ENTERING COMMONS
Acquiring crafts and creative skills through the process of building mobile sitting furniture, while exchanging perspectives on shared urban habitat.
The workshop was executed with help of Eileen Lampert. It lasted a month and was initiated as part of the '21 summer school of Schlesische 27, an intercultural youth integration institution in Berlin. Its aim was to give young people the opportunity to get in touch with wood working tools and the creative process, in order for them to acquire crafts skills and gain perspectives for their further education.
As a result three mobile pieces of sitting furniture were developed and built out of scrap material from the urban surrounding. Those can now be used to explore and temporarily alter hidden or transit areas of public space to ones own need or liking.
At the core of the workshop approach lies the understanding of humans as creative beings with the ability to shape their living situation according to their own ideas. This radically empowering conception of creativity is inspired by the work of Joseph Beuys, who propagated it as a prerequisite condition to any democratic aspiration.
Following some of such thoughts that were developed as part of former project 'Social Design Thinking', the concept encouraged the participants to reflect on what they consider their personal habitat – the local environment in which they live and with which they interact. In this particular case focus was laid on those parts of each one's living space, that are accessible for everybody, since they equally belong to all members of society – so called 'commons'.
STEP I MAPS + CITY STROLLS
'Walk around the area and pay attention to the quality of the spaces you're surrounded by. Which spots are good for sleeping, playing, hanging out… and which ones won't let you rest until you passed through them? Are there places that don't yet make use of their full potential? Also look out for materials lying in the street. How could they be used to help people reclaim such neglected corners of the city?'
Awareness for generally available resources such as public space was first raised through city strolls. Maps served as support to provide a better sense for the surrounding area and phone cameras were used as a tool to promote closer observation in search of places of interest and free construction materials.
Throughout the walking tours everyone had the chance to get into conversation about places that the group came across. Stories were exchanged, experiences shared and questions raised. This way a qualitative layer was added to the city map and a collective understanding of the local living environment was created.
STEP II MATERIAL EXPERIMENTS
'Take a closer look at the materials that we found within our living context. Now use the given tools to play around and come up with different techniques of how to make strong connections or create surfaces.'
One of the main concepts of the workshop was to work only with waste materials in order to raise awareness for the value of resources that are otherwise considered trash. These are particularly fit due to their emancipatory properties. They are freely accessible for everyone to use, so a lack of money won't exclude anyone from the building process. Some materials were found directly in the street during the city strolls. Others were acquired through asking at bicycle repair shops, for example. At last all the needed material was successfully gathered with help from Material Mafia, an institution committed to collection and redistribution of scrap material. The only components that were actually bought from the store were screws, in order to improve workflow, and the hand trucks which provided a basic constructive framework for the mobile sitting objects.
At first the collective creativity of the group was used in order to spread out as many connection methods and material combinations as possible. The given framework was to build a stool, a task which leaves a huge space for variation, but at the same time brings along a few basic functional demands. For some of the participants this was the first time to work with tools such as battery drill or handsaw. This intermediary step gave them the chance to get comfortable and make first hand woodworking experience before the start of the actual building process.
STEP III CARDBOARD PROTOTYPING
'How could a mobile sitting unit look like? What do we want to accomplish with it and which features are required to fit our needs? Think of different setups and try to build a real size model using tape and cardboard.'
Visualising ideas is key to successful co-creation. Whereas methods such as drawing or CAD modelling require certain prerequisite skills, life scale cardboard prototyping can be learned quite intuitively. Another advantage is that resulting models can afterwards be used to take measures for the construction of the final piece. Based on conversations about public space and different ways of using it, three drafts were created:
A A chaiselongue with a removable side table that can also serve as a footrest or as an additional chair. It offers seating for up to 3 people, but can also be used to work or enjoy a quiet spot with all possible comforts.
B A leaning chair that advocates for urban living spaces to allow people to rest and take naps, rather than keeping them in a continuous rush. This one is all about silent appreciation of peaceful quarters and secret hideouts.
C A combination of two chairs facing opposite directions, connected through a side table. The arrangements offers a certain discretion between its users, while at the same time giving incentive to get in touch. It comes with two storage drawers which can be used to bring along food, drinks or entertainment.
STEP IV BUILDING PUBLIC FURNITURE
'Choose some techniques explored throughout the material experiments and think of how they can be used to build a solid piece of furniture based on the existing cardboard drafts. Which connections turned out most stable? Are there samples that you find particularly stunning or beautiful?'
All the skills and ideas formerly gained found application in the final building process. Wooden beams and bicycle tubes ended up being the two main materials used to create the three final sitting pieces. They were built mainly using hand tools. The rubber tubes were cut into long strips, that were then used to tie the wooden construction onto the metal frame of the hand truck. Furthermore they were woven to create a comfortable surface for sitting and as back rest.
Finally the materials got sealed in order to be suitable for outdoor use. The wood received a white paint coating while the rubber surfaces were treated with silicone, also to make them more resistant to ageing.
STEP V TRANSFORMING PUBLIC SPACE
'Lets celebrate and take our mobile furniture into the city to use it and to check if it works out the way we imagined. Our three seating objects now give us possibility to have a picnic or a party at any spot we come across.'
To celebrate the successfully built pieces, the group took them for a stroll through the surrounding area. The mobile sitting furniture helped altering everyones view on the surrounding environment. Multiple spots were temporarily transformed into inviting spaces of social encounter, while sparking the curiosity of bypassing pedestrians. Food and games were brought along, in order to also present suggestions on how to make use of the claimed public space. A pair of speakers provided the dancing beats and this way the tiny parade made its way through parks, roads and subway stations while giving a demonstration of how a vivid usage of common grounds could look like.
