Social
Spaces

On March 28th, Social Spaces – together with the other project partners – organized a press conference on the current project “Future Formers”. Future Formers is the winning concept of the “GO 2030” competition and will be developed in five cities in Limburg (B): Beringen, Genk, Hasselt, Overpelt and Sint-Truiden. The youth of these cities – together by a coaching designer or artist – will translate their vision on the future in an artistic production (which will also address the problems and possibilities of public space in the city). By building on each other’s adaptions to a common design, the youth of the cities will create a collective Gesamtkunstwerk.

The press conference took place at Cultuurcentrum Genk. During the conference, also the designers/artists that will be coaching the youth of the five cities were presented: Aifoon (Beringen), Daan Gielis (Genk), Gert de Clercq (Hasselt), Karl Philips (Sint-Truiden) and Peter Westenberg (Overpelt). Three skaters (Mathias Ricour, Michael Reyskens, Sander Thys) introduced the speakers and, with their skateboards, made sure the press conference went like planned.

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.

On 19, 20 & 21 Nov. 2010, City Mine(d) organizes an Urban Platform in Brussels, gathering about 30 initiatives from 13 European cities, to exchange and show their relation to the big challenges cities are faced with, present their approach and inspire people to action.

From their website: “For 5 years, City Mine(d) has been connecting urban gardeners to cyclists, DIY-ers to urban planners, and kitchen chefs to IT-ers through projects in public space. What these people have in common is their use of their creativity to make daily life in cities more enjoyable.”

More info on: http://urbanplatform.citymined.org/

Phara de Aguirre (for Canvas, Belgian television) visits and interviews young artist Karl Philips in Hasselt, where he explains his caravan concept and surplus city guide on how to ‘survive’ in Hasselt’s public space.

A video-recording of the dialogue between ‘Vlaams Bouwmeester’ Peter Swinnen and Jan Boelen, director of Z33, on art, architecture and the public space  in Z33 in Sept. 2010 can now be viewed online: http://www.z33.be/blogs/fotos-en-video-transcript-gesprek-peter-swinnen