Social
Spaces

Every year the third bachelor and premaster students of the MAD-Faculty (Campus C-mine) work together in a cross-over research project. This year, 2010-2011, the students explore and design for public space. You can read about the project called out of space here.

We want to keep you updated on the process, so here’s where we are now:

The kick-off was on December third. Since the students come from different programs the first thing is for them to get to know their teammates. We asked them to explore our C-mine campus in a playful way. We got inspired by the work ‘Bodies in urban space’ of Willi Dorner.  The results are pretty funny. You can see some of them here, here and here. This immediately set the tone for a playful and critical engagement which we believe is fruitful for design research.

We also invited two artists who critically explore people in relation to public space. Our colleague and photographer Kristof Vrancken discussed his work involving ‘Non places’ and the traces people leave behind. As he mentions himself, he researches the relationship between human and environment in the forgotten in between spaces behind the facade of society.  Karl Philips‘ work concerns what we call the ‘outcasts’ of society. He puts phenomena and people that we mostly ignore on the foreground.

Then it was time for each student team to select a public space related to the C-mine site (this can be the cafeteria, the bus, etcetera). After a week of observation, the teams explored their selected space more in depth in a mapping session. Thomas Laureyssens introduced the map-it toolkit developed by our colleagues of the social spaces research group. This exploration through mapping can further feed the process of observation.

In the following weeks students continue observing their public space. At the end of January the teams will present their findings and will then be coached by artist Moritz Ebinger to develop concepts.

We will bring you more news in our next blogpost early February.

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