How to build the Future

Within the field of planning, an important task is the creation of a common

understanding of the issues at hand. Over the course of 7 years, we have been studying

how architectural and anthropological methods can contribute to this. Our studies

interchange between experimental practice and theory.

Most of our experimental work has been realised within the framework of one or several

partnerships. We see these partnerships as a necessary aspect of context. Recent articles

have pointed towards a new understanding of context, not as something finite and static

but as a fluid state “made of the many dimensions that impinge at every stage on the

development of a project: “context” is this little word that sums up all the various

elements that have been bombarding the project from the beginning.”1 Without the

social and economic realism our partners have offered, there would be little for us to

find.

How does one describe and discuss this fluid context? We have drawn on a number of

sources, among them, among them Dada and Situationist practices, Bernhard Tschumi’s

and Nigel Coates’ work with narrative architecture from the 1980’s2, Muf3 Fluid4 and an

unpublished international survey of community planning practices5.

Our – tentative – conclusion is that architecture, art and design can provide methods,

primarily alternative ways of seeing, thinking and knowing, which can be useful for

creating a common ground among the very diverse stakeholders in a planning process.

Mapping and measuring are obviously part of this, but importantly: so are proposing new

elements and reassembling found objects, entering new ways of thinking found

conditions into the discussion.

To this end, we have developed a methodology of exploration based on anthropological

and architectural practices, including 24-hour field surveys, walkabouts, focused

searches, and mapping in the primary phase, followed by user-engagement with the use

of narratives (booklets, boards, films) and gift-giving.

We have explored this methodological approach in a number of different situations:

rural development, community planning in dense urban environments, pre-planning

large scale brown-field development, understanding the homeless, and developing spaces

for children. Since students have been contributing vastly to the experimental work, it

has been given that interpretations and even misunderstandings of the methodology

were part of the process. Over the years, we have discovered that this is a positive factor,

often opening new, poetic readings of the context.