that privacy is timeless and ubiquitous human need.

However people do not need seclusion as much as they need adequate self presentation. People are keen to present themselves at all times as competent, morally adequate. They expect others to accept them as they are, observe and respect their "space". In order to present oneself, they need to work on their self-presentation, away from prying eyes... before getting into costume and applying make-up for the next scene. As long as people can take care of their self-presentation without being seen, as long as nobody violates their "space", the public space can accommodate anything.

Successful public space is more than an area accessible to all: it is a space that includes, excludes, conceals and displays, raises and lowers at the same time. Some argue that this kind of environment cannot be designed, one can merely facilitate it - inviting to careful social explorations.

"To create such settings which are central, public and open is to recognise and invite diverse, new and unpredictable behavioural possibilities rather than serving narrow, predetermined instrumental activities. These gathering points imply and stimulate social interaction and ´transfunctional´ usage, transcending the orderly routines of everyday life. " (Henri Lefebvre in Writing on Cities, 1996)

Public Space in London?

2009-07-29T00:00:00.000-07:00

For the recent Blueprint (August 2009) editors of the magazine teamed up with the Manifesto Club to test the limits of freedom in London. They carried out some experiments in public spaces such as Trafalgar Square, Paternoster Square and "Scoop" - area around Rodgers City Hall. Here are some quotes they were told in "public squares" after having picnic in deck chairs and playing football.

Area: Scoop
Guard: Sorry to interrupt your lovely picnic, but I have been asked by the management to move you along. You know it´s health and safety.
P: Health and Safety?
Guard: Yes, it´s a public walkway, and it gets busy down here with cyclists and skateboards who come past.
P: I thought you weren´t allowed to cycle here...
Guard: No, you´re not but kids come racing through on their bikes - we try to stop them but...

Guard: You can´t play football here guys. It´s all private property. This whole grey area is private property. It´s a stupid rule, if we don´t do it, though, then someone in the offices will call Boris Johnson and he´ll tell us to stop it.

Area: Trafalgar Square
Guard: I´m going to have to move you.
A: What are the rules?
Guard: I´m sorry but you will have to move. You know that St.James´s Park is just around the corner. GLA (Greater London Authority) owns this area.

Guard: Why are you having a picnic in a private space? What you like it here on the hard concrete? Is it a performance?

Area: Paternoster Square
Man passing by: You have found a great spot here. It´s getting like St Mark´s Square!

Guard: I am sorry I am going to have to stop you. There´s no throwing or kicking of anything here. If you hurt someone they´ll get sued. This is private property, not public, so you can´t do anything that might endanger public. There are 50CCTV cameras covering this area.

source: Blueprint article: How much public is public space?

Public space? Social space? Open space...

2009-07-25T00:00:00.000-07:00

The social sciences as well as architecture tend to speak of public and private in binary terms: it is either or. But in fact it is a question of constant shifts from public to private. Spaces therefore need to be designed as ´open spaces´ - to accommodate the shifts between public and private interactions. And designers should not describe them as one or the other, not restrict, but rather invite social explorations. The significance of the public space lies not in the degree of its expanse, its quantitative predominance or its symbolic role, but in connecting private, enclosed spaces, turning these spaces into collective memory.

Public and private continuum

2009-07-24T00:00:00.000-07:00

In the beginning of the master course we were asked to create a newspaper article on any findings about Eindhoven - we called it The Eindhoven Zoo - or in my intepretation - to see and to be seen.

"Eindhoven at first gets your attention as being open and friendly city. Walking along the streets, I find it surprising how many people leave their curtains open in the dark. Almost as showing their way of living - open-minded, tolerant, welcoming... Almost as saying: you are always welcome to come inside... Their homes seem to be designed fashionably. But you hardly ever see someone really living there. I wonder whether they may have just gone to the other room, and left the light on... Empty spaces behind the glass windows look like a stages designed for show(off). I feel strange looking into someone´s home without letting them know. As if I was an intruder to forbidden areas - their private life..."

In our homes we create spaces that are meant for us and those for outsiders; but"public" is the place to see and to be seen. A place that is accessible to everybody, where nobody can be barred from, but nobody has special rights either. At least in theory...

ESP - new website

2009-06-30T03:00:00.000-07:00

The website was required by the team to further explain and communicate the concept of ESP, capturing the interest from and informing the public, and to provide resources for regeneration professionals. We built a WordPress site which features blog, videos and downloadable resources. The blog from this website is also an RSS feed into Slider´s main website.
Launch the new website: www-esp-sim.org

ESP - leaflet print

2009-06-30T01:00:00.000-07:00

ESP printed flyers, part of Slider´s growing leaflet package...

ESP - graphical toolkit

2009-06-30T00:00:00.000-07:00

In parallel to YouCanPlan brand I have been working on toolkit for ESP - Enabled Self Procurement - trying to visualise processes in architecture and planning. These are examples of booklet in progress that hopefully is soon to be found at www.esp-sim.org

YouCanPlan brand - exhibition photos

2009-06-16T03:00:00.000-07:00

Photos made in Harrogate in CIH Housing exhibition 2009.

YouCanPlan brand - stand assembly movies

2009-06-16T02:40:00.000-07:00

It took our team of 7 people 6 hours to put pieces together and 1.5 hours to assemble the exhibition at first time. I used remote capture photography to record the process. It basically is a software that allows a computer to remotely fire a digital camera connected to it and images can be stored directly onto the computer's hard disk. There are several programs one can use for remote photography the only problem being your camera battery running out...

YouCanPlan brand - exhibition assembly

2009-06-16T02:30:00.000-07:00

Important part of the design process was technology - we decided to use cnc-cutting. Although it is super precise, it puts more work on your shoulders. For this exhibition we ended up cutting 17 sheets of plywood and 7 sheets of MDF... altogether it is around 300 pieces that need to become one big puzzle. How easy it is to make a mistake... I am convinced that using cnc-cutting in that kind of size, one needs to do prototypes. We were lucky that there were only few pieces that needed resizing (with hand saw and sanding of course). The following are the examples of sheet layouts when they went into the cutting machine, and instructions for team to put pieces together.

YouCanPlan brand - exhibition

2009-06-16T02:00:00.000-07:00

After setting the rules for YouCanPlan brand (mostly still in 2D) I tried to come up with concept that would become exhibition design - a 3D brand. These first images are from chosen design 3D model that we later on realised in SPRUCE plywood with CNC-cutting technology.

YouCanPlan brand - printed

2009-06-16T01:00:00.000-07:00

Printed material for CIH Housing exhibition in Harrogate, UK

YouCanPlan brand

2009-06-16T00:00:00.000-07:00

YouCanPlan is a creative development service from Slider Studio. It provides community consultation and engagement services and tools for the built environment.
It is important that every brand had a consistent personality that everybody understands and remembers. In spring 2009 we tried to re-think the YouCanPlan brand - to present a strong unified brand that builds up reputation and helps us achieve goals.
www.youcanplan.co.uk

PORTFOLIO 2009 - Ourspace@Selby

2009-05-01T03:00:00.000-07:00

OURSPACE @ SELBY, UK

exploring the potential of the site, 2009
in collaboration with Slider Studio Ltd

PORTFOLIO 2009 - City Hall

2009-05-01T02:00:00.000-07:00

TALLINN CITY HALL, EE
architectural competition 2009, entry
in collaboration with Slider Studio Ltd

PORTFOLIO 2009 - Culture academy

2009-05-01T01:00:00.000-07:00

VILJANDI CULTURE ACADEMY, EE
architectural competition 2008: entry
in collaboration with Vincent Saulier, Vladimir Doray

FINAL PRESENTATION

2008-06-27T09:00:00.000-07:00

4TH EXPERIENCE - prototype

2008-06-27T08:30:00.000-07:00

4TH EXPERIENCE - design project

2008-06-27T08:20:00.000-07:00

Studies - rhythms and movements 2

2008-06-27T07:20:00.000-07:00

My vision for this design is a continuous line of light that is varied by the rhythm of the supporting posts. This light line would create a virtual roof above the street. Unequal and “choppy” in rhythmic character, the posts also serve as a distraction of traffic in the village. Lighting posts vary in angles and finishing.

With the design I invite people to interact with the street lighting by allowing them to change the angle of certain posts. This interaction could also be seen as an independent and playful guiding system, where people - locals and travellers alike - leave messages for one another.

Studies - rhythms and movements 1

2008-06-27T07:10:00.000-07:00

Looking through the material collected in fieldtrips I realised that due to the constant rhythm of the village, it is hard to make a decision for car-stops. To create interaction (more close experience of local identity) one needs to be guided off the main road to smaller tracks. I became fascinated of the rhythm of electricity posts. It was almost meditating. I wonder if was able to change the rhythm and/or angle of these posts, would I be able to create a surprise in visitors? Would it be enough to guidance? What kind of image would such environment create for the village?

I imagine this environment as a stage where people can improvise with streetscape, highlight various places in different times, guide people or leave a message behind. Change, movement and interaction are main keywords for the design proposal.

Local identity - tourism artifact?

2008-06-27T07:00:00.000-07:00

My primary interest with this design research was to discover relationships a person could establish with the local community and the environment. Focusing on the villages of Lake Peipsi district in Estonia, I formulated three approaches to experience a place- the tourist, the traveller, and the visitor. Through these distinct role plays, evolving fieldwork and literature research, I was able to translate my observations and findings into appropriate design proposals.

The process of my the design was not linear. Rather than premeditatedly taking steps forward, I sometimes took several steps backward consciously. The documentation made through videos, photography, and sound recordings allowed me to experience the place time and time again. This constant review of the experiences often revealed new insights and understandings that I had missed at first sight.

Though, all my travel experiences to the village were informative, none of them seemed to completely reveal the essence of the place. Therefore, my design proposal seeks to establish a fourth experience, one that could combine the qualities and highlights of each prior experience. In that fourth experience, I wish to guide travellers unconsciously throughout the village by using functional street lighting as a tool for that.

VISITOR - rhythms of village?

2008-06-27T06:20:00.000-07:00

rhythms of village
By looking at the video I am fascinated by the rhythm of posts.

Exploring rhythms, forms and enlosures of street lighting

VISITOR - sketches for design

2008-06-27T06:10:00.000-07:00

guiding visitors off the main street by using reflections the use of reflective surfaces gives a possibility to combine views and multiply elements.sidewalks in the village
Sidewalk emphasizes people and their movement, road tightens for vehicles.

sidewalk for adventure

Sidewalk leads to off-road tracks, creates comfortable surface to walk and highlights viewpoints.

places in the street for people

With different materials, colours and heights, I create smooth obstacles on the road.

VISITOR - narratives of the place

2008-06-27T06:00:00.000-07:00

I realised that my previous experiences in the village were primitive and too personal. I was missing the important link with the locals. Therefore my aim this time was to discover the village as it is described and presented by local inhabitants.

To find out more details about the place, I decided to narrow my research area to a section of kilometres long village. My chosen part of the village is the south end of the street village. It is named Varnja. It is approximately 1/10th of the whole village. My memories about this part of the village before the third trip were vague. I remembered only a few redbrick buildings that stood out from the wooden houses.

During this visit I interviewed 6 local persons from different age groups and with different backgrounds. I divided my interview into 2 parts: semi-structured interview indoors that was followed by a walk in the neighbourhood. For the first part I had prepared a list of questions while the walk in the village was more improvisational and guided by the interviewees themselves. We spent approximately 30minutes on thefirst part of the interview. The walks lasted from 20 to 45minutes. These interviews were recorded in full length and partly transcribed.

Most of the interviewees had a difficult time answering the questions about journeys and routes in the village during the first part of the interview. Some questions from the semi-structured interview were answered in more detail during the walk. I noticed that all their narratives were closely linked to a specific place (such as bus-stop, street, coastline of the lake etc).

2ND TERM PRESENTATION

2008-06-27T05:20:00.000-07:00

I remember that in the movie American Beauty identity was satirized as ´sold´ and reduced to prepackaged lifestyle. Life was something shallowly constructed on the ´I am what I consume´. If it is about consuming goods, services and places that generate pleasurable experiences then could the concept of identity be reduced to ´I am what I experience´? Could a place in that case provide the basis for individual identity as always embodied, housing the possibilities of seeing, feeling and smelling the surroundings?

According to John Urry people will gain less satisfaction from continuing to do what they have always done. Their daily life will become less to do with collective memories and experiences and they will look more for immediate pleasure. Being a tourist is an exception of time, a period of (self)explorations and differences. The tourist is kind of pilgrim, seeking authenticity in other ´times´ and other ´places´ away from everyday life.

A place depends first and foremost on information about the way people perceive, remember and talk about surroundings. The relationship that people develop with their home surrounding is intensely personal and relational to the passage of time. It is not the question of right or wrong, or better or more valuable, more significant, more important. Ask ten trained and experienced urban/spatial professionals to record their space perception of a particular setting and you will get ten different results. This also applies when you ask the same thing from ten inhabitants of the same neighbourhood.

Lacan has described identity as “[...] something that is not always already present but comes into being ´from the place of Other”. To describe local identity one needs to know something about what aspects of the lives and surroundings of people lead them to identify and perhaps come to value particular objects, features or locations in their daily routes, both consciously and subconsciously.
Or how do people experience, remember and communicate about identity? Does the spatial setting and timing affect narratives of identity? How can planners/ designers identify local narratives of place identity and use them in urban design? What is the importance of a public space and urban design in small communities? Could designer give form to objects/ public spaces that bring out locality?

The design of the environment is a physical and three-dimensional manifestation of place identity. It is the relationship between all these individual elements - site, space or building - that gives places their character and identity. In my opinion the purpose of spatial design is to create, reproduce or mould identities of places through manipulation of activities, feelings, meanings into place identity. It is a selective way of imagining, acting and communicating about the place.

TRAVELER - the place revisited

2008-06-27T05:00:00.000-07:00

I revisited Lake Peipsi district second time in November 2007. My aim was to find out and document how the place is currently perceived by travellers - how much information about local area is available? how do local people receive outsiders?

During the trip I was constantly aware of my behaviour. Instead of just being a gazing tourist as last time, I tried to engage myself with different aspects of being a traveller. Research on identity, cultural tourism and methods of cognitive mapping became handy. To my surprise the village had gone through an enormous change. The memory of the dark, old and grey village of wooden houses and narrow street was replaced with the image of a lively and colourful place. As if it was not the same place any more. Or maybe my expectations were different.

I was observing, sensing and documenting the place by using image and sound recording. I made almost no contact with locals during 4 days. It was not a deliberate decision, but rather a realistic nature of the village. During the field studies I realised that the structure and character of the village is more easily perceived with the speed of 30km per hour (slow car driving) and hard to accomplish by walking. One experiences surroundings on foot with more senses than travelling in a car. At the same time long distances and changing weather cut down the feeling of continuous place. Documentation of the fieldtrip (especially the video) became my irreplaceable source of inspiration for design proposals. The constant review of the material often revealed new insights and understandings that may have been missed at first sight. It allowed me to experience the place time and time again.

1ST TERM PRESENTATION

2008-06-27T04:20:00.000-07:00

This thesis project focuses on the questions of identity and tourism.
In my research question: how to reproduce identity through public space?, I would like to emphasize the words reproduce and through. Because I believe that identity is not something fixed, but rather placing itself among the variety of behavioural patterns; and it must be played out (lived).

Everywhere throughout the world local people in response to the opportunities afforded by the global tourism industry (mostly moneywise) are putting their culture on display. Instead of talking, living it out and starting the dialogue with tourist, the host population is actually trying to fulfil the expectations of a traveler. Tourist is kind of a pilgrim, who is seeking authenticity in other times and other places away from home. He shows particular fascination in the real lives of others.

Traditionally people have traveled away from their residence and work in order to participate in tourism. The tourism however does not start nor end with the physical departure and return. Anticipation and daydreaming, remembering and reminiscing are equally part of tourism experience. But if one does not need to leave the place of residence to become a tourist, then tourism and therefore also search for identity or comparison with others, cannot be described as a quality of place and time only. It is rather quality in the minds of people. Or the relationship between person and a place/ environment that makes the identity. The ways in which people experience that environment (and themselves), is not merely instrumental, but often exploratory, unsystematic, wasteful of energy and fun. They do not want to use only their vision; they need to hear, to touch, to taste and gather these five perceptions in a world.

My context is based on a village in eastern border of Estonia, known as a settlement of russian old believers. This one of the places where villagers gain mostly from tourism, but that only for up to 4 months a year. This village is extraordinary from its layout compared to historical estonian villages. It is 7km long one streetvillage. Houses are built very close to each other, there is no pavement to differentiate car area from pedestrians, and people tend interact just on the doorsteps.The citizens of the village are mostly old people; therefore it is believed that in less than 20years there will no longer be authentic village as such for tourism industry.

Local identity?

2008-06-27T04:00:00.000-07:00

The notion of identity related to a geographically limited area is an instrument of constructing cultural meaning and value, but any kind of constructed identity is the possible object of change. Therefore the construction of identity could become a question of language, cultural power and public discussion.

Local identity is the outcome of community symbols and constructions of meaning and distinction. When someone talks about local identity they usually refer to ´spatial qualities´, ´characteristics or qualities of the inhabitants´, ´social conditions´ or ´culture and history´. Communities have an identity that can be formulated, interpreted and used as an instrument for understanding, acting and designing for local identity. (Amundsen, 2000)

Globalism

2008-06-27T03:00:00.000-07:00

“Globalism scours away distinctiveness at the surface of our identities, and forces us back into ever more assertive defence of differences – language, mentality, myth and fantasy. As globalism brings us closer together, makes us all neighbours, destroys the old boundaries of identity marked by national and regional consumption styles, we react by clinging to the margins of differences that remain.” (Ignatieff; qtd in Neill 2004)

TOURIST - mindmaps and sketches

2008-06-27T02:10:00.000-07:00

´Slow Down the Speed´ and ´Public Storytelling´
These disorganized obstacles would contain small bumps that create inbalance in a car. If passed quickly, the passing would be uncomfortable and therefore make you slow down the speed next time.
Visual language of these objects would guide you into the village from highway, create public storyboards for communication or highlight chosen places with light. The aim of the design would be interaction and feeling of welcoming.

The relevance of tourism statistics?

2008-06-27T02:00:00.000-07:00

According to the statistics the local tourist campaigns in Estonia in recent years have been successful. The numbers in 2005 show that 7% of the whole population made a trip in Estonia due to the campaign. Among that there was a considerable increase in spring and winter period. For example the amount of travels made in spring 2005 increased 10% and in winter 17% compared to the previous years. (Emor; 2005) However there are no studies made about the process or results of the travels. I think it would be equally relevant to find out how, when and where did these people travel and what was their experience.

Tourist place and identity

2008-06-27T01:00:00.000-07:00

Traditionally, people have travelled away from their place of residence and work in order to participate in tourism. More recently however place for tourism has become increasingly de-differentiated from the normal, day-to-day social place and the need for a change of environment has diminished. Tourism does not start nor end with the physical departure and return to the home environment. Anticipation and daydreaming in the planning process and remembering and reminiscing after the holiday are equally part of the tourism experience.

According to John Urry (2002) people will gain less satisfaction from continuing to do what they (or particularly their family) have always done. Their daily life will become less to do with collective memories and experiences and they will look more for immediate pleasure. The tourist is a kind of pilgrim, seeking authenticity in other ´times´ and other ´places´ away from everyday life. Being a tourist is a period of (self)explorations and differences. ´Post-tourists´ however know that there is no authentic tourist experience, that there are merely a series of games, texts, images that can be played. Ironically they almost delight in the inauthenticity of the tourist experience.

If one does not need to leave the place of residence to become a tourist, then new experiences, immediate pleasures – explorations of being a tourist cannot be described as a quality of place and time, but rather a quality in the minds of people. Or is it the relationship between person and place that forms that experience and pleasure?

"I am not a tourist, I live here"

2008-06-27T00:00:00.000-07:00

A few years ago me and three of my friends were driving in eastern Estonia to ´redefine our national and local identity in contemporary Europe´ - something that has been targeted by national tourism campaigns in Estonia for last 6 years. We were bored of driving in anonymous highways and at one point decided to take a smaller parallel road along the coast of Lake Peipsi. The road took as through various ethnic group areas.

By choosing the alternative road our behaviour compared to driving in highways did not change. We drove continuously through the villages without even slowing down the speed. Our perception of the place was limited to images seen through car windows. We did not make any stops during the 7 kilometres long village. When I asked the driver´s opinion about our behaviour, he replied without any hesitation: “... but you saw everything there is to see!”

´Travel and Tourism´ is the largest growing industry in the world with 898million international tourist arrivals in 2007. Throughout the world, local people in response to the opportunities afforded by this phenomenon are putting their culture on ´display´. Rather than initiating a dialogue with the tourist, the host population is merely trying to fulfil their expectations. Local authentic identity gets lost. A more subtle distinction should occur between the tourist, the host community and the experience from the visited culture.

PORTFOLIO 2006 - Primary School

2006-09-01T09:00:00.000-07:00

PRIMARY SCHOOL IN RANDVERE
in collaboration with Inga Raukas (Arhitektuuriagentuur)

PORTFOLIO 2006 - ETDM

2006-09-01T08:00:00.000-07:00

ESTONIAN MUSEUM OF APPLIED ART AND DESIGN, EE
reconstruction of entrance area/ interior design &, furniture
in collaboration with Inga Raukas (Arhitektuuriagentuur)
project: 2005; completed: 2006
area: 290m2

PORTFOLIO 2006 - residence

2006-09-01T07:00:00.000-07:00

PRIVATE RESIDENCE IN MERIVÄLJA, EE
project: 2002-2006 Arhitektuuriagentuur
interior project: 2004-2006 Monika Löve
completed: 2006
area: 375m2

PORTFOLIO 2006 - Monton

2006-09-01T06:00:00.000-07:00

MONTON RETAIL ENVIRONMENT UPGRADE, EE
brandbook/ interior project for shop in Moscow: 2006
in collabrotion with Oliver Soomets

completed shops:
2006 - Monton Ülemiste in Tallinn, EE
2007 - Monton Europe centre in Moscow, RU

PORTFOLIO 2006 - Zoo entrance

2006-09-01T05:00:00.000-07:00

ZOO ENTRANCE, EE
project: 1st phaze 2006
Monika Löve, Inga Raukas, Oliver Soomets
in collaboration with le balto (french landscape architecture office)
site area: 4400m2
area: 1.52ha

PORTFOLIO 2006 - Tallinn module

2006-09-01T04:00:00.000-07:00

TALLINN MODULE, EE
international street furniture competition
entry: PROFILIUM
in collaboration with Renee Puusepp

PORTFOLIO 2006 - Audentes

2006-09-01T03:00:00.001-07:00

RETHINKING PUBLIC AREAS IN SCHOOL, EE
reconstruction of Audentes high school hallways and staircases
in collaboration with Katrin Kalju

PORTFOLIO 2006 - Furniture

2006-09-01T02:00:00.001-07:00

UPHOLSTERED FURNITURE COLLECTION, EE
3collections of upholstered furniture for young families

internship in Standard, EE
in collaboration with Katrin Kalju

PORTFOLIO 2006 - DIPLOMA

2006-09-01T01:00:00.001-07:00

PORTFOLIO 2006 - City Picnic

2006-09-01T00:00:00.002-07:00